RUSSIA IN THE EUROPEAN CIVIL WAR

 

From 1917 ,up to 1945, a Standing War

Oт 1917 до 1945, непрерывная война

Dal 1917 al 1945, una guerra ininterrotta.

A partir de 1917 et  jusqu'à 1945, une guerre sans cesse

Seit 1917 bis 1945, ein ununterbrochener Krieg

 1.The controversial role of Anticommunism

Another reason why Russia remains so strongly associated with communism is that, for a broadly shared (but, according to us, not so much sustainable) view, all main historical events which took place over the XX Century were originated by the very presence of communism. So,the fact  having Russia been the center of the communist movement for 70 years, would imply, according to many observers and citizens, a central role of communism for Russian identity still today.

Summarizing the above theory, the fear of Communism at the end of World War I would have been the origin of the trend toward the radical right, and in particular, of the birth of Fascisms, which, from one side, were fighting against communism openly, and, from the other side, imitated its paradigms with the aim to entice the “traditional” audience of the latter (workers and intellectuals). This interpretation of XX Century’s history has been defined, by Nolte, as “Europäischer Buergerkrieg” (“European Civil War”). In its broader reading, the “European Civil War” encompasses also World war I and World War II, as well as the civil wars and the revolutions occurred between the two wars and up to the Georgia war of 2010 (such as the Russian Civil War, the Fiume Republic, the March on Rome, the Spanish Civil War, the Anschluss, the Greek Civil War, the Berlin, Budapest, Poznan’, the Danzig Revolts, the Greek Coup, Solidarność, the “Velvet Revolutions”, the Post-Sovietic and Post-Yugoslav wars).

According to that theory, communism had been the real protagonist of all those events, so that nationalism and capitalistic democracy would have been mere co-starring antagonists.

We do not object to Nolte’s use of the idiom “Civil War”, which stands on the basis that Europe is indeed “one Fatherland”. We just observe that capitalistic democracy and nationalism were the driving factors of World War I, and communism arrived during the war as a consequence of it.

The strongest evidence that Nolte gives for this theory in the book having precisely this title is the complete parallelism among all aspects of Communism and Nazism(Chiliasm; Party Dictatorship; Führerprinzip; “general mobilization”; exaltation of the “people”; ritualism; persecution of opposants; lager/GuLag; expansionism; “satellites”). 

2.Priority of Fascism

According to our point of view, the precedence of communism as compared with Nazism is misleading, because Fascism was born in Italy with Mussolini, and followed the exact timing of the evolution of Lenin’s Bolshevism:

-      pre-war socialist maximalism (1905-1914);

-      democratic interventionism (1915-1917);

-      militant  revolutionarism of Trockij and D’Annunzio (1918-1922);

-      party coup-d’état (1917-1922);

-   first phase of “national consensum” (NEP, first Mussolini Government) (1922-1926);

-      later development of an own “dirigistic” policy (1927-1933);

-      militarization of the State (1934-1938);

-      intervention in World War II beside Germany (1939-1940);

-      change of alliance (1941-1943)

As a consequence, we do not believe that the deep cultural  motives which brought to fascism were very different from the ones of Bolshevism:

-      activism of the cultural vanguards;

-      hatred for bourgeois “Biedermeier”;

-      militarism and/or militantism;

-      wish, by intellectuals, workers and beuaureaucrats, to conquer new social positions;

-      quest for State interventionism;

-      new ways for rehabilitating  nationalism.

The first mass applications of science and technique, such as industrial organization of production, gas and electrical lighting, and railways transportation, the creation of the first “national” conglomerates, the first traces of democratization, such as enlarging voting rights, tolerating strikes, encouraging mobility, the diffusion, through elementary schools and military service, of a “national” ideology, where at the origins of centralized States, colonial adventures, economic competition and mass parties, a set of forces striving to quick change and self-affirmation.

World War I allowed these forces to acquire a stronger role at the expenses of the peasant civilization, of the Churches, of aristocracies.

