190 years ago, on December 14 (26), 1825, an uprising of the Decembrists took place in St. Petersburg. After the failed attempt to resolve the matter peacefully, Nicholas I suppressed the rebels. Later, through the efforts of Westerners-liberals, social democrats, and then Soviet historiography, a myth was created about "knights without fear and reproach" who decided to destroy the "tsarist tyranny" and build a society on the principles of freedom, equality and brotherhood. In modern Russia, it is also customary to talk about the Decembrists from a positive point of view. They say that the best part of Russian society, the nobility, challenged the "gloomy autocracy", but was defeated.
In reality, however, the situation was different. The accession to the throne of Nicholas I was overshadowed by an attempt by a secret Masonic society of the so-called "Decembrists" to seize power over Russia. The Decembrists, hiding behind slogans that were completely humane and understandable to most, objectively worked for the then “world community” (the West) and, first of all, obeyed the Masonic lodges of France. In fact, these were the forerunners of the "Februaryists" of the 1917 model, who destroyed the Russian Empire. They planned the complete physical destruction of the dynasty of Russian monarchs Romanovs, members of their families and up to distant relatives.
True, in 1825 the “fifth column” in Russia was still insignificant and was a pitiful bunch of conspirators, Westernizers who worshiped everything European, ignorant, corrupted by the ideas of French philosophers and Western “freedom”. Therefore, the "first revolution" in Russia, which had its roots in the West, was quickly suppressed.
Unfortunately, during the mutiny, one of the villains, Kakhovsky, killed the hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, a brilliant Russian commander, the governor of St. Petersburg, General M. A. Miloradovich. It should be noted that in almost all periods of history Russia favorably differed in terms of true philanthropy and mercy from Western countries. Only five of the rebels were hanged, the rest of the emperor graciously gave life.
About the origins of the movement
It is believed that the Decembrist movement was based on the ideology of enlightenment. Representatives of the Russian nobility, having visited Europe, including during the Expatriate campaign of 1813-1814, imbued with the spirit of the French Revolution, decided to throw off the "tsarist tyranny" and establish a more enlightened system in the Russian Empire.
Actually, there were no objective reasons for the revolt of the noble officers. Russia was on the rise of its military and political power, was considered the "gendarme of Europe." The Russian army was the most powerful force on the planet and recently defeated one of the best generals in the history of mankind, Napoleon Bonaparte, and entered Paris in triumph. In the empire, against the background of a passionary upsurge after the victory over the empire of Napoleon, the rise of Russian culture began - a surge of creativity in painting, architecture, literature, poetry and science. This was the beginning of the "golden age" of Russian culture.
"Golden noble youth" decided to act in the interests of serfs and workers? Outwardly, the Decembrists' convictions were indeed based on noble motives, they dreamed of eliminating "various injustices and oppression" and bringing together the estates for the growth of social welfare in Russia. Examples of the dominance of foreigners in the higher administration (just remember the entourage of Tsar Alexander), extortion, violation of legal proceedings, inhuman treatment of soldiers and sailors in the army and navy, trade in serfs worried the lofty minds of young nobles, who were inspired by the patriotic upsurge of 1812-1814.
However, the "great truths" of freedom, equality and brotherhood, necessary for the good of Russia, were associated in their minds only with republican institutions and European social forms, which in theory they mechanically transferred to Russian soil. That is, the Decembrists sought to "transplant France to Russia." How later, the Westernizers of the beginning of the 20th century will dream of remaking Russia into a republican France or a constitutional English monarchy. The abstraction and frivolity of such a transfer was that it was carried out without understanding the historical past and national traditions, spiritual values, psychological and everyday life of Russian civilization that had been formed for centuries. Young people of nobility, brought up on the ideals of Western culture, were infinitely far from the people.
As historical experience shows, in the Russian Empire, Soviet Russia and the Russian Federation, all Western borrowings in the sphere of the socio-political structure, the spiritual and intellectual sphere, even the most useful ones, are eventually distorted on Russian soil, leading to degradation and destruction. As Tyutchev quite rightly noted: "Russia cannot be understood with the mind, cannot be measured with a common yardstick: it is special to become …".
