OF THE BADEN INQUIRY 83
Erhebungen ü berdie Lageder Land - wirtschaftim Grossherzogthum Baden.*
1883. Karlsruhe.
(Three big volumes, rather 4, because to the 3rd is append-
ed Ergebnisse der Erhebungen.**
A number of monographs on separate communities, followed by results. Very many budgets.)
Volume 1. Note (after paging)
Sandhausen community (Heidelberg district) Vol. I, VIII *), p. 30 [Vol. I, VIII ⋆ (community)].
Budgets. Big peasant. 9.80 ha. 1 farm-hand &1 maid &
379 days of hired labour.
Smallpeasant. 2.96 ha (1.62 ha hisown &
1.36 leased)
raises tobacco and hops.
10 man - days (hired day labour).
[with tobacco and hops 14 working days of labour should
be reckoned per are. Consequently, total = 370 days.
husband
—300
Total receipts = 2,032.32 wife
— 60
370.1
Outlays
1,749.91 day labourer
— 10
282.41
*) The description of each community is a special issue
with its own pagination. That is why references must include volume and community: Vol. II, XI—XIth community in Volume II.
* A Study of the State of Agriculture in the Grand Duchy of Baden.—Ed.
** Results of the Study.—Ed.


ibidem
Day labourer=small leasehold farm.
2.30 ha
12.6 ares of own land working days of
217.2
”
of leased land hired labour.
a total of 229.8 ares
1w working days per are.
Gross receipts —1,543.50
16— day labourer outlays —1,472.58 Σ=410 work-
300— husband
&70.30 ing days
94— wife
Ergebnisse, pp. 56-57. The per-head consumption of meat
on big-peasant and middle-peasant farms.
Everywhere (8 examples) it is much higher on the big farms.
Volume II. II, XI community, p. 48. 18 ares of tobacco require 80 working days.
[The whole Baden Inquiry is a study of 37 typical communities. In the Ergebnisse, there are the most detailed,
incredibly detailed, budgets (70), the main results of which
are given in the table I have borrowed.
Of interest in the Ergebnisse is Anlage VI: “Uebersichtliche Darstellung der Ergebnisse der in den Erhebungsgemeinden angestellten Ertragsberechnungen” (S. 149-65).*
This is atabulated summing up of the budget (and economic) data on the separately described households.
(37 & 33 = 70 budgets.)
31 big peasants (or farmers)
See extract of data on
21 middle peasants these 70 budgets in
18 small peasants (including one notebook 84 wine-grower).

In the Ergebnisse [I have only paged through the Ergebnisse, but not the material (Vols. 1-3) itself, for the essence
is given in the budget table, and there is no time to make
a special study of them] one is struck by the indiscriminate
nature of the conclusions: the big, middle and small peasants are not discriminated systematically anywhere in the
results either; it is always “in general”, e.g., even on the
* Appendix VI: “Brief Review of the Results or the Assessment of
Incomes in the Investigated Communities”.—Ed.
PMQ

V. I. LENIN

question of consumption. A comparison is made of the communities, and not of the big, medium and small enterprises. (E.g., pp. 55-56.)
This table (on 1873 data) appears on p.  1 of the Ergebnisse.
Number of agric.
%
Area
%
enterprises ha
I
“mixed” enterprises (of “day labourers and artisans”)
0- 10 Morgen
160, 581
72. 0
227, 213
28. 5
(0- 3. 6 ha)
II
small-peasant enterprises
10- 20 Morgen
38, 900
17. 5
193, 923
24. 3
(3. 6- 7. 2 ha)
III
middle-peasant enterprises . . . .
20- 5 0 Morgen
18, 346
8. 3
193, 936
24. 3
(7. 20-18 ha)
IV
big-peasant enterprises
50- 100 Morgen
3, 721
1. 6
90, 152
11. 3
(18- 36 ha)
V
large (among them bigpeasant) enterprises . . .
100- 500 Morgen
1, 177
0. 5
65, 671
8. 4
(36- 180 ha)
VI . . . . . . .
500 and