Both Lenin and Mussolini understood this, and were therefore favorable to the war, which gave them the means to emerge as political leaders.

After the war, the capitalistic and democratic American army started its presence in European soil, whilst large and ancient conservative empires were substituted by smaller and weaker “bourgeois” republics, plagued by civil wars carried out by demobilized soldiers trained to years of fighting. Bourgeoisie had gained a place besides aristocracy, thanks to the huge war profits, and socialist parties were admitted in parliament for the first time.

Communism started just as a consequence of the above. Lenin arrived in Russia thanks to the German Army, and was allowed to operate because the weak socialist government of Kerenskij could not prevent the birth and the operation of party militias. The Red Army was made up of demobilized imperial soldiers and officers, and could win the Civil Was thanks to the disintegration of the Imperial Army itself. Also Fascism and Nazism were strengthened by industrialization, mass democracy, war and demobilization. Also they started their political careers as party militias.

2.General Mobilisation

According to Ernst Junger, the key concept for understanding World War I is “General Mobilization” (“Allgemeine Mobilmachung”), which is the quintessence of any kind of modernity. The latter, in its sake for unlimited progress of science and technique, cannot tolerate that the forces of mankind remain, as it happened to a large extent in pre-modernity and up to World War I, dispersed and not operational. It demands that everybody and everything is put at work at the best of its potential, at the service of the development of science and technique. As Manuel De Landa has observed, war is the most effective instrument for innovation. Thanks to World War I, we have now economic planning, female work. Thanks to World War II, we have present days space industry, radars, computers, Internet, television, international organisations.

After its creation, Communism and Fascism became driving forces of European Civil War, because they were powerful elements of “General Mobilization”. The idea itself of an organized force taking the lead of the progress of Mankind stays at the center of “General Mobilization”. The same concept is true for the organization of a militarized and industrialized powerful empire, as well as of a massive propaganda in favor of progress, work ethics and technique improvement. 
So,  Russian Bolshevism became a protagonist of the European Civil War.First of all, it prompted other revolutionary parties, both communist and non communist, to follow the revolutionary path, so rendering possible events like the Sovietic Republics in Budapest and Munich, but also the Fiume "Republic of Quarnaro", the March on Rome, the Putsch Kapp and the Hitler Government. 

3.The Communist Bloc

Then, it created a worldwide communist movement, in competition with other international movements. Such movement, starting from the works of Lenin, of Trotzkij and of Stalin, developed its own ideology (and/or, even, political theology), which, gradually, evolved away from “traditional” Marxist thinking, so that, already after World War II, most Marxist thinkers in the West considered themselves as supporter of a different ideology as the one of Eastern Block’s “DiaMat” (Dialektičeskij Materijalizm).

Later on, following to the Budapest Revolution and to the ’68 movement, also most of marxist and communist parties in the West started criticizing the Soviet Union. In the meantime, in China, Yugoslavia, Albania, Romania, Cuba, other Communist Regimes expressed their own orthodoxies, conflicting with the Soviet one.

Finally, the development of Communism in the other parts of the Soviet Block, and even, to a certain extent, in some Sovietic Republics, revealed themselves different from the “Soviet” Mainstream. For instance, in Eastern Germany there has always been an apparent multipartitism, whereby all the political parties of Western Germany were present also in the Eastern Parliament (including the extreme right National Democratic Party). In Poland, the leading party was not a “party”, but a “Front”, whereby two or three catholic political movements, like Znak and Pax, were allowed. Moreover, the Church enjoyed a privileged role. From another point of view, it has to be remarked that some of the Republics, especially the ones at the borders of the Union, were allowed to enjoy a larger independence from the center, also because this would have been helped for a better image of the country abroad. For instance, a certain amount of economic independence was granted to Estonia and to Georgia, which allowed these small republics to become a center of local private trade, and to raise a sort of local “bourgeoisies”.

Finally, after World War II, it gave rise to one, and, later, to more than one, “socialist blocks”, in competition with the “Western World”, but also among themselves.

