Table Of ContentTHE AGE OF SOCIALISM
(1865-1900)
Volume VII
of
AN ESSAY IN UNIVERSAL HISTORY
From an Orthodox Christian Point of View
Vladimir Moss
© Copyright: Vladimir Moss, 2020. All Rights Reserved.
1
I would not be at all surprised, for instance, if suddenly and without the slightest
possible reason a gentleman of ignoble or rather reactionary and sardonic countenance
were to arise amid all that coming reign of universal common sense and, gripping his
sides firmly with his hands, were to say to us all. ‘Well, gentlemen, what about giving all
this common sense a great kick and letting it shiver in the dust before our feet simply to
send all these logarithms to the devil so that we again live according to our silly will?
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1864).
The Jewish people has rejected Christ, the true Mediator and Messiah, and therefore has
excluded itself from history. Instead the Germans have become God's chosen people.
Constantin Frantz (1870s).
Oh, we shall all still have to drink of his [Nietzsche’s] blood! Not one of us will be spared.
Franz Servis (1895).
It is neither blindness nor ignorance that ruins nations and states. Not for long do they
ignore where they are heading. But deep inside them is a force at work, favoured by
nature and reinforced through habit, that drives them forward irresistibly as long as there
is still any energy in them. Divine is he who controls himself. Most humans recognize
their ruin, but they carry on regardless...
Leopold von Ranke.
When I consent to be a Republican, I do evil, knowing that's what I do... I say Long live
Revolution! As I would say Long live Destruction! Long live Expiation! Long live
Punishment! Long live Death!
Charles Baudelaire (1866).
As long as God exists, man is a slave.
Mikhail Bakunin.
This is the final struggle. Let us come together and tomorrow the Internationale will be
the human race. There are no supreme redeemers, no god, no Caesar, no tribune.
Workers, let us make our own salvation.
Eugène Pottier, L'Internationale.
Freedom of conscience is a delirium.
Pope Pius IX.
The pope is not only the representative of Jesus Christ, but he is Jesus Christ Himself,
hidden under the veil of the flesh.
The future Pope Pius X (1895).
The Jews] are at the root of the revolutionary socialist movement and of regicide, they
own the periodical press, they have in their hands the financial markets; the people as a
whole fall into financial slavery to them; they even control the principles of
contemporary science and strive to place it outside of Christianity.
K.P. Pobedonostsev to F.M. Dostoyevsky (1879).
2
Our constitution is mutual love of the Monarch toward the people and the people toward
the Monarch.
Dostoyevsky, Letter to Maikov, no. 302.
It is not civilization at all--which is shamefully preached by some—wherein the sole idea
is that the white race must not only dominate the world, but must wipe out the other
'coloured' races... True civilization consists in giving as many people as possible access
to the benefits of life... Since all people originate from one man, all are children of one
Heavenly Father; all were redeemed by the most pure blood of Christ, in Whom 'there is
neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free.' All are brothers and must love one another--love
one another not only in words, but in deeds as well.
St. Tikhon, HIeromartyr Patriarch of Moscow (June 10/23, 1900).
When the missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the missionaries had the
Bible. They taught us how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had
the land and we had the Bible.
Jomo Kenyatta.
We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people, the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of
liberties of the world.
Herman Melville, White Jacket.
We shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press
down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a
cross of gold.
William Jennings Bryan (1896).
Enlightened Europe is attracting us. Yes, the abominations of paganism that were almost
completely cast out of the world have come from there to us. Having breathed in that hellish
poison, we run around like madmen, forgetting our own selves. But let us remember the
year of 1812 – why did the French come to us then? God sent them to wipe out all the evil
we had imitated from them. Russia repented then, and God had mercy on her. But now, it
seems that we have forgotten that lesson.
St. Theophan the Recluse, Thoughts for each day of the Year.
After God “died”, man himself became the supreme person, the only divinity… With the
field thus cleared of supernatural encumbrances, the true approach to the divine came to
consist in man’s probing of his own innermost states. For this century everything from
dream analysis to the perception of relativity, became self-knowledge as the first stage to
self-assumption. The ancient sin of hubris, man’s too-great arrogance in the face of the
cosmos, disappeared when divine powers no longer existed outside man. Evil was confined
to failure in confronting oneself.
Robert Shattuck, The Banquet Years (1968).
3
INTRODUCTION
7
I.
THE
WEST:
THE
RISE
OF
GERMANY
9
1.
BISMARCK
AND
THE
TRIUMPH
OF
PRUSSIA
10
2.
THE
FIRST
INTERNATIONALE:
MARX
AND
BAKUNIN
21
3.
POPE
PIUS
IX,
VATICAN
I
AND
THE
FALL
OF
THE
PAPAL
STATES
25
4.
