Herzen contra Marx: In search for a diagonal

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In Europe, the first half of the 19^th century was a time of dissidence and social movements which were largely the followers and successors of the “Age of Enlightenment.” A.I. Herzen and K. Marx are among the best known and most influential dissidents of that time: both spent a major part of their life in the European West (Britain, France, etc.) and were the founders of movements that after transformations radically changed the social life of Europe. Herzen’s followers were successively Russian Narodniks, Socialists-Revolutionaries and partly Anarchists, as for Marx’s ideas — Communists, Socialists and Social-Democrats in all countries. The ideas of Herzen and Marx, albeit in a modified form, clashed in Russia during the October Revolution and the Civil War, when the supporters of these ideas took important positions in the Russian governments, and the political consequences of this struggle affected the whole world.

Therefore, when speaking about social movements of the 19^th century, we should focus on socialism — as an idea, a social movement, and a political phenomenon that acquired a global significance. Even today socialist ideas largely determine the development of societies in the West and East of Europe, and it is the socialist component of globalization as a society of equal access to social benefits and opportunities that makes globalization highly attractive for many. When speaking about social changes of a socialist nature, their adherents mainly mean an evolution, while the 19^th century was a time of revolutions. The most influential adepts of socialist transformations in Europe of that time were Communist Marx (praised the industrial West), Anarchist-Socialist Bakunin (praised Europe as a whole for embodying his ideas), and Communal Socialist Herzen (praised the socialist light from the East).

Unlike M.A. Bakunin, his friend Herzen and Marx did not recognize the instrumentality of anarchism, believing that the future of Europe was solely socialist and referring to the evident crisis of European monarchies, which raised the question of social self-organization. Although both Herzen and Marx believed that they supported the majority, they defined this majority as the population of the East and West of Europe, respectively. Through all his political life, Marx remained true to his “Proletarians of all countries unite”, while Herzen regarded as vicious the very fact of the existence of proletariat, not to mention making it a mainstay, since nothing good could come from a poor foundation. Probably, these contradictions were determined by different interpretations: Marx defined proletariat as a social class deprived in the capitalist system, while Herzen — as paupers and cadgers [7. P. 101, 493], i.e., worthless people condemned by the society and incapable of preserving the community, liberating the person and spreading rural and volost self-government to cities and the state: “I will not repeat what I have already said about this embryonic organization of community self-government, in which all offices are elective and all are proprietors, although the land does not belong to anyone, and proletariat is an abnormal phenomenon, an exception” [38. P. 189-190].

Both Herzen and Bakunin were confirmed in this interpretation of the Western estates and classes by the defeat of the revolutions of 1848–1849, in which both took an active part. They argued that both the West European petty bourgeoisie and working class were incapable of revolutionary transformations. Therefore, they rejected Western theories of social development, which previously regarded with sympathy, and introduced new conceptions as criticism of the West based on Western methodology. For example, Herzen borrowed from G.W.F. Hegel the idea of self-developing world spirit which, in its striving for the fullest embodiment of freedom, is objectified in history. Hegel spoke about the German spirit, “the spirit of the new world”, whose “aim is the realization of absolute Truth as the unlimited self-determination of Freedom” [16. P. 357], which became unacceptable to Herzen after 1849. He argued that true socialism could only be achieved through the Slavic community — by relying on a milieu with no individualism, with collectivism and mutual assistance, and with mercantilism as a way of life reduced to a minimum. In Hegelian terms, Herzen believed that by the 19^th century it had become evident that the Slavs embodied the world spirit: “Slavs are a future part of humankind now entering history” [41. P. 105]. In his final conception of social development, Hegel combined elements of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy (the Prussian kingdom was his ideal), which 150 years later allowed T. Adorno to accuse him of a strange “theodicy of this world” [1. P. 276]. Herzen, who was of aristocratic origin and a distant relative of the czar, considered only democracy capable of objectifying social freedom and regarded peasant community as a tool for proving this first in the East and then in the West; as a basis of the free federation of Slavs, democracy would become a “historical battering ram for upsetting the philistinism of bourgeois Europe” [6. P. 327].

Herzen’s goal was consonant with Marx’s ideas, but he rejected Marx’s means for achieving it. Without getting into the differences between Marx’s formations (inevitable transition from bourgeois to socialist society) and Herzen’s community (socialism as already present in any per se), we will focus on their methodological differences. In the spirit of Hegelian dialectics, Marx argued that social development was ensured by the removal of antagonistic contradictions (in his time between the bourgeois relations of production and the social character of production) [48. P. 7–8]. According to Marx, to stop antagonism, we need to remove one of the sources of contradictions. In other words, any social problem was to be solved simply: proletariat would remove bourgeoisie in a revolutionary way and create a classless, harmonious society. Herzen took a different approach: to explain the nature of social changes, he used a “geometric” tool based on the rule of forces composition from mechanics: social changes were based on the resultant force vector, i.e., the sum of the two most significant social development vectors. Graphically, they could be represented as a diagonal of the parallelogram of forces [18. P. 51; 25. P. 206; 19. P. X, 105]. By these two vectors Herzen meant the collectivism of the Slavic (mostly Russian) community and the strength of the West-European social knowledge, which started to manifest their potential: “We have two indications for finding a diagonal: the very everyday life and structure of our rural community and the findings of economic and social science, since they are worn down without application there” [26. P. 23]. This method was relevant for both the classical triad of thesis-antithesis-synthesis and the Hegelian law of the conflict of opposites.

