p In his projects for the socialist organisation of Russia Mr. Tikhomirov is a Bakuninist of the first water. It is true, he does not abolish the state, but his state helps the process of this organisation purely from outside; it does not create the elements of that process, but "only supports them”. P. N. Tkachov, who is Mr. Tikhomirov’s immediate ancestor, presumed that having seized power, the minority must “impose” socialism on the majority. Mr. Tikhomirov’s government eases for the people the organisation of social production "without any violence”, "coming to the help of only such a movement which cannot but arise independently in the country". In his arguments on the present, Mr. Tikhomirov was Tkachov’s true disciple. His " expectations" from the future are an instance of atavism in ideas, of a return to the theories of a more distant spiritual ancestor.

p The anarchist Arthur Arnoult, as we know, wrote: abolish the state, and the economic forces will come into equilibrium as a result of the simple law of statics.^^216^^ Mr. Tikhomirov says: abolish the modern state, expropriate the big landowners, and the economic forces of Russia will begin “independently” to come into equilibrium. The former appeals to a "law of statics”, the latter to "popular concepts and habits”, i.e., to the same "ideal of the people" with which we are familiar from the works of M. A. Bakunin. Arthur Arnoult aims at the “state” and does not notice that his “criticism” applies only to the modern state, the state of bourgeois centralism. Mr. Tikhomirov wishes to set up 325 a "people’s" state, and he devises a new form of petty-bourgeois state, a state which, without definitely abandoning the principle of laissez faire, laissez passer, i.e., "without creating anything”, manages, all the same, to “support” the independent "movement of history" in our country towards the socialist system.

p Bakuninism is not a system, it is a series of contradictions which Messrs, the Bakuninists and the anarchists share in conformity with the general aggregate of "concepts and habits" of each.

p Our author has chosen the peculiar variety of Bakuninism that degenerated into P. N. Tkachov’s “programme”. But he has not remained faithful to that programme to the end. The exhortations of his "first teacher" are too fresh in his mind, he has not forgotten that although "our people are most obviously in need of help”, at the same time "one must be an unmitigated blockhead" to "attempt to teach the people anything or to endeavour to give their life a new direction”. And so he has made up his mind to devise a revolutionary government which would give the people "purely external" help, which, without any desire to "use coercion on the popular masses or even to teach them”, would nevertheless guide the matter to a successful end.

p We asked Mr. Tikhomirov in what way the socio-political philosophy of his article differs from the philosophy of the "Open Letter to Frederick Engels”. Now it will not be difficult for us to answer that question ourselves. It differs by its pallor and timidity of thought, its desire to reconcile the irreconcilable. What can one say about the pale copy if the original itself, as Engels said, could attract only "green gymnasium pupils"?

p M. A. Bakunin professed irreconcilable hatred for any form of state and advised our revolutionaries not to seize power, because all power is of the devil. P. N. Tkachov was of the opinion that they should seize power and hold it for a long time. Mr. Tikhomirov has chosen the golden mean. He thinks that the seizure of power "can easily prove to be useful and necessary”, but at the same time he assumes that the revolutionaries should not strive to keep power indefinitely, but only hold it until the popular revolution begins.

p From this awkward position between two stools there can be only two ways out. Our author can seat himself on Bakunin’s or on Tkachov’s stool: he can become an anarchist or a consistent follower (not only a secret pupil) of P. N. Tkachov. But he will hardly succeed in breathing into the "Narodnaya Volya programme" a really new content; he will hardly manage to prove that this or that new idea found "recognition only with the appearance of the Narodnaya Volya trend”. Never yet did empty eclecticism give birth to new mighty theories, never yet did 326 timid hesitation between two old “programmes” open a new epoch in the history of revolutionary ideas in any country!

p And so Mr. Tikhomirov will be a follower of Tkachov in the "first day of the revolution" and change into a Bakuninist immediately its honeymoon expires.

p But what is Bakuninism when applied to the "lendemain de la revolution"? We repeat, Bakuninism is not a system. It is a mixture of the socialist theories of the "Latin countries" and Russian peasant “ideals”, of Proudhon’s popular bank and the village commune, of Fourier and Stenka Razin.

p That mixture is characteristic of the "kind of process of socialisation of labour" recommended to our country by Mr. Tikhomirov and which not only "never existed anywhere" but never can either.

p Without any exaggeration one can apply to this “process” Famusov’s words:

p Everything is there, provided there’s no deception!

