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    ". . . To argue . . . that dogmatic Marxism has been jolted from its positions in the sphere of agrarian questions would be like forcing an open door. . . ." So spoke Russkoye Bogatstvo[58] last year through the mouth of Victor Chernov (1900, No. 8, p. 204). What a peculiar quality this "dogmatic Marxism" possesses! For many years now scientists and very learned people in Europe have been gravely declaring (and newspaper scribes and journalists have been repeating it over and over again) that Marxism has been jolted from its positions by "criticism", and yet every new critic starts from the beginning, all over again, to bombard these allegedly destroyed positions. Mr. Chernov, for example, in the periodical Russkoye Bogatstvo, as well as in the collection, At the Clorious Post, in a two-hundred-and-forty page-long "discussion" of Hertz' work[*] with his reader, "forces an open door". Hertz' work, which has been given such a lengthy exposition, is itself a review of Kautsky's book, and has been translated into Russian. Mr. Bulgakov, in keeping with his promise to refute this very same Kautsky, has published a whole two-volume study. Now, surely, no one will ever be able to find the remnants of "dogmatic Marxism", which lies crushed to death beneath this mountain of critical printed matter.

    Let us first of all examine the general theoretical physiognomy of the Critics. Mr. Bulgakov published an article in the periodical Nachalo[59] criticising Kautsky's Agrarian

Question in which he at once exposed his stock of "critical" methods. He charged down on Kautsky with the dash and abandon of a veritable cavalier and "scattered" him to the winds. He put into Kautsky's mouth what he had not said, he accused him of ignoring the very circumstances and arguments which he, Kautsky, had expounded with precision, and he presented to the reader as his own the critical conclusions drawn by Kautsky. With the air of an expert, Mr. Bulgakov accused Kautsky of confounding technology with economics, and in doing so betrayed, not only incredible confusion, but also a disinclination to read to the end the page he quotes from his opponent's book. Needless to say, this article from the pen of the future professor is replete with outworn gibes against socialists, against the "theory of collapse", against utopianism, against belief in miracles, etc.[*] Now, in his doctoral thesis (Capitalism and Agriculture, St. Petersburg, 1900), Mr. Bulgakov settled all his accounts with Marxism and brought his "critical" evolution to its logical conclusion.
    Mr. Bulgakov makes the "law of diminishing returns" the corner-stone of his "theory of agrarian development". We are treated to quotations from the works of the classics who established this "law" (according to which each additional investment of labour and capital in land produces, not a corresponding, but a diminishing quantity of products). We are given a list of the English economists who recognise this law. We are assured that it "has universal significance", that it is "an evident and absolutely undeniable truth", "which needs only to be stated clearly", etc., etc. The more emphatically Mr. Bulgakov expresses himself, the clearer it becomes that he is retreating to bourgeois political economy, which obscures social relationships by imaginary "eternal laws". Indeed, what does the "evidentness" of the notorious "law of diminishing returns" amount to? If each successive investment of labour and capital in land produced, not a diminishing, but an equal quantity of products,

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there would be no sense in extending the area of land under cultivation; additional quantities of grain would be produced on the same plot of land, however small, and "it would be possible to carry on the agriculture of the whole globe upon one dessiatine of land". This is the customary (and the only) argument advanced in favour of this "universal" law. A little thought, however, will prove to anyone that this argument is an empty abstraction, which ignores the most important thing -- the level of technological development, the state of the productive forces. Indeed, the very term "additional (or successive) investments of labour and capital" presupposes changes in the methods of production, reforms in technique. In order to increase the quantity of capital invested in land to any considerable degree, new machinery must be invented, and there must be new methods of land cultivation, stock breeding, transport of products, and so on and so forth. Of course, "additional investments of labour and capital" may and do take place on a relatively small scale even when the technique of production has remained at the same level. In such cases, the "law of diminishing returns" is applicable to a certain degree, i.e., in the sense that the unchanged technique of production imposes relatively very narrow limits upon the investment of additional labour and capital. Consequently, instead of a universal law, we have an extremely relative "law" -- so relative, indeed, that it cannot be called a "law", or even a cardinal specific feature of agriculture. Let us take for granted: the three-field system, cultivation of traditional grain crops, maintenance of cattle to obtain manure, lack of improved grassland and improved implements. Obviously, assuming that these conditions remain unchanged, the possibilities of investing additional labour and capital in the land are extremely limited. But even within the narrow limits in which some investment of additional labour and capital is still possible, a decrease in the productivity of each such additional investment will not always and not necessarily be observed. Let us take industry -- flour-milling or ironworking, for example, in the period preceding world trade and the invention of the steam-engine. At that level of technical development, the limits to which additional labour and capital could be invested in a blacksmith's forge,

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or in a wind-or water-mill, were very restricted; the inevitable thing that happened was that small smithies and flour-mills continued to multiply and increase in number until the radical changes in the methods of production created a basis for new forms of industry.
    Thus, the "law of diminishing returns" does not at all apply to cases in which technology is progressing and methods of production are changing; it has only an extremely relative and restricted application to conditions in which technology remains unchanged. That is why neither Marx nor the Marxists speak of this "law", and only representatives of bourgeois science like Brentano make so much noise about it, since they are unable to abandon the prejudices of the old political economy, with its abstract, eternal, and natural laws.
    Mr. Bulgakov defends the "universal law" by arguments deserving only of ridicule.
    "What was formerly a free gift of Nature must now be produced by man: the wind and the rain broke up the soil, which was full of nutritive elements, and only a little effort on the part of man was required to produce what was needed. In the course of time, a larger and larger share of the productive work fell to man. As is the case everywhere, artificial processes more and more take the place of natural processes. But while in industry this expresses man's victory over Nature, in agriculture it indicates the increasing difficulties of an existence for which Nature is diminishing her gifts.
    "In the present case it is immaterial whether the increasing difficulty of producing food is expressed in an increase in human labour or in an increase of its products, such as instruments of production, fertilisers [Mr. Bulgakov wishes to say that it is immaterial whether the increasing difficulty of producing food finds expression in an increased expenditure of human labour or in an increase in the products of human labour]; what is important is that food becomes more and more costly to man. This substitution of human labour for the forces of Nature and of artificial factors of production for natural factors is the law of diminishing returns" (16).
    Evidently, Mr. Bulgakov is envious of the laurels of

