The DEVELOPMENT of CAPITALISM in RUSSIA

Chapter III. The Landowners’ Transition from Corvée to Capitalist Economy

V. The Narodnik Attitude to the Problem

The point that the labour-service system is simply a survival of Corvée
economy is not denied even by the Narodniks. On the contrary, it is
admitted – although in an insufficiently general form – by Mr. N.–on
( Sketches , § IX) and by Mr. V. V. (particularly explicitly in his
article “Our Peasant Farming and Agronomy,” in
Otechestvenniye Zapiski , 1882, No. 8-9). The more astonishing is
it that the Narodniks do their utmost to avoid admitting the clear and
simple fact that the present system of private-landowner farming is a
combination of the labour-service and the capitalist systems, and that,
consequently, the more developed the former, the weaker the latter, and
vice versa. They avoid analysing the relation of each of these systems to
the productivity of labour, to the payment of the worker’s labour, to the basic features of the post-Reform economy of Russia, etc. To put
the question on this basis, on the basis of recognising the
“ change ” actually taking place , meant to admit the inevitability of the progressive elimination of labour-service
by capitalism. To avoid drawing that conclusion, the Narodniks did not
stop even at idealising the labour-service system . This monstrous
idealisation is the basic feature of the Narodnik views on the evolution
of landlord economy. Mr. V. V. even went so far as to write that
“the people . . . are the victors in the struggle for the form of
agricultural technique, although their victory has resulted in their
greater ruin” ( The Destiny of Capitalism , p. 288). To admit
such a “victory” is more eloquent than to admit defeat! Mr. N.–on discerned in the allotment of land to the peasants
under Corvée and under labour-service economy the “principle”
“of linking the producer and the means of production,” but he
forgot the tiny circumstance that this allotting of land served as a means
of guaranteeing a supply of labour for the landlords. As we have
indicated, Marx, in describing pre-capitalist systems of agriculture,
analysed all the forms of economic relations that, in general,
exist in Russia, and clearly emphasised the necessity of small-scale
production and of a tie between the peasant and the land in the case of
both labour-rent, rent in kind and money rent. But could it ever have
entered his head to elevate this allotting of land to the dependent
peasant into a “principle” of an eternal tie between the
producer and the means of production? Did he forget even for a moment that
this tie between the producer and the means of production was the
source of, and condition for, medieval exploitation, constituted the basis
for technical and social stagnation and necessarily required all sorts of
“other than economic, pressure”?

An exactly similar idealisation of labour-service and of bondage is
displayed by Messrs. Orlov and Kablukov in Moscow Zemstvo Returns when
they quote as a model the farm of a certain Mme. Kostinskaya in Podolsk
Uyezd (see Vol. V, Pt. I, pp. 175-176, and Vol. II, pp. 59-62,
Sect. II). In Mr. Kablukov’s opinion, this farm proves “that
it is possible to arrange matters in such a way as to preclude ( sic !!) such an antagonism” (i.e., antagonism of interests between landlord and peasant farming) “and assist in achieving a
flourishing ( sic !) condition of both peasant and private
farming” (Vol. V, Pt. I, pp. 175-176). It seems, then, that the
flourishing condition of the peasants consists in labour-service and
bondage. They have no pastures or cattle runs (Vol. II,
pp. 60-61), – which does not prevent Messrs. the Narodniks from regarding
them as “sound” peasants – and rent these grounds, for which
they pay the proprietress in work , performing “all the jobs
on her estate ... thoroughly, punctually and promptly.” [1]

That is the limit in idealising an economic system which is a direct
survival of Corvée service!

The methods employed in all such Narodnik reasoning are very simple; we
have only to forget that the allotment of land to the peasant is one of
the conditions of Corvée or labour-service economy, we have only to omit
the circumstance that this allegedly “independent” cultivator
must render labour-rent, rent in kind or money rent, – and we get the
“pure” idea of “the tie between the producer and the means of production.” But the actual relation between capitalism and
pre-capitalist forms of exploitation does not change in the least from the
fact of simply omitting these forms. [2]

Let us deal somewhat with another, very curious, argument of
Mr. Kablukov. We have seen that he idealises labour-service; but it is
remarkable that when he, as a statistician, describes real types
of purely capitalist farms in Moscow Gubernia, his description,
in spite of himself, and in a distorted way, is a reflection of the very
facts that prove the progressive nature of capitalism in Russian
agriculture. We beg the reader’s attention, and apologise in advance
for our rather lengthy quotations.

Besides the old types of farms employing hired labour, there is to be
found in Moscow Gubernia “a new, recent, emergent type of farm that has totally broken
with all tradition and regards things simply, in the way people
regard every industry that is to serve as a source of income. Agriculture in this case is not regarded as . . . a
lord’s hobby, as an occupation anybody may engage in. . . . No,
here the necessity is recognised of having . . . special
knowledge. . . . The basis of calculation” (as to the organisation of production) “is the same as in all other forms
of production” ( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. V, Pt. I, pp. 185-186).

