Economism

An opportunistic theory which came into being during the Russian workers’ movement at the end of the 19th century, and got its name from its zeal for simple economic struggle. Main representatives were Krichevsky (1866-1919), Martynov (1865-1935), Prokopovich (1871-1955), etc. They founded a magazine called Workers’ Cause abroad and a newspaper called Workers’ Thought at home for publicizing. In 1899, a programmatic document “Credo” was issued, which advocated that, workers should only carry out economic struggles and political struggles should be carried out by the bourgeoisie, demanding that the working class give up its independent political demands. They argued the workers’ movement should take a route of “least resistance” and replace “the intention to seize power” with “the intention to improve modern society”. They accepted neo-Kantianism and put the objective and subjective factors, spontaneity and self-consciousness, forms of economic struggle and political struggle in absolute opposition in the process of historical development. They advocated the theory of spontaneous movement and denied either the guiding role of revolutionary theory or the role of political struggles. At the end of 1900, Lenin, Plekhanov and others started Iskra (The Spark) abroad to criticize economism. Lenin published his work What Is to Be Done? in 1902 and criticized theories and political views of economism in a systematic way.