“...A German document was published in the French yellow book, which taught rules on how to disorganize an enemy country, how to create unrest and unrest in it. Gentlemen, if our government wanted to deliberately set itself this task, or if the Germans wanted to use their means, means of influence or means of bribery for this, then they could not do anything better than to act as the Russian government did ( Rodichev from his seat: “Unfortunately, this is so”). And you, gentlemen, now have consequences. Back on June 13, 1916, from this pulpit I warned that “the poisonous seed of suspicion is already bearing abundant fruit,” that “dark rumors of betrayal and treason are spreading from one end to another of the Russian land.” I quote my words at that time. I pointed out then - I quote my words again - that “these rumors climb high and spare no one.” Alas, gentlemen, this warning, like all others, was not taken into account. As a result, in the statement of the 28 chairmen of provincial governments, who gathered in Moscow on October 29 of this year, you have the following instructions: “a painful, terrible suspicion, ominous rumors about betrayal and treason, about dark forces fighting in favor of Germany and striving for destruction national unity and sowing discord to prepare the ground for a shameful peace, have now passed into a clear consciousness that the enemy’s hand is secretly influencing the direction of the course of our state affairs.”
Naturally, on this basis, rumors arise about the recognition in government circles of the pointlessness of further struggle, the timeliness of ending the war and the need to conclude a separate peace. Gentlemen, I would not like to meet the excessive, perhaps painful suspicion with which the excited feeling of the Russian patriot reacts to everything that happens. But how will you refute the possibility of such suspicions when a bunch of shady individuals direct the most important state affairs in personal and base interests? (applause from the left, voices: “That’s right”). I have in my hands the issue of the Berliner Tageblatt dated October 16, 1916 and in it there is an article entitled: “Manuilov, Rasputin, Stürmer.” ( B.V. Sturmer in 1916 was Chairman of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Internal Affairs, at the time of delivering this speech - Minister of Foreign Affairs. Manasevich-Manuilov was an official with him on special assignments and was caught extorting. - Ed. ). The information in this article is partly late, and partly this information is incorrect. So the German author is naive to think that Stürmer arrested Manasevich-Manuylov, his personal secretary. Gentlemen, you all know that this is not so and that the people who arrested Manasevich-Manuylov and did not ask Sturmer were removed from the office for this.
No, gentlemen, Manasevich-Manuilov knows too much to be arrested. Sturmer did not arrest Manasevich-Manuylov ( applause from the left, voices of “That’s right.” Rodichev from his seat: “Unfortunately, this is true”). You may ask: who is Manasevich-Manuilov? Why is he interesting to us? I'll tell you, gentlemen. Manasevich-Manuilov is a former secret police official in Paris, the famous “Mask” of the “New Time”, who reported juicy things from the life of the revolutionary underground to this newspaper. But what is more interesting for us is that he is also the executor of special secret assignments. One of these assignments may interest you now. Several years ago, Manasevich-Manuilov tried to fulfill the instructions of the German Ambassador Pourtales, who assigned a large sum, they say about 800,000 rubles, to bribe “New Time”. I am very glad to say that an employee of Novoye Vremya threw Manasevich-Manuylov out of his apartment and Pourtales had a lot of trouble hiding this unpleasant story. Here, the personal secretary of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Stürmer, gentlemen, on what kind of assignments was he employed not so long ago ( voices on the left: “That’s right,” continuous noise).
Chairman. I humbly ask you to stop the noise.
Miliukov. Why was this gentleman arrested? This has long been known and I will not say anything new if I repeat to you what you know. He was arrested for taking a bribe. Why was he released? This, gentlemen, is also no secret. He told the investigator that he shared the bribe with the chairman of the Council of Ministers. ( Noise. Rodichev from his seat: “Everyone knows that.” Voices: “Let me listen, quieter”),
Chairman. Please g.g. Duma members keep calm
Miliukov. Manasevich, Rasputin, Sturmer. The article names two more names - Prince Andronnikov and Metropolitan Pitirim, as participants in the appointment of Sturmer together with Rasputin ( noise). Let me elaborate on this purpose in more detail. I mean Stürmer as Foreign Minister. I survived this assignment abroad. For me it is intertwined with the impressions of my trip abroad. I will simply tell you in order what I learned on the way there and back, and you will draw your own conclusions. So, as soon as I crossed the border, a few days after Sazonov’s resignation, first Swedish, and then German and Austrian newspapers brought a series of news about how Germany greeted Stürmer’s appointment. That's what the newspapers said. I will read the excerpts without comment.
Particularly interesting was the editorial in the Neue Freie Press of June 25th. This is what this article says: “No matter how old Stürmer becomes Russified ( laughter), it is still quite strange that foreign policy in a war that emerged from pan-Slavist ideas would be led by a German ( laughter). Minister-President Stürmer is free from the errors that led to the war. He did not promise - gentlemen, please note - that without Constantinople and the straits he would never make peace. In the person of Stürmer, a weapon has been acquired that can be used at will. Thanks to the policy of weakening the Duma, Stürmer became a man who satisfies the secret desires of the right, who do not at all want an alliance with England. He will not argue, like Sazonov, that it is necessary to neutralize the Prussian military helmet.”
Where do the German and Austrian newspapers get this confidence that Stürmer, fulfilling the wishes of the right, will act against England and against the continuation of the war? From information in the Russian press. A note was published in Moscow newspapers regarding the far-right note ( Zamyslovsky from his seat: “And every time it turns out to be a lie”), delivered to Headquarters in July before Stürmer's second trip. This note states that, although it is necessary to fight until final victory, it is necessary to end the war in a timely manner, otherwise the fruits of victory will be lost due to the revolution ( Zamyslovsky from the seat: “Signatures, signatures”). This is an old topic for our Germanophiles, but it is developing in a number of new attacks.
We tell the government, as the bloc's declaration said: we will fight you, we will fight with all legal means until you leave. They say that one member of the Council of Ministers, hearing that this time the State Duma was going to talk about treason, cried out excitedly: “I may be a fool, but I am not a traitor.” ( Laughter.) Gentlemen, the predecessor of this minister was undoubtedly an intelligent minister, just as the predecessor of the Minister of Foreign Affairs was an honest man. But they are no longer part of the cabinet. So, isn’t it all the same for the practical result whether in this case we are dealing with stupidity or treason?
When you wait a whole year for Romania to make a speech, insist on this speech, and at the decisive moment you have neither troops nor the ability to quickly transport them along the only narrow-gauge road, and thus you once again miss the favorable moment to strike a decisive blow in the Balkans , - what would you call it: stupidity or treason? ( voices on the left: “Same thing”). When, contrary to our repeated insistence, from February 1916 to July 1916, and already in February, I spoke about Germany’s attempts to seduce the Poles and about Wilhelm’s hope of getting an army of half a million, when, contrary to this, the matter is deliberately slowed down, and the attempt to resolve an intelligent and honest minister, at least at the last minute, the issue in a favorable sense ends with the departure of this minister and a new postponement, and our enemy finally takes advantage of our delay - is this: stupidity or treason? ( voices from the left: "Treason"). Choose any. The consequences are the same.
When, with increasing insistence, the Duma reminds that the rear must be organized for a successful struggle, and the authorities continue to insist that organizing means organizing a revolution, and deliberately prefers chaos and disorganization - what is this, stupidity or treason? ( voice on the left: “Treason.” Adzhemov: “This is stupidity.” Laughter). Little of. When, on the basis of general discontent and irritation, the authorities are deliberately engaged in causing popular outbreaks - because the participation of the police department in the latest unrest in factories has been proven - so when unrest and unrest are deliberately caused by provocation and they know that this can serve as a motive for stopping war - what is being done, consciously or unconsciously?
