Part 13 (1/2)

Pokrovsky writes: 'To portray the Moscow Russ of the sixteenth century on a back-ground of general European relations of that time is an extremely alluring enterprise. There is no better way to refute the prejudices prevailing until now even in Marxist circles about the primitiveness' of those economic foundations upon which the Russian autocracy arose,” And further: ”To present this autocracy in its real historic connections, as one of the aspects of commercial-capitalist Europe . . . that is an undertaking not only of extraordinary inter-est to the historian, but also of extraordinary educational importance for the reading public: there is no more radical way of putting an end to the legend of peculiarities' of the Russian historic process.” Pokrovsky as we see, .atly denies the primitiveness and backwardness of our economic development, and therewith relegates the peculiarities of the Russian historic process to the sphere of legend. And the whole trouble is that Pokrovsky is completely hypnotised by the comparatively broad development of trade noticed by him and also by Rozhkov in sixteenth century Russia. It is hard to understand how Pokrovsky could make such a mistake. You might indeed imagine that trade is the basis of economic life and its infallible measuring rod. The German economist Karl Bucher twenty years ago tried to .nd in trade (the path between the producer and the consumer) a criterion of the whole economic development. Strive, of course, hastened to transport this ”discovery” into the Russian economic science.” At that time the theory of Bucher met a perfectly natural op-position from the Marxists. We .nd the criteria of economic development in productionin technique and the social organisation of labourand the path followed by the product from the producer to the consumer we regard as a secondary phenomenon, whose roots are to be found in that same production.

The large scope, at least in a spatial sense, of Russian trade in the sixteenth centuryhow-ever paradoxical from the standpoint of the Bucher-Struve criterionis explained exactly by the extraordinary primitiveness of Russian economy. The West European city was a craft-guild and trade-league city; our cities were above all administrative, military, consequently consuming, and not producing, centres. The craft-guild culture of the West formed itself on a relatively high level of economic development when all the fundamental processes of the manufacturing industries had been distinguished from agriculture, and had been con-verted into independent crafts, had created their own organisations, their own focusesthe citiesand at .rst a limited (belonging to local districts), but nevertheless stable, market. At the basis of the medieval European city therefore lay a comparatively high differentiation of industry, giving rise to regular interrelations between the city centre and its agricultural periphery. Our economic backwardness, on the other hand, found its expression in the fact that craft, not yet separated from agriculture, preserved the form of home industry. Here we were nearer to India than to Europe, just as our medieval cities were nearer to the Asiatic than the European type, and as our autocracy, standing between the European absolutism and the Asiatic despotism, in many features approached the latter.

With the boundlessness of our s.p.a.ces and the spa.r.s.eness of the population (also a suf-.ciently objective sign, it would seem, of backwardness) the exchange of products pre-supposed a mediating r6le of trade-capital on the broadest scale. This scale was possible exactly because the West stood at a far higher level of development, had its own innu-merable demands, sent out its merchants and its goods, and therewith stimulated our trade turnover with its extremely primitive, and in a certain measure barbarian, economic basis. Not to see this immense peculiarity of our historic development means not to see our whole history.

My Siberian boss (I spent two months entering poods and ars.h.i.+nes in his ledger), Jacob Andreievich Chernykhthis was not in the sixteenth century, but at the very beginning of the twentiethenjoyed an almost unlimited rulers.h.i.+p within the limits of Kirensky county, thanks to his trade operations. Jacob Andreievich bought up furs from the Tunghuz had bought in the parish contributions in kind from the priests of more remote districts, imported calico from the lrbitsk and Nizhni-Novgorod market, and above all supplied vodka. (In the Irkutsk province at that epoch the monopoly had not yet been introduced.) Jacob Andreievich was illiterate, but a millionaire (according to the value of the decimal in those days, not now). His ”dictators.h.i.+p,” as the representative of trade capital, was indubitable. He even always talked of 'my little Tuoghuzi.” The city of Kirensk, like Verkholensk and Nizhni-llimsk, was a residence of sheriffs and magistrates, kulaks in hierarchical dependence one upon another, all kinds of of.cials, and a few wretched artisans. An organised handicraft as the basis of city economic life I did not .nd there, neither guilds, nor guild holidays, nor trade leagues, although Jacob Andreievich counted himself a member of the ”second League.” Really this live bit of Siberian reality carries us far deeper into an understanding of the his-toric peculiarities of Russia's development than what Pokrovsky says on this subject. That is a fact. The trade operations of Jacob Andreievich extended from the midstream of the Lena and its eastern tributaries to Nizhni-Novgorod and even Moscow. Few trades of Con-tinental Europe can mark off such distances on their maps. However, this trade dictatorthis 'king of clubs,” in the language of the Siberian farmers was the most .nished and con-vincing incarnation of our industrial backwardness, barbarism, primitiveness, spa.r.s.eness of . population, scatteredness of peasant towns and villages, impa.s.sable country roads, creating around the counties, districts and villages in the spring and autumn .oods a two-months' swampy blockade, of our universal illiteracy, etc., etc. And Chernykh had risen to his commercial importance on the basis of the Siberian (mid-Lensky) barbarism, because-the West-”Ra.s.sea,” ”Moskva”-was exerting pressure, and was taking Siberia in tow, creat-ing a combination of nomad economic primitiveness with alarm clocks from Warsaw.

