The gulf between these two worlds is historical. It was the fundamental problem of the 19th-century revolutionaries and democratic reformers, as it has been a major reason for the failure of today’s intelligentsia to play a more decisive role of national leadership since the collapse of the Soviet regime. The social background of the intelligentsia may have broadened greatly in the intervening period — the revolution cut its roots in the nobility — but in education and outlook it remained just as isolated from the common people as before. In that isolation is its tragedy.