The enlighteners, as with liberals, today, did not single out classes, but spoke only abstractly about “nation”, “society” or “people”. Liberals deal only in these abstract concepts, because they seek to deny the existence of class contradictions. For them, the interests of the ruling class is synonymous with the interests of “society”, “nation”, “people”. That becomes the more obvious in times of war, and at such times, the social-democrats themselves become social-patriots, lining up the workers to fight and die for their respective ruling class.
“The Narodniks were desirous of representing the interests of labour, but they did not point to any definite groups in the contemporary economic system; actually, they always took the standpoint of the small producer, whom capitalism converts into a commodity producer. The “disciples” not only take the interests of labour as their criterion, but in doing so point to quite definite economic groups in the capitalist economy, namely, the property-less producers.” (p 526)
Again, Lenin says, this puts the enlighteners and the Marxists in the same camp, because they too seek the freest and fastest development of capital, as also being to the immediate and long-term benefit of the workers, whereas the the interest of the petty-bourgeois, in holding back that development is against the interest of both capital and labour.
“By the nature of their aims, the first and last trends correspond to the interests of the classes which are created and developed by capitalism; Narodism, by its nature, corresponds to the interests of the class of small producers, the petty bourgeoisie, which occupies an intermediate position among the classes of contemporary society. Consequently, Narodism’s contradictory attitude to the “heritage” is not accidental, but is a necessary result of the very nature of the Narodnik views: we have seen that one of the basic features of the enlighteners’ views was the ardent desire to Europeanise Russia, but the Narodniks cannot possibly share this desire fully without ceasing to be Narodniks.” (p 526)
The similarity, here, of the position of the Narodniks and today's petty-bourgeois Brexiters/Lexiters, and their equivalents in other countries is obvious.
On the basis of these comparisons, therefore, Lenin says, its apparent that it is the Marxists, not the Narodniks, who are the inheritors of the liberal heritage of the 1860's.
“As far from renouncing the heritage, they consider it one of their principal duties to refute the romantic and petty-bourgeois fears which induce the Narodniks on very many and very important points to reject the European ideals of the enlighteners. But it goes without saying that the “disciples” do not guard the heritage in the way an archivist guards an old document. Guarding the heritage does not mean confining oneself to the heritage, and the ‘disciples” add to their defence of the general ideals of Europeanism an analysis of the contradictions implicit in our capitalist development, and an assessment of this development from the specific standpoint indicated above.” (p 526)
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