At the Southern Conference on Slavic Studies, one speak gave a presentation on Nikolai Chernyshevky’s rejection of Darwin. He recounted Chernyshevky’s frequent, and blistering, attacks on Darwin, with him casting dispersions on both the quality of his character and his thought. To a certain extent this is interesting. Darwinism was accepted rather well by the nineteenth century Russian scientific community and by the more radical or liberal social thinkers (with Chernyshevky being the notable exception). Darwin was not, however, popular with conservatives. The autocracy likewise feared the social and political implications of his work and banned The Origin of the Species in Russia after the 1866 assassination attempt on on Alexander II, as they connected Darwinism with revolutionary thought.
Chernyshevky’s opposition to Darwin is, in part, caused by what he sees as the connection between Darwin and Thomas Robert Malthus and his theory of population (namely, that population tends to increase at a faster rate than its means of subsistence and that unless it is checked by moral restraint or by disease, famine, war, or other disaster widespread poverty and degradation inevitably result.) Chernyshevsky, apparently, did not find this theory very profound, but also saw in it as propagating the idea that it was impossible to help the masses.
Chernyshevsky saw Darwin as incorporating this Malthusian struggle for existence into his theory of natural selection making it possible for the “application to human society of a law that was brutal in its. implications.”
“For example, Chernyshevsky asked, if the Africans fought one another, would that be good or bad? According to Darwin it would be good. If the white race exterminated all the Africans, that would be even better. But, Chernyshevsky added, it would be better except for one thing: the expansion of the white race in Africa would be beneficial to itself only if it were accomplished by honorable means. Otherwise it would lower the level of white civilization, the good qualities of its citizens, and even the level of its material well-being. Chernyshevsky believed that Darwin was not aware of these implications of his theory.”
For a more detailed discussion of Chernyshevsky’s opposition to Darwin see: