# The Spirit of Russia/Volume 2/Chapter 20

CHAPTER TWENTY
LIBERALISM
I
§ 177.
LIBERALISM as a historical and philosophical trend and political system arose in opposition to theocracy. Characteristically, the name "liberal." originated in the land of the inquisition.
As an opposition to theocracy, liberalism strives to secure the secularisation of churches and of all institutions. To this extent it has in practice always supported an extension of the powers of the state, despite its opposition to state absolutism. Liberalism was a struggle against two evils. Regarding the state and its omnipotence as the lesser evil of the two, liberalism upheld the state. This peculiar duplex attitude has often been momentous for the liberals.
Liberalism manifested itself as rationalism; deism, the philosophy of enlightenment, freethinking, are of the essence of liberalism. Liberalism was an attempt, with the aid of authorship and journalism, to organise the so-called sound human reason as a public authority. Locke may be regarded as the first interpreter and systematiser of liberalism; during the eighteenth century, Voltaire and the encyclopaedists were the representatives of liberalism in the philosophic field.
To a considerable extent, even the churches adopted liberalism. With Protestantism, came the epoch of rationalist theology; upon the Catholic side, Febronianism originated, gallicanism was strengthened, and above all the dissolution of the Jesuit order by the pope in the year 1773 was of the greatest symptomatic significance.
Ethically, eighteenth century liberalism was guided by the humanitarian ideal. In this connection we think of Rousseau and Voltaire, of Lessing and Herder, of most of the noted belletristic writers of the day, and of the moral ​philosophers (Hume, Adam Smith, etc.). Liberalism, following Schiller, conceived such men as in Rousseau's view Christ had been, to be the embodiments of the humanitarian ideal. That ideal was conceived, extensively, as an endeavour to secure the ethico-political unification of all mankind.
Thus interpreted, liberalism aimed at freedom in all domains. Hence its various watchwords; freedom of belief, conscience, and thought; free speech; freedom of teaching, science, and education; free schools and a free press; free trade and free industry; free contract between employer and employed; and so on. Freedom was regarded as the greatest possible expansion of individuality in the sense of ethical personality. The philosophic expression of liberal individualism was found in Kant's insistence upon equal respect for one's own individuality and for that of others, and in his maxim that we must never treat another human being as a mere means to our own ends.
Opposing the church and theology, liberalism, as voiced by most of its representatives, tended to be utilitarian and hedonist, adverse to the ascetic ideal.
In the domain of law, liberalism adopted and developed the old doctrine of natural law in the spirit of enlightenment and of humanitarianism.
The political outcome of this liberalism was the recognition of the rights of man and of popular sovereignty as fundamentals of the power of the state; constitutionalism and parliamentarism (majority rule) were the further necessary consequence of the establishment of the power of the people through the system of universal suffrage. The power of the aristocracy and of the clergy was restricted simultaneously with that of absolutism. Characteristic is the fact that the modern written democratic constitution originated in imitation of the agreement concerning religious liberty (in the American colonies).
Absolutism was further weakened by the doctrine of the partition of forces. Some even of the monarchs cherished liberal ideas (the so-called enlightened despotism of Joseph II, Frederick the Great, and Catherine II). In France, above all, the monarchy had to recognise constitutionalism; and after the revolution, in absolutist Prussia, too, Stein and Hardenberg instituted liberal reforms.
Liberalism logically presses on towards democracy. Abbé Sieyès assigned a great future to the third estate, to the bour​geoisie. The bourgeoisie had effected the revolution in order to rebuild public institutions from the foundation. The Catholic religion was abolished by the municipalities (not by parliament); the clergy were secularised; the nobles were deprived of their privileges; state and church were democratised; the republic was introduced.
The great revolution was continued in the risings of 1830 and 1848.
Liberty, equality, fraternity, were the watchwords of the democratic revolution.
The historic sense awakened during the eighteenth century. The philosophy of history was the manifestation of the newer evolutionary outlook upon history and society. The idea of progress was enthusiastically adopted, and in the name of progress a demand was pressed for a revolutionary change in the old order. During the last months of his life, Condorcet composed his enthusiastic Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain. The socialists continued these revolutionary speculations.
The state was now regarded as the protector of property, and free competition was looked upon as the best motive force of economic life. Adam Smith supplemented the humanitarian ideal by economics, which in his hands become a doctrine of consistent egoism and hedonism.
Laissez-faire became the leading socio-political principle, being interpreted by the radical Bentham in the English phrase, Be quiet. Bentham and his friend John Stuart Mill had indeed to admit that due regard must be paid to the needs of the fourth estate; but these writers could not conceive that the workers were able and entitled to lead themselves; bourgeois employers were the natural leaders of the working class!
The liberal bourgeoisie effected important social reforms. Serfdom was abolished, the peasant was made independent, industry was freed from the oppression of the guilds, women and children were partially liberated from the harsh dominance of the patriarchal system. In this respect, too, liberalism was a precursor of socialism.
