The dispute between populism and Marxism.

I have already said that the whole polemic between populism and Marxism fits into the formula - the people and the class. But the historical dispute between them is not so, of course, simple and monosyllabic. To understand it, one must think deeply and seriously about it.

Populism argued with Marxism on the question of the fate of Russia and, above all, on the role of capitalism in our country. In the 1970s and even in the 1980s one could still try to prove (which Narodism did) that Russia, unlike other states, would not go through capitalism. Proceeding from the fact that at that time capitalism in our country was still very weak, and large-scale industry was still in its infancy, a whole school that considered itself socialist, the Narodniks, argued that the development of Russia would not proceed in the same way as everywhere else, but in completely different ways. ways and that we will be able to jump from the then, extremely primitive, relations of small-scale production directly to socialism.

In connection with this, the question of the attitude towards the peasant community arose of tremendous importance. A number of Narodniks argued that our village community is nothing but a cell of communism, that Russia will bypass the path of factory production, large-scale urban industry, the accumulation of great wealth, the creation of a proletariat as a class, and that, without any intermediate phases, directly on the basis of these small, allegedly communist cells, which they considered the village community, it will pass to the new socialist system.

With regard to the workers, among the Narodnik revolutionaries, the view was held that they, perhaps, would be useful in the revolutionary struggle against capitalism. True, in the course of time the Narodniks became convinced that the workers were much more receptive than all other sections of the population, and they began to recruit them energetically into their circles, but in spite of this, the main force on which they based their tactics was not the workers, and the so-called "people" or, to put it more concretely, the peasantry.

Populist delusion.

Little by little, as relations developed in our country, the error of the Narodniks became more and more obvious. The number of factories and factories increased every year, the number of workers in the cities grew, and the role of the village community, which was outlined more and more clearly, proved that the latter had nothing to do with socialism or communism. In a word, the course of development was against Narodism, and it was precisely for this reason that the Marxists, in alliance with life, relatively quickly utterly defeated their opponents.

I will not dwell on this controversy, as it would take us too far. We must only keep in mind that when we were arguing about the role of the commune - about whether or not there would be capitalism in Russia, about whether our country would follow special, still unknown paths, bypassing the cup of industrial development - we were actually arguing at the same time, about the role of the proletariat, about the role of the working class, about which class will be the main force of the coming revolution. The unspoken presupposition in all these disputes, which took various forms in the theoretical struggle, was the question of whether a working class would form in Russia, and if so, what role would fall to its lot. That is why, to paraphrase all these disputes, we can say that the conflict between Marxism and populism came down, in essence, to the question of the role of the working class in Russia, whether we will have a class of industrial workers, and if so, what will be his role in the revolution.

The variegation of populism.

Populism was by no means a homogeneous phenomenon; on the contrary, it was distinguished by its extraordinary diversity and diversity. In his vast camp we saw all sorts of currents, ranging from a very definite anarchism to the same bourgeois liberalism. Not without reason, in the sense of individual leaders, prominent leaders emerged from the ranks of Narodism, as I pointed out in my last lecture, who later became leaders of various trends and various political groups. Nevertheless, in spite of all this variegation, two main currents can and must be distinguished in populism: on the one hand, revolutionary-democratic, and on the other, bourgeois-liberal. Speaking chronologically, it is necessary to distinguish between the Narodniks - the Seventies and the Narodniks - the Eighties, i.e. two generations, mostly living in the 70s and 80s. At the same time, it can be said that the populists of the 70s consisted mainly of supporters of the first trend, which I called revolutionary-democratic, often with a touch of anarchism, while the populism of the 80s was composed, for the most part, of supporters of the current which can rightly be called bourgeois-liberal and which subsequently merged to a large extent with Russian liberalism, with the Kadet party, etc.

Populists of the 70s and 80s.

The revolutionary populists of the 70s created a number of organizations that went down in the history of the revolutionary movement as major conquests. These include, first of all, "Land and Will" and "Narodnaya Volya". Narodniks of this type put forward a number of leaders who displayed great heroism and courage and, not belonging to the proletarian revolutionaries, were nevertheless revolutionaries, albeit democrats. The second generation of Narodniks had a completely different character, often playing a directly reactionary role in the 1980s. On this question one can find interesting details in Plekhanov's excellent, not in the least outdated writings, such as, for example, in his book "Justification of Populism", published by him under the pseudonym "Volgin", as well as in a number of his other works, about which I will speak.

Krivenko

Two or three examples will suffice to illustrate my point. One of the greatest Narodnik writers, Kablitz-Yuzov, proved with the most serious air that the small proprietor and, above all, the peasant, by virtue of their "economic independence," as he put it, were a type of citizen of the highest rank. The venerable populist titles the position of the small peasant, crushed by the usurer and bondage, "economic independence." Another author, Krivenko, went so far as to demand that the peasant not give up "economic independence" even for the sake of political freedom: It is clear that such an ideology can only be called reactionary. We are well aware that nowhere in the world is a small owner economically independent, but is almost always in strong dependence on large owners, on the entire system of state administration.

Consequently, Krivenko and Co. were definitely dragging revolutionary thought back, in contrast to those revolutionaries who saw that a working class was emerging, who wanted to go to the workers and began to understand that it was a matter of creating a new revolutionary class, which had no property and was therefore not bound by any fetters.

Mikhailovsky.

However, not only the writers who clearly stood on the right wing of populism, but even such a ruler of thoughts as Mikhailovsky, even he agreed to the point that in a dispute with the Marxists he triumphantly declared: in Russia there can be no labor movement in the Western European sense of this words, because we, you see, do not have a working class, because the worker is connected with the countryside, he is a landowner, he can always go home and therefore is not afraid of unemployment.

Korolenko.

Mikhailovsky, as you know, headed the Russian Wealth group, to which Korolenko also belonged. And, perhaps, it is best to show by the example of the latter how, by the beginning of the 1980s and later, a certain part of Narodism more or less openly merged with the bourgeois-liberal camp. I name it on purpose. Korolenko, because, as a person, he enjoyed and enjoys the well-deserved sympathy of all who read his works of art. And therefore it is somehow difficult to immediately reconcile with the idea that he was not a revolutionary, but belonged to the bourgeois-liberal camp of populism. And yet, it certainly is. As an artist, Korolenko is undoubtedly one of the greatest figures of our time, and for many decades to come we will be reading his excellent books. But as a politician, Korolenko was nothing less than a liberal. At the beginning of the imperialist war, he published a pamphlet in its defense. Moreover, now, after his death, his correspondence has been published, from which it turns out that in the very circle of "Russian Wealth" he occupied the right wing on the right wing of the already right-wing populist group. In this circle, as is now known from Korolenko's letters, a passionate dispute arose as to whether it was possible to cooperate in the Cadet Rech, Miliukov's organ; and so the writer, ardently arguing that one should cooperate in Rech, did not obey the decision of the majority of his like-minded people and worked in this newspaper, because he felt his solidarity with this liberal group.

The two wings of populism.

Thus, we must always keep in mind that populism was a highly diverse and variegated phenomenon - from anarchism to liberalism (among the populists there were people with an anarchist tinge who spoke out against the political struggle and defended this view precisely with the arguments of anarchism) - we must always bear in mind that there were two wings in the Narodnik camp: one was revolutionary, and the other was non-revolutionary, opportunist, liberal.

But the revolutionary wing of the Narodniks was not proletarian, was not communist, and did not think of a proletarian revolution: it was revolutionary only in the sense that it wanted the revolutionary overthrow of the autocracy.

The issue of terror also played a significant role in the disputes between Marxists and Narodniks.

The revolutionary wing of populism came to the conclusion in the second half of the 1970s that it was necessary to use individual terror against the representatives of autocratic Russia in order to unleash a revolution in this way and advance the cause of liberation. The Marxists at first only very timidly - for example, in the first program written by Plekhanov in 1884 - dissociated themselves from the terrorism of the Narodniks. But from the moment when the workers' party began to take shape, they resolutely opposed individual terror. At that time, the Narodniks, and even later the Socialist-Revolutionaries, tried to make it look like we Marxists were against terror because we were not revolutionaries at all, because we lacked temperament, because we were afraid of blood, etc. Today, after our great revolution, hardly anyone will accuse us of this. But at that time the best part of the youth, the students, and many of the more ardent heads among the workers, this argument worked, bribing the revolutionary elements in favor of the Narodniks.

The attitude of Marxists to terror.

In fact, Marxists have never been against terror in principle. They never stood on the ground of the Christian covenant: "Thou shalt not kill." On the contrary, none other than Plekhanov repeatedly repeated that not every killing is murder, that killing a reptile does not mean committing a crime. And he repeatedly cited Pushkin's fiery verses against the tsars:

"Autocratic villain,
I hate you, your family
Your death, the death of children
I will see with malicious joy ... "

Marxists emphasized that they were supporters of violence and considered it a revolutionary factor. There are too many things in the world that can only be destroyed by weapons, fire and sword. Marxists advocated mass terror. But they said: killing this or that minister will not change things: the masses must be aroused, millions of people must be organized, and the working class must be enlightened. And only when it organizes, only then will the decisive hour strike, for then we will use terror not at retail, but wholesale; then we will have recourse to an armed uprising, which in 1905 first became a fact in Russia, and in 1917 led to victory.

But at that time the question of the pope confused the cards to some extent, giving a part of the Narodniks the aura of a party more revolutionary than the Marxists. The Narodniks said that, they say, one goes to kill the minister, while the other only gathers circles of workers and teaches them political literacy; Is it not clear that the one who kills the minister is a revolutionary, and the one who educates the workers is simply a "cultivator".
For some time this circumstance complicated the struggle between the Marxists and the Narodniks. But now, in considering this dispute historically, we must brush aside everything that played in it only an episodic, more or less accidental role, and take the main thing that separated us from the Narodniks. And this was the main thing, after all, in assessing the role of the working class.

Here we must first of all elucidate the question of the hegemony of the proletariat, since this fundamental, key question determines the entire subsequent history of our party, the struggle of Bolshevism against Menshevism, the struggle of the Mountain with the Gironde.

The question of the hegemony of the proletariat.

The word "hegemony" means supremacy, leadership, primacy. The hegemony of the proletariat means, therefore, the leading role of the proletariat, its primacy. It goes without saying that as long as there was no proletariat as a class in Russia at all, there could be no dispute about the hegemony of the proletariat. It was impossible to argue about the leading role of a non-existent class. But the perspicacity of the Marxists consisted precisely in the fact that at the moment when the proletariat had just begun to emerge, when it was not yet a major force, they saw and understood that this nascent class would be the guiding, supreme and leading class in the coming revolution, that it would its main force and will take over the leadership of the peasantry in all the forthcoming struggle. And, in essence, the entire dispute between the Marxists and the Narodniks, especially in the second half of it, in the 1980s and 1990s, boils down to the question of the hegemony of the proletariat.

The fathers of the idea of ​​the hegemony of the proletariat were Plekhanov and Lenin.

At the first congress of the Second International, at the international congress in Paris, in 1889, Plekhanov literally said the following phrase: "The Russian revolution will triumph like the revolution of the working class, or it will not triumph at all." Today, this truth may seem banal and well-known to us. It is clear to everyone that the working class is the main force in our revolution, which could finally triumph only as a working class, or would not triumph at all. But take yourself back to the situation at the end of the 1980s, when the workers' party as such did not exist, when the working class was still in its infancy, when the populists were at the forefront of the Russian revolutionary movement, who, even in the person of such a far-sighted person as Mikhailovsky, rejoiced that that the labor movement does not exist in Russia, and it was said that in the Western European sense we will not have one - transfer yourself to that situation and you will understand that Plekhanov's words were, to some extent, a revelation. And if one can say, in a certain sense, that Marx discovered the working class on a world scale, then one can (conditionally, of course) say that Plekhanov discovered the working class in Russia. I repeat - conditionally. It was not Marx who, of course, discovered the working class. He was born in Europe in the process of replacing feudalism with capitalism; but Marx explained its great historical role, guessing it back in 1847, when the working class in Europe was just emerging, and outlined its future great significance in the liberation of the peoples, in the world revolution. The same role, in relation to Russia, was played by Plekhanov when, in 1889 and earlier, he argued that the working class would be born in Russia "and that it would be not just one of the classes, but the main, leading class, the hegemon class, the leader class. who will hold the lever of the revolution in his hands.The idea of ​​the hegemony of the proletariat is the main watershed in all future disputes.And we, when we set out the essence of the struggle of Bolshevism against Menshevism, will have to return to it repeatedly.

