Economism

Definition

Economism was the trend in Russian Social Democracy that made the proletariat's economic struggle, the fight for better wages and conditions, the basis of all Social-Democratic activity while treating political tasks against tsarism as a matter for a distant future, to be left to liberal opposition activity. The economists' programme document, the "Credo" (1899, authored by Y. D. Kuskova), stated that "for the Russian Marxist there is only one course: participation in, i.e., assistance to, the economic struggle of the proletariat, and participation in liberal opposition activity," and that "the talk about an independent workers' political party merely results from the transplantation of alien aims and alien achievements to our soil." Lenin later summed up its political essence as the slogan "economic struggle for the workers, political struggle for the liberals."

The Economists held that political agitation must follow economic agitation, that the economic struggle is the "most widely applicable" means of drawing the masses into political struggle. Lenin argued this was untrue, because autocratic tyranny manifests itself no less widely in non-economic spheres: the flogging of peasants, police treatment, religious persecution, and the treatment of soldiers and students. This trade-unionist conception of politics is the core of Economism.

History

Economism's practical expression came from worker circles. Rabochaya Mysl (Workers' Thought), the paper of the Economist current, published sixteen issues from October 1897 (St. Petersburg; then Berlin 1898 to April 1901, Warsaw, and finally Geneva in December 1902). Its founders were a Kolpino workers' group; its most influential editor was Konstantin Takhtarev, and collaborators included Apollinariya Yakubova. Their propaganda deliberately avoided political themes, as they "did not understand the political struggle and interpreted it in a trade-unionistic way," and they were influenced by "legal Marxism" (Struve, Tugan-Baranovsky) toward Bernstein's revisionism.

Rabocheye Delo (The Workers' Cause), organ of the Union of Russian Social Democrats Abroad, ran from April 1899 to February 1902 (printed in Geneva, editorial office in Paris); its editors were Boris Krichevsky, Pavel Teplov, Vladimir Ivanshin and, from 1900, A. S. Martynov, and its editorial board was the center of the Economists. The leaders of Economism are listed as Krichevsky, Kuskova, Martynov, Prokopovich and Takhtarev.

Lenin's critique developed from "A Protest by Russian Social-Democrats" (1899), through "A Talk with Defenders of Economism" (Iskra No. 12, December 1901), to What Is to Be Done?, written autumn 1901 to February 1902 and published in early March 1902 in Stuttgart. The book argued for a nationwide political organization and an all-Russia political newspaper against Economist "primitiveness" and "handicraft" methods; the Economists last appeared as a distinct grouping at the Second Congress of the RSDLP (1903), where only two delegates backed them and they walked out.

Relations

Economism is linked to the internal currents of the RSDLP and to the Iskra group (Lenin, Plekhanov) that fought it. It is closely related to Bernsteinism and revisionism, described by Lenin as concealed Bernsteinism, and is regarded as the precursor of Menshevism. It is also cited as a source of liquidationist tendencies and is contrasted with the trade-unionist "struggle for minor demands" associated with Zubatovism.

In Lenin's account the Iskra group fought Economism together with Plekhanov's Emancipation of Labour group, and Iskra's agent network and the newspaper itself were the practical answer to Economist "primitiveness." At the Second Congress, Rabocheye Dyelo represented the extreme right wing, after which the party split into Bolsheviks (Lenin) and Mensheviks (Martov).

Examples

The economist "Credo," authored by Kuskova in 1899, is the founding document. It argued that in the West "Marxism was the theoretical expression of the prevailing practice: of the political struggle predominating over the economic," that in Russia the line of least resistance "will never tend towards political activity," and proposed that Russian Marxists assist the economic struggle and participate in liberal opposition activity.

The Economist letter published in Iskra No. 12 (September 1901) and Lenin's reply "A Talk with Defenders of Economism" (Iskra No. 12, December 1901) illustrate the polemic: the correspondents defended Rabochaya Mysl and attacked Iskra for exaggerating the role of ideology. Lenin replied that the "ideologist" must precede the spontaneous movement, and criticized the concealment of an Economist "credo" by a section of the Odessa Committee, while Rabocheye Dyelo declared that "not a single Social-Democratic organisation is guilty of the sin of Economism."

Rabochaya Mysl's own articles illustrate the trend: its 7th issue (July 1899) treated the struggle for a shorter working day as itself "a political struggle," and its 11th issue (April 1901) urged struggle "above all for the freedom of strike, of association and assembly, for the individual liberties of speech and of press." Its 4th issue (October 1898) listed means such as strikes, workers' unions and mutual aid, consumer associations and educational centres, but not a political party.

Distinctions

Lenin distinguishes Economism from revolutionary Social Democracy precisely on politics: the Economists "do not altogether repudiate 'politics,' but... are constantly straying from the Social-Democratic to the trade-unionist conception of politics." Revolutionary Social Democracy includes the struggle for reforms but subordinates it to the revolutionary struggle for freedom and socialism, whereas the Economist thesis of "lending the economic struggle itself a political character" reduces Social-Democratic politics to trade-union politics, the struggle for legislative and administrative economic reforms that British trade unions had long pursued.

Economism must not be confused with economic determinism or reductionism in general. The Russian Social-Democratic current is distinguished from the broader sociological "economism" that reduces all social, political and cultural reality to the economic base, which is treated as one aspect of economism.