The Origin and Meaning of Russian Communism

10 hrs. 8 min.

Popular Science

Language Russian

Author Nikolai Berdyaev

Narrator Irina Yerisanova

Description

Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev was a Russian idealist philosopher who, even during his lifetime, became one of the most popular Russian thinkers—well known not only in Russia, but also in Western Europe. In a simple and clear form, he expressed the main tendencies of Russian philosophy that had taken shape in the work of Chaadaev, the Slavophiles, and Dostoevsky. In Berdyaev’s writings, the distinctive nature of the Russian philosophical tradition found its most adequate and complete expression.

The book “The Origins and Meaning of Russian Communism” was conceived by N.A. Berdyaev in 1933. It was prompted by the appearance in Western print—mainly in America and England—of articles and books by foreign authors that distorted the history of the ideological and religious struggle in Russia during the revolutionary era, and even tried to defend realistic communism from a Christian point of view.

This explains why the book, addressed to a Western reader, was published only in foreign languages: first in English in 1937, and then in German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Dutch.

Contents:

Introduction: The Russian religious idea and the Russian state
Chapter I. The formation of the Russian intelligentsia and its character. Slavophilism and Westernism
Chapter II. Russian socialism and nihilism
Chapter III. Russian populism and anarchism
Chapter IV. Russian literature of the 19th century and its prophecies
Chapter V. Classical Marxism and Russian Marxism
Chapter VI. Russian communism and revolution
Chapter VII. Communism and Christianity