Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/334

308 provide a firm inductive foundation for these basic doctrines, engaging in a statistical and historical study, and attempting to show that the economic and social conditions of the eighties and nineties furnished support for their outlook. It was the especial merit of Voroncov that, in contrast with Juzov, he aimed at the inductive verification of his teaching by the use of statistics, especially those furnished by the zemstvos.

The Marxists, for their part, were engaged in the onerous task of effecting a scientific survey of the history of Russia's economic evolution. Having secured as accurate statistics as possible concerning the economic conditions of Russia (number of factories, operatives, etc.) and concerning the position of the various classes, and having studied the development of industry and commerce, they endeavoured to prove, and indeed succeeded in proving, that Russia, notwithstanding the mir, notwithstanding the artels and the home industries, was already carrying on its economic life on a capitalist basis, and that the proletarianisation of the operatives and peasants was by now far advanced.

This criticism and counter-criticism of the narodniki (Voroncov, Nikolai-on, Karyšev, etc.) and the Marxists (Plehanov, Struve, Tugan-Baranovskii, etc.) was the chief concern of Russian theorists and politicians and of the wider circle of the intelligentsia during the early and middle nineties. The liberals took sides against the narodniki, although they were not in all points in agreement with the Marxists.