Russian Nihilism – 3

The idea of duty toward the community threw into the back ground that of the duty of the individual toward himself.

Continuing Russian Nihilism,
our selection from Sergius Stepniak. The selection is presented in six easy 5 minute installments.

Previously in Russian Nihilism.

Time: 1881
Place: Russia

A new conception made its way at this epoch into social science, in opposition to the former individualistic theory of social contract for securing mutual individual happiness ; that of the integrality of the body politic, in which individuals are but transitory parts. Its source is to be traced to Auguste Comte, the father of positivism, whose philosophical theories (not religion) found a ready acceptance in Russia. But its chief propagator in Russia was undoubtedly Herbert Spencer, whose works have all been translated into Russian and have exercised a great influence upon the mind of our generation.

The idea of duty toward the community threw into the back ground that of the duty of the individual toward himself.

A little volume which appeared at this epoch embodied this new tendency very forcibly and consistently. It was from the pen of Peter Lavroff — later a refugee in Paris but then professor of mathematics in one of the St. Petersburg military academies — and bore the modest title of Historical Letters. Its leading idea is that of the enormous indebtedness of the cultured minority to the masses, who during centuries have toiled and suffered, undergoing indescribable privations in order that a small minority might be able to cultivate their minds and transmit to their children the accumulated inheritance of knowledge and moral and intellectual refinement.

To work for the good of the people ceases to be a pleasure in which a man can indulge or not, as he chooses. It becomes a stringent duty that he is bound to fulfill, for which he cannot claim much credit to himself. It is the simple repayment of the debt he has contracted in accepting the inheritance so heavily paid for by the mass of the people.

Another writer, Schapov, whose name is little known abroad, must be mentioned here, because his influence in shaping the views of our generation can be compared only to that of Tchernyshevsky. Schapov is the historian of the Russian peasantry. He was professor of history in the Kazan University up to 1862, when he was arrested and exiled to Siberia for a speech made at a great street demonstration organized to protest against the slaughter of peasants in the Bezdna district.

This great demonstration brought Schapov’s name for the first time into public notice. His works appeared afterward, forming a brilliant sequel to such a beginning.

Schapov’s philosophy can be best described as the modern incarnation of Slavophilism, purged of monarchical superstition and orthodox bigotry. He is national without being a partisan either of czardom or of the orthodox church. All his erudite works are devoted to the study of the history of the Russian people. His object is to bring to light the constructive principles of political and social life, adhered to by the masses of the peasantry as opposed to those that the Muscovite and afterward the St. Petersburg monarchy, forced upon them. These principles are self-government and local autonomy in political and ecclesiastical matters, as opposed to the administrative and ecclesiastic centralization of the state. In the economical domain, it was communistic ownership of land, meadows, forests, fisheries and all natural riches, as opposed to the ideas regarding private property inculcated by the State. In the chaotic popular move ments of the past he has discovered system and harmony, showing the masses of the Russian peasantry to be excellent plastic material for the building up of a state very different from the one that temporary historical necessity has actually constituted. But this historical necessity has become a thing of the past, while the peasantry have remained unchanged. The conclusion from this can easily be drawn.

Schapov’s voluminous and rather heavy works (written in an atrocious style) have been studied with avidity by all the advanced youth of our generation. Except Tchernyshevsky, no writer has had such a deep and lasting influence upon our intellectual movement. He gave a solid, scientific basis to the whole extensive and varied literature upon the modern peasants, numbering among its writers the most intellectual men of our literary generation. They all belong to Schapov’s school, con firming with regard to modern peasantry what Schapov discovered with regard to their ancestors.

Educated Russia has always been democratic, we may say peasantist, in her feelings and not without cause. The peasant class is not merely the most numerous but the soundest, bravest and most thoroughly original of our classes. To prove that this is not a dream of democratic enthusiasts, we have only to refer to our famous novelists, who in their quality of great artists are above suspicion of exaggeration or misrepresentation. Their collective work is a revelation of Russia, as a whole, in which the peasants have a conspicuous place of their own. Turgenieff ‘s sketches, collected in the Sportsman ‘s Sketches, Dostoyevsky’s Buried Alive and Tolstoy’s numerous scenes and stories from peasant life show us a series of living types that command respect, sometimes admiration and testify to the great gifts and the vast amount of moral energy in the masses of our people.

The writers of the past generation have prepared the ground for younger writers, creating that powerful, peculiarly Russian democratic feeling, which is the mainspring of our revolutionary movement. The idea of duty toward the people and of the historical debt of the educated minority toward the masses, was readily accepted by our sensitive, impressionable youth as a new basis for their ethics. Still, it was an abstraction, a dry reasoned- out conception, which could not stir men’s hearts. But, thanks to the writers mentioned above, the idea of the people assumed a concrete palpable form, appealing alike to reason, enthusiasm and pity. With our emotional, sympathetic people, it became a momentous, impulsive power, urging them to give up gladly wealth, personal preferment, even life, provided they could give some relief to the people they thought so great and knew to be so unfortunate.

Continued.

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