2017 should have been a proud year for the people of Russia, the 100th Anniversary of their forebears’ epic overthrow of Czar Nicholas II, his Romanov dynasty, and their nation’s longstanding Imperial system in 1917. It was a liberation movement with the potential for progress like the French Revolution of 1789.

But in Russia in 2017, the Revolution’s centennial passed with almost no official observation. This was no oversight; it was a bitter irony, because in 2017 – as in 1917 – the nation was being ruled by a coarse, hardhearted mentality, indifferent, even hostile, to the welfare and wishes of its common people. And that regime didn’t want those ‘common people’ to be reminded that Revolutions can be good, even splendid, things, dislodging seemingly immovable injustices that benefit those in power. So they strove to erase this episode from the national consciousness.

The rulers of Russia today, saturated in Soviet cynicism, used the typical USSR tactic of meddling with the historical record by choosing to downplay a truly ‘Glorious Revolution,’ one of the most thrilling mass liberations ever, the end of the most oppressive and hidebound monarchy in Europe. They did so lest honoring that event raise thoughts among the masses of overthrowing their contemporary tyranny.

But to paraphrase John F. Kennedy, ‘Those who make peaceful reformation impossible may make violent revolution inevitable.’

To try to demonstrate this and to redress concealment of 1917’s marvelous gust of deliverance, here, I draw attention to another major, but infamous, date in Russian history: January 22, 2024 (Gregorian calendar), is the 119th Anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday,’ or the ‘Winter Palace Massacre.’ On that date in 1905, throngs of Czar Nicholas’ loyal, loving subjects, suffering privations in the aftermath of Russia’s recent disastrous defeat in the war with Japan – largely the result of military fecklessness and endemic official mismanagement – approached the Palace (at the right of this image, with troops with smoking guns before it; now the Hermitage Museum). They wished to present a petition to the Czar, asking him as their supreme ruler and ‘Little Father’, to redress the many grievances of their condition, and trusting him to do so.

(In fact by this time, the Imperial family did not actually reside in the Winter Palace in the then-capital, Saint Petersburg. They lived at a huge villa on the outskirts of the city, and so were not in the Palace that day. But the general public was unaware of this.)

The crowd of petitioners entered the vast open space in front of the Palace, singing ‘God Save the Czar,’ and carrying Holy Orthodox Icons, to affirm that they were not rebels, but loyal subjects with faith that their Emperor would help them if only he knew the depths of their suffering.

Instead, through a baleful brew of ineptitude, miscommunication, panic and a default to over-reactive repression, Imperial troops in front of the Palace opened fire on the peaceful crowd, followed by the charge of sabre-wielding Cossacks shown here. The number of ‘loyal subjects’ killed – shot, hacked, or trampled to death by the horses or terrified people – has never been definitively established. But it was surely in the dozens, possibly the hundreds.

So this date in 2025 will mark 120 years since ‘Bloody Sunday,’ a pivotal catalyst for setting off the abortive 1905 Revolution in Russia, born of seething discontent from the recent military humiliation, and causing many other long-stifled resentments to finally boil over. This recourse – seemingly by reflex – to hideous violence more compatible with Asian Despotism than European governance, showed how the Czarist system was unable, or unwilling, to redress even respectfully presented wrongs. The shock and terror those patriotic petitioners must have felt as their adored Emperor’s henchmen set upon them fearsomely as they came, singing for God to protect him and meekly seeking his help, must have been unimaginable.

One might never recover from such disillusionment; indeed, a whole nation might not.  Bloody Sunday was by no means the first, or only time the Czarist government had used excessive force, but this showed unmistakably what it was capable of. The unique savagery of this bloodbath helped rend any semblance of a social contract between ruled and rulers forever; ever after, it had to be assumed that the state’s potential reaction to voicing ‘wrongs,’ even glaring ones, might well be ghastly, murderous brutality.

The Imperial regime deserved no benefit of the doubt that it regarded, dismissively, the ruled as slaves in need of iron discipline. This realization festered, thereafter, in the national consciousness. The upheavals of 1905 didn’t bring down the Romanovs – it would take a later, far greater war to accomplish that. And outrage then forced some grudging, semi-effectual political reforms. But the masses’ recognition that their Emperor and his government had contempt for their best interests which it was willing to express in blood, though slow to grow, was irreversible. Is it really any surprise that an abominable deed like the Winter Palace Massacre might ultimately help lead to regime-changing rebellion?

However much the current ‘regime’ tries to downplay such scenarios? So, because the rulers of Russia in 2017 (and today) tried to hide the implications of 1917 from a public that would have benefited from the freedom it should have led to, I point out Bloody Sunday, 12 years earlier, one of the principle atrocities that made the downfall of the monarchy all but inevitable by 1917 (amid its irresponsible provocation and horrendous conduct of the Great War, World War I, then raging). Revolutions are never desirable, if only for the injustices that usually provoke them; but sometimes, they are necessary, when deep-rooted societal problems can be rectified no other way. Vested interests rarely compliantly move aside; they must usually be thrust aside.

The ‘bitter irony’ mentioned near the beginning is that the Putin Regime’s official silence about 1917 was a reverberation of the event several months after Nicholas’ downfall, the Communist Coup d’etat that seized power from the ineffectual interim government of Alexander Kerensky. For whereas the Fall of the Bastille to the workers of Paris is 1789 ultimately led to the right of common people in France and other Western societies to personal autonomy and a high degree of individual liberty, the Capture of the Winter Palace, serving as a headquarters for Kerensky, in Autumn 1917 (despite its heroic portrayal in later Soviet propaganda) effectively saw a Medieval expression of inflexible Autocratic monarchy rematerialize as an updated expression of the same forces.

