Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 3 - From Marx to Mao

98
V. I. LENIN
prevents the understanding of either” (ibid.). This conclusion
follows naturally if we consistently adhere to the viewpoint
that distinguishes the peasant groups according to economic
strength; we have seen everywhere in our data that the wellto-do
peasants grab rentable land, despite the fact that they
are better provided with allotment land. It is clear that the
degree of prosperity of the household is the determining factor
in the renting of land, and that this factor merely undergoes
a change but does not cease to be determining, with the
change in the conditions of land allotment and renting.
But, although Mr. Karyshev investigated the influence of
“prosperity,” he did not adhere consistently to the viewpoint
mentioned, and therefore characterised the phenomenon
inaccurately, speaking of the direct connection between the
degree to which the lessee is supplied with land and the renting
of land. This is one point. Another point is that the onesidedness
of Mr. Karyshev’s investigation prevented him
from appraising the full significance of the way rentable land
is grabbed by the rich peasants. In his study of “non-allotment
renting”, he limits himself to summarising the Zemstvo
statistics on land renting, without taking account of the lessees’
own farms. Naturally, with such a method of study, a
more formal one, the problem of the relation between land renting
and the “prosperity,” of the commercial character of land
renting could not be solved. Mr. Karyshev, for example, was
in possession of the same data on Kamyshin Uyezd as we are,
but he limited himself to reproducing absolute figures only
of land renting (see Appendix No. 8, p. XXXVI) and to calculating
the average amount of rented land per allotmentholding
household (text, p. 143). The concentration of land
renting in the hands of the well-to-do peasants, its industrial
character, its connection with land leasing by the bottom
group of the peasantry, were all overlooked. Thus, Mr. Karyshev
could not but see that the Zemstvo statistics refute
the Narodnik notion of land renting and show that the poor
are ousted by the well-to-do peasants; but he gave an inaccurate
description of this phenomenon, did not study it from
all sides and came into conflict with the data, repeating the
old song about the “labour principle,” etc. But even the mere
statement of the fact of economic discord and conflict among
the peasantry seemed heresy to the Narodniks, and they pro-