V. I.

Lenin

V. M. Sobolevsky, editor of Russkiye Vedomosti , [1] recently passed away. The liberals honoured him as a
“staunch progressive figure”. They spoke and wrote of his personal
qualities. They avoided the question of the political trend followed by
Russkiye Vedomosti .

There is nothing more convenient for our liberals than that ancient,
colourless, general haziness—“oppositionism”, “progressism”. What is
hidden behind those words, what sort of oppositional activity was
displayed by an individual, which class he served, are things they
prefer not to discuss. These things are distasteful to liberals.

Democracy, however, should try to establish the truth. Honour
V. M. Sobolevsky as a progressive, that is your right. But if you really
want to teach politics to the people do not forget the trend
followed by Russ/aye Vedomosti , that provides a unique combination
of Right Cadetism and Narodnik overtones.

Mr. L. Panteleyev, who published in Rech an article to the
memory of V. M. Sobolevsky, wrote that he was a “great sceptic in respect
of the availability of the forces possessed by our progressive society”.

Nothing here is definite. What sort of scepticism was it? What society
is he talking about? The curtain is drawn back slightly by the words of
V. M. Sobolevsky that Mr. Panteleyev quotes: “What has a society to offer
that in the mass is saturated to the marrow of its bones with the
traditions and habits of serfdom? What support for a new system is to be
expected from millions of semi-slaves, beggars, starving people, drunkards
and ignoramuses?”

Mr. Panteleyev, who deemed it proper to publish these frank statements,
did not notice the light they cast on the attitude of Russian liberals to
democracy.

In the summer of 1905, Russkiye Vedomosti published an article
by Mr. Vinogradov, the star of liberal scholar ship, arguing that these
semi-slaves should not go too far, that they should be more modest and
calm. Russkiye Vedomosti was probably a little ahead of other
liberal news papers in declaring quite definitely its counter-revolutionary
attitude to events.

There is scepticism and scepticism. As far as a public figure is
concerned, one should ask: in respect of which class is he a
sceptic? Sobolevsky (and his Russkiye Vedomosti ) was a sceptic and
even a pessimist in respect of the peasantry. He was an optimist in respect
of the landowners; he pictured them as being capable of “reforms”, as
“sincerely sympathising with the new social system” as “cultured
people”, etc. The mixture of this landowner liberalism (not semi-slavish
but utterly slavish) and Narodism, was a sign of the rottenness of the
“enlightened”, well-to-do, satiated liberal society that taught
slave morality and slave politics to the “millions of semi-slaves” who
were awakening. This liberal society was, “to the marrow of its bones”,
slavish towards the landowners, and the Narodism of Russkiye Vedomosti reflects more than anything else the patriarchal Russia of
the humble muzhik and the landowner flirting with liberalism.

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Notes:
[1]
Russkiye Vedomosti ( Russian Recorder )—a daily newspaper published in Moscow from 1863 onwards by liberal professors of
Moscow University and Zemstvo officials; it expressed the views of the
liberal landowners and bourgeoisie. From 1905 onwards it was an organ of
the Right Cadets; shortly after the October Revolution in 1917 it was
suppressed.