1

Machiavelli’s Ideas on Politics

In this chapter we shall outline some of the principal features of

Machiavelli’s conception of politics based primarily on his two main
works The Prince and The Discourses. We shall also consider some of his
thoughts on revolution as outlined in his Florentine Histories. Machi-
avelli’s thought has generated an immense amount of controversy. Here,
we can only briefly allude to the various strands of thought that have
emerged concerning his basic ideas. The interpretation and significance
of his ideas has changed significantly from one historical epoch to the
next. In the concluding part of the chapter, we shall turn our attention
to the influence which Machiavelli had at the end of the eighteenth
and the beginning of the nineteenth century, to see how he was inter-
preted by the French revolutionaries, and the way the ideas of Machi-
avelli and the ideas of the Jacobins were taken up by leading German
intellectuals.

Forms of government

Machiavelli’s two main works on politics The Prince and The Discourses
represent the essential ambiguity at the heart of his view of politics. In
The Discourses he speaks of his preference for republican forms of gov-
ernment, whereas in The Prince he deals with the nature of autocratic
rule. Although republican rule is preferred, it is not always possible or
feasible. Republican rule can function, Machiavelli argues, where the
populace is blessed with virtù and where the political actions of the cit-
izenry are well regulated by law. Within a republic from time to time
power may have to be temporarily granted to a dictator, but this need
not undermine the republic itself.

1
2 Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin

Prudent men are wont to say . . . and this not rashly or without good
ground . . . that he who would foresee what has to be, should reflect
on what has been, for everything that happens in the world at any
time has a genuine resemblance to what happened in ancient times.1

A central danger for all states is that of degeneration, decadence – the

loss of virtù – by which society becomes effete, corrupt and loses the
ability or the will to preserve the state. In this situation, autocratic rulers
may emerge – the prince. Machiavelli dedicated The Prince to Lorenzo
de Medici; it is a treatise on the art of government for the autocrat.
Central to Machiavelli’s intention was that the prince would use these
arts to rid Italy of foreign rule and to unify the country.
Machiavelli, in most of his writings, takes a consistent line that the
best form of government is a mixed one, combining elements of aris-
tocratic, oligarchic and democratic power, which reflect the interests of
the nobles, the middle classes and the common people. The constitu-
tion introduced by Lycurgus in Sparta was based on this principle and
led to a system which lasted for 800 years, bringing with it order and
tranquillity.2 If any one of these elements becomes too strong, the
system becomes unbalanced. He lamented the destruction of the nobil-
ity in Florence in that it led to a loss of valour. He preferred a republic
to a monarchy, on the grounds that it produced better leaders, and that
those who failed could be removed.
Rulers, in deciding what form of rule they wish to institute, must take
account of the kind of subjects with which they have to deal, ‘for it is
just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to
remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free’.3
People unaccustomed to liberty, having once gained it, can easily fall
again into servitude: it is like a wild animal, which, having been released
to rove the countryside at will, is unaccustomed to fend for itself, and
becomes prey to ‘the first comer who seeks to chain it up again’.4
Machiavelli was an advocate of constant political renewal:

The conclusion we reach then, is that there is nothing more necessary

to a community, whether it be a religious establishment, a kingdom,
or a republic, than to restore to it the prestige it had at the outset, and
to take care that either good institutions or good men shall bring this
about, rather than external force should give rise to it.5

The young should be promoted in good time, to make use of their

vigour of mind and action.6
 Machiavelli’s Ideas on Politics 3

Let then a republic be constituted where there exists or can be

brought into being notable equality; and regime of the opposite type,
i.e. a principality, where there is notable inequality. Otherwise what
is done will lack proportion and will be of short duration.7

Human nature

Machiavelli’s view of human nature is deeply pessimistic, and accords

with the notion of ‘universal egoism’.8 Human society is pervaded by
conflict for wealth, honour, status and power. Human appetites are insa-
tiable, with the result that ‘the human mind is perpetually discontented,
and of its few possessions is apt to grow weary’.9 Men never do good
unless driven to it by necessity, but when they are free to choose
and do as they please, confusion and disorder become everywhere
rampant:10

One can make this generalisation about men: they are ungrateful,
fickle, liars and deceivers, they shun danger and are greedy for profit;
while you treat them well, they are yours. They would shed their
blood for you, risk their property, their lives, their children, so long,
as I said above, as danger is remote; but when you are in danger they
turn against you.11

For a ruler, it is good that he should have the love and regard of his
people, but it is best to be feared rather than loved.12 Men ‘are by nature
both ambitious and suspicious, and know not how to use moderation
where their fortunes are concerned’.13 But they are also short-sighted
and naïve:

For men, as king Ferdinand use to say, resemble certain little birds of
prey in whom so strong is the desire to catch the prey which nature
incites them to pursue that they do not notice another and greater
bird of prey which hovers over them ready to pounce and kill.14

The moral qualities of the people are no worse than those of princes,
and thus a republic constitutes the best form of government, but has to
be guarded against corruption:

for should there be masses regulated by laws in the same way as they
[princes] are, there will be found in them the same goodness as we
find in kings and it will be seen that they neither ‘arrogantly domi-
4 Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin

nate nor servilely obey’. Such was the Roman populace which, so
long as the republic remained uncorrupted, was never servilely obse-
quious, nor did it ever dominate with arrogance; on the contrary, it
had its own institutions and magistrates and honourably kept its own
place.15

He notes with regard to the affair of the Decemviri how easily men
are corrupted and in nature become transformed.

Machiavelli also had a very elitist conception of the relative intellec-

tual capacities of groups in society:

There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things

for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third
understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is
excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.16

This did not preclude the emergence of leaders of ability from the ranks
of the lower classes. The great majority, who could not be taught, who
were driven by feelings, might be manipulated and directed.

Dictatorship and tyranny

In establishing or fundamentally reforming republics or kingdoms it is

best that one person undertake the task. The founder or reformer of the
state may well have to undertake some ‘extraordinary action’. For this
he should not be reproached, for

while the action accuses him, the result excuses him; and when the
result is good, as it was with Romulus, it will always excuse him; for
one should reproach a man who is violent in order to destroy, not
one who is violent in order to mend things.17

. . . first, that is, the armed prince, who alone can do the work of
reformation: then popular government, which is, if possible, to be
the permanent form of the state.18

Here we have Machiavelli’s conception not of the ‘end justifying the

means’ but rather ‘the end excusing (scusare) the means’. Actions are
not right or wrong in an absolute sense, but must be judged according
to their consequences. Here is the core of what is described as Machi-
avelli’s ‘consequentialism’.
 Machiavelli’s Ideas on Politics 5

