The main provisions of the theory of “Russian socialism” were developed by Alexander Ivanovich Herzen(1812-1870). The main thing for Herzen was the search for forms and methods of combining the abstract ideas of socialism with real social relations, ways of implementing the theoretical (“book”) principles of socialism. Herzen deeply experienced the suppression by the bourgeoisie of the uprising of the Parisian proletariat in June 1848 as a defeat of socialism in general: “The West is rotting,” “the philistinism is triumphant.” Soon (by 1849-1850) Herzen came to the conclusion that the country in which it is possible to combine socialist ideas with historical reality is Russia, where communal land ownership has been preserved.

The Russian peasant world, he argued, contains three principles that make it possible to carry out an economic revolution leading to socialism: 1) everyone’s right to land, 2) communal ownership of it, 3) secular management. These communal principles, embodying “elements of our everyday, immediate socialism,” wrote Herzen, hinder the development of the rural proletariat and make it possible to bypass the stage of capitalist development: “The man of the future in Russia is a man, just like in France a worker.”

In the 50s Herzen founded the Free Russian Printing House in London, where the newspaper “The Bell” was printed (since 1857), which was illegally imported into Russia.

According to Herzen, the abolition of serfdom while preserving the community would make it possible to avoid the sad experience of capitalist development in the West and move directly to socialism. “We,” wrote Herzen, “ Russian socialism we call that socialism that comes from the land and peasant life, from the actual allotment and the existing redistribution of fields, from communal ownership and communal management - and goes together with the workers' artel towards that economic justice, which socialism in general strives for and which science confirms."

Herzen considered the community that existed in Russia to be the basis, but by no means a ready-made cell of the future social order. He saw its main drawback in the absorption of the individual into the community.

The peoples of Europe, according to Herzen’s theory, developed two great principles, bringing each of them to extreme, flawed solutions: “The Anglo-Saxon peoples liberated the individual, denying the social principle, isolating man. The Russian people preserved the communal structure, denying personality, absorbing man.”

The main task, according to Herzen, is to combine individual rights with the communal structure: “To preserve the community and liberate the individual, to spread rural and volost self - government * on cities, on the state as a whole, while maintaining national unity, developing private rights and preserving the indivisibility of the land - this is the main question of the Russian revolution - the same as the question of great social liberation, the imperfect solutions of which so worry Western minds."

* Self management.

Herzen paid great attention to ways to implement the social revolution. In his works there are many judgments about the inevitability of the violent overthrow of capitalism: “No matter how much socialism pursues its question, it has no other solution than a crowbar and a gun.” However, Herzen was by no means a supporter of mandatory violence and coercion: “We do not believe that peoples cannot move forward except knee-deep in blood; we bow with reverence to the martyrs, but with all our hearts we wish that they did not exist.”

During the preparation period peasant reform in Russia, the Bell expressed hopes for the abolition of serfdom by the government on terms favorable to the peasants. But the same “Bell” said that if the freedom of the peasants is bought at the price of Pugachevism, then this is not too expensive a price to pay. The most rapid, unbridled development is preferable to maintaining the order of Nikolaev stagnation.

Herzen's hopes for a peaceful solution to the peasant question aroused objections from Chernyshevsky and other revolutionary socialists. Herzen answered them that Rus' should be called not “to the axe,” but to the brooms, in order to sweep away the dirt and rubbish that had accumulated in Russia.

“Having called for an ax,” Herzen explained, “you must master the movement, you must have organization, you must have a plan, strength and readiness to lay down your bones, not only grabbing the handle, but grabbing the blade when the ax diverges too much.” There is no such party in Russia; therefore, he will not call for an ax until “there remains at least one reasonable hope for a solution without an ax.”

In those same years, Herzen developed the idea of ​​electing and convening a nationwide, classless “Great Council” - a Constituent Assembly to abolish serfdom, legitimize the propaganda of socialist ideas, and the legitimate struggle against autocracy. "Whatever first Constituent Assembly, first parliament, - he emphasized, “we will receive freedom of speech, discussion and legal ground under our feet.” Starting with Herzen, the idea of ​​a Constituent Assembly became an organic part of the social-revolutionary and democratic ideology of Russia.

Disappointment with the results of the reform of 1861 strengthened Herzen's revolutionary sentiments. However, it was clear to him that if with the help of revolutionary violence it is possible to abolish autocracy and the remnants of serfdom, then it is impossible to build socialism in this way: “With violence you can destroy and clear a place - no more. With Petrograndism* the social revolution goes beyond the convict equality of Gracchus Babeuf and the communist corvée of Cabet will do." In the article “To an Old Comrade” (1869-1870), Herzen argues with Bakunin, who continued to mistake destructive passion for creative passion.”** “Does civilization with a whip, liberation with a guillotine constitute the eternal necessity of every step forward?”

* Petrograndism is the transformation of society by state power using violent methods, like Peter I (the Great).

** Herzen alludes to an article by Bakunin (under the pseudonym Jules Elizard) in the German Yearbook for 1842, which ends with the phrase: “The passion for destruction is at the same time a creative passion!”

The state, church, capitalism and property are condemned in the scientific community in the same way as theology, metaphysics and so on, Herzen wrote; however, outside of academia, they command many minds. "(It is just as impossible to bypass the question of understanding as it is to bypass the question of strength."

From the ruins of the bourgeois world, destroyed by violence, some other bourgeois world arises again. An attempt to quickly, on the fly, without looking back, move from the current state to the final results will lead to defeats; A revolutionary strategy must look for the shortest, most convenient and possible paths to the future. “By walking forward without looking back, you can squeeze in like Napoleon into Moscow - and die retreating from it.”

Herzen paid special attention to the “international union of workers” (i.e. MTR, International) as “the first network and the first shoot of the future economic structure.” The International and other unions of workers "must become a free parliament of the fourth state." “Their serious nature,” Herzen wrote about the MTR congresses, “struck the enemies. Strong their peace frightened the manufacturers and breeders."

In the theory of “Russian socialism” by Herzen, the problems of state, law, and politics were considered as subordinate to the main ones - social and economic problems. Herzen attributed the era of purely political revolutions to the past stages of history; transformations of state forms and constitutional charters have exhausted themselves. Herzen has many opinions that the state does not have its own content at all - it can serve both reaction and revolution, depending on which side has the power. The Committee of Public Safety destroyed the monarchy, the revolutionary Danton was the Minister of Justice, the autocratic tsar initiated the liberation of the peasants. “Lassalle wanted to use this state power,” Herzen wrote, “to introduce a social order. Why, he thought, break the mill when its millstones can grind our flour too?”

The view of the state as something secondary in relation to the economy and culture of society in Herzen’s reasoning is directed against the ideas of Bakunin, who considered the primary task of destroying the state. “An economic revolution,” Herzen objected to Bakunin, “has an immense advantage over all religious and political revolutions.” The state, like slavery, wrote Herzen (referring to Hegel), is moving towards freedom, towards self-destruction; however, the state “cannot be thrown off like dirty rags until a certain age.” "From the fact that the state is a form transient, - Herzen emphasized, “it does not follow that this form is already past."

Herzen envisioned the future society as a union of associations (from the bottom up) of self-governing communities: “The rural community represents for us a cell that contains in embryo a state structure based on self-legality, on a world gathering, with an electoral administration and an elected court. This cell will not remain isolated, it forms a fiber or fabric with the adjacent communities, their connection - the volost - also manages its affairs and at the same elective basis."

A prominent theorist and propagandist of the ideas of “Russian socialism” was also Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky(1828-1889). One of the leaders of the Sovremennik magazine in 1856-1862, Chernyshevsky, devoted a number of articles to the systematic presentation and popularization of the idea of ​​​​the transition to socialism through the peasant community, with the help of which, in his opinion, Russia could avoid the “ulcer of the proletariat.”

In the article “Criticism of Philosophical Prejudices against Communal Ownership,” Chernyshevsky sought to prove, on the basis of Hegel’s law of the negation of the negation, the need to preserve the community and its development into a higher organization (according to the triad: primitive communalism - private property system - collectivist or communist society). For developed countries, “which have lost all consciousness of the former communal life and are only now beginning to return to the idea of ​​the partnership of workers in production,” Chernyshevsky, in the article “Capital and Labor,” outlined a plan for organizing production partnerships with the help of a loan from the government, assigning one year to a new partnership experienced director. The organization of production and agricultural partnerships was very similar to Fourier's phalanxes, and the plan for their creation was set out close to the ideas of Louis Blanc.

Herzen called Chernyshevsky one of the outstanding representatives of the theory of not Russian, but “purely Western socialism.” Chernyshevsky indeed often referred to the ideas of Fourier, Leroux, Proudhon, Louis Blanc and other Western European socialists. However, the core of Chernyshevsky’s theory was the idea of ​​​​communal socialism in Russia developed by Herzen. In turn, Herzen’s thoughts about the transition of the West (where the community did not survive) to socialism through the “workers’ artel” essentially coincided with the ideas of Western European socialists and Chernyshevsky. Disputes between Herzen and Chernyshevsky on individual problems did not go beyond disagreements within one direction, and the general goal was clearly formulated by Herzen: “The great task, the solution of which falls on Russia, is the development of folk elements through the organic development of the science of society developed by the West.” .

Chernyshevsky, along with Herzen, is deservedly considered the founder of the theory of “Russian socialism.”

Herzen, for all the originality and depth of his thinking and great literary talent, was not inclined to a methodical, popular and systematic presentation of his socio-political ideas. His works are not always complete; they often contain not conclusions, but reflections, sketches of plans, polemical hints, individual thoughts, sometimes contradictory. According to the recollections of contemporaries, during their meeting in London (1859), Chernyshevsky even complained that Herzen had not put forward a certain political program - constitutional, or republican, or socialist. In addition, “The Bell” and other publications of the Free Russian Printing House were distributed illegally in Russia; Not everyone could familiarize themselves with the articles expounding the theory of “Russian socialism” in full. This theory became the property of all reading Russia through Sovremennik.

In Chernyshevsky’s articles, the ideas of the development of communal land ownership into social production, and then consumption, received a thorough, popular and thoroughly reasoned presentation in a manner and form that corresponded to the socio-political consciousness of the heterogeneous intelligentsia. Wide erudition, amazing efficiency and talent as a publicist, along with the acute socio-political orientation of his magazine, brought Chernyshevsky the glory of the ruler of the thoughts of the radically thinking youth of his time. A significant role in this was played by the revolutionary tone of Sovremennik, which occupied an extremely left-wing critical position in journalism during the period of preparation and implementation of the peasant reform.

Chernyshevsky considered it most desirable to change the civil institutions of the nation through reforms, since “historical events” such as those in the 17th century. occurred in England, and later in France, are too expensive for the state. However, for contemporary Russia, Chernyshevsky considered the path of reform impossible. Using the terminology of N.A. Dobrolyubov, he defined autocracy with its bureaucratic apparatus and predilection for the nobility as “tyranny,” “Asianism,” “bad governance,” which once gave rise to serfdom, and is now trying to change its form while preserving its essence.

