Despite having the trappings of a functional constitution Russia remains an autocracy in which, from Peter the Great to Stalin, leaders either anoint their successors or are removed by bloody force
In the history of a nation famed for its blood-spattered successions, it was the most savage liquidation of an autocrat — and is ever in the mind of a history-obsessed Russian ruler who this week may be feeling the insecurity of a system in which the despot seems omnipotent but in which there is no orderly succession nor safe retirement and in which the jeopardy is intensified by his own merciless war. At midnight on March 23, 1801, Tsar Paul, successor and son of Catherine the Great, heard footsteps on the stair of his impregnable new residence, Mikhailovsky Castle. He did not have time to wonder how the assassins had gained access, nor how none of his multiple security agencies had reported the conspiracy, nor why this paradomaniacal military enthusiast was about to be challenged by his own elite officers.
