Contours

Of Tyranny

Henry VIII

Henry VIII has been one of the most studied of English monarchs; a man who was indeed larger than life. In popular lore he is one of the best known of English rulers. Certainly he has been filmed multiple times. From the film The Private Life of Henry VIII, to Anne of a Thousand Days, to A Man for All Seasons and The Other Boleyn Girl there is an army of film portrayals of Henry VIII.1

The Empress Wu

Chief Advisor and Co-Ruler

Empress Wu Zetian

In a previous posting I discussed the ascension of the Empress Wu to supreme power in China.1 Here I will examine part of the process by which she made herself the only woman to rule China not just in fact but in her own name.

Knowing Better

Gulag Camp

In 1956 Khrushchev gave his secret speech outlining and denouncing the crimes of Joseph Stalin and the Stalinist regime.1

Many people, usually Communists, reacted with shock and horror. Thus the Communist party of the USA and it members said such things as referring to: 

...the shocking disclosures... 

Mr. Foster, the party chairman mentioned: 

...the sweeping revelations of the Stalin cult of the individual.

 Another figure  in the Communist party, Max Weis, of the USA claimed:

...the disclosure of the mistakes made under Stalin's leadership came as a stunning surprise to our Party leadership and membership,... 

Finally the party leader, Mr. Dennis said: 

... the facts disclosed about the errors of Stalin ... are of course, new to us.2 

Was any of this reaction the least bit credible? Or was it nothing more than evidence that the minds of members of the Communist party of the USA were set in concrete like true - believing fanatics?

Another One Bites the Dust

Thoughts on the fall of Gaddafi

Gaddafi in better days

One of the common historical tropes of the last two centuries or so has been the rise and fall of the dictator. We recently have been given a veritable feast of falling and fallen dictators with the ongoing Arab Spring. Bloody and chaotic though it has been it has removed many of the world’s longest lasting dictators.1

Moral Cretinism Part III
Longing for Big Brother


Maurice Merleau-Ponty

In two previous postings I looked at two other examples of morally cretinistic points of view. Both of them were intellectually lightweight as well as being morally bankrupt. In this example we have something that is intellectually heavyweight but just as much morally bankrupt and yes cretinistic.

The piece I will look at today is one of the works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, (1908-1961).1 The work is Humanism and Terror.2 The book is in many respects a typical work of the French twentieth century philosophical school(s). It is in many places highly obtuse and rather difficult. Further it must be remembered that Merleau-Ponty was in many respects an Existential thinker, much concerned with the issue of responsibility and how people relate to each other. Also Merleau-Ponty’s writings are extremely important for twentieth pcentury philosophical notions of reality, epistemology, and phenomenology.3

Humanism and Terror is quite simply an apologia for the Stalinist terror. The fact that it is relatively complex in argument and that then Communists also denounced the book, mainly because it was not sufficiently subservient to Communist / Stalinist shibboleths,4 should not detract from the fact that the book is basically an apologia for terror.

Now in many respects Humanism and Terror, is an aberration in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s career. Shortly after writing it he abandoned much of its argument and reverted back to a position of being highly critical of the Soviet Union and Stalinism in general.5

It is important to set the book into its context in order to understand why Merleau-Ponty went off the rails so to speak. In this case it is important to remember that France had just emerged from the Second World having been occupied for most of it (1940-1944), and that the French Communists had been heavily involved in the resistance to the Nazi occupation. Also important was the role played by the Soviet Union in defeating Nazi Germany. All of this gave Communism and the Soviet Union enormous prestige in the minds of many intellectuals in Europe.

To this was allied the desire to avoid entanglement in another war after the recent appearance of the last devastating one. For a while it appeared that after the war it might be possible for France and much of Western Europe to become a “third way” between the Soviet Union and America. Any strong alliance with America would foreclose this possibility. So there was intellectual resistance to a firm alliance with the rising wave of anti-Soviet antagonism. Finally in many respects many intellectuals saw in rising anti-Soviet agitation something very similar to the rise of Nazism. Of course the belief, not unfounded, among many intellectuals that there was a movement towards a preventive war against the Soviet Union was also a factor in generating pro-Soviet intellectual beliefs. This is combined with a fear that the emerging western alliance against the USSR would preclude any sort of independent policy for Europe.6

Now Merleau-Ponty, wrote his book in large part in response to Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon,7 which is Arthur Koestler’s great novel about the Great Purges in Russia. It important to remember that Arthur Koestler, a former Hungarian Communist who became quite disillusioned about Communism because of the Great Purge, was the object of sustained hysterical attack from Communists and fellow travellers because of his book. Nowadays it is rather hard to see, or more accurately read, what the fuss was about. Anyone reading the novel would note right away that compared to what we do know about the Great Terror the horrors in the novel, albeit real, are pretty tame.8

What seems to have truly infuriated Merleau-Ponty about Koestler’s novel is that Koestler’s “hero” Rubashov seems to have had a very crude and limited understanding of Marxism. Merleau-Ponty also commits the error of assuming that the alleged Marxist crudities of Rubashov are in fact Koestler’s own ideas about Marxism. In fact Merleau-Ponty seems to assume that Soviet Marxists, those in power at least, have ideas about Marxism similar to his own.

Of course Koestler’s novel has stood the test of time rather well. Merleau-Ponty’s work, not so well. So let us get started with looking at Merleau-Ponty’s work.

Let us start with the following from the Author’s Preface:

Any serious discussion of Communism must therefore pose the problem in Communist terms, that is to say, not on the grounds of principles but on the ground of human relations. It will not brandish liberal principles in order to topple communism; it will examine whether it is doing anything to resolve the problem rightly raised by communism, namely to establish among men relations that are human.9

Right away Merleau-Ponty is tipping the scale. There is no reason to automatically assume that the problem must be posed in Communist terms for to do so is to predetermine the outcome right away. This is called loading the dice and fixing the race. What is also of interest is Merleau-Ponty’s relative lack of interest in determining whether or not more “human relations”, (which he does not clearly or more than cursory defines) exist in the Soviet Union. This effort to fix the outcome before hand is intellectually indefensible.

This is the spirit in which we have reopened the question of Communist violence which Koestler brought to light in Darkness at Noon. We have not examined whether in fact Bukharin led an organized opposition nor whether the execution of the old Bolsheviks was really indispensable to the order and the national defense of the U.S.S.R. We did not undertake to re-enact the 1937 trials. Our purpose was to understand Bukharin as Koestler sought to understand Rubashov. For the trial of Bukharin brings to light the theory and practice of violence under communism since Bukharin exercises violence upon himself and brings about his own condemnation. So we tried to discover what he really thought beneath the conventions of language.10

We learn from this passage that bluntly Merleau-Ponty is not interested in the innocence or lack of innocence of the accused; nor is Merleau-Ponty interested in mere fact as it pertains to the trials. Merleau-Ponty is simply interested in what the trial tells us about high abstract theories of justified and unjustified violence. Of course this rejection of mere fact has to be done otherwise Merleau-Ponty would have to consider the fact that the statements made by Bukharin made at his show trial are complete gobblygook he was forced to utter and are no more revealing of his “real” ideas than a confession extracted under torture.

It is of interest that it is utterly clear that Bukharin’s answers, statements etc at his trial have been revealed to be concoctions stage managed to justify the trial and death sentence.11 In order to use Bukharin’s statements Merleau-Ponty must with great intellectual discipline avoid all questions of the validity Bukharin’s testimony. As it is it is valueless. At the time that Merleau-Ponty could easily have been aware that Bukharin’s testimony was likely worthless, as is testimony in all such farcical show trials, but in pursuit of his “higher” truths Merleau-Ponty choose to ignore that.

Later Merleau-Ponty says:

Thus we find ourselves in an inextricable situation. The Marxist critique of capitalism is still valid and it is clear that anti-Sovietism today resembles the brutality, hybris, vertigo, and anguish that already found expression in fascism. On the other side, the Revolution has come to a halt: it maintains and aggravates the dictatorial apparatus renouncing the revolutionary liberty of the proletariat in the Soviets and its Party and abandoning the humane control of the state. It is impossible to be an anti-Communist and it is not possible to be a Communist.12

The above quote is one of the reasons why Communists at the time disliked intensely Merleau-Ponty’s essay despite its apologetic nature. As will become clear it is also clear that at the time of writing this Merleau-Ponty longed to become a Communist and love Big Brother.

