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

An astonishing thing! In 1877, “the whole of Capital ” was devoted to a materialist inquiry into a particular form of society (what else does materialism consist in, if not in explaining forms of society by material conditions?), whereas in 1894 it appears that it is not even known where, in what work, an exposition of this materialism should be sought!

In 1877, Capital contained an “inquiry into” how “a particular form” (the capitalist form, is it not?) “cannot” (mark that!) “stand up against further changes in material conditions,"—whereas in 1894 it turns out that there has been no inquiry at all and that the conviction that the capitalist form cannot withstand any further development of the productive forces—rests “entirely at the end of the Hegelian triad”! In 1877, Mr.Mikhailovsky wrote that “the analysis of the relations of the given form of society to the material conditions of its existence will for ever ” (my italics) “remain a monument to the authors logical powers and vast erudition,” whereas in 1894 he declares that the doctrine of materialism has never and nowhere been scientifically verified and proved.

An astonishing thing! What does it really mean? What has happened?

Two things have happened. Firstly, the Russian, peasant socialism of the seventies—which “snorted” at freedom because of its bourgeois character, fought the “clear-browed liberals” who zealously covered up the antagonistic nature of Russian life, and dreamed of a peasant revolution—has completely decayed and has begotten that vulgar, philistine liberalism which discerns an “encouraging impression” in the progressive trends of peasant farming, forgetting that they are accompanied (and determined) by the wholesale expropriation of the peasantry. Secondly, in 1877 Mr. Mikhailovsky was so engrossed in his task of defending the “sanguine” (i.e., revolutionary socialist) Marx from the liberal critics that he failed to observe the incompatibility of Marx’s method and his own. And then this irreconcilable contradiction between dialectical materialism and subjective sociology was explained to him—explained by Engels articles and books, and by the Russian Social-Democrats (one often meets with very apt comments on Mr. Mikhailovsky in Plekhanovs writings)—and Mr. Mikhailovsky, instead of seriously sitting down to reconsider the whole question, simply took the bit between his teeth. Instead of welcoming Marx (as he did in 1872 and 1877) [48] he now barks at him under cover of dubious praise, and rages and splutters against the Russian Marxists for refusing to rest content with the “defence of the economically weakest,” with warehouses and improvements in the countryside, with museums and artels for handicraftsmen, and similar well-meaning philistine ideas of progress, and for wanting to remain “sanguine” people, advocates of social revolution, and to teach, guide and organise the really revolutionary elements of society.

After this brief excursion into the realm of the distant past, one may, we think, conclude this examination of Mr. Mikhailovsky’s “criticism” of Marx’s theory. Let us then try to sum up and recapitulate the critics “arguments.”

The doctrine he set out to demolish is based, firstly, on the materialist conception of history, and, secondly, on the dialectical method.

As to the first, the critic began by declaring that he did not know in which work materialism was expounded. Not having found such an exposition anywhere, he himself set about concocting an explanation of what materialism is. In order to give an idea of the excessive claims of this materialism, he concocted the story that the materialists claim to have explained the entire past, present and future of mankind—and when it was subsequently shown by reference to the authentic statements of the Marxists that they regard only one social formation as having been explained, the critic decided that the materialists narrow the scope of materialism, whereby, he asserts, they defeat themselves. In order to give an idea of the methods by which this materialism was worked out, he invented the story that the materialists themselves had confessed to the inadequacy of their knowledge for the elaboration of scientific socialism, despite the fact that Marx and Engels confessed only to the insufficiency of their knowledge (in 1845-1846) of economic history in general, and despite the fact that they never published the essay which testified to the insufficiency of their knowledge. After these preludes, we were treated to the criticism itself: Capital was annihilated because it dealt with only one period, whereas the critic wants to have all periods; and also because it did not affirm economic materialism, but simply touched upon it—arguments, evidently, so weighty and serious as to compel the recognition that materialism had never been scientifically substantiated. Then the fact was cited against materialism that a man totally unconnected with this doctrine, having studied prehistoric times in an entirely different country, also arrived at materialist conclusions. To show, further, that it was absolutely wrong to drag procreation into materialism, that this was nothing but a verbal artifice, the critic proceeded to prove that economic relations are a superstructure based on sexual and family relations. The statements made thereupon by our weighty critic for the edification of the materialists enriched us with the profound truth that inheritance is impossible without procreation, that a complex psychology “adheres” to the products of this procreation, and that children are brought up in the spirit of their fathers. In passing, we also learnt that nationalities are a continuation and generalisation of gentile ties. Continuing his theoretical researches into materialism, the critic noted that the content of many of the Marxists arguments consisted in the assertion that oppression and exploitation of the masses were “necessary” under the bourgeois regime and that this regime must “necessarily” turn into a socialist regime, after which he hastened to declare that necessity is too general a bracket (if we omit what, exactly, people consider necessary) and that therefore Marxists are mystics and metaphysicians. The critic also declared that Marx’s polemic against the idealists was “one-sided,” but he did not say a word about the relation of these idealists views to the subjective method and the relation of Marx’s dialectical materialism to these views.

