V. I.

Lenin

Ridiculehas its good effects. In the articles entitled “Revolutionary

Adventurism,”[ See pp. 186-207 of this volume.—Ed. ] we expressed the firm conviction that our Socialist-Revolutionaries would
never agree to state their theoretical position in unambiguous and precise
terms. To refute so malignant and unjust a suggestion a series of articles
has been started in No. 11 of Revolutsionnaya Rossiya under the
title “Questions of Programme.” Good! Better late than never. We
welcome in advance all articles in Revolutsionnaya Rossiya on
“questions of programme” and we promise close attention
directed towards ascertaining whether it will actually be possible to
extract any programme from them.

Withthis end in view, let us examine the first article, “The Class
Struggle in the Countryside,” but we shall first remark that when our
opponents say (No. 11, p. 6) “our programme has been set out,” they
are once more being unduly ... “carried away.” You must admit,
gentlemen, that this is not true! You have not yet set out any programme,
i.e., you have not only failed to produce a complete exposition of your
views as officially endorsed by the Party (a programme in the narrow sense
of the word, or at least a draft programme), but you have not even defined
in the least your attitude towards such fundamental “questions of
programme” as the question of Marxism and opportunist criticism of
it, or the question of Russian capitalism, and of the position,
significance, arid tasks of the proletariat which that capitalism has called into being, and so on. All we know of
“your programme” is that you occupy an altogether indefinite
position between revolutionary Social-Democracy and the
opportunist trend on the one hand, and between Russian Marxism
and Russian liberal Narodism on the other.

Weshall now show you, using the issue you have taken up, the kind of
inextricable contradictions you are entangled in, as a result of this
laboured attempt to sit between two stools. “It is not that we fail
to understand, but we deny that the present-day peasantry as a whole
belongs to the petty-bourgeois strata,” writes Revolutsionnaya Rossiya (No. 11). “We regard the peasantry as being sharply
divided into two fundamentally different categories: 1) the working
peasantry which lives by the exploitation of its own labour-power [!??]
and 2) the rural bourgeoisie— middle and petty—which to a
greater or lesser extent lives by the exploitation of the labour-power of
others.” The Socialist-Revolutionary theoreticians, who consider that the
“essential distinguishing feature” of the bourgeois class is
its “source of income” (use of the unpaid labour of others),
discover “tremendous similarity in principles” between the
rural proletariat and the “independent farmers” who live by
applying their own labour to the means of production. “Labour, as a
definite category of political economy, is the basis of the existence of
both groups. This is one point. Another is that under present conditions
both are mercilessly exploited.” Consequently, they must be put
into a single category of the working peasantry.

Wehave deliberately presented the arguments of Revolutsionnaya Rossiya in such detail in order to enable the reader to ponder over
them and to appraise their theoretical premises. That these premises are
without foundation is patent. To look for the fundamental distinguishing
feature of the various classes of society in their sources of income is
to give precedence to relations of distribution, which in reality are
only a consequence of relations of production. This error was long ago
pointed out by Marx, who described as vulgar socialists those who failed
to see it. The fundamental criterion by which classes are distinguished
is the place they occupy in social production, and, consequently, the relation in which they stand to the means of production. Appropriation
of one part or another of the social means of production and its
application to private enterprise, to undertakings organised for the sale
of the product, is the fundamental distinction of one class in present-day
society (the bourgeoisie) from the proletariat, which is deprived of the
means of production and sells its labour-power.

Toproceed: “Labour , as a definite category of political
economy, is the basis of the existence of both groups.” It is not labour
that is a definite category of political economy, but only the social form
of labour, the social organisation of labour, or, in other words, the
mutual relations of people arising out of the part they play in social
labour. The same mistake in vulgar socialism, which we have analysed
above, is repeated here in another form. When the
Socialist-Revolutionaries say: “In essence, the relations between
farmer and farm-labourer, on the one hand, and between independent
peasants and the money-lenders, the kulaks, on the other, are exactly the
same,” they are reproducing in its entirety the mistake of, say, German
vulgar socialism, which, in the person of Mühlberger, for example,
stated that in essence the relations between employer and worker are the
same as those between house owner and ten ant. Our Mühlbergers are
equally incapable of distinguishing between the basic and the derivative
forms of exploitation, and confine themselves to declamations on the
subject of “exploitation” in general. Our Mühlbergers are
equally incapable of understanding that it is precisely the exploitation
of wage-labour that forms the basis of the whole predatory system of
today, that it is the exploitation of wage-labour that leads to the
division of society into irreconcilably opposed classes, and that only
from the point of view of this class struggle can all other
manifestations of exploitation be consistently gauged, without lapsing
into vagueness and abandoning all principles. Our Mühlbergers must
therefore meet from those Russian socialists who value the integrity of
their movement and the “good name” of their revolutionary
banner a rebuff just as decisive and merciless as that which the German
Mühlberger met.

