V. I.

Lenin

(S. N. Vuzbaeov, Educational Problems. Journalistic Essays.–Secondary School Reform.–Systems And Aims Of Higher Education.–Gymnasium Textbooks.–The Problem of Universal Education.–Women And Education. St. Petersburg. 1897, Pp. VIII +283. Price 1 Ruble 50 Kopeks.) [17]

I

Underthe above title Mr. Yuzhakov has published a collection of his
articles that appeared in Russkoye Bogatstvo in the years

4895-97.

The author believes that his articles “embrace the most important of
these problems,” i.e., “educational problems,” and, “taken together, constitute a sort of review of the most timely and
urgent, but still inadequately satisfied needs of our intellectual
culture.” (Preface. p. V.) On page 5, it is once more stressed that
the author in, tends to dwell “chiefly on problems of principle.” But all these phrases merely show Mr. Yuzhakov’s
predilection for a broad sweep of thought, or rather, not so much of
thought as of the pen. Even the title of the book is too broad. As a
matter of fact-as can be seen from the list of articles in the subtitle to
the book—the author does not deal with “educational problems” at all, but solely with the problem of the schools, and
only of the secondary and higher schools at that. Of all the articles in
the book, the most practical one is that on the textbooks used in our
gymnasia. The author goes into a detailed examination of the current
textbooks of the Russian language, geography and history, and demonstrates
their utter worthlessness. This article would make the more interesting
reading if it, too, were not made irksome by the author’s usual
verbosity. We intend to draw the reader’s attention to only two of
the articles in the book, one on the reform in secondary education, and
the other on universal education, for these articles really do touch upon
problems of principle and are very typical for an explanation of the
favourite ideas of Russkoye Bogatstvo . The Grineviches and
Mikhailovskies are reduced to digging in the mulch-heap of Russian doggerel for examples of preposterously stupid conclusions drawn from a
hostile doctrine. We, however, do not need to engage in such dreary
excavations for the same purpose: we have only to turn to the magazine
Russkoye Bogatstvo — and to only one of its undoubted “pillars” at that.

II

SectionII of the article “Principles of Reform in Secondary
Education’ has been entitled by Mr. Yuzhakov “Aims of
Secondary Education. Class Interests and Class Schools” (see
Contents). The theme, as you see, is of absorbing interest, promising as
it does to explain one of the cardinal problems, not only of education,
but of social life in general, a problem, moreover, that is the source of
one of the major disagreements between the Narodniks and the “disciples.” [18] Let us then see what conception this
contributor to Russkoye Bogatstvo has of “class interests and class
schools.”

Theauthor quite rightly says that the formula, “the school should
prepare a man for life,” is quite meaningless, and that the question
is what is needed for life, and “who needs it” (6). “Who
needs secondary education?—means: in whose Interests, for whose
benefit and advantage is education given to secondary-school
pupils?” (7). A splendid formulation of the question, and we would
give’ our heartfelt praise to the author if ... if all these
preludes did not later prove to be just empty talk: “It may be to
the benefit and advantage of the state, the nation, of some particular
social class, or of the individual who is being educated.” Here the
muddle begins: we have to conclude that a class-divided society is
compatible with a non-class state, with a non-class nation, with
individuals standing outside of classes. We shall soon see that this is by
no means a slip of Mr. Yuzhakov’s pen, that he actually does hold
this absurd opinion. “If class interests are kept in mind when
drawing up the school curriculum, there can of course be no question of
one general type of state secondary school. In that case the educational
establishments are necessarily of the social-estate type, providing not
only instruction, but also education in the wider sense, for they not only
have to impart an education adapted to the special interests and aims of the estate, but also social-estate habits and a social-estate
esprit de corps” (7). The first conclusion to be drawn from this
harangue is that Mr. Yuzhakov does not understand the difference between
estates and classes, and therefor hopelessly muddles these quite different
concepts. The same misunderstanding is revealed in other parts of the
article (seep. 8, for example), and this is all the more surprising as
Mr. Yuzhakov in this same article comes very close to the essential
distinction between these concepts. “It should be borne in
mind,” Mr. Yuzhakov informs us on page II, “that often (although not necessarily) political, economic and religious organisations
sometimes constitute legal privileges, sometimes the actual prerogatives
of special groups of the population. In the first instance we have
estates, in the second classes.” Here one of the differences between
class and social estate has been correctly noted, namely, that what
distinguishes classes from one another is not legal privileges, but actual
conditions, and that, consequently, classes in modern society presume
legal equality. And there is another difference between social
estates and classes which Mr. Yuzhakov apparently does not ignore:
“... And at that time” (i.e., after the abolition of serfdom)
i’... we renounced the feudal and social-estate structure of
national life, and with it the system of exclusive social-estate
schools. Today, the introduction of the capitalist process is dividing the
Russian nation, not so much into estates, as into economic
classes...” (8). Here another distinction between estates and
classes in European and Russian history is correctly indicated, namely,
that the social estates are a feature of feudal, and classes of capitalist society. [1]

If Mr. Yuzhakov had given even a little thought to these distinctions, and
had not surrendered himself so easily to the sway of his agile pen and his

Kleinbürger [2] heart, he would have written neither the above-quoted tirade, nor the rest of the twaddle, such as that class
curricula in schools are bound to mean one curriculum for the rich and
another for the poor, that in Western Europe class curricula are a failure, that class schools presume class
exclusiveness, and so on and so forth. All this shows as clearly as can be
that despite the promising title, despite his high-flown phrases,
Mr. Yuzhakov has no conception of the nature of class schools. It is, most
worthy Mr. Narodnik, that education is organised in one and the same way,
and is equally accessible to all the wealthy. It is this last
word alone that explains the nature of class schools, as distinct from
social-estate schools. It is therefore the purest nonsense on
Mr. Yuzhakov’s part to say, as he did in the above-mentioned tirade,
that where the schools follow class interests “there can be no
question of one general type of state secondary school.” Just the
opposite: class schools—if adhered to consistently, that is, if they
are freed of every survival of the social-estate system—necessarily
presume one general type of school. Full legal equality, full
equality of rights for all citizens, with education fully equal and
accessible to all the wealthy—these constitute the essence of class
society (and, consequently, of class education). Estate schools demand
that the pupils shall belong to a given social estate. The class school
knows no estates, it only knows citizens. Of all pupils it demands one thing only, namely, that they should pay for their education. A
difference in curricula for rich and poor is by no means essential for
class schools, since those who have not the wherewithal to pay for
tuition, for textbooks and for the pupil’s maintenance during the
whole tuition period are simply barred by the class school from secondary
education. The class school by no means presumes class exclusiveness: on
the contrary, unlike social estates, classes always leave the road quite
free for the transfer of individuals from one class to another. The class
schools do not close their doors to anybody who has the means to pay for
tuition. To say that in Western Europe “no success attends these
dangerous programmes of semi-education and of the class moral and
intellectual segregation of the various sections of the people” (9)
is an utter perversion of the truth; for everybody knows that, both in the
West and in Russia, the secondary schools are essentially class schools
and serve the interests of only a very small part of the population. In
view of the incredible confusion of ideas betrayed by Mr. Yuzhakov, we
even think it worth while to give the following supplementary explanation for his benefit: in modern society, even the
secondary schools which charge no tuition fees are nonetheless class
schools, for the cost of maintaining the pupil for seven or eight years is
immeasurably greater than the tuition fee, and is only within the reach of
a very small minority. If Mr. Yuzhakov is anxious to be a practical
adviser to contemporary reformers of the secondary schools, If he wants to
treat the problem from the angle of present-day realities (as he does), he
should only speak of the substitution of class schools for estate
schools—only of that, or else remain entirely silent on this
ticklish question of “class interests and class schools.” And
even so, these problems of principle have very little in common with the
substitution of modern languages for the classical languages, which
Mr. Yuzhakov recommends in this article. Had he confined himself to this
recommendation, we would have had no objection, and would have even been
ready to forgive him his unrestrained rhetoric. But since he has
himself raised the question of “class interests and class
schools,” let him bear the responsibility for all his absurd
utterances.

