## VI. What Is a Buyer-up?

We called the buyer-ups above the largest industrial entrepreneurs. From the conventional Populist standpoint this is—heresy. In our country, the buyer-up has become accustomed to being depicted as something standing outside production, something extraneous, alien to industry itself, depending "only" on exchange.

This is not the place to dwell in detail on the theoretical incorrectness of this view, based on a misunderstanding of the general and fundamental basis, the foundation, the background of modern industry (cottage industry included), namely commodity economy, in which commercial capital is a necessary component part, not an accidental and extraneous insertion. Here we must adhere to the facts and data of the cottage industry census, and our task now will consist in examining and analyzing these data about buyer-ups. A favorable condition for this examination is the separation of craftspeople working for buyer-ups into a special subgroup (the 3rd). But there are far more gaps and unexplored points on this question, which makes its examination rather difficult. There are no data on the number of buyer-ups, on large and small buyer-ups, on their connections with well-to-do craftspeople (connections by origin; connections of the buyer-up's trading operations with production in his own workshop, etc.), on the economy of buyer-ups. Populist prejudices, isolating the buyer-up as something external, prevented most researchers of cottage industry from posing the question of the buyer-up's economy, yet it is obvious that for an economist this is the first and chief question. It is necessary to study in detail and carefully how the buyer-up conducts his business, how his capital accumulates, how this capital operates in the sphere of purchasing raw materials, selling products, what are the conditions (socio-economic) of capital's activity in these spheres, how large are the buyer-up's expenses for organizing purchases and sales, how these expenses are applied depending on the size of commercial capital and the volume of purchases and sales, what conditions sometimes cause partial processing of raw materials in the buyer-up's workshops and then giving them to workers at home for further processing (whereby the final finishing is sometimes done again by the buyer-up) or sale of raw materials to small industrialists in order to buy their products later on the market. It is necessary to compare the cost of production of a product at a small craftsperson's, at a large industrialist's in a workshop uniting several wage-workers, and at a buyer-up's distributing material for processing in homes. It is necessary to take as a unit of investigation each enterprise, i.e., each individual buyer-up, to determine the size of his turnovers, the number of workers employed by him in a workshop or workshops and at home, the number of workers engaged in procuring raw materials, storing them and the product, and in sales. It is necessary to compare the technique of production (quantity and quality of tools and equipment, division of labor, etc.) at a small operator's, at a workshop owner's with wage-workers, and at a buyer-up's. Only such economic research can give a precise scientific answer to the question of what a buyer-up is, to the question of his significance in the economy, of his significance in the historical development of forms of industry under commodity production. The absence of such data in the results of the household census, which investigated all these questions in detail regarding each craftsperson, must be recognized as a major gap. Even if the registration and investigation of each buyer-up's economy had turned out (for various reasons) to be impossible, a large quantity of the designated information could be extracted from household data on craftspeople working for buyer-ups. Instead, we find in the "Essay" only hackneyed Populist phrases to the effect that the "kulak" is "alien by nature to production itself" (p. 7), whereby both buyer-ups and assembly workshops are classified as kulaks on the one hand, and moneylenders on the other; that "wage labor is not ruled by its technical concentration, like a factory (?), but by the monetary dependence of craftspeople... one of the forms of kulakdom" (309–310), that "the source of the exploitation of labor... lies not in the function of production, but in the function of exchange" (101), that in cottage trades we often encounter not "capitalization of production," but "capitalization of the exchange process" (265). We, of course, do not think of accusing the researchers of the "Essay" of originality: they simply borrowed wholesale those pronouncements which are scattered in such abundance, for instance, throughout the works of "our well-known" Mr. V.V.

To appraise the real significance of such phrases, it is worth recalling, at least, that in one of the chief branches of our industry, namely the textile industry, the "buyer-up" was the direct predecessor, the father of the large factory owner conducting large-scale machine production. The distribution of yarn to homes to craftspeople for processing—such was the yesterday of all our textile productions; this was, consequently, work for the "buyer-up," the "kulak," who, not having his own workshop ("was alien to production"), "only" distributed yarn and received finished products. Our good Populists never even attempted to investigate the origins of these buyer-ups, their continuous connection with owners of small workshops, their role as organizers of raw material purchases and product sales, the role of their capital concentrating the means of production, gathering together masses of dispersed small craftspeople, introducing division of labor and preparing the elements too of large-scale, but already machine production. The good Populists confined themselves to whining and lamenting about this "unfortunate," "artificial" and so forth phenomenon, consoling themselves with the fact that this was "capitalization" not of production, but "only" of the exchange process, engaging in sweet talk about "other paths for our fatherland,"—and meanwhile the "artificial" and "rootless" "kulaks" went on their way, continued to concentrate capital, "gather" the means of production and producers, expand the scale of raw material purchases, deepen the division of production into separate operations (warping, weaving, dyeing, finishing, etc.) and transform fragmented, technically backward, based on manual labor and bondage capitalist manufacture into capitalist machine industry.

Exactly the same process is occurring now in a mass of our so-called "cottage" trades, and the Populists in exactly the same way turn away from investigating reality in its development, in exactly the same way replace the question of the origins of given relations and their evolution with the question of what could have been (if what is had not been), console themselves in exactly the same way with the fact that these are so far "only" buyer-ups, in exactly the same way idealize and prettify the worst forms of capitalism, worst both in the sense of technical backwardness and economic imperfection and the social and cultural condition of the laboring masses.

Let us turn to the data of the Perm cottage industry census. The aforementioned gaps in these data we shall endeavor to fill, as needed, with material from the above-cited book "Cottage Industry of Perm Province, etc." Let us first isolate those trades which give the main mass of craftspeople working for buyer-ups (3rd subgroup). In this we shall have to resort to our own compilation, whose results (as noted above) do not coincide with the figures of the "Essay."

So, approximately 9/10 of craftspeople working for buyer-ups are concentrated in the seven listed trades. To these trades we shall first turn.

The organization of the shoemaking trade in Krasnoufimsk District is completely analogous ("Cottage Ind.," I, 148–149): leather processors also resew leather into boots, partly in their own workshops, partly distributing work to homes; one of the large owners of leather-shoemaking establishments has up to 200 permanent workers.

