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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
6) The intermediary link between these post-Reform
types of “peasantry” is the middle peasantry. It is distinguished
by the least development of commodity production.
The independent agricultural labour of this category of
peasant covers his maintenance in perhaps only the best
years and under particularly favourable conditions, and
that is why his position is an extremely precarious one. In
the majority of cases the middle peasant cannot make ends
meet without resorting to loans, to be repaid by labourservice,
etc., without seeking “subsidiary” employment on
the side, which also consists partly in the sale of labourpower,
etc. Every crop failure flings masses of the middle
peasants into the ranks of the proletariat. In its social
relations this group fluctuates between the top group, towards
which it gravitates but which only a small minority of lucky
ones succeed in entering, and the bottom group, into which
it is pushed by the whole course of social evolution. We
have seen that the peasant bourgeoisie oust not only the
bottom group, but also the middle group, of the peasantry.
Thus a process specifically characteristic of capitalist economy
takes place, the middle members are swept away and
the extremes are reinforced—the process of “depeasantising.”
7) The differentiation of the peasantry creates a home
market for capitalism. In the bottom group, this formation
of a market takes place on account of articles of consumption
(the market of personal consumption). The rural proletarian,
by comparison with the middle peasantry, consumes less,
and, moreover, consumes food of worse quality (potatoes
instead of bread, etc.), but buys more. The formation and
development of a peasant bourgeoisie creates a market in
twofold fashion: firstly and mainly on account of
means of production (the market of productive consumption),
since the well-to-do peasant strives to convert into
capital those means of production which he “gathers” from
both landlords “in straitened circumstances” and peasants in
the grip of ruin. Secondly, a market is also created here on
account of personal consumption, due to the expansion of the
requirements of the more affluent peasants.*
* Only this fact that a home market is created by the differentiation
of the peasantry can explain, for example, the enormous
growth of the home market for cotton goods, the manufacture of which
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