The DEVELOPMENT of CAPITALISM in RUSSIA

Chapter IV. The Growth of Commercial Agriculture

XI. Continuation.—The Village
Community.—Marx’s
Views on Small-Scale Agriculture.—Engels’ Opinion of the
Contemporary Agricultural Crisis “The community principle prevents capital from seizing agricultural
production,”—that is how Mr. N.—on (p. 72) expresses another current Narodnik theory, formulated in just as abstract a fashion
as the previous one. In Chapter II we quoted a series of facts showing the
fallacy of this stock premise. Now let us add the following. It is a
great mistake to think that the inception of agricultural capitalism
itself requires some special- form of land tenure. “But the form of
landed property with which the incipient capitalist mode of production is
confronted does not suit it. It first creates for itself the form required
by subordinating agriculture to capital. It thus transforms feudal landed
property, clan property, small-peasant property in mark communes [1] ( Markgemeinschaft )—no matter how divergent their juristic forms may be—into the economic form
corresponding to the requirements of this mode of production”
( Das Kapital , III, 2, 156). Thus, by the very nature of the case,
no peculiarities in the system of land tenure can serve as an
insurmountable obstacle to capitalism, which assumes different forms in
accordance with the different conditions in agriculture, legal
relationships and manner of life. One can see from this how wrong is the
very presentation of the question by our Narodniks, who have
created a whole literature on the subject of “village community or
capitalism?” Should some Anglomaniac aristocrat happen to offer a
prize for the best work on the introduction of capitalist farming in
Russia, should some learned society come forward with a scheme to settle
peasants on farmsteads, should some idle government official concoct a
project for 60-dessiatine holdings, the Narodnik hastens to throw down the
gauntlet and fling himself into the fray against these “bourgeois
projects” to “introduce capitalism” and destroy that
Palladium of “people’s industry,” the village community. It has never entered the head of our good Narodnik that
capitalism has been proceeding on its way while all sorts of projects have
been drafted and refuted, and the community village has been turning, and
has actually turned, [2] into the village of small agrarians.

That is why we are very indifferent to the question of the form of peasant
land tenure. Whatever the form of land tenure may be, the relation between
the peasant bourgeoisie and the rural proletariat will not undergo any
essential change. The really important question concerns not the form of
land tenure at all, but the remnants of the purely medieval past, which continue to weigh down upon the peasantry—the
social-estate seclusion of the peasant communities, collective
responsibility, excessively high taxation of peasant land out of all
proportion to the taxation of privately-held land, the absence of full
freedom in the purchase and sale of peasant lands, and in the movement and
settlement of the peasantry. [3]

All these obsolete institutions, while not in the least safeguarding the peasantry against break-up, only lead to the
multiplication of diverse forms of labour-service and bondage, to
tremendous delay in social development as a whole.

In conclusion we must deal with an original Narodnik attempt to give an
interpretation to some statements made by Marx and Engels in Volume III of
Capital , in favour of their views that small-scale agriculture is
superior to large-scale, and that agricultural capitalism does not play a
progressive historical role. Quite often, with this end in view, they
quote the following passage from Volume III of Capital :

“The moral of history, also to be deduced from other observations
concerning agriculture, is that the capitalist system works against a
rational agriculture, or that a rational agriculture is incompatible with
the capitalist system (although the latter promotes technical improvements
in agriculture), and needs either the hand of the small farmer living by
his own labour ( selbst arbeitenden ) or the control of associated
producers” (III, 1, 98. Russ. trans., 83). [8]

What follows from this assertion (which, let us note in passing, is an
absolutely isolated fragment that has found its way into a chapter dealing
with the way changes in the prices of raw materials affect profits, and
not into Part VI, which deals specifically with agriculture)? That
capitalism is incompatible with the rational organisation of agriculture
(as also of industry) has long been known; nor is that the point at issue
with the Narodniks. And the progressive historical role of
capitalism in agriculture is especially emphasised by Marx here. There remains Marx’s reference
to the “small peasant living by his own labour.” None of the
Narodniks who have referred to this point has taken the trouble to explain
how he understands this, has taken the trouble to connect this point with
the context, on the one hand, and with Marx’s general theory of
small-scale agriculture, on the other. —In the passage quoted from
Capital the point dealt with is how considerably the prices of
raw materials fluctuate, how these fluctuations disturb the
proportionality and systematic working of production, how they disturb the
conformity of agriculture and industry. It is only in this respect —in respect of the proportionality, systematic working
and planned operation of production—that Marx places small peasant
economy on a par with the economy of “associated producers.”
In this respect, even small medieval industry (handicraft) is similar to
the economy of “associated producers” (cf. Misère de la philosophie , edition cited, p. 90), whereas capitalism differs from
both these systems of social economy in its anarchy of production. By what
logic can one draw the conclusion from this that Marx admitted the
viability of small-scale agriculture, [4] that he did not acknowledge the progressive
historical role of capitalism in agriculture? Here is what Marx said about
this in the special part dealing with agriculture, in the special section on small peasant economy (Chapter 47, § V):

“Proprietorship of land parcels by its very nature excludes the
development of social productive forces of labour, social forms of labour,
social concentration of capital, large-scale cattle raising, and the
progressive application of science.

