Naarden, Bruno

English

This book deals vith perceptions and 'images' of Russia held by European socialists in the years 1848-1923. Its aim is to put the 'Russian question' in the Western labour movement of this period in a wider and more historical context. It throws a different light on a number of developments in both Russian and Western socialism but is also meant as a contribution to a better understanding of the contemporary relations between East and West. ... Zie: Summar

Proceedings - University of Groningen

   University of GroningenDe spiegel der barbaren. Socialistisch Europa en Revolutionair Rusland (1848 - 1923)Naarden, BrunoIMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite fromit. Please check the document version below.Document VersionPublisher's PDF, also known as Version of recordPublication date:1986Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research databaseCitation for published version (APA):Naarden, B. (1986). De spiegel der barbaren. Socialistisch Europa en Revolutionair Rusland (1848 - 1923).s.n.CopyrightOther than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of theauthor(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons).The publication may also be distributed here under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license.More information can be found on the University of Groningen website: https://www.rug.nl/library/open-access/self-archiving-pure/taverne-amendment.Take-down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediatelyand investigate your claim.Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons thenumber of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum.Download date: 03-06-2022497SUI{IIAR,YThis book deals vith pereeptions anci ' ímages' of Russia held by Europeansocia l is ts  in  the years 1848*1923.  ï ts  a im is  to  put  the 'Russian quest lon '  in  thel lestern labour movement of this period in a vider and more historical context. I tthrovs a different l ight on a number of developments in both Russian and lfesternsocial ism but is also meant as a contrihution to a better understanding of thecontemporary relations between East and Uest"Social ism and Communism, tsarist and Soviet Russia have been frequent subjects ofhistorical- investigation. The social. sciences have shovn to vhat high degree man'sconcept of reali ty is determined by his ethnocentrisn and social prejudices. Asystematic study of the controversial nature of the connplex retrations between Eastand Vest, however, has so ferr been varrt ing. And though the enthusiasm forcommunist Russia in certain Vestern quarters is knovn to have been great in thepast, the studies devoted to the subjeci have r 'ot come up vith a satisfactoryexpl-anation as to vhy this should have been so.The notions of Russia common at this t ime vere expressions of a general outlook onalien pec,ples and civi l isations inherent tc; Eulropean tradit ions of long standlng,tending ei.ther to extol or to despise. The disdain connoted in the 'barbarians' ofantiquity and the 'heathens' of medieval t imes are cases in point of the lattertendency. And the Russians fared no better. The fear and contenpt of them firstarose in the sixteenth century and have been with us since. In the eighteenthcentury a second trend, that of an admiring respect became noticeable, in responseto the reforms of Peter I and Catharine fI" I t  lras at this t ime, too, that theRussian people were for the f irst t ime discovered as an inexhaustable fund ofremarkable human quali t ies.The eighteenth century ambivalence about Russia crystal l ized in a pro- and ananti-Russian factlon vhich in different guises have remained part of the Europeanpollt ical scene in the fol loving centurles. The French 'phi losophes' may beconsidered the f i rs t  ' fe l lov- t ravel lers ' ,  lnasnuch as they just i f ted the Russlanautocratic style of government on the grounds that i t  enabled large-scale socialreforms to be carried through in a rational vay. ïhis sympathy for Russia wasshort-I ived, hovever. Their splr i tual heirs proelaimed Russia an enemy of theFrench Revolution. In the f irst half of the nineteenth century radical thinkers lnEurope, general ly, appeared to dread the country, vhereas the poli t lcal Rtghtregarded her with favour. To the thinking of Marx, Engels and l ike-minded spir i ts,Russia vas a bulwark of reaction and the tsar t ire 'gendarme' of Europe.Because of these confl ict ing emotions the relations betveen l{estern and Russiansocial ists vere strained at f irst. Herzen's and Bak.unin's messianic populism !