In journalistic articles, in essays on the history of France, in reviews of various works, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov conducted anti-government revolutionary propaganda, using Aesopian language, parabolas, allusions and historical parallels. “If we had written in French or German,” Chernyshevsky explained to readers, “we would probably have written better.” The revolution was designated in the magazine as “a broad, original activity”, “important historical events that go beyond the ordinary order by which reforms are carried out”, etc.

The structure of power that would replace the overthrown autocracy was briefly discussed in the proclamation “Bow to the lordly peasants from their well-wishers” (1861), attributed to Chernyshevsky. This proclamation approved countries in which the people's elder (in foreign language - president) is elected for a term, as well as kingdoms where the king (like the British and French) does not dare to do anything without the people and shows obedience to all the people.

In Sovremennik, Chernyshevsky argued that political forms are important “only in relation to the economic side of the matter, as a means of helping economic reforms or delaying them.” At the same time, he noted that “no important news can establish itself in society without a preliminary theory and without the assistance of public power: it is necessary to explain the needs of the time, recognize the legitimacy of the new and give it legal protection.” It was obviously assumed that there would be a government responsible to the people that would ensure the transition to socialism and communism.

The need for a state, according to Chernyshevsky, is generated by conflicts caused by the discrepancy between the level of production and the needs of people. As a result of the growth of production and the transition to distribution according to needs (the principle of Louis Blanc), conflicts between people will disappear, and thereby the need for the state. After a long transition period (at least 25-30 years), the future society will develop into a federation of self-government unions of agricultural communities, industrial agricultural associations, factories and plants that have become the property of workers. In the article “Economic Activity and Legislation,” Chernyshevsky, decrying the theory of bourgeois liberalism, argued that state non-interference in economic activity is ensured only by replacing the private property system with communal ownership, which is “completely alien and contrary to the bureaucratic system.”

The Sovremennik criticized Western European liberal theories and developing constitutionalism. “All constitutional amenities,” wrote Chernyshevsky, “have very little value for a person who has neither the physical means nor the mental development for these desserts of a political kind.” Referring to the economic dependence of workers, Chernyshevsky argued that the rights and freedoms proclaimed in Western countries are generally a deception: “Right, understood by economists in an abstract sense, was nothing more than a ghost, capable only of keeping the people in the torment of an ever-deceived hope.”

The negative attitude of the theorists of “Russian socialism” towards formal equality and parliamentarism subsequently contributed greatly to the fundamentally negative attitude of the populists (until 1879) towards the political struggle, towards constitutional rights and freedoms.

After the abolition of serfdom, there was a decline in the spread and development of the ideas of “Russian socialism”. About the decade 1863-1873. Lavrov (see below) wrote that it was “a dull, tedious and lifeless time.”

In 1873, the “going to the people” of hundreds and thousands of propagandists began, and the following year, took on a massive scale, calling on the peasants to overthrow the tsar, officials and police officers, to a communal structure and governance. In emigration, the publication of Russian literature of a social revolutionary direction has increased. By 1876, the populist organization “Land and Freedom” had formed. The ideological basis of populism was the theory of “Russian socialism”. In the process of implementing this theory, different directions were identified within populism, each with its own ideologists.

Anarchist theorist M. A. Bakunin was also a recognized ideologist of populism (see § 3). He believed that Russia and the Slavic countries in general could become the center of a nationwide, all-tribal, international social revolution. The Slavs, in contrast to the Germans, did not have a passion for state order and state discipline. In Russia, the state openly opposes the people: “Our people deeply and passionately hate the state, hate all its representatives, no matter in what form they appear before them.”

Bakunin noted that the Russian people have “the necessary conditions for a social revolution. They can boast of excessive poverty, as well as exemplary slavery. Their sufferings are endless, and they do not endure them patiently, but with deep and passionate despair, which has already been expressed twice historically.” , two terrible explosions: the rebellion of Stenka Razin and the Pugachev revolt, and which has not ceased to manifest itself to this day in a continuous series of private peasant revolts."

Based on the basic principles of the theory of “Russian socialism,” Bakunin believed that the basis of the Russian folk ideal were three main features: first, the land belongs to the people; secondly, the right to use it not by an individual, but by an entire community, the world; thirdly (no less important than the two previous features), “community self-government and, as a result, a decidedly hostile attitude of the community towards the state.”

At the same time, Bakunin warned, the Russian folk ideal also has obscuring features that slow down its implementation: 1) patriarchy, 2) absorption of the person by the world, 3) faith in the Tsar. The Christian faith can be added as a fourth feature, Bakunin wrote, but in Russia this issue is not as important as in Western Europe. Therefore, social revolutionaries should not put the religious question at the forefront of propaganda, since religiosity among the people can only be killed by social revolution. Its preparation and organization is the main task of the friends of the people, educated youth, calling the people to a desperate rebellion. “We need to suddenly raise all the villages.” This task, Bakunin noted, is not easy.

A general popular uprising in Russia is hampered by the isolation of communities, the solitude and disunity of peasant local worlds, wrote Bakunin. It is necessary, observing the most pedantic caution, to connect with each other the best peasants of all villages, volosts, and, if possible, regions, to establish the same living connection between factory workers and peasants. Bakunin came up with the idea of ​​a national newspaper to promote revolutionary ideas and organize revolutionaries.

Calling on educated youth to promote, prepare and organize a nationwide revolt, Bakunin emphasized the need to act according to a clearly thought-out plan, on the basis of the strictest discipline and secrecy. At the same time, the organization of social revolutionaries must be hidden not only from the government, but also from the people, since the free organization of communities should emerge as a result of the natural development of social life, and not under any external pressure. Bakunin sharply condemned doctrinaires who sought to impose on the people political and social schemes, formulas and theories developed outside the life of the people. Related to this are his rude attacks against Lavrov, who put the task of scientific propaganda at the forefront and envisioned the creation of a revolutionary government to organize socialism.

Bakunin's followers were called "rebels" in the populist movement. They began to circulate among the people, trying to clarify the consciousness of the people and induce them to spontaneous rebellion. The failure of these attempts led to the fact that the Bakuninist rebels were supplanted (but not supplanted) by “propagandists” or “Lavrists”, whose task was not to push the people to revolution, but to systematically revolutionary propaganda, enlightenment, and train conscious fighters for the social revolution in the countryside.

Petr Lavrovich Lavrov (1823-1900) from 1873 in exile he published the magazine “Forward!” He wrote a number of works that propagated the theory of “Russian socialism.” Lavrov highly valued science and sought to substantiate the theory of socialism with the latest achievements of political economy, sociology and natural sciences. “Only the successes of biology and psychology,” Lavrov asserted, “prepared in our century the correct formulation of the questions of scientific socialism.” He assessed Marx’s theory as “the great theory of the fatal economic process,” especially for its criticism of Western European capitalism, which corresponds to the aspirations of Russian socialists to bypass this stage of development in Russia.

A well-known contribution to the theory of “Russian socialism” was the “formula of progress” derived by Lavrov:"Development of the individual in physical, mental and moral terms; embodiment of truth and justice in social forms."

Socialism in Russia, Lavrov wrote, was prepared by its economic system (communal land use) and will be achieved as a result of a widespread popular revolution, which will create a “people's federation of Russian revolutionary communities and artels.”

Unlike Bakunin, Lavrov considered the state an evil that cannot be destroyed immediately, but can only be brought “to a minimum incomparably less than the minimums that previous history represented.” The state will be reduced to a "bare minimum" as moral education society, affirmation of solidarity (the less solidarity in a society, the more powerful the state element).

Lavrov defined the main provisions (“battle cry”) of workers’ socialism as follows: "End the exploitation of man by man.

Ending the control of man by man.

In the last formula, of course, the word “management” should be understood not in the sense of the voluntary subordination of one person in this case to the leadership of another, Lavrov explained, but in the sense coercive power one person over another."

Polemicizing with Tkachev’s “Jacobin theory” (see below), Lavrov wrote that “every dictatorship spoils the best people... A dictatorship can only be wrested from the hands of dictators by a new revolution.” And yet, to build socialism, according to Lavrov, state power is necessary as a form of leadership of collective activity and the use of violence against the internal enemies of the new system.

The significant differences between Lavrov and Bakunin boiled down to the fact that while the former considered the state only a means to achieve social goals, the latter noticed the tendency of the state to become an end in itself; Bakunin’s objections, as noted, were also caused by Lavrov’s intention to build a new society according to the developed scientific plan, prefacing the people’s revolution with an indefinitely long period of propaganda.

He was also a theorist of populism Petr Nikitich Tkachev(1844-1885). Since 1875, he published (in Geneva) the magazine "Alarm" with the epigraph: "Now, or very soon, perhaps - never!"

Unlike other populists, Tkachev argued that forms of bourgeois life were already emerging in Russia, destroying the “principle of community.” Today the state is a fiction that has no roots in people’s life, Tkachev wrote, but tomorrow it will become constitutional and will receive the powerful support of the united bourgeoisie. Therefore, we must not waste time on propaganda and preparing the revolution, as the “propagandists” (Lavrov’s supporters) suggest. “Such moments are not frequent in history,” Tkachev wrote about the state of Russia. “To miss them means to voluntarily delay the possibility of social revolution for a long time, perhaps forever.” “The revolutionary does not prepare, but “makes” the revolution.” At the same time, Tkachev considered it useless to call the people to revolt, especially in the name of communism, which is alien to the ideals of the Russian peasantry. Contrary to the opinion of the “rebels” (Bakunin’s supporters), anarchy is the ideal of the distant future; it is impossible without first establishing the absolute equality of people and educating them in the spirit of universal brotherhood. Now anarchy is an absurd and harmful utopia.

The task of revolutionaries, according to Tkachev, is to speed up the process of social development; “It can accelerate only when the advanced minority has the opportunity to subordinate the rest of the majority to its influence, that is, when it seizes state power into its own hands.”

A party of mentally and morally developed people, i.e. minority must gain material strength through a violent coup, Tkachev argued. “The immediate goal of the revolution should be the seizure of political power, the creation of a revolutionary state. But the seizure of power, being a necessary condition for the revolution, is not yet a revolution. It is only its prelude. The revolution is carried out by a revolutionary state.”

Tkachev explained the need for a revolutionary state led by a minority party by the fact that communism is not the popular ideal of the peasantry in Russia. The historically established system of the peasant community creates only the preconditions for communism, but the path to communism is unknown and alien to the people's ideal. This path is known only to the minority party, which, with the help of the state, must correct the backward ideas of the peasantry about the people's ideal and lead it along the road to communism. "The people are not able to build such a new world“, which would be able to progress, develop in the direction of the communist ideal,” Tkachev wrote, “therefore, in building this new world, he cannot and should not play any outstanding, leading role. This role and this significance belong exclusively to the revolutionary minority."

Tkachev disputed the widespread opinion among populists about the corrupting influence of power on statesmen: Robespierre, Danton, Cromwell, Washington, having had power, did not become any worse for it; as for the Napoleons and Caesars, they were corrupted long before they came to power. According to Tkachev, a sufficient guarantee of serving the good of the people will be the communist beliefs of members of the ruling party.

