V. I.

Lenin

New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture

PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America

14. The Expropriation of the Small Farmers

The question of the expropriation of the small farmers is
immensely important to an understanding and assessment of
capitalism in agriculture in general, and it is highly characteristic of modern political economy and statistics, which
are saturated through and through with bourgeois notions and
prejudices, that this question is either practically not
considered at all or is given the least attention.

The general statistics in all capitalist countries show that the
urban population is growing at the expense of the rural, that
the population is abandoning the countryside. In the U.S.A.,
this process is steadily advancing. The proportion of the urban
population increased from 29.5% in 1880, to 36.1% in 1890, 40.5%
in 1900, and 46.3% in 1910. In every part of the country the
urban population is growing more rapidly than the rural
population: from 1900 to l910, the rural population in the
industrial North-went up by 3.9% and the urban by 29.8%; in the
former slave-holding South, the rural population increased by
14.8%, and the urban, by 41.4%; in the homestead West, the
figures were 49.7 and 89.6%, respectively.

One should think that such a universal process would also have
to be studied in the taking of agricultural censuses. A most
important question from the scientific standpoint naturally
arises as to what sections, strata or groups of the rural
population provide the fugitives from the countryside and in
what circumstances. Since highly detailed information about each
agricultural enterprise and about each animal in it is collected
every ten years, it would be no trouble at all to include
questions as to how many and what kind of farms were sold or
rented with an eye to moving into town, and how many members of
households abandoned farming temporarily or for good, and in
what circumstances. But no such questions are asked: the
investigation does not go beyond the official stereotyped
statement: “The rural population decreased from 59.5% in 1900 to
53.7% in 1910.” The census-takers seem to have no inkling of the
mass of misery, oppression and ruin concealed behind these
routine figures. As a general rule, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois economists turn a blind eye to the obvious
connection between the night of the population from the
countryside and the ruin of the small producers.

There is no alternative, therefore, but to try and bring
together the relatively meager and very badly compiled data on
the expropriation of the small farmers gleaned from the 1910
Census report.

There are the figures on the forms of farm tenure: the number of
owners, subdivided into full and part owners; and the number of share-cropping tenants and cash-paying
tenants. These figures are tabulated for the various divisions
but not the farm groups.

Here is the first picture we get from the totals for 1900 and 1910:

| Total rural population increase Total number of farms increased Total number of owners increased Total number of full owners increased | 11.2% 10.9% 8.1% 4.8% |

This picture is a clear indication of the growing expropriation
of small-scale agriculture. The rural population is increasing
more slowly than the urban. The number of farmers is increasing
more slowly than the rural population; the number of owners is
increasing more slowly than the number of farmers; the number of
full owners—more slowly than the number of owners in general.

The proportion of owners in the total number of farmers has been
decreasing steadily over a period of several decades, as
follows:

| 1880 1890 1900 1910 | 74.0% 71.6% 64.7% 63.0% |

There is a corresponding growth in the proportion of tenants,
with the number of share-cropping tenants going up faster than
that of cash-paying tenants. The number of share-cropping
tenants was 17.5% in 1880; then it rose to 18.4% and 22.2%, and
finally to 24% in 1910.

It is evident from the following figures that the decrease in
the proportion of owners and the increase in the proportion of
tenants is, on the whole, an indication of the dispossession and
displacement of the small farmers:

| | Percentage of farms owning |
| --- | --- |
| Class of farm | domestic animals | horses |
| | 1900 | 1910 | +/- | 1900 | 1910 | +/- |
| Owners Tenants | 96.7 94.2 | 96.1 92.9 | -0.6 -1.3 | 85.0 67.9 | 81.5 60.7 | -3.5 -7.2 |

According to all the returns for both census years the owners
are economically stronger. The condition of the tenants is
deteriorating more rapidly than that of the owners.

Let us examine separately the figures for the sections.

The greatest number of tenants, as I have already said, is in
the South, and there tenancy has the fastest rate of growth: it
rose from 47% in 1900, to 49.6% in 1910. Capital defeated
slavery half a century ago, merely to restore it now in
a new form as share tenancy.

In the North, the number of tenants is considerably smaller and
is growing at a much slower rate: it went up from 26.2% in 1900,
to only 26.5% in 1910. The West has the smallest number of
tenants, and it is the only section where tenancy, instead of increasing, decreased: it fell from 16.6% in 1900 to
14.0% in l910. “A very low proportion of tenant farms,” says the
Census report for 1910, “is also shown for the Mountain and
Pacific divisions, [the two divisions constituting “The West”] [1]

,

where it is doubtless attributable mainly to the fact that those divisions have been only recently settled
and that many of the farmers in them are homesteaders who have
obtained their land from the Government” free or for a very
small price (Vol. V, p. 104).

