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

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

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172<br />

V. I. LENIN<br />

in his article in the book The Influence <strong>of</strong> Harvests, etc.<br />

Here a huge effort is made <strong>to</strong> calculate the budgets <strong>of</strong> the<br />

whole <strong>of</strong> the Russian peasantry—and all by means <strong>of</strong> the<br />

very same, tried and tested, “averages.” The future his<strong>to</strong>rian<br />

<strong>of</strong> Russian economic literature will note with as<strong>to</strong>nishment<br />

that the prejudices <strong>of</strong> Narodism caused the most elementary<br />

requirements <strong>of</strong> economic statistics <strong>to</strong> be forgotten, namely,<br />

that a strict distinction be drawn between employers and<br />

wage-workers, regardless <strong>of</strong> the form <strong>of</strong> land tenure that<br />

unites them, and regardless <strong>of</strong> the multiplicity and variety<br />

<strong>of</strong> the intermediary types between them.<br />

XIII. CONCLUSIONS FROM CHAPTER II<br />

Let us sum up the main points that follow from the data<br />

examined above:<br />

1) The social-economic situation in which the contemporary<br />

Russian peasantry find themselves is that <strong>of</strong> commodity<br />

economy. Even in the central agricultural belt (which<br />

is most backward in this respect as compared with the southeastern<br />

border regions or the industrial gubernias), the<br />

peasant is completely subordinated <strong>to</strong> the market, on which<br />

he is dependent as regards both his personal consumption<br />

and his farming, not <strong>to</strong> mention the payment <strong>of</strong> taxes.<br />

2) The system <strong>of</strong> social-economic relations existing<br />

among the peasantry (agricultural and village-community)<br />

shows us the presence <strong>of</strong> all those contradictions which are<br />

inherent in every commodity economy and every order <strong>of</strong><br />

capitalism: competition, the struggle for economic independence,<br />

the grabbing <strong>of</strong> land (purchasable and rentable),<br />

the concentration <strong>of</strong> production in the hands <strong>of</strong> a minority,<br />

the forcing <strong>of</strong> the majority in<strong>to</strong> the ranks <strong>of</strong> the proletariat,<br />

their exploitation by a minority through the medium <strong>of</strong><br />

merchant’s capital and the hiring <strong>of</strong> farm labourers. There<br />

is not a single economic phenomenon among the peasantry<br />

that does not bear this contradic<strong>to</strong>ry form, one specifically<br />

peculiar <strong>to</strong> the capitalist system, i.e., that does not express<br />

a struggle and antagonism <strong>of</strong> interests, that does not imply<br />

advantage for some and disadvantage for others. It is the<br />

case with the renting <strong>of</strong> land, the purchase <strong>of</strong> land, and with<br />

“industries” in their diametrically opposite types; it is<br />

also the case with the technical progress <strong>of</strong> farming.

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