Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette.Volume XIII

"Surely not everyone?" Mikhail pointed at Anna. He assumed the maid would be illiterate. And she was a woman, after all.

"Yep, her, too." Bernie grinned. "She's picked up English fast, really fast. And she can do Arabic numerals and paper spread sheet bookkeeping. All that, while my Russian is still the pits even after I've been here so long. And she's better at the bookkeeping than I am. What's worse, I taught it to her."

"Yes." Czar Mikhail's eyes were hooded and dark. "There has been a great deal of talk lately about your accounting and taxes. An income tax. The patriarch is quite enamored of it."

Bernie shifted in his seat. It was pretty uncomfortable, all of a sudden. "I sort of opened a can of worms with that one. No one really wants to explain anything to me, just have me explain things to them, so I don't know how it works here. Anyway, the most important thing about taxes back up-time was that they were mostly fair. Mostly everybody paid them. There were people who had good lawyers and sometimes folks cheated. Still, it sort of spread the burden around, so no one group had to do it all."

Mikhail nodded. "We are considering that. It does seem that it will increase revenues, at any rate. The, ah, what was it called… the Fica, that one. That one we're having a little trouble with."

Bernie grinned and took another sip of beer. "Yeah, I heard. I had to explain what 'retire' meant. And no one understood that one. What do people do here, just work until they die? No chance to just kick back and relax, just live. I had a lot of trouble getting that clear. And when I told them about the Social Security numbers and how everybody had one, well, the brain cases just went nuts."

They sat and chatted for a long while. It was interesting to listen to someone who was mostly unguarded and not weighing every word to make his case. Mikhail finally, once the servants unfroze, got his beer and the discussion ranged all over.

Mikhail enjoyed especially the discussion of what it was like to live up-time. Cars, first dates and bananas in winter were only a part of it. Mikhail was the wealthiest and, in theory, most powerful man in Russia and had never had a banana in any season, much less a banana split.

Mikhail brought the discussion around to representative government. He wanted to get a feel for how it worked from someone who had experienced it to compare with the theory. Bernie seemed to assume that Mikhail would disapprove of it. It was the most guarded Bernie had been all evening. Mikhail liked the concept, but wasn't sure how well it would work on the ground in Russia. From his reading, it had almost seemed that every citizen of the nation must be a scholar of the law. All in all, Mikhail found Bernie's ignorance of how the details worked according to the books reassuring. It didn't take him long to figure out that Bernie actually knew less about the mechanics of how the constitutional laws of the United States of America worked up-time than he himself did.

It was clear to Mikhail that Bernie didn't have the slightest clue about how Russia worked. Russia did have a history of electing officials and representatives. But the constitution-that was a bit different. It was not like England's Great Charter or Poland's. Nor like the agreement that the Assembly of the Land had insisted he sign when they forced the throne on him. The constitution… those were a list of restrictions on the crown. They restricted the czar's power, but the constitution seemed to do more than that. It provided a concrete structure that was designed from the beginning, rather than growing just any which way.

"I don't know, Bernie." Mikhail stared into the mug he held. "I was elected to be the czar, but that was a special case. They picked me because I was only sixteen years old and they felt sure they could control me. Even so, they limited my power. Which wasn't something that bothered me, then or now. Mostly, my father runs things. He is the one who really should have been czar. But the reason that the election happened at all was that there was no one left in the direct royal line. And because they needed someone after the time of troubles. Anything was better than continuing to fight over everything. Even then, it was the Assembly of the Land and the cabinet who voted. The people of Muscovy aren't used to voting on everything."

"Yes, I get it. That's sort of the point of representatives," Bernie said. "The people elect them and they are the ones who vote on the laws and stuff. Were the people who voted elected?"

Mikhail shrugged. "Some, not all. The Assembly of the Land has men who represent the crafts or a place or who are high in the church. Some representatives of the merchants and tax collectors participate."

"That sorta sucks." Bernie had not cared in the least about the people of Muscovy when he agreed to come. It had just been a job; keep your head down do what the man tells you and get your pay. It had been good pay, so who cared. Gradually, without his really noticing it, that had changed. Bernie knew he was living in a very privileged situation. He had no desire to endanger that privilege by upsetting people-especially the frigging czar. The comment had just sort of slipped out. At the same time, he felt sort of obligated to help these guys get it right. He started to apologize. "Sorry about the profanity, Your Majesty."

He should have stopped there; he knew it. And he intended to, but some how it all just came poring out. "What does someone who has a lot of power and money care about the little guys? It's not a representative government unless, well, all the people get represented. Everyone, not just churchy guys, not even just guys, and not just people with money, should have a vote. If you just listen to the guys with the money and power, they're going to tell you what they want, not what people need. You ought to get rid of them and get yourself some regular folks to advise you."

Mikhail was looking at him like he was crazy. Then slowly his expression changed. Now he was looking at Bernie like Miss Mailey used to look when Bernie said something stupid in class. "Have you considered the possibility that I might not have a choice? When I was selected as Czar of Muscovy, I was required to sign an document. It had four major provisions. First, I promised to uphold and protect the Orthodox Church of Russia. Second, I promised to give up any possibility of revenging myself or my family for wrongs done to us."

The czar paused for a moment and a pained look crossed his face. "And there were wrongs done to us, Bernie, severe wrongs. Third, I promised to make no new laws or alter old ones, and to take no important measure which might contradict the existing laws, or suspend the legal proceedings of the court of justice. Finally, I promised to begin no wars and to make no peace by my own will."

Mikhail Romanov shook his head a bit and took a sip of beer. "I cannot dismiss those 'churchy guys,' as you call them, Bernie. Not my father, or any of the others. Nor the boyars or dvoryanstvo, ah… councilors and bureaucrats. I cannot restore the elected officials from the provinces. It is not within my power."

Bernie paused for a moment or two, trying to take it all in. Mikhail wasn't the all powerful figure he had thought. Then something occurred to him, the constitutional convention that Mike Stearns had set up and all the campaigning. "I'm in over my head, Your Majesty. I don't think anyone from up-time ever considered that you might not be all-powerful. I don't know what you can do about it. All I know is that representative government should represent everyone and that the representatives will only really represent the people who can fire their asses."

Bernie signaled the cook to pour a couple more beers. "We didn't actually vote on everything, you know. We elected the people who would run the government and then every few years we voted again. If we liked the way they had been running things, we reelected them; if we didn't, we elected someone else. Truth to tell, I usually didn't bother voting. After the Ring of Fire, though, we had a big meeting and set up the Emergency Committee to draft us a constitution. Maybe you could do something like that."