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

328V. I. LENINthe political sphere, a democratic republic represents amore profound change than democratic local self-government;the former presupposes (and calls forth) greaterrevolutionary energy, intelligence, and organisation on thepart of the large masses of the people; it creates traditionswhich it will be far more difficult to eradicate. Thatis why, for instance, present-day Social-Democrats attachso much value to the great fruits of the French Revolutionin spite of all the restorations that have taken place, andin this they differ from the Cadets (and from Cadet-mindedSocial-Democrats?) who prefer democratic Zemstvosunder a monarchy as a “guarantee against restoration”.In the economic sphere, nationalisation in a bourgeoisagrarian revolution is more far-reaching than anything else,because it breaks up all the medieval forms of landownership.At the present time the peasant farms his own stripof allotment land, a strip of rented allotment land, a stripof rented landlord’s land, and so on. Nationalisation makesit possible to tear down all the fences of landownershipto the utmost degree, and to “clear” all the land for the newsystem of economy suitable to the requirements of capitalism.Of course, even such a clearing affords no guarantee againsta return to the old order; to promise the people such a “guaranteeagainst restoration” would be a swindle. But such aclearing of the old system of landownership will enable thenew system of economy to become so firmly rooted that areturn to the old forms of landownership would be extremelydifficult, because no power on earth can arrest thedevelopment of capitalism. Under municipalisation, however,a return to the old form of landownership is easier,because municipalisation perpetuates the “pale of settlement”,the boundary that separates medieval landownershipfrom the new, municipalised form. After nationalisation,restoration will have to break up millions of new, capitalistfarms in order to restore the old system of landownership.After municipalisation, restoration will not have tobreak up any farms or to set up any new land boundaries;all it will have to do will be literally to sign a paper transferringthe lands owned by the municipality X to thenoble landlords Y, Z, etc., or to hand over to the landlordsthe rent from the “municipalised” lands.