Lenin notes that it is characteristic that when the Narodniks come to deal with a practical question, the facts come into conflict with their favourite assumption about the shrinkage of the home market, and consequent inability of capitalism to develop in Russia. The author compares consumption of sugar and kerosene in Russia with that in the West, and concludes that it is at a low level, in Russia, because of its lower level of culture. However, Lenin says, he never questions why the level of culture is lower, and never concludes that the reason the level of culture, in the West, is higher is precisely because of the greater degree of capitalist development.
“But what is the material basis of this culture if not the development of capitalist technique, the growth of commodity economy and exchange, which bring people into more frequent intercourse with each other and break down the medieval isolation of the separate localities? Was not culture in France, for example, on a level no higher than ours before the Great Revolution, when the semi-medieval peasantry had still not finally split into a rural bourgeoisie and a proletariat? And if the author had examined Russian life more closely he could not have helped noticing, for example, that in localities where capitalism is developed the requirements of the peasant population are much higher than in the purely agricultural districts. This is noted unanimously by all investigators of our handicraft industries in all cases where they develop so far as to lay an industrial impress on the whole life of the population.” (p 249)
Lenin, following Marx's comments in The Communist Manifesto, and in The Poverty of Philosophy, combines this demand for the removal of all the old feudal monopolies and constraints on bourgeois development with the recognition of the new evils that capitalism brings with it. The answer to those evils is not a continuation or protection of the old feudal monopolies and fetters on capital, but the most thorough and rapid development of capitalism itself. As the basis of hastening its own replacement by Socialism.
“Undoubtedly, the abolition of monopolies would be beneficial to the whole “people,” because, bourgeois economy having become the basis of the economic life of the country, these survivals of the medieval system only add to the capitalist miseries still more bitter medieval miseries. Undoubtedly, they must definitely be abolished—and the quicker and more radically, the better—in order, by ridding bourgeois society of its inherited semi-feudal fetters, to untie the hands of the working class, to facilitate its struggle against the bourgeoisie.” (p 251)
The Narodniks, however, in talking of “people's economy” invariably meant bourgeois economy, glossing over any antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat. A glaring example of that is cited by Lenin, in an article by Krivenko, in which he talks about the kind of personnel and resources required in the countryside. He lists various kinds of technicians, forestry and agricultural experts, along with warehouses, fertilisers and various pieces of equipment. But, who would be able to pay for any of these things? Not the impoverished peasants who were being reduced to having to sell their labour-power. Yet, Krivenko says,
“These reports, which we have been able to give only in brief, make a heartening and at the same time saddening impression. . . . Heartening, because these people, impoverished, debt-laden, very many of them horseless, work with might and main, do not give way to despair, do not change their occupation, but remain true to the land, realising that in it, in the proper treatment of it, lies their future, their strength, their wealth.” (p 253-4)
As Lenin says, its hard to believe that such obviously idiotic comments can be put down to simplicity rather than deliberate falsification.
“Why, of course! It goes without saying that it is just the impoverished and horseless muzhik who buys phosphates, seed sorters, threshing-machines and Clydesdale oat seed! 0, sancta simplicitas! And this is not written by a ladies’ college damsel, but by a professor, a Doctor of Political Economy!” (p 254)
Krivenko says that employment of such specialists and utilisation of equipment will reward “the people” one hundredfold. However, what he fails to state is that “the people” it will reward are those that can afford to employ such means, i.e. the bourgeoisie. It will not benefit those poor peasants, unable to buy in the specialists or equipment, and they, thereby, become even less competitive, and more rapidly dispossessed, and thrown into the ranks of the proletariat.
Krivenko says,
“Where is our aid to the muzhik who is striving to improve his farming? We have at our disposal science, literature, museums, warehouses, commission agencies.” (p 254)
No comments:
Post a Comment