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

168V. I. LENINdifficulties and crises either surplus value or variable andfixed capital. Commodities dumped on to the market arenot only accumulated value, but also value reproducingvariable capital and fixed capital. For instance, stocks of railsor iron are thrown into the world market, and should beexchanged for articles consumed by the workers, or for othermeans of production (wood, oil, etc.).VIHaving thus concluded our analysis of Comrade Sokolnikov’sdraft, we must note one very valuable addition whichhe proposes and which in my opinion should be adopted andeven developed. To the paragraph which deals with technicalprogress and the greater employment of female and childlabour, he proposes to add the phrase “as well as the labourof unskilled foreign workers imported from backward countries”.This addition is valuable and necessary. The exploitationof worse paid labour from backward countries isparticularly characteristic of imperialism. On this exploitationrests, to a certain degree, the parasitism of rich imperialistcountries which bribe a part of their workers withhigher wages while shamelessly and unrestrainedly exploitingthe labour of “cheap” foreign workers. The words “worsepaid” should be added and also the words “and frequentlydeprived of rights”; for the exploiters in “civilised” countriesalways take advantage of the fact that the imported foreignworkers have no rights. This is often to be seen in Germanyin respect of workers imported from Russia; in Switzerlandof Italians; in France, of Spaniards and Italians, etc.It would be expedient, perhaps, to emphasise more stronglyand to express more vividly in our programme the prominenceof the handful of the richest imperialist countrieswhich prosper parasitically by robbing colonies and weakernations. This is an extremely important feature ofimperialism. To a certain extent it facilitates the rise ofpowerful revolutionary movements in countries that aresubjected to imperialist plunder, and are in danger of beingcrushed and partitioned by the giant imperialists (such asRussia), and on the other hand, tends to a certain extent toprevent the rise of profound revolutionary movements in