Bogdanov’s empirio-monism and tektology were extended by him to explain social life. Among some economists, mainly from the mechanistic camp, at one time there was an opinion that Bogdanov was an anti-Marxist only in philosophy. As for the social sciences, in particular political economy, Bogdanov allegedly has only isolated errors; his general line in the economic sciences and in sociology in general is supposedly correct and is basically materialistic. In their opinion, Bogdanov provides a wealth of concrete material in his works and expresses very valuable and correct thoughts. From all this it is concluded that Bogdanov’s sociological works can serve as very useful aids in the study of Marxist social theory.

It is clear that these views are completely wrong. Bogdanov is the same subjective idealist in social science as in philosophy. The difference here is that in Bogdanov's sociological works the revision of Marxism appears in a more hidden form than in philosophy. If in philosophy he openly opposes dialectical materialism, then in sociology he declares himself a Marxist, only somewhat “correcting” and “developing” the theory of Marx and Engels. We have already said that of all Marxism, Bogdanov recognizes only the socio-historical theory of Marx, and then in a distorted and twisted form. Lenin points out in “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism” that Bogdanov was subjectively the sworn enemy of any reaction, but in fact he served this reaction with his philosophy.

Lenin, characterizing the essence of Bogdanov’s sociological views, wrote that “our Machists did not understand Marxism... they assimilated – and sometimes not so much assimilated as memorized –  the economic and historical theory of Marx, without clarifying its basis, i.e., philosophical materialism... They would like to be materialists at the top (i.e. in the doctrine of society. – A. Shch.), they do not know how to get rid of confused idealism at the bottom (i.e. in the worldview, in philosophy. – A. Shch. ) “At the top” for Bogdanov is historical materialism, however, vulgar and greatly spoiled by idealism, “at the bottom” is idealism disguised in Marxist terms, counterfeited with Marxist catchphrases.”¹

    1. Lenin, Works, vol. 13, page 270.

Thus, according to Lenin, Bogdanov’s sociological views are built on the basis of his empiriomonism, which is combined with vulgar materialism in the form of naturalism and technicism. In his further works, written after 1908, i.e. after Lenin wrote “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism,” Bogdanov increasingly moved to purely idealistic positions, having lost almost all the remnants of those elements of historical materialism (“vulgarized and greatly spoiled by idealism”), which Lenin spoke about.

Bogdanov's sociology is essentially a variety of bourgeois positivist sociology. Its theoretical origins are not in Marxism, but in the positivism of Comte, Spencer, Durkheim and other bourgeois sociologists. In this respect, the essence of Bogdanov’s sociological views coincides with the “sociology” of the Second International, which, under the influence of bourgeois positivism, made an evolution from inconsistent “Marxism” to reactionary bourgeois sociology. The characteristic features of Bogdanov's sociology – a mixture of idealism with vulgar naturalism, mechanicism and the theory of equilibrium – are inherent in many areas of bourgeois sociology and sociological theories of revisionism.

Bogdanov's idealism is quite clearly visible already in the starting point of his sociology, in his identification of social being and social consciousness. Consciousness for him is a decisive feature of social life. “Social life in all its manifestations is consciously mental... Sociality is inseparable from consciousness. Social being and social consciousness in the close sense of the word are identical.”²

    2. A. Bogdanov, From the psychology of society, ed. 1904, p. 51.

There is no doubt that the conscious activity of people plays a major role in social life. Marx pointed out that not a single event that occurs in society escapes the consciousness of people. Each individual person acts consciously, pursuing goals set by themselves. But Bogdanov completely forgets two decisive points. Firstly, the goals, aspirations, and consciousness of people are ultimately determined by their social existence. Secondly, under the conditions of all social development preceding communism, not all social processes are conscious, and the basis of society – the productive relations of people – develops independently of human consciousness.

Objecting to Bogdanov, Lenin wrote: “Social being and social consciousness are not identical, in exactly the same way that being in general and consciousness in general are not identical. From the fact that people, entering into communication, enter into it as conscious beings, it in no way follows that social consciousness is identical to social being. When entering into communication, people in all somewhat complex social formations –  and especially in capitalist ones... – are not aware of what kind of social relations are taking shape, according to what laws they are developing.”³

    3. Lenin, Works, vol. 13, p. 264.

And, further, Lenin points out that social consciousness reflects social existence, and only approximately. The sum of all the changes that are introduced into social existence by the production activities of people could not be fully covered in all details by “70 Marxes” .⁴ The task of a materialist understanding of history is to reveal the logic of the development of society, its basic laws, which was done by Marx.

Lenin emphasizes that social consciousness does not passively reflect social existence. It undoubtedly plays a huge role in social life and has a reverse influence on social life. But, nevertheless, the identification of social consciousness with social existence is a harmful reactionary idea. Lenin shows that Bogdanov’s position on this issue coincides like two peas in a pod with the position of the supreme idealist and reactionary Schubert-Soldern.

