Lenin describes some of the reformist measures that the Narodniks proposed, as set out by Krivenko. And, again, Lenin sets out the difference between the Marxist position and the petty-bourgeois moralists, “anti-capitalists”, and “anti-imperialists”.
“All this, of course, is very lofty, humane and liberal—“liberal,” because it will free the bourgeois economic system from all its medieval handicaps and thus make it easier for the worker to fight the system itself, which, of course, will be strengthened rather than hurt by such measures” (p 257)
In other words, Marxists had no reason to oppose such liberal measures per se, because they strengthened bourgeois society and weakened feudal society. In doing so, it not only strengthened the position of workers to fight Tsarist absolutism, but it also placed them directly in opposition to capital and the bourgeoisie. It clarified for them the field of battle, as society divided into two great class camps.
Lenin describes the failure of the Narodniks in terms I described earlier that in all their talk about “the people” they fail to distinguish that the “people” are divided into antagonistic classes. And having failed to do so, they fail to establish that “the People's state” is, in fact, a class state whose purpose is to defend and promote the interests of the bourgeoisie.
“... and when the class character of the modern state is not understood, it is only one step from political radicalism to political opportunism.” (p 258)
Talk of “the people” is also the stock in trade of Stalinists and other social-democrats, and the opportunism that Lenin talks of, here, runs like a yellow thread through the ideology and programmes of such reformists. It can be seen in the programmatic demands for the state to involve itself with ever greater areas of everyday life, the development of welfare states being totemic of such programmes. It can be seen in the Utopian and subjectivist demands that “the state” nationalise this or that industry, or in a crisis, this or that business. The “Marxists” amongst such political opportunists only seek to hide their shame in raising such demands by tagging on to them the demand that it should be also “under workers control”, and so completely forgetting that this state to which it submits these pleas is a capitalist state, and so only has interest in nationalisation if it is in the interests of capital, as a whole, and so has absolutely no interest, whatsoever, in also granting workers' control over it!
A good example of this opportunism and the petty-bourgeois moralistic nature of the Narodniks and their modern equivalents is their demand that the state should protect the economically weak against the economically strong. Today, this comes in all kinds of forms from the welfare state itself to the reformist demands for redistribution via the tax and benefits system etc. It can be seen in the appeals of Stalinists and reformists for weak nations to be defended against strong nations via a beefed up United Nations, which was a favourite demand of Tony Benn. It can be seen in the demands from the same quarters for an “anti-monopoly alliance”, and for the state to follow the reactionary line of breaking up monopolies.
Lenin notes that such policies and appeals are nonsense.
“It is nonsense because the strength of the “economically strong” lies, among other things, in his possession of political power. Without it he could not maintain his economic rule.” (Note *, p 258)
Lenin quotes Yuzhakov from Russkoye Bogatsvo, to illustrate the identity of this petty-bourgeois liberal reformism with the same trends in Western Europe.
“Gladstone’s Land Bills, Bismarck’s workers’ insurance, factory inspection, the idea of our Peasants’ Bank, the organisation of migration, measures against the kulak—all these are attempts to apply this same principle of state interference for the protection of the economically weak.”
Note here too the inclusion of the demand for control of migration, which is also reflected in the demand for immigration controls by these same reformists today. Yuzhakov, here, openly states that he accepts the continuation of the existing system, but seeks to simply tinker around with it. That is also the position of the western liberal reformists, including those that call themselves social-democrats, democratic socialists, or even just socialists – including Stalinists.
“In complete harmony with this, their fundamental theoretical tenet, is the fact that they regard as an instrument of reform an organ which has its basis in this present-day society and protects the interests of its ruling classes—the state. They positively believe the state to be omnipotent and above all classes, and expect that it will not only “assist” the working people, but create a real and proper system as we have heard from Mr. Krivenko). But then, of course, nothing else is to be expected of them, dyed-in-the-wool petty-bourgeois ideologists that they are. For it is one of the fundamental and characteristic features of the petty bourgeoisie—one, incidentally, which makes it a reactionary class—that the petty producers, disunited and isolated by the very conditions of production and tied down to a definite place and to a definite exploiter, cannot understand the class character of the exploitation and oppression from which they suffer, and suffer sometimes no less than the proletarian; they can not understand that in bourgeois society the state too is bound to be a class state.” (p 259)
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