The History of Liberalism in Russia

Foreword

vii The present book has suffered the bitter fate of works written in emigration: first published only in a foreign language, it is only appearing now, twenty years later, in its native tongue and twenty years after the death of its author—for all that time remaining inaccessible to the readers of its native land. Yet this book is needed most by Russian readers, as it deals only with Russian history and ideas that more than anything are waiting to be explained and assimilated by Russian society. Here is a rigorous exposition of a number of ideas of the utmost importance about the nature of liberalism and its manifestations in Russia. This results in a markedly clearer definition of liberalism and helps to bring closer a comprehensive understanding of this concept. On reading, one gains the impression that this concept was used in Russia in a way that was far from exact for over a hundred years or more (and is still used by us today). Particularly instructive for us is the author’s systematic distinction between liberalism and radicalism; too often during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Russia the latter became synonymous with the former and as such accepted by us—and radicalism triumphed over liberalism to the great detriment of our progress. The author also presents examples of other possible corruptions of liberalism that, to use his terminology, lead to democratic absolutism and imperialist democracy. Today when, even in the West, liberalism has retreated everywhere under devastating pressure from socialism, the author’s warnings resonate all the more. This, for example: liberalism only remains a vital force as long as it keeps changing existing structures through evolution; each time it tries to impose an external readymade blueprint, it will be immediately overtaken and defeated by socialism. Alternatively, take another example: without property rights there can be no real individual freedom, and it is for this reason that no form of socialism would be able to make people free. In addition, this makes us wonder whether we do not overestimate the importance of political liberty compared to that which gives us civil rights. The author takes a fresh look at numerous figures and events in Russian history and helps us to do likewise: from Radishchev, Pugachev, Catherine II, and foREWoRd aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Karamzin, to the Decembrists (the last, already radical, were in the author’s view fateful for the development of liberalism in Russia). He continues on to Stolypin’s resolute liberalism, the breadth of the civil liberties granted by the 1906 Constitution , and the depth of Russian political thinking at the beginning of the twentieth century. Moreover, in our troubled and distorted present day, like an appeal and a warning, the old choice reappears: first a constitution and then the emancipation of the serfs (Speransky) or first civil rights for the peasants and only then political liberty (Stolypin). This book has that elegant quality of successful works that, while elucidating a specific subject, throw light in passing on other questions that are sometimes of greater significance. Thus, we find in this history of liberalism a profound analysis of some of the key factors that made revolution possible in Russia. Nevertheless, the approach rigorously followed by the author, namely, that of legal formalism, sometimes restricts his vision and interpretation of history— a history that cannot be kept within these bounds. Thus, exemption from state service granted to the gentry in the second half of the eighteenth century is presented as progress toward liberty and hence as a victory for liberalism. However, one’s feelings protest against such an interpretation, for it is precisely this exemption , granted only to the gentry, that reinforced their corrupt idea of land ownership , which for a long time stood in the way of the emancipation of the peasantry. By defining liberalism’s method as the removal of all that restricts the freedom of the individual, the author does not tell us whether or not one would encounter religious interdictions along the way. He attributes a determining role to legal consciousness and concepts in the course of events and even sees a similarity between legal norms and liturgical texts (hence an almost hostile attitude to those we call “Slavophiles,” with the exception of D. N. Shipov, cited frequently and sympathetically). Nowhere does he mention—or even appear to admit the idea— that when one is studying the historical process, the juristic method cannot be adequate and does not provide the best viewpoint when looking...