V. I. Lenin

Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, Moscow, Volume 2 (The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia, Article Two).
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1897/handicraft/2iv.htm
Translated: authentic published CW translation (NOT machine-translated)

## ARTICLE TWO

## (IV. The Agriculture of “Handicraftsmen.”—V. Large and Small Establishments.—The Incomes of the Handicraftsmen)

## IV

## The Agriculture of “Handicraftsmen”

The house-to-house census of master handicraftsmen, big and small, provide very interesting data on the agriculture they engage in. Here are the figures, divided according to the sub-groups, as given in the Sketch :

TRAPPED INSIDE JPEG: Horses [1] Cows [2]

We thus see that the more prosperous the handicraftsmen are as industrialists, the more prosperous they are as agriculturists. The lower they rank in production, the lower they rank in agriculture. The handicraft census data, therefore, fully confirm the opinion already expressed in literature, namely, that the differentiation of the handicraftsmen in industry goes hand in hand with their differentiation as peasants in agriculture (A. Volgin, The Substantiation of Narodism , etc ., pp. 211, et . seq .). As the wage-workers employed by the handicraftsmen are on an even lower (or not higher) level than the handicraftsmen who work for buyers-up, we are entitled to conclude that the proportion of impoverished agriculturists among them is even higher. The house-to-house census, as we have already said, did not cover the wage-workers. At any rate, even the figures cited clearly show how ludicrous is the assertion in the Sketch that “community land tenure guarantees the labour industrial independence of both the owner of a handicraft industrial establishment and his wage-worker.”

The absence of detailed information on the agricultural activity of the one-man producers and small and large masters is very acutely felt in the data now under examination. To fill the gap, if only partially, we must turn to the data for the separate industries; sometimes in the Sketch we come across information on the number of agricultural labourers employed by masters, [3] but no general summary is given.

Take the tanner agriculturists—131 households. They employ 124 agricultural labourers, they cultivate 16.9 dessiatines and possess 4.6 horses per household; they have 4.1 cows each (p. 71). The wage-workers (73 annual and 51 seasonal) receive 2,492 rubles in wages, or 20.1 rubles each, whereas the average wage of a worker in the tanning industry is 52 rubles. Here too, therefore, we observe the phenomenon common to all capitalist countries—the status of the agricultural labourer is lower than that of the industrial labourer. The “handicraft” tanners obviously represent the purest type of peasant bourgeoisie, and the celebrated “combination of industry with agriculture” so highly praised by the Narodniks is nothing more than the prosperous owners of commercial and industrial establishments transferring capital from commerce and industry to agriculture, and paying their farm labourers incredibly low wages. [4]

Take the handicraft oil-millers. The agriculturists among them number 173. A household, on the average, cultivates 10.1 dessiatines and possesses 3.5 horses and 3.3 cows. There is no household without at least one horse and a cow. Together, they employ 98 labourers (annual and seasonal) who receive in wages a total of 3,438 rubles, or an average of 35.1 rubles each. “The refuse, or oil-cake that remains after the milling process, serves as excellent cattle feed, thanks to which it is possible to manure the fields on a larger scale. Thus the household derives a triple advantage from the industry: the income from the industry itself, the income from livestock, and a higher yield from the fields” (164). “Agriculture is carried on by them” (the oil-millers) “on a wide scale, and many of them, not contenting themselves with the community allotments they get, also rent land from the poor households” (168). The data showing the distribution of flax and hemp growing by uyezds reveal “a certain connection between the area under flax and hemp and the distribution of the oil-milling industry among the uyezds of the gubernia” (170).

Hence, the commercial and industrial enterprises in this case are those known as technical agricultural industries, the development of which is always characteristic of the progress of commercial and capitalist agriculture.

Take the flour-millers. Most of them engage in agriculture—385 out of 421. A household, on the average, cultivates 11.0 dessiatines and possesses 3.0 horses and 3.5 cows. They employ 307 workers who are also agriculturists and who receive wages totalling 6,211 rubles. Like the oil-milling industry, “flour-milling serves the millers as a means of marketing the produce of their own farms in the most profitable form” (178).

These examples, we think, should be quite sufficient to show how absurd it is to regard the term “handicraftsman agriculturist” as signifying something homogeneous and uniform. All the agriculturists we have cited are representatives of the agricultural petty bourgeoisie, and to combine these types with the rest of the peasantry, including even the ruined households, is to obscure the most characteristic features of reality.

In the concluding part of their description of the oil-milling industry, the compilers try to argue against the “capitalist doctrine” that the stratification of the peasants is capitalist evolution. This proposition, they claim, is based on the “absolutely arbitrary assertion that this stratification is a factor of most recent times and is an obvious symptom of the rapid de facto spread of the capitalist règime among the peasantry despite the existence of de jure community land tenure” (176). The compilers argue that the village community has never precluded property stratifications, but it “does not perpetuate them, does not give rise to classes”; “these transitory stratifications have not become more marked with the lapse of time, but, on the contrary, have been gradually obliterated” (177). Naturally, such an assertion, in substantiation of which the artels (of which more anon, § VII), family divisions ( sic !) and land redivisions (!)are cited, can only evoke a smile. To say that the claim that differentiation of the peasantry is growing and spreading is an “arbitrary” one, means to ignore well-known facts: peasants lose their horses and abandon the land on a mass scale and this is coupled with “technical progress in peasant farming” (cf. Progressive Trends in Peasant Farming by Mr. V. V.); the increase in the letting and mortgaging of allotments is coupled with increased land renting; the increase in the number of commercial and industrial establishments is coupled with an increase in the number of migratory industrialists, i.e., vagrant wage-workers; etc. etc.

