536

p It has long been known that all roads lead to Rome, but not everyone realises that the whole development of Russian social thought before Mikhailovsky is remarkable for the fact that it paved the way for his appearance. Yet this is the case, if we are to believe Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik.

p “Mikhailovsky,” he says, "combined in his world outlook all the positive aspects of both Herzen’s philosophico-historical system and Chernyshevsky’s socio-economic system.... Mikhailovsky accepted fully the proposition that often ’national wealth is the people’s poverty’. What is more important—the people’s well-being or the nation’s wealth? Mikhailovsky could have only one answer to this question, for he accepted totally the criterion of the good of the real individual expressed by Chernyshevsky and before him by Herzen and Belinsky. Any world outlook must attach paramount importance to the interests of the real individ- 537 ual, and nol of the abstract man—this was Lhe basic viewpoint of Mikhailovsky, following Herzen and Chernyshevsky. Into these old formulae Mikhailovsky introduced two additions of his own, and these additions determined the whole development of his world outlook. ’The people is all the toiling classes of a society’, this is the first addition; the second proceeded from the first and read: ’the interests of the individual and the interests of labour (i.e., the people) coincide’~" (II, 136).

p Do not think, however, that Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik accepts Mikhailovsky’s views totally. No, our author regards these views as "a splendid construction of Russian social thinking which has come to grips with the problem of individualism and attempted to find a final solution for this problem" (II, 122). But this attempt has nevertheless remained an attempt only; it has met with only partial success, and now in the light of Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik’s “critical” world outlook it is becoming clear to us where Mikhailovsky’s blunders lie. And having elucidated these blunders, we begin to understand that if Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky and Lavrov were the forerunners of Mikhailovsky, Mikhailovsky in his turn was the forerunner of Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik.

p This is most interesting and extremely instructive. However, what exactly, in our author’s opinion, were Mikhailovsky’s blunders?

p “It is now clear to us where Mikhailovsky’s mistake lies,” Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik replies. "We see that it lies in dogmatically assuming the possibility of consciously directing the course of history in the way we desire; this was an incorrect assessment of the role of the upper classes and mainly of the intelligentsia in their influence on social life. In the seventies this mistake went unnoticed; it was not yet obvious then that ’we’ cannot select at will the beneficial fruits of European civilisation and reject the pernicious ones. Belief in this possibility was truly unfounded^ and herein lies the mistake of all the Narodniks, from Herzen to Mikhailovsky" (II, 147).

p These are golden words indeed! It is only a pity that they turned up so late from our author’s pen. If he had remembered in time that "we cannot select at will the beneficial fruits of European civilisation and reject the pernicious ones”, the preceding history of Russian social thought would also have appeared to him in a completely different light. Thus, for example, he would have seen that Belinsky’s views after the break with Hegel’s “cap”, and also the views of our “enlighteners” of the sixties, coatained nearly all the elements of this mistake. Finally, if he had been able to adhere consistently to the correct idea expressed by him in the passage just quoted, the role of Russiari’Marxism also would have appeared to him in an immeasurably more correct form. But more about this later; we must now return to Mikhailovsky’s mistakes.

538

p “The interests of the people, the interests of labour,” says Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik, criticising Mikhailovsky, "are abstract, unreal concepts; in its definition ’the people is the toiling classes’ Narodism paid insufficient attention to the last word. The interests of the different classes of the toiling people may be as different as the interests of the nation and the people. In the nineties Narodism suffered a partial defeat on this ground from Russian Marxism; in the seventies, however, this theory did not arouse any objections, the more so because it was supported by a whole series of other, at first glance perfectly convincing propositions" (II, 137).

p This is also not bad. And what has our Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik to say about Mikhailovsky’s famous "formula of progress"?

p In his opinion, Mikhailovsky "gives bis formula of progress irrespective of the real course of historical process; he is speaking about what should be regarded as progress, and not about what progress is in fact" (II, 154).

p This is really good. So good that one cannot help asking whether it is possible that the theories of all the outstanding, and occasionally even great men who acted as Mikhailovsky’s forerunners served only to lead to the discovery of the remarkable " formula of progress" the full invalidity of which is so splendidly revealed by our author.  [538•*  What was so remarkable about a man who in the second half of the nineteenth century could make so many gross mistakes? But things are not as bad as they seem at first glance. Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik shows us that Mikhailovsky has his strong points.

p These strong points lie in what our author calls "the main theoretical part" of Mikhailovsky’s outlook, "the philosophical foundation upon which the whole edifice is built”. This foundation can be described with a single word: subjectivism (II, 175).

