The Jacobin Critique of Modernity:

The Case of Petr Tkachev

John Rundell

I. HISTORY AND INTERPRETATION: WHY TKACHEV?

Tkachev was a younger contemporary of Marx. While Marx was

writing Capital during the 1860s Tkachev was formulating his own
theoretical position concerning capitalism as well as another form of
domination, Russian Absolutism. Both ~kc it for granted that modern
subjectivity is self-defining. However, while Marx both embraced and
circumscribed a project of political critique which was grounded in the
value-idea of freedom, Tkachev looked at another current of the
Enlightenment to ground his critique of the East Jacobinism, with
~w

its emphasis on absolute equality as the basis for emancipation.

In 1844 Marx identified this version of Enlightenment politics,
which became part of the French Revolutions programme, as well as
a perspective from which it was criticized, as &dquo;cnide communism
Its critical impulse was drawn from Babeuf and resulted in a social
levelling that replicated political economys own anthropology.
Tkachev turns this Babeuvist crude communism into a discourse on
power and social transformation. He constructs an incomplete, yet
visible social theory to address these two problems. In his social
theory he denies the self-defining subject subjectivity, except in the
case of the privileged, ascetic &dquo;new people&dquo;. Rather, the self-defining

subject (humanity qua philosophical anthropology) is objectivistically

construed through a theory of societal evolution, taken principally from
the works of Herbert Spencer, that both underpins his negative critique
of the modem epoch and his strategy of tatism that informs his
Jacobin politics.
At the heart of his critique of modernity lies a strategy for the
complete transposition of power from the state to a party which claims
126

universalism for itself on behalf of, yet disregarding, society. In the

context of a heterogeneous, yet crisis-ridden opposition to the Russian
Czars, inditstrialization and capitatization, Tkachev represents a
watershed against a background of defeated, untheorized and unre-
fiected strategies. He presents a more or less coherent model for
social change which fifty years later to fruition under Lenin.
Tkachevs importance, then, lies in the fact that he systematically
introduces irito an oppositional political culture, a model of politics
that precludes a discourse on the politics of freedom in the name of
another politics of emancipation.

However, one cannot present Tkachevs work as a unified theory.

This is in part, to the
problem of accessibility to Tkachevs works
through secondary literature, the main avenue to him in the English
language. But more importantly, it is also because no overall theory
exists within a single work, rather it as that underscore
his political project. From secondary ooa.uœs~ we can, though,
reconstruct these fragments, rudinxen% of an unfinished social theory,
and detail the intersections bemween 7%achevs major concerns:
the notion of the happy society, social integration and social change.
In this light it is useful to continue opening remarks with a
further hermeneutical reflection.

The &dquo;To go to the people movement&dquo; was a fiasco. While the

movement based itself in part on the lessons learnt from
Chernyshewky, Lavrov and Bakunin, and was also that this
entailed a with the elitist and Machiavellian politics of former
years and the transformation of a nihilist into a socw one, &dquo;the
of the masses over the elite&dquo; took place in a spirit
of communalisrn; Venturi colourfuily it as a &dquo;collective act
of Rousseauism&dquo;.1 The hope of an Russia drawn from
the desire of participation quickly turned to despair and
disillusionment. This experience, moreover, the way for a
systematic stabilization of Jacobin politics. The sociat space&dquo; which
was left the crashing failure of &dquo;go to the people&dquo; entailed that
the problem of politics re-emerged as a primary category, that is
politics rendered as tatism, as against the notion of po& (which could
have located politics within the problematic of social relations and civil
society).5
 127

it is morethan merely interesting to note the sequence of

chapters onthese events in Venturis 7he Rao% of R~®la~~~ and
Szamueiys The Russian Tradition. Venturi9 on the one hand, places
Tkachev after the conspiratorial p~~t~~ of Nechaev and before
chapters on Bakunin and ~vr®~e and the 6~~ to the people&dquo; campaign.
He sums ~p 7kacheis place in Russian history (as does borah
Hardy in her book Petr c The ~~~,~ ~ lacobihx, a text I draw
on substantially) as being irre~c~~biy tied to the period of the sixties,
isolated and out of step in the seventies.
In the s~venti~s he became an isolated figure because he represented
an earlier tradition in a movement which had grown and changed.
His long period of segregation between the beginning of 1869 and
the end of 1873, first in prison and then in extie widened this gap.
He was always fundamentally concerned with the problem of founding
an organisation, whereas the populists were concentrating on the
question of getting in touch with the nt s, &dquo;going to the
people&dquo;, and even exploiting legal possibilities to the full. Tkachevs
ciand~tine activities in the sixties gave him primarily ideas on the
technique of conspiracy.6
Szamueiy, on the other hand, places Tkachev after the chapter
concerning the famous episode of Populistil, which itself is pr cd by
a chapter on Nechaevs corispiratorial principle. For him,

the experience of 1874 was crucial because it proved convincingly

(within the revolutionary frame of reference) that any other method
was fruitless ...the forces of ~~ril would have to ~ fought and
destroyed - try planning, organisation, discipline, guile, and above all,
by force. The man who gave these ideas ~h~ir fullest expression, who
fashioned a whole practical theory of revolution out of thein, and
who was to leave an indelible rnar9~ upon the future development of
the Russian revolutionary movement was Pyotr ~i~ti~h Tkachfv.7
These sequential preferences, however, far from being mere didactic
exercises, beg an interpretive question: what importance does Tkachev
have for an understanding and reconstruction of the historicity of
Russian radical thought? In answering this question we side with
Szamuelys basic th t. The ~c~diti®~ of a chronological
historicization (VhHi-vis Venturi) does not necessarily uncover the links
and disjunctures which open a hermencutical door, ~,ather, the
approach by Szamuely, which places less emphasis on ~~chcvs
debates with Lavrov and Engels as documentary history, but more
128

emphasis on ~h~~~ ® unique ability to both &dquo;imagine a political

form which gets &dquo;results&dquo; and theorize about the socio-political
problems of sacial transition, immediately thematizes the problematic
question inherited from the crisis of the Enhghlenmenti how is
politics ooJrjœivoo as both an insiruznent for change and as a theory of
society? This constitutes the essence of Tkzchevs idiosyncratic place
in Russian thought, which him. into focus as a progenitor of
L.eniJl1KSm and an inheritof of the Enlightenments Jacobin response to
its own crisis.
Our reconstruction of Tkachev illustrates, then, another
anthropoiogicai of modernity from that of the one with its
on the free autonomy of the subject, however this may be
thought. Whilst construing society as an objectivistic entity Thachev
totalizes it under the name of homo huoicus psrirayed as moral virtue.
T:1!s is further tied to an idea of the state as ~.h~ centre of social
power. Here an image of the modern state as nation is oonstructed as
a collective community which is located in the Russian Obschina. On ®

a more abstract level of theorizing it presents another aspect of

from the vantage point of one version of the formation of
the imaginary of the national community ~~~~~p~~~~~ by an
anthropological notion of absolute equity.
H. EGALITARIANISM AND THE QUEST FOR UNITY
TkacheVs view of society is evolutionist and proceeds from two
directions; on the one hand, a moral critique of society from the
viewpoint of human happine-qs which links him directly with
Chernyshev.5ky, and on the other, the quest for social unity. ~ is
within the notion of politics (particularly practical politics) that they
coincide. To put it more precisely, srachev relies on an inverted
reading of Herbert Spencer which provides the anthropological basis
for his social critique, while Jacobinism his politics as strategic
rationality, the rationality of war and of heroes.
Tkachev adheres to the Chernyshevskian grounding of phiiosophy
m a materialist utilitarianism. However th~~e ~ ~ basic shift away
from Cbemyshevskys belief in human perfectibility which stems from
a pedagogical utilitarianism (Leo we learn what is good, and what is

