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employed in agriculture increased from 458,369 to 913,391[*]; the number of steam-driven machines employed in agriculture increased from 2,731 (in 1879) to 12,856 (in 1897), while the total horse power of the steam-driven machinery employed increased still more. The number of cattle increased from 15,800,000 to 17,500,000 and the number of pigs from 9,200,000 to 12,200,000 (in 1883 and 1892 respectively). In France, the rural population diminished from 6,900,000 ("independent") in 1882 to 6,600,000 in 1892; and the number of agricultural machines increased as follows: 1862 -- 132,784; 1882 -- 278,896; 1892 -- 355,795. The number of cattle was as follows: 12,000,000; 13,000,000; 13,700,000 respectively; the number of horses: 2,910,000; 2,840,000; 2,790,000 respectively (the reduction in the number of horses in the period 1882-92 was less significant than the reduction in the rural population). Thus, by and large, the history of modern capitalist countries has certainly not refuted, but has confirmed the applicability of Marx's law to agriculture. The mistake Mr. Bulgakov made was that he too hastily raised certain facts in agronomics, without examining their significance, to the level of general economic laws. We emphasise "general," because neither Marx nor his disciples ever regarded this law otherwise than as the law of the general tendencies of capitalism, and not as a law for all individual cases. Even in regard to industry Marx himself pointed out that periods of technical change (when the ratio v/c diminishes) are followed by periods of progress on the given technical basis (when the ratio v/c remains constant, and in certain cases may even increase). We know of cases in the industrial history of capitalist countries in which this law is contravened by entire branches of industry, as when large capitalist workshops (incorrectly termed factories) are broken up and supplanted by capitalist domestic industry. There cannot be any doubt that in agriculture the process of development of capitalism is immeasurably more complex and assumes incomparably more diverse forms.

 
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recipients of the profit of enterprise (= farmers, rural entrepreneurs). "In general, the significance of this assertion of Kautsky is unclear" to Mr. Bulgakov. "It can hardly be considered as proved that the mortgage system expresses the separation of the land from the farmer." "Firstly, it cannot be proved that debt absorbs the whole rent; this is possible only by way of exception. . . ." To this we reply: There is no need to prove that interest on mortgage debts absorbs the whole rent, just as there is no need to prove that the actual amount paid for land leased coincides with rent. It is sufficient to prove that mortgage debts are growing with enormous rapidity; that the landowners strive to mortgage all their land, to sell the whole of the rent. The existence of this tendency -- a theoretical economic analysis can, in general, deal only with tendencies -- cannot be doubted. Consequently, there can be no doubt about the process of separation of the land from the farmer. The combination of the recipient of rent and the recipient of the profit of enterprise in one person is, "from the historical point of view, an exception" (ist historisch eine Ausnahme, S. 91). . . . "Secondly, the causes and sources of the debt must be analysed in each separate case for its significance to be understood." Probably this is either a misprint or a slip. Mr. Bulgakov cannot demand that an economist (who, moreover, is dealing with the "development of agriculture in capitalist society" in general) should investigate the causes of the debt "in each separate case " or even expect that he would be able to do so. If Mr. Bulgakov wanted to say that it is necessary to analyse the causes of debt in different countries at different periods, we cannot agree with him. Kautsky is perfectly right in saying that too many monographs on the agrarian question have accumulated, and that the urgent task of modern theory is not to add new monographs but to "investigate the main trends of the capitalist evolution of agriculture as a whole" (Vorrede, S. vi*). Among these main trends is undoubtedly the separation of the land from the farmer in the form of an increase in mortgage debts. Kautsky precisely and clearly defined the real significance of mortgages, their progressive historical character (the separation of the land from the farmer being one of the condi-

 
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tions for the socialisation of agriculture, S. 88), and the essential role they play in the capitalist evolution of agriculture.[*] All Kautsky's arguments on this question are extremely valuable theoretically and provide a powerful weapon against the widespread bourgeois talk (particularly in "any handbook of the economics of agriculture") about the "misfortune" of debts and about "measures of assistance." . . ."Thirdly," concludes Mr. Bulgakov, "land leased out may, in its turn, be mortgaged; and in this sense it may assume the same position as land not leased out." A strange argument! Let Mr. Bulgakov point to at least one economic phenomenon, to at least one economic category, that is not interwoven with others. The fact that there are cases of combined leasing and mortgaging does not refute, does not even weaken, the theoretical proposition that the separation of the land from the farmer is expressed in two forms: in the tenant farmer system and in mortgage debts.

    Mr. Bulgakov also declares that Kautsky's statement that "countries in which the tenant farmer system is developed are also countries in which large land ownership predominates" (S. 88) is "still more unexpected" and "altogether untrue." Kautsky speaks here of the concentration of land ownership (under the tenant farmer system) and the concentration of mortgages (under the system in which the landowners manage their own farms) as conditions that facilitate the abolition of the private ownership of land. On the question of concentration of land ownership, continues Kautsky, there are no statistics "which would enable one to trace the amalgamation of several properties in single hands"; but "in general it may be taken" that the increase in the number of leases and in the area of the leased land proceeds side by side with concentration of land ownership. "Countries in which the tenant farmer system is developed are also countries in which large land ownership predominates."

 
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also among the Russian "commune" peasants (recall A. N. Engelhardt and G. Uspensky). Kautsky categorically declares that "it is absurd to expect that the peasant in modern society wiII go over to communal production" (S. 129).

