Date: 1909
Source: ru:PSS/v19

The renowned collection “Vekhi,” compiled by some of the most influential Kadet publicists and swiftly reprinted several times, hailed with rapturous acclaim by the entire reactionary press, stands as a true signpost of its time. No matter how the Kadet newspapers may “correct” certain passages in “Vekhi” that strike too sharply at the senses—no matter how individual Kadets disavow those very passages, utterly powerless to influence the broader political course of the Kadet Party or intent only on misleading the masses about the true nature of that policy—it remains an incontrovertible fact that “Vekhi” captured the unmistakable essence of contemporary Kadetism. The Kadet Party is, in essence, the Party of “Vekhi.”

Valuing above all else the development of political and class consciousness among the masses, working‑democratic forces ought to welcome “Vekhi” as a masterful exposé, delivered by the Kadets’ ideological leaders, of the true nature of their political orientation. “Vekhi” was penned by such figures as Berdyaev, Bulgakov, Gershenzon, Kistyakovsky, Struve, Frank, and Izgoev. Even these names—well‑known deputies, notorious renegades, celebrated Kadets—speak volumes in themselves. The authors of “Vekhi” emerge as genuine ideological leaders of an entire social movement, sketching in concise form a veritable encyclopedia of questions spanning philosophy, religion, politics, journalism, the assessment of the entire liberation movement, and the entire history of Russian democracy. By labeling “Vekhi” “a collection of essays on the Russian intelligentsia,” the authors narrowed the scope of their actual argument, for in their view the “intelligentsia” serves not merely as a cultural vanguard but as the spiritual leader, inspirer, and articulate voice of all Russian democracy—and of the entire Russian liberation movement. “Vekhi” marks the most significant milestones on the path toward a complete rupture between Russian Kadetism and Russian liberalism more broadly, a rupture from the Russian liberation movement itself, from all its fundamental tasks, and from all its deep‑rooted traditions.

I

The encyclopedia of liberal renegadism unfolds across three main themes: first, the struggle against the ideological foundations of the entire worldview of Russian (and international) democracy; second, the repudiation of the liberation movements of recent years, which are castigated as mere failures; and third, the open proclamation of their own “courtly” sentiments—and the corresponding “courtly” policies—toward the Octoberist bourgeoisie, toward the old regime, and toward all of old Russia as a whole.

The authors of “Vekhi” begin with the philosophical underpinnings of the “intelligentsial” worldview. Running like a red thread throughout the book is a resolute battle against materialism, which is branded not merely as dogmatism, metaphysics, or “the most elementary and lowest form of philosophizing” (p. 4—references pertain to the first edition of “Vekhi”). Positivism is condemned because it was, for us (that is, for the Russian “intelligentsia” dismantled by “Vekhi”), “identical with materialistic metaphysics” or interpreted “exclusively in the spirit of materialism” (p. 15), whereas—“not a single mystic, not a single believer can deny scientific positivism and science” (p. 11). Do not be fooled! It is “hostility toward idealistic and religious‑mystical tendencies” (p. 6) that “Vekhi” directs against the “intelligentsia.” “Yurkevich was, in any case, a true philosopher compared to Chernyshevsky” (p. 4).

From this alone, the reader can already discern that “Vekhi” does not attack the “intelligentsia”—that is but an artificial, obfuscating device, a rhetorical strategy. The real target of the attack lies along the entire line of demarcation between democracy and democratic worldviews. And since the ideological leaders of a party that styles itself as “Constitutional Democratic” find it inconvenient to call things by their proper names, they borrow terminology from the Moscow News{74}; they do not renounce democracy—what a baseless slander!—but only “intelligentsialism.”

“The letter from Belinsky to Gogol,” proclaim “Vekhi,” “is a fiery and classic expression of the intelligentsial mood” (p. 56). “The history of our journalism, beginning after Belinsky, in terms of lived understanding—has been nothing but a nightmare” (p. 82).

Indeed. The sentiment of serf peasants opposing serfdom is, evidently, an “intelligentsial” sentiment. The history of protest and struggle waged by the broadest strata of the population—from 1861 to 1905—against the remnants of serfdom embedded in every aspect of Russian life is, likewise, clearly “nothing but a nightmare.” Or perhaps, according to our learned and cultivated authors, did Belinsky’s mood in his letter to Gogol have no connection whatsoever to the sentiments of serf peasants? Was the history of our journalism independent of the popular masses’ indignation over the lingering shackles of serf oppression?

The Moscow News had long argued that Russian democracy, beginning at least with Belinsky, did not at all represent the interests of the broadest layers of the population in their struggle for even the most basic rights of the people—rights systematically violated by serf institutions—but instead expressed only the “intelligentsial mood.”

The program of “Vekhi” and the Moscow News is identical, both in philosophy and in journalism. Yet in philosophy, the liberal renegades dared to speak the truth in full, laying bare their entire program (a war against materialism and against positivism understood in a materialistic key; the restoration of mysticism and of a mystical worldview)—while in journalism they hedge, they equivocate, they practice Jesuitical maneuvering. They have broken with the most fundamental ideas of democracy, with the most elemental democratic tendencies, yet they pretend only to break with “intelligentsialism.” The liberal bourgeoisie has decisively turned away from the defense of the people’s rights toward the protection of institutions designed to work against the people. But the liberal politicians still wish to retain the label of “democrats.”

