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

236V. I. LENINof holdings, and still more in the amount of capital, numberof livestock, the quantity and quality of implements, etc.That the differentiation in the sphere of non-allotmentproperty, so to speak, is far more considerable than in thesphere of allotment landownership has been sufficientlyproved in our economic literature.What, then, is the significance of the Narodnik theories,which more or less accurately reflect the views of the peasantson their struggle for land? The substance of these Narodniktheories is contained in two “principles”: the “labourprinciple” and “equalisation”. The petty-bourgeois natureof those principles is so manifest and has been so often andso fully demonstrated in Marxist literature that there isno need to dwell on it here. It is important, however, tonote a feature of these “principles” that has not yet beenproperly appreciated by Russian Social-Democrats. In avague form those principles do express something real andprogressive at the present historical moment. Namely,they express the struggle for the break-up of the feudallatifundia.Look at the outline given above of the evolution of ouragrarian system from the present stage to the “ultimatepoint” of the present, bourgeois revolution. You will clearlysee that the future “then” is distinguished from the present“now” by an incomparably greater “equalisation” in ownership,that the new distribution of the land conforms farmore to the “labour principle”. And that is not accidental.It cannot be otherwise in a peasant country, the bourgeoisdevelopment of which emancipates it from serfdom. Insuch a country, the break-up of the feudal latifundia isundoubtedly a condition for the development of capitalism.But as long as small-scale farming predominates in agriculture,the break-up of the feudal latifundia inevitablyimplies greater “equalisation” in landownership. In breakingup the medieval latifundia, capitalism begins with amore “equalised” landownership, and out of that createslarge-scale farming on a new basis, on the basis of wagelabour,machinery and superior agricultural technique,and not on the basis of labour rent and bondage.The mistake all the Narodniks make is that by confiningthemselves to the narrow outlook of the small husbandman,