Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/403

377 We cannot discover in Černov's writings any clear and definite answer to this question. Here the "new ethic" fails us. We are merely told that the maximalist ideal "must" be carried into effect by the consciousness and the will of all, or at least by the majority"; but on further examination it transpires that this "majority" does not signify the majority of, say, the Russian people, but signifies the majority of the party which is united into a collective whole by its pursuit of a particular ideal—an ideal which can be realised by joint action. We are further told that the principle of majority involves the submission of the minority and of the individual, for these must yield to the desires of the majority, and must recognise the morally coercive energy of the common action.

Poor arguments, these! The periodical in which Černov published them had, apropos of the seventieth anniversary of Mihailovskii's birth, made a formal declaration that the social revolutionaries, including Černov, regarded themselves as Mihailovskii's disciples. But Mihailovskii would never have consented to such an abdication of individuality, and to-day he would have envisaged the problem of revolution far more energetically. Černov had under his eyes, not merely Nestroev's diary, but the works of his comrade Ropšin as well, and these deserved better treatment! For the rest, Černov has written about Ropšin, and this is a matter to which we shall return after the discussion of certain other important ideas or trends.