Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 26 - From Marx to Mao

158V. I. LENINAnd so the concentration of capital is indicated in part afew paragraphs before an entire general, summarising sectionspecially devoted to the subject. This is devoid of all logicand is likely to render the programme less intelligible to themasses.IIIComrade Sokolnikov “subjects to a general revision” thefifth section of the programme, the one dealing with crises.He finds that the old programme “sins in theory to win popularity”and “deviates from Marx’s theory of crises”.Comrade Sokolnikov suggests that the word “overproduction”is made “the basis of the explanation” of crises in theold programme and that “such a view is more in keeping withthe theory of Rodbertus 70 who explains crises as being dueto under-consumption by the working class”.A comparison of the old text with the new one proposedby Comrade Sokolnikov will show how unsuccessful his huntfor theoretical heresy has been, and how Rodbertus has beendragged in by the hair.The old text contains the following, after mention (in thefourth section) of “technical progress”, intensified exploitationof labour, and relatively lower consumption by the workers:“This state of affairs in the bourgeois countries, etc.,makes it more and more difficult for them to market commoditiesproduced in ever-increasing quantities. Overproduction,manifesting itself in ... crises ... and periods ofstagnation ... is an inevitable consequence....”It is clear that here overproduction is by no means usedas the “basis of the explanation” of crises, but that this isonly a description of the origin of crises and periods of stagnation.In Comrade Sokolnikov’s draft we read the following:“The development of the productive forces assuming these contradictoryforms, in which the conditions of production come into conflictwith the conditions of consumption and the conditions for therealisation of capital with those for its accumulation—this development,whose sole motive force is the pursuit of profit, has as its inevitableconsequence acute industrial crises and depressions which signifythe cessation of the sale of commodities, anarchically produced inever-increasing quantities.”