State and Society in the Political Thought of the Moscow Slavophiles

Leading members of the Slavophile circle shared a commonWeltanschauung, fostered by a complex reaction to thesocial and political changes taking place in mid-nineteenth-centuryRussia. There was, however, considerable diversity in their views aboutthe character and value of the Russian state apparatus. While theyall criticised the bureaucratic ethos of the tsarist state,a number of them recognised that it played a critical role in stabilising deep-seated social tensions in Russian society. Inthe late 1850s, some members of the Slavophile circle also cameto recognise that the state apparatus could play a positiverole in eliminating serfdom. Nevertheless, in the wake ofthe Emancipation Edict of 1861, conflict over the roleof the Russian state became the most divisive issuefor surviving members of the Slavophile circle.