Togive a clearer idea of how muddled our Socialist Revolutionaries’
“theory” is, we shall approach the question under discussion from its practical aspect and try to illustrate it by
concrete examples. In the first place, the vast majority of the petty
bourgeoisie is everywhere and always working and being exploited. Otherwise, why should it be classed among transitional and
intermediate strata? In the second place, small artisans and tradesmen are
working and being exploited in a commodity-producing society in
exactly the same way as the peasants are. Perhaps our
Socialist-Revolutionaries would like to create also a “category” of “working” trade-and-industrial
population instead of the “narrow” category of the proletariat? Thirdly, in order that the Socialist-Revolutionaries may
appreciate the importance of the “dogma” they so dislike, let
them try to visualise a peasant living near some town, who, without hiring
any hands, lives by his own labour and by the sale of all kinds of
agricultural produce. We make bold to hope that even the most ardent
Narodniks will not venture to deny that this sort of peasant
belongs to the petty bourgeoisie and that it is impossible to
“unite” him in the same class (mark you, we are talking of a class, not of a party) with the wage-workers. But is there
any difference in principle between the position of this kind of
commercial farmer and that of any small farmer in a society of a
developing commodity economy?

Thequestion now arises how can we account for the fact that Messrs. the
Socialist-Revolutionaries are (to put it mildly) drawing closer to vulgar
socialism? May it not be a chance peculiarity in this particular writer?
To refute this supposition it will suffice to quote the following passage
from No. 11 of Revolutsionnaya Rossiya , where the writer
exclaims: “As if it were all a matter of the size of one and the
same economic category” (the big and petty bourgeois) “and not
of a difference in principle” (just listen to that!) “between
two categories, viz., labour economy and bourgeois capitalist
economy!" It would be difficult for us even to imagine a more
complete and obvious confirmation of what we said in our article,
“Revolutionary Adventurism”: scratch a Socialist-Revolutionary
and you find Mr. V.V. This sentence alone is enough to explain the
Socialist- Revolutionaries’ position to anyone at all familiar with the
evolution of Russian social and political thought. It is a known fact that at the bottom of the pale-pink quasi-socialism which
used to embellish (and still embellishes) liberal Narodism, the trend
prevalent in our educated society, lay the idea that peasant “labour
economy” and bourgeois economy are diametrically opposed. This idea,
various shades of which have been elaborated in detail by
Messrs. Mikhailovsky, V.V., Nik.—on, and others, was one of the
strongholds that Russian Marxism directed its criticism against. If, we
said, you want to help the peasantry, which is being ruined and oppressed,
you must be able to abandon illusions and squarely face the reality that
is destroying the nebulous dreams about labour economy (or “people’s
production”?) and revealing to us the petty-bourgeois character
of peasant economy. In Russia, as everywhere else, small-scale labour
economy can be developed and consolidated only by turning into
petty-bourgeois economy. This transformation is actually in progress, and
the working peasant’s true and real tendency towards small
enterprise has been irrefutably confirmed by the facts of life. As
commodity economy develops, our peasants, like all small producers and by
the very fact that they are such, come under the category of petty
bourgeois: they break up into a minority of entrepreneurs and a mass of
proletarians; the latter are connected with the “petty proprietors” by a series of transitional stages of being
half-workers and half-proprietors (such transitional forms exist in all
capitalist countries and in all branches of industry).

Whatthen has been the attitude of the Socialist-Revolutionaries towards
the supplanting of one trend of socialist thought by another, towards the
struggle between the old Russian socialism and Marxism? They simply tried
to evade making a thorough analysis of the question as long as they
could. And when such evasion was no longer possible, when those who wanted
to form a separate “party” were asked to give a clear explanation, when they were forced to reply, forced by derision and by a
direct accusation of a lack of principle, only then did these people take
to reiterating the old Narodnik theory of “labour economy” and
the old errors of vulgar socialism. We repeat: we could not have wished
for better confirmation of the charge we brought against the
Socialist-Revolutionaries, viz., of utterly lacking principle, than this article in No. 11, which at tempts to
“unite” the theory of ’labour economy” with the theory of the class struggle.

*     * *
Asa curiosity, we will add that in No. II of Revolatsionnaya Rossiya attempts are made to give a “plausible”
explanation of the decision to avoid all polemics on matters of
principle. We are told that Iskra misquotes in its article,
“Revolutionary Adventurism.” An example? It omits, for example, the
words “in certain places” (in certain places the land is
passing from capital to labour). How dreadful! An irrelevant phrase has
been omitted! Or, perhaps, Revolutsionnaya Rossiya will dare
assert that the words “in certain places” have a relation,
even the slightest , to the question of appraising the process of the passing of land in general (whether or not it is a
bourgeois process)? Let it try.

