Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 16 - From Marx to Mao

HEROES OF “RESERVATION”369“radicals of various persuasions”, dependent on the universal“slough” to such an extent that, at a time when the fundamentalinconsistencies and weaknesses of Tolstoy’s worldoutlook are being hushed up in the most unpardonable fashion,they rush after “everybody” in a challenging fashion,yelling about “injustice” to Tolstoy. They do not want toyield to the intoxication of “that narcotic particularly widespreadamong us, which Tolstoy describes as ‘the virulenceof controversy’”. This is the very kind of talk, the kind oftune, that suits the philistines, who turn their backs withsupreme contempt on a controversy over principles that aredefended consistently and in full.“The main power of Tolstoy lies in the fact that, havingpassed through all the stages of demoralisation typical ofmodern educated men, he succeeded in finding a synthesis....”This is not true. The very thing that Tolstoy did notsucceed in finding, or rather could not find, either in the philosophicalfoundations of his world outlook or in his socialpoliticaldoctrine, is a synthesis. “Tolstoy was the first[!] to objectivise, i.e., to create not only for himself but forothers as well, that genuinely human [Bazarov’s own italicsthroughout] religion, of which Comte, Feuerbach, and otherrepresentatives of modern culture could only dream subjectively[!],” etc., etc.This kind of talk is worse than common philistinism.It is an attempt to adorn the “slough” with spurious flowers,capable only of deluding people. More than half a centuryago Feuerbach, unable to “find a synthesis” in his worldoutlook, which represented in many respects “the last word”of German classical philosophy, became embroiled in those“subjective dreams”, the negative role of which has longsince been appraised by the really progressive “representativesof modern culture”. To declare now that Tolstoy “wasthe first to objectivise” these “subjective dreams” is to jointhe camp of the retrograde, to flatter the philistines, to echothe Vekhists.Bazarov writes:“It goes without saying that the movement [!?] founded by Tolstoymust undergo a profound change if it is really destined to playa great world-wide historic role: the idealisation of the patriarchalpeasantmode of life, the attraction towards a natural economy, and