When, in the midst of a war, the “court party” undermines the only person who has created a reputation for honesty among the allies (noise) and when he is replaced by a person about whom everything that I said before can be said, then this ... ( Markov 2nd: “Is your speech stupidity or treason?”). My speech is a service to my homeland, which you will not do. No gentlemen, it's your choice, there's too much stupidity. ( Zamyslovsky: “That’s right.”) As if it is difficult to explain all this with just stupidity.
Therefore, the population cannot be blamed if it comes to such a conclusion, which I read in the statement of the chairmen of the provincial governments. You must also understand why we have no other speech today than the one I have already said: seek the departure of this government. You ask how we will begin to fight during the war? But, gentlemen, they are only dangerous during war. They are dangerous for war: that is why during the war and in the name of war, in the name of the very thing that forced us to unite, we are now fighting them. ( Voices from the left: “Bravo.” Applause.)
We have many, many individual reasons to be dissatisfied with the government. If we have time, we will say them. And all the particular reasons boil down to this one thing: the inability and maliciousness of this government ( Voices from the left: "Correct").
This is our main evil, victory over which will be tantamount to winning the entire campaign. ( Voices from the left: “That’s right!”) Therefore, gentlemen, in the name of millions of victims and streams of shed blood, in the name of achieving our national interests, in the name of our responsibility to all the people who sent us here, we will fight until we achieve that real government responsibility, which is determined by three signs our common declaration: the same understanding by members of the cabinet of the immediate tasks of the current moment, their conscious readiness to implement the program of the majority of the State Duma and their obligation to rely not only in the implementation of this program, but also in all their activities on the majority of the State Duma.
A cabinet that does not meet these criteria does not deserve the trust of the State Duma and must leave. ( Noisy applause)«.
CONTEXT. In 1914, the First World War began, which became fatal for the Russian Empire. Enormous human losses, failures at the front, economic difficulties, and most importantly, the inability of Nicholas II to explain to society the meaning of waging war, undermined the prestige of the ruling dynasty.
On November 1, 1916, after a significant break in work, the State Duma met. By this time, such a political climate had developed in the country that even right-wing deputies began to criticize the “mediocre ministers.” In his sensational speech at the autumn session of 1916 in the Duma, the text of which was distributed throughout the country in lists, the leader of the cadet faction P.N. Miliukov argued that the entire policy of the tsarist government of 1914-1916. was dictated “either by stupidity or treason.”
As a minimum, I would like to provide some encouragement to those present here regarding spiritual crises. That it is hard, it hurts, since there are these experiences. But it’s impossible without this. And this gives, by and large, the opportunity to acquire everything that was discussed in all previous speeches. Becausecrisis is an opportunity. Everything we have develops with the help of crises: our personality, relationships with other people, our worldview. That is, a crisis is an opportunity to get a qualitative leap, to get radical changes in a short time. Only this gives us a chance to move to a higher level of development. But it doesn't give a guarantee. And, in fact, in every crisis we face a danger, instead of surviving it and rising, we either get stuck in our worries, or fall into the abyss of despair.
How is a crisis useful? Firstly, this is the best and fastest way to destroy attitudes and habits that limit our development. In a crisis, some part of us always dies. This is such a small death. But what has already gotten in the way dies, what has already become obsolete dies. Crisis increases awareness. Pushes us to choose life strategies. Many people have difficulty making choices, postponing them until later, or shifting responsibility to someone else. But sometimes there are situations in our lives when we cannot avoid it.
And finally, crises don’t just happen. They are preceded by a long hidden period, when internal conflicts grow in us, which we try not to realize, not notice, not admit to them even to ourselves, and hide them from others. And at some point, when this conflict becomes unbearable, as it seems to us, everything is collapsing, the ground under our feet is shaking, it is unclear what to trust in this life, maybe everything we believed in seems untrue to us. But after this period of confusion, suffering, sometimes even despair, we discover that the conflict to which the crisis led us has been resolved in the process of experiencing. That is, it's like a thunderstorm. It pumps and pumps, and behold: thunder, lightning, and then the air is clean and fresh.
There are many different types of crises. Some are age related, some are personal. What is the peculiarity of a spiritual crisis? Firstly, it encroaches on the very basis of our existence. That is, we are losing our ideological basis. We cease to understand the meaning of life. I can’t say that we understood it before, but in calm periods of our lives we still have a certain sense of purpose, meaning, which in moments of spiritual crises seems untrue to us. Sometimes it turns out to be untrue. Sometimes this manifestation of despair and crisis simply helps us clear our understanding of all the husks, garbage, prejudices, other people's or our own ridiculous opinions that have obscured our meaning so that it has ceased to inspire us.
Features of a spiritual crisis. Still from the presentation
In a spiritual crisis, our spiritual life is suspended. We feel damage to the processes of spiritual search, we have the feeling that we were walking and walking and walking somewhere, and suddenly the road disappeared. Or there, he went out onto the deck, but there was no deck. But it helps us get together, helps us be more vigilant, helps us take a more sober look, first of all, at ourselves and at the surrounding reality. And this suspension can be very useful in order to correct one’s ways. And finally, the peculiarity of the spiritual crisis of a believer: if a believer experiences a crisis, all of his previous religious experience is devalued. I emphasize that we are talking about one aspect of this broad topic: the spiritual crises of those who consider themselves believers, and specifically Christians. Because some spiritual crises are experienced by esotericists, some spiritual crises are experienced by people with a vague idea that there is some kind of “higher power,” but let’s talk about what unites you and me.
And this crisis leads to a rejection of any religious practices at all, sometimes leading to their rethinking.
As soon as we lose our footing, as soon as our worldview has collapsed, existential anxiety bursts out from under it. That is, the four most powerful fears of our existence are death, freedom, loneliness and meaninglessness that always lie in wait for us. And, in fact, the horror that is collectively created when we find ourselves face to face with it prompts us to quickly look for new meanings.
What are they up against? Death challenges our will to be. That is, the irrational fear of non-existence undermines the very basis of our existence, making it unreliable, making it random. And it’s unclear whether he exists or we no longer exist.
Freedom. Well, they always say: “Freedom is so wonderful, we must strive for freedom.” Why is this fear? Because we all need at least some predictability in the world. We all need structure. And most of our lives we live with the feeling, for example, if we are believers, that the Lord wisely created this world, that God’s Providence for us guides us in one way or another, whether we understand it or not, that we are in this world, firstly , we are not responsible for everything, and secondly, we are part of some Great Plan, some greater whole. But when we feel the existential fear of freedom, then the feeling arises that there is no structure, that we are walking like on a tightrope over an abyss, and everything that happens to us depends only on us. And the amount of responsibility may turn out to be unbearable.
Loneliness in the existential sense is a feeling of one’s own isolation. We are born alone and we leave this world alone. During normal periods of our lives, we cover this with the need for contact, the need for protection, for affection, for belonging to something larger. But in crisis moments of our existence, we feel that in fact there is nothing between us and the horror of existence, when God is not there. We find ourselves alone with the abyss. And finally, when we lose our previous spiritual meanings, we feel the complete emptiness of life, because the need for purpose and meaning also forms the basis of human existence.
Why is this happening to us? In what situations does this happen? A very common reason is the collapse of illusions. First of all, illusions about yourself. We often, I would say almost all the time, and may God at least get rid of this until we die, perceive ourselves mythologically. We consider ourselves “someone”. We see in ourselves possibilities, talents, we have certain aspirations. We have a certain sense of our own value, more or less adequate, or completely inadequate. But one way or another, some illusions about oneself always accumulate. And in moments of crisis, this whole heap of illusions falls apart. And we are forced, on the one hand, to reassemble ourselves, and on the other hand, to remember who we really are. Or maybe not remember, but understand, gradually realize.
The collapse of illusions about God. Often the image of God is distorted. That is, we seem to be believers, we believe in God. At some point, a feeling may arise: “Where is my communication with God? Where is the same love of God that everyone talks about? I’ve been praying into the void for twenty years, I don’t hear anything, they don’t answer me from the other side. And in general, it is not known whether God exists or not.” Or vice versa: “I feared God for thirty years, but now I understand that one of my actions is more terrible than another, but why doesn’t He correct me, why doesn’t He stop me?” In fact, at such moments, a person often realizes that he was not worshiping God. He really worshiped some idol that he invented, which he put in the place of God. This is a terrible experience, but in a spiritual sense it can be useful.
And finally, the collapse of illusions about the Church. Because there is an expectation that we will come to some wonderful place, where everyone loves each other, where there is already paradise, but almost everything is broken by church realities. And you also have to cope with this experience.
Another group of reasons are events that significantly changed our lives. This is a real personal crisis, which entailed a spiritual crisis. I put the death of loved ones first, because this is always a moment of rethinking one’s own life too. And very often, especially when the death of loved ones is sudden, in tragic circumstances, when children die, people feel that that’s it. They believed, they hoped, they prayed, but all hope turned to dust. Accordingly, everything that was before has become worthless. Likewise, one’s own serious illness, especially a life-threatening or incurable illness, or sudden disability makes a person feel fragile, vulnerable, and that life is not at all how he thinks. That is, something needs to be changed. When a person loses his life’s work, when various troubles happen to him related to his professional calling, his self-identification, associated with the previous one, was based on this, and suddenly it collapsed. And we need to do something about it. The only thing you can do about this is to understand: how to live differently now, and understand the meaning of the tragic events that took place.
A change in the material level, I want to say right away, both in a smaller and in a larger direction. Sudden impoverishment and sudden wealth are equally destructive to spiritual life. They equally place us in danger of a spiritual crisis. And relationships with other people. Due to lack of space, I only indicated betrayal, but in fact these are some serious grievances, that is, when our trust is betrayed in the most cruel way. And it calls into question our trust in all other aspects of our being, especially when we really have all our hopes focused on one thing, and suddenly it doesn't work.
And finally, sometimes it happens, or rather, it happens quite often, that the crisis creeps up on us gradually. Like that same frog in boiling water, which was put in cold water, slowly heated, and finally it was boiled, without noticing the moment when it was necessary to jump out.
Very often, if we are talking about our Orthodox environment, the cause of the spiritual crisis, at least subjectively perceived, is various kinds of negative phenomena in church life. Practice does not correspond to teaching; we expected one thing and got another. This is no longer disappointment in the church, as in some earthly institution, or even in the divine-human organism, it is a specific resentment that we have this bad and that bad. And that’s why we need to leave here. The reasons are not only external, but also internal. That is, a false understanding of spiritual life. That is, a person has built for himself some kind of, perhaps, original Orthodoxy, maybe there is a whole group of such comrades, or maybe they have such a spiritual teacher. And at some point it becomes clear that it was all a mistake, a lot of things were a mistake. Here people with uncritical thinking and such literalism of faith are in the greatest danger. Example: if a person literally believes in the Sixth Day, then, faced with convincing evidence of evolutionary theory, he loses faith completely. Not on Six Days, but he loses faith completely. That is, the tougher our belief system, the more rigid it is, the more destructive any blows to this belief system. Critical thinking is very protective against such spiritually unfortunate circumstances.
And finally, traditionally, we will talk about this a little later, but it is often said: “If a person has a spiritual crisis, it means he has unrepentant sins,” which, on the one hand, is often precisely the person who is rejected in a crisis. is perceived as “it’s your own fault,” but on the other hand, from the patristic works, and often from our own experience, if we honestly analyze it, we know that this is often how it happens. And it is the crisis that allows us to notice this. Again, how is it useful?
And finally, a systemic conflict, that is, a conflict of relationships, a conflict of concepts. Any confrontation with people who are significant to us, or any contradiction between family and faith, between work and family, protracted contradictions drive us into a dead end.
And how to unfold the process of experiencing a spiritual crisis? As I already said, internal contradictions are growing, but we are trying our best not to notice it. But we don’t notice this with our minds. And we feel it in our hearts. That is, emotional instability. We are getting worse and worse, but intuitively understanding that the very foundations of our existence are now shaking, we resist these changes. Very often the moment of crisis is delayed as long as possible, and the longer we delay it, the harsher the experience of the second stage, namely the destruction of the worldview and ideas about ourselves.
The second stage is very painful, because the maximum suffering occurs precisely there. We realized that we could not hold on to anything, we realized that everything, the world would never be the same, and we ourselves would never be the same. Maybe at this moment we feel that we have lost faith. Or maybe we feel that we have not lost faith, but we know nothing about ourselves, about God, or about this life. We are naked and on shaky ground, and we have to somehow get out of this. Therefore, it is natural that there is suffering, confusion, there is a lot of fear, there is a loss of meaning, and while we have not yet accepted this state enough to start looking for this meaning, this is still ahead of us.
But no suffering lasts forever, and at some point there comes a pause, when we are already accustomed to the fact that we find ourselves in a situation of complete uncertainty in the spiritual sense, but we understand that since the old models do not work, and new ones have not yet emerged, are not created, we actually need to make some kind of volitional effort in order to get out of this crisis. That is, we turn on critical thinking in this situation to the maximum. If at the moment we are capable of prayerful effort, then we also call on God’s help. The main task is to ask the right questions. This is a revaluation of values. Let us not have answers, the main thing is that the questions are correct. And this will allow us to move on to rethinking and creation. That is, when a new understanding suddenly crystallizes from the wreckage of our previous worldview, or perhaps from the dust into which it has turned. We see the light at the end of the tunnel, a way out of the dead end, we understand how we need to change our way of acting. It is clear that these changes do not happen overnight, but at least a direction has already been outlined.
I want to say right away that this process does not happen automatically. When experiencing a pathological spiritual crisis, one can become stuck in each of these stages, including the first. That is, if suddenly any of you are sitting now and thinking: “Well, thank God, I have never had any spiritual crises in my life,” you know, I have bad news for you. This means that you have been in a state of increasing internal contradictions and resistance to change for who knows how many years. Because even if we remember the ascetic, that in spiritual life, grace is first given to us, then we lose it, and then, having gone through a difficult path and having gained humility, we return it. For some, this takes their entire life, but by and large it also describes a situation of spiritual crisis.
Well, according to the experience of many of us, we can repeat this cycle many times in our lives. That is, at some point we feel that we have already returned this grace, and then again we lose it, relaxing. And then, when a person has some experience, at least he is not afraid. He knows that this destruction of the worldview is not irreversible, that this is a period of such reformatting of one’s own personality, getting rid of everything unnecessary.
And how can a person be helped in experiencing a spiritual crisis? Thank God, in fact, we are not alone in this world. Even if we acutely feel existential loneliness, there is a high probability that there are our loved ones next to us, there are brothers and sisters, of course. There are shepherds. And it rarely happens that everyone’s state of crisis coincides at the same moment. Some people feel more stable at this moment. I'm not saying he's right. We never fully know who is right and who is wrong. We all know some truth, none of us knows the truth. But emotional stability helps to simply support a person in a state of crisis, because all we can give a person is a few resources to cope with existential threats. So that he doesn't feel lonely, so that he doesn't feel lost. So that he feels simply that there is someone nearby who (unintelligible). That is, emotional support and acceptance come first. Because the words at this moment will be difficult to understand, or you will say the same words, putting different meanings into them.