Mr. Yuzhakov’s utterances on this theme are by no means confined to
what has already been said. Faithful to the fundamental ideas of the
“subjective method in sociology,” Mr. Yuzhakov, having touched
on the subject of classes, rises to a “broad point of view”
(12, p. 15), so broad, that he can superbly ignore class differences; so
broad that it enables him to speak, not of individual classes (fie, how
narrow!), but of the nation in general. This magnificent ’broadness”
of view is attained by the hackneyed method of all moralists, big and
small, and by the Kleinbürger moralists in particular. Mr. Yuzhakov
sternly condemns this division of society into classes (and its reflection
in education), holding forth with supreme grandiloquence and incomparable
fervour on the “danger” (9) of this thing; on the point that
“the class system of education in all its shapes and forms is
fundamentally hostile to the interests of the state, the nation and the
individuals to be educated” [3] (8); on the “inexpediency and danger from both the state and the national standpoint” (9) of class
curricula in schools; on the point that historical examples illustrate
only “that exceptionally anti-national development of the class
system and class interests of which we have spoken, and which has already
been admitted as dangerous to the national welfare and to the state
itself” (ii); on the point that “the class system of administration has been abolished in one form or another everywhere”
(VI); on the point that this “dangerous” division into classes
arouses “antagonism between the various groups of the population” and gradually obliterates “the sense of national
solidarity and national patriotism” (12); on the point that
’broadly, correctly and far-sightedly understood, the interests of the
nation as a whole, of the state, and of individual citizens in general
should not be mutually contradictory (at least in the modern state)”
(15), and so on and so forth. This is all sheer cant, empty
phrase-mongering, which obscures the very essence’ of contemporary
reality with the senseless “aspirations” of the
Kleinbürger, aspirations that imperceptibly find their way mike the
description of things as they are. To find an analogy for the sort of
outlook which gives rise to such phrasemongering have to turn to the
exponents of that “ethical” school [19] in the West which was the natural
and inevitable expression of the theoretical cowardice and political
perplexity of the bourgeoisie there.

We,however, shall confine ourselves to comparing the following little
fact with this magnificent eloquence and lofty-mindedness, this remarkable
perspicacity and farsightedness. Mr. Yuzhakov touched on the subject of
social-estate and class schools. As regards the first, precise statistics
are available—at least as far as male gymnasia, progymnasia and
modern schools are concerned. Here are the figures, which we have borrowed
from a publication of the Ministry of Finance: Productive Forces of Russia (St. Petersburg, 1896, Part XIX, Public Education, p. 31):

“Thedivision of students according to social estate (as percentages
of the total number) may be seen from the following table:

Thistable shows clearly how incautious Mr. Yuzhakov was when he said that
we had immediately and resolutely (??) “renounced social-estate
schools.” On the contrary, the social-estate system prevails in our
secondary schools to this day, even if 56 per cent of the students in the
gymnasia (not to mention the privileged educational establishments for the
nobility, etc.) are sons of nobles and officials. Their only serious rival
is the urban estates, who now predominate in the modern schools. The
proportion of the rural estates—especially if we bear in mind their
vast numerical superiority over the other estates—is altogether
insignificant. This table, therefore, clearly shows that anybody who sets
out to discuss the character of our contemporary secondary schools should
be perfectly clear in his own mind that it is only estate and class
schools that are in question, and that insofar as “we” actually do renounce estate schools, it is exclusively in the interests of
class schools, It goes without saying that we do not by any means intend
to claim that the question of superseding the estate schools by class
schools, and of improving the latter, is of no importance or concern to
those classes that do not and cannot enjoy the advantages of secondary education’
on the contrary, it is not a matter of unconcern to them either, for the
estate system lays a particularly heavy burden on them both in life and in
school, and the superseding of estate schools by class schools is only one
of the links in the general and all-round Europeanisation of Russia. All
we want is to show how Mr. Yuzhakov distorted the facts, and that actually
his supposedly “broad” point of view is immeasurably inferior
even to the bourgeois view on the question. Incidentally, on the subject
of the bourgeois views. Mr. A. Manuilov simply cannot understand why
P. B. Struve, who so explicitly revealed the one-sidedness of
Schulze-Gäivernitz, nevertheless “propagates his bourgeois
ideas” ( Russkoye Bogatstvo , No. 11,
p. 93). Mr. A. Manuilov’s failure to understand this is solely and
exclusively due to his failure to understand the fundamental views not
only of the Russian, but of all the West-European “disciples,”
and not only of the disciples, but of the teacher as well or perhaps
Mr. Manuilov will deny that one of the fundamental views of the
“teacher”—-views that run like a scarlet thread through
all his theoretical, literary and practical activities—is an
ineradicable hatred of those lovers of “broad points of view”
who with the help of sugary phrases obscure the class division of modern
society? Or that another of his fundamental views is a firm recognition of
the progressiveness and preferability of frank and consistent
“bourgeois ideas” as compared with the ideas of those
Kleinbürger who are so anxious to retard and halt capitalism? If
this is not clear to Mr. Manuilov, let him ponder, say, over the writings
of his fellow magazine contributor, Mr. Yuzhakov. Let him imagine that, on
the subject now of interest to us, we see alongside Mr. Yuzhakov a frank
and consistent exponent of “bourgeois ideas,” who upholds the
class character of the contemporary school, seeking to prove that nothing
better could be imagined, and striving to eliminate the estate schools
completely and to make the class schools more widely accessible (in the
sense referred to above). Really, such ideas would be far superior to
those of Mr. Yuzhakov’s: attention would be drawn to the
contemporary school’s real needs, namely, to the abolition of its
social-estate exclusiveness, and not to the vague ’broad point of
view” of the Kleinbürger. A frank elucidation and defence of the one-sided character of the contemporary school would
present a proper picture of reality, and by its very one-sidedness would
help to enlighten the minds of the other side. [4]

Mr. Yuzhakov’s “broad” effusions, on the contrary, only help to pervert
social consciousness. Lastly, as to the practical side of the matter
...but Mr. Yuzhakov does not go one jot beyond the limits of the class
school, not only in this article, but also in his “utopia,”
which we shall now proceed to consider.

III

Mr. Yuzhakov’s article dealing with “the problem of universal
education” (see the title of the book) is called: “An
Educational Utopia .A Plan for Universal Compulsory Secondary
Education.” The very heading shows that this highly edifying article
of Mr. Yuzhakov’s promises a lot. But, actually, Mr. Yuzhakov’s
“utopia” promises even far more. “Nothing less, dear readers, without concession or compromise...”—is the way the
author begins his article.—”A complete gymnasium education for
the entire population of both sexes, compulsory for all, and involving no
expenditure by the state, Zemstvo or people—such is my grand
educational utopia” (201)! The worthy Mr. Yuzhakov evidently thinks
that the crux of the matter is that of “expenditure”; on this
same page he repeats that universal elementary education entails
expenditure, but that universal secondary education, according to his
“plan,” entails no expenditure at all. But not only does

Mr. Yuzhakov’s plan entail no expenditure: it promises something far
more than secondary education for the entire people. In order to give an
idea of the full scope of what the Russkoye Bogatstvo contributor
promises, we must anticipate and quote the author’s own triumphant
exclamations after he has set forth his plan in full and stands back to
admire it. Mr. Yuzhakov’s plan is to combine gymnasium education
with the productive labour of the “gymnasium students,” who
are to maintain themselves:” .. . The cultivation of the school
land... will ensure abundant, palatable and wholesome food for the entire
younger generation from birth to graduation from the gymnasium and also
for the young people working off the cost of their education” (about
this institution of the Yuzhakov

