Workmen's advocate., 1889-11-30
COMMUNICATIONS.
Who was he. anyhow, that Cherni-
 shefsky of yours!

piopdSdnud, ls to SUIT thought ana 10 awaken the masses to the ever and anon appearing of newer, still newer tenden- cies of progress and to make people think. It is by the fulfiment of this it's function that propaganda is made invalu able to and indispensable in any act ually progressive reform work. We need no better illustration of this truth than is the Memorial Meeting held in honor of Nicolai GauiloUitch Cherni- shefsky, at Cooper Union, on Friday evening, November Sth.
 At that great meeting two speeches were made in English, one by Mir. She- witch and the other by Mr. Pentecost MT. Shevitch is an able speaker, and all he said concerning Chernishefsky was true. But he did not, because in a speech he could not, say all. Mir. Pente. cost, as we'll as theEnglish speaking pub lie generally, knows of Chernishefsky only what there is in his "What Is to Be 
 son with what may be learned from the other great works by the same author. Nor could the audience gather from what either MT. Shevitch or Mr. Pente- cost had said on the subject, sufficient information as regards Chernishefsky to warrant Mr. Most's terse and truthful characterization of him as 6 Karl Marx, a Lassalle and Blanqui combined in one great parsonage. Those who have read and understood and appreciated the | works of this wondrous thinker; those who are intimately acquainted with what was going on in Russia at the time when he wrote, and what part he played in those memorable days; those who know what Chernishefsky has been to Russian thought and to the Russian revolutionary movement, know that to say of him he was Marx Lasalle and Blanqui combined is no exaggeration; they know that anything depreciation of Chernishefsky's real worth, of his actual greatness.
 On hearing this, on perceiving this mighty thinker placed on the same pedes- tai with Shakespeare, Darwin, Goethe, and, as aforesaid, unprepared to accept this statement, people were fairly stag gered with astonishment and many an intelligent Russian, personally known to some of the English-speaking auditors, were beset with the invariable question:: Who was he, after all, that Cherni- shefsky of yours?"
 Now I wish, to the best of my ability, to let in a ray of light tending towards the solution of what is so puzzlng to those of our friends who have not had the opportunity to read Chernishefsky. q hope the WoRKMEN's ADVOCATE will not refuse me the necessary space).
 1 am we'll aware that to undertake to give here an exhaustive and manysided estimate of Chernishefsky's writings would be simply preposterous. To say nothing of the space such an attempt would require, l confess, in all honesty, that l doubt my ability to do it justice; the more so, in view of the fact that here in America, with the broad Atlan- tic between me and good Russian library, 1 must of necessity approach the subject utterly barehanded, and all can say on this point must needs be from memory. So circumstanced, 1t
 
 passing moment to entertain the idea that an attempt to exhaust the subject before us might not prove a scandaious failure. Nor do l venture on the impossi- ble. But to let in ray of light upon the subject, one little ray only, of this I hope, l am capable, and i'll the following lines 1 shall endeavor to give the reader an ,1hllng of what Chernishefsky taught in economics.
 In the latter part of the Fifties Cher nishefsky undertakes a translation of John s. Mills "Treatise on Political Economy" and subjoins to it what he modestly terms remarks from his own pen. To say that the economic ideas then prevalent in Russia were more or less misunderstood Malthusianism, would be to tell a truth in as few words as possi- ble. That mankind reproduces itself in a geometrical while the means of subsistence do so only in an arithmetical ratio; that, consequently, the world must be poor and cannot be otherwise that, therefore, poverty and sickness and suffering and death by starvation are of necessity unavoidable, was at that time believed in Russia both by those who gloated with satanic joy over their own riches, and by those who sympathized with the downtrodden poor and would gladly help them. So dense was at that time the ignorance as regards all in con- nection with the true relations of capital and labor, that even the great father of Russian journalism, Bielinsky, quite composedly declared on a certain occa- sion that "Of economics know Snnh information of his willing auditors whom Chernishefsky undertook to enlighten on the true relations of capital and labor. Now, he saw at a glance that no considerable headway could be made,