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p We have already noted that if the essence of the so-called social question consisted in the non-correspondence of bourgeois law to bourgeois economy the historical necessity of the social revolution could then be spoken of only by raving lunatics. Given that gratifying state of affairs, the theorists of law and intelligent people of practice from the world of the business bourgeoisie would have no difficulty in finding where, as the Germans have it, the shoe pinches, and the worthy bourgeois would have to do nothing more than grumble peevishly and frown threateningly for their parliamentary representatives to immediately give the shoe a new shape. But, it may well be asked, would natural development, in that case, follow Mr. P. Struve’s second formula, which we have called a formula of blunted contradiction?

p Above we took, as an example, the legislation on joint-stock companies. We shall now return to that example, for the sake of convenience. Now tell me, dear reader, what kind of relationship will be established between social life, which calls for the multiplication of joint-stock companies, and the permits system, which hampers that multiplication? As we see it, there will be established between them a contradiction that will constantly grow until the permits system disappears, yielding place to the/ait accompli system. Is that the case? Itundoubtedly is. If that is so, then what we have here too is a phenomenon which bears out the truth of Hegel’s aphorism: a contradiction leads forward. In its turn, this new inference makes one realise the comic situation of

r

496 those “critics” who are given to censuring Hegel and speaking of a "blunting of contradictions".

p Mr. P. Struve may retort that a sharper contradiction between an outmoded legal norm and a new social need is no guarantee that the struggle between the defenders and the enemies of the old norm will grow sharper. That will be true, and we are willing to admit that, in insignificant cases such as the one examined above, the growth of the contradiction mentioned above may, in certain cases, be accompanied even by a slackening of the social struggle, i.e., a blunting of the contradiction between the warring parties. True, it should also be noted that this is no more than a supposition, which has to be proved and which we are accepting only out of courtesy for Mr. P. Struve. But can that take place where it is a matter, not of petty things such as legislation on joint-stock companies but of major upheavals in the life of society, which affect the very foundation of law: the economic structure, and property relations? To that question unembellished historical reality answers in a categorical negative.  We do not know very well in what way development took place in China over a very long and still incomplete period of its decline; however, we do know very well that, in progressing societies, the growth of the contradictions between the new social needs and the old social system is usually accompanied by an exacerbation of the struggle between the innovators and the conservatives. It is to such societies (those that are marching “forward”) that we can apply what has been said on the struggle for right by Ihering in his celebrated pamphlet: "Any right in the world is won in struggle; any important legal principle must be torn from those who have opposed it....” "The interests of thousands of people and entire estates gradually merge with the existing law, so that it cannot be abolished without causing considerable detriment to them. To raise the question of the abolition of a given statute or institution means declaring war on all such interests. Therefore, any such attempt naturally gives rise, through the operation of the instinct of self-preservation, to strong opposition from the interests affected, and thereby to a struggle.... That struggle achieves the greatest intensity when interests take the shape of acquired rights.... All the great gains that are to be found in the history of law: the abolition of slavery and the serf-owning system, freedom of landownership and crafts, freedom of conscience and the like—all these have been won through in a fierce struggle often lasting centuries, and the road law has travelled during its development has often been marked by torrents of blood and everywhere strewn with the ruins of smashed legal institutions."  [496•* 

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p If this kind of social development is called one achieved through the blunting of contradictions, then we are at a loss to say what should be called their aggravation.

p In explanation and defence of his second formula, Mr. P. Struve cites two examples, both of which, however, possess a property that hardly suits him, namely, that they “contradict” him most emphatically.

p Example one: "Let us suppose, that, as a result of the development of industry, there arises a practice-economic "( praktischwirtschaftliche) "working-class movement. A harsher law is promulgated banning strikes and workers’ associations. Repressions mount, and, together with them, the opposition. But in its further development the working-class movement outgrows the repressions, whose weapon becomes blunt, and, in conclusion, the laws directed against the working-class movement are abolished. Here we have an instance of a contradiction that first increases and then weakens, so that one of the parties finally wins."  [497•* 

