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    Mr. Struve's book is a systematic criticism of Narodism -- this word to be understood in its broad sense, as a theoretical doctrine that gives a particular solution to highly important sociological and economic problems, and as "a system of dogmas of economic policy" (p. VII). The very posing of such a problem would have made the book of outstanding interest, but of still greater importance is the standpoint from which the criticism is made. Of this the author in his Preface says the fallowing:

    "While adhering, on certain basic issues, to views that have been quite definitely established in literature, he (the author) does not consider himself bound in the least by the word and letter of any doctrine whatsoever. He is not infected with orthodoxy" (IX).

    The contents of the book make it clear that these "views that have been quite definitely established in literature" are those of Marxism. The question arises: which, exactly, are the "certain basic" tenets of Marxism that the author accepts, and which are those he rejects? Why and to what extent? He gives no direct answers to these questions. That is why a detailed examination will be necessary in order to make clear exactly what there is in the book that may be classed as Marxist -- which of the doctrine's tenets the author accepts and how consistently he adheres to them -- and which of them he rejects, and what are the results when he does so.

    The contents are exceedingly varied: the author gives us, firstly, an exposition of "the subjective method in sociology"

 
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as accepted by our Narodniks, criticises it and sets against it the method "of historico-economic materialism." Then he gives an economic criticism of Narodism, firstly on the strength of "human experience" (p. IX) and, secondly, on the basis of the facts of Russia's economic history and present-day reality. A criticism of the dogmas of Narodnik economic policy is given in passing. The varied character of the contents (something quite inevitable when criticising a major trend in our public thought) determines the form in which the examination is made: we shall have to follow the author's exposition step by step, dwelling on each series of arguments.

    Volume CCXLII of Otechestvenniye Zapiski [*] contains an unsigned article entitled "New Shoots in the People's Fields," which graphically sets forth the progressive aspects of Narodism as against Russian liberalism.

    The author begins by saying that "now" it is considered "almost treachery" to protest against "those who emerge from the midst of the people and reach a higher level of society."

    "Not long ago a certain literary donkey kicked at Otechestvenniye Zapiski for displaying pessimism towards the people, as he expressed himself regarding a brief review of a book by Zlatovrataky which contained nothing pessimistic apart from pessimism towards usury and the corrupting influence of money in general; and when, later, Gleb Uspensky wrote a commentary to his latest articles (Otechestvenniye Zapiski, No. 11, 1878), the liberal bog heaved and surged just as in the fairy-tale . . . and all of a sudden, so many defenders of the people appeared that, verily, we were surprised to find that our people had so many friends. . . . I cannot but sympathise . . . with the way of posing the problem of the beauteous countryside and of the attitude of the literary lads towards it, or, to put it better, not lads but old roues from among Messrs. the nobility and lackeys, and the young merchants. . . . To sing serenades to the countryside and to make eyes at it" does not at all mean to love and respect it, just as pointing to its defects does not mean to be hostile towards it. Should you ask the very same Uspensky . . . what is closest to his heart, where he sees the greatest guarantees for the future . . . in the countryside or in the old-nobility and the new middle-class strata, can there be any doubt at all that he would say: 'The countryside.'"

    This is a very typical passage. Firstly, it shows clearly the essence of Narodism: it is protest against serfdom (the

    "testifies to profound corruption of thought and feelings . . . never has there been such decent, polished, such innocent and at the same time profound corruption. This corruption is entirely the property of our recent history, the property of middle-class culture" [i.e., of the bourgeois, capitalist order, to be more exact. K. T.[*]] "that has grown up on the soil of landlordism, the sentimentality, ignorance and indolence of the nobility. The middle class have introduced their own science, their own moral code and their own sophisms into life."

    One would have thought that the author had so well assessed the situation that he should have understood the only possible conclusion to be drawn. If it is all a matter of our bourgeois culture, there can be no other "guarantees for the future" except in the "antipode" of this bourgeoisie, because it alone has been totally "differentiated" from this "middle-class culture," is finally and irrevocably hostile to it and is incapable of any of the compromises out of which it is so convenient to fashion "liberal passports."

    But no. One may still dream. "Culture" is certainly nothing but "middle-class," nothing but corruption. But this is only because it comes from the old landlordism (he himself has just admitted that this culture is a product of contemporary history, of that history, in fact, that destroyed the old landlordism) and from indolence -- something, therefore, that is fortuitous and has no firm roots, etc., etc. Then come phrases that have no meaning other than turning one's back on the facts and sentimental dreaming that ignores the existence of "mutually opposite forces." Listen:

    "They (the middle class) have to install them (science, the moral code) in the university chairs, in literature, in the courts and in other spheres of life." [Above we have seen that they have already installed them in such a profound "sphere of life" as the countryside. K. T.] First and foremost, they do not find a sufficient number of people suitable for this, and of necessity address themselves to people of other traditions." [Is it the Russian bourgeoisie that "does not find people"?] This is

not worth refuting, especially as the author refutes himself further on K. T.] "These people have no knowledge of business" [the Russian capitalists?! K. T.], "their steps are uncertain, their movements clumsy" [their "knowledge of business" is sufficient for them to get tens and hundreds per cent profit- they are sufficiently "experienced" to practise the truck-system[106] everywhere, they are sufficiently astute to secure preferential tariffs. Only somebody who has no immediate and direct experience of oppression by these people, only a petty bourgeois could entertain such a fantasy. K. T.]; "they try to copy the West-European bourgeoisie, order books, study" [here the author has himself to admit the fantastic character of the dream he has now concocted about "middle-class culture" having grown up in Russia in the soil of ignorance. That is untrue. It is precisely the middle-class culture that brought culture and "education" to post-Reform Russia. "To colour the truth,"to picture the enemy as impotent and devoid of foundation is "never worth while." K. T.]; "at times they become regretful about the past and at times uneasy about the future, because voices are heard from somewhere saying that the middle class are only the impertinent parvenus of the day, that their science will not bear criticism, while their moral code is no use at all."

    Is it the Russian bourgeoisie that commits the sin of being "regretful about the past" and "uneasy about the future"?! You don't say! Don't some people like pulling their own legs by spreading such wholesale' slander about the poor Russian bourgeoisie being embarrassed by voices proclaiming the "uselessness of the middle class." Is not the opposite the case: were not these "voices" "embarrassed" when they were given a good bawling out, is it not they who display "uneasiness about the future"?. . .

    And gentlemen of this sort even express surprise and pretend they do not understand why they are called romantics!

    "Yet we must save ourselves. The middle class do not ask, but order people, on pain of destruction, to go to work.* If you refuse you will go without bread and will stand in the middle of the street, crying out,"Spare something for an ex-soldier!" or die of starvation altogether. And so work begins, you hear a squeaking, creaking, and clanking, there is a turmoil. The job is an urgent one that brooks no delay. Finally, the machine is set going. There seems to be less creaking and fewer strident sounds, the parts seem to work, all you hear is the din of something

clumsy. But that makes it all the more fearsome because the planks bend more and more, screws get loose and, look! -- before you know where you are the whole thing may fall to pieces."

    This passage is particularly typical in that it contains in graphic, laconic, and elegant form the line of argument which the Russian Narodniks like to clothe in scientific dress. Starting out from facts which are indisputable, which are beyond all doubt, and which prove the existence of contradictions under the capitalist system, the existence of oppression, starvation, unemployment, etc., they exert every effort to prove that capitalism is an exceedingly bad thing, is "clumsy" [cf. V. V., Kablukov (The Workers in Agriculture ), and partly Mr. Nikolai-on], and "look, before you know where you are it may fall to pieces."

    We are looking, we have been looking for many, many years, and see that this force, which orders the Russian people to go to work, keeps growing stronger and bigger, boasts to the whole of Europe about the might of the Russia it is creating, and is glad, of course, that "voices are heard" only about the need to hope that "the screws will get loose."

    "Weak people are terror-stricken. 'All the better,' say reckless people. 'All the better,' say the bourgeoisie: -- 'the sooner we order new machinery from abroad, the sooner we prepare platforms, planks and other rough parts from our own material, the sooner we shall get skilled engineers.' In the meantime, the moral aspect of society is in a very bad way. Some people acquire a taste for the new activity and make frantic efforts, some lag behind and become disillusioned with life."

    Poor Russian bourgeoisie! They make "frantic" efforts to appropriate surplus-value! and feel in a bad way in the moral sense! (Don't forget that a page earlier all this morality amounted to digestive processes and corruption.) It is clear that here there is no need for a struggle -- and for a class struggle at that -- against them; all that is needed is to chide them properly, and they will stop overdoing it.

    "In the meantime practically nobody thinks of the people; yet, according to the rules of the bourgeoisie, everything is done for the people, on their account; yet all prominent public and literary people consider it their duty to hold forth on the people's welfare. . . This coquettish liberalism has crushed all other trends and become predominant. In

 
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our democratic age not only does Mr Suvorin publicly 'confess his love for the people and say: I have always had but one love, and I shall have it till I die -- that love is the people. I myself came from the people' (which in itself does not prove anything at all), even Moskovskiye Vedomosti[107] seems to have quite a different attitude to them . . . and in its own way, of course, concerns itself with their well-being. At the present time there is not one single paper like the late Vest, i.e., openly unfriendly to the people. But the obviously unfriendly attitude was better because the enemy was then plainly visible, as on the palm of your hand: you could see in what way he was a fool, and in what way he was a knave. Now all are friends and at the same time enemies everything is mixed up in a general chaos. The people, as Uspensky says, are, in fact, enveloped in a sort of fog in which the inexperienced person may go astray. Formerly they saw themselves faced with just outspoken lawlessness. Now they are told that they are as free as the landlord, they are told that they manage their own affairs, they are told that they are being raised from insignificance and being put on their feet, whereas running through all these manifestations of concern there is a thin but tenacious thread of endless deceit and hypocrisy.

    There's no gainsaying that!

    "At that time far from everybody was engaged in organising loan and-savings societies that encouraged the kulaks and left the genuinely poor without credits."

    At first one might have thought that the author understood the bourgeois character of credit and so was bound to give a wide berth to all such bourgeois measures. But the distinctive and basic feature of the petty bourgeois is to battle against bourgeoisdom with the instruments of bourgeois society itself. That is why the author, like the Narodniks in general, corrects bourgeois activity by demanding more extensive credits, credits for the genuinely poor!

    ". . . they did not talk of the need for intensive farming, which is hindered by the redistribution of fields and by the village community (?); they did not dwell on the burden of the poll-tax and did not propose an income tax, keeping silent about indirect taxation and the fact that income tax is usually turned in practice into a tax on the very same poor people; they did not speak of the need for credits with which the peasants could purchase land from the landlords at abnormally high prices, etc. . . . The same is the case in society: there, too, the people have such a multitude of friends that you can only marvel. . . . Very likely the pawnbrokers and tapsters will soon start talking about love for the people. . . ."

 
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    This protest against bourgeoisdom is superb; but the conclusions are paltry: the bourgeoisie reign supreme both in everyday life and in society. One would have thought that the thing to do is to turn away from society and go to the antipode of the bourgeoisie.

    No, the thing to do is to propagate credits for the "genuinely poor"!

    "It is difficult to decide who is more to blame for such a confused state of affairs -- literature or society -- and it is, moreover, quite useless. They say that a fish starts rotting at the head, but I attach no significance to this purely culinary observation."

    Bourgeois society is rotting -- that, then, is the author's idea. It is worth emphasising that this is the starting point of the Marxists.

    "Yet while we are flirting with the countryside and making eyes at it, the wheel of history is turning, spontaneous forces are at work, or to speak more clearly and simply, all sorts of tricksters are insinuating themselves into life and remaking it after their own fashion. While literature argues about the countryside, about the kind-heartedness of the muzhik and his lack of knowledge, while the publicists exhaust bucketfuls of ink on the village community and the forms of land tenure, while the tax commission continues its discussion on tax reform, the countryside will be utterly ruined."

    There you have it! "While we are talking, the wheel of history is turning, spontaneous forces are at work."

    What a howl, my friends, you would raise, were it I that spoke thus![108]

    When Marxists speak of the "wheel of history and spontaneous forces," and explain specifically that the "spontaneous forces" are the forces of the rising bourgeoisie, Messrs. the Narodniks prefer to say nothing about whether or not the growth of these "spontaneous forces" is true and whether this fact has been rightly estimated; and they blather in terminable asininities about those who dare to speak of "the wheel of history" and "spontaneous forces," calling them "mystics and metaphysicians."

    The difference -- and a very substantial one -- between the above-cited admission of the Narodnik and the ordinary proposition of the Marxists is only this -- for the Narodnik these "spontaneous forces" boil down to "tricksters" who

 
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"insinuate themselves into life," whereas for the Marxist the spontaneous forces are embodied in the bourgeois class, which is a product and expression of social "life," which in its turn constitutes the capitalist social formation, and do not "insinuate themselves into life" by accident or from somewhere outside. The Narodnik, who keeps to the surface of credits, taxes, forms of land tenure, redistribution, improvements, and so forth, cannot see that the bourgeoisie are deeply rooted in Russia's production relations and for that reason soothes himself with childish illusions about their being no more than "tricksters." And, naturally, from this point of view it really will be absolutely incomprehensible where the class struggle comes in, when it is all a matter of merely eliminating "tricksters." Naturally, Messrs. the Narodniks answer the Marxists' emphatic and repeated references to this struggle with the totally incomprehending silence of one who sees only the "trickster" and not the class.

    A class can only be fought by another class, and only by one that is already totally "differentiated" from its enemy, totally opposite to it, whereas the police alone, and in an extreme case "society" and the "state," are, of course, enough to fight the "tricksters."

    We shall soon see, however, what these "tricksters" are like from the description given by the Narodnik himself, how deeply rooted they are and how universal their social functions.

    Then, immediately after the above-quoted words about "passive friends of the people," the author continues:

    "This is something worse than armed neutrality in politics, worse because in this case active aid is always rendered to the strongest. However sincere a passive friend may be in his sentiments, however modest and unobtrusive a position he may try to assume in everyday life, be will nevertheless injure his friends. . . ."

    "For individuals of greater or lesser integrity and who sincerely love the people,* such a state of affairs finally becomes intolerably

repugnant. They become ashamed and disgusted to hear this wholesale and sugary confession of love that is repeated from year to year, repeated daily in offices, fashionable salons, and in restaurants over bottles of Clicquot, and is never translated into action. That is why they finally come to the sweeping denial of all this hotchpotch."

    This description of the attitude of the former Russian Narodniks to the liberals would fit the attitude of the Marxists to the present-day Narodniks almost completely. The Marxists, too, now find it "intolerable" to listen to talk of aid for the "people" in the shape of credits, land purchases, technical improvements, artels, common tillage,[*] etc. They also demand a "sweeping denial" of all this liberal-Narodnik hotchpotch from individuals desirous of siding . . . not with the "people," no, but with him whom the bourgeoisie order to go to work. They find it "intolerable" hypocrisy to talk of choosing paths for Russia, of misfortunes from "threatening" capitalism, of the "needs of people's industry," when in all spheres of this people's industry we see the reign of capital, a smouldering battle of interests, that one must not hide but expose -- one must not dream that "it would be better without struggle,"[**] but must develop the stability, continuity, consistency, and, chiefly, ideological nature of that struggle.

    "That is why certain civic canons finally appear, certain categorical demands for decency, demands that are strict and on occasion even narrow, and for this reason are particularly disliked by liberals in the grand style who love wide shady spaces and forget that the demands have a logical origin."

    Superb wish! There is an undoubted need for demands that are "strict" and "narrow."

    The trouble, however, is that all the superb intentions of the Narodniks have remained in the realm of "pious wishes." Despite the fact that they have recognised the need for such demands, despite the fact that they have had quite enough time to give effect to them, they have not yet drawn

them up, they have steadily merged with Russian liberal society by a whole series of gradual transitions, and continue to do so to this day.[*]

    Therefore, they have only themselves to blame if the Marxists now put forward demands against them that are really very "strict" and "narrow," demands for exclusive service to one class exclusively (the class that is "differentiated from life"), to its independent development and thinking, demands that they should make a complete break with the "civic decency" of the "decent" bourgeois of Russia.

    "However narrow these canons may be on particular points, at any rate one cannot say anything against the following general demand: one of two things: either be real friends, or turn into open enemies!'

    "We are now passing through an exceedingly important historical process, namely, that of the formation of a third estate. The selection of representatives is going on before our eyes, and the organisation of the new social force that is preparing to govern life is taking place."

    Only just "preparing"? But who does "govern"? What other "social force"?

    Surely not the one that was expressed in newspapers of the Vest type? That is impossible. We are not in 1894, but in 1879, on the eve of "the dictatorship of the heart";[110] the time when, to use the expression of the author of the article, "extreme conservatives have fingers pointed at them in the street," and are "loudly laughed at."

    Surely not the "people," not the working population? A negative reply is provided by the whole of the author's article.

    Can they still say after that: "preparing to govern"?! No, that force "finished preparing" ages ago and has been "governing" for ages; it is only the Narodniks who "are preparing"

    Just as in everyday life the small producer merges with the bourgeoisie by a series of imperceptible transitions, so in literature the pious wishes of the Narodniks become a "liberal passport" for the receptacles of digestive processes, skimmers,[109] etc.

 
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to select the best paths to be followed by Russia, and they will, presumably, spend their time getting ready until the consistent development of class contradictions sweeps aside, jettisons all those who fight shy of them.

    "This process, which began in Europe much earlier than ours did has come to an end[*] in many countries; in others it is still being held up by the debris of feudalism and by the resistance of the working classes, but the wheel of history is there, too, year by year breaking up these debris to an ever greater extent and paving the way lor the new order."

    That is the extent to which our Narodniks misunderstand the West-European labour movement! It "holds up" capitalism, you see -- and, as "debris," it is placed on a par with feudalism!

    This is clear proof that in respect of not only Russia, but also of the West, our Narodniks are incapable of understanding how one can fight capitalism by speeding up its development, and not by "holding it up," not by pulling it back, but by pushing it forward, not in reactionary, but in progressive fashion.

    "In its general features this process consists of the following: between the nobility and the people a new social stratum is being formed of elements that descend from above and of elements that rise from below, who, as it were, are of equal relative weight, if one may so express oneself; these elements are welding themselves closely together, are joining forces, undergoing a profound inner change and beginning to change both the upper and the lower strata, adapting them to their requirements. This process is extremely interesting in itself, but for us it is of particularly great significance. For us a whole series of questions arise: does the rule of the third estate constitute a fatal and inevitable stage in the civilisation of each people?. . ."

    What sort of rubbish is this?! Where does "fatal inevitability" come from, and what has it to do with the matter? Did not the author himself describe, and will he not in still

geoisie, the Marxist, when conducting a theoretical dispute, confines himself to proving the necessity and inevitability (under the given organisation of social economy) of this bourgeoisie (that was the case with Mr. Struve's book); and that if the Narodnik, avoiding the issue of these different methods of explanation, engages in talk about Hegelianism and about "cruelty towards the individual,"[*] this is merely a clear indication of his impotence.

    "The history of the third estate in Western Europe is an exceedingly long one. . . . We, of course, shall not repeat all this history, despite the teaching of the fatalists nor will the enlightened representatives of our third estate proceed, of course, to utilise the same means for achieving their aims as were resorted to previously, and will only take from them those that are most suitable and correspond to the conditions of place and time. To deprive the peasantry of the land and create a factory proletariat they will not, of course, resort to crude military force or the no less crude clearing of estates."

    "Will not resort". . .?!! Only among the theoreticians of sugary optimism can one meet such deliberate forgetfulness of past and present facts that have already said their "aye" -- and rose-spectacled trustfulness that the future will, of course, yield "no." Of course that is false.

    ". . . but they will resort to the abolition of communal landownership, to the creation of capitalist farmers, a numerically small class of wealthy peasants,** and will, in general, resort to means that allow the economically weak to perish of himself. They will not now start setting up guilds but will organise credit, raw-material, consumers' and producers' associations which, with their promise of general happiness, will only help the strong to become still stronger, and the weak to become still weaker. They will not bother about the patrimonial court, but will bother about legislation to encourage assiduity, sobriety and education, which will be pursued only by the young bourgeoisie, since the masses will continue as hitherto to get drunk, will be ignorant and will work for others."

