Note 192 — Chapter XIV · CONCLUSION: THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FAMINE.

I am glad to know that this is the opinion advanced by so high an authority in political economy as Mr. Frederick Engels, one of the few Western students familiar with the Russian language. (Die Neue Zeit, 1892.) So far, however, as my case is concerned, I claim independence of judgment. I wrote in an editorial, dated December 20, 1891: “The consequences of this famine are equivalent to a revolution in the social organization of the Russian village.… The development of capitalism in agriculture, the dissolution of the peasantry into two distinct groups: a rural petite bourgeoisie, and a rural proletariat—these are the characteristics of a new epoch in Russia’s social life.” (Cf., Progress, No. 3, a Russian weekly published at the time in New York.)