In this appendix, Lenin looks at Struve's “Critical Remarks on the Subject of Russia's Economic Development”, and the criticism of it by the Narodniks. In his work, Struve criticises the economic theories of the Narodniks, and attacks Danielson's failure to understand the nature of class struggle in Marx's theory.
Lenin begins by saying that he is not sufficiently familiar with Struve's other writings to be able to judge his overall system of views from a single four-column article, and so can only support certain fundamental propositions set out in the article.
“But the circumstance mentioned has, at any rate, been quite correctly assessed: Mr. Nik. -on’s basic error is, indeed, his failure to understand the class struggle inherent in capitalist society. The correction of this one error would be sufficient to ensure that Social-Democratic conclusions would be drawn from even his theoretical propositions and investigations.” (p 308)
This is all the more glaring, in the case of Danielson, because of his assertion of his adherence to the theories of Marx. He could have claimed such adherence, whilst arguing that the conditions in Russia did not somehow conform with Marx's theory, but then he would have had to set out a different theory to that of Marx, to explain its actual history and development. He would have had to set out a different theory explaining that capitalism in Russia was different to capitalism elsewhere, and that the exceptional Russian capitalism did not possess inherent antagonisms, and class struggle. But, he failed to do so.
“And Mr. Struve quite rightly concluded that failure to understand the class struggle makes Mr. Nik. —on a utopian, for anybody who ignores the class struggle in capitalist society eo ipso ignores all the real content of the social and political life of this society and, in seeking to fulfil his desideratum, is inevitably doomed to hover in the sphere of pious wishes. This failure to understand the class struggle makes him a reactionary, for appeals to “society” and to the “state,” that is, to bourgeois ideologists and politicians, can only confuse the socialists, and cause them to accept the worst enemies of the proletariat as their allies, can only hamper the workers’ struggle for emancipation instead of helping to strengthen, clarify and improve the organisation of that struggle.” (p 309)
The reformists who make appeals to “society”, “the people”, and “the state” that is presented as simply some class neutral mechanism, designed to implement the wishes of society, fall into exactly this camp. The moral socialists of the so called Third Camp, who make similar appeals to the state and democratic imperialism, to engage in various acts of liberal interventionism, fall into this camp. Similarly, the moral socialists that derive from that same Third Camp, but who start from a different set of moral imperatives, appeal to and act as cheerleaders for other reactionary nationalist forces, in their moral crusade against the evils of imperialism.
Danielson responded in Russkoye Bogatsvo to Struve's criticism.
““It appears,” argues Mr. Nik. —on, citing data about the slow increase in the number of factory workers, an increase lagging behind the growth of the population, “that in our country capitalism, far from fulfilling its ’ historic mission,’ is itself setting limits to its own development. That, incidentally, is why those who seek ’ for their fatherland a path of development distinct from that which Western Europe followed and still follows’ are a thousand times right.” (And this is written by a man who admits that Russia is following this very capitalist path!)” (p 309-10)
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