Zukunftsstaat, [5] more anon) “and for the whole staff of administrators, teachers and managers. Furthermore, they
will all be supplied with footwear, and clothes will be made for them. In
addition, the school land will yield about 20,000 rubles, to wit, 15,000
rubles from surplus milk and spring wheat ... and about 5,000 rubles from
the sale of skins, bristle, feathers, and other by-products”
(216). Just think, reader, the entire younger generation to be
maintained until graduation from the gymnasium, that is, until the ages of
21-25 (p. 203)1 Why, that means maintaining half the country’s total population. [6]

The maintenance and education of scores of millions—that is real “organisation of labour” for you!
Mr. Yuzhakov, evidently, was seriously annoyed with the wicked people who
asserted that the Narodnik projects for the “organisation of
labour” are nothing but the empty twaddle of empty windbags, and so
he decided to annihilate these wicked people completely by publishing a
full “plan” for this “organisation of labour”—to be achieved “without any expenditure.”
... But even that is not all: “. . .In the process, we enlarged the
task; we had this same organisation assume the cost of maintaining the
entire child population; we took care to ensure dowries for young people
about to be married—one that is quite good for the countryside; we
found it possible out of the same funds to appoint in every gymnasium, that is, in
every rural area, a doctor, a veterinary surgeon, a trained agronomist, a
trained gardener, a technologist and six artisans, no less (who will raise
the level-of culture and satisfy the corresponding requirements of the
whole locality).... And the financial and economic problems involved in
realising these aims will all be solved by the adoption of our plan....” [7]

How disgraced those evil tongues will now be that insinuated that the celebrated Narodnik “we” was a
“mysterious stranger,” a Jew with two skull-caps, and the
like! What unseemly slander! Henceforth a mere reference to
Mr. Yuzhakov’s “plan” will be enough to prove the almighty power of this “we” and the feasibility of
“our” projects.

Maybethe reader will have his doubts about this word: feasibility? Maybe
the reader will say that by calling his creation a utopia, Mr. Yuzhakov
eliminated the question of feasibility?—That would be so if
Mr. Yuzhakov himself had not made highly substantial reservations about
the word “utopia,” and if he bad not repeatedly stressed the
feasibility of his plan throughout his essay. “I make bold to
think,” he says at the very beginning of his article, “that
this plan for universal secondary education will seem a utopia only at
first glance” (201) What more do you want?... “I make even
bolder to assert that education on these lines for the entire population
is far more feasible than universal elementary education, which has
nevertheless already been realised in Germany, France, England and the
United States, and is very near to being realised in several of the
gubernias of Russia” (201). Mr Yuzhakov is so convinced of the
feasibility of his plan (apparently, after having said that
“plan” is a more appropriate word than utopia is), that he
does not neglect even the most minor “practical conveniences”
in the elaboration of that plan, deliberately preserving, for example, the
system of two gymnasia, for boys and girls, in deference to the
“prejudice prevailing on the European continent against
coeducation,” and insistently stresses that his plan would
“make it possible to leave the established curricula of the male and
female gymnasia undisturbed, and would provide more lessons, and, therefore, higher remuneration, for the teaching
staffs.”... “All this is of no mean importance, given the
desire not to confine it to a mere experiment, but to achieve really
universal education” (203-06). There have been many utopians in the
world who vied in the attractiveness and elegance of their utopias, but
hardly one of them will be found to have betrayed so much solicitude for
the “established curricula” and the remuneration of teaching
staffs. We are convinced that future generations will long continue to
point to Mr. Yuzhakov as a truly practical and truly business-like
“utopian.”

Obviously,in view of these promises of the author, his plan for universal
education deserves the most careful examination.

IV

Theprinciple from which Mr. Yuzhakov proceeds is that the gymnasium
should at the same time be an agricultural establishment and ensure its
own maintenance by the summer labour of its pupils. That is the
fundamental idea of the plan. “That this idea is a correct one, can
scarcely be doubted” (237), Mr. Yuzhakov opines. And we agree with
him that this is indeed a correct idea; only, it should not necessarily be
tacked on to the “gymnasia,” or to the possibility of making
them ’pay” by their pupils’ labour. The correct idea is that
an ideal future society cannot, be conceived without the combination of
education with the productive labour of the younger generation: neither
training and education without productive labour, nor productive labour
without parallel training and education could be raised to the degree
required by the present level of technology and the state of scientific
knowledge. This thought was already expressed by the great utopians of the
past; and it is fully shared by the “disciples,” who for this
reason, incidentally, do not object in principle to female and juvenile
labour in industry, regard attempts to completely forbid such labour as
reactionary, and only insist on the proper hygienic conditions being
created for it. Mr. Yuzhakov is therefore wrong when he says: “I
only wanted to suggest the idea” (237).... The idea was suggested
long ago, and we hesitate to believe (until the contrary is demonstrated)
that Mr. Yuzhakov could have been unfamiliar with it. What this Russkoye Bogatstvo
contributor wanted to suggest, and did suggest, was an absolutely
independent plan for implementing this idea. Only in this sense
is it to be regarded as original, but here its originality goes as far
... as the Pillars of Hercules.

Ifuniversal productive labour is to be combined with universal education,
then obviously the duty of sharing in productive labour should be laid
upon all. That, one would think, is self-evident. But no, it appears
not. Our “Narodnik’s” solution of the matter is that the
duty of physical labour should indeed be established as a general
principle; but not for all, only for people without means.

Thereader may think we are joking? Not a bit of it!

“Thepurely urban gymnasia for people of means who are prepared to
pay the full cost of education in money, might be preserved in their
present form” (229). On page 231 “people of means” are classed without more ado as ’categories of the population” not
liable to compulsory education in the “agricultural gymnasia.” Thus, in our Narodnik’s opinion, compulsory
productive labour is not a condition for general and all-round human
development, but simply a means of paying the cost of gymnasium
education. That is how he puts it. At the very beginning of his article,
Mr. Yuzhakov discusses the problem of the winter workers needed by the
agricultural gymnasia. The most “logical” of all, in his
opinion, is the following method of ensuring winter workers for the
gymnasia. The pupils of the junior classes do not work, and consequently
receive their maintenance and tuition free, paying nothing towards the
expenditures incurred by the school. “That being so, is it not his
direct duty to work off these expenditures at the end of the course? This
duty, carefully thought out and firmly established for everybody who is unable to pay the cost of tuition, will assure the gymnasium farm
the necessary contingent of winter workers and an additional contingent
of summer workers.... Regarded theoretically, this is very simple,
comprehensible and quite incontrovertible“ (205, our italics). Mercy on us, what could be “simpler”? Pay if you
have the money, work if you have not!—every shopkeeper will agree
that nothing could be more “comprehensible.” And how wonderfully practical it all is! Only where does the “Utopia”
come in? And why does Mr. Yuzhakov, by such plans, besmirch the grand fundamental idea which he intended to
make the basis of his utopia?

Labourservice performed by students without means is the basis of
Mr. Yuzhakov’s whole plan. True, he admits another method of
acquiring winter workers—by hire, [8] but gives it a secondary place. Labour service,
however— for three years (and if necessary even for four)—is
to be compulsory for all who are not called up for military service, in
other words, for two-thirds of the male students and for all the
girls. “This system alone,” Mr. Yuzhakov bluntly declares,
“furnishes the key to the problem of universal education—and
secondary, not just elementary, education at that” (207-08). “A small contingent of regular workers, who have remained
on at the gymnasium altogether, and have identified their lives with it (I
?), will supplement these labour forces of the gymnasium farm. Such are
the potential, and by no means utopian, labour resources of our
agricultural gymnasium” (208). And, it goes without saying, that
with no shortage of things to be done, they will also do other jobs:
“Auxiliary personnel for kitchen and laundry, as well as postmen,
may easily be select) from among the three-year workers who have been
graduated from the gymnasium” (209). The gymnasium will need
tradesmen: tailors, bootmakers, carpenters, etc. Of course,
“assistants may be supplied them from among those performing their
three years’ labour service” (210).