THE
PARIS
COMMUNE
32
5.
DOSTOYEVSKY
ON
SOCIALISM
AND
CATHOLICISM
37
6.
AMERICA’S
RECONSTRUCTION
42
7.
BISMARCK
AND
THE
SECOND
REICH
48
8.
THE
AUSTRO-‐HUNGARIAN
EMPIRE
63
9.
AUSTRO-‐GERMAN
ANTI-‐SEMITISM
71
10.
WAGNER’S
RELIGION
OF
DEATH
79
11.
NIETZSCHE
AND
THE
ANTICHRIST
91
12.
NIETZSCHE
AND
THE
RELATIVISATION
OF
TRUTH
104
II.
THE
EAST:
REFORM
110
13.
“THE
NEW
MAN"
111
14.
UNDERGROUND
MAN
117
15.
RUSSIA
TURNS
EAST
(1)
121
16.
METROPOLITAN
PHILARET
AND
CHURCH
REFORM
136
17.
THE
DEVILS
143
18.
GOING
TO
THE
PEOPLE
149
19.
RUSSIAN
JUSTICE
153
20.
RUSSIAN
SOCIALISM
161
21.
THE
JEWS
UNDER
ALEXANDER
II
165
22.
THE
EASTERN
QUESTION,
PAN-‐HELLENISM
AND
PAN-‐SLAVISM
174
23.
THE
GRECO-‐BULGARIAN
SCHISM
186
24.
AT
THE
GATES
OF
CONSTANTINOPLE
195
4
25.
THE
RISE
OF
JEWISH
POWER
207
26.
DOSTOYEVSKY’S
PUSHKIN
SPEECH
216
27.
TSAR
ALEXANDER
II
AND
THE
CONSTITUTION
236
III.
THE
WEST:
THE
CLASH
OF
EMPIRES
241
28.
RELIGION
IN
AMERICA
242
29.
CHRISTIANITY,
COMMERCE
AND
CIVILIZATION
248
30.
THE
BRITISH
EXPANSION
IN
ASIA
258
31.
THE
SCRAMBLE
FOR
AFRICA
264
32.
IMPERIALISM
AND
RACISM
271
33.
GERMAN
WELTPOLITIK
279
34.
OSCAR
WILDE
AND
ART
FOR
ART’S
SAKE
286
35.
POPE
LEO
XIII,
FREEMASONRY
AND
SOCIALISM
294
36.
THE
WESTERNIZATION
OF
JAPAN
301
37.
WELFARISM,
SOCIALISM
AND
CHRISTIANITY
307
IV.
THE
EAST:
REACTION
327
38.
THE
REIGN
OF
TSAR
ALEXANDER
III
328
39.
THE
JEWS
UNDER
ALEXANDER
III
334
40.
RUSSIA
AND
BALKAN
NATIONALISM
344
41.
SOLOVIEV
ON
NATIONALISM
AND
CATHOLICISM
356
42.
POBEDONOSTSEV
ON
LIBERALISM
AND
DEMOCRACY
370
43.
TOLSTOY
AND
THE
VOLGA
FAMINE
383
44.
RUSSIA’S
ECONOMIC
MIRACLE
388
45.
THE
KOSOVAN
QUESTION
391
46.
TSAR
NICHOLAS
II
AND
THE
AUTOCRATIC
IDEAL
395
47.
THE
FRANCO-‐RUSSIAN
ALLIANCE
408
48.
RUSSIA
TURNS
EAST
(2)
414
49.
THE
HAGUE
PEACE
CONFERENCE
420
5
50.
THE
RUSSIAN
SOCIAL
DEMOCRATIC
PARTY
424
CONCLUSION.
OPTINA
DESERT
AND
THE
FUTURE
OF
RUSSIA
437
6
INTRODUCTION
This, the seventh volume in my series An Essay in Universal History, is called
“The Age of Socialism” because it encompasses the peak of the careers of the
chief ideologues of socialism, Marx and Engels, and the rise of welfare socialism
in Germany and Western Europe. It takes the story from the unification of
Germany through the first major uprising – and defeat – of socialism in the Paris
Commune, to the “scramble for Africa” by the great global empires of Britain,
Europe and America. Socialism and nationalism developed in parallel, being the
two great antipodal – that is, universalist and particularist - tendencies of the age.
Both were kept in check for the time being by the multi-national empires. But the
decline of Austria and Turkey elicited a nationalist ferment in Central Europe
and the Balkans.
Only Russia among the Great Powers continued to wage that war against the
anti-Christian, pseudo-liberational tendencies of the age – and was rewarded by
being reviled and resented by the western Great Powers. The Great Reforms of
Tsar Alexander II were an attempt to catch up with the west technologically and
materially, to strengthen the country’s institutions and thereby stem the invasion
of western heresies, especially democratism. Unfortunately, in general they had
the opposite effect, undermining the foundations of Holy Russia and hastening
the process of westernization, as was particularly clearly demonstrated by the
inspired writings of Dostoyevsky, with their incisive exposure of Catholicism,
liberalism and socialism.
