Ильин А.А. Summary (История понятия «революция» у А.И. Герцена и М.А. Бакунина), страница 5

Impact of the Western European exampleswas quite limited also due to the common tradition to translate the foreign wordsand expressions non-literally, excluding dangerous political connotations. Underthese circumstances political revolution normally depicted as a conflict betweensupreme (usually monarchic) authority and the subjects, encroaching on itstraditional and sanctified rights. As a result, Russian observers of the revolutiontended to neglect many of its political and social issues, which were conspicuous tothe western contemporaries.

Nonetheless, it should be said that some of theeducated Russians didn’t agree with this conservative approach. For instance,Herzen and Bakunin reacted to the dominating representations of the revolutionswith criticism and irony.Next section is called “Revolution and Reform”. It deals with the publicdebate over the alternative between revolution and reform that took place in 18501860s. It is shown, that revolutsiya had particular pragmatic function. It served as athreat or worst case scenario that was necessary to prevent. Thus revolutsiyafacilitated the justification of reforms. But also there was a conception ofrevolution from above supported by the part of the lefts.

They believed thatreforms made by the government should be revolutionary in its character, that is tosay genuinely fundamental and democratic. Herzen and Bakunin also endorsed thisconception. Also they confronted the opinion supported by their opponents M.N.Pogodin and bishop Ignatius (Bryanchaninov), that reform is gift from thegovernment to the populace.Advocates of the reformist path did not deny progress, but gave preferenceto the peaceful and legal alternative to the revolution. The reform got almost auniversal support during the first years of Alexander the II’s reign, but then it aswell as the revolution became a tool for political demarcation.

Reformists wereconfronted by the party of revolutionary supporters.The second and the third chapters deal with Herzen’s and Bakunin’s ideas. Itshould be said that they have similar structure, so to enable parallels andcomparisons. Second chapter “The Place of Revolution in the Herzen’s Ideas”consists of four paragraphs. First one is “Revolution and Autobiographicalnarrative”. It explores the ways Herzen created an image of the independentpublic figure in his memoirs and in other works.

This image largely defined hisautobiographical narrative and the revolution played an important role in this.Herzen expressed a sympathy to the revolutions in his “My Past and Thoughts”,yet he showed himself as a detached spectator, who followed the development ofthe revolutionary movement without taking a serious part in it. His politicalposition was constantly changing as he avoided to identify fully as radical ormoderate liberal. The paragraph also deals with the public attitude to Herzen inRussia in 1840-1860s. Sufficient part of the educated public saw in him radical andrevolutionary.The second section “Revolution, History and Freedom” is dedicated to thechanging relations between the concepts. For Herzen the revolution was asignificant event in the World history that helped to achieve political freedom.Herzen sometimes assumed that revolution would make Russia a historical nation,introducing modernity and political self-determination into it.Next paragraph “A Problem of the Revolutionary Violence” shows thatthis issue was of great importance to Herzen, that’s why he elaborated a number ofstrategies to describe and justify political violence.

Herzen hold radical opinions onthe subject in his younger years and also during and shortly after the revolution of1848-1849. In these moments he admitted the necessity of violence, the sole meanto destroy the old world. In the later years, he developed a theory that violencecould be useful and we had to evaluate costs and outcomes in each case. TherebyHerzen distanced himself both from radicalism and conservative approach to theissue.The fourth paragraph “Revolution and the Problem of Emotions inPolitics” shows how Herzen advocated utility and necessity of emotions inpolitical life. A Hegelian aesthetic theory of H.T. Rötscher was a starting point forhis reflections on emotions.

Arguments against excessive rationalism of Rötscherwere later used by Herzen in his dispute with B.N. Chicherin, Hegelian andadherent of pure rationalism in politics. Past revolution were examples ofemotionally-colored politics, that Herzen repeatedly used.Third chapter is entitled “The Place of Revolution in the Bakunin’s Ideas”consists of four paragraphs.