As to the second pillar of Marxism—the dialectical method—one push by the bold critic was enough to cast it to the ground. And the push was very well directed: the critic toiled and moiled with prodigious effort to disprove the notion that anything can be proved by triads, ignoring the fact that the dialectical method does not consist in triads at all, but that it consists precisely in the rejection of the methods of idealism and subjectivism in sociology. Another push was specially directed at Marx: with the help of the valorous Herr Dühring, the critic ascribed to Marx the incredible absurdity of having tried to prove the necessity of the doom of capitalism by means of triads—and then victoriously combated this absurdity.

Such is the epic of the brilliant “victories” of “our well known sociologist”! How very “edifying” (Burenin) it was to contemplate these victories!

We cannot refrain at this point from touching on another circumstance, which has no direct bearing on the criticism of Marx’s doctrine, but is extremely characteristic for an understanding of the critics ideals and of his conception of reality. It is his attitude to the working-class movement in the West.

Above we quoted Mr. Mikhailovsky’s statement that materialism had not justified itself in “science” (perhaps in the science of the German “friends of the people”?); but this materialism, argues Mr. Mikhailovsky, “is really spreading very rapidly among the working class.” How does Mr. Mikhailovsky explain this fact? “The success,” he says, “enjoyed by economic materialism in breadth, so to speak, and its dissemination in a critically unverified form, are chiefly due to the day-to-day practice established by prospects for the future, and not to science.” What other meaning can there be in this clumsy phrase about practice “established” by prospects for the future than that materialism is spreading not because it correctly explains reality, but because it turns away from reality towards prospects? And he goes on to say: “These prospects require of the German working class which is adopting them and of those who take a warm interest in its future neither knowledge nor the effort of critical thinking. They require only faith.” In other words, the spread of materialism and scientific socialism in breadth is due to the fact that this doctrine promises the workers a better future! But a most elementary acquaintance with the history of socialism and of the working-class movement in the West is enough to reveal the utter absurdity and falsity of this explanation. Everybody knows that scientific socialism never painted any prospects for the future as such: it confined itself to analysing the present bourgeois regime, to studying the trends of development of the capitalist social organisation, and that is all. “We do not say to the world,” Marx wrote as far back as 1843, and he fulfilled this programme to the letter, “we do not say to the world: Cease struggling—your whole struggle is senseless. All we do is to provide it with a true slogan of struggle. We only show the world what it is actually struggling for, and consciousness is a thing which the world must acquire, whether it likes it or not.” [49] Everybody knows that Capital , for instance—the chief and basic work in which scientific socialism is expounded—restricts itself to the most general allusions to the future and merely traces those already existing elements from which the future system grows. Everybody knows that as far as prospects for the future are concerned incomparably more was contributed by the earlier socialists, who described future society in every detail, desiring to inspire mankind with a picture of a system under which people get along without conflict and under which their social relations are based not on exploitation but on true principles of progress that conform to the conditions of human nature. Nevertheless, despite the whole phalanx of very talented people who expounded these ideas, and despite the most firmly convinced socialists, their theories stood aloof from life and their programmes were not connected with the political movements of the people until large-scale machine industry drew the mass of proletarian workers into the vortex of political life, and until the true slogan of their struggle was found. This slogan was found by Marx, “not a utopian, but a strict and, in places, even dry scientist” (as Mr. Mikhailovsky called him in the long distant past—in 1872); and it was certainly not found by means of prospects, but by a scientific analysis of the present bourgeois regime, by an elucidation of the necessity of exploitation under this regime, by an investigation of the laws of its development. Mr. Mikhailovsky may, of course, assure the readers of Russkoye Bogatstvo that neither knowledge nor an effort of thinking is required to understand this analysis, but we have already seen in his own case (and shall see it to a still greater extent in the case of his economist collaborator [50] ) so gross a lack of understanding of the elementary truths established by this analysis that such a statement, of course, can only provoke a smile. It remains an indisputable fact that the working class movement spreads and develops precisely where and to the extent that large-scale capitalist machine industry develops; the socialist doctrine is successful precisely when it stops arguing about social conditions that conform to human nature and sets about making a materialist analysis of contemporary social relations and explaining the necessity for the present regime of exploitation.

