Late Marx and the Russian Road. Теодор Шанин
in victory. And this very fact seems to have been one of the important factors that precipitated the contest between tsarism and revolutionary Populism. But let us for the time being go back to the days when the result of the struggle between tsarism and Populism was still unknown.
Even before the end of the war, the revolutionary Populists were markedly stepping up their efforts. In February 1879 when Engels heard the news of the assassination of Governor Kropotkin of Kharkov, he found a positive meaning in the incident, stating that political assassination was the only means of self-defence available to the Russian intellectuals, and that the movement was ‘just about to explode’.56 His expectations of a Russian revolution were thus brought to life again. They were further enhanced when the Executive Committee of People’s Will came into being in the summer of the same year and began its activities. Engels wrote in his New Year’s letter to Wilhelm Liebknecht dated 10 January 1880: ‘I offer you and all of you my congratulations on the New Year and on the Russian Revolution which is most likely to take place during it.’57
In contrast, Marx in this period did not put into words any expectations of this sort; but it seems safe to say that he was in the same state of mind as Engels. When, for instance, Leo Hartman visited London in February 1880 as a representative of People’s Will, Marx received him very warmly, showed hearty affection for him, and offered to help him as much as possible.58
In the months of May to July, Hartman wrote to N. Morozov saying that Marx was reading the ‘Programme’ which Morozov sent him, that he was critical toward the Black Repartition group (Chernyi Peredel) led by Plekhanov and supported the programme of the ‘Russian Terrorists’, and also that Marx, in spite of his sympathy toward the terrorists, was unwilling to write for their publications as he found their programme something other than that of socialists.59 We cannot, however, hastily conclude from these observations of Hartman that such was indeed the attitude which Marx finally adopted towards the People’s Will.
Five months later, in November of the same year, Marx received a message from the ‘Executive Committee of the Russian Social Revolutionary Party’ as well as the programme which People’s Will prepared for its working-class party members.60 That Marx read the programme of the worker-members of People’s Will very carefully, underlining it here and there, is an indication of how highly he evaluated it. As a matter of fact, ever since his encounter with this programme, Marx stopped calling this party the ‘Terrorist Party’. On the other hand, his feeling of antipathy toward the members of the Black Repartition, who were taking refuge in Geneva, grew deeper. Marx spoke of them thus:
These gentlemen are against all political-revolutionary action. Russia is to make a somersault into the anarchist-communist-atheist millenium! Meanwhile they are preparing for this leap with the most tedious doctrinairism, whose so-called principles have been hawked about the street ever since the late Bakunin.61
Meanwhile Marx advanced his Russian studies a step further. In the fall of 1879, he read M.M. Kovalevskii’s new book, Communal Ownership of Land – The Causes, Process and Consequences of its Dissolution, Part I (Moscow, 1879) and left a very detailed note of it.62 By comparing Marx’s note with the corresponding passage of the original text of the book, we can clearly see that Kovalevskii’s resentment towards the land policy of colonizers who accelerated the dissolution of communal ownership of land was emphasized even more strongly by Marx. Take, for instance, the following pair of excerpts:
Kovalevskii: Relying on their testimonies [i.e. testimonies of the government officials in India], the British critics took a calm attitude toward the dissolution of this social form which appeared archaic in their eyes. If some of them on some occasions expressed their regret about its decaying too fast, they did so simply out of considerations of an academic nature … it occurs to nobody that the British land policy should be regarded first of all as the offender responsible for the dissolution of communal ownership of land.63
Marx: British officials in India, as well as critics like Sir Henry Maine who rely on them, describe the dissolution of communal ownership of land in Punjab as if it took place as an inevitable consequence of the economic progress in spite of the affectionate attitude of the British toward this archaic form. The truth is rather that the British themselves are the principal (and active) offenders responsible for this dissolution…. [emphasis original]64
At about the same time as he read Kovalevskii’s book, Marx read an article by N.O. Kostomarov, ‘The revolt of Sten’ka Razin’, and made a very detailed note on it.65 It may be that he turned to this article hoping to find out about the potential capabilities of the Russian peasants. Important among other Russian books which Marx read around that time is Collection of Materials for Studies on the Rural Land Commune, Volume 1, published jointly by the Free Economic Society and the Russian Association of Geography in 1880. Out of this book, Marx made a note only on the article by P.P. Semenov. This note has attracted the attention of scholars in the Soviet Union since, commenting on the social differentiation of peasant households, Marx ironically states: ‘The consequence of communal ownership of land is splendid!’66 What is still more important about Semenov’s article is that in passages beyond the point where Marx’s note ends, Semenov talks about communal use of land.67 Semenov notes that in most cases the Russian peasants practise a collective form of production in the meadowlands and distribute the grass mowed there equally among themselves. This description by Semenov left a profound impression on Marx, as can be inferred from his ‘Letter to Zasulich’.
Marx’s theory of Russian capitalism took shape in this period through his discussions with Danielson. To be more precise, Marx wrote a well-known letter on 10 April 1879, in reply to Danielson who in his long letter (dated 17 February 1879) pointed out to Marx that the peasants, because of the heavy burden of taxes, were forced to sell the cereals necessary for their own subsistence, and that railways and banks were accelerating these grain transactions, thereby further impoverishing the peasants.68 In his letter of response, Marx elaborates on Danielson’s description of the destructive functions of railways and generalizes this as a phenomenon characteristic of capitalist development in backward countries everywhere.69 We might suggest that this shows that Marx was beginning to perceive the structure unique to backward capitalism.
Encouraged by the support he received from Marx, Danielson further developed his idea into an article, ‘Outlines of our country’s society and economy after reform’, which was printed in the October 1880 issue of the Slovo. Marx’s assessment of this article as a whole was quite high, even though he was not satisfied with Danielson’s assessment of the abolition of serfdom or with his thesis on the absolute crisis of Russian capitalism.70 There is no denying that Marx owed much to Danielson.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного