A major shortcoming in almost all social-democratic press on the question of agrarian programs in general, and specifically in the debates at the Stockholm Congress, is that practical considerations have predominated over theoretical ones, political over economic[78]. The excuse for most of us is, of course, those conditions of intense party work under which we discussed the agrarian question during the revolution: first, after 9 January 1905, several months before the explosion (the spring "III Congress of the RSDLP" of the Bolsheviks in London in 1905 and the simultaneous conference of the minority in Geneva), then the day after the December uprising{98} and on the eve of the first Duma in Stockholm. But this shortcoming in any case must now be corrected, and in particular an examination of the theoretical side of the question of nationalization and municipalization is especially necessary.

## 1. What is the Nationalization of Land?

Above we cited the current formulation of the now supposedly universally recognized position: "all Populist groups advocate for the nationalization of land." But in reality this current formulation is very imprecise, and there is very little that is truly "universally recognized" in it, if we have in mind an actual identity of understanding of this "nationalization" among representatives of different political tendencies. The peasant masses demand land instinctively, being oppressed by feudal latifundia and not connecting any sufficiently precise economic conceptions with the transition of land to the people. The peasant has only a fully ripened, hard-won, as it were, and tempered by long years of oppression, demand to renovate, strengthen, consolidate, and expand small-scale agriculture, to make it predominant, and nothing more. The peasant envisages only the transition of landowner latifundia into his own hands; the peasant clothes the vague idea of the unity of all peasants as a mass in this struggle with words about popular ownership of land. The peasant is guided by the instinct of a proprietor, whom the endless fragmentation of contemporary forms of medieval land tenure impedes and the impossibility of organizing land cultivation in full correspondence with the "proprietor's" requirements if all this medieval patchwork of land tenure persists. The economic necessity to destroy landowner land tenure, to destroy also the "fetters" of allotment land tenure – these are the negative conceptions that exhaust the peasant's idea of nationalization. What forms of land tenure will prove necessary later for the renovated small-scale economy, which has, so to speak, digested the landowner latifundia, of this the peasant does not think.

And in Populist ideology, which expresses the demands and hopes of the peasantry, the negative aspects in the conception (or in the vague idea) of nationalization decidedly predominate. To eliminate old obstacles, remove the landowner, "unbar" the lands, tear away the fetters of allotment land tenure, strengthen small-scale economy, replace "inequality" (landowner latifundia) with "equality, brotherhood, freedom" – here in essence is what exhausts nine-tenths of Populist ideology. Equal right to land, equalizing land use, socialization – all these are merely different forms of expression of the same ideas and all these are predominantly negative conceptions, for the Populist does not imagine new orders as any definite system of socio-economic relations. For the Populist, the agrarian revolution he is witnessing is merely a transition from feudalism, inequality, oppression in general to equality and freedom, and nothing more. This is the typical limitation of the bourgeois revolutionary who does not see the capitalist character of the new society he is creating.

Marxism, in contrast to the naive view of Populism, examines the new order taking shape. With complete freedom of peasant economy, with complete equality of small proprietors sitting on communal or ownerless or "God's" land – we have before us a system of commodity production. A market binds and subordinates the small producers to itself. From the exchange of products arises the power of money; following the transformation into money of the agricultural product comes the transformation into money of labor-power. Commodity production becomes capitalist production. And this theory is not a dogma, but a simple description, a generalization of what occurs in Russian peasant economy as well. The freer this economy is from land scarcity, from landowner oppression, from the pressure of medieval relations and orders of land tenure, from bondage and arbitrariness – the more strongly do capitalist relations develop within peasant economy itself. This is a fact to which the entire post-Reform history of Russia testifies with complete certainty.

Consequently, the conception of the nationalization of land, when reduced to the ground of economic reality, is a category of commodity and capitalist society. What is real in this conception is not what the peasants think or the Populists say, but what flows from the economic relations of a given society. Nationalization of land under capitalist relations is the transfer of rent to the state, nothing more and nothing less. And what is rent in capitalist society? It is by no means income from land in general. It is that part of surplus-value that remains after deducting the average profit on capital. Consequently, rent presupposes wage labor in agriculture, the transformation of the tiller into a farmer, an entrepreneur. Nationalization (in pure form) presupposes the receipt by the state of rent from entrepreneurs in agriculture, who pay wages to hired laborers and receive average profit on their capital – average as compared to all, both agricultural and non-agricultural, enterprises in a given country or complex of countries.

Thus the theoretical conception of nationalization is inseparably linked with the theory of rent, that is, precisely capitalist rent, as a special type of income of a special class (the landowner class) in capitalist society.

Marx's theory distinguishes rent of two kinds: differential and absolute. The first is the result of the limitedness of land, its occupation by capitalist enterprises quite independently of whether private property in land exists and what form land tenure takes. Among separate enterprises on land inevitable differences arise, proceeding from differences in the fertility of land, in the location of plots in relation to the market, in the productivity of additional applications of capital to land. For brevity one can summarize these differences (while not forgetting the dissimilarity of sources of those or other differences) as differences between better and worse lands. Furthermore, the price of production of the agricultural product is determined by the conditions of production not on average but on the worst lands, since the product of the best lands alone is insufficient to cover demand. The difference between the individual price of production and the highest price of production constitutes differential rent. (Let us recall that by price of production Marx means the capital expenditure on producing the product plus the average profit on capital.)

Differential rent necessarily forms under capitalist agriculture, even with the complete abolition of private property in land. With the existence of land property this rent will go to the landowner, for competition among capitals will compel the farmer (tenant) to be satisfied with average profit on capital. With the abolition of private property in land this rent will go to the state. The elimination of this rent is impossible as long as the capitalist mode of production exists.

Absolute rent arises from private property in land. In this rent there is an element of monopoly, an element of monopoly price[79]. Private property in land impedes free competition, impedes the equalization of profit, the formation of average profit in agricultural and non-agricultural enterprises. And since in agriculture the technique is lower, the structure of capital is distinguished by a larger share of variable capital compared to constant capital than in industry, the individual value of the agricultural product is higher than the average. Therefore private property in land, by retarding the free equalization of profit in agricultural enterprises on a par with non-agricultural ones, makes it possible to sell the agricultural product not at the highest price of production, but at an even higher individual value of the product (for the price of production is determined by average profit on capital, and absolute rent does not allow this "average" to form, monopolistically fixing a higher than average individual value).

