162

p We shall later see the significance of the extracts I have quoted on the question of "our differences”. Let us now consider the programmes which we have set forth from the purely historical standpoint and ask ourselves how satisfactory were our formulation and solution of the problem of the condition of the Russian village commune and of the Russian people’s ability to wage a conscious struggle for their economic emancipation.

We have seen that both M. A. Bakunin and P. N. Tkachov spoke a lot about the communist instincts of the Russian peasantry. References to these instincts form the starting-point of their social and political arguments and the main basis of their faith in the possibility of a socialist revolution in Russia. But neither the author of Statehood and Anarchy nor the editor of Nabat apparently gave the slightest thought to the question whether the village commune exists because our people "are imbued with the principles of communal land tenure" or whether they are “imbued” with these “principles”, i.e., arc accustomed to the commune, because they live under conditions of collective ownership of the land. Had they devoted more attention to this question—about the answer to which there cannot be any doubt—they would have had to transfer the main emphasis of their argument from the discussion of the people’s “instincts” and ideals to the study of the national economy. 163 Then they would have had to pay attention to the history of land tenure and in general of the right of property among the primitive peoples, to the rise and gradual growth of individualism in the communities of hunting, nomadic and agricultural tribes, to the social and political influence of this new " principle”, which gradually became dominant. Applying the results of such studies to Russia, they would have had to appraise the conditions which cause the disintegration of the village commune and whose significance has particularly grown since the abolition of serfdom. This appraisal would logically have brought them to attempt to determine the strength and significance of individualism in the economy of the modern village commune in Russia. Then, since the significance of this principle is continually rising—under the influence of conditions adverse to collectivism—they would have had to determine the magnitude of the acceleration individualism is gaining in the course of its assault on the rights and the economy of the commune members. Having determined with all possible accuracy in such conditions the magnitude of this acceleration, they would have had to go on to study the qualities and development of the force by means of which they hoped not only to stave off the triumph of individualism, not only to restore to the village commune its primitive form, but to give it a new and higher form. Then there would have arisen the question—a very important one, as we have seen—whether this force would be the product of the inner life of the commune or a result of the historical development of external conditions. In the latter case, this force would be a purely external one in relation to the commune, and they would then have needed first of all to ask themselves whether external influences alone were sufficient for the reorganisation of the economic, social and political life of the class concerned. Having dealt with this question, they would have had to consider another, namely, where the point of application of this force was to be sought—in the sphere of the conditions of life or in the domain of the thinking habits of our peasantry. To conclude, they would have had to prove that the strength of the supporters of socialism grows with greater speed than individualism is growing in Russian economic life. Only when they had made this circumstance at least probable could

they have proved the probability of the social revolution which they held could not encounter “any” difficulties in Russia.

p 8

p In each of the cases listed above they would have had to deal not with the statics but with the dynamics of our social relationships, to “take” the people not "as they are”, but as they are becoming, to consider not the motionless picture but the process of Russian life taking place according to definite 164 laws. They would have had to apply in practice the very instrument of dialectics which Chernyshevsky used to study the question of the village commune in its abstract form.

p Unfortunately neither Bakunin nor Tkachov were able, as we have seen, to approach the question of the chances of a social revolution in Russia from this most important standpoint. They contented themselves with the conviction that our people are "communist by instinct, by tradition”; and although Bakunin paid due attention to the weak sides of the people’s “traditions” and instincts, although Tkachov saw that such weak sides could be eliminated only by institutions and not by logical arguments, neither of them carried their analysis to the end. In appealing to our intelligentsia they expected social miracles from its activity and presumed that its devotion would be a substitute for the people’s initiative and that its revolutionary energy would replace the inner striving of Russian social life towards a socialist revolution. They regarded the national economy, the way of life and the thinking habits of the peasantry exactly as a still life, a complete whole requiring only slight changes, right up to the social revolution itself. In the imagination of those same writers who, naturally, would not have refused to admit the forms of the people’s life in their time to be the result of historical development, history seemed "to stand still”. From the publication of Statehood and Anarchy or "Open Letter to Frederick Engels”, right up to the first or "second day after the revolution" the village commune, they held, was to remain in its present form, which they affirmed was not far from the transition to socialism. The thing was to set about the matter as soon as possible and to follow the appropriate road. "We brook no postponements, no delays.... We cannot and will not wait.... Let each one gather his belongings as quickly as he can and hasten to set out! " wrote the editor of Nabat. And although there were fundamental differences between Bakunin and Tkachov as to the direction of that road, each was sure at any rate that if youth followed the road he indicated they would still manage to find the village commune in a state of desirable stability. Although "every day brings us new enemies, creates new social forms hostile to us”, those new forms do not change the mutual relations between the factors of Russian social life. There continues to be no bourgeoisie, the state continues to be "hanging in the air”. If we ring the tocsin louder, if we set about revolutionary activity more energetically, we shall yet succeed in saving the "communist instincts" of the Russian people and, relying on their attachment to the "principles of communal land tenure”, we shall succeed in accomplishing the socialist revolution. That was the way P. N. Tkachov argued and 165 also the way, or nearly the way, the author of Statehood and Anarchy argued.

