Russia Against Napoleon_ The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace - Dominic Lieven [56]
Karamzin sharply criticized Russian foreign policy in Alexander’s reign. In his view, the empire had been dragged into quarrels which were not its concern and had often lost sight of its own interests. The crafty British were always alive to the possibility of getting other countries to bear the main burden of Britain’s ancestral struggle with France. As for the French and Austrians, whichever empire dominated European affairs would deride Russia and call it ‘an Asiatic country’. Apart from reflecting these deep-rooted Russian insecurities and resentments, Karamzin also made many specific criticisms. In the winter of 1806–7 either Bennigsen’s army should have been massively reinforced or Russia should have made peace with Napoleon. The actual peace treaty signed at Tilsit was a disaster. Russia’s overriding interest was that Poland must never be resurrected. Allowing the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw was a major error. To avoid this, no doubt Silesia would have had to be left to Napoleon and Prussia abandoned. This was unfortunate but in foreign affairs one had to consult one’s own self-interest alone. The alliance with France was fundamentally flawed.
Shall we deceive Napoleon? Facts are facts. He knows that inwardly we detest him, because we fear him; he had occasion to observe our more than questionable enthusiasm in the last Austrian war. This ambivalence of ours was not a new mistake, but an inescapable consequence of the position in which we had been put by the Tilsit peace. Is it easy to keep a promise to assist one’s natural enemy and to increase his power?40
If anything, the analysis of Alexander’s domestic policy was even more critical. Alexander had kept Catherine informed of his discussions with Speransky and some of this she had passed on to Karamzin. The core of his Memoir was a defence of autocracy as the only form of government which could stop the Russian Empire from disintegrating and guarantee ordered progress. For Karamzin, however, autocracy did not mean despotism. The autocrat must rule in harmony with the aristocracy and gentry, as Catherine II had done. State and society must not become divorced, with the former simply dictating to the latter. Karamzin conceded that Paul had indeed acted despotically but after his removal Alexander should have returned to the principles on which Catherine’s rule was founded. Instead he had allowed the introduction of foreign bureaucratic models which, if developed, would turn Russia into a version of Napoleonic bureaucratic despotism. Aristocrats rooted in the Russian social hierarchy were being displaced in government by mediocre bureaucrats with no stake in society. Moreover, if the peasants were emancipated anarchy would ensue, because the bureaucracy was far too weak to administer the countryside.41
Karamzin’s arguments made a lot of sense. Catherine II had ruled in harmony with the ‘political nation’, in other words the elites. In subsequent decades a bureaucratic monarchy was created without strong roots in society, even among the traditional elites. That was a major factor over the much longer term in the isolation and ultimate fall of the imperial regime. On the other hand, to the extent that Karamzin’s criticisms were directed against Speransky, they were mostly unfair. Russia was woefully under-governed. A much larger and more professional bureaucracy