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Russian Fourierism of the 1840's: A Contrast to Herzen's Westernism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2019

Frederick I. Kaplan
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Extract

Russian Fourierism of the 1840's was rooted in soil prepared for it by Russia's nineteenth-century bureaucratic renascence. It was the latter which, having arisen partly as a reaction to the Decembrist Revolution of 1825, brought with it a new relationship of the intellectuals to the state. Russian Fourierists can be understood, therefore, only in relation to other groups of intellectuals and the situation created by the Decembrist Revolution. The Decembrist Revolution marks the end of the political domination of the land- and serfholding nobility, the dvorjanstvo.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , April 1958 , pp. 161 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1958

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References

1 Kliuchevskii, V. O., History of Russia, trans. C. J. Hogarth, (London: Dent, 1913)Google Scholar, V, 121-22, states: “In proportion as the administrative status of the dvorjanstvo declined, there came administratively to predominate a bureaucracy, as the direct independent organ of the Supreme Power. And therefore the period 1796-1855 may well be termed our supremely bureaucratic period.“

2 An example of this alienation, and of the substitution of bureaucratic relations for direct personal access for the dvorjanstvo to the tsar is found in Alexander Herzen, My Past and Thoughts, the Memoirs of Alexander Herzen, trans. Constance Garnett, (London: Chatto and Winders, 1924), II, 185-86 (henceforth referred to as Herzen, Memoirs).

3 Ibid., II, 180.

4 Loc. cit.

5 Ibid., VI, 104.

6 Ibid., II, 141.

7 Ibid., II, 180.

8 Loc. cit.

9 Ibid., VI, 104.

10 Ibid., II, 180.

11 For Moscow as a symbol of the ideal Slavophile order, see Ivan Aksakov, Sochinenija I. S. Aksakova (Moscow: Volchanov, 1887), V, 17-21 (henceforth referred to as Ivan Aksakov, Sochinenija).

12 Herzen, Memoirs, II, 281.

13 Ibid., II, 280.

14 Ibid., pp. 143-44.

15 For the economic status of the Slavophiles and their close connection with their estates, see Rubinstein, N., “Istoricheskaja teorija Slavjanofilov i ee klassovye korni,” in M. N. Pokrovsky, (ed.), Russkaja istoricheskaja literatura v klassovom osveshchenii (Moscow: Kommunisticheskaja Akademija, 1927), p. 81 Google Scholar. Rubinstein points out that with the exception of Konstantin and Ivan Aksakov, the Slavophiles actively engaged in the management of their estates. See also N. V. Riazanovsky, Russia and the West in the Teaching of the Slavophiles, A Study of Romantic Ideology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952), pp. 34-59 (henceforth referred to as N. V. Riazanovsky, Slavophiles).

16 Herzen, Memoirs, I, 285.

17 Ibid., II, 377.

18 Ibid., II, 295.

19 Ibid., I, 286.

20 Loc. cit.

21 Ibid., II, 147.

22 For Herzen's service, see especially ibid., II, 188-206.

23 For Samarin's service, see N. V. Riazanovsky, Slavophiles, pp. 56-57.

24 For nineteenth century Russian bureaucracy, see V. O. Kliuchevskii, History of Russia, V, 122 ff. Some of the best insights into bureaucratic relations are found in Russian literature, namely Gogol's Dead Souls and the Inspector General. For the antibureaucratic point of view, see also Herzen, Memoirs, I, 272-355; II, 151-206.

25 For the growth of the bureaucy in the reign of Nicholas, see V. O. Kliuchevskii, History of Russia, V, 176-80.

26 Herzen, Memoirs, 1, 273 ff.; II, 171 and 188-206.

27 Ibid., II, 148.

28 Ibid., II, 148-49.

29 For the position and employment of these petty nobility, see Nechkina, M., Obshchestvo soedinennykh Slavjan, (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1927), pp. 15–17 Google Scholar (henceforth referred to as M. Nechkina, Obshchestvo). The author overevaluates the development of capitalism in relation to the fate of this class but some of her points are valid.

30 For Russian journalism in this period, see Dementev, A. G., Ocherki po istorii Russkoi zhurnalistiki 1840-1850, (Moscow, Gosudarstvennoe, 1951)Google Scholar. See also Carr, E. H., Dostoievskii 1840-185Q, A New Biography, (London: Allen and Unwin, 1931), p. 27 Google Scholar (henceforth referred to as E. H. Carr, Dostoievskii).

