economic statistics are still very imperfect, it is difficult, concerning disputed points, to adopt an apodictic interpretation of the facts, one that should exclude every possibility of doubt. Nevertheless the position of the narodniki has become untenable.
Let us consider the question of the capitalisation of Russia.
The eighties, in the reign of Alexander III (the epoch of the new economic policy which supported itself on French capital), was the era during which the historico-philosophical and economic views of the narodniki secured literary formulation. To others as well as to the narodniki, the febrile industrialisation of the country by the state was looked upon as a hothouse growth.
Russia was largely provided with capital from abroad, so that in this sense the development was "artificial," and was, as the narodniki phrased it, "nursed" by the state. But in a number of European countries, in Austria for example, and of late date in Hungary, foreign capital was introduced, and industrialisation was promoted by the state, no less "artificially" than in Russia. Similar conditions prevailed at one time in Germany, and almost universally.
It is true that the (foreign) capital of Russia was not gradually accumulated as it was in Europe, where the accumulation of capital was effected out of industry, and pari passu with the growth of industry. In Russia, however, side by side with the capital invested in large-scale manufacture, the working capital of home industry (kustar') has continued to exist. Small-scale manufacture carried on in houses, has developed alongside large-scale capitalist manufacture, giving rise to specific investments of capital, technical schooling, and so on. The inadequate facilities for communication in most parts of Russia, the large expanse of thinly populated areas, and above all the primitive state of agriculture, have helped to maintain kustar' industry; the simultaneous industrialisation and capitalisation of the two chief cities and of certain districts (eight in number) constituting industrial oases—districts which either enjoy an exceptionally favourable geographical situation or have been endowed by nature with coal, ores, naphtha, etc.—have favoured the growth of kustar' industry.
The Marxists drew attention to the fact that in Russia industrial concentration and the concentration of capital were taking place to a greater extent than in Germany and other
