terrorist and other revolutionary deeds. Let Plehanov tell us, what history, what the study of history, can do to meet the difficulty of Ropšin's George, to answer the question whether, here and now, the specific George is right to kill the specific governor. How can the "historical process" give any help; and what is this "historical process"?[1]
The importance of Ropšin's revolutionary scepticism is unaffected by the criticism to which his writings have been subjected. Ropšin, as compared with his predecessors, effected a deeper sounding of the problem of revolution, and touched the ethical bottom of the matter. Moreover, he threw a clear light on the purely utilitarian valuation of revolution, which occupies much space in these discussions. In addition, Ropšin's personal authority as a social revolutionary leader gives his philosophy of revolution the requisite practical and political outlook.
For the Social Revolutionary Party, above all, the publication of Ropšin's works denotes the existence of a great crisis. If we take further into account the changes made in the social program of the narodničestvo, we are justified in sayings that in the Social Revolutionary Party, Russian revolutionism has come to a parting of the ways. Ropšin himself hesitates at this parting of the ways, and herein lies the tragedy of his situation, that while he recognises the fallacies of terrorism he cannot make up his mind to abandon the method. He knows that the maxim "everything is permissible" is false and wrong; he is forced to admit that he has no right to kill. Yet he kills, knowing that he does wrong, for, "One must have courage enough to say, This is wrong, cruel, and terrible; but it is inevitable."
- ↑ Whilst this work was in the press, there was brought to my notice a critique of Ropšin's second novel from the pen of the before-mentioned Ivanov-Razumnik, the historian of literature. He sees plainly enough that Plehanov's historism is superficial, but he succumbs to the same historism, although (in opposition to Marxism) he professes subjectivism. Ivanov-Razumnik does not recognise any ethical imperative; there are, for him, no universally valid ethical norms. But in his view there does exist what he terms a "psychological norm." To quote his own words: "This psychological norm grows with the growth of mankind. We cannot kill our personal enemies right and left, for the same reason that we cannot practise cannibalism. We are restrained, not by logical reasons (which are non-existent), nor yet by any ethical norm, but by direct sentiment. Neither logic nor ethic is determinative, but simply the psychology of men and of mankind." We remember that Pisarev used a similar argument. But whereas Pisarev regarded the disinclination to kill as a matter of individual taste, Ivanov-Razumnik refers it to "growth," that is, to the historical evolution of men and of mankind.
