Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/356

330 social democracy exercised a confusing influence upon Plehanov and the Russian Marxists.

In the Communist Manifesto Plehanov had discovered arguments for the political struggle and for the alliance with the liberals; he found here also an argument against mere economism (Russian economism was no novelty); the Communist Manifesto harmonised with the transition from the terrorism of the Narodnaja Volja to Marxism. The later phase of Marxism, however, was out of harmony with this transition, and this later phase therefore provided Plehanov's disciples with their arguments on behalf of economism, their arguments against political activity, against the duma, against the state in general. None the less, Plehanov's disciples could discover arguments for politism also in Engel's writings during the latest of his evolutionary phases.

The establishment of the duma involved a number of theoretical and practical inconveniences for the Marxists. The first question they had to consider was whether they should recognise the duma or boycott that institution, and the answers they gave were divergent.

The agrarian question promptly came before the duma in a concrete practical form. The electoral system guaranteed the peasants a definite number of deputies, and in the duma the narodniki were able to discover whether they had been right in believing that ninety per cent of the peasants were socialistically inclined. The result of the elections was in the first place an argument against the narodniki, but the Marxists