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    The Swiss economist Sismondi (J.-C.-L. Simonde de Sismondi), who wrote at the beginning of the present century, is of particular interest in considering a solution of the general economic problems which are now coming to the forefront with particular force in Russia. If we add to this that Sismondi occupies a special place in the history of political economy, in that he stands apart from the main trends, being an ardent advocate of small-scale production and an opponent of the supporters and ideologists of large scale enterprise (just like the present-day Russian Narodniks), the reader will understand our desire to outline the main features of Sismondi's doctrine and its relation to other trends -- both contemporary and subsequent -- in economic science. A study of Sismondi is today all the more interesting because last year (1896) an article in Russkoye Bogatstvo also expounded his doctrine (B. Ephrucy: "The Social and Economic Views of Simonde de Sismondi," Russkoye Bogatstvo, 1896, Nos. 7 and 8).*

    The contributor to Russkoye Bogatstvo states at the very outset that no writer has been "so wrongly appraised" as Sismondi, who, he alleges, has been "unjustly" represented, now as a reactionary, then as a utopian. The very opposite is true. Precisely this appraisal of Sismondi is quite correct. The article in Russkoye Bogatstvo, while it gives an accurate and detailed account of Sismondi's views, pro-

 
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vides a completely incorrect picture of his theory,[*] idealises the very points of it in which he comes closest to the Narodniks, and ignores and misrepresents his attitude to subsequent trends in economic science. Hence, our exposition and analysis of Sismondi's doctrine will at the same time be a criticism of Ephrucy's article.

    The distinguishing feature of Sismondi's theory is his doctrine of revenue, of the relation of revenue to production and to the population. The title of Sismondi's chief work is: Nouveaux principes d'économie politique ou de la richesse dans ses rapports avec la population (Seconde édition. Paris, 1827, 2 vol. The first edition was published in 1819) -- New Principles of Political Economy, or Wealth in Relation to Population. This subject is almost identical with the problem known in Russian Narodnik literature as the "problem of the home market for capitalism." Sismondi asserted that as a result of the development of large-scale enterprise and wage-labour in industry and agriculture, production inevitably outruns consumption and is faced with the insoluble task of finding consumers; that it cannot find consumers within the country because it converts the bulk of the population into day labourers, plain workers, and creates unemployment, while the search for a foreign market becomes increasingly difficult owing to the entry of new capitalist countries into the world arena. The reader will see that these are the very same problems that occupy the minds of the Narodnik economists headed by Messrs, V. V. and N.-on.[46] Let us, then, take a closer look at the various points of Sismondi's argument and at its scientific significance.

    "If the manufacturer sells at a cheaper price," says Sismondi in the chapter on "How Does the Seller Enlarge His Market?" (ch. III, livre IV, t. 1, p. 342 et suiv.),[*] "he will sell more, because the others will sell less. Hence, the manufacturer always strives to save something on labour, or on raw. materials, so as to be able to sell at a lower price than his fellow manufacturers. As the materials themselves are products of past labour, his saving, in the long run, always amounts to the expenditure of a smaller quantity of labour in the production of the same product." "True, the individual manufacturer tries to expand production and not to reduce the number of his workers. Let us assume that he succeeds, that he wins customers away from his competitors by reducing the price of his commodity. What will be the 'national result' of this? . . . The other manufacturers will introduce the same methods of production as he employs. Then some of them will, of course, have to discharge some of their workers to the extent that the new machine increases the productive power of labour. If consumption remains at the same level, and if the same amount of labour is performed by one-tenth of the former number of hands, then the income of this section

ants at home, or by village artisans), but also of instruments of production, which could not remain of the old type after small farming had been superseded by large-scale farming.[*] The last point is worth emphasising, for it is the one that Sismondi particularly ignored when, in the passage we have quoted, he talked about "consumption" by peasants and farmers as if only personal consumption (the consumption of bread, clothing, etc.) existed and as if the purchase of machines, implements, etc., the erection of buildings, warehouses, factories, etc., were not also consumption, except that it is of a different kind, i.e., productive consumption, consumption by capital and not by people. And again we must note that it is precisely this mistake, which, as we shall soon see, Sismondi borrowed from Adam Smith, that our Narodnik economists took over in toto.[**]

    The arguments adduced by Sismondi to prove that capitalism is impossible and that it cannot develop are not confined- to this. He also drew the same conclusions from his revenue theory. It must be said that Sismondi took over in its entirety Adam Smith's labour theory of value and three forms-of revenue: rent, profit and wages. Here and there he even attempts to group together the first two forms of revenue and contrast them to the third: thus, he sometimes combines them and opposes them to wages (I, 104-05); sometimes he even uses the term mieux-value (surplus-value) to describe them (I, 103). We must not, however, exaggerate the importance of this terminology as, we think, Ephrucy does when he says that "Sismondi's theory

    The reader has probably noticed wherein lies the difficulty which Sismondi speaks of: if the revenue of the individual entrepreneur is his profit, which he spends on various kinds of articles of consumption,[*] and if the revenue of the individual worker is his wages, can these two forms of revenue be added together to form the "revenue of society"? What, then, about those capitalists and workers who produce machines, for example? Their product exists in a form that cannot be consumed (i.e., consumed personally). It cannot be added to articles of consumption. These products are meant to serve as capital. Hence, while being the revenue of their producers (that is, that part which is the source of profit and wages) they become the capital of their purchasers. How can we straighten out this confusion, which prevents us from defining the concept of social revenue?

    As we have seen, Sismondi merely approached the question and at once shrank from it, limiting himself to stating the "difficulty." He says plainly that "usually, three kinds of revenue are recognised: rent, profit and wages" (I, 85), and then goes on to expound Adam Smith's doctrine concerning each. The question of the difference between the capital and the revenue of society remained unanswered. The exposition now proceeds without any strict division between social revenue and individual revenue. But Sismondi reverts once again to the question he abandoned. He says that, as there are different kinds of revenue, so there are "different kinds of wealth" (1, 93), namely, fixed capital -- machines, implements, etc., circulating capital -- which, unlike the former, is consumed quickly and changes its form (seed, raw materials, wages) and, lastly, revenue from capital, which is consumed without being reproduced. Here it is not important to us that Sismondi repeats all the mistakes Adam Smith made in the theory of fixed and circulating capital, that he confuses these categories, which

    This theory, that the entire product of capitalist society consists of two parts -- the workers' part (wages, or variable capital, to use modern terminology) and the capitalists' part (surplus-value), is not peculiar to Sismondi. It does not belong to him. He borrowed it in its entirety from Adam Smith, and even took a step backward from it. The whole of subsequent political economy (Ricardo, Mill, Proudhon and Rodbertus) repeated this mistake, which was disclosed only by the author of Capital, in Part III of Volume II. We shall expound the principles underlying his views later on. At present let us observe that this mistake is repeated by our Narodnik economists. It is of special interest to compare them with Sismondi, because they draw from this fallacious theory the very same conclusions that Sismondi himself drew*: the conclusion that surplus-value cannot be realised in capitalist society; that social wealth cannot be expanded; that the foreign market must be resorted to because surplus-value cannot be realised within the country; and lastly, that crises occur because the product, it is alleged, cannot be realised through consumption by the workers and the capitalists.

 
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"disproportionate" development is not development (as our Narodniks also do); that this disproportion is not a law of the present system of social economy, and of its development, but a "mistake" of the legislator, etc.; that in this the European governments are artificially imitating England, a country that has taken the wrong path.[*] Sismondi wholly denies the proposition which the classical economists advanced, and which Marx's theory wholly accepted, namely, that capitalism develops the productive forces. In fact, he goes to the length of regarding all accumulation as being possible only "little by little," and is quite unable to explain the process of accumulation. This is the second highly characteristic feature of his views. The way he argues about accumulation is extremely amusing:

    "In the long run, the total product of a given year always exchanges only for the total product of the preceding year" (I, 121). Here accumulation is wholly denied: it follows that the growth of social wealth is impossible under capitalism. The Russian reader will not be very much surprised by this assertion, because he has heard the same thing from Mr. V. V. and from Mr. N.-on. But Sismondi, was, after all, a disciple of Adam Smith. He has a feeling that he is saying something utterly incongruous, and he wants to correct himself:

    "If production grows gradually," he continues, "then annual exchange causes only a slight loss (une petite perte) each year, while at the same time improving the conditions for the future (en même temps qu'elle bonifie la condition future). If this loss is slight and well distributed, every body will bear it without complaint. . . . If, however, the discrepancy between the new production and the preceding one is great, capital perishes (sont entamés), suffering is caused, and the nation retrogresses instead of progressing" (I, 121). It would be difficult to formulate the fundamental thesis of romanticism and of the petty-bourgeois view of capitalism more vividly and more plainly than is done in

Narodniks). In controversy with MacCulloch, Sismondi makes the allegation that the latter (in expounding Ricardo's views) does not explain the realisation of profit. MacCulloch had said that, with the division of social labour, one branch of production provides a market for another: the producers of bread realise their commodities in the product of the producers of clothing and vice versa.[*] "The author," says Sismondi, "presupposes labour without profit (un travail sans bénéfice), reproduction which only replaces the workers' consumption" (II, 384, Sismondi's italics) . . . "he leaves nothing for the master . . . we are investigating what becomes of the excess of the workers' production over their consumption" (ibid.). Thus, we find that this first romanticist already makes the very definite statement that the capitalists cannot realise surplus-value. From this proposition Sismondi draws the further conclusion -- again the very same as that drawn by the Narodniks -- that the very conditions of realisation make it necessary for capitalism to have a foreign market. "As labour itself is an important component of revenue, the demand for labour cannot be reduced without making the nation poorer. Hence, the expected gain from the invention of new methods of production nearly always relates to foreign trade" (I, 345). "The nation which is the first to make some discovery is able, for a considerable time, to expand its market in proportion to the number of hands that are released by each new invention It employs them forthwith to produce that larger quantity of products which its invention enables it to produce more cheaply. But at last the time will come when the whole civilised world forms a single market, and it will no longer be possible to acquire new purchasers in any new nation. Demand in the world market will then be a constant (précise) quantity, for which the different

 
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industrial nations will compete against each other. If one nation supplies a larger quantity of products, it will do so to the detriment of another. The total sales cannot be increased except by an increase in general prosperity, or by the transfer of commodities, formerly the exclusive possession of the rich, to the sphere of consumption by the poor" (II, 316). The reader will see that Sismondi presents the very doctrine that our romanticists have learned so well, namely, that the foreign market provides the way out of the difficulty of realising the product in general, and surplus-value in particular.

    Lastly, this same doctrine that national revenue and national production are identical led to Sismondi's theory of crises. After what has been said above, we need scarcely quote from the numerous passages in Sismondi's work which deal with this subject. His theory that production must conform to revenue naturally led to the view that crises are the result of the disturbance of this balance, the result of an excess of production over consumption. It is evident from the passage just quoted that it is this discrepancy between production and consumption that Sismondi regarded as the main cause of crises; and in the forefront he placed the underconsumption of the masses of the people, the workers. This explains why Sismondi's theory of crises (which Rodbertus also adopted) is known in economic science as an example of the theories which ascribe crises to underconsumption (Unterkonsumption).

    But in giving this answer Adam Smith did not explain why, when resolving the value of constant capital, say of machines, he again leaves out the constant capital, i.e., in our example, the iron out of which the machines are made, or the instruments used up in the process, etc.? If the value of each product includes the part which replaces constant capital (and all economists agree that it does) then the exclusion of that part from any sphere of social production whatever is quite arbitrary. As the author of Capital pointed out, "when Adam Smith says that the instruments of labour resolve themselves into wages and profit, he forgets to add: and into that constant capital which is used up in their production. Adam Smith simply sends us from Pontius to Pilate, from one line of production to another, from another to a third,"[48] failing to notice that this shifting about does not alter the problem in the least. Smith's answer (accepted by all the subsequent political economists prior to Marx) is simply an evasion of the problem, avoidance of the difficulty. And there is in deed a difficulty here. It lies in that the concepts of capital and revenue cannot be directly transferred from the

 
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individual product to the social product. The economists admit this when they say that from the social point of view what is "capital for one becomes revenue for another" (see Sismondi, as quoted above). This phrase, however, formulates the difficulty but does not solve it.[*]

    The solution is that when examining this question from the social point of view, we must no longer speak of products in general, irrespective of their material forms. Indeed, we are discussing the social revenue, i.e., the product which becomes available for consumption. But surely not all products can be consumed through personal consumption: machines, coal, iron, and similar articles are not consumed personally, but productively. From the individual entrepreneur's point of view this distinction was superfluous: when we said that the workers would consume variable capital, we assumed that on the market they would acquire articles of consumption with the money the capitalist had paid them, the money which he, the capitalist, had received for the machines made by the workers. Here the exchange of machines for bread does not interest us. But from the social point of view, this exchange cannot be assumed: we cannot say that the entire capitalist class which produces machines, iron, etc., sells these things, and in this way realises them. The whole question is how realisation takes place -- that is, the replacement of all parts of the social product. Hence, the point of departure in discussing social capital and revenue -- or, what is the same thing, the realisation of the product in capitalist society -- must be the distinction between two entirely different types of social product: means of production and articles of consumption. The former can be consumed only productively, the latter only personally. The former can serve only as capital, the latter must become revenue, i.e., must be destroyed in consumption by the workers and capitalists. The former go entirely to the capitalists, the latter are shared between the workers and the capitalists.

 
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    Once this difference is understood and we rectify the error made by Adam Smith, who left its constant part (i.e., the part which replaces constant capital) out of the social product, the question of the realisation of the product in capitalist society becomes clear. Obviously, we cannot speak of wages being realised through consumption by the workers, and surplus-value through consumption by the capitalists, and nothing more.[*] The workers can consume wages and capitalists surplus-value only when the product consists of articles of consumption, i.e., only in one department of social production. They cannot "consume" the product which consists of means of production: this must be exchanged for articles of consumption. But for which part (in terms of value) of the articles of consumption can they exchange their product? Obviously, only for the constant part (constant capital), since the other two parts constitute the consumption fund of the workers and capitalists who produce articles of consumption. By realising the surplus-value and wages in the industries which produce means of production, this exchange thereby realises the constant capital in the industries which produce articles of consumption. Indeed, for the capitalist who manufactures, say, sugar, that part of the product which is to replace constant capital (i.e., raw materials, auxiliary materials, machines, premises, etc.) exists in the shape of sugar. To realise this part, he must receive corresponding means of production in return for it. The realisation of this part will therefore consist in exchanging the article of consumption for products which serve as means of production. Now the realisation of only one part of the social product, namely, the constant capital in the

    "Sismondi, who occupies himself particularly with the relation of capital to revenue, and in actual fact makes the peculiar formulation of this relation the differentia specifica of his Nouveaux Principes, did not say one scientific word" (author's italics), "did not contribute one iota to the clarification of the problem" (Das Kapital, II, S. 385, 1-te Auflage).[51]

    We can now fully appraise Sismondi's view of accumulation. His assertion that rapid accumulation leads to disaster is absolutely wrong and is solely the result of his failure to understand accumulation, as are his repeated statements and demands that production must not outstrip consumption, because consumption determines production. Actually, the very opposite is the case, and Sismondi simply turns his back on reality in its specific, historically determined form and substitutes petty-bourgeois moralising for an analysis. Particularly amusing are Sismondi's attempts to clothe this moralising in a "scientific" formula. "Messrs. Say and Ricardo," he says in his preface to the second edition of Nouveaux Principes, "came to believe . . . that consumption had no other limits than those of production, whereas actually it is limited by revenue. . . . They should have warned producers that they must count only on consumers who have a revenue" (I, XIII).* Nowadays, such naïveté only raises a smile. But are not the writings of our contemporary romanticists, like Messrs. V.V. and N.-on, replete with the same sort of thing? "Let the banking entrepreneurs ponder well" . . . over whether they will find a market for their commodities (II, 101-02).

 
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When it is assumed that the aim of society is to increase wealth, the aim is always sacrificed for the means" (II, 140). "If, instead of expecting an impetus from the demand created by labour" (i.e., an impetus to production from the workers' demand for products), "we expect it to come from preceding production, we shall be doing almost the same thing as we would do to a clock if, instead of turning back the wheel that carries the chain (la roue qui porte la chainette), we turn back another wheel -- we would thereby break the whole machine and stop it" (II, 454). Sismondi says that. Let us now hear what Mr. Nikolai-on has to say. "We have overlooked the factors due to which this development" (i.e., the development of capitalism) "is taking place; we have also forgotten the aim of all production . . . an extremely fatal blunder. . ." (N.-on, Sketches on Our Post-Reform Social Economy, 298). Both these authors talk about capitalism, about capitalist countries; both reveal their complete inability to understand the essence of capitalist accumulation. But would one believe that the latter is writing seventy years after the former?

    An example which Sismondi quotes in chapter VIII: "The Results of the Struggle to Cheapen Production" (Book IV, Of Commercial Wealth ) vividly demonstrates how failure to understand capitalist accumulation is linked up with the error of reducing all production to the production of articles of consumption.

