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.

CRIMEA: THE FIRST EAST-WEST CONFRONTATION

Crimean War

Deep-Rooted Reasons for Hostility

Глубоко засевшие причины враждебности

Profonde ragioni di ostilità

Des raisons d'hostilité profondement enracinées.

Tiefgreifende Feindlichkeitsgruende.

The cultural confrontation among Slavophiles and Westerners, can be utilized as a background scenario of Russia’s cultural and political life up to the Soviet Revolution. The reformist “Russian Thinking” around Černyševskij and Herzen, comes out of a Westerner background, whereby the reforms are seen as a partial imitation of Western Europe or of America. On the contrary, most of the literary, and/or musical, and/or pictorial productions (such as Dostojevsk’s, Tolstoj’s, Ciaikowsky’s, Serov’s, Nestorov’s, Rerih’s, Malevič’s, Strawinsky’s) are deeply rooted in the Slavonic tradition.

The strengthening of the hold of the Russian Empire on its Asiatic territories (Caucasus, but also Central Asia and the Artic Regions) had increased the interest of Russian intellectuals for the Asiatic Roots of Russia (the Scythians, the Tatars, the Finns, the Persians, the Turks), but also their sympathies for the subjected peoples, whose origins, histories, traditions, languages, were investigated at that time.

Russia was defined more and more as a “Eurasiatic” reality. “Asiatic” subjects enter into the repertory of artists, such as Shagané, Hadij Murat, the Fire Bird, Shahrazade, the Finnish folklore of the North.This attention is not much different from the praise of Mohicans by Fenimore Cooper, or the one of "strong men" of East and west by Kipling, and, fimnally, the participation of Ann Besant both to the induistic revival and to the independence struggle of India.

But also the idea of a community of destinies between Russia and Europe remained at that times strong, albeit Russia felt not be  well understood , and even to be rejected, by Europeans.

Many made an effort to become more European, for being better accepted, as in the case of the Occidentalist, or of social reformers like Caadajen. Others, like Ivanov-Razumnik (who converted to Catholicism as suggested by De Maistre), stressed that Europe needed Russia. He launched the idea of “Europe’s two lungs”, an idea which will achieve so large a resound after having been adopted by John Paul II himself.

The conflict between “Slavophiles” and “Occidentalists” will be synthesized, finally, after the October Revolution, by Blok, who, in his Panmongolizm, will submit, to Europeans, a dramatic alternative: either to accept, brotherly, the Russian as a part of the European family of people, or to find them hostiles, allied with “the Mongolic World” (now, we could think of China and of Islam).

During the XIX Century, Russia did not abandon the “Greek Project” (i Megàli Idèa”), albeit the independence of Greece was not achieved thanks to Russia (or, at least, not thanks to Russia alone); the newly independent Greece became open, besides Russian influences, also German and English connections.

The peak of anti-Russian feelings was reached between the 1848 Revolution and the Crimea War. Russia had intervened, upon request of the Austrian Emperor, in Hungary, for stopping the liberal and nationalistic unrests.Moreover, the Croatian Ban Jelacic, the Ruthenian  peasants and the Bohemian Pan-Slavists    had all supported the Emperor against the revolutionary, so causing all together the suppression of the revolts in the Austrian Empire. From this fact, Marx and Engels draw the pretext for a violent attack against the "peoples without history", responsible, first of all, to have supported the Russian and Austrian Emperors against the revolutionary movements. In 1853, there were not only the left-wing extremists, but also the bourgeois liberals governments of France and of England to be worried of the momentum gained by Imperial Russia by its presence in the Balkans  (including the occupation of Wallachia and Moldavia) and its support to Balkanic nationhoods.

The "Crimean War" consisted, in reality, in a vast encirclement of Russia by British, Franch, Austrians Turks and Sardinians, which took place along the Danube, in Ucraine, Crimea, Caucasus, the Baltic, the White Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The adhesion of the Kingdom of Sardinia was unequivocally motivated by the will of the liberal Cavour Government to join the liberal cohalition of Western constitutional monarchies, abandoning the traditional Russian friendship. The conservative opposition, led by Count Thaon de Ravel, refused to vote in favour of the war. The latter contributed heavily to the self-consciuosness of Russia, to the weakening of Austria, to the assertiveness of the Balkanic countries and to the strenthening of national feelings in Caucasian nationalities.