0. 01
5, 542
0. 6
over (180 ha and over)
Community land, etc. . . . . . .
—
—
—
21, 000
2. 6
222, 746

797, 597*

Collateral employment—handicraft industries (Görwihl, Wittenschwand, Neukirch) (p. 43)
lumbering day labour factory work, stone quarries, etc., etc.
There is also seasonal outside earth moving and lumbering
(p. 45 from Neusatz).
In Neukirch, 40 ha is considered to be a minimum area for subsistence. P. 44.
It is interesting to note concerning data α and β** (see
tables in notebook):
α
β
* There is an error of addition in this column (should be 797,497).—Ed.
** α—average annual profit per ha (marks); β—permissible limit of taxa-
α
β
tion of estate, together with debt, as % of its taxable capital value.—Ed.


With the big and middle peasants, whose holdings come to 7-10 ha in the corn areas and 4-5 ha in the commercial
crop and wine-making areas ... (and to 20-30 ha when there are forests) ... the results of calculations (α β ) are
α
β
not bad (p. 66).... Here, there is no danger in having a 40-
70 per cent, average 55 per cent, debt.
By contrast, the conditions for the small peasant population are taking on a less favourable shape, i.e., ... for those
with 4-7 ha under cropping, -4 ha under commercial crops
and wine-making ... up to 30 ha under forests.
For these small peasants, the average limit of permissible
indebtedness lies ... in all respects much lower than should
be established for the middle and big peasants.
...For the estates of these sizes, with an average family
and in the pure corn areas, the limit of indebtedness...
must not exceed 30 per cent of the assessed value of the
holding if the regular payment of interest and of instalments
is to be fully secured... (p. 66).
The above-given statistics, consequently, confirm the widespread opinion that those owners of peasant holdings, who are on the borderline [in the
middle] between the day labourers and the middle peasants [in the rural districts the farmers of this
category are usually called the “middle estate”— Mittelstand], are frequently in a worse position
than those in the groups above and below in size of holdings; for, although they are able to cope with
moderate indebtedness, if it is kept at a certain and not very high level, they find it difficult to
meet their obligations, being unable to obtain regular collateral employment (as day labourers,
etc.), by which means to increase their income.*
They can meet their obligations only when their children have grown up and are placed, so that
family expenses are less of a burden on these small farms. By contrast, day labourers (or handicraftsmen)
with small holdings, insofar as they have some regular collateral employment, are frequently in
* See present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 187-88.—Ed.

V. I. LENIN

a much better position materially than those belonging to the “middle estate”, for, as computations
in numerous cases have shown, collateral employ-
N.B.
ment at times yields such a high net (i.e., money)
income as to enable them to repay even large debts*; this explains the frequently observed
fact that where such conditions obtain, small holders, like day labourers and others, gradually
manage to take small-peasant holdings out of debt.
These computations also show that it is the rural owners, who belong to the lowest sections of the
independent peasant population, that have most reasons to make cautious use of their credit, which
is why they have to make an especially careful review of their financial possibilities when buying
any real estate (pp. 66-67).
Data for communities also prevail on the question of indebtedness.
Cf. especially p. 97: “The final conclusion [on the question
of indebtedness]: relatively less favourable position of the
small-peasant population.”
The study of indebtedness by groups of holdings has shown:
Almost everywhere ... it has turned out that it is the lowest groups of holders (day labourers with a land allotment) that have the highest percentage of indebtedness, and
that, on the contrary, this proportion markedly declines
for the peasant population proper, and in general tends to
drop with the growth of the estates in size, sometimes very
rapidly indeed, frequently disappearing almost entirely in
the higher groups (big-peasant holdings) (p. 89).
In the final count, the studies of debt levels in the communities concerned give the following picture on the strength
of these data:
Almost everywhere, there is a very considerable debt burden on the holdings of day labourers. Nevertheless, this
part of the debt is the least dangerous (p. 97)—for this
section of the rural population relies mainly on earnings
not from the land, and experience shows that, given regular
earnings (“to any extent”), day labourers manage to cope
* See present edition, Vol. 5, p. 188.—Ed.
[
]


