At the origins of the Russian sonnet

Plekhanov Georgy Valentinovich (1856-1918), politician, philosopher, theorist of Marxism. Since 1875 populist, one of the leaders of "Land and Freedom", "Black Redistribution". Since 1880 in exile, founder of the Marxist group "Emancipation of Labor". One of the founders of the RSDLP, gas. "Spark". After the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP, one of the leaders of the Mensheviks. During the revolution of 1905-07 he opposed the armed struggle against tsarism. In World War I, a defender, one of the leaders of the Unity group. In 1917 he returned to Russia, supported the Provisional Government. He reacted negatively to the October Revolution (he believed that in terms of the degree of socio-economic development, Russia was not ready for a socialist revolution). Fundamental works on philosophy, sociology, aesthetics, ethics, history of Russian social thought.

Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov was one of the founders of the Social Democratic movement in Russia and the RSDLP.

Georgy Plekhanov was born on November 29 (December 11), 1856, into a small local family of a hereditary nobleman, retired staff captain Valentin Petrovich Plekhanov and Maria Feodorovna, the grand-niece of the famous critic Belinsky. It happened in the village of Gudalovka, Lipetsk district, Voronezh province. Valentin Petrovich was married to Maria Feodorovna for the second time, and therefore Georgy had many brothers and sisters. From the first marriage, Valentin Petrovich had five sons and three daughters, from the second - four sons and three daughters. George was the firstborn of Maria Feodorovna. The brothers died very early, and Georgy Plekhanov's relationship with the sisters was difficult. And he was only friends with his younger sister Claudia.

Like many old residents of the Voronezh province, Tatar blood also flowed in the veins of Georgy Plekhanov.

The formation of the character of Georgy Plekhanov was greatly influenced by his mother, Maria Fedorovna, an educated, well-mannered and kind woman. She did a lot with her beloved firstborn home lessons in Russian and French, music.

Georgy Plekhanov studied rather mediocrely at the Voronezh military gymnasium, where he was already noticed reading illegal literature.

In August 1873 Plekhanov entered the Constantine Artillery School. But he realized in time for himself that military service was not for him. Plekhanov resolutely and irrevocably left the school after 4 months of training and returned to his mother in Gudalovka.

The next year he entered the St. Petersburg Mining Institute, where, in addition to his studies, he studied philosophy and was interested in political literature.

From the end of 1875 he began to take part in the underground populist movement. It was at this time that he met his future long-term associates - Pavel Axelrod and Lev Deutsch.

Georgy Plekhanov from 1876, on behalf of the populists, taught classes in workers' circles, for which he was arrested for the first time. He was so seriously carried away by populism that he pushed his studies at the institute to the background. In 1876, Plekhanov, together with a group of like-minded people, took part in the re-establishment of the illegal organization "Land and Freedom" in St. Petersburg. Georgy Plekhanov and his associates set as their goal the settlement among the people, educational propaganda among the peasants, workers and intelligentsia, the peasant revolution, and the nationalization of the land. The created organization published an underground newspaper "Land and Freedom".

In December 1876, Plekhanov made a speech at a rally in St. Petersburg in front of workers and students in memory of Chernyshevsky. The police tried to arrest him. But Plekhanov was surrounded by workers, and he disappeared. From that time on, he had to go into an illegal position, and at the beginning of 1877 he went abroad. He had already been expelled from the Mining Institute from his second year for not attending lectures.

In the summer of 1877, Plekhanov returned illegally to Russia and became a professional revolutionary.

In October 1876, the noble and ardent Plekhanov unsuccessfully married Natalia Smirnova. She was a friend of one of the revolutionaries who was under arrest at that time. After the release of her former lover from prison, Smirnova left Plekhanova. Nevertheless, she bore the name of Plekhanov until the end of her life and agreed to divorce him only thirty years after the wedding.

After a short time, Georgy Plekhanov met "his" woman - Rosalia Markovna Bograd, with whom he lived his whole life confidently and happily in family life.

In the period from 1877 to 1879. many of Plekhanov's comrades in "Land and Freedom" have gone over to the positions of terrorism. Georgy Plekhanov at that time was engaged in self-education in search of answers to his questions. He did not share the new extremist, or rather the old populist views of his comrades. He became more and more interested in the more fashionable Marxism.

In 1879, ideological differences led to the split of "Land and Freedom" into two organizations: "Narodnaya Volya" and "Black Redistribution". Georgy Plekhanov, along with Vera Zasulich, Axelrod and other populists, became part of the Black Redistribution. This organization opposed terror as a method of political struggle. Plekhanov and his associates advocated the gradual education of the workers.

In Russia, after another attempt on the life of Tsar Alexander III, police activity increased. Mass arrests were made. In 1880, by the decision of his comrades, in order to avoid arrest, Plekhanov went abroad to Switzerland, to Geneva. Here he published the second issue of the Black Redistribution magazine.

Plekhanov gradually passed from Narodism and Bakunism to the position of Marxism. However, he carefully measured every position of Marx's works in relation to Russia, letting it pass through himself. He had his own views on many issues. By this time Plekhanov had already discovered in himself the outstanding talents of a scientist-philosopher, thinker and politician. He treated any idea, any conclusion creatively and sensibly.

In 1882 Plekhanov translated into Russian and published the "Manifesto of the Communist Party". In 1883, instead of "Black Redistribution", Plekhanov founded the Emancipation of Labor group, which included, besides him, Vera Zasulich, Axelrod, Deutsch, Ignatov. The group was mainly engaged in educational work: translation and publication of the works of Marx and Engels for Russia. Plekhanov regularly published his own works, making him the leading Social Democrat in Russia.

In 1883, he published the pamphlet Socialism and the Political Struggle, where he considered perhaps the most controversial issue of Marxism - the problem of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Plekhanov, however, talked in his work about the dictatorship of the enlightened working class, about the democratic dictatorship, and not about the dictatorship of revolutionaries proposed and implemented by Lenin. Plekhanov specially emphasized in his work that the dictatorship of the proletariat has nothing to do with the dictatorship of the revolutionaries.

In his subsequent works, Georgy Plekhanov considered the prospects for the development of Russia. He warned the Narodnaya Volya and other ultra-revolutionaries against violent actions (coups, uprisings, revolutions, riots) to accelerate the revolutionary process. In essence, Georgy Plekhanov advocated the evolutionary development of Russia, accelerated by educational work.

The first meeting of Georgy Plekhanov with the young Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin took place in Geneva in 1895, where Lenin came from Russia especially for this meeting. In the very first long conversations, some fundamental ideological differences between Plekhanov and Lenin were outlined. Young Ulyanov-Lenin believed that the leading revolutionary force in society was the working class and only it. Plekhanov believed that society in Russia can be improved only by its most educated part, its elite - the liberal bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. The time of the working class, due to its lack of enlightenment and low culture, has not yet come and will not come for a long time.

Plekhanov has not yet attached much importance to Lenin's overwhelming conviction of his righteousness. The young Marxist at this time was only 25 years old. But he has already confidently pushed to the forefront Karl Marx's vague assertion about the progressiveness of the working class in front of all other strata of the population. This ultimately led Lenin to put forward his own idea - the idea of ​​the dictatorship of the proletariat through the dictatorship of the party.

In 1900, five years later, Plekhanov met again in Geneva with Lenin, who had arrived after his exile to discuss the publication of a joint Social Democratic newspaper and magazine. After rather difficult negotiations, it turned out that there were several people in the Social Democratic movement who claimed the leadership role. And among them were Lenin and Plekhanov. With difficulty Plekhanov, Lenin, Axelrod, Martov, Zasulich and Potresov agreed to publish a joint newspaper.

The first issue of the new newspaper Iskra was published in January 1891. It was published in Munich, where Lenin and Krupskaya settled, who took the editorial and publishing activities mainly into their own hands.

Ideological differences between Georgy Plekhanov and Lenin intensified. The educated and intelligent Plekhanov was irritated by the over-the-top self-confidence of young Lenin. Plekhanov was repelled by Lenin's irrepressible intransigence and intemperance in disputes, his rude arrogance in assessing people, his unshakable confidence in his righteousness.

Plekhanov, Axelrod, Zasulich, as co-editors, opposed the harsh and derogatory tone of Lenin's articles. The future leader of the Bolsheviks fiercely opposed all his ideological opponents: liberals and liberalism in general, Socialist-Revolutionaries, right-wing Social Democrats, other ideological trends and their representatives. Lenin did not accept the comradely criticism of his comrades-in-arms. He refused to change the offensive tone of his articles in relation to ideological opponents. From the very beginning of his political activity, the future leader of the Bolsheviks set himself only one goal: the armed seizure of power in Russia and the construction of only such a society as he himself imagined it to be. Fanatically believing in himself, he did not need anyone's advice or instruction.

You’ll go so far, young man, ”was only what Plekhanov, wise by experience, once said to Lenin with a bitter smile in response to yet another unceremonious Leninist pressure on him.

At the Second Congress of the RSDLP in 1903, a struggle broke out on several points of the party's charter and program between Yuli Martov and his supporters and Lenin. Plekhanov was elected chairman of the congress, Lenin and P.A. Krasikov as deputy chairmen. The main rejection of the future Mensheviks, and of Plekhanov too, was aroused by the clause of the party program on the dictatorship of the proletariat proposed by Lenin. Martov, Axelrod, Zasulich opposed this position. They considered it fundamentally wrong. Martov and his supporters also advocated a more liberal admission of new members to the party than Lenin had proposed. The latter sought to turn the party into a kind of closed "order of the sword-bearers". Lenin strove to create a militant, cohesive and disciplined revolutionary party. It was precisely such a party of Bolsheviks that Lenin created in the end. Plekhanov, as the patriarch of the social democratic movement, as chairman of the congress, adhered to the centrist line in order to avoid a split. However, this was not done. Lenin's supporters, who received the majority of seats in the governing bodies, began to be called Bolsheviks from that time. And Martov's supporters were Mensheviks.

Plekhanov at the Second Congress basically supported Lenin. He was elected chairman of the Party Council, its governing body, which included five people.

After the congress, Plekhanov, discovering Lenin's overwhelming intolerance towards the Mensheviks, his dictatorial habits, demanded the return of the former members of the editorial board to Iskra. In response, the unyielding Lenin resigned from the editorial board.