Now we can with sufficient clarity represent to ourselves the economic organization of the shoemaking trade and many others connected with it, the "cottage" trades. This is nothing other than departments of large capitalist workshops ("factories" according to the terminology of our official statistics), nothing other than partial operations of large capitalist operations in leather processing. The entrepreneurs organized on a large scale the purchase of materials, established factories for the manufacture of leather, and instituted an entire system of their further processing—a system based on division of labor (as a technical condition) and wage labor (as an economic condition): they produce certain operations in their own workshops (boot cutting), other operations are performed at home by "craftspeople" working for them; the entrepreneurs determine the scale of production, the size of piece-work wages, the types of goods manufactured and the quantity of products of each type. They also organized the wholesale distribution of products. Obviously, according to scientific terminology, this is one capitalist manufacture, in part already transitioning to a higher form, to a factory (precisely insofar as machines and systems of machines are applied to production: large leather factories have steam engines). The separation of certain parts of this manufacture into a special "cottage" form of production is an obvious absurdity, obscuring the fundamental fact of the dominance of wage labor and the subordination of the entire leather-shoemaking business to large capital. Instead of comical arguments about the desirability for this trade of a "cooperative organization of exchange" (p. 93 of the "Essay"), it would not be amiss to study more thoroughly the actual organization of production, to study those conditions which compel factory owners to prefer distributing work to homes. Factory owners undoubtedly find this more profitable for themselves, and this profitability will be clear to us if we recall the low wages of craftspeople generally, especially craftspeople-farmers and craftspeople of the 3rd subgroup. By distributing materials to homes, entrepreneurs thereby cheapen wages, save expenses on premises, partly on equipment, on supervision, free themselves from not always pleasant demands made on factory owners (they are not factory owners but traders!), acquire workers who are more dispersed, fragmented, less capable of self-defense, acquire unpaid drivers for these workers—a sort of "bosses" or "little masters" (terms of our textile industry under the system of distributing yarn to homes) in the person of those craftspeople working for them who themselves hire wage-workers (in 636 shoemaking families working for buyer-ups, 278 wage-workers were counted). We have already seen from the general table that these wage-workers (in subgroup 3) receive the lowest wages. This is hardly surprising, for they are subjected to double exploitation: exploitation by their employer, who squeezes out "profit" from the worker, and exploitation by the leather factory owner distributing materials to small operators. It is known that these small workshops, well acquainted with local conditions and the personal peculiarities of workers, are particularly inexhaustible in inventing various pressures, in practicing bondage hiring, truck-system, etc. It is well known that there is excessive duration of the working day in such workshops and "cottage huts," and one cannot but regret that the cottage census of 1894/95 provided almost no materials on these most important questions for illuminating our distinctive sweating-system with a multitude of middlemen intensifying pressure on workers, with the most uncontrolled and shameless exploitation.

On the organization of the felt-making trade (second in absolute number of families working for buyer-ups), the "Essay" unfortunately provides almost no information. We saw that in this trade there are craftspeople with dozens of wage-workers, but do they distribute work to homes, do they produce some operations outside their own workshop—this remained unexplained. Let us only note the fact established by the researchers that the hygienic conditions of the felt-making trade are extremely unsatisfactory (the "Essay," p. 119, "Cottage Ind.," III, 16)—unbearable heat, masses of dust, suffocating atmosphere. And this in the dwelling huts of craftspeople! The natural result is that craftspeople endure no more than 15 years of work and end up with consumption. I.I. Molleson, who investigated the sanitary conditions of work, says: "Workers from 13 to 30 years constitute the main contingent of felt-makers. And almost all of them are distinctly distinguished by pallor, dull skin color, and their languid, as if exhausted by illness appearance" (III, p. 145, author's emphasis). The practical conclusion of the researcher is this: "It is necessary to oblige the owners to build a workshop (felt factory) of considerably larger size, so that each worker has a predetermined permanent volume of air"; "the workshop should be intended exclusively for work. Overnight stays of workers in it should be absolutely prohibited" (ibid.). So, sanitary doctors demand for these craftspeople the arrangement of factories, the prohibition of work at home. One cannot but wish the implementation of this measure, which would advance technical progress by eliminating a mass of middlemen, clearing the road for regulating the working day and conditions of labor, in a word, eliminating the most glaring abuses in our "popular" industry.

In the burlap trade among buyer-ups appears an Osinsk merchant Butakov who, according to information from 1879, had a burlap factory in the town of Osa with 180 workers. Ought this factory owner to be recognized as "alien to production itself" because he found it more profitable to distribute work to homes? It would be interesting also to know what distinguishes the buyer-ups expelled from the ranks of craftspeople from those "craftspeople" who, not having family workers, "purchase bast and give it out for processing to finishers, who process it into burlap and sacks on their looms" (the "Essay," 152)?—a vivid example of the confusion into which Populist prejudices have led researchers. The hygienic conditions in this trade are also beneath all criticism—crowding, dirt, dust, dampness, stench, prolonged working day (12–15 hours a day)—all this makes centers of the trade into genuine "sources of starving typhus," which arose here not infrequently.

On the organization of work for buyer-ups in the blacksmith trade we again learn nothing from the "Essay" and must turn to the book "Cottage Ind., etc.," which gives a very interesting description of the Lower Tagil blacksmith trade. The production of trays and other articles is divided among several establishments: riveting workshops forge iron, tinning workshops tin it, painting workshops paint it. Some craftspeople-owners have establishments of all these types, being consequently pure-type manufacturers. Others produce one of the operations in their own workshop, then distributing articles for tinning and painting to craftspeople at home. Here, consequently, the homogeneity of economic organization of the trade stands out with particular relief whether in distributing work to homes or in the ownership by one person of several specialized workshops. Craftspeople-buyer-ups distributing work to homes belong among the largest owners (there are 25 of them), who have organized most profitably the purchasing of raw materials and the sale of products on a large scale: these 25 craftspeople (and only they) travel to the fair or have their own shops. Besides them, the buyer-ups are already large "factory-traders," who displayed their articles at the Yekaterinburg exhibition in the factory-workshop section: the author of the book classifies them as "factory-cottage (sic!) industry" ("Cottage Ind.," I, p. 98–99). On the whole we thus obtain an extraordinarily typical picture of capitalist manufacture intertwining with small establishments in the most varied and whimsical ways. To show clearly how little the division of industrialists into "craftspeople" and "factory owners," into producers and "buyer-ups" helps to clarify these complex relations, we shall make use of the figures provided in the named book and depict the economic relations of the trade in the form of a table:

And now they will tell us that buyer-ups, just like moneylenders, are "alien to production itself," that their dominance means only "capitalization of the exchange process," not "capitalization of production"!