    How well described are all these credit, raw-material, and miscellaneous other associations, all these measures for encouraging assiduity, sobriety and education, towards

    ". . . They are not the sharpshooters and vanguard even, they are the main bourgeois army, the lower ranks, formed into units under the command of staff and senior officers, commanders of separate units and the General Staff, made up of publicists, speakers and scientists.[*] Without this army the bourgeoisie could have done nothing. Could the English landlords, who number less than 30,000, have been able to govern the hungry mass of tens of millions without the capitalist farmers?! The farmer is a real fighting man in the political sense and a little expropriating nucleus in the economic sense. . . . In the factories the role of the farmers is fulfilled by the foremen and assistant foremen who get a very good wage not only for more skilled work, but for keeping a watch on the workers, for being the last to leave the bench for preventing the workers from putting forward demands for wage increases or for reduction of working hours, and for enabling the employers to say as they point at them: 'See how much we pay those who work and are of benefit to us'; by the shopkeepers, who maintain the closest relations with the employers and factory managements; by the office staff, all sorts of supervisors and suchlike small fry, in whose veins workers' blood still flows, but over whose minds capital has already taken complete control." [Quite true! K. T.] "Of course, the things we see in Britain are also to be seen in France, Germany and other countries." [Quite true! And in Russia, too. K. T.] "The only difference in some cases is in details, and even those in greater part remain unchanged. The French bourgeoisie, who at the end of last century triumphed over the nobility, or to put it better, who took advantage of the people's victory, produced from among the people a petty bourgeoisie that helped to fleece the people, and themselves fleeced the people and delivered them into the hands of adventurers. . . . At a time when in literature hymns, were being sung to the French people, when their greatness, magnanimity and love of liberty were being lauded to the skies, when all this adulation was enveloping France in a cloud, the bourgeois cat was eating the chicken, disposing of it almost entirely and leaving only the bones for the people. The much vaunted people's land tenure turned out to be microscopic, measured in metres and often incapable even of covering taxation expenditure. . . ."

    Let us pause here.

    Firstly, we would like to ask the Narodnik: who in our country "took advantage of the victory over serfdom," over

the "old-nobility stratum"? Not the bourgeoisie, of course? What was going on in our country among the "people" when "hymns," now quoted by the author, "were being sung in literature" about the people, love for the people, magnanimity, community peculiarities and qualities, the "social mutual adaptation and joint activity" within the village community, about Russia being a single artel, and the community being "all that is in the minds and actions of village folk," etc., etc., etc., hymns that continue to be sung to this day (though in a minor key) in the columns of the liberal-Narodnik press? The land, of course, was not taken from the peasantry; the bourgeois cat, of course, did not make a hearty meal of the chicken, did not dispose of it almost entirely; "the much vaunted people's land tenure" did not "turn out to be microscopic," it contained no excess of expenditure over income?[*] No, only "mystics and metaphysicians" are capable of asserting that, of considering it to be a fact, of making that fact the starting-point of their opinions about our affairs, of their activity, which is aimed not at seeking for "different paths for the fatherland," but at working along the present, now quite established, capitalist path.

    Secondly. It is interesting to compare the author's method and the method of the Marxists. One can far better understand wherein they differ on the basis of specific judgements than by way of abstract thinking. Why does the author say of the French "bourgeoisie" that it triumphed at the end of last century over the nobility? Why is activity that consisted chiefly and almost exclusively of the activity of the intelligentsia, called bourgeois? And then, was it not the government that acted, depriving the peasantry of the land, and imposing heavy payments, etc.? Finally, these personalities surely spoke of their love for the people, of equality and universal happiness, as the Russian liberals and Narodniks did and are doing now? Under these circumstances can one see just the "bourgeoisie" in all this? Is not this view a "narrow" one, reducing political and ideological movements to Plusmacherei?** Just note, these are the same questions

expressed in an extremely unsatisfactory way). But the third[*] is absolutely useless.

    Let me explain this. The first is correct. The fact is correct that our village community is no guarantee, that the peasantry are abandoning the village, leaving the land; he should have said: are being expropriated, because they possessed (on a private property basis) certain means of production and are losing them (among them land by special right, which, however, allowed land redeemed by the community to be also privately exploited). It is correct that handicraft industries "are declining", i.e., the peasants here too are being expropriated, are losing their means and instruments of production, are giving up domestic weaving and are leaving to work on railway construction jobs or hiring themselves out as bricklayers, unskilled labourers, etc. The means of production from which the peasants are freed pass into the hands of an insignificant minority, and serve as a source of exploitation of labour-power -- as capital. That is why the author is right when he says that the owners of these means of production become a "bourgeoisie," i.e., a class which under the capitalist organisation of social economy holds in its hands the "people's" labour. All these facts are correctly stated and truly assessed for their exploiting significance.

    But from the description given the reader has, of course, seen that the Marxist explains these facts in a totally different way. The Narodnik sees the causes of these things in that "there is little land," taxes are burdensome, and "earnings" are falling -- i.e., in peculiarities of policy -- land, taxation, industrial -- and not in the peculiarities of the social organisation of production, an organisation from which the given policy inevitably follows.

    There is little land -- argues the Narodnik -- and it is becoming less. (I do not even necessarily take the statement made by the author of the article, but the general proposition of the Narodnik doctrine.) Quite correct, but why do you merely say that there is little land, and not add that there is little on sale. Surely you are aware that

    The fact that one cannot content oneself with the "petty efforts" of bourgeois progress by no means signifies absolute rejection of partial reforms. Marxists by no means deny that these measures are of some (albeit miserable) benefit, they can result in some (albeit miserable) improvement in the working people's conditions; they speed up the process of extinction of particularly backward forms of capital, usury, bondage, etc., they speed up their transformation into the more modern and humane forms of European capitalism. That is why Marxists, if they were asked whether such measures should be adopted, would, of course, answer: they should -- but would thereupon explain their attitude in general to the capitalist system that is improved by these measures, would motivate their agreement by their desire to speed up the development of this system, and, consequently its downfall."'

    "If we bear in mind that in this country, as in Germany, the peasantry are divided up according to rights and tenure, into various categories (state, appanage and former landlords' peasants, among them being those who received full allotments, medium and quarter lots, as well as manor serfs); that our community way of life is not the universal way of life; that in the south-west, among private landowners, we again meet with peasants owning draught animals, and footers,** market gardeners, farm labourers and chinsh peasants.[111]

some of whom possess 100 dessiatines and more, while others have not an inch of soil; that in the Baltic gubernias the agrarian system is a perfect copy of the German agrarian system, etc., then we shall see that we too have a basis for a bourgeoisie."

    One cannot but note here that fanciful exaggeration of the significance of the community from which the Narodniks have always suffered. The author expresses himself as though "community life" ruled out a bourgeoisie, ruled out the splitting up of the peasants! Now that is totally untrue!

    Everybody knows that the community peasants are also split up according to rights and allotments; that in every village where the community is strong the peasants are again split up both "according to rights" (landless, allotment-holding, ex-manor serfs, paid-up allotment holder, registered, etc., etc.) and "according to tenure": peasants who have rented out their allotments, who have been deprived of them for arrears in taxes or for not cultivating and letting them fall into neglect or who lease the allotments of others; peasants who own land in "perpetuity" or who "purchase a few dessiatines for several years"; lastly, homeless peasants, peasants owning no cattle, peasants owning no horses and those owning many horses. Everybody knows that in every village where the community is strong this economic fragmentation and commodity economy provide a basis for the full blossoming of usury capital, for bondage in all its forms. And the Narodniks continue telling sugary tales about something they call "community life"!

    "Our young bourgeoisie is indeed growing by leaps and bounds, and is growing not only in the Jewish border areas, but in the heart of Russia. As yet it is difficult to express their number in figures but when we look at the growing number of landowners, at the increasing number of commercial certificates, at the increasing number of complaints from the villages about the kulaks and the blood-suckers and other evidence,* there are grounds for thinking that their number is already considerable."

 
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    Quite true! lt is this fact, that was true in 1879 and is still more true in 1895, that serves as one of the mainstays of the Marxist understanding of Russian reality.

    Our attitude to this fact is equally negative; we are both agreed that it expresses phenomena opposed to the interests of the direct producers -- but we understand these facts in quite different ways. I have already described the theoretical aspect of the difference above, and I shall now turn to the practical aspect.

    The bourgeoisie, especially those of the countryside, are still weak in this country; they are only just coming into existence, says the Narodnik. Hence one can still wage a struggle against them. The bourgeois trend is still not very strong -- therefore we can still turn back. It is not too late.

    Only the metaphysical sociologist (who in practice becomes a cowardly reactionary romanticist) can argue that way. I shall not bother to say that the "weakness" of the bourgeoisie in the countryside is to be explained by the departure of their strong elements, their top-rankers, to the towns -- that only the "rank and file" are in the villages, whereas in the towns we have the "general staff" -- I shall not bother to speak of all these thoroughly obvious distortions of fact by the Narodniks. There is another mistake in this argument, one that makes it metaphysical.

    We are faced with a certain social relation, a relation between the village petty bourgeois (the rich peasant, shopkeeper, kulak, blood-sucker, etc.), and the "labouring" peasant, labouring "for others," of course.

    This relation exists -- the Narodnik will not be able to deny its generally widespread character. But it is weak, says he, and for that reason may still be corrected.

    History is made by "living individuals," we tell this Narodnik, offering him his own wares. It is, of course, possible to correct; to change social relations, but only when such action originates from the people themselves whose social relations are being corrected or changed. This is as clear as the clearest daylight. The question arises: can the "labouring" peasant change this relation? What does it consist of? Of the fact that two small producers operate under the system of commodity production, that this com-

 
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modity economy splits them into "two," to one it gives capital, and the other it compels to work "for others."

    How can our labouring peasant change this relation if he himself is half-rooted in what has to be changed? how can he understand that isolation and commodity economy are no good to him if he himself is isolated and works at his own risk and responsibility for the market? if these conditions of life evoke in him "thoughts and feelings" that are peculiar to one who works on his own for the market? if he is isolated by the very material conditions, by the size and character of his farm, and if by virtue of this his contradiction to capital is still so little developed that he cannot understand that he is faced by capital and not merely by "tricksters" and shrewd people?

    Is it not obvious that one should turn to where this same (N. B.) social relation is fully developed, where those involved in this social relation, the immediate producers, are themselves fully "differentiated" and "excommunicated" from the bourgeois order, where the contradiction is already so far developed as to be self-evident, and where it is impossible to raise the problem like a dreamer, in half-hearted fashion? And when the immediate producers in these advanced conditions are "differentiated from life" of bourgeois society not only in fact but also in their minds -- then the labouring peasantry, who are in backward and worse conditions, will see "how it is done," and will join with their fellow workers "for others."

    "When people speak here of cases of peasants buying land, and explain that the peasantry buy land privately or as a whole community, they almost never add that purchases by the community are only rare and insignificant exceptions to the general rule of private purchases."

    The author further quoted figures to show that the number of private landowners was 103,158 in 1861 and reached a total of 313,529 according to data for the sixties, he said that the explanation of this is that small proprietors of peasant origin were not included under serfdom but were included on the second occasion and continued:

    "These are our young rural bourgeoisie, who immediately border on and are linked up with the small landed nobility."

 
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    True -- is what we say to that -- quite true, especially that about them "bordering on" and being "linked up"! And that is why we class as petty-bourgeois ideologists those who attach serious importance (in the sense of the interests of the immediate producers) to "the extension of peasant land tenure," i.e., including the author, who on page 152 says just this.

    That is why we consider as no more than political jobbers people who discuss the problem of purchases made privately and by the community as though "installing" the bourgeois order depended on it in the slightest degree. We place both the one and the other case in the bourgeois category, for purchase is purchase, money is money in both cases, i.e., the sort of commodity that only falls into the hands of the petty bourgeois,[*]irrespective Or whether he is united with others by the community "for social mutual adaptation and joint activity" or is isolated by having a plot of land of his own.

    "Incidentally, they (the young rural bourgeoisie) are not shown here to the full. The word 'blood-sucker' (miroyed ) is not new in Russia, but it has never had the meaning it now has, it has never exerted such pressure on fellow villagers as it does now. Compared with the blood-sucker of today, the old miroyed was a patriarchal sort of individual who was always subordinated to the community and was sometimes merely an idler who did not particularly hunt after profit. The word miroyed has now acquired a different meaning and, in the majority of gubernias, is merely a generic term that is relatively little used and has been replaced by such words as: kulak,welsher, merchant, publican, cat-skinner, contractor, pawnbroker, etc. This splitting up of one term into several, into words, some of which are not new either, and some quite new or have not hitherto been current among peasants, shows first and foremost that a division of labour has taken place in the exploitation of the people and that there has been an extensive development of rapacity and that it has become specialised. In almost every village and every hamlet there are one or several such exploiters."

    Without a doubt the fact of the development of rapacity has been correctly noted. It is, however, to no purpose that the author, like all Narodniks, refuses despite all these facts to understand that this systematic, universal, regular (even with division of labour) kulak activity is a manifestation of capitalism in agriculture, is the domination of capital

    . . . "Of them (of these kulaks, etc.) the smaller fry possessing no capital usually attach themselves to the big merchants, who supply them with credit or instruct them to make purchases on their account; the more prosperous ones carry on independently, are themselves in touch with big commercial cities and ports, send waggonloads there in their own name and go themselves for goods required locally. If you travel on any railway line you will invariably meet in the 3rd (rarely in the 2nd) class dozens of people of this type on their way somewhere on business. You will recognise them by the specific clothes they wear, by their extremely bad manners, and by their boisterous laughter at some lady who asks them not to smoke or at a muzhichok"[*] [that's what it says: muzhichok. K. T.], "who is on his way somewhere to get work and who is 'ignorant' because he understands nothing of commerce, and wears bast shoes. You will also recognise these people by their conversation. They usually talk about calf-hides, vegetable oils, leather, smelt, millet, etc., and you will hear cynical stories about the swindling they do and the way they fake their goods, about how 'strong smelling' salt beef was 'palmed off on a factory,' about how 'anybody can give tea a colour if you show him once,' about 'how you can add three pounds' weight of water to a sugar loaf in such a way that the customer won't notice anything,' etc. All this is spoken of with such frankness and impudence that you can easily see that the only reason why these people do not steal spoons from public dining rooms and do not turn out station gas lamps is because they are afraid of landing in jail. Morally these people are below the most elementary standards; their morals are all based on the ruble and are limited to aphorisms, such as: trading means twisting; keep your eyes skinned; don't miss your chance; look for what you can easily lay your hands on; use the moment when nobody's looking; don't pity the weak; bow and scrape when necessary." An item is then quoted from a newspaper about how a publican and usurer named Volkov set fire to his house which he had insured for a big sum. This person ". . . is considered to be their most respected acquaintance by the local teacher and priest," one "teacher, in return for wine, writes his legal letters for him." "The Volost Clerk promises to bamboozle the Mordovians for him." "A Zemstvo agent, at the same time a member of the Zemstvo Board, insures him his old house for 1,000 rubles," and so on. "Volkov is no isolated example, but a type. There is no locality without its Volkovs, where they tell you not only about similar fleecing and enslaving of the peasants, but also of cases of the same sort of fires. . . ."

    ". . . But what is the attitude of the peasantry to such people? If they are stupid, grossly heartless and petty like Volkov, the peasantry have no love for them, and fear them, because those people can play all sorts of dirty tricks on them, while they can do nothing in return; the homes of those people are insured, they have fast horses, strong locks, fierce dogs and connections with the local authorities.

devices.[*] Under these conditions, without resort to any crime, servility, or falsification, the "peasantry" split into rich and poor. The old equality cannot hold out against the fluctuations of the market. This is not mere talk -- it is a fact. And it is a fact that under these conditions the "wealth" of the few becomes capital, while the "poverty" of the masses compels them to sell their hands, to work for other people. Thus, from the Marxist's viewpoint capitalism has already taken firm root, taken definite shape not only in factory industry but also in the countryside and all over Russia in general.

    You can imagine now how witty the Narodniks are when, in reply to the Marxist's argument that the cause of all these "unfortunate things" in the villages is not politics, land poverty, payments, or bad "personalities," but capitalism, that all this is necessary and inevitable where the capitalist mode of production exists, where the bourgeois class prevails -- when in reply to this the Narodnik begins to howl that the Marxists want to deprive the peasantry of the land, that they "prefer" the proletarian to the "independent" peasant, that they display -- as provincial ladies say and as Mr. Mikhailovsky does in reply to Mr. Struve -- "contempt and cruelty" towards the "individual."

    In this picture of the countryside, which is interesting because it has been drawn by an opponent, we see clearly the absurdity of the current objections made against the Marxists, how artificial they are -- they avoid the facts, and forget their earlier statements -- all in order to save, coûte que coûte,** the theories made up of dreams and compromises which fortunately no power is now able to save.

    When they talk of capitalism in Russia the Marxists borrow ready-made schemes, dogmatically repeat propositions that are copied from quite different conditions. They make capitalist production in Russia, which is infinitesimal in development and significance (all told, 1,400,000 people are employed in our factories and works), cover the mass of the peasantry, who still own land. Such is one of the favourite objections raised in the liberal and Narodnik camp.

 
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    Now from that same picture of the countryside we see that when the Narodnik describes the way of life of the "community" and "independent" peasants, he cannot manage without this very category of the bourgeoisie derived from abstract schemes and alien dogmas, he cannot avoid stating that it is a village type and not an isolated case, that it is bound by the strongest ties to the big urban bourgeoisie, that it is also bound to the peasantry, who "let their children be trained by them," and from whom, in other words, this young bourgeoisie emerge. We see, consequently, that the young bourgeoisie grow within our "community," and not outside of it, that they are brought into existence by the very social relations that exist among the now commodity-producing peasantry; we see that not only "1,400,000 people," but the entire mass of Russian village folk work for capital, are "superintended" by it. Who is it that draws more correct conclusions from these facts, which are not stated by some "mystic and metaphysician," not stated by a Marxist, who believes in "triads," but by a Narodnik exceptionalist who is well able to appreciate the peculiarities of Russian life? Is it the Narodnik, when he talks of the choice of a better path, as though capital has not already made its choice -- when he talks of the turn to another system expected from "society" and the "state," i.e., from such elements as have arisen only on the basis of this choice and in support of it ? -- or the Marxist, who says that to dream of different paths means to be a naïve romanticist, since reality shows most obviously that the "path" has already been chosen, that the domination of capital is a fact not to be evaded by reproaches and censures, a fact that only direct producers can reckon with?

    Another current reproach. The Marxists consider large-scale Russian capitalism to be progressive. They thus prefer the proletarian to the "independent" peasant, favour the alienation of the land from the people and, from the viewpoint of a theory that makes its ideal the ownership of the means of production by the workers, favour the separation of the worker from the means of production, i.e., fall into an irreconcilable contradiction.

    Yes, the Marxists do consider large-scale capitalism progressive -- not, of course, because it replaces "independence" by dependence, but because it creates conditions for

 
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abolishing dependence. As to the "independence" of the Russian peasant, it is a sugary Narodnik fairy-tale, and nothing else; actually it is non-existent. And the picture that has been cited (as well as all works about and investigations of the economic condition of the peasantry) also contains an admission of this fact (that actually independence is non-existent): the peasantry, like the workers, work "for others." This was admitted by the old Russian Narodniks. But they failed to understand the causes and character of this lack of independence, failed to understand that it is also capitalist lack of independence, differing from that of the towns in being less developed, and containing greater relics of medieval, semi-feudal forms of capital, and nothing more. Let us compare, gay, the village depicted by the Narodnik with the factory. The only difference (as regards independence) is that in the former we see "small fry" and in the latter large, in the former exploitation singly, by semi-feudal methods -- in the latter, exploitation of the masses, and what is more, purely capitalist exploitation. Of course, the latter is progressive: the very capitalism that is undeveloped in the village and, therefore, abounds in usury, etc., is developed in the factory; the very antagonism existing in the countryside is fully expressed in the factory; here the split is complete and the question cannot be posed in the half-hearted way that satisfies the small producer (and his ideologist), who is capable of upbraiding, reproaching and cursing capitalism, but not of abandoning the basis* of this capitalism, of abandoning his faith in its servants, of abandoning his roseate dreams about its being "better without struggle," as the splendid Mr. Krivenko said. Here dreams are not possible -- and that alone is a tremendous step forward; here it is clearly evident which side possesses the strength, and there can be no talk of choosing the path, for it is clear that at first this strength has to be "redistributed."

    The Marxist turns to the most developed form of this relation to the form that is the quintessence of all the other forms, and shows the producer that the aim and object to follow is the abolition of this relation and its replacement by another.

 
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    "Sugary optimism" -- is the way Mr. Struve described Narodism, and it is profoundly true. What else is it but optimism when the complete domination of capital in the countryside is ignored, passed over in silence, pictured as something accidental, when all sorts of credits, artels, and common land cultivation are proposed, just as if all these kulaks, vampires, merchants, publicans, contractors, pawn-brokers, etc., as though all this "young bourgeoisie" did not already hold "every village" "in their hands." What else is it but sugary talk when people continue to talk of "ten, twenty, thirty years and more," of "better without struggle," at the very time when the struggle is already on, a smouldering struggle, it is true, unconscious, and not illumined by an idea.

