the contribution of v. v. bervi-flerovsky to russian populism (1988)

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The Contribution of V. V. Bervi-Flerovsky to Russian PopulismAuthor(s): Derek OffordSource: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 66, No. 2 (Apr., 1988), pp. 236-251Published by: the andModern Humanities Research Association University College London,School of Slavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4209738Accessed: 07-01-2016 00:39 UTC

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2/17

SEER, Vol.66,

No.

2,

April19&9

h e

ontribution

o f

V V

Bervi Flerovsky

u s s i a n

opul i sm

DEREK

OFFORD

IT

iS clear

from

the numerous memoirs

on

the

period

that

the

revolutionary Populism

of the

i870s

was

not so much a

coherent

doctrine, like the Marxism that eventually superseded it, but more a

complex

set

of

ideas

and attitudes that

had

developed

over a

long

period

and

crystallized

in

a distinctive form in the late i86os. At

the

root of

Populism,

to be

sure, lay

firm

beliefs:

that

the Russian

nation

could

follow

a

separate path

of

historical

development,

that

the

Russian

people

had

a

socialistic

temperament,

and that the

obshchina,

r

peasant

commune, might

constitute

a

basis

for a

collectivist utopia. But

Populism also provided an outlet for the

idealism

of

the

Russian

intelligentsia, its yearning for service, even self-sacrifice, in a noble

cause, for

it

encouraged

the educated

minority

to

discharge

a

moral

debt to the

suffering majority,

at whose

expense

they enjoyed

their

wealth and

culture, by

assisting

the masses to build

a

new,

more

egalitarian

social

order.1 These ideas and

attitudes,

one

might say

this

frame of

mind,

had

long been cultivated

in

publicism

and

imaginative

literature by Herzen, Chernyshevsky,

Dobrolyubov, Nekrasov,

even

Turgenev,

and lesser writers

such as

V. A.

Sleptsov,

Levitov,

Pomyalovskyand Reshetnikov. But it is with the appearanceof certain

works

in

I868-69

-

Lavrov's

Historical

Letters,Mikhaylovsky's essay

'What is

Progress?'

and the book The

Condition

f the Working

Class in

Russia

by

V.

V.

Bervi,

who

wrote under the pseudonym N.

Flerovsky

that

classical Populism

may be said to have been born, and of

these

works

Bervi's

tract,

which

it

is

the purpose of this article to

examine, is

arguably the most

important, not only

because it is known to have

Derek

Offord

is

Senior Lecturer

in

the

Department

of

Russian Studies at Bristol

University.

This

paper

is to

be

presented at the Xth InternationalCongress of

Slavists,

Sofia,

I988.

1

For a

more

detailed

description

of

Populism

and

of the

phases

through

which

it

passed

in

the

1870s see

my

book

The Russian

Revolutionary

Movement

n

the

i88os,

Cambridge,

i986,

pp.

I-35,

173-74.

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/17

BERVI-FLEROVSKY

AND

RUSSIAN POPULISM

237

exerciseda

great

nfluence

n

the

revolutionaryouth

of the

I

870s,2

but

also

because

t

blends nto

a

compelling

whole

considerably

moreof

the

diverseelements

of

Populism

han the other

wo.3

I

TheCondition

f

the

Working

lass n Russia

s

an

exhaustive

urvey

of

the

nation's

misery. Bervi's

gaze rangesover

many regions

and

many

examples

of

the

Russian

working

man:4

the Siberian

vagrant

and

cultivator,

he common

peopleof the

far

north

n

Archangel

province

and the

far

south

n

Astrakhan'

rovince; easants

ivingunder

various

types of

land

tenure

n

the

agricultural

eartland,

rom

Vologda

n

the

northto thelandsbetween heVolgaand the Uralsin theeast and the

black-earth

rovinces f the centre

and the

south;

and the

mine

worker,

seasonal labourer and

factory

worker,

the

proletarian

coming

into

being

in

the dawn of

Russia's ndustrial

age.

Even the

many

national

minorities

Kalmyks,

Mordvinians,

Circassians,

Armenians,

Letts,

Estonians,

Finns,

Moldavians

ndothers

receive

xtensiveand

often

sympatheticreatment.

The

impressioneft by

the

work s one

of

unalleviated

destitution,

suffering ndsqualornaworld hat s notnecessarily arren,harshor

ugly.

The

tone is set at

the

beginning

by the

narrator's

shocked

discoveryof an

unburied

corpse in

the beautiful

Siberian

andscape

with

its

golden

sky and

trilling

nightingales.The

country

has rich

resources nd

abundant

possibilities.

nSiberia,

or

example, he

soil is

fertile,

he

meadows

providegood

pasture, he

lakes

andriversare

full

of

fish,

the

foreststeem

with

game,and

berries

areplentiful;

here

is

pine

for

building,

anddeposits

of

coal, ironand

other

metals.And

yet

2

See the

accounts of the

major

memoirists,e.g.

N. A.

Charushin,

0

dalyokom

roshlom,

Moscow,

I973, p.

64;

P.

L.

Lavrov,

Narodniki-propagandisty

873-78

godov,

St

Petersburg,

I907,

pp.

32, 38,

44,

48-49;

0. V.

Aptekman,

Obshchestvo

Zemlya

Volya'

o-kh

godov,

Petrograd,

I924, pp.

72ff.;

M.

F.

Frolenko,

Sobraniye

ochineniy,nd

edn,

Moscow,

1932,

I,

p.

I72;

A. I.

Kornilova-Moroz,

Perovskaya

osnovaniyekruzhka

chaykovtsev'

Katorga

ssylka,

2,

1926, p.

I3); A.

Yakimova,

'Bol'shoy

protsess , li

protsess

I93-kh '

(Katorga

ssylka, 7,

1927,

p.

io); V.

Figner,

'Mark

Andreyevich

Natanson'

(Katorga

ssylka,

6,

1929,

p. I41).

Contemporaries

were

also much

affected by

Bervi's

work

Azbuka

otsial'nykh

auk, wo

parts

of which

werewritten

for and

printed

by

the

so-called

Chaykovsky ircle

n

I

87

1.

The

censorsdid

not

allow

this

work o be

published

egallyat

the

time,

although

copies

circulated

amongrevolutionary roups.Theworkwaspublished n London, n a fullerversion, n

1894

as

issues

I0-12

of the

'Russian

Free

Press'.

3

The

works in

question

by

Lavrov

and

Mikhaylovsky

were

primarily

ethical

and

sociological

disquisitions,

and

did

not

deal

with

subjects

uch

as

Russia's

historical

path,

the

natureof

the Russian

people or

the

questionof

communal

andholding

though

both

authors

did

deal with

these

questions

elsewhere).

