Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/437

Rh of history and of the people as a whole was recognised by him, his unruly individualism was moderated, subjectivism was subordinated to objectivism.

An observation will be here in place concerning Herzen's despair of the revolution. It must not be supposed that this despair was solely the outcome of political experience. The curse uttered in 1850 has so personal a ring that we cannot but regard Herzen's change of front in that year as to a large extent the objectivisation of intimate spiritual experiences. Through becoming a refugee he was cut off from old associations and his family life was disturbed; these circumstances dictated the curse. Many of Herzen's letters and reminiscences relating to his more intimate experiences remain unpublished. I believe that these documents would give us a better understanding of his mental struggles and a clearer view of his positivist and materialist development.

His analysis of Europe and of the revolution convinced Herzen that the socialistic folk-state he desired to see brought into being would be likely to remain long unrealised were it not for the existence of a people competent to undertake the great task of bringing about the true social revolution in contradistinction to the bourgeois revolution. Such, he said, was the mission of the Russian people.

Herzen tells us how he became aware of the distinction between the St. Petersburg government and the Russian people, and how his faith in his fatherland was thereby restored. Acquaintanceship with Europe taught him that the Russian westernisers had an utterly false conception of Europe. He censured his friends for being able to see nothing but cultured Europe, and for knowing only the Europe of the past. Experience of contemporary Europe and of Europe as a whole afforded a pitiless demonstration that the Europe of their ideals was non-existent.

It may be noted that Herzen's very first impressions in 1847 led him to take an unfavourable view of Europe.

The Russian people, on the other hand, seemed to him capable of realising aspirations for genuine political and social freedom. It was true that the Russian government and tsarism were little if at all better than the European governments. Even the Russian people was full of faults, and it appeared to Herzen that Gogol's Dead Souls furnished a true and universally valid indictment of contemporary Russia.