By 1905, the complete ideological incompatibility of Plekhanov with Lenin had already been determined. Therefore, it is not surprising that Plekhanov appreciated the revolution of 1905-07. as a tragic adventure of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. So it actually was. The revolution ended with the defeat of the rebels, executions, prisons, hard labor, exile, and the curtailment of liberal reforms in the country. Cruelty and robbery gave rise only to reciprocal cruelty and repression. Unfortunately, this revolution, these riots did not teach Emperor Nicholas II anything. And he led Russia with his uncertain and weak hand straight to the civil war.

During the First World War, Georgy Plekhanov took a patriotic position. He called for the defense of the fatherland, for victory over Germany and her allies. Lenin and the Bolsheviks called for the defeat of Russia in the war, for which the public dubbed them German spies and traitors.

The February Revolution came to an end, and Georgy Plekhanov returned on March 31, 1917 after a long emigration to Russia. The Motherland greeted the patriarch of the Russian social democratic movement rather coolly. By this time Plekhanov was already almost alone. He did not create and did not create a party for himself. He had no one to organize a crowded and enthusiastic meeting. Georgy Plekhanov called Lenin's "April Theses" nonsense. He published an article "On Lenin's theses and why delirium is sometimes interesting." In this article, Georgy Plekhanov sharply opposed the plans for an armed seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.

During the turbulent year of 1917, Plekhanov continued to take the tough patriotic position of "war to victory." Many of his long-term associates in the social democratic movement, such as the Menshevik Yuli Martov, did not share his firm and clear position. They advocated an illusory, unrealistic solution to the problem of war and peace. The Menshevik internationalists, including Martov, suggested that the socialists of all countries unite and seek an end to the war by all countries at the same time. The idea was, perhaps, a good one, but not implemented in practice.

In June - July 1917 in Petrograd the threat of the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries rapidly grew. The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, purposefully and professionally conducted preparations for an armed coup.

To Plekhanov, as a patriot, a great thinker and philosopher, the oldest social democrat, socialists, representatives of right-wing parties, military men and simply patriots often visited. He was visited by the Chairman of the State Duma Rodzianko, Admiral Kolchak and even the Black Hundreds Purishkevich, who killed Grigory Rasputin. They all probed the ground for the possibility of appointing the moderate and pragmatic Georgy Plekhanov as chairman of the Provisional Government. And the energetic and decisive former SR-militant, and now the Minister of War Boris Savinkov in October directly made this proposal to Plekhanov. But Plekhanov refused, saying: "I gave forty years to the proletariat and will not shoot him even when he is on the wrong path."

After the October Revolution, Georgy Plekhanov, together with Zasulich and Deutsch, wrote an Open Letter to the Petrograd Workers. They prophetically predicted civil war, devastation, innumerable troubles that soon fell on the country and its citizens.

The very next day after the publication of this letter, armed sailors came to the apartment where Plekhanov and his wife Rozalia Markovna were staying. They searched and threatened to be shot. The purpose of this insolent, frightening action by the Bolsheviks, authorized by Lenin, was obvious: to intimidate and suppress the oldest Social Democrat in Russia. Make him leave his homeland again. Vladimir Lenin taught an object lesson to one of his most capable students, Joseph Stalin, how to ruthlessly deal with your ideological opponents.

Plekhanov was forced to go underground, then he left for Finland. Once again in a foreign land, Georgy Plekhanov fell seriously ill. He was shocked by what had happened. Soon he was gone.

Georgy Plekhanov prophetically foresaw the outcome of the historical adventure of Ulyanov-Lenin. The liberals, whom Lenin so mocked in his works, all over the world managed to build democratic societies with developed systems of social protection for their citizens. The Social Democrats, whom Lenin hated and persecuted, managed to create state systems that were close in implementation to the best designs of the classics of socialism. Lenin, with the help of his pseudoscientific ideas and "teachings" about the dictatorship of the proletariat and the development of the bourgeois revolution into a proletarian revolution, forcibly turned

Georgy Plekhanov

This December marks the 160th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Russian thinker and public figure Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov. The emergence of Russian social democracy is associated with his name. Plekhanov went down in history as an outstanding political figure, a prominent theoretician of Marxism, philosopher, historian, and publicist. Plekhanov was one of the founders of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. He enjoyed great prestige in the RSDLP, for many years exerted a significant influence on the development of the party.

From populism to Marxism

He was born in 1856 into a noble family (father is a retired staff captain) in the village of Gudalovka, Tambov province. He enters a military gymnasium in Lipetsk, then goes to St. Petersburg to study at an artillery school, then goes to the Mining Institute and plunges into the social and spiritual life of the capital of the empire, gets acquainted with the difficult life of the workers, but spends most of his time in underground activities among the members of the populist movement ...

He began his social and political activities under the influence of the ideas of revolutionary democrats such as Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov.

In 1876, during the first political demonstration of workers and students in Russia at the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, he made an anti-monarchist speech in defense of Nikolai Chernyshevsky, who was exiled to Siberia, after which he went into an illegal position.

GV Plekhanov took part in “going to the people”, gained fame as a theorist, publicist and one of the leaders of the populist organization “Land and Freedom”. In 1879, after the split of the organization, he opposed the tactics of conspiracies and terrorist methods of struggle, leading the propaganda "Black redistribution". However, under the influence of the ideas of European Social Democracy, which then stood on Marxist positions, he revised his populist views. As you know, the Russian populists saw in the peasant community that existed in Russia the basis for the future socialist society in Russia. Narodism theorists believed that Russia could, thanks to the community and the absence of private ownership of peasants to land, go over to socialism, bypassing the capitalist stage of development.

After several years of revolutionary underground and police persecution through illegal channels, he leaves Russia and in January 1880 finds himself in the Swiss city of Geneva. In this city, Plekhanov had a conflict with a group of Ukrainian political emigrants led by M. Dragomanov, who adhered to national isolationist views. Speaking about the significance for Plekhanov of his polemic speeches against Drahomanov, Plekhanov's associate in the Emancipation of Labor group Lev Deutsch wrote: "Approximately from that time and partly under the influence of clashes with Drahomanov, Plekhanov began to turn from Bakunism, anarchism and federalism to statehood and centralism." ... Deutsch noted that this departure was the result of a deeper study of the work of Marx and Engels, as well as an acquaintance with the European labor movement.

In Russian social thought, he was the first to give a critical analysis of populist ideology from the standpoint of Marxism (Socialism and Political Struggle, 1883; Our Differences, 1885). At the same time, the paradox of the situation was that the views of Marx himself in relation to the Russian populists were not so unambiguous.

In a letter to Plekhanov's comrade-in-arms, Vera Zasulich, Karl Marx assessed the prospects of the Russian rural community much more optimistically than his follower Plekhanov.

In 1883, in Geneva, together with like-minded people, he founded the Emancipation of Labor group, which distributed the works of Marx and Engels in Russia. Over the 20 years of the existence of the Emancipation of Labor group, GV Plekhanov wrote and published hundreds of works that contributed to the widespread dissemination of socialist ideas in Russia. A whole generation of Russian Social Democrats was educated on the theoretical works of Plekhanov. Plekhanov met and was well acquainted with Friedrich Engels, who highly appreciated his early Marxist works.

Party creation

Since the beginning of the 90s. he is one of the leaders of the 2nd International, an active participant in its congresses. In late 1894 - early 1895, on the initiative of Plekhanov, the Union of Russian Social Democrats Abroad was created. In 1900-1903, along with V. Lenin, he participated in the creation and management of the Iskra newspaper. In 1901 Plekhanov was one of the organizers of the Foreign League of Russian Social Democracy. He took a direct part in the preparation and work of the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP (1903), the development of the draft party program. For several years he represented the RSDLP at the International Socialist Bureau of the 2nd International. Plekhanov was very critical of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (Socialist Revolutionaries), which acted as the ideological heir to the traditions of revolutionary populism, ironically calling it the party of reactionary socialists in the German Social Democratic press.

Georgy Plekhanov was an adherent of revolutionary rather than reformist methods of political struggle.

At the same time, he warned against ill-considered, hasty actions during the 1905 revolution, assessing the December armed uprising in Moscow as premature, said that "there was no need to take up arms." Plekhanov actively advocated cooperation between socialists and liberals (cadets) in the struggle for democracy in Russia. The importance of Plekhanov as a public and political figure lies primarily in the fact that he substantiated the strategy of the Russian Social Democrats in the struggle against the tsarist autocracy (the conquest of democratic freedoms that allow the working class and all working people to fight for their social rights). Plekhanov was an ardent supporter of the unity of the party, he considered the split into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks to be its tragedy.

On the positions of defencism

When the first one began World War Plekhanov, in contrast to the Bolsheviks who advocated the defeat of tsarism, and from the Menshevik internationalists, believed that the Russian workers, together with the entire people, should stand up to defend their fatherland from the aggression of German militarism. He opposed the antiwar internationally revolutionary Manifesto of European Socialists, adopted at a conference in Zimmerwald (Switzerland) in 1915, which was signed by representatives of the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. Plekhanov's discrepancies with most Russian socialist parties were associated with a different understanding of the causes of the First World War.

Plekhanov, unlike many of his comrades-in-arms who assessed it as imperialist and reactionary on both sides, considered the German and Austro-Hungarian monarchies to be the culprit for unleashing the war.

At the same time, he was not completely alone among the socialists. The ideologist of the anarchists, Prince Pyotr Kropotkin, and the prominent Socialist-Revolutionary, writer, former participant in terrorist acts, Boris Savinkov, acted as "defencists". In his assessment of the First World War, as they said at the time, his social-patriotic position approached the views of the Cadets - supporters of war to a victorious end in alliance with the Entente countries (France and Great Britain). GV Plekhanov greeted the February Revolution with satisfaction and after its victory, despite his grave health condition (he suffered from tuberculosis), he hastened to return home from forced emigration. Speaking at the Tauride Palace, Plekhanov explained his views as follows:

“They call me a social patriot,” he said. - What does a social patriot mean? A person who has well-known socialist views and at the same time loves his country. No, comrades, this feeling of love for long-suffering Russia you will not rip out of my heart! "

Plekhanov and the October Revolution

Plekhanov headed the Unity Social Democratic group, which did not join either the Mensheviks or the Bolsheviks. Despite the requests of many politicians, including Prince Lvov and Kerensky, he refused to join the Provisional Government. In August 1917, he spoke at the State Conference (Pre-Parliament) with a call for cooperation between socialists and bourgeois democrats in the context of the ongoing world war.

