V. I.

Lenin

Issue No. 239 of Russkiye Vedomosti [4] (dated August 30) contains a short article by
Mr. N. Levitsky entitled “Certain Problems Affecting the Life of the
People.” ‘Living in the country and being in constant contact
with the people” the author “long ago came up against” certain problems affecting the life of the people, the solution of which
by means of appropriate “measures” is an “urgent necessity,” a “pressing need.” The author expresses the
conviction that his “brief remarks” on a subject of such
importance ‘will meet with a response among those who are interested
in the people’s needs,” and he expresses the desire to provoke
an exchange of opinion on the problems he advances.

The“lofty style” in which Mr. N. Levitsky’s article is written and the high-sounding words in which it abounds lead one to expect
that it deals with some really important, urgent, vital problems of modern
life. Actually, however, the author’s proposals merely provide one
more example, and an exceedingly striking one at that, of the truly Manilovian [5]
fantasy to which the Narodnik journalists have accustomed the Russian
public. That is why we thought it would be useful to voice our views on
the problems that Mr. N. Levitsky raises.

Mr.N. Levitsky enumerates five “problems” (point by point)
and he not only provides an “answer” for every “problem” but also indicates very definitely the appropriate
“measure” to be taken. The first problem is—”cheap and accessible” credit, the elimination of the tyranny of
moneylenders, “kulaks, and all sorts of sharks and parasites.”
T’he measure to be taken is—”to devise a simpler type of village peasants’ loan and savings bank,” and the author
proposes that the branches of the State Bank should issue savings-bank
books not to individuals, but to specially organised associations, which
will make deposits and receive loans through a single treasurer.

Andso the author’s long “contact with the people” enabled him to draw this conclusion on the hackneyed problem of
credit—”devise” a new type of loan and savings bank!
Evidently the author imagines that, not enough paper and ink is being
wasted in this country on drafting endless “types,” “models,” “rules,” “model rules,”
“normal rules,” etc., etc. “Living in the country,” our practical man failed to see any of the more
important problems raised by the desire to replace the “kulak”
by “cheap and accessible credit.” We shall not, of course,
discuss here the importance of credit we take the author’s aim
jar granted; we shall merely examine from the purely practical
aspect the remedies he proposes with such pomp. Credit is an institution
of developed commodity circulation. The question is—is it possible
to establish such an institution among our peasantry, whom the countless
survivals of laws and prohibitions that spring from the division of
society into-social estates have placed in conditions that rule out regular, free, extensive and developed commodity circulation? Is
it not ridiculous, when speaking of the urgent and pressing needs of the
people, to reduce the problem of credit to devising “rules” of
a new type and to say nothing whatever about the need to abolish
the entire mass of “rules” which hinder regular commodity
circulation among the peasantry, hinder the free purchase and sale of
property—real estate and personal property—hinder the peasants
from moving freely from place to place and from one occupation to another,
and hinder individuals from other classes and social estates from joining
the peasant communities? What can be more comical than fighting
“kulaks, usurers, parasites and sharks” by perfecting the
“rules” of credit banks? Usury in its worst forms is most
tenacious in our rural districts, and is so precisely because of the
exclusiveness of the estate system there, because of the thousand fetters
which shackle the development of commodity circulation— and yet our
practical-minded author says not a word about these fetters, but declares
that the drafting of new rules is the urgent problem of rural credit. In all probability the developed
capitalist countries, where the rural districts have long been placed in
conditions that facilitate the circulation of commodities, and where
credit has been extensively developed, in all probability these countries
achieved this success thanks to the multitude of “rules”
drafted by benevolent officials!

