Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 13 - From Marx to Mao

IN MEMORY OF COUNT HEYDEN55derstand the interests of the movement for emancipation.The educated counter-revolutionary landlord knew howto defend the interests of his class subtly and artfully;he skilfully covered up the selfish strivings and rapaciousappetites of the semi-feudal landlords with a veil of noblewords and outward gentlemanliness; he insisted (to Stolypin)on the protection of these interests by the most civilisedforms of class domination. Heyden and his likebrought all their “education” to the altar of the interestsof the landlords. To a real democrat, and not a “respectable”boor from the Russian radical salons, this might haveserved as an excellent subject for a journalist who wantedto show the prostitution of education in modern society.When the “democrat” prates about education, he wantsto create in the reader’s mind an impression of superiorknowledge, a broad outlook, and an ennobled mind andheart. For the Heydens education is a thin veneer, training,a “coaching” in gentlemanly ways of performing the meanestand dirtiest political deals. For all Heyden’s Octobrism,all his “peaceful renovationism”, 26 all his negotiations withStolypin after the dissolution of the First Duma were infact the carrying-out of the meanest and dirtiest politicalbusiness, arranging how most reliably, craftily, and artfully,how most solidly within and least noticeably withoutto defend the rights of the aristocratic Russian nobilityto the blood and sweat of the millions of “muzhiks”, whohave always and incessantly been robbed by these Heydens,before 1861, during 1861, after 1861, and after 1905.In their time Nekrasov and Saltykov taught Russiansociety to see through the outward gloss and varnish ofthe feudal landlord’s education the predatory intereststhat lay beneath it; they taught it to hate the hypocrisy andcallousness of such types. Yet the modern Russian intellectual,who imagines himself to be the guardian of the democraticheritage, and who belongs to the Cadet Party*or to the Cadet yes-men, teaches the people grovelling servilityand delights in his impartiality as a non-party dem-* The Cadets have shown themselves a hundred times more servilein their appreciation of Heyden than the gentlemen of Tovarishch.We took the latter as a specimen of the “democracy” of the “decentpeople” of Russian “society”.