A very typical example of capitalist manufacture is also the trunk-making trade ("Essay," p. 334–339, "Cottage Ind.," I, p. 31–40). Its organization is as follows: several large owners having workshops with wage-workers purchase materials, manufacture articles partly themselves, but mainly distribute materials to small specialized workshops, and in their own workshops assemble the parts of a trunk and, after final finishing, send goods to market. Division of labor—this typical condition and technical foundation of manufacture—is applied in production on a large scale: the manufacture of a whole trunk is divided into 10–12 operations, each executed separately by specialist-craftspeople. The organization of the trade is the unification of partial workers (Teilarbeiter, as they are called in "Capital") under the command of capital. Why capital prefers distributing work to homes over employing wage-workers in the workshop is given a clear answer by the data of the cottage census of 1894/95 on the establishments of the Nevyansk factory of Yekaterinburg District (one of the centers of the trade), where we encounter both assembly workshops and specialist-craftspeople side by side. Comparison between the two is consequently quite possible. We provide comparative data in a small table (p. 173 of tables):

* Per establishment.

Let us examine this small table, stipulating first that if we had taken instead of one Nevyansk factory the data for the entire 1st and 3rd subgroups (p. 335 of the "Essay"), the conclusions would be the same. The magnitude of gross income in both subgroups is obviously incomparable, since the same material passes through the hands of different partial workers and through assembly workshops. But the data on income and wages are characteristic. It turns out that wage-workers in assembly workshops receive higher wages than the income of dependent craftspeople (100 r. and 89 r.), despite the fact that the latter also exploit wage-workers. The wages of these latter are more than twice lower than the earnings of workers in assembly workshops. Well, how can our entrepreneurs fail to prefer "cottage" industry to factory industry, when the former gives them such substantial "advantages"! The organization of work for the buyer-up in the carriage-making trade is completely analogous ("Essay," p. 308 et seq., "Cottage Ind.," I, p. 42 et seq.); the same assembly workshops, whose owners are "buyer-ups" (and distributors, work-givers) in relation to specialist-craftspeople, the same excess of wages to workers in the workshop over the income of dependent craftspeople (not to mention their wage-workers). This excess is confirmed both for farmers (I group) and for non-farmers (II group). In the furniture-carpentry trade, buyer-ups are furniture stores in the city of Perm ("Essay," 133, "Cottage Ind.," II, 11), which supply craftspeople, with orders, with samples, whereby, incidentally, they "gradually raised the technique of production."

In the tailoring trade, ready-made clothing stores in Perm and Yekaterinburg distribute material to craftspeople for processing. It is well known that completely homologous organization of tailoring and ready-made clothing trades exists also in other capitalist countries of Western Europe and America. The difference between the "capitalist" West and Russia with its "popular production" consists in the fact that in the West such conditions are called the Schwitz-system and measures are sought to combat this worst system of exploitation, for instance, German tailors have achieved from their employers the establishment of factories (i.e., "artificially implanting capitalism," as the Russian Populist would conclude), whereas with us this "system of squeezing sweat" is called good-naturedly "cottage industry" and advantages of it over capitalism are discussed.

We have now examined all the trades giving the enormous majority of craftspeople working for buyer-ups. What are the results of this review? We have convinced ourselves of the complete unsoundness of the Populist position that buyer-ups and even assembly workshops—like moneylenders—are alien to production and so forth. Despite the insufficient data of the "Essay" noted above, despite the absence in the census program of questions about the economy of buyer-ups, we managed in most trades to establish the most inseparable connection of buyer-ups with production—even direct participation in production, "participation" as owners of workshops with wage-workers. There is nothing more absurd than the opinion that work for buyer-ups is only the result of some abuse, some accident, some "capitalization of the exchange process," not of production. On the contrary, work for a buyer-up is precisely a special form of production, a special organization of economic relations in production—an organization that directly grew out of small commodity production ("small popular production," as it has become customary to say in our kind-hearted literature) and is connected with it by a thousand threads, since the most well-to-do small operators, the most advanced "craftspeople" themselves initiate this system, expanding their operations through distributing work to homes. Directly adjoining capitalist workshops with wage-workers, constituting often merely a continuation of them or one of their departments, work for a buyer-up is simply an appendage of the factory, understanding this last expression not in the scientific but in the colloquial sense. According to scientific classification of forms of industry in their successive development, work for a buyer-up belongs mostly to capitalist manufacture, because it: 1) is based on manual production and on a broad basis of small establishments; 2) introduces among these establishments division of labor, developing it also within the workshop; 3) places at the head of production a trader, as always happens in manufacture presupposing production on a large scale, wholesale purchase of raw materials and sale of products; 4) reduces laborers to the position of wage-workers employed in the owner's workshop or at home. These are precisely the signs by which, as is well known, the scientific concept of manufacture as a special stage of capitalism's development in industry is characterized (see "Das Kapital," I, Chapter XII). This form of industry means already, as is known, the deep dominance of capitalism, being the direct predecessor of its last and highest form, i.e., large-scale machine industry. Work for a buyer-up is, consequently, a backward form of capitalism, and in modern society this backwardness leads in it to special worsening of the situation of laborers exploited by a whole series of middlemen (sweating-system), dispersed, forced to be content with the lowest wages, work under conditions of extremely unsanitary surroundings and excessively long working day,—and chiefly, under conditions extremely difficult for the possibility of social control over production.

We have now finished reviewing the data of the cottage industry census of 1894/95. This review fully confirmed the remark made above about the complete emptiness of the concept: "cottage craft." We saw that under this concept were subsumed the most varied forms of industry, we are even entitled to say: almost all forms of industry that science knows. Indeed, this included patriarchal craftspeople working to order for consumers from their (consumers') materials, receiving compensation sometimes in kind, sometimes in money. Here also entered representatives of a completely different form of industry—small commodity producers working with their family. Here entered owners of capitalist workshops with wage-workers and these wage-workers, whose number reaches several dozen per establishment. Here entered entrepreneur-manufacturers with large capital dominating an entire system of specialized workshops. Here entered also workers at home working for capitalists. Throughout all these subdivisions, "craftspeople" were equally classified as both farmers and non-farmers, both peasants and townspeople. Such confusion is in no way a peculiarity of this investigation of Perm craftspeople. Not at all. It is repeated everywhere and always, when and where people speak and write about "cottage" industry. Anyone acquainted, for instance, with the "Proceedings of the Commission for the Investigation of Cottage Industry," knows that there too all these categories fell into the ranks of craftspeople. And thus the favorite method of our Populist economics consists in dumping into one heap all this endless variety of forms of industry, calling this heap "cottage," "popular" industry, and—risum teneatis, amici!—opposing this nonsense to "capitalism"—"factory-plant industry." The "justification" of this marvelous method, testifying to the remarkable depth of thought and learning of its originator, belongs, if we are not mistaken, to Mr. V.V., who on the very first pages of his "Essays on Cottage Industry" takes official figures of "factory-plant" workers in Moscow, Vladimir and other provinces and compares with them the figures of "craftspeople," whereby it turns out, of course, that "popular industry" is much more developed in holy Russia than "capitalism," while the fact, multiply established by researchers, that the overwhelming majority of these "craftspeople" work for the same factory owners, our "authoritative" economist prudently kept silent about. Strictly following Populist prejudices, the compilers of the "Essay" repeat the same very method. Although the sum of annual production of "cottage" industry constitutes in Perm Province only 5 million rubles, while "factory-plant" constitutes 30 million rubles, yet "the number of working hands engaged in factory-plant industry is determined at 19 thousand persons, and in cottage at 26 thousand persons" (p. 364). Classification, as you see, is simple to the point of pathos:

a) factory-plant workers      19,000

b) craftspeople                     26,000

Total                                  45,000

It is understandable that such a classification opens wide the doors for arguments about "the possibility of another path for our fatherland"!