Whatwill these farm-hands (or agricultural gymnasium students? I really
don’t know what to call them) receive in return for their labour?
Everything required for their subsistence—”abundant and
palatable food.” Mr. Yuzhakov calculates it all to a nicety, on the
basis of the rations “usually allowed an agricultural labourer.” True, he “does not propose to feed the gymnasium on
these lines” (210), but he nevertheless retains these rations, for
after all the students will also gather potatoes, peas and lentils from their land, will sow hemp and
sunflower for vegetable oil, and in addition, on non-fast days will
receive half a pound of meat and two glasses of milk each. Don’t
think, reader, that Mr. Yuzhakov just touches lightly on this question,
only by way of illustration. No, he has it all calculated down to the last
detail—the number of calves, yearlings and two-year-olds, the
maintenance of the sick, feed for poultry, and all the rest. He has
forgotten neither the kitchen swill, nor the animal entrails, nor the
vegetable peelings (212). Nothing is overlooked. Furthermore, clothes and
footwear may be made in the gymnasium itself. “Hut cotton goods for
underwear, bed linen, table linen and summer clothes, and more substantial
material for winter clothing, and skins—if only sheepskin—for
winter top clothes will, of course, have to be bought. Naturally, the
teachers and other personnel and their families will have to provide their
own materials, although they may be granted the services of the
workshops. Properly speaking, for the students and three-year workers,
this expenditure may, without stinting, be calculated at 50 rubles a year,
or about 60,000 rubles for the whole establishment annually” (213).

Weare positively beginning to be thrilled by the practical sense of our
Narodnik. Just imagine: “we,” “society,” are instituting organisation of labour on such a grand scale, we are endowing
the people with universal secondary education; and all this without any
expenditure whatever, and with such immense moral advantages What a
splendid lesson it will be to “our” present agricultural
labourers—who, in their ignorance, rudeness and boorishness, refuse
to work for less than 61 rubles a year with board [9]

—when they see labourers with a gymnasium education working for 50 rubles a year! We may be sure that even

Korobochka [20] herself will agree with Mr. Yuzhakov that the theoretical basis of his
plan is thoroughly “comprehensible.”

V

Howwill the economy of the gymnasia be run, and how will they be
administered? The economy, as we have already seen, will be mixed: part
natural and part cash economy. Mr. Yuzhakov, of course, goes very
thoroughly into this important question. On page 216, he calculates
minutely, item by item, that each gymnasium will need 160,000 to 170,000
rubles in cash, so that for all the 15,000 to 20,000 gymnasia, a sum of
about 3,000 million rubles will be required. Well, of course, they will
sell agricultural produce and receive money in return. Our author is so
provident as to take account of the general conditions of modern
commodity-capitalist economy! “Gymnasia situated in the vicinity of
towns or railway stations, on lines not remote from large centres, would
be of an entirely different type. Vegetable and fruit growing, dairy
farming and handicrafts may well replace field cultivation”
(228). Trade, as we see, will be on no mean scale. Who is to run it, the
author does not say. It is to be presumed that the pedagogical councils of
the gymnasia will also act in part as commercial councils. Sceptics may
want to know what is to happen if schools go bankrupt, and whether they
are able to engage in trade at all. But that, of course, would be
unwarranted cavilling: if uneducated merchants can carry on trade, can
success be doubted if representatives of our intellectual society get down
to the job?

Thegymnasia will naturally require land for their farms. Mr. Yuzhakov
writes: “I think ... that if this idea is destined to be put to
practical test, for experimental purposes the first of these agricultural
gymnasia should be granted plots of 6,000 to 7,000 dessiatines each”
(228). For a population of 109 million—20,000 gymnasia—about
100 million dessiatines would be required. But it should not be forgotten
that only 80 million persons are engaged in agricultural labour. “It
is only their children who should be put through the agricultural
gymnasia.”

Then,various categories of the population, [10] amounting to nearly another 8 million, will have to he excluded, which will leave 72
million. They will need only 60 million to 72 million dessiatines. “And that, of course, is a lot” (231). But
Mr. Yuzhakov is not dismayed. After all, the state, too, has lots of land;
only it is not very conveniently situated. “For example, in Northern
Polesye there are 127,600,000 dessiatines, and here, especially if, where
necessary, a system of exchanging private and even peasant land for state
land were adopted with the object of placing the former at the disposal of
the schools, it would very likely not he difficult to supply our
agricultural gymnasia with land gratis. The situation is equally
good” ... in the south-east (231). Hm...good” I So send them
off to Archangel Gubernia! True, hitherto it has served more as a place of
exile, and the state forests there for the most part have not even been
“opened up”— but that’s a detail. As soon as gymnasium students in the charge of learned teachers are sent there they
will cut down all these forests, clear the ground, and implant
civilisation!

Andin the central region a system of land redemption might be arranged;
after all, not more than about 80 million dessiatines are required. Issue
a “guaranteed loan,” the payments on which, it need scarcely
be said, to be apportioned among the “gymnasia receiving free
land” (232)— and the trick’s done! Mr. Yuzhakov assures
us that there is no need to be alarmed at the “immensity of the
financial operation. It is neither a chimera nor a utopia”
(232). “Actually speaking,” it will be “a gilt-edged mortgage.” We should say so! But, once again, why talk about a
“utopia”? And does Mr. Yuzhakov seriously think that our peasants are so downtrodden and
ignorant as to give their consent to such a plan?? There are the
redemption payments to be made for the land, and the “payments on
the loan to cover inauguration expenditures,” [11] and to maintain the entire school, and to pay the salaries of all the teachers,
and, to cap it all, in return for all this (in return for having hired
paid teachers?), to perform labour service for a trifle of three years
each! Isn’t this going it a little too strong, Mr. Enlightened
“Narodnik”? When, in 1897, you reprinted your creative effort
that had appeared in Russkoye Bogatstvo in 1895—,.did you
think where your characteristic Narodnik fondness for financial operations
and instalment schemes would lead you? Let us recall, dear reader, that
what he promised was universal education “involving no expenditure
by the state, Zemstvo or people.” And our financial genius really
does not demand a single ruble from state or Zemstvo. But what about
“the people”—or, more precisely, the peasants without means ? [12]

It is with their money that the land is bought, and the
gymnasia inaugurated (for it is they who pay interest on and the
redemption of the capital employed for the purpose), and it is they who
pay the teachers and maintain all the gymnasia. And labour service in
addition. What for? Because—our inexorable financier answers—you paid nothing for your education and maintenance in the
junior classes (204). But, firstly, the non-working ages include only the
“preparatory and first two gymnasium classes” (206)—and
then come the semi-workers. And, secondly, these children, after all, are
maintained by their elder brothers, who also pay the teachers for the
tuition of the young. No, Mr. Yuzhakov, such a plan would be absolutely
unfeasible not only in our day, but even in Arakcheyev’s time, [21] for it is
indeed a feudal “utopia.”

