Cover of the second edition of Lenin’s The Development of Capitalism in Russia, 1908, autographed by the author.
This book was written in the period preceding the Russian Revolution, during the slight lull that set in after the outbreak of the big strikes of 1895-1896. At that time the working-class movement withdrew, as it were, into itself, spreading in breadth and depth and paving the way for the beginning in 1901 of the demonstration movement.
The analysis of the social-economic system and, consequently, of the class structure of Russia given in this work on the basis of an economic investigation and critical analysis of statistics, has now been confirmed by the open political action of all classes in the course of the revolution. The leading role of the proletariat has been fully revealed. It has also been revealed that the strength of the proletariat in the process of history is immeasurably greater than its share of the total population. The economic basis of the one phenomenon and the other is demonstrated in the present work.
Further, the revolution is now increasingly revealing the dual position and dual role of the peasantry. On the one hand, the tremendous survivals of corvée economy and all kinds of survivals of serfdom, with the unprecedented impoverishment and ruin of the peasant poor, fully explain the deep sources of the revolutionary peasant movement, the deep roots of the revolutionary character of the peasantry as a mass. On the other hand, in the course of the revolution, the character of the various political parties, and the numerous ideological-political trends reveal the inherently contradictory class structure of this mass, its petty-bourgeois character, the antagonism between the proprietor and the proletarian trends within it. The vacillation of the impoverished small master between the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie and the revolutionary proletariat is as inevitable as the phenomenon existent in every capitalist society that an insignificant minority of small producers wax rich, “get on in the world,” turn into bourgeois, while the overwhelming majority are either utterly ruined and become wage-workers or paupers, or eternally eke out an almost proletarian existence. The economic basis of both these trends among the peasantry is demonstrated in the present essay.
With this economic basis the revolution in Russia is, of course, inevitably a bourgeois revolution. This Marxist proposition is absolutely irrefutable. It must never be forgotten. It must always be applied to all the economic and political problems of the Russian Revolution.
But one must know how to apply it. A concrete analysis of the status and the interests of the different classes must serve as a means of defining the precise significance of this truth when applied to this or that problem. The opposite mode of reasoning frequently met with among the Right-wing Social-Democrats headed by Plekhanov, i.e., the endeavour to look for answers to concrete questions in the simple logical development of the general truth about the basic character of our revolution, is a vulgarisation of Marxism and downright mockery of dialectical materialism. Of such people, who from the general truth of the character of this revolution deduce, for example, the leading role of the “bourgeoisie” in the revolution, or the need for socialists to support the liberals, Marx would very likely have repeated the words once quoted by him from Heine: “I have sown dragon’s teeth and harvested fleas.”[3]
With the present economic basis of the Russian Revolution, two main lines of its development and outcome are objectively possible:
Either the old landlord economy, bound as it is by thousands of threads to serfdom, is retained and turns slowly into purely capitalist, “Junker” economy. The basis of the final transition from labour-service to capitalism is the internal metamorphosis of feudalist landlord economy. The entire agrarian system of the state becomes capitalist and for a long time retains feudalist features. Or the old landlord economy is broken up by revolution, which destroys all the relics of serfdom, and large landownership in the first place. The basis of the final transition from labour-service to capitalism is the free development of small peasant farming, which has received a tremendous impetus as a result of the expropriation of the landlords’ estates in the interests of the peasantry. The entire agrarian system becomes capitalist, for the more completely the vestiges of serfdom are destroyed the more rapidly does the differentiation of the peasantry proceed. In other words: either—the retention, in the main, of landed proprietorship and of the chief supports of the old “superstructure”; hence, the predominant role of the liberal-monarchist bourgeois and landlord, the rapid transition of the well-to-do peasantry to their side, the degradation of the peasant masses, not only expropriated on a vast scale but enslaved, in addition, by one or other kind of Cadet[4]–proposed land-redemption payments, and downtrodden and dulled by the dominance of reaction; the executors of such a bourgeois revolution will be politicians of a type approximating to the Octobrists.[5] Or—the destruction of landlordism and of all the chief supports of the corresponding old “superstructure”; the predominant role of the proletariat and the peasant masses, with the neutralising of the unstable or counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie; the speediest and freest development of the productive forces on a capitalist basis, under the best circumstances for the worker and peasant masses at all conceivable under commodity production;—hence, the establishment of the most favourable conditions for the further accomplishment by the working class of its real and fundamental task of socialist reorganisation. Of course, infinitely diverse combinations of elements of this or that type of capitalist evolution are possible, and only hopeless pedants could set about solving the peculiar and complex problems arising merely by quoting this or that opinion of Marx about a different historical epoch.