As you know, Plekhanov viewed the 1917 revolution in Russia as a bourgeois one. He warned against the premature seizure of power by the working class, referring at the same time to the opinion of Friedrich Engels, called Lenin's famous "April Theses" nonsense.

Plekhanov considered it absurd to call the workers and peasants to overthrow capitalism if he had not reached the highest stage in the given country, at which he became an obstacle to the development of the productive forces. However, the question arises of how to define this higher stage, because Plekhanov himself believed that in the most developed countries of Europe the material prerequisites for a social revolution had already matured at the beginning of the 20th century. He perceived the October Revolution as "a violation of all historical laws," nevertheless, he considered it impossible for himself to fight against the working class, even if it was mistaken.

On October 28, 1917, he published an Open Letter to the Petrograd Workers in the newspaper Unity, in which he wrote that “the socialist revolution in Russia is premature, and our working class is still far from being able to take hands full of political power. " However, when B. Savinkov offered to take part in the anti-Bolshevik struggle, he replied: "I gave forty years of my life to the proletariat, and I will not shoot him even when he is on the wrong path." According to the memoirs of his wife Rozalia Plekhanova, being already seriously ill, he expressed critical considerations about the Soviet regime. He viewed the policy of the Bolsheviks as a departure from Marxism, accusing them of Blanquism, populism, and dictatorial methods of government.

Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov died on May 30, 1918. Buried at the Volkovo cemetery in Petrograd. People of various political persuasions came to see him on his last journey.

Plekhanov's legacy

Plekhanov made a major contribution to the development of Marxist philosophy. His three-volume work "History of Russian Social Thought" - generalizing treatise... In it, Plekhanov, in particular, showed the connection between the emergence of Russian social democracy and its historical predecessors, the revolutionary democrats. Studying his political and theoretical heritage allows us to better understand the complex political and socio-economic processes taking place in our time.

Georgy Plekhanov, relying on the fundamental provisions of Marxist theory, saw the future of European countries in the transition to a socialist social system as its material and cultural prerequisites matured.

He remained a consistent adherent of the formational approach to socialism and in this regard sharply criticized the revisionist views of the German Social Democrat Eduard Bernstein, who revised many of the provisions of Marxism, advocated the gradual reform of capitalism and put forward the thesis "the ultimate goal is nothing - movement is everything."

Georgy Plekhanov considered himself an orthodox follower of Marxist theory, his works were recognized in the USSR and were published many times. Plekhanov, in spite of fundamental differences and harsh criticism of Bolshevism, was highly regarded by Lenin. Plekhanov's name was mentioned in Stalin's historical report at a ceremonial meeting of the Moscow Soviet of Working People's Deputies, dedicated to the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution in Moscow on November 6, 1941, among the most prominent figures of the Russian nation.

Dec 16, 2016 Boris Romanov

The final thoughts of G.V. Plekhanov

Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov, who gave almost his entire adult life to the revolutionary movement in Russia and Europe, being not only a witness, a participant, but, in the opinion of many, the direct culprit of the greatest dramatic events in his homeland, I cannot leave this life without expressing my attitude to them ... After the Bolsheviks dispersed the Constituent Assembly, bitter reproaches poured in me from all sides. Not considering it necessary to justify myself, I must nevertheless note that my fault is not as great as Mr. Chernov and his associates believe. Just as Prometheus cannot be blamed for the misuse of fire, so I should not be blamed for Lenin's clever use of my ideas to support his false conclusions and harmful actions.

Starting to present my last thoughts, I consider it necessary to preface them with two remarks.

First. In my works, as a rule, I used the pronoun "we", because I always wrote on behalf of my comrades. In the same document, everything should be written in the first person, because the responsibility to History for my "seditious" thoughts should lie only with me, no one else. Second. I refused to fight the Bolsheviks - the reasons for refusal will be stated below - and, therefore, my Testament should not be published while they are in power.

1. A FEW WORDS ABOUT YOURSELF

A person's WAY, his activity and his actions are determined by the goals set, and are colored by acquired and innate qualities. There is no point in dwelling on my acquired qualities - they are clear from my work, but I need to say a few words about my character. My character is complex and contradictory, which is why my relatives and my friends often suffered. From my mother I got a developed sense of justice, intelligence, love of nature, modesty and shyness. The latter, however, I quickly overcame, while still a first-year student at the Voronezh military gymnasium - thanks to Nikolai. From the father - firmness and willpower, efficiency, a sense of honor, duty and responsibility, decisiveness and straightforwardness.

It is precisely because of the complexity of my character that I have often been harsh in polemics. Recognizing this, I still have to repeat that I always treated the enemy with respect, did not go beyond the literary framework of decency, did not stoop, like Lenin, to the vulgar abuse of Italian peasant women and ridiculed not the person, but his point of view. Therefore, I am sure that those whom I have "offended" will show condescension to me.

I have devoted more than 40 years of my life to the revolutionary cause, going from a populist, carried away by the ideas of Bakunin, to a firm Marxist dialectician. At one time it was widely believed that I left the Narodniks for the sole reason that terror as a method of political struggle was unacceptable to me. This is wrong. I admitted the possibility of terror - as an exceptional measure, if it serves as a social detonator. Fortunately, none of our opponents was killed with my participation or with my consent, and this could have happened - for three years I did not part with a revolver and brass knuckles. I "betrayed" the populists for another reason: the ideology of populism, built on the foundation of the Bakunin rebellion, quickly disappointed me.

Nechaevism — an ugly form of Bakunism — was disgusting to me. Blanquism, towards which the Narodniks were gradually inclined, did not satisfy me either. All this, along with other circumstances, forced me to emigrate at the beginning of 1880. It scarcely needs proof that I departed from the Narodniks, but did not betray them, like my ardent opponent - a "revolutionary" who has ceased to be a revolutionary, a Bakunist with Tkachev's outlook, grief - L. Tikhomirov. But the departure from Narodism was not easy for me either. Almost three years have passed in heavy meditation, painful experiences, in search of a compromise, heated disputes with friends in the "Black Redistribution" and émigrés-Narodnaya Volya, in negotiations and correspondence with Lavrov. In the past, a close friend of Chernyshevsky, Lavrov was at that time an extremely popular person, whose authority was supported by active revolutionary work, famous publications, active participation in the Paris Commune and the First International, close acquaintance with K. Marx and F. Engels. All this, along with the nuances of personal relationships, forced me to listen to his opinion and delayed the formation of my Marxist views.

At first, like Belinsky and Chernyshevsky in their time, I tried to find the ultimate truth. Fortunately, I quickly realized: it does not exist and cannot be. It is true that which serves the revolutionary cause at the moment and is for the good of the people. I finally switched to the position of Marx only in the middle of 1883, when the idea of ​​my first truly Marxist work, Socialism and the Political Struggle, began to take on real shape. Thus, my experience as a revolutionary Marxist has long exceeded my fourth decade. I owe my Marxist formation first of all to the works of Marx and Engels, but Jules Guade, whom I met, if my memory correctly tells me, at the end of 1880 and with whom I was later associated with unity of views and friendly relationship.

In the future, an insufficiently thoughtful biographer, analyzing the Marxist period of my activity, will perhaps distinguish three stages in it. At the first stage (1880-1882), Plekhanov was a "doubting" Marxist when he tried to comprehend to what extent Marx's teaching could be applied to Russian conditions. At the second stage (1883-1905) Plekhanov was an "orthodox" Marxist who consistently, but not always successfully (this is true!) Fought against critics of Marx. At the third stage, starting in 1906, after I condemned the Moscow armed uprising, Plekhanov gradually slipped into the ranks of the "disenchanted" and more and more withdrew from the active revolutionary struggle. The Bolsheviks speak of the last stage even more definitely - "betrayed the proletariat and went over to the camp of the bourgeoisie." I put all three definitions in quotation marks, because they are far from the truth. With regard to the first stage, everything is clear: there can be no doubt that it has not been sufficiently studied and understood.

I will say one thing about the second and third stages: they are wrong. I have never been an orthodox Marxist, much less disappointed. Remaining a consistent Marxist-dialectician, at each specific time I supported that faction of the Social Democracy that was closer to the ideas of Marx and shared the point of view of the Emancipation of Labor group. Of course, my attitude to Marx's theory gradually changed - what is there surprising if even the authors of this theory themselves sometimes changed their point of view with changing conditions. But neither the evolution of my views, nor my disagreement with Marx and Engels in assessing the role of terror in the revolutionary movement in Russia in the early 1980s prevents me from asserting: I was and remain a faithful follower of my teachers.

In my life, like every person, I have made many mistakes. But my main, unforgivable mistake is Lenin. I underestimated his abilities, did not consider his true goals and fanatical determination, condescending and ironic about his maximalism. I introduced Lenin to the circle of well-known and influential European Social Democrats, took care of him, provided all-round assistance and thereby allowed him to stand firmly on his feet. Moreover, in 1903, at the congress of the RSDLP, in the dispute between Lenin and Martov, I supported Lenin, which ultimately led to the birth of Bolshevism. Then it seemed to me that I could gradually soften Lenin's position, influence Martov in the right direction and thus preserve the unity of the party. But very soon I realized that unity is impossible, because everything that was not according to Lenin had no right to exist.

Lenin was for unity, but under his leadership, with his goals, with his tactics, with his slogans. Once it appeared, Bolshevism quickly began to gain strength, partly because of the attractiveness of its tactics and slogans for the underdeveloped Russian proletariat, and partly because of Lenin's extraordinary persistence and titanic efficiency. Unfortunately, it was already impossible to correct my mistake. That is why Mr. Chernov's assertion that the Bolsheviks are my children, and Viktor Adler's joke about my "paternity" in relation to Lenin, are not without foundation. My mistake has already cost and will cost Russia dearly. It turned out to be fatal for me as well.

There is no doubt that in the event of a long stay in power, the Bolsheviks will do everything to denigrate and consign my name to oblivion. Fortunately, this will not happen. I am clearly aware of my place in Russian history. I am not Prometheus, not Spinoza, not Kant, not Hegel or Marx. I did not give people fire, I did not create a new philosophy, a new social doctrine. But in the matter of enlightening the Russian proletariat, in the development of Russian social thought, I nevertheless did something, and therefore I dare to think that both History and descendants will judge me favorably.

