V. I.

Lenin

Liberal Professor Mr. Tugan-Baranovsky is on the war path
against socialism. This time he has approached the question, not from the
political and economic angle, but from that of an abstract discussion on
equality (perhaps the professor thought such an abstract discussion more
suitable for the religious and philosophical gatherings which he has
addressed?).

“ If we take socialism, not as an economic theory, but as
a living ideal,” Mr. Tugan declared, “then, undoubtedly, it is associated
with the ideal of equality, but equality is a concept ... that cannot be
deduced from experience and reason.”

This is the reasoning of a liberal scholar who repeats the incredibly
trite and threadbare argument that experience and reason clearly prove that
men are not equal, yet socialism bases its ideal on equality. Hence, socialism, if you please, is an absurdity which is
contrary to experience and reason, and so forth!

Mr. Tugan repeats the old trick of the reactionaries:
first to misinterpret socialism by making it out to be an absurdity, and
then to triumphantly refute the absurdity! When we say that experience and
reason prove that men are not equal, we mean by equality, equality
in abilities or similarity in physical strength and mental ability.

It goes without saying that in this respect men are not
equal. No sensible person and no socialist forgets this. But this kind of equality has nothing whatever to do with
socialism. If Mr. Tugan is quite unable to think , he is at least
able to read; were lie to Lake the well-known work of one of the
founders of scientific socialism, Frederick Engels, directed against
Dühring, he would find there a special section explaining the absurdity
of imagining that economic equality means anything else than the
abolition of classes . But when professors set out to refute
socialism, one never knows what to wonder at most—their stupidity, their
ignorance, or their unscrupulousness.

Since we have Mr. Tugan to deal with, we shall have to start with the
rudiments.

By political equality Social-Democrats mean equal rights , and
by economic equality, as we have already said, they mean the abolition of classes . As for establishing human equality in the sense of
equality of strength and abilities (physical and mental), socialists do not
even think of such things.

Political equality is a demand for equal political rights for
all citizens of a country who have reached, a certain age and who
do not suffer from either ordinary or liberal-professorial
feeble-mindedness. This demand was first advanced, not by the socialists,
not by the proletariat, but by the bourgeoisie . The well-known
historical experience of all countries of the world proves this, and
Mr. Tugan could easily have discovered this had he not called
“experience” to witness solely in order to dupe students and workers, and
please the powers that be by “abolishing” socialism.

The bourgeoisie put forward the demand for equal rights for
all citizens in the struggle against medieval, feudal, serf-owner and caste
privileges. In Russia, for example, unlike America, Switzerland and other
countries, the privileges of the nobility are preserved to this day in all
spheres of political life, in elections to the Council of State, in
elections to the Duma, in municipal administration, in taxation, and many
other things.

Even the most dull-witted and ignorant person can grasp the fact that
individual members of the nobility are not equal in physical and
mental abilities any more than are people belonging to the “tax-paying”,
“base”, ‘ low-born” or “non-privileged” peasant class. But in rights all nobles are equal , just
as all the peasants are equal in their lack of rights.

Does our learned liberal Professor Tugan now under stand the difference
between equality in the sense of equal rights, and equality in the sense of
equal strength and abilities?

We shall now deal with economic equality. In the United States of
America, as in other advanced countries, there are no medieval
privileges. All citizens, are equal in political rights. But are they equal
as regards their position in social production ?

No, Mr. Tugan, they are not. Some own land, factories and capital and
live on the unpaid labour of the workers; these form an insignificant
minority. Others, namely, the vast mass of the population, own no means of
production and live only by selling their labour-power; these are
proletarians.

In the United States of America there is no aristocracy, and the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat enjoy equal political rights. But
they are not equal in class status: one class, the capitalists, own the means of production and live on the unpaid labour of
the workers. The other class, the wage-workers, the proletariat, own no
means of production and live by selling their labour-power in the market.

The abolition of classes means placing all citizens on an
equal footing with regard to the means of production belonging to society as a whole. It means giving all citizens
equal opportunities of working on the publicly-owned means of
production, on the publicly-owned land, at the publicly-owned factories,
and so forth.

This explanation of socialism has been necessary to enlighten our
learned liberal professor, Mr. Tugan, who may, if he tries hard, now grasp
the fact that it is absurd to expect equality of strength and
abilities in socialist society.

In brief, when socialists speak of equality they always mean
social equality, equality of social status, and not by any means
the physical and mental equality of individuals.

The puzzled reader may ask: how could a learned liberal professor have
forgotten these elementary axioms familiar to anybody who has read any
exposition of the views of socialism? The answer is simple: the
personal qualities of present-day professors are such that we may find among them even
exceptionally stupid people like Tugan. But the social status of
professors in bourgeois society is such that only those are allowed to hold
such posts who sell science to serve the interests of capital, and agree to
utter the most fatuous nonsense, the most unscrupulous drivel and twaddle
against the socialists. The bourgeoisie will forgive the professors all
this as long as they go on “abolishing” socialism.

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