First one “Revolution as Concept and Activity” isdevoted to the issue of Bakunin’s revolutionary identity. Early philosophicalarticles of Bakunin are examined in order to analyze the influence of Fichte andespecially Hegel. Bakunin’s political activities of the later years are alsoconsidered. In addition, paragraph deals with the vocabulary of Bakunin and tropesthat he used to describe revolution as an event, principle or political movement.Bakunin’s conception of the World history and its connection with therevolution are scrutinized in the paragraph «Revolution and the World History».Bakunin consistently avoided conception of history as an organic and slow growthof institutions. He preferred to present it as a sequence of abrupt jumps and brakeswith the past.

So he sought to substantiate that revolutionary path of developmentwas a rule, not the exception. Bakunin combined the thesis of historical necessityof the revolutions with the conviction that they were substantially chaotic andindeterminate events. Thus he amalgamated determinism with the belief infreedom and political action.Paragraph “Revolution and Civil War” is devoted to the complicated andrepeatedly changed Bakunin’s position on the issue of political violence. Bakuninwas under the influence of the Western European radical tradition since 1842, sohe tended to justify use of force by the revolutionaries. He reconsidered hisposition in 1860s due to pacifist and socialist movements evolving throughoutWestern Europe and affecting many of the radicals, not excluding himself.

He waslooking for a revolutionary formula that would not contradict ideas of peaceful andharmonious development. However, he lost an interest in it after 1870, primarilybecause he had witnessed the Franco-Prussian war, Paris commune and othersocial struggles in France and other countries. Bakunin started to problematize andexamine the phenomenon of the civil war and almost identified it with therevolution.The fourth paragraph “Revolution and Passion” explores sentimentalist andromantic roots of Bakunin’s conception of passion.

According to his view, passionwas an inartificial and genuine expression of the human nature. Therefore, it wasable to get over almost every kind of psychological and even material constraint.Bakunin thought that passion ideally served to motivate a person to act politically;he also considered passion to be a recipe for success of the revolution. Bakuninreformulated his conception in terms of neurophysiology and positivism in 1860sin order to get rid of “idealistic” romantic associations.ConclusionRevolyutsiya took shape by the beginning of 19th century largely under theinfluence of the French ideas and events.

During the first stage of its history itabsorbed principles of Enlightenment historiosophy and particular ideasconcerning main characteristics of modern political life. Generally revolution wasunderstood as a large-scale and fundamental innovation that impacted on thehistorical process. Both supporters and opponents of revolutionary changeconcurred that it was not an exclusively spontaneous event.

They thought therewere some causes for it, and they also acknowledged that it had something to dowith human reason and action. Its participants usually considered as those, who(fortunately or not) violated the boundaries, traditional rules and hierarchies set bythe ancien régime. The results of such violations were political freedom andautonomy.The first and main meaning of words revolyutsiya and synonymic perevorotwas political.

But as a result of metaphorical transfer they also signified crucialchanges in nature, general worldview or particular field of knowledge, artisticculture or even in life of particular person.During its development in the first half of the 19th century revolyutsiya wasinfluenced by the complicated constellation of factors. Western experience andideas, censorship and other forms of political control and monarchism played theirroles. Duality and asynchrony were its key features.

They manifested itself incoexistence of the old and the new, of archaism and novelties resulting from therecent developments and borrowings.Relative freedom to use both the word and the concept adjoined with seriousconstraints. It was possible to talk freely about revolutions in the sense of natural,cultural or ideal events. Nevertheless, things were different with the politicalrevolution. The problem was that every reference to revolyutsiya was inseparablefrom the knowledge of the French and other revolutions that threatened to happenonce again. There always was a possibility that propaganda would follow the mereascertaining of facts. It made the revolyutsiya potentially dangerous for theauthorities, so they decisively suppressed all real and assumed attempts to movefrom the description to the justification of political revolutions.The concept didn’t become an instrument of radical propaganda in thisperiod, yet it was an important element of political struggle.

Prepositions,predictions, fears, suspicions, threats and accusations were articulated with it fairlyoften.A boundary between “dangerous” and “safe” variants of the concept wasuneven and unsteady. It depended on context and interpretations made by censors,literati and police officers. Their activities were complemented by various informalprohibitions and limitations, which included notable phenomenon of thetranslational censorship.