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Messrs. Struve and Tugan-Baranovsky, who arrived at the conclusion that it is not man who works with the help of machines, but machines that work with the help of man. And like those critics, he sinks to the level of vulgar political economy by talking about the forces of Nature being superseded by human labour, and so forth. Speaking generally, it is as impossible for human labour to supersede the forces of Nature as it is to substitute pounds for yards. Both in industry and in agriculture, man can only utilise the forces of Nature when he has learned how they operate, and he can facilitate this utilisation by means of machinery, tools, etc. That primitive man obtained all he required as a free gift of Nature is a silly fable for which Mr. Bulgakov would be howled down even by first-term students. Our age was not preceded by a Golden Age; and primitive man was absolutely crushed by the burden of existence, by the difficulties of the struggle against Nature. The introduction of machinery and of improved methods of production immeasurably eased man's struggle against Nature generally, and the production of food in particular. It has not become more difficult to produce food; it has become more difficult for the workers to obtain it because capitalist development has inflated ground-rent and the price of land, has concentrated agriculture in the hands of large and small capitalists, and, to a still larger extent, has concentrated machinery, implements, and money, without which successful production is impossible. To explain the aggravation of the workers' condition by the argument that Nature is reducing her gifts can mean only that one has become a bourgeois apologist.
    "In accepting this law," continues Mr. Bulgakov, "we do not in the least assert that there is a continuously increasing difficulty in food production; nor do we deny progress in agriculture. To assert the first, and to deny the second, would be contrary to obvious facts. This difficulty does not grow uninterruptedly, of course; development proceeds in zigzag fashion. Discoveries in agronomics and technical improvements convert barren into fertile land and temporarily remove the tendency indicated by the law of diminishing returns" (ibid.).
    Profound, is it not?

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    Technical progress is a "temporary" tendency, while the law of diminishing returns, i.e., diminishing productivity (and that not always) of additional investments of capital on the basis of an unchanging technique, "has universal significance"! This is equal to saying that the stopping of trains at stations represents the universal law of steam transport, while the motion of trains between stations is a temporary tendency paralysing the operation of the universal law of immobility.
    Finally, extensive data clearly refute the universality of the law of diminishing returns -- data on the agricultural as well as the non-agricultural population. Mr. Bulgakov himself admits that "if each country were restricted to its own natural resources, the procuring of food would call for an uninterrupted relative increase [note this!] in the quantity of labour and, consequently, in the agricultural population" (19). The diminution in the agricultural population of Western Europe, accordingly, is explained by the fact that the operation of the law of diminishing returns has been counteracted by the importation of grain.
    An excellent explanation, indeed! Our pundit has forgotten a detail, namely, that a relative diminution in the agricultural population is common to all capitalist countries, both agricultural and grain-importing. The agricultural population is relatively diminishing in America and in Russia. It has been diminishing in France since the end of the eighteenth century (see figures in the same work of Mr. Bulgakov, II, p. 168). Moreover, the relative diminution of the agricultural population sometimes becomes an absolute diminution, whereas the excess of grain imports over exports was still quite insignificant in the thirties and forties, and only after 1878 do we cease to find years in which grain exports exceed grain imports.* In Prussia there was a relative diminution in the agricultural population from 73.5 per cent in 1816 to 71.7 per cent in 1849, and to 67.5 per cent in 1871, whereas the importation of rye began only in the early sixties, and the importation of wheat in the early seventies (ibid., Part II, pp. 70 and 88). Finally, if

we take the European grain-importing countries, e.g., France and Germany during the last decade, we shall find that there has been undoubted progress in agriculture side by side with an absolute diminution in the number of workers engaged in farming. In France this number dropped from 6,913,504 in 1882 to 6,663,135 in 1892 (Statistique agricole, Part II, pp. 248-51), and in Germany from 8,064,000 in 1882 to 8,045,000 in 1895.[*] Thus, it may be said that the entire history of the nineteenth century, by a multitude of data on countries of the most varied character, proves irrefutably that the "universal" law of diminishing returns is absolutely paralysed by the "temporary" tendency of technological advance which enables a relatively (and sometimes absolutely) diminishing rural population to produce an increasing quantity of agricultural products for an increasing mass of population.
    Incidentally, this mass of statistical data also refutes the two following main points of Mr. Bulgakov's "theory": first, his assertion that the theory that constant capital (implements and materials of production) grows more rapidly than variable capital (labour-power) "is absolutely inapplicable to agriculture". With an air of importance Mr. Bulgakov declares that this theory is wrong, and in proof of his opinion refers to: (a) "Professor A. Skvortsov" (celebrated mostly for having ascribed Marx's theory of the average

rate of profit to ill-intentioned propaganda); and (b) the fact that under intensive farming the number of workers employed per unit of land increases. This is an example of the deliberate refusal to understand Marx which fashionable Critics constantly display. Think of it: the theory of the more rapid growth of constant capital as compared with variable capital is refuted by the increase of variable capital per unit of land! And Mr. Bulgakov fails to notice that the very statistics he himself offers in such abundance confirm Marx's theory. In German agriculture as a whole the number of workers employed diminished from 8,064,000 in 1882 to 8,045,000 in 1895 (and if the number of persons engaged in agriculture as a subsidiary occupation is added, it increased from 11,208,000 to 11,623,000, i.e., only by 3.7 per cent). In the same period, livestock increased from 23,000,000 to 25,400,000 (all livestock expressed in terms of cattle), i.e., by more than 10 per cent; the number of cases in which the five most important agricultural machines were employed increased from 458,000 to 922,000, i.e., more than doubled; the quantity of fertilisers imported increased from 636,000 tons (1883) to 1,961,000 tons (1892), and the quantity of potassium salts from 304,000 double centners to 2,400,000.[*] Is it not clear from this that constant capital has increased in relation to variable capital? This, quite apart from the fact that these summary figures to a great extent conceal the progress of large-scale production. We shall deal with this point later.
    Secondly, the progress of agriculture simultaneously with a diminution, or a negligible absolute increase, in the agricultural population completely refutes Mr. Bulgakov's absurd attempt to revive Malthusianism. The first of the Russian "ex-Marxists" to make this attempt was probably Mr. Struve, in his Critical Remarks; but he, as always, never went beyond hesitant, half-expressed, and ambiguous remarks, which he did not carry to their logical conclusion or round off into a complete system of views. Mr. Bulgakov, however, is bolder and more consistent; he unhesitatingly converts the "law of diminishing returns" into "one of the