~ judged by its usefulness to society as a whole). Tkachev denies

this pedagogical imperative, substituting instead the categorical
 129

imperative of equality. For him, the notions of happiness and equality

are indistinguishable; a happy society is an equal society. Essentially,
the predicate of egaiitanamism signified an anthropology which adopts
the levelling of Bab4z-avian &dquo;crude commmism~ While the
notion of equality is a central ciainz Xoi all Russian Tadicals, Tkacbev
draws the c<cmdkssioM and demands noi only an economic
equality, but an equality derived from educational, <suiiural and physical
sources, tba~ is all tlie f,,-)rni-s in which a secsety produces and
reproduces itself. Tkachev is that to establish the fullest
possible equality of individuals the &dquo;mere&dquo; equaHt) of political,
juridical and economic life is not enough; he caBs for &dquo;as organic
physiological eqi7~alit~r 5temnling from the saine e4dLTztit)ii and from
identical conditions of -Iliis means that, for Mm, the seiisiaciion
of needs is adjusted to the existmg level of the productiveness of
labour. The notion of labour, though, canies none of the
phenomenological or multi-dimensional features that at least
characterizes the ambiguous anthropology of the Hegel/Marx imditKm.
Labour is reduced to a mtKmaHzaMe, that is~ quantifiable unit of work,
which is then used in a savage materiarist utilitarianism to establish the
49material&dquo; basis of a societys need structure.
The problem [work] will he solved, the principle achieved when
everyone is unconditional equa~, when there is no differen&oelig; between
anyone either from the iateUectus!, moral or physical point of view.
Then they will have an exactly equal share in the returns of
production and any special vacation of their works will be utterly
superfluous.10
Social distribution, itself, thea~ becomes rational following this
quantification of equality. Society takes under its own control the
regulation and proliferation of needs and suppresses any individual
requirements that can be satisfied only at mothers gives the
existing level of economic development. Uniformity of l1ePvs is the
prerequisite of the happy society. Moreover, for Tkachev, this signifies
whether a society is progressive oi not. Egalitanamsm ? &dquo;the final
and only possible of human society, the supreme yardstick of
historical progress&dquo;.&dquo; While this egalitarianism, as a ~~c~~ project
is derived from Babeuf, as a sociological theory it is underpinned, for
Tkachev, by Spencers theory of integration. This distinction is
important because Tkachev is one of the few Russian radicals during
the 19th century prior to Plekhanov who systematically develops a
130

social theory which political project By re~~tin~ on the

grounds a
nature of social iif~ and
adopting Spencenaa evolutionism he deepens
the problematic of ial law and social change. In ~hw, then, the
Chernyshevskian spirit met, for the first time, the systematic spirit of
evolutionism.

Ill. EVOLUTIONISM AND THE NEGATIVE CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY

Although 1b.chev rejects scxi&reg;1&reg;~i~l arpiments derived from biology,

that is the naturalization of the social, he a pts the Spencerian
notion of &dquo;the struggle for existence&dquo;. In fact this notion unites two
periods in achev9s thought; the first in which he is critical of
Spencers biologism (1862) and the second in which he concentrates
on s&reg;~~i~tys evolutionary struggle for life, which takes place through
protection and production (1869). During the 1960s Tkachev had
already established a materialist perspective. Attacking the use of laws
derived from the Darwinian-influenced natural sciences for the analysis
of social and economic life he states:
The social organism differs from any other organism in that it is
capable of perfecting itself. No other living organism can do this
because the laws by which it develops are not created by its self-c4lled
action; they are granted it as if from outside - they [then i~~~ exist
before it and will remain alter it. The laws of organic and non-
organic evolution are eternal, uniform, unchanging and immutable;
organic and inorganic bodies can exist only under the condition of
blind and continual submission to these laws. On the contrary, the
laws by which society is governed are not distinguished by any one of
these traits; appearing always as the products of society itself, that is
the products of human will and human reason, they arise and are
destroyed together with society.12
While this may echo the Marxian notion that &dquo;humankind makes its
own history&dquo; it relies more on the Chemyshevskian reception of
Feuerbach (in part fr&reg;m The Anthropological Principle) and the
utilitarianism which guided Chemyshcvskys ethical structure.
However, what is more important is the form whicii Ikacnevs
materialism takes, and hence, the importance of Spen&oelig;r.13 Tkachev
is more interested in the notion of h~~~~ progress rather than in the
notion of law as such, which is typical of much of Spencers work.
However, Spencers own biologistic evolutionism provides the
foundation for his ~~g~~v~~ evaluation of the transformative trajectory
 131

of Russian society as it st on the threshold of modernity. It is in

this sense that Spencer remains a central figure in ~he~~s thought.
If chev was unwitting to accept Spen~rs positivistic
sociological principles he fully accepted his fundamental pr~pt ~ a
cosmological notion of integration. Spen&oelig;r~s preliminary holistic
definition of organic life, put forward in the Principles of Biology, is
that of a &dquo;co-ordination of actions99 which both &dquo;harmonises with our
ordinary ideas of life in its different grades&dquo; and results in an &dquo;increase
in the extent and complexity of oo-operations~ .14 It is cosmological in
that the development from si8nplfcaty to complexity is a universal
pattern of all observable phenomena which also marks out and details
progressive evolutionary thresholds and ~po~~sG~s ~ common feature of
19th century thought. Social evolution represents a specific level of
the cosmic process with distinctive functional and structural features.
The principle that unites thresholds and epochs, and to which Tkachev
is attracted, is that of the -functional integration of component paris
into a whole. This applies to both organic and social complexes. In
this sense, there is a two way movement, differentiation and
honxogenizaiion - each precezs of differentiation, whether biological
or social, is accompanied by a likewise shift to a form which can
holistically cope with differentiated functions and structures and
integrate them into a ~~r&reg;~i~~l~ unilt.16 Tkachev finds this theme
formuiated in Sper!l&oelig;rs earlier work especially The Principles ~~~~~&reg;gy
as the relation between individuality and r~productio~. This is
interpreted by him as the question of how societies reproduce
themselves and reconcile stability with ~~a~ts and desires. It is this
transposition that guides ~~~~~~~s reading of Spencer.
But to return briefly to Spencer. In Spencers social evolution
theory 6~at~~ra1 selection&dquo; means a quasi-teleologicazi process of
stabilization and ~uilib~iu~ which denotes the general law of
integration. The ensuring struggle between survival and extinction is
fought out in the realm of stable reproduction and social complexity.
Stable reproduction indicates that the relation between the organic
environment and humankind (that is the physiologi~l capacity of
human beings to adapt to, or master, natures exigencies) is a
progressive one, while social complexity denotes the heterogeneity of
structures and functions. This means that i progressive evolutionary
stages human beings learn to balance the desire for reproduction. with
132

the prevailing wealth of social resources. The incessant tug of war

supply and provides the &dquo;naturalized&dquo; bacMrop 11
and
for new of organizaztion and achievement Social
equilibrium is achieved once the pressure from population is by
a &dquo;cognitive discipline9, that is by the intelligent use of resources and
the generation of a morality which positively sanctions intellectual
acumen and a gratification. For this cognitive
asceticism which accompanies the shift to industrial societies, this
modern type, &dquo;draws off for its normal and unforced activity, a larger
proportion of the common stock of mnnments&dquo;.18 This results in, as
Spencer asserts emphatically, a long and satisfying human life and a
decrease in a once pressing need for new life. The struggle for
existence urges the organism towards perfection; life are
balanced between a (limited) reproduction, as well as individual
satisfaction. Production, protection, the development of social habits
and, importantly, the division of labour, are all derivatives of the &dquo;(1j
priori law of the maintenance of race&dquo;.&dquo;)
While Tkachev accepts unde~ying evolutionist thesis he
vehemently disagrees with the progressive evaluation of the struggle for
existence, particularly when it is interpreted as a struggle between
unequal classes, be they either landowner/peasant or capitalist/labourer.
In Tkachev?s view the
harmonious reconciliation of the two oppose principles (species and
individuality) takes place for only a small number of individuals,
among whom this reconciliation is attained at the expense of the
distortion, the degradation of the character of the human personality,
and the disorganisation of the social union.20