p There we have the village commune, we have the "transition of the village commune into an association”, we have also "an organisation of exchange among the communes and associations of communes”, and besides all that we also have "an association of several communes for some production or other”; in brief, we have here the notorious Bakuninist-anarchist "organisation of the producers from bottom to top”. If the reader has any idea of this “organisation”, he needs no further proof of Tikhomirov’s Bakuninism. But if he has not had the opportunity to become acquainted with the theories of anarchism (which, of course, is no great loss) we recommend that he should read a little pamphlet by a certain once well-known Guillaume called Idees sur I ’ organisation sociale. Once acquainted with the "process of socialisation of labour" suggested in the pamphlet, he will see that the revolutionary theories of Russian exceptionalists are very closely related to the theories of the European anarchists.

p It is difficult for an intelligent Russian to get away from the influence of the “West”. By declaring the most advanced theories of Europe to be “inapplicable” to his own country, the Russian social figure does not save his exceptionalism, but only transfers his sympathy from a serious model to a caricature. Mr. V. V. turns out to be a full brother of the imperial and royal "state socialists" and Mr. Tikhomirov an anarchist standing on his head.

p But a position so awkward for our author does not very much promote consistency in his thinking. That is why he does not reach the conclusions at which M. A. Bakunin arrived in his time. Even Mr. Tikhomirov’s most daring outbreaks of "revolutionary fantasy" do not extend to abolishing the businessman’s profit. In 327 the organisation of “social” production, "the businessman, as an undertaker and an able manager" (Bastiat himself would not repudiate such a motive) "still acquires some advantages, fewer, of course, than at present, but the only advantages accessible to him at that time".  [327•*  This part oi the project of the "socialist organisation of Russia" somehow reminds one, on the one hand, of the petty-bourgeois socialist’s jealous attitude to the enormous “profits” of the big businessman and, on the other, of the distribution of the income between labour, capital and talent recommended by Fourier. Not without reason did we say that some varieties of "Russian socialism" are nothing more than a mixture of Fourier and Stenka Razin.

p However, in all this, the reader will think, there is at least no deception.

p Granted, there is no deception, but there is self-deception.  Thereis not even the slightest ill intent, but there is an enormous dose of naivete. And it consists in nothing else than the talk about the "socialist organisation of exchange".  For anybody who understands the matter, this is an absurdity, stuff and nonsense. Only petty-bourgeois followers of the petty-bourgeois Proudhon could take this absurdity for anything possible or desirable. But on the other hand it was said of Proudhon that he understood as much about dialectics as a woodcutter about botany. The social structure created by the proletariat can have nothing in common with exchange and will know only distribution of the products according to the requirements of the working people. Some inconsistent Communists find a distribution more convenient if it is proportional to the share the worker has in production. It would not be difficult to find weak sides in such a demand.  [327•**  Nevertheless, even those who put forward that demand have always understood the impossibility of “exchange” in a socialist state.

p Whenever you say “exchange” you imply “commodity”, and if you retain commodities, you presuppose all the contradictions inherent in the commodity. And once more, only anarchists could think, to quote Proudhon, that there is a philosopher’s stone which makes it possible to remove from "socialist exchange" all the “bourgeois” contradictions contained in ordinary exchange.

p There is not and cannot be any such stone, because exchange is a basic and inseparable attribute of bourgeois production, and bourgeois production is a necessary consequence of exchange.  As recently as the late fifties Karl Marx splendidly explained this side of the matter and thus left far behind the present-day 328 scientific progress the petty-bourgeois theories of the anarchists and Bakuninists of all colours and shades.^^217^^ One must be ignorant of the very ABC of revolutionary socialism to base one’s expectations "from the revolution" on the socialist organisation of exchange.

p We have already had occasion to speak of this question in another place  [328•*  but it is so interesting that it will do no harm to repeat what we have said. To make it more comprehensible, this time we shall leave aside the abstract formulae of science and confine ourselves to simple and vivid examples.

p Socialist exchange is exchange without money, the direct exchange of product for product according to the quantity of labour expended in their production. It was in that form that the idea emerged from the head of Proudhon, who, by the way, repeated on this occasion a mistake made long before him.

