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

294V. I. LENINC H A P T E R IIITHE THEORETICAL BASISOF NATIONALISATION AND OF MUNICIPALISATIONA grave fault of almost the whole Social-Democraticpress on the question of the agrarian programme in general,and a shortcoming of the debate at the Stockholm Congressin particular, is that practical considerations prevail overtheoretical, and political considerations over economic.*Most of us, of course, have an excuse, namely, the conditionsof intensive Party work under which we discussedthe agrarian problem in the revolution: first, after January9, 1905, a few months before the outbreak (the spring “ThirdCongress of the R.S.D.L.P.” of Bolsheviks in London in1905 and the Conference of the Minority held at the sametime in Geneva), and then on the day after the Decemberuprising, 116 and in Stockholm on the eve of the First Duma.But at all events this shortcoming must be corrected now,and an examination of the theoretical aspect of the questionof nationalisation and municipalisation is particularlynecessary.* In my pamphlet Revision of the Agrarian Programme of theWorkers’ Party, which I defended at Stockholm, there are very definite(although brief, as the pamphlet itself is) references to the theoreticalpremises of a Marxist agrarian programme. I pointed out inthat pamphlet that “the bare repudiation of nationalisation” wouldbe a “theoretical distortion of Marxism” (p. 16 of the old edition,p. 41 of this edition). (See present edition, Vol. 10, p. 181.—Ed.) See also my Report on the Stockholm Congress, pp. 27-28 ofthe old edition (p. 63 of this edition). (See present edition,Vol. 10, p. 346.—Ed.) “From the strictly scientific point of view,from the point of view of the conditions of development of capitalismin general, we must undoubtedly say—if we do not want to differfrom Volume III of Capital—that the nationalisation of the land ispossible in bourgeois society, that it promotes economic development,facilitates competition and the influx of capital into agriculture,reduces the price of grain, etc.” See also the same report, p. 59(see present edition, Vol. 10, p. 378.—Ed.): “In spite of their promises,they [the Right wing of Social-Democracy] do not carry the bourgeois-democraticrevolution in agriculture to its ‘logical’ conclusion,for the only ‘logical’ (and economic) conclusion under capitalismis the nationalisation of the land, which abolishes absoluterent.”