V. I.

Lenin

Mr. Milyukov, a liberal historian, leader of the Cadet
Party, wrote in a recent leading article in Rech :

“ Social inequality in Russia [serfdom] turned out to be
more fragile and accidentally established than anywhere else in the
civilised world. It gave way without resistance [!!!] at the very first
stroke of the pen. Milyutin and Solovyov accomplished without difficulty
something the feasibility of which Count Stroganov predicted as long ago as
the reign of Alexander I.”

We are used to seeing all liberal and some Narodnik historians
embellish serfdom and the serf-owning state power in Russia. But not all
went to the length of such disgraceful “gems” as the one we have just
quoted.

Serfdom and the serf-owning landlord class in Russia were not fragile
and accidentally established but much “stronger”, more firm, powerful and
omnipotent “than any where else in the civilised world”. It did not cede
even a small part of its privileges “without resistance”, but did it with
the greatest resistance. Or perhaps the liberal gentleman could point out
in the “civilised world” examples comparable to the fate of
Chernyshevsky?

Milyutin and Solovyov themselves upheld the privileges of the
feudal landlords and the exceedingly onerous “ compensation ” for
these privileges. By saying nothing about this, Mr. Milyukov distorts
history, which testifies to half a century of “tenacious” feudal
privileges, omnipotence and unlimited power after Milyutin and Co., after
“ their ” feudal reform.

Why do liberal historians embellish serfdom and feudal reforms? Because
they see in the activity of the makers of such reforms a servility to the feudal lords that is gratifying to them, a
fear of democracy that they find encouraging, a desire for a bloc with
reaction that they appreciate, and an embellishment of the class struggle
that is familiar to them.

The question relates to the distant past. And yet the attitude to the
class struggle adopted then and now by the liberals (liberals “without and
bureaucrats within” [1] ) is a phenomenon of one and the same nature.

By embellishing serfdom, Mr. Milyukov has splendidly portrayed his own
self, his party and all Russian bourgeois liberals, who class themselves
among the democrats in order to fool simpletons.

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Notes:
[1]
The words quoted by Lenin are a paraphrase of two lines in
N. Nekrasov’s “Cradle Song”, which read as follows:

You will be an official without
And a scoundrel within ....