The house-to-house census should have provided a wealth of material on the highly interesting question of how the incomes and earnings of the agriculturist handicraftsmen compare with the incomes of the non-agriculturists. All the data on this subject are to be found in the tables, but the Sketch gives no summary, and we have had to compile one from the material contained in the book. This summary was based, firstly, on those given in the Sketch for the individual industries. All we had to do in this case was to add together the data for the various industries. But such summaries are not given in tabular form for all industries. In some cases it was clear that mistakes or misprints had crept in—which is only natural in the absence of check totals. Secondly, the summary was based on a selection of figures contained in the descriptions of certain industries. Thirdly, where neither of these sources was available, we had to turn directly to the tables (for example, in the case of the last industry: “mining”). It goes without saying that owing to this diversity in the character of the material contained in our summary, mistakes and inaccuracies were bound to have crept in. Nevertheless, we believe that although the grand totals of our summary do not coincide with the totals of the table, the deductions drawn from it may fully serve their purpose, for whatever corrections might be introduced, the average magnitudes and proportions (and it is these alone that we use for our deductions) would be but slightly changed. For example, according to the totals of the tables in the Sketch , the gross income per worker is 134.8 rubles, and according to our summary it is 133.3 rubles; the net income per family worker is 69.0 rubles and 68.0 rubles respectively; the earnings per wage-worker are 48.7 rubles and 48.6 rubles respectively.

Here are the results of our summary showing gross income, net income, and the earnings of wage-workers in each group and sub-group (see table on page _).

The chief results of this tabulation are as follows:

1) The non-agricultural industrial population takes an incomparably bigger part in industry (relative to their numbers) than the agricultural population. The number of non-agriculturist workers is less than half the number of agriculturist workers. But they account for nearly half the gross output: 1,276,772 rubles out of a total of 2,655,007 rubles, or 48.1%. As regards income from production, that is, the net income of the masters plus the workers’ wages, the non-agriculturists even surpass the agriculturists, accounting for 647,666 rubles out of a total of 1,260,335 rubles, or 51.4%. Consequently, we find that, while they are a minority in numbers, the non-agricultural industrialists do not lag behind the agriculturists in volume of output. This fact is of great importance when we come to judge the traditional Narodnik theory that agriculture is the “main foundation” of so-called handicraft industry.

From this, other conclusions follow naturally:

2) The gross output per non-agriculturist worker (gross income) is considerably higher than that of the agriculturist: 192.2 rubles as against 103.8 rubles, or nearly twice as much. As we shall see later, the working season of the non-agriculturists is longer than that of the agriculturists, but the difference is by no means so very great, so that the higher labour productivity of the non-agriculturists is beyond all doubt. This difference is smallest in the third sub-group—the handicraftsmen who work for buyers-up—which is quite natural.

3) The net income of the non-agriculturist masters, big and small, is more than double that of the agriculturists: 113.0 rubles, as against 47.1 rubles (nearly two-and-a-half times as much). This difference is to be observed in all the sub groups, but it is the biggest in the first, among the handicraftsmen who produce for the market. It goes without saying that this difference is least of all to be explained by the difference in the length of working periods. There can be no doubt that it is due to the fact that the tie with the land lowers the incomes of the industrialists ; the market discounts the incomes derived by the handicraftsmen from agriculture, and the agriculturists have to content themselves with lower earnings. This is probably aggravated by the fact that the agriculturists suffer bigger losses on sales, spend more for materials and are more dependent on the merchants. In any case, it is a fact that the handicraftsman’s tie with the land reduces his earnings . There is no need to say more about the enormous significance of this fact which throws a true light on the meaning of the “power of the soil” in modern society. We need only recall what a tremendous factor low earnings are in preserving methods of production that are primitive and entail bondage, in retarding the use of machinery, and in lowering the workers’ standard of living. [5]

4) The wages of non-agriculturist wage-workers are also everywhere higher than those of agriculturists, but the difference is by no means as great as in the case of the incomes of the masters. Generally, in all three sub-groups, the wage-worker employed by the agriculturist handicraftsman earns an average of 43.0 rubles, while the wage-worker employed by the non-agriculturist earns 57.8 rubles, or one third more. This difference may to a large extent ( but not entirely ) be due to the difference in the length of the working season. As to the relation between this difference and the tie with the land, we cannot form a judgement, for we have no data on agriculturist and non-agriculturist wage-workers. Apart from the length of the working season, the difference in the level of requirements, of course, also plays its part.

5) The difference between the size of the masters’ incomes and workers’ wages is incomparably larger in the case of the non-agriculturists than in that of the agriculturists: taking all three sub-groups, the income of a non-agriculturist master is almost double a worker’s wages (113 rubles and 57.8 rubles respectively), whereas among the agriculturists the income of the master is only slightly higher— 4.1 rubles more (47.1 and 43.0)! If these figures are astonishing, even more so are those relating to the agriculturist artisans (I, 2), where the income of the master is less than a worker’s wages! But the reason for this will become quite clear later, when we cite data showing the tremendous difference between the size of incomes in large and small establishments. By increasing productivity of labour, the large establishments make it possible to pay wages exceeding the income of the poor, individual handicraftsmen working alone, whose “independence,” in view of their subjection to the market, is quite fictitious. This vast difference between the incomes of the large and the small establishments is to be observed in both groups, but much more so in the case of the agriculturists (due to the more depressed state of the small handicraftsmen). The negligible difference between the income of the small master and the wages of the worker clearly shows that the income of the small agriculturist handicraftsman who employs no wage-workers is not higher , and often even lower than the wages of a hired worker. As a matter of fact, the net income of the master (47.1 rubles per family worker) is the average for all establishments, large and small, for both the owners of factories and of one-man workshops. Naturally, in the case of the big masters, the difference between their net income and the wages of their workers is not 4 rubles, but anything from ten to one hundred times as much, which means that the income of the small one-man workshop is considerably be low 47 rubles; in other words, this income is not higher , but often even lower than the wages of a worker. Handicraft census data on the division of establishments according to net income (see below, § V) fully bear out this seemingly paradoxical conclusion. But these data relate to all the establishments in general, to agriculturists and non-agriculturists alike, and that is why this deduction from the above table is so important: we have learnt that it is the agriculturists whose earnings are lowest, in other words, that “the tie with the land” greatly reduces earnings.

We have already said, when discussing the difference between the incomes of the agriculturists and the non-agriculturists, that this difference cannot be explained by the difference in the length of the working periods. Let us now examine the census data on this subject. One of the items in the census programme, as we learn from the “introduction,” was the investigation of the “intensity of production through out the year, on the basis of the number of family members and wage-workers engaged in production each month” (p. 14). Since this was a house-to-house census, in other words, since each establishment was investigated separately (unfortunately, a specimen of the house-to-house census forms is not appended to the Sketch ), it must be assumed that information regarding the number of workers engaged each month, or the number of working months in the year, was gathered in the case of each establishment. In the Sketch these data are gathered in one table (pp. 57 and 58), in which the number of workers (family and wage-workers together) engaged in each month of the year is given for each of the sub-groups of both groups.