The evident inequality, hardship, brutality dehMmaRizatioa. of

western capitalist development ieads 7%achev away from Spencers own
positive assessment and construction of the &dquo;civilizing pro&oelig;ss9. The
decline in population was not leading to prosperity, rather the struggle
for existence was a struggle for wealth in which
intellectual and economic progress, increasing expenditures on
individuality, do not ease for society the possibility of satisfying its
demands, for just as before and even more so it must strain its
labour power to exhaustion, to breakdown. 21
 133

This stimulates neither progress nor perfection, but leads only to the
utter degeneration of the class of workers, whose only future is an
unrivalled pauperization. 1~ Tkachev~ view, society as a whole
will have to strain working power to the point of extreme exhaustion
to satisfy its demands, and the result [of this excessive st j will be,
as we have shows, the degeneration of the working classes, which will
lead in the long run to the complete degradation of man, to the
weakening of his physical organisation, to the deadening of his
intellectual capacities, in short to his transformation into some sort of
animal sui generis, an animal that most recent naturalists probably
would find it difficult to identify as the same race as ~r~.~
To substantiate his inverted Spencerian anthropology, in which the
assessment of modernity is linked directly with an anti-capitalism where
all institutions of modern society are seen as derivatives of bourgeois
exploitation (including the democratized state and the public sphere),
Tkachev relies on Marxs Capital. This work is important to him more
for its wealth of empirical detail concerning the English working class,
than for its theory of historical materialism.3 Drawing from Capital
achev contrasts living labour to the historical weight of dead labour
which is &dquo;crystallised in money, credit papers in 21 word, in capital&dquo;.24
..,

In Tkachevs view capital functions as an abstraction of social utility

which can only be judged negatively, a thing-in-itself that does not lead
to a happy society. Capitalism is retrogressive because it

decreases the means of subsistence of the majority of its population,

discomfits [the population] with the infertility, death,
illnesses, physical weakness, corruption, poverty .. 23.
premature
Capitalism, then, is a threat to social integration and unity. Like
Babeuf, Tkachev not only favours equality instead of freedom, but also
unity rather than diversity, a collectivized society rather than an already
presupposed atomized fragmentation of self-interested egos which
would, in the long run, destroy society. The antagonism between the
collectivity and the individual can only be harmonized through an
egalitarianism (a &dquo;dictatorship over needs&dquo;)2&dquo; which re-iniegraics the
disparate elements into the social whole. Tkachev is emphatic,
progress means equality. &dquo;The highest law of social preservation&dquo;,
states Tkachev in his negative Spencrian mood, ,

lies in this harmonious conciliation of the species with individuality by

means of a peaceful regulation of various things by the collective
134

force of all and not by means of struggle of each with the other.
With the observance of this law, neither the fall of the so~a! union
nor the degeneration of individuality nor the extinction of the race is
conceivable. On ~he contrary its inevitable consequences will be: the
progress of society, the progress of individuality, the progress of the
race.27
Tkachevs conflation of the action of individual with that of race is a
specific solution to the dilemma facing populist thinkers, that is, the
reconciliation of the value placed oil the archaic coll~tivis~ of the
peasant commune with the recognition of a &dquo;creeping&dquo; industrial-
ization. For Tkachev, the institutional framework of the ~a~ embodies
the Spencerian notion of integration; his ontology of society
strives ... to submit the individual to the social
The family and
...

personal interests
closely merged
are so and interlaced with the my,
[with] common interests, that in the majority of cases it is difficult
even to define where the one ends and the others begin. 28

And in chevs view (and resuming and reiterating the ideas of

Herzen and Chernyshevsky) this means that they are tinged with an
ancient and respectable communism, which, while concealed and
inhibited by the dark times of modernization can, given the right
historical moment, spring like a germinating seed; this is their strength
and virtue.
If the resolution arrives in time to build a dyke against the quickly
increasing wave of bourgeois progress, if it stops the direction of the
current and gives it another, entirely opposite direction, there is no
doubt, that in favourable conditions, our present &reg;bsc will develop
gradually into a commune-obschina.29
However, this young and potentially ripe growth can a be arrested
not from within, but from without, from a bestial modernity that, by
being propelled only by the language of self-interest, will erode and
destroy the organic life of the mar - obschina - the only social form,
in Tkachcvs view that is able to protect life and is worthy of protection
itself.

According to Tkachevs assessment, Russian society is at a

watershed caught between the pincer-like movements of an encroaching
capitalization and an Absolutist state, &dquo;at once so powerful and so
vulnerable o~ It is in fact Tkachevs recognition of and interest in the
uniqueness of the Russian state (as against the Engelsian version3)
 135

which makes him more than just an hitorical curiosity. Here

Szamuely is correct when he suggests that this feature of chevs
work is &dquo;the heart of [his] argument, the basis of his whole
approach~.~2 Hence, standing opposite one another in dialectical
tension (in somewhat strained language) and under the unabrelia of his
negative Spencerianism, Tkachev places the obschina and the state -
not so much as archaic forttas, but as forms what will rescue modernity
from itself in an impromptu and forced evolutionary leap. Important
for the part of Tkachevs argument is his view that the relation
between social classes and the state in Russia does not follow the
usual assumed European pattern, but is in effect reversed. Both the
nobility, clergy and mercantile class and their opposition, the
revolutionary intelligentsia, are dependent on the state for their
structural existence and their existential definition. In Russia the state
is not the product, but the producer of ial classes:
In our c6untry we have a reverse relationship: our social system is
indebted for its existence to the State, to a State which so to speak,
hangs in the air, to a State which has nothing in common with the
existing social structure, and whose roots are imbedded, not in the
present, but in the past. 33
If this is the case, then, for Tkacbev, it has profound implications for
the political ~t~rc(s~ of both the state and the revolutionary
movement. For, &dquo;if [the state] has no roots in the economic life of
the people, [ig it does not personify the interests of any class, [if] it
presses down equally upon all social classes&dquo;34 then it is not the
economic conditions or the existence of certain social classes that
prevent the social revolution in Russia. Rather, it is the autocratic
state, the political regime of absolutism which both stands in the way
of revolution and totters uncertainly and uneasily on the edge of
modernity. The problem of the social revolution, then, becomes
primarily a problem of a political revolution, in capturing the unwieldy
institutional power of the state. Furthermore because this analysis is
also combined with a resolute determination to protect the kernel of
populism - the peasant obschina - Tkachevrs Spencer emerges as the
basis for a Jacobin critique and abstract negation of modernity; persons
must be forced into a status no higher than that of their fellow so as
not to disintegrate the social unity, the imaginary of which is
referentially fixed in the obschina. In this way, Tkachevs materialism
proceeds as an c~&reg;luti&reg;nist~~ egalitarianism in which the more
136

influential aspect of Spencer is not the objectivistic status of a

eosart&reg;1&reg;~i~l law but an evolution thesis that provides the theoretical
foundation for the critique of the modem threat to social integration.

