The Development of Capitalism in Russia

The Process of the Formation of a Home Market for Large-Scale Industry

Cover of the first edition of Lenin’s
The Development of Capitalism in Russia , 1899

In the work here presented, the author has set himself the aim
of examining the question of how a home market is being formed
for Russian capitalism. As we know, he principal exponents of Narodnik
views (chief among them being Messrs. V. V. and

N.–on [4] ), and it will be our task to criticise these views. We have not
considered it possible to limit ourselves in this criticism to
examining the mistakes and misconceptions in our opponents’
views; in answering the question raised it seemed to us that it
was not enough to adduce facts showing the formation and growth
of a home market, for the objection might be raised that such
facts had been selected arbitrarily and that facts showing the
contrary had been omitted. It seemed to us that it was necessary
to examine the whole process of the development of capitalism in
Russia, to endeavour to depict it in its entirety. It goes
without saying that such an extensive task would be beyond the
powers of a single person, were a number of limitations not
introduced. Firstly, as the title itself shows, we treat the
problem of the development of capitalism in Russia exclusively
from the standpoint of the home market, leaving aside the
problem of the foreign market and data on foreign trade. Secondly, we limit ourselves purely to the post-Reform
period. Thirdly, we deal mainly and almost exclusively with data
concerning the interior, purely Russian, gubernias. Fourthly, we
limit ourselves exclusively to the economic aspect of the
process. But even with all the limitations indicated the topic
that remains is an extremely broad one. The author does not
close his eyes at all to the difficulty, and even the danger, of
dealing with so broad a topic, but it seemed to him that to
elucidate the problem of the home market for Russian capitalism
it was absolutely necessary to show the connection between, and
interdependence of, the various aspects of the process taking
place in all spheres of the social economy. We therefore limit
ourselves to an examination of the main features of the process,
leaving a more specific study of it to further investigations.

The plan of our work is as follows: in Chapter I we shall
examine, as briefly as possible, the basic theoretical propositions of abstract political economy on the subject of the
home market for capitalism. This will serve as a sort of
introduction to the rest of the work, the factual part of it,
and will relieve us of the need to make repeated references to
theory in our further exposition. In the three following
chapters we shall endeavour to describe the capitalist evolution
of agriculture in post-Reform Russia, namely, in Chapter II we
shall examine Zemstvo statistical data on the differentiation of
the peasantry; in Chapter III data on the transitional state of
landlord economy, and on the replacement of the corvée system of this economy by the capitalist; and in Chapter IV data
on the forms in which the formation of commercial and capitalist
agriculture is proceeding. The next three chapters will be
devoted to the forms and stages of the development of capitalism
in our industry: in Chapter V we shall examine the first stages
of capitalism in industry, namely, in small peasant (known as handicraft) industry ; in Chapter VI data on capitalist
manufacture and on capitalist domestic industry, and in Chapter
VII data on the development of large-scale machine industry. In
the last chapter (VIII), we shall make an attempt to indicate
the connection between the various aspects of the process that
have been described and to present a general picture of that
process.

P.S. [5] To our extreme regret we have not been able to use for this
work the excellent analysis of “the development of agriculture in
capitalist society” made by K. Kautsky in his book Die Agrarfrage (Stuttgart, Dietz, 1899; I. Abschn.

“Die Entwicklung der Landwirtschaft in der kapitalistischen
Gesellschaft” [1] ).

[2]

This book (which we received when the greater part of the
present work had already been set up in type) is, after Vol. III
of Capital , the most noteworthy contribution to recent
economic literature. Kautsky investigates the “main tendencies” in the capitalist evolution
of agriculture; his purpose is to examine the diverse phenomena
in modern agriculture as “particular manifestations of one
general process” (Vorrede, [3]

VI). It is interesting to note how far the main features of this general process in Western Europe
and in Russia are identical, notwithstanding the tremendous
peculiarities of the latter, in both the economic and non-economic spheres. For example, typical of modern capitalist
agriculture in general is the progressive division of labour and
the employment of machinery (Kautsky, IV, b, c), a phenomenon
also noticeable in post-Reform Russia (see later, Chapter III,
§§ VII and VIII; Chapter IV, particularly §
IX). The process of the “proletarisation of the peasantry” (the
heading of Chapter VIII of Kautsky’s book) is manifested
everywhere in the spread of wage-labour in every form among the
small peasants (Kautsky, VIII, b); we see the parallel of this
in Russia in the formation of a huge class of allotment-holding
wage-workers (see later, Chapter II). The existence of a small
peasantry in every capitalist society is due not to the
technical superiority of small production in agriculture, but to
the fact that the small peasants reduce the level of their
requirements below that of the wage-workers and tax their
energies far more than the latter do (Kautsky, VI, b; “the
agricultural wage-worker is better off than the small peasant,”
says Kautsky repeatedly: S. 110, 317, 320); the same thing is
also to be observed in Russia (see later, Chapter II, § XI, C [6] ). It
is natural, therefore, that West-European and Russian
Marxists should agree in their appraisal of such phenomena as
“agricultural outside employments,” to use the Russian term, or
the “agricultural wage-labour of migratory peasants,” as the
Germans say (Kautsky, S. 192; cf. later, Chapter III, § X);
or of such a phenomenon as the migration of workers and peasants
from the villages to the towns and factories (Kautsky, IX,
especially S. 343; and many other places. Cf. later, Chapter
VIII, § II); the transplantation of large-scale capitalist
industry to the rural districts (Kautsky, S. 187. Cf. later,
VII, § VIII). This is quite apart from the same appraisal
of the historical significance of agricultural capitalism (Kautsky, passim, especially S. 289, 292,
298. Cf. later, Chapter IV, § IX), from the same
recognition of the progressive nature of capitalist relations in agriculture as compared with pre-capitalist
relations [Kautsky, S. 382: “The ousting des Gesindes (of personally dependent farm labourers, servants) and der Instleute (“midway between the farm labourer and the tenant
cultivator”: the peasant who rents land, making payment by
labour-service) by day labourers who outside of working hours
are free men, would mark great social progress.” Cf. later,
Chapter IV, § IX, 4]. Kautsky categorically declares that
the adoption by the village community of large-scale modern
agriculture conducted communally “is out of the question”
(S. 338); that the agronomists in Western Europe who demand the
consolidation and development of the village community are not
socialists at all, but people representing the interests of the
big landowners, who want to tie down the workers by granting
them patches of land (S. 334); that in all European countries
those who represent the landowners’ interests want to tie down
the agricultural workers by allotting them land and are already
trying to give legislative effect to the appropriate measures
(S. 162); that all attempts to help the small peasantry by
introducing handicraft industry (Hausindustrie)—that worst
form of capitalist exploitation—“should be most resolutely
combated” (S. 181). We consider it necessary to emphasise the
complete unanimity of opinion between the West European and the
Russian Marxists, in view of the latest attempts of the
spokesmen of Narodism to draw a sharp distinction between the
two (see the statement made by Mr. V. Vorontov on February 17,
1899, at the Society for the Promotion of Russian Industry and
Trade, Novoye Vremya [New Times ], No. 8255, February
19,

1899). [7]

---
Notes:
[1]
The Agrarian Question, Part I. “The Development of Agriculture
in Capitalist Society.”— Ed.

[2]
There is a Russian tranlsation.— Lenin

[3]
Preface.— Lenin

[4]
V.V - pseudonym of V.P. Voronstov.

N.–on - pseudonym of Nikolai
Danielson. Both were prominent ideologists of liberal Narodism
in the 1880s and 90s.— Ed .

[5]
In February or at the beginning of March 1899, when in exile,
Lenin received a copy of Die Agrarfrage (The Agrarian
Question) by Kautsky, then still a Marxist. By then, the greater part of The Development of Capitalism in Russia had
been set up in type, and so Lenin decided to make reference to
Kautsky’s work in hte preface. On March 17 (29), 1899, Lenin
sent a postscript to the preface. “If only it is not late,” he
wrote, “I would very much like to have it printed... Maybe, even
if the preface is already set, it will still be possible to add
the postscript?” The addition to the preface got into the hands
of the censor and was changed. In a letter dated April 27 (May
9), 1899, Lenin wrote of this: “Have heard that my P.S. to the
preface was late, fell into the hands of the preliminary censor
and ‘suffered,’ I think.”

[6]
In the second edition of The Development of Capitalism in Russia the numbering of the sections was changed through
Lenin’s introduction of several additions. The item to which
Lenin refers the reader is in Chapter II, § XII, C, p. 162 and
p. 168.

[7]
On
February 17, 1899, in the Society for the Promotion of Russian
Industry and Trade, a discussion took place on a paper entitled
“Is It Possible to Reconcile Narodism with Marxism?”
Representatives of liberal Narodism as well as “Legal Marxists”
took part in the discussion. V. P. Voronstov (V. V.) said that
those who represented the “modern trend of Marxism in the West”
stood closer to Russian Narodism than to the Russian Marxists. A
brief report of this meeting appeared on February 19 (March 3),
1899, in the reactionary St. Petersburg paper, Novoye Vremya (New Times) .

| | | | | PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION | |

# Preface to the Second Edition

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/devel/preface2.htm

The Development of Capitalism in Russia

The Process of the Formation of a Home Market for Large-Scale
Industry

PREFACE TO THE SECOND
EDITION [2]

Cover of the second edition of Lenin’s The Development of Capitalism in Russia ,
1908, autographed by the author.

