Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/436

410 they talk of anarchism in this connection, are thinking rather of an inborn tendency towards democracy and liberty.

In support of such a view, people point to Bakunin as the founder of the new anarchism, and they point also to Tolstoi.

Let us first enquire into the facts. I touched upon the matter in my account of Old Russia (§ 1, v). If we examine the more recent socio-political trends, we observe that the slavophils incline to minimise the importance of the state, but the same thing is done in the west by all those who desire to fortify the church as against the state. Bělinskii and Herzen both had revolutionary inclinations. Herzen was for a time a declared anarchist, though his views moderated later. Bakunin was a most outspoken anarchist, and even more anarchist was his adept Nečaev; moreover Bakunin's anarchism was strongly revolutionary. Černyševskii and the nihilists were revolutionists, and the same may be said yet more definitely of the declared terrorists, but these last must not be described as anarchists merely because they espoused terrorism as a practical method.

Mihailovskii in earlier years was in theoretical matters an adherent of Proudhon, and was therefore an anarchist. On the other hand, there was little of the anarchist in Lavrov.

The Marxists and the social revolutionaries are revolutionists and terrorists. Within these two camps, anarchism undergoes subdivision into distinct trends. But only since 1901 has anarchism exhibited any notable development in Russia. Other recent Russian writers besides Kropotkin have been theorists of anarchism.

Finally we have to remember the existence of Tolstoi and his ethical anarchism.

To sum up, we may say that Russia does not appear to be more anarchistic than France or Italy. It must not be forgotten that Bakunin and Kropotkin learned their doctrines from Proudhon and the other western anarchists; that Stirner, Nietzsche, and Ibsen are Teutons; that the English and the Americans have respectively Godwin and Tucker. New England and new America are just as much products of revolution as is new France.

As regards Russia, we must not forget the liberals and the westernisers, who endorsed the existence of the state (cf. the opinion, recorded in § 72, of the jurist and historian Gradovskii).