Marxism, imposed by the Bolsheviks after 1917, was presented as a rational, deliberate redesign of society, following scientific principles. But as the development of the Soviet Union would show, especially at the nadir of Stalinist paranoia, inflexible devotees of Marxism could not accept that its many obvious failings could happen except due to sabotage or other malicious intent. Such had to be ruthlessly annihilated, so that the one, true doctrine of Worldwide Communist Revolution could triumph.

(Beware of anyone willing to drag humanity through Hell to supposedly bring it to Heaven, as Soviet Communism, with its patron Anti-Christ Stalin, postured. Validating their own fanaticism will usually be their actual priority, whether they realize it or not. )

I have elided a good deal of nuance and detail here for relative brevity’s sake (such as the rumored presence of Marxist provocateurs in the crowd in 1905 at the Winter Palace), but do not want to portray this hugely complex dynamic as some black and white assertion of the inherent malevolence or inferiority of Russian culture. That would be simplistic, and besides: There is far too much counter-evidence of what the Russian people can do at their best, and what they fully deserve (as my previous posts have asserted).

Like the Tienanmmen Square Massacre in China in 1989, regime crimes of the magnitude of Bloody Sunday simply do not – Cannot – happen in places where government is assumed to exist as the public’s servant and protector, not its enemy and exploiter, willing to use its legal monopoly on lethal force to protect its own interests and survival, as well as those of some ruling class. Repression of this scale and savagery could only happen in states that ‘make peaceful reformation impossible,’ like ‘Communist’ China, theocratic Iran, Crime-Family run North Korea, etc.

And possibly including Vladimir Putin’s Russia too, trying to destroy memory and opposition. Nicholas II was not personally guilty of the Massacre, but he personified a sclerotic regime that had no mechanism for peaceful redress or transition. Any regime that had such would never have implemented, even by incompetent happenstance, a Bloody Sunday; or needed to. Such a tragedy – outside the very gates of a locus of national pride, values and dignity – was only going to happen where the will of the governed is considered an impudent nuisance by a hostile authority, whose main objective is self-preservation.

In a followup essay, I will explain why this anniversary is not just a gruesome curiosity, but how the cultural forces it represented – including the suppression of the memory of the full 1917 Revolution it precursed – still reverberate today, but now may play a far greater role in the peace and security of the world. A role that reflective people should be aware of – with considerable alarm.

The Soviet Union, and Soviet outlook of most of Russia’s current rulers is not dignified with the jeweled regalia, Court apparatus or semi-divine status of the Czars. However, their lethargy in the public welfare, primacy of self-interest, tolerance for corruption in exchange for loyalty, and bull-ox-like reaction to unwelcome stimuli (attributes that Hitler said proved Russians were ‘subhuman; on that basis alone, one might assume Russians would avoid such behavior) seems to still be stubbornly present.

A recent New York Times article about Russian politics said that in the past, when life in their environment of frozen steppes was so hard, rights for individuals were viewed negatively, as possibly coming at the expense of collective security. That may have been appropriate when there were literally wolves at the gates, needing surveillance taken in turn, but today, this vast nation will never be ‘modern’ till it grasps that this outlook has long outlived its usefulness.

And so has the premise that a good ruler must be ruthless enough to crush any obstacle or opposition; and that any ruler who does so is, by definition, ‘good.’ No regime that treats its people like this will, in the long run, survive, or deserve to do so.

So let the countdown begin, January 22, 2025 will be 120 years since Bloody Sunday, but its spirits continue to lurk, unrepentant and aggressive, in the Kremlin. Mr. Putin might shy away from the visuals of using sabre-wielding Cossacks and Army rifles to attack peaceful protestors against the war in Ukraine, but he has certainly shown willingness to use force against any brave souls who have demonstrated, rather than allowing them to do so peacefully. And there is little doubt he’d be willing, if he felt trapped, to kill such protestors just as he has tried to murder the memory of the Glorious Revolution of 1917. But his power – unlike the Czars’ – makes his mindset a potential menace for the whole planet, not just for his own people.

This is dedicated to my best friend, Joe Piszczor, who died November 21, 2023. Physician and musician, his kindness, humor and wisdom ‘disbursed the gloomy clouds of night’ for me, more than once.

Please bear with me, as I labor to elicit in words inferences that are beyond facile verbal expression:

I try to accompany my posts for Christmas with music; generally something composed for the Season. But this time, I hope to address the jubilant premise of the event – benevolent Divinity coming into the world as love and hope incarnate – with music not written for the occasion, but whose ineffable beauty is parallel, in scope, to that premise.

Below is a performance of Bach’s crystalline Gavotte en Rondeau – a dance rhythm – from his Third Violin Partita, which I perceive as a melodic complement to the spirit of Christmas as respite against the sorrows and troubles of life as we so often experience it. Those can engulf hope like a chasm from whose dark clutches not even light can escape, but opposing such a suffocating vision, the Gavotte’s delight, merry yet arresting, conveys resurgent joy as did the promise of Christ’s coming. This music erupts with grace which we may reflect back, to illuminate the dark recesses we must face.

Including whatever hardship, or cross, each of us bears in their own lives, for Bach’s genius here shows how there is light beyond any darkness. Like the outlandish presentation of Jesus as hope beyond hope and joy beyond joy, the Gavotte offers something to displace the transient fray of our mortal spans: Impossible beauty. ‘Impossible,’ yet there it is, an echo of Paradise, beckoning us to yield to its intimations.