    Such is the extremely rich content of Chapter VI of Kautsky's book. Mr. Bulgakov is particularly displeased with this chapter. Kautsky, we are told, is guilty of the "fundamental sin" of confusing various concepts; "technical advantages are confused with economic advantages." Kautsky "proceeds from the false assumption that the technically more perfect mode of production is also economically more perfect, i.e., more viable." Mr. Bulgakov's emphatic statement is altogether groundless, of which, we hope, the reader has been convinced by our exposition of Kautsky's line of argument. Without in the least confusing technique with economics,* Kautsky rightly investigates the question of the relation of large-scale to small-scale production in agriculture, other conditions being equal, under the capitalist system of production. In the opening sentence of the first section of Chapter VI Kautsky points precisely to this con-

 
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nection between the level of development of capitalism and the degree of the general applicability of the law of the superiority of large-scale agriculture : "The more capitalist agriculture becomes, the more it develops the qualitative difference between the techniques of small- and large-scale production" (S. 92). This qualitative difference did not exist in pre-capitalist agriculture. What then can be said of this stern admonition to which Mr. Bulgakov treats Kautsky "In point of fact, the question should have been put as follows: what significance in the competition between large- and small-scale production can any of the specific features of either of these forms of production have under the present social-economic conditions ?" This "correction" bears the same character as the one we examined above.

    Let us see now how Mr. Bulgakov refutes Kautsky's arguments in favour of the technical superiority of large-scale production in agriculture. Kautsky says: "One of the most important features distinguishing agriculture from industry is that in agriculture production in the proper sense of the word [Wirtschaftsbetrieb, an economic enterprise] is usually connected with the household (Haushalt ), which is not the case in industry." That the larger household has the advantage over the small household in the saving of labour and materials hardly needs proof. . . . The former purchases (note this! V. I.) "kerosene, chicory, and margarine wholesale; the latter purchases these articles retail, etc." (S. 93). Mr. Bulgakov "corrects": "Kautsky did not mean to say that this was technically more advantageous, but that it cost less"! . . . Is it not clear that in this case (as in all the others) Mr. Bulgakov's attempt to "correct" Kautsky was more than unfortunate? "This argument," continues the stern critic, "is also very questionable in itself, because under certain conditions the value of the product may not include the value of the scattered huts, whereas the value of a common house is included, even with the interest added. This, too, depends upon social-economic conditions, which -- and not the alleged technical advantages of large-scale over small-scale production -- should have been investigated.". . . In the first place, Mr. Bulgakov forgets the trifle that Kautsky, after comparing the significance of large-scale production with that of small-scale production, all other conditions being equal,

 
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proceeds to examine these conditions in detail. Consequently, Mr. Bulgakov wants to throw different questions together. Secondly, how is it that the value of the peasants' huts does not enter into the value of the product? Only because the peasant "does not count" the value of the timber he uses or the labour he expends in building and repairing his hut. Insofar as the peasant still conducts a natural economy, he, of course, may "not count" his labour; there is no justification for Mr. Bulgakov's not telling his readers that Kautsky very clearly and precisely points this out on pp. 165-67 of his book (Chapter VII, "The Proletarisation of the Peasant"). But we are now discussing the "social-economic condition" of capitalism and not of natural economy or of simple commodity production. Under capitalist social conditions "not to count" one's labour means to work for nothing (for the merchant or another capitalist); it means to work for incomplete remuneration for the labour power expended; it means to lower the level of consumption below the standard. As we have seen, Kautsky fully recognised and correctly appraised this distinguishing feature of small production. In his objection to Kautsky, Mr. Bulgakov repeats the usual trick and the usual mistake of the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois economists. These economists have deafened us with their praises of the "viability" of the small peasant, who, they say, need not count his own labour, or chase after profit and rent, etc. These good people merely forget that such arguments confuse the "social-economic conditions" of natural economy, simple commodity production, and capitalism. Kautsky excellently explains all these mistakes and draws a strict distinction between the various systems of social economic relations. He says: "If the agricultural production of the small peasant is not drawn into the sphere of commodity production, if it is merely a part of household economy, it also remains outside the sphere of the centralising tendencies of the modern mode of production. However irrational his parcellised economy may be, no matter what waste of effort it may lead to, he clings to it tightly, just as his wife clings to her wretched household economy, which likewise produces infinitely miserable results with an enormous expenditure of labour-power, but which represents the only sphere in which she is not subject to another's rule and is

 
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free from exploitation" (S. 165). The situation changes when natural economy is supplanted by commodity economy. The peasant then has to sell his produce, purchase implements, and purchase land. As long as the peasant remains a simple commodity producer, he can be satisfied with the standard of living of the wage-worker; he needs neither profit nor rent; he can pay a higher price for land than the capitalist entrepreneur (S. 166). But simple commodity production is supplanted by capitalist production. If, for instance, the peasant has mortgaged his land, he must also obtain the rent which he has sold to the creditor. At this stage of development the peasant can only formally be regarded as a simp!e commodity producer. De facto, he usually has to deal with the capitalist -- the creditor, the merchant, the industrial entrepreneur -- from whom he must seek "auxiliary employment," .i.e., to whom he must sell his labour-power. At this stage -- and Kautsky, we repeat, compares large-scale with small scale farming in capitalist society -- the possibility for the peasant "not to count his labour" means only one thing to him, namely, to work himself to death and continually to cut down his consumption.

