Zhang Jing: The Dissemination of *Capital* in Russia and the Formation of Lenin's View of Capitalism
From the 1870s to the 1890s, intellectuals of various factions in Russia produced multiple interpretations of Capital and engaged in polemics regarding the question of Russian capitalism. Given this situation, there was an urgent need for someone to provide an answer to the practical question of where Russian capitalism was headed. Between the late 19th century and the early 20th century, based on the historical materialist outlook and the economic theories of Capital, Lenin criticized the Russian Liberal Narodniks [1] and the Russian Legal Marxists, ultimately forming a Marxist view of capitalism.
I. The Russian Debate Over Capital
Since the publication of the first edition of Volume I of Capital in 1867, Russian intellectuals were not only the first in the world to translate and publish a foreign edition of the work, but they also never ceased their debates and interpretations surrounding it. In January 1873, in the "Afterword to the Second Edition" of Volume I of Capital, Marx specifically emphasized the research of the Russian scholar I. I. Kaufman regarding the methodology of Capital and the study of its economic theory by the Russian scholar N. Sieber. Between 1877 and 1879, a debate took place among Russian economists, sociologists, and liberal thinkers concerning Capital, making Russia the country with the most vigorous discussion of the work in the world at that time. This debate was sparked by an article by the Russian economist Y. G. Zhukovsky; subsequently, the Liberal Narodnik thinker N. K. Mikhailovsky, the economist N. Sieber, and the liberal thinker B. N. Chicherin joined the fray. Their debate greatly promoted the dissemination and interpretation of Capital in Russia.
In September 1877, Zhukovsky published the article "Karl Marx and His Book on Capital" in the ninth issue of The Messenger of Europe (Vestnik Evropy). In the article, he criticized Marx as a formalist, denied the inheritance relationship between Marx’s economic theory and English classical political economy, and attacked the theory of surplus value in Capital. This article immediately drew the attention of Russian intellectual circles. From October to November 1877, Mikhailovsky published "Karl Marx Before the Tribunal of Mr. Y. Zhukovsky" in the tenth issue of Notes of the Fatherland (Otechestvennye Zapiski), and Sieber published "Several Remarks Regarding Mr. Y. Zhukovsky’s Article 'Karl Marx and His Book on Capital'" in the eleventh issue of the same journal. Both articles defended Capital on the basis of criticizing Zhukovsky’s erroneous understanding of the work.
In 1878, Chicherin also joined this debate. He published "The German Socialists" in the sixth volume of the Collection of State Knowledge. This article was divided into two parts: "I. Lassalle" and "II. Marx." Although he, like Zhukovsky, held a critical attitude toward Capital, he acknowledged its value: "His work—Capital—is the highest expression of German socialist doctrine. Although only the first volume has been published so far, the theoretical system is fully unfolded." In February 1879, Sieber published an article criticizing Chicherin titled "B. Chicherin Against Karl Marx" in The Word (Slovo), defending Capital once again. He argued that Marx used the most accurate official data as a basis to explain the concentration of capital, the association of labor, the application of machinery, and human liberation, and that he foresaw the end of the capitalist mode of production.
Marx and Engels’ Russian friends, M. Kovalevsky and P. Lavrov, not only wrote letters to inform them of the intense polemics Capital had caused in Russia but also sent them Russian articles reviewing the book. In a letter to Engels in August 1878, Lavrov wrote: "Have you noticed the fierce polemics carried out around his name in the Russian press last year? Zhukovsky (the traitor) and Chicherin oppose Marx, while Sieber and Mikhailovsky support him. And these are all very long articles. I don't think there are as many articles reviewing Marx’s work anywhere else." In fact, as early as November 1877, Marx had responded to Mikhailovsky’s article in Notes of the Fatherland with the famous "Letter to the Editorial Board of Notes of the Fatherland." However, this letter was never sent or published during Marx’s lifetime; even Engels only discovered it after Marx’s death. Marx was most interested in the question raised by Mikhailovsky regarding the scope of application of Capital. In the letter, he clearly expressed his opposition to transforming the historical sketch of the origins of Western European capitalism in Capital into a historico-philosophical theory of a general developmental path, and he opposed viewing the Western European path as a path all nations are destined to tread.
