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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
to the basic features of the post-Reform economy of Russia,
etc. To put the question on this basis, on the basis of
recognising the “change” actually taking place, meant to admit
the inevitability of the progressive elimination of labourservice
by capitalism. To avoid drawing that conclusion,
the Narodniks did not stop even at idealising the labourservice
system. This monstrous idealisation is the basic
feature of the Narodnik views on the evolution of landlord
economy. Mr. V. V. even went so far as to write that “the
people . . . are the victors in the struggle for the form of agricultural
technique, although their victory has resulted
in their greater ruin” (The Destiny of Capitalism, p. 288).
To admit such a “victory” is more eloquent than to admit
FROM MARX
TO MAO
defeat! Mr. N. —on discerned in the allotment of land to
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the peasants under corvée and under labour-service economy
the “principle” “of linking the producer and the means of
production,” but he forgot the tiny circumstance that this
allotting of land served as a means of guaranteeing a supply
of labour for the landlords. As we have indicated, Marx, in
describing pre-capitalist systems of agriculture, analysed
all the forms of economic relations that, in general, exist in
Russia, and clearly emphasised the necessity of small-scale
production and of a tie between the peasant and the land in
the case of both labour-rent, NOT rent FOR in kind and money rent.
But could it ever have entered his head to elevate this
allotting of land to the dependent peasant into a “principle”
of an eternal COMMERCIAL
tie between the producer and the means
of production? Did he forget even for a moment that this
tie between the DISTRIBUTION
producer and the means of production was
the source of, and condition for, medieval exploitation, constituted
the basis for technical and social stagnation and
necessarily required all sorts of “other than economic, pressure”?
An exactly similar idealisation of labour-service and of
bondage is displayed by Messrs. Orlov and Kablukov in
Moscow Zemstvo Returns when they quote as a model the
farm of a certain Mme. Kostinskaya in Podolsk Uyezd (see
Vol. V, Pt. I, pp. 175-176, and Vol. II, pp. 59-62, Sect.
II). In Mr. Kablukov’s opinion, this farm proves “that
it is possible to arrange matters in such a way as to preclude
(sic!!) such an antagonism” (i.e., antagonism of interests
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