THE RUSSIAN PARTITION 65the Catholic monarchies at home. The very fact that Fenelon or Hobbes wrote
elaborate and various treatises on absolutist theory is evidence in itself of a con-
tinuing debate with advocates of older and different doctrines. Despite the lim-
itless pretensions of a Bourbon or a Habsburg, their real power was always
limited to a greater or lesser degree by the residual resistance of regional or
social groupings. Russian autocracy, in contrast, was the direct descendant of
the primitive, patriarchal despotism of Muscovy. It reigned supreme in a coun-
try where feudal estates had never exercised any autonomous power, and where
the separate role of the Church had been completely crushed. It was not only
more absolute than Absolutism; it had different origins and different emana-
tions. If it had any parallel in Western Europe, it was in the infallibility of the
Roman Pope, whose politico-mystical regime in the Papal States was as puny as
the Russian empire was vast.
As far as the Empire's Polish provinces were concerned, Autocracy brought
at least six major changes to political life. Firstly, it abolished all the traditional
democratic institutions of the old Republic. Secondly, it introduced a central-
ized administrative machine. The Wojewodztwa (Palatinates) were replaced by
a new network of gubernias, where the Governor and the military commander
acted as the direct vehicles of government policy. Thirdly, it reformed official-
dom, whose members henceforth were nominated not elected. From the
Governor down to the lowliest apparitor, their one duty was to transmit orders
from above, on pain of dismissal. Fourthly, it introduced a vast and permanent
military establishment where previously a small mercenary force had been
supplemented by voluntary service. Fifthly, it introduced elaborate means of
political coercion. Sixthly, and most importantly, it sought to transform the
relationship between the state and the individual. As a result of St. Petersburgh's
rooted suspicions, the Polish provinces did not benefit fully from such limited
measures of self-government as were extended to the cities by Catherine in 1775,
or to most of the Russian provinces by the zemstva (provincial councils) after
- Paradoxically, therefore, the Tsarist system called for a greater degree of
conformity and submissiveness from its wayward Polish subjects than from its
submissive Russian core. And it called not merely for blind obedience, but for
what in a later age was to be called 'prawomyslnosc' (internal censorship). The
good citizen could not rely on obeying instructions or on keeping his private
affairs within the limits of the law. He was taught to discipline his thoughts
actively, to cleanse from his mind all trace of personal will. Politics were reduced
to the point at which the subject strove to divine the will of his superiors in
advance, as a form of spiritual exercise. The Tsar-Otets, the 'Little Father' was
to be trusted implicitly; all criticism was to be left to those whose advice was
requested; all abuses were to be borne patiently in gratitude for the 'Russian
bread' that one ate. People were encouraged to think communally, denouncing
and expelling all willful elements from their midst, as the individual seeks to
purge sin from his soul. The ideal was illustrated by a trivial incident at Vilna in
the 1830s as recorded by Uvarov himself: