525
XIV
 

p “Chernyshevsky went further along the path indicated by Herzen.” says Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik. "he gave Narodism a scientific form, liberated it from the subjective superstructures which were explained by Herzen’s personal experiences; he was the main exponent of the socialist trend of the Russian intelligentsia in the sixties. And, first and foremost, it must be pointed out that Cliernyshevsky was never a Utopian socialist. The Russian intelligentsia experienced and felt Utopian socialism first of all in the person of Belinsky, and then the Pelrashevtsi^^150^^; after 1848 Herzen had already embarked boldly with his theories on the path of real socialism; Cliernyshevsky could not go backwards, of course" (II, 8).

p Up till now it has been considered that the development of social life in Western Europe led socialist thought from a utopia io a science. In Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik’s history we find a “real” socialism on the patli of which Herzen supposedly embarked after 1848. We have already seen that Herzen’s viewpoint in his reasoning on Russia’s possible future was that of utopian socialism. Now let us see how our author characterises Chernyshevsky’s “real” socialism, how he proves that Cliernyshevsky was never a Utopian socialist. Listen to this:

“Whereas in his novel What Is To Be Done? (18b’2-63) the final aims of socialism are brightly painted with all the colours of Fourierism, it must not be forgotten for whom Cliernyshevsky was writing his novel; this novel is a deliberately vulgar work, written exclusively with a propagandist aim. ’Read, kind public! it will not be without benefit to you. The truth is a good thing!’ Cliernyshevsky addresses his audience derisively: ’You are kind, public, very kind, and therefore you are indiscriminate and slowwitted.... To you, clever reader, I will say that they (he is talking about Rakhmetov) are not bad people; for you will probably not understand yourself’!... If, in preaching socialism to such an audience, Cliernyshevsky had even followed Fourier in going as far as the notorious anti-lions, anti-sharks and seas of lemonade, it would still be hard to accuse him (as a sociologist, and not as a novelist) of adhering to Utopian socialism. In reply to such an accusation it would be sufficient to point to Chernyshevsky’s comment on the systems of Utopian socialism in Chapter VI of the Essays on the Gogol Period of Russian Literature (Sovremennik, 1856, No. 9) and to his even sharper comment in the article on Haxthausen’s Sludien (ibid., 1857, No. 7). ’Utopian socialism

T

526 has outlived itself,’ says Chernyshevsky, ’to fight it in the middle of the nineteenth century is as ridiculous as, for example, to begin a bitter struggle against Voltaire’s ideas; all these are things of the past, things of the Ochakov times and the conquest of the Crimea.’^^157^^

p “Thus, Chernyshevsky’s Narodism (and we shall see below that his world outlook was that of Narodism) was of a perfectly real kind" (II, 9).

p Unfortunately this “thus” of Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik’s has no “real” foundation whatever. It is easy to see this if one reads Chernyshevsky’s comments on Utopian socialism to which Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik refers. Here they are.

p In Chapter VI of the Essays on the Gogol Period of Russian Literature Chernyshevsky says:

p “At that time (when the world outlook of "Ogarev and his friends" was developing.—G.P.) new theories of national prosperity were arising in France in contradiction to the callous and murderous teaching of the economists. The ideas which inspired the new science were still expressed in fantastic forms and prejudiced opponents or those governed by selfish motives found it easy to ridicule the systems which they hated, ignoring the sensible and lofty basic ideas of the new theoreticians and exaggerating the dreamy passions which no new science can avoid at the beginning. But beneath the apparent eccentricities and beneath the fantastic passions these systems contained truths both profound and beneficial. The vast majority both of educated people and of the European public believed the biased and superficial comments of the economists and did not try to understand the meaning of the new science. They all laughed at the impracticable Utopias and hardly anyone thought it necessary to study them thoroughly and impartially. Mr. Ogarev and his friends took up these questions, realising their extreme importance for life."  [526•* 

p What does this passage tell us about Chernyshevsky’s attitude to French Utopian socialism? First and foremost, that he regarded it as a new science, i.e., in other words, not as Utopian. And if he did not regard it as Utopian, he did not reject it, did not consider it obsolete, as Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik assures us. Chernyshevsky saw as old-fashioned, obsolete and Utopian only those " fantastic forms" in which the new “scientific” ideas were expressed; only the "dreamy passions" which people who have thought up “scientific” ideas were guilty of sometimes. But Chernyshevsky regarded the ideas themselves as profound and beneficial truths. Does this bear any resemblance to what Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik tells us on behalf of Chernyshevsky?

527

p In the article on Haxthausen’s book Chernyshevsky writes: "Haxthausen imagines that in 1847, when his book was published, the question of Saint-Simonism and similar dreams was still a topical one and that there were still serious people then who adhered to Saint-Simon’s system. The good man has not noticed that this system, a truly vague and impracticable one, had its day long before 1847 and that in that year there could hardly have been anyone save an innocent spinster in France who adhered to Saint-Simon’s system."  [527•* 

p To this the following lines must be added: "Haxthausen in his warm-hearted simplicity confuses the question of the proletariat with the Saint-Simonist system; but we would warn the reader thai to speak of Saint-Simonism in our day is the same as speaking of a system of, say, the Physiocrats or Mercantilists; all these are things of the past, things of the • Ochakov times and the conquest of the Crimea.’\thinquote;"  [527•** 

p This comment shows with a clarity that dispels all doubt that Chernyshevsky really did consider Saint-Simon’s system to be "vague and impracticable”. But Fourier too regarded this system as "vague and impracticable”, as one can also see with a clarity that dispels all doubt from some of his polemical articles. Does this mean that Fourier too was never a Utopian socialist? Certainly not, it would seem.

p Let us turn again to Chernyshevsky. "This mistake of Haxthausen’s is a rather crude one,” he continued, "but it is even stranger that in 1857, that is, ten years after Haxthausen, the Economic Directory still thinks that it can see some Utopians around. We would venture to assure it that such fears are as fitting to our age as, for example, disputes against a Voltaire: people like Voltaire and Saint-Simon retired from the historical scene long ago and it is quite pointless to worry about them. If my memory does not deceive me, the famous Bastiat, who serves as an authority for the Economic Directory, argued with people who ridiculed Saint-Simonist day-dreams far more successfully than he did and who, whatever their faults, can on no account be called dreamers. Positive and cold calculation has nothing in common with poetic reveries."  [527•*** 

p Just look at this. The people with whom Bastiat argued could en no account, according to Chernyshevsky, be called dreamers: they adhered to "positive and cold calculation”. With whom did Bastiat argue? He argueol, inter alia, with the protectionists; but it is obviously not the protectionists that Chernyshevsky has in mind. And in that case it is clear that he is alluding to the French 528 utopian socialists and, first and foremost, to Proudhon and Chevet, against whom Bastiat’s pamphlets Capital et rente and Gratuite du credit were directed. Proudhon, if you like, was in fact no dreamer and was by no means void of "positive and cold calculation”; but it is enough to read Marx’s The Poverty of Philosophy to see that Proudhon had both feet on the ground of Utopian socialism. Consequently, this contrast which Chernyshevsky makes between Proudhon and Saint-Simon is no guarantee whatever that our great enlightener of the sixties was not a Utopian himself.

p Finally, let us turn to the novel What Is To Be Done? Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik admits that in this novel "the final aims of socialism are brightly painted with all the colours of Fourierism”, and on this basis he is ready to acknowledge this novel as a utopian work. However, he finds, as w-e know, one important fact that, in his opinion, greatly mitigates Chernyshevsky’s guilt: •"This novel is a deliberately vulgar work, written exclusively with a propagandist aim.” Reading these lines I could not help recalling the obliging bear who drove the flies off the hermit’s forehead.

p The novel What Is To Be Done? is undoubtedly written with a propagandist aim; but it by no means follows from this that it is a deliberately vulgar work. Here is an example. Mr. IvanovRazumnik’s History of Russian Social Thought was also, of course, written with the aim of propagating the ideas of “individualism”, but who would call this history a "deliberately vulgar" work? True, the epithet “vulgar” does rightly belong to it, but was it Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik’s intention to write a two-volume vulgar history of Russian social thought? I strongly doubt it. I assume that the vulgarity appeared of itself, unintentionally.

p As for Chernyshevsky, quite apart from the fact that he could not have set himself the aim of writing a vulgar work, I would point out the following. The novel What Is To Be Done? is, of course, weak artistically. But it contains so much intellect, observation, irony and noble enthusiasm that only someone gifted by nature with totally vulgar taste could call it a vulgar work.

p Our author evidently thinks that only those socialist writers who concern themselves with portraying a future socialist society belong to the Utopians. The novel What Is To Be Done? abounds in such descriptions; consequently Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik decided that the novel expresses Utopian views. And since he had put Chernyshevsky in the "real socialism" department, he concluded that the famous novel was simply the exception that proves the rule, i.e., that when Chernyshevsky wrote What Is To Be Done? he deliberately abandoned the viewpoint of “real” socialism for that of Utopian socialism. A splendid "history of Russian social thought" indeed!

529

p This “history” is so beautiful that one cannot help wondering how such a work could have been “composed”.  But the bewilderment expressed in this question will be quickly dispelled if we recall the profound words of the selfsame Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik: "philistinism is narrowness, shallowness ... narrowness of form, shallowness of content.” In general, these words explain all the shortcomings of the “history” which I am reviewing.

p Chernyshevsky himself said that in his publicistic activity he set himself the aim of propagating the ideas of his great Western teachers. As far as socialism is concerned, his teachers were the French and English Utopians: he took a great deal from Robert Owen, much from Fourier, quite a lot from Louis Blanc, and so on. As for philosophy, in preparing the third edition of his Aesthetic Relation of Art to Reality for publication, he describes the course of his intellectual development as follows in the preface to this edition, which, incidentally, never saw the light of day  [529•* :

p “The author of the pamphlet, to the third edition of which I am writing this preface, obtained the opportunity to use a good library and to spend a little money on purchasing books in 1846. Until then he had read only such books as can be obtained in provincial towns where there are no decent libraries. He was familiar with the Russian expositions of Hegel’s system, which are very incomplete. When he obtained the opportunity to read Hegel in the original he began to read these treatises. He liked Hegel in the original far less than he had been led to expect by the Russian expositions. The reason for this was that the Russian followers of Hegel expounded his system from the standpoint of the Left, wing of the Hegelian school. In the original, Hegel proved to resemble the philosophers of the seventeenth century, and even the scholastics more than the Hegel who appeared in the Russian expositions of his system. Reading him was wearisome, because it was obviously of no use for forming a scientific mode of thought. It was at that time that the youth who wanted to form such a mode of thought for himself accidentally came across one of the principal works of Feuerbach. He became a follower of that thinker; and until mundane cares diverted him from scientific studies, he zealously read and reread the works of Feuerbach."  [529•** 

_p It is interesting that it does not even occur to our profound “historian” to note the following extremely important fact. Marx and Engels also arrived at Feuerbach’s materialism from Hegel’s idealism. Thus, in the person of Marx and Engels the development of West European social thought took the same direction in which Russian thought developed in the person of Belinsky and Chernyshevsky. But then the difference reveals itself. Belinsky 530 and Chernyshevsky go no further than Feuerbach, whereas Marx and Engels revolutionised this thinker’s philosophy by applying the materialist method to the interpretation of history. And precisely because Marx and Engels succeeded in bringing about this revolution, socialism in their persons moved from a Utopian to a scientific base. This is very easy to understand. One need only recall the fundamental mistake of the Utopian socialists pointed out by Marx. The Utopians said that people are products of circumstances and upbringing. In order to make people good, we want to change for the better the circumstances in which they live and are brought up. But, Marx objected, you yourselves are products of the same circumstances; therefore you have no logical right to put yourselves above society.