With the help of the revolutionary state, the ruling party will suppress the overthrown classes, re-educate the conservative majority in the communist spirit and carry out reforms in the field of economic, political, and legal relations (“revolution from above”). Among these reforms, Tkachev named the gradual transformation of communities into communes, the socialization of the instruments of production, the elimination of intermediation in exchange, the elimination of inequality, the destruction of the family (based on inequality), the development of community self-government, the weakening and abolition of the central functions of state power.

The social revolutionary party "Land and Freedom", organized in 1876, fundamentally rejected the struggle for political rights and freedoms, for the constitution. Populist Stepnyak-Kravchinsky wrote (in 1878) that socialist revolutionaries could hasten the fall of the government, but would not be able to take advantage of constitutional freedom, since political freedom would strengthen the bourgeoisie (owners of capital) and give it the opportunity to unite into a strong party against the socialists. Hope remains only for a socio-economic revolution. In addition, among the socialist revolutionaries of the time of the Land and Freedom party, there was a widespread negative attitude towards formal law as a bourgeois deception. Chernyshevsky's reasoning became widely known. “Neither me nor you, reader,” he wrote, addressing the readers of Sovremennik, “is forbidden to dine on gold service; unfortunately, neither you nor I have and probably never will have the means to satisfy this elegant idea; therefore, I frankly say that I do not value at all my right to have a gold service and am ready to sell this right for one ruble in silver or even cheaper. All those rights that liberals are fussing about are exactly the same for the people."

The government’s organized and tireless persecution of socialists, exiles, expulsions, trials in cases of “revolutionary propaganda in the empire” forced the populists to raise the question of the need to first conquer political freedoms, which would make it possible to conduct socialist propaganda. In 1879, “Land and Freedom” split into two parties: “Narodnaya Volya” (recognized the need for political struggle) and “Black Redistribution” (remained in its previous positions). In this regard, one of the leaders of “Narodnaya Volya” Kibalchich wrote about three categories of socialists: some adhere to Jacobin tendencies, strive to seize state power and decree a political and economic revolution (“Alarm” by Tkachev); others (“Black Redistribution”) deny the significance of political forms and reduce everything to the economic sphere; the third ("Narodnaya Volya") provide a synthesis of both, based on the connection and interaction of economics and politics, stand for a political revolution based on the overdue economic revolution, for the unity of action of the people and the social revolutionary party.

The theory of “Russian socialism” and populism were widely known throughout Europe. A number of populists were members of the Geneva section of the First International (mostly “Laurists”) and supported Marx’s struggle against Bakunin and the Bakuninists. The hostile relationship between Herzen and Marx, and then the rivalry between Marx and Bakunin for dominance in the First International, left an imprint on a number of Marx’s judgments about populism as the desire to “leap at one fell swoop into an anarchist-communist-atheist paradise.” However, a thorough solution by the theory of “Russian socialism” to the question posed by Fourier about the possibility of transition from lower stages of social development to higher ones, bypassing capitalism, required a well-founded analysis and assessment of this theory. In a number of published works, Marx and Engels (in the preface to the 1882 Russian edition of the Communist Manifesto, in Engels’ response to Tkachev’s polemical article in 1875, etc.) wrote that Russian communal land ownership could become the starting point of communist development under conditional on the victory in Western Europe of the proletarian revolution, which will provide the Russian peasantry with the material means and other conditions necessary for such development.

Populist ideas underlay the program of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (Socialist Revolutionaries, 1901-1923). The party set the task of overthrowing the tsarist government and considered armed uprising and terrorist actions to be one of the main means of combating it, i.e. murders and attempts on the lives of responsible representatives of this government.

The programmatic demands of the Socialist Revolutionary Party were the establishment of a democratic republic, broad autonomy for certain regions of the country, a federal structure of the state, the right of nationalities to freedom of development and cultural autonomy. The program provided for universal suffrage, election of officials for a certain period of time and the right to “replace” them by the people, full civil equality, separation of church and state, universal equal and compulsory education at state expense, and replacement of the standing army with a people's militia. To implement this program, the party demanded the convening of a Constituent Assembly, which, on behalf of the people, should establish a new political system.

In the socio-economic field, socialist revolutionaries were supporters of the socialization of the land, i.e. transferring it to the disposal of democratically organized local communities and cultivating the land with personal labor on the basis of equal land use. On the labor issue, the party demanded a reduction in the working day (no more than 8 hours), the introduction of state insurance for workers, freedom of professional associations, legislative labor protection, etc.

Recognizing the irreconcilable opposition between the class interests of the bourgeoisie and the working masses, the party set as its ultimate goal the abolition of private ownership of the forces of nature and the means of production, the elimination of the division of society into classes and the establishment of planned labor of all for the common benefit.

The Socialist Revolutionary Party carried out propaganda work in the countryside and in the city, persistently emphasizing that the working population is a single working class, the key to the liberation of which is the awareness of this unity; The party fundamentally rejected the opposition between the proletariat and the peasantry.

The motto of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was the words: “In the struggle you will find your right!”*

* See: Anthology of world political thought. In five volumes. T. V. Political documents. M., 1997. pp. 191-195.

In 1917, socialist revolutionaries actively contributed to the creation and development of the Soviets. Splits in the Socialist Revolutionary Party, the closure of the Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks in January 1918, in which the Socialist Revolutionaries had a majority, and then their exclusion from the Soviets and mass repressions after the events of July 1918 led to the liquidation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party.

History of Russia in the 18th-19th centuries Milov Leonid Vasilievich

§ 3. The origin of “Russian socialism”

European socialist ideas and Russian society. Second quarter of the 19th century. was a time of rapid spread of socialist ideas in Europe, which gained strength in France, England and the German lands. Varieties of socialism found expression in the writings of thinkers, politicians and fashionable writers. The works of Saint-Simon, F. R. Lamennais, C. Fourier, V. Considerant, E. Cabet, B. Disraeli, R. Owen, George Sand, and later C. Marx and P. J. Proudhon were included in the reading circle of the enlightened public . The socialist idea was simple and attractive. It was based on the denial of the principle of private property, criticism of bourgeois relations and belief in the possibility of building a society where there would be no exploitation of man by man. Such a society was called communist. The objective basis of interest in socialism was the deep contradictions characteristic of early bourgeois society, where free competition had no social restrictions, which gave rise to the deepest antagonism between rich and poor. The crisis of traditional society and the widespread collapse of the “old order” with their class definition were perceived by many contemporaries as convincing evidence of the need for new social relations.

The ideas of socialism penetrated into Russia. Denouncing the imitative nature of noble society, which was cut off from the Russian people by Peter's reforms, Khomyakov ridiculed the changeability of public sentiment from Catherine's to Nicholas's time. He correctly wrote about how the French-style encyclopedists were replaced by German-mystical humanists, whom “thirty-year-old socialists” are now ready to supplant. The founder of Slavophilism concluded: “It’s only sad to see that this instability is always ready to take upon itself the production of mental food for the people. It’s sad and funny, and, fortunately, it’s also dead, and that’s why it’s not grafted into life.” Khomyakov's assertion that socialism in Russia is dead, that its ideas are alien to the common people, was reckless. Chaadaev, who had amazing social insight, was more right when he asserted: “Socialism will win not because it is right, but because its opponents are wrong.”

The origin of interest in socialist teachings dates back to the early 1830s. and was associated with the attention with which the advanced strata of Russian society followed the revolutionary changes of 1830–1831. in Western Europe, when socialism first entered the political arena. In 1831, a circle was formed among the students of Moscow University, where the main role was played by A. I. Herzen and N. P. Ogarev. The views of young people, among whom were N. I. Sazonov, V. V. Passek, N. X. Ketcher, N. M Satin, were not distinguished by certainty; they preached “freedom and struggle in all four directions.” Members of the circle professed admiration for the ideals of the Decembrists and the French Revolution, rejected official patriotism, sympathized with the rebel Poles, and read Western European political literature. Three years after the establishment of the circle, its members, accused of singing “libel songs”, which the authorities considered the freedom-loving songs of Bérenger, were arrested and exiled. The circle of Herzen and Ogarev was the first to clearly show interest in the ideas of socialism, which were understood as “ the whole world new relationships between people." The members of the circle discussed the works of Fourier and Saint-Simon and, according to Ogarev, swore: “we will devote our whole lives to the people and their liberation, we will make socialism the basis.”

Young students were far from independently developing socialist ideas. Equally far from this were numerous Russian admirers of the novels of George Sand, who sang social equality and equal rights for women. At the same time, changes gradually took place in society, which gave I.V. Kireevsky the basis to declare that political issues that occupied the people of the previous generation were moving into the background and that progressive thinkers “stepped into the realm of social issues.”

V. G. Belinsky. V. G. Belinsky played an outstanding role in this process. A literary critic whose magazine debut occurred in the mid-thirties, he was a true ruler of the thoughts of young people. More than one generation was brought up on his articles. I. S. Aksakov admitted: “I traveled a lot around Russia: the name of Belinsky is known to every young man of any kind, to anyone thirsting for fresh air among the stinking swamp of provincial life.” In the censored press, Belinsky knew how to defend the ideas of true democracy, social justice and personal freedom. He was the first Russian publicist to talk about the importance of social issues, the future solution of which he linked with upholding the rights of a free individual: “What does it matter to me that the common life lives when the individual suffers.”

Belinsky's ideological evolution was not easy; he was characterized by extremes, a transition from one stage of development to another. He associated social changes, the need for which was obvious to him, either with the education of the people, or with autocratic initiative, or with revolutionary upheavals. At different times, he wrote enthusiastically about the Jacobins and Nicholas I. Belinsky's strength lay in his sincerity and ability to persuade. He met the beginning of the “wonderful decade” by reconciling himself with the Nikolaev reality, which he justified by misunderstanding Hegel’s formula “everything that is real is rational.” Having overcome “forced reconciliation,” Belinsky came to the idea of ​​“education in sociality.” His motto in the 1840s. became the words: “Sociality, sociality - or death!” From here Belinsky concluded: “But it’s ridiculous to think that this can happen by itself, with time, without violent coups, without blood.” His criticism of social relations of the past and present - “denial is my God” - is associated with faith in the golden age of the future. This faith naturally led to the idea of ​​socialism, which, as he admitted, “became for me the idea of ​​ideas, the being of being, the question of questions, the alpha and omega of faith and knowledge. Everything is from her, for her and to her.”

Belinsky's socialism is a dream of a great and free Russia, where there is neither serfdom nor autocratic tyranny. His socialist idea also included criticism of bourgeois society, which he conducted from democratic and patriotic positions: “It is not good for the state to be in the hands of capitalists, and now I will add: woe to the state, which is in the hands of capitalists, these are people without patriotism. For them, war or peace means only the rise and fall of funds - beyond that they see nothing.”

Belinsky was greatly influenced by the ideas of Christian socialism. He wrote: “There will be no rich, there will be no poor, no kings and subjects, but there will be brothers, there will be people, and, according to the verb of the Apostle Paul, Christ will surrender his power to the Father, and the Father-Reason will reign again, but in the new heaven and over the new land."