    Equally unsound are the other objections raised by Mr. Bulgakov. Small-scale production permits of the employment of machinery within narrower limits; the small proprietor finds credit more difficult to obtain and more expensive, says Kautsky. Mr. Bulgakov considers these arguments false and refers to -- peasant associations! He completely ignores the evidence brought forward by Kautsky, whose appraisal of these associations and their significance we quoted above. On the question of machinery, Mr. Bulgakov again reproaches Kautsky for not raising the "more general economic question: What, upon the whole, is the economic role of machinery in agriculture [Mr. Bulgakov has forgotten Chapter IV of Kautsky's book!] and is it as inevitable an instrument in agriculture as in manufacturing industry?" Kautsky clearly pointed to the capitalist nature of the use of machinery in modern agriculture (S. 39, 40, et seq.); noted the specific features of agriculture which create "technical and economic difficulties" for the employment of machinery in agriculture (S. 38, et seq.); and adduced data on the growing employment of machinery (S. 40), on its technical

 
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significance (42, et seq.), and on the role of steam and electricity. Kautsky indicated the size of farm necessary, according to agronomic data, for making the fullest use of various machines (94), and pointed out that according to the German census of 1895 the employment of machinery steadily and rapidly increases from the small farms to the big ones (2 per cent in farms up to two hectares, 13.8 per cent in farms of 2 to 5 hectares, 45.8 per cent in farms of 5 to 20 hectares, 78.8 per cent in farms of 20 to 100 hectares, and 94.2 per cent in farms of 100 and more hectares). Instead of these figures, Mr. Bulgakov would have preferred "general" arguments about the "invincibility" or non-invincibility of machines ! . . .

    "The argument that a larger number of draught animals per hectare is employed in small-scale production is unconvincing . . . because the relative intensity of animal maintenance per farm . . . is not investigated" -- says; Mr. Bulgakov. We open Kautsky's book at the page that contains this argument and read the following: "The large number of cows in small-scale farming [per 1,000 hectares] is to no small extent are determined by the fact that the peasant engages more in animal husbandry and less in the production of grain than the big farmer; but this does not explain the difference in the number of horses maintained" (page 96, on which are quoted figures for Saxony for 1860, for the whole of Germany for 1883, and for England for 1880). We remind the reader of the fact that in Russia the Zemstvo statistics reveal the same law expressing the superiority of large-scale over small-scale farming: the big peasant farms manage with a smaller number of cattle and implements per unit of land.*

    Mr. Bulgakov gives a far from complete exposition of Kautsky's arguments on the superiority of large-scale over small-scale production in capitalist agriculture. The superiority of large-scale farming does not only lie in the fact that there is less waste of cultivated area, a saving in livestock and implements, fuller utilisation of implements,

 
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wider possibilities of employing machinery, and more opportunities for obtaining credit; it also lies in the commercial superiority of large-scale production, the employment in the latter of scientifically trained managers (Kautsky, S. 104). Large-scale farming utilises the co-operation of workers and division of labour to a larger extent. Kautsky attaches particular importance to the scientific, agronomic education of the farmer. "A scientifically well-educated farmer can be employed only by a farm sufficiently large for the work of management and supervision to engage fully the person's labour-power" (S. 98: "The size of such farms varies, according to the type of production," from three hectares of vineyards to 500 hectares of extensive farming). In this connection Kautsky mentions the interesting and extremely characteristic fact that the establishment of primary and secondary agricultural school benefits the big farmer and not the peasant by providing the former with employees (the same thing is observed in Russia). "The higher education that is required for fully rationalised production is hardly compatible with the peasants' present conditions of existence. This, of course, is a condemnation, not of higher education, but of the peasants' conditions of life. It merely means that peasant production is able to exist side by side with large-scale production, not because of its higher productivity, but because of its lower requirements" (S. 99). Large-scale production must employ, not only peasant labourers, but also urban workers, whose requirements are on an incomparably higher level.

    Mr. Bulgakov calls the highly interesting and important data which Kautsky adduces to prove "overwork and under-consumption in small-scale production" "a few[!] casual[??] quotations." Mr. Bulgakov "undertakes" to cite as many "quotations of an opposite character." He merely forgets to say whether he also undertakes to make an opposite assertion which he would prove by "quotations of an opposite character." This is the whole point! Does Mr. Bulgakov undertake to assert that large-scale production in capitalist society differs from peasant production in the prevalence of overwork and the lower consumption of its workers? Mr. Bulgakov is too cautious to make such a ludicrous assertion. He considers it possible to avoid the fact of the peasants'

 
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overwork and lower consumption by remarking that "in some places peasants are prosperous and in other places they are poor"!! What would be said of an economist who, instead of generalising the data on the position of small- and large-scale production, began to investigate the difference in the "prosperity" of the population of various "places"? What would be said of an economist who evaded the overwork and lower consumption of handicraftsmen, as compared with factory workers, with the remark that "in some places handicraftsmen are prosperous and in other places they are poor"? Incidentally, a word about handicraftsmen. Mr. Bulgakov writes: "Apparently Kautsky was mentally drawing a parallel with Hausindustrie,[*] where there are no technical limits to overwork [as in agriculture], but this parallel is unsuitable here." Apparently, we say in reply, Mr. Bulgakov was astonishingly inattentive to the book he was criticising, for Kautsky did not "mentally draw a parallel" with Hausindustrie, but pointed to it directly and precisely on the very first page of that part of the chapter which deals with the question of overwork (Chapter VI, b, S. 106): "As in domestic industry (Hausindustrie), the work of the children of the family in small peasant farming is even more harmful than wage-labour for others." However emphatically Mr. Bulgakov decrees that this parallel is unsuitable here, his opinion is nevertheless entirely erroneous. In industry, overwork has no technical limits; but for the peasantry it is "limited by the technical conditions of agriculture," argues Mr. Bulgakov. The question arises: who, indeed, confuses technique with economics, Kautsky or Mr. Bulgakov? What has the technique of agriculture, or of domestic industry, to do with the case when facts prove that the small producer in agriculture and in industry drives his children to work at an earlier age, works more hours per day, lives "more frugally," and cuts down his requirements to such a level that he stands out in a civilised country as a real "barbarian" (Marx's expression)? Can the economic similarity of such phenomena in agriculture and in industry be denied on the grounds that agriculture has a large number of specific features (which Kautsky does not forget in the least) ? "The

