Westernism

Slavophilism and Westernism were indeed the two sides of the same set of aspirations and sentiments, one facing an image of the past, and the other that of the future.

In the coming decades, the tumult of revolution and war together with the mistakes, compromises, and ambitions of the country's new leaders would bring Russia's "Asiatic" heritage to the fore and sweep away a still-fragile Westernism.

This description of a typical serious circle exposes the limitation which was so fundamental to Russian Westernism after the failure of the Decembrist revolt—the absence of any relation between thought and practice.