The Western alliance pretended from Russia the acceptance of some points, what Russia refused to do:

1. Russia was to give up its protectorate over the Danubian Principalities;
2. It was to abandon any claim granting it the right to interfere in Ottoman affairs on behalf of Orthodox Christians;
3. The Straits Convention of 1841 was to be revised;
4. All nations were to be granted access to the River Danube.

At the end of the war, these points were accepted by Russia only partially, and never fully complied with.

Wallachia and Moldavia, formerly under a strong Russian influence, united under the name of Romania, into a new state, where French and Italian influences are decisive, up to the point that the same Rumanian language is “purified” from many of the preceding Slavonic influences, so that the heritage of the Romans is put in the forefront.

Russia interests concentrated on the Slavonic peoples of the Balkans, such as Bulgarians and Serbians, which Russia helped in their efforts to become independent from the Turkish Empire. These efforts, which were at the origin of the “Balkanic Wars”, contributed to creating the background for World War I. 

Of course, not just Russia, but the whole system of powers of the Europe of that time, are equally responsible for the Balkan Wars and for the subsequent World War II. It has to be remarked that the Russian Tsars were active in the diplomatic scene, for fostering a movement for Peace and Disarmament (the Hague Congress for Peace was promoted by Tsar Nicolas II).

The policy of the Russian Empire in that period is rather contradictory. In fact, it had to manage too many contradictory tendencies. From one side, Russia was a very powerful, cultivated, and even rich, country, whose rates of growths were higher than the ones of Western Europe. From another point of view, riches was very unequally distributed, and this created strong social contrasts. The land reforms carried out at the end of the XIX Century, whilst fostering industrialization,also as a consequence of the Crimean War, had not solved the problem of a sound farming class.

The Tsar swinged between the tough defense of traditional autocracy and timid tentatives of reforms in the direction of a parliamentary monarchy, from avant-garde initiatives in the field of internationalism, such as the Hague  Congress, to military escalations, such as the ones in the Balkans.

The policy of Russia-bashing from the side of western goverments and intellectuasls went on. The fact that, contrary to what happened in France, Italy and Austria, liberal reforms had not been implemented during the largest part of the XIX Century were explained, as always, by the innate autocratic spirit of Russians. However, as always, many of the faults identified by polemists in Russia were, or false, a shared with many other European countries.

As an example, the myth, according to which the Russian Empire had to be considered as the main enemy of nationalities in Eastern Europe is not correct. It is true that a strong conflict arose since the beginning with Poles, who did not accept the partial autonomy role of the Kingdom of Poland. It is also true that the Empire forbade the Ukrainian language and the transliteration, into Latin characters, of Baltic languages. However, also Prussia and Austria had annexed large parts of Poland, where they had suppressed any form of autonomy, whilst Russia had been even helpful with Belorussian and Lithuanians, for asserting their own nationhood, after long centuries of dominance of the Polish language, aristocracy and clergy.Not to speak of the violent repression, by England, of Irish autonomy.

"Duszą Narodu polskiego jest pielgrzymstwo polskie" (THE SPIRIT OF THE POLISH PEOPLE IS POLISH PILGRIMAGE)

The Kingdom of Poland, a failed tentative of union between Russia and Poland.

Польское Королевство: не успешная попытка соединения полши и России

Il Regno di Polonia:un tentativo non riuscito di unione fra Russia e Polonia

 Le Royaume de Pologne: une tentative non réussie d'union entre Russie et Pologne

 Koenigreich Polen:  erfolgloser Versuch  von Union zwischen Russland und Polen.