Plekhanov's dispute with Tikhomirov about the hegemony of the proletariat.

Plekhanov, still in another form, very succinctly put forward the same view in a dispute with Lev Tikhomirov, who at one time was the most brilliant member of Narodnaya Volya, one of the main members of its executive committee and the best writer of this organization. Subsequently, this Lev Tikhomirov ended up going over to the service of tsarism and was an employee of Menshikov, one of the most indomitable obscurantists. But, I repeat, during the heyday of his activity, Tikhomirov was the main representative of Narodnaya Volya, and Plekhanov had to cross swords with him first of all. Here is how it was. When, despite all the predictions of the Narodniks, workers nevertheless began to appear in the cities, and first of all in what was then Petersburg, and the Narodniks began to be convinced that the workers were still very susceptible to revolutionary propaganda and that they must be reckoned with, then Tikhomirov advanced the following formula as a compromise: "We (Narodnaya Volya) agree to carry on propaganda also among the workers and do not deny that they are very important for the revolution." Plekhanov picked up on these words and, with his characteristic talent, turned them against the enemy. On this occasion he wrote a brilliant article against the Narodniks and fired several arrows at them, which hit the target very well. He wrote that their very posing of the question of the usefulness of the workers "for" the revolution shows that they do not understand the historical role of the working class; that this formula must be reversed if they want to see it correct; he wrote that it is impossible to say that the workers are important "for" the revolution; what must be said is that the revolution is important for the workers. “You argue,” he said, addressing the Narodniks, “as if man were for the Sabbath, and not the Sabbath for man. the capitalist system and unite the peasants and all the opposition elements around you.Since you Narodniks look upon the working class as something auxiliary, you discover that for you its leading role is a book with seven seals, and that you are incapable of understand".

Thus, it must be said in all fairness that Plekhanov was one of the first in Russia to formulate the idea of ​​the hegemony of the proletariat. And insofar as he later supported the Mensheviks, he inflicted severe blows on his past by repudiating the sermon that entered the history of the Russian revolutionary movement as brilliant pages.

Lenin is one of the fathers of the idea of ​​the hegemony of the proletariat.

The second father of the idea of ​​the hegemony of the proletariat was Lenin, who managed in various situations, under unprecedentedly difficult and difficult circumstances, through three decades, to convey this idea to the present day. Lenin first formulated it in a very interesting essay, which is only now being prepared for publication. In 1894, he wrote his first major revolutionary work, entitled: "Who are the friends of the people and how they fight the social democrats." (Do not forget that we were all called Social Democrats then).
This work of Lenin, as I said, could not then see the light. It was only recently that he was found, partly in the archives of the police department, partly in the foreign secret police, in particular in Berlin. This book by Lenin, embracing almost 15 printed sheets and dismantling the fallacies of the Narodniks to the bone, ends with wonderful words. Having proved that a new star is rising - the working class - and that it will be a class - the liberator, the hegemonic class, the main force and the mainspring of the revolution, Lenin says, approximately, the following: "Today the Russian workers do not yet understand the role of the working class as the hegemon , or it is understood only by individual units; but the time will come when all the advanced workers of Russia will understand this role; and when this happens, the Russian working class, leading the peasantry, will lead Russia to a communist revolution. It was said in 1894. Agree that now, 30 years later, you read these words with some amazement. Even the terminology - the proletariat leading the peasantry - even the epithets that characterize our revolution as communist - all this is entirely contained in the final lines of this historical work of Lenin. And as we will see later, he defended this idea for 30 years and under all circumstances: the situation changed, but Lenin and the Bolsheviks never changed the basic assessment of the proletariat as the hegemon of the future revolution *.

(* In view of the enormous importance of the question of the hegemony of the proletariat, an article by G. Zinoviev is included in the "Appendices", in which this question is elucidated in more detail).

Legal Marxism.

It must be said, however, that just as there were two trends in Narodism, so there were also two trends in Marxism of that time. A chapter on legal Marxism should occupy a fair place in our exposition.

In the mid-1990s, in our country, against the background of a certain revival of the working-class movement and political struggle, in general For the first time there was a trend called legal Marxism. If illegal Marxism was born in Russia in 1883, when the "Group for the Emancipation of Labor" appeared, then legal Marxism was born 12 years later. Only 10 too years after the formation of the mentioned group by Plekhanov in Russia, the emergence of legal Marxism became possible. And so, in this legal Marxism there were also at least two main currents.

One of them was headed by Plekhanov and Lenin, and the other by Struve, Tugan-Baranovsky and others. In this respect, two literary works are decisive. This, on the one hand, is Struve's well-known book "Critical Notes", published in 1894, and on the other hand, that book by Lenin, which I have now called: "Who are the friends of the people." (The latter, despite the fact that it has not yet been published and has not had a wide mass readership, nevertheless penetrated into the circles of Marxists and the first revolutionary workers and played its historical role.)

Struve before and now.

Who was Struve then? At that time he was a young but already promising writer who called himself a Marxist, fought against Mikhailovsky, considered himself a member of our party and subsequently became the author of the manifesto of its first congress, in 1898. In a word, he was then a Marxist star of the first magnitude.

Who is Struve now? You know that. Before 1905, he became the editor of the illegal bourgeois-liberal journal Osvobozhdenie, published abroad, in Stuttgart. Then he became one of the leaders of the Cadet Party, along with Milyukov, taking a place on its right wing. Even later, he became a convinced monarchist and counter-revolutionary, and during the years of Stolypin's triumph, his bard. After the February Revolution, he immediately took a place on the extreme right wing of the Cadet Party, and then played a role (and a very large one) among the white emigration, in the government of Denikin, Wrangel, and others. Now Struve is abroad, being one of the most prominent ideologists of the counter-revolution. The transformation, as you can see, is rare.

By the way, I will say that in the course of my exposition you will see quite a few prominent personalities who have made their way from the left wing of the revolutionary movement to the right counter-revolutionary camp. Suffice it to name, in addition to Struve, Tchaikovsky, whom I spoke about in my last lecture, Tikhomirov, who managed to slide from the "Narodnaya Volya" to the foot of the tsar's throne, Plekhanov, who, starting with the founder of the idea of ​​the hegemony of the proletariat, ended his sad days in the position of a right Menshevik -defencist, and, finally, Breshkovskaya, who began her revolutionary activity on the left wing of the Narodnik revolutionaries and ends her days also in the retinue of the bourgeois counter-revolution.

All these evolutions and metamorphoses are not accidental. During that period of terrible breakdown that our country experienced, when we had three big revolutions over the course of 12 years, it was inevitable that individuals would collapse. Under the yoke of tsarism, under this tombstone that crushed the whole country, it was inevitable that some considered their place not where it actually was, that they accidentally fell into one party or another, and when the decisive moment came, they often found themselves in another camp. This is what happened with legal Marxism. A whole wing of him later turned out to be the leader of the bourgeois counter-revolution in Russia.

"Critical notes" Struve.

Struve's book "Critical Notes" was entirely directed against populism. It was devoted, essentially speaking, to one theme: to be or not to be capitalism in Russia. Struve was right in his criticism of the Narodniks when he wrote: “You are in vain dreaming of some kind of original Russia, of an economically independent small proprietor. industrial proletariat. Capitalism in Russia is inevitable. Russia will pass through it." In this part, Struve, like Tugan-Baranovsky, was right in agreeing with Lenin and Plekhanov. Indeed, at that time the next task was to prove the inevitability of the birth in Russia of the working class, large factories and factories; it was necessary to prove that capitalism was advancing and that it had its own progressive side, about which we Marxists have always had the courage to speak, asserting to this day that, in comparison with serfdom or the antediluvian feudal system, capitalism is a step forward. Capitalism breaks the bones of the workers, exploits them and, in a certain sense, disfigures them—this is true; but capitalism creates powerful factories and works, electrifies countries, develops rural industry, creates means of communication, breaks through the wall of serfdom—and to that extent it is progressive.

The task of the revolutionary Marxists was twofold. On the one hand, they had to put down the Narodniks, who argued that there would be no capitalism, and who assured that capitalism is only grimy, sin, evil, a fiend of hell, and that we must flee from it like from fire. On the other hand, it was necessary for the revolutionary Marxists of that time, at the very first glimpses of capitalism, at the very birth of the working class, to start organizing it and creating a workers' party. And so Struve, while working out the first problem very well, completely "forgot" about the second one. He convincingly argued that capitalism was inevitable, that it was coming, that it had already arrived, and that it had its own progressive side; but he lost sight of our main task, that since capitalism has come, since the working class has appeared, we must immediately begin to organize the workers, create our own workers' party already in tsarist Russia itself and prepare it for battles not only against the tsar, but also against the bourgeoisie. Struve's book Critical Notes ended with a significant phrase. He wrote: "So, let's admit our uncivilizedness and let's learn to capitalism." Compare this final chord of Struve in 1895 with the conclusion from Lenin's book: "Who are the friends of the people." In 1894. Lenin also attacked Narodism, arguing that capitalism is advancing, that it has arrived, that it is inevitable, that this stage is necessary, that capitalism is preparing the triumph of the working class; but at the same time, at the end of his book, he gave a forecast, a prediction that has now come true and was that the Russian workers will understand the role of the working class as a hegemon, and, having understood this, will lead the peasantry and lead Russia to a communist revolution . Such was the "small" difference between Lenin and Struve in those days. And yet, under the rule of tsarism, relations were so confused that people who diverged so sharply in essence in those years were considered, nevertheless, like-minded people and were in the same camp. Some gave the slogan: "Let's go to school for capitalism!". Others said: "We will raise the working class, the proletariat, the hegemon, in order to lead Russia to the proletarian revolution!" And they all marched together, as if in a phalanx, in one front against Narodism. I repeat, this was inevitable at that time of very unclear, undifferentiated social relations, and this left an indelible mark on the entire further development of our Party.

Plekhanov as a theoretician and Lenin as a politician.

Of other literary works, one should also mention Plekhanov's (Beltov's) book, published by him in 1895: "On the Development of a Monistic View of History." In this work, Plekhanov showed himself from the most brilliant side, giving battle to populism, mainly on another arena - on the philosophical one - and coming out in defense of materialism. It seems to me that many of our modern associate professors, instead of "criticizing" Plekhanov with the swagger of half-knowers, as they usually do, would act smarter if they expounded and interpreted to the new generation this wonderful book, from which entire generations of Marxists have learned, drawing from it an understanding of the foundations of militant materialism.

The political side has never been particularly strong with Plekhanov. He was a theorist. He was then the recognized ideological leader of the party, even of a whole generation of Marxist intelligentsia and Marxist workers. Lenin was younger than him; he was just starting to work. And so, looking back, we now clearly see how, from the second half of the 1990s, a kind of well-known division of labor between Plekhanov and Lenin was first established. Both of them never agreed on this, but in fact it was so. Plekhanov's forte was theoretical argumentation, and he took on philosophical battles with the enemy, in which area he was and will remain an incomparable master. The young Lenin, from his first works, concentrated all his attention on social and political questions, on the organization of the party and the working class. And in this sense, they complemented each other at one time.

We must also mention Lenin's book, written by him in exile "On the Development of Capitalism in Russia", in which he first appeared as a major economist. In this work, he analyzes social relations in Russia and proves with remarkable clarity and scientific character the indisputable development of capitalism in Russia.

Lenin's struggle with Struve.

