Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/223

Rh a moderate free trader before the Turkish war, he became a protectionist when the war was over.

Katkov was the typical bourgeois stigmatised by Herzen and Mihailovskii, one of those parvenus who push themselves into the company of the great ones of earth, impose themselves by force of individuality, but at the same time render service. At the outset of his career he had written to Kraevskii: "The sum of my ambition is to be employed upon special service by a big gun, or at least by a gun of medium calibre."

I do not think I underrate Katkov or do him an injustice when I refrain from the attempt to construct a philosophy of history or a philosophy of religion out of his innumerable articles and reviews. (I may mention in passing that in 1852 he wrote a history of early Greek philosophy for a collective work produced by his friend P. M. Leont'ev.) In the early seventies, A. S. Suvorin, editor of the "Novoe Vremja," described Katkov, Leont'ev, etc., as busy exploiters of credulity and stupidity. Subsequently, Suvorin changed his mind in this as in other matters; nevertheless, in an obituary notice published in the "Novoe Vremja" of August 9, 1887, a week after Katkov's death, Suvorin wrote: "He occasionally endeavoured to formulate his views, and when he succeeded in such a formulation he could never avoid oratorical sophistry." It may be added that the "Novoe Vremja" was itself expert in journalism of this nature.

N addition to the journalists of the theocracy, we have to consider Konstantin Petrovič Pobědonoscev (1827–1907), who defended theocracy as a sociologist.

"The bringer of victory," such is the significance of the name Pobědonoscev, the name of the man whose opinions were long dominant among the ruling class of Russia, of the man whose desperate attempt to suppress the progressive movement of the Russian youth and the Russian intelligentsia was largely responsible for the deplorable situation of the country. Such a name as "the bringer of victory" is a lucky and desirable one in a land of superstition and at a court where superstition is rife. It is true, however, there were many in Russia to point out that bědonoscev means "bringer of evil" and that donoscev signifies "informer." Whoever wishes to know what has been going on in Russia under Alexander III and Nicholas II must