p The facts quoted need no further comment. They show clearly and convincingly that it is high time for us to stop shutting our eyes to reality, at least in respect of the manufacturing industry, and to come to the conviction that this reality has little in common with the naive illusions typical of the Narodnik period of our movement. It is time for us to have the courage to say that in this field not only the immediate future but the present of our country, too, belongs to capitalism. All the conditions of exchange, all the production relations are increasingly shaping in a manner favourable to capitalism.
As for markets, we have already said that this question is by no means as insoluble as Mr. V. V. and his epigoni think. Any country’s transition from natural to money economy is necessarily accompanied by an enormous expansion of the home market and there can be no doubt that in our country this market will go over in its entirety to our bourgeoisie. But there is more to it than that. The capitalist who looks ahead can already foresee the glutting of that market and is in a hurry to secure foreign markets. Some Russian goods will naturally find an outlet even in the West, and others will go to the East in the company of “white” and other generals whose patriotic mission is "to strengthen our influence in Central Asia”. It was not a coincidence that the last congress of our mill and factory owners discussed "measures to develop trade relations with the Balkan Peninsula" and the conclusion of "trade treaties with Asia”. Practical steps have already been made in this direction and there is no reason to expect that they will fail. Relations with the East are not a novelty for Russian businessmen, and though foreign competition has often had an adverse effect on their interests, it would be a mistake to think that the countries which stepped on to the road of capitalist development before others have, or will always be able to maintain, the monopoly of cheaper transport, less expensive production and better quality. France entered upon that road later than England and yet she has succeeded in winning an honourable place in the international market. The same may be said of Germany compared with 241 France, and so on. In the “West” there arc many countries for which the industrial struggle with the more advanced countries is difficult just as for Russia, and yet it did not occur to any of the revolutionary writers in those countries to "preach exceptionalism" after the manner of our Narodniks. It is true that modern productive forces are far ahead ol the possibility to extend markets, the international market is nearing the glutting point arid periodic crises tend to merge into one solid chronic crisis. But until all this happens nothing prevents the appearance on the market of new competitors relying on some physical peculiarity of their country or some historical conditions of their social development: the cheapness of labour-power, of raw material, etc. Moreover, it is the appearance of such competitors that will hasten the fall of capitalism in the more developed countries. Naturally, a victory of the working class in England or France would necessarily affect the development of the whole civilised world and would shorten the domination of capitalism in the other countries. But all this is a matter of the future, still more or less remote, and meanwhile our capitalism can become, and we have seen that it is becoming, the exclusive master in Russia. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof; no matter what the impending socialist revolution in the West holds out for us in the future, the evil of the present day in our country is all the same capitalist production. [241•*
242Notes
[241•*] [Note to the 1905 edition.] Hence it is clear that I have never shared the theory imagined by our Narodniks—which found its way from their works even into Encyclopaedia Britannica— according to which the development of capitalism is impossible in Russia because our country has no markets. My view of this question was expounded elsewhere soon after the publication of Our Differences as follows: According to the teaching of Mr. V. V., the Narodnik theoretician, "the appearance on the world market of new competitors in the form of new countries, must henceforth be considered impossible, for the market has been finally conquered by the more advanced states. Therefore V. V. doubts the future of Russian capitalism.... V. V.’s theory is not without a certain cleverness but, unfortunately, it shows complete ignorance of history. There was a time when England dominated the world market almost exclusively and her domination postponed the decisive clash of the English proletariat with the bourgeoisie. England’s monopoly was broken by the appearance of France and Germany on the world market, and now the monopoly of Western Europe is being undermined by competition from America, Australia and even India, which will naturally lead to a sharpening of relations between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in Europe. Hence we see that Mr. V. V.’s theory is not confirmed by the actual course of events. Mr. V. V. thinks that having once become dominant on the world market the industrially more developed countries absolutely close it to the less developed countries and thus drive the latter on to Che road of social reform , which reform must be undertaken by a government supposed to be above class interests, for example the Government of His Imperial Majesty the Autocrat of All Russia. But facts show just the opposite. They tell us that the less developed countries do not stand still, but gradually prepare for themselves the road to the world market and by their competition drive the more developed countries on to the road of social revolution, which will be carried out by the proletariat when it has become aware of its class task , relying on its own strength and having seized political power...." ^^180^^
I now add that my arguments have been confirmed perfectly by the subsequent development of world economy and that numerous figures could be quoted in their favour both from English Blue-Books on this subject and from the reports of English consuls. I will also note, on the other hand, that I have never been a supporter of the theory of markets in general or that of crises in particular, a theory which spread like the plague in our legal literature on Marxism in the nineties. According to this theory, whose main propagator was Mr. Tugan-Baranovsky,^^181^^ overproduction is impossible and crises are explained by the simple disproportion in the distribution of the means of production. This theory is. very gladdening for the bourgeoisie, to whom it brings the pleasant conviction that the productive forces of capitalist society will never outgrow the production relations peculiar to capitalism. And it is not surprising that Mr. Werner Sombart, one of the best theoreticians of the modern bourgeoisie, was very gentle towards it in the paper which he read on September 15, 1903, at the Congress of the League of Social Politics in Hamburg. (See "Verhandlungen des Vereins fur Sozialpolitik uber die Lage der in der Seeschiffahrt beschaftigten Arbeiter und iiber die Storungen im deutschen Wirtschaftsleben wahrend der Jahre 1900 ff.”, Leipzig, 1903, S. 130.) The only surprising thing is that Mr. W. Sombart considers the prominent Russian scientist Tugan-Baranovsky as the father of this supposedly new theory. The real father of this by no means new doctrine was Jean Baptiste Say , in whose “course” it is given a fairly complete exposition. It is very interesting that in this respect bourgeois economics is returning to the point of view of the vulgar economist whom it avoids naming as if yielding to a commendable feeling of shame. Besides Mr. Tugan-Baranovsky, Mr. Vladimir Ilyin also professed the theory of J. B. Say in "Note on the Theory of Markets" (Scientific Review , January 1899) and The Development of Capitalism in Russia. In this latter work, Mr. Vladimir Ilyin, by the way, displays considerable eclecticism which shows that the theoretical conscience of a Marxist has not always been silent in him.^^182^^