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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
595
i.e., the extension of the sphere of the capitalist domination
to new territory. In accordance with the plan of the
present work, we have confined ourselves almost exclusively
to the first aspect of the process, and for this reason we
consider it particularly necessary to stress the point here
that its other aspect is of exceptionally great importance.
Anything like a complete study of the process of colonisation
of the border regions and of the expansion of Russian
territory, from the point of view of capitalist development,
would require a special work. Suffice it to mention here
that Russia is in a particularly favoured position as
compared with other capitalist countries, due to the abundance
of free land accessible for colonisation in her border
regions.* To say nothing of Asiatic Russia we have also
in European Russia border regions which, because of their
exceeding remoteness and bad means of communication,
are still very poorly connected economically with central
Russia. Let us take, for instance, the “Far North”—Archangel
Gubernia; the boundless stretches of territory and their
natural resources are still exploited very slightly. One of the
principal local products, timber, was until recently exported
mainly to England. In this respect, therefore, that part
of European Russia was a foreign market for Britain without
being a home market for Russia. The Russian entre-
* The circumstance indicated in the text has another aspect. The
development of capitalism in depth in the old, long-inhabited territories
is retarded because of the colonisation of the outer regions. The
solution of the contradictions inherent in, and produced by, capitalism
is temporarily postponed because of the fact that capitalism can
easily develop in breadth. Thus, the simultaneous existence of the
most advanced forms of industry and of semi-medieval forms of
agriculture is undoubtedly a contradiction. If Russian capitalism had
possessed no range for expansion beyond the bounds of the territory
already occupied at the beginning of the post-Reform period, this
contradiction between capitalist large-scale industry and the archaic
institutions in rural life (the tying of the peasants to the land, etc.)
would have had to lead quickly to the complete abolition of these
institutions, to the complete clearing of the path for agricultural
capitalism in Russia. But the possibility (for the mill owner) of seeking
and finding a market in the outer regions in process of colonisation
and the possibility (for the peasant) of moving to new territory,
mitigates the acuteness of this contradiction and delays its solution.
It goes without saying that such a deceleration of the growth
of capitalism is equivalent to preparing its even greater extension
in the near future.