Terror as a Way to Maintain the Russian Absolutist State: from Ivan to Stalin

Ivan's hatred and paranoia came to a head two years after the death of his wife when Ivan threatened to abdicate his throne. In an attempt to get him to return the boyars allowed Ivan to divide the country into two parts; the zemshchnina under a puppet prince and the Oprichnina, a territory where, "He would have the right to strike down anyone he considered a traitor . . . ruled only by him and with its own army, boyars, nobles, officials, and secretaries." ("Ivan's Oprichnina (1565-1572)")The Oprichniki were Ivan's personal agents of control who owed allegiance only to Ivan. The Oprichniki were a law unto themselves and even went so far as to sack and burn the trading city of Novgorod. ("Ivan's Oprichnina (1565-1572)") The official purpose of the Oprichniki was to remove treason but "his [Ivan's] chief aim in deploying terror was the

A picture of Ivan the Terrible Redrawn by M.D.	establishment of a strong centralized state, to which the crushing of church, princes, and boyars (main rivals to the central power) formed a regrettably essential preliminary." (Hingley 43-44) He was able to establish a loyal bureaucracy by "establishing a new nobility consisting of paid servants." (Troyat 107) One instance where Ivan the Terrible suppressed criticism was shown by Miliukov:

Ivan IV did not hesitate to dethrone Metropolitan Philip, who was highly esteemed for the saintliness of his life, because he had denounced the excesses of the Oprichnini and demanded the Tsar eliminate them. Arrested in church by the Oprichnini and locked into a monastery at Tver, the Metropolitan was strangled in his cell several years later . . . (Beginnings 130).

Michael Romanov's election by the National Assembly ended the "Time of Troubles" caused by Ivan the Terrible's death and started the Romanov dynasty that lasted 300 years. Michael was a very weak leader and the country was ruled mainly by his father. Luckily, he had a large number of children. His son Alexis used terror to a larger extent and after: "Objecting to a bombastic speech by his own father-in-law at a meeting of the boyar council, the Tsar slapped his face, pulled his hair, kicked him out of the room and slammed the door after him."(Hingley 93) Even the church under Alexis used terror to get what it wanted. The patriarch Nikon was especially tyrannical: "he degraded many, including some of the highest, threw them in irons and made them work in his palace bakery." (Hingley 97-98) Alexis' son, Theodore III was as weak as Michael.

Alexis' successor , Peter the Great, was in no way weak and vigorously put down a coup led by his half-sister Sophie. All those believed to have been involved in the plot were subjected to a horrible interrogation: The examiners first put the victim to the knout-slashing by a specially constructed flail of which the operative section was a rod of hardened leather; they then grilled the lacerated back over a slow fire. As long as life lasted, they could continue to repeat the sequence (Hingley 124).

An image of Peter the Great Redrawn by M.D.

Peter the Great also took a large step toward the efficiency of Russian internal security. "He built up a vast network of security police and made liberal use of private informers." (Florinsky 189-190)

The successors of Peter the Great, until about l800, did not use a great deal of terror but were involved in preventing and implementing "Palace Revolutions" (Florinsky l91). Paul I was one of the first to slip back into the pattern of using terror to control the people. He even reinstated the use of terror on the gentry. His supposed favorite punishment was sending people to Siberia (Hinley 215-216). He was assassinated by his own son, Alexander I, with popular support.

Alexander I's reign encompassed Napoleon's invasion of Russia and Napoleon's subsequent defeat. Alexander I reacted inconsistently to those secret organizations that developed after the Napoleonic War. He was brutal in crushing minor insubordination and "in one case his command was that certain of the accused should receive six thousand strokes and be sent to the mines," (Hingley 230, 239) but those who actually plotted to overthrow the autocracy escaped unscathed because they weren't as obvious in their treason.

Alexander's successor was his younger brother Nicholas I. Nicholas was forced to put down a rebellion in support of his brother Constantine within the first weeks of his reign. Nicholas made a full-blown attempt at using terror to subjugate the populace and his policy was: "The slightest dereliction (he warned his command) will be punished with the full severity of the law and will never under any circumstance be excused." (qtd. in Hingley 246) He created some important institutions of censorship and internal security. The three main groups that exercised censorship were the church, the security police, and a committee that censored them. Nicholas I also created a security force with two parts, a public division and an organization of spies and informants. (Hingley 257)

Alexander II, Nicholas I's successor, continued many of the same policies of public control. He controlled the boyars by exiling anyone who disagreed with him. His reign foreshadowed unrest to come and he was assassinated by revolutionaries.

Alexander II's successor was his son Alexander III. He was even less tolerant than his father. He was very intolerant of minorities especially in matters of religion. He persecuted the old believers and allowed the slaughter of large numbers of Jews. (Hingley 291-292)

The last of the Tsars was Nicholas II. His reign showed such increased tension that nearly 4000 important people were assassinated in eight months by revolutionaries. (Hingley 297) Eventually he was forced to abdicate. After about a year of exile, he and his family were executed by the "Reds" under Lenin's orders. (Hingley 302-303)

Lenin and his followers were forced to form an extremely restrictive state to control the extremely unstable state. The system they created "essentially was nothing but 'state capitalism'" (Miliukov Reform 380) The peasants were forced to give up anything beyond their needs. All land became property of the State and skilled labor was arranged like military units.

A picture of Vladimir Lenin Redrawn by Matthew Davis

For Leninists, terror was necessary because: "They did not have to worry about anyone voting them out of office. All they had to worry about was being shot out of power, just as they had out-shot the Czar." (Amann) Like their Tsarist predecessors, they depended on secret police called CHEKA. The CHEKA's goal was to remove any threat to the Bolsheviks. The CHEKA eventually executed about 50,000 people.

With Lenin's death, Stalin was the only one with sufficient political power to assume leadership. Under Stalin, any criticism was intolerable and those that did criticize lost property or their lives. In the socialist system, people had freedom of press, speech, and assembly as long as "in conformity with interests of the working people and in order to strengthen the socialist system" (Florinsky 487) The secret police changed their name and became OGPU with unlimited control over smaller police agencies. The OGPU's main job was stomping out criticism of Stalin and they did so in hundreds of purges, killing millions of people or by the removal of people to Siberia. Under Stalin, nearly all economic institutions were provided for and controlled by the State allowing the government to dominate the population.

Throughout Russian history, few rulers have been able to escape the use of terror of some type within their reign. Consequently, Russian society has had tremendous problems with changing world conditions, because by using terror the society was forced into a tremendously rigid framework, virtually impenetrable to change. Therefore, without massive changes, Russia's chances at becoming a democracy successfully seem very slim.

• Amann, Richard. "Dick's Guide for College and High School Students." Dick's Guides Publications. 1998. Online. http://site123225.primehost.com/RussiaPolice.html 6 Oct.1998.

• Florinsky, Michael T. Russia: A Short History. Toronto: Macmillan, l964.

• Hingley, Ronald. The Tsars. New York: Macmillan, l968.

• "Ivan's Oprichnina (1565-1572)." Online. http://www.dana.edu/~dwarman/oprich.htm 6 Oct. l998.

• Miliukov, Paul. History of Russia: From the Beginnings to the Empire of Peter the Great. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1968.

• - - - History of Russia: Reform, Reaction, Revolutions. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, l968.

• Troyat, Henri. Ivan the Terrible. New York: Berkley Books, l986.