Sylus Smith deconstructs and defends Marxist Unity Group’s strategic orientation, and their call for socialists to “Fight the Constitution”, against recent criticism from Scottie O. in Geese Magazine.

Lennart Brede, Geese (2018)

Writing on the political theories of Geese Magazine, Scottie O takes up a conceptually legitimate, even necessary, point for a Marxist to make: we must involve ourselves in the democratic struggle, working with and educating its proletarian proponents toward the ends of the real democracy which only socialism can promise – people make their own history, but they do so within the confines of those conditions which precede them. As such, it is necessary that our engagements be within the existing democratic struggle. This is all perfectly correct on its own. I am broadly sympathetic to the principles behind Scottie’s suggested approach; the problem is that they extend this principle to attack Marxist Unity Group’s (MUG) slogan, “Fight the Constitution.” I find this to be an underdeveloped model which does not reckon with the history of the reformism produced by the “progressive cultural bloc.”

My hope is that we shall, cooperatively, reach a more productive understanding. MUG’s slogan is not only a needed intervention in the existing movement, but is in fact the most natural conclusion of the current struggle. I do not need to extensively reference their various writings to address this, because the rationale for this is contained logically within Scottie’s own essay. This is not the case so much for the history of the “progressive cultural bloc,” and Scottie himself has said that he wishes to elaborate on these general matters in the future. With consideration for such, and with the genuine interest of a constructive discourse, I will not approach my history attempting to identify and counter solutions. Instead, I will cover the basis for my own concerns within this topic, my own considerations of its complications.

Regarding the “Culture War”

Before truly beginning, it seems necessary to address the general attitude which is being taken with regard to MUG. Though I am not a member, and do not intend to become one, I feel quite capable of addressing these concerns. At his opening, Scottie already speaks of “the communist left’s (mis)understanding of politics.” Many people can attest to my derision of ‘left wing’ communism, but it is simply not the case that such a term applies to MUG’s membership. We shall soon deal with the particular slogan, but it feels necessary to first contextualize the group in question: reviewing the more miscellaneous remark, and revealing the naturally-rooted positions where they exist. These comrades, perhaps more than almost anyone, embrace socialists’ engagement with the current progressive demand for democracy.

The primary example of this comes early, as it is suggested that one is now declaring the existence of a “revolutionary situation.” This is certainly a feature of various Trotskyite sects; it is a feature which MUG founder Donald Parkinson criticizes harshly in his response to Nathaniel Flakin, where he condemns Flakin’s arguments for producing revolutionary phrase-mongering – the precise issue Scottie raises in regard to MUG.¹ Moreover, he notes that the current insistence on such could be tantamount to “attempts to trick the working class into making a revolution”²  – certainly not the thoughts of someone imagining a current, or impending, revolutionary situation. Indeed, the whole exchange only happens because Flakin doesn’t think this slogan advocates a sufficiently radical break with the progressive movement. But of course, we can say that Flakin, like many Trotskyites, is merely blind to the similarities. For the sake of thorough argument, we can interrogate this question further.

Thus, one puts forth the necessary questions: how does this slogan “allegedly” educate the proletariat on the natural progression of their existing slogans? How does it not presumptuously dictate, but rather assist the natural development of any revolutionary demands? By emphasizing relation to the democratic nature of Marx’s program for the Parti Ouvrier, that democratic nature which we are reminded is the “light and air of the proletariat.”³ Furthermore, we are reminded that this pursuit does not arise only of their technical need, but of the worker’s expressed wants. Not merely rhetorically, but for the fact that it all “began with Marx drawing up a 101-item questionnaire for working-class readers of the socialist paper La Revue socialiste.”⁴ So, it is clearly the intent of MUG to be engaged with the contemporary democratic movement in this case.

