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

310V. I. LENINit is the employment of cows as draught animals that isdeveloping. Just think, great Maslov, can this signify thatdeep ploughing is equally applicable? Secondly, even wherelarge and small farms use the same types of draught animals,the latter are feebler on the small farms, and thereforethere cannot be equal conditions in regard to deepploughing.In short, there is hardly a sentence in all Maslov’s vainattempts at “theoretical” thinking which does not revealan inexhaustible amount of the most incredible confusionand the most astonishing ignorance. But Maslov, unperturbed,concludes:“Whoever has clarified for himself the difference betweenthese two aspects of the development of agriculture [improvementin cultivation and technical improvement] will easily upset all thearguments of revisionism, and of Narodism in Russia.” (Obrazovaniye,1907, No. 2, p. 125.)Well, well. Maslov is a non-Narodnik and a non-revisionistonly because he succeeded in rising above Marx’srough notes to the point of “clarifying” for himself thedecrepit prejudices of decrepit bourgeois political economy.It is the old song set to a new tune! Marx versus Marx—exclaimed Bernstein and Struve. It is impossible to demolishrevisionism without demolishing Marx—announcesMaslov.In conclusion, a characteristic detail. If Marx, whocreated the theory of absolute rent, is wrong, if rent cannotexist without the “law of diminishing returns”, if the Narodniksand revisionists might be right did that law notexist, then, it would seem, Maslov’s “corrections” to Marxismshould serve as the corner-stone of his, Maslov’s,“theory”. And so they do. But Maslov prefers to concealthem. Recently the German translation of his book, TheAgrarian Question in Russia, appeared. I was curious tosee in what form Maslov had presented his incredible theoreticalbanalities to the European Social-Democrats. Ifound that he had not presented them at all. In facing Europeans,Maslov kept the “whole” of his theory hidden in hispocket. He omitted from his book all that he had writtenin repudiation of absolute rent, the law of diminishingreturns, etc. I could not help recalling in this connection