p It is one of two things.

p Either the circumstances of which your reformatory aspirations were the products are something exceptional.

p In this case you have no grounds for expecting that the rest of society, which is developing in quite different circumstances, will ever share these aspirations.

p Or the circumstances, the existence of which produced your aspirations, are not something exceptional, and influence not only you but also the rest of society, or at least a considerable section of it.

p Then you have sufficient grounds for expecting that this society or this section of it have or will have the same aspirations as you.

p In the first case your subjective aspirations contradict the objective course of social development.

p In the second they coincide with it and therefore acquire all the force that is inherent in it.

p Since victory—the realisation of your aspirations—is possible only in the second case, it is clear that when you wish to convince yourself and others of the fact that victory, and not defeat, awaits you, you must prove that your subjective aspirations do not contradict the objective course of social development, but coincide with it and are an expression of it.

p It was formulating the task in this way that meant turning socialism from a utopia into a science. We already know that Belinsky tackled this task during the period when he wrote his famous article on the Borodino anniversary; we also know that Belinsky did not succeed in solving it, i.e., that he was compelled willy-nilly to remain in the sphere of utopia. Chernyshevsky was also compelled to remain in this sphere. And now that we have learned from Chernyshevsky himself about the course of his philosophical studies, we can say what exactly the logical reasons were that compelled him to remain in it: having assimilated Feuerbach’s materialist views, Chernyshevsky was unable—like Feuerbach himself—to apply these views to the interpretation of history.

531

p Indeed, when lie began 1o study Hegel in the original, lie found this study wearisome and useless. The Hegel of the original seemed to him quite unlike the Hegel about whom the Russian followers of the great German idealist spoke. Why was this? Chernyshevsky himself explains it perfectly: "The reason for this was that the Russian followers of Hegel expounded his system from the standpoint of the Left wing of the Hegelian school.” In what spirit did the Left wing of the Hegelian school expound Hegel? It expounded him in a progressive spirit, undoubtedly; but at the same time it ignored in his historical views all the numerous materialist elements which later formed a component part of the materialist interpretation of history found by Marx.  [531•*  The Left wing of the Hegelian school inclined towards a superficial historical idealism. Historical idealism of this kind, which is unable to link people’s subjective aspirations with the objective course of social development, is an inherent quality of utopi;uiism: the Utopian always adheres to the idealist view of history.

p Having become acquainted with the Hegel about whom the Left wing of the Hegelian school spoke and finding a detailed study of the Hegel of the original useless, Chernyshevsky himself inclined towards historical idealism. This was a great shortcoming, which could not be remedied by his study of Feuerbach later. The latter’s philosophy, whatever Lange may say about it, was a materialist philosophy. But with regard to history, Feuerbach himself, in spite of possessing a few rudiments of the materialist interpretation, regarded it with the eyes of an idealist, just like the French materialists of the eighteenth century. Feuerbach did ChernysJievsky a lot of good, but lie did not rid liim of historical idealism.

p We already know that the great service of Marx and E^ngels was in eliminating this weak point of Feuerbach’s materialism. But Chernyshevsky did not notice this weak point; he himself continued to adhere to the idealist view of history and obviously did not realise the importance of the theoretical task, to which we have referred so many times, that tormented Belinsky at the beginning of the forties: "to develop the idea of negation”, to show how a given unattractive reality by the course of its own development leads to its own negation. In his struggle against this reality Chernyshevsky, as a true “enlightener”, placed his hopes not on its own objective logic, but exclusively on people’s subjective logic, on the power of reason, and on the fact that la raison finit par avoir raison.  [531•**  And this means that he remained a Utopian, 532 in spite of the fact that he was little inclined towards “dreaming” and greatly valued "positive and cold calculation".