Overlapping this, though, aad as the almost &dquo;saturaT partner to

evolutionism, is an empirical hyp&oelig;tatization concerning the ibility
of direct political action which could interrupt the &dquo;nature procession
of historical events. ~~ile there is an ambivalence towards &dquo;hvv&dquo; in
1:~chevs thought, the concept integration (through happiness and
equality) remains pivotal for all his attempts to move beyond strictly
determinist arguments and towards a radical1 voluntarism. For
Tkachev, arguments about historical laws remain a political dead end
which can only lead to a fatalism deifying human variation or
individual heroism. As Hardy comments,
it would give man no ibility of altering what existed according to
his own desires. [Rather] Tkachev took hope from his conviction that
man could change the laws of social relationships and historical
progression. 35
This means thatTkachev can now move beyond the purely
anthropol&reg;~i~l image of an egalitarian society and coherently develop
a political programme which links the desa~e for change with its

practical and theoretical possibility.

IV. NEGATIVE POLmcs AS A VOCATION: THE SEIZURE OF STATE
POWER AS PROLOGUE TO THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Having dispatched a structural determinism in favour of a ~n~tion~l

evolutionism, chev is in n of a revolutionary theory that
visualizes the possibility of a leap which irrevocably alters the
evolutionary trajectory. In the period immediately before the &dquo;mad
summer of 1874&dquo; (in association with l~vrovs ~inigre journal F&reg;~~ral
(Vperyod), and following its disastrous de~nise, Tkachev systematizes
his reduction of politics to the logic of tatism in his own journal The
Tocsin (Nabat), and produces his own revolutionary theory adapted
specifically to what he sees as ~ussia~s unique situation.~ The main
theoretical problematic in Tkachev now emerges, a problematic which
is to have a lasting effect on the tradition of Russian radical political
theory and practice. i~~licki exposes the problematic in the following
question:
 137

how [is] it ibie that &dquo;economic materialism&dquo; - a theory which as

a rule appears with a mechanically conceived determinism - [coexists]
in the ideology of Tkachev with the extremely ~&reg;la~a~tar~st~e9
conviction that the whole future of Russia depended upon the will
and determinate action of the revolutionary minority?37
The link between them is provided by the notion of the &dquo;historical
leap&dquo; or &dquo;jump&dquo;. ~ fact, Walickis question pin~ints Thchevs own
self-understanding:
&reg;~riousiy we are expressing totally contradictory positions, obvious
we are defending blatant paradoxes. In one case we show the
possibility of historical jumps; in another we retain the theory of
gradual historical development
Since, in Ikachevs view, there are no immutable laws, only
evolutionary trajectories, which once stabilized, signal an historical
regression, political intervention in the historical pr is possible
either at the beginning or at the end of the evolutionary cycle. In
other words, while Tkachev accepts the determination of economic
processes (his idiosyncratic Chemyshewkian backdrop tinged with more
than a hint of Spencer), the intercession of political action becomes
defensible before or after the logico-mtionaiization of the social system
has taken pla&oelig;; that is, one simply nudges history down. an alternative
path. chc~ argues for a temporary interruption to the &dquo;nat~rah
progression of history, a disjuncture which changes the evolutionary
logic. is, then, presents the political possibility of forming an
alternative trajectory in which the &dquo;knot is untied and the magic
...

circle is broken

But, for Tkachev, the question still remains: who breaks the
magic circle? is the historical agent a generic subject (class) or an
individual? How is institutional control over the revolutionary process
achieved? How is the programme of revolution i~plc~e~tcd.:~
The notion of historical leaps enables Tkachev to grasp the
~herng~~cvs~an concept of &dquo;mew people&dquo; with all their might and
vigour, and project them onto the evolutionary stage as the sole
historical actors who intercede to alter an historically contingent set of
conditions. Their only error is that they are
ahead of their times in their ideas and wanted to make their
neighbours happy some years or centuries earlier than the inert force
of circumstances would do it. Thus it is realised that these [are]
...
138

people of the future, not ~ild men but very serious and positive
movers among their dreaming ~nt~~~r~rri~ ~
These new people are the enactors then, not so much of reason, but
of +411 and desire. Moreover, it is only the barrenness of the
slavophile landscape that marks them out as unusual. For 7%achev, as
with Chernyshevsky,
the people of the future are not ascetics, not egoists, and not heroes
-

they are ordinary people, and only th~ ~ kiezs that they adopt
and that govern them set them in such keen contrast to everything
that surrounds them that the heroes of the bourgeoisie can actually
take them for ~xr~~asuai people.41

While in one sense it may be the case that these people are not
heroes ascetics - Tkachevs point is to situate therla problematically
or
within the &dquo;naturalness&dquo; of everyday life &reg; their absorption and
dedication to revolutionary work transfers a quasi-religious asceticism
into the world of concrete activity. In l~achev9s view,
all their action, even the whole form of their life, is determined by
one desire, by one passionate idea - to make the majority of the
people happy, to cali to the feast of life as many participants as
possible. The realisation of this idea becomes the sole task of their
activity because this idea is totally merged with their concept of their
personal happiness. To this idea everything is subordinated,
everything is called to sacrifice.42
This transformation of what Weber termed in the context of West
European protestantism, an &dquo;inner worldly asceticism&dquo; into an &dquo;outer
worldly asceticism&dquo; directed towards political change, stems from the
self-understanding of the intelligentsia. This self-understanding
manifests itself in two ways; on the one hand (as we have just
suggested), as an action and worldly centred ascetic, and on the other,
in a profoundly ambivalent attitude towards modernity and towards
the appropriation of its western philosophical heritage. Waiicki, to
take the latter point first, has indicated that the populist consciousness
had to
reconcile the welfare of the people which demanded a stop to the
process of westernisation, with the welfare of the intelligentsia, which
was a product of westernisation, and vitaity interested in its future
progrcss.~3
 139