In 1847, shortly before his death, Belinsky wrote the famous Salzbrunn letter to Gogol, which became his political testament. Criticizing Gogol’s “fantastic book”, his “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,” which contained a justification of despotism and serfdom, Belinsky spoke about the honorable role of Russian writers, in whom society sees “its only leaders, defenders and saviors from the darkness of autocracy, Orthodoxy and nationality " He described Nikolaev Russia as a country where “people trade in people,” where “not only are there no guarantees for personality, honor and property, but there is not even police order, but there are only huge corporations of various official thieves and robbers.” Rejecting Gogol’s religious and political instructions, he wrote that Russia “needs not sermons (she has heard them enough!), not prayers (she has repeated them enough!), but the awakening in the people of a sense of human dignity, lost for so many centuries in dirt and dung, of rights and laws consistent not with the teachings of the church, but with common sense and justice, and their strict implementation, if possible.”

For reading this letter aloud, Dostoevsky was sentenced to death. Belinsky’s final conclusion gives reason to see in him, first of all, a strong defender of law and civil dignity, those values ​​that united Russian liberalism and Russian democracy: “The most living, modern national issues in Russia now: the abolition of serfdom, the abolition of corporal punishment, the introduction, if possible, of strict enforcement of those laws that already exist.”

Belinsky was a merciless exposer of not only official ideology, but also Slavophilism. Westerners considered him one of “ours.” But Herzen’s confession is noteworthy: “Except for Belinsky, I disagreed with everyone.” In the philosophical debates that people waged in the forties, Belinsky was inferior to many, but his conviction in the need to strive for practical action made him, in the words of I. S. Turgenev, the “central nature” of his time. Under the influence of communication with Belinsky, Herzen wrote: “I was lost (following the example of the 19th century) in the sphere of thinking, and now I have again become active and alive to the nails, my very anger restored me in all practical prowess, and, what’s funny, in this very point we met Vissarion and became each other’s partisans. Never more vividly have I felt the need to translate, no, develop philosophy into life.” In the public life of Russia, Herzen and Belinsky really occupied a special position, acting as heralds of the ideas of socialism. They had few direct followers. These include N.P. Ogarev and M.A. Bakunin.

Petrashevites circle. The establishment of socialist ideas in Russia was facilitated by M. V. Butashevich-Petrashevsky, a graduate of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, who served as a translator at the St. Petersburg customs. His duties included inspecting foreign books imported into Russia, which gave him the opportunity to compile a rich library that included socialist literature. In the mid-1840s. Progressive youth began to gather in his apartment - officials, officers, students, writers. They read books, some of which were banned in Russia, discussed them and made attempts to apply what they read to Russian reality. Many famous people attended Petrashevsky’s “Fridays”: writers M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, F. M. Dostoevsky, A. N. Maikov, A. N. Pleshcheev, N. G. Chernyshevsky, artist P. A. Fedotov. In addition to Petrashevsky, a prominent role was played by people from his inner circle: S. F. Durov, N. A. Speshnev, D. D. Akhsharumov, N. S. Kashkin. The propaganda of socialist ideas among students at St. Petersburg University was carried out by N. Ya. Danilevsky, the future author of the book “Russia and Europe.”

The “Pocket Dictionary of Foreign Words”, which Petrashevsky conceived, served to disseminate advanced ideas. It explained the words key to understanding the systems of Fourier and Saint-Simon, and explained the ideals of the French Revolution. One of Petrashevsky’s followers recalled: “Petrashevsky greedily grabbed the opportunity to disseminate his ideas with the help of a book that seemed completely insignificant; he expanded its entire plan, adding proper names to ordinary nouns, introduced with his power into the Russian language such foreign words that no one had used before - all this in order to set out under different headings the foundations of socialist teachings and list the main articles of the constitution , proposed by the first French constituent assembly, to make a poisonous criticism of the current state of Russia and indicate the titles of some works of such writers as Saint-Simon, Fourier, Holbach, Cabet, Louis Blanc."

The direction of Petrashevsky's circle was socialist. The head of the circle, as the investigative commission later noted, “brought his visitors to the point that, if not all of them became socialists, they already received new views and convictions on many things and left his meetings more or less shocked in their beliefs and inclined towards a criminal direction.” "

For Petrashevsky, socialism was not “a whimsical invention of a few whimsical heads, but the result of the development of all mankind.” Among socialist systems, he gave preference to Fourier's teaching, where the main emphasis was on the social organization of labor, social harmony and the full satisfaction of the material and spiritual needs of the individual. Fourier believed in the power of example and in the peaceful transition to socialist relations. He promoted phalanstery - a cell of the future, and Petrashevites made attempts to introduce phalanstery in Russia. The Russian Fourierists were more radical than Fourier, and at a dinner dedicated to his memory, Petrashevsky said: “We have condemned real social life to death, we must carry out our sentence.” Akhsha-rumov spoke there, whimsically combining a beautiful utopia, destructive principles and conviction in the proximity of socialist changes, which will begin in Russia: “Destroy capitals, cities and use all their materials for other buildings, and this whole life of torment, disasters, transform poverty, shame, disgrace into a luxurious, harmonious life, fun, wealth, happiness, and cover the entire poor land with palaces, fruits and decorate it with flowers - this is our goal. Here, in our country, we will begin the transformation, and the whole earth will finish it. Soon the human race will be freed from unbearable suffering.”

Among the “Fridays” participants there were vague conversations about the need for reforms, which meant both “a change of government” and the improvement of the court, the abolition of class privileges. They talked about the structure of Russia on a federal basis, when individual peoples would live based on their “laws, customs and rights.”

The Petrashevites rejected official patriotism and condemned the country where life and air were “poisoned by slavery and despotism.” Nicholas I was especially hated - “not a man, but a monster.” Petrashevites criticized everything: the government and the bureaucratic apparatus, legislation and the judicial system. They believed that “Russia is rightly called the classic country of bribery.” They considered serfdom to be the main evil of Russian life, when “tens of millions suffer, are burdened by life, and are deprived of the rights of humanity.” They saw the abolition of serfdom as a measure that the government itself was obliged to take. Petrashevsky stood for reforms carried out from above, but in the circle there was talk of a “general explosion.” Petrashevites believed that everything “depends on the people.” The radically minded Speshnev argued that the future revolution would be a people's revolution. peasant uprising and serfdom will cause him. He even developed a plan to “cause a rebellion within Russia through a peasant uprising.” Few shared his point of view.

Under the impression of the European events of 1848, some members of the circle, whose “Fridays” were open in nature, conceived the idea of ​​creating secret society. They saw their goal as “without sparing themselves, to take full open participation in the uprising and fight.” The matter did not go further than talk, and later the investigation admitted that “Petrashevsky’s meetings did not constitute an organized secret society.”

In the spring of 1849, the main participants in Petrashevsky’s meetings were arrested. The authorities were well informed about what happened on “Fridays” and decided to put a limit to dangerous conversations. The investigation into the Petrashevites case revealed a clash of interests between two departments: the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which insisted on uncovering a serious anti-government conspiracy, and III Division, whose officials spoke of a “conspiracy of ideas.” The verdict of the military court was harsh: 21 people, including Petrashevsky and Dostoevsky, were sentenced to death, which at the last minute was replaced by hard labor. The main points of the accusation were plans to overthrow the state structure and to “completely transform social life.” It is curious that Danilevsky, who did not hide his participation in the propaganda of Fourierism, was punished mildly because he avoided talking about political topics. The ideas of socialism themselves did not seem dangerous to the Nikolaev authorities.

Spiritual drama by A. I. Herzen. After 1848, the interest of Russian society in the ideas of socialism did not decrease. Herzen was a direct witness to the revolutionary events in France: the overthrow of King Louis-Philippe, the proclamation of the republic, the coming to power of successive representatives of the interests of the class, which he called “philistinism” and which in reality was the bourgeoisie. He welcomed the collapse of the old order in Europe, the guarantors of which were Nicholas I and Metternich. However, the further development of the revolution became a shock for Herzen, his spiritual drama. He saw how the new authorities limited the rights of the common people, how the Republican General Cavaignac shot a peaceful demonstration of Parisian workers putting forward social demands. Herzen became disillusioned with the political revolution and the “philistine civilization” of the West; he became entrenched in the idea of ​​the opposite paths of development of Russia and Europe. Spiritual drama did not mean disappointment in the ideals of socialism.

For Herzen, the European revolutionary upheavals became a prologue, a rehearsal for the future. In 1850, he addressed the Slavophiles as if on behalf of the Westerners: “Any day can overturn the dilapidated social building of Europe and drag Russia into the turbulent stream of a huge revolution. Is it time to prolong a family quarrel and wait for events to get ahead of us, because we have not prepared either the advice or the words that perhaps are expected of us? Don't we have an open field for reconciliation? And socialism, which so decisively, so deeply divides Europe into two hostile camps - is it not recognized by the Slavophiles just as it is by us? This is a bridge where we can give each other a hand.”

While building the building of “Russian socialism,” Herzen, cut off from Russia, was mistaken about the Westerners and Slavophiles. Socialism was alien to Khomyakov and Granovsky, Samarin and Kavelin. The peasant community, “discovered” by the Slavophiles, was not for them a prerequisite for socialism, as for Herzen, but a condition that excluded the emergence of a proletariat in Russia. Herzen and the Slavophiles were united by their belief in the inviolability of communal foundations. Herzen was sure: “It is impossible to destroy the rural community in Russia unless the government decides to exile or execute several million people.”

Community socialism. He wrote about this in the article “Russia”, in a series of works created at the height of Nikolaev’s “dark seven years”. Having borrowed a lot from the Slavophiles, Herzen turned to the community that has existed in Russia “from time immemorial” and thanks to which the Russian people are closer to socialism than the European peoples: “I see no reason why Russia must necessarily undergo all phases of European development, without I also see why the civilization of the future must necessarily be subject to the same conditions of existence as the civilization of the past.” This statement is the essence of Herzen’s “Russian” or communal socialism. For Herzen, the peasant community was the guarantee of the moral health of the Russian people and the condition for their great future. The Russian people “have preserved only one fortress, which has remained impregnable for centuries - their land community, and because of this they are closer to the social revolution than to the political revolution. Russia comes to life as a people, the last in a series of others, still full of youth and activity, in an era when other peoples dream of peace; he appears proud of his strength, in an era when other nations feel tired and at sunset.”

Herzen wrote: “We call Russian socialism that socialism that comes from the land and peasant life, from the actual allotment and the existing redistribution of fields, from communal ownership and communal management - and comes together with the workers' artel towards the economic justice to which socialism in general strives and which science confirms.”

