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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
495
establishments, etc., etc. The illogicality of such arguments
and their flagrant distortion of historical perspective are
glaring. Whence, indeed, does it follow that the efforts of our
entrepreneurs to utilise the advantages of pre-capitalist
methods of production should be charged to our capitalism,
and not to those survivals of the past which retard the development
of capitalism and which in many cases are preserved
by force of law? Can one be surprised, for instance, at the
southern mine owners being eager to tie the workers down
and to secure the legislative prohibition of competition
by small establishments, when in the other mining area
such tying down and such prohibitions have existed for
ages, and exist to this day, and when in another area the
ironmasters, by using more primitive methods and employing
cheaper and more docile labour, get a profit on their
pig-iron, without effort, of “kopek per kopek and sometimes
even one and a half kopeks per kopek”?* Should we not, on
the contrary, be surprised at the fact that, under these
circumstances, there are people who are capable of idealising
the pre-capitalist economic order in Russia, and who
shut their eyes to the most urgent and pressing necessity
of abolishing all obsolete institutions that hinder the
development of capitalism?**
On the other hand, the data on the growth of the mining
industry are important because they clearly reveal a
more rapid growth of capitalism and of the home market on
account of articles of productive consumption than on
account of articles of personal consumption. This circumstance
is ignored by Mr. N. —on, for instance, who argues
that the satisfaction of the entire home demand for the
products of the mining industry “will probably take place
very soon” (Sketches, 123). The fact is that the consumption
of metals, coal, etc. (per inhabitant), does not and cannot
remain stationary in capitalist society, but necessarily
* Article by Yegunov in Reports and Investigations of Handicraft
Industry, Vol. III, p. 130.
** For example, Mr. N. —on levelled all his complaints solely
against capitalism (cf., in particular, his observations on the southern
mine owners, Sketches, pp. 211 and 296) and thus utterly distorted
the relation between Russian capitalism and the pre-capitalist structure
of our mining industry.