But why should we not have before us the data of the household cottage census which investigated forms of industry. Let us attempt to provide a classification corresponding to the census data (over which the Populist classification is simply mockery) and corresponding to different forms of industry. The percentage relations which the census gave for 20 thousand workers we shall apply also to the enlarged by authors on the basis of other sources number—26 thousand.

We understand perfectly well that there are also errors in this classification: it lacks factory owners and plant owners, but contains craftspeople with dozens of wage-workers; it accidentally included only some manufacturers, not separated out however, and did not include others, expelled as "buyer-ups"; it included urban craftspeople from one city and did not include from 11 cities, etc. But in any case this classification is based on census data on forms of industry, and the noted errors are errors of these data, not errors of the classification. In any case this classification gives a precise representation of reality, explains the actual socio-economic relations between the various participants in industry, and consequently both their situation and their interests,—and in such explanation consists the highest task of any scientific economic investigation.

## VII. "Gratifying Phenomena" in Cottage Industry

We could be accused of one-sidedness, of presenting only dark aspects of cottage industry, if we passed over in silence the facts presented in the "Essay," which should present the "bright side" and "gratifying phenomena" of cottage industry.

We are told, for instance, that wage labor in cottage production has some special significance, because the wage-worker here is distinguished by "everyday closeness" to the owner and himself "can" become an owner. To the "gratifying phenomena" here is attributed, consequently, the kind wish to transform all workers into small operators! However, no, not all, but only some, because "the tendency to exploit others' labor is without doubt inherent in all people generally, including the craftsperson" ("Essay," p. 6). This phrase is simply inimitable in the naiveté with which "all people," without more ado, are identified with petty bourgeois! It is no wonder that someone who views all the world through the spectacles of a petty bourgeois discovers such remarkable truths. On p. 268 a small factory with 8 wage-workers, with production worth 10,000 r., is declared a "predicate of labor conditions (sic!) in the strict sense of the word a cottage enterprise." On p. 272–274 we are told how another small industrialist (with 7 wage-workers and 5 apprentices; production worth 7,000 r.) arranged a blast furnace on land rented from a peasant commune and asked the cottage bank for a loan of 5,000 r. for arranging a cupola, explaining that "his entire enterprise has purely local interest, since ore mining will be conducted in the commune's allotments by local peasants themselves." The bank rejected the request on formal grounds. And the "Essay" draws for us an engaging picture of the transformation of this enterprise into a cooperative, public enterprise: the owner this, "without doubt, will like, as a zealot not only of production interests, but of surrounding fellow commune members." The enterprise "captures a mass of labor interests of commune members, who will mine and deliver ore to the factory, forest materials." "Householders will deliver ore, coal, etc. to the factory like housewives deliver milk to the public dairy. Of course, this presupposes an organization more complex than at public dairies, especially on condition of using local masters and day-laborers in conducting the business itself, i.e., smelting iron from ores." Oh, idyll! The day-laborers (fellow commune members) will "deliver to the factory" ore, firewood, etc. like peasant women deliver milk to the dairy!! We shall not deny that a cottage bank can (if blocked by its bureaucratic organization does not prevent it) render the same service as other banks, developing commodity economy and capitalism, but it would be very sad if it continued alongside this to develop the pharisaism and sentimental speech of entrepreneurs seeking a loan.

Until now we have seen how enterprises with a large number of wage-workers were declared "cottage" on the basis that the owners themselves labor. But this condition would be somewhat restrictive for petty bourgeois, and so the "Essay" tries to broaden it: it turns out that even an enterprise "conducted entirely by wage labor" can be cottage if the "success" of the enterprise is rooted in the "personal participation" of the owner (p. 295) or even if the owners "are forced to limit their participation to various tasks of managing the trade" (p. 301). Is it not remarkable how "progressive" the Perm Populists are? "Personal labor"—"personal participation"—"various tasks." Mein Liebchen, was willst du noch mehr?

Wage labor in the brick trade furnishes, it turns out, "particular advantages" (302) to wage-workers, who find "supplementary earnings" in brick factories; meanwhile the owners of these factories often experience "need for money to hire workers." The "Essay" concludes that such owners should be allowed credit from the cottage bank, "classifying such enterprises, according to note to clause 3 article 7 of the cottage bank statute, as cases of particular respect" (p. 302). This is said not very grammatically, but all the more impressively and significantly! "In conclusion we find sufficient grounds to state," we read at the end of the description of the brick trade, "that in the brick trade among peasants the interests of owners and wage-workers are so generalized that although formally no cooperatives are registered in this trade, yet it actually has firm cooperative bonds between owners and their wage-workers" (305). We refer the reader to the statistical picture of these "cooperative bonds" given above. It is also curious, as an example of the confusion in Populist economic concepts, that the "Essay" at the same time defends and prettifies wage labor, asserting that a kulak is by no means an owner with wage-workers, but a holder of monetary capital who "exploits labor in the person of the craftsperson-owner and his wage-workers" (!), and alongside this launches into the most unreasonable and immoderate defense of kulakdom: "kulakdom nevertheless, in however dark colors it is painted, is a necessary for now wheel in the mechanism of exchange of cottage production... Kulakdom in relation to the progress of cottage industry, without doubt, should be recognized as a good, compared to that situation when without a kulak, without any means of money, a craftsperson is forced to remain without work" (p. 8). How long is this "for now"? If it had been said that commercial and usurious capital is a necessary moment in the development of capitalism, a necessary wheel in the mechanism of underdeveloped capitalist society (like ours), then this would be true. With such an interpretation the word "for now" should be understood thus: so long as countless restrictions on freedom of industry and freedom of competition (especially among the peasantry) support among us the most backward and worst forms of capitalism. We only fear that this interpretation will not please the Perm and other Populists!