It was, however, in the social domain that the political limitations of practical liberalism were made manifest. In the days of the great revolution, the first advocates of economic equality and democracy, the first experimenters in communism, ​were put to death by the democratising bourgeoisie. Although Rousseau, Meslier, Morelly, Mably, and other writers, had condemned private property and inequality of property, the republic declared property sacrosanct, just as absolutism had declared the monarchy sacrosanct. Attacks on the principle of private property became a capital offence!
§ 178.
THE revolution was superseded by the restoration, and the so-called romanticism which followed the revolution was largely characterised by a strengthening of religious sentiment and above all by recatholicisation, Napoleon entered into the concordat with Pius VII; the inquisition was set up anew in Spain; the Jesuit order was reinstated; Alexander I, Francis I, and Frederick William III entered into the holy alliance to assist divine providence (§ 15); in England, Catholic emancipation was carried through.
Liberalism underwent transformation. In the philosophic field liberalism became a supporter of positivism, that peculiar mixtum compositum of progress and reaction. The liberals associated the doctrine of evolution with positivism.
Positivism, with its historism and relativism, provided liberalism with weapons against radical assaults, whether from the right or from the left. The idea of progress was toned down, and the tolerance advocated by Locke was now extended towards the ideas and trends against which liberalism had previously fought.
Thus to an increasing extent liberalism became a system of half-measures.
The antirevolutionary school of jurists opposed historical law to natural law, and countered revolution with the doctrine of legitimism. After the revolution, the appeal for liberty was replaced by the demand for order; liberty, it was said, must arise out of order. The demand for equality was quietly dropped, or in some cases scientific reasons for the change of sentiments were adduced, reasons based upon Darwinian considerations.
Before 1848, to reactionaries of the type of Metternich and Tsar Nicholas the term liberalism was synonymous with the term revolution.
The church, which had been fought and in places even ​abolished, was now upheld, and under the pretext of toleration its doctrines were prized as the chief means of defence against radical democracy, the obscure and ambiguous proposition that religion is a private matter being gladly represented as liberal. The liberalism of carlier.days aspired after a natural religion, but modern liberalism no longer concerns itself with religion as a matter of principle, being satisfied with the political aim of separating state and church, or with Cavour's formula of a free church in a free state. The philosophic systems, and materialism above all (which after 1848 developed strongly in opposition to the reaction of the counter-revolution), were adopted only by the more radical wing of the liberals. Materialism was the official philosophy of the socialist movement, which was now making headway.
Characteristic of the trend of liberalism towards the right is the attitude of the Jews vis-à-vis the official church. Since the Jews are an oppressed race it is natural that they should incline towards liberalism, and many Jews have therefore become socialists; but the Jews of the capitalistic stratum pay homage not only to the state but to the official church as well.
Nevertheless the process of secularisation proved irresistible. The republic was reestablished in France, and turned against Rome (le cléricalisme c'est l'ennemi); the kulturkampf raged in Germany; nolens volens, Austria had to fortify her position by liberal legislation and by the introduction of a constitution. Protestant theology has of late exhibited a number of liberal trends, of which the historic trend is the most characteristic. In the Catholic church, too, liberalising tendencies have been manifest, culminating in the contemporary modernist movement. But during the same epoch the papacy has grown stronger and has ventured the proclamation of new dogmas, such as the dogma of infallibility.
It is not surprising that the founder of positivism should have returned to fetichism, and that the author of the Life of Jesus, which was the most radical manifestation of the Hegelian left in the days before 1848, should in the beginning of the seventies have concocted The Old Faith and the New, the catechism of liberal theology and religion. Strauss was a typical representative of the new bourgeoisie. Benjamin Constant, the indefatigable theorist of liberalism, had indeed ​anticipated Strauss. Having worked for thirty years at his book De la Religion, he declared in the end that liberalism was inadequate, and that religion alone could provide a sure foundation for social life. He had, of course, no other religion to offer than that of his Adolphe, a sentimental amalgam of Rousseau and Jacobi, of Kant and Scottish philosophy Constant insisted further that philosophy could not replace religion, for philosophy did not leave room for faith and would therefore never be accepted by the people—religion was essential to the populace, and Voltaire recognised that there must be a religion for his tailor. Even Locke, who had so long ago and so ardently advocated toleration, desired that for the sake of social order atheism should be made a capital offence. Constant followed Locke in this matter, but liberalised Locke's teaching.
After 1848, liberalism aimed more and more at the promotion of governmental efficiency. Whilst the old liberalism had adopted Sieyès' saying, "le roi reigne mais ne gouverne pas," the new liberalism inclined to favour Napoleon's dictum that the monarch is no mere "cochon à l'engrais." Bismarck's antiparliamentarian creed, and Prussian and Austrian constitutionalist practice, were more honoured than English parliamentarism. The night-watchman theory of the state was abandoned by the liberals, now that they had been admitted to a share in the powers of government. They supported an extension of state authority, abandoning their earlier and more radical tenets of antimilitarism and democracy, and advocating political centralisation as contrasted with the earlier liberal aspiration for autonomy and self-government.