Having tried to evade the real reasons for the success of materialism among the workers by ascribing the attitude of this doctrine to “prospects” in a manner directly contrary to the truth, Mr. Mikhailovsky goes on to scoff in the most vulgar and philistine way at the ideas and tactics of the West-European working-class movement. As we have seen, he was unable to adduce a single argument against Marx’s proofs of the inevitability of the capitalist system being transformed into a socialist system as a result of the socialisation of labour. And yet he jeers in the most blatant manner at the idea of an “army of proletarians” preparing to expropriate the capitalists, “whereupon all class conflict will cease and peace on earth and goodwill among men will reign.” He, Mr. Mikhailovsky, knows far simpler and surer paths to the achievement of socialism than this: all that is required is that the “friends of the people” should indicate in greater detail the “clear and unalterable” paths of the “desired economic evolution”—and then these friends of the people will most likely “be called in” to solve “practical economic problems” (see the article “Problems of Russia’s Economic Development” by Mr. Yuzhakov in Russkoye Bogatstvo , No. 11) and meanwhile—meanwhile the workers must wait, must rely on the friends of the people and not begin, with “unjustified self-assurance,” an independent struggle against the exploiters. Desiring to strike a deathblow at this “unjustified self-assurance,” our author waxes highly indignant at “this science that can almost fit into a pocket dictionary.” How terrible, indeed! Science—and Social-Democratic penny pamphlets that can fit into the pocket!! Is it not obvious how unjustifiably self-assured are those who value science only insofar as it teaches the exploited to wage an independent struggle for their emancipation, teaches them to keep away from all “friends of the people” engaged in glossing over class antagonisms and desirous of taking the whole business upon themselves—those who, therefore, expound this science in penny publications which so shock the philistines? How different it would be if the workers placed their fate in the hands of the “friends of the people”! They would show them a real, voluminous, university and philistine science; they would acquaint them in detail with a social organisation that conforms to human nature, provided only—the workers agreed to wait and did not themselves begin the struggle with such unjustified self-assurance!

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)

Before passing to the second part of ...

Before passing to the second part of Mr. Mikhailovsky’s “criticism,” which this time is not directed against Marx’s theory in general but against the Russian Social-Democrats in particular, we shall have to make a little digression. When criticising Marx, Mr. Mikhailovsky not only made no attempt to give an exact exposition of Marx’s theory but horribly distorted it, and in just the same way he now most unscrupulously garbles the ideas of the Russian Social-Democrats. The truth must be restored. This can be done most conveniently by comparing the ideas of the earlier Russian socialists with the ideas of the Social-Democrats. I borrow an account of the former from an article by Mr. Mikhailovsky in Russkaya Mysl , 1892, No. 6, in which he also spoke of Marxism (and spoke of it—be it said in reproach to him—in a decent tone, without dealing with problems which, in a censored press, can be treated only in Burenin fashion, without confusing the Marxists with all sorts of riffraff) and expounded his own views in opposition to Marxism—or, at least, if not in opposition to, then parallel to Marxism. Of course, I have not the least desire to offend either Mr. Mikhailovsky, by classing him among the socialists, or the Russian socialists, by putting Mr. Mikhailovsky on a par with them; but I think that the line of argument is essentially the same in both cases, the difference being only in the degree of firmness, straightforwardness and consistency of their convictions.

Describing the ideas of Otechestvenniye Zapiski , Mr. Mikhailovsky wrote: “We included the ownership of the land by the tiller and of the implements of labour by the producer among moral and political ideals.” The point of departure, as you see, is most well-intentioned, inspired by the best wishes.... “The medieval forms of labour [1] still existing in our country had been seriously shaken, but we saw no reason to put a complete end to them for the sake of any doctrine whatever, liberal or non-liberal.”