Both Herzen and Marx were adherents of liberalism in their youth but later rejected the idea as non-constructive. Herzen criticized liberals for inventing the people instead of studying them, for defaming them out of love not less than others out of hate, and for liberals demand that everyone should become a political person and, like Cincinnatus, solve social problems [36. P. 81–82]. Marx became a propagandist of dictatorship as the only path to the just society in Europe. He often practiced authoritarianism, for which was criticized by Herzen, who began to reject liberalism for its latent individualism [46. P. 526]. Herzen searched for the way to rebuild the Russian society as democracy, interpreting it mainly in the collectivist spirit. Herzen hoped for the success of his project in the Russian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian Provinces, in which the community and collectivist moods remained strong. He believed that Russia would serve as a model of revolutionary transformations for all Roman-German societies mired in individualism. According to Herzen, insurgent Russia would lift up the fraternal Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe against political and national oppression and would become a model for radical social transformations in Central and East Europe.

Thereby, the Polish question was especially important for Herzen: in the 19^th — early 20^th century European revolutionaries (primarily in Russia and Poland) viewed Poland as their main ally in the struggle with autocratic Russia. However, Russian revolutionaries stressed the struggle against autocracy, while Polish revolutionaries focused on the struggle against Russia. Being for the most part noblemen, Polish revolutionaries fought for the transformation of Poland from a geographical concept into a political formation, in which their estate rights would be ensured. They defined Poland as the territory of the Rzeczpospolita within the boundaries of 1772, i.e., including Lithuanian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian lands [72. P. 384–386], and, to Herzen’s regret, took little interest in socialist ideas. On the other hand, Herzen hoped that the division of Poles (Austria, Prussia and Russia) could become a catalyst for revolutionary transformations in Central Europe based on the ideas of Russian socialism. That is why, despite hardships, Herzen waged a relentless struggle to support Poles, being aware that their success would provide Russian revolutionaries with an extremely important ally.

Herzen’s project for transforming East-European and later all European society (concept of community socialism) implied a transition to new social relations with the help of the socialist potential of the Slavic community — Herzen wanted the project to realize the potentials of all Slavic countries, and without Poland his whole theory was challenged. According to Herzen, Poles like Slavs ‘had’ to arrive at socialism through community; thus, he strived to incorporate obstinate Poles into his system of community socialism. The Polish question became a touchstone for checking the validity of his scientific approach — the more so as it was a kind of the ‘Slavic’ response to Marx’s ‘Germanic’ project for remodeling Europe.

In his Émigré Literature F. Engels sharply criticized Herzen’s idea that socialism would come to Europe from Russia and Slavic countries [9. P. 543]. In his letter to the editors of the Otechestvennye Zapiski (Notes of the Fatherland), Marx protested against Herzen’s plans for uniting Slavic peoples as supporting the Czar [54. P. 116; 56. P. 438– 448; 12. P. 222]. In The Alliance of Socialist Democracy and the International Workingmen’s Association, Marx and Engels criticized Herzen’s liberal delusions related to a democratic solution of the agrarian question in the Russian Empire [58. P. 430]. In one of his letters, Marx described Herzen’s theory of “community socialism” as “imaginative lies” [52. P. 358]. However, half a century later, the very reliance on the community consciousness ensured the Bolsheviks’ victory that allowed them to create one version of socialist society which was later tested in most European countries. Since subsequently Central European — mostly Slavic — countries got into the domain of Soviet socialism, despite the enormous distance between community socialism and Soviet socialism, we can admit that Herzen’s “imaginative lies” were not so fantastic.

It took Herzen some time to get interested in the community. In the late 1830s — early 1840s, in the Moscow’s public and scholarly life, there were furious debates between two camps — Westernizers and Slavophiles. Members of two camps knew one another well and were Herzen’s friends. Westernism, unlike Slavophilism, was a rather variegated school of thought that combined elements of many theories and was divided into several trends. Herzen, who was enthusiastic about utopian socialism and a follower of materialism, supported the left wing of Westernizers. The main principles of Westernism included the condemnation of serfdom and autocracy and the strive to Europeanize Russia, while Slavophiles insisted that Russia should develop in its very special way, different from the development of Western Europe in that Orthodoxy and the community were to play the main role.

Thus, the key difference between two camps was that for some progress was the goal and efficiency was its criterion, while for others it was tradition measured in terms of morality and justice. However, despite being a resolute opponent of Slavophiles engaged in heated debates with them, Herzen experienced their strong influence (for instance, borrowed some principles from their community theory [17. P. 80–81]). At that time, the merge of such ideas as progress and tradition was possible due to Hegel’s dialectic method (social process develops through contradictions) and philosophy of history. The Hegelian idea of world history as the gradual unfolding of the world spirit was interpreted as its development should be embodied most fully in Slavs in general and in Russia in particular [52. P. 358].

In 1847, Herzen left abroad, and since then took an active part in the European, but mainly Russian, revolutionary movement. Like Marx and Bakunin, he pinned great hope on the revolutions of 1848–1849, expecting that their victory would lead to the triumph of socialism in Western Europe, and Russia would inevitably go through socialist transformations. After the defeat of the revolution, Herzen decided that socialism in the West had come to an end. When searching for new ways of socialist transformations, he decided that the defeated socialist movement would revive in Eastern Europe but as based on the fraternal community principle rather than the individual rights concept. “From 1848, they began to understand that neither ossified Roman law nor cunning casuistry, nauseating deistic philosophy and merciless religious rationalism can obstruct the destinies of society” [33. P. 309]. Thus, Herzen’s searches for socialist elements in Europe led him to the Slavic (primarily Russian) community. When examining the peasant community relations based on a periodic egalitarian repartition of lands, mutual assistance, selfsustainment and equality of all community members, Herzen found actual elements of socialism. He believed that these elements should be developed and extended to the entire Russian society, the Slavic world and Europe as a whole. However, implementation of this project implied the destruction of autocracy.