Another question which was, and still is, common to Poland and Russia is the “Polish Question”, which rendered, at that time, and still renders, bitter and bitter the relationships between Russia and the rest of Europe. At the beginning, the first partition of Poland had not caused any important cultural reactions, either in Poland itself, nor abroad. In fact, in the middle of XVIII Century, there was nowhere a strong national feeling, and, in particular, Poland had never been a strong centralized kingdom. On the contrary, it had evolved, during the last two centuries, into a loose confederation of a myriad of feudal lords, which was governed by an elective King (usually a Swede, a Hungarian or a German), and, in the last period, was under the alternate influence of Prussia, Russia and Austria. The Three Partitions involved all the three monarchs.

In the meantime, during the XVIII Century, from one side, both the idea of nationhood, and the one of liberalism,  had started becoming more sensitive, also in Poland, and, from another point of view, it resulted clearer that, with the partition, the foreign influences, which had been important also before, were reaching a level which was no more tolerable, at least for little aristocracy (“Szlachta”), which was not connected with the foreign kingdoms like higher aristocrats.

This had led to a subdivision of the aristocracy (which remained the leading social force in Poland), into two “fields”: from one side, the “Whites”, around the great aristocrats, like Poniatowski and Czartoryski, which accepted a certain extent of influence of Russia, and, from the other side, the “Reds”(like Kosciuszko and Mickiewicz) which included mostly the small aristocracy and the bourgeois, which were contrary to any accommodation with the occupation powers, and opposed themselves militarily.It is worthwile noting that the distinction between “Reds” and “Whites” survived the Polish Independence Wars, and transferred itself to the Russian Civil War.

The accession of the Polish politician Czartoryski, after violent struggles, to the role of Foreign Minister of Russia had arisen the hope that a new, “liberal” policy of Alexander 1^st would have found, via Czartoryski, a solution satisfying all the Poles.

Czartoryski, consistent with the general vision, shared with Alexander 1^st, of Europe after the Vienna Congress, where a place would have been left to the “Europe of the Peoples”, worked out the idea of a constitution of the Polish Kingdom within the Russian Empire, alongside the “Konstytucja Trzeciego Maja” and the Finnish “Constitution”, as well as the one of the Duchy of Poland established by Napoleon between 1807 and 1813. .

The furtherance of the “constitutional experiment” in Poland and Finland, if successful, could have become an anticipation of an alternative “reformist”, path to the creation of a “Europe of the Peoples”, by gradually granting autonomy to the territories of the Russia, German, Austrian and Ottoman Empires (and, why not, of other large European States), without the need of two centuries of uninterrupted wars and revolutions.

However, the solution was not accepted by the Poles; Poland insurged, and Czartoryski himself, after having become the Prime Minister of the insurged Poland, was condemned to death, fled from Poland andcontinued to keep alive from Paris the conservative Polish opposition, whilst Lelewel headed the progressive opposition from Brussels.

LES SOIREES DE ST.PETERSBOURG

The De Maistre, a Russian-Savoyan Family

де Местр: русско-Савойская семья

I De Maistre: una famiglia russo-savoiarda

Les  De Maistre: une famille russo-savoisienne

Die De Maistre: eine russisch-savoische Familie

One of the most impressing achievements of Russia’s successes in Napoleon’s war was the fact that St. Petersburg had become one of the most important intellectual centers of Europe, also because it became the target of different groups, most of them thinkers, as well as Freemasons, of aristocrats fleeing from the Revolution’s and Napoleon persecutions.

A family, which well symbolizes this “Golden Age” of St. Petersburg, is the De Maistre Family, whose statues are in front of the Castle of Chambéry, in France,the  former capital city of the Duchy of Savoy and the native city of the two brothers.

Joseph et Xavier De Maistre were the sons of the higher magistrate of the Duchy of Savoy, the original cradle of the Dynasty, which, at the time of the French Revolution, was governed by local magistrates on behalf of the King of Sardinia, residing in Torino.

Savoy was, already at that time, a country of French culture, in the same way as other territories of the Kingdom of Sardinia, such as the County of Nice and the Duchy of Aosta.

