What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats

What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats

Friends of the People

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

What the “Friends of the People” Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats

(A Reply to Articles in Russkoye Bogatstvo Opposing the Marxists)

Part I

Russkoye Bogatstvo [16] has launched a campaign against the Social-Democrats. Last year, in issue No. 10, one of the leading lights of this magazine, Mr. N. Mikhailovsky, announced a forthcoming “polemic” against “our so-called Marxists, or Social-Democrats.” [17] Then followed Mr. S. Krivenkos article “Our Cultural Free Lances” (No. 12), and Mr. N. Mikhailovsky’s “Literature and Life” ( Russkoye Bogatstvo , 1894. Nos. 1 and 2). As to the magazines own views on our economic realities, these have been most fully expounded by Mr. S. Yuzhakov in the article “Problems of Russia’s Economic Development” (in Nos. 11 and 12). While in general claiming to present the ideas and tactics of true “friends of the people” in their magazine, these gentlemen are arch-enemies of Social-Democracy. So let us take a closer look at these “friends of the people,” their criticism of Marxism, their ideas and their tactics.

Mr. N. Mikhailovsky devotes his attention chiefly to the theoretical principles of Marxism and therefore makes a special investigation of the materialist conception of history. After outlining in general the contents of the voluminous Marxist literature enunciating this doctrine, Mr. Mikhailovsky opens his criticism with the following tirade:

“First of all,” he says, “the question naturally arises: in which of his works did Marx expound his materialist conception of history? In Capital he gave us an example of the combination of logical force with erudition, with a scrupulous investigation of all the economic literature and of the pertinent facts. He brought to light theoretician of economic science long forgotten or unknown to anybody today, and did not overlook the most minute details in factory inspectors reports or experts evidence before various special commissions; in a word, he examined this enormous mass of factual material, partly in order to provide arguments for his economic theories and partly to illustrate them. If he has created a completely new conception of the historical process, if he has explained the whole past of mankind from a new viewpoint and has summarised all hitherto existing theories on the philosophy of history, then he has done so, of course, with equal zeal: he has, indeed, reviewed and subjected to critical analysis all the known theories of the historical process, and worked over a mass of facts of world history. The comparison with Darwin, so customary in Marxist literature, serves still more to confirm this idea. What does Darwin’s whole work amount to? Certain closely interconnected generalising ideas crowning a veritable Mont Blanc of factual material. But where is the appropriate work by Marx? It does not exist. And not only does no such work by Marx exist, but there is none to be found in all Marxist literature, despite its voluminous and extensive character.”

The whole tirade is highly characteristic and helps us to understand how little the public understand Capital and Marx. Overwhelmed by the tremendously convincing way he states his case, they bow and scrape before Marx, laud him, and at the same time entirely lose sight of the basic content of his doctrine and quite calmly continue to sing the old songs of “subjective sociology.” In this connection one cannot help recalling the very apt epigraph Kautsky selected for his book on the economic teachings of Marx:

Wer wird nicht einen Klopstock loben? Doch wird ihn jeder lesen? Nein. Wir wollen weniger erhoben, Und fleissiger gelesen sein! [1]

Just so! Mr. Mikhailovsky should praise Marx less and read him more diligently, or, better still, give more serious thought to what he is reading.

“In Capital Marx gave us an example of the combination of logical force with erudition,” says Mr. Mikhailovsky. In this phrase Mr. Mikhailovsky has given us an example of a brilliant phrase combined with lack of substance—a certain Marxist observed. And the observation is a very just one. How, indeed, did this logical force of Marx’s manifest itself? What were its effects? Reading the above tirade by Mr. Mikhailovsky, one might think that this force was concentrated entirely on “economic theories,” in the narrowest sense of the term—and nothing more. And in order to emphasise still further the narrow limits of the field in which Marx manifested the force of his logic, Mr. Mikhailovsky lays stress on “most minute details,” on “scrupulosity,” on “theoreticians unknown to anybody” and so forth. It would appear that Marx contributed nothing essentially new or noteworthy to the methods of constructing these theories, that he left the bounds of economic science where the earlier economists had them, without extending them, without contributing a “completely new” conception of the science itself. Yet anybody who has read Capital knows that this is absolutely untrue. In this connection one cannot but recall what Mr. Mikhailovsky wrote about Marx sixteen years ago when arguing with that vulgar bourgeois, Mr. Y. Zhukovsky. [18] Perhaps the times were different, perhaps sentiments were fresher—at any rate, both the tone and the content of Mr. Mikhailovsky’s article were then entirely different.

“‘...It is the ultimate aim of this work, to lay bare the law of development (in the original: das oekonomische Bewegungsgesetz —the economic law of motion) of modern society,’ Karl Marx says in reference to his Capital , and he adheres strictly to this programme.” This is what Mr. Mikhailovsky said in 1877. Let us examine this programme more closely, which—as the critic admits—has been strictly adhered to. It is “to lay bare the economic law of development of modern society.”