Following the Slavophiles, he understood the economic principles of the peasant land community as equality and mutual assistance, the absence of exploitation, as a guarantee that “a rural proletariat is impossible in Russia.” He especially emphasized that communal land ownership is opposed to the principle of private property and, therefore, can be the basis for building a socialist society. He wrote: “The rural community represents, so to speak, a social unit, a moral personality; the state should never have encroached on it; the community is the owner and subject to taxation; she is responsible for each and every individual, and therefore is autonomous in everything that concerns her internal affairs.” Herzen believed it was possible to extend the principles of community self-government to city residents and the state as a whole. He proceeded from the fact that communal rights would not limit the rights of private individuals. Herzen was building a social utopia; it was a type of European utopian consciousness. At the same time, this was an attempt to develop an original socialist doctrine based on the absolutization of the historical and socio-political characteristics of Russia. Over time, based on Herzen’s constructions, theories of Russian, or communal, socialism developed, which became the essence of populist views.

Herzen paid special attention to the destruction of obstacles that prevent us from moving “toward socialism.” By them he understood imperial power, which since the time of Peter I has brought political and social antagonism into Russian life, and landowner serfdom, a “shameful scourge” weighing down on the Russian people. He considered the primary task to be the liberation of the peasants, subject to the preservation and strengthening of communal land ownership. He suggested that the initiative in liberation should be taken either by the Russian nobility or by the government, but more often he spoke about the liberating nature of the future social revolution. Here his views were not consistent.

Free Russian printing house. In 1853 he founded the Free Russian Printing House in London. He said: “If I do nothing more, then this initiative of Russian glasnost will someday be appreciated.” The first publication of this printing house was an appeal to the Russian nobility “Yuriev Day! St. George's Day! ”, in which Herzen proclaimed the need to liberate the peasants. He was afraid of Pugachevism and, turning to the nobles, he invited them to think about the benefits of “liberating the peasants with land and with your participation.” He wrote: “Prevent great disasters while it is in your will. Save yourself from serfdom and the peasants from the blood that they will have to shed. Have pity on your children, have pity on the conscience of the poor Russian people.”

Outlining the foundations of the new teaching - communal socialism, Herzen explained: “The word socialism is unknown to our people, but its meaning is close to the soul of the Russian man, who is living out his life in the rural community and in the workers’ artel.” In the first work of the free Russian press, the foresight was expressed: “In socialism, Rus' will meet revolution.” In those years, Herzen himself was far from believing in the imminent onset of revolutionary events in Russia, and his addressee, the Russian nobility, thought even less about it. In another leaflet, “Brothers in Rus',” he called on the noble society and all progressive people to take part in the common cause of liberation. In Nikolaev's time, this vague call was not heard.

Herzen was the first to declare the possibility of victory in Russia for the socialist revolution, which he understood as a people's, peasant revolution. He was the first to point out that it was Russia that was destined to lead the path to socialism, along which, as he believed, the rest of the European nations would follow. At the heart of Herzen’s foresight: rejection of Western “philistinism” and idealization of the Russian community. His teaching, the foundations of which he outlined in the last years of Nicholas's reign, was a notable stage in the development of European socialist thought. It testified both to the commonality of the ideological quest that took place in Russia and Western Europe, and to the futility of the efforts of Nicholas’ ideologists, and to the collapse of Nicholas’ ideocracy.

From a historical perspective, the desire of Nicholas I and his ideologists to establish complete control over society was fruitless. It was during his reign that the liberal and revolutionary socialist directions of the liberation movement arose and took ideological shape, the development and interaction of which soon began to determine the fate of Russian thought, the state of public life and, ultimately, the fate of Russia.

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§ 5. Political and legal ideology of “Russian socialism” (populism) The main provisions of the theory of “Russian socialism” were developed by Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (1812-1870). The main thing for Herzen was the search for forms and methods of combining abstract ideas of socialism with real ones

In the 30s, they talked a lot and enthusiastically about utopian socialism in Russia, but the transfer of European socialism to Russian soil was carried out by A.I. Herzen (1812-1870) and N.P. Ogarev (1813-1877), who with good reason can be considered the founders of “Russian socialism”.

Initially, the ideas of the founders of “Russian socialism” about the upcoming social reorganization were very vague and not devoid of religious overtones. But already in the early 40s, their socialist views were formalized conceptually and moved from letters and diaries into philosophical journalism, becoming a fact of public consciousness. Taking the baton from the Decembrists, Herzen and Ogarev directed liberation thought in a new direction. By combining it with the ideas of socialism, they created a unique historiosophical construct - “Russian socialism”, which was a response to certain requests for national spiritual development and the result of a search for other paths than those followed by the post-revolutionary West.

The formation of the concept of “Russian socialism” took place under the significant influence of disappointments in previous forms of socialist utopianism. Herzen and Ogarev acted as the most consistent and profound critics of capitalism. They rejected not only its socio-economic foundations, based on private ownership of the means of production, but also the entire way of life, which they called bourgeois philistinism, “unbridled acquisitions.” Criticism of capitalism naturally led to the idea of ​​Russia “leapfrogging” the bourgeois stage, which later took shape in the theory of non-capitalist development. The idea was supported, firstly, by references to objective socio-economic prerequisites, which were associated with the community, which was absent in the Western “formula” of development. A community capable of development and ensuring the free development of the individual was thought of as the foundation, the embryo of a future society. The community was seen as a social structure that could connect the present and future of the country with the least “costs” and at a faster pace. It is important that the significance of the achievements of Western civilization in this movement was not at all denied. The task, Herzen and Ogarev believed, was to, while preserving all the “universal human education” that had really taken root in Russia, to develop the “national principle” associated with “public property rights and self-government.” Secondly, statements in favor of Russia’s “leapfrog” through the capitalist phase of development were supported by references to the idea of ​​​​the advantage of “lagging behind” peoples.

The idea of ​​a “leap” found its historiosophical justification in Herzen’s philosophy of chance: the future belongs to Russia, but the very possibility of getting ahead is connected with the fact that the course of history is not as predetermined as is usually thought, for there are many changeable principles and, accordingly, possibilities of chance, due to why she is prone to “improvisation”. Socialism in an economically backward country may well be the result of such improvisation. The idea of ​​socialism in general, and of achieving it in Russia in particular, is based on this thesis - about the role of chance and the tendency of history to improvise. This “foundation” determined the most significant differences between “Russian socialism” both from Western socialist utopias and from other socialist models that became widespread in Russian social thought later.

“Russian socialism,” on the one hand, was undoubtedly “inspired” by the national and highly developed patriotic feelings of its founders, on the other hand, it obviously gravitated towards a rationalistic justification, which gave it the features of universality. And the founders of “Russian socialism” themselves did not at all deny paths to socialism other than through the peasant community. An essential feature of “Russian socialism” was the attempt to “build bridges” between the ideal and historical reality. It is important to note one more point: Herzen and Ogarev did not accept Western socialist utopias without criticism. Among the “absurdities” of these teachings they noted most often included the demand for regulation of individual life, the spirit of egalitarianism and leveling. The creators of “Russian socialism” themselves tried to rely on the humanism of Feuerbach’s anthropological philosophy and Hegel’s dialectics, which affirmed the original desire of history for a rational system.

Two years before his death, Herzen gave the following definition of “Russian socialism”: “We call Russian socialism that socialism that comes from the land and peasant life, from the actual allotment and the existing redistribution of fields, from communal ownership and communal management - and goes along with an artel of workers towards the economic justice to which socialism in general strives and which is confirmed by science.”

At the end of the 50s, the ideas of socialism were developed by N.G. Chernyshevsky (1828-1889). His views on the community and on the question of the fate of socialism in the West did not entirely coincide with Herzen’s concept. Chernyshevsky’s model is called “peasant, communal socialism.” The main thing in his theory was the economic justification of the socialist ideal. But even earlier, at the end of the 40s, V.A. Milyutin (1826-1855) wrote a lot about the importance of economic issues for socialist theory. Raising the question of overcoming the utopianism of socialist theories, he emphasized that the latter, if they want to be at the level of science, must solve, first of all, economic issues.

Chernyshevsky highly appreciated the works of Milyutin. Relying in his research on such classics as Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen, using the ideas of Godwin and some of the constructions of Louis Blanc, Chernyshevsky comes to the conclusion: socialism is the inevitable result of the socio-economic history of society along the path to collective ownership and the “principle of partnership” . In order to overcome “dogmatic anticipations of the future,” as he characterized socialist utopias, Chernyshevsky makes the historical process the subject of his research, trying to identify the mechanism of transition from the old to the new, from “today” to “tomorrow.” These searches lead him to the conviction that the transition is based on an objective pattern. Analysis of the historical process and economic development capitalist civilization led Chernyshevsky to the conclusion that the vector of the latter is the growth of large-scale industry and the increasing socialization of labor, which in turn must necessarily lead to the elimination of private property. Chernyshevsky was confident that there was no need to fear for the future fate of labor, since the inevitability of its improvement lies in the very development of productive processes. However, the conclusion reached did not shake his faith in the Russian community.

He associated his ideal of property with state ownership and communal ownership of land, which, in his opinion, “strengthens national wealth much better than private property.”4 But most importantly, they correspond to the liberation of the individual, for the basis of the latter is the union of worker and owner in one person.

For his ideas and ten years of active propaganda work, Chernyshevsky paid with 19 years of hard labor. Imprisoned in solitary confinement in the Peter and Paul Fortress before his sentencing, he wrote the novel “What is to be done?”, where he outlined the contours of the future society and brought out literary heroes who became the prototypes of those “new people” who, some time later, formed numerous detachments of Narodnaya Volya. The further evolution of Russian utopian socialism will be inextricably linked with their practical activities, and it itself will receive the name populist.

Thus, moving in line with utopian socialism, Chernyshevsky made a huge step forward compared to his predecessors. Firstly, in predicting the future he went beyond the boundaries of abstract dogmas and reasoning. Turning to political economy and studying the laws of history gave him some advantages in “drawing” the future society, in particular its socio-economic, spiritual and moral contours. For him, socialism is a type of organization of social life that gives independence to the individual person, so that in his feelings and actions he is more and more guided by his own impulses, and not by forms imposed from without. Secondly, having posed the question “What to do?”, Chernyshevsky gave his answer to it, linking the implementation of the socialist ideal with the peasant revolution, although carefully prepared by the propaganda of socialist ideas among the masses. A necessary condition for a successful popular revolution is its “proper direction,” which can only be carried out by organizations of revolutionaries capable of preparing the people for conscious revolutionary actions. Chernyshevsky, thus, opened the way for combining socialist theory with revolutionary practice - from a fact of social thought, socialism became a factor in the revolutionary struggle. The time of the revolutionary underground and active propaganda of socialist ideas began, a new period began in the development of Russian socialist utopian thought: the ideas of socialism were transferred to the level of applied developments, mostly related to the tactics and strategy of the revolutionary struggle. The socialist utopia has united with the Russian revolutionary liberation movement, and from now on they will act in the same stream.

In the 30s of the XIX century. ideas of utopian socialism begin to develop in Russia. Utopian socialism is understood as the totality of those teachings that expressed the idea of ​​the desirability and possibility of establishing a social system where there will be no exploitation of man by man and other forms of socialist inequality.