Thus, two directions were outlined in legal Marxism from the very beginning. Lenin criticized Struve's book "Critical Notes" and his other speeches in the burnt "Marxist Collection", which also was not published. (His article on this subject, under the pseudonym "Thulin", was included in his collected works, and you can read it). Lenin was one of the first who, walking hand in hand with Struve, nevertheless felt that this ally was not entirely reliable. In those years when Struve was one of the most brilliant representatives of legal Marxism in Russia, it was rather difficult to object to him, but Lenin nevertheless did it. Already in the above-mentioned article, under the signature "Tulin", analyzing the legal works of Struve, he reproached him already at that time for the most serious sin. He seemed to be saying to him: “You see one side of the phenomenon; you see that capitalism is advancing, that it is beating the commune and serfdom, but you don’t see the other side of the phenomenon, you don’t see that our task is not to, on the basis of the appearance capitalism to go to learn from it, but to immediately organize its own class, which will be able to smash the autocracy of the tsar and then move against the autocracy of capital "... In essence, here we can again say that the main dispute between these two groups in one and in the same camp of legal Marxism was reduced to a dispute about the hegemony of the proletariat, to the question of whether the proletariat, as a class, would play a leading role in the revolution, whether it would really lead such a struggle that would end in the victory of the working class and the destruction of capitalism, or whether it would to go only in harness, side by side with other opposition forces, and stop at the victory over the autocracy, i.e. to establish a bourgeois system in Russia.

Against this background, there formation of a labor party in Russia.

If you look at other countries, at least at Germany, if you remember the historical work of Lassalle, you will see that in this country the bourgeois parties succeeded in winning over a significant part of the workers before the latter had formed their own party. Lassalle began by freeing the workers from under the influence of the bourgeois parties, those first strata of them that the bourgeoisie had managed to win over, and drawing them over to the side of the workers' socialist party. And what happened in Germany is not an accident. Everywhere the bourgeoisie took shape as a class earlier than the proletariat, and everywhere it had its parties, its ideologists and its own literature earlier than the proletariat, trying to win over a part of the workers to follow it, to follow its party.

In Russia, this phenomenon also happened, but in a very peculiar form. Despite the fact that the bourgeoisie, as an open political force, began to take shape in our country later, nevertheless, we also see in our country that the first workers’ circles, the first workers’ revolutionaries, were carried away not in the direction of the workers’ parties, but in the direction of the Narodnik party. , which, in the final analysis, was although a bourgeois-democratic, but still a bourgeois party. Lenin also had to start, to a certain extent, with the same thing that Lassalle had started in Germany. The situation, of course, was different, the ideological struggle took different forms, but the essence of things was largely the same. We had to start by winning back certain groups of workers who had gone astray and ended up not in the workers' parties, but in the populist parties, which were essentially bourgeois, and then, having won these groups, to start building a workers' party with them. Thus, if we keep in mind two currents in populism, on the one hand, and two currents in legal Marxism, on the other, then we will have the ideological outline on the basis of which the workers' party in Russia began to be created.

And now, after all that has been said, I can move on to my immediate topic - the history of the party in the proper sense.

The uterine period of the party.

In his book What Is to Be Done?, about which I shall have to speak later, comrade Lenin wrote that our movement from the beginning of the 80s and 90s was, as it were, the uterine period of the Party. In this decade, the working class, as it were, was still carrying its future child - the workers' party. The first circles were just emerging, which were very fragile, now falling apart, now reviving, and the first major ideological battles began for the independence of the workers' party, for the idea of ​​the hegemonic proletariat.

In the first half of the 1990s, the Party was already building up on the basis of the mass working-class movement, and this period can be regarded as its childhood and youth. At the same time, a strike movement is emerging, which is growing rapidly, as can be seen from the following figures. From 1881 to 1886 there were only 40 strikes, in which 80,000 workers took part. From 1895 to 1899 the strike movement embraced half a million - 450 thousand workers, i.e. the number of strikers increases by about 6-7 times. In St. Petersburg the strike movement was quite significant in 1878. Since the beginning of the 1980s, it has assumed even larger proportions, and in the middle of the 1990s, the strike immediately embraced up to 30,000 workers in the textile industry.

The first workers' social democratic circles In Petersburg.

On this basis, workers' social-democratic circles begin to emerge. The first such circle was created by Blagoev. Bulgarian by origin. In 1884 he was a student in St. Petersburg, where many Bulgarians then studied. Together with other comrades whose names have been preserved, Gerasimov and Kharitonov, he united a group of like-minded people around him, founding the first Social Democratic circle in St. Petersburg, which played no less a role than the North Russian Workers' Union founded by Khalturin. Blagoev is still alive. He is the leader of the Bulgarian Communist Party and one of the founders of the Third International.

"Unions of struggle for the liberation of the working class".

The year 1895 was especially rich in events.

I have already pointed out that in that year a number of books appeared that were not just books, but milestones on the way to the creation of a workers' party. This year is also notable for the fact that the "Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class" was then founded in St. Petersburg. In essence, it was, one might say, the first provincial committee of our Party. Unions for the struggle for the liberation of the working class were later formed in a number of other cities: in 1895 in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, in 1896 in Moscow. These unions were the first major social-democratic organizations that formed the basis of our party, and the first, St. Petersburg, included in its ranks quite a few remarkable people and, above all, Comrade. Lenin, who organized it. Also belonged to him: S. I. Radchenko, Krzhizhanovsky, now working on the electrification of Soviet Russia, Vaneev, Starkov, Martov, who, as you know, is now a Menshevik, Silvin (Bolshevik), worker of the Putilov factory B. Zinoviev, about whose fate I, unfortunately, do not know anything, the worker of the Obukhov plant Shelgunov, a member of our party, who is still alive, but, unfortunately, became blind, and, finally, the worker of the Aleksandrovsky iron foundry I. V. Babushkin, who was shot in 1905. in Siberia by the Rennenkampf detachment - one of the first Bolsheviks, a man to whom Comrade. Lenin retained a deep sympathy as one of the most prominent representatives of the first generation of workers - Marxists.

Provincial Social-Democrats working circles.

At the same time, numerous circles scattered throughout Russia, trying to unite and having significant influence in many cities. In Martov's book you will find (he has an amazing memory for names) a long list of the leaders of the then circles. They deserve to be read by me: Krasin is in St. Petersburg, the same one who is now our most prominent worker; Fedoseev - in Vladimir, Melnitsky - in Kyiv, Alabyshev in Rostov-on-Don, Goldendy (Ryazanov), Steklov and Tsyperovich - in Odessa, Kremer, Aizenstadt, Kosovsky and others - in Vilna, Khinchuk - in Tula. Tov. Khinchuk was at first one of the founders of the party; then he went to the Mensheviks and was a member of their central committee, then - the first chairman of the Moscow Menshevik Council, after which he joined the ranks of our party; now he is the head of the cooperative. As for Kremer, Eisenstadt and Kosovsky, they were the founders of the Bund, about which I must say a few words.

Bund.

At present the word "Bund" is very little known to the workers of our large cities, but at one time it was very popular in the revolutionary camp. Bund means "union" in Hebrew - in this case, the union of the Jewish workers of Poland and Lithuania. It was founded in 1897, a year before the first congress of our party. It was brought to life by a strong, even stormy movement among Jewish artisans in Poland and Lithuania, a movement that preceded by several years the workers' movement in St. Petersburg and Moscow. There were special and quite sufficient reasons for this; The fact is that the Jewish workers and artisans at that time had to groan under the yoke not only of capitalism and economic exploitation, but also under the yoke of national oppression. Due to this circumstance, the Jewish workers and artisans revolutionized earlier than the workers of other cities, and managed to create a mass workers' organization earlier than others, uniting in an alliance called the Bund.

From the bowels of this Jewish workers' organization came out many lone heroes, many prominent figures. It suffices to name the Jewish worker Leckert, who wounded the Vilna police chief von Wahl, and to recall a number of leaders of the Jewish labor movement who are still in the ranks of our party and took part in its organization.

Founded, as I have already said, in 1897, the Bund was at one time, for two or three years, the most powerful and numerous organization in our Party. But then, when our largest cities—Petersburg, Moscow, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, and Orekhovo-Zuevo—woke up, when the deep strata of Russian workers arose, then the small detachment of Jewish artisans, who had previously occupied, in a certain sense, the proscenium, had, of course, to retreat to second plan. But be that as it may, in the second half of the 1990s the movement of Jewish workers was very significant, and the role of the Bund in the party is very great. Suffice it to say that the main organizer of the first congress of our party in 1898 was the Bund. And it is no coincidence that this congress was in Minsk, in the city of the Jewish Pale of Settlement, on the territory of the Bund. Incidentally, seeing that the Jewish workers and artisans played the role of skirmishers for some time, the Black Hundred press raised, as you know, a frenzied persecution and for many years argued that the culprits of the revolutionary movement in Russia were exclusively Jews.

Today, reviewing the history of our party, which has already grown into a powerful organization, we must, it seems to me, be reminded of the brave Jewish artisans and workers who, having risen first in the struggle, helped us lay the first bricks of the building of our party.

First Party Congress.

And now let us return to the alliances of struggle for the emancipation of the working class. The first congress of our party, which had eight representatives. We can name them. Eidelman and Vigdorchik were from Rabochaya Gazeta. (Both are alive; the first is a Bolshevik, and the second, alas! a Right Menshevik.) S. I. Radchenko, who died in 1912, arrived from the St. Petersburg Union of Struggle. (His brother, I.I. Radchenko, is alive and working in our party.) From the Kyiv Union was Tuchapsky, who, if I am not mistaken, also died. From the Moscow Union - Vanovsky. From Yekaterinoslavsky Petrusevich. From the Bund - Kremer, Kosovsky and Mutnik. As for the latter, I cannot say anything about it; I knew Kremer and Kosovsky personally. (Alas, they are the most right-wing of the Right Mensheviks.)

Such was the composition of this first congress, which attempted to carry out the work of founding a party. The congress elected a central committee, appointed the editors of the central organ, and issued an appeal written, as I told you, by none other than LB Struve, the same one who is now the worst enemy of the working class.
I advise you to read this document, which you can find in many books, and also, as an appendix, in N. Baturin's Essays on the History of Social Democracy in Russia.

Struve, in characterizing the international situation, wrote, among other things, the following about the revolution of 1848, the fiftieth anniversary of which was exactly in 1898.

“Fifty years ago, the life-giving storm of the revolution of 1848 swept over Europe. For the first time, the modern working class appeared on the scene as a major historical force. Through its efforts, the bourgeoisie managed to sweep away many outdated feudal-monarchist orders. However, it quickly considered its worst ally in the new ally. the enemy and betrayed both herself and him, and the cause of freedom into the hands of reaction.But it was already too late: the working class, pacified for a while, reappeared on the historical scene ten or fifteen years later, but with redoubled strength and increased self-consciousness, as if it were quite mature fighter for his ultimate liberation... "

"The farther to the east of Europe (and Russia, as you know, is the east of Europe), the politically weaker, more cowardly and meaner the bourgeoisie becomes, the greater the cultural and political tasks fall to the lot of the proletariat."

I think that Pyotr Struve can be forgiven a lot for these prophetic words. After all, it turned out that he wrote them about himself, about his class. We can only repeat after him that "the farther to the east, the weaker, more cowardly and meaner the bourgeoisie becomes politically." And no one has proved this so clearly as P. B. Struve himself.

Economism.

By the end of the 1990s, by the time of the first party congress, two currents began to emerge, not only in the literary arena, but also in the labor movement itself, in the very then, albeit poorly formed, Social Democratic Party. One of them has been called "economism", and I will try to outline it briefly. To begin with, I will say that economism was closely connected with the struggle of those trends that emerged in legal Marxism. And if we express very briefly the essence of economism and the dispute that went on between the Marxist revolutionaries of that time, the supporters of the political struggle, the Iskra-ists, the future Leninists, on the one hand, and the economists on the other, then we have to say that here, as before, it all comes down to the question of the hegemony of the proletariat. This idea has served, for 30 too years, as a major watershed, confronting us in different settings and in different forms. In 1917 she separated us from the Mensheviks on different sides of the barricade; in 1895 it turned into a purely literary battle, and in 1898-1900. decided in the inter-party struggle ...
And so, looking closely at the facts, you will see that between the supporters of Economism and the representatives of the right wing of legal Marxism, the future builders of the Menshevik Party, there is also a personal connection. This is one and the same core: from legal Marxism, through Economism, to Menshevism, then to liquidationism, and then to what we have now, when the Mensheviks have clearly gone over to the camp of the bourgeoisie. This is one logical circuit. The question of the hegemonic proletariat is so important that anyone who makes a mistake in it will not go unpunished. Anyone who stumbles in this matter is forced, according to the laws of falling bodies, to roll lower and lower.