    "Cross over now to the towns, reader. There you will encounter the young bourgeoisie in still larger numbers and still greater variety. All who become literate and consider themselves suitable for more honourable activity, all who consider themselves worthy of a better fate than the miserable lot of the rank-and-file peasant, all, finally who under these conditions find no place in the countryside, now make their way to the towns. . . ."

    Nevertheless, the Narodnik gentlemen engage in sugary talk about the "artificial character" of urban capitalism, about its being a "hothouse plant," that will die of itself if not looked after, etc. One has only to take a plainer view of the facts to see clearly that this "artificial" bourgeoisie is simply the village blood-suckers who have settled in the towns, and who are growing quite spontaneously on soil illumined by the "moon of capitalism" which compels every rank-and-file peasant to buy cheaper and sell dearer.

    . . . "Here you meet salesmen, clerks, petty tradesmen, pedlars, all sorts of contractors (plasterers, carpenters bricklayers, etc.), conductors, senior porters, policemen, artel captains, owners of ferry-boats, eating- and lodging-houses, proprietors of various workshops, factory foremen, etc.,-etc. All these are the real young bourgeoisie, with

 
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all their characteristic features. Their code of morals is not a very broad one, either: their entire activity is based on the exploitation of labour,[*] and their object in life is to acquire capital, big or small, with which stupidly to pass away their time. . . ." "I know that many people rejoice when they look at them, see cleverness, energy and enterprise in them, consider them to be the most progressive elements among the people, see in them a straight and natural step forward in their country's civilisation, the unevenness of which will be smoothed out by time. Oh I have long known that a top-rank bourgeoisie has been formed in this country out of educated people merchants and nobles who either failed to sustain the crisis of 1861 and went under, or were caught by the spirit of the period that this bourgeoisie has already formed cadres of a third estate and that all it lacks is precisely those elements from the people which it likes because it can do nothing without them. . . ."

    A loophole has been left here, too, for "sugary optimism": the big bourgeoisie "lacks only" bourgeois elements from the people!! But where did the big bourgeoisie come from, if not from the people? Surely the author will not-deny the ties between our "merchants" and the peasantry!

    We see here a tendency to depict this rise of a young bourgeoisie as a matter of chance, the result of policy, etc. This superficiality in understanding things, incapable of seeing the roots of the phenomenon in the very economic structure of society, capable of giving a most detailed enumeration of the different representatives of the petty bourgeoisie, but incapable of understanding that the peasant's and the handicraftsman's small independent undertaking itself is not, under the present economic order, a "people's" undertaking at all, but a petty-bourgeois one -- is highly typical of the Narodnik.

    The petty-bourgeois character of the author is, I imagine, most clearly expressed in these sentences. He declares the bourgeois trend to be "harmful and dangerous" to the morals and well-being of the people! Which "people," respected Mr. Moralist? Those who worked for the landlords under the serfdom that fostered the "family hearth," "settled living" and the "sacred duty of labour,"* or those who subsequently went away to earn money to pay off land redemption fees? You are well aware that the payment of this money was the main and chief condition of the "emancipation," and that the peasant could only get this money from Mr. Coupon.[113] You yourself have described how this gentleman carried on his business, how "the middle class have introduced their own science, their own moral code and their own sophisms into life," how a literature has already been formed praising the "cleverness, enterprise and energy" of the bourgeoisie, Clearly,

 
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it all boils down to one form of social organisation being succeeded by another: the system of appropriating the surplus labour of tied-to-the-land serf peasants created feudal morality; the system of "free labour for others," for the owners of money, created bourgeois morality to replace it.

    The petty bourgeois, however, is afraid to look things straight in the face, and to call a spade a spade. He turns his back on these undoubted facts, and begins to dream. He considers only small independent undertakings (for the market -- he keeps a modest silence about that) to be "moral," while wage-labour is "immoral." He does not understand the tie -- an indissoluble tie -- between the one and the other, and considers bourgeois morality to be a chance disease, and not a direct product of the bourgeois order that grows out of commodity economy (which, in fact, he has nothing against).

    So he begins his old-womanish sermon about its being "harmful and dangerous."

    He does not compare the modern form of exploitation with the previous one, that of serfdom; he does not look at the changes that it has introduced into the relations between the producer and the owner of the means of production -- he compares it with a senseless, philistine utopia, with the sort of "small independent undertakings" that, while being commodity economy, should not lead to what it actually does lead to (see above: "kulakdom is in full bloom, is striving to enslave the weakest, and turn them into farm labourers," etc.). That is why his protest against capitalism (as such, as a protest, it is quite legitimate and fair) becomes a reactionary lamentation.

    He does not understand that, by replacing the form of exploitation which tied the working man to his locality with one that flings him from place to place all over the country, the "bourgeois trend" has done a good job; that, by replacing the form of exploitation under which the appropriation of the surplus product was tangled up in the personal relations between the exploiter and the producer, in mutual civic political obligations, in the "provision of an allotment," etc., -- by replacing this with a form of exploitation that substitutes "callous cash payment" for all that and

 
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equates labour-power with any other commodity or thing, the "bourgeois trend" strips exploitation of all its obscurities and illusions, and that to do so is a great service.

    Then, take note of the statement that the bourgeois trend has been taken by our society "in recent years." Only "in recent years"? Was it not quite clearly expressed in the sixties, too? Was it not predominant throughout the seventies?

    The petty bourgeois tries to smooth things out here as well, to present the bourgeois features that have characterised our "society" during the entire post-Reform period as some temporary infatuation, fashion. Not to see the wood for the trees is the main feature of the petty-bourgeois doctrine. Behind the protest against serfdom and bitter attacks on it, he (the ideologist of the petty bourgeoisie) does not see bourgeois reality, the reason being that he fears to look straight at the economic basis of the system that has been built up while he has been shouting vociferously. Behind the talk in all advanced ("liberal-coquettish," p. 129) literature about credits, and loan-and-savings societies, about the burden of taxation, about the extension of landownership and other such measures of helping the "people" he only sees the bourgeois features of "recent years." Finally, behind the complaints about "reaction," behind the wailing about the "sixties" he totally fails to see the bourgeois features underlying all this, and that is why he merges increasingly with this "society."

    Actually, during all these three periods of post-Reform history our ideologist of the peasantry has always stood and marched alongside "society," not understanding that the bourgeois features of this "society" rob his protest against them of all strength and inevitably doom him either to dream or indulge in miserable petty-bourgeois compromises.

    Many people find this closeness of our Narodniks (who "in principle" are hostile to liberalism) to liberal society very touching, and Mr. V. V. (cf. his article in Nedelya, 1894, Nos. 47-49) continues to find it so even to this day. From this the conclusion is drawn that the bourgeois intelligentsia in this country are weak or maybe even non-existent, a point that these people connect with the absence of a basis for Russian capitalism. Actually,

 
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however, the very opposite is the case. This closeness is a powerful argument against Narodism, a direct confirmation of its petty-bourgeois character. Just as in everyday life the small producer merges with the bourgeoisie by the fact of his isolated production of commodities for the market, by his chances of getting on in the world, and of becoming a big proprietor, so the ideologist of the small producer becomes a liberal when discussing problems of credits, artels, etc.; just as the small producer is incapable of fighting the bourgeoisie and hopes for such measures of assistance as tax reduction, land extension, etc., so the Narodnik places his trust in liberal "society" and its chatter, clothed in "endless deceit and hypocrisy," about the "people." If he occasionally abuses "society," he immediately adds that only "in recent years" has it become spoilt, but that generally speaking it is not bad in itself.

    "Sovremenniye Izvestia [Contemporary News ] recently made a study of the new economic class that has taken-shape in this country since the Reform and gave the following good description of it: 'Modest and bearded, wearing well-greased top boots, the old-time millionaire, who humbled himself before a junior official, has rapidly turned into the European type of jaunty and even offhanded and haughty entrepreneur, occasionally wearing a very noticeable decoration and holding a high office. When you take a good look at these unexpectedly thriving people you notice with surprise that most of these luminaries are yesterday's publicans, contractors, stewards, etc. The new arrivals have enlivened, but not improved, urban life. They have introduced bustle into it, and extreme confusion of concepts. Increased turnover and capital requirements have intensified the feverish activity of the enterprises, which has turned into the excitement of a gamble. The numerous fortunes have been made over night, have increased the appetite for profit beyond all bounds, etc. . . .

    "Undoubtedly, such people exert a most ruinous influence on public morals" [that's the trouble -- the spoiling of morals, and not capitalist production relations at all! K. T.] "and while we do not doubt the fact that town workers are more corrupted than village workers, there is still less doubt, of course, that this is due to their being much more surrounded by such people, breathing the same air, and living the life that they established."

    Clear confirmation of Mr. Struve's opinion about the reactionary character of Narodism. The "corruption" of the town workers scares the petty bourgeois, who prefers the "family hearth" (with its immorality and club rule),

 
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"settled life" (accompanied by crushing oppression and savagery) and does not understand that the awakening of the man in "the beast of burden,"[114] an awakening of such enormous and epoch-making significance that all sacrifices made to achieve it are legitimate, cannot but assume tempestuous forms under capitalist conditions in general, and Russian in particular.

    "The Russian landlord was distinguished for his barbarism, and required but a little scratching for the Tatar in him to be seen whereas the Russian bourgeois does not even need to be scratched. The old Russian merchant class created a realm of darkness, whereas now with the aid of the new bourgeoisie, it will create darkness in which all thought, all human feeling will perish."

    The author is sadly mistaken. The past tense should be used here, not the future, and should have been used when those words were written, in the seventies.

    "The hordes of new conquerors disperse in all directions and meet with no opposition anywhere or from anybody. The landlords patronise them and give them a welcome reception; the Zemstvo people give them huge insurance bonuses; school-teachers write their legal papers, the priests visit them, while District Clerks help them to bamboozle the Mordovians."

    Quite a correct description! "far from meeting with opposition from anybody," they meet with support from the representatives of "society" and the "state," of whom the author gives a rough list. Hence -- exceptionalist logic! -- in order to change matters, we should advise the choosing of another path, advise "society" and the "state" to do so.

    "What, however, is to be done against such people?"

    . . . "To await the mental development of the exploiters and an improvement in public opinion is impossible from the viewpoint either of justice, or of the morals and politics which the state must adopt."

    Please note: the state must adopt a "moral and political viewpoint"! This is nothing but phrase-mongering. Do not the representatives and agents of the "state" just described (from the District Clerks upwards) possess a "political" viewpoint [cf. above . . . "many people rejoice . . . consider them to be the most progressive elements among the people, see in them a straight and natural step forward in their country's civilisation"] and a "moral" one [cf. ibid.:

 
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"cleverness, energy, enterprise"]? Why do you obscure the split in moral and political ideas which are just as hostile to those "whom the bourgeoisie order to go to work" as "new shoots" are undoubtedly hostile in life? Why do you cover up the battle of these ideas, which is only a superstructure to the battle of social classes?

    All this is the natural and inevitable result of the petty-bourgeois viewpoint. The petty producer suffers severely from the present system, but he stands apart from the forthright, fully disclosed contradictions, fears them, and consoles himself with naïvely reactionary dreams that "the state must adopt a moral point of view," namely, the viewpoint of the morality that is dear to the small producer.

    No, you are not right. The state to which you address yourselves, the contemporary, the present state must adopt the viewpoint of the morality that is dear to the top bourgeoisie, must because such is the distribution of strength among the existing classes of society.

    You are indignant. You start to howl about the Marxist defending the bourgeoisie, when he admits this "must," this necessity.

    You are wrong. You feel that the facts are against you, and so resort to trickery: to those who refute your petty-bourgeois dreams about choosing a path without the bourgeoisie by referring to the domination of the latter as a fact; to those who refute the suitability of your petty, paltry measures against the bourgeoisie by referring to their deep roots in the economic structure of society, to the economic struggle of classes that is the basis of "society" and the "state," to those who demand of the ideologists of the toiling class that they make a complete break with these elements and exclusively serve those who are "differentiated from life" in bourgeois society -- to all these you attribute a desire to defend the bourgeoisie.

    "We do not, of course, consider the influence of literature to be quite powerless, but if it is not to be powerless it must, firstly, better understand its mission and not confine itself to merely (sic !!!) educating the kulaks, but must rouse public opinion."

    There you have the petit bourgeois in the pure form! If literature educates the kulaks, it is because it badly un-

 
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derstands its mission!! And these gentlemen are surprised when they are called naïve, and when people say of them that they are romantics!

    On the contrary, respected Mr. Narodnik: the "kulaks"[*] educate literature -- they give it ideas (about cleverness, energy, enterprise, about the natural step forward in their country's civilised development), they give it resources. Your reference to literature is just as ridiculous as if somebody, in full sight of two opposing armies, were to address to the enemy field marshal's aide the humble request to "act in greater harmony." That is just what it is like.

    The same is true of the desire -- "to rouse public opinion." The opinion of the society that "seeks ideals with after dinner tranquillity"? That is the customary occupation of Messrs. the Narodniks, one to which they have devoted themselves with such splendid success for "ten, twenty, thirty years and more."

    Try a little more, gentlemen! The society that delights in after-dinner slumber sometimes bellows -- that very likely means that it is ready to act in harmony against the kulaks. Talk a little more with that society. Allez toujours.[**]

    . . . "and secondly, it must enjoy greater freedom of speech and greater access to the people"

    A good wish. "Society" sympathises with this "ideal." But since it "seeks" this ideal, too, with after-dinner tranquillity, and since it fears more than anything else to have this tranquillity disturbed . . . it hastens very slowly, progresses so wisely that with every passing year it gets farther and farther behind. Messrs. the Narodniks imagine that this is an accident, and that their after-dinner slumber will soon end and real progress begin. So keep waiting!

    "Nor do we consider the influence of education and training to be quite powerless, but we presume, first of all: 1 ) that education should be given to each and every person, and not merely to exceptional persons, taking them out of their environment and turning them into kulaks. . . ."

    Touching! But surely those who see "cleverness, enterprise and energy" in the "offspring of the people," also assert (and not always insincerely) that they "love the people," and many of them are undoubtedly "really decent" people. Who will be the judge? Critically thinking and morally developed personalities? But did not the author himself tell us that you cannot influence these offspring with scorn?[*]

    We again, in conclusion, meet with the same basic feature of Narodism which we noted at the very outset, namely, that it turns its back on the facts.

    When a Narodnik gives us a description of the facts, he is always compelled to admit that reality belongs to capital, that our actual evolution is capitalist, that strength is in the hands of the bourgeoisie. This has now been admitted, for example, by the author of the article under review, who established the point that "middle-class culture" has been set up in this country, that the people are ordered to go to work by the bourgeoisie, that bourgeois society is occupied only with digestive processes and after-dinner slumber, that the "middle class" have even created bourgeois science, bourgeois morals, bourgeois political sophisms, and bourgeois literature.

    Nevertheless, all Narodnik arguments are always based on the opposite assumption, viz.: that strength is not on the side of the bourgeoisie, but on the side of the "people." The Narodnik talks about the choice of the path (while at the same time admitting the capitalist character of the actual path), about the socialisation of labour (which is

under the "management" of the bourgeoisie), about the state having to adopt a moral and political point of view, and about its being the Narodniks who have to teach the people, etc. -- as though strength were already on the side of the working people and their ideologists, and all that remained was to indicate the "immediate," "expedient," etc., methods of using this strength.

    This is a sickening lie from beginning to end. One can well imagine that such illusions had a raison d'être half a century ago, in the days when the Prussian Regierungsrat[115] was exploring the "village community" in Russia; but now, after a history of over thirty years of "free" labour, it is either a mockery, or Pharisaism and sugary hypocrisy.

    It is the basic theoretical task of Marxism to destroy this lie, however good the intentions and however clear the conscience of its author. The prime task of those who wish to seek "roads to human happiness" is not to hoodwink themselves, but to have the courage openly to admit the existence of what exists.

    And when the ideologists of the toiling class have understood and felt this, then they will admit that "ideals" do not mean constructing better and immediate paths, but the formulation of the aims and objects of the "stern struggle of social classes" that is going on before our eyes in our capitalist society; that the measure of the success of one's aspirations is not the elaboration of advice to "society" and the "state," but the degree to which these ideals are spread in a definite class of society; that the loftiest ideals are not worth a brass farthing so long as you fail to merge them indissolubly with the interests of those who participate in the economic struggle, to merge them with those "narrow" and petty everyday problems of the given class, like that of a "fair reward for labour," which the grandiloquent Narodnik regards with such sublime disdain.

    . . . "But that is not enough; intellectual development, as we unfortunately see at every step, does not guarantee man against rapacious proclivities and instincts. Hence, immediate measures must be taken to safeguard the countryside against rapacity; measures must be taken, above all, to safeguard our village community, as a form of public life that helps correct the moral imperfection of human nature. The village community must be safeguarded once and for all. But that, too, is not enough. The village community, under its present

 
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economic conditions and tax burdens, cannot exist, and so measures should be taken to extend peasant ownership of land, to reduce the taxes, and to organise people's industry.

    Such are the measures against the kulaks with which all decent literature must be at one about and stand for. These measures are, of course, not new; the point, however, is that they are the only ones of their kind, but far from everybody is as yet convinced of this." (End.)

    There you have the programme of the grandiloquent Narodnik! From the description of the facts we have seen that a complete contradiction of economic interests is everywhere revealed -- "everywhere" meaning not only in both town and country, both within and without the village community, both in factory and in "people's" industry, but also outside the bounds of economic phenomena -- in both literature and "society," in the sphere of moral, political, juridical and other ideas. Our petty-bourgeois knight, however, sheds bitter tears and appeals for "immediate measures to be taken to safeguard the countryside." The petty-bourgeois superficiality of understanding, and the readiness to resort to compromise is perfectly evident. The countryside itself, as we have seen, constitutes a split and a struggle, constitutes a system of opposite interests -- but the Narodnik does not see the root of the evil in the system itself, but in its particular shortcomings, and does not build up his programme to provide an ideological basis for the struggle that is now going on, but makes "safeguarding" the countryside against chance, illegitimate, extraneous "plunderers" his basis! And who, worthy Mr. Romantic, should take measures to safeguard? Should it be the "society" that is content with digestive processes at the expense of just those who should be safeguarded? Or the Zemstvo, Volost and all other sorts of agents who live off fractions of surplus-value and therefore, as we have just seen, offer assistance but not resistance?

    The Narodnik finds that this is a lamentable accident, and nothing more -- the result of a poor "understanding of the mission"; that it is sufficient to issue a call to "be at one and work as a team," for all such elements to "leave the wrong path." He refuses to see that in economic relations the Plusmacherei system has taken shape, a system under which only the "offspring of the people" can have the means

 
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and the leisure for education, while the "masses" have "to remain ignorant and work for others"; the direct and immediate consequence is that only members of the former make their way into "society," and that it is only from this same "society" and from the "offspring" of the people that there can be recruited the District Clerks, Zemstvo agents and so on whom the Narodnik is naïve enough to consider as people standing above economic relations and classes, over them.

    That is why his appeal to "safeguard" is directed to quite the wrong quarter.

    He satisfies himself either with petty-bourgeois palliatives (struggle against the kulaks -- see above about loan-and-savings societies, credits, legislation to encourage temperance, industry and education; extension of peasant landownership -- see above about land credits and land purchase; tax reduction -- see above about income tax), or with rosy, ladies' college dreams of "organising people's industry."

    But is it not already organised? Have not all the young bourgeoisie described above already organised this "people's industry" after their own, bourgeois fashion? Otherwise how could they "hold every village in their hands"? How could they "order people to go to work" and appropriate surplus-value?

    The Narodnik reaches the height of righteous indignation. It is immoral -- he howls -- to consider capitalism to be an "organisation" when it is based on the anarchy of production, on crises, on permanent, regular and ever-increasing mass unemployment, on the utmost deterioration of the conditions of the working people.

    On the contrary. It is immoral to colour the truth, to picture the order that characterises the whole of post-Reform Russia as something accidental and incidental. That every capitalist nation is a vehicle of technical progress and of the socialisation of labour, but at the cost of crippling and mutilating the producer, is something that was established long ago. But to turn this fact into material for discussing morals with "society," and, closing one's eyes to the struggle going on, to murmur with after-dinner composure: "safeguard," "ensure," "organise" -- means to be a romantic, and a naïve and reactionary romantic at that.

 
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    It will very likely seem to the reader that this commentary has no connection whatever with an analysis of Mr. Struve's book. In my opinion, only an external connection is missing.

    Mr. Struve's book does not discover Russian Marxism at all. It merely introduces into our press for the first time theories that have taken shape and been stated previously.[*] This introduction was preceded, as has already been noted, by a furious criticism of Marxism in the liberal and Narodnik press, a criticism that confused and distorted matters.