    Let us assume, says Sismondi, that the owner of a manufactory has a circulating capital of 100,000 francs, which brings him 15,000, of which 6,000 represent interest on capital and are paid to the capitalist, and 9,000 constitute the profit obtained by the manufacturer as the entrepreneur. Let us assume that he employs the labour of 100 workers, whose wages total 30,000 francs. Further, let there be an increase in capital, an expansion of production ("accumulation"). Instead of 100,000 francs the capital will be = 200,000 francs invested in fixed capital and 200,000 francs in circulating capital, making a total of 400,000 francs; profit and interest = 32,000 + 16,000 francs, for the rate of interest has dropped from 6% to 4%. The number of workers employed has doubled, but wages have dropped from 300 francs to 200 francs, hence, making a

 
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total of 40,000 francs. Thus, production has grown fourfold.[*] And Sismondi counts up the results: "revenue," or "consumption," in the first case amounted to 45,000 francs (30,000 wages + 6,000 interest + 9,000 profit); it is now 88,000 francs (40,000 wages + 16,000 interest + 32,000 profit). "Production has increased fourfold," says Sismondi, "but consumption has not even doubled. The consumption of the workers who made the machines should not be counted. It is covered by the 200,000 francs which have been used for this purpose; it is already included in the accounts of another manufactory, where the facts will be the same" (I, 405-06).

    Sismondi's calculation shows a diminution of revenue with an increase in production. The fact is indisputable. But Sismondi does not notice that the example he gives defeats his own theory of the realisation of the product in capitalist society. Curious is his observation that the consumption of the workers who made machines "should not be counted." Why not? Because, firstly, it is covered by the 200,000 francs. Thus, capital is transferred to the department which manufactures means of production -- this Sismondi does not notice. Hence, the "home market," which "shrinks," as Sismondi says, does not consist solely of articles of consumption, but also of means of production. These means of production constitute a special product which is not "realised" by personal consumption; and the more rapidly accumulation proceeds, the more intense, consequently, is the development of that department of capitalist production which manufactures products not for personal but for productive consumption. Secondly, answers Sismondi, it is the workers of the other manufactory, where the facts will be the same (où les mêmes faits pourront se représent-

    Sismondi's next error, which springs from his fallacious theory of social revenue and the product in capitalist society, is his doctrine that the product in general, and surplus-value in particular, cannot possibly be realised, and that consequently it is necessary to find a foreign market. As regards the realisation of the product in general, the foregoing analysis shows that the "impossibility" is due entirely to the mistaken exclusion of constant capital and means of production. Once this error is corrected, the "impossibility" vanishes. The same, however, must be said in particular about surplus-value: this analysis explains how it too is realised. There are no reasonable grounds whatever for separating surplus-value from the total product so far as its realisation is concerned. Sismondi's (and our Narodniks') assertion to the contrary is simply a misunderstanding of the fundamental laws of realisation

 
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in general, an inability to divide the product into three (and not two) parts in terms of value, and into two kinds in terms of material form (means of production and articles of consumption). The proposition that the capitalists cannot consume surplus-value is merely a vulgarised repetition of Adam Smith's perplexity regarding realisation in general. Only part of the surplus-value consists of articles of consumption; the other part consists of means of production (for example, the surplus-value of the ironmaster). The "consumption" of this latter surplus-value is effected by applying it to production; the capitalists, however, who manufacture products in the shape of means of production do not consume surplus-value, but constant capital obtained by exchange with other capitalists. Hence, the Narodniks too, in arguing that surplus-value cannot be realised, ought logically to admit that constant capital also cannot be realised -- and in this way they would safely go back to Adam. . . . It goes without saying that such a return to the "father of political economy" would be a gigantic step forward for writers who present us with old errors in the guise of truths they have "arrived at by themselves.". . .

    But what about the foreign market? Do we deny that capitalism needs a foreign market? Of course not. But the question of a foreign market has absolutely nothing to do with the question of realisation, and the attempt to link them into one whole merely expresses the romantic wish to "retard" capitalism, and the romantic inability to think logically. The theory which has explained the question of realisation has proved this up to the hilt. The romanticist says: the capitalists cannot consume surplus-value and therefore must dispose of it abroad. The question is: do the capitalists supply foreigners with products gratis, or do they throw them into the sea? They sell them -- hence, they receive an equivalent; they export certain kinds of products -- hence, they import other kinds. If we speak of the realisation of the social product, we thereby exclude the circulation of money and assume only the exchange of products for products, since the problem of realisation consists in analysing the replacement of all parts of the social product in terms of value and in terms of material form. Hence, to commence the argument about realisation

 
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and to end it by saying that they "will market the product for money" is as ridiculous as answering the question about realising constant capital in the shape of articles of consumption by saying: "they will sell." This is simply a gross logical blunder: people wander away from the question of the realisation of the aggregate social product to the view point of the individual entrepreneur, who has no other interest than that of "selling to the foreigner." To link foreign trade, exports, with the question of realisation means evading the issue, merely shifting it to a wider field, but doing nothing towards clearing it up.[*] The problem of realisation will not be made one iota clearer if, instead of the market of one country, we take the market of a certain group of countries. When the Narodniks assert that the foreign market is "the way out of the difficulty"[**] which capitalism raises for itself in the realisation of the product, they merely use this phrase to cover up the sad fact that for them "the foreign market" is "the way out of the difficulty" into which they fall owing to their failure to understand theory. . . . Not only that. The theory which links the foreign market with the problem of the realisation of the aggregate social product not only reveals a failure to understand this realisation, but, in addition, reveals an extremely superficial understanding of the contradictions inherent in this realisation. "The workers will consume wages, but the capitalists cannot consume surplus-value." Ponder over this "theory" from the point of view of the foreign market. How do we know that "the workers will consume wages"? What grounds have we for thinking that the products intended by the entire capitalist class of a given country for consumption by all the workers of that country will really equal their wages in value and will replace them,

capitalism removes the difficulties of social development provided by history in the shape of various barriers -- communal, tribal, territorial and national.[*]

    As you see, the difference is only one of the "point of view.". . . Yes, "only"! The difference between the romanticist judges of capitalism and the others is, in general, "only" one of the "point of view," -- "only" that some judge from the rear, and the others from the front, some from the viewpoint of a system which capitalism is destroying, the others from the viewpoint of a system which capitalism is creating.[**]

    The romanticists' wrong understanding of the foreign market usually goes hand in hand with references to the "specific features" of the international position of capitalism in the given country, to the impossibility of finding markets, etc.; the object of all these arguments is to "dissuade" the capitalists from seeking foreign markets. Incidentally, we are not being exact in saying "references," for the romanticist gives us no actual analysis of the country's foreign trade, of its progress in the sphere of new markets, its colonisation, etc. He has no interest whatever in studying the actual process and in explaining it; all he wants is a moral condemnation of this process. So that the reader can convince himself of the complete identity between this moralising of contemporary Russian romanticists and that of the French romanticist, we shall quote some specimens of the latter's arguments. We have already seen how Sismondi warned the capitalists that they would find no market. But this is not all he asserted. He also claimed that "the world market is already sufficiently supplied" (II, 328) and argued that it was impossible to proceed along the capitalist path, that it was necessary to choose another path. . . . He assured the British employers that capitalism would not be able to give jobs to all the agricultural labourers displaced by capitalist farming (I, 255-56). "Will those to whom the agriculturists are sacri-

i.e., profit and ground-rent together). The scientific analysis of accumulation in capitalist society[*] and of the realisation of the product undermined the whole basis of this theory, and also indicated that it is precisely in the periods which precede crises that the workers' consumption rises, that underconsumption (to which crises are allegedly due) existed under the most diverse economic systems, whereas crises are the distinguishing feature of only one system -- the capitalist system. This theory explains crises by another contradiction, namely, the contradiction between the social character of production (socialised by capitalism) and the private, individual mode of appropriation. The profound difference between these theories would seem to be self-evident, but we must deal with it in greater detail because it is the Russian followers of Sismondi who try to obliterate this difference and to confuse the issue. The two theories of which we are speaking give totally different explanations of crises. The first theory explains crises by the contradiction between production and consumption by the working class; the second explains them by the contradiction between the social character of production and the private character of appropriation. Consequently, the former sees the root of the phenomenon outside of production (hence, for example, Sismondi's general attacks on the classical economists for ignoring consumption and occupying themselves only with production); the latter sees it precisely in the conditions of production. To put it more briefly, the former explains crises, by underconsumption (Unterkonsumption), the latter by the anarchy of production. Thus, while both theories explain crises by a contradiction in the economic system itself, they differ entirely on the nature of the contradiction, But the question is: does the second theory deny the fact of a contradiction between production and consumption,

taken. This quotation was from a note inserted in the manuscript of Part II of Volume II of Capital. It was inserted "for future amplification" and the publisher of the manuscript put it in as a footnote. After the words quoted above, the note goes on to say: "However, this pertains to the next part,"[*] i.e., to the third part. What is this third part? It is precisely the part which contains a criticism of Adam Smith's theory of two parts of the aggregate social product (together with the above-quoted opinion about Sismondi), and an analysis of "the reproduction and circulation of the aggregate social capital," i.e., of the realisation of the product. Thus, in confirmation of his views, which are a repetition of Sismondi's, our author quotes a note that pertains "to the part" which refutes Sismondi: "to the part" in which it is shown that the capitalists can realise surplus-value, and that to introduce foreign trade in an analysis of realisation is absurd. . . .

    Another attempt to obliterate the difference between the two theories and to defend the old romanticist nonsense by referring to modern theories is contained in Ephrucy's article. Citing Sismondi's theory of crises, Ephrucy shows that it is wrong (Russkoye Bogatstvo, No. 7, p. 162); but he does so in an extremely hazy and contradictory way. On the one hand, he repeats the arguments of the opposite theory and says that national demand is not limited to articles of direct consumption. On the other hand, he asserts that Sismondi's explanation of crises "points to only one of the many circumstances which hinder the distribution of the national product in conformity with the demand of the population and with its purchasing power." Thus, the reader is invited to think that the explanation of crises is to be found in "distribution," and that Sismondi's mistake was only that he did not give a full list of the causes which hinder this distribution! But this is not the main thing . "Sismondi," says Ephrucy, "did not confine himself to the above-mentioned explanation. Already in the first edition of Nouveaux Principes we find a highly enlightening chapter entitled 'De la connaissance du marché.'**

 
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In this chapter Sismondi reveals to us the main causes that disturb the balance between production and consumption" (note this!) "with a clarity that we find among only a few economists" (ibid.). And quoting the passages which say that the manufacturer cannot know the market, Ephrucy says: "Engels says almost the same thing" (p. 163), and follows this up with a quotation saying that the manufacturer cannot know the demand. Then, quoting some more passages about "other obstacles to the establishment of a balance between production and consumption" (p. 164), Ephrucy assures us that "these give us the very explanation of crises which is becoming increasingly predominant"! Nay, more: Ephrucy is of the opinion that "on the question of the causes of crises in the national economy, we have every right to regard Sismondi as the founder of the views which were subsequently developed more consistently and more clearly" (p. 168).

    But by all this Ephrucy betrays a complete failure to understand the issue! What are crises? Overproduction, the production of commodities which cannot be realised, for which there is no demand. If there is no demand for commodities, it shows that when the manufacturer produced them he did not know the demand. The question now arises: is this indication of the condition which makes crises possible an explanation of the crises? Did Ephrucy really not understand the difference between stating the possibility of a phenomenon and explaining its inevitability? Sismondi says: crises are possible, because the manufacturer does not know the demand; they are inevitable, because under capitalist production there can be no balance between production and consumption (i.e., the product cannot be realised). Engels says: crises are possible, because the manufacturer does not know the demand; they are inevitable, but certainly not because the product cannot be realised at all. For it is not true: the product can be realised. Crises are inevitable because the collective character of production comes into conflict with the individual character of appropriation. And yet we find an economist who assures us that Engels says "almost the same thing"; that Sismondi gives the "very same explanation of crises"! "I am therefore surprised," writes Ephrucy, "that Mr. Tugan-Baranovsky . . . lost sight

 
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of this most important and valuable point in Sismondi's doctrine" (p. 168). But Mr. Tugan-Baranovsky did not lose sight of anything.[*] On the contrary, he pointed very exactly to the fundamental contradiction to which the new theory reduces matters (p. 455 et. al.), and explained the significance of Sismondi, who at an earlier stage indicated the contradiction which reveals itself in crises, but was unable to give it a correct explanation (p. 457 -- Sismondi, before Engels, pointed to the fact that crises spring from the contemporary organisation of the economy; p. 491 -- Sismondi expounded the conditions which make crises possible, but "not every possibility becomes a fact"). Ephrucy, however, completely misunderstood this, and after lumping everything together he is "surprised" that what he gets is confusion! "True," says the economist of Russkoye Bogatstvo, "we do not find Sismondi using the terms which have now received universal right of citizenship, such as 'anarchy of production,' 'unplanned production' (Planlosigkeit ); but the substance behind these terms is noted by him quite clearly" (p. 168). With what ease the modern romanticist restores the romanticist of former days! The problem is reduced to one of a difference in terms! Actually, the problem boils down to the fact that Ephrucy does not understand the meaning of the terms he repeats. "Anarchy of production," "unplanned production" -- what do these expressions tell us? They tell us about the contradiction between the social character of production and the individual character of appropriation. And we ask every one who is familiar with the economic literature we are examining: did Sismondi, or Rodbertus, recognise this contradiction? Did they deduce crises from this contradiction? No, they did not, and could not do so, because neither of them had any understanding of this contradiction. The very idea that the criticism of capitalism cannot be based on phrases

about universal prosperity,[*] or about the fallacy of "circulation left to itself,"[**] but must be based on the character of the evolution of production relations, was absolutely alien to them.

    We fully understand why our Russian romanticists exert every effort to obliterate the difference between the two theories of crises mentioned. It is because fundamentally different attitudes towards capitalism are most directly and most closely linked with the theories mentioned Indeed, if we explain crises by the impossibility of realising products, by the contradiction between production and consumption, we are thereby led to deny reality, the soundness of the path along which capitalism is proceeding; we proclaim this path to be a "false one," and go out in quest of "different paths." In deducing crises from this contradiction we are bound to think that the further it develops the more difficult will be the way out of the contradiction. And we have seen how Sismondi, with the utmost naïveté, expressed exactly this opinion when he said that if capital accumulated slowly it was tolerable; but if it accumulated rapidly, it would become unbearable. -- On the other hand, if we explain crises by the contradiction between the social character of production and the individual character of appropriation, we thereby recognise that the capitalist road is real and progressive and reject the search for "different paths" as nonsensical romanticism. We thereby recognise that the further this contradiction develops the easier will be the way out of it, and that it is the development of this system which provides the way out.

    As the reader sees, here, too, we meet with a difference in "points of view." . . .

    It is quite natural that our romanticists should seek

 
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theoretical confirmation of their views. It is quite natural that their search should lead them to the old rubbish which Western Europe has discarded long, long ago. It is quite natural that, feeling this to be so, they should try to renovate this rubbish, some times by actually embellishing the romanticists of Western Europe, and at others by smuggling in romanticism under the flag of inappropriate and garbled citations. But they are profoundly mistaken if they think that this sort of smuggling will remain unexposed.

    With this we bring to a close our exposition of Sismondi's basic theoretical doctrine, and of the chief theoretical conclusions he drew from it; but we must make a slight addition, again relating to Ephrucy. In his other article about Sismondi (a continuation of the first), he says: "Still more interesting (than the theory on revenue from capital) are Sismondi's views on the different kinds of revenue" (Russkoye Bogatstvo, No. 8, p. 42). Sismondi, he says, like Rodbertus, divides the national revenue into two parts: "one goes to the owners of the land and instruments of production, the other goes to the representatives of labour" (ibid.). Then follow passages in which Sismondi speaks of such a division, not only of the national revenue, but of the aggregate product: "The annual output, or the result of all the work done by the nation during the year, also consists of two parts," and so forth (Nouveaux Principes, I, 105, quoted in Russkoye Bogatstvo, No. 8, p. 43). "The passages we have quoted," concludes our economist, "clearly show that Sismondi fully assimilated (!) the very same classification of the national revenue which plays such an important role in the works of the modern economists, namely, the division of the national revenue into revenue from labour and non-labour revenue -- arbeitsloses Einkommen. Although, generally speaking, Sismondi's views on the subject of revenue are not always clear and definite, we nevertheless discern in them a consciousness of the difference that exists between private revenue and national revenue" (p. 43).

    The passage quoted, say we in answer to this, clearly shows that Ephrucy has fully assimilated the wisdom of the German textbooks, but in spite of that (and, perhaps, just because of it), he has completely overlooked the theoreti-

 
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cal difficulty of the question of national revenue as distinct from individual revenue. Ephrucy expresses himself very carelessly. We have seen that in the first part of his article he applied the term "modern economists" to the theoreticians of one definite school. The reader would be right in thinking that he is referring to them this time too. Actually, however, the author has something entirely different in mind. It is now the German Katheder-Socialists[54] who figure as the modern economists. The author's defence of Sismondi consists in closely identifying his theory with theirs. What is the theory of these "modern" authorities that Ephrucy quotes? That the national revenue is divided into two parts.