4Bervi

uses the

term

rabotnik

o

describe

both the

industrial

workerand

the

peasant.

Like

the

Populists n

general he

does not

draw

between

these two

representatives

f

the

working

people the

fundamental

distinction

which

Marxists

perceive,

although

he does

see the

industrial

workersas

an

awakening

orce

more

highly

developed

ntellectually

and

morally

than

those

who

remained

on

the

land.



4/17

238

DEREK

OFFORD

the Russian

working people

are the

'pitiable, poor,

suffering,

ast

outcast inksof the civilized

amily'.They

dwell

everywhere

n

grinding

poverty

n conditionswhich

are

bound to

make

the much

publicized

fate of the Westernpauperseemby comparison 'heavenlyblessing

and

an

unattainable

[state of] well-being'.

They

are

overburdened

with

taxes,

the collectionof which

may

be

accompaniedby corporal

punishment.Theysubsist

on a wretcheddiet

(peasants

whoeat meat n

summerare as rareas

'grains

of

gold

amid

shingle').

Malnutrition nd

exhaustionresult

n

a

low

level

of

productivity

nd

further

degenera-

tion

of

people,

and

and ivestock.

Mortality

atesreach

evelsunknown

in

WesternEuropean

countriessuch as France

even

in

years

when

choleraragesthere.Particularlywretcheds thelot ofRussianwomen

who have to turn their hand

to

every

occupation

-

ploughing,

harrowing,mowing,

reaping,threshing,

ishing and who

are so

abusedbytheir

husbands hat

theymaycommitcrimes n

order o

gain

the sanctuaryof

prison.

Industry,whichBerviregards

as a source

of

prosperity

and

happiness for

other

peoples,S s for the Russians

a

furthercause

of

poverty

and death.

Men,

womenand

children abour

for sixteen

hours

a

day

in

factories

in

dangerous

and unhealthy

conditionswhichadministratorsnd capitalistsdo nothingto ameli-

orate.6

The causes of this

human

misery

are

numerous,

and they are

in

Bervi's

view social

and in

the

final

analysis

moral

rather

than

natural

or

climatic.

One cause is an

irrational trading

policy which dictates

the

export

of

agricultural produce

required

by

the

poorly-fed

Russian

working

man in

return

for

products such as cotton of

which he has

little

need.

Another is the

deracination of the

common people and

the

destruction of the

family unit that result fromthe departure of the male

5

A

view by no means

uncharacteristic

of

the

Populists

who,

it

has

recently been

argued,

were much

less

hostile to

industrial

development

per

se than

has been

commonly

supposed

(see

Edward

Acton, 'The

Russian

Revolutionary

Intelligentsia

and

Industrialisation',

in

Russian

Thought

nd

Society,

1800-I9I7: Essays

in

Honour

of

Eugene

Lampert,

ed.

Roger

Bartlett,

Keele,

I984, pp.

98iff.).

6

See

N.

Flerovsky [V.

V.

Bervi],

Polozheniye

abochego

lassa

v

Rossii,

St

Petersburg,

I869

[hereafter

Polozheniye

abochegoklassa], p.

6,

350-51,

38-39,

352-53, 49,

40,

237, I7I,

57,

310,

399,

5'I

f., 388.

Bervi

reworked

his

book for a

second

edition which

the

Chaykovsky

circle

intended to

print,

but the

authorities

were

successful

in

preventing

its

appearance. The

I

869

edition

was

republished

in

Moscow

in

1938,

with an

introduction

by

0.

Abramovich,

but

with some

abridgement,

in

particular

the

omission

of

the

conclusion

on the

grounds that it

'reiterates

the

sociological

views

of Flerovsky,

expounded by

him in

other parts of

the book

[and

provides]

no new

conclusions,

examples,

facts etc.'

(p.

iii). This

unfortunate omission

is

presumably

explained by the

fact that it

is

in

the

conclusion

that the

incompatibility

of

Bervi's

Populist outlook with

a

Marxist

world-view is

most

vividly

apparent. It

is

interesting

in

this

connection

that

Andrzej

Walicki

feels that it was in

this

section of

Bervi's work,

rather

than in

its

descriptive part,

that

Populism

'found its

best and

most

characteristic

expression'

(see his book The

Controversyver

Capitalism:

Studies in the

Social

Philosophy

of the Russian

Populists,

Oxford,

I969, p.

I

on.). The

latest

edition of

The Condition

f the

WorkingClass is

in

N.

Flerovsky [V.

V. Bervi],

Izbrannyye

konomicheskiye

roizvedeniya,

vols,

Moscow,

1958-59,

I.



5/17

BERVI-FLEROVSKY

AND RUSSIAN POPULISM

239

from he

household

orseasonal

employment

zarabotki),

rinsearch

of

morelong-term

employment

which

will

enable

him

to

pay

his taxes.

Militaryrecruitment

as the

same

effect.Yet more

mportant

auses

of

distressare the prevalenceof large-scaleprivate andownership to

which

Berviattributes

he

poverty

of

whole

regions

where

t

predomi-

nates

-

and crippling axes

of

every

description poll-tax,quit-rent

and

excises).

Bervi

s convinced

hat

the elimination

of

these last

two

causes

of

distress

n

particular

would

quicklybring

about

an

economic

transformation,

or it

is

counterproductive,

e

argues,

or

a

nation to

keep

ts work

orce n

penury.

Those nations

prosper

most n

whichthe

burden

placed

on

the work orce

by

those

who do

not

work

(Bervi

may

have in mind Saint-Simon's onceptsof les industrielsnd lesoisifs) s

lightest.7

Beyond

all

the socialand economic

xplanations

f

hardship,

however,

here

clearly ies,

as

we shallsee,

a

moral

irstcause

relating

o

the behaviour

f

man

in

society,

his

inhumanity

o his

fellows.

II

We

may

seek explanations or the

extraordinary

opularity

of The

Condition

f

the

Working

lass

nRussia

n

many

evels.

It is true that at first sight the workhasstylisticdeficiencieswhich

may

make it

hard

for the modern

readerto

appreciatets appeal

to

Bervi's

contemporaries.

It

is prolix and

sometimes

opaque. These

shortcomings,

however,

are

shared

by many of the

writings of

Bervi's

contemporaries

in

the

radical camp

(Lavrov's works

were once

likened

by Saltykov-Shchedrin

to

forests

the

edges

of

which

one

might

never

reach).8

Indeed such apparent

defects might

well have been

construed

as merits

by readers

contemptuous of the

effete man of letters

and

disdainful of the literary elegance he prized. More importantly, the

form of

the work

makes

it an

ideal vehicle for

the Populist

message. The

Condition

f

the

Working

Class

in

Russia

is a

travelogue,

an

account

of

Bervi's

personal

odyssey through the

length and

breadth of

Russia

during the

periods

of

exile he endured in

the

i860S.9 Infused with

a

7

Polozheniye

abochego

lassa, p.