It is then the program’s political section which receives the most attention; a section which does not speak of seizing the means of production. In fact, it does not even once proclaim the need to act on some revolutionary situation. They speak of how the demands for true political democracy served socialism, being just as practical as they were transitional.⁵ Parkinson only then, after grounding the proposal in such a manner, moves to arguing the revolutionary purpose of this: the fulfillment of the quest for democracy, the establishment of a democratic republic, and with such, the power of the proletariat to enact their economic vision. Thus, insofar as one is concerned with a ‘revolutionary situation,’ it is this work which is meant to later enable it; there is no dependence on one already existing. This sort of thinking should not feel so alien to the author. 

Simply put, it is not a matter of saying, “there is a revolutionary situation! Comrades, rise up against the slavers’ testament!” Nor is it a matter of “advancing their demands” in a way which calls on the workers to abandon all calls which are not “communism yesterday!” This is pursuing a genuine engagement with the workers’ slogans and with their very real need for democratic self-government. The immediate struggle for democracy is the motivator itself. It is wrong to speak as though some great gap of methodology exists. The question that remains is not, “do we engage with the progressive bloc’s demands for democracy?”, nor is it, “do we seek to reveal what they are truly fighting, and what the natural conclusion of this struggle must be?” It is merely whether or not the answer to such is to “Fight the Constitution.”

Fight the Constitution?

Now we may properly begin with the question of MUG’s slogan, the call to “Fight the Constitution.” As I have said already, it is alleged that this “seems to appear out of thin air.” The membership of MUG may only look at this claim incredulously, for they understand this to be, in fact, the natural culmination of the democratic struggle. Not to be swatted aside as fantasizing about “the ultimate aim of our movement,” but to be recognized as the unifying and guiding framework by which to exhaust the current political struggle. This is not a conclusion which is “transcribed” from the theoretical need for proletarian democracy, it is the view one adopts when observing the current contest. If the struggle should last long enough, and thus sufficiently deepen, then the masses shall similarly recognize this.

To prove this, we do not even need to look at the factors pointed to in various corners of Cosmonaut – as we noted, the evidence is found in Scottie’s very article. Since I have said this slogan emerges from the existing political struggle, it is fortuitous that we are provided concrete examples of what the existing struggle contains – according to the author. Suffrage is highlighted very clearly here. We shall not address the notes on more formally ‘cultural’ questions like LGBT rights, as this is less strictly related to the Constitutional Question. Instead, we shall focus on institutional elements of government: the Senate and the Supreme Court. In addressing the particular question of suffrage, we must very quickly find that we are in fact addressing questions of how one expands it – specifically, by observing the most fundamental obstacles to implementation, and then considering what potential means exist for overcoming them.

The point of suffrage is brought up in a relatively independent fashion – a third item. As such, the inquisitive reader may wonder why it must come back to matters of the Senate and courts. For the consideration of the Supreme Court, we are offered an answer in this same section: “the Supreme Court stripped the Attorney General’s Office of its ability to enforce the Voting Rights Act.” So, if the goal of our intervention is educational, then how does one educate the masses on the struggle for suffrage? It would seem that, as the laws presently exist, it is necessary to point them in the direction of the Supreme Court. Indeed, as the court’s tendrils expand ever outward in the most publicly upsetting fashion, the public themselves become more and more convinced of the institution’s oppressive nature.⁶

This same point is just as true for the Senate. If you wished to legislate a solution, either directly or by means of influencing the court, it would require that ‘upper’ chamber, the disproportionate representation of which is defined by its “basic constitutional makeup.” In fact, the contemporary movement, independent of any socialist influence, is quite cognizant of this fact. One can scarcely go far on the topic of abortion, or really of any substantial reform, without immediately remembering the filibuster and the general structure of the senate. This is not simply a consequence of basic logic; it is a fact that the masses are reminded of regularly by Democratic officials and the media. 