Utopian socialism differed from other utopias in that the idea of ​​general, true equality was born and developed in it. It was supposed to build this ideal society on the basis or taking into account the achievements of material and spiritual culture that bourgeois civilization brought with it. A new interpretation of the social ideal: coincidence, combination of personal and public interests. Socialist thought took special forms in Russia, developed by Russian thinkers who wanted to “adapt” the general principles of socialism to the conditions of their fatherland. The inconsistency was manifested primarily in the fact that the main form of utopian socialism in Russia naturally turned out to be peasant socialism (“Russian”, communal, populist), which acted as an ideological expression of the interests of revolutionary and democratic, but still bourgeois development.

The founder of Russian socialism was Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (1812-1870). Herzen associated his spiritual awakening with the Decembrist uprising. The “new world” that opened up to the fourteen-year-old boy was not yet clearly conscious. But this uprising awakened in Herzen’s soul the first, albeit still vague, revolutionary aspirations, the first thoughts about the struggle against injustice, violence, and tyranny.

“The awareness of the unreasonableness and cruelty of the autocratic political regime developed in Herzen an insurmountable hatred of all slavery and arbitrariness” 7.

Herzen was of great interest in the philosophy of history. In the early 40s he comes to the conclusion that where there is no philosophy as a science, there cannot be a solid, consistent philosophy of history. This opinion was associated with the idea of ​​philosophy that he formed as a result of his acquaintance with the philosophy of Hegel. He was not interested in the theoretical basis of philosophy; it interested him insofar as it could be applied in practice. Herzen found in Hegel's philosophy the theoretical basis for his enmity with the existing; he revealed the same thesis about the rationality of reality in a completely different way: if the existing social order is justified by reason, then the struggle against it is justified - this is a continuous struggle between the old and the new. As a result of studying Hegel's philosophy, Herzen came to the conclusion that: the existing Russian reality is unreasonable, therefore the struggle against it is justified by reason. Understanding modernity as a struggle of reason, embodied in science, against irrational reality, Herzen accordingly builds an entire concept of world history, reflected both in the work “Amateurism in Science” and in “Letters on the Study of Nature.” He saw in Hegelian philosophy the highest achievement of the reason of history, understood as the spirit of humanity. Herzen contrasted this reason embodied in science with unreasonable, immoral reality.

In Hegel's philosophy he found justification for the legitimacy and necessity of the struggle against the old and the final victory of the new. In Herzen's work, the idea of ​​the rationality of history was combined with socialist ideals, bringing German philosophy closer to French utopian socialism. The point of connection between socialism and philosophy in Herzen’s work is the idea of ​​the harmonious integrity of man. The idea of ​​unity and being was also considered by Herzen in socio-historical terms, as the idea of ​​​​unifying science and the people, which will mark socialism. Herzen wrote that when the people understand science, they will go out to the creative creation of socialism.

The problem of the unity of being and thinking appears on another level - as a revolutionary practice, as a conscious act, as the introduction and embodiment of science in life. He saw the mastery of science by the masses necessary condition establishment of socialism. Since science contains the germ of a new world, one has only to introduce it to the masses and the cause of socialism will be secured. Herzen's socialism was utopian. Arguing in this way, he even raised in general terms the question of the possibility for Russia to be the first to embark on the path of radical social transformation: “...maybe we, who have lived little in the past, will be representatives of the real unity of science and life, word and deed.

Essentially, this hope was not based on any factual data; his references to the special qualities of the Russian national character were not serious.

Herzen's use of abstract philosophical ideas to justify revolution and socialism means that philosophy here ceases to be philosophy itself. It becomes a social doctrine, a theory of the revolutionary struggle for socialism. The forward movement of thought consisted in the recognition of the pattern of struggle in society and the need for rational education of the masses with science. Having mastered Hegel's dialectics, he realized that it was the “algebra of revolution,” but he went further to historical materialism.

At the end of the 40s, Herzen connected all his thoughts about future socialist development with Western Europe. Revolution of 1848-49 was the most important event in Herzen's life. He perceived the revolution as the beginning of a socialist revolution. But what happened before Herzen’s eyes in Paris in 1848 did not at all coincide with his idea of ​​a socialist revolution. The mass of the people was not ready for the immediate organization of a truly new republic. The result was defeat. Herzen was overcome by doubts about the possibility of the rapid implementation of socialism, but he still hoped that the people would soon rise to fight again and put an end to the old civilization forever. But Herzen's hopes were not justified. Having perceived the uprising of the Parisian proletariat in June 1848 as the beginning of the “dying” of Europe and postponing the establishment of socialism in Western European countries to the indefinitely distant future, Herzen did not stop searching for opportunities to achieve the great ideal.

Herzen found the state most capable of social transformation in his homeland. “Faith in Russia saved me on the brink of moral death...” - said Herzen 8. The Russians are significantly behind Europe; historical events swept over these people. But this is his happiness. “The Russian people have preserved their mighty soul, their great national character” 9. He fixed his gaze on the Russian community. “The community saved the Russian people from Mongol barbarism and from imperial civilization, from European-style landowners and from the German bureaucracy. The community organization, although greatly shaken, resisted government intervention; she lived happily until the development of socialism in Europe” 10. In the patriarchal community, Herzen saw a means of radical social transformation, a real element of socialism. Herzen developed the theory of “communal”, “peasant”, “Russian” socialism as an integral, complete doctrine. He believed that the combination of Western European socialist ideas with the Russian communal world would ensure the victory of socialism and renew Western European civilization.

The ideas of “Russian socialism” were first presented by Herzen in the article “Russia” (Aug. 1848), written in the form of a letter to G. Herwegh. The term “Russian socialism” itself arose much later: Herzen introduced it only in 1866 in the article “Order triumphs!” “We call Russian socialism that socialism that comes from the land and peasant life, from the actual allotment and the existing redistribution of fields, from communal ownership and general management - and goes together with the workers’ artel towards the economic justice that socialism in general strives for and which science confirms 11.

Herzen did not leave a story about exactly how the turn to a new view took place in his thought, how the main principles of the theory of “Russian socialism” took shape and developed. The general answer to this question is known: “Russian socialism” arose as a result of the spiritual drama experienced by Herzen during the revolution of 1848, as a result of disappointment in the possibility of the imminent victory of socialism in Western Europe and the desire to find other possible ways to realize the socialist ideal.

In the development of ideas, two main stages can be distinguished: the 50s and 60s. The milestone between them is 1861. This division does not fully reflect the development of “Russian socialism”. Within each period there were certain milestones that made it possible to trace this development in more detail.

The pre-reform period (1849-1960) in the development of the ideas of “Russian socialism” begins in 1849 because the first more or less systematized presentation of them in the article “Russia” dates back to this year. The fifth letter from the series “Letters from France and Italy” (December 1847) is interesting. Herzen expresses regret over the absence in Europe of a “village commune” similar to the Russian one, and exclaims: “Long live, gentlemen, the Russian village - its future is great” 12.

In the work “Russia”, Russia represents in modern Europe a young people, full of strength, a people who have no past, but everything is ahead. There is no reason to believe that in its further development Russia must go through all the phases that the peoples went through Western Europe. These peoples have “developed” to certain social ideals. Russia in its everyday life is closer to these ideals than Western Europe: “...what for the West is only a hope towards which efforts are directed is for us already a real fact from which we begin” 13. Such a “real fact” corresponding to the ideal of Western Europe is the Russian rural community. This community, however, needs a certain development and change, since in its modern form it does not represent a satisfactory solution to the problem of the individual and society: the individual in it is suppressed, absorbed by society. Having preserved the land community throughout its history, the Russian people “are closer to the socialist revolution than to the political revolution” 14. What socialist did Herzen find in the community? Firstly, democracy, or “communism” (i.e. collectivism) in managing the life of a rural artel. At their meetings, “in peace,” the peasants decide the general affairs of the village, elect local judges, a headman who cannot act contrary to the will of the “peace.” This general management of everyday life is due to the fact - and this is the second point characterizing the community as the embryo of socialism - that people use the land together. They cultivate it together, share meadows, pastures, and forests. This communal land use seemed to Herzen the embryo of conscious collective ownership. Herzen also saw an element of socialism in peasant rights to land, i.e. in the right of every peasant to a plot of land, which the community must provide him with for use. He cannot and has no need to pass it on by inheritance. His son, as soon as he reaches adulthood, acquires the right, even during his father’s lifetime, to demand a land plot from the community. A peasant who leaves his community for a while does not lose his rights to the land; it can be taken away from him only in the event of expulsion - this is decided by a secular gathering. If a peasant leaves the community of his own free will, he loses the right to an allotment. He is allowed to take his movable property with him. This right to land seemed to Herzen a sufficient condition for the life of the community. It excluded, in his opinion, the emergence of a landless proletariat.

Community collectivism and the right to land constituted, according to Herzen, those real embryos from which, subject to the abolition of serfdom and the elimination of autocratic despotism, a socialist society could develop. Herzen believed, however, that the community itself does not represent any socialism. Due to its patriarchal nature, it is devoid of development in its present form; For centuries, the communal system has lulled the people's personality; in the community it is humiliated, its horizons are limited to the life of the family and the village. In order to develop the community as the embryo of socialism, it is necessary to apply Western European science to it, with the help of which only the negative, patriarchal aspects of the community can be eliminated.

“The task of the new era into which we are entering,” Herzen wrote, “is to develop an element on the basis of the science of our communal self-government to complete freedom of the individual, bypassing those intermediate forms through which the development of the West necessarily went, wandering along unknown paths. New life Ours must weave these two inheritances into one fabric in such a way that a free person will have the earth under his feet and so that the community member will be a completely free person” 15. Thus, Herzen did not consider Russia’s path to socialism through the community as an exception to the experience of global development. He considered the possible rapid implementation of socialism in Russia, first of all, as an aid to the world revolution; after all, it is impossible without the destruction of Russian tsarism, without the emancipation of Russia. Europe is never destined to be free." 16 But Herzen notes that in Russian life there is something higher than the community, and stronger than power. He sees this “something” in the “internal” force, not fully aware of itself, which “independent of all external events and in spite of them, preserved the Russian people and supported their indestructible faith in themselves.” Now the idea of ​​the absence of a firmly established “past” in Russia becomes one of the most important principles of “Russian socialism.”

Developing the theory of “Russian socialism,” Herzen thought that he had finally managed to actually substantiate socialism. Having seen in the community the material embryo of a society of social equality, Herzen believed that he had overcome the utopianism of the former socialists, that from now on not only the justice and reasonableness of socialism was proven, but also the possibility and reality of its actual implementation. Herzen writes: “...I see no reason why Russia must necessarily undergo all phases of European development, nor do I see why the civilization of the future must invariably submit to the same conditions of existence as the civilization of the past” 17 .

The article “Russia” is the first sketch of the ideas of “Russian socialism”, just a sketch, a quick sketch, designed mainly to draw attention to the problems posed in it, to awaken interest in Russia and point out the need for its study. With him, Herzen’s activities began, aimed at “introducing Europe to Russia.”