now) permits of huge farms (up to 10,000 hectares, such as the bonanza farms [*] of Dalrymple, Glenn, and others. In our steppes, too, peasant farms, and particularly merchants' farms, attain such dimensions). The introduction of fertilisers, etc., necessarily leads to a diminution in the area of farms, which in Europe, for instance, are smaller than in America. The transition from field farming to animal husbandry again causes a diminution in the area of farms: in England, in 1880, the average size of livestock farms was 52.3 acres, whereas that of field farms was 74.2 acres. That is why the transition from field farming to animal husbandry which is taking place in England must give rise to a tendency for the area of farms to diminish. "But it would be judging very superficially if the conclusion were drawn from this that there has been a decline in production" (149). In East Elbe (by the investigation of which Mr. Bulgakov hopes some time to refute Kautsky), it is precisely the introduction of intensive farming that is taking place: the big farmers, says Sering, whom Kautsky quotes, are increasing the productivity of their soil and are selling or leasing to peasants the remote parts of their estates, since with intensive farming it is difficult to utilise these remote parts. "Thus, large estates in East Elbe are being reduced in size and in their vicinity small peasant farms are being established; this, however, is not because small-scale production is superior to large-scale, but because the former dimensions of the estates were adapted to the needs of extensive farming" (150). The diminution in farm area in all these cases usually leads to an increase in the quantity of products (per unit of land) and frequently to an increase in the number of workers employed, i.e., to an actual increase in the scale of production.

    From this it is clear how little is proved by general agricultural statistics on the area of farms, and how cautiously one must handle them. In industrial statistics we have direct indices of the scale of production (quantity of goods, total value of the output, and the number of workers employed), and, besides, it is easy to distinguish the different branches. Agricultural statistics hardly ever satisfy these necessary conditions of evidence.

    Finally, among the conditions setting the limits to capitalist agriculture, Kautsky also points to the fact that the shortage of workers -- due to the migration of the rural population -- compels the big landowners to allot land to labourers, to create a small peasantry to provide labour-power for the landlord. An absolutely propertyless agricultural labourer is a rarity, because in agriculture rural economy, in the strict sense, is connected with household economy. Whole categories of agricultural wage-workers own or have the use of land. When small production is eliminated too greatly, the big landowners try to strengthen or revive it by the sale or lease of land. Sering, whom Kautsky quotes, says: "In all European countries, a movement has recently been observed towards . . . settling rural labourers by allotting plots of land to them." Thus, within the limits of the capitalist mode of production it is impossible to count on small-scale production being entirely eliminated from agriculture, for the capitalists and agrarians themselves strive to revive it when the ruination of the peasantry has gone too far. Marx pointed to this rotation of concentration and parcellisation of the land in capitalist society as far back as 1850, in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung.[52]

    Mr. Bulgakov is of the opinion that these arguments of Kautsky contain "an element of truth, but still more of error." Like all Mr. Bulgakov's other verdicts, this one has also extremely weak and nebulous grounds. Mr. Bulgakov thinks that Kautsky has "constructed a theory of proletarian small-scale production," and that this theory is true for a very limited region. We hold a different opinion. The agricultural wage-labour of small cultivators (or what is the same thing, the agricultural labourer and day labourer with an allotment) is a phenomenon characteristic, more or less, of all capitalist countries. No writer who desires to describe capitalism in agriculture can, without violating the truth, leave this phenomenon in the background.* Kautsky, in Chapter VIII of his book, viz., "The Proletarisation of the Peasant," adduces extensive evidence to prove that in Germany, in

 
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particular, proletarian small-scale production is general. Mr. Bulgakov's statement that other writers, including Mr. Kablukov, have pointed to the "shortage of workers" leaves the most important thing in the background -- the enormous difference in principle between Mr. Kablukov's theory and Kautsky's theory. Because of his characteristically Kleinburger [*] point of view, Mr. Kablukov "constructs" out of the shortage of workers the theory that large-scale production is unsound and that small-scale production is sound. Kautsky gives an accurate description of the facts and indicates their true significance in modern class society: the class interests of the landowners compel them to strive to allot land to the workers. As far as class position is concerned, the agricultural wage-workers with allotments are situated between the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat, but closer to the latter. In other words, Mr. Kablukov develops one side of a complicated process into a theory of the unsoundness of large-scale production, whereas Kautsky analyses the special forms of social-economic relations created by the interests of large scale production at a certain stage of its development and under certain historical conditions.

    We shall now pass to the next chapter of Kautsky's book, the title of which we have just quoted. In this chapter Kautsky investigates, firstly, the "tendency toward the parcellisation of landholdings," and, secondly, the "forms of peasant auxiliary employments." Thus, here are depicted those extremely important trends of capitalism in agriculture that are typical of the overwhelming majority of capitalist countries. Kautsky says that the break-up of landholdings leads to an increased demand for small plots on the part of small peasants, who pay a higher price for the land than the big farmers. Several writers have adduced this fact to prove that small-scale farming is superior to large-scale farming. Kautsky very appropriately replies to this by comparing the price of land with the price of houses: it is well known that small and cheap houses are dearer per unit of

 
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are less developed and have a lower level of requirements than urban workers; not infrequently, they have a harmful effect on the living conditions of the urban workers. "But for those places from which they come and to which they return they are pioneers of progress. . . . They acquire new wants and new ideas" (S. 192), they awaken among the backwoods peasants consciousness, a sense of human dignity, and confidence in their own strength.