The hardest thing to believe about Christmas may be its aspect that squares least with our lived reality: Too often, compelling evidence is that Life is a blind, callous juggernaut in which savage beings and indifferent Nature prey on vulnerable flesh, and for many if not most of us, the best we can plausibly hope for is to avoid too much suffering before it ends in our being obliterated; each and all. 

On the contrary, Christmas asserts, in the same way Bach’s ecstatic Gavotte does, that there is such positivity – grace – to be found in our world as to offset all the evil, sorrow and misfortune that confront us daily and perpetually. That the world and Existence itself are fundamentally ‘good’ phenomena, wherein the value and justification of the Self, as part of a splendid and greater Whole, may be found and fully revealed.  

For most of us, that proposition seems even more personally counterfactual than the Christmas story’s deviations from our world’s ordinary processes. We may focus too much on its unlikely dogma and details; divine incarnation, virgin birth, debatable timeline, etc., rather than on its radically extra-intuitive aspect. The import of that story should be taken deeply seriously, but not necessarily literally.

For it is not invariably necessary to believe that something is literally, factually true, in every detail, in order to place faith in it. Such an assertion cannot cure cancer, find us a life partner, secure us a career, etc. But ‘faith’ and hope in the presence and power of things forever beyond our grasp can center us, giving us space to believe that our time on this Earth is not at the mercy of that fearsome ‘juggernaut’ alone, and that our lives have intrinsic meaning and value that are otherwise not apparent. They are parts of the on-going, wondrous dynamic of an interconnected, interdependent Creation, vibrant with the Gavotte’s irrepressible energy.

Opening ourselves to such reflections can help us endure when the struggles of life seem unendurable. Bach was a devout Christian, but though he presumably didn’t compose this piece with any specific religious intent, I invoke it now because it conveys a vaulting sensation brimming with the same ardent bliss as the promise of love being born, personified, into the human realm. That – like this lucent, infectious melody – offers us a means to outrace shadows which seemingly must overtake us all eventually.

This was surely not Bach’s intention for the exquisite Gavotte, but he might have approved my depiction of his inspiration this way. It is three minutes of all-encompassing loveliness which, structured as theme and variations, allegorizes Eternity: An enduring essence, endless change, yet unfailing renewal. This compact marvel supports my notion that the hardest thing for us to accept about the story of Jesus’ birth may not be its factual unlikeliness, but its underlying murmur: life is essentially good, a medium for contentment and happiness, just as valid as the dispiriting, omnipresent evidence of its sorrow and misfortunes.

One of my routine objections to an exclusively rational perception of life is that its mechanisms are not its actual meaning. They explain how life happens and continues, but not what it is for. Its ‘meaning’ must be something grander than our transient ‘Selves’ – though not grander than ‘Ourselves’ – in which we can place hope, and extract gladness. We tend to give the mechanisms preponderance because they are things our minds can grasp to the point of quantification; hugely useful – but must they be the entire reality? Why must we infer that such transcendent loveliness as the Gavotte can be nothing but the result of pulsating brain tissue and firing nerve endings? If it can, then it is not so much splendid, dynamic ‘Life’ as a mere haphazard, meaningless alchemy of anatomical gadgetry.

Arguably more important, even if that mechanistic interpretation were accurate, how wise would it be for us to embrace such an outlook, exclusively? Through this music, we can be revealed, to ourselves, to be far more than mere devices for Self-preservation; we can resonate to an energy that can deliver our own existences from the apparent pointlessness that mortality intones.

As Jesus did, by Christian doctrine, in the eventual consummation of Easter: Love made flesh, love of the Other that may transcend Death itself. I realize this observation may seem insensitive, even ludicrous to those whose lives have been laden with true hardship or riven with real tragedy. But artistry like Bach’s may enable human constraints – even human suffering – to dissolve and merge with splendor that is usually inaccessible, a summit that, theoretically, should be beyond our vision, let alone, our reach.

Yet here it is, manifest through the near-miraculous ingenuity of a supremely great artist. Listen to this music again, let it suffuse you and reflect on whether ‘Divinity,’ however defined, can only be an irrelevant anachronism, as suggested by the barren seductions of rational comprehension alone. It intimates, at the very least, some superhuman presence and intent. Let it flow through you, and you too may feel that humanity is worth saving; even suffering for. If we are all indirectly stained by evil, like Stalin’s, can we not also be indirectly validated by the glories summoned by Bach?

All credit to Bach as the diligent instrument, but such expressiveness is only possible by surpassing ordinary human constraints. Personal talent and industry alone can hardly explain grandeur at this level; it is a reflection – an exposure – of the force of Creation itself.  Personally I cannot hear this multi-faceted effusion of shimmering loveliness and exclude the possibility of a tender deity, hinting to us of its presence (if not its consistent intervention), only because it doesn’t seem to comport with the rest of perceptible, measurable, predictable reality.

It may not be proof, but surely, it is credible evidence.

The premise of Christmas is not proof either, yet we should let ourselves wonder if a plain of being in which such sublimity could be generated and contained could be, in the final analysis, merely a venue of ugliness and misery. Utmost creativity, like Bach’s, are sparkling, standalone expressions of the glory – expressed here as artistry, but for all of us, accessible as love for the Other – that may manifest when the potential of the human spirit is fully invoked, and then exceeded. It reminds us, with galvanic iridescence, how our Nature may have heights we so rarely get to sense that we may understandably despair of their even existing. Like thin air at high altitudes, where we cannot function as we ordinarily do.