Mr. Yuzhakov has very little to say about the administration of the
gymnasia. It is true that he enumerates the teaching staff in great detail
and appoints a salary for each, a “comparatively small” one
(for they get free quarters, maintenance of their children and “half the expenditures on
clothing”)—50 rubles per annum, you might think? No, a little
more: “the head-master, head-mistress and chief agronomist 2,400
rubles each, the inspector,” etc., according to rank, descending the
hierarchic ladder down to 200 rubles for minor employees (214). Not a bad
career, you see, for those representatives of educated society who have
“preferred” the fee-charging urban schools to the agricultural
gymnasia! Pay attention to this “half the expenditures on
clothing,” which the teachers are guaranteed. According to our
Narodnik’s plan, they are to enjoy the services of the workshops (as
we have already seen), in other words, the right to have their apparel
sewn or repaired by tile “gymnasium pupils.” How solicitous
Mr. Yuzhakov is—for the welfare of the teachers! However, he is also
solicitous for the welfare of the “gymnasium students”—
just as a good farmer is solicitous for the welfare of his cattle: they
have to be fed, watered, housed and ... coupled. Listen to this:

“If... marriage is allowed between young people who have completed
the course and remain at the gymnasium for another three years ... this
three-year stay will be far less onerous than military service”
(207). “If marriage is allowed” I! That is, it may not be
allowed? But in that case, worthy Mr. Progressivist, a new law would be
required to restrict the civic rights of the peasants . But need
we be surprised at this “slip of the pen” (?) on
Mr. Yuzhakov’s part, when all through his “utopia,” amidst the most minute examination of teachers’ salaries, labour
service by the pupils, etc., it never once occurred to him that it might
not be amiss—at any rate in the “utopia”—to allow a certain share in administering the “gymnasium” and in
managing the farm to the “pupils” themselves, who, after all,
maintain the whole establishment and are graduated from it at from 23 to
25 years of age; that they are not only “gymnasium pupils,”
but also citizens. Our Narodnik forgot all about this trifle! But on the
other hand, he went very thoroughly into the problem of
“pupils” guilty of bad conduct. “A fourth type” (of gymnasium) “would have to be instituted for students who have
been expelled from the ordinary schools for bad conduct. Since it is
obligatory for the whole younger generation to undergo a course of
secondary education, it would be irrational to release students from it on the ground of bad conduct. In
the upper classes, this might be a direct temptation and stimulus to bad
conduct.” (Believe it or not, that is what is printed on page 2291!)
“The institution of special gymnasia for students expelled for bad
conduct would be a logical complement to the whole system.” They
would be called “corrective gymnasia” (230).

Isit not incomparable, this “educational utopia” in the
Russian taste, with it’s corrective gymnasia for ruffians who may be
“tempted” by the prospect of obtaining “release”
—from education!?

VI

Thereader perhaps has not forgotten a certain project for the direction
of industry which was rightly described as a revival of mercantilism, [22] as a project for a
“bourgeois-bureaucratic-socialist organisation of home industry” [23]
(p. 238). To describe Mr. Yuzhakov’s “plan” an even more
complex term is required. It has to be called a feudal-bureaucratic-bourgeois-socialist experiment. A rather
clumsy, four storeyed term—but what would you have? The plan itself
is clumsy. But, on the other hand, this term accurately conveys
all the characteristic features of Mr. Yuzhakov’s “utopia.” Let us begin the examination from the fourth
storey. “One of the chief features of the scientific conception of socialism is the planned regulation of social
production,” quite rightly remarks the author just quoted. [13]

This feature is to be found in the “utopia,” since the enterprise of tens of millions of workers is to be organised in
advance according to one general plan. The bourgeois character of the
utopia is beyond doubt: firstly, according to Mr. Yuzhakov’s
“plan,” the secondary school remains a class school.
And this after all the pompous phrases poured out by Mr. Yuzhakov
“against” the class school in his first article!! One school
for the rich, another for the poor; if you have money, pay for
tuition—if you have not, work! More: the schools for the rich, as
we saw, are to retain their “present form.” In the present
secondary schools of the Ministry of Public Education, for example, the
tuition fees cover only 28.7% of the total expenditures; 40.0% is supplied by the treasury; 21.8% by donations from individuals, institutions and
societies; 3.1% is derived from interest on capital, and 6.4% from other
sources (Productive Forces, Section XIX, p. 35). Mr. Yuzhakov,
therefore, has accentuated the class character of the secondary
schools as compared with what now exists: according to his
“plan,” the rich will pay only 28.7% of the cost of their
tuition, while the poor will pay the total cost of theirs, and
perform labour service into the bargain! Not bad for a “Narodnik” utopia! Secondly, the plan envisages the hire of
winter workers by the gymnasia, especially from among landless
peasants. Thirdly, the distinction between town and country— that
foundation of the social division of labour—is retained. Since
Mr. Yuzhakov is introducing the planned organisation of social labour,
since he is devising a “utopia” for the combination of education and productive labour, the retention of this distinction is
absurd, and shows that our author has not the slightest conception of the
subject he has undertaken to discuss. Not only did the “teachers” of the present-day disciples criticise this
absurdity in their writings, but so did the old utopians, and even our
great Russian utopian. [24] But that is nothing to Mr. Yuzhakov!
Fourthly—and this is the major reason for calling this “utopia” a bourgeois one— side by side with attempting
the planned organisation of social production, it proposes to retain
commodity production. The gymnasia will produce for the market.
Consequently, social production will be governed by the laws of the
market, to which the “gymnasia” will also have to submit! But
that is nothing to Mr. Yuzhakov! Where do you get the idea, he will no
doubt say, that production will be governed by certain laws of the market?
Sheer nonsense! Production will be governed by the orders of the worthy
directors of the agricultural schools, and not by the laws of the
market. Voila tout. Of the purely bureaucratic structure of
Mr. Yuzhakov’s utopian gymnasia we have already spoken. The
“Educational Utopia,” it is to be hoped, will do a useful
service by showing the Russian reading public the full profundity of the
“democracy” of our contemporary Narodniks. The feudal feature
in Mr. Yuzhakov’s “plan” is the labour service to be rendered by the poor in return for tuition. Had this sort of project been
drafted by a consistent bourgeois, it would have contained neither a first nor a second storey, and it would have been far superior
to this Narodnik utopia, and far more useful. Labour service is the
economic essence of the serf system. In capitalist society, a man who has
no means has to sell his labour-power in order to buy the means of
subsistence. In feudal society, a man who has no means has to perform
labour service in return for the means of subsistence he receives from his
lord. Labour service necessarily means that the one who performs it is
compelled to work, has fewer rights; it involves what the author of
Das Kapital called “ausserökonomischer

Zwang” [14] (III, 2, 324). Hence, in Russia as well, inasmuch as labour service still
survives, a necessary complement to it is the peasant’s inferiority
in respect of civic rights—the fact of his being tied to the land,
corporal punishment, and the right to assign him to compulsory
labour. Mr. Yuzhakov does not understand this connection between labour
service and inferiority of rights, but the shrewd sense of a
“practical” man suggested to him that, since the gymnasium
students will have to perform labour service, it will not be amiss to
introduce corrective gymnasia for those who dare try to avoid education;
and that adult “student” workers should be kept in the position of little schoolboys.

Itwould be interesting to know why our utopian needed the first three
storeys of his creation? Had he left only the fourth, not a word of
objection could have been raised, for, after all, the man himself told us
frankly and in advance that he was writing a “utopia”! But
here his Kleinbürger nature betrayed him. On the one hand, a
“utopia” is a good thing, hut, on the other, teachers’ salaries for our worthy intellectuals are not a bad thing either. On the
one hand, we have “no expenditure for the people,” but, on the
other—no, friend, just you pay the interest and return the debt in
full, and do three years’ labour service in the bargain! On the one
hand, we have grandiloquent declamations on the danger and harm of class
division, while, on the other, a purely class “utopia.” Such
perpetual vacillations between the old and the new, such curious claims to
reach above one’s own stature, that is, to rise superior to all
classes, are the essence of every Kleinbürger outlook.

