ABSTRACT
The rising popularity of the French Revolution demonstrated the Westernization of Russian intellectual life in the sense that the majority of Russian intellectuals assumed that Russia was part of Europe and an integral part of world history. The great interest in the French Revolution was demonstrated by the following: first, the sheer amount of publications focused on the French Revolution, second, those intellectuals who saw the French Revolution as the model for development dominated the intellectual milieu. The anarchists viewed the authoritarian tradition of the French Revolution as a manifestation of a deep trend intrinsic to all states throughout world history. However, the very fact that the history of the French Revolution was employed to display the authoritarian proclivity of modern civilization demonstrates that this authoritarian tradition was not deeply entrenched. Russian socialism was placed in the context of the Western democratic tradition and provided an ideological setting for Russian Westernized revolutionary Messianism.