Herzen saw the prerequisites for the overthrow of Czarism in the peasants’ escalating struggle with landowners: “The socialist principles, which have been unrecognized, hidden, downtrodden in the Slavic world for a long time, are in turmoil in Russia” [24. P. 92], i.e., Herzen considered the goals and future of the community differently from Slavophiles, who idealized pre-Petrine Russia. “They need the olden time, tradition, the past, and we want to tear Russia away from it” [20. P. 407]. Thus, unlike Slavophiles, who represented Slavs as humble Christian lambs, Herzen saw the socialist potential in them [68. P. 7] and believed that some “vague aspirations of the Slavic peoples are in line with the revolutionary aspirations of the masses in Europe” [23. P. 146].

However, despite all differences, especially in goals, Herzen was close to Slavophiles in the belief that the Slavic peoples would play the main part at that point of history. Herzen, just as Slavophiles thinking in the categories of the Hegelian absolute spirit, believed that the West Europeans had exhausted their historical potential and the future belonged to the Slavic peoples. But Slavophiles saw the future of the Slavs in the ideals of Orthodoxy, while Herzen associated the historic calling of Slavdom with the ability to develop the socialist teaching. Herzen’s socialism was relevant to the peasants’ notions of property and social structure in relation to land, for, according to the Bible, “The Land is God’s” (“The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me” — Leviticus 25:23) and cannot be expropriated. This is what Herzen wrote about the Slavic community before the serfdom: “The original social structure of this agrarian people was essentially democratic… land was not yet private property: every rural community owned a certain part of land. Every member of the community was granted the right to till part of this common property, and everyone used the fruits of his labor” [35. P. 35]. Thus, Herzen regarded the Russian community life as the soil for the blossoming ideas of Western socialism.

This was a utopia, since the community and conservative community relations, on the contrary, were the basis of the Russian autocracy at that time. The community supported autocracy and serfdom as a fiscal unit with shared responsibility and a supplier of provisions, export products, workforce and army recruits. The community, even though the socialist element was present in it, was not only antibourgeois (which Herzen particularly valued) but even pro-feudal and, in this sense, anti-socialist.

According to Marx, the community was a superstructure based on a low labor productivity, and its days were numbered. Herzen did not admit the community degeneration trend and did not accept Marx’s idea of antagonism between community productive forces and production relations. He argued that there was only a contradiction between the community and landlords’ farming, and its solution was “liberation of peasants with land, i.e., practical socialism” [33. P. 325]. That is why at first Herzen ardently supported the peasant reform of 1861. However, when the government limitations of social transformations became evident, Herzen said that “all reforms starting with the peasant reform were not just incomplete but deliberately distorted” [30. P. 195], although in general he admitted that the peasant reform “despite its incompletion, immediately led to various economic, administrative and legal consequences — namely, the introduction of zemstvo institutions, judicial reforms, etc.” [30. P. 195].

Several decades later V.I. Lenin examined the results of the reform of 1861 and its possible options and concluded that the more completely the reform would have been implemented, the more land the peasants would have received and the more rapidly capitalism would have developed in Russia [44. P. 258]. Herzen saw no prospects for capitalism in Russia and tried to fight its manifestations by propagating community socialism. The community based on the principle of self-reliance by its very nature denounces any capitalist mode of production. However, Russian capitalism received a strong impetus after the 1861 reform, attacked the Russian community and gradually eroded its foundations, which made the community lose many of its members. The same processes had already been long underway in other European countries including Slavic peoples — community relations were falling apart, and the volost (rural district with several villages), the link between the central power and the local communities, could not save them.

However, in the mid-19^th century, the decline of the Slavic community was not so evident, which allowed some political figures (mostly Russians) declare it a basis for social constructs in the long run. According to Herzen, communities as “embryos of the state structure” formed its “fabric” when united into a volost, outside of which any rule of the people came to an end. For Herzen, the immediate task after the emancipation of the peasants/community was liberation of the volost from the arbitrariness of the central power [26. P. 24–25]. Marx did not agree and used the Polish example to prove the irreversible decline of the community and volost (gmina). Although Marx considered the institute of volost democratic, he explained its nature differently from Herzen — as a part of szlachta’s freedom: “the fate of the ‘democratic’ Lethetic community was inevitable. The dominium proper is usurped by the crown, the aristocracy, etc.; the patriarchal relations between the dominium and the peasant communities lead to serfdom; optional parcellation creates a sort of peasant middle class, the Equestrian Order, to which the peasant can rise only so long as war of conquest and colonization continue, both of which, however, are also conditions which accelerate his downfall. As soon as the limit has been reached this Equestrian Order, incapable of playing the role of a real middle class, is transformed into the lumpen-proletariat of the aristocracy” [53. P. 63].

However, subsequently Marx adjusted his concept of the peasant community in general and of the Russian community in particular to the European social development: “If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting point for a communist development” [63. P. 305]. In other words, Marx argued that the proletariat of the West, having crushed its capitalist system, should help the Russian peasants after they overthrow the system of feudal serfdom. Only in this case Russia would bypass capitalism and the socialist elements of the community would develop further. Thus, Herzen and Marx agreed on the need for socialism in Europe, they diagreed on the ways to achieve it.