31 Belinsky, V. G., Selected Philosophical Works, (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1948), p. 510 Google Scholar, from “Letter to V. N. Gogol,” July 3, 1847 (henceforth referred to as V. G. Belinsky, Selected Works).

32 Ibid., p. 509.

33 Alexander Herzen, “For Sobriety in Politics,” from The Bell, 1867, translated in ; Hans Kohn, The Mind of Modern Russia, Historical and Political Thought of Russia's Great Ages (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1955), p. 189 (henceforth referred to as Hans Kohn, Mind of Modern Russia). ‘

34 Herzen, Alexander, Du Devellopement des Idles Revolutionaires en Russie (London: La Société Démocratique Polonaise, 1858), p. 121 Google Scholar (henceforth referred to as A. Herzen, ldees Revolutionaires).

35 M. Nechkina, in her Dekabristy (Moscow: Gozizdat RSFSR, 1930), pp. 17-18 (henceforth referred to as M. Nechkina, Dekabristy), claims on the basis of the census figures of 1835 that 1.1 percent of the dvorjanstvo held 33 percent of all the enserfed peasants. The small landholding dvorjanstvo consisting of 45.9 percent of all the nobility held only 4.1 percent of the enserfed peasantry and the landless dvorjanstvo consisting of 14 percent of the nobility held only 6 percent of the serfs. This is especially significant at that time when the wealth and status of the dvorjanstvo was measured principally by the number of “souls” or serfs they held. In her Obschchestvo, p. 12, Nechkina concludes that between 1835 and 1858 16 percent of the landless and small-holding nobility were forced to liquidate what holdings and serfs they possessed.

36 For the circles of Petrashevskij, Kashkin and Durov, see Akademija nauk Institut istorii, Delo Petrashevcev, Vol. I-III, (Moscow, 1937-51), III, 3 (henceforth referred to as Delo Pet.). For Durov's circle, see also E. H. Carr, Dostoievskii, especially pp. 51-54. For the role of Dostoevsky in the circles of Petrashevskij and Durov, see N. F. Bel'chikov, Dostoevski] v processe Petrashevcev (Akademija Nauk SSSR, 1936), passim.

37 Of the twenty-two members of the Petrashevskij circle whose correspondence, writing, and testimony are included in the three volumes of Delo Pet. (these volumes do not include Dostoevsky and Speshnev) the highest civil or military rank held is that of collegiate sovetnik which is the sixth rank in a table of fourteen ranks, the highest of which is the first. It was held by only one member of the circle. There were two members holding the Seventh, one the eight, seven the ninth, three the tenth, three the twelfth, and one the thirteenth rank. In addition there was one teacher in the Chief Engineering School, two students (one of whom, Akhsharumov, stated: “I am a chinovnik.” Delo Pet., III , 107), and one nonserving noble.

38 For the phalanstery, see Charles Fourier, Selections From the Works of Fourier, trans. Charles Gide, (London: Swan Sonnerschein, 1901), pp. 137-54. For Petrashevskij'5 concept of the phalanstery, see Delo Pet., Vol. I, especially p. 72. In 1847 Petrashevskij put the phalanstery into practice in his small village of seven households. The peasants, though accepting silently the decision of their lord, seem to have burned the phalanstery building in the same year it was built. See V. R. Zotov, “Petersburg v sorokovykh godakh,” Istoricheskij Vestnik, XL (1890), 541-42

39 Delo Pet., II , 409. For inequality as a basic tenet of Fourierism, see also the Petrashevec Nikolai Jakovlevich Danilevskij, II, 324.

40 Ibid., II, 409.

41 Loc. cit. For this point of view see also ibid., I, 74.

42 Ibid., II, 410.

43 Ibid., I, 72.

44 Ibid., I, 73.

45 Ibid., II, 409. For the nonrevolutionary character of Russian Fourierism, see also the testimony of Danilevskij, ibid., especially pp. 324-25.

46 Ibid., I, 91.

47 Ibid., I, 92.

48 Ibid., I, 92-93.

49 Ibid., I, 95.

50 A. Herzen, Idées Révolutionaires, p. 132.

51 Ibid., pp. 132-33.

52 For the military colonies of Alexander, see Kornilov, Alexander, Modern Russian History, trans. Alexander Kaun (New York: Knopf, 1916), I, 174-79.Google Scholar

53 Herzen, A., Idées Révolutionaires, p . 133.

54 Loc. cit.