N. A. Berdyaev "The origins and meaning of Russian communism": summary, analysis, reviews

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev (1874-1948) is an outstanding representative of the Russian intelligentsia in exile. The philosopher devoted his whole life to the study of the psychology of the Russian people. Berdyaev studied and described various spheres of political, spiritual and everyday activities of the people of Russia, a number of general patterns were derived that are inherent in any type of totalitarian power both on the territory of Russia and in any other country.

N. A. Berdyaev

Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev was born on March 6, 1874 in the Kyiv province of the Russian Empire, on the personal estate of his father Alexander Mikhailovich, who belonged to an old noble family.

Nikolay received an excellent primary education at home and entered the Kyiv Cadet Corps without exams. Teachers noted the amazing craving of the future philosopher for the humanities andphenomenal learning ability. The rector of the corps advised Nikolai's parents to enroll their son in the university. At the age of thirteen, Nikolai passed the entrance exams and became a student of the natural faculty of Kyiv University.

Very soon, Nikolai Berdyaev became a staunch supporter of the philosophy of Marxism, for which he was expelled from the university in 1897. Two years later, Nikolai's first article was published, dedicated to F. A. Lange and his views on the critical philosophy of attitude towards socialism.

Philosophical concept

Berdyaev believed that his worldview lies in the usual philosophy of the spirit, which is freedom and unlimited creative experience. According to the philosopher, the superiority of freedom over everyday life is the manifestation of the human spirit.

Being in exile, Berdyaev more deeply analyzed the provisions of the philosophy of Marxism and realized that he was closer to the theological understanding of reality. This awakened in Nicholas a keen interest in religious existentialism and spiritual personalism.

Based on the provisions of theology about the freedom of the spirit, Berdyaev creates his own philosophical concept of the worldview, which he will later present in the treatise "Philosophy of Freedom", published in Germany with the philosopher's own savings.

Attitude towards communism

Throughout his life, Berdyaev adhered to an ambivalent attitude towards communism. In his mind, there was "original communism" and "Russian communism". Both of these concepts differed significantly from each other.

"Communismprimordial" is the theory of Marx and Engels unchanged. And "Russian communism" - the interpretation of their theories, taking into account national characteristics.

At first, Berdyaev was close to "original communism", but later the philosopher realized that his comrades-in-arms in the struggle consider "Russian communism" a cause worthy of struggle. And he rethought his political position, beginning to adhere to the theological worldview.

Berdyaev believed that the ideology of communism was only a test of the spirit for the Russian people, who could not stand it. Communism did not lead to anything, and eventually became one of the reasons for the collapse of the USSR. And Berdyaev assumed this, considering the civil war and the split of society as a clear prerequisite for the degradation of the political structure of the country.

Nikolai Alexandrovich understood that communism was widely spread on the territory of the Russian Empire precisely because of its dual nature and "the dual beginning of the Russian soul." Initially, the people saw only the positive aspects of this ideology for the sake of their own desires, trying not to notice the possible negative consequences.

In the end, only a small part of the positive aspects of the ideology of communism manifested itself in reality, in contrast to the negative ones, which affected the people in full.

Writing a book

Berdyaev's book "The Origins and Meaning of Russian Communism" was conceived by the philosopher in 1933 during his stay in Germany after communism in Russia had come to its logical conclusion in the first stage. The revolution did not bring the people anypositive results, rather, on the contrary, plunged the population into the abyss of poverty and hostility.

Nikolai Alexandrovich was well aware that most of the people who demanded a revolution in 1917 understood its future consequences. Reflections on this topic contributed to a grandiose plan to describe the history, causes and preconditions of the revolution in Russia.

Summary of "The Origins and Meaning of Russian Communism"

This monumental work by Berdyaev is a generalizing treatise for his entire philosophy. The book can be called a kind of conclusion to all the works and researches of the writer. Nikolai Alexandrovich himself considered The Origins and Meaning of Russian Communism to be the notes of "a man who has made many mistakes and is trying to correct these mistakes."

This philosophy of Berdyaev was dictated primarily by the understanding of the reasons for his own mistake, which he made, supporting the ideology of revolutionary Marxism in his youth. Through the prism of his own vision, the philosopher is trying to understand what exactly prompted such a huge mass of people to oppose the ruling power in support of a relatively small number of Bolsheviks.

Berdyaev comes to the conclusion that the revolution could not have been an accidental or spontaneous phenomenon in the life of the Russian people, but was, in essence, an outburst of emotions and anger accumulated as a result of centuries of injustice.

Slavophilism and Westernism

N. A. Berdyaev believed that the duality of the Russian soul is the rootall the evils in the Russian man. In one of the chapters of the book, the author gives an exhaustive answer to the question about the origin of the reasons for the revolution of 1917.

Analysis of "The Origins and Meaning of Russian Communism" gives every reason to assume that this reason is the division of the thinking people of Russia into Slavophiles and Westernizers, while "the natural spiritual state of a Russian person is something in between these two directions."

The Russian intelligentsia has always been not a professional, but an ideological association with its own specific goals.

