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p In discussing the so-called “foundations” of popular life, our Narodnik “intelligentsia” forgets about the real, historical conditions in which these “foundations” developed.

p Even if one does not doubt that the rural land commune is a very good thing, it should be remembered that history often plays very nasty tricks on the very best of things and that under its influence what is rational often becomes absurd, what is useful becomes harmful. Goethe was well aware of this. It is not enough to approve of the commune in principle, one must ask oneself how the modern members of the modern Russian commune live and whether it would not be better if this modern commune with all its modern, real, and not imaginary conditions ceased to exist. We have seen that the Parashkino villagers replied to this question in the af- 104 firmative by the very fact of their flight. And they were right, because for them the village had become a “grave”.  We all fear the invasion of the village by “civilisation”, i.e., capitalism, which, it is said, will destroy the well-being of the people. But, firstly, in the person of "many Yepishkas”, i.e., in the person of the representatives of usurers’ capital, “civilisation” has already invaded the village, in spite of all our complaints, and, secondly, it is high time people realised that one cannot destroy well-being that does not exist. What did Dyoma lose by escaping from the power of the “marshes” to the power of machinery? Remember the words "However wretched the conditions of his factory life were, comparing them with those under which he had been forced to live in the village, he reached the conclusion that it was impossible to live in the mir.... His food also improved, i.e., he was sure that he would have something to eat the next day, whereas at home he could not have predicted this.... However, the most important point was that outside the village no one insulted him, whereas the village offered him a series of the most humiliating insults.”

p Remember also that at the thought of the village "his human dignity that had been awakened by the contrast of the two lives suffered”, the two lives being village life on the basis of the old “foundations” and factory life, under the power of capitalism. "You wouldn’t drag me back here with a lasso,” says Dyoma’s fellow villager, Potapov, perhaps influenced by a similar feeling. "They’ll never come back, oh, no!" Ivan Ivanov assures the councillor about the “vagabonds” who have left the village. Perhaps all this is not convincing? Or perhaps you will again start talking about exaggeration? In that case you must accuse the whole of Narodnik fiction, because in both Gl. Uspensky and Zlatovratsky, and even in Reshetnikov, you can find exactly the same features of modern popular psychology, although in a less striking form. Take a look at statistical studies also, and you will see there that many peasant “proprietors” pay their tenants simply so that the latter free them, albeit for a while, from the land. And not only statistics! Remove the Narodnik bandage from your eyes, take a good look at the workers’ life, get to know them, and in the case of a vast number of them you will find the same “dislike” for the village that, according to Mr. Karonin, Dyoma felt for it.

p For a vast number of them the village and the village commune really is nothing but "a place of torment”. In view of all this it is strange to mourn the advent of “civilisation” in Russia and the destruction by the factory of the non-existent well-being of the people. As we know, our Russian Marxist is very often and very readily accused of Westernism.  In fact we are proud to be thus accused, because all the finest Russians who have left the most beneficial marks on the history of our country’s intellectual development have been convinced and unreserved Westerners. But 105 on this occasion we should like to turn our opponents’ own weapon against them and show them how much unconscious (and therefore also unconsidered) Westernism there is in their arguments.

p The talk in Russia about capitalism destroying the well-being of the people is borrowed from Western Europe. But in the West this talk was really meaningful because it corresponded fully to reality.

p The development of capitalism in most West European countries really has lowered the level of the people’s well-being. Before the beginning of the capitalist epoch, at the end of the Middle Ages, in both England and Germany, and even in France, the working classes enjoyed a level of prosperity from which they are far removed at the present time.  [105•* 

p Therefore West European socialists are right in saying that capitalism has brought them impoverishment of the people (although it must be noted that they by no means infer from this that capitalism was not necessary). But how can one equate the present condition of Russian peasants even with the condition of the English working classes at the end of the Middle Ages? For they are poles apart! The English worker may occasionally remember wistfully the material condition of his mediaeval ancestors. But does it follow from this that our present-day Russian factory worker should regret leaving the present-day Russian village in which he experienced nothing but physical and moral suffering?

p With respect to the people’s well-being Russian history has followed a quite different course from that of Western Europe. That which, for example, in England was devoured by capitalism, was devoured by the state in Russia. It would be worth reminding our opponents of Westernism of that. Herzen was once amazed "by the quite absurd fact that the majority of the population has been deprived of Us rights (in Russia) increasingly from Boris Godunov to the present day”. There is nothing at all absurd about this fact. It could not have been otherwise given our lack of economic development and the requirements which were imposed upon the Russian state by ils proximity to the more developed countries of Western Europe and, in part, by the wilfulness of our autocrats, who often embarked upon the solution of questions of international politics which were quite alien to the interests of Russia. For all this, the proximity to Western Europe and the political caprices of our autocrats, it is the Russian peasant, our only source of income, who lias paid. The Russian state has taken 106 and continues to take from its working population comparatively more (i.e., in relation to its economic wealth) than any other state in the world has ever taken. Hence the unparalleled poverty of the Russian peasantry, hence also "the depriving of the majority of the population of its rights”, a majority which has been directly or indirectly enslaved by the state. The actual emancipation of the peasant "with land”, which still delights sensitive but not very intelligent people, was in Russia nothing but a new attempt to ensure that the financial needs of the state were met by the peasants. Land was given to them in order to ensure that they performed their "obligations in relation to the state" properly, or rather in order to provide the state with a specious excuse for extorting all it could from them. The state profited by the redemption operation, by selling land to peasants at a higher price than it had paid landowners for it. Thus there arose the new, present form of peasant bondage, thanks to which peasants are often deprived (let us recall our statistics) not only of the income from their allotments but also of a considerable part of their seasonal earnings elsewhere. The flight of the peasants from the villages, their desire to get rid of the land, simply reflects their desire to cast off these new enslaving fetters and at least save their seasonal earnings.  [106•*  The authorities’ attempts to catch the 107 peasants show that the state understands this aspect of the matter very well and, by returning peasants to their place of residence, is seeking again and again to ensure that they perform their " obligations" to it properly. Are we, democrats of whatever shade, to approve of this pursuit? No, no and no again, we welcome the flight of peasants from the land, because we see it as the beginning of the end, the economic prologue to a great political drama: the collapse of the autocratic Russian monarchy. The autocratic monarchy has gone too far, it is "extorting without respect for rank" and by forcing peasants to flee from the land and destroying all the old foundations of their economic life, it is at the same time destroying its own economic foundation.

At one time, in the days of Mamai’s Russia,^^32^^ all those who could not endure the state burden fled to the outlying regions, to the "quiet Don" and "Mother Volga”, where they gathered in huge bands of “robbermen” and frequently threatened the state. Today circumstances have changed. In the once deserted outlying regions a new economic life flourishes, the pulse of which beats even faster than in the centre. The “vagabonds” who have left the village are grouping together not in “robber” bands, but in workers’ battalions which the Russian government will find it more difficult to quell than the bold lads of the good old days. A »ew historical force is maturing within these battalions. It is not a wild, robberman’s protest that will impel this force to fight against the government, but the conscious desire to rebuild the social edifice on new principles and on the basis of the powerful productive forces which are being created today by their labour in the factories. Let the autocracy pursue its cause, and let the businessmen and entrepreneurs assist it with this. The Russian people has nothing whatsoever to lose from their success. On the contrary, it most likely has a great deal to gain.