4.World War II

Similarly to what happens as concerns the interpretation of Bolshevism, so also the one of the origins of World War II has given rise to an infinity of discussions. Surely, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression agreement between Communist Russia and Nazi Germany, was one of the main causes, since the first effect of that pact was a “fourth partition” of Poland, between the Soviet Union and the Third Reich, alongside the first three ones during XVIII Centuries.

This Pact is still now criticized by all sides, as a demonstration of the aggressive character of Russia, Germany, or both, and of the need, for Poland, to go on protecting itself with the help of the United States.

Surely, there is something true in this. However, a recent study has shown that, even now, there is clearcut cultural divide (expressed, e.g., in terms of election results), between the Polish Regions staying west, and the ones staying east of the former border of Russia. So, at the end of the day, it is not something unthinkable to imagine that many people were in good faith at that time thinking of a new form of partition, which corresponded to a real difference between the two part of Poland.

By the way, in Poland, between World War I and World War II, there was not even a sole legislation. In fact, in certain regions, German, Austrian, pre-war Russian, and, even, French/Napoleonic Law were applicable.

At the end of the day, thanks to World War II, Russia was able to recover that status of world power, that it had lost with World War I. Even after losing the Republics, present-days Russia has still maintained some element of that role.

In any case, the Pact has surely prejudiced very seriously the possibilities of good relationships among peoples in that part of Europe. This even more because, at the moment of restoring an independent Poland, the victorious powers maintained the “Curzon Line”, i.e. the partition line decided between Molotov and Ribbentrop, so setting free just the Western part of Poland, and just compensating the latter by the right of occupation of three formerly German regions, whilst the inhabitants of the Eastern Regions were transferred to these Regions (“Kresy” or “Lity”), and were given to Belarus and Ukraine (hence, to USSR and populations of these countries).

The trauma’s of World War II are not forgotten at all. Russia itself, albeit reneging completely the Soviet Heritage, considers the “Great Patriotic War” as one of the founding elements of its statehood In fact, it is thanks to the victory of Soviet Russia that the Soviet Union was accepted to be a part of the leading powers of the world, and, in particular, of the members of the Security Council of the United Nations. It is thanks to that victory that it has been able to develop an outstanding military technology which allows it to stand at pair with the US.

Recently, the myth of the “Great Patriotic War” has been revived, and President Medvedev has reaffirmed it at several occasions, albeit specifying that the victory has not to be considered as a victory of Stalin, but, on the contrary, as a victory of the Russian people.. Also in this theory, there is a part of truth. Apart from the fact that Stalin, albeit a tough dictator and a non-Russian Communist, was a theorist of “National Communism”, and, even involuntarily, succeeded to a liberation war which seemed lost, when Nazi tanks were at the doors of Leningrad and Moscow. So, the victory can be considered more a victory of the Russian people than of Communism.

6.Restless Eastern Nationalities

By the way, the questions of the Eastern regions of Poland had never been settled also before, because Poland, before the Partitions, was a multinational State, called “Rzeczpospolita”, and, especially in the Eastern part of it, lived, mixed the one with the other, Ukrainians, Belarussians, Poles, Russians, minor Slavonic peoples, Cossacks, Lithuanians, Jews and Tatars. The conflicts among those populations had been strong since the Cossack and peasant revolts, up to the fighting among Poles and Ukrainians, among the two World Wars, the exchange of populations after World War II and the persecutions of Jews starting from the late Tsarist Empire, up to the last “pogroms” in Communist Poland.

This also taking into account that many of the Republics (like, e.g., the Balts, Ukraine and Moldova), on the contrary, fought the war on the side of Germans. This last fact constitutes a further source of substantially unending disputes between Russia and the Republics. These are the only states in Europe where politicians and military, which had fought side by side together with the armies of the Axis, such as Bandera in Ukraine, are now considered national heroes.

