Russia under the Old regime

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reasonable objections to the philosophy of materialism Ghernyshevskii and his allies shrugged off as undeserving of any attention. Needless to say, neo-Kantian criticism of mechanistic science, on which materialism was based, never reached Russian radicals, although they were closely attuned to developments in German thought. Chernyshevskii, on his death in 1889, still faithfully clung to Feuerbach and the other idols of his youth fifty years before, blissfully unaware what confusion was being spread in the field of natural science by recent discoveries. He even rejected Darwin. This selective treatment of science was very characteristic of the radical left, which shielded itself behind the prestige of science, but completely lacked the attitude of free and self-critical inquiry fundamental to genuine scientific thinking.

The radicals of the 1860s wished to create a new man. He was to be totally practical, free of religious and philosophical preconceptions, a 'rational egoist', and yet, at the same time, an absolutely dedicated servant of society and fighter for a juster life. The obvious contradiction between empiricism, which insisted that all knowledge derives from observation, and ethical idealism which has no equivalent in the material world was never faced by the radical intellectuals. The religious philosopher, Vladimir Solovev, once stated their predicament in a pseudo-syllogism: 'Man is descended from the ape, and therefore he must sacrifice himself lor the common good.' Emotionally some o the radical publicists came nearer Christian idealism than the hard-headed pragmatism they claimed to admire. The hero of Chernyshevskii's What is to be Done?, Rakhmetov, is a figure straight from Orthodox hagiology: his ascetism goes so far that he builds himself a bed studded with nails. The other figures in this novel (which exerted deep influence on the young Lenin) resemble early Christians in that like them they break with their corrupted, worldly families to join brotherhoods of those who had renounced the seductions of money and pleasure. The men and women in this book experience affection but not love and certainly no sex. But it is a vacuous religiousness, all zeal and no charity. Solovev, annoyed by claims of an alleged identity of ideals of Christianity and socialism once reminded his readers that whereas Christianity told man to give away his own wealth, socialism exhorted him to expropriate the wealth of others.

The radicals were fully conscious how impotent was their small band confronting the full might of the autocratic state. However, they were not out to challenge the system politically. They were anarchists who had no interest in the state as such, regarding it as merely one of the many by-products of certain ways of thinking and of human relations based on them. Their assault against the status quo was directed in the first place against opinions, and their weapons were ideas, where they felt they enjoyed clear superiority over the establishment. In so far as (according to Comte) the progress of humanity expressed itself in the gradual widening of man's intellectual horizons - from the religious-magical through the philosophical-metaphysical to the positivist-empirical - the spread of the highest, positivist-material way of thinking was of itself a most powerful agent of change. Nothing could stand up to it because it sapped the very foundations of the system. The force of ideas would bring down states, churches, economies, and social institutions. Paradoxically, the triumph of materialism would be brought about by the action of ideas.

Hence, the crucial role of the intelligentsia. Defined by left publicists in the narrow sense to mean only that segment of society espousing the positivist-materialist outlook, the intelligentsia was the thin end of the historic wedge: behind, followed the masses. It was a fundamental tenet of faith of all the radical movements of the time that the intelligentsia was the prime mover of human progress. The Social Democrats, who became popular only in the 1890s, first abandoned this belief and shifted the emphasis to impersonal economic forces. But it is significant that the one offshoot of Russian Social Democracy which in the end attained success, Bolshevism, found it necessary to abandon reliance on impersonal economic forces, whose tendency rather pointed away from revolution, and revert to the traditional stress on the intelligentsia. Lenin's basic theory held that socialism could only be brought about by a cadre of professional revolutionaries which meant nothing else than the intelligentsia, since few workers or peasants could dedicate themselves to full-time revolutionary activity.

Between i860 and 1880, the radical or, as it was then known, 'socialist-revolutionary' movement underwent constant evolution as a result of a frustrating inability to realize any of its goals. The changes concerned tactics only. The goal itself remained constant - the abolition of the state and all institutions tied to it - and so did the faith in positivist-materialist principles. But every few years, as fresh classes entered the university, new battle tactics were devised. In the early 1860s, it was believed that the mere act of breaking with the dying world was enough; the rest would take care of itself. Pisarev urged his followers to drop all other occupations and interests and concentrate on the study of natural science. Chernyshevskii exhorted them to cut ties with their families and unite in working communes. But these methods did not seem to lead anywhere, and around 1870 radical youths became increasingly interested in the newly emancipated peasant. The leading theoretical lights of this period, Michael Bakunin and Peter Lavrov, called on young people to abandon universities and go to the village. Bakunin wished them to carry the message of immediate rebellion. He believed that the