«Dictatorship of Conscience»: Religious and Moral Foundations of the Russian Statehood According to Ivan Solonevich

The article examines  religious and  moral foundations of the  Russian statehood as presented by the  philosopher  and public figure Ivan Solonevich (1891–1953), who, following Vladimir Solovyov, defined his concept as “the dictatorship of conscience”. From Solonevich’s perspective, the specifics of the Russian political tradition consists in its fundamental difference  from European feudalism. In Muscovy, the ruling class was selected according to its moral qualities, and the people’s life was based  on the self-government (“the  people’s  monarchy”). Peter  the  Great ended this tradition by replacing the moral selection criterion with a pragmatic one, which led to the actual destruction of the autocracy and established the dictatorship of the nobility, substituting  the people’s monarchy with European absolutism.  Due to the unity of the tsar and the  people  based  on the  Orthodox faith and the  Orthodox Church as the highest authority in worldly affairs, the Russian monarchy was primarily the people’s power and was never established by violence against  the  people’s  will, while its opponents  always employed  the  violence, i.e. murders,  uprisings and  conspiracies. The foundation of the Russian Orthodox monarchy was the moral feat of the people,  its resignation  for the sake of fulfilling the will of God. This was possible only in Russia, where the founders of the state themselves were saints. Thus, the Moscow Orthodox Tsardom had no problem with the people’s “control” over the government, which was so pressing in Europe, where outright criminals often became monarchs. In Russia, the principle of absolute  trust in the authorities has always been present and has always proven its worth. Only thanks to this trust a small Duchy of Moscow could grow into a great  empire.  As shown  by Ivan Solonevich, the  obvious pragmatic effectiveness of the pre-Petrine people’s monarchy was also ensured by a very effective system of the people’s self-government, unparalleled in feudal absolutist Europe.

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