This book was written in the period preceding the Russian Revolution,
during the slight lull that set in after the outbreak of the big
strikes of 1895-1896. At that time the working-class movement
withdrew, as it were, into itself, spreading in breadth and
depth and paving the way for the beginning in 1901 of the
demonstration movement.

The analysis of the social-economic system and, consequently, of
the class structure of Russia given in this work on the basis of
an economic investigation and critical analysis of statistics,
has now been confirmed by the open political action of all
classes in the course of the revolution. The leading role of the
proletariat has been fully revealed. It has also been revealed
that the strength of the proletariat in the process of history
is immeasurably greater than its share of the total population. The economic basis of the one phenomenon and the
other is demonstrated in the present work.

Further, the revolution is now increasingly revealing the dual
position and dual role of the peasantry. On the one hand, the
tremendous survivals of corvée economy and all kinds of
survivals of serfdom, with the unprecedented impoverishment and
ruin of the peasant poor, fully explain the deep sources of the
revolutionary peasant movement, the deep roots of the revolutionary character of the peasantry as a mass. On the other
hand, in the course of the revolution, the character of the
various political parties, and the numerous ideological-political trends reveal the inherently contradictory
class structure of this mass, its petty-bourgeois character, the
antagonism between the proprietor and the proletarian trends
within it. The vacillation of the impoverished small master
between the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie and the revolutionary proletariat is as inevitable as the phenomenon
existent in every capitalist society that an insignificant
minority of small producers wax rich, “get on in the world,”
turn into bourgeois, while the overwhelming majority are either
utterly ruined and become wage-workers or paupers, or eternally
eke out an almost proletarian existence. The economic basis of
both these trends among the peasantry is demonstrated in the
present essay.

With this economic basis the revolution in Russia is, of course,
inevitably a bourgeois revolution. This Marxist proposition is
absolutely irrefutable. It must never be forgotten. It must
always be applied to all the economic and political problems of
the Russian Revolution.

But one must know how to apply it. A concrete analysis of the
status and the interests of the different classes must serve as
a means of defining the precise significance of this truth when
applied to this or that problem. The opposite mode of reasoning
frequently met with among the Right-wing Social-Democrats headed
by Plekhanov, i.e., the endeavour to look for answers to concrete questions in
the simple logical development of the general truth about the
basic character of our revolution, is a vulgarisation of Marxism
and downright mockery of dialectical materialism. Of such
people, who from the general truth of the character of this
revolution deduce, for example, the leading role of the
“bourgeoisie” in the revolution, or the need for socialists to
support the liberals, Marx would very likely have repeated the
words once quoted by him from Heine: “I have sown dragon’s teeth
and harvested fleas.” [3]

With the present economic basis of the Russian Revolution, two
main lines of its development and outcome are objectively
possible:

Either the old landlord economy, bound as it is by thousands of
threads to serfdom, is retained and turns slowly into purely
capitalist, “Junker” economy. The basis of the final transition
from labour-service to capitalism is the internal metamorphosis
of feudalist landlord economy. The entire agrarian system of the
state becomes capitalist and for a long time retains feudalist
features. Or the old landlord economy is broken up by revolution, which destroys all the relics of serfdom, and large
landownership in the first place. The basis of the final
transition from labour-service to capitalism is the free development of small peasant farming, which has
received a tremendous impetus as a result of the expropriation
of the landlords’ estates in the interests of the peasantry. The
entire agrarian system becomes capitalist, for the more
completely the vestiges of serfdom are destroyed the more
rapidly does the differentiation of the peasantry proceed. In
other words: either—the retention, in the main, of landed
proprietorship and of the chief supports of the old “superstructure”; hence, the predominant role of the
liberal-monarchist bourgeois and landlord, the rapid transition
of the well-to-do peasantry to their side, the degradation of
the peasant masses, not only expropriated on a vast scale but
enslaved, in addition, by one or other kind of

Cadet [4] –proposed land-redemption payments, and downtrodden and dulled by the
dominance of reaction; the executors of such a bourgeois
revolution will be politicians of a type approximating to the

Octobrists . [5]
Or—the destruction of landlordism and of all the chief supports of the corresponding old “superstructure”; the
predominant role of the proletariat and the peasant masses, with
the neutralising of the unstable or counter-revolutionary
bourgeoisie; the speediest and freest development of the
productive forces on a capitalist basis, under the best
circumstances for the worker and peasant masses at all conceivable under commodity production;—hence, the
establishment of the most favourable conditions for the further
accomplishment by the working class of its real and fundamental
task of socialist reorganisation. Of course, infinitely diverse
combinations of elements of this or that type of capitalist
evolution are possible, and only hopeless pedants could set
about solving the peculiar and complex problems arising merely
by quoting this or that opinion of Marx about a different
historical epoch.

The essay here presented to the reader is devoted to an analysis
of the pre-revolutionary economy of Russia. In a revolutionary
epoch, life in a country proceeds with such speed and impetuosity that it is impossible to define the major results of
economic evolution in the heat of political struggle. Messrs. the

Stolypins [6] , on the one hand, and the liberals on the other (and not only
Cadets à la Struve, but all the Cadets in general), are
working systematically, doggedly and consistently to accomplish
the revolution according to the first pattern. The coup
d’état of June 3, 1907, that we have recently witnessed,
marks a victory for the counter-revolution, [7] which is striving to
ensure the complete predominance of the landlords in the
so-called representative body of the Russian people. But how far
this “victory” is a lasting one is another matter; the struggle
for the second outcome of the revolution goes on. Not only the
proletariat, but also the broad masses of the peasantry are
striving, more or less resolutely, more or less consistently,
and more or less consciously, for this outcome. However much the
counter-revolution tries to strangle the direct mass struggle by
outright violence, however much the Cadets try to strangle it by
means of their despicable and hypocritical counter revolutionary
ideas, that struggle, in spite of all, is breaking out, now here
and now there, and laying its impress upon the policy of the
“labour,” Narodnik parties, although the top circles of
petty-bourgeois politicians are undoubtedly contaminated
(especially the “Popular Socialists” and

Trudoviks [8] )
with the Cadet spirit of treachery, Molchalinism [9] and smugness
characteristic of moderate and punctilious philistines or
bureaucrats.

How this struggle will end, what the final result of the first
onset of the Russian Revolution will be—it is at present
impossible to say. Hence, the time has not yet come (moreover,
the immediate Party duties of a participant in the working-class
movement leave no leisure) for a thorough revision of this essay. [1]

The second edition cannot overstep the bounds of a characterisation of
Russian economy before the revolution. The author had to confine himself to going over and correcting the text and
also to making the most essential additions from the latest statistical material. These are recent horse-census data,
harvest statistics, returns of the 1897 census of the population
of Russia, new data from factory statistics, etc.

The Author

July 1907

Cover of the German edition (1894) of K. Marx’s Capital , Vol. III, Part 1,
used by Lenin.

---
Notes:
[1]
Such a revision will possibly require a sequel to the present
work. In that case the first volume would have to be confined to
an analysis of Russian economy before the revolution, and the
second volume devoted to a study of the results and achievements
of the revolution.— Lenin

[2]
[PLACEHOLDER]

[3]
[PLACEHOLDER]

[4]
[PLACEHOLDER]

[5]
[PLACEHOLDER]

[6]
[PLACEHOLDER]

[7]
June 3, 1907 , was the day on which the Second State
Duma was disbanded and a new law was promulgated dealing with
the elections to the Third State Duma, that ensured a majority
for the landlords and capitalists in the Duma. The tsar’s
government treacherously violated the Manifesto of October 17,
1905, did away with constitutional rights and had the
Social-Democratic group in the Second Duma arraigned and
sentenced to hard labour. The so-called coup d’état of
June 3 marked a temporary victory of the counter-revolution.

[8]
[PLACEHOLDER]

[9]
Molchalinism –a synonym for sycophancy, toadyism. Derived from the name Molchalin, a character in
Griboyedov’s play Wit Works Woe.

| | PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION | | | | |

# The Social Division of Labour

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8i/i8i.htm

Chapter I. The Theoretical Mistakes of the Narodnik Economists

The market is a category of commodity economy, which in the course of its
development is transformed into capitalist economy and only under the
latter gains complete sway and universal prevalence. Therefore, in order
to examine basic theoretical propositions concerning the home market we
must proceed from simple commodity economy and trace its gradual
transformation into capitalist economy.

### I. The Social Division of Labour

The basis of commodity economy is the social division of
labour. Manufacturing industry separates from the raw materials industry,
and each of these subdivides into small varieties and subvarieties which
produce specific products as commodities, and exchange them for the
products of all the others. Thus, the development of commodity economy
leads to an increase in the number of separate and independent branches of
industry; the tendency of this development is to transform into a special
branch of industry the making not only of each separate product, but even
of each separate part of a product—and not only the making of a
product, but even the separate operations of preparing the product for
consumption. Under natural economy society consisted of a mass of
homogeneous economic units (patriarchal peasant families, primitive
village communities, feudal manors), and each such unit engaged in all
forms of economic activity, from the acquisition of various kinds of raw material to their final preparation for consumption. Under
commodity economy heterogeneous economic units come into being, the number
of separate branches of economy increases, and the number of economic
units per forming one and the same economic function diminishes. It is
this progressive growth in the social division of labour that is the chief
factor in the process of creating a home market for capitalism. “... Where the basis is commodity production and its
absolute form, capitalist production,” says Marx, “... products are commodities, or use-values, which have an
exchange-value that is to be realised, to be converted into money, only in
so far as other commodities form an equivalent for them, that is, other
products confront them as commodities and values; thus, in so far as they
are not produced as immediate means of subsistence for the producers
themselves, but as commodities, as products which become use-values only
by their transformation into exchange values (money), by their
alienation. The market for these commodities develops through the social division of labour ; the division of productive labours
mutually transforms their respective products into commodities, into
equivalents for each other, making them mutually serve as markets” (Das Kapital , III, 2, 177-178. Russ. trans.,

526. [2] Our italics,
as in all quotations, unless otherwise stated).

