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

312
V. I. LENIN
different areas, but also on different farms. That is why,
when examining the question of the growth of commercial
agriculture, we must on no account confine ourselves to
gross data for agricultural production as a whole.*
3) The growth of commercial agriculture creates a home
market for capitalism. Firstly, the specialisation of agriculture
gives rise to exchange between the various agricultural
areas, between the various agricultural undertakings,
and between the various agricultural products. Secondly,
the further agriculture is drawn into the sphere of commodity
circulation the more rapid is the growth of the demand
made by the rural population for those products of manufacturing
industry that serve for personal consumption; and
thirdly, the more rapid is the growth of the demand for
means of production, since neither the small nor the big
rural entrepreneur is able, with the old-fashioned “peasant”
implements, buildings, etc., etc., to engage in the new,
commercial agriculture. Fourthly and lastly, a demand is
created for labour-power, since the formation of a small
rural bourgeoisie and the change-over by the landowners
to capitalist farming presuppose the formation of a body of
regular agricultural labourers and day labourers. Only the
fact of the growth of commercial agriculture can explain the
circumstance that the post-Reform period is characterised by
an expansion of the home market for capitalism (development
of capitalist agriculture, development of factory
industry in general, development of the agricultural engineer-
* It is to data of this kind that the authors of the book mentioned
in the preceding note confine themselves when they speak of “the
peasantry.” They assume that every peasant sows just those cereals
that he consumes, that he sows all those types of cereals that he consumes,
and that he sows them in just that proportion in which they
are consumed. It does not require much effort to “deduce” from such
“assumptions” (which contradict the facts and ignore the main
feature of the post-Reform period) that natural economy predominates.
In Narodnik literature one may also encounter the following
ingenious method of argument: each separate type of commercial
agriculture is an “exception”—by comparison with agriculture as a
whole. Hence, all commercial agriculture in general, it is averred,
must be regarded as an exception, and natural economy must be
considered the general rule! In college textbooks on logic, in the
section on sophisms, numerous parallels of such lines of reasoning
are to be found.