understood by our learned professor). After analysing these tables, Marx draws the conclusion: "This takes care of the first false assumption regarding differential rent -- still found among West, Malthus, and Ricardo -- namely, that it necessarily presupposes a movement toward worse and worse soil, or an ever-decreasing fertility of the soil. It can be formed, as we have seen, with a movement toward better and better soil; it can be formed when a better soil takes the lowest position that was formerly occupied by the worst soil; it can be connected with a progressive improvement in agriculture. The precondition is merely the in equality of different kinds of soil." (Marx does not speak here of the unequal productivity of successive investments of capital in land, because this gives rise to the second form of differential rent; in this chapter he speaks only of the first form of differential rent.) "So far as the increase in productivity is concerned, it [differential rent --Ed.] assumes that the increase in absolute fertility of the total area does not eliminate this inequality, but either increases it, leaves it unchanged, or merely reduces it" (Das Kapital, III, 2, S. 199).[61] Mr. Bulgakov failed to see the radical difference between Marx's theory of differential rent and Ricardo's theory of rent. He preferred to rummage in Volume III of Capital for "a fragment which would rather suggest the idea that Marx was by no means opposed to the law of diminishing returns" (p. 13, footnote). We apologise to the reader for having to devote so much space to a passage that is quite immaterial to the question that concerns us and Mr. Bulgakov. But what can one do when the heroes of modern criticism (who have the insolence to charge orthodox Marxists with resorting to rabulous disputation) distort the absolutely clear meaning of a doctrine to which they are opposed by quoting passages out of context and in faulty translations? Mr. Bulgakov quotes the passage that he found as follows: "From the standpoint of the capitalist mode of production, a relative increase in the price of (agricultural ) products always takes place, since [we ask the reader to pay particular attention to the words we have italicised] these products cannot be secured unless an expenditure is incurred, a payment made, which was not previously made." Marx goes on to say that elements of Nature entering as

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agents into production, costing nothing, represent a free gift of Nature's productive power of labour; but if for the production of an additional product it is necessary to work without the help of this natural power, a new capital outlay is required, which leads to an increase in the cost of production.
    Concerning this mode of "quoting" we have three remarks to make. First, Mr. Bulgakov himself introduced the word "since", which gives his tirade the definite sense of establishing some kind of "law". In the original (Das Kapital, III, 2, S. 277-78)[62] Marx does not say "since " but "when ". When something is paid for which formerly did not have to be paid for, there is a relative increase in the price of the product. Is that proposition anything like a recognition of the "law" of diminishing returns? Secondly, Mr. Bulgakov inserts in parentheses the word "agricultural". In the original text the word does not appear at all. In all probability, with the frivolousness characteristic of the Critics, Mr. Bulgakov decided that in this passage Marx could be speaking only of agricultural products, and therefore hastened to give his readers an "explanation" that is a complete misrepresentation. In point of fact, Marx in this passage speaks of products generally; in the original, the passage quoted by Mr. Bulgakov is preseded by the words: "But, in general, the following is to be noted." Freely bestowed natural forces may also enter into industrial production -- in the same section on rent Marx gives the example of a waterfall which for a certain factory takes the place of steam power -- and if it is necessary to manufacture an additional quantity of products without the aid of these freely bestowed natural forces, there will always be a relative increase in the price of the products. Thirdly, we must examine the context in which this passage occurs. Marx discusses in this chapter differential rent obtained from the worst cultivated soil, and he examines as always two absolutely equivalent, two absolutely equally possible cases: the first case -- increasing productivity of successive investments of capital (S. 274-76),[63] and the second case -- decreasing productivity of such investments (S. 276-78).[64] In regard to the second of the possible cases, Marx says: "Concerning decreasing productiveness of the soil with successive investments of

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capital, see Liebig. . . . But, in general, the following is to be noted" (our italics). There follows the passage "translated" by Mr. Bulgakov, stating that when what was formerly obtained gratis has now to be paid for, there is always a relative increase in the price of the product.
    We shall leave it to the reader to judge the scientific conscientiousness of the Critic who turned Marx's remark about one of the possible cases into a recognition of this case by Marx as some sort of general "law".
    And the following is the conclusion at which Mr. Bulgakov arrives concerning the passage he has discovered:
    "This passage, of course, is vague. . . ." Of course! By substituting one word for another, Mr. Bulgakov has rendered it utterly meaningless! ". . . but it cannot be understood otherwise than as an indirect or even direct recognition [listen well!] of the law of diminishing returns. I am unaware that Marx has expressed himself openly on the latter in any other place" (I, 14). As an ex-Marxist, Mr. Bulgakov is "unaware" that Marx openly declared the assumptions of West, Malthus, and Ricardo -- that differential rent presupposes a transition to worse land or diminishing returns -- to be utterly false.[*] He is "unaware" that in the course of his voluminous analysis of rent Marx points out scores of times that he regards diminishing and increasing productivity of additional investments of capital as equally possible cases!

    Mr. Bu]gakov has completely failed to understand Marx's theory of rent. He is convinced that he has shattered this theory by the two following arguments: (1) According to Marx, agricultural capital enters into the equalisation of

the rate of profit, so that rent is created by a surplus profit that exceeds the average rate of profit. Mr. Bulgakov considers this to be false because the monopoly of land ownership eliminates free competition, which is necessary for the process of equalising the rate of profit. Agricultural capital does not enter into the process of equalising the rate of profit. (2) Absolute rent is merely a special case of differential rent, and it is erroneous to distinguish the one from the other. The distinction is based upon a completely arbitrary twofold interpretation of one and the same fact, namely, the monopoly ownership of one of the factors of production. Mr. Bulgakov is so convinced of the crushing effect of his arguments that he cannot refrain from pouring forth a stream of vehement words against Marx, such as petitio principii,[*] non-Marxism, logical fetishism, Marx's loss of capacity for mental flights, and so forth. And yet both those arguments are based on a rather crude error. The same one-sided vulgarisation of the subject which induced Mr. Bulgakov to raise one of the possible cases (diminishing productivity of additional investments of capital) to the level of the universal law of diminishing returns brings him in the present instance to employ the concept "monopoly" uncritically and to convert it into something universal. In doing-so, he confuses the results which accrue under the capitalist organisation of agriculture from the limitedness of land, on the one hand, and from private property in land, on the other. These are two different things, as we shall explain.
    "The condition, although not the source, of the appearance of ground-rent," writes Mr. Bulgakov, "is the same as that which gave rise to the possibility of the monopolisation of land -- the fact that the productivity of the land is limited, while man's growing need for it is limitless" (I, 90). Instead of "the productivity of the land is limited", he should have said, "land is limited ". (As we have shown, limitedness of the productivity of the land implies "limitedness" of the given technical level, the given state of the productive forces.) Under the capitalist system of society,