There was another reason for Herzen’s support for the community — the peasantry constituted an overwhelming majority of the population in Slavic countries (unlike some countries of the West). Thereby, Herzen wanted to emancipate the Slavic world based on the peasants’ aim to expropriate the landed estates and praised the socialist elements of community relations. He believed that only socialism would once and forever destroy social injustices [24. P. 92]: “Socialism leads us back to the threshold of our native home… We left it… and went to the great school of the West. Socialism returned us to our rural dwellings with experience and knowledge” [40. P. 73]. Herzen believed that the presence of socialist elements in the Slavic community was not a sufficient basis for a new, better social system. Elements of community life could turn into principles of social system only being combined with an advanced scientific theory, which would sweep the whole society. Herzen did not doubt that socialism was the most advanced scientific theory of that time: “The contemporary revolutionary thought is socialism. There is no revolution without socialism. Without socialism, there is only reaction — monarchic, demagogic, conservative, Catholic or republican” [40. P. 73]. Therefore, socialist transformations were possible only through the synthesis of an advanced Western doctrine with an objective Slavic material, the community: “A single powerful thought of the West… is capable of impregnating the embryos dormant in Slav patriarchal life” [33. P. 321]. Herzen believed that socialism would triumph first in the Slavic countries as the best prepared for a social revolution [40. P. 73], and his belief strengthened in the late 1850s under the “new powerful rise of the liberation movement” [2. P. 74] in Russia and other Slavic countries including Poland.

Let us consider how Herzen wanted to implement the theory of community socialism. He believed that all viable states consisted of institutes and cells which in embryo incorporated all main features of these states, i.e., no institute should oppose the state that created it, for otherwise either the state would change to abolish that institute, or the new ideas and principles of the institute would change that state. Thus, any viable state must be internally consistent — the same principle must be the foundation of both the smallest cell constituting the state and the state as a whole. Since Herzen believed that the “community principle is the great foundation of the Slavs’ life” [35. P. 43], the community principle was the basis of his theory of the state known as community socialism. “Artel and rural community, distribution of profit and division of fields by peasant meetings” [19. P. IX, 149] is the essence of community relations. “Above the community, there should only be national unity, res publica (common cause) or the ruling power. Free communities are grouped into larger self-managed units (volosts)” [35. P. 53]. Local authorities are elective: “starostas [elders] elected by communities elect a chief for the volost from the common people, who is called the head. Many heads govern thirty thousand souls. In addition to the head, two judges are elected… for legal management of community affairs and the volost police. In villages, police duties are performed by elective desyatskys and sotskys [lower police positions]. Taxes and duties are distributed by the head and the elders. Thus, this is truly socialist self-government” [35. P. 53].

Herzen did not deny the state as such but sought to minimize the state pressure on the community and individual and to create a state that would help communities and individuals harmonize their aspirations for higher living standards (by collective management ‘from top to bottom’). That is why Herzen emphasizes that his ideal state is res publica — common cause or “zemskoe delo”. He translates the word ‘republic’ into Russian as ‘zemsky’ having two meanings: common cause relating to land in regions or country and land business relating to “land cultivated by community peasants”. Thus, Herzen’s republic is different from the real republics before the mid-19^th century: “Socialists above all, we are deeply convinced that social progress is possible only under complete republican freedom and democratic equality. A republic that would not lead to socialism seems absurd — a transitional stage as an end in itself. On the other hand, socialism that would try to do without political freedom would rapidly degenerate into autocratic communism” [24. P. 88–89]. These words were written a hundred years before G. Orwell. According to Herzen, socialist principles should be applied to the entire society/republic. He declares himself an adherent of “agrarian and artel, rural and urban, statewide and regional socialism” [42. P. 286].

Herzen’s theory of Russian socialism, despite its many democratic and socialist principles (collectivity, electivity, self-reliance, etc.), was criticized by Marx and Engels, who believed that it was peasantry rather than peasant community to be emancipated: “The big agrarian countries between the Baltic and the Black seas can free themselves from patriarchal feudal barbarism only by an agrarian revolution, which turns the peasants who are serfs or liable to compulsory labor into free landowners” [60. P. 352]. Marx denied that the community had a social potential and insisted that Herzen’s ‘cornerstones’ (community and community relations) would fall apart under socialism due to their contradictions, thus, describing Herzen’s interpretation of the social situation in Russia as “imaginative lies”. Marx named Herzen’s socialist state an eclectic “democratic–social–communist–Proudhonist Republic” [11. P. 487] and called Herzen a “socialist dilettante” [47. P. 82]. Lenin also described the Narodnik movement (founded by Herzen as a part of “Russian socialism”) as eclectic and contradictory, naming “elements of democracy, utopian socialism, petty-bourgeois reforms and reactionary nature of the petty bourgeois” as its main elements [45. P. 237]. Lenin saw the petty-bourgeois character of Herzen’s theory in the agrarian character of “Russian socialism”.

Herzen developed plans for emancipating Russia in the mid-19^th century as the emancipation of peasant communities with their cultivated lands — as a reliable guarantee against the proprietary individualism leading to private property and capitalism with subsequent dispossession of land and emergence of the proletariat. Herzen believed in agrarian democracy, and Raznochintsy (who did not belong to a particular class; members of the clergy, merchant class, petite bourgeoisie, peasantry, minor officials, and impoverished educated noblemen) and Narodniki (“populists” from the Russian middle class in the 1860s) stages of the revolutionary movement in Russia confirmed his correctness. Moreover, Herzen extended his theory to Poland for at least two reasons: it was a Slavic country and its major part belonged to the Russian Empire. The history of the Polish national liberation movement showed that the agrarian revolution should be the first stage of liberation and the solution of the Polish question. Engels stressed that “the establishment of agrarian democracy for Poland has become a vital question not only politically but also socially… the Polish people’s source of existence, agriculture, is headed for ruin if the peasant who is enserfed or liable for labor-service does not become a free landowner” [60. P. 367], and believed that agrarian democracy was the only form of struggle against “patriarchal feudal absolutism” for Eastern Europe [60. P. 353]. However, Engels, like Marx, advocated agrarian democracy as representing the interests of “free landowners”, by whom he meant agricultural workers.

