Religious Communism?

Nicolai Berdyaev's Contribution to "Esprit's" Interpretation of Communism Baird, Catherine

Canadian Journal of History/Annales Canadiennes d'Histoire; Apr 1, 1995; 30, 1; Periodicals Archive Online pg. 29

Canadian Journal of History/Annales canadiennes d’histoire XXX, April/avril 1995,

pp. 2947, ISSN 00084107 ® Canadian Journal o f History

Abstmct/Résumé analytique

Religious Communism? Nicolai Berdyaev’s Contribution

to Esprit’s Interpretation of Communism

Catherine Baird

The origins o f the French personalist movement (1930-39) have been traced to French neo-criticism
and Thomism, and German existentialism. The contribution of Russian religious-populist philosophy
to personalism has not yet been studied, despite the participation o f several Russian émigrés in the
movement. Nikolai Berdyaev (1874-1948), a leading proponent o f the Russian tradition, brought his
version of Russian "personalism " to Europe upon his exile from the new Soviet Russia. In France
his works were seized as a manifesto by the French personalist movements L’Ordre Nouveau and
Esprit This essay will examine the confluence between Nikolai Berdyaev’s theories about communism
and the public position espoused by Esprit from 1932-39. By exploring the personal connection
between Berdyaev and the editor of Esprit, Emmanuel Mounter (1905-50), and their interchange of
ideas, it will attempt to establish the case o f influence. In describing the origins o f Esprit’s stance
on communism, it finds support for the assertion that French personalism did, indeed, offer a “third
way ” distinct from the ideologies of Marxism or fascism, and a revolutionary plan opposed to either
communist or capitalist economic theory. The influence o f Russian ideas on French personalism
offers a new dimension to the history of ideas.

Les origines du mouvement personnaliste français (1930-39) ont été retracées aux philosophies néo-
criticiste et thomiste française et existentialiste allemande. La contribution de la philosophie religieuse-
populaire russe au personnalisme n'a pas encore été examinée malgré la contribution de plusieurs
émigrés russes au mouvement. Nicolai Berdiaeff (1874-1948), un partisan de premier plan de la
tradition russe, apporta son interprétation du “personnalisme " russe en Europe lors de son exil de
la nouvelle Russie soviétique. En France, les philosophes des mouvements personnalistes de L’Ordre
nouveau et de l’Esprit embrassèrent rapidement ses oeuvres comme un manifeste. Dans cet article,
nous examinerons l'influence qu'ont eu les théories communistes de Nikolai Berdiaeff sur la prise
de position adoptée par l’Esprit de 1932 à 1939. En analysant les rapports personnels entre Berdiaeff
et l'éditeur de l’Esprit, Emmanuel Mounier (1905-50) et leurs échanges d ’idées, nous essayerons
d'établir un rapport de cause à effet. En décrivant la source de la position de l’Esprit sur le
communisme, nous pouvons affirmer que le personnalisme français offrait vraiment une “troisième
façette, ” distincte des idéologies marxistes ou fascistes et un plan révolutionnaire opposé aux théories
communiste ou capitaliste économique. L'influence des idées russes sur le personnalisme français
apporte une perspective toute nouvelle à l'Histoire des idées.
Canadian Journal of History/Annales canadiennes d’histoire XXX, April/avril 1995,
pp. 29-47, ISSN 0008-4107 ® Canadian Journal of History

Catherine Baird

RELIGIOUS COMMUNISM?
NICOLAI BERDYAEV’S CONTRIBUTION
TO ESPRITS INTERPRETATION OF COMMUNISM

The thawing of the Cold War has encouraged new studies on the interchange
of ideas between Russians and western Europeans in the period following the
Bolshevik takeover. Increased access to archives and new information from
émigrés who no longer fear reprisals against relatives or friends remaining
within the former Soviet Union has allowed more detailed examinations of the
contributions made by the Russian diaspora. This openness has also made the
west more amenable to the suggestion that Russians have made a lasting
contribution to the evolution of “western” ideas.
A French revolutionary movement called personalism, which originated
in the 1930s, provides an instance for demonstrating the impact of Russian
ideas on Europe. Not only did a substantial number of Russian émigrés
participate in this movement,1 but the ideological goals of personalism also
converged with a Russian philosophical tradition. Prior to the Bolshevik success
in Russia, many intellectuals who participated in the Russian “Religio-
Philosophic Renaissance”2 advocated a spiritual or Christian socialism as an
alternative to Marxism; committed to the principle of sobom osf,3 they held as
their central tenets the sanctity of the person within organic communities and
increased personal responsibility. The regeneration of sobom osf as a
philosophical and religious precept — it was first introduced by the Slavophiles
early in the nineteenth century — was inspired by Vladimir Soloviev (1853-
1900) and entered the political forum with the publication of Vekhi (Land­