    But this is the theory of Adam Smith and not of the "modern economists"! In dividing revenue into wages, profit and rent (Book I, chap. VI of The Wealth of Nations; Book II, chap. II), Adam Smith opposed the two latter to the former precisely as non-labour revenue; he called them both deductions from the produce of labour (Book I, chap. VIII) and challenged the opinion that profit is also wages for a special kind of labour (Book I, chap. VI). Sismondi, Rodbertus and the "modern" authors of German textbooks simply repeat Smith's doctrine. The only difference between them is that Adam Smith was aware that he was not quite successful in his efforts to separate the national revenue from the national product; he was aware that by excluding constant capital (to use the modern term) from the national product after having included it in the individual product, he was slipping into a contradiction. The "modern" economists, however, in repeating Adam Smith's mistake, have merely clothed his doctrine in a more pompous phrase ("classification of the national revenue") and lost the awareness of the contradiction which brought Adam Smith to a halt. These methods may be scholarly, but they are not in the least scientific.

    Let us note that Sismondi, like Rodbertus, did not agree with Ricardo's theory of rent. While not advancing a theory of his own, he tried to shake Ricardo's theory with arguments that were, to say the least, feeble. In this he acts as the pure ideologist of the small peasant; it is not so much a refutation of Ricardo as a complete rejection of the application of the categories of commodity economy and of capitalism to agriculture. In both respects his point of view is extremely characteristic of the romanticists. Chapter XIII of Book III[*] deals with "Mr. Ricardo's ground-rent theory." Stating at once that Ricardo's doctrine completely contradicts his own theory, Sismondi advances the following objections: the general level of profit (on which Ricardo's theory is based) is never established, there is no free movement of capital in agriculture. In agriculture we must discern the intrinsic value of the product (la valeur intrinsèque), which does not depend upon market fluctuations and provides the-owner with a "net product" (produit net), the "labour of nature" (I, 306). "The labour of nature is a power, the source of the net product of the land regarded intrinsically" (intrinsèquement) (I, 310). "We regarded rent (le fermage), or more correctly, the net product, as originating directly from the land for the owner's benefit; it takes no share either from the farmer or the

consumer" (I, 312). And this repetition of the old physiocratic prejudices concludes with the moral: "In general, in political economy, one should guard against (se défier) absolute assumptions, as well as against abstractions" (1, 312)1 There is really nothing to examine in such a "theory," since Ricardo's brief remark about the "labour of nature" is more than enough.[*] It is simply a refusal to analyse and a gigantic step back compared with Ricardo. Here, too, the romanticism of Sismondi is quite clearly revealed, for he hastens to condemn the process, but is afraid to touch it with an analysis. Note that he does not deny the fact of agriculture developing on capitalist lines in England, of the peasants there being displaced by capitalist farmers and day labourers, and of things developing in the same direction on the Continent. He simply turns his back on these facts (which he was in duty bound to examine since he was discussing capitalist economy) and prefers talking sentimentally of the advantages of the patriarchal system of exploiting the land. Our Narodniks behave in exactly the same way: none of them have attempted to deny the fact that commodity economy is penetrating into agriculture, that it must produce a radical change in the social character of agriculture; but at the same time none of them, in discussing the capitalist economy, raise the question of the growth of commercial farming, preferring to make shift with moralising about "people's production." Since we are confining ourselves for the moment to an analysis of Sismondi's theoretical economy, we shall postpone a more detailed examination of this "patriarchal exploitation" to a later occasion.

    Another theoretical point around which Sismondi's exposition revolves is the doctrine of population. Let us

    What does this mean -- "to put the population problem on a socio-historical basis"? It means studying the law of population of each historical system of economy separately, and studying its connection and interrelation with the given system. Which system did Sismondi study? The capitalist system. Thus, the contributor to Russkoye Bogatstvo assumes that Sismondi studied the capitalist law of population. There is a grain of truth in this assertion but only a grain. And as Ephrucy did not think of trying to discover what was lacking in Sismondi's argument about population, and as Ephrucy asserts that "here Sismondi is the predecessor of the most outstanding modern economists"[*] (p. 148), the result is exactly the same sort of embellishment of the petty-bourgeois romanticist as we saw in respect of the questions of crises and of national revenue. Wherein lies the similarity between Sismondi's doctrine and the new theory on these problems? In that Sismondi indicated the contradictions inherent in capitalist accumulation. This similarity Ephrucy noted. Wherein lies the difference between Sismondi's doctrine and the new theory? Firstly, in that it did not advance the scientific analysis of these contradictions one iota, and in some respects even took a step back compared with the classical economists; and secondly, in that he covered up his own inability to make an analysis (partly his unwillingness to do so) with petty-bourgeois moralising about the need for balancing national revenue

    It is important to note in the last words that the part of the agricultural population which turns temporarily to industry is regarded as belonging to the reserve army. This is precisely what the modern theory has called the latent form of the surplus population (see Marx's Capital ).[56]

 
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velops the greater is the fluctuation in the demand for workers, depending upon whether there is a crisis or a boom in national production as a whole, or in any one branch of it. This fluctuation is a law of capitalist production, which could not exist if there were no surplus population (i.e., a population exceeding capitalism's average demand for workers) ready at any given moment to provide hands for any industry, or any factory. The analysis showed that a surplus population is formed in all industries into which capitalism penetrates and in agriculture as well as in industry -- and that the surplus population exists in different forms. There are three chief forms[*]: Floating overpopulation. To this category belong the unemployed workers in industry. As industry develops their numbers inevitably grow. 2) Latent overpopulation. To this category belong the rural population who lose their farms with the development of capitalism and are unable to find non-agricultural employment. This population is always ready to provide hands for any factory. 3) Stagnant overpopulation. It has "extremely irregular" employment, under conditions below the average level.[57] To this category belong, mainly, people who work at home for manufacturers and stores, including both rural and urban inhabitants. The sum-total of all these strata of the population constitutes the relative surplus population, or reserve army. The latter term distinctly shows what population is referred to. They are the workers needed by capitalism for the potential expansion of enterprises, but who can never be regularly employed.

    Thus, on this problem, too, theory arrived at a conclusion diametrically opposed to that of the romanticists. For the latter, the surplus population signifies that capitalism is impossible, or a "mistake." Actually, the oppo-

The Narodnik economists have nowhere shown that they are familiar with this law. We do not, of course, intend to make an examination of the substance of these problems here.[*] This does not enter into our task. The subject of our article is West-European romanticism and its relation to Russian Narodism. In this case, too, this relation is the same as in all the preceding cases: on the subject of surplus population, the Narodniks adhere entirely to the viewpoint of romanticism, which is diametrically opposite to that of the modern theory. Capitalism gives no employment to displaced workers, they say. This means that capitalism is impossible, a "mistake," etc. But it does not "mean" that at all. Contradiction does not mean impossibility (Widerspruch is not the same as Widersinn). Capitalist accumulation, i.e., real production for the sake of production, is also a contradiction. But this does not prevent it from existing and from being the law of a definite system of economy. The same must be said of all the other contradictions of capitalism. The Narodnik argument we have quoted merely "means" that the Russian intelligentsia have become deeply imbued with the vice of using empty phrases to get over all these contradictions.

    Thus, Sismondi contributed absolutely nothing to the theoretical analysis of overpopulation. But how did he regard it? His view is a queer combination of petty-bourgeois sentiment and Malthusianism. "The great vice of the present social organisation," says Sismondi, "is that a poor man can never know what demand for labour he can count upon" (II, 261), and Sismondi sighs for the times when "the village shoemaker" and the small peasant knew the exact amount of their revenues. "The more a poor man is bereft of all property, the more is he in danger of falling into error concerning his revenue and of contributing to the formation of a population (contribuer à accroître une population. . .) which, being out of proportion to the demand for labour, will not find means of subsistence" (II, 263-64). You see: this ideologist of the petty bourgeoisie is not satisfied with wanting to retard the whole of social development for

raise a family when that illusory institution (cet établissement illusoire) leaves them at the mercy of suffering, poverty and death" (II, 299). "When the social organisation did not separate the labouring class from the class which owned some property, public opinion alone was enough to avert the scourge (le fléau) of poverty. For the agriculturist to sell the heritage of his fathers and for the artisan to squander his small capital has always been regarded as something shameful. . . . But under the system at present prevailing in Europe . . . people who are condemned never to possess any property can feel no shame what ever at being reduced to pauperism" (II, 306-07). It would be difficult to express more vividly the stupidity and hard-heartedness of the small proprietor! Here Sismondi changes from the theoretician into the practical counsellor, who preaches the morals which, we know, are practised with such success by the French peasant. This is not only Malthus, but Malthus deliberately cut to the measure of the petty bourgeois. Reading these chapters of Sismondi's, one cannot help recalling the passionately angry invective of Proudhon, who argued that Malthusianism was the preaching of the connubial practice of . . . a certain unnatural vice.[*]

    Ephrucy dilates upon Sismondi's "brilliant observations" concerning machines, and asserts that "to regard him as an opponent of technical improvements is unjust" (No. 7, p. 155), that "Sismondi was not an enemy of machines and inventions" (p. 156). "Sismondi repeatedly stressed the idea that machines and inventions are not in themselves harmful to the working class, but become so only because of the conditions of the existing system of economy, under which an

    In this respect (i.e., in respect of the difference between Sismondi's doctrine and the modern theory)[*] Ephrucy keeps firmly to his own ground. He cannot even present the problem. He says that Sismondi saw the contradiction, and rests content with that; as if history had not shown the most diverse ways and means of criticising the contradictions of capitalism. In saying that Sismondi did not regard machines as being harmful in themselves, but harmful in their operation under the present social system, Ephrucy does not even see what a primitive, superficially sentimental point of view he expresses in this one argument alone. Sismondi did indeed inquire: are machines harmful, or not? And he "answered" the question with the maxim: machines are useful only when production is commensurate with consumption (cf. quotations in Russkoye Bogatstvo, No. 7, p. 156). After all that has been said above, there is no need for us to prove here that such an "answer" is nothing more nor less than substituting a petty-bourgeois utopia for a scientific analysis of capitalism. Sismondi cannot be blamed for not having made such an analysis. Historical services are not judged by the contributions historical personalities did not make in respect of modern

duction occupies as one of the stages in the development of capitalism, and the relation of machine industry to the preceding stages (capitalist simple co-operation and capitalist manufacture); secondly, to an analysis of the part played by machines under capitalist economy, and in particular, to an analysis of the changes which machine industry effects in all the conditions of life of the population. On the first point, the theory established that machine industry is only one stage (namely, the highest) of capitalist production, and showed how it arose out of manufacture. On the second point, the theory established that machine industry marks gigantic progress in capitalist society not only because it increases the productive forces enormously and socialises labour throughout society,[*] but also because it destroys the manufactory division of labour, compels the workers to go from occupations of one kind to others, completes the destruction of backward patriarchal relationships, particularly in the rural districts,[**] and gives a most powerful impetus to the progress of society, both for the reasons stated and as a consequence of the concentration of the industrial population. This progress, like the progress capitalism makes in every other field, is accompanied by the "progress" of contradictions, i.e., by their intensification and expansion.

    Perhaps the reader will ask: what interest is there in examining Sismondi's views on such a universally known question and in such a brief reference to the modern theory, with which everybody is "familiar," and with which everybody "agrees"?

    Well, to see what this "agreement" looks like we shall take Mr. N.-on, the most prominent Narodnik economist, who claims that he strictly applies the modern theory. In his Sketches, it will be remembered, Mr. N.-on sets himself as one of his special tasks the study of the capital-

    The question is: what is Mr. N.-on's point of view on this subject: the point of view of Sismondi (whose view point, as we have seen, he shares on very many aspects of capitalism), or the point of view of modern theory? Is he, on this important subject, a romanticist or . . . a realist[*]?

    We have seen that the first thing that distinguishes the modern theory is that it is based on a historical analysis of the development of machine industry from capitalist manufacture. Did Mr. N.-on raise the problem of the development of Russian machine industry? No. True, he did say that it was preceded by work in the home for the capitalist, and by the hand-labour "factory"[**]; but he not only failed to explain the relation of machine industry to the preceding stage, he even failed to "notice" that it was wrong in scientific terminology to apply the term factory to the preceding stage (production by hand in the home or in the capitalist's workshop), which should undoubtedly be described as capitalist manufacture.***

    Let the reader not think that this "omission" is unimportant. On the contrary, it is of enormous importance. Firstly, Mr. N.-on thereby identifies capitalism with machine industry. This is a gross mistake. What constitutes the importance of the scientific theory is that it cleared up the real place of machine industry as one of the stages of capitalism. If Mr. N.-on shared the point of

view of this theory, could he have depicted the growth and victory of machine industry as "the struggle between two economic forms ": between some unknown "form based on the peasantry's ownership of instruments of production"[*] and "capitalism" (pp. 2, 3, 66, 198 et al.), whereas, in fact, we see a struggle between machine industry and capitalist manufacture? Mr. N.-on says not a word about this struggle; although this replacement of one form of capitalism by another took place, on his own showing, precisely in the textile industry, the sphere of his special study (p. 79), Mr. N.-on misrepresented it, calling it the replacement of "people's production" by "capitalism." Is it not evident that at bottom the problem of the actual development of machine industry did not interest him in the least, and that the term "people's production" covers up a utopia entirely to the taste of Sismondi? Secondly, if Mr. N.-on had raised the question of the historical development of Russian machine industry, could he have spoken of "implanting capitalism" (pp. 331, 283, 323 et al.), basing his case on facts of governmental support and assistance -- facts which have also occurred in Europe? The question is: is he copying Sismondi who also talked in exactly tho same way about "implanting," or is he copying the representative of the modern theory who studied the replacement of manufacture by machine industry? Thirdly, if Mr. N.-on had raised the problem of the historical development of the forms of capitalism in Russia (in the textile industry), could he have ignored the existence of capitalist manufacture in the Russian "handicraft industries"**? And if he had really followed theory and attempted to apply a scientific analysis to at least a small corner of this production --

    The second point relates to the modern theory of the changes brought about in social relations by machine industry. Mr. N.-on did not even attempt to examine this problem. He complained a great deal about capitalism and deplored the appearance of the factory (exactly as Sismondi did), but he did not even attempt to study the change in social conditions brought about by the factory.[*] To do that it would have been necessary to compare machine industry with the preceding stages, which Mr. N.-on does not refer to. Similarly, the viewpoint of the modern theory on machines as a factor of progress in present-day capitalist society is also totally alien to him . Here, too, he did not even present the question,** nor could he do so, for this question can arise only out of a historical study of the replacement of one form of capitalism by another, whereas according to Mr. N.-on "capitalism" tout court*** replaces . . . "people's production."

    If, on the basis of Mr. N.-on's "study" of the capitalisation of the textile industry in Russia, we were to ask: how does Mr. N.-on regard machines? -- we could re-

to the other Narodnik economists: on the question of machines, Narodism to this day adheres to the viewpoint of petty-bourgeois romanticism and replaces an economic analysis by sentimental wishes.

dressing and can only mislead the reader. It is an awkwardly worn "realist" costume under which the thoroughbred romanticist hides.[*]

    We are now familiar with all of Sismondi's main propositions relating to economic theory. Summing up, we see that, everywhere, Sismondi remains absolutely true to himself, that his point of view remains unchanged. On the one hand, on all points he differs from the classical economists in that he indicates the contradictions of capitalism. On the other hand, on no point is he able (or willing) to extend the analysis of the classical economists, and therefore confines himself to a sentimental criticism of capitalism from the viewpoint of the petty bourgeois. This substitution of sentimental complaints and lamentations for a scientific analysis results in his conception being extremely superficial. Modern theory accepted his references to tho contradictions of capitalism, subjected them to a scientific analysis, and on all points reached conclusions which radically differ from Sismondi's, and for that reason lead to a diametrically opposite point of view concerning capitalism.

    In A Critique of Some of the Propositions of Political Economy (Zur Kritik,[59] Russ. trans., Moscow, 1896) Sismondi's place in the history of the science is described as follows:

    "Sismondi is no longer labouring under Boisguillebert's idea that labour which creates exchange value is adulterated

 
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by money; but just as Boisguillebert denounced money, so does Sismondi denounce large industrial capital" (p. 36).

    The author wants to say: Just as Boisguillebert superficially regarded barter as a natural system and was up in arms against money, which was to him an "extraneous element" (p. 30, ibid.), so Sismondi regarded small-scale production as a natural system and was up in arms against big capital, which he regarded as an extraneous element. Boisguillebert did not understand the inseparable and natural connection between money and commodity exchange, did not understand that he was contrasting two forms of "bourgeois labour" as extraneous elements (ibid., pp. 30-31). Sismondi failed to understand the inseparable and natural connection between big capital and small independent production, failed to understand that these are two forms of commodity economy. Boisguillebert "is up in arms against bourgeois labour in one form while, utopian-like, he praises it in another" (ibid.). Sismondi is up in arms against big capital, i.e., against commodity economy in one form, its most developed form, while, utopian-like, he praises the small producer (especially the peasantry), i.e., commodity economy in another form, its rudimentary form.

