The actor Mikhail Shchepkin was delegated by Moscow acquaintances to ask Herzen in person to stop writing and move to America, at least until things had calmed down in Russia. Petr Chaadaev, on the other hand, sent thanks to Herzen for having mentioned his role in the struggle for freedom. It turns out that Chaadaev had also written to the political police, expressing his indignation at receiving the praise of such a scoundrel; he later explained to his puzzled nephew that he had to save himself (Berlin, Russian Thinkers, 15). Encouraged by Herzen's bold approach, students at Moscow University later illegally printed their own translation.
Nikolay Gogol was frightened by the essay's claim that in his earlier works he depicted noblemen and officials negatively, and Shchepkin said that when he and Tur- genev met Gogol at the end of October, the latter was torn between feeling offended and questioning his own wisdom in having published Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends (Let 2:51). The critic Vladimir Botkin, a liberal frightened into conservatism by the 1848 revolutions, labeled Herzen's survey a "denunciation." When the minister of state properties, Kiselev, observed that it could not endanger anyone, since it only spoke of the dead, the Third Department's Count Orlov replied that "if we really wanted to, we could use the dead to reach the living"; another conservative journalist, Nikolay Grech, called Herzen a "swine" who led young people to drink the poison of "unbelief and disrespect for sacred things and state power" (Let 2:45).
Among the essay's better-known European readers, Friedrich Engels particularly objected to Herzen's elevation of the peasant commune and his association with such figures as Proudhon and Bakunin. In an 1853 letter to an associate about the possibility of revolution in Russia, Engels complained that Herzen had hedged his bets in a Hegelian manner by describing a republic that was simultaneously democratic, socialist, communist, and Proudhonian (Let 2:139-40). The historian Jules Michelet, with whom Herzen enjoyed long conversations, was very impressed with the article, which he called a "heroic" work by a Russian patriot, and he subsequently cited Herzen's ideas in his own analysis of Russia. Revised versions of Revolutionary Ideas were published in French and German in subsequent years, and arrangements were made with William Linton for a translation into English. The 1858 French version, published in London, was the basis of two different Russian translations later commissioned for twentieth-century editions of Herzen's works. An 1860 discussion of Herzen by Nikolay Sazonov for La gazette du Nord called Revolutionary Ideas a survey, however incomplete, of Russia's "moral and intellectual history . . . distinguished by a remarkable intelligence and a correct assessment of the foundations of Russian life" (Ivanova, A. I. Gertsen, 155).
In chapter 5 below, Herzen makes a strong argument for the significance of Russian literature in spreading new and liberating ideas, and provides an impressive "martyrol- ogy of Russian literature" (Zhelvakova, Gertsen, 341). Free of tsarist censorship, he was able to expand upon views held by the critic Vissarion Belinsky (1811-1848) and other progressive figures, and to introduce them to Europeans, who, based on existing information, had a poor understanding of the country's problems, and who knew virtually nothing of Russia's potential for reform. The Marquis de Custine's travelogue Lettres de Russie en 1839 had come out to great acclaim in 1843, and La Russie et les Russes by the Decembrist emigre Nikolay Turgenev (1799-1871) made its appearance four years later. The former heard only the silence emanating from frightened Russians, while the latter, who was abroad in December 1825 and never returned to his homeland, took little notice of the common people. Herzen heard the voices of both remarkable individuals and the Russians as a whole, and was therefore more hopeful than others in 1850 about Russia's future prospects (Walicki, Legal Philosophies, 336-37).
On the Development of Revolutionary Ideas in Russia Chapter V. Literature and Public Opinion in Russia After December 14, 1825
[1851/1858]
The twenty-five years since the 14 (26) of December are harder to characterize than all the time that has elapsed since the age of Peter the Great. Two opposing tendencies—one on the surface, the other in depths where it can barely be seen—make observation difficult. Russia appears to remain immobile, even to have retreated a bit, but in essence, everything has taken on a new appearance; the questions are more complex and the answers less simple.
On the surface of official Russia, "the empire of facades," only the losses have been visible—the cruel reaction, the inhuman persecution, the strengthening of despotism. Surrounded by mediocrity, by soldiers on parade, Baltic Germans, and brutal conservatives, one sees Nicholas, suspicious, cold, stubborn, pitiless, absent any greatness of soul—as mediocre as his entourage. And, immediately below him, high society, which lost its barely acquired sense of honor and dignity when the first clap of thunder broke over its head after December 14. The Russian aristocracy did not recover during the reign of Nicholas, its bloom had faded, and all that was noble and good in it languished in the mines or in Siberia. The nobles who remained and kept the monarch's favor descended to a degree of vileness and servility known to us from de Custine's description.1
Then there were the guards officers; formerly brilliant and well-educated, they turned increasingly into dull soldiers. Before 1825, everyone wearing civilian clothes acknowledged the superiority of epaulets. To be comme il faut, one had to serve for a couple of years in the guards, or at least in the cavalry. Officers were the heart and soul of any gathering, the heroes of holiday celebrations and balls, and, to be truthful, there was a good reason for this. Officers were more independent and conducted themselves with more dignity than groveling bureaucrats. Circumstances changed, and the guards shared the fate of the aristocracy; the best of the officers were exiled, many others left the military, unable to bear the coarse and insolent tone adopted by Nicholas. Their places were quickly taken by diligent soldiers or pillars of the barracks and the stable. Officers lost the favorable opinion of society and civilian dress gained an advantage—the uniform prevailed only in small provincial towns and at court, the chief guardroom of the empire. Members of the imperial family, along with its head, showed the military a preference that was exaggerated and inappropriate in their position. The public's coldness toward men in uniform did not extend to admitting civilian government employees into society. Even in the provinces, they were treated with an unconquerable disdain, which did not prevent the growth of the bureaucracy's influence. After 1825, the whole administration, formerly aristocratic and ignorant, became petty and mean. Ministries turned into offices, and their heads and senior officials into businessmen or clerks. In their attitude toward the civil service they were exactly like the dull new members of the guards. Consummate experts on every sort of formality, cold and unquestioning in carrying out orders from above, their devotion to the government came from a love of extortion. Nicholas was in need of such officers and administrators.