The very formulation confronts us with several questions that require explanation. Why does Marx speak of “modern” society, when all the economists who preceded him spoke of society in general? In what sense does he use the word “modern,” by what features does he distinguish this modern society? And further, what is meant by the economic law of motion of society? We are accustomed to hear from economists—and this, by the way, is one of the favourite ideas of the publicists and economists of the milieu to which the Russkoye Bogatstvo belongs—that only the production of values is subject to solely economic laws, whereas distribution, they declare, depends on politics, on the nature of the influence exercised on society by the government, the intelligentsia and so forth. In what sense, then, does Marx speak of the economic law of motion of society, even referring to this law as a Naturgesetz —a law of nature? How are we to understand this, when so many of our native sociologists have covered reams of paper to show that social phenomena are particularly distinct from the phenomena of natural history, and that therefore the investigation of the former requires the employment of an absolutely distinct “subjective method in sociology.”

All these perplexities arise naturally and necessarily, and, of course, only an absolute ignoramus would evade them when speaking of Capital . To elucidate these questions, we shall first quote one more passage from the same Preface to Capital —only a few lines lower down:

“[From] my standpoint,” says Marx, “the evolution of the economic formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history.” [19]

It will be sufficient to compare, say, the two passages just quoted from the Preface in order to see that it is here that we have the basic idea of Capital , pursued, as we have heard, with strict consistency and with rare logical force. First let us note two circumstances regarding all this: Marx speaks of one “economic formation of society” only, the capitalist formation, that is, he says that he investigated the law of development of this formation only and of no other. That is the first. And secondly, let us note the methods Marx used in working out his deductions. These methods consisted, as we have just heard from Mr. Mikhailovsky, in a “scrupulous investigation of the pertinent facts.”

Now let us examine this basic idea of Capital , which our subjective philosopher so adroitly tried to evade. In what, properly speaking, does the concept of the economic formation of society consist? and in what sense can and must the development of such a formation be regarded as a process of natural history?—such are the questions that now confront us. I have already pointed out that from the standpoint of the old (not old for Russia) economists and sociologists, the concept of the economic formation of society is entirely superfluous: they talk of society in general, they argue with the Spencers about the nature of society in general, about the aim and essence of society in general, and so forth. In their reasonings, these subjective sociologists rely on arguments such as—the aim of society is to benefit all its members, that justice, therefore, demands such and such an organisation, and that a system that is out of harmony with this ideal organisation (“Sociology must start with some utopia”—these words of Mr. Mikhailovsky’s, one of the authors of the subjective method, splendidly typify the essence of their methods) is abnormal and should be set aside. “The essential task of sociology,” Mr. Mikhailovsky, for instance, argues, “is to ascertain the social conditions under which any particular requirement of human nature is satisfied.” As you see, what interests this sociologist is only a society that satisfies human nature, and not at all some strange formations of society, which, moreover, may be based on a phenomenon so out of harmony with “human nature” as the enslavement of the majority by the minority. You also see that from the standpoint of this sociologist there can be no question of regarding the development of society as a process of natural history. (“Having accepted something as desirable or undesirable, the sociologist must discover the conditions under which the desirable can be realised, or the undesirable eliminated”—“under which such and such ideals can be realised”—this same Mr. Mikhailovsky reasons.) What is more, there can be no talk even of development, but only of various deviations from the “desirable,” of “defects” that have occurred in history as a result ... as a result of the fact that people were not clever enough, were unable properly to understand what human nature demands, were unable to discover the conditions for the realisation of such a rational system. It is obvious that Marx’s basic idea that the development of the social-economic formations is a process of natural history cuts at the very root of this childish morality which lays claim to the title of sociology. By what means did Marx arrive at this basic idea? He did so by singling out the economic sphere from the various spheres of social life, by singling out production relations from all social relations as being basic, primary, determining all other relations. Marx himself has described the course of his reasoning on this question as follows:

“The first work which I undertook for a solution of the doubts which assailed me was a critical review of the Hegelian philosophy of right.... [20] My investigation led to the result that legal relations as well as forms of state are to be grasped neither from themselves nor from the so-called general development of the human mind, but rather have their roots in the material conditions of life, the sum-total of which Hegel, following the example of the Englishmen and Frenchmen of the eighteenth century, combines under the name of civil society, that, however, the anatomy of civil society is to be sought in political economy.... The general result at which I arrived ... can be briefly formulated as follows: in the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations ... relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum-total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or—what is but a legal expression for the same thing—with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations, a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the conditions of production, which should be established in terms of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic—in short, ideological—forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production. ... In broad outlines Asiatic, ancient, feudal, and modern bourgeois modes of production can be designated as progressive epochs in the economic formation of society.” [21]