The guild craft was the basis of the medieval city culture, which radiated also into the village. Medieval science, scholasticism, religious reformation, grew out of a craft-guild soil. We did not have these things. Of course the embryo symptoms, the signs, can be found, but in the West these things were not signs but powerful cultural economic forma-tions with a craft-guild basis. Upon this basis stood the medieval European city, and upon this it grew and entered into the con.ict with the church and the feudal lords, and brought into play against the lords the hand of the monarchy. That same city created the technical premises for standing armies in the shape of .rearms.

Where were our craft-guild cities even in a remote degree similar to the western cities? Where was their struggle with the feudal lords? And was the foundation for the develop-ment of the Russian autocracy laid by a struggle of the industrial-commercial city with the feudal lord? By the very nature of our cities we had no such struggle, just as we had no Reformation. Is this a peculiarity or is not it?

Our handicraft remained at the stage of home industrythat is, did not split off from peasant agriculture. Our Reformation remained at the stage of the peasant sect, because it found no leader s.h.i.+p from the cities. Primitiveness and backwardness here cry to the heavens. . . .

Czarism arose as an independent state organisation (again only relatively independent within the limits of the struggle of living historic forces on an economic foundation), not thanks to a struggle of powerful feudal cities with powerful lords, but in spite of the com-plete industrial feebleness of our cities and thanks to the feeble ness of our feudal lords.

Poland in her social structure stood between Russia and the West, just as Russia stood between Asia and Europe. The Polish cities knew already much more of guild craft than ours did, but they did not succeed in rising high enough to help the kingly power break the barons. The state power remained in the immediate hands of the n.o.bility. The result: complete impotence of the state and its disintegration.

What has been said of czarism relates also to capital and the proletariat. I cannot under-stand why Pokrovsky directs his rage only against my .rst chapter dealing with czarism. Russian capitalism did not develop from handicraft through manufacture to the factory, be-cause European capital, at .rst in the trade form and afterwards in the .nance and industrial form, poured down on us during that period when Russian handicraft had not in the ma.s.s divided itself from agriculture. Hence the appearance among us of the most modern cap-italist industry in an environment of economic primitive. ness: the Belgian or American factory, and round about it settlements, villages of wood and straw, burning up every year, etc. The most primitive beginnings and the latest European endings. Hence the mighty role of West European capital in Russian industry; hence the political weakness of the Russian bourgeoisie; hence the ease with which we settled accounts with the Russian bourgeoisie; hence our further dif.culties when the European bourgeoisie interfered.

And our proletariat? Did it pa.s.s through the school of the medieval apprentice brother-hoods? Has it the ancient tradition of the guilds? Nothing of the kind. It was thrown into the factory cauldron s.n.a.t.c.hed directly from the plough. Hence the absence of conserva-tive tradition, absence of caste in the proletariat itself, revolutionary freshness: hencealong with other causesOctober, the .rst workers' government in the world. But hence also il-literacy, backwardness, absence of organisational habits, absence of system in labour, of cultural and technical education. All these minuses in our cultural economic structure we are feeling at every step.