    In conclusion we shall deal with the last and particularly sharp attack Mr. Bulgakov makes upon Kautsky. Kautsky says that in Germany, from 1882 to 1895 it was the smallest (in area) and the largest farms that grew most in number (so that the parcellisation of the land proceeded at the expense of the medium farms). Indeed, the number of farms under one hectare increased by 8.8 per cent; those of 5 to 20 hectares increased by 7.8 per cent; while those of over 1,000 hectares increased by 11 per cent (the number of those in the intervening categories hardly increased at all, while the total number of farms increased by 5.3 per cent). Mr. Bulgakov is extremely indignant because the percentage is taken of the biggest farms, the number of which is insignificant (515 and 572 for the respective years). Mr. Bulgakov's indignation is quite groundless. He forgets that these farms insignificant in number, are the largest in size and that they occupy nearly as much land as 2,300,000 to 2,500,000 dwarf farms (up to one hectare). If I were to say that the number of very big factories in a country, those employing 1,000 and more workers, increased, say, from 51 to 57, by 11 per cent, while the total number of factories increased 5.3 per cent, would not that show an increase in large-scale production, notwithstanding the fact that the number of very large factories may be insignificant as compared with the total number of factories? Kautsky is fully aware of the fact that it was the peasant farms of from 5 to 20 hectares which grew most in total area (Mr. Bulgakov, p. 18), and he deals with it in the ensuing chapter.

    Kautsky then takes the changes in area in the various categories in 1882 and 1895. It appears that the largest increase (+563,477 hectares) occurred among the peasant farms of from 5 to 20 hectares, and the next largest among the biggest farms, those of more than 1,000 hectares (+94,014), where

 
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as the area of farms of from 20 to 1,000 hectares diminished by 86,809 hectares. Farms up to one hectare increased their area by 32,683 hectares, and those from 1 to 5 hectares, by 45,604 hectares.

    And Kautsky draws the following conclusion: the diminution in the area of farms of from 20 to 1,000 hectares (more than balanced by an increase in the area of farms of 1,000 hectares and over) is due, not to the decline of large-scale production, but to its intensification. We have already seen that intensive farming is making progress in Germany and that it frequently requires a diminution in the area of farms. That there is intensification of large-scale production can be seen from the growing utilisation of steam-driven machinery, as well as from the enormous increase in the number of agricultural non-manual employees, who in Germany are employed only on large farms. The number of estate managers (inspectors), overseers, bookkeepers, etc., increased from 47,465 in 1882 to 76,978 in 1895, i.e., by 62 per cent; the percentage of women among these employees increased from 12 to 23.4.

    "All this shows clearly how much more intensive and more capitalist large-scale farming has become since the beginning of the eighties. The next chapter will explain why simultaneously there has been such a big increase in the area of middle-peasant farms" (S. 174).

    Mr. Bulgakov regards this description as being "in crying contradiction to reality," but the arguments he falls back on again fail to justify such an emphatic and bold verdict, and not by one iota do they shake Kautsky's conclusion. "In the first place, the intensification of farming, if it took place, would not in itself explain the relative and absolute diminution of the cultivated area, the diminution of the total proportion of farms in the 20- to 1,000-hectare group. The cultivated area could have increased simultaneously with the increase in the number of farms. The latter need merely (sic !) have increased somewhat faster, so that the area of each farm would have diminished."*

 
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    We have deliberately quoted in full this argument, from which Mr. Bulgakov draws the conclusion that "the diminution in the size of farms owing to the growth of intensive farming is pure fantasy" (sic !), because it strikingly reveals the very mistake of mishandling "statistics" against which Kautsky seriously warned. Mr. Bulgakov puts ridiculously strict demands upon the statistics of the area of farms and ascribes to these statistics a significance which they never can have. Why, indeed, should the cultivated area have increased "somewhat"? Why "should not" the intensification of farming (which, as we have seen, sometimes leads to the sale and renting to peasants of parts of estates remote from the centre) have shifted a certain number of farms from a higher category to a lower? Why "should it not" have diminished the cultivated area of farms of from 20 to 1,000 hectares?[*] In industrial statistics a reduction in the output of the very big factories would have indicated a decline in large-scale production. But the diminution in area of large estates by 1.2 per cent does not and cannot indicate the volume of production, which very often increases with a decrease in the area of the farm. We know that the process of livestock breeding replacing grain farming, particularly marked in England, is going on in Europe as a whole. We know that sometimes this change causes a decrease in the farm area; but would it not be strange to draw from this the conclusion that the smaller farm area implied a decline in large-scale production? That is why, incidentally, the "eloquent table" given by Mr. Mulgakov on page 20, showing the reduction in the number of large and small farms and the increase in the number of medium farms (5 to 20 hectares) possessing animals for field work, proves nothing at all. This may have been due to a change in the system of farming.

    That large-scale agricultural production in Germany has become more intensive and more capitalist is evident, firstly, from the increase in the number of steam-driven machines employed: from 1879 to 1897 their number increased

fivefold. It is quite useless for Mr. Bulgakov to argue in his objection that the number of all machines in general (and not steam-driven machines only) owned by small farms (up to 20 hectares) is much larger than that owned by the large farms; and also that in America machines are employed in extensive farming. We are not discussing America now, but Germany, where there are no bonanza farms.[*] The following table gives the percentage of farms in Germany (1895) employing steam ploughs and steam threshing machines:

    And now, if the total number of steam-driven machines employed in agriculture in Germany has increased fivefold, does it not prove that large-scale farming has become more intensive? Only it must not be forgotten, as Mr. Bulgakov forgets on page 21, that an increase in the size of enterprises in agriculture is not always identical with an increase in the area of farms.