This idea of materialism in sociology was in itself a stroke of genius. Naturally, for the time being it was only a hypothesis, but one which first created the possibility of a strictly scientific approach to historical and social problems. Hitherto, not knowing how to get down to the simplest primary relations such as those of production, the sociologists undertook the direct investigation and study of political and legal forms, stumbled on the fact that these forms emerge from certain of mankind’s ideas in the period in question—and there they stopped; it appeared as if social relations are consciously established by men. But this conclusion, fully expressed in the idea of the Contract social [22] (traces of which are very noticeable in all systems of utopian socialism), was in complete contradiction to all historical observations. It never has been the case, nor is it so now, that the members of society conceive the sum-total of the social relations in which they live as something definite, integral, pervaded by some principle; on the contrary, the mass of people adapt themselves to these relations unconsciously, and have so little conception of them as specific historical social relations that, for instance, an explanation of the exchange relations under which people have lived for centuries was found only in very recent times. Materialism removed this contradiction by carrying the analysis deeper, to the origin of mans social ideas themselves; and its conclusion that the course of ideas depends on the course of things is the only one compatible with scientific psychology. Further, and from yet another aspect, this hypothesis was the first to elevate sociology to the level of a science. Hitherto, sociologists had found it difficult to distinguish the important and the unimportant in the complex network of social phenomena (that is the root of subjectivism in sociology) and had been unable to discover any objective criterion for such a demarcation. Materialism provided an absolutely objective criterion by singling out “production relations” as the structure of society, and by making it possible to apply to these relations that general scientific criterion of recurrence whose applicability to sociology the subjectivists denied. So long as they confined themselves to ideological social relations (i.e., such as, before taking shape, pass through mans consciousness [2] ) they could not observe recurrence and regularity in the social phenomena of the various countries, and their science was at best only a description of these phenomena, a collection of raw material. The analysis of material social relations (i.e., of those that take shape without passing through mans consciousness: when exchanging products men enter into production relations without even realising that there is a social relation of production here)—the analysis of material social relations at once made it possible to observe recurrence and regularity and to generalise the systems of the various countries in the single fundamental concept: social formation . It was this generalisation alone that made it possible to proceed from the description of social phenomena (and their evaluation from the standpoint of an ideal) to their strictly scientific analysis, which isolates, let us say by way of example, that which distinguishes one capitalist country from another and investigates that which is common to all of them.

Thirdly, and finally, another reason why this hypothesis for the first time made a scientific sociology possible was that only the reduction of social relations to production relations and of the latter to the level of the productive forces, provided a firm basis for the conception that the development of formations of society is a process of natural history. And it goes without saying that without such a view there can be no social science. (The subjectivists, for instance, although they admitted that historical phenomena conform to law, were incapable of regarding their evolution as a process of natural history, precisely because they came to a halt before mans social ideas and aims and were unable to reduce them to material social relations.)

Then, however, Marx, who had expressed this hypothesis in the forties, set out to study the factual ( nota bene ) material. He took one of the social-economic formations—the system of commodity production—and on the basis of a vast mass of data (which he studied for not less than twenty five years) gave a most detailed analysis of the laws governing the functioning of this formation and its development. This analysis is confined exclusively to production relations between members of society: without ever resorting to features outside the sphere of these production relations for an explanation, Marx makes it possible to discern how the commodity organisation of social economy develops, how it becomes transformed into capitalist organisation, creating antagonistic classes (antagonistic within the bounds of production relations), the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, how it develops the productivity of social labour, and thereby introduces an element that becomes irreconcilably contradictory to the foundations of this capitalist organisation itself.

Such is the skeleton of Capital. The whole point, however, is that Marx did not content himself with this skeleton, that he did not confine himself to “economic theory” in the ordinary sense of the term, that, while explaining the structure and development of the given formation of society exclusively through production relations, he nevertheless everywhere and incessantly scrutinised the superstructure corresponding to these production relations and clothed the skeleton in flesh and blood. The reason Capital has enjoyed such tremendous success is that this book by a “German economist” showed the whole capitalist social formation to the reader as a living thing—with its everyday aspects, with the actual social manifestation of the class antagonism inherent in production relations, with the bourgeois political superstructure that protects the rule of the capitalist class, with the bourgeois ideas of liberty, equality and so forth, with the bourgeois family relationships. It will now be clear that the comparison with Darwin is perfectly accurate: Capital is nothing but “certain closely interconnected generalising ideas crowning a veritable Mont Blanc of factual material.” And if anybody has read Capital and contrived not to notice these generalising ideas, it is not the fault of Marx, who, as we have seen, pointed to these ideas even in the preface. And that is not all; such a comparison is correct not only from the external aspect (which for some unknown reason particularly interests Mr. Mikhailovsky), but also from the internal aspect. Just as Darwin put an end to the view of animal and plant species being unconnected, fortuitous, “created by God” and immutable, and was the first to put biology on an absolutely scientific basis by establishing the mutability and the succession of species, so Marx put an end to the view of society being a mechanical aggregation of individuals which allows of all sorts of modification at the will of the authorities (or, if you like, at the will of society and the government) and which emerges and changes casually, and was the first to put sociology on a scientific basis by establishing the concept of the economic formation of society as the sum-total of given production relations, by establishing the fact that the development of such formations is a process of natural history.