Sources of economics.

Economism arose in the second half of the 1990s, when Social Democracy began to move from circleism, as they said then, to agitation, to mass work. What is a circle? From the name it is clear that this was a period when the party was composed of separate, very small propaganda circles. And nothing else could be done at that time, because it was possible to collect workers only in separate units. But when the movement began to grow, then, against the backdrop of the significant strikes I spoke of, the revolutionaries began to set themselves new, larger tasks. They said: you can't be content with circles, you have to go over to mass work, to agitation; we must try to gather not only individual workers, but to organize the working class. And it was then, at this very important moment, that the trend called "economism" was born. Why he was given such a name, I will now explain.

When the transition to a mass organization of the workers began, then the questions of the economic struggle and the immediate life of the workers began, quite understandably, to play an enormous role. In addition, during the period of the circle movement there was only propaganda, which, of course, had to be replaced by agitation during mass work.

I note, by the way, that there is a difference between agitation and propaganda. Plekhanov seized it very aptly. He said: "If we give a lot of ideas to a small number of people, that's propaganda; if we give one idea to a lot of people, that's agitation."

This definition is classical. This, indeed, is the difference between agitation and propaganda.

During the period of the circle - there was propaganda, i.e. many ideas, a whole outlook were preached to a small group of people; during the period of agitation, on the contrary, they tried to instill one basic idea about the economic subordination of the working class to numerous workers.

So, by that time we had switched to economic tracks. It is understandable. It is not at all an accidental phenomenon that one of Lenin's first works was the pamphlet "On Fines", which were then imposed on the workers and workers of St. Petersburg for being late, poor work, etc. These fines and deductions were then the topic of the day, since they took away 5, and sometimes 1/4 of wages. Therefore, anyone who wanted to lively affect the mass media player had to talk about fines. No wonder the first leaflets of the "Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class", written by Comrade. Lenin, partly at large, partly when he was sitting in the Crosses, were devoted to the question of boiling water or one or another disorder in the factories. At that time, it was necessary to approach the workers through elementary, purely elementary questions, because only in this way could it be possible to wake up the mass worker, who was sleeping soundly in a sound sleep, who was to a large extent an illiterate village person, not used to protest and organization. Hence it is clear why the Marxists of that time emphasized the economic moment so much.

But then a dialectical incident happened, often observed in the course of historical phenomena. Correctly emphasizing the economic point, some of the leaders, who in fact were only our fellow travelers, the future Mensheviks, went too far with the idea of ​​economism in the sense that the workers should not be interested in anything else at all, but only in narrow economic issues: everything else, they say, does not concern the workers, they they do not understand this, and it is necessary to talk with them only about things that directly affect them, i.e. only about their economic demands.

And that's when the word "economist" appeared. So they began to call not specialists in economic science, but those who began to prove that it was not necessary to talk about anything else with a worker, like boiling water, fines and the like. Economists have gone so far as to deny even the necessity of fighting the autocracy. They said: the worker will not understand this; we will scare him away if we come to him with the slogan "Down with autocracy." Developing and "deepening" their views, economists finally put forward such a "division of labor": the liberal bourgeoisie should be engaged in politics, and the workers should be engaged in the struggle for economic improvements.

Economists.

If I name you the persons who were among the leaders of this movement, you will see quite old acquaintances in front of you. These are Prokopovich and Kuskova, the same ones who received the shortened nickname "Prokukish" last year. At that time they were members of the Social Democratic Party and took part in legal Marxism. There is nothing accidental in this fact. Both Struve and many leaders of the radical intelligentsia, from which the bourgeois party was later molded, were then members of the Social Democratic Party and were listed among the workers' leaders. So, these same Prokopovich and Kuskova, on the subject of economism, came out with their "credo", with a symbol of faith, trying to prove that the workers should not get involved in politics, that this is an occupation for liberals and an opposition bourgeois society. The cause of the workers - they assured a very small one: economic demands. Little of. In the struggle against Plekhanov and Lenin, Prokopovich and Kuskova even assumed the attitude of true workers' lovers.

They said: “The true friends of the workers are us. You are thinking about the overthrow of the autocracy, about the revolutionary political struggle. But this is not the work of the workers at all! autocracy does not concern you, you need to think about boiling water, about wages, about the working day.

What's the matter here?

Again and again - in a complete misunderstanding of the role of the working class as a hegemon. The proposal of the Marxists was not at all about forgetting about the working day and wages. This was also remembered by Comrade. Lenin and the Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Workers. Of course, we wanted to raise wages and improve the lives of the workers, but this was not enough for us; we wanted the worker to run the state, to be its master and leader. And therefore, we said, there is no question in which the working class should not be interested. Especially the question of the tsarist autocracy, which concerns him directly. We stand for the hegemony of the proletariat and will not allow the workers to be driven into the kennel of petty economic demands. So said the opponents of the economists.

Prokopovich and Kuskova were supported in Russia by several groups, including the illegal newspaper Rabochaya Mysl, published in St. Petersburg in 1897 under the editorship of Takhtarev, the author of valuable historical studies on the labor movement and one of its major figures in the 90s. Together with him, Lokhov-Olkhin and the Finnish Kok took part in Rabochaya Mysl, which at that time enjoyed considerable influence among the St. Petersburg circles. This body and its leaders vigorously defended the view of Prokopovich and Kuskova - that the working class should deal only with economic issues directly related to it and not go into politics.

The first answer to this direction was given by Plekhanov. He did this in a book entitled "Vademecum" (i.e. guidebook, handbook). In it, he utterly smashed the ideas of Prokopovich and Kuskova and delivered several strong blows to Rabochaya Mysl. He argued that anyone who wants to leave the workers only a miserable crumb of the "economy" and does not want them to get involved in politics is not a workers' leader.

Another answer, even more accurate, was given by Comrade. Lenin. The latter was then in Siberian exile, and there, in a distant village, he wrote a remarkable reply to economists, under which he collected a number of signatures of like-minded people exiled with him. Tov. Lenin always differed from Plekhanov in that he was, so to speak, a "choral" person, trying in all cases to speak in an organized manner. This answer Comrade. Lenin then went around all the workers' circles. Brochure tov. Lenin's "The Tasks of Russian Social-Democracy" was published abroad with a foreword by the present Menshevik Axelrod, who, twenty years ago, could not boast of Lenin's foresight at that time. In this pamphlet, Lenin raised the question of the hegemony of the proletariat quite concretely and gave the economists, opponents of this idea, a fight along the whole line.

The economists were finally defeated in the early 1900s: around 1902 their song was sung. But between 1898 and 1901 they were, in a certain sense, the masters of thought. At that time, thanks to them, the working-class movement was in the greatest danger, since the slogan of the economists, on the outside, was very tempting to poorly trained workers, and it was easy to catch them on this bait. And if at that period Plekhanov and Lenin, and then the practitioners of the Russian working-class revolutionary movement, had not fought along this line within the working-class movement, then who knows how many years it would have been diverted to the path of economism, i.e. opportunism.

Foreign Center of Economism.

We see in the example of legal and illegal Marxism that Economism was illegal: the tsarist autocracy persecuted it, and it was forced to publish illegal newspapers and leaflets; into the workers' party, trying to infect it with the poison of opportunism and the poison of bourgeois ideas. She does this either on the literary arena, like Struve in Critical Notes, or like Tugan-Baranovsky, or on an organizational basis, like some economists who founded the Union of Russian Social Democrats abroad and published the journal Rabocheye Delo, which had a significant Spread. The editorial staff of Rabochy Dyelo included major figures in the labor movement of that time, such as, for example, Martynov, who later became a prominent Menshevik and recently joined us, Akimov-Makhnovets, Ivanshin, Krichevsky, and others. They entrenched themselves abroad, setting up an emigrant center there, and in Russia they had illegal newspapers, circles and committees that systematically worked to tilt the entire working-class movement to the right, push it towards moderate politics and make the worker think only of his own narrow economic interests.

Their ideology was very simple, but extremely dangerous: the worker must know his place, not engage in politics, not be interested in the tsarist autocracy; he should only work to improve his guild position and not reach out, leaving this matter to the white bone - the liberals. It goes without saying that all this was not said in such a crudely open form, but in a more skilful and very often quite sincere form, because it seemed to such people as Martynov, Teplov, Akimov-Makhnovets or Takhtarev that it should be so. This idea, I repeat, was extremely dangerous, because it could captivate the unsophisticated masses, who were in a desperate economic situation. And if that happened, the revolution would be delayed for many years, and the working class would not be able to play an independent role in it.

The role of the working class from the point of view of economism and Bolshevism.

Supporters of economism did not recognize the role of hegemon for the proletariat. They said: What do you think the working class is the messiah? To this we answered and still answer: Messiah, messianism, this is not our language, we do not like such words; but we accept the concept that is put into them: yes, in a certain sense, the working class is the messiah, and its role is messianic, for it is the class that will liberate the whole world. The workers have nothing to lose but chains; they have no property, they sell their labor; it is the only class interested in reorganizing the world on new principles and capable of drawing the peasantry along against the bourgeoisie. We avoid semi-mystical terms - messiah, messianism - and prefer the scientific one to them: the proletariat is the hegemon, i.e. the proletariat, which is not satisfied with a 10% increase in its wages or a half-hour reduction in the working day, but declares: "I am the owner. I create wealth for capitalism, which has produced me for its own destruction. For the time being I work like a wage slave against capitalism, but the hour of the expropriation of the expropriators will strike, and the moment will come when the working class will take power into its own hands."

The hegemony of the proletariat is the power of the soviets.

The word "hegemon" is foreign. Now the workers have translated it into Russian: the hegemony of the proletariat means, in modern terms, power to the soviets, power to the working class. This slogan was prepared over the years and went through many years of trials, withstanding a fierce struggle not only with the autocracy and the Kadet Party (speaking from right to left), not only with the bourgeoisie and populism, but also with the right wing of legal Marxism - with economism, and subsequently and with Menshevism. That is why the idea of ​​the hegemony of the proletariat is the main ideological foundation of Bolshevism. This is one of the "pillars" on which the Bolshevik Party stands. And this must be considered by every conscious supporter of communism if he wants to understand the history of our party.

Westernism, populism and "Russian Marxism"

Marxism in Russia emerged as an extreme form of Westernism. The first generations of Russian Marxists fought against the old trends of the revolutionary intelligentsia, that is, against populism, which by that time was in crisis. Initially, the populist movement of the 70s did not have a revolutionary political character. However, the failure of "going to the people", associated not only with government repression, but also with the fact that the people did not accept the intelligentsia. “The people saw the lordly idea in the populist going to the people. This brought a political problem to the mind of the intelligentsia and led to the development of new methods of struggle. The political goal of overthrowing the autocracy by terror testified to the disappointment of the revolutionary intelligentsia in the peasantry and the decision to “lean on their own heroism.

