Whether we talk strictly about political power, seizure of the power or its retaining, or about the sovereign, what should he be like, what virtues and features should he possess to be able to create a new state by his own efforts, to solve efficiently the problems of home and foreign policy, in all the cases we encounter Machiavelli's thought, apparently extracted from the very thicket of real events, from historical experience of the Italian and other nations. With all this we can only conditionally separate problems considered by him, since in his discourses about the sovereign he considers the problems of the state, and in his reflections on the state and power some virtues and features, which should be indispensably possessed by the new sovereign, are shown through. Nevertheless, however paradoxical it might be, the genesis and the course of Machiavelli's thought is focused on the problem of freedom - the freedom of the Italian people from all various types of internal and foreign enslavement. Behind the morphology of the national conscience, reflecting about itself and its fate, behind the knowledge of the sovereign shaping the collective national will and the collective national conscience, behind the desire to create a new united Italian state -behind all this rests the problem of freedom, the problem of national liberation and national unification.

The strength of Machiavelli's thought consists in the unity of theory and history, practical experience and its theoretical comprehension, logic of history and logic of thinking. In this sense both the doctrine on the new sovereign and the doctrine on the state were strictly related to the new view on the people, on the education of the people in the spirit of struggle for freedom. This was to be favoured by the doctrine of autonomy of the law, morality, science and arts, and, at the same time of their dialectical interdependence.

The new sovereign, the captain of the armed nation, should have developed proper consciousness and the collective will towards revolutionary transformation of the society. The degree of freedom or servitude of the nation was determining the level of its consciousness at any stage of its social and economic development, the level of its development within any form of social consciousness and social being, the public vital activity, as well as the forms of the institutions of power, structure of the state, durability and dynamics of the social customs and usages, idealization of the national aspirations and desires, and even the memories of the past (of freedom, customs, institutions, etc.)

If we consider “The Prince” from the point of view of such phenomenology of culture, then all its, at first sight simple and unpretentious, structure of notions will form a fairly complex, diversified system of categories of special significance for various fields of human knowledge. The interaction of various forms of social consciousness under the aegis of politics causes the maxims of politics to become the maxims of science, morality, law, state and society, and some tenets of the other spheres of knowledge assume quite definite political sense.

Thanks to its close and integral links with the problems of freedom, the political aspect, the political dimension is not singletracked and one-dimensional; on the contrary, even where the discourse seems to be only about seizure of power or about its retention and strengthening, consolidation, the political dimension is inevitably overgrown with a range of links with areas of vital activity, generating their active cooperation.

Machiavelli assumes that power is acquired thanks to the favour of the people or nobility: the nobles want to command and to oppress the people, and the people do not want to be commanded nor oppressed. Depending on which interests prevail, the adequate type of authority is being set up. Either the noblemen single out a sovereign of themselves, or the people make someone a sovereign. The authority given by the people is considered by Machiavelli stronger anyway, because the people's purpose is more honest than that of the noblemen: the nobility wants to oppress the people, and the people "do not wish to be oppressed". Moreover, the sovereign can make himself secure from the nobility, but never it is possible to make oneself secure from the hostile people, at least because they are too numerous. One can do without nobility, but what kind of sovereign is it without people!

Machiavelli advises the sovereign to win over the people, as it is necessary that the sovereign always lives in friendship with the people; otherwise, in case of misfortune, he has no salvation. Besides, the sovereign should always remember that "the people will never betray him", unlike the noblemen, who can at any suitable time not only deprive him of power, but also ruin him. Taking all this into account, a clever sovereign should contrive such an order, under which his fellow citizens at any time and in any circumstances will need the state and himself; then they will be faithful to him and loyal.

Here we can see how the political and class interests of people and nobility become entangled, and how the encounter of those interests determines the form of power. At the same time, the political origination of this power foreordains a moral and ethic nature and the face of both the power and the bearer of this power  and  these  interests.  The arrangement of class forces, the structure of political power, ideas, and views of the classes and parties shape the political strategy and tactics of all participants of the political struggle. However, the psychology of the struggling parties, strata of the society, groups, and even individuals is not left out of reckoning. This is the intricate dialectics of relations behind what may seem at first glance, the quite simple and ordinary, discourse of Machiavelli.