It goes without saying that the above-mentioned separation of the
manufacturing from the raw materials industry, of manufacture from
agriculture, transforms agriculture itself into an industry, into a
commodity-producing branch of economy. The process of specialisation that
separates from each other the diverse varieties of the manufacture of
products, creating an ever-growing number of branches of industry, also
manifests itself in agriculture, creating specialised agricultural
districts (and systems of farming) [1] and giving rise to exchange not only between the products of agriculture and
industry but also between the various products of agriculture. This
specialisation of commercial (and capitalist) agriculture
manifests itself in all capitalist countries, in the international
division of labour; this is true of post-Reform Russia as well, as we
shall show in detail below.

Thus, the social division of labour is the basis of the entire process of
the development of commodity economy and of capitalism. It is quite
natural, therefore, that our

Narodnik theoreticians, who declare this process to be the result of artificial
measures, the result of a “deviation from the path,” and so on
and so forth, have tried to gloss over the fact of the social division of
labour in Russia or to belittle its significance.
Mr. V. V. , in his article “Division of Agricultural and Industrial Labour in
Russia” ( Vestnik Yevropy [European Messenger ], 1884, No. 7), “denied” “the dominance in Russia of the
principle of the social division of labour” (p. 347), and declared
that in this country the social division of labour “has not sprung
from the depths of the people’s life, but has attempted to thrust
itself into it from outside” (p. 338). Mr.

N.–on, in his Sketches , argued as follows about the increase in the
quantity of grain offered for sale: “This phenomenon might imply
that the grain produced is more evenly distributed over the country, that
the Archangel fisherman now consumes Samara grain, and that the Samara
farmer supplements his dinner with Archangel fish. Actually, however, nothing of the kind is happening” (Sketches on Our Post-Reform Social Economy , St. Petersburg, 1893, p. 37). Without any data and
contrary to generally known facts, the categorical assertion is bluntly
made here that there is no social division of labour in Russia! The
Narodnik theory of the “artificial character” of capitalism in
Russia could only have been evolved by rejecting, or proclaiming as
“artificial,” the very foundation of all commodity economy,
namely, the social division of labour.

---
Notes:
[1]
For example, I. A. Stebut in his Principles of Crop Farming
distinguishes farming systems according to the principal product
marketed. There are three main farming systems: 1) crop growing (grain
farming, as Mr. A. Skvortsov calls it); 2) livestock raising (the
principal product marketed being livestock produce); and 3) industrial
(technical farming, as Mr. A. Skvortsov calls it); the principal product
marketed being agricultural produce that undergoes technical
processing. See A. Skvortsov, The Influence of Steam Transport on Agriculture, Warsaw, 1890, p, 68 and foll.
— Lenin

[2]
[PLACEHOLDER]

| | | | | II. The Growth of the Industrial Population
at the Expense of the Agricultural | |

# The Growth of the Industrial Population at the Expense of the Agricultural

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8i/i8ii.htm

Chapter I. The Theoretical Mistakes of the Narodnik Economists

II. The Growth of the Industrial Population at the Expense of
the Agricultural

In view of the fact that in the epoch preceding commodity economy,
manufacturing is combined with the raw materials industry, and the latter
is headed by agriculture, the development of commodity economy takes the
shape of the separation from agriculture of one branch of industry after
another. The population of a country in which commodity economy is poorly
developed (or not developed at all) is almost exclusively
agricultural. This, however, must not be understood as meaning that the
population is engaged solely in agriculture: it only means that the
population engaged in agriculture, also process the products of
agriculture, and that exchange and the division of labour are almost
non-existent. Consequently, the development of commodity economy eo ipso
means the divorcement of an ever-growing part of the population from
agriculture, i.e., the growth of the industrial population at the expense
of the agricultural population. “It is in the nature of capitalist production to continually reduce the agricultural population as compared with the non-agricultural, because in industry (in the
strict sense) the increase of constant capital at the expense of variable
capital goes hand in hand with an absolute increase in variable capital
despite its relative decrease; on the other hand, in agriculture the
variable capital required for the exploitation of a certain plot of land
decreases absolutely; it can thus only increase to the extent that new
land is taken into cultivation, but this again requires as a prerequisite
a still greater growth of the non-agricultural population” ( Das Kapital , III, 2, 177. Russ. trans.,

p. 526). [2] Thus one cannot conceive of capitalism
without an increase in the commercial and industrial population at the
expense of the agricultural population, and everybody knows that this
phenomenon is revealed in the most clear-cut fashion in all capitalist
countries. It need hardly be proved that the significance of this
circumstance as regards the problem of the home market is enormous, for it
is bound up inseparably both with the evolution of industry and with the
evolution of agriculture; the formation of industrial centres, their numerical growth, and the attraction of the population by them cannot but
exert a most profound influence on the whole rural system, and cannot but
give rise to a growth of commercial and capitalist agriculture. All the
more noteworthy is the fact that the exponents of Narodnik economics
completely ignore this law both in their purely theoretical arguments and
in their arguments about capitalism in Russia (we shall deal at length
with the specific manifestations of this law in Russia later on, in
Chapter VIII). The theories of Messrs. V. V. and N.–on regarding the home
market for capitalism overlook a mere trifle—the diversion of the
population from agriculture to industry, and the influence exerted by this
fact on

agriculture. [1]

---
Notes:
[1]
We have pointed to the identical attitude of the West-European
romanticists and Russian Narodniks to the problem of the growth
of industrial population in our article “A Characterisation of
Economic Romanticism. Sismondi and Our Native
Sismondists.”— Lenin

[2]
Karl Marx, Capital, Moscow, 1959, Vol. III, p. 622.

Throughout this book, references to Karl Marx’s Das Kapital
are to the following German editions: Vol. 1–2nd edition, 1872;
Vol. 2–1885 edition; and Vol. 3–1894 edition. References to the
“Russian translation” of Capital are to the one by
N. F. Danielson (1896).

| | I. The Social Division of Labour | | | III. The Ruin of the Small Producers | |

# The Ruin of the Small Producers

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8i/i8iii.htm

Chapter I. The Theoretical Mistakes of the Narodnik Economists

### III. The Ruin of the Small Producers

So far we have dealt with simple commodity production. Now we pass to
capitalist production, that is, we presume that instead of simple
commodity producers we have, on the one hand, the owner of means of
production and, on the other, the wage-worker, the seller of
labour-power. The conversion of the small producer into a wage-worker
presumes that he has lost the means of production—land, tools,
workshop, etc.—i.e., that he is “impoverished,” “ruined.” The view is advanced that this ruin
“diminishes the purchasing power of the population,” “diminishes the home market” for capitalism (Mr. N.–on,
loc. cit., p. 185. Also pp. 203, 275, 287, 339-340, etc. The same view is
held by Mr. V. V. in the majority of his writings). We do not deal here
with the factual data relating to this process in Russia—they will be
examined in detail in later chapters. At the moment the question is posed
purely theoretically, i.e., it relates to commodity production in general
where it is transformed into capitalist production. The writers mentioned
also pose this question theoretically, i.e., from the mere fact of the ruin of the small producers they deduce a shrinkage of the
home market. This view is absolutely incorrect, and its persistent
survival in our economic literature can only be explained by the romantic
prejudices of Narodism (see the article referred to in the footnote). It
is forgotten that the “freeing” of one section of the producers from the means of production necessarily presumes the passage of
the latter into other hands, their conversion into capital; presumes,
consequently, that the new owners of these means of production produce as
commodities the products formerly consumed by the producer himself, i.e.,
expand the home market; that in expanding production the new owners of the
means of production present a demand to the market for new implements, raw
materials, means of transport, etc., and also for articles of consumption
(the enrichment of these new owners naturally presumes an increase in
their consumption). It is forgotten that it is by no means the well-being
of the producer that is important for the market but his possession of
money; the decline in the well-being of the patriarchal peasant, who
formerly conducted a mainly natural economy, is quite compatible with an
increase in the amount of money in his possession, for the more such a
peasant is ruined, the more he is compelled to resort to the sale of his
labour-power, and the greater is the share of his (albeit scantier) means
of subsistence that he must acquire in the market. “With the setting
free (from the land) of a part of the agricultural population, therefore,
their former means of nourishment were also set free. They were now
transformed into material elements of variable capital” (capital
spent on the purchase of labour-power) ( Das Kapital, I,
776). “The expropriation and eviction of a part of the agricultural
population not only set free for industrial capital the labourers, their
means of subsistence, and material for labour; it also created the home market ” (ibid., 778). [1] Thus, from the standpoint of abstract theory, the
ruin of the small producers in a society of developing commodity economy
and capitalism means the very opposite to what Messrs. N.–on and
V. V. want to deduce therefrom; it means the creation and not the
shrinkage of the home market. If the very same Mr. N.–on, who declares a
priori that the ruin of the Russian small producers means the shrinkage of
the home market, nevertheless cites the just quoted contrary assertions of
Marx ( Sketches, pp. 71 and 114), it only proves the remarkable
ability of that writer to belabour himself with quotations from
Capital .