“Usury and a taxation system must impoverish it every where. The
expenditure of capital in the price of the land withdraws this capital
from cultivation. An infinite fragmentation of means of production, and
isolation of the producers themselves. Monstrous waste of human energy.

Progressive deterioration of conditions of production and increased prices
of means of production—an inevitable law of proprietorship of
parcels. Calamity of seasonal abundance for this mode of production”
(III, 2, 341-342. Russ. trans., 667). [9] “Small landed property presupposes that the overwhelming majority of
the population is rural, and that not social, but isolated labour
predominates; and that, therefore, under such conditions wealth and
development of reproduction, both of its material and spiritual
prerequisites, are out of the question, and thereby also the prerequisites for rational cultivation” (III, 2,
347. Russ. trans.,

p. 672). [10]

The writer of these lines, far from closing his eyes to the contradictions
inherent in large-scale capitalist agriculture, ruthlessly exposed
them. But this did not prevent him from appreciating the
historical role of capitalism:

“...One of the major results of the capitalist mode of production is
that, on the one hand, it transforms agriculture from a mere empirical and
mechanical self-perpetuating process employed by the least developed part
of society into the conscious scientific application of agronomy, in so
far as this is at all feasible under conditions of private property; that
it divorces landed property from the relations of dominion and servitude,
on the one hand, and, on the other, totally separates land as an
instrument of production from landed property and landowner. . . . The
rationalising of agriculture, on the one hand, which makes it for the
first time capable of operating on a social scale, and the reduction
ad absurdum of property in land, on the other, are the great
achievements of the capitalist mode of production. Like all of its other
historical advances, it also attained these by first completely impoverishing the direct producers” (III, 2,
156-157. Russ. trans., 509–510). [11]

One would think that after such categorical statements by Marx there could
be no two opinions as to how he viewed the question of the progressive
historical role of agricultural capitalism. Mr. N.–on, however, found one
more subterfuge: he quoted Engels’s opinion on the present
agricultural crisis, which should, in his view, refute the proposition of the progressive role of capitalism in agriculture. [5]

Let us see what Engels actually says. After summarising the main
propositions of Marx’s theory of differential rent, Engels
establishes the law that “the more capital is invested in the land,
and the higher the development of agriculture and civilisation in general
in a given country, the more rents rise per acre as well as in total
amount, and the more immense becomes the tribute paid by society to the
big landowners in the form of surplus-profits” ( Das Kapital , III, 2, 258. Russ. trans., 597). [12] This law, says Engels, explains
“the wonderful vitality of the class of big landowners,” who
accumulate a mass of debts and nevertheless “land on their
feet” in all crises; for example, the abolition of the Corn Laws in
England, which caused a drop in grain prices, far from ruining the
landlords, exceedingly enriched them.

It might thus seem that capitalism is unable to weaken the power of the
monopoly represented by landed property.

“But everything is transitory,” continues Engels.
“Trans-oceanic steamships and the railways of North and South
America and India” called forth new competitors. The North American
prairies and the Argentine pampas, etc., flooded the world market with
cheap grain. “And in face of this competition—coming from
virgin plains as well as from Russian and Indian peasants ground down by
taxation—the European tenant farmer and peasant could not prevail at the old rents. A portion of the land in Europe fell decisively out of
competition as regards grain cultivation, and rents fell everywhere; our
second case, variant 2—falling prices and falling productivity of
the additional investment of capital—became the rule for Europe; and
therefore the lament of landlords from Scotland to Italy and from the
south of France to the east of Prussia. Fortunately, the plains are far
from being entirely brought under cultivation; there are enough left to
ruin all the big landlords of Europe and the small ones into the
bargain” ( ibid ., 260. Russ. trans., 598, where the word
“fortunately” is omitted.). [13]