Strange argument! Obviously, “forms of labour” of any kind can be shaken only if they are superseded by some other forms; yet we do not find our author (nor would we find any of his like-minded friends, for that matter) even attempting to analyse and to explain these new forms, or to ascertain why they supplant the old. Stranger still is the second half of the tirade: “We saw no reason to put an end to these forms for the sake of any doctrine.” What means do “we” (i.e., the socialists—see the above reservation) possess to “put an end” to forms of labour, that is, to reconstruct the existing production relations between the members of society? Is not the idea of remaking these relations in accordance with a doctrine absurd? Listen to what comes next; “Our task is not to rear, out of our own national depths, a civilisation that is positively original; but neither is it to transplant Western civilisation to our own country in toto, together with all the contradictions that are tearing it apart; we must take what is good from wherever we can; and whether it be our own or foreign is not a matter of principle, but of practical convenience. Surely, this is so simple, clear and understandable that there is nothing even to discuss.” Indeed, how simple it is! “Take” what is good from everywhere—and the trick is done! From the medieval forms “take” the labourers ownership of the means of production, and from the new (i.e., capitalist) forms “take” liberty, equality, enlightenment and culture. And there is nothing to discuss! Here the whole subjective method in sociology is as clear as daylight: sociology starts with a utopia—the labourers ownership of the land—and indicates the conditions for realising the desirable, namely, “take” what is good from here and from there. This philosopher takes a purely metaphysical view of social relations as of a simple mechanical aggregation of various institutions, a simple mechanical concatenation of various phenomena. He plucks out one of these phenomena—the cultivators ownership of the land in its medieval forms—and thinks that it can be transplanted to all other forms, just as a brick can be transferred from one building to another. But that is not studying social relations; it is mutilating the material to be studied. In reality, there was no such thing as the cultivators ownership of the land existing separately and independently, as you have taken it; it was only one of the links in the then existing production relations, which consisted in the land being divided up among large landed proprietors, landlords, who allotted it to the peasants in order to exploit them, so that the land was, as it were, wages in kind: it provided the peasant with necessary products, so that he might be able to produce a surplus product for the landlord; it provided the means for the peasants to render feudal service to the landlord. Why did the author not follow up this system of production relations, instead of confining himself to plucking out one phenomenon and thus presenting it in an absolutely false light? Because the author does not know how to handle social problems: he (I repeat, I am using Mr. Mikhailovsky’s arguments only as an example for criticising Russian socialism as a whole ) does not set out at all to explain the then existing “forms of labour” and to present them as a definite system of production relations, as a definite social formation. To use Marx’s expression, the dialectical method, which requires us to regard society as a living organism in its functioning and development, is alien to him.

Without even asking himself why the old forms of labour are supplanted by the new, he repeats exactly the same error when he discusses these new forms. For him it is enough to note that these forms “shake” the cultivators ownership of the land—that is, speaking more generally, find expression in the separation of the producer from the means of production—and to condemn this for not conforming to the ideal. And here again his argument is utterly absurd: he plucks out one phenomenon (land dispossession), without even attempting to present it as an element of a now different system of production relations based on commodity economy , which necessarily begets competition among the commodity producers, inequality, the ruin of some and the enrichment of others. He noted one thing, the ruin of the masses, and put aside the other, the enrichment of the minority, and this made it impossible for him to understand either.

And such methods he calls “seeking answers to the questions of life clothed in flesh and blood” ( Russkoye Bogatstvo , 1894, No. 1), when, as a matter of fact, quite the contrary is the case: unable and unwilling to explain reality, to look it straight in the face, he ignominiously fled from these questions of life, with its struggle of the propertied against the propertyless, to the realm of innocent utopias. This he calls “seeking answers to the questions of life in the ideal treatment of their burning and complex actual reality” ( Russkoye Bogatstvo , No. 1), when, as a matter of fact, he did not even attempt to analyse and explain this actual reality.

Instead, he presented us with a utopia contrived by senselessly plucking individual elements from various social formations—taking one thing from the medieval form, another from the “new” form, and so on. It is obvious that a theory based on this was bound to stand aloof from actual social evolution, for the simple reason that our utopians had to live and act not under social relations formed from elements taken from here and from there, but under those which determine the relation of the peasant to the kulak (the enterprising muzhik), of the handicraftsman to the buyer-up, of the worker to the factory owner, and which they completely failed to understand. Their attempts and efforts to remould these un-understood relations in accordance with their ideal were bound to end in failure.

Such, in very general outline, was how the problem of socialism stood in Russia when “the Russian Marxists appeared on the scene.”