Let us turn to cooperatives, these nearest and most important expressions of those supposedly communal principles which Populists want to find in cottage trades. It is interesting to look at the data of the household census of craftspeople in an entire province, a census which directly set out in its program the registration and study of cooperatives (p. 14, clause 2). We can, consequently, not only become acquainted with various types of cooperatives, but also learn how widely they are distributed.

Oil-pressing trade. "A genuine cooperative in the strict sense of the word": in the village of Pokrovsk and in the hamlet of Gavryatakh two oil-presses are owned by five brothers, who divided their property between them, but use the oil-presses in turn. These facts are of "deep interest" because "they illuminate the contractual conditions of communal-labor continuity of cottage trades." Evidently, such genuine "cooperatives represent a significant precedent in the question of distribution among cottage craft of cooperative organization of workshop-type production" (p. 175–176). So, a cooperative in the strict sense of the word, as a precedent of cooperation, as an expression of communality, consists in the common property of undivided heirs!! Obviously, the true palladium of "communality" and "cooperation" is, accordingly, Roman civil law and our volume X with institutes of condominium, common property of heirs and non-heirs!

"In grain-milling production... the most vivid expression of cooperative enterprise of peasants appeared in its peculiar customary forms." Many mills are in the common use of associations or even whole villages. Methods of using mills: the most widespread—in turn; then division of net income into shares proportional to each owner's investment; in "such cases owner-associates rarely take personal labor participation in production, which is usually conducted by wage labor" (p. 181; the same about cooperative tar-making operations—p. 197). Remarkable originality and cooperativeness indeed—common property of small operators who collectively hire workers! The fact that craftspeople use mills, tar-making operations, forges in turn, testifies, on the contrary, to striking fragmentation of producers, whom even common property is unable to induce to cooperate.

"One of the types of cooperative organization"—"cooperative forges" (239). Blacksmith-owners for economy in fuel gather in one forge, hiring one bellows-worker (economy in workers!) and renting from the forge owner both the premises and the hammer for a special fee. So, the renting of property belonging to one person under the right of private property by another person for payment is "cooperative organization"! Truly Roman law should be called a code of "cooperative organization"!.. "In cooperative organization... we find new indication of the absence of class crystallization in production among craftspeople,—indication of the same fusion of layers in agricultural and cottage craft which we saw also in cooperative mills" (239). And there are still people who dare say after this that peasant disintegration is occurring!

Thus far, consequently, not a single instance of the uniting of craftspeople for purchasing raw materials, selling products, not to speak of uniting in production itself! There are, however, also such unions. The household census of craftspeople of Perm Province registered all four of them, and all organized with the assistance of the cottage bank: three in the carriage-making trade and one in agricultural machine production. One of the cooperatives has wage-workers (2 apprentices and 2 hired "auxiliary" workers), in another two partners use a forge and workshop belonging to the third partner for a special fee. They purchase raw materials and sell products collectively, work however in separate workshops (except for the noted case of renting a forge and workshop for payment). All these four cooperatives united 21 family workers. The Perm cottage bank has been operating for several years. Let us assume that it will now "unite" (for renting a neighboring forge) in one year not 20 family workers but 50. Then all 15,000 family workers of craftspeople will be "united" by "cooperative organization" in exactly 300 years. And after finishing with this, they will begin to "unite" wage-workers at craftspeople's... And the Perm Populists triumph: "Such important economic concepts, created by the independent thinking of the cottage craft environment, serve as solid pledges of economic progress of production in this environment on the basis of independence of labor from capital, since in these given facts is manifest not only spontaneous striving of craftspeople to labor independence, but also in full measure conscious" (p. 333). Have mercy, gentlemen! Of course, one cannot imagine Populism without Manilovian phrases, but still one must know measure! Not one of the cooperatives, as we have seen, expresses "the basis of independence of labor from capital": all are cooperatives of owners and small operators, many with wage-workers. There is no cooperation in these cooperatives, even common procurement of raw materials and product sales occur absurdly rarely, uniting a strikingly insignificant number of owners. One can say with confidence that not one capitalist country will be found in which registration of almost 9 thousand small establishments with 20 thousand workers would reveal such striking fragmentation and wildness of producers, among which only several dozen instances of common property and fewer than ten instances of uniting of 3–5 small operators for purchasing raw materials and selling products were found! This fragmentation would serve as the surest pledge of hopeless economic and cultural stagnation, if we did not see fortunately how capitalism with each day cuts at the root patriarchal craft with its local narrowness of self-sufficing small operators, with each day destroys small local markets (on which small production is sustained), replacing them with national and world markets, forcing producers not of one village Gavryatakh, but producers of an entire country and even different countries to enter unions among themselves, leading these unions beyond the bounds of owners and small operators alone, placing before these unions questions broader than the question of cheaper purchasing of forest materials and iron, or the question of more profitable sale of nails and wagons.

## VIII. The Populist Program of Industrial Policy

Since practical assumptions and measures always stand in connection with what they find "gratifying" and encouraging in reality, it is understandable a priori what wishes about cottage industry are contained in the "Essay," which reduced all "gratifying phenomena" to prettifying wage labor in small-scale farming and to extolling very few and one-sided unions of small owners. Repeating the usual Populist recipes, these wishes strike us with their contradictoriness, on the one hand, and boundless exaggeration of commonplace "measures," transformed by phrases into solution of great questions—on the other. At the very beginning of the "Essay," in the introduction, even before presenting the census data, we encounter grandiose arguments about the "task of cottage credit"—"to eliminate (sic!) lack of money," about "cooperative organization of exchange between production and consumption" (p. 8), about "distribution of cooperative organizations," arrangement of cottage warehouses, technical consultations, technical schools, etc. (p. 9). These arguments are repeated many times in the book. "It is necessary to reorganize the economy of the trade so that the craftsperson acquires money; to put it more simply, to free the craftsperson from the kulak" (119). "The task of our time"—to accomplish "cottage emancipation through credit" etc. (267). "It is necessary to rationalize the processes of exchange," care "for introducing into the depths of peasant agricultural economy rational foundations of credit, exchange and production" (362), there is necessity for "economic organization of labor" (sic!! p. 363), "rational arrangement of the economy of popular production" etc. and so forth. As you see, this is the familiar Populist panacea, pasted onto census data. And as if for final confirmation of their Populist orthodoxy, the compilers did not fail to condemn monetary economy in general, teaching the reader that craft "constitutes an important service to popular economy, ensuring it the possibility of avoiding the transformation of natural economy into monetary. "The pressing interests of popular economy require that the raw materials produced by it be processed on the spot, as far as possible without monetary intervention in processes of exchange" (p. 360).

