Russia under the Old regime

THE PEASANTRY

Take a closer look and you will see that it is by nature a profoundly atheistic people. It still retains a good deal of superstition, but not a trace of religiousness. Superstition passes with the advances of civilisation, but religiousness often keeps company with them too; we have a living example of this in France, where even today there are many sincere Catholics among enlightened and educated men, and where many people who have rejected Christianity still cling stubbornly to some sort of god. The Russian people is different; mystic exaltation is not in its nature; it has too much common sense, a too lucid and positive mind, and therein, perhaps, lies the vastness of its historic destinies in the future. Religiousness has not even taken root among the clergy in it, since a few isolated and exceptional personalities distinguished for such cold ascetic contemplation prove nothing. But the majority of our clergy has always been distinguished for their fat bellies, scholastic pedantry, and savage ignorance. It is a shame to accuse it of religious intolerance and fanaticism; instead it could be praised for exemplary indifference in matters of faith. Religiosity among us appeared only in the schismatic sects who formed such a contrast in spirit to the mass of the people and who were numerically so insignificant in comparison with it.20 How superficial a hold Orthodoxy exercised over the masses is evidenced by the relative ease with which the communist regime succeeded in uprooting Christianity in the heartland of Russia and replacing it with an ersatz cult of its own. The job proved much more difficult to accomplish among Catholics, Muslims and Orthodox Dissenters.

The true religion of the Russian peasantry was fatalism. The peasant rarely credited any event, especially a misfortune, to his own volition. It was 'God's will', even where responsibility could clearly be laid at his own doorstep, e.g. when carelessness caused a fire or the death of an animal. Russian proverbs are full of fatalistic sentiments. When, towards the end of the nineteenth century, the muzhik began to be acquainted with the Bible, he first learned the passages stressing humility and passive acceptance of one's fate.

Finally, as concerns politics. The Russian peasant was undoubtedly a 'monarchist' in the sense that he could conceive of no source of worldly authority other than that emanating from the tsar. He regarded the tsar as God's vicar on earth, a bolshak of all Russia, created by the Lord to give him orders and to take care of him. He gave the tsar credit for all that was good and blamed whatever went wrong either on God's will or on the landlords and officials. He believed the tsar knew him personally and that if he were to knock on the door of the Winter Palace he would be warmly received and his complaints not only heard but understood in their smallest detail. It is because of this patriarchal outlook that the muzhik felt a familiarity towards his sovereign which would have been completely out of place in western Europe. De Segur on his travels in Russia with Catherine the Great observed with surprise the unaffected