LENIN AS PHILOSOPHER
397
discussion of Kantian ethics and of neo-Kantian epistemology as it
figured in modem scientific thought. In this discussion, the acknowl–
edged leader of the forces of orthodox Marxism was Plekhanov.
Lenin longed to support him, but refrained at first because he "did
not know enough about philosophy" (letter from Siberia to Potres–
sov) . Later he was silent for yet another reason: in 1904 he made a
bloc with Bogdanovl who was the chief target of Plekhanov's philo–
sophical attack. Lenin had to keep silent thereafter for five years,
until he was ready to break the bloc. This enforced and humiliating
abstinence explains much of the violent intensity with which he
finally expressed himself when the restraint was removed.
It is hard to explain why Plekhanov (and Lenin following in
his footsteps), reared as they were in a land where every question
tended to be viewed as a question of ethics, should insistently have
ignored the ethical aspects of this great controversy on neo-Kantian–
ism. For it w.as a two-pronged controversy, dealing as much with
ethics as with epistemology. To both Plekhanov and Lenin, however,
ethics itself was preconscious, as religion is for most men: something
which was acquired once and for all in one's youth, or at the moment
when one made his decisive choice. Thereafter, rules of personal con–
duct, relations
to
others, and moral problems of means and end,
were assumed to
be
settled self-evidently by 'one's cherished total be–
lief.
Socialism was the end which determined and sanctified the means
by which
it
was to be arrived at. The central means was the move–
ment to which one had dedicated one's life. Even to discuss that self–
dedication seemed to these men a little "philistine" or in bad taste.
Hence Plekhanov, and Lenin after him, ignored the ethical aspect
of neo-Kantianism, and limited their contributions to the question
of epistemology.
It was not till the period of reaction that the debate on episte–
mology and Marxism took full possession of the defeated movement.
What was left of the Marxist intelligentsia found a measure of dis–
traction and solace in these theoretical pursuits. Though they might
seem disparate phenomena, Krassin's ceasing to make bombs in his
laboratory and his gradual withdrawal from socialist activity to
devote himself to engineering; Riazanov's abandonment of trade
union work and of his struggle for party unity, in order to become the
greatest Marx scholar and textual critic of his generation; Luna–
charsky's growing preoccupation with literature and religion and Bog–
danov's with proletarian culture; and Lenin's "shameful neglect of
my work on
Proletarii"
in order to immerse himself in philosophy-
