p We see that the second part of Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik’s definition of the intelligentsia acquires a certain meaning only because it is imbued—albeit in pallid, lifeless and abstract form—with the content of an ideal born on the concrete soil of class relations. And this means that it acquires a certain meaning only in so far as it rejects the viewpoint of Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik. This is why I say that it makes matters worse, not better.

p Further. If our historian was not wrong in telling us where Herzen’s “mistake” lay; if this mistake really was that he sought " antiphilistinism" in a class and estate group, whereas it should be sought only in the group of the intelligentsia because "the estate and the class is always the crowd, the grey masses with middling ideals, aspirations and views”, then it is clear that the masses will always be steeped in philistinism. And since the emancipation of the “individual” presupposes "first and foremost" his emancipation from philistinism, it is as clear as day that the ideal for which, according to Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik, the Russian intelligentsia has been lighting, is not attainable for the masses, i.e., it is as clear as day that it is an ideal which only chosen people, the flower of the nation, "isolated, more or less brightly painted individuals from all the classes and estates”, can get the hang of, to use a popular expression. In other words, it is an ideal that can be attained only by certain "non-estate and non-class" supermen. In other words, again: on close inspection Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik’s ideal turns out to be ... its own opposite. Consequently, I did not have the right to say that this ideal is imbued with the content of the most progressive West European ideal nurtured by the West European class struggle. Nothing of the sort! For Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik the latter is too “conventional”.

p Now a few words partly pro domo mea.  [498•* 

p In volume two of his history Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik, in an attempt to show that I had misunderstood the subjectivism of the late Mikhailovsky, says, inter alia: "Finally, he considers that Mikhailovsky’s subjectivism lies mainly in the theory of ’heroes and the crowd’, in attaching excessive importance to the role of the individual in history__This is the limit to which misunderstanding can go, because the theory of heroes and the crowd, which is a study on the psychology of the masses, is by no means one of Mikhailovsky’s basic ideas, but merely a random excursion into the sphere of social psychology" (II, p. 309).

p To what extent, if at all, Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik has succeeded in “comprehending” the essence of my dispute with Mikhailovsky I shall discuss below. But here and now, on the basis of what we 499 have heard from him, I consider it possible to say that "the theory of heroes and the crowd" is not the least important of Mr. IvanovRazumnik’s "basic ideas" by a long chalk. Just think: on the one hand we have "isolated, more or less brightly painted individuals from all the classes and estates" (here they are, the “heroes”!), and on the other the “crowd” (here it is, Mother “crowd”!), "the grey masses with middling ideals”, etc. What is this, if not the theory of heroes and the crowd in its most “shallow”, most “narrow”, most “philistine” and most “conventional” form?

p In a society divided into classes the content of any given social ideal is always determined by the class relations, the economic structure of this society. There are no non-class ideals in such a society. There is only misunderstanding of the class nature of the ideals by a certain section, or the majority, or even all of their opponents or their supporters. But this misunderstanding is in its turn also conditioned by economic relations. It arises in a society in which the class contradictious have not yet manifested themselves fully. Example: German "true socialism" of the forties.The “true” German socialists of that time saw the advantage of German socialism over French in the fact that the bearer of the former was the intelligentsia, whereas in France socialism had already become the business of the popular masses. But this imaginary advantage of German socialism was short-lived: it disappeared together with the development of the class struggle in Germany. Already by the sixties, and even more by the seventies of the last century, German socialism had become the business not of the intelligentsia, but of the "crowd, the masses" so distasteful to Mr. IvanovRazumnik. But the “non-class” ideal migrated further east and built itself a most comfortable little nest in Russia, where one of its finest heralds was P. L. Lavrov, who is quoted by our historian (see Vol. I, Introduction). That Lavrov’s "formula of progress" was of a “non-estate” and “non-class” nature is perfectly correct. But this is no merit: it is a defect. Like many Utopian socialists of the West, Lavrov did not understand the significance of the class struggle in the history of society divided into classes. He was, of course, aware of the fact of its existence, just as the Western Utopian socialists were. But nevertheless to the question "How did history develop? Who moved it?" Lavrov replied: "Isolated struggling individuals."  [499•*  In this respect he—again, like all Utopian socialists—lagged behind the best ideologists of the bourgeoisie, who already at the time of the French Restoration were well aware of the great creative role of the class struggle in history. Already in the 1820s Guizot declared publicly that the whole history of France had been "made by the war of the classes”. Lavrov expected his 500 ideal to be realised by the intelligentsia. With regard to the working class, Lavrov’s idea of which, incidentally, verges on a picture of the masses crushed by poverty, he assumed that energetic individuals could emerge from it, of course, and that such individuals were extremely valuable for progress; but, he hastened to add, "these energetic figures contain only the possibility of progress. Its realisation never will and never can belong to them for a very simple reason: each of them, having embarked upon the realisation of progress, would die of hunger or would sacrifice his human dignity, in both cases disappearing from the ranks of progressive figures. The realisation of progress belongs (sic!) to those who have freed themselves from the most oppressive worry about their daily bread."  [500•* 

p We see that, according to Lavrov, "the realisation of progress belongs" to "thinking individuals" who ... in some way or other live off surplus value. Progress passes "over the heads" of the vast majority of people who create this value by their unpaid labour. This is very naive. There is no need today to dispute such naivete. But it will do no harm to draw attention to the fact that today such opinions testify not to the naivete of the people who express them, but rather to the fact that they "know what they are doing”. That which was an excusable, i.e., excused by the circumstances, paralogism, when Lavrov’s views were developing, has become a quite inexcusable sophism in the mouths of people today, when the workers’ movement has assumed such large proportions throughout the civilised world. Now this opinion serves as a "spiritual weapon" for the category of "thinking individuals" that would like to perpetuate its right to a share of surplus value that “belongs” to it. Now it is supported by the most "brightly painted" philistines of our time.

_p Today there are many people of this category everywhere; and there is no lack of them in Russia too, where the harvest of them is perhaps even larger than in any other country. It is the category of people who, as Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik assures us, " comprehended" Herzen’s idea about "socialism’s potential philistinism" so

p well.

But our author is wrong in thinking that in Russia these people belong to the generation of the beginning of the twentieth century. They had already appeared in Russia in considerable numbers by the end of the nineteenth century. However, I do not wish to argue with him about chronology. I simply think it necessary to show that Herzen’s "heretical idea" is by no means as close to the thinking of people in this category as one might imagine from Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik’s words. And for this I shall again have to make small historical digression.