*     * *

Areyou familiar, reader, with Mr. Sergei Sharapov’s The Russian Farmer. Some Thoughts on the Organisation of Farming in Russia on New Lines (free supplement to the magazine

Sever [25] for 1894), St. Petersburg, 1894? We would strongly recommend Russkoye Bogatstvo contributors in
general, and Mr. Yuzhakov in particular, to acquaint themselves with
it. The first chapter is entitled: “Moral Conditions for Russian
Farming.” Here the author rehashes ideas very much akin to those of
“Narodism”—that Russia and the West differ radically, that pure commercial calculation prevails in the West, and that there
masters and workers are not preoccupied with moral questions. Here, in
Russia, on the contrary, thanks to the allocation of land to the peasants
in 1861 “their existence has acquired an aim entirely different from
that in the West” (8). “Our peasant who has obtained land has
acquired an independent aim in life.” In a word, sanction was given
to people’s production—as Mr. Nikolai —on put it far more plainly. The landlord in our country—Mr. Sharapov goes on to
develop his idea—is interested in the peasant’s welfare
because this peasant cultivates the landlord’s estate with his own
implements. “His” (the landlord’s) “calculations include not only the profit he personally derives from his enterprise, but
also a moral, or rather a psychological, element” (12, author’s italics). And Mr., Sharapov declares with fervour (not
inferior to that of Mr. Yuzhakov’s) that capitalism in our country
is impossible. What is possible, and necessary, in our country is not
capitalism, but an “alliance of lord and muzhik” (the title of
chapter III of Mr. Sharapov’s book). “Economy should be based
on a close solidarity between lord and muzhik” (25): it is the duty
of the lord to spread enlightenment, and of the muxhik—well, the
duty of the muzhik, of course, is to work! And so he, Mr. Sergei Sharapov,
“after repeated and painful mistakes,” at last established on
his own estate the “said alliance between lord and muzhik”
(26). He introduced a rational crop rotation, etc., etc., and concluded a
contract with the peasants, under which the latter receive meadows,
pasture and arable from the landlord, and also seed for so many
dessiatines, etc. The peasants, on their part, undertake to do all the
work on the landlord’s farm (to cart manure, spread phosphates,
plough, sow, reap, carry the sheaves to “my barn,” thresh,
etc.. etc., so many dessiatines of each crop), and over and above this to pay, at first 600 rubles, then 800, S50, 1,100,
and finally 1,200 rubles (i.e., an annual increment). These sums are
payable in installments—coinciding with the dates of payment of
interest into the Nobles’ Bank (36, et seq.). It goes without saying
that the author is a “convinced supporter of the village
community” (37). We say, “it goes without saying,” because such farms would be impossible without laws that tie the peasants
to their allotments and that secure the peasant community’s
exclusiveness as a social estate. Mr. Sharapov is guaranteed the due
receipt of payments from the peasants by the existence of a
“prohibition on the sale of produce without his consent, which makes
it incumbent on them to store everything in my barns” (36). Since it
would be extremely difficult to exact payment from the poor peasants,
Mr. Sharapov has arranged to receive it from the rich peasants: these rich
peasants themselves select a group of weaker ones, form an artel and place
themselves at the head of it (38), and pay the landlord with great
promptitude, inasmuch as they can always get back what is due from the
poor peasants when they sell the produce (39). “ft is very hard for
many of the poor peasants, especially those with small families, to work
for me. It is a very big strain on them, but evasion is out of the
question, for the peasants would refuse to accept the cattle of a
defaulting householder into the herd. Nor would I, the peasants would
insist on that, and willy-nilly the poor peasant has to work. That, of
course, is compulsion in a way, but do you know what the effect is? A year
or two of renting land, and the poor peasant has paid of his arrears of
taxes, has redeemed his things from pawn, finds himself in possession of
money, begins to rebuild his cottage and—b and behold! he has
ceased to be a poor peasant” (39). And Mr. Sharapov ’points with
pride” to the fact that “his” peasants (he keeps referring to them as “my peasants”) are flourishing, that he
is spreading enlightenment, introducing clover, phosphates, and so on,
whereas “left to themselves, the peasants would have done
nothing” (35). “All the work, moreover, has to be done at my
orders and instructions. I decide on the time for sowing, manuring and
reaping. All summer, serfdom is practically restored—except, of
course, that there is no manhandling and no floggings in the stable”
(p. 29).

Asyou see, Mr. Sharapov, the blunt squire, is a little more outspoken
than Mr. Yuzhakov, the enlightened publicist. But is’there much
difference between the types of farming on the estate of the former and in
the utopia of the latter? In both cases the whole essence lies in labour
service; in both cases we have compulsion, either by the pressure
of the rich men who dominate the “village community,” or the
threat of being consigned to a corrective gymnasium. The reader may object
that Mr. Sharapov runs his farm for profit, whereas the officials in
Mr. Yuzhakov’s utopia do so from zeal for the common good. One
moment. Mr. Sharapov says outright that he farms from moral
motives, that he surrenders half the proceeds to the peasants, and so on;
and we have neither the reason nor the right to believe him less than
Mr. Yuzhakov, who, after all, also provides his utopian teachers with by
no means utopian “lucrative posts.” And if some landlord
follows Mr. Yuzhakov’s advice and lets his land be used as an
agricultural gymnasium, and receives interest from the “students” for payment into the Nobles’ Bank (a
’gilt-edged mortgage,” in Mr. Yuzhakov’s own words), the
difference will practically disappear. Of course, a tremendous difference
in ’educational problems” still remains—but, heavens, would
not Mr. Sergei Sharapov prefer to hire educated labourers at 50 rubles
than uneducated ones at 60 rubles?

Andso, if Mr. Manuilov does not understand even now why the Russian (and
not only the Russian) disciples consider it necessary, in the interests of
labour, to support consistent bourgeois people and consistent bourgeois
ideas, as against those survivals of the past which are
responsible for farms like Mr. Sharapov’s and “utopias”
like Mr. Yuzhakov’s, then, we must confess, it is difficult even to
argue with him, for we are evidently talking different languages. Mr. Manuilov presumably reasons on the lines of the celebrated
recipe of the celebrated Mr. Mikhailovsky: take what is good from here and
from there—like Gogol’s young lady, [26] who wanted to take the nose from one
suitor and stick it above the chin of another. To us, however, it seems
that such reasoning is nothing but the Kleinbürger’s comic
effort to rise superior to the definite classes that. have fully evolved
in our midst and that have assumed quite a definite place in the process
of historical development going on before our eyes. The
“utopias” naturally and inevitably engendered by such reasoning are, however, no
longer comic, but harmful, especially when they lead to utterly unbridled
bureaucratic inventions. For quite understandable reasons this phenomenon
is to be met with in Russia with particular frequency; but it is not
confined to Russia. Not for nothing did Antonio Labriola, in his excellent
book Essais sur la conception matèrialiste de I’histoire (Paris, Giard et Brière, 1897), say in
reference to Prussia, that the pernicious forms of utopia against which
the “teachers” fought half a century ago have now been supplemented by one other: “a bureaucratic and fiscal utopia, a
utopia of cretins” (l’utopie bureaucratique et fiscale,
l’utopie des crètins. Page 105, note).

VII

Inconclusion, let us revert once more to educational problems, but not to
Mr. Yuzhakov’s book, which has that title. It has already been
remarked that this title is too broad, for educational problems are by no
means identical with questions of schooling; education is not confined to
schooling. Had Mr. Yuzhakov really dealt with “educational
problems” from the standpoint of principle, and examined the
relations between the various classes, he could not have avoided the part
played by Russia’s capitalist development in the matter of educating
the labouring masses. This problem was touched upon by another
Russkoye Bogatstvo contributor, Mr. Mikhailovsky, in No. 11,
1897. Writing in reference to the statement by

Mr. Novus [27] that Marx did not fear, and rightly so, to speak of the “idiocy of rural life,” [28]
and considered it one of the merits of capitalism and of the bourgeoisie
that they had “rescued” a considerable part of the population
from this “idiocy,” Mr. Mikhailovsky says:

“Ido not know where Marx used this coarse (?)
expression”—a characteristic confession that he is not acquainted with one of Marx’s cardinal writings
(Manifesto)! But what follows is even more characteristic:
“... but it has long been known that there is no need to break
furniture even if Alexander the Great was a hero. Generally speaking, Marx
was unfastidious in his expressions, and, of course, to imitate him in this respect would be, to say the least, unwise. But even so, I am
certain” (hear, hear!) “that this expression was simply a
boutade on Marx’s part. And if the generation that worried so much,
along with Mr. Zlatovratsky, over the intricate problems of rural life
suffered much woe in vain, no less—though different—is the woe
of the generation being educated in a spirit of contempt for the ’idiocy
of rural life’” (p. 139)....