The assassination of Alexander II caused a strong reaction in the reign of Alexander III --- not only in the government, but also in society. It turned out that the revolutionary movement did not have a social base. It would remain to hope for the future, for the industrial development of Russia, which will lead to the development of the working class, the “liberator class”, if not for the “proletarianization of the peasantry”, the idea of ​​which the Marxists advocated and which the Narodniks did not want to allow. “The only real social force that can be relied upon is the emerging proletariat. It is necessary to develop the class revolutionary consciousness of this proletariat,” wrote Berdyaev, a philosopher with a Marxist past. The dissatisfaction of the peasants, their hatred of officials and landowners became the mainstay of the revolution. The memories of the horrors of serfdom did not disappear among the peasantry. The world of the ruling privileged classes, mainly from the nobility, their culture, alien to the peasantry, was perceived as foreign. The agrarian revolution, being more than a socio-economic revolution, according to Berdyaev, “primarily a moral and everyday revolution”, made the dictatorship of the proletariat possible in Russia, or rather, the dictatorship of the idea of ​​the proletariat, since “the dictatorship of the proletariat, in general, the dictatorship of the class cannot be” . However, this dictatorship also turned out to be a dictatorship over the peasantry, which committed cruel violence against it, as in the case of collectivization, or the creation of collective farms. But the violence against the peasants was committed by people who came from the bottom; civilization based on the rule of the nobles came to an end. Certain circles of the left populists immediately recognized the Bolsheviks as a Russian national force. A significant number of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, guided by populist radicalism, joined the Bolshevik Party, bringing with them quite conscious Russian nationalism. The Left SRs, like the Bolsheviks, considered themselves internationalists, but their internationalism was messianic in nature, later Soviet Russia became for them “the vanguard of progressive humanity, which lit the torch of freedom for the entire oppressed world. By the way, statistics show that in the Bolshevik Party there were more people from the right SRs than from the left (however, this difference is a few percent 12.7% of the former Left SRs and 17.5% of the right SRs). The Right Socialist-Revolutionaries as a whole were not hostile to the Bolsheviks, their struggle against Bolshevism always had significant self-restraints and was almost never consistent. "Narodism is just as characteristic of a Russian phenomenon as nihilism and anarchism." The feeling of isolation of the intelligentsia from the common people, mainly the peasantry, underlay the teachings of the Russian revolutionaries, and Herzen, and Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky. "The intelligentsia is always indebted to the people, and they must pay their debt." Culture was created at the expense of people's labor, therefore, those who are attached to culture are responsible to the people. “Revolutionary populism (Slavophiles, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy) believed that religious truth was hidden in the people, while populism, non-religious and often anti-religious (Herzen, Bakunin, populist socialists of the 70s) believed that social truth was hidden in it. But all the Russian Narodniks were aware of the untruth of their lives. Narodnik ideology, alien to individualism, could arise only in an agrarian country; populism, which predetermined Russian Marxism, introduced into it a specifically national trait. The struggle of the Plekhanovist Marxists against the populist movement cannot serve as a refutation of this. The revolution was generated by the originality of Russian historical and cultural processes; the Bolshevik revolution was possible only in Russia, and Western communism is a phenomenon of a different kind.

In the Soviet research literature, there was a point of view of the “defeat” of populism by Lenin, based on his works of the 1890s, in which he criticized N.K. Mikhailovsky. This position had a historical basis, it corresponded to historical reality. But this "defeat" of Narodism did not pass without a trace for Lenin either. Many populist ideas were revived by him, but in different historical realities.

Populism is an expression of the interests of the peasantry, which constituted the majority of the population of Russia. In the process of social transformations in Soviet Russia, it was impossible not to take into account the interests of the majority of the country, thus it was also impossible not to turn classical Marxism towards populism.

Marxism is a proletarian scientific philosophy and sociology; populism for Lenin is a peasant utopian and reactionary ideology. Thus, a clear dividing line was drawn. But this line was characteristic only of theoretical reasoning. As ideas are realized in reality, clarity and unambiguity disappear. The social reality of Russia will force Lenin to rethink the role and significance of peasant ideology, will force him to take into account the fact of the peasant majority in Russia.

It should be noted that Lenin also emphasized the progressiveness of the ideas of populism, called for the identification of a “democratic thread” in it. “The Narodniks understand and represent the interests of the small producers in this respect immeasurably more correctly, and Marxists, having rejected all the reactionary features of their program, must not only not accept their general democratic points, but must also carry them out more precisely, deeper and further.” In this sense, populism and Marxism are united by a general democratic content. Lenin will take into account the democratic essence of populism in his social practice.

Lenin rethought the revolutionary tradition of Russian social thought, which allowed him to adapt Marxism to the specific conditions of Russia. “Lenin returned in a new way to the old tradition of Russian social thought. He proclaimed that the industrial backwardness of Russia, the rudimentary character of capitalism, is the great advantage of the social revolution. You don't have to deal with a strong, organized bourgeoisie. Here Lenin is compelled to repeat what Tkachev said, and by no means what Engels said. Bolshevism is much more traditional than is generally thought, it agrees with the originality of the Russian historical process. Russification and orientalization of Marxism took place,” wrote Berdyaev. From the point of view of economic determinism, it is impossible to realize the socialist ideal in peasant Russia. Lenin departs from economic determinism, focuses on the subjective factor, on what he criticized the populists for. “It is the Marxist Lenin who will assert that socialism can be realized in Russia apart from the development of capitalism and before the formation of a numerous working class.”

Berdyaev was right in the sense that Russian thinkers included Western theories in the spiritual context of the development of Russian thought, in Western theories they tried to find solutions to urgent problems of Russian life. Lenin was no exception, since by birth, upbringing, and spiritual makeup, he belonged to the Russian revolutionary tradition. The question is, what is the degree of influence of the Russian revolutionary tradition on Lenin?

Russian philosopher S.L. Frank substantiated the idea of ​​the assimilation of Marxism by populism. In his opinion, populism “is not a specific socio-political direction, but a broad spiritual trend, connected with quite a variety of socio-political theories and programs. It would seem that Marxism is fighting against populism, but the victorious and all-devouring populist spirit has absorbed and assimilated Marxist theory, and at present the difference between conscious populists and populists professing Marxism is reduced at best to a difference in political program and socialist theory and has absolutely no the significance of a fundamental cultural-philosophical disagreement”. Frank's statement that Marxism was assimilated by populism is, in our opinion, too bold a statement, but there is some truth in it. It can be put differently: the cultural and historical environment, an essential part of which was the populist worldview, influenced Marxism, contributed to its deformation. One thing is the development of Marxism within the framework of German philosophy, another thing is the perception of Marxism by Russian society and its development within the framework of the Russian tradition. We are talking about the transformation of Marxism in the minds of Russian thinkers, Lenin in particular.

The merit of Russian philosophers belonging to the religious tradition of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is the identification of the characteristic features of the populist worldview, which were realized in Russian Marxism and existed in Soviet society for a long time, entered the Soviet official ideology.

Of interest is the desire of Russian religious thinkers to construct the idea of ​​similarities between populists and Marxists along the lines of moral, ethical and socio-psychological. D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, the founder of the psychological trend in Russian literary criticism, gave a brilliant description of the psychological types of the “superfluous person”, “repentant nobleman”, “raznochinets”, “grimy”, etc. From the point of view of this method in the psychological type the Narodnik and the Russian Marxist have many common features.

Berdyaev drew attention to the fact that “populist ideology was possible only in a peasant, agricultural country. The Narodnik world outlook is the collectivist world outlook. Hence the admiration for the people, serving them. "The feeling of guilt before the people played a huge role in the psychology of populism." This trait is equally inherent in both the psychological makeup of a populist and the psychological makeup of a Russian Marxist; this trait has become a characteristic feature of Soviet ideology.

Another feature of the populist's psychological make-up is moralism and nihilism. Ethicism and moralism acted as a moral motivation for serving the idea, the idea of ​​national happiness, nihilism is the denial of absolute moral values, the recognition of earthly, utilitarian, relative values. In connection with these features of the populist worldview, according to Frank, the psychological type of the Russian populist is taking shape. “The concept of “populism” combines all the main features of the described spiritual warehouse - nihilistic utilitarianism, which denies all absolute values ​​​​and sees the only moral goal in serving the subjective, material interests of the “majority” (or the people), moralism, requiring strict self-sacrifice, unconditional submission from the individual own interests (at least the highest and purest) to the cause of public service, and, finally, an anti-cultural trend - the desire to turn all people into "workers", to reduce and minimize the highest needs in the name of universal equality and solidarity in the implementation of moral requirements, "wrote Franc.

Due to the specific features of the populist social consciousness, which were also inherent in Russian Marxists, Marxism was realized on Russian soil. Populism and Marxism as a belief in the earthly happiness of the people in this eschatological part are identical. Psychological religiosity led to the eschatological idea, which took the form of universal salvation. The eschatological idea inherent in Orthodoxy, materialistically interpreted by populism, formed the psychological basis of the social background into which Marxism so organically fit.

According to Berdyaev, Russian Marxism borrowed all the characteristic populist features, Russian Marxism is a natural development of the Russian revolutionary tradition. Berdyaev saw the similarities between populism and Russian Marxism at the level of moral and socio-psychological ideas. Populism and Marxism are identical as a belief in a brighter future, but as theoretical concepts they have different rationalistic foundations. In this regard, to speak of the assimilation of Marxism by populism, of the powerful influence of populism on Marxism, in our opinion, would be a clear exaggeration. Lenin creatively developed Marxism, adapted it to the conditions of Russia, to a greater extent under the influence of objective circumstances, to a lesser extent under the influence of populism, but he did not abandon the basic tenets of Marxism.

If we move from the moral, ethical, psychological level to the level of social class analysis, then populism, which expresses the interests of the peasants, and Marxism, which expresses the interests of the proletariat, are fundamentally different. Hence the fundamentally different approach to the problem of the development of capitalism in Russia. For Lenin, the development of capitalism is a progressive phenomenon. “A radical social revolution is connected with certain historical conditions of economic development; the latter are its precondition. It is, therefore, possible only where, together with capitalist production, the industrial proletariat occupies at least a significant place in the masses of the people,” he wrote. If for Marxism the development of capitalism and, as a consequence of it, the proletarianization of the population is good, then for populism it is not. Lenin argued that the populist social ideal does not eliminate capitalism, but gives rise to it, "that capitalism is not a contradiction to the "people's system", but a direct, immediate and immediate continuation and development of it." The peasant character of Russia, according to Lenin, is her shortcoming, which hinders the realization of the revolution.

Lenin faced a problem: either to wait for the development of capitalism and the proletarianization of the Russian population, or, contrary to Marxism, to realize the proletarian social ideal in a peasant country. Lenin makes a choice in favor of the second, believing it possible to carry out a socialist revolution without sufficient, objective socio-economic prerequisites, highlighting the subjective factor. Berdyaev assessed this as the influence of populist socialism on Lenin. “Contrary to the doctrinaire Marxism of the Mensheviks, Lenin saw in the political and economic backwardness of Russia an advantage for carrying out a social revolution. In a country of an autocratic monarchy, unaccustomed to the rights and freedoms of the citizen, it is easier to implement the dictatorship of the proletariat than in Western democracies... In an industrially backward country with underdeveloped capitalism, it will be easier to organize economic life according to the communist plan. Here Lenin is in the traditions of Russian populist socialism, he claims that the revolution will take place in Russia in an original way, not according to the Western, that is, in essence, not according to Marx, not according to the doctrinal understanding of Marx. But everything must happen in the name of Marx,” wrote Berdyaev. According to Berdyaev, Lenin was able to make a socialist revolution in Russia because he did not go beyond the framework of the Russian idea, because he relied on the Russian revolutionary tradition. Lenin “united in himself two traditions - the tradition of the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia, in its most maximalist currents, and the tradition of Russian historical power in its most despotic manifestations. But by combining two traditions that were in mortal enmity and struggle in the 19th century, Lenin could draw a plan for the organization of a communist state and carry it out.

Is it possible, following Berdyaev, to assert that in order to realize the socialist ideal in Russia, Lenin departed from Marxism and took the stand of populism and Russian despotism? If Lenin took the position of populist socialism and Russian despotic power, then this is only a tactical device, a means for realizing the set goal. In the process of implementing the socialist revolution, one can rely on the democratic protest of the peasantry against serfdom, which does not contradict Marxism. Lenin singled out the democratic content of the populist utopia. “False in the formal economic sense, populist democracy is the truth in the historical sense; False as a socialist utopia, this democracy is the truth of that peculiar historically conditioned democratic struggle of the peasant masses, which is an inseparable element of the bourgeois transformation and the condition for its complete victory. Within the framework of bourgeois transformations, within the framework of a bourgeois revolution, the peasantry can be a fellow-traveller of the proletariat, but a fellow-traveller only until the socialist revolution. Lenin's genius as a politician lay in the fact that he set the bourgeois-democratic demands of the peasantry, which, according to Marxism, were resolved in the course of the bourgeois revolution and bourgeois transformations in society, as the goal of the socialist revolution. Lenin proclaimed the essentially bourgeois slogan "Land to the peasants!", although, criticizing populism, he argued more than once that the equalizing redistribution of land inevitably leads to bourgeois relations, the slogan of the socialist revolution, thereby turning the peasantry into the driving force of the socialist revolution. This allowed Lenin to carry out a proletarian revolution in a peasant country.