Liberalism has thus arrived at the apotheosis of the state. Belief in the state is upon the same footing as belief in God, now that constitutionalism has transformed the liberals themselves into parts of this mundane god. A certain liberal, and what is more an American and a republican, Burgess, the teacher of constitutional law, has in conformity with the old English maxim that the king can do no wrong, seriously declared the state to be infallible. The state, be it noted, is infallible, not the president, but the state as principle, the state as an institution, the state as the liberal god.
To the liberalism of the manufacturing classes, imperialism has been thoroughly welcome, and the liberals have understood very well how to adapt their formulas to imperialist ideas, ​even while continuing to give lip-service to Kant's plea for perpetual peace.
This evolution of the liberal bourgeoisie will be more readily understood when it is remembered that the fourth estate, the working class, has become emancipated from liberalism, and has adopted socialism, above all Marxist socialism. The masses are now lost to liberalism. Modern capitalism and the plutocracy have come into existence. The parvenus of the plutocracy have been taken into favour by the old aristocracy; the dynasties are finding in the modern stockexchanges and in the Rothschilds something to replace their Jewish financiers of old days. The state is becoming an industrial state. The capitalist is not merely an entrepreneur, a director and organiser of labour; he is a wealthy man, often exceedingly wealthy, so that the abyss between riches and poverty widens; the worship of the golden calf tends increasingly to be the true religion of the bourgeoisie and of those who wield political power; militarism is now a lucrative economic system of enrichment; protective tariffs and agrarian duties bring about conciliation between the rival and hostile half-brothers, between the manufacturers of the great towns and the junkers of the rural areas. It need hardly be said that the question of protection is not really one of principle; prior to 1870, when the great landed estates still produced for export, the German conservatives were freetraders, but now they are protectionists. The liberal view of protection is similar, and it is only within national limits that modern liberals insist upon free competition as a matter of principle—free competition against the working classes.
The Chinese writer Ku-Hung-Ming, in China's Defence against European Ideas, says with considerable truth: "The European liberalism of the eighteenth century was civilised, but modern liberalism is no longer civilised. The liberalism of the past read books and understood ideas; modern liberalism reads nothing but newspapers, and uses the great liberal phrases of the past as catchwords, as a mere cloak for selfish interests. Eighteenth century liberalism fought on behalf of right and justice; the pseudo-liberalism of to-day fights on behalf of rights and trading privileges. The liberalism of the past fought on behalf of the cause of humanity; the pseudo-liberalism of to-day endeavours to promote the vested interests of capitalists and financiers."
​This liberalism constitutes the reserve force of aristocracy and plutocracy; liberals of this calibre unhesitatingly vote repressive laws against socialist workers. The old watchwords, liberty, equality, and fraternity, are left to the social democracy.
The old liberalism was national in character, but genuinely liberal, and with cosmopolitan inclinations. But when the national minorities in the historically extant multilingual states had gained strength through liberal constitutionalism and parliamentarism, and when the doctrine of popular sovereignty was given a definite folk-signification, when the nationalist idea became definitely democratic vis-à-vis the state, liberalism swung over to the side of the state, proclaiming everywhere the official doctrine of patriotism. Metternich's reaction had led to an oppression of the nationalities in Austria and Germany. In Austria, after 1848, the liberals followed in Metternich's footsteps, even endeavouring to effect a forcible denationalisation. The liberal capitalists found no difficulty in turning political chauvinism to account economically. In this connection I may quote once more from Ku-Hung-Ming, who refers to a liberal aspirant who betrayed his party and his government to espouse the cause of reaction: "When Kang-Yu-Wei was compelled to take to flight, and when the lives of some of his adherents were forfeit, Tuan-Fang had not a moment's perplexity, for with all the shamelessness of light-hearted youth he exhibited a complete change of front and had recourse to the scoundrel's last refuge—patriotism. Immediately after Kang-Yu-Wei had fallen and the empress dowager had grasped the reins of power, Tuan-Fang composed a popular patriotic song, extolling the glories of the empress dowager and her government. In this wise he saved himself from the consequences of his association with Kang-Yu-Wei."
Open-minded liberals are no longer under any illusion concerning the decay of liberalism.
Intellectually, liberalism has become a dangerous system of dilettantism; ethically it is often lax and positively ​anarchistic, and therefore opposed to the authority of church and state.
Politically, liberalism tends more and more to break up into a number of factions, and in the parliamentary struggle it is therefore weak in its front against the uniform mass of the social democracy and also against the governmental reaction. Being void of real content, liberalism tends increasingly to cling to formal principles; the liberal parties lack independence and initiative. As an educational and economic force, liberalism becomes more and more negative; the earlier aspiration for liberty is replaced by a political moderation which is delighted to accept as freedom the fairly endurable measure of unfreedom that now exists. The cry for toleration as voiced by early liberalism was a call to arms against theocratic coercion, but the modern liberal conception of toleration grows ever more negative.
