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

340V. I. LENIN“Municipalisation” from this angle, regarded as a meansof “securing” something for the regions against the centralauthority, is sheer philistine nonsense. If that can be calleda “fight” against the centralised bourgeois authority, it isthe sort of “fight” that the anti-Semites are waging againstcapitalism, that is, the same extravagant promises, whichattract the dull and ignorant masses and the same economicand political impossibility of fulfilling these promises.Take the stock argument of the advocates of municipalisationagainst nationalisation, namely, nationalisationwill strengthen the bourgeois state (or as John so admirablyput it: “will strengthen only the state power”), andwill increase the revenues of the anti-proletarian, bourgeoisgovernment; whereas—this is exactly what they say—whereasmunicipalisation will yield revenues for the needsof the population, for the needs of the proletariat. Thiskind of argument makes one blush for Social-Democracy,for it is sheer anti-Semitic stupidity and anti-Semitic demagogy.We shall not quote the “small fry” who have been ledastray by Plekhanov and Maslov; we shall quote Maslov“himself”:“Social-Democracy,” he instructs the readers of Obrazovaniye“always makes its calculations in such a way that its plans and aimswill be vindicated even under the worst circumstances.... We mustassume that the bourgeois system with all its negative features willpredominate in all spheres of social life. Self-government will havethe same bourgeois character as the whole state system; the sameacute class struggle will go on in it as in the municipalities ofWestern Europe.“What is the difference, then, between local self-governmentand the state authority? Why does Social-Democracy seek totransfer the land not to the state, but to the local self-governingbodies?“To define the functions of the state and of local self-government,let us compare their budgets.” (Obrazovaniye, 1907, No. 3, p. 102.)Then follows a comparison: in one of the most democraticrepublics—the United States of America—42 per centof the budget is spent on the army and navy. The sameapplies to France, England, etc. The “landlord Zemstvos”in Russia spend 27.5 per cent of their budgets on publichealth, 17.4 per cent on education, 11.9 per cent onroads.