Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 13 - From Marx to Mao

172V. I. LENINof machines of a capitalist character? Is the increased useof machines due to the growth of capitalist agriculture?David utterly fails to understand how the question shouldbe presented by a Marxist. David’s standpoint is essentiallythat of the petty bourgeois, who consoles himselfwith the relatively slow progress of capitalism and is afraidto look at social evolution as a whole. Thus, onthe question of agricultural machinery, David quotes Bensing,quotes him innumerable times 88 (pp. 125, 135, 180, 182,184, 186, 189, 506, and others of the Russian translation).David can positively be said to exasperate the reader bypassing from detail to detail without sifting his material,without coherence, without a reasoned presentation of thequestion, without aim. Consequently, David provides nosumming up of Bensing’s conclusions. What I said in 1901in opposition to Mr. Bulgakov fully applies to David. *First, a summary of Bensing’s conclusions shows the indisputableadvantage which farms using machines haveover those that do not use them. None of the “corrections”to Bensing in minor details, with which David has stuffedhis book, can alter this conclusion. David passes over thisgeneral conclusion in silence in exactly the same way as Mr.Bulgakov did! Secondly, while quoting Bensing withoutend, without reason, without coherence, David, like Mr.Bulgakov, failed to note Bensing’s bourgeois views concerningmachinery in both industry and agriculture. In short,David does not even understand the socio-economic aspectof the question. He is unable to generalise and connect thefactual data showing the superiority of large-scale oversmall-scale production. As a result, nothing remains butthe reactionary lamentations of the petty bourgeois whoplaces his hopes in technical backwardness, in the slowdevelopment of capitalism. In the matter of theory, theRight-wing Cadet and “Christian” renegade Mr. Bulgakovis quite on a level with the opportunist Social-DemocratDavid.David fails, hopelessly fails to understand the socioeconomicaspect of other questions as well. Take his fundamentalthesis, his pet idea, the “kingpin” of the whole* See present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 133-34.—Ed.