# [Part 2/2]

The Populist program is set forth here with all the fullness and candor that leave nothing to be desired! We have said: "Populist program," because we are interested not in what distinguishes the authors of the *Outline* from other Populists, but, on the contrary, precisely in what they have in common. We are interested in the practical Populist program regarding cottage industries in general. It is easy to see that the *Outline* prominently displays precisely the basic features of this program: 1) condemnation of monetary economy and sympathy for natural economy and primitive handicraft; 2) various measures for supporting small peasant production, such as credit, development of technique, etc.; 3) the implantation of all kinds of associations and unions between masters and workshop owners – partnerships for raw materials, warehouses, savings-and-loan, credit, consumer, and productive societies; 4) "organization of labor" – a stock phrase in all manner of Populist good wishes. Let us examine this program.

As regards first of all the condemnation of monetary economy, in relation to industry it already bears a completely platonic character. Handicraft, even in Perm Province, has been pushed far into the background by commodity production and finds itself in such a wretched position that in the very same *Outline* we read of the desirability of "liberating the cottage craftsman from dependence," namely to eliminate the handicraftsman's dependence on the customer-consumer "by seeking means to expand the market itself beyond the limits of demand for local consumption" (p. 33). In other words: condemnation of monetary economy in theory and the aspiration to transform handicraft into commodity economy – in practice! And this contradiction is by no means the exclusive property of the *Outline*, but is characteristic of all Populist schemes: however much they insist against commodity (monetary) economy, reality, thrown out the door, flies in through the window, and the measures for which they advocate develop precisely commodity economy. An example – credit. In their plans and wishes, Populists do not eliminate commodity economy itself. The *Outline*, for instance, says not a word about the proposed reforms needing to be based on a foundation other than commodity economy. On the contrary, it desires only rational foundations for exchange, cooperative organization of exchange. Commodity economy remains; it need only be reformed on rational foundations. This is a utopia far from new, one that had major exponents in old economic literature. Its theoretical insufficiency has long since been exposed, so there is no need to dwell on this question. Would it not be better instead of uttering absurd phrases about the necessity to "rationalize" the economy, to "rationalize" first one's own conceptions of the actual economy, of the actual socio-economic relations within that extremely heterogeneous, mixed mass of "cottage craftsmen," whose fate our Populists wish to decide in such a bureaucratically frivolous manner from above? Does not reality show us time and again how the practical measures of Populists, concocted according to recipes of "pure" alleged ideas about "organization of labor," etc., lead in fact only to aid and assistance for the "enterprising peasant," the petty manufacturer or trader, in short for all representatives of the petty bourgeoisie? This is by no means accidental, not the result of imperfection or unsuccessfulness of individual measures. On the contrary, on the general foundation of commodity economy, it is inevitably and necessarily the petty bourgeois who make most use of credit, warehouses, banks, technical advice, etc. But if this is so – our opponents will object – if Populists in their practical measures, unconsciously and against their will, serve the development of the petty bourgeoisie, and hence of capitalism in general, then why attack their programs, people who on principle recognize the development of capitalism as a progressive process? Is it reasonable, because of the erroneousness, or – to put it more gently – the contestability of the ideological dressing, to attack practically useful programs, since no one will deny the "utility" of technical education, credit, unions and associations among producers?

These objections are not invented. In one form or another, on one occasion or another, they are constantly heard in response to polemics against Populism. We shall not speak here of the fact that such objections, even if they were justified, in no way refute the proposition that the very clothing of petty-bourgeois schemes in the highest social panaceas brings profound social harm. We intend to place the question on the practical ground of the immediate and urgent needs of our time and from this, deliberately narrowed, point of view to evaluate the Populist program.

Notwithstanding the fact that many Populist measures bring practical utility, serving the development of capitalism, nevertheless on the whole these measures prove to be: 1) highly inconsistent, 2) doctrinaire and lifeless, and 3) petty compared with the actual tasks that developing capitalism places before our industry. Let us clarify this. We have pointed out, first, the inconsistency of Populists as practical people. Alongside the above-mentioned measures, which are ordinarily characterized as liberal economic policy, which were always held aloft as a banner by the leaders of the bourgeoisie in the West, Populists manage to preserve the intention to retard this given economic development, to hinder the progress of capitalism, to support small production exhausting itself in struggle with large. They defend laws and institutions that constrain freedom of land mobilization, freedom of movement, that retain the seclusion of the peasantry as an estate, etc. Is there, one asks, any rational ground for retarding the development of capitalism and large-scale industry? We saw from census data that the much-vaunted "independence" of cottage craftsmen in no way guarantees against subjection to commercial capital, against exploitation in its most terrible form, that in reality the situation of a vast mass of these "independent" cottage craftsmen is often more wretched than that of wage workers employed by cottage craftsmen, that their earnings are strikingly paltry, their working conditions (from the sanitary standpoint and length of the working day) extremely unsatisfactory, their production scattered, technically primitive and undeveloped. Is there, one asks, any rational ground for retaining police laws that strengthen the "connection with the land," that forbid severing this connection, which so moves Populists? [225] The data from the "cottage industry census" of 1894/95 in Perm Province clearly testify to the complete senselessness of artificial attachment of peasants to the land. This attachment only lowers their wages, which with "connection to the land" prove more than twice lower than among those not engaged in agriculture, lowers their standard of living, intensifies the fragmentation and scattered state of producers dispersed through villages, intensifies their helplessness before each trader and workshop owner. Attachment to the land at the same time retards the development of agriculture, while being unable, however, to prevent the appearance of a class of petty rural bourgeoisie. Populists avoid posing the question in this way: retard or not retard the development of capitalism? They prefer to reason about "the possibility of other paths for the fatherland." But once one is speaking of immediate practical measures, by that very fact every agent takes his stand on the ground of the given path [226]. Do whatever you like to "drag" the fatherland onto another path! Such activity will provoke no criticism (except criticism that laughs). But do not defend what artificially retards this given development, do not smother the question of removing obstacles from the given path with phrases "about another path."