Protecting and enhancing our physical well-being is one of our intellect’s main tasks, but it is a false sense of empowerment to believe intellect can have no worthy purpose but to untangle the operations of the world around us.  This music conveys the resurgent joy I allow myself to feel (with no endorphin frisson) – not to ‘understand’ but to feel – that there is a positive Creative Force with affection and purpose for me, as for every one of us. A Force replete enough with Agapé to summon the Universe from a meaningless vacuum, and even to cyclically rescue its only conscious beings – us – from ourselves.

The very existence of art like this suggests that premise cannot be dismissed out of hand. To me, the Gavotte echoes that sense, lifting me out of my self-regard and into a dimension immaculate of the concerns of this one. Granted, such a sense cannot be defined by logic, but perhaps that suggests that not all in Life that is valuable to discover and experience can be ‘defined by logic.’ Perhaps so many of us respond to this work because it satisfies a void within us we may not even have been conscious or mindful of, till we feel it being filled by some burst of joy. Of which Bach’s inspiration is but one awesome example.

The random scattering of talents, even at the level of Bach’s, among us – just as genetic burdens are also randomly scattered – implies, to me, that our promise as a species lies as much in our each being parts of the great human enterprise, as in our individuality. It is only ‘we,’ not ‘I,’ who may plausibly go on forever, and there may be comfort in accepting such continuity. Most of us will not leave expressions like Bach’s – or like any other epic personality – to mark our lives for posterity to recall; but any of us may be able to contribute to the life-giving love that Jesus embodied, that unfolding, elemental ‘force of Creation itself.’

Thus, if you ever need hope beyond what it is rational to believe, this dance of exultation will be there for you, inviting you to join it, bounding over the sordidness of life around you. Or of super-rational hope, like the premise that Love may, in the ways that matter most to us all, ‘overcome’ Death by furthering the positive energy of the Universe – that is, the presence of love within it – an energy we may recognize as more powerful and actualizing than the presumed finality of non-being.

The opportunistic Russian invasion of Ukraine offers many reasons for pessimism about human affairs, but I would note the hopeful implications of how the tyrants’ main tools – cruelty, ruthlessness and repression, so long and often the ultimate deciders of ‘human affairs’ – are failing to win that struggle.

Russia’s attack might not have gone disastrously had capable managers executed it, but Putin’s regime regularly precludes ‘capable managers,’ as rulers like him dare not empower anyone clearly able to take over from them (this applies especially to military personnel, but Putin also pads upper ranks of the civilian administration with those dependent on his favor). So his dilemma is that what he demands most from subordinates is loyalty, but what he needs most to conquer valiant, resourceful Ukraine is competence. Faced with this choice, Putin has prioritized loyalty, and a ghastly battlefield impasse is the result.

However: The Russians’ bungling may have greater repercussions than just thwarting their own criminal assault (vital though its failure is). Might Putin’s shambolic conduct of his aggression manifest that modernity – increasingly reliant on subtle comprehension, planning, regulation, etc. – has passed a ‘point of no regression’? A threshold beyond which even a semblance of a modern state (like Putin’s kleptocracy) can no longer be kept functional with primordial methods like ‘cruelty, ruthlessness and repression?’

The uniformed bandits Putin entrusted with his ‘Special Military Operation’ are evidently deficient in the temperament and brains to handle the intricacies of 21st century warfare strategy, logistics, etc. Many of them presumably rose in rank due to willingness to implement his orders fiercely and without question, in return for being allowed to commit near-limitless thievery.

So is it really a surprise that tragicomic failure results from a culture in which loyalty precedes ability, corruption starts at the top, cascades down from the extravagant Black Sea villa ‘Putin-hof’, past layers of larcenous Apparatchiki, to ordinary soldiers (for example) rendering military vehicles useless by stripping out their copper wire to buy vodka with the proceeds of reselling it? Is it a shock that such a culture cannot just roll over well-organized, adept patriots like the resolute (NATO armed/trained) Ukrainians?

Thus, this bully-writ-large undertaking may have a positive side, if it exposes that despotism does not – cannot – deliver effective governance in the modern world. That a mentality of rule that comes from the Dark Ages cannot ‘keep the lights on’; that what worked for Ivan the Terrible does not succeed in the era of the Terabyte.

Of course, pitiless use of force was the habitual standard for rule everywhere, including in the West, till the mid-18th Century (for example, the Battle of Culloden, and subsequent repression in Scotland). But whereas much of the developed (modern, functional) world has long since progressed beyond such preliterate impulses, the Russians – acting as if the savagery of their barbaric medieval occupation by the Mongols is still a proper standard for behavior and leadership – evidently have not. Or at least, not nearly enough.

But such cannot remain the standard. Life’s complexity is getting deeper, the Kremlin dinosaurs are in way over their heads, and are lashing out in bewildered frustration at a world in which moderation, not their reflex primal resort to raw power, is likelier to avail. So the ludicrous course of the invasion may represent a little-remarked, but vital evolutionary step for humanity beyond the domination of those (like Vlad the Impeder) who would keep us unevolved and pliable forever.

If they can; and if the rest of us let them. Please bear this perspective in mind in terms of the interests of the civilized world in providing aid to Ukraine till it vanquishes Putin and the Jungle Law he personifies. This would be truly elemental progress, and we need to keep up its momentum.

Ukrainian victory is still far from certain, but their survival for this long in the face of a vastly larger and remorselessly cruel foe, suggests that the Putins of the world have not got (and cannot grasp) what it takes to operate a nation state that meets 21st century expectations. If their main goal is regime survival and blunt force is their go-to tactic to ensure it, its failure to prevail in Ukraine, and the resulting domestic disruption, may prove that such an approach will never again be a reliable means to run a country (especially one with grandiose ambitions) in today’s world.