Thus differential rent necessarily inheres in every capitalist agriculture. Absolute – not in every, but only under the condition of private property in land, only under the historically[80] created backwardness of agriculture, a backwardness cemented by monopoly.

Kautsky opposes both kinds of rent, in particular in their relationship specifically to the nationalization of land, in the following propositions:

"Insofar as land rent is differential rent, it arises from competition. Insofar as it is absolute rent, it arises from monopoly… In practice land rent appears before us not divided into parts; one cannot know what part of it is differential rent and what part is absolute rent. Besides, there is usually mixed with it ordinary interest on capital for the expenditures made by the landowner. Where the landowner is at the same time also a farmer, land rent combines together with agricultural profit.

Nevertheless, the distinction between both kinds of rent has the utmost importance.

Differential rent arises from the capitalist character of production, not from private property in land.

This rent would be retained even with the nationalization of land, demanded (in Germany) by supporters of land reform, who preserve capitalist conduct of agriculture. Only then would this rent accrue not to private persons but to the state.

Absolute rent arises from private property in land, from the opposition of interests between the landowner and the rest of society. Nationalization of land would make it possible to eliminate this rent and reduce by the sum of this rent the prices of agricultural products (our emphasis).

Further, the second distinction between differential and absolute rent consists in the fact that the first does not influence, as a component part, the price of agricultural products, while the second does influence it. The first arises from the price of production, the second from the excess of market prices over prices of production. The first flows from surplus, from the super-profit yielded by more productive labor on better land or in better location. The second flows not from the additional income of certain types of agricultural labor; it is possible only as a deduction from the existing quantity of values in favor of the landowner, a deduction from the mass of surplus-value – consequently, either a reduction of profit or a deduction from wages. If bread prices rise and wages also rise, then profit on capital falls. If bread prices rise without wages rising, then the workers suffer the damage. Finally, it may happen – and this should even be considered the general rule – that the damage caused by absolute rent is borne both by workers and capitalists together"[81].

Thus the question of the nationalization of land in capitalist society breaks down into two substantially different parts: the question of differential and absolute rent. Nationalization changes the owner of the first and undermines the very existence of the second. Nationalization is, consequently, on the one hand, a particular reform within the bounds of capitalism (a change of owner of one part of surplus-value) – and on the other hand, the abolition of a monopoly restricting the whole development of capitalism in general.

Without distinguishing these two aspects, that is, the nationalization of differential and absolute rent, one cannot understand the whole economic significance of the question of nationalization in Russia. But here we encounter a denial of the theory of absolute rent in P. Maslov.

## 2. Peter Maslov Corrects the Draft Sketches of Karl Marx{99}

In 1901 I happened in the foreign journal "Zarya" to point out Maslov's incorrect understanding of the theory of rent in connection with his articles in the journal "Zhizn'"[82].

The debates before Stockholm and at Stockholm concentrated, as I have already indicated, to an altogether disproportionate degree on the political side of the question. But after Stockholm M. Olenov in the article "On the Theoretical Foundations of Land Municipalization" ("Obrazovanie," 1907, No. 1) analyzed Maslov's book on the agrarian question in Russia and emphasized in particular the incorrectness of Maslov's economic theory, which denies absolute rent altogether.

Maslov replied to Olenov with an article in Nos. 2 and 3 of "Obrazovanie." He reproached his opponent with "shamelessness," "reckless attacks," "impertinence," and so forth. In reality, in the sphere of Marxist theory it is precisely Peter Maslov who is a shameless and stupid attacker, for it is difficult to imagine anything more ignorant than Maslov's self-satisfied "criticism" of Marx, persisting in his old errors.

Only a man who understood nothing of Marx's theory of rent could write such a thing. But the condescending contempt of the magnificent Peter Maslov for the author of the draft sketches is truly incomparable! This "Marxist" is above considering it necessary, for the instruction of other people, to familiarize himself with Marx, to study at least the "Theories of Surplus-Value" that came out in 1905, where the theory of rent is explained, one might say, even for Maslovs!

Here are Maslov's arguments against Marx:

"Absolute rent is supposedly obtained because of the low structure of agricultural capital… Since the structure of capital influences neither the price of the product, nor the rate of profit, nor in general the distribution of surplus-value among entrepreneurs, it cannot create any rent. If the structure of agricultural capital is lower than industrial capital, then differential rent is obtained from surplus-value obtained in agriculture itself, but this has no significance for the formation of rent. Consequently, if the 'structure' of capital were to change, this would in no way affect rent. The size of rent is in no way determined by the character of its origin, but solely by the difference in productivity of labor under different conditions" (pp. 108–109 of the named work. Maslov's emphasis).

One would like to know whether bourgeois "critics of Marx" have ever reached such ease in refutation? Our magnificent Maslov confuses everything, confuses already when expounding Marx (incidentally, this manner is also characteristic of Mr. Bulgakov and all bourgeois disseminators of Marxism, distinguished from Maslov by greater conscientiousness in that they do not call themselves Marxists). It is not true that according to Marx absolute rent is obtained because of the low structure of agricultural capital. Absolute rent is obtained because of private property in land. This private property creates a special monopoly having nothing in common with the capitalist mode of production, which can exist and on communal and on nationalized land[83]. The non-capitalist monopoly of private land property prevents the equalization of profit in those branches of production that are screened off by this monopoly. For the "structure of capital not to influence the rate of profit" (one must add: the structure of individual capital or the capital of a separate branch of industry; Maslov confuses this here too in expounding Marx) – for the formation of an average rate of profit to occur, the equalization of profit of all individual enterprises and all separate branches of industry is necessary. Equalization is produced by the freedom of competition, by the freedom of application of capital to all branches of production indifferently. Can this freedom exist where a non-capitalist monopoly is present? No, it cannot. The monopoly of private property in land impedes the freedom of application of capital, impedes the freedom of competition, impedes the equalization of the disproportionately high (in consequence of the low structure of agricultural capital) agricultural profit. Maslov's objection is through and through thoughtless, and this thoughtlessness is especially apparent to us when we read two pages later the reference… to brick production (p. 111), where the technique is also backward, the organic structure of capital is also below average, as in agriculture, and yet there is no rent!