What they began with was a criticism of the subjective methods of the earlier socialists. Not satisfied with merely stating the fact of exploitation and condemning it, they desired to explain it. Seeing that the whole post-Reform history of Russia consisted in the ruin of the masses and the enrichment of a minority, observing the colossal expropriation of the small producers side by side with universal technical progress, noting that these polarising tendencies arose and increased wherever, and to the extent that, commodity economy developed and became consolidated, they could not but conclude that they were confronted with a bourgeois (capitalist) organisation of social economy, necessarily giving rise to the expropriation and oppression of the masses. Their practical programme was directly determined by this conviction; this programme was to join in the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, the struggle of the propertyless classes against the propertied, which constitutes the principal content of economic reality in Russia, from the most out-of-the-way village to the most up-to date and perfected factory. How were they to join in? The answer was again suggested by reality. Capitalism had brought the principal branches of industry to the stage of large-scale machine industry; by thus socialising production, it had created the material conditions for a new system and had at the same time created a new social force—the class of factory workers, the urban proletariat. Being subjected to the same bourgeois exploitation—for such, in its economic essence, i.e., the exploitation to which the whole working population of Russia is subjected—this class, however, has been placed in a special, favourable position as far as its emancipation is concerned: it no longer has any ties with the old society based entirely on exploitation; the very conditions of its labour and the circumstances of life organise it, compel it to think and enable it to step into the arena of political struggle. It was only natural that the Social-Democrats should direct all their attention to, and base all their hopes on, this class, that they should reduce their programme to the development of its class consciousness, and direct all their activities towards helping it rise to wage a direct political struggle against the present regime, and towards drawing the whole Russian proletariat into this struggle.

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)

Let us now see how Mr. Mikhailovsky fights ...

Let us now see how Mr. Mikhailovsky fights the Social-Democrats. What arguments does he level against their theoretical views, against their political, socialist activity?

The theoretical views of the Marxists are set forth by the critic in the following manner:

“The truth” (the Marxists are represented as declaring) “is that in accordance with the immanent laws of historical necessity Russia will develop her own capitalist production, with all its inherent contradictions and the swallowing up of the small capitalists by the large, and meanwhile the muzhik, divorced from the land, will turn into a proletarian, unite, become socialised, and the trick is done, the hat reappears, and it only remains to put the hat on the head of now happy mankind.”

And so, if you please, the Marxists do not differ in any way from the “friends of the people” in their conception of reality; they differ only in their idea of the future: they do not deal at all, it appears, with the present, but only with “prospects.” There can be no doubt that this is Mr. Mikhailovsky’s idea; the Marxists, he says, “are fully convinced that there is nothing utopian in their forecasts of the future, and that everything has been weighed and measured in accordance with the strict dictates of science”; finally and even more explicitly: the Marxists “believe in, and profess, the immutability of an abstract historical scheme.”

In a word, we have before us that most banal and vulgar accusation against the Marxists long employed by all who have nothing substantial to bring against their views. “The Marxists profess the immutability of an abstract historical scheme!!”

But this is a downright lie and invention!

No Marxist has ever argued anywhere that there “must be” capitalism in Russia “because” there was capitalism in the West, and so on. No Marxist has ever regarded Marx’s theory as some universally compulsory philosophical scheme of history, as anything more than an explanation of a particular social-economic formation. Only Mr. Mikhailovsky, the subjective philosopher, has managed to display such a lack of understanding of Marx as to attribute to him a universal philosophical theory; and in reply to this, he received from Marx the quite explicit explanation that he was knocking at the wrong door. No Marxist has ever based his Social-Democratic views on anything but the conformity of theory with reality and the history of the given, i.e., the Russian, social and economic relations; and he could not have done so, because this demand on theory was quite definitely and clearly proclaimed and made the corner-stone of the whole doctrine by the founder of “Marxism” himself—Marx.

Of course, Mr. Mikhailovsky may refute these statements as much as he pleases, by arguing that he has heard “with his own ears” the profession of an abstract historical scheme. But what does it matter to us, Social-Democrats, or to anybody else, that Mr. Mikhailovsky has had occasion to hear all sorts of absurd nonsense from people he has talked to? Does it not merely show that he is very fortunate in the choice of the people he talks to, and nothing more? It is very possible, of course, that the witty interlocutors of the witty philosopher called themselves Marxists, Social-Democrats, and so forth—but who does not know that nowadays (as was noted long ago) every scoundrel likes to array himself in “red” garments? [1] And if Mr. Mikhailovsky is so perspicacious that he cannot distinguish these “mummers” from Marxists, or if he has understood Marx so profoundly as not to have noticed this criterion—most emphatically advanced by Marx—of the whole doctrine (the formulation of “what is going on before our eyes”), it only proves again that Mr. Mikhailovsky is not clever, and nothing else.

