Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/389

Rh of socialism. From the first he had been socialistically and democratically inclined, for he was numbered among the earliest of the writers who then really constituted the third estate. Doubtless, like almost all Russian authors of his day, he sprang from the nobility, but he belonged to the petty and impoverished nobility. The liberation of the peasantry, liberation in general, had always been his ideal, as we may learn from his youthful drama which, modelled upon Schiller's Robbers, freely condemned serfdom. "Sociality is my watch-word," he tells us after his philosophic discussion with Herzen. We must be careful, however, to avoid the mistake of confusing Bělinskii's socialism with the socialism of today, with Marxist socialism. Bělinskii remained throughout a strong individualist, resembling in this Lassalle rather than Marx, considering that the individual must not be sacrificed to the whole. As we have seen, he will not accept happiness on any account if one fellow-man, if a single brother, continues to suffer; and we often read assertions which imply that wellbeing cannot exist in a community if individual members suffer.

Bělinskii modified Louis Blanc's exposition of the rôle of classes, at any rate as far as Russia was concerned. for he considered that in Russia literature had enriched the bourgeoisie with "a kind of class," the intelligentsia. This class was composed of members of all classes, and was brought together by the love of culture. Such a view was expressed by Bělinskii in 1846. In the following year he explained more precisely that the development of all nations had proceeded by way of class differentiation, and he stated in set terms that the bourgeoisie, as a middle class, was essential to the welfare of the state. He did not fail to see the evil of modern class society as manifested in the dominion of capitalism, but he did not consider that the bourgeoisie and manufacturing industry were responsible for this dominion. It was his opinion, further, that the Russian aristocracy must undergo transformation into a bourgeoisie, for not until then in Russia could the internal process of civic development begin.

Civilisation and culture are regarded by Bělinskii as the most important motive power of progressive peoples, and he often adds the humanitarian idea as an additional energising factor, whilst he regards the intelligentsia, the supplementary bourgeois class, as the instrument of civilisation and culture. He accepts the given gradation of classes, and accepts more