The bourgeois solution of the agrarian question, the "just redistribution of the land" is the Narodnik social ideal. During the socialist revolution, the masses of the peasants fought "for a fair redistribution" of the land, but they did not receive the land. The democratic protest of the peasantry was used to realize not the populist, but the Marxist social ideal. Using elements of populist ideology, Lenin did not find himself in its power, as Berdyaev claimed. Lenin considered it possible, relying on the populist tradition and the democratic protest of the peasantry, to conquer power, and only then, relying on the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, to continue the work that capitalism, industrialization, and thereby the proletarianization of the population, did not have time to do in Russia. The realities of Russian reality forced Lenin quite consciously to use elements of populist ideology.

The need for Lenin to turn to populist ideology after the implementation of the socialist revolution was due to the same petty-bourgeois essence of the peasantry, which constituted the majority of the country's population. The policy of the surplus appraisal caused mass discontent among the peasants and even a peasant war (the Antonov uprising in the Tambov province). This prompted Lenin to move from the surplus to the tax in kind. As Lenin noted, “we made the mistake of deciding to make a direct transition to communist production and distribution. We decided that the peasants would give us the amount of grain we needed, and we would distribute it among the plants and factories - and we would have communist production and distribution. However, real practice led to social protests, so the need for a new economic policy followed logically. “The New Economic Policy means the replacement of apportionment by taxes, it means a transition to the restoration of capitalism to a large extent,” wrote Lenin. The need for a new economic policy, a retreat back to capitalism, was due to the fact that Russia continued to be a peasant country. “The peasants constitute a gigantic part of the entire population and the entire economy, and therefore capitalism cannot but grow on the basis of this free trade.”

Denying the populist path to socialism under the conditions of capitalist society, Lenin recognizes its significance in other social conditions, moreover, he relies on it when solving the problem of including the peasantry in socialist socio-economic relations.

The Russian revolutionary tradition, including the populist one, certainly influenced Lenin. His spiritual appearance, his fanatical service to the cause of the people, the happiness of the people, devotion to the idea, asceticism in everyday life - all this is the influence of the populist culture of the second half of the 19th century.

Populism as an ideological trend is a reflection of the interests and needs of the peasantry. It was in so far as a national phenomenon of Russian culture, insofar as it reflected the real, concrete historical features of Russian society.

Populism and Russian Marxism (the influence of the social ideas of populism on V.I. Lenin)

Alexander Ilyich Yudin

POPULARITY AND RUSSIAN MARXISM (INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL IDEAS OF POPULARITY ON V.I. LENIN)

An objective analysis of Lenin's theoretical and practical activities is still waiting for its time. In Soviet research literature, Lenin belonged to those characters who could not be cited on any occasion, in our time - just the opposite: this is the character who cannot but be stigmatized also on any occasion.

Lenin was the greatest politician who influenced the course of world history with his practical activities, so for a long time he will remain at the center of ideological and political debates.

Lenin was not a dogmatist and had nothing to do with the Soviet dogmatic ideology that was covered by his name, he sensitively perceived the needs of society, was very flexible and also quickly responded to changing social reality.

In the Soviet research literature, there was a point of view of the “defeat” of populism by Lenin, based on his works of the 1890s, in which he criticized N.K. Mikhailovsky. This position had a historical basis, it corresponded to historical reality. But this "defeat" of Narodism did not pass without a trace for Lenin either. Many populist ideas were revived by him, but in different historical realities.

Populism is an expression of the interests of the peasantry, which constituted the majority of the population of Russia. In the process of social transformations in Soviet Russia, it was impossible not to take into account the interests of the majority of the country, thus it was also impossible not to turn classical Marxism towards populism.

Marxism is a proletarian scientific philosophy and sociology; populism for Lenin is a peasant utopian and reactionary ideology. Thus, a clear dividing line was drawn. But this line was characteristic only of theoretical reasoning. As ideas are realized in reality, clarity and unambiguity disappear. The social reality of Russia will force Lenin to rethink the role and significance of peasant ideology, will force him to take into account the fact of the peasant majority in Russia.

It should be noted that Lenin also emphasized the progressiveness of the ideas of populism, called for the identification of a “democratic thread” in it. "The Narodniks understand and represent the interests of the small producers in this respect immeasurably more correctly, and Marxists, having rejected all the reactionary features of their program, must not only not accept their general democratic points, but must also carry them out more precisely, deeper and further." In this sense, populism and Marxism are united by a general democratic content. Lenin will take into account the democratic essence of populism in his social practice.

The idea of ​​the influence of the Russian radical tradition, including the populist one, on Lenin was first formulated within the framework of Russian religious philosophy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Berdyaev's interpretation of the contradiction between populism and Russian Marxism is of interest. In his opinion, the contradiction between the theorists of populism and Russian Marxists, which appeared in the controversy of the 80s and 90s. XIX century, exists within the very Marxist theory, this theory itself is deterministic and indeterministic, objective and subjective. “History is sharply divided into two parts, into the past, determined by the economy, when man was a slave, and into the future, which will begin with the victory of the proletariat and will be entirely determined by the activity of man, social man, when there will be a kingdom of freedom.” Therefore, according to Berdyaev's logic, when Marxism analyzes the present, it is an objective theory; when it talks about the future, it is faith. “Marxism is not only science and politics, it is also faith, religion. And this is the basis of his strength. Based on this approach of Berdyaev, it can be concluded that the contradiction between Marxism and populism (the polemics of the 80s and 90s of the 19th century) is a reflection of the contradiction within the framework of Marxism itself. “Marxism is not only the doctrine of historical or economic materialism about the complete dependence of man on the economy, Marxism is also the doctrine of deliverance, of the messianic vocation of the proletariat, of the coming perfect society in which man will no longer depend on the economy, of the power and victory of man over irrational forces of nature and society. The soul of Marxism is here, and not in economic determinism, ”wrote Berdyaev.

This eschatological side of Marxism, according to Berdyaev, organically entered the Russian revolutionary tradition, became part of the Russian idea. If we take this methodological position as a basis, then in the 90s. 19th century Lenin “crushed” populism from the standpoint of Marxism, understood as an objectively determined theory, and at the beginning of the 20th century, justifying the need for a socialist revolution in a peasant country, he was inclined to absolutize the subjective factor in Marxism.

Lenin rethought the revolutionary tradition of Russian social thought, which allowed him to adapt Marxism to the specific conditions of Russia. “Lenin returned in a new way to the old tradition of Russian social thought. He proclaimed that the industrial backwardness of Russia, the rudimentary character of capitalism, is the great advantage of the social revolution. You don't have to deal with a strong, organized bourgeoisie. Here Lenin is compelled to repeat what Tkachev said, and by no means what Engels said. Bolshevism is much more traditional than is generally thought, it agrees with the originality of the Russian historical process. Russification and orientalization of Marxism took place, ”wrote Berdyaev. From the point of view of economic determinism, it is impossible to realize the socialist ideal in peasant Russia. Lenin departs from economic determinism, focuses on the subjective factor, on what he criticized the populists for. “It is the Marxist Lenin who will assert that socialism can be realized in Russia apart from the development of capitalism and before the formation of a numerous working class.”

Berdyaev was right in the sense that Russian thinkers included Western theories in the spiritual context of the development of Russian thought, in Western theories they tried to find solutions to urgent problems of Russian life. Lenin was no exception, since by birth, upbringing, and spiritual makeup, he belonged to the Russian revolutionary tradition. The question is, what is the degree of influence of the Russian revolutionary tradition on Lenin?

Russian philosopher S.L. Frank substantiated the idea of ​​the assimilation of Marxism by populism. In his opinion, populism “is not a specific socio-political direction, but a broad spiritual trend, connected with quite a variety of socio-political theories and programs. It would seem that Marxism is fighting against populism, but the victorious and all-devouring populist spirit has absorbed and assimilated Marxist theory, and at present the difference between conscious populists and populists professing Marxism is reduced at best to a difference in political program and socialist theory and has absolutely no the significance of a fundamental cultural-philosophical disagreement". Frank's statement that Marxism was assimilated by populism is, in our opinion, too bold a statement, but there is some truth in it. It can be put differently: the cultural and historical environment, an essential part of which was the populist worldview, influenced Marxism, contributed to its deformation. One thing is the development of Marxism within the framework of German philosophy, another thing is the perception of Marxism by Russian society and its development within the framework of the Russian tradition. We are talking about the transformation of Marxism in the minds of Russian thinkers, Lenin in particular.

The merit of Russian philosophers belonging to the religious tradition of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is the identification of the characteristic features of the populist worldview, which were realized in Russian Marxism and existed in Soviet society for a long time, entered the Soviet official ideology.

Of interest is the desire of Russian religious thinkers to construct the idea of ​​similarities between populists and Marxists along the lines of moral, ethical and socio-psychological. D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, the founder of the psychological trend in Russian literary criticism, gave a brilliant description of the psychological types of the “superfluous person”, “repentant nobleman”, “raznochinets”, “grimy”, etc. From the point of view of this method in the psychological type the Narodnik and the Russian Marxist have many common features.

Berdyaev drew attention to the fact that “populist ideology was possible only in a peasant, agricultural country. The Narodnik world outlook is a collectivist world outlook. Hence the admiration for the people, serving them. "Guilt before the people played a huge role in the psychology of populism". This trait is equally inherent in both the psychological makeup of a populist and the psychological makeup of a Russian Marxist; this trait has become a characteristic feature of Soviet ideology.

Another feature of the populist's psychological make-up is moralism and nihilism. Ethicism and moralism acted as a moral motivation for serving the idea, the idea of ​​national happiness, nihilism is the denial of absolute moral values, the recognition of earthly, utilitarian, relative values. In connection with these features of the populist worldview, according to Frank, the psychological type of the Russian populist is taking shape. “The concept of “populism” combines all the main features of the described spiritual warehouse - nihilistic utilitarianism, which denies all absolute values ​​​​and sees the only moral goal in serving the subjective, material interests of the “majority” (or the people), moralism, requiring strict self-sacrifice, unconditional submission from the individual own interests (at least the highest and purest) to the cause of public service, and, finally, an anti-cultural trend - the desire to turn all people into "workers", to reduce and minimize the highest needs in the name of universal equality and solidarity in the implementation of moral requirements, "wrote Frank. One can agree with the described psychological type of the Russian populist. This type is somewhat exaggerated and the features in it are absolutized, the reality is certainly more diverse.

The characteristic features of the psychological type of a populist revolutionary are easily recognizable in the psychological type of a Russian Marxist, moreover, in Soviet society this type was consciously cultivated, consciously shaped by Soviet ideology: serving society and minimizing one's own needs is a well-known image of a Soviet person. In this regard, the characterization of Lenin's personality given by Berdyaev is of interest: “Lenin was not a bad person, there was a lot of good in him. He was a selfless person, absolutely devoted to the idea, he was not even a particularly ambitious and power-hungry person, he thought little of himself. But the exclusive obsession with one idea led to a terrible narrowing of consciousness and to a moral degeneration, to the admission of completely immoral means in the struggle. Lenin was a man of fate, a fatal man, this is his strength. The psychological image of Lenin, as we see, has populist features. It is no coincidence that Lenin's statement that he was "plowed" by the novel by N.G. Chernyshevsky "What to do?".

Due to the specific features of the populist social consciousness, which were also inherent in Russian Marxists, Marxism was realized on Russian soil. Populism and Marxism as a belief in the earthly happiness of the people in this eschatological part are identical. Psychological religiosity led to the eschatological idea, which took the form of universal salvation. The eschatological idea inherent in Orthodoxy, materialistically interpreted by populism, formed the psychological basis of the social background into which Marxism so organically fit.

Based on this, Berdyaev concluded that Russian communism is a natural result of the Russian revolutionary tradition, including the populist one. “Familiar features have entered communism: a thirst for social justice and equality; recognition of the working classes as the highest human type; disgust for capitalism and the bourgeoisie; striving for a holistic worldview and a holistic attitude to life; sectarian intolerance, suspicion and hostility towards the cultural elite; exceptional this-worldliness, denial of the spirit and spiritual values; giving materialism an almost theological character. All these features have always been characteristic of the Russian revolutionary and even simply radical intelligentsia, ”wrote Berdyaev.