Second. Support his reflection, help him get out of a state of complete collapse and try to find a way out of the impasse. Here it is very important to listen, talk, share some of your experiences, but do this not edifyingly, but as non-directively as possible. Any pressure at this moment drives a person into an even more severe crisis. You can discuss (unintelligible), but you can offer some of your own ideas for understanding. But these ideas should not sound like this: “Well, I had this, I also had the same doubts.” That is, do not devalue his suffering, do not devalue his thoughts, do not devalue his intuition. Because you cannot know how important it is for him, how painful it is for him. Accordingly, when we ourselves find ourselves in a spiritual crisis, we want to hide somewhere and wait it out. But we still try not to forget that we are not alone in this world, and not to refuse the help and support of those who are nearby, and it is not so easy to find the strength to ask for it. And I’ve already gotten a little ahead of myself.
How can we prevent a person from getting out of a crisis? Well, first of all, start condemning him. Accuse him of lack of spirituality, tell him: “It’s your own fault,” “It’s all your sins,” “Yes, it’s because you are such and such.” It is very harmful to name the only correct opinion. It doesn’t matter whether he found himself in this crisis precisely from this opinion, or from some other one, because in this state a person more acutely understands than ever that all opinions are subjective. He just feels it with his skin. It is this feeling of instability that makes us listen very, very critically to any categorically expressed opinions.
Refusal to communicate, alienation. Say: “Okay, you’ll sort out your doubts there, then come. It’s hard for me to talk to you.” That's it, you pushed him into loneliness.
It is clear that there may perhaps be three options for exiting the spiritual crisis, this rethinking and reassessment of values, and the resulting new worldview.
Firstly, as a good option, if the crisis is associated with our faith, we can rethink tradition, we can rethink our beliefs, we can get rid of everything superficial, everything superfluous, everything superstitious, prejudices, doubtful, even widespread opinions. And by and large, strengthen your faith. Come to a deeper, more sincere faith.
The second way is de-churching. A person renounces religious practice without renouncing faith. For example, he begins (unintelligible) to look for alternative ways.
And finally, the option is the toughest. This is complete disappointment, a loss of faith. Both in the soft version: “I am an agnostic, and I don’t want to think about it,” and in the version of such militant neurotic atheism. Just as a person devoted himself to religion, so with the same passion he devotes himself to the fight against religion for years.
Why is this happening? And this happens because the usual, already established church tradition is built on actions that prevent a way out of the crisis. A person who openly expresses his doubts, or expresses some alternative ideas, begins to be interested in something that does not quite correspond to the church’s understanding, the first thing he encounters is condemnation. Then they try to either re-educate him or immediately anathematize him. And in fact, people who operate in such a paradigm push those who find themselves in a crisis towards the most severe option for overcoming the crisis. Especially in cases where critical thinking has not been formed before, and these are, so to speak, the first steps to critically rethink. That is, the first steps in spiritual sobriety, if we speak in spiritual categories.
And secondly, they push themselves to resist change even more harshly. That is, in fact, they hinder their own understanding, their own awareness. That is, those who find themselves in a crisis have a chance. Yes, albeit through torment, but to come to some deeper understanding, and ultimately, to a deeper faith. Because none of our spiritual states, while we are alive, are final.
And since we don’t have any time left, a question. But this is rather food for thought. Do you think that you and I, as members of the Church, could change this situation so that there would be a spiritual crisis in our Orthodox Church (indistinct). For each of us, since each of us periodically finds ourselves in it. It can be very strong, it can be smoothed out, but, nevertheless, it happens. So that a spiritual crisis is not a risk for us to tempt our faith, but a reason for those close to us to support and strengthen us in this state, and so that this actually ultimately serves to strengthen our faith. But, you know, since there is no time, I will ask this question to our respected rulers, since it is from the “princes of the Church” that we wait for instructions on how we can change our church practice so that people who find themselves in a spiritual crisis do not receive condemnation and expulsion and pushing them to leave, to destroy their faith, and support that would help them rethink everything and deepen their faith?
Bishop:Natalya Stanislavovna, the main pathos of her speech was aimed at ensuring that help would come primarily from the church. For the church to change. That's what I understood from her speech.
The question was how we, each of us as a member of the Church...
(unintelligible)
Bishop:The first option that comes to my mind is to start myself, with the person himself who is susceptible to such crises. Because we should immediately educate all the clergy, all the laity that we have in the church, so that they understand that every person necessarily has crises, that they have this appearance, they have this manifestation, that this is how a person can be helped ... Let’s say, to do such an educational program, and even (unintelligible) so that they get some practical skills, starting with bishops, ending with church people... (unintelligible)
So, the first thing, in my opinion, that can be done (indistinct) is for the person himself to understand very well what is happening to him, what can happen to him. Start with yourself (unintelligible). You are to blame for what is happening to you, you yourself are to blame for it (unintelligible).
There are some objective laws about the state of the human soul. There are objective stages of his church path. In order not to stumble here, (unintelligible) you just need to know them.
Then, you know, it seems to me that the basic safety precautions (unclear) and my personal experience, and the experience of those people with whom I came into contact, you need to understand very well what the Church is and why you came there. In my life in the Church I met very different people, very different. And with different situations (unintelligible). But never, never in my life has any situation, no one, made me doubt that the fact that I am in the Church is right, that I have chosen the right path. Maybe I'm so stubborn, stubborn... I'm stubborn. (unintelligible) I understand perfectly well that the Church can give me salvation; the Church has everything for this. Nothing prevents me from being saved. In the Church there are sacraments, in the Church there are divine services, in the Church there are the creations of the holy fathers. If you need personal communication, I can (unintelligible) for you.
Everything that comes across against this has never made any impression on me. Because I knew that this was not in the Church, but outside the Church (unintelligible), it had little to do with me. No, no, it did! Of course it did! I had to overcome this, fight somehow, do something in order to somehow get around it, especially when I was a bishop, because (unintelligible) I had to somehow cope with it. Natalya Stanislavovna has been in contact with me for many years and knows what I’m talking about. But somehow it had absolutely no impact on me in terms of hesitation. There is the Church, and I (unintelligible). Everything else (unintelligible) You see, something like this. Nothing in the Church prevents me from being saved. Absolutely nothing. That's why it seems to me. the first is human knowledge. A person must know that he has such periods, must know how they manifest themselves, must know how (unintelligible). Because forewarned is forearmed. And second, do not confuse what is not the Church with the Church. Yes, I met the priest, a pop drunkard. But this does not mean that God (unintelligible).
This does not mean that the Church does not exist and that we must leave it. Don't talk to these people! Don't go to this temple if you don't like it for some reason.
N.S.:Vladyka, I’m sorry, but some people understand by “don’t communicate with these people”, for example: “leave this church for some other one.” “Don’t associate with all these people, this is a false church, and somewhere out there...”
Bishop:In order to draw such a conclusion, you need to communicate with all Orthodox people throughout the Russian Orthodox Church, to make sure that they are all like this. Then go away. We need to talk to everyone, right up to His Holiness the Patriarch. And see that they are all like this - then leave. Who to communicate with then? But I would have stayed even in this case.
N.S.:On my own behalf, I can add that I had very severe periods of doubt, but I consoled myself with this famous story of Boccaccio about how a Jew was baptized, that “since everything is so bad, and yet the church is growing and strengthening, it means that the Holy Spirit supports it "
Bishop:You can probably console yourself this way.
