The German-Latvian-Russian professor, social democrat and godfather of social-Zionism Karl Ballaud wrote the book "State of the Future" in 1898. In it, he described the ideal state of Eurosocialism. A fan of Ballaud, Lenin based his ideas on the GOELRO plan. But in Russia, it is less known how Bullod saw the social part of Eurosocialism - with welfare and rent.
Karlis Balodis was born in 1864 near Riga into a Latvian-German family. His parents died early, and Karlis was raised by his grandfather, a Lutheran priest. Balodis graduated from Dorpat (Tartu) University with a degree in theologian. At the age of 24, in 1888 he received the ordination of a Lutheran priest and went to preach in Brazil.
But his second, secret profession at that time is much less known - on the instructions of the Russian royal court, he tried to found a Latvian-Russian colony near São Paulo. Balodis spent two years in secret negotiations with the Brazilian government, agreeing to buy out about 3 thousand square meters. km, on which a Russian trading post could be built. The French and British learned about the negotiations, and they delivered an ultimatum to Tsar Alexander III - the appearance of a Russian colony in Brazil means a challenge to them and is close in status to a declaration of war on these two countries.
In order to avoid the rupture of relations between Russia, France and England, Balodis had to hastily leave Brazil and go to Germany. There, at the University of Jena in 1891-92, he received the specialty of a geographer and defended his doctorate. In 1893-95 Balodis served as a pastor in the Urals. At the same time, he begins a long-term study of demography, economics and statistics in this region. In the same years he became closer to the Russian socialists - the populists. In 1895, the tsarist secret police forces Balodis to leave Russia - already forever.
Karl Bullod.
In 1895 he began to work at the University of Munich, in 1897 at Strasbourg, where he received a doctorate in economics. During these years, he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany. In 1898, his most famous book, The State of the Future, was published under the pseudonym "Atlanticus". It describes the ideal state from the point of view of the German Social Democracy. In 1906, it was published in Russia (more precisely, in Kiev) in a small print run and with censorship notes, and became the reference book of many Russian Social Democrats (including Lenin), since it continues the economism of Marx, in many respects even developing it taking into account the changed that time the reality.
One thing must be understood here: the entire social democracy of that time, including the Russian one, stemmed precisely from economism, and not from politics. Karl Marx was understood as a socialist economist rather than a founder of ideology. The defeat of the Russian revolution of 1905-1907 further strengthened the economic part in European and Russian social democracy (Europe went through this earlier - during the Paris Commune), proving that the defeat of capitalism will be based on a change in productive forces (evolution of economic relations), and not as a result of the revolution. In fact, the division of the RSDLP into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks was also the result of this economism of Social Democracy: the former defended primarily the view of the German Social Democracy on changes in society, the latter, having become sectarians,put on the forceful overthrow of the autocracy (by 1912, the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks had changed places; the first in the party were about 3 thousand people, the second 1.2 thousand, there were also about 1,000 members of the RSDLP in small sect groups - from the Machists of Bogdanov to the "centrists" Trotsky).
After “State of the Future” by Ballod (in Germany, having received citizenship, he changes his name from Karlis Balodis to Karl Ballod), several more books with fundamental research on economics, statistics and demography are soon published. One of them directly related to Russia - "Mortality, age composition and longevity of the Orthodox population of both sexes in Russia in 1851-1890." In it, for the first time for demography, he linked the duration and quality of life not only with economic conditions, but also with ideological conditions. In particular, he proved with figures that the transition of a Russian from Orthodoxy to another confession - to the Old Believers, Stundism, Molokanism, Baptism, etc. increases life expectancy.
Promotional video:
Life expectancy statistics obtained by Carl Bullod; life expectancy in the Baltics was then higher than in Bavaria.
During World War I, he became an economic advisor to the German War Office, and developed a ration ration system. In the future, the government of the USSR and England will borrow the system of such cards from the works and practice of Ballaud.
However, during the First World War, he became famous for another idea - in 1917, Ballaud developed the idea of creating a social democratic Israel in Palestine, and in the first half of 1918 he was actively involved in its implementation (in particular, collecting the assets of left-wing Zionist Jews for their transfer to Palestine) … In the spring of 1918, the German Kaiser officially appoints him as chairman of the Committee for Jewish Settlements in Palestine.
Palestine at that time was under the control of Germany's ally, the Ottoman Empire, and on the other hand, the issue of Jewish settlements in Palestine was the subject of England's interests, as an enemy of Germany (Bullod did not like England all his life, and considered it precisely her cause of wars in Europe and the world injustice). Bullod intended to overtake England and establish a pro-German Israel in Palestine. Germany had a second reason for the creation of Israel - the desire of the Kaiser to send several hundred thousand Jews from Germany, an asset of the extreme left parties, which he rightly (as the future showed) feared as the future "gunpowder for the German revolution."
