V. I.

Lenin

Marxist Views on the Agrarian Question in Europe and in Russia [1]

Programme of Lectures

LectureI. General Theory of the Agrarian Question. Development
of capitalist agriculture. Different forms of development of commercial
agriculture and the formation of the class of agricultural
wage-workers. Marx’s theory of rent. Bourgeois character of the teachings
of the so-called critical school (Messrs. Bulgakov, Hertz, David, Chernov,
and in part Maslov, and others), which tries to explain by natural laws
(such as the notorious law of diminishing returns) the existence of the
tribute levied on society by the landed proprietors. Contradictions of
capitalism in agriculture.

LectureII. Small- and Large-Scale Production in Agriculture .

Effortsof the so-called critical school to obscure the slavery of the
small producer in present-day society. An analysis of the monographic
investigations completely misinterpreted by this school (M. Hecht,
K. Klawki, Auhagen).

LectureIII. Continuation. The Baden questionnaire. Complete
confirmation of Marxist views by its returns. General data of German
agrarian statistics. Fable about the latifundian degeneration of big
capital. Machinery in agriculture. Greatest deterioration of draught
cattle in middle-peasant households. Co-operatives in agriculture; German
general statistics of 1895 on dairy co-operatives. Difference in form
between co-operatives in agriculture and trusts in industry, which
prevented the so-called critical school from understanding the complete
identity of both in their social and economic content.

LectureIV. Presentation of the Agrarian Question in Russia.
Foundations of the Narodnik world outlook and its historical significance as a
primitive form of agrarian democracy. Central significance of the question of the peasantry (the
village commune and people’s production). Dis integration of the peasantry
into the rural bourgeoisie and rural proletariat. Methods of studying this
process and its significance. Replacement of the corvée system by
the capitalist system of economy. Reactionary character of Narodnik
views. Requirements of the current historical moment: elimination of the
remnants of the serf-owning system and free development of the class
struggle in the countryside.

Outline of Lecture One

General Theory

Marx’stheory of the development of the capitalist mode of production
applies to agriculture just as it does to industry. Capitalism’s basic
features and its different forms in agriculture and industry should not be
confused.

Letus examine the characteristic basic features and the specific forms of
the process which creates the capitalist system in agriculture. The cause
of the appearance of this process is a double one: 1) commodity production
and 2) the fact that labour-power, not the product, is a commodity. When
this labour-power is drawn into exchange, all production becomes
capitalistic, and a special class, the proletariat, is created. The growth
of commodity production and the development of wage-labour in agriculture
take place in a different form than ·in industry, and the
application of Marx’s theory here may therefore seem incorrect; it is,
however, necessary to know the form in which agriculture becomes
capitalistic. To this end it is essential in the first place to establish
two facts:

I. How does commercial agriculture grow? and

II. How does the formation of the working class manifest itself?

I. The basic feature of this process is the rapid growth of the industrial
population and the sale of products on the market. Hence, extensive growth
of the non-agricultural population is necessary for the extensive
development of commodity agriculture. This process assumes different forms and is to be observed in countries which import and export grain. On
its part, the rapid growth of the industrial population creates a shortage
of grain in the industrial countries, i.e., makes it impossible to do
without imported grain if the technological system remains unchanged. The
growing demand for grain under private ownership of the land leads to the
formation of monopoly prices.

Thatis important for the explanation of rent.

Thevery process of the formation of commercial agriculture does not take
place in exactly the same way as in factory industry: in industry it takes
place in a simple and direct form, whereas in agriculture we see something
different: the prevalence of a mixture of commercial and non-commercial
agriculture. Here we have a combination of differ ent forms. In the main,
in a given locality one definite product is taken to the
market. On the one band, production on the landlord’s estate, and
particularly on the peasant’s Land, is commodity production, while on the
other hand it retains its consumer character.

Thenecessity to obtain money brings about the transition from natural to
commercial economy. The power of money weighs upon the peasants, not only
in Western Europe, but in Russia too. Zemstvo statistics show that the
peasant’s subordination to the market attains colossal proportions even in
places where the survivals of patriarchal economy are still very strong.