At any rate, since he undertook a polemic in the press against the “Social-Democrats,” he should have had in mind the group of socialists who have long borne that name and have borne it alone—so that others cannot be confused with them—and who have their literary representatives, Plekhanov and his circle. [4] And had he done so—and that obviously is what anybody with any decency should have done—and had he even consulted the first Social-Democratic work, Plekhanovs Our Differences , he would have found in its very first pages a categorical declaration made by the author on behalf of all the members of the circle:

“We in no case wish to cover our programme with the authority of a great name” (i.e., the authority of Marx). Do you understand Russian, Mr. Mikhailovsky? Do you understand the difference between professing abstract schemes and entirely disclaiming the authority of Marx when passing judgement on Russian affairs?

Do you realise that you acted dishonestly by representing the first opinion you happened to hear from your interlocutors as Marxist, and by ignoring the published declaration made by a prominent member of Social-Democracy on behalf of the whole group?

And then the declaration becomes even more explicit:

“I repeat,” Plekhanov says, “that the most consistent Marxists may disagree in the appraisal of the present Russian situation”; our doctrine is the “first attempt at applying this particular scientific theory to the analysis of very complicated and entangled social relations.”

It would seem difficult to speak more clearly: the Marxists unreservedly borrow from Marx’s theory only its invaluable methods, without which an elucidation of social relations is impossible, and, consequently, they see the criterion of their judgement of these relations not in abstract schemes and suchlike nonsense at all, but in its fidelity and conformity to reality.

Perhaps you think that in making these statements the author actually had something else in mind? But that is not so. The question he was dealing with was—"must Russia pass through the capitalist phase of development?” Hence, the question was not given a Marxist formulation at all, but was in conformity with the subjective methods of various native philosophers of ours, who see the criterion of this “must” in the policy of the authorities, or in the activities of “society,” or in the ideal of a society that “corresponds to human nature,” and similar twaddle. So it is fair to ask, how should a man who believes in abstract schemes have answered such a question? Obviously, he would have spoken of the incontrovertibility of the dialectical process, of the general philosophical importance of Marx’s theory, of the inevitability of every country passing through the phase of ... and so on and so forth.

And how did Plekhanov answer it?

In the only way a Marxist could.

He left aside entirely the question of the “must,” as being an idle one that could be of interest only to subjectivists, and dealt exclusively with real social and economic relations and their actual evolution. And that is why he gave no direct answer to this wrongly formulated question, but instead replied: “Russia has entered the capitalist path.”

And Mr. Mikhailovsky talks with the air of an expert about belief in abstract historical schemes, about the immanent laws of necessity, and similar incredible nonsense! And he calls this “a polemic against the Social-Democrats”!!

If this is a polemicist, then I simply cannot understand what a windbag is!

One must also observe in connection with Mr. Mikhailovsky’s argument quoted above that he presents the views of the Social-Democrats as being: “Russia will develop her own capitalist production.” Evidently, in the opinion of this philosopher, Russia has not got “her own” capitalist production. The author apparently shares the opinion that Russian capitalism is confined to one and a half million workers. We shall later on again meet with this childish idea of our “friends of the people,” who class all the other forms of exploitation of free labour under heaven knows what heading. “Russia will develop her own capitalist production with all its inherent contradictions, and meanwhile the muzhik, separated from the land, will turn into a proletarian.” The farther in the wood, the more trees there are! So there are no “inherent contradictions” in Russia? Or, to put it plainly, there is no exploitation of the mass of the people by a handful of capitalists, there is no ruin of the vast majority of the population and no enrichment of a few? The muzhik has still to be separated from the land? But what is the entire post-Reform history of Russia, if not the wholesale expropriation of the peasantry, proceeding with unparalleled intensity? One must possess great courage indeed to say such things publicly. And Mr. Mikhailovsky possesses that courage: “Marx dealt with a ready-made proletariat and a ready-made capitalism, whereas we have still to create them.” Russia has still to create a proletariat?! In Russia—the only country where such a hopeless poverty of the masses and such shameless exploitation of the working people can be found; which has been compared (and legitimately so) to England as regards the condition of the poor; and where the starvation of millions of people is a permanent thing existing side by side, for instance, with a steady increase in the export of grain—in Russia there is no proletariat!!