And there cannot be rent in brick production, my esteemed "theorist," because absolute rent is not generated by the low structure of agricultural capital, but by the monopoly of private land property, which prevents competition from equalizing profit from "low-structured" capital. To deny absolute rent means to deny the economic significance of private property in land.

Maslov's second argument against Marx:

"Rent from the 'last' outlay of capital, the rent of Rodbertus and Marx's absolute rent will disappear, because the tenant can always make the 'last' capital 'penultimate' if it yields something other than ordinary profit" (p. 112).

Maslov confuses, "shamelessly" confuses.

First, the comparison of Rodbertus and Marx on the question of rent is sheer ignorance. Rodbertus's theory is based on the assumption that the erroneous calculation of the Pomeranian landowner ("not to count" the raw product in agriculture!) is binding also for the capitalist farmer. In Rodbertus's theory there is not a grain of historicism, not a grain of historical reality, for he takes agriculture in general, outside time and space, agriculture of any country and any epoch. Marx takes a particular historical period, when capitalism developed the technique of industry faster than of agriculture. Marx takes capitalist agriculture constrained by a non-capitalist private property in land.

Second, the reference to the tenant, who "can always" make the last capital penultimate, shows that magnificent Peter Maslov did not understand not only absolute but even differential rent in Marx! This is incredible, but it is a fact. During the term for which he rented the land, the tenant "can always" appropriate and always does appropriate any rent once he "makes the last capital penultimate," once he – speaking more simply and (as we shall now see) more correctly – invests new capital in the land. During the term of the lease agreement private property in land ceases to exist for the tenant: he has already "paid off," having paid the rent, this monopoly, it can no longer hinder him[84]. Therefore, when a new investment of capital by the tenant on his plot yields him both new profit and new rent, that rent is appropriated not by the landowner but by the tenant. The landowner will receive this new rent only after the term of the old lease contract expires, after a new lease contract is concluded. What mechanism will transfer this new rent from the farmer's pocket into the landowner's pocket? The mechanism of free competition, for the tenant's receipt not only of average profit but of super-profit (= rent) will attract capital to an unusually profitable enterprise. From this it is understandable, on the one hand, why long-term leases are advantageous to tenants and short-term leases to landowners, all else being equal. From this it is understandable, on the other hand, why, for example, English landowners after the repeal of the Corn Laws in England obliged farmers by contract to expend instead of eight not less than twelve pounds sterling (about 110 rubles) on each acre of their plot. Landowners thus took into account the socially-necessary agricultural technique, which progressed as a result of the repeal of the Corn Laws.

Now the question arises: what kind of new rent does the tenant appropriate during the term of the lease agreement? Only absolute, or also differential? Both. For if Peter Maslov had bothered to understand Marx before amusingly "criticizing the draft sketches," Maslov would have known that differential rent is yielded not only by different plots of land but also by different investments of capital on one and the same plot[85].

Third (we apologize for tiring the reader with such a long enumeration of Maslov's errors over each of his phrases, but how can it be helped if before us is such a "prolific" Konfusionsrat, "confused counselor," as the Germans say?) – third, Maslov's reasoning about the last and penultimate capital is built on the notorious "law of diminishing soil fertility." Like bourgeois economists, Maslov recognizes this law (calling even this stupid fabrication "for the sake of importance" a fact). Like bourgeois economists, Maslov connects this law with the theory of rent, declaring with the boldness of complete ignorance of theory: "if there were no fact of diminishing productivity of the last investments of capital, there would be no land rent" (114).

We refer the reader for a critique of this crudely bourgeois "law of diminishing soil fertility" to what I said in 1901 against Mr. Bulgakov[86]. On this question there is no real difference between Bulgakov and Maslov.

In addition to what was said against Bulgakov, let us cite only one more passage from the "draft sketches" of Volume III, which particularly vividly reveals the splendor of the Maslov-Bulgakov criticism:

"Instead of examining the actual natural-historical causes of soil exhaustion – these causes, incidentally, were unknown to the economists who wrote on differential rent, owing to the state of agricultural chemistry in their time – instead of this they resorted to that crude consideration that one cannot invest any arbitrary amount of capital on a spatially limited piece of land; for instance, the 'Westminster Review' objected to Richard Jones that one cannot feed all of England by tilling Soho Square[87]…"{100}.

This objection is the sole argument with which Maslov argues and all other supporters of the "law of diminishing fertility": if there were no this law, if subsequent investments of capital could be as productive as previous ones, then, they say, there would be no need to expand the area under cultivation, then one could obtain any quantity of agricultural product from the smallest area by increasing new investments of capital in the land, that is, then one could "feed all of England from Soho Square" or "accommodate agriculture of the whole globe on one desyatina"[88] and so on. Marx thus takes up his analysis the fundamental argument in favor of the "law" of diminishing fertility.

"…If this," Marx continues, "is regarded as a special disadvantage of agriculture, the contrary is true. In agriculture successive investments of capital can be productively employed because land itself functions as an instrument of production, whereas in the factory, where land serves only as a base, a location, a territorial operational base, this does not occur or occurs only in very narrow limits. True, large-scale production can be concentrated in a space small compared with scattered craft production, and large industry does proceed in this way. But given a certain stage of development of productive force, a definite space is always required, and building upward has also its definite practical limits. Beyond these limits the expansion of production also requires the expansion of the area of land. Fixed capital expended on machinery, etc., is not improved through use but, on the contrary, is worn out. New inventions may here produce isolated improvements, but taking a given stage of development of productive force, the machine can only get worse. When productive force develops rapidly, all old machines must be replaced by more advantageous ones, that is, must be thrown away entirely. Land, on the contrary, is constantly improved if properly managed. This advantage of land, that successive investments of capital can yield profit without any loss of previous investments, includes also the possibility of different productivity of successive investments of capital" ("Das Kapital," III. Band, 2. Teil, Seite 314){101}.

Maslov preferred to repeat the learned ditty of bourgeois economics about the law of diminishing fertility rather than think through Marx's critique. And Maslov even has the audacity then, on these very questions, while distorting Marx, to claim exposition of Marxism!