Thus, it must follow: the question of suffrage is a question of these institutions. In general, the battle for democracy is a battle against these structures, as much as it is against any particular reactionary force. The ‘progressive cultural bloc’ knows this just as well as we do. They see the abuses of the Supreme Court, the impotency in crisis with the Senate, and they wish to hammer these pieces. First into function, and eventually into oblivion. They understand these entities to be undemocratic and threatening, and this understanding only deepens through struggle. In this sense, almost everyone joyfully joins the masses in shouting, “Down with the nine tyrants! Down with the useless pontifications of the ‘greatest deliberative body’!” What is critical to the educational mission of all socialists is that we must call on the proletariat to observe, without illusion, the obstacles before them.

We do this not because they would not inevitably run into these obstacles, but because it advances their political consciousness to inform them beforehand – to prepare them for the road ahead, so that they are not persuaded by illusions. They’ll feel it when the Supreme Court invents a Constitutional crisis from nothing, attempting to resist most sensible restraints on it – let alone abolition. They’ll feel it when the Senate refuses to take up any amendment to abolish itself, even if a great mass outcry coalesced around such a proposal. One need only recognize the inevitability that eventually the senate and house become irreconcilable in their politics. They’ll feel it when, in pursuit of the right to true human equality, they can gain great support in only 37 and not 38 states. Truthfully speaking, it will most likely be even fewer than that. We face these same challenges even in the case of Article V’s described convention. Knowing this, we must fight the Constitution; we must fight the plague which poisons the “fertility of the battleground.”

In the process of advancing this line, nobody is declaring the existing slogans of progressive workers to be wrong. Nobody is saying “fight the Supreme Court? This is naught but petty bourgeois or cultural nonsense.” All that is being done is to pose the question of the next step, to explain to such potential comrades where their current fight must lead. Which is, quite literally, the proposal being set forth in this article. The only reason one would deny this is if, like much of the ‘progressive cultural bloc,’ they did not recognize what comes next. This is no different than all historic engagements with the question of bourgeois democracy. We join the masses in calling for democracy, and without rejecting the idiosyncrasies of their pursuit, we expose the lies of imagining bourgeois democracy as a real solution. This is, in fact, exactly the sort of speaking which encourages the hastiest exhaustion of progressive aims.

So it is from the recognition of the existing fight for suffrage, of the existing fight for representative government, that one puts forth the call to fight the Constitution. It is not floating above these battles; rather, it is the natural point of cohesion between them. So, if the point of our intervention is to reveal what the proletariat is already fighting, then we must say that they are fighting the Constitution. Whether it is more directly through attacks on the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, or more indirectly through resistance to voter suppression, their fight is already against that document. If we did not point this out, we would be guilty of tailism – of not clarifying what must actually be done to fulfill the more radical progressives’ promises. This is not an ideological matter; it is a concrete matter of state structure for even progressive liberals.

Dissolving or Recycling?

From here onward, I am speaking entirely from my own historical perspective (which does not necessarily have anything to do with MUG’s). If we are going to talk about building a more suitable political arena, one which emerges from a dissolving resolution to existing conflict, then we must pay serious attention to the process of reform. Even the reforms which may be advanced by this progressive bloc are in no way guaranteed. It is actually their tendency not to succeed, instead (unintentionally) pursuing passive revolution. In this way, the progressive bloc condemns themselves to the recycling of the existing struggle. Accepting modest electoral tweaks and only the most basic shoring up of their legal rights with respect to their struggle against private tyranny. Few underlying issues are ever resolved; the masses are bribed into a false sense of security and all their political infrastructure is left to wither away until some distant generation rediscovers the newly-sharpened pains of the system. So we must learn to distinguish between reforms: those which assist passive revolution, and those which instead resist it. 

Now, it may suit us to look at where passive revolutions have successfully occurred, and we will, but it is best to start with observing the full underlying consciousness of the revolutionary classes. Few cases contain a more total exhaustion of existing political methods than the early stages of the French Revolution. Like all periods of extreme social unrest and revolutionary potential, it was intertwined with relatively intolerable economic conditions. But the majority of those who organized outrage, wrote furiously, and eventually arrived as delegates of the Third Estate, did so having inherited their formative common sense from a social order which was not their own. Popular sovereignty, yes – but without imaginings of a constitution or dramatic governing upheavals.⁷ They had come not to reorganize the social order, but merely to resolve an economic crisis within the confines of its walls, as demanded by ‘the people.’