---
Notes:
[1]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 745 and
747.

| | II. The Growth of the Industrial Population
at the Expense of the Agricultural | | | IV. The Narodnik Theory of the Impossibility
of Realising Surplus-Value | |

# The Narodnik Theory of the Impossibility of Realising Surplus-Value

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8i/i8iv.htm

Chapter I. The Theoretical Mistakes of the Narodnik Economists

IV. The Narodnik Theory of the Impossibility of Realising
Surplus-Value

The next question in the theory of the home market is the following. We
know that the value of a product in capitalist production resolves into
three parts: 1) the first part replaces the constant capital, i.e., the
value that existed previously in the shape of raw and auxiliary materials,
machines and instruments of production, etc., and that is merely
reproduced in a certain part of the finished product; 2) the second part
replaces the variable capital, i.e., covers the maintenance of the worker;
and, lastly, 3) the third part constitutes the surplus-value, which
belongs to the capitalist. It is usually granted (we state the question in
the spirit of Messrs. N.–on and V. V.) that the realisation (i. e., the
finding of a corresponding equivalent, sale in the market) of the first
two parts presents no difficulty, because the first part goes into
production, and the second into consumption by the working class. But how
is the third part—surplus-value—realised? It cannot, surely, be
consumed in its entirety by the capitalists! So our economists come to
the conclusion that “the way out of the difficulty” of realising surplus-value is “the acquisition of a foreign
market” (N.–on, Sketches , Part II, § XV in general, and p. 205 in particular; V. V., “The Excess in the Market Supply of
Commodities” in Otechestvenniye Zapiski [Fatherland Notes ], 1883, and Essays on Theoretical Economics ,
St. Petersburg, 1895, p. 179 and foll.). The writers mentioned explain the
need for a capitalist nation to have a foreign market by the suggestion
that the capitalists cannot realise their products in any other way. The
home market in Russia, they say, is shrinking because of the ruin of the
peasantry and because of the impossibility of realising surplus-value
without a foreign market, while the foreign market’s closed to a
young country that enters the path of capitalist development too late—and so, it is declared as proven that
Russian capitalism has no basis, is still-born, a claim founded on mere a
priori (and, moreover, theoretically incorrect) assumptions!

When expressing his views on realisation, Mr. N.–on evidently had in mind
Marx’s theory on this subject (although he said not a single word
about Marx in this part of his Sketches ), but he absolutely
failed to understand it and distorted it beyond recognition, as we shall
see in a moment. This explains the curious fact that his views coincided
in all essentials with those of Mr. V. V., who cannot possibly be accused
of “not understanding” theory, for it would be the height of
injustice to suspect him of even the slightest acquaintance with it. Both
authors expound their theories as though they are the first to have dealt
with the subject, and have reached certain solutions “all by
themselves”; both of them most sublimely ignore the arguments of the
old economists on the subject, and both repeat old errors that have been
most thoroughly refuted in Volume II of

Capital . [1]

Both authors reduce the whole problem of the realisation of the product to the realisation of surplus-value,
evidently imagining that the realisation of constant capital presents no
difficulties. This naive opinion contains a most profound error, one that
is the source of all further errors in the Narodnik theory of
realisation. As a matter of fact, the difficulty of explaining realisation
is precisely one of explaining the realisation of constant capital. In
order to be realised, constant capital must be put back again into
production, and that is directly practicable only in the case of that
capital whose product consists of means of production. If, however, the
product which makes good the constant part of capital consists of articles
of consumption, it cannot be directly put back into production; what is required is exchange between the department of social
production that makes means of production and that which makes articles of
consumption. It is this point that constitutes the whole difficulty of the
problem, a difficulty unnoticed by our economists. Mr. V. V. presents the matter, generally speaking, as if the
aim of capitalist production is not accumulation but consumption,
advancing the profound argument that “into the hands of a minority
flows a mass of material objects in excess of the consuming power of the
organism” (sic !) “at the given stage of their development” (loc. cit., 149) and that “it is not the
moderation and abstemiousness of the manufacturers which are the cause of
the superfluity of products, but the limitations and insufficient
elasticity of the human organism (!!), which fails to increase its
consuming power at the rate at which surplus-value grows” (ibid.,
161). Mr. N.–on tries to present the matter as though he does not regard
consumption as the aim of capitalist production, as though he takes
account of the role and significance of means of production in regard to
the problem of realisation; as a matter of fact, however, he has no clear
idea whatsoever about the process of the circulation and reproduction of
the aggregate social capital, and has become entangled in a host of
contradictions. We shall not stop to examine all these contradictions in
detail (pp. 203-205 of Mr. N.–on’s Sketches ); that would
be too thankless a task (and one already performed in part by

Mr. Bulgakov [2] in his book Markets Under Capitalist Production , Moscow, 1897,
pp. 237-245), and furthermore, to prove the justice of the appraisal given
here of Mr. N.–on’s arguments, it will suffice to examine his final
conclusion, namely, that the foreign market is the way out of the
difficulty of realising surplus-value. This conclusion of
Mr. N.–on’s (essentially a mere repetition of the one drawn by
Mr. V. V.) shows in most striking fashion that he did not in any way
understand either the realisation of the product in capitalist society
(i.e., the theory of the home market)

or the role of the foreign market. Indeed, is there even a grain of common
sense in this dragging of the foreign market into the problem of
“realisation”? The problem of realisation is how to find for
each part of the capitalist product, in terms of value (constant capital,
variable capital and surplus-value) and in its material form (means of
production, and articles of consumption, specifically necessities and
luxuries), that other part of the product which replaces it on the
market. Clearly, foreign trade must here be excluded, for dragging it in
does not advance the solution of the problem one iota, but merely retracts
it by extending the problem from one country to several. The very same
Mr. N.–on who discovered in foreign trade “the way out of the
difficulty” of realising surplus-value, argues about wages, for
example, as follows: with the part of the annual product which the direct
producers, the workers, receive in the shape of wages “only that
part of the means of subsistence can be drawn from circulation which is
equal in value to the sum total of wages” (203). How, the question
arises, does our economist know that the capitalists of a given country
will produce means of subsistence in just the quantity and of just the
quality requisite for their realisation by wages? How does he know that in
this connection the foreign market can be dispensed with? Obviously, he
cannot know this, and has simply brushed aside the problem of the foreign
market, for in discussing the realisation of variable capital the
important thing is the replacement of one part of the product by another,
and not at all whether this replacement takes place in one country or in
two. With respect to surplus-value, however, he departs from this
necessary premise, and instead of solving the problem, simply evades it by
talking of the foreign market. The sale of the product in the foreign
market itself needs explanation, i.e., the finding of an equivalent for
that part of the product which is being sold, the finding of another part
of the capitalist product that can replace the first. That is why Marx
says that in examining the problem of realisation, the foreign market,
foreign trade “must be entirely discarded,” for “the involvement of foreign commerce in analysing the annually reproduced value
of products can...only confuse without contributing any new element of the
problem, or of its solution” (Das Kapital, 11, 469). [3] Messrs. V. V. and N.–on imagined that they were
giving a profound appraisal of the contradictions of capitalism by
pointing to the difficulties of realising surplus-value. Actually,
however, they were giving an extremely superficial appraisal of the
contradictions of capitalism, for if one speaks of the “difficulties” of realisation, of the crises, etc., arising
therefrom, one must admit that these “difficulties” are not
only possible but are necessary as regards all parts of the capitalist
product, and not as regards surplus-value alone. Difficulties of this
kind, due to disproportion in the distribution of the various branches of
production, constantly arise, not only in realising surplus-value, but
also in realising variable and constant capital; in realising not only the
product consisting of articles of consumption, but also that consisting of
means of production. Without “difficulties” of this kind and
crises, there cannot, in general, be any capitalist production, production
by isolated producers for a world market unknown to them.

---
Notes:
[1]
Particularly astonishing in this connection is Mr. V V.’s audacity,
which transcends all bounds of literary decency. After enunciating his
theory, and betraying his utter unfamiliarity with Volume II of
Capital , which deals specifically with realisation, he goes on to
make the quite unfounded statement that “in building up my
propositions I used” Marx’s theory!! ( Essays on Theoretical Economics , Essay III. “The Capitalist Law ( sic !?!) of Production, Distribution and Consumption,” p. 162.)
— Lenin

[2]
It will not be superfluous to remind the contemporary reader that
Mr. Bulgakov, and also Messrs. Struve and Tugan-Baranovsky whom we shall
quote rather often later on, tried to be Marxists in 1899. Now they have
all safely turned from “critics of Marx” into plain bourgeois
economists. ( Note to 2nd edition . [4] )
— Lenin

[4]
Here and elsewhere, footnotes indicated as Note to 2nd edition
are those written by Lenin himself when he prepared the second, 1908
edition of this work.