Thus liberalism is the codification of half-measures, persistent compromise in theory as well as in practice. We may quote Goethe: "When I hear people speak of liberal ideas I am amazed to see how readily human beings are satisfied with empty sounds; an idea cannot be liberal. It may be vigorous, efficient, self-contained, in order that it may fulfil its divine mission of being productive; but it is quite beyond the mission of an idea to be liberal. Where we must seek liberalness is in the feelings, in the living sphere of the affective life."
Historically considered, the lukewarmness and vagueness of liberalism are thoroughly characteristic of a transitional trend; these features explain its persistence, its mutability and its adaptability.
§ 179.
CATHOLIC politicians reproach liberalism with being the offspring of Protestantism and the parent of socialism and anarchism. They bring the identical charge against modern philosophy.
There is considerable truth in the accusation. In actual fact, liberalism grew to greatness in England, and, under English and American influence, in France; the liberal regime in politics was transplanted from England and America to the continent of Europe.
​Liberalism is differently tinted in various countries and as advocated by various nationalities. English, American, German, French, Italian, and Spanish liberalism are divergent types.
The relationships of liberalism, of the primary principles of the liberal doctrine, to anarchism and socialism are obvious.
According to Bouglé, French liberalism was "dead and buried" in 1902; the same diagnosis concerning liberalism comes from England, Germany, everywhere. Of late years, therefore, there has been in progress among liberals a serious self-examination, which has culminated in the conviction that liberalism must rediscover its democratic past, and must renew its earlier aspirations towards liberty. The liberals must cease to dread freedom. "The only cure for liberty is more liberty" (Macaulay).
As regards German liberalism, various counsels are offered for promoting a democratic renaissance. Naumann cherished hopes of a union between democracy and emperordom. More important is the demand that the liberals should join forces with the social democracy.
It can hardly be said that any precise formula has been offered for this alliance, but from time to time a transient cooperation has been effected, such a cooperation as has been recommended by L. Brentano, and earlier by Barth, Mommsen, and others.
From the social democratic camp advances in the same direction have been made by the revisionists (in the "Sozialistische Monatshefte" and elsewhere). The revisionists point to the numerous members of the so-called new middle class, and contend that these could make cooperation between the social democrats and the liberals a practical possibility.
It is hardly necessary to demonstrate the political importance of such cooperation for Germany and for the world at large; the importance is self-evident in view of the numerical strength of the German social democracy.
In France, Italy, and even England, the course of political evolution has brought the liberals nearer to socialism.
In considering these plans for cooperation on the part of liberals and social democrats, we must not forget that Marxism and socialism, too, have undergone theoretical and political changes, and have in a sense become liberalised (if the word be rightly understood). For the time being, however, ​the orthodox Marxists regard liberalism as twin brother of the anarchism they so strongly condemn. This adverse judgment is all the more powerful in its effect seeing that the liberal opponents of Marxism (Diehl, for instance) take the same view.
All that I need say in conclusion is that when the possibility of a renascence of liberalism is mooted, I am not thinking so much of the relationship of liberalism to Marxism as of the socialisation and democratisation of liberalism.
II
§ 180.
LIBERALISM is the latest of the religions, but its church is of this world, not of the world to come; its theodicy is a political doctrine; its roots are in the earth; it knows nothing of mystical peace formulas, for its need is to make peace a practical reality. Liberalism, at first victorious and subsequently defeated, disclosed the sundering breach in all its nudity. The distressing consciousness of this breach is manifested in the irony of the contemporary world, in the scepticism with which modern man scatters the fragments of his broken idols." Such was the characterisation of liberalism penned by Herzen in the year 1852, when his mood was one of despair owing to the collapse of the revolution. The same mood had in the previous year led him to express the conviction that liberalism would not make itself at home in Russia, that liberalism was quite alien to the Russian nature.
Herzen erred, for liberalism had hid a home in Russia since the days of Peter. After Peter, Catherine II was likewise representative of liberal ideas, for she had direct philosophic associations with Voltaire and Diderot, though her regime was less liberal than that of Peter. Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot secured in St. Petersburg numerous and enthusiastic readers and adherents, so that the French enlightenment reinforced the enlightenment already inaugurated by Peter and his successors. We find in St. Petersburg and Moscow the freethinking philosophy of the eighteenth century, the rationalism and the humanitarian philosophy of the enlightenment; this philosophy directed its shafts against serfdom, ​and encouraged thoughts of political liberty and political reforms. In addition to the Voltairians there were liberals of a religious turn (Radiščev and the freemasons), and there were liberals who declaimed against the moral corruption of Europe. French liberalism, with its individualism and its aspirations towards freedom, took Russian society by storm; democratic and even republican programs were conceived. Alexander I, no less than Catherine II, had a certain sympathy with the republican ideal.