Such men ultimately believed – as did the ‘backwards peasantry’ and the urban sans-culottes – in their institutions of governance. They had been presented for years now with the failures of these systems, but initially perceived the parlements to represent their interests and be therefore worth defending.⁸ They viewed this historic meeting of the Estates-General with sincere confidence. What faith they had, from the highest merchant to the lowliest toiler, in the historic battleground of representing French rights! Then, of course, the first issue arose, and the parlements reminded everyone that they were tools of the aristocracy and would insist that two tiny estates outvote one.⁹ Thus, progressive elements of the existing democratic struggle were forced to recognize that they could not proceed without opposing the parlements and their ruling aristocrats. As has been explained already, we can observe a similar trend with regard to the Supreme Court’s recent rulings.

When they reached this supposedly grand meeting to resolve this matter, they stood before the totality of the Estates General and the general institution of the monarch. They were wholly ready to allow much to remain as it was, if only the financial crisis and the pains it inflicted on all of French society would abate.¹⁰ The more radical components were not satisfied with the bandage of an expanded Third Estate, but if this unrepresentative body would just do its duty then they could accept such a remedy. It is impossible here not to think of the growing consensus, from even opportunists – the filibuster must be abolished; the court must be packed. Then all might hum along as it ought to in the name of the people’s will as governed by the Constitution. Naturally, because the story does not end as such, things get out of hand.

The aristocracy simply could not suffer to allow this, nor could the monarchy – even though recent kings had historically managed to successfully ignore the body outside this episode.¹¹ Still, opportunity presented itself, resolving the economic crisis with an ultimately manageable modification. This was cast aside; only then did the illusion begin to truly unravel. Finally, it was revealed to all that an attack would have to be launched on the whole feudal order.¹² Unwilling to actually acknowledge the underlying conflict within society, the ancien régime had to aggressively destroy any notion that the existing structures could so much as touch the surface level of the economic crisis. Too little would change and so at last everything had to. It is not necessary for our purposes to further explain all that followed from the business of the National Assembly and the French people.

What is necessary to bear in mind though, is that the aristocracy took note of what had happened in France. Gramsci of course took particular note of this with regard to the Risorgimento, but for the sake of a quick understanding, it is Russian serfdom which bears mention here. Observing growing discontent after the Crimean War, Alexander II abolished the legal institution of serfdom.¹³ He then partially redistributed the mortgaged fields on which they had labored for generations. Yet for this they were burdened with debt to those same aristocrats. The distribution of land had left an issue of ‘cutoffs’ – vital roads to town markets, waterholes for livestock, and other such necessary things were accessible only through the holdings of the aristocracy.¹⁴ Thus, to gain access, they paid, just as they paid for the mediocre lands bestowed upon them by the Tsar. 

The peasantry had thus been liberated of legal distinction, but most practical privileges of the aristocracy remained, as did the functional way in which they interacted throughout Russian society. It did surprisingly little to advance the development of capitalism as well, beyond checking off one particular box of ‘first resort.’ Urbanization slowed from the rate of development in the first half of the century prior.¹⁵ Much like with the French before them, the Russian aristocracy’s monopolized use of capital from redemption payments contributed little to the development of an industrial society.¹⁶ Thus, the reforms primarily served to reinforce the stability of the state and, as much as possible, the aristocratic social order.

Even though Alexander resolved nearly nothing, his reforms proved a convincing measure for the peasantry after an initial wave of displeasure, and they would otherwise not seriously revisit the issue until the next great crisis arrived. Which it of course did – a few generations later. The ‘resolutions’ following 1905 might’ve stayed for generations still, if not for yet another military catastrophe soon thereafter, and the more incomplete nature of such a passive revolution – the incompleteness of which may be understood quite simply in connection to the fact that Louis’ late acceptance of the National Assembly was even more fully-baked than solutions such as the Imperial Duma. Passive revolution is not the natural weapon of the aristocracy as a general rule, but that only means that we observe an immature form, not a total absence.

