The Economic Content of Narodism, Chapter 4 - Part 17

Lenin uses the material provided by A.I. Skvortsov, in “The Influence of Steam Transport on Agriculture”, as the basis of his analysis. 

“It is customary in our literature to regard him as a Marxist. There is just as little grounds for that as there is for placing Mr. N. —on among the Marxists. Mr. A. Skvortsov is also unacquainted with the theory of the class struggle and the class character of the state. His practical proposals in his Economic Studies are no different from ordinary bourgeois proposals. He takes a far more sober view of Russian reality than Messrs. the Narodniks do, bat then on those grounds alone B. Chicherin and many others should also he regarded as Marxists.” (note *, p 474) 

Lenin takes Skvortsov's description of the way a thickly populated economy with extensive agriculture moves to intensive agriculture. Skvortsov says its usually taken that a country with extensive agriculture is thinly populated, but says this is wrong. 

“He considers this a wrong definition and gives the following as the features of extensive farming: 1) considerable harvest fluctuations; 2) homogeneity of crops and 3) absence of home markets, i.e., of big towns where manufacturing industry is concentrated.” (Note *, p 475) 

In such an economy, a large proportion of the population is employed in agriculture. Most produce for their own needs; even where they produce to exchange, they only exchange to meet their own needs, C – M – C. This uniformity of occupation means no large extensive market can develop, which is why Marx explains that capitalism can never develop first in agriculture, but must always develop first in the towns, in the production of industrial products. 

“The population is poor, firstly, because of the small size of the farms and, secondly, because of the absence of exchange: “requirements other than food, which is raised by the agriculturist himself, are satisfied exclusively, it can be said, by the products of primitive artisan establishments, known as handicraft industry in Russia.”” (p 475)

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