with their debts (which mostly arise from the purchase of
land).
The debt on holdings among middle and big peasants in the overwhelming majority of the communities studied,
even in those which are considered heavily in debt, remains
within the limits marked out by the size of estates, and
such debt is very small in a rather large number of communities, to be found in all economic areas....
On the other hand, in a considerable number of the communities studied, the indebtedness of the smallpeasant population is relatively larger and not entirely
safe, considering the permissible limit of indebtedness,
and in view of the fact that this higher indebtedness should ultimately be due largely to definite external
conditions... (p. 97) (land, climate, land hunger, etc.),
the same thing may be assumed for the country’s other communities.
This indebtedness is the result mainly of credit for land
(purchase of land and transfer of estates).
...in purchasing land, particular business-like caution must be exercised—something to which
most study reports point—primarily by the small-
N.B.
peasant population and by the day labourers, ranking next to it (p. 98).
The small peasant sells relatively little for cash, but he
stands particularly in need of money, and
...because of his lack of capital, he is especially hard hit
by every murrain, hailstorm, etc.*
Written in June-September 1901
First published in 1932
Printed from the original in Lenin Miscellany XIX
* See present edition, Vol. 5, p. 188.—Ed.

REMARKS ON M. E. SEIGNOURET’S BOOK,
ESSAYS ON SOCIAL AND AGRICULTURAL
ECONOMICS 85
M. E. Seignouret, Essais d’économie sociale et agricole,
Paris 1897. (p. 232 et seq.)—in one of the essays he makes
a comparison between small, big and medium wine-growing
(1 8 6 9—Gironde Agricultural Society) farms fictitious example N.B.
I. small
1 ha 60 ares—works himself and family only
II. medium
10 ha 25 ares—himself and family and one labourer (ploughman helper)
& day labourers
III. big
51 ha 25 ares—does not work himself. Senior servant 1, ploughmen-servants
(3) and wine-growers (6-7)
at settled wages
To I: it takes working days:
250 male & 200 female
50 male &
50 female remain for day labourers small medium big
Value of property fr.
fr.
fr.
Vineyards . . . . . . .
4,800
24,000
110,000
Other land . . . . . .

10,500
55,000
House
. . . . . . . .
1,000
 2,000
18,000
Implements and livestock
—
1,000
 4,000
Σ=6,û00
Σ=37,500
Σ=187,000
!
!


Outlays small medium big
4%

1,500
7,480 taxes and prestations


Vine-props
. . . . . .


Vine .
. . . . . . . .


Manure . . . . . . . .
40 various
125 shoeing expenses
& 33 of cattle and repayment*
Vine .
. . . . . . . .


Straw
. . . . . . . .

fertiliser

Transportation . . . . .

House repairs . . . . .


Fire insurance . . . . .


Repair of barrels, etc.


& 30
& 60
Grape gathering (No. 1)


2,000
&1,170

2,450 wages &187& more wages = 1,350
250 male days at 2.25=562
300 male cane days rush

2.25=675
200 female days at 0.75=150
250 fem.
%
—215 days
0.75=187 various=625
Σ = 1,210**
Σ = 4,182
Σ = 18,510 (No. 1) Payment or compensation for several days of work
by men or women, purchase of food, estimated at 20 fr.
p. 241).
* In this column, Seignouret says: “Veterinary insurance of animals or
loss of their value is more considerable than with a small holder”.—Ed.
** In the listing of outlays for the small farm, there is an omission
of interest—4 fr.—Ed.

V. I. LENIN

Receipts small medium big
4 barrels of wine at 240=960
182 barrels
75 barrels at 250=4,625 at 275=20,625 from land—732
90 hl. of wheat
= 2,250 receipts=5,357 the rest from land= 655
Σ=23,530
Balance—250 Balance &1,175 Balance &5, 00
In other words
Receipts =
960—198=462 (498 = 1,210—562—150)
day labour
50 male days at
2.25 = 112.50
50 fem. days at
0.75 = 37.50 and as senior servant (labourer)
he would have had 8 4 0 francs.
Written in June-October 1901
First printed in the Fourth
Printed from the original
Russian edition