As many other European aristocrats, Joseph de Maistre had embraced Freemasonry, which, according to him, would have offered a purer way of understanding religion, as well as a way for fighting against the moral degeneration of the ruling classes, which characterized the last period of the Ancien Régime (as testified by famous masterpieces, like “Les Liaisons Dangéreuses” of Choderlos de Laclos). In fact, it results that one of the main objectives of famous revolutionaries, such as Robespierre, was, precisely, as it had been for Puritans, the one of hinging back Religion to its originary purity, as well as to fight public immorality.

However, the path followed by Joseph de Maistre was different from the one followed by French revolutionaries. Similar to what happened to most of the “Enlightened Monarchs”, such as Catherine 2^nd and Joseph 2^nd, and to Goethe, when the French Revolution came up, he gave up his belonging in Freemasonry and in Enlightenment, and fled, from the native Savoy, into the core of Sardinia’s Kingdom.

He also moved his core interests, from the urgency of a purification of religion and customs, into a reflection on French Revolution, which, according to him, fulfilled, to a certain extent, his wishes of purification, in the sense that it constituted the long-due punishment of France, of its Kingdom and of its aristocracy for their guilts. Notwithstanding the above positive impact, the Revolution lacked, for De Maistre, a constructive character. According to him, the deep-rooted nature of humankind is well expressed by the Catholic idea of original sin. No social revolution may change this fact, so that a sound society may be grounded only upon a realistic and pessimistic notion of mankind, on the necessity of  the alliance Throne and Altar as a discipline needed for minimizing Evil. In conclusion, the French Revolution has been a purification of the past sins, imposed by the Divine Providence. It will allow the Church and the Kingdom to stand up stronger than before. For this reason, no use withstanding Revolution using its own methods: and, this, not only because, according to De Maistre, traditional institutions must show themselves morally superior to the ones of Revolution, but also because Revolution, having been decided by God, is, to a certain extent, irreversible. t can just be overcome, not destroyed. Finally, the end of Ancien Régime has also another positive aspect, the elimination of the pretention by the Monarchs, to achieve a “sovereign” power, whilst, according to him, the only real “sovereign” power belongs to the Pope. So, at the end of the day, De Maistre is not a reactionary, but, on the contrary, the forebear of conservatives like Tocqueville.I

Following to the important role of Marshal Suvorov in fight against Napoleon in Piedmont, Joseph de Maistre establishes a link with Russia, which, according to him, might fulfill, after France, a providential task within Europe’s history: the one to save Europe from himself (i.e., from the corruption of the Ancien Régime and the fanatism of Revolution). An idea which will be shared by many authors, the most famous being Dostojevskij. In the meantime, an opposite, but parallel,  attitude was rising in liberal and progressive circles. For instance, Heinrich Heine expressed the hope that the Revolution, defeated in the West, could take place in Russia (an idea which, it goes without saying, would have received a large support).

So, Joseph de Maistre transferred his family (including his brother Xavier) at its own change, to St. Petersburg, where it represented, on a voluntary basis, the Kingdom of Sardinia, which, at that time, had been reduced, by Napoleon’s conquests, to the sole island of Sardinia, and that, therefore, could not afford the expenses of a full-fledged Embassy in Russia.

The long years of stay in St. Petersburg were very fruitful, from a cultural point of view, for both De Maistre brothers. Joseph entered into the very complex and sophisticated political and cultural environment of the Emperor, dominated by Cazrtoryski, Novosiltzev and Baroness von Krüdener. However, his policy was conflictual with the one of the Tsar, especially because he tried to push the Tsar and the Russian aristocracy to embrace on his own positions, including a tentative to convert the Tsar himself, or, at least, many important aristocrats, to the Catholic Church. This tentative was in line, but also in competition, with peaceful efforts  undertaken  by German protestant sects, and, in particular, by Baroness von Krüdener.

The Tsar did not appreciate this very personal and very passionated way to interpret his ambassador’s role, and asked the King of Sardinia to call back De Maistre to Sardinia’s capital, Torino. Indeed, De Maistre was very critical of the Tsar’s position, affirming that: «Russia could have done very much for Europe, but it does not do anything».