II. ABOUT MARXISM AND CAPITALISM

MARXISM, as a harmonious doctrine organically combining dialectical materialism, political economy and scientific socialism, is the greatest achievement of human thought. The appearance of the "Manifesto" at the end of the first half of the 19th century is a natural phenomenon. Never before, since the emergence of capitalism in the historical arena, has the exploitation of the proletariat reached such a degree as at that time. The social thought of Europe was seething, revolutions one after another shook bourgeois society, but the movement of the proletariat remained spontaneous and unconscious. A man was needed who would put a formidable weapon in the hands of the proletariat - a new social doctrine that would raise the proletariat to an understanding of its historical role and give perspective. And history has put forward such a person. The Manifesto played a colossal role in the education and organization of the proletariat, in social progress.

The bourgeoisie, frightened by the iron logic of the Manifesto and the "ghost of communism," on the one hand, made significant concessions to the proletariat, and on the other, tried in every possible way to discredit the teachings of Marx. Therefore, there has never been a shortage of critics of Marxism. Especially they began to multiply since the end of the 90s. But the criticism of these gentlemen was not honest, let alone creative. At first they deliberately or through misunderstanding distorted Marx, and then mercifully "corrected". Criticism was conducted on all the constituent parts of Marx's teachings, but most often its edge was directed against the theory of social development and especially the Manifesto. And this is no coincidence. After all, after 50 years, the Manifesto has become vulnerable in many respects.

The analysis in the Manifesto, absolutely true for the era of the steam industry, began to lose its significance with the advent of electricity. The social development of society in the second half of the 19th century proceeded with some, albeit insignificant, deviations from the conclusions of the Manifesto, which, however, was noticeable even during the life of its authors and what was recognized by them. The main idea, which permeates the entire Manifesto, has remained true to this day. This thought is as follows. The level of material production determines the class structure of society, the way people think, their worldview, ideology, their mental activity, etc. The class struggle, the severity of which depends on the degree of contradictions between the productive forces and the relations of production, is the main engine of social progress.

With enviable unanimity, critics of Marx tried to refute the idea of ​​the dictatorship of the proletariat. But it is obvious that the proletariat, fighting the bourgeoisie and defending its interests, like any other class, has the right to dictatorship, especially if it becomes the most numerous. The dictatorship of the majority over the minority cannot be a dictatorship in the full sense of the word; moreover, it will only be required during the transition period to suppress the resistance of the bourgeoisie. No matter what the gentlemen critics of Marx say, no matter what arguments they put forward, nevertheless, it should be admitted that up to the present day society is developing mainly according to Marx. The number of the proletariat is growing - although not as quickly as Marx predicted, the relative impoverishment of the masses is increasing, if not absolute, then pauperization, criminality and other vices of capitalism are growing. The class struggle, if dulled, was only for a while.

Overproduction crises were clearly manifested. But don't the Paris Commune, the 1905 Revolution in Russia and the world war, which is still going on, do not confirm the correctness of Marx? No, gentlemen of the critics, it is too early to write off the social teaching of Marx! Of course, both Mr. Bernstein, and Mr. Struve, and other critics had rational seeds, but they were lost in the chaff of criticism. Their main task was not to develop Marxism, but to discredit it. This inflicted enormous harm on the revolutionary movement, as it called on the proletariat to come to terms with the bourgeoisie, to renounce the class struggle, split the European Social Democracy and ultimately led to a world war: the deluded German proletariat actively supported the economic and military aspirations of the German bourgeoisie and German militarism.

Now, as a Marxist-dialectician, I will allow myself to become for some time a "critic" of Marx and, without renouncing anything I wrote earlier, I will express, from the point of view of the Bolsheviks, an unforgivable "stupidity". I believe that being in the ranks of the Marxists for many years gives me the right to do so. Why I put the word "critic" in quotation marks will become clear from what follows. Over the past months, which clearly showed that my days are numbered, I changed my mind a lot and finally decided to formulate what has long worried me with its novelty and embarrassed by the lack of evidence. I think that the dictatorship of the proletariat in the understanding of Marx will never be realized - neither now nor in the future, and here is why.

With the introduction of new, highly productive complex machines based on electricity, and subsequent advances in science, the class structure of society will change not in favor of the proletariat, and the proletariat itself will become different. The number of the proletariat, the very one that has nothing to lose, will begin to decline, and the intelligentsia will come out on top in terms of numbers and role in the production process. Nobody has indicated this possibility yet, although objective statistics show that since the beginning of the 20th century the ranks of the intelligentsia have been growing in relative terms faster than the ranks of the workers.

Until now, the intelligentsia has remained only a "servant" of the bourgeoisie, a specific stratum of society that has a special historical purpose. The intelligentsia, as the most educated stratum of society, is called upon to bring enlightenment, humane and progressive ideas to the masses. She is the honor, conscience and brain of the nation. I have no doubt that in the near future the intelligentsia will be transformed from a "servant" of the bourgeoisie into a special, extremely influential class, whose numbers will grow rapidly and whose role in the production process will be to improve the productive forces: the development of new machines, new technologies and the formation of a highly educated worker.

The growing role of the intelligentsia in the production process will inevitably lead to a softening of class contradictions. The intelligentsia is especially close to such historical, social and philosophical categories as morality, justice, humanity, culture, law, which contain two aspects: generalized and class. And if the latter, as a function of class contradictions, can undergo revolutionary leaps and form the dominant concepts, then the former is entirely determined by the level of material production and, therefore, develops progressively and evolutionarily. Being universal in character, this aspect, which is largely carried by the intelligentsia, will have a beneficial effect on all strata of society, mitigate class contradictions and play an ever-increasing role.

Thus, one of the main consequences of material progress is a decrease in the role of the class aspect of the mentioned categories and an increase in the generalized universal humanity. For example, in the future, the framework of humanity, which today is understood as a system of ideas about the value of a person, his good, his rights, will inevitably expand to the understanding of the need to respect all living things, to the surrounding nature, and this is the development and strengthening of the role of the common human aspect this category.

The powerful development of the productive forces and the growth in the number of the intelligentsia will fundamentally change the social situation. A worker, from whom a great deal of knowledge is required to operate a complex machine, will cease to be its appendage. The cost of labor power and, consequently, the wages of the worker will inevitably increase, because large funds are required to reproduce such a worker. The complexity of the machines will eliminate the use of child labor. By his education, by the level of culture, by his outlook, a worker will rise to the level of an intellectual. In such a situation, the dictatorship of the proletariat will become absurd. What's this? Departure from Marxism? No and no! I am sure that with such a turn of events, Marx himself, had it happened during his lifetime, would have immediately renounced the slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

As the productive forces change qualitatively, new classes and new relations of production will take shape, the class struggle will be waged in a new way, the ideas of humanism will deeply penetrate all strata of society. Society, even if it remains capitalist in essence, will learn to overcome crises. Humane ideas and powerful production neutralize the pauperization process. Recently, I sometimes even think that Marx's theory, born in the conditions of European civilization, is unlikely to become a universal system of views, since the socio-economic development of the world can follow a polycentric type.

In the context of the above, it is possible that some of the ideas of Mr. Tugan-Baranovsky will turn out to be not as erroneous as I thought. But I will reassure today's Marxists - this will not happen soon. The name of Marx, who made the class struggle conscious, will be inscribed on the banners of the revolutionaries for a long time to come. It is impossible to overestimate the historical merits of Marx. The fact that today's English worker, despite the war, lives better and has more political freedoms than the worker of the middle of the last century, is the merit of Marx! The fact that tomorrow's worker, without any doubt, will live much better and in a more democratic society than today is the merit of Marx! And even the fact that capitalism, and the capitalist himself, is changing for the better (only the Bolsheviks do not see this) is also a merit of Marx!

The modern capitalist has long understood that it is much more profitable to deal with a well-fed and contented worker than a hungry and angry worker. Partly for this reason, and partly for other reasons, I don't think capitalism will be buried quickly. My observations of the development of capitalism in Europe, made since the death of Marx and especially since the beginning of this century, show that capitalism is a flexible social formation that reacts to social struggle, changes, humanizes and moves towards the perception and adaptation of individual ideas of socialism. If so, then he will not need a gravedigger. In any case, he has an enviable future.

Predatory national, predatory international, liberal with elements of democracy, liberal-democratic, humane-democratic with a developed system of social protection - these are the possible stages in the evolution of capitalism. I do not see any need to try to anticipate the specific features of the last stage, at which the elements of capitalism and socialism can go side by side for a long time, competing in some way and complementing each other in some way. In the future, capitalism may die on its own, slowly and painlessly, but this will take at least a century, and perhaps more than one.

Does this mean that I am giving up revolutionary leaps? Not at all! They certainly will. Any qualitative change in industrial relations, even a minor one, is a small revolution. If it happens as I suppose, then what should be the slogan of the new revolutionaries? The dictatorship of the intelligentsia? The power of the workers is a slogan that will not lose its significance and will remain correct! Those who live by their own labor must decide what the political and legal superstructure should be. I repeated this slogan many times last year, understanding by it a coalition of all living forces that cherish the interests of the worker, be it a worker, a peasant or an intellectual.

III. ABOUT BOLSHEVIKS, THEIR TACTICS AND IDEOLOGY

BOLSHEVISM, as an extreme leftist trend in Russian social democracy, which originated in 1903 and became significantly stronger in the pre-war years, is currently the most influential political, ideological and organizational force. The objective reasons for the emergence and flourishing of Bolshevism in Russia were the underdevelopment of the Russian proletariat, the large number of declassed elements, the illiteracy and lack of culture of Russians. Subjective I mentioned earlier. But Bolshevism is not something fundamentally new.

The ideas of Bolshevism have long been in the minds of revolutionaries. The Jacobins, Blanqui, Bakunin and their supporters, many participants in the Paris Commune were practically Bolsheviks on tactical and ideological issues. Just as bloody revolutions are companions of underdeveloped capitalism, so the ideas of Bolshevism have always been and will be companions of an underdeveloped proletariat, poverty, lack of culture and low consciousness of the working people. Much has been written about the Bolsheviks, their tactics and ideology, including by me, so I will be brief. Bolshevism is a special tactic, a special ideology, oriented towards the lumpen-proletariat, these are slogans borrowed from Saint-Simon and the anarcho-syndicalists, this is Marxist phraseology.