    Unless this criticism was answered, it was impossible, firstly, to approach the contemporary position of the problem; secondly, it was impossible to understand Mr. Struve's book, its character and designation.

    The old Narodnik article was taken as the subject for reply because a principled article was required, and, moreover, one retaining at least some of the old Russian Narodnik precepts that are valuable to Marxism.

    By means of this commentary we have tried to show the artificiality and absurdity of the current methods of liberal and Narodnik polemics. Arguments about Marxism being connected with Hegelianism,[**] with belief in triads, in abstract dogmas and schemes that do not have to be proved by facts, in the inevitability of every country passing through the phase of capitalism, etc., turn out to be empty blather.

    Marxism sees its criterion in the formulation and theoretical explanation of the struggle between social classes and economic interests that is going on before our eyes.

    Marxism does not base itself on anything else than the facts of Russian history and reality; it is also the ideology of the labouring class, only it gives a totally different explanation of the generally known facts of the growth and achievements of Russian capitalism, has quite a different understanding of the tasks that reality in this country places before the ideologists of the direct producers. That is why, when the Marxist speaks of the necessity, inevita-

 
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bility, and progressiveness of Russian capitalism, he proceeds from generally established facts which are not always cited precisely because of their being generally established, because of their not being new; his explanation is different from the one that has been told and retold in Narodnik literature -- and if the Narodnik replies by shouting that the Marxist refuses to face the facts, he can be exposed even by simply referring to any principled Narodnik article of the seventies.

    Let us now pass to an examination of Mr. Struve's book.

    The "essence" of Narodism, its "main idea," according to the author, lies in the "theory of Russia's exceptional economic development." This theory, as he puts it, has "two main sources: 1) a definite doctrine of the role of the individual in the historical process, and 2) a direct conviction that the Russian people possess a specific national character and spirit and a special historical destiny" (2). In a footnote to this passage the author declares that "Narodism is characterised by quite definite social ideals,"[*] and adds that he gives the economic world outlook of the Narodniks later on in the book.

    This description of the essence of Narodism, it seems to me, requires some correction. It is too abstract and idealistic; it indicates the prevailing theoretical ideas of Narodism, but does not indicate either its "essence" or its "source." It remains absolutely unclear why the ideals indicated were combined with a belief in an exceptional Russian development and with a specific doctrine of the role of the individual, and why these theories became "the most influential" trend in our social thought. If, when speaking of "the socio-

    It seemed all the more necessary to make this correction concerning the real content of Narodism since Mr. Struve's aforementioned abstractness of exposition is his fundamental defect. That is the first point. And secondly, "certain basic" tenets of the doctrine by which Mr. Struve is not bound demand that social ideas be reduced to social-economic relations.

    And we shall now endeavour to show that unless this is done it is impossible to understand even the purely theoretical ideas of Narodism, such as the question of method in sociology.

    Having pointed out that the Narodnik doctrine of a special method in sociology is best expounded by Mr. Mirtov[117] and Mr. Mikhailovsky, Mr. Struve goes on to describe this doctrine as "subjective idealism," and in corroboration quotes from the works of the authors mentioned a number of passages on which it is worth while dwelling.

    Both take as a corner-stone the thesis that history was made by "solitary fighting individuals." "Individuals make history" (Mirtov). Mr. Mikhailovsky is even more explicit: "The living individual, with all his thoughts and feelings, becomes a history-maker on his own responsibility. He, and not some mysterious force, sets aims in history and moves events towards them through a lane of obstacles placed before him by the elemental forces of nature and of historical conditions" (8). This thesis that history is made by individuals is absolutely meaningless from the theoretical standpoint. All history consists of the actions of individuals, and it is the task of social science to explain these actions,

 
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so that the reference to "the right of interfering in the course of events" (Mr. Mikhailovsky's words, quoted by Mr. Struve on p. 8), is but empty tautology. This is very clearly revealed in Mr. Mikhailovsky's last effusion. The living individual, he argues, moves events through a lane of obstacles placed by the elemental forces of historical conditions. And what do these "historical conditions" consist of? According to the author's logic they consist in their turn of the actions of other "living individuals." A profound philosophy of history, is it not? The living individual moves events through a line of obstacles placed by other living individuals! And why are the actions of some living individuals called elemental, while of the actions of others it is said that they "move events" towards previously set aims? It is obvious that to search for any theoretical meaning here would be an almost hopeless undertaking. The fact of the matter is that the historical conditions which provided our subjectivists with material for the "theory" consisted (as they still consist) of antagonistic relations and gave rise to the expropriation of the producer. Unable to understand these antagonistic relations, unable to find in these latter the social elements with which the "solitary individuals" could join forces, the subjectivists confined themselves to concocting theories which consoled the "solitary" individuals with the statement that history is made by "living individuals." The famous "subjective method in sociology" expresses nothing, absolutely nothing, but good intentions and bad understanding. Mr. Mikhailovsky's further reasoning, as quoted by the author, is striking confirmation of this.

    European life, Mr. Mikhailovsky says, "took shape just as senselessly and immorally as a river flows or a tree grows in nature. A river flows along the line of least resistance, washes away whatever it can, even if it be a diamond mine, and flows around whatever it cannot wash away, even if it be a dunghill. Sluices, dams, outlet and inlet canals are built on the initiative of human reason and sentiment. Such reason and sentiment, it may be said, were absent (? -- P. S.) when the present economic system in Europe arose. They were in an embryonic state, and their influence on the natural elemental course of things was insignificant" (9).

    Mr. Struve inserts a mark of interrogation, but what

 
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perplexes us is why he inserts it only after one word and not after all of them, so meaningless is this whole effusion! What nonsense it is to say that reason and sentiment were absent when capitalism arose! Of what does capitalism consist if not of definite relations between people -- and people without reason and sentiments are so far unknown. And what an untruth it is to say that only "insignificant" influence of the reason and sentiment of "individuals living" at that time was brought to bear on the "course of things"! Quite the contrary. People in sound mind and judgement then erected extremely well-made sluices and dams, which forced the refractory peasant into the mainstream of capitalist exploitation; they created extremely artful by-pass channels of political and financial measures through which swept capitalist accumulation and capitalist expropriation that were not content with the action of economic laws alone. In a word, all Mr. Mikhailovsky's statements here quoted are so preposterously false that they cannot be attributed to theoretical mistakes alone They are entirely due to the author's petty-bourgeois standpoint. Capitalism has already revealed its tendencies quite clearly; it has developed its inherent antagonism to the full; the contradiction of interests has already begun to assume definite forms, and is even reflected in Russian legislation, but the small producer stands apart from this struggle. He is still tied to the old bourgeois society by his tiny farm, and for that reason, though he is oppressed by the capitalist system, he is unable to understand the real causes of his oppression and consoles himself with illusions about the whole trouble lying in the fact that the reason and sentiment of people are still in an "embryonic state."

    "Of course," continues the ideologist of this petty bourgeois, "people have always endeavoured to influence the course of things in one way or another."

    But "the course of things" consists of nothing else but actions and "influences" of people, and so this again is an empty phrase.

    "But they were guided in this by the promptings of the most meagre experience and by the grossest interests; and it is obvious that it was very rarely and only by chance that these guides could indicate the path suggested by modern science and modern moral ideas" (9).

 
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    This is a petty-bourgeois morality, which condemns "grossness of interests" because it is unable to connect its "ideals" with any immediate interests -- it is a petty-bourgeois way of shutting one's eyes to the split which has already taken place and which is clearly reflected both in modern science and in modern moral ideas.

    Naturally, the peculiarities, of Mr. Mikhailovsky's reasoning remain unchanged even when he passes to Russia. He "welcomes with all his heart" the equally strange stories of a Mr. Yakovlev that Russia is a tabula rasa, that she can begin from the beginning, avoid the mistakes of other countries, and so on and so forth. And all this is said in the full knowledge that this tabula rasa still affords a very firm foothold for representatives of the "old-nobility" system, with its large-scale landed proprietorship and tremendous political privileges, and that it provides the basis for the rapid development of capitalism, with all its diverse "progress." The petty bourgeois faint-heartedly closes his eyes to these facts and flies to the realm of innocent day dreams, such as that "we are beginning to live, now that science has already mastered certain truths and gained some prestige."

    And so, the class origin of the sociological ideas of Narodism is already clear from those arguments of Mr. Mikhailovsky's which Mr. Struve quotes.

    We must object to a remark which Mr. Struve directs against Mr. Mikhailovsky. "According to his view," the author says, "there are no insurmountable historical tendencies which, as such, should serve on the one hand as a starting-point, and on the other as unavoidable bounds to the purposeful activity of individuals and social groups" (11).

    That is the language of an objectivist, and not of a Marxist (materialist). Between these conceptions (systems of views) there is a difference, which should be dwelt on, since an incomplete grasp of this difference is one of the fundamental defects of Mr. Struve's book and manifests itself in the majority of his arguments.

    The objectivist speaks of the necessity of a given historical process; the materialist gives an exact picture of the given social-economic formation and of the antagonistic relations to which it gives rise. When demonstrating the ne-

 
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cessity for a given series of facts, the objectivist always runs the risk of becoming an apologist for these facts: the materialist discloses the class contradictions and in so doing defines his standpoint. The objectivist speaks of "insurmountable historical tendencies"; the materialist speaks of the class which "directs" the given economic system, giving rise to such and such forms of counteraction by other classes. Thus, on the one hand, the materialist is more consistent than the objectivist, and gives profounder and fuller effect to his objectivism. He does not limit himself to speaking of the necessity of a process, but ascertains exactly what social-economic formation gives the process its content, exactly what class determines this necessity. In the present case, for example, the materialist would not content himself with stating the "insurmountable historical tendencies," but would point to the existence of certain classes, which determine the content of the given system and preclude the possibility of any solution except by the action of the producers themselves. On the other hand, materialism includes partisanship, so to speak, and enjoins the direct and open adoption of the standpoint of a definite social group in any assessment of events.[*]

    From Mr. Mikhailovsky the author passes to Mr. Yuzhakov, who represents nothing independent or interesting. Mr. Struve quite justly describes his sociological arguments as "florid language" "devoid of all meaning." It is worth dwelling on an extremely characteristic (for Narodism in general) difference between Mr. Yuzhakov and Mr. Mikhailovsky. Mr. Struve notes this difference by calling Mr. Yuzhakov a "nationalist," whereas, he says, "all nationalism has always been absolutely alien" to Mr. Mikhailovsky, for whom, as he himself says, "the question of the people's truth embraces not only the Russian people but the labouring folk of the whole civilised world." It seems to me that behind this difference there is also visible the reflection of the dual position of the small producer, who is a progressive element inasmuch as he begins, to use Mr. Yuzhakov's unconsciously

in morals and morality, in religious ideas" (32). In other words: the materialist sociologist, taking the definite social relations of people as the object of his inquiry, by that very fact also studies the real individuals from whose actions these relations are formed. The subjectivist sociologist, when he begins his argument supposedly with "living individuals," actually begins by endowing these individuals with such "thoughts and feelings" as he considers rational (for by isolating his "individuals" from the concrete social environment he deprived himself of the possibility of studying their real thoughts and feelings), i.e., he "starts with a utopia," as Mr. Mikhailovsky was obliged to admit.[*] And since, further, this sociologist's own ideas of what is rational reflect (without his realising it) the given social environment, the final conclusions he draws from his argument, which seem to him a "pure" product of "modern science and modern moral ideas" in fact only reflect the standpoint and interests . . . of the petty bourgeoisie.

    This last point -- i.e., that a special sociological theory about the role of the individual, or about the subjective method, replaces a critical, materialist inquiry by a utopia -- is particularly important and, since it has been omitted by Mr. Struve, it deserves to be dwelt on a little.

    Let us take as an illustration the common Narodnik argument about the handicraftsman. The Narodnik describes the pitiable condition of this handicraftsman, the miserable level of his production, the monstrous way in which he is exploited by the buyer-up, who pockets the lion's share of the product and leaves the producer a few coppers for a 16 to 18 hour working day, and concludes that the wretched level of production and the exploitation of the handicraftsman's labour are an ugly side of the present system. But the handicraftsman is not a wage-worker; that is a good side. The good side must be preserved and the bad side destroyed, and for this purpose handicraft artels must be organised. Here you have the complete Narodnik argument.

    The Marxist argues differently. Acquaintance with the condition of an industrial pursuit evokes in him, in addition

created by his conditions of life, by the given system of relations of production, but a marionette, and stuff its head with your own "thoughts and feelings." Naturally, such a pursuit only leads to pious dreams; life passes you by, and you pass life by.[*] But that is not all. Just see what you are stuffing into the head of this marionette, and what measures you are advocating. In recommending the artel as "the path suggested by modern science and modern moral ideas," you did not pay attention to one little circumstance, namely, the whole organisation of our social economy. Since you did not understand that this is a capitalist economy, you did not notice that on this basis all possible artels are nothing but petty palliatives, which do not in the least remove either the concentration of the means of production, including money, in the hands of a minority (this concentration is an indisputable fact), or the complete impoverishment of the vast mass of the population -- palliatives which at best will only elevate a handful of individual handicraftsmen to the ranks of the petty bourgeoisie. From an ideologist of the working people you turn into an ideologist of the petty bourgeoisie.

    Let us, however, return to Mr. Struve. Having shown the emptiness of the Narodniks' arguments regarding the "individual," he continues: "That sociology does indeed always strive to reduce the elements of individuality to social sources is corroborated by every attempt to explain any big phase in historical evolution. When the 'historical individual' or the 'great man' is referred to, there is always a tendency to represent him as the 'vehicle' of the spirit of a certain era, as the representative of his time -- and his actions, his successes and failures, as a necessary result of the whole preceding course of affairs" (32). This general tendency of every attempt to explain social phenomena, i.e., to create a social science, "is clearly expressed in the doctrine that the class struggle is the basic process in social evolution. Since

mankind's fall from grace, according to Mr. Mikhailovsky's doctrine -- that created the conditions for the development of the 'individual' in whose name Mr. Mikhailovsky justly protests against the modern forms of division of labour" (38). That is excellently put; only in place of "division of labour" he should have said "capitalism," and, even more narrowly, Russian capitalism. Capitalism is progressive in its significance precisely because it has destroyed the old cramped conditions of human life that created mental stultification and prevented the producers from taking their destinies into their own hands. The tremendous development of trade relations and world exchange and the constant migrations of vast masses of the population have shattered the age-old fetters of the tribe, family and territorial community, and created that variety of development, that "variety of talents and wealth of social relationships,"[*] which plays so great a part in the modern history of the West. In Russia this process has been fully manifested in the post-Reform era, when the ancient forms of labour very rapidly collapsed and prime place was assumed by the purchase and sale of labour-power, which tore the peasant from the patriarchal, semi-feudal family, from the stupefying conditions of village life and replaced the semi-feudal forms of appropriation of surplus-value by purely capitalist forms. This economic process has been reflected in the social sphere by a "general heightening of the sense of individuality," by the middle-class intellectuals squeezing the landlord class out of "society," by a heated literary war against senseless medieval restrictions on the individual, and so on. The Narodniks will probably not deny that it was post-Reform Russia which produced this heightened sense of individuality, of personal dignity. But they do not ask themselves what material conditions led to this. Nothing of the kind, of course, could have happened under serfdom. And so the Narodnik welcomes the "emancipatory" Reform, never noticing that he is guilty of the same short-sighted optimism as the bourgeois historians of whom Marx wrote that they regarded the peasant Reform through the clair-obscure of "emancipation," without observing that this "emancipation" only consisted

 
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in the replacement of one form by another, the replacement of the feudal surplus product by bourgeois surplus-value. Exactly the same thing has happened in our country. The "old-nobility" economy, by tying men to their localities and dividing the population into handfuls of subjects of individual lords, brought about the suppression of the individual. And then capitalism freed him of all feudal fetters, made him independent in respect of the market, made him a commodity owner (and as such the equal of all other commodity owners), and thus heightened his sense of individuality. If the Narodnik gentlemen are filled with pharisaic horror when they hear talk of the progressive character of Russian capitalism, it is only because they do not reflect on the material conditions which make for those "benefits of progress" that mark post-Reform Russia. When Mr. Mikhailovsky begins his "sociology" with the "individual" who protests against Russian capitalism as an accidental and temporary deviation of Russia from the right path, he defeats his own purpose because he does not realise that it was capitalism alone that created the conditions which made possible this protest of the individual. From this example we see once again the changes needed in Mr. Struve's arguments. The question should have been made entirely one of Russian realities, of ascertaining what actually exists and why it is so and not otherwise. It was not for nothing that the Narodniks based their whole sociology not on an analysis of reality but on arguments about what "might be"; they could not help seeing that reality was mercilessly destroying their illusions.

    The author concludes his examination of the theory of "individuals" with the following formulation: "To sociology, the individual is a function of the environment," "the individual is here a formal concept, whose content is supplied by an investigation of the social group" (40). This last comparison brings out very well the contrast between subjectivism and materialism. When they argued about the "individual," the subjectivists defined the content of this concept (i.e., the "thoughts and feelings" of the individual, his social acts) a priori, that is, they insinuated their utopias instead of "investigating the social group."

 
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    Another "important aspect" of materialism, Mr. Struve continues, "consists in economic materialism subordinating the idea to the fact, and consciousness and what should be to being" (40). Here, of course, "subordinating the idea" means assigning to it a subordinate position in the explanation of social phenomena. The Narodnik subjectivists do exactly the opposite: they base their arguments on "ideals," without bothering about the fact that these ideals can only be a certain reflection of reality, and, consequently, must be verified by facts, must be based on facts. But then this latter thesis will be incomprehensible to the Narodnik without explanation. How is that? -- he asks himself; ideals should condemn facts, show how to change them, they should verify facts, and not be verified by them. To the Narodnik, who is accustomed to hover in the clouds, this appears to be a compromise with facts. Let us explain.

    The existence of "working for others," the existence of exploitation, will always engender ideals opposite to this system both among the exploited themselves and among certain members of the "intelligentsia."

    These ideals are extremely valuable to the Marxist; he argues with Narodism only on the basis of these ideals; he argues exclusively about the construction of these ideals and their realisation.

    The Narodnik thinks it enough to note the fact that gives rise to such ideals, then to refer to the legitimacy of the ideal from the standpoint of "modern science and modern moral ideas" [and he does not realise that these "modern ideas" are only concessions made by West-European "public opinion" to the new rising force], and then to call upon "society" and the "state" to ensure it, safeguard it, organise it!

    The Marxist proceeds from the same ideal; he does not compare it with "modern science and modern moral ideas, however,"* but with the existing class contradictions, and therefore does not formulate it as a demand put forward by

 
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"science," but by such and such a class, a demand engendered by such and such social relations (which are to be objectively investigated), and achievable only in such and such a way in consequence of such and such properties of these relations. If ideals are not based on facts in this way, they will only remain pious wishes, with no chance of being accepted by the masses and, hence, of being realised.

    Having thus stated the general theoretical propositions which compel the recognition of materialism as the only correct method of social science, Mr. Struve proceeds to expound the views of Marx and Engels, quoting principally the works of the latter. This is an extremely interesting and instructive part of the book.

    The author's statement that "nowhere does one meet with such misunderstanding of Marx as among Russian publicists" (44) is an extremely just one. In illustration, he first of all cites Mr. Mikhailovsky, who regards Marx's "historico-philosophical theory" as nothing more than an explanation of the "genesis of the capitalist system." Mr. Struve quite rightly protests against this. Indeed, it is a highly characteristic fact. Mr. Mikhailovsky has written about Marx many times, but he has never even hinted at the relation of Marx's method to the "subjective method in sociology." Mr. Mikhailovsky has written about Capital and has declared his "solidarity" (?) with Marx's economic doctrine, but he has passed over in complete silence the question -- for example -- of whether the Russian subjectivists are not following the method of Proudhon, who wanted to refashion commodity economy in accordance with his ideal of justice.* In what way does this criterion (of justice -- justice éternelle) differ from Mr. Mikhailovsky's criterion: "modern science and modern moral ideas"? Mr. Mikhailovsky has always protested vigorously against identifying the method of social sciences with that of the natural sciences, so why did he not object to Marx's statement that Proudhon's method is as absurd as would be that of a chemist who wanted to transform metabolism in accordance with the laws of "affinity" instead of studying the "real laws of metabolism"? Why did he not object to Marx's view that the social process is a "process of

 
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natural history"? It cannot be explained by non-acquaintance with the literature; the explanation evidently lies in an utter failure or refusal to understand. Mr. Struve, it seems to me, is the first in our literature to have pointed this out -- and that is greatly to his credit.

