Taken individually, some of the Narodnik proposals were of practical benefit, but the point was that, because, ideologically, the Narodniks sought to promote the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie, their proposals, taken as a whole, were contradictory. Again, the same can be seen with the policies of liberals, and conservative social democrats, today.
“... they are 1) supremely inconsistent, 2) lifelessly doctrinaire, and 3) paltry compared with the actual problems with which developing capitalism confronts our industry.” (p 448)
The only difference, today, in relation to this statement would be that, in developed economies, the policies of liberals and conservative social democrats are wholly inadequate to meeting the needs of large-scale socialised capital. On the one hand, they insist on promoting the myth of the primacy of the plethora of small capitals, and, as these small capitals are continually falling off the precipice, they put forward measure after measure to protect them, each one acting as a drain on the very large-scale capital that offers the road to the future. On the other hand, fearful of unleashing the power of the proletariat, as against the middle-classes they base themselves upon, they baulk from the task of introducing the very industrial democracy that is required for the rational development of that socialised capital. They retain the control of that capital in the hands of its non-owners – the shareholders – and, thereby, make inevitable the restriction of its rational development, in favour of the short-term interests of the owners of fictitious capital, and their destructive search for interest and capital gains. Rather than dealing with that in the realm of production, they are then forced to attempt to deal with it bureaucratically, and ineffectively, in the realm of distribution by focusing on taxes on profits, which are themselves, then, destructive of capital formation.
“What can we say of this genius, which, while fasting, walks about in a zigzag?? And what can we say of this walking which has no other object in view than that of destroying the bourgeois by taxes, whereas taxes are the very means of giving the bourgeois the wherewithal to preserve themselves as the ruling class??”
(The Poverty of Philosophy, p 140)
And, the same kinds of contradictions are to be found in the policies of the Narodniks.
“Side by side with the measures indicated above, which are usually described as a liberal economic policy, and which have always been inscribed on the banners of bourgeois leaders in the West, the Narodniks contrive to cling to their intention of retarding contemporary economic development, of preventing the progress of capitalism, and of supporting small production, which is being bled white in the struggle against large-scale production. They advocate laws and institutions which restrict the freedom of the mobilisation of land and freedom of movement, and which retain the peasantry as a closed social estate, etc.” (p 448)
And, 130 years later, these same ideas are being purveyed by liberals and conservative social-democrats. On the one hand, we have the advocacy of Brexit, and the same restrictions on free movement; the attempt to restrict development within dwarfish national or even regional limits, restricting the ability both of labour to seek out the highest rewards, or to unite across borders. The Narodniks argued, as the Brexiters and Lexiters do, today, that it was necessary to implement such restrictions in order to protect the workers and small producers, but, Lenin says, it had already been demonstrated that no such protection was provided by such policies, and they were, in any case, inimical to the long-term interests of workers.
“We have seen from the census data that the notorious “independence” of the handicraftsmen is no guarantee that they will not be subordinated to merchant capital, to exploitation in its worst form; that actually the condition of the vast bulk of these “independent” handicraftsmen is often more wretched than that of the handicraftsmen’s wage-workers, and that their earnings are astonishingly low, their working conditions (from the standpoint of sanitation and hours) highly unsatisfactory, and production scattered, technically primitive and undeveloped.” (p 448-9)
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