1Recently, it has been posited that personalism was in fact begun by a Russian émigré —
Alexandre Marc (b. 1904) — who coined the term personalist, and helped to found what was
perhaps the first personalist group VOrdre Nouveau with his 1931 manifesto that declared: “we
are neither individualists nor collectivists, we are personalists! * See Christian Roy, Alexandre Marc
and the Personalism o f L ’Ordre Nouveau, 1920-1940 (Montreal, 1987), M A . Thesis, and Alexandre
Marc et la Jeune Europe, 1904-1934: L *Ordre Nouveau et aux origines du Personnalisme (Montreal,
1992), PhD Dissertation. Other prominent Russian participants in the French personalist
movement were the Existentialist philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev, Hélène Iswolsky, daughter of
the Russian ambassador to Paris before World War One, Vladimir Nabokov, Marc Chagal, Father
Sergei Bulgakov, Igor Stravinsky, and Georges Florovsky.
2“Renaissance” is the term which the Russians involved in this philosophical and religious
movement between the 1890s and 1917 employed. In the west, the like-minded intellectuals of
this period combined with the artistic Symbolist movement are usually labelled “Silver Age.”
^The philosophical conception of sobomost’ was first elaborated by the Slavophiles (1840-61)
who drew from the example of the Orthodox Christian Church Sobor or “meeting of equals” a
social ideal in which the community became an organic entity of freely united individuals.
marks/Milestones) in 1909.4 Despite some success in religious matters as
demonstrated in the great Orthodox Christian Church Sobor of 1917-18,
Bolshevik repression of all things spiritual firmly squelched any continued
growth of sobomost’ in the new Soviet Russia. The major proponents of this
tradition5 left during the chaos of the civil war, or were victims of the
Bolshevik’s attack against the “Front of Ideas” in the summer of 1922 when
some 160 intellectuals, professors, and artists were summarily exiled from
Russia. One of the most prominent exiles — and perhaps the most sympathetic
to communism — was the philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev (1874-1948).
Upon his exile, Berdyaev, lived for two years in Berlin writing what some
feel to be his most important work, Novyie srednie veka (A New Middle Ages).6
In 1924 he moved to France to escape the vagaries of the German Mark.
Having established his new home at Clamart, in the suburbs of Paris, Berdyaev
began to participate in some of the “leftist” and Christian French intellectual
circles: two of the most prominent were the Décades de Pontigny and the
Thomist, Christian humanist group led by Jacques Maritain and his wife
Raïssa. The Maritains’ connection to Berdyaev was both one of culture —
Rai'ssa Maritain was of Russian descent — and philosophy as Berdyaev shared
their aspirations for a new Christian and personal society. Starting in 1926,
Berdyaev and Maritain attempted to integrate their respective salons at
Clamart and Meudon in hopes of fostering a greater respect between the
various Christian denominations, and with the intent of combining their
energies towards the creation of a new Christian and personal philosophy.
One of the offshoots of this endeavour was the French personalist
movement. The “at-homes” at Meudon and Clamart introduced a young
philosopher from Grenoble, Emmanuel Mounier (1905-50), to the spiritual and
social ideas of some of the foremost intellectuals of the new Catholic and
Orthodox Left. In so doing, these meetings contributed to Mourner’s
development of his personalist ideology. While the influence of Jacques*

*Vekhi (Landmarks), (St. Petersburg, 1909). Vekhi was a compilation of articles written by
Berdyaev, S. Bulgakov, P. Struve, M. Gershenzon, A. Izgoev, B. Kistiakovsky, and S. Frank. It
criticized the Russian intelligentsia’s blind commitment to materialism and promoted the primacy
of the spiritual in all things. The common goal of Vekhi was to enlighten the intelligentsia and
urge them to seek legitimate philosophical foundations for their ideology instead of being seduced
by “simplistic dogmas” like Marxism.
^The major sobomyi philosophers include Semen Frank, Pavel Florensky, Nikolai Lossky,
Sergei Bulgakov, Georges Florovsky, Vasili Zenkovsky, and Pavel Novgorodtsev. Although the
limits of this essay prevent a closer examination of the multiple and perhaps more important
contributions of some of these figures, it may be noted that they remained closely linked to
Nikolai Berdyaev during the period of exile and, although none were very involved in the French
personalist movement, they did help Berdyaev explain the unique elements of Russian philosophy
to interested French, German, British, and American intellectuals.
6Nikolai Berdyaev, Novyie srednie veka [A New Middle Ages], (Berlin, 1923). Translated into
French in Paris in 1927 and into English in New York in 1933. In Berlin, Berdyaev began the
Russian Religious Philosophical Academy, participated in the formation of the Russian Christian
Students Movement under the auspices of the Y.M.C.A., lectured, wrote, and finally published
several heretofore forbidden manuscripts.
Maritain on Mounier has been clearly documented,7 Berdyaev’s contribution
has received less attention.8 Despite the Clamart salon, the discussion of
Berdyaev’s books — especially A New Middle Ages — at personalist study
groups, and the participation of Berdyaev in the Mourner’s personalist review
Esprit (October 1932 - August 1941, restarted after World War Two in
December 1944), historians have not examined the particular confluence of
Berdyaev’s ideas and personalist theory.
Due to his experiences as a Marxist (1896-1900) under Lunacharsky in
Kiev and his later confrontations with the Bolsheviks, Berdyaev gradually
developed a unique and devastating theory of communism. This essay posits
that Esprit drew upon Berdyaev’s theory to delimit their own position towards
communism between 1932-39. In describing this theory, and thus the origins
of Esprits stance on communism, it finds support for the assertion that French
personalism did, indeed, offer a “third way” distinct from the ideologies of
Marxism or fascism, and a revolutionary plan opposed to either communist or
capitalist economic theory. While the issues of Russian émigré impact in the
laiger sphere or the possible long-term legacies of French personalism are
beyond the scope of this paper, a clear exposition of Berdyaev’s contribution
to Esprit’s interpretation of communism will help to clarify the often debated
position of personalism in interwar France.

The personalist movement in France was largely centred around two groups,
l’Ordre Nouveau (f. 1931) and Esprit (f. 1932), which published reviews under
the same names. It was both a philosophical and political movement which
intended to overthrow the current order in France and correct perceived
problems in the modern world through a reappraisal of the human being. The
personalists linked the modern Angst to rational humanism’s mistake of
conceiving the human being as solely a natural, material entity. They insisted
that each person was both spirit and matter, and advocated the development
of one’s spiritual side as the only means to regain true value in society and
control over one’s own destiny. They therefore shunned all materialist or