The easiest thing to do is to accuse Machiavelli of cynicism, brutality, and amorality, which, unfortunately has been done for ages. It is much more difficult and right to try to go deep into the heart of his discourse, to understand all the contradictoriness and at the same time peculiar consistency of his reflections tending only to lay bare the truth however unsightly its images and manifestations were presenting themselves. The revolutionary ideology requires truth, and the truth needs consistency, ruthless analysis, iron logic. These very features are shown by the analytical and synthetic intellect of Machiavelli.

Thus Machiavelli's main concern is to find the ways, means, and methods of liberation and unification of Italy. Just freedom in its various essences (the freedom of Italy, freedom of society, freedom of an individual, freedom of activities, trade, arts etc.) from feudal fetters binding the development of the country constitutes the basis of all his discourses. In this light becomes clear not only the structure of his works such as “The Prince”, “The Discourses”, “The Art of War”, The Florentine History, but also the necessity itself of creating them and the general structure of all his thought, all his outlook.

The contents of “The Prince” constitute the main core of Machiavelli's outlook as the consciousness of a new sovereign merges in the end with the consciousness of the people pondering over themselves, over their fate. The most fundamental, free, and ample viewing of the state of affairs within the country and beyond its borders, the profound penetration into the sense of events is formed in integral unity with considering and comprehending what has preceded the contemporary state of affairs and what has substantially predetermined the farther course of events, that is in integral unity with consideration of history. Wasn't this necessity to determine Machiavelli's historical works?

But the history is perfidious. It can lead one to the truth and take him away from it, as it often happens to those who either underestimate its lessons or overestimate them. It was not ungrounded though, when the great dialectician Hegel put it once: "The rulers, statesmen and nations are solemnly advised to learn lessons from the experience of history. But the experience and history teaches us that the nations and governments have never learnt anything from history and have never acted according to the lessons that might have been learnt from it. Every epoch has its circumstances, every age constitutes such a peculiar condition that in the particular age it is necessary and possible to take only such decisions that come from the very condition. In commotion of universal events neither the general principle nor the memory of similar circumstances are of any help because the faded memory of the past has no strength compared to the vitality and freedom of the present. In this respect there is nothing more absurd than so often repeated references to the Greek and Roman examples in the age of French revolution. There is nothing as different as the nature of those nations and the nature of our times". In this respect we cannot disagree with Hegel.

Then what to do with Machiavelli's historical works? What for, whom for, and with what objective did he write them, spending the lion's share of his time on that?

We can surely say that Machiavelli wrote his historical works not for himself, nor, obviously, to astonish anybody with his erudition. Not in the least. Machiavelli is too great, too brilliant. He had different intentions, goals, and tasks: they regarded the fate of the Italian and the other European nations. That is why he needed a comprehensive, universal outlook on what is, what was, and what will be. He deeply felt and understood what was later precisely formulated by Hegel: "The universal history is the progress in awareness of freedom - the progress that we should cognize in its necessity". The genealogy or the genesis of freedom, in its political, practical and theoretical sense, is what occupied his mind, is what he was struggling with.

In this light both the concerns of Machiavelli himself and the concerns that Machiavelli charged the prince with become clear: to build or create such a society and state with all its laws and institutions, which would, to the fullest extent possible, implement the freedom of man, and if necessary, they would be able to defend and protect it from the infringements of internal or foreign enemies. In this connection Machiavelli had immense intentions: to comprehend profoundly and universally human history, the history of human society in its deeds and achievements, laws, establishments and institutions, rights, liberties and obligations - in short - to comprehend human history (which to Italians, as, incidentally, to any other European of that time commenced in ancient Greece and Rome, and ended with the history of Europe) as implementation and realization of the making and progress of freedom.