This is the same tactic which was drawn upon with the reforms comprising the New Deal. With the Great Depression came the glorious return of those radical politics which had fallen apart throughout the Great War and the “Roaring 20s.” Yet with every man employed by the Civilian Conservation Corps, every security added by the fledgling system of welfare, this fury died down. Before long the great controversies over judicial activities and legislative inactivities faded. Then, cycle by cycle, third party candidates lost their seats as well as the networks of voters which supported them. Many progressive forces became subsumed into the New Deal Coalition quite before real talk of another Red Scare enters the picture in force, though by no means do I wish to belittle the various subjective factors that undermined the CPUSA. But unlike the historic aristocracy, the bourgeois state was able to paper over the crisis which had driven the masses into action. 

In ‘resolving matters,’ the bourgeoisie ‘proved’ the merit of trusting them, as the masses are miseducated to do through nearly all layers of society. Because of the tendency of this education, as we saw with the optimistic Third Estate, it is only during crises that the illusory nature of hegemonic ‘common sense’ can be revealed; it is only during this point that a truly large section of the masses are receptive to revolutionary theory, even coming spontaneously nearer toward its conclusions the longer that open conflict lasts. But they remain open to varying degrees of continuance with the old order unless it should repeatedly prove itself incapable  before their eyes, over and over. In this sense, we should take Roosevelt quite seriously in arguing that his New Deal was to be the savior of capitalism.

One could go on to list various other examples of this, explaining how a hegemonic crisis might arise from conditions separate from immediate financial roots. One might speak of the present day, where the political structures of a semi-aristocratic Constitution leave us with the electoral college and senate. Yet the former struggles to survive under the analysis of liberal common sense, and such a realization has been dramatically growing since 2016. The ridiculous power of the court made an obvious absurdity when it trifles with liberal notions of human rights. Such a list could go on for some time, but this is not the point; besides, this section has already gone on for quite some length. 

What ultimately matters is recognizing that the spontaneous consciousness of the masses is not a permanent fixture. It is something we must nurture to its fullest extent in a clever fashion – going beyond its initial assumptions about the value of bourgeois systems, and beyond initial demands which can be reduced merely to the recycling of existing conflicts. The ruling class will not become paralyzed after they are pushed to their second or third idea of reform. No, the bourgeoisie will go down the checklist quite thoroughly. If we are to allow this, then at best we might entertain the idea of socialism arriving in 3024 or thereabouts. 

 I am not saying that incrementalism is Scottie’s goal, but we will need to invent and articulate serious adjustments to the status quo of the progressive bloc in order to avoid it. Not just as a matter of maximums, but as a question of how we ‘reform’ under bourgeois democracy. Otherwise, the people will follow the logic of the Third Estate; and the modern King Louis is one eager to commit to such bribery. If that bribe is accepted – if a proper focusing of mass outrage is not developed as an alternative – then we will simply arrive back at square one. So it is, in absence of the full education of a truly revolutionary situation, very necessary to speak of the next step ahead of the demands of any “progressive bloc.” It is critical to actually evaluate what must be won in order to build that arena – notably, a more democratic constitution! But also, at least a few other things.

What is to be Done?

We are warned against thinking that the recruitment of the masses to our cause is a simple question of “the right program.” This is certainly true; the growth of the democratic coalition, and the socialist coalition within it, is foremost a product of economic and political crises found within the existing system and governing order. Both of these coalitions are growing, though; in due time, these forces will be faced with a serious problem. The most opportunistic of bourgeois social democrats shall emerge almost out of nowhere, often after having rejected those ideas only a few electoral cycles ago. When they do, they will attempt to peel off the less-advanced majority of the democratic coalition, inviting the Chuy Garcias and Barbara Lees to join them in writing the next New Deal: the one sought by their supporters. If they do so in unity with such cynics, then we might expect only to revisit any meaningful questions of politics as we contemplate retirement. The fate of the New Left, and of their predecessors who witnessed such a rise and fall, would become our own.

