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

AGRARIAN PROGRAMME OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY329We must now pass from Plekhanov’s logical error on thequestion of restoration, from the confusion of politicalconcepts, to the economic essence of restoration. The Minutesof the Stockholm Congress fully confirm the statementmade in my Report that Plekhanov impermissiblyconfuses the restoration which took place in France on thebasis of capitalism with the restoration of “our old, semi-Asiatic order”. (Minutes of the Stockholm Congress, p.116.) Therefore, there is no need for me to add anythingto what I have already said on this question in the Report.I shall only deal with the “elimination of the economicbasis of despotism”. The following is the most importantpassage in Plekhanov’s speech pertaining to this:“It is true that the restoration [in France] did not restorethe survivals of feudalism; but the equivalent of these survivalsin our own country is our old system of feudal attachmentof both land and cultivator to the state, our old peculiarnationalisation of the land. It will be all the moreeasy for our restoration to return to that [sic!] nationalisationbecause you yourselves demand the nationalisationof the land, because you leave that legacy of our old semi-Asiatic order intact” (p. 116).So, after the restoration, the return to that, i.e., semi-Asiatic, nationalisation “will be easier” because Lenin (andthe peasantry) are now demanding nationalisation. Whatis this? A historico-materialistic analysis, or a purely rationalistic“wordplay”?* Is it the word “nationalisation”or certain economic changes that facilitate the restorationof the semi-Asiatic conditions? Had Plekhanov thoughtthis matter over he would have realised that municipalisationand division eliminate one basis of the Asiatic order,i.e., medieval landlord ownership, but leave another, i.e.,medieval allotment ownership. Consequently, in essence,in the economic essence of the revolution (and not in virtueof the term by which one might designate it), it is nationalisationthat far more radically eliminates the economicbasis of Asiatic despotism. Plekhanov’s “conjuring trick”lies in that he described medieval landownership with itsdependence, its imposts, and its servitude as “peculiar na-* Comrade Schmidt in Stockholm. Minutes, p. 122.