Religious Prerequisites for State Interest

150 years ago, M.A. Bakunin noticed the similarity between the classes of priests and statesmen (bureaucrats, military men, diplomats). In his opinion, both are worthy of a thousandfold hard labor and the gallows, “… for there is no horror, cruelty, sacrilege, perjury, deception, low deal, cynical theft, shameless robbery and dirty treason that would not be committed … by representatives of states, without any other excuse than the elastic, so convenient and at the same time so terrible word: state interest”. Let us note that the state interest (hereinafter SI) not only connects the classes of priests and bureaucracy (since their activities are criminal), but also masks its criminal content. Was Mikhail Alexandrovich original in such a definition of SI or did he rely on similar opinions of his contemporaries? Let me remind you that by the time Bakunin made his statement, A.I. Herzen's “The Bell” had already been published in Europe, and the notes of Prince P.V. Dolgorukov and the books of Father D.I. Rostislavov had been published. All of them recorded the aforementioned human qualities among representatives of the Russian aristocracy and clergy from the time of the formation of the Moscow Principality, with a special emphasis on the situation in the mid-19th century. The book of the Marquis de Custine and his assessment of Russia had acquired European fame by the time of Bakunin's activity. Experts in the field of knowledge and assessment of Custine's book note that its content is applicable to the Russia of Stalin and Brezhnev. The book goes beyond the time depicted in it, and is a real historical document, by which one can study time intervals from one hundred to two hundred years. It is such a document, by which one can study time intervals from one hundred to two hundred years, it can be perceived as an introduction to the study of the problem of the prerequisites for the GI of today's Russia3. Does it follow that Bakunin repeated the well-known opinions and assessments of his Russian and European contemporaries who disagreed with the political structure of Nicholas's Russia? Or is his opinion confirmed by modern research?