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

596
V. I. LENIN
preneurs naturally envied the British, and now, with the
extension of the railway line to Archangel, they are jubilant
at the prospect of “elevated moods and business activity in
various branches of industry in the region.”*
VI. THE “MISSION” OF CAPITALISM
We still have, in conclusion, to sum up on the question
which in literature has come to be known as that of the
“mission” of capitalism, i.e., of its historical role in the
economic development of Russia. Recognition of the progressiveness
of this role is quite compatible (as we have
tried to show in detail at every stage in our exposition of
the facts) with the full recognition of the negative and dark
sides of capitalism, with the full recognition of the profound
and all-round social contradictions which are inevitably
inherent in capitalism, and which reveal the historically transient
character of this economic regime. It is the Narodniks—
who exert every effort to show that an admission of the historically
progressive nature of capitalism means an apology
for capitalism—who are at fault in underrating (and sometimes
in even ignoring) the most profound contradictions
of Russian capitalism, by glossing over the differentiation
of the peasantry, the capitalist character of the evolution of
our agriculture, and the rise of a class of rural and industrial
allotment-holding wage-labourers, by glossing over
the complete predominance of the lowest and worst forms of
capitalism in the celebrated “handicraft” industries.
The progressive historical role of capitalism may be
summed up in two brief propositions: increase in the
productive forces of social labour, and the socialisation of
that labour. But both these facts manifest themselves in extremely
diverse processes in different branches of the national
economy.
The development of the productive forces of social labour
is to be observed in full relief only in the epoch of large-scale
machine industry. Until that highest stage of capitalism was
reached, there still remained hand production and primi-
tive technique, which developed quite spontaneously and
exceedingly slowly. The post-Reform epoch differs radi-
* Productive Forces, XX, 12.