    Let us now pass to those of the author's statements on Marxism which evoke criticism. "We cannot but admit," says Mr. Struve, "that a purely philosophical proof of this doctrine has not yet been provided, and that it has not yet coped with the vast concrete material presented by world history. What is needed, evidently, is a reconsideration of the facts from the standpoint of the new theory; what is needed is a criticism of the theory from the angle of the facts. Perhaps much of the one-sidedness and the over-hasty generalisations will be abandoned" (46). It is not quite clear what the author means by "a purely philosophical proof." From the standpoint of Marx and Engels, philosophy has no right to a separate, independent existence, and its material is divided among the various branches of positive science. Thus one might understand philosophical proof to mean either a comparison of its premises with the firmly established laws of other sciences [and Mr. Struve himself admitted that even psychology provides propositions impelling the abandonment of subjectivism and the adoption of materialism], or experience in the application of this theory. And in this connection we have the statement of Mr. Struve himself that "materialism will always be entitled to credit for having provided a profoundly scientific and truly philosophical (author's italics) interpretation of a number (N.B.) of vastly important historical facts" (50). This latter statement contains the author's recognition that materialism is the only scientific method in sociology, and hence, of course, a "reconsideration of the facts" is required from this standpoint, especially a reconsideration of the facts of Russian history and present-day reality, which have been so zealously distorted by the Russian subjectivists. As regards the last remark about possible "one-sidedness" and "over hasty generalisations," we shall not dwell on this general, and therefore vague, statement, but shall turn directly to one of the amendments made by the author, "who is not

 
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infected with orthodoxy," to the "over-hasty generalisations" of Marx.

    The subject is the state. Denying the state, "Marx and his followers . . . went . . . too far in their criticism of the modern state " and were guilty of "one-sidedness." "The state," Mr. Struve says, correcting this extravagance, "is first of all the organisation of order ; it is, however, the organisation of rule (class rule) in a society in which the subordination of certain groups to others is determined by its economic structure" (53). Tribal life, in the author's opinion, knew the state; and it will remain even after classes are abolished, for the criterion of the state is coercive power.

    It is simply amazing that the author, criticising Marx from his professorial standpoint, does so with such a surprising lack of arguments. First of all, he quite wrongly regards coercive power as the distinguishing feature of the state: there is a coercive power in every human community; and there was one in the tribal system and in the family, but there was no state. "An essential feature of the state," says Engels in the work from which Mr. Struve took the quotation about the state, "is a public power distinct from the mass of the people" (Ursprung der Familie u.s.w., 2te Aufl., S. 84. Russ. trans., p. 109);[121] and somewhat earlier he speaks of the institution of the naucrary[122] and says that it "undermined the tribal system in two ways: firstly, by creating a public power (öffentliche Gewalt ), which simply no longer coincided with the sum total of the armed people" (ib., S. 79; Russ. trans., p.105).[123] Thus the distinguishing feature of the state is the existence of a separate class of people in whose hands power is concentrated. Obviously, nobody could use the term "state" in reference to a community in which the "organisation of order" is administered in turn by all its members. Furthermore, Mr. Struve's arguments are still more unsubstantial in relation to the modern state. To say of it that it is "first of all (sic !?!) the organisation of order" is to fail to understand one of the most important points in Marx's theory. In modern society the bureaucracy is the particular stratum which has power in its hands. The direct and intimate connection between this organ and the bourgeois class, which dominates in modern society, is apparent both from history (the bureaucracy was the first political instrument of the bourgeoi-

 
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sie against the feudal lords, and against the representatives of the "old-nobility" system in general, and marked the first appearance in the arena of political rule of people who were not high-born landowners, but commoners, "middle class") and from the very conditions of the formation and recruitment of this class, which is open only to bourgeois "off-spring of the people," and is connected with that bourgeoisie by thousands of strong ties.[*] The author's mistake is all the more unfortunate because it is precisely the Russian Narodniks, against whom he conceived the excellent idea of doing battle, who have no notion that every bureaucracy, by its historical origin, its contemporary source, and its purpose, is purely and exclusively a bourgeois institution, an institution to which only ideologists of the petty bourgeoisie are capable of turning in the interests of the producer.

    It is also worth while to dwell a little on the attitude of Marxism to ethics. On pp. 64-65 the author quotes the excellent explanation given by Engels of the relation between freedom and necessity: "Freedom is the appreciation of necessity."[125] Far from assuming fatalism, determinism in fact provides a basis for reasonable action. One cannot refrain from adding that the Russian subjectivists could not understand even such an elementary question as freedom of will. Mr. Mikhailovsky helplessly confused determinism with fatalism and found a solution . . . in trying to sit between two stools; not desiring to deny the functioning of laws, he asserted that freedom of will is a fact of our consciousness (properly speaking, this is Mirtov's idea borrowed by Mr. Mikhailovsky) and can therefore serve as a basis of ethics. It is clear that, applied to sociology, these ideas could provide nothing but a utopia or a vapid morality which ignores the class struggle going on in society. One therefore cannot deny the justice

 
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of Sombart's remark that "in Marxism itself there is not a grain of ethics from beginning to end"; theoretically, it subordinates the "ethical standpoint" to the "principle of causality"; in practice it reduces it to the class struggle.

    Mr. Struve supplements his exposition of materialism by an evaluation from the materialist standpoint of "two factors which play a very important part in all Narodnik arguments" -- the"intelligentsia" and the "state" (70). This evaluation again reflects the author's "unorthodoxy" noted above in regard to his objectivism. "If . . . all social groups in general represent a real force only to the extent that . . . they constitute social classes or adhere to them, then, evidently, 'the non-estate intelligentsia' is not a real social force" (70). Of course, in the abstract and theoretical sense the author is right. He takes the Narodniks at their word, so to speak. You say it is the intelligentsia that must direct Russia along "different paths" -- but you do not understand that since it does not adhere to any class, it is a cipher. You boast that the Russian non-estate intelligentsia has always been distinguished for the "purity" of its ideas -- but that is exactly why it has always been impotent. The author's criticism is confined to comparing the absurd Narodnik idea of the omnipotence of the intelligentsia with his own perfectly correct idea of the "impotence of the intelligentsia in the economic process" (71). But this comparison is not enough. In order to judge of the Russian "non-estate intelligentsia" as a special group in Russian society which is so characteristic of the whole post-Reform era -- an era in which the noble was finally squeezed out by the commoner -- and which undoubtedly played and is still playing a certain historical role, we must compare the ideas, and still more the programmes, of our "non-estate intelligentsia" with the position and the interests of the given classes of Russian society. To remove the possibility of our being suspected of partiality, we shall not make this comparison ourselves, but shall confine ourselves to referring to the Narodnik whose article was commented on in Chapter I. The conclusion that follows from all his comments is quite definite, namely, that Russia's advanced, liberal, "democratic" intelligentsia was a bourgeois intelligentsia. The fact of the intelligentsia being "non-estate" in no way precludes the class origin of its ideas. The

 
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bourgeoisie has always and everywhere risen against feudalism in the name of the abolition of the social estates -- and in our country, too, the old-nobility, social-estate system was opposed by the non-estate intelligentsia. The bourgeoisie always and everywhere opposed the obsolete framework of the social estates and other medieval institutions in the name of the whole "people," within which class contradictions were still undeveloped. And it was right, both in the West and in Russia, because the institutions criticised were actually hampering everybody. As soon as the social-estate system in Russia was dealt a decisive blow (1861), antagonism within the "people" immediately became apparent, and at the same time, and by virtue of this, antagonism became apparent within the non-estate intelligentsia -- between the liberals and the Narodniks, the ideologists of the peasants (among whom the first Russian ideologists of the direct producers did not see, and, indeed, it was too early for them to see, the formation of opposed classes). Subsequent economic development led to a more complete disclosure of the social contradictions within Russian society, and compelled the recognition of the fact that the peasantry was splitting into a rural bourgeoisie and a proletariat. Narodism has rejected Marxism and has become almost completely the ideology of the petty bourgeoisie. The Russian "non-estate intelligentsia," therefore, represents a real social force" inasmuch as it defends general bourgeois interests.* If, nevertheless, this force was not able to create institutions suitable to the interests it defended, if it was unable to change "the atmosphere of contemporary Russian culture" (Mr. V. V.), if "active democracy in the era of the political struggle" gave way to "social indifferentism" (Mr. V. V. in Nedelya, 1894, No. 47), the cause of this lies not only in the dreaminess of

 
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our native "non-estate intelligentsia," but, and chiefly, in the position of those classes from which it emerged and from which it drew its strength, in their duality. It is undeniable that the Russian "atmosphere" brought them many disadvantages, but it also gave them certain advantages.

    In Russia, the class which, in the opinion of the Narodniks, is not the vehicle of the "pure idea of labour" has an especially great historical role; its "activity" cannot be lulled by tempting promises. Therefore, the references of the Marxists to this class, far from "breaking the democratic thread" -- as is asserted by Mr. V. V., who specialises in inventing the most incredible absurdities about the Marxists -- catch up this "thread," which an indifferent "society" allows to fall from its hands, and demand that it be developed, strengthened and brought closer to life.

    Connected with Mr. Struve's incomplete appraisal of the intelligentsia is his not altogether happy formulation of the following proposition: "It must be proved," he says, "that the disintegration of the old economic system is inevitable" (71). Firstly, what does the author mean by "the old economic system"? Serfdom? But its disintegration does not have to be proved. "People's production"? But he himself says later, and quite justly, that this word-combination -- "does not correspond to any real historical system" (177), that in other words, it is a myth, because after "serfdom" was abolished in Russia, commodity economy began to develop very rapidly. The author was probably referring to that stage in the development of capitalism when it had not yet entirely disentangled itself from medieval institutions, when merchant capital was still strong and when the majority of the producers were still engaged in small-scale production. Secondly, what does the author regard as the criterion of this inevitability? The rule of certain classes? The properties of the given system of production relations? In either case it amounts to recording the existence of one or another (capitalist) system; it amounts to recording a fact, and under no circumstances should it have been transplanted to the realm of reflections about the future. Such reflections should have left the monopoly of the Narodnik gentlemen, who are seeking "different paths for the fatherland." The author himself says on the very next page that every state is "an

 
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expression of the rule of definite social classes" and that "there must be a redistribution of the social force between various classes for the state to radically change its course" (72). All this is profoundly true and very aptly aimed at the Narodniks, and the question should accordingly have been put in a different way: the existence (and not the "inevitability of disintegration," etc.) of capitalist production relations in Russia must be proved; it must be proved that the Russian data also justify the law that "commodity economy is capitalist economy," i.e., that in our country, too, commodity economy is growing everywhere into capitalist economy; it must be proved that everywhere a system prevails which is bourgeois in essence, and that it is the rule of this class, and not the famous Narodnik "chance happenings" or "policy," etc., that lead to the liberation of the producer from the means of production and to his working everywhere for others.

    With this let us conclude our examination of the first part of Mr. Struve's book, which is of a general character.

    Very true is the author's remark that "almost from the outset of Russian history we find that the direct producers' dependence (juridical and economic) on the lords has been the historical accompaniment of the idyll of 'people's production'" (81). In the period of natural economy the peasant was enslaved to the landowner, he worked for the boyar, the monastery, the landlord, but not for himself,

 
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and Mr. Struve has every right to set this historical fact against the tales of our exceptionalist sociologists about how "the means of production belonged to the producer" (81). These tales constitute one of the distortions of Russian history, meant to suit the philistine utopia in which the Narodniks have always lavishly indulged. Fearing to look reality in the face, and fearing to give this oppression its proper name, they turned to history, but pictured things as though the producer's ownership of means of production was an "ancient" principle, was the "age-old basis" of peasant labour, and that the modern expropriation of the peasantry is therefore to be explained not by the replacement of the feudal surplus product by bourgeois surplus-value, not by the capitalist organisation of our social economy, but by the accident of unfortunate policy, by a temporary "diversion from the path prescribed by the entire historical life of the nation" (Mr. Yuzhakov, quoted by P. Struve, p. 15). And they were not ashamed to tell these absurd stories about a country which had but recently seen the end[*] of the feudal exploitation of the peasantry in the grossest, Asiatic forms, when not only did the means of production not belong to the producer but the producers themselves differed very little from "means of production." Mr. Struve very pointedly sets against this "sugary optimism" Saltykov's sharp rejoinder about the connection between "people's production" and serfdom, and about how the "plenty" of the period of the "age-old basis" "fell only" [note that!] "to the lot of the descendants of the leibkampantsi[127] and other retainers" (83).

    Further, let us note Mr. Struve's following remark, which definitely concerns definite facts of Russian reality and contains an exceptionally true thought. 'When the producers start working for a distant and indefinite and not for a local, exactly delimited market, and competition, the struggle for a market develops, these conditions lead to technical progress. . . . Once division of labour is possible,

come across complaints about the government "artificially" supporting large-scale capitalism [whose entire "artificiality" consists in being large-scale and not small, factory and not handicraft, mechanical and not hand-operated] and doing nothing for the "needs of people's industry." Here stands out in full relief the narrow-mindedness of the petty bourgeois, who fights for small against big capital and stubbornly closes his eyes to the categorically established fact that a similar opposition of interests is to be found in this "people's" industry, and that consequently the way out does not lie in miserable credits, etc. Since the small proprietor, who is tied to his enterprise and lives in constant fear of losing it, regards all of this as some thing awful, as some sort of "agitation" in favour of "a fair reward for labour, as though labour itself does not create that reward in its fruits," it is clear that only the producer employed in the "artificial," "hothouse" conditions of factory industry can be the representative of the working handicraftsmen.[*]

    Let us deal further with Mr. Struve's argument about agriculture. Steam transport compels a transition to exchange economy, it makes agricultural production commodity production. And the commodity character of production unfailingly requires "its economic and technical rationality" (110). The author considers this thesis a particularly important argument against the Narodniks, who triumphantly claim that the advantages of large-scale production in agriculture have not been proved. "It ill becomes those," says the author in reply, "who base themselves on Marx's teachings, to deny the significance of the economic and technical peculiarities of agricultural production thanks to which small undertakings in some cases possess economic advantages over big ones -- even though Marx himself denied the importance of these peculiarities" (111). This passage is very unclear. What peculiarities is the author speaking of? Why does he not indicate them exactly? Why does he not indicate where and how Marx expressed his

big, and nothing more. Mr. Struve is quite right in telling them that when they argue that way they overlook the general character of agricultural production, which can be (and really is in our country) bourgeois even where production is small-scale, just as West-European peasant farming is bourgeois. The conditions under which small-scale independent enterprise ("people's" -- to use the expression of the Russian intelligentsia) becomes bourgeois are well known. They are, firstly, the prevalence of commodity economy, which, with the producers isolated[*] from one another, gives rise to competition among them, and, while ruining the mass, enriches the few; secondly, the transformation of labour-power into a commodity, and the means of production into capital, i.e., the separation of the producer from the means of production, and the capitalist organisation of the most important branches of industry. Under these conditions the small independent producer acquires an exceptional position in relation to the mass of producers -- just as now really independent proprietors constitute in our country an exception among the masses, who work for others and, far from owning "independent" enterprises, do not even possess means of subsistence sufficient to last a week. The condition and interests of the independent proprietor isolate him from the mass of the producers, who live mainly on wages. While the latter raise the issue of a "fair reward," which is necessarily the gateway to the fundamental issue of a different system of social economy, the former have a far more lively interest in quite different things, namely, credits, and particularly small "people's" credits, improved and cheaper implements, "organisation of marketing," "extension of land tenure," etc.

    The very law of the superiority of large enterprises over small is a law of commodity production alone and consequently is not applicable to enterprises not yet entirely drawn into commodity production, not subordinated to

show the class contradictions that are concealed by all these examples of progress and culture.[*]

    The "progress" and the "culture" that post-Reform Russia brought in its train are undoubtedly bound up with the "institution of private property" -- it was not only introduced for the first time in all its fulness by the creation of a new "contentious" civil process which ensured the same sort of "equality" in the courts as was embodied in life by "free labour" and its sale to capital; it covered the holdings both of the landlords, rid of all obligations and duties to the state, and of the peasants, turned into peasant proprietors ; it was even made the basis of the political rights of "citizens" to participate in local government (the qualification), etc. Still more undoubted is the "lie" between our "progress" and the "principles of economic freedom" we have already heard in Chapter I from our Narodnik how this "freedom" consisted in liberating the "modest and bearded" gatherers of Russia's land from the need to "humble themselves to a junior police official." We have already spoken of how the "sense of individualism" was created by the development of commodity economy. By combining all these features of Russia's progress, one cannot but reach the conclusion (drawn, too, by the Narodnik of the seventies) that this progress and culture were thoroughly bourgeois. Contemporary Russia is far better than pre-Reform Russia, but since all this improvement is wholly and exclusively due to the bourgeoisie, to its agents and ideologists, the producers have not profited by it. As far as they are concerned the improvements have only meant a change in the form of the surplus product, have only meant improved and perfected methods of separating the producer from the means of production. That is why the Narodnik gentlemen display the most incredible "flippancy" and forgetfulness when they address their protest against Russian capitalism and bour-

way of understanding it, but lays down no precise attributes of it; the concept "capitalism," despite the author's analysis, has not been analysed. Yet, one would have thought it should present no particular difficulty, since the concept was introduced into science by Marx, who substantiated it by facts. But here, too, Mr. Struve would not let himself be infected with "orthodoxy." "Marx himself," says he, "viewed the process of the transformation of commodity production into commodity-capitalist production as perhaps more precipitate and straightforward than it is in actual fact" (p. 127, footnote). Perhaps. But since it is the only view substantiated scientifically and supported by the history of capital, and since we are unacquainted with other views, which "perhaps" are less "precipitate" and "straightforward," we turn to Marx. The essential features of capitalism, according to his theory, are (1) commodity production, as the general form of production. The product assumes the form of a commodity in the most diverse social production organisms, but only in capitalist production is that form of the product of labour general, and not exceptional, isolated, accidental. The second feature of capitalism (2) -- not only the product of labour, but also labour itself, i.e., human labour-power, assumes the form of a commodity. The degree to which the commodity form of labour-power is developed is an indication of the degree to which capitalism is developed.* With the aid of this definition we shall easily see our way among the examples of incorrect understanding of this term cited by Mr. Struve. Undoubtedly, the contrasting of the Russian system to capitalism, a contrast based on the technical backwardness of our national economy, on the predominance of hand production, etc., and so often resorted to by the Narodniks, is quite absurd, since capitalism exists both where technical development is low and where it is high; in Capital Marx repeatedly stresses the point that capital first subordinates production as it finds it, and only subsequently

 
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transforms it technically. Undoubtedly, the German Hausindustrie and the Russian "domestic system of large-scale production" are capitalist-organised industry, for not only does commodity production dominate, but the owner of money also dominates the producers and appropriates surplus-value. Undoubtedly, when the Russian "land-holding" peasantry is contrasted to West-European capitalism -- something the Narodniks are so fond of doing -- that, too, merely shows a lack of understanding of what capitalism is. As the author quite rightly remarks, "peasant semi-natural economy" (124) is also to be found in some places in the West, but neither in the West nor in Russia does this do away with either the predominance of commodity production, or the subordination of the overwhelming majority of the producers to capital: before this subordination reaches the highest, peak level of development, it passes through many stages that are usually ignored by the Narodniks despite the very precise explanation given by Marx. The subordination begins with merchant's and usury capital, then grows into industrial capitalism, which in its turn is at first technically quite primitive, and does not differ in any way from the old systems of production, then organises manufacture -- which is still based on hand labour, and on the dominant handicraft industries, without breaking the tie between the wage-worker and the land -- and completes its development with large-scale machine industry. It is this last, highest stage that constitutes the culminating point of the development of capitalism, it alone creates the fully expropriated worker* who is as free as a bird, it alone gives rise (both materially and socially) to the "unifying significance" of capitalism that the Narodniks are accustomed to connect with capitalism in general, it alone opposes capitalism to its "own child."

    The fourth chapter of the book, "Economic Progress and Social Progress," is a direct continuation of the third chapter, and covers that part of the book which advances data of "human experience" against the Narodniks. We shall

 
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have to deal here in detail, firstly, with the author's wrong view [or clumsy expression?] concerning Marx's followers and, secondly, with the way the tasks of the economic criticism of Narodism are formulated.

    Mr. Struve says that Marx conceived the transition from capitalism to the new social system as the sudden downfall, the collapse of capitalism. (He thinks that "certain passages" in Marx give grounds for this view; as a matter of fact, it runs through all the works of Marx.) The followers of Marx fight for reforms. An "important correction has been made" to the viewpoint that Marx held in the forties: instead of the "chasm" separating capitalism from the new system, a "number of transitional stages" have been admitted.

    We cannot under any circumstances admit this to be right. No "correction" whatever, either important or unimportant, has been made to Marx's viewpoint by the "followers of Marx." The fight for reforms does not in the least imply a "correction," does not in the least correct the doctrine of the chasm and sudden downfall, because this struggle is waged with a frankly and definitely admitted aim, that of reaching the "fall"; and the fact that this requires a "number of transitional stages" -- from one phase of the struggle to another, from one stage to the next -- was admitted by Marx himself in the forties when he said in the Manifesto that the movement towards the new system cannot be separated from the working-class movement (and, hence, from the struggle for reforms), and when he himself, in conclusion, proposed a number of practical measures.[129]

    If Mr. Struve wanted to indicate the development of Marx's viewpoint, he was, of course, right. But then, this is not a "correction" to his views, but the very opposite -- their application, their realisation.

    Nor can we agree with the author's attitude towards Narodism.

    "Our Narodnik literature," he says, "seized upon the contrast between national wealth and the well-being of the people, social progress and progress in distribution" (131).

    Narodism did not "seize upon" this contrast, but merely stated the fact that in post-Reform Russia the same contradiction was to be observed between progress, culture,

 
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wealth and -- the separation of the producer from the means of production, the diminution of the producer's share in the product of the people's labour, and the growth of poverty and unemployment -- as that which had led to this contrast being made in the West, too.

    ". . . Owing to its humanity and its love for the people, this literature immediately settled the problem in favour of the well-being of the people, and as certain forms of people's economy (village community, artel) apparently embodied the ideal of economic equality and thus guaranteed the well-being of the people, and as the progress of production under the influence of increased exchange held out no promise for these forms, whose economic and psychological foundations it abolished, the Narodniks, pointing to the sad experience of the West in regard to industrial progress based on private property and economic liberty, countered commodity production -- capitalism, with a so-called 'people's industry' that guarantees the well-being of the people, as a social and economic ideal for the preservation and further development of which the Russian intelligentsia and the Russian people should fight."

    This argument clearly reveals the flaws in Mr. Struve's thesis. Narodism is depicted as a "humane" theory which "seized upon" the contrast between national wealth and the poverty of the people and "settled the problem" in favour of distribution, because the "experience of the West" "held out no promise" for the well-being of the people. And the author begins to argue against this "settlement" of the problem, forgetting that he is only arguing against the idealist and, moreover, naïve daydreams that are the cloak of Narodism, and not against its content, forgetting that he is committing a serious error by presenting the question in the professorial manner usually adopted by the Narodniks. As we have already stated, the content of Narodism reflects the viewpoint and the interests of the Russian small producer. The "humanity and love for the people" expressed in the theory derive from the downtrodden condition of our small producer, who has suffered severely both from the "old-nobility" system and traditions, and from the oppression of big capital. The attitude of Narodism towards the "West" and towards its influence

 
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upon Russia was determined, of course, not by the fact that it "seized upon" this or that idea coming from the West, but by the small producer's conditions of life: he saw that he was up against large-scale capitalism which was borrowing West-European technique,[*] and, oppressed by it, built up naïve theories which explained capitalism by politics instead of capitalist politics by capitalist economy, and which declared large-scale capitalism to be something alien to Russia, introduced from outside. The fact that he was tied to his separate, small enterprise prevented him from understanding the true character of the state, and he appealed to it to help develop small ("people's") production. Owing to the undeveloped condition of class antagonisms characteristic of Russian capitalist society, the theory of these petty-bourgeois ideologists was put forward as representing the interests of labour in general.

    Instead of showing the absurdity of Narodniks' presentation of the problem and explaining their "settlement" of it by the material conditions of the small producer's life, the author himself, in his own presentation of the problem, betrays a dogmatism which reminds one of the Narodniks' "choice " between economic and social progress.

    "The task of criticising the economic principles of Narodism . . . is . . . to prove the following:

    "1)  Economic progress is a necessary condition for social progress: the latter emerges historically from the former, and, at a certain stage of development, organic interaction between, interdependence of, these two processes should, and in fact does, manifest itself" (133).

    Speaking generally, this is, of course, a perfectly true statement. But it indicates the tasks of criticising the sociological rather than the economic principles of Narodism: in essence, it is a different way of formulating the doctrine that the development of society is determined by the development of the productive forces which we discussed in chapters I and II. It is, however, inadequate for the criticism of the "economic principles of Narodism." The problem must be formulated more concretely, it must be reduced from progress in general to the "progress" of

capitalist society in Russia, to those errors in understanding this progress which gave rise to the ridiculous Narodnik fables about the tabula rasa, about "people's production," about Russian capitalism having no basis, etc. Instead of talk about interaction manifesting itself between economic and social progress, the definite symptoms of social progress in Russia of which the Narodniks fail to see such and such economic roots, must be shown (or at least indicated).[*]

    "2)  For that reason, the question of the organisation of production and of the level of labour productivity is one that takes precedence over the question of distribution; under certain historical conditions, when the productivity of the people's labour is extremely low, both absolutely and relatively, the predominant importance of the factor of production makes itself felt very acutely."

    The author here bases himself on Marx's doctrine of the subordinate importance of distribution. As an epigraph to Chapter IV a passage is taken from Marx's criticism of the Gotha Programme[130] where he contrasts vulgar socialism to scientific socialism, which attaches no great importance to distribution, explains the social system by the way the relations of production are organised and considers that such organisation already includes a definite system of distribution. This idea, as the author quite justly remarks, runs through the whole of Marx's theory, and is extremely important for an understanding of the petty-bourgeois content of Narodism. But the second part of Mr. Struve's sentence greatly obscures this idea, particularly because of the vague term he uses, "the factor of production." Some confusion may arise as to the sense in which this term is to be understood. The Narodnik adopts the viewpoint of the small producer, whose explanations of the misfortunes he suffers are very superficial; for example, he is "poor," while his neighbour, the buyer-up, is "rich";

camps[*] . . . or the whole thing has been wrecked by a detail in its execution, or else an unforeseen accident has this time spoilt the game. In any case, the democrat comes out of the most disgraceful defeat just as immaculate as he was innocent when he went into it, with the newly won conviction that he is bound to win, not that he himself and his party have to give up the old stand point, but, on the contrary, that conditions have to ripen to suit him" (ihm entgegenzureifen haben. Der achtzehnte Brumaire, u.s.w., S. 39).[131]

    The very examples which the author himself quotes prove that the description of the Narodniks as ideologists of natural economy and primitive equality is wrong. "As a curiosity it is worth mentioning," says Mr. Struve, "that to this day Mr.-on calls Vasilchikov a liberal economist" (169). If we examine the real essence of this designation we shall find that it is by no means curious. In his programme Vasilchikov has the demand for cheap and widespread credit. Mr. Nikolai-on cannot fail to see that in the capitalist society which Russian society is, credit will only strengthen the bourgeoisie, will lead to "the development and consolidation of capitalist relationships" (Sketches, p. 77). By the practical measures he proposes, Vasilchikov, like all the Narodniks, represents nothing but the interests of the petty bourgeoisie. The only thing that is curious about this is that Mr.-on, sitting as he does side by side with the Russkoye Bogatstvo publicists, has "to this day" not noticed that they are exactly the same type of little "liberal economists" as Prince Vasilchikov. Utopian theories easily reconcile themselves in practice with petty-bourgeois progress. This description of Narodism is still further confirmed by Golovachov, who admits that to distribute allotments to everybody is absurd and suggests that "cheap credits be provided for working folk." In criticising this "astonishing" theory, Mr. Struve calls attention to the absurdity

actual content of the changes it has effected, we shall see that their character is as follows: some of the peasants were deprived of the land, and -- this is the chief thing -- the rest of the peasants, who retained part of their land, had to redeem it from the landlords, as though it was something to which they had absolutely no right, and what is more, to redeem it at an artificially high price. Not only here in Russia, but also in the West, such reforms were invested with theories about "freedom" and "equality," and it has already been shown in Capital that it was commodity production that provided the basis for the ideas of freedom and equality. At any rate, however complicated the bureaucratic machine that put the Reform into effect in Russia, however apparently [*] distant it was from the bourgeoisie themselves, it remains an undoubted fact that only the bourgeois system could develop on the basis of such a reform. Mr. Struve is quite right in pointing out that the stock way of contrasting the peasant Reform in Russia to those in Western Europe is wrong: "it is quite wrong (in so general a form ) to assert that in Western Europe the peasants were emancipated without the land, or, in other words, were deprived of the land by legislation" (196). I underscore the words "in so general a form," because separation of the peasants from the land by legislation was an undoubted historical fact wherever a peasant Reform was carried through, but it is not a universal fact, for in the West part of the peasants, when emancipated from feudal dependence, redeemed the land from the landlords, and are doing so in Russia. Only the bourgeoisie are capable of hiding the fact of redemption and of asserting that the "emancipation of the peasants with land** made a tabula rasa of Russia" (the words of a Mr. Yakovlev, "heartily welcomed" by Mr. Mikhailovsky -- see p. 10 of P. Struve's work).

    Let us proceed to Mr. Struve's theory about the"character of over-population in agrarian Russia." This is one of the most important points in which Mr. Struve departs from the "doctrine" of Marxism for that of Malthusianism. The essence of his views, developed by him in his controversy with Mr. N.-on, is that over-population in agricultural Russia is "not capitalist, but, so to speak, simple over-population, that goes with natural economy."[*]

    Since Mr. Struve says that his objection to Mr. N.-on "fully conforms with F. A. Lange's general objection to Marx's theory of relative over-population" (p. 183, footnote), we shall first turn to this "general objection" of Lange's and examine it.

    Lange discusses Marx's law of population in his Labour Problem, Chapter V (Russian trans., pp. 142-78). He begins with Marx's main proposition that "every special historic mode of production has its own special laws of population, historically valid within its limits alone. An abstract law of population exists for plants and animals only."[132] Lange's comment is:

    "May we be permitted to note firstly that, strictly speaking, there is no abstract law of population for plants and animals, either, since abstraction is, on the whole, merely the extraction of the general from a whole number of similar phenomena" (143), and Lange explains in detail to Marx what abstraction is. Evidently, he simply did not understand the meaning of Marx's statement. In this respect Marx contrasts man to plants and animals on the grounds that the former lives in diverse historically successive social organisms which are determined by the system of social production, and, hence, distribution. The conditions for human reproduction are directly dependent on the structure of the different social organisms; that is why the law of population must be studied in relation to each organism separately, and not "abstractly," without

    Having expounded Marx's theory of relative over-population in a capitalist country, Lange goes on to say: "At first sight it may seem that this theory breaks the lengthy thread that runs through the whole of organic nature up to man, that it explains the basis of the labour problem as though general investigations into the existence, reproduction and perfection of the human race were quite superfluous to our purpose, i.e., to an understanding of the labour problem" (154).[*]

    The thread that runs through the whole of organic nature up to man is not at all-broken by Marx's theory, which merely requires that the "labour problem" -- since it only exists as such in capitalist society -- be solved not on the basis of "general investigations" into human reproduction, but on the basis of specific investigations of the laws of capitalist relations. Lange, however, is of a different opinion: "Actually, however," says he, "this is not so. Above all it is clear that factory labour from the very outset presumes poverty " (154). And Lange devotes a page and a half to proving this proposition, which is self-evident and does not advance us a single hair's breadth: firstly, we know that poverty is created by capitalism itself at a stage of its development prior to the factory form of production, prior to the stage at which the machines create surplus population; secondly, the form of social structure preceding capitalism -- the feudal, serf system -- itself created a poverty of its own, one that it handed down to capitalism.

    "But even with such a powerful assistant [i.e., want], only in rare cases does the first employer succeed in winning over large numbers of workers to the new kind of activity. Usually what happens is the following. From the locality where factory industry has already won itself citizenship rights the employer brings with him a contingent of workers; to them he adds a few landless peasants,[*] who at the moment are workless, and the further supplementation of the existing factory contingent is done from among the rising generation" (156). Lange places the last two words in italics. Evidently, the "general investigations into the existence, reproduction and perfection of the human race" were expressed in precisely the postulate that the factory owner recruits new workers among the "rising generation," and not among decrepit old folk. The good Lange spends a whole page more (157) on these "general investigations" and tells the reader that parents try to give their children an assured existence, that the idle moralists are wrong in condemning those who try to work their way out of the condition into which they were born, that it is quite natural to try to arrange for children to earn their own living. Only after we have got over all these reflections, which may be in place in copybooks, do we get down to business:

    "In an agrarian country where the soil belongs to small and big owners -- provided that the tendency of voluntary birth-control has not firmly gripped the people's morals -- there inevitably arises a constant surplus of hands and consumers who wish to exist on the products of the given territory" (157-58). This purely Malthusian proposition is put forward by Lange without offering any proof. He repeats it again and again and says: "In any case, even if such a country is thinly populated in the absolute sense, there are usually signs of relative over-population" and "on the market the supply of labour is constantly in excess and the demand insignificant" (158) -- but all these

that the peasant allotments were "inadequate," and which "fortified" thousands of times over their desire for the "expansion of peasant land tenure" with the "simple" argument: the population has increased; the allotments have been split up -- naturally, the peasants are being ruined. However, this hackneyed Narodnik argument about "land-poverty can hardly be of any scientific[*] value, it can hardly be of use for anything but "loyal speeches" in a commission dealing with the painless advance of the fatherland along the right road. In this argument the wood cannot be seen for the trees, the basic social-economic background of the picture cannot be seen for the outer contours of the object. The fact of a huge mass of land belonging to members of the "old-nobility" system, on the one hand, and the acquisition of land by purchase, on the other -- such is the basic background under which every "expansion of land tenure" will be a miserable palliative. Both the Narodnik arguments about land-poverty, and the Malthusian "laws" about population increase being correlated to the means of subsistence are at fault in their abstract "simplicity," which ignores the given, specific social-economic relations.

    This review of Mr. Struve's arguments leads us to the conclusion that his thesis -- over-population in agrarian Russia is to be explained by reproduction not being correlated to the means of subsistence -- is absolutely unproved. He concludes his arguments as follows: "And so, we are faced with a picture of natural-economic over-population complicated by commodity-economic factors and other important features inherited from the social structure of the feudal epoch" (200). Of course, one can say that any economic phenomenon in a country undergoing a transition from "natural" to "commodity" economy is a "natural-economic" phenomenon complicated by "commodity-economic factors." The opposite can also be said: "a commodity-economic" phenomenon "complicated by natural-economic factors," -- but all this, far from giving a "picture," cannot give even

    Mr. N.-on bases his explanation of over-population on the fact of masses of workers being "freed" because of the capitalisation of the peasant industries. And he merely cites data relating to the growth of large-scale factory industry, and disregards the parallel fact of the growth of handicraft industries, which expresses the deepening of the social division of labour.* He transfers his expla-

 
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nation to agriculture, without even attempting to give an exact description of its social-economic organisation and the degree of its development.

    Mr. Struve indicates in reply that "capitalist over-population in Marx's sense is closely connected with technical progress" (183), and since he, together with Mr.-on, finds that the "technique" of peasant "farming has made practically no progress" (200), he refuses to recognise the over-population in agricultural Russia to be capitalist, and seeks for other explanations.

    Mr. Struve's remarks in reply to Mr. N.-on are correct. Capitalist over-population is due to capital taking possession of production; by reducing the number of necessary workers (necessary for the production of a given quantity of products) it creates a surplus population. Marx, speaking of capitalist over-population in agriculture, says the following:

    "As soon as capitalist production takes possession of agriculture, and in proportion to the extent to which it does so, the demand for an agricultural labouring population falls absolutely, while the accumulation of the capital employed in agriculture advances, without this repulsion being, as in non-agricultural industries, compensated by a greater attraction. Part of the agricultural population is therefore constantly on the point of passing over into an urban, or manufacturing proletariat. . . .* (Manufacture is used here in the sense of all non-agricultural industries.) This source of relative surplus population is thus constantly flowing. But the constant flow towards the towns presupposes, in the country itself, a constant latent surplus population, the extent of which becomes evident only when its channels of outlet open to exceptional width. The agricultural labourer is therefore reduced to the minimum of wages, and always stands with one foot already in the swamp of pauperism" (Das Kapital, 2 Aufl., S. 668).[134]

 
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    Mr. N.-on did not prove the capitalist character of over-population in agrarian Russia, because he did not connect it with capitalism in agriculture: confining himself to a cursory and incomplete reference to the capitalist evolution of private-landowner farming, he completely overlooked the bourgeois features of the organisation of peasant farming. Mr. Struve should have corrected this unsatisfactory feature of Mr. N.-on's exposition, which is of very great importance, for ignoring capitalism in agriculture, its domination, and at the same time its still weak development, naturally led to the theory of the absence or the contraction of the home market. Instead of reducing Mr. N.-on's theory to the concrete data of our agricultural capitalism, Mr. Struve fell into another error -- he denied the capitalist character of over-population completely.

    The invasion of agriculture by capital is characteristic of the entire history of the post-Reform period. The landlords went over (whether slowly or quickly is another matter) to hired labour, which became very widespread and even determined the character of the major part of peasant earnings; they introduced technical improvements and brought machines into use. Even the dying feudal system of economy -- the provision of land to the peasants in return for labour service -- underwent a bourgeois transformation due to competition among the peasants; this led to a worsening of the position of tenants, to severer conditions,* and, consequently, to a decline in the number of workers. In peasant economy the splitting up of the peasantry into a village bourgeoisie and proletariat was quite clearly revealed. The "rich" extended their tillage, improved their farms [cf. V. V., Progressive Trends in Peasant Farming ] and were compelled to resort to wage-labour. All these are long established, generally recognised facts which (as we shall see in a moment) are referred to by Mr. Struve himself. Let us take as a further example the following

 
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case, a usual one in the Russian village: a "kulak" has wrested the best slice of allotment land from the "village community," or more exactly, community members of the proletarian type, and is farming it with the labour and the implements of the very same "allotment-provided" peasants who have become enmeshed in debts and obligations and are tied to their benefactor -- for social mutual adaptation and common action -- by the strength of the community principles beloved of the Narodniks. His farm is better run, of course, than those of the ruined peasants, and far fewer workers are required than when this slice of land was held by several small peasant farmers. No Narodnik can deny that these are not isolated but common facts. Their theories are exceptionalist only in their refusal to call facts by their real name, in their refusal to see that these facts signify the domination of capital in agriculture. They forget that the initial form of capital has always and everywhere been merchant's, money capital, that capital always takes the technical process of production as it finds it, and only subsequently subjects it to technical transformation. They therefore do not see that by "upholding" (in words, of course -- no more than that) the contemporary agricultural order against "oncoming" (?!) capitalism, they are merely upholding medieval forms of capital against the onslaught of its latest, purely bourgeois forms.

    Thus, one cannot deny the capitalist character of over population in Russia, just as one cannot deny the domination of capital in agriculture. But it is quite ridiculous, of course, to ignore the degree of the development of capital, as Mr. N.-on does; in his enthusiasm he presents it as almost completed and for that reason concocts a theory about the contraction or the absence of the home market, whereas actually, though capital is dominant, it is in a relatively very undeveloped form; there are still many intermediate phases before it reaches full development, before the producer is completely divorced from the means of production, and every step forward by agricultural capitalism means a growth of the home market, which, according to Marx's theory, is created precisely by agricultural capitalism -- and which in Russia is not contracting, but, on the contrary, is taking shape and developing.

 
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    Further, we see from this albeit very general description of our agricultural capitalism[*] that it does not embrace all social-economic relations in the countryside. Alongside of it we still see feudal relations -- in both the economic sphere (e.g., the leasing of cut-off lands in return for labour service and payments in kind -- here you have all the features of feudal economy: the natural "exchange of services" between the producer and the owner of the means of production, and the exploitation of the producer by tying him to the land, and not separating him from the means of production), and still more in the social and the juridical-political sphere (compulsory "provision of allotment," tying to the land, i.e., absence of freedom of movement, payment of redemption money, i.e., the same quitrent paid to the landlord, subordination to the privileged landowners in the courts and administration, etc.); these relations also undoubtedly lead to the ruin of the peasants and to unemployment, an "over-population" of farm labourers tied to the land. The capitalist basis of contemporary relations should not hide these still powerful relics of the "old-nobility" stratum which have not yet been destroyed by capitalism precisely because it is undeveloped. The undeveloped condition of capitalism, "Russia's backwardness," considered by the Narodniks to be "good fortune,"** is only "good fortune" for the titled exploiters. Contemporary "over-population," consequently, contains feudal in addition to its basic capitalist features.

    If we compare this latter thesis with Mr. Struve's thesis that "over-population" contains natural-economic features and commodity-economic features, we shall see that the former do not rule out the latter, but, on the contrary, are included in them: serfdom relates to "natural-economic," and capitalism to "commodity-economic" phenomena. Mr. Struve's thesis, on the one hand, does not exactly indicate precisely which relations are natural-economic and which commodity-economic, and, on the other hand, leads us back to the unfounded and meaningless "laws" of Malthus.

