1. Socialism is not only a problem of equal distribution, but also a problem of well organized production. Socialistic, i.e., coöperative production on a large scale is possible only where economic progress has gone so far as to make a large undertaking more productive than a small one. The greater the advantages of a large undertaking over a small one, i.e., the higher the industrial technique, the greater must be the economic advantages of socialized production, the higher, consequently, must be the cultural level of the people to enable them to enjoy equal distribution based on well organized production.
This first prerequisite of Socialism has been in existence for many years. Ever since division of labor has been established in manufactories; ever since manufactories have been superseded by factories employing a system of machines,—large undertakings become more and more profitable, and consequently their socialization would make the people more prosperous. There would have been no gain in making all the artisans' shops common property of the artisans; whereas the seizure of a manufactory by its workers, or the seizure of a factory by its hired employees, or the seizure of all means of modern production by the people must necessarily improve their economic conditions,—the more so, the further the process of economic concentration has advanced.
At present, social division of labor on one hand, machine production on the other have reached a stage where the only coöperative organization that can make adequate use of the advantages of collectivist economy, is the State. It is hardly conceivable that Socialist production would content itself with the area of the state. Economic and political motives would necessarily impel it to overstep the boundaries of individual states.
The world has been in possession of technical equipment for collective production—in one or another form—for the last hundred or two hundred years. Technically, Socialism is profitable not only on a national, but also to a large extent on an international scale. Why then have all attempts at organizing Socialist communities failed? Why has concentration of production manifested its advantages all through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries not in Socialistic, but in capitalistic forms? The reason is that there was no social force ready and able to introduce Socialism.
2. Here we pass from the prerequisite of industrial technique to the socio-economic prerequisite, which is less general, but more complex. Were our society not an antagonistic society composed of classes, but a homogeneous partnership of men consciously selecting the best economic system, a mere calculation as to the advantages of Socialism would suffice to make people start Socialistic reconstruction. Our society, however, harbors in itself opposing interests. What is good for one class, is bad for another. Class selfishness clashes against class selfishness; class selfishness impairs the interests of the whole. To make Socialism possible, a social power has to arise in the midst of the antagonistic classes of capitalist society, a power objectively placed in a position to be interested in the establishment of Socialism, at the same time strong enough to overcome all opposing interests and hostile resistance. It is one of the principal merits of scientific Socialism to have discovered such a social power in the person of the proletariat, and to have shown that this class, growing with the growth of capitalism, can find its salvation only in Socialism; that it is being moved towards Socialism by its very position, and that the doctrine of Socialism in the presence of a capitalist society must necessarily become the ideology of the proletariat.
How far, then, must the social differentiation have gone to warrant the assertion that the second prerequisite is an accomplished fact? In other words, what must be the numerical strength of the proletariat? Must it be one-half, two-thirds, or nine-tenths of the people? It is utterly futile to try and formulate this second prerequisite of Socialism arithmetically. An attempt to express the strength of the proletariat in mere numbers, besides being schematic, would imply a series of difficulties. Whom should we consider a proletarian? Is the half-paupered peasant a proletarian? Should we count with the proletariat those hosts of the city reserve who, on one hand, fall into the ranks of the parasitic proletariat of beggars and thieves, and, on the other hand, fill the streets in the capacity of peddlers, i.e., of parasites on the economic body as a whole? It is not easy to answer these questions.
The importance of the proletariat is based not only on its numbers, but primarily on its rôle in industry. The political supremacy of the bourgeoisie is founded on economic power. Before it manages to take over the authority of the state, it concentrates in its hands the national means of production; hence its specific weight. The proletariat will possess no means of production of its own before the Social revolution. Its social power depends upon the circumstance that the means of production in possession of the bourgeoisie can be put into motion only by the hands of the proletariat. From the bourgeois viewpoint, the proletariat is also one of the means of production, forming, in combination with the others, a unified mechanism. Yet the proletariat is the only non-automatic part of this mechanism, and can never be made automatic, notwithstanding all efforts. This puts the proletariat into a position to be able to stop the functioning of the national economic body, partially or wholly—through the medium of partial or general strikes.
Hence it is evident that, the numerical strength of the proletariat being equal, its importance is proportional to the mass of the means of production it puts into motion: the proletarian of a big industrial concern represents—other conditions being equal—a greater social unit than an artisan's employee; a city workingman represents a greater unit than a proletarian of the village. In other words, the political rôle of the proletariat is greater in proportion as large industries predominate over small industries, industry predominates over agriculture, and the city over the village.
At a period in the history of Germany or England when the proletariats of those countries formed the same percentage to the total population as the proletariat in present day Russia, they did not possess the same social weight as the Russian proletariat of to-day. They could not possess it, because their objective importance in economic life was comparatively smaller. The social weight of the cities represents the same phenomenon. At a time when the city population of Germany formed only 15 per cent. of the total nation, as is the case in present-day Russia, the German cities were far from equaling our cities in economic and political importance. The concentration of big industries and commercial enterprises in the cities, and the establishment of closer relations between city and country through a system of railways, has given the modern cities an importance far exceeding the mere volume of their population. Moreover, the growth of their importance runs ahead of the growth of their population, and the growth of the latter runs ahead of the natural increase of the entire population of the country. In 1848, the number of artisans, masters and their employees, in Italy was 15 per cent. of the population, the same as the percentage of the proletariat, including artisans, in Russia of to-day. Their importance, however, was far less than that of the Russian industrial proletariat.
The question is not, how strong the proletariat is numerically, but what is its position in the general economy of a country.