How far Maslov distorts, from his purely bourgeois point of view on the "natural law" of diminishing fertility, the theory of rent, is evident also from the following tirade which Maslov writes in italics: "If successive investments of capital on the same area of land, leading to intensification of agriculture, were as productive as previous investments, competition from new lands would immediately disappear, since the cost of transportation lies, apart from production expenses, on the price of grain" (p. 107).

So overseas competition is explainable only with the help of the law of diminishing fertility! Exactly like bourgeois economists! But if Maslov could not read or was incapable of understanding Volume III, he ought at least to have familiarized himself with Kautsky's "Agrarian Question" or Parvus's pamphlet on the agricultural crisis. From the popular explanations of these Marxists Maslov might perhaps have understood that capitalism inflates rent by increasing the industrial population. And the price of land (= capitalized rent) fixes the immoderately inflated rents. This applies also to differential rent, so that we see here a second time that Maslov understood nothing in Marx even as regards the simplest type of rent.

Bourgeois economy explains "competition from new lands" by the "law of diminishing fertility," for the bourgeois voluntarily and involuntarily ignores the socio-historical aspect of the matter. Socialist economy (that is, Marxism) explains overseas competition by the fact that lands not paying rent undermine the immoderately high grain prices cemented by capitalism of old European countries, which has inflated land rent to incredible dimensions. The bourgeois economist does not understand (or hides from himself and others) that the height of rent cemented through private property in land serves as an obstacle to the progress of agriculture, and blames the responsibility on the "natural" obstacle of the "fact" of diminishing fertility.

## 3. Is it Necessary to Refute Marx in Order to Refute Populism?

In Peter Maslov's opinion, it is necessary. "Developing" further his foolish "theory," he teaches us in "Obrazovanie":

"If there were no 'fact' of the fall in productivity of successive investments of labor on the same area of land, then that idyll might perhaps still be realized which is depicted by socialist-revolutionaries and socialist-populists: each peasant makes use of his allotted plot of land and invests in it as much labor as he wishes, and the land 'repays' him with the corresponding quantity of product for each 'investment'" (No. 2, 1907, p. 123).

So if Marx were not refuted by Peter Maslov, then the Populists might perhaps be right! Here are the pearls this "theorist" comes out with. And we had thought all along, simply, in Marxist fashion, that the idyll of the perpetuation of small production is refuted not by the bourgeoisly-stupid "law of diminishing fertility," but by the fact of commodity production, the dominance of the market, the advantages of large capitalist agriculture over small, and so on. Maslov has remade all this! Maslov has discovered that if there were no the bourgeois law refuted by Marx, then the Populists would be right!

More than that. The revisionists would be right too. Here is another argument of our homegrown economist:

"If I am not mistaken, I (Peter Maslov) was the first to particularly sharply emphasize the difference in the significance of soil culture and technical progress for the development of economy and in particular for the struggle between large and small production. If intensification of agriculture, further investments of labor and capital, are equally less productive in both large and small economy, then technical progress, increasing the productivity of agricultural labor, as in industry, gives enormous and exclusive advantages to large economy. These advantages depend almost exclusively on technical conditions…" You confuse, my dear friend: advantages of large production in a commercial respect have important significance.

"…On the contrary, soil culture usually can be applied equally in both large and small economy…" Soil culture "can" be applied.

The profoundly thoughtful Maslov apparently knows of such an economy in which soil culture may not be applied. "…For example, the substitution of three-field rotation by multi-field rotation, an increase in the quantity of fertilizer, deepening of plowing, and so on are equally applicable in both large and small economy and have an equal effect on labor productivity. But, for example, the introduction of a reaper increases labor productivity only in larger economies, because grain on small strips can be more conveniently harvested or mowed…"

Yes, Maslov has undoubtedly been the first to succeed in introducing such endless confusion into the question! Just imagine: the steam plow (deepening of plowing) – this is "soil culture," the reaper – this is "technique." It turns out, according to the teaching of our incomparable Maslov, that the steam plow is not technique. It turns out that the reaper is not further investment of labor and capital. Artificial fertilizers, the steam plow, grass-seeding – this is "intensification." The reaper and in general "most of the agricultural machines" – this is "technical progress." Maslov had to invent such stupidity because he must somehow extricate himself with the "law of diminishing fertility," refuted by technical progress. Bulgakov extricated himself by saying: technical progress is temporary, stagnation is permanent. Maslov exticates himself by inventing an amusing division of technical progress in agriculture into "intensification" and "technique."

What is intensification? Further investment of labor and capital. The reaper, by the discovery of the great Maslov, is not an investment of capital. The row-seeder is not an investment of capital! "The substitution of three-field rotation by multi-field rotation" equally applicable in both large and small economy? Untrue. The introduction of multi-field rotation also requires additional investments of capital and is applicable much more in large economy. See on this, incidentally, above in the data on German agriculture ("The Agrarian Question and 'Critics of Marx'")[89]. And Russian data testify to the same thing. And the simplest reflection will show you that it cannot be otherwise, that multi-field rotation cannot be equally applicable in small and large economy. There cannot be "equally applicable" an increase in the quantity of fertilizer, for large economy 1) has more large cattle, most important in this respect, 2) feeds cattle better and does not so "save" straw, etc., 3) has better equipment for storing fertilizer, 4) uses more artificial fertilizers. Maslov truly "shamelessly" distorts well-known data on modern agriculture. Finally, it cannot be equally applicable in small and large economy and the deepening of plowing. It is sufficient to point to two facts: first, in large economy there grows the use of the steam plow (cf. above the data on Germany[90]; now probably also of the electric plow). Perhaps even Maslov will grasp that it is not "equally" applicable in large and small economy. In the latter there develops the use of cows as draft animals. Think about this, great Maslov, can this mean equal applicability of deepening plowing? Second, even when large and small economy employ the same kinds of work animals, the latter is less strong in small economy and therefore there cannot be equality of conditions in the depth of plowing.