The revolution and the terror aroused a reaction in St. Petersburg no less than in Europe (of this matter and concerning this date it would be incorrect to say "aroused a reaction in Russia"); nevertheless, cultured men occupying influential positions were still found to cherish an honest belief in the possibility of liberal reforms even in Russia, and such men endeavoured to realise their ideals (Speranskii). Alexander I was co-founder of the holy alliance; the wars against Napoleon confirmed the satisfaction with the old regime; the reaction became patriotic and nationalist. The romanticist movement, with its search for an asylum in the past, made its appearance also in Russia. Karamzin, who had at one time been an admirer of enlightened Europe, may be regarded as spokesman of romanticism and reaction.
But it proved impossible to repress liberal aspirations; repression served but to generate a more energetic resistance. Ideas, well-grounded ideas, cannot be repressed. Benjamin Constant and similar writers of the day secured Russian readers. The cult of liberalism was carried on in secret societies; the decabrist revolution was an attempt after the French model; some even believed in the possibility of a Russian republic (Pestel).
In the reign of Nicholas I the nationalist and patriotic reaction grew stronger and was more fully conscious of its aims. New legal and administrative foundations were provided for the theocracy, with its programs of orthodoxy, autocracy, and Russian nationalism.
Yet the reaction under Nicholas worked no real harm to liberalism. Čaadaev stepped forward with his bold negation of theocracy. It is true that there now originated the influential slavophil movement, whose trend was conservative; but the westernisers were thereby stimulated to redouble their efforts to diffuse western liberalism. To Bělinskii the ​term "liberal" seemed practically synonymous with the term "man." The liberal current of the day was not solely manifested in the writings of the literary critics, but found able journalistic exponents as well (Polevoi). Abroad, the ideas of the decabrists were propagated by N. Turgenev and by Herzen. The Russian refugees, organising their efforts, endeavoured to break the fetters of the censorship.
During the reign of Nicholas came the blossoming time of modern Russian literature. The great writers of this epoch, Puškin, Gogol, Turgenev, Gončarov, etc., were liberals; all, that is to say, led and sustained individualistic aspirations towards freedom, even though some of them could not altogether lay aside conservative habits of thought. Modern art in general (for the remark does not apply solely to imaginative literature) can no longer be deliberately conservative and theocratic in its leanings. Such has been the valuable and momentous outcome of the evolution following upon the French revolution.
Agrarian and economic development, too, had perforce to take a liberal turn. Whether at the hands of the crown, the landowners, the mercantile classes, or the peasants, more efficient production could only be brought about by scientific method, and especially by the intelligent application of the achievements of natural science. Further, the principles of Adam Smith secured recognition, and were put into practice in internal affairs. Owing to the defective yield of servile labour the liberation of the peasantry was found to be essential. Liberalism was invigorated by the influence of German philosophy, and especially by that of Hegel; towards the close of the forties, the Hegelian left (Feuerbach), positivism, materialism, and the French socialists, began to influence the Russian liberals, so that a number of them now became socialists. The Petraševcy were the first victims of the more radical current. Socialism and anarchism were evoked by the revolutionary sentiments voiced by Herzen and Bakunin, at first while they were still in Russia, and subsequently as refugees. Socialism and Bakuninist anarchism now dominated the mind of youth.
Liberalism became distinguished from socialism and from anarchism in respect of program and in respect of its advocates; Herzen and Bakunin drew apart, not only from the slavophils, but also from Granovskii.
​The liberation of the peasantry, and the effecting of the other reforms that necessarily accompanied and followed that measure, were a notable victory for liberalism. But this was not the first time on which absolutism had entered liberal paths. Since the days of Peter, the bureaucracy had been compelled to recognise liberalism in practice, the constraint, in Russia as elsewhere, being supplied by the administration's own interests, which could be adequately served in no other way. Reactionaries like Katkov realised this clearly enough.
It was natural that these reforms should strengthen radicalism. After 1861, the socio-political opposition became organised in secret societies; and the example of the Polish revolution of 1863 had its effect upon radical circles in Russia
The reaction armed in its own defence, and many liberals wavered in their allegiance to liberal principles. Katkov, the admirer of English constitutionalism, opened his campaign against Herzen. Čičerin, a typical exponent of moderate liberalism, likewise attacked Herzen. But Herzen found a defender even among the moderate liberals (Kavelin).
The attempt on the life of Alexander II in the year 1866 strengthened the reaction. Such liberals as Nekrasov now made for the sake of the reaction the "sacrificio del intelletto" (Nekrasov, for the rest, was always a wiseacre); but the opposition was by no means intimidated. Society underwent a cleavage into liberal "fathers" and revolutionary "children"; liberals, no less than conservatives and reactionaries, devoted themselves to the analysis of "nihilism." The leader of such liberals was Turgenev, the spokesman of liberal Hamletism, but his admiration for the bold woman terrorist swept him off his balance.
Both before and after 1861, the aristocracy and the gentry continued to make up the bulk of the liberals, but the strength of the raznočincy contingent increased. The towns were expanding and were undergoing economic changes, and the capitalistic bourgeoisie and plutocracy were gaining in strength and numbers. The rich bourgeois wanted to lead a quiet life, but at the same time he wanted to play the gentleman. It was natural that the radical should despise the bourgeois ​just as much as he despised the aristocrat—for the leaders of radicalism, and above all the best writers on behalf of the movement, were of noble birth.
The public activities of the liberals were mainly devoted to the zemstvos, and these bodies were schools of political self-government. In the zemstvos, the petty bourgeois, the merchant, and the intellectual, could make themselves felt, just as well as the great landlord.
The activities of the revolutionary opposition were now accentuated, with the passive and at times more than passive assistance of the liberals. The government was disposed to make certain concessions (Loris-Melikov), but the assassination of Alexander II brought Katkov and Pobědonoscev into power. The new reaction was not immediately effective in arresting liberal activities, and these persisted especially in the zemstvos. It is true that Dragomanov, as spokesman of the constitutionalist liberals, solemnly proclaimed himself opposed to tyrannicide; but Dragomanov and his associates, no less than the revolutionaries, were compelled to seek asylum abroad.
The radical and democratic trend of Černyševskii was replaced by that of Mihailovskii, a mediator between liberalism and radicalism. Lavrov, though.a refugee, and more radical than Mihailovskii, did nothing to hinder the growth of liberalism.
After the death of Alexander II, came a period of vengeful reaction. Katkov and Pobědonoscev were its leading literary advocates, while Leont'ev was its chief liberal opponent.
The Social Democratic Party was constituted in 1853. The political activity of liberalism slackened in proportion as the organisation of the revolutionaries was hindered by the reaction.
The controversy between the Marxists and the narodniki during the middle nineties was advantageous to the liberals, more especially because the liberals for the most part were on the Marxist side. Moreover, discussion had an invigorating influence on all parties alike. A controversy of especial interest was that concerning the relationship of the social democracy and of the revolutionaries in general to the liberals. The relationship achieved practical recognition in the League of Deliverance (Sojuz Osvoboždenija), and this body furnished a platform for joint political activities. Then came the ​long-desired mass revolution. With the help of the liberals, the working classes and their radical leaders fought for and obtained the constitution.
§ 181.
THIS brief historical sketch should suffice, for a history of Russian liberalism was given as part of the historical sketch, and a description was furnished of the principal facts bearing on the movement.
The question may be asked, why no noted liberals have received individual treatment such as was given in the case of Kropotkin apropos of anarchism. The reply is that liberalism is so multiform that it would have been necessary to deal with a very large number of individuals. Most liberals of note are persons whose main distinction has been acquired in other fields; they are historians, political economists, jurists, and the like, who turn aside for a time from these special studies. But the socio-political characteristics of Russian liberalism have been described, though briefly.
Russian liberalism, like that of Europe, has had two distinct epochs; and the liberalism of the later phase, that of the days since the death of Alexander II, exhibits all the defects as well as the merits of European liberalism. Lukewarmness, indecision, dread of political initiative, are conspicuous failings. Upon many questions of the first importance, the views of liberals are divided. For example, Čičerin is in favour of natural law, Maromcev (president of the first duma) is in favour of historic law. Similar differences prevail among liberals upon religious matters.
The Russian liberal looks for help, not to his own exertions, not to the people, but to those in high places. Čičerin, like Naumann in Germany, hoped for the establishment of a democratic monarchy; but whereas Naumann, when he spoke of the people, meant the social democracy, and wanted a socialist monarchy, Čičerin proposed to break the power of the aristocracy with the aid of the populace led by the crown. The tsar was to destroy his own aristocracy! Černyševskii in this matter saw much more clearly than Čičerin (§ 102).
The liberal, being a man of half-measures, is inconsistent, and stops half way to the goal.
The "children," therefore, could not feel much respect ​for the "fathers." It seemed to the "children" that the Oblomov disease was the outcome of this liberalism, and they regarded their liberal "fathers" as belonging to the category of "superfluous men." Pisarev compared the liberal to the cow which wished to play the part of cavalry charger. Conservative opponents, on the other hand, looked upon liberalism with contempt. Dostoevskii represented the devil as a liberal bourgeois.
Liberalism could point in exculpation to the prolonged operation of tsarist absolutism, forcibly restraining men from public activities and delivering them over to irresponsible inertia.
But some regarded liberalism as a manifestation of the irresponsibility and inertia which, said these persons are inborn in the Russians.
