Finally, this document, which horrified the government and the literary realm, the progressives and the reactionaries, civilized supporters of a parliament, and civilizing bureaucrats, reached even us.
We read it once, twice, three times. with a great deal we are very much not in agreement (and we will talk about this in another article), but we must in good conscience confess that we do not understand the delirium tremens of the government, the whining of the conscientious journals, or the emotional confusion of the platonic lovers of progress.
[. . .] We address ourselves to genuinely honest, but weak, people and ask them: why were they frightened of "Young Russia"? Did they really believe that the Russian people would—just like that—grab an axe at the first cry of "All hail the Russian socialist and democratic republic!" No, they will answer in a chorus that this is impossible, that the people do not understand these words, and on the contrary, embittered by the arson, they would be prepared to tear to pieces those who pronounce these words. And yet every honest person feels obligated to abuse these young people, showering them with reproaches and curses, and feels obliged to be horrified, raising their eyes to the mountains.
Gentlemen, look more deeply at your feelings, and you will see with shame that what struck you was neither the danger, nor the lie, nor any damage, but the audacity of free speech. Your sense of hierarchical discipline has been offended—they are speaking way beyond their years and status.
If these young people (and we have no doubt that this flysheet was written by very young people) in their arrogance talked a lot of nonsense, then stop them, enter into argument with them, answer them, but do not call out for help, do not push them into prison cells because the Third Department fara da se.6 And if they run out of spies there is auxiliary literature, which can be used to implicate them as incendiaries after a Russian-style, secret, torture-chamber investigation.
Thus this whole terrible affair, which has placed the Russian Empire and Nevsky Prospect on the brink of social cataclysm, having broken the last link between gradual and abrupt progress, is based on a youthful upsurge, incautious, unrestrained, but which did no harm and could not have done any harm. It is a shame that the young people issued this proclamation, but we will not blame them. [. . .] Where is the criminality?
If the government were capable of understanding and did not retain the self-important seriousness of a commissionaire with a mace, what a big laugh they would have now, looking at the alarm of the brave liberals, the tough progressives, the courageous defenders of rights and of a free press, the intrepid denouncers of police chiefs and local supervisors—seeing how they, the dear ones, ran under the wings of those very same police, that very same government. [. . .]
"Young Russia" seems to us doubly mistaken. First, it is not at all Russian, but one of the variations on a theme of Western socialism, the metaphysics of the French Revolution, sociopolitical desiderata in the form of a call to arms. The second mistake is its inappropriateness: the accident of its coincidence with the fires intensified this.
It is clear that the young people who wrote this lived more in the world of comrades and books than in the world of facts, more in the algebra of ideas—with their easy and universal formulas and conclusions—than in a workshop, where friction, heat, bad casting, and internal flaws can alter the simplicity of a mechanical law and put the brakes on its rapid advance. That's how their speech appeared; in it there is none of that internal restraint that you get either from your own experience or the structure of an organized party.
But having said this, we will add that their fearless consistency is one of the most characteristic aspects of the Russian genius, which is estranged from the people. History has left us nothing cherished; we have none of those esteemed objects of respect, which hamper the Western man but which are dear to him. After the slavery in which we lived, the alienation from others like us, the break with the people, the inability to take action, we were left with a melancholy consolation, but a consolation nevertheless, in the starkness of the negation, in its logical relentlessness, and with some joy we pronounced those last extreme words, which our teachers, turning pale and glancing furtively around them, could barely pronounce. Yes, we pronounced them loudly, and it is as if it became easier in the expectation of the storm that they would provoke. We had nothing to lose.
Circumstances changed. The Russian land struggle began. Each struggle proceeds not according to the laws of abstract logic, but by a complex process of embryogeny. To help in our struggle we need the West's ideas and its experience. But to the same degree we do not need its revolutionary declamation, just like the French did not need the Roman-Spartan rhetoric with which it spoke at the end of the last century. To speak in someone else's images, to call something by a foreign name—that shows a lack of understanding of both the matter at hand and of the people, and a lack of respect for both as well. Is there a shadow of probability that the Russian people would rise up in the name of Blanqui's socialism, shouting out four words, among which three long ones are unfamiliar to them?7
You consider us backward, and we do not get angry; if we have lagged behind you in our opinions, we have not lagged behind in our heart, and the heart sets the pace. And don't you become angry when, in a friendly matter, we turn around your reprimand and say that your costume a la Karl Moor and Gracchus Babeuf8 on the Russian square is not only old, but resembles masquerade dress. The French are a comical but deferential people; it was possible to confuse them with a Roman latiklave and the language of Seneca's heroes, while our people demanded the head of the unfortunate Obruchev.9
. And again a chorus can be heard—not underground, but from the second floor—a chorus of cowards, weak and hoping for only a slightly progressive movement.
"Yes, yes," they cry, "look what the celebrated people, that wild beast, is doing—this is what awaits us. Go explain to them that we are now not serf-owners but landowners, and that we do not demand the corvee, but a representative assembly, not quitrent, but the rights of citizens."
The people are a little slow to understand and cannot so quickly imagine that their age-old, bloody enemy who robbed them, disgraced their family, and wore them out with hunger and humiliated them, suddenly fell into such repentance—"my brother," he said, and that's all.
There are terrible historical misfortunes, the dark fruits of dark deeds; just before they occur, as before a storm, human wisdom falls silent and covers eyes full of bitter tears with its hands.
Our sacrificial victims, like Mikhailov and Obruchev, must endure a double martyrdom [. . .] the people will not know them—even worse, it will know them as members of the gentry, as enemies. They will not pity them and do not want their sacrifice.
This is where the split has led us. The people do not have faith in—and are prepared to stone—those who gave their lives for them. In the dark night in which they were raised they are prepared, like the giant in a fairy tale, to slaughter their children for wearing foreign clothing.
Our martyrs are bearing the terrible punishment of popular hate not for their own transgressions, but for those of others. These others rush to receive an amnesty; for their part, they were not so generous, and what did they really do—having lost the oyster, they decided to throw away the shell! Did the gentry Magdalenes in their own hearts really achieve repentance? Was the word emancipation really said by them—didn't they dig their heels in while they thought it was still possible to dig their heels in? Atonement is not achieved nor ancient scars forgiven so easily and with such a dissatisfied expression.