This fact that a given form of state can go together with a variety of political regimes was set out by Marx, and is emphasised by Lenin in his polemics against the Narodniks and their political programme. The Narodniks put forward proposals for a reorganisation of the Peasant's Bank, as well as the establishment of a Colonisation Department, and the regulation of land leasing in the interests of “people's farming”. Such proposals may, of course, form part of the programme of a Workers' Government, or Workers' State, though it would be in the form of an encouragement of collective farming and the development of cooperatives. But, the Narodniks addressed these demands to the existing state, a capitalist state that was already engaged in trying to bring about the replacement of small scale peasant farming by large-scale capitalist farming.
The appeals of the Narodniks are like the appeals of those today, including some who call themselves Marxists, for the capitalist state to nationalise this or that industry in workers' interest, and, having done so, to then hand over this state capitalist property to the workers! Simple common sense demonstrates what is wrong with such a political programme. The Narodniks called for such measures to promote “people's farming”, and to protect them against the “economic violence” (sic!) “of the nascent plutocracy.” (p 237)
This description of “economic violence” is reminiscent of the kind of language used by the “anti-imperialists” in their criticism of the operation of multinational capital, and claims of “super-exploitation” the “development of underdevelopment”, and so on, as though it were in any way different from the normal operation of the laws of capitalist competition, whereby the large eat the small!
Lenin quotes from the Narodnik's “Problems of Economic Development”.
“Removal of all restrictions that now encumber the village community; its release from tutelage, adoption of common cultivation (the socialisation of agriculture) and the development of the communal processing of raw materials obtained from the soil.” And Messrs. Krivenko and Karyshev add: “Cheap credit, the artel form of farming, an assured market, the possibility of dispensing with employers’ profit” (this will be dealt with separately below), “the invention of cheaper engines and other technical improvements,” and, finally, “museums, warehouses, commission agencies” (p 237)
Lenin points out that all these demands are simply demands for capitalist agriculture, but contained within a populist phraseology. All of the demands for cheap credit, banks, modern technology and so on are things that a modern capitalist economy requires, and could only act to strengthen the bourgeoisie. Not that there is anything wrong with that, for the reasons that Lenin has set out, i.e. the route to Socialism passes through the most rapid development of capitalism in Russia possible. But, it was against such a perspective that the Narodniks purported to stand, and their demands were also designed not to hasten this capitalist development but to contain it, to hold it back.
Lenin says that Danielson was quite right in this respect, “when he says—and this is one of his most valuable theses, against which the “friends of the people” could not help protesting—that no reforms under the present system are of any use, and that credit, migration, tax reform, the transfer of all the land to the peasants, will not appreciably change anything, but, on the contrary, are bound to strengthen and develop capitalist economy, retarded as it now is by excessive “tutelage,” survivals of feudal dues, the tying of the peasantry to the land, etc. Economists, he says, who, like Prince Vasilchikov (an undoubted “friend of the people” in his ideas), desire the extensive development of credit, want the same thing as the “liberal,” i.e., bourgeois, economists, and “are striving for the development and consolidation of capitalist relations.”” (p 238)
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