Russian Goliath still has a club, but Ukrainian David has ditched his sling for a mace-spewing drone. Not that advanced warfare methodology can’t be used for offense as well as defense, but one may hope that the primal instinct that the strong can, and therefore should, tyrannize the less strong may start to wither, along with the efficacy of cruder means of doing so. ‘Evolutionary,’ in that both that instinct and means are more suitable for beasts than for an advancing Mankind.

By contrast to the mindset of Kremlin creatures, perhaps those ‘elites’ in the (especially, and mostly Western) business world who can truly command 21st Century technology and organization will eventually prove to the rest of us that they are sophisticated enough to recognize that the finest use of their talents would be to transcend the immemorial Alpha wolves of the world. That they may show wisdom – even greatness? – by realizing the worthiest rewards must come from using their gifts to benefit Mankind, as much as themselves; or more.

Will they? Time will tell; but the palisade of slender ultra-luxury ‘Money-Liths,’ residential towers on New York’s Billionaires’ Row – visible from areas of seething poverty further north – suggests this group has not yet grasped, or cares, that they may have it in their power to substantially improve the material human condition as few people have ever had. Especially if they decide to rise above the coarser reflex to pamper and exalt themselves as indulgently as gods; a deed higher than any super-tall skyscraper, that.

We may hope they will recognize and act on that realization, but in the meantime, at least the Putin-derthals are revealing their own possible obsolescence. And such – that is, great physical (especially, male upper-body) strength and savagery no longer translating to keys to overall dominance – would not be mere transition, but true transformation.

As to Putin’s invasion, I pray Ukraine stays free, but even if it doesn’t, the world has seen how the ferocity he and his accomplices assumed would quickly overwhelm its supposed decadent Westernizing weakness did so only at enormous costs, with humiliating setbacks and irreversible damage to Russia’s economy. The latter includes eviscerating her fossil fuel market, and driving out legions of citizens with the skills most needed by a modern society (including those smart enough not to want to be cannon-fodder for megalomaniac Kleptocrats).

Far better that Russian military might and barbarity fail conclusively and comprehensively, but the fact that these have been so much less effective than initially assumed may reflect a fundamental shift, in which the needs of modernity – on which those financial and technology elites of Billionaires Row and beyond depend for their comfort and plutocratic sway – are irreconcilable with the primeval supremacy of brute force. If no other good comes from all the barbarous tactics of this invasion, perhaps at least their patent ineffectiveness will contribute to their gradual invalidation and eventual disappearance.

Finally, lest anyone suspect that I am simply anti-Russia, let me show my respect and admiration for her common folk by offering the accompanying video of a Saint Petersburg ballerina performing exquisitely, as evidence of what Russians are capable of, rather than being the biped cattle the Nazis considered them (and as Putin still treats them).

The story behind the video strikes me as characteristically Russian; this artist is dancing, en pointe, on a frozen lake at 5 degrees F, as an ecological protest (as explained in the narration; I don’t know if she succeeded, but hope so). It may not be ‘heroic’ per se, and few Russians could or would do this, but this spectacle nevertheless seems like something that would rarely, if ever, happen anyplace else.

And if a people among whom such talent, grace and strength – seemingly as elemental as their overlords’ cynicism – are to be found, finally realize they don’t have to let their leaders treat them like disposable beasts of burden (the fault line between modern ‘citizens’ and feudal ‘subjects’) forever, they might enact extreme retribution on Putin. Perhaps involving his bodily orifices and Stalin’s disinterred bones, wielded by mothers of Russian soldiers lost to his dictatorial delusions.

Such would be vicious behavior, but a cathartic response to ages of equally vicious oppression. Putin is this great, though tragic, land’s latest protagonist of that kind of rule, but perhaps he will be its last. If ordinary Russians finally reject and destroy the foul apparatus he wields, they would prove they possess tough nobility and truly inherent splendor, as this video suggests.

Ironically, the opposite of the chauvinist ‘glory’ Putin envisages for their Motherland.

‘The Glorious Revolution’ is the name usually given to the English ruling class’ overthrow of their King, James II, in 1688. It’s a complex story, but here’s a summary: At that time, most Englishmen were Protestant, and deeply suspicious that James, a convert to Catholicism, would try to make England a ‘Papist’ country again. To forestall that, a clique of the most powerful men in the realm persuaded William of Orange, leader of the Protestant Netherlands and husband of Mary Stuart – James’ Protestant daughter and first heir to his throne, after his young son – to sail, with Mary, to England to depose James, then become co-sovereigns.

This plan succeeded, virtually without bloodshed. When it became known that William and Mary were coming to claim his crown, James’ military command would not support him, nor would many of his most prominent subjects. With no army that would defend his hold on rule, James fled to France. The Presumptors arrived in England to widespread acclaim and approval, and were formally offered co-monarchy – contingent on their accepting several conditions including new, clear limits on their actual powers.

The royal couple agreed to those terms, and it was from this time that the executive supremacy of England’s Parliament over its Monarch began to irreversibly grow: The proto-version of the ‘Constitutional Monarchy’ of King Charles III’s impending coronation.

For in addition to its religious motives, the aim of 1688’s ‘palace coup’ was to preclude royal Absolutism as in France, whose King Louis XIV was virtual autocrat of his nation. England’s upper classes – indeed, most of society – wanted no such possible despotism, so henceforth their sovereign’s governance would be highly circumscribed, with more and more practical control gradually accruing to Parliament’s House of Commons (an elected body, but at the time, only male property-owners could vote). Eventually, the events of 1688 led to the successful version of Britain’s monarchy – with a King or Queen as nominal reporting authority and political backstop of last resort, but not day-to-day leader – that he, or she, is now.

