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

AGRARIAN PROGRAMME OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY361the sphere of “municipal socialism”. But our wiseacresevade this acute national issue, this question of the land,which affects the vital interests of the ruling classes in themost direct way, by relegating it to the sphere of “local governmentquestions”. In the West they municipalise horsetrams and slaughter-houses, so why should we not municipalisethe best half of all the lands—argues the Russianpetty intellectual. That would serve both in the event ofrestoration and in the event of incomplete democratisationof the central government!And so we get agrarian socialism in a bourgeois revolution,a socialism of the most petty-bourgeois kind, one thatcounts on blunting the class struggle on vital issues by relegatingthe latter to the domain of petty questions affectingonly local government. In fact, the question of thedisposal of one half of the best land in the country is neithera local question nor a question of administration. It is aquestion that affects the whole state, a question of thestructure, not only of the landlord, but of the bourgeoisstate. And to try to entice the people with the idea that“municipal socialism” can be developed in agriculture beforethe socialist revolution is accomplished is to practisethe most inadmissible kind of demagogy. Marxism permitsnationalisation to be included in the programme of a bourgeoisrevolution because nationalisation is a bourgeoismeasure, because absolute rent hinders the developmentof capitalism; private ownership of the land is a hindranceto capitalism. But to include the municipalisation of thebig estates in the programme of the bourgeois revolution,Marxism must be remodelled into Fabian intellectualistopportunism.It is here that we see the difference between petty-bourgeoisand proletarian methods in the bourgeois revolution.The petty bourgeoisie, even the most radical—our Partyof Socialist-Revolutionaries included—anticipates thatafter the bourgeois revolution there will be no class struggle,but universal prosperity and peace. Therefore, it “buildsits nest” in advance, it introduces plans for petty-bourgeoisreforms in the bourgeois revolution, talks about various“norms” and “regulations” with regard to landownership,about strengthening the labour principle and small farming,