But the so-called "idealists" do not attach their feelings and their pathos to certain ways and forms of exercising individual rights, freedom and equality. We consider these ways and means of struggle to be very complex and diverse, we have no fetishistic attachment to things outside of man, for example, to strictly defined forms of social order. We accept the inner essence of democracy, which we consider to be identical with the inner essence of liberalism; But doctrinaire socialism, which squanders religious feelings on unworthy occasions and attaches them to the material organization of life, is alien to us and seems to be an outrage upon the highest dignity of the human spirit. We do not imagine the ultimate social perfection, but if we were to draw utopias, we would consider the most worthy state of the final triumph of individualism, the union of people based on inner freedom and love, and not on external organization. Let it be what the modern socialist movement strives for, inasmuch as it liberates man from the oppression of things, and therefore it is in a certain sense for us "twice two makes four." In the social sphere there is nothing to oppose it, only it does its work, and all bourgeois reaction is impotent and dead. But in this way it is not yet possible to create a new kingdom of the spirit, and it is impossible to defeat that spiritual bourgeoisness which is corroding not only the ruling but also the oppressed classes of modern society. This gives me an excuse to move on to the other side of Chicherin's worldview.

I want to repeat once again in connection with Chicherin what I said about Mikhailovsky. Chicherin's individualism, although idealistic, is at the same time purely rationalistic. This is a philosophical declaration of the rights of an impersonal, general, rational person. For Chicherin's idealism, as for Mikhailovsky's positivism, there is only the rational side of personality, it is interested only in the general rational nature. But the irrational sides of the personality also imperiously assert their rights, which make him an individual. The individual human being not only demands reasonable rights common to all, but also longs to break the boundaries of the rationalized world. And we would like to write a "declaration of rights" of the concrete individual spirit, taken in the totality of its nature, not dissected rationally, and experiencing in mystical, superrational experience the transcendental depth of being. This would be a challenge not only to the social, but also to the spiritual bourgeoisness of our world, to foresee the spiritual renewal that can only be achieved by the religious movement. And now I will summarize our attitude to Mikhailovsky and Chicherin, on whom we wanted to define ourselves.

Philosophically, Chicherin is closer to us, and socially, Mikhailovsky. We highly value both of them, and we are ready to learn a lot from them, but both of them belonged to the old trends, each of them was conservative in his own way and fought against new trends. Chicherin feared the growth of democracy, while Mikhailovsky looked with fear and suspicion at the irrational aspirations, at the mystical searches of the new generations. We think that the future belongs precisely to mysticism and democracy. Social democracy on the basis of positivism must lead to the greatest vulgarity, to the extinction of the spirit, but it can also create the most subtle spiritual aristocracy if it finally realizes itself only as a means to the remote, mystical goals of human life, which our small limited reason denies, but our great infinite reason recognizes.

In our social programme we adhere to the emancipatory and democratic precepts of our intelligentsia, but we give a different philosophical foundation and insist, in view of the nature of the moment we are passing through, on a sharply legal formulation of our social demands. The most diverse social forces must now converge on a loud demand for law. And this will be a historic exam for our intelligentsia. We call upon the social forces, conscious of their human dignity, to concentrate their attention and their energies on the fundamental question of Russian life, but our prospects are distant, and we shall never be reconciled to bourgeois society and to the bourgeois spirit which even the most extreme fighters for a new social order have not overcome. And let us remember that the betrayal of the principles of freedom, so brazenly committed in Western Europe, must find in us the most resolute rebuff. But we must go even further than those who are preparing this rebuff, we must not allow spiritual freedom and the consciousness of the ultimate goals of life to be betrayed, exchanged for social well-being, so that we will find ourselves spiritually poor in the hour when social renewal comes to us. And we shall not yield to our friends-enemies the coming kingdom of the spirit, any more than we shall yield to the bourgeoisie the kingdom of social democracy.

RESPONSE TO CRITICS

(On polemics. "Idealism" and science. — "Idealism" and freedom. — The attitude of "idealism" to the moment we are experiencing. — Grouping of social trends)[92]

A great deal has been written about the "idealists." Polemics against "idealists" are almost the only spiritual food that some magazines have been presenting to their readers for several years now. By polemics against "idealism" some novice writers have acquired a peculiar fame. The "idealists" gave themes to their opponents, pushed them to such questions that they would never have thought of on their own, turned them almost into philosophers and aestheticians. And all this is solely in the name of eradicating the hated and harmful "idealistic" trend. The Marxism represented in our journals bears obvious traces of decadence, a trend that is moribund and cries out for straws. Such a straw is empirio-criticism, and socially neutralized and vulgarized Nietzscheanism, and all these meaningless, purely verbal hymns of life. There was once a great teaching, mighty and glorious, and we were under its hypnotic power. It was classical Marxism, and creative forces trembled in it. N6 Marxism, which was born in a special, already passed, historical epoch, has grown old and decrepit, it is not. can already play a creative role in creating the spiritual culture of our time. The epigones of this doctrine try to patch up its old clothes, but these patches make the fabric completely unsuitable, completely alien. Whatever the philosophical or scientific qualities of Avenarius's empirio-criticism, one thing is certain: it has nothing to do with Marxism. Our degenerate Marxists have seized upon fashionable philosophy, because it is impossible to do without philosophy in modern times, and the old philosophy of Marxism has completely disintegrated. Equally alien to the spirit of Marxism are the latest naturalistic attempts to dissolve social colours in energetic metaphysics. There was also a need to embellish the dull and gray theory with vulgarized Nietzscheanism and even a slight neutralized decadence. Here our last Marxists are clearly trailing behind the spirit of the times and are making a rather comical impression. The surviving representatives of classical Marxism, or rather the knights, petrified in their immobility, must frown and look with hostility and fear at all these innovations. Like parasites, they feed on the juices of "idealism" and transform these juices into a light positivistic gruel, with which they try to destroy us.