This is a striking example of the peculiar characteristic of the
U.S.A., to which I have repeatedly referred, namely, the
availability of unoccupied, free land. This explains, on the one
hand, the extremely rapid and extensive development of capitalism in America. The absence of private property in land
in some parts of a vast country does not exclude capitalism—our Narodniks should make a note of
this!—on the contrary, it broadens its base, and accelerates its development. Upon the other hand, this
peculiarity, which is entirely unknown in the old, long-settled
capitalist countries of Europe, serves in America to cover up the expropriation of the small farmers—a process
already under way in the settled and most industrialized parts
of the country.

Let us take the North. We get the following picture:

| | 1900 | 1910 | + or - % | |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Total rural population increase (000,000) Total number of farms increased (000) Total number of owners increased (000) Total number of full owners increased (000) | 22.2 2,874 2,088 1,794 | 23.1 2,891 2,091 1,749 | +3.9 +0.6 +0.1 -2.5 | |

We see not only a relative reduction in the number of owners,
not only a decline in their proportion of the total number of
farmers, etc., but even an absolute decrease in the number of owners, against a background of growing production in
the main section of the U.S.A., which embraces 60% of the
country’s improved acreage!

It should, besides, be borne in mind that in one of the four
divisions making up the North, namely, the West North Central,
the allotment of homesteads continues to this very day ,
and that 54 million acres were allotted in the 10 years from
1901 to 1910.

The tendency of capitalism to expropriate small-scale agriculture is so strong that the American “North” shows an
absolute decrease in the number of landowners, in spite of the distribution of tens of millions of acres of
unoccupied, free land.

Only two factors still serve to paralyze this tendency in the
U.S.A.: (1) the existence of the still unparcelled slave-holding
plantations in the South, with its oppressed and downtrodden
Negro population; and (2) the fact that the West is still partly
unsettled. Both these factors tend to widen the future base of
capitalism, and so prepare the conditions for its even more
extensive and more rapid development. The sharpening of
contradictions and the displacement of small-scale production
are not removed but are transferred to a larger arena. The
capitalist fire appears to be “damped down”—but at the price of an even greater accumulation of new and more
inflammable material.

Furthermore, on the question of the expropriation of small-scale
agriculture, we have the returns for the number of farms owning
livestock. Here are the figures for the U.S.A.

| Percentage of farms owning | 1900 | 1910 | + or - | |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Domestic animals in general Dairy cows Horses | 95.8 78.7 79.0 | 94.9 80.8 73.8 | -0.9 +2.1 -5.2 | |

These figures show, on the whole, a reduction in the number of
owners in proportion to the total number of farmers. The
increase in the percentage of those who owned dairy cows was
smaller than the drop in the percentage of those who owned
horses.

Let us now examine the figures for farms grouped in relation to
the two major kinds of livestock.

| Size group (acres) | Percentage of farms owning dairy cows | + or - |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1900 | 1910 |
| Under 20 20 to 49 50 to 99 100 to 174 174 to 499 500 to 999 1,000 and over | 49.5 65.9 84.1 88.9 92.6 90.3 82.9 | 52.9 71.2 87.1 89.8 93.5 89.6 86.0 | +3.4 +5.3 +3.0 +0.9 +0.9 -0.7 +3.1 |
| |
| Average for the U.S.A. | 78.7 | 80.8 | +2.1 |

We find that the greatest increase was in the number of small
farms with dairy cows, then came the latifundia, and then the
medium-size farms. There was a decrease in the percentage of
farms reporting dairy cows among the big owners, with 500 to 999
acres of land.

On the whole, this seems to indicate a gain for small-scale
agriculture. Let us recall, however, that in farming the
ownership of dairy cattle has a twofold significance: on the one
hand, it may generally indicate a higher living standard and
better conditions of nutrition. On the other hand, it signifies—and rather more frequently—a development of
one branch of commercial farming and cattle-breeding: the
production of milk for the market in the towns and industrial
centers. We saw above that farms of this type, the “dairy”
farms, were classified by American statisticians under a special
head, according to the principal source of income. A characteristic of this group is that it has a
smaller -than-average total and improved acreage, but a
greater -than-average value of output, and a double-the-average
employment of hired labour per acre. The increasing importance
of small farms in dairy farming may simply mean—and most
likely does mean—a growth of capitalist dairy farms of the type described, on small tracts of land. For the
sake of comparison here are some figures on the concentration of dairy cattle in America:

| Sections | Average number of dairy cows per farm | Increase |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1890 | 1900 |
| The North The South The West | 4.8 2.3 5.0 | 5.3 2.4 5.2 | +0.5 +0.1 +0.2 |
| |
| Overall average | 3.8 | 4.0 | +0.2 |