the limitedness of land does indeed presuppose monopolisation of land, but of land as an object of economy and not as an object of property rights. The assumption of the capitalist organisation of agriculture necessarily includes the assumption that all the land is occupied by separate private enterprises; but it in no way includes the assumption that the whole of the land is the private property of those farmers, or of other persons, or that it is, in general, private property. The monopoly of landownership based on property rights and the monopoly of the land economy are two entirely different things, not only logically, but historically. Logically, we can quite easily imagine a purely capitalist organisation of agriculture in which private property in land is entirely absent, in which the land is the property of the state, or of a village commune, etc. In actual practice we see that in all developed capitalist countries the whole of the land is occupied by separate, private enterprises; but these enterprises exploit not only their own lands, but also those rented from other landowners, from the state, or from village communes (e.g., in Russia, where, as is well known, the private enterprises established on peasant communal lands are principally capitalist peasant enterprises). Not without reason did Marx, at the very beginning of his analysis of rent, observe that the capitalist mode of production meets in its first stages (and subordinates to itself) the most varied forms of landed property: from clan property[65] and feudal landed property down to the property of the peasant commune.
    Thus, the limitedness of land necessarily presupposes only the monopolisation of the economy of the land (under the domination of capitalism). The question arises: what are the necessary consequences of this monopolisation in relation to the problem of rent? The limitedness of land results in the price of grain being determined by the conditions of production, not on the average land, but on the worst land under cultivation. This price of grain enables the farmer ( = the capitalist entrepreneur in agriculture) to cover his cost of production and gives him the average rate of profit on his capital. The farmer on the better land obtains an additional profit, which forms differential rent. The question as to whether private property in land exists

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has nothing whatever to do with the question of the formation of differential rent, which is inevitable in capitalist agriculture even on communal, state, or non-private lands. The only consequence of the limitedness of land under capitalism is the formation of differential rent arising out of the difference in the productivity of various investments of capital. Mr. Bulgakov sees a second consequence in the elimination of free competition in agriculture when he says that the absence of this free competition prevents agricultural capital from participating in the formation of average profit. Obviously, he confuses the question of land cultivation with the right of property in land. The only thing that logically follows from the limitedness of land (irrespective of private property in land) is that the land will be entirely occupied by capitalist farmers; but it by no means follows that free competition among those farmers will necessarily be restricted in any way. Limitedness of land is a general phenomenon which inevitably leaves its impress upon the whole of capitalist agriculture. The logical unsoundness of confusing these different things is clearly confirmed by history. We shall not speak of England, where the separation of landownership from land cultivation is obvious, where free competition among farmers is almost limitless, where capital obtained from commerce and industry was and is invested in agriculture on the widest scale. But in all other capitalist countries (notwithstanding the opinion of Mr. Bulgakov, who, following Mr. Struve, vainly strives to place "English" rent in a special category) the same process of the separation of landownership from land cultivation is actual, although in extremely varied forms (leases, mortgages). In failing to see this process (strongly emphasised by Marx), Mr. Bulgakov has failed to see the main thing. In all European countries, after the fall of serfdom, we see the decay of landownership based on social-estates, the mobilisation of landed property, the investment of merchant and industrial capital in agriculture, an increase in tenant farming and an increase in the mortgaging of land. In Russia also, despite the most pronounced survivals of serfdom, we see after the Reform*

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increased purchasing of land by peasants, commoners, and merchants, and increased leasing of privately-owned, state, and village communal lands, etc., etc. What do all these phenomena prove? They prove that free competition has entered agriculture -- despite the monopoly of landed property and regardless of the infinite variety of its forms. In all capitalist countries at the present time, every owner of capital can invest his money in agriculture (by purchasing or leasing land) as easily, or almost as easily, as he can invest in any branch of commerce or industry.
    In arguing against Marx's theory of differential rent, Mr. Bulgakov says that "all these differences [differences in the conditions of the production of agricultural products] are contradictory and may [our italics] mutually eliminate one another; as Rodbertus pointed out, distance may be counteracted by fertility, different degrees of fertility may be equalised by more intensive cultivation of the more fertile plots" (1, 81). A pity, indeed, that our strict scientist should have forgotten that Marx noted this fact and was able to appraise it not so one-sidedly. Marx wrote: ". . . It is evident that these two different causes of differential rent -- fertility and location [of plots of land] -- may work in opposite directions. A certain plot of land may be very favourably located and yet be very poor in fertility, and vice versa. This circumstance is important, for it explains how it is possible that bringing into cultivation the land of a certain country may equally well proceed from the better to the worse land as vice versa. Finally, it is clear that the progress of social production in general has, on the one hand, the effect of evening out differences arising from location [of plots of land] as a cause of ground-rent, by creating local markets and improving locations by establishing communication and transportation facilities; on the other hand, it increases the differences in individual locations of plots of land by separating agriculture from manufacturing and forming large centres of production, on the one hand, while relatively isolating agricultural districts [relative Vereinsamung des Landes] on the other" (Das Kapital, III, 2, S. 190).[66] Thus, while Mr. Bulgakov triumphantly repeats the long known references to the possibility of the

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mutual elimination of the differences, Marx presents the further problem of the transformation of this possibility into reality and shows that, simultaneously with equalising influences, there are to be observed differentiating influences. The final result of these mutually contradictory influences is, as everyone knows, that in all countries plots of land differ considerably both in fertility and in location. Mr. Bulgakov's objection merely reveals that he has not given any thought whatsoever to his observations.
    Continuing his argument, Mr. Bulgakov says that the conception of the last and least productive investment of labour and capital is "employed uncritically by both Ricardo and Marx. It is not difficult to see what an arbitrary element is introduced by this conception: let the amount of capital invested in land be equal to 10a, and let each successive a represent a diminishing productivity; the total product of the soil will be A. Obviously, the average productivity of each a will be equal to A/10; and if the total capital is regarded as a single whole, then the price will be determined precisely by this average productivity" (I, 82). Obviously, we say in reply to this, behind his florid phrases about the "limited productivity of the land" Mr. Bulgakov failed to see a trifle: the limitedness of land. This limitedness, irrespective of the form of property in land, creates a certain kind of monopoly, i.e., since all the land is occupied by farmers, and since there is a demand for the whole of the grain produced on the whole of the land, including the worst land and the remotest from the market, it is clear that the price of grain is determined by the price of production on the worst land (or the price of production connected with the last and least productive investment of capital). Mr. Bulgakov's "average productivity" is a futile exercise in arithmetic, for the limitedness of land prevents the actual formation of this average. For this "average productivity" to form and to determine the prices, every capitalist must, in general, not only be able to invest capital in agriculture (to the extent that free competition, as we have said, exists in agriculture), but he must be able at all times to establish new agricultural enterprises in addition to those already existing. If this were possible, there would be no difference whatever between agriculture and industry, and rent could

