Lenin cites a passage from the article of this old Narodnik, which attacks the liberals of the time for their passivity. It could equally be quoted by the Marxists against the liberal Narodnik “Friends of the People” of the 1890's. The Narodnik writes,
“This is something worse than armed neutrality in politics, worse because in this case active aid is always rendered to the strongest. However sincere a passive friend may be in his sentiments, however modest and unobtrusive a position he may try to assume in everyday life, he will nevertheless injure his friends....
“For individuals of greater or lesser integrity and who sincerely love the people, such a state of affairs finally becomes intolerably repugnant. They become ashamed and disgusted to hear this wholesale and sugary confession of love that is repeated from year to year, repeated daily in offices, fashionable salons, and in restaurants over bottles of Clicquot, and is never translated into action. That is why they finally come to the sweeping denial of all this hotchpotch.” (p 350-1)
The Marxists, in the 1890's, also found it intolerable to listen to the hotchpotch put out by the Narodniks about aid for the people, credits, technical improvements, land purchases and so on.
“They find it “intolerable” hypocrisy to talk of choosing paths for Russia, of misfortunes from “threatening” capitalism, of the “needs of people’s industry,” when in all spheres of this people’s industry we see the reign of capital, a smouldering battle of interests, that one must not hide but expose—one must not dream that “it would be better without struggle,” but must develop the stability, continuity, consistency, and, chiefly, ideological nature of that struggle.” (p 351)
The Narodniks, of the 1870's, berated the liberals for the vagueness of their demands, but, in the intervening period, the Narodniks themselves, having had the time and opportunity, had not developed or pursued any precisely defined demands of their own, but had, bit by bit, simply merged themselves into the liberal milieu.
“Certain naive Narodniks, who in their simplicity do not understand that their words are directed against themselves, even boast of this:
“Our intelligentsia in general, and literature in particular,” writes Mr. V. V. against Mr. Struve, “even the representatives of the most bourgeois trends, bear, so to speak, a Narodnik character” (Nedelya, 1894, No. 47, p. 1506).
Just as in everyday life the small producer merges with the bourgeoisie by a series of imperceptible transitions, so in literature the pious wishes of the Narodniks become a “liberal passport” for the receptacles of digestive processes, skimmers, etc.” (Note *, p 352)
The Narodniks could not then complain that the Marxists now set forth their own set of “strict” and “narrow” demands in opposition to the liberal agenda of the Narodniks of the 1890's. And, contrary to the petty-bourgeois agenda of the Narodniks, aimed at, and based upon, a class that was in process of dissolution, the Marxists based their programme on the only class that had been differentiated from it, and stood in antagonistic contradiction to capital, i.e. the industrial proletariat.
The Narodnik wrote, in 1879,
“However narrow these canons may be on particular points, at any rate one cannot say anything against the following general demand: ’one of two things: either be real friends, or turn into open enemies!’
“We are now passing through an exceedingly important historical process, namely, that of the formation of a third estate. The selection of representatives is going on before our eyes, and the organisation of the new social force that is preparing to govern life is taking place.” (p 352)
But, even in 1879, this was a fantasy. The bourgeoisie, even at that time, were not “preparing to govern”, but were governing. Again, we see, here, the difference between Lenin's materialist analysis and the subjectivist analysis based upon superficial appearances, as they are manifest in the political superstructure. Russia, in 1879, was not at all a bourgeois-democratic republic, or even constitutional monarchy; it was an absolutist monarchy under the Tsar, operating via a vicious police state. Yet, Lenin is not at all deflected by this superficial appearance presented by the nature of the political regime. As a materialist, like Marx, he recognises that the class nature of the state is determined by which class exercises the social dictatorship, which class is the ruling class, and that is a function of which form of property is economically and socially dominant, which form of property determines the fate of the society itself. In Russia, even in 1879, the answer was that it was capitalist property that dominated, and upon which the fate of the country depended, and it was, thereby, the bourgeoisie that exercised the social dictatorship. The class nature of the state was determined by that, and not by the ephemeral, superficial and subjective characteristics of the political regime.
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