The Narodniks analysed the problem in terms of land poverty, high payments and the tyranny of the authorities.
“There is absolutely nothing socialist in the demand for the abolition of these evils, for they do not in the least explain expropriation and exploitation, and their elimination will not in the least affect the oppression of labour by capital. But their elimination will free this oppression of the medieval rubbish that aggravates it, and will facilitate the worker’s direct struggle against capital, and for that reason, as a democratic demand, will meet with the most energetic support of the workers.” (p 289)
The redemption payments that resulted from the Reform, as well as the taxes which fell only on the peasants, and small townspeople, should be abolished, Lenin says, because they were remnants of feudalism, “which cause economic and political stagnation.” (p 289) Note, here, as with Marx's argument in relation to free trade, the reason for supporting such a demand has nothing to do with fairness, or other such moral questions, but is purely about getting rid of the feudal constraints on capitalist development itself, and, thereby, facilitating a sharpening of the contradictions between capital and labour.
The Marxists, Lenin says, would similarly demand that the land stolen from the peasants, as a result of the Reform, be returned to them, as well as an end to landed property, which acts as a bulwark for feudal relations. And, the rational application of this principle requires the nationalisation of the land, as the Ricardians had proposed, But, this proposal for land nationalisation “contains nothing socialist, because the capitalist-farming relations already taking shape in our country would in that case only flourish more rapidly and abundantly; but it is extremely important from the democratic standpoint as the only measure capable of completely breaking the power of the landed nobility.” (p 289-90)
Finally, Lenin says that the oppression and lack of rights of the peasants is not only a fact but more than just oppression. It is to treat the peasants as a rabble who were somehow naturally subject to the landed nobility. As an illustration, Lenin refers to the question of migration and free movement. Lenin's comments could also be addressed to those Lexiters and reformists who support immigration controls and restrictions on free movement. On this basis, the civil rights of the peasants “are granted only as a special favour (migration, for example), and whom any Jack-in-office can order about as if they were workhouse inmates. And the Social-Democrats unreservedly associate themselves with the demand for the complete restoration of the peasants’ civil rights, the complete abolition of all the privileges of the nobility, the abolition of bureaucratic tutelage over the peasants, and the peasants’ right to manage their own affairs.” (p 290)
In Capital I, Marx referred to the way that, during crises, workers had sought to emigrate to the US, to escape its effects, but sections of capital had sought to prevent free movement, on the basis that, when the crisis was over, firms would need that labour. Lenin refers to a similar situation in Russia.
“One cannot help recalling here the purely Russian feudal arrogance with which Mr. Yermolov, now Minister of Agriculture, objects to migration in his book Crop Failures and the Distress of the People. Migration cannot be regarded as rational from the standpoint of the state, he says, when the landlords in European Russia still experience a shortage of labour. And, indeed, what do the peasants exist for, if not to work and feed the idle landlords and their “high-placed” servitors?” (Note *, p 290)
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