Oligarchic democracy or democratic oligarchy?

Is it possible to compare Novgorod with Venice? There are no historiographical or historical grounds for this. European and Russian cities appeared in different conditions leading to different types of social organization of the towns: our city-states were communities (obschina) and west cities were communes. These communes struggled against feudal-senor and Russian communities were governed by a tandem veche – prince. At the same time the veche was not an institution or “political people”. It was a national assembly expressing the will of the community, primarily in those cases when the prince and his apparatus failed to cope with their tasks. At first veche was a tribal meeting, but it developed further when territorial ties replaced tribal ties.  Ancient Novgorod from the beginning to the end of its independent history is a republic on a democratic basis.