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By Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev on the Issue of a Constitution

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By Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev on the Issue of a Constitution A Speech by Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev on the Issue of a Constitution Delivered on 8 March 1881 in the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg Konstantin Pobedonostsev (1827-1907) was the foremost representation of reactionary political thought in late imperial Russia. An accomplished lawyer and tutor for the future Alexander III, in 1880 Pobedonostsev became chief procurator of the Holy Synod, the highest administrative position in the Russian Orthodox Church. He also served as a member of the State Council, a central legislative body of the autocracy. The speech reproduced below was given on 8 March 1881, just a week after radical terrorists succeeded, after numerous attempts, in assassinating Emperor Alexander II. At that very time, the Emperor had been contemplating the approval of a plan for political reform produced by interior minister Count M. T. Loris-Melikov (for the memorandum on that plan see the reading on electronic reserve), and the new Emperor accordingly took up the issue a week after his father's assassination. The speech is produced here on the basis of the recollections of one of those present at the discussion, and therefore it remains difficult to state with any certainty that these were the exact words of Pobedonostsev. Nonetheless, the sentiments expressed below seem broadly consistent with Pobedonostsev's views as we know them from other sources, and at the very least they tell us how his views were recalled by others who had contact with him. Your Majesty! By oath and by conscience I am obliged to express all that is on my soul. I find myself not only in a state of confusion, but also one of despair. As in previous times, before the death of Poland people said "Finis Poloniæ!", so we ourselves now are virtually compelled to say "Finis Russiæ!" In considering the plan submitted for Your consideration, one's heart sinks. In this plan one detects falsehood; I will say more: it wreaks of falsehood. We are told that for the better elaboration of legislative bills, we must include those who know the life of the people, we must listen to experts. I would have nothing against this, if this were all that was to be done. Experts have in fact been consulted in previous times, but not in the way that is being proposed now. No! In Russia people want to introduce a constitution, if not immediately, then they at least they want to take the first step in that direction... But what is a constitution? Western Europe provides an answer to this question. Constitutions existing there are in essence instruments for every kind of untruth, the source of all kinds of intrigue. There are many examples of this, and even at the present moment we see in France a struggle that encompasses the entire state and whose goal is not the genuine good of the people or the improvement of laws, but an alteration in the voting process for the sake of the victory of the ambitious Gambetta,1 who contemplates becoming dictator. This is what a constitution can lead to. We are told that we must consult with the opinion of the country through its representatives. But is it really the case that those people who will appear here to consider legislative bills will be genuine expressions of the people's opinion? I assure you that they will not. They will express only their own personal opinions... And people want to introduce this falsehood in an alien form that is not suitable to us, to our detriment and to our ruin. Russia was strong thanks to autocracy, thanks to the unlimited mutual trust and close connection between the people and their Tsar. This connection between the Russian Tsar and his people is an incalculable good. Our people is the guardian of all our valor and our good moral qualities. One may learn a lot from them! The so-called representatives in the zemstvos2 only disconnect the Tsar from the people. Meanwhile, the government must concern itself with the people, it must learn about its genuine needs, it must help the people to cope with their often perpetual needs. This is the goal to which one must aspire; these are the true tasks of the new reign. And instead of this we are being offered a talking-shop akin to the French Estates-General.3 Even without this we already suffer from talking-shops, which, under the influence of worthless, good-for-nothing journalists, merely go about igniting popular passions. Thanks to empty chatterers, what became of the elevated plans of the deceased, unforgettable Sovereign, who at the end of his reign took upon himself the martyr's crown? To what has the great, holy idea of the peasants' emancipation led? They have been granted freedom, but the power needed over them – power that the dark masses cannot do without – has not been established. More than this, taverns have been opened everywhere. The poor people, left to their own devices and without any oversight, has begun to drink and to be lazy with regard to work, and has thus become the unhappy victim of tax collectors , kulaks [rich peasants], Yids [Jews],4 and all kinds of money-lenders. Then rural and urban institutions were opened – talking- shops, in which participants do not occupy themselves with real affairs, but pronounce lofty phrases all over the place about the most important affairs of state, which do not at all belong to their jurisdiction. And who pronounces these lofty phrases? Who bosses these talking-shops 1 Leon Gambetta was a prominent French politician. (details) 2 Created in 1864, zemstvos were local councils of self-government at the provincial and district levels charged with overseeing certain local affairs. 3 The Estates-General was the French parliament. 4 The term used here – zhidy – is a derogatory word for Jews. around? Immoral good-for-nothings, among whom a visible position is occupied by people who do not live with their families, who give themselves over to depravity, and who are thinking only about their personal gain, who are seeking popularity and who are introducing all kinds of sedition into everything. Then new judicial institutions were opened, new talking-shops, talking- shops of lawyers, thanks to whom the most frightful crimes, unquestioned murders and other grave evil deeds remain unpunished. Finally, freedom was granted to the press, the worst talking- shop of all, which conveys abuse and censure of the authorities to all ends of the unbounded Russian land, across thousands and tens of thousands of versts,5 and sows the seeds of discord and dissatisfaction among peaceful and honest people, enflames passions, and incites the people to the most frightful forms of lawlessness. And, Sovereign, when is it that they propose establishing, on a foreign model, a new, supreme talking-shop? Precisely now, when only a few days have passed since the commission of the most frightful crime, one having never occurred before in Rus' [Russia],6 when on the other side of the Neva, 7 a stone's throw from here, the unburied ashes of the placid Russian Tsar lie in the Peter and Paul cathedral – the Tsar who was torn to pieces by Russian people in broad daylight.8 I will not speak about the guilt of the villains who perpetrated this frightening crime, which is unparalleled in history. But all of us, from the first to the last, must repent that we so lightly regarded what was going on around us. We are all guilty that, despite the constantly repeated attempts on the life of our common benefactor, we, in inactivity and apathy, were not able to guard that righteous man. On all of us now lies the stamp of that indelible disgrace, which has fallen on the Russian land. We must all repent. Translated by Paul Werth Originally printed in Russkii Arkhiv no. 5 (1907): 103-105. 5 A verst was an old unit of measurement roughly equivalent to a kilometer. 6 Rus' was the pre-modern word for Russia. 7 The Neva River flowed through the city of St. Petersburg. The Winter Palace, in which this speech was delivered, was located across the river from the Peter and Paul fortress, at the center of which stood the cathedral where most Russian sovereigns of the imperial period are buried. 8 Alexander II was the victim of a terrorist's bomb..
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