The revolution of 1905 and the inauguration of the duma compelled all the political parties, and especially the liberals, to reexamine the principles upon which their respective programs were based. The first point to be considered was the relationship of liberalism to socialism and to revolutionism. In the liberal camp, even before the revolution, particular attention had been devoted to the attitude towards the state and towards the problem of revolution. The discussion concerning the differences between the Marxists and the social revolutionaries, the practical efforts to secure progressive unity in the League of Deliverance (Struve), and a personal desire to clarify his views upon the crisis in Russian affairs, induced Miljukov to debate these problems. Miljukov, who is now the intellectual leader of the cadets, has had ample political experience, and as historian and philosopher of history he is exceptionally well qualified to give an opinion upon such matters.
Miljukov's idea is that the role of liberalism is to mediate between the revolution and governmental circles. He holds that the liberal opposition has peculiar competence as mediator, inasmuch as it is in opposition without being revolutionary. As recently as 1909, at a banquet given by the lord mayor of London in honour of the Russian deputation, Miljukov reiterated the old saying that as long as Russia possessed a legislative chamber which controlled the budget, the Russian opposition ​would be "his majesty's opposition" and not opposition to his majesty. After the attempt on the life of Stolypin (September 15, 1911), Miljukov's organ published a solemn declaration to the effect that the Constitutional Democratic Party condemned political outrage, and would countenance nothing beyond norntal political evolution.
Liberalism thus recognised the state, and proclaimed its willingness to work directly in favour of the strengthening of the state, expressed its readiness ultimately to cooperate, as a governmental party, in the activities of the state. The emphasis laid in cadet policy upon the importance of maintaining state authority may have been due to the fact that at this time the social democracy was exhibiting anarchist leanings. Possibly, too, the liberal faith in the mechanism of state (cf. Gradovskii's opinion of the westernisers, recorded in § 72) played a part in this development.
Whilst in Germany, too, the cooperation of liberals with social democrats has been recommended (by the liberals), we have to remember that Russian party relationships and Russian conditions in general differ widely from those which obtain in Germany, in England, and in France. Whereas the German social democrats regard parliament as the chief weapon in their armoury, the Russian social democrats are not yet agreed upon this matter. The social revolutionaries (not to speak of the anarchists) are still more dubious as to the value of parliament. The divergence between legal and illegal political opposition is extremely wide, and it is hard for illegal parties to abandon their customary tactics.
We have further to remember that tsarism is altogether different from French republican government, and differs greatly also from Prussian monarchy.
As members of a state party, the liberals have expressed their views very plainly in the controversy concerning the question of nationality.
They have always been non-nationalist, having rightly opposed nationalism as advocated by Uvarov and his successors, and above all as advocated by Katkov.
When the constitution was secured after the revolution, and when the political parties were being organised, the liberals split into two large factions, that of the octobrists and that of the constitutional democrats. The octobrists may be described as the national liberals of Russia. In a general ​way, the cleavage may be compared with that which took place in Germany during the year 1866, when the German progressives became subdivided, with the formation of the "loyal opposition" constituted by the national liberals, on the one hand, and the democratic wing, on the other. The war with Japan had an effect similar to that produced by the war of 1866; there was an increase in the sentiment of nationality, and fidelity to the state was strengthened. Not only did the Union of Genuine Russians spring to life, but the liberal octobrists and even the cadets displayed a more lively nationalist sentiment.
Miljukov himself, at the outset, manifested a benevolent neutrality towards neoslavism.
Struve's advocacy of nationalist views (1908) is of interest. As member of the Cadet Party, he insisted that the liberals must maintain the unity of the Russian state, and declared that the intelligentsia must not confuse the state with the bureaucracy, the fatherland with the absolutist autocracy. He admitted the equality of the various nationalities under Russian rule, but would not endorse the idea of federation. The Russian language and Russian civilisation were to serve as a link between all the peoples of the empire; the state must defend the Russian majority against the nationalist errors of the minorities. The intelligentsia must hold fast to the conception of "Great Russia." The strength of the state vis-à-vis the foreign world offers no hindrances to internal political development, that which aims at domestic welfare; the intelligentsia, therefore, must become permeated with the idea of statehood, and must abandon its futile radicalism. "The revolution has served to impress upon me a conviction as to what is the real significance of the state." The revolution he said, had been shipwrecked by its antistatism.
Besides Struve, other convinced liberals have endeavoured to formulate the national ideal and above all the slavic ideal (as contrasted with neoslavism, which was advocated by the reactionaries).
Struve's nationalism is certainly much nearer to the program of the octobrists than to that of the cadets. I cannot ​feel that references to Bismarck and to that statesman's policy make Struve's arguments in favour of "Great Russia" more congenial and more democratic. His identification of state and nationality is extremely characteristic. Struve's ideas are too closely akin to Uvarov's official nationalism, and he is thus led to construct a barrier between the liberals and the socialists. The liberals themselves recognised this, and disowned Struve, though the latter could appeal to the authority of Pestel.