The Ballod Committee has done a lot of scientific work. It investigated the climatic, hydrographic, and soil features of Palestine. Future places of settlements have been determined. By 1930, according to Ballod, about 1 million Jews should have lived in the created pro-German Israel. Of course, the ruling ideology there was supposed to be social democracy. True, as Ballod envisioned, Jerusalem was to become the autonomy of religious Jews, living somewhat apart from the rest of left Israel.
The defeat of Germany in the First World War put an end to the plans to create Israel. But personally for Ballod, his career continued to advance - in 1918 he became one of the founders of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany, the left wing of the Social Democrats, in ideology close to the communists. In the 1920s, the scientist continues to develop economic theories of the future socialist state. And in the second half of the 1920s, Ballaud began to advise the Stalin government on the industrialization of the USSR.
Architect Le Corbusier sits on the construction site of the Tsentrosoyuz building in Moscow, March 1931.
In 1925, he came to Moscow for the 200th anniversary of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and received a gold medal from Rykov's hands for his past services to our country. Both in the USSR and today in Russia, Ballaud's role in creating the GOELRO plan has been undeservedly bypassed.
While still in exile, Lenin became acquainted with Ballaud's book City of the Future. Lenin's PSS contains a phrase on this score: “In order to appreciate the immensity and all the value of the work done by Goelro, let us take a look at Germany. There, the scientist Ballod did a similar job. He drew up a scientific plan for the socialist restructuring of the entire national economy of Germany."
During his emigration to Germany, the future commissar of public education Lunacharsky met Ballaud, greatly appreciated him as a socialist economist, and learned a lot from his works for the implementation of the GOELRO program. And the head of Glavelectro, the old Bolshevik Krzhizhanovsky, wrote about the role of Ballaud in GOELRO: “Through the plan and electricity, to create a new type of economy - first in Russia, but luckily with the world revolution, and in Germany. Ballaud's ideas are invaluable."
Karl Bullod died in 1931. During the Nazi era, his name as a left-wing Social Democrat was erased from German science. After World War II, German social democracy also rarely remembered it, as it began to go to the right in the ideas of socialism. Moreover, the name and works of Ballaud are almost unknown in modern Russia, with its meager social thought and lack of curiosity, not only among the elites, but also in left-wing activism. The Interpreter's blog cites the main ideas of Karl Ballod from his book "State of the Future", but not in terms of state and industrial construction, but in social relations (which are almost unknown in our country) - as a German socialist and economist saw the future of the state of Eurosocialism.
1) If it is desirable for socialism to be realized peacefully and in the shortest possible future, then first of all it is necessary to destroy the bogey that frightens everyone, even the most peaceful citizen and turns him into the fiercest enemy of social democracy - it is necessary to abandon the free expropriation of the owners. Even an interest-free redemption (Kautsky) or a redemption with significant redemption (Flürsheim), no matter how correct in theory, will prove to be an excessively extreme measure in practice and will cause strong and stubborn resistance. In my opinion, it is necessary that the transfer of the means of production into the hands of the state should take place on very liberal terms favorable to the owners; it is possible to pay perpetual annuity in amounts corresponding to the actually proven amount of income or with a small inheritance tax.
Those who have some kind of monopoly, especially landowners, can even be given 20-25% above the proven average net income. Of course, further growth of rent in the future should not be allowed. since this can lead to the destruction of all benefits of the welfare state.
Manual workers should receive at least ⅔-¾ of the national income, the rest will be used for mental labor and rent. At present, capital and representatives of the intelligent professions receive half of the national income; with a doubling of productivity, the incomes of these two groups can be increased by ⅓, even ½, and the representatives of physical labor will receive 2½ ‑ 2⅔ times more than now. The crux of the question is whether it is possible to double the national income.
2) The next question is, what exactly is the state to do? Some socialists are inclined to charge society with absolutely everything, even the execution of all household chores: cooking, washing clothes, cleaning rooms, raising children. If the state were to do all this work, it really would have to provide such a large number of workers that no one would have free time, and the assertion that the socialist regime is no different from the order in correctional houses would not be devoid of some reason.
We will give the state a much more limited task: it is obliged to take care of the production and necessary consumer goods, clothing, nutritious food and building materials, of public buildings and means of communication, the production of luxury goods, furniture, the construction of private dwellings, gardening and horticulture, housekeeping, book publishing and it can afford the printing of newspapers without any prejudice to private initiative.
In addition, it should not take the children away from the family, but must only take care of the broad organization of teaching and upbringing. Everyone who wants to work should have the right to demand and receive work from the state. At the end of the prescribed period of compulsory work, i.e. after completing a certain number of normal working years and days, precisely determined for each profession on the basis of careful research, workers could receive a life pension from the state, providing them with the necessary means of subsistence.