    "In Ricardo," continues the author of the Critique, "political economy reached its climax, after recklessly drawing its ultimate conclusions, while Sismondi supplemented it by impersonating its doubts" (p. 36).

    Thus, the author of the Critique reduces the significance of Sismondi to the fact that he raised the question of the contradictions of capitalism, and thereby set the task of making a further analysis. The author we have quoted regards all the independent views of Sismondi, who also wanted to answer this question, as unscientific and superficial, and as reflecting his reactionary petty-bourgeois point of view (see the above-quoted opinions, and one quoted below in connection with a "quotation" by Ephrucy).

    Comparing Sismondi's theory with Narodism, we find on nearly all points (except his repudiation of Ricardo's theory of rent and his Malthusian admonitions to the peasants) an astonishing similarity, which sometimes goes as far as identity of terms. The Narodnik economists fully share Sismondi's point of view. We shall be still more

 
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convinced of this later, when we pass from theory to Sismondi's views on practical problems.

    And lastly, as regards Ephrucy, on no point has he given a correct appraisal of Sismondi. Pointing to Sismondi's emphasis on, and condemnation of, the contradictions of capitalism, Ephrucy was quite unable to understand either the sharp difference between his theory and the theory of scientific materialism, or that the romanticist and scientific points of view on capitalism are diametrically opposite. The fellow feeling of the Narodnik for the romanticist, their touching unanimity, prevented the author of the essays in Russkoye Bogatstvo from correctly characterising this classical representative of romanticism in economic science.

    We have just quoted the opinion on Sismondi that "he impersonated the doubts" of classical political economy.

    But Sismondi did not think of confining himself to this role (which gives him an honourable place among the economists). As we have seen, he tried to solve the doubts, but did so very unsuccessfully. Not only that. His accusation against the classical economists and their science was not that they halted before an analysis of the contradictions, but that they employed wrong methods. "The old science does not teach us either to understand or avert" new disasters (I, XV), says Sismondi in the preface to the second edition of his book, and he does not explain this fact by indicating that the analysis made by this science is incomplete and inconsistent but by claiming that it "plunged into abstractions" (I, 55: the new disciples of Adam Smith in England plunged [se sont jetés] into abstractions, forgetting about "man") and was "proceeding along a wrong path" (II, 448). What is the charge levelled by Sismondi against the classical economists which permits him to draw this conclusion?

    "The economists, the most celebrated of them, devoted too little attention to consumption and to the market" (I, 124).

    This accusation has been repeated innumerable times since Sismondi's day. It has been deemed necessary to separate "consumption" from "production" as a special department of the science; it has been said that production depends upon

 
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natural laws, whereas consumption is determined by distribution, which depends upon the will of man, and so on, and so forth. It is common knowledge that our Narodniks hold the same views and put distribution in the forefront.[*]

    What meaning is there to this accusation? It is based solely on an extremely unscientific conception of the very subject of political economy. Its subject is not by any means "the production of material values," as is often claimed (that is the subject of technology), but the social relations between men in production. Only by interpreting "production" in the former sense can one separate "distribution" from it, and when that is done, the "department" of production does not contain the categories of historically determined forms of social economy, but categories that relate to the labour process in general: usually, such empty banalities merely serve later to obscure historical and social conditions. (Take, for example, the concept of capital.) If, however, we consistently regard "production" as social relations in production, then both "distribution" and "consumption" lose all independent significance. Once relations in production have been explained, both the share of the product taken by the different classes and, consequently, "distribution" and "consumption" are thereby explained. And vice versa, if production relations remain

unexplained (for example, if the process of the production of the aggregate social capital is not understood), all arguments about consumption and distribution turn into banalities, or innocent, romantic wishes. Sismondi was the originator of such arguments. Rodbertus also talked a lot about the "distribution of the national product," and Ephrucy's "modern" authorities even formed special "schools," one of the principles of which was to pay special attention to distribution.[*] But none of these theoreticians of "distribution" and "consumption" were able to solve even the fundamental problem of the difference between social capital and social revenue; all continued to grope in the contradictions before which Adam Smith had come to a halt.[**] The problem was solved only by the economist who never singled out distribution, and who protested most vigorously against the "vulgar" arguments about "distribution" (cf. Marx's criticism of the Gotha Programme quoted by P. Struve in his Critical Remarks, p. 129, epigraph to chapter IV).[60] Not only that. The very solution of the problem consisted of an analysis of the reproduction of social capital. The author did not make a special problem of either consumption or distribution, but both were fully explained after the analysis of production had been carried to its conclusion.

    ". . . Scientific analysis of the capitalist mode of production demonstrates . . . that the distribution relations essentially coincident with these production relations are their opposite side, so that both share the same historically

 
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transitory character." "The wage presupposes wage-labour, and profit -- capital. These definite forms of distribution thus presuppose definite social characteristics (Charaktere) of production conditions, and definite social relations of production agents. The specific distribution relations are thus merely the expression of the specific historical production relations.". . . "Every form of distribution disappears with the specific form of production from which it is descended and to which it corresponds."

    "The view which regards only distribution relations as historical, but not production relations, is, on the one hand, solely the view of the initial, but still handicapped (inconsistent, befangen) criticism of bourgeois economy. On the other hand, it rests on the confusion and identification of the process of social production with the simple labour-process, such as might even be performed by an abnormally isolated human being without any social assistance. To the extent that the labour-process is solely a process between man and Nature, its simple elements remain common to all social forms of development. But each specific historical form of this process further develops its material foundations and social forms" (Capital, Vol. III, 2, pp. 415, 419 and 420, German original).[61]

    Sismondi was no more fortunate in attacks of another sort against the classical economists, attacks which occupy still more space in his Nouveaux Principes. "The new disciples of Adam Smith in England plunged into abstractions, forgetting about man. . ." (I, 55). For Ricardo "wealth is everything and men nothing" (II, 331). "They" (the economists who advocate Free Trade) "often sacrifice men and real interests to an abstract theory" (II, 457), and so forth.

    How old these attacks are, and yet how new! I have in mind their renewal by the Narodniks, who have made such a noise over the frank admission that the capitalist development of Russia is her real, actual and inevitable development. Have they not repeated the same thing in different keys when shouting about "apologetics of the money power," about "social-bourgeois character," and so forth?[62] The remark addressed to the sentimental critics of capitalism in general is applicable to them to an even greater extent than to Sismondi: Man schreie nicht zu sehr über den Zy-

 
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nismus! Der Zynismus liegt in der Sache, nicht in den Worten, welche die Sache bezeichnen! But do not make an outcry at the cynicism of it. The cynicism is in the facts and not in the words which express the facts.[63]

    "To an even greater extent," we say. This is because the West-European romanticists did not have before them a scientific analysis of the contradictions of capitalism, because they were the first to indicate these contradictions, because they denounced (in "plaintive words," incidentally) the people who did not see these contradictions.

    Sismondi violently attacked Ricardo for drawing all the conclusions from his observations and study of bourgeois society with ruthless frankness: he noted frankly both the existence of production for production and the transformation of labour-power into a commodity similar to any other commodity and the fact that the net revenue, that is, the amount of profit, is the only thing of importance to "society."* But Ricardo spoke the absolute truth: actually everything is exactly as he says. If this truth seemed to Sismondi to be a "base truth," he should not have sought for the causes of this baseness in Ricardo's theory at all, and should not have directed his attacks at "abstractions"; the exclamations he addressed to Ricardo belong entirely to the sphere of "the deception which exalts us."

 
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    Well, what about our modern romanticists? Do they think of denying the reality of the "money power"? Do they think of denying that this power is omnipotent not only among the industrial population, but also among the agricultural population of any "village community" and of any remote village you like? Do they think of denying that there is a necessary connection between this fact and commodity economy? They have not even attempted to subject this to doubt. They simply try not to talk of it. They are afraid of calling things by their real names.

    We fully understand their fear: the frank admission of reality would completely cut the ground from under the sentimental (Narodnik) criticism of capitalism. It is not surprising that they so ardently rush into battle before they have had time to clean the rusty weapon of romanticism. It is not surprising that they are unscrupulous in their methods and want to present hostility towards sentimental criticism as hostility towards criticism in general. After all, they are fighting for their right to existence.

    Sismondi even tried to elevate his sentimental criticism to the plane of a special method of social science. We have already seen that he did not reproach Ricardo with bringing his objective analysis to a halt when faced with the contradictions of capitalism (such a reproach would have been justified), but reproached him for the objectivity of his analysis. Sismondi said that Ricardo "forgets about man." In his preface to the second edition of Nouveaux Principes we find the following tirade:

    "I deem it necessary to protest against the customary methods, so often superficial, so often false, of judging a work relating to the social sciences. The problem which they have to solve is incomparably more complex than all the problems of the natural sciences; at the same time it appeals as much to the heart as it does to the mind" (I, XVI). How familiar to the Russian reader is this idea of contrasting the natural sciences to the social sciences, and of the latter appealing to the "heart"!* Sismondi here expresses the very ideas

 
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which were to be "newly discovered" several decades later in the far east of Europe by the "Russian school of sociologists" and figure as a special "subjective method in sociology." . . . Sismondi, like our native sociologists, of course appeals "to the heart as well as to the mind."[*] But we have already seen that on all the most important problems, the "heart" of the petty bourgeois triumphed over the "mind" of the economist theoretician.

    That the appraisal given here of the sentimental Sismondi in relation to scientifically "objective" Ricardo is correct, is fully confirmed by the opinion Marx expressed in the second volume of Theories of Surplus-Value, which appeared in 1905 (Theorien über den Mehrwert, II. B., I. Th., S. 304 u. ff. "Bemerkungen über die Geschichte der Entdeckung des sogenannten Ricardoschen Gesetzes").*** Contrasting Malthus as a wretched plagiarist, a paid advocate of the rich and a shameless sycophant, to Ricardo as a man of science, Marx said:

 
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    "Ricardo regards the capitalist mode of production as the most advantageous for production in general, as the most advantageous for the creation of wealth, and for his time Ricardo is quite right. He wants production for the sake of production, and he is right. To object to this, as Ricardo's sentimental opponents did, by pointing to the fact that production as such is not an end in itself, means to forget that production for the sake of production is nothing more nor less than the development of the productive forces of mankind, i.e., the development of the wealth of human nature as an end in itself. If this end is set up in contrast to the welfare of individuals, as Sismondi did, it is tantamount to asserting that the development of the whole human race must be retarded for the sake of ensuring the welfare of individuals, that, consequently, no war, we shall say for example, can be waged, because war causes the death of individuals. Sismondi is right only in opposition to those economists who obscure this antagonism, deny it" (S. 309). From his point of view Ricardo has every right to put the proletarians on a par with machines, with commodities in capitalist production. "Es ist dieses stoisch, objektiv, wissenschaftlich," "this is stoicism, this is objective, this is scientific" (S. 313). It goes without saying that this appraisal applies only to a definite period, to the very beginning of the nineteenth century.

of commerce and industry than of agriculture, a more rapid growth of the commercial and industrial population, a greater weight and importance of commerce and industry in the social economic system as a whole.[*] Nor can it be otherwise. By repeating such complaints, Mr. N.-on proves again and again that in his economic views he has not gone beyond superficial, sentimental romanticism. "This unwise spirit of enterprise (esprit d'entreprise), this excess of trading of every kind, which causes so many bankruptcies in America, is due, without a doubt, to the increase in the number of banks and to the ease with which illusory credit takes the place of real property" (fortune réelle) (II, 111), and so forth endlessly. Why did Sismondi attack money economy (and capitalism)? What does he offer in place of it? Small independent production, the natural economy of the peasants in the countryside, artisan production in the towns. Here is what he says of the former in the chapter headed "Of Patriarchal Agriculture" (ch. III, l. III, "De l'exploitation patriarcale" -- the patriarchal exploitation of the land. Book III treats of "territorial" or land wealth): "The first owners of land were themselves tillers, all the field work was done by the labour of their children and their servants. No social organisation** guarantees more happiness and more virtue to the most numerous

 
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clothes as they did. Thus, the farmers and their servants constituted one class of peasants, inspired by the same feelings, sharing the same pleasures, subjected to the same influences and bound to their country by the same ties" (I, 221).

    Here, then, you have the famous "people's production"! Let it not be said that Sismondi does not understand the need to unite the producers: he says plainly (see below) that "he too" (like Fourier, Owen, Thompson and Muiron) "wants association" (II, 365). Let it not be said that he stands for property: on the contrary, he places the weight of emphasis on small economy (cf. II, 355) and not upon small property. It goes without saying that this idealisation of small peasant economy looks different under different historical and social conditions. But there can be no doubt that it is small peasant economy that is glorified by both romanticism and Narodism.

    Similarly, Sismondi idealises primitive artisan production and guilds.

    "The village shoemaker, who is at once merchant, factory owner and worker, will not make a single pair of shoes without an order" (II, 262), whereas capitalist manufacture, not knowing the demand, may suffer bankruptcy. "Undoubtedly, from both the theoretical and the factual standpoint, the institution of guilds (corps de métier) prevented, and was bound to prevent, the formation of a surplus population. It is also beyond doubt that such a population exists at the present time, and that it is the necessary result of the present system" (I, 431). Many more excerpts of a similar nature could be quoted, but we shall postpone our examination of Sismondi's practical recipes until later. Here let us confine ourselves to what we have quoted in order to probe Sismondi's point of view. The arguments we have quoted may be summed up as follows: 1) money economy is condemned for destroying the small producers' security and the close relations among them (in the shape of the nearness of the artisan to his customers, or of the tiller to other tillers, his equals); 2) small production is extolled for ensuring the independence of the producer and eliminating the contradictions of capitalism.

    Let us note that both these ideas constitute an essen-

 
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tial part of Narodism,[*] and endeavour to probe their meaning.

    The criticism of money economy by the romanticists and the Narodniks amounts to the following: it points to the fruits of that economy -- individualism [**] and antagonism (competition), and also the producer's insecurity and the instability of the social economy.[***]

    First about "individualism." Usually, the contrast is made between the association of the peasants in a given community, or of the artisans (or the handicraftsmen) of a given craft, and capitalism, which destroys the ties that bind them, and puts competition in their place. This argument is a repetition of the typical error of romanticism, namely: the conclusion that since capitalism is torn by contradictions it is not a higher form of social organisation. Does not capitalism, which destroys the medieval village community, guild, artel and similar ties, substitute others for them? Is not commodity economy already a tie between the producers, a tie established by the market?**** The antagonistic character of this tie, which is full of fluctuations and contradictions, gives one no right to deny its existence. And we know that it is the development of contradictions that with ever-growing force reveals the strength of this tie, compels all the individual elements and classes of society to strive to unite, and to unite no longer within the narrow limits of one village community,

 
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or of one district, but to unite all the members of the given class in a whole nation and even in different countries. Only a romanticist, with his reactionary point of view, can deny the existence of these ties and their deeper importance, which is based on the common role played in the national economy and not upon territorial, professional, religious and other such interests. If arguments of this kind earned the name of romanticist for Sismondi, who wrote at a time when these new ties engendered by capitalism were still in the embryo, all the more do our Narodniks deserve such an estimation; for today, the enormous importance of these ties can only be denied by those who are totally blind.

    As regards insecurity and instability, and so forth, that is the same old song we dealt with when discussing the foreign market. Attacks of this kind betray the romanticist who fearfully condemns precisely that which scientific theory values most in capitalism: its inherent striving for development, its irresistible urge onwards, its inability to halt or to reproduce the economic processes in their former, rigid dimensions. Only a utopian who concocts fantastic plans for spreading medieval associations (such as the village community) to the whole of society can ignore the fact that it is the "instability" of capitalism that is an enormously progressive factor, one which accelerates social development, draws larger and larger masses of the population into the whirlpool of social life, compels them to ponder over its structure, and to "forge their happiness" with their own hands.

    Mr. N.-on's phrases about the "instability" of capitalist economy, about the lack of proportion in the development of exchange, about the disturbance of the balance between industry and agriculture, between production and consumption, about the abnormality of crises, and so forth, testify beyond all doubt to the fact that he still shares the viewpoint of romanticism to the full. Hence, the criticism of European romanticism applies word for word to his theory too. Here is the proof:

    "Let us hear what old Boisguillebert says:

    "'The price of commodities,' he says, 'must always be proportionate; for it is such mutual understanding alone

 
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that can enable them to reciprocally give birth to one another. . . . As wealth, then, is nothing but this continual intercourse between man and man, craft and craft, etc., it is a frightful blindness to go looking for the cause of misery elsewhere than in the cessation of such traffic brought about by a disturbance of proportion in prices.'