In a word, it is difficult to find a phrase in Maslov that attempts at "theoretical" thinking without encountering an inexhaustible mass of the most incredible confusion and the most astonishing ignorance. But Maslov, undisturbed, concludes:

"Whoever has clarified for himself the difference of the indicated two sides of the development of agriculture (improvement of culture and improvement of technique) will easily overturn all the argumentation of revisionism, and in our case, of Populism" ("Obrazovanie," 1907, No. 2, p. 125).

So. So. Maslov is only a non-Populist and non-revisionist because he managed to rise above Marx's draft sketches to the "clarification" for himself of the musty prejudices of musty bourgeois economy. An old tune in a new key! Marx against Marx – exclaimed Bernstein and Struve. One cannot overthrow revisionism without overthrowing Marx – declares Maslov.

By way of conclusion – a characteristic trifle. If Marx, who created the theory of absolute rent, is wrong, if rent cannot exist without the "law of diminishing fertility," if the Populists and revisionists could be right in the event of the non-existence of this law, then it would seem that in Maslov's "theory" his "corrections" of Marxism ought to occupy a cornerstone place. Yes, they do occupy such a place. But Maslov prefers all the same to hide them. Recently there appeared a German translation of his book "The Agrarian Question in Russia." I was interested to see in what form Maslov presents to European social-democrats his incredible theoretical banalities. It turned out – in no form whatsoever. Before Europeans Maslov put in his pocket "all" his theory. He threw out everything relating to the denial of absolute rent, the law of diminishing fertility, and so on. I could not help recalling on this occasion a story about a stranger who for the first time attended a gathering of ancient philosophers and remained silent the whole time. If you are intelligent, one of the philosophers said to this stranger, then you are acting foolishly. If you are stupid, then you are acting intelligently.

## 4. Is the Denial of Absolute Rent Connected with the Program of Municipalization?

However full Maslov is of consciousness of the importance of his remarkable discoveries in the field of political economy, nevertheless he apparently somewhat doubts whether such a connection exists. At least in the cited article ("Obrazovanie" No. 2, p. 120) he denies the connection of municipalization with the "fact" of diminishing fertility. Something strange results: the "law of diminishing fertility" is connected with the denial of absolute rent, is connected also with the struggle against Populism, but is not connected, supposedly, with Maslov's agrarian program! But the falsity of this opinion about the absence of connection between general agrarian theory and Maslov's Russian agrarian program is easy to establish by a direct path as well.

The denial of absolute rent is the denial of the economic significance of private property in land under capitalism. Whoever recognizes the existence of only differential rent inevitably arrives at the conclusion that the conditions of capitalist economy and capitalist development do not change at all depending on whether the land will be the property of the state or the property of private persons. In both cases, from the point of view of the theory denying absolute rent, there is only one differential rent. It is understandable that such a theory must lead to the denial of any significance of nationalization as a measure influencing the development of capitalism in the sense of its acceleration, in the sense of clearing the way for it, and so on. For such a view of nationalization flows from recognition of two kinds of rent: the capitalist, that is, not eliminable under capitalism even on nationalized land (differential rent), and the non-capitalist, connected with a monopoly unnecessary for capitalism, hindering the full development of capitalism (absolute rent).

Therefore Maslov inevitably arrived, proceeding from his "theory," at the conclusion that "it is all the same whether to call it (land rent) absolute or differential" ("Obrazovanie" No. 3, p. 103), that the question is only one of whether to transfer this rent to local institutions or to central authority. But such a view is the result of theoretical ignorance. Completely independently of the question of whose hands the rent will be transferred to and for what political purposes it will be used, there remains a still incomparably more profound question of the changes in the general conditions of capitalist economy and capitalist development caused by the elimination of private property in land.

This purely economic question was not posed by Maslov at all, was not recognized by him, and could not have been recognized with the denial of absolute rent. From this results a deformed, one-sided, "political," one might say, reduction of the question of the confiscation of landowner land exclusively to the question of who will take the rent. From this results a deformed dualism in the program calculated for the "victorious development of revolution" (the expression from the tactical resolution appended at the Stockholm Congress to Maslov's program). Victorious development of a bourgeois revolution presupposes first of all fundamental economic transformations that really sweep away all and every remnant of feudalism and medieval monopolies. Meanwhile, in municipalization we see a genuine agrarian bimetallism: a combination of the most ancient, antiquated and exhausted, medieval, allotment property with the absence of private property in land, that is, with the most advanced, theoretically-ideal arrangement of land relations in capitalist society. This agrarian bimetallism is theoretically absurd, something impossible from a purely economic point of view. The combination of private property in land with communal property is here purely mechanical, "invented" by a man who sees no difference at all in the structure of capitalist economy under private property in land and without it. For such a "theorist" the question is exclusively one of how to shuffle the rent, "all the same whether to call it absolute or differential."

In reality in a capitalist country the retention of half the land (138 million desyatinas out of 280) in private property is impossible. One or the other. Either private property in land is truly required by the given stage of economic development, truly corresponds to the fundamental interests of the class of capitalist farmers on the land. Then private property in land is inevitable everywhere and everywhere as the basis of bourgeois society, having developed according to such a type.

Or private property in land is not necessary at the given stage of capitalist development, does not flow with necessity from the interests of the farmer class, even contradicts these interests – then the preservation of this property in its antiquated form is impossible.

The preservation of monopoly on one half of the cultural land area, the creation of privilege for one category of small proprietors, the perpetuation in a freely capitalist society of the "pale of settlement," dividing the owners and tenants of communal land, is an absurdity inseparably connected with the absurdity of Maslov's economic theory.

And now we must turn to an examination of the economic significance of nationalization, pushed into the background by Maslov and his supporters[91].

## 5. A Critique of Private Property in Land from the Point of View of the Development of Capitalism

The erroneous denial of absolute rent, this form of realization of private property in land in capitalist income, has led to one important deficiency in social-democratic literature and the entire social-democratic position on the agrarian question in the Russian revolution. Instead of taking upon itself the critique of private property in land, instead of basing this critique on economic analysis, the analysis of a definite economic evolution – our social-democrats, following Maslov, have handed this critique over to the Populists. The result was a double theoretical vulgarization of Marxism and a distortion of its propagandistic tasks in the revolution. The critique of private property in land in Duma speeches, in propagandistic and agitational literature, and so on was conducted only from the Populist, that is, petty-bourgeois, quasi-socialist point of view. Social-democrats were unable to extract the real kernel from this petty-bourgeois ideology, not having understood their task of introducing a historical element into the examination of the question and replacing the point of view of petty bourgeois (the abstract idea of equality, justice, and so on) with the point of view of the proletariat on the true roots of the struggle against private property in land in developing capitalist society. The Populist thinks that the denial of private property in land is the denial of capitalism. This is incorrect. The denial of private property in land is the expression of the demands of the purest capitalist development. And it falls to us to revive in the consciousness of Marxists the "forgotten words" of Marx, who criticized private property in land from the point of view of the conditions of capitalist economy.

