p According to Herzen, soci-iism will become conservative and in this sense will resemble philistinism—only in the final stage of its development, only after developing to absurdity. But our intelligentsia of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, whose perspicacity inspires Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik with such obvious and such great respect, declared that the turning of socialism into philistinism was a matter of the very near future and to a considerable extent even of the present. This is extremely characteristic of it. No less characteristic of it is the fact that it 505 did not stop for a long time, and, it would appear, has hardly stopped even now, making eyes at Mr. E. Bernstein and other "critics of Marx" like him. If "one takes a cold look around”, it becomes as indisputable as two and two make four that it seized upon Bernstein’s criticism for one reason only: this notorious “criticism” gave it a welcome and excellent excuse to turn its back on the proletariat’s aspirations about which it was compelled to say many fine words in the period of its struggle against Narodnik barbarism. The French proverb says: quand on veut pendre un chien, on le dit enrage (when you want to hang a dog, you say it is mad). And when our intelligentsia en question—the intelligentsia that is supposed to have understood Herzen’s "heretical idea" so well—wanted to turn its back on the proletariat and understood its true vocation to be a bourgeois intelligentsia, it equated proletarian aspirations with philistinism.  [505•*  With respect to this equation, Bernstein’s “criticism”—one must give it credit for this—provided splendid material. In the person of Mr. Bernstein and other “critics” of this calibre socialist thought did indeed capitulate tophilistinism, by declaring all aspirations that go further than "social refoim" to he the vain, Utopian ravings of incorrigible “dogmatists” incapable of criticial thinking. Who decs not remember the arrogant contempt with which Mr. Bernstein spoke of the "final aim"? In the person of such “critics” socialist thought did indeed preach the Molchalin principle of moderation and conformity.^^147^^ How could one help welcoming Mr. Bernstein and his confreres? How could one help applauding them? Who could have slandered the aspirations of the conscious proletariat better than they? Now, thanks to these “critics”, it was possible to ignore these aspirations not in the name of philintinism, but supposedly for the struggle against it. And they wanted terribly to ignore them, but they could not find a “nice” excuse. Mr. Bernstein helped them out: he provided such an excuse arid thereby earned the most sincere and profound gratitude of the “critically” philistinismg intelligentsia. It greeted him as a Messiah and proclaimed loudly that “orthodox” Marxism had had its day. No matter what was said in defence of Marx, so shamelessly and so absurdly distorted by Mr. Bernstein, it paid no heed. It was organically incapable of listening attentively to those who criticised the "critics of Marx”, because to criticise the "critics of Marx" meant to go against its most cherished aspirations. And so an impenetrable mire of "conventional falsehcca" grew up around this question. By silent, but nevertheless quite real mutual consent, the "critically thinking" philistines of our day began to ascribe to Marx all sorts of rubbish—under the name of catastrophic sccialism, etc.,—which was then 506 triumphantly disproved and decisively rejected by them as totally out of keeping with the state of affairs in present-day capitalist society. With regard to this state the selfsame people by virtue of the selfsame silent, but unbroken agreement have also uttered piles of "conventional falsehood": about an increase in the working class’s share of the national income, about trusts as a means of averting industrial crises, about joint-stock companies as a factor increasing the number of capitalists, and so on and so forth. And, basing himself on all this conventional falsehood, each “critical” ideologist of modern philistinism has been able, with the ease and cunning of "almost a military man”, to arrive at the conclusion that the very economy of present-day capitalist society sentences socialism to assimilate Mr. Bernstein’s principles, i.e., the philistine spirit. And from this conclusion it was but a short step to the negation of the "final aim”, i.e., to perfectly understandable “disillusion” with such socialism. Once having reached this "final aim”, once having arrived at the pleasant conviction that the worker of our day is the philistine of the very near future, if not of the present, the only thing left was to cultivate one’s own more or less “nice”, more or less “free”, more or less “superhuman” personality. And at this point, the strikingly talented and profoundly sad pages which Herzen devoted to a description of philistinism came to mind most opportunely. Herzen himself does not believe! Herzen himself understands! Herzen himself has expressed an heretical idea! Herzen himself foresees! This must mean something.

p And it does indeed mean a great deal. It means that Herzen’s sad and deep-felt pages, the pages which were written with his heart’s blood and his nerves’ sap, the pages of which many were written under the direct impact of those terrible June days,—that these pages, full of "Babylonian longing" for the ideal so mercilessly dashed by life, now serve as a weapon for the struggle against this ideal. Oh, ironie, sainte ironie, viens, que je t’adore!

p History is an extremely ironical old girl in general. Yet one must do her justice as well. Her irony is terribly wicked, but it is never entirely unmerited. If we find history being ironical about this or that important and noble historical figure, we can safely say that the views or actions of this important and noble figure contained weak points which subsequently made it possible to use his views or actions, or, which is the same thing, the consequences of these actions, the conclusions which follow from these views, for the struggle against the noble aspirations which at one time inspired him.

p We already know that Hsrzen’s views did contain a weak point. But this weak point is not weak enough, according to Mr. IvanovRazumnik. Oar historian coasubrs Il3r/’3:i’s viewpoint to be too concrete.  This esteemed historian under the pretext of moving 507 “on from Herzen" has scrambled up, disturbing the venerable shade of the author of the Historical Letters on the way, to the supposedly elevated viewpoint, from which the whole history of the progressive movement of mankind appears in the form of the struggle of "non-estate and non-class" anti-philistinism with an equally "non-estate and non-class" philistinism. But the more he tries to hang on to this supposedly elevated viewpoint; the more he revolts against pftiZisf mis/re—“aesthetic”, “ethical”, and " sociologicd”,—the more his own alleged anti-philistinism reveals itself as the ideology of an educated and "critically thinking" philistine of our time. Oh, irony, blessed irony, coma that I may adore you!

p In this philistinism of Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik’s “anti-philistinism” lies the secret of his success. We are now living in a period when works that cultivate philistine "’anti-philistinism" so assiduously and so systematically are bound to be successful.

I shall now turn to details which will show us that the viewpoint of philistine “anti-philistinism”, even when it is attained by a person who is not without a certain amount of knowledge, is as barren as the famous iig-tree. For Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik the history of Russian social thought, so rich in content, acquires a totally shallow nature. And this is because, as Mr. IvanovRazumnik rightly says himself, philistinism is shallowness of content and impersonality of spirit.