A Herzen Reader

We almost never speak about the West. [. . .] There was a time, inciden­tally, when we expressed our opinion in great detail. But developments are so substantial and abrupt, and are flowing by so rapidly, that by necessity you stop before them to verify what you have thought, alongside what is taking place. [. . .]

The decay of the old world is not an empty phrase, and it is difficult to doubt it now. The character of organic decay is that elements, entering into a given relationship with each other, do not do what they are supposed to do and what they wish to do, and that is what we are seeing in Europe. [. . .]

There was a sick man in Europe, and Nikolay Pavlovich, himself not very well, tried to obtain it;¹ now, all Europe is a hospital, a sick bay, and, most of all, a madhouse. It absolutely cannot digest the contradictions that it has lived to see. It cannot cope with the fractured revolution within, with its two-part civilization, one in science, one in religion, one almost of the twentieth century, and the other barely in the fifteenth. Is it so easy to fuse into a single organic development bourgeois freedom and monarchical ar­bitrariness, socialism and Catholicism, the right of thought and the right of force, criminal statistics that explain a case, and a criminal case that cuts off the head

² so that it understands. [. . .]

In 1848, reaction revealed itself as reaction, and promised order, i.e., po­lice, and it established a police order. But ten years or so of an asylum with no amusements has gotten tedious and futile, and the negative banner of police action and a well-run state has worn out. And, little by little, a new banner has begun to appear, amphibious, if you can call it that; it has been hoisted between reaction and revolution, so that, like Caussidiere,³

it be­longs both to one and the other, both to order and disorder. The liberation of nationalities from a foreign yoke, but not at all from their own, has created a common thoroughfare of opposing principles. [. . .]

It is a fine mess to which the saving reaction of our Western elders has brought us:

Revolution—is defeated, The reds—are defeated, Socialism—is defeated, Order—triumphs, The throne—is strengthened, The police—make arrests, The court—puts to death, The church—gives its blessing.

Rejoice and give your blessing in turn!

. After all, it's become so simple—don't you just stick your head in your feathers and wait for trouble to break out?

And trouble will break out, there's no doubt of that, but there is no need to hide your head. Better to raise it selflessly, look directly at events and, by the way, look at your own conscience.

Events are as much created by people as people are created by events; this is not fatalism, but the interaction of elements in an ongoing process, the unconscious aspect of which can change one's consciousness. The busi­ness of history is only the business of the living understanding

of existence. If ten people understand clearly what thousands vaguely wish for, then thousands will follow them. It doesn't follow that these ten will lead them toward something good. That is where the question of conscience enters in.

On what bases did Napoleon and Bismarck lead Europe? What did they understand?

Napoleon understood that France had betrayed the revolution, that it had come to a halt and had taken fright; he understood its miserliness, and that everything else must be subject to it. He understood that the old, estab­lished society in which the active forces of the country were concentrated, all the material and immaterial wealth, does not desire freedom, but its imposing scenery, with complete rights d'user et d'abuser. He understood that the new society, marching directly toward a socialist revolution, hated everything that is old, but impotently. He understood that the mass knows neither one thing nor the other, and that, outside of Paris and two or three other centers, they live with Gothic fantasies and childhood legends. He understood all of this, amidst the noise and exclamations of the republic that was coming to an end in 1848, amidst the arrogant claims of various parties and the indefatigable opposition; that is why he remained silent and waited for "the pear to ripen."