Although a defender of temporary dictatorship, Machiavelli was a

stern critic of tyranny, which, he argued, always led to impoverishment,
regression and decline.19 He defended tyrannicide: ‘Against a bad ruler,
there is no remedy but the sword.’20 The founders of new states should
resist turning themselves into tyrants, for instead of winning fame,
glory, security, tranquillity and peace of mind, they gain instead only
infamy, scorn, abhorrence, danger and disquiet.21 The wise ruler recog-
nizes the importance of prudence and self-restraint, ‘Yet, it cannot be
called prowess to kill fellow citizens, to betray friends, to be treacher-
ous, pitiless, irreligious. These ways can win a prince power but not
glory.’22 A wise ruler will abstain from taking advantage of the wives of
his subjects, and especially their property: ‘because men sooner forget
the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony’.23

Class

Machiavelli placed great emphasis on the importance of the clash of

interest in society between contending parties and classes as a way
of guaranteeing liberty. In this, he differed from the absolutist model of
Hobbes:

Nor do they realise that in every republic there are two different dis-
positions, that of the populace and that of the upper class, and that
all legislation favourable to liberty is brought about by the clash
between the two.24

. . . so great is the ambition of the great that unless in a city they are
kept down by various ways and means, that city will soon be brought
to ruin.25

Tyranny frequently arises as the result of the conflict of class inter-

ests, because of ‘the excessive demand of the people for freedom and to
the excessive demand to dominate on the part of the nobles’ with one
or other of the parties lending support to a particular person.26
In a situation of intense conflict between an arrogant upper class
and a ‘raving’ population fearful of losing its freedom, Clearchus of
Heraclea resolved the problem at a stroke, freeing himself from the influ-
ence of the leading men and winning over the populace and satisfying
their lust for vengeance by ‘cutting to pieces’ all the nobles,27 from
which Machiavelli derived the conclusion ‘a prince must always live
with the same people, but he can well do without the nobles, since he
6 Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin

can make and unmake them every day, increasing and lowering their
standing at will’.28 Machiavelli also warns of the dangers of excess:

When the populace has thrown off all restraint, it is not the mad
things it does that are terrifying, nor is it of present evils that one is
afraid but of what may come of them, for amidst such confusion
there may come to be a tyrant.29

Numerically the masses are potentially very powerful. But this

strength needs to be organized, for without leadership they will be over-
come by indecision and in conflict are likely to scatter. Machiavelli
argued that an excited crowd that wishes to avoid these dangers needs
to appoint of itself a leader. ‘The plebs united is strong, but divided is
weak.’ In this, he cited the actions of the Roman plebs, as described by
Livy, who, following the death of Virginia, to secure their own safety,
appointed twenty of their members as tribunes.30

Religion and custom

Machiavelli recognized the important role of religion in instilling civic

virtues in the people. In the absence of religion, the fear of God had to
be replaced by the fear of the prince.31 But Christianity, by glorifying
the ‘humble and contemplative man rather than the man of action’,
lauding humility, abnegation and contempt for mundane things, could
not develop the virile, manly qualities which he admired and which he
thought essential for developing military valour and civic virtue.32 In
this sense the pre-Christian, pagan religions had been better.
Religion, like all human institutions, was transient. New religions
when they arose sought to extirpate the remnants of the old.33 In this
sense there was nothing eternal about Christianity. He held the church
and the papacy responsible for the corruption and disunity of Italy.
Machiavelli’s work implies a direct repudiation of Christian ethics.
There is no universal or eternal morality. Things are not, of themselves,
right or wrong, they are to be judged only by their consequences, by
their utility. Rulers cannot be judged by the standard of ordinary
citizens, but they should be guided by prudence. For society it may be
beneficial that ordinary citizens be constrained by moral codes, but
above all it was vital that they should exhibit virtù.
Religion can serve to temper the relations between rulers and ruled,
to create stability. But sometimes, in seeking such transformations,
leaders may be wise to preserve some semblance of the past. In order to
 Machiavelli’s Ideas on Politics 7

make change acceptable it was advisable to ‘retain at least the shadow

of its ancient customs’ on the basis that ‘men in general are as much
affected by what a thing appears to be as by what it is, indeed they are
frequently influenced more by appearances than by the reality’.34

The need to operate on the people

A central precept advanced by Machiavelli was that the prince should

operate on the people. This stood in contrast to the conventional
wisdom that the people were fickle and unreliable.35 A prince who
through qualities of leadership and through the creation of sound insti-
tutions, should be able to win the general allegiance of the people, will
be able to establish his power on a secure base.36 This was a means of
averting the danger of conspiracy; by taking pains so that the nobles
did not despair and that the people were content.37 The new prince
should not disarm the people, but rather through arming the people,
he would arm himself.38 Similarly the prince should not seek security
through fortifications to defend himself against the people.
In a famous passage, Machiavelli declares:

all armed prophets have conquered and unarmed prophets have

come to grief. Beside what I have said already, the populace is by
nature fickle; it is easy to persuade them of something, but difficult
to confirm them in that persuasion. Therefore, one must urgently
arrange matters so that when they no longer believe they can be
made to believe by force.39

The prince should operate on the masses but should not depend on
them too much, but should create his own power base. Moral force on
its own is never enough, and must be backed up by force.
Machiavelli’s conception of the masses was not democratic and
involved no element of idealization. Central to Machiavelli’s view is the
idea of virtù, by which he means valour, courage, steadfastness and will-
power. It is closely allied to the martial virtues. Even where the masses
were imbued with virtù, it was virtù in terms of their willingness to strug-
gle for their own liberty, and to submit private interests to general inter-
ests, in particular, to protect the state and serve its needs. In operating
on the masses, the prince had to understand their interests, their resent-
ments, their sentiments, their habits, what impressed and what fright-
ened them, how, in some senses, they were credulous, malleable and
capable of being duped. Virtù might be strengthened or instilled in a
8 Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin

population by the example of great leaders, by the organization of

strong institutions (including religious observance), but Machiavelli
insists, as Quentin Skinner notes, that ‘the most efficacious means of
coercing people into behaving in a virtuous fashion is by making them
terrified of behaving otherwise’.40

Methods of rule

Machiavelli repeatedly emphasizes the need for a ruler to secure his posi-
tion and remove potential rivals. Whoever does not do this, he warns,
his government will be short lived.41 The prince is always the subject of
envy. Rivals for fame and power, when defeated ‘will never remain quiet
and bear it with patience’. ‘To overcome envy of this kind, the only
remedy lies in the death of those who are imbued with it.’42 A prince
can never be secure in his principality whilst those despoiled of it
remain alive, these can never be won over; ‘old injuries are never can-
celled by new benefits, least of all when the benefits are of less impor-
tance than the injuries previously inflicted’:43