Thus, according to Berdyaev, Russian Marxism borrowed all the characteristic populist features, Russian Marxism is a natural development of the Russian revolutionary tradition.

Berdyaev saw the similarities between populism and Russian Marxism at the level of moral and socio-psychological ideas. Populism and Marxism are identical as a belief in a brighter future, but as theoretical concepts they have different rationalistic foundations. In this regard, to speak of the assimilation of Marxism by populism, of the powerful influence of populism on Marxism, in our opinion, would be a clear exaggeration. Lenin creatively developed Marxism, adapted it to the conditions of Russia, to a greater extent under the influence of objective circumstances, to a lesser extent under the influence of populism, but he did not abandon the basic tenets of Marxism.

If we move from the moral, ethical, psychological level to the level of social class analysis, then populism, which expresses the interests of the peasants, and Marxism, which expresses the interests of the proletariat, are fundamentally different. Hence the fundamentally different approach to the problem of the development of capitalism in Russia. For Lenin, the development of capitalism is a progressive phenomenon. “A radical social revolution is connected with certain historical conditions of economic development; the latter are its precondition. It is, therefore, possible only where, together with capitalist production, the industrial proletariat occupies at least a significant place in the masses of the people,” he wrote. If for Marxism the development of capitalism and, as a consequence of it, the proletarianization of the population is good, then for populism it is not. Lenin argued that the populist social ideal does not eliminate capitalism, but gives rise to it, "that capitalism is not a contradiction to the "people's system", but a direct immediate and immediate continuation and development of it." The peasant character of Russia, according to Lenin, is her shortcoming, which hinders the realization of the revolution.

Lenin faced a problem: either to wait for the development of capitalism and the proletarianization of the Russian population, or, contrary to Marxism, to realize the proletarian social ideal in a peasant country. Lenin makes a choice in favor of the second, believing it possible to carry out a socialist revolution without sufficient, objective socio-economic prerequisites, highlighting the subjective factor. Berdyaev assessed this as the influence of populist socialism on Lenin. “Contrary to the doctrinaire Marxism of the Mensheviks, Lenin saw in the political and economic backwardness of Russia an advantage for carrying out a social revolution. In a country of an autocratic monarchy, unaccustomed to the rights and freedoms of the citizen, it is easier to implement the dictatorship of the proletariat than in Western democracies... In an industrially backward country with underdeveloped capitalism, it will be easier to organize economic life according to the communist plan. Here Lenin is in the traditions of Russian populist socialism, he claims that the revolution will take place in Russia in an original way, not according to the Western, that is, in essence, not according to Marx, not according to the doctrinal understanding of Marx. But everything must happen in the name of Marx, ”wrote Berdyaev. According to Berdyaev, Lenin was able to make a socialist revolution in Russia because he did not go beyond the framework of the Russian idea, because he relied on the Russian revolutionary tradition. Lenin “united in himself two traditions - the tradition of the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia, in its most maximalist currents, and the tradition of Russian historical power in its most despotic manifestations. But, by combining in himself two traditions that were in mortal enmity and struggle in the 19th century, Lenin could draw a plan for the organization of a communist state and carry it out.

Is it possible, following Berdyaev, to assert that in order to realize the socialist ideal in Russia, Lenin departed from Marxism and took the stand of populism and Russian despotism? If Lenin took the position of populist socialism and Russian despotic power, then this is only a tactical device, a means for realizing the set goal. In the process of implementing the socialist revolution, one can rely on the democratic protest of the peasantry against serfdom, which does not contradict Marxism. Lenin singled out the democratic content of the populist utopia. “False in the formal economic sense, populist democracy is the truth in the historical sense; False as a socialist utopia, this democracy is the truth of that peculiar historically conditioned democratic struggle of the peasant masses, which constitutes an inseparable element of the bourgeois transformation and the condition for its complete victory. Within the framework of bourgeois transformations, within the framework of a bourgeois revolution, the peasantry can be a fellow-traveller of the proletariat, but a fellow-traveller only until the socialist revolution. Lenin's genius as a politician lay in the fact that he set the bourgeois-democratic demands of the peasantry, which, according to Marxism, were resolved in the course of the bourgeois revolution and bourgeois transformations in society, as the goal of the socialist revolution. Lenin proclaimed the essentially bourgeois slogan "Land to the peasants!", although, criticizing populism, he argued more than once that the equalizing redistribution of land inevitably leads to bourgeois relations, the slogan of the socialist revolution, thereby turning the peasantry into the driving force of the socialist revolution. This allowed Lenin to carry out a proletarian revolution in a peasant country.

The bourgeois solution of the agrarian question, the "just redistribution of the land" is the Narodnik social ideal. During the socialist revolution, the masses of the peasants fought "for a fair redistribution" of the land, but they did not receive the land. The democratic protest of the peasantry was used to realize not the populist, but the Marxist social ideal. Using elements of populist ideology, Lenin did not find himself in its power, as Berdyaev claimed. Lenin considered it possible, relying on the populist tradition and the democratic protest of the peasantry, to conquer power, and only then, relying on the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, to continue the work that capitalism, industrialization, and thereby the proletarianization of the population, did not have time to do in Russia. The realities of Russian reality forced Lenin quite consciously to use elements of populist ideology.

The need for Lenin to turn to populist ideology after the implementation of the socialist revolution was due to the same petty-bourgeois essence of the peasantry, which constituted the majority of the country's population. The policy of the surplus appraisal caused mass discontent among the peasants and even a peasant war (the Antonov uprising in the Tambov province). This prompted Lenin to move from the surplus to the tax in kind. As Lenin noted, “we made the mistake of deciding to make a direct transition to communist production and distribution. We decided that the peasants would give us the amount of grain we needed, and we would distribute it among the plants and factories - and we would achieve communist production and distribution. However, real practice led to social protests, so the need for a new economic policy followed logically. “The New Economic Policy means the replacement of apportionment by taxes, it means a transition to the restoration of capitalism to a large extent,” Lenin wrote. The need for a new economic policy, a retreat back to capitalism, was due to the fact that Russia continued to be a peasant country. “The peasants constitute a gigantic part of the entire population and the entire economy, and therefore capitalism cannot but grow on the basis of this free trade.”

Capitalism, allowed by Lenin in Russia, must create industrial production, destroyed by the war, the proletariat - the advanced class. The introduction of the New Economic Policy did not mean a rejection of the Marxist social ideal as a strategic goal, since it took place under certain conditions (retention of power in the hands of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat and public ownership of land and means of production) and for a certain time.

In the course of political activity, Lenin was forced to take into account the peculiarities of the psychology of the peasantry as a class and the peculiarities of agrarian labor. “We must not count on a direct communist transition. It is necessary to build on the personal interest of the peasant, ”wrote Lenin. But self-interest is logically connected with private ownership of land, or leads to private ownership. Having yielded in particular, Lenin does not yield in the main. The personal interest of the peasant must be developed while maintaining public property. Criticizing populism, revealing the petty-bourgeois essence of the peasant, Lenin, under the pressure of circumstances, was forced to adopt elements of the populist ideology.

Lenin's work "On Cooperation" (1923) was of great importance, since it testified to a change in his views on the peasantry. Lenin expressed the idea that the transition of the peasantry to socialism does not consist in depeasantization and proletarianization, but in the personal initiative of the peasant, arising from his essence, through cooperation. Cooperation is the path of the peasantry to socialism. “We look at the peasantry with disdain, not understanding what exceptional significance this cooperation has, firstly, from the principle side (ownership of the means of production in the hands of the state), and secondly, from the side of the transition to a new order by the simplest possible , easy and affordable for the peasant ".

Lenin expressed a different idea than collectivization, the idea of ​​the peasant entering socialism. Its essence is that the social essence of the peasant as a small proprietor is not antithetical to the socialist system, it can be used for evolutionary entry into socialism, and not to fight against it. Moreover, this entry of the peasantry into socialism will take place not "from above", through forced collectivization, but "from below", as the Narodniks and Socialist-Revolutionaries assumed. Lenin gave a theoretical justification for the need for cooperation under socialism. Cooperation in capitalist society, Lenin reasoned, is a collective capitalist institution. “Under private capitalism, cooperative enterprises differ from capitalist enterprises, as collective enterprises from private enterprises ... Under our existing system, cooperative enterprises differ from private capitalist enterprises, as collective enterprises, but do not differ from socialist enterprises if they are based on land, with funds production belonging to the state, i.e., to the working class. Thus, cooperative enterprises are identical to socialist enterprises, insofar as they are united by state ownership. Lenin found the optimal variant of reconciling the social essence of the peasantry with socialism. Cooperation made it possible not to eradicate the petty-bourgeois essence of the peasantry, but to make it a means of painless entry into socialism. “Under the condition of full cooperation, we would already have both feet on socialist soil,” Lenin wrote.

The task of cooperating the peasantry was regarded by Lenin as a strategic one, designed for an entire historical epoch. Characteristically, if the new economic policy, according to Lenin, is a forced temporary retreat due to poverty and devastation, then cooperation is a promising policy, is the path to socialism. "And the system of civilized co-operators with public ownership of the means of production, with the class victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie - this is the system of socialism."

Criticizing liberal populism, in particular Mikhailovsky, Lenin argued that a fair redistribution of land, cultural work in the countryside, cooperation without the accomplishment of the existing system would not lead to socialism. The bottom line is that after the implementation of the socialist revolution, cooperation had a different meaning for Lenin, when power is in the hands of the proletariat, the cooperation of the peasantry is the path to socialism. Denying the populist path to socialism under the conditions of capitalist society, Lenin recognizes its significance in other social conditions, moreover, he relies on it when solving the problem of including the peasantry in socialist socio-economic relations.

Lenin was not a pedant in the sense of strict implementation of the theoretical postulates of Marxism, he was a brilliant politician, so social practice for him was always more important than theory. Seeing the resistance of the peasantry, Lenin corrected his view of it in the direction of populist ideology, thereby in the direction of the needs of social practice. In cooperation, Lenin saw the resolution of obvious social conflicts between the peasantry and the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the social conflict between the petty-bourgeois essence of the peasantry and the collectivism of the proletariat. It can be assumed that if the Leninist plan of cooperation was realized, if it were possible to avoid the forced collectivization of the peasantry, then our, already former, socialist society would have other features, the Russian peasantry would not have suffered huge material and spiritual losses, thereby preserving the spiritual health of the people .

The Russian revolutionary tradition, including the populist one, certainly influenced Lenin. His spiritual appearance, his fanatical service to the cause of the people, the happiness of the people, devotion to the idea, asceticism in everyday life - all this is the influence of the populist culture of the second half of the 19th century.

Populism as an ideological trend is a reflection of the interests and needs of the peasantry. It was in so far as a national phenomenon of Russian culture, insofar as it reflected the real, concrete historical features of Russian society.

Populism as an ideological movement ceased to exist at the end of the 19th century. However, the peasantry, which was the social base of populism at the beginning of the 20th century. in Russia, Soviet Russia, made up the vast majority of the population. It was impossible to ignore this social fact. Russian Marxism could not but "absorb" some elements of the populist, peasant ideology, since it could not brush aside the majority of the population of our country - the peasantry. In our opinion, populism, having ceased to exist as an ideological current of Russian thought, was to some extent assimilated by Russian Marxism and entered the Soviet ideology.

1 Lenin V.I. Full composition of writings. T. 1. S. 531.

2 Berdyaev N.A. The origins and meaning of Russian communism. M., 1990. S. 83.

3 Frank S.L. Works. M., 1990. S. 90-91.

4. Berdyaev N.A. Russian Idea // Questions of Philosophy. 1990 No. 2. P 152.

According to Pokrovsky, the formula for the development of post-reform Russia is expressed in the words: “Absolutism and renunciation of political freedom with a maximum of civil freedom, as a necessary condition for further capitalist development without revolution ...” This formula was already clear enough for contemporaries who easily noticed that the development of capitalism was not only does not lead to a weakening of landlord rule in the countryside and autocracy in the city, but, on the contrary, strengthens them in its own way.

The worse things went on the world grain market, the less liberal were the moods of the landlords. However, the reaction that triumphs in the countryside encounters the resistance of the city, which has modernized itself and is accustomed to living by the new rules.

