Lenin notes that Danielson attacks Struve for using “terrible words” like reactionary, and Utopian to describe his position. These “terrible words” are supposed to be a means of setting the readers against Danielson, in place of actual argument. In the age of the Internet, we are all familiar with the tactic of ad hominem attacks, but, as Lenin says, use of words such as reactionary or Utopian can only be considered as such insults if they are not based upon some reasoned argument, showing that the person so described is indeed a Utopian or reactionary. Lenin compares Danielson's complaint with the use, by Danielson himself, of similar criteria in describing the liberal Slonimsky. Danielson says of Slonimsky that his defence of small handicraft industry and small peasant ownership was “reactionary” and “Utopian”, and accused Slonimsky of “narrow-mindedness” and “naivete”. But, Lenin says, all of these descriptions are valid in relation to Slonimsky's position. But, then Lenin says, apply the same criteria to Danielson's position.
Struve does not simply use these epithets as insults, but sets out clearly why they apply to Danielson's position.
“Firstly: desiring the “socialisation of production,” Mr. Nik. —on “appeals to society” (sic!) “and the state.” This “proves that Marx’s doctrine of the class struggle and the state is completely foreign to the Russian political economist.” Our state is the “representative of the ruling classes.” Secondly: “If we contrast to real capitalism an imaginary economic system which must come about simply because we want it to, in other words, if we want the socialisation of production without capitalism, this is only evidence of a naïve conception, which does not conform to history.”” (p 323-4)
Struve is right, Lenin says, Danielson did not take account of the role of class struggle.
“He evidently believes that the state could have behaved this way or that, and, consequently, that it stands above classes.” (p 324)
And, Struve's second argument that the idea of the socialisation of labour via the the village community is a myth is also formulated clearly. Danielson himself had described how the organisation of labour, prior to 1861, could not be developed, and so “capitalism broke out of the narrow bounds of the earlier productive units and socialised labour throughout society. Mr. Nik.-on, too, admitted this socialisation of labour by our capitalism. Therefore, in wanting to base the socialisation of labour not on capitalism, which has already socialised labour, but on the village community, the breakdown of which for the first time brought about the socialisation of labour throughout society, he is a reactionary utopian. That is Mr. Struve’s idea. One may regard it as true or false, but it cannot be denied that his severe comment on Mr. Nik. —on followed with logical inevitability from this opinion, and it is, therefore, out of place to talk of “bug bears.” (p 325)
Danielson accuses Struve of wanting to dispossess the peasants of land, in the same way that the Narodniks made a similar claim in relation to the Russian Marxists. It has to be borne in mind that Struve was writing in the censored press, where arguments could only be couched in particular terms. What Struve says is that he seeks the socialisation of labour, and seeks it via the very development of capitalism that was actually taking place, in Russia, the same process that had occurred in Western Europe, North America and elsewhere.
“... and therefore desires to base himself on the forces that will be visible in “the clear light of the open class struggle”.” (p 325)
So, Danielson's claim was the opposite of the truth.
“And if we bear in mind that Mr. Struve could not in the censored press speak of the forces which come forward in the clear light of the open class struggle, and that, consequently, Mr. Nik. —on’s opponent was gagged—it can scarcely be denied that Mr. Nik. —on’s method is altogether “inappropriate.”” (p 325)
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