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not come into existence. But precisely because of the limitedness of land, this is not the case.
    To proceed. Until now we have pursued our argument without taking into account the question of property in land; we have seen that this method was necessary for logical considerations, as well as for the reason that historical data show that capitalist agriculture emerged and developed under various forms of landownership. Let us now introduce this new condition. Let us assume that all land is privately owned. How will this affect rent? Differential rent will be collected by the landowner from the farmer on the basis of his right of ownership. Since differential rent is the surplus profit over and above the normal, average profit on capital, and since free competition in the sense of the free investment of capital in agriculture exists (is being created by capitalist development), the landowner will always find a farmer who will be satisfied with the average profit and who will give him the surplus profit. Private property in land does not create differential rent; it merely transfers it from the hands of the farmer to the hands of the landowner. Is the influence of private landownership restricted to that? Can we assume that the landowner will permit the farmer to exploit gratis the worst and most inconveniently located land, which only produces the average profit on capital? Naturally, not. Landownership is a monopoly, and on the basis of this monopoly the landowner demands payment from the farmer for this land also. That payment will be absolute rent, which has no connection whatever with the difference in productivity of various investments of capital, and which has its genesis in the private ownership of land. In accusing Marx of making an arbitrary, twofold interpretation of the same monopoly, Mr. Bulgakov did not take the trouble to consider that we are actually dealing with a twofold monopoly. In the first place, we have the monopoly (capitalist) of land economy. This monopoly originates in the limitedness of land, and is therefore inevitable in any capitalist society. This monopoly leads to the determination of the price of grain by the conditions of production on the worst land; the surplus profit obtained by the investment of capital on better ]and, or by a more productive investment of capital, forms differential rent.

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This rent comes into being quite independently of private property in land, which simply enables the landowner to take it from the farmer. In the second place, we have the monopoly of private property in land. Neither logically nor historically is this monopoly inseverably linked with the previous monopoly.[*] There is nothing in this monopoly that is essential to capitalist society and to the capitalist organisation of agriculture. On the one hand, we can quite easily conceive of capitalist agriculture without private property in land; indeed, many consistent bourgeois economists have demanded the nationalisation of land. On the other hand, even in practice we meet with the capitalist organisation of agriculture without private ownership of land, e.g., on state and village-commune lands. Consequently, it is necessary to distinguish between these two kinds of monopolies, as well as to recognise that absolute rent, which is engendered by private property in land, exists side by side with differential rent.**

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    Marx explains the possibility of the formation of absolute rent from the surplus-value of agricultural capital by the fact that in agriculture the share of variable capital in the total composition of capital is above the average (a quite natural assumption in view of the undoubted backwardness of agricultural as compared with industrial technique). This being the case, it follows that the value of agricultural products, generally speaking, is higher than the cost of their production, and that surplus-value is higher than profit. The monopoly of private property in land, however, prevents this surplus from passing wholly into the process of equalising profits, and absolute rent is taken from this surplus.*
    Mr. Bulgakov is greatly dissatisfied with this explanation and he exclaims: "What kind of thing is this surplus-value, which, like cloth or cotton, or some other commodity, can suffice or not suffice to cover a possible demand? In the first place, it is not a material thing, it is a concept, which serves to express a definite social relationship of production"

    Let us now pass to what Mr. Bulgakov regards as the "remarkable" work of Hertz (Die agrarischen Fragen im Verhältniss zum Sozialismus, Wien, l899.[*] Russian translation by A. Ilyinsky, St. Petersburg, 1900). We shall need, however, to spend a little time insimultaneously examining similar arguments by both authors.
    The question of machinery in agriculture and the closely connected question of large- and small-scale production in agriculture most frequently provide the "Critics" with the occasion to "refute" Marxism. We shall later analyse some of the detailed data they present; for the present let us examine their general arguments. The Critics devote entire pages to arguing in detail that the use of machinery encounters greater difficulties in agriculture than in industry and for that reason machines are used to a smaller extent and have less significance. This is indisputable, and it was definitely shown, for example, by the same Kautsky whose name is enough to arouse Messrs. Bulgakov, Hertz, and Chernov to a state bordering on frenzy. But this indisputable fact does not in the least controvert the other fact that the use of machinery is developing rapidly in agriculture also, and that it has a powerful transforming effect upon it. All that the Critics can do is to "evade" this inevitable conclusion by such profound arguments as, "Agriculture is characterised by the domination of Nature in the process of production and by the lack of human free will" (Bulgakov, I, 43). ". . . instead of the uncertain and imprecise work of man, it [machinery in industry] performs micrometric as well as colossal work with mathematical precision. The machine cannot do the like [?] in the production of agricultural products because, to this day, this working instrument is not in the hands of man, but in the hands of Mother Nature. This is no metaphor" (ibid.). Indeed it is no metaphor; it is merely an empty phrase; for everyone knows that the steam plough, the seed-drill, the threshing-machine, etc., make work more "certain

and precise"; consequently, to say, "cannot do the like", is simply to talk nonsense! Similarly, how can it be said that machinery in agriculture "cannot to any extent [sic!] revolutionise production" (Bulgakov, I, 43-44, where he quotes the opinion of agricultural machinery experts, who, however, merely refer to the relative difference between agricultural and industrial machinery), or that "not only cannot machinery convert the worker into its adjunct[?], but that the worker still retains his previous control of the process" (44) -- as feeder of the threshing-machine, perhaps?
    Mr. Bulgakov tries to belittle the superiority of the steam plough by references to Stumpfe and Kutzleb (who wrote of the ability of small-scale farming to compete with large scale farming), as against the opinions of experts in agricultural machinery and agricultural economics (Fühling, Perels). He advances arguments to the effect that steam ploughing requires a special soil[*] and "extremely extensive estates" (in Mr. Bulgakov's opinion this is not an argument against small-scale farming, but against the steam plough!), and that with 12-inch furrows the work of animals is cheaper than steam power, and so forth. One could fill tomes with such arguments, without, however, in the least refuting the fact that the steam plough has made extremely deep ploughing possible (furrows deeper than 12 inches), or the fact that its use has rapidly developed: in England, in 1867, only 135 estates were using steam ploughs, whereas in 1871 over 2,000 steam ploughs had come in to use (Kautsky); in Germany the number of farms using steam ploughs increased from 836 in 1882 to 1,696 in 1895.
    On the question of agricultural machinery Mr. Bulgakov frequently cites Franz Bensing, whom he recommends as "the author of a special monograph on agricultural machinery" (I, 44). It would be most unfair if we did not in the present case show how Mr. Bulgakov quotes his authors, and how the very witnesses he calls testify against him.

