V. I.

Lenin

The tenth anniversary of the death of N.K. Mikhailovsky
(who died on January 28, 1904) was marked by a spate of laudatory articles
in the liberal-bourgeois and Narodnik (i. e., bourgeois-democratic)
press. It is not surprising that the liberals and bourgeois democrats laud
N. K. Mikhailovsky, but one cannot help protesting against the flagrant
distortion of the truth and the corruption of proletarian
class-consciousness when attempts are made to pass Mikhailovsky off as a
socialist and to prove that his bourgeois philosophy and sociology are
compatible with Marxism.

Mikhailovsky was one of the finest spokesmen of Russian bourgeois
democracy in the latter third of the last century. The masses of the
peasantry, who (not counting the urban petty bourgeoisie) are the only
important and mass vehicles of bourgeois-democratic ideas in Russia, were
then still dormant. The best people from their midst, and those who deeply
sympathised with their hard lot, the raznochintsi (mostly
students, teachers and other intellectuals), tried to enlighten and rouse
the dormant peasant masses.

The historic service that Mikhailovsky rendered the bourgeois-democratic movement for the liberation of Russia was that he
warmly sympathised with the hard lot of the peasants, strenuously combated
all manifestations of feudal tyranny, advocated in the legal, open
press—if only by hints—sympathy and respect for the “underground”,
where the most consistent and determined raznochintsi democrats
operated, and even gave direct personal help to the “underground”. Today,
when not only liberals but also liquidators, both Narodnik ( Russkoye Bogatstvo ) and Marxist, betray a shameless and often renegade attitude
towards the “underground”, one cannot help putting in a good word in memory of the
service rendered by Mikhailovsky.

Though he was an ardent champion of freedom and of the oppressed masses
of the peasantry, Mikhailovsky shared, all the weaknesses of the
bourgeois-democratic movement. He thought there was something
“socialistic” in the idea of transferring all the land to the peasants,
especially without redemption, and therefore considered himself a
“socialist”. Of course, this was a profound error, which was fully
revealed by Marx and by the experience of all civilised countries,
where, until the complete collapse of serf-ownership and absolutism, the
bourgeois democrats constantly imagined themselves to be
“socialists”. The transfer of all the land to the peasants, particularly
on the terms indicated, is a very useful measure under the rule of the
feudal-minded landlords, but it is a bourgeois-democratic measure. Today
every sensible socialist is aware of that. The experience of all the world
goes to show that the more land (and the cheaper) the peas ants have
received from the feudalists, the more “land and liberty” there has been,
the more rapidly capitalism has developed and the more speedily the bourgeois nature of the peasants has been
revealed. If Mr. N. Rakitnikov (in issue No. 3 of Vernaya Mysl [1] ) has not yet realised that the proletariat’s support of the
bourgeois-democratic peasants against the feudal landlords is not
socialism at all, one can only smile at his simplicity. it is a dull
business refuting errors that have long been refuted by all class-conscious
workers.

Not only in the field of economics, but also in those of philosophy and
sociology, Mikhailovsky’s views were bourgeois-democratic views
veiled by quasi-socialist phrases. Such were his “progress formula”, his
“struggle for individuality” theory and so on. In philosophy Mikhailovsky
was a step backward from Chernyshevsky, the greatest exponent of
utopian socialism in Russia. Chernyshevsky was a materialist, and to the
end of his days (i. e., until the eighties of the nineteenth century) he
ridiculed the petty concessions to idealism and mysticism that were made by
the then fashionable “positivists” (Kantians, Machists, and so
forth). And Mikhailovsky trailed in the wake of these very positivists. To
this very day, these reactionary philosophical views prevail among Mikhailovsky’s disciples, even among the extreme
“Left” Narodniks (such as Mr. Chernov).

That the “socialism” of Mikhailovsky and the Narodniks is mere
bourgeois-democratic phrase-mongering was conclusively proved by the
actions of all classes and their mass struggle in 1905–07. Most of the
peasant deputies in the First and Second Dumas sided, not with the
Left Narodniks, but with the “Trudoviks” [2] and the “Popular
Socialists”. [3] This is a fact that must not be forgotten or
distorted. And, following the Marxists, even the Left Narodniks, in the per
sons for example of Vikhlayev, Chernov, and others, have been compelled to
admit the bourgeois nature of the Trudovik Popular Socialists!

Let individual workers who sympathise with the Left Narodniks ask their
teachers to produce everything the Left Narodniks wrote
against the Trudovik Popular Socialists in 1906–07.

In those years mass action by the peasants proved conclusively that the
peasantry takes a bourgeois-democratic stand. The Left Narodniks
are at best only a small wing of peasant (i. e., bourgeois) democracy in
Russia. The workers have supported the peasants (against the feudal
landlords), and will continue to do so, but to confuse these classes, to
confuse bourgeois democracy with the socialist proletariat, is reactionary
adventurism. All class-conscious workers will strenuously combat this,
particularly at the present time when the class cleavage has been made
quite clear by the great experience of the mass struggle of 1905–07, and
is be coming clearer day by day in our rural districts.

For a very long time, over ten years in fact, Mikhailovsky was the head
and guiding spirit of the Russkoye Bogatstvo publicist group. What
did this group produce in the great days of 1905–07?

It produced the first liquidators among the democrats! Let individual
workers who sympathise with the Left Narodniks ask their teachers to show
them Russkoye Bogatstvo for August 1906, and all that was written
by the Left Narodniks when they called this group “Social-Cadets”, and so
forth!

The Mikhailovsky group brought forth the first liquidators who, in the
autumn of 1906, proclaimed an “open party”, and renounced the “underground” and its slogans two or three years before
our Marxist liquidators did so. What came of the “open party” proclaimed
by the Myakotins, Peshekhonovs, and other associates of Mikhailovsky?
Nothing—the complete absence of any party whatsoever, and the complete
isolation of the “open” group of opportunist Narodniks from the masses.

Mikhailovsky, who never renounced the “underground” (or rather, died
shortly before his group went over to liquidationism), should not be held
fully responsible for the paltry and contemptible opportunism of
Messrs. Peshekhonov, Myakotin and Co. But is it not characteristic that in
issue No. 3 of Vernaya Mysl , which is dedicated to Mikhailovsky,
we again find the corrupt bloc between the “Left” Narodniks and the
“Social-Cadets” of Russkoye Bogatstvo ? And if we recall what
Mikhailovsky wrote to Lavrov about his attitude towards revolutionaries
shall we not have to admit that, on the whole, the “Social-Cadets” are
his faithful successors?

We pay tribute to Mikhailovsky for the sincere and skilful struggle he
waged against the serf-owning system, the “bureaucracy” (we beg to be
excused for this loose term), and so forth, for his respect for the
“underground” and the assistance he rendered it, but not for his
bourgeois-democratic views, or his vacillating tendencies towards
liberalism, or his “Social-Cadet” group of Russkoye Bogatstvo .

It is no accident that the bourgeois democrats in Russia, i. e., in the
first place the peasantry, vacillate between the liberal bourgeoisie and
the proletariat; that is due to their class position. It is the workers’
job to liberate the peasantry from the influence of the liberals and
relentlessly to combat “Narodnik” doctrines.

---
Notes:
[1]
See Note 39.

[2]
Trudoviks (the Trudovik group)—a group of petty-bourgeois
democrats in the Russian Duma consisting of peasants and intellectuals of a
Narodnik trend. The Trudovik group was formed in April 1906 of peasant
deputies to the First Duma.

The Trudoviks demanded abolition of all social-estate and national
restrictions, democratisation of rural and urban self-government, and
universal franchise in Duma elections. Their agrarian programme was based on the Narodnik principles of “equalised”
land tenure, all the state, crown, and church lands being united in a
national land fund, inclusive of all privately owned lands whose size
exceeded the established labour norm; the owners of lands thus alienated
were to receive compensation. Lenin pointed out in 1906 that the typical
Trudovik was a peasant who “is not averse to a compromise with the
monarchy, to settling down quietly on his own plot of land under
the bourgeois system; but at the present time his main efforts are
concentrated on the fight against the landlords for land, on the fight
against the feudal state and for democracy.” (See present edition,
Vol. 11, p. 229.)

In the Duma the Trudoviks vacillated between the Cadets and the
Social-Democrats. This vacillation was conditioned by the very class nature
of the petty proprietors—the peasants. Since the Trudoviks to a certain
extent represented the peasant masses, the Bolsheviks in the Duma pursued
the tactic of agreement with them on various issues for joint struggle
against tsarism and the Cadets. In 1917 the Trudovik group merged with the
“Popular Socialist” Party and actively supported the bourgeois
Provisional Government. After the October Socialist Revolution the
Trudoviks sided with the bourgeois counter-revolution.

[3]
Popular Socialists —a petty-bourgeois party formed in 1906
from the breakaway Right wing of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Their
political views were close to those of the Cadets. After the February
Revolution of 1917 the P. S.s supported the bourgeois Provisional
Government, and after the October Socialist Revolution they joined forces
with the counter-revolution to fight the Soviets.