p Obviously in saying all this, I have no desire whatever to accuse our great “enlightener”. Firstly, I, like all materialists, know full well that people are products of circumstances: a person who developed in the Russian circumstances of that time found it psychologically impossible to lead European thought, however brilliant his abilities. Marx was bound to outstrip Chernyshevsky for the simple reason that the West had outstripped Russia. Secondly, in remaining a Utopian socialist Chernyshevsky was in highly respected company: to say that he was a follower of the great representatives of West European Utopian socialism is by no means to insult him. Quite the opposite!

p It is time to return to Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik, however. He says: "Chernyshevsky denned capital as ’the products of labour that serve as means for new production’. Almost at the same time as Chernyshevsky a similar thesis was expressed by K. Marx, who stated that a certain sum of values turns into capital only when it ’sich verwertet’, i.e., is spent in an enterprise, forming surplus value, when it is reproduced with a certain increase. Marx and Chernyshevsky both borrowed their deiinition of capital from Ricardo, Marx changing it slightly under the influence of Rodbertus, but Chernyshevsky borrowing it almost literally" (II, 11).

p Here every word is a terrible, quite inexcusable confusion of economic concepts. Firstly, the definitions of capital made by Chernyshevsky, on the one hand, and Marx, on the other, are not only not alike each other, as our author imagined, but are totally different. Chernyshevsky regarded capital from an abstract point of view; Marx regarded it from a concrete point of view. A person who calls capital the products of labour that serve as a means for new production is naturally bound to acknowledge that capital exists at all stages of economic development of society: for even in the savage communes of primitive hunters production (hunting) cannot manage without using some articles that have been created by earlier labour. But it was precisely against such an abstract definition of capital that Marx rebelled as early as the forties. This is what he wrote on the subject iii the pamphlet Wage Labour and Capital:

_p “Capital consists of raw materials, instruments of labour and means of subsistence of all kinds, which are utilised in order to produce new raw materials, new instruments of labour and new means of subsistence. All these component parts of capital are creations of labour, products of labour, accumulated labour. Accumulated labour which serves as a means of now production is capital.

p “So say the economists.

533

p “What is a Negro slave? A man o!’ 1lu> black- race. The one explanation is as good as Ihe other.

p “A Xegro is a Negro. He only becomes a slave in certain relations. A cotton-spinning jenny is a machine for spinning cotton. It becomes capital only in certain relations. Torn from these relationships it is no more capital than gold in itself is money or sugar the price of sugar."^^159^^

p The reader can see from this to what extent Marx’s view is “similar” to Chernyshevsky’s.

p Further, as a person who for some reason considers himself called upon to defend the honour of "Russian socialism”, Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik has hastened, as we have seen, to assure us that Marx reached his view of capital "almost at the same time" as Chernyshevsky. We now know that this is incorrect, both logically and chronologically (the work Wage Labour and Capital was published in 1849). But this is still not all. Our author is again mistaken in saying that Chernyshevsky borrowed his definition of capital from Rieardo. It was borrowed by Chernyshevsky from Mill, and Mill had no need to borrow it from Ricardo for the simple reason that it had long been universally accepted by all bourgeois economists.

_p Finally, our author is quite wrong in thinking that Marx’s view of capital was formed under the influence of Rodbei’tus. To say nothing of the chronology (I would draw attention once again to the fact that the work Wage Labour and Capital appeared in print in 1849), it is enough to recall that to the end of his days Rodbertus did not manage to develop a perfectly clear view of capital as a social relation of production: he was misled by the idea of capital "in itself" (Kapital an sich), i.e., by the abstract idea of capital characteristic of bourgeois economists.

p “Thus history is written!"

p It is quite impossible for me to evaluate according to their great worth all the precious pearls which Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik easts in the chapter on Chernyshevsky: to do this would take a whole book. But nevertheless I must note a few more of these pearls.

p In quoting Chernyshevsky’s idea that the aim of government is the benefit of the individual, that the state exists for the good of the individual, that the universal standard for judging all facts of social life and private activity is the good of man, Mr. Ivaaov-Razumnik remarks:

p “This little is enough to place Chernyshevsky in the ranks of the greatest representatives of individualism in the history of Russian social thought; in this respect Chernyshevsky followed Belinsky and Herzen and was the forerunner of Lavrov and Mikhailovsky. And if we have already seen in Herzen the rudiments of the ’subjectivism’ which was to flourish abundantly in the sev- 534 enties, Chernyshevsky, in his views, stands even closer to this ’subjective method’, declaring that ’man must look at everything witli human eyes’" (II, 17).

p Just fancy that! Our author is elevating Cliernyshevsky to the rank of "forerunner of Lavrov and Mikhailovsky”, people to whom lie is far superior. And to what does Cliernyshevsky owe this great honour? To the opinion expressed by him that "man should look at everything with human eyes”. But this opinion, in the form it has in Cliernyshevsky, was borrowed by the latter from his teacher of philosophy—Feuerbach. Thus it emerges that Feuerbach was also very close to the " subjective method" and also deserves to be elevated to the rank of honour. I would advise Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik in the next edition of his History of Russian Social Thought to add that Feuerbach too was a forerunner of Lavrov and Mikhailovsky. And in the fourth edition of the same History it could be inserted that the French "M. Voltaire" was a forerunner of the Russian Voltaire—Sumarokov. Then the Russian reader will have a perfectly clear and accurate idea of the course of development of Russian social and literary thought.  [534•* 

p In expounding Chernyshevsky’s view of the commune, our author, as is his wont, ignores what is most worthy of attention in this view. He says: "Chernysbevsky ... thought it possible thai before the proletarisation of the Russian peasantry, Western Europe would reach the socialist stage of development and then the Russian commune would serve as a centre for the crystallisation of socialist system in Russia. If we remember that at about this time both Marx and Engels were predicting the victory of socialism in Europe even before the advent of the twentieth century, Chernyshevsky’s point of view will seem perfectly justified by his age" (II, 25).

p The first task of any historian of social thought is not to " justify" this or that writer or public figure, but to give the reader a correct idea of his real views or actions. But Mr. IvanovRazumnik has not succeeded in solving this task.

p The article "A Criticism of the Philosophical Prejudices Against Communal Land Tenure" shows that countries in which communal ownership still exists may bypass the phase of individual 535 ownership and move straight on to the phase of socialist ownership. And it shows this in a truly brilliant way.  [535•*  But it shows this in general, in the abstract, and not with reference to Russia. With regard to Russia, the fate of the commune there obviously seemed quite hopeless to Chernyshevsky even then. This can easily be seen by anyone who takes the trouble to read carefully the first three pages of the famous article. Chernyshevsky says there: "I am ashamed to remember the untimely self-assurance with which I raised the question of communal land tenure. This affair has made me reckless, to put it bluntly, I have become stupid in my own eyes__"  [535•**  Why is this? Is it because Chernyshevsky’s opponents revealed to him the weakness of his argument? No. "On the contrary,” Chernyshevsky says, "with respect to the success of this defence, I can acknowledge that my cause has made remarkable progress: the arguments advanced by the opponents of communal land tenure are so weak that, without any refutation on my part, the journals, which originally rejected communal land tenure, are beginning one by one to make more and more concessions to the communal land principle."  [535•***  What is the point then? It is the following.

p “However important I regard the question of retaining communal land tenure, it nevertheless constitutes only one aspect of the matter to which it belongs. As a high guarantee of the well-being of the people whom it concerns, this principle acquires meaning only when the other low guarantees of well-being necessary to provide scope for the action of the principle are already given."  [535•**** 

p It was these low guarantees that Chernyshevsky could not see in the Russia of his day. The concrete conditions in which the Russian commune was fated to develop were so unfavourable for it that it was impossible to expect it to move directly on to a higher phase of social ownership of the land. It was becoming detrimental to the people’s well-being. And therefore it was absurd to defend it. And therefore, also, Chernyshevsky was ashamed of having sought to defend it.

