LENIN AS PHILOSOPHER
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to hide their true intentions and confuse the right-thinking.
As
a
whole, "professors of philosophy are scientific salesmen of theology."
Mach and his school are "graduated flunkies of theism." They are all
conspirators, plotting against science and the further progress of
mankind. "The philosophy of Mach, the scientist, is to science what
the kiss of Judas is to Christ."
This method of polemics, and the very epithets employed in it,
derive from the intense ethical bias and passionate fanaticism of Rus–
sian thought. For reasons suggested in the first chapter of this book,
Russian nineteenth-century thought reduced politics to ethics, without
so much as a residue of mere practical concern or experimental in–
terest. Art and literature and criticism were no less questions of
morality. Even science was a moral creed to live by. "Science," cried
the gentle Herzen, "there is no reason why I should hide words in
the depth of my soul-Science is Love!" And the problems of epis–
temology, the most difficult, subtle, and general problems that can
engage the thought of mankind, were made into moral issues too.
The reader will find Lenin at enormous pains, by the "chain-reaction
and quotational shock treatment" methods, to reduce every opponent's
views to "solipsism." When he has driven his opponent into that cor–
ner, his indignation knows no bounds. As we read, we are reminded
of the men of the Russian enlightenment, who, like Belinsky and
Herzen, regarded solipsism (extreme subjectivism) as a kind of
logical-moral defect of character, arrogant, egotistical, vile. Consistent
solipsism, they thought, makes the petty ego of its disciple into the
measure of truth and error, right and wrong, good and evil, per–
mitting him to betray all ideals, logically leading him to commit any
crime from murder to suicide. When dealing with such issues, there
is more to Lenin's scorn than worked up indignation and the desire
to discredit his factional opponents (more than his "I shall always act
thus whenever a split is involved") . The overtones of anathema and
excommunication are part of that Russian polemical heritage.
Materialism and Empiriocriticism
appeared too late to have
much influence upon the Conference proceedings which expelled
Bogdanov and his friends. It was little noticed, little sold, little read.
Bogdanov as philosopher was not of large enough caliber to have
attracted much general attention. Moreover, by 1909, the entire
controversy, epistemological and ethical, was already on the wane.
Insofar as the book represented a determined counterthrust against
the religious, mystical, soul-searching, antirational moods of post-1905