207,

24I, 389,

400,409,57, I97,

200, 58,

I74-75,

2I6,

2I8.

8-See

Philip

Pomper,

Peter

Lavrov

and the

Russian

Revolutionary

Movement,

Chicago,

I972,

p.ii8.

9 Bervi was born in

I829,

the son of a Professor of Physiology at Kazan' University (who

was himself

the son

of

a

British consul

at

Danzig). He studied law at Kazan'

University

and

then

served as

an

official

in

the

Ministry ofJustice

(an

experience

that

gave

him

first-hand

knowledge

of some

of the abuses he

was

to

chronicle).

In

I862 he

wrote

a

petition to the tsar

and a

letter

to

the

British

ambassador

complaining

about the

arrest

of the

members of

the

nobility

from Tver'

who

had

expressed dissatisfaction with

the

provisions of

the

emancipation edict,

and was

temporarily confined

for his

pains

in a

lunatic

asylum.

There

now began

the

long

period

of exile

and

imprisonment

in

Astrakhan',

Kazan',

Kuznetsk,

Tomsk,

Vologda

and Tver'

which

provided

much of

the

material for The

Condition

of the

Working

Class in

Russia. In

the

early I

87os Bervi

was

close

to both

the

Chaykovsky

circle and

the

Dolgushin

circle.

Subsequently he

underwent

further

periods of

exile in

Archangel



6/17

240

DEREK

OFFORD

sense

of

restless

movement,

it describes a

voyage

of

discovery

within

a

native land which

still held

many

mysteries

for

an

educated

minority

isolated from

the

toiling

masses. The form is one

already

popularized

by Radishchev in his own panoramicdescriptionof Russia's ills under

Catherine II, the

Journeyrom

St

Petersburg

o

Moscow,

and

lately

used

again

to

chronicle popular distress

by Sleptsov

and

Nekrasov.10 Like

Radishchev's

Journey and indeed like

Cobbett's

RuralRides

n

southern

England

in

the

post-Napoleonic

era

and

Engels'

Condition

f

the

Working

Class

in

England

n

the

I840s),

Bervi's

travelogue

naturally

accommo-

dates

economic, social and ethical

discussion,

while

also

enabling

the

author,

through his

first-person

narrative,

his

exhaustive use

of

graphic

detail, his reporting of life observed at first hand and of conversations

with

the

common

people whom he

encounters,

to write with

compelling

immediacy and

authenticity.

The

credibility which the

work

derives from

Bervi's

role

in

it as

reliable

eye-witness

is bolstered by his

constant use of

statistics

as

a

basis for

discussion of economic

and social

issues.

In

preparing

the

work

Bervi

drew

on

numerous

sources,

notably

official

statistical

surveys produced

at

provincial

level

on

local

population

and

agricul-

ture,11

and

he

even

makes

use,

for

the

purpose

of

comparison, of the

census conducted

in

Britain

in

I85I.

These

sources are

repeatedly

invoked by Bervi

in

support of

his conclusions. Thus

he offers

tables

showing

the

proportion of the

population

living

on

lands owned

by

landlords

in

various

provinces to

support his

claims

about the

detrimental

effects of

large-scale

landowning; tables

compiled for the

same

purpose

which compare

percentage increases

in

population over

a

twelve-year

period and the

relative

birth and death

rates in

different

groups of

provinces;tables

that

comparedeath rates

in

provinceswhere

the people drinkmost with those in which they drinkleast, with a view

to

refuting the belief

that the

poverty of the

Russian

people is

attributable to

their

drunkenness;

and statistics on

the

distribution of

woodland,

on

livestock

levels,

on

the

relative mobility of

the

labour

force

in

various

provinces,

and much

else

besides.12

Negative

reviews

of

the work

tended to

complain

that

the

sources of these

statistics

were

province, Kostroma and Tiflis. In 1893 he was allowed to go abroad and visited Geneva and

London. In

I896

he

returned

to

Russia,

where

he died

in

I

9

I8. The best

source on

Bervi's life

and

activity

is his

autobiography,

published

under

his own

name V. V.

Bervi,

Tri

politicheskiye

istemy:

Nikolay

Iyy,

Aleksandr

Ioy

i

Aleksandr

IIiy,

[Geneva],

I 897

[hereafter Tri

politicheskiye

istemy].See

also

the

biography by 0.

V.

Aptekman,

Vasiliy

Vasilyevich Bervi-

Flerovskiypo

materialamb.

III

Otdeleniya

D.

G.P.,

Leningrad,

1925; and S. A.

Vengerov,

Kritiko-biograticheskiy

lovar'

russkikh

isateley

uchonykh,

II, St

Petersburg, I

892, pp.

i6-i

7.

10

V.

A.

Sleptsov,

'Vladimirka i

Klyaz'ma'

(see his

Izbrannyye

roizvedeniya,

Leningrad,

I970,

pp.

29-I51); and

N. A.

Nekrasov,

'Komu na

Rusi

zhit'

khorosho?'.

1

See

Tri

politicheskiyeistemy,

pp. 249ff.

12

Polozheniye

abochego lassa,

pp. 195,

20I-02,

204ff.,

228ff.,

272ff.,

400ff., 4I

I

ff.



7/17

BERVI-FLEROVSKY


24I

not always clear, and a reportdrawn up in the

Ministry

of the

Interior

predictably expressed

the fear

that Bervi's

use of official

figures

could

'seduce

inexperienced

readers who are not aware

how

easy

it is to

play

with statistics for some preconceived purpose'.13To Bervi's radical

contemporaries,

though,

the

application

of statistical method

to

social

analysis (an approach

made

popular

in the mid-nineteenth

century by

the

Belgian

mathematician

and

sociologist Quetelet

among

several

others)

lent

his work

great authority.

The

method

was

indicative

of an

intellectual exactitude

and

rigour which, Chernyshevsky

had

taught

the

radical

youth,

was

just

as

necessary

in the

study

of social and moral

affairs as

in

study

of

the

natural world.

Indeed,

as

Bervi

himself

stated,

statistics were 'implacable data', 'cold' and 'dispassionate'.14

III

Both the form and the method employed by Bervi

in

The

Conditionf the

Working

Class in Russia

helped

to

ensure its success

among

the

readership for which

it was intended, but it was

doubtless the views

expressed

in it that

determined its fate more than

any

other

factor. It is

as

well to

begin

an

examination of those

views by pointing out that

Bervi managed to give grounds for simultaneous despondency and

optimism, self-abasement and

self-congratulation,by suggesting that

Russia, in relation

to the West, was both currently inferior and

potentially superior.

Comparison

of

conditions

in

Russia and

the West

is

a

constant

leitmotif

in

the work. In

particular Bervi

contrasts the fate of the

Russian worker

with that of his counterpart in England, the European

country

which

Bervi

considers the most advanced and prosperous. The

sense of comparison is heightened through the obvious parallel

suggested by Bervi's title with

Engels'

book The

Conditionf the Working

Class in Englandin

which the German socialist

had presented a

disturbing

and

indignant picture

of

the plight of

the proletariat in the

world's most

highly industrialized state in

early Victorian times.

Engels spoke

of

England's glaring social inequality,

of the reduction of

workers to

the status of machines and their

demoralization, of bad

13

'Zapreshchonnyye i unichtozhennyye knigi V. V. Bervi-Flerovskogo', Literaturnoye

nasledstvo,

7-8,

I933,

p.

I79.

A

British

reviewer,

on the other

hand,

finds the

statistics

'invaluable

to

one who

knows what a

trouble it is to

get

Russian

statistics

of

any

kind'

(Athenaeum, o.

2200, 25

December

I869, p.

859).

14

Polozheniye

rabochego

klassa,

pp.

203,

350-01. The

study

of

statistics

produced

by the

zemstva

was to be an

important

source for

economists and

revolutionaries in

the

88os

and

I

8gos

debating

the

question of

whether

the tide

of

capitalism in

the Russian

countryside

was

reversible

and

whether

the

peasant

commune was

disintegrating

under its

impact.

The

young Lenin's

early work on

'the

development

of

capitalism

in

Russia'

draws

on such

sources and

indeed

Lenin

twice

refers to

Bervi's book

(see V. I.

Lenin,

Polnoye

sobraniye

sochineniy,

th

edn,

Moscow,

I967-70, III,

pp. 232,

574).



8/17

242 DEREK

OFFORD

factory

conditions,

the

inadequate

diet and ruined health of

the

working lass,

the

forcing

down

of

wages

hrough ompetition

nd

their

further

eduction

hrough

inesand the

truck

ystem,

of

urban

squalor

andinsanitaryhousingand of thehighincidenceofcrime,prostitution

and

drunkenness

mong

he

masses.

Only

among

he

Irish

mmigrants

living in

England'scities could

Engels

find

an

even

deeper

level of

poverty

and

degradation.

Bervi set out to

prove that

it was

rather

n

his

own

beloved

Russia

that human

misery

was to be found

on

a scale

unparalleled

n

Europe.

There

is

in

his

memoirs

a

passage

relating

to his

conception

of

The

Condition

f

the

Working

lass n Russia hat

betrays

a

relish at

the

discoveryhe thinks he has made and a zealous determination o

broadcast t:

The

more

I

went into this

matter,

the

more

I

saw the

life of the Russian

workingpeople

in

gloomy

colours;

all

the optimistic

assurances hat the

workerhas a

better ife

in

Russiathan

in

the

West,

that

we do nothavea

-proletariat

nd

so forth,went out of

the window.

It hasbecome he

habit

with

us to shoutabout the

English

rural

proletariat, bout

the

horrifying

povertyin the

cities.

I

became

convinced hat Russiawas a

country

of

universal

pauperism.... Unconcern

about the

sufferings f the

working

peopleexceededanything hatcould be found n WesternEurope.In the

West there

was not

a

single

country

where

people were

so

poor,

downtrodden nd

wretched.

The

harder

worked

n

this

subject, he more

enthusiastic

became; inally

I

gave

myselfup

to it

entirely.

I

lived the

sufferings

f

this

people,

I

wanted

to takeon

myself

all

their

difficulties

n

order to

depict

them

in

all their

reality.

I

remembered

what

a

strong

impression

descriptions f the

sufferings f the

Irish peoplehad made on

me, and

now I

had come to

believe that the

tribulations f

the Russian

worker

werewithouta doubt

greater.One

would

havehad togo to India

to

findhis

like.15

Comparison f

theconditionof the

people n

Russiawith that of

the

English

working

lass

begins

at an

earlystage

n

Bervi'sbook.

People

makea lot

of noise

n

our

country

aboutthe

calamitous

onditionof

the

proletarian n

England,Belgium

and

France', he writes, but if

a

Russian

working

man

were able to

live for

a

year like

evena beggar n

one

of

those

countries hen 'he would

consider

himself he luckiestman

alive'.The thesis is remorselesslyeveloped.The indigentpopulation

of

the Russiannorth s far

hungrier

nd

worseclad than

the

paupers

of

England

and France.

The incomeof

the Russian

worker ould

be more

aptly

compared

o that of

the

worker

n

France

under he

ancienegime

r

the

negro

slave

in

the United

States

than

with

that of

the modern

Englishworker;

n

Perm'

province, or

example,a

threefold

ncrease

would still

not

bring

t

up

to

the English evel.

The breadeaten by

the

15

Tri

politicheskiye

istemy,

pp.

25

1-52.



9/17

BERVI-FLEROVSKY


243

Russian working

man would seem

to the

Englishman

fit

only

to be fed

to horses

or swine.

England supports

a much more abundant

population

of both humans and livestock than even

relatively populous

provinces like Samara,which is on roughlythe samelatitude. In Russia

as many as

three

in

every

five children die

before

they

reach the

age

of

five, whereas

in

the

West the

figure

does

not

reach two in five even

among

the most

impoverished.

And in a

chapter

in which Bervi records

the

'impression

made

by

the industrial

provinces

and statistical data'

he

gives

an extended

comparison

of

mortality

rates

in

the Russian

provinces, on

the one

hand,

and

in

groups

of

English

counties

of

comparable size

and

population,

on the other. Out of the

twelve

most

industrialized provinces in Russia, ten have a mortality rate higher

than

that

obtaining

in

the worst

quarters

of London where

only

thieves

and

beggars

dwell.16

Bervi's analysis of the Russian economy

in

the immediate post-

reform period reveals what other Populists accept, namely that there

are

in

evidence

the

beginnings

of that

capitalist system

that

has reached

such

a

high point

of

development

in

Victorian

England.

