The metaphor of the collective as a “moral choir” is quite appropriate in a context where the word “soglasie” (etymologically, “consonance”) keeps coming up. The metaphor would later be picked up by the Symbolist supporter of sobornost’ Viacheslav Ivanov (see Ivanov’s notion of “khorovoe nachalo”).118 Here the image is elevated, sublime (as is Kireevsky’s use of the term “soglasie”). But the corresponding “self-abnegation” of the individual does not recede from sight. There may be free speech in the Slavophilic commune, but when all is said and done there is no such thing as a minority opinion, or a loyal opposition. Everyone has to agree, the decisions of the commune have to be unanimous. One mustn’t spoil the music. There is an ever-present threat that the personality (“lichnost”’) will assert itself, “like a false note in a choir.”119
We may return now to the Slavophile notion of “freedom.” It is a remarkable fact that, despite all their emphasis on submission to the collective, the Slavophiles still believed the individual member of the collective to be “free.” For example, according to Khomiakov only the individual Christian has authority. Even God does not have authority. Participation in Christian life must come freely, from within. It can never be coerced in any way. The true Christian is not a slave, says Khomiakov repeatedly. The true Christian is free.
Of course if an individual Christian decided not to exercise the option to submit freely to the will of the collective, then a problem could conceivably arise. That is, an individual, without necessarily becoming the “slave” of some external authority, might still reject unanimity and sobornost’ as well. Khomiakov does not consider this possibility. Indeed, there is no room for dissidence in Khomiakov’s Christianity. The true Christian is free only to go along with the collective.
This can be best characterized as a masochist’s idea of freedom. It fits in with the general Russian tendency to characterize freedom in a paradoxical way. Dostoevsky’s famous character Kirilov, for example, asserts that the highest form of free will is suicide. Or, there is philosopher Nikolai Fedorov’s idea that the Russian tradition of obligatory state service actually fosters freedom. George Young comments: “While Westerners may look upon the Russians as a weak, slavish people who allow themselves to be herded like cattle by dictators who for some reason are best loved when most oppressive, Fedorov interprets the Russian lack of self-assertion as a subtler and more advanced understanding of freedom.”120 Another example is the bold oxymoron “free theocracy” (“svobodnaia teokratiia”), which is how philosopher Vladimir Solov’ev characterizes his ideal of social organization. As Billington says, Solov’ev’s task was “to reconcile total freedom with a recognition of the authority of God.”121 In the twentieth century we have conservative thinker Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asserting that “Freedom is self-restriction! Restriction of the self for the sake of others!”122
Examples could be multiplied. Here it is sufficient to indicate that neo-Slavophile thought regarding freedom is consistent with the inconsistent attitudes expressed by the Slavophiles on the same theme.
Without an understanding of the masochistic element in the Slavophile notion of freedom one might well argue that the Slavophiles either advocated submissiveness or advocated freedom, but not both. There have been endless debates on which of the alternatives is correct.123 In fact, because of the underlying masochism of their ideology, Slavophiles were in a position to advocate both with good conscience.
There was some question as to whether the freedom advocated by Khomiakov was individual or was a property of the larger, supra-individual collective.124 But the problem of the distinction between individual and collective itself perfectly reflects the poor demarcation which typically results when an individual takes a masochistic stance with respect to an object (see the clinical discussion below).125
The questionable distinction between individual and collective is also apparent in Ivan Kireevsky’s formulaic characterization of life in an idealized ancient Rus’: “The person belonged to the mir, the mir belonged to the person.”126
In general, the constant references to “inner” freedom in Slavophile writings about the (by definition external) collective testify to a confusion between self and collective object in the Slavophile imagination. There can of course be no “inner” freedom when the only choice is to go along with the wishes of the collective. Or rather, there can be “inner” freedom, but only if it is consistently masochistic in its aims. In the West this would not normally be considered to be “freedom,” although in Russia it is often what is meant by “volia” or “svoboda”—two words often unavoidably but misleadingly translated as “freedom.”
Masochistic Tendencies among the Russian Intelligentsia
Although many in the Russian intelligentsia ever since the late eighteenth century have commented directly or indirectly on the masochistic tendencies of Russians, there is also a masochistic tradition within the intelligentsia itself. This is particularly true of those members of the intelligentsia who were politically engaged, the so-called radical intelligentsia.
In 1851, for example, the liberal emigré journalist Alexander Herzen characterized the powerlessness of the “thinking Russian” in the face of tsarist oppression as follows: “This is the source of our irony, of that anguish which eats away at us, drives us to fury, and urges us on until we reach Siberia, torture, exile, or untimely death. We sacrifice ourselves without hope, from bitterness and boredom [ot zhelchi; ot skuki].”127 This sounds like self-sacrifice for the sake of self-sacrifice. It is really no different from the general Russian masochism Herzen was hinting at when he spoke of Russian slavery: “A long period of slavery is no accident, for it corresponds to some feature of national character.”128 Yet Herzen did not want to recognize the masochistic element specifically in traditional communal life, preferring instead to view it as a native Russian “communism” capable of protecting the peasant from exploitation by landowners and others.129 Subsequent populist thinkers followed Herzen in ascribing great potential to the peasant commune for the future of Russian socialism and communism.130
Nikolai Chernyshevsky (1828–89) was a radical journalist who spent nineteen years in Siberia—and could have spent fewer years there if he had been willing to petition for a pardon after ten years. He was apparently not being ironic when he referred to his Siberian period as the happiest in his life (the “Bless you, prison” theme reverberates to this day in Russian literature, e.g., in the works of Solzhenitsyn).131 When Chernyshevsky married he made it clear to his wife that she was free to commit adultery (she obliged him). The ideal revolutionary in his novel What is to Be Done? (1863) sleeps on a bed of nails. Harvard scholar Adam Ulam says that there was something in Chernyshevsky’s obstinate endurance of suffering that “borders on masochism.”132 Not so. This was masochism.