Autochthonous and Practical Liberals: Vestnik Evropy and Modernization in Late Imperial Russia
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
AUTOCHTHONOUS AND PRACTICAL LIBERALS: VESTNIK EVROPY AND MODERNIZATION IN LATE IMPERIAL RUSSIA A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In History By Anton A. Fedyashin, M.A. Washington, DC August 27, 2007 Copyright 2007 by Anton A. Fedyashin All Rights Reserved ii AUTOCHTHONOUS AND PRACTICAL LIBERALS: VESTNIK EVROPY AND MODERNIZATION IN LATE IMPERIAL RUSSIA Anton A. Fedyashin, M.A. Thesis Advisor: Catherine Evtuhov, Ph. D. ABSTRACT This study investigates a strain of liberal thought based on materials published in the thick journal Vestnik Evropy, which formed a unique synapse in the matrix of Russian social thought. The period under examination, 1892-1903, was a testing ground for liberal values as Finance Minister Sergey Witte forced industrialization on an agrarian society. With the Witte System as background, the Vestnik liberals articulated an alternative socio-economic development program to those of the Finance Ministry, the Marxists, and the populists. The dissertation also analyzes Vestnik Evropy as an institution with a unique interpretation of late imperial politics. The first part integrates the biographies of Vestnik’s main contributors—founder and chief editor Mikhail Stasiulevich, de facto council and domestic expert Konstantin Arseniev, historian and literary scholar Alexander Pypin, and foreign policy and economics specialist Leonid Slonimskii. The second part explores Vestnik’s conceptual affinity with populism, the evolution of its views on the agrarian crisis and the peasantry, and its eventual separation from populism. The second part also focuses on the articulation of an economic democracy beyond the commune through the extension of local self-government, or zemstvo, rights and responsibilities and the part they played in amortizing modernization’s effects. The third part examines Vestnik’s criticism of Marxist ideology, how the authors associated it with a justification of the late imperial modernization, and iii their articulation of a humane form of modernization and a new definition of a moral economy that evaluates modernization from its effects on the local level. The Vestnik group accepted capitalism as an inevitable global process and entertained no utopian schemes of avoiding it. On the contrary, it welcomed the productive improvements that it promised. However, the group also recognized the costs of a transition economy, but did not ascribe them to capitalism per se, choosing instead to target specific policies implemented by the Finance Ministry under Sergey Witte’s direction. In the process of arguing against Marxist and populist writers, the Vestnik group produced an eclectic system of values at whose center stood neither a mode of production, nor a class, neither the commune, nor homo economicus, but the enlightened individual drawing energy from institutions of local self-government, the zemstvos, which were a unique Russian administrative invention. The group thereby articulated a moral economy based on values that grew out of autochthonous socio-economic conditions. How the individual could define himself in the post-Emancipation socio- economic flux was the unique contribution that the Vestnik group made to the Russian liberal tradition. iv To my mother Irina and my wife Anita v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS No words can express my enormous debt of gratitude to Dr. Catherine Evtuhov whose intellectually stimulating courses on Russian Imperial history and philosophy were the breeding ground for this dissertation. Her guidance during the process of working out the ideas in this dissertation and articulating them was truly priceless as only an accomplished research scholar’s could be. Dr. Richard Stites’ close examination of the text, editorial suggestions, bibliographical knowledge, and incredible timeliness were indispensable. In addition, his intellectual company and predictable socio-geographic habits allowed me to make selfish use of his intellectual guidance. Dr. Evtuhov’s and Stites’ personal involvement in this project raised it from the level of a dissertation to a potential book. Dr. Harley Balzer’s ability to combine successfully in-depth knowledge of current Russian affairs with the country’s history was a guiding inspiration. My parents, Irina and Andrei, were, of course, at the sources of it all. They dissolved the Iron Curtain and allowed me to grow intellectually by exposing me to the best of what both sides of the Cold War world had to offer. To my mother, Irina, I owe my love of knowledge and passion for inquiry. From my father, Andrei, I inherited the joie de vivre that, I have come to realize in later years, is an essential component of serious intellectual persistence. My grandparents on both sides of the family created a warm and joyous childhood. I have read descriptions of it in the best Russian novels and memoirs. These acknowledgments (and this dissertation), however, would never have seen the light of day had it not been for my wife Anita. She inspired, cajoled, and sometimes even forced the speedy and successful completion of this project. By creating every vi imaginable material and intellectual condition for my work, she bore the greatest responsibility for its completion. In the process, she has become an intellectual companion and a co-traveler for life. I could not have been luckier. I owe the greatest debt to Ray and Chris Hanna for their financial and intellectual support that not only made possible my stay in this country, but also made this country feel like home in Washington, Annapolis, Boston, and, above all, the Shenandoah Valley. Regardless of what happened, I always knew that I could count on their love and support, which was an indispensable foundation and condition of success since 1993. Evan Jenkins unfortunately did not live to see the completion of this project, which he would have welcomed joyously. He was a very dear friend and intellectual companion who greatly extended my intellectual horizons, musical tastes, and sommelier experience. The project of writing a dissertation can be long and tedious. This one would have been no exception were it not for the delightful combination of intellect and good spirits at Martin’s Tavern. Dr. Peter Dunkley’s enormous range of historical knowledge and acquaintance with academia’s Olympian mechanisms proved invaluable. Dr. Klaus Westmeier’s philosophical musings, diplomatic attitude, globe-trekking experiences, and plain good sense were both inspiring and revitalizing. Dr. Amy Leonard’s academic advice, intelligence, and natural affability repeatedly reminded me that scholarship and teaching could be serious, rewarding, and immensely enjoyable. I would also like to thank the staffs of the European Reading Room at the Library of Congress, the Pushkin Archive in St. Petersburg, and the Lenin State Library in my native and beloved city of Moscow. vii As each intellectual product is the result of a person’s entire mental experience, the friends who have intellectually accompanied me and helped me develop also deserve mention here: Kirill Orekhov (Washington and Moscow); William Aaron, James Keidel, and Damon Kovelsky (Annapolis); Andrea Despot (Boston); and James Class and Brandon “Carlos” Schneider (Washington). Having written about a journal as an institution, perhaps the greatest lesson I have extracted from this dissertation is that I have never stood alone. All the people whom I have mentioned here have contributed greatly to my intellectual and spiritual development. No scholar stands alone. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction……………………………………………………………………………....1 Part I: The Genealogy of Vestnik Evropy....…………………………………………….19 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..19 Chapter 1. The Vestnik Constellation…………………………………………………...29 Chapter 2. Vestnik’s Formative Years…………………………………………………..47 Chapter 3. Stasiulevich’s Publishing Complex…………………………………………65 Chapter 4. Vestnik in the 1890s: Behind or Beyond?......................................................98 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..112 Part II: Vestnik and Populism: Rural Democracy beyond the Commune……………..116 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….116 Chapter 5. The Populist Roots of Vestnik Liberalism…………………………….……127 Chapter 6. Economic Democracy as Famine Prevention………………………....……150 Chapter 7. The Battle over the Zemstvo in the 1890s…………………………....…….204 Chapter 8. Vestnik Liberalism as Mature Populism…………………………………….245 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...266 Part III: Vestnik and Marxism: Humane Modernization as a Liberal Ideal……………269 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….269 Chapter 9. The Liberal Challenge to the Ideology of Progress………………………...277 Chapter 10. Globalization and Rural Poverty in the 19th Century……………………..303 Chapter 11. Selling Sacrifice: the Witte System and the Press………………………...327 Chapter 12. From Marxist Apologetics to a Moral Economy………………………….382 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...414 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...418 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………426 ix Part I: The Genealogy of Vestnik Evropy Introduction On a cloudy February day in 1911, prominent St. Petersburg jurist and Senator Anatoly Koni walked into an empty office on the second floor of 20 Galernaia Street. At 67 years of age, he belonged to a rapidly shrinking constellation of distinguished intellectuals at the center of which once stood Mikhail Stasiulevich who