The Decembrists, like the later Westernizers, did not understand this. They thought that if we transplant the advanced experience of the Western powers in Russia, give the people “freedom”, then the country will take off and prosper. As a result, the sincere hopes of the Decembrists for a forced change in the existing system, for a legal order, as a panacea for all ills, eventually led to confusion and the destruction of the empire. And the Decembrists objectively, by default, worked in the interests of the masters of the West. Any weakening of Russia, unrest on the territory of Russian civilization was in the interests of the West.
So, back in 1821, General Benckendorff of the Guards openly presented to the tsar a note entitled "On secret societies in Russia." “In 1814, when the Russian troops entered Paris,” wrote the general of the imperial retinue, “many officers were admitted to Masons and made connections with adherents of various secret societies. The consequence of this was that they were imbued with the disastrous spirit of the parties, were accustomed to chatting things that they did not understand, and from blind imitation they got a passion to start such secret societies in themselves …”. Benckendorff informed Alexander that members of illegal societies and organizations planned to smuggle portable printing houses from abroad, with the help of which they print "libels" and caricatures of the reigning house, the existing system of state power and government. By distributing propaganda materials in the "fleeting markets" and in other places of mass gathering of people, members of secret organizations intended to cause discontent among the people with the autocracy and, ultimately, to overthrow it.
The future gendarme No. 1 also warned the tsar that the "embryo of a restless spirit" had penetrated deep into the army ranks, especially the guards. Unfortunately, the general was right. Exactly four years later, this "restless spirit", wandering among a certain section of the privileged military, led to a bloody tragedy that unfolded on Senate Square. Unfortunately, Alexander did not dare to crush the infection in the bud, although he had all the information about the conspirators. Moreover, he left this problem to Nikolai.
Destruction of Russian statehood
When studying the program documents of the Decembrists, one can find that there was no unity in their ranks, their secret societies were more like discussion clubs of sophisticated intellectuals who passionately discussed pressing political issues. In this respect, they are similar to Westernizers-liberals of the late XIX - early XX centuries. both the Februaryists of 1917 and the modern Russian liberals, who cannot find a common point of view on almost any important issue. The desires of the conspiratorial nobles were often the opposite.
The head of the Southern Society of Decembrists, Colonel and Freemason Pavel Pestel wrote one of the program documents - "Russian Truth". Pestel expressed the interests of the most radical part of the conspirators and proposed to establish a republic in Russia. In his understanding, Russia should have been a single and indivisible state. But he proposed to divide it into 10 regions, consisting of 5 districts-provinces; he wanted to move the capital to Nizhny Novgorod; to transfer the supreme legislative power to a unicameral People's Council, consisting of 500 members; to transfer executive power to the Sovereign Duma, consisting of 5 people, which was elected for 5 years in the People's Council; the supreme control power was transferred to the Supreme Council of 120 people, its members were elected for life; They wanted to transfer administrative power at the local level to regional, district, district and volost local assemblies, and local executive power was to be exercised by local governments.
Pestel planned to abolish serfdom, transferring half of the arable land to the peasants, the other half was supposed to be left in the ownership of the landowners, which was supposed to contribute to the bourgeois development of the country. The landlords had to lease the land to farmers - "capitalists of the agricultural class", which was supposed to lead to the organization of large commodity farms in the country with the wide involvement of hired labor. "Russkaya Pravda" abolished not only estates, but also national borders - all the tribes and nationalities living in Russia planned to unite into a single Russian people. Thus, Pestel planned, following the example of America, to create a kind of "melting pot" in Russia.
To speed up this process, a de facto national segregation was proposed, with the division of the population of Russia into groups: 1) the Slavic tribe, the indigenous Russian people (it included all the Slavs); 2) tribes annexed to Russia; 3) foreigners (nationals and non-nationals). Pestel proposed tough measures against a number of nationalities. Thus, the peoples of Central Asia were supposed to be transformed into the Aral Cossacks. Gypsies are forced to convert to Orthodoxy or to be evicted from Russia. Split the Caucasian tribes into small groups and resettle them throughout the country. The Jews had to change their attitude towards Russia and accept some kind of agreement or were subject to concentration in the ghetto with subsequent eviction to Asia.