    While Mr. N.-on apparently adheres to the strict letter of the doctrine of Marxism, he none the less draws a sharp distinction between the capitalist evolution of agriculture and the evolution of manufacturing industry in capitalist society, the distinction being that he recognises the progressive work of capitalism with regard to the latter -- the socialisation of labour -- and does not do so with regard to the former. That is why he "does not fear" an increase in the productivity of labour with regard to manufacturing industry, but "does fear" it as regards agriculture, although the social-economic aspect of the matter and the reflection of this process on the different classes of society are exactly the same in both cases. . . . Marx expressed this point very strikingly in the following remark: "Philanthropic English economists, like Mill, Rogers, Goldwin Smith, Fawcett, etc., and liberal manufacturers like John Bright and Co., ask the English landed proprietors, as God asked Cain after Abel, where are our thousands of freeholders gone? But where do you come from, then? From the destruction of those freeholders. Why don't you ask further, where are the independent weavers, spinners, and artisans gone?" (Das Kapital, I, S. 780, Anm. 237.)[136] The last sentence clearly identifies the fate of the small producers in agriculture with the fate of those in manufacturing industry, and emphasises the formation of the classes of bourgeois society

 
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in both cases.[*] Mr. N.-on's chief error lies precisely in the fact that he ignores these classes, their formation among our peasantry, and does not set himself the aim of following, with the utmost precision, every successive stage in the development of the antithesis between these classes.

    But Mr. Struve deals with the problem quite differently. Far from correcting the error of Mr. N.-on that we have mentioned, he himself repeats it, arguing from the viewpoint of a professor standing above classes about the "benefit" of progress to the "peasantry." This attempt to rise above classes leads the author to extreme haziness in stating his points, a haziness so great that the following bourgeois conclusions may be drawn from them: in opposition to the undoubtedly correct thesis that capitalism in agriculture (as capitalism in industry) worsens the conditions of the producer, he advances the thesis of the "benefit" of these changes in general. This is the same as if someone were to argue about machines in bourgeois society and refute the romantic economist's theory that they worsen the conditions of the working people by proofs of the "benefit and blessing" of progress in general.

    In reply to Mr. Struve's view the Narodnik will very likely say: what Mr. N.-on fears is not increased productivity of labour, but bourgeoisdom.

    There is no doubt that technical progress in agriculture under our capitalist system is connected with bourgeoisdom, but the "fear" displayed by the Narodniks is, of course, quite absurd. Bourgeoisdom is a fact of actual life, labour is subordinated to capital in agriculture too, and what is to be "feared" is not bourgeoisdom, but the producer's lack of consciousness of this bourgeoisdom, his inability to defend his interests against it. That is why it is not the retardation of the development of capitalism that is to be desired, but on the contrary, its full development, its thorough development. To show with as great detail and precision as possible the basis of the error committed by Mr. Struve in treating agriculture in capitalist society, let us try to depict (in

 
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the most general outline) the process of the formation of classes together with the technical changes that gave grounds for the argument. In this connection Mr. Struve distinguishes strictly extensive agriculture and intensive, seeing the root of Mr. N.-on's misapprehensions in his refusal to recognise anything but extensive agriculture. We shall endeavour to prove that Mr. N.-on's chief error lies not in this, and that as agriculture becomes intensive the formation of the classes of bourgeois society is essentially identical with that taking place as extensive agriculture develops.

    There is no need to say much about extensive agriculture, because Mr. Struve also admits that here the "peasantry" are ousted by the bourgeoisie. Let us merely note two points. Firstly, technical progress is evoked by commodity economy; to bring it about the proprietor must have free, surplus monetary resources [surplus in relation to his consumption and the reproduction of his means of production]. Where can these resources be got? Obviously from no other source than the conversion of the cycle: commodity - money - commodity into the cycle: money - commodity - money with a surplus. In other words, these resources can be got exclusively from capital, from merchant's and usury capital, from the same "welshers, kulaks, merchants," etc., whom the naïve Russian Narodniks assign not to capitalism but to "rapacity" (as though capitalism is not rapacity! as though Russian reality does not show us the interconnection of all possible varieties of this "rapacity" -- from the most primitive and primeval kulakdom to the very latest, rational enterprise!)* Secondly, let us note Mr. N.-on's strange

 
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attitude to this question. In the second note to page 233 he refutes V. Y. Postnikov, author of Peasant Farming in South Russia, who points out that machines have exactly doubled the working area of the peasant household, from 10 to 20 dessiatines per worker, and that for that reason the cause of "Russia's poverty" is "the small size of the peasant farm." In other words, technical progress in bourgeois society leads to the expropriation of the small and backward farms. Mr. N.-on objects: tomorrow technique may raise the working area three times over. Then the 60-dessiatine farms will have to be turned into 200- and 300-dessiatine farms. Such an argument against the thesis of our agriculture being bourgeois is as ridiculous as somebody setting out to prove the weakness and impotence of factory capitalism on the grounds that the steam-engine of today will have to be replaced "tomorrow" by the electric motor. "Nor is it known where the millions of released labourers get to" -- adds Mr. N.-on, who sets himself up as judge of the bourgeoisie and forgets that the producer himself is the only one to judge them. The formation of a reserve army of unemployed is just as necessary a result of the use of machinery in bourgeois agriculture as in bourgeois industry.

    And so, with regard to the development of extensive agriculture there is no doubt that technical progress under commodity economy leads to the transformation of the "peasant" into a capitalist farmer, on the one hand (understanding by farmer the entrepreneur, the capitalist in agriculture), and a farm labourer or day labourer, on the other. Let us now examine the case where extensive agriculture becomes intensive. It is from this process that Mr. Struve expects "benefit" for the "peasant." To prevent any argument about the suitability of the material we are using to describe this transition, let us make use of Mr. A. I Skvortsov's* The Influence of Steam Transport on

 
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Agriculture, who has earned such boundless praise from Mr. Struve.

    In Chapter 3 of the fourth section of his book, Mr. A. Skvortsov examines the "change in agricultural technique under the influence of steam transport" in countries employing extensive and intensive farming. Let us take his description of this change in the thickly-populated extensive countries. One might think that central European Russia would fit into that category. Mr. Skvortsov foresees for such a country the changes that, in Mr. Struve's opinion, will inevitably take place in Russia too, namely, transformation into a country of intensive agriculture with developed factory production.

    Let us follow Mr. A. Skvortsov (§§ 4-7, pp. 440-51).

    A country of extensive[*] agriculture. A very considerable part of the population is engaged in agriculture. Uniformity of occupation leads to the absence of a market. The population is poor, firstly, because of the small size of the farms and, secondly, because of the absence of exchange: "requirements other than food, which is raised by the agriculturist himself, are satisfied exclusively, it can be said, by the products of primitive artisan establishments, known as handicraft industry in Russia."

    The building of a railway raises the price of agricultural produce and, consequently, increases the purchasing power of the population. "Together with the railway the country is flooded with the cheap products of the manufactories and mills," which ruin the local handicraftsmen. This is the first cause of the "collapse of many farms."

    The second cause of the collapse is crop failures. "Agriculture has also been conducted hitherto in a primitive

    In order to manage without handicraft industries and to guarantee oneself against crop failures by going over to intensive (rational) agriculture, the following are necessary: firstly, big monetary surpluses (from the sale of agricultural produce at higher prices), and, secondly, the intellectual force of the population, without which no increased rationality and intensity is possible. The mass of the population do not, of course, enjoy these conditions: they apply to a minority only.[*]

    "The surplus population thus formed" [i.e., as a result of the "liquidation" of many farms ruined by the failure of handicraft industries and by the greater demands on agriculture] "will partly be swallowed up by the farms that emerge from this situation more happily and that are able to increase the intensity of production" (i.e., of course they will be "swallowed up" as wage-workers, farm labourers and day labourers. Mr. A. Skvortsov does not say that, maybe because he considers it too obvious). A great expenditure of human energy will be required, since the proximity of the market brought about by improved communications makes it possible to raise perishable produce, and "the latter, in most cases, entails a considerable expenditure of manpower." "Usually, however," continues Mr. Skvortsov, "the process of destruction proceeds much more rapidly than the process of improving the surviving farms, and part of the ruined peasants have to move, at least to the towns, it not right out of the country. It is this part that has con-

with harvest fluctuations. Of course, the complete crop rotation system,[*] which requires a very high level of intensity, cannot be introduced immediately. At first, therefore, grain crop rotation [proper succession of crops] is introduced; cattle-raising, and the planting of fodder crops are developed.

    "Finally, therefore, our thickly-populated extensive farming district turns more or less rapidly, as railways develop, into one of highly intensive farming, and its intensity, as has been said, will grow primarily on account of an increase in variable capital."

    This detailed description of the process of development of intensive farming shows clearly that in this case, too, technical progress under commodity production leads to bourgeois economy, splits the direct producers into the farmer, who enjoys all the advantages of intensive farming, improvement of implements, etc., and the worker, who with his "freedom" and his "cheapness" provides the most "favourable conditions" for the "progressive development of the entire national economy."

    Mr. N.-on's chief error is not that he ignores intensive agriculture and confines himself to extensive agriculture, but his vapid lamentations about "us" going the wrong way to which he treats the reader, instead of analysing the class contradictions in the sphere of Russian agricultural production. Mr. Struve repeats this error by obscuring the class contradictions with "objective" arguments, and only corrects Mr. N.-on's secondary errors. It is all the more strange since he himself quite rightly chides this "undoubted Marxist" with failing to understand the theory of the class struggle. It is all the more regrettable since Mr. Struve, by that error, weakens the force of his quite correct idea that "fear" of technical progress in agriculture is absurd.

    To finish with this problem of capitalism in agriculture, let us sum up what has been said. How does Mr. Struve pose the problem? He starts out from the a priori, unfounded explanation of over-population being the result of population increases not conforming to the means of subsistence;

contrasted the former to the latter not as two successive stages of the development of the given phenomenon, but as two separate cases.[*]

    The author hardly puts the issue properly, hiding the essence of the matter under details of secondary importance. If we start from the fact of the development of factory industry (and Mr. N.-on makes precisely the observation of that fact his starting-point), we cannot deny that the cheapness of factory goods also speeds up the growth of commodity economy, speeds up the ousting of home-made goods. By objecting to this statement of Mr. N.-on's, Mr. Struve merely weakens his argument against that author, whose main error is that he tries to present the "factory" as something isolated from the "peasantry," as something that has come down upon them accidentally, from outside, whereas, in fact, the "factory" (both according to the theory that Mr. N.-on desires loyally to support, and according to

    In other words, the "factory form" is nothing more than developed commodity production, and it developed from the undeveloped commodity production of peasant and handicraft economy. The author wishes to prove to Mr. N.-on that the "factory" and the "peasantry" are interconnected, that the economic "principles" of their organisation are not contradictory,[*] but identical. To do that he should have reduced the problem to that of peasant economic organisation, and opposed Mr. N.-on by the thesis that our small producer (the peasant-agriculturist and the handicraftsman) is a petty bourgeois. By posing the problem that way he would have transferred it from the sphere of arguments on what "should" be, what "may" be, etc., into the sphere of explaining what is, and why it is that way, and not otherwise. To refute this thesis the Narodniks would have either to deny generally-known and undoubted facts about the growth of commodity economy and the splitting-up of the peasantry [and these facts prove the petty-bourgeois character of the peasantry], or else to deny the elementary truths of political economy. To accept this thesis would mean to admit the absurdity of contrasting "capitalism" to the "people's system," to admit the reactionary character of schemes to "seek different paths for the fatherland" and address requests for "socialisation" to bourgeois "society" or to a "state" that is still half "old-nobility" in character.

    Instead, however, of beginning at the beginning,[*] Mr. Struve begins at the end: "We reject," says he, "one of the most fundamental postulates of the Narodnik theory of Russia's economic development, the postulate that the development of large-scale manufacturing industry ruins the peasant agriculturist" (246). Now that means, as the Germans say, to throw out the baby with the bath water! "The development of large-scale manufacturing industry" means and expresses the development of capitalism. And that it is capitalism which ruins the peasant is by no means a corner-stone of Narodism, but of Marxism. The Narodniks saw and continue to see the causes of the separation of the producer from the means of production in the policy of the government, which, according to them, was a failure ("we" went the wrong way, etc.), in the stagnancy of society which rallied insufficiently against the vultures and tricksters, etc., and not in that specific organisation of the Russian social economy which bears the name of capitalism. That is why their "measures" amounted to action to be taken by "society" and the "state." On the contrary, when it is shown that the existence of the capitalist organisation of social economy is the cause of expropriation this leads inevitably to the theory of the class struggle (cf. Struve's book, pp. 101, 288 and many other pages). The author expresses himself inexactly in speaking of the "agriculturist " in general, and not of the opposing classes in bourgeois agriculture. The Narodniks say that capitalism ruins agriculture and for that reason is incapable of embracing the country's entire production and leads this production the wrong way; the Marxists say that capitalism, both in manufacturing industry and in agriculture, oppresses the producer, but by raising production to a higher level creates the conditions and the forces for "socialisation."**

 
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    Mr. Struve's conclusion on this point is as follows: "One of Mr. N.-on's cardinal errors is that he has completely transferred notions and categories from the established capitalist system to the contemporary economy of the peasant, which to this day is more natural than money economy" (237).

    We have seen above that only Mr. N.-on's complete ignoring of the concrete data of Russian agricultural capitalism led to the ridiculous mistake of talking about a "contraction" of the home market. He did not, however, make that mistake because he applied all the categories of capitalism to the peasantry, but because he did not apply any categories of capitalism to the data on agriculture. The classes of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are, of course, a most important "category" of capitalism. Mr. N.-on not only did not "transfer" them to the "peasantry" (i.e., did not give an analysis of exactly to what groups or sections of the peasantry these categories apply and how far they are developed), but, on the contrary, he argued in purely Narodnik fashion, ignoring the opposite elements within the "village community," and arguing about the "peasantry" in general. It was this that led to his thesis on the capitalist character of over-population, on capitalism as the cause of the expropriation of the agriculturist, remaining unproven and merely serving to build a reactionary utopia.

"independence."[*] The "allotment" with which the landlord "supplied" the peasant was nothing more than wages in kind, served wholly and exclusively for the exploitation of the peasant by the landlord, to "supply" the landlord with hands and actually never to provide for the peasant himself.[**]

    Then, however, came the invasion of commodity economy. The landlord began to produce grain for sale and not for himself. This gave rise to intensified exploitation of peasant labour and then to difficulties with the allotment system, since it had become unprofitable for the landlord to supply members of the rising generation of peasants with allotments, and it was possible to settle accounts in money. It became more convenient to separate the peasants' land once and for all from that of the landlord (particularly if in the process part of the allotments were cut off and if they were redeemed at a "fair" price) and to use the labour of the very same peasants, placed in materially worse conditions and forced to compete with former manor serfs, "gift-landers,"[139] the more prosperous former state, appanage peasants, etc.

    Serfdom collapses.

    The system of economy -- now serving the market (and this is very important) -- changed, but did not do so at once. New features and "principles" were added to the old. These new features consisted of the following: the supplying of the peasant with means of production was no longer made the basis of Plusmacherei, but, on the contrary, it was his "separation" from the means of production, his need of money; the basis was no longer natural economy, natural exchange of "services" (the landlord gives the peasant land, while the peasant provides the products of his surplus labour, grain, linen, etc.), but commodity, "free" money contract. It was this form of economy, which combined old and new features, that has been predominant in Russia since the Reform. The old-time methods of lending out land in return for work (farming in return for cut-off lands, for

power and not the commodity form of the product of labour to the forefront; it sanctioned the domination of capitalist and not of commodity production. The hazy distinction between capitalism in the broad and in the narrow sense[*] leads Mr. Struve apparently to regard Russian capitalism as something of the future and not of the present, not as something already and definitely established. He says, for example:

    "Before posing the question: is it inevitable for Russia to have capitalism in the English form, Mr. V. V. should have posed and settled a different one, a more general and hence more important question: is it inevitable for Russia to pass from natural to money economy, and what is the relation between capitalist production sensu stricto and commodity production in general?" (247). That is hardly a convenient way of posing the question. If the present, existing system of production relations in Russia is clearly explained, then the problem of whether this or that line of development is "inevitable" will be settled eo ipso. If, however, it is not explained, then it will be insoluble. Instead of arguments about the future (arguments beloved of Messrs. the Narodniks) an explanation of the present should be given. An outstanding fact in post-Reform Russia has been the outward, if one may so call it, manifestation of capitalism, i.e., manifestation of its "heights" (factory production, railways, banks, etc.), and theoretical thought was immediately faced with the problem of capitalism in Russia. The Narodniks have tried to prove that these heights are something accidental, unconnected with the entire economic system, without basis and therefore impotent; and they have used the term "capitalism" in too narrow a sense, forgetting that the enslavement of labour to capital covers very long and diverse stages from merchant's capital to the "English form." It is the job of Marxists to prove that these heights are nothing more than the last step in the development of the commodity economy that took shape

quires the growth of the market, capitalism ruins the population. The author very unsuccessfully corrects this vicious circle with his Malthusianism, placing the blame for the ruin of the peasantry on the "growth of the population" and not on capitalism!! The mistake of the authors mentioned is quite a different one: capitalism not only ruins, but splits the peasantry into a bourgeoisie and a proletariat. This process does not cut down the home market, but creates it: commodity economy grows at both poles of the differentiating peasantry, both among the "proletarian" peasantry, who are compelled to sell "free labour," and among the bourgeois peasantry, who raise the technical level of their farms (machinery, equipment, fertilisers, etc. Cf. Mr. V. V.'s Progressive Trends in Peasant Farming ) and develop their requirements. Despite the fact that this conception of the process is directly based on Marx's theory of the relation between capitalism in industry and in agriculture, Mr. Struve ignores it -- possibly because he has been led astray by Mr. V. V.'s "theory of markets." This latter person, supposedly basing himself on Marx, has presented the Russian public with a "theory" claiming that in developed capitalist society a "surplus of goods" is inevitable; the home market cannot be sufficient, a foreign one is necessary. "This theory is a true one" (?!), declares Mr. Struve, "inasmuch as it states the fact that surplus-value cannot be realised from consumption either by the capitalists or by the workers, but presumes consumption by third persons" (251). We cannot agree with this statement at all. Mr. V. V.'s "theory" (if one may speak of a theory here) is simply that of ignoring the distinction between personal and productive consumption, the distinction between the means of production and articles of consumption, a distinction without which it is impossible to understand the reproduction of the aggregate social capital in capitalist society. Marx showed this in the greatest detail in Volume II of Capital (Part III: "The Reproduction and Circulation of the Aggregate Social Capital") and dealt with it vividly in Volume I as well, when criticising the thesis of classical political economy according to which the accumulation of capital consists only of the transformation of surplus-value into wages, and not into constant capital (means of production)

 
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plus wages. To confirm this description of Mr. V. V.'s theory let us confine ourselves to two quotations from the articles mentioned by Mr. Struve.

    "Each worker," says Mr. V. V. in his article "The Excess in the Market Supply of Commodities," "produces more than he consumes himself, and all these surpluses accumulate in few hands; the owners of these surpluses consume them themselves, for which purpose they exchange them within the country and abroad for the most varied objects of necessity and comforts; but however much they eat, drink or dance (sic !!) they cannot dispose of the whole of the surplus-value" (Otechestvenniye Zapiski, 1883, No. 5, p. 14), and "to be more convincing" the author "examines the chief expenditures" of the capitalist, such as dinners, travelling, etc. We get it still more vividly in the article "Militarism and Capitalism": "The Achilles' heel of the capitalist organisation of industry is the impossibility of the employers consuming the whole of their income" (Russkaya Mysl,1889, No. 9, p. 80). "Rothschild could not consume the entire increment to his income . . . for the simple reason that this . . . increment constitutes such a considerable mass of articles of consumption that Rothschild, whose every whim is satisfied as it is, would find himself in very great difficulties," etc.