The attempt of the 1894-95 handicraft census to determine with such precision how many months in the year the handicraftsmen work is highly instructive and interesting. Indeed, without such information the data on incomes and earnings would be incomplete, and the statistical calculations would be only approximate. But, unfortunately, the data on working periods have been very scantily analysed: apart from this general table, all we are given is information on the number of workers engaged each month in only a few industries, sometimes divided according to groups, sometimes not; division according to sub-groups has not been made for any industry. The separation of the large establishments from the small would have been particularly valuable in this instance, for we have every reason to expect—both a priori and on the basis of data provided by other investigators of handicraft industry—that the working periods of the big and the small handicraftsmen are not the same. Furthermore, the table itself on page 57 is apparently not free from mistakes or misprints (for example, in the months February, August and November; columns 2 and 3 of Group II have evidently been mixed up, for the number of workers in the third sub-group is larger than in the second). Even when these inaccuracies are corrected (and the corrections are sometimes only approximate), the table gives rise to no little misgiving, which renders the use of it risky. For instance, when we examine the data in the table by sub-groups, we find that in the third sub-group (Group I) the maximum number of workers, 2,911, are engaged in December. Yet, according to the Sketch , the total number of workers in the third sub-group is 2,551. Similarly, in the third sub-group of Group II: maximum number of workers 3,221, actual number 3,077. On the other hand, in the sub-groups the maxima engaged in one of the months are less than the actual number of workers. How is this to be explained? Is it because information on this subject was not gathered for all the establishments? That is very likely, although there is no hint of it in the Sketch . In the case of the second sub-group of Group II, not only is the maximum number of workers (February) larger than the actual number (1,882 and 1,163 respectively), but even the average number of workers engaged in one month (i.e., the quotient obtained by dividing the total number of workers engaged in the twelve months by 12) is higher than the actual number of workers (1,265 and 1,163 respectively)!! Which figure, one asks, did the registrars regard as actual: the average number of workers for the year, the average for some period (winter, say), or the number actually employed in some particular month? An investigation of the monthly number of workers engaged in the separate industries does not help to clear up the puzzle. In the majority of the twenty-three industries for which this information is furnished, the maximum number of workers engaged in any one month of the year is less than the actual number of workers. In the case of two industries, the maximum is higher than the actual number of workers: in the copper-working industry (239 and 233 respectively) and in the forges (Group II—1,811 and 1,269 respectively). The maximum is equal to the actual number of workers in the case of two industries (rope-making and oil-milling, Group II).

This being the case, we cannot use the data showing the number of workers engaged month by month for a comparison with their earnings, with the actual number of workers employed, etc. All that remains is to treat these data regard less of others, and to compare the maximum and the minimum numbers of workers engaged in each month. This is what is done in the Sketch , but the separate months are compared. We consider it more correct to compare winter and summer; for that will enable us to determine how far agriculture diverts workers from industry. We took the average number of workers engaged in winter (October to March) as the standard, and, applying this standard to the number of workers engaged in summer, we arrived at the number of summer working months. By adding up the number of winter and summer months we got the number of working months in the year. Let us illustrate this by an example. In the first sub-group of Group I there were 18,060 workers engaged in the six winter months, which gives us an average of (18,060 : 6 =) 3,010 workers in one month. In the summer, 12,345 workers were employed; in other words, the summer working season is equal to (12,345 : 3,010) 4.1 months. Hence, the working period in the first sub-group of Group I amounts to 10.1 months in the year.

This method of analysing the data seemed to us both the most correct and the most convenient. It is the most correct, because it is based on a comparison of winter and summer months, and hence, on an exact determination of the extent to which agriculture diverts workers from industry. That the winter months have been correctly taken is confirmed by the fact that in the October-March period the number of workers in both groups is higher than the average for the year. There is the greatest increase in the number of workers from September to October, and the greatest decrease from March to April. Incidentally, the choice of other months would have had little effect on the conclusions. We consider the method chosen to be the most suitable because it gives an exact figure for the working period which allows us to compare the groups and sub-groups in this respect.

Here are the data obtained by this method:

These figures lead us to conclude that the difference between the working periods for agriculturists and non-agriculturists is very small : that of the non-agriculturists is only 5% longer. The smallness of this difference gives rise to doubt as to the correctness of the figures. In order to verify them, we have made some calculations and summaries of material scattered throughout the book and have arrived at the following results:

The Sketch furnishes data on the monthly employment of workers in 23 of the 43 industries, the data are given according to groups in the case of 12 (13) [6] of them but not in the case of the remaining 10 groups. We find that in three of the industries (pitch and tar, dyeing and brick-making) the number of workers is higher in summer than in winter: in the six winter months only 1,953 workers are engaged in all three industries as against 4,918 in the six summer months. In these industries there is a great preponderance of agriculturists over non-agriculturists, the former constituting 85.9% of the total number of workers. It was obviously quite wrong to combine these, so to speak, summer industries with the others in the grand totals for groups, as that meant combining unlike things and artificially raising the number of summer workers in all industries. There are two ways of correcting the error which results from this. The first is to deduct the figures for these three industries from the totals given in the Sketch for Groups I and II. [7] The result is a working period of 9.6 months for Group I, and of 10.4 months for Group II. Here the difference between the two groups is bigger, but still very small–8.3%. The second method of correcting the error is to combine the figures for the twelve industries for which the Sketch gives information on the monthly employment of workers in Groups I and II separately. This will embrace 70% of the total number of handicraftsmen, and, what is more, the comparison between Groups I and II will be more correct. We find that in the case of these twelve industries the working period in Group I is only 8.9 months, and in Group II, 10.7 months, while for the two groups together it is 9.7 months. The working period of the non-agriculturists is now 20.2% longer than that of the agriculturists. The agriculturists do not work for 3.1 months in summer, the non-agriculturists for only 1.3 months. Even if we take the maximum difference in the working periods in Groups II and I as the standard, we shall find that not only the differences in the gross output of the workers of Groups I and II, or in the net incomes of their establishments, but even the differences in the wages of agriculturist and non-agriculturist wage-workers cannot be explained by the difference in the length of the working periods . Consequently, the conclusion drawn above, namely, that the tie with the land reduces the handicraftsmen’s earnings, remains fully valid.

