V. I.

Lenin

There is a little magazine called
Grazhdanin [1] compiled by Prince Meshchersky. The Prince, who
has been through fire and water in the various higher civil service
“spheres” of St. Petersburg, usually preaches in this magazine the most
reactionary things.

The magazine is interesting primarily because in it the talkative
Prince is continually divulging the secrets of the higher administration of
Russia. For Russia is actually administered by those landowner dignitaries
in whose society Prince Meshchersky moved and is still moving. And they
actually do administer Russia in exactly the way, in exactly the spirit, by
exactly the means advised, assumed and suggested by Prince Meshchersky.

In the second place, the magazine is interesting because its courtly
editor, confident that it will never reach the people , often
exposes the Russian administration in the most ruthless manner.

Here are two interesting admissions made by this princely dignitary:

“ A very typical phenomenon,” he writes. “From time to time people come to us from France, or Belgium, or England, nice people who
show a sympathy for Russia and the Russians, they stay in luxurious
circumstances in a hotel, submit their letters of introduction to some
official or another ... and quite soon, in perhaps ten days or so, these
newly arrived foreigners are received by some minister and are given hopes
of receiving some concession, which they take off home with them.... Then
back they come again and a week later they have already acquired a
concession somewhere in Russia and are counting up the foreseeable profits
with such energy that they have dreams of millions.”

That is what Prince Meshchersky writes. By way of exception he writes
the truth. Features of Asiatic primitiveness, governmental graft, the
schemes of financiers who share their monopoly incomes with highly-placed
officials, are still boundlessly strong in Russian capitalism. When our
Narodniks fight, and fight with good reason, against such disgusting and
shameless swindles, they often regard it as a war against capitalism. Their
mistake is obvious. They are actually fighting for the democratisation of capitalism.

“ When I was abroad,” the arch-reactionary Prince writes
in an other place, “I was in contact with people in different walks of
life.... I do not remember that any sort of social or state reforms ever
constituted the subject of the conversation.... I read the newspapers ...
but found no articles about reforms.... As soon as I crossed the frontier
and reached home, I found the reverse; I took up the first Russian
newspaper I came across and on the first, the second and even the third
page there were articles about some sort of reforms.”

Correctly observed. The bourgeoisie does not need reforms in Europe. In
Russia they are necessary. The princely dignitary cannot understand the
reason for this difference—just as some wise people cannot understand
that the strongly anti–reformist tactics of the workers are justified
because of the bourgeoisie’s need for reforms.

---
Notes:
[1]
Grazhdanin ( The Citizen )—a reactionary magazine published in St. Petersburg from 1872 to 1914. From the 1880s it was the
organ of the extreme monarchists and was edited by Prince Meshchersky and
financed by the government. It had a small circulation but was influential
in bureaucratic circles.