CHAPTER VII. CULTURE OR FREEDOM. JUST what happened when serfdom existed is now being repeated. Then the majority of the serf owners and of people of the well-to-do classes, if they acknowledged the serf's position to be not quite satisfactory, yet recommended only such alterations as would not deprive the owners of what was essential to their profit; now, people of the well-to-do classes, admitting that the position of the workers is not altogether satisfactory, propose for its amendment only such measures as will not deprive the well-to-do classes of their advantages. As well-disposed owners then spoke of "paternal authority," and, like Gógol,* advised *N. V. Gógol (1809-1852), the author of the famous play The Inspector and the celebrated novel Dead Souls. -Trans. owners to be kind to their serfs, and to take care of them, but would not tolerate the idea of emancipation,* considering it harmful and dangerous, just so the majority of well-to-do people to-day advise employers to look after the well-being of their work-people, but do not admit the thought of any such alteration of the economic structure of life as would set the labourers quite free. And just as advanced Liberals then, while considering serfdom to be an immutable arrangement, demanded that the government should limit the power of the owners, and sympathised with the serfs' agitation, so the Liberals of to-day, while considering the existing order immutable, demand that government should limit the powers of capitalists and manufacturers, and they sympathise with unions, and strikes, and, in general, with the workers' *It should be remembered that Tolstoy himself set an example by voluntarily emancipating all his serfs.Trans. agitation. And just as the most advanced men then demanded the emancipation of the serfs, but drew up a project which left the serfs dependent on private landowners, or fettered them with tributes and land taxes, so now the. most advanced people demand the emancipation of the workmen from the power of the capitalists, the communalisation of the means of production, but yet would leave the workers dependent on the present apportionment and division of labour, which, in their opinion, must remain unaltered. The teachings of economic science which are adopted, though without closely examining their details by all those of the well-to-do classes who consider themselves enlightened and advanced,* seem on a superficial examina *It should be borne in mind that educated Russians, though politically much less free, are intellectually far more free than the corresponding section of the English population. Views on economics and on religion, which are here held only by very advanced people, have been popular among Russian university students for a gen |