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p We already know how Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik formulates Herzen’s "heretical idea": "socialism, while remaining victorious on the battle-field, will itself degenerate into philistinism”. This is •wrong in two respects.

p “First and foremost" Herzen does not speak of philistinism. He says: "Socialism will develop in all its phases to extreme consequences, to absurdities. Then a cry of negation will again burst forth from the titanic breast of the revolutionary minority and there will again begin a mortal struggle in which socialism will take the place of Hie present-day conservatism and will be defeated by a future revolution unknown to us__"  [501•* 

p Herzen said nothing about the degeneration of socialism into “philistinism” for the simple reason, of which we are well aware, that for him “philistinism” did not have the "noumenal sense" invented by Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik.  [501•** 

p Secondly, for Herzen the matter was by no means so simple as socialism remaining victorious on the battle-field and immediately degenerating into “conservatism”. No, for him the matter is far more complex: at first socialism \\ill be victorious; then it will develop; it "will develop in all ils phases to extreme consequences" and, only alter reaching these consequences, following the law of all living things it will decline, as a result of which it will be defeated by a "revolution unknown to us”. In the historical interval between the collapse of philistine civilisation which developed on the basis of petty-bourgeois property, and Ihc beginning of the decline of socialism there will be plenty of re cm for life which has nothing at all in ccn^mcn u’ith philistinism. Mr. Ivancv-Razumnik says not a word about this interval, yet its existence in Herzen’s "heretical idea" changes the whole meaning of the latter in a most fundamental -way.

p I shall not examine whelher or not Herzen was right in regarding as inevitable in the future the "unknown revolution" which is supposed to put an end to socialism. This future is obviously too far away from us. I shall say only that Herzen supports this hypothesis of his with a simple reference to "life’s eternal game, pitiless as death, irresistible as birth”. But the eternal game does not mean an eternal returning to the old forms of life in general and the old forms of social life in particular. I do not deny "life’s game" in the least, but I do not think that once having emerged from savagery mankind would ever return to cannibalism.  In precisely the same 502 way—and again not denying "life’s game" at all—I do not think that civilised mankind, once having linished with the division of society into classes and with the exploitation of one class by another, could again return to such a division and such exploitation. And since socialism means precisely the abolition of classes and of exploitation of one class by another, no arguments about "life’s game" will convince me of the inevitability of an "unknown revolution" which is fated to be the negation of socialism. There will be plenty of scope for "life’s game" even without such a revolution. But, I repeat, all this concerns such a far distant future that there can hardly bo any need to argue about it now. It is far more important to note that, according to Herzen’s idea, socialism, while on the ascendant part of the curve of its historical movement, would be characterised by the total disappearance of the discord between developed individuals, on the one hand, and "the crowd, the masses”, on the other, which marks the philistine period. The age of ascendant socialism would be one of the beneficial ages which Herzen portrays in such glowing colours.

p “There are ages when man is free in the common cause. Then the activity towards which all energetic natures strive coincides with the striving of the society in which they live. At such times ... everything throws itself into the whirl of events, lives in it, suffers, delights and perishes. Some uniquely brilliant natures, like Goethe, stand apart, and common insipid natures remain indifferent. Even those individuals who are hostile to the general stream are also carried along and satisfied in the present struggle. Emigres were just as absorbed in the revolution as the Jacobins. At such a time there is no need to talk about self-sacrifice and devotion. All this is done as a matter of course and extremely easily. No one backs down because everyone believes. There are no actual sacrifices; actions which are a simple carrying out of one’s will, a natural form of conduct, appear as sacrifices to spectators."  [502•* 

p Our “historian” says ’nothing about all this and his failure to mention it gives us an idea of how much his "history of Russian social thought" is to be relied on. Verily, verily, I say unto you, reader: Ivanov-Razumnik, like the hero of Krylov’s famous fable, does not notice the elephant.^^145^^ And this is understandable. From his point of view elephants are not noticeable. We shall become finally convinced of this by turning to Belinsky, the Slavophils, the Narodniks, etc.