Herzen interpreted agrarian democracy differently — as the community and as the federative idea, which exacerbated his theoretical opposition to Marx. Herzen regarded socialist state as a community of communities, a federation of rural and urban communities, which he called “zemskoe delo” (common cause). His ideas about the federative structure of Europe reflected the social-political processes of the 19^th century. On the one hand, the idea of federation popular among the European radical politicians was a response to the impudent suppression of the national self-consciousness in republican France, which tried with a decree of the Constituent Assembly to erase the ethnic-cultural identity of the peoples from the kingdom of the Bourbons. From January 4, 1790, ‘departments’ named mainly after mountains and rivers, i.e., geographic reference points (the Bas-Rhin, the Vosges, the Upper Pyrenees, the Maritime Alps, etc.), were introduced instead of the former historical regions (provinces) — Flanders, Brittany, Lorraine, Gascony, Provence, etc. Certainly, this practice of forced unification was supported by either liberals or democrats. On the other hand, the ideas of federalism as a version of democratic thought were recognized, which affected both social movements and political processes. The ideas of federalism were especially important for Herzen as he knew Proudhon, the theorist of the West-European federalism [67. P. 533–537] and the author of the book On the Federative Principle [68], and was a friend of another proponent of this principle Bakunin.

At that time, the most famous fighter for federalism in the social-political practices of the European countries was the Italian politician G. Mazzini, wellknown to Herzen and Marx. While it is hardly possible to describe the relations between Marx and Mazzini as warm (Mazzini called Marx a “destructive spirit”, “extraordinarily sly”, “vindictive,” and “implacable”) [15. P. 394–396], Herzen highly valued him, including as a friend [19. P. XI, 15–16]. Mazzini combined federalism was the idea of national liberation of all European peoples from foreign oppression (like of Italy from the Austrian rule). Herzen sympathized this combination as complying with the main principles of the emancipation of Slavic communities from the class and national oppression.

The ideas of the national liberation of the European peoples became particularly acute in the 19^th century (German/Italian/Irish/Norwegian question, etc.). Thereby, liberation of the southern and western Slavs from the German rule looked quite natural and urgent. There were different recipes for its elimination: the earliest one was the famous project of the Croat J. Krizanic, who called for unification of all Slavic peoples to overthrow the hateful “German yoke” [69. P. 115]. In the early 19^th century, the ideas of Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism evolved from the nationalist theory and the French Revolution (subsequently, with the help of M. Garibaldi, they were supplemented with irredentist projects). Just as with any pan-movement, there was an internal struggle for superiority inside Pan-Slavism. Unlike Pan-Germanists, where the struggle started between Austrian Great Germans and Prussian Little Germans, in the 19^th-century Pan-Slavism, there were three competing movements — Russian, Polish and Austrian, and two main contenders — Russians and Poles. Some Poles supported Russia, others insisted on the leading role of Poland in the future unification of the Slavs. Nevertheless, there was an idea that the Slavic liberation movement of the mid-19^th century must unite all Slavic peoples in a single state, which was expressed by a part of the Slavic elite of Austria, Germany and Turkey and implied the release from the oppression by politically and economically much stronger foreign bourgeoisie and nobility: “the Slav world is striving for unity” [33. P. 313]. Herzen, following Decembrists, proposed to create a federation of free Slavic peoples: “While deeply hating any centralization, I am convinced that compatriotic federalizations produce an incomparably broader state environment than the splitting of a single race into separate parts” [32. P. 18].

In the federation, there is no oppression, all peoples live “as free with free and equal with equal” [21. P. 113].

In other words, Herzen opposed the leadership of any Slavic nation and regarded Slavic federation as a means not only of the future class and national liberation but also for rebuffing the German expansion against the Slavic world, which contradicted Marx’s concept as presupposing political and technological influence of the European West on the East and its further acculturation up to absorption. Slavic quasi-federations established by Versailles after the defeat of Germany in the World War I also aimed at constraining Germany. In 1938, Slavic quasi-federations were divided and included into the new German state on various grounds. After the World War II, they were restored, and the federal principle was implemented largely under the influence of Soviet Russia. However, after the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Russia put the destiny of its former Slavic allies into their hands, and the federations quickly collapsed. This disintegration of Slavic federations (Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Russia–Ukraine–Byelorussia) was politically and financially supported by federative Germany, including participation in military conflicts, in order to make fragments of the former federative states parts of the new federation created on the territory of Western and Central Europe under its leadership. Thus, the questions raised by Herzen and Marx were hardly imaginary.

