“NOT A LIKE-MINDED PERSON, BUT AN IDEOLOGICAL ALLY”? N. G. GARIN-MIKHAILOVSKY AND MARXISM

At the turn of the XIX–XX centuries. in Russia there was a stormy public discussion about the role of capitalism in the development of the country. In it, the main opponents in relation to each other were the Narodniks, who denied the inevitability of capitalism, and the Marxists, who were convinced of its inevitability. One of the most popular writers and publicists of that era — N. G. Garin-Mikhailovsky — at first he shared the ideas of the populists, but then, having lost faith in them, began to sympathize with their opponents. In Soviet historiography, Garin (albeit with reservations that he did not fully understand the entire “depth and fidelity” of the teachings of Marx – Lenin) was unequivocally ranked among the Marxists — and among the supporters of its radical, revolutionary movement. There were grounds for this: Garin-Mikhailovsky supported the first legal Marxist newspaper in Russia, Samarsky Vestnik, with money, and then transferred considerable sums to the needs of the RSDLP. However, such an interpretation of the writer’s views seems to be at least simplified, at the most incorrect. The hero of this article really sympathized with Marxism, but at the same time denied its main provisions related to violence and revolutions, relying on the peaceful, evolutionary potential of the doctrine. Garin’s enthusiasm should be recognized as quite typical for the milieu of the then intelligentsia — it is not for nothing that M. Gorky serves as another example of this kind. In the same way, a part of the Russian business elite (in particular, S. I. Morozov) supported the Marxists, seeing in them a force that would sweep away all medieval socio-economic and political vestiges and lead Russia onto the road of progress.