Marx directed such a critique not only against large but also against small land tenure. The free property of a small peasant in land is a necessary companion of small production in agriculture under certain historical conditions. A. Finn was completely right against Maslov in emphasizing this. But such recognition of historical necessity, as demonstrated by experience, does not exclude the obligation of a Marxist to evaluate small property in land comprehensively. Actual freedom of such property is unthinkable without the freedom of buying and selling of land. Private property in land means the necessity of outlaying capital on the purchase of land. On this subject Marx wrote in Volume III of "Capital": "One of the specific disadvantages of small agriculture when it is connected with free property in land consists in this, that the one tilling the land invests capital on the purchase of land" (III, 2, 342). "The expenditure of capital on the purchase of land withdraws this capital from cultivation" (ib.[92], 341){102}.

"The expenditure of monetary capital on the purchase of land does not at all represent an expenditure of agricultural capital. On the contrary, it signifies a corresponding diminution of that capital at the disposal of petty peasants in their own sphere of production. It reduces correspondingly the volume of their means of production and thus narrows the economic basis of reproduction. It subjects the petty peasant to usury, since in this domain genuine credit relations are generally rarer. It constitutes an obstacle to agriculture also in the case when the purchase of large landowner estates occurs. It actually contradicts the capitalist mode of production, for which the indebtedness of the landowner is altogether a matter of indifference, whether he inherited his plot of land or purchased it" (344–345){103}.

Thus both the mortgage of land and usury are, so to speak, forms of capital's circumvention of those difficulties which private landed property places in the way of capital's free penetration into agriculture. One cannot conduct economic activity in a society of commodity production without capital. This the peasant and his ideologue the Populist cannot help but recognize. Consequently, the question reduces to this: can capital circulate freely in agriculture in a direct and immediate manner, or only through the intermediacy of the usurer and the credit institution. The thought of the peasant and the Populist – those who partly do not recognize the complete dominion of capital in contemporary society, partly don the cap of illusions and dreams in order not to see unpleasant reality – this thought is directed toward monetary assistance from without. "To persons who have received land from the national fund," states § 15 of the agrarian project of the 104{104}, "and who do not possess sufficient means to acquire everything necessary for conducting their economy, assistance should be rendered at the expense of the state in the form of loans and subsidies." Certainly, there can be no doubt that such monetary assistance would be necessary upon the reorganization of Russian agriculture by a victorious peasant revolution. Kautsky in his work "The Agrarian Question in Russia" emphasizes this quite justly. But the question we are concerned with now is: what is the socio-economic significance of all these "monetary loans and subsidies" that the Populist does not perceive. The state can only be an intermediary in transferring money from capitalists, but the state itself can obtain money only from capitalists. Consequently, despite the best possible organization of state assistance, the dominion of capital is in no way eliminated, and the question remains the same: what are the possible forms of applying capital to agriculture.

And this question leads inevitably to Marxist critique of private landed property. This property is an obstacle to the free application of capital to land. Either complete freedom of such application – and then the abolition of private landed property, i.e., nationalization of land. Or the preservation of private landed property – and then the circumventive forms of capital's penetration: mortgage of land by the landowner and the peasant, enslavement of the peasant by the usurer, leasing of land to the capitalist tenant-farmer.

"In small-scale agriculture," says Marx, "the price of land, this form of private landed property and the result of such property, itself appears as a limitation of production. In large-scale agriculture and in large-scale landed property based on the capitalist mode of production, property too is a limitation, since it restricts the farmer in productive capital expenditures, which bring profit in the final analysis not to him but to the landowner" (346–347, 2nd Part, III Volume, "Das Kapital"){104}.

Consequently, the abolition of private landed property is the maximum possible elimination, within bourgeois society, of all and every sort of barrier hindering the free application of capital to agriculture and the free transition of capital from one branch of production to another. Freedom, breadth and rapidity of capitalist development, complete freedom of class struggle, the elimination of all unnecessary intermediaries, which make agriculture resemble "sweatshop" industry – this is what nationalization of land under capitalist production amounts to.

6. Nationalization of Land and "Monetary" Rent

An interesting economic argument against nationalization was advanced by a supporter of partition, A. Finn. Both nationalization and municipalization, he says, represent a transfer of rent to a certain social collective. But the question arises: what sort of rent is being discussed here. Not capitalist rent, inasmuch as "peasants ordinarily do not receive rent in the capitalist sense from their land" ("The Agrarian Question and Social-Democracy," p. 77, cf. p. 63), but pre-capitalist monetary rent.

By monetary rent Marx understands the payment by the peasant to the landowner of all surplus product in monetary form. The original form of the peasant's economic dependence on the landowner under pre-capitalist modes of production is labor-rent (Arbeitsrente), i.e., corvée, then product-rent or rent in kind, and finally monetary rent. This rent, says A. Finn, "is the most widespread form among us even now" (p. 63).

It is undoubted that serf-bondage tenancy is extremely widespread among us and that, according to Marx's theory, peasant payments under such tenancy represent to a considerable extent monetary rent. What force makes it possible to extract such rent from peasants? The force of the bourgeoisie and developing capitalism? Not at all. The force of serf latifundia. Insofar as the latter are smashed – and this is the starting point and fundamental condition of the peasant agrarian revolution – to that extent there is no need to speak of "monetary rent" in the pre-capitalist sense. Finn's objection has, consequently, only this significance: it once more underscores the absurdity of separating peasant allotment lands from the remaining lands during the revolutionary agrarian upheaval: since allotment lands are often surrounded by landowner estates, since from the present conditions of the partition of peasant and landowner lands there flows bondage, the preservation of this partition is reactionary. But municipalization preserves it, unlike partition and nationalization.

