Legal Marxism and the “Fate of Capitalism in Russia”

Abstract

In the eighteen-nineties there took place in Russia, at a time of rapid industrial advance under the “Witte System,” one of those great debates which seem to catch hold of the basic problems shaping the destiny of generations. In those years a group of narodnik writers led by Vasilii Vorontsov and Nikolai Daniel'son disputed with a young generation of Marxists the future of capitalism in Russia. By capitalism these writers understood the current process of industrialization, which had been started after the Crimean War and had reached such extraordinary proportions by the mid-nineties. In surveying and evaluating the effects of this unprecedented development these writers, both narodnik and Marxist, laid bare an intricate fabric of economic difficulties and hostile emotional responses, which has accompanied, if not altogether determined the course of industrialization in Russia. And not in Russia alone: this great debate had its counterparts in backward countries all over the world. Its echoes are still heard in the discussions of Point Four projects and United Nations publications on the industrialization of underdeveloped areas.