Untimely thoughts of a bitter quote about the revolution. Problems of “Untimely Thoughts. Problems of “Untimely Thoughts”

...She is akin to nature. Woe to those who think that in the revolution they will find the fulfillment of only their dreams, no matter how lofty and noble they may be. A revolution, like a thunderstorm, like a snowstorm, always brings something new and unexpected; she cruelly deceives many; she easily cripples the worthy in her whirlpool; she often brings the unworthy to land unharmed; but - these are its particulars, it does not change either the general direction of the flow, or the menacing and deafening roar that the flow emits. This hum, anyway, is always about the great.
...With all your body, with all your heart, with all your consciousness - listen to the Revolution.
A.A. Block "Intellectuals and Revolution"

Gorky, comprehending the course of revolutionary events, argues contradictorily, weighing all the pros and cons and derives his definition of socialism, timed to the current historical moment: « We must remember that socialism is a scientific truth that the entire history of human development leads us to it, that it is a completely natural stage in the political and economic evolution of human society, we must be confident in its implementation, confidence will reassure us. The worker must not forget the idealistic beginning of socialism - only then will he confidently feel himself both an apostle of the new truth and a powerful fighter for its triumph, when he remembers that socialism is necessary and salutary not only for the working people, but that it liberates all classes, all of humanity from rusty chains of an old, sick, lying, self-denying culture.”

To resolve the contradictions, Alexey Maksimovich again turns to historical literature. It is characteristic that he views the victory of the Revolution through the concept of “time of troubles.” To put an end to the discussion about Gorky’s rejection of the concept “the end justifies the means,” I will quote from his letter to R. Rolland on January 25, 1922 (Gorky was already in exile - a business trip abroad - forced exile from the People's Commissariat for Education), where Alexey Maksimovich remains on his own general humanistic, but clearly erroneous, in my opinion, positions in assessing the revolution: “I have been promoting the need for ethics in struggle since the first days of the revolution in Russia. I was told that this was naive, insignificant, even harmful. Sometimes this was said by people to whom Jesuitism was organically disgusting, but they still consciously accepted it, accepted it, forcing themselves.”

These mistakes in Novaya Zhizn were repeatedly criticized by the newspaper Pravda and V.I. Lenin: “Gorky is too dear to our social revolution not to believe that he will soon join the ranks of its ideological leaders.”

Gorky, despite his rejection of the “means” of revolution, saw in the Bolsheviks an ordering force: “The best of them are excellent people of whom history will eventually be proud. (But in our time history has been turned upside down, all “corrected”, all distorted (N.S.)"

The newspaper “New Life” was closed in July 1918. Making the decision to close the newspaper and understanding the importance of Gorky for the cause of the revolution, Lenin said: “And Gorky is our man... He will certainly return to us... Such political zigzags happen to him...”

In the end, Gorky admits his mistakes: “I’m tired of the powerless, academic position of “New Life”; “If Novaya Zhizn had been closed six months earlier, it would have been better for both me and the revolution”...

And after the assassination attempt on Lenin on August 30, 1918, Gorky radically reconsidered his attitude towards October:
“I did not understand October and did not understand it until the day of the attempt on the life of Vladimir Ilyich, recalls Gorky. - The general indignation of the workers at this vile act showed me that Lenin’s idea had deeply entered the consciousness of the working masses... Since the day of the vile attempt on the life of Vladimir Ilyich, I again felt like a “Bolshevik”.

To be continued

Maksim Gorky

“Untimely Thoughts” is the title of a series of cultural short stories by Friedrich Nietzsche, written in 1873-1876. In one of them, entitled “On the benefits and harms of history for life,” the German philosopher reflects on how heavy a burden the memory of the past is for a person: “Look at the herd that grazes near you: it does not know what what is yesterday, what is today, it jumps, chews grass, rests, digests food, jumps again, and so on from morning to night and day after day, closely tied in its joy and in its suffering to the pillar of the moment and therefore not knowing melancholy, nor satiety. This spectacle is very painful for a person, since he is proud of the animal that he is a man, and at the same time looks with a jealous eye at his happiness - for he, like an animal, wants only one thing: to live without knowing anything. satiety, no pain, but strives for this unsuccessfully, because he desires it differently than an animal. A person can perhaps ask an animal: “Why don’t you tell me anything about your happiness, but just look at me?” The animal is not averse to answering and saying: “This is happening because I am now forgetting what I want to say,” but immediately it forgets this answer and remains silent, which greatly surprises the person. But man is also surprised at himself, at the fact that he cannot learn to forget and that he is forever chained to the past; no matter how far and no matter how fast he runs, the chain runs with him.”

