MAJOR IDEOLOGIES OF THE LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY

RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT

Nicolas Daignault
Presented to Professor Dr. Fiona Tomaszewski
History of Russia and the USSR
November 17, 2009

MAJOR IDEOLOGIES OF THE LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY

RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT
The Russian Revolution of 1917 was arguably one of the most significant events in Russian
history, resulting in the upheaval of an entire social and political system in place of another in a matter of
months. Although the revolution of 1917 was justified as a socialist cause, the revolutionary idea that
manifested itself in the radicals of the early twentieth century was in reality an amalgamation of distinctly
Russian movements and ideologies that grew into dominance in the late nineteenth century, arising
particularly as a reaction towards Tsar Alexander IIs emancipation of the serfs in 1861. 1 Russian author
Ivan Turgenev, who wrote on the lives of serfs and peasants around the time of the emancipation, paved
the road for radical ideology in the latter half of the nineteenth century, exposing the concept of nihilism
to the general public and freeing radicals from their enforced silence. According to the main character of
Turgenevs Fathers and Sons, A nihilist is someone who doesnt bow down to authority, who doesnt
accept any principle on faith, no matter how revered that principle may be. 2 As such, the revolutionary
movements philosophy was generally materialistic and realistic, often considered a reaction towards Tsar
Nicholas IIs intellectual ineptitude, naivety, and idealism. It was in this way that in late nineteenthcentury Russia, the growing revolutionary movement was backed by a series of interrelated ideologies,
the most prominent of which being French-Revolution style Jacobinism, Marxism, and Populism, as well
as the Intelligentsia movement.
Despite the fact that the Jacobin ideologyor ultra democratic, left-winged radicalismof the
French Revolution of 1789 had never truly transplanted itself into Russian culture, it had had a latent
influence over the ultimate outcome of radical Vladimir Lenins Bolshevik revolution. Consider thinker
Alexander Herzen, who wrote, The cult of the French Revolution [] is the first religion of young

1 Nicholas V. Riasanovsky and Mark D. Steinberg, A History of Russia (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 432.
2 Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons (New York: The Modern Library, 2001), p. 23.
1

Russia; and who among us does not possess, in secret, portraits of Robespierre and Danton? 3 The origins
of Russian Jacobinism began in earnest with the publication of P. G. Zainevskjs Young Russia in 1862.
He called for a Jacobin-styled revolution and dictatorship, but criticised the French movement for not
being violent enough to achieve their goals; according to fellow revolutionaries, he fervently admired
Maximilien Robespierre, leader of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. Zainevskj and his
disciples were the first pre-Marxian self-titled Jacobins, although Swiss migrs had adopted the Jacobin
ideology much earlier.4
After Zainevskj had devised the notion of a Russian Jacobin, by the later 1860s radical theorist
Mikhail Bakunin began to introduce Jacobin terms into Russian revolutionary terminology.5 He described
Russian Jacobins as socialists of necessity, not of ideology, and therefore as those who valued the sanctity
of personal property and were radically republican in nature. 6 Pyotr Lavrov, another theorist and
sociologist, took the opposing view, claiming that Russian Jacobins were radical socialists who desired
the implementation of a dictatorship of the minority (i.e. socialists), as opposed to one of the masses (i.e.
populists). However, his writings were directed more against Blanquist revolutionary Petr Tkaev,
demonstrating a strong anti-sentiment for Jacobins amongst some Russian revolutionaries, as well as the
potential falliciousness of Lavrovs defintions.7 Nonetheless, his depiction of Russian Jacobinism
remained.
The development of Jacobinism in Russia by Bakunin, Lavrov, Tkaev, and others, led to the
eventual absorbtion of Russian Jacobinism into Lenins worldview. He derived his ideological traces of
3 Robert Mayer, Lenin and the Jacobin Identity in Russia, Studies in East European
Thought 51, no. 2 (June 1999): 130, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20099700 [accessed
21 September 2009].
4 Ibid., 131.
5 Ibid., 132.
6 Ibid., 133.
7 Ibid., 134.
2