Another circumstance that must be borne in mind in evaluating the practical Populist program consists in the following. We have already seen that Populists strive to formulate their wishes as abstractly as possible, to present them as abstract, abstract demands of "pure" science, "pure" justice, rather than as real needs of real classes with definite interests. Credit – this vital necessity of every master and workshop owner in capitalist society – the Populist presents as some kind of element in a system of labor organization; unions and associations of masters are depicted as embryonic expressions of the idea of cooperation in general, the idea of "cottage craftsman emancipation," etc., whereas everyone knows that all such unions pursue aims having nothing in common with such lofty matters, but are simply connected with the size of the income of these workshop owners, with strengthening their position, increasing their profit. This transformation of mundane bourgeois and petty-bourgeois wishes into some kind of social panacea merely weakens these wishes, deprives them of their vital nerve, the guarantee of their urgency and feasibility. The urgent questions of each master, trader, merchant (credit, unions, technical aid) the Populist strains to present as general questions, rising above particular interests. The Populist imagines that thereby he strengthens their significance, elevates them – but in reality he transforms this living matter, interesting such and such groups of the population, into philistine wishing, study-room cogitation, bureaucratic "discourse on benefits." Directly connected with this is a third circumstance. Not understanding that such practical measures as credit and cooperatives, technical aids, etc., express the needs of developing capitalism, the Populist does not know how to express the general and fundamental needs of such development, replacing them with petty, randomly seized, half-hearted measures which, taken separately, are incapable of producing any serious effect and are condemned inevitably to failure. If the Populist were to take openly and consistently the point of view of an exponent of the needs of social development along the capitalist path, he would be able to notice the general conditions, the general requirements of such development; he would see that all his little schemes and measures, given the presence of these general conditions (the principal one in the case that interests us being – freedom of industry) would realize themselves of their own accord, i.e., through the activity of the interested parties themselves, whereas ignoring these general conditions and setting forth only practical measures of a wholly particular nature cannot help but lead to treading water. Let us pause, by way of example, on this question of freedom of industry. On the one hand, this is such a general and fundamental question among questions of industrial policy that its examination is especially appropriate. On the other hand, the specific features of the Perm region give interesting confirmations of the cardinal importance of this question. As is known, the principal phenomenon of the economic life of the region is mining and metallurgical industry, which has imparted to it a completely special character. Connected with the position and interests of Urals mining industry are both the history of colonization and the present condition of the region. "In general, peasants were settled on the Urals with the goal of working for factory owners," – we read in a letter from an inhabitant of the N.-Serginskii works, Babushkin, in the *Proceedings of the Commission for the Investigation of Cottage Industries* [227]. And these artless words express very accurately the enormous role of factory owners in the life of the region, their significance as both landowners and factory-masters, their habit of undivided and unlimited dominion, their position as monopolists, basing their industry on their proprietary right rather than on capital and competition. The monopolistic principles of Urals mining industry were expressed in a law by the famous article 394 of vol. VII of the Code of Laws (mining statute) – an article that has been and continues to be much discussed in literature on the Urals. This law, issued in 1806, requires, first, permission from the mining authorities for the opening of any factories by mining towns, and, second, forbids the opening in factory districts of "all those manufactures and factories whose entire production is chiefly based on fire operations, requiring coal and wood." Urals mining industrialists in 1861 particularly insisted that such a law be included in the conditions of peasant emancipation, and article 11 of the statute on mining works repeats a similar prohibition [228]. The report of the management of the cottage-industry bank for 1895 says, among other things: "Most frequently, however, complaints are submitted about the prohibition by officials of the mining department and owners of possessory works against opening fire-operated establishments within the bounds of their subordinate districts and about all manner of restrictions on the production of metal-processing trades" (*Outline*, p. 223). Thus, the Urals to the present day preserves the unshakeable traditions of the "good old times," and the attitude toward small peasant industry stands here in complete harmony with that "organization of labor" which secured the factories with a population of factory workers attached to the place. With full distinctness these traditions are characterized in the following communication from the *Perm Provincial Gazette* {88} no. 183 for 1896, which is cited in the *Outline* and is rightly called "highly significant." Here it is: "The Ministry of Agriculture and State Properties proposed to Urals mining industrialists to discuss the question of the possibility of the mining works taking measures to develop cottage industries on the Urals. The mining industrialists informed the ministry that the development of cottage industry on the Urals would serve to the detriment of large industry, since even now, with the weak development of cottage trades on the Urals, its population cannot provide the works with the necessary number of workers [229]; when the population finds earnings at home, the works risk remaining altogether without workers" (*Outline*, p. 244). This communication elicited the following exclamation from the authors of the *Outline*: "Of course, the first, necessary condition for all kinds of industry, large, medium and small, is freedom of industry… In the name of freedom of industry all its branches must be legally equal… Metal-working cottage trades on the Urals must be freed from all exceptional shackles created by factory regulation for the purpose of limiting their natural development" (ibid. Emphasis ours). Reading this heartfelt and profoundly just tirade in defense of "freedom of industry," we recalled a certain fable about a metaphysician who lingered in climbing out of a pit, asking what was the rope thrown to him – "mere rope"! {89} So the Perm Populists, regarding freedom of industry, freedom of the development of capitalism, freedom of competition, ask scornfully what freedom of industry is – a mere bourgeois demand! They rise far higher in their wishes; they want not freedom of competition (what a base, narrow, bourgeois wish!), but "organization of labor"… But one need only have these Manilovian reveries collide "face to face" with unvarnished and prosaic reality – and from this reality there suddenly emanates such "organization of labor" that the Populist forgets about the "harm" and "danger" of capitalism, about the "possibility of other paths for the fatherland" and cries out for "freedom of industry."

We repeat, we consider this wish profoundly just and think that such a point of view (shared not only by the *Outline*, but by almost all authors who have written on this question) does credit to the Populists. But… – What are we to do! One cannot praise Populists without immediately putting a great big "but" – but we must make two essential observations in this regard.

First. One can be sure that the overwhelming majority of Populists will indignantly reject the correctness of our identification of "freedom of industry" with "freedom of capitalism." They will say that the elimination of monopolies and remnants of serfdom is "simply" a demand for equal rights, in the interest of "all" national economy in general and peasant economy in particular, and not at all capitalism. We know that Populists will say this. But this will be incorrect. More than a hundred years have passed since "freedom of industry" was regarded so idealistically and abstractly, seen as the fundamental and natural (cf. the emphasized word in the *Outline*) "right of man." The demand for "freedom of industry" and the implementation of this demand have been through several countries in the meanwhile, and everywhere this demand has been the expression of the incompatibility of growing capitalism with the remnants of monopolies and regulation, everywhere it has served as a slogan of the advanced bourgeoisie, everywhere it has led only to the complete triumph of capitalism. Theory has since made entirely clear all the naiveté of the illusion that "freedom of industry" is a demand of "pure reason," a demand of abstract "equal rights," and has shown that the question of freedom of industry is a capitalist question. The implementation of "freedom of industry" is by no means only a "juridical" transformation; it is a profound economic reform. The demand for "freedom of industry" always means an incompatibility between juridical norms (reflecting production relations that have long since outlived their day) and new production relations that have developed contrary to the old norms, have grown out of them and demand their abolition. If Urals conditions now provoke a universal cry for "freedom of industry," it means that those regulations, monopolies and privileges which were inherited as favors to landlord-factory owners constrain the given economic relations, the given economic forces. What are these relations and these forces? These are the relations of commodity economy. These forces are the forces of capital directing commodity economy. Just recall the Perm Populist's "confession" cited above: "our entire cottage industry is in the bonds of private capital." And without even this confession, the data from the cottage census speak eloquently enough for themselves. Second observation. We welcome the Populists' defense of freedom of industry. But we make this welcome contingent upon the consistent carrying out of such a defense. Does "freedom of industry" consist only in eliminating Urals prohibitions on opening fire-operated establishments? Does the peasant's lack of a right to leave the commune, a right to engage in any trade or occupation not represent a far more essential limitation on "freedom of industry"? Does the lack of freedom of movement, the non-recognition by law of the right of every citizen to choose any urban or rural commune for residence in the state not limit freedom of industry? Does the estate seclusion of the peasant commune, the impossibility for persons of the merchant and industrial class to penetrate into it not limit freedom of industry? and so on and so forth. We have named far more important, more general, more widespread restrictions on freedom of industry, manifesting their influence throughout Russia and most of all on the entire peasant mass. If "large, medium and small" industry ought to be equal in rights, then should not the last receive the same rights regarding the alienation of lands that the first enjoy? If Urals mining laws are "exceptional shackles constraining natural development," then do not collective liability, the inalienability of allotments, special estate laws and rules regarding resettlement, transfers, trades and occupations not constitute "exceptional shackles"? Do they not "constrain natural development"?