The same trick that was played upon Belinsky’s letter to Gogol and upon the history of Russian journalism is now being repeated in the history of the recent movement.

II

In reality, the attacks in “Vekhi” are directed solely against that intelligentsia which had served as the voice of the democratic movement—and only for what it revealed itself to be: a genuine participant in that very movement. “Vekhi” furiously attacks the intelligentsia precisely because this ‘small underground sect’ emerged into the light of day, gained numerous followers, and for a time became ideologically influential—even, in practical terms, powerfully effective” (p. 176). Liberals had once sympathized with the “intelligentsia” and secretly supported it whenever it remained a small underground sect, before it had acquired many followers, before it began to wield real power; that is to say: the liberal sympathized with democracy—as long as democracy did not mobilize the masses, for without mass participation it served only the self‑interested aims of liberalism, helping only the upper echelons of the liberal bourgeoisie to inch closer to power. The liberal turned away from democracy when it drew the masses into action, when those masses began to fulfill their tasks and defend their own interests. Under the guise of cries against the democratic “intelligentsia,” the Kadets’ war is, in fact, waged against the democratic movement of the masses. One of countless vivid exposures in “Vekhi” is the claim that the great social movement of late eighteenth‑century France was, in their eyes, “an example of a sufficiently prolonged intelligentsial revolution, one that fully unveiled all its spiritual potentials” (p. 57).

Is that not a fine idea? The French movement of the late eighteenth century, you see, is not a model of the deepest and broadest democratic movement of the masses—but rather a model of “intelligentsial” revolution! Since nowhere in the world, at no time, have democratic tasks been carried out without the mobilization of homogeneous social forces, it is perfectly clear that the ideological leaders of liberalism are breaking precisely with democracy.

In the Russian intelligentsia, “Vekhi” denounces precisely that which is the necessary companion and expression of every democratic movement. “The grafting of political radicalism from intelligentsial ideas onto the social radicalism of popular instincts[28] occurred with breathtaking speed” (p. 141)—and this was “not simply a political error, not merely a tactical sin. Here lay a moral failing.” Where there are no suffering popular masses, there can be no democratic movement. And the democratic movement distinguishes itself from simple “rebellion” precisely in that it marches under the banner of well‑known radical political ideas. Not only are democratic movements and democratic ideas politically misguided, not only are they tactically ill‑timed, but they are also morally sinful—such is the true thrust of “Vekhi,” no different in essence from the true thoughts of Pobedonostsev. Pobedonostsev merely spoke more honestly and directly what Struve, Izgoev, Frank, and Co. were saying.

When “Vekhi” proceeds to define more precisely the content of those hateful “intelligentsial” ideas, they naturally turn to “leftist” ideas in general—especially to Narodnik and Marxist doctrines. The Narodniks are accused of “false love for the peasantry,” while the Marxists are charged with “love for the proletariat” (p. 9). Both are utterly crushed under the weight of “populism” (pp. 59, 59–60). For the hated “intelligentsialist,” “God is the people; the sole goal is the happiness of the majority” (p. 159). “The stormy speeches of the atheistic left-wing bloc” (p. 29)—this is what the Kadet Bulgakov remembered most vividly from the Second Duma, and what especially outraged him. There is not the slightest doubt that Bulgakov here expressed, perhaps more clearly than others, the collective psychology of the Kadets, giving voice to the cherished aspirations of the entire Kadet Party.

That for the liberal the distinction between Narodism and Marxism becomes blurred—is not accidental, but inevitable; it is not the whim of a writer who knows these distinctions well, but the natural expression of the modern essence of liberalism. For at this moment, what the liberal bourgeoisie in Russia fears and loathes is not so much the socialist movement of the working class in Russia as it is the democratic movement of both workers and peasants—that is, what is shared between Narodism and Marxism, their common defense of democracy through appeal to the masses. The defining characteristic of the modern era is that liberalism in Russia has decisively turned against democracy; it is only natural that it shows little interest in either the internal differences within democracy or in the further goals, forms, and prospects that open up within the framework of a realized democracy.

Terms like “populism” abound in “Vekhi.” This is hardly surprising, for the liberal bourgeoisie, frightened by the people, has nothing left to do but cry out against the “populism” of the democrats. Retreats must be covered with particularly loud drumbeats. After all, one cannot simply deny that the first two Dumas truly represented, through their worker and peasant deputies, the genuine interests, demands, and perspectives of the working and peasant masses. And yet it was precisely these “intelligentsial” deputies[29] who instilled in the Kadets a bottomless hatred for the “leftists,” for exposing the Kadets’ perennial retreats from democracy. Nor can one simply deny even the “Four‑Tail System”{75}; yet not a single honest political figure ever doubted that elections conducted under the “Four‑Tail System”—truly democratic elections—would have given the overwhelming majority of deputies in modern Russia to the labor deputies, alongside the deputies of the Workers’ Party.

