In the entire history of the existence of Russia, both the tsarist state and the period of the empire, there were both adherents of the policy of the ruler and its opponents. The 18th century is the peak of passions and growing discontent of the population. Mass terror, inhuman attitude to the peasants, bonded serfdom, arrogance and the unpunished cruelty of the landlords - all this has not been suppressed for a long time.
In Europe, the discontent of the population towards the insignificant attitude of the ruling class towards the lower strata of society also increased. The imperfection of the state system led to uprisings, revolutions and turning points in European countries. Such a fate did not pass Russia. The coups have taken place with the help of the vigorous activity of domestic fighters for freedom and equality, contrary to state charters.
Who are they?
French activists, in particular Robespierre and Petion, became the ideologists and pioneers of the movement of revolutionary democrats. They criticized the relationship between society and the government, advocated the development of democracy and the suppression of the monarchy.
Their like-minded people Marat and Danton actively used the current situation in the country as a result of the French Revolution to achieve their goals. The main ideas of the revolutionary democrats are connected with the achievement of popular autocracy. Step by step, they sought to achieve their goal through dictatorship.
Russian activists picked up and adapted this idea to their own political system. In addition to the French, they mastered German treatises and their views on political foundations. In their vision, the unity of the peasants was an active force capable of resisting imperial terror. Their liberation from serfdom was an integral part of the program of domestic revolutionary democrats.
Development background
The revolutionary movement began its development among admirers of democracy and freedom of peasants. There were quite a few of them. This social layer among the revolutionary democrats appears as the main revolutionary force. The imperfection of the political system and low living standards contributed to the formation of such a movement.
The main reasons for the beginning of journalistic activity:
- serfdom;
- distinction between sections of the population;
- backwardness of the country from leading European countries.
Real criticism of the revolutionary democrats was directed at the autocracy of the emperor. This became the basis for the development of new trends:
- propaganda (ideologist P. L. Lavrov);
- conspiratorial (led by P.N. Tkachev);
- rebellious (leader M. A. Bakunin).
Members of the social movement belonged to the bourgeois class and had specific problems with infringement of rights or a difficult existence. But the close relationship with the exploited part of the population developed in the revolutionary democrats a clear antipathy to the state system. They did not deviate from their ideas, despite persecution, attempts at arrests and similar expressions of discontent on the part of the government.
Publicists began to publish their work with contemptuous discontent and the humiliation of bureaucratic activity. Themed circles appeared among students. The apparent disregard for the problems and low standard of living of the common population openly revolted an increasing number of people. Unrest and the desire to resist the enslavers united the hearts and thoughts of activists and forced them to move from words to actions. In such conditions, the revolutionary democratic movement began to take shape.
Formation
The main ideologists and representatives of the revolutionary democrats were A.I. Herzen, V.G. Belinsky, N.P. Ogarev, N.G. Chernyshevsky.
They were ardent opponents of serfdom and tsarist autocracy. It all started with a small circle with a philosophical bias led by Stankevich. Soon Belinsky left the circle, organizing his own movement. Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky joined him. They headed the organization, representing the interests of peasants and advocating the abolition of serfdom.
Herzen and his associates acted separately, conducting journalistic activities in exile. The ideology of Russian activists differed in their attitude to the people. Here the peasantry, in the views of the revolutionary democrats, acts as the basis of the struggle against tsarism, inequality and their rights. Actively criticized the proposed innovations in the legal system by Western utopians.
Activist ideas
Domestic activists based their ideology on the teachings of the revolutionary democrats of the Westerners. In European countries, in the 18-19 century, a series of revolts broke out against feudalism and materialism. Most of their work is based on the idea of ​​the struggle against serfdom. They actively opposed the political views of the liberals, since they were completely not interested in the life of the people.
There were attempts to organize revolutionary protests against the autocracy and the liberation of the peasants. These events occurred in the 1861st. This is the year when serfdom was abolished. But the revolutionary democrats did not support such a reform. They immediately revealed the pitfalls that were hiding under the guise of the abolition of serfdom. In fact, she did not give freedom to the peasants. To ensure full freedom, it was necessary not only to destroy the enslaving rules in relation to the peasants on paper, but to deprive the landowners of the land and all rights. Democratic Revolutionary Program called on the people to break the social system and move to socialism. These were to be the first steps towards class equality.
Alexander Herzen and his activities
He went down in history as an outstanding publicist and one of the pioneers of political emigration. He grew up in the house of his landowner father. Being an illegitimate child, he received a surname that his father simply invented. But such a twist of fate did not prevent the boy from getting a decent upbringing and education of the noble level.