It is

significant

in

this respect

that

as

much

as

one

third

of

the

main

body of The

Condition

f

the

Working

Class

n

Russia

hould

be

devoted

to

the lot of

the

worker

in what

Bervi terms 'industrial

Russia',

that is to

say the

sections

of

the

economy

in

which the

embryo

of the

new

economic

order

was

most

apparent. But a similarprocess is going on in the countryside

where the

hiring

of

wage labour is supplanting the exploitation of serf-

labour

in

the post-reform period

-

and Bervi is insistent that 'hiring is

only

the

first

step

towards

improvement after

slavery'-

and where the

concentration of land

in

the hands of the few is creating a landless

proletariat. He describes the insidious reduction of even the most

unified and industrious families to economic subordination to the early

rural

capitalist, the miroyed.Where private landownership is the norm

the more

well-to-do members of the community are able to turn the

poorer peasants

off

the land and knock down the price of their labour.

Even

within the rural commune the detested miroyed nexorably

16

Polozheniye

abochego

lassa,

pp.

55-57,

io8,

I70-71, 203-04,

242-43,

3i8, 40, 453,

345if.,

373-76,

I41, 254, 308.

One

could not describe Bervi

as an

anglophile,

for

however

superior

the conditions of English workers might seem to those of their Russian counterparts the

rapacity of the

English

bourgeoisie

and the

ruthlessness

of Britain

as

a

colonial

power

could

not be

forgotten

(see

for

example

his

article

'Sovremennyy

Karfagen',

reprinted in

Izbrannyye

ekonomicheskiyeproizvedeniya,

I,

pp.

37-39,

49).

Nor does Bervi

seem

to have

imbibed

any love

of

England

from his

father, with

whom

his relations

do

not

appear to have

been close.

He

didL

however, write

an

article

on

English

legal procedure

in

which

he

expressed

approval of

the right of

English

citizens to

complain of official

abuses

directly

to a

court which

would

examine

charges

in

open

session

(see Tri

politicheskiye

istemy, pp.

113-14).

And when

he

visited England

for

the first

time the

free

atmosphere

made

him

realize the full

extent

of the

harm

done in Russia

by

autocracy

and

made him

feel as if

he had

escaped from a

'den of

criminals' to a

society of honest

people (ibid.,

pp.

528-29).



10/17

244

DEREK

OFFORD

increases

his

wealth

and

power,establishinghimselfon the best land,

which

comes to

be seen as his inalienable

property,

and

taking

possession

of the

commune'smost

prized

resources.

Again,

Bervisees

the consequencesof the capitalist's greed in the Caspian fishing

grounds:wherecatchesarepoor

he

fisherman

may

be left

n

peace,

but

wherethe fish are

plentiful

he

is

a

hiredworkerwho

goes hungry

while

furnishing

wealth

for his

employer.

7

National pride, however, did

not allow

Bervi

to

be content

that

Russia should continue to follow

in

the

footsteps

of

the Western

nations,even

f

it was evident

hat the

course

on which

Russiawas now

embarked ad led

in

the

West

to

a

much

greater

prosperity

han

Russia

yet enjoyed.Russiawas indangerofsuccumbingo thefate of oriental

states such as

Turkey

and China which

Bervi,

n

common

with most

contemporaries

n the radical

camp, associated

with

stagnation.And

yet

she should

not

be

cowed

by

her

backwardness,

hich had

been so

graphically

llustrated

n

the CrimeanWar.After

all,

at

other

periods

in

historyweak

nationshad risento

greatness

while

their

nitially

more

powerfulcontemporaries

ad declined.The fate

of nations

depended

on their

'spiritual reatness',

he

'finer

eelings'

n

their

soul,

the

'idea'

thatunderpinnedheircivilization.Thus theempires fCyrus,Chingis

Khan and

Tamerlane,empires

devoid of

any greatidea,

had

disap-

peared

without

trace,

whilst

India, Athens, England

and

the United

States

would 'ever

be preserved

n

the

memory

of

history

as

leaders

of

mankind'. Now Russia too, Bervi argues

in

one of

the clearest

statementsof the

Populist

belief

n

Russia's

eparate

historical

destiny,

should

contemplate

he realization f

a

new 'idea':

Europe

has

passed

down

that same

path along

which

we

are

travelling,

it

has

lived through the same phases;

if we

go

in

its tracks we shall get

ourselves out

of

trouble

in

the

same

way

that

it

has

done; why

should we

wring

our hands

and

rack our brains over the

laying

down

of a

new road

when

there is

an old

well-trodden

path?

Thus

have we

reasoned

up

until

now,

thus have we tried to

act;

but even here we were

constantly afraid of

taking

an

unnecessary step

or

taking

a

step

too

quickly...

.

If

we

continue

to

go

down

the

path

which

we

have been on

up

until

now,

then we

are

inevitably bound always to remain at the tail-end

of

the

civilized world;

if I

follow

a

person

and

go timidly step

after

step

down the track

he

has

left then

I

shall without any doubt always remain behind. The national pride of

every

Russian is

bound

to take

offence at such a

state

of

affairs,

and it

would

be

a

different matter

if

there

really

were

nothing

more for

us to do. But that

is not

so,

is it? We see

in

modern

civilization,

at the head of which

stand

Europe

and the United

States,

a

fundamental

defect,

one

of those defects

which have

dug

the

graves

of civilizations and have made it

inevitable

that

new leaders with fresh forces have come to take

the

place

of the old ones.

18

17

Polozheniye

abochegolassa,

pp.

47, 66,

242, 244,

75-76,

I

26.

18

Ibid., pp.

45I-53.



11/17

BERVI-FLEROVSKY

AND RUSSIAN

POPULISM

245

The

greatidea,

the new

principle

as

yet

unfulfilled

lsewhere,

which

Russiahasthe

opportunity

o realize s

that of a reconciliation

etween

hitherto

competingclasses,

and

the

creation

of

a

new social

harmony

basedonco-operation.

IV

The emphasis

on the need

for social

harmony

and

co-operation

s

fundamental

o

Bervi's

work,

as

it is to thework

of

most

(though

not

all)

of the

major

Populist hinkers,

but

before

examining

he

expression

f

this idea

in TheCondition

f

the

Working

lass

n

Russiamore

closely

we

should

perhaps

briefly

ake

accountof its

Western

European

ntellec-

tual context.