    In arguing that Marx's "construction" on the more rapid growth of constant capital ascompared with variable capital is inapplicable to agriculture, Mr. Bulgakov points to the need of a larger expenditure of labour-power in proportion to the increase in the productivity of agriculture, and, among others, quotes the calculations made by Bensing: "The general amount of human labour required by the various systems of economy is expressed as follows: the three field system -- 712 man-days; the Norfolk crop rotation system -- 1,615 man-days; crop rotation with a considerable production of sugar-beet -- 3,179 man-days per 60 hectares" (Franz Bensing, Der Einfluss der landwirtschaftlichen Maschinen auf Volks und Privatwirtschaft,[*] Breslau, 1897, S. 42. Quoted by Bulgakov, I, 32). The unfortunate thing, however, is that by this calculation Bensing desired to prove that the role of machinery is growing. Applying these figures to German agriculture as a whole, Bensing calculates that the available agricultural workers would be sufficient to cultivate the land only on the three-field system, and that, consequently, the introduction of a crop rotation system would have been altogether impossible without machines. It is well known that when the old three-field system prevailed machinery was hardly utilised at all; consequently, Bensing's calculation proves the opposite of what Mr; Bulgakov tries to prove; this calculation shows that the growth of productivity of agriculture was necessarily accompanied by a more rapid growth of constant capital as compared with variable capital.
    Elsewhere Mr. Bulgakov, after asserting that "a radical [sic!] difference exists between the role of machinery in the manufacturing industry and inagriculture", quotes the words of Bensing: "Agricultural machinery cannot effect an unlimited increase in production in the way machines in industry do . . ." (I, 44). Mr. Bulgakov is unlucky again. Bensing points to this by no means "radical" difference between agricultural and industrial machinery in the beginning of Chapter Vl of his book, which is entitled: "The Influence of Agricultural Machinery on Gross Income". After making a de-

view, completely fails to understand the contradictions inherent in capitalism, and smugly pretends not to see that machines oust the worker, etc. This moderate and methodical pupil of the German professors speaks of Marx with a hatred to match Mr. Bulgakov's, except that Bensing is more consistent -- he calls Marx "an opponent of machinery" in general, in both agriculture and industry, because, says he, Marx "distorts the facts" when he talks of the harmful effect machines have on the workers and attributes all sorts of misfortunes to machines (Bensing, loc. cit., S. 4, 5, and 11). Mr. Bulgakov's attitude toward Bensing reveals to us again and again what the "Critics" take from the bourgeois scientists and what they pretend not to see.
    The nature of Hertz' "criticism" is sufficiently revealed by the following example. On page 149 of his book (Russian translation) he charges Kautsky with employing "feuilleton methods", and on page 150 he "refutes" the assertion that large-scale production is superior to small-scale production in regard to the use of machinery, by the following arguments: (l) Machinery is accessible also to small farmers through the medium of co-operative societies. That, if you please, is supposed to refute the fact that machinery is used on a larger scale on big farms! On the question as to who has greater access to the benefits of co-operative organisation, we shall have a separate talk with Hertz in our second essay. (2) David has shown in Sozialistische Monatshefte[68] (Vol. V, No. 2) that the use of machinery on small farms "is extensive and is rapidly increasing . . . that seed-drills are frequently [sic!] to be found even onvery small farms. The same applies to mowers and other machines" (S. 63, Russian translation, p. 151). But if the reader turns to David's article,* he will see that the author takes the absolute figures of the number of farms using machinery, and not the percentage of those farms in relation to the total number of farms in the given category (as Kautsky does, of course).
    Let us compare those figures, which are for the whole of Germany for 1895: **

more profitable" (S. 65, Russian translation, pp. 156-57). Apparently, Hertz, with the logic peculiar to him, is inclined to draw the conclusion that this is an argument, not against small production, not against the capitalist obstacles to the introduction of machinery, but against machinery! It is not surprising that Mr. Bulgakov chides Hertz for being "too closely tied to the opinion of his party" (II, 287). The Russian professor, of course, is above such degrading "ties" and proudly declares: "I am sufficiently free from the prejudice so widespread -- particularly in Marxist literature -- according to which every machine must be regarded as progress" (I, 48). Unfortunately, the flight of imagination revealed in this magnificent piece of reasoning finds no correspondence in concrete conclusions. "The steam threshing-machine," writes Mr. Bulgakov, "which deprives very many workers of winter occupation, spelt for the labourers an undoubtedly serious evil uncompensated by technical advantages.[*] Goltz, incidentally, points this out and even gives expression to a utopian desire" (II, 103), i.e., the desire to restrict the use of threshing-machines, particularly steam threshers, "in order", adds he, "to improve the conditions of the agricultural labourers, as well as to reduce emigration and migration" (by migration Goltz, in all probability, means movement to the towns).
    We shall remind the reader that this Goltzian idea was also noted by Kautsky in his Agrarian Question. It will not be without interest, therefore, to compare the attitude of the narrow orthodox Marxist, steeped in Marxist prejudices, with that of the latter-day Critic who has excellently assimilated the whole spirit of "criticism" towards a concrete question of economics (the significance of machines) and politics (not to be restricted?).
    Kautsky says (Agrarfrage, S. 41) that Goltz ascribes a particularly "harmful influence" to the threshing-machine: it deprives the agricultural labourers of their principal