The essay here presented to the reader is devoted to an analysis of the pre-revolutionary economy of Russia. In a revolutionary epoch, life in a country proceeds with such speed and impetuosity that it is impossible to define the major results of economic evolution in the heat of political struggle. Messrs. the Stolypins[6], on the one hand, and the liberals on the other (and not only Cadets  la Struve, but all the Cadets in general), are working systematically, doggedly and consistently to accomplish the revolution according to the first pattern. The coup d’état of June 3, 1907, that we have recently witnessed, marks a victory for the counter-revolution,[7] which is striving to ensure the complete predominance of the landlords in the so-called representative body of the Russian people. But how far this “victory” is a lasting one is another matter; the struggle for the second outcome of the revolution goes on. Not only the proletariat, but also the broad masses of the peasantry are striving, more or less resolutely, more or less consistently, and more or less consciously, for this outcome. However much the counter-revolution tries to strangle the direct mass struggle by outright violence, however much the Cadets try to strangle it by means of their despicable and hypocritical counter revolutionary ideas, that struggle, in spite of all, is breaking out, now here and now there, and laying its impress upon the policy of the “labour,” Narodnik parties, although the top circles of petty-bourgeois politicians are undoubtedly contaminated (especially the “Popular Socialists” and Trudoviks[8]) with the Cadet spirit of treachery, Molchalinism[9] and smugness characteristic of moderate and punctilious philistines or bureaucrats.
How this struggle will end, what the final result of the first onset of the Russian Revolution will be—it is at present impossible to say. Hence, the time has not yet come (moreover, the immediate Party duties of a participant in the working-class movement leave no leisure) for a thorough revision of this essay.[1] The second edition cannot overstep the bounds of a characterisation of Russian economy before the revolution. The author had to confine himself to going over and correcting the text and also to making the most essential additions from the latest statistical material. These are recent horse-census data, harvest statistics, returns of the 1897 census of the population of Russia, new data from factory statistics, etc.
The Author
July 1907
Cover of the German edition (1894) of K. Marx’s Capital, Vol. III, Part 1, used by Lenin.
[1] Such a revision will possibly require a sequel to the present work. In that case the first volume would have to be confined to an analysis of Russian economy before the revolution, and the second volume devoted to a study of the results and achievements of the revolution.—Lenin
[2] The second edition of The Development of Capitalism in Russia was published in 1908. An announcement of its publication appeared in March 1908, in Knizhnaya Letopis (Book Chronicle), Issue No. 10.
For the second edition Lenin went over the text, eliminated printer’s errors made numerous additions and wrote a new preface, dated July 1907. In the second edition of The Development of Capitalism in Russia Lenin replaced the expressions “disciples,” and “supporters of the working people,” which he had employed so as to pass the censorship, by the forthright terms Marxists, Socialists. He also replaced allusions to “the new theory” by references to Marx and Marxism.
Lenin made considerable additions, employing the very latest statistics. He introduced into the second chapter a new section (XI), devoted to an analysis of the results of the Army-Horse Censuses of 1896-1900. He cited new facts in confirmation of his previous conclusions about the development of capitalism in Russia, in particular new factory statistical material; gave an analysis of the results of the general population census of 1897, which provided a fuller picture of the class structure of Russia (see Chapter VII, §V, pp. 501-507, Addendum to second edition).
