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

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V. I. LENIN
how divergent their juristic forms may be—into the economic
form corresponding to the requirements of this mode
of production” (Das Kapital, III, 2, 156). Thus, by the very
nature of the case, no peculiarities in the system of land
tenure can serve as an insurmountable obstacle to capitalism,
which assumes different forms in accordance with the different
conditions in agriculture, legal relationships and manner
of life. One can see from this how wrong is the very presentation
of the question by our Narodniks, who have created
a whole literature on the subject of “village community or
capitalism?” Should some Anglomaniac aristocrat happen
to offer a prize for the best work on the introduction of
capitalist farming in Russia, should some learned society
come forward with a scheme to settle peasants on farmsteads,
should some idle government official concoct a
project for 60-dessiatine holdings, the Narodnik hastens to
throw down the gauntlet and fling himself into the fray
against these “bourgeois projects” to “introduce capitalism”
and destroy that Palladium of “people’s industry,” the village
community. It has never entered the head of our good
Narodnik that capitalism has been proceeding on its way while
all sorts of projects have been drafted and refuted, and the
community village has been turning, and has actually
turned,* into the village of small agrarians.
That is why we are very indifferent to the question of
the form of peasant land tenure. Whatever the form of land
tenure may be, the relation between the peasant bourgeoisie
and the rural proletariat will not undergo any essential
change. The really important question concerns not the
form of land tenure at all, but the remnants of the purely
* If we are told that we are running ahead in making such an
assertion, our reply will be the following. Whoever wants to depict
some living phenomenon in its development is inevitably and necessarily
confronted with the dilemma of either running ahead or lagging
behind. There is no middle course. And if all the facts show that the
character of the social evolution is precisely such that this evolution
has already gone very far (see Chapter II), and if, furthermore,
precise reference is made to the circumstances and institutions that
retard this evolution (excessively high taxes, social-estate exclusiveness
of the peasantry, lack of full freedom in the purchase and sale
of land, and in movement and settlement), then there is nothing
wrong in such running ahead.