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p These closing words of the article "A Ray of Light in the Realm of Darkness" exhaust Dobrolyubov’s attitude to Ostrovsky. What is more, the whole of Dobrolyubov is contained in them. And what is even more, the whole of progressive literary criticism of the sixties is contained in them. In analysing the finest works of 628

p Russian literature, this criticism sought to summon "Russian strength" to resolute action; it wanted to show its readers the legitimacy and importance of this action.

p Was it right? Was it not wrong to turn art, as its opponents said, into the instrument of a foreign idea? Let each judge this in his own way. He who does not value the idea which it preached will obviously say: "Yes, it was wrong, very wrong. Progressive criticism of the sixties degraded art.” But he who values this idea will not see anything degrading in the service of it and will therefore say that progressive criticism of that period did nothing wrong. For it must be remembered that, as already said above, this criticism did not demand of art any tendentiousness whatever. On the contrary, it rejected tendentious works and demanded one thing only from the writer: the truth of real life. And for this reason it could’not have had a bad influence on the readers’ aesthetic taste. And "it was no accident, of course, that Dobrolyubov was very accurate in his judgment of the artistic merits of the works which he analysed. This is easy to see from rereading his critical articles.

p In view of this by no means accidental fact it is ridiculous and ... foolish to assert that he was only a brilliant publicist. No, he was not only a brilliant publicist; he was also an excellent literary critic. True, in his literary activity the publicist always prevailed over the literary critic. True, also, Dobrolyubov’s publicistics would have benefited greatly by being separated from his literary criticism: it would have made an even greater impact on the reader. The same must be said of his literary criticism. But he himself would probably not have objected to the separation of publicistics from literary criticism. Belinsky said bitterly: "If only you knew what torment it is to repeat the same old thing, to say it over and over again—all the time about Lermontov, Gogol and Pushkin, not to dare to go beyond certain limits—nothing but art and art again! What sort of literary critic am I! I am a born lampoonist.” He was a unique literary critic,—this is acknowledged by everyone now, it would seem, but, as we see, he too was not at all averse to separating literary criticism from publicistics. Yet he did not do so either. Why? Because there existed "someone in grey"^^200^^ who prevented one from going beyond "certain limits": the censor.  This revered gentleman did not cease to exist in the sixties either. Due to him neither Dobrolyubov nor Chernyshevsky were able to go beyond "certain limits”. Dobrolyubov frequently complained in his articles that he was compelled to express himself “metaphysically”, i.e., allegorically.  His complaints are very like those of the French Enlighteners of the eighteenth century, d’Alembert, for example. Similar causes produce similar effects. The French Enlighteners of the eighteenth century also had to reckon with the censor. But those who are displeased by the mix- 629 ture of publicistics and literary criticism in Dobrolyubov’s articles appear to forget about censorship entirely.

p Of course, censorship is not to blame for the fact that in their view of literature our enlighteners frequently revealed too much rationality.  Rationality is an invariable quality of all periods of enlightenment. The Russian "people of the sixties" were guilty of it no less (but also no more) than the French Encyclopaedists. And the French Encyclopaedists no less (but also no more) than Socrates’ Greek contemporaries. I would point out, incidentally, that in Dobrolyubov’s aesthetic judgments rationality makes itself felt far less than in those of Chernyshevsky, who in his turn is far less rational in these judgments than Pisarev. But rationality is not only found in the literary judgments of the "people of the sixties”. It is even more visible in their publicistics.  The people who pronounce strict judgments on the literary criticism of the sixties would probably be very surprised to hear that the rationality characteristic of this period was closely connected with the idealist view of history held by its progressive representatives. But this is in fact so. If "opinion rules the world”, he who wishes to influence the “world” in this or that way has only to make his opinion the prevailing one. And if he is striving for great social reform, it is not surprising that he will be prepared to make use, inter alia, of belles lettres in order to ensure that his opinion prevails. In this case a certain one-sidedness is quite inevitable. How can it be avoided? There are only two ways of doing this. One is to renounce all striving for social reforms or at least not to allow this striving to gain too great a hold over you. He who is content with the existing order of things will not be prevented in the slightest by historical idealism from supporting the theory of art for art’s sake. The other is to reject historical idealism and replace it with historical materialism.  This again would surprise those who censured our progressive "people of the sixties”, but it too is indisputable. Historical materialism, which proceeds from the premise that it is not consciousness that determines being, but being that determines consciousness, gives its followers a broader view, or, to be more precise, gives them the theoretical possibility of developing for themselves a broader view of the course of social development. It puts the element of rationality in its proper limits or (I repeat my reservation) provides the theoretical opportunity of doing so. Here is an example.

p Feuerbach said that the aim of philosophy and of science in general was to eliminate the fantastic element from people’s ideas. The present-day progressive supporters of historical materialism are trying very hard to eliminate the element of fantasy from people’s ideas. But they do not say that this elimination is the task of philosophy, or science, or literature. They understand that here everything depends on the circumstances of time and place. When 630 representatives of the ruling class engage in science, philosophy or literature, the latter always reflects the aspirations and prejudices of this class to a greater or lesser extent. The ideologists of the ruling class are by no means always interested in fighting the element of “fantasy”. On the contrary, they frequently seek to strengthen this element in order to retain the social order advantageous to them. The task of philosophy is determined by the course of social development, which is by no means always the same. It is not thought that determines being, but being that determines thought. Dobrolyubov too understood this partly. By artificial aspirations he meant aspirations that had grown up on the soil of class rule or were aimed at supporting it. But here his rationality revealed itself; here the one-sidedness of his historical idealism made itself felt. Up to now civilised society has always been divided into classes. Therefore according to Dobrolyubov it followed that the whole history of civilised society was nothing but the history of "artificial social combinations”. The invalidity of this assumption is obvious. But only the materialist explanation of history can do away with this invalid assumption.

p Dobrolyubov said: real criticism does not prescribe anything for literature—it only studies it. He began with this. But he ended by ascribing literature an auxiliary role. Whence this contradiction? It came from the selfsame idealist view of history: if the whole preceding history of civilised society divided into classes was “artificial”; if it is only a question of creating a “natural” social order, the whole preceding history of literature provides nothing for an understanding of its social role. All that remains is to invent a suitable role for it, and in the conditions in question the best thing that could be invented for it was serving the selfsame cause of setting up a “natural” social order.

p Dobrolyubov was logical even in his contradictions. The blame for these contradictions lies not with his own thinking, but with the insufficient elaboration of the materialist philosophy to which he adhered and which had not yet succeeded, and could not have succeeded, in renouncing the idealist view of social life. This shortcoming of materialist philosophy was eliminated only by Marx and Engels. But our progressive "people of the sixties" were not yet familiar with the teaching of these two thinkers.

Our progressive "people of the sixties" were followers of Feuerbach, from whose teaching Marxism emerged, just as Feuerbach’s teaching had itself emerged from the philosophy of Hegel.