Authoritarianism consolidates power after anarchy

News that the Russian upper parliament will extend the presidential term to 6 years has come as no surprise, with many expecting Prime Minister Putin to return to the presidency for 12 years. Given the terrible poverty and disorder of the nineties, however, most russians are happy to see a strong man in power.

What Burkean conservatives should note is how the Gorbachov revolution follows the pattern of all revolutions in essentially three stages: destruction of the old order by idealistic revolutionaries, terror and/or anarchy followed by a strong man, bringing authoritarianism and order. The French Revolution led to Jacobinism and the terror followed by Napoleon; the Russian Revolution led to Lenin and the Bolshevik terror, followed by Stalin; the downfall of the Kaiser led to the Weimar Republic and then Hitler; the Austria-Hungarian monarchy led to short-lived, unstable nationalistic democracies followed in most cases by relatively stable nationalistic dictators. With Gorbachov, we had the dismantling of Communism, followed by Yeltsin and croney-capitalism followed by Putin. I suspect that Putin will be the least-malign in that he has retained the machinery of democracy. Given the anarchy that preceded him, history may well look on him kindly, at least in the areas where western liberals criticise him. His main failure is in not curbing the abortion rate, and in general not addressing the birth rate: it is demographics which is likely to lead to the demise of Mother Russia, not an absence of freedom.

But back to the fate of all revolutions, which is to be succeeded eventually by a far less benign power than the one it overturned. Who can deny that Mugabe is far far worse than Ian Smith of Rhodesia? I suspect that history will see Smith as a generally benign figure. Even peaceful revolutions can follow this trajectory: did the downfall of apartheid lead to the extremely high crime rates of present-day South Africa? will a dictator follow? or will the humanity shown by figures such as Nelson Mandela and Bishop Tutu (in the midst of their ideological errors) be the reason why South Africa will survive as a free country?

The most pertinent case of the progress of Revolution is the West in our era: after the cultural revolution of the 60's debunking a christianity-based morality, we have had a period of permissive freedom, which is quickly being superseded by the dictates of political correctness; after the collapse of the culture of responsibility and the subsequent weakening of the forces of law enforcement, we have a period of high crime and disorder leading to successive legislation which progressively (in every sense) takes away our traditional liberties. We seem to be living through a transition from the 2nd stage to the 3rd stage. Only the fact that we are a democracy and still have some semblence of free speech gives us hope that a counter-revolution can save us. But where is the Conservative party?