This, of World War II, is a source of big contradiction in historical “orthodoxies”, not just for Russia and its neighbors, but for all countries of the World. It is clear that, because of its scope and its toughness, World War II could not have left the world unchanged. In fact, the main features of today’s world (American Hegemony, Europe’s division, resurgence of China, force of Russia), still depend on the outcomes of that war. Thus, no one of those who share the power in the world now has an interest to challenge the results of that war. Otherwise, America should give up hegemony, China its status, Russia its arms, and even the European elites their role as purported champions of western style freedom (whilst many, if not most of them, were, at the beginning, involved either in pro-communist, or in pro-fascist movements).

And, since symbolic power is stronger that military force, no one of the winners may give up to its own myths: not the war for democracy (when, in reality, the American war started with Pearl Harbour), not the cult of President Mao, not the one of the Great Patriotic War, not to the one of Résistance, a.s.o.. However, the interest of the Great Powers of today are often conflicting among them; so, some gaps open from time to time in the so-called “shared memory”: Bandera may become a national hero of Ukraine, and Stalin is a hero when he is seeming winning the war, but, therefore, the title may be withdraw, a tyrant when it is considered governing Russia.

We hope, now, that,65 years after the taking of the Reichstag,  20 years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and after the useful tentative to invade militarily Southern Ossetia, the “European Civil War” is really to an end.

7.A Useless Slaughtering 

Since, as we have seen, such “European Civil War” was started, not by communism, but by nationalisms and democracies, the end of communism would not mean, by itself, the end of such war. And, in fact, after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, we have still had post-Yugoslav and post-Sovietic wars, which have not been fought by communists.

From another point of view, Americans pretend that they have won the “European Civil War” with her victory on Communism.This historical interpretation constitutes in itself a further source of new conflicts. In fact, considering only the clash among ideologies, it negates the role and existence of the European nations, including Russia and Europe as a whole, and pretends to assert an overall “moral” authority which, in reality, is challenged by many.

According to us, in reality, plays are still open today, precisely as they were open at the beginning of the “European Civil War”. This is a very risky situation, but it is also what renders it worthwhile working for the future of Europe.

Still one general consideration. It is not always true that “History may not be made with ‘Ifs’”. If, starting from 1815, Europeans, instead of going through the path of wars and revolutions, would have followed the one set by the “Russian” version of the Holy Alliance (the “Christian Nation”, as well as the “Europe of the Peoples”), they would probably have reached in a much easier way, through treaties and reforms, the same point where they have arrived now after so many conflicts.

THE EUROPE OF THE PEOPLES

The "Russian" Version of the Holy Alliance
"Русская" версия Священного Союза
La "versione russa" della Santa Alleanza
La "version Russe" de la Sainte Alliance
Die "russische Version" der Heiligen Allianz

For all the above reason, Russia was able to play a decisive role over the shape of the Holy Alliance, albeit its specific points of view were not taken into the hoped account. In particular, according to the secret instructions conferred, by the Tsar , on Novosiltsev, the political form of Europe should have been transformed deeply, from the one side, for accommodating the national ambitions of the peoples of Europe, and, from the other side, following a bit the scheme of the famous projects for the reform of Europe, which had been worked out, over the centuries, by Podĕbrad, De Sully, Crucé, St. Pierre, Rousseau, Kant, Novalis and others, whereby the European Kings should have stipulated a “Peacefully Pact” (Fœdus Pacificum) for avoiding wars and for protecting Christendom. In this sense, the Russian project defined Europe as “the Christian Nation”, and “Europe of the Peoples”T he document is of great interest, as in it we find formulated for the first time in an official dispatch the ideals of international policy which were to play so conspicuous a part in the affairs of the world at the close of the revolutionary epoch, and issued at the end of the 19th century in the Rescript of  Nicolas II and the conference of the Hague. Alexander argued that the outcome of the war was not to be only the liberation of France, but the universal triumph of "the sacred rights of Humanity". To attain this it would be necessary "after having attached the  tonations their government by making these incapable of acting save in the greatest interests of their subjects, to fix the relations of the states amongst each other on more precise rules, and such as it is to their interest to respect."

