Pro et Contra the Decembrists’ Legal Vision: Lessons from History

The Decembrist movement is perhaps one of the most controversial events in Russian history. The nobles, mostly officers of the Russian Guard who had fought in the Patriotic War of 1812, rose up in revolt in St. Petersburg on 14 December 1825. The generally accepted view is that the rebellion was the result of pent-up discontent with the autocracy and serfdom, as well as the desire to provide civil liberties to the entire population of the country. The poorly prepared actions of the Decembrists, which were doomed from the start, nevertheless had a major impact on the further development of Russian social thought. On the one hand, the Decembrists spoke out against the existing state system, violated their oath as officers, and shed blood, which in our eyes definitely makes them criminals and rebels who wanted to alter the country’s political system by force and, as a result, likely draw people into a bloody civil war. On the other hand, the Decembrists’ programmes, which were created based on the theory of natural law and the ideas of such Enlightenment thinkers as Charles Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Denis Diderot, and partly inspired by the experience of the restructuring of the United States, contained truly breakthrough ideas for that time on the development of individual branches of law, the creation of new legal institutions, the codification of legislation, the introduction of the principle of separation of powers in the state system, and the establishment of the foundations of democratic representative government. The fate of the Decembrists was a tragedy not only for them, but also for their loved ones and for the entire socio-political development of Russia for decades to come. Nevertheless, for the following generations of revolutionaries, the Narodniks and Bolsheviks, they became heroes and the first fighters for freedom, equality, and justice. But were the Decembrists truly pursuing exclusively noble goals? What were the motives behind the uprising: ambition or a sincere belief that they would be able to turn the tide of history for the better? Why did the investigation into the rebellion persistently look for traces of foreign backing? And were the Russian people completely excluded from deciding their own fate in the Decembrists’ plans? Were the provisions that were drawn up and described in the constitutions of revolutionary Pavel Pestel and statesman Nikolay Muravyov, who headed the Southern and Northern Societies of the Decembrists, really so positive for the country? The establishment of a unitary state, the destruction of national identity, total external expansion, and, ultimately, the official imposition of a dictatorship for a decade – how can we assess these and the other ideas of the Decembrists from a legal point of view? Finally, why did the Decembrists use unlawful methods in their actions rather than trying to build a constructive dialogue with the government when they had all the opportunities to do so? How correct was the government’s position in relation to the Decembrists and what consequences did their uprising entail for the country?