Books from the father’s library formed the worldview of the child, as early as his youth. A strong impression on him was created by the uprising of the Decembrists of 1825. In his student years, Alexander became friends with Ogarev and was an active member of the youth circle against the government. For his activities he was exiled to Perm along with like-minded people. Thanks to connections, he was transferred to Vyatka, where he got a job in the office. Later, he ended up in Vladimir as a council adviser, where he met his wife.
The link only further inflamed Alexander’s personal dislike of the government, in particular the state system as a whole. From childhood, he watched the life of the peasants, their suffering and their pain. The struggle for the existence of this estate has become one of the goals of Herzen activist. Since 1836 he has been publishing his journalistic works. In 1840, Alexander again saw Moscow. But due to unrestrained statements about the police, he was again exiled a year later. This time the link did not last long. Already in 1842, the publicist returned to the capital.
The turning point in life was his move to France. Here he maintained relations with the French revolutionaries and European immigrants. The 19th-century revolutionary democrats share their views on the development of an ideal society and ways to achieve it. After living there for only 2 years, Alexander loses his wife and moves to London. In Russia at this time he receives exile status for refusing to return to his homeland. Together with his friends, Ogarev and Chernyshevsky began to publish revolutionary newspapers with calls for the complete reconstruction of the state and the overthrow of the monarchy. The last days he lives in France, where he was buried.
The formation of the views of Chernyshevsky
Nikolai is the son of a clergyman Gabriel Chernyshevsky. They expected him to follow in his father's footsteps, but the young man did not live up to the hopes of his relatives. He completely rejected religion and entered the University of Petersburg at the Department of History and Philology. The student paid most attention to Russian literature. He was also interested in the works of French historians and German philosophers. After training Chernyshevsky almost 3 years, he taught and inspired students with a revolutionary spirit.
In 1853 he married. The young wife supported her husband in all endeavors, participated in his creative life. This year was marked by another event - a move to St. Petersburg. It is here that he begins his journalistic career in the journal Sovremennik. The revolutionary democrats in literature expressed their feelings and thoughts about the fate of the country.
Initially, his articles dealt with works of art. But here, the influence of ordinary peasants was also visible. The opportunity to freely discuss the heavy share of serfs was provided by the relaxation of censorship during the reign of Alexander II. Gradually, Nikolai Gavrilovich began to turn to contemporary political topics, expressing his thoughts in works.
He had his own idea of ​​the rights of peasants and the conditions for their release. Chernyshevsky and his like-minded people were confident in the strength of the common people, who must unite and follow them into a brighter future, armed with an uprising. For his activities, Chernyshov was sentenced to life exile in Siberia. Staying in custody in the fortress, he wrote his famous work “What to do?” Even after going through hard labor, during exile he continued his work, but it already had no influence on political events.
Ogarev's life path
The landowner Platon Ogarev did not even suspect that his rising inquisitive son Nikolai was the future Russian revolutionary democrat. The boy’s mother died when Ogarev was not even two years old. Initially, he received a home education and entered the Faculty of Mathematics of Moscow University. There he became friends with Herzen. He was also exiled to Penza with his father’s estate.
After returning home, he began to travel abroad. I attended the University of Berlin with pleasure. Since childhood, suffering from epilepsy, he was treated in Pyatigorsk in 1838. Here I met the Decembrists in exile. Such an acquaintance played an important role in the development of Ogarev, a publicist and a fighter for the equal rights of classes.
After the death of his father, he received the rights to the estate and began the process of liberating his peasants, opposing serfdom. After spending 5 years traveling around Western Europe, he met with European reformers. Returning to his homeland, he will try to realize the idea of ​​industrialization among the peasants.
On the territory of its lands, it opens schools, hospitals, launches cloth, distillery and sugar factories. Having broken relations with the first wife, who did not support the views of her husband, he formalizes relations with N. A. Pankova. Together with her, Ogarev moved to A. Herzen in London.
A year later, Pankova throws Nikolai and leaves for Alexander. Despite this, Ogarev and Herzen actively publish newspapers and magazines. Democratic Revolutionaries distribute publications criticizing government policies among the Russian population.
To achieve his goals, he, together with Herzen, goes to Switzerland and tries to establish relations with Russian emigrants. In particular, with the anarchist Bakunin and the conspirator Nechaev. In 1875 he was expelled from the country and returned to London. Here he died of an epileptic seizure.