Should anyone become the ruler of a city or of a state, especially if

he has no sure footing in it and it is suited neither for the civic life
characteristic of a monarchy nor yet that of a republic, the best thing
that he can do in order to retain such a principality, given that he
be a new prince, is to organise everything in that state afresh: e.g. in
its cities to appoint new governors, with new titles and a new author-
ity, the governors themselves being new men; to make the rich poor
and the poor rich; as did David when he became king ‘who filled the
hungry with the good things and the rich sent empty away’, as well
as to build new cities, to destroy those already built, and to move the
inhabitants from one place to another far distant from it; in short,
to leave nothing in that province in tact, and nothing in it, neither
rank, nor institution, nor form of government, nor wealth, except it
be held by such as recognise that it comes from you.44

New leaders should not continually inflict punishments on their

people, but should do so once and for all, thus removing the fear and
suspicion of the population which, if maintained over a long time, may
cause the people to turn against their leaders:45

Hence, very rarely will there be found a good man ready to use bad
methods in order to make himself prince, though with a good end
 Machiavelli’s Ideas on Politics 9

in view, nor yet a bad man who, having become prince, is ready to
do the right thing and to whose mind it will occur to use well that
authority, which he has acquired by bad means.46

The prince, Machiavelli, advises, should be especially wary of a suc-

cessful general. In such a situation he should look to his own security
and consider ‘putting him to death or depriving him of his standing’
with the army and the populace:47

But in the alternative case in which one has but few friends at home,
internal forces do not suffice, and one has to seek outside help. This
has to be of three kinds: first, foreign satellites to protect your per-
son; second, the arming of the countryside to do what should be
done by the plebs; and third, a defensive alliance with powerful
neighbours.48

Men who have risen from obscurity to the highest office are fre-
quently required to change their views and conduct, in accordance with
a fuller understanding of the disorders and dangers which confront the
state. Hence, the proverb, ‘He is of a different opinion in the market
place from what he is in the palace.’49
Machiavelli devotes much attention to the question of conspiracies
and how to thwart them. The main danger comes not from those who
have suffered injury at the prince’s hand, for they lack opportunity, but
instead from those he has favoured, and who are driven by ambition.50
It is easier for him to win the friendship of those who were satisfied
with the former government, than to retain the friendship of those
who supported him in the struggle against that government.51 The
prince should avoid pride and ostentation, which nurtures resent-
ment.52 He should also avoid incurring, as far as possible, the hatred of
his subjects.53

Qualities required of a leader

Machiavelli dwells at length on the personal qualities required of a

leader. He must be ready to take advantage of the existing state of things;
he must be strong enough to sin boldly if his country’s welfare depends
upon it; he must be shrewd enough to understand human nature, he
must overcome evil by evil, play with the passions and impulses of men
and use them for his advantage. He must be decisive, foresee problems
and take action in advance. Where he is strong he should be resolute,
10 Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin

where weak he should exercise caution. He must depend upon himself

and his own forces. He must be dispassionate and unsentimental. He
should resort to any means to save his fatherland, even at the cost of
his own soul. A new founded state is in special jeopardy when one weak
leader follows another.54
To maintain his rule, the Prince must learn how not to be virtuous,
and to use this according to need.55 He should emulate the methods of
the beast, combining the ferocity of the lion with the cunning of the
fox. In the struggle for the state, the victor is not judged:

Let the prince then aim at conquering and maintaining the state,
and the means will always be judged honourable and praised by
everyone, for the vulgar is always taken by appearances and the issue
of events; and the world consists only of the vulgar, and the few who
are not vulgar are isolated when the many have a rallying point in
the prince.56

He should not flinch from using immoral means (vices) in safeguarding

the state, because moral means may lead to his undoing, whereas
immoral means may bring security and prosperity:57

You must realise this: that a prince, and especially a new prince,
cannot observe all those things which give men a reputation for
virtue, because in order to maintain his state, he is often forced to
act in defiance of good faith, of charity, of kindness, of religion.
And so he should have a flexible disposition, varying as fortune and
circumstances dictate. As I said above, he should not deviate from
what is good, if that is possible, but he should know how to be evil,
if that is necessary.58

He should not be bound by his word, if it is in the interests of the

state. Those abiding by honest principles are likely to be overcome by
those who do not.59 The prince should be ‘a great liar and deceiver’, and
since men are ‘so simple, and so much creatures of circumstances, the
deceiver will always find someone to deceive’.60
Machiavelli puts into the mouth of Cosimo dei Medici the much-
quoted remark that states are not ruled with prayer books:

There is no doubt that a prince’s greatness depends on his triumph-

ing over difficulties and oppositions. . . . Many, therefore, believe that
when he has the chance an able prince should cunningly foster some
 Machiavelli’s Ideas on Politics 11

opposition to himself so that by overcoming it he can enhance his

own stature.61

The prince should, whilst retaining the dignity of his position, meet
with his subjects, display courtesy and munificence, and entertain the
people with shows and festivities.62 He should carefully select his min-
isters; for on the basis of their competence and loyalty, the people judge
the prince’s own wisdom.63 He should appoint wise men to his
government, allowing them to speak truthfully to him on the matters
within their competence.64 He should delegate to others the enactment
of unpopular measures and keep in his own hands the distribution of
favours.65
A leader’s success, Machiavelli believed, also in part depended on
fortune, and ‘whether their behaviour is in conformity with the times’.66
Leaders must therefore be flexible and able to adjust their behaviour and
policies in accordance with changing circumstances. But leaders must
be able, through boldness and audacity where necessary, to impose their
will on fortuna itself: ‘I hold strongly to this: that it is better to be
impetuous than circumspect; because fortune is a woman and if she is
to be submissive it is necessary to beat and coerce her.’67 In this youth
is favoured as well as courage and daring. But leaders should also show
constancy; remaining resolute in mind and conduct in order to show
others ‘that fortune hold no sway over them’.68

Political and military skills

Machiavelli’s concept of politics and political skill was derived to a con-

siderable extent from his theory of warfare and the art of war. He saw
an intimate relationship between civilian and military life, between
civic virtù and military virtù. His admiration of the Romans derived from
their understanding of this interconnection:

The main foundation of every state, new states as well as ancient or

composite ones, are good laws and good arms; and because you
cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good
arms, good laws inevitably follow.69

Thus, ‘A Prince, therefore, must have no other object or thought, nor

acquire skill in anything, except war, its organisation and its discipline.
The art of war is all that is expected of a ruler.’70
12 Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin

Machiavelli’s advocacy of a civilian-based militia derived not only

from his assessment of the inherent weaknesses of mercenary armies,
but also from the fact that such an army gave the prince his own inde-
pendent military force, and that such a force fostered the qualities of
virtù that were essential for both military and civilian life.