Further. Iskra cut the quotation short at the words “by the
state,” although this is followed by “of course, not by the present
state.” Iskra (we will add) was even more malicious: it had the
impudence to term this state a class state. Will our opponents
who “have been stung to the quick” assert that the state
spoken of in the “minimum programme” under examination is
not a class state?

Lastly, Iskra quoted the leaflet of April 3, in which even
Revolultsionnaya Rossiya itself found the appraisal of terrorism
exaggerated. Yes, we did quote the reservation made by
Revolutsionnaya Rossiya , but we added that we regarded all this
as mere “juggling” and vague hints. Revolutsionnaya Rossiya was greatly displeased by this, and has set out to explain
and give details (thereby confirming in fact that there was an
obscurity which required explanations). What are its explanations? At the
demand of the Party, you see, amendments , were made in the
leaflet of April 3. These amendments, however, “were considered in
adequate,” and for that reason the words “in the name of the
Party” were deleted from the leaflet. But the words “published
by the Party” remained, and the second (the “real”) leaflet,
which was brought out on the same date, April 3, did not say a word about differences or exaggerations. Having
given these explanations and realising that they only confirm the
legitimacy of Iskra’s demand for an explanation (in the words
“juggling and hints”), Revolutsionnaya Rossiya asks itself
the question: how could the Party have issued from its own press a leaflet
with which is was not in agreement? The answer given by
Revolutsionnaya Rossiya is as follows: “Why, in exactly the
same way as Rabocheye Dyelo, Iskra, Rabochaya Mysl, [3]
and

Borba [4] all appear with the imprint of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Party.” Very well. But, in the first place, we have publications of
different kinds, and they are printed not at the “Party”
print-shop, but at the print-shops of the various groups. In the second
place, when Rabochaya Mysl, Rabocheye Dyelo , and Iskra
all appeared at the same time we ourselves said that this was
confusion. What follows from that? It follows that the
Social-Democrats themselves lay bare and brand confusion in their own ranks and try to get rid of it through serious work on theory,
whereas the Socialist-Revolutionaries begin to admit that there is
confusion in their ranks only after they have been exposed, and
take the opportunity once again to boast of their broad-mindedness, which
permits them to issue, on the same day and on the occasion of the same
political event, two leaflets in which they give two diametrically
opposite interpretations of the political significance of this event (a
new terroristic act). Knowing as they do that no good can come of
ideological confusion, the Social-Democrats preferred “first to draw
a line of demarcation and then to unite,” [1] thereby ensuring both durability and fruitfulness of the future unity. But
the Socialist-Revolutionaries, while interpreting their
“programme” in different ways, each at his own sweet will, [2] maintain the fiction of “practical” unity and superciliously
say to us: it is only among you, Social-Democrats, that various
“groups” exist; we have—a party! Quite true, gentlemen, but
history teaches us that sometimes the relations between
“groups” and parties are like the relations between Pharaoh’s
lean kine and fat kine. All sorts of “parties” exist. For example
there was a Workers’ Party for the Political Liberation of Russia and yet
its two years of existence passed as tracelessly as its disappearance did.

---
Notes:
[1]
See present edition, Vol. 4, p. 354.— Ed .

[2]
You have only to compare Our Tasks , published by the former
League of Socialist-Revolutionaries, with the Manifesto of the former
Socialist-Revolutionary Party (see No. 5 of Iskra ), then with the
editorial statement in No. 1 of Vestnik Russkot Revolutsii , the
“programme” articles in Nos. 7-11 of
Revolutstonnaya Rossiya and the pamphlet, Freedom , published by the so-called Workers’ Party for the Political Liberation of
Russia, whose fusion with the Socialist-Revolutionary Party was recently
announced in Revolutstonnaya Rossiya .
— Lenin

[3]
Rabochaya Mysl (Workers’ Thought) —a newspaper, the most con
sistent organ of the “economists,” which was published from October
1897, to December 1902. Sixteen numbers were issued. The first two numbers
were mimeographed in St. Petersburg; Nos. 3-11 were issued abroad, in
Berlin; printing of Nos. 12, 13, 14, and 15 was effected in Warsaw; the
last, No. 16, was issued abroad. The newspaper was edited by
K. M. Takhtarev and others.

Lenincriticised the views of Rabochaya Mysl as a Russian variety
of international opportunism in his article, “A Retrograde Trend in
Russian Social-Democracy” (see present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 255-85),
in articles published in Iskra , and in the book, What Is to Be Done?

[4]
Lenin gives a detailed assessment of the Borba group in his
article, “On the Borba Group” (see p. 160 of this volume).