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

620
V. I. LENIN
does not say a word about this), it must refer to the chapter
on manufacture, the greater part of which consists of factual
data. How they might have been dispensed with is a
secret that our stern critic does not reveal, and I continue to
hold to the opinion that it is better to incur the charge of
my exposition being dry than to give the reader cause to
think that my opinion is based on “quotations” from Capital,
and not on a study of Russian data. If Mr. Skvortsov
thinks my enumeration is “mechanical,” are we to take it
that he considers as wrong the conclusions which I have drawn
from these data in the second half of Chapter VI, and
repeated in Chapter VII, §XII?—Are we to take it that he does
not agree that these data show a specific structure of industry
characterised by aspecific system of: 1) technique, 2) economy
and 3) culture? The stern Jove had not a single word to say
about this in his “criticism,” which, if we discount the wrathful
rebukes, is left without any content whatsoever. That’s
rather little, most respected Mr. Skvortsov!
Let us pass to the part played by peasant taxes in developing
commodity economy. I asserted that at one time
poll-taxes had been an important factor in the development
of exchange, but that now commodity-production had
become so firmly established that the importance of taxes
“is becoming altogether secondary.” Against this Mr. Skvortsov
launches a host of paltry and fearful words such as,
“fetishism of commodities,” unite everything, “omnipotence,”
potency of commodity-production, etc.; but alas, these
potent words merely cover up the stern critic’s impotence
to refute the conclusion I drew. “Even Mr. Kautsky,”
writes Mr. Skvortsov, “to whom Mr. Ilyin bears resemblance
in many respects” . . . (poor “Mr. Kautsky,” who “bears
resemblance” to the “commodity fetishist,” completely fails
to understand Capital, and resembles that man who is
weighed down by a “bourgeois horizon,” Mr. Ilyin! Will he
recover from the blow struck by a “genuine” Marxist?) . . .
“says that the conversion of peasant dues in kind into dues
in cash increases the peasants’ demand for money” (2288).
Very well, stern Mr. Critic, but surely that has absolutely
nothing to do with the problem of the part played by taxes
in the peasants’ cash expenditure as compared with outlays
on the rest of their needs and requirements. This problem is