II. The process by which the class of wage-workers is formed consists in
the disintegration of the peasantry into two strata: I) farmers who regard
agriculture as an industry, and 2) wage-workers. This process is often
described as the differentiation of the peasantry. In Russia in particular
this process has been very conspicuous. It was observed by
“economists” as far back as the times of the feudal system.

Specificfeatures of formation.

Thisprocess takes place unevenly. Alongside of the emergence of a class
of wage-workers we see the existence of the patriarchal system and the
formation of the new, capitalist system. The wage-workers’ class is
connected with the land in one way or another: the forms of this process
will consequently be very varied.

Domination of Capitalist Agriculture

Rent

Thepopulation in a capitalist country is divided into three classes: 1)
wage-workers, 2) owners of land, and 3) capitalists. In studying the
system it will be necessary to ignore specific local features where this
distinct division may not yet exist.

Accordingto Marx, a product is basically divided into necessary and
surplus-product. A certain part of this surplus-product constitutes ground
rent, viz., that part which remains after the deduction of average profit
on capital. In a developed capitalist society, average profit is formed
under the influence of competition, which distributes the surplus-product
among the capitalists, not in proportion to the number of workers, but in
proportion to the total amount of capital invested in a given enterprise.

Theprocess of the formation of average profit is analysed by Marx in
Volume III of Capital . Capital will yield different profits on
plots of land with varying fertility, the poorer land yielding less
profit, and the better land—more, additional profit. (The theory of
rent was founded before Marx by Ricardo.) Owing to monopoly prices on the
grain market and the general shortage of grain, the price is determined by
the poorest plot of land. The extra profit derived from the better land,
or from the land situated close to the market, as compared with the poorer
and more remotely situated plot, is called differential rent,
according to Marx.

Rentis extracted from the farmers by the owners of land.

Thevarying amounts of surplus-profit may be of two kinds: 1) profit due
to varying fertility, and 2) profit due to different application of
capital. Further. In addition to the monopoly of private cultivation of
the land, there is the monopoly of private ownership of the land: the
owner of land may not give the land to the farmer until the price of grain
rises, and then he takes absolute rent, which is an elementary
monopoly. It may be: 1) a pure monopoly (in that case, strictly speaking,
it should not be called rent). Secondly, absolute rent may be taken from
surplus-profit on agrarian capital owing to the following circumstance. In view of the
fact that in agriculture the technical equipment is poorer, the share of
variable capital (=which creates profit) is higher than in industry. The
share of profit should therefore also be higher in agriculture than in
industry. However, the monopoly of landownership prevents the levelling of
high profit in agriculture and low profit in industry. And absolute rent
in the strict sense of the term is taken from the higher agricultural
profit which has not been levelled out. It has its source in higher grain
prices. Differential rent, on the other hand, is taken from the
product. Recent years, characterised by new countries being drawn into
trade, have led to a crisis.

Theprice of land is calculated, anticipated rent. It is therefore treated
as income from a certain capital. The capital to be spent on the purchase
of land may yield an average rent income. Consequently, the rapid
development of industry has greatly inflated and stabilised rent in
Europe.

Alarge section of Maslov’s hook, recently published under the title
Conditions of the Development of Agriculture in Russia , deals
with the theory of rent, and in this question Maslov adheres to an
entirely erroneous viewpoint, repeating the arguments of the bourgeois
so-called “critics” of Marx, such as Mr. Bulgakov and others. Marx showed that the old English political economy took too simple
a view of this question; it was treated not as a process creating special
historical conditions, but as one creating natural conditions, and it
reasoned therefore: rent is formed owing to the necessity of transition
from the better to the poorer plots of land. But changes in the reverse
direction also take place, inasmuch as improvements are effected. The
critics have retreated from Marx towards bourgeois economy.

Anothernarrow concept of the theory of rent is one that combines the law
governing the formation of differential rent with the law of diminishing
returns, which alleges that profits diminish on one and the same plot of
land. Ricardo explains the transition from the better plots to the poorer
ones by the impossibility of applying increasing amounts of
capital. All the Russian “critics” have taken up the defence
of the theory of diminishing returns, as has

Maslov, who in all other questions wants to remain a Marxist. But the
arguments in defence of this theory have not gone beyond quips, as, for
example, the one which claims that if this theory is not recognised then
it must be admitted that the returns of one plot of land should be enough
to feed a whole state.