[3]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. II, Moscow, 1957, p. 470.

| | III. The Ruin of the Small Producers | | | V. The Views of Adam Smith on the Production
and Circulation of the Aggregate Social Product in Capitalist Society and Marx’s
Criticism of These Views | |

# The Views of Adam Smith on the Production and Circulation of the Aggregate Social Product in Capitalist Society and Marx’s Criticism of These Views

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8i/i8v.htm

Chapter I. The Theoretical Mistakes of the Narodnik Economists

V. The Views of
Adam Smith on the Production and Circulation of the Aggregate Social
Product in Capitalist Society and Marx’s Criticism of These
Views

In order properly to understand the theory of realisation we must start
with Adam Smith, who laid the foundation of the erroneous theory on this
subject that held undivided sway in political economy until Marx. Adam
Smith divided the price of a commodity into only two parts: variable
capital (wages, in his terminology) and surplus-value (he does not combine
“profit” and “rent,” so that actually he counted three parts in all.) [1]

Similarly, he divided the sum-total of commodities, the total annual social product, into the same parts and
allocated them directly to the “revenue” of the two classes of
society: the workmen and the capitalists (undertakers and landlords, as
Smith calls them). [2]

On what did he base his omission of the third component of value, constant
capital? Adam Smith could not fail to observe this part, but he assumed
that it also is made up of wages and surplus-value. Here is how he argued
on this subject: “In the price of corn, for example, one part pays
the rent of the landlord, another pays the wages or maintenance of the
labourers and labouring cattle employed in producing it, and the third
pays the profit of the farmer. These three parts seem either immediately
or ultimately to make up the whole price of corn. A fourth part, it may
perhaps be thought, is necessary for replacing the stock of the farmer, or
for compensating the wear and tear of his labouring cattle, and other
instruments of husbandry. But it must be considered that the price of any
instrument of husbandry, such as a labouring horse, is itself made up of
the same three parts” (namely, rent, profit and wages). “Though the price of the corn, therefore, may pay the price
as well as the maintenance of the horse, the whole price still resolves
itself either immediately or ultimately into the same three parts of rent,
labour and profit.” [3]

Marx calls this theory of Smith’s “astonishing.” “His proof consists simply in the
repetition of the same assertion” (II,

S. 366). [6]

Smith sends us “from pillar to post” (I. B., 2. Aufl.,

S. 612 [4] ). [7]

In saying that the price of farming instruments itself resolves
into the same three parts, Smith forgets to add: and also into the price
of the means of production employed in the making of these
instruments. The erroneous exclusion by Adam Smith (and also by subsequent
economists) of the constant part of capital from the price of the product
is due to an erroneous conception of accumulation in capitalist economy,
i.e., of the expansion of production, the transformation of surplus-value
into capital. Here too Adam Smith omitted constant capital, assuming that
the

accumulated part of surplus-value, the part converted into capital, is
entirely consumed by the productive workers, i.e., goes entirely in wages,
whereas actually the accumulated part of surplus-value is expended on
constant capital (instruments of production, raw and auxiliary materials)
plus wages. Criticising this view of Smith (and also of Ricardo ,
Mill and others) in Capital , Volume I (Part VII, “The
Accumulation of Capital,” Chapter 22, “Conversion of
Surplus-Value into Capital,” § 2, “Erroneous Conception,
by Political Economy, of Reproduction on a Progressively Increasing
Scale”), Marx there states that in Volume II “it will be shown
that Adam Smith’s dogma, inherited by all his successors, prevented
political economy from understanding even the most elementary mechanism of
the process of social reproduction” (I, 612). [8] Adam Smith committed this error because
he confused the value of the product with the newly created value: the
latter does indeed resolve itself into variable capital and surplus-value,
whereas the former includes constant capital in addition. This error had
been earlier exposed by Marx in his analysis of value, when he drew a
distinction between abstract labour, which creates new value, and
concrete, useful labour, which reproduces the previously existing value in
the new form of a useful product. [9]

An explanation of the process of the reproduction and circulation of the
total social capital is particularly necessary to settle the problem of
the national revenue in capitalist society. It is extremely interesting to
note that, when dealing with the latter problem, Adam Smith could no
longer cling to his erroneous theory, which excludes constant capital from
the country’s total product. “The gross revenue of all the
inhabitants of a great country comprehends the whole annual produce of
their land and labor; the neat revenue, what remains free to them after
deducting the expense of maintaining; first, their fixed; and, secondly,
their circulating capital; or what, without encroaching upon their
capital, they can place in their stock reserved for immediate consumption,
or spend upon their subsistence, conveniences, and amusements”
(A. Smith, Wealth of Nations , Book II. “Of the Nature,
Accumulation, and Employment of Stock,” Chapter II, Vol. II,
p. 18. Russ. trans., II, p. 21). Thus, from the country’s total product Adam Smith excluded capital, asserting
that it resolves itself into wages, profit and rent, i.e., into (net)
revenue; but in the gross revenue of society he includes capital,
separating it from articles of consumption (= net revenue). This is the
contradiction in which Marx catches Adam Smith: how can there be
capital in the revenue if there was no capital in the product? (Cf. Das Kapital, II,

S. 355.) [10] Without noticing it
himself, Adam Smith here recognises three component parts in the value of
the total product: not only variable capital and surplus-value, but also
constant capital. Further on, Adam Smith comes up against another very
important difference, one of enormous significance in the theory of
realisation. “The whole expense of maintaining the fixed
capital,” he says, “must evidently be excluded from the neat
revenue of the society. Neither the materials necessary for supporting
their useful machines and instruments of trade, their profitable
buildings, etc., nor the produce of the labor necessary for fashioning those materials into the proper form, can ever make any part of it.
The price of that labor may indeed make a part of it; as the workmen so
employed may place the whole value of their wages in their stock reserved
for immediate consumption.” But in other kinds of labour, both the
“price” (of labour) “and the produce” (of labour)
“go to this stock, the price to that of the workmen, the produce to
that of other people” (A. Smith, ibid. ). Here we find a
gleam of recognition of the need to distinguish two kinds of labour: one
that produces articles of consumption which may enter into the “neat
revenue,” and another which produces “useful machines and
instruments of trade...buildings, etc.,” i.e., articles that can
never be used for personal consumption. From this it is only one step to
the admission that an explanation of realisation absolutely requires that
two forms of consumption be distinguished: personal and productive (=
putting back into production). It was the rectification of these two
mistakes made by Smith (the omission of constant capital from the value of
the product, and the confusing of personal with productive consumption)
that enabled Marx to build up his brilliant theory of the realisation of
the social product in capitalist society.

As for the other economists, those between Adam Smith and Marx, they all repeated Adam Smith’s error [5] and for that reason did not advance
one step. Of the confusion that consequently reigns in the theories of
revenue we shall speak later. In the controversy as to the possibility of
a general overproduction of commodities that was waged by Ricardo, Say,
Mill and others, on the one hand, and by Malthus, Sismondi, Chalmers, Kirchmann and others, on the other, both sides adhered
to Smith’s erroneous theory, and consequently, as Mr. S. Bulgakov
justly remarks, “in view of the false premises and the wrong
formulation of the problem itself, these controversies could only lead to
empty and scholastic wordspinning” (loc. cit., p. 21. See an account
of this wordspinning in Tugan-Baranovsky’s Industrial Crises , etc., St. Petersburg, 1894, pp. 377-404).

---
Notes:
[1]
Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations , 4th ed., 1801, Vol. I, p. 75, Book I: “Of the
Causes of Improvement in the productive Powers of Labor, and of
the Order according to which its Produce is naturally distributed among the different Ranks of the People,” Chapter
VI, “Of the component Parts of the Price of Commodities,”
Bibikov’s Russian translation (St. Petersburg, 1866), Vol. I,
p. 171.— Lenin

[2]
Loc cit., I, pg. 78 Russ. trans. I, p. 174.— Lenin

[3]
Ibid., Vol I pp. 75-76. Russ. trans, I, p. 171.— Lenin

[4]
Vol. I, 2nd Ed., p. 612.— Lenin

[5]
For example, Ricardo asserted that “the whole produce of the land
and labour of every country is divided into three portions: of
these, one portion is devoted to wages another to profits, and the
other to rent” ( Works, Sieber’s translation, St. Petersburg, 1882, p. 221.)— Lenin

[6]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. II, Moscow, 1957, p. 373.

[7]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 590.

[8]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, Chapter XXIV,
Section 2.

[9]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 199-202.

[10]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. II, Moscow, 1957, pp. 363-64.

| | IV. The Narodnik Theory of the Impossibility
of Realising Surplus-Value | | | VI. Marx’s Theory of Realisation | |

# Marx’s Theory of Realisation

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8i/i8vi.htm

Chapter I. The Theoretical Mistakes of the Narodnik Economists

### VI. Marx’s Theory of Realisation

It follows automatically from what has been said that the fundamental
premises on which Marx’s theory is based are the following two
propositions. The first is that the total product of a capitalist country,
like the individual product, consists of the following three parts: 1)
constant capital, 2) variable capital, and 3) surplus-value. To those who
are familiar with the analysis of the process of production of capital
given in Vol. I of Marx’s Capital this proposition is self-evident. The second proposition is that two major departments of
capitalist production must be distinguished, namely (Department I), the
production of means of production—of articles which serve for
productive consumption, i.e., are to be put back into production, articles
which are consumed, not by people, but by capital; and (Department II) the
production of articles of consumption, i.e., of articles used for personal
consumption. “There is more theoretical meaning in this division
alone than in all the preceding controversies over the theory of markets” (Bulgakov, loc. cit.,
p. 27). The question arises as to why such a division of products
according to their natural form is now necessary to analyse the
reproduction of social capital, when the analysis of the production and
reproduction of individual capital dispensed with such a division and left
the question of the natural form of the product entirely on one side. On
what grounds can we introduce the question of the natural form of the
product into a theoretical investigation of capitalist economy, which is
based entirely on the exchange-value of the product? The fact is that when
the production of individual capital was analysed, the question of where
and how the product would be sold, and of where and how articles of
consumption would be bought by the workers and means of production by the
capitalists, was set aside as making no contribution to this analysis and
as having no relation to it. All that had to be examined then was the
problem of the value of the separate elements of production and of the
results of production. Now, however, the question is: where will the
workers and the capitalists obtain their articles of consumption, where
will the capitalists obtain their means of production, how will the
finished product meet all these demands and enable production to expand?
Here, consequently, we have not only “a replacement of value, but
also a replacement in material” (Stoffersatz.— Das Kapital , II, 389), [5]
and hence it is absolutely essential to distinguish between products that play entirely different parts in the
process of social economy.

