A Herzen Reader

Among the essay's better-known European readers, Friedrich Engels particularly ob­jected to Herzen's elevation of the peasant commune and his association with such fig­ures as Proudhon and Bakunin. In an 1853 letter to an associate about the possibility of revolution in Russia, Engels complained that Herzen had hedged his bets in a Hegelian manner by describing a republic that was simultaneously democratic, socialist, commu­nist, and Proudhonian (Let 2:139-40). The historian Jules Michelet, with whom Herzen enjoyed long conversations, was very impressed with the article, which he called a "he­roic" work by a Russian patriot, and he subsequently cited Herzen's ideas in his own analysis of Russia. Revised versions of Revolutionary Ideas were published in French and German in subsequent years, and arrangements were made with William Linton for a translation into English. The 1858 French version, published in London, was the basis of two different Russian translations later commissioned for twentieth-century editions of Herzen's works. An 1860 discussion of Herzen by Nikolay Sazonov for La gazette du Nord called Revolutionary Ideas a survey, however incomplete, of Russia's "moral and intellectual history . . . distinguished by a remarkable intelligence and a correct assess­ment of the foundations of Russian life" (Ivanova, A. I. Gertsen, 155).

In chapter 5 below, Herzen makes a strong argument for the significance of Russian literature in spreading new and liberating ideas, and provides an impressive "martyrol- ogy of Russian literature" (Zhelvakova, Gertsen, 341). Free of tsarist censorship, he was able to expand upon views held by the critic Vissarion Belinsky (1811-1848) and other progressive figures, and to introduce them to Europeans, who, based on existing infor­mation, had a poor understanding of the country's problems, and who knew virtually nothing of Russia's potential for reform. The Marquis de Custine's travelogue Lettres de Russie en 1839 had come out to great acclaim in 1843, and La Russie et les Russes by the Decembrist emigre Nikolay Turgenev (1799-1871) made its appearance four years later. The former heard only the silence emanating from frightened Russians, while the latter, who was abroad in December 1825 and never returned to his homeland, took little notice of the common people. Herzen heard the voices of both remarkable individuals and the Russians as a whole, and was therefore more hopeful than others in 1850 about Russia's future prospects (Walicki, Legal Philosophies, 336-37).

On the Development of Revolutionary Ideas in Russia Chapter V. Literature and Public Opinion in Russia After December 14, 1825

[1851/1858]

The twenty-five years since the 14 (26) of December are harder to character­ize than all the time that has elapsed since the age of Peter the Great. Two opposing tendencies—one on the surface, the other in depths where it can barely be seen—make observation difficult. Russia appears to remain im­mobile, even to have retreated a bit, but in essence, everything has taken on a new appearance; the questions are more complex and the answers less simple.

On the surface of official Russia, "the empire of facades," only the losses have been visible—the cruel reaction, the inhuman persecution, the strengthening of despotism. Surrounded by mediocrity, by soldiers on pa­rade, Baltic Germans, and brutal conservatives, one sees Nicholas, suspi­cious, cold, stubborn, pitiless, absent any greatness of soul—as mediocre as his entourage. And, immediately below him, high society, which lost its barely acquired sense of honor and dignity when the first clap of thunder broke over its head after December 14. The Russian aristocracy did not re­cover during the reign of Nicholas, its bloom had faded, and all that was noble and good in it languished in the mines or in Siberia. The nobles who remained and kept the monarch's favor descended to a degree of vileness and servility known to us from de Custine's description.¹