Thus later when discussing violence in Revolutions Merleau-Ponty says:

In reality the most serious threat to civilization is not to kill a man because of his ideas (this has often been done in wartime), but to do so without recognizing it or saying so, and to hide revolutionary justice behind the mask of the penal code. For, by hiding violence one grows accustomed to it and makes an institution of it. On the other hand, if one gives violence its name and if one uses it, as the revolutionaries always did, without pleasure, there remains a chance of driving it out of history.13

Aside from the absurd reference to the revolutionaries committing acts of violence without pleasure which is pure propaganda about so-called pure minded, selfless revolutionary leaders, which is nothing but suck up nonsense, it is simply not true that lawless violence is not inherently corrupting. What Merleau-Ponty is talking about is in fact lawless violence. He is right that once that, violence, becomes institutionalized it becomes dangerous, but the bottom lined is that Revolutionary violence is institutional violence also and as such rather dangerous. Especially if the practitioners of said violence are glorified as selfless, disinterested saints.

In a chapter of the book Bukharin and the Ambiguity of History,14 Merleau-Ponty examines Bukharin’s trial and testimony. Amazingly Merleau-Ponty takes it seriously! This of course involves a wilful and deliberate ignorance off the facts of the trial then ascertainable. The idea that Bukharin’s testimony can tell us much about Bukharin’s “real” ideas is absurd. It is even more absurd now that we know that Bukharin was tortured and was told that his wife and young son would be arrested and murdered if he didn’t cooperate.15

Thus on page 59 Merleau-Ponty quotes Bukharin’s “testimony” as if it is unproblematic and untainted. It is obvious that Merleau-Ponty wants very much to believe that Bukharin’s testimony is in fact unproblematic, clear and untainted by such things as torture and threats of arrest and murder of his loved ones. Neither does Merleau-Ponty want to believe that it is corrupted by being rehearsed and faked to serve a specific political purpose, i.e., justifying the “guilt” of the accused and the death sentence and thus cementing Stalin’s power. Merleau-Ponty wants to believe the all powerful, all wise, all knowing and all beneficent Big Brother.

Thus although Merleau-Ponty acknowledges that Bukharin and his fellow accused were:

…up against a persistent police force and an implacable dictatorship.16

Merleau-Ponty still quotes Bukarin as saying:

“World history is a world court of judgement.”17

Merleau-Ponty assumes that this somehow represents the “real” views of Bukharin, which again illustrates nothing except Merleau-Ponty’s desire to believe Big Brother.

The airy-fairy nonsense that Merleau-Ponty assumes that Bukharin accepts his guilt for a large constellation of highly abstract theoretical reasoning based on the assumption that “History” is the ultimate justification and excuse for human actions and that if one opposes “History” one is guilty. Merleau-Ponty wants very much to believe that “History” is the ultimate judge of what is right and wrong and that those things that help “History” towards its goal are justified and thus those historical forces and personages that work towards those ends are morally justified. To but it bluntly the ends justify the means. Thus since Communists are working towards freeing humans they are justified in doing that which furthers that goal. That this would justify all sorts of human abominations and atrocities doesn’t seem to worry Merleau-Ponty very much.

That Merleau-Ponty very much wants to believe this, and surrender his intellect to Big Brother is obvious. What is also obvious despite Merleau-Ponty’s desire is that he can’t do it. Merleau-Ponty just can’t submit to Big Brother.

Of course History as not been kind to Merleau-Ponty’s fantasies regarding Bukharin’s motivations for his testimony. Instead of Merleau-Ponty’s intellectual abstractions it boiled down to torture and threats.

Thus we have Merleau-Ponty say:

The confessions in the Moscow Trials are only the extreme instance of those letters of submission to the central Committee which in 1938 were a feature of daily life in the U.S.S.R. They are only mystifying to those who overlook the dialectic between the subjective and objective factors in Marxist politics.18

The only real mystery is Merleau-Ponty’s inability to discover the dialectic between a prisoner and his jailer, mediated by endless interrogation, starvation, sleep deprivation, beatings and sundry other variations of violent coercion.

Merleau-Ponty then closes this particular chapter by quoting Vyshinsky and Stalin.19 Now Vyshinsky was the head prosecutor of the Moscow show trial and one of the chief orchestraters of that fraud. Why should Vyshinsky’s comments about the accused be taken seriously? As for Stalin anything he as to say about this Judicial Murder is not to be taken seriously. Its of interest that Merleau-Ponty resists the idea that Moscow trials were stage managed and hence valueless as telling us much about the accused. Further it is interesting that Merleau-Ponty leaves the last word about Bukharin’s guilt to his murderers. It is obvious that Merleau-Ponty really wants to believe that Bukharin was working towards effecting a “Capitalist” restoration, and thus Stalin, i.e., Big Brother was justified but once again Merleau-Ponty can’t quite go all the way and submit.

Although Merleau-Ponty denies that he is excusing Stalin by accepting Stalin’s justifications for the terror Merleau-Ponty says thing like:

But then one can say that Stalin overruled the opposition in order to prevent German militarism from thwarting the only country in the world in which socialist forms of production had been established.20

One can say all sorts of things, but about this one can say that it is self serving propaganda, much weakened by the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939-1941.

Another passage that indicate Merleau-Ponty’s deep longing to service Big Brother is:

Although the actions of the Bolsheviks cannot at every moment reflect the immediate sentiments of the proletariat, they must on balance and in the world as a whole hasten the advancement of the proletariat and continuously raise the consciousness of the proletariat’s condition because it is the initiation of truly human coexistence.21

A clear indication that Merleau-Ponty wants to join a cult; in other words an omnipotent organization that can do no wrong and that by definition all it does is “right” even if the people it supposedly represents reject it. In the end the party is the embodiment of “history” and the fulfilling of the “true” needs of human beings. Besides only “history” can really judge if the “right” thing as been done. Once again the longing to submit to Big Brother.

Merleau-Ponty then goes into a long and rather convoluted mystification on the Proletariat and how this gives the party and Marxism its driving force.22 That the Proletariat as the embodiment of the future inevitable course of human history and development, through its mouth piece the party excuses and justifies actions taken on its behalf and only the future can justify, or damn the means used. Thus we read stomach turning bromides like this:

It is no accident, nor, I suppose, out of any romantic disposition that the first newspaper of the U.S.S.R. was given the name Pravda. [Truth] The cause of the Proletariat is so universal that it can tolerate the truth better than any other.23

I suppose one can throw up now. Pravda got by the late twenties at the earliest and especially under Stalin a deserved reputation for outrageous official lying. Once again Merleau-Ponty just cannot help himself he wants Big Brother’s bullet in his brain. The fact is lying in the name of the Proletariat by Communists was almost derigure. So much for love of truth.

It is pointless to quote Merleau-Ponty further on his desire to submit it would only be tedious and annoying however one beautiful quote that illustrates once again Merleau-Ponty’s singularly obtuse refusal to pay attention to mere empirical fact is this:

Within the U.S.S.R. violence and deception have official status while humanity is to be found in daily life. On the contrary, in democracies the principles are humane but deception and violence rule daily life.24

Thus speaks the fellow traveller and obtuse fool who doesn’t wish to learn anything about real life in the Soviet Union at the time. Obviously Merleau-Ponty read all sorts of lying and deceptive accounts by Communists and others about life in the Soviet Union and took it seriously or wanted very much to take it seriously. The dream of the omnipotent state in which people were happy, especially to those on conducted tours is what Merleau-Ponty is indulging in here. Sorry but there was plenty of violence in everyday Soviet life. The violence of intrusive unaccountable officialdom and the violence of continual surveillance.25

In this essay the terrors and mass murders of the regime from Collectivization to the Purges and the labour camps and so forth that took over ten million lives are whisked away in a fog of philosophical abstraction. To call this morally cretinist is to merely call a spade a spade. Fortunately Merleau-Ponty regained his moral footing.26

As I mentioned near the beginning Merleau-Ponty’s flirtation remained just that a flirtation with Communism. Very soon he reverted back to a vastly more critical attitude, which included very rigorous and through denunciations of Soviet foreign policies and the Gulag.27

For a brief time Merleau-Ponty wanted Big Brother’s bullet in his brain, because accepting the omnipotence of the all wise party and Big Brother would have enabled him to avoid the very difficult task of thinking for himself.