The words of Marx and Lenin that social relations of people develop “behind their backs”, in addition to their consciousness, apply only to pre-communist society. Under communism and already in its current phase, social relations of people take shape passing through their consciousness. The dictatorship of the working class creates new relations of production. Engels wrote that during the transition to communism, humanity makes a leap from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom. But even from this it is impossible to conclude that under communism social being becomes identical to social consciousness. Social existence continues to determine social consciousness. People, having realized the economic necessity, having realized the necessary tasks of social construction, are actively and consciously fighting for the creation of new relations of production. The spontaneous nature of social laws is destroyed.

Bogdanov's identification of social being with social consciousness means in fact the reduction of social being to social consciousness. For this reason, Bogdanov emphasizes the colossal role that his organizational science should play in social life. Consciousness, according to Bogdanov, organizes being. The concrete organizers of social existence are the social sciences. On this basis, Bogdanov defines economic sciences as tools of the labor organization of society.

Marxism-Leninism attaches great importance to revolutionary scientific theory. By revealing the objective laws of social development, theory gives the revolutionary class “confidence, strength of orientation, and understanding of the inner connection of surrounding events” (Stalin), and thereby becomes the greatest force of the revolutionary movement. But Bogdanov's understanding of the role of science in social life is fundamentally different from the Marxist one. According to Bogdanov, the social sciences organize society and create its structure. They do not reveal the laws of society, but impose them on it.

In Bogdanov's understanding of social ideology, idealism is combined with naturalism and technicism. One does not contradict the other. The history of social thought shows that mechanistic materialism and vulgar naturalism in the social sciences, in whatever form it may be expressed—mechanicism, biologism, technicism—inevitably merge with idealism. This is confirmed by the example of the French materialism of the eighteenth century (which, while not a vulgar materialism, nevertheless tried to explain social laws from mechanics), by the example of the vulgar materialism of the nineteenth century, by the “organic school” in sociology (Spencer, Scheffle, Lilienfeld), by the school of “social Darwinism” (Wallace, Gumpovich, Ammon, and others), and, finally, by the example of Kautsky, Kunow, and the other theoreticians of the Second International.

By distorting the actual essence of socio-economic relations, denying the role of production relations as the economic structure of society, above which all other political and ideological superstructures rise, naturalism cannot reveal the true springs of the social process. Naturalism is forced to look for the source of the development of society outside it, in the environment surrounding society, in nature. Naturalism declares natural science and technical sciences to be the main driving force of social development, with the help of which man subjugates nature, i.e. actually recognizes human consciousness as this driving force. Kautsky finally came to this conclusion. Bogdanov came to the same conclusion.

Bogdanov establishes three stages of relations existing in society: technical, economic, ideological. Technical relations organize the struggle of people with nature. Economic people organize themselves, but also to fight nature. Ideology organizes the experiences of people for the same purpose of adapting people to nature and fighting against it. The decisive and determining role among all these relations belongs to technology. Technology is the border area between society and nature. With the help of technology, man organizes nature, i.e. essentially creates the world. Bogdanov discards the concept of production, replacing it with the “organization of nature.” He believes that the term “production” is not entirely appropriate, since man does not “produce” anything, does not create anything new, but only “organizes” nature, dividing and combining its various elements in new ways.

Bogdanov's sociology is based on his theory of equilibrium. Bogdanov repeatedly emphasizes (in full accordance with the principles of tectology) that the source of social development is the struggle between nature and society. Intrasocial relations, according to Bogdanov, can still be important in the development of class society. But both in primitive society and in developed communist society, where all contradictions between people disappear and only cooperation remains, the driving force of social progress is “a deeper and more sublime struggle of society with nature.”

Bogdanov fully accepts the principle of biological adaptation of man to the environment, preached by Machism. But in order to make this principle more similar to Marxism, Bogdanov renames it the law of social selection, which he declares to be the main law of social development. This law, according to Bogdanov, states that the reasons for any development of social forms lie in the field of labor struggle with nature. Social selection, according to Bogdanov, “is not characterized by any specific concrete manifestations that would distinguish it from other types of selection. The processes of social selection take place in the form of ordinary physiological and psychological facts of preservation or growth, on the one hand, decline or destruction, on the other.”⁵

    5. A. Bodnanov, Empriromonism, part 3, p. 112

Bogdanov here once again emphasizes that social laws are no different from the laws of nature. The laws of society, in his opinion, represent a special case of natural laws. Social selection is a special case of biological selection. Bogdanov’s naturalism is reflected in his unconditional extension of his “doctrine of energy balance” to society. The entire development of society is determined by the exchange of energy between society and nature. If the energy balance of a society is active, then the society develops; if it is passive, it goes towards decline.

Bogdanov essentially rejects not only Marx’s term “historical materialism,” he also rejects the true content of Marx’s teaching on society. Bogdanov reduces productive forces to technology. At the same time, he denies the social nature of technology. Technology (and, therefore, the productive forces identical to it, according to Bogdanov) is reduced by him to a simple set of machines and other instruments of production, which are purely material, natural elements. But, not being a social category, technology, nevertheless, according to Bogdanov, directly determines the social system. “The technology of primitive society determined the connection between the instruments of production and the entire community as a whole, and this determined all the characteristic features of the communist community.” The state of craft technology, according to Bogdanov, made it possible to combine the means of production only with an individual worker, which led to the emergence of an individualistic barter society in its original petty-bourgeois form. Machine technology creates a conscious, organized connection between the tool and the collective of workers and makes the transition to socialism inevitable. In the same way, Bogdanov directly derives ideology from technology. True, he stipulates that along with technology, economics also influences ideology. However, Bogdanov completely ignores and does not understand the complex connection that exists between productive forces and ideological superstructures.

Bogdanov's identification of productive forces with technology was fully adopted by mechanicism – and primarily by Bukharin. Bukharin, following Bogdanov, denies the social nature of the productive forces, defining society as “a system of elements in nature.” Even a worker for Bukharin is a productive force not as a member of a certain class, but only as a biological being trained for a certain job. Bukharin breaks and contrasts the material and the social. Social relations, from his point of view, cannot be material. It is no coincidence that Lenin wrote “danger!” in the margins of Bukharin’s book “Economy of the Transition Period” against these arguments.

The identification of productive forces with technology has a certain class meaning. It is the bourgeoisie that is interested in the assertion that the only source of value creation is the means of production that belong to it. It reduces the working class to a simple appendage of machines. The bourgeois counter-revolutionary essence of the right-wing restorers stands out in this example.

It is no coincidence that Bogdanov’s sociology, the essence of which is the theory of equilibrium, almost entirely reproduced by Bukharin, was one of the theoretical sources of the platform of right-wing restorationists. The theory of equilibrium, the denial of internal contradictions of development, its position that the source of all development is the contradictions between the system and the environment, is based on Bogdanov and Bukharin’s statement about the struggle of society with nature as the main driving force of social development. The theory of “energy balance” between nature and society also follows entirely from the theory of equilibrium.

The denial of the social character of the productive forces led Bogdanov and Bukharin to view the productive forces as apolitical, as “neutral”. The technology of modern capitalism, from their point of view, is so highly developed that it is no longer a capitalist technology, but a socialist one. It is not experiencing any stagnation or crisis; the latter relate only to bourgeois relations of production. At the same time, they understand production relations as a passive shell of productive forces. From here flowed the slogans of the right about the uncritical transfer of capitalist technology and the capitalist organization of production into the socialist economic system, which also expressed the general line of the right to restore capitalist relations in the USSR.

Historical materialism, affirming the materiality of production forces, emphasizes their social character. The very fact that the productive forces include the worker, and not only as a biological, but also as a social being, representing different productive forces in different historical formations, refutes the mechanistic interpretation of the productive forces.

Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin believe that the most important productive force is the living labor force, the revolutionary class. Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin always emphasized the inextricable unity of all elements of the productive forces, fighting both their technicalization and naturalization, and the underestimation of the role of technology. This unity was most clearly expressed in Stalin’s slogans about mastering technology and cadres. The slogan “technology decides everything in the reconstruction period” has nothing in common with the Bogdanov-Bukharin absolutization of technology. On the contrary, Stalin’s focus is on a living person. Stalin demands that people master technology. And he understands this task not as a narrow technical one, but as one of the most important tasks of the class struggle in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

At the 17th Congress of the CPSU(b), Stalin noted as one of the greatest achievements of our industry that it created hundreds of thousands of skilled workers. The exponent of this mastery of technology by people is the Stakhanov movement. The majority of Stakhanovites, as Comrade Ordzhonikidze pointed out, consist of workers who passed the state technical exams with “good” and “excellent” marks.

The fundamental organic defects of technization and naturalization of productive forces are revealed immediately when Bogdanov approaches the question of what drives the development of technology itself. As a result of his mechanistic and idealistic attitudes, he cannot reveal the real internal forces of the development of society. Therefore, Bogdanov is forced to look for the reason for the development of technology (and this, in his opinion, is the main thing in social development) outside of it and outside of society. He finds this reason in consciousness, and not even social, but individual.

“The human psyche,” he writes, “is the main instrument of social development.” Bogdanov considers mental selection to be the main form of social selection. Through mental selection, the development of an individual personality is carried out, and since the whole society consists of such individuals, then, consequently, social development. Even the most specifically social processes, writes Bogdanov, such as “communication” and “cooperation” of people are realized with the help of mental selection occurring in individual psyches. Thus, Bogdanov clearly and unequivocally recognizes that the basis of social life is the individual psyche.

Marxism has never denied that all people’s actions occur with the participation of their psyche, their consciousness. But this does not mean at all that the human psyche is the decisive core of social development and is itself not determined by anything. This formulation of the question is nothing more than subjective-idealistic indeterminism. Thus, Bogdanov’s attempt to give his sociology a Marxist materialist appearance ended in failure, and he again ran into an idealistic impasse.

Developing these idealistic conclusions further, Bogdanov concludes that the economic life of society is determined and organized by ideological superstructures. Mental processes occurring in individual people are combined and organized through ideologies. Therefore, ideologies, according to Bogdanov, are organizing forms of social life. “Ideology, in all its development, retains the same character and significance of the system of organizational forms of production, in other words, the organization of the instruments of social existence of people.” Elsewhere (“Questions of Socialism”) Bogdanov even more sharply emphasizes the leading role of social consciousness. “Capitalism is practically organized through the right of private property and the morality of individualism.” Nationalist ideology during the imperialist war, according to Bogdanov, reconciled all the contradictions – both economic and political – among the bourgeoisie of the warring countries and put them together into a strong bloc.