After Marx’s death in 1883, this letter circulated in Russia for a long time in the form of a French manuscript. Later, through the efforts of N. Danielson, it was published for the first time in the fifth issue of The Messenger of the People’s Will (Vestnik Narodnoi Voli) in 1886. This debate of the 1870s had a profound impact on Russia. As Engels said: "This letter, like everything that came from Marx’s pen, has aroused great interest in Russian circles and has been interpreted in the most varied ways." In the 1880s and 1890s, whenever Russian intellectuals of various factions studied Capital and Russian capitalism in their works, they would mention this debate of the 1870s, and fierce polemics occurred due to different understandings of it.
II. The Polemics Concerning the Question of Russian Capitalism
While Capital was receiving significant attention from Russian intellectuals, issues such as Russian land ownership and the rural commune (obshchina) [2] also entered the scope of Marx’s research for Capital. As Engels stated in the "Preface" to Volume III of Capital: "For the section on ground rent, Marx had carried out entirely new specialized research in the 1870s. For years he studied the statistical material and other publications on land ownership that had necessarily appeared after the Russian 'Reform' of 1861 [3]—which his Russian friends had provided to him in a very complete form—and he made extracts from them in the original Russian, intending to use them when re-editing this section. Due to the varied forms of land ownership and the exploitation of agricultural producers in Russia, Russia was to play the same role in the section on ground rent that England played in Volume I in the study of industrial wage labor." Regrettably, Marx was unable to realize this plan.
The Russian friend who provided Marx with these Russian research materials was indeed the Russian translator of Capital, Danielson. In his correspondence with Marx during the 1870s and 1880s, he explored the issues of the Russian rural commune and Russian capitalism in depth. With Marx’s encouragement, in October 1880, Danielson published the article "An Outline of Our Post-Reform Social Economy" in issue No. 10 of The Word under the pseudonym Nikolai—on. In February 1881, Marx read Danielson’s article with great interest, praising it by saying "this article is indeed highly 'original,'" and offered suggestions for Danielson’s work: "The first problem you must study next is the astonishing growth of the debts of the landlords, the representatives of the upper class in agriculture, and to point out how they are 'crystallizing' in the social retort under the supervision of the 'new pillars of society.'" At the same time, V. Vorontsov, another leading figure of the Liberal Narodniks, published the essay collection The Fate of Capitalism in Russia in 1882 under the pseudonym V. V. In 1883, G. Plekhanov, the first Russian Marxist, published Our Differences, in which he provided a preliminary elaboration of the Russian Marxist view of capitalism based on a critique of the Liberal Narodniks. The question of Russian capitalism formally became a vital issue explored by Russian intellectual circles in the 1880s and 1890s.
In the 1890s, various factions of Russian intellectuals—the Liberal Narodniks represented by Danielson, the Legal Marxists represented by the liberal thinker P. Struve, and the revolutionary Marxists represented by Plekhanov—engaged in a sustained and in-depth polemic over the question of Russian capitalism. This was reflected not only in their works but also in their correspondence with Engels. In 1893, Danielson supplemented and enriched his 1880 article, publishing the monograph An Outline of Our Post-Reform Social Economy in Saint Petersburg. He attempted to show readers that all of Russia’s economic ills were caused by new forms of production, the development of which made Russia’s suffering even more acute. In October 1893, Struve published "A Comment on the Development of Capitalism in Russia" in issues 1–2 of Central Messenger of Social Politics, criticizing Danielson’s views. Later, in 1894, he published Critical Remarks on the Subject of Russia’s Economic Development, in which he criticized the Liberal Narodniks' rejection of capitalism while elaborating the "view of capitalism" held by the Russian Legal Marxists. Between 1894 and 1895, Danielson responded to Struve’s criticism in letters to Engels, arguing that Struve’s views contradicted both facts and theory and that he failed to understand the fact that all industrial sectors are closely interconnected. From May 1894 to March 1895, Plekhanov also repeatedly criticized Danielson’s view of capitalism in letters to Engels. In a letter to Engels in July 1894, Plekhanov criticized Danielson: "Ni.—on poses the question of capitalism as if capitalism does not yet exist in Russia. In fact, we have already tasted the bitterness of capitalism, and furthermore, we are tasting the bitterness of its underdevelopment." In February 1895, Plekhanov again criticized Danielson’s dangerous idea of harboring illusions about the Tsarist government, arguing that this would bring great harm to the Russian revolutionary movement, and he requested that Engels refute Danielson’s distortions of Capital. Engels replied: "As for Danielson, I'm afraid nothing can be done with him... it is impossible to argue with the generation of Russians he belongs to, who still believe in a spontaneous communist mission that supposedly distinguishes Russia—truly Holy Russia—from other profane nations."