about their profit; he has so far forgotten "the years of his youth", when he was a Marxist, that he now raises the extremely absurd question as to whether the technical advantages of machinery will "compensate" for its harmful effects upon the labourers (produced, not by the steam thresher alone, but by the steam plough, the mower, seed-sifter, etc.). He even fails to see that, in fact, the agrarian wants to enslave the labourer further both in winter and in summer. On the other hand, he vaguely recalls the obsolete, "dogmatic" prejudice that prohibiting machinery is utopian. Poor Mr. Bulgakov! Will he manage to extricate himself from this unpleasant situation?
    It is interesting to note that in trying in every way to belittle the significance of agricultural machinery, and even making use of the "law of diminishing returns", our Critics have forgotten to mention (or have deliberately refrained from mentioning) the new technological revolution which electrical engineering is preparing in agriculture. But Kautsky, who, according to the extremely unfair judgement of Mr. P. Maslov, "committed a serious mistake in completely failing to indicate the course taken by the development of the productive forces in agriculture" (Zhizn, 1901, No. 3, p. 171), pointed to the significance of electricity in agriculture as far back as 1899 (in Die Agrarfrage). Today, the symptoms of the approaching technological revolution are much more distinct. Attempts are being made to elucidate theoretically the significance of electricity in agriculture (see Dr. Otto Pringsheim, Landwirtschaftliche Manufaktur und elektrische Landwirtschaft,* Brauns Archiv, XV, 1900, S. 406-18; and Kautsky's article in Neue Zeit,[69] XIX, 1, 1900-01, No. 18, "Die Elektrizität in der Landwirtschaft"**). Practical landlord farmers are describing their experiments in the application of electricity (Pringsheim cites a work by Adolf Seufferheld, who describes the experiments on his own farm). These landlords see in electricity a means of making agriculture once more remunerative. They call upon the government and the landlords to estab-

page 141

lish central power stations and to organise the mass production of electricity for farmers. (Last year a work was published in Königsberg, written by P. Mack, an East-Prussian landlord, entitled Der Aufschwung unseres Landwirtschafts betriebes durch Verbilligung der Produktionskosten. Eine Untersuchung über den Dienst, den Maschinentechnik und Elektrizität der Landwirtschaft bieten.[*])
    Pringsheim makes what in our opinion is a very true observation: that, in its general technological, and perhaps even economic, level, modern agriculture is at a stage of development which more than anything resembles the stage of industry Marx described as "manufacture". The predominance of hand labour and simple co-operation, the sporadic employment of machines, therelatively small extent of production (if we consider, for example, the total annual volume of products sold by a single enterprise), the relatively limited market for the most part, the connection between large and small-scale production (the latter, like the handicrafts man in his relation to the big master-manufacturer, supplies the former with labour-power -- or else the former buys up the "semi-finished articles" from the latter; thus, the big farmer buys beets, cattle, etc., from the small farmers) -- all these are symptoms of the fact that agriculture has not yet reached the stage of real "large-scale machine industry" in the Marxian sense. In agriculture there is no "system of machines" as yet linked into one productive mechanism.
    Of course, this comparison must not be carried too far. On the one hand, agriculture possesses certain peculiar features that cannot possibly be removed (if we leave aside the extremely remote and problematic possibility of producing protein and foods in laboratories). Owing to these peculiarities, large-scale machine production will never manifest in agriculture all the features it possesses in industry. On the other hand, even in the manufacture stage of development large-scale production in industry reached predominance and considerable technical superiority over small-scale produc-

ian latifundia[*] in which electricity is transmitted from a central station in all directions to the remote parts of the estate and is used for running agricultural machinery, for chopping mangels, for raising water, for lighting, etc., etc. "In order to pump 300 hectolitres a day from a well 29 metres deep into a reservoir 10 metres high, and in order to prepare fodder for 240 cows, 200 calves, and 60 oxen and horses, i.e., for chopping mangels, etc., two pairs of horses were required in the winter and one pair in the summer, at a cost of 1,500 gulden. Now, the horses have been replaced by a three and a five h.p. motor costing altogether 700 gulden to maintain, which represents a saving of 800 gulden" (Kautsky, loc. cit.). Mack calculates the cost of a horse-workday at 3 marks; but if the horse is replaced by electricity the cost is 40 to 75 pfennigs, i.e., four to seven times cheaper. If in 50 years or more from now, he says, 1,750,000 of the horses used in German agriculture were supplanted by electricity (in 1895, 2,600,000 horses, 1,000,000 oxen, and 2,300,000 cows were used for field work in German agriculture, of which 1,400,000 horses and 400,000 oxen were used on farms exceeding 20 hectares in area), expenses would be reduced from 1,003,000,000 marks to 261,000,000 marks, i.e., by 742,000,000 marks. An enormous area of land now utilised for raising cattle feed could then be turned to the production of food -- for the improvement of the food of the workers, whom Mr. Bulgakov tries so much to scare with the prospect of the "diminution of the gifts of Nature", "the grain problem", and so forth. Mack strongly recommends the uniting of agriculture with industry for the permanent exploitation of electricity; he recommends the cutting of a Mazurian canal to provide power for five power stations which would distribute electricity to farmers within a radius of 20-25 kilometres. He recommends the use of peat for the same purpose, and demands the association of farmers: "Only in co-operative association with industry and big capital is it possible to make our branch of industry profitable once again" (Mack, S. 48). Of course, the employment of new methods of production will encounter many difficulties; it will

    Thus, in small farms under five hectares (these comprise more than three-fourths of the total in this group, viz., 4,100,000 out of 5,500,000, or 75.5 per cent; but they account for only 5,000,000 hectares out of a total of 32,500,000 hectares, or 15.6 per cent), the number of cases in which agricultural machines of any type are used (we have included dairy machinery) is quite insignificant. Of the medium farms (from 5 to 20 hectares) fewer than half use machines generally, while the number of instances showing use of agricultural machines represents only 56 per hundred farms. Only under large-scale capitalist production[*] do we see the majority of farms (from three-quarters to nine-tenths) using machinery and the beginning of the establishment of a machine system: on every farm there is more than one case of use of machinery. This means that several machines are used on a single farm: for example, farms of over 100 hectares use about four machines each (352 per cent as compared with 94 per cent using machines generally). Of 572 latifundia (farms of 1,000 hectares and over), 555 use machines; and the number of cases in which machines were used is 2,800, i.e., each farm used five machines. It is clear from this which farms are preparing the ground for the "electrical" revolution and which will mostly take advantage of it.