Of course “History” as not been kind to Merleau-Ponty’s essay. The view that only “History” can really judge, held by the Communists at the time, and that the ends of “history” justify the means has produced the result that Communism has been swept away into the trash heap of history. History as cast it aside as a murderous aberration in the development of the human race. It was not the embodiment of “history” and its ends but a dead end.

1. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Wikipedia Here.

2. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, Humanism and Terror, Beacon Press, Boston, 1969. (Originally published in 1947 in French).

3. See Footnote 1.

4. See Merleau-Ponty, pp. xiii-xlvii.

5. Judt, Tony, Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals 1944-1956, University of California Press, Berkeley CA, 1994, pp. 113-115, 123-127, Caute, David, The Fellow Travellers, Rev. Edition, Yale University Press, New Haven CT, 1988, p. 331-332.

6. Caute, pp. 329-346, Merleau-Ponty, pp. xiii-xlvii, 178-189.

7. Koestler, Arthur, Darkness at Noon, Bantam Books, New York, 1941.

8. For details about the terror see Conquest, Robert, The Great Terror, Revised Edition, Pimlico, London, 1990, pp. 117-119. Much is not talked about very much in the novel, for example torture is almost entirely absent, and the horrors of the slave labour camps and of collectivization are also largely absent.

9. Merleau-Ponty, p. xv.

10. IBID, p. xv.

11. Conquest, pp. 341-398. We know that Bukharin was tortured and his wife and son threatened with death in order to get Bukharin to “voluntarily” confess see Conquest, pp. 364-365..

12. Merleau-Ponty, p. xxi.

13. IBID, p. 34.

14. IBID, pp. 25-70.

15.See Footnote 11.

16. Merleau-Ponty, p. 62.

17. IBID.

18. IBID, p. 68.

19, IBID, pp. 69-70.

20. IBID, p. 87.

21. IBID, p. 112.

22. IBID, pp. 115-130.

23. IBID, p. 123.

24. IBID, p. 180.

25. Caute, pp. 64-139.

26. See Conquest and Applebaum, Anne, Gulag: A History, Anchor Books, New York, 2003, Khlevniuk, Oleg V., The History of the Gulag, Yale University Press, New Have CT, 2004.

27, See Footnote 5.

Pierre Cloutier

The Rise of the Empress Wu

Empress Wu Zetain
The history of China is fascinating one and full of strange and wonderful events. One of the strangest and most extraordinary is the story of the Empress Wu Zetian.

This story is not well known to the non-Chinese but it does have massive doses of sex and violence to say nothing of carpet chewing over the top plot and intrigue.

This story is about how not only did the Empress Wu Zetian became the de-facto ruler of China but decided to go for it all and make herself Emperor. To became the only women in Chinese history to make herself not just ruler of China but the official ruler of China.1

The Empress Wu Zetian or to give her name Wu Chao, had started out as a concubine in the harem of the second Tang Emperor and had gone on from that to make herself all powerful during the reign of the third Tang Emperor.

To give some background. In the late 6th century C.E., the Sui dynasty had reunified China after almost 400 years of division, civil war and chaos since the fall of the Han dynasty, (c. 220 C.E.)2

The second Sui Emperor, Yang Ti, had dissipated the good will created by his father Wen Ti with a series of brutal policies and wasteful extravagance.3 The result was widespread revolt. Eventually Yang Ti was overthrown by a coup and strangled.4

During this chaos Gaozu took the Chinese capital of Chang-an and established the Tang dynasty by proclaiming himself Emperor in 618 C.E. During all of this he was aided and apparently heavily prodded by his able and ruthless son Taizong. By 626 C.E. China was reunified.5

Taizong in a series of rather ruthless intrigues eliminated his two older brothers and then compelled his father Gaozu to abdicate in 626 C.E. Gaozu lived until 635 C.E. in retirement.

Taizong is considered to be one of the greatest if not the greatest of Chinese Emperors and his reign became a model for how a Chinese Emperor should rule.6


Emperor Taizong
However despite the glory of his reign it was marred by the continual violent intrigues within the court including the usual interminable struggle of the succession.

During all of this Wu Chao entered the Imperial court as a concubine.

Wu Chao was born in the year 625 C.E., and we have the usual stories that were popular among Chinese writers and historians concerning alleged portents that indicated that she would rule. It is rather annoying that historians who should know better take these rather amusing stories concocted after the fact with any sort of seriousness. They are simply not to be taken as anything other than post-hoc concoctions.7

One story has it that a Chinese “face” reader, after examining her face and the way she walked when he examined her at the age of c. 3 years concluded that if she was a girl she would become Emperor of China. Given Chinese and official Confucian attitudes towards women this story can be dismissed as a post-hoc fantasy.8

Other stories like the alleged fact that she liked to wear boy’s clothes as a child and like to explore and go about un-supervised unlike the typical lives of aristocratic girls of the time are more substantial than fantasies concerning alleged prognostications of her future power. This is so because such reports make sense given the very forceful and independent personality Wu Chao would show as Empress. So it would not be a surprise if she exhibited such characteristics as a child.9

Wu Chao’s family, the Wu, although of impeccable aristocratic background and supporters of the Tang dynasty was not a particularity important family and they were to be of little importance or use to Wu Chao in her rise to power. In fact unlike virtually every other Empress who rose to power in Chinese history it was not Wu Chao’s family that was responsible for her rise to power but Wu Chao who was responsible for her families rise to power.10

At the age of 13 in 638 C. E., Wu Chao was selected to be a concubine for the harem of Taizong. She was selected mainly because of her beauty.

We have little idea of what the next decade was like for Wu Chao. It appears that she stayed a minor concubine and further she had no children which severely limited any chance that she could rise in the palace hierarchy. Again several stories are told about Wu Zetain during this time period but they are not really all that plausible but they do give a good idea of what people thought were her chief character traits. Included in these stories is the following which the Empress Wu Zetian allegedly told in later life.

Emperor Taizong had a horse with the name "Lion Stallion," and it was so large and strong that no one could get on its back. I was a lady in waiting attending Emperor Taizong, and I suggested to him, "I only need three things to subordinate it: an iron whip, an iron hammer, and a sharp dagger. I will whip it with the iron whip. If it does not submit, I will hammer its head with the iron hammer. If it still does not submit, I will cut its throat with the dagger." Emperor Taizong praised my bravery. Do you really believe that you are qualified to dirty my dagger.11

Apparently the Emperor Taizong was a little taken aback by Wu Chao’s rather formidable nature and did not advance her in the palace hierarchy.

In the year 649 C.E., the Emperor Taizong died to be succeeded by his son Emperor Gaozong; considered a weak and rather spineless figure, who reigned until 683 C.E.

Emperor Gaozong
Now at the time the custom of the court was that the concubines of the old Emperor upon the Emperor’s death, who had not had children, would retire to live in Buddhist Nunneries.

Thus it appears that at the age of 24 the Wu Chao would live the rest of her life as a Buddhist Nun. That did not happen for the following reasons.12

It appears that Wu Chao had made the acquaintance of Gaozong before Taizong’s death. The story was that Wu Chao seduced him before his father’s death. Since sleeping with the Emperor’s wives and concubines was considered treason and could even get a Emperor’s son killed or disinherited this idea is at least doubtful. Further it fits the rather dull stereotype of the sexually insatiable strong women who gets ahead using sex, that is a common cliché in Chinese historical writing.13

It does appear to be the case though that Wu Chao and Gaozong knew each other and that Gaozong had a certain fondness for her even before his father’s death.

According to the writers what happened was that Gaozong’s Empress named Wang and the Emperor’s favourite concubine Hsiao were engaged in a serious power struggle and the Empress, who was childless, endeavoured to bring Wu Chao back as a rival to keep Hsiao at bay in the interminable game of palace politics.

