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Lavrov, Chaikovski, and the United States
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2018
Extract
The influence of America upon the thought of Peter Lavrov, the great Narodnik sociologist of the late nineteenth century, has hitherto been overlooked in any serious study of his life and work. It was the American labor movement, above all, which interested Lavrov — an interest which not only harmonized with his intransigent views on the “economic question,” but one which coincided, appropriately enough, with the decade that witnessed Lavrov's closest approach to Marxism.
In Lavrov's journal V pered, for example, there was always a section devoted to a Chronicle of the Labor Movement and also one to a Chronicle of Struggle. These two features were carried to report the positive constructive elements in the working class struggle and to contrast these with “the chaos of bourgeois civilization.” In these reports on the state of the world labor movement, the progress of the American working class had a prominent place.
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References
1 Lavrov was lucky in a sense for V pered was published in the midst of the great depression of 1873.
2 V pered, no. 1, June 15, 1875, 31.
3 V pered, no. 2, Feb. 1, 1875, 62-63; V pered, no. 3, Feb. 15, 1875, 93-94.
4 Cf. V pered, no. 6, April 1, 1875, 189-190; no. 8, May 1, 1875, 254-255; no. 9, May 15, 1875, 285; no. 12, July 1, 1875, 383; no. 13, July 15, 1875, 413-415; no. 14, Aug. 1, 1875, 443-144.
5 V pered, no. 6, April 1, 1875, 189.
6 V pered, no. 8, May 1, 1875, 254.
7 V pered, no. 13, July 15, 1875, 414-415.
8 V pered, no. 14, Aug. 1, 1875, 444.
9 Lavrov believed that America had entered upon the “fatal process” of capitalist development and crises under conditions similar to those of the leading powers of western Europe as early as the decade of the thirties, V pered, Neperiodicheskoe Obozrenie, II (1874), Part I, 179, hereafter referred to as V p., Nep.
10 V p., Nep., III (1874), Part I, 124-125 for this and the preceding citation. For other expressions of this kind, cf. V pered, no. 1, Jan. 15, 1875, 4: “The working population suffers everywhere from the Danube to the Far West of the American republic; the capitalists are in haste everywhere to extort large scale profits from it for themselves.”
11 V pered, no. 23, Dec. 15, 1875, 732-733.
12 It is true, however, that Lavrov recognized the rapid process of transformation of the European immigrants under conditions of American life — changes that would make most difficult a reversal of the immigration process. “The isolation of nationality is removed … where the state approaches ideal demands, although from a great distance. The example of the North American States verifies this, where immigrants from the whole world in the second generation already, and sometimes even in the first, become simple Americans,” Izbrannye Sochineniya, ed., I. A. Teodorovich (4 vols., Moscow, 1934), I, 336, [“Historical Letters”] hereafter referred to as Soch.
13 V pered, no. 1, Jan. 15, 1875, 29-30. Cf. also V pered, no. 2, Feb. 1, 1875, 59. In another place, Lavrov reprinted a report of one of the congresses of the First International warning the European proletariat against the deception of American agents recruiting prospective immigrants in Europe.
14 The law of 1864 which permitted the importation of immigrants under a contract to work was not finally repealed until 1885, and even after this date the new law was badly enforced. Cf. Fairchild, H. P., Immigration (N. Y., 1913), 274–280 Google Scholar for a brief but lucid description of the padrone and contract labor systems in the period following the Civil War. Also cf., ibid., 91 for the shift from sailing to steam vessels and its importance for the immigrant. For the main facts of immigration legislation in the second half of the nineteenth century, cf. Faulkner, H. U., American Economic History (N. Y.and London, 1924), 612–614. Google Scholar For the figure on returning immigrants to Europe in the depression of the seventies, cf. Schlesinger, A. M., Political and Social Growth of the American People (1865-1940), (N. Y., 1941), 3rd ed., 86.Google Scholar
15 In V p., Nep., no. 3, 1874, III, 107, Lavrov wrote for example, “Yes, many have been broken and have died. Many of yesterday's issues and worries have been borne away by the waves of history. But the International is alive. The International is whole. The International is ready for battle.”.
16 V p., Nep., III, Part 3, 53.
17 England and America are “the two countries where industry is the most advanced,” Soch., II, 267. Lavrov wrote elsewhere that, “in no country in the world has the development of industry gone ahead so rapidly as in the United States of North America,” Vp., Nep., II, Part I, 179.
18 Soch., II, 302-303, 317, 318.
19 Cf. Soch, II, 255-256.
20 This new group was formed by convention in Philadelphia in 1876 from a group of socialists who had split from the International in 1874 and had formed the Social Democratic Workingmen's Party of North America at that time. The new party was formed almost on the morning after the International had breathed its last in Philadelphia and was a broader organization than the group which had met in 1874. This grouping was rather non-militant in tactics and Lassallean in principle with such demands as the eight hour day and workers' cooperatives. 90% of its membership was made up of foreign-born workers. In 1879, it is estimated that its total membership was 10,000. Cf. V pered, no. 40, Sept. 1, 1876, 549-551 and Anthony Bimba, History of the American Working Class (N. Y., 1927), 163-165.