The Russian state encountered the military organisation of Western nations standing on a higher political and cultural level. Thus Russian capital in its .rst step ran into the far more developed and powerful capital of the West and fell under its leaders.h.i.+p. Thus the Russian working cla.s.s in its .rst steps also found ready weapons worked out by the expe-rience of the West European proletariat; the Marxian theory, the trade union, the political party. Whoever ex plains the character and policy of the autocracy merely by the interests of the Russian possessing cla.s.ses forgets that besides the more backward, poorer and more ignorant exploiters in Russia, there were the richer and more powerful exploiters in Eu-rope. The possessing cla.s.ses of Russia had to encounter the possessing cla.s.ses of Europe, hostile or semi-hostile. This encounter was mediated through a state organisation. Such an organisation was the autocracy. The whole structure and history of the autocracy would have been different if it had not been for the European cities, European gunpowder (for we did not invent it), if it had not been for the European stock markets.

In the last epoch of its existence the autocracy was not only an organ of the possessing cla.s.ses of Russia, but also of the organisation of European stock markets for the exploitation of Russia. This double role again gave it a very considerable independence. A sharp expression of this is the fact that the French Bourse made a loan for the support of the autocracy in 1905 against the will of the party of the Russian bourgeoisie.

Czarism was shattered in the imperialist war. And why? Because it had under it a too low-grade productive foundation ('primitive ness”). In military-technical matters czarism tried to fall in line with more perfected models. It was every way a.s.sisted in this by the more rich and cultured Allies. Thanks to this fact czarism had at its disposal the most .nished weapons of war, but it had not, and could not have, the capacity to reproduce these weapons and transport then (and the human ma.s.ses also) on railroads and waterways with suf.cient speed. In other words, czarism was defending the interests of the ruling cla.s.ses of Russia in the international struggle, while relying upon a more primitive economic basis than her enemies and allies.

Czarism exploited this basis during the war mercilesslydevoured, that is to say, a far greater percentage of the national wealth and the national income than her mighty enemies and allies. This fact .nds its con.rmation on the one hand in the system of war debts, on the other in the complete ruin of Russia. . . .

All these circ.u.mstances, which immediately pre-determined the October revolution, the victory of the proletariat and its future dif.culties, remain totally unexplained by the com-monplaces of Pokrovsky.

APPENDIX II.

(To the Chapter Re-arming the Party): In a New York daily paper, Novy Mit, published for the Russian workers in America, the author of this book attempted an a.n.a.lysis and a prognosis of the development of the revolution on the basis of the scant information supplied by the American press. ”The inner history of the developing events,” wrote the author on March 6, 1917 (old style), ”is known to us only in fragments and hints which have crept into the of.cial despatches.” The series of articles devoted to the revolution begins on February 27 and breaks off on March 14 with the departure of the author from New York. We reproduce below a series of excerpts from these articles in chronological order, which will give an idea of the views of the revolution with which the author arrived in Russia on May 4.

FEBRUARY 27:.

”The disorganised, compromised, disintegrated government at the top, the army shaken to the depths, the discontent, uncertainty and fear among the ruling cla.s.ses, deep bitter-ness in the popular ma.s.ses, the numerically developed proletariat tempered in the .re of eventsall this gives us the right to say that we are witnessing the beginning of the second Russian revolution. Let us hope that many of us will be partic.i.p.ants in it.”

March 3: ”The Rodziankos and Miliukovs have begun talking too soon about law and order; not to-morrow will tranquillity descend on billowing Russia. Stratum after stratum now, the country will ariseall the oppressed, dest.i.tute, robbed by czarism and the ruling cla.s.ses-throughout the whole measureless s.p.a.ce of the whole Russian prison of the people. The Petrograd events are only beginning. At the head of the popular ma.s.ses the Russian revo-lutionary proletariat will ful.l its historic task: it will drive out the monarchical and aris-tocratic reaction from all its refuges, and stretch out its hand to the proletariat of Germany and all Europe. For it is necessary to liquidate not only czarism, but also the war.”

”Now the second wave of the revolution wilt roll over the heads of the Rodziankos and Miliukovs, busy with their attempts to restore order and come to terms with monarchy.

336.

From its own depths the revolution will produce its government, a revolutionary organ of the people marching to victory. Both the chief battles and the chief sacri.ces are in the future, and only after them will come complete and genuine victory.”

MARCH 4:.