The tactics of the Bolsheviks are those of Blanqui, complemented by unrestricted class terror. The ideology of Bolshevism is the ideology of Bakunin, "enriched" with the ideas of the anarcho-syndicalists, whose father was Domela Nyuvengais. It is oriented, as Bakunin put it, at the "wild, hungry proletariat", at the "unbridled unskilled rabble." Overestimation of the wisdom of the people, their initiative, their ability to self-organize, belief in the ability of the proletariat to independently establish production and exercise control - all these are the diseases of Bakunin and the anarcho-syndicalists. "Peace!", "Labor!", "Happiness!", "Equality!", "Brotherhood!" are the slogans of the utopians. "Let's turn the imperialist war into a civil war!" (the slogan adopted by the defeatist internationalists), "Factories, factories - to the workers!", "Peace to the peoples!", "The land - to the peasants!" are the slogans of the anarcho-syndicalists. "The dictatorship of the proletariat", "proletarian democracy", "the gradual withering away of the state" - these are the ideas of Marx.

Thus, Bolshevism is Blanquism, deeply involved in anarcho-syndicalism and placed under the banner of Marxism. It is an eclectic, dogmatic combination of ideas from Blanqui, Bakunin, anarcho-syndicalists, and Marx. This is pseudo-Marxism, because the founders of scientific socialism were principled, consistent opponents of Blanqui, Bakunin and other anarchists. The Blanquists and Bakuninists were expelled from the First International, the anarcho-syndicalists from the Second. So, the spiritual father of Lenin in the field of tactics is Blanqui, and in the field of ideology - Bakunin and Domela Nyuvengais. The ideas of the latter, adopted by the "defeatists," had a disastrous effect on Russia. Domela Nieuwengeis, Gustave Herve, Robert Grimm, Lenin - this is the genealogical chain of any defeatist internationalist, and in fact anarcho-syndicalist.

What is new in Bolshevism? Only one thing - unlimited, total class terror. But class terror, let alone unlimited, has long been rejected and condemned by European Social Democracy. Class terror as a method of implementing the dictatorship of the proletariat, to which the Bolsheviks are committed, is fraught with a tremendous danger, because under the current conditions in Russia it can easily turn into a total state. We have always argued - and not only we, but also our opponents - that socialism is a humane, socially just society, therefore it cannot be built on the basis of violence and terror. Just as good, done on the basis of evil, contains in itself the germ of even greater evil, so a society built on deception and violence will carry evil, hatred and, consequently, a charge of self-destruction.

There is no point in dwelling on the slogans of the utopians. The slogans "Peace to the peoples!", "Factories, factories to the workers", "The land to the peasants!" - attractive, but false in essence, and not at all Marxist. Instead of an inner peace, the Bolsheviks will plunge Russia into a cruel civil war, which is about to begin and in which rivers of blood will be shed, into endless class terror. The Bolsheviks need a bloody and merciless civil war, because only on this path will they be able to retain and strengthen their power. But the Bolsheviks will not provide external peace either. In the event of their victory, Bolshevik Russia will find itself in the ring of capitalist countries that are unlikely to give up their attempts to put an end to the Bolsheviks who are recklessly shouting about the inevitability of a world revolution. Under Lenin's socialism, workers from a hired capitalist will turn into hired feudal lords, and the peasants, from whom land will be taken away in one way or another and on whom the entire burden of the country's industrial development will inevitably fall, will become its serfs.

What was the result of Lenin's slogan "A world without annexations and indemnities!" well known - to the shameful Brest peace with huge annexations and indemnities. Lenin did everything to disintegrate and then dissolve the Russian army, and now, convincing of the need for the Brest Peace, exclaims bitterly: "Understand, we do not have an efficient army!" And if at least a bit of patriotism remains in Lenin, he must pray to God at night (or I don’t know who he wors to the devil) so that Germany is defeated - otherwise Russia will lose economic and, possibly, political independence, and the restored monarch will become a German puppet ... How the principle of European social democracy "the right of nations to self-determination" was realized in Bolshevik practice is also well known - the decree on the independence of Finland, which Lenin handed to the reactionary and executioner P. Svinhufvud, without even asking what Finnish workers and peasants thought about it. Why? Because Lenin needed it for tactical reasons. Everything is sacrificed on the altar of tactics for the sake of achieving momentary goals: conscience, universal human morality, the interests of the Motherland.

In recent years, the number of the Bolshevik Party has been growing rapidly. This, however, does not mean the growth of its conscious part, because the overwhelming majority of those who entered are not even familiar with the foundations of scientific socialism. Some who believed in the ideas of Lenin and the promises of the Bolsheviks will become blind executors of the will of their leaders, others who have entered in order to snatch a bigger piece from the “revolutionary pie” in time will only be able to vote “for” and in the future will turn into party bureaucrats who will turn out to be more terrible tsarist officials, because an official of the ruling party will interfere in everything, and will be responsible for what he has done only to the "party comrades."

The actions of the Bolsheviks eloquently prove that grief from wits is not their grief. Their grief is grief from ignorance, from blind faith in Lenin, in his "brilliant theoretical discoveries", which he decrees, not considering it necessary to back up even the most elementary proofs. Not having the slightest idea of ​​scientific socialism, they commit one crime after another, not even suspecting that revolutionary violence is lawlessness.

For example, the expropriation they carry out is a blatant act of lawlessness and vandalism, uncontrolled robbery (the example of private banks). Such expropriation will inevitably lead to complete economic chaos and form a large stratum of people who, instead of working, will "tear their throats" and, relying on a rifle and revolutionary slogans, will come to the point where they will start taking the last chicken from the peasant.

With a coup d'etat and proclaiming it a socialist revolution, Lenin directs Russian history along a false, dead-end path. As a result, Russia will lag behind in its development for many years, and possibly even decades. There is neither the strength nor the time to prove this strictly. However, given the importance of the statement and the extremely low literacy of Russians, especially in matters of scientific socialism, I must nevertheless express several logical premises. I have repeatedly warned the Bolsheviks and those who are carried away by their phrases and false slogans against haste and adventurism in revolutionary actions.

I affirmed and affirm: Russia is not ready for a socialist revolution neither in terms of the level of development of productive forces, nor in terms of the size of the proletariat, nor in terms of the level of culture and self-awareness of the masses, and therefore the social experiment conceived by Lenin is doomed to failure. "Yes, but is it not possible," a Lenin supporter or "half-Leninist" will ask me, "to eliminate illiteracy, raise the culture and self-awareness of the working people, quickly increase the number of workers and develop productive forces under the rule of the proletariat?" The answer is: No, you can't!

First, it is impossible to violate the objective laws of social development, since this will not remain unpunished.

Secondly, the culture and self-awareness of the masses is a social factor that depends entirely on the degree of development of the productive forces, although, of course, there is also a feedback.

Third, by declaring socialist production relations, Lenin left the productive forces far behind and thereby created a revolutionary situation on the contrary. There are no antagonistic contradictions in society only if the existing relations of production correspond to the level of development of the productive forces. A discrepancy of this kind will give rise to new, hitherto unknown contradictions, no less, but most likely more dramatic than under modern capitalism.

Fourth, power at this stage of Russian history cannot and will not belong to the proletariat. In October 1917, Lenin was actively supported by no more than 1% of Russians, therefore, everyone who is even familiar with Blanqui's tactics will agree that the October revolution is a Blanquist coup, which, according to Engels, presupposes the inevitable dictatorship of its organizers, and any dictatorship is incompatible with political and civil liberties. I do not want to be things Kassandra, but I still assert that the evolution of the Bolsheviks' power will be as follows: the Leninist dictatorship of the proletariat will quickly turn into the dictatorship of one party, the dictatorship of the party - into the dictatorship of its leader, whose power will be supported first by class and then by total state terror. The Bolsheviks will not be able to give the people either democracy or freedom, because, having done this, they will immediately lose power.

Lenin understands this well. And if so, then the Bolsheviks have no other way but the way of terror, deception, intimidation and coercion. But is it possible to quickly develop productive forces and build a just society through terror, deception, intimidation and coercion? Of course not! This will become possible only in a democracy, on the basis of free, conscious, motivated labor. But what kind of democracy can we talk about if in less than half a year the Bolsheviks closed more newspapers and magazines than the tsarist authorities in the entire Romanov era. What kind of freedom and interest in labor can we talk about if the "grain monopoly" is adopted and the question of labor conscription and labor armies is raised?

Striving for radical changes, irresponsibly accelerating events, the Bolsheviks are rapidly leaving to the left, but walking in a closed political circle, they will inevitably find themselves on the right side and turn into a negative, reactionary force. People rarely assess their actions in the fullness of the possible consequences. By his activities, Lenin had already inflicted enormous harm on Russia and, I am afraid, the volume of this harm will become critical at some stage of the Bolshevik rule. If Lenin and his followers assert their power for a long time, then the future of Russia is sad - the fate of the Inca Empire awaits it, the "People's Commissars" who imagine themselves as "severe destroyers of Carthage" will not destroy old world, and their Motherland, the "Morison pills" promised by them, will turn out to be a poisonous potion, and their "creative approach" to socialism - its discrediting. Lenin's assertion about the possibility of the victory of the socialist revolution in one separately taken backward country, such as Russia, is not a creative approach to Marxism, but a departure from it. Lenin did not come to this conclusion by chance: he needed it to inspire the Bolsheviks.

Lenin's calculation that the revolution in Russia will be taken up by the Western proletariat is wrong. Nothing serious can happen in Europe, since the proletariat of the West today is almost as far from the socialist revolution as it was in the days of Marx.

The path of the Bolsheviks, no matter how short or long, will inevitably be brightly colored by falsification of history, crimes, lies, demagoguery and dishonorable deeds. Already in brief history their power, an inquisitive person can highlight a considerable number of dubious points that are suggestive. For example, for what purpose, at one of the most critical moments, when the Bolshevik power was in the balance, did Lenin's Swiss friends, F. Platen and Co., come to St. Petersburg? Why did Lenin need the urgent "nationalization" of private banks? Really then, in order, shortly before the Constituent Assembly, to quarrel with the only allies - the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries? Why, with amazing haste, did Lenin grant independence to Finland and withdraw the troops from it? Who was interested in the attempt on Lenin's life a few days before the opening of the Constituent Assembly?