Marx and Lenin repeatedly noted the enormous role of ideological superstructures in social life. “An idea,” wrote Marx, “becomes the greatest force if it is mastered by the masses.” A clearly defined ideology undoubtedly also has an organizing significance, promoting consolidation, cohesion and increasing the combat effectiveness of the class. But Bogdanov is trying to transform ideology from an active factor in social development into its dominant and determining basis. Ideology, according to Bogdanov, is determined by economics and technology only until it arises. Having emerged, ideology acquires a leading role in relation to economics and technology. Bogdanov does not find any contradiction in this. To prove this point, he cites the example of the railway and train schedules. The timetable is a superstructure in relation to the railway; As long as there is no railway, there can be no timetable. But when the schedule is drawn up, all the work of the road is subordinated to it. Thus, nothing remained of the leading role of material production; it was replaced by the leading role of ideological superstructures.

In support of his thesis about the leading role of ideology, Bogdanov refers to those passages from Marx and Engels in which the latter, as opposed to vulgar economic materialism, emphasize the active role of ideological superstructures and their reverse impact on social existence. At the same time, Bogdanov ignores and omits the teaching of Marx-Engels that social consciousness only reflects social existence and is ultimately determined by it. After the “amendments” made by Bogdanov to the materialist understanding of history, not a grain of Marxism will remain in his “sociology.” Social consciousness determines social existence, creates and organizes society – this is the main idea that Bogdanov openly pursues in his sociological works.

Rejecting the materialist understanding of history, Bogdanov also rejects Marx’s theory of classes and class struggle. Bogdanov puts forward his theory of the origin of classes, which has nothing to do with Marxism. He bases class division not on different relations to the means of production, but on the division of society into planners and executors.

This division, according to his theory, was caused by the development and complexity of technology. By the same development of technology, namely machine technology, where the worker is no longer a simple executor, but an active and proactive worker operating complex machines, the class division is supposedly automatically destroyed.

The exploitative essence of the class division in Bogdanov actually disappears. This is clearly evident from his theory of the emergence of classes.

Marx, Engels and Lenin showed that the emergence of classes was due to the development of productive forces, which at a certain stage led to the emergence of private property and wealth inequality. The twofold path of class formation, discovered by Engels, consisted, firstly, in the emergence of a social division of labor between communities, in the emergence of a surplus product and the development of exchange between communities. This led to the emergence and strengthening of private property. An economic basis has emerged for the exploitation of man by man. It becomes profitable not to kill or eat prisoners of war, but to turn them into slaves and use the surplus product they create. Secondly, also on the basis of the development of productive forces, the social division of labor begins within the community. In each community there arise “certain common interests, the protection of which must be entrusted to individuals, although under the supervision of the whole society” .⁶ These are the resolution of disputes, supervision of the irrigation system, and finally, religious functions. These duties are assigned to special officials, who, however, are not masters, but servants of the community. Only on the basis of the emergence of private property and wealth inequality, the persons occupying these public positions are isolated from the community so much that they become dominant over it, turn their positions into hereditary ones and concentrate in their hands most of the public property.

    6. Engels, Anti-Dühring, Mars and Engels, Works, Volume 14, page 181.

Thus, the formation of private ownership of the means of production was the decisive reason for the formation of classes. Criticizing the “theory of violence” of Dühring and others, Engels showed that violence itself became possible only as a result of certain economic conditions.

Bogdanov also formally recognizes that the emergence of classes is conditioned by the development of the economy. But here, too, he has nothing left of Marxism. The development of productive forces along the way leads to the complication of economic activity and the need to allocate special planners with extensive production experience to manage the economy. Organizational functions in society are beginning to become increasingly separated from executive functions. On this basis, the division of labor in general arises. The planner of the community is the patriarch. Gradually, the organizing group, according to Bogdanov, became a special caste, whose task is only leadership. The rest of the people only have to passively carry out the orders of the organizers. Thus, organizational labor was separated from executive labor and the ruling and oppressed classes were formed.

Although Bogdanov says that the origin of classes is due to the development of productive forces, in fact classes, according to his theory, are formed not on the basis of the development of productive forces and the establishment of private ownership of the means of production, but on the basis of the separation of organizational or executive labor, on the basis of accumulation production experience. The ruling classes, according to Bogdanov's teachings, became the ruling classes because they played a leading role in the production process. If one applies this theory to the classes of capitalist society, it turns out that the capitalist became a capitalist only because he was once an organizer of production. In fact, on the contrary, the capitalist acts (and not always) as the head of an enterprise only because he monopolizes the means of production in his possession.

Bogdanov’s concept of the origin of classes was formed entirely under the influence of bourgeois positivism of the 19th century –  Comte, Spencer, Durkheim, etc. Spencer also explained the emergence of classes by the complexity and specialization of production, which led to the formation of various professions (class and profession for Spencer are generally the same). Any development, according to Spencer, represents a double process of differentiation and integration. Scattered families are integrated into clans, tribes, and states. In parallel with this, differentiation occurs within the unifying society, which is expressed in the division of labor between people. The division of labor, according to Spencer, necessitates the identification of special organizers, who then turn into the ruling classes.

