Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism 1812-1855

London: Oxford University Press, 1961. Presumed First U.K. Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Good/Good. ix, [5], 486, [2] pages. Ex-library with the usual library markings. DJ has wear, soiling and is in a plastic sleeve. This is volume 39 of the Russian Research Center Studies. The contents include: Introduction; Family and Childhood; Schiller and Ogarev; University and "Circle"; Schelling and Idealism; Saint-Simon and Socialism; Arrest and Exile; Love and Religion; The Quest for Reality; Realism in Philosophy: Hegel; Realism in Love: George Sand; The Slavophiles and Nationalism; Socialist and Liberal Westerners; The Crucial Year--1847; The Revolution of 1848; Russian Socialism; and The Gentry Revolutionary; Includes Bibliography, Notes, and Index. Martin Edward Malia (March 14, 1924 - November 19, 2004) was a historian specializing in Russian history. He taught at the University of California at Berkeley from 1958 to 1991. Malia's best known work is The Soviet Tragedy. In it he challenges the traditional Leftist interpretation of communism as a fundamentally sound project, that admittedly went wrong during Stalin's regime, but in later years succeeded in creating a credible alternative to capitalism. Malia posits that the integral socialism proclaimed by Lenin was basically flawed, precisely because it destructed capitalism integrally. The untrammeled socialist project brought about not only the destruction of economic freedom but of almost any freedom. In the Berkeley obituary, Riasanovsky says of Malia that he was an "outstanding ... occupying a leading position in the ... international discussion of the collapse of the Soviet Union and what that collapse means ... and for the future." Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism is not a biography of the Westernizer and Russian patriot but a meditation on the Russian intelligentsia as a historical class formed not by material conditions but by ideas. It remains one of the most illuminating books about the tsarist era. Martin Malia's tasks in his 1961 work are threefold: to understand why socialist thought emerged in Imperial Russia in the middle of the nineteenth century, prior to the economic conditions employed by Marxism that were supposed to produce a socialist movement; to "explain the extraordinary impact of post-Kantian romantic idealism in Russia;" and to explain the contemporaneous emergence of "ideological nationalism" (p. vii). His method is to examine "the 'social psychology' of ideas. . .how ideological patterns emerge from, or express in transposed form, the social, political, and historical pressures of a given period" (p. vii). He places ideas in a psychological context, a critical act which provides much of the enduring power of this work as well as proving the source for much of the controversy it raised. While focusing on Herzen, Malia paints a psychological portrait of Herzen's entire generation of the intelligentsia. He is cognizant of the splits between them--prominently the dispute between the Slavophile and Westernizer camps--but he rightly emphasizes their essential unity. Both react to alienation: the Slavophiles' anti-modern ideology arises from the same debates and same bases as Herzen's socialist orientation. Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (6 April [O.S. 25 March] 1812 - 21 January [O.S. 9 January] 1870) was a Russian writer and thinker known as the "father of Russian socialism" and one of the main fathers of agrarian populism. With his writings, many composed while exiled in London, he attempted to influence the situation in Russia, contributing to a political climate that led to the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. He published the important social novel Who is to Blame? (1845-46). His autobiography, My Past and Thoughts (written 1852-1870), is often considered one of the best examples of that genre in Russian literature. Herzen was disillusioned with the Revolutions of 1848 but not disillusioned with revolutionary thought. He became critical of those 1848 revolutionaries who were "so revolted by the Reaction after 1848, so exasperated by everything European, that they hastened on to Kansas or California".[14] Herzen had always admired the French Revolution and broadly adopted its values. In his early writings, he viewed the French Revolution as the end of history, the final stage in social development of a society based on humanism and harmony. Throughout his early life, Herzen saw himself as a revolutionary radical called to fight the political oppression of Nicholas I of Russia. Essentially, Herzen fought against the ruling elites in Europe, against Christian hypocrisy and for individual freedom and self-expression.