    From Hertz let us pass to Mr. Chernov. As the latter merely "talks with his readers" about the former, we shall confine ourselves here to a brief description of Hertz' method of argument (and Mr. Chernov's method of paraphrasing him), and (in the next essay) take up certain new facts advanced by the "Critics".
    It will suffice to cite but a single example to show the sort of theoretician Hertz is. At the very beginning of his book we find a paragraph under the pretentious heading, "The Concept of National Capitalism". Hertz wants nothing more nor less than to present a definition of capitalism. He writes: "We can, of course, characterise it as a system of national economy which rests juridically on the completely applied principles of freedom of the person and of property, technically on production on a wide [large?] scale,[*] socially on the alienation of the means of production from the direct producers, politically on the possession by the capitalists of the central political power [the concentrated political power of the state?] . . . solely on the economic basis of the distribution of property" (Russian translation, p. 37). These definitions are incomplete, and certain reservations must be made, says Hertz; for example, domestic industry and small tenant farming still persist everywhere side by side with large-scale production. "The realistic [sic!] definition of capitalism as a system under which production is under the control [domination and control] of capitalists [owners of capital] is likewise not quite suitable." A fine "realistic" definition of capitalism as the domination of capitalists! How characteristic it is -- this now fashionable, quasi-realistic, but in fact eclectic quest for an exhaustive enumeration of all the separate symptoms and separate "factors". The result, of

Agrarfrage",[*] in Neue Zeit, 18, 1, 1899-1900). Mr, Chernov could not but know, too, that the periodical in which the article appeared is prohibited in Russia by the censor. The more noteworthy, therefore, as characterising the features of the modern "Critics", is the fact that the very words which Chernov himself underlines contain a flagrant untruth; for on the question of mortgages Kautsky replied to "Hertz, David, Bernstein, Schippel, Bulgakov, e tutti quanti",[**] on pp. 472-77, in the selfsame article to which Mr. Chernov refers. To rectify distorted truth is a tedious duty; but since we have to deal with the Messrs. Chernov, it is a duty not to be neglected.
    Kautsky, of course, replied to Hertz with ridicule; for in regard to this question too Hertz revealed his inability, or unwillingness, to understand what is what and an inclination to repeat the threadbare arguments of bourgeois economists. Kautsky in his Agrarfrage (S. 88-89) dealt with the concentration of mortgages. "Numerous petty village usurers," wrote Kautsky, "are being forced more and more into the back ground, forced to yield to big centralised capitalist or public institutions which monopolise mortgage credit." Kautsky enumerates certain capitalist and public institutions of this type; he speaks of mutual land credit societies (genossenschaftliche Bodenkreditinstitute) and points to the fact that savings-banks, insurance companies, and many corporations (S. 89) invest their funds in mortgages, etc. Thus, until 1887, seventeen mutual credit societies in Prussia had issued mortgage bonds to the amount of 1,650,000,000 marks. "These figures show how enormously ground-rent is concentrated in the hands of a few central institutions [our italics]; but this concentration is rapidly increasing. In 1875 German mortgage banks issued mortgage bonds to the amount of 900,000,000 marks and in 1888 to the amount of 2,500,000,000 marks, while in 1892 the amount reached a total of 3,400,000,000 marks, concentrated in 31 banks (as against 27 in 1875)" (S. 89). This concentration of ground-rent is a clear indication of the concentration of landed property.

Socialists[70] (and which employers bought up by the thousands to distribute gratis among their workers). In that pamphlet Richter introduces his celebrated "thrifty Agnes", a poor seamstress who had a score or so of marks in the savings-bank and was robbed by the wicked socialists when they seized political power and nationalised the banks. That is the source from which the Bulgakovs,[*] Hertzes, and Chernovs draw their "critical" arguments.
    "At that time," says Kautsky, concerning Eugen Richter's "celebrated" pamphlet, "Eugen Richter was unanimously ridiculed by all Social-Democrats. Now we find people among the latter who, in our central organ [this, I think, refers to David's articles in Vorwärts],[71] sing a hymn of praise to a work in which these very ideas are reproduced. Hertz, we extol thy deeds!
    "For poor Eugen, in the decline of his yearst this is indeed a triumph, and I cannot refrain from quoting for his pleasure the following passage from that very page in Hertz' book: 'We see that the small peasants, the urban house-owners, and especially the big farmers, are expropriated by the lower and middle classes the bulk of which undoubtedly consists of the rural population"' (Hertz, S. 29, Russian translation, p. 77. Retold with rapture in Russkoye Bogatstvo, No. 10, pp. 216-i7). "David's theory of 'hollowing out' [Aushöhlung] capitalism by collective wage agreements [Tarifge meinschaften] and consumers' co-operative societies is now excelled. It pales into insignifcance before Hertz' expropriation of the expropriators by means of savings-banks. Thrifty Agnes, whom everybody considered dead, has come to life again" (Kautsky, loc. cit., S. 475), and the Russian"Critics", together with the publicists of Russkoye Bogatstvo, hasten to transplant this resurrected "thrifty Agnes" to Russian soil in order to discredit "orthodox" Social-Democracy.
    And this very Mr. V. Chernov, spluttering with enthusiasm over Hertz' repetition of Eugen Richter's arguments, "annihilates" Kautsky in the pages of Russkoye Bogatstvo and in the symposium. At the Glorious Post, compiled in honour of Mr. N. Mikhailovsky. It would be unfair not to present some

    The Social-Democrats have proved that they know how to appreciate the historic services of the great centres of energy and culture by their relentless struggle against all that encroaches on the freedom of movement of the population generally and of the peasants and agricultural labourers in particular. That is why no agrarian can trap them, as he can the Critics, with the bait of providing the "muzhik" with winter "employment". The fact that we definitely recognise the progressive character of big cities in capitalist society, however, does not in the least prevent us from including in our ideal (and in our programme of action, for we leave unattainable ideals to Messrs. Struve and Berdyaev) the abolition of the antithesis between town and country. It is not true to say that this is tantamount to abandoning the treasures of science and art. Quite the contrary: this is necessary in order to bring these treasures within the reach of the entire people, in order to abolish the alienation from culture of millions of the rural population, which Marx aptly described as "the idiocy of rural life".[72] And at the present time, when it is possible to transmit electric power over long distances, when the technique of transport has been so greatly improved that it is possible at less cost (than at present) to carry passengers at a speed of more than 200 versts an hour,[*] there are absolutely no technical obstacles to the enjoyment of the treasures of science and art, which for centuries have been concentrated in a few centres, by the whole of the population spread more or less evenly over the entire country.
    And if there is nothing to prevent the abolition of the antithesis between town and country (not be imagined, of course, as a single act but as a series of measures), it is not an "aesthetic sentiment" alone that demands it. In the big cities people suffocate with the fumes of their own excrement, to use Engels' expression, and periodically all who can, flee from the cities in search of fresh air and pure water." Industry is also spreading over the countryside; for it, too, requires pure water. The exploitation of waterfalls, canals,

and rivers to obtain electric power will give a fresh impetus to this "spreading out of industry". Finally -- last, but not least[*] -- the rational utilisation of city refuse in general, and human excrement in particular, so essential for agriculture, also calls for the abolition of the antithesis between town and country. It is against this point in the theory of Marx and Engels that the Critics decided to direct their agronomical arguments (the Critics preferred to refrain from fully analysing the theory, which is dealt with in great detail in Engels' Anti-Duhring,[74] and, as usual, limited themselves