p Here it will be useful for the reader to remember that, in Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik’s opinion, the concept “subjectivism” is by no means the same as the concept "subjective method”. He says: "By ’subjective method’ people often mean something quite narrow which does not embrace the whole essence of subjectivism; here the incorrect expression ’subjective method’ causes a lot of harm. Of course, there is no subjective method and cannot be one; Mikhailovsky at first attempted to defend this terminology ... but later agreed that the ’subjective method’ is not so much a method, as a device; subjectivism, however, is neither a method nor a device, but a doctrine, a very definite sociological view, and not only a sociological one, but also an epistemological, psy- 539 chological and ethical one; subjectivism is othico-sociological individualism" (II, 179, 180).

p Let it be so. But what is the main distinguishing feature of subject ivism. or, in our author’s terminology, ethico-sociological individualism? "Subjectivism,” replies Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik, "is the acknowledgement of teleologism in sociology."  [539•* 

p So as to leave the reader in no doubt as to what is to be understood by teleologism in sociology, we again give the floor to Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik.

_p “Thus,” he explains, partly in his own words, partly in Mikhailovsky’s. "sociology is a science which not only discovers objectively-necessary laws, but also classifies them; not only classifies I hem, but also works out the general aim of its movement. Hence also Mikhailovsky’s strikingly teleological formula, and his

p firm statement: ’sociology must begin with a utopia’__This’uto-

_p pia’ is the ideal that inevitably accompanies each sociologist; it is the choice of this ideal that constitutes subjectivism. ’The sociologist ... must say outright,^^1^^ Mikhailovsky declares: ’I want to understand the relations that exist between society and its members, but apart from understanding I also want to realise

p this and that of my ideals__’ In this case the ’understanding of

p the relations’ is the objective part of sociology, and the ideals at the end of the road are worked out by the subjective point of view; iu other words, subjectivism makes possible the critical selection of ’ulopias’ and ideals, and in Mikhailovsky’s case the criterion for selection is the double criterion of the good of the real individual and of the people" (II, 179).

p Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik attaches tremendous importance to teleologism. According to him, "its inevitability in sociology  [539•**  is the idea which Mikhailovsky has bequeathed to the Russian intelligentsia and which has fought its way even through the hostile world outlook of the nineties" (II, 181).

p We now know what is the strongest point of Mikhailovsky’s world outlook that survived even the criticism of the Marxists. It amounts to "teleologism in sociology”. Therefore we must now examine this “teleologism” more closely.

p The long passages just cited by me provide us with sufficient material to form an opinion of it.

p The sociologist wants to understand the relations that exist between society and its members, but apart from understanding he wants to realise this or that of his ideals. This is what Mikhailovsky says, with the full approval of Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik in this case. And what Mikhailovsky says here is perfectly right, of course: among sociologists there are indeed many who, apart 540 from trying to understand what is, also strive to realise what, in their opinion, should be. But who disputes this? Can it be the point at issue? No! The point at issue is how the subjective aspirations of a given sociologist relate to the objective course of soeial development. The Marxists who ridiculed Mikhailovsky’s subjectivism maintained that it is simply absurd to counterpose the subjective aspirations of “sociologists” to the objective course of social development, because the former are conditioned by the latter. And this argument of the Marxists has not been refuted either by Mikhailovsky himself or by Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik, who has now taken up arms in defence of subjectivism.

p Here we must again recall, changing it somewhat externally, the objection which Marx made to the Utopians as early as the forties: either the subjective aspirations of a given sociologist contradict the objective course of social development, in which case the sociologist is not fated to see his aspirations realised, or his subjective aspirations are based on the objective course of social development and express it, in which case he has no need at all to adhere to the special, subjective viewpoint for the simple reason that then the subjective coincides with the objective.

p By its very existence Mikhailovsky’s subjectivism showed that Mikhailovsky, like the whole of our progressive intelligentsia of the seventies in general, was unable to link the subjective with the objective, unable to discover in Russian reality of his day the inner contradictions the further development of which must inevitably lead to the triumph of the socialist ideal. In other words, our subjectivism of the seventies was produced by the simple fact that our intelligentsia at that time did not succeed—as Belinsky did not succeed in his day either—in "developing the idea of negation”, i.e., in showing that ugly Russian reality negates itself by the process of its own inner development. Here the same fatal inability of thought to solve the puzzle of life made itself felt. But in the seventies this inability assumed a different, one might say rather inexcusable, form. Belinsky, although he had been unab.le to solve the puzzle, realised that it existed, and suffered a painful spiritual drama because he had not succeeded in dealing with it. The intelligentsia of the seventies, however—Lavrov, Mikhailovsky and people of like mind—did not even suspect the existence of this terrible puzzle, explaining the bitter sufferings endured by Belinsky merely by the pernicious influence of Hegel’s philosophical “cap”. In the persons of Lavrov and Mikhailovsky the level of theoretical standards of our “intellectual” thought has dropped terribly compared with the beginning of the forties.  [540•*  Subjectivism “heralded” this terrible 541 drop. This is why anyone with an understanding of the matter will simply laugh on hearing from Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik that Belinsky was the forerunner of Mikhailovsky. Who has ever heard of a forerunner being immeasurably superior to the person for Avhom he is to "prepare the way"?

p Russian social thought has, of course, been tremendously influenced by West European thought in its development, although our author has not been able to assess this influence.  [541•*  Belinsky, and in particular Ghernyshevsky, eventually arrived at Feuerbach. And Lavrov, who in conversations with me has frequently, and, of course, not without good reason, called Mikhailovsky his most talented pupil, adhered entirely to the viewpoint of Bruno Bauer in his interpretation of history. His famous formula "culture is refashioned by critical thought" is merely a concise formulation of B. Bauer’s teaching on the struggle of the critical spirit against irrational reality. I have said that Feuerbach too adhered to the idealist view of history. But everything is relative. Feuerbach’s view contained at least certain important rudiments of the materialist explanation of history, whereas Bruno Bauer’s view contained no such rudiments. The latter view can be called subjective idealism of the first water in its application to the process of historical development. Once a person firmly adopted the idealist viewpoint, it was not difficult, of course, for him to arrive at "subjective sociology": for they are one and the same thing, only with different dressings. It is not surprising, therefore, that Mikhailovsky’s subjectivism, so praised by Mr. IvanovRazumnik, should have led him to the following reasoning: "The present economic order in Europe began to take shape at a time when the science dealing with this ... range of phenomena did not exist”, whereas in Russia the question of capitalism is arising at a time when this science does exist, and therfore “we” can introduce a different economic order. This is the most indisputable and feeble utopianism, the same utopianism that Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik rightly calls, as we have seen, Mikhailovsky’s mistake, which lay "in dogmatically assuming the possibility of consciously directing the course of history in the way we desire" (see above). And one would have to be Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik in order, once having pointed out this mistake, to transform it a few pages later into a theoretical service, christening this alledged service with the name of subjectivism.

542

p It must be noted, incidentally, that one can find many such unexpected transformations in our author’s work. Here is another, no less striking example. We have already seen that, in his opinion, Mikliailovsky had no right to talk about the interests of labour in general, since the interests of the different classes of the toiling people may conflict radically. And we found that this was right. But now take the trouble to read the following passage from Mr. Ivanov-Razumiiik on our very latest Narodism—that of Mr. V. Chernov and his confreres:

p “In rebelling against the excessively narrow interpretation by orthodox Marxism of the principle of class struggle, modern Narodism argues that the interests of the urban proletariat are closely connected with the interests of the toiling peasantry (V. Chernov, ’The Peasant and the Worker as Economic Categories’). In a word, although Narodism does not accept the ’people’ as a single whole, it continues to accept the ’interests of labour’ as an entity, understanding them in a broad sense. True, at one and the same time the potter prays to God for fine weather and the ploughman for rain,  [542•*  but this is too narrow an interpretation of the ’interests of labour’; when interpreted broadly the interests of the toiling peasant, the factory worker and the ’thinking proletarian’ may turn out to lie on the same plane. Narodism thus accepts the principle of class struggle, but tries to broaden it" (II, 515).

p Immediately after this passage our author acknowledges his sympathy for the Narodism that was reborn "on the threshold of the twentieth century”. But here I feel obliged to come to the defence of the late Mikliailovsky. Is this riot unfair, I ask Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik? Did riot Mikhailovsky assert, one might say with every letter of the articles in which he discussed the social question, that "when interpreted broadly the interests of the toiling peasant, the factory worker and the ’thinking proletarian’ may turn out to lie on the same plane"? One can agree or disagree with Mikliailovsky. I have strongly disagreed with him in my time, as is well known, but I, his resolute opponent, cannot fail to remark that it is unfair from the “ethical” point of view—and quite absurd from the logical one—to impute to Mikhailovsky as a mistake something which is regarded as the service of the Narodism that was so happily reborn "on the thershold of the twentienth century”. In so doing Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik is sinning terribly both against "truth as truth" and "truth as justice".

