Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/155

Rh development as the development of mankind. But whereas Comte regarded the individual nations as the representatives and leaders of mankind during different epochs, and expected that the definitive positivist organisation of humanity would ensue from a synthesis of the leading nations of Europe, Lavrov assigned to the nations a more modest role, holding that human development was effected by individuals. The idea of nationality had, he thought, no more than a temporary and transient significance; nationality was characterised, in part by certain mental qualities, but mainly by historical occurrences; in practice the question of nationality was a question of states. Lavrov was hostile to nationalist chauvinism. For him (and here he reminds us of Čaadaev) the true patriot was one who endeavoured to make his nation, his fatherland, the finest representative of science and of justice among contemporary nations.

The state, too, had for Lavrov no more than a temporary significance, although it seemed to him more important than did nationality. The leading task of socialism was, he considered, to fight the state, against which the social revolution was directed. The state originated in a contract. Lavrov accepted this obsolete theory, but his interpretation of it was that the social contract, whereof law was the formal expression, could not be regarded as absolutely binding. For Lavrov, the state was no more than the external order which men without convictions had accepted—it was the unreflective acceptance of vital conditions which were not dependent upon individuals. In this view the state becomes a coercive order, merely physical at first, but subsequently moral or religious. Lavrov therefore held that political history was of very trifling interest, that the aim of progress was to reduce the state to minimum. To attain this minimum was the endeavour of modern scientific socialism, which would abolish the social order of the state as a modification of the church.

Lavrov's conception of the future was that it would be a federation of communes and artels. Nevertheless he admitted the possibility that there would be a zemskii sobor, as an organ of the definitive social revolution, and presupposing that it would duly promote the economic and political interests of the peasants. Lavrov made a sharp distinction between the liberal conception of the state and his own conception. In all forms of state; the republican not excepted, he was Rh