One of the major milestones of this work is marked by the book “On the Development of Revolutionary Ideas in Russia. Herzen begins the first chapter “Russia and Europe” with a mention of the article “Russia” and says: “... our views have not changed since that time” 18. The main thing in this work of Herzen from the point of view of the development of the ideas of “Russian socialism” is that here for the first time, and in essence the only time, so systematically and consistently the author tries to substantiate his idea with the course of historical development of Russia. In an attempt to provide a historical substantiation of the ideas of “Russian socialism,” Herzen argues that Russia has “two reasons for living: the socialist element and youth.” In the book he tried to prove this thesis about the organicity, strength, and non-crushing nature of the “socialist element” of Russian life - the rural community. Herzen believed that the history of Russia up to the present time is only “the history of the embryonic development of the Slavic state,” “the path to an unknown future that is beginning to dawn on us” 19. This thesis occupied an important place in the theory of “Russian socialism”. But in the internal history of the country, in the development of social forms and political institutions the strengths and capabilities of the Russian people were not revealed sufficiently fully. This shows the entire course of Russian history. Autocracy and serfdom are two main factors of Russian life, which removed the people from active participation in the social and political life of the country and fettered their forces. The idea of ​​the “youth” of the Russian people, which Herzen tried to prove here, was essentially a form in which the consciousness of the contradiction between the fact of the economic and political backwardness of the country and the potential possibilities of broad, progressive development was expressed.

Thanks to the rural community, Russia turned out to be more capable of socialist transformation than the West.

Herzen simply states here the fact that the community survived in the course of Russian history, and concludes that the existence of the community ensures the country's transition to a new, social social order. Two ideas developed in this book were of significant importance for the theory of “Russian socialism”. This is, firstly, the assertion that the antagonistic socialist structure characteristic of modern Russia, was not originally characteristic of the country. It is the result of the enslavement of the peasants and arose, in essence, as a result of the legalization of serfdom under Peter I. By the fact that Peter I finally tore the nobility away from the people and granted them terrible power over the peasants, he instilled in the people the deepest antagonism that had not existed before, and if he was, but only to a weak degree. Later, in the book “Baptized Property,” Herzen wrote: “The unity of Russian life was torn apart by Peter’s coup. The two Russias became hostile against each other from the beginning of the eighteenth century. On the one hand there was governmental, imperial Russia, rich in money, armed not only with bayonets, but with all the administrative and police tricks taken from Germany; on the other hand, Rus' is “the black people, poor, arable, communal, democratic, unarmed, taken by surprise, defeated, in fact, without a fight 20.” This view of the origin of socialist transformations in Russia led to an unequal semantic conclusion. Its consequence was a revolutionary demand to eliminate the existing “bifurcation” of Russia.

From the point of view of the development of the ideas of “Russian socialism”, the assessment of the Decembrist movement contained in the book “On the Development of Revolutionary Ideas in Russia” is interesting.

Considering this movement as the first, truly revolutionary opposition to the autocracy, Herzen sees in its failure not only evidence of the strength that Russian absolutism has to fight the revolution, but mainly a consequence of the “complete gap” between the “two Russias.” After the defeat of the Decembrists, no illusions were possible: “the people remained indifferent spectators on December 14.”

The great question of Russian social development for Herzen was to reunite the connection between the “two camps”; he believed that to resolve this issue, it was necessary to involve land ownership in the revolution; the peasant can and wants to be free only by owning his own land. This is how Herzen outlines the idea of ​​“the right to land” as the basis for the rapprochement of the “two Russias”. The idea will occupy an important place in his “Russian socialism”.

Further development of the ideas of “Russian socialism” can be found in Herzen’s letter to J. Michelet “Russian people and socialism” (1851). Here Herzen repeats previously expressed thoughts about socialism: “about the youth” of the Russian people, about their right to the future, about that this right is based on the facts of the existence of a rural community corresponding to socialism “about the liberation of the land”, the destruction of serfdom as the beginning of the socialist revolution in Russia. Starting from this article, the theory of “Russian socialism” is based not only on the fact of the existence of a rural community in Russia as a “socialist element” in the Russian social system, but also on the conviction of a certain role of this fact for the future destinies of the country. This role is associated with the fact that Russia is a rural, agrarian country, and it will remain so in the future. In this letter, one of the important provisions of “Russian socialism” was formulated for the first time, that “the man of the future in Russia is a man, just like a worker in France 21.”

Such views on the prospects for historical development in Russia are associated with a number of utopian features of the theory of “Russian socialism”, first of all, an underestimation of the importance of industrial development in Russia and a misunderstanding of the progressive role of Russian cities.

Three articles by Herzen entitled “Russian serfdom” (1852) are devoted to the problem of serfdom. From the point of view of the development of the ideas of “Russian socialism”, this work of Herzen is interesting in two respects: firstly, in its polemics with Haxthausen on questions about the nature of rural communal Russia: and, secondly, in raising questions about the development of Russia along the path to socialism perhaps without the formation of a class of landless proletarians. Haxthausen argued that the entire social and political life of the Russian people is based on the patriarchal principle, that the Russian people were originally a nomadic, pastoral people and only later switched to agriculture. He considered the main thing in patriarchal life to be respect for the head of the community, since the Russian people could not exist without a head - the tsar; The Russian people love the authority of the head of the family, the elder, the tsar. Herzen refuted his opinion about the rural community, the political structure of Russia and the character of the Russian people.

The development of the ideas of “Russian socialism” in articles on Russian serfdom consisted, first of all, in upholding the idea of ​​the Russian rural community as a “socialist element”, contrary to the opinion about the “patriarchal” nature of the community, at the same time it meant asserting the incompatibility of the free development of the community with serfdom 22 "

In “Russian serfdom,” for the first time, notes of polemic begin to sound, directed not against the understanding of the community in the spirit of the “official nationality,” but against the liberal-Western “denial” of the community. He writes in this work that the community is blamed for its incompatibility with personal freedom. But is there really a lack of this freedom felt before the abolition of St. George’s Day... Didn’t mobile communities develop along with permanent settlements - a free artel and a purely military community of Cossacks? The unruly rural community left quite wide scope for personal freedom and initiative. Cossack communities did not absorb or suppress the individual 23.”

In the article “Baptized Property,” Herzen writes that “that Russian life found in itself the means to partially compensate for this deficiency. Rural life formed next to the stationary community, the arable, peaceful village, a mobile community - the military community of the Cossacks 24.”

He noted the special character of the Russian peasant, determined by the communism of his communal structure and his village self-government. Communism of the Russian village lay, according to Herzen, at the basis of the Russian social order. Unity, expressed in a communal structure, will save the Russian people. But in both works he stipulates that socialist aspirations cannot find satisfaction either in the communal structure of the Russian village or in the “republican” structure of Cossack settlements.

The destruction of the community (and it is inevitable in the case of the liberation of peasants without land) would lead to the emergence of 20 million proletarians, moreover, rural proletarians, who, in his conviction, are not revolutionaries at all, like their urban counterparts. Those are wrong, he argues, “who would rejoice at the formation of the proletariat, because “We would see in it a piece of revolutionary development; it is not enough to be a proletariat to make a revolution.” These arguments by Herzen express the idea characteristic of “Russian socialism” about the possibility of avoiding in Russia the development of a landless proletariat, and thereby the insecurity of life, which is inseparable from existence.

Herzen's main concern was how to help the revolution at home from afar. To this end, he founded the Free Russian Printing House in London in 1853, which marked the beginning of the Russian uncensored press, where they began to print and distribute individual works and leaflets that contributed to the development of the political self-awareness of Russian society.

The means of Herzen’s propaganda were both the work “On the Development of Revolutionary Ideas in Russia” and the epic book “The Past and the Duma”, work on which lasted 6 years (1852-1858).

At the end of June 1853, the first proclamation “St. George's Day! St. George's Day! with the subtitle “To the Russian nobility.” The proclamation amazingly combined elements of noble revolutionism with revolutionary democracy. Herzen wrote that there is no “fatal necessity” for every step forward for the people to be marked by piles of corpses. Baptism of blood is a great thing; every success must certainly pass through it 25.”

The new orientation of Herzen’s works towards the Russian public will not appear immediately. In the magazine “English Republic”, a work will appear that has occupied an important place in the development of “Russian socialism”. It was written in the form of letters to an Englishman and published under the title “The Old World and Russia.” Many of his thoughts are repeated in this work. We are talking here about the youth of the Slavs, about the Russian people as an “agricultural” people, about the rural community as a “socialist element” of Russian life, about the need to preserve the community and develop the “personal principle,” about the role of the nobility in the development of revolutionary ideas in Russia. But the most important thing is that these “Letters” are known in the history of Russian thought for the “classical” formulation of the question: “should Russia go through all phases of European development or will it have to take a different path towards socialism.

These are the first milestones on the path of philosophical and historical substantiation of the main idea of ​​“Russian socialism” - the idea of ​​​​the possibility of a non-capitalist path of development of Russia. But this is just the beginning of such a justification, just a few thoughts and considerations. Herzen associates the possibility for Russia to bypass certain phases of European development with the fact that these phases can, should and actually be experienced by Russia, but in a special manner, Russia went through these phases, so to speak, ideally, in the consciousness of its advanced ideas. “Russia,” he writes, “made its revolution in the European school. The nobility together with the government form a European state within a Slavic state. We have gone through all phases of liberalism, from the English constitutional worship of '93. The people do not need to begin again this sorrowful work already done by Russia 26.”

Educated Russia must now dissolve among the people. Russian progressive thought reached socialism in politics, materialism and the denial of all religion in philosophy. Socialism, Herzen argues, “has again brought the revolutionary party to the people.” In Herzen’s reasoning presented in this article, there are the beginnings of two very significant ideas for “Russian socialism” and its further development. Firstly, an attempt to philosophically explain the possibility for Russia to bypass some stages of the European history of development, based on the relationship between the personal and the historical. Secondly, the approach to the idea that mastering the socialist ideas of Western Europe is a necessary condition for Russia to come to socialism without repeating the history of the path of Western European countries, and the idea of ​​​​the need to establish a connection between the conclusions of Western science, assimilated by the advanced nobility and the people aspirations. He believed that some features of anarchism were preserved in Russia. Herzen highly appreciated the role of the Russian non-bureaucratic nobility. He wrote that “these people are the most independent people in Europe, they have reached socialist ideas in politics, reason in science, denial and skepticism in philosophy 27.”

In “Letters” Herzen draws the prospects for a future revolution. “The state and the individual, power and freedom, communism and egoism - these are the pillars of Hercules of the great revolutionary epic. Europe offers flawed and wild solutions. The revolution will provide a synthesis of these solutions. Socialist formulas will remain vague until life realizes them. At that time, he imagined the future system - socialism - as a society without government.

Herzen emphasizes that without the assistance of Western socialist ideas, the Slavic peoples will never gather their strength and move from communism to conscious socialism.

He writes: “The artel and the rural community, the division of profits and the division of fields, the secular gathering and the union of villages into volosts governing themselves - all these are the cornerstones on which the temple of our future free communal life is created. But these cornerstones are still stones, and without Western thought our future cathedral will remain with one foundation 28.”

In 1855, the almanac “Polar Star” began to be published. The highest achievement of Herzen’s revolutionary educational activities was the publication together with N.P. Ogarev of the newspaper "Bell" (1857-1867). Revolutionary agitation for the abolition of serfdom begins to come to the fore in Herzen's activities.

