p Actually, Mr. Tikhomirov was unable even to present the question properly.

p Instead of saying all that he could to defend the possibility of laying "the foundation of the socialist organisation" on the ruins of the contemporary social and political system in Russia, Mr. Tikhomirov devotes almost a whole chapter of his article to criticising the “consolation” which people who believe in the "historical inevitability of Russian capitalism" still have. In general he somehow too quickly and unexpectedly not so much passes as leaps from the objective standpoint he held at the beginning of the first chapter, in which he sought to prove that "the logic of history, the historical course of events, and so on”, are "an elemental force which nobody can divert from the path it has chosen for the very reason that the path itself is not an arbitrary choice but expresses the resultant force of the 128 combination of those forces outside which society contains nothing real, capable of producing any action whatever”. We ask: is that "elemental force" stopped by considerations of the inconsolability of the Russian socialists? Obviously not. So before discussing what would happen to the Russian socialists if capitalism were to triumph, Mr. Tikhomirov should have tried to form a "correct idea of that force and its direction”, an idea which "every public figure must have, for no political programme which does not conform to it can have any significance whatever”, as the same Mr. Tikhomirov seeks to convince us. But he prefers the reverse method. He endeavours first of all to intimidate his readers, and then, in the "following chapters”, outlines “roughly” the "aims and means of our revolution”, which allow us to believe in the possibility of diverting the cup of capitalism from Russia’s lips. Without saying for the time being how far he succeeds in his attempt to intimidate his socialist readers, I shall merely note that such a method of argument shoud not be used in solving serious social questions.

p For reasons which it would be out of place to consider here, the Russian intellectual had to take an intense interest in "the role of the individual in history”. Much has been written on this “cursed” question, and it has been still more discussed in various groups; and yet Russian public figures are still often incapable even of distinguishing the sphere of the necessary from that of the desirable and are prepared at times to argue with history in exactly the same way as Khlestakov^^91^^ with the waiter in the inn. "But I must eat something! I can waste away altogether like this,” said the immortal Ivan Alexandrovich. What kind of a socialist will I be after that? Shall I not have to "enter into a direct alliance with the knights of primitive accumulation! " some reader may exclaim, intimidated by Mr. Tikhomirov. But it is to be hoped that Mr. Tikhomirov’s argument on the invincible force of the "logic of history" will do much towards correcting this big "blunder of immature thought".

The Emancipation of Labour group’s standpoint, for its part, leads, it seems to me, to the removal of such abuses of the "subjective method in sociology”. For us the desirable arises from the necessary and in no case replaces it in our arguments. For us the freedom of the individual consists in the knowledge of the laws of nature—including, incidentally, the laws of history—and in the ability to submit to those laws, that is, incidentally, to combine them in the most favourable manner. We are convinced that when "a society has got upon the right track for the discovery of the natural laws of its movement ... it can neither clear by bold leaps, nor remove by legal enactments the obstacles offered.... But it can shorten and lessen the 129 birth-pangs”,  [129•* ~^^92^^ It is precisely this "shortening and lessening the birth-pangs" that, in our opinion, constitutes one of the most important tasks of socialists who are convinced of the "historical inevitability of capitalism in Russia”. Their consolation must lie in the possibility of lessening those birth-pangs. The consistency which Mr. Tikhomirov tries to impose upon them is, as we shall see later, that of the metaphysician who has not the slightest notion of the dialectics of social development. But let us not wander away from our subject.