A general treaty was to become the basis of the relations of the states forming "the European Confederation"; and this, though "it was no question of realising the dream of universal peace, would attain some of its results if, at the conclusion of the general war, it were possible to establish on clear principles the prescriptions of the rights of nations." "Why could not one submit to it", the Tsar continued, "the positive rights of nations, assure the privilege of neutrality, insert the obligation of never beginning war until all the resources which the mediation of a third party could offer have been exhausted, having by this means brought to light the respective grievances, and tried to remove them? It is on such principles as these that one could proceed to a general pacification, and give birth to a league of which the stipulations would form, so to speak, a new code of the law of nations, which, sanctioned by the greater part of the nations of Europe, would without difficulty become the immutable rule of the cabinets, while those who should try to infringe it would risk bringing upon themselves the forces of the new union."

As it is well-known, such ambitions were nullified by the resistance, to the Russian proposals, of the other main negotiators of the Vienna Treat, which refused to sign the general text of the Holy Alliance, which was not a legal text, but a political manifesto of a conservative project for a new “European Concert” inspired by the Enlightened Conservatism and by a form of Christian Ecumenism alongside the ideas of Novalis. Nevertheless, Alexander 1^st ordered that this document was read officially at least once a year in all Churches of the Empire.

Because of all of these initiatives, Alexander !st was the only soverain after Charlemagne to be called "the Empèeror of the Europeans"

Some of the ideas of this text of the “Holy Alliance” were taken over, unexpectedly, by West European politicians such as Mazzini and Gioberti, who continued the ideas of a “Europe of the Peoples”, and, respectively, of an Italian  federation presided by the Pope. Surely, Mazzini, and even Rosmini and Gioberti, who were considered, in their times, very “progressive” people, would not have appreciated this analogy. Nevertheless, it appears self-evident when reading secret instructions to Novosiltev and of the works of the two Italian politicians and thinkers.

For all the above reason, Russia was able to play a decisive role over the shape of the Holy Alliance, albeit its specific points of view were not taken into the hoped account. In particular, according to the secret instructions conferred, by the Tsar , on Novosiltsev, the political form of Europe should have been transformed deeply, from the one side, for accommodating the national ambitions of the peoples of Europe, and, from the other side, following a bit the scheme of the famous projects for the reform of Europe, which had been worked out, over the centuries, by Podĕbrad, De Sully, Crucé, St. Pierre, Rousseau, Kant, Novalis and others, whereby the European Kings should have stipulated a “Peacefully Pact” (Fœdus Pacificum) for avoiding wars and for protecting Christendom. In this sense, the Russian project defined Europe as “the Christian Nation”, and “Europe of the Peoples”T he document is of great interest, as in it we find formulated for the first time in an official dispatch the ideals of international policy which were to play so conspicuous a part in the affairs of the world at the close of the revolutionary epoch, and issued at the end of the 19th century in the Rescript of Nicholas II and the conference of the Hague. Alexander argued that the outcome of the war was not to be only the liberation of France, but the universal triumph of "the sacred rights of humanity". To attain this it would be necessary "after having attached the nations to their government by making these incapable of acting save in the greatest interests of their subjects, to fix the relations of the states amongst each other on more precise rules, and such as it is to their interest to respect."

A general treaty was to become the basis of the relations of the states forming "the European Confederation"; and this, though "it was no question of realising the dream of universal peace, would attain some of its results if, at the conclusion of the general war, it were possible to establish on clear principles the prescriptions of the rights of nations." "Why could not one submit to it", the Tsar continued, "the positive rights of nations, assure the privilege of neutrality, insert the obligation of never beginning war until all the resources which the mediation of a third party could offer have been exhausted, having by this means brought to light the respective grievances, and tried to remove them? It is on such principles as these that one could proceed to a general pacification, and give birth to a league of which the stipulations would form, so to speak, a new code of the law of nations, which, sanctioned by the greater part of the nations of Europe, would without difficulty become the immutable rule of the cabinets, while those who should try to infringe it would risk bringing upon themselves the forces of the new union."