7John Heilman, Emmanuel Mounier and the New Catholic Lefty 1930-1950 (Toronto, 1981).
8Historians of French personalism tend to focus on the French roots of personalism and,
although they acknowledge antecedents in German and Russian thought, a full discussion of these
trends goes beyond the scope of their studies. See for example, Heilman op. cit., Joseph Amato,
Mounier and Maritain: A French Catholic Understanding o f the Modem World (Alabama, 1975),
Michael Kelly, Pioneer o f the Catholic Revival: The Ideas and Influence o f Emmanuel Mounier
(London, 1979), and Etienne Borne, Mounier (Paris, 1972) for some of the more concrete
discussions about Berdyaev’s influence.
On the alternative side, biographers of Berdyaev — Donald Lowrie, Rebellious Prophet.
A Life o f Nikolai Berdyaev (New York, 1960) — and Russian philosophical historians — N. Lossky,
History o f Russian Philosophy (New York, 1952) — are more concerned with the Russian
developments and influence of Berdyaev. They briefly mention his impact in France while
concentrating on the unique developments of his thought within the Russian tradition.
idealist philosophies which, for the personalists, inevitably led to the sacrifice
of human beings to either a technical material process or an idea — to a
“thing.”
Politically the personalists espoused a policy of engagement: the active
application of philosophical principles to human situations. They insisted that
their members not only assist in the creation of a personalist philosophy, but
also that they live their lives in accordance with these new principles. The first
goal of a personalist, therefore, was to develop his/her spiritual side and aid
others in a similar transformation. This policy of co-operation stemmed from
their belief that a person’s full spiritual development could only occur in
communion with others. Hence, they advocated the development of organic,
communal societies to encourage the creation of true persons, and to replace
urban isolation.9
Although the personalists opposed individualism in its definition as:
. . . a system of morals, feelings, ideas and institutions in which
individuals can be organized by their mutual isolation and defense
. . . Man in the abstract, unattached to any natural community, the
sovereign lord of a liberty unlimited and undirected; turning towards
others with a primary mistrust, calculation, and self-vindication;
institutions restricted to the assurance that these egoists should not
encroach upon one another, or to their betterment as a purely profit
making association . . .10
And although they advocated a return to some form of communal society, they
were not communists. For the personalists, communism was an end product
of materialism: as materialist individualism had subjugated human beings to
a thing — “profit” — so too did materialist Marxism subject people to “class”;
where individualism had created atomization, alienation, and impotence, the
personalists believed that communism would relegate humanity to the “faceless
collective.” Desiring to present an alternative, a “third way,” the personalists
refused to be categorized as either “Left” or “Right.” Consequently they
sought the best means at their disposal to demarcate their political and
ideological stance.
This intention was apparent in the first issue of Esprit (October 1932).
Emmanuel Mounier explained the “personalist” revolution by which they
hoped to combat the current disorder. Other articles, especially those written
by Georges Izard, presented Esprit’s critique of individualism, capitalism, and
the current form of government in interwar France. However, the task of
elaborating Esprit’s position with regard to communism was left primarily to
Nikolai Berdyaev. His article “Vérité et mensonge du Communisme” carefully
analyzed the precepts of Marxism in order to demonstrate that Marxism’s
popularity was due to its accurate presentation of certain human truths that
had been ignored by democrats and capitalists and forgotten by Christians. Its

9See John Heilman, Emmanuel Mounier and the New Catholic Left, 1930-1950.
10Emmanuel Mounier, Personalism (London, 1952), pp. 18-19.
menace, however, lay in materialist “lies” which Marx had based his theories
upon, and which proffered only despair for humankind. In conclusion, Berdyaev
suggested that human beings transcend the false promises of both capitalism
and communism in favour of a truly beneficial, personalist alternative.
Berdyaev’s contribution provoked a laige response from the French press and
even drew the enthusiastic commendation from André Gide.11
As Emmanuel Mounier chose Berdyaev to make this first expression of
Esprifs position on communism, it might be pertinent to ask why his critique
was selected by the personalists. An obvious answer is that Berdyaev had been
a Marxist (1896-1900), and he saw first-hand the results of the Bolshevik coup
and their attempts at implementing communism in Russia. Having been evicted
from Russia for his protests against the new regime, it would seem that he was
an authoritative source on the negative aspects of communism. Yet this answer
does not address the unique aspects of Berdyaev’s view of communism which
differentiates him from the more typical “White Russian” opponent to
Bolshevism and, indeed, from many of his religio-philosophical Russian
counterparts.
Berdyaev’s view of communism was a culmination of critical thought,
begun in 1901 when Berdyaev, during his exile in Vologda for participating in
a Marxist group under Lunacharsky, turned from materialist Marxism to
idealism.12 As idealism gave way to a new commitment to Orthodox Christian
ideas and an increasing loyalty to the traditions of Russian philosophy —
especially Slavophile thought and the concept of sobom osf — Berdyaev began
an ontological assessment of the historical development of socialist thought.
Although Berdyaev was extremely sympathetic to socialist aspirations, his goal
was to place socialism philosophically on a more rigorous basis.
At the time of Esprifs inauguration, Berdyaev had just completed his
most comprehensive and precise appraisal of Marxism, Khristianstvo i
klassovaia bor’ba (Christianity and Class War)}3 He drew upon the critique of
Marx presented in this book and upon his conception of history as presented
in Smyisl istorii (The Meaning o f History)14 in his article “Vérité et mensonge
du Communisme.” These two crucial studies reveal the depths of Berdyaev’s
analysis of communism, its philosophical origins in Marxism, and his final
conviction in its futility as a vital tenet for the destiny of humankind. As the
title of his article for Esprit suggests, Berdyaev did not condemn Marxism

‘‘Nikolai Berdyaev, “Vérité et mensonge du Communisme,” Esprit, (Oct. 1932). André Gide,
Journal 4 Jan. 1933. Jean-Louis Loubet del Bayle, Les Non-Confomistes des années 30 (Paris,
1961) , pp. 117-20. Mounier wrote to Berdyaev: “Je dois vous redire combien votre article a
soulevé d’enthousiasme de tous côtés. Il a été certainement un des plus remarqués de notre
premier numéro.” Emmanuel Mounier, Mounier et sa génération (Paris, 1956), p. 103.
12See Nikolai Berdyaev Subjectivism i individualism v obshchestvennoi filosofii (,Subjectivism
and Individualism in Social Philosophy (St. Petersburg, 1901).
13Nikolai Berdyaev, Khristianstvo i klassovaia bor’ba (Paris, 1931).
uNikolai Berdyaev, Smyisl istorii, The Meaning o f History, trans. George Reavey, (New York,
1962) . First published in 1922 in Berlin.
outright: he acknowledged its truths while demonstrating its centrally flawed
approach in order to assert that if Christianity and its personalist ideas were
properly applied, Marxist lies would easily be defeated by Christian truths.