It was indeed a ‘Glorious Revolution’ that such fundamental change happened with so little violent resistance, and led to a robust, durable socio-political framework. The nation’s ruling classes effectively ‘established’ themselves, not the monarch, as having supreme political jurisdiction. This would shift over generations, as literacy and economic influence became more widespread, to ‘majority rule’ with voting rights for virtually all adults.

But my title for this post, ‘Inglorious Revolution,’ alludes to a simmering suspicion regarding events some 250 years later, in 1936, which may still have implications for Charles III. The accompanying photo shows his great uncle, King Edward VIII, speaking into a radio microphone to deliver his abdication speech in that year, announcing to the world that he was giving up his throne to marry his twice-divorced American mistress, Wallis Warfield-Simpson.

At that time, as official head of the Church of England (Anglicanism), a British monarch was not allowed to wed a divorced person, but Edward made the monumental decision to yield his regal stature so he could make Wallis his wife. He was succeeded by his unprepared younger brother Albert as King George VI, father of the late Queen Elizabeth, and King Charles’ grandfather. After abdicating, Edward went into voluntary exile and duly married Wallis, but putting his personal happiness before the great office expected of him caused him to be largely ostracized by his family, disrespected by much of the British public, and to rarely set foot in the United Kingdom till his death in 1972.

Almost since he renounced the crown, there has been a drip of innuendo to suggest that Edward had not been fit to be King anyway. Beyond abandoning his responsibilities, which implied he had no sense of duty, after his abdication (but still before World War II) he and Wallis were public, ostentatious admirers of Nazism. It is suspected Hitler hoped to restore him to the throne and make Wallis Queen, if Germany conquered Britain in the war he was already planning. Worse, British Secret Service records hint that Edward was not unwilling to listen to such overtures from Hitler, an inexcusable disloyalty in one who had once personified his country. And after the War, he was involved in some base business deals that would have been rejected by any ‘man of honor.’

However: If Edward VIII didn’t have a sterling character, neither did many of his royal predecessors. For example, his grandfather King Edward VII had been so lascivious as Prince of Wales he was often referred to as ‘Dirty Bertie.’ And the reckless, tin-eared extravagance of George IV could well have ignited a French-style Revolution in Britain. Besides, many other blue-blooded Brits have famously acted anything but ‘noble.’ Edward’s position, and his antics with Wallis were so prominent and overt that, supposedly, they couldn’t just be discreetly overlooked; yet those of at least two ignoble Kings in the modern era had been.

While I have no reason to doubt that abdicating for personal romance was selfish and indifferent to consequences – upsetting society and threatening the exalted position he was born to hold (and source of all his privilege), the monarchy itself, that his affinity for Nazism, his petulance about his later treatment by his family and the British public, and his vulgar grasping for shady profit, etc. – are all true, there has also been indismissible evidence that his fall was ultimately due to something more than just his attachment to Mrs. Simpson.

It has been suggested that Edward’s insistence on marrying Wallis, a supposed deal-breaker that meant he absolutely could not remain King, could have been ‘finessed’ somehow. For example, Parliament might have devised some legal dispensation for him to marry his American divorcée, but instead, Wallis got used as a convenient pretext to get rid of him in as little unseemly a manner as possible.

In this interpretation, he actually was, in effect, deposed because his approach to kingly duties had alarmed some powerful domestic interests. His outlook, temperament and pleasure-seeking lifestyle were the opposite of those of his arch-respectable father/predecessor George V, and not only did he embrace far looser etiquette, he showed overt disdain, even contempt, for the petrified rituals of the royal court, much affronting Britain’s ruling caste.

But more crucially, as Prince of Wales during the early 1930’s – the Great Depression – and during his short reign after the death of his father early in 1936, Edward had been visible (and fairly candid) in suggesting that the government was not doing enough to help people who had lost their jobs, homes, or were otherwise still suffering in the aftermath of the economic turmoil.

Edward, who had always been rich and privileged, presumably had no idea of the intricacies of public financial and employment policy needed to provide such help. But he could see that many of his common people were enduring privation, while those who might have known how to fund social relief – the government, and especially the business community – didn’t want to raise taxes to aid their fellow citizens, or otherwise further complicate their own affairs at such a challenging time. So even if Edward wasn’t especially virtuous, in that instance he appeared to be aware of and empathic to the distress of his many suffering subjects.

Which was far more than could be said of many members of Britain’s higher social strata – both hereditary and ‘in trade’ – at the time. But for them, some of his public deeds and statements came too close to forbidden royal meddling in politics; and worse, to outright populism. His perceived ‘socialist’ sympathies made him a favorite of a great deal of the public, even when he was no longer King; and thus a lingering anxiety for Britain’s ‘Establishment’.

Much criticism rightly attaches to his later visits as a private citizen to Nazi Germany and personal meeting with Hitler. But the reality may be a bit more nuanced; one reason Edward (like a great many other people of all classes in Britain and elsewhere) felt Nazism couldn’t be all bad was because under it, Germany had virtually solved its unemployment problems, and generally appeared more efficient, dynamic and forward-looking than the Democracies, still struggling with the effects of the Depression.  Besides, Hitler was a stout foe of Communism, which was then the primary nightmare of both middle class citizens, and the economic elite of the UK. (No doubt, including some of those who had contrived or approved of Edward’s downfall.)