Once these basic propositions are taken into account, the problem of the
realisation of the social product in capitalist society no longer presents
any difficulty. Let us first assume simple reproduction, i.e., the
repetition of the process of production on its previous scale, the absence
of accumulation. Obviously, the variable capital and the surplus-value in
Department II (which exist in the form of articles of consumption) are
realised by the personal consumption of the workers and capitalists of
this department (for simple reproduction presumes that the whole of the
surplus-value is consumed, and that no portion of it is converted into
capital). Further, the variable capital and the surplus-value which exist
in the form of means of production (Department I) must, in order to be realised, be exchanged for articles of
consumption for the capitalists and workers engaged in the making of means
of production. On the other hand, neither can the constant capital
existing in the form of articles of consumption (Department II) be
realised except by an exchange for means of production, in order to be put
back again into production the following year. Thus we get variable
capital and surplus-value in means of production exchanged for constant
capital in articles of consumption: the workers and the capitalists (in
the means of production department) in this way obtain means of
subsistence, while the capitalists (in the articles of consumption
department) dispose of their product and obtain constant capital for
further production. Under simple reproduction, the parts exchanged must be
equal: the sum of variable capital and surplus-value in means of
production must be equal to the constant capital in articles of
consumption. On the other hand, if we assume reproduction on a
progressively increasing scale, i.e., accumulation, the first magnitude
must be greater than the second, because there must be available a surplus
of means of production with which to begin further production. Let us revert, however, to simple reproduction. There has been
left unrealised one more part of the social product, namely, constant
capital in means of production. This is realised partly by exchange among
the capitalists of this same department (coal, for example, is exchanged
for iron, because each of these products serves as a necessary material or
instrument in the production of the other), and partly by being put
directly into production (for example, coal extracted in order to be used
in the same enterprise again for the extraction of coal; grain in
agriculture, etc.). As for accumulation, its starting-point, as we have
seen, is a surplus of means of production (taken from the surplus-value of
the capitalists in this department), a surplus that also calls for the
conversion into capital of part of the surplus-value in articles of
consumption. A detailed examination of how this additional production will
be combined with simple reproduction we consider to be superfluous. It is
no part of our task to undertake a special examination of the theory of
realisation, and the foregoing is enough to elucidate the error of the

Narodnik economists and to enable us to draw certain theoretical
conclusions regarding the home market. [1]

On the problem of interest to us, that of the home market, the main
conclusion from Marx’s theory of realisation is the following:
capitalist production, and, consequently, the home market, grow not so
much on account of articles of consumption as on account of means of
production. In other words, the increase in means of production outstrips
the increase in articles of consumption. Indeed, we have seen that
constant capital in articles of consumption (Department II) is exchanged
for variable capital + surplus-value in means of production (Department
I). According, however, to the general law of capitalist production,
constant capital grows faster than variable capital. Hence, constant
capital in articles of consumption has to increase faster than variable
capital and surplus-value in articles of consumption, while constant
capital in means of production has to increase fastest of all,
outstripping both the increase of variable capital ( + surplus-value) in
means of production and the increase of constant capital in articles of
consumption. The department of social production which produces means of
production has, consequently, to grow faster than that producing articles
of consumption. For capitalism, therefore, the growth of the home market
is to a certain extent “independent” of the growth of personal
consumption, and takes place mostly on account of productive
consumption. But it would be a mistake to understand this
“independence” as meaning that productive consumption is
entirely divorced from personal consumption: the former can and must
increase faster than the latter (and there its “independence” ends),
but it goes without saying that, in the last analysis, productive
consumption is always bound up with personal consumption. Marx says in
this connection: “...We have seen (Book II, Part III) that
continuous circulation takes place between constant capital and constant
capital...” (Marx has in mind constant capital in means of
production, which is realised by exchange among capitalists in the same
department). “It is at first independent of individual consumption
because it never enters the latter. But this consumption definitely limits
it nevertheless, since constant capital is never produced for its own sake
but solely because more of it is needed in spheres of production whose
products go into individual consumption” ( Das Kapital , III,
1, 289. Russ. trans.,

p. 242).  [6]

This larger consumption of constant capital is nothing but a higher level
of the development of the productive forces, one expressed in terms of
exchange-value, because the rapidly developing “means of
production” consist, in the main, of materials, machines,
instruments, buildings and all sorts of other accessories for large-scale,
especially machine, production. It is quite natural, therefore, that
capitalist production, which develops the productive forces of society and
creates large-scale production and machine industry, is also distinguished
by a particular expansion of that department of social wealth which
consists of means of production....“In this case” (namely, the
production of means of production), “what distinguishes capitalist
society from the savage is not, as Senior thinks, the privilege and
peculiarity of the savage to expend his labour at times in a way that does
not procure him any products resolvable (exchangeable) into revenue, i.e.,
into articles of consumption. No, the distinction consists in the
following:

“a) Capitalist society employs more of its available annual labour
in the production of means of production (ergo, of constant capital) which
are not resolvable into revenue in the form of wages or surplus-value, but
can function only as capital.

“b) When a savage makes bows, arrows, stone hammers, axes, baskets,
etc., he knows very well that he did not spend the time so employed in the
production of articles of consumption, but that he has thus stocked up the means of production he
needs, and nothing else” ( Das Kapital, II,
436. Russ. trans.,

333). [7]
This “very good knowledge” of one’s relation to production has disappeared in capitalist society
owing to the latter’s inherent fetishism, which presents the social
relations of men as relations of products—owing to the conversion of
every product into a commodity produced for an unknown consumer and to be
realised in an unknown market. And as it is a matter of the utmost
indifference to the individual entrepreneur what kind of article
he produces—every product yields a “revenue,”—this same superficial, individual point of view was adopted by the
economist-theoreticians in relation to the whole of society and prevented
the process of the reproduction of the total social product in capitalist
economy from being understood.

The development of production (and, consequently, of the home market)
chiefly on account of means of production seems paradoxical and
undoubtedly constitutes a contradiction. It is real “production as
an end in itself”—the expansion of production without a
corresponding expansion of consumption. But it is a contradiction not of
doctrine, but of actual life; it is the sort of contradiction that
corresponds to the very nature of capitalism and to the other
contradictions of this system of social economy. It is this expansion of
production without a corresponding expansion of consumption that
corresponds to the historical mission of capitalism and to its specific
social structure: the former consists in the development of the productive
forces of society; the latter rules out the utilisation of these technical
achievements by the mass of the population. There is an undoubted
contradiction between the drive towards the unlimited extension of
production inherent in capitalism, and the limited consumption of the
masses of the people (limited because of their proletarian status). It is
this contradiction that Marx records in the propositions so readily quoted
by the Narodniks and which are supposed to corroborate their views on the
shrinkage of the home market, the non-progressive character of capitalism,
etc., etc. Here are some of these propositions: “Contradiction in
the capitalist mode of production: the labourers as buyers of commodities
are important for the market. But as sellers of their own commodity—labour-power—capitalist society tends to keep them
down to the minimum price” ( Das Kapital, II, 303). [8] “... The conditions of realisation are limited by the proportional
relation of the various branches of production and the consumer power of
society.... But the more productiveness develops, the more it finds itself
at variance with the narrow basis on which the conditions of consumption
rest” (ibid., III, 1, 225-226). [9] “The limits within which the preservation
and self-expansion of the value of capital resting on the expropriation
and pauperisation of the great mass of producers can alone move—these
limits come continually into conflict with the methods of production
employed by capital for its purposes, which drive towards unlimited
extension of production, towards production as an end in itself, towards
unconditional development of the social productivity of labour.... The
capitalist mode of production is, for this reason, a historical means of
developing the material forces of production and creating an appropriate
world market, and is, at the same time, a continual conflict between this
its historical task and its own corresponding relations of social
production.” (III, 1, 232. Russ. trans.,

p. 194). [10]
“The ultimate reason for all real crises always remains the poverty and restricted
consumption of the masses as opposed to the drive of capitalist production
to develop the productive forces as though only the absolute consuming
power of society constituted their outer limit” [2] (III, 2, 21. Russ. trans.,

p. 395). [11]
These propositions all speak of the contradiction we have mentioned,
namely, the contradiction between the unrestricted drive to expand
production and limited consumption—and of nothing else. [3]

Nothing could be more senseless than to conclude from these passages in
Capital that Marx did not admit the possibility of surplus-value
being realised in capitalist society, that he attributed crises to
under-consumption, and so forth. Marx’s analysis of realisation
showed that the circulation between constant capital and constant capital
is definitely limited by personal consumption; but this same analysis
showed the true character of this “limitedness,” [12] it showed that,
compared with means of production, articles of consumption play a minor
role in the formation of the home market. And, furthermore, there is
nothing more absurd than to conclude from the contradictions of capitalism
that the latter is impossible, non-progressive, and so on—to do that
is to take refuge from unpleasant, but undoubted realities in the
transcendental heights of romantic dreams. The contradiction between the
drive towards the unlimited expansion of production and limited
consumption is not the only contradiction of capitalism, which cannot
exist and develop at all without contradictions. The contradictions of
capitalism testify to its historically transient character, and make clear
the conditions and causes of its collapse and transformation into a higher
form; but they by no means rule out either the possibility of capitalism,
or its progressive character as compared with preceding systems of social economy. [4]

---
Notes:
[1]
See Das Kapital , II. Band, III.

