A Herzen Reader

Circumstances changed. The Russian land struggle began. Each strug­gle proceeds not according to the laws of abstract logic, but by a complex process of embryogeny. To help in our struggle we need the West's ideas and its experience. But to the same degree we do not need its revolutionary declamation, just like the French did not need the Roman-Spartan rhetoric with which it spoke at the end of the last century. To speak in someone else's images, to call something by a foreign name—that shows a lack of understanding of both the matter at hand and of the people, and a lack of respect for both as well. Is there a shadow of probability that the Russian people would rise up in the name of Blanqui's socialism, shouting out four words, among which three long ones are unfamiliar to them?⁷

You consider us backward, and we do not get angry; if we have lagged behind you in our opinions, we have not lagged behind in our heart, and the heart sets the pace. And don't you become angry when, in a friendly matter, we turn around your reprimand and say that your costume a la Karl Moor and Gracchus Babeuf⁸ on the Russian square is not only old, but resembles masquerade dress. The French are a comical but deferential people; it was possible to confuse them with a Roman latiklave and the language of Seneca's heroes, while our people demanded the head of the unfortunate Obruchev.⁹

. And again a chorus can be heard—not underground, but from the second floor—a chorus of cowards, weak and hoping for only a slightly progressive movement.

"Yes, yes," they cry, "look what the celebrated people, that wild beast, is doing—this is what awaits us. Go explain to them that we are now not serf-owners but landowners, and that we do not demand the corvee, but a representative assembly, not quitrent, but the rights of citizens."

The people are a little slow to understand and cannot so quickly imagine that their age-old, bloody enemy who robbed them, disgraced their family, and wore them out with hunger and humiliated them, suddenly fell into such repentance—"my brother," he said, and that's all.

There are terrible historical misfortunes, the dark fruits of dark deeds; just before they occur, as before a storm, human wisdom falls silent and covers eyes full of bitter tears with its hands.

Our sacrificial victims, like Mikhailov and Obruchev, must endure a double martyrdom [. . .] the people will not know them—even worse, it will know them as members of the gentry, as enemies. They will not pity them and do not want their sacrifice.

This is where the split has led us. The people do not have faith in—and are prepared to stone—those who gave their lives for them. In the dark night in which they were raised they are prepared, like the giant in a fairy tale, to slaughter their children for wearing foreign clothing.

Our martyrs are bearing the terrible punishment of popular hate not for their own transgressions, but for those of others. These others rush to receive an amnesty; for their part, they were not so generous, and what did they really do—having lost the oyster, they decided to throw away the shell! Did the gentry Magdalenes in their own hearts really achieve repentance? Was the word emancipation really said by them—didn't they dig their heels in while they thought it was still possible to dig their heels in? Atonement is not achieved nor ancient scars forgiven so easily and with such a dissatis­fied expression.

The scene on the Petersburg square was very sad, infinitely sad, but you, poor martyrs, should not give in to despair. Complete your noble act of devotion, fulfill your great sacrifice of love, and from the height of your Golgotha and from your underground mine pits forgive the people their unintentional sense of grievance, and say to those others, that the people have the right to this mistake, and that you give them your blessing!

Notes

Source: "Molodaia i staraia Rossiia," Kolokol, l. i39, July i5, i862; i6:i99-205, 4i0-i5.

An adjective formed from the word telenok, "calf," which implies that the emotion is "foolish."

Sunday schools were a project of the intelligentsia to take advantage of the peas­ants' sole day off to spread literacy; in a number of cases, progressive political ideas were spread as well. The same was said of the popular reading rooms that had been set up. A chess club was organized in Petersburg in i862 by writers in opposition to the govern­ment, including Chernyshevsky and Lavrov.

Prince A. F. Golitsyn (i796-i864) took part in the investigation of Herzen and Ogaryov in Й34-35, and in the Petrashevsky case in Й49. Liprandi's proposal to recruit spies among gymnasia students had been rejected by the tsar.