We must therefore conclude that the compilers of the Sketch are mistaken in their desire to explain the difference between the earnings of the agriculturists and non-agriculturists by the difference in the length of the working periods. Their mistake was due to their not attempting to express the differences in the working periods by exact figures, and this led them astray. For example, on page 106 of the Sketch it is stated that the difference between the earnings of the agriculturist and the non-agriculturist furriers “is chiefly determined by the number of working days devoted to industry.” Yet the earnings of the non-agriculturists in this industry are from two to four times greater than those of the agriculturists (65 and 280 rubles respectively per family worker in the first sub-group, and 27 and 62 rubles in the second sub-group), whereas the working period of the non-agriculturists is longer by only 28.7% (8.5 months as compared with 6.6).

The fact that the tie with the land lowers earnings could not escape the attention even of the compilers of the Sketch ; but they expressed it in the usual Narodnik formula on the “superiority” of the handicraft to the capitalist form: “by combining agriculture with industry, the handicraftsman . . . is able to sell his wares cheaper than those of the factory” (p. 4); in other words, he can manage on smaller earnings. But where is the “superiority” of the tie with the land, if the market already so dominates the whole of the country’s industrial life that it discounts this tie by lowering the earnings of the agriculturist handicraftsman: if capital can take advantage of this “tie” to exert greater pressure on the agriculturist handicraftsman, who is less able to defend his interests, to choose a different master, a different customer, or a different occupation? The lowering of wages (and of industrial earnings in general) when the worker (or the small industrialist) has a plot of land is something common to all capitalist countries, and is perfectly well known to all employers who have long ago appreciated the vast “superiority” of workers tied to the land. Only in the decadent West do they bluntly call a spade a spade, but in our country the lowering of wages, the lowering of the living standard of the working population, the delay in introducing machinery, and the perpetuation of all sorts of bondage is referred to as the “superiority” of “people’s production,” which “combines agriculture with industry.”. . .

In concluding our review of the 1894-95 census data on the working period, we cannot refrain from once again expressing our regret that the data obtained have been so incompletely analysed, nor from voicing the hope that this defect will not deter other investigators of this interesting problem. One cannot but admit that the method of investigation—determination of the number of workers employed each month—was very well chosen. Above we have given data for the working period by groups and sub-groups. There was some possibility of verifying the data for the groups. But it is utterly impossible to verify the data for the sub-groups, since the book furnishes absolutely no information on the differences in the length of the working period in the various sub-groups. Therefore, in citing these data, we make the reservation that we cannot guarantee their absolute reliability; and if we draw further conclusions, it is only for the purpose of raising this question and drawing the investigators’ attention to it. The most important conclusion is that the smallest difference in the working periods in Groups I and II is in the first sub-group (only 1% in all: 10.1 months and 10.0 months); in other words, It is the most prosperous handicraftsmen and the biggest and wealthiest agriculturists who are least diverted from agriculture . The difference is largest in the case of the artisans (second sub-group: 9.5 months and 10.4 months), that is, the industrialists and middle agriculturists least affected by commodity production. It would appear that the prosperous agriculturists are diverted so little from agriculture either because of their larger families or their greater exploitation of wage-labour in industry or their hiring of agricultural labourers, and that the artisans are most diverted from agriculture because they have been less differentiated as agriculturists, have retained patriarchal relations to a great extent, and work directly for agricultural customers who reduce their orders in the summer. [8]

The “tie with agriculture,” the census reveals, has a very marked influence on the literacy of the handicraftsmen;—literacy among wage-labourers has unfortunately not been investigated. It appears that the non-agricultural population [9] is far more literate than the agricultural, and this feature is to be observed for both men and women in all sub-groups without exception. Here are the census figures (in percentages) on this subject in extenso (p. 62):

It is interesting to note that in the case of the non-agricultural population literacy is spreading far more rapidly among the women than among the men. The proportion of literate males in Group II is 1 ½ to 2 times as great as in Group I, while the proportion of literate females is 2 ½ to 5 ¾ times as great.

Summarising the conclusions drawn from the 1894-95 census on the subject of “agriculture connected with industry,” we may take it as demonstrated that the tie with agriculture:

1) preserves the most backward forms of industry and retards economic development;

2) reduces the handicraftsmen’s earnings and income, so that the most prosperous sub-groups of agriculturist masters earn, in general and on the average, less than the least prosperous non-agriculturist sub-groups of wage-workers , to say nothing of the non-agriculturist masters. The masters of Group I have very low incomes even when compared with the wage-workers of that group—sometimes they are slightly higher and sometimes even lower than the workers’ wages.

3) retards the cultural development of the population whose consumption level is lower than that of the non-agriculturists and whose standard of literacy is far behind that of the latter.

These conclusions will be useful later for our assessment of the Narodnik programme of industrial policy.

4) Differentiation among the agriculturist handicraftsmen is seen to run parallel to that of the industrialists. The higher (more prosperous) categories of agriculturists constitute a pure type of peasant bourgeoisie who employ regular and day labourers to run their farms.

5) The working period of the agriculturists is shorter than that of the non-agriculturists, but the difference is very small (5% to 20%).

## V

## Large and Small Establishments.—The Incomes of the Handicraftsmen

We must dwell in greater detail on the data of the 1894-95 census on incomes from handicrafts. The attempt to collect household data on incomes is very instructive, and it would be quite wrong to confine ourselves to general “averages” for the sub-groups (given above). We have already, on more than one occasion, referred to the fictitious nature of “averages” derived by adding together individual handicraftsmen and owners of big establishments and then dividing the total obtained by the number of the components. Let us endeavour to assemble the data contained in the Sketch on this subject in order to illustrate this method clearly and prove its fictitious nature and to demonstrate that in scientific investigations and in analysing house-to-house census data handicraftsmen must be grouped in categories according to number of workers (family and wage-workers) employed in the workshop, and all the census data arranged in accordance with these categories.

The compilers of the Sketch must have noted the all too obvious fact of higher incomes in the big establishments, and tried to minimise its significance. Instead of giving precise census data on the large establishments (which they could have selected with no difficulty), they again confined themselves to general discussions, arguments and inventions against conclusions which the Narodniks find unpleasant. Let us examine these arguments.