21 V pered, no. 48, Dec. 31, 1876, 811-812.
22 V pered, no. 2, Feb. 1, 1875, 36. On American labor's hostility to the Chinese, cf. Bimba, , op. cit., 159.Google Scholar Local members of the Workingmen's Party of America, however, apparently took no part in the widespread anti-Chinese rioting of 1877 in San Francisco.
23 V pered, no. 14, Aug. 1, 1875, 444. Lavrov was especially pleased at the strike of the Chinese tailors because he did realize that the Chinese were the lowest paid workers in that region of America and were “the most dangerous competitors for the local workers.” For this reason their continued docility in the face of a depressed wage scale could only lead to a growing resentment of the American workers against them — which indeed, did occur a few years later.
24 V pered, no. 37, July 15, 1876, 453.
25 V p., Nep., iv1, 1876, 191.
26 There was one trait that Lavrov recognized in American life which he felt could be valuable for a socialist order (and which he confined to America). That was the American energy and initiative which would be very useful in removing the pragmatic difficulties encountered by a new socialist order “on the second day after the revolution.” In the given moment, however, this American characteristic was completely perverted.” This energetic, individualistic activity is manifested and must be manifested in very abominable forms: Judge Lynch hangs the thief or the bandit; people who live differently from the established routine are subject to insults, tortures, and contempt; sects which anger the majority by their beliefs, who are attached to beliefs which are just as absurd but which happen to be different, are driven out of a given locality, etc.” This last is an obvious reference to the persecution of the Mormons by their neighbors, Ibid., 1876, 125.
27 Cf. for example, the testimony of Vladimir Debagori-Mokrievich, one of the outstanding Bakuninist-Narodniki of the second magnitude in the 1870's: “It is necessary to say that at the end of the sixties, the attraction of America, of American life and of American free institutions was noticed, generally speaking. Certain individuals travelled there, observed the mode of life there and wrote about it in Russian magazines …”. Ot Buntarstva K Terrorizmu (Moscow-Leningrad, 1930), Book I, 91-92. For Lavrov's strictures cf. typically, V pered no. 1 (London, Jan. 15, 1875), 29-30 and no. 33 (Dec. 15, 1875), 732-733.
28 For details of Chaikovski's biography, cf. Miakotin, V., “Chaykovsky,” Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, III, 362 and Deyateli Revolyutsionnogo Dvizheniya v Rossii, v. II3-4, (Moscow, 1929), 1919-1922.Google Scholar
29 Cf. Nikolai Vasilevich Chaikovski, ed. A. A. Titov (2 vols., Paris, 1929), 1, 38 [in Russian].
30 Ibid., pp. 41, 48, 61. Chaikovski was acute in his perception of the change in the trend of the revolutionary youth, away from Pisarev's nihilistic “healthy egoism” toward that of the “critically thinking realists,” ushered in by Lavrov's “notable” Historical Lettersin 1869. Chaikovski also referred to Herzen and to Chernyshevski as “sovereigns of the thought of the Russian youth of the sixties,” ibid., 71-72.
31 Ibid., p. 74.
32 Ibid., pp. 69, 86. Cf. Kropotkin, Peter, Memoirs of a Revolutionist (Boston and New York, 1899), p. 304 ff.Google Scholar, on the circle of the Chaikovtsy. Typical of Kropotkin's view are the following comments: “Never did I meet elsewhere such a collection of morally superior men and women as the score of persons whose acquaintance I made at the first meeting of the Circle of Tchaykovtsy. I still feel proud of having been received into that family,” p. 306. “It played an important part in the history of the social movement in Russia and under this name it will go down in history,” p. 304.
33 Titov, , op. cit., I, 89, 90.Google Scholar
34 Ibid., pp. 92, 94, 96. For an exposition of this belief — which has much in common with William Frey's religious views, cf. ibid., pp. 107-111.
35 Ibid., pp. 12-13. Cf. Stepniak (Sergei Kravchinski), Underground Russia, tr. (N. Y., 1883), preface by Peter Lavrov, for a concise and well-written summary of this period by a revolutionary practitioner which, in general, corroborates Chaikovski's views, without, however, taking account of the religious strain in the revolutionary movement following 1873-1874, pp. 1-42.
36 Debagori-Mokrievich reports to us rather different motives for the momentary “Americanism” of the Kievan circle of which he was a member at about 1870. Cf. Vospominaniya(Paris, 1894), Book I, 1-16; 17-38 and Deyateli.v. II1-2, 335-338.
