Processo storico naturale e volontà rivoluzionaria

“How could the young Ulyanov, who began with voluntarism, in complete contradiction to everything else he wrote at the time, believe that social evolution does not depend on the will and the consciousness of people? To a significant degree, of course, Marx himself is guilty to this. The Russian scholar Kaufman, in an article devoted to the publication of the Russian translation of the first volume of ‘Das Kapital’, wrote that Marx, having demonstrated the necessity of the capitalist order, “also demonstrated the necessity of another order to which the transition must be made without fail – regardless of whether people think about this or not, whether they acknowledge this or not. Marx views the social movement as a natural historical process which is ruled by laws that are not only independent of the will, the consciousness, and the intention of the individual, but, on the contrary, themselves determine his will, consciousness, and intention” (Vestnik Evropy, 1872, n° 5). (…) However, in his foreword to the second edition of ‘Das Kapital’, Marx acknowledged it very favorably, approved it and made it a supplement, as it were, to his sociological scheme in the foreword to ‘Zur Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie’ (1859). And once Marx acknowledged Kaufman’s formulation, this in itself was sufficient for Vladimir Ulyanov to accept it unconditionally and without any “philosophizing”” [Nikolai Valentinov, The Early Years of Lenin, 1969]