De Maistre criticized especially the trend towards Protestantism, which, according to him, had found its expression in the Manifesto of the Holy Alliance, which was, in practice, an alliance between Orthodox and Protestant powers; according to De Maistre, Russia, having refused to reunite with Catholicism, was preparing a new revolution. From his point of view, De Maistre was undoubtedly right, since the cultural basis of the Holy Alliance were the philosophy of Saint Martin (to which De Maistre adhered during his “Masonic” period), the Baroness von Krüdener (a protestant mystic, living at Alexander’s Court), Franz von Baader and Jung-Stilling (seeVon Baader’s “Über das durch die Französische Revolution herbeigeführte Bedürfniss einer neueren und innigen Verbindung der Religion mit der Politik“, which Von Baader composed in 1814 and sent to the King of Prussia and to the Emperors of Austria and Russia).

According to Jung-Stilling, the French Revolution precedes immediately the Advent of Antichrist. Whilst the Antichrist proceeded from East to West, true believers should have proceeded the opposite way, towards Russia. Under the influence of von Krüdener and Jung-Stilling, thousands of “awakened” flocked to Crimea.

In the meantime, De Maistre had written “Les Soirée de St. Petersbourg”, one of the masterpieces of philosophical literature in French, which, whilst expressing in a classical form his philosophical and theological points of view, constitutes also a vibrant celebration of St. Petersburg as a crucial cultural center of Europe during the first half of the XIX Century, and an act of personal nostalgy for the City.

Eventually, De Maistre was also, for a short period, Prime Minister of the Sardinian Kingdom, and Governor of the Island of Sardinia, implementing, in these roles, the theories he had worked out, about the needlessness, for Counter-revolution, to follow the violent and intolerant paths typical for revolutions. In fact, he opposed to persecuting the many Piemontese aristocrats which, under the Napoleonian occupation, had collaborated with the French, so betraying Sardinia. Moreover, De Maistre, contrary to what could be imagined, was a forebear of the theories of the Piemontese Historical Right, that catholic-liberal élite which imposed to the country Italian unification under a constitutional monarchy.

De Maistre’s work is described, in the manuals of history, together with the ones of Bonald and of Burke, as the basis for the counter-revolutionary thought of Restauration. This is truly the case. However, the main interest for such works today does not reside in their aspect of critics towards liberalism, but, on the contrary, especially in the one that, by trying to overcome the culture of the Revolution, these authors anticipated philosophies and ideas of later thinkers, which, at their turn, have deeply influenced today’s society. So, whilst Burke anticipated Dirk Russel’s ideas about the opposition between the American and the French Revolutions, and Bonald the ones of socialist utopic revolutionaries, De Maistre’s stress on a supposed pre-existing harmony of Ancien Régime, axed on the character of the Pope, anticipated St. Simon’s and Comte’s ideas of an “organic society”, whereby such society would have been governed, no more, by Throne and Altar, but by Science and Management.

Le Soirées de Saint Petersbourg was published in Paris before De Maistre’s death.

Joseph’s brother, Xavier, was also an intellectual deeply involved in the anti-Napoleonic struggle. His main profession was to be an officer. He served in the Sardinian Army as long as Sardinia resisted Napoleon. Afterward, he entered the Russian Army and fought in the Caucasus against Cechens. The military adventures of Xavier de Maistre allowed him to realize some of the most famous works of French Romanticism, such as “L’histoire du Lépreux de la Ville d’Aoste”, which he wrote during the retreat of the Sardinian Army, defeated by Napoleon, from Savoy to the Aosta Valley, as well as “Voyage autour de ma chambre”, and  “Le prisonnier du Caucase”, devoted to Chechnya, which anticipates several works of Russian authors, including  Tolstoj, on the same subject.

The history of the De Maistre brothers, Savoyan, Piedmontese and Sardinian officials, politicians and intellectuals in Russia, shows how deeply Western Europe and Russia have been interconnected in that period of their history.

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.