Mr. Kablukov does not notice that this description of the new type of farm
which has only “recently emerged,” in the 70s, proves precisely the progressive nature of capitalism in agriculture. It was
capitalism that first turned agriculture from a “lord’s
hobby” into ordinary industry, it was capitalism that first
compelled people “to regard things simply,” “to break with tradition” and to equip themselves with “special
knowledge.” Before capitalism this was both unnecessary and
impossible, because the farms of the different manors, village communities
and peasant families were “self-sufficing,” were not dependent
on other farms, and no power on earth could drag them out of their
age-long stagnation. Capitalism was the force which created (through the
medium of the market) the social accounting of the output of the
individual producers, and compelled them to reckon with the demands of
social development. It is this that constitutes the progressive role of
capitalism in agriculture in all European countries.

Listen now to the way Mr. Kablukov describes our purely capitalist farms:

“Only then is account taken of labour-power as a necessary factor in
acting upon nature; without this factor all organisation of the
landlord’s estate will be fruitless. Thus, with all appreciation of
its significance, this element, at the same time, is not regarded as an
independent source of income, as was the case under serfdom, or as is the
case now in those instances when what is made the basis of the
estate’s profitability is not the product of labour, the obtaining
of which is the direct purpose of its application, not the striving to
apply this labour to the production of its more valuable products and
thereby to enjoy its results, but the striving to reduce the share of the
product which the worker gets for himself, the desire to reduce the cost
of labour to the master as near as possible to zero” (p. 186). Reference is made to farming based on labour in return for the
use of cut-off lands. “Under these circumstances, for a farm to be
profitable the owner requires neither knowledge nor special qualities. All
that is obtained from this labour represents clear income for the owner or
at all events such income as is obtained almost without any expenditure of
circulating capital. But such farming cannot, of course, be well conducted
and cannot be called farming in the strict sense of the term, any more
than the leasing of all pasture and other grounds can be called such;
there is no economic organisation here” (186). And quoting examples
of the leasing of cut-off lands in return for labour-service, the author
concludes: “The main emphasis in the farm economy, the manner of
extracting an income from the soil, is rooted in the exertion of influence
upon the worker rather than upon matter and its forces” (189).

This argument is an extremely interesting example of how distorted is the
picture of actual facts when viewed from the angle of a wrong
theory. Mr. Kablukov confuses production with the social system of
production. Under every social system production consists in “the
exertion of influence” upon matter and its forces. Under every
social system only the surplus product can be the landowner’s source
of “income.” In both respects the labour-service system of
economy is fully identical with the capitalist system, Mr.
Kablukov’s opinion notwithstanding. The real difference between them
is that labour-service necessarily presupposes the lowest productivity of
labour; hence, no possibility exists for increasing income by increasing
the surplus product; that can only be done by one means, namely, by
employing all sorts of bonded forms of hire. Under purely capitalist
economy, on the contrary, bonded forms of hire must go by the board, for
the proletarian, not being tied to the land, is useless as an object of
bondage; – to raise the productivity of labour becomes not only possible,
but also necessary as the sole means of increasing income and with standing severe
competition. Thus, the description of our purely capitalist farms, given
by the very Mr. Kablukov who so zealously tried to idealise
labour-service, fully confirms the fact that Russian capitalism is
creating the social conditions which necessarily demand
the rationalisation of agriculture and the abolition of bondage, whereas
labour-service, on the contrary, precludes the possibility of
rationalising agriculture and perpetuates technical stagnation and the
producer’s condition of bondage. Nothing could be more frivolous
than the customary Narodnik exultation over the fact that capitalism in
our agriculture is weak. So much the worse if it is weak, for it only
indicates the strength of pre-capitalist forms of exploitation, which are
incomparably more burdensome to the producer.

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Notes:
[1]
Cf. Volgin, op . cit ., pp 280-281.— Lenin

[2]
“It is said that the spread of labour-service renting in place of
money renting . . . is a retrogressive fact. But do we say that it is
desirable or beneficial? We . . . have never asserted that it is
progressive,” stated Mr. Chuprov on behalf of all the authors of
The Influence of Harvests , etc . (see Verbatim Report of
the Debates in the F E. S. of March 1 and 2, 1897, [3] p. 38) This statement is untrue even
formally, for Mr. Karyshev (see above) described labour-service as
“help” to the rural population. And in substance this statement absolutely contradicts the actual content of all the Narodnik
theories with their idealisation of labour-service. It is to the great
credit of Messrs. T.-Baranovsky and Struve that they have correctly
presented the question (1897) of the significance of low grain
prices: the criterion for appraising them must be whether such prices
promote the elimination of labour-service by capitalism or not. Such a
question is obviously one of fact, and in answering it we differ somewhat
from the writers mentioned. On the basis of the data given in the text
(see particularly § VII of this chapter and also Chapter IV ), we consider
it possible and even probable that the period of low grain prices will be
marked by a no less, if not more, rapid elimination of labour-service by
capitalism than was the preceding historical period of high grain prices.— Lenin

[3]
The Verbatim Report of the Debates of March 1 and 2 appeared in the
Transactions of the Free Economic Society , 1897, No. 4.