These problems of the social state, peoples’ freedom, and federation as a way of their protection remain relevant. According to Herzen, federation is based on the idea of people’s freedom, which implied both liberation from any exploitation (social component) and unification with kindred ethnic groups to ensure security from foreign enslavers (ethnic component). Marx rejected this combination (national self-determination, democracy and federalism) with the triad of proletarian selfconsciousness, dictatorship, and unitarianism. Marx particularly strongly opposed federalism as a harmful political invention weakening proletarians. He divided federalism into three types according to his doctrine of social formations: reactionary [49. P. 26; 50. P. 567; 57. P. 587], petty bourgeois [62. P. 265; 8. P. 466–468], and anarchist [10. P. 162–163; 59. P. 424–426; 8. P. 466–469]. Marx insisted on the universal, unitary, unification of the poorest class, proletarians, and did not pay special attention to ethnic groups, considering them mainly in terms of perceptiveness to the Western industrial thinking and the ideas of proletarian internationalism. In his address to the communist organization, he called his supporters to reject the vicious practices of democracy and federalism and their manifestations — national liberation and self-government: “The democrats will either work directly towards a federated republic, or at least, if they cannot avoid the one and indivisible republic, they will attempt to paralyze the central government by granting the municipalities and provinces the greatest possible autonomy and independence. In opposition to this plan the workers must not only strive for one and indivisible German republic, but also… for the most decisive centralization of power in the hands of the state authority. They should not let themselves be led astray by empty democratic talk about the freedom of the municipalities, selfgovernment, etc. In a country like Germany, where so many remnants of the Middle Ages are still to be abolished, where so much local and provincial obstinacy has to be broken down, it cannot under any circumstances be tolerated that each village, each town and each province may put up new obstacles in the way of revolutionary activity, which can only be developed with full efficiency from a central point” [62. P. 265–266]. Therefore, the concept of community especially irritated Marx: “Least of all can a so-called free system of local government be allowed to perpetuate a form of property which is more backward than modern private property and which is everywhere and inevitably being transformed into private property; namely communal property, with its consequent disputes between poor and rich communities. Nor can this so-called free system of local government be allowed to perpetuate, side by side with the state civil law, the existence of communal civil law with its sharp practices directed against the workers” [62. P. 265–266].

Such a fundamental opposition could not but concern Poland. Formally Herzen and Marx seemed to hold the same position: both published articles and made presentations stressing that Poland had to be restored as the main fighter against Russian czarism. However, Herzen regarded liberated Poland as the keystone in the future federation of free Slavic peoples, while Marx — as a sanitary cordon protecting the West from Asiatic barbarism: “There is but one alternative for Europe. Either Asiatic barbarism, under Muscovite direction, will burst around its head like an avalanche, or else it must re-establish Poland, thus putting twenty million heroes between itself and Asia and gaining a breathing spell for the accomplishment of its social regeneration” [55. P. 208]. This is certainly a strange idea for the author positioning himself as an internationalist and advocate of all proletarians, but later this idea acquired great political instrumentality even among those who opposed Marx’s doctrine.

Thus, despite conceptual disagreements, both Marx and Herzen attached great importance to Poland in political theories. Herzen believed that Poland was not only a catalyst for the future social revolution but also an obstacle for an allSlavic federation, and strived to change the minds of both Polish and Russian revolutionaries in favor of a democratic union: “The solidarity of Russia and Poland and of the entire Slavic world cannot be rejected; it is obvious. Moreover, without Russia, there is no future for the Slavic world… it will be absorbed by the German element” [33. P. 314]. According to Herzen, the socialist revolution in Europe would begin in the Slavic lands, and he regarded the assimilation of Slavs as an attempt of the German peoples to prevent the future social revolution. That is why Herzen sought to unite the forces of all Slavic — revolutionary — peoples, so that “when the thunderstorm, which no power in the world can stop, breaks out, they will not be taken unaware” [32. P. 42]. He did not doubt that practically all Slavs would pass on to such a type of social state in which ‘social’ would mean ‘communal’ (as close to the term ‘socium’).

Today Herzen’s confidence in the inevitable transition of all Slavs, including those in Austria and Turkey, to community socialism may seem inexplicable. But Marx expressed no lesser confidence that all peoples of the European West would inevitably change their social structure according to the communist ideals. This was a vividly manifested struggle of ideas on the source of the new social being, which continues, albeit in different forms. For instance, in the 20^th century, in the European East, the pseudo-Marxism largely relied on the community notions, which was particularly the case of the Soviet Union: according to N.A. Berdyaev, the revolution was made “in the name of Marx but certainly not according to Marx” [3. P. 86]. In the West, various socialist parties periodically come to power with the emasculated version of Marxism devoid of its most radical points, but communist concepts are often replaced by communitarianism.

If we compare the areas of application of Marx’s ideas (mainly the West) and Herzen’s ideas (mainly the East), one may wonder whether contemporary political contradictions between these two parts of Europe are a consequence of value differences in social organization, which were identified already by Herzen and Marx. If this is so, then there is a conditional division of the 20^th-century Europe into ‘Marx’s’ and ‘Herzen’s’ parts. In some sense, the struggle between Western communitarianism and Russian communalism continues today due to their values adopted as the basic characteristics of both societies. We mean not only Russian– West-European contradictions, but general differences in the social organization of the state, ethnic and confessional systems between West-European societies and Central/South-European societies.

Herzen focused on the theoretical aspect of such differences in the opposition of both Slavs–Germans’ and Poles–Slavs. Keeping in touch with the Polish revolutionaries (noblemen), he understood well their aims and methods. Herzen believed that the peasant community in Poland, the main bearer of socialist elements, was dying and losing its latent socialist values. He saw a connection between Catholicism and decomposition of the community: “In the areas of Orthodoxy, with a language closer to Russian than Polish, with the preserved Russian peasant way of life, the mir, assembly and common ownership of land, people would probably want to be Russian. In the areas of Catholicism or the Union, with no commune or the common ownership of land, sympathy for Poland is probably stronger” [32. P. 21]. This reminds M. Weber’s later attempt to introduce an anti-Marxian concept of social development as relating Protestantism to capitalism [74]. Herzen argued that the socialist revival of Poland in the mid-19^th century presupposed “a closer connection to the Slavic world to remember its Slavic beginning” [29. P. 90]. However, despite the strong desire to see Poland in a federation of free Slavic republics, Herzen did not want its forced incorporation: “Poland… has an inherent right to a state independent of Russia. Whether we wish free Poland to be separated from free Russia is another question. No, we do not wish this” [32. P. 18].