And five minutes of questions. Then we will have to leave, our time in this room is running out.
I will remember my experience of going to church. I was in the service in the Murmansk region, and there was no priest to teach me, and I began to read Orthodox books. And so, then I came (unintelligible) arrived in Omsk, and I went into the church to submit a note. And I hear people advising me: “Send a note to this priest, but don’t send a note to this one.” I was surprised: what does the priest have to do with it? I give notes to God! Maybe the priest won’t even read these notes, but God sees that I wanted to submit these notes, He will read them. God is not the type to depend on a priest. And in this sense, there were no... Well, I didn’t see any supernatural people, and moreover, I have been confessing as a priest for more than twenty years, and being the confessor of the diocese, I have confessed to priests, and I have no illusions about the life of priests I didn't have any problems. But I never stopped... I always looked up, and (unintelligible) demonic attacks, manifestations... But I never had (unintelligible) awe, reverence, or the joy of communicating with this sinful soul, which wants to be cleansed of sin, wants to unite with God, it flounders, floats, sinks, floats up again... This is the amazing thirst of the soul for God, even the weak priests, even the weak parishioners, this is a kind of sacrament.
Well, speaking of the crisis, Dostoevsky briefly and simply said that “the devil and God are fighting, and the battlefield is the human heart.” Here the woman gave an example, this is an ordinary case of so-called “blasphemous thoughts.” When a person (unintelligible) to the Mother of God, to someone else. These are simply blasphemous thoughts. Therefore, like weeds in a garden, we leave a good plant behind. Well, the Church is an army, the Church is a medical clinic where they constantly fight diseases. The church is a school where, while acquiring knowledge, they fight illiteracy. Therefore, the phenomenon of crisis itself, God forbid, should we assume that there are crises that cannot be overcome by man! This is already blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and blasphemy against man himself. This is neither the knowledge of God nor the knowledge of man. I would like to stay this way, so that our crises are understood as peasants see weeds...
N.S.:Vladyka, I would like the crisis to be perceived not as weeds, but as an opportunity, a test given to us for growth.
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As the scientific director of the Institute of Applied Oriental and African Studies Said Gafurov explained to the editorial office of “However” on November 18, Libya can only be saved by the unification of the current authorities with supporters of the leader of the Libyan Jamahiriya Muammar Gaddafi, since they are the real majority in the country. Otherwise, the country will face a war of all against all.
Here is the opinion of Said Gafurov and his arguments:
“Libya is now falling apart like Somalia. At the same time, two multidirectional processes are observed: on the one hand, there is a split among tribal groupings, and on the other, there is a constant search for allies in each other among these tribes. At the same time, the main force is the splits that occur in cities, and not the struggle of irreconcilable groups; they are less important now. Cities: Tripoli, Benghazi, Sebha - are now more interesting than rural areas. The situation there is such that everyone begins to fight against everyone. Any unsuccessful shot immediately becomes an impetus for the start of hostilities, because everyone believes that by shooting first, you gain the advantage of surprise. The winner in the battle will be the one who manages to win over the followers of Muammar Gaddafi... This “fist” is so strong that it will allow... to win a fight.
The very fact of introducing a state of emergency in Tripoli after the current leaders, who are considered the government, turned for help to the supporters of Muammar Gaddafi with a call for national reconciliation: to forget everything and forgive everyone - it is very indicative.
And in this sense, a situation is possible when the current authorities, with the support of Gaddafi’s supporters, reorganize and defeat all other groups combined...
The only force that can now preserve a united Libya is the current authorities in a bloc with the supporters of Muammar Gaddafi.
These people have real chances."
Interviewed by Alena Bayanova
Libya. The tense situation escalated further.
Commentary from the Department of Information and Press of the Russian Foreign Ministry regarding the worsening situation in Libya
“Judging by incoming media reports, the tense situation in Libya has worsened further in recent days. Clashes between local protesters and members of Tripoli-based armed groups in the capital's Gharghur district on November 15 escalated into a large-scale conflict involving the use of weapons. As a result, according to the Libyan Ministry of Health, 47 people were killed and more than 400 were injured. The bloodshed was stopped through the efforts of units of the national army. A state of emergency has been declared in the country for a period of 48 hours. The government led by A. Zeidan demanded that all armed units without exception be withdrawn from the capital.
Another surge in violence involving fighters of the former anti-Gaddafi opposition caused a significant resonance in the country. Representatives of various Libyan parties, socio-political and trade union organizations condemned the incident. A three-day general strike has been declared in Tripoli.
The ongoing internal political instability and acute security problems in Libya cannot but cause serious concern. We call on the Libyan authorities to take all necessary measures to restore law and order in the capital and other areas of Libya. This also implies the restoration of an effective state apparatus, security forces, as well as the speedy reintegration into peaceful life of former rebels.
We are confident that the intensified efforts of the Libyan leadership to establish a broad national dialogue based on taking into account the interests of the leading political and regional forces in Libya will contribute to the overall stabilization of the situation in the country and the creation of the necessary conditions for the progressive advancement of the political process.
Taking into account the difficult internal political situation in Libya, we confirm the recommendation to Russian citizens to refrain from traveling to this country.
November 18, 2013"
http://nikolaysolo.livejournal.com/1478301.html
Libya: half-life or spiral movement?
After the NATO war against the Libyan Jamahiriya and the capture of the country by al-Qaeda gangs, Libya is close to collapse. These are the real results of the so-called “Arab Spring,” provoked by Western intelligence services.
Opinion of the head of the Arab Dialogue Center at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Anatoly Yegorin:
"Now Cyrenaica has practically separated and created its own oil company. The situation inside the country will not be very good. Libyans are accustomed historically to being divided into three regions - Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan. All this will lead to sad results, especially since there is no unifying figure. The current government "Tripoli will deal with external affairs on behalf of all of Libya, and the country itself will face famine. The West plundered the Libyans' money almost completely during the military operation."
Opinion of the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Committee of Solidarity with the Peoples of Libya and Syria Nelly Kuskova:
“What was needed to divide Libya was done by NATO aircraft two years ago, essentially destroying the unique state that was there and plunging the most prosperous and rapidly developing country in North Africa into complete ruin. And not only political, when every part of it wants to live separately, creates his own army and oil companies, but in the most literal sense of the word. The country is destroyed.
There are cities where the population has been completely driven out of their homes. What needs to be done to unify Libya? Probably, some fantastic conditions are needed, and first of all, a strong leader, followed by people who want order."
Opinion of publicist Ivan Trofimov:
“Various groups and tribes are waging a fierce struggle, the production of vital oil for the country has fallen to a historic low, and the population is facing famine. The West never offered a recipe for the division of Libya, just as it did not bear responsibility for turning a once prosperous state into a source of endless civil conflict.
Real power in Libya, according to some experts, de facto already belongs to numerous armed groups. Each of them pursues one single goal: to put under control one or another part of the country in which there is oil. In this case, it does not matter at all what the ethnic composition, organizational model or religious views of the participants in such formations are. First of all, they “fight” for resources, and therefore for money and the very possibility of existence.
Considering that Libya has the largest oil reserves in Africa (before the conflict, its daily production exceeded one and a half million barrels), such a war of “all against all” risks continuing indefinitely.”
http://nikolaysolo.livejournal.com/1477858.html
“I am counting on people who have not lost faith that the authorities can listen to them. There is no practice of nominating governors who represent entire corporations and regions in the modern history of Russia,” said Governor Dmitry Mezentsev in an interview with the VZGLYAD newspaper. During the election campaign, he intends to raise problems of the regions and the real sector of the economy, without entering into political controversy with his rivals.
