Vasily Vorontsov

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Voroncov, Vasilij Pavlovich.jpg
Vasilii Pavlovich Vorontsov (Pseudonym: V.V., 1847 1918) was an influential Russia
n narodnik economist and sociologist, one of the principal protagonists in the c
ontroversy between narodnik and Marxist economists (like G.V. Plehkanov and P.B.
Struve) in the 1880s and 1890s.
Life[edit]
V.P. Vorontsov came from a distinguished aristocratic family. In the 1860s and 1
970s he became involved in the populist (narodnik) movement. Although he had con
tacts with illegal narodnik circles, he was not himself involved in significant
revolutionary activity. Instead, he was associated with the 'Legal Populists' wh
o advocated political and economic reform from above. In particular, Vorontsov a
dvocated measures to protect the repartitional peasant land commune which still
survived in Russia.
Vorontsov was one of the first Russian economists to study the works of Karl Mar
x and was strongly influenced by Marx' historical materialism. However, unlike o
ther early Russian students of Marx (e.g., N.I. Ziber, N.F. Danielson or G.V. Pl
ekhanov), Vorontsov did not think the development of industrial capitalism was p
ossible in Russia. His argument was that Russia did not have access to sufficien
t markets to fuel capitalist industrialisation: foreign markets were largely dom
inated by older, established capitalist powers, and Russia's domestic demand was
too weak. As the 1890s wore on, Vorontsov had to admit that capitalism had made
some inroads in Russia, but he attributed this to misguided government policies
, such as protective tariffs on foreign manufactured goods, subsidies and low-in
terest loans to Russian industrialists and an ambitious infrastructure programme
(e.g., railway building), together with agrarian policies designed to undermine
communal land tenure. By contrast, Danielson thought that industrial capitalism
had already taken root in Russia and that industrialisation was not necessarily
bad, but that Russia, owing to its belated development, did not have to reprodu
ce all the forms of capitalist relations of production under which industrialisa
tion had occurred in the West, but could proceed to a more humane non-capitalist
form of modernisation. Nevertheless, Vorontsov and Danielson are usually groupe
d together as major exponents of narodnik economics (much to Danielson's dismay)
.
The thesis that Russia did not have to undergo a period of capitalist developmen
t was sharply attacked by Russian Marxist economists. One of the earliest Russia
n Marxists, the economics professor N.I. Ziber (who was not a revolutionary), in
terpreted Marx to mean that a prolonged period of capitalism was a necessary 'hi
storical stage' any society must undergo. While capitalism might already be in a
state of crisis in Western Europe, in Russia, its development had just begun. T
he prospect for the foreseeable future -- which Ziber welcomed -- would therefor
e be a period of capitalist modernisation lasting several decades at least. Plek
hanov, Struve and the young V.I. Lenin, who were associated with the revolutiona
ry movement and with the founding of Russian Social-Democracy (RSDRP), looked fo
r a quicker transition to socialism (although in the 1890s they insisted that Ru
ssia's coming revolution would be 'bourgeois-democratic'). Pace Vorontsov, they
argued that the development of capitalism in Russia was not only inevitable but
had already progressed sufficiently far to make its future breakdown visible on
the horizon. They also disputed Vorontsov's argument that lack of markets made c
apitalism 'impossible' in Russia. The controversy between narodnik and Marxist e
conomists in the 1880s and 1890s was crucial in the formulation of Russian "orth
odox" Marxism, and hence in the ideology that subsequently influenced the ideolo
gies of Menshevism and Bolshevism and its derivatives.
In January 1894, at an underground meeting in the City of St Petersburg, V.P. Vo

rontsov faced off against V.I. Lenin in a debate which attracted the attention o
f spies. (See: V.I. Lenin)
Vorontsov sympathised with the February Revolution of 1917 but opposed the Octob
er Revolution. Nevertheless, he remained in Russia. He died in 1918.
Works[edit]
Sud by kapitalizma v Rossii. St. Petersburg, 1882.
Ocherki kustarnoi promyshlennosti v Rossii. St. Petersburg, 1886.
Krest ianskaia obshchina. In Itogi ekonomicheskikh issledovanii Rossii po dannym zem
skoi statistiki, vol. 1. Moscow, 1892.
Artel nye nachinaniia russkogo obshchestva. St. Petersburg, 1895.
Sud ba kapitalisticheskoi Rossii. St. Petersburg, 1907.
Ot semidesiatykh godov k deviatisotym. St. Petersburg, 1907.
References[edit]
Howard, M.C., and J.E. King, A History of Marxian Economics, Vol. 1: 1883-1929.
Princeton, N.J., 1989.
Barnett, V., A history of Russian economic thought. New York, 2005.
Pipes, R., "Narodnichestvo: A Semantic Inquiry." Slavic Review Vol. 23, No. 3 (S
ep., 1964), pp. 441-458.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Moscow, 1979.
Lenin, V. I. Ekonomicheskoe soderzhanie narodnichestva i kritika ego v knige G. S
truve. Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 1.
Lenin, V. I. K kharakteristike ekonomicheskogo romantizma. Ibid., vol. 2.
Plekhanov, G. V. Obosnovanie narodnichestva v trudakh Vorontsova (V. V.). St. Pe
tersburg, 1896.
Istoriia russkoi ekonomicheskoi mysli, vol. 2, part 2. Moscow, 1960.
Authority control
WorldCat Identities VIAF: 27870342 LCCN: nr90024975 SUDOC: 030891442 BNF: cb1222
1626s (data)
Categories: Russian economistsRussian sociologistsNarodniksRussian socialists184
7 births1918 deaths
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