Abschn., [13] where a detailed investigation is made of accumulation, the division of articles of consumption into necessities
and luxuries, the circulation of money, the wear and tear of fixed
capital, etc. Readers who are unable to familiarise themselves with Volume
II of Capital are recommended to read the exposition of
Marx’s theory of realisation contained in Mr. S Bulgakov’s
book quoted above. Mr. Bulgakov’s exposition is more satisfactory
than that of Mr. M. Tugan-Baranovsky ( Industrial Crises,
pp. 407-438), who in building up his schemes has made some very ill-judged
departures from Marx and has inadequately explained Marx’s theory;
it is also more satisfactory than the exposition given by Mr. A. Skvortsov
( Fundamentals of Political Economy, St. Petersburg, 1898, pp
281-295), who holds wrong views on the very important questions of profit
and rent.— Lenin

[2]
It is this passage that the famous Ed. Bernstein (famous after the fashion
of Herostratos) quoted in his Premises of Socialism ( Die Voraussetzungen, etc., Stuttgart, 1899,

S. 67). [14]
Our opportunist, of course, turning away from Marxism towards the old bourgeois economics, hastened to
announce that this is a contradiction in Marx’s theory of crises,
that Marx’s view “does not differ very much from
Rodbertus’s theory of crises.” Actually, however, the only
“contradiction” here is between Bernstein’s pretentious
claims, on the one hand, and his senseless eclecticism and refusal to
delve into the meaning of Marx’s theory, on the other. How far
Bernstein failed to understand the theory of realisation is evident from
his truly strange argument that the enormous increase in the aggregate
surplus product must necessarily imply an increase in the number of
affluent people (or an improvement in the living standard of the workers),
for the capitalists themselves, if you please, and their
“servants” ( sic ! Seite 51-52) cannot “consume” the entire surplus product!! ( Note to 2nd edition. )— Lenin

[3]
Mr. Tugan-Baranovsky is mistaken in thinking that in advancing this
proposition Marx contradicts his own analysis of realisation (see article
“Capitalism and the Market” in Mir Bozhy [God’s Earth ] 1898, No. 6, p. 123). Marx does not contradict himself at
all, for the connection between productive consumption and personal
consumption is also indicated in the analysis of realization.— Lenin

[4]
Cf. “A Characterisation of Economic Romanticism. Sismondi and Our
Native Sismondists.”— Lenin

[5]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. II, Moscow, 1957, p. 394.

[13]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. II, Moscow, 1957, pp. 351-523.

[6]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 299-300.

[7]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. II, Moscow, 1957, pp. 438-39.

[8]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. II, Moscow, 1957, p. 316.

[9]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 239-40.

[10]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 245.

[14]
E. Bernstein’s Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie ( The Premises of Socialism and the Tasks of Social-Democracy ), which revised the principles of
revolutionary Marxism in the spirit of bourgeois reformism, appeared in
1899. Lenin received a copy of it when the first edition of his The Development of Capitalism in Russia had appeared, so that it was
only in the second edition that he was able to include his remarks on
Bernstein’s opportunist views.

Lenin calls Bernstein “famous after the fashion of
Herostratos.” Tradition has it that Herostratos , a Greek
who lived in the 4th century B.C., set fire to the noted temple of Artemis
in his native town of Ephesus for the sole purpose of becoming known to
posterity. The name of Herostratos has become an epithet applied to
individuals who are ready to commit crime for the same of winning fame.

[11]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 472-73.

[12]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 299.

| | V. The Views of Adam Smith on
the Production and Circulation of the Aggregate Social Product in Capitalist Society
and Marx’s Criticism of These Views | | | VII. The Theory of the National Income | |

# The Theory of the National Income

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8i/i8vii.htm

Chapter I. The Theoretical Mistakes of the Narodnik Economists

### VII. The Theory of the National Income

Having outlined the main propositions of Marx’s theory of
realisation, we still have briefly to point to its enormous importance in
the theory of national “consumption,” “distribution,” and “income”. All these problems,
particularly the last, have hitherto been a veritable stumbling-block for
economists. The more they have spoken and written about it, the greater
has been the confusion caused by Adam Smith’s fundamental error. We
shall cite here some examples of this confusion.

It is interesting to note, for example, that Proudhon repeated essentially
the same error, except that he formulated the old theory somewhat
differently. He said:

“A (which stands for all property owners, entrepreneurs and
capitalists) starts an enterprise with 10,000 francs, and with them makes
advance payment to the workers, who must produce goods in return; after
A has thus converted his money into commodities he must, at the
end of the production process, at the end, say, of a year, convert the
commodities again into money. To whom does he sell his commodities? To the
workers, of course, for there are only two classes in society—the
entrepreneurs on the one hand, and the workers on the other. These
workers, having for the product of their labour received 10,000 francs as
pay, which covers their essential requirements of life, must now, how
ever, pay more than 10,000 francs, that is, they must pay for the addition
that A receives in the shape of the interest and other profits he
counted on at the beginning of the year. The worker can cover these 10,000
francs only by borrowing, and, as a consequence, he sinks deeper and
deeper into debt and poverty. One of two things must necessarily take
place: either the worker may consume 9, although he produced 10, or he
pays the entrepreneur only the amount of his wages, in which case the
entrepreneur himself suffers bankruptcy and disaster, for he does not
receive interest on capital, which he on his part, however, must
pay.” (Diehl, Proudhon, II, 200, quoted from the compilation “Industry.” Articles from Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften , [1]

Moscow, 1896, p. 101.)

As the reader sees, this is the same difficulty—how surplus-value is
to be realised—that Messrs. V. V. and N.–on are fussing
over. Proudhon only expressed it in a somewhat specific form. And this
specific character of his formulation brings our Narodniks still closer to him: they too, like Proudhon,
consider the “difficulty” to lie in the realisation of surplus-value (interest or profit, in Proudhon’s terminology) and do
not understand that the confusion they have acquired from the old
economists prevents them from explaining the realisation not only of
surplus-value, but also of constant capital, i.e., that their
“difficulty” is in their not understanding the whole process
of the realisation of the product in capitalist society.

Regarding this “theory” of Proudhon’s , Marx sarcastically observes:

“Proudhon exposes his inability to grasp this” (namely, the
realisation of the product in capitalist society) “in the ignorant
formulation: l’ouvrier ne peut pas racheter son propre produit (the
labourer cannot buy back his own product), because the interest which is
added to the prix derevient (cost-price) is contained in the
product” ( Das Kapital, III, 2, 379. Russ. trans., 698, in
which there are mistakes). [7]

And Marx quotes the remark directed against Proudhon by a certain vulgar
economist named Forcade, who “quite correctly generalises the
difficulty put forward in so narrow a form by Proudhon.” Forcade
said that the price of commodities contains not only something over and
above the wages—the profit—but also the part that replaces
constant capital. Hence, concludes Forcade in opposition to Proudhon, the
capitalist is also unable to buy back commodities with his profit (not
only did Forcade not solve the problem, he did not even understand it).

Neither did Rodbertus make any contribution to the solution of the
problem. While laying particular stress on the thesis that
“ground-rent, profit on capital and wages are income,” [2] he proved quite unable
to arrive at a clear understanding of the concept “income.”
Stating his view as to what the tasks of political economy would have been
had it pursued “a correct method” (loc. cit., S. 26), he also
speaks about the distribution of the national product. “It”
(i.e.,

the true “science of the national economy”—Rodbertus’s italics) “should have shown
how out of the total national product one part always goes to
replace the capital consumed in production or worn out, while the
other, as national income , goes to satisfy the direct requirements of society and of its members” (ibid., S. 27). But
although true science should have shown this, Rodbertus’s
“science” did nothing of the kind. The reader will see that he
merely repeated Adam Smith word for word, evidently not even seeing that
this is only the beginning of the problem. Which workers
“replace” the national capital? How is their product realised?
Not a word did ho say about this. Summing up his theory ( diese neue Theorie, die ich der bisherigen gegenüberstelle , [3]

S. 32) in the shape of
separate theses, Rodbertus first speaks of the distribution of the
national product as follows: “Rent” (by this, as we know,
Rodbertus meant what is usually termed surplus-value) “and wages
are, consequently, the parts into which the product resolves itself, in so
far as it is income” (S. 33). This extremely important reservation
should have suggested a very vital question to him: he had only just said
that by income he meant articles which serve “to satisfy direct
requirements”; hence, there are products that do not serve for
personal consumption. How are they realised? But Rodbertus sees no
unclarity here and soon forgets this reservation, speaking outright of the
“ division of the product into three parts ” (wages, profit and rent) (S. 49-50 and others). Thus Rodbertus virtually repeated
Adam Smith’s theory together with his fundamental mistake and
explained nothing at all regarding the question of income. The promise of
a new, full and better theory of the distribution of the national product [4] proved to be just empty talk. As a matter of fact, Rodbertus did not
advance the theory of this subject a single step. How confused were his conceptions of
“income” is shown by his lengthy speculations in his Fourth
Social Letter to von Kirchmann ( Das Kapital , Berlin, 1884) about
whether money should be included in the national income, and
whether wages are taken from capital or from income—speculations of
which Engels said that they “belong to the domain of scholasticism” (Vorwort to Vol. II, Capital ,

S. XXI). [5]
[8]

Utter confusion on the problem of the national income reigns supreme among
economists to this day. For example, in his article on “Crises” in Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften (the afore-mentioned compilation, p. 81),
Herkner, speaking of the realisation of the product in capitalist society
(§ 5, “distribution”), expresses the opinion that the speculations of K. H. Rau are “sound,” although he merely
repeats Adam Smith’s mistake by dividing the whole product of
society into incomes. R. Meyer, in his article on “income”
(ibid., p. 283 and foll.), quotes the confused definitions of A. Wagner
(who also repeats Adam Smith’s error) and frankly admits that
“it is difficult to distinguish income from capital,” and that
“the most difficult thing is to distinguish between returns (Ertrag)
and income (Einkommen).”

