Russia’s apocalyptic messianism

H aving recently read Kropotkin’s memoirs (reviewed here ), reminded me, in his description of intellectual history of Russian revolutionary movements, of Berdyaev’s book, “The origin and the meaning of Russian Communism ”. Berdyaev wrote it in 1935-36; it was published in 1938. The only contemporary events referred to in the book are the Moscow trials (in one sentence), and a single mention of…