We have come full circle here, and rebellion, cut off from its real roots, unfaithful to man in having surrendered to history, now contemplates the subjection of the entire universe. It is at this point that the era of Chigalevism begins—proclaimed, in The Possessed, by Verkhovensky, the nihilist who claims the right to choose dishonor. His is an unhappy and implacable mind 8 and he chooses the will to power, which, in fact, alone is capable of reigning over a history that has no other significance but itself. Chigalev, the philanthropist, is his guarantor; love of mankind will henceforth justify the enslavement of man.
8 «He represented himself as man after his fashion, and then he gave up his idea.»
Possessed by the idea of equality,9 Chigalev, after long consideration, arrived at the despairing conclusion that only one system is possible even though it is a system of despair. «Beginning with the premise of unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism.» Complete freedom, which is the negation of everything, can only exist and justify itself by the creation of new values identified with the entire human race. If the creation of these values is postponed, humanity will tear itself to peices. The shortest route to these new standards passes by way of total dictatorship. «One tenth of humanity will have the right to individuality and will exercise unlimited authority over the other nine tenths.
The latter will lose their individuality and will become like a flock of sheep; compelled to passive obedience, they will be led back to original innocence and, so to speak, to the primitive paradise, where, nevertheless, they must work.» It is the government by philosophers of which the Utopians dream; philosophers of this type, quite simply, believe in nothing. The kingdom has come, but it negates real rebellion, and is only concerned with the reign of «the Christs of violence,» to use the expression of an enthusiastic writer extolling the life and death of Ravachol. «The pope on high,» says Verkhovensky bitterly, «with us around him, and beneath us Chigalevism.»
9 «Slander and assassination in extreme cases, but especially equality.»
The totalitarian theocrats of the twentieth century and State terrorism are thus announced. The new aristocracy and the grand inquisitors reign today, by making use of the rebellion of the oppressed, over one part of our history. Their reign is cruel, but they excuse their cruelty, like the Satan of the romantics, by claiming that it is hard for them to bear. «We reserve desire and suffering for ourselves; for the slaves there is Chigalevism.» A new and somewhat hideous race of martyrs is now born.
Their martyrdom consists in consenting to inflict suffering on others; they become the slaves of their own domination. For man to become god, the victim must abase himself to the point of becoming the executioner. That is why both victim and executioner are equally despairing. Neither slavery nor power will any longer coincide with happiness; the masters will be morose and the slaves sullen. Saint-Just was right: it is a terrible thing to torment the people.
But how can one avoid tormenting men if one has decided to make them gods? Just as Kirilov, who kills himself in order to become God, accepts seeing his suicide made use of by Verkhovensky’s «conspiracy,» so man’s deification by man breaks the bounds which rebellion, nevertheless, reveals, and thereby irrevocably commits itself to the labyrinth of tactics and terror from which history has not yet emerged.
The end