To implement his intention, Machiavelli almost simultaneously writes those important works: “The Prince” and “The Discourses”. The first of them, as we saw, was devoted to the future of Italy, to creating such a state and society, and forming such a sovereign, which would be able to get the Italian nation out of the state of the gravest social, economic and political crisis, chaos, division, underdevelopment and routine, and to lead the way to strong social, economic, political, and cultural progress. Here the mind of the brilliant thinker and master sketched the contours of the future, contours of Italy of the future - strong, mighty, flourishing, prosperous, united, based on just laws protecting the achievements of freedom, and on state and public institutions favouring to the maximum extent the implementation of the rights and liberties of its citizens, the effective functioning of freedom and justice.

In “The Discourses”, in that work the past is the basis from which to derive for the present, but mainly for the future, everything of any use in the state and public system, in laws, customs, establishments, and generally in life of the ancient nations. But actually the point is not in deriving what is useful for the present and future, the point is in something much more important and needed: the analytical consideration of the state organization of the past is at the same time a proper basis for the forming and working out of the most effective forms of the state and public organizations, legislation, various types of institutions designed for implementation, development and protection of law, rights, liberties, and dignity of citizens, for controlling the observance of the laws, standards, regulations, and orders in the public and state life.

Thus both “The Prince” and “The Discourse” are permeated with profound historical method generating forms and senses of tradition of the whole past and present culture in the creative work on the future of the state and public organization, on forming the new social relations and new forms of public consciousness.

All Machiavelli's works are closely related to each other, not just as works of one man, but, what is more important, as works of the man who devoted all his life to achieving his objects. In this connection it is necessary to discuss each of his works in certain interrelations with the other ones, revealing thoughts, trends and ideological continuity between and among them. However, the most important thing, in our opinion, is to reveal the methodological principles, which were used by Machiavelli quite strictly and consistently.

He was working out his theoretical theses on the huge empiric material, and he submitted the empiric material to certain logical treatment, arranged it in his own peculiar historical and logical composition. Let us have a careful look at what Machiavelli himself wrote in the "Dedication" and the "Preface" to “The Florentine History”.

The commission of Pope Clement VII to write the history of Florence is formulated by Machiavelli as the commission to "give an account of deeds of the Florentine people", which he tried "with all assiduousness and ability with which I was endowed by nature and life experience" to fulfil.

The chief principle that Machiavelli tried to conform to is the principle of objective truth: not to flatter, not to embellish the events and people, but to describe them as they really are: "In the course of my all narration never had I a desire to conceal the disgraceful deed with a seemly mask, nor to shade the praiseworthy act under the pretence that it was pursuing an unseemly object. How far I am from flattery is evidenced by all the chapters of my narration, and especially my public speeches and my private opinions directly or indirectly, in which, in expressions and habits of the speaker, his nature is conspicuously revealed. What I avoid are oaths, as dignity and truth of the story do not gain anything from them. Anyone who will approach my writing without prejudice can ascertain for himself my impartiality". Did he succeed in it? Machiavelli had his likings and aversions, but to suspect him of bias, flattery or any other sins, characteristic of bourgeois historians, would not be right.

In spite of this, Machiavelli, who for many years remained in the centre of the political life of the Florentine republic, was aware that "while presenting the events of one's time it is impossible to avoid offending quite a lot of people", and that in this work, trying "not to embellish the truth and to please everybody... perhaps he did not please anybody". Nevertheless, "arming myself with courage and confidence, which never left me in my writings, I will continue my deed as long as I am alive". And with courage deserving respect and imitation he continued his deed both practically and theoretically, despite difficult circumstances always accompanying his political activities and his life.

Still the most important in Machiavelli's views and outlook should be perceived in his profoundly dialectical understanding of reality, society, and public relations. In the internal correlations revealed in the course of theoretical analysis, between the contradictory aspects of reality itself, in collisions and contradictions as the motive power of the development of human society, in the struggle of hostile classes, in encounters of the hostile social and political interests and views, in the more and more intensifying and hardening class struggle Machiavelli perceives the law of social development and perfection. The other historians and politicians saw in them only hindrance, evil, and chicanery.