In other words, while the intelligentsia (and in particular Tkachev)

views modernization, or s c~lly its capitalizing and ind~stri~i~in~
imaginaries, as an inherently disruptive pr its analysis and critique
of them is derived from the categories of western Enlightenment
thought, even if this is mediated by controversies concerning the
uniqueness of slavophile culture However, these categories
themselves stem from the ethical and epistemological crises of the
Enlightenment, that is from the Enlightenments own emphatic
reinterpretation of Reason and the homo cogito in terms of
instrumental rationality. The crisis in this context is evidenced either
through an extension of instrumental reason to all spheres of life,
including the world of ethics and norms, or by attempts to insulate
ethics from it and restate or reclaim them in terms of virtue
(Rousseau).~ In Tkachev these two come together and signal a now
systematized held of interpretation. The philosophical rendition of the
project of Enlightenment results in an instrunqcn~li~ti&reg;n of social
action and culture when encapsulated within the politics of
intervention. This aspect is now informed by an ascetized virtue that
is rendered as a vocation, but a vocational existence; directed not ~.&reg;
the realm of the economy but to the realm of the state.
In the West, the utilization of a vocational purposive
rationalization and the ascetic transformation of the feudal life-world
was achieved (to follow Webers analysis) by the systc~~ti~ti&reg;n of
&dquo;this-worldly activity&dquo; which is manifested in the world of the economy
(that is, the capitalist transformation of economic life was mediated
and stabilized through the notion of &dquo;the ~lli~~&dquo; with its emphasis on
inner sanctity manifested through acting - labouring in the world). In
the Slavic world, where economic modernization as as assumed
systemic evolutionary threshold has already been rejected by the radical
intelligentsia, and where there was an absence of the mteirs subjectively
constituted humanism of the ~nt~c~~l tradition of practice reason
that posits freedom rather than equality as its core value (upon which
Marx not unproblematically builds), the vocational foundation for life
and its equalization manifests itself as a purposive strategic act,
through politics, particularly in view of the absolutist mime of the
Russian state. This means that the Jacobin polities ~~yhich chev
signifies, synthesizes for p~r~lPc1 currents within the historicity of
Russian radical consciousness. Firstly, it absorbs the understanding
that politics, rather than work should be tied to the worldly
140