p Our youth read the works of both authors and, splitting into groups, did indeed hasten to set to work. It may seem strange at first sight that Tkachov’s or Bakunin’s programme could find supporters among the very intelligentsia that had been reared on the works of Chernyshevsky and if only for that reason should have developed the habit of more rigorous thinking. But in substance the matter was simple and was partly explained by Chernyshevsky’s own influence.

p It was not for nothing that Hegel gave such an important place in his philosophy to the question of method or that those West European socialists who are proud to "trace their descent”, incidentally, "to Hegel and Kant”, attach far more importance to the method of studying social plenomena than to the data resulting from that study.  [165•*  A mistake in the results will inevitably be noticed and corrected by further application of the correct method, whereas an erroneous method can only in rare and individual cases give results not contrary to this or that individual truth. But there can be a serious attitude to questions of method only in a society which has had a serious philosophical education, a thing which Russian society could never boast of. The inadequate philosophical education made itself felt with particular force in our country in the sixties, when our " thinking realists”,^^123^^ having established the cult of natural science, began cruelly to persecute philosophical “metaphysics”. Influenced by this anti-philosophical propaganda, Chernyshevsky’s followers were unable to master the methods of his dialectical thinking and concentrated their attention merely on the results of his studies. As a result of these very studies, as we know, there appeared faith in the possibility for our village commune of a direct transition to a higher, communist form of communal life. This conviction suffered from one-sidedness by virtue of its abstractness, and had the pupils remained faithful to the spirit and not to the letter of Chernyshevsky’s works, they would not have been slow to pass, according to an expression I used above, from algebra to arithmetic, from general abstract arguments about possible transitions of certain social forms into others, to the detailed study of the contemporary conditions and probable I future of the Russian village commune in particular. So-called 166 “Russian” socialism would thus have been placed on a perfectly firm basis. Unfortunately, our revolutionary youth did not even suspect that their teacher had any special method of thinking. Contenting themselves with the results of his investigations, they regarded as his fellow-thinkers all writers who defended the principle of communal land tenure, and whereas the author of Criticism of Philosophical Prejudices could himself never agree, for example, with Shchapov,  [166•*  our youth saw in the latter’s historical works only a new illustration and new arguments in favour of their teacher’s opinion. Still less could they make a severe criticism of the new revolutionary doctrines. P. N. Tkachov and M. A. Bakunin seemed to them to belong to exactly the same trend as Chernyshevsky. Hegel’s pupils, while strictly following the very same method which that great thinker handed down to them, smashed his system to bits. They kept to the spirit, not the letter of his system. Chernyshevsky’s followers could not bring themselves even to think of a critical attitude towards his opinions. They kept strictly to every letter of his writings and lost all idea of their spirit. The result was that they could not preserve in their purity even the results of Chernyshevsky’s investigations, and, mixing them with Slavophile tendencies, they formed the curious theoretical amalgam from which our Narodism subsequently arose.

p Thus, the preceding socialist literature bequeathed to us several (unimitated) attempts at applying the dialectical method to the solution of important problems in Russian social life and several socialist programmes; one of these recommended socialist propaganda, considering the Russian peasantry just as receptive to it as the West European proletariat; another insisted on the organisation of a nation-wide rebellion, and a third, not considering propaganda or organisation possible, pointed to the seizure of power by a revolutionary party as the starting-point of the Russian socialist revolution.

The theoretical posing of the question of the revolution, far from progressing since Chernyshevsky’s time, regressed in many respects towards Herzen’s semi-Slavophile views. The Russian revolutionary intelligentsia of the early seventies did not add a single serious argument in support of the negative solution of the question posed by Herzen: "Must Russia pass through all the phases of European development? "