p When one of the parties “wins”, the contradiction, far from increasing, is done away with. That is self-evident. The whole question is whether the contradiction grows weaker or, on the contrary, increases during the period immediately before the victory of one of the conflicting parties. To this question, Mr. P. Struve himself replies in the negative: in his own example, "opposition or resistance" grows until the repressions prove powerless, i.e., until the workers win. True, in his example, the abolition of such a law is preceded by a period during which "the weapon of repressions becomes blunt”. But the existence of such a period is mere supposition. Will Mr. P. Struve say that such a supposition is in full keeping with historical reality? If he says that it is, then we shall reply that the history of laws directed against workers’ associations argues against his supposition. Indeed, was the repeal of the laws against associations in Britain, that classical country of compromise, preceded by their less severe application? Not at all. The situation was quite different on the eve of their abolition. According to Howell, dissatisfaction]with such laws was constantly mounting, leading to new repressive measures, and when legislation directed against associations in the proper sense of the word proved too^weak an obstacle to the mounting torrent of the working-class movement, the government tried to sharpen its weapon by appealing to other laws, such as the Sedition Acts.^^260^^ For their part, the workers grew ever more embittered until their indignation and the attentats^^261^^ coming 498 from their midst obliged the government to abolish the hated laws.  [498•* 

p We learn exactly the same from the Webbs and from Kulemann, who, incidentally, merely repeats, in this case, what the former have said.  [498•** 

p The second example cited by our “critic” is no more conclusivethan the first one is. This example is concerned with the wellknown German "Anti-Socialist Law of 1878".^ Mr. P. Struve points out that, with the growth of the working-class movement,, that law was applied in ever weaker degree, and was finally abolished. "What is that: a growth or rather a weakening of resistance?" our “critic” asks.

p To that question we shall reply with another one: what kind^^1^^ of resistance (Widerstande) is he referring to? If he has in view the imperial government’s resistance to the aspirations of the Social-Democrats, on the one hand, and of the resistance of the Social-Democrats to the strivings of the imperial government, on the other, then the less severe application of the law, followed’ by its abolition, did not in any way mean any weakening of such “resistance”, as has been well realised both by the SocialDemocrats and the imperial government. The less severe application of the Anti-Socialist Law meant merely that the government had realised its purposelessness, the latter being the result of the socialists having acquired conspiratorial skill and learnt to evade the police snares. Having lost its raison d’etre, the Law, far from weakening worker dissatisfaction, made it greater, irritating theworker masses with its unbearable police badgering. Seeing that the results were the reverse of what had been expected, the 499 imperial government found the further strict application and even the existence of the law awkward and unprofitable, so it was abolished. If we have now called its history to mind, it is to show how laws that have lost their raison d’etre are abolished but not how social contradictions are “blunted”.

p Everything said and done, unembellished history provides poor testimony in favour of Mr. P. Struve’s second formula. But if, nevertheless, he does engage in “criticising” those who recognise as correct Hegel’s observation regarding contradictions that lead forward, he must have some serious cause for that. What can that cause be?

p To this question, he himself replies with a frankness that is most praiseworthy.

p “I have already emphasised,” he says, "the circumstance that while social development takes place following the formula of the growth of opposites, a ’social upheaval’ must of necessity take the form of political revolution. However, that idea, which underlies the celebrated theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, collapses together with the dialectical course of development."  [499•* 

p So that’s how it is. We are told that the crux of the matter lies in political revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. We shall place that on record!

p An unflagging psychological urge to undermine the theoretical foundation of the celebrated theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat and political revolution, as necessary for the social emancipation of that class, has led the critic P. Struve, on the threshold of thetwentieth century, to base his objections to “orthodox” Marxism on more than insufficient premises.

p Under the influence of this unflagging psychological urge, Mr. P. Struve has ascribed to the Marxist theory of social development a content that is quite unlike what it has in reality; this “basic” error of his has naturally brought in its train a number of others of greater or lesser significance. His incorrect understanding of Marxist theory has found reflection, in the mind of our “critic”_r in the form of the “obscurity” of the theory itself. Thus, he ha.= discerned, as we learn, an inclarity to the effect that, m that theory, society’s productive forces and production relations area kind of essences or “things”. Our “critic” thinks that it is only due to such obscurity that one can speak of the contradiction" between all productive forces taken together, and all production relations taken together too, and to imagine the social revolution as a clash between those forces and those relations. We have also learnt from Mr. P. Struve that Marx’s socio-political 500 world-outlook was marked by another obscurity: on the one hand, he held that view on the development of society through mounting contradictions, which is now defended by his “orthodox” followers; on the other hand, he was inclined to a view on the development of society about which Mr. P. Struve’s “social” policy now “revolves”, and which is expressed in the formula of a blunted contradiction. At the same time, the author of Capital was not cognisant of the incompatibility of such views.

p Let us analyse the first “obscurity”.

