Russia under the Old regime

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in effect suspended in 1899; the charters of Courland and Livonia were thoroughly subverted; and the nomads of Asia as well as the Jews were fully subordinated to Russian governors. On the eve of the 1917 Revolution only the central Asian protectorates of Khiva and Bukhara still retained their autonomous status, and they were liquidated and incorporated as soon as the new communist government came to power in the area.

Such being the case, political opposition, if it was to emerge at all, had to come from quarters other than those customarily labelled 'interest groups'. No social or economic group in Russia had an interest in liberalization; to the elites it spelled the loss of privilege, to the rural masses shattered hopes of a nationwide 'black repartition'. Throughout Russian history, 'interest groups' have fought other 'interest groups', never the state. The drive for change had to be inspired by motives other than self-interest, as the word is conventionally used - motives more enlightened, farsighted and generous, such as sense of patriotism, social justice and personal self-respect. Indeed, just because the pursuit of material rewards was so closely identified with the constitution of the old regime and subservience to the state, any aspiring opposition was bound to renounce self-serving; it had to be, or at any rate appear to be, utterly disinterested. Thus it happened that in Russia the struggle for political liberty was waged from the beginning exactly in the manner that Burke felt it ought never to be waged: in the name of abstract ideals. Although the word intelligentsia is commonly believed to be of Russian origin, its etymological roots in fact lie in western Europe. It is a clumsy, Latinized adaptation of the French intelligence and German Intelligenz which in the first half of the nineteenth century came to be used in the west to designate the educated, enlightened, 'progressive' elements in society. In the discussions of the Austrian and German revolutionary parliaments in February 1849, for example, conservative deputies made reference to 'the intelligence' (die Intelligenz) as that social group - essentially urban and professional - which by virtue of its superior public spirit deserved heavier parliamentary representation.2 The word entered the Russian vocabulary in the 1860s, and by the 1870s became a household term around which revolved a great deal of political discussion.

Intelligentsia,.unfortunately, does not lend itself to precise and universally acceptable definition. Like so many terms in Russian history (e.g. boyar, dvorianin, muzhik, tiaglo), it has at least two meanings, one broad, the other narrow. In the broad sense, which is the older of the two, it refers to that portion of the educated class which enjoys public prominence - not far from what the French call les notables. In Turgenev's