The existence of small landed property or, more precisely, small-scale farming introduces, of course, certain modifications to the general propositions of the theory of capitalist rent, but does not destroy this theory. Marx points out, for example, that absolute rent, as such, ordinarily does not exist in small-scale agriculture, working chiefly for the satisfaction of the needs of the agriculturalist himself (III, 2, 339, 344){105}. But the further commodity economy develops, the more applicable all propositions of economic theory become to peasant economy as well, once it has entered the conditions of the capitalist world. One must not forget that no nationalization of land, no equalization of land use, will eliminate the fully developed phenomenon in Russia that well-to-do peasantry already conducts its economy capitalistically. I showed in "The Development of Capitalism" that, according to data from the 1880s and 1890s of the past century, approximately 1/5 of peasant households concentrate in their hands up to one-half of peasant agricultural production and a much greater share of tenancy, that the economy of such peasants now is already more commodity-based than natural – that, finally, this peasantry cannot exist without a million-strong contingent of farm laborers and day laborers{93}. In this peasantry elements of capitalist rent are already present from the outset. This peasantry expresses its interests through the mouths of Messrs. Peshekhonov, "soberly" rejecting both the prohibition of wage labor and the "socialization of land," soberly defending the viewpoint of the economic individualism of the peasant that is making its way. If we strictly separate in the utopias of the Populists the real economic moment from false ideology, we shall immediately see that from the destruction of serf latifundia – whether by partition, nationalization, or municipalization – bourgeois peasantry will benefit most of all. "Loans and subsidies" from the state equally cannot fail to benefit it above all else. The "peasant agrarian revolution" is nothing other than the subordination of all landed property to the conditions of progress and prosperity precisely of these farmer economies.

Monetary rent is a dying yesterday, which cannot help but die. Capitalist rent is a nascent tomorrow, which cannot help but develop whether by Stolypin's expropriation of the poorest peasants ("under article 87") or by the peasantry's expropriation of the richest landowners.

7. Under What Conditions Can Nationalization Be Realized?

Among Marxists one frequently encounters the view that nationalization is realizable only at a high stage of capitalist development, when it has already fully prepared the conditions for "the separation of landowners from agriculture" (through the intermediacy of tenancy and mortgage). It is assumed that large capitalist agriculture should already have taken form before nationalization of land is realizable, which cuts off rent and does not affect the economic organism{94}.

Is such a view correct? Theoretically it cannot be justified; direct references to Marx cannot support it; the data of experience rather speak against it.

Theoretically nationalization represents an "ideally" pure development of capitalism in agriculture. The other matter is the question of how often in history such a combination of conditions and such a correlation of forces become reality, which would permit nationalization in capitalist society. But it is not only a consequence but also a condition of capitalism's rapid development. To think that nationalization is possible only at a very high development of capitalism in agriculture – this means, perhaps, to deny nationalization as a measure of bourgeois progress, since a high development of agricultural capitalism everywhere has already placed (and will inevitably place in new countries in due time) "the socialization of agricultural production" on the agenda, i.e., socialist revolution. A measure of bourgeois progress, as a bourgeois measure, is inconceivable when the class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie has become acute. Such a measure is plausible, rather, in a "young" bourgeois society, which has not yet developed its forces, which has not yet fully unfolded its contradictions, which has not yet created such a powerful proletariat as strives directly toward socialist revolution. And Marx admitted, and in part directly defended, nationalization not only in the epoch of bourgeois revolution in Germany in 1848, but also in 1846 for America, regarding which he then indicated with full precision that it was only beginning its "industrial" development. The experience of various capitalist countries does not show us nationalization of land in any particularly pure form. Something analogous we see in New Zealand – a young capitalist democracy, where there is no question whatsoever of a high development of agricultural capitalism. Something analogous was also in America, when the state issued the Homestead Act and distributed plots of land for nominal rent to small proprietors.

No. To assign nationalization to the epoch of highly developed capitalism – this means to deny it as a measure of bourgeois progress. And such denial directly contradicts economic theory. It seems to me that in the following discussion in his "Theories of Surplus Value" Marx outlined different conditions for the realization of nationalization than are ordinarily assumed.

Having shown that the landowner is a completely superfluous figure for capitalist production, that the goal of the latter is "fully achieved" if land belongs to the state, Marx continues:

"Therefore the radical bourgeois theoretically arrives at the negation of private landed property… However in practice he lacks the courage, since an attack on one form of property, the form of private property in the conditions of labor, would be very dangerous also for the other form. Besides, the bourgeois has territorialized himself" ("Theorien über den Mehrwert," II Band, 1. Teil, S. 208){106}.

Marx does not point here to the underdevelopment of capitalism in agriculture as an obstacle to the realization of nationalization. He points to two other obstacles, which speak far more in favor of the thought of the realizability of nationalization in the epoch of bourgeois revolution.

The first obstacle: the radical bourgeois lacks the courage to attack private landed property in view of the danger of socialist attack on all private property, i.e., socialist revolution.

The second obstacle: "the bourgeois has territorialized himself." Marx evidently has in mind that it is precisely the capitalist mode of production which has strengthened itself already in private landed property, i.e., that this private property has become far more bourgeois than feudal. When the bourgeoisie, as a class, in broad, predominant proportions, has already bound itself to landed property, has already "territorialized itself," "settled on the land," has completely subjected landed property to itself – then there can be no genuine public movement of the bourgeoisie in favor of nationalization. Not because of any other reason than the simple one that no class will go against itself.

Both these obstacles, generally speaking, can be eliminated only in the epoch of beginning, not ending, capitalism, in the epoch of bourgeois revolution, not on the eve of socialist revolution. The opinion about the realizability of nationalization only with highly developed capitalism cannot be called Marxist. It contradicts both the general premises of Marx's theory and his actual words. It simplifies the question of the historically-concrete situation of nationalization as a measure carried out by such and such forces and classes, reducing it to a schematic and bare abstraction.