    "Let us listen also to a modern[*] economist:

    "'The great law as necessary to be affixed to production, that is, the law of proportion, which alone can preserve the continuity of value. . . . The equivalent must be guaranteed. . . . All nations have attempted, at various periods of their history, by instituting numerous commercial regulations and restrictions, to effect, in some degree, the object here explained. . . . But the natural and inherent selfishness of man . . . has urged him to break down all such regulations. Proportionate Production is the realisation of the entire truth of the Science of Social Economy' (W. Atkinson, Principles of Political Economy, London, 1840. pp. 170 and 195).

    "Fuit Troja![**] This true proportion between supply and demand, which is beginning once more to be the object of so many wishes, ceased long ago to exist. It has passed into the stage of senility. It was possible only at a time when the means of production were limited, when the movement of exchange took place within very restricted bounds. With the birth of large-scale industry this true proportion had to (musste) come to an end, and production is inevitably compelled to pass in continuous succession through vicissitudes of prosperity, depression, crisis, stagnation, renewed prosperity, and so on.

    "Those who, like Sismondi, wish to return to the true proportion of production, while preserving the present basis of society, are reactionary, since, to be consistent, they must also wish to bring back all the other conditions of industry of former times.

    "What kept production in true, or more or less true, proportions? It was demand that dominated supply, that preceded it. Production followed close on the heels of con-

    "Thus, one or the other: either you want the true proportions of past centuries with present-day means of production, in which case you are both reactionary and utopian.

    "Or, you want progress without anarchy: in which case, in order to preserve the productive forces, you must abandon individual exchange" (Das Elend der Philosophie, S. 46-48).[69]

    The last words apply to Proudhon, with whom the author is polemising, thus formulating the difference between his own viewpoint and the views both of Sismondi and of Proudhon. Mr. N.-on would not, of course, approximate to either one or the other in all his views.[*] But look into the content of the passage given. What is the main thesis of the author we have quoted, his basic idea, which brings him into irreconcilable opposition to his predecessors? Undoubtedly, it is that he places the question of the instability of capitalism (which all these three authors admit) on a historical plane and regards this instability as a progressive factor. In other words: he recognises, firstly, that existing capitalist development, which proceeds through disproportion, crises, etc., is necessary development, and says that the very character of the means of production (machines) gives rise to the desire for an unlimited expansion of production and the constant anticipation of demand by supply. Secondly, he recognises elements of progress in this development, which are: the development of the productive forces, socialisation of labour within the bounds of the whole of society, increased mobility of the population and the growth of its consciousness, and so forth. These two points ex-

haust the difference between him and Sismondi and Proudhon, who agree with him in indicating the "instability" of capitalism and the contradictions it engenders, and in their sincere desire to eliminate these contradictions Their failure to understand that this "instability" is a necessary feature of all capitalism and commodity economy in general brought them to utopia. Their failure to understand the elements of progress inherent in this instability makes their theories reactionary.[*]

    And now we invite Messrs. the Narodniks to answer this question: Does Mr. N.-on agree with the views of scientific theory on the two points mentioned? Does he regard in stability as a characteristic of the present system, and of present-day development? Does he admit the existence of elements of progress in this instability? Everybody knows that he does not, that, on the contrary, Mr. N.-on proclaims this "instability" of capitalism to be simply an abnormality, a digression, and so forth, and regards it as decadence, retrogression (cf. above: "robs of stability") and idealises that very economic stagnation (recall the "age-old foundations," "time-hallowed principles," and so forth) whose destruction is the historical merit of "unstable" capitalism. It is clear, therefore, that we were quite right in including him among the romanticists and that no "quotations" and "references" on his part will change this character of his own arguments.

    We shall deal again with this "instability" later (in connection with the hostility of romanticism and Narodism to the diminution of the agricultural population to the advantage of the industrial population); at present let us quote a passage from A Critique of Some of the Propositions of Political Economy in which the sentimental attacks on money economy are examined.

    "How deeply some beautiful souls are wounded by the merely superficial aspect of the antagonism which asserts itself in buying and selling may be seen from the following abstract from M. Isaac Pereire's Leçons sur l'industrie et les finances, Paris, 1832. The fact that the same Isaac in his capacity of inventor and dictator of the 'Crédit mobilier'[*] has acquired the reputation of the wolf of the Paris Bourse shows what lurks behind the sentimental criticism of economics. Says M. Pereire, at the time an apostle of Saint-Simon: 'Since individuals are isolated and separated from one another both in their labours and in consumption, exchange takes place between them in the products of their respective industries. From the necessity of exchange arises the necessity of determining the relative value of things. The ideas of value and exchange are thus intimately connected and both express in their actual form individualism and antagonism. . . . The determination of values of products takes place only because there are sales and purchases, or, to put it differently, because there is an antagonism between different members of society. One has to occupy himself with price and value only where there is sale and purchase, that is to say, where every individual is obliged to struggle to procure for himself the objects necessary for the maintenance of his existence'" (op. cit., p. 68).[70]

    The question is: wherein lies Pereire's sentimentality ? He talks only about the individualism, antagonism and con-

flict inherent in capitalism, he says the very thing our Narodniks say in different keys, and, moreover, they seem to be speaking the truth, because "individualism, antagonism and conflict" are indeed necessary attributes of exchange, of commodity production. His sentimentality lies in that this Saint-Simonist, carried away by his condemnation of the contradictions of capitalism, fails to discern behind these contradictions the fact that exchange also expresses a special form of social economy, that it, consequently, not only disunites (it does that only in respect of the medieval associations, which capitalism destroys), but also unites men, compelling them to enter into intercourse with each other through the medium of the market.[*] It was this superficial understanding, caused by their eagerness to "trounce" capitalism (from the utopian point of view) that gave the above quoted author occasion to call Pereire's criticism sentimental.

    But why should we worry about Pereire, the long-for gotten apostle of long-forgotten Saint-Simonism? Would it not be better to take the modern "apostle" of Narodism?

    "Production . . . was robbed of its popular character and assumed an individual, capitalist character" (Mr. N.-on, Sketches, pp. 321-22).

    You see how this disguised romanticist argues: "people's production became individual production." And as by "people's production" the author wants to imply the village community,[71] he points to the decline of the social character of production, to the shrinking of the social form of production.

    But is that so? The "village community" provided (if it did provide; but we are ready to make any concession to the author) for organised production only in the one individual community, isolated from all the other communities. The social character of production embraced only the members of the one village community.** Capitalism, however,

conditions of its emancipation are the general conditions within the frame of which alone modern society can be saved and the class struggle avoided. Just as little must one imagine that the democratic representatives are in deed all shopkeepers or enthusiastic champions of shop-keepers. According to their education and their individual position they may be as far apart as heaven from earth. What makes them representatives of the petty bourgeoisie is the fact that in their minds they do not get beyond the limits which the latter do not get beyond in life, that they are consequently driven, theoretically, to the same problems and solutions to which material interest and social position drive the latter practically. This is, in general, the relationship between the political and literary representatives of a class and the class they represent" (Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, translated into Russian by Bazarov and Stepanov, pp. 179-80).[72]

    Hence, those Narodniks who think that the sole object of referring to petty-bourgeois character is to say some thing exceptionally venomous, that it is simply a polemical ruse, cut a very comical figure. By this attitude they reveal their misconception of the general views of their opponents, and chiefly their misconception of the basis of that very criticism of capitalism with which they all "agree," and of the way in which it differs from sentimental and petty-bourgeois criticism. The mere fact that they strive so hard to evade the very problem of these latter forms of criticism, of their existence in Western Europe, of their relation to the scientific criticism, clearly shows why the Narodniks do not want to understand this difference.*

    Let us explain the above with an example. In the bibliographical section of Russkaya Mysl [73] for 1896, No. 5 (p. 229, et seq.), it is stated that among the intelligentsia "a group has lately appeared and is growing with amazing rapidity" which in principle is unreservedly hostile to Narodism. The reviewer points in the briefest outline to the causes and character of this hostility, and one cannot but note with appreciation that he gives quite correctly the gist of the point of view hostile to Narodism.[*] The reviewer does not share this point of view. He does not understand that the ideas of class interests, etc., should compel us to deny "people's ideals" ("simply people's but not Narodnik"; ibid., p. 229), which he says, are the welfare, freedom and consciousness of the peasantry, i.e., of the majority of the population.

    "We shall be told, of course, as others have been told," says the reviewer, "that the ideals of the peasant author" (this is a reference to the wishes expressed by a certain peasant) "are petty-bourgeois and that, therefore, to this day our literature has represented and defended the interests of the petty bourgeoisie. But this is simply a bogey, and who, except those possessing the world outlook and mental habits of a Zamoskvorechye merchant's wife, can be frightened by such a bogey?. . ."

    Strongly spoken! But let us hear what he has to say further:

    ". . . The basic criterion, both of the conditions of human intercourse and of deliberate social measures, is not economic categories, borrowed, moreover, from conditions alien to the country, and formed under different circumstances, but the happiness and welfare, material and spiritual, of the majority of the population. And if a certain mode of life, and certain measures for maintaining and developing this mode of life, lead to this happiness, call them petty-bourgeois, or what you will, it will not alter the situation: they -- this mode of life and these measures -- will

    Had he wanted to examine the second view seriously, he obviously should have proved one of two things: either that "petty bourgeoisie" is a wrong scientific category, that one can conceive of capitalism and commodity economy without a petty bourgeoisie (as indeed the Narodniks actually do, and thereby completely revert to Sismondi's point of view), or that this category is inapplicable to Russia, i.e., that here we have neither capitalism nor the prevalence of commodity economy, that the small producers do not become commodity producers, that the above-mentioned process of ousting the majority and of strengthening the "independence" of the minority is not taking place among them. Now, however, having seen that he treats the reference to the petty-bourgeois character of Narodism simply as a desire to "offend" the Narodniks, and having read the above-quoted phrase about the "bogey," we involuntarily recall the well-known utterance: "Pray, Kit Kitych![74] Who would offend you? You yourself can offend anybody!"

view about the diminution of the agricultural population to the advantage of the industrial population. It is common knowledge that this phenomenon -- one of the most striking manifestations of a country's capitalist development -- is observed in all civilised countries, and also in Russia.[*]

    Sismondi, an outstanding economist of his time, must, of course, have seen this fact. He openly records it, but fails completely to understand the necessary connection between it and the development of capitalism (to put it even more generally: between it and the division of social labour, the growth of commodity economy called forth by this phenomenon). He simply condemns it as a defect in the "system."

    After pointing to the enormous progress made by English agriculture, Sismondi says:

    "While admiring the carefully cultivated fields, we must look at the people who cultivate them; they constitute only half the number to be seen in France on an equal area. Some economists regard this as again; in my opinion it is a loss" (I, 239).

    We can understand why the ideologists of the bourgeoisie regarded this thing as a gain (we shall soon see that such is also the view of the scientific critique of capitalism): in this way they formulated the growth of bourgeois wealth, commerce and industry. While hastening to condemn this phenomenon, Sismondi forgets to think about its causes.

    "In France and in Italy," he says, "where, it is calculated, four-fifths of the population belong to the agricultural class, four-fifths of the nation will have the national bread to eat, no matter what the price of foreign grain may be" (I, 264). Fuit Troja! is what can be said of this.

    This example brings out in particular relief the helplessness of the sentimental criticism of capitalism and the impotent vexation of the petty bourgeois! Sismondi simply complains* that things are going one way and not another. His grief at the destruction of the Eden of the rural population's patriarchal dullness and downtrodden condition is

 
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so great that our economist does not even discern why it takes place. He therefore overlooks the fact that the increase in the industrial population is necessarily and inseverably connected with commodity economy and capitalism. Commodity economy develops to the degree that the social division of labour develops. And the division of labour means precisely that one industry after another, one form of processing the raw product after another, separates from agriculture, becomes independent, and consequently gives rise to an industrial population. Therefore, to discuss commodity economy and capitalism and ignore the law of the relative growth of the industrial population, means to have no notion whatever of the fundamental characteristics of the present system of social economy.

    "It is in the nature of capitalist production to continually reduce the agricultural population as compared with the non-agricultural, because in industry (in the strict sense) the increase of constant capital in relation to variable capital goes hand in hand with an absolute increase, though relative decrease,* in variable capital; on the other hand, in agriculture the variable capital required for the exploitation of a certain plot of land decreases absolutely; it can thus only increase to the extent that new land** is taken into cultivation, but this again requires as a prerequisite a still greater growth of the non-agricultural population" (III, 2, 177).[76]

    On this point modern theory takes a view diametrically opposite to that of romanticism with its sentimental

 
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complaints. When we understand that something is inevitable, we naturally adopt a totally different attitude towards it and are able to appraise its different aspects. The phenomenon we are now discussing is one of the most profound and most general of the contradictions of the capitalist system. The separation of town from country, their oppositeness, and the exploitation of the countryside by the town -- these universal concomitants of developing capitalism -- are a necessary product of the preponderance of "commercial wealth" (to use Sismondi's term) over "territorial wealth" (agricultural wealth). Therefore, the predominance of the town over the countryside (economically, politically, intellectually, and in all other respects) is a universal and inevitable thing in all countries where there is commodity production and capitalism, including Russia: only sentimental romanticists can bewail this. Scientific theory, on the contrary, points to the progressive aspect given to this contradiction by large-scale industrial capital. "Capitalist production, by collecting the population in great centres, and causing an ever-increasing preponderance of town population . . . concentrates the historical motive-power of society"[77] (die geschichtliche Bewegungskraft der Gesellschaft).* If the predominance of the town is inevitable, only the attraction of the population to the towns can neutralise (and, as history shows, does in fact neutralise) the one-sided character of this predominance. If the town necessarily gains itself a privileged position, leaving the village subordinate, undeveloped, helpless and downtrodden, only the influx of the village population into the towns, only this mingling and merging of the agricultural with the non-agricultural population, can lift the rural population out of its helplessness. Therefore, in reply to the reactionary complaints and lamentations of the romanticists, modern theory in

 
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dicates exactly how this narrowing of the gap between the conditions of life of the agricultural and of the non-agricultural population creates the conditions for eliminating the antithesis between town and country.

    The question now is: what is the point of view of our Narodnik economists on this problem? Undoubtedly, that of the sentimental romanticist. Far from understanding that the growth of the industrial population is necessary under the present system of social economy, they even try to close their eyes to the phenomenon itself, like the bird which hides its head under its wing. As was to be expected, no answer was forthcoming to P. Struve's statement that Mr. N.-on, in his arguments about capitalism, commits a gross error when he asserts that there is an absolute diminution of variable capital (Critical Remarks, p. 255), and that it is absurd to contrast Russia with the West in respect of the former's smaller percentage of industrial population and at the same time to ignore the growth of this percentage as a result of the development of capitalism[*] (Sozialpolitisches Centralblatt,[80] 1893, No. 1). While constantly harping upon the specific features of Russia, the Narodnik economists have not even been able to present the problem of the actual specific features of the formation of an industrial population in Russia,** to which we briefly referred above. Such is the Narodniks' theoretical attitude towards this problem. Actually, however, when the Narodniks, untrammelled by theoretical doubts, discuss the conditions of the peasants in the post-Reform countryside, they admit that the peasants who are ousted from agriculture migrate to the towns and to factory areas, but they confine themselves to bewailing this state of affairs, just as Sismondi bewailed it.*** They do not notice at all either the economic

 
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    We have seen that Sismondi's merit lay in his being one of the first to point to the contradictions of capitalism. But in pointing to them he not only made no attempt to analyse them and explain their origin, development and trend, but even regarded them as unnatural, or mistaken digressions from the normal. He naïvely protested against these "digressions" with moralising phrases, denunciations, advice to eliminate them, and so forth, as if these contradictions did not express the real interests of real groups of the population occupying a definite place in the general system of social economy of the present day. This is the most outstanding feature of romanticism -- to regard antagonism of interests (which is deeply rooted in the very system of social economy) as a contradiction or an error of doctrine, system, even of measures, and so forth. Here the narrow outlook of the Kleinbürger,[*] who stands aloof from developed contradictions and occupies an intermediary, transitional position between the two poles, is combined with a naïve idealism -- we are almost ready to say a bureaucratic outlook -- which attributes the existence of a social system to the opinions of men (especially of the powers that be) and not vice versa. We shall quote examples of all Sismondi's arguments of this kind.

    "In forgetting men for the sake of things, has not England sacrificed the aim to the means?

    "The example of England is all the more striking in that this nation is free, enlightened and well governed, and that all her misfortunes are due solely to her pursuit of a wrong economic line" (I, p. IX). In general Sismondi uses England as an example to frighten the Continent with -- just like our romanticists, who imagine that they are contributing something new and not the oldest kind of rubbish.

    ". . . The Continental countries deem it necessary to follow England in her career of manufacture" (II, 330). "There is no more astonishing, no more frightful spectacle than that presented by England" (II, 332).[*]

    "It must not be forgotten that wealth is merely that which represents (n'est que la représentation) the pleasures and amenities of life" (here wealth in general is substituted for bourgeois wealth!), "and to create artificial wealth and thereby doom a nation to all that which actually represents poverty and suffering, means taking the name for the thing itself" (prendre le mot pour la chose) (I, 379).