ascetization of action; secondly it absorbs (and thus re-esiabbshes) the

Cultural and cognitive model upon which the negative evaluation of
znode8&dquo;nity is made. Thirdly, it inCUik4ktes, as pat! of its political
sodaiizatioa, the perceived political meff&oelig;tiven~ ~~ the ~~pi~it~
social actors themselves, and lastly 11 accepts a consistent a*xsmeni
of the s~t~ ~ the absolute and homogeneous representative of a
totalized society.
Tkachev expbciiiy plays th these four tendencies, of what has
termed the redemptive paradigm, under one logic which brings
the idea and existence of the vocational ascetic revo!utkm2Ky in contact
with ihe powerful and vulnerable state~. For ~i~~ the vocatio1!1al
intelligentsia turned revolutionaries KS the only which is capable
of social transformation.46 The real fulcifum for ~ver-ihrov4~g the
exisiing social order lies with the revolutionaries themselves. The
negative critique of history is p21raHeled by an equally negative critique
of its actors. Tkachevs anthropology now shows its full Jacobin
coloration.
In -rendering the ~~~~ia~ ~~~~b~~~~n generic subject as a
cognitive monad, Chernyshevsky had trapped the &dquo;anthropological
pr~~~~pi~9g of social change within the problematic of indvidual
consciousness, rather than within one which may have mncerned the
learning capabilities of social movements or classes. This happened
despite efforts during the seventics (especially by Lavrov)47 to alter the
direction and logic of Chemyshevskys championing of ~he &dquo;new
people&dquo;. Chernyshevskys indllvid~liZ2!1tkm. of tric Hegelian subject
thus renders the notion of class problematic, or in ~~~~a~~9~ terms,
unworkable. The notion of the new man or ~~~~~&dquo; means that the
addr~s&oelig; no acts in its ovm right: the class of interest to the
political actor becomes a passive object, suijeci to real and theoretical
strategic manipulation and insUuxnen1alization~
While there is an almost mythic faith in the potential of the

~~~~~~~~~ the institutionalized imaginary for socialism~ there is no

such recognition of the actors who either make up the ~~~~~~~ itsel(
or constitute modern Russian society outside the obschina. This
disregard is located at the junction of strategic rationality and a
rationalization of aii evoiMdoaist-Jacobm worldview in that there is a
&dquo;profound lack of faith in tiae possibility of the exploited masses
freeing themselves and starting an egalitarian revolution&dquo;.8 Under the
 141

weight of this worldview two perspectives join hands: not only does
the revolutionary elite have a civilizing mission which brings the
revolution to fruition and in~pefls action by those for whom it was
intended, but it also illuminates the elite9s uniqueness as a product of
its own cultural heritage, as raznochintsy. In other words, it is from
the raznochinnaia intelligentsia that the revolutionary minority is
drawn.49 There is no way to rescue the r, the peasantry and the
working class from their plight, no way to ~~lig~t~~ them, no way to
transform them into r~fin~ and moral beings motivated by an ethical
consciousness, except by a radical social upheaval. This is achieved by
their self-imputed agents, the revolutionaries. The addressees, then,
become the real dispossessed: dispossessed of a material existence and
of a political consciousness.

Moreover, this revolution of dispossession by the ascetic

revolutionaries is achieved, not by detotalizing the state structures and
institutions, but by utilizing them. The rationalization of an ascetic
foirn - the new cultural formation - is now tied to an tatist politics.
This means that the &dquo;purposive&dquo; rationalization of Jacobin politics,
together with its categorical imperative of equality is linked to the
institutional power of the state to guarantee the success of social,
transformation. ln Tkachevs case this stems directly from his negative
reading of Spencer and his assessment of the idiosyncratic Russian
situation in which the idealized obschina is under threat and central
to his postrevolutionary image of society.

For Tkschev power is taken over and utilized by the revolutionary

minority in a party form5 to direct and discipline the revolution for
the majority. This direction and control is tied to the institutional
presence of the State into which are fused and c.~n&oelig;ntrated the
intellectual, moral, ethical and material forces of society. Hence, the
political task is simple: the seizure of political power as a prologue
to the social revolution. For Tkachev, then,

the immediate, direct aim of the revolution must consist in nothing

else but acquiring governmental power and transfbrmmg the present
conservative state into a revolutionary state,51

However, the seizure of power is not the ultimate aim of the

revolution. The overthrow of the State cannot, in Tkacnevs view, be
considered to constitute the revolution in itself, rather it &dquo;is only [the
revolutions] prelude&dquo;.52 In other words, the revolution takes place in
142

two phases; the first is when the State is utilized as a coercive power
in which its essence is struggle and force, and where it combines
centralization, strict discipline, s, decisiveness and unity in
action.so 53
The ~e~l work of the revolution takes place afterwards in what
its is constituted through the revolutionary elite or party itself
esseJi1&oelig;
identifying and definhlg ~~~~ interests and ideals of the ywOple,54 It can
then impose these conscious aspirations and interesls on the
unconscious majority. Giving a direct and unequivocal answer to the
question which is raised at the o~d of the 1860s (and which links this
type of populism to the Jacobin consciousness of the French
revolutionary tradition) - the question concerning the possibility that
after a successful change of state power the people might still be
incapable of recognizing their true interests Tkachev declares that,
-

if necessary, the majority must be compelled against its will to change

its life, and to take over and embrace the imputed and universal
consciousness. For this reason alone the revolutionary state cannot
relinquish its coercive power, even once the initial phase is complete.
In other words, in holding state power as both authority and force; the
party subsumes its traditional, basis for legitimation. This shifts the
moral definition of virtue from philosophical justification to statist
command, which essentially doses a possible space between the
ideological !egiHmatioJ!1 of state apparatuses, the reasoned j;2stification
for their use (and an oppositional critique), and the cultural definition
of the social actors themselves. The negative anthropology which we
have already witnessed is now given total statist legitimacy. The &dquo;poor
and stupid people&dquo;,&dquo; are, in Tkachevs eyes, unablc to shift from the
trap of history, ensnared as they are in their traditional way of life.
His Jacobinism, as one unity between anthropology and politics, now
takes full flight:
In its reforming activities the revolutionary minority should not count
on the active support of the people. The latters revolutionary roh
will come to an end the moment they demolish the institutions that
directly oppress them, and destroy the tyrants who directly exploit
them ...

But the revolutionary minority must be able also to continue its work
of revolutionary destruction in those spheres where it can hardly
reckon on the genuine support and assistance of the popular majority.
That is why it must possess might, power and authority. And the
 143

greater this might, the firmerand more energetic this power, the
fnller and more comprebensive the implementation of the ideas of
the revolution, the easier it will ~ to id a conflicts with the
conservative elements of the le.
In short, the relationship of the revolutionary ority to the people,
and the part played by the latter in the revolution, can be defined as
follows. the revolutionary minority, having liberated the people from
the grip of fear and terror of the authorities, provide them with the
opportunity for demonstrating their destructive revolutionary force.
Basing itself upon this force, skilfully guiding it towards the
destruction of the immediate enemies of the revolution, the minority
thereby demolishes the enemys entrenched strongholds and deprives
it of the means of resistance and counteraction. Then, utilizing its
power and its authority, the minority introduces new, progressive-
communistic elements into the peoples life; it will shift the peoples
life off its age-old foundations, and rejuvenate its osified and
shrivelled forms ...

The people can never save thent1selves. Neither in the present nor
in the future could the people, left to themselves; carry out the social
revolution. Only we, the revolutionary movement, can do this - and
we must do it as soon as possible. 56
Thus, the acquisition of statue power does not constitute the social
revolution itself, merely its begiaaisg. It is an action which makes
possible the injection of new, supposdly rational principles into a
developmental logic of society, a logic cohering around the state form.
Moreover this social revolution not onl~p ultimately transforms all
existing social relations, but also changes &dquo;the very nature of man. ,57
The egalitarian project, the elimination of poverty, the raising of moral
ideals and education become effective when the ultilna ratio of the
party lies in the authority and power of the state. For Tkachev, then,
the problem of socialist transition (and in the Russian context, whether
the capitalist stage could be missed) resides in the potential of the
state to change hands, so to ~~~1~~ The problematic of practical
politics, of practical reason, then, is reduced to one of both strategic
and instrumental control over the state. Reforms can take place under
the auspices and juridical power of the state apparatuses, but only
when the party itself, on behalf of the people, becomes the state. The
as&oelig;ticized revolutionaries, in their conflation of the multi-
dimensionality of politics to etatism, and as self-proclaimed
representatives of the oppressed classes (especially after the failure of
144

the &dquo;go to the people campaign&dquo;), can now claim the ri to political
control and legitimate domination (in the ~e~ri~~ s~ ~9 the social
warrant, and (fello+4ng Baoouf) judicial ~D.CHOJloS8 The large mass of
the people, o&oelig; R1eedOO~ are now excl4~de-d from the r:evolution&ry
process which is denied to them9 as a fadical pedagogy embodying their
own self-management of the multiplicity of societal pr The .