p Hence it follows that the Narodniks and subjectivists had no right at all to refer in support of their argument to the article "A Criticism of the Philosophical Prejudices Against Communal Land Tenure”. On the contrary, it should have aroused rather un- 536 pleasant thoughts in them. They should have said to themselves: if Chernyshevsky was ashamed of having defended the Russian eommune at the end of the fifties, how much more ashamed he would have been of us for demanding from a police state the "legal consolidation of the commune" in the seventies, eighties and even nineties? He would have given us what-for, if cruel fate had not removed him from the literary scene!

p The Narodniks did not say this to themselves, for they were not inclined in the least to reflect upon the first few pages of the article "A Criticism of the Philosophical Prejudices”. Nor does Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik says this to his reader, as a result of which, of course, his History of Russian Social Thought merely loses.

p But here I must make the following confession: it is highly possible that I myself am partly responsible for our author’s blunder.

In my book Our Differences I wrote that Chernyshevsky, having proved the abstract possibility of Russia’s bypassing capitalism, did not move on from algebra to arithmetic and did not analyse the concrete conditions in which Russia’s economic development was taking place. I was wrong in accusing him of this, wrong because I myself had overlooked the first few pages of his famous article. A few years later I realised my mistake and frequently corrected it in my later works. But I realise that the mistake I made in Our Differences could have confused Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik, who quotes this mistake of mine elsewhere, taking it to be a correct assessment of Chernyshevsky’s views. It goes without saying that Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik would have done better to refer not only to Our Differences, but also to the articles in which I eorreeted the mistake which crept into this book of mine. But ... nevertheless I could have led him into temptation ... I must confess it.

* * *
 

Notes

[526•*]   «CoiHHeiiHH lIepHbimeBCKoro», T. II, CTp. 194, Ciio., 1906. [Works of Chernyshevsky, Vol. II, p. 194, St. Petersburg, 1906.]

[527•*]   Works, Vol. III, p. 293.

[527•**]   Ibid.

[527•***]   Ibid.

[529•*]   Fear of the censor makes him speak in the third person.

[529•**]   Works of Chernyshevsky, Vol. X, Part 2, pp. 191, 192.

[531•*]   On this see my article "Zu Hegel’s scchzigstem Todestage" printed in the Neue Zeit (November, 1901) and reprinted in a Russian translation in the book A Critique of Our Critics.^^158^^

[531•**]   [reason is always right in the end]

[534•*]   Incidentally, can Mr. Ivanov-Hazumnik really think that any bourgeois economist would refuse to believe that the aim of government is the benefit of the individual and that the state exists for the good of the individual, etc.? If so, he is gravely.mistaken. Each of these economists would most readily subscribe to these statements. The point was not that Chernyshevsky’s bourgeois opponents did not acknowledge them. The point was that the bourgeois economists defended a social order^^1^^ in which these statements had turned into empty phrases. This was where Chernyshevsky attacked them. But our author "did not notice" this either. In this case lie appears to have been misled by Spencer with his theory of the social organism.

[535•*]   The following fact is of interest. The Narodniks and subjectivists have always found this article of Chernyshevsky’s excellent, and its arguments irrefutable. But Chernyshevsky’s arguments were based entirely on "Hegel’s triad”, the very triad which they ridiculed constantly, without, incidentally, having the slightest idea about it. They always had two measures, two sets of scales. They were even prepared to love Marx, having heard with one ear that he did not regard himself as a “Marxist”.

[535•**]   Works of (’herni/shei’sky. Vol. IV, p. 304.

[535•***]   Ibid., p. 300.

[535•****]   Ibid., p. 300.