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

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

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618<br />

V. I. LENIN<br />

think <strong>of</strong> a critic who ascribes <strong>to</strong> his opponent the transformation<br />

<strong>of</strong> capitalism in<strong>to</strong> planned production, while making<br />

reference <strong>to</strong> the very page and the very paragraph where<br />

that opponent says that for capitalism there must be a crisis<br />

so as <strong>to</strong> create a constantly disturbed proportion??<br />

II<br />

Let us pass <strong>to</strong> the second part <strong>of</strong> Mr. Skvortsov’s article,<br />

which is devoted <strong>to</strong> a criticism <strong>of</strong> the factual data quoted<br />

and analysed in my book. Maybe here, at least, we shall<br />

find some serious criticism relating <strong>to</strong> problems <strong>of</strong> which a<br />

special study has been made by Mr. Skvortsov.<br />

The social division <strong>of</strong> labour is the basis <strong>of</strong> commodity<br />

economy and is the basic process <strong>of</strong> the formation <strong>of</strong> a home<br />

market—says Mr. Skvortsov, quoting my words—”while<br />

plain ‘division <strong>of</strong> labour’—not social, we must assume—<br />

is the basis <strong>of</strong> manufacture. . . .” In this “attempt at irony”<br />

the critic reveals his failure <strong>to</strong> understand the elementary<br />

difference between division <strong>of</strong> labour in society and division<br />

<strong>of</strong> labour in the workshop: the former creates (under<br />

commodity production—a condition which I definitely<br />

specified, so that Mr. Skvortsov’s reminder about the division<br />

<strong>of</strong> labour in the Indian village community relates <strong>to</strong><br />

that author’s deplorable weakness for quoting irrelevant<br />

passages from <strong>Marx</strong>) isolated commodity-producers, who,<br />

independently and separately from one another, produce<br />

different products which enter in<strong>to</strong> exchange; the latter<br />

does not alter the relation <strong>of</strong> the producers <strong>to</strong> society, but<br />

merely transforms their position in the workshop. That is<br />

the reason, so far as I can judge, why <strong>Marx</strong> sometimes<br />

speaks <strong>of</strong> “social division <strong>of</strong> labour”* and at others simply<br />

* In chapter twelve, volume one <strong>of</strong> Capital [in the English edition<br />

it is Chapter XIV.—Ed.], which deals with manufacture, there<br />

is a special section entitled “Division <strong>of</strong> Labour in Manufacture, and<br />

Division <strong>of</strong> Labour in Society.” At the beginning <strong>of</strong> this section <strong>Marx</strong><br />

says: “We shall now lightly <strong>to</strong>uch upon the relation between the<br />

division <strong>of</strong> labour in manufacture, and the social division <strong>of</strong> labour,<br />

which forms the foundation <strong>of</strong> all production <strong>of</strong> commodities” (Das<br />

Kapital, I 2 , S. 362). 175 How truly instructive it is <strong>to</strong> contrast this <strong>to</strong><br />

the trick <strong>of</strong> our wrathful Jove!

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