Itis highly characteristic of Mr. Mikhailovsky that, having proclaimed
his agreement with Marx’s economic doctrine time and again, he is so
utterly ignorant of this doctrine as to express the “certainty” that the words of Marx quoted by Novus were due
simply to his being carried away, simply to an unfastidious choice of
expressions, and were simply a boutade! No, Mr. Mikhailovsky, you are
grievously mistaken. These words of Marx are no boutade, but an expression
of one of the most cardinal and fundamental features of his whole outlook,
both theoretical and practical. These words clearly express a recognition
of the progressive nature of the diversion of the population from
agriculture to industry, from country to town, one of the most
characteristic features of capitalist development, that is to be observed
both in the West and in Russia. In my article, “A Characterisation
of Economic Romanticism,” I have already had occasion to show how
important is this view of Marx’s, which has been adopted by all the
“disciples,” and how sharply contradictory it is to absolutely
all romantic theories, ranging from those of old Sismondi to those of
Mr. N. —on. There I pointed out (p. 39 [29] ) that this view is also quite
definitely expressed by Marx in Das Kapital (I. Band,2-te Aufl,

S. 527-28 [30] ), and
by Engels in his Condition of the Working Class in England. To
this might be added Marx’s Der Achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte (Hamb. 1885. Cf. S.

98 [31] ). [15]

Both these writers expressed their views on this subject at such length, repeated
them so often on the most varied occasions, that it could only have
occurred to a man who is absolutely unfamiliar with their teachings to
declare that the word “idiocy” in the passage quoted is simply
a piece of “coarseness” and a “boutade.” Lastly, Mr. Mikhailovsky might also have recalled the fact that all these
writers’ followers have expressed themselves on a large number of
practical issues in the spirit of this doctrine, advocating, for example,
complete freedom of movement, and protesting against plans to endow the
worker with a plot of land or a house of his own, and the like.

Further,in the tirade we have quoted, Mr. Mikhailovsky accuses Novus and
his supporters of educating the present generation “in a spirit of
contempt for the idiocy of rural life.” This is not true.
The “disciples” would, of course, be deserving of censure if
they were ’contemptuous” of rural inhabitants, crushed as they are
by want and ignorance, but Mr. Mikhailovsky could not prove a single one
of them guilty of such an attitude. While speaking of the “idiocy of
rural life,” the disciples at the same time point the way out of
this state of affairs opened up by the development of capitalism. Let us
repeat what we said above in the article on economic romanticism: ’if the
predominance of the town is necessarily so, only the attraction of the
population to the towns can neutralise (and, as history shows, does in
fact neutralise) the one-sided character of this predominance. If the town
necessarily gains for itself a privileged position, only the influx of the
village population into the towns, only this mingling and merging of the
agricultural with the non-agricultural population can lift the rural
population out of its helplessness. Therefore, in reply to the reactionary
complaints and lamentations of the romanticists, the modern theory
indicates exactly how this narrowing of the gap between the conditions of
life of the agricultural and of the non-agricultural population creates
the conditions for eliminating the distinction between town and country.” [16]

Thisis not a contemptuous attitude towards the “idiocy of rural
life” at all, but a desire to find a way out of it. The only
“contempt” that follows from these views is towards the
doctrines which recommend “seeking paths for the fatherland,”
instead of seeking a way out along the existing path and its
further course.

Thedifference between the Narodniks and the “disciples” as to
the significance of the process of diversion of population from
agriculture to industry is a difference in solving the practical issues
connected with this process, and not only in theoretical principles and in
assessing the facts of Russian history and realities. The
“disciples” naturally insist on the need for abolishing all
the antiquated restrictions on peasant travel and migration from the
countryside to the towns, whereas the Narodniks either openly uphold these
restrictions, or cautiously avoid the subject altogether (which in
practice amounts to the same thing). This example, too, might have helped
Mr. Manuilov to understand the, to him, astonishing fact that the
“disciples” express their solidarity with spokesmen of the
bourgeoisie. A consistent bourgeois will always stand for the abolition of
these restrictions on movement—and as far as the worker is
concerned, his most vital interests demand their abolition. Hence,
solidarity between them is quite natural and inevitable. On the other
hand, the agrarians (big and small, down to the enterprising muzhik
inclusive) find this process of diversion of population to industry a
disadvantage, and zealously try to retard it, having Narodnik theories to
back them.

Toconclude: on this great question of the diversion of the population
from agriculture by capitalism, Mr. Mikhailovsky betrayed a complete
misunderstanding of Marx’s teachings, and avoided the issue of the
difference between the Russian “disciples” and the Narodniks
both on the theoretical and practical aspects of the question, with the
help of meaningless phrases.

---
Notes:
[1]
Social estates presuppose the division of society into classes, being
themselves one of the forms of class distinction. When we speak
simply or classes, we always presume the non-estate classes of
capitalist society.
— Lenin

[2]
Petty bourgeois— Ed.

[3]
One or the other, most worthy Mr. Kleinbürger: either you are
talking about a society that is divided into classes, or about
one that is not. In the first case, there can be no such thing
as non-class education. In the second case, there can be neither
a class state, nor a class nation, nor individuals who do not
belong to one of the classes. And in both cases the phrase is
meaningless and only expresses the innocent wish of a
Kleinbürger who timidly closes his eyes to the most prominent features of contemporary reality.
— Lenin

[4]
We are fully aware that it is very, very hard for Russkoye Bogatstvo contributors to understand an argument of this
character. That again is due to their failure to understand not
only the. “disciples,” but also the “teacher.”

Here,for example, is how one of the “teachers” sought, as far back as 1845, to prove that the English workers
gained from the repeal of the Corn Laws. This repeal, he wrote,
involves the farmers’ transformation into “Liberals, i.e., conscious bourgeois,” and this growth of
class-consciousness on the one side necessarily involves a
similar growth of class-consciousness on the other (F. Engels,
The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844.
New York, 1887,

p. 179). [32] How is it that you, gentlemen
contributors to Russkoye Bogatstvo , just bow and scrape
before the “teachers,” but do not expose them for “propagating bourgeois ideas”?
— Lenin

[5]
State of the future.— Ed.