Herzen hoped for voluntary unification of Russia and Poland on a federative basis — a free unity based on equality [29. P. 89]. “Russia has no rights to Poland… and if Poland does not want this union, we can grieve for this, we may not agree with this, but we cannot refuse to give Poland freedom” [32. P. 18–19]. The idea of a federation of free Slavic peoples was extremely appealing in the first half of the 19^th century. For instance, such a federation was mentioned, in one way or another, in many program documents of the left wing in the Polish national liberation movement [43. P. 217–225].

Herzen believed that autonomy was one of the main conditions for “community socialism”, emphasizing the preferability of the self-government of communities, volosts and even the whole federation. The opinion of masses was the most important thing, but the opinion of a minority should be respected. Herzen argued that in case of a disagreement, the minority had the right to leave the federation: if Ukraine “wants to be neither Polish nor Russian… Ukraine should be recognized as a free and independent country… That is why I value federalism so highly. Federal parts are connected by common goal and no part belongs to another” [32. P. 21].

According to Herzen, the main basis of federalism was voluntariness, therefore, Slavic unity needed time and a gradual approach: “it is necessary to achieve it through a number of different independent forms and… combinations… let us keep the future union in mind as an ideal” [32. P. 21]. These combinations included the Danube-Carpathian federation of Western Slavs and the republican federation of Southern Slavs [27. P. 173–174], the “links of an extensive confederation” from the Balkans to the Adriatic Sea [41. P. 105], and, finally, a turning of all Slavic federations into a union. Herzen proposed to make Constantinople the capital of this Slavic union [37. P. 199] as the “beginning of a democratic and socialist Slavic federation” [28. P. 238]. In the article in one Chartist magazine, Herzen wrote: “Neither Vienna, a rococo German city, nor Saint Petersburg, a new German city, nor Warsaw, a Catholic city, nor Moscow, a solely Russian city, can claim the role of the capital of united Slavs — only Constantinople” [37. P. 199]. Is it a geometric sum of the “diagonal approach”? Or a political construct for distancing from the Saint Petersburg–Moscow legacy and for making the capital of the federation equidistant from Pan-Slavists of Austria, Poland and Russia?

These ideas bothered Marx as strangely coinciding with the foreign-policy plans of the Russian Empire — since the Greek project of Catherine II, the value of Constantinople was strategically equal to the British Gibraltar and Kiev in the cultural-historical terms. Therefore, Herzen’s statements that the “conquest of Constantinople will be the beginning of new Russia” [28. P. 238] and that “Constantinople will replace Saint Petersburg” [37. P. 199] made Marx accuse Herzen of liberal hesitations, of “singing the praises to the czar-liberator” during the reforms, and of making the czar “continue his emancipatory work and launch a crusade for the liberation of the oppressed Slavic peoples” [59. P. 430]. Marx considered these views utopian and Pan-Slavist [51. P. 440–441; 61. P. 9; 54. P. 116–119; 14. P. 359; 13. P. 438–448] for he associated the triumph of socialism with a revolutionary war of the advanced European states against czarist Russia as a stronghold of reaction in Europe. For this reason, Marx regarded all Slavs’ calls for consolidation as supporting the reactionary-protective policy of the Russian czar. He tended to perceive Slavs in general and Russians through the 1848–1849 events in Hungary — when the Austrian army (mainly Southern Slavs) and the Russian army suppressed the Hungarian rebellion against the Habsburg monarchy.

At the initial stage of the Russian reforms (1861), a time of hopes and even euphoria, Marx had certain grounds for accusing Herzen of Pan-Slavism. However, as the reforms were implemented, Herzen’s liberal illusions were vanishing, and he returned to a consistently revolutionary stand and focused on the consolidation of Slavs on a democratic and even socialist basis rather than under the Saint Petersburg’s gendarme rule [33. P. 324]. In addition, Herzen strived for the consolidation of revolutionaries — Slavs and West Europeans — in the struggle for radical changes: “Who can foretell the fate of the Slav world, if reaction and absolutism finally suppress the revolution in Europe?” [34. P. 334]. Thus, Herzen’s federative projects based on an equitable integration and socialism significantly differed from Pan-Slavist projects. He saw not only a threat for the Western democrats from the Russian autocracy, which he strived to overthrow, but also a threat for the Russian democrats from Western reactionaries. In the article “Muscovite Pan-Slavism and Russian Europeanism”, he opposed himself to Slavophiles as a European, refusing to change “the collar of German slavery for the collar of Orthodox-Slavic slavery” and calling to throw off all collars. He tried to direct the energy and socialist potential of the Slavic peoples to the equal unification with the West-European peoples, saying that the “hopes and aspirations of revolutionary Russia coincide with the hopes and aspirations of revolutionary Europe and anticipate their future alliance” [23. P. 234, 255].

Therefore, despite some mutual accusations and political statements, defining Herzen as Pan-Slavist is as ridiculous as reproaching Marx for Pan-Germanism of a pan-European type, and the relevant Pan-Slavist and Pan-Europeanist terms were of a solely instrumental nature for Herzen and Marx. Both dreamt of socialism but understood it differently: Herzen advocated its collectivist version and relied on the community which prevailed among the Slavic peoples; Marx fought for a political system based on the value of public rather than collectivist, which was developed only in the European West. In other words, the struggle between Herzen and Marx for the future of Europe can be described as a conflict of basic values — community and society, or Tönnies’ Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft [73. P. 333–354].

Herzen assumed that the political leadership was more important for Marx (as for any native German) than the victory of socialism. In Russia, after the 1830s Saint-Simonist ideas had made a great impression on radicals, the situation was different: “Having got used to communities, land division, working artels, we saw this doctrine as closer to us than political doctrines. We, who witnessed the most terrible abuses, were confused by socialism less than the Western bourgeoisie. In Moscow, socialism developed together with Hegelian philosophy. It is easy to imagine a union of new philosophy with socialism, but the Germans have only recently recognized a close connection between science and revolution — not because they did not understand it before but because socialism as everything practical did not interest them. Germans could be deeply radical in science, while remaining conservative in their actions, — poets on paper and bourgeois in life. On the contrary, we disgust dualism. For us, socialism is the most natural philosophical syllogism, an application of logic to the state” [23. P. 252].

