The least or bitterest truth is more valuable than the sweetest or most imposing false appearance.1

Behind his journalistic exterior Drahomanov was a vigorous and origi­nal political thinker. As is always the case with original thinkers, to suc­ceeding generations his ideas are not only of historical interest; they are also still vital enough to enrich and influence contemporary thought.

The fact that Drahomanov’s political writings usually had a polemical purpose has hindered the understanding of his ideas. Apart from the ex­ternal difficulty that in order to read Drahomanov easily it is necessary to have some acquaintance with the quarrels of various Russian and Ukrain­ian factions of the 1870s to 1890s, there is a greater difficulty. In each of his political writings he is not only defending, but also opposing, a specific point of view. Therefore each given work is rather one-sided. None of them, with the possible exception of Istoricheskaia Polsha ³ Velikorusskaia demokratiia (Historical Poland and Great Russian Demo­cracy), represents the whole Drahomanov, the whole range of his ideas, but only a certain section, determined by the position of his opponent. Thus there is a noticeable discrepancy between his Ukrainian and his Russian writings. In the former he appears as a ruthless critic of the weaknesses of the Ukrainian movement. In order to know Drahomanov, the courageous apologist for the rights of the Ukrainian people against Russian centralism and chauvinism, one must read his writings in Rus­sian. It is only by taking both together that one obtains a well-rounded picture of Drahomanov’s position on the question of Russian-Ukrainian relations. It is the same with other topics. The contradictory interpreta­tions of Drahomanov made by various critics—at various times he was attacked as a socialist and as a bourgeois constitutionalist, as a nationalist and as a cosmopolitan—are caused by the fact that his critics were con­tent with considering one aspect of Drahomanov’s political philosophy. Drahomanov was aware of this, and once wrote, half jestingly:

During my whole life I have always been attacked from at least two opposite sides at once, and I have even set up for myself the criterion of regarding something as a failure if, on its account, I am only attacked from one side.²

We must, however, emphasize that although most of Drahomanov’s political writings are polemical, and all of them are in journalistic form, he should not be regarded as an essayist following the inspiration of the moment, but rather as a systematic thinker.

For me, each of my ideas, which is attacked from various sides, is a part of a whole system of ideas about Ukraine, Russia, Poland, the Slavic world, the Germans.... I have often stated that it is only to another system, even though it be diametrically opposed to my own, that I should surrender. So far no one has been able to show me such a system.³

Of course the “system” spoken of here is not a dogmatic, closed one. Drahomanov always rejected theories which claimed to have an­swers to all questions and patent remedies for all the difficulties of social life. This anti-dogmatism was certainly one of the bases for his repudia­tion of Marxism. The systematic character of Drahomanov^,s thought lies in the organic unity of his ideas, each of which is connected to and com­pletes the others, and can only be understood within the whole.