Jacobinism from within, not from without, of the Marxist movement in Russia. 8 Karl Marx, who
popularised socialism in the nineteenth century, considered Jacobins to be bourgeois and unconcerned
with the social struggle involved in revolutions.9 He viewed the Jacobin cause as anachronistic and
essentially a failure; referring to Jacobins in a speech to French workers in 1871, Marx proclaimed,
[revolutionaries] have not the past to repeat, but the future to rebuild. 10 G. V. Plekhanov, a social
democrat and Marxist, at first condemned anything that was even residually Jacobin, but was, however,
drawn to the Jacobin model of political representation of the proletariat. 11 Lenin, on this note, would
eventually derive his description of Bolshevism as the Jacobin wing of social democrats. 12
The Bolsheviks of the Russian Revolution therefore maintained hints of Jacobinism in their
ideological background. However, it was Marxism, above all else, that provided Lenin and the Bolsheviks
with the necessary radical framework necessary to support their cause. Yet, Marxism originated in the
German tradition, and as such, by the time it had reached Russia, it had acquired a certain Russian
character. Russian Marxism revolved around Marxs theory of scientific socialism. In applying this,
Maynard explains of Marx, he plotted the curve of history, as mathematicians say, and his prophecy was
the continuation of the curve as plotted by him.13 Marx also adopted Charles Darwins theory of
evolution and applied it to society, espousing the ancient philosophical theory of reality in a constant state

8 Ibid., 136.
9 Ibid., 137.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., 138-139.
12 Ibid., 141.
13 John Maynard, Russia in Flux before October (London: Victor Gallantz Ltd, 1962),
p. 343.
2

of flux.14 Most importantly, however, Russians focused on Marxs theory of dialectical materialism:
dialectical, implying the use of a statement and a contradictory statement in order to arrive at a
reconciliatory statement; and materialism, meaning the notion of things before thoughta highly antiHegelian assertion.15 Marx would apply the theory of dialectical materialism to history by process of
scientific socialism, and conclude that historical events are products of social relations arising from
material production.16
The ultimate future of Marxism in Russia would be decided by socialists, who participated in a
lively debate over what role socialism should play in the revolutionary movement. According to historian
and constitutional democrat Paul Miliukov, Russian democracy is both socialistic and revolutionary, and
had arisen differently than democracy in England of Germany.17 Socialism would not oppose
individualism, as there was no Russian bourgeoisie or history of society balancing the powers of
centralist, absolute monarchies, such as in medieval Europethis meant that individualism as a spirit did
not even exist to begin with in most of Russia.18 Furthermore, Russian socialism had to be intellectual,
since it was forced to represent the multitudes that were without a voice in their futures.
Marx would have argued that socialism would only arise after a preceding period of capitalism, as
per his theory of the progress of history. Bakunin, however, argued against pure Marxists by suggesting
that socialism was inherent in the former Russian serfs (mostly peasants and workingmen who, despite
emancipation, had still remained a caste below other social strata), and that they only required an
awakening in order for socialism to succeed in Russia. 19 He considered the mir to be a microcosm of a
14 Ibid.,, p. 344.
15 Ibid., pp. 345-346.
16 Ibid.
17 Paul Miliukov, Russia and its Crisis (London: Collier Books, 1962), p. 247.
18 Ibid., p. 248.
19 Ibid., p. 249.
2