_p But, the reader miy think, after all Herzen did write that the West European worker was the philistine of the future. He did indeed. But why did he regard the Western proletarian as the philistine of the future? That is the question.

p Here is why he regarded him as a future philistine.

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p The flourishing of socialism, which would do away with the •discord between the individual and society, would be possible, according to Herzen, only as the result of an “explosion” which would cover with “lava” the generations that grew up on the exhausted soil of the petty-bourgeois order. But such an explosion was too unlikely; at least one could not have predicted it, observing the ordinary life of petty-bourgeois society. Careful observation of this life led Herzen, on the contrary, to the conviction that the supremacy of petty ownership—the economic foundation of “ethical” philistinism—would become more and more firmly established. In one way or another the worker would also join in petty ownership and therefore also become filled with petty-bourgeois spirit. "All the forces concealed at present in the long-suffering, but powerful breast of the proletarian will dry up; true, he will not die of hunger, and will stop at that, limited by his plot of land (note this, reader!—G.P.) or by his tiny room in a workers’ block. Such is the prospect for a peaceful, organic change."  [503•* 

p What do we hear? There are powerful forces concealed in the long-suffering breast of the Western proletarian. Potentially the Western proletarian is not a philistine, but rather a titan capable of piling mountain upon mountain. But he has landed up in an historical impasse: the social relations will provide no outlet for his powerful forces; they will suppress them, and he himself will gradually turn into a philistine. "Such is the prospect for peaceful, organic development”, and it is too difficult to imagine a different prospect.

p So that is how the matter stands with Herzen’s "heretical idea" that the Western proletarian is the philistine of the future. This idea reflects perfectly both the strong and weak points of Herzen’s philosophy of history. We already know that in his discourses on Western philistinism Herzen explains consciousness by being, social thought by social life.  It is not for nothing that he went through Hegel’s school; he already felt, even if he was not fully aware, how invalid is the superficial idealism that bases all its sociological explanations on the principle: "opinionsrule the world". He repeats insistently that it is the “merchant” and "petty ownership”, i.e., the economy, that rules the opinions of the West European world. But when he tries to define more precisely the likely course, that of the future development of West European economy, he commits a grave error. He thinks that the brilliant periodi of West European industry has already passed, that property is being increasingly split up and that the Western worker will increasingly become a small owner. Having once reached this conviction, Herzen could naturally not expect from the future any radical changes in the social system of Western Europe.

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p “Wherever I look,” he wrote, "I see grey hair, wrinkles, bent backs, wills, adding-ups, carrying-outs, ends and I keep on looking for beginnings, they are only in theory and abstractions."

We know that Herzen’s disillusion with Western Europe was greatly accelerated by the failure of the 1848 revolution.  [504•*  The same disillusion was experienced also by many of his Western contemporaries, and it is significant that this disillusion was not felt only by those who had succeeded in producing a theory explaining the course of thought by the course of life. Only the adherents of the materialist explanation of history—of whom, it is true, there were very few at the time—remained calmly confident that their ideals would triumph. The reader has not forgotten, of course, Marx’s famous exclamation: "The revolution is dead!—Long live the revolution!"^^146^^ Marx understood that the development of West European economic relations was not leading to the triumph of petty ownership at all and that the historical role of the proletariat was not to become small owners. Herzen, who was strongly influenced by Proudhon and did not have the slightest idea what Marx’s teaching was, did not attain this calm confidence.  [504•**  And this was his great misfortune, this was the profound tragedy of his "struggle with the West"—a struggle which is understood no better by Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik today than Strakhov understood it earlier. It was this total loss of faith in Western Europe that perhaps more than anything else led Herzen, after he had turned his back upon the "old world”, to become—as our historian rightly considers this time—the father of Russian Narodism.