p Let us now imagine that "on the day after the revolution" our Bakuninists have succeeded in convincing the Torkhovo commune in Tula Gubernia, which we have already mentioned, of the advantages of the socialist organisation of exchange. The members of the commune have decided to "lay the foundation" of such an organisation and published their decision in some kind of Narodniye Vedomosti. Their call is answered by the Arkhangelsk fishers, the Novgorod nail-makers, the Kimry shoemakers, the Tula samovar-makers and the Moscow tailors, all members of workers’ associations or village communes. They also have been imbued with the new principles of exchange under the influence of the Bakuninists who "are born unhindered”. No sooner said than done: an “agreement” is concluded and it only remains to put it in practice. After the corn harvest our Proudhonist peasants get down to exchange. They send a certain quantity of corn to Arkhangelsk and receive fish from there; they dispatch a few loads of potatoes to Kimry and bring back boots. They offer the tailors millet, nail-makers groats and the like. All these things are sent not as signs of good will, but in accordance with the conditions previously agreed upon. They will all have to be transported over long distances and with great trouble and it would probably have been more profitable to dispose of them on the neighbouring market; but our peasants are people of principle and are ready to defend the new principle of exchange even if, as they say, it costs more than it is worth. And so the exchange is carried out, our village commune members have nails, fish, shoes, samovars and ready-made clothing. But the point is that far from all the peasants’ requirements are satisfied by these articles. They need other articles of consumption, agricultural 329 implements, fertilisers, cattle and so on. Those who produce all these things do not wish to enter into socialist exchange, perhaps because they have read Marx and laugh at Proudhon’s economic “discoveries”, or perhaps because they have not reached the stage of development needed to understand Proudhon’s wisdom and are still ordinary commodity producers. For even Mr. Tikhomirov presumes that the “socialist” system which he recommends will develop only "little by little”. What then must our Torkhovo Proudhonists do in such a case? How will they satisfy the numerous requirements not covered by means of “socialist” exchange? They have only one way out: to buy what they have not got. This will also be the case for the tailors, who naturally cannot live on millet alone, and for the nail-makers, who cannot subsist only on groats. In short, side by side with “fair”, socialist exchange the old, so to speak heathen, form of exchange for money will continue to exist. This "cursed money" (maudit argent) will have to be resorted to even in dealings between the proselytes of Proudhonism. If the Kimry shoemakers need only a quantity of potatoes which embodies x days’ work, whereas the Torkhovo people need a number of pairs of boots requiring twice as many days to make, the difference will have to be made up in money, if the Kimry people do not want oats, hay or straw, or any other agricultural products. This can easily be the case if Mr. Prugavin’s prophecy comes true and the Kimry shoemakers again take to agriculture with "the improvement in its conditions”. What will happen then? Becoming organised only "little by little”, the Proudhonist producers will have against them the enormous mass of producers of the old economic “faith”, and the negligible “progress” made with the help of the "socialist organisation of exchange" will always be outbalanced by the regression in "relative equality" which will result inevitably from commodity production and ordinary “bourgeois” exchange. Vice will outweigh virtue, bourgeois relationships will take the upper hand over Proudhonist socialism. Surrounded by the petty-bourgeois majority, the Proudhonists themselves will begin to be “perverted”, all the more as their own wealth will be largely in money of the old " exploiters’" kind. Tempted by enrichment, the Kimry people can send the Torkhovo people boots with cardboard soles, for which the Torkhovo people will not fail to pay them back with half-rotten “taties”. "The enemy is strong" in general, but in the present case his strength will lean on the invincible logic of commodity production, which will dominate even in the village communes after they have entered into "socialist exchange”. The associations which were set up with difficulty will disintegrate, the Proudhonists will turn into ordinary petty-bourgeois 330 producers and the intelligentsia who have been brought up on Bakuninism will need repeatedly to set about the ungrateful work of spreading the new economic principles. It is the tale of the white bullock, Sisyphean labours! And that is the toil which Mr. Tikhomirov imposes on the Russian socialists merely to bring the reign of socialism as near as possible, so as not to approach it by the slow and difficult road of capitalism. It is a case of haste making waste.