    ". . . As long as nations followed only the dictates (commands, indications) of nature and enjoyed the advantages provided by climate, soil, location and the possession of raw materials, they did not place themselves in an unnatural position (une position forcée), they did not seek apparent wealth (une opulence apparente) which for the masses becomes real poverty" (I, 411). Bourgeois wealth is only apparent wealth!! "It is dangerous for a nation to close its doors to foreign trade: this compels the nation to engage, in a way (en quelque sorte) in false activity, which leads to its ruin" (I, 448) **

    ". . . Wages contain a necessary part which must sustain the life, strength and health of those who receive them. . . . Woe to the government that encroaches upon this part -- it sacrifices everything (il sacrifie tout ensemble) -- men, and hope of future wealth. . . . This difference enables us to understand how wrong is the policy of those governments which have reduced the wages of the working classes to the limit required to increase the net revenues of factory owners, merchants and property owners" (II, 169).[*]

    "The time has come at last to ask: whither are we going?" (où l'on veut aller) (II, 328).

    "Their separation" (the separation of the property owning class from the working people), "the antagonism of their interests, is the result of the present-day artificial organisation which we have given human society. . . . The natural order of social progress did not by any means tend to separate men from things, or wealth from labour; in the rural districts the property owner could remain a tiller of the soil; in the towns the capitalist could remain an artisan; the separation of the working class from the leisured class was not absolutely indispensable for the existence of society, or for production; we introduced it for the greatest benefit of all; it devolves upon us (il nous appartient) to regulate it so that this benefit may be really achieved" (II, 348).

    "Having been put in opposition to each other, the producers" (i.e., the masters and the workers) "were compelled to proceed along a path diametrically opposed to the interests of society. . . . In this constant struggle to reduce wages, the public interest, in which, however, all participate, in forgotten by all" (II, 359-60). And this too is preceded by mention of the paths bequeathed by history: "At the beginning of social life every man possesses capital, through which he applies his labour, and nearly all artisans live on

a revenue consisting equally of profit and wages" (II, 359).[*]

    Enough, it seems. . . . We can be certain that a reader who is familiar neither with Sismondi nor with Mr. N.-on will find it difficult to say which of the points of view of the two romanticists, the one in the footnote or the one in the text, is the more primitive and naïve.

    Sismondi's practical proposals, to which he devoted so much space in his Nouveaux Principes, fully conform to this.

    The difference between us and Adam Smith, says Sismondi in the very first book of his work, is that "we nearly always , call for that very governmental interference which Adam Smith rejected" (I, 52). "The state does not rectify distribution" (I, 80). . . . "The legislator could ensure the poor man some guarantees against universal competition" (I, 81). "Production must be commensurate with social revenue, and those who encourage unlimited production without taking the trouble to ascertain what this revenue is, are pushing the nation to ruin, though they think they are opening to it the road to wealth (le chemin des richesses)" (I, 82). "When the progress of wealth is gradual (gradué), when it is proportionate to itself, when none of its parts develops with excessive rapidity, it disseminates universal prosperity. . . Perhaps it is the duty of governments to restrain (ralentir!!) this movement in order to regulate it" (I, 409-10).

    Of the enormous historical importance of the development of the productive forces of society, which takes place precisely through these contradictions and disproportions, Sismondi has not the faintest idea!

    "If the government exercises a regulating and moderating influence upon the pursuit of wealth, it can be infinite-

    These arguments of Sismondi's already reveal his astonishing lack of historical sense: he has not the faintest idea that liberation from medieval regulation constituted the entire historical significance of the period contemporary to him. He does not realise that his arguments bring grist to the mill of the defenders of the ancien régime, who at that time were still so strong even in France, not to speak of the other countries of the West-European continent where they ruled.[*]

    Thus, the starting-point of Sismondi's practical proposals is -- tutelage, restraint, regulation.

    This point of view follows quite naturally and inevitably from the whole of Sismondi's range of ideas. He lived at the very time when large-scale machine industry was taking its first steps on the European continent, when there began that sharp and abrupt change of all social relations under the influence of machines (note, under the influence of machine industry, and not of "capitalism" in general),** a change which is known in economic science as the industrial revolution.*** Here is how it is described by one of the first economists able fully to appreciate the profundity of the revolution which created modern European societies in place of the patriarchal semi-medieval societies:

    "Such, in brief, is the history of English industrial development in the past sixty years" (this was written in 1844), "a history which has no counterpart in the annals of humanity. Sixty, eighty years ago, England was a country like every other, with small towns, few and simple industries, and a thin but proportionally large agricultural population. Today it is a country like no other, with a capital of two and a half million inhabitants; with vast manufacturing cities; with an industry that supplies the world, and produces almost everything by means of the most complex machinery; with an industrious, intelligent, dense population, of which two-thirds are employed in trade and commerce, and composed of classes wholly different; forming, in fact, with other customs and other needs, a different nation from the England of those days. The industrial revolution is of the same importance for England as the political revolution for France, and the philosophical revolution for Germany; and the difference between England in 1760 and in 1844 is at least as great as that between France, under the ancien régime and during the revolution of July."[*]

    This was the complete "break-up" of all the old, deep rooted relationships, whose economic basis had been small production. Naturally, with his reactionary, petty-bourgeois point of view, Sismondi could not understand the significance of this "break-up." Naturally, he first of all, and most of all, wished, urged, pleaded, demanded that this "break-up should be stopped."**

    But how should this "break-up be stopped"? First of all, of course, by supporting the people's . . . that is to say, "patriarchal production," the peasantry and small farming in general. Sismondi devotes a whole chapter (t. II, l. VII, ch. VIII) to the subject of "how the government should protect the population from the consequences of competition."

    "In relation to the agricultural population, the government's general task is to ensure those who work (à ceux qui travaillent) a part of the property, or to support (favoriser)

 
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what we have called patriarchal agriculture in preference to all other kinds" (II, 340).

    "A Statute of Elizabeth, which was disregarded, prohibited the building of cottages in England unless each was allotted a four-acre plot of land. Had this law been obeyed, no day labourer could have married without receiving a cottage,* and no cottager* would have been reduced to extreme poverty. This would have been a step forward (c'est quelque chose), but it would not have been enough; under the English climate, the peasant population would have lived in want on four acres per family. Today, most of the English cottagers have only one and a half to two acres of land, for which they pay a fairly high rent. . . . The law should compel . . . the landlord, when he distributes his field among many cottagers,* to give each one enough land to live on" (II, 342-43).**

    The reader will see that the proposals of romanticism are absolutely identical with the proposals and programme of the Narodniks: they too ignore actual economic development, and in the epoch of large-scale machine industry,

 
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fierce competition and conflict of interests they fatuously presume the preservation of conditions which reproduce the patriarchal conditions of the hoary past.

    It goes without saying that Sismondi could not but realise how actual development was proceeding. Therefore, in demanding "encouragement for small farming" (II, 355), he plainly said that it was necessary "to direct agriculture along a road diametrically opposite to that which it is following in England today" (II, 354-55).[*]

    "Happily, England possesses means for doing a great deal for her rural poor by dividing among them her vast common lands (ses immenses communaux). . . . If her common lands were divided up into free allotments (en propriétés franches) of twenty to thirty acres they" (the English) "would see the revival of that proud and independent class of countrymen, the yeomanry,** whose almost complete extinction they now deplore" (II, 357-58).

    The "plans" of romanticism are depicted as very easily realisable -- precisely because they ignore real interests, and this is the essence of romanticism. "Such a proposal" (to allot small plots of land to day labourers and to impose the duty of guardianship over the latter upon the landowners) "will probably rouse the indignation of the big landowners, who alone enjoy legislative power today in England; nevertheless, it is a just one. . . . The big landowners alone need the services of day labourers; they created them -- let them, therefore, maintain them" (II, 357).

    One is not surprised to read such naïve things written at the beginning of the century: the "theory" of romanticism conforms to the primitive state of capitalism in general, which conditioned such a primitive point of view. At that time there was still conformity between the actual

    "We have already shown," says Sismondi, "the protection that this class" (i.e., the class of artisans) "once found in the establishment of guilds and corporations (des jurandes et des maîtrises). . . . We are not proposing that their strange and restrictive organisation should be restored. . . . But the legislator should set himself the aim of increasing the reward for industrial labour, of extricating those engaged in industry from the precarious (précaire) position in which they are living and, finally, of making it easier for them to acquire what they call a status[*] (un état). . . . Today, the workers are born and die workers, whereas formerly, the status of worker was merely the preliminary stage, the first rung to a higher status. It is this ability to advance (cette faculté progressive) that it is important to restore. Employers must be given an incentive to promote their workers to a higher status; to arrange it so that a man who hires himself to work in a manufactory shall actually start by working simply for wages, but that he should always have the hope, provided his conduct is good, of sharing in the profits of the enterprise" (II, 344-45).

    It would be difficult to express the viewpoint of the petty bourgeois more strikingly! The guilds are Sismondi's ideal, and the reservation he makes about the undesirability of restoring them obviously means only that the principle, the idea of the guilds should be taken (exactly as the Narodniks want to take the principle, the idea of the village community, and not the contemporary fiscal association called the village community) and that its monstrous medieval features should be discarded. The absurdity of Sismondi's plan is not his wholesale defence of the guilds, nor his wanting to restore them in their entirety -- he did not set out to do that. The absurdity lies in his making his model an association which arose out of the local artisans' narrow, primitive need for organisation, and wanted to apply this yardstick, this model, to capitalist society, whose organis-

ing, socialising element is large-scale machine industry, which breaks down medieval barriers and obliterates differences of place, origin and trade. Appreciating the need for association, for organisation in general, in one form or another, the romanticist takes as a model the association which satisfied the narrow need for organisation in patriarchal, immobile society, and wants to apply it to a totally transformed society, a society with a mobile population, and with labour socialised within the bounds not of a village community, or a corporation, but of a whole country, and even beyond the bounds of a single country.[*]

    It is this mistake that quite justly earns for the romanticist the designation of reactionary, although this term is not used to indicate a desire simply to restore medieval institutions, but the attempt to measure the new society with the old patriarchal yardstick, the desire to find a model in the old order and traditions, which are totally unsuited to the changed economic conditions.

    Ephrucy understood nothing of this circumstance. He understood the characterisation of Sismondi's theory as reactionary in the crude, vulgar sense. Ephrucy was abashed. . . . What do you mean? he argued, how can Sismondi be called a reactionary when he plainly says that he does not want to restore the guilds? And Ephrucy decided that it was

    Quasi-scientific writers often possess an amazing ability not to see the wood for the trees! Sismondi's point of view on the guilds is characteristic and important precisely because he links his practical proposals with them.[*] That is why his theory is described as reactionary. But Ephrucy begins to talk without rhyme or reason about modern historical works on the guilds!

    The result of these inappropriate and quasi-scientific arguments was that Ephrucy by-passed the very substance of the question, namely: is it or is it not fair to describe Sismondi's theory as reactionary? He overlooked the very thing that is most important -- Sismondi's point of view. "I have been accused," says Sismondi, "of being an enemy of social progress in political economy, a partisan of barbarous and coercive institutions. No, I do not want what has already been, but I want something better than the present. I can not judge the present otherwise than by comparing it with the past, but I am far from wishing to restore the old ruins when I refer to them in order to demonstrate the eternal needs of society" (II, 433). The wishes of the romanticists are very good (as are those of the Narodniks). Their recognition of the contradictions of capitalism places them above the blind optimists who deny the existence of these contradictions. And it is not because he wanted to return to the Middle Ages that he was regarded as a reactionary, but because, in his practical proposals, he "compared the present with the past" and not with the future; because he "demonstrated the eternal needs of society"** by referring to "ruins" and not by referring to the trends of modern development; It was this petty-bourgeois viewpoint of Sismondi's which sharply distinguishes him from the other authors, who also demon-

    Firstly, to say that Sismondi was "ahead of his time" with the reforms he proposed indicates a complete misunderstanding of the very substance of the doctrine of Sismondi, who himself stated that he compared the present with the past. One must indeed be infinitely short-sighted (or in finitely partial to romanticism) to overlook the general spirit and general significance of Sismondi's theory only because Sismondi favoured factory legislation,[*] and so forth.

    Secondly, Ephrucy thus assumes that the difference between Sismondi and the other authors is only in the degree of radicalness of the reforms they proposed: they went further, but he did not entirely discard the past.

    That is not the point. The difference between Sismondi and these authors is a much deeper one -- it is not that some went further and others were timid,** but that they regarded the very character of reforms from two diametrically opposite points of view. Sismondi demonstrated the "eternal needs of society." So, too, did these authors. Sismondi was a utopian, he based his proposals on an abstract idea and not on real interests. So were these authors; they also based their plans on an abstract idea. But it was the character of their respective plans that differed entirely, because they

regarded modern economic development, which presented the question of "eternal needs," from diametrically opposite angles. The authors referred to anticipated the future; with the foresight of genius they divined the trend that would be taken by the "break-up" which the machine industry of that period was effecting before their eyes. They looked in the direction in which development was in fact proceeding; they, indeed, were ahead of that development. Sismondi, however, turned his back on this development; his utopia did not anticipate the future, but restored the past; he did not look forward, he looked backward, and dreamed of "stopping the break-up," that very "break-up" from which the authors mentioned deduced their utopias.[*] That is why Sismondi's utopia is regarded -- and quite rightly -- as reactionary. The grounds for this characterisation, we repeat once again, are merely that Sismondi did not understand the progressive significance of that "break-up" of the old semi-medieval, patriarchal social relations in the West European countries which at the end of last century large-scale machine industry began to effect.

    This specific viewpoint of Sismondi's can be discerned even in his arguments about "association" in general. "I want," he says, "the ownership of the manufactories (la propriété des manufactures) to be shared among a large number of medium capitalists, and not concentrated in the hands of one man who owns many millions. . ." (II, 365). The viewpoint of the petty bourgeois is still more strikingly reflected in the following utterance: "Not the poor class, but the day-labourer class should be abolished; it should be brought back to the propertied class" (II, 308) To be "brought back " to the propertied class -- these words express the sum and substance of Sismondi's doctrine!

    It goes without saying that Sismondi himself must have felt that his fine wishes were impracticable, he must have

 
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been conscious that they were incompatible with the contemporary conflict of interests. "The task of reuniting the interests of those who associate in the same process of production (qui concourent à la même production). . . is undoubtedly a difficult one, but I do not think this difficulty is as great as is supposed" (II, 450).[*] The consciousness of this incompatibility of his desires and aspirations and the actual conditions and their development naturally stimulates the desire to prove that it is "not yet too late. . . to go back," and so forth. The romanticist tries to base himself upon the undeveloped state of the contradictions of the existing system, upon the backwardness of the country. "The nations have won a system of freedom into which we have entered" (this refers to the fall of feudalism); "but at the time they destroyed the yoke that they had borne for so long, the labourers (les hommes de peine) were not bereft of all property. In the rural districts they possessed land for a half share in the crops, were chinsh peasants (censitaires),[83] and tenant farmers (ils se trouverent associés à la propriété du sol). In the towns, as members of corporations and trade guilds (métiers) which they formed for mutual protection, they were independent tradesmen (ils se trouverent associés à la propriété de leur industrie). Only in our days, only in the most recent times (c'est dans ce moment même) is the progress of wealth and competition breaking up all these associations. But this break-up (révolution) is not yet half accomplished" (II, 437).

    "True, only one nation is in this unnatural position today; only in one nation do we see this permanent contrast between apparent wealth (richesse apparente) and the frightful poverty of a tenth of the population, which is forced to live on public charity. But this nation, so worthy of emulation in other respects, so dazzling even in its errors, has, by its example, tempted all the statesmen of the Continent. And if these reflections cannot now benefit her, I shall at least, I think, render a service to mankind and to my fellow

countrymen by pointing to the danger of the path she is following, and by showing from her own experience that to base political economy on the principle of unrestricted competition means to sacrifice the interests of mankind to the simultaneous operation of all personal passions" (II, 368).[*] That is how Sismondi concludes his Nouveaux Principes.

    The general significance of Sismondi and of his theory was distinctly formulated by Marx in the following comment, which first outlines the conditions of West-European economic life that gave rise to such a theory (and did so exactly at the time when capitalism was only just beginning to create large-scale machine industry there), and then gives an appraisal of it.[**]

    "The medieval burgesses and the small peasant proprietors were the precursors of the modern bourgeoisie. In those countries which are but little developed, industrially and commercially, these two classes still vegetate side by side with the rising bourgeoisie.

    "In countries where modern civilisation has become fully developed, a new class of petty bourgeois has been formed, fluctuating between proletariat and bourgeoisie and ever renewing itself as a supplementary part of bourgeois society. The individual members of this class, however, are being constantly hurled down into the proletariat by the action of competition, and, as modern industry develops, they even see the moment approaching when they will completely disappear as an independent section of modern society, to be replaced, in manufactures, agriculture and commerce, by overlookers, bailiffs and shopmen.