While studying the works of historians of different times and nations, including those who wrote the history of Florence and the history of Italy - Leonardo Brunni, Aretino and Poggio Bracciolino - Machiavelli remarked that those latter showed "adequate objectivity" in "giving the accounts of wars waged by Florence with foreign sovereigns and nations, but regarding the civil discords and internal dissents, as well as the consequences of this or that, they ignored a lot of things while the other things they just touched upon". This approach is explained by Machiavelli by the objective causes: either the civil discords and internal dissents seemed unimportant and not deserving the memory of generations to those historians, or the historians feared to offend the offspring of those whom they would have to condemn in the course of narration. Machiavelli considered these causes "unworthy of great people". He put forward the principal propositions, which contained the proper methodological approach to the research and account of historical events and history in general: "since if anything in history can please or become instructive, it is the detailed account of events, and if any lesson is useful to the citizens ruling the republic - it is the cognition of the circumstances engendering internal dissents and enmity, in order that the citizens, grown wise with pernicious experience of the others, learned how to retain unity. And if the examples of what is going on in any state can excite us, then the examples of our own republic touch us still more and are still more edifying. And if in any republic took place noteworthy dissents, the most remarkable were the Florentine ones".

Unlike the former and his contemporary historians, Machiavelli thought that the main events deserving research and account were not the foreign wars waged by Florence with alien sovereigns and nations but rather the internal ones - the cognition of circumstances engendering internal dissents and civil discords, as well as the cognition of their consequences, that is, the cognition of the internal contradictions, internal dialectics, cognition of the contradictions predetermining the development of historical events, the development of society.

Machiavelli concretizes his principles with references to what will later be called the class struggle. He points out that the discords between nobility and plebs in the Roman Empire went on till its very end. He points out similiar discords in Athens and other states. As far as Florence is concerned, he distinguishes the different nature and development of contradictions. "But in Florence the discords first sprang up among nobility itself, then between noblemen and gentry and at last between gentry and plebs. And, in addition, it happened quite often that even among the victors there was a split. The discords themselves led to such killings, banishments, death of all families that were unknown to any other famous historical city. In my opinion nothing testifies to the glory of our city so evidently as its internal strifes - there were enough of them to destroy the greatest and mightiest state. Whereas our Florence seemed to grow and grow from them". Machiavelli shows clearly that the Florentine society of that time was permeated with discords and contradictions. And this is not astonishing if we consider the social structure of the Florentine society and the state. Amazing is that Machiavelli, after having stated the existence of those discords and contradictions, perceives in them the source of development, growth, and power of the Florentine Republic, the source of growth and development on the whole.

The historical method of Machiavelli was determined by many factors, the most important of which perhaps should be considered the concrete historical reality itself, the life itself, constantly engendering the more and more sharp, deep, and critical social contradictions. Apparently it forced the attempts to look for their solution in the past, in the present, and in the future. The turn to the ancient world and to history on the whole was of no wonder and not incidental, as the spirit of the Renaissance was transpierced by a revival of antiquity, antique culture (philosophy, politics, law, ethic, literature and arts, languages, etc.). Especially this concerned the search for perfect forms of the existence of the human spirit - for ideals of truth, good, justice and freedom, those eternal problems engendering all tragedies and comedies of the world, when by the irony of history the most serious intentions, the highest aspirations and dreams, often turn into a trivial farce. Salvation could be provided only by the reality itself. But in what sense?

The problem of vital importance for man is the problem of freedom, the problem of social and individual emancipation of man, the real process of liberation of man and humanity from any form of exploitation and alienation. As Hegel put it, "applying the principle of freedom to secular affairs, this implementation and penetration of the principle of freedom into secular relations is a long process which constitutes history itself”.

