Lev Tikhomirov: supreme power and the state as political axioms

Abstract

At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was an aggressive, brutal political struggle in which the government, the imperial camp put forward a number of ideas. Among the highranking dignitaries were people with a fine sense of state, who understood the difficulty of the situation and were looking for people in society who could find out, write out for the government a number of reform actions to curb the revolutionary movement and a clearer understanding of the positive tasks necessary for the Empire entering the industrial era. Scientists and writers of this camp have shown a very deep understanding of the importance of the ideological struggle against the revolution. There were many who wanted to formulate a complete understanding of the political phenomenon of Tsarist power, but, for the most part, it was an outline of some contours, an attempt to identify a problem or raise a question with a few juicy strokes. In such attempts, there was not the necessary capital, inclusiveness, universality that L.A. Tikhomirov was able to give in “Monarchical statehood”.

The scientific basis for his sociological reasoning, L.A. Tikhomirov builds on the statement about the immutability of the basic psychological properties of a person as an actor in social relations. The fact of the existence of a thousand-year-old Orthodox Russia was not a boring misunderstanding for him, requiring revolutionary changes or the development of social doctrines for its capital utilization. His amazing mental independence was in stark contrast to the widespread intellectual dependence on the ideological trends of the time.