people become too1s for an evolutionary tramition and once this is

achieved, they are relegated to the margins of a state.
They are dispossessed of consciousness and instrumentalized in history.
I~a~hev~s Jacobins (in the same &dquo;frozen&dquo; tradition of the
Jacobinist element in the French revolution) are people then, who
realize both the strategic kemel of populist co i&reg;us~~ and that it
can also be conducive to passivity. Leaders are important because they
are the only ones who understand power and its moral use. In
Tkachevs view they are incorruptible:
What are you frightened of? What right have you to think that this
minority - partiy through its social position, partly through its ideas,
and totally devoted to the peoples interests - by taking power into
its hands will suddenly change itself into a tyrant? You say: Any
power corrupts men. But on what do you base such a strange idea?
On the examples of history? Read biogeaphies and you will be
...

convinced of the contrary. Robespierre, a member of the

Convention, the omnipotent ruler of the destiny of France, and
Robespierre an unknown provincial lawyer, are the same - the
identical person. Power made not the slightest diff~rencc to his
moral character or to his ideals and tendencies, or to his private
habits. 59
This continual reference to the French revolution is deliberate. It
signifies the acceptance and complete identification with its Jacobin
phase - a phase which was to become the reference point for a variety
of socialist thought which is still being played out in the 20th century.

It is appropriate then that, given chevs strident arguments

against him, Lavrov (whom Szamuely calls the tragedy of the Russian
revolution, although I think Martov a better candidate for this mantle)
have the final say in words that sound their own poignant tocsin, an
echo heralding a history in the making:
Some might think it best to use the customary methods of the old
society: to draw up a code of socialist laws with an appropriate
 145

section &dquo;On Punishments&dquo;; to select frotri among the most reliable

persons (in the main, naturally, from members of the social,
revolutionary union) a &dquo;public security&dquo; commission for the
dispensation of justice and retribution; to organise a communal and
territorial police corps of detectives to sniff out law-breaking and of
guardians of propriety to look after &dquo;order&dquo;; to place &dquo;evidently&dquo;
dangerous people under socialist police surveillance; to establish the
requisite number of prisons, and probably of gallows, together with
a corresponding assortment of socialist gaolers and executioners; and,
then, to implement scx~ast legal justice, set into motion this whole
rejuvenated machine of the old order in the name of the principles
of workers socialisrn 6

NOTES
1. See C. Taylor, Hegel (London, Cambridge University Press, 1975), esp. pp.
3-11; also J. Rundell, Origins of Modernity (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1987),
pp. 1-13.
2. K. Marx, "Private Property and Communism", Early Writings (London,
Penguin, 1981), esp. pp. 345-348. The value-idea of freedom which is
located in these works also provides the orientation for his later analyses
of the Crimean War and the Russian State. See The Eastern Question: A
Reprint of Letters Written 1853-1856 Dealing with Events of the Crimean
War, ed. Eleanor Marx Aveling and Edward Aveling (London, Frank Cass
& Co. Ltd, 1969), esp. pp. 29, 78, 80-81, 356, 452, 482-491, 525; "Secret
Diplomatic History of the Century", The Unknown Marx, ed. Robert Payne
(New York, New York University Press, 1972).
3. See, Franco Venturi, The Roots of Revolution, ch. 18, pp. 469-506; Tbor
Szamuely, The Russian Tradition, ch. 15, pp. 272-282; Andrej Walicki, The
Controversy Over Capitalism, pp. 88-107 and A History of Russian Thought,
ch. 12, pp. 223-267; D. Hardy, "Consciousness and Spontaneity, 1875: The
Peasant Revolution as seen by Tkachev, Lacrov, and Bakunin", Canadian
Slavic Studies IV (1970), pp. 699-720; A Besan&ccedil;on, The Intellectual Origins
of Leninism, chs 8-9, pp. 127-169.
4. Venturi, p. 503.
5. This also refers to the Aristotelian undercurrent in Marx, see C.
Castoriadis, "Value, Equality, Justice, Politics: From Marx to Aristotle and
Aristotle to Ourselves", Crossroads in the Labyrinth, trans. Kate Soper and
Martin H. Ryle (Sussex, The Harvester Press, 1984), pp. 260-339.
6. Venturi, p. 391.
7. Szamuely, p. 287.
8. The hatred of western democratic forms and conflation to an epi-
phenomenon of their bourgeois capitalistic life is not unknown in the
Russian revolutionary tradition. This tendency, in fact is cemented in the
146

Russian Jacobin consciousness from Tkachev onwards. See Venturi, p.

138ff.
9. Tkachev; quoted in Walicki, History of Russian Thought, p. 247.
10. Tkachev, in Venturi, p. 399.
11. Tkachev, in Walicki, History, pp. 247-248.
12. Tkachev, in Hardy, Critic
, op. cit., p. 81.
13. We certainly know from Deborah Hardys study that Tkachev read
Spencers first volume of The Principles of Biology (1864). It is with some
conjecture that we assert that he had more than a mere familiarity with the
logic of Spencers position, or knew the second volume (published in 1867)
from a first hand reading. Yet given the similarity between it and his own
position, this seems likely. Tkachevs prison reading of Spencer reflects his
attraction to positivism. He feels compelled to support Spencers
contention that:
the hypothesis of evolution has direct support from facts which, though
...

small in amount, are of the kind required; and the ratio which these
facts bear to the generalisation based on them, seems as great as is the
ratio between facts and generalisation, which in another case, produces
conviction. (Herbert Spencer, Principles of Biology, Vol. 1, p. 437)
Tkachev himself adds to this
that the laws of reproduction to which all living organisms have been
subject, beginning from the first vesicle to the multicelled tree, from the
rhizopod to the highest species of mammal, must also be the laws of
human reproduction - this the most desperate and even the most
ignorant spiritualist could hardly doubt. (Tkachev in Hardy, Critic, p.
171)
Importantly, though, Tkachevs attachment to Spencer remains positivistic
in a methodological sense only. Earlier, during his association with
Cause
(1967) Tkachev had attacked Comtean positivism, particularly as a social
theory.
14. Spencer, Principles, Vol. I, pp. 77-80.
15. Herbert Spencer, "Progress: Its Law and Course" in Herbert Spencer on
Social Evolution, ed. J.D.Y. Peel (Chicago, University of Chicago Press,
1972), pp. 45-46; ibid., chs 15 and 16, pp. 142-166; and Herbert Spencer
:
Structure, Function and Evolution, ed. Andreski, part 3 (esp. pp. 142-147)
(London, Michael Joseph, 1971).
16. Spencer, in Andreski, pp. 138-140.
, Vol. II, esp. part VI, chs 9-13.
17. See Spencer, Principles
18. ibid., p. 531.
19. Spencer, in Peel (ed.), p. 37.
20. Tkachev, in Hardy, Critic, p. 174.
21. Tkachev, ibid., pp. 172-173.
22. Tkachev, ibid., pp. 174.
23. According to Hardy and Besan&ccedil;on, Tkachev was probably the first Russian
to mention Marx (in 1865), and even paraphrased the base-superstructure
 147

model which Marx put forward in the 1859 "Preface" to A Contribution to

the Critique of Political Economy.
All legal and political phenomena represent no more than direct legal
consequences of the phenomena of economic life; this legal and political
life is, so to speak, only a mirror in which the economic life of a people
is reflected ... This idea is not new, and, like everything else that is
inherently worthwhile, it has been transplanted into our literature from
the literature of Western Europe. As early as 1859, the renowned
German exile Karl Marx had formulated it in the most precise and
definite way. (Tkachev quoted in Theen, "The Political Thought of P.N.
Tkachev in the 1860s: From Reform to Revolution", Canadian Slavic
Studies III, 21 (Summer 1969), p. 213.)
However, as alreadynoted the materialism which Tkachev uses is reliant
upon the Chernyskevskian reception of Helvetius and Feuerbach,
redirecting the anthropological emphasis away from the historical
systematization of social relations to psychological motivations.
In this sense, we differ from Venturi (pp. 395-398), Besan&ccedil;on (pp. 154-
155) and Walicki ( History of Russian Thought
, pp. 249-250) who tend to
overstate the relation of Tkachev to Marx. Rather, it is Spencer, together
with the Jacobin interpretation of equality, who provides the framework
for an assimilation. See Hardy, Critic as Jacobin, pp. 42-43 and pp. 156-
181, and her "Tkachev and the Marxists", Slavic Review 29 (1970), esp. pp.
22-28.
24. Tkachev, ibid., p. 160.
25. ibid., p. 161.
26. This term is used by Feh&eacute;r, Heller and Markus in their book The
Dictatorship Over Needs, op. cit., to capture the nature of Soviet-type
societies. As they point out, this form of dictatorship has its antecedents
in the tradition of Babeuvist "crude communism".
27. Tkachev in Hardy, Critic, p. 175. Hardys assessment of Tkachevs debt to
Spencer is short and to the point: "At any rate Tkachev swallowed much
of Spencers argument and adopted many of Spencers analogies. The
English dilettante biologist earned from Tkachev a degree of admiration
the young Russian seldom expressed for anyone" (p. 176).
28. ibid., p. 240.
29. Tkachev, in Venturi, p. 424.
30. Szamuely, p. 296.
31. See Engels, "On Social Relations in Russia" in The Marx-Engels Reader,
ed. R.C. Tucker (New York, Norton and Co., 1972), pp. 289-299.
Tkachevs essays on the Peasants Wars in Germany provide Tkachev
with a theoretical-historical avenue to draw evolutionary parallels between
16th century Germany (where it is fell that a capitalist take-off was just
beginning) and 19th century Russia. Russias qualitative difference with
Europe, then, is precisely due to its quantitative difference in the
evolutionary path; it is
148

because of her economic underdevelopment and backward-ness that

nineteenth century Russia, like sixteenth century Germany [is] in a
position to make an "historical leap", to proceed directly to socialism
without first going through the capitalist stage of development. (p. 650)
See also Tkachev, in Venturi, p. 412.
32. Szamuely, p. 296.
33. Tkachev, in Venturi, p. 412.
34. ibid.
35. Hardy, ibid., p. 167.
36. See, Szamuely, pp. 290-292 and discussion below.
37. , p. 141.
Walicki, Controversy
38. , p. 90. Theen argues that Thachev initially
Tkachev, in Hardy, Critic
