He was a deep critic of capitalism, Lenin said for him: Who is Chernyshevsky?
Russian revolutionary democrat, materialist philosopher, critic and socialist. He has been considered by some to be a utopian socialist. He was the leader of the revolutionary democratic movement in the 1860s. He influenced important names such as Lenin and Emma Goldman.
He was born in Saratov in 1828, the son of a poor priest. He stayed here until 1846. After graduating from St. Petersburg University in 1850, he taught at a high school (gymnasium) in Saratov. He lived in St Petersburg from 1853 to 1862 and became editor-in-chief of Sovremennik (Contemporary). He was arrested and imprisoned in 1862. While he was in prison, he wrote his famous novel "How to Do It". It can be said that the novel, which would later inspire many Russian revolutionaries, bears the influence of names such as Owen, Fourier, and Godwin in terms of the ideas it contains.
Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (24 July1828 – 29 October 1889) was a Russian literary and social critic, journalist, novelist, democrat, and socialist philosopher, often identified as a utopian socialist and leading theoretician of Russian nihilism and Narodniks. He was the dominant intellectual figure of the 1860s revolutionary democratic movement in Russia, despite spending much of his later life in exile to Siberia, and was later highly praised by Karl Marx, Georgi Plekhanov, and Vladimir Lenin.
In 1862, a sentence of 'civil death' was given, followed by penal servitude and later exile to Siberia. He died on October 17, 1889, at the age of 61.
Chernichevsky is the founder of Russian populism, Narodism. He invited the public to work for the overthrow of autocracy through a revolution and the creation of a socialist society. His idea was to create a socialism based on the old peasant commune. Herzen, Belinsky, and Feuerbach greatly influenced his ideas. He was a materialist in the philosophical sense.
Karl Marx defines Chernyshevsky as "the great Russian researcher and critic who masterfully revealed the bankruptcy of bourgeois economy." However, Chernyshevsky was not a Marxist, or rather, he was unaware of Marxist literature.
Lenin, who greatly admired Chernyshevsky, explains his role in the development of the revolutionary thought and movement in Russia as follows: “Chernyshevsky was a much more consistent and militant democrat, his writings inspire the spirit of class struggle. He determinedly pursued the path of exposing the hypocrisies of liberalism… Despite his utopian socialist views, he was a remarkably profound critic of capitalism.”