Konstantin Pobedonostsev - Doctrine

Doctrine

Pobedonostsev held the view that human nature is sinful, rejecting the ideals of freedom and independence as "dangerous delusions of nihilistic youth."

In his "Reflections of a Russian Statesman" (1896), he promoted autocracy and condemned elections, representation and democracy, the jury system, the press, free education, charities, and social reforms. Of representative government, he wrote, "It is terrible to think of our condition if destiny had sent us the fatal gift—the all-Russian Parliament." He also condemned Social Darwinism as erroneous generalisation of Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

In the early years of the reign of Alexander II, Pobedonostsev maintained, though keeping aloof from the Slavophiles, that Western institutions were radically bad in themselves and totally inapplicable to Russia since they had no roots in Russian history and culture and did not correspond to the spirit of Russian people. At that period, he contributed several papers to Alexander Herzen's radical periodical Voices from Russia.

He denounced democracy as "the insupportable dictatorship of vulgar crowd". Parliamentary methods of administration, trial by jury, freedom of the press, secular education – these were among the principal objects of his aversion. He subjected all of them to a severe analysis in his Reflections of a Russian Statesman. He once stated that Russia should be "frozen in time", showing his undivided commitment to autocracy.

To these dangerous products of rationalism he found a counterpoise in popular vis inertiae, and in the respect of the masses for institutions developed slowly and automatically during the past centuries of national life. In his view, human society evolves naturally, just like a tree grows. Human mind is not capable to perceive the logic of social development. Any attempt to reform society is a violence and a crime. Among the practical deductions drawn from these premises is the necessity of preserving the autocratic power, and of fostering among the people the traditional veneration for the ritual of the national Church.

Spanish journalist Enrique Gomez Carrillo compared Pobedonostsev with the Grand Inquisitors of Spain, and quoted him as saying to the later assassinated Tsar, "You have no right to relinquish your power. You are the arm of the (Orthodox) Church. If you become weaker, if you kneel down, then Our Lord Jesus will be asking you for your cowardy".

In the sphere of practical politics he exercised considerable influence by inspiring and encouraging the Russification policy of Alexander III, which found expression in an administrative nationalist propaganda and led to Tsarist Russia's most elaborately justified and most thoroughly carried-out programs of religious persecution, largely centered upon Russia's Jews. These policies were implemented by "May Laws" that banned Jews from rural areas and shtetls even within Pale of Settlement.

Pobedonostsev was influential in promulgation of all anti-Jewish measures taken during the Alexander III's administration, such as deportations of Jews from large cities, proscriptions of property ownership in rural as well as urban areas, enrollment quotas in public education, and the proscription to vote in local elections.

Saying, that "a third of Jews will be converted, a third will emigrate, and the rest will die of hunger," is often attributed to Pobedonostsev. John Klier notes dubious provenance of this quote.

According to British author Arnold White, interested in Jewish agricultural colonisation in Argentina, who visited Pobedonostsev with credentials from Baron de Hirsch, Pobedonostsev said to him: "The characteristics of the Jewish race are parasitic; for their sustenance they require the presence of another race as "host" although they remain aloof and self-contained. Take them from the living organism, put them on a rock, and they die. They cannot cultivate the soil."

Although Pobedonostsev, especially during the later years of his life, was generally detested, there was at least one man who not only shared his views but also sympathized with him personally. It was the novelist Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky. Their correspondence is still read with the utmost interest. "I believe that he is the only man who can save Russia from the revolution", wrote the Russian novelist.