Russia under the Old regime

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for the 'bourgeoisie' in an institution supposed to have embodied 'bourgeois' rule in Russia. This political impotence was due, first and foremost, to a conviction, acquired from centuries of experience that in Russia the path to wealth lay not in fighting the authorities but in collaborating with them, with the corollary conviction that when contenders for political power were locked in combat it was wisest to sit tight.

It is not surprising, therefore, that industrialists and merchants remained inactive in 1917, when their fate hung in the balance. They supported neither the tsarist regime, nor the Provisional Government, nor the anti-communist White Movement. Those who had the money, quietly folded their tents and fled abroad; those who did not, sat on the sidelines, watching the radical intelligentsia fight it out with the nationalist officers and awaiting the better times that never came.

Between ourselves, there are two things that I have always observed to be in singular accord: supercelestial thoughts and subterranean conduct. Montaigne Externally, the most striking quality of Orthodox Christianity is the beauty of its art and ritual. Even after centuries of destruction, the churches and monasteries which have survived in Russia stand out as the most attractive product of human hands in an otherwise bleak and monotonous landscape. This holds true of the majestic cathedrals in Novgorod, Vladimir and the Moscow Kremlin, but no less of the more modest stone churches built at the expense of princes, boyars and merchants, and the wooden chapels erected by the peasants themselves. Of their original decorations little remains, but the best medieval ikons preserved in museums (some, no doubt, of Greek origin) are rendered in a manner which suggests a highly refined taste. Russian liturgical music, unfortunately, was heavily penetrated in the eighteenth century by Italian influences. Still, even in its corrupt form it rarely fails to produce a strong impression, especially during Easter when Orthodox services reach the height of splendour. If these combined visual and aural effects dazzle modern man, it takes little effort to imagine the overwhelming effect they must have had on peasants. It is not without significance for the role which the Orthodox church assigns sensory impressions that according to the Russian Primary Chronicle the decisive consideration in Russia's conversion to Christianity was the effect produced on Kievan emissaries by Constantinople's Hagia Sophia.

The basic doctrinal element in Orthodoxy is the creed of resignation. Orthodoxy considers earthly existence an abomination, and prefers retirement to involvement. It has always been keenly receptive to currents emanating from the orient which preached withdrawal from life, including eremitic and hesychast doctrines striving for total dissociation from earthly reality. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries