A history of socialism

by Thomas Kirkup

Many circumstances combined to render the accession of Alexander II. a new departure in Russian history. The old methods of government had been thoroughly discredited by the failures of the Crimean war. There was a general feeling that the ideas and methods of the West, which had proved their superiority during the struggle, must be tried in Russia. As the young Emperor recognised the necessity of a new policy, great changes were made, and all went well for a time. Alexander carried the emancipation of the serfs, instituted new courts of law and a new system of local government, and gave a real impetus to education. It was not long, however, before the Emperor began to hesitate in view of the Liberal forces which he had let loose, and which threatened to overturn the whole fabric of Russian society. Like his uncle, Alexander I., the young monarch had not resolution enough to persevere in a practical and systematic course of reform.

The changes already made, and the prospect of changes still to come, roused into action all the conservative instincts and prejudices of old Russia. The insurrection of Poland in 1863, which called forth the sympathies of many Russian Liberals, provoked also a powerful reaction in old Russian circles. An attempt by Karakozoff on the Emperor’s life in 1866 may be regarded as the turning-point of his reign. Ideas of steady reform and of gradual temperate change have not yet become familiar to the Russian temperament. Between those who wished to reform everything, and those who wished no change at all or to change very slowly, no compromise was possible in the circumstances and conditions of Russian society. Thus a revolutionary movement soon declared itself in full opposition to the policy of the Tzar. When we consider that the new party menaced not only the special political institutions of Russia, but the fundamental principles of the existing society generally—property, religion, and the family—we can see that the breach was inevitable.[^[4]]

Three stages may be recognised in the history of the revolutionary movement. The first covered the period from the accession of Alexander II. in 1855 to about 1870. Its leading characteristic was negation, and the name of Nihilism, which is often erroneously applied to the whole revolutionary movement, should properly be restricted to this early stage. In the main it was simply the spirit of the Hegelian left frankly accepting the materialism of Büchner and Moleschott as the final deliverance of philosophy. In a country where religion had little influence among the educated classes, and where philosophy was not a slow and gradual growth of the native mind, but a fashion imported from abroad, the most destructive materialism made, an easy conquest. It was the newest fashion; it was the prevalent form among those who were reckoned the most advanced thinkers; it was clear, simple, and thorough. It was particularly well suited to a state of culture which was superficial, without experience or discipline.

In the words of Turgenief, who has portrayed the movement in his novel, Fathers and Sons, the Nihilists were men who ‘bowed before no authority of any kind, and accepted on faith no principle, whatever veneration may surround it.’ They weighed political institutions and social forms, religion and the family, in the balances of that negative criticism, which was their prevailing characteristic, and they found them all wanting. With revolutionary impatience they rejected everything that had come down from the past, good and bad alike. They had no respect for art or poetry, sentiment or romance. A new fact added to our positive knowledge by the dissecting of a frog was more important than the poetry of Goethe or a painting by Raphael.

Nihilism as represented by Bazarof, in the novel of Turgenief, is certainly not an attractive picture. We may respect his courage, honesty, thoroughness, and independence; but his roughness, cynicism, and indifference to family feelings are very repellent. Through the early death of the hero we are prevented from observing what might have been the further development of his character. We feel sure that if the story of this typical life had been continued, we should have seen very considerable changes in a more positive direction. The mood of universal negation can only be a temporary phase in individual or national development. Negation may be the physic, it cannot be the diet, of the mind.

No movement for emancipation can be a purely negative thing; and no movement can be adequately described by reference to a single characteristic. The Nihilists found a wider view of the world in the writings of Darwin, Herbert Spencer and J. S. Mill; and they had also at an early period felt the influence of Saint-Simon, Fourier, Robert Owen, and latterly also of Lassalle and Marx. From the first, Nihilism seems to have involved a broad and real sympathy with the suffering classes. They wished to recall the attention of men from windy verbiage about art and poetry, from a sentimentalism which was often spurious, and from the clatter of the parliamentary machine, whose grinding was solely for the benefit of the wealthier classes, to the question of ‘daily bread for all,’ to the common people perishing for lack of elementary knowledge. And they insisted strongly on the equal rights of women.

It is evident that Nihilism could only be a passing phase in the history of Russia, and that it had a wholesome and beneficial side as well as a repellent one. In a country which was oppressed by an enormous burden of immemorial prejudices and abuses, a powerful dose of negation was calculated to have a most salutary operation. But the movement could not long live on negations merely. As time went on, the struggle for emancipation in Russia began to assume a more positive character.

In this way the revolutionary movement entered on its second stage, the stage of socialistic teaching and propaganda. Events in the West had kindled the imagination of the youthful champions of liberty in Russia, the rise and progress of the International, the terrible struggle at Paris under the Commune, the growth of the German Social Democracy. A positive and far-reaching ideal now drew the aspirations of the enthusiasts for liberty, the deliverance of the proletariat, represented in Russia by an ignorant and wretched peasantry. The anarchic socialism of Bakunin was unquestionably the controlling element in the new Russian movement. Beside it we must place the influence of Lavroff, another eminent Russian exile, who represented the more temperate phase of anarchism, shading off into the recognition of a constitutional and gradual development of the theory. In its second stage also the revolutionary movement of Russia was a mixed phenomenon. The anarchism of Bakunin continued, however, to be the characteristic feature, and thus the negative factor was still prominent enough.

From Bakunin also proceeded the practical watchword at this stage of the revolutionary movement, ‘to go among the people’ and spread the new doctrines. And this course was unwittingly furthered by the action of the Government. Early in the seventies, hundreds of young Russians of both sexes were studying in Western Europe, particularly at Zürich in Switzerland. As their stay there exposed them to constant contact with revolutionary Russian exiles, and to infection with all the unsettling ideas of the West, an imperial ukase of 1873 recalled them home. They returned home, but they carried their new ideas with them. ‘Going among the people’ was adopted as a systematic principle, a passion and a fashion among the youthful adherents of anarchism. In accordance with their creed they had no appointed organisation, no very definite plan of action. They ‘went among the people’ as the apostles of a new theory, each one as his heart moved him.

They went to be teachers or midwives or medical helps in the villages. In order the better to identify themselves with the common folks, some learned the humblest occupations. The trades of carpenter or shoemaker were most usually chosen, as being the easiest to master. Others toiled for fifteen hours a day in the factories, that they might have an opportunity of saying a word in season to their fellow-workers. Ladies and gentlemen, connected with the aristocracy and nurtured in all the refinement of civilisation, patiently endured the nameless trials of living with the Russian peasant. They endeavoured to adopt the rough hands and swarthy weather-beaten complexion, as well as the dress of the peasant, that they might not excite his distrust, for the gulf between the lower classes and the gentlemen in Russia is wide and fixed. The peasants had experience of the gentleman only as the representative of the Government coming with the knout and the police to extort taxes and recruits. No wonder that the sight of a shirt underneath the sheepskin of the socialist missionary was enough to arouse the unconquerable suspicion of the poor people of the country.