V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v44;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

ON THE THESES ON THE AGRARIAN QUESTION OF THE FRENCH COMMUNIST PARTY

With reference to the theses on the agrarian question published over the signature of the “C.C. (Le comité directeur) of the French Communist Party” in No. 95 of *La Voix Paysanne* of November 19, 1921, I can say the following:

The main ideas of these theses seem to me to be quite correct, to conform to the decisions of the congresses of the Communist International, and to be very well expressed. They are: (1) the necessity of revolution in order to avoid new imperialist wars; (2) the collapse of the pacifist and Wilsonian ideology; (3) the absolute necessity of drawing up, on the agrarian question, “a programme of transitional measures” (un programme transitoire) to communism, adapted to the voluntary transition of the peasants to the socialisation of agriculture and at the same time ensuring an immediate improvement in the condition of the vast majority of the rural population, the wage-workers and the small peasants; (4) the immediate confiscation, i.e., expropriation without compensation (sans indemnité), both of uncultivated lands (les terres arables en friche) and of lands cultivated by the labour of colonists, tenants or wage-workers (les terres mises en valeur par les colons, fermiers ou salariés); (5) the transfer of these lands to the aggregate of the workers who now cultivate them, on condition that these workers form “producers’ cooperatives” (coopératives de production), in accordance with the provisions of the new agrarian legislation; (6) the absolute guarantee to “small owners who themselves cultivate their lands” (les petits propriétaires exploitant eux-mêmes) of the right of permanent (and hereditary) use of their lands; (7) the necessity of ensuring “continuity and increase of production” in agriculture (“continuité et augmentation de la production”); (8) the necessity of a whole series of measures systematically carrying out “the communist education of the peasantry” (“éducation communiste de la classe paysanne”).

While fully agreeing with these main ideas of the theses, I can make only the following separate observations on the theses in general:

1. The first part of the theses is devoted to the question: “War or Revolution”. It is stated there, among other things, and quite justly, that “the events of recent years have killed the pacifist and Wilsonian ideology” (“les événements des dernières années ont tué l’idéologie pacifiste et wilsonienne”).

In order to complete the destruction of these pacifist illusions, it would, in my opinion, be necessary to speak not only of war in general, but also of the specifically imperialist character both of the war of 1914-1918 and of the war now being prepared between America and Japan, with the probable participation of England and France.

There is no doubt that the proletarian revolution alone can put an end, and will undoubtedly put an end, to all wars in general. But it would be a pacifist illusion to think that the victorious proletarian revolution in one country, France, for example, would at once and certainly put an end to all wars.

The experience of Russia has clearly refuted this illusion. This experience has shown that only revolution could make it possible to withdraw from the imperialist war, and that the Russian workers and peasants gained immeasurably from their revolution, despite the civil war forced upon them by the capitalists of all countries. As reactionary and pernicious as are reactionary wars, and in particular imperialist wars (to which belongs, on the part of France as well, the war of 1914-1918: the Treaty of Versailles has shown this with particular clarity), so legitimate and just are revolutionary wars, i.e., wars in defence of the oppressed classes against the capitalists, in defence of the peoples oppressed by the imperialists of a handful of countries against their oppressors, in defence of the socialist revolution against foreign invasion. The more clearly the masses of workers and peasants in France realise this, the less probable and the shorter will be the inevitable attempts of the French, British and other capitalists to suppress by war the revolution of the workers and peasants in France. In present-day Europe, after the victory of Soviet Russia over all the capitalist countries that supported Denikin, Kolchak, Wrangel, Yudenich and Pilsudski—in present-day Europe, with the immeasurable and shameless strangulation of Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, the civil war of the French capitalists against the victorious socialist revolution in France can be only very short and a thousand times easier for the French workers and peasants than it was for the Russians. But it is absolutely necessary clearly to distinguish between imperialist wars, wars for the division of capitalist spoils, wars for the strangulation of small and weak nations, and revolutionary wars, wars in defence against counter-revolutionary capitalists, for the overthrow of their yoke.

On the basis of the considerations set forth, I would consider it more correct, instead of what is said in the theses on the question “War or Revolution”, to say approximately the following:

The events of recent years have exposed all the falsehood, all the deception of the pacifist and Wilsonian ideology. This falsehood must be finally destroyed. The war of 1914-1918 was an imperialist, predatory, reactionary war not only on the part of Germany, but also on the part of France; this has been shown with particular clarity by the Treaty of Versailles, which is even more brutal and vile than the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The new war that is being prepared between America and Japan (or England) and which is inevitable if capitalism is preserved, will inevitably also draw in capitalist France, for she is entangled in all the imperialist crimes, brutalities and infamies of our imperialist epoch. Either a new war and a series of wars for the “defence” of French imperialism, or a socialist revolution—there is no other choice for the workers and peasants of France. And they will not be frightened by the references of the counter-revolutionary capitalists to the hardships of the civil war which they forced upon Soviet Russia. The workers and peasants of France knew how to wage a legitimate, just, revolutionary war against their feudal lords when they were strangling the great French revolution of the eighteenth century. The French workers and peasants will be able to wage the same legitimate, just and revolutionary war against the French capitalists when they turn into emigrants organising a foreign invasion against the socialist French republic. The French workers and peasants will find it all the easier to crush their exploiters because the whole of Europe, torn, exhausted, Balkanised by the vile Treaty of Versailles, will be directly and indirectly on their side.

2. I consider the following statement in the next part of the theses to be incorrect: “The coming revolution in France (cette révolution que nous devons faire)... will be in a certain sense a premature revolution” (sera en quelque sorte une révolution avant terme), as well as the following statement:

“The concentration of property announced by the theoreticians of Marxism has not taken place regularly in agriculture” (La concentration de la propriété annoncée par les théoriciens du marxisme ne s’est pas produite avec régularité dans l’agriculture).