Thesecond problem is—”the helpless position of a peasant
family when the head of the family dies,” and also “the urgent
necessity” of “safeguarding and preserving the peasant working
agricultural population by all possible means and methods.” As you
see, the further be goes the wider and more majestic become
Mr. Levitsky’s “problems”! The first problem concerned a
very ordinary bourgeois institution, the value of which we could only
admit with very considerable reservation; but here we have a problem of
such gigantic importance that “in principle” we fully admit
its urgency and cannot suppress a warm feeling for the author for
raising it. But the Narodnik’s gigantic problem is matched
by a “measure” of gigantic . .. what is the mildest way we can
put it? ... unwisdom. Listen: “. . . there arises the urgent need to
organise and introduce compulsory (sic!) mutual life insurance for the entire peasant population on a mass scale at the cheapest possible rates [1] (societies, associations, artels, etc.). And it is necessary to ascertain
the role and part to be played in this business by a) private insurance
companies, b) the Zemstvos, and c) the state.”

Ourmuzhiks are so dull-witted! They give no thought to the fact that if
the head of the family dies the rest will have to go begging; that if the
crop fails they will starve, and that even if they have a good crop
sometimes, they will have to go begging just the same on returning from
abortive quests for “earnings.” These stupid muzhiks have no
idea that there is such a thing as “life insurance,” to which
many good gentlemen have long had recourse and out of which other good
gentlemen (shareholders in insurance companies) make money. Starving “Sysoika” [6] has no idea that all he has to do is to
join with “Mityai,’ who is starving like himself, in organising a mutual
life insurance company (with low, very low contributions I), and their families will be provided for in the event of their
death. Luckily, the thinking for these dull-witted muzhiks is done by our
enlightened Narodnik intelligentsia, one of whose representatives
“living in the country and being in constant contact with the
people,” “long ago came up against” this tremendous, this astounding and stupendous “project”!

Thirdproblem. “In connection with this problem it is necessary to
raise and discuss the problem of establishing an imperial capital fund for insuring the lives of the peasant population [2] on the same lines as the existing
imperial food and fire funds.” It goes without saying that to deal
with insurance, we must discuss the question of capital. But it seems to
us that our highly esteemed author is guilty here of an important
omission. Is it not also “necessary to raise and discuss” the
question as to which ministry and which department will be in charge of
the proposed institution? Firstly, there can be no doubt that the
Economic Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs should be in
charge of it. Secondly, the Zemstvo Department of the Ministry of Internal
Affairs is also closely interested. Thirdly, the Ministry of Finance
should also be in charge of insurance affairs. In view of this, would it
not be more advisable to propose the establishment of a special Chief
Administration of State Compulsory Mutual Life Insurance for the Entire
Peasant Population, on the lines, say, of the Chief State Horse-Breeding Administration?

Fourthproblem. “Further, in view of the tremendously widespread
character of all sorts of artels throughout Russia, and also in view of
their undoubted usefulness and importance to the national economy, the
urgent need has arisen 4) of organising a separate, special Society for the Promotion of Agricultural and Other Artels.” That artels
of all sorts are beneficial to the classes of the population who organise
them is undoubted. It is also undoubted that to unite the representatives
of the various classes will also be of great benefit to the entire
national economy. Only the author waxes far too enthusiastic when he talks
about “the tremendously widespread character of all sorts of artels
throughout

Russia.” Everybody knows that, compared with any West-European
country, the number of “all sorts of artels” is incredibly, phenomenally small in Russia.... “Everybody
knows this” ... except the dreamy Manilov. The editors of
Russkiye Vedomosti, for example, know it since they published
above Mr. N. Levitsky’s article a very interesting and highly
informative item, entitled “Syndicates in France.” From this
article Mr. N. Levitsky might have learned how immensely
“all sorts of artels” are developed in capitalist
France (compared with non-capitalist Russia). I underline “all
sorts,” for it can easily be seen from this article that there are
four sorts of syndicates in France: 1) workers’ syndicates (2, 163
syndicates with 419,172 members); 2) employers’ syndicates (1,622
with 130,752 members); 3) agricultural syndicates (1,188 with 398,048
members) and4) mixed syndicates (173 with 31,126 members). Add up all
these figures, Mr. Levitsky! You will get a total of nearly a million
people (979,000) organised in “all sorts of artels.” And now
tell us, with your hand on your heart, are you really not ashamed of the
phrase you let slip about the “tremendously widespread character of
all sorts (sic!!!) of artels throughout Russia”? Do you really fail
to see what a comical, sadly comical impression your article creates by
the side of the bare figures of the “syndicates in France”?
These poor Frenchmen, whom, evidently, the canker of capitalism has
deprived of the “tremendously widespread character of all sorts of
artels,” would probably burst into Homeric laughter at the proposal
to establish a “separate special society” ... for promoting
the establishment of all sorts of societies! It goes without saying,
however, that this laughter would only be a demonstration of the notorious
frivolity of the French, who are incapable of understanding Russian
thoroughness. These frivolous Frenchmen form “all sorts of
artels,” not only without first setting up “societies for the
promotion of artels” but even—horribile dictu!—without first drawing up “model,”
“normal” rules and “simplified types” of societies of various kinds!

