Leon Kozłowski

Peter the Great and Bolshevism

On the 200th Anniversary of the Death of Peter the Great

8 February marks two hundred years since the death of Peter the Great. Had it not been for the Bolshevik Revolution, this anniversary would certainly be festively celebrated in St. Petersburg. Today, however, there is no St. Petersburg or Petrograd, only Leningrad.

The Bolsheviks probably do not claim that St. Petersburg was built by Lenin, and they only wish to convince people that the Red dictator was greater than the greatest of all emperors of All-Russia. In Bolshevik literature, an analogy has often been made between Peter the Great and Lenin. Peter the Great began a new chapter in the history of Russia, while Lenin opened a new chapter in the history of all mankind.

Certain analogies between Peter the Great and Lenin, between the era of Peter the Great and the Bolshevik times undoubtedly exist, but not those pointed out by the Bolsheviks.

In his historical notes, Pushkin, a eulogist of Peter the Great, who in “The Bronze Horseman” erected a monument to the tsar “more durable than carved in bronze,” did nevertheless refer to Peter the Great’s work as a violent and bloody revolution. Eminent Russian historian Klyuchevsky, who strongly emphasizes the importance of Peter’s reforms, does admit that they had all traits of a revolution:

Initiated and conducted by the superior authority, the leader of the nation’s life, that reform appropriated the character and methods of a violent upheaval, and was a kind of a revolution. It was a revolution, not so much because of its objectives, but only due to its means of action and the impression it made on the minds and nerves of its contemporaries.

But what is the essence of those methods which make Peter’s reforms resemble a revolution? This was articulated the most insightfully by Mickiewicz, who in his Paris lectures drew an analogy between the Russian reforms in the early 18th century and the French Revolution at the end of that century, between Peter and the National Convention:

Both undertakings originated from the notion that man is the judge of mankind, that he does not need to consult opinions other than his own mind, that, having made his own personal reason his compass, he can set the direction for the historical march of all nations and arbitrarily decide what makes others happy. That extreme pride and individual self-importance gave rise to a violent energy, which ignored everything, trampled on the past, and overturned everything. Hence, the instinctive hatred of everything religious, moral, or resulting from the life of society as a whole.

If Mickiewicz saw common features in the actions of the first emperor of All-Russia and those of the Great Revolution, it is even easier to see a similarity between the bloody and violent revolution carried out by Peter the Great and the Bolshevik revolution.

“Hatred of everything religious, moral, or resulting from the life of society as a whole” was what guided Lenin when, having made his personal reason his compass, he tried to set the direction for the historical procession of all nations, especially those ruled by Peter the Great. But the same hatred also characterizes the actions of that enthroned giant, that tsar, who, unmindful of anything, trampled on and discarded everything along his way.

Building on mud not “a city to people, but a capital to himself,” he not only “trampled on the bodies of a hundred thousand peasants,” but also on the souls of millions and national and religious sentiments. He tore and ripped not only old robes, but also what was sacred in the nation’s eyes. He not only abolished the patriarchate and subordinated the Church to his authority, but also organized blasphemous games, similar to those which the Bolsheviks are holding today.

The authority of Peter’s predecessor was almost unlimited, but actually it was bound by customs, traditions, and ceremonies, which, like the old robes, deprived the tsar of freedom of movement. The tsar had to go to the bathhouse on Saturdays and to the cathedral on Sundays. The tsar had to seat the boyar in the place to which he was entitled thanks to the antiquity of his family. The tsar believed in what the people believed. He disliked foreigners and ruled in line with the old laws to which the people were accustomed. The Moscow tsardom in the 17th century, when the times of Ivan the Terrible had been forgotten, like an old tree trunk overgrown with moss, was not too tough on those around it, and the people gazed from afar, not feeling the tsar’s authority in everyday life, which slowly went down the old rut.

The power of the Moscow tsars (of course, with the exception of Ivan the Terrible) was despotic, but not absolute. Their rule did not base on terror, because it was accepted by the people whose moral notions it matched.

The reign of Peter, who tried to set life on new tracks, was ruthless and terrorist. Just like the Bolshevik regime of today, it offended the moral and religious notions of the society, and in the eyes of believers it was, like the Soviets of today, a “non-national” authority.  The people believed the hearsay that Tsar Peter was not the real Peter, a son of Alexei, and that the real one had been killed abroad and that under his name returned somebody else: a German or a Swede, or possibly a Jew.

Peter’s ruthless and terrorist rule actually went only as far as his armed and terrible hand could reach. Most of the decrees, which poured out like from a horn of plenty, remained on paper. The punishments meted out too profusely, were no longer frightening. Not only the local authorities and Peter’s closest associates deceived the all-powerful ruler — violently suppressed revolts erupted throughout Peter’s reign, banditry increased with every passing day, and the governors feared to stick their noses outside the turnpikes so as not to fall into the hands of the prowling bands. This too resembles today’s Soviet Russia. This list of similarities with the Lenin era could be continued, but it is high time that I mentioned the fundamental difference between them.

Peter not only destroyed, but also built. Lenin only destroyed. Peter built the capital which he named after himself. The Bolsheviks called St. Peterburg — Leningrad and not only did they not build a new capital for their commune, but they also ruined and destroyed most houses in the old towns and cities.

The empire that Peter built and the institutions he created survived for two hundred years. After just two years of his reign, Lenin gave up on his communist plan and, through the NEP, began a turn toward capitalism, which means that he admitted that the work of destruction which he had perpetrated had been unnecessary.

Lenin, already a dead man during his lifetime, was a symbol of the deadness of his own actions and of that great deadhouse of the Moscow Commune, founded on the ruins of the empire of Peter the Great.

Peter built not only on the bodies, but also on the souls of the slain, and this is why so many corpses were washed ashore by the waves of the revolution which swept away the foundations of Peter’s edifice. Bolshevism is a bloody epilogue to the great historical tragedy, the beginning of which was bloody too. Hence, the analogies we have discussed above.

[in:] Półksiężyc i gwiazda czerwona [the crescent and the red star], Vilnius: 1930, pp. 128‒131