That is precisely the point – that Populism has on this question too displayed that same halfway measure and duplicity which is so characteristic of all ideology of the petty bourgeoisie [230]. On the one hand, Populists do not deny that in our life there are masses of remnants of such "organization of labor," whose origin dates to the times of appanages and which stands in the most glaring contradiction with the contemporary economic system, with all the economic and cultural development of the country. On the other hand, they cannot help but see that this economic system and this development threaten to destroy the small producer and, frightened for the fate of this palladium of their "ideals," Populists try to stop history, halt development, beg and entreat to "forbid," "not allow," and cover this wretched reactionary prattle with phrases about "organization of labor" – phrases that cannot but sound like bitter mockery.

For the reader it is clear now, of course, what is the main and fundamental objection we shall make against the practical Populist program in questions of contemporary industry. Insofar as Populist measures enter as part of or coincide with the transformation that since Adam Smith has been called freedom of industry (in the broad sense of the word), to that extent they are progressive. But, first, there is nothing "Populist" in them, nothing specially supporting small production and "particular paths" for the fatherland. Second, this positive part of the Populist program is weakened and distorted by substituting particular and petty schemes and measures for the general and fundamental question of freedom of industry. Insofar as Populist wishes run counter to freedom of industry, striving to retard contemporary development, to that extent they are reactionary and senseless, and their realization can bring nothing but harm. Let us take examples. Credit. Credit is an institution of the most developed commodity circulation, the most developed civil turnover. The implementation of "freedom of industry" inevitably leads to the creation of credit institutions as a commercial enterprise, to the elimination of the estate seclusion of peasants, to their rapprochement with the classes that make most use of credit, to the independent formation by interested parties of credit societies, etc. On the contrary, what significance can credit measures have, proffered to "peasants" by zemstvo officials and other "intellectuals," so long as laws and institutions place the peasantry in a position excluding normal and developed commodity circulation – in a position in which instead of property liability (the foundation of credit) it is far easier, more feasible, more accessible and customary… to work it off! Credit measures will under such conditions always remain alien, foreign plants, set from without on thoroughly unsuitable soil, will prove a stillborn child that could only have been born of dreamy intellectual Manilovs and benevolent officials, and which real traders in money capital mock and will continue to mock. To avoid being baseless, let us cite the opinion of Egunov (cited article), whom no one would suspect of… "materialism." Regarding cottage warehouses he says: "even with the most favorable local conditions, a fixed warehouse, and even the only one in an entire district, will never replace, and indeed cannot replace, the ever-mobile and personally interested trader." On the Perm cottage bank we read: to obtain a loan, the craftsman must submit an application to the bank or to its agent and name guarantors. The agent comes, verifies the craftsman's application, collects detailed information on the production, etc. "and all this heap of papers at the craftsman's expense sends to the bank's board." Having approved the loan, the bank sends (through the agent or through the volost administration) a promissory note. When the debtor signs it (with certification of the signature by the volost authority) and sends it to the bank, only then do they send him the money. If an artel borrows, a copy of the partnership agreement is required. Agents must see to it that the loans are spent precisely on what they were issued for, that the affairs of clients are not disrupted, etc. "It is evident that bank credit in no way can be recognized as accessible to craftsmen; one can confidently say that the craftsman will far sooner prefer to seek credit from a local rich man than to subject himself to all the described ordeals, to pay postal, notarial and volost expenses, to wait whole months from the day the need for a loan arises until the day it is obtained, and for the entire duration of this loan to remain under supervised conditions" (p. 170, cited art.). As nonsensical is the Populist opinion about some sort of anti-capitalist credit, so too absurd, clumsy and little productive are such attempts (with inadequate means) to do by the forces of "intellectuals" and officials what everywhere and always is the real business of traders. – Technical education. It seems one need hardly speak of this… Let us merely remind you of the "eternally memorable" scheme of our well-known progressive writer Mr. Yuzhakov to implant in Russia agricultural gymnasiums so that poor peasants and peasant women would work off the cost of their education, serving, for example, as cooks and laundresses [231]… Artel. But who does not know that the basic obstacles to their spread are rooted in the traditions of that very "organization of labor" that was reflected also in the Urals mining laws? Who does not know that the implementation of freedom of industry in full scope has everywhere and always led to unprecedented flourishing and development of all kinds of unions and associations? It is extremely comic to see when a Populist tries to present his opponent as an enemy of cooperative association, union-building, etc. in general. Now that is truly barking up the wrong tree! The matter is only that in seeking the idea of association and the means of its realization, one must look not backward, not to the past, not to patriarchal handicraft and small production generating extreme isolation, fragmentation and barbarism in producers – but forward, into the future, toward the development of large industrial capitalism.

We know perfectly well with what majestic disdain the Populist will regard this industrial policy opposed to his own program. "Freedom of industry"! What an old, narrow, Manchesterian [232], bourgeois wish! The Populist is convinced that for him this is an überwundener Standpunkt [233], that he has managed to rise above those transitory and one-sided interests that underlie such a wish, that he has managed to rise to more profound and purer ideas about "organization of labor"… But in reality he has only descended from progressive bourgeois to reactionary petty-bourgeois ideology, helplessly wavering between strivings to accelerate contemporary economic development and to retard it, between the interests of workshop owners and the interests of labor. The latter, on this question, coincide with the interests of large industrial capital.