Avoiding half-measures

For Machiavelli the model of antiquity, and of Rome, was central. Pol-
itics was an unchanging activity. Human nature was also unchanging.
Whether in the form of a republic or rule by a prince, the state was
obliged to follow certain precepts to ensure its survival. Men, do ‘know
not how to be wholly good nor yet wholly bad’, and consequently prefer
to steer a middle course, which, in the governing of a state, may be most
harmful.71 In this, Machiavelli often counselled resort to extreme
measures, the avoidance of half measures. This was summarized in the
precept that ‘men must either be won over, or destroyed’.72 With this,
Machiavelli argued the importance of audacity and courage, which ele-
vated brutal actions by the state onto a higher plane, where ordinary
moral considerations no longer applied.73
There are various instances where Machiavelli argued for extreme
measures. Three in particular stand out: i) how a state deals with a rebel-
lious people; ii) how to deal with internal opposition – a divided city;
and iii) how to deal with prisoners of war:

Having heard this proposal, the senate came to a decision which fol-
lowed the lines the consul had laid down, which was that, after duly
considering one by one each town, they should either treat all citi-
zens of importance generously or wipe them out . . . Nor did they
ever adopt a middle course as I have said, of importance, towards
men, and other rulers should imitate them in this.74

Those who are of this opinion see that, whenever men individually
or a whole city offends against a state, its ruler has, both as an
example to others and for his own security, no alternative but to wipe
them out. Honour consists here in being able, and knowing how, to
castigate it, not in being able to hold it thereby incurring a thousand
risks. For the ruler who does not punish an offender in such a way
that he cannot offend again, is deemed either an ignoramus or a
coward.75
 Machiavelli’s Ideas on Politics 13

In dealing with a divided city, Machiavelli outlines three options:

‘either to kill them [the ringleaders] as the consuls did, or to expel them
from the city, or to force them to make peace with one another and to
undertake not to attack one another’. On this question, drawing inspi-
ration from the actions of the Roman consuls in reconciling the people
of Ardea, Machiavelli concluded, ‘The only way to cure it is to kill the
ringleaders responsible for the disturbances’. Failure to follow this
advice accounted for the fall of the town of Pistoia.
Machiavelli’s reasoning here is worth following. For he argues, ‘in exe-
cutions of this kind there is something great and grand, a weak repub-
lic cannot do such things’. But he acknowledged that people were
horrified by the very idea of emulating the Romans:

so feeble are men today owing to their defective education and to

the little knowledge they have of affairs, that they look upon the
judgements of their forefathers as inhuman in some cases and in
others as impossible.76

People should have the courage and wisdom to apply the same princi-
ples as the Romans.
In dealing with prisoners of war, Machiavelli writes that the Samnites,
having captured the Romans in the Caudine Fork, instead of releasing
them immediately or executing them, adopted the middle course ‘dis-
armed them, marched them under the yoke, and then set them free
burning with indignation’ and paid for this error.77 There were only two
options in such a situation, he argued, either to let the prisoners go
scot-free or to slaughter them all.78
These three instances where Machiavelli counsels extreme measures
relate to particular circumstances. More generally, in defence of the
state, any and every action was justified:

For when the safety of one’s country wholly depends on the decision
to be taken, no attention should be paid either to justice or injustice,
to kindness or cruelty, or to its being praiseworthy or ignominious.
On the contrary, every other consideration being set aside, this alter-
native should be whole heartedly adopted which will save the life
and preserve the freedom of one’s country.79

The problem, not addressed by Machiavelli, was who defined what con-
stituted a threat to the state.
14 Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin

Machiavelli found justification of this line of reasoning in the actions

and behaviour of the Roman state:

As we have remarked several times, in every large city there inevitably

occur unfortunate incidents which call for the physician.
Thus, Rome did not hesitate to pronounce judicial sentence of
death on a whole legion at a time, or on a city; not yet to banish
eight to ten thousand men and to impose on them extraordinary
conditions which had to be observed not by one man alone but by
so many.80

‘Physician’ here is clearly a joking euphemism for executioner. The

prince in command of a large army should not fear acquiring a reputa-
tion for cruelty, ‘because without such a reputation no army was ever
kept united or disciplined’.81 This included that ‘most terrible’ method
of enforcing discipline in the Roman army, of decimation, of which
practice Machiavelli gives a full account in The Discourses.82 Machiavelli
clearly thought such methods acceptable and necessary.
Machiavelli offers other examples of avoiding the middle course.
Hiero of Syracuse, having decided that mercenaries were useless, and,
that it was impossible either to keep them or disband them, had them
all ‘cut to pieces’ (tagliare a pezzi).83 There is also the case of Clearchus,
cited above, who to appease the masses, resolved to ‘cut to pieces all
the nobles’.84 ‘Cutting to pieces’ was a phrase Machiavelli often used,
reflecting an almost gleeful delight in such exploits, an expresion that
stands out against his usual cold, detached prose.
Machiavelli describes how the cruel and licentious Giovampagolo
Baglioni meekly surrendered to the pope, when he could very easily
have taken and executed him. Had he done so, people would have
admired his courage. It would have won him ‘immortal fame’, demon-
strating how little men regarded a corrupt and grasping clergy. This
would have obliterated any infamy or danger that the act might
provoke. Baglioni’s failure of nerve demonstrated that he was a petty
tyrant, who was incapable of such an act, for ‘evil deeds have a certain
grandeur and are open-handed in their way’.85
Machiavelli also recounts Cesare Borgia’s ordering of the murder of
Remirro de Orco (The Ogre) who had ruled Romagna on his behalf. His
cruelty provoked widespread hatred, but he had brought the region
from chaos to order. Borgia had him butchered, with his mutilated body
left for public display in Imola. According to Machiavelli: ‘The brutal-
 Machiavelli’s Ideas on Politics 15

ity of this spectacle kept the people of the Romagna for a time appeased
and stupefied.’86 From this, Machiavelli drew the conclusion:

So a prince must not worry if he incurs reproach for his cruelty so

long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal . . . A new prince, of
all rulers, finds it impossible to avoid a reputation for cruelty, because
of the abundant dangers inherent in a newly won state.87

Revolution

Machiavelli did not approve or advocate popular revolution. However,

in his Florentine Histories, he presents a vivid account of the rising of the
ciompi in Florence. He places in the mouth of one of the insurgents
advice on the way they should proceed. After the initial rising, the insur-
gents deliberated as to whether it was best to yield and temporize in
order to quell the anger of the propertied classes. Their spokesman
insisted that having embarked on the insurrectionary course they
should continue that course until the propertied classes were compelled
to negotiate with them on their terms:

It is to our advantage, therefore, as it appears to me, if we wish that

our errors be forgiven, to make new ones, redoubling the evils, mul-
tiplying the arson and robbery – and to contrive to have many com-
panions in this, because when many err, no one is punished, and
though small faults are punished, great and grave ones are rewarded;
and when many suffer, few seek for revenge, because universal
injuries are borne with greater patience than particular ones. Thus,
in multiplying evils, we will gain pardon more easily and will open
the way for us to have the things we desire to have for our freedom.
And it appears to me that we are on the way to a sure acquisition,
because those who could hinder us are disunited and rich; their dis-
union will therefore give us victory, and their riches, when they have
become ours, will maintain it for us.88