Populism

hould be seen

not

only

as

an

expression

f

apprehension

about

the

economicand social

conditionsof Western

Europe

n

the

mid-nineteenth

entury

conditions

whose further

development

n

Russia

he Populists

arnestly

wished o

abort but

also as

a

response

both

to the Western doctrines

that

extolled

more or less unbridled

competition

n

the economic

phere

and to the Darwinianview

of

the

natural world as the arena

for an

unremitting truggle

n which

the

'fittest'wouldsurvivewhilethe weakwouldperish.To thinkers uchas

Mikhaylovsky,

or

example,

he

triumph

f the

strong

and the

crushing

of

theweakcould

not

be

equated

with

progress.

t

was therefore

rgued

that

whileDarwin's

heory

of evolution

mightcorrectly

describeman's

relation o

nature, t shouldnot serveas a

model

for

his relationswith

his

fellowmen.19

Alternativemodels or humansocieties,basedon

co-

operation

and the

interests

of the

community ather

han on

conflict

and

the self-assertion

f

the

competitive

ndividual,

had

alreadybeen

draftedby theearlyWesternEuropean ocialists uchasSaint-Simon,

Fourier,Cabet, Robert Owen, and

Proudhon,

n

whose

vocabulary

terms

such as

association, olidarity,unity, harmony,mutualism,

and

collectivism

set the

key.

The

teachings

of these

utopian

thinkers,

particularlyof

Fourier, had percolated

into Russia in the

i

840s,

through

Petrashevsky whose disciplesspreadthem even in

Kazan',

where

Berviwas at that time a student),

and Bervi's argedebt to

them

he

acknowledged

n

his memoirs.20

This early socialism had

an

emphasis hat was notso muchpolitical

as moral, ndeed t even had

a

quasi-religious

dimension

that

found expression n tracts such

as

Saint-Simon's

Nouveau

hristianisme,ith

its plea

for

the enlistmentof

les

sentiments

s well

as intellect as a

source

of

social progress,and

Cabet's Vrai

Christianisme,

hose

readerswere

exhorted o follow

the

example

ofJesus and

the

earlyChristians

who foundeda churchofthe

19James H.

Billington,

Mikhailovsky

ndRussian

Populism,Oxford,

1958,

p.

29.

20

Tri

politicheskiye

istemy,

pp.

8-9,

494.



12/17

246

DEREK OFFORD

poor.21 In Russia the equation of early Christianity with nineteenth-

century socialism was made by

N.

V. Sokolov

in

his book Renegades,

which was

much admired

by contemporaries.22

The

similarity

was also

implicit in the thought of Bervi himself, who not only had a youthful

reverence for the figure of Christ,23 but who in mature years wrote a

pamphlet for the revolutionary propagandist urging

his

own

disciples

to emulate

Christ,

who

had

gone

barefoot

among

the

poor, by

sacrificing

themselves

fearlessly

for

their brethren.24

Bervi believes

that man

undoubtedly

does have

a

destructive streak

which militates against co-operation.This

streak finds its

strongestbut

by no means exclusive expression

in

the deeds

of

men -such as Chingis

Khan and Tamerlane, men capable of destroyingin hours what it had

taken

thousands

of humans and animals centuries to

build.

Modern

civilization seems to Bervi to accept these 'destructive inclinations in

man

as natural attributes

of his

soul',

and to nurture and

develop them.

It also disseminates doctrines that hold that material acquisitiveness

and love of power are incentives to hard work,

and

encourages man,

who is

keen

to win

society's approbation

and

liable

to

equate happiness

with

enjoyment

of

respectability,

to

develop

artificial

needs.

The

interests of the strong

and the weak are viewed

as

antithetical to one

another, and competition

and conflict are

thus promoted.

And

yet there

is

also

in

the

human

soul

a

'fine

and

beautiful quality',

an

'inclination to

live

a

universal life',

that runs counter to this

destructiveness

and

acquisitiveness. Social disharmony is

not

a 'natural inevitability' but

a

product of modern civilization with its distorted values and artificial

needs. In the light of these considerations Bervi sees it as his own task,

indeed as the 'first task of

civilization',

to nurture a

'solidarity'

of

interests

in

society, or as he rather obscurely puts it

in

the conclusion of

his book: 'A normal civilization should foster in people concepts and

feelings which would enable them

to

help

one

another, to attain to

development

and

well-being,

not

prevent

one another from

doing

so'.

21

See G.

D.

H.

Cole,

Socialist

Thought:

The

Forerunners,789-i850, London,

1959,

pp.

44, 78.

22

See N. V.

Sokolov, Otshchepentsy.Stoiki. Khristiane.

Sekty. Utopisty. SotsialistyJ,

Geneva,

I

899.

The first edition was suppressed by the police

in

the

i

86os and

a

second was

published

in Zurich in

I872.

23

Tripoliticheskiyeistemy,p. 494.

24

The

pamphlet 'Kak dolzhno zhit' po zakonu prirody

i

pravdy' is reprinted in A.

Kunkl',

Dolgushintsy, Moscow,

1932, pp. 205-12.

Bervi

was,

however, critical of Tolstoy's 'philan-

thropic and conservative religion

in

which

power was seen

as illegitimate and yet believers

were

forbidden to fight

it

[by

force]' (see Tri

politicheskiye

istemy,p.

307).

On the

attitude

of

Tolstoy

towards Bervi,

see

chapter

i

of

Boris

Eikhenbaum,

Tolstoi n

the

Seventies, r. Albert

Kaspin,

Michigan, I982. Bervi's example appears

to have

pricked Tolstoy's

conscience,

for

alongside Tolstoy's 'complicated

life, entangled

in

his

own

passions and

contradictions,

there

appeared

in

his imagination an opposite life:

simple, free

of

authority, of

guile,

hypocrisy, and repentance' (Eikhenbaum, p.

27),

and

this opposite life Bervi,

eccentric

almost to the

point ofyurodstvo, eemed

to

represent.



13/17

BERVI-FLEROVSKY

AND

RUSSIAN POPULISM

247

Solidarity is

in

any

case

not

merely

an

expression

of an innate

quality

but also the source

of

the

deepest happiness (as opposed

to the

superficial happiness

furnished

by possession

of wealth and

social

standing). That such happiness could be derived from the leading of

what Bervi

termed the

'universal life' was

amply confirmed,

he

believed, by the historical examples

of

groups

of

people

who

had

laboured absolutely 'disinterestedly'

all their

lives

and

even

endured

privations, sufferings and persecution, death itself,

for

some goal

beyond personal

satisfaction

narrowly interpreted.25

How

in

practice the Russians

were to

step

to the front of civilization

by putting

into effect the

great

idea

of

'solidarity'

was

of

course

highly

problematical, but Bervi confidently offered a solution. Whereas the

capitalist believes that exchange and production must yield profit,

common sense dictates, in Bervi's opinion, that profitis an indicationof

an

'abnormal state of industry'. Both

on

the

land

and

in

the factories

the

profit

motive should be abolished.

