The Narodniks recognised that vestiges of the old feudal system remained within Russia, “and which are in crying contradiction to the modern economic system and to the country’s entire economic and cultural development. On the other hand, they cannot help seeing that this economic system and development threaten to ruin the small producer, and, fearful for the fate of this palladium of their “ideals,” the Narodniks try to drag history back, to halt development, beg and plead that it be “forbidden,” “not allowed,” and cover up this pitiful reactionary prattle with talk about “organisation of labour,” talk that can only sound as a bitter mockery.” (p 455-6)
The elements of the Narodnik programme demanding bourgeois reforms such as “freedom of industry” were progressive, but there was nothing specifically “Narodnik” about them. They were simply the kind of bourgeois liberal reforms that had been demanded in the interests of the bourgeoisie for several centuries, in the West. But, what was Narodnik in the programme, the partial demands, the attempt to further the specific interests of the small producer, weakened, and undermined its progressive content.
“Insofar as the Narodnik measures are part of, or coincide with, the reform which, since the days of Adam Smith, has been known as freedom of industry (in the broad sense of the term), they are progressive. But, firstly, in that case, they contain nothing specifically “Narodnik,” nothing that gives special support to small production and “special paths” for the fatherland. Secondly, this favourable side of the Narodnik programme is weakened and distorted by the substitution of partial and minor projects and measures for a general and fundamental solution of the problem—freedom of industry. Insofar, however, as Narodnik aspirations run counter to freedom of industry and endeavour to retard modern development, they are reactionary and meaningless, and their achievement can bring nothing but harm.” (p 456)
Lenin briefly discusses the ideas of credit and technical education, and artels, put forward by the Narodniks, to illustrate their reactionary nature, in relation to the existing conditions. The reactionary nature of the proposals on education had been set out in the article on Gymnasium Farms, and, as far as artels were concerned,
“The fact is that if you want to look for the idea of association and for the means of implementing it, you must not look back, to the past, to patriarchal artisan and small production, which are the cause of the extreme isolation, disunity and backwardness of the producers, but forward, to the future, towards the development of large-scale industrial capitalism.” (p 458)
In the same way that petty-bourgeois populists and vulgar socialists decry Marxists, today, for pointing out that it is only in relation to an, as yet, non-existent Socialism that industrial capitalism is not progressive, so the Narodniks decried the Marxists, then, for this same viewpoint.
““Freedom of industry”! What an old-fashioned, narrow, Manchester School bourgeois aspiration! The Narodnik is convinced that for him this is an überwundener Standpunkt, that he has succeeded in rising above the transient and one-sided interests on which this aspiration is based, that he has risen to a profounder and purer idea of “organisation of labour.” . . . Actually, however, he has only sunk from progressive bourgeois ideology to reactionary petty-bourgeois ideology, which helplessly vacillates between the desire to accelerate modern economic development and the desire to retard it, between the interests of small masters and the interests of labour. On this question, the latter coincide with the interests of big industrial capital.” (p 458)
And, today, that summarises the difference still between Marxism and vulgar socialism, the socialism of the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie. Of course, this recognition of the continued progressive role of industrial capitalism/imperialism, in continuing to develop the productive forces, to break down the fetters imposed by the nation state, to create a global economy, and so on, does not prevent Marxists from pointing out the contradictions for capitalism within that process, and so the crisis-ridden and inadequate way in which it moves forward. Nor does it require that we ignore the need to defend workers' immediate interests, as part of that process, but, here, too, as Marx pointed out, in The Preface to Capital I, and Engels pointed out in his later prefaces to The Condition of the Working Class, it is the more rapid development of capitalism that facilitates the furtherance of the interests of labour, as against the worst excesses of capital.
“There will be some, no doubt, who think that “freedom of industry” precludes such measures as factory legislation, etc. By “freedom of industry” is meant the abolition of all survivals of the past that hinder the development of capitalism. But factory legislation, like the other measures of modern so-called Socialpolitik, presupposes an advanced development of capitalism and, in its turn, furthers that development.” (Note p 458)
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