For those overcome by conscience by what they had done, and who
wished to abstain from further deeds, he advised that such considera-
tions should not intrude ‘for neither conscience nor infamy should
dismay you, because those who win, in whatever mode they win, never
receive shame from it’. The rich had acquired their wealth through
either force or fraud, but had attached to their gains the title of earn-
ings. Those who shunned such methods ‘always suffocate in servitude
16 Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin

and poverty’. ‘For faithful servants are always servants and good men
are always poor; nor do they ever rise out of servitude unless they are
unfaithful and bold, nor out of poverty unless they are rapacious and
fraudulent.’89
They had to be resolute and united, and had to strike while the prop-
ertied classes were still disunited, they had to seize the moment pursu-
ing a high-risk strategy so that they could dictate terms and compel
their enemies to sue for peace:

As a result, either we shall be left princes of all the city, or we shall

have so large a part of it that not only will our past errors be par-
doned but we shall have authority enabling us to threaten them with
new injuries.90

These words, Machiavelli said, inflamed spirits that were ‘already hot
for evil’. The insurgents resolved again to take up arms after they had
secured more companions, and swore an oath to stick together if the
magistrates took any one of them. The spokesmen for the insurgent
insists that these actions were determined not by moral consideration,
but by ‘necessity’ – ‘if no one else teaches us, necessity will’, ‘when
necessity presses, boldness is judged prudence’.91
The last chapter of The Prince, which is addressed directly to Lorenzo
de Medici, as an exhortation to liberate Italy from the rule of the bar-
barians, was to have a remarkable impact on subsequent generations of
nationalist and revolutionary leaders in Italy and elsewhere. It depicted
Italy as ‘leaderless, lawless, crushed, despoiled, torn, overrun’, having
‘endured every kind of desolation’, and represented an appeal for a
political leader capable of erradicating these evils, unifying the country
and creating a powerful state.

Machiavelli’s conception of the political

Machiavelli’s views on politics drew heavily on the works of the great
classical writers. Polybius has been identified as one major source.
Another is Cicero, particularly where Machiavelli speaks of avoiding the
middle course and the need for extreme measures with defeated armies
or rebellious subjects.92 Cicero also argued in favour of exterminating
the state’s enemies in order to safeguard its existence for generations to
come. In his work ‘On the Laws’, he outlined the role of the two mag-
istrates (praetors) within the Roman state. They were to be accorded
supreme military and civil powers, adding ‘they shall be subject to no
 Machiavelli’s Ideas on Politics 17

one: the safety of the people shall be their highest law’ (olis salus populi
suprema lex esto).93
From the outset, Machiavelli’s works attracted very strong reactions.
In England, Cardinal Pole, in his work The Defence of the Unity of the
Church, expressed three views of Machiavelli which flourished in the
sixteenth century: i) that The Prince was a useful handbook of political
science, that described the reality of how political power is wielded; ii)
that it was an immoral or amoral work, which deserved strong moral
censure; and iii) that it was a political satire written in a spirit of bitter
irony.94 This was a perceptive appreciation of the different standpoints
from which Machiavelli can be read. In succeeding centuries, the same
approaches recur time and time again.
The Machiavellian problematic relates to the politics of crisis, the
politics of state formation or of the fundamental reform of the state.
Machiavelli’s conception of politics can be reduced to a number of basic
propositions that are all closely interconnected with one another:

1. His view of politics is elitist, but it is a qualified elitism. Those

who wield power suffer from the same human foibles as the rest.
Machiavelli emphasizes an activist view of politics, where courage,
audacity and will power are of central importance.
2. It is based on a pessimistic view of human nature, and of the incom-
petence of the masses. The masses constitute a major political force;
they cannot be ignored, and they have a capacity to organize in
pursuit of their own interests.
3. It recognizes the necessity of dictatorship for the construction or
for the radical reform of states. It highlights the central role of
violence and force in politics; force is the basis of all states and all
law.
4. Man, Machiavelli argues, knows not how to be absolutely good or
absolutely evil. In matters of politics, he argues, the statesman
should, on occasions, avoid the middle course.
5. It sets as its ideal a republican form of government, where the inter-
ests of conflicting social groups are held in tension.
6. The conflict between classes and parties is an essential part of
politics, and this conflict, although it can be destructive, can also
be creative, and can serve to guarantee the freedom and vitality of
the republic.
7. It places great emphasis on the cultivation of civic virtù, which is
akin to military virtù, and on the need to educate and lead the
masses.
18 Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin

8. It highlights the importance of liberty in a healthy state, allied to

the notion of virtù. Virtù can best be developed with a republican
system, where social inequalities are not too pronounced.
9. Politics and human nature are unchanging, and thus politics oper-
ates according to laws that are independent of the individual. These
laws constitute ‘necessity’ which the individual must obey or face
the consequences. Man has free will but is constrained by ‘necessity’.
10. Machiavelli fundamentally rejects Christian ethics, but advocates
religious practices that strengthen civic virtù. The laws that govern
politics and human destiny require a capacity to calculate conse-
quences and to act on the basis of these calculations without any
fixed conception of right or wrong.
11. Politics is subject to clinical analysis. Machiavelli, therefore, demys-
tifies political and social processes.

Machiavelli is famous for his view of politics as based on the calcu-

lation of contending forces, objectives determined by needs of the state,
based on cold detachment, without any moral or sentimental judge-
ment impinging. Machiavelli never used the term raison d’état, but is
one of the founding fathers of the realist school of political thought.95
The effective ruler has to constantly assert himself, and to subject events
and destiny to his will. The moral judgements that apply in private life
have no place in politics. The survival and well-being of the state over-
rides all other considerations. Political struggle is unceasing and no
political forms endure forever.
Machiavelli’s conception of ‘necessity’ needs to be stressed. It is as
central to his thinking as dictatorship, republican liberty or virtù. He
uses the term ‘necessity’ not simply with regard to what individuals are
required to do by circumstances.96 It has a much wider significance.
Machiavelli’s conception of politics and of human nature was that it
was unchanging. Politics was subject to certain laws, which had to be
followed lest unfortunate consequences follow. But these laws are not
absolute and account has also to be taken of fortuna. The notion of
‘necessity’ means that the prince cannot be subject to the same ethical
principles that guide individuals in their daily lives. What is not
required by ‘necessity’ cannot be justified, as for example, when an indi-
vidual seeks dictatorial power for his own vainglory. Nevertheless,
Machiavelli allows considerable latitude in interpreting what constitutes
‘necessity’ – who interprets it and how. Virtù might be defined in
Machiavelli’s terms as the recognition of necessity, either by the prince
or the people.
 Machiavelli’s Ideas on Politics 19

Interpreting Machiavelli’s influence is by no means straightforward.

Machiavellism existed before Machiavelli, and exists independently of
him. Some politicians are instinctively Machiavellians and do not need
to read The Prince as a blueprint for action. Certain political situations
– war, civil war and revolution – call forth Machiavellian solutions.
Moreover, the term Machiavellian carries such a negative charge, that
few would willingly subscribe to Machiavelli’s ideas, and the term has
been appropriated as a term of opprobrium, and a way of explaining
acts of great horror. Proving the influence or establishing the extent of
influence of Machiavelli’s ideas is extremely difficult. We are dealing,
for the most part, with propositions, whose truth depends more on
probability than actual proof.

Machiavelli and the French Revolution

Machiavelli’s thought acquired a new significance with the French rev-
olution but Machiavelli’s intellectual contribution to the revolutionary
movement is difficult to isolate. It might be said to follow two currents.
The first was the official ideology of state, exemplified by the notion of
raison d’etat, of which Richelieu was such an exponent and which
inspired his Testament politique. In the second place, it provided lessons
for some of the critics of the prevailing order. Montesquieu, in his
famous Esprit des lois, expressed the hope that his contemporaries had
begun ‘to cure themselves of Machiavellism’.97 Voltaire was hostile.
However, the view of Machiavelli as a defender of republican liberty,
which had been advanced by Alberico Gentili and by Spinoza in his
Tractatus Politicus, was endorsed by Pierre Bayle’s Dictionnaire and by
Diderot in the Encyclopedie.98
Amongst the Philosophes, Rousseau was the one who was most forth-
right in his admiration. In his Social Contract he wrote ‘He [Machiavelli]
professed to teach kings, but it was the people he really taught. His
Prince is the book of Republicans.’ In a footnote he adds ‘The choice of
his [Machiavelli’s] debatable hero, Cesare Borgia, clearly enough shows
his hidden aim.’99 Rousseau highlighted the problem of creating the
state, and of finding a legislator who can organize this ‘blind multitude’,
teach the masses what they will, and compel individuals to bring ‘their
wills into conformity with their reason’.100 The state’s laws should be
endorsed by ‘a free vote of the people’. The legislator cannot rely on
force or reason but, on the basis of Machiavelli’s precept, should base
the laws on some divine authority.101 In representing the general will,
the state acquires the character of a ‘moral person’.102 But Rousseau also
recognized the necessity, in some instances, for dictatorship, along the
20 Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin

lines of temporary dictatorship in Rome.103 The need for exceptional

powers is also addressed in his discussion of the ‘tribunate’, which in
moments of crisis and upheaval ‘provides a link or middle term between
either prince and people, or prince and Sovereign, or if necessary, both
at once’.104 He shared Machiavelli’s disdain for Christianity as a religion
which weakened the state, and one that ultimately favoured tyranny:
‘True Christians are made to be slaves.’105
The relationship between the French Philosophes of the Enlighten-
ment and the Jacobins is a complex one. For some writers (Adorno,
Horkheimer, Bauman and Talmon) the Philosophes’ concern with
absolute political values provided the basis of Jacobin political thought
in the 1790s. Thereby the quest for knowledge involved an absolute
ideal, a unifying principle, and a transformation of monotheistic ideas
into the political and social realm. But as some have argued the
Philosophes were distinguished by a great diversity of views, a more plu-
ralistic range of opinions, by a sceptical outlook, a confidence in the
power of science and reason. In this they were strong critics particularly
of religious intolerance. This aspect of Philosophe thought was over-
turned by the new political discourse of the revolution of 1789. The
Jacobins ushered in the notion of the nation state with the state as the
basis of all sovereignty. The new order was rationalized by the abbé
Sieyes’ defence of the revolutionary state.106
Within the works of the Philosophes there are themes that are taken
up by the Jacobins. Cicero, as a supreme exponent of political realism,
was admired by Voltaire, Montesquieu and Rousseau, and by Jacobins
such as Desmoulins, Saint-Just and Robespierre.107 The expression salus
populi suprema lex (the good of the people is the highest law) became
the catchphrase which legitimized both revolutionary dictatorship and
state absolutism. The Jacobins rediscovered the ideas of Machiavelli
with a specific purpose in mind, the defence of the revolutionary state.
A clear line of continuity links the classical tradition of radical republi-
can thought from Machiavelli to the Jacobins.
Robespierre was greatly influenced by Rousseau’s concepts such as the
‘general will’, the ‘social contract’ and the ‘rights of man’. He asserted
that sovereignty belonged to the people and spoke strongly in defence
of democracy. He also declared that ‘the plan of the French Revolution
was writ large in the letters and books of Tacitus and Machiavelli’.108 His
conception of politics, like Machiavelli, is active, not one of passive con-
templation. It is based on the duality between tyranny and liberty,
between which an incessant war is fought. Like Machiavelli, a central
idea was virtù, which he derived from antiquity, whereby individual
 Machiavelli’s Ideas on Politics 21

interests are subordinated to the general will. Virtù was allied to patri-
otism and love of one’s country. He rejected Christianity for the worship
of reason; the rediscovery of the ancient world’s conception of citizen-
ship and republican values. Like Machiavelli, he favoured the concept
of a citizens’ army.
The principle law he asserted was ‘salut public’, on the basis of which
he defended the right of the democratic society to self-defence; on this
basis, he also justified terror and the Committee of Public Safety.109 He
stoutly defended dictatorship on the Roman model, arguing for the
‘despotism of liberty’ to safeguard the revolution, and for terror to
eradicate its enemies. This was advanced also in terms of Rousseau’s
conception of the ancient Roman tribune. Robespierre highlights the
importance of education in reforming manners and customs that have
become corrupt. He was an atheist but he advocated the cult of the
Supreme Being as a means of instilling virtù amongst the populace. He
advocated a measure of social equality as the best means of cultivating
virtù.110
Saint-Just was a leading promoter of the Roman revival amongst the
Jacobins, declaring: ‘The world has been empty since the Romans, and
only their memory fills it and still prophecies liberty’ and ‘Let revolu-
tionary men be Romans.’111 Machiavelli’s views on politics are echoed
by Saint-Just’s famous aphorism ‘Nobody can rule guiltlessly.’ He offered
the realist view of insurrection that: ‘those who make revolutions by
half dig their own graves.’ He was familiar with Machiavelli’s works, and
defended Robespierre in July 1794 against the charge of adopting
Machiavellian values, that the end justifies the means.112 Marat in Les
Chaines de l’Esclavage cites Machiavelli twice.113 Guiraudet, a former
Jacobin, undertook the translation into French and publication of
Machiavelli’s works in the 1790s.114
The recourse to terror during the French Revolution was justified by
necessity which overrode any moral consideration. It is here that we
find the distinction between the enemies of the people, and the friends
of the people (Marat’s L’Ami du Peuple), the latter in the guise of the
people’s tribunes. Here we might quote the opening line of l’Instruction,
which was sent by Joseph Fouchè to Collot d’Herbois to justify the mas-
sacre in Lyon in 1793: ‘Everything is permitted to those who act in
defence of the revolution.’115 This echoes Machiavelli’s precept in The
Discourses (book III, p. 41) that, in defence of the state, no means should
be rejected. This key phrase ‘everything is permitted’ was to echo down
the generations. It is the term which Dostoevskii takes up in his attack
on modern revolutionary socialism in the 1870s (see Chapter 3).
22 Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin

Joseph de Maistre, arch-defender of monarchy and the church, and a

virulent critic of the French Revolution in his Considérations sur le France,
written in 1796, was very conscious of the lessons to be drawn from the
writings of Machiavelli, ‘the great statesman and ardent republican’. He
cited Machiavelli that a people accustomed to live under a prince pre-
serve their liberty with difficulty once they have attained it by accident.
He cites Machiavelli on the need for new constitution to be carried into
effect by the few who have conceived it. Significantly, de Maistre shared
with Rousseau Machiavelli’s judgement that civil commotion and civil
war were not necessarily damaging for the state but could serve to
strengthen it:

Long ago Greece flourished in the midst of the most savage wars:
blood ran in torrents, and yet the whole country was covered in
inhabitants. It appeared, says Machiavelli, that in the midst of
murder, proscription and civil war, our republic only throve: the
virtue, morality, and independence of the citizens did more to
strengthen it than all their dissensions had done to enfeeble it. A
little disturbance gives the soul elasticity; what makes the race truly
prosperous is not so much peace as liberty.116

In 1814, Chateaubriand published De Buonaparte et des Bourbons, a

scathing indictment of Napoleon as a vainglorious tyrant, who had
brought France and Europe only ruin and misery. He refers to Napoleon
as ‘Monsieur le Prince’, condottierre and Borgia, and accuses him of
having revived Machiavelli’s methods of rule.117 M. de Mazeres, in a
work published in Paris in 1816, presents a royalist indictment of Machi-
avelli as the inspirer of both the Jacobins and Bonaparte.118 In 1816
Napoleon’s notes on Machiavelli were published, which turned out to
be a fabrication by the abbé Guillon.119 However, other scholars insist
that Machiavelli’s military thinking had a direct impact on French mil-
itary thinkers such as the Comte de Guibert, Napoleon and Marshall
Gouvion-Saint-Cyr.120
Edmund Burke also claimed to identify Machiavelli’s influence in the
French Revolution.121 What unifies both the Jacobin and the Bonapartist
traditions in politics is that they both relate to the problem of order and
revolution. They constantly interact on one another. Machiavelli’s The
Prince provides a prototype of both Jacobinism and Bonapartist ‘revo-
lution from above’. But in Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories we have an
extraordinary exposition of class struggle in history, and of popular
insurrection as ‘revolution from below’.
 Machiavelli’s Ideas on Politics 23

The repudiation of the existing social order and the appeal to the
values of classical antiquity was not a new invention of the French
revolutionaries. It was a tradition that can be traced back at least to
Machiavelli. Jacobinism, with what J. L. Talmon calls its ‘permanent
totalitarian disposition’ also provides the connection to Bolshevism.122
The close threads binding Jacobinism and Bolshevism have been well
charted by Cesare Vetter, Astrid von Borcke, Tamara Kondratieva and D.
Shlapentokh.123

German intellectual influences

Amongst German scholars and statesmen there was an active interest
in Machiavelli’s ideas. In the eighteenth century, Frederick the Great
of Prussia, with Voltaire’s aid, penned his famous Anti-Machiavel, but
employed many of his methods. This critical rejection of Machiavelli
changed dramatically in the wake of the French Revolution, as a result
of Jacobin influence, and when the question of German unification in
the wake of Napoleon’s military campaign was being broached.
Hegel’s engagement with the ideas of Machiavelli is seen most clearly
in The German Constitution, written between 1800 and 1802. In con-
templating the fragmented and demoralized condition of Germany he
sought salvation in the kind of ruthless statesman which Machiavelli
describes in The Prince:

Machiavelli’s fundamental aim of erecting Italy into a state was

misunderstood from the start by the blind who took his words as
nothing but a foundation of tyranny or a golden mirror for an ambi-
tious oppressor. But even if this aim was accepted, it was said that
the means were detestable, and thus moralising had further room for
displaying its platitudes, such as that the end does not justify the
means. In this instance, however, there can be no question of any
choice of means. Gangrenous limbs cannot be cured with lavender
water. A situation in which poison and assassination are common
weapons demands remedies of no gentle kind. When life is on the
brink of decay, it can be reorganised only by a procedure involving
the maximum of force.124

Machiavelli’s ideas were not presented as applicable in all times and

places, but had to be understood in terms of the context of his time:
‘There indeed it will appear as not merely justified but as an extremely
great and true conception, produced by a genuinely political head
endowed with an intellect of the highest and noblest kind’. These were
24 Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin

the ‘genuinely idealistic demands which Machiavelli makes on an excel-

lent prince’. Means, which would otherwise be considered detestable,
in the defence of the state, become justifiable:

What would be detestable if done by individual to individual, now

appears as just punishment. To engineer anarchy is the supreme or
perhaps the only crime against a state, because all crimes of which
the state has to take account are concentrated in this. Those who
assail the state directly, and not indirectly as other criminals do, are
the greatest criminals, and the state has no higher duty than to main-
tain itself and crush the power of those criminals in the surest way
it can.

Hegel, in Philosophy of Mind, expounds a Rousseauean vision of the

legislator or the Machiavellian notion of prince as founder of the state:
‘All states are founded by the sublime acts of great men.’ The general
will is not the cause but the outcome of the state which owes its begin-
ning to force alone: ‘In this way, Theseus founded the Athenian state;
also in this way, during the French Revolution a terrible power held the
state generally. This power is not despotism, but tyranny, pure terrify-
ing power.’ But whilst states have their origin in tyranny, the tyrant
unwittingly prepares his subjects for freedom. In educating the people
to obey a superior force, namely himself, the tyrant makes possible the
obedience to law and therefore brings about his own demise: ‘Tyranny
is overthrown by the people not because it is abominable, beastly, etc.,
but because it has become superfluous.’ So, he says of Robespierre,
‘power abandoned him, because necessity abandoned him and so he
was violently overthrown’.125
Hegel and Rousseau shared Machiavelli’s disdain for Christianity in
favour of the civic religion of the ancients. He sought a means for the
‘regeneration of civic virtue’. From this time onwards, Steven B. Smith
argues, ‘revolution became a kind of moral duty’ pursued by selfless
men, driven by the highest principles, reflected in the writings of Kant,
Hegel, Marx and through to Lenin and Trotsky.126
In his Philosophy of History (lectures delivered in 1830–1) he returns
to the defence of Machiavelli. The Prince had often been thrown aside
in disgust ‘as replete with the maxims of the most revolting tyranny’.
Whilst it was difficult to reconcile these ideas with ideas of Freedom, it
was necessary to recognize that these ideas were alone the ones on which
a state, in the circumstances of the time, could have been founded.
It was necessary to defeat the feudal nobility who displayed an
 Machiavelli’s Ideas on Politics 25

