Confronting Dostoevsky S "Demons" Anarchism and the Specter of Bakunin in Twentieth-Century Russia

by James Goodwin

Although criticized at one time for its highly tendentious spirit, Dostoevsky s "Demons" (1871-1872) has proven to be a novel of great polemical vitality. Originally inspired by a minor conspiratorial episode of the late 1860s, well after Dostoevsky s death (1881) the work continued to earn both acclaim and contempt for its scathing caricature of revolutionists driven by destructive, anarchic aims. The text of "Demons" assumed new meaning in Russian literary culture following the Bolshevik triumph of 1917, when the reestablishment and expansion of centralized state power inevitably revived interest in the radical populist tendencies of Russia s past, in particular the anarchist thought of Dostoevsky s legendary contemporary, Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876).
"Confronting Dostoevsky s Demons " is the first book to explore the life of Dostoevsky s novel in light of disputes and controversies over Bakunin s troubling legacy in Russia. Contrary to the traditional view, which assumes the obsolescence of "Demons" throughout much of the Communist period (1917-1991), this book demonstrates that the potential resurgence of Bakuninist thought actually encouraged reassessments of Dostoevsky s novel. By exploring the different ideas and critical strategies that motivated opposing interpretations of the novel in post-revolutionary Russia, "Confronting Dostoevsky s Demons " reveals how the potential resurrection of Bakunin s anti-authoritarian ethos fostered the return of a politically reactionary novel to the canon of Russian classics."

Genres: Philosophy

264 pages, ebook

First published February 19, 2010

Reviews

[Javier · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an awesome book which examines the degree to which the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin and the terrorist-nihilist Sergei Nechaev influenced Fyodor Dostoevsky's Demons (also known as The Possessed). Goodwin is very thorough and covers the various debates beginning around the time of the 1917 Revolution regarding Bakunin, Nechaev, and Dostoevsky, showing how Grossman for one argued that one of the novel's principal characters (Stavrogin) was modeled after Bakunin, such that Dostoevsky's "critique" of anarchism in this book becomes consonant with the USSR's Marxist-Leninist disparagement of anarchism as a revolutionary alternative. Goodwin also examines the anarchist Borovoi's responses to Grossman, as well as the challenges raised by Polonsky against Grossman's theses, closing with a consideration of how Stalinism came to accord with the reactionary Dostoevsky's rejection of anarchism from the perspective of upholding Tsarism (centralized power, known to Marxists as "Oriental despotism") and Orthodox Christianity. This isn't an easy read, and I wonder precisely how many copies are out in circulation, but it is extremely highly recommendable!

[Asa · Rating 5 out of 5]

On what may appear to be at first an esoteric topic, this explodes into an incredibly revelatory overview of the battle whether to demonize or 'hero'-ize Bakunin in the Soviet Union.

The reader is encouraged to extrapolate Bakunin as the representative of anarchism. Now, let me say one may protest that anarchism is a very multi-faceted idea, and can not be pigeon-holed into Bakuninism, but even still Bakunin is certainly one of the most influential anarchists in history and is revealed as quite a complex, multi-dimensional personality here, flaws in detail. So is not a bad choice at all if one had to choose a representative of anarchism, the most participatory side of the political spectrum.

This book explores how one classic novel Demons became the central battleground for an ideological war between anarchism and marxist-leninism on how to intepret Bakunin`s historical legacy. The big question is brought to the fore immediately: Was Bakunin really meant to be the prototype of the terrorist/nihilist in Dostoyevky's classic work?

This study makes one doubt Bakunin but by the end we are thoroughly unconvinced that Bakunin was simply a 'possessed nihilistic demon'. Also revealed are not very strong arguments on the part of certain Soviet lackeys that Bakunin was nothing but a counter-revolutionary. There are more convincing arguments from the other side that without him there never would have been a Russian Revolution in the first place.

Goodwin goes very far in showing how flawed Bakunin was in both ideas and actions, and despite this, we feel amazed how he still ended up being one of the most inspiring and effective revolutionaries in history. Instrumental in the following: for example The Unknown Revolution, 1917-1921, and The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years 1868-1936. But most importantly here, the specific popular uprising of the Russian Revolution of 1917, democratic and participatory at its onset.

Recognizing this participatory emphasis he is clearly not to blame for Lenin's (and later Stalin's radically more so) progressively authoritarian and Machiavellian politics. Lenin was indeed happy to sympathize with anarchists while they were useful during the revolution (while the anarchists were effective in helping eliminate the prevalent reactionary forces). The thing is once he was entrenched in power any semblance of democracy went by the wayside (the dictatorship of the proletariat was interpreted as esssentially the dictatorship of the vanguard, and participatory politics was decried as infantile: Left-Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder: A Popular Essay in Marxian Strategy and Tactics).

Truly this book reveals a Soviet obsession with Bakunin that I did not know was so deeply entrenched. That said, it should be emphasized that based on Bakunin's written ideas (for example God and the State), Bakunin is probably over-represented as a classic intellectual thinker. He is quite ordinary in a scholastic sense yet in another way clearly not. He was far more advanced emotionally and participatorily than the more 'scientifically' and authoritatively imposing Marx. This is perhaps best shown in practice in how Bakunin embraced Marx's intellectual work but had the wherewithal to oppose Marx's authoritarianism. See The First Socialist Schism: Bakunin vs. Marx in the International Working Men's Association to understand this chasm between what are clearly two very different types of revolutionaries.

Here be represented the complex intellectual and moral ambiguities between Bakunin and Marx, then again with Bakunin and Lenin, then again with Bakunin and Stalin. One will no doubt realize here this is no esoteric debate, and has deep ramifications on how to understand the great leftist divide.