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N. K. Mikhailovskij and his Criticism of Russian Marxism1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2018

Extract

The persistent stress on the most extreme aspects of Russian history, in a search for the roots of Bolshevism, has led to a remodeling of the Russian past into patterns more consistent with the Soviet present. As one result of this bias, such tendencies as liberalism and moderate agrarian socialism have been, at best, summarily discussed, and Lenin's Tkachevist interpretation of Marxism has obscured the basically reformist character of Russian Marxism that persisted from Plekhanov's Organization of Labor group, through Legal Marxism and Economism into the Menshevik and Liquidator opposition to Bolshevik policies.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1955

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References

1 The author gratefully acknowledges the support given him in his research by the Russian Research Center at Harvard University and the Fulbright Scholarship Committee.

2 The mass of postwar literature regarding the economic growth of underdeveloped countries has once again posed the problem of industrialization in agrarian economies and, most important, at a rate of growth that will not lead to the social distress from which, once again, the Tkachevs and Lenins of Asia will be the only gainers.

3 Rusanov, N., Ii moikh vospominanij (Berlin, 1923), I, 149, 262 Google Scholar.

4 Borodin, N., Idealy i dejstvitel'nost’ (Berlin, 1930), p. 9 Google Scholar.

5 Hessen, I., V dvukh vekahh(Berlin, 1937), p. 46 Google Scholar.

6 In addition to Mikhailovskij's articles criticizing these trends in the eighties, see also Shelgunov, N. V., “Ocherki russkoj zhizni,” Sochinenija (St. Petersburg, 1904)Google Scholar, Vol. III, and Krivenko, S., Na rasput'i (St. Petersburg, 1895)Google Scholar.

7 Veresaev, V., Vospominanija (Moscow, 1946), pp. 366, 275Google Scholar. See also Kolosov, “N. K. Mikhailovskij v vosmidesjatikh godakh,” Byloe( April-May, 1909).

8 Kizevetter, A., Na rubezhe dvukh stoletij (Prague, 1929), p. 214 Google Scholar.

9 Gorev, B., Iz partiinogo proshlogo (Leningrad, 1924), p. 8 Google Scholar.

10 Cf. V. Chernov (Gardenin), “N. K. Mikhailovskij,”Revoljucionnaja Rossija (February 15, March 1, April 1, April 15, 1904).

11 For detailed studies of Mikhailovskij's social philosophy see Ivanov-Razumnik, , htorija russkoj obshchestvennoj mysli (St. Petersburg, 1911), II, 135205 Google Scholar, and Kolosov, E., Ocherki mirovozzrenija N. K. Mikhailovskogo (St. Petersburg, 1912)Google Scholar. Bibliographies of other studies on Mikhailovskij by prerevolutionary Russian writers can be found in Vladislavlev, I. V., Russhie pisateli (Leningrad, 1924), pp. 266-69Google Scholar and Mezier, A., Russkaja slovesnost’ (St. Petersburg, 1899), Part I, p. 605 Google Scholar.

12 Mikhailovskij, >N. K., Sochinenija (1888), II, 334-79N.+K.,+Sochinenija+(1888),+II,+334-79>Google Scholar.

13 Russkaja mysl’ (June, 1892), p. 196. Hereafter referred to as R. M..

14 Ibid., p. 193.

15 Ibid., pp. 191, 194.

16 Russkoe bogatsvo (January, 1894), p. 105. Hereafter referred to as R. B..

17 Ibid., p.116.

18 R.B. (January, 1894), pp. 116-17.

19 Ibid., p. 111.

20 R.B. (February, 1894) , p. 155.

21 Ibid., pp. 157-58.

22 R. B. (October, 1894), p. 55.

23 R. B. (January, 1894), pp. 105-8.

24 R. B. (February, 1894), p. 161.

25 Ibid., p. 151.

26 Mikhailovskij, , Otkliki (St. Petersburg, 1904), I, 288 Google Scholar.

27 Ibid., pp. 275, 279.

28 R. B. (October, 1894), p. 48.

29 Otkliki, II, 157, 173.

30 Ibid., I,29.

31 R. B. (January, 1894), p. 119.

32 Ibid., p. 109.

33 Ibid., p. 110 and R. B. (October, 1894), pp. 49-50.

34 Otkliki, I, 300.

35 Ibid. 1,281;, II, 169-72.

36 Ibid., II, 132; I,301-2.

37 Ibid., I, 299, 308.

38 R. B. (January, 1894), p .99.

39 Ibid., pp. 110-12.

40 Otkliki, I, 275-76, 303.

41 R. B. (October, 1894), pp. 56-57.

42 R. B. (January, 1894), p. 113.

43 R. M. (June, 1892), p. 195.

44 R. B. (January, 1894), pp. 118-19

45 Ibid., pp. 99-100, 119.

46 R. M. (June, 1892), p. 196; R. B. (October, 1894), pp. 63-64, 76; Otkliki, I, 314.

47 R. B. (October, 1894), pp. 64, 76-77.

48 Otkliki, I, 267.

49 Ibid., p. 314, and R.B. (October, 1894), pp. 76-77.

50 R. M. (June, 1892), p. 199.

51 For a dramatic demonstration of this change compare Mikhailovskij's criticism of Dostoevsky's Possessed written in the early seventies (Sochinenija, 1888, pp. 305-6) with his articles written for the People's Will party at the end of the seventies (quoted in Evgen'ev-Maksimov, V., Ocherki po istorii socialisticheskoj zhurnalistiki v Rossii XIX veka (Moscow, 1927)Google Scholar. Cf. N. Rusanov “ ‘Politika’ N. K. Mikhailovskogo,” Byloe(July, 1907), p. 126, and V. Bogucharskij, , Iz istorii politicheskoj bor'by (Moscow, 1912), pp. 399,4oo Google Scholar.

52 R. M. (June, 1892), p. 192.

53 Ibid., and R. B. (January, 1894), p. 105.

55 Otklihi,, II, 182.

56 Ibid., 162.

57 R.B. (January, 1894), pp. 112-13.

58 R. M. (June, 1892), p. 198; R. B. (October, 1894), p. 46; Otkliki, I, 18, 291-92, 295; II, 134-46.

59 R. M. (June, 1892), p. 200; Ovsianiko-Kulikovskij, ed., Istorija russkoj literatury (Moscow, 1910); IV, 29-30.

60 R. M. (June, 1892), p. 201.

61 The following quotations are abstracted from Rusanov, “ ‘Politika’ N. K. Mikhailovskogo,” Byloe (July, 1907), pp. 134-38.

62 Bauer, R., New Man in Soviet Psychology (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1952)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 Camus, A., The Rebel (London, 1953)Google Scholar.

64 Popper, K., The Open Society and Its Enemies (Princeton, 1950)Google Scholar.

64 Popper, K., The Open Society and Its Enemies (Princeton, 1950)Google Scholar.