There was a gradual departure of the West-European Marxists from Hegelian philosophy as a key element of scientific socialism in the 19^th century. Bernstein, a leader of the German social democracy and the closest friend of Engels in the last years of his life, proposed a teleological interpretation of the labor movement. He declared that socialism was good only as a goal, i.e., as the movement towards it was more important [5. P. 201]; proclaimed Hegel’s dialectics unscientific due to its excessive speculativeness [5. P. 29–65] and suggested to rely on Neo-Kantianism in social cognition, considering Kant’s ideas as emasculating the antiscientific materialism and metaphysical hypocrisy of Hegel’s dialectics (“Kant against cant”) [5. P. 219–232].). One of the political heirs of Herzen, G.V. Plekhanov, the head of the Narodnik Chorny Peredel (“Black Repartition”) and later the leader of the Russian social democracy, read these statements before their publication [65. P. 336] and argued that the German Social Democrats must exclude Bernstein from their ranks. However, they decided otherwise, and Bernstein’s ideas became the basis for both German and European social democracy in the 20^th–21^st centuries, Thus, the programs of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Erfurt Program of 1891 and Godesberg Program of 1959) revised Marx’s theory of class struggle and abolished his interpretation of the Hegelian method as a simple solution of complex problems (political elimination up to physical destruction of one class by another).

In Russia and, with certain reservations, Slavic countries, the 1917 Revolution and subsequent related events determined an extremely formal, arbitrary and radical version of Marxism with insertions of the strongly modified Herzen’s socialist ideas. Concerning Herzen, we can mention, first, the Bolsheviks’ reliance on the traditional community and their struggle against society (collective farms and specialized associations with shared responsibility); second, the federal structure of the state. The leaders of one of Marxist parties — Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin — knew well Herzen’s and Marx’ works, however, despite their claims, not as theorists but as authoritarian politicians, which is why they preferred Marx’s methods to Herzen’s theories which, nevertheless, affected the political space of the states allied with the USSR (all Slavic countries and ethnic groups). Most probably, Herzen would not accept the Soviet version of socialism, just as Marx would not accept the contemporary Western bourgeoisness largely sanctified by his name (by Socialists and Social Democrats as the main political force of Western Europe for decades).

If the potential of socialism is substantial (although there are other political regimes and explaining theories), we need to recognize Herzen’s and Marx’s impact on the future social destinies of the peoples of Europe.

In general, both projects relied on the scientific ‘laws’ of social development discovered by the socialist paradigm of the 19^th century. The idea of justice was the basic value of this line of social thought, and both projects to a large extent determined the subsequent development of the European political culture, for the struggle for a more just society led to the creation of political parties. Herzen was regarded as the founding father of the most vigorous (up to radical) parties of the European East — Narodniks and Socialist Revolutionaries. Marx became the founder of the West-European movement claiming to be global. Many WestEuropean parties that come to power have Marxist roots. Thereby, the question is whether socialism is a historically determined social inevitability (according to Marx) or a method of social organization based on the traditional ideas of social justice (according to Herzen).

Herzen’s project, just as Marx’s project, was anti-liberal. He preferred democracy — people’s governance — to the liberal appeals of the Enlighteners during the French Revolution. This was one of the differences from the anti-liberal concept of Marx, who was not fond of democracy. It is no coincidence that Herzen chose the title Kolokol (Bell) for the newspaper published by the Free Russian Printing House — as an allusion to an essential attribute of the Novgorod veche (people’s assembly, a type of the old Russian democracy). He defined democracy mainly as direct democracy and focused not so much on the issues of freedom as the issues of just power. During the Great Reforms, Herzen pinned great hopes on the liberation of peasants from serfdom as changing their social status, making them citizens and giving them a chance of self-government. However, the reforms disappointed him. Being aware of the West-European way of social development, Herzen saw that liberalism did not abolish exploitation but changed its forms. He tried to prevent the Russian population from replacing the vise of feudal lawlessness with more sophisticated forms of capitalist lawlessness. Herzen did not accept Marx’s formational constructs claiming the status of the social law: “history has no invariable purpose about which Catholics teach and philosophers preach” [36. P. 137].

Moreover, Herzen did not believe that history should be interpreted mainly in economic terms and that a just society implies capitalism in the allegedly inevitable course of history. He considered capitalism a social failure that developed in Western Europe and then affected all peoples of the world and explained this failure by slowing down the movement to a just way of life. Herzen believed that his concept would eliminate evident injustices: “The slowness and confusion of the historical process is maddening and choking us; it is intolerable, and many of us hasten and hurry others, although we know better. Is this good or not? Herein lies the whole question” [22. P. 576]. This is another difference of Herzen’s concept from that of Marx: he opposed the economic approach of Marx (efficiency as the main criterion) with the ethical standards and values of traditional morals, which made I. Berlin call Herzen a moral preacher of genius [4. P. 83]. We would add that Herzen was also an outstanding visionary — a free community life which Herzen advocated so much is still in demand [64]. Thus, the transition to a community life on a new, conscious and fair principle is precisely the diagonal between Marx’s capitalism and Herzen’s communism that complicated the social life in the 20^th century.

About the authors

A. V. Shabaga

Author for correspondence.
Email: shabaga-av@rudn.ru
Miklukho-Maklaya St., 6, Moscow, 117198, Russia

References