From his theory, Spencer draws a conclusion about the eternity of class society. Class division can disappear only with the collapse of civilization and the return of people to primitive life in small groups and families. As long as there is a civilization, a united society with a complex economic life that requires specialization from people, until then classes and professions will inevitably remain.

Durkheim also takes the same point of view, also replacing the class division with a professional one and explaining class contradictions by social imperfections that can be eliminated through reforms.

True, Bogdanov makes some corrections to Spencer and Durkheim, trying to distinguish between the class and professional divisions of society. According to Bogdanov, in society it is necessary to distinguish between “social groups” and “classes”. Social groups are occupational divisions that arose as a result of the development of specialization in society; classes arose on the basis of the isolation of organizational and executive functions in society. Consequently, according to Bogdanov, in a class society there can be social groups that do not have a class character. From this it logically follows that the direct production arrangement of people in a capitalist enterprise –  directors, engineers, foremen, workers – does not reflect the class division in society.

This conclusion was made by Bukharin, who distinguished between class and “technical-labor”, “supra-class” relations of people. Technically, Bukharin defines labor (as he calls production) relations as “the labor coordination of people (understood as living machines) in space and time.” Class relations, divorced from their production essence, were reduced by Bukharin to legal relations. Thus, Bogdanov and Bukharin on the issue of classes actually completely remained in Spencer’s positions, since they denied the class nature of directly productive (in their terminology “technical-labor”) relations.

It is known that Lenin subjected this Bogdanov-Bukharin concept to severe criticism. He strongly objected to the separation of class and technical relations. “It is precisely the terminology that is incorrect: there are no class non-social ones,” Lenin wrote⁷.

    7. “The Lenin collection” 11, p. 368.

This instruction from Lenin refutes the Bogdanov-Bukharin theory of the difference between classes and social groups. It is clear that the relations within a capitalist enterprise are not only technical, but also class-based.

“Technical” relations of production are derived from class relations, one of the forms of class relations. The organization of the production process, the hierarchical ladder in the factory, reflects the class hierarchy in bourgeois society itself. Moreover, even the technical arrangement of workers itself is determined by class interests. And being class relations, technical relations are also social, public relations.

Thus, Lenin refutes the opposition and rupture of technical and social relations. From these same Leninist words another conclusion follows: all social relations in a class society are class relations.

Meanwhile, Bogdanov and Bukharin are pushing through their provisions on peaceful class cooperation everywhere. Bukharin preached the peaceful growth of the kulak into socialism and declared that the Soviet Union could not survive without kulak bread.

Bogdanov argued that in a slave society there were class differences between slaves and slave owners, but there was no class struggle between them, since slaves did not have their own clearly defined ideology.

“Class,” writes Bogdanov, “emerges only with the ideological isolation of organizers and performers.” Under feudalism, according to him, there also could not be a particularly sharp class struggle, since the ideology of feudal lords and serfs was basically the same – a religious worldview. Only when the subordinate class develops its own ideology (and this, according to Bogdanov, is only possible for the proletariat in a capitalist society), then the true class struggle begins. Material production bases play a secondary role.

Bogdanov connects even the very existence of classes with the formulation of his ideology. In his words, “the organizational class usually takes shape and becomes a class earlier than the executive class. Often the first has a certain worldview and a developed system of norms that organize its life, while the second remains an amorphous social mass for which organizational ideology is an external oppressive force and does not have its own ideology. The slave owners of the ancient world were the real class, and the slaves never managed to rise to the level of the class. ⁸”

    8. A. Bogdanov, Empiriomonism, part 3, p. 119.

Bogdanov's idealism, which places the difference in ideologies as the basis for class division, leads him to a confusion of two different issues: the emergence of a class and the formation of its class consciousness. In fact, in order to realize its class interests and develop its ideology, a class must first arise as a certain social group of people, united by the same attitude towards the means of production. Only in the process of its development, in the process of struggle with other classes of society, does the “class in itself” turn into a “class for itself”. According to Bogdanov, it turns out that the class of exploiters can arise before the exploited and exist, obviously, without exploiting anyone.

In fact, both classes are formed at the same time. But the ruling class, previously subordinate, turns into a “class for itself”, and previously develops and formalizes its ideology.

Bogdanov also distorted Marx’s teaching on exploitation in capitalist society. Instead of the term “exploitation” in the “Initial Course of Political Economy” he often uses the term appropriation. The term “appropriation” is used by both Marx and Lenin, but Bogdanov puts into it a meaning completely opposite to Marxism. The relationship of appropriation, according to Bogdanov, consists not only in exploitation, but also in the fact that people work for others or under others. Such, for example, is an exchange in which people mutually “appropriate” each other’s products of labor. Thus, exploitation is reduced by Bogdanov to exchange, i.e. also to cooperation.

