Vladimir Lenin
Petty-bourgeois and Proletarian Socialism
Written: October 25, 1905
Source: Collected Works; Volume 9, p. 438-46
Published: Progress Publishers, Moscow, USSR, 1965
First Published: Proletary No. 24, 1905
Translated: Abraham Fineburg and Julius Katzer
Online Version: marx.org 1997; marxists.org 1999
Transcribed: Workers' Web ASCII Pamphlet project
HTML Markup: Brian Basgen and David Walters
Of the various socialist doctrines, Marxism is now predominant in Europe, the
struggle for the achievement of a socialist order being almost entirely waged as
a struggle of the working class under the guidance of the Social-Democratic
parties. This complete predominance of proletarian socialism grounded in the
teachings of Marxism was not achieved all at once, but only after a long
struggle against all sorts of outworn doctrines, petty-bourgeois socialism,
anarchism, and so on. Some thirty years ago, Marxism was not predominant even in
Germany, where the prevailing views of the time were in fact transitional, mixed
and eclectic, lying between petty-bourgeois and proletarian socialism. The most
widespread doctrines among advanced workers in the Romance countries, in France,
Spain and Belgium, were Proudhonism, Blanquism [1] and anarchism, which
obviously expressed the viewpoint of the petty bourgeois, not of the
proletarian.
What has been the cause of this rapid and complete victory of Marxism during the
last decades? The correctness of the Marxist views has been confirmed to an ever
greater extent by all the development of contemporary societies, both
politically and economically, and by the whole experience of the revolutionary
movement and of the struggle of the oppressed classes. The decline of the petty
bourgeoisie inevitably led, sooner or later, to the extinction of all kinds of
petty-bourgeois prejudices, while the growth of capitalism and the
intensification of the class struggle within capitalist society were the best
agitation for the ideas of proletarian socialism
Russia's backwardness naturally accounts for the firm footing that various
obsolete socialist doctrines gained in our country. The entire history of
Russian revolutionary thought during the last quarter of a century is the
history of the struggle waged by Marxism against petty-bourgeois Narodnik [2]
socialism. While the rapid growth and remarkable successes of the Russian
working-class movement have already brought victory to Marxism in Russia too,
the development of an indubitably revolutionary peasant movement -- especially
after the famous peasant revolts in the Ukraine in 1902 [3] -- has on the other
hand caused a certain revival of senile Narodism. The Narodnik theories of old,
embellished with modish European opportunism (revisionism, Bernsteinism [4] and
criticism of Marx), make up all the original ideological stock-in-trade of the
so-called Socialist-Revolutionaries [5]. That is why the peasant question is
focal in the Marxists' controversies with both the pure Narodniks and the
Socialist-Revolutionaries.
To a certain extent Narodism was an integral and consistent doctrine. It denied
the domination of capitalism in Russia; it denied the factory workers' role as
the front-line fighters of the entire proletariat; it denied the importance of a
political revolution and bourgeois political liberty; it preached an immediate
socialist revolution, stemming from the peasant commune with its petty forms of
husbandry. All that now survives of this integral theory is mere shreds, but to
understand the controversies of the present day intelligently, and to prevent
these controversies from degenerating into mere squabbles, one should always
remember the general and basic Narodnik roots of the errors of our
Socialist-Revolutionaries.
The Narodniks considered the muzhik the man of the future in Russia, this view
springing inevitably from their faith in the socialist character of the peasant
commune, from their lack of faith in the future of capitalism. The Marxists
considered the worker the man of the future in Russia, and the development of
Russian capitalism in both agriculture and industry is providing more and more
confirmation of their views. The working-class movement in Russia has won
recognition for itself, but as for the peasant movement, the gulf separating
Narodism and Marxism is to this day revealed in their different interpretations
of this movement. To the Narodniks the peasant movement provides a refutation of
Marxism. It is a movement that stands for a direct socialist revolution; it does
not recognise bourgeois political liberty; it stems from small-scale, not
large-scale, production. In a word, to the Narodnik, it is the peasant movement
that is the genuine, truly socialist and immediately socialist movement. The
Narodnik faith in the peasant commune and the Narodnik brand of anarchism fully
explain why such conclusions are inevitable.