“If in such” (big) “establishments we meet with a family income disproportionately larger than that of the small establishments, we must not lose sight of the fact that a considerable part of this income is mainly the reproduction of the value, firstly, of a certain portion of the fixed capital transmitted to the product, secondly, of the labour and expenses connected with commerce and transport which play no part in production, and, thirdly, of the value of food supplied to wage-workers who receive their board from the masters. These facts” (facts, indeed!) “limit the possibility of certain illusions arising which give an exaggerated notion of the advantages of wage-labour in handicraft industry or, what amounts to the same thing, of the capitalist element” (p. 15). That it is highly desirable in all investigations “to limit” the possibility of illusions is something which nobody, of course, doubts, but for this it is necessary to combat “illusions” by means of facts , facts taken from the household census, and not by citing one’s own opinions, which are themselves sometimes mere “illusions.” Is not, indeed, the authors’ argument about commercial and transport expenses an illusion? Who does not know that these expenses per unit of product are far smaller for the big producer than the small producer, [1] that the former buys his material cheaper and sells his product dearer, knowing how (and being in a position) to choose time and place? The handicraft census, too, mentions these generally known facts—cf. pp. 204 and 263, for example—and one cannot but regret that the Sketch contains no facts about expenses on the purchase of raw materials and the sale of the product by big and small industrialists, by handicraftsmen and buyers up. Further, as regards the wear and tear of fixed capital, here again the authors, while combating illusions, are themselves the victims of an illusion. Theory tells us that large expenditures on fixed capital diminish the part of the value per unit of product that represents wear and tear and is transmitted to the product. “An analysis and comparison of the prices of commodities produced by handicrafts or manufactures, and of the prices of the same commodities produced by machinery, shows generally that, in the product of machinery, the value due to the instruments of labour increases relatively, but decreases absolutely. In other words, its absolute amount decreases, but its amount, relatively to the total value of the product, of a pound of yarn, for instance, increases” ( Das Kapital , I 2, S. 406). [12] The census also reckoned the costs of production, which include (p. 14, point 7) “repair of tools and fixtures.” What reason is there to believe that omissions in the registration of this point are to be met with more frequently among the big than among the small masters? Would not rather the contrary be the case? As to board provided for wage-workers, there are no facts on this point in the Sketch at all: we do not know exactly how many workers board with their masters, how frequent are the omissions in the census on this point, how often agriculturist masters feed their wage-workers with produce from their farms, and how often the masters entered the workers’ board under expenditure on production. Similarly, no facts on the inequality in the length of the working period in the big and the small establishments are given. We do not deny that the working period in the big establishments is very likely longer than in the small ones, but, firstly, the differences in income are out of all proportion to the differences in the length of the working period; and, secondly, it remains to be stated that the Perm statisticians have been unable to offer a single weighty argument, based on precise data, against the precise facts of the house-to-house census (given below), and in support of the Narodnik “illusions.”

We have obtained the data for the large and small establishments in the following way: we examined the tables appended to the Sketch , noted the large establishments (wherever they could be picked out, that is, wherever they were not lumped together with the mass of establishments in a general total), and compared them with the general totals given in the Sketch for all the establishments of the same group and sub-group. This question is so important that we hope the reader will not reproach us for the numerous tables we give below: in tables the facts stand out more saliently and compactly.

Felt-boot industry:

Thus, the “average” income per family worker, 75 rubles, was obtained by adding together incomes of 222 rubles and 41 rubles. It appears that, after deducting the ten large establishments [2] with 14 family workers, the remaining establishments show a net income that is below the wages of a wage-worker (41.2 against 45.6 rubles), while in the large establishments wages are still higher. The productivity of labour in the large establishments is more than double (168.0 and 82.4 rubles), the earnings of a wage-worker nearly double (53 rubles and 28 rubles), while the net income is five times higher (222 and 41 rubles). Obviously, no talk about differences in the working period or any other argument can eliminate the fact that the big establishments have the highest labour productivity [3] and the highest income, while the small handicraftsmen, for all their “independence” (first sub-group: those who work independently for the market) and their tie with the land (Group I), earn less than wage-workers.

In the carpentry trade the “net income” of the first sub-group of Group I “averages” 37.4 rubles per family worker, whereas the average earnings of a wage-worker in the same sub-group are 56.9 rubles (p. 131). It is impossible to pick out the big establishments from the tables, but it can scarcely be doubted that this “average” income per family worker was obtained by combining the highly profitable establishments employing wage-workers (who, after all, are not paid 56 rubles for nothing) with the dwarf workshops of the small “independent” handicraftsmen, who get much less than a wage-worker.

Next comes the bast-matting industry:

Thus, almost half the total output is concentrated in eleven of the ninety-nine establishments. In them, productivity of labour is more than double; the wages of the workers are also higher; and net income is more than six times the “average” and nearly ten times as high as that of the others, i.e., the smaller establishments. The latter have incomes but slightly higher than a worker’s wages (34 and 26 rubles respectively).

Rope and string industry [4] :

Thus, here too the general “averages” show a higher income for the family workers than for the wage-workers (90 against 65.6 rubles). But 4 of the 58 establishments account for over half the total output. In these establishments (capitalist manufactories of the pure type) [5] productivity of labour is almost three times the average (800 and 286 rubles) and over five times that of the remaining, i.e., smaller, establishments (800 and 146 rubles). Workers’ wages are much higher in the factories than in the small masters’ workshops (84 and 45 rubles). The net income of the manufacturers is over 1,000 rubles per family as compared with the “average” of 90 rubles and with the 60.5 rubles of the small handicraftsmen. The income of the small handicraftsman is, therefore, lower than a worker’s wages (60.5 and 65.6 rubles).

The pitch and tar industry:

Although this industry is, in general, a small one that employs very few wage-workers (20%) we again find the same purely capitalist phenomenon of the superiority of the large (relatively large) establishments of the independent handicraftsmen in the agricultural group. And yet pitch and tar production is a purely peasant, “people’s” industry! In the large establishments labour productivity is over three times, workers’ wages about one-and-a-half times and net income about eight times the “average”; their net income, moreover, is ten times as high as that of other handicraft families who earn no more than the average wage-worker, and less than a wage-worker in the larger establishments . Let us note that pitch and tar production is chiefly a summer occupation, so that differences in the working period cannot be very great. [6]

The baking industry:

Thus, here again, the averages for the entire sub-group are absolutely fictitious. The large establishments (of small capitalists) account for over half the total output, yield a net income six times the average and 14 times that of the small masters, and pay their workers wages exceeding the incomes of the small handicraftsmen . We do not mention productivity of labour; three or four of the large establishments produce a more valuable product—treacle.

