You go on to indicate very adroitly and precisely the true significance of the relations between the contemporary Russian press and the younger generation at the Universities.
In our press there prevails (with regard to you) “a tone of condescension and indulgence.” That is very true; the tone is indeed condescending, and fashioned in advance upon a certain pattern, no matter what the case; in short, it is to the last degree insipid and antiquated.
You write further: “Plainly we have nothing more to expect from these people, who for their part expect nothing more from us, and so turn away, having pronounced their annihilating judgment of us as ‘savages.’”
That also is true: they do indeed turn away from you, and dismiss you, for the most part, from their thoughts (at any rate, the overwhelming majority do so). But there are men, and those not few in number both on the press and in society, who are horribly perturbed by the thought that the younger generation has broken with the people (this, first in importance) and with society. For such is actually the case.
The younger generation lives in dreams, follows foreign teaching, cares to know nothing that concerns Russia, aspires, rather, to instruct the fatherland. Consequently it is to-day beyond all doubt that our younger generation is become the prey of one or other of those political parties which influence it wholly from outside, which care not at all for its interests, but use it simply as a contribution — as it were lambs for the slaughter — to their own particular ends. Do not contradict me, gentlemen, for it is so.
You ask me, gentlemen: “How far are we students to blame for the incidents?” Here is my answer: I hold that you are in no wise to blame. For you are but children of the very society from which you now turn away, as from “an utter fraud.” But when one of our students thus abjures society, he does not go to the people, but to a nebulous “abroad”; he flees to Europeanism, to the abstract realm of fantastic” Universal Man,” thus severing all the bonds which still connect him with the people: he scorns the people and misjudges them, like a true child of that society with which he likewise has broken.
And yet — with the people lies our whole salvation (but this is a big subject)…. Nevertheless, the younger generation should not be too harshly blamed for this rupture with the people. What earthly opportunity has it had, before entering on practical life, to form any ideas whatever about the people? The worst of it is, though, that the people has already perceived that the younger Russian intelligences have broken with it; and still worse again is the fact that those young men whom it has marked down, are by it designated as “students.” The people have long, so long as from the beginning of the ‘sixties, been watchful of these young men; all those among them who “went to the people” have been abhorred by the people. The people call them “these young gentlemen.”
I know for certain that they are so called. As a matter of fact, the people also are wrong, for there has never yet been a period in our Russian life when the young men (as if with a foreboding that Russia has reached a certain critical point, and is on the edge of an abyss) were, in the overwhelming majority of cases, so honest, so avid for the truth, so joyfully willing to devote their lives to truth, and every word that truth can speak, as they are now. In ye is veritably the great hope of Russia! I have long felt it, and have already long been writing in that sense.
But what has come of it now, all at once? Youth is seeking that truth of which it is so avid — God knows where! At the most widely diverse sources (another point in which it resembles the utterly decadent Russo-European society which has produced it); but never in the people, never in its native soil. The consequence is that, at the given decisive moment, neither society nor the younger generation knows the people.
Instead of living the life of the people, these young men, who understand the people in no wise, and profoundly scorn its every fundamental principle — for example, its religion — go to the people not to learn to know it, but condescendingly to instruct and patronize it: a thoroughly aristocratic game! The people call them “young gentlemen,” and rightly. It is really very strange; all over the world, the democrats have ever been on the side of the people; with us alone have the democratic intellectuals leagued themselves with the aristocrats against the people; they go among the people “to do it good,” while scorning all its customs and ideals. Such scorn cannot possibly lead to love!
Last winter, at your demonstration before the Kazan-Cathedral, the rank and file forced their way into the church, smoked cigarettes, desecrated the temple, and made a scandal. “Now listen to me,” I should have said to those students (I have said it to many of them, as a matter of fact), “you do not! The Cathedral of Our Lady, at Kazan in Petersburg. believe in God, and that is your own affair; but why do you insult the people by desecrating its temple?” The people once more retorted with its “young gentlemen,” and, far worse, with “students” — though there were numbers of obscure Jews and Armenians among the offenders (the demonstration was, as we now know, a political one, and organized from outside).
In the same way, after the Sassulitch case, the people dubbed all the revolver-heroes “young gentlemen.” That is bad, though there actually were students among them. Bad is it too that the people should have marked down the students, and should treat them maliciously and inimically. You yourselves, gentlemen, in accord with the intellectual press, designate the people of Moscow as “butchers.” What may that mean? Why are “butchers” not members of the people? They are, and of the true people; was not the great Minin a butcher?
Many are at this moment enraged by the manner in which the people has chosen to express its feelings. But mark this: when the people is offended, it always manifests its emotion in that manner. The people is rough, for it consists of peasants. The whole thing was in reality but the breaking out of a misunderstanding which has existed, time out of mind (and has hitherto been merely unperceived), between the people and society, that is to say, the younger generation, which stands for fieriness and rash impulses.
The thing certainly was very ill done, and not at all as it ought to have been, for with fists one can demonstrate nothing. But so it has been ever and everywhere, with every people. The English often come to blows at their public meetings; the French sang and danced before the guillotine, while it did its work. But the fact remains that the people (the whole people, not only the “butchers”; it is poor consolation to call names) has revolted against the younger generation, and has marked down the students; on the other hand, it is true, we must acknowledge the no less perturbing fact (and very significant it is) that the press, society, and the young men have conspired to misjudge the people, and to say: “This is no people, but a mob.”
Gentlemen, if you find anything in my words which contravenes your views, your best plan will be not to get angry with me about it. There is trouble enough without that. In our putrid society, nothing reigns but sheer deception.
It can no longer hold together by its own strength. The people alone is strong and steadfast, but between society and the people there have reigned for the last ten years most terrible misunderstandings. When our sentimentalists freed the people from serfdom, they believed, in full tide of emotion, that the people would instantly take to its bosom that European fraud which they call civilization. But the people showed itself to be very independent, and now it is beginning to realize the insincerity of the upper stratum in our society. The events of the last couple of years have but strengthened it, and made many things clear to its eyes.
Nevertheless, the people can distinguish between its enemies and its friends. Assuredly many sad and deplorable facts must be recognized: sincere, honest young men, earnestly seeking the truth, went on their quest to the people, trying to alleviate its woes. And what happened? The people drove them away, and refused to recognize their honest efforts. For those young men hold the people to be otherwise than as it is; they hate and despise its ideals, and offer it remedies which it cannot but regard as senseless and crazy.
With us in Petersburg the devil is indeed let loose. Among the young men reigns the cult of the revolver, and the conviction that the Government is afraid of them. The people, now as ever, despises the young men, and reckons not at all with them; but they do not perceive that the people has no fear of them and will never lose its head. What, when another encounter takes place, will come of it? Gentlemen, we live in disquieting times!
I have written you, gentlemen, what I could. At any rate I have, though not sufficiently at length, answered your question: In my view, the students are in
