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Legal Marxism and the "Fate of Capitalism" in Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2019

Samuel H. Baron
Samuel H. Baron*
Affiliation:
Grinnell College, Iowa
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Extract

If the passion with which Russia's intelligentsia once debated the fate of capitalism in Russia has long since subsided, the fascination the problem evoked has been transmitted with little diminution to the student of intellectual history who peruses the dispute at one remove. Hardly a year goes by when some article on this theme does not find its way into the periodical literature. Among the more recent contributions to the discussion have been the essays of Professor Von Laue in these pages and in the Review of Politics on the narodnik and Marxist sides of the controversy respectively. In the latter piece, he concentrates attention upon legal Marxism, a rather neglected episode which, coming at the climax of the great debate, is of obvious significance.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , April 1957 , pp. 113 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1957

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References

1 T. Von Laue, “The Fate of Capitalism in Russia: The Narodnik Version,” ASEER, XIII (February, 1954), 11-28; “Legal Marxism and the ‘Fate of Capitalism in Russia,’ “ Review of Politics, XVIII (January, 1956), 23-46.

2 Quoted in Wolfe, B. D., Three Who Made a Revolution (New York, 1948), p. 93.Google Scholar

3 Balabanoff, A., My Life as a Rebel (New York, 1938), p. 18.Google Scholar

4 Berlin, I., review of Plekhanov's In Defence of Materialism, Slavonic and East European Review, XXVIII (November, 1949), 258 Google Scholar.

5 Cited in Treadgold, D. W., Lenin and His Rivals (New York, 1955), p. 49.Google Scholar

6 Von Laue, op. cit., p. 26.

7 N. L. Sergievskij, “Gruppa ‘Osvobozhdenie truda’ i marksistkie kruzhki,” Istorikorevoliucionnyj sbornik (Leningrad, 1924), Vol. II; Partija Russkikh Social-demokratov (Moscow, 1929).

8 Baron, S. H., “The First Decade of Russian Marxism,” American Slavic and East European Review, XIV (October, 1955), 315-30CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Sergievskij's work is explicitly reviewed and critiqued by Vaganjan in Voinstvujushchij materialist, No. 1, 1925, and by Ivanov in Katorga i ssylka, No. 1, 1931.

9 Martov, Ju., gapiski social-demokrata (Berlin, 1922), pp. 141-3Google Scholar.

10 Lenin, V. I., What the “Friends of the People” Are and how They Fight the Social-Democrats (Moscow, 1946), p. 80 Google Scholar.

11 Struve, P. B., “Mv Contacts and Conflicts with Lenin,” Slavonic and East European Review, XII (April, 1934), 579.Google Scholar

12 Von Laue, op. cit. pp. 32—3.

13 Cited in Rjazanov's preface to Plekhanov's Sochinenija VII, 8.

14 This speech appears in ibid., IV, 328 ff.

15 See for example the Mikhailovskij articles in Russkaja zhizn', No. 6, 1892, and Russkoe bogatstvo, No. 1, 1894, and the Kareev piece in ibid.

16 Plekhanov-Engels [June, 1894] Perepiska K. Marksa i F. Engel'sa s Russkimipoliticheskimi dejateljami (Gosizdat, 1947), p. 272.

17 Cited in Plekhanov, Sochinenija, VII, 9.

18 Quoted in History of the Communist Party ofthe Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) (Leningrad, 1938), p. 12. Theodore Dan wrote of its “colossal role in the political-ideological development of the Russian intelligentsia.” Proiskhozhdenie bol'shevizma (New York, 1946), p. 194.

19 Martov, op. cit., p. 245.

20 Balabanoff, op. cit., p. 18.

21 Berdjaev, N., The Origins of Russian Communism (London, 1937)Google Scholar Chapter I and passim.

22 It takes up most of Vol. VII of Plekhanov's Sochinenija. An English edition, under the title In Defense of Materialism, was published in London, 1947.

23 Plekhanov, “K Voprosu o razvitii monisticheskogo vzgljada na istoriju,” Sochinenija, VII, 233.

24 See letters of Plekhanov-Lavrov, 1881, Dela i dni, No. 2, 1921, pp. 86-87.

25 “Neskol'ko slov nashim protivnikam,” a reply to the reviews by Mikhailovskij and Danielson of The Monistic View, and an article on Chaadaev. Professor Von Laue rendered the title of this collective work in garbled form. It was called Materialy k kharakteristike nashego khozjaistvennogo razvitija. These writings of Plekhanov may be found respectively in Vol. VII and X of Sochinenija.

26 “Neskol'ko slov v zashchitu ekonomicheskogo materializma,” Sochinenija, Vol. VIII.

27 “Obosnovanie narodnichestva v trudakh g-na Voroncova, Sochinenija, Vol. IX.

28 Plekhanov's legal writings of this period fill much the larger part of four volumes of his collected works, Vol. VII-X.

29 Von Laue, op. cit., p. 37.

30 Lenin himself had written about this earlier in such articles as “Perly narodnicheskogo prozhekterstva,” and “Ot kakogo nasledstva my otkazyvaems'ja” Sochinenija (2nd ed.) Vol. II.

31 Many of Lenin's articles in the first five years of his literary career were devoted to just this subject.

32 These reviews under the title “Vnutrennee obozrenie” are reproduced in Sochinenija, Vol. III.

33 See especially chapters II and III of “Nashi raznoglasija,” ibid., Vol. II.

34 Lenin, What the “Friends of the People” Are, pp. 81-82.

35 On this tradition, F. I. Dan, Proiskhozhdcnie bol'shevizma, pp. 17-20.

36 Marx, K., The Communist Manifesto (London, 1930), pp. 26–32 Google Scholar.

37 Von Laue, op. cit., p. 41.

38 F. Engels, Anti-Diihring (New York, 1939), p. 200.

39 Plekhanov, “Kak dobyvat'sja konstitucii,” Sochinsnija, III , 21.

40 Plekhanov, “Nashi raznoglasija,” ibid., II, 130.

41 On this see my article, “Plekhanov on Russian Capitalism and the Peasant Commune,” American Slavic and East European Review, XII (December, 1953), 463-74.

42 Plekhanov, “Vnutrennee obozrenie,” Sochinenija, III , 234.

43 Plekhanov, “Pessimizm kak otrazhenie ekonomicheskoj dejstvitel'nosti,” ibid., X, 158- 9; “N. I. Naumov,” ibid., 123-30; “Russkij rabochij v revoljucionnom doizhenie,” ibid., III, 133-6.

44 The expression is borrowed from Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture (New York: Pelican edition, 1947), pp. 19-20.

45 Thus Plekhanov, summing up the breakdown of the old economic order—a process that had its beginnings with the westernizing activities of Peter the Great—jubilantly declared: “Finis Moscoviae! You have triumphed, oh Saardam carpenter!” See “Pessimizmkak otrazhenie ekonomicheskoj dejstvitel'nosti,” Sochinenija, X, 155