II

In his view of history, Berdyaev saw Christianity as the culmination of two main
traditions: a religious tradition which he divided into the Greek and Jewish
religions, and a racial tradition composed of the Aryan (Indo-European) and
Jewish races.13*15 For him, the Greek religion attributed to their many gods not
only superhuman strength, but also very human characteristics. They placed
significant change beyond the reach of human beings: a god might feel like
helping humans; he might just as easily destroy them; people had some
recourse through sacrifice and prayer, but the success of these supplications
was never guaranteed. Moreover, because the Greeks believed in a cyclical
pattern to life, they never saw specific events and changes as part of a concrete
progression. The Jews, while not possessing a particularly merciful God,
believed that their actions influenced their ascension toward the Messiah:
. . . the Jewish historical consciousness gave rise to the religious
millennium which aspired toward the future in a passionate demand
and longing for the fulfilment of the millenary Kingdom of God on
earth, and the advent of the Day of Judgement when evil would
finally be vanquished by good, and when an end would come to the
injustice and sufferings common to the terrestrial destiny of
mankind.16
In the Jewish tradition, human salvation depended upon solving social
injustice.17
I believe that socialism is based upon a Jewish religious principle,
upon the eschatological myth and the profound dualism of the
Jewish consciousness .. . This dualism . . . gave rise to the religious
millennium which aspired toward the future in a passionate demand
and longing for the fulfilment of the millenary Kingdom of God on
earth, and the advent of the Day of Judgment when evil would
finally be vanquished by good, and when an end would come to the
injustice and sufferings common to the terrestrial destiny of
mankind.18
In Berdyaev’s racial polarity, the Aryans were obsessively preoccupied by
their individual souls and life after death. They never concerned themselves
with the collective good.19 The Jews, on the contrary, possessed a collective
destiny: “the alliance of the Jewish spirit with the destiny of the people . . .

13Ibid., p. 90.
16Ibid.
17Ibid., p. 21.
18Ibid., p. 90.
19Ibid., pp. 82-88.
make of the Jews a collective people.”20 Consequently the Jews could not
ignore any person’s plight if they wished to fulfil their own destiny. Berdyaev
asserted that, in the formation of Christianity, these traditions were mingled,
and that specific characteristics of each appeared in the European Christian
world.
From this conception of history, Berdyaev went on to describe the
progression of these influences in European history. Capitalism — an
expression of excessive individuality or Aryan philosophy — became the
reigning economic ideology. In legitimizing individual profit it allowed the
exploitation and enslavement of the proletariat and the atomization of society.
Urbanization completed the destruction of collective life. The response of the
now alienated masses was socialism:
Socialism, I believe, is the outcome of the disintegration of human
society and communal life, and of man’s isolation produced by the
extreme development of individualism. The terror of abandonment
and isolation in the face of destiny, and the lack of all communion
with other people, incite man to re-establish some form of
communal and compulsory life.21
Although Berdyaev had serious problems with the compulsory aspect of
socialism, he did agree that excessive individualism had been a curse to most
of mankind and he fully supported some sort of socialist change in economic
and social relations.
However, Berdyaev asserted that a particular variety of socialism —
Marxism — was not solely a protest against the great wrongs committed in the
name of individualism, but also a consequence of the Jewish tradition. As
proponents of the collective and, with their faith in human progression, the
Jews espoused a “Heaven on earth” — utopia.
This intense longing [for utopia] symbolizes the religious collecti­
vism of the Jewish people. It could accept neither Christ nor the
mystery of His Crucifixion because he came as the bearer of a meek
and not a triumphant truth on earth. His whole life and death were
a repudiation of the longing for terrestrial beatitude cherished by
the Jewish people.22
As the individualism of the Aryan tradition tended to excess, so too did the
collectivism and utopianism of the Jewish tradition. Flatly contradicting the
supposedly “scientific” base of Marx’s philosophy, Berdyaev asserted that Marx
simply propounded the old Jewish messianic ideal:
. . . his [Marx’s] proletarian theory was not scientific but religious,
messianic, mythical; he created the myth of the messiah-proletariat,

20Ibid., p. 90.
21Ibid., p. 148.
“ Ibid., p. 96.
 the unique class free from the original sin of exploitation, the elect
people of God, saviours of mankind, endowed with every virtue.23
Demonstrating his loyalty to Christian dogma, Berdyaev clearly condemned
Marxism for its sin of idolization.
Philosophically, he found Marx’s sequence of social change highly illogical.
Marx insisted that humans must undergo the abuses of capitalism in order to
see that “exploitation is an evil and a sin, even the greatest evil and the worst
sin,” before they could achieve the communist utopia.
But his [Marx’s] moralism is perverted, even demoniacal: he looks
on evil as the only highway towards good, an increase of darkness
is the only means of getting light; brotherhood, equality, and
friendship among men are born out of envy, hatred, malice, and all
uncharitableness, violence and repression bring freedom in their
train.24
Berdyaev was perplexed as to how the proletariat, encouraged to be “bitter,
envious, vindictive, and prone to violence” by Marxism, could suddenly create
“a new and better social system . . . new and better relations between men.”25
He also disagreed with Marx’s irrational assertion that capitalism was the
ultimate evil. “In the end what remains of his [Marx’s] (and still more his
successors’) work is a crude libel in which the bourgeois classes [sic] are
accused of deliberately criminal intentions.”26
Marx attacked capitalism because it “turns relations of men into relations
of things.”27 Berdyaev recognized this as Marx’s best and most authentic truth,
but he then applied this condemnation to Marx’s own theory. If capitalist
materialist economics dehumanized man, then there must be more to life than
labour, and man must have a spiritual side which is stifled in the capitalist
system. Hence if capitalism is wrong, then beyond the economic and materialist
world must exist living men and creative beings whose work and energy are
appreciated. Therefore, economics is no more than the struggle of living
creatures; it is a part of their creative activity. “There is no substantial
economic reality; consequently, all economic categories are only historical
categories, and not eternal principles as the classical bourgeois political
economy teaches.”28
Having established this, Marx then contradicted himself: he asserted that
all men belong to a class, which is a thing, an object. Marx derided capitalism