I think Mr. Mikhailovsky deserves to have a monument erected to him in his own lifetime for these classic words! [2]

We shall, incidentally, see later that it is a constant and most consistent tactic of the “friends of the people” to shut their eyes pharisaically to the intolerable condition of the working people in Russia, to depict this condition as having merely been “shaken,” so that only the efforts of “cultured society” and the government are needed for everything to be put on the right track. These knights think that if they shut their eyes to the fact that the condition of the working masses is bad not because it has been “shaken,” but because these masses are being shamelessly robbed by a handful of exploiters, that if they bury their heads in the sand like ostriches so as not to see these exploiters, the exploiters will disappear. And when the Social-Democrats tell them that it is shameful cowardice to fear to look reality in the face, when they take the fact of exploitation as their starting-point and say that its only possible explanation lies in the bourgeois organisation of Russian society, which is splitting the mass of the people into a proletariat and a bourgeoisie, and in the class character of the Russian state, which is nothing but the organ of the rule of this bourgeoisie, and that therefore the only way out lies in the class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie—these “friends of the people” begin to howl that the Social-Democrats want to dispossess the people of their land!! that they want to destroy our peoples economic organisation!!

We now come to the most outrageous part of all this indecent, to say the least, “polemic,” namely, Mr. Mikhailovsky’s “criticism” (?) of the political activities of the Social-Democrats. Everybody realises that the activities carried on among the workers by socialists and agitators cannot be honestly discussed in our legal press, and that the only thing a decent censored periodical can do in this connection is to “maintain a tactful silence.” Mr. Mikhailovsky has forgotten this very elementary rule, and has not scrupled to use his monopoly contact with the reading public in order to sling mud at the socialists.

However, means of combating this unscrupulous critic will be found even if outside of legal publications.

“As far as I understand,” Mr. Mikhailovsky says with assumed naïveté, “the Russian Marxists can be divided into three categories: Marxist spectators (indifferent observers of the process), passive Marxists (they only “allay the birth pangs”; they “are not interested in the people on the land, and direct their attention and hopes to those who are already separated from the means of production”), and active Marxists (who bluntly insist on the further ruin of the countryside).”

What is this?! Mr. Critic must surely know that the Russian Marxists are socialists whose point of departure is the view that the reality of our environment is capitalist society, and that there is only one way out of it—the class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. How, then, and on what grounds, does he mix them up with some sort of senseless vulgarity? What right (moral, of course) has he to extend the term Marxists to people who obviously do not accept the most elementary and fundamental tenets of Marxism, people who have never and nowhere acted as a distinct group and have never and nowhere announced a programme of their own?

Mr. Mikhailovsky has left himself a number of loopholes for justifying such outrageous methods.

“Perhaps,” he jokes with the easy air of a society fop, “these are not real Marxists, but they consider and proclaim themselves as such.” Where have they proclaimed it, and when? In the liberal and radical salons of St. Petersburg? In private letters? Be it so. Well, then, talk to them in your salons and in your correspondence! But you come out publicly and in the press against people who (under the banner of Marxism) have never come out publicly anywhere. And you have the effrontery to claim that you are polemising against “Social-Democrats,” although you know that this name is borne only by one group of revolutionary socialists, and that nobody else should be confused with them! [3]

Mr. Mikhailovsky twists and turns like a schoolboy caught red-handed: I am not the least to blame here—he tries to make the reader believe—I “heard it with my own ears and saw it with my own eyes.” Excellent! We are quite willing to believe that there is nobody in your field of vision but vulgarians and scoundrels. But what have we, Social-Democrats, to do with it? Who does not know that “at the present time, when” not only socialist activity, but any social activity that is at all independent and honest evokes political persecution—for every one actually working under some banner—be it Narodovolism, [5] Marxism, or even, let us say, constitutionalism—there are several score phrase-mongers who under cover of that name conceal their liberal cowardice, and, in addition, perhaps, several downright rascals who are feathering their own nests? Is it not obvious that only the meanest vulgarity could make any of these trends responsible for the fact that its banner is being soiled (privately and secretly, at that) by all sorts of riffraff? Mr. Mikhailovsky’s whole argument is one chain of distortions, misrepresentations, and manipulations. We saw above that he completely distorted the “truths” which are the Social-Democrats starting-point, presenting them in a way in which no Marxist at any time or place has, or could have, presented them. And if he had set forth the actual Social-Democratic conception of Russian reality, he could not but have seen that one can “conform” to these views in only one way , namely, by helping to develop the class consciousness of the proletariat, by organising and uniting it for the political struggle against the present regime. He has, however, one other trick up his sleeve. With an air of injured innocence he pharisaically lifts up his eyes to heaven and unctuously declares: “I am very glad to hear that. But I cannot understand what you are protesting against” (that is exactly what he says in Russkoye Bogatstvo , No. 2). “Read my comment on passive Marxists more attentively and you will see that I say: from the ethical standpoint, no objection can be made.”