The pottery industry. Here again we have a typical small peasant industry with an insignificant number of wage-workers (13%), very small establishments (less than two workers per establishment) and a predominance of agriculturists. And here too we get the same picture:

Here, consequently, it is at once apparent from the “average” figures that the wage-worker’s earnings are higher than the family worker’s income. By treating the large establishments separately, we get the explanation of this contradiction, which we have already recorded in numerous instances. In the large establishments labour productivity, wages and masters’ incomes are all incomparably higher, while the small handicraftsmen get less than the wage-workers and less than half the earnings of the wage-workers in the best-organised shops .

The brick industry:

Thus, here too, the “average” income of a family worker is lower than the earnings of a wage-worker. Here again it is to be explained by combining the big establishments—which are distinguished by a considerably higher labour productivity, higher payment of wage-workers, and a very high (comparatively) income—and the small establishments, the income of whose owners is about half the earnings of the wage-workers in the big establishments.

We might go on citing figures for other industries too, [7] but we think that those given are more than enough.

Let us now summarise the conclusions that follow from the facts examined:

1) The combining of large and small establishments results in absolutely fictitious “average” figures, which give no conception of the real state of affairs, obscure cardinal differences, and present as homogeneous something that is heterogeneous, of mixed composition.

2) The data for a number of industries show that the large establishments (where a large number of workers are engaged) are distinguished from the average and small establishments:

a) by an incomparably higher productivity of labour;

b) by better payment of wage-workers, and

c) by a far higher net income.

3) All the large establishments we have selected, without exception, employ wage-labour on an incomparably larger scale (than the average-sized establishments in the given industry), the proportion of wage-labour being substantially greater than that of family labour. The value of their output is as much as 10,000 rubles, while the number of wage-workers employed is ten and more per establishment. These large establishments, therefore, represent capitalist workshops. The census data consequently reveal the prevalence of purely capitalist laws and relations in the celebrated “handicraft” industry; they reveal the absolute superiority of the capitalist workshops, based on the co-operation of wage-workers, over the one-man workshops and small workshops in general—a superiority both in productivity of labour and in remuneration for labour, even of wage-workers.

4) In the case of a number of the industries the earnings of the small independent handicraftsmen prove to be no higher, and often even lower, than the earnings of wage-workers in the same industry. This difference would be even greater if to the wage-workers’ earnings were added the value of the board received by some of them.

We have dealt with this last conclusion separately because the first three concern phenomena that are universal and inevitable under the laws of commodity production, whereas the last does not contain phenomena that are everywhere inevitable. We accordingly formulate this concept as follows: because of lower labour productivity in small establishments and the defenceless position of their owners in the market (especially in the case of agriculturists), it is possible that the earnings of an independent handicraftsman may be lower than those of a wage worker—and the facts show that this very often is the case.

The validity of our calculations is beyond question, for we have taken a number of industries, not choosing them at random, but taking all those where the tables allowed us to deal with the large establishments separately; we have not taken individual establishments, but all those of the same kind, and in every case compared with them several large establishments in different uyezds. But it would be desirable to express the phenomena described in a more general and more precise form. Fortunately, the Sketch contains material that enables us to satisfy this desire in part . This is the material on the division of establishments according to net income . In the case of certain industries, the Sketch indicates how many establishments have a net income of up to 50, 100, 200 rubles, etc. It is these data that we have combined. We find that there are data available for 28 industries, [8] embracing 8,364 establishments, or 93.2% of the total number (8,991). In all, in these 28 industries there are 8,377 establishments (income figures are not given for 13 establishments), with 14,135 family and 4,625 wage-workers, or 18,760 in all, which constitutes 93.9% of the total number of workers. Naturally, from these data covering 93% of the handicraftsmen we are fully entitled to draw conclusions regarding all of them, for there are no grounds for assuming that the remaining 7% differ from these 93%. Before presenting our summary, it is necessary to make the following remarks:

1) In thus classifying the material, the compilers of the Sketch have not always strictly adhered to uniform and identical headings for the groups. For example, they have “up to 100 rubles,” “less than 100 rubles,” and sometimes even “100 rubles each.” The top and bottom limits of the category are not always indicated, that is, sometimes the classification begins with the category “up to 100 rubles,” sometimes with that of “up to 50 rubles,” “up to 10 rubles,” and so on; sometimes the classification ends with the category “1,000 rubles and over,” sometimes the categories “2,000 to 3,000 rubles” and others are introduced. None of these inaccuracies is of any serious importance. We have unified all the categories contained in the Sketch (there are fifteen of them: up to 10, up to 20, up to 50, up to 100, up to 200, up to 300, up to 400, up to 500, up to 600, up to 700, up to 800, up to 900, up to 1,000, 1,000 and over, and 2,000 to 3,000 rubles), and we have eliminated all minor inaccuracies and misunderstandings by assigning them to one or another of these categories.

2) The Sketch only indicates the number of establishments in certain income categories, but does not indicate the income of all the establishments in each category. Yet it is these latter figures that we need most. We have therefore assumed that the aggregate income of the establishments in any category is determined with sufficient accuracy by multiplying the number of establishments by the average income, that is, by the arithmetical mean of the maximum and minimum of the given category (for example, 150 rubles in the case of the 100 to 200 ruble category, etc.). Only in the case of the lowest two categories (up to 10 rubles and up to 20 rubles) have the maximum incomes (10 rubles and 20 rubles respectively) been taken instead of the averages. Verification has shown that this method (one generally permissible in statistical calculations) yields results that approximate very closely to reality. For instance, the aggregate net income of the handicraft families in these 28 industries, according to the Sketch , amounts to 951,653 rubles, while according to our approximate figures, based on the income categories, it amounts to 955,150 rubles, an excess of 3,497 rubles = 0.36%. Consequently, the difference or error is less than 4 kopeks in 10 rubles.