Through this polemic, three views of capitalism formed among the various factions of Russian intellectuals: the Liberal Narodniks, represented by Danielson and Vorontsov, feared the destructive consequences of capitalism and sought to enable Russia to avoid the capitalist path; the Russian Legal Marxists, represented by Struve, emphasized the historical necessity of capitalism but avoided mentioning its destructive effects; the Russian Marxists, represented by Plekhanov, proposed the view that Russia had already entered the path of capitalist development based on a critique of the Liberal Narodniks, but they neither responded to the views of the Legal Marxists nor established a Marxist view of capitalism in Russia.
III. The Formation of Lenin’s View of Capitalism
In the 1890s, through the Russian intellectuals' interpretations of Capital and the polemics regarding Russian capitalism, Lenin recognized the necessity of establishing a Marxist view of capitalism. The formation of Lenin’s view on the development of Russian capitalism can be divided into three aspects: first, the critique of the Liberal Narodniks from 1893 to 1897 in works such as On the So-called Market Question, What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats, A Characterization of Economic Romanticism, and The Heritage We Renounce; second, the brief alliance with Russian Legal Marxism from 1894 to 1895 in The Economic Content of Narodnism and the Criticism of it in Mr. Struve's Book; third, the critique of Legal Marxism from 1895 to 1899 in articles such as A Review of Market Theory Questions, Once More on the Theory of Realization, Capitalism in Agriculture, and The Agrarian Question and the "Critics of Marx".
Mikhailovsky’s subjective sociology served as the philosophical foundation for Russian Liberal Narodnism and was the primary target of Lenin’s critique. As Lenin stated in What the “Friends of the People” Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats: “It is evident that Marx’s basic idea that the development of socio-economic formations is a process of natural history [4] fundamentally destroys this infantile preachiness which lays claim to the title of sociology.” This metaphysical sociology failed to study any specific social formation—or even to clarify the concept of a social formation—and offered no practical study or objective analysis of any social relations. Instead, it persisted in a priori fabrications of theories that never reached any fruition. As previously mentioned, Mikhailovsky had defended the economic theories of Capital in 1877 and raised the question of the scope of its applicability; however, he later revised his views. In 1894, Mikhailovsky noted in Literature and Life: “In Capital there are some brilliant pages of historical content, but... these pages are also, according to the main purpose of the book, confined to a certain historical period; they do not establish the basic principles of economic materialism, but merely touch upon the economic aspect of a certain class of historical phenomena.” Lenin opposed Mikhailovsky’s labeling of the materialism of Marx and Engels as “economic materialism,” because the fundamental idea of Marx and Engels was to divide social relations into material social relations and ideological social relations. Ideological social relations constitute the superstructure of material social relations, while material social relations are formed independently of human will and represent the form of human activity for maintaining existence.
Lenin initiated his critique of the economic theories of the Russian Liberal Narodniks by addressing the theory of the market. At the beginning of his early article On the So-called Market Question, he wrote: “Can capitalism develop in Russia and reach full development at a time when the masses of the people are poor and are becoming still poorer?” The Russian Narodniks’ answer to this was that the development of capitalism requires a vast domestic market; since the ruin of the peasantry destroys the domestic market, the capitalist system cannot be established. They argued that due to the impoverishment of the masses, Russian capitalism was weak, rootless, and could not serve as the foundation of Russia’s socio-economy. Using Capital as his theoretical basis, Lenin criticized the erroneous understanding of the work held by representatives of the Russian Liberal Narodniks such as Danielson [5], who “lacked the ability to explain our country’s capitalism and based their arguments about capitalism on pure fiction.” Subsequently, Karyshev and other representatives of the Russian Liberal Narodniks proposed an economic program consisting of three main points: first, reorganizing peasant banks, systematizing the leasing of state lands, and developing the “people’s economy”; second, removing all current obstacles fettering the village commune [6], transitioning to collective cultivation (socialization of agriculture), and developing communal processing industries; third, providing low-interest loans, organizing labor artel-style [7] management, inventing cheaper engines, and implementing other technical improvements. Lenin pointed out the illusory and impractical nature of this program: “They want a commodity economy without capitalism; they want small-bourgeois capitalism that manages to survive only under the protection of benevolent landlords and liberal administrators, without expropriation or exploitation.” They refused to acknowledge the bourgeois nature of all relations of production and were unwilling to see the inevitability of class struggle under this system.
