On Social Relations in Russia

Engels’ work on the Russian rural commune and on the prospects of Russian social development. Written between the end of March to the mid-April 1875, first published in the Volksstaat (The People’s State), Nos. 43, 44 and 45, on April 16, 18 and 21, 1875, and later published in Leipzig at the end of June or early July 1875 under the title Soziales aus Rußland in a single edition.

After 1870’s, with the advancement of reforms related to the Russian serfdom system and due to various social contradictions exposed in the development of Russian capitalism, the influence of Western proletarian revolutionary movement upon Russia became increasingly apparent. Russian populist revolutionary P. Tkachev has argued that Russia would more easily carry out socialist revolution because it has no bourgeoisie and capitalism. Engels, who has always been concerned about actual problems and revolutionary movements in Russia, criticized P. Tkachev’s wrong views through the study of new materials and documents of Russian social development since the serfdom reform in 1861 and based on the views of historical materialism, he elucidated his own attitude and views on the Russia’s revolutionary path and the future development of Russian society.

The main contents of this work are as follows: First, Engels criticized P. Tkachev’s opinion that “a social revolution could be made more readily in Russia than Western Europe”, and expounded on the issue of basic class forces of the future Russian revolution. Engels pointed out: “Only at a certain level of development of these productive forces of society, even a very high level for our modern conditions, does it become possible to raise production to such an extent that the abolition of class distinctions can constitute real progress. But the productive forces have reached such level of development only in the hands of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie, therefore, in this respect also is just as necessary a precondition for the socialist revolution as is the proletariat itself.” In Russia at that time, the bourgeoisie was still quite immature, and the revolution that would occur under such condition cannot be a socialist revolution in essence. Second, Engels analyzed and refuted P. Tkachev’s arguments on Russia’s “advantages” of achieving socialism, thus expounded his own views on the problems of Russian peasants and rural communes. The Russian populists have regarded the Russian peasants as “instinctive revolutionaries” that are “incomparably” closer to socialism than the proletarians of the Western Europe. According to their opinion in Russia “tillers (peasants) of the soil and, as such, who are not proletarians but owners””, are “nearer to socialism” than the propertyless workers of Western Europe; and the “artels (peasant communes)” and communal property in the land are the prototype of Russia’s future society. In response to these misconceptions, Engels pointed out: “Russian people, has made numerous isolated peasant revolts against the nobility and against individual officials, but never against the tsar, except when a false tsar put himself at people’s leader and claimed the throne, that the Russian people only opposed the aristocracy and individual officials, but never opposed the tsar, and even regarded the tsar as the earthly god of the Russian peasant, which indicated that they lacked not only a deep understanding of the inherent contradictions and conflicts in the Russian society, but also failed to grasp the correct direction for effecting future social revolutions in Russia. Therefore, for Engels they (peasants) cannot be regarded as “instinctive revolutionaries”; the “artel (co-operative society) the predominance of this form in Russia proves the existence in the Russian people of a strong impulse to associate, but is far from proving their ability to jump, with the aid of this impulse, from the artel straight into the socialist order of society, these artels even in some cases will become a tool for capitalists to exploit workers; in reality, communal property in the land is an institution which is at a low level of development, that is gradually disintegrating. The peasant community system based on this primitive communal property in the land and such completely isolated individual communities from one another, which creates throughout the country similar, but the very opposite of common, interests, is the natural basis for oriental despotism. At the same time, It is clear that communal ownership in Russia is long past its period of brightness and, to all appearances, is moving towards its disintegration, the emergence of the exploiters, usurers and the exploited gradually revealed the class distinctions and contradictions, in the peasant communes, thus for Engels this original form communal property in the Russian peasant commune is no longer a blessing; it becomes a fetter and brought burdens for the life of the peasants, and it is impossible that the Russian peasant commune will become the starting point or prototype of the realization of the socialism in Russia. Third, Engels expounded his vision about the prospects of revolution and social development in Russia through arguing against the view put forth by Russian populists, i.e., “the development of a higher form of public ownership out of Russian peasant communes.” Russian peasant communes have begun to decline, and it is possible to make a direct transition into a higher communist form of property in land, only when “before the complete break-up of communal ownership, a proletarian revolution is successfully carried out in Western Europe, creating for the Russian peasant the preconditions requisite for such a transition.” At the same time, in terms of the reality that the social contradictions in Russia are unprecedentedly fierce and the factors of social revolution are rising rapidly, Engels further indicated that the way out for Russia’s current social development lies in a revolution. Only such a revolution can tear the great mass of the peasants, away from the isolation of their villages and lead them out onto the great stage, where they will get to know the outside world and thus themselves, their own situation and the means of salvation from their present distress; it will also give the workers’ movement of the West fresh impetus and create new, better conditions in which to carry on the struggle, thus hastening the victory of the modern industrial proletariat.

On Social Relations in Russia is the first important work in the history of scientific socialism to study the Russian Revolution and the Oriental Society. In the article, Engels made a scientific analysis of the social characteristics and development prospects of Russia by using the materialist conception of history, which was helpful in eliminating the adverse effects of the erroneous viewpoints of Russian Narodniks on the revolutionary movement of the world proletariat. The idea contained therein that given the influence and assistance of the proletarian revolution in the West, it was possible for Russia to transform into a higher form laid the foundation for the theory of Oriental society leaping over the “Caudine Forks” put forward later. This idea of Engels that Russia may be able to transit to a higher social form in such a way, has laid the foundation for the later proposed Marxist theory of “Caudine Forks”; i.e., the possibility for the Eastern societies leaping over capitalism in a specific path of development. Marx considered this article to be Engels’ most important paper published in the journal Der Volksstaat (The People’s State) in 1870s; Lenin also evaluated it as “a brief but valuable article on Russia’s economic development”.