Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/341

315 forgets that well-organised workers win their strikes, not through "land," bit through the possession of ample reserve funds and through discipline. But far more important, and far more characteristic of narodnikist "socialism," is Pěšehonov's recognition that factories are to continue to exist after the nationalisation of the land. How is it possible, we must ask, when once the land has been nationalised, when every worker (not merely every peasant) shall have received his share of land—how is it possible that these tillers of the soil can be expected to leave their land and to go to work in the factories?

It is plain that the folk-socialists constitute an intermediate link between the liberals (cadets) and the social democrats. Their program is a compromise, whose interest for us lies above all in this, that it is derived rather from the west than from the Russian east. Economically, it is mainly a scheme for ameliorations; socially it is a program for land reform, wherein the ideals of Henry George are reduced within the limits of the practically attainable.

The narodniki entertain uncritical, mythical views concerning the moral worth of the peasant and of rural or village life. It is a fallacy to regard the Russian peasant as at once the economic and the moral saviour of Russia. The country and the rural population, no less than the town and the urban population, possess shortcomings, errors, and vices. Recent critical investigations into the moral condition of rural areas, such as have been made in Germany (and, be it noted, by men of religious and conservative views), should surely put to flight for ever this traditional romanticism and Rousseauism.

A critical survey of Russian rural life would furnish precisely similar results. This is proved by the descriptions we owe to belletristic writers among the narodniki. Some, it is true, like Zlatovratskii, represent the peasant as a moral hero; but others, Glěb Uspenskii and Korolenko for instance, exhibit the mužik as human, all-too-human. Further, the descriptions we owe to such writers as Rěšetnikov show us rural life in positively repulsive colours. For the rest, even the romanticists involuntarily disclose the seamy side of Russian village life.