3) From our summary we learn the average income per family (in each category), but not per family worker. To determine the latter, another approximate calculation had to be made. Knowing the division of families according to the number of family workers (and separately—according to the number of wage-workers employed), we assumed that the lower the income of a family, the smaller its size (i.e., the smaller the number of family workers per establishment) and the fewer the establishments employing wage-workers. On the contrary, the higher the income per family, the larger the number of establishments employing wage-workers and the larger the family, that is, the number of family workers per establishment is larger. Obviously, this assumption is the most favourable for anyone who might want to contest our conclusions. In other words, whatever other assumption was made, it would only help to reinforce our conclusions.

We now give a summary showing the division of the handicraftsmen according to the income of their establishments.

These data are too detailed and have therefore to be combined under simpler and clearer headings. Let us take five income categories of handicraftsmen: a) poor, with incomes of up to 50 rubles per family; b) in straitened circumstances, with incomes of 50 to 100 rubles per family; c) medium, with incomes of 100 to 300 rubles per family; d) well-to-do, with incomes of 300 to 500 rubles per family, and e) affluent, with incomes of over 500 rubles per family.

According to the data showing the incomes of establishments we shall add to these categories a rough division of establishments according to the number of family and wage workers they employ. [9] We get the following table (see p. 417).

These data lead to very interesting conclusions, which we shall now enumerate, taking the handicraftsmen category by category:

a) Over one-fourth of the families (28.4%) come under the category of poor , with an average income of about 33 rubles per family. Let us assume that this is the income of only one family worker, that all in this category are one man producers. In any case the earnings of these handicrafts men are considerably lower than the average earnings of wage-workers employed by handicraftsmen (45.85 rubles). If the majority of these one-man producers belong to the lower (3rd) sub-group, that is, work for buyers-up, this means that the “masters” pay those who work at home less than wage-workers employed in the workshop. Even if we assume that the working period of this category is the shortest, their earnings are nevertheless at the poverty level.

b) Over two-fifths of the total number of handicraftsmen (41.8%) belong to the group of families in straitened circumstances, who have an average income of 75 rubles per family. Not all of these are one-man establishments (the previous category was assumed to consist solely of one-man producers): about half the families have two family workers each, and hence the average earnings per family worker are only about 50 rubles, i.e. , not more , or even less , than the earnings of a wage-worker employed by a handicraftsman (apart from wages, amounting to 45.85 rubles, part of the wage-workers also receive their board) Thus , judged by their earnings , seven-tenths of the total number of handicraftsmen are on a par with , and some even at a lower level than , the wage-workers employed by handicraftsmen . Astonishing as this conclusion is, it fully conforms to the facts quoted above on the superiority of large establishments over small. The low income level of these handicraftsmen can be judged by the fact that the average wage of an agricultural labourer employed by the year in Perm Gubernia is 50 rubles, in addition to board. [10] Consequently, the standard of living of seven-tenths of the “independent” handicraftsmen is no higher than that of agricultural labourers!

The Narodniks, of course, will say that these earnings are only supplementary to agriculture. But in the first place, has it not been established long ago that only a minority of the peasants are able to derive enough from agriculture to maintain their families, after land redemption payments, rent and farm expenses are deducted? And please note that we are comparing the handicraftsman’s earnings with the wages of a farm labourer who receives his board from his master. Secondly, seven-tenths of the total number of handicraftsmen must also include non-agriculturists. Thirdly, even if it turns out that agriculture covers the maintenance of the agriculturist handicraftsmen of these categories, the drastic effect of the tie with the land in reducing earnings still remains beyond all doubt.

Another comparison: in Krasnoufimsk Uyezd, the average earnings of a wage-worker employed by a handicraftsman are 33.2 rubles (p. 149 of the tables), while the average earnings of a person employed at “his own” works, that is, of an ironworker from among the former professional [13] peasants, are estimated by the Zemstvo statisticians at 78.7 rubles ( Material for a Statistical Survey of Perm Gubernia. Krasnoufimsk Uyezd . Zavodsk District , Kazan, 1894), or over twice as much. And it is a generally known fact that the wages of ironworkers from among the former possessional peasants are always lower than wages of “free” workers in the factories. One can, therefore, see that reduced consumption, a miserable standard of living, is the price paid for the celebrated “independence” of the Russian handicraftsman “based on an organic tie between industry and agriculture”!

c) In the category of “medium” handicraftsmen we have included families with incomes of 100 to 300 rubles, or an average of about 180 rubles per family. They constitute almost one-fourth of the total number (24.1%). Absolutely, their income is very, very low: counting two-and-a-half family workers per establishment, it amounts to about 72 rubles per family worker—a very inadequate sum, and one which no factory worker would envy. Compared, however, with the incomes of the mass of handicraftsmen this sum is fairly high! It appears that even this meagre “sufficiency” is only secured at the expense of others: the majority of the handicraftsmen in this category employ wage-workers (roughly about 85% of the masters employ wage-labourers, and the average for the 2,016 establishments is over one wage-worker per establishment). Hence, in order to fight their way out of the mass of poverty-stricken handicrafts men, this category, under the existing commodity-capitalist relations, have to win a “sufficiency” for themselves from others, have to engage in economic struggle, to squeeze out the mass of the small producers still further and become petty bourgeois. Either poverty and the lowering of their standard of living to the nec plus ultra , or ( for a minority ) the building-up of their (absolutely very meagre) welfare at the expense of others—such is the dilemma with which commodity production confronts the small producer. Such is the language of facts.

d) The category of well-to-do handicraftsmen embraces only 3.8% of the families, those with an average income of about 385 rubles, or about 100 rubles per family worker (assuming that under this heading come masters with 4 or 5 family workers per establishment). Such an income, about double the earnings of a wage-worker, is already based on a considerable employment of wage-labour: all the establishments in this category employ an average of about 3 wage-workers per establishment.

e) The affluent handicraftsmen, those with an average income of 820 rubles per family, constitute only 1.9% of the total. This category partly includes establishments with 5 family workers, and partly establishments with no family workers at all, that is, those based exclusively on wage-labour. On an average, this amounts to about 350 rubles of income per family worker. The high incomes of these “handicraftsmen” accrue from the large number of wage-workers employed, averaging about 10 persons per establishment. [11] These are already small manufacturers, owners of capitalist workshops, and to include them among the “handicraftsmen,” together with the one-man establishments, rural artisans and even domestic producers who work for manufacturers (and sometimes, as we shall see below, for these same affluent handicraftsmen!) only testifies, as we have already remarked, to the utter vagueness and haziness of the term “handicraft.”

