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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
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medieval past, which continue to weigh down upon the
peasantry—the social-estate seclusion of the peasant
communities, collective responsibility, excessively high
taxation of peasant land out of all proportion to the taxation
of privately-held land, the absence of full freedom in
the purchase and sale of peasant lands, and in the movement
and settlement of the peasantry.* All these obsolete institutions,
while not in the least safeguarding the peasantry
against break-up, only lead to the multiplication of
diverse forms of labour-service and bondage, to tremendous
delay in social development as a whole.
In conclusion we must deal with an original Narodnik
attempt to give an interpretation to some statements made
by Marx and Engels in Volume III of Capital, in favour
of their views that small-scale agriculture is superior to
large-scale, and that agricultural capitalism does not play
a progressive historical role. Quite often, with this end in
view, they quote the following passage from Volume III
of Capital:
“The moral of history, also to be deduced from other
observations concerning agriculture, is that the capitalist
system works against a rational agriculture, or that a
rational agriculture is incompatible with the capitalist
system (although the latter promotes technical improvements
in agriculture), and needs either the hand of the small farmer
living by his own labour (selbst arbeitenden) or the
control of associated producers” (III, 1, 98. Russ. trans.,
83). 111
What follows from this assertion (which, let us note in
passing, is an absolutely isolated fragment that has found
its way into a chapter dealing with the way changes in the
prices of raw materials affect profits, and not into Part VI,
which deals specifically with agriculture)? That capitalism
is incompatible with the rational organisation of agriculture
(as also of industry) has long been known; nor is
that the point at issue with the Narodniks. And the progressive
historical role of capitalism in agriculture is
* The defence of some of these institutions by the Narodniks
very glaringly reveals the reactionary character of their views, which
is gradually bringing them closer and closer to the agrarians.