The romance of revolution has repeatedly seduced European intellectuals and nowhere more intensely than in Russia. In the late nineteenth century, Russia became the first country in which young members of the intelligentsia, when asked their career choice, might answer “revolutionary” or “terrorist”—a choice regarded as highly honorable, albeit dangerous. Indeed, the word “intelligentsia” was originally a Russian coinage, meaning not a thinking or educated person, but one, however well or ill educated, committed wholeheartedly to socialism, atheism, and revolution. If we reflect that this group actually succeeded in taking over the state—Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin were all typical intelligents—then we recognize the importance of cultural battles. We also recognize the larger significance of Russian history and literature for understanding the modern world.
The history of Russian culture could more or less be narrated as the disputes between the intelligentsia and the great writers.
By and large, the classic Russian writers were opposed to the intelligentsia and its extremist ethos, so contrary to the careful particularities of great novels and realist stories. The history of Russian culture could more or less be narrated as the disputes between the intelligentsia and the great writers. In 1909, the eminent literary and social critic Mikhail Gershenzon wrote that “the surest gauge of the greatness of a Russian writer is the extent of his hatred for the intelligentsia”—a view that works well if we think of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov. But 1917 altered the picture considerably. Revolutionary fervor swept up