developed theory of "historical leaps" in a series of essays on the Peasants
War in Germany (1524-1526). These essays, published in 1867-1868 are,
according to Theen, Tkachevs most original and significant achievement in
the 1860s. The theory of "historical leaps" is an outgrowth of his concept
of effective social change, which he had developed in 1365 in an essay on
the history of rationalism. (See Theen, "Seizure of Political Power as the
Prologue to Social Revolution", Canadian Slavic Studies IV, 4 (Winter
1970), pp. 679-680; and Venturi, op. cit., pp. 393-397.
39. Tkachev, in Hardy, pp. 100, 91.
40. ibid., p. 120. Tkachev wrote an essay in 1868 entitled "Men of the Future
and the Heroes of theMeschanstvo (petty bourgeoisie)". See Hardy, pp.
120-124 and Venturi, pp. 408-411.
41. Tkachev, in Hardy, Critic, p. 122.
42. ibid., p. 120.
43. A. Walicki, History of Russian Thought, p. 249.
44. A. Walicki, The Slavophile Controversy (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1975).
45. The aspect of virtue is the Rousseauist contribution to Jac&ograve;binism. See
Rousseau, The Social Contract. This is the contribution that Hegel
recognizes and criticizes in both The Phenomenology ("the law of the heart
and the frenzy of self-conceit" and "Absolute freedom and terror"), and
The Philosophy , of Right pp. 138-140.
46. By the time Tkachev is writing in The Tocsin in late 1874 the results of the
"go to the people movement" are already known. Tkachev now feels that
his view has been vindicated: revolutionary movements can never spring
from "natural" groups through a "natural" evolution of needs and
pedagogical self-enlightenment. Rather, the revolutionary movement should
concentrate on three propositions: leadership, organization and timing. To
present, then, a coherent and overall understanding of Tkachevs Jacobin-
redemptive politics, his argument for these three propositions which are
directed against Lavrov will be supplemented from both pre- and post-
1874 material.
47. See Szamuely, pp. 307-313.
 149

48. Venturi, p. 405. Tkachev states that "taken as whole the masses do not
and cannot believe in their own strength, They will never on their own
initiative begin to fight against the misery that surrounds them".
49. Tkachev, in Hardy, p. 122.
50. Now that the vocational revolutionaries have been freed from the crisis
problematic of the addressee, they can concentrate on their task of social
transformation - the political revolution. In this respect, the notion of the
party as a central problematic is wrenched the dream-work of
Nechaev into Tkachevs own reality (see Nechaevs Revolutionary Catechism,
discussed in Venturi, pp. 418-419).
For Tkachev, the party organization is important because it unifies all
diverse endeavours into a common disciplined and orderly whole which has
control over political knowledge, discourse and practice by conducting three
types of activity - organization, propaganda and agitation. Writing in The
Tocsin in 1878 he states that its pragmatic strength lies in centralizing all
the revolutionary struggles in such a way as to maintain, sanction and
enhance the vocational asceticism of its members, as well as protecting
them from the police measures of the State (see Tkachev, in Venturi, p.
428; Hardy, Critic, p. 266).
Politics now resides under the control of a common leadership which
is based on the centralization of power and functions including the
discursive. In this way Tkachev argues explicitly against both the Lavrovian
and Bakuninist strains of the revolutionary movement. Any plan to create
a movement based on a federation of independent groups could never
constitute an effective weapon as they would be incapable of speedy and
decisive action. Moreover, this organizational form opens the way for
internal dissension through mutual discussion (which would have to at least
nominally concede the structural and notional existence of a public sphere),
to doubts and compromise.
Tkachevs view of the partys organizational structure and raison d&eacute;tre
links directly with his negative reading of Spencer and his assessment of the
idiosyncratic Russian situation in which the idealized
obschina is under
threat and central as the post-revolutionary social institution. The time,
according to Tkachev, is fast approaching when the opportunity for an
"historical leap" will be missed. While the infrastructure of the obschina
remains there is still a chance for socialist transition, but capitalism is
already destroying this unique communalism. As the economy grows
stronger, transforming agrarian social relations into capitalistic ones, these
relations will become entrenched and impossible to shift. Only a centralized
disciplined party peopled by the "new ascetics" can fully comprehend the
situation, grasp the mettle and "leap" (see Tkachev, in Venturi, p. 412; in
Hardy, Critic, p. 252; and Szamuely, p. 301).
51. ibid., p. 255. Tkachevs introduction to Bechers The Worker Question in
the Contemporary Significance and the Methods for Solving It (1869) can be
150

seen as an earlier expression of this position. For Tkachev, Bechers work

provides a useful adjunct to the problematic of the progression of Russian
history. Becher, in broaching the critique of capitalism situates the problem
within the capital wage-labour nexus, i.e. the use of labour-power and its
control by the bourgeois class. In Tkachevs view, though, the important
point of the work (and his disagreement with Becher and Lassalle) is the
political resolution of a system of exploitation. (In Lassallean terms it is
the development of workers co-operatives as a practical solution to the
problematic of a socialist transition.) He cannot agree with Bechers view
that the state can function as an organ for workers appeal and aid, and
not only function instrumentally as the political arm of the economic
oppressor. Rather (and learning the lesson from Marxs 1859 Preface), the
state is dependent on economic relations and those determine its essential
nature and the aims of its activities. The class which dominates in the
political sphere. For him to separate the two is a magical or hermeneutical
circle which renders political action impotent. "Political rule, as Becher very
correctly shows, taking exception to Lassalle, is possible oniy under
conditions of economic independence; slaves in the economic sphere remain
slaves in the political sphere ... Can the workers acquire economic power
without having political power?" (Tkachev, in Hardy, p. 99). We can also
see that in his assessment of capitalism and the socialist transition, his
Spencerian interest in social integration coupled with his analysis of the
State, does not sit uneasily with the image of the functionalism of the base-
superstructure, an image inherited, to be sure, from Tkachevs reading of
Marxs "Preface" to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy.
The following shows such a usage: "The historical experience of Western
Europe shows us that with the influence of the progressive dismemberment,
the progressive differentiation and integration of the factors of economic
production, social consciousness [and] social thought also disintegrate,
...

also become differentiated and integrated into two [or] three separate
directions [and that] each direction [of social thought] is always based
strictly on that economic factor, the interests of which it embodies"
(Tkachev, in Hardy, p. 244). Tkachev, in his usage of Spencer and Marx
sets the scene (so to speak) for a transition to the Engelsian version of
historical materialism, which is "russified" in Plekhanov and "politicized"
in Lenin (see also footnote 34).
52. Tkachev, in Hardy, Critic, p. 255.
53. See Hardy, ibid. and Venturi, p. 419. Venturis translation more clearly
brings forward the moral maxim for action which is based in an imputed
universalism.
The programmatic principles are:
1. The gradual transformation of the existing peasant obschina -
founded on the basis of private property limited in time - into a
 151

,founded on the principle of the collective use of

communal obschina
means of production and collective and communal work.
2. Gradual expropriation of means of production in private hands and
their handing over to common use.
3. The gradual introduction of those social institutions required to
abolish the need for any intermediary in the exchange of produce, and
to substitute for the principle of bourgeois justice - an eye for an eye,
a tooth for a tooth, service for service - the principle of love and
brotherly solidarity.
4. The gradual abolition of physical, intellectual and moral inequality
among men, by means of a compulsory system of social education,
equal for all and inspired by the spirit of love, equality and fraternity.
5. The gradual abolition of the existing family which was based on the
submission of the women, the slavery of the child and the egotistic
whim of the man.
6. The development of collective self-administration and the gradual
weakening and disappearance of the central functions of the State.
(See Venturi, p. 420.)
54. Tkachev, in Hardy, Critic, p. 112.
55. Tkachev, in Szamuely, p. 305.
56. Tkachev, in Theen, "Seizure of Political Power", p. 683.
57. In one important sense, though, Tkachev remains a populist and not a
Blanquist, as Venturi and Hardy suggest. His assessment of the failure of
the "go to the people campaign" was exactly this: "revolution cannot be
carried out without the people". To be sure, Szamuely says,
the concept of minority leadership was, indeed, at the very heart of
Tkachevs theory of revolution. But his approach was very different
from that of Blanqui: he spoke not of minority revolt but of a revolution
led by a minority A revolution from above, he explained, could be
...

called anti-popular only if the minority represented the interests of the

bourgeoisie; when, as in their own case, the minority stood for the
people that was an entirely different matter! (Szamuely, p. 303)
...

In other words, whilst the revolution is led by the minority, it represents

universalistic claims for social justice, and in this sense not only brings the
revolution to the people, but also the people themselves actively engage in
the (initial) revolutional process.
The above distinction is important because of the Leninist self-
understanding. While the revolutionary form may be Jacobinist (inherited
from the Tkachevian impulse) it is a populist movement and not a
conspiratorial one.
58. See F. Feh&eacute;r, The Frozen Revolution (CUP, 1988).
59. Szamuely, pp. 306-312.
60. Lavrov, in Szamuely, p. 311.