p It follows that, in whichever of the two possible meanings we understand Mr. P. Struve’s words on the contradiction between law and the economy, which, he asserts, is the theoretical hub of the Marxist theory of social development, we shall have to recognise that he has understood that theory quite erroneously, or else has set it forth quite wrongly. His error is so egregious, however, and so unexpected that we must again ask ourselves whether all this is the result of some misunderstanding. Or perhaps Mr. P. Struve has been misled by some expression used by Marx and Engels, which he has misunderstood or else has been incorrectly used by the founders of scientific socialism themselves.

p Let us search for the answer together, dear reader. You will probably recall the passage in Engels’s celebrated pamphlet Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, which speaks of the fundamental contradiction in the present-day mode of production. Formerly, in the Middle Ages, the producer was at the same time the proprietor of the tools he used and, with rare exceptions, he appropriated for himself only the product of his own labour; at present, the capitalist, the proprietor of the implements of labour, continues to appropriate as his private property the products turned out at the factory by the joint social labour of his workers. "The means of production, and production itself, had become in essence socialised. But they were subjected to a form of appropriation which presupposes the private production of individuals, under which, therefore, everyone owns his own product and brings it to market.” Hence the contradiction between the mode of production and the form of appropriation. "The new mode of production is subjected to this form of appropriation, although it abolishes the conditions upon which the latter rests."^^258^^ This fundamental contradiction contains the germ of all the contradictions in present-day society.

p At first glance, it may seem to a “critical” mind which clutches at words without penetrating into the gist of the content they designate that the contradiction indicated here by Engels is between the economy and law, which Mr. P. Struve is dealing with. However, a minimum of effort is required to realise how erroneous such a view is.

p In speaking of social production as being contradictory to individual appropriation, Engels is referring to the machine shop of today, in which the workers’ labour is united in a single whole, with the output therefore being the product of social labour. However, the organisation of labour in such a shop is determined by the present state of technology; it characterises the state of the productive forces, not the economic structure of present-day ( capitalist) society, which is marked mainly and primarily by its inherent property relations, i.e., by the machine shop in question belonging not to the workers united in it but to the capitalist, who exploits those workers. Thus, the contradiction between the social labour at the factory and the individual appropriation of that labour is the selfsame contradiction we already know between capitalist society’s productive forces and its property relations. This has been very well explained by Engels himself: "But just as the older manufacture, in its time, and handicraft, becoming more developed under its influence, had come into collision with the feudal trammels of the guilds, so now modern industry, in its more complete development, comes into collision with the bounds within which the capitalistic mode of production holds it 494 confined. The new productive forces have already outgrown the capitalistic mode of using them."  [494•* 

p It is clear that Engels is in no wise referring to the contradiction between “law” and "the economy". Beside the pamphlet Socialism: Utopian and Scientific we have quoted from, we do not know a single piece of writing by Marx and Engels that provides even a purely external and at least some verbal pretext for the Marxist theory of social development to be interpreted in the way Mr. P. Struve has done.

p We say this with reference to "the contradiction between law and the economy" “(for example, the capitalist economic structure”) our “critic” has thrust on Marx. And how will it be, we shall ask, if the “contradiction” imposed on Marx should be understood in another sense, i.e., in the meaning of the contradiction between the economic phenomena (the notion of which is not completely denned by the “economy”) and that society’s legal institutions? Will it not emerge, in that case, that Mr. P. Struve is saying the same thing as Frederick Engels?

p Here, too, it may seem so at first glance, but this time again the matter looks different on closer examination.

p The organisation of labour in the workshop is undoubtedly an economic phenomenon. However, this economic phenomenon is contradictory, not to law, but to other economic phenomena^ namely, those property relations in bourgeois society which comprise the "real foundation" of bourgeois law.Identif ying that real foundation with the "legal superstructure" that rises above it means setting forth somebody else’s theory, not that of Karl Marx, who himself established the distinction between the superstructure f(law) and the foundation (production relations). We are well aware that it would be far easier to “criticise” Marx had he not established that distinction.  [494•**  But what is to be done about that? After 495 all, Marx was not in duty bound to twist the truth to suit the “critics”!

p Whatever turn is given to Ihe question, it has to be admitted that Mr. P. Struve has muddled up things frightfully, and that it is extremely difficult, or rather quite impossible, to find any verisimilar circumstances to extenuate in some measure the fault for that muddling, which falls squarely on him, and most probably on Stammleras well.

p As is his wont, Mr. P. Struve “criticises” that writer (he cannot get along without “criticism”); however, he is quite incapable of casting off his influence.

This is not the place to expatiate on Stammler himself, but it should be mentioned, in passing, that he has led into temptation quite a number of “Marxists” in our country, who were first perverted and “blunted” by the so-called critical philosophy now so dear to the hearts of all those who are trying to “blunt” milsocial contradictions.