We find that the North, which is richest of all in dairy cattle,
also showed the greatest increase in wealth. Here is a distribution of this increase among the groups:

| The North

Size group (acres) | % increase or decrease in number of dairy cows from 1900 to 1910 |
| --- | --- |
| Under 20 20 to 49 50 to 99 100 to 174 174 to 499 500 to 999 1,000 and over | -4 (+10.0 in the number of farms) -3 (-12.6 in the number of farms) + 9 (-7.3 in the number of farms) +14 (+2.2 in the number of farms) +18 (+12.7 in the number of farms) +29 (+40.4 in the number of farms) +18 (+15.4 in the number of farms) |
| |
| Overall increase | +14 (+15.4 in the number of farms) |

The more rapid growth in the number of small farms with
dairy cattle did not prevent its more rapid concentration in the large enterprises.

Let us now turn to the figures on the number of farms reporting
horses. This information about draught animals is an indication
of the general pattern of farming and not of any special branch
of commercial farming.

| Size group (acres) | Percentage of farms reporting horses | Decrease |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1900 | 1910 |
| Under 20 20 to 49 50 to 99 100 to 174 174 to 499 500 to 999 1,000 and over | 52.4 66.3 82.2 88.6 92.0 93.7 94.2 | 48.9 57.4 77.6 86.5 91.0 93.2 94.1 | -3.5 -8.9 -4.6 -2.1 -1.0 -0.5 -0.1 |
| |
| Average for the U.S.A. | 79.0 | 73.8 | -5.2 |

We find that as we go down the size-group scale there is a
rising number of farms not reporting horses. With the exception
of the smallest farms (under 20 acres) which, as we know,
include a comparatively greater number of capitalistic farms
than the neighboring groups, we observe a rapid decrease in the
number of horseless farms and a much slower increase in their
number. The use of steam ploughs and other engines on the rich
farms may partly compensate for the reduction in draught
animals, but such an assumption is out of the question for the
mass of the poorer farms.

Finally, the growth of expropriation is also evident from the
returns on the number of mortgaged farms:

| Sections | Percentage of mortaged farms |
| --- | --- |
| 1890 | 1900 | 1910 |
| The North. . . . . The South. . . . . The West . . . . . | 40.3 5.7 23.1 | 40.9 17.2 21.7 | 41.9 23.5 28.6 |
| |
| Average for the U.S.A. | 28.2 | 31.0 | 33.6 |

The percentage of mortgaged farms is on a steady increase in all
sections, and it is highest in the most populous industrialized
and capitalist North. American statisticians point out (Vol. V,
p. 159) that the growth in the number of mortgaged farms in the
South is probably due to the “parceling out” of the plantations,
which are sold in lots to Negro and white farmers, who pay only
a part of the purchase price, the rest being covered by a
mortgage on the property. Consequently a peculiar buying-up operation is under way in the slave-holding South. Let us
note that in 1910 Negroes in the U.S.A. owned only 920,883
farms, i.e., 14.5% of the total; between 1900 and 1910, the
number of white farms increased 9.5%, and that of Negro farms,
twice as fast—19.6%. The Negro urge to emancipation from
the “plantation owners” half a century after the “victory” over
the slave-owners is still marked by an exceptional intensity.

The American statisticians also point out that the mortgaging of
a farm does not always indicate lack of prosperity; it is
sometimes a way of obtaining capital for land improvement; and
the like. This is indisputable, but this indisputable observation should not conceal the fact—as is much too
often the case with bourgeois economists—that only a well-to-do minority are in a position to obtain capital for
improvements, etc., in this way, and to employ it productively;
the majority are further impoverished and fall into the clutches
of finance capital assuming this particular form.

Researchers could—and should—have paid much more attention to the dependence of farmers on finance capital. But
although this aspect of the matter is immensely important, it
has remained in the background.

The growth in the number of mortgaged farms in any case means
that the actual control over them is transferred to the
capitalists. It stands to reason that apart from officially
recorded and notarized mortgages, a considerable number of farms
are steeped in private debt, which is not covered by strict
legal instruments and is not recorded by the census.

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Notes:
[1]

Interpolations in square brackets (within passages quoted by Lenin) have
been introduced by Lenin, unless otherwise indicated.— Ed .