23Berdyaev, Christianity and Class War, trans. Donald Atwater, (New York, 1933), p. 44.
24Ibid., p. 45.
25Ibid., p. 71.
26Ibid., p. 21. Although the sense is correctly conveyed, this translation is a bit erroneous. A
literal translation reads: “Having received the rude pamphlet, peculiar to Marxists, they accuse
the bourgeois class of consciously villainous intentions (Poluchalcia grubyi pamflet, osobenno u
marksistov, obvinenie burzhuaznykh klassov v soznateVno zlodeiskikh namereniiakh).” Berdyaev,
Khristianstvo i klassovaia bor’ba, p. 19.
27Ibid., p. 39.
28Ibid., p. 39.
for objectifying man and then proceeded to do exactly the same thing with his
own system. “The very process of dehumanization which Marx denounced in
capitalism, takes place in materialistic Communism . . . Both may turn man
into a technical function.”29 Marx followed the capitalists in placing economics
above humanity; he replaced the capitalist idol of profit with his own idol —
class; he reduced “man in his highest manifestations and his deepest spiritual
experiences to a subordinate function of the class.”30
Regarding his own era, Berdyaev unveiled the continued addictive and
corrupting power of bourgeois capitalism. In France, the efforts of trade unions
had improved the economic situation of the proletariat, who, being appeased
by better conditions, began to support reform and not revolution. Socialism
lost its fervour as the proletariat aspired to become bourgeois:
Socialism is definitely becoming a party which supports good order;
the practical reforming elements are coming uppermost in social
democracy, and the revolutionary and messianic pathos is vanishing.
Communists are most indignant at this state of affairs, but they are
themselves only the bourgeois of tomorrow or the day after.31
Not only was the appeal of Marxism declining, said Berdyaev, but the one
example of proto-communism, the Soviet Union, had in fact completely
adopted capitalist ethics:
Communism has taken the form of State Capitalism and allows no
professional and trade associations which do not depend directly on itself.
After having absorbed personality, society in turn finds itself absorbed
by the state, which is thus enabled to become an oppressor and exploiter,
to invent new sorts of slave-labour, to turn working-men once again into
bond-men, and to perfect a new system of tyranny.32
Thus for Berdyaev, Marx had completely failed in his attempt to destroy
capitalism. Rather Marx had developed a system that was completely corrupted
by materialist capitalism.
Berdyaev could not accept a Marxism that subjected people to the
“faceless collective” as a solution to the slavery of capitalism. For Berdyaev,
“class” could not be “good, intelligent, or noble,” only each specific person
could exhibit these characteristics. Berdyaev again pointed to Marx’s only
success in Soviet Russia:
But will the success of the proletariat, the abolition of classes, the
establishment of this organized rationality be a victory for man? He
was borne down in the past by classes and class warfare. Will he

^Nikolai Berdyaev, “Marx versus Man,” Russian Philosophy, James Edie, James Scanlan, and
Mary Zeldin, eds., Vol III. (Chicago, 1969), p. 163.
“ Berdyaev, Christianity and Class War, p. 33.
31Ibid., p. 48. Berdyaev actually stated that “Socialism unavoidably is becoming bourgeois
(Sotsializm neotvratimo delaetsia burzhuaznym) ” in the original Russian text. Berdyaev,
Khristianstvo i klassovaia bor’ba, p. 50.
“ Ibid., pp. 76, 77.
 survive in the future? No. He will definitively disappear, leaving only
a “collective” behind him.33
His critique of Marxism was therefore both religious and philosophical.

Ill

In “Vérité et mensonge du Communisme” Berdyaev asserted that the failure

of Christianity in the social sphere had left room for a messianic, religious
movement like Marxism which replaced true love for God with the idolization
of class. The best defence against Marxism was therefore a correct and
complete application of Christian principles in economics and society.
Philosophically, it was possible to dismantle Marxism on the basis of its poor
logic and to condemn it as a perversion corrupted by materialist capitalism.
He thus provided a view of communism in his article for Esprit which accepted
its social, economic, and Christian truths, but denied all aspects of its
utopianism, “faceless” collectivism, and materialism.
With his article, Berdyaev clearly differentiated Esprit's personalism from
the leftist spectrum of communism; he accomplished this, not by simply
deriding all Marxist principles, but rather by demonstrating how the
weaknesses of Marxism outweighed its strengths. He also gave Esprit a unique
Christian critique of communism which complemented the spiritual bias of the
personalist movement. These particular elements of Berdyaev’s critique largely
explain Emmanuel Mourner’s decision to solicit his contribution — although
Berdyaev’s notoriety as a philosopher and opponent of Marxism was probably
an added incentive.
The importance of his article to the personalists at Esprit was indicated
by an editorial introduction — the only one included in this issue — which
compared Berdyaev to Oswald Spengler and Hermann Keyserling as a crucial
interpreter of the times:
Accuser l’occident, ce n’est pas renier les ressources qu’il détient
encore. Mais il faut d’abord enfoncer l’accusation avec violence pour
nous sortir de notre suffisance. A Spengler et à Keyserling il est une
autre réponse que la vanité de nos fautes. On pourra ne pas suivre
M. Berdiaeff dans les voies de salut qu’il nous propose. On ne
pourra lui reprocher de n’avoir pas posé le problème dans son axe.34
Esprit further illustrated the validity of Berdyaev’s arguments by publishing a
critical traveller’s view of the conditions in the Soviet Union written by Jean
Sylveire.
At a time when most such commentaries were quite positive about the
Soviet experiment and the new regime, this article exposed heretofore

33Ibid., pp. 42-43. The original Russian text is again more forceful: ". . . man will disappear,
leaving behind only the special collective and not man (<chelovek ischeznet okonchatel’no, budet
spetsiaVnyi kollektiv, a ne chelovek) ” Berdyaev, Khristianstvo i klassovaia bor’ba, pp. 43A4.
34Esprit, October 1932, p. 322.
unrevealed aspects of the costs of implementing communism: passport laws,
massive deaths caused by starvation and brutality, the suffering of the Russian
people.35 Such attention devoted to the problems of other nations also
demonstrated Esprits commitment to a world vision, and with this issue came
the inauguration of its policy of exposing the plight of the Russian people to
the world.
Emmanuel Mourner’s decision to choose Berdyaev was probably
facilitated by his personal knowledge of the Russian exile’s views. Between 1928
and 1932 the greatest influences on the development of Mourner’s thought had
occurred in the “at-homes” at Meudon (Jacques Maritain’s house) and
Clamart (Berdyaev’s home).36 At these venues he had listened to and recorded
the discussions of some of the foremost intellectuals of the French Catholic
Left and the Russian émigré intelligentsia on a myriad of issues. Thus, Mounier
had the opportunity to assess quite varied opinions and theories from several
substantial and well-known theoreticians. In the end, he chose Berdyaev.
From December 1930 to February 1931, Maritain hosted a series of
discussions on economic theory with the Abbé Lallement presenting his views
on capitalism and then encouraging discussion. Obviously, the issue of
communism was frequently raised at these meetings. What is apparent from
the notes which Mounier recorded from these sessions is a frequent naivety
regarding communism, especially on the part of Jacques Maritain. Condemning
capitalism as a system which gave no concrete value to work and thus
inevitably exploited the worker, Maritain firmly placed himself beside Marx
— if only Marx could be separated from atheism.
J ’avoue que si le communisme n’était pas aussi radicalement athée
et maintenant ce minimum de propriété individuelle qui est
nécessaire à l’homme, je ne verrais aucune raison de n’y pas
entrer.37
Perhaps the group at Meudon understood the delicate nuances of Maritain’s
view, but when Mounier wished to start a personalist revolution which
advocated communalism and yet was definitely not communist, it becomes
clear why he hesitated to present such a view to the public.
Maritain did agree with Berdyaev about Marx’s greatest truth: that
capitalism turns relations of men into relations of things, and that it is essential
to regard man in his essence as primary. However, he did not offer any
critique, as did Berdyaev, about Marx’s failure along the same lines; Marx also
subjugated people to a thing, to “class.” Rather, Maritain fully applauded
Marx’s dialectical theory and bemoaned that lack of a similar, concrete
program like Marx’s in the current era.

