On
29 Oct. 2014 we wrote about this kind of political system as being distinctive
of a truly Christian society (that is, a kingdom and a folkdom existing
together without destroying one another).
We thought it well to offer an historical ensample to bring the idea
down from the realm of speculation into concrete reality, that the reader might
know that there are alternatives to the snakepit of Big Business-controlled
‘constitutional republics’. Tsarist Russia will serve as the ensample for today,
though others could be cited (England,
Ireland,
and so on).
Fr
Matthew Raphael Johnson has written this in his essay ‘The Peasant Commune in Russia’ (this
is only a part of it; the whole thing really ought to be read, for it is all
quite good):
. . .
A powerful and seminal article by Boris
Mironov, “The Russian Peasant Commune After the Reforms of the 1860s” (Slavic
Review, Vol. 44, No. 3 [Fall 1985]), is extremely important for the
understanding of the peasant commune. Its significance lies in the fact that it
takes its data from the survey of 816 communes between 1878 and 1880, sponsored
by the Russian Geographical Society and the Russian Free Economic Society. Its
results were astounding, and largely supported the claims of the pro-agrarian
and pro-monarchist elements in Russia,
then and now. The average peasant had it better in Russia
than likely anywhere else in Europe. This data
proves it.
It is important to keep in mind the
structure of the Imperial Russian state around the middle of the 19th century.
The tsar’s power was limited to foreign policy and general taxation. He, of course,
was the chief spokesman for the nation and the defender of the Orthodox Church.
However, at the agrarian level, where 90 percent of the population lived, royal
authority was virtually invisible. The peasant commune was the only relevant
authority the peasant had to deal with. Therefore, it is accurate to say that Russia was not
a single, unitary state, but rather a collection of thousands of independent
agrarian republics, held together by rather weak cords to the central monarchy.
Prof. Charles Sarolea, who visited Russia regularly, wrote in the 1925
issue of The English Review:
On closer examination we find the
[Imperial] Russian state was a vast federation of 50,000 small peasant
republics each busy with its own affairs, obedient to its own laws and even
possessing its own tribunals of starotsas (elders). The Russian state was not
undemocratic, on the contrary, if anything, there was too much democracy.
What makes the peasant commune such a
unique institution is the power it had. Each commune was a completely
selfcontained unit, answering to no other authority than its own body of
elected elders. All police functions were discharged by the communal
authorities. All legal matters were dealt with by the same. Any damage to
property, any criminal offense whatsoever, was dealt with at the communal
level. All public works were also within the jurisdiction of the commune. It
maintained stores of grain during famines and assisted poorer members who
suffered during the lean months of the spring. It controlled the cultural life
of the people as well as all education. It even built its own parish churches
and trained many of the rural clergy. The commune maintained all schools and
hospitals. In short, it was absolute.
The state’s interest in this was clear.
For the commune to be self governing, yet still loyal to the monarchy, it was
necessary for it to be completely independent of the state. Mironov writes,
“The government did not risk appointing its own people, who would have been
independent of the peasant, to official positions in the commune; that would
have been too expensive and ineffective at the same time.” (445)
However, to make sure any village
executive (specifically its chief executive) was loyal, he could be removed by
the royal-appointed district governor. This, however, rarely occurred, largely
because irritating the peasants, the great bastion of loyalty in the country,
would not be in the interests of the royal state. Mironov continues in this
vein:
If, however, one analyzes how these officials
actually functioned, it is clear that the government did not reach its goal:
elected officials did not stand above the commune but operated under its
authority, and all administrative and police measures in the commune were taken
only with the consent of the village assembly. Only very rarely did elected
officials become a hostile authority standing above the peasantry: they had to
be periodically reelected, had no significant privileges, did not break their
ties with the peasantry (elected officials were freed from taxes and other
obligations, except those in kind, and continued to perform all forms of
peasant labor), remained under the control of public opinion of the village
(and in the event of malfeasance faced the threat of retribution), and shared
the common interest of the peasants, not the interests of the state. As a rule
the elected officials acted as the defenders of the commune, as petitioners and
organizers. Frequently they emerged as leaders of peasant disorders despite the
threat of harsh punishment. (445-6)
Many liberal Russia scholars might counter this
by claiming that the elected village heads were required, after the 1860s, to
faithfully carry out the will of the district authorities. However, though this
is true, it was also true that no decree of the district authorities had
validity in the commune unless it was approved by the village assembly.