Now—since the appearance of Capital—the materialist conception of history is no longer a hypothesis, but a scientifically proven proposition. And until we get some other attempt to give a scientific explanation of the functioning and development of some formation of society—formation of society, mind you, and not the way of life of some country or people, or even class, etc.—another attempt just as capable of introducing order into the “pertinent facts” as materialism is, that is just as capable of presenting a living picture of a definite formation, while giving it a strictly scientific explanation—until then the materialist conception of history will be a synonym for social science. Materialism is not “primarily a scientific conception of history,” as Mr. Mikhailovsky thinks, but the only scientific conception of it.

And now, can you imagine anything funnier than the fact that there are people who have read Capital without discovering any materialism there! Where is it?—asks Mr, Mikhailovsky in sincere perplexity.

He has read the Communist Manifesto and failed to notice that the explanation it gives of modern systems—legal, political, family, religious and philosophical—is a materialist one, and that even the criticism of the socialist and communist theories seeks and finds their roots in such and such production relations.

He has read The Poverty of Philosophy and failed to notice that its analysis of Proudhon’s sociology is made from the materialist standpoint, that the criticism of the solution propounded by Proudhon’s for the most diverse historical problems is based on the principles of materialism, and that the authors own indications as to where the data for the solution of these problems are to be sought all amount to references to production relations.

He has read Capital and failed to notice that he had before him a model of scientific, materialist analysis of one—the most complex—formation of society, a model recognised by all and surpassed by none. And here he sits and exercises his mighty brain over the profound problem: “In which of his works did Marx expound his materialist conception of history?”

Anybody acquainted with Marx would answer this question by another: in which of his works did Marx not expound his materialist conception of history? But Mr. Mikhailovsky will probably learn of Marx’s materialist investigations only when they are classified and properly indexed in some sophistical work on history by some Kareyev under the heading “Economic Materialism.”

But the funniest of all is that Mr. Mikhailovsky accuses Marx of not having “reviewed ( sic !) all the known theories of the historical process.” This is amusing indeed. Of what did nine-tenths of these theories consist? Of purely a priori , dogmatic, abstract discourses on: what is society, what is progress? and the like. (I purposely take examples which are dear to the heart and mind of Mr. Mikhailovsky.) But, then, such theories are useless because of the very fact that they exist, they are useless because of their basic methods, because of their solid unrelieved metaphysics. For, to begin by asking what is society and what is progress, is to begin at the end. Where will you get a conception of society and progress in general if you have not studied a single social formation in particular, if you have not even been able to establish this conception, if you have not even been able to approach a serious factual investigation, an objective analysis of social relations of any kind? This is a most obvious symptom of metaphysics, with which every science began: as long as people did not know how to set about studying the facts, they always invented a priori general theories, which were always sterile. The metaphysician-chemist, still unable to make a factual investigation of chemical processes, concocts a theory about chemical affinity as a force. The metaphysician-biologist talks about the nature of life and the vital force. The metaphysician-psychologist argues about the nature of the soul. Here it is the method itself that is absurd. You cannot argue about the soul without having explained psychical processes in particular: here, progress must consist precisely in abandoning general theories and philosophical discourses about the nature of the soul, and in being able to put the study of the facts about particular psychical processes on a scientific footing. Therefore, Mr. Mikhailovsky’s accusation is exactly similar to that of a metaphysician-psychologist, who has spent all his life writing “investigations” into the nature of the soul (without knowing exactly how to explain a single psychical phenomenon, even the simplest), and then starts accusing a scientific psychologist of not having reviewed all the known theories of the soul. He, the scientific psychologist, has discarded philosophical theories of the soul and set about making a direct study of the material substratum of psychical phenomena—the nervous processes—and has produced, let us say, an analysis and explanation of some one or more psychological processes. And our metaphysician-psychologist reads this work and praises it: the description of the processes and the study of the facts, he says, are good; but he is not satisfied. “Pardon me,” he exclaims excitedly, hearing people around him speak of the absolutely new conception of psychology produced by this scientist, of his special method of scientific psychology. “Pardon me,” the philosopher cries heatedly, “in what work is this method expounded? Why, this work contains nothing but facts. There is no trace in it of a review of all the known philosophical theories of the soul. It is not the appropriate work at all!”