Philosophy of Publicists
The ideas of the revolutionary democrats are undoubtedly dedicated to the peasants. Herzen often touches on the subject of personality problems in interaction with society. The imperfection of society and problems in the relations between different strata lead society to complete degradation and destruction. Which is very dangerous.
He notes the problems of relations between the individual in particular and society as a whole: the personality is formed on the basis of social norms, but, at the same time, the personality affects the development and level of the society in which it lives.
The imperfection of the social system is also affected in the works of his associates - Chernyshevsky and Ogarev. This dangerous and open criticism of the democrat revolutionaries against tsarism provoked outbreaks of popular unrest in different regions of the country. Their ideas showed a desire to come to socialism, bypassing capitalism.
Chernyshevsky, in turn, shared the philosophy of materialism. Through the prism of scientific evidence and personal views, a person in his works acts as a whole with nature, amenable to physiological needs. In contrast to Herzen, he does not separate the person from nature and does not elevate man over society. For Nikolai Gavrilovich, man and the world around him are a single whole, complementing each other. The more positivity and philanthropy prevail in society, the more productive and qualitative the social environment will be.
Pedagogical views
Pedagogy was given an equally important role. Real criticism of revolutionary democrats is aimed at educating the younger generation with the makings of a free, full-fledged member of society. No wonder Chernyshevsky had teaching experience. In his opinion, freedom and self-will are laid from the very beginning. The person must be comprehensively developed, constantly ready for self-sacrifice for the sake of common goals. The problem of education is also a problem of the reality of that time.
The level of science was very low, and the teaching methodology was backward and ineffective. In addition, he was a supporter of the equal rights of male and female education. Man is the crown of creation, and attitudes towards him must be appropriate. Our society consists of such individuals, and their level of education affects the quality of society as a whole.
He believed that all problems in society do not depend on belonging to a particular class and, especially, to the financial situation. This is a problem of a low level of education and base education. Such backwardness leads to the death of social norms and the decay of society. Changes in society are a direct path to changes in general and personality in particular.
His associate Herzen was a supporter of folk pedagogy. The revolutionary democrats in literature expressed the problems of the imperfection of the position of children in society. The essence of his "folk pedagogy" was that knowledge should not be scooped from books, but from the environment. It is the people who are the carrier of the valuable information that the younger generation needs.
First of all, children should be instilled with a love of work and of their homeland. The main goal is to educate a free personality, which puts the interests of the people above all and disgust with idleness. Children should freely develop in the environment of ordinary people, not limiting their knowledge of the book sciences. The child must feel respect for himself from the teacher. This is the principle of patient love.
In order to educate a full-fledged personality, it is necessary to develop from childhood thinking, self-expression and independence, as well as oratorical abilities and respect for your people. According to Herzen, a full-fledged upbringing requires a balance between freedom of children's will and discipline. It is these components that contribute to the development of a full-fledged personality serving his society.
Legal Views
The activities of revolutionary democrats affect all aspects of public life. An example for the Russian revolutionaries was the European utopian socialists. Their admiration was directed at attempts to build a new social system, by the method of liberating workers from difficult operating conditions of work. At the same time, the Utopians reduced the role of the people. For the revolutionary democrats, the peasants were part of an active driving force capable of overthrowing the monarchy with a single effort.
Representatives of the active movement put forward for general discussion the imperfection of the state's legal system. The problem of serfdom was the impunity of the landowners. The oppression and exploitation of the peasants further aggravated class contradictions. This contributed to the collapse of mass discontent until the proclamation of the abolition of serfdom in 1861.
But, in addition to the rights of the peasants, the real criticism of the revolutionary democrats (briefly) applied to the rest of the population. At the heart of their work, publicists addressed the topic of crime through the prism of the views of the exploiting masses. What does it mean? According to state laws, any action directed at the ruling classes was considered criminal.
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The revolutionary democrats of the 19th century did not bypass the antisocial activities of officials, who stubbornly turned a blind eye to all the lawsuits of the population. The imperfection of the ship system was in the
class approach. In any legal proceeding, the dispute was decided in favor of the state ruling classes. In his vision and in the vision of his associates, the new society must have fair justice, providing protection to everyone who needs it.
The journalistic work and active actions of the revolutionary democrats are firmly entrenched in the history of the Russian state. Their activity did not disappear without a trace, but lives in the subconscious of each subsequent generation. Our responsibility is to keep it in the future.