Thirty-odd years will pass, and in another country, under different circumstances, in another historical situation, there will be a person who will also want to express his “untimely thoughts” to his contemporaries and again draw a parallel between man and animal. This man is Maxim Gorky. A series of 58 of his articles under the same title will appear in print in April 1917-June 1918.

For Gorky, these fourteen months became a time of great hopes and terrible disappointments. The son of a cabinetmaker and a bourgeois woman, who went through the harsh “universities” of life; a self-taught genius who traveled a lot, lived “at the bottom” among tramps, earned his living by day labor; a writer who knew fame in his homeland, in Europe and America; “the petrel of the revolution”, who was repeatedly arrested for political activities, after February 1917, he seemed to see the fulfillment of his cherished aspirations: Russia’s turn to a new, free life. This is exactly what the newspaper he founded began to be called “New Life”. But very soon the understanding came: life turned out differently than it had been imagined before. It was then that “Untimely Thoughts” spilled onto the newspaper pages.

At first, they were devoted to topical problems, but still familiar to any state experiencing a political cataclysm: the ethics of inter-party struggle, freedom of speech, the need to achieve public consent. But with every week their tone changed: more and more often reports began to appear about massacres, about widespread robbery, robberies, pogroms, about the impoverishment and brutalization of entire cities and provinces, about lynchings, about the systematic violation of human dignity . And the criticism of the Bolsheviks and their leaders became louder and louder. Gorky wrote: “People's Commissars treat Russia as material for experiment; the Russian people for them are the horse into which bacteriologists inoculate typhus so that the horse produces anti-typhoid serum in its blood. This is the kind of cruel experiment doomed to failure that the commissars are carrying out on the Russian people, not thinking that an exhausted, half-starved horse might die. The reformists from Smolny do not care about Russia: they coldly condemn it as a sacrifice to their dream of a world or European revolution.” The answer was not long in coming: “Pravda” accused the writer of turning from a “petrel” into “a loon, which cannot access the happiness of battle,” the publication of “New Life” was suspended several times, and on July 16, 1918, the newspaper, with the knowledge and Lenin's approval was closed completely. Four months later, anticipating terrible upheavals on the eve of the first hungry revolutionary winter, Gorky collected his “Novozhiznaya” publications and published them as a separate book. “Untimely Thoughts” was published by the publishing house “Culture and Freedom”, with which the most authoritative figures of the Russian liberal movement then collaborated - V. N. Figner, G. A. Lopatin, V. I. Zasulich, G. V. Plekhanov and others .

Gorky gave his collection the subtitle: “Notes on Revolution and Culture,” but today, decades later, it could also be called a universal manual on historical ethics for every Russian (and the fact that this work is deeply national is beyond doubt) . Quotes from it can easily be found on the front pages of most modern Russian periodicals: “We sought freedom of speech so that we could speak and write the truth. But telling the truth is an art, the most difficult of all arts, because in its “pure” form, not connected with the interests of individuals, groups, classes, nations, the truth is almost inconvenient for the average person to use and is unacceptable for him . This is the damned property of the “pure” truth, but at the same time it is the best and most necessary truth for us... Conscience has died. The sense of justice is aimed at the distribution of material wealth. Where there is too much politics, there is no place for culture... The destruction of the unpleasant organs of publicity cannot have the practical consequences desired by the authorities. This act of cowardice cannot stop the growth of hostile sentiments... The Russian people, due to the conditions of their historical development, are a huge flabby body, devoid of taste for state building and almost inaccessible to the influence of ideas capable of ennobling acts of will; The Russian intelligentsia is a head painfully swollen from other people's ideas, connected to the body not by a strong spine of unity of desire and goals, but by some barely discernible thin nervous thread... The Western world is harsh and distrustful, it is completely devoid of sentimentalism. In this world, the matter of assessing a person is very simple: do you love, do you know how to work? If so, you are the person the world needs, you are the person through whose power everything valuable and beautiful is created. You don’t like it and don’t know how to work? Then, with all your other qualities, no matter how excellent they are, you are an extra person in the workshop of the world. And since Russians do not like to work and do not know how, and the Western European world knows this property of them very well, then it will be very bad for us, worse than we expect... They rob - amazingly, artistically. There is no doubt that history will tell about this process of self-plunder of Rus' with the greatest pathos... And this weak, dark people, organically inclined to anarchism, is now being called upon to be the spiritual leader of the world, the Messiah of Europe. They lit the fire, it burns badly, it stinks of Russia, dirty, drunken and cruel. And so this unfortunate Rus' is dragged and pushed to Calvary in order to crucify it for the salvation of the world. Isn’t this “messiahism” with a hundred horsepower?.. I am especially suspicious, especially distrustful of the Russian man in power - a recent slave, he becomes the most unbridled despot as soon as he acquires the opportunity to be the ruler of his neighbor. And as long as I can, I will repeat to the Russian proletarian: “You are being led to destruction, you are being used as material for an inhuman experiment, in the eyes of your leaders you are still not a man!”...”