To the Marxist, the peasant movement is a democratic, not a socialist, movement.
In Russia, just as was the case in other countries, it is a necessary
concomitant of the democratic revolution, which is bourgeois in its social and
economic content. It is not in the least directed against the foundations of the
bourgeois order, against commodity production, or against capital. On the
contrary, it is directed against the old, serf, pre-capitalist relationships in
the rural districts, and against landlordism, which is the mainstay of all the
survivals of serf-ownership. Consequently, full victory of this peasant movement
will not abolish capitalism; on the contrary, it will create a broader
foundation for its development, and will hasten and intensify purely capitalist
development. Full victory of the peasant uprising can only create a stronghold
for a democratic bourgeois republic, within which a proletarian struggle against
the bourgeoisie will for the first time develop in its purest form.
These, then, are the two contrasting views which must be clearly understood by
anyone who wishes to examine the gulf in principles that lies between the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Social-Democrats. According to one view, the
peasant movement is socialist, while according to the other it is a
democratic-bourgeois movement. Hence one can see what ignorance our
Socialist-Revolutionaries reveal when they repeat for the hundredth time (see,
for example, Revolutsionnaya Rossiya, No. 75) that orthodox Marxists have
ignored the peasant question. There is only one way of combating such crass
ignorance, and that is by repeating the ABC, by setting forth the old
consistently Narodnik views, and by pointing out for the hundredth or the
thousandth time that the real distinction between us does not lie in a desire or
the non-desire to reckon with the peasant question, nor in recognition or
non-recognition of it, but in our different appraisals of the present-day
peasant movement and of the present-day peasant question in Russia. He who says
that the Marxists ignore the peasant question in Russia is, in the first place,
an absolute ignoramus since all the principal writings of Russian Marxists,
beginning with Plekhanov's Our Differences (which appeared over twenty years
ago), have in the main been devoted to explaining the erroneousness of the
Narodnik views on the Russian peasant question. Secondly, he who says that the
Marxists ignore the peasant question thereby proves his desire to avoid giving a
complete appraisal of the actual difference in principles, giving the answer to
the question whether or not the present-day peasant movement is
democratic-bourgeois, whether or not it is objectively directed against the
survivals of serfdom.
The Socialist-Revolutionaries have never given, nor will they ever be able to
give, a clear and precise answer to this question, for they are floundering
hopelessly between the old Narodnik view and the present-day Marxist view on the
peasant question in Russia. The Marxists say that the Socialist-Revolutionaries
represent the standpoint of the petty bourgeoisie (are ideologists of the petty
bourgeoisie) for the very reason that they cannot rid themselves of
petty-bourgeois illusions and of the Narodnik imaginings in appraising the
peasant movement.
That is why we have to go over the ABC once again. What is the present-day
peasant movement in Russia striving for? For land and liberty. What significance
will the complete victory of this movement have? After winning liberty, it will
abolish the rule of the landlords and bureaucrats in the administration of the
state. After securing the land, it will give the landlords' estates to the
peasants. Will the fullest liberty and expropriation of the landlords do away
with commodity production? No, it will not. Will the fullest liberty and
expropriation of the landlords abolish individual farming by peasant households
on communal, or "socialised", land? No, it will not. Will the fullest liberty
and expropriation of the landlords bridge the deep gulf that separates the rich
peasant, with his numerous horses and cows, from the farm-hand, the
day-labourer, i.e., the gulf that separates the peasant bourgeoisie from the
rural proletariat? No, it will not. On the contrary, the more completely the
highest social-estate (the landlords) is routed and annihilated, the more
profound will the class distinction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat
be. What will be the objective significance of the complete victory of the
peasant uprising? This victory will do away with all survivals of serfdom, but
it will ...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Go to the beginning of the document
Go to previous page
Go to next page
Go to the end of document