As it is well-known, such ambitions were nullified by the resistance, to the Russian proposals, of the other main negotiators of the Vienna Treat, which refused to sign the general text of the Holy Alliance, which was not a legal text, but a political manifesto of a conservative project for a new “European Concert” inspired by the Enlightened Conservatism and by a form of Christian Ecumenism alongside the ideas of Novalis. Nevertheless, Alexander 1^st ordered that this document was read officially at least once a year in all Churches of the Empire.

Moreover, some of the ideas of this text of the “Holy Alliance” were taken over, unexpectedly, by West European politicians such as Mazzini and Gioberti, who continued the ideas of a “Europe of the Peoples”, and, respectively, of an Italian federation presided by the Pope. Surely, Mazzini, and even Gioberti, who were considered, in their times, very “progressive” people, would not have appreciated this analogy. Nevertheless, it appears self-evident when reading secret instructions to Novosiltev and of the works of the two Italian politicians and thinkers.

THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE AS A DREAM FOR EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCIJA

The ideas of a Russian Empire came from Europe

идеи русской империи происходили  из Европы

Le idee dell' impero russo provenivano dall' Europa

Les idées d'un empire russe provenaient de l' Europe

Die Ideen eines russischen Kaiserreichs stammten aus Europa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.     The Greek Project

Not just the religious engagement of Russia and of peoples of the Balkans, as parts of a sole Orthodox Church, prompted a strong interest for Russia, but also the diffusion of Enlightenment as an all-European ideology.

One could even say that the formation of the Russian Empire is distinctly interlinked with the ideas and objectives of European Enlightenment. In the XVII and XVIII Century, many European intellectuals intervened with the Zars for persuading them to undertake the conquest of the Ottoman Empire, so re-establishing the unity of Christendom and of the Orthodox World. Especially, in the XVIII Century, Katherine II, urged, i.a., by Herder, worked out an ambitious plan (the “Greek Project”, that the Greeks called “I Megàli Idèa”), for transforming the Ottoman Empire into a Christian Kingdom, governed by a son of herself. During the Independence Wars of the Balkanic States, Russia was without exitation at the side of the Balkanic peoples.

The idea of a Third Rome was not simply an empty slogan. The Tsars shared the Millenaristic faith of West European Rulers, clergymen and intellectuals of their times, such as Columbus, Dom Sebastião, Vieira, Jan Komenský, Campanella, Winstanley or Cotton Mather.

Moreover, they were subject to pressure of intellectuals like Krizanic urging them to attack the infidels of the Ottoman Empire, as a whole Balkanic clergy,.

2.     The Perpetual Peace

As it is well known, the intellectuals of early Modernity were very much attracted by the demiurgic powers of “Enlightened Despotism”. Erasmus, Luther, Machiavelli, Bodin, Grotius, Hobbes, Leibniz, Kant, Voltaire, were all puzzled by the possibility to materialize, via the Prince, their auspices as to the best organization of the State.

Also the idea of a “Perpetual  Peace” was influenced, from one side, from the idea of a Crusade against the Turks, and, from another side, by the idea that, after the fall of the Sacred Roman Empire and the defeat of the Invincible Armada, a New World Order had to be restored.

Philip II and Louis XIV had tried, uselessly, to re-create a “Universal Monarchy”. Thus, the attentions of many began to concentrate on Russia and America, the countries where, as Tocqueville noted,  Europe’s utopias could have materialized.

When Peter 1^st, at the beginning of the 18^th Century, showed an unusually strong capability to modernize its Empire according to European standards, hiring the best technicians, architects and artists from all over Europe, this fact became an irresistible enticement for all intellectuals in Europe, and Peter was exalted by them as the founder of a new Golden Age.

