Classics
A LIBERAL PROFESSOR ON EQUALITY
Lenin
Liberal Professor Mr. Tugan –
Baranovsky is on the warpath
against socialism. This time he has
approached the question, not from
the political and economic angle,
but from that of an abstract
discussion on equality (perhaps
the professor thought such an
abstract discussion more suitable
for the religious and philosophical
gatherings which he has
addressed?).
“If we take socialism, not as
economic theory, but as a living
ideal”, Mr. Tugan declared. “then
undoubtedly, it is associated with
the ideal of equality, but equality is
concept … that cannot be deduced
from experience”.
This is the reasoning of a
liberal scholar who repeats the
incredibly trite and threadbare
argument that experience and
reason clearly proves that men are
not equal, yet socialism bases its
ideal on equality. Hence, socialism,
if you please, is an absurdity which
is contrary to experience and
reason, and so forth!
Mr. Tugan repeats the old trick
of the reactionaries: first to
misinterpret socialism by making it
out to be an absurdity, and then to
triumphantly refute the absurdity!
When we say that experience and
reason prove that men are not
equal, we mean by equality,
equality in abilities or similarity in
physical strength and mental ability.
It goes without saying that in
this respect men are not equal. No
sensible person and no socialist
forgets this. But this kind of equality
has nothing whatever to do with
socialism. If Mr. Tugan is quite
unable to think, he is at least able
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to read; were he to take the well-
known work of one of the founders
of scientific socialism, Frederick
Engels, directed against Duhring,
he would find there a special
section explaining the absurdity of
imagining that economic equality
means anything else than the
abolition of classes. But when
professors set out to refute
socialism, one never knows what to
wonder at most – their stupidity,
their ignorance, or their unscrupu-
lousness.
Since we have Mr. Tugan to
deal with, we shall have to start
with the rudiments.
By political equality Social-
Democrats mean equal rights, and
by economic equality, as we have
already said, they mean the
abolition of classes. As for
establishing human equality in the
sense of equality of strength and
abilities (physical and mental),
socialists do not even think of such
things.
Political equality is a demand
for equal political rights for all
citizens of a country who have
reached a certain age and who do
not suffer from either ordinary or
liberal-professorial feeble-minded-
ness. This demand was first
advanced, not by the socialists, not
by the proletariat, but by the
bourgeoisie. The well-known
historical experience of all countries
of the world proves this, and
Mr.Tugan could easily have disco-
vered this had he not called
“experience” to witness solely in
order to dupe students and
workers, and please the powers
that be by “abolishing” socialism.
The bourgeoisie put forward
the demand for equal rights for all
citizens in the struggle against
medieval, feudal, serf owner and
caste privileges. In Russia, for
example,
unlike
America,
Switzerland and other countries,
the privileges of the nobility are
preserved to this day in all spheres
of political life, in elections to the
Council of State, in elections to the
Duma, in municipal administration,
in taxation, and many other things.
Even the most dull-witted and
ignorant person can grasp the fact
that individual members of the
nobility are not equal in physical
and mental abilities any more than
are people belonging to the “tax-
paying”, “base”, “low-born” or “non-
privileged” peasant class. But in
rights all nobles are equal, just as
all the peasants are equal in their
lack of rights.
Does our learned liberal
Professor Tugan now understand
the difference between equality in
the sense of equal rights, and
equality in the sense of equal
strength and abilities?
We shall now deal with
economic equality. In the United
States of America, as in other
advanced countries, there are no
medieval pr ivileges. All citizens are
equal in political rights. But are they
equal as regards their position in
social production?
No, Mr. Tugan, they are not.
Some own land, factories and
capital and live on the unpaid
labour of the workers; these form
an insignificant minority. Others,
namely, the vast mass of the
population, own no means of
production and live only by selling
their labour-power; these are
proletarians.
In the United States of America
there is no aristocracy, and the
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