Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/90

64 for Russia, so also did Pisarev advance from individualism and egoism to socialism. The question of "the hungry and the insufficiently clad" became to him the question of questions. Beside this, he exclaimed in 1865, there is nothing worth thinking or troubling about. Science and culture were the means by which the problem was to be solved and by which the goal was to be attained—not science as an amusement for wealthy and idle aristocrats and landowners, but the science that is the daily bread of every healthy human being and must therefore permeate the intelligence of manual workers, factory operatives, and peasants. Until this happened, the toiling masses would continue to languish in poverty and immorality.

In addition to these prescriptions, which remind us of Lassalle, of his utterances concerning science and its relationship to the workers, physical toil is recommended to members of the cultured class, for this alone "renders possible a genuine drawing near to the people." From this outlook a complete scheme was drafted for the reform of instruction and education, Comte's positivism being here combined with the experiences of Tolstoi as recorded in his works upon his childhood and youth.

Although Pisarev transformed the "thoughtful realist" into the "thoughtful proletarian," he did not advance beyond these plans for reform.

He felt assured that his socialism was only for the cultured. None but the most intelligent among the workers could respond to his demand that they should labour with love. For the time being, therefore, the manual workers were outside the domain of realism; were no realists, although theirs was the most real of all work. The manual workers could not as yet love labour; they were mere machines, though machines susceptible to fatigue. Consequently the realist must for the nonce leave the workers alone. Pisarev desired merely to train realistic leaders for the workers; the cultivation of the masses would be a subsequent task; meanwhile the realists were to turn to the peasants. Pisarev gave little or no thought to the factory hands, to the urban proletariat.

Pisarev's socialism may well be compared with that of Plato. Plato, too, demanded communism for the two higher classes alone, not for the peasants and operatives; the leaders of communist society were to govern the workpeople. Similarly