For this purpose,according to Leibniz,  the capital of the Russian Empire should have been transferred into the newly built town of Odessa, situated in the newly conquered Southern Ukraine, and, hence, at midway between Northern Europe and the Middle East. In fact, according to him, the Eurasiatic Continent should have been dominated by two large empires: the Chinese and the Russian. This project was shared by Voltaire, who expressed this point of view in several occasions, and, with special vibrancy, through his satirical pèiece “Le Rescrit de l’Empereur de la Chine”, which constitutes an ironical comment to the comment of Rousseau to St. Pierre’s “Project pour une paix perpetuelle” (in which, in any case, as in the preceding and following “Projects”, the presence of Russia was contemplated). By the way, we consider this “Rescrit” a document having a stringent contemporary value, taking into account the past, and present, role of China.

The idea itself of the conquest of the Baltic Coast, of the construction of St. Petersburg and of the re-baptization of the “Tsar” as “Imperator” was a precise choice in the direction of Europe. But for the Europe of “Enlightened Despotism”, non, surely, for “liberalism”.

Moreover, Peter was too despotic a nature for tolerating too stringent invasions on this decision sphere. On the contrary, Catherine 2^nd albeit a quintessentially despotic ruler, was a very curious and intellectual woman, which, on the other side, mixed with ease their romances with the affairs of State. So, she raised still more the attention of European intellectuals, such as Leibniz, Diderot, Muratori and Voltaire, the latter describing Catherine as the most enlightened sovereign from the times of Solon.

3.     The “Legislative Commission”

Under Peter and Katherine, Russia succeeded in its ambitions to become a European Power, having conquered Estonia, Latvia, the Eastern part of Poland, Belarus’ and Ukraine. The emissaries of Katherine influenced the politics of Poland, Germany, Turkey, England, and even the Kingdom of Naples and the United States.

The accomplishment of this objective was celebrated by Catherine with the well-known monument to Paul 1^st in St. Petersburg. On the Pedestal of the monument, a riding Peter looking at the Baltic from his rampant horse, he let the following phrase, in Latin, be written: “Paulo I, Catherina Secunda”.

The political reforms undertaken under his guidance, such as the “Legislative Commission” which was supposed to introduce, into Russia, the principles of Enlightenment, constituted an excellent example, more than for its contents, for its methodology, since the Commission involved all social resources and all ethnic groups of the Empire. As such, it constituted de facto a precedent for the Politics of Nationalities in XIX Century’s Europe and in XX Century’s federations.

Many commentators maintain that the creation of the Legislative Commission, as well as the text of the Instructions, which it wrote to the members of the Commission, itself, were not genuine, and they should explain why they were not implemented. However, these objections  could be raised also against the reforms of all reformistic Monarch of the XVIII Century. They wanted to abolish the irrational or absolute aspects of the preceding societies, not at all abolish their own power, nor the position of ruling classes. On the contrary, their logic was precisely the one of restraining the elements of Ancien Régime for enhancing the absolute power of the Crown.

As it is known, Katherine was a German aristocrat. Albeit she was perfectly Russian-speaking and an Orthodox believer, she had constantly privileged relationships with subjects of other nationalities, such as August Poniatowsky, a young Polish aristocrat, which, after having been her lover, she promoted to become the King of Poland, as well with the Khan of Crimea, and, finally, with Diderot, whom she sustained heavily from the financial point of view.

Katherine was involved also (as almost all Enlightened Princes)in. American Independence Wars In fact, she promoted the creation of the so-called “Armed Neutrality”, an alliance among European Powers, aiming at preventing the King of England to carry out his embargo to the United States. However, in the last years of her life, after the Pugačiov Revolt, and, especially after the French Revolution, she withdraw many of her proposals, being afraid, before of any other thing, of the risk to undergo the same fate as Louis XVI (who had also enthusiastically supported the American Revolution).

In any case, Catherine was always consistent with her absolutistic creed, which she draw from the reading the works of the enlightened writers to which she was linked, and who were all firm tenants of the Ancien Régime. Just at the beginning of the “Instructions to the Legislative Commission”, where she fixed the terms of engagement of the members of the Commission, she declared that she would have continued to govern Russia in a “despotic” manner (“samodieržavie”) because, as Montesquieu had written, a State of larger scale may be governed only in this way. It is also known that also Hamilton’s Federalist Papers pretended to be based on Montesquieu’s teaching, and, precisely, on the same passage of “De l’Esprit des Lois”, where Montesquieu completes his affirmation concerning the “States of large extension”, saying that they may have governed not just in an autocratic manner, but also by federalism.