In the same way, of course, neither is Capital the appropriate work for a metaphysician-sociologist who does not realise the sterility of a priori arguments about the nature of society and does not understand that such methods, instead of contributing to a study and elucidation of the problem, only serve to insinuate into the concept “society” either the bourgeois ideas of the British shopkeeper or the petty-bourgeois socialist ideals of the Russian democrat—and nothing more. That is why all these theories of the philosophy of history arose and burst like soap-bubbles, being at best a symptom of the social ideas and relations of their time, and not advancing one hairs breadth mans understanding of even a few, but real, social relations (and not such as “harmonise with human nature”). The gigantic step forward taken by Marx in this respect consisted precisely in that he discarded all these arguments about society and progress in general and produced a scientific analysis of one society and of one progress—capitalist. And Mr. Mikhailovsky blames him for beginning at the beginning and not at the end, for having begun with an analysis of the facts and not with final conclusions, with a study of particular, historically-determined social relations and not with general theories about what these social relations consist of in general! And he asks: “Where is the appropriate work?” O, most wise subjective sociologist!!

If our subjective philosopher had confined himself to mere perplexity as to where, in which work, materialism is substantiated, it would not have been so bad. But, despite the fact that he did not find even an exposition, let alone a substantiation, of the materialist conception of history anywhere (and maybe just because he did not), he begins to ascribe to this doctrine claims which it has never made. He quotes a passage from Blos to the effect that Marx proclaimed an entirely new conception of history, and without further ado goes on to declare that this theory claims to have “explained to mankind its past,” to have explained “the whole ( sic !!?) past of mankind,” and so on. But this is utterly false! The theory only claims to explain the capitalist social organisation, and no other. If the application of materialism to the analysis and explanation of one social formation yielded such brilliant results, it is quite natural that materialism in history already ceases to be a mere hypothesis and becomes a scientifically tested theory; it is quite natural that the necessity for such a method extends to other social formations, even though they have not been subjected to special factual investigation and detailed analysis—just as the idea of transformism, which has been proved in relation to quite a large number of facts, is extended to the whole realm of biology, even though it has not yet been possible to establish with precision the fact of their transformation for certain species of animals and plants. And just as transformism does not at all claim to explain the “whole” history of the formation of species, but only to place the methods of this explanation on a scientific basis, so materialism in history has never claimed to explain everything, but merely to indicate the “only scientific,” to use Marx’s expression ( Capital ), method of explaining history. [23] One may therefore judge how ingenious, earnest and seemly are the methods of controversy employed by Mr. Mikhailovsky when he first misrepresents Marx by ascribing to materialism in history the absurd claims of “explaining everything,” of finding “the key to all historical locks” (claims which were, of course, refuted by Marx immediately and in very biting style in his “Letter” [24] on Mikhailovsky’s articles), then pulls faces at these claims of his own invention, and, finally, accurately citing Engels’ ideas—accurately because in this case a quotation and not a paraphrase is given—to the effect that political economy as understood by the materialists “has still to be brought into being” and that “such economic science as we possess up to the present is limited almost exclusively to” the history of capitalist society [25] —draws the conclusion that “these words greatly narrow the field of operation of economic materialism”! What infinite naïlveté, or what infinite conceit a man must have to count on such tricks passing unnoticed! First he misrepresents Marx, then pulls faces at his own pack of lies, then accurately cites precise ideas—and now has the insolence to declare that they narrow the field of operation of economic materialism!

The kind and quality of Mr. Mikhailovsky’s twisting may be seen from the following example: “Marx nowhere substantiates them”—i.e., the foundations of the theory of economic materialism—says Mr. Mikhailovsky. “True, Marx and Engels thought of writing a work dealing with the history of philosophy and the philosophy of history, and even did write one (in 1845-1846), but it was never published. [26] Engels says: The finished portion [of this work] consists of an exposition of the materialist conception of history which proves only how incomplete our knowledge of economic history still was at that time. Thus,” concludes Mr. Mikhailovsky, “the fundamental points of scientific socialism and of the theory of economic materialism were discovered, and were then expounded in the Manifesto , at a time when, as one of the authors himself admits, they were poorly equipped with the knowledge needed for such a work.”

A charming way of criticising, is it not? Engels says that their knowledge of economic “history” was poor and that for this reason they did not publish their work of a “general” character on the history of philosophy. Mr. Mikhailovsky garbles this to make it mean that their knowledge was poor “for such a work” as the elaboration of “the fundamental points of scientific socialism,” that is, of a scientific criticism of the “bourgeois” system, already given in the Manifesto . One of two things: either Mr. Mikhailovsky cannot grasp the difference between an attempt to embrace the whole philosophy of history, and an attempt to explain the bourgeois regime scientifically, or he imagines that Marx and Engels possessed insufficient knowledge for a criticism of political economy. In that case, it is very cruel of him not to acquaint us with his views on this insufficiency, and with his amendments and additions. The decision by Marx and Engels not to publish their work on the history of philosophy and to concentrate all their efforts on a scientific analysis of one social organisation is only indicative of a very high degree of scientific conscientiousness. Mr. Mikhailovsky’s decision to twist this by the little addition that Marx and Engels expounded their views while themselves confessing that their knowledge was inadequate to elaborate them, is only indicative of methods of controversy which testify neither to intellect nor to a sense of decency.