Russians tend to perceive everything in a totalitarian way, they are alien to the skeptical criticism of Western people. This is a shortcoming, but it is also a virtue and points to the religious integrity of the Russian soul. The Russian radical intelligentsia developed an idolatrous attitude towards science itself. When a Russian intellectual became a Darwinist, Darwinism was for him not a biological theory to be disputed, but a dogma… San-Simonism, Fourierism, Hegelianism, materialism, Marxism, Marxism in particular were experienced in a totalitarian and dogmatic way by the Russian intelligentsia.

Russian socialism

The Origins and Meaning of Russian Communism summarizes Berdyaev's main theses concerning his views on Russian nihilism and domestic socialism.

The scientist in his writings believes that the emergence of the philosophy of nihilism in Russia is largely due to the concept of Russian Orthodoxy. Her royal power was not considered as a separate religious philosophy, built on the authority of the power of the spiritualpolitical power.”

"Non-separation of the power of the church and the power of the government" served as a serious impetus to the formation of an "ideology of hatred" in the narrow circles of the domestic intelligentsia. Later, the same views will result in the ideology of Russian socialism, the basis of which will be “the idea of freedom from any philosophy, concept or religion.”

The development of nihilism culminated in anarchism, which is "the unbridled passion and hatred of the people for everything that has held them back for centuries."

In Berdyaev's book "The Origins and Meaning of Russian Communism", the transition from the philosophy of anarchism directly to the very "cause of revolution" is considered. This transition was a natural reaction to the "blindness and deafness of the ruling power." Berdyaev believed that the upper strata of society should pay attention in time to the problems of the lower strata and help them solve them. Then the lower strata simply would not have had any reason to rebel and, moreover, to conduct a large-scale ideological revolution.

Marxism

Based on Berdyaev's quotes from The Origins and Meaning of Russian Communism, we can conclude that the revolution of 1917 was of a completely unique character, as it was an unconscious expression of the will of the people. People were not aware of their actions. The revolution was "a grandiose hurricane of emotions not thrown out in time, unjustified hopes mixed with expectations inflated by propaganda", which prompted the Russian people to the greatest in the history of mankindriot.

Totalitarian regimes of government in Russia have been extremely different in terms of the degree of cruelty for all periods of the development of the country's statehood.

The philosopher notes that:

The old Russian monarchy rested on an orthodox worldview, required agreement with it. The new Russian communist state also rests on an orthodox worldview and demands, with even greater compulsion, agreement with it. The sacred realm is always a dictatorship of the worldview, it always demands orthodoxy, it always spews out heretics. Totalitarianism, the demand for the integrity of faith as the basis of the kingdom, corresponds to the deep religious instincts of the people. The Soviet communist state has a great similarity in its spiritual structure with the Moscow Orthodox kingdom. It has the same suffocation.

Criticism

Berdyaev's works were constantly criticized by the Soviet authorities and were banned for printing and distribution. The Soviet press portrayed the philosopher as an "evil slanderer" who "could not get along in the socialist homeland and vilely slanders its political system" from abroad.

Reviews on "The Origins and Meaning of Russian Communism" from Soviet literary critics were mostly negative. The Soviet government was outraged by the fact that the philosopher not only allows himself to compare the tsarist regime and Soviet power in any context. But he gives every reason to believe that the Power of the Soviets has all the shortcomings of the previous dictatorships, since it is totalitarian in its essence.

Despite the fact that Berdyaev generally gave a positive assessment of the actions of I. V. Stalin, who was able to raise the country out of ruin, significantly increase the percentage of economic growth and organize the fight against organized crime, Soviet criticism still considered his treatises unacceptable for reading by Soviet citizens, since the philosopher put the national Russian self-consciousness above the concept of the international proletariat.

"The Origins and Meaning of Russian Communism" is not only a full-fledged historical study of most state power schemes in Russia, but also a warning treatise saying that it is inadmissible to plant a totalitarian regime in the country, since each of such regimes was overthrown.

Publishing abroad

The first edition of The Origins and Meaning of Russian Communism was published in Paris in 1955. Berdyaev was forced to publish the book in French in a very abridged version. Initially, the book was written for a Russian reader, so the philosopher considered some of its fragments inappropriate, and they were removed from the French edition.

Following the French English edition of the book was the most complete version of the treatise, also published with some changes.

The philosopher was upset by the fact that foreign publishers cannot fully realize the importance of his work for Russian and Soviet readers. And they may also find some parts of his book offensive to people in Europe, in particular England, France and Germany.

Russian Edition

At homephilosopher, the book unofficially appeared only in the mid-60s and was an abridged French edition of 1955 in Russian. Officially, the capital's publishing houses released the first copies of the book in 1989, and in a very small edition, which was instantly sold out by the Soviet intelligentsia.

The popularity of the book "The Origins and Meaning of Russian Communism" came at the end of the 90s, when any materials that criticized the communist ideology in one way or another were in demand by the people.

The ideas and philosophical views of Berdyaev were used by many scientists of that time, who actively criticized the Soviet state system and wrote their own monographs on similar topics.