# Legal Marxism > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Legal_Marxism > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Legal_Marxism.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_Marxism > Source revision: 1347187323 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|Russian center-left political movement}} '''Legal Marxism''' was a Russian [Marxist](/source/Marxism) movement based on a particular interpretation of Marxist theory whose proponents were active in socialist circles between 1894 and 1901. The movement's primary theoreticians were [Pyotr Struve](/source/Pyotr_Struve), [Nikolai Berdyaev](/source/Nikolai_Berdyaev), [Sergei Bulgakov](/source/Sergei_Bulgakov), [Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky](/source/Mikhail_Tugan-Baranovsky) and [Semyon Frank](/source/Semyon_Frank). The name was derived from the fact that its supporters promoted their ideas in legal publications. ==Overview== Unlike the earlier generation of Russian [socialists](/source/socialists) known as [narodniks](/source/narodniks) (populists), who emphasized the role of the peasantry in transitioning to socialism, Legal Marxists used the economic theory of [Karl Marx](/source/Karl_Marx) to argue that the development of [capitalism](/source/capitalism) in the [Russian Empire](/source/Russian_Empire) was both inevitable and beneficial. As Struve put it, they provided a "justification for capitalism" in Russia. Legal Marxists held numerous open debates from the mid-1890s through the early 1900s, notably at the [Free Economic Society](/source/Free_Economic_Society) in [Saint Petersburg](/source/Saint_Petersburg), and published three magazines between 1897 and 1901, all of them eventually suppressed by the imperial government: *''[Novoye Slovo](/source/Novoye_Slovo)'' (1897) *''[Nachalo](/source/Nachalo)'' (1899) *''[Zhizn](/source/Zhizn)'' (1899–1901, resumed abroad in 1902) Legal Marxists became particularly influential after the arrest and imprisonment of the leaders of the revolutionary wing of Russian Marxism (including [Julius Martov](/source/Julius_Martov) and [Vladimir Lenin](/source/Vladimir_Lenin)) in 1895-1896. Legal Marxists and revolutionary Marxists were allied in the late 1890s within the newly formed [Russian Social Democratic Labor Party](/source/Russian_Social_Democratic_Labor_Party), whose Manifesto Struve wrote in 1898, and Legal Marxist magazines were extensively used by revolutionary Marxists living in exile or abroad to publish their writings. ==Social-democratic turn== However, Legal Marxists became increasingly supportive of [Eduard Bernstein](/source/Eduard_Bernstein)'s [revision](/source/Marxist_revisionism) of Marxism from 1897 on, which drew criticism from [Georgy Plekhanov](/source/Georgy_Plekhanov), Lenin and other revolutionary Marxists. Struve and other Legal Marxist leaders soon abandoned philosophical [materialism](/source/materialism) for [neo-Kantianism](/source/neo-Kantianism) while Berdyaev, Bulgakov and Frank eventually became philosophers of [religion](/source/religion). Tugan-Baranovsky developed a theory of cyclical economic crises under capitalism, which was also criticised by revolutionary Marxists.{{ref|Tugan}} Starting in 1901, Legal Marxists' abandonment of Marxism led to a break with Russian [social democrat](/source/social_democrat)s and they drifted toward liberalism with Struve editing ''Osvobozhdenie'' (''Liberation''), a liberal magazine, from 1902 on. Eventually the leaders of the movement became allied with the radical part of the [Zemstvo](/source/Zemstvo) within ''Soyuz Osvobozhdeniya'' (''Liberation Union'') in 1903-1905. Most of them were prominent supporters of the [Constitutional Democratic party](/source/Constitutional_Democratic_party) after the [Russian Revolution of 1905](/source/Russian_Revolution_of_1905). ==Significant texts== * ''[The Russian Factory in the Nineteenth Century](/source/The_Russian_Factory_in_the_Nineteenth_Century)'' (1898) by [Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky](/source/Mikhail_Tugan-Baranovsky) ==Notes== *{{note|Tugan}} See, e.g., Lenin's [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/cw/misc/v37pref3.htm letter] to his relatives dated June 20, 1899 in A. Ulyanova-Yelizarova. "Apropos of Lenin' ''Letters To Relatives''" in Lenin. ''Collected Works'', Volume 37, Moscow, 1931. ==References== *Vincent Barnett, 'Tugan-Baranovsky as a Pioneer of Trade Cycle Analysis', Journal of the History of Economic Thought, December 2001. *Neil Harding. "Legal Marxism" in ''The Dictionary of Marxist Thought'', ed. Tom Bottomore, London, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1983, 2nd revised edition 1991, {{ISBN|0-631-18082-6}} pp. 307–308. *Richard Kindersley. ''The First Russian Revisionists: A Study of Legal Marxism in Russia'', Oxford University Press, 1962, 260p. *[Richard Pipes](/source/Richard_Pipes). ''Struve: Liberal on the Left, 1870-1905'', Harvard University Press, 1970, xiii, 415p. {{ISBN|0-674-84595-1}} *Arthur P. Mendel. ''Dilemmas of Progress in Tsarist Russia: Legal Marxism and Legal Populism'', Harvard University Press, 1961, 310p. *Andrzej Walicki. ''The Controversy over Capitalism: Studies in the Social Philosophy of Russian Populists'', Oxford University Press, 1969, 206p. Paperback reprint: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989, {{ISBN|0-268-00770-5}}, 197p. Category:Eponymous political ideologies Category:Marxist schools of thought Category:Socialism in Russia Category:Culture of the Russian Empire Category:19th century in Russia --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Legal Marxism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_Marxism) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_Marxism?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.