I could continue such questions, but not being able in my position to give convincing answers to them, I will refrain from doing so. Everything that has been said about the Bolsheviks - their tactics, their ideology, their approach to expropriation, their unlimited terror - allows me to assert with confidence: the collapse of the Bolsheviks is inevitable! The terror that the Bolsheviks rely on is the strength of the bayonet. But, as you know, it is uncomfortable to sit on bayonets, the XX century - the century of great discoveries, the century of enlightenment and rapid humanization will reject and condemn Bolshevism. I admit the thought that Lenin, relying on total terror, will emerge victorious from the Civil War, to which he strives so stubbornly. In this case, Bolshevik Russia will find itself in political and economic isolation and will inevitably turn into a military camp, where citizens will be frightened with imperialism and fed with promises. But sooner or later the time will come when the fallacy of Lenin's ideas will become obvious to everyone, and then Bolshevik socialism will collapse like a house of cards. I mourn the fate of the Russians, but, like Chernyshevsky, I say: "Let it be, what will be, but there will be a holiday on our street!"

IV. WHY I REFUSED TO FIGHT THE BOLSHEVIKS

MY refusal to fight the Bolsheviks after the October events caused bewilderment among many. Some who know me poorly assume that my decision is the result of a rough search in my house, carried out by the Bolsheviks a few days after the October Revolution. This is mistake. The search, which, in my opinion, was headed by the sailor S. Kokotko, did not frighten me; moreover, it did not cause my health deterioration, as some newspapers wrote. Others, those who know me better, believe that this is a consequence of a sharp exacerbation of my illness. But they are also wrong, although my health really deteriorated with the arrival of autumn so quickly that already in January I was not able to hold even a pen in my hands. My ill health would not stop me if I saw the meaning in the struggle: if you don't have the strength to write, you can dictate. I gave up the fight for a number of objective reasons.

1. My principled attitude to the war, criticism of the Bolsheviks and half-Leninists, unwillingness to flirt with the lumpen proletariat, refusal to deepen the revolution, loyalty to the Provisional Government - all this worked against me. I saw this, but did not want, as, for example, Comrades Tseretelli, Chkheidze, Avksentyev, and others, to sin with my views and make concessions to Lenin in order to maintain popularity. After the July events, class anger and intransigence, whipped up by the Bolsheviks, political deafness and blindness intensified every day. They manifested themselves especially clearly at the Moscow conference. When I turned to the right, to the commercial and industrial class, the right side applauded - the left was silent; when I turned to the left, to the Russian Social Democracy, the left applauded - the right was silent. As a result, neither one nor the other understood me.

And a compromise - the only thing that could save Russia - was sacrificed to political ambition. The Bolsheviks are primarily to blame for this, but there were objective reasons for that. The immaturity of the proletariat (and the bourgeoisie too!), Mass illiteracy, the sharp impoverishment and fatigue of the people caused by the war, the split of the European and Russian Social Democracy, the inactivity and inconsistency of the Provisional Government were the fertile soil in which Lenin's seeds of anarchy and class intransigence quickly grew. In such an objectively formed social situation, it was pointless to continue the struggle against the Bolsheviks.

2. I have devoted my whole life to the cause of the emancipation of the working class, and now, when power has passed into the hands of the Soviets of Workers 'and Peasants' Deputies, I cannot fight those whom I considered and still consider my brothers, although they, deceived by crooked leaders, commit fatal mistake... The consequences of this mistake will be very sad, above all for the Russian proletariat itself. But let the Russian proletariat - no matter how regrettable it is - to the end pass the thorny path destined for it by capricious History, mature and rise to understand its destiny.

3. Other considerations also kept me from fighting. If the Bolsheviks fail now, a deep, protracted reaction will ensue, as a result of which both Russian and Western social democracy will suffer, and the gains of the proletariat will be lost. But if the Bolsheviks retain power for at least several years, then Russia and its citizens will suffer, and international social democracy will only benefit: frightened by the events in Russia, the Western bourgeoisie will make serious concessions to the working class. I grieve for Russia, but, while remaining a consistent internationalist, I choose the latter.

V. HOW LONG WILL BOLSHEVIK'S GOVERNMENT

THIS question worries many at the present time. It is set by the opponents of the Bolsheviks, the Bolsheviks themselves, it is important to every Russian who is not indifferent to the fate of the Motherland. The answer to this question cannot be unambiguous, since it depends on many objective, subjective and even random factors. Guessing is an unworthy business, therefore, I will substantiate, as far as possible, my predictions. I am all the more obliged to do this, since I believed and still believe: the future, at least the immediate one, cannot be unclear and uncertain. Moreover, I have said more than once that a person who understands the past and understands the present, who sees the interconnection, continuity and conditioning of historical events, is able to foresee the future with some certainty. The objective historical conditions prevailing in Russia to date, the logic of the development of events, the actions of the Bolsheviks dictated by their tactics and ideology, allow me to assert that on the way of strengthening their power, they will face four crises that are ascending in complexity. The length of their stay in power will be determined by which of them they stumble on.

The first, relentlessly impending crisis is the crisis of hunger. If Lenin does not get rid of the coalition with the Left SRs, who restrain class terror (the example of Mr. Purishkevich) and vigorously oppose the food detachments, then the Bolsheviks will lose power this fall, when the peasants bury their grain in the ground and the country will be struck by an unprecedented famine. The Socialist-Revolutionaries, Cadets and Mensheviks will come to power. But by removing the Left SRs from government institutions and thus freeing their hands, the Bolsheviks will be able to survive the coming crisis. Realizing this, Lenin will seize the first opportunity to discredit and defeat his yesterday's allies, contradictions with whom have been growing since the day the Constituent Assembly was dispersed. The inevitability of this does not require proof. The recent refusal of the Left SRs to sign the shameful Brest Peace Treaty, their withdrawal from the Council of People's Commissars, their rejection of the Leninist "grain monopoly" - all this suggests that the crisis in relations between them and the Bolsheviks has reached a level after which a complete rupture is a matter of the coming months.

Having set unconscious workers and those on whose banner, according to the apt expression of the sailor A. Aleksandrov, is written "Grab it!", On wealthy and middle peasants, organizing a mass expropriation of grain, the Bolsheviks will hold out for another year or two until their inability to restore production becomes obvious and for the proletariat itself.

But even this crisis - a crisis of devastation - they will be able to overcome if they unleash a large-scale civil war, and, using unlimited class terror and the laws of wartime, will destroy practically everyone who does not agree with them. Civil war will allow them to introduce martial law throughout Russia and blame the devastation on class and external enemies. By the way, a civil war begins, a significant proportion of the peasantry will fight on the side of the Bolsheviks. The Russian peasant, no matter how illiterate, understands well: if Lenin lost, and the land would have to be returned to its previous owners. Having won the civil war and at least somehow restored production, even by coercive measures, for example, introducing universal labor service, the Bolsheviks will hold out for another five or ten years, until the contradictions between the socialist nature of factory production and private the capitalist nature of agriculture. Until now, Russia has been and in the near future will remain an industrially backward country, a large share of the national income of which is agricultural products. Unable to control and dispose of this share, the Bolsheviks will sooner or later lose power.

An alliance between the working class and the peasantry, about which Lenin constantly speaks, is impossible. The peasant needs land, he is not interested in socialism, because by the nature of the economy the peasant is closer to capitalism than to socialism. In principle, such an alliance would be possible under conditions of democracy, political equality and fair exchange of goods, but not under the hegemony of the proletariat. The hegemony of the proletariat deliberately humiliates the peasantry and presupposes its subordinate role. Such an attitude towards the peasantry on the part of the Bolsheviks will give the indicated economic crisis a political coloration.

Making concessions to the Left SRs, the Bolsheviks in 1917 planted a time bomb under themselves: they socialized the land, although nationalization was originally planned in their program. To overcome this most serious crisis - a crisis of a political and economic nature, the Bolsheviks will have to declare all-out war on the peasantry and destroy the best part of it - those who are able and willing to work. In what form this can be done, the Bolsheviks will be prompted by the situation, international and internal, as well as the degree of stratification in the peasantry that had manifested itself by that time. Having overcome the third crisis, the Bolsheviks can hold out for many more years, until the fourth crisis comes - an ideological crisis, when the Bolshevik power begins to decay from within. But the process of decay can stretch over decades, since Russia has never known democracy, and the next absolute power - the power of the Bolsheviks - will be perceived by Russians with humility and patience. In addition, this power can be backed up by sophisticated demagoguery, a well-developed surveillance and suppression apparatus.

Of course, my forecasts can be corrected by all sorts of circumstances, which cannot be anticipated and which depend on His Majesty Chance. For example, when Germany is defeated - and I have no doubt that it will be defeated - what post-war Europe will be like, who will be Lenin's successor in the event of his death, etc. I also do not exclude the possibility that Lenin, as a man tactically flexible and knowledgeable of Marxism, may at a certain stage make significant amendments in the direction of deviating from the declared socialist transformations, which, however, will cause discontent among the lumpen proletariat. However, I have no doubt that the Bolsheviks and their ideology, oriented towards declassed elements, will eventually collapse. It is the matter of time. It is not given to anyone to change the course of historical development! An extraordinary person can only either speed up or slow down this move. Lenin will slow down Russian history and therefore will enter it with the same sign with which False Dmitry entered.

Vi. ABOUT LENIN AND OTHER CURVE LEADERS

I confess, I doubted whether it was necessary to write about Lenin, because each of his supporters can see in the very first negative line "revenge from the other world." But Lenin is my student, who has not learned anything from me, besides, he is my opponent, about whom volumes will be written in the future, therefore it would be cowardly on my part to pass over this topic in silence. In such cases, it is difficult to be objective, but I would betray myself if I were to step back from the truth now.