In the second edition the results of the struggle against the so-called “Legal Marxists” on the basic problems dealt with in The Development of Capitalism in Russia are also summed up. The experience of the first Russian Revolution of 1905-1907 fully confirmed Lenin’s description of the “Legal Marxists” as bourgeois liberals hiding behind the cloak of Marxism and attempting to use the working-class movement in the interests of the bourgeoisie.
He introduced 24 new footnotes into the second edition (pp. 27, 45, 57, 157, 159, 163, 183, 206, 221, 274, 281, 389, 449, 451, 467, 499, 509, 523, 526, 533, 535, 550, 552, 575), 2 new sections (pp. 146-148 and 501-507), a new table (p. 512), wrote 8 paragraphs of new text and 3 big additions to previous paragraphs (pp. 300-303, 223-224, 225, 293-294), and made about 75 additions and alterations.
Lenin did not cease working on his Development of Capitalism in Russia after the appearance of the second edition in 1908. This is shown by the additions, made by him in 1910 or 1911 to page 405 of a copy of the second edition, dealing with the division of factories and works into groups according to the number of workers employed in 1908 (see illustration on page 513 of the present volume).
In the preface to the second edition Lenin speaks of the possibility of his revising the work in the future and indicates that in that case it would have to be divided into two volumes:—volume 1 to be devoted to an analysis of Russian economy before the Revolution and volume 2 to a study of the results and achievements of the Revolution.
A number of Lenin’s other works, including The Agrarian Programme of Social-Democracy in the First Russian Revolution, 1905-1907, which was written at the end of 1907, were devoted to a study of the results and achievements of the 1905-1907 Revolution.
[3] Marx cites Heine’s expression relating to “yes-men”: “Ich habe Drachenzähne gesät und Flöhe geerntet” (I have sown dragon’s teeth and harvested fleas) in his book Karl Grün, “Die sozial Bewegung in Frankreich und Belgien” (Darmstadt, 1845) oder Die Geschichtschreibung des wahren Sozialismus [Karl Grün, “The Social Movement in France and Belgium” (Darmstadt, 1845), or The Historiography of True Socialism] (Marx-Engles/Gesamtausgabe, Erste Abteil, B. 5, S. 495).
[4] Cadets—members of the Constitutional-Democratic Party, the chief party of the Russian imperialist bourgeoisie. The Cadet Party was founded in October 1905, its membership including representatives of the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie, Zemstvo functionaries and bourgeois intellectuals who used hypocritical phrases about “democracy” to hide their real views and to win over the peasantry. The Cadet agrarian programme envisaged the possibility of part of the landed estates being turned over to the peasants on the basis of redemption payments, but at an exorbitant price. The Cadets favoured the retention of the monarchy and tried to persuade the tsar and the feudal landlords to share power with them; their main task, however, they considered to be the fight against the revolutionary movement. During the First World War the Cadets actively supported the tsarist government’s foreign policy of conquest. During the bourgeois-democratic revolution of February 1917 they tried to save the monarchy. The Cadets in the bourgeois Provisional Government pursued a counter-revolutionary policy, opposed to the interests of the people but favourable to the U.S., British and French imperialists. Following the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution the Cadets became irreconcilable enemies of Soviet power and participated in all the armed counterrevolutionary actions and campaigns of the interventionists. When the interventionists and whiteguards were defeated, the Cadets fled abroad, where they continued their anti-Soviet counter-revolutionary activity.
[5] The Party of Octobrists (or Union of October Seventeenth) represented the interests of the big industrial capitalists and of the big landlords who farmed their land on capitalist lines. The Octobrists claimed to stand by the tsar’s Manifesto of October 17, 1905, in which, scared by the revolution, he promised the people civil rights; actually, however, the Octobrists had no intention of limiting the powers of tsarism, and fully supported both the home and the foreign policies of the tsar’s government.
[6] Stolypin, Pyotr Arkadyevich—Chairman of the Council of Ministers, 1906-1911, an extreme reactionary. The suppression of the Revolution of 1905-1907 and the period of severe political reaction that followed are connected with his name.
In an effort to provide the tsarist autocracy with a firm support in the countryside in the shape of the kulaks, Stolypin secured the adoption of a new agrarian law. By an edict of November 9, 1906, each peasant became entitled to withdraw from the village community and to have his allotment made his private property, with the ensuing right to sell it, mortgage it, etc., which until then had been forbidden. It was made the duty of the community to supply the peasant leaving its ranks with land in a single tract. The kulaks made use of this legislation to buy up the lands of the economically weak peasants for next to nothing. The laws of June 14, 1910, and of May 29, 1911, provided for a compulsory arrangement of land distribution that favoured the kulaks.
[7] June 3, 1907, was the day on which the Second State Duma was disbanded and a new law was promulgated dealing with the elections to the Third State Duma, that ensured a majority for the landlords and capitalists in the Duma. The tsar’s government treacherously violated the Manifesto of October 17, 1905, did away with constitutional rights and had the Social-Democratic group in the Second Duma arraigned and sentenced to hard labour. The so-called coup d’état of June 3 marked a temporary victory of the counter-revolution.
[8] Popular Socialists—members of the Popular Socialist Party, which separated from the right wing of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (S.R.s) in 1906. They expressed the interests of the kulaks and stood for the partial nationalisation of landed estates on a redemption basis and the distribution of the land among the peasants according to the so-called labour norm. They favoured a bloc with the Cadets. Lenin called them “Social-Cadets,” “petty-bourgeois opportunists,” and “S.R. Mensheviks,” who vacillated between the Cadets and the S.R.s, and he emphasised that this party “differs very little from the Cadets, since it has withdrawn from its programme both the Republic and the demand for all the land.” The leading figures in the party were A. V. Peshekhonov, N. F. Annensky, V. A. Myakotin, and others. Following the February (1917) bourgeois-democratic revolution the Popular Socialist Party participated in the bourgeois Provisional Government. Following the October Socialist Revolution the Popular Socialists participated in counter-revolutionary plots and armed actions against the Soviets. The party went out of existence during the Civil War.
Trudoviks (from trud, “labour”)—a group of petty-bourgeois democrats in the Russian State Dumas, consisting of peasants and also of Narodnik-minded intellectuals. The Trudovik Group was constituted in April 1906 from the peasant deputies to the First State Duma.
The demands of the Trudoviks included the abolition of all restrictions based on the social estates and on nationality, the democratisation of the Zemstvos and urban local government bodies, and universal suffrage in the elections to the State Duma. The Trudovik agrarian programme proceeded from the Narodnik principle of the equalitarian use of the land: the formation of a national fund made up of lands belonging to the state, the royal family, the tsar himself and the monasteries, and also of private estates where they exceeded the established labour norm, with provision for compensation in the case of confiscated private estates. In the State Duma the Trudoviks vacillated between the Cadets and the Bolsheviks, their vacillations being due to the very class nature of the peasants who are petty proprietors. In September 1906 Lenin pointed out that the Trudovik peasant “is not above trying to strike a deal with the monarchy and settling down on his patch of land within the framework of the bourgeois system. At the present time, however, his energies are mainly devoted to the struggle against the landlords for the land, to the struggle against the feudal state for democracy.” (See present edition, Vol. 11, An Attempt at a Classification of the Political Parties of Russia.) Since the Trudoviks represented the peasant masses, the tactics of the Bolsheviks in the Duma were to arrive at agreements with them on individual issues with a view to waging a joint struggle against the Cadets and the tsarist autocracy.
In 1917 the “Trudovik Group” merged with the “Popular Socialist” Party.
[9] Molchalinism–a synonym for sycophancy, toadyism. Derived from the name Molchalin, a character in Griboyedov’s play Wit Works Woe.
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