Nikolai Ivanovich Ziber (, ; 22 March O.S. 10 March">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 10 March1844 – 10 May [O.S. 28 April] 1888) was a Ukrainian academic economist, professor and one of the first advocates of Marxism in Russian Empire, particularly in Kyiv. His interpretation of Marxism differed sharply from that of early ''

narodnik The Narodniks were members of a movement of the Russian Empire intelligentsia in the 1860s and 1870s, some of whom became involved in revolutionary agitation against tsarism. Their ideology, known as Narodism, Narodnism or ,; , similar to the ...

'' economists like V. P. Vorontsov and N. F. Danielson and laid the groundwork for the 'orthodox' Marxism of G. V. Plekhanov,

V. I. Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until his death in 1924, and of ...

and others.

Life

N. I. Ziber was born on March 10 (22), 1844, in

Sudak Sudak ( Ukrainian and Russian: ; ; ; sometimes spelled Sudac or Sudagh) is a city, multiple former Eastern Orthodox bishopric and double Latin Catholic titular see. It is of regional significance in Crimea, a territory recognized by most countri ...

, in the Feodosiysky Uyezd of the

Taurida Governorate Taurida Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit ('' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire. It included the territory of the Crimean Peninsula and the mainland between the lower Dnieper River with the coasts of the Black Sea and Sea o ...

of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. His father was a

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

immigrant and his mother was of

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origin. He obtained a law degree in 1866 from the University of Kiev, and a degree in economics in 1871. In 1873 he became a professor at the Department of Political Economy and Statistics at the University of Kiev. In 1875, he resigned his position and went to Switzerland following dismissal of

Mykhailo Drahomanov Mykhailo Petrovych Drahomanov (; 18 September 1841 – 2 July 1895) was a Ukrainian intellectual and public figure. As an academic, Drahomanov was an economist, historian, philosopher, and ethnographer, while as a public intellectual he was a ...

from the

Kiev University The Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (; also known as Kyiv University, Shevchenko University, or KNU) is a public university in Kyiv, Ukraine. The university is the third-oldest university in Ukraine after the University of Lviv and ...

and, subsequently, to London, England. In Switzerland he was an editor of the Drahomanov's magazine "Hromada", while in London in 1881 he became personally acquainted with

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

and

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.David Ricardo David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist, politician, and member of Parliament. He is recognized as one of the most influential classical economists, alongside figures such as Thomas Malthus, Ada ...

, and in 1885, he published an expanded version of his thesis, ''David Ricardo and Karl Marx: Their Socioeconomic Research.'' In the 1870s, Ziber also contributed to such journals as ''Zanie'' and ''Slovo'', expounding Marx' ''Capital'' (Vol. 1). A notable series of articles was entitled 'Marx' Economic Theory.' Ziber defended Marx against critics like I.G. Zhukjovsky and B.N. Chicherin and was one of the first to criticise ''

'' economists like V. P. Vorontsov and N. F. Danielson along 'orthodox' Marxist lines later developed by G.V. Plekhanov, P.B. Struve,

V.I. Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

, D. Blagoev, and N. E. Fedoseev, among others. While Vorontsov argued that the development of industrial capitalism was impossible in Russia due to a lack of markets, and Danielson thought that, owing to Russia's belated development, capitalism was not necessary for industrial development, Ziber interpreted Marxism to entail that capitalism was an inevitable stage of development in the history of any society. (In this interpretation he was influenced by Marx' own Preface to the German edition of ''Capital'', where Marx rebuts German writers who argued that Marx' analysis of British capitalism did not apply to Germany.) Since the development of capitalism was, according to Ziber, in its infancy in Russia in the 1870s and '80s, Russia's foreseeable future would consist of a lengthy period of capitalist modernisation. Although Ziber had contacts with progressive and oppositional circles, he thought socialism was a distant prospect for Russia, and seems to have had no contact with illegal revolutionary movements. His deterministic interpretation of Marxism entered the revolutionary movement through Plekhanov, Struve and the young Lenin. However, unlike Ziber, these revolutionary Marxists thought that, by the 1890s at least, capitalist industrialisation was far enough advanced to make a socialist revolution possible within the foreseeable future. (Nonetheless, in the 1880s and '90s, they all insisted that Russia's coming revolution would be 'bourgeois-democratic'.)

Works

* ''Izbrannye ekonomicheskie proizyedeniia''. vols. 1–2. Moscow, 1959.

References

* Howard, M.C., and J.E. King, ''A History of Marxian Economics, Vol. 1:1883-1929.'' Princeton, N.J., 1989. * Lenin, V.I. “K kharakteristike ekonomicheskogo romantisma.” Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 2, pp. 156, 168, 172, 179–81. * Reuel’, A.L., ''Russkaia ekonomicheskaia my si 60–70 gg. XIX v. i marksizm. Moscow, 1956. * ''Istoriia russkoi ekonomicheskoi mysli.'' vol. 2, part 2. Moscow, 1960.

External links

Mykola Ziber
at the

Encyclopedia of Ukraine The ''Encyclopedia of Ukraine'' (), published from 1984 to 2001, is a fundamental work of Ukrainian Studies. Development The work was created under the auspices of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Europe (Sarcelles, near Paris). As the ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ziber, Nikolai 1844 births 1888 deaths Philosophers from the Russian Empire People from Sudak People from Feodosiysky Uyezd People from the Russian Empire of Swiss descent Socialists from the Russian Empire Economists from the Russian Empire Marxian economists