It was very natural that after the granting of the constitution the question of nationality should bulk so largely. Political freedom necessarily signifies the freedom of the nationalities, and constitutionalist Russia has therefore to face the problems which have remained unsolved in Austria-Hungary since 1848. Nationally, linguistically, and racially, Russia is the least unified state in the world. The Polish question and the Jewish question have always been acute; to these are superadded the Finnish, the Ruthenian, and other national problems. The fact that the dominant nation does not even command a majority throws a new light upon the old question of centralisation versus autonomy and federation.
The radicals, following Carlyle, may despise the duma as "National Palaver," but, after all, parliament is a school of languages; the tongue that has been mute under absolutism can now make itself heard; public utterances in parliament, in electoral meetings, in political associations, and the like, is a new and integral part of constitutionalism. Thus in Russia, as elsewhere, the constitution has made the language question a matter of practical politics and has aroused general interest in the problem.
In Russia, as elsewhere, we find that the problem of nationality is interconnected with other questions of primary importance. In the multilingual areas, above all, nationality is not merely a political question, but is an economic and social question to boot. For example, the Polish question and the Little Russian question have agrarian aspects; the exceptional treatment of the Poles and the Jews necessarily affects the economics of agriculture, for neither Pole nor Jew can acquire land (cf. § 68). Again, the problem of nationality has ecclesiastical and religious aspects; the Poles, the Finns, the Germans, the Caucasians, etc., do not belong to the ​Orthodox church. The "genuine Russians" are especially fond of drawing attention to this feature of the problem of nationality.
Socialism, no less than liberalism, has to solve all these problems; and in the attempts made to find solutions the political, social, and philosophic differences between the two outlooks and philosophies are conspicuously displayed.
Such elucidations and delimitations are made practically rather than theoretically, and often under pressure of immediate need; but in Russia, as in Europe, there are to be found liberal theorists who supply philosophical criticism of the liberal program, considering that program in relation to contemporary developments in Europe, and endeavouring to replace the old liberalism by a new, to reform liberalism. I may refer, for example, to Novgorodcev, professor of the philosophy of law at Moscow. In his earlier writings, and notably as editor of a collection of essays entitled The Problems of Idealism (1902), he has announced his adhesion to the modern idealist movement, but has adopted a sound democratic foundation, declaring in favour of natural law. He has also done well in taking his start from Kant.
In agreement with the French and the English theorists of renovated liberalism, Novgorodcev hopes for a rebirth of liberalism in Russia. He demands the democratisation of liberalism, and he advocates reform whereby the extraparliamentary initiative of the people may be organised and strengthened (the introduction of the referendum, etc.). He also favours the socialisation of liberalism, but it must be admitted that he fails to explain clearly what he means by this demand.
The question of the socialisation and democratisation of liberalism is one of peculiar and seasonable importance for Russia, seeing that Russian liberalism from the first accepted the ideals of socialism, even if some vacillation was subsequently noticeable. This is precisely what differentiates modern Russian liberalism from European liberalism, .and especially from German and English liberalism. I have done my best to insist upon the inner kinship between liberalism, socialism, and anarchism; and in the accounts given of the individual thinkers I have endeavoured to convey precise information in each case regarding their socio-political trend and their ​political evolution. The reader may recall what was said concerning the movement of Herzen's ideas from liberalism to socialism and anarchism, and back again to liberalism. Bakunin's mental development and that of the other noted thinkers was considered from a similar outlook.
But the problem of modern democracy is not exhausted by formulating a demand for the socialisation and democratisation of liberalism. Novgorodcev shows how this problem of democracy necessarily involves the problem of education, and above all of moral education; and he makes an effective point when he refers to the peculiar difficulties with which, in this respect, republican France has to contend. Obviously, too, the ecclesiastical and religious problem is interwoven with the problem of morality. From this outlook, Novgorodcev has not thrown much light on Russian conditions; but many other liberal theorists and politicians have devoted attention to such matters.
* ↑ The idea of nationality was discussed in § 59. It was there shown that the nationalist program is differently formulated in different countries and by divers national stocks. In 1848, for example, the Austrian Germans were less nationalist than the Germans in Germany proper. Individuals, too, changed their views, from time to time. Prior to 1848, Ruge was no less opposed to nationalism than Marx.
* ↑ Mendelěev, the distinguished chemist, was a prominent spokesman of the industrial plutocracy. Not merely was he an opponent of communism, but he likewise looked upon constitutionalism as superfluous.
* ↑ Miljukov, Russia and its Crisis, 1905, p. 517. (The text was composed in the year 1903.)
* ↑ I may refer here to the slavist A. Pogodin, whose formula may be briefly summarised as follows: "Union of the Slavs upon the basis of civilising work; union of the peoples of Russia upon the basis of equal rights, upon the basis of the free development of all."
* ↑ Novgorodcev, The Crisis in the Contemporary Consciousness of Law, 1909.