The Icon and the Axe

thought provided a kinxL^rf intdls^tualbridge between aristocr proletarian Kussia^lf reflects the impracticaTfiy^m^Itopianism^rj amp;ig. ari^'^!^3^!^i^ys a "™'"awMeness *hat ?£ time had conie~tomove from philosophical to social questions-or, in Belinsky's words, "from the blueTskies info theliItctoen."^5oniorally pure was this tradition that almost all subsequent radical reformers felt constrained to represent themselves as heirs to its aspirations. Soviet ideologists have constructed for their citizens a kind of hagiographical guide that places Herzen and Belinsky, Chernyshev-sky and Dobroliubov, Pisarev, and (with some reservations) Lavrov and Plekhanov in the prophetic line that allegedly reached its fulfillment in

Lenin.

ButjjO£iaJjbougMin the middle and late nineteenth century was f ar_ more thanamere anticipa5i^^f^oIsEvismor ajneis critique of tsarism. It involxeda freejakyof tiie mind and heart: an uncompromisingearne^F"-ness that reflects the projection- ouTTrTto" the^broader arena of society of many of the deeper questions that had long been disturbing the aristocracy. The longing for a better world so evident in Russian social thought became_ subversive TfficTTnTmrln the STalin era; ".??????^the profound^ searchmgsense ceased to be tolerated in the_public culture of the USSR; and

1. The Turn to social inuugm

T

b.

even canonized prophets like Herzen and Chernyshevsky were expurgated or reinterpreted.

In a general sense the distinctively Russian tradition of social thought began with the economic and political discussions of Catherine's time, with Radishchev's anguished critique of serfdom, with the various proposals of Bentham, Owen, and Saint-Simbh for including social reform in the program of Alexander's ????"???????, with PestePs™pfoposals _for__agrarianucPr distribution in the 1820's, and with the Russian interesHn_Sajnt-Simojiin,,the thirties^ But these were all subordinate or episodic concerns of an aristocracy still dominated by religious and aesthetic questions. Indeed, the only important socialist-style experiments on Russian soil during this period were the non-aristocratic communities of foreign sectarians, such as the Hutter-ites of southern Russia, who practiced a form of egalitarian communal living that has yet to be approached in the USSR.

A trend toward communalism among native sectarians was evidenced, however, in thei!|3oTw1tfrtheTppTaTa^

"?????????????

'seKIcTobshchykh). This sectadarjted_Jhe_ old

– ?~-,^v-.. ???? ??? jjiyunciii activities, inier-

preting St. Paul literally, this sect insisted that eachjnember was* actually" and literaljybutjpnejwtof a common body. All things were sHared iff common by the nine menanHthreewomen" in each commune; public confessions were conducted in order to excoriate infection from any part of the body; and each person in the community was given a function corresponding to some bodily organ. Abstract thought was the exclusive province of the thinker (myslennik); physical work, of "the hands"; and so on. In this way, no one was complete in and of himself; each onederiejodfid^gn thejamb,. munity. The "tidings of Zion" sect of the TKjiys reveals the same pre-????????? with a new ideal conception of society, insisting that the coming millennial kingdom should be divided into twelve inseparable parts and that each member of each kingdom should live in total equality. This form of social organization was to be accompanied by the divinization of nterr,"ffte rearrangement where necessary of his physical organs, and thephgic,aj enlargeraenipf the earth in order to accommodate his expandingphysical needs.

In this sameperiod one finds the first serious interest in social analysis

? and socialism among the "aristocratic intdl amp;cTu^sTTTieyTurHed" to social

T^migHrT^^"peaceful

vj political change. Russian thinkersot tnThfe'Weliolae'v^

develop a program of reform for the real world, gradually concluded that

the Decembrists had chosen the wrong field of battle. Political programs.

constitutions, projects, and so on, were merely an elegant form of deception that the bourgeoisie of England and France had devised for deceiving and enslaving their people. The most magnetic figures of the decadejall tended to reject j›olilisjal_reform as a subject worthy of consideration. Herzen,J3ehnsky, and Bakjinin all thought in terms of a socjaLrather than

a political transformation. All had briefperiods ofjdealizmg_theniUn^JsS as a possible instrument for-erecting socjaJTptrirm; but none of them ever idealized the forms of political.organization to be found in the liberal democracies of Western Europe. Whether one's vision of social transformation begaTn^Pliberating Slavs abroad or serfs at home, the ultimate objective remained that which a Serb explained to a radical itinerant Russian in the 1840's: the creation of a new type of human society in which men can live simply aijJgcjnmunicate WmTone SloThgJj^taneouslv "without anypolitlci^bez vsiakoi politiki).s