Thus, Pestel's program was guaranteed to lead to the collapse of statehood, chaos, conflict of estates and different peoples. For example, the mechanism of the great land redistribution was not described in detail, which led to a conflict between the multimillion-dollar mass of peasants and the then landowners-landowners. Under the conditions of a radical breakdown of the state structure, the transfer of the capital, it is obvious that such a "restructuring" led to a civil war and a new turmoil
Similar threats were borne by the draft program document of the Northern Society of Decembrists - "Constitution" by Nikita Muravyov. He intended to establish a constitutional monarchy, with the possibility of introducing a republic if the imperial family did not accept the constitution. In the sphere of state structure, Muravyov proposed to divide the Russian state into 13 powers and 2 regions, creating a federation of them. The conspirator proposed to create a Bothnian (Finnish) state with the capital in Helsingfors (Helsinki), Volkhovskaya - Petersburg, Baltic - Riga, Western - Vilno, Dnieper - Smolensk, Black Sea - Kiev, Ukrainian - Kharkov, Caucasian - Tiflis, Zavolzhskaya - Yaroslavl, Kamskaya - Kazan, Nizovaya - Saratov, Tobolskaya - Tobolsk, Lenskaya - Irkutsk; The Moscow region with the capital in Moscow and the Don region - Cherkassk. The powers received the right of secession (self-determination). The capital of the federation, as well as in the Pestel's program, was proposed to be moved to Nizhny Novgorod.
It is obvious that the decentralization of the Russian Empire envisaged by the Decembrists led to great confusion and a sharp weakening of the geopolitical, military-strategic positions of the empire in the world. It is not by chance that the clear lines of the death sentences to the conspirators included not only "the intent of regicide," but also the intent of "severing the regions from the Empire."
Thus, we see that the plans of the Decembrists are very clearly correlated with the plans of the separatists of the early XX century or 1990-2000. As well as the plans of Western politicians and ideologists who dream of dismembering Great Russia into a number of weak and "free" states
Muravyov proposed to establish a bicameral "People's Chamber" ("Supreme Duma" - the upper chamber and "House of People's Representatives" - the lower chamber), where the deputies were elected for 6 years on the basis of a large property qualification. This naturally led to the creation in the country of a regime of power of the rich - large landowners and representatives of the bourgeoisie. Muravyov was a supporter of the preservation of land holdings of landowners. The liberated peasants received only 2 tithes of land, that is, only a personal plot. This site, with the then low level of agricultural technologies, could not feed a large peasant family. The peasants were forced to bow to the landowners, the landowners, who had all the land, meadows and forests, turned into dependent laborers, as in Latin America.
Another program document of the Decembrists is the manifesto of Prince Sergei Trubetskoy. Prince Trubetskoy was elected dictator before the uprising. It was this document that had to be signed by the capitulating emperor or Russian senators. This manifesto was created on the eve of the uprising, without lengthy preliminary preparation and comprehensive discussion. He would determine the fate of Russia for the coming years in the event of the success of the rebellion, before the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. The Manifesto abolished the "former government" and replaced it with a temporary one, until the elections to the Constituent Assembly. That is, the Decembrists created the Provisional Government.
Among the priority measures are: the elimination of censorship, serfdom, conscription and military settlements, freedom of religion, equality of all before the law, publicity of courts and the introduction of a jury trial, and a reduction in military service for privates to 15 years. It was proposed to abolish all taxes and duties, to abolish the state monopoly on salt, on the sale of wine, etc.
Thus, the proposals of the Decembrists again led to the destruction of statehood. The state was deprived of a significant part of the receipts to the treasury, and became partially incapacitated. The Decembrists proposed to declare the right of every citizen "to do what he wants." And this with the simultaneous introduction of regional, district, county and volost local assemblies and boards. It is clear that in those conditions this would lead to anarchy. What would the millions of peasants who received "freedom" without land and the right to "do what he wants" would do? And with the simultaneous collapse of the sacred, time-honored royal power and the weakening of the institution of the army, the decentralization of the country. We know a similar example from the history of 1917. Then, after the fall of the tsarist power and the disintegration of the army, almost all counties were engulfed in agrarian riots and the peasant war, in fact, began even earlier than the war between the Whites and the Reds. That is, the actions of the Decembrists led to unrest and civil war, to the collapse of the powerful Russian Empire.
