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ABSTRACT
The scholarship devoted to the Marx–Weber relationship has so far neglected to compare the attitudes of the two thinkers about Russia. This paper seeks to fill that gap, focusing in particular on Marx’s late writings from the 1870s about the revolutionary prospects in Russia and Weber’s essays on the Russian Revolution of 1905. Marx and Weber’s approaches to Russia reveal significant similarities: above all, a radically critical view of capitalist development. The study of the Russian situation, marked by the surviving village commune, drove Marx to question the positive assessment of capitalism’s historical role, which had been his firm belief for a long time, and to welcome the possibility that a backward country might move directly to socialism, skipping the capitalist stage. Not surprisingly, such conclusions were ignored by Marx’s Russian followers such as Plekhanov and Struve, who regarded capitalist industrialisation as an essential precondition for social revolution in Russia. As for Weber, the events of the First Russian Revolution, which he followed with a particularly intense interest, confirmed a crucial argument of his sociological theory, namely that advanced capitalism hindered the achievement and preservation of civil liberties and constitutional rights.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on Contributor
Nicola D’Elia is an independent scholar. His main fields of research are the history of socialism and the labour movement between the end of the nineteenth century and the First World War, and the history of German-Italian cultural relations in the interwar period. He has published the books Democrazia e “modello inglese”: Eduard Bernstein scrittore politico nell’esilio di Londra (1890–1901) (Democracy on the English Model: The Political Views of Eduard Bernstein during His London Exile) (Florence, 2005), and Delio Cantimori e la cultura politica tedesca (1927–1940) (Delio Cantimori and German Political Culture) (Rome, 2007).
Notes
1. For a brief overview of the historical debate on this topic, see Sunar (Citation2014, 1–9).
2. Such excerpts and notebooks have been thoroughly analysed by Borowska (Citation2002, 94–101).
3. On these aspects, see Anderson (Citation2010, 43–49); Borowska (Citation2002, 89–91) and Cinnella (Citation2014, 3–10).
4. Marx’s relationship with Danielson is particularly emphasised by Cinnella (Citation2014, 73–83).
5. On the relevance of Flerovski’s book for Marx, see also Cinnella (Citation2014, 64–71) and Walicki (Citation1969, 110–13).
6. This aspect is stressed by Anderson (Citation2010, 174–80), Cinnella (Citation2014, 80–89) and White (Citation1996, 204–9).
7. See in particular Marx’s letter to Kugelmann November 29, 1869, in Marx and Engels (Citation1988, 390).
8. On these aspects, see Anderson (Citation2010, 144–53).
9. Swinton’s report is also mentioned by Cinnella (Citation2014, 167–68).
10. According to Cinnella (Citation2014), Marx and Engels approved of Narodnaia Volia’s strategy of terror in the belief that it “was the only one able to direct the enormous revolutionary energies latent in tsarist Russia towards a victorious outcome” (130).
11. Marx’s letter is reproduced in Shanin (Citation1984, 134–36).
12. All four drafts and the reply, discovered by David Riazanov many years later and first published in Russia in 1924, are reproduced in Shanin (Citation1984, 99–124).
13. Zasulich’s letter is reproduced in Shanin (Citation1984, 98–99).
14. This claim is expressed in the first, second and third draft as well as in the letter itself.
15. This draft is presented as the first one in Shanin (Citation1984, 124–25, note 1), changing the order established by Riazanov.
16. In the first draft (which was written next, according to the new order suggested in Shanin [Citation1984]), Marx confirmed his view that the contemporaneous domination by Western capitalism of the world market “enables Russia to build into the commune all the positive achievements of the capitalist system, without having to pass under its harsh tribute” (quoted in Shanin Citation1984, 110).
17. On this point Marx changed his position a bit in the third draft, remarking that, “apart from all the malignant outside influences, the commune bore within its own breast the elements that were poisoning its life” (Shanin Citation1984, 120).
18. This writing also is reproduced in Shanin (Citation1984, 138–39).
19. White (Citation1996) also stressed the major role Engels played in drawing up of the original manuscript. At the same time, he suggested that “the insistence on the need for a revolution in Western Europe to save the Russian commune” was due to “polemical rather than purely theoretical reasons” (291).
20. On this point, see Cinnella (Citation2014, 165–72).
21. On these aspects, see White (Citation1996, 308–13).
22. For an account of these events, see Cinnella (Citation2014, 141–43).
23. On these aspects, see Walicki (Citation1969, 153–65) and White (Citation1996, 313–18).
24. This point is emphasised by Davydov (Citation1995, 73–75) and Mommsen (Citation1989, 4).
25. On Weber’s relationships with Kistiakovski and the Russian community in Heidelberg, see Dahlmann (Citation2010, 274–77) and Mommsen (Citation1989, 5–7).
26. This essay was published as a supplement to the first issue of volume 22 of the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik.
27. On this point see Mommsen (Citation1989, 7–11).
28. This essay was published as a supplement to the first issue of Volume 23 of the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik.
29. Mommsen (Citation1989, 14) disagrees with Pipes, arguing that the second essay was also shaped by the author’s passionate involvement.