Thus, the necessity of asking “what is to be done?” emerges in the present. How are we to retain the cohesion of the “progressive bloc,” the democratic coalition, against such scheming? Indeed, we cannot say to the masses, “your struggle for a higher wage is wrong, your struggle for abortion rights is wrong, and you will become convinced everything is fine if we do this for you.” Yet it is still necessary to educate them to the fullest possible extent on the true nature of their struggles for governmental reforms. To invent, alongside them, a real solution to the dread they experience when observing the economic trends of globalism, of capitalism. If we can do this, then we can win the great strength of such forces to our side in dictating how another New Deal is to be written. But how is that to be done?

Such things are all the business of our program’s intervention. To encourage the workers, as it is part of all this, to fight the Constitution, and thus to drive the likes of Greg Casar into an obligation toward the most far reaching efforts when the time comes. If our program advocates reforms which naturally proceed from the existing struggle, and which secure an advance in real political rights, then that would create a more fertile battleground. Moreover, it is necessary to devise economic reforms which are not mere state bribery, which will make it impossible for the masses to forget the grand nature of their conflict. Publicly owned industries may do this, a tax whose revenue goes to such a thing indefinitely, but I welcome alternative considerations. Ultimately, both legal and economic transformations are equally vital in the pursuit of smashing bourgeois hegemony.

This does, however, leave us with one issue to return to; yes, we have an abstract idea of program needs. But how do we actually enforce this connection of the sincerely democratic liberals to their roots, rather than to their attachments with the cynically ‘democratic’ ones? From the outside, we know the answer to this very well, and I won’t waste time waxing poetically about our union organizing, rallies, etc. Many movements have had great bases of support in this way; a few even had channeled such through the most sincerely radical voices, as was the case with Radical Republicans. But we know to doubt that this is enough for halting such a betrayal. Can anyone say confidently that they know, when called to come concoct a cure for the present dilemma, that Ilhan Omar is going to heed even AOC over Katie Porter? 

Junior coalition partners exact demands all the time, however – leveraging the obligations produced through previous and ongoing work. It will be necessary for our electeds to have cultivated such an accord by this point of reasoning. Such relationships would of course open the doors to opportunistic deal making, whether in discussing a New Deal, or simply in their day-to-day. Preventing this is half the role of continued outside pressure, and of building DSA’s power independent of any politician. Quite obviously, it is a difficult tightrope to walk, but one we must walk nonetheless. Since we cannot approach this in the fashion of a traditional legislative coalition, both for the nature of the struggle, and for the organization of party politics, any answer to this dilemma must naturally be a long one. Again, I look forward to seeing what proposals might be put forth on this measure by Scottie and his fellows. 

In the end, all of this may be summarized as a question of overcoming passive revolution. Because it is the objective of passive revolution to prevent “resolution and dissolution” in favor of recycling old topics indefinitely, new approaches will have to be imagined if we are to prevent this current “progressive bloc” from falling prey to such old methods. As Scottie has expressed his intent to elaborate on this later, and it has been unclear in this article as to what our approach to this matter must be, I will leave this as an open question. The answers may yet fill several essays and I look forward to addressing it myself later in the year. Until then, I hope he shall bear in mind these many details and ponderings as he devises his own solutions, most particularly the value of the constitutional struggle in achieving one of many necessary advances toward socialism. It is necessary to both a new state, and to the very present circumstances of developing political consciousness.