/asseen as an alien ideology, vhich vas dangerous to líestern vorkers and should becombat ted.  The fa i lure of  the F i rs t  In ternat ional  is  par t ly  a t t r ibutable to  th is .Russia's defeat in the Crimean líar created confusion in both the camps of theradical Russia-haters and the conservative Russia-Iovers. The barbarian colossushad shovn itself vulnerablet The reforms of Alexander II and the spread andsuccess of Russian art and l i terature added yet another aspect to the image ofRussia in the l lest - that of a strangely wonderful and mysterious country. fn188Lr vhen the tsar vas assassinated by Russian revolutionaries, the impact onVestern social ists was tremendous. ïhe bloody debacle of the Commune of Parishaving extinguished any hope of a speedy social ist revolution in Europe, al l  eyeswere on Russia. The use of violence, frowned upon in l lestern anarchists, ! Íasapplauded in Russian revolutionaries. Marx became fascinated with Russia and vasdeeply inf luenced by populist theories. I le despised Russian social ists who492disapproved of the use of revolut ionary terror.  Vhen he died and these turned outto be the f i rst  Russian Marxists and social-democrats Engels refused to take theirs ide  in  the i r  s t rugg le  aga ins t  the  popu l is ts .The tendency  to  d is t ingu ish  Russ ian  revo lu t ionary  v io lence f rom the  rad ica l -extremism among their  ovn fol loving, long renained typical  of  the out look of mostl lestern social ists.  The Russian social-democrats had a hard t ime around 1900p e r s u a d i n g  t h e m  t h a t  a n ' o r d i n a r y ' v o r k e r s ' m o v e m e n t  v a s  a  v i a b l e  i s s u e  i n  R u s s i aand cou ld  cons t i tu te  an  impor tan t  fo rce .  The Russ ian  soc ia l i s ts - revo lu t ionar ies ,the tvent ieth century successors to the nineteenth century popul ists,  ! /ere admiredfor the violence of their  deeds, whereas the disputes among the Russian social-democrats vere cr i t ic ized. The conf l ict  betveen the moderate Mensheviks on the onehand and the radical  Bolsheviks on the other -  the source of the conf l ict ing vievsof communism and social ism and the divis ion of the vor ld into a I{estern and anEastern  hemisphere ,  l /as  l i t t le  unders tood.  l les te rn  soc ia l i s t  v ievs  o f  the  Russ laand Russ ian  soc ia l i s t  v ievs  o f  the  Ves t  d id  p lay  an  impor tan t  par t ,  hovever ,  inthe  debate  on  rev is ion ism.  The popu lar  upr is ing  o f  1905 aroused grea t  exc i tementamong l les te rn  soc ia l i s ts .  The mass  s t r i kes  fo rc ing  the  tsar  to  cons t i tu t iona lconcessions created the bel ief  that the Russian vorkers vere the 'noble savages'of the twent ieth century, f ight ing for the l iberat ion of al l  mankind.From the  debate  tha t  vas  he ld  on  the  issue o f  the  'genera l  s t r i ke ' ,  hovever ,  i tappears  tha t ,  as  in  1881,  on ly  a  very  smal l  number  o f  l les te rn  soc ia l i s ts  vereprepared to fol lov the Russian example. By point ing out that Russia vas not theI íes t  the  leaders  o f  the  Ves tern  soc ia l i s t  par t ies  succeeded in  res t ra in ing  therevolut ionary fervour of their  ovn part ies. The intense and searching discussionsaround 1905 by  the  Russ ian  soc ia l i s ts  about  the  na ture  o f  the i r  revo lu t ion ,  passedl lestern-Europe by, largely unheeded. At that t ime the utopian and not verydemocrat ic vievs of Trotsky and Lenin did not come in for any ser ious cr i t ic ism byl lesten Marxists and social ists.  The ideas of the Mensheviks concerning thenecess i ty  o f  a  bourgeo is  democra t ic  revo lu t ion  in  Russ ia  and the i r  e f fo r ts  toorgan ize  a  vorkers '  movement  o f  a  l {es te rn  type ,  vere  l i t t le  apprec ia ted .  Yet  theprocess of modernizat ion that l ras going on and the experiment vi th acons t i tu t iona l  fo rm o f  government  led  peop le  in  the  Ves t  to  be l ieve  tha t  thetsar ist  empire vould before long be a l lestern country l ike any other.  Thesoc ia l i s ts ,  too ,  s lov ly  adapted  themse lves  to  th is  v iev .  Notab ly  a f te r  1909,  vhenthe Azef-affaire had exposed the close l ink between er iminal and revolut ionaryviolence. From L9I4 onvards not only the groving opposit ion to the var insoc ia l i s t  c i rc les ,  bu t  the  r i se  o f  a  '  cen t r i s t '  mood w i th in  the  Buropean vorkers 'movement and the February Revolut ion of L91.7 as vel I ,  did their  part  in enhancingthe  pres t ige  o f  modera te  Russ ian  soc ia f i s ts .After the October Revolut ion with I I I { ï  not over yet and Russia under the scourge ofc iv i l  var ,  i t  vas  hard  fo r  Russ ian  and Vestern  soc ia l i s ts  to  keep in  touch.  