Lenin responds to Mikhailovsky's claim that the Marxists renounce the heritage, by saying that Mikhailovsky is actually talking about two different heritages, one that of the enlighteners of the 1860's, the other that of the Narodniks. The Marxists certainly renounce the latter, Lenin says, but it is not the same as the heritage of the enlighteners.
“We have already shown that to confuse these two different things would be a gross error, for everyone knows that there have been, and still are, people who guard the “traditions of the sixties” but have nothing in common with Narodism. All Mr. Mikhailovsky’s observations are founded wholly and exclusively upon a confusion of these totally different heritages. And since Mr. Mikhailovsky must be aware of this difference, his sally is not only absurd, but definitely slanderous.” (p 527)
Lenin then gives a detailed account of the positions of different individuals and journals, illustrating this point.
“Did the “Russian disciples” hurl themselves against the Russian enlighteners? Did they ever renounce the heritage which enjoins unreserved hostility to the pre-Reform way of life and its survivals? Far from hurling themselves against it, they denounced the Narodniks for desiring to maintain some of these survivals out of a petty-bourgeois fear of capitalism. Did they ever hurl themselves against the heritage which enjoins European ideals generally? Far from hurling themselves against it, they denounced the Narodniks because on many very important issues, instead of espousing general European ideals, they concoct the most arrant nonsense about Russia’s exceptional character. Did they ever hurl themselves against the heritage which enjoins concern for the interests of the labouring masses of the population? Far from hurling themselves against it, they denounced the Narodniks because their concern for these interests is inconsistent (owing to their confirmed tendency to lump together the peasant bourgeoisie and the rural proletariat); because the value of their concern is diminished by their habit of dreaming of what might be, instead of turning their attention to what is; because their concern is extremely circumscribed, since they have never been able properly to appraise the conditions (economic and other) which make it easier or harder for these people to care for their own interests themselves.” (p 528)
Lenin explains that Mikhailovsky fails to grasp the difference between determinism and fatalism, which means that he is unable to understand why history leads to inevitable processes, but that the Marxist intervenes in that process, as a partisan of the progressive class, and fierce opponent of the reactionary class and its ideologists. In that, the Marxists are opponents of the petty-bourgeoisie and its ideologists more than they are opponents of the bourgeoisie, for the reasons described previously.
“One can “greet” the capitalism developing in Russia only in two ways: one can regard it either as progressive, or as retrogressive; either as a step forward on the right road, or as a deviation from the true path; one can assess it either from the standpoint of the class of small producers which capitalism destroys, or from the standpoint of the class of propertyless producers which capitalism creates. There is no middle way.” (p 532)
The Marxists saw it clearly as progressive, whereas Mikhailovsky and the Narodniks saw it as regressive. The same distinction between Marxists and petty-bourgeois socialists, in relation to the progressive nature of capitalism/imperialism continues today.
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