they were merely doing their duty, and slept peacefully not many.
steps from the place where the heretics were being roasted to death.1
'History is the autobiography of a madman.'1 This might have been
written with equal bitterness by Voltaire and by Tolstoy. The purpose
of history? We do not make history and are not responsible for it. If
1 'Doctor Krupov': IV z63-4.
--1-i'61d.:
-
IV z64.
90
H E RZEN AND BAKUN I N ON LIBERTY
history is a tale told by an idiot. it is certainly criminal to justify the
oppression and cruelty. the imposition of one's arbitrary will upon
many thousands of human beings, in the name of hollow abstractionsthe 'demands' of' history' or of'historical destiny'. of'national security'.
of 'the logic of the facts'. 'Salus populi suprema lex. pereat mundus et
fiat justitia have about them a strong smell of burnt bodies, blood,
inquisition. torture, and generally of"the triumph of order". '1 Abstractions. apart from their evil consequences, are a mere attempt to evade facts which do not fit into our preconceived schema.
A man looks at something freely only when he does not bend it to
his theory, and does not himself bend before it; reverence before it,
not free but enforced, limits a man, narrows his freedom; something in talking of which one is not allowed to smile without blasphemy . . . is a fetish, a man is crushed by it, he is frightened of
confounding it with ordinary life.1
It becomes an icon, an object of blind, uncomprehending woBhip, and
so a mystery justifying excessive crimes. And in the same vein:
The world will not know liberty until all that is religious.
political, is transformed into something simple "'nd human, is made
susceptible to criticism and denial. Logic when it comes of age
detests canonised truths . . . it thinks nothing sacrosanct, and if
the republic arrogates to itself the same rights as the monarchy, it
will despise it as much, nay, more . . . It is not enough to despise
the crown-one must not be filled with awe before the Phrygian
Cap; it is not enough not to consider lhe·majestl a crime: one must
look on sa/us populi as being one. a
And he adds that patriotism-to sacrifice oneself for one's country-is
doubtless noble; but it is better still if one survives together with one's
country. So much for 'history'. Human beings 'will be cured of [such]
idealism as they have been of other historical diseases-chivalry,
Catholicism, Protestantism'."
1 'From the Other Shore': VI 140.
t 'Letters from France and Italy', lifth letter: V 89. See also the remarkable
analysis of the universal desire to evade intellectual respJnsibility by the
creation of idols and the transgression of the Second Commandment in 'New
Variations on Old Themes' (II 86-102), which originally appeared in
SOPrement�il.
a 'From the Other Shore': VI 46.
" ibid.: VI 3 5·
RU SSIAN TH INKERS
Then there are those who speak of 'progress', and are prepared to
sacrifice the present to the future, to make men suffer today in order
that their remote descendants might be happy; and condone brutal
crimes and the degradation of human beings, because these are the
indispensable means toward some guaranteed future felicity. For this
attitude-shared equally by reactionary Hegelians and revolutionary
communists, speculative utilitarians and ultramontane zealots, and
indeed all who justify repellent means in the name of noble, but distant,
ends- Herzen reserves his most violent contempt and ridicule. To it
he devotes the best pages of From the Other Shore-his political
profession de foi, written as a lament for the broken illusions of
1 8 ... 8.
If progress is the goal, for whom are we working? Who is this
Moloch who, as the toilers approach him, instead of rewarding
them, draws back; and as a consolation to the exhausted and
doomed multitudes, shouting 'morituri te salutant', can only give
the . . . mocking answer that after their death all will be beautiful
on earth. Do you truly wish to condemn the human beings alive
today to the sad role of caryatids supporting a floor for others some
day to dance on . . . or of wretched galley slaves who, up to their
knees in mud, drag a barge . . . with the humble words 'progress
in the future' upon its flag? . . . a goal which is infinitely remote is
no goal, only . . . a deception; a goal must be closer-at the very
least the labourer's wage, or pleasure in work performed. Each
epoch, each generation, each life has had, has, its own fullness; and
m route new demands grow, new experiences, new methods . . .
The end of each generation is itself. Not only does Nature never
make one generation the means for the attainment of some future
goal, but she doesn't concern herself with the future at all; like
Cleopatra, she is ready to dissolve the pearl in wine for a moment's
pleasure • . . 1
. . . If humanity marched straight towards some result, there
would be no history, only logic . . . reason develops slowly, painfully,
it does not exist in nature, nor outside natu:-e . . . one has to arrange
life with it as best one can, because there is no libretto. If history
followed a set libretto it would lose all interest, become unnecessary,
boring, ludicrous . . . great men would be so many heroes strutting
on a stage • • • History is all improvisation, all will, all extemporethere are no frontiers, no itineraries. Predicaments occur; sacred discontent; the fire of life; and the endless challenge to the fighters
1 ibid.: VI H-S·
HERZEN AND B A K U N I N ON L I B E RTY
to try their strength, to go where they will, where there is a road;
and where there is none, genius will blast a path.1
Herz.en goes on to say that processes in history or nature may repeat
themselves for millions of years; or·stop suddenly; the tail of a comet
may touch our planet and extinguish all life upon it; and this would
be the finale of history. But nothing follows from this, it carries no
moral with it. There is no guarantee that things will happen in one
way rather than another. The death of a single human being is no
less absurd and unintelligible than the death of the entire human race;
it is a mystery that we accept, and with which there is no need to
frighten children.
Nature is not a smooth, teleological development, certainly not a
development designed for human happiness or the fulfilment of social
justice. Nature is for Herz.en a mass of potentialities which develop in
accordance with no intelligible plan. Some develop, some perish; in
favourable conditions they may be realised, but they may deviate,
collapse, die. This leads some men to cynicism and despair. Is human
life an endless cycle of growth and recession, achievement and collapse?
Is there no purpose in it all? Is human effort bound to end in ruin, to