Training the Nihilists: Education and Radicalism in Tsarist Russia

262 Pages·1975·29.256 MB·English

by  Daniel R. Brower

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PUBLIC
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Training the Nihilists
EDUCATION AND RADICALISM
IN TSARIST RUSSIA
By the Same Author
The New Jacobins: The French Communist Party and the Popular
Front 1934-1938
,
(Editor) The Soviet Experience: Success or Failure?
Training the Nihilists
EDUCATION AND RADICALISM
IN TSARIST RUSSIA
BROWER
DANIEL
R.
Cornell University Press ITHACA AND LONDON
\
©
Copyright 1975 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this
book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without
permission in writing from the publisher. For information address
Cornell University Press, 124 Roberts Place, Ithaca, New York 14850.
First published 1975 by Cornell University Press.
Published in the United Kingdom by Cornell University Press Ltd.,
2-4 Brook Street, London W1Y 1AA.
International Standard BookNumber0-8014-0874-1
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 74-25371
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
a F. K. B.
contestataire chronique
Digitized by the Internet Archive
2015
in
https://archive.org/details/trainingnihilistOObrow
Preface
In the mid-nineteenth century, Russian schools began to play a key
role in training young “nihilists,” that is, radical youth. The evolution
of this peculiar relationship between education and radi—calism forms
the theme of my book. It examines Russian education the term is
used loosely to include the entire system o—f socialization and learning
in the advanced and secondary schools in order to explain the
factors producing the young rebels: Where did they come from? How
did it happen that year after year the schools turned out a steady
stream of recruits for the revolutionary movement?
%
The evidence and conclusions in answer to these questions are pre-
sented in analytical, rather than chronological order. I treat the
period of the 1840’s to the 1870’s as a whole, during which time the
important innovations in radical recruitment took place. The radicals
began their lives among Russia’s upper and middle classes, where
they received their first instruction in moral behavior and social rela-
tions. Later, formal education assumed these responsibilities; young
people deviated toward radical revolt in their years of schooling
through a unique adaptation of the process of learning. The argument
is summed up schematically in a flow chart in the concluding chapter.
My work began as a study of the Russian intelligentsia. Some read-
ers may still see it as such, although I have chosen to avoid use of
the word completely, for reasons made clear in Chapter 1. The im-
pact of education on recruitment into the radical movement raises
complex issues having nothing to do with the old debate concerning
the intelligentsia. I have tried to solve the problem of terminology by
using the simplest labels for groups defined by easily identifiable traits.
What the argument loses in sophistication it gains, I hope, in clarity.