Bogdanov’s authoritarian-organizational theory of classes inevitably leads him to the actual denial of the class struggle, although he constantly repeats his proletarian class point of view. For Bogdanov, class relations are just one form of cooperation. “This is also a kind of specialization, but a very special one, when one is engaged in organizational activities, and others carry out his instructions… On this was built the ancient patriarchal community..., then the feudal organization, where the feudal lord dominated the peasant, and he himself was usually subordinate to another, higher feudal lord. The modern peasant and bourgeois family also has a “head” in the form of a father and husband; in the factory, workers are subordinate to the capitalists who have organizational power, as well as to engineers and directors who have received power from them. ⁹”

    9. A. Bogdanov, Introductory course in political economy, p. 15.

No comments are needed on this. The relationship between the two feudal lords to Bogdanov is identical to the relationship between the feudal lord and the peasant, the relationship between the capitalist and the slave is the relationship between the head and family members.

There is no doubt that Bogdanov, before his departure from Bolshevism, was subjectively not a supporter of class reconciliation, but such is the inevitable conclusion from the idealist views on the socio-historical process which he carried to the limit. Here it is necessary to recall once again the words of Lenin, who wrote in 1908, that subjectively Bogdanov was then an enemy of all reaction, but that his philosophy defends and justifies this reaction. In the subsequent period of his activity, after the final transition to liquidationism under the banner of creating a “proletarian culture”, Bogdanov openly took the position of class collaboration.

Thus, Bogdanov had nothing left of the class struggle. Relations of cooperation are brought to the fore. The class antagonism of Bogdanov is also replaced by contradictions between the organizers and the organized, or rather, between the ideology of the two. From this Bogdanov concludes that the path to the abolition of classes lies not through the transfer of the means of production into the hands of the proletariat, but through the “socialization of organizational experience through the ideological education of the class” and the creation of “proletarian culture” inside the throes of capitalism. And here Bogdanov's idealism is combined with mechanicism. In some places he openly declares that the development of machine technology automatically abolishes class divisions, since the worker working on the machine is not a mere performer: he is the one who drives the machine.

The last ruling class, according to Bogdanov, will not be the bourgeoisie, but the technical intelligentsia of the “organized state-capitalist society”, monopolizing all production experience. Here Bogdanov completely merges with the theoreticians of “technocracy” and substantiates the ideology of the Ramzins, who also preach the “future domination” of the technical intelligentsia.

Although Bogdanov says that under communism the gap between organizers and performers disappears, in fact he perpetuates this gap. Bogdanov's views on the nature of communist society are most detailed and clearly expressed in his novels “Red Star” and “Engineer Manny”. The latter is especially interesting for the clarification of the question we are considering. A representative of the technical intelligentsia, the brilliant engineer Manny, is dragging the ignorant and ever-vacillating workers to socialism on a lasso. It is highly remarkable that Manny disperses the labor unions, since they only support the greedy moods of the “unconscious” proletariat and do not want to submit to the dictatorship of the spiritual aristocrat Manny.

The ungrateful workers arrest Manny, but soon become convinced that they are absolutely helpless without him, and are forced to call Manny back, agreeing to all the conditions put forward by him. Manny dies peacefully only when he is convinced that his son Natty, also an engineer, with all the aristocratic habits of his father, will be a worthy leader of the workers, who still remain a “dark and weak-willed mass” in need of organizational guidance from above. Lenin wrote to Gorky that in “Engineer Manny” Bogdanov carried out the same Machian idealism, and added that it was evident that “this Machian is hopeless.”

These novels of Bogdanov fully expose his true class nature. By the time of the October Revolution, Bogdanov had nothing in common with the proletariat. He openly acts as an ideologist of reactionary philistinism, expressing the mood of the counter-revolutionary elite of the intelligentsia, who pursued a policy of co-oppression and hoped that the working class would not be able to cope with the administration of the state on its own and would be forced to call to power the “Varangians” – the intelligentsia.

Bogdanov actually accepts the old idealist Narodnik concept of “critically thinking individuals” as the driving force of the social process. Such a conclusion inevitably follows from his view of the class struggle as an ideological struggle, from his absolutization of the role of organizers in social life. Bogdanov's organizational theory leads him to the conclusion that without an organizer who rises above the passive masses, incapable of independent struggle, society cannot exist.

These “critically thinking” organizers, cut off from the masses and alien to them, outline plans for the well-being of the working people, who obediently follow them. However, in the “supermen”-loners of Manny and Natty, some not populist, but Nietzschean-fascist features are already outlined.

Bogdanov enjoyed some popularity as an economist in pre-revolutionary Russia and even in the early years of Soviet power. “A Short Course of Economic Science”, “An Elementary Course of Political Economy in Questions and Answers”, as well as an extensive “Course of Political Economy”, written by him together with I. I. Stepanov-Skvortsov, until 1923-1924 served as very common textbooks in educational institutions of our country. Popularity in presentation, fairly large factual material, attempts to give a coherent historical overview of social development contributed to this distribution of Bogdanov's books.

But the initial divergence between Bogdanov and Marx in the interpretation of the basic questions of political economy already took place in his “Short Course”. Therefore, Lenin, who sympathetically greeted the appearance of the “Short Course” in 1896, noted in his review the serious errors contained in it.  Bogdanov's subsequent speeches, both specifically economic, philosophical, and sociological, pointed out that Bogdanov's mistakes in the “Short Course” were not accidental and represented a link in Bogdanov's general anti-Marxist theory. Bogdanov's views on questions of political economy, as well as all his sociological views, are entirely based on his empiriomonism and tectology.