For the liberal bourgeoisie, which has turned back upon itself, there is nothing left to do but cloak its break with democracy in the vocabulary of the Moscow News and the New Time; these very terms pepper the entire collection of “Vekhi.”

“Vekhi” is a relentless torrent of reactionary sludge poured upon democracy. Understandably, the publicists of the New Time—Rozanov, Menshikov, and A. Stolypin—rushed to kiss “Vekhi.” Understandably, Antoniy Volynskiy was enraptured by this work of the leaders of liberalism.

“When an intelligentsialist,” write “Vekhi,” “reflects upon his duty to the people, he never realizes that the idea of personal responsibility, which emerges at the very beginning of that duty, must be addressed not only to himself, the intelligentsialist, but also to the people” (p. 139). The democrat reflected upon the expansion of the people’s rights and freedoms, cloaking this thought in words about the “duty” of the higher classes toward the people. The democrat could never conceive—and never will conceive—that in a pre‑reform country, or in a country with the Constitution of June 3, the question of the “responsibility” of the people toward the ruling classes might ever arise. To “conceive” of such a thing, the democrat—or the would‑be democrat—must finally transform himself into a counterrevolutionary liberal.

“Egoism, self‑assertion—these are mighty forces,” we read in “Vekhi”—“it is precisely these forces that make the Western bourgeoisie a powerful, unconscious instrument of God’s work on earth” (p. 95). This is nothing other than a retelling, seasoned with lamp oil, of the famous “Enrichissez-vous!—enrich yourselves!” or of our own Russian adage: “we bet on the strong”{76}. When the bourgeoisie helped the people fight for freedom, it proclaimed that struggle to be God’s work. When it grew afraid of the people and turned instead to supporting all manner of medievalism against the people—then it declared “egoism,” enrichment, chauvinistic foreign policy, and the like, to be God’s work. This was true everywhere in Europe. And it is repeating itself in Russia.

“The Act of October 17, in substance and in form, should have brought the revolution to a close” (p. 136). This is the alpha and omega of Octoberism—that is, of the counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie’s program. The Octoberists always spoke of this, and acted openly in accordance with it. The Kadets, too, operated in secret from October 17 onward—but they wished to masquerade as democrats. For the success of the democratic cause, a complete, clear, and open demarcation between democrats and renegades is the most useful, the most essential thing. We must use “Vekhi” for this vital task. “We must finally summon the courage to admit,” writes the renegade Izgoev, “that in our State Dumas, the vast majority of deputies—with the exception of three or four dozen Kadets and Octoberists—have shown no knowledge capable of enabling them to take up the governance and reconstruction of Russia” (p. 208). Of course, where would peasant labor deputies or working‑class deputies ever dare to undertake such a task? For that, one needs the majority of Kadets and Octoberists—and for such a majority, one needs the Third Duma…

And so that the people and the “populists” might understand their own “responsibility” before those who shape affairs in the Third Duma and in post‑Duma Russia, it is necessary to preach to the people—alongside Antoniy Volynskiy—the “repentance” (“Vekhi,” p. 26), the “humility” (p. 49), the struggle against the “pride of the intelligentsialist” (p. 52), the “obedience” (p. 55), the “simple, coarse food of the ancient Mosaic Decalogue” (p. 51), the struggle against the “legion of demons that have entered the gigantic body of Russia” (p. 68). If the peasants elect labor deputies, and the workers elect Social Democrats, then of course—such is the demonic delusion, for in their very nature, as Katkov and Pobedonostsev had long ago discovered, the people harbor “hatred for the intelligentsia” (p. 87; read: for democracy).

Russian citizens must therefore—so teach us “Vekhi”—“bless this authority, which alone, through its bayonets and prisons, still shields us (‘intelligentsials’) from the fury of the people” (p. 88).

This tirade is good because it is candid—and it is useful because it lays bare the truth about the real nature of the entire Kadet Party’s politics over the span of 1905–1909. This tirade is good because it reveals, in a concise and vivid form, the entire spirit of “Vekhi.” And “Vekhi” is good because it exposes the true spirit of Russian liberals’ and Russian Kadets’ politics—including all of that. That is why the Kadets’ polemic with “Vekhi,” their renunciation of “Vekhi”—all of it is nothing but hypocrisy, nothing but futile, endless rhetoric. For in reality, the Kadets, as a collective, as a party, as a social force, have pursued—and continue to pursue—precisely the politics of “Vekhi.” The calls to go to the Bulygin Duma in August and September 1905, the betrayal of the democratic cause at the end of that same year, the systematic fear of the people and of the popular movement, the systematic struggle against the worker and peasant deputies in both the First Dumas, the vote on the budget, Karaulov’s speeches on religion and Berezovsky’s remarks on the agrarian question in the Third Duma, the trip to London—all of these are countless milestones marking precisely that very kind of politics, the very politics that is ideologically proclaimed in “Vekhi.”

Russian democracy cannot take a single step forward until it understands the true nature of this politics, until it grasps its class roots.

“New Day,” No. 15, December 13, 1909. Signed: V. Ilyin

Printed according to the text of the newspaper “New Day.”