Lenin is undoubtedly a great, outstanding personality. It is difficult to write about him: he has many faces and, like a chameleon, changes his color if necessary. With the intellectuals he is an intellectual, with the workers he is a "worker", with the peasants he is a "peasant"; he is natural and random, logical and illogical, simple and complex, consistent and inconsistent, "Marxist" and pseudo-Marxist, etc., etc. It would be untrue if I accused him of ignorance of Marxism, it would be also a mistake if I said he was dogmatic. No, Lenin is not a dogmatist, he knows Marxism. But, unfortunately, he "develops" it with incomprehensible stubbornness in one direction - in the direction of falsification and with one goal - in order to confirm his erroneous conclusions. In Marxism, he is not satisfied with the fact that one has to wait until the objective conditions for a socialist revolution mature. Lenin is a pseudo-dialectician. He is convinced that capitalism is becoming tougher and will always develop in the direction of strengthening its vices. But this is a huge mistake. As the productive forces developed, the slave system softened, feudalism softened, and, consequently, capitalism softened. This is explained by the class struggle and the gradual growth of culture and self-awareness of all strata of the population.

Lenin is an integral type who sees his goal and strives for it with fanatical perseverance, not stopping at any obstacles. He is very smart, energetic, extremely able-bodied, not vain, not materialistic, but painfully proud and absolutely intolerant of criticism. "Everything that is not according to Lenin is subject to damnation!" - so M. Gorky once put it. For Lenin, anyone who disagrees with him on something is a potential enemy who does not deserve an elementary culture of communication. Lenin is a typical leader, whose will suppresses those around him and dulls his own instinct for self-preservation. He is bold, decisive, never loses his composure, firm, calculating, flexible in tactics. At the same time, he is immoral, cruel, unprincipled, an adventurer by nature.

It should be recognized, however, that Lenin's immorality and cruelty do not come from his personal immorality and cruelty, but from the conviction of his righteousness. Lenin's immorality and cruelty is a kind of way out of his individuality by subordinating morality and humanity to political goals. Lenin is capable of interrupting half of the Russians in order to drive the other into a happy socialist future. To achieve this goal, he will do anything, even an alliance with the devil, if necessary. The late Bebel said: "... I will go even with the devil and even with his grandmother," but at the same time he added that such a deal is possible if he straddles the devil or his grandmother, and not they saddled him. The union of Lenin with the devil will end in the fact that the devil will ride on him, as the witch once rode on Homa.

It is widely believed that politics is a dirty business. Unfortunately, the current actions of Lenin confirm this as clearly as possible. Politics without morality is a crime. A person endowed with power, or a politician with great authority, in his activities should be guided primarily by universal human moral principles, for unprincipled laws, immoral appeals and slogans can turn into a huge tragedy for the country and its people. Lenin does not understand this and does not want to understand.

Lenin cleverly manipulates quotations from Marx and Engels, often giving them completely different interpretations. Of my works on the role of the individual and the masses in History, Lenin learned only one thing: he, as a person "called" by History, can do whatever he wants with it. Lenin is an example of a person who, recognizing free will, sees his actions as completely colored in the bright color of necessity. He is educated enough to consider himself a Mohammed or Napoleon, but that he is "the chosen one of fate", Lenin is unconditionally convinced. From the point of view of the laws of social development and historical necessity, Lenin was needed only until February 1917 - in this sense, he is natural.

After the February Revolution, which swept away tsarism and eliminated the contradictions between productive forces and relations of production, the historical need for Lenin fell away. But the trouble is that the masses did not know and do not know about it. They received more political freedoms than in Western Europe, but, half-starved and impoverished, moreover forced to continue the war, did not even notice this. Had the war ended in the spring of 1917, had the Provisional Government resolved the land issue without delay, Lenin would have had no chance to carry out the socialist revolution, and he himself would have been forever written off from the ranks of History called upon. That is why the October Revolution and today's Lenin are not a pattern, but a fatal accident.

Lenin is a theoretician, but for an educated socialist his works are not interesting; they are not marked either by the elegance of the syllable, or by sharpened logic, or by deep thoughts, but they invariably make a strong impression on an illiterate person with their simplicity of presentation, bold judgments, confidence in the correctness and attractiveness of slogans.

Lenin is a good orator, a skillful polemicist, who uses all kinds of tricks to confuse, silence, and even offend an opponent. With imperfect diction, he knows how to clearly express his thoughts, is able to flatter, interest and even hypnotize the audience, while he surprisingly quickly and accurately adapts his speech to the level of the audience, forgetting that fighting for a just cause does not mean flattering the crowd and stopping to its level ... Lenin is a person who does not know the "golden mean". "He who is not with us is against us!" - this is his political credo. In his striving to trample the enemy, he descends to personal insults, comes to gross abuse, and not only in polemics, but also on the pages of printed works, which he “bakes” with unacceptable speed. The ingenious Pushkin rewrote even his letters in perfect order. The great Tolstoy corrected his novels several times. Lenin confines himself to only minor edits.

Many common human concepts recognized by every civilized person are rejected by Lenin or interpreted in a negative sense. For example, for any literate person, liberalism is a positive system of views, for Lenin it is just "liberal vulgarity." For any literate person, bourgeois democracy is, albeit truncated, but still democracy, for Lenin it is "philistinism", but unrestricted class terror is "proletarian democracy, although, in principle, democracy - that is, the rule of the people - is not “It cannot be bourgeois or proletarian, since both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, taken separately, are only a part of the people, far from being large.

Tolstoy, the greatest humanist, who believed that true greatness is impossible without love, kindness and simplicity, would not have recognized Lenin as great. But is he right? Napoleon was not distinguished by love, kindness, or simplicity, but he is undoubtedly a great commander. History knew great poets, great musicians, but it also knew great "criminals. So who is Lenin? Lenin is a Robespierre of the 20th century. But if the last head cut off several hundred innocent people, Lenin will cut off millions. In this regard, I recall one from the first meetings with Lenin, which, in my opinion, took place in the summer of 1895 in the Landolt cafe.

The conversation turned to the reasons for the fall of the Jacobin dictatorship. I jokingly said that it collapsed because the guillotine had cut heads too often. Lenin raised his eyebrows and objected quite seriously: "The Jacobin Republic fell because the guillotine has too rarely cut its heads. The revolution must be able to defend itself!" Then we (attended by P. Lafargue, J. Gued and, it seems, Ch. Longuet) only smiled at the maximalism of Mr. Ulyanov. The future, however, showed that this was not a manifestation of youth and fervor, but reflected his tactical views, which were already clearly formulated by him at that time. The fate of Robespierre is well known. The fate of Lenin will not be the best either: the revolution he accomplished is worse than the mythical Minotaur; she will eat not only her children, but also her parents. But I do not wish him the fate of Robespierre. Let Vladimir Ilyich live to the time when he clearly understands the erroneousness of his tactics and shudders at what he did.

Trotsky is the second after Lenin in terms of ability and importance in the Bolshevik Party. "Judas", "the most vile careerist and factionalist", "a rogue, worse than any other factionalists" - this is how Lenin spoke of him and was absolutely right. Lenin wrote in one of his works: "There is a lot of brilliance and noise in Trotsky's phrases, but there is no content in them," and in this assessment Lenin is right. Trotsky's style - the style of the jaunty journalist - is too light and fluent to be profound. Trotsky is extremely ambitious, proud, unprincipled and dogmatic to the end. Trotsky was a "Menshevik", a "non-factionalist", and now he is a "Bolshevik".

In fact, he has always been and will always be a "social democrat in himself." He is always there and with those where success, but at the same time he will never give up trying to become the number one figure. Trotsky is a brilliant orator, but his methods are monotonous and stereotyped, so it is interesting to listen to him only once. He has an explosive character and, if successful, can do a lot in a short time, but if he fails, he easily falls into apathy and even confusion. If it becomes clear that the Leninist revolution is doomed, he will be the first to leave the ranks of the Bolsheviks. But if it turns out to be successful, he will do everything to oust Lenin. Lenin knows about this, and yet they are in the same camp, because Trotsky's demagoguery and his idea of ​​permanent revolution are needed by Lenin, besides, he is an incomparable master of gathering everyone under his banner. Lenin - the leader of the Bolsheviks - will never agree to be the leader of another faction. For Trotsky, the most important thing is to be a leader, no matter which party. That is why clashes between Lenin and Trotsky are inevitable in the future.

Next to Trotsky one can put Kamenev, then Zinoviev, Bukharin. Kamenev knows Marxism, but he is not a theoretician. According to Kamenev's convictions, he was a Menshevik-Zimmerwaldian who vacillated between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. He does not have the necessary willpower to claim to be an influential politician. That is why he follows the Bolsheviks, disagreeing with them in many respects. Zinoviev is a Zimmerwald-Kintal Bolshevik, but without definitively formed convictions.

Despite constant doubts, he will nevertheless remain in the ranks of the Bolsheviks until the opportunity presents itself with the prospect of moving to another camp. Zinoviev, like Kamenev, does not have a strong character, but is capable of fulfilling any order of Lenin to consolidate his own positions. Bukharin is a principled, convinced Bolshevik, not devoid of logic, his own opinion and the inclinations of a theoretician. He repeatedly and on many issues disagreed with Lenin. It is possible that it was Bukharin who - in the event of Lenin's death - would become the leading figure in the Bolshevik dictatorship. But it is also possible that even during Lenin's lifetime, Bukharin and other named figures, like the Girondists in their time, would be swept away by the Bolsheviks of the second echelon, who never objected to Lenin in anything.

Vii. ABOUT THE STATE, SOCIALISM AND THE FUTURE OF RUSSIA

I agree with Vandervelde that the word "state" can be interpreted in a narrow and broad sense. I also agree that Marx and Engels put into this word only a narrow sense when they talked about the withering away of the state. But one can hardly blame them for this: it was too premature to talk about the state in a broad sense in their time. Until now, the state basically remains an instrument of the domination of one class over another. The functions of the state as a spokesman for general civil interests and a general regulator began to be noticeably outlined only in recent decades. The state, as a product of the irreconcilability of class contradictions, as an organ of political authority, as an instrument of oppression of one class by another, will, of course, be abolished. The time will come when classes will disappear, borders will be erased, but the state as a form of organization of the people - in the future of earthlings - will remain, moreover, its role will constantly increase, which will be a consequence of the growth global problems overpopulation of the Earth, depletion of earth resources, energy hunger, conservation of forests and arable lands, pollution of land, water and atmosphere, combating natural disasters, etc.

