As Plekhanov put it, the question “Is capitalism in Russia inevitable?” is the wrong question, because Russia already was capitalist. But, the Narodniks wanted to deny that, and to hold back capitalist development, to portray such development as impossible or fraught with catastrophe, in Russia. This same outlook is presented by today's petty-bourgeois socialists, moralists and catastrophists.
“The enlighteners’ ardent faith in this course of social development was replaced by distrust of it; historical optimism and cheerfulness were replaced by pessimism and dejection founded on the fact that the farther matters proceeded as they were proceeding, the harder and more difficult would it be to solve the problems raised by the new development; appeals were made to “retard” and “halt” this development; the theory was advanced that Russia’s backwardness was her good fortune, and so forth.” (p 516-7)
The Narodniks were so intent on arguing that this progressive capitalist development was in some way an aberration that not only did they try, in their analysis, to deny its existence, but they ignored all of he negative aspects of the feudal-Asiatic mode of production that existed in Russia before it. Indeed, they wanted to retain those features, just somehow stripped of their “bad” side. This is also a feature of petty-bourgeois socialism and moralism today, most apparent in the form of “idiot anti-imperialism”. Because the “idiot anti-imperialists” are likewise so intent on denying the progressive role of imperialism in developing the productive forces, of creating a global economy and working-class, they also seek to deny the reality in all these aspects. They can only see negatives in relation to centre-periphery relations, unequal exchange and super exploitation.
They posit economic development brought about by imperialism as either not being real or else as being aberrant. The ridiculous nature of the first is shown in attempts to claim that the former colony in India or semi-colony in China have not experienced real industrial development, indeed, becoming third and fifth largest economies in the world. In response, this idiot anti-imperialism opposes the investment of multinational corporations in developing economies under cover of campaigns against globalisation, i.e. the thoroughly progressive development of an international social division of labour, and creation of a global economy which is the fundamental requirement for the creation of Socialism.
And, the description of idiot anti-imperialism is manifest in the fact that such elements, in order to oppose imperialism, ally themselves not only with the petty-bourgeoisie, but with even more reactionary social forces, such as the landlords and clergy in places like Tibet, or Iran, The same is seen currently in the alliance of these anti-imperialists with the reactionary government in Ukraine, whose military took openly into its ranks the self proclaimed Nazis of the Azov Battalion, and proceeded to train and finance them, as well as providing them with the latest NATO weaponry, much as did the US, in the 1980's, when it armed, trained and financed the mediaevalist forces of Bin Laden in Afghanistan, and as it has done similarly with other jihadists in Libya, Syria and elsewhere.
“Contending against capitalism from their romantic, petty-bourgeois angle, the Narodniks throw all historical realism overboard and always compare the reality of capitalism with a fiction of the pre-capitalist order. The “heritage” of the sixties with their ardent faith in the progressive character of the existing course of social development, their relentless enmity directed wholly and exclusively against the relics of the past, their conviction that these relics had only to be swept clean away and everything would go splendidly—this ’heritage,” far from having any part in the aforementioned views of Narodism, runs directly counter to them.” (p 517)
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