Wage

labour must

give way

to

what

Bervi repeatedly refers

to

as

tovarishchestvo

etween worker and

capitalist and by which he understands

a

form of co-operation or

'association of labour and resources'. Capitalists might continue to

exist but instead of making profitsfar in excess of what Bervi believes to

be really justified by the risk they take they would supply plants with

capital through interest-free credit and mortages. Banks and insurance

societies

would

be set up which would pay any losses incurred by the

working people,

who would

themselves exercise control over industrial

production through the arteland over agricultural production through

the obshchina. ervi claims that this 'comradely relationship between

workers and capitalists is not only feasible' but if accompanied by

appropriate legislation would also actually dispel the chaos and

disorder

currently regnant

in

Russian

industry, and would establish

between the two

sides of production a trust impossible under the

present state of affairs.26

25

Polozheniye

abochego

lassa,pp.

453-57, 88-89,

465, 468,

473,

471.

See

also Bervi's

article

'Literaturnyye

liberaly'

which

was written in

I869 in

reply to

critical

reviewers of

his

book

but which was

not

passed by the

censors

('Neizdannaya

stat'ya

V.

V.

Bervi-Flerovskogo',

in

Literaturnoyeasledstvo,

,

I932,

pp. 6i if.). It is perhaps of note that when Bervi is condemning

modern

society his

vocabulary is

reminiscent of

the tradition

of

the Russian

religious

ascetics

who

deplored

styazhatel'stvo

which

I

have

translated

as

'material

acquisitiveness'). The

themes

discussed

here,

which

are outlined at

some

length

in

the

conclusion to

Bervi's

book,

are

more fully

treated

in

Azbuka

sotsial'nykhnauk,

where Bervi

contends that

societies have

traditionally

worked

against their own

best

interests, by

elevating those of

their

members

who

perform

socially

harmful

acts and

castigating

those

who perform

acts of

general

utility,

and

where he

rails against

the

privileged

minorities,

bolstered

by

organized

religion,

armed

forces

and

bureaucracies,

who

have held

the

majority in their

societies in

poverty

and

subjugation.

26

Polozheniye

abochego

lassa,

pp.

319,

295,

245, 335,

329, 300,

326-28,

3I3.



14/17

248

DEREK

OFFORD

V

Bervi's assurances that

if

only

people would heed his advice then things

would turn out

'in

the best

possible way' inevitably

have

a

hollow

ring.27Moreover, although he

undoubtedly hopes that association can

be achieved without

revolutionary upheaval, through

a

change

in

people's attitudes,

he does

at the

same time seem

to

understand the

impracticability of his solution,

for

in

one place he acknowledges that

there

can

be

no

voluntarygreement

between worker and

capitalist: the

subordination of workers

to

the

conditions of

the

capitalist

is

a

'phenomenon

of nature like the subordination of

a

vanquished people

to its

conquerors'.28

However,

what

helps

to

convince

Bervi of

the

plausibility of his solution, lame as it sounds when baldly stated, is his

deployment

of a number of

arguments

which are fundamental to

Russian Populism

in

general and which TheConditionf

the

Working lass

in

Russiaconsiderably helped

to

strengthen.

In

the first

place,

it must be said

(paceMarx,

who

praised

Bervi's

book on account of the

supposed

absence

in

it of

the 'Russian

optimism'

which Marx detested

in

Herzen's

thought)29

that Bervi

clearly

made

out a

case

for

viewing

the Russian

people

as endowed with

distinctive,

and laudable, qualities. In so far as the Russian working people

displayed slavishness,

passivity, apathy

or

resignation

these

were

natural consequences of the condition

in

which they found themselves.

Bervi stoutly defended them against those detractors who branded

them

as

exceptionally idle, ignorant, promiscuous

or

sottish.

In

fact,

Bervi

contends, they are

too

patient and industrious for their own good;

they

are the

least bellicose

people

in

Europe; they

are

bold, enterpris-

ing, generously endowed with native wit and

spiritual strength,

instinctively drawn to 'civilization' and quick to apprehend the 'great

ideas worked out

by European science'. Most important of all, they

27

Ibid.,

pp.

320, 326.

28 Ibid.,

pp. 3

I

6-I

7.

29

Marx

praised Bervi's book both

in a

letter to

members of the Russian

section of the First

Workingmen's

International

(see

Perepiska

K.

Marksa

i

F.

Engel'sa

s

russkimi

politicheskimi

deyatelyami, nd

edn,

Moscow,

195 I,

p.

39),

and

in a

letter to

Engels

(see

Marx

and

Engels,

Sochineniya,

2nd

edn,

Moscow,

1955-73,

XXXII,

pp.

357-58).

Marx's

enthusiasm was

qualified, though:

in

both the letters

cited

he

mentioned

shortcomings, telling

Engels

for

example that the work contained 'a large dose of good-natured verbiage', and in the margins

of the

copy

kept

in

his

library

he

wrote various critical

remarks,

particularly

apropos

of

Bervi's views on

association or

co-operation

between workers and

capitalists,

which

struck

Marx

as 'the old illusion'

reminiscent of Proudhon

(see

Abramovich's

introduction

in

the

I 938

edition of Bervi's book

cited

in

n. 6

above, p.

xiv).

In

view

of

Marx's

comments,

taken

together with all the

evidence

presented

here to

demonstrate that Bervi's

book

belongs

to

the

mainstream

of classical

Populism,

the

claim

by

one Soviet scholar

that the work

'objectively

promoted

..

.

a

struggle

with

Populist

ideology,

and ...

prepared

the

ground

for the

penetration of Marxism'

into Russia must be

seen as fanciful

(see

chapter xii,

written

by

Podorov, of the

study

Istoriya

russkoy

konomicheskoy

ysli,

ed.

N. A.

Tsagolov,

2

VOlS, Moscow,

I959, II, pt

I,

pp.

3I0-34).



15/17

BERVI-FLEROVSKY


249

bear within

themselves

the

great principle

of

co-operation

and

a

striving

for

equality

and

justice

(though

this

principle

is not inherent in

the upper lasses who,

seduced

by 'prejudices, preconceived

ideas

and

doctrines fromoverseas', have introducedinequality and injustice into

Russian life).

To

the Russian

common

people, then,

the

relationship

between worker

and

capitalist,

based

as

it

is on cold

calculation,

is

peculiarly unsuitable,

as their

'real

sphere'

is the life of the

collective,

where

financial

considerations

take second

place

to

mutual

respect.30

In

the

second place,

Bervi

made out a

defence

of

the

institution of

communal landholding

both

as

an

economically

effective unit of

agricultural production and as

an

expression

of the

collective instincts

he so admired in the Russian people. In his attitude towards the land

the

Russian peasant

had shown

'incomparably greater

tact and

common sense'

than his

Western

European counterpart.

