so on. The artisan feels himself to be a “master”; he works with his own tools, and in appearance he is “independent,” although in reality he is completely entangled in the web of the capitalist spider. He lives in the perennial hoped of bettering himself, thinking always, “I shall soon be able to extend my business, then I shall buy for myself”; he is careful not to mix with the workers, and in his manners he avoids imitating them, affecting the manners of the gentry, for he always hopes to become a “gentleman” himself. Consequently, although he is as poor as a church mouse, he usually feels more akin to the man who exploits him than he does to the workers. The petty-bourgeois parties commonly assemble under the standard of the “radicals” or the “republicans,” but sometimes under that of the “socialists” (refer to the small-type paragraphs of § 22). It is extremely difficult to shake such people out of this wrong attitude of mind, which is their misfortune not their fault.
In Russia, more commonly than elsewhere, the petty-bourgeois parties have been apt to wear a socialist mask. This was done by the populist socialists, the social revolutionaries, and in part by the mensheviks. It is necessary to point out that the social revolutionaries tended to rely mainly upon the middle peasants and the rich