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1. “In the end, what the approach of Flakin amounts to is revolutionary phrase-mongering, just with slogans more radical than the ones Guesde was stuck with in the Programme of the Parti Ouvrier.” See: Donald Parkinson, “The Revolutionary Minimum-Maximum Program,” Cosmonaut Magazine, May 5 2021, https://cosmonautmag.com/2021/05/the-revolutionary-minimum-maximum-program/.
2. “Marx and Guesde here are primarily concerned with political freedom – the light and air of the proletariat, without which it cannot breathe.” See: Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. “The process of drafting the program began with Marx drawing up a 101-item questionnaire for working-class readers of the socialist paper La Revue socialiste. The aim of the questionnaire was to find information about the living and working conditions of the French proletariat that could help inform the drafting of demands.” See: Ibid.
5. “Marx himself had no time for such ‘revolutionary phrasemongering’ and emphasized the practical yet also transitional nature of these demands. They were meant to provide a practical roadmap for the workers’ movement in taking political power, not mere slogans to shout in order to inspire mass strikes that would throw up workers’ councils.” See: Ibid.
6. This essay was written in May, but this point must seem truer and truer considering how events have developed since the presidential debates
7.  “In summary, most deputies were radicalized to the extent of accepting the sovereignty of the nation and the right of the Estates to represent that sovereignty.” See: Harriet Applewhite, “Political Legitimacy in Revolutionary France 1788-1791,” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 9, no. 2 (Autumn 1978), 255.
8. George Rude, “The Outbreak of the French Revolution,” Past & Present 8, no. 1 (November 1955), 32-33.
9. “Already in September, the Paris Parlement had shattered its reputation as the spokesman for “popular liberties” by demanding that the States General be constituted as in 1614 – i.e. that each order should have equal representation and vote separately.” See: Ibid, 35.
10. Patrice Higonnet, “Sociability, Social Structure, and the French Revolution,” Social Research 56, no. 1 (Spring, 1989), 111-112.
11. “Not assembled since 1614, the Estates-General met on May 5, 1789.” See: William Pelz, A People’s History of Modern Europe (London, UK: Pluto Press, 2016), 43.
12. “Yet, in spite of such contradictions, as the crisis deepened, bourgeois and sans-culottes were drawn into closer partnership in opposition to the privileged orders and the feudal regime.” This is in the context of the Summer of 1789. See: Rude, 37.
13. “Thus, on 30 March 1856, Alexander II made a major address which included the famous words: ‘All of you understand that the existing conditions of owning souls cannot remain unchanged. It is better to begin eliminating serfdom from above than to wait until it begins to eliminate itself from below.’ It is impossible to reduce the decision to this principle, the legal restructurings greatly benefited Tsarist autocracy, but for the purposes of this essay it is more relevant than matters like military organization.” See: N.G.O Pereira, “Alexander II and the Decision to Emancipate the Russian Serfs 1855-1861,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 22, no.1 (March 1980), 104.
14. “After the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, the gentry in some areas had parceled out land allotments to the peasants in the most remarkable ways-village dwellings in one place with their fields in another, with a nobleman’s land in between; a village field area all in one long, narrow strip one field wide and ten or twenty long, with the dwelling area entirely separate; village lands with no water supply of their own.”  See: George Yaney, “The Concept of the Stolypin Land Reform,” Slavic Review 23, no. 2 (June 1964), 281-282.
15. “At the end of the 18th century the number of urban population in the Russian Empire was 4.1%, while in the middle of the 19th century 7.8%,” “According to the sole pre-revolutionary census from 1897 the urban population was only 12.3%.” See: Daniela Szymanska, “Some Problems of Urbanization in Russia,” Current Politics and Economics of Russian, Eastern and Central Europe 19, no. 2 (2004), 77-78.
16. “The government did not make outright cash payments to the nobility; indeed it could not have done so without having gone completely bankrupt. Rather, it issued interest-bearing bonds and redemption certificates which could be used only to pay off state obligations in the amount of up to 80 percent of a sum capitalized at 6 percent of the value of previous dues minus the landlord’s debt to the credit institutions.” See: Alfred Rieber, “Alexander II: A Revisionist View,” The Journal of Modern History 43, no. 1 (March 1971), 50.