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p Having received this essential information from Herzen, we can now turn to Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik.

p He has borrowed his concept of philistinism from the famous author of My Past and Thoughts. But being a critically thinking person he does not call us "back to Herzen”; on the contrary, he wishes to lead us "on from Herzen". And with this praiseworthy aim he subjects Herzen’s concept of philistinism to “critical” revision.

p He begins with a description of this concept. He says: " Philistinism—in the sense attributed to it by Herzen—is ... a successive, non-class and non-estate group. Herein lies the main distinction between the ’philistines’ and the ’bourgeoisie’, a typically estate and class group. The bourgeoisie is first and foremost the third estate; further it is a social class, clearly denned and characterised as an economic category by the concept of rent in this or that of its forms (by rent in the conventionally broad sense we understand both the income of entrepreneurs and the income of landowners). The concept of philistinism is immeasurably broader, because its characteristic features are that it is not an estate and not a class" (I, 14).

p Here I must protest most strongly and appeal to the reader who, I trust, is now fully aware that philistinism in the sense attributed 489 to it by Herzen is by no means a "non-estate and non-class group". Quite the reverse! According to Herzen, philistinism is "first and foremost" the petty bourgeoisie, which, having become the " helmsman" of the West European world, has transformed all the other sccial strata and “groups” in its own image. Such a concept of philistinism may be called right; it may be called wrong.  But that it belongs to Herzen is beyond all doubt. Why then say " something which was not the case"? I fear that if we advance in this direction "on from Herzen”, we shall go much further than we should.

p What is more, Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik himself provides most serious grounds for doubting the accuracy of what he says in this respect. This is what we read at the end of his first volume:

p “Herzen’s mistake was that he sought anti-philistinism in a class and estate group, whereas the estate and the class is always the crowd, the grey masses with middling ideals, aspirations and views; isolated, more or less brightly painted individuals from all the classes and estates make up the non-class and non-estate group of the intelligentsia, the main characteristic of which is precisely antiphilistinism" (italics as in the original).

p Just look what form Herzen’s view is now assuming under Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik’s pen! According to Herzen, philistinism was a "non-class and non-estate group”, yet he sought anti-philistinism in a class and estate group. What is the sense in that? There is no sense at all in it. What is it then? A simple confusion of concepts.

p When Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik discovers "Herzen’s mistake" in the fact that the latter sought anti-philistinism in a class and estate group, he has in mind Herzen’s idea that the Russian people is not infected with the spirit of philistinism and is therefore incomparably more capable than the Western peoples of realising socialist ideals. But it is precisely this idea of Herzen’s, although mistaken in itself, precisely this idea that shows lie did not regard "ethical philistinism"  [489•*  as a characteristic of a "non-class and nonestate group”, i.e., as something independent of social relations, but, on the contrary, saw it as the “ethical” consequence of a certain social order. The Western peoples live in certain economic conditions; the Russian people in totally different ones. In the West petty-bourgeois ownership dominates and is increasingly consolidating its rule; the Russian people adheres firmly to communal land tenure. Therefore the Western peoples are full of the spirit of philistinism, whereas the Russian people is perhaps the most antiphilistine people in the world. Consciousness is determined by being.

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p Since, according to Herzen, philistine “spirit” is a consequence of petty-bourgeois social relations, it is not surprising that in the West, where petty-bourgeois relations reign supreme, antiphilistinism has not found suitable social ground. It has existed there only in the form of rare exceptions to the general rule, in the form of "bright spots" quite incapable of dispersing the gloom around them. In Paris Herzen saw these bright spots in the Latin Quarter.

p “The Gospel of the first revolution is preserved there; people read its apostolic acts and the epistles of the holy fathers of the eighteenth century; the great questions are known there ... people there dream of a future ’City of Man’ just as the monks of the early centuries dreamed of a ’City of God’.

p “From the alleys of this Latium, from the fourth floors of its unprepossessing houses disciples and missionaries go forth constantly to fight and preach and perish for the most part morally, but sometimes physically, in partibus infidelium,  [490•*  i.e., on the other side of the Seine."  [490•** 

Herzen sympathises ardently with the "bright spots”, the noble citizens of the Paris “Latium”. But, unfortunately for him, he does not see any social force behind them; these noble dreamers appear in fact only as a few isolated “spots”. Hence their weakness; hence the fact that they are extremely remote from victory over allpowerful and all-embracing philistinism; hence, finally, something far more sadder: they themselves are vanquished by philistinism. Herzen, who was sometimes a subtle psychologist, has portrayed vividly this weak point of French anti-philistinism at that time. According to him, the noble citizens of Latium occasionally, it is true, perish physically—like martyrs for an ideal,—but more often they perish morally and perish as a result of what? As a result of simply moving "to the other side of the Seine”, i.e., when, having finished their course, they themselves embark upon a philistine life and ... themselves become philistines. We, Russians, are very familiar with this phenomenon: for it has so often repeated itself here with the noble dreamers of the Vasilyevsky Island and Bolshaya and Malaya Bronnaya.^^138^^ "Dust thou art, and unto dust^shalt thou return,” said Jehovah to the first man after the Fall. "A philistine thou art, and unto philistinism shalt thou return although thy soul be full of the most burning hatred for philistinism.” Thus French, German, Italian, Russian, Bulgarian, Rumanian (etc., etc.) social life has always said and will always say to those noble dreamers, to all the “intellectuals” who, by remaining a non-class and non-estate group lack the ability or opportunity to join with the advanced class of their day, lack the ability to become its ideologists and rely in their work for 491 a better future on the iron lever of class struggle. Thus it has always said and will always say to them, without asking what caused the "original sin" of these intellectuals—their own shortsightedness or the undeveloped social relations of their day. Thus it has always said and will always say, and its ominous prediction has always and will always come true: the "non-estate and non-class" intelligentsia has indeed always perished morally and will always perish morally as "soon as it crosses to the other side of the Seine”. But this is not all. There is something far worse. It sometimes happens that the preachers of philistinism, its most “eloquent” representatives are precisely those who regard themselves as its bitterest enemies. Alas! this terrible misfortune has here befallen many of those who are now summoning our intelligentsia to a crusade against philistinism. This is precisely the irony, the "blessed irony" which Proudhon wanted to adore. But more about that below.