If the reader has read this passage carefully it should be clear to him
that Engels says the very opposite of what Mr. N.–on wants to foist on
him. In Engels’s opinion the present agricultural crisis is reducing
rent and is even tending to abolish it altogether; in other words,
agricultural capitalism is pursuing its natural tendency to abolish the
monopoly of landed property. No, Mr. N.–on is positively out of luck with
his “quotations.” Agricultural capitalism is taking another,
enormous step forward; it is boundlessly expanding the commercial
production of agricultural produce and drawing a number of new countries
into the world arena; it is driving patriarchal agriculture out of its
last refuges, such as India or Russia; it is creating something hitherto
unknown to agriculture, namely, the purely industrial production of grain,
based on the co-operation of masses of workers equipped with the most
up-to-date machinery; it is tremendously aggravating the position of the
old European countries, reducing rents, thus undermining what seemed to be
the most firmly established monopolies and reducing landed property
“to absurdity” not only in theory, but also in practice; it is
raising so vividly the need to socialise agricultural production that this
need is beginning to be realised in the West even by representatives of
the propertied classes. [6]

And Engels, with his characteristic cheerful irony, welcomes the latest steps of world capitalism: fortunately, he says, there is still enough uncultivated
prairie land left to enable things to continue as they have been
doing. But our good Mr. N.–on, à propos des bottes , [7] sighs for the
“muzhik cultivator” of yore, for the “time-hallowed” . . . stagnation of our agriculture and of all
the various forms of agricultural bondage which “neither the strife
among the appanage princes nor the Tartar invasion” could shake, and
which now—oh, horror!—are beginning to be most thoroughly
shaken by this monstrous capitalism! O , sancta simplicitas !

---
Notes:
[1]
In another place Marx points out that “common lands ( Gemeineigentum ) constitute the second supplement of the
management of land parcels.” ( Das Kapital , III, 2, 341). [14] — Lenin

[2]
If we are told that we are running ahead in making such an assertion, our
reply will be the following. Whoever wants to depict some living
phenomenon in its development is inevitably and necessarily confronted
with the dilemma of either running ahead or lagging behind. There is no
middle course. And if all the facts show that the character of the social
evolution is precisely such that this evolution has already gone very far
(see Chapter II), and if, furthermore, precise reference is made to the
circumstances and institutions that retard this evolution (excessively
high taxes, social-estate exclusiveness of the peasantry, lack of full
freedom in the purchase and sale of land, and in movement and settlement),
then there is nothing wrong in such running ahead.— Lenin

[3]
The defence of some of these institutions by the Narodniks very glaringly
reveals the reactionary character of their views, which is gradually
bringing them closer and closer to the agrarians.— Lenin

[4]
Let us recall that Engels, shortly before his death, and at a time when
the agricultural crisis connected with the drop in prices was fully
manifest, considered it necessary to protest emphatically against the
French “disciples,” who had made some concessions to the
doctrine of the viability of small-scale agriculture. [15] — Lenin

[5]
See Novoye Slovo , 1896, No. 5, February, letter to editors by
Mr. N.–on, pp. 256-261. Here also is the “quotation” on the
“moral of history.” It is remarkable that neither Mr. N.–on
nor any other of the numerous Narodnik economists who have tried to use
the present agricultural crisis to refute the theory of the progressive
historical role of capitalism in agriculture, has ever once raised the
question in a straightforward manner, on the basis of a definite economic
theory; has ever once stated the grounds which induced Marx to admit the
progressiveness of the historical role of agricultural capitalism, or has
definitely indicated just which of these grounds he repudiates, and
why. In this, as in other cases, the Narodnik economists prefer not to
oppose Marx’s theory outright, but confine themselves to casting
vague hints at the “Russian disciples.” Confining ourselves in
this work to the economy of Russia, we have given above the grounds for
our opinions on this question.— Lenin

[6]
Are not, indeed, such manifestations as the celebrated Antrag Kanitz
(Kanitz plan – Ed .) proposed in the German

Reichstag, [16] or the proposal of the American farmers that all elevators be made state property typical
“signs of the times”?— Lenin

[7]
Without rhyme or reason. – Ed .

[14]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 603, 787.

[8]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 119.

[15]
This refers to the article by Engels entitled “The Peasant Question
in France and Germany,” published in Die Neue Zeit , Issue
No. 10 of the year 1894-95. (See Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,
Selected Works , Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, pp. 420-440.) The French
“disciples”—the name given, with an eye to censorship, to Marxists (in the article mentioned Engels calls them “French
Socialists of the Marxist trend”).

[9]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 787.

[10]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 792-793.

[11]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 603-604.

[12]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 709.

[13]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 709-710.

[16]
In the years 1894-1895 Count Kanitz, representative of the agrarians,
introduced into the German Reichstag the proposal known as the
“Antrag Kanitz” calling on the government to assume control of
the purchase of grain abroad, and undertake the sale of all such imported
grain at average prices. The proposal was rejected by the Reichstag.