MJean Sylveire, “Contre?” Esprit, October 1932, pp. 300-22.

^Heilman, Emmanuel Mounier and the New Catholic Left, pp. 23, 28-31, 38-40.
37Emmanuel Mounier, Entretiens II, 20 Dec. 1930, unpublished.
 Il nous faut aussi un schéma (comme Marx): si non nous succombe­
rons devant ceux qui en présenteront un. Nous manquons imagi­
nation.38
When the Abbé Lallement suggested that Marxism was a very real danger
which might potentially grow throughout the world, and that it was more
inhumane than capitalism, Maritain responded that the people of Russia were
better off now under the “napoleonic” Bolsheviks than they were under the
Tsar and that their conditions could not be considered less favourable!39 In fact
he asserted that the Russian spiritual revolution which Berdyaev hoped to
encourage was so well on its way that in fifty years the communists might
develop a complementary regime to the Christian humanism that he himself
proposed.40
The content of Mounier’s notes from the Meudon discussions show
clearly that the Maritains were well aware of the deprivations caused by the
massive collectivization drive in the Soviet Union at this time. They even put
forth numbers of those dispossessed, increased costs of living, and the
industrial growth, A speaker, W. Bitt, presented a surprisingly well-documented
lecture on conditions in the Soviet Union on 1 February 1931 which described
inflation, problems with housing and abandoned children, the destruction of
the Kulaks, and the massive growth of “enemies of the people.” Despite this
the Maritains continued to support many elements of the Bolshevik regime.
As Mounier notes:
Raï'ssa et lui [Jacques Maritain] ne peuvent croire qu’il n’y avait pas
chez eux [Bolcheviks] un amour des hommes et de leur oeuvre en
vue des hommes. Maritain rappelle l’ascétisme de Lénine qui, lui
a dit un témoin oculaire, quand il fut blessé, n’avait pas de chemise
de rechange.41
And Maritain himself gave a solid defence of Lenin:
Je pense à souci scrupuleux d’orthodoxie chez Lénine qui employait
de gros bouquins a définir une distinction pour que la doctrine fut
solidement établie comme une théologie. Cette idée d’un bien du
peuple devait les guider et comporter, du moins chez certains une
part d’amour.42
Although Berdyaev was present at several of these meetings, the notes of
Mounier suggest that he was uncharacteristically quiet. However, at the end
of a long discourse on capitalism, spiced with Maritain’s support of commu­
nism, Berdyaev finally quipped: “sur tes chef communists, parle de folie
rationaliste, mais aussi d’un amour du peuple.”43 (Mourner’s emphasis)

38Ibid.
39Ibid.
^Ibid. This was a surprisingly prophetic statement in light of the changes which have occurred
in the former Soviet Union in the last seven years.
AXEntretiens II, 1 Feb. 1931, unpublished
42Ibid.
*3Entretiens II, 20 Jan. 1931, unpublished.
 Mounier continued to struggle with defining the correct position vis-à-vis
communism as preparations to launch Esprit became more concrete and exact.
At the end of November 1930 he talked with his fellow collaborators —
Georges Izard, Marcel Arland, and André Déléage — and Maritain about the
most politically appropriate attitude towards the Soviet Union. Maritain again
asserted his support: pointing out that the big newspapers in France and
England were completely hostile to the U.S.S.R. and thus regarded as its
biggest enemies,44 he suggested that Esprit would be well advised, “Leur
dominer maximum de sympathie. Et ne pas intervenir.”45
Maritain admitted that the economic system established in the U.S.S.R.
embraced ideals that a personalist movement could never accept. Again he
condemned its atheism. But instead of suggesting concrete actions by which
the personalists could assist a spiritual revolution within Russia, Maritain
simply suggested that they had “attendre une renaissance des âmes.”46 André
Déléage went further: he insisted that they all should “pray” for the Soviet
Union.47 When Mounier tried to turn the discussion to more tangible
alternatives, suggesting that the U.S.S.R. was heading towards damnation and
that its example might provide a valuable lesson for their nascent collectivist
movement, Déléage responded abruptly: “Damnés, c’est de l’Eglise morte, cela
ne m’intéresse plus.”48
In contrast with his French comrades seeming disinterest in transforming
their ideas into action, Mounier found in Berdyaev another firm supporter of
engagement. Through books like Christianity and Class War, The Meaning o f
History and The Russian Revolution, Berdyaev had risked censorship and
derision in order to express his assessment of communism. He also participated
in polemic forums like Vekhi in an attempt to educate and temper the Russian
intelligentsia. The coming of the revolution and the Bolshevik coup did not
silence him. Between 1917 and 1922 he wrote four books, submitted articles
to critical appraisals of the revolution such as Iz glubiny (From the Depths).49
Through his lecturing, writing, and regular discussion groups at his house he
constantly challenged the Bolshevik regime; while he accepted the reality of
the revolution and the overthrow of the Tsar, he insisted that Marxism must
be surpassed by a true spiritual and Christian revolution.50 The effectiveness
of his actions may be judged by the Bolshevik response. After bringing him

