Munnich’s paradox and the machinery of the absurd: second lieutenant Kizhe meets Karl Marx and Max Weber

This article presents the first analysis in Russian and international scholarship of Soviet writer Yuri Tynyanov’s novella Second Lieutenant Kizhe through the theoretical lenses of Karl Marx’s concept of bureaucracy and Max Weber's theory of legitimate domination. The plot of Tynyanov's work, alongside the historical context of Emperor Paul I's reign, must be understood within the framework of a feudal-capitalist synthesis. This synthesis emerged from the modernization of the Russian Empire initiated by Peter the Great’s reforms, resulting in a state that combined feudal (patrimonial) and capitalist (legal-rational) characteristics. Burkhard Christoph von Munnich’s famous paradox regarding the Russian state and God reflects this hybrid state structure. Key elements of the novella’s plot can only be fully comprehended through Marx's theory of bureaucracy, which identifies defining features such as corporatism, formalism, a hierarchy of knowledge, secrecy, authority, and careerism. Simultaneously, other narrative components are best illuminated by Weber's concept of legitimate domination, which establishes a dichotomy between legal-rational and traditional (patrimonial) types of authority and their corresponding administrative structures. While Tynyanov’s aesthetic cognition - like artistic thought in general - may lack the systematic profundity of the scientific theories developed by Marx and Weber, it nevertheless offers unique advantages. First, Tynyanov portrays bureaucracy as an organic whole characterized by the interplay of its various elements, whereas Marx and Weber tend to analyze it through discrete components. Second, Tynyanov captures the dynamic processes of bureaucratic systems, while Marx and Weber primarily reflect their static structures. Consequently, the bureaucracy in Tynyanov's novella operates as a “machinery of the absurd”, and the author’s aesthetic critique proves more incisive than Marx’s, and substantially more so than Weber’s comparatively apologetic stance. Ultimately, however, none of the three thinkers - Marx, Weber, or Tynyanov - fully uncovers the deepest roots of bureaucracy as a social phenomenon. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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