Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/439

Rh soil, and a religious faith in the mir; for Herzen the foundation of new Russia is to be the mir.

There are, says Herzen, three elements of exceptional value in the Russian mir: the right of every individual to land; the common ownership of land; the self-government of the village community. These elements, considers Herzen, are worth more than the political and social development of Europe. It is true that in the middle forties, before he left Russia, Herzen had recognised that the mir is not an exclusively Russian or Slav institution, and he knew that it exists in India and various other countries. At that time, too, Herzen believed that the Russian village community was the outcome of defective development, the issue of primitive patriarchalism and uncivilisation. If, at a later date, he came to esteem the mir so highly it was because in 1848 Europe had displayed her utter incapacity for socialism.

Herzen recognised that the mir had one great defect, the absorption of individuality into the mir. But the artel, he said, and the Cossacks, would suffice to save for Russia a not inconsiderable measure of individualism. Moreover, the defect could be cured, the freedom of the individual and that of the mir could be harmonised, and the liberation of the peasantry would bring this about. "The freeing of Russia will begin either with a revolt of the serfs or else with their liberation," said Herzen in 1854. When in 1857 Alexander II had declared his intention to liberate the peasants, Herzen and Ogarev enthusiastically exclaimed, "Thou hast conquered, O Galilean!"

Herzen could not fail to consider the counter-argument, could not fail to ask himself whether Russia would not have to pass through the same stages of development as Europe. Could Russia realise the folk-state and socialism by one step from her present primitive condition; could she dispense with traversing the phase of European civilisation and with passing through the economic evolution of capitalism? Herzen set his mind at rest with the consideration that if Russia, because in fact essentially akin to the European peoples, had to follow the same course of development, this development might none the less take a special form, since for liberty many historical possibilities are open. Herzen does not recognise the validity of any historical law in accordance with which Russia must follow exactly the same path as the European nations. Without a bourgeoisie and without Catholicism, but upon the foundation