The subject was eagerly considered. It was natural that contemporaries, a number of whom participated personally in the events, should be interested in searching out the causes of the revolution. The question they usually asked was, whether and to what extent the revolution was socialistic, whether it was a working-class revolution, a peasant revolution, or a bourgeois revolution; and they wished to estimate the value of the revolution from the socialist outlook, to ascertain whether and to what extent it had advantaged or injured particular classes and above all the working class, whether and to what extent the revolution had favoured or hindered the attainment of the socialist goal. The discussion was instructive, but was somewhat confused. Participation on the part of the workers in its events does not make the revolution socialistic. The concepts, bourgeoisie, liberalism, intelligentsia, etc., have many meanings. No attempt was made to ascertain precisely how great a part the capitalists played in bringing about the revolution, side by side with, and after a certain point independently of, the great landowners; no attempt was made to determine when either of these two classes intervened, or when and why either of them ctased to participate. But it is equally difficult to ascertain the precise share of the Marxists and the social revolutionaries in the revolution.
I am not thinking solely of direct and active participation in the struggle. We are also concerned with the question how far the revolutionists received sympathetic help from various strata of the population. It is further necessary to examine what were the consequences of the revolution, what trend the movement took, and why.
Finally, the individual facts and the revolution as a whole
and yet Bogdanovy tells us that Marx inaugurated the true philosophy!) When Bogdanov tells us concerning Marx, that in Marx philosophy discovered itself, became aware of its own position in nature and society, a position "above nature and society, but not outside them" we cannot but feel that, despite Bogdanov's general veneration for positivism, he departs here from a strictly positivist and monistic outlook. Bogdanov has also written "novels of fancy" wherein he describes the future of society by depicting life on Mars. Here we are told of a "universal science of organisation" which will afford a ready solution of the most complicated tasks of organisation after the fashion of mathematical calculations in practical mechanics. Manifestly the inhabitants of Mars, in their amoralist objectivism, take very kindly to these calculations. It need hardly be said that the "universal science of organisation" is founded by a disciple of Marx, the Martian Marx, however, passing by the name of Xarma. I can understand why Plehanov reproached Bogdanov for being no longer a Marxist.