A characteristic feature of Bogdanov's courses in economic sciences is his desire to give a history of the development of social forms, to show the history of the emergence of capitalism. For this he was praised by Lenin, who noted that “this is exactly how political economy should be expounded.” It is well known that both Engels and Lenin spoke of political economy in the broad sense, not limiting its framework to commodity economy alone, but emphasizing the unity of the entire historical process. Menshevik Rubin and his supporters, with the support of minority idealists, carried out, under the banner of the struggle against mechanicism, an idealist revision of Marxism. Although the Rubinites called their position genuinely historical, their historicism was expressed in the fact that they fundamentally separated one formation from another, turning them into closed logical systems devoid of historical continuity. Each new formation meant an absolute break with the old. Proceeding from these principles, they denied the possibility of creating a political economy in the broad sense, reducing its tasks to the study of only commodity-capitalist society.

But this does not mean that Bogdanov took the correct Marxist position on the question of political economy in the broad sense. His understanding of historicism has nothing in common with Marxist ones. The first feature that sharply distinguishes Bogdanov's point of view on this question from the Marxist-Leninist one is his failure to understand the qualitative uniqueness of the individual stages of social history. Marxism-Leninism considers each socio-economic structure as a kind of social organism, with specific laws of origin, development and decline inherent only to it. Bogdanov, on the other hand, proceeding from his mechanicism and tectological schemes, tries in every possible way to erase the qualitative difference between the formations, to prove that they are all essentially subject to the same laws.

Bogdanov does not reveal the specific laws of individual formations, does not reveal their originality, but, on the contrary, reduces all the laws of human history to one – to the equilibrium of the energy balance between nature and society.

Marxism-Leninism sees the decisive difference between one formation and another in the mode of social production by which it is characterized. Therefore, the transition from one formation to another is possible only through a revolutionary transformation of the economic structure of society. Bogdanov, on the other hand, sees the main difference between different stages of social development in the different levels of technology and in the different nature of ideology. The difference between different stages of social development, Bogdanov, in the final analysis, reduces to a quantitative difference in the level of productive forces. Although he does not openly deny the qualitative difference between individual formations, nevertheless the mechanistic tendencies are manifested in him quite clearly.

Thus, Bogdanov ascribes the laws of capitalism to slave-holding society, considering the latter also to be exchange, commodity. On the other hand, Bogdanov actually erases the fundamental difference between capitalism and socialism. The transition from capitalism to socialism, from his point of view, means no more than the transition from one class formation to another. Bogdanov essentially slips into the position that the maturation of a communist society takes place in the depths of capitalism. Already under capitalism, according to Bogdanov, the anarchy of production began to be eliminated thanks to monopolistic associations, and thanks to the development and complication of technology, the difference between physical and mental labor began to be erased. The working class, according to Bogdanov, must develop its own ideology and culture even under capitalism. Therefore, Bogdanov presents historical development as an evolutionary process, in which revolutions play only a secondary role. Bogdanov interprets the essence of social revolutions on the basis of his doctrine of tectological crises. From the point of view of tectology, a crisis is only a peculiar (but not the only possible) form of restoring a disturbed equilibrium on a new basis. In this way, Bogdanov tries to subordinate the revolutionary development of society to the theory of equilibrium.

Bogdanov's historicism naturally turns into a simple description of the sequence of social phenomena. It is understandable that Bogdanov and his followers from the mechanistic trend of political economy -- Bukharin, Kohn, Bessonov and others -- were unable to overcome Rubin's anti-historicism. On the contrary, their propositions were used by the Rubinites to fight against the Marxist-Leninist understanding of historicism in political economy.

Bogdanov's mechanicism leads to the fact that his periodization of social history is fundamentally different from the Marxist one. Marx-Lenin's doctrine of socio-economic formation, which constitutes the core of historical materialism, was rejected and distorted by Bogdanov. Bogdanov tries to squeeze the whole story into his usual abstract schemes. Bogdanov's classification of stages and periods of social history was again strongly influenced by bourgeois positivist sociology. Bogdanov's conception of the historical process represents an eclectic attempt to combine historical materialism with the mechanistic schemes of bourgeois sociology. At the same time, as always, Bogdanov completely took the position of bourgeois science, only superficially preserving Marxist terminology.

Instead of the five socio-economic formations discovered in the history of social development by Marx and Lenin, Bogdanov establishes three main stages in the development of society: natural economy, fractional exchange individualistic economy, and collective economy. The last stages of each obsolete stage and the initial stages of the new are intermediate, transitional stages between these stages, stages that include features of both the new and the old and can be attributed to both stages. Consequently, one social stage, in Bogdanov's opinion, peacefully develops into another. It is clear that the revolution from this point of view is superfluous.

In his periodization, Bogdanov lumps together both pre-class and class society. But this does not bother him at all, since, in his opinion, not only the patriarchs, but also the feudal lords were not exploiters at first. Bogdanov based the periodization of social history on the degree of organization and complexity of social life at various historical stages, which essentially meant different forms of social ideology. He considers the first stage of social development to be a society in which there is still absolutely no division into planners and executors. Bogdanov calls this initial form of human coexistence the primitive-clan community. The homogeneity of a community is determined exclusively by the ease and simplicity of economic life, when all members of the community earn their livelihood in the same way. The second stage of natural economy is the patriarchal-clan community. Communist ties within it have not yet been broken, but the complication of production activity leads to the emergence of the first form of division of labor—the separation of patriarchs-organizers.