This is not true. And these are not the views of Marx, not the views of Marxism, but the views of those “theoreticians” of quasi-Marxism who brought the Second International to its shameful bankruptcy in 1914. These are the views of those pseudo-Marxists who from 1914 went over to the side of “their” national bourgeoisie and of whom no one else but Jules Guesde made such good fun in the distant past when he wrote against Millerand that the future Millerands would be on the side of “their” capitalists in the coming war for the division of capitalist spoils.

Marx did not take a simplified and straightforward view of the forms of the process of concentration in agriculture. The proof is Volume III of *Capital*. The proof is Engels’ article in the nineties of the last century against the then French agrarian programme.¹²⁷ Marx did not consider the revolution of the proletariat “timely” only on condition that the last peasant was expropriated. Let us leave such an interpretation of Marx’s views to the Hyndmans, Renaudels, Vanderveldes, Südekums, Messrs. Turati and Serrati.

I would advise throwing out these incorrect, unnecessary and compromising assertions of the French Communists. They are not needed to prove their practically and theoretically important and correct main idea, namely, that the immediate application (l’application immédiate) of integral communism to the conditions of small-peasant farming (by no means only in France, but in all countries where there is small-peasant farming) would be profoundly erroneous.

Instead of these incorrect assertions, it would be better to explain in greater detail why the enrichment of the French peasants during the war is unstable; why the money these peasants made during the war is depreciating; why the oppression of the big banks over both the workers and the peasants of France is increasing; in what this increase is expressed, and so on and so forth.

3. The theses further state that pre-war statistics counted 5,700,000 rural holdings (exploitations rurales) in France, of which 4,850,000 were small (up to 10 hectares) and 850,000 over 10 hectares. These figures show, the theses say, how unevenly land is distributed in France. “But these figures do not give,” the theses say, “any precise idea” (“mais ils [ces chiffres] ne fournissent aucune précision”...) “of the relation that exists between the extent of lands cultivated by their owners and lands serving as a source of capitalist profit” (“... sur le rapport qui existe entre l’étendue des terres travaillées par leurs propriétaires et des terres source de profit capitaliste”).

In the first place, even those lands which are cultivated by their owners serve in France (as in every other capitalist country) as a “source of capitalist profit”. It would be theoretically more correct and practically more useful to discuss the forms of this profit in the theses of the French Communist Party than to discuss whether concentration of property is taking place “regularly” (“avec régularité”) in agriculture.

In the second place. It is true that French agrarian statistics are bad, worse than the German, American, Swiss and Danish, and that they do not give an exact definition of the extent of the land area on which capitalist farming is conducted. It is also true, as is further pointed out in the theses, that wage-workers sometimes cultivate farms of less than 10 hectares, while peasant-owners sometimes cultivate “farms of 20, 30 hectares and above” (“des fermes de 20, 30 hectares et au-dessus”).

But if not a fully exact, then at least an approximate idea of the extent of the land area under capitalist exploitation can be formed even from French agrarian statistics. I have not at hand either Compère-Morel’s book or other sources, but I remember that French statistics single out holdings of 40 hectares and over. It would be very useful to cite these data in order to show the French small peasants more graphically what a mass of land the French capitalists and landowners have seized (from the workers and from them). It is possible (and, in my opinion, necessary) in the agrarian theses to show more graphically, on the basis of figures from French agrarian statistics themselves (and from the figures of Compère-Morel when he was still a socialist and not a defender of the capitalists and their predatory war of 1914-1918 and their predatory Treaty of Versailles), what a vast majority of the rural population in France would gain immediately, at once and very considerably, from the proletarian revolution.

4. My last observation refers to those sections of the theses which speak of the necessity of increasing the production of agricultural products, of the importance of modern machines (des machines modernes), in particular of such machines as threshing machines (les batteuses), tractor ploughs (les charrues à tracteur), etc.

All these indications in the theses are absolutely correct and practically necessary. It seems to me, however, that one should not remain within the limits of what is quite usual for capitalist technology, but should go a step further. A few words should be said about the necessity of the planned and complete electrification of the whole of France, about the absolute impossibility of carrying out this work in the interests of the workers and peasants without the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie, without the conquest of power by the proletariat. In French literature there is no little data on the significance of electrification for France. I only know that a small part of these data was cited in the work carried out on the instructions of our government on the plan for the electrification of Russia, and that after the war the technical preparation of the question of electrification has made great progress in France.

It is extremely important, in my opinion, both from the theoretical and from the practical-agitational point of view, to state in the theses (and in general to speak more in communist literature) that modern advanced technology imperatively demands the electrification of the whole country—and of a number of neighbouring countries—according to a single plan; that such work is quite feasible at the present time; that agriculture and especially the peasantry would gain most from it; that as long as capitalism and private ownership of the means of production remain, the electrification of a whole country and of a number of countries, firstly, cannot be rapid and planned; secondly, cannot be carried out in the interests of the workers and peasants. Under capitalism, electrification will inevitably lead to increased oppression by the big banks over both the workers and the peasants. Even before the war, not some “narrow Marxist”, but Lysis himself, who now fawns patriotically on the capitalists, proved that France is in fact a financial oligarchy.

France has magnificent possibilities for electrification. With the victory of the proletariat in France, the small peasantry in particular will gain enormously from electrification carried out in a planned way and without regard for the private property of the big landowners and capitalists. If the power of the capitalists is preserved, it is inevitable that electrification will not be planned and rapid, and insofar as it takes place at all, it will be a new yoke for the peasants, a new enslavement of the peasants robbed by the “financial oligarchy”.

These are the few observations I can make on the French agrarian theses, which on the whole, in my opinion, are quite correct.

N. Lenin
December 11, 1921