The "radical bourgeois" cannot be courageous in the epoch of highly developed capitalism. In such an epoch this bourgeois is inevitably already counterrevolutionary in the mass. In such an epoch the "territorialization" of the bourgeoisie is already nearly complete. On the contrary, in the epoch of bourgeois revolution the objective conditions force the "radical bourgeois" to be courageous, because in solving the historical task of the given time, he cannot yet, as a class, fear proletarian revolution. In the epoch of bourgeois revolution the bourgeoisie has not yet territorialized itself: landed property is still too impregnated with feudalism in such an epoch. There becomes possible the phenomenon that a mass of bourgeois agriculturalists, farmers, struggle against the main forms of landed property, and thus come to the practical realization of complete bourgeois "liberation of the land," i.e., nationalization.

In all these respects the Russian bourgeois revolution finds itself in especially favorable conditions. Reasoning from a purely economic point of view, we must absolutely recognize the maximum of feudal remnants in Russian landed property, both that of the landowners and that of peasant allotments. Under such conditions the contradiction between relatively developed capitalism in industry and the monstrous backwardness of the village becomes glaring and impels, by force of objective causes, toward the greatest depth of bourgeois revolution, toward the creation of conditions for the most rapid agricultural progress. Nationalization of land is precisely the condition for the most rapid capitalist progress in our agriculture. In Russia we have such a "radical bourgeois," who has not yet "territorialized himself," who cannot fear at the given time proletarian "attack." This radical bourgeois – is the Russian peasant.

From the indicated point of view the different attitude toward the nationalization of land of the mass of Russian liberal bourgeoisie and the mass of Russian peasants becomes fully understandable. The liberal landowner, lawyer, large manufacturer, merchant – all of them have sufficiently "territorialized" themselves. They cannot help but fear proletarian attack. They cannot help but prefer the Stolypin-Cadet path. Just think what a golden stream now flows to landowners, officials, lawyers, merchants in the form of millions distributed by the "peasant" bank to frightened landowners! Under Cadet "redemption" this golden stream would be directed somewhat differently, perhaps somewhat less abundantly, but still it would consist of hundreds of millions, flowing into the same hands.

From the revolutionary overthrow of all the old forms of landed property not a kopeck need fall to either officials or lawyers. And the merchant – in the mass – cannot look so far ahead as to prefer the future expansion of the internal market of the peasants to the immediate opportunity to snatch something from the landlord. Only the peasant, driven into the grave by old Russia, is capable of struggling for the complete renovation of landed property.

8. Nationalization – A Transition to Partition?

If one regards nationalization as a measure most realizable in the epoch of bourgeois revolution, then such a view inevitably leads to the admission that nationalization may prove to be simply a transition to partition. The real economic necessity which compels the mass of the peasantry to strive for nationalization is the necessity to fundamentally renew all the old relations of landed property, to "cleanse" all lands, to adapt them anew for new, farmer-type economy. Once this is so, it is clear that farmers who have adapted themselves, who have renewed all landed property relations, may demand the consolidation of these new land arrangements, i.e., the transformation of the parcels they rent from the state into their own property.

Yes, this is entirely undeniable. We derive nationalization not from abstract considerations but from a concrete accounting of concrete interests of a concrete epoch. And, of course, it would be absurd to consider "idealists" the mass of small proprietors, absurd to think that they would stop short of partition if their interests demand it. We must, consequently, examine: 1) whether their interests could demand partition, 2) under what conditions, and 3) how this should affect the proletarian agrarian program.

To the first question we have already given an affirmative answer. To the second one cannot at the present time answer with certainty. Partition may be provoked, after a period of revolutionary nationalization, by the striving to consolidate in the maximum possible degree the new relations of landed property corresponding to the requirements of capitalism. It may be provoked by the striving of given landowners to increase their income at the expense of the rest of society. Finally, it may be provoked by the striving to "pacify" (or more simply, to stifle) the proletariat and semi-proletarian strata, for whom the nationalization of land will be an element "inflaming the appetite" for the socialization of all social production. All three of these possibilities reduce to one economic basis, for from the consolidation of the new capitalist landed property of the new farmers will itself flow both the anti-proletarian mood and the striving to create for itself a new privilege in the form of the right of property. Consequently, the question reduces precisely to this economic consolidation. Constant opposition to it will be the development of capitalism, which strengthens the superiority of large-scale agriculture and demands constant ease of "consolidation" of small farmer parcels into large ones. Temporary opposition will be the colonization fund of Russia: to consolidate the new economy means to raise agricultural technique. And we have already shown that each step forward in agricultural technique "opens" for Russia new and new expanses from its colonization fund.

In sum, from the examination of the second question we have posed, we must draw the conclusion: it is impossible to predict with precision the conditions under which the demand for partition by the new farmers will overcome all opposing influences. It is necessary to reckon with the fact that further capitalist development will inevitably create after the bourgeois revolution such conditions.

But to the last question, about the attitude of the workers' party toward a possible demand for partition by the new farmers, a perfectly definite answer can be given. The proletariat can and must support a militant bourgeoisie, when it conducts a genuinely revolutionary struggle against feudalism. But it is not the business of the proletariat to support the bourgeoisie when it becomes pacified. If it is undoubted that a victorious bourgeois revolution in Russia is impossible without the nationalization of land, it is still more undoubted that the subsequent turn toward partition is impossible without a certain "restoration," without the turning of the peasantry (or more precisely, from the standpoint of the assumed relations: the farmers) toward the side of counterrevolution. The proletariat will defend the revolutionary tradition against all such strivings, and not help them.

It would be deeply erroneous in any case to think that nationalization, should the new farmers turn toward partition, would remain a fleeting phenomenon of no serious significance. It would in any case have gigantic significance, both material and moral. Material – in the sense that nothing is able so completely to sweep away the remnants of the Middle Ages in Russia, so completely to renew the half-rotted village steeped in Oriental autocracy, so rapidly to advance agricultural progress, as nationalization. Any other solution of the agrarian question in the revolution would create less favorable starting points for further economic development.

The moral significance of nationalization in the revolutionary epoch consists in this: that the proletariat helps to deal such a blow to "one form of private property" that its echoes are inevitable throughout the world. The proletariat defends the most consistent and most decisive bourgeois upheaval, the most favorable conditions for capitalist development, thereby opposing with the greatest success all halfheartedness, flabbiness, lack of character, passivity – qualities which the bourgeoisie cannot help but display.