ВЕХИЗМ

Vekhism

An ideology of the Russian bourgeoisie. As the democratic and proletarian movement developed in Russia, the Russian bourgeoisie evolved as a political force, quickly manifesting what Lenin called its "congenital counter-revolutionism" (Vol. 15, p. 27).

In 1902, the former "legal Marxists" (see "Legal Marxism"), Struve, Berdyayev, and Bulgakov collaborated with avowed mystics in producing the Problemy idealizma (Problems of Idealism), a collection of articles aimed against materialism. Subsequent collections and the setting up of philosophico-religious societies culminated in the publication of the programmatic collection Vekhi (Landmarks) in 1909.

This "encyclopaedia of liberal apostasy", as Lenin called it, covered three subjects: (1) the struggle against the ideological principles of the whole world outlook of Russian and international democracy; (2) repudiation of the liberation movement; (3) an open proclamation of "flunkey sentiments" and a correspondingly "flunkey" policy in relation to tsarism (see Vol. 16, p. 124).

Vekhi attempted to set off the Russian philosophico-religious tradition represented by Yurkevich, Solovyov, and Dostoyevsky against materialism and atheism. Their alternative to the class struggle was defence of the personality in its search for "inward", "spiritual" liberation.

On the outbreak of the 1st World War the supporters of Vekhism became the most rabid of chauvinists, and the October Revolution found them in the camp of the monarchist counter-revolution. As emigres, the former Vekhi supporters opposed the tendency among certain emigre intellectuals ("smenovekhovtsy") to abandon the counter-revolution.

Characteristic features of Vekhism were the use of subtle forms of religion in the struggle against Marxism, the defence of extreme individualism in ethics, anti-intellectualism and subjectivism in philosophy, and its reactionary political connections.