I don’t know if the Duke of Windsor (the title Edward was given after abdicating) realized how much of the Third Reich’s prosperity was due to Hitler’s accelerating rearmament program in violation of the Treaty of Versailles at the end of the Great War. In that, along with other public works programs, millions of unemployed Germans found jobs. Thus, if one averted one’s eyes from Nazism’s ghastly facets – especially its violence against Jews (if Edward was ‘anti-Semitic,’ like a great many Englishmen, it was likelier to be stodgy social bias than murderous hatred), but also its egocentric pro-Aryan racism, its overt preparations to plunge Europe into war again, and any number of other less visible criminal intents – it might indeed appear to be ‘successful’ in ways that Democracy, encumbered by elections, rule of law, respect for individual rights, the search for political consensus, etc. – did not.

Such obstacles are easily, if inconclusively, overcome in any nation run by a dictator unanswerable to elected representatives or the citizenry. At the time, Mussolini, head of Fascist Italy, also got a lot of admiration, like Hitler, as a ‘doer,’ rather than a ‘talker.’ (A grim lesson; if strength is all you value in a ruler, you will eventually get savagery, when strength alone cannot overcome the practical complexities of rule.)

In this version of events, the real reason the ‘Establishment’ decided Edward had to go was not so much about Wallis – though her being a flippant, irreverent divorced American was indeed a problem for many of them – as about the prospect of a charismatic, seemingly open-minded king, whose office and aura might give him standing to insert input into official policy. As far as such people were concerned, Constitutional monarchs were not supposed to draw attention to themselves by word or deed in ways that created difficulties for the government (or other influential parties). For them, Edward, possibly oblivious to the depth of antagonism he was provoking, presumably crossed a line to unacceptability. As to the politicians, they may have feared that much of the populace might start to look to a genuinely concerned king for guidance, rather than to Parliament, jeopardizing their monopoly on political dominance.

A Monarch of England has the legal rights and duties ‘to be consulted, to advise, and to warn’ the regime of the day, which nominally derive their legitimacy as His or Her government. But any trend to actually impact, if not control, public policy, was something many of those in whose interests the country was really being run were determined to prevent. Especially, one suspects, if it meant government interference in the pitiless functions of the Free Market, and re-distribution of wealth to rescue the less fortunate.

But the politicians, bluebloods and lucre-men dared not expose the real reason for their disapproval of Edward: As King, he would have a preeminent platform from which to chasten them to do more for their dispossessed fellowmen (though no right to command them to do so). And he had already shown that he might make use of that podium. Thus, the religious implications of his desire to marry ‘the woman I love’ were used as a less blunt guise to maneuver him out of the way (facilitated by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, and the hidebound Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Lang).

Support and personal affection for Edward were apparently broadly felt among common Britons, so if this analysis of the forces that stealthily led to the loss of his crown is true, it was the most blatant case in modern times of the ruling class overriding the wishes of a vastly larger number of the ruled to get their preferred outcome: Edward gone, replaced on the throne by his pliable, tradition-loving younger brother as King George VI under a cynical aegis of ‘propriety.’ A tacitly, tastefully executed Coup d’état.

Let me make that clearer: The powerful got huffy that a King might violate the nation’s Democratic spirit by getting political – even as they, themselves, disregarded the apparent will of many, if not most Britons that Edward remain on the throne. So who was violating the supposedly sacrosanct ‘Democratic spirit’ more? A Sovereign who felt, and sometimes showed, actual concern for Britain’s downtrodden? Or its most comfortable, prosperous folk, invoking that spirit – while ignoring broader public opinion – because they didn’t want their yachts rocked? So much for the Establishment’s devotion to any Principle other than self-interest.

Events like the abdication frequently lack a ‘smoking gun,’ which makes definitive conclusions elusive.  Thus, no one can know for sure if the forces noted above were truly decisive in forcing the issue, or were most or only some, part of it.  I am no ardent apologist for Edward, who seems to have often acted, privately and publicly, like a clueless, spoiled teenager. Further, if he sincerely grasped how much hope ordinary people were putting in him – and had the character to put his duty to them first – he might have sacrificed his passion for Wallis and stayed King, so as to be a voice for his less fortunate subjects when they most needed one.

It may never be possible to assess for sure if this is why he was told he had to give up either Wallis or his crown – in the expectation/hopes that he would choose her – so that the ‘insiders’ would be rid of him and his incipient, ominous popularity. But if they were, the covert power-centers of the United Kingdom would likely have an interest, even today, in concealing whose wishes ‘matter’ and whose don’t, even as reminders of Edward’s genuine flaws are allowed to trickle out. 

And it would have been the ‘Inglorious Revolution’ of my title. ‘Inglorious,’ as in a sordid, shadowy, self-serving ruse of an ousting: More ‘revolting’ than revolutionary.

Now, as longtime Prince of Wales, Charles, like his great uncle Edward VIII, also publicly expressed opinions that upset some strong quarters. If he does any such as King, and discreet whispers start to circulate that he is unfit for his office – despite decades of preparation for it – and perhaps should be nudged aside in the interests of ‘protecting democracy,’ please remember: It might not be the first time a King of England got driven out, theoretically due to personal failings, but in fact because he peeved some literal powers behind the throne.

I don’t pretend to have expert knowledge of British history and law, but am aware that, as to the parameters of 21^st Century ‘Kingship,’ George V, who died 12 years before Charles was born, was a fairly hands-on sovereign, even called ‘an ideal constitutional monarch.’ During his reign (1910 – 36, including World War I), circumstances required him more than once to make practical political decisions reserved to the monarch such as use of royal assent, constitutional interpretation, etc., when events led to paralysis in the national government, or other potential crises.

His granddaughter, the late Elizabeth II – possibly sensing, or pointedly warned of, what actually brought down her uncle Edward VIII – was relatively passive for most of her 70 years as Queen. Legally, she really didn’t have many prerogatives of actual rule, but presumably had the same ones as George V, but seemingly rarely used them. Perhaps that was due to her training to reign, to a docile personality, because analogous issues to George V’s never arose for her – or perhaps she practiced utmost caution, having seen the friction her uncle’s overstepping the sensibilities of the powerful caused, whether or not it had directly led to his undoing.

King Charles may decide that, within the legal limits of English Kingship’s sphere – indeed, in the essence of his coronation oath to care for the well-being of all his people, not just the wealthy and prominent – he will be more engaged in setting the tone of national life than his late, beloved mother. If so, he might want to study his great-grandfather George V’s actions, if he hasn’t already, as a model for his own, to try to make his reign more useful to his nation than just a pageant, tourist attraction or platinum-handled rubber stamp.

As an American, I am not habituated to monarchy, and certainly couldn’t approve of the antique model of it, in which random birth leads to supreme rulership; there must be a better mechanism than that. Only after affirming that, will I say that neither do I sneer at Kingship as simply a perverse anachronism, for any nation with that tradition, current or recent. Elizabeth II showed that the office could still be unifying and stabilizing, as well as immeasurably coloring the lives of, and giving a sense of national purpose and community to, people who have, or perceive, few other sources of such benefits: The Disregarded.

Speaking of whom, it appears that many of the Westminster class, the elected Members of Parliament, are in danger of forfeiting (if they have not done so already) the ‘Democratic mandate’ which they piously intone validates their jurisdiction above a hereditary King or Queen. Britain’s long-ruling Conservative/Tory party’s claims to represent all citizens have worn so thin, they are now largely codswallop. It rules much as its American cousin, the Republican party, does: Protecting, increasing and entrenching the wealth, privilege and security of those who are already wealthy, privileged and secure – and hoping the mass electorate doesn’t notice. Assertions that they also govern in the interests of lowlier voters must appear a cynical charade, given how poorly they generally serve those constituents any time their wishes conflict with that of their actual ‘base’: The Mighty.

Further, I would point out that popular election led – in a semi-comical case in point – indirectly to the accession of the buffoonish Boris Johnson (a Prime Minister is ordinarily the head of whichever party has a majority in the House of Commons); hardly an example in popular election’s favor. Nowadays, Tory politicians may seem to be scarcely veiled shills for the affluent citizens of the UK, for whom the public apparatus of monarchy mainly serves as a decorous fig leaf of respectable pretense for their coarsely self-serving conduct of national policy.

That being the case – and having lived for 4 years under the Presidency of a man vividly unfit by experience, temperament and intellect for such responsibilities, but made so by ‘popular election’ (actually, the Electoral College) – my faith in its superiority as a mechanism for selecting leaders is no longer absolute. While I would never advocate Kingship in the U.S., for Britain – sometimes referred to as a ‘Royal Republic’ – a modestly more engaged Sovereign, adroitly calling attention to the (tactfully styled) ‘inadequate policies’ of those claiming to lead by right of election, however squalidly won or retained, might be genuinely helpful to a great many Britons.

At one time, ‘the Commons’ really did need to check royal overreach. But now, Britain may have come to the point where a wise, temperate ‘Carollus Rex’ might be able to contribute meaningfully to implementing the chivalrous substance of his sacred oath for his sacred office, to serve, protect and defend as much as possible the well-being of his people. All of them.

Because the Tories have sure as Hell shown – again and again, posturing brazenly all the way – they can’t be trusted to govern for the ‘well-being of his people’ in terms of shifting taxes, slicing public services, ad nauseam.

(I fantasize about drafting a mock coronation oath in which the feigned paternalistic care is stripped out, and the King curtly pledges to reign in – not to ‘rein in’ – the interests of the Grandees of the City of London’s financial markets and all other plutocrats, domestic and foreign: Arab, Russian, etc. It would drop the alleged concern for regular, left-behind Britain, where incomes are shrinking along with public services eroded by tax-slashing Conservatives. It would also include a firm reproof to his subject ‘proles’ not to press their tiresome hopes for a secure, First World standard of living, if providing such might disturb the Elysian comfort of their betters.)

In their virulent self-regard, too many in that ‘ruling caste’ seem to presume the Monarchy is mainly there to perform an edifying ceremonial role, and otherwise irrelevant. But they may be proved wrong.

Therefore, if King Charles III actually tries to have legitimate (‘advising and warning’) influence on what priorities ‘His’ government might focus on – to not just act as an ornamental bulwark of a Status Quo beloved by those who benefit most from it – be on the lookout. Scandals about, for example, his past romantic improprieties, may suddenly start to twitch again, questioning his worthiness for his exalted station. Or possibly the dominant cabal will even toy with dispensing with monarchy itself, if they decide it has finally become more trouble than it is worth, encumbering, rather than sustaining their primacy – national identity and the sensibilities of millions among the lower orders be damned. But here is some advice to those privileged beneficiaries: Your lot may have dispensed with the callow Edward VIII when people were less informed and likelier to believe whatever ‘authority’ said. But don’t assume you’ll get away with a second ‘Inglorious Revolution,’ shoddy, shadowy, shameless, and anything but patriotic.

Such people’s cynicism corrodes the respectable regal institution they rely on to dignify and camouflage their none too well-concealed self-interest. And thereby, they rely on a man about to take an oath – before God and the World – that he will reign for the welfare of his entire nation. But also a man whose judicious guidance might help moderate the disenchantment of a growing segment of the ‘United’ Kingdom, those exploited but otherwise ignored by entitled magnates, public and private, who still don’t grasp that Brexit may have been just a warning tremor of an Earthquake of gathering discontent beneath their feet.

Thus, God save the Kingship.