Sunday, December 6, 2009

The New Decembrist Manifesto

On December 14, 1825 (old style), according to Wikipedia, officers of the Imperial Russian Guard
led about 3,000 soldiers in a protest against Nicholas I's assumption of the throne after his elder brother Constantine removed himself from the line of succession. Because these events occurred in December, the rebels were called the Decembrists (Dekabristy, Russian: Декабристы). This uprising took place in the Senate Square in Saint Petersburg.

The loyal soldiers who became known as the Decembrists held many divergent views, and they cannot be said to have pursued a unified program of change. However, they were united by two fundamental beliefs: they wished to increase social, legal, and economic justice; and they wished to change the existing Russian political system through reform, not revolution.

It is in this spirit that this site appropriates their name. Winston Churchill famously proclaimed:

Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

We would like to say the same about capitalism as a form of economic organization. We do not seek revolution, or the destruction of what we currently have. We seek only to fix it, to make it better than it was. How we should do that, however, is a proper subject for debate.

Please join the conversation.

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