The commu-

nal

system he had preserved had all the advantagesof private

property

but

was also more

productive,

flexible

and

just.

Land

and resources

were

better looked

after under this

system,

Bervi

claimed, referring

to

diverse types of cultivation, such as

hemp-growing,

melon-growing,

tobacco-farming, vegetable

gardening

and

forestry.

In

attending

to

the

needs of

each

member

of

the collective and ensuring through periodic

repartitions that he had all the land he required for his purposes,

the

communal system also showed its moral superiority and served as

a

model of co-operation, the

'best school for weaning people from

excessive

greed'.

It had the further

advantage

of

assisting the peasant

to

become

psychologically

independent

and

of

helping

him to

mature

quickly

in

a

political sense, indeed it could be seen as

a

'great political

institution'

which had

preserved Russia from even greater afflictions

than

those she currentlyendured.31

The third and final argument that seemed to persuade Bervi of the

feasibility

of his vision

of

co-operation

and social

harmony consisted

really only

in

the

unshakeable conviction that what he was recom-

mending was a moral imperative. Unlike Chernyshevsky, who

referred

to the

objectivity

of

natural laws for his

authority, Bervi and other

Populists appealed to the subjective conscience of the

'critically

thinking

minority'-

to

use Lavrov'sphrase as the only factor

whose

jurisdiction they

would

acknowledge,

the

only necessity

in

social and

ethical matters. (It is significant in this respect that Bervi was a

vehement critic

of

Chernyshevsky

in

the late i86os.)32LikeLavrov

and

Mikhaylovsky,

Bervi

emphasized

the shortcomings

of

scientificmethod

30

Polozheniye

abochego

lassa,pp.

I8, 37,

19I,

205-o6,

256,

50,

56,

409,

483,

80-8I,

225,

482,

33I.

31

Ibid.,

pp.

476-81,

246,

78-79.

32

P.

Vityazev,

'P. L.

Lavrov

v

vospominaniyakh

sovremennikov'

(Golos

minuvshego,

915, X,

p.

117).



16/17

250

DEREK OFFORD

as a tool for

the

study

of

human

affairs,

as

opposed

to

study

of the

natural world. One should

neverforget,

he

wrote,

that one was

dealing

'not with a mechanical apparatus

but with

living people'. Everything

depended here in the human sphere 'on the feelings of these people and

on their view

of

things'.

Only

in a

very

few cases were 'exact

calculations' possible.33

The Condition

f

the

Working

Class in

Russia

therefore

derives its

authority

not

only,

indeed in the last

analysis

not so

much,

from the statistics

and

factual revelation

of the

misery

of the

Russian common people,

but

also

from

Bervi's

moral indictment of

those whose consciences

cannot be clear

while

such

a

state of

affairs

continues to exist.

The

tone is

one

of

moral outrage, indignation

that

the capitalist 'comfortablysits at home puffingon his cigar' while the

worker labours

in

harsh conditions,

that the

working

man

is treated

like

a

horse

and that

people trample

on his human dignity.

Like Lavrov,

Bervi detests

the

'gentleman

scholar' who

pontificates

about

the

common people who live on a diet of black bread

and

sour kvas

while

himself savouring succulent

steaks and oranges. He abhors

the

enjoyment of luxury

which

political

economists have persuaded

their

readers to view as an incentive to

productivity and which people regard

with

awe;

in fact

opulence

is

an

obstacle

to the

achievement

of the

general well-being

for

it

sets different social strata

against

one another

and reduces those who are dependent

on it to something less than

human, a 'rag that has been wrung

out'.34Those who can share Bervi's

indignation

-

and it would perhaps

have been inconceivable to

him

that

any right-minded person

could not

-

are obliged to dedicate

themselves to the elimination

of the injustice he has revealed. It is

significant

that

the opening sentence of the work states

a

moral purpose

and the second speaks of duty, and

in

the conclusion Bervi returns

to

the need to breathe a 'freshmoral spirit' into the educated class. For at

bottom the work

is

an

appeal

to the

beneficiaries

of

the

present

order to

acknowledge their responsibility

as human beings to the less privileged,

a

responsibility

that

has not

come to an end with the abolition

of

serfdom.

Capitalists

and

landowners

will themselves be happier,

Bervi

argues,

if

they devote themnselves

o labour for the common welfareand

live the 'universal life', not the

'pitiable life of their ant-hill', and Bervi

invites them, as the 'repentantnobleman' Radishchev had invited

his

contemporaries eighty years before and as Tolstoy too was shortly to

do, to surrender their

wealth and

privilege.35

33

Polozheniye abochego

lassa, pp.

I I9, 329.

34

Ibid., pp. 289,

330-OI, 373,

413, 470-73, 464-

35

Ibid., pp. 289,

473, 489.

It is

interesting

hat Bervi

should use the

image

of the ant-hill

to

symbolizethe soulless and

grasping

society he sought

to replace

with a collectivist

one, as to

the

radicalsof

the early 86os that same

image evoked

a

pleasingrationalorder.

(The

image

is also

used by

Dostoyevsky,

n

a

pejorative

ense, to represent he

godless socialist

utopia.)

Bervi's

differenceswith

Chernyshevsky, nd

the differences f

Populism n

generalwith the

utilitarian

and

positivisticradical

thought

of

the

early

i

86os,

are

in

evidence

here.



17/17

BERVI-FLEROVSKY


25I

VI

Thus

we arrive at the twofoldview

of

revolution

that was

characteristic

of

Russian Populism. Revolution would entail an

economic

and social

transformationin the condition of the destitute majority, the Russian

common

people,

to

be sure.

But at

the same time

it

would

represent

a

moral

regeneration of the

guilt-laden

minority,

the

intelligentsia. This

latter

aspect

of

revolution Populists tended

to conceive

as

of

no less

importance than

the former aspect, and

recognition of it helps to

explain

both

the

extraordinary capacity

of

revolutionary Populism

to

inspire action and

sacrifice and the

tenacity

which

it

displayed

in

spite

of

the stubborn refusal of the

people

to

respond

to

the efforts

made

by

revolutionaries on their behalf or to confirm the revolutionaries'

assumptions about their nature

and

destiny.

In

the formation

of this

twofold view

of

revolution,

with its

many

supporting arguments,

with

all

its

strengths

and

weaknesses,

Bervi's now

forgotten book

played

a

majorpart.

the contribution of v. v. bervi-flerovsky to russian populism (1988)

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