    All these arguments, as you see, are based on the naïve view that the capitalist's purpose is only personal consumption and not the accumulation of surplus-value, on the mistaken idea that the social product splits up into v+s (variable capital + surplus-value) as was taught by Adam Smith and all the political economists before Marx, and not into c+v+s (constant capital, means of production, and then into wages and surplus-value), as was shown by Marx. Once these errors are corrected and attention is paid to the circumstance that in capitalist society an enormous and ever-growing part is played by the means of production (the part of the social products that is used for productive and not personal consumption, not for consumption by people but by capital) the whole of the notorious "theory" collapses completely. Marx proved in Volume II that capitalist production is quite conceivable without foreign markets, with the growing accumulation of wealth and without any "third

 
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persons," whose introduction by Mr. Struve is extremely unfortunate. Mr. Struve's reasoning on this subject evokes amazement, especially as he himself points to the overwhelming significance of the home market for Russia and catches Mr. V. V. tripping on the "programme of development of Russian capitalism" based on a "strong peasantry." The process of the formation of this "strong" (that is, bourgeois) peasantry that is now taking place in our countryside clearly shows us the rise of capital, the proletarianisation of the producer and the growth of the home market the "spread of improved implements," for example, signifies precisely the accumulation of capital as means of production. On this problem it was particularly necessary, instead of dealing with "possibilities," to outline and explain the actual process expressed in the creation of a home market for Russian capitalism.[*]

    With this we conclude our examination of the theoretical part of Mr. Struve's book, and can now try to give a general, comprehensive, so to speak, description of the main methods used in his arguments, and thus approach the solution of the problems raised at the outset: "Exactly what in this book may be assigned to Marxism?" "Which of the doctrine's (Marxism's) tenets does the author reject, supplement or correct, and with what results?"

    The main feature of the author's arguments, as we noted from the start, is his narrow objectivism, which is confined to proving the inevitability and necessity of the process and makes no effort to reveal at each specific stage of this process the form of class contradiction inherent in it -- an objectivism that describes the process in general, and not each of the antagonistic classes whose conflict makes up the process.

    We understand perfectly well that the author had his grounds for confining his "notes" to just the "objective" and, what is more, the most general side; his grounds were, firstly, that in his desire to confront the Narodniks with the principles of hostile views, he set forth principia and

 
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nothing more, leaving their development and more concrete examination to the further development of the controversy, and, secondly, we tried in Chapter I to show that all that distinguishes Narodism from Marxism is the character of the criticism of Russian capitalism, the different explanation of it -- from which it naturally follows that the Marxists sometimes confine themselves just to general "objective" propositions, and lay emphasis exclusively on what distinguishes our understanding (of generally-known facts ) from that of the Narodniks.

    Mr. Struve, however, it seems to us, went too far in this respect. Abstractness of exposition frequently yielded propositions that could not but cause misunderstanding; the way the problem was posed did not differ from the methods current and dominant in our literature, the method of arguing in professorial style, from on high, about the paths and destiny of the fatherland and not about specific classes pursuing such and such a path; the more concrete the author's arguments, the more impossible did it become to explain the principia of Marxism and remain on the heights of general abstract propositions, the more necessary it was to make definite reference to such and such a condition of such and such classes of Russian society, to such and such a relation between the various forms of Plusmacherei and the interests of the producers.

    That is why we thought that an attempt to supplement and explain the author's thesis, to follow his exposition step by step, so as to show the need for a different way of posing the problem, the need for a more consistent way of applying the theory of class contradictions, would not be out of place.

    As to Mr. Struve's direct deviations from Marxism -- on problems of the state, over-population, and the home market -- sufficient has already been said about them.

    These remarks contain references to the "rationality," progressiveness, "intelligence," etc., of the liberal, i.e., bourgeois policy as compared to the policy of the Narodniks.[*]

    The author evidently wanted to contrast two policies that keep to the existing relations -- and in this sense he quite rightly pointed out that a policy is "intelligent" if it develops and does not retard capitalism, and it is "intelligent" not because it serves the bourgeoisie by increasingly subordinating the producer to them [the way in which various "simpletons" and "acrobats" try to explain it], but because, by accentuating and refining capitalist relations, it brings clarity to the mind of the one on whom alone change depends, and gives him a free hand.

    It must, however, be said that this quite true proposition is badly expressed by Mr. Struve, that owing to the abstractness peculiar to him he voices it in such a way that one sometimes wishes to say to him: let the dead bury the dead. In Russia there has never yet been a shortage of people who have devoted themselves, heart and soul, to creating theories and programmes that express the interests of our bourgeoisie, that express all these "urgent needs" of strong and big capital to crush small capital and to destroy its primitive and patriarchal methods of exploitation.

    If the author had here also adhered strictly to the requirements of the Marxist "doctrine," demanding that exposition be reduced to the formulation of the actual process, and that the class contradictions behind each "intelligent," "rational"

    It is clear from this that it would be absolutely wrong to reject the whole of the Narodnik programme indiscriminately and in its entirety. One must clearly distinguish its reactionary and progressive sides. Narodism is reactionary insofar as it proposes measures that tie the peasant to the soil and to the old modes of production, such as the inalienability of allotments, etc.,[*] insofar as it wants to retard the development of money economy, and insofar as it expects not partial improvements, but a change of the path to be brought about by "society" and by the influence of representatives of the bureaucracy (example: Mr. Yuzhakov, who argued in Russkoye Bogatstvo, 1894, No. 7, about common tillage as projected by a Zemsky Nachalnik and engaged in introducing amendments to these projects). Unconditional warfare must, of course, be waged against such points in the Narodnik programme. But there are also other points, relating to self-government, to the "people's" free and broad access to knowledge, to the "raising" of the "people's" (that is to say, small) economy by means of cheap credits, technical improvements, better regulation of marketing, etc., etc. That such general democratic measures are progressive is fully admitted, of course, by Mr. Struve, too. They will not regard, but accelerate Russia's economic development along the capitalist path, accelerate the establishment of a home market, accelerate the growth of technique and machine industry by improving the conditions of the

    The only question that might here arise is: who indicates such undoubtedly desirable measures with greater accuracy and ability -- the Narodniks or publicists like Skvortsov who has so much to say in favour of technical progress and to whom Mr. Struve is so extremely well disposed? It seems to me that from the Marxist viewpoint there can be no doubt that Narodism is absolutely to be preferred in this respect. The measures proposed by the Messrs. Skvortsov relate to the interests of the entire class of small producers, the petty bourgeoisie, in the same measure as the programme of Moskovskiye Vedomosti relates to those of the big bourgeoisie. They are designed not for all,[*] but only for certain of the elect, who are vouchsafed the attention of the authorities. They are, lastly, abominably crude because they presume police interference in the economy of the peasants. Taken all in all, these measures provide no serious guarantees and chances of the "productive progress of peasant economy."

    The Narodniks in this respect understand and represent the interests of the small producers far more correctly, and the Marxists, while rejecting all the reactionary features of their programme, must not only accept the general democratic points, but carry them through more exactly, deeply and further. The more resolute such reforms are in Russia, the higher they raise the living standard of the working masses -- the more sharply and clearly will the most important and fundamental (already today) social antagonism in Russian life stand out. The Marxists, far from "breaking the democratic thread" or trend, as Mr. V. V. slanderously asserts they do, want to develop and strengthen this trend, they want to bring it closer to life, they want to take up the "thread" that "society" and the "intelligentsia" are letting slip out of their hands.**

such and such social elements and meeting the opposition of such and such elements and classes. Such a way of posing the problem will absolutely eliminate the possibility of their "theories" being utilised for professorial arguments that rise above classes, for projects and reports that promise "splendid success."[*] That, of course, is just an indirect merit of the change of viewpoint referred to, but it is also a very great one, if we bear in mind how steep is the slope down which contemporary Narodism is slipping into the bog of opportunism. But the matter is not limited to mere indirect merit. If the same problems are posed in their application to the theory of class antagonism [and this, of course, requires a "reconsideration of the facts" of Russian history and reality], then the replies to them will provide a formulation of the vital interests of certain classes; these replies will be intended for practical utilisation[**] by those interested classes and by them alone -- these replies will, to use the splendid expression of a certain Marxist, break out of the "cramped chamber of the intelligentsia" towards those who themselves participate in production relations in their most highly developed and pure form, towards those who are most strongly affected by the "breaking of the thread," and who "need" "ideals" because they are badly off without them. Such a way of raising issues will instil a new stream of life into all these old problems -- taxes, passports, migration, Volost boards of administration, etc. -- problems that our "society" has discussed and interpreted, chewed over again and again, solved and re-solved, and for which it has now begun to lose all taste.

    So then, no matter how we approach the problem, whether we examine the content of the system of economic relations prevalent in Russia and the various forms of this system in

  [105] The essay, The Economic Content of Narodism and the Criticism of It in Mr. Struve's Book (The Reflection of Marxism in Bourgeois Literature ). P. Struve: Critical Remarks on the Subject of Russia's Economic Development, St. Petersburg, 1894, was written by V. I. Lenin in St. Petersburg at the end of 1894 and the beginning of 1895. It was the first of Lenin's works to be printed legally. In this essay Lenin continued the criticism of Narodnik views that he had begun in his previous writings, and gave a comprehensive criticism of the mistaken views of the legal Marxists. Lenin was the first to recognise the liberal-bourgeois nature of legal Marxism. As early as 1893, in his work On the So-Called Market Question Lenin not only exposed the views of the liberal Narodniks, but also criticised the legal Marxist outlook that was then emerging.
    In the autumn of 1894 Lenin read a paper in the St. Petersburg Marxists' circle directed against Struve and other legal Marxists. This paper served as the basis for the essay The Economic Content of Narodism and the Criticism of It in Mr. Struve's Book. Lenin wrote the following in 1907 about his reading of the paper in the St. Petersburg Marxists' circle: "In this circle I read a paper entitled The Reflection of Marxism in Bourgeois Literature." As the heading shows, the controversy with Struve was here far sharper and more definite (as to Social-Democratic conclusions) than in the article printed in the spring of 1895. It was toned down partly because of censorship considerations and partly due to the "alliance" with legal Marxism for joint struggle against Narodism. That the "push to the left" then given to Mr. Struve by the St. Petersburg Social-Democrats was not entirely without result is clearly shown by Mr. Struve's article in the Miscellany which was burned (1895), and some of his articles in Novoye Slovo (New Word ) (1897). Preface to the Miscellany "Twelve Years." (See present edition, Vol. 13.)
    The Economic Content of Narodism and the Criticism of It in Mr. Struve's Book was printed (under the pen-name of R. Tulin) in the Miscellany entitled Material for a Characterisation of Our Economic Development. An edition of 2,000 copies of the Miscellany was printed in April 1895, but its circulation was banned by the tsarist government, which, after retaining the ban for a full year confiscated the edition and had it burned. It only proved possible to save about 100 copies, which were secretly circulated among Social-Democrats in St. Petersburg and other cities.
    Lenin's article was the most militant and politically acute in the Miscellany. The censor, in his report on Material for a Characterisation of Our Economic Development, dwells in particular detail on

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Lenin's work. Pointing out that the contributors to the Miscellany put forward Marx's theory about the inexorable advance of the capitalist process, the censor stated that K. Tulin's article contained the most outspoken and complete programme of the Marxists.
    At the end of 1907, Lenin included The Economic Content of Narodism and the Criticism of It in Mr. Struve's Book in Volume One of the Miscellany Twelve Years, and gave it the sub-heading "The Reflection of Marxism in Bourgeois Literature." The first volume of this Miscellany was published by the Zerno Book Publishers in the middle of November 1907 (the title-page is dated 1908). Of the three volumes intended for publication, the publishers succeeded in issuing only Volume One, and part one of Volume Two. Apart from the paper mentioned, Volume One contained the following works by Lenin: The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats, The Persecutors of the Zemstvo and the Hannibals of Liberalism, What Is To Be Done?, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, The Zemstvo Campaign and "Iskra's" Plan, and Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution. Volume One was confiscated soon after its appearance, but a considerable part of the edition was salvaged, and the book continued to circulate illegally.    [p. 333]

  ^[106] The truck-system -- the system of paying the workers wages in the shape of goods and foodstuffs from the employer's shop. This system was an additional means of exploiting the workers, and was particularly widespread in Russia, in the areas where there was handicraft industry.    [p. 346]

  ^[107] Moskovskiye Vedomosti (Moscow Recorder ) -- a Russian newspaper of long standing, first issued in 1756 as a small sheet by Moscow University. From the 1860s it pursued a monarchist-nationalist line, its views being those of the most reactionary landlords and clergy. From 1905 onwards it was one of the principal organs of the Black Hundreds. Continued publication until the October Revolution of 1917.
    Vest (News ) -- a reactionary feudalist newspaper that appeared in Russia in the 1860s and 1870s.    [p. 348]

  ^[108] Lenin quotes from I. A. Krylov's fable "The Wolf and the Shepherds."    [p. 349]

  ^[109] Skimmers -- ironical expression repeatedly used by. M. Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin in his works to describe the bourgeois liberal press and its representatives. In Chapter V of The Diary of a Provincial in St. Petersburg, Saltykov-Shchedrin bitterly derides the liberals, and writes: "For want of real work to do, and by way of an innocent pastime they have established a learned literary society, "The Free League of Skimmers." Saltykov-Shchedrin describes the "duties" of this "League" as follows: "Not to miss a single contemporary problem, but to discuss everything in such a manner as to ensure that no result shall ever be achieved."    [p. 352]

  ^[110] Dictatorship of the heart -- ironical term used to indicate the short-lived policy of flirting with the liberals pursued by the tsarist official Loris-Melikov. In 1880 he was first appointed chief of the Supreme Control Commission for combating "sedition," and then

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Minister of Home Affairs. Loris-Melikov tried to base his policy on promises of "concessions" to the liberals and on ruthless persecution of revolutionaries. The revolutionary situation of 1879-80 gave rise to this balancing policy, the purpose of which was to weaken the revolutionary movement and to win over to tsarism the oppositional liberal bourgeoisie. After suppressing the revolutionary wave of 1879-1880, the tsar's government abandoned the policy of the "dictatorship of the heart" and hastened to issue a manifesto on the "inviolability" of the autocracy. In April 1881, Loris-Melikov had to resign.    [p. 352]

  ^[111] Chinsh peasants -- those entitled to the hereditary possession of the land in perpetuity, and who had to pay a quitrent that rarely changed, known as chinsh. In tsarist Russia, the chinsh system operated mainly in Poland, Lithuania, Byelorussia, and the Black Sea littoral of the Ukraine.    [p. 370]

  ^[112] See, for example, Gleb Uspensky's stories and essays "From a Village Diary," "Cheque-Book," "Mid-Journey Letters," "Unbroken Ties," "Living Figures."    [p. 378]

  ^[113] Mr. Coupon -- a term adopted in the literature of the 1880s and 1890s to indicate capital and capitalists. The expression "Mr. Coupon" was put in circulation by the writer Gleb Uspensky in his essays "Grave Sins."    [p. 383]

  ^[114] "Beast of burden " -- the downtrodden poor peasant, exhausted by excessive toil, typified by M. Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin in his satirical tale Konyaga (literally -- overworked nag). In this tale the author speaks allegorically of the "unmoving enormity of the fields" which shall keep man in bondage until he releases the "magic force" from captivity. At the same time Saltykov-Shchedrin derides the Narodniks' vulgar arguments that the "real labour" which the "konyaga" found for himself is the guarantee of the peasant's invulnerability, spiritual equilibrium, clarity and integrity.    [p. 387]

  ^[115] The Prussian Regierungsrat (State Counsellor ) -- refers to the German economist, Baron A. Haxthausen, who visited Russia in the 1840s. In his book Studies of Internal Relations in Popular Life and Particularly of Rural Institutions of Russia, Haxthausen gave a detailed description of the Russian village community, in which he saw a means of consolidating feudalism. He sang the praises of Russia under Tsar Nicholas I, considering it to be superior to Western Europe in that it did not suffer from the "ulcer of proletarianism." Marx and Engels showed the reactionary character of Haxthausen's conclusions, and his views were also severely criticised by A. I. Herzen and N. G. Chernyshevsky.    [p. 391]

  ^[116] Owing to the censorship, Lenin could make no direct reference to the Marxist works published by the Emancipation of Labour group. He refers the reader to V.V. 's (Vorontsov's) work Essays on Theoretical Economics (St. Petersburg, 1895), which, on pages 251-58, contains a lengthy extract from Plekhanov's article "Domestic Review," that appeared in the Sotsial-Demokrat (Social-Democrat ), Book Two, August 1890.    [p. 394]

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  ^[117] Mirtov -- pseudonym of P. L. Lavrov (1820-1900); a Narodnik ideologist in the 1870s. Was a member of the Narodnik secret society Zemlya i Volya (Land and Liberty), and then of the Narodnaya Volya (People s Will) party. In the 1870s be advocated the need to "go among the people." Was the founder of the idealist subjective school in sociology.    [p. 397]

  ^[118] See K. Marx and F. Engels, "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte," Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 334.    [p. 414]

  ^[119] See F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, Moscow, 1959, p. 133.    [p. 416]

  ^[120] See K Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1959, pp. 84-85, Footnote 2.    [p. 417]

  ^[121] See K. Marx and F. Engels, "Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State," Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, p. 272.    [p. 419]

  ^[122] Naucrary -- small territorial districts in the ancient Athenian Republic. Naucraries were united in phyles. The collegium of naucrars (naucrary chiefs) conducted the finances of the Athenian State. It was the duty of each naucrary to build, equip, and man a warship and to provide two horsemen to meet the military needs of the state.    [p. 419]

  ^[123] See K. Marx and F. Engels, op. cit., in Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, p. 269.    [p. 419]

  ^[124] See K. Marx and F. Engels, "Civil War in France" and "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte," Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow. 1958, pp. 284, 516-17.    [p. 420]

  ^[125] See F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, Moscow, 1959, p. 157.    [p. 420]

  ^[126] See K. Marx and F. Engels, "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte," Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 244.
    The book by Proudhon mentioned in the text is called The Social Revolution Demonstrated by the Coup d'État.    [p. 425]

  ^[127] Leibkampantsi, from Leibkompanie (personal bodyguard), the title of honour bestowed on the Grenadier Company of the Preobrazhensky Regiment in 1741 by Tsarina Yelizaveta Petrovna for having placed her on the Russian throne. They were given estates and all sorts of special privileges, while those of them who were not of noble origin were made hereditary nobles. The nickname Leibkampantsi was put in circulation by M. Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin in his Poshekhon Tales.    [p. 426]

  ^[128] See K. Marx, Capital, Vol. II , Moscow, 1957, pp. 116-17.    [p. 437]

  ^[129] See K. Marx and F. Engels, "Manifesto of the Communist Party, Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 53-54.    [p. 439]

  ^[130] Gotha Programme -- the programme of the German Social-Democratic Party adopted in 1875 at the Gotha congress, where unity was established between the two German socialist parties that had previously existed separately; they were the Eisenachers (who were led by Bebel and Liebknecht, and were under the ideological influence of Marx and Engels), and the Lassalleans. The programme suffered from eclecticism, and was opportunist, since the Eisenachers made

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concessions to the Lassalleans and accepted their formulations on vitally important points. Marx and Engels subjected the Gotha draft programme to withering criticism, for they regarded it as a considerable step backwards even as compared with the Eisenach programme of 1869. (See K. Marx and F. Engels, Critique of the Gotha Programme," Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958. pp. 13-48.)    [p. 442]

  ^[131] See K. Marx and F. Engels, "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte", Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 278-79.    [p. 448]

  ^[132] See K. Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1959, p. 632.    [p. 453]

  ^[133] Lenin refers to Chapter XXX, Vol I, Capital (Reaction of the Agricultural Revolution on Industry. Creation of the Home Market for Industrial Capital). (See K. Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1959, p. 745.)    [p. 463]

  ^[134] K. Marx, Capital, Vol: I, Moscow, 1959, p. 642.    [p. 464]

  ^[135] Skopshchina -- the name given in the southern parts of Russia to a type of rent in kind, on terms of bondage, the tenant paying the landowner s kopny (from the corn-shock) a portion of the harvest (a half, and sometimes more), and usually fulfilling miscellaneous labour services in addition.    [p. 465]

  ^[136] See K. Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1959, p. 749, Footnote 2.    [p. 471]

  ^[137] See K. Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1959, pp. 742-44.    [p. 472]

  ^[138] See K. Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 604.    [p. 488]

  ^[139] Gift-landers or gift-land peasants, peasants who were formerly landlords' serfs and who, at the time of the Reform of 1861, by "agreement with their landlords received allotments gratis (without having to pay redemption money for them). The gift-lander received a miserable strip amounting in all to a quarter of the so-called "top" or "statutory" allotment established by law for the given locality. All the rest of the lands that had constituted the peasants' allotments before the Reform were seized by the landlord, who held his "gift-landers," forcibly dispossessed of their land, in a state of economic bondage even after serfdom was abolished. The "gift-land" allotment came to be known among the people as a "quarter," "orphan's," "cat's," or "gagarin" allotment (the last epithet being derived from the name of the initiator of the law on "gift-land" allotments, Prince P. P. Gagarin).    [p. 491]

  ^[140] Lenin deals with this problem in detail in his book The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899). See present edition, Vol. 3.    [p. 499]