In the process of criticizing the Russian Liberal Narodniks, Lenin maintained a brief alliance with Legal Marxism [8]. From late 1894 to early 1895, Lenin offered support to Legal Marxism by writing The Economic Content of Narodnism and the Criticism of It in Mr. Struve's Book. Lenin agreed with Struve’s critique of Danielson: “Mr. Struve is perfectly correct when, in criticizing Mr. N—on, he emphasizes that ‘this Russian political economist is completely ignorant of Marx’s doctrine of class struggle and the state’… Mr. N—on became a utopian precisely because he did not understand class struggle; by ignoring the class struggle of capitalist society, he ignored the entire practical content of the socio-political life of this society and was inevitably wallowing in naive illusions to realize his own desires.” However, Lenin did not agree with Struve’s conclusion that the essence of Narodnism was merely a theory of—or belief in—the unique economic development of Russia. In Lenin's view, “The essence of Narodnism lies deeper: not in the doctrine of unique development, nor in Slavophilism [9], but in representing the interests and ideas of the Russian small producers.” Consequently, while Struve criticized the subjectivism of Narodnism, he fell into objectivism. As Lenin put it: “This is the language of an objectivist, not that of a Marxist (materialist). There is a difference between these two concepts (systems of views) which we must clarify, for the main defect of Mr. Struve’s book is his failure to fully clear up this difference, which is manifested in the majority of his arguments.”
Lenin continued to analyze the Legal Marxists’ view of capitalism by starting from market theory. However, there were significant disagreements among the Legal Marxists regarding the market question of capitalism. Tugan-Baranovsky criticized Bulgakov for lacking originality; Bulgakov criticized Tugan-Baranovsky for failing to correctly understand the doctrines of economists prior to Marx; and Struve criticized both Tugan-Baranovsky and Bulgakov for failing to correctly understand Marx’s theory of realization [10]. In August 1899, Lenin published More on the Question of Realignment in the 8th issue of the journal Scientific Review to summarize this dispute: “In my view, Struve’s polemic with the aforementioned authors stems not so much from substantial differences of opinion as from Struve’s erroneous understanding of the content of the theory they defend.” The market theory of bourgeois economists is fundamentally different from Marx’s theory of realization. The former holds that products are exchanged for products, thus production and consumption must adapt to one another; the latter analyzes how the reproduction and circulation of total social capital proceed in a capitalist society and how products are realized. In this process, not only is it impossible to coordinate production and consumption, but the inherent contradictions of capitalism are laid bare. Struve misunderstood Marx’s theory, fantasizing that it could become a theory for the revival of capitalism and a defense for the bourgeoisie. On the contrary, Lenin argued that Marx’s theory provided the most powerful weapon against such apologetics. Marx’s theory elucidated both the reproduction and circulation processes of total social capital and pointed out the inherent contradictions of capitalism. Therefore, it was necessary to recognize both the historical progressiveness and the historical transience of capitalism.
In general, Lenin, on the one hand, used historical materialism to criticize the subjective sociology of the Russian Liberal Narodniks and the objectivism of Legal Marxism; on the other hand, he used Capital to criticize the Russian Liberal Narodniks’ rejection of capitalism and the Legal Marxists’ erroneous idealization of it. Finally, through the correct application of historical materialism and Capital, he formed a Marxist view of capitalism.
IV. Lenin and “The Russian Capital”
Capital was the first Marxist work Lenin studied in depth. From 1888 to 1894, Lenin made extensive annotations on the first German edition of Volume I, the first Russian edition of Volume I, the 1885 German edition of Volume II, the 1886 Russian edition of Volume II, and the 1894 German edition of Volume III. He placed great importance on the research in Capital regarding simple cooperation, manufacture, large-scale machine industry, their interrelationships, and the successive transitional forms in the development of capitalist production. Lenin frequently praised the great achievements of Capital in his writings: “The success of Capital is so great because this book by a ‘German economist’ showed the reader the whole capitalist social formation as a living thing—with its everyday aspects, with the actual social manifestation of the class antagonism inherent in its relations of production, with the bourgeois political superstructure that maintains the rule of the capitalist class, with the bourgeois ideas of liberty, equality and the like, and with bourgeois family relations.”