However what seems to have actually happened is that Wu Chao kept in touch with both Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wang in an effort to cut short her retirement. Wu Chao apparently promised undying gratitude and loyalty to the Empress Wang if she arranged for her to be brought back or at least did not oppose it.

During her exile Wu Chao composed the following poem addressed to Gaozong:

Watching red turn to green, my thoughts are tangled and scattered,
I am dishevelled and torn from my longing for you, my lord.
If you fail to believe that lately I have shed tears constantly,
Open my chest and look for the skirt of pomegranate-red.14

Whatever the actual details of the matter in the year 650 Emperor Gaozong visited the Convent Wu Chao was living at and brought her back to court as one of his concubines. An act which was considered incredibly scandalous, especially since sleeping with your father’s concubines was considered a form of incest.15

Now of course Chinese historians attribute boundless ambition to Wu Chao from the beginning. I rather suspect that what actually was going on was the simple desire of a young women to escape confinement and return to the excitement of court.

What happened next is probably what was decisive. Wu Chao found out that both the Empress Wang and Hsiao, Emperor Gaozong’s favourite concubine were very unpopular at court, further she found out that Gaozong needed help in actually running the Empire. Both those discoveries were decisive in the Empress Wu’s ascent to power.16

Gaozong has had, to put it mildly, an enormous amount of bad press for allegedly being a weakling, a sexual pervert, a stupid man and a complete tool in the hands of Wu Chao. There is room to question that verdict. It appears likely that he was actually fairly intelligent and further that he never became a complete tool in hands of Wu Chao. However it does appear that he was physically a very sickly man subject to blinding headaches and general serious physical weakness, and has he got older he got weaker. It also appears that unlike a lot of weak people he had enough sense to realize that he needed help. In other words Gaozong was simply not up to the demands of running the Empire. It appears that his wife Wang and his other concubines were of absolutely no help to him in terms of helping him rule. They seemed to be more interested in getting riches and favours for themselves and their families than helping him. Wu Chao almost from the moment she was released from confinement was involved in helping him administer and acting to as an advisor to him; that rather than her alleged submission to Gaozong’s supposed sexual perversions was the likely source of her rise to power. Also despite what the historians said later it should be considered at least plausible that Wu Chao, although ruthlessly ambitious genuinely loved her husband.

Wu Chao also shortly began to have children which made the position of the Empress Wang more precarious.

Within a few years Wu Chao began to intrigue against the Empress Wang and the concubine Hsiao. It was no contest. Not only were they both unpopular, they simply were not as bright or good at the game of court politics. Unlike Empress Wang and Hsiao, who dissipated it, Wu Chao used the favours and wealth she received to set up a network of spies in the palace along with a network of people who were loyal to her. The fact that, at least, face to face she exercised tact and modesty also helped. Further Wu Chao deliberately sought out and helped those that the Empress Wang and her family had offended. A high degree of ruthlessness also helped.

In one particularity grotesque incident after Wu Chao gave birth to a daughter. The Empress Wang visited the child. Shortly afterwards the child died. Wu Chao blamed the Empress. Some later Chinese Historians claimed that Wu Chao strangled the child in order to blame the Empress Wang for the death. Aside from indicating the degree of animosity against the Wu Chao by later historians the charge can be dismissed, given that it was a age of very high infant mortality. Although Wu Chao’s willingness to so accuse Empress Wang is a rather telling indication of ruthlessness.17

Wu Chao then introduced Gaozong to her sister, Ho-Lan further cementing her hold over him; given that Gaozong and Ho-Lan soon became lovers.

Wu Chao then began a series of rather complicated intrigues aimed at replacing Empress Wang with herself as Empress. As part of the game of court politics Empress Wang’s mother was banned from court for allegedly practicing sorcery against Wu Chao. Many of Gaozong’s advisors were adamantly opposed to making Wu Chao Empress and opposed the move. Wu Chao was livid, for by this time she had taken to listening to the Emperor’s advisers advising the Emperor from behind a screen. Given that this was very unusual this indicates the role that Wu Chao had already taken as an advisor to the Emperor.

It took a while but gradually Wu Chao got rid of the advisers who opposed her elevation to becoming Empress, by championing a court faction that supported her as a way of getting rid of the old guard and coming to power.

Eventually Empress Wang and Hsiao were accused of plotting to poison the Emperor and disposed and replaced by Wu Chao in 655 C.E. Not long after they were killed by having their hands and feet cut off and being left to bleed to death. The new Empress Wu Zetian punished those who had opposed her elevation to power and rewarded her allies. Her son Li Hung was made crown prince replacing Li Chung the Empress Wang’s adopted son who was not long for this world.18

The Empress Wang took her fall and death rather stoically. The concubine Hsiao was a lot less resigned. Hsiao allegedly said:

‘Wu is a deceitful fox, who had sealed my fate,’ she said. ‘I pray that in all my future lives I will come back as a cat, and she is a mouse. Then in each life I will tear her throat out’19

The Empress Wu is said to have removed all the cats from the various Imperial palaces in response.

The next few years were an interminable wrangle of petty palace intrigues and vendettas as the Empress Wu Zetian consolidated her position with considerable bloodshed and ruthlessness, but on a more constructive note showed a extraordinary talent for selecting able men to help rule the empire. Among those eliminated were certain relatives of the Empress Wang who had blocked Wu Zetain’s ascent and who she considered threats to her position.

Two things marked the great turning point by which Wu Zetian became if the not the sole ruler of the Empire the main ruler with her husband Gaozong giving up most authority to her although he did not make her regent. In late 660 C.E. Gaozong got very seriously ill and the Empress Wu Zetian took over the day to day administration of the Empire. She very quickly proved to be remarkably able and had the stamina for the tedious time consuming work of day to day administration. Although the Emperor eventually recovered Wu Zetain remained active in the day to day administration of the empire from then on. It appears that from then on even when the Emperor was in good health most of the day to day administrative work remained in the hands of the Empress Wu Zetain.

A few years after this, in 663 C.E., a final attempt was made to dispose Wu Zetain. It appears that Wu Zetain had employed a certain Taoist priest who was alleged to have engaged in sorcery. Certain of the Emperor Gaozong’s advisors used this to get from him a degree ousting Wu Zetain as Empress. The fact that Wu Zetain had also been acting arrogantly had also enraged the Emperor. Unfortunately for the plotters the Empress had spies all over the palace who reported this too her. Wu Zetain rather than hide or beg went and confronted her husband Gaozong. The historians claim that Gaozong just gave in fearing her anger. Rather doubtful. It appears that Wu Zetain got rid of the Taoist priest and started acting more modestly and less arrogantly. No doubt she reminded her husband of her considerable political and administrative skills and her basic loyalty to him. The advisors and officials who advised Gaozong on this course of action were arrested and imprisoned. Wu Zetain was now securely position as if not ruler of China as at least co-ruler of China.20

The dynastic history records as follows concerning the aftermath of this final attempt to oust Wu Zetain:

From this event, whenever the Emperor attended to business, the Empress hung a curtain and listened from behind it. There was no matter of government, great or small, she did not hear. The whole sovereign power of the Empire passed into her hands. Life and death, reward or punishment were hers to decide. The Son of Heaven sat on the throne and folded his hands, that is all. In court and in the country, they were called the Two Sages.21

At another time I will look at the process by which Wu Zetain made herself official ruler of China.

Tang Dynasty China in 700 C.E.
1. Dawson, Raymond, Imperial China, Penguin Books, London, 1972, pp. 88-89, Benn, Charles, China’s Golden Age, Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 4-5.

2. IBID, pp. 52-65.

3. IBID, Benn, p. 1, Wen Ti reigned 581-604 C.E. Yang Ti 604-618 C.E. Executions, the brutal building of the Grand canal and incredible extravagance in the midst of famine and natural disaster were the back ground to revolt along with disastrous invasions of Korea.

4. Dawson, p. 64.

5. Yes that is where the orange drink got its name.

6. See Dawson, pp. 69-81, Fitzgerald, C. P., Son of Heaven, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1933, for a biography of this extraordinary man. Benn gives an excellent overview of what life was like during the Tang dynasty.