The appearance of a separate edition of “Untimely Thoughts” caused a number of critical articles in the Bolshevik press. Gorky's subsequent relations with the Soviet government were ambiguous. In 1921, due to deteriorating health, at the insistence of Lenin, he went abroad for treatment. Ten years later he returned to his homeland to be proclaimed the main writer of the era. He died under mysterious circumstances. He was buried in the Kremlin wall. Untimely Thoughts was not reprinted during his lifetime. Moreover, the book was confiscated from libraries and destroyed. It ended up in second-hand bookshops only by mistake. The poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko recalled: “In 1960, I was walking along the old Arbat and suddenly I saw “Untimely Thoughts” on a street book stand - this book that was considered completely disappeared. It was sold for only three rubles. I immediately grabbed it and hid it in my bosom, looking around furtively. Gorky was then so canonized as a communist saint that only a few knew about the existence of this book.”

The title of a book by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900).

In Russia, the expression became widely known thanks to the writer Maxim Gorky, who also named a series of his journalistic articles written in the first months after the October Revolution of 1917 and published in the newspaper “Novaya Zhizn” (December, 1917 - July, 1918). In the summer of 1918, the new authorities closed the newspaper. Gorky’s “Untimely Thoughts” was published in 1919 as a separate edition and was not reprinted in the USSR until 1990. In his articles, the writer condemned the “socialist revolution” undertaken by the Bolsheviks:

“Our revolution gave scope to all the bad and brutal instincts that had accumulated under the lead roof of the monarchy, and, at the same time, it threw aside all the intellectual forces of democracy, all the moral energy of the country... The People's Commissars treat Russia as material for experience...

The reformers from Smolny do not care about Russia; they are cold-bloodedly dooming it to be a victim of their dream of a world or European revolution.”

Playfully and ironically about an opinion that is expressed inappropriately, at the wrong time, when society (the audience) is not yet ready to perceive and appreciate it.

Problems of “Untimely Thoughts”

Gorky puts forward a number of problems that he tries to comprehend and resolve. One of the most significant among them is the historical fate of the Russian people.

Relying on all his previous experience and on his many deeds confirmed reputation as a defender of the enslaved and humiliated, Gorky declares: “I have the right to tell the offensive and bitter truth about the people, and I am convinced that it will be better for the people if I tell this truth about them.” first, and not those enemies of the people who are now silent and hoarding revenge and anger in order to... spit anger in the face of the people..."

The fundamental difference in views on the people between Gorky and the Bolsheviks. Gorky refuses to “half-adore the people,” he argues with those who, based on the best, democratic intentions, passionately believed “in the exceptional qualities of our Karatayevs.”

Beginning his book with the message that the revolution gave freedom of speech, Gorky announces to his people the “pure truth,” i.e. one that is above personal and group biases. He believes that he is highlighting the horrors and absurdities of the time so that people can see themselves from the outside and try to change for the better. In his opinion, the people themselves are to blame for their plight.

