A Class Analysis of Nihilism:Looking at Turgenev from Marx's Perspective

The discourse about nihilism in modern Chinese context is influenced by German and Russian thinkers.Among them were Marx and Turgenev.Both were born in 1818 and died in 1883;both were extremely energetic and shared similar ambition.In Father and Son Turgenev portrayed an image of the nihilist as a self-disciplined intelligentsia who questions everything with his scientific mind;this nihilist refuses to live a decadent life,believes in hard work and detests romanticism.Compared with Marx's firm stand against nihilism,Turgenev's attitude is much more hesitant and uncertain.While Marx judged nihilism from the standpoint of new human being of the future(proletariat),Turgenev looked at nihilism of the bourgeois plebian intelligentsia from the aristocratic perspective.Yet neither of them considered the national-cultural characteristic of nihilism.To read Turgenev from Marx's perspective is not only interesting but also fruitful.The problem they both probed demands more reflections from those who are concerned about the future of China and the path of modern civilization.