socialist state; however, Miliukov argues that it was really a tool of the government used to levy taxes and
control the lives of the serfs.20 Regardless, the chief concept of socialism, collective land ownership, was
and always had been entrenched in the Russian commune system. Herzen further pushed the necessity of
a revolution without waiting for Marxs lengthy progression of history, writing, I know you detest the
word revolution; but there is nothing else to do; there is no forward step possible without revolution. 21
Notwithstanding the series of ideological debates, the socialist uprisings began wholeheartedly as
university demonstrations at St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kazan in 1861, the year of Alexander IIs
Emancipation Manifesto.22 There was a marked prominence of the intelligentsia and an overall socialist
ethos, as students gathered and revolutionised Russia alongside workers of other classes. This would
become the template for future demonstrations up to and including the February and October revolutions
of 1917.
Yet, what was it that made Marxism, a chief component of Russian socialism, so attractive to
these student demonstrators, amongst others? Most importantly, Marxism provided to the workersthe
proletariat, in Marxian termswhat no other social or political system had provided to them in the past
a place of significance in the accomplishment of progress. 23 Propaganda also played a part, as the Marxist
socialists had propagandised the famine of 1891, the economic backwardness of the Russian peasantry, as
well as the untenableness of the commune. Furthermore, Marxism provided new industrialised workers
with an explanation for their urbanisation and allowed them to heal the wounds of their parents laboured
pasts. As such, in popular form, Marxism acted as a religion that provided a black and white, dogmatic
explanation of reality.24

20 Ibid., p. 250.
21 A. I. Herzen, in ibid., p. 275.
22 Ibid., p. 281.
23 Orlando Figes, A Peoples Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924 (London:
Pimilco Books, 1996), p. 119.
2

Marxism provided revolutionaries with an explanation of history and society based on economic
interaction. Another popular movement of the late nineteenth century, however, provided an equally
powerful desire for reform, but was instead steeped in the romanticism of the agethat movement was
populism. Walicki describes Russian populism as the desire to emulate peasant life, idealising the selfgoverned mir (commune) and the revolutionary potential of the land-workers (compare this to the tenet of
Leninism that professes the socialist revolution of both proletariat and peasant). 25 The populist movement
was strongly influenced by Bakunins anarchist ideologies, advocating a society without a state.
However, populists were more concerned with the debate over socialism and the destruction of
capitalism, a movement that began to gather force after the emancipation of 1861, and had expanded in
the 1870s to begin rejecting constitutionalism as a tool of a bourgeois state. 26
The philosophical basis of populism is often nebulous at best. However, Scalan explains it as
neither purely materialist nor positivist (the latter being the concept that all knowledge is based in senseexperience). Rather, the philosophical basis of populism was a synthesis of positivism and moralistic
populism in social theory.27 This significantly differentiated populists from the intelligentsia, discussed
presentlyyet despite this dissonance, both movements would lend themselves to the final ideology that
would support Lenin and the Russian Revolution.

24 Ibid., p. 120.
25 Andrezej Walicki, Russian Social Thought: an Introduction to the Intellectual
History if Nineteenth-Century Russia, Russia Review 36, no. 1 (January 1977): 25,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/128768 [accessed 21 September 2009].
26 Ibid., 26.
27 James P. Scalan, Populism as a Philosophical Movement in Nineteenth-Century
Russia: the Thought of P.L. Lavrov and N.K. Mikhajlovskij, Studies in Soviet Thought
27, no. 3 (April 1984): 209, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20099320 [accessed 21
September 2009].
2

Russian populism, under this philosophical premise, would consist of several particular features.
The first was a rejection of a political struggle, grounded in the notion that political freedom was
abstract and worthless to the peasants, and expressed in recognised leader of the Russian revolutionary
movement Petr Lavrovs Historical Letter, penned in 1869. 28 The second significant aspect entrenched in
populism was the belief that those who had benefitted in society owed their successes to the working,
exploited masses, also promoted by Lavrov and commonly referred to as the populists debt to the
people. This was also supported by populist thinker Nikolai Mikhailovskii, who led the development of
the sociological backbone of populism, known as subjective sociology. It was composed of three main
tenets: first, it defended ethicism, asserting that moral values cannot be explained scientifically; second,
from a methodological standpoint, it rejected the possibility of objectivity in the social sciences; and
lastly, concerning a philosophy of history, it argued that the subjective factor could oppose progress and
guide history.29