7. Both Fitzgerald, C. P., The Empress Wu, Second Edition, Cresset Press, London, 1968, and Cawthorne, Nigel, Daughter of Heaven, One World Pub., Oxford, 2007, take these stories too seriously.

8. See Cawthorne, pp. 18-19, Fitzgerald, 1968, repeats the story in his prologue.

9. IBID, pp. 16-18. See also Fitzgerald, 1968, pp. 1-15.

10. Both Cawthorne and Fitzgerald both make this quite clear. See also Dawson pp. 81-85.

11. Wikipedia, Wu Zetian Here. Quoting a Chinese Historian.

12. Cawthorne, pp. 66-71, Dawson, pp. 81-82.

13. IBID, pp. 44-61, 66-67, 70-73. See also Fitzgerald 1968.

14. Cawthrone p. 69.

15. IBID, 70-71, See also Fitzgerald, 1968.

16. IBID, p. 73. See also Dawson, pp. 81-83.

17. IBID, p. 74, Dawson, p. 82, Fitzgerald , 1968 is especially emphatic that it is unlikely that the Empress Wu murdered the child.

18. IBID, pp 76-78, 83-84, Dawson, pp. 81-83. See also Fitzgerald 1968.

19. IBID, p. 83. Quoting a Chinese Historian.

20. IBID, pp. 91-92, 94-95. See also Fitzgerald, 1968.

21. Cawthrone, p. 96. Quoting the Dynastic History. Part of quote also appears in Dawson, p. 82 and Fitzgerald, 1968.

Pierre Cloutier

Stephens’ “Cornerstone”

Alexander Hamilton Stephens

Alexander Hamilton Stephens, (1812-1883), Vice President of the Confederacy and all round politician was basically a moderate. His political record indicates on many matters that he was in no way a Southern extremist or a pro-slavery fanatic. In fact his moderation is abundantly indicated in much, if not all of his political record.1 It is that well attested and correct perception of Stephens as a moderate that makes his infamous Cornerstone speech both interesting and illuminating.

The Cornerstone speech was given by Stephens in a hall in the city of Savannah on March 21, 1861 and in it he discusses the principles and prospects of the new Confederate government and state.

Stephens mentions that although the new Confederate constitution is almost exactly the same as the older American constitution it as some changes that as you read Stephen’s states are for the better.

Some changes have been made. Some of these I should have preferred not to have seen made; but other important changes do meet my cordial approbation. They form great improvements upon the old constitution. So, taking the whole new constitution, I have no hesitancy in giving it as my judgment that it is decidedly better than the old.2

After this introduction Stephen’s then outlines the improvements all of which are those that were subject to sectional disputes. For example:

We allow the imposition of no duty with a view of giving advantage to one class of persons, in any trade or business, over those of another. All, under our system, stand upon the same broad principles of perfect equality. Honest labor and enterprise are left free and unrestricted in whatever pursuit they may be engaged. This old thorn of the tariff, which was the cause of so much irritation in the old body politic, is removed forever from the new.3

Thus the tariffs which sought by taxation to improve the prospects of American Business but which were considered an imposition by many Southerners, including cotton growers are deemed unconstitutional. This was of course largely opposed not simply because it was perceived to be against the interests of planters but because it was perceived to be interference in the day to day activities of planters and their economic prospects.

Again, the subject of internal improvements, under the power of Congress to regulate commerce, is put at rest under our system. The power, claimed by construction under the old constitution, was at least a doubtful one; it rested solely upon construction. We of the South, generally apart from considerations of constitutional principles, opposed its exercise upon grounds of its inexpediency and injustice.4

Here is another restriction upon the central government. It was believed that the power to finance and carry out internal improvements was unjust; in that monies collected at A should not go to pay improvements in B. further lurking behind this was the idea that the central government could use such leverage to interfere in “domestic institutions”, (slavery), and therefore the central government should be kept out. Only states should do internal improvements. Of course Stephens never explains how state taxation used to pay for improvements in county A as against county B were any different from a central government using tax money from state A to pay for improvements in state B.

Another feature to which I will allude is that the new constitution provides that cabinet ministers and heads of departments may have the privilege of seats upon the floor of the Senate and House of Representatives and may have the right to participate in the debates and discussions upon the various subjects of administration.5

This change is of course the adoption of a feature of the British system which has Cabinet Ministers defending their policies in Parliament and their seats. Stephens however feels that Cabinet Ministers should be only selected from the elected representatives of the Confederate Congress or Senate. So that the system is even more similar to the British system.

Another change in the constitution relates to the length of the tenure of the presidential office. In the new constitution it is six years instead of four, and the President rendered ineligible for a re-election. This is certainly a decidedly conservative change. It will remove from the incumbent all temptation to use his office or exert the powers confided to him for any objects of personal ambition.6

Another indication of Confederate fear that central authority could lead to the creation of system by which the central government is used for purposes that reward “spoils” men and ambition. It is of course interesting that there seems to be little concern that state central authority could be used in the same way. Of course it is mainly just another way of protecting the “local” authority from the central government’s power.

Stephens then comes to the central focus of the improvements in the new Confederate constitution.

But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."7

Now Stephens out of his own mouth utters the great central truth about Succession and the establishment of the Confederacy and the central “principle” on which it is based. He casts aside the Declaration of Independence’s statement “All men are created equal”, that they are endowed with certain “inalienable” rights. Stephens even admits that Jefferson and the founding fathers hoped Slavery would wither away eventually. Stephens further admits that slavery and the agitation around slavery were the cause of succession and hence the civil war that might come. Stephens further declares that the founders were wrong to think that slavery was wrong and should hopefully disappear. Thus in some respect the creation of the Confederacy was a revolution against the Declaration of Independence and the hopes of the Founders. All of this especially in light of what Stephens would say later and the established “correct” version created in the late 19th century, is most revealing. Here right at the beginning of the Civil War a prominent Southern Statesman, and a moderate to boot, was emphatically saying it was about slavery. Stephens is not finished however.

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the
equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.8

Thus Stephens emphatically says that the “cornerstone” of the Confederacy is human inequality and the slavery that arises from such inequality. Further that slavery was natural, good and proper for Black people. That the notion of basic human equality was false and wrong and that inequality was the great principle of the Confederacy which would one day be recognized world wide.

It is upon this, as I have stated, our social fabric is firmly planted; and I cannot permit myself to doubt the ultimate success of a full recognition of this principle throughout the civilized and enlightened world.9

Stephens again reiterates that inequality and hence slavery is the basis of the Confederate social system. I wonder what Jefferson would have thought?

May we not, therefore, look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledgment of the truths upon which our system rests? It is the first government ever instituted upon the principles in strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society. Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature's laws. With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. The architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the proper material-the granite; then comes the brick or the marble. The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it is best, not only for the superior, but for the inferior race, that it should be so. It is, indeed, in conformity with the ordinance of the Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances, or to question them. For His own purposes, He has made one race to differ from another, as He has made "one star to differ from another star in glory." The great objects of humanity are best attained when there is conformity to His laws and decrees, in the formation of governments as well as in all things else. Our confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws. This stone which was rejected by the first builders "is become the chief of the corner" the real "corner-stone" in our new edifice. I have been asked, what of the future? It has been apprehended by some that we would have arrayed against us the civilized world. I care not who or how many they may be against us, when we stand upon the eternal principles of truth, if we are true to ourselves and the principles for which we contend, we are obliged to, and must triumph.10

So Black people are created to be subordinate; to be the foundation of the Confederate system. It is a “principle” that Blacks being inferior should be subordinate, indeed enslaved, and that the Confederate government is founded on this “natural” inferiority and subordination, which of course is “best” for Black people. The Confederate government is carrying out, according to Stephens, in practice the divinely ordained principle of the “natural” subordination of the “inferior” and further this is the foundation of the Confederate government and society. What Stephens said latter about this speech is most revealing but more of that later.

The rest of Stephens’ speech is an optimistic look at the prospects of the new Confederacy and how given its wealth, size, population the prospects were very bright for both survival and expansion.