p On the question of "socialist organisation in the sphere of home exchange" as on that of international trade, one must have in mind this alternative: either the popular revolution will bring us back to natural economy and then "socialist exchange" will develop slowly in our country, because exchange generally will be very weak; or else the revolution will preserve the present tendency towards greater and greater division of labour, towards the complete separation of agriculture from industry, and then the socialist organisation of exchange will be an extremely difficult task because of the great intricacy of the country’s productive mechanism. And yet the slow development of the socialist organisation of exchange robs it even of the sense which its supporters see in it. To cut off at least one village commune from the disintegrating influence of money economy, that commune must manage to organise socialist exchange with all the producers whose products correspond to its various requirements. In the contrary event, its monstrous money-socialist organism would choke in its own contradictions. But one single commune cannot supply agricultural produce to all the producers of all the consumer goods it requires. Those producers will either have to buy part of the raw material they require, and in turn to have a monstrous money-moneyless economy, which will cause their socialist plans to flounder; or they will have to wait for the blessed time when the number of Proudhonist village communes attains the sufficient and necessary level. With the advent of that blessed time it will be possible to organise the first minimum production and exchange organisation. But what is one such organisation in the immense economic organism of the Russian state? It will be stifled in the surrounding atmosphere of competition. It will be like a drop of honey in a barrel of pitch. Alongside it and against it there will be all the heathen producers; the "nobility and the bourgeoisie”, who, though "rendered powerless”, have not been destroyed by the “popular” revolution, will try to trip it up at every step. What do you think, reader: will the "socialist system finally extend to all the functions of the country" under such conditions? We think that it at best will take a very, very long time. And yet, we repeat, Mr. Tikhomirov indicates "such a process of socialisation of labour" only because of its rapid assault 331 on history. The road that Social-Democracy in all civilised countries has chosen seems to him too "moderate and painstaking”. Our author has chosen the "straight path" and has got stuck in the quagmire of petty-bourgeois reforms which display no consistency, originality or daring at all.

p But let us not digress. Suppose the socialist organisation of exchange is rapid and successful. Let us see what the practical application of its principles will lead to.

p The Torkhovo village commune has entered into a union with the association of the Kimry shoemakers. Their products are exchanged on the basis of "constituted value”, the yardstick of which is labour and labour alone. Proudhon has triumphed. But the practical and “prosperous” Torkhovo “householders” raise the question, which kind of labour must serve as the measure of value? The more ideally inclined Kimry people (shoemakers are always philosophers to some extent) have no difficulty in giving the answer. They say that the measure of value must be labour in general, abstract human labour. But the "free corn-growers" are not browbeaten. They say they do not know any such kind of labour and that although it may exist “scientifically”, they have to do with the concrete and definite labour of the shoemakers Pyotr, Ivan and Fyodor or a whole association of Pyotrs, Ivans and Fyodors. They are a prey to “bourgeois” doubts and they suppose that to give the Kimry people all the more bread the more time they take to make the boots means to institute a prize for inability, slowness and clumsiness. Exasperated by the lack of understanding displayed by the peasants the shoemakers leave Proudhon aside and appeal, they think, to Marx himself. They say that the measure of the value of their products must be "the socially necessary labour”, the average labour necessary to make boots under the present development of technique. But even that argument does not overcome the obstinacy of the Torkhovo peasants. They do not understand how one can determine the exact quantity of socially necessary labour contained in the work of the importunate shoemakers. Then the latter seek salvation in Rodbertus and triumphantly bring along his pamphlet Der Normalarbeitstag and his correspondence with the Schwerin architect Peters. The Pomeranian economist proves that it is always possible to determine exactly how much the average workman can and must do in a particular branch of production. That average productive labour must be reckoned as socially necessary labour. He who can exceed that norm will receive more, he who cannot reach it, less; the question seems finally exhausted. But just a minute, exclaim the Torkhovo peasants, who were on the point of yielding. Suppose the average productivity of your labour and ours can be determined. 332 We hope that the matter will be taken in hand by the state which “promotes” the socialist organisation of exchange. Suppose it takes two days’ labour to make a pair of boots. But there are many other shoemakers besides your association. They produce for the market, and you, who have sent us thirty pairs of boots, put thousands of pairs on the market. Imagine that the supply of boots exceeds the demand. Then their exchange value drops too, because each pair of boots will represent only one and a half or three-quarters of a day’s socially necessary labour. Do you think we will give you the same amount of corn as before? That would be very unprofitable for us, and charity begins at home, you know. If, on the contrary, not enough boots are made, it will not pay you to sell them at the former “fair” socialist price. In general, it seems to us that the basis of fairness is the utilitarian principle and that no bargain can be considered as “fair” which causes detriment to one party or the other. But with the present fluctuation of prices on commodities it is absolutely impossible to balance our mutual interests, since the relation of the individual labour of separate producers or the aggregate labour of a whole association of producers to the socially necessary labour is determined only by those fluctuations. So as long as the commodity market dictates to us the conditions for our socialist exchange, the whole of our " agreement" will be nothing but vain beating of the air. It will bring us just as much profit as if we agreed to write our bills in Roman instead of Arabic figures. You shoemakers have long been noted not only for drunkenness, but for a great inclination to fantasy as well, whereas we peasants are reasonable and have no intention of wasting our time on nonsense.

