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

UNCRITICAL CRITICISM
613
dispose of the matter with empty commonplaces about capitalist
industry! The question as to exactly which peasants
in Russia are “independent producers” also requires a study
of the facts, and that is what I tried to undertake in my book;
had Mr. Skvortsov pondered over this question, he would not
have made the nonsensical assertion that the categories of
constant capital, variable capital and surplus-value may,
without further ado, be applied to the economy of “independent
peasant producers.” In a word, the elaboration of the
theme proposed by Mr. Skvortsov is possible only after
clearing up the questions I have indicated. Under the guise
of amending my formulation of the problem, our stern
critic beats a retreat from an analysis of concrete and
historically specific reality to simply copying Marx.
Incidentally, we cannot pass by in silence the following
trick by Mr. P. Skvortsov, one that splendidly characterises
our critic’s methods. Prof. Sombart (says Mr. P. Skvortsov)
shows that German exports lag behind the development of
German industry. “These data,” Mr. P. Skvortsov explains,
“go to confirm my conception of markets.” Good, isn’t it?
Mr. Skvortsov’s arguments illustrate the meaning of the
well-known saying: there’s a bush in the garden, and my
uncle’s in Kiev. . . . We are discussing the theory of realisation,
and he tells us: capitalism, like feudalism, lives on
surplus-labour! If we add to such inimitable tricks a number
of stern rebukes, we shall get the sum-total of Mr. Skvortsov’s
“criticism.”
But let the reader judge for himself: to show my “failure
to understand,” Mr. P. Skvortsov cites, on pages 2279 and
2280, extracts from various parts of the first chapter, picks
out isolated words from isolated sentences and exclaims:
“The finding, the exchange, the theory of the home market,
the finding of the replacing, and finally, the compensating! I
do not think such precision of terms can be taken as evidence
that Mr. Ilyin clearly understands Marx’s ‘remarkable’
theory of realisation!?” Now that is precisely the sort of “criticism”
that was once ridiculed by Chernyshevsky; a man takes
up The Adventures of Chichikov and begins to “criticise”:
“Chi-chi-kov, tchi-tchi. . . Oh how funny! The finding, the
exchange. . . . I do not think that is clear. . . .” 171 Oh, what
destructive criticism!