Well we all now how the story turned out; the Confederacy was crushed in a 4 year civil war by the far more powerful Union. Slavery both collapsed and was destroyed. Blacks in the former Confederacy gained certain political rights which they exercised and then came the backlash in which, so-called, “Bourbon” governments regained power and instituted mass disenfranchisement, “Jim Crow” laws, massive violence against Blacks etc., etc. During all of this a re-writing of the Civil War and the conflicts that preceded it was done. Characterized by demonizing Abolitionists, down playing or in fact ignoring slavery, disregarding black people and any perspectives they might have, combined with a romantic nostalgic idea of the “Lost Cause” and the Confederacy. A prime example of that was the novel Gone with the Wind. In this atmosphere that emerged after the Civil War many former Confederate politicians had ample scope to get a sympathetic hearing for what the war and conflict was “really” about. In other words they either lied a lot or exercised extraordinary self deception. What was said before and after the Civil War could and did differ. It was simply unacceptable to state bluntly that the Confederacy was mainly created to safeguard slavery from real and perceived threats against it so history in hindsight was rewritten to say, over and over again, ad-nauseaum that succession and the Civil War was not about slavery at all that it was a mere incident to real causes that were more honourable and not disagreeable causes like retaining and safeguarding slavery. Added to this was a copious literature stating again ad-nauseaum that slavery was nothing much to get upset about anyway. So in this conducive atmosphere of self-deception and revisionism Stephens could toss out his “explanation” of his speech. Said speech stood out like a drunken groom at a wedding it had to be ignored as much as possible, and when impossible to ignore explained away.11

As for my Savanna speech, [The Cornerstone Speech] about which so much has been said and in regard to which I am represented as setting forth "slavery" as the "corner-stone" of the Confederacy, it is proper for me to state that that speech was extemporaneous, the reporter's notes, which were very imperfect, were hastily corrected by me; and were published without further revision and with several glaring errors.12

First we hear that the Reporters notes were “inaccurate” a common tactic when a politician says something that turns out to be embarrassing later on. Of course it is rather interesting that Stephens was saying similar things at other meetings at the same time so I think it rather likely the reporter got the speech right.13

The order of subordination was nature's great law; philosophy taught that order as the normal condition of the African amongst European races. Upon this recognized principle of a proper subordination, let it be called slavery or what not, our State institutions were formed and rested. The new Confederation was entered into with this distinct understanding. This principle of the subordination of the inferior to the superior was the "corner-stone" on which it was formed. I used this metaphor merely to illustrate the firm convictions of the framers of the new Constitution that this relation of the black to the white race, which existed in 1787, was not wrong in itself, either morally or politically; that it was in conformity to nature and best for both races. I alluded not to the principles of the new Government on this subject, but to public sentiment in regard to these principles. The status of the African race in the new Constitution was left just where it was in the old; I affirmed and meant to affirm nothing else in this Savannah speech.14

This is hemming and hawing it in my opinion amounts to I said something almost exactly like I was reported saying but I didn’t say exactly that. Finally it is very easy to demonstrate that Stephens’ view of the relationship that existed between Blacks and Whites in 1787 is simply wrong. Not only were all Blacks not subordinate to all Whites in 1787 some could vote and were recognized has state citizens by some states. Further it is easy to demonstrate that some free Blacks who lived in the Confederacy were not a subordinate class to all Whites. As for the rest of it that he was merely repeating that the “African race” was in the same position under the new constitution of the Confederacy as under the old U.S.A. constitution, a reading of the speech reveals this to be, shall we say “bogus”. Stephens in the recorded speech calls the subordination, slavery, of the Black person as a clear founding principle of the new Confederate government, and admits clearly that the founders, including Jefferson, thought all men were basically equal and looked forward to the eventual disappearance of slavery. Further he states that the Founders believed as a principle in essential human equality whereas the new Confederate government was founded on the principle of inequality and that this was a great truth which would soon be recognized world wide. In other words Stephens is lying. Whether or not he was consciously lying when he wrote the above is unknown but even if he believed his own lies he was still lying.15

How can I be so sure that Stephen’s was lying? It is easy. On March 13, 1861 in Atlanta Stephens gave a speech in which he said the following concerning the Confederate Constitution and aims of its creators; that they:

…solemnly discarded the pestilent heresy of fancy politicians, that all men, of all races, were equal, and we had made African inequality and subordination, and the equality of white men, the chief corner stone of the Southern Republic.16

It is easy to demonstrate how during the various Succession crises how central the survival of slavery was to believers in Succession, how concerned so many were with securing the survival of slavery. How during the actual crisis of the succession winter of 1860-61, how central was slavery to their demands for succession. The contemporary documents, newspaper accounts talk all about what a grave threat to slavery was the election of Abraham Lincoln. About how only succession would secure slavery from attack. After the war the contemporary documentary record was ignored and the losers spent enormous time and resources rewriting i.e., falsifying history and their own deeds and words.17 Stephens’ efforts resulted in his multi-volume book A Constitutional View of the Late War between the States. The book alleged that the war was over the principle of constitutional liberty and the centralization and tyranny. That slavery was a mere question over which these two principles fought and that to call those who fought the efforts of those in the north to centralize and impose tyranny a pro-slavery party or group was utterly false.18 To describe this as untrue is to be evasive it is quite simply bold-face lies. Stephen’s cornerstone speech damns his post war apologia as simply false. In early 1861 Stephens’ could publicly state what the conflict was really about just as could other Southern politicians, Newspapers etc. After the war it was recognized that such honesty was unacceptable and it was too painful to accept in retrospect what the conflict had been mainly about so memory and history had to be “corrected” and a new improved version of reality banded about. Thus regarding the American Civil War what former Confederate politicians said about the causes of the conflict after the war should be discounted as self-serving and efforts concentrated on what they said and or did at the time. Stephens is an excellent example of this.

This last comment by Stephens illustrates to perfection the self serving nature of the post-war flood of ex-Confederate memoirs and apologia.

My own opinion of slavery, as often expressed, was that if the institution was not the best, or could not be made the best, for both races, looking to the advancement and progress of both, physically and morally, it ought to be abolished. It was far from being what it might and ought to have been. Education was denied. This was wrong. I ever condemned the wrong. Marriage was not recognized. This was a wrong that I condemned. Many things connected with it did not meet my approval but excited my disgust, abhorrence, and detestation. The same I may say of things connected with the best institutions in the best communities in which my lot has been cast. Great improvements were, however, going on in the condition of blacks in the South. Their general physical condition not only as to necessaries but as to comforts was better in my own neighbourhood in 1860, than was that of the whites when I can first recollect, say 1820. Much greater would have been made, I verily believe, but for outside agitation. I have but small doubt that education would have been allowed long ago in Georgia, except for outside pressure which stopped internal reform.19

Interestingly it is not difficult to find that yes indeed Stephens is telling the truth when he indicates that prior to the war he had problems with certain aspects of slavery. However he does not mention that he expressed his doubts privately and even then only intermittently. As for his comment about slavery should be abolished if it wasn’t for the best for both Black and White. Well considering that he said repeatedly before the war, in public, that slavery was for the best for Black and White I doubt that this post war comment is entirely to be trusted. Also he became a wealthy slave owner which would certainly indicate that his doubts about the system were not very deep when combined with his public silence of the systems problems.

It is revealing that Stephens mentions that even the best institutions and communities have problems, rather indicating that slavery wasn’t so bad after all; it just needed to be twicked. This is made clear by Stephen’s assertion that “great improvements” were being made in the conditions of Blacks, that they were becoming comfortable and even getting “comforts” i.e., luxuries. This is self serving and not to be taken seriously. It is an established fact that the life expectancy of Black slaves was significantly worst than the White life expectancy in the south. The actual exact figure is unknown but it appears to have been as little as one half White life expectancy. In other words slavery produced conditions of life has bad as the worst city slum. I frankly doubt that conditions much improved between 1820-1860 for slaves.20

Then comes the required denunciation of the Abolitionists accusing them, by their “agitation” of retarding efforts to ameliorate the conditions of slaves. This is nonsense. Stephens is trying to excuse his own and other’s silence on the matter of slave conditions. The bottom line is that the improvement of slave conditions such as recognizing slave marriage, limiting the break up of families by sale, and allowing for slave education, would have limited the power of slave owners over their human chattels and so were opposed by the great majority of slave owners. After all the slave owner owned slaves for their own profit not to benefit their slaves and limits on the ownership of their slaves would potentially limit their profits. Certainly education had in the mind of most slave owners the potential of encouraging slaves to want to be free and questioning their subordination. Stephens should have read some Frederick Douglas.

