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

322V. I. LENINadmit the existence of a maximum of survivals of feudalismin the Russian system of landownership, in both landlordestates and peasant allotments. Under such circumstances,-the contradiction between relatively developed capitalismin industry and the appalling backwardness of thecountryside becomes glaring and, owing to objective causes,makes the bourgeois revolution extremely far-reachingand creates conditions for the most rapid agricultural progress.The nationalisation of the land is precisely a conditionfor the most rapid capitalist progress in our agriculture.We have a “radical bourgeois” in Russia who has notyet “territorialised” himself, who cannot, at present, feara proletarian “attack”. That radical bourgeois is the Russianpeasant.From this point of view the difference between the attitudeof the mass of the Russian liberal bourgeoisie andthat of the mass of Russian peasants towards the nationalisationof the land becomes quite intelligible. The liberallandlord, lawyer, big manufacturer and merchant haveall sufficiently “territorialised” themselves. They cannotbut fear a proletarian attack. They cannot but prefer theStolypin-Cadet road. Think what a golden river is nowflowing towards the landlords, government officials, lawyers,and merchants in the form of the millions which the“Peasant” Bank is handing out to the terrified landlords!Under the Cadet system of “redemption payments” thisgolden river would have a slightly different direction,would, perhaps, be slightly less abundant, but it would stillconsist of hundreds of millions, and would flow into thesame hands.Out of the revolutionary overthrow of all the old formsof landownership neither the government official nor thelawyer can derive a single kopek. And the merchants, inthe mass, are not far-sighted enough to prefer the futureexpansion of the home, peasant, market to the immediatepossibility of snatching something from the gentry. Onlythe peasant, who is being driven into his grave by the oldRussia, is capable of striving for the complete renovationof the system of landownership.