Here is another sample: “More was done by Marx’s alter ego, Engels, to substantiate economic materialism as a theory of history,” says Mr. Mikhailovsky. “He wrote a special historical work, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State in the Light of ( im Anschluss ) the Researches of Morgan . This Anschluss is truly noteworthy. The book of the American Morgan appeared many years after Marx and Engels had announced the principles of economic materialism and entirely independently of it.” And then, says Mikhailovsky “the economic materialists associated themselves” with this book; moreover, since there was no class struggle in prehistoric times, they introduced an “amendment” to the formula of the materialist conception of history indicating that, in addition to the production of material values, a determining factor is the production of man himself, i.e., procreation, which played a primary role in the primitive era, when the productivity of labour was still very undeveloped.

Engels says that “Morgan’s great merit lies in having ... found in the groups based on ties of sex of the North American Indians the key to the most important, hitherto insoluble, riddles of the earliest Greek, Roman and German history.” [27]

“And so,” quoth Mr. Mikhailovsky in this connection, “at the end of the forties an absolutely new, materialist and truly scientific conception of history was discovered and proclaimed, and it did for historical science what Darwin’s theory did for modern natural science.” But this conception—Mr. Mikhailovsky once more repeats—was never scientifically substantiated. “Not only was it never tested in a large and varied field of factual material” ( Capital is “not the appropriate” work: it contains only facts and painstaking investigations!), “but was not even sufficiently motivated by at least a criticism and exclusion of other systems of the philosophy of history.” Engels’ book— Herrn E. Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft [3] —represents “only witty attempts made in passing,” and Mr. Mikhailovsky therefore considers it possible to ignore completely the mass of essential questions dealt with in that work, despite the fact that these “witty attempts” very wittily show the emptiness of sociologies which “start with utopias,” and despite the fact that this work contains a detailed criticism of the “force theory,” which asserts that political and legal systems determine economic systems and is so zealously professed by the gentlemen who write in Russkoye Bogatstvo . Of course, it is much easier, is it not, to utter a few meaningless phrases about a work than to make a serious examination of even one of the problems materialistically solved in it. And it is also safe, for the censor will probably never pass a translation of that book, and Mr. Mikhailovsky may, without fear for his subjective philosophy, call it a witty book.

Even more characteristic and edifying (as an illustration to the saying that man was given a tongue to conceal his thoughts—or to lend vacuity the form of thought) are his comments on Marx’s Capital : “There are brilliant pages of history in Capital , but” (that wonderful “but”! It is not so much a “but,” as that famous “ mais ,” which translated into Russian means “the ears never grow higher than the forehead”) “by virtue of the very purpose of the book they are devoted to only one definite historical period, and not so much affirm the basic propositions of economic materialism as simply touch on the economic aspect of a certain group of historical phenomena.” In other words, Capital —which is devoted solely to a study of capitalist society—gives a materialist analysis of that society and its superstructures, “but” Mr. Mikhailovsky prefers to pass over this analysis. It deals, don’t you see, with only “one” period, whereas he, Mr. Mikhailovsky, wants to embrace all periods, and to embrace them in such a way as not to speak of any one of them in particular. Of course, there is only one way to achieve this aim—i.e., to embrace all periods without practically dealing with any one of them, and that is by uttering commonplaces and phrases, “brilliant” and empty. And nobody can compare with Mr. Mikhailovsky in the art of dismissing matters with phrases. It seems that it is not worth dealing (separately) with Marx’s investigations because he, Marx, “not so much affirms the basic propositions of economic materialism as simply touches on the economic aspect of a certain group of historical phenomena.” What profundity! “Does not affirm,” but “simply touches on”! How simple it really is to obscure any issue by phrase-mongering! For instance, when Marx repeatedly shows how civil equality, free contract and similar principles of the law-governed state are based on relations among commodity producers—what is that? Does he thereby affirm materialism, or “simply” touch on it. With his characteristic modesty, our philosopher refrains from replying on the substance of the matter and directly draws conclusions from his “witty attempts” to talk brilliantly and say nothing.