I must make a reservation so that there is no misunderstanding. The practical movement connected with Marxism has enormous tasks, it is very vital, and I appreciate its importance very highly. We are talking about the theory of Marxism, about the significance of Marxism in spiritual culture, in modern searches, in determining the valuable content of life. We love life, we worship it, life is the highest good, the highest goal, the highest criterion of good and evil, all these representatives of the last days of Marxism shout in unison and try to blush and whitewash the old decaying theory. How colorless and bloodless, moderate and prudent all this is in comparison with the colorful, juicy and daring praise of the joy of life of one of the most interesting, gifted and significant writers of our time, V. V. Rozanov, No one encroaches on the practical virtue of empirio-critical and amoralistic Marxists, but the poetry of life is not their business.

The "idealists" did not respond to their "critics" and did not accept the challenge. In vain did the critics fuss and worry, trying to provoke us to polemics. There was no conspiracy on the part of the "idealists", it was the result of natural and spontaneous feelings, on which very many agreed. There was no desire to object to all these polemical exercises, he was not inspired by "criticism", it was boring even to read all this, and not only to answer. But it is time to speak in principle about polemics in general and about our polemical morals in particular.

For a long time very cruel polemical morals have reigned in our magazine literature. In this mutual eating, all our lack of culture was expressed, there was a complete disrespect for the reader and a violation of the aesthetic measure, so characteristic of our disdain for elegance. To ennoble our literary mores, to inculcate more aristocratic manners, would be no small cultural task. We are well aware that rudeness, intolerance and the lack of real inner freedom in our journalism are due to special reasons; the tense atmosphere in which the Russian writer has to live. The existing order of things develops a morbid suspicion, one censorship begets another, one violence begets another, one bureaucracy gives rise to another bureaucracy. The responsibility for this spiritual crippling of the Russian intelligentsia falls on the dark, oppressive, ruling forces of Russian society. But it is time at last to renounce spiritual freedom, the right of creativity from the encroachment of all kinds of bureaucracy, of all kinds of stereotypes that monopolize advanced thought.

What is the psychology of polemics, what spiritual motives prevail in it, what instincts of human nature does it appeal to? This question seems to me interesting and worthy of consideration.

In essence, the psychology of polemics is immoral and appeals to the lower, not the higher, sides of human nature. Listen to the polemics in literature or in oral disputes. It is always striking how much the questions about which the polemics are being conducted are forgotten, how little the truth is clarified, how much the polemicists are in slavish subordination to some third, foreign force, to the public, whose hearts each of the parties wants to attract. We make terrible sacrifices for the sake of our listeners and readers, and the capture of these little hearts has long since shielded from us the capture of truth and righteousness. There is always something demagogic in polemics, it always appeals to one or another of the instincts of the masses, and it always hides behind it the psychology of slavery to the crowd. The purpose of polemics is to win over the audience, to provoke whistles and applause, and this noise is seldom the triumph of truth. Who wins in polemics? Oh, this victory is bought not by the depth of thought, not by the power of argumentation, not by your inner truth! That is why polemics are immoral because by its very essence it calls for the judges who decide the fate of the truth – choruses, an accidental, extraneous element, little and often not understanding anything. Our usual magazine polemics always play on some strings of the reader's soul and greedily await the approval of its reader, but all this is sheer disrespect for the reader. For the present reader, dear to us, all these endless, fruitless and petty bickerings between Mr. A. and Mr. V., all these personal accounts, suspicions and accusations, all this polemical dust under which the interests of truth are buried and questions requiring clarification are forgotten. And if we want to truly respect both ourselves and our readers, we must despise polemics and polemical critics, our own polemics, we must answer the perplexities of our readers, clarify questions on their essence and ignore all polemical attacks against us, in a word, we must respond to personal polemics with an impersonal critical explanation to our readers of what is done with important and significant questions in the polemical heap.

For several years now there has been a polemic against idealism in general and against the writer of these lines in particular, and all this criticism is striking in its wretchedness, it is simply uninteresting, it simply does not inspire an answer, and it has often been ignorant and unscrupulous. Against philosophical and religious searches, people who understood nothing about philosophy and did not suffer from a religious problem made some completely inappropriate political objections. This application of political criteria to the most intimate demands of the human spirit, on the one hand, and on the other, the evaluation of the political credo according to criteria that are completely non-political, is an undoubted indicator of lack of culture, of a low level of both political and intellectual development. Let our polemicizing and critical journalists learn to make philosophical objections to philosophical assertions, let them recognize the right of the human person to the fullness of spiritual experiences, then it will be possible and necessary to talk to them in a cultured language. In the meantime, we will nevertheless try to formulate what main perplexities the polemics against "idealism" could have caused among readers.

I must make a reservation that I will object mainly for myself. "Idealism" is an extremely vague general parenthesis, it is a spiritual ferment that contains very diverse shades, and it is fraught with the most profound opposites.