One fact was of decisive importance for the theoretical content of the discussion that followed: not only was Marx’s analysis of capitalist production as laid down in the first volume of Capital already common property of educated Russia, but the second volume, too, with its analysis of the reproduction of capital as a whole had already been published in 1885. This gave a fundamentally new twist to the discussion. No more did the problem of crises obscure the real crux of the problem: for the first time, the argument centred purely in the reproduction of capital as a whole, in accumulation. Nor was the analysis bogged any longer by an aimless fumbling for the concepts of income and of individual and aggregate capital. Marx’s diagram of social reproduction had provided a firm foothold. Finally, the issue was no longer between laissez-faire and social reform, but between two varieties of socialism. The petty-bourgeois and somewhat muddled ‘populist’ brand of Russian socialists stood for scepticism regarding the possibility of capitalist development, much in the spirit of Sismondi and, in part, of Rodbertus, though they themselves frequently cited Marx as their authority. Optimism, on the other hand, was represented by the Marxist school in Russia. Thus the setting of the stage had been shifted completely.
One of the two champions of the ‘populist’ movement, Vorontsov, known in Russia mainly under the nom de plume V. V., (his initials), was an odd customer. His economics were completely muddled, and as an expert on theory he cannot be taken seriously at all. The other, Nikolayon (Danielson), however, was a man of wide education, and thoroughly conversant with Marxism. He had edited the Russian translation of the first volume of Capital and was a personal friend of Marx and Engels, with both of whom he kept up a lively correspondence (published in the Russian language in 1908). Nevertheless it was Vorontsov who influenced public opinion among the Russian intelligentsia in the eighties, and Marxists in Russia had to fight him above all. As for our problem: the general prospects of capitalist development, a new generation of Russian Marxists, who had learned from the historical experience and knowledge of Western Europe, joined forces with George Plekhanov in opposition to the above-mentioned two representatives of scepticism in the nineties. They were amongst others Professor Kablukov, Professor Manuilov, Professor Issayev, Professor Skvortsov, Vladimir Ilyin, Peter v. Struve, Bulgakov, and Professor Tugan Baranovski. In the further course of our investigation we shall, however, confine ourselves to the last three of these, since every one of them furnished a more or less finished critique of this theory on the point with which we are here concerned. This battle of wits, brilliant in parts, which kept the socialist intelligentsia spellbound in the nineties and was only brought to an end by the walkover of the Marxist school, officially inaugurated the infiltration into Russian thought of Marxism as an economico-historical theory. ‘Legalist’ Marxism at that time publicly took possession of the Universities, the Reviews and the economic book market in Russia—with all the disadvantages of such a position. Ten years later, when the revolutionary risings of the proletariat demonstrated in the streets the darker side of this optimism about capitalist development, none of this Pleïad of Marxist optimists, with but a single exception, was to be found in the camp of the proletariat.
CHAPTER XIX
VORONTSOV AND HIS ‘SURPLUS’
The representatives of Russian ‘populism’ were convinced that capitalism had no future in Russia, and this conviction brought them to the problem of capitalist reproduction. V. V. laid down his theories on this point in a series of articles in the review Patriotic Memoirs and in other periodicals which were collected and published in 1882 under the title The Destiny of Capitalism in Russia. He further dealt with the problem in ‘The Commodity Surplus in the Supply of the Market’,[277] ’Militarism and Capitalism’,[278] Our Trends,[279] and finally in Outlines of Economic Theory.[280] It is not easy to determine Vorontsov’s attitude towards capitalist development in Russia. He sided neither with the purely slavophil theory which deduced the perversity and perniciousness of capitalism for Russia from the ‘peculiarities’ of the Russian economic structure and a specifically Russian ‘national character’, nor with the Marxists who saw in capitalist development an unavoidable historical stage which is needed to clear the way towards social progress for Russian society, too. Vorontsov for his part simply asserts that denunciation and acclamation of capitalism are equally futile because, having no roots in Russia, capitalism is just impossible there and can have no future. The essential conditions of capitalist development are lacking in Russia, and love’s labour’s lost if the state tries to promote it artificially—one might as well spare these efforts together with the heavy sacrifices they entail. But if we look into the matter more closely, Vorontsov’s thesis is not nearly so uncompromising. For if we pay attention to the fact that capitalism does not mean only the accumulation of capital wealth but also that the small producer is reduced to the proletarian level, that the labourer’s livelihood is not assured and that there are periodical crises, then Vorontsov would by no means deny that all these phenomena exist in Russia. On the contrary, he explicitly says in his preface to The Destiny of Capitalism in Russia: ‘Whilst I dispute the possibility of capitalism as a form of production in Russia, I do not intend to commit myself in any way as to its future as a form or degree of exploiting the national resources.’
Vorontsov consequently is of the opinion that capitalism in Russia merely cannot attain the same degree of maturity as in the West, whereas the severance of the immediate producer from the means of production might well be expected under Russian conditions. Vorontsov goes even further: he does not dispute at all that a development of the capitalist mode of production is quite possible in various branches of production, and even allows for capitalist exports from Russia to foreign markets. Indeed he says in his essay on ‘The Commodity Surplus in the Supply of the Market’ that ‘in several branches of industry, capitalist production develops very quickly’[281] [in the Russian meaning of the term, of course—R. L.].
‘It is most probable that Russia, just like any other country, enjoys certain natural advantages which enable her to act as a supplier of certain kinds of commodities on foreign markets. It is extremely possible that capital can profit by this fact and lay hands upon the branches of production concerned—that is to say the (inter)national division of labour will make it easy for our capitalists to gain a foothold in certain branches. This, however, is not the point. We do not speak of a merely incidental participation of capital in the industrial organisation of the country, but ask whether it is likely that the entire production of Russia can be put on a capitalist basis.’[282]
Put in this form, Vorontsov’s scepticism looks quite different from what might have been expected at first. He doubts whether the capitalist mode of production could ever gain possession of the entire production in Russia; but then, capitalism has not so far accomplished this feat in any country of the world, not even in England. Such a brand of scepticism as to the future of capitalism appears at a glance quite international in outlook. And indeed, Vorontsov’s theory here amounts to a quite general reflection on the nature and the essential conditions of capitalism; it is based upon a general theoretical approach to the reproductive process of social capital as a whole. Vorontsov gives the following very clear formulation of the specific relations between the capitalist mode of production and the problem of markets: