Date: 1913-11
Source: ru:PSS/v48

Source: PSS vol 48

welcomingly) embraced by the democratic bourgeoisie—precisely for this reason it is
the most dangerous abomination, the vilest “contagion.” A million sins, misdeeds, acts of violence,
and physical infections are far more readily exposed by the masses and therefore far less dangerous
than that subtle, spiritual idea—garbed in the most ornate “ideological” attire—of a little God. A Catholic priest who preys upon young girls (about whom I happened to read just now in
a German newspaper) is far less dangerous to “democracy” than a priest without vestments, a priest stripped of crude religion, a priest steeped in ideas yet thoroughly democratic, preaching the creation and making of a little God. For the former priest can be easily unmasked, condemned, and cast out; but the latter cannot be so easily expelled—his exposure is a thousand times more difficult, and not a single “fragile, pitifully wavering” commoner will consent to “condemn” him.

And you, knowing the “fragility and pitiful instability” (Russian: why Russian? But isn’t Italian better??) of the petty-bourgeois soul, poison this very soul with the sweetest of poisons—poison cloaked in candy and all manner of brightly colored wrappers!!

Truly, this is appalling.
“Enough already with these self‑denunciations that have come to substitute for self‑criticism among us.”

But is not god‑building the worst form of self‑denunciation?? Every person who engages in the construction of a god—or even merely permits such construction—spits upon themselves in the most grievous way, for instead of “action,” they devote themselves to self‑contemplation, self‑adoration, contemplating, of all things, the filthiest, most obtuse, most servile traits or features of their own “self,” which god‑building deifies.

From a social—not a personal—perspective, every form of god‑building is nothing other than
the loving self‑contemplation of dull petty‑bourgeoisie, of fragile, ordinary folk, of dreamy,

the “self‑denunciations” of philistines and small bourgeois—those who are “desperate and weary” (as you so aptly put it regarding the soul—but rather than speaking of a “Russian soul,” we ought to speak of the petty‑bourgeois soul, for Jewish, Italian, English petty‑bourgeoisie are all cut from the same cloth; everywhere, that petty‑bourgeoisie is equally vile).

As I pore over your article, trying to fathom where such a slip could have originated, I am utterly puzzled. What is this? Are these remnants of the “Confession” that you yourself never approved of?? Echoes of it??

Or is it something else—perhaps an ill‑fated attempt to bend one’s perspective toward the standpoint of general democracy instead of the proletarian standpoint? Perhaps, in order to converse with “democracy as such,” you wished (forgive the expression) to coo and babble as one might coo and babble to children? Or perhaps, in the interest of “popular exposition,” you sought to indulge, if only for a moment, the prejudices of the common man—and of those common men, too?

But this is a flawed approach in every sense, in every respect!

I wrote above that in democratic countries, a call from a proletarian writer “to democracy, to the people, to the public, and to science” would be entirely out of place. But what of Russia?? Such a call is not entirely appropriate here, for it likewise tends to reinforce the prejudices of the common man. The call is so general as to be almost vague—indeed, even the Outcasts of “Russian Thought” would sign it with both hands. Why then adopt slogans that you yourself distinguish so clearly from the spirit of outcastry, while the reader is unable to make that distinction?? Why, for the sake of the reader, drape a democratic veneer over the scene—instead of offering a clear demarcation between the petty‑bourgeois (fragile, pitifully wavering, weary, desperate, self‑contemplating, god‑contemplating, god‑building, god‑worshipping, self‑denouncing, pointlessly anarchic—what a marvelous word!! and so on and so forth)
and the proletariat (who know how to remain vigorous not in words alone, who know how to distinguish “science and the public” of the bourgeoisie from their own, who distinguish bourgeois democracy from proletarian democracy)?

Why do you do this?

It is devilishly galling.

Yours, V. I.