This time we will not withdraw and will not keep silent—in the Russian case the realization that we are right is not enough, we want to participate. It is developing in a misshapen, crazy, criminal fashion, but it is taking its course.
We do not know whether or not Western man will free himself. The process drags on and is far from being finished. In any case the task is a difficult one; the threads are strong, the knots are tangled, and all of it has not only entered the body but has grown into it.
We are not at all in that position; our life has not taken on a definitive form. There is a great deal that is bad in its instability and contradictions, but that is not the point. The point is that we have not joined the conservative era of our existence—for us conservatism is either police resistance, or ideological imitation of the West. [. . .]
The uncertainty and disorder of Russian life, leading it, on the one hand, to ugly extremes and contradictions, to an anxious tracking down of principles and a foolish grasping at everything in the world, and, on the other hand, our national life's elementary strength and endurance, its indifference to experimental reforms and improvements—all this demonstrates clearly that our life has not taken on a definitive form, has not run across forms that are appropriate to it, and has not developed them from its own existence. It cannot find itself in other people's homes; it cannot settle down, and lives like a nomad.
The first time that the two ways of life, the two Russias, met in this borderland, the first time that the question occupying them was not resolved with a whip, it was resolved not in a Western manner. It is impossible to even pose this question in a Western manner. Since the day when the government indirectly admitted the peasant's right to land, when literature began to discuss whether the serfs should be freed with or without land, and if with land, then how to own it, collectively or individually, the first serious compromise began between the Russian national way of life and the ideal of Western civilization. That is why the peasant, silent for centuries, began to talk, and began to talk sense.
Now, after this first and maybe most important step, now we need a great deal of coming together, freedom of thought, border posts open on all sides and, most of all, with the beams removed, discarded models whose originals had turned out to be unsuited for the West. And now, at the right time, "traitors" have turned up, who preach a west-east conservatism of Petersburg puppet shows.3
That which a civilizing empire did not accomplish is being attempted by doctrinaire civilizers.
The cords with which the government entangled us are easy to sever; it is a matter of muscles, and not conscience, as in the West. The literary Mu- ravyovs want to tighten the noose, while still assuring us that it is all for our good; they want not only to overwhelm us with their power and corrupt us with their conviction. Now, at a time when we must lay out our plan and erect signposts, they want to narrow our thinking. [. . .] cultivate in us the conservative senility of Europe and wind up just cultivating its chronic diseases. [. . .] They themselves can easily do without free institutions, without freedom to publish, and congratulate themselves with their victory over the revolution of i862 in Petersburg, of which none of us has heard.
This unnecessary, boring page from our textbook must be torn out. We were drilled sufficiently during the Petrine era, and there is no need, while abolishing corporal punishments, to introduce ones that are spiritual.
For our part, however, much strength remains [. . .] we will keep the mandarin-spiders from weaving us into this web, we will oppose this second and superfluous German invasion. The fact that they will try to stop us with the hindquarters of their police horses, to the accompaniment of the approving neighs and brotherly help of their imitators, will not stop us. It is a shame, though, that prior to kicking they did not wipe off their hooves because there is already a lot of mud, but a la guerre comme a la guerre.
August 20,1863
POST SCRIPTUM
It is impossible to go any further, without glancing at the path we have traveled since the previous stage.
While we trudged along, laying down a modest road to our printing press, events moved on and came to some kind of turning point; the shadows obviously are falling in a different direction.
Ten years ago Russia was silent, and we faced a single enemy—the government. It did not have defenders in literature and fierce partisans in society. Literature kept silent about it and society feared it. Literature—with the exception of police organs that were despised by everyone—was in opposition. Society was not in opposition: indifferent and sleepy, it had no opinion, and amused itself under the shelter of autocracy.
Then society split: one part hated the government for the emancipation of the serfs, while the other loved it for the same reason. On this issue, all literature stood with the government, and, once that had happened, backed the government on a few other issues. Men of letters for the first time saw the possibility and pleasure of keeping all the advantages of liberalism without any of the disadvantages of being in opposition. In that way, by degrees there began a system of hopes and expectations on the part of literature and a system of a little bit ofgood at a time (gradualness with the chronic delay of progress) on the part of the government. Russia lived in a kind of optical illusion: the government did not yield a bit, while literature and a portion of society were convinced that they were getting everything. Even those trifles that the government allowed were not made law and could always be taken back. Literature, enjoying some openness and temporarily relaxed censorship, imagined that we were on the eve of radical change, that a constitution was being written, that freedom of the press est garantie, that only a few formalities remained, but the main business was already taken care of. The journals which had come to believe this immediately took on an extraordinarily European character—a bit conservative, but not at all against progress; they began to speak about political parties, opposition pamphlets—democratic, federal, socialist—forgetting that we have a great many policemen and very few rights, that censorship really existed, and the court system existed only in a formal sense, making significantly easier, in that way, the work of the Third Department.
Journalism and the government during this honeymoon of government- sponsored liberalism behaved on terms of the most delicate civility. The journals displayed the greatest faith in a reforming government, while the government said how badly it felt that it could not improve and correct all institutions as fast as it would like, and it spoke of its love for open discussion and its hatred for monopolies.
They resembled two honorable people, competing with each other in politeness—one, in demanding a debt, said that he fully appreciates that his debtor intends to pay; the other puts it off, assuring him that he is making a sacrifice in postponing the delight of payment.
This has become annoying, and not without reason, especially to the government. No matter what crack it is that the light shines through, it lights up something indecent, in no matter how distorted a form freedom of expression is given, it gets to the point. The government frowned, and
awaited some kind of disturbances in order to have a pretext; there were no disturbances, so it was necessary to take decisive measures. They came up with student lists and Putyatin, packed the Peter Paul Fortress with students, lured the students themselves onto Tverskaya Square in Moscow, but it did not work. The public opinion that had begun to develop was not in favor of such persecution, and journalism, still holding on to some sense of shame, displayed neither love for the students, nor tenderness toward Putyatin, nor approval of street battles with unarmed people, and young ladies had no wish to dance with the conquering Preobrazhensky victors. The persecutions did not succeed; the government, in order to cover up its mistake, got rid of Putyatin and Ignatiev. Revolution in Petersburg (according to The Moscow Gazette) continued, the terror continued, the government did not know what to fabricate next, what new lists of students. fortunately the fires came to their aid. There's a reason the Russian people love arson.