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

562
V. I. LENIN
2) T h e S i g n i f i c a n c e o f H o m e C o l o n i s a t i o n
As we have pointed out above (Chapter I, §II, p. 40),
theory deduces the law that the industrial population
grows at the expense of the agricultural from the fact
that in industry variable capital increases absolutely (the
growth of variable capital means a growth of the number of
industrial workers and a growth of the total commercial
and industrial population), whereas in agriculture the “variable
capital required for the exploitation of a certain plot of
land decreases absolutely.” “It can thus only increase,” Marx
adds, “to the extent that new land is taken into cultivation,
but this again requires as a prerequisite a still greater growth
of the non-agricultural population.” 161 Hence it is clear that
the growth of the industrial population is a phenomenon
observable in its pure form only when we have before us an
already populated territory in which all the land is already
occupied. The inhabitants of such a territory, when forced-out
of agriculture by capitalism, have no other alternative but to
migrate to the industrial centres or to other countries. But
the situation is essentially different when we have before us
a territory in which not all the land is occupied, and which
is not yet fully populated. The inhabitants of such a territory,
when forced out of agriculture in a populated area,
may remove to an unpopulated part of that territory and
set about “taking new land into cultivation.” The result
will be an increase in the agricultural population, and this
increase may be (for some time) no less, if not more, rapid
than the increase in the industrial population. In that case,
we have before us two different processes: 1) the development
of capitalism in the old, populated country or part of the
country; 2) the development of capitalism on “new land.”
The first process expresses the further development of established
capitalist relationships; the second, the rise of new
capitalist relationships on new territory. The first process
means the development of capitalism in depth, the second,
in breadth. Obviously, to confuse these two processes must
inevitably lead to a wrong conception of the process which
diverts the population from agriculture to commercial and
industrial occupations.