Applying the principle of freedom to secular affairs, the penetration of this principle into life itself, into all its spheres and relations, needed hard and long cultural work, which again proves the difficulty of correlation between ideals and reality even when ideals mean reality, that is historical movement of the people.

The historical method of Machiavelli had its distinctive character, since it took into account the real history of the development of the State, law, ethics, philosophy, politics, religion, i.e. all forms of social consciousness and respective institutions, and it related their change and development to the change and development of the course of events. On the other hand discussing philosophical, political, moral, legal, state and religious problems on the basis of reality in accordance with the requirements and the spirit of the time added much of importance and sense to those problems.

Perhaps the most important characteristic feature of Machiavelli is his pragmatic, active nature, a breakthrough towards human practice, towards historical activity of man, towards implementation of social, historical objectives. The weighed, thorough, comprehensive analysis of social experience, its theoretical generalizations and applying these generalizations in real social and political activities - all this, according to Gramsci, draws nearer the views of Machiavelli to the views of representatives of the philosophy of practice.

And finally it is worth noticing such an important feature of Machiavelli's thought as the new humanism - Neo-Humanism. Unlike his brilliant contemporaries (Leonardo da Vinci and others) Machiavelli perceives liberation of man not by his predominantly individual development and perfection but by working out and shaping the collective national will and collective national consciousness in order to create a united national state. That is, he is the first to go the way of social revolution, social, moral, and cultural renewal. This is not just shaping an individual man, homo singolare, but shaping of the whole nation, the creative efforts of which are being born to achieve the common goal, to create national and human values in order to secure efficient activities in all areas of human vitality for the welfare of the public, for the welfare of the whole nation. Machiavelli is probably the only thinker of the Renaissance who tries to direct the energy and creative power of man not to the narrow and finally quite limited, individualistic channel, but to the social channel of shaping the collective will, collective, common goal, collective consciousness. And the means he proposes to achieve these goals are also social and revolutionary.

Machiavelli was aware that "the discovery of new political customs and orders was always as dangerous as searching for new unknown lands and seas", and in spite of that he "resolutely decided to go the unbeaten track", which even if it does not lead himself to the required ends, will open the way to somebody else, who, having stronger spirit and greater brain, will lead his intention to the end. The words of the great thinker proved prophetic: indeed, he failed to realize his intention, but instead he blazed new trails to scientific understanding of history, to creating political science, to scientific, critical elucidating the cultural inheritance of the past, to real understanding of history and deriving from it the concealed meaning and pragmatic political conclusions and lessons.

In “The Discourses”, which was an attempt at a sober, realistic and objective, hence, by that time, scientific understanding and comprehending of history, Machiavelli makes interesting comparisons: of people purchasing, for a great amount of money, a piece of antique statue to decorate their house and make of it an example to be followed, and of the same people, and other people as well, passing by those things that were really great among the ancients in their state organization, in politics, in their legislation, in war art, in philosophy, in culture, in medicine, etc. People only admire, but they do not try to follow all the best of antiquity. They consciously stand aside of their great inheritance and all the best that the contemporaries possess. Machiavelli wrote with scorn: "whenever it comes to setting up republics, protecting the states, ruling the kingdoms, creating armies, waging wars, administering justice among subjects, consolidating power, there is no sovereign and no republic, which would turn to the examples of the ancients. I am convinced that this is not as much due to laxity, which was imposed in this world by the present religion, nor due to the evil, which was brought to many Christian cities and countries by vain idleness, as due to the lack of authentic understanding of history, which helps in reading the works of historian, in deriving pleasure, and at the same time the meaning that they contain". Machiavelli himself read the books by Livy (Titus Livius), "which were not broken by the insidiousness of the time", the way to derive from them all which seemed to him necessary "for the best understanding of the ancient and contemporary events", not for the pleasure of reading nor for idle curiosity.

In Machiavelli's turn to history, especially to antiquity, we should see the attempt to reveal the genesis of freedom: the source of its origin, forms of existence, strengthening, development and retaining.