Empires Apart by Brian Landers Page B

expected to be held up as a warning. In fact the opposite has often been true. To many, from the ultra nationalist right to the Stalinist left, he has been a symbol of patriotism and devotion to the motherland. Even today a small but vociferous group within the Russian Orthodox Church argue for Ivan’s beatification. His Russian nomenclature, they would argue, more properly translates not as Terrible but as Awesome. In the language of the 2003 Iraq War, his proponents would argue that his leadership embodied not the ‘terror’ of Saddam Hussein but ‘the shock and awe’ of Bush II.
    With hindsight it is tempting to discern continuity in events across the centuries. The history of terror is an example. From the Mongols, through Ivan the Terrible to Lenin and Stalin, terror has been a repeating feature of Russian life. When developing their theories on the use of terror in such works as Lenin’s 1918 booklet Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade K. Kautsky and Trotsky’s 1920 eulogy to mass terror, Terrorism and Communism , the Bolsheviks were certainly drawing on the lessons of history. Stalin seems to have pictured himself quite consciously as inheriting the mantle of Ivan the Terrible. But it is wrong to think that governing through terror is characteristically Russian. For long periods after Ivan IV the Russian state continued without his kind of terror, and with less sadistic coercion. Terror may be a tool to which the ruling elite in Russia has repeatedly turned, but it cannot be said that the acceptanceof terror is part of the collective Russian psyche. No people welcome the opportunity to live in a state of perpetual fear. What can more persuasively be argued to be particularly Russian is the acceptance of autocracy.
    The philosophical catchword of American history, the ideological concept that Americans believe underpins their whole political culture, is ‘democracy’. Russian history has a similar core value: ‘autocracy’. In many countries individuals yearn for the state to provide order and decisive government; in most countries the political elites yearn for absolute power. There is nothing particularly Russian about that. Indeed Russia has spawned numerous anarchist movements, demonstrating that autocracy was never universally accepted. As a sweeping generalisation, however, it is fair to assert that Russians have a greater desire for ‘strong leadership’ than, for example, Americans or Britons. Lord Acton’s dictum that ‘All power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely’ would be instinctively accepted by most Americans but would still provoke debate in Moscow or St Petersburg.
    The difference between autocracy and democracy is not that they have opposing aspirations but that they attach different priorities to those aspirations. Autocracy puts order above liberty, the nation above the citizen, collective security above individual freedom, responsibilities above rights. Democracy, at least in theory, does the opposite. Democracy is about citizens selecting their government from among themselves. It implies a theoretical equality between governed and governing; the governed are saying ‘we are worth the same as you’. In western eyes the concept of autocracy seems to imply a people saying ‘we value ourselves less than we value our rulers’, but this is a misunderstanding. Autocracy is based on the premise that everyone has rights and obligations but these rights vary according to one’s position in society. The autocrat rules as a father ruled the traditional family; it is his role to protect and provide, and in return receive respect and absolute obedience. Autocracy implies that all people are not equal; it does not imply that Russians attached no value to themselves. Ivan’s other legacy enhanced that self-valuation. The birth of empire allowed Russians, after centuries of Mongol rule, to onceagain feel superior