Three attempts to end the case in peace ended in blood
On December 26, 1825, 3 thousand rebels gathered on Senate Square in St. Petersburg. Troops loyal to the government were gathered there, but Nikolai did not want blood. The hero of the Patriotic War of 1812 and the Foreign Campaign of 1813-1814, the Governor-General of St. Petersburg, Mikhail Andreevich Miloradovich, was sent to the rebels. He was loved by the soldiers, he won universal respect for his courage, fearlessness. Miloradovich was a general of the Suvorov school - he participated with the great commander in the Italian, Swiss campaigns, distinguished himself in the campaigns of Kutuzov. He participated in dozens of battles and was not wounded, although he did not bow to bullets. The French nicknamed him "Russian Bayard". On this tragic day, he is twice wounded, one wound will be fatal: Obolensky will hit him with a bayonet, and Kakhovsky will shoot him in the back, mortally wounding the hero of the empire. When the doctors will take out the bullet that pierced his lungs, he will ask her to look at it and, seeing that she is a pistol, will be very happy, exclaiming: “Oh, thank God! This is not a soldier's bullet! Now I am completely happy!"
However, even after this tragedy, the murder of the hero of Russia, the emperor tries again to do without blood. He directs another negotiator. However, the next envoy of the tsar, a French aristocrat who faithfully served Russia, Colonel Sturler, was shot dead by Kakhovsky. The third messenger of peace - Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, the brother of the emperor, was also nearly killed by the Decembrists. The parlamenter was rescued by the sailors of the Guards crew, who withdrew their weapons, indignant at the attempt to kill the unarmed envoy of peace.
After that, the emperor had no choice. History includes the words of the Adjutant General Count Tolya: "Your Majesty, order to clear the area with grapeshot or abdicate the throne." Nikolai ordered to roll out the guns and open fire. The first volley was fired over the people, so that the rebels had a chance to obey. But the rebels began to prepare for a bayonet attack, the second volley scatters the Decembrists. The mutiny has been suppressed.
The head of the Russian Empire, Nikolai, who was recorded in history as "Palkin", showed mercy and philanthropy. In any European country, for such a rebellion, many hundreds or thousands of people would be executed in the most cruel way, so that others would be discouraged. They would have opened the entire underground, many would have lost their posts. In Russia, everything was different: out of 579 people arrested in the case of the Decembrists, almost 300 were acquitted. Only the leaders (and not all of them) and the murderer were executed - Pestel, Muravyov-Apostol, Ryleev, Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Kakhovsky. 88 people were exiled to hard labor, 18 to a settlement, 15 were demoted to soldiers. Corporal punishment was applied to the insurgent soldiers and sent to the Caucasus. The "dictator" of the rebels, Prince Trubetskoy, did not appear at the Senate Square at all, got scared, sat at the Austrian ambassador, where he was tied up. At first he denied everything, then he confessed and asked for forgiveness from the sovereign. And Nicholas I forgave him, our humane "tyrants", however, ruled.
Conclusion
It is clear that if Nicholas showed weakness and such people seized power, then the French Revolution and its consequences could become "flowers". As in France, there would be an immediate split into moderates and radicals (Jacobins). A struggle began already within the Decembrist movement, which aggravated the general turmoil in the country. The Decembrists wanted to seize power, having a real "mess" of various ideas in their heads. There was simply no clear and coherent program of further action. In this respect, the conspiratorial nobles were very much like the "Februaryists" in 1917 and modern liberals.
Unfortunately, in 1917 the situation was different and the Februaryists seized power. The result was very sad: a bloody civil war, chaos and blood, a destroyed economy, a lost war, the loss of vast territories, millions of people who died and fled from the country, the fate of tens of millions of people crippled. Russian civilization and statehood were saved only by a new project - the Soviet one.
Nikita Muravyov and his associates planned to establish a limited monarchy in Russia. Another leader of the conspirators, Pavel Pestel, stood firmly for the republic. Moreover, he spoke not only for the destruction of the institution of autocracy itself, but also for the total extermination of the entire imperial family. For the transitional period, it was planned to establish a dictatorship. Pestel believed that at this time "merciless severity" was needed against any troublemakers. This led to confusion, internal confrontation. It is necessary to take into account the fact that any turmoil in Russia led to external intervention.
The uprising of the Decembrists is the first major attempt to "rebuild" Russia in a Western way, which led to turmoil, civil war and the intervention of external forces, dreaming of dismembering Russian civilization and "swallowing" them, and not the revolt of the "knights of freedom" dreaming of the ideal device of Russia.