28 Walicki, Russian Social Thought, 27.

29 Ibid., 27-28.
2

Certainly, the concept of progress was central to almost all Russian revolutionary movements,
excluding those adhering to their roots and proclaiming complete nihilismpopulism was no exception
to this desire for progress. Both Lavrov and Mikhailovskii theorised as to the place of populism in
progressing the state of Russia and Her people. The former considered progress to be the development of
the individual and the gradual embodiment of truth and justice in social institutions, a process achieved by
critical thought on the part of individuals working to transform their culture. 30 This definition appealed to
the intelligentsia, due to the necessity of critical thinking in progress. Mikhailovskiis definition managed
to appeal more to the peasantry, illustrating a life of utopian backwardness: progress is the gradual
approach to the integral individual to the fullest possible and the most diversified division of labour
among mens organs and the least possible division of labour among men. 31 This question of progress
would mark another division amongst the radicals of the late nineteenth century in Russia, with those
preferring Lavrovs designation absorbing his version of populism into their own ideologythese were
the intelligentsia, and were, in their own right, highly influential for the Russian revolutionary movement.
The early generations of Russian intelligentsia harboured this sentiment and integrated it with the
rest of their core values. However in order to properly understand the role of the intelligentsia in the latter
half of the nineteenth century in Russia, their origins must be dealt with. Although there is no direct
lineage, the Decembrists of 1825 provided the early intelligentsia with symbols of intelligent reaction to
oppression, and were martyrs for the movement. The inspired intellectuals had begun as culturally
isolated intellectuals, both from the official and peasant sectors of Russia. 32 They were focused on
European intellectual traditions, including Hegelianism, Darwinism, and Marxism. Due to a cultural void
in Russia thanks to the oppressive and censorious policies of the Tsardom, these ideologies were generally

30 Ibid., 28.
31 Ibid.
32 Figes, A Peoples Tragedy, p. 126.
2

accepted as truth in the eyes of the founding intelligentsiain the very Darwinian sense, without
intellectual competition, the first ideologies exposed to the intelligentsia were permitted to thrive. 33
The term intelligentsia had also undergone its own evolution, beginning in the 1870s when it
expressed positivist undertones and manifested the once-dormant nihilist ethos, along with the
aforementioned populist base. By the 1890s, however, the term was used to describe all intellectuals in
generalthis widening of the scope of the word meant that there was a greater representation of
intellectual dissidents in Russia as time progressed. 34 Conversely, by the beginning of the twentieth
century, the term intelligentsia became a word of abuseconsider playwright Anton Chekov, who
wrote, I do not believe in our Intelligentsia; it is hypocritical, false, hysterical, uneducated and lazy; nor
do I believe in it even when it suffers and grumbles, since its oppressors come from its own midst. 35
Lenin also used the term pejoratively, and used it to suggest a similarly abortive group of indolent
hypocrites.

33 Ibid., p. 127.
34 Michael Confino, On Intellectuals and Intellectual Traditions in Eighteenth- and
Nineteenth-Century Russia, Daedalus 101, no. 2 (March 1992):138,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20024073 [accessed 21 September 2009].
35 Ibid.
2

The Russian intelligentsia of the late nineteenth century, regardless of the connotations the word
purported, considered the culture of the rural peasant towns to be dull and parochial, and idealised
western values and practices.36 As such, the intelligentsia shared a particular, elitist culture as a minority
of all revolutionaries37; however, this culture was less spatially bound and more ideological in nature.
Philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev likened the ideologically natured intelligentsia to a religious sect of
Christianity, as the rejected sinful institutions (i.e. serfdom), and upheld a sense of moral righteousness.
Furthermore, there was a certain religious dogma and canon related to the intellectual literature of the
culture.38 As part of this dogma, the intelligentsia generally denounced liberalism as weak, and
promoted radicalism as the only route for change. 39
A significant aspect of the Russian intelligentsia, and one similar to their populist counterparts, is
the notion of their debt to society. Guilt, they ascertained, was central to their radicalism, thanks to their
inherited wealth and social privileges. Furthermore, these benefits were derived from past suffering, and
this knowledge allowed the intelligentsia to uncover their truths about Russian society. The repayment
of this debt was to be carried out by serving the unvoiced and exploited in the upcoming revolution;
literature of the time, such as Leo Tolstoys Anna Karenina, reflects this idea.40 The early intelligentsia
would acquire a populist, slavophilic outlook on Russian society through a romantic interest in folk
cultureall in order to better service those to which their debt is owed. 41