‘indomitable contempt for principle, and an utter depravity of

morals’.127
In one important regard, Hegel marks a decisive break with the think-
ing associated with Machiavelli. In place of the notion of an endless
succession of cycles of human history repeating itself, he advanced the
idea of a flow of progress embodied in the World Spirit. In other respects,
Hegel builds on Machiavelli’s ideas. The idea of the prince re-emerges
as Hegel’s ‘world historical figures’ (Welthistorische Individuen):

They may all be called Heroes, in as much as they have derived their
purposes and their vocation, not from the calm regular course of
things, sanctioned by the existing order; but from a concealed fount,
from that inner Spirit, still hidden beneath the surface, which
impinges on the outer world as on a shell and bursts it into pieces.
(Such were Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon.) They were practical
political men. But, at the same time, they were thinking men, who
had an insight into the requirements of the time – what was ripe for
development.128

To the objection that the activity of such individuals frequently flies in

the face of morality, and involves great suffering for others, Hegel replies
in terms reminiscent of Machiavelli:

World History occupies a higher ground than that on which moral-

ity has properly its position, which is personal character and the
conscience of individuals. Moral claims, which are irrelevant, must
not be brought into collision with world-historical deeds and their
accomplishment. The litany of private virtues – modesty, humility,
philanthropy, and forbearance – must not be raised against them.129

So mighty a form (he adds elsewhere) must trample down many an

innocent flower – crush down many an object in its path.
Notwithstanding Hegel’s qualifications (which it should be noted
were far fewer than those which Machiavelli postulated), in effect he
provides carte blanche for statesmen who might claim to be saviours of
the state. Stalin in 1936–8 might well have read The German Constitu-
tion with wry satisfaction. The tradition of revolutionary Jacobinism
might be seen to re-emerge in Hegel’s Phenomology in which he consid-
ers the notion of absolute liberty.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) is famous as a critic of Kant, and
as an exponent of dialectics. An ardent ‘Jacobin’ in the 1790s, he
26 Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin

became a strong critic of Napoleon, and espoused a form of messianic

German nationalism, and became a passionate advocate of German
national unity.130 In 1807, in an article entitled ‘Concerning Machi-
avelli’, he advocated raison d’état and power policy to secure unity and
national independence.131 It echoed Machiavelli’s own call for the unity
and independence of Italy in the final chapter of his Prince. In The Closed
Commercial State (1800), he outlined the vision of an autarchic, state
regulated economy and society. In his addresses to the German nation
(1807–8), he advocated a system of education to rekindle and preserve
the nation’s identity.132 In State Instructor (Staatslehre), published posthu-
mously in 1820, Fichte outlines a vision of a utopian state based on
principles of pure reason, which some have equated with pure despo-
tism. Fichte echoed Machiavelli’s sentiment when he declared: ‘that
everyone who wishes to organise a republic, or any state for that matter,
must assume the maliciousness of man’.133 Friedrich Meinecke, in his
celebrated work on raison d’état or staatsrason, points to the profound
impact of Machiavelli’s thought on Botero and Campanella, and in the
thinking of Fichte and Hegel.134
Fichte’s article on Machiavelli of 1807 had a profound impact on Carl
von Clausewitz. He saw Machiavelli as the thinker who had provided
a rational and realist basis for the study of politics, diplomacy and
warfare. Like Hegel and Fichte, Clausewitz’s concern was with restoring
the German state. This is what inspired Clausewitz’s interest in the edu-
cational ideas of Pestalozzi, as a means of nurturing a strong national
identity amongst the German people. Echoing Machiavelli’s view that
politics and ethics were two distinct fields, in On War Clausewitz asserts
that ethics are not part of war. The Russians always respected Clause-
witz, who in 1812 enlisted in the Russian army to fight Napoleon, and
fought at the battle of Borodino and in other campaigns.135
Goethe and Ranke shared this interest in Machiavelli.136 This admi-
ration, however, was not universal. Herder, for example, characterized
Machiavelli and Hobbes as ‘base and cold misanthropes’.137 The ideas
of Hegel, Fichte, Clausewitz, Goethe and Ranke, cannot of course, be
reduced to the ideas of Machiavelli.

Conclusion

There is a vast literature which seeks to interpret the political thought

of Machiavelli. In this work, we do not seek to arrive at any final con-
clusion on these questions. What we seek is to explore the way in which
Machiavelli has been interpreted and used in different situations, in dif-
 Machiavelli’s Ideas on Politics 27

ferent periods of history. We are concerned with Machiavelli’s influence

on succeeding generations of political thinkers and statesmen, but also
with the way in which his successors in different ages have interpreted
him. We are concerned not with one true Machiavelli, but with the very
different Machiavellis.
The tendency to see Machiavelli as a satirist on dictatorship, reflected
in the work of Rousseau and others, had, by the end of the nineteenth
century, been largely discarded.138 In this we also tend to discount some
of the interpretations, which emerged in the twentieth century, which
reflect the concern of the time. The view of Machiavelli, advanced by
Benedetto Croce, as one who saw politics as in a sense tragic, underplay
his sense of the absurd, and his relish of politics in all its aspects.139
Attempts to depict him as a dispassionate analyser of politics, a
forerunner of political science, underplay his own engagement and
passionate convictions regarding the universal validity of models of
behaviour derived from studying the Roman Republic and Empire.
In Machiavelli’s political thought there are a number of tensions.
There is the obvious tension between the defender of republicanism and
the advocate of dictatorship. But it might be argued that allied to this
is the tension between different form of political rationality. First, there
is the rationality of seizing and consolidating power, the rationality of
survival, where all the stratagems of politics as warfare have to be
deployed. But this cannot be a system of permanent governance. If con-
tinued too long this will provide the basis for anarchy and tyranny. A
second rationality is necessary, that of orderly government. Critics of
Machiavelli tend to focus on the first aspect of his thought, overlook-
ing the way in which he qualifies himself. In defence of the state, all
methods are permissible but the prince must also be able to act with
circumspection. Machiavelli, who had been at the centre of radical
republican thought in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was
inevitably destined, in the nineteenth century, to be at the heart of rev-
olutionary thought.