Gorky accuses the people of passively participating in the state development of the country. Everyone is to blame: in war, people kill each other; fighting, they destroy what has been built; in battles, people become embittered and brutalized, lowering the level of culture: theft, lynching, and debauchery become more frequent. According to the writer, Russia is not threatened by class danger, but by the possibility of savagery and lack of culture. Everyone blames each other, Gorky bitterly states, instead of “confronting the storm of emotions with the power of reason.” Looking at his people, Gorky notes “that they are passive, but cruel when power falls into their hands, that the celebrated kindness of their soul is Karamazov’s sentimentalism, that they are terribly impervious to the suggestions of humanism and culture.”

Let's analyze an article dedicated to the “drama of the 4th of July” - the dispersal of demonstrations in Petrograd. In the center of the article, the picture of the demonstration itself and its dispersal is reproduced (precisely reproduced, not retold). And then follows the author’s reflection on what he saw with his own eyes, ending with a final generalization. The reliability of the report and the immediacy of the author's impressions serve as the basis for the emotional impact on the reader. Both what happened and the thoughts - everything happens as if in front of the reader’s eyes, which is why, obviously, the conclusions sound so convincing, as if born not only in the author’s brain, but also in our consciousness. We see participants in the July demonstration: armed and unarmed people, a “truck-car” closely packed with motley representatives of the “revolutionary army”, rushing “like a rabid pig”. (Further, the image of the truck evokes no less expressive associations: “a thundering monster”, “a ridiculous cart”.) But then the “panic of the crowd” begins, afraid of “itself”, although a minute before the first shot it “renounced the old world” and “ shook his ashes from her feet.” A “disgusting picture of madness” appears before the eyes of the observer: the crowd, at the sound of chaotic shots, behaved like a “herd of sheep” and turned into “heaps of meat, mad with fear.”

Gorky is looking for the cause of what happened. Unlike the absolute majority, who blamed everything on the “Leninists”, the Germans or outright counter-revolutionaries, he calls the main reason for the misfortune “grave Russian stupidity”, “lack of culture, lack of historical sense”.

A.M. Gorky writes: “Reproaching our people for their inclination towards anarchism, their dislike of work, for all their savagery and ignorance, I remember: they could not be otherwise. The conditions among which he lived could not instill in him either respect for the individual, or a consciousness of the rights of a citizen, or a sense of justice - these were conditions of complete lawlessness, oppression of man, the most shameless lies and brutal cruelty.”

Another issue that attracts Gorky's close attention is the proletariat as the creator of revolution and culture.

The writer, in his very first essays, warns the working class “that miracles in reality do not happen, that they will face hunger, complete disruption of industry, destruction of transport, long-term bloody anarchy... for it is impossible to make 85% of the country’s peasant population socialist at the behest of a pike.”

Gorky invites the proletariat to thoughtfully check their attitude towards the government, to treat its activities with caution: “My opinion is this: the people’s commissars are destroying and destroying the working class of Russia, they are terribly and absurdly complicating the labor movement, creating irresistibly difficult conditions for all future work of the proletariat and for the whole progress of the country."

To his opponent’s objections that workers are included in the government, Gorky replies: “From the fact that the working class predominates in the Government, it does not follow that the working class understands everything that is done by the Government.” According to Gorky, “People's Commissars treat Russia as material for experiment; the Russian people for them are the horse that bacteriologists inoculate with typhus so that the horse produces anti-typhoid serum in its blood.” “Bolshevik demagoguery, heating up the egoistic instincts of the peasant, extinguishes the germs of his social conscience, therefore the Soviet government spends its energy on inciting anger, hatred and gloating.”

According to Gorky’s deep conviction, the proletariat must avoid contributing to the destructive mission of the Bolsheviks; its purpose is different: it must become “an aristocracy among democracy in our peasant country.”

“The best thing that the revolution has created,” says Gorky, “is the conscious, revolutionary-minded worker. And if the Bolsheviks lure him into robbery, he will die, which will cause a long and dark reaction in Russia.”

The salvation of the proletariat, according to Gorky, lies in its unity with the “class of the working intelligentsia,” for “the working intelligentsia is one of the detachments of the great class of the modern proletariat, one of the members of the great working family.” Gorky appeals to the reason and conscience of the working intelligentsia, hoping that their union will contribute to the development of Russian culture.

