The Political Ideas of Russian Historians

Abstract

Three main sources of political inspiration have dominated the writing of history in nineteenthand twentieth-century Russia: the state machine, the peasant commune, and the bolsheviks. They embodied, or embody, abstract concepts called gosudarstvennost', narodnost' and partiinost', which in English, roughly, mean allegiance to the state, to the people at large, and to the Communist party. The absolutist state reached its apogee in Russia towards the end of the eighteenth century, and achieved historiographical legitimacy in the work of Karamzin (considered below). In the second half of the nineteenth century many Russian intellectuals, including historians, looked beyond the state for inspiration. They found it in the common people, and gave voice to their discovery, initially, in debates about the origin and nature of the peasant commune. By about I900 devotees of the state and believers in the common people had reached an impasse. Lenin, in advocating a small revolutionary party, provided a third focus of political allegiance which offered a way out of the log-jam created by the first two. The history of the third focus of allegiance has been the principal concern of Russian historians since I 9 I 7. So whilst I800-50 saw the origins of statist historiography, and I850-I 900 the development of a populist orientation, the twentieth century has witnessed an increasing emphasis on the history of the party. This periodization of Russian historiography is only approximate because statism and populism did not evaporate with the triumph of bolshevism. Both engendered habits of mind which survived the periods of their pre-eminence. Modern Russian political thinkers using the phrase to cover a broad spectrum from official ideologist to dissident do not all put their faith in the Communist party. Some assign priority to the state machine or to the wisdom of the mass of the population. But broadly speaking, 'populists' succeeded 'statists' and 'party men' succeeded 'populists'. I shall discuss later how these historiographical categories differ from others in traditional use, and what advantages they confer.