“No wonder,” the conclusion runs, “that forty years after the announcement of the theory which claimed to elucidate world history, ancient Greek, Roman and German history were still unsolved riddles for it; and the key to these riddles was provided, firstly, by a man who had absolutely no connection with the theory of economic materialism and knew nothing about it, and, secondly, with the help of a factor which was not economic. A rather amusing impression is produced by the term production of man himself, i.e., procreation, which Engels seizes upon in order to preserve at least a verbal connection with the basic formula of economic materialism. He was, however, obliged to admit that for many ages the life of mankind did not proceed in accordance with this formula.” Your method of controversy is indeed a “wonder,” Mr. Mikhailovsky. The theory was that in order to “elucidate” history one must seek the foundations not in ideological, but in material social relations. Lack of factual material made it impossible to apply this method to an analysis of certain very important phenomena in ancient European history—for instance, that of gentile organisation [28] —which in consequence remained a riddle. [4] But then, the wealth of material collected by Morgan in America enabled him to analyse the nature of gentile organisation; and he came to the conclusion that its explanation must be sought not in ideological (e.g., legal or religious), but in material relations. Obviously, this fact is a brilliant confirmation of the materialist method, and nothing more. And when Mr. Mikhailovsky flings the reproach at this doctrine that, firstly, the key to very difficult historical riddles was found by a man “who had absolutely no connection” with the theory of economic materialism, one can only wonder at the degree to which people can fail to distinguish what speaks in their favour from what severely trounces them. Secondly—argues our philosopher—procreation is not an economic factor. But where have you read in the works of Marx or Engels that they necessarily spoke of economic materialism? When they described their world outlook they called it simply materialism. Their basic idea (quite definitely expressed, for instance, in the passage from Marx quoted above) was that social relations are divided into material and ideological. The latter merely constitute a superstructure on the former, which take shape independent of the will and consciousness of man as (the result) the form of mans activity to maintain his existence. The explanation of political and legal forms—Marx says in the passage quoted—must be sought in “the material conditions of life.” Mr. Mikhailovsky surely does not think that procreation relations are ideological? The explanation given by Mr. Mikhailovsky in this connection is so characteristic that it deserves to be dwelt on. “However much we exercise our ingenuity on the question of procreation,” says he, “and endeavour to establish at least a verbal connection between it and economic materialism, however much it may be interwoven in the complex web of phenomena of social life with other, including economic, phenomena, it has its own physiological and psychical roots.” (Are you telling babes and sucklings, Mr. Mikhailovsky, that procreation has physiological roots!? Who do you think you are fooling?) “And this reminds us that the theoreticians of economic materialism failed to settle accounts not only with history, but also with psychology. There can be no doubt that gentile ties have lost their significance in the history of civilised countries, but this can hardly be said with the same assurance of directly sexual and family ties. They have, of course, undergone considerable modification under the pressure of the increasing complexity of life in general, but with a certain amount of dialectical dexterity it might be shown that not only legal, but also economic relations themselves constitute a superstructure on sexual and family relations. We shall not dwell on this, but nevertheless would at least point to the institution of inheritance.”

At last our philosopher has been lucky enough to leave the sphere of empty phrase-mongering [5] and approach facts, definite facts, which can be verified and make it less easy to “fool” people about the essence of the matter. Let us then see how our critic of Marx shows that the institution of inheritance is a superstructure on sexual and family relations. “What is transmitted by inheritance, argues Mr. Mikhailovsky, “is the products of economic production” (“the products of economic production”!! How literate! How sonorous! What elegant language!) “and the very institution of inheritance is to a certain degree determined by the fact of economic competition. But, firstly, non-material values are also transmitted by inheritance—as expressed in the concern to bring up children in the spirit of their fathers.” So the upbringing of children is part of the institution of inheritance! The Russian Civil Code, for example, contains a clause saying that “parents must endeavour by home upbringing to train their” (i.e., their childrens) “morals and to further the aims of government.” Is this what our philosopher calls the institution of inheritance?—“and, secondly, even confining ourselves solely to the economic sphere, if the institution of inheritance is inconceivable without the products of production transmitted by inheritance, it is just as unthinkable without the products of procreation, without them and without that complex and intense psychology which directly adheres to them.” (Do pay attention to the language: a complex psychology “adheres to” the products of procreation! That is really exquisite!) And so, the institution of inheritance is a superstructure on family and sexual relations, because inheritance is inconceivable without procreation! Why, this is a veritable discovery of America! Until now everybody believed that procreation can explain the institution of inheritance just as little as the necessity for taking food can explain the institution of property. Until now everybody thought that if, for instance, in the era when the fief system [29] nourished in Russia, the land was not transmissible by inheritance (because it was regarded as conditional property only), the explanation was to be sought in the peculiarities of the social organisation of the time. Mr. Mikhailovsky presumably thinks that the explanation of the matter is simply that the psychology which adhered to the products of procreation of the fief holder of that time was distinguished by insufficient complexity.

Scratch the “friend of the people”—we may say, paraphrasing the familiar saying—and you will find a bourgeois. Really, what other meaning can attach to Mr. Mikhailovsky’s reflections on the connection between the institution of inheritance and the upbringing of children, the psychology of procreation, and so on, except that the institution of inheritance is just as eternal, essential and sacred as the upbringing of children? True, Mr. Mikhailovsky tried to leave himself a loophole by declaring that “the institution of inheritance is to a certain degree determined by the fact of economic competition,” but that is nothing but an attempt to avoid giving a definite answer to the question, and a futile attempt at that. How can we give this statement our consideration when we are not told a single word as to exactly what “certain degree” inheritance depends on competition, and when absolutely no explanation is given on what in fact gives rise to this connection between competition and the institution of inheritance? Actually, the institution of inheritance presumes the existence of private property, and the latter arises only with the appearance of exchange. Its basis is in the already incipient specialisation of social labour and the alienation of products on the market. So long, for instance, as all the members of the primitive American Indian community produced in common all the articles they required, private property was impossible. But when division of labour invaded the community and its members proceeded, individually, to engage in the production of some one article and to sell it on the market, this material isolation of the commodity producers found expression in the institution of private property. Both private property and inheritance are categories of a social order in which separate, small (monogamous) families have already been formed and exchange has begun to develop. Mr. Mikhailovsky’s example proves exactly the opposite of what he wanted to prove.