    Secondly, the fact that large-scale production has become more capitalist is evident from the increase in the number of agricultural non-manual employees. It is useless for Bulgakov to call this argument of Kautsky a "curiosity": "an increase in the number of officers, side by side with a reduction of the army" -- with a reduction in the number of agricultural wage-workers. Again we say:Rira bien quirira le dernier !** Kautsky not only does not forget the reduction in the number of agricultural labourers, but shows it

in detail in regard to a number of countries; only this fact has absolutely nothing to do with the matter in hand, because the rural population as a whole is diminishing, while the number of proletarian small farmers is increasing. Let us assume that the big farmer abandons the production of grain and takes up the production of sugar-beet and the manufacture of sugar (in Germany in 1871-72, 2,200,000 tons of beets were converted into sugar; in 1881-82, 6,300,000 tons; in 1891-92, 9,500,000 tons, and in 1896-97, 13,700,000 tons). He might even sell, or rent, the remote parts of his estate to small peasants, particularly if he needs the wives and children of the peasants as day labourers on the beet plantations. Let us assume that he introduces a steam plough which eliminates the former ploughmen (on the beet plantations in Saxony -- "models of intensive farming"[*] -- steam ploughs have now come into common use). The number of wage-workers diminishes. The number of higher grade employees (bookkeepers, managers, technicians, etc.) necessarily increases. Will Mr. Bulgakov deny that we see here an increase in intensive farming and capitalism in large-scale production? Will he assert that nothing of the kind is taking place in Germany?

    To conclude the exposition of Chapter VIII of Kautsky's book, viz., on the proletarisation of the peasants, we need to quote the following passage. "What interests us here," says Kautsky, after the passage we have cited above, quoted also by Mr. Bulgakov, "is the fact that the proletarisation of the rural population is proceeding in Germany, as in other places, notwithstanding the fact that the tendency to parcellise medium estates has ceased to operate there. From 1882 to 1895 the total number of farms increased by 281,000. By far the greater part of this increase was due to the greater number of proletarian farms up to one hectare in area. The number of these farms increased by 206,000.

    "As we see, the development of agriculture is quite a special one, quite different from the development of industrial and trading capital. In the preceding chapter we pointed out that in agriculture the tendency to centralise farms does not lead to the complete elimination of small-scale pro-

    In Chapter IX of his book ("The Growing Difficulties of Commercial Agriculture") Kautsky proceeds to analyse the contradictions inherent in capitalist agriculture. From the objections which Mr. Bulgakov raises against this chapter, which we shall examine later, it is evident that the critic has not quite properly understood the general significance of these "difficulties." There are "difficulties" which, while being an "obstacle" to the full development of rational agriculture, at the same time stimulate the development of capitalist agriculture. Among the "difficulties" Kautsky points, for example, to the depopulation of the countryside. Undoubtedly, the migration from the countryside of the best and most intelligent workers is an "obstacle" to the full development of rational agriculture; but it is equally indubitable that the farmers combat this obstacle by developing technique, e.g., by introducing machinery.

    Kautsky investigates the following "difficulties": a) ground rent; b) right of inheritance; c) limitation of right of inheritance; entailment (fideicommissum, Anerbenrecht)[55]; d) the exploitation of the countryside by the town; e) depopulation of the countryside.

    Ground rent is that part of surplus-value which remains after the average profit on invested capital is deducted. The monopoly of landed property enables the landowner to appropriate this surplus, and the price of land (= capitalised rent) keeps rent at the level it has once reached. Clearly, rent "hinders" the complete rationalisation of agriculture: under the tenant farmer system the incentive to improve-

 
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ments, etc., becomes weaker, and under the mortgage system the major part of the capital has to be invested, not in production, but in the purchase of land. In his objection Mr. Bulgakov points out, first, that there is "nothing terrible" in the growth of mortgage debts. He forgets, however, that Kautsky, not "in another sense," but precisely in this sense, has pointed to the necessary increase in mortgages even when agriculture is prospering (see above, First Article, II). Here, Kautsky does not raise the question as to whether an increase in mortgages is "terrible" or not, but asks what difficulties prevent capitalism from accomplishing its mission. Secondly, in Mr. Bulgakov's opinion, "it is hardly correct to regard increased rent only as an obstacle. . . . The rise in rent, the possibility of raising it, serves as an independent incentive to agriculture, stimulating progress of technique and every other form" of progress ("process" is obviously a misprint). Stimuli to progress in capitalist agriculture are: population growth, growth of competition, and growth of industry; rent, however, is a tribute exacted by the landowner from social development, from the growth of technique. It is, therefore, incorrect to state, that the rise in rent is an "independent incentive" to progress. Theoretically, it is possible for capitalist production to exist in the absence of private property in land, i.e., with the land nationalised (Kautsky, S. 207), when absolute rent would not exist at all, and differential rent would be appropriated by the state. This would not weaken the incentive to agronomic progress; on the contrary, it would greatly increase it.

    "There can be nothing more erroneous than to think that it is in the interest of agriculture to force up (in die Höhe treiben) the prices of estates or artificially to keep them at a high level," says Kautsky. "This is in the interest of the present (augenblicklichen) landowners, of the mortgage banks and the real estate speculators, but not in the interest of agriculture, and least of all in the interest of its future, of the future generation of farmers" (S. 199). As to the price of land, it is capitalised rent.

    The second difficulty confronting commercial agriculture is that it necessarily requires private property in land. This leads to the situation in which the land is either split up on passing to heirs (such parcellisation even

 
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leading in some places to technical retrogression) or is burdened by mortgages (when the heir who receives the land pays the co-heirs money capital which he obtains by a mortgage on the land). Mr. Bulgakov reproaches Kautsky for "overlooking, in his exposition, the positive side" of the mobilisation of the land. This reproach is absolutely groundless; for in the historical part of his book (in particular Chapter III of Part I, which deals with feudal agriculture and the reasons for its supersession by capitalist agriculture), as well as in the practical part,[*] Kautsky clearly pointed out to his readers the positive side and the historical necessity of private property in land, of the subjection of agriculture to competition, and, consequently, of the mobilisation of the land. The other reproach that Mr. Bulgakov directs at Kautsky, namely, that he does not investigate the problem of "the different degrees of growth of the population in different places," is one that we simply cannot understand. Did Mr. Bulgakov really expect to find studies in demography in Kautsky's book?

