Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/337

Rh European lands, and references were made to the similarities between Russian and American economic development.

No doubt this so-called concentration must be accurately explained in the light of Russian conditions, its distinct forms and causes must be grasped. A difference must be made between the concentration of operatives and the concentration of labour on the one hand, and the concentration of capital on the other. For example, the plethora of operatives is referable to their inadequate qualifications and to their poor capacity for work, for the majority of them are still peasants and semi-peasants, whose "concentration" is of a quite peculiar kind. Again, the concentration of capital has quite a different significance when great capitalists are still few in number, and when these appear to act as concentrators because from the very outset it has only been possible for men with large capital to undertake industrial enterprise. Since there does not exist in Russia a middle class corresponding to that known to Europe, the owners of a moderate amount of capital are likewise unknown. Nevertheless, in Russia, too, there has occurred an increasing development of trusts and cartels, whilst in addition there exist in that country the monopolies which are already of old standing.

Russia is becoming industrialised and capitalised; manufacturing industry, home industry, and agriculture, being transformed and developed by industrialisation and capitalisation. The home market is not so weak as the narodniki declared. This is evidenced by the increasing imports in spite of high duties, and by the increasing deposits in the saving banks. Russian exports of manufactured goods are as yet scanty, but even here the increase is noteworthy.

It is hardly needful to adduce serious arguments against the views of those among the narodniki who desire by all possible means to keep Russia a purely agricultural country, and who, with that end in view, go so far as to discountenance political activity and to boycott the constitution, for it is so obvious that in the domain of agriculture the control, cooperation, and initiative of the duma has led to an improvement in agricultural methods. If the narodniki said that parliament would destroy the mir, we have to remember that it is open to question whether it is really to the interest of the mužik that the mir should be retained. Moreover, it was not the duma, but the government hostile to the duma, which