A team of American architects on the construction of Magnitogorsk, 1930.
3) An attempt should be made to prove that normal working hours can be limited to 9-10 years for men and 6-8 years for women. This amount of working time would be sufficient to create funds for rewarding intellectual workers and for renting former owners of the means of production.
Universal schooling could be introduced for boys up to 17-18 years old, for girls up to 15-16 years old. If they then continue to work out their obligatory term without interruption, then men are 26-28 years old, and women 21-22 years old could already receive the right to a pension and free themselves from worry about food for life, create a comfortable family life for themselves, take care about comfort, etc.
After the expiration of the period required for the acquisition of the right to a pension, each family will receive, at its request from the state, a plot of land of approximately ¼ hectares (25 acres - BT) for inheritance, for building a house and a garden. For this purpose, well-known land plots should be allocated for "villa colonies", for example, sea shores up to several kilometers wide, slopes of river banks, lakes.
The state may assign several normal working days for building material. For the execution of construction work and for the production of furniture, partnerships could be formed that would exchange services, since, undoubtedly, one cannot be simultaneously a bricklayer and a carpenter, a joiner and a blacksmith.
Such proposals can reflect one of the last arguments of timid philistines, who are afraid that everything will be regulated in a welfare state, people will definitely live in gloomy barracks, private family life will be impossible, the establishment of a cozy family hearth, there will be no place for private initiative. It makes no sense to transfer dwellings, furniture, gardens, parks to the state property. In cities, the state will undoubtedly have to buy houses for rent at the suggestion of their owners, since the latter will, perhaps, suffer losses from the fall in apartment prices.
American Socialists in Moscow, 1930.
4) As for the transfer of land into state ownership, there is no need to insist on the alienation of small holdings: they can be left to the previous owners for cultivating, at least, gardens.
If, for example, all plots of less than 2 hectares are left in the possession of their owners, or if they are bought out only on the initiative of the latter, then by this alone one can immediately attract to the side of socialism 3 million out of 5.2 million “anti-collectivist” small peasant farms in Germany; after all, their holdings total only 1.5 million hectares.
If then we announce to each of the larger landowners: “The state leaves you your house and garden or park, in any case it gives you another meadow so that you can keep a cow or horse; and for the land you will receive from him a reward in the form of perpetual rent, 25% higher than the average net annual income from your estate. It is difficult to imagine that landowners would have shown particularly strong resistance to such a proposal.
5) Nevertheless, the welfare state also has one goal, for the sake of which it is necessary to allow the formation of interest capital: reward for important inventions and discoveries, for outstanding state or scientific activity. But for this purpose a relatively very small amount is needed, for the whole of Germany no more than 50-100 million marks a year; this amount will be sufficient for a large reward for inventors.
6) With regard to religion and the notorious free love, it should be especially emphasized that these issues have no significant connection with the social problem. The latter is purely economic in nature.
The hostile attitude of many socialists towards the modern church is explained by the fact that its representatives are up in arms against social democracy. They should do this because they themselves depend on the state, i.e. from the modern social system. But the Social Democrats are making a grave mistake in demanding the separation of church and state. When the day of the victory of the proletariat comes, it will turn out that thanks to this demand a weapon has been voluntarily given up, which would help to attract to socialism the circles of believers who are still resisting it.
Le Corbusier, Sergei Eisenstein, and Andrei Burov, 1928.
The point is that Christianity is highly socialist, even communist; if the dependence of the church on the state continues, then its representatives will very soon begin to defend the new order and the new ruling power with much greater zeal (which, after all, will also seem to have been established by God), than they now defend the modern system. In addition, most people have certain religious views, some kind of belief in miracles, if not mystical, then materialistic. It is in the interests of the state to interfere with existing religious relations as little as possible, to be completely tolerant of all religions; its task is to take care of raising and spreading public education.
7) With regard to family life, the following should be noted. Most people do not have such cuckoo habits at all, thanks to which they would voluntarily want to get rid of their children as soon as possible, i.e. to lay down the care of their upbringing from ourselves to the state. Therefore, it is not entirely clear why it would be necessary to change the existing marriage relationship.
8) The constitutional question is also not important - what should be a welfare state, a monarchy or a republic - in other words, it is important to emphasize that the monarchy can be preserved without any harm if it sets as its goal the fulfillment of the demands of the people, and its welfare will be consider it their main law.
Soviet utopia: the project of the "Red City" in Krasnoyarsk, 1931.
It is utopian to assume that all crimes will finally disappear in the welfare state. But their number will significantly decrease when the causes that cause them are eliminated: poverty, misery, ignorance, homelessness and homelessness of children. First of all, the number of relapses will decrease as soon as the state begins to provide criminals who have served their sentences with the opportunity to live by honest labor.