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

242V. I. LENINclasses of capitalist agriculture. Consequently, we seetwo streams of agrarian evolution everywhere. The conflictof interests between the peasants and the landlordswhich runs like a scarlet thread through the whole historyof post-Reform Russia and constitutes the most importanteconomic basis of our revolution, is a struggle for one orthe other type of bourgeois agrarian evolution.Only by clearly understanding the difference betweenthese two types and the bourgeois character of both, canwe correctly explain the agrarian question in the Russianrevolution and grasp the class significance of the variousagrarian programmes put forward by the different parties.*The pivot of the struggle, we repeat, is the feudal latifundia.The capitalist evolution of these is beyond all dispute,but it is possible in two forms: either they will be abolished,eliminated in a revolutionary manner by peasant farmers,or they will be gradually transformed into Junker estates(and correspondingly, the enthralled muzhik will be transformedinto an enthralled Knecht).* The amount of confusion that reigns at times in the minds ofRussian Social-Democrats about the two paths of bourgeois agrarianevolution in Russia is demonstrated by P Maslov. In Obrazovaniye(No. 3, 1907), he outlines two paths: (1) “capitalism in process of development”and (2) “a useless struggle against economic development”.“The first path”, if you please, “leads the working class and the wholeof society towards socialism; the second path pushes [!] the workingclass into the arms [!] of the bourgeoisie, into a struggle between bigand small proprietors, into a struggle from which the working classhas nothing to gain but defeat” (p. 92). In the first place, the “secondpath” is an empty phrase, a dream and not a path, it is a false ideology,and not a real possibility of development. Secondly, Maslov failsto see that Stolypin and the bourgeoisie are also leading the peasantryalong the capitalist road; consequently, the real struggle is not aboutcapitalism as such, but about the type of capitalist development.Thirdly, it is sheer nonsense to talk as if there can be a path in Russiawhich will not “push” the working class under the domination ofthe bourgeoisie.... Fourthly, it is equally nonsensical to allege thatthere can be a “path” on which there will be no struggle between smalland big proprietors. Fifthly, by the use of terms descriptive of generalEuropean categories (big and small proprietors), Maslov obscuresthe historical peculiarity of Russia which is of great significance inthe present revolution: the struggle between petty-bourgeois and bigfeudal proprietors.