p In the present-day machine shop, i.e., at the factory, the labour of the proletarians working there assumes the nature of social labour, while the factory itself belongs to an individual or to individuals.  The organisation of labour at the factory contradicts the social relations of production, namely, the property relations in present-day society. But what is the factory itself? Inasmuch as it is a sum of advanced implements of labour, it is a component of what we call social productive forces. Inasmuch as the totality of advanced implements of labour calls for a certain organisation of that labour, i.e., certain relations among the producers, the factory is a social relation of production.  [500•*  If that relation begins to contradict the property relations in capitalist society, if the factory no longer gets along with capital, then that means that .-a certain part of the social relations of production no longer corresponds to another part, and that the sentence "society’s productive forces contradict its property relations" should be understood in that evolutionary sense which precludes any idea of those forces and those relations as certain independent essences. That is why it becomes impossible, indeed, to speak of a contradiction between the productive forces and all relations of production ’ "taken together”. But who else but our “critic” speaks of that? In any case, neither Karl Marx nor Frederick Engels have done that.  [500•** 

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p Note that Mr. P. Struve, who has been speaking all the time of the contradiction between law and the economy, has nevertheless suddenly recollected that, in the Marxist theory, that contradiction is not the main driving force of social development, and has gone on to speak of the contradiction between the productive forces and the social relations of production. Mieux vaut tard que jamais! On the other hand, this return to the genuine theoretical focus of Marx’s theory would be really worth while only if Mr. P. Struve went to the trouble of understanding Marx’s words before setting about “criticising” them. However, understanding them is something he has not considered necessary.

p Mr. P. Struve has unconsciously gone over from one incorrect understanding of Marx’s theory to another just as wrong; moreover, he has failed to notice that these two wrong modes of understanding are “incompatible”.  Yet sometimes stirring in his mind is a vague consciousness that something is somehow out of joint. Then, tosoothe his own theoretical conscience and to prevent his readers from raising objections, he lays the blame at another’s door and accuses Marx of that very “obscurity” and that very blending of incompatible ideas which are the main feature of his own “criticism”. That kind of critical device will not satisfy all readers but it seems to be quite satisfactory to Mr. P. Struve himself. At least, somebody is pleased.

p Let us take note of another circumstance.

Mr. P. Struve has just rebuked Marx for all productive forces, taken together, entering, in his theory, into contradiction with all social relations of production taken together too. But what did we hear from him a few pages back? Here it is: "Just think ... production relations, which are becoming more and more socialist, engender a legal system that is becoming more and more capitalist. Far from engendering any mutual adaptation between them, the economy’s impact on law ever more increases the contradiction existing between them.” That was how—as Mr. P. Struve himself then pus it—the course of social development should present itself to those Marxists who recognise the dialectical law of development. But Marx himself recognised that law. Consequently, he too should have had the same idea of the course of social development. However, this idea does not in any way resemble the one we have just considered: there (in the idea we have just examined) the productive forces ever more contradict the production relations, which evidently play the part of a conservative element; here that conservative element turns into a progressive one: the production relations become ever more socialist, and the contradiction exists, not between the backward production relations and the advanced productive forces, but between the advanced production relations and the backward legal system (which ever 502 more "becomes capitalist”). And all this, it is claimed, is after Marx\ What is all this ... muddled thinking? Mr. P. Struve harps on one and the same thing: he is not at fault; it all sprang from muddling by Karl Marx, who held two incompatible views! But we can now already understand the meaning of this pretext, for we already know that this muddling comes, not from Marx but from his “critic”, and we shall have no difficulty in revealing where and in what the latter has muddled things. Mr. P. Struve, who has rebuked Marx for his productive forces, taken together, contradicting all the social relations of production, again taken together, has at the same time sensed that his rebuke was not quite well founded, and that, with Marx, the development of the productive forces is also accompanied by a change in the mutual relation among producers in the process of production. However, he did not know which relations of production undergo change parallel with the development of the productive forces, and which lag behind that development, their backwardness creating the need for a radical social upheaval—the social revolution. In his ignorance, he made use of that selfsame clumsy device which he had ascribed to Marx: he took, "all together”, all the social relations of production, and declared that Marx and the Marxists thought that such relations were becoming more and more socialist, while the legal system was becoming more and more imbued with the spirit of capitalism.  Of course, Marx and the “orthodox” Marxists never maintained anything of the kind. However, the “fundamental” absurdity ascribed to them, which directly “contradicts” another “fundamental” absurdity ascribed to them elsewhere by the same “critic”, is highly characteristic of the chaotic ideas reigning in Mr. P. Struve’s head regarding Marx’s theory of social development!