Although various factions of the Russian intelligentsia recognized the great achievements and theoretical contributions of Capital, they were unable to correctly understand its methodology, and specifically, they could not correctly apply Capital to the study of Russian capitalism. Nevertheless, their debates promoted the dissemination of Marxism in Russia. They not only emphasized the significant influence of Capital in Russia in their writings but also explained the importance of using Capital to study Russian issues. Peter Struve, a representative of Russian Legal Marxism, wrote in his book Critical Remarks on the Subject of Russia's Economic Development: “Nowhere have Marx’s ideas been accepted as rapidly as in Russia; they have been accepted not only by publicists but also by the so-called ‘scientific’ community.” He added, “Marx’s theory is of immense significance for understanding the problems of Russia’s economic development.” Summarizing this dispute, Lenin emphasized: “The creation of a new methodology and a new theory of political economy was a vast step forward for social science and a huge advance for socialism. Therefore, as soon as Capital appeared, the question of 'the fate of Russian capitalism' became the main theoretical question for Russian socialists; the most heated debates centered on it, and the resolution of the most important programmatic principles depended on it.” Lenin’s critique of the Russian Liberal Narodniks and Legal Marxists was precisely an application of the methodology and economic theory of Capital. He not only answered the question regarding the fate of Russian capitalism but also resolved the question of how Capital should be applied to Russia.
From 1895 to 1899, while publishing a series of critical articles, Lenin also completed the book The Development of Capitalism in Russia. This work is not only a direct continuation of Capital but can also be called, in a sense, “The Russian Capital.” Its publication marked the establishment of Lenin’s view on the development of Russian capitalism. As stated in the preface to the first edition: “This book (most of which was already set in type when we received it) is the most noteworthy masterpiece of recent economic literature since the third volume of Capital.” The purpose of this work was to examine the formation of the domestic market for Russian capitalism. Lenin emphasized that “this question was raised long ago by the main representatives of the Narodnik view (led by Mr. V.V. and Mr. N—on).” On this basis, he used historical materialism and Capital to answer the question of the fate of Russian capitalism: “To recognize the progressive nature of this role is perfectly consistent with fully recognizing the negative and dark sides of capitalism, and with fully recognizing the profound and all-sided social contradictions inherently present in capitalism which reveal the historical transience of this economic system.” Through this dialectical analysis of capitalism, Lenin recognized the historical necessity of capitalism by criticizing the Narodniks’ rejection of it, and recognized the historical transience of capitalism by criticizing the Legal Marxists’ idealization of it. Thus, he established a Marxist view of capitalism from the dual perspective of the history of Marxist development and the history of Russian thought.
As the Yugoslav scholar Predrag Vranicki stated, Lenin “saw the real movement of Russian society and the structure of this society more deeply than all other Marxists; this was a prerequisite for Lenin’s ability to so correctly and clearly estimate the specific historical situation of Russia at that time.” Lenin not only correctly understood the methodology and economic theory of Capital but also creatively applied Marx’s doctrine to study and solve Russia’s social and economic problems. By criticizing the erroneous views of capitalism held by the Russian Liberal Narodniks and Legal Marxists, he established a Marxist view of capitalism and applied it to the practice of the Russian Revolution. This not only advanced the process of the Sinicization [11] of Marxism in Russia but also brought Russian Marxism into the new stage of Leninism.
Liu Changjun, ed., A Research Reader on Lenin's "The Development of Capitalism in Russia", Beijing: Central Compilation and Translation Press, 2014. [15] Wang Qingfeng, The Representation of "Capital", Beijing: Central Compilation and Translation Press, 2016. [16] Ma Longshan, Russian Populism and Its Cross-Century Influence, Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2013. [17] Bai Gang, Return to "Capital": "Critique of Political Economy" in the 21st Century, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2018. [18] Zhang Leisheng, ed., The History of the Development of Marxism, Vol. 2, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2018. (Author's Affiliation: School of Marxism, Shanghai Jiao Tong University) Online Editor: Zhang Jian Source: Marxism Studies [12], Issue 9, 2020.