Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/413

Rh Lavrov's Historical Letters supply the correct solution of the problem of the relationships between the folk and the individual. Lavrov, writes Kropotkin, "was too widely learned and too much of a philosopher to join the German social democrats in their ideals of a centralised communistic state, or in their narrow interpretation of history."

Kropotkin agrees with Černyševskii's socialism. Kropotkin, too, wishes the liberated peasants to get possession of the land, and he looks upon the mir as the groundwork of the coming federative autonomy. He agrees with Černyševskii in the latter's estimate of the nihilists, and above all he is enthusiastic in his admiration for Černyševskii's feminine types. He accepts the solution offered in What is to be Done of the problem of marriage and divorce. In Puškin, too, he extols that writer's respect for women.

Kropotkin was a young man of twenty when the struggle was raging round Turgenev's Bazarov and the problem of nihilism. Accepting nihilism, Kropotkin interpreted it as anarchist philosophy.

From this outlook Kropotkin followed Herzen, and made a great distinction between terrorism and nihilism, insisting that the nihilist is a far profounder and more significant figure than the terrorist. Thus Kropotkin was not satisfied with the Bazarov type, for, as has been explained, his own ideals were those of Černyševskii as expounded in What is to be Done.

In respect alike of matter and of form, Herzen exercised great influence upon Kropotkin. As writer and philosopher, Kropotkin likewise owes something to Turgenev, and yet more to Nekrasov and Tolstoi. Ethical anarchism is his link with Tolstoi. Nekrasov charms him by the apotheosis of the mother-woman and of the Russian peasant woman. For the same reason, Kropotkin is especially attached to other Russian authors to whom we are indebted for a good analysis of the Russian woman (Hvoščinskaja, Panaev). Dostoevskii's outlook, on the other hand, is essentially alien to Kropotkin, who, as rationalist and positivist, detests mysticism. He considers Raskolnikov a poor typification of the nihilist, and he disapproves of Gončarov's analysis of nihilism.

Kropotkin forms a low estimate of Saltykov, finding him too undecided in politics. The poet Ogarev, on the other hand, is one of Kropotkin's favourites, and he is likewise fond or Gor'kii and Čehov. Concerning Gogol, Kropotkin agrees