Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/369

Rh Aksakov thus defended the moral nature of the Russian state, and to this extent was perfectly right in that he considered that patriarchalism was not eo ipso ethical. It has already been pointed out in sketching the development of the Kievic state that the tribal theory does not adequately account for the facts.

The westernisers, and especially the historians and jurists among them, attempted to show that political and legal institutions had developed along analogous lines in Russia and in Europe, and in both cases out of the same or very similar conditions. They considered, for example, that feudalism prevailed in Russia during the middle ages. They were little inclined to stress the independence and peculiarity of Russian law; they discovered traces of the influence of Roman law; the differences between Russian and western law to which the slavophils pointed with much emphasis were by the westernisers reduced to differences in point of customary law, and so on. Both westernisers and slavophils were able to turn to account the conflict in Europe between the Latinists and the Teutonists. In the political field the demands of the westernisers differed from those of the slavophils. The latter asked for the reintroduction of the Muscovite zemskii sobor, whereas the westernisers desired a constitution. In certain respects, however, they voiced identical demands, both favouring freedom of the press, and both espousing the cause of the raskolniki (though for different motives).

The westernisers looked upon Peter the Great as the most vital and splendid representative of the state and its cultural tasks.

The westernisers' valuation of the state differed from the slavophils' valuation because the former were in opposition to the church even if they considered religion of importance. Whilst the slavophils looked upon the church as the leading historical and social force, the westernisers considered that the state was this force. The westernisers, consequently, conceived the relationship between state and church in a way peculiar to themselves, their outlook being for practical purposes legalist. Čičerin, for example, was opposed to the thought of an intimate union between state and church; in religion's own interest he accepted Cavour's formula of a free church in a free state.

A word must be said here about the Russian bureaucracy,