According to the data collected by the
Russian Geographic Society, the Russian peasant assembly consisted of all male
heads of household. Decisions were not finalized until unanimity was reached,
or, as Mironov has said, disagreement was brought to a level of silent sulking,
which, at this level, was considered agreement. It is important to note,
therefore, that each peasant had a specific stake in communal affairs as well
as a corresponding voice. Any specific peasant, therefore, could not afford to
be alienated from the community, as all decisions could be vetoed even by a
relatively small group of disgruntled peasants.
. . .
Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20070101212422/http://www.rusjournal.com/commune.html,
accessed 21 Nov. 2014
Ivan
Solonevich adds some weighty thoughts of his own to this subject in his ‘The
Force of Authority’ (trans. Mark Hackard).
A small sample:
. . .
In Muscovite Rus, acts of regicide would have
first of all been pointless, for the Tsar’s authority was only one of the
components of a “system of institutions,” and they system could not be changed
by the murder of one of its components. According to Aksakov: to the Tsar
belonged the force of authority, and to the people the force of opinion. Or
according to Lev Tikhomirov: monarchy derived “not from
the arbitrary rule of one person, but from a system of institutions.” By the
force of authority, the Muscovite Tsars realized the opinion of the Land. This
opinion, organized into the Church, into ecclesiastical councils and Assemblies
of the Land, and in its unorganized form represented by the population of Moscow, did not change
over a regicide. Assemblies never claimed power (a completely incomprehensible
phenomenon from the European point of view), and Tsars never went against the
“opinion of the Land,” a phenomenon of a purely Russian order. Behind the
monarchy stood an entire “system of institutions,” and all of this taken
together presented itself as a monolith impossible to shatter through any regicide.
Therefore the Popular-Monarchist Movement sees in
the “restoration of monarchy” not only the “restoration of the monarch,” but
also a whole system of institutions from the Throne of All the Russias to the
village assembly. It would be that system in which the force of authority
belonged to the Tsar and the force of opinion to the people. This cannot
be achieved by any “written laws” or “constitution,” for both written laws and
constitutions are followed by men only until that time when they gain the
strength to NOT follow them. The Popular-Monarchist Movement is not engaged in
publishing the laws of a future Russian Empire. It attempts to establish basic
principles and ideationally compose the country’s future ruling class, which
would be equally devoted to the Tsar and the people, a ruling class organized
into a system of institutions to realize these principles in practice and truly
become the bulwark of the throne, not visitors to prayer services who conceal
in their boots the daggers of regicide.
. . .
Source: http://souloftheeast.org/2014/10/04/solonevich-the-force-of-authority/,
posted 4 Oct. 2014, accessed 7 Oct. 2014
In
the current atmosphere following Pres Obama’s executive amnesty of millions of
illegal immigrants, we understand that the term ‘king’ will bring forth plenty
of negative reactions. But this is to
misunderstand what a king is. A true
king is the embodiment and expression (often the highest form of it) of a
people’s history and praiseworthy traditions.
When he acts (passing a law, overturning a court ruling, etc.), it is
always to uphold those traditions, for to do otherwise would undermine the
foundation that his authority rests upon (as the Abbeville Institute’s Dr
Donald Livingston has said). (Such a
figure would thus fit well in the tradition-loving South.) This is the opposite of what Pres Obama has
done, so he is not properly to be called a king but a tyrant, i.e., one who
rules according to his will alone - with all thought of laws, traditions, and
fear of God’s judgment cast out of his mind.
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