This observation shows how much Russia and the United States constitute, so to say, two “mirror images” of Europe. Moreover, it is not even true that the American Federalism is integrally decentralized, whilst Russian centralism is forthwith despotic. In fact, in America, Hamilton’s “federalism” was seen, and correctly, as a trend towards centralization, whilst the idea itself of the Legislative Commission was based on the cooperation of local entities, a cooperation which, in a way or another, never ceased in Russia.

Catherine was the most known and successful German princess at the St. Petersburg’s court. However, she was not the only one. In fact, Martha Skavronskaja became Catherine 1^st, Augustina Wilhelmina von Hessen-Damstadt and Sophia Dorothea von Württemberg married Peter the Great, Luisa Maria Augusta von Baden Baden married Alexander 1^st; Federica Luisa Sharlota Wilhelmina of Prussia married Nicolas 1st; Maximiliana Wilhelnmina Augusta Sofia Maria von Damstadt married Alexander 2^nd; Maria Sophia Federica Dagmar of Denmark married Alexander III, and Alisa Victoria Melana Beatris von Damstadt married Nicolas II, being killed by the Bolsheviks together with her husband.

4.     Europeans in Russia

Saint Petersburg was filled by Europeans, like the Italians (“Friaziny”), northern (protestant) Europeans, who lived in Kukuj/Svoboda.

Many important characters of Peter’s and Catherine’s St. Petersburg were western Europeans. Such as the Danish Vitus Bering, the discoverer of Alaska; the historian Gerard Miller; the Italian architects Aristotele Fioravanti, Domenico Trezzini, Giuseppe Bove, Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, Artuto Rinaldi, Giacomo Quarenghi, Carlo Rossi; the French Jean Baptiste Le Blond and Jean Vallin de la Mothe; the English Charles Cameron; the German sculptor Peter Clodt; the Swedish painter Alexander Reslin; and, especially, the French sculptor Etienne Frelcemiet (author of the monument to Peter the Great).

Herder thought that the real focal point of Russia was the newly built Odessa, in Ukraine, since, from that town, it could have dominated both the East and the West (a thought which is shared by many anti-Russian of today, who, precisely for this reason, make any efforts as possible for separating Ukraine from Russia).

Melchior von Grimm foreshadow to Catherine II the subdivision of the world hegemony between Russia and America. This idea will be developed, among others, by Tocqueville. According to Grimm, the strength of Russia derived from the fact of not having suffered a revolution.

During the Reign of Catherine, Russia is really a European State, having a German Empress, a capital similar to Venice, speaking French and with an aristocracy being, to a large extent, Polish, German and Swedish. Large minorities of Balts, Poles, Ucrainians, Greeks, Romanians, Tatars, Georgians and Armenians live inside its southern borders.

Under Catherine, a large wave of German immigrantsentered the country  In reality, Catherine invited immigrants of all nationalities, to whom she offered free land, which, after one hundred years, would have become their full property. The colonists flocked towards several destinations, and, in particular, towards Saratov on the River Don. However, with the passing of time, the conditions of German immigrants worsened and worsened, following to the consequences of the abolition of serfdom, to the expiration of the first 100 years privileges, of the russification policies.

During the Bolshevik Revolution, the German immigrants were granted the right to create their own Republic of the Volga Germans. Unfortunately, also in this regions, the problems of land collectivization, of “dekulakisation” and of “Golodomor” were felt.

During World War II, all Volga Germans were deported to Kazakhistan or Siberia.

During the Perestrojka period, they received the right to quit Russia, so that the majority has come back to Germany.

During the Reign of Catherine, the Ermitage was created, which, in Sakurov’s film, has been pertinently defined as “the Russian Arch”, where many and many artistic treasures of the European culture have been stored, for preserving them against the upheavals of history.