This, of course, is nothing but a rehash of his former wretched subterfuges.

Tell us, please, how one would characterise the conduct of a person who declared that he was criticising social revolutionary Narodism (at a time when no other type of Narodism had yet appeared—I take such a period), and who proceeded to say approximately the following:

“The Narodniks, as far as I understand, are divided in to three categories: the consistent Narodniks, who completely accept the ideas of the muzhik and, in exact accordance with his desires, make a general principle of the birch and wife-beating and generally further the abominable policy of the government of the knout and the club, which, you know, has been called a peoples policy; then, shall we say, the cowardly Narodniks, who are not interested in the opinions of the muzhik, and are only striving to transplant to Russia an alien revolutionary movement by means of associations and suchlike—against which, however, no objection can be made from the ethical standpoint, unless it be the slipperiness of the path, which may easily convert a cowardly Narodnik into a consistent or courageous one; and, lastly, the courageous Narodniks, who carry out to the full the peoples ideals of the enterprising muzhik, and accordingly settle on the land in order to live as kulaks in good earnest.” All decent people, of course, would characterise this as vile and vulgar scoffing. And if, furthermore, the person who said such things could not be rebutted by the Narodniks in the same press; if, moreover, the ideas of these Narodniks had hitherto been expounded only illegally, so that many people had no exact idea of what they were and might easily believe whatever they were told about the Narodniks—then whoever would agree that such a person is....

But perhaps Mr. Mikhailovsky himself has not yet quite forgotten the word that fits here.

But enough! Many similar insinuations by Mr. Mikhailovsky still remain, but I know of no job more fatiguing, more thankless and more disgusting than to have to wade through this filth, to collect insinuations scattered here and there, to compare them and to search for at least one serious objection.

Enough!

April 1894

V. I. 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)

PUBLISHERS NOTE [1]

BEFORE OCTOBER 22, 2004: This webpage ( 04.htm ) had pages 202–231; currently it has pages 201–202.

In the text of the article the reader will find references to a further examination of certain questions, whereas actually no such examination is made.

The reason is that the present article is only the first part of a reply to articles in Russkoye Bogatstvo about Marxism. Acute shortage of time prevented the timely appearance of this article, but we do not consider it possible to delay any longer; we are two months late as it is. That is why we have decided to issue an examination of Mr. Mikhailovsky’s “criticism“ in the meantime without waiting until the whole article is printed.

In the 2nd and 3rd parts, now in course of preparation, the reader will find, in addition to the examination here presented, a further one dealing with the social and economic views of other leading figures of Russkoye Bogatstvo , Messrs, Yuzhakov and S. Krivenko, in connection with an essay on the economic situation in Russia and the “ideas and tactics of the Social-Democrats“ that follow therefrom.

[1] Publishers Note —the Afterword to the first edition of the first part of V. I. Lenin’s What the “Friends of the People“ Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats .

V. I. 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)

NOTE to the PRESENT EDITION [1]

BEFORE OCTOBER 22, 2004: This webpage (05.htm) had pages 231–263; currently it has pages 202–203.

The present edition is an exact reproduction of the first. Having had no share whatever in compiling the text, we have not considered ourselves entitled to alter it in any way and have confined ourselves simply to the work of publication. Our motive for undertaking this work has been the confidence that the present pamphlet will serve to bring about some revival of our Social-Democratic propaganda.

Believing that one indispensable corollary of Social-Democratic convictions should be a readiness to promote such propaganda, we appeal to all who share the views of the author of the present pamphlet to assist by every means (especially, of course, by republication) in securing the widest possible circulation both of the present work and of all organs of Marxist propaganda in general. The present moment is particularly opportune. Russkoye Bogatstvo is assuming an increasingly provocative tone towards us. In an effort to paralyse the spread of Social-Democratic ideas in society, that magazine has gone so far as to accuse us outright of being indifferent to the interests of the proletariat and of insisting on the ruination of the masses. We make bold to think that by such methods it will only injure itself and pave the way for our victory. However, it should not be forgotten that these slanderers command all the material means for the most widespread propaganda of their slanders. They possess a magazine with a circulation of several thousand; they have reading-rooms and libraries at their disposal. Hence, if we are to prove to our enemies that even the advantages of a privileged position do not always ensure the success of insinuation, we must exert our every effort. We are fully confident that this effort will be forthcoming.

July 1894

[1] Note to the present edition —Afterword to the second edition of the first part of What the “Friends of the People“ Are written in July 1894.

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)