“The proletariat is the creator of a new culture—these words contain a wonderful dream of the triumph of justice, reason, and beauty.” The task of the proletarian intelligentsia is to unite all the intellectual forces of the country on the basis of cultural work. “But for the success of this work, we must abandon party sectarianism,” the writer reflects, “politics alone cannot educate a “new man,” by turning methods into dogmas, we do not serve the truth, but increase the number of harmful misconceptions.”

The third problematic element of “Untimely Thoughts,” closely related to the first two, were articles on the relationship between revolution and culture. This is the core problem of Gorky's journalism of 1917-1918. It is no coincidence that when publishing his “Untimely Thoughts” as a separate book, the writer gave the subtitle “Notes on Revolution and Culture.”

Gorky is ready to endure the cruel days of 1917 for the sake of the wonderful results of the revolution: “We, Russians, are a people who have not yet worked freely, who have not had time to develop all our strengths, all our abilities, and when I think that the revolution will give us the opportunity for free work, all-round creativity, - my heart is filled with great hope and joy even in these damned days, drenched in blood and wine.”

He welcomes the revolution because “it is better to burn in the fire of revolution than to slowly rot in the trash heap of the monarchy.” These days, according to Gorky, a new Man is born, who will finally throw off the centuries-old accumulated dirt of our life, kill our Slavic laziness, and enter into the universal work of building our planet as a brave, talented Worker. The publicist calls on everyone to bring into the revolution “all the best that is in our hearts,” or at least to reduce the cruelty and anger that intoxicate and defame the revolutionary worker.

These romantic motifs are interspersed in the cycle with biting truthful fragments: “Our revolution has given full scope to all bad and brutal instincts... we see that among the servants of Soviet power, bribe-takers, speculators, swindlers are constantly being caught, but honest people who know how to work so as not to die of hunger, sell newspapers on the streets.” “Half-starved beggars deceive and rob each other - this is what the current day is filled with.” Gorky warns the working class that the revolutionary working class will be responsible for all the outrages, dirt, meanness, blood: “The working class will have to pay for the mistakes and crimes of its leaders - with thousands of lives, streams of blood.”

According to Gorky, one of the most primary tasks of the social revolution is to cleanse human souls - to get rid of “the painful oppression of hatred”, to “mitigate cruelty”, “recreate morals”, “ennoble relationships”. To accomplish this task, there is only one way - the path of cultural education.

What is the main idea of ​​“Untimely Thoughts”? Gorky’s main idea is still very topical today: he is convinced that only by learning to work with love, only by understanding the paramount importance of labor for the development of culture, will the people be able to truly create their own history.

He calls for healing the swamps of ignorance, because a new culture will not take root on rotten soil. Gorky offers, in his opinion, an effective way of transformation: “We treat work as if it were the curse of our life, because we do not understand the great meaning of work, we cannot love it. Facilitating working conditions, reducing its quantity, making work easy and enjoyable is possible only with the help of science... Only in the love of work will we achieve the great goal of life.”

The writer sees the highest manifestation of historical creativity in overcoming the elements of nature, in the ability to control nature with the help of science: “We will believe that a person will feel the cultural significance of work and love it. Work done with love becomes creativity.”

According to Gorky, science will help to make human labor easier and make him happy: “We Russians especially need to organize our higher mind - science. The broader and deeper the tasks of science, the more abundant the practical fruits of its research.”

He sees a way out of crisis situations in caring for the cultural heritage of the country and people, in uniting workers of science and culture in the development of industry, in the spiritual re-education of the masses.

These are the ideas that form a single book of Untimely Thoughts, a book of current problems of revolution and culture.

Conclusion

“Untimely Thoughts” evokes mixed feelings, probably like the Russian Revolution itself and the days that followed it. This is also a recognition of Gorky’s timeliness and talented expressiveness. He had great sincerity, insight and civic courage. M. Gorky’s unkind look at the history of the country helps our contemporaries to re-evaluate the works of writers of the 20-30s, the truth of their images, details, historical events, and bitter forebodings.

The book “Untimely Thoughts” remains a monument to its time. She captured Gorky's judgments, which he expressed at the very beginning of the revolution and which turned out to be prophetic. And regardless of how the views of their author subsequently changed, these thoughts turned out to be extremely timely for everyone who had to experience hopes and disappointments in the series of upheavals that befell Russia in the twentieth century.