Also it is quite clear that the movement to reform slavery in the south, manumission societies etc., had almost entirely died before the advent of Abolitionism simply because the institution had become very profitable and quite dynamic. There had emerged in the South a powerful constituency interested in perpetuating the institution and getting rid of by fair means or foul any effort to attack the system and this included efforts to reform it, which was seen, rightly in my opinion, as steps towards its eventual abolition.21

Abolitionism emerged as a response to the vitality and strength of the institution and the disappearance of efforts to reform it, along with the flat out disappointment of the founder’s hope that the institution would gradually wither away.22

As I said earlier Stephens was a moderate, even during the Succession winter of 1860-61 he suggested that Abraham Lincoln could be worked with, that his election was nothing to succeed over. He had strong Unionist beliefs and became a secessionist reluctantly. In fact he voted against succession at the Georgia Succession convention. Also he supported candidates like Stephen Douglas who were considered anathema in the South. And as indicated above he had doubts about slavery.23 So it is entirely illuminating to see that this moderate said emphatically that the main cause of all this turmoil was slavery and that the foundation of the new state was the enshrining of this “subordination”. Further he stated that the idea of basic human equality was wrong and that one of the principles of the new Confederate government was human inequality. Finally that He, Stephens, agreed with all the above. If this was the opinion of a moderate and a rather extreme moderate at that for the South at the time; it doesn’t take much to guess what the less moderate, let alone the extremists must have thought. It is ironic that after the war Stephens pictured the conflict as one of liberty against tyranny considering that what the new Confederate government wanted to make safe was the domestic tyranny / despotism of slavery and that is what ultimately Stephens when he threw his lot in with the Confederate government was fighting for and although he would candidly admit it before the war afterwards it became unmentionable and was denied.

In the end this counter revolution against the American Revolution failed but its poisonous fruit continue to mar politics right to the present day.

1. See Wikipedia, Alexander Stephens, Here

2. Cornerstone Speech from Teaching American History Here

3. IBID.

4. IBID.

5. IBID.

6. IBID.

7. IBID.

8. IBID.

9. IBID.

10. IBID.

11. Stampp, Kenneth M., The Irrepressible Conflict, The Imperiled Union, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980, pp. 191-245. For a look at the causes of the Civil War that puts slavery front and cener see, Ransom, Roger L., Conflict and Compromise, Cambridge University Press, 1989.

12. Stephens, Alexander Hamilton, Recollections of Alexander H. Stephens, Sunny South Publishing Co., New York, 1910, pp. 172-175, the full work can be located at Internet Archive, Here, Just the actual apologia analyzed can be found at Adena Here.

13. Dew, Charles B., Apostles of Disunion, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 2001, pp. 15-16.

14. See Footnote 12.

15. For the position of free Blacks and the constitutional position of same see Fehrenbacher, Don E., The Dred Scott Case, Oxford University Press, New York, 1978, pp. 335-364. For the position of free Blacks in the South see Berlin, Ira, Slaves without Masters, The New Press, New York, 1974.

16. Quoted in Dew p. 16.

17. IBID. pp. 15-21, Stampp, pp. 191-245. For an account of the coming of the war that uses contemporary sources and emphasizes slavery see Klein, Maury, Days of Defiance, Vintage Books, New York, 1997.

18. Stephens, Alexander Hamilton, A Constitutional View of the Late War between the States, 2 volumes, National Publishing Company, Philadelphia PA, 1868-1870, pp. vol. I 9-12, vol. II 534-537.

19. See Footnote 12.

20. See David, Paul A. et al, Reckoning with Slavery, Oxford University Press, New York, 1976 for a collection of essays on the living / working conditions of slaves. See especially Sutch, Richard, The Care and Feeding of Slaves, pp. 231-301. See also Stampp, Kenneth M., The Peculiar Institution, Vintage Books, New York, 1956, pp. 237-278, Blassingame, John W., The Slave Community, Revised Edition, Oxford University Press, New York, 1979, pp. 249-283. For a look on how slaves were controlled that is clear eyed and shocking see Jones, Norrece T., Born a Child of Freedom Yet a Slave, Wesleyan University Press, London, 1990.

21, See Stampp, 1980, Dew, Oakes, James, The Ruling Race, Vintage Books, New York, 1982, and Slavery and Freedom, Vintage Books, New York, 1991, Channing Steven A., Crisis of Fear, W.W. Norton and Co., New York, 1974.

22. Stampp. 1980.

23. See Footnote 1.

Pierre Cloutier

“Development”?

One of the problems of the historiography of modern Europe is the “westernization” and “modernization” of Russia and why this process which started with Peter the Great seems to have had at best only a partial success? Why as Russia in so many ways proved to be resistant to the process of “westernization” and “modernization”?

Maybe the question should be phrased differently; perhaps the reason why Russia failed to “westernize”, “modernize” more than particially is precisely the effects of the process of “westernization” and “modernization”.

Yet if the Russian experience warns against any single, linear theory of modernisation, the concept nevertheless helps to bring into focus crucial interrelationships between government, economy, and society. Russia’s kinship-dominated peasant communities were not the casual detritus of government-led modernisation: they were its direct consequence. As the state counted the cost of its new standing army, its extensive multi-national territories, its administrative institutions, and its glittering cosmopolitan capital, the people paid the price. Risk-averse peasants relapsed into intensified collective responsibility as the only safe way to meet the government’s increasing fiscal demands. The more Russia’s rulers tried to modernize their state, the more backward their empire became.1

This opens up a whole new area of thought. Usually the “modernizers” of Russian History like Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, are celebrated has great visionaries and bearers of progress and enlightenment. The above quote asks us to think again about the real legacy of such reform from above.

Aside from the issue of exaggerating Russia’s isolation from the “west” and Russia’s “backwardness”, and locating “all” “good” in adopting the attributes of the “west”, this approach systematically ignores certain features of Russian development. Of course such an approach flatters the chauvinistic assumptions of “westerners” and also plays into the assumption that some how Russia really isn’t part of the “west”.

For example Peter the Great’s reformation of Russian society, economy and culture was accomplished through a vast strengthening of the forces of coercion and violence. It was a top down operation. Even today we have little idea of the sheer scale of violence and bloodshed required to effect these changes. Peter the Great used a vast Secret Police network and mass terror. I could give a long list of Peter’s myriad atrocities. I will simply mention that the building of St. Petersburg on a delta of the Neva river cost the lives of who knows how many forced labourers.2

Peterof palace near St. Petersburg

In fact due to violent oppression, massive fiscal demands etc., it appears that the population of Russia actually fell during Peter’s reign.3 In many respects Peter was similar to Stalin in that much of the modernization accomplished was through violent, coercive means in a process that was frequently costly and wasteful in lives and money. It was also accompanied by a massive extension of state power. If anything society became far more rigid, intrusive and authoritarian than before.4

Russia under the old regime was in many ways a centralized, authoritarian state with some truly unpleasant features, but it appears in many respects Peter the Great’s reforms massively strengthened these features of the state.5

The creation of a bureaucratic system of police surveillance with a vast array of police spies and intrusive bureaucratic system went hand in hand with a systematic regularization of procedure, including the systematic use of torture. Hand in hand with this process went the vast expansion of the internal passport system and similar measures to control internal movement. Censorship and other forms of detecting and destroying thought-crime also were regularized. And of course the use of such means of punishment has exile; forced labour and execution were also systemitized.6

To quote:

The Peterine reforms were also the apotheosis of statism that in practice left no place until now for other (nonstate) forms of social existence. The era of the Peterine reforms was the time of the foundations of the totalitarian state, the graphic preaching and inculcation into mass consciousness of the cult of the strong personality – the boss, “the father of the nation,” “the teacher of the people.” It was also the time of the start-up of the “eternal prime mover” of a native bureaucratic machine that worked until now according to its own internal laws alien to society.7

If Peter the Great left behind a legacy that can be described as ambiguous what can one say about Catherine the Great?

