Nikolai Danielson

N.F. Danielson

Nikolai Frantsevich Danielson (also known as N-on, Nik-on, Nikolai-on, 1844-July 13, 1918) was a Russian economist and sociologist.

Early Life

In the 1860s he worked at the St Petersburg Mutual Credit Association. Mutual credit associations were then often associated with utopian and social reform politics. (The term 'mutualism' and the idea of a 'people's bank' of mutual credit had been proposed by the French social critic Proudhon.) During that period, Nikolaion became involved in radical political circles and sympathized with the populist (narodnik) movement.

Economic Writings and Translation of Capital

In 1872, Danielson published the first Russian translation of Karl Marx' opus "Capital", volume 1. The translation had been initiated by Mikhail Bakunin, before Bakunin's break with Marx, and continued by German Lopatin. While completing the translation, Danielson initiated a correspondence with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels which continued for the rest of their lives. Danielson also translated volumes 2 and 3 of "Capital", which were published in 1885 and 1896. In 1880, Danielson published the article "Studies of Our Post-Reform Economy" in the journal "Slovo", no. 10. Marx (who had taught himself Russian) commended it and encouraged Danielson to expand it into a book, which Danielson subsequently did. That book, bearing the same title, appeared in 1893. This book and the article on which it was based contained extensive statistical material on Russia's economic development.

Views on Marxism

Danielson regarded himself as a Marxist but was sharply criticized by the self-proclaimed "orthodox" Marxists Georgi Plekhanov, Vladimir Lenin and Peter Struve, among others. To Danielson's chagrin, his critics grouped him together with 'populist' ('narodnik') writers like V.P. Vorontsov and Nikolay Mikhaylovsky. Whereas Vorontsov claimed that the development of industrial capitalism in Russia was impossible for lack of markets and N.K. Mikhailovsky thought that capitalist development, while possible, was undesirable and could still be prevented, Danielson argued that capitalist industrialisation was already well underway in Russia by the 1890s. In this the "orthodox" Marxists agreed with him. However, in the 1890s, Plekhanov, Lenin and their associates argued that capitalism in Russia must follow essentially the same course as capitalist development in Western Europe. Danielson believed that the 'capitalist stage' of development could be foreshortened in Russia, since Russia, owing to its late development, could adopt the latest industrial technology from the West without having to undergo the social evolution that had first produced it in the West. This theory went back to A.I. Herzen and N.G. Chernyshevsky and strongly influenced the theoreticians of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (PSR), such as V.M. Chernov. It also anticipated Leon Trotsky's theory of "uneven and combined development". Danielson argued that capitalism was essentially dispensable for further economic development, and that industrialisation could continue on the basis of a socialist economy. Like the populists ('narodniki') he saw the peasant village communes which still survived as potential nuclei for a socialist organisation of the Russian economy. Plekhanov and Lenin denounced this as dangerous utopianism.

Political Involvement

In the early 1900s, Danielson was briefly involved with the Russian Socialist-Revolutionary Party, but he did not play a very active role in it and withdrew after the "Azef affair" of 1908. (Yevno Azef was a prominent leader of the SRs and the chief of its terrorist organisation; in 1908, he was unmasked as a double-agent for the Okhrana, the secret police.) Danielson seems to have played no role in the Russian Revolution of 1917.

References

• Zverev, V., N.F. Danielson, V.P. Vorontsov: Dva portreta na fone russkogo kapitalizma. Moscow, 1997.
• The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition, Moscow, 1970–1979
• Von Laue, Theodor H., "The Fate of Capitalism in Russia, the Narodnik Version." American Slavic and East European Reviev XIII (1954), 11-28.
• Walici, A., The Controversy over Capitalism: Studies in the Social Philosophy of the Russian Populists. Notre Dame UP, 1989.
• Eaton, Henry, "Marx and the Russians." Journal of the History of Ideas (1980), p. 89.
• Fedayashin, Anton A., "Humane Modernization as a Liberal Ideal: Late Imperial Russia on the Pages of theHerald of Europe, 1891–1904." The Historian Vol. 71 (no. 4), 2009, pp. 780–804.
• Lenin, V. I. “Po povodu tak nazyvaemogo voprosa o rynkakh.” Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed.. vol. 1. pp. 95–96, 98, 104, 119–20.
• Lenin, V. I. “Ekonomicheskoe soderzhanie narodnichestva i kritika ego v knige g. Struve.” Ibid., vol. 1.
• Lenin, V. I. “Chto takoe ’druz’ia naroda’ i kak oni voiuiut protiv sotsial-demokratov?” Ibid., vol. I, pp. 218–19, 243, 280, 282–83, 320–21. 335–38.

Persondata
Name	Danielson, Nikolai Frantsevich
Alternative names
Short description	Russian economist and sociologist
Date of birth	1844
Place of birth
Date of death	July 13, 1918
Place of death