p And see how wondrously he argues, in committing this terrible sin against the "double truth”. The interests of the toiling peasant, the factory worker and the "thinking proletarian" may 543 turn out to lie on the "same plane. Very well, let us assume that they may. But when? "When interpreted broadly.” So the point is not what these interests actually are and what the course of their future development should be, but what sort of interpretation they will be given (by whom? by Mr. V. Chernov?), a narrow one or a broad one. It is a matter not of life, but of thought (of Mr. V. Chernov), not of being, but of consciousness. This is worthy of the most pure-blooded and the most vulgar Utopian. And at the sight of this pure-blooded and vulgar utopianism I ask myself whether our author was not too harsh on Mikhailovsky’s "formula of progress"? For it too was guilty only of utopianism.

p Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik wished to criticise Mikhailovsky, but in order to criticise an author one must understand more profoundly than he the meaning of the phenomena that he studied or attempted to explain. And it was not given to Mr. IvanovRazumnik to do this. Therefore he could only confuse that which was already quite confused enough in Mikhailovsky’s Utopian constructions. It goes without saying that, with such knowledge at one’s disposal, one could not write a history of Russian social thought that was in the least satisfactory.

p Let us proceed further. "When a quarter of a century later, in the middle of the nineties, Plekhanov tried hard to prove to Mikhailovsky the possibility of the existence of ’objective’ truths in sociology and economics and found that ’do not contradict me’ is the ultima ratio  [543•*  of subjectivism, he was tilling at the windmills of his imagination and showing his scanty knowledge of the theories of the harshly criticised author.... Mikliailovsky himself always insisted on the existence of ’objective’ truths in sociology which does not contradict his ’subjective’ attitude to them in the slightest; in his polemic against Yuzhakov ... he declared quite truthfully that ’I never thought of removing the bridle of universally binding logical forms of thinking from the Sociologist, but, on the contrary, always suggested putting it on....’ The possibility of the subjective assessment of truth obtained in an objective way does not contradict this" (II, 177).

p In reproaching me thus, Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik again—how many times is it now?—shows that he simply has not understood the point of my dispute with Mikhailovsky.

p That Mikhailovsky recognised the existence of objective truths in sociology was well known to me. But this was not the point at all. Above, in the chapter on Belinsky, I have already said that the existence of such truths was recognised by all the Utopian socialists without exception. But this did not prevent them from being utopians.  And they were Utopians because they believed that rebuilding society according to the objective truths discov- 544 ered by them depended on them. In order to constrain Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik to understand what I am saying, I would remind him of what he regarded, albeit not for long, as Mikhailovsky’s mistake. It was, according to him, "in dogmatically assuming the possibility of consciously directing the course of history in the way we desire”, in not understanding that we "cannot select at will the beneficial fruits of European civilisation and rejeet the pernicious ones”. But it is not hard to see that a man who believes he can select the beneficial fruits and reject the pernicious ones at will, and who is therefore a most typical Utopian, not only can but is necessarily bound to recognise the existence of certain objective truths in sociology. What truths? Precisely those in the name of which he rejects the pernicious fruits and selects the beneficial ones. The mistake of such a man is not that he rejects these truths, but that he does not understand that society—to be more precise, the progressive social class of any given time—will approve his choice and will be guided by it only if this choice is itself nothing but a subjective expression of the objective course of social development. In other words, the mistake of subjectivism, as of all utopianism in general, is that while regarding people’s conscious activity as the cause of social development, it does not understand that before becoming its cause, this activity must be its effect.  This is the mistake with which I reproached Mikhailovsky, and which remained beyond the comprehension of Mr. IvanovRazumnik.

p When Mr. Razumnik now repeats to me that Mikhailovsky recognised the existence of objective truths in sociology, it reminds me of the story about the spiritualist who exclaimed angrily: "People say we are uncritical of the spiritualist phenomena studied by us, but this is quite unjust; sometimes the spirit of a retired soldier appears and assures us that he is the spirit of Plato or Aristotle. What do you think? That we believe him just like that? No, you prove that you are Plato; you prove that you are Aristotle. What more criticism could you want?"

_p Finally Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik, as a person who does not follow any of his predecessors slavishly, introduces his amendment to Mikhailovsky’s individualism. The essence of this amendement amounts to the fact that whereas Mikhailovsky demanded breadth from the individual, he, Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik, demands in addition depth from him. And this with a full awareness of the importance of his great theoretical discovery. What an amusing fellow he is. to be sure!

p Now a word about politics.

p Mr. Ivanov-Zabavnik  [544•*  relates that "by the mid-seventies the members of the Narodnaya Volya in general, and Mikhailovsky 545 in particular, had firmly established the proposition on the need for a synthesis of ’socialism’ and ’polities’. Later the Russian Marxists of the nineties equated the social with the political by their statement that ’every class struggle is a political struggle’; this was an expression in new form of the old Narodnaya Volya proposition—’to the social through the political!’,—a proposition upon which the finest of the Decembrists, Pestel, also once constructed his theory" (II, 111).

p The idea that every class struggle is a political struggle belongs to Marx, as we know. This idea did not mean the equation of "the social with the political" either for Marx himself or for the people who began to disseminate his ideas in Russian literature. True, in the nineties a certain section of our Marxists—the socalled Economists—did in fact equate the “social” (or rather, the economic) with the “political”, and this was a great mistake. But this mistake immediately met with a firm rebuff from another section of Russian Marxists to which, incidentally, the writer of these lines belonged. It is therefore unfair and unworthy of an historian of Russian social thought to blame all Russian Marxists of the nineties in general for this mistake. But this is by the way. The main point is to understand the nature of the synthesis "of socialism and politics" at which Mikhailovsky arrived. Extremely valuable material for judging about this “synthesis” is provided by N. Y. Nikoladze’s article "The Liberation of N. G. Chernyshevsky”, published in the September issue of Byloye^^161^^ for 1906. N. Y. Nikoladze recounts in it that during the now wellknown negotiations that preceded this liberation, when he began talking to Mikhailovsky about certain political demands, he received the answer that "the mood of the party is less elated now, and it has become convinced that political reforms would lead merely to the bourgeoisie, not those who love the people, coming to power, which would be not progress, but regress”. An excellent "synthesis of socialism and politics" indeed! One need only add that this excellent “synthesis” was essentially the TV. F.^^162^^ party’s permanent mood, not just a temporary one. Thus, the leader in No. 2 of the Narodnaya Volya newspaper tried to prove that the people would gain nothing, and lose a great deal from a change in or abolition of the old order which would put political power not in its hands, but in the hands of the bourgeoisie.

M. A. Bakunin, and with him the Narodniks of the seventies, followed Proudhon in rejecting all “politics”. The Narodnaya Volya people became convinced that it was impossible to do without “politics”. But since they were unable to get the better of Bakunin and Narodism theoretically, they recognised “politics” only as an inevitable evil and only in so far as a political revolution would coincide with a social one. Their theory of "seizing power" developed logically from this. When their belief in the pos-

35—0766

546 sibility of this seizing of power disappeared, they again began to fear political reforms. This explains both what Mikhailovsky said to Nikoladze about a change in the party’s mood and the fact that in a conversation with him he announced that he was against a constitution. And that Mikhailovsky had inclined towards Bakunin’s “synthesis” as to politics even earlier can be seen from the following words of his addressed to Dostoyevsky concerning the latter’s novel The Devils:

p “You laugh at the absurd Shigalev and the unfortunate Virginsky for their ideas about the preferability of social reforms to political ones. This idea is characteristic of us, and do you know what it means? For the ’common man’, for the Citoyen,  [546•*  for the man who has tasted of the fruits on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil there can be nothing more seductive than political freedom, freedom of conscience, of the spoken and printed word, freedom of exchanging thoughts (of political assembly) and so on. And we want this, of course. But if all the rights connected with this freedom are only to offer us the role of a bright and sweet-smelling flower, we do not want these rights and this freedom! May they be cursed, if they not only do not give us the possibility of paying off our debts, but increase them even more!"  [546•** 

p This “synthesis” is so splendid that there is no point at all in attempting to criticise it. Suffice it to say one thing only: much later—in his Literary Notes of the eighties—Mikhailovsky recalled this “synthesis” of his with pride and formulated it again as follows: "Freedom is a great and tempting thing, but we do not want freedom if, as happened in Europe, it will only increase our age-old debt to the people.... I am firmly convinced that (in saying this.—G.P.) I have expressed one of the most intimate and sincere ideas of our time."

In all fairness it must be said that the West European Utopian socialists were also unable to find a synthesis between the “social” and the “political”. Such a synthesis was found only by Marx, and it was precisely thanks to the fact that he abandoned the Utopian viewpoint.