37 All citations from Titov, ibid., pp. 100-106. Cf. also Machtet's very vivid description of the sufferings and hardships endured in Frey's commune. Even when Machtet first arrived at the colony he felt a keen sense of homesickness: “Upon meeting here, under this unfamiliar heaven, on this broad plain, our first word was — Russia…. The wonderful broad prairie faded away before our eyes, the clear sun set, the transparent azure distance was slowly covered with shadows … and we suddenly felt the desire — passionately and strongly — to be under our own poor gray sky, surrounded by naked and cold plains and forests! … and in our smoky huts.”
Frey himself is depicted in very unflattering terms — as a weak but despotic character. Cf. G. A. Machtet, Polnoe Sobranie Sochineni, ed. D. P. Silchevski (St. Petersburg, 1911?), I, pp. 184-214 (“Obshchina Freya“). Citations are from pp. 197, 201.
38 For the prospectus and top-heavy constitution of the Progressive Colony, cf. Nordhoff, Charles, Communistic Societies in the United States (N. Y., 1875), pp. 353–356.Google Scholar
39 For the contents of this letter cf. V pered! Neperiodicheskoe Obozrenie, III (London, 1874), Part I, 124-125.
40 Titov, , op. cit., I, 119–121.Google Scholar One of the reasons for the time lag is to be found in the fact that in these months, Chaikovski was working on a study in English of the history of religion. This consumed a great deal of his attention, ibid., p. 120.
41 Ibid., I, 121.
42 Ibid., I, 121, 122.
43 Ibid., I, 125.
44 Ibid., I, 126-127.
45 Ibid., I, 127.
46 Ibid., I, 126.
47 Except for the optimistic views of William Frey expressed earlier in regard to the position and strength of the American working class. Cf. V pered! Nep. Ob., loc. cit.
48 For Stepniak's opposition to Chaikovski's “temporary flight from Russian affairs,” cf Titov, op. cit., I, 178.
49 Ibid., I, 127.
50 William Frey seems to have concurred in Chaikovski's view of the failure of the colony and indeed expanded this to a general rule. Frey naturally thought more, however, in terms of his own Comte-ist “religion of Humanity,” ibid., I, 128.
51 Ibid., I, 167.
52 Ibid., I, 129.
53 Ibid., I, 131.
54 Ibid., I, 135.
55 Ibid., I, 134.
56 Ibid., I, 132.
57 Ibid., I, 133.
58 We may perhaps remark how really amazing it is that the great railroad strikes of 1877 should have left so apparently slight an impression on Chaikovski — who was actually (although involuntarily) involved in them.
59 Titov, , op. cit., I, 134.Google Scholar On the Shakers, cf. Melcher, Margaret F., The Shaker Adventure (Princeton, 1941)Google Scholar and Chase, Daryl, The Early Shakers: An Experiment in Religious Communism (Chicago, 1938).Google Scholar The elevation of the place of woman to the level of equality with men in the divine pantheon of the Shakers, besides the more familiar aspects of a religious-Utopian colony would have great appeal for a man like Chaikovski. For the Groveland community itself, cf. Nordhoff, Charles, op. cit., 198–200. Google Scholar
60 Titov, , op. cit., I, 137.Google Scholar
61 Ibid. Chaikovski wrote in his diary in this time of growing underground terrorist activity in Russia, not only of the “uselessness but even of the harm of the revolutionary struggle, from the point of view of the ideals of the ‘God-seekers.’” But if he were forced to choose between the persecutions of the tsarist government and the terrorist acts of the revolutionaries, his place, he asserted, would be with the latter, ibid., I, 140.
62 Ibid., I, 171; 13.
63 Ibid., I, 141, 265. At the end of his life, Chaikovski, looking back at his experimental religious commune in America, announced positively and emphatically, “I see that I was right when I said to myself: it is impossible to live … in the Kingdom of Caesar, when you do not have the Kingdom of God with His absolute Good, absolute Truth and absolute Love in your very self; for in the struggle with wickedness, the victory lies not in the annihilation of the enemy, neither in vengeance nor in wickedness towards him, but in the creation of a new blessedness from your very self, i.e. from your own absolute self,” ibid., I, 284.
64 Ibid., I, 216.
65 Ibid., I, 139.
66 For a discussion of this development in Chaikovski's thinking, cf. ibid., I, 142-156. When Chaikovski returned to Europe, he surely communicated his experiences with the Shakers to his radical colleagues thereby familiarizing them with this American religious institution.
67 Ibid., I, 147.
68 Ibid., I, 147 note.
69 Ibid., I, 141.
70 Frey himself finally returned to England in 1884. There he promptly proceeded to establish a “religious commune of positivists” on the outskirts of London, ibid., I, 159.
71 Ibid., I, 8-9.