The liberation of the peasants was accompanied by an unexpected spread of socialist sentiments among the intelligentsia. In 1876, the first populist organization, Land and Freedom, was created. Three years later, it split into the radical Narodnaya Volya party, which followed the path of anti-government terror, and the more moderate Black Redistribution group. Later, representatives of the "moderate" wing of populism, headed by G.V. Plekhanov founded the Marxist group "Emancipation of Labor" in exile.

Such a sudden popularity of socialism in a country where there was still almost no industrial proletariat baffled the Marxist thinkers of the next generation. However, such a turn of events was quite natural for a peripheral country. Not only did the domestic bourgeoisie (unlike the Western one) show no desire for democratic change, it was not even inclined towards liberal opposition. She was completely satisfied with the order that the autocracy guaranteed her. The opposition of the 1980s, Pokrovsky notes, "had only the left wing." Since there was no natural “buffer” between the authorities and the radicals in the form of moderate liberals, the democratic opposition was bound to become revolutionary and then terrorist. In turn, the government could fight its opponents through police rather than political measures.

In such a situation, democratic ideology could not help but become at the same time anti-bourgeois. And anti-bourgeois protest could find a positive program only by turning to European socialism. Something similar was repeated throughout the 20th century repeatedly in other peripheral countries, from China to Cuba to South Africa. Meanwhile, orthodox Marxists at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries perceived populist socialism as a kind of political illusion, an ideological world that arose due to the fact that interest in advanced Western ideas was combined in the minds of populist intellectuals with the desire for an anti-monarchist revolution.

Russian Marxists did not see any objective connection between populist ideas and the reality of peasant economy, especially since at first the peasants themselves were extremely wary of populist propaganda, and often even hostile.

The founder of Russian Marxism G.V. Plekhanov was firmly convinced that after the peasant reform the triumph of capitalism in agriculture was inevitable. According to Plekhanov, the penetration of market relations into the countryside inevitably leads to the disintegration and disappearance of all pre-capitalist forms of social organization. This process is held back only by "that force of inertia which, at times, makes itself felt so painfully by the developed people of any backward agricultural country."

The decay of traditional forms of life in Russia at the end of the 19th century was an obvious fact. But from this it would be premature to conclude that these "obsolete forms" are being replaced by a new, European organization. And the matter, of course, was far from being only a matter of "backwardness" and "inertia", which the "developed people" complained about so much.

Karl Marx held completely different views. Since the mid-70s of the 19th century, Russia has occupied an increasing place in his work. Marx not only overcomes Russophobic sentiments, which, it must be admitted, were characteristic of him in the 50s, but also begins to consider Russia as a country, without understanding which it is impossible to understand the modern world in its entirety.

Continuing to work on Capital, he intends to use the historical experience of Russia in the third volume in the same way that he used the experience of England for the first volume. At the same time, Marx began to show interest in populist ideas. While the Russian Narodniks learn from the author of Capital, Marx's own thought develops more and more under the influence of Narodism. He selflessly learns Russian and is fond of the works of N.G. Chernyshevsky, whom he speaks of (perhaps with some exaggeration) as a "great Russian scientist and critic".

In the 1950s, Russian society seemed to Marx to be some kind of homogeneous reactionary mass, and even Alexander Herzen, who lived in London, an emigre, dissident and socialist, seemed to him, because of his pan-Slavic sympathies, a part of the same aggressive imperial and provincial world. Marx sees Russia in the 1970s quite differently. The Paris Commune was defeated, and the West does not at this time look like a place where progressive principles triumph. “In this decade,” writes Teodor Shanin, “Marx gradually came to understand that, along with the retrograde official Russia, which he so hated as the gendarme of European reaction, there appeared a new Russia of his revolutionary allies and radical thinkers, and these latter all more interested in the work of Marx himself. Russian was the first language Capital was translated into, a decade before the English edition appeared. It was in Russia that new revolutionary forces appeared, which was especially noticeable against the background of the crisis of revolutionary expectations in the West after the fall of the Paris Commune.

Marx begins to carefully read the works of the Russian Narodniks and finds in them not only thoughts that are consonant with his own, but also questions that he, as a researcher of social development, is simply obliged to answer. Comprehending the past of Russia, the Narodniks challenged both the dominant trends in Russian thought - the Slavophiles and the Westerners. They rejected the ideas of the Westerners, who saw the country's future in repeating the "European path", but in the same way rejected the Slavophil myth of Russia's exclusivity. They opposed the competition of myths in the Russian public consciousness with their historical and sociological analysis, largely based on the ideas of Marx.

The populists believed that Russia could avoid repeating the path of European capitalism. As Shanin points out, their anti-capitalism had nothing to do with anti-Westernism. “This possibility, however, does not come from the “special path” of Russia that the Slavophiles spoke of, but is a consequence of Russia’s position in the global context after capitalism has already taken root in Western Europe.”

In essence, the Narodniks were the first to feel the specifics of peripheral capitalism. First, they discovered that it was not the "national" bourgeoisie, but the autocratic state involved in the world system, that was the main agent of capitalist development. Consequently, a blow to the government will inevitably be a blow to capitalism as well. Secondly, Russia looked within the framework of the world system as an exploited nation. Not only the proletariat, but all the working classes of the country are being exploited, albeit in different forms. The world system benefits from this state of affairs, but the main instrument of exploitation still remains not foreign capital, but its own power. Thus, an alliance was brewing between the Russian revolutionary movement, which was trying to rely on the intelligentsia and the peasant masses, and the proletarian movements of the West. Thirdly, due to the country's peripheral position in the world system, pre-capitalist structures have been preserved here - primarily the peasant community.

This community was exploited by the state, which used it as an instrument for extorting taxes from both the landlords and the financial capital associated with the government. But this was precisely what made the peasantry a potential threat to the system, and the rural community itself a possible fulcrum for future transformations. As a result, it turned out that the country's peripheral position and its "backwardness" could unexpectedly turn out to be a kind of "advantage" from the point of view of the revolutionary struggle.

At the center of the theoretical discussion was the question of the peasant community, which for the former moderate populists, who turned into orthodox Marxists, looked like a relic of the past. Plekhanov and his supporters, having declared themselves interpreters and preachers of Marxism in Russia, began an irreconcilable ideological struggle against populism.

Meanwhile, the views of Marx himself developed in the opposite direction. Like the revolutionary populists, the author of Capital did not deny the archaic origin of the community. However, his dialectical approach forced him to see in the same phenomenon both a relic of the past and a possible prototype of the future. When the Russian revolutionary Vera Zasulich, who belonged to the Plekhanov group, asked Marx to express his opinion on this matter, he unequivocally supported the Narodniks. He repeated the same conclusions in a letter to the editors of the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski.

The deeper the author of Capital immersed himself in questions of Russian history and economics, the more obvious it became to him that the issue was not limited to the future of the community. We are talking about how the world outside of Europe and North America is doomed to repeat the "Western" path of development. In Capital, Marx wrote that the more developed country shows the less developed a picture of its own future. But he said this, comparing England with Germany. In this comparison, he turned out to be generally right: German capitalism, as in other countries of the "centre", with all its "national characteristics", did not go beyond the general "Western" model that had originally developed in England and North America. Another thing is Russia. Comparing it with England, Marx comes to the conclusion that the "historical inevitability" of the processes of development of capitalism described by him is "precisely limited to the countries of Western Europe."

This does not mean that capitalism does not affect the countries of the periphery, but here everything is different. Moreover, there is no reason to see human history as a mechanical and pre-programmed process of changing formations. In essence, here Marx is already entering into polemics with his own followers, who are trying to use his theory as a "universal master key." “They absolutely need to turn my historical sketch of the emergence of capitalism in Western Europe into a historical and philosophical theory of a universal path along which all peoples are fatally doomed to go, whatever the historical conditions in which they find themselves, in order to come, ultimately, to that economic formation which, along with the greatest flourishing of the productive forces of social labor, ensures the most complete development of man.

The involvement of Russia in the world market and even the development of bourgeois relations there should not necessarily lead to the formation of the same capitalism as in the West: “Events are strikingly similar, but taking place in a different historical setting, led to completely different results.”

The edge of the controversy here is so obviously directed against the emerging orthodox Marxism, which is why Plekhanov and his like-minded people never published both letters of Marx in Russian, although they had the texts. It did not even help that F. Engels, who dealt with Marx's affairs during his illness and after his death, recommended that these texts be printed. A letter to the editors of Otechestvennye Zapiski was published in the Vestnik Narodnaya Volya in 1886, and a letter to Vera Zasulich was published only in 1924 thanks to David Ryazanov, director of the Marx and Engels Institute, later repressed by Stalin. The unwillingness to notice these texts united orthodox Marxists with intransigent critics of Marxism, who persistently repeated throughout the 20th century that Marx offered his theory of social development in the form of a universal scheme, mechanically applied in any circumstances.

In fact, as Shanin rightly points out, in his polemic with "orthodox Marxists" Marx himself clearly took a "neo-Marxist" position. In the last years of his life, he asks exactly those questions that were at the center of the Marxist discussions of the 20th century.

In other words, he acted not only as the "founder of Marxist theory", but also outstripped its development by a good half century.

The issue of peripheral development was at the center of the discussions of sociologists and economists in the last third of the 20th century. Meanwhile, for Marx, it was Russia that turned out to be the country on the basis of which the uneven development of capitalism as a world system became clear to him. In parallel with the Russian experience, he studies the history of other peripheral countries, even learns Oriental languages ​​and encourages Engels to do this. But it was the analysis of events taking place in Russia that became the key for him. According to Shanin, “if the experience of India and China was something remote, abstract and sometimes misunderstood for the Europeans of Marx’s time, Russia was closer not only geographically, but also in a human sense, it was possible to learn the language and gain access to texts, in which the inhabitants of the country themselves analyzed their experience. And the point, of course, is not the amount of available information. Russia of that time is distinguished by a combination of state independence and increasing political weakness, is on the periphery of capitalist development, remains a peasant country, but with a rapidly growing industry (which is largely owned by foreigners and the tsarist government) and with strong state intervention in the economy.

The combination of all these factors made Russia a country where a powerful social explosion was inevitable. However, the impending revolution was clearly bound to be, due to the peripheral nature of Russian capitalism, radically different from the proletarian movements of the West. The agrarian revolution, the seizure of landowners' land by the peasants, called into question the very existence of the domestic model of capitalism and its integration into the world system.

The Narodniks called the transfer of land to the peasants the "Black Repartition". From the point of view of orthodox Marxists, there was nothing anti-capitalist about such an agrarian movement. Didn't the Western bourgeois revolutions begin with the abolition of landlordism? Indeed, in the long term, such a "Black Repartition" could lead to the development of rural capitalism. But in the short term, it would mean the withdrawal of the peasant from the market, which would be a disaster for capitalist development.

Marx emphasized in Capital that the expropriation of the small producer is a condition of capitalist accumulation. However, in imperial Russia it was carried out by commercial capital with the help of the landowner. Moreover, through communication with the landowner, the peasant economy was not completely liquidated, but was subject to the requirements of the market. That is why, from the point of view of capital accumulation, the Black Redistribution is a disaster. Even more severe would be its consequences for the global economy. It was no longer the 16th century in the yard; large capitals were required for development. The petty accumulation of "strong masters" stretches over decades; it will not help either the construction of railways or the repayment of international loans.

Russian capitalism could no longer develop without the landlord exploitation of the peasantry. Therefore, the agrarian revolution inevitably had to turn into an anti-capitalist revolution. And the attempt to radically improve the position of the peasantry proved to be inseparable from the question of changing the character of the entire Russian state.

“We are talking here,” Marx wrote in one of the draft letters to Vera Zasulich, “thus, it is no longer about a problem that needs to be solved, but simply about an enemy that needs to be crushed. To save the Russian community, a Russian revolution is needed. However, the Russian government and the "new pillars of society" are doing everything possible to prepare the masses for such a catastrophe. If the revolution happens at the right time, if it concentrates all its forces to ensure the free development of the rural community, the latter will soon become an element in the rebirth of Russian society and an element of superiority over those countries that are under the yoke of the capitalist system.