    Without dwelling on the question of entailment, which, after what has been said above, represents nothing new, we shall proceed to examine the question of the exploitation of the countryside by the town. Mr. Bulgakov's assertion that Kautsky "does not contrapose the positive to the negative sides and, primarily, the importance of the town as a market for agricultural produce," is in direct contradiction to the facts. Kautsky deals very definitely with the importance of the town as a market for agriculture on the very first page of the chapter which investigates "modern agriculture" (S. 30, et seq.). It is precisely to "urban industry" (S. 292) that Kautsky ascribes the principal role in the transformation of agriculture, in its rationalisation, etc.**

    That is why we cannot possibly understand how Mr. Bulgakov could repeat in his article (page 32, Nachalo, No. 3) these very ideas as if in opposition to Kautsky ! This is a

 
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Mr. Bulgakov thinks that Kautsky's opinion on the agronomic exploitation of the country by the town is a "strange" one; that, "at all events, Kautsky has here stepped on the soil of absolute fantasy" (sic !!!). What surprises us is that Mr. Bulgakov ignores the fact that Kautsky's opinion, which he criticises, is identical with one of the fundamental ideas of Marx and Engels. The reader would be right in concluding that Mr. Bulgakov considers the idea of the abolition of the antithesis between town and country to be "absolute fantasy." If such indeed is the critic's opinion, then we emphatically disagree with him and go over to the side of "fantasy" (actually, not to the side of fantasy, of course, but to that of a more profound criticism of capitalism). The view that the idea of abolishing the antithesis between town and country is a fantasy is not new by any means. It is the ordinary view of the bourgeois economists. It has even been borrowed by several writers with a more profound outlook. For example, Dühring was of the opinion that antagonism between town and country "is inevitable by the very nature of things."

    Further, Mr. Bulgakov is "astonished" (!) at the fact that Kautsky refers to the growing incidence of epidemics among plants and animals as one of the difficulties confronting commercial agriculture and capitalism. "What has this to do with capitalism. . . ?" asks Mr. Bulgakov. "Could any higher social organisation abolish the necessity of improving the breeds of cattle?" We in our turn are astonished at Mr. Bulgakov's failure to understand Kautsky's perfectly clear idea. The old breeds of plants and animals created by natural selection are being superseded by "improved" breeds created by artificial selection. Plants and animals are be coming more susceptible and more demanding; with the present means of communication epidemics spread with astonishing rapidity. Meanwhile, farming remains individual, scattered, frequently small (peasant) farming, lacking knowledge and resources. Urban capitalism strives to provide all the resources of modern science for the development of the technique of agriculture, but it leaves the social position of the producers at the old miserable level; it does not systematically and methodically transplant urban culture to the rural districts. No higher social organisation will

 
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abolish the necessity of improving the breeds of cattle (and Kautsky, of course, did not think of saying anything so absurd); but the more technique develops, the more susceptible the breeds of cattle and plants[*] become, the more the present capitalist social organisation suffers from lack of social control and from the degraded state of the peasants and workers.

    The last "difficulty" confronting commercial agriculture that Kautsky mentions is the "depopulation of the countryside," the absorption by the towns of the best, the most energetic and most intelligent labour forces. Mr. Bulgakov is of the opinion that in its general form this proposition "is at all events incorrect," that "the present development of the urban at the expense of the rural population in no sense expresses a law of development of capitalist agriculture," but the migration of the agricultural population of industrial, exporting countries overseas, to the colonies. I think that Mr. Bulgakov is mistaken. The growth of the urban (more generally: industrial) population at the expense of the rural population is not only a present-day phenomenon but a general phenomenon which expresses precisely the law of capitalism. The theoretical grounds of this law are, as I have pointed out elsewhere,** first, that the growth of social division of labour wrests from primitive agriculture an increasing number of branches of industry,*** and,

secondly, that the variable capital required to work a given plot of land, on the whole, diminishes (cf. Das Kapital, III, 2, S. 177; Russian translation, p. 526,[56] which I quote in my book, The Development of Capitalism, pp. 4 and 444[*]). We have indicated above that in certain cases and certain periods we observed an increase in the variable capital required for the cultivation of a given plot of land; hut this does not affect the correctness of the general law. Kautsky of course, would not think of denying that not in every case does the relative diminution of the agricultural population become absolute diminution; that the degree of this absolute diminution is also determined by the growth of capitalist colonies. In relevant places in his book Kautsky very clearly points to this growth of capitalist colonies which flood Europe with cheap grain. ("The flight from the land of the rural population (Landflucht ) which leads to the depopulation of the European countryside, constantly brings, not only to the towns, but also to the colonies, fresh crowds of robust country dwellers. . ." S. 242.) The phenomenon of industry depriving agriculture of its strongest, most energetic, and most intelligent workers is general, not only in industrial, but also in agricultural, countries; not only in Western Europe, but also in America and in Russia. The contradiction between the culture of the towns and the barbarism of the countryside which capitalism creates inevitably leads to this. The "argument" that "a decrease in the agricultural population side by side with a general increase in the population is inconceivable without the importation of large quantities of grain" is, in Mr. Bulgakov's opinion, "obvious." But in my opinion this argument is not only not obvious, but wrong. A decrease in the agricultural population side by side with a general increase in the population (growth of the towns) is quite conceivable without grain imports (the productivity of agricultural labour increases and this enables a smaller number of workers to produce as much as and even more than was formerly produced). A general increase in the population parallel with a