The governor of the Irkutsk region, Dmitry Mezentsev, submitted documents to the Central Election Commission on Thursday to register as a presidential candidate. A day earlier, he accepted the corresponding proposal from the initiative group of the East Siberian Railway. The governor admitted that the proposal of the Eastern Railway workers came as a surprise to him, but he could not refuse it.
In turn, the president of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin, said that he has nothing to do with Mezentsev’s nomination for the post of president, but supports him. “This is an initiative of the VSJD workforce,” he said.
52-year-old Dmitry Mezentsev was born in Leningrad and is a railway engineer by training. In the first half of the 1990s, he headed the Press and Media Committee of the St. Petersburg City Hall. In 2002-2009, he represented the Irkutsk region in the Federation Council, and since 2004 he became vice-speaker of the Federation Council. He has headed the Irkutsk region since June 2009.
The news of Mezentsev’s nomination also surprised most political scientists. Many of them considered and interpreted, for example, as the governor’s desire to gain nationwide fame.
When nominated, Mezentsev himself assured that he had not discussed such an initiative with the Kremlin. At the same time, the governor recalled that he is not a member of the United Russia party, which had previously nominated its candidate, and for him Vladimir Putin is “first of all the chairman of the government,” RIA Novosti reported.
Presidential candidate Dmitry Mezentsev spoke in more detail about the reasons for his decision in an interview with the newspaper VZGLYAD.OPINION: Dmitry Fedorovich, why did you decide to run for the highest post in the state?
Dmitry Mezentsev: Firstly, I was nominated by railway workers - my colleagues from my previous work. And it would not be very correct on my part to refuse their offer. For these people, it is important that their voice, the voice of the corporation and the real sector of the economy, be represented during the election campaign.
Therefore, during the election campaign, I will pay attention to both the problems and concerns of the railways, and the problems of the real sector of the economy as a whole, which the media do not pay due attention to today. Although this is also very important.
We cannot live, caring only about our own salaries and pensions; we must also see a model of the future that unites and unites us, shows the world what we want for our country.
D.M.: I wouldn't draw a political line here. I am counting on people who have not lost faith that the authorities can listen to them. The vast majority of people rely on their own strengths, believe in their country and in those managers who do a lot to ensure that the country moves forward. Therefore, there is no need to divide people based on their age, place of residence or political views. Everyone has the same passport. And we all live in the same country.
OPINION: In your opinion, why are you better than Prime Minister Vladimir Putin or the opposition candidates?
D.M.: When we begin to draw such a divide - who is better and who is worse, then cooperation and interaction of political forces immediately ends, and a real policy can no longer be formed. Which of us is better will be determined by the voter. This is purely his right. And candidates from the systemic opposition often only try to draw attention to the political force that each of them represents, and to themselves as political leaders.
Have you ever wondered why there are so few real proposals or real projects left after the election campaign? Even after many hours of debate, nothing remains in our souls and hearts. This is because all these leaders represent opposition views in a very formal manner.
I would not like the election campaign to become a fight for the sake of fighting. Since people are becoming more responsible for their country, the latest elections showed this. This means that the responsibility of the authorities should increase significantly.
VZGLYAD: So you won’t base your election campaign on criticizing your competitors?
D.M.: Today the list of candidates for the presidential post is already clear. And you can already understand what slogans each of them will put forward. Someone will go to the polls with a proposal to increase the number of red days of the calendar, and someone will propose to increase the retirement age, and someone will shamelessly make promises that no one will ever be able to fulfill.
I am confident that a responsible voter will not buy into these unrealistic promises. In this regard, Vladimir Putin’s position is many times stronger, since he has support for the country’s movement forward. It was he who has repeatedly shown courage, will, and perseverance. It was he who diverted troubles from Russia many times and moved the country forward, repeatedly increasing budget spending on social and investment programs. All this suggests that the opposition works only for its own advancement, as opposed to real movement forward.
OPINION: Some political scientists believe that you are going to the elections only to back up Putin, in case the other candidates, for example, want to blackmail him with the threat of leaving the election race...
D.M.: When I submitted my documents to the CEC yesterday, for some reason I didn’t notice that there was a question somewhere - are you a technical candidate or not? In addition, there is no practice of nominating governors who can represent entire corporations and regions in the modern history of Russia. And there's nothing wrong with that.
OPINION: How did you feel about Putin’s initiative to change the scheme for appointing governors?
D.M.: Nobody argues with the fact that the political system must be improved. It is absolutely clear that the elected governor has much more degrees of freedom, but how they will be able to use them is still a big question.
We all remember how in the 90s, for many regions, their constitution was a priority over the federal one. And the threat of regional disunity was extremely high. Therefore, the departure from that system of gubernatorial elections was justified.
In February 1917, it was discovered that the Russian government had no defenders. The monarchy fell under the first onslaught of the indignant street. But this street was not ready for self-organization
At the beginning of May 1915, the German offensive began. Russian troops retreated. In May they left Galicia. In the summer the Germans occupied Poland. The Russian army lost almost one and a half million people killed and wounded, and about a million were taken prisoner. Everyone was looking for the culprits. The worse the situation at the front, the more often the word “betrayal” was heard. Gendarmes were mobilized into military counterintelligence; they were not trained to look for spies, but were accustomed to identifying enemies of the state.
The first victims were the Russified Germans. The concept of a “fifth column” had not yet appeared, but Russian Germans were suspected of secretly working for Germany. At the initiative of the government, a Special Committee was formed to combat German dominance. Out of fright, prominent politicians changed their surnames of German origin to purely Russian ones. Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod Vladimir Karlovich Sabler became Desyatovsky. In the fall of 1915, former Minister of War Vladimir Aleksandrovich Sukhomlinov was accused of treason. After this, anyone could be suspected of treason. And a year later, charges of treason were brought against the royal family, the government and the generals as a whole. On November 1, 1916, in the State Duma, a deputy from the Cadet Party, Pavel Nikolaevich Milyukov, stated that the incompetent government intended to conclude a separate peace with Germany. Calculating the failures of the “court party,” Miliukov ended each point of accusation with the question: “What is this - stupidity or treason?”
The speech was removed from the protocols of the Duma, but among the people, talk about the Germanophilism of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and the direct betrayal of the court did not stop. After the abdication of the emperor, in March 1917, Bishop Nikon (Bessonov) of Yenisei and Krasnoyarsk confidently said: “The monarch and his wife betrayed their own people. No country has ever experienced greater, more terrible shame. No, no, we don’t need any more monarch.”
Everyone was accused of working for the Germans in 1917 - from the imperial family to the Bolshevik leadership. It is difficult to believe this after the exaltation caused by the failures at the front, if only because of the disastrous situation of the then German budget. According to the authoritative opinion of informed contemporaries, German money had nothing to do with the events of the seventeenth year.
Major General Konstantin Ivanovich Globachev, the last head of the Petrograd Security Department, wrote in exile: “Many people ask the question: is it true that Germany took part in the preparation of the February Revolution of 1917? I affirm: for Germany the Russian Revolution was an unexpected happy surprise. The Russian February Revolution was the creation of Russian hands.”
In general, one should not attribute to foreign intelligence services successes that are, in principle, beyond their capabilities. It is absurd to assume that even an army of spies is capable of changing the historical fate of a huge country. Both revolutions - the February and the October - were carried out by Russian people with Russian money.