    "In countries like France, where the peasants constitute far more than half of the population, it was natural that writers who sided with the proletariat against the bourgeoisie should use, in their criticism of the bourgeois regime, the standard of the peasant and petty bourgeois, and from the standpoint of these intermediate classes should take up the

    "This doctrine dissected with great acuteness the contradictions in the conditions of modern production. It laid bare the hypocritical apologies of economists. It proved, incontrovertibly, the disastrous effects of machinery and division of labour; the concentration of capital and land in a few hands; overproduction and crises; it pointed out the inevitable ruin of the petty bourgeois and peasant, the misery of the proletariat, the anarchy in production, the crying inequalities in the distribution of wealth, the industrial war of extermination between nations, the dissolution of old moral bonds, of the old family relations, of the old nationalities.[*]

    "In its positive aims, however, this form of Socialism aspires either to restoring the old means of production and of exchange, and with them the old property relations, and the old society, or to cramping the modern means of production and of exchange, within the framework of the old property relations that have been, and were bound to be, exploded by those means. In either case, it is both reactionary and utopian.

    "Its last words are: corporate guilds for manufacture; patriarchal relations in agriculture."**

    We tried to prove that this description is correct as we examined each separate item of Sismondi's doctrine. Here let us merely note the curious trick employed by Ephrucy to crown all the blunders he made in his exposition, criticism and appraisal of romanticism. The reader will remember that at the very beginning of his article (in

 
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Russkoye Bogatstvo, No. 7), Ephrucy stated that it was "unfair" and "incorrect" to include Sismondi among the reactionaries and utopians (loc. cit., p. 138). To prove this thesis Ephrucy firstly contrived to say nothing at all about the main thing -- the connection between Sismondi's point of view and the position and interests of a special class in capitalist society, the small producers; secondly, in examining the various tenets of Sismondi's theory Ephrucy in part presented his attitude to modern theory in a totally wrong light, as we have shown above, and in part, simply ignored the modern theory and defended Sismondi with references to German scholars who "went no further" than Sismondi; thirdly and lastly, Ephrucy was pleased to sum up his appraisal of Sismondi in the following way: "Our (!) opinion of the importance of Simonde de Sismondi," he says, "we can (!!) sum up in the following words" of a German economist (Russkoye Bogatstvo, No. 8, p. 57), and then follows the passage indicated above, i.e., only a part of the characterisation given by that economist; but the part which explains the connection between Sismondi's theory and a special class in modern society, and the part where the final conclusion is drawn that Sismondi is reactionary and utopian, are omitted! More than that. Ephrucy did not confine himself to taking a fragment of the comment, which gives no idea of the comment as a whole, and thereby presenting this economist's attitude towards Sismondi in a totally wrong light; he tried, further, to embellish Sismondi, while pretending that he was merely conveying the opinion of that economist.

    "Let us add to this," says Ephrucy, "that in some of his theoretical views, Sismondi is the predecessor of the most outstanding modern economists~: let us recall his views on revenue from capital and on crises, his classification of national revenue, and so forth" (ibid.). Thus, instead of supplementing this German economist's reference to Sismondi's merits with the same economist's reference to Sismondi's petty-bourgeois point of view, and to the reactionary character of his utopia, Ephrucy supplements the list of Sismondi's merits with precisely those parts of his theory (such as his

hand, this practical problem is one of the biggest, most fundamental problems of capitalism, and on the other hand, because the two most outstanding exponents of these hostile theories have expressed their opinion on this subject.

    We are referring to the Corn Laws in England and their repeal.[85] In the second quarter of the present century this problem deeply interested not only English but also Continental economists; they all realised that this was by no means a specific problem relating to tariff policy, but the general problem of Free Trade, of free competition, of the "destiny of capitalism." It was a matter of crowning the edifice of capitalism by giving full effect to free competition; of clearing the road for the completion of that "break-up" which large-scale machine industry began in England at the end of the last century; of removing the obstacles that were hindering this "break-up" in agriculture. It was in this way that the two Continental economists of whom we intend to speak viewed the problem.

    In the second edition of his Nouveaux Principes Sismondi added a chapter specially devoted to "laws governing trade in grain" (l. III, ch. X).

    First of all, he emphasises the urgency of the problem: "Half the English people today are demanding the repeal of the Corn Laws, demanding it with extreme irritation against those who support them; but the other half are demanding that they be retained, and cry out indignantly against those who want them repealed" (I, 251).

    In examining the problem, Sismondi points out that the interests of the English farmers demanded corn tariffs to ensure them a remunerating price.* The interests of the manufacturers, however, demanded the repeal of the Corn Laws, because the manufactories could not exist without foreign markets, and the further development of English exports was being retarded by the laws, which restricted imports: "The manufactory owners added that the glut in the market was the result of these same Corn Laws; that wealthy people on the Continent could not buy their goods because they could not find a market for their corn" (I, 254).**

    We bring this explanation of the English manufacturers to the notice of those economists who brush aside the problem of the realisation of the product in capitalist society with the profound remark: "They will sell abroad."

 
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"The opening of the market to foreign corn will probably ruin the English landowners and reduce all rents to an infinitely low price. This, undoubtedly, is a great calamity, but it is not an injustice" (I, 254). And Sismondi proceeds to argue in the naïvest manner that the revenues of the landowners should be commensurate with the service (sic!!) they render "society" (capitalist?), and so forth "The farmers," continues Sismondi, "will withdraw their capital, or part at least, from agriculture."

    This argument of Sismondi's (and he contents himself with this argument) reveals the main flaw in romanticism, which does not pay sufficient attention to the process of economic development that is actually taking place. We have seen that Sismondi himself points to the gradual development and growth of capitalist farming in England. But he hastens to denounce this process instead of studying its causes. It is only this haste, the desire to thrust his innocent wishes upon history, that can explain the fact that Sismondi overlooks the general trend of capitalist development in agriculture and the inevitable acceleration of this process with the repeal of the Corn Laws, i.e., the capitalist progress of agriculture instead of its decline, which Sismondi prophesies.

    But Sismondi remains true to himself. He had no sooner approached the contradiction inherent in this capitalist process than he immediately set about naïvely "refuting" it in his endeavour to prove at all costs that the path being followed by the "English fatherland" was a wrong one.

    "What will the day labourer do?. . . Work will stop, the fields will be converted into pastures. . . . What will become of the 540,000 families who will be denied work?* Even assum-

 
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ing that they will be fit for any kind of industrial work, is there, at the present time, an industry capable of absorbing them?. . . Can a government be found that will voluntarily subject half the nation it governs to such a crisis?. . . Will those to whom the agriculturists are thus sacrificed benefit by it to any extent? After all, these agriculturists are the nearest and most reliable consumers of English manufactures. The cessation of their consumption would strike industry a blow more fatal than the closing of one of the biggest foreign markets" (255-56). The notorious "shrinking of the home market" appears upon the scene. "How much will the manufactories lose by the cessation of the consumption of the whole class of English agriculturists, who constitute nearly half the nation? How much will the manufactories lose by the cessation of the consumption of wealthy people, whose revenues from agriculture will be almost wiped out?" (267). The romanticist moves heaven and earth to prove to the manufacturers that the contradictions inherent in the development of their industry, and of their wealth, merely express their error, their short-sightedness. And to "convince" the manufacturers of the "danger" of capitalism, Sismondi dilates on the threatening competition of Polish and Russian grain (pp. 257-61). He resorts to every possible argument; he even wants to touch the pride of English men. "What will become of England's honour if the Emperor of Russia is in a position, whenever be wishes, to obtain some concession or other from her, to starve her by closing the Baltic ports?" (268). Let the reader recall how Sismondi tried to prove that the "apologists of the money power" were wrong, by contending that it was quite easy to cheat when selling. . . . Sismondi wants to "refute" the theoretical interpreters of capitalist farming by arguing that the rich farmers cannot withstand the competition of the wretched peasants (quoted above), and in the end arrives at his favourite conclusion, evidently convinced that he has proved that the

 
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path being followed by the "English fatherland" is a "wrong one." "The example of England shows us that this practice" (the development of money economy, to which Sismondi contrasts l'habitude de se fournir soi-même, "the habit of providing for oneself") "is not without its dangers" (263). "The very system of economy" (namely, capitalist farming) "is bad, rests on a dangerous foundation, and this is what one should try to change" (266).

    The concrete problem evoked by the conflict of definite interests in a definite system of economy is thus submerged in a flood of innocent wishes! But the interested parties themselves raised the issue so sharply that to confine oneself to such a "solution" (as romanticism does on all other problems) became utterly impossible.

    "But what is to be done?" Sismondi asks in despair. "Open England's ports, or close them? Doom the manufacturing or the rural workers of England to starvation and death? It is, indeed, a dreadful question; the position in which the English Cabinet finds itself is one of the most delicate that statesmen can possibly face" (260). And Sismondi again and again reverts to the "general conclusion" that the system of capitalist farming is "dangerous," that it is "dangerous to subordinate the whole of agriculture to a system of speculation." But "how it is possible, in England, to take measures, effective but at the same time gradual, such as would raise the significance (remettraient en honneur) of the small farms, when one half of the nation, employed in the manufactories, is suffering hunger and the measures they demand doom the other half of the nation, engaged in agriculture, to starvation -- I do not know. I think the Corn Laws should be considerably amended; but I advise those who are demanding their complete repeal to study the following problems carefully" (267) -- then follow the old complaints and apprehensions about the decline of agriculture, the shrinking of the home market, and so forth.

    Thus, at the very first impact with reality, romanticism suffered utter fiasco. It was obliged to issue to itself a testimonium paupertatis and itself acknowledge receipt of it. Recall how easily and simply romanticism "solved" all problems in "theory"! Protection is unwise, capitalism is a fatal blunder, the road England has taken is wrong and

 
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dangerous, production must keep in step with consumption, while industry and commerce must keep in step with agriculture, machines are advantageous only when they lead to a rise in wages or to a reduction of the working day, means of production should not be alienated from the producer, exchange must not run ahead of production, must not lead to speculation, and so on, and so forth. Romanticism countered every contradiction with an appropriate sentimental phrase, answered every question with an appropriate innocent wish, and called the sticking of these labels upon all the facts of current life a "solution" to the problems. It is not surprising that these solutions were so charmingly simple and easy: they ignored only one little circumstance -- the real interests, the conflict of which constituted the contradiction. And when the development of this contradiction brought the romanticist face to face with one of these particularly violent conflicts, such as was the struggle between the parties in England that preceded the repeal of the Corn Laws, our romanticist lost his head altogether. He felt perfectly at ease in the haze of dreams and good wishes, he so skilfully composed maxims applicable to "society" in general (but inapplicable to any historically determined system of society); but when he dropped from his world of fantasy into t he maelstrom of real life and conflict of interests, he did not even have a criterion of how concrete problems are to be solved. The habit of advancing abstract propositions and of reaching abstract solutions reduced the problem to the bare formula: which part of the population should be ruined -- the agricultural or the manufacturing? And, of course, the romanticist could not but conclude that neither part should be ruined, that it was necessary to "turn from the path" . . . but the real contradictions encompassed him so tightly that he was unable to ascend again into the haze of good wishes, and the romanticist was obliged to give an answer. Sismondi even gave two answers: first -- "I do not know"; second -- "on the one hand, it cannot but be recognised; on the other hand, it must be admitted."[86]

 
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    On January 9, 1848, Karl Marx delivered a "speech on Free Trade"[*] at a public meeting in Brussels. Unlike the romanticists, who declared that "political economy is not a science of calculation, but a science of morality," he took as the point of departure of his exposition precisely the plain and sober calculation of interests. Instead of regarding the problem of the Corn Laws as one concerning a "system" chosen by a nation or as one of legislation (as Sismondi looked upon it), the speaker began by presenting it as a conflict of interests between manufacturers and landowners, and showed how the English manufacturers tried to raise the issue as the affair of the entire nation, tried to assure the workers that they were acting in the interests of the national welfare. Unlike the romanticists, who had presented the problem in the shape of the considerations which a legislator must have in mind when carrying out the reform, the speaker reduced the problem to the conflict between the real interests of the different classes of English society. He showed that the entire problem sprang from the necessity of cheapening raw materials for the manufacturers. He described the distrust of the English workers who regarded "these self-sacrificing gentlemen, Bowring, Bright and their colleagues, as their worst enemies. . . ."

    "The manufacturers build great palaces at immense expense, in which the Anti-Corn-Law League [88] takes up, in some respects, its official residence; they send an army of missionaries to all corners of England to preach the gospel of Free Trade; they have printed and distributed gratis thousands of pamphlets to enlighten the worker upon his own interests, they spend enormous sums to make the press favourable to their cause; they organise a vast administrative system for the conduct of the Free Trade movement, and they display all their wealth of eloquence at public meetings. It was at one of these meetings that a worker cried out: 'If the landlords were to sell our bones, you manufacturers would be the first to buy them in order to put them through a steam-mill and make flour of them.' The English workers have very well understood the significance of the struggle between the landlords and the industrial capital-

 
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ists. They know very well that the price of bread was to be reduced in order to reduce wages, and that industrial profit would rise by as much as rent fell."

    Thus the very presentation of the problem is quite different from that of Sismondi. The aims the speaker set himself were, firstly, to explain the attitude of the different classes of English society towards the problem from the angle of their interests; and secondly, to throw light on the significance of the reform in the general evolution of the English social economy.

    The speaker's views on this last point coincide with those of Sismondi in that he, too, does not see in this a particular problem, but the general one of the development of capitalism in general, of "Free Trade" as a system. "The repeal of the Corn Laws in England is the greatest triumph of Free Trade in the nineteenth century."[89] ". . . By the repeal of the Corn Laws, free competition, the present social economy is carried to its extreme point."[*] Hence, the issue presents itself to these authors as a question of whether the further development of capitalism is desirable or should be retarded, whether "different paths" should be sought, and so forth. And we know that their affirmative answer to this question was indeed the solution of the general fundamental problem of the "destiny of capitalism" and not of the specific problem of the Corn Laws in England, for the point of view established here was also applied much later in relation to other countries The authors held such views in the 1840s in relation to Germany, and in relation to America,** and declared that free competi-

 
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tion was progressive for that country; with respect to Germany one of them wrote, as late as the sixties, that she suffered not only from capitalism, but also from the insufficient development of capitalism.

    Let us return to the speech we have been dealing with. We pointed to the fundamentally different point of view of the speaker, who reduced the problem to one of the interests of the different classes in English society. We see the same profound difference in his presentation of the purely theoretical problem of the significance of the repeal of the Corn Laws to the social economy. For him it is not the abstract question of which system England should adopt, what path she should choose (as the question is put by Sismondi, who forgets that England has a past and a present, which already determine that path). No, he forthwith presents the question on the basis of the present-day social and economic system; he asks himself: what must be the next step in the development of this system following the repeal of the Corn Laws?

    The difficultly involved in this question was that of determining how the repeal of the Corn Laws would affect agriculture, for as regards industry its effect was clear to everybody.

    To prove that this repeal would benefit agriculture as well, the Anti-Corn-Law League[*] offered a prize for the three best essays on the beneficial effect the repeal of the Corn Laws would have upon English agriculture. The speaker briefly outlined the views of the three prize-winners, Hope, Morse, and Greg, and at once singled out the last-named, whose essay most scientifically and most strictly followed the principles laid down by classical political economy.

    Writing mainly for big farmers, Greg, himself a big manufacturer, showed that the repeal of the Corn Laws would thrust the small farmers out of agriculture and they would turn to industry, but it would benefit the big farmers who would be able to rent land on longer leases, invest more capital in the land, employ more machines and get along with less labour, which was bound to become cheaper with the fall in the price of corn. The landlords, however, would have to be content with a lower rent because land of poorer

    But the speaker, of course, did not confine himself to recognising Greg's arguments as being the most correct. Coming from the mouth of Greg, they were the reasoning of a Free Trader who was discussing English agriculture in general, and was trying to prove that the repeal of the Corn Laws would benefit the nation as a whole. After what we have said above it is evident that these were not the views of the speaker.

 
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    He explained that a reduction in the price of corn, so glorified by the Free Traders, meant an inevitable reduction in wages, the cheapening of the commodity "labour" (more exactly: labour-power); that the drop in the price of corn would never be able to compensate the workers for the drop in wages, firstly, because with the drop in the price of corn it would be more difficult for the worker to save on the consumption of bread with a view to buying other articles; secondly, because the progress of industry cheapens articles of consumption, substituting spirits for beer, potatoes for bread, cotton for wool and linen, and, by all this, lowering the worker's standard of requirements and living.

    Thus we see that apparently the speaker establishes the elements of the problem just as Sismondi does: he too admits that the ruination of the small farmers and the impoverishment of the workers in industry and agriculture will be the inevitable consequences of Free Trade. It is here that our Narodniks, who are also distinguished for their inimitable skill in "citing," usually stop quoting "excerpts," and with complete satisfaction declare that they fully "agree." But these methods merely show that they do not understand, firstly, the tremendous difference in the presentation of the problem, which we indicated above; secondly, they overlooked the fact that it is only here that the radical difference between the new theory and romanticism begins: the romanticist turns from the concrete problems of actual development to dreams, whereas the realist takes the established facts as his criterion in definitely solving the concrete problem.

