Lenin quotes Marx's comments from The Eighteenth Brumaire, in which he describes the petty-bourgeois nature of social-democracy. The only amendment I would add to that, is that, today, social-democracy is the representative of the interests of large-scale, industrial capital and a reflection of its nature as socialised capital. There is a distinct difference in material interest between the professional managers, trades union officials, and state bureaucrats, mostly drawn from the working-class, who form a middle-class, mediating the interests of capital and labour, as against the material interests of the small private capitalist, i.e. the petty-bourgeois, which are hostile to both large-scale capital and labour. The middle-class is largely progressive, representing the interests of that socialised capital, and is the material foundation of social-democracy. The petty-bourgeoisie is largely reactionary, and forms the material foundation of the reactionary wing of conservative parties, as well as of right-wing populist and nationalist parties and movements. It was these latter forces that provided the support for Brexit, Trump, Johnson, Le Pen, Farage, Orban and so on, whilst the former provided the support for Remain, and opposition to the reactionary nationalist and populists.
The romanticists, of course, see the characterisation of their position as petty-bourgeois, or reactionary as a characterisation of them as petty-bourgeois or reactionary. Of course, in practice, as a consequence of pursuing a political course, based upon these petty-bourgeois and reactionary ideas, some of them actually do become reactionary. There is a difference between someone who is drunk, as against someone who is a drunk. But become drunk on a persistent basis and you become a drunk! But, the failure to understand the basis of the criticism of their ideas, and interpretation of it as merely a form of insult, itself reflects the inadequacy of their political method, of their own subjectivism.
Lenin illustrates this by quoting an article form Russkaya Mysl, in which the author complains about the characterisation of Narodism as petty-bourgeois by the Marxists. But, in the article, the writer speaks of measures that promote “happiness” being “progressive”. Lenin notes,
“Why, this is the same as saying: the criterion of the weather is not meteorological observations, but the way the majority feels! What, we ask, are these “economic categories” if not the scientific formulation of the population’s conditions of economy and life, and moreover, not of the “population” in general, but of definite groups of the population, which occupy a definite place under the present system of social economy? By opposing the highly abstract idea of “the happiness of the majority” to “economic categories,” the reviewer simply strikes out the entire development of social science since the end of the last century and reverts to naïve rationalistic speculation, which ignores the existence and the development of definite social relationships.” (p 224)
What the writer fails to address is that this “mode of life” that he sees as producing this happiness is, however, one that leads inexorably to the development of the large-scale capitalist production he objects to.
“... leads to capitalism and to nothing else, leads to the “majority of the population” being forced into the ranks of the proletariat and to the conversion of the minority into a rural (or industrial) bourgeoisie.” (p 225)
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