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

UNCRITICAL CRITICISM
615
consumed in production replaced in value out of the annual
product, and how is the movement of this replacement intertwined
with the consumption of surplus-value by the capitalists,
and of wages by the workers?” Conclusion: “I believe
that I have shown sufficiently that the theory of realisation
which Mr. Ilyin presents as Marx’s has nothing in
common with the analysis given by Marx,” etc. All I can do
is to ask once again: Good, isn’t it? What the difference is
between what I say and what is said in the quotations from
Marx remains the secret of our stern critic. All that is clear is
that my mortal sin lies in “translating freely,” or perhaps in
that I explain Marx in my “own words,” as Mr. Skvortsov
expresses it in another part of his article (2287). Just think
of it! To expound Marx in one’s “own words”! “Genuine”
Marxism consists in learning Capital by heart and quoting
passages from it, in season and out . . . à la Mr. Nikolai —on.
Here is an illustration confirming this last remark. In my
book I say that capitalism “makes its appearance only as a
result of widely developed commodity circulation,” and, in
another place, that “capitalism is that stage in the development
of commodity-production in which labour-power, too,
becomes a commodity.” Midst thunder and lightning our
stern Jove announces: “under what conditions capitalism
makes its appearance . . . is known to every more or less
educated reader” (sic!), “Mr. Ilyin’s bourgeois horizon,” and
other pearls adorning the polemics of the wrathful Mr. Skvortsov.
Then follow quotations from Marx: the first says
exactly what I said (the purchase and sale of labour-power is
the basic condition of capitalist production); the second says
that the mode of circulation derives from the social character
of production and not vice versa (Das Kapital, II. B.,
93). 172 Mr. Skvortsov imagines he has utterly confuted his
opponent with this last quotation. Actually, however, he has
replaced the question I raised by another one and given
proof of his ability to offer irrelevant quotations. What did
I speak of in the incriminating passage? Of the fact that
capitalism is the result of commodity circulation, i.e., of
the historical relation between capitalist production and
commodity circulation. And what is spoken of in the passage
quoted from Volume II of Capital (the volume devoted to
the circulation of capital)? The relation between capitalist