bined with trends that increase the difficulties of commercial agriculture. What is there unintelligible in this? Capitalism in both agriculture and industry gives an enormous impetus to the development of productive forces; but it is precisely this development which, the more it proceeds, causes the contradictions of capitalism to become more acute and creates new "difficulties" for the system. Kautsky develops one of the fundamental ideas of Marx, who categorically emphasised the progressive historical role of agricultural capitalism (the rationalisation of agriculture, the separation of the land from the farmer, the emancipation of the rural population from the relations of master and slave, etc.), at the same time no less categorically pointing to the impoverishment and oppression of the direct producers and to the fact that capitalism is incompatible with the requirements of rational agriculture. It is very strange indeed that Mr. Bulgakov, who admits that his "general social-philosophic world outlook is. the same as Kautsky's,"[*] should fail to note that Kautsky here develops a fundamental idea of Marx. The readers of Nachalo must inevitably remain in perplexity over Mr. Bulgakov's attitude towards these fundamental ideas and wonder how, in view of the identity of their general world outlook, he can say: "De principiis non est disputandum "!!?** We permit ourselves not to believe Mr. Bulgakov's statement; we consider that an argument between him and other Marxists is possible precisely because of the community of these "principia." In saying that capitalism rationalises. agriculture and that industry provides machinery for agriculture, etc., Mr. Bulgakov merely repeats one of these "principia." Only he should not have said "quite the opposite" in this connection. Readers might think that Kautsky holds a different opinion, whereas he very emphatically and definitely develops these fundamental ideas of Marx in his book. He says: "It is precisely industry which has created the technical and scientific conditions for new, rational agriculture. It is precisely industry which has revolutionised agriculture by means of machines

the colonies (America, Argentina, and others), insofar as they remain colonies, we see free land occupied by new settlers, either entirely gratis or for an insignificant price; more over, the virginal fertility of this land reduces production costs to a minimum. Up to now, capitalist agriculture in Europe has quite naturally transferred the burden of excessively high rents to the consumer (in the form of high grain prices); now, however, the burden of these rents falls upon the farmers and the landowners themselves and ruins them.[*] Thus, the agrarian crisis has upset, and continues to upset, the prosperity which capitalist landed property and capitalist agriculture formerly enjoyed. Hitherto capitalist landed property has exacted an ever-increasing tribute from social development; and it fixed the level of this tribute in the price of land. Now it has to forego this tribute.** Capitalist agriculture has now been reduced to the state of instability that is characteristic of capitalist industry and is compelled to adapt itself to new market conditions. Like every crisis, the agrarian crisis is ruining a large number of farmers, is bringing about important changes in the established property relations, and in some places is leading to technical retrogression, to the revival of medieval relations and forms of economy. Taken as a whole, however, it is accelerating social evolution, ejecting patriarchal stagnation from its last refuge, and making necessary the further specialisation of agriculture (a principal factor of agricultural progress in capitalist society), the further application of machinery, etc. On the whole, as Kautsky shows by data

 
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for several countries, in Chapter IV of his book, even in Western Europe, instead of the stagnation in agriculture in the period 1880-90, we see technical progress. We say even in Western Europe, because in America, for example, this progress is still more marked.

    In short, there are no grounds for regarding the agrarian crisis as an obstacle to capitalism and capitalist development.

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  [49] Lenin's study "Capitalism in Agriculture (Kautsky's Book and Mr. Bulgakov's Article )," was intended for publication in Nachalo but upon the closing-down of that magazine it was published in Zhizn.
    Zhizn (Life) -- a literary, scientific, and political magazine published in St. Petersburg from 1897 to 1901; in 1902 it was published abroad. From 1899 onwards the magazine was in the hands of the "legal Marxists."    [p. 105]

  ^[50] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 603.    [p. 116]

  ^[51] Russkoye Bogatstvo (Russian Wealth ) -- a monthly magazine published in St. Petersburg from 1876 to the middle of 1918. In the early 1890s it became the organ of the liberal Narodniks and was edited by S. N. Krivenko and N. K. Mikhailovsky. The magazine advocated conciliation of the tsarist government and waged a bitter struggle against Marxism and the Russian Marxists. In 1906 it became the organ of the semi-Cadet "Popular Socialist" Party.    [p. 121]

  ^[52] The reference is to Marx's article criticising an essay by E. de Girardin, "Le Socialisme et l'impôt" ("Socialism and Taxes").
    The article was published in issue No. 4 of the journal Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Politisch-ökonomische Revue (New Rhenish Gazette, Political-Economic Review), issued in May 1850. The journal was published by Marx in Hamburg in 1850 and was a continuation of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung.    [p. 136]

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  ^[53] This is a reference to The Influence of Harvests and Grain Prices on Certain Aspects of Russian Economy, in two volumes, compiled by a group of authors of the liberal-bourgeois and Narodnik trend and edited by Professor A. I. Chuprov and A. S. Posnikov (1897). Lenin read this book when he was in exile and criticised it in his The Development of Capitalism in Russia.    [p. 139]

  ^[54] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 600-793.    [p. 139]

  ^[55] Fideicommissum -- entailment of an estate. Under this system a landed estate passed to the eldest son of the testator and could not be mortgaged, divided, or sold in parte or in toto.
    Anerbenrecht -- a peasant variant of fideicommissum which gave the landed proprietor a somewhat greater right in respect of the inherited estate but which forbade the division of the inheritance.    [p. 146]

  ^[56] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 622.    [p. 152]