In concluding our examination of the census data on handicraftsmen’s incomes we must make the following remark. It might be said that the concentration of incomes in the handicraft industries is not very high: 5.7% of the establishments account for 26.5% of the total income, and 29.8% for 64.4%. Our reply to this is that, firstly, even this degree of concentration shows how totally unsuitable and unscientific are sweeping arguments about “handicraftsmen,” and “average” figures relating to them. Secondly, we should not lose sight of the fact that these data do not include buyers-up , with the result that the income division is highly inaccurate. We have seen that 2,346 families and 5,628 workers work for buyers-up (third sub-group); consequently, here it is the buyers-up who get the principal income. Their separation from the mass of the producers is absolutely artificial and entirely unwarranted. Just as it would be wrong to describe the economic relations in large-scale factory industry without mentioning the size of the manufacturers’ incomes, so is it wrong to describe the economics of “handicraft” industry without mentioning the incomes of the buyers-up—incomes obtained from the same industry in which handicraftsmen are also engaged, and constituting part of the value of goods produced by handicraftsmen. We are therefore entitled, in fact we are obliged, to conclude that the actual distribution of incomes in handicraft industry is far more uneven than was shown above, for the categories which include the largest industrialists of all have been omitted.

## Notes

[1] In the Sketch there is an obvious misprint in this column (see p. 58), which we have corrected.— Lenin

[2] In the Sketch there is an obvious misprint in this column (see p. 58), which we have corrected.— Lenin

[3] It is well known that among the peasants even industrial workers are often compelled to perform agricultural work. Cf. Handicraft Industries , etc ., III, p. 7.— Lenin

[4] The seasonal labourer in agriculture always receives more than half the yearly wage. But let us assume that in this case the seasonal labourers receive only half the wage of the annual worker. The wage of an annual worker will then be (2,492 : (73 + 5 1/2)) = 25.5 rubles. According to the Department of Agriculture, the average wages over a period of 10 years (1881-91) for a farm labourer employed by the year in Perm Gubernia was 50 rubles with board.— Lenin

[5] On this last point (which is the first in importance) we would say that it is unfortunate that the Sketch furnishes no data on the standard of living of the agriculturists and non-agriculturists. But other investigators have noted that it is a common phenomenon for the living standard of the non-agriculturist industrialists to be incomparably higher than that of the “raw” agriculturists, and this is equally true of Perm Gubernia. Cf. Reports and Investigations of Handicraft Industry in Russia published by the Ministry of Agriculture and State Property, Vol. III, Yegunov’s article. The author points to the completely “urban” standard of living in some of the landless villages, to the endeavour of the non-agriculturist handicraftsman to dress and live “as decent people do” (European clothes, even to the starched shirt- samovar, larger consumption of tea, sugar, white bread, beef, etc.). The author draws on the family budgets contained in Zemstvo statistical publications.— Lenin

[6] There is only one group in the horn industry—Group I.— Lenin

[7] The distribution of the workers in these three industries between Group I and Group II is done approximately, 85.9% being taken as the standard for Group I.— Lenin

[8] There is an exception: the dyeing industry is run entirely by artisans, and summer work is greater than winter work.— Lenin

[9] We would remind the reader that only one town (and that uyezd centre) was here included by way of exception: only 1,412, or 29.6 per cent, of the 4,762 family workers in Group II are town dwellers.— Lenin

[1] It goes without saying that only handicraftsmen in the same sub-group can be compared, and that a commodity producer cannot be compared with an artisan or a handicraftsman who works for a buyer-up.— Lenin

[2] But these are by no means the largest establishments. From the division of establishments according to number of wage-workers (p. 113) it may be calculated that in three establishments there are 163 wage-workers, or an average of 54 per establishment. Yet these are also regarded as “handicraft establishments” and are added together with the one-man workshops (of which there are no less than 460 in the industry) to obtain general “average”!— Lenin

[3] “In one of the establishments” the introduction of a wool-carding machine was mentioned (p. 119).— Lenin

[4] There is apparently a misprint or error in the table on p. 158: in Irbit Uyezd the net income is more than the 9,827 rubles shown in the total. We had to change this table according to the data in the tables appended to the Sketch .— Lenin

[5] Cf. Handicraft Industries , pp. 46-47, as well as the description of the industry given in the Sketch , p. 162, et . seq . It is most typical that “these employers were once real handicraftsmen and that is why they have always been fond of giving themselves that name.”— Lenin

[6] It may be seen from the Sketch that in the pitch and tar industry both the primitive method of distilling pitch in pits and the more perfected cauldron , and even cylindrical boiler , methods are employed (p. 195). The household census furnished material showing the distribution of these different methods, but it was not utilised, the large establishments not being treated separately.— Lenin

[7] Cf. vehicle building, p. 308 of the text and pp. 11 and 12 of the tables; chest making, p. 335; tailoring, p. 344, etc.— Lenin

[8] These data are also available for the lace-, lock- and accordion making industries, but we omit them, as they do not record establishments according to the number of family workers.— Lenin

[9] The 8,377 establishments in the 28 industries are divided according to the number of family and wage-workers as follows: no family workers—95 establishments; 1 worker—4,362; 2 workers—2,632; 3 workers—870; 4 workers—275; 5 workers and over—143. The establishments employing wage-workers number 2,228, and are divided as follows: 1 wage-worker—1,359; 2 workers—447; 3 workers—201; 4 workers—96; 5 workers and more—125. The wage workers total 4,625, and their aggregate wages total 212,096 rubles (45.85 rubles per worker).— Lenin

[10] The cost of board is 45 rubles per annum, according to the figures—average for 10 years (188l-91)—of the Department of Agriculture. (See S. A. Korolenko, Hired Labour , etc .)— Lenin

[11] Of the 2,228 establishments employing wage-workers in these 28 industries, 46 employ 10 wage-workers or more—a total of 887, or an average of 19.2 wage-workers per establishment.— Lenin

[12] Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 390.

[13] By a decree of Peter I issued in 1721 merchant factory owners were given the right to purchase peasants for work in their factories. The feudal workers attached to such enterprises under the possessional right were called “possessional peasants.”