Fifthproblem ... (the urgent need has arisen) “to publish, under
the auspices of this society (or separately), a special organ ... devoted exclusively to the study of the co-operative movement in Russia and abroad.” ... Yes, yes, Mr. Levitsky!

When a disordered stomach prevents a person from having a proper meal, he
has no alternative but to read about how other people eat. But in all
probability, the doctors would not allow a person who is so sick to read
about the dinners other people eat, for such reading might stimulate an
inordinate appetite not commensurate with the diet prescribed.... And the
doctors would be quite consistent in doing so.

Wehave expounded Mr. Levitsky’s short article in sufficient
detail. The reader will probably ask whether it was worth dealing at such
length with a casual newspaper article, whether it was worth devoting such
a lengthy comment to it. Indeed, what importance is there in the fact that
somebody (who, generally speaking, is prompted by the best intentions)
happened to talk nonsense about some sort of compulsory mutual life
insurance for the entire peasant population? We have heard very similar
opinions expressed on analogous’subjects. These opinions are, to say
the least, groundless. Maybe it is an accident that our “progressive
journalists” every now and again positively vomit up such
phenomenally wild “projects” on the lines of “feudal socialism” that one can only shrug one’s shoulders in
amazement? Maybe it is an accident that organs like Russkoye Bogatstvo and Russkiye Vedomosti, which are by no means
ultra-Narodnik, which always protest against the extremes of Narodism and
against the conclusions drawn from Narodism la Mr. V. V., and which are
even not averse to covering up the rags and tatters of their Narodism with
the bright new label of some “ethico-sociological school,”
that even such organs periodically, with punctilious regularity, present
the Russian public now with some “educational utopia” proposed
by Mr.

S. Yuzhakov [7] ”—a scheme for compulsory secondary
education in agricultural gymnasia in which indigent peasants are to pay
the tuition fees by work—and now with this project of
Mr. N. Levitsky’s for compulsory mutual life insurance for the
entire peasant population? [3]

Itwould be too na\"ive to put this down to accident. There is a Manilov in
every Narodnik. Disdain for conditions as they really are and for economic
evolution as it really is, unwillingness to analyse the real interests of the different classes of
Russian society in their inter-relationships, the habit of laying down the
law from above about the “needs” and “destiny” of the fatherland, of boasting about the miserable
survivals of medieval associations that exist in the Russian village
communities and artels, together with a disdainful attitude towards the
incomparably more highly developed associations characteristic of more
highly developed capitalism—all these features are to be found in a
greater or lesser degree in every Narodnik. That is why it is so
edifying to watch some not over-clever, but very naive, writer, with a
fearlessness worthy of a better cause, carrying these features to their
full logical development and embodying them in the dazzling picture of
some “project.” These projects always turn out to be dazzling,
so dazzling that merely to show them to the reader is to prove how harmful contemporary petty-bourgeois Narodism is to our
social thought and social development. Such projects always contain much
that is comical; in most cases a superficial reading of them creates no
other impression than a desire to laugh. But try to get at their real
meaning and you will say: “It would all be funny were it not so sad!” [8]

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Notes:
[1]
Author’s italics.
— Lenin

[2]
Author’s italics.
— Lenin

[3]
Comparing these two fantasy-weavers of Narodnik journalism one cannot help giving preference
to Mr. N. Levitsky, whose project is trifle cleverer than that of
Mr. S. Yuzhakov.
— Lenin

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