The revolution did not break out suddenly and not out of nowhere. In the industrial era, any government that has believed in the self-sufficiency and infallibility of its own vertical and has eliminated “society” from affairs first loses its effectiveness, and soon its capacity. But on the other hand, it acquires, in the precise words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a “countergift” that is destructive for the country - attracting nonentities to oneself and holding on to them. The people's representation, falsified by Stolypin's electoral law, did not enjoy the trust of the people, and therefore attempts at reform were not successful. Major reforms were required, both in terms of the structure of the peasant class and in order to resolve pressing labor and national issues. The military-patriotic upsurge only temporarily dampened the severity of internal problems, but with the beginning of failures on the front of a protracted war, the political crisis came to the surface.
The revolutionary outcome of the crisis became inevitable on that February day in 1917, when Nicholas II, who was in Tsarskoye Selo, told the palace commandant Vladimir Nikolaevich Voeikov, Major General of His Majesty’s retinue: “I decided to go to Headquarters on Wednesday.” At the height of the First World War, the Emperor assumed the duties of Supreme Commander-in-Chief and divided his time between Tsarskoe Selo, where the Empress and children were, and Headquarters, located in Mogilev. The emperor spent two months after the assassination of Grigory Rasputin in December 1916 with his family. Voeikov believed that the moment was not suitable for leaving. The front is relatively calm, while the presence of the emperor in Petrograd is very important. The Emperor replied that they were waiting for him at Headquarters. As for the situation in the capital, the Minister of Internal Affairs assured him that there was no reason for alarm.
At two o'clock in the afternoon on February 22, the imperial train departed from Tsarskoye Selo to Headquarters. The day after the emperor’s departure, February 23, 1917, strikes began in the capital and long lines lined up for bread. There was bread in the country, the problem was delivery. But the emperor’s thoughts were occupied with something else: the children became infected with measles. In those days, family worries overwhelmed Nicholas more than the situation in the country. Reading the emperor's diary is like watching a film about the sinking of the Titanic. People talk and have fun, but they are all doomed.
The Empress informed her husband: “Yesterday there were riots on Vasilyevsky Island and Nevsky, because the poor people stormed bakeries. They smashed Filippov to pieces, and the Cossacks were called in against them... This is a hooligan movement, boys and girls running around and shouting that they have no bread, just to create excitement, and workers who prevent others from working. It would have been very cold, they would probably have stayed home.”
On the evening of February 25, the irritated emperor telegraphed the commander of the capital's military district, Lieutenant General Sergei Semenovich Khabalov: “I command you to stop the riots in the capital tomorrow, which are unacceptable in the difficult times of the war with Germany and Austria.”
General Khabalov would have been glad to carry out the emperor’s order, but he could not. The troops came out of subordination, refusing to shoot at the crowd, half consisting of housewives demanding bread. On Sunday, a company from the reserve battalion of the Pavlovsk regiment opened fire on mounted police sent to disperse the crowd of troublemakers.
Chairman of the State Duma Mikhail Vladimirovich Rodzianko sent alarming telegrams to Headquarters: “There is anarchy in the capital. Transport, food and fuel were in complete disarray. There is indiscriminate shooting on the streets. It is necessary to immediately entrust a person enjoying the confidence of the country to form a new government. You can't hesitate. Any delay is like death.”
The Emperor did not like Rodzianko, who pestered him with reports about the difficult situation in the country. But he decided to return to the capital. Nicholas II was afraid for his wife and sick children. What prevented him from bringing his children to him, to Headquarters? He makes a second mistake! Five days earlier, the sovereign had left Petrograd in vain, where unrest began. Now, having abandoned Headquarters, he has lost control of a huge army that could have stopped the revolution. In the salon carriage, surrounded by flattering courtiers (everyone will run away later!) and a gallant-looking escort (he wouldn’t lift a finger to protect the emperor!), he experienced a false sense of complete security.
The Emperor sent artillery general Nikolai Iudovich Ivanov to Petrograd with an order to restore order and gave the St. George battalion to help. But the general did not even reach the capital. The railway workers didn't let me through.
While Nicholas II was traveling, power was collapsing in Petrograd. The last Council of Ministers he approved resigned. Russia was left without a tsar, who sat in his carriage, without a Duma, which he dissolved, and without a government. But nature does not tolerate emptiness.
Chairman of the Duma Rodzianko notified Headquarters and front commanders “that due to the removal of the entire composition of the former Council of Ministers from administration, government power has now transferred to the Provisional Committee of the State Duma.” The revolution that was talked about so much has happened!
The revolution took place without revolutionaries - this refutes all the myths about conspiracy and someone’s evil will. Nobody controlled events. Everyone was taken by surprise by the revolution, even the revolutionary parties! No one could have predicted that the Russian monarchy would collapse in just a week.
The royal train was not allowed into Tsarskoe Selo, and it turned to Pskov, where the headquarters of the Northern Front was located. Nicholas II left Mogilev as an autocrat, to whom a huge country obeyed, and came to Pskov as a “private person.” Nicholas was supreme commander, but his own generals wanted him to go. The front commanders were asked by telegraph: what do they think about the abdication of the emperor in favor of Tsarevich Alexei? The commanders supported the idea of abdication. All as one! The Emperor had no choice but to telegraph to the Chairman of the Duma Rodzianko: “There is no sacrifice that I would not make in the name of the real good and for the salvation of my dear Mother Russia. Why am I ready to abdicate the throne in favor of my son, so that he remains with me until he comes of age, under the regency of my brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich?”
On March 2, 1917, in the evening, Chairman of the Military-Industrial Committee Alexander Ivanovich Guchkov and State Duma deputy Vasily Vitalievich Shulgin arrived from Petrograd to the Dno station, where the royal train was stuck. At night, Nicholas II signed a manifesto abdicating the throne. Considering that his son, who had incurable hemophilia, could not be emperor, Nicholas changed his will somewhat: “Not wanting to part with our beloved son, we pass on our legacy to our brother Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich and bless him to ascend the throne of the Russian State.”
Why did the emperor give up his throne so easily? He saw that everyone around him absolutely wanted him to leave! It was not so much the majority of society that wanted the revolution, but rather getting rid of the hateful regime. At this decisive hour, Nicholas II felt completely alone, could not stand it and capitulated. Solzhenitsyn reproaches Nicholas II for not giving the order to shoot at the rioting crowd. Or it could have outlawed the rebellious city. In other words, drown him in blood...
“If there were a company of machine gunners nearby, truly loyal to the tsar,” recalled the head of the Provisional Government, Alexander Fedorovich Kerensky, “it could destroy the entire Duma, along with the left and the right. The only reason this did not happen was that there was no such company in the entire Russian Empire.”
The troops and Cossacks did not at all want to defend the emperor. Even the cadet schools did not rise up... None of the highest ranks of the state apparatus risked their lives. The first to betray the tsar, as usual, were those who tore the most throats in praise - the monarchists and nationalists - Purishkevich and Shulgin. And the Orthodox Church did not support the All-Russian autocrat. Even some members of the imperial family welcomed the revolution.
Members of the temporary committee of the Duma met with Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich. He valued family happiness more than power and position. He asked for a few minutes to think and said firmly: “Under current conditions, I do not consider it possible to accept the throne.”
The February Revolution was perceived by almost the entire country as a blessing. On March 6, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church canceled the liturgical commemoration of the tsarist power. The general meeting of the Ekaterinburg ecclesiastical consistory sent a welcoming telegram to Rodzianko: “The Ekaterinburg clergy enthusiastically welcomes free Russia in your person. Ready to devote all his strength to assist the new government in its aspirations to renew the state and social system of our homeland on the basis of freedom, he offers fervent prayers to the Lord God, may He strengthen the Almighty Russian state in the world, and may the Provisional Government become wise in leading the country on the path of victory and prosperity..."