[6]
According to Bunyakovsky, for every thousand inhabitants In Russia there are 485
between the ages of 0 and 20 years, and 576 between the ages of 0 and 25
years.
— Lenin

[7]
P. 237. Both eloquent lines of dots in this effusion belongs to
Mr. Yuzhakov. We would not have dared to omit a single letter.
— Lenin

[8]
“A gymnasium farm, directed by an experienced and trained manager,
equipped with all modern improvements and supplied with a
contingent of skilled and educated workers, should be a
profitable undertaking and justify the hire of the necessary
contingent of workers, some of the more deserving (sic!) of whom
might be given a share in the proceeds. To a certain extent this
method would probably have to be practised, especially in regard
to landless peasants graduated from this gymnasium” (204).
— Lenin

[9]
According to the Department of Agriculture and Pural Industry,
the average annual wage of an agricultural labourer employed by
the year in European Russia is 61 rubles 29 kopeks (average for
the ten years 1881-91), plus board, valued at 46 rubles.
— Lenin

[10]
Here is a full list of these categories of fortunates who are to be
exempted from the agricultural gymnasia: “people of means,
people undergoing correction, Mahommedan girls, non-Russians
belonging to small nationalities, members of fanatical sects,
the blind, deaf and dumb, idiots, insane, chronic inebriates,
the diseased, and criminals” (231). We read this list with
a clutch at the heart. Heavens, we thought, shall we manage to
get at least our own kith and kin included in the list of
exempted!—Under the first category, perhaps?—but no, our means with scarcely allow that. Well, we might manage with a
little cunning to get the womenfolk classed as Mahommedan girls;
but what about the males? The only hope is the third category. Mr. Yuzhakov’s fellow contributor to the
magazine, Mr. Mikhailovsky, as we know, has already simply
classed P.B. Struve as a non-Russian national, so perhaps he will
be gracious enough to class us also at least all “non-Russians belonging to small nationalities,” and
so exempt our kith and kin from the agricultural gymnasia!
— Lenin

[11]
P. 216—10,000 rubles per gymnasium.
— Lenin

[12]
Since those with means are excluded. Mr. Yuzhakov himself suspects that
“a certain proportion of the agricultural population, too, will
prefer to send their children to urban secondary schools that charge
fees” (230). We should think so!
— Lenin

[13]
Novoye Slovo, April 1897. Review of

Homes Affairs.
— Lenin

[14]
Other than economic pressure.
— Lenin

[15]
Mr. Novus could not have guessed, of course, that
Mr. Mikhailovsky was so ignorant of the works of Marx, or else
ho would have quoted the passage in full: Die Bourgeoisie hat
das Land der Herrschaft der Stadt unterworfen. Sie hat enorme
Städte geschafren, sie hat die Zahi der städtischen
Bevölkerung gegenfiher der ländlicheu in hohem Grade vermehrt und so einen hedeutenden Theil der Bevölkerung dew
Idiotismus des Landlohens entrissen. (The bourgeoisie has
subjected the country to the rule of the towlis. It has created
enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as
compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable
part of the population from the idiocy of rural life— Manifesto of the Communist Party—Ed. )
— Lenin

[16]
See p. 229 in this book.— Ed.

[17]
The article “Gems of Narodnik Project-Mongering” was written at the close of 1897
during Lenin’s exile in Siberia. He wrote it for Navaye Slovo, being unaware that the government had closed that
magazine down in December 1897.

In1898 Lenin included the article in his miscellany Economic Studies and Essays.

[18]
The “disciples” -the term used in the 1890s as a legal way of referring to the followers of Marx and Engels.

[19]
In this passage Lenin refers to the historico-ethical school in
political economy that grew up in Germany in the 1870s. This
school attached great importance to ethical (moral) principles
in economic life. Its exponents were G. Schmoller, L. Brentano
and other Katheder-Socialists.

[32]
Marx and Engels, On Britain, Moscow, 1953, p. 303.

[20]
Korabachka -a character in N. V. Gogol’s Dead Souls. A petty landlady, tight-fisted, pettifogging and
stupid, she was “block-headed,” to use Gogol’s expression. The name Korobochka has become an epithet indicating
petty miserliness and stupidity.

[21]
Lenin refers to the period of absolute police despotism and
gross licence of the military associated with the name and
activity of A. A. Arakcheyev, the powerful favourite of Paul I
and Alexander I. Characteristic of the Arakcheyev regime were
the brutal measures employed against the revolutionary movement
of the oppressed masses and against all free thinking.

Arakcheyevwas particularly notorious for having established
military settlements designed to cheapen the cost of maintaining
the army. Besides fulfilling their military duties, the settlers
have to maintain themselves by farmwork. Unparalleled brutality,
rigorous discipline, and regulation of the settlers’ lives down
to the smallest details prevailed in the military settlements.

[22]
Mercantilism -a system of economic views and the economic policy current in a number of European states from the
fifteenth to the eighteenth century to assist the accumulation
of capital and the development of commerce. The advocates of
mercantilism identified the nation’s wealth with money, their
opinion being that the public wealth is contained exclusively in
money in the shape of precious metals. The states that adhered
to the mercantile system tried to regulate trade in such a way
as to ensure that exports exceeded imports. With this aim, they
pursued a policy of protecting home industry by regulating the
import of foreign goods through the imposition of tariffs, the
granting of subsidies to the manufactories, and so forth. The
mercantilist economic policy helped to intensify the exploitation of the working people.

[23]
This was the expression used by P. B. Struve to describe the
plan suggested by Guryev, a member of the Scientific Committee
of the Ministry of Finance, in an article “Current
Problems of our Country’s Life,” signed P. B. (see
Navaye Slava, No. 7, April 1897, p. 238).

[24]
By
the great Russian utopian is meant N. G. Chernyshevsky (1828-89),
the great Russian revolutionary democrat, scholar, writer
and literary critic. One of the outstanding predecessors of
Russian Social-Democracy, Chernyshevsky was the ideological
inspirer arid leader of the revolutionary-democratic movement in
Russia in the 1860s. A utopian socialist, he considered the
transition to socialism possible through the medium of the
peasant community. At. the same time, as a revolutionary
democrat “he was able to exert a revolutionary influence
on all the political events of his day, overcoming all the
obstacles and obstructions of the censor-ship and advocating the
idea of a peasant revolution, the idea of a mass struggle to
overthrow all the old authorities” (V. I. Lenin, “The ’Peasant Reform’ and Proletarian-Peasant
Revolution.” See present edition, Vol. 17). Chernyshevsky
wrathfull y exposed the feudal character of the “peasant” Reform of 1861, and called on the peasants
to revolt. In 1802 he was arrested by the tsarist government and
was confined to tire Peter and Paul Fortress, where he spent
nearly two year’s, after which he was sentenced to seven years’
penal servitude and to permanent exile in Siberia. He was only
allowed to return from exile towards the end of his life. To the
end of his days Chernyshevsky was a passionate fighter against
social injustice, against all manifestations of political and
economic oppression.

Chernyshevsky’sservices in developing Russian materialist
philosophy were tremendous, his views being the summit of
pre-Marxist materialist philosophy. His materialism was of a
revolutionary and active character. He vigorously criticised
idealist theories, and tried to refashion Hegelian dialectics in
the materialist spirit. Magnificent specimens of a dialectical
approach to the study of reality are to be found in
Chernyshevsky’s writings on political economy, aesthetics, art
criticism, and history.

Marxmade a study of Chernysbevsky’s works, had a very high
opinion of them, and called Chernyshevsky a great Russian
scholar. Lenin wrote of him that he was “the only really
great Russian writer who, from the fifties up to 1888, succeeded
in keepidg to the level of an integral philosophic materialism.... But,” continued Lenin, “due to the
backwardness of Russian life, Chernysbevsky was unable to, or
rather, could not, rise to the heights oft he dialectical
materialism of Marx and Engels” (V. I, Lenin, Materialism and Empiriocriticism. See present edition,
Vol. 14).

Chernyshevsky’sliterary and critical works exerted tremendous
influence on the development of Russian literature and art. His
novel What Is To Be Done? (1903) helped to politically educate more than one generation of revolutionaries in Russia
and other countries.

[25]
Sever (North) a weekly literary and art journal that appeared in St. Petersburg Ironi 1888 to 1914.

[26]
Gogol’s young Lady-Agaphia Tikhonovna, a character in Gogol’s
comedy Marriage.

[27]
Noz’us-a pseudonym of P. B. Struve.

[28]
Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party. Selected Works, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1958, p. 38.

Furtheron Lenin quotes this passage In greater detail (see footnote to p. 487 of
the present volume).

[29]
Lenin refers here to pale 39 of the magazine Novoije Slovo, No. 9, June 1897, which contains a passage from his
essay “A Characterisation of Economic Romanticism” (see p. 229 of the present volume).

[30]
Karl
Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp.

504-08.

[31]
Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brurnaire of Louis Bonaparte.
Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958,
p. 334.