Of course Catherine the Great has a huge horde of modern “western” fans who once again, like with Peter, writhe in ecstasy at the “reformer’s” feet. The legion of biographies taken in by her posturing and building, and very successful wars of conquest are characterized by fawning hero worship.8

The fact is Catherine continued the process of enforced “westernization” of Peter although with vastly less overt brutality. The power of the state was largely undiminished and so was the way in which the state operated. What changed was that Catherine decided to make the nobility her ally in the ruthless exploitation of Russia. Her “reforms” and “freeing” of the nobility were accompanied by giving to the nobility vastly greater autocratic powers over the peasantry. These powers already very large before Peter were increased by Peter and reached their apogee under Catherine. Even her founding of hospital’s orphanages etc., and of course the Noble Bank, which was basically nothing more than means to allow the nobility to loot the treasury.9

It is the peasantry that paid most of the price for the “westernization” of Russia and Russia’s development into a great power.

The fiscal and social exploitation of the peasantry by the state increased massively under the “westernization” regimes. This was accompanied by an increase in exploitation by the nobility, who like the state had to pay for their efforts to “westernize”.

Before Peter the Great became Tsar the overwhelming majority of Russian peasants had through state coercion become Serfs. Either serfs proper, bound to particular nobles, or state peasants. They had gradually over a period of several centuries been striped of their rights and partially enslaved. Eventually in fact serfs could be bought and sold.10

The great symbol of fiscal oppression by the state was the soul tax, which flagrantly disregarded the ability to pay, which each adult male was required to pay to the state. It was regressive and each village community or Mir was made responsible for the tax. The tax was devised and was implemented in the reign of Peter the Great. It was part of a whole series of taxes and impositions (labour, men for the army etc.) that imposed themselves on the peasantry and which the peasantry dealt with by reinforcing and strengthening ideas of communal responsibility. Further this constant and quite sustained fiscal etc., pressure from the state and landlord created among the peasantry a situation in which individual initiative was not rewarded but in fact punished. The result was the creation of a risk adverse culture among the peasantry, a lack of interest in rural development and especially agricultural development. The result was the backwardness of Russian agriculture.11

One of the most interesting features of the development of Russia during this time is the lack of interest by the state in developing roads. Why this is so is subject to much debate. It was perhaps the huge cost radically improving the road system combined with a reliance on water transport.12 It is possible that this neglect was in part because an improved road system although it would reduce the cost of moving goods considerably would also ease the flight of peasants away from their bondage.

The other taxes imposed by the state were similarly regressive and fell heavily on the peasantry that took refuge from the onerous obligations to state and landlord through collective responsibility. The fact that the state later on created institutions that gave massive largess to the nobility in return for their support further increased the fiscal oppression of the state. If you add in labour corves etc., the fiscal oppression of the peasantry was severe. To add to the peasantries woes the soul tax and other taxes increased substantially over time as well as the landlord’s demands.13

Everything else in Russian society was coloured by the ruthless fiscal oppression of the peasantry. The idea that the west could be emulated by obedience and coercion, that people could be regimented to be free was omnipresent. The habits of pre-peterine Russia of slavish obedience and the capricious and oppressive nature of authority that was not bound by agreed upon rules was if anything increased under the “westernization” regimes. Education produced not the autonomous individuals of the west but technocrats whose basic attitude was slavish subordination. The result was a continual need to import experts from the west. In many respects the backwardness of Russia was noticeably increased as “westernization” including a dynamic and expensive foreign policy, created such demands on society as to drain away the money and initiative to actually transform society.14

A classic example of the massive extension of state power under the “westernization” regimes was the treatment of the Church. In the pre-peterine period the Church had a certain degree of real autonomy; the result of Peter’s “reforms” and the actions of certain of his successors, especially Catherine the Great, was to turn the Church into a adjunct of the state and to greatly if not fatally damage the Church in spiritual terms. Basically the Church became an object of manipulation and abuse by the state. It became a cash cow of the state and another way of squeezing the population. If the Church had serious problems before Peter they became immeasurably worst under Peter and his successors.15

Economic and commercial development proceeded to a large extent without the creation of a self aware, self confident middle class / bourgeoisie, dependence on state help and manifold interference by the state was omnipresent and oppressive.16

The end result was a state and society whose “westernization was to a large extent superficial and based on intense coercion and oppression. In many respects features of pre-peterine Russia were intensified by “westernization”. Certainly not intended, but the actual results of the reformers efforts. Instead of freeing their society from the straight jacket of the past Peter and Catherine in fact basically reinforced and added new and brutal features to the oppressive system they had inherited. Behind the glitter was a rigid authoritarian system that was by the standards of the day uniquely oppressive, coercive and wasteful. And in the end it in the long run added further impediments on Russia’s ability to modernize.

In 1839 a Frenchman, the Marquis de Custine, visited Russia for a few months. Despite the brevity of his visit he produced what many regard has one of the greatest travel / political science books of all time.17 He also produced this verdict on the work of the “westernizers”:

Peter I. and Catherine II. have given to the world a great and useful lesson, for which Russia has had to pay: they have shown to us that despotism is never so much to be dreaded as when it pretends to do good, for then it thinks the most revolting acts may be excused by the intention; and the evil that is applied as a remedy has no longer any bounds. Crime exposed to view can triumph only for a day; but false virtues for ever lead astray the minds of nations. People, dazzled by the brilliant accessories of crime, by the greatness of certain delinquencies justified by the event, believe at last that there are two kinds of villainy, two classes of morals,, and that necessity, or reasons of state, as they were formerly called, exculpate criminals of high lineage, provided they have so managed that their excesses should be in accord with the passions of the country.18

Also Custine says:

In Russia, the government interferes with every thing and vivifies nothing. In that immense empire, the people, if not tranquil, are mute; death hovers over all heads, and strikes capriciously whom it pleases: man there has two coffins, the cradle and the tomb.19

Finally:

I must correct myself — there is no people of Russia: there is an emperor, who has serfs, and there are courtiers who have serfs also; but this does not constitute a people.20

De Custine went to Russia in the hope of finding an Autocracy that worked, what he instead found was an autocracy whose glittering surface features disguised and in fact reinforced it’s backwards autocratic features.

When in 1725 Peter the Great died someone produced a woodcut of mice burying the cat. The cat is clearly Peter and the sense of relief of the “mice” that the tormenting cat was no longer around is palatable.21 Like the rule of Stalin Peter’s reign had had great accomplishments but at a truly terrible price.

The people of Russia paid in spades for the “modernization”, and “westernization” of Russia because it was done as the first quote emphasizes by means which at the same time it pushed Russia forward pushed Russia backwards.

The Mice bury the Cat

1. Dixon, Simon, The Modernization of Russia 1676 – 1825, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999, p. 256.

2. See Anisimov, Evgenni V., The Reforms of Peter the Great, M. E. Sharpe, London, 1993, for a detailed description of this process. For St. Petersburg see pp. 239-243.

3. Anisimov, p. 177-178, 291-292.

4. Anisimov, p. 184-202, and Pipes, Richard, Russia under the Old Regime, Penguin Books, London, 1974, pp. 112-138.

5. For an overview of the pre-Peterine state see Pipes, pp. 85-111.

6. Anisimov, pp. 217-243.

7. IBID, p. 296.

8. Just Google you will find acres of such “biographies”, although hagiographies is more accurate.

9. Blum, Jerome, Lord and Peasant in Russia, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1961, pp. 382-385, 424-425, 428-431.

10. See IBID, pp. 247-276, 414-441.

11. Dixon, p. 64, Anisimov, pp. 170-183.

12. IBID, pp. 240-241.

13. IBID, pp. 64-65.

14. IBID, pp. 152-156, Anisimov, pp. 184-202.

15. Dixon, pp. 209-220, Blum, pp. 364-366, Pipes, pp. 221-248.

16. Dixon, pp. 225-255, Anisimov, pp. 170-183.

17. de Custine, Astolphe, The Empire of the Czar, (in three volumes), Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, London, 1843.

18. IBID, v. 3, p. 317.

19. IBID, v. 3, p. 305.

20. IBID. v. 3, p. 328.

21. Anisimov, pp. 288-290.

Pierre Cloutier