p But don’t you see that the inconveniences of socialist exchange will exist only until all producers agree to join in, the shoemakers will answer. When that time comes nothing will prevent socialist exchange from extending to all the functions of the country.

p Yes, but that is coming at a snail’s pace, the corn-growers will object. If everybody agrees to that, we, of course, will not go against the village commune. But until then it doesn’t suit us.

p The implementation of the “agreement” is thus postponed indefinitely, and meanwhile commodity production takes its normal course and undermines the "relative equality".

p It follows from all this that the time of the "socialist organisation in the sphere of home exchange" will not come until it is possible to remove all the contradictions that have been pointed out. And that will be possible only when the labour of each individual person assumes a social character. That can be the case only when the whole of the social production mechanism 333 constitutes a single planned entity. But then the "organisation of exchange" will be the fifth wheel to a cart, because any exchange has sense only as long as the production mechanism in society consists of separate parts not organically linked, i.e., as long as the labour of the producers has an individual, not a social character. Neither the tribal nor the family community knew any "home exchange" or needed to organise it, for the simple reason that they were based on organised production : if they needed anything it was only some kind of distribution quota. But with the present development of the productive forces even those quotas can be based on a single principle—that of human requirements. After our excursion along the road of "socialist organisation of exchange" we again come back to our starting-point. We arrive back again at the question: how will the socialist organisation of production make its appearance in Russia? We have seen that it will not be introduced by either a provisional or a permanent people’s government; we have also seen that neither communal land tenure nor communal cultivation of the soil will lead to it. Moreover, we are now convinced that "socialist organisation in the sphere of home exchange" will not lead to it either. And yet Mr. Tikhomirov prophesied to us the "foundation of the socialist organisation of Russia”; that was the whole idea of his Narodnaya Volya revolution. How, then, will his prophecy come true?

p One must have faith, Mr. Tikhomirov exclaims. Faith "in the people, in one’s own strength, in the revolution".

p “I believe, Lord, help me in my lack of faith! " We know that faith is a beautiful thing; that "it is faith that guides the navigator when, trusting to fate his frail bark, he prefers the fickle movement of the waves to the more solid element, the land”. But the same divinely inspired father who makes this apology of faith could also tell us in what unstable equilibrium faith finds itself when it enters into contradiction with reason. And Mr. Tikhomirov’s “faith” suffers greatly from that gross defect. He has faith in his own , semi-Bakuninist, semi-Tkachovist revolution only because his reason is perfectly satisfied with the TkachovBakunin philosophy. But as soon as his reason becomes more exacting not a trace of this faith of his will be left. He will then understand that he was cruelly mistaken when he considered it permissible to talk about the economic revolution knowing nothing at all about the ABC of economics, i.e., having no idea of money, commodity and exchange.

p For the’ rest, we shall not make any special reproach to our author on these last grounds. We will say: his faith has saved him. He has been mistaken only because he "had faith" in Tkachov and Bakunin; not he is to blame, but those who “tempted” him.

p The important thing for us is the conclusion from all that has been said. And we can formulate it as follows: all Mr. Tikhomirov’s expectations "from the revolution" are nothing but a continual misunderstanding and a return of advanced Russian thought to the beaten track of Bakuninism. But "what was is overgrown with the past, and what will be will not be in the old way, but in a new way”, as the popular song says. Discredited in the seventies, Bakuninism will not be revived in the eighties. It will not be resuscitated even by men either more eloquent or more noisy than Mr. Tikhomirov.

Those of our readers to whom this conclusion seems convincing can raise a new and last objection. They can say that our arguments are founded on the supposition that Mr. Tikhomirov will only take power, but will not hold it for any length of time. What will happen if the revolutionaries, instead of following Mr. Tikhomirov’s directions, follow those of Tkachov, if they justify the opinion of P. L. Lavrov who, as much as ten years ago, said that "the dictatorship can be wrenched from the hands of the dictators only by a new revolution"?