Marxfought against this theory. It adopts an arithmetical approach to the
expenditure of capital and falls into error by ignoring general economic
conditions. If we assume that the application of ever greater amounts of
capital is always possible, then it would have been correct, but that
presupposes the transformation of systems; however, systems in agriculture
persist for ages, which has placed the application of capital within
definite limits. If techniques do not change, then further application of
capital is impossible, or possible within narrow limits. Marx pointed out
that in industry too production cannot be developed infinitely on a given
plot of land: if a definite territory is occupied by an enterprise, it has
to be expanded if it is to be developed. If , on the other hand,
land is rationally cultivated, that can only improve production; therefore
Marx deduces that, far from being a disadvantage, such use of the land is,
on the contrary, profitable. Precisely this “if”. was ignored by the opponents of Marx’s theory. Consequently, Maslov, as an
alleged Marxist, can mislead many people by his views in this
question. His book is one of the countless examples of a tendency to be
seen in our time: going back instead of forward.

Thereis an absolute decline in the agricultural population, but
agricultural production is making progress. In the nineteenth century this
progress was closely connected with the growth of commodity
agriculture. It brings out one of the main features of the capitalist
system today, which is expressed in the development of competition in
agriculture, in the creation of a market for it, and in the
differentiation of the population. This progress has given a strong
stimulus to the development of agriculture, but every step in this
progress has been attended by a rise of contradictions which make it
impossible to use all the productive forces of the new, scientific
agriculture. Capitalism creates large-scale production and competition, which are attended by rapacious use of the productive forces of the
soil. Concentration of the population in the cities creates depopulated
territories and an abnormal metabolism. Cultivation of the land is not
improved, or not improved as it should be.

Socialistcritics directed attention to this fact a long time ago
(Marx). Mr. Hertz, and, later, Messrs. Bulgakov, Chernov, and Struve here
in Russia maintained that the theory of Marx, who relied upon Liebig, had
become antiquated. This opinion of the “critics” is quite
fallacious. There is no doubt that capitalism has upset the equilibrium
between the exploitation of the land and fertilisation of the land (the
role of the separation of the town from the countryside). With many
writers who sympathise with the “criticism” of the Marxist
theory rather than with this theory itself, their own data speak against
them. An example is Nossig. According to his data, it would appear that
the productive forces of the soil are not replenished, that the land does
not get back what is taken from it. Both manure and artificial fertilisers
are required. One-third of an average of 60,000 kilograms of fertilisers
used per hectare of land should be made up of manure, but that cannot be
provided under the existing system of agriculture.

Thus,the influence of capitalism in agriculture is expressed in the
following:

Itdemands freedom for the wage-worker and ousts all forms of the old
bondage. But the agricultural wage-workers remain oppressed. Their
oppression has become greater, which has created the need for greater
struggle.

Capitalismhas increased to a tremendous degree the tribute exacted by the
owner of land, the magnitude of differential and absolute rent. The further
development of agriculture is hampered by inflated rent.

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Notes:
[1]
This work consists of the programme of lectures on the agrarian question
and an outline of the first lecture delivered by Lenin in February 1903 at
the Higher Russian School of Social Sciences in Paris. The school was
founded in 1901 for Russian students living abroad, and functioned
legally. The organisers of the school openly showed their dislike of the
revolutionary Marxists and expressed sympathy with the representatives of
the Narodniks and Socialist-Revolutionary party. However, Lenin’s prestige
as a theoretician of the agrarian question was so high that the school’s
Council of Professors decided to invite “the well-known Marxist
Vi. Ilyin” (V. I. Lenin—Ed. ), “author of the legal hooks, The Development of Capitalism in Russia and
Economic Studies,” to deliver a course of lectures on the
agrarian question.

Lenindrafted the programme of his lectures well in advance and presented
it before opening the course. The outline of the first lecture contained in this volume was taken down by one of the students of the
school during the lecture and was then edited by Lenin.