”The long restrained discontent of the ma.s.ses has broken to the surface so late, on the 32nd month of the war, not because there stood before the ma.s.ses a police bulwark, very much shaken during the war, but because all the liberal inst.i.tutions and organs including their social-patriotic hangers-on, have exercised an enormous political pressure upon the less conscious layers of the workers, suggesting to them the necessity of 'patriotic' disci-pline and order.”

”Now only (after the victory of the insurrection) came the turn of the Duma. The czar tried at the last moment to disperse it. And it would have submissively dispersed 'following the precedent of former years,' if it had been able to. But the capitals were already in the control of the revolutionary people, that same people who, against the will of the liberal bourgeoisie, come out into the street to .ght. The army was with the people. And if the bourgeoisie had not made an attempt to organise their power, a revolutionary government would have issued from the midst of the Insurrectionary worker ma.s.ses. That Duma of June 3 would never have ventured to s.n.a.t.c.h the power from the hands of czarism, but it could not help making use of the created interregnum: the monarchy had temporarily disappeared from the face of the earth and a revolutionary power was not yet created.”

MARCH 6:.

”An open con.ict between the forces of revolution at whose head stands the city pro-letariat, and the anti-revolutionary liberal bourgeoisie temporarily in power, is absolutely inevitable. You can, of course,and the liberal bourgeois and mountain socialist of the philis-tine type are heartily busy about itpile up many pitiful words on the subject of the immense advantages of national unity over cla.s.s split. But n.o.body has yet succeeded with such incantations in removing social contradictions and stopping the natural development of a revolutionary struggle.”

”Already at this moment, immediately, the revolutionary proletariat ought to oppose its revolutionary inst.i.tutions, the soviets of workers', soldiers' and peasants' deputies, to the executive inst.i.tutions of the Provisional Government. In this struggle the proletariat, unit-ing around itself the rising popular ma.s.ses, ought to make its direct goal the conquest of power. Only a revolutionary workers' government will have the will and ability, even dur-ing the preparation for a Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, to carry out a radical democratic clean-up throughout the country, reconstruct the army from top to bottom, convert it into a revo-lutionary militia and demonstrate in action to the lower ranks of the peas. ants that their salvation lies only in supporting a revolutionary workers' r'egime.”

MARCH '7:.

”While the clique of Nicholas II held the power, dynastic and reactionary aristocratic interests had the last word in foreign policy. For just this reason in Berlin and Vienna they were continually hoping for a separate peace with Russia. But now the interests of naked imperialism are inscribed on the governmental banners. 'The czar's government is no more,' the Guchkovs and Miliukovs are telling the people, 'Now you must pour out your blood for the all-national interests.' But by national interests the Russian imperialists mean the getting back of Poland, the con quest of Galicia, Constantinople, Armenia, Persia. In other words, Russia now takes her place in the joint ranks of imperialism with other European states, and .rst of all with her allies, England and France.”

”The proletariat of Russia cannot possibly reconcile the transition from a dynastic aris-tocratic imperialism to a purely bourgeois regime with this butchery. The international struggle against the world butchery and imperialism is now our task more than ever be-fore.”

”The imperialist boast of Miliukovto crush Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkeynow plays perfectly into the hands of the Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs, Miliukov will now play the role of a garden scarecrow in their hands. Before the new imperialistic-liberal government undertakes reforms in the army, it will help the Hohenzollern raise the patriotic spirit and restore the 'national unity' of the German people, now cracking in all its seams. If the German proletariat should get the right to think that the whole Russian people, and among them the chief force of the revolutionthe Russian proletariatstands behind its new bourgeois government, that would be a terrible blow to our colleagues, the revolutionary socialists of Germany.”

'It is the straight duty of the revolutionary proletariat of Russia to show that behind the evil imperialist will of the liberal bourgeoisie there is no strength, for it has no support in the worker ma.s.ses. The Russian revolution ought to reveal its authentic face before the whole worldthat is, its irreconcilable hostility not only to the dynastic aristocratic reaction, but to liberal imperialism.”

MARCH 8:.

'Under the banner Salvation of the Country' the liberal bourgeois is trying to keep the revolutionary leaders.h.i.+p of the people in his hands, and with this aim is dragging after him on a tow-line not only the Trudovik Kerensky, but evidently also Cheidze, representative of the opportunist elements of the social democracy.