The Institute of Community in The Works of N.I. Sieber

This article examines the views of the Russian economist Nikolai Ivanovich Sieber on community relations both in Russia and abroad. Sieber, as is known, is the first Russian follower of Marx, who assimilated his theory in all its complexity and dialectical inconsistency. However, in this article, the main attention is paid to the position of Sieber in relation to the peasant community. If Sieber was a consistent apologist for Marx's theory, without introducing his own ideas into it, then scholar seems to be completely independent with his own point of view in matters of the community. In the community context, he argued with the narodniks, particularly with V. P. Vorontsov, about the ways of developing the Russian economy. Should it develop based on the preservation and development of the peasant community, artels, as opposed to the creation of large-scale capitalist production in Russia, or should the country strive to create a capitalist economy in which there is no place for community relations? Sieber refuted the narodnik concept of a special way of development of Russia and defended the Marxist idea that capitalism is an objective stage in the development of society and, therefore, inevitable.