36 Figes, A Peoples Tragedy, p. 43.

37 Confino, Intellectuals and Intellectual Traditions, 140.
38 Figes, A Peoples Tragedy, p. 125.
39 Ibid., p. 126.
40 Ibid., p. 127.
41 Ibid., p. 128.
2

This social debt, as the intelligentsia had called it, was supposed to be paid by service to a
revolution. Prior to Lenins rise to power, however, they were often forced to settle for aiding in simple
progress for the Russian people. The intelligentsia did not believe this progress to be found in
industrialisation, a capitalist invention, nor did they believe in enacting progress by conventional means
(i.e. the government). Those intelligentsia who attempted to execute progress in the community
comprised three groups: the scientific intellectuals, dedicated to understanding humanity; philosophers
and theologians, who provided an intellectual context to religious thought and criticised tradition; and the
various artists, poets, and composers, apolitical rebels of a cultural nature. 42 The trend in more modern
intelligentsia, however, was the rejection of earlier philosophical traditions, including materialism,
positivism, utilitarianism, anti-aestheticism, and realism. The adoption of Marxism led the new generation
of intelligentsia, sociopsychologically, to dismiss their prior feelings of guilt, as well as their
romanticism- and populism-riddled affections.43 In this way, the modern intelligentsia could better
effectuate the progress and change they desired.
The Jacobin, Marxist, Populist, and intellectual movements of late nineteenth-century Russia
would eventually prove invaluable to the culture that would rise up during the Russian Revolution of
1917, as they provided revolutionaries the ideological backdrop by which they could rationalise their
actions and desires. In their own ways, each movement added to the final amalgamation of ideologies and
worldviews that would bring about Lenins revolution, either politically, socially, or intellectually. The
final result of which, of course, brought about the first socialist revolution ever recorded, and one of the
mostif not the mostsignificant chapters in all of Russian history.

Bibliography

42 Confino, Intellectuals and Intellectual Traditions, 140-141.

43 Ibid., 141-142.
2

Confino, Michael. On Intellectuals and Intellectual Traditions in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century

Russia. Daedalus 101, no. 2 (Spring 1972) 117-149. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20024073
(accessed September 21, 2009).
Figes, Orlando. A Peoples Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924. London: Pimlico Books, 1996.
Mayer, Robert. Lenin and the Jacobin Identity in Russia. Studies in European Thought 51, no. 2 (June
1999) 127-154. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20099700 (accessed September 21, 2009).
Maynard, John. Russia in Flux before October. London: Victor Gallantz Ltd., 1939.
Miliukov, Paul. Russia and its Crisis. London: Collier Books, 1962.
Riasanovsky, Nicholas V. and Mark D. Steinberg. A History of Russia. 7th Ed. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2005.
Scalan, James P. Populism as a Philosophical Movement in Nineteenth-Century Russia: the Thought of
P.L. Lavrov and N.K. Mikhajlovskij. Studies in Soviet Thought 27, no. 3 (April 1984) 209-223.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20099320 (accessed September 21, 2009).
Turgenev, Ivan. Fathers and Sons. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.
Walicki, Andrzej. Russian Social Thought: an Introduction to the Intellectual History of NineteenthCentury Russia. Russia Review 36, no. 1 (January 1977) 1-45.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/128768 (accessed September 21, 2009).