It should be noted that Bogdanov's assertion that the separation of organizers was the first form of social division of labor is incorrect. Already in the primitive communist horde there were rudiments of this division in the form of the age-sex division of labor. Even before the identification of organizers, a number of specialties were singled out within the community – blacksmiths, potters, gunsmiths, etc. Marx cites the example of the village clan community in India, which was partially preserved even under British domination. A number of members of the commune perform work that is different from that of the agricultural majority, and receive maintenance from the commune for this. Even such “specialists” as the masters who are in charge of irrigation canals and undoubtedly perform some organizational functions, are simple clerks, but by no means organizers-masters of the community. The true social division of labor, in its Marxist-Leninist understanding, arises only with the formation of classes.

Feudalism, according to Bogdanov, is characterized by a much more pronounced division of society into organizers and executors, which leads (however, according to him, only at a certain stage of the development of feudalism) to the emergence of class differences and exploitation. From Bogdanov's point of view, the feudal lords for a long time were a very productive and useful group – organizers and defenders of the community from the raids of external enemies.

Feudalism, according to Bogdanov, was replaced either by slave-holding society or serfdom. Thus, the ancient Greek feudalism of the period of the Trojan Wars (by the way, there was no feudalism in Greece at that time) turned into a slave-holding society, and medieval feudalism into serfdom. Thus, Bogdanov actually distorts historical reality and denies the objective laws of the socio-historical process. Feudalism is replaced by slave-holding society, slave-holding society is again replaced by feudalism, etc. Social progress, movement towards higher formations is replaced by movement in a circle, marking time.

The specifics of individual formations are ignored by Bogdanov. He reckoned each of the stages of social development either as a natural economy or as an exchange economy, or as a transitional stage between them. He considers slave-holding and serfdom societies to be such transitional stages between natural and exchange economy. They, in his opinion, are exchange-like “above”, and natural – “below”. The economic basis of these societies is a natural economy, but at the same time, a fairly wide trade is developing in these societies, especially foreign and overseas trade.

Bogdanov, distorting historical reality, confuses the true sequence of formations. Slave-holding society, according to him, represents a higher level than feudal society, and gives greater scope for the development of productive forces. Serfdom is regarded as something fundamentally different from feudalism on the grounds that the relationship between the feudal lord and the serf allegedly changes in connection with the development of the central state power. The feudal lord ceases to be a useful protector for the serfs and completely turns into a parasite and exploiter.

Bogdanov's interpretation of serfdom as a special stage of social development, distinct from feudalism, was somewhat widespread in Soviet historical literature in the works of Rozhkov and partly by M. N. Pokrovsky and others (the latter places the epoch of merchant capital between feudalism and capitalism). To prove the fundamental difference between feudalism and serfdom, these authors referred to the allegedly different forms of exploitation of peasants in these epochs. Under feudalism, in their opinion, the dominant form of exploitation is rent, under serfdom – corvee, i.e.: under feudalism, the serf mainly works in his own economy, under serfdom – in the landlord's household. Rozhkov and Pokrovsky even put forward a whole theory about the agrarian revolution, which allegedly took place during the transition from feudalism to serfdom and transferred land from the hands of feudal boyars to small and medium landlords.

The fact that in the last centuries of the existence of feudalism under the influence of the development of the money economy the forms of rent change, Marx also pointed out. Rent in kind in products gives way to labor rent, and then to money rent. But the essence of the production relations between the serf and the landlord does not change at all because of this. Feudalism remains feudalism. The transfer of land from large landlords to smaller landlords is a redistribution of land within the ruling class of landlords and, therefore, does not constitute any agrarian revolution.

The transition from serfdom to capitalism, in Bogdanov's opinion, is also accomplished evolutionarily, without a leap, through a number of transitional stages. He establishes the following stages of exchange society: simple commodity economy, merchant capital, domestic capitalist industry, manufacture, industrial capital, and finance capital. Bogdanov believes that logically simple commodity economy should be followed by a trade-capitalist stage of social development. On this basis, he singled out merchant capital as the main historical formation. In the same way, proceeding from these logical schemes, Bogdanov believes that there must have been a separate period of domestic capitalist industry organized by merchant capital. Merchant capital, according to Bogdanov, is the main driving force in the transition from serfdom to capitalism. Bogdanov does not take into account the concrete historical course of the development of capitalism, with the interweaving of its individual forms, especially at the first stages of development. He substitutes bare logical schemes for the actual historical course of the primitive accumulation of capital. This was directly reflected in the idealist separation from historical reality and the abstract schematism of Bogdanov's tektology.

To be continued…

Translated by: Polina Brik

From:
A. V. Shchegolov, Lenin’s Struggle Against Bogdanov's Revision of Marxism
Academy of Sciences of the USSR Institute of Philosophy,
State Socio-Economic Publishing House, Moscow – 1937
Chapter 6, Pages 151-178

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