Some historians think that the February Revolution was something accidental that no one expected. And then they waited for her and greeted her enthusiastically. “At the first hour of the day I went “where everyone is going,” that is, to the Duma,” recalled Moscow man in the street Nikolai Okunev. - And starting from Lubyanka Square I saw an unforgettable picture. Thousands of people, and especially many students, were hurrying towards Teatralnaya and Voskresenskaya squares. Everyone's faces were excited and joyful - one could feel a true holiday, everyone was overcome with some kind of tenderness. That's when the brotherhood and community of spirit showed. And I’m getting old, I almost cried, without knowing why... Extraordinary pictures: soldiers have a gun or saber in one hand, and a red flag in the other; or like this: a soldier and a student walk hugging each other, and the soldier has a flag, and the student has a gun...”
The leaders of the Provisional Government sincerely said: “We will not retain this power for a minute after free representatives elected by the people tell us that they want to see people who are more trustworthy in our places. Gentlemen, power these days is not taken from the sweetness of power. This is not a reward or pleasure, but merit and sacrifice.
The activities of the Provisional Government still remain underestimated. But the Provisional Government declared an amnesty for all political and religious matters, freedom of unions, press, speech, meetings and strikes. Abolished all class, religious and national restrictions. Prepared to convene a Constituent Assembly on the basis of universal, equal, direct and secret ballot, which was supposed to establish the form of government and adopt the constitution of the country.
February was a holiday of deliverance from power, which everyone was tired of and disgusted with. People whom no one elected, who appointed themselves to high positions and looked down on the people with contempt, suddenly found themselves hated and despised. February freed the country from an archaic system of government. And if a democratic republic had been established, Russia would have become the world's largest industrial power without paying the terrible price that the Bolsheviks forced it to pay. But then revolutionary everyday life began.
“Kerensky travels along the front,” a contemporary wrote in his diary, “he kisses, speaks like Kuzma Minin, they rock him, they applaud him, they swear oaths to go where he says, but in reality they don’t show this: they gnaw on sunflowers and make various demands. And in the rear there are explosions, fires, train accidents, agrarian seizures, pogroms, robberies, lynchings, food shortages and a terrible rise in the cost of living.”
It was necessary to arrange life in a new way. But as? It was believed that the liberation of Russia from tsarist oppression in itself would arouse enthusiasm in the country. But it turned out that there was no habit of self-organization. The country has always had only a vertical power structure, but no horizontal connections. People are not used to reaching agreements among themselves - after all, everything was decided by the authorities. There was no habit of taking into account the interests of others. Intolerance to different opinions prevailed. Compromise is a despised word.
“The police still monitored the external order... - Okunev wrote, - and... forced janitors and homeowners to clear roofs, courtyards, sidewalks and streets of melting snow. And now, with freedom, everyone does as he wants. There are heaps of manure and huge puddles of melting snow on the streets... The tails are increasing, tram cars are breaking down from passengers hanging on buffers, steps and nets. The soldiers wander around unnecessarily and in extreme disarray; most of them do not salute the officers and defiantly smoke in their faces. We have all been floating in the clouds for a whole month and now we are beginning to descend to the ground and sadly agree that complete freedom has been given to the Russian people somewhat prematurely. And he is lazy, and narrow-minded, and not yet entirely moral.”
And people were afraid of chaos, they themselves wanted strong power, to which they could shift responsibility for their lives. The collapsed army looked especially frightening. “Crowds of gray soldiers,” recalled a military officer who had arrived from the front, “obviously alien to the greatness of the accomplished deed, in unbelted tunics and saddle-coats, idly wandered around the grandiose squares and wide streets of the magnificent city. From time to time, blunt-nosed armored cars and trucks filled with soldiers and workers roared past somewhere: guns at the ready, ruffled hair, crazy, evil eyes... Brains on one side... a spontaneous “don’t interfere with my spirit”... drunken joy - “ours took it,” we walk around and don’t give an account of anything to anyone...” All the omissions and mistakes formed a fatal chain, under the burden of which the republic fell. Society was so quickly tired of the disorder associated with the destruction of the old order that it longed to transfer power to those who would restore order and prosperity to the country. Vera Nikolaevna Figner, a participant in the assassination attempt on Alexander II, wrote in September 1917: “Everyone is tired of phrases, inaction, we are hopelessly stuck in the quagmire of our differences... No one has a trace of an upsurge of noble feelings, a desire for sacrifice. For some, because they do not have these feelings and aspirations at all, and for others, because they are exhausted spiritually and physically, suppressed by the magnitude of the tasks and the insignificance of the human and material means to accomplish them.” Those who could took power. The rifle gave birth to power. And blood.
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Pavel Milyukov:
We have lost faith that this power can lead us to victory, because in relation to this power, both the attempts at correction and the attempts at improvement that we made here were not successful... A German document was published in the French yellow book, in which they taught rules on how to disorganize an enemy country, how to create unrest and unrest in it. Gentlemen, if... the Germans wanted to use their means, means of influence or means of bribery for this, then they could not do anything better than act as the Russian government did... We have many, many individual reasons to be dissatisfied with the government. .. And all the particular reasons boil down to this one thing: the inability and maliciousness of this government. This is our main evil, victory over which will be tantamount to winning the entire campaign... From a speech in the State Duma, November 1, 1916
At one meeting, General Lavr Georgievich Kornilov told how a regiment that did not want to fight, upon learning that an order had been given for its extermination, immediately returned to its position. The general was applauded. At a meeting of the Provisional Government, which discussed the abolition of the death penalty at the front, Kerensky was indignant: “How can you applaud when the question is about death? Don’t you know that at this hour a particle of the human soul is being killed?” He, not sparing his popularity, boldly threw into the revolutionary crowd his famous words about rebellious slaves: “Is the Russian free state really a state of rebellious slaves!.. I regret that I did not die two months ago. I would die with the great dream that we can govern our state without a whip or stick.”
It was not his fault, but his misfortune that he did not undertake to bridle the elements. But he did not shed blood, did not go down in history as an executioner, jailer and destroyer of his own people. And if there is a higher court, then such sins as vanity, vanity and a little bit of posturing will be forgiven him.
“Alexander Fedorovich Kerensky lost the struggle for power, lost the revolution, lost Russia,” wrote one of his comrades. “And yet I continue to insist that Kerensky’s line was the only correct one... Kerensky’s fault is not that he led Russia along the wrong path, but that he did not lead it energetically enough along the right one.”
In times of crisis, people get tired of politics and begin to see the evil in it. The blame for everyday and everyday troubles was placed on the Democrats. At the same time, they forgot that all economic difficulties were inherited by Russia from the tsarist regime. But the republic simply could not solve all the problems so quickly.
It only seems that those who dreamed of continuing the revolutionary rampage followed Lenin. The Bolsheviks were supported by those who longed for at least some kind of order, who repeated: better a terrible end than endless horror. Society easily returned to a controlled state, when people willingly obey their superiors, not daring to say a word against them and competing in the expression of loyalty.
If Nicholas II had been a cruel person, he would have tried to suppress the February Revolution in the bud by force. Perhaps he could have succeeded. But the dictatorship does not allow the country to develop. Sooner or later, the country still needs to be given freedom. However, in this case, indignation and anger will result in an even bloodier form. After all, society does not develop, does not get used to responsibility, because the revolution of 1917 became chaos, and then turned into an all-Russian pogrom and fratricidal massacre. But it is not the ruler who gives freedom who is to blame, but the one who, unaware of his duty, keeps the country in an iron corset and does not allow it to develop.