SoonEurope vas suffer ing from the dread of communism and revolut ion, and the old,vel I-knovn, ant i -Russian and ant i-social ist  sent iments re-establ ished themselvesin the publ ic nind. The vorkers'  movement vas divided and reluctant to takerevo lu t ionary  ae t ion  vh i le  the  var  las ted .  I t s  response to  the  October  Revo lu t ionwas at f i rst  wary and hesitant.  The col lapse of the German and Austr ian enpiresand the social  and pol i t ical  turnoi l  that came in the vake of the var and vhichlas ted  t i I I  1923,  b rought  about  a  change in  the i r  a t t i tude .  The ho ld ing  o f f  o f  asoc ia l  revo lu t ion  in  the  l les t  caused soc ia l i sm to  fa l l  apar t ,  a  minor i ty  o fvorkers  and soc ia l i s ts  re laps ing  in to  the  t rad i t iona l  le f t -v ing  ido l i za t ion  o frevolut ionary Russia. These people came so utter ly to despair  of  theirrevolut ionary power, that in I9L9-L92I they accepted the leadership of Moscov andturned a deaf ear to any piece of negat ive information about Russia.493The ant i-Bolshevik fervour of a smal l  number of Russian social ists in the \ íest hadl i t t le effect on them. These Russians did hovever:  inf luence Karl  Kautsky, vhosewr i t ings  hardened the  re fo rmis t  Europear r  soc ia l i s ts  in  the i r  avers ion  to  a  coupd 'é ta t  by  a  revo lu t ionary  minor i ty .  A l though a t  f i r s t  most  o f  the  leaders  o f  thes o c i a l i s t ' c e n t r e ' w e r e  v i l L i n g  t o  c o n d o n e  a  d i c t a t o r s h i p  i n  R u s s i a  a s  a  c o m m u n i s texperiment in a backvard country,  they \ , rere not incl ined to fol lov the Russianexample. Hovever,  they vere unable to stem the groving t ide of radical ism in theirovn fol lowing and could not prevent the spl i t t ing up of their  part ies. One had tobe ei ther for or against communism. fn 7920, vhen contact v i th Russia vas on amore regular foot ing again, qui te a fel l  oÉ the 'centr. ist '  leaders shovedthemselves suscept ible to a more sophist icated and balanced viev of the issues ofdemocracy and dictatorship and the nature of the Bolshevik regime, a viewpointthat had aII  along been propagated by the major i ty of the Mensheviks in Russia and( Ia te r )  in  the  l , Ies t .  Th is  change o f  op in ion  led  in  1921 to  the  foundat ion  o f  theVienna Union or the 2 Yz Internat ional,  vhich vas to endeavour in vain to reunitethe vorkers'  movement under the banner of a tvofold reject ion of both dictator ialcommunism and na t iona l i s t i c  re fo rn ism.Russian social ists l rere as divided over the issue of communism as l lesternsocial ists.  The 0ctober Revolut ion posed problens vhich they did not knov hov toso lve .  The a t tempts  o f  the  soc ia l i s t - revo iu t ionar ies  tc )  ra ise  the  democra t icfo rces  in  Russ ia  fo r  an  armed rebe l l ion  aga ins t  Bo lshev ik  d ic ta to rsh ip ,  fa i led .The attempts of the Mensheviks to operate as a str ict ly legal opposit ion partyv i th in  the  Sov ie t  cons t i tu t ion  fa i led  too .  The l iqu ida t ion  o f  democra t ic  soc ia l i smin  Sov ie t  Russ ia  fo res ta l led  the  'un i ted  f ron t '  v i th  the  soc ia l i s ts  tha t  had beenpropagated by the communists in I92I.  In L923 the Social ist  and LabourIn te rna t iona l  vas  founded,  the  ou tcome < l f  a  fus ion  o f  the  re fo rmis t  and 'cent r i s t 't rends  v i th in  the  vorkers '  movement .  Russ ian  soc ia l i s t  émigrés  re ta inedconsiderable inf luence though they did not succeed in completely vinning overVestern  soc ia l i s ts  to  the i r  po in t  o f  v iev .  Th is  vas  par t l y  owing  to  the i r  ovnin te rna l  d iv is ion  and the  inadaquacy  o i  the i r  ovn  ins igh ts ,  par t l y  to  thep e r c e p t i o n s  a n d ' i m a g e s ' o f  R u s s i a  i n  t h e  V e s t ,  w h i c h ,  i n  k e e p i n g  t h e i r  h o l d  o v e rsocial ist  opinion have long succeeded in sustaining the social ist  love and hatredof communism and the Soviet Union.t soL3at ,

De spiegel der barbaren. Socialistisch Europa en Revolutionair Rusland (1848 - 1923)

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De spiegel der barbaren. Socialistisch Europa en Revolutionair Rusland (1848 - 1923)

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