As the state withers away in the narrow sense, scientists will play an increasing role in the government of the state, i.e. the political superstructure will gradually begin to transform into the superstructure of "scientific authority". But this is in the future, but for now we must strive to ensure that the political superstructure reflects the interests of the working people, which is fully realizable only under socialism. In this sense, the socialist revolution is the goal towards which the proletariat must strive. It should be remembered that not a single revolution eventually led to a steady, abrupt change in social and production relations, but only accelerated their evolution. In this respect, Engels' preface to the English edition of the Manifesto of 1888, in which he emphasized the special role of evolutionary processes in social development, is very noteworthy. It is also interesting that this edition, which was translated from German into English under the direct supervision of Engels, ends with the slogan "Workers of all countries, unite!"

The socialist revolution, designed to abolish exploitation and classes, will do neither one nor the other at the first stage. Moreover, a premature socialist revolution is fraught with serious negative consequences. Each person who owns the law of denial of negation can easily come to the conclusion that the role of the political superstructure changes cyclically from formation to formation, sometimes increasing, then weakening. Everyone recognizes that the role of the political superstructure under socialism should increase significantly, since the state assumes additional regulatory functions: planning, control, distribution, and so on. In this sense, the political superstructure under socialism, which denies the capitalist, will be more like the superstructure of monarchical feudalism than capitalism. And this threatens that in the absence of democracy - and, as already noted, there will be no democracy under Lenin's socialism - with a low culture and self-awareness of the masses, the state may turn into a feudal lord more terrible than the monarch, because the latter is still a man, then as a state - a faceless and soulless machine. I am convinced that the Leninist socialist state will turn out to be such a feudal lord, especially in the first decades, if, of course, the Bolsheviks overcome the first three crises, which I mentioned above.

Having suppressed the resistance of the bourgeoisie, which is easily accomplished without terror, if the proletariat constitutes the majority of the population, the dictatorship of the proletariat should equalize all classes in rights and achieve the triumph of law and justice. The disappearance of classes is a matter of the distant future, therefore the socialist state must first of all ensure class peace and the protection of the interests of the working people. But in backward Russia, which has never known democracy, in which illiteracy, poverty and lack of culture reign, the Bolsheviks will not provide either the first or the second.

Revolutionary changes in the social structure of Russia are possible only with a revolutionary change in the culture and self-awareness of all segments of the population. Only under this condition can the productive forces be rapidly developed. But this is already out of the realm of fantasy: the culture and self-awareness of the people are functions of the productive forces, and not vice versa. Of course, by mobilizing the intelligentsia, the Bolsheviks can end illiteracy quickly, but, firstly, learning to read does not mean becoming cultured, and secondly, having learned to read, people will sooner understand what the Leninist dictatorship of the proletariat is. The future of Russia will largely be determined by the length of time the Bolsheviks will be in power. Sooner or later it will return to its natural path of development, but the longer the Bolshevik dictatorship lasts, the more painful this return will be.

Socialist society in the understanding of Marx and Engels is not a matter of one century, even in Western countries, especially in Russia. Therefore, at this historical stage in Russia, it is necessary to build up productive forces, expand political rights and freedoms, form democratic traditions, raise the culture of citizens, propagandize and introduce certain elements of socialism. We need a gradual change in state institutions, accompanied by economic, political and propaganda impact on all segments of the population in order to enrich Russians, democratize and humanize Russian society. A country cannot be great as long as its citizens are poor! The wealth of citizens is the wealth of the state! The true greatness of a country is determined not by its territory or even its history, but by democratic traditions, the standard of living of its citizens. As long as the citizens are poor, as long as there is no democracy, the country is not guaranteed from social upheavals and even from disintegration.

Russia is a huge country stretching for thousands of kilometers. Therefore, for rapid progress, it is necessary to develop rail and water transport in every possible way. Moltke said: "There is no need to build fortresses, build railways! "If railways are important for" Germany, then for Russia they are vital. In the future, automobiles and aviation may become of great importance, therefore special attention should be paid to these areas of technology. It is necessary to develop communications in every possible way, to achieve universal electrification, since only on the basis of electricity can labor productivity be quickly raised.

Russia is in dire need of a progressive ideology based on the best national traditions, on modern ideas about democracy, political freedom, humanity and social justice. Only such an ideology will provide Russia with a stable, "natural development of the economy. A false ideology generates and will generate blinkered crooked leaders who, following ideological dogmas, can only slow down the productive forces and hinder the formation of a civilized prosperous society. Finally, Russia needs a strong central government and a strong local power, acting within the boundaries clearly outlined by the constitution.

The current state of the Russian countryside is a living reproach to centuries of autocracy. Everything must be done to transform Russian villages so that the rickety four-walled thatched roofs disappear. Each village should have a school, post office, telegraph and telephone, bank branch, public institutions, hospital, administrative and shopping malls... Of course, this will take decades. But this is achievable if the state turns its face to the countryside, if the peasants get land, which - this should not be forgotten - as a means of production has a special value and therefore cannot be the subject of speculation.

Long-term rent - free for Russians and paid for citizens of other countries - is the only form of land use for the coming decades. Labor is the source of all wealth, and if it is free and motivated, Russians will quickly end the country's backwardness. Only after this can the question of the socialist revolution and socialist transformations be raised, on the way of which I would conditionally single out three stages.

It may seem to the attentive reader that there are contradictions in my reasoning: above I questioned the possibility of realizing the dictatorship of the proletariat, and now I am talking about socialist transformations. But who said that socialist transformations are possible only under the dictatorship of the proletariat? With the development of society, with an increase in the standard of living, culture and self-awareness of the masses, gradual socialist transformations can occur not only at the will of the authorities, but also in spite of them. The transition to socialism at a certain stage in the development of the productive forces will become natural and inevitable. And if, by the will of History, it falls out first to pave the way to socialism, then this must be done gradually and in stages.

The first stage (25-30 years old) - early socialism. At this stage, only the largest banks, factories, factories, transport, landlord and church lands (if they remain by that time), and large trade enterprises should be gradually confiscated. Expropriation is carried out on the basis of a partial redemption, life annuity, pension or the right to a certain dividend. Medium and small factories, factories, banks, trade and the service sector should be left in private hands. On the basis of the confiscated banks, a national bank is created, which must control the movement of finance and the activities of private banks. On the basis of the confiscated enterprises, a public sector is being created, the purpose of which is to learn how to manage, trade and ensure social justice. To increase the interest of workers, state-owned enterprises are partially corporatized among them, and shares that are not subject to resale should give the worker the right to receive a dividend, but not the right to co-ownership. Part of the confiscated land, depending on local conditions, is transferred on an equitable basis to peasants, and on the remaining part large state demonstration farms are organized.

Income taxes should be progressive, but they should not stifle the entrepreneur. Income used to expand production, build roads and other public purposes is not taxed. It goes without saying that at this stage the inflow of foreign capital should be welcomed in every possible way, but its export should be strictly controlled. Expand exports and control imports. Customs policy should stimulate Russian producers and help improve the quality of domestic goods.

The goal of the first stage is to increase labor productivity and living standards of Russians. At this stage, one should proceed from the recognition of three forces - the state, the entrepreneur, the worker. The first stage can be considered complete when labor productivity in the public sector equals that of the best private factories, and the standard of living of Russians reaches the standard of living in Western countries.

At the second stage (25-30 years) - the stage of mature socialism - medium-sized banks, factories and factories, wholesale trade are expropriated, again on a fair basis. For example, the owner of a bank becomes its manager, the owner of a plant becomes its director, etc. Partial redemption, life annuity or pension are also not excluded. Agriculture, retail and service industries are being taken collectively. The public sector is undergoing further development. At this stage, the import of capital is still welcomed, and control over its export is weakening. The second stage will end when the labor productivity at state enterprises exceeds the labor productivity of the best factories in Western countries, and the standard of living of Russians exceeds the standard of living of citizens of capitalist states. The goal of this stage is to make socialism attractive to all peoples. At this stage, peaceful socialist revolutions can triumph in the most developed countries.

At the third stage (50-100 years), the remnants of private property are confiscated, and the socialist mode of production becomes dominant. Exploitation completely disappears, the distinctions between physical and mental labor, between town and country are erased, classes are gradually disappearing. At this stage, the export of capital, the acquisition of securities of other states is welcomed, economic rapprochement with other countries with mutual penetration of capital takes place, material incentives are replaced by moral ones. The goal of this stage is to equalize the living standards of citizens of all countries, to create productive forces sufficient for the proclamation of communism, which, of course, cannot be the last phase of social development. Moreover, communism will not be free of social contradictions. To think differently is to abandon the Hegelian dialectic, this eternal death or eternal rebirth. Contradictions under communism, devoid of class and material foundations, will be the result of ethical, moral and ideological contradictions between the individual and society.

I briefly outlined my ideas about the stages of socialist transformations, of course, without pretending to be the final truth. No matter how brilliant a person is, no matter how he knows dialectics, he can still be mistaken in his predictions. Future discoveries of science can turn all modern ideas around. But all these are problems of tomorrow, and now we can say with certainty the following: Russia needs consolidation of political forces, diversity in all spheres of production, private initiative, capitalist enterprise, competition, without which there will be no quality and technical progress, a just political superstructure, democratization and humanization. Russia is not only a multinational country, but also a country of many religions, which is fraught with the danger of both interethnic and religious conflicts. They can only be avoided by thoughtful administrative reforms, raising the standard of living, equality in economic, political and social rights, freedom of religion, mutual respect for national traditions, cultures and languages. I have always been against religion, but I have never rejected its meaning. Religion as a system of ideas, moods and actions contains two elements.

The first - philosophical - the element of worldview with the growth of productive forces and the development of science gradually dies out. The second element - social and moral - will last for many years, and one should not fight against it. Any religion goes through approximately the same stages in its development. As Christianity has gone through years of obscurantism, so Islam, which is a world, but younger religion, can go through something similar. The first symptoms of this are the ideas of Pan-Turkism and the genocide of the Armenian people. To prevent this from happening in Russia, a Russian must remember that a Muslim is not a Basurman, and a Christian is not a Kafir. It is not atheism that needs to be promoted, but the mutual respect of religions and what brings them together. Mixed families should be welcomed in every possible way. There is nothing wrong if the husband is a Muslim and the wife is a Christian, if the son is a Muslim and the daughter is a Christian, or vice versa.

Red Square weekly
September 2001