“ It should be noted that this remark of Maritain was not accurate. Several large English and
French newspapers were quite positive about the Soviet Regime such as The Guardian.
*5Mounier et sa génération, 66. John Heilman has shown that Maritain was well-aware of his
limitations regarding a concrete critique of communism and that he in fact suggested that
Mounier enlist Berdyaev’s help in defining Esprit’s position towards communism. Heilman,
Emmanuel Mounier and the New Catholic Left, p. 40.
46Mounier et sa génération, p. 66.
47“Alors prions, c’est tout,” ibid.
48Ibid.
49Nikolai Berdyaev, “Dukhi Russkoi Revolutsii,” Iz glubiny, (Moscow, 1917).
"Nikolai Berdyaev, Samopoznanie: opyt filosofskoi avtobiografti (Paris, 1949), p. 275.
before the head of the Cheka, Dzerzhinsky, for an inconclusive meeting in
1920, he was permanently exiled from the Russia in 1922 as an “enemy of the
people.”
Even in exile Berdyaev continued his attempts to explain the messianic
elements of Marxism. Holding discussion groups at his home, first in Berlin
and then, after 1924, in Paris, he tried to persuade both natives and émigré
Russians about the dangers of Marxism and the need for a spiritually humanist
revolution. Unfortunately his reception, especially among the Russian
emigrants, was less than gratifying. Many of the older Russians felt completely
betrayed by the Bolsheviks and desired only a restoration of the Tsar. For
them, Berdyaev’s complicated assessment of Marxism and the revolution,
branded him as no more than a communist.51 Russian socialists who had lost
out to the Bolsheviks, primarily the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries,
still refused to listen to his spiritual critique of Marxism; they preferred to
engage in polemics about how the Bolsheviks had perverted the revolution.52
They tended to label Berdyaev a religious reactionary.
In the Russian milieu, Berdyaev’s one success was among the young. Both
in Berlin and Paris he inspired the “Post-Revolutionaries” who were quite
taken with his ideas of transforming the Bolshevik success into a spiritual
revolution in Russia. The small, elite, “Post-Revolutionaries” believed “that
in spite of communism, Russia was still pursuing her inner, spiritual evolution
in accordance with her deepest national, historic, and religious traditions which
would finally free her from Marxism.”53 This group interested Mounier,
sufficiently so that as Esprit developed he asked them to contribute information
about the U.S.S.R. to the review. Signing themselves “the Four,” Hélène
Iswolsky and three other eager young Russians regularly collaborated on
articles in Esprit and from her research, Iswolsky was able to compile the
information to write two commentaries Women in Russia (1937) and L’homme
1936 en Russe Soviétique (1936).54 Unfortunately the group soon disbanded,
as did similar ones: the harsh realities of émigré life left them with little time
and less money to put their ideas into effect.55

"Hélène Iswolsky, Light Before Dusk. A Russian Catholic in France, 1923-1941 (Toronto, 1942),
pp. 95, 96.
"Robert Williams, Culture in Exile (Ithaca, 1972), pp. 242-52. It is interesting to note that the
philosophical and political elements of Berdyaev’s critique of Marxism concurred with many of
the attacks of these displaced socialists. In particular, the writings of Leon Trotsky agree with
Berdyaev that Bolshevism soon became “State capitalism.” However there is no evidence as of
yet, that any committed socialist came over to Berdyaev’s position. Presumably they had no wish
to engage in the introspection of their positions demanded by his critique and found it easy to
condemn it simply as religious nonsense.
"Iswolsky, p. 105.
“ Ibid., p. 106.
"Williams, p. 248. Two notable exceptions are Alexandre Marc and Hélène Iswolsky. Marc
went on to found the first Personalist group, l ’Ordre Nouveau, in 1931 which worked closely with
Mounier’s Esprit until a break in 1934 over doctrinal differences. Iswolsky participated in Esprit
writing articles about the state of man in the Soviet Union. Her complimentary recollections
 The lack of a sympathetic Russian audience combined with a belief that
non-Russians poorly understood the complexities of the Bolshevik success56led
Berdyaev to accept Emmanuel Mourner’s invitation to write the article on
communism for the first issue of Esprit.57 For Berdyaev, participation in Esprit
was a way to continue his battle against materialism and further the cause of
a spiritual revolution:
The journal [Esprit] was occupied in elaborating a social program
of a spiritual nature. This was the trend among these youths with
which I most closely empathized. The young "Esprit“ [group] felt
I was sympathetic to their personalist philosophy of which I myself
was a radical advocate, defending the social project of personalism,
so close to socialism, not Marxist, but of a newly abundant type.58
Moreover, he found the young French personalists at variance with the older
tradition in France which seemed surprisingly abstract and divorced from
reality. Having heard that the French intellectuals regarded themselves as the
“touchstone” of political movements, he found the reality rather different upon
his arrival in France: he rarely saw any political figures at intellectual meetings,
and the intellectuals never entered political circles. Thus he felt more sympathy
with the new generation of French intellectuals, like Mounier, who were
prepared to consider concrete political action, rather than, “just stew in then-
own juice.”59 In his autobiography, Berdyaev describes Mounier as “a very
knowledgable man, and active Catholic, in social orientation — very leftist.”60
Thus Berdyaev seemed to have found in Esprit a way to carry on his quest,
begun in Russia, for a more logical, honest, and personal approach to social
issues.
In accordance with the theory of Isaiah Berlin, the Russian intelligentsia’s
central principle of living, and not just talking about their ideas, was strongly
manifest in Berdyaev.
There may be said to exist at least two attitudes toward literature
and the arts in general. . . For short, I propose to call one French,
the other Russian. The French writers of the nineteenth century on
the whole believed that they were purveyors . . . the artist’s private
life was no more concern to the public than the private life of a
carpenter . . . This attitude of mind (which I have deliberately

about the Personalist movement are well-documented in her partial autobiography Light Before
Dusk.
36As Stanislas Fumet states in his Histoire de Dieu dans ma vie (Paris, 1987): “Sentant que
nous pourrions mal comprendre sa [Berdyaev’s] vision mystique des événements, l’auteur de
Vérités et erreurs [sic] du communisme sera moins dur pour les communistes russes que dans les
années où il écrivit Un nouveau Moyen A ge* p. 291.
^Emmanuel Mounier made this invitation on June 27,1931. Mounier et sa génération, (Paris,
1950), p. 80
“ Nikolai Berdyaev, Samopoznanie: opyt filosofskoi avtobiografii, p. 314. (my translation)
“ Ibid, p. 313.
^Ibid, p. 314. (my translation)
 exaggerated) was rejected with the utmost vehemence by almost
every major Russian writer of the nineteenth century .. . The most
characteristic Russian writers believed that writers are, in the first
place, men; and that they are directly and continually responsible
for all their utterances, whether made in novels or in private letters,
in public speeches or in conversation. This view, in turn, affected
western conceptions of art and life to a marked degree, and is one
of the arresting contributions to thought of the Russian intelligent­
sia.61
The adoption of this principle in the west appears to have affected the
approach of some young French intellectuals like Emmanuel Mounier. Hence
the participation of Berdyaev in this new, largely unknown review which at its
height would garner no more than three thousand subscribers may be further
explained by the convergence of his active Russian approach with Mourner’s
own commitment to engagement. Neither man was content to write abstractly
about their ideas, they had to live them and take risks for them. Berdyaev’s
four arrests under both the Tsar and the Bolsheviks and his two forced exiles
proved his willingness to engage reality. He served as a living example for
Mounier, who insisted that all members of Esprit,
. . . had to apply its [personalist] principles to everyday life, in their
family, in their business affairs and in their profession . .. They also
had to oppose all manifestations of modern disorder and tyranny:
whether caused by the excesses of capitalism or by communist and
Nazi influences.62
However, perhaps the most important reason for asking Berdyaev to
outline Esprits position towards communism was political. In 1930s France,
the radical division of “Right” and “Left” made it very difficult for a young
group to situate itself along a third path.63 In accepting sponsors and
contributors, they decided to forego the writers Malraux and Jouhandeau
because they were too closely linked to the communists. Henri Massis was also
excluded because of his ties to the right-wing review Action Française.M
Mounier openly acknowledged the difficult climate of the times when he wrote
Berdyaev to confirm his agreement to submit the article on communism:
. . . Vous avez compris, entre autres choses, que nous sommes
disposés à une très libre et audacieuse enquête sur le terrain social
et politique. C’est vous dire que je vous demande d’écrire l’étude

6’Isaiah Berlin, Russian Thinkers (New York, 1978), pp. 128-31.

“ Iswolsky, p. 112.
63The difficulties which Esprit had in distinguishing itself from either communism or fascism
is apparent not only in its reception in the political milieu in 1930s France, but also in the
historical interpretation of their movement. John Heilman has tried to link personalism to the
growing fascist impulse — J. Heilman, “Personnalisme et fascisme,”Lepersonnalisme d'Emmanuel
Mounier (Paris, 1985) — and Michel Winock has bluntly called personalism “philocommunisme ”
— M. Winock, Histoire politique de la revue Esprit, 1930-1950 (Paris, 1975).
64Mounier et sa génération, p. 70.
 que vous avez bien voulu nous promettre avec toute la liberté et
toute Pampleur requise. N'atténuez ni ne diminuez rien: il nous faut
travailler avec grandeur, et les raisons qui pourraient vous faire
ailleurs refuser cette étude seront celles mêmes pour lesquelles nous
vous la prendrons.63*65
Berdyaev, an exile from the Soviet Union due to his opposition of communism
and a respected philosopher, carried no such stigmas. Moreover, his well-
known commitment to an ontological, Christian approach as well as his own
advocacy of a “third way” made Berdyaev eminently suitable for Esprit’s
purposes.
Having declared its opposition to the status quo in France — to capitalism
and liberal bouigeois democracy — Esprit required a different approach to
communism than the simple capitalist denunciation of all things socialist.
On ne saurait opposer au communisme une forme de restauration
quelconque ou bien l'exemple de la civilisation capitaliste et bour­
geoise des XIXe et XXe siècles. Lorsque le Temps se dresse en
face de l'Éternité, on ne peut lui opposer que 1 elle-même, non une
autre forme du temps, déjà périmée.66
Berdyaev demonstrated the validity of a socialist ethic while condemning the
philosophical approach of Marxism; he did not deny the need for a “Christian
socialism,” but rather insisted on immaculate philosophical usage and
impeccable “means.” By illustrating how Marxism degraded the person and
human spirituality as much as capitalism had, Berdyaev cleared a path for
Esprit to propose a social policy which would encourage equality and diminish
exploitation while always maintaining the primacy of the spiritual.
Esprit’s continued allegiance to Berdyaev's theory was demonstrated in
their defence against a possible interdiction by Rome which was launched in
1936. Accused of several sins against the church it sent a manifesto to Rome
to clarify their position with regard to Christianity, the personalist revolution,
and communism.
Ce que le communisme a de si redoutable, c’est cette combinaison
de la vérité et du mensonge: il s'agit avant tout de ne pas nier la
vérité mais de la dégager de l’erreur.67
By using the exact terminology employed by Berdyaev for the title of his first
article in Esprit, Mounier acknowledged the personalist debt to his ideas.
Although it may be debated whether Esprit maintained its commitment
to the “third way” and Berdyaev's Christian and philosophical critique of
communism after World War Two, its initial orientation was certainly highly
affected by the Russian philosopher. During the 1930s, Esprit maintained the
position on communism which was presented in Berdyaev’s “Vérité et
mensonge du communisme.” If we understand how important it was for Esprit

63Ibid., p. 80.
‘“Ibid., p. 185.
‘"Ibid., p. 184.
to differentiate itself from the “right” and the “left” in proposing its spiritual
personalist revolution and how Berdyaev so clearly identified the errors in
communism, we can see why one historian has stated:
Berdyaev’s analysis, adopted by Mounier, became a classic
statement of Esprit's position on Marxism and lies at the root of its
often complex and widely criticised relations with French commu-
• w 68
msm.
The importance of Berdyaev’s contribution cannot be diminished. Esprit
was often accused by its critics on the “right” of simply propounding another
version of communism. That the French Marxists refused to acknowledge
Esprit and in fact were sometimes its harshest critics, did not affect this
challenge. It is only by looking at the specific philosophical position created
by Berdyaev and espoused by the review that we can see the variance of
Esprit's position with that of Marxism and truly say that it did advocate a “third
way.” This, in turn, may help to explain the origins of the present-day call for
a new order and a distinct “third way” which has emerged as a force in
postcommunist Europe and, indeed, even in postcommunist Russia. Ideological
alternatives like those proposed by Berdyaev did exist in Russia prior to the
revolution: some proponents were simply defeated by the events of 1917; others
were forced to emigrate after the fact and find new, fertile ground in foreign
lands where their ideas could be preserved and disseminated for a later era.

McGill University

68Kelly, p. 36.