Democracy and Revolution

Abstract

These studies might well be entitled ‘The Russian Revolution’, for since the days of Peter, Russia has been in a chronic condition of revolution, and the problem of the revolution is one of the leading interests of all philosophers of history and statesmen in Russia. We may indeed say that the problem of revolution is preeminently the problem of Russia.

In 1913 Masaryk published a two-volume study of Russian history, religion and philosophy, under the title Russland und Europa: Studien über die geistigen Strömungen in Russland (Russia and Europe: Studies of the Spiritual Currents in Russia). The work was translated into English and published in 1919 as The Spirit of Russia: Studies in History, Literature and Philosophy. A Czech version, Rusko a Evropa, appeared in 1919-21. Some supplementary material was added to the first volume of the second Czech edition in 1930, and an English second edition, containing this supplementary material, was published in 1955. The original German version was republished in 1955, with the inclusion of the available new material. Appearing shortly before the First World War the work was a significant contribution to the discussion of the European spiritual and political crisis. It includes Masaryk’s most outspoken comments on the legality of revolution which, under certain circumstances, ‘may even become a moral duty’. The selected text, devoted to this subject, is the complete 25th chapter of the second volume.