“The peculiarity, the originality of Russia,” Herzen believes, is the rural community, which has existed for centuries.” He considered a peasant revolution in Russia quite possible and imagined it in the form of a new Pugachevism. But he definitely stated that he preferred the peaceful path of eliminating serfdom, that the experience of the revolution of 1848 inspired him with “disgust from bloody coups.” Herzen turns his attention to the Russian educated nobility. He believed that it was in the layer of a certain nobility that the germ and mental centers of the coming revolution were hidden.

In 1857, in the theory of “Russian socialism,” the idea of ​​the “right” of peasants to land was finally formed. The liberation of the peasants in Russia can and should be carried out as liberation with land; Herzen says that the peasant only wants to receive worldly land, which he acquired with the right to work. “The Russian peasant does not believe that worldly land can belong to something other than the world; he rather believes that he himself belongs to the earth, rather than that the earth can be taken away from the world. This is extremely important."

Thus, by the time of the peasant reform of 1861, the main ideas of Russian socialism had been developed and repeated many times. The main components of the theory at the end of the 50s were: recognition of Russia’s special path to socialism compared to Western European countries; the belief that Russia is more capable of social revolution than these countries; assessment of the rural community as the embryo of a socialist organization and indications of those qualities that make it possible to see such an embryo in it; the assertion that the liberation of the peasants with the land should be the beginning, the first step of the socialist revolution.

The pre-reform period was characterized by Herzen's greater concentration on the socio-economic aspect of the theory.

After the reform of 1861, Herzen’s hopes for the destruction of serfdom, which would open a direct path for the country’s development towards socialism, did not come true. The “liberation” turned out to be half-hearted, the discontent of the peasants was quite obvious. In the journalism of the 60s, revolutionary-democratic tendencies and a premonition of a peasant revolution are becoming more and more evident. One of the significant shifts in Herzen’s thoughts after the reform of 1861 was the abandonment of hopes for the middle nobility as the ideological and organizational ferment of Russia’s movement towards “Russian socialism.” Proving that after the reform Russia did not lose the opportunity to transition to socialism, bypassing capitalism, constitutes an important aspect of the development of the theory of “Russian socialism” in the 60s. The post-reform decade introduces additions to the theory. Two of Herzen’s works of this period are interesting - “Letters to a Traveler” (mid 1865) and the article “Towards the End of the Year”. Herzen outlines two paths of movement towards socialism - “for the West, socialism is the setting sun, for the Russian people it is the rising 29.”

The final study at the end of the 60s, which became a necessity for the development of the theory, encountered serious difficulties in the matter of economic, social and political life in Russia. It became increasingly difficult to study this life abroad, especially since Kolokol’s living ties with Russia were weakening every day.

The last time Herzen addresses the issue of socialism and the socialist revolution is in his letters “To an Old Comrade.” The question of the means of social transformation constitutes the main theme of the “letters.” There is only one serious question of our time, Herzen argued, - this is the question of socialism.

And yet Herzen’s “Russian socialism” was a utopia, a mistake. He did not understand that it was impossible to jump directly from relations that were primitive in form, but feudal in essence, to socialism. It is impossible because socialism for its construction requires significant material and technical development, which would give society the opportunity to solve social problems.

The sixties were marked by the emergence of new elements in the ideological content of social movements. This period is replete with radical programs and no less radical public actions. Historians (A.I. Volodin and B.M. Shakhmatov) call it the period of formation of revolutionary utopian socialism on Russian soil, arising from the combination of two streams - Russian utopian (“peasant”) socialism and mass revolutionary movement among the various intelligentsia.

A. I. Herzen and N. G. Chernyshevsky became prominent representatives of Russian utopian socialism. It is characteristic that both of them recognized their closeness to the positions of the Slavophiles. Herzen noted that the Slavophiles “belong to the honor and glory of the initiative”; it is with them that the “turn in Russian thought” begins. They were brought closer to the Westerners, to whom Herzen counted himself, by the love of freedom and the feeling of love - “boundless, embracing the entire existence of love for the Russian people, Russian way of life, for the Russian way of life.” Chernyshevsky spoke about the Slavophiles as follows: “They are among the most educated, noble and gifted people in Russian society.”

Many social philosophers simultaneously came to the ideas and constructions of communal (populist, “peasant”) socialism, but priority here belongs to Alexander Ivanovich Herzen(1812–1870). It was he who perceived the rural community as the main supporting element in the building of the future of Russian socialism. This topic was discussed by him simultaneously with the topic of Russia's backwardness, its identity and special mission in the matter of social transformations in itself and other peoples. Historical events seemed to sweep over the Russian people, Herzen wrote, repeating Chaadaev in many ways, but, crushed and downtrodden, they retained their original character, their youth, not burdened, like the peoples of the West, by the centuries-old traditions of historical life. It is the preservation of its original character that makes it sensitive to socialism, and most of all this is due to the special role of the rural community. “The community saved the Russian people from Mongol barbarism, from European-styled landowners and from the German bureaucracy. The community organization, although severely shaken, resisted government intervention; it survived safely Before the development of socialism in Europe." In communal economic and administrative principles, he saw the germs and features of socialist collectivism. "... In the hut of the Russian peasant we found the germ of economic and administrative institutions based on community of land ownership, on agrarian and instinctive communism." However, Herzen also saw the negative sides of communal orders - the absorption of the individual by the world (community), as in all other cases of “underdeveloped communism.” He saw a way out in the use of Western science, designed to have a fertilizing effect on peasant life. Without this, agrarian communism will remain crude and primitive, like the egalitarian communism of Gracchus Babeuf in the West, which practically excludes individual freedom and therefore cannot be considered a worthy embodiment of socialism. To introduce the Russian peasant to the positive results of civilization and science of the West, advanced Russian people who “have passed through Western civilization"and absorbed its historical experience and socialist ideas.

On November 1, 1861, Herzen put forward the slogan “To the people!”, which for decades became a call for patriotic youth to actively participate in the liberation movement.

Herzen’s socialism is populist and at the same time individualistic - this is how Berdyaev evaluates Herzen’s views. His faith in the peasant community is largely explained by the fact that the Russian peasant, even in a serfdom, is more of an individual than the Western bourgeois, since he combines the personal with the communal. True, he does not make a distinction between a person and an individual, between a person and a citizen. However, he feels and conveys well the danger of philistinism, triumphant and threatening the educated minority. The first Russian Westernizer experienced deep disappointment in Western philistinism, and this inclined him to sympathize with anarchism rather than democracy.

“The state and the individual, power and freedom, communism and egoism (in the broad sense of the word) - these are the Herculean pillars of the great struggle, the great revolutionary epic,” Herzen wrote during the period of ideological searches for promising forms of organizing human society. He came to the conclusion that only two such forms can be distinguished - a monarchy and a republic. At the same time, we are not talking about forms of government, but specifically about forms of organization of society in which the cause of the people (republic), the common good, is truly ensured. Therefore, he distinguished between a political and a social republic, considering only a social republic to be a true republic. A monarchy, unlike a republic, requires a sacred and inviolable authority, which is incompatible with the freedom of people and the independence of reason.

The general course of discussions about the social opportunities of the community was greatly influenced by journalistic speeches Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky(1828–1889), especially his two articles - “Criticism of Philosophical Prejudices against Common Ownership” (1858) and “Economic Activity and Legislation” (1859).

The first of them concludes that the existence of a primitive community in conditions of a high level of civilization, which has been achieved in the current century, is not an obstacle to its entry into this civilization, because in communal ownership there is “the highest form of man’s relationship with the land.” Moreover, communal ownership ensures, Chernyshevsky wrote in another article a year earlier, the possession of land for every farmer and “strengthens national welfare much better than private property.” Such ownership is able to best ensure success in agriculture, since communal property “unites the owner, master and worker in one person.” All this allows us to conclude that it is possible to accelerate social development with the help of the community.

In the article “Economic Activity and Legislation,” the author provides a contrasting comparison of the intra-community legal situation and government regulation through laws. In communal land ownership there is no “interference by any central or outside administration.” Here, internal regulation, which can be called reasonable legislation, gives indisputability and independence to the rights of a private individual. It also favors the development of integrity of character and qualities necessary for a citizen. It is supported and protected by the forces of society itself. Thus, intra-community regulation is self-sufficient, it is much more reasonable than government regulation, since it was developed over generations on the basis of legal custom or agreement.

Property rights in the West are almost exclusively granted to the individual and are protected by strong and strictly enforced guarantees. “The legal independence and inviolability of the individual is everywhere sanctified by both laws and customs.” And yet, reliance on laws and legality, like any one-sided aspiration, has its disadvantages. This equally applies to the legal and customary legal provision of “exclusive personal rights”, property rights in the first place. These disadvantages began to reveal themselves as soon as the ideal “approached its realization with the oblivion or destruction of other, no less important conditions of human happiness, which seemed incompatible with its unlimited application to business.” This refers to the final result of the “limitless rivalry” of owners in agriculture and industry; it ultimately “gave up the weak as a sacrifice to the strong, labor as a sacrifice to capital.”

There is only one way out of this situation - to ensure union and brotherhood between people. People must unite into societies that have a common interest, and jointly use the forces of nature and the means of science. In agriculture, this brotherhood should be expressed in the transfer of land into communal use, and in industry - in the transfer of factory and plant enterprises to the communal property of the company of all those working in this factory or plant.

After the first steps to implement peasant reform, Chernyshevsky comes to the conclusion that the autocratic-bureaucratic organization is incapable of reform and begins to focus on the peasant revolution. In his proclamations to the peasants and in his appeal to Russian constitutionalists, he presented a wide range of proposals and recommendations regarding the necessary changes in the structure of society and the state: a peasant community free from bureaucratic oppression and tutelage, local representative government and self-government, an independent and righteous court, limitation of tsarist autocracy , management based on laws.

Unlike Herzen, Chernyshevsky is a staunch democrat. He enters into a dispute on this issue with Chicherin, who argued that “democracy is similar to absolutism in the sense that it is very fond of bureaucracy and centralization.” Chernyshevsky objected to this and believed that democracy is the opposite of bureaucracy in nature. For example, the administration in a democracy must be subordinate to the residents of the district whose affairs it deals with, and this is due to the fact that each village and city, each region is independent in its affairs; similarly, every citizen must be independent in matters affecting him alone.

Chernyshevsky's authority in the liberation movement of the early 60s. was very high, and the government established secret surveillance over him. In 1862, following the suspension of the Sovremennik magazine, Chernyshevsky was imprisoned in solitary confinement in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Here he writes the novel “What is to be done?”, which, with its ideological content, had a great influence on several generations of revolutionary-minded youth, who tried to put into practice the principles of reasonable human coexistence. Particularly attractive in the novel was the element of asceticism in the name of a common cause, which turned out to be characteristic of the subsequent revolutionary intelligentsia.

In the absence of direct evidence, Chernyshevsky was found guilty “of taking measures to overthrow the existing order of government” and was sentenced to seven years of hard labor and permanent settlement in Siberia. His works were banned in Russia until the first Russian revolution.