    Pointing to the forthcoming improvement in the conditions of the workers the speaker went on to say:

    "Thereupon the economists will tell you:

    " 'Well, we admit that competition among the workers, which will certainly not have diminished under Free Trade, will very soon bring wages into harmony with the low price of commodities. But, on the other hand, the low price of commodities will increase consumption, the larger consumption will require increased production, which will be followed by a larger demand for hands, and this larger demand for hands will be followed by a rise in wages.'

 
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    "The whole line of argument amounts to this: Free Trade increases productive forces. If industry keeps growing, if wealth, if the productive power, if, in a word, productive capital increases the demand for labour, the price of labour, and consequently the rate of wages, rise also. The most favourable condition for the worker is the growth of capital. This must be admitted.[*] If capital remains stationary, industry will not merely remain stationary but will decline and in this case the worker will be the first victim. He goes to the wall before the capitalist. And in the case where capital keeps growing, in the circumstances which we have said are the best for the worker, what will be his lot? He will go to the wall just the same. . . ." And quoting data given by English economists the speaker went on to explain in detail how the concentration of capital increases the division of labour, which cheapens labour-power by substituting unskilled for skilled labour, how the machines oust the workers, how big capital ruins the small industrialists and small rentiers and leads to the intensification of crises, which still further increase the number of unemployed. The conclusion he drew from his analysis was that Free Trade signifies nothing but freedom for the development of capital.

    Thus, the speaker was able to find a criterion for the solution of the problem which at first sight seemed to lead to the hopeless dilemma that brought Sismondi to a halt: both Free Trade and its restraint equally lead to the ruin of the workers. The criterion is the development of the productive forces. It was immediately evident that the problem was treated from the historical angle: instead of comparing capitalism with some abstract society as it should be (i.e., fundamentally with a utopia), the author compared it with the preceding stages of social economy, compared the different stages of capitalism as they successively replaced one another, and established the fact that the productive forces of society develop thanks to the development of capitalism. By applying scientific criticism to the arguments of the Free Traders he was able to avoid the

of the old economic life and of the old semi-patriarchal relationships in West-European countries carried through by capitalism in England and on the Continent, and indicated the social fact that under certain conditions Free Trade hastens this "break-up."* And he concluded with the words: "It is in this sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favour of Free Trade."[96]

 
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  [44] The essay "A Characterisation of Economic Romanticism" was written by Lenin while in exile in Siberia in the spring of 1897. It appeared in four issues (Nos. 7-10) of the "legal Marxist" magazine Novove Slovo (New Word ) for April-July 1897, over the signature K. T-n. It was included later in the miscellany entitled Economic Studies and Essays by Vladimir Ilyin which appeared in October 1898 (though the date given on the cover and the title-page is 1899). Early in 1908 it appeared, slightly amended and abridged, along with other items in The Agrarian Question by Vl. Ilyin. The parts of it omitted in this miscellany were section three, chapter II, "The Problem of the Growth of the Industrial Population at the Expense of the Agricultural Population," and the end of section five, chapter II, "The Reactionary Character of Romanticism." A postscript was added to chapter I.

 
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    When preparing tbe editions legally published in 1897 and 1898, Lenin was compelled for censorship reasons to substitute the term "modern theory" for "Marx's theory" and "the well-known German economist" for "Marx," "realist" for "Marxist" the word "paper" for Capital, and so on. In the 1908 edition Lenin either altered a considerable number of these expressions in the text or added the necessary footnotes. In the second and third Russian editions of the Collected Works, the corrections were given in footnotes. In the present edition the corrections have been introduced into the text.    [p.129]

  ^[45] Novoye Slovo (New Word ) -- a monthly scientific, literary and political journal, published originally in St, Petersburg from 1894 by the liberal Narodniks. In the early part of 1897 it was taken over by the "legal Marxists" (P. B. Struve, M. I. Tugan-Baranovsky, and others). Novoye Slovo published two of Lenin's articles when he was in exile in Siberia -- "A Characterisation of Economic Romanticism" and "About a Certain Newspaper Article." The journal also carried the writings of G. V. Plekhanov, V. I. Zasulich, L. Martov, A. M. Gorky, and others. In Decemher 1897 it was closed down by the tsarist government.    [p.129]

  ^[46] V. V. (pseudonym of V. P. Vorontsov) and N.-on (pseudonym of N. F. Danielson) were ideologists of liberal Narodism of the 1880s and 1890s.    [p.134]

  ^[47] Lenin refers to MacCulloch's polemical article "Mr. Owen's Plans for Relieving the National Distress," published anonymously in 1819 in The Edinburgh Review (Vol. XXXII), to which Sismondi replied. The The Edinburgh Review or Critical Journal was a scientific, literary and political journal that appeared from 1802 to 1929.    [p.149]

  ^[48] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. II, Moscow, 1957, p. 373; Vol. III, Moscow 1959, p. 821.    [p.151]

  ^[49] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. II, Moscow, 1957, pp. 351-523. [Transcriber's Note: See Part III, pp. 355-527 -- DJR].    [p.152]

  ^[50] In the 1897 and 1898 editions Lenin referred to M. I. Tugan-Baranovsky's Industrial Crises, Part II. In the 1908 edition Lenin introduced a change by referring instead to his own book, The Development of Capitalism in Russia, which appeared in 1899 (see present edition, Vol. 3).    [p.152]

  ^[51] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. II, Moscow, 1957, p. 391. [Transcriber's Note: p. 395 -- DJR].    [p.154]

 
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  ^[52] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 245.    [p.156]

  ^[53] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. II, Moscow, 1957, p. 316. [Transcriber's Note: p. 320, note 32. -- DJR].    [p.169]

  ^[54] Katheder-Socialists -- representatives of a trend in bourgeois political economy of the 1870s and 1880s who, under the guise of socialism, advocated bourgeois-liberal reformism from university chairs. (Katheder in German). The fear aroused among the exploiting classes by the spread of Marxism in the working-class movement and the growth of that movement brought Katheder-Socialism into being; it united the efforts of bourgeois ideologists to find fresh means of keeping the working people in subjugation.
    Among the Katheder-Socialists were A. Wagner, G. Schmoller, L. Brentano, and V. Sombart who asserted that the bourgeois state is above classes, can reconcile mutually hostile classes, and can gradually introduce "socialism" without affecting the interests of the capitalists but at the same time taking the demands of the working people as far as possible Into consideration. They suggested the legalisation of police-regulated wage-labour, and the revival of the medieval guilds. Marx and Engels exposed Katheder-Socialism, showing how essentially reactionary it was. Lenin called the Katheder-Socialists the bed bugs of "police-bourgeois university science" who hated Marx's revolutionary teachings. In Russia the views of the Katheder-Socialists. were advocated by the "legal Marxists."    [p.174]

  ^[55] Marx and Engels, On Britain, Moscow 1953, p. 119.    [p.180]

  ^[56] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow 1958, p. 642.    [p.180]

  ^[57] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 643.    [p.180]

  ^[58] The quotations referred to were taken from the estimation of Sismondi's petty-bourgeois socialism given in the Manifesto of the Communist Party (see Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 57). N. F. Danielson used them in his article "Something About the Conditions of Our Economic Development" in Russkoyc Bogatstvo, No. 6 1894.    [p.199]

  ^[59] Zur Kritik -- initial words of the tiltle of Marx's Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie. Lenin cites passages from P. P. Rumyantsev's Russian translation of this book published in 1896 (K. Marx, Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, Moskau-Leningrad, 1934, S 49).    [p.199]

 
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  ^[60] Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme. Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, pp. 24-25. In the 1897 and 1898 editions Lenin, in view of the censorship, did not refer directly to Marx, but to Struve. In the 1908 edition, however, he referred to Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme. This correction has been made in the present edition.    [p.203]

  ^[61] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 856, 860, 861.    [p.204]

  ^[62] p. 204 Lenin refers to Narodnik polemical articles directed against the Marxists: N. F. Danielson, "An Apology for Money Power as a Sign of the Times," published under the pseudonym Nikolai-on in Russkoye Bogatstvo, No. 1-2, 1895; V. P. Vorontsov, "German Social-Democratism and Russian Bourgeoisism," puhlished under the pseudonym V. V. in the newspaper Nedelya (Week ), Nos. 47-49, 1894.    [p.204]

  ^[63] Karl Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, Moscow, p. 55.    [p.205]

  ^[64] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 819.    [p.205]

  ^[65] G. V. Plekhanov (n. Beltov), The Development of the Monist View of History, Moscow, 1956, p. 60.    [p.207]

  ^[66] Karl Marx, Theorien über den Mehrwert, Bd. I, Hb. 2, S. 304, 1923. For pages cited here see pp. 309 and 313.    [p.207]

  ^[67] "Progressive" publicist of the late nineteenth century is an ironical relerence to the liberal Narodnik S. N. Yuzhakov. An extract from his article "Problems of Hegemony at the End of the Nineteenth Century," published in Russkaya Mysl (Russian Thought ), Nos. 3-4, 1885, was quoted by P. B. Struve.    [p.211]

  ^[68] Karl Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, Moscow, pp. 167-68. Because of the censorship Lenin substituted the word "writers" for "soclalists" (in the German original -- Sozialisten ).    [p.213]

  ^[69] Karl Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, Moscow, p. 74.    [p.216]

 
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  ^[70] Karl Marx, Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, Moskau-Leningrad, 1934, S. 85.    [p.218]

  ^[71] The village (land) comununity (obshchina or mir ) in Russia was the communal form of peasant use of the land, characterised by compulsory crop rotation, and undivided woods and pastures. Its principal features were collective responsibility, the periodical redistribution of the land with no right to refuse the allotment given, and prohihition of its purchase and sale. The Russian village community dates back to ancient times, and in the course of historical development gradually became one of the mainstays of feudalism in Russia. The landlords and the tsarist government used the village community to intensify feudal oppression and to squeeze land redemption payments and taxes out of the people. Lenin pointed out that the village community "does not save the peasant from turning into a proletarian; actually it serves as a medieval barrier dividing the peasants, who are as if chained to small associations and to categories which have lost all 'reason for existence'." (V. I. Lenin, The Agrarian Question in Russia Towards the Close of the Nineteenth Century. See present edition, Vol. 15).
    The problem of the village community aroused heated arguments and brought an extensive economic literature into existence. Particularly great interest in the village community was displayed by the Narodniks, who saw in it the guarantee of Russia's socialist evolution by a special path. By tendentiously gathering and falsifying facts and employing so-called "average figures," the Narodniks sought to prove that the community peasantry in Russia possessed a special sort of "steadfastness," and that the peasant community protected the peasants against the penetration of capitalist relations into their lives, and "saved" them from ruin and class differentlation. As early as the 1880s G. V. Plekhanov showed that the Narodnik illusions about "community socialism" were unfounded and in the 1890s Lenin completely refuted the Narodnik theories. Lenin made use of a tremendous amount of statistical material and countless facts to show how capitalist relations were developing in the Russian village, and how capital, by penetrating into the patriarchal village community, was splitting the peasantry into two antagonistic classes, the kulaks and the poor peasants.
    In 1906 tsarist minister Stolypin issued a law favouring the kulaks that allowed peasants to leave the community and to sell their allotments. This law laid the basis for the official abolition of the village community system and intensified the differentiation among the peasantry. In nine years following the adoption of the law, over two million peasant families withdrew from the communities.    [p.219]

 
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  ^[72] Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 275.    [p.222]

  ^[73] Russkaya Mysl (Russian Thought ) -- a monthly literary and political journal published in Moscow from 1880 to 1918; up to 1905 it was liberal Narodnik in trend. In the nineties, during the polemic between the Marxists and the liberal Narodniks, the editors of the journal, while adhering to the Narodnik outlook, occasionally allowed articles by Marxists to be published in its columns. Items by the progressive writers A. M. Gorky, V. G. Kprolenko; D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak, G. I. Uspensky, A. P. Chekhov, and others were published in the journal's literature section.
    After the 1905 Revolution, Russkaya Mysl became the organ of the Right wing of the Cadet Party, and was edited by P. B. Struve. It was closed down in the middle of 1918.    [p.223]

  ^[74] Kit Kitych -- the nickname of Tit Titych, a rich merchant, one of the characters in A. N. Ostrovsky's comedy Shouldering Another's Troubles. Lenin gives this epithet to the capitalist money bags.    [p.225]

  ^[75] Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party. Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 57.    [p.227]

  ^[76] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 622.    [p.228]

  ^[77] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 505.    [p.229]

  ^[78] Marx and Engels, On Britain, Moscow, 1953, pp. 1-336.    [p.229]

  ^[79] Frederick Engels, Anti-Dühring, Moscow, 1954, pp. 402-14.    [p.229]

  ^[80] Sozialpolitisches Centralblatt (Central Social-Political Sheet ) -- organ of the Right wing of German Social-Democracy. First appeared in 1892.    [p.230]

  ^[81] Marx and Engels, On Britain, Moscow, 1953, pp. 49-50.    [p.237]

  ^[82] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1956, pp. 503-04.
    In the 1897 and 1898 editions, because of the censorship, Lenin replaced the words social revolution" (der sozialen Revolution )

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by the words "social transformation." In the 1908 edition Lenin translated the words as "social revolution." This correction has been made in the present edition.    [p.245]

  ^[83] Chinsh peasants -- those entitled to the hereditary possession of the land in perpetuity, and who had to pay an almost fixed quit-rent, known as chinsh. In tsarist Russia, the chinsh system operated mainly in Poland, Lithuania, Byelorussia, and the Black Sea littoral of the Ukraine.    [p.246]

  ^[84] Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party. Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 57.    [p.248]

  ^[85] The Corn Laws, which were introduced in England in 1815, established high tariffs on imported corn, and at times prohibited corn imports. They enabled the big landowners to increase grain prices on the home market and to secure enormous rents. They also strengthened the political position of the landed aristocracy. There was a fierce and protracted struggle between the big landowners and the bourgeoisie over the Corn Laws which ended in their repeal in 1846.    [p.253]

  ^[86] "On the one hand, it cannot hut be recognised, on the other hand, it must be admitted" -- an ironical expression used by M. Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin in his stories "The Diary of a Provincial in St. Petersburg" and "Funeral."    [p.257]

  ^[87] Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, Moscow, pp. 234-53.    [p.258]

  ^[88] The Anti-Corn-Law League (this term is in English in the original) was founded in 1838 by the textile manufacturers Cobden and Bright. Its headquarters were in Manchester, the centre of the Free-Trade movement.
    The Anti-Corn-Law League, as its name indicates, fought to secure the repeal of the Corn Laws, and stood for Free Trade, demagogically asserting that it would improve the workers' standard of living, although reduced corn prices could only result in reduced wages for the workers and increased profits for the capitalists. The conflict over this issue between the industrial bourgeoisie and the landed aristocracy ended in the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. Marx's views on the anti-Corn-Law movement are given in his speech "On Free Trade" (see Appendix to The Poverty of Philosophy by Karl Marx, Moscow, pp. 234-53).    [p.258]

 
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  ^[89] Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, Moscow, p. 264.    [p.259]

  ^[90] Marx and Engels, On Britain, Moscow, 1953, p. 303.    [p.259]

  ^[91] Die Neue Zeit (New Times ) -- theoretical journal of German Social-Domocracy. Appeared in Stuttgart from 1883 to 1923. Prior to October 1917 was edited by K. Kautsky, then by H. Cunow. In 1885-95, articles by K. Marx and F. Engels appeared in its columns. Engels frequently made suggestions to the editors of Die Neue Zeit, and severely criticised them for departing from Marxism. The journal also publishcd articles by F. Mehring, P. Lafargue, G. V. Plekhanov, and other leading figures of the international working-class movement. In the late 1890s the journal made a practice of publishing articles by revisionists. During the First World War (1914-18) the journal adopted a centrist, Kautskian position in support of the social-chauvinists.    [p.259]

  ^[92] The articles mentioned by V. I. Lenin are: "The Anti-Kriege Circular" by K. Marx and F. Engels, and chapter IV, Vol. II of German Ideology, both of which appeared in Das Westphälische Dampfboot for July 1846 and August-Septemher 1847, while extracts from them were reprinted in Nos. 27 and 28 of Die Neue Zeit, 1895-96 (MEGA, Erste Abteilung, Band 6, S. 10, 11, 12, 13; Band 5, S. 500, 501, 502).
    Das Westphälische Dampfboot (Westphalian Steamer ) -- a monthly magazine, organ of one of the trends of petty-bourgeois German, or "true," socialism; was edited by O. Lüning in Bielefeld and Paderborn (Germany) from January 1845 to March 1848.    [p.259]

  ^[93] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 677-78.    [p.261]

  ^[94] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 709.    [p.261]

  ^[95] Marx and Engels, On Britain, Moscow. 1953. pp. 302-03.    [p.265]

  ^[96] Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, Moscow, p. 253.    [p.265]