Britain, with her ideology of “liberal imperialism”, continued to be the world’s
most powerful and influential state. Thus its “share of global manufacturing
output reached its high point at just short of 23 per cent in 1881, when it also
produced 44 per cent of ghe world’s exported manufactured goods.”1 But it was
rapidly being caught up by Germany, whose reunification and defeat of France
in 1870-71, rapid economic development, and major achievements in the sciences
and arts, combined with the destructiveness of its ruling ideas (Nietzscheanism
and proto-Fascism), marked it out as the coming European hegemon. Impressed
by its thrusting modernity, many visitors identified Berlin “as more American
than European”2. And the Weltpolitik of its new Kaiser, Wilhelm II, began to force
other Great Powers to adopt defensive measures that eventually culminated in
the First World War.
The United States was also catching up with Britain. The end of the American
Civil War in 1865 coincided with the death of British Prime Minister Lord
Palmerston, signifying a global shift in hegemonic status from Britain to
America. Palmerston had been Britain’s most assertive and, in general, successful
foreign policy-maker, of whom John Bright said that his “administration at the
Foreign Office was one long crime”. A firm abolitionist and liberal, who opposed
and feared Russia all his life, but distrusted America (because of the potential
1 David Cannadice, Victorious Century. The United Kingdom, 1800-1906, London: Viking, 2017, p.
388.
2 Charles Emmerson, 1913. The World before the Great War, London: Vintage, 2013, p. 69.
7
threat to Canada), Palmerston would probably have opposed America’s rise if he
had been able. But now America was free to forge ahead politically and
economically, and by the end of the century was building up her own “liberal
empire” in the western hemisphere.
Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have
mercy on us! Amen.
8
I.
THE
WEST:
THE
RISE
OF
GERMANY
9
1. BISMARCK AND THE TRIUMPH OF PRUSSIA
After the Crimean War western civilization reached the peak of its power, as
the political, economic, military and ideological influence of the West European
nations and the United States spread all round the world. The only possible
rivals to the West were the Ottoman Empire – which, however, was in financial
submission to the western banks and was not without reason called “the sick
man of Europe” – and the Russian Empire, which had just been defeated in the
Crimea and would take time to recover. Also of increasing importance were the
United States, whose economy, now that the Civil War was over, expanded in
leaps and bounds, and the Far Eastern power of Japan…
The Crimean War changed much. First of all, the anti-revolutionary Triple
Alliance of Monarchical Powers – Russia, Austria and Prussia – collapsed, as
Austria refused to back Russia in the Crimean War, in spite of the fact that
Austria’s triumph against the revolution in 1848 had been accomplished largely
through Russian intervention. Secondly, Britain and France drew closer together
as France followed Britain along the path of “liberal imperialism”, a path soon to
be entered on also by the United States. Thirdly and probably most importantly,
Germany was on the way to unification and becoming the most powerful
nation-state in Europe. Adopting a more conservative model of imperialism, it
would become a serious rival to the old imperial powers of Britain and France
(Russian imperialism, as we shall see, was sui generis); the contest between the
two models would be fought in the First World War.
“In little over two decades,” writes Sir Richard Evans, “from 1848 to 1871,
Europe had been transformed. Both Italy and Germany, despite the dashing of
the nationalists’ hopes in 1848-9, had been united, though on the basis of a
conservatively designed constitutional monarchy rather than a democratic
republic. In Germany’s case the liberals had to make do with a parliamentary
system in which the powers of the monarchy and the army were far greater than
they had wished them to be. Universal male suffrage was also very far from
what the moderate liberals wanted; they were more comfortable with the
situation in Italy, where a limited property franchise still applied. Gambling on
the loyalty and conservatism of the rural masses, bold and imaginative
statesmen like Napoleon III, Bismarck and Disraeli had sought to outflank the
liberals and deliver mass support to their new conservative ideology. Reaction,
rampant almost everywhere in 1850, had failed by the end of the decade, even in
Russia, despite its attempts to adapt to the new circumstances of the post-
revolutionary era. The Vienna Settlement had been torn up, Metternich’s
immobile conservatism brushed aside, and a new political order born. It was to
last, though with perceptible shifts and changes, almost all the way to 1914.
After a short burst of rapid boundary changes and the formation of new
geopolitical entities, the major states of Europe – Britain, France, Germany,
Austro-Hungary, Russia, the Ottoman Empire – and many of the minor ones,
from the Balkans to Scandinavia, remained within more or less stable borders for
over four decades after 1870.
10