Mr. Mikhailovsky gives another factual reference—and this too is a gem in its way! “As regards gentile ties,” he says, continuing to put materialism right, “they paled in the history of civilised peoples partly, it is true, under the rays of the influence of the forms of production” (another subterfuge, only more obvious still. Exactly what forms of production? An empty phrase!), “but partly they became dissolved in their own continuation and generalisation—in national ties.” And so, national ties are a continuation and generalisation of gentile ties! Mr. Mikhailovsky, evidently, borrows his ideas on the history of society from the tales taught to school children. The history of society—this copybook maxim runs—is that first there was the family, that nucleus of every society, [6] then—we are told—the family grew into the tribe, and the tribe grew into the state. If Mr. Mikhailovsky with a solemn air repeats this childish nonsense, it merely shows—apart from everything else— that he has not the slightest notion of the course taken even by Russian history. While one might speak of gentile life in ancient Rus, there can be no doubt that by the Middle Ages, the era of the Moscovite tsars, these gentile ties no longer existed, that is to say, the state was based on associations that were not gentile at all, but local: the landlords and the monasteries acquired peasants from various localities, and the communities thus formed were purely territorial associations. But one could hardly speak of national ties in the true sense of the term at that time: the state split into separate “lands,” sometimes even principalities, which preserved strong traces of the former autonomy, peculiarities of administration, at times their own troops (the local boyars went to war at the head of their own companies), their own tariff frontiers, and so forth. Only the modern period of Russian history (approximately from the seventeenth century) is characterised by the actual amalgamation of all such regions, lands and principalities into one whole. This amalgamation, most esteemed Mr. Mikhailovsky, was brought about not by gentile ties, nor even by their continuation and generalisation: it was brought about by the increasing exchange among regions, the gradually growing circulation of commodities, and the concentration of the small local markets into a single, all-Russian market. Since the leaders and masters of this process were the merchant capitalists, the creation of these national ties was nothing else than the creation of bourgeois ties. By both his factual references Mr. Mikhailovsky has only belaboured himself and given us nothing but examples of bourgeois banality; “banality,” because he explained the institution of inheritance by procreation and its psychology, and nationality by gentile ties; “bourgeois,” because he took the categories and superstructures of one historically definite social formation (that based on exchange) for categories as general and eternal as the upbringing of children and “directly” sexual ties.

What is highly characteristic here is that as soon as our subjective philosopher tried to pass from phrases to concrete facts he got himself into a mess. And apparently he feels very much at ease in this not over-clean position: there he sits, preening himself and splashing filth all around him. He wants, for instance, to refute the thesis that history is a succession of episodes of the class struggle, and so, declaring with an air of profundity that this is “extreme,” be says: “The International Working Mens Association, [30] formed by Marx and organised for the purposes of the class struggle, did not prevent the French and German workers from cutting each others throats and despoiling each other”—something, he avers, which proves that materialism has not settled accounts “with the demon of national vanity and national hatred.” Such an assertion reveals the critics utter failure to understand that the very real interests of the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie constitute the principal basis of this hatred, and that to talk of national sentiment as an independent factor is only to obscure the essence of the matter. Incidentally, we have already seen what a profound idea of nationality our philosopher has. Mr. Mikhailovsky cannot refer to the International except with the irony of a Burenin. [31] “Marx was the head of the International Working Mens Association, which, it is true, has fallen to pieces, but is due to be resurrected.” Of course, if the nec plus ultra of international solidarity is to be seen in a system of “fair” exchange, on which the chronicler of home affairs expatiates with philistine banality in No. 2 of Russkoye Bogatstvo , and if it is not understood that exchange, fair or unfair, always presupposes and includes the rule of the bourgeoisie, and that the cessation of international clashes is impossible unless the economic organisation based on exchange is destroyed, then it is understandable that there should be nothing but sneers for the International. Then one can understand that Mr. Mikhailovsky cannot grasp the simple truth that there is no other way of combating national hatred than by organising and uniting the oppressed class for a struggle against the oppressor class in each separate country, than by uniting such national working-class organisations into a single international working-class army to fight international capital. As to the statement that the International did not prevent the workers from cutting each others throats, it is enough to remind Mr. Mikhailovsky of the events of the Commune, which showed the true attitude of the organised proletariat to the ruling classes engaged in war.