We thus see that the economists who have discoursed at length on the
inadequate attention paid by the classical economists (and Marx) to
“distribution” and “consumption” have not been able to give the slightest explanation of the most fundamental problems of
“distribution” and “consumption.” That is understandable, for one cannot even discuss “consumption”
unless one understands the process of the reproduction of the total social
capital and of the replacement of the various component parts of the
social product. This example once again proved how absurd it is to single
out “distribution” and “consumption” as though they were independent branches of science corresponding to certain
independent processes and phenomena of economic life. It is not with
“production” that political economy deals, but with the social relations of men in production, with the social system
of production. Once these social relations have been ascertained and
thoroughly analysed, the place in production of every class, and,
consequently, the share they get of the national consumption, are
thereby defined. And the solution of the problem which brought
classical political economy to a halt, and which has not been advanced a
hair’s breadth by all sorts of experts on “distribution”
and “consumption,” is provided by the theory which comes
directly after those of the classical economists and which completes the
analysis of the production of capital, individual and social.

The problem of “national income” and of “national consumption,” which is absolutely insoluble when examined
independently, and has engendered nothing but scholastic speculations,
definitions and classifications, proves to be solved in its entirety when
the process of the production of the total social capital has been
analysed. Furthermore, it ceases to exist as a separate problem when the
relation of national consumption to the national product and the
realisation of each separate part of this product have been
ascertained. All that remains is to give names to these separate
parts.

“In order to avoid unnecessary difficulty, one should distinguish
gross output (Rohertrag) and net output from gross income and net income.

“The gross output, or gross product, is the total reproduced
product....

“The gross income is that portion of value and that portion of the
gross product” (Bruttoprodukts oder Rohprodukts) measured by it
which remains after deducting that portion of value and that portion of
the product of total production measured by it which replaces the constant
capital advanced and consumed in production. The gross income, then, is
equal to wages (or the portion of the product destined to again become the
income of the labourer) + profit + rent. The net income, on the other
hand, is the surplus-value, and thus the surplus-product, which remains
after deducting wages, and which, in fact, thus represents the
surplus-value realised by capital and to be divided with the landlord, and
the surplus-product measured by it.

“... Viewing the income of the whole society, national income
consists of wages plus profit plus rent, thus, of the gross income. But
even this is an abstraction to the extent that the entire society, on the
basis of capitalist production, bases itself on the capitalist standpoint
and thereby considers only the income resolved into profit and rent as net
income” (III, 2, 375-376. Russ. trans., pp. 695-696). [9]

Thus, the explanation of the process of realisation also made clear the
question of income and removed the main difficulty that had prevented the
achievement of clarity on this question, namely: how does “income
for one become capital for another”, how can the product which
consists of articles of personal consumption and resolves itself totally
into wages, profit and rent, also include the constant part of capital,
which can never be income? The analysis of realisation given in
Capital , Volume II, Part III, gave a full answer to these
questions, and in the concluding part of Volume III of Capital ,
which deals with “revenues,” Marx had only to give names to
the separate parts of the social product and refer the reader to the
analysis given in

Volume II. [6]

---
Notes:
[1]
Dictionary of Political Sciences.— Lenin

[2]
Dr. Rodbertus-Jagetzow, Zur Beleuchtung der sozialen Frage ,
Berlin, 1875, S. 72 u. ff. ( On the Elucidation of the Social Problem , Berlin, p. 72 and foll. –Ed.)— Lenin

[3]
–this new theory, which I set against those that have existed
hitherto.— Lenin

[4]
Ibid., S. 32: “...bin ich genötigt, der vorstehenden Skizze
einer besseren Methode auch noch eine vollständige, solcher
besseren Methode entsprechende Theorie, wenigstens der
Verteilung des Nationalprodukts , hinzuzufügen.”
(Ibid., p. 32: “...I am obliged to add to the present outline of
a better method, a full theory, corresponding to this better
method, of at least the distribution of the national product. ”–Ed.)— Lenin

[5]
That is why K. Diehl is absolutely wrong when he says that Rodbertus
presented “a new theory of the distribution of income.”
( Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften , Art. “Rodbertus,” B. V., S. 448.)— Lenin

[6]
See Das Kapital , III, 2, VII. Abschnitt: “Die
Revenuen,” Chapter 49- “Zur Analyse des
Produktionsprozesses” (Russ. trans., pp. 688-706). Here Marx also
points to the circumstances that prevented the earlier economists from
understanding this process (pp. 379-382. Russ. trans., 698-700). [10]
— Lenin

[7]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959,
p. 822. Lenin’s remark on errors in the translation of
Capital refers to the translation by N.–on (Danielson), 1896.

[8]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. II, Moscow, 1957, Preface by
Frederick Engels, p. 17.

[9]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 818-819. p. 64

[10]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 821-824.

| | VI. Marx’s Theory of Realisation | | | VIII. Why Does the Capitalist Nation
Need a Foreign Market? | |

# Why Does the Capitalist Nation Need a Foreign Market?

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8i/i8viii.htm

Chapter I. The Theoretical Mistakes of the Narodnik Economists

VIII. Why Does the Capitalist Nation Need a Foreign
Market?

Regarding the above-stated theory of the realisation of the product in
capitalist society, the question may arise: Does not this theory
contradict the proposition that the capitalist nation cannot dispense with
foreign markets?

It must be remembered that the analysis given of the realisation of the
product in capitalist society proceeded from the assumption that there is
no foreign trade: this assumption has already been mentioned above and it
has been shown to be essential in such an analysis. Obviously,
imports and exports would only have confused the issue, without in the least helping to clear up the problem. The mistake made by
Messrs. V. V. and N.–on is that they bring in the foreign market to
explain the realisation of surplus-value: while explaining
absolutely nothing, this reference to the foreign market merely conceals
their theoretical mistakes; that is one point. Another point is that it
enables them, with the aid of these mistaken “theories,” to
avoid the need to explain the fact of the development of a home
market for Russian capitalism. [1]

The “foreign market” merely serves them as a pretext for obscuring the development of capitalism (and,
consequently, of the market) inside the country—a pretext all the
more convenient in that it also relieves them of the need to examine the
facts which show that Russian capitalism is winning foreign markets. [2]

The need for a capitalist country to have a foreign market is not
determined at all by the laws of the realisation of the social product
(and of surplus-value in particular), but, firstly, by the fact that
capitalism makes its appearance only as a result of widely developed
commodity circulation , which transcends the limits of the
state. It is therefore impossible to conceive a capitalist nation without
foreign trade, nor is there any such nation.

As the reader sees, this reason is of a historical order. And the
Narodniks could not escape it with a couple of threadbare phrases about
“the impossibility of the capitalists consuming surplus-value.” Had they really wanted to raise the question of the
foreign market, they would have had to examine the history of the
development of foreign trade, the history of the development of commodity
circulation. And having examined this history, they could not have, of
course, depicted capitalism as a casual deviation from the path.

Secondly, the conformity between the separate parts of social production
(in terms of value and in their natural form) which was necessarily
assumed by the theory of the reproduction of social capital, and which is actually established only as
the average magnitude of a number of continual fluctuations—this
conformity is constantly disturbed in capitalist society owing to the
separate existence of different producers working for an unknown
market. The various branches of industry, which serve as
“markets” for one another, do not develop evenly, but outstrip
one another, and the more developed industry seeks a foreign market. This
does not mean at all “the impossibility of the capitalist nation
realising surplus-value,”—the profound conclusion so readily
drawn by the Narodnik. It merely indicates the lack of proportion in the
development of the different industries. If the national capital were
distributed differently , the same quantity of products could be
realised within the country. But for capital to abandon one sphere of
industry and pass into another there must be a crisis in that sphere; and
what can restrain the capitalists threatened by such a crisis from seeking
a foreign market, from seeking subsidies and bonuses to facilitate
exports, etc.?

Thirdly, the law of pre-capitalist modes of production is the repetition
of the process of production on the previous scale, on the previous
technical basis: such are the corvée economy of the landlords, the
natural economy of the peasants, the artisan production of the
industrialists. The law of capitalist production, on the contrary, is
constant transformation of the modes of production, and the unrestricted
growth of the scale of production. Under the old modes of production,
economic units could exist for centuries without undergoing any change
either in character or in size, and without extending beyond the
landlord’s manor, the peasant village or the small neighbouring
market for the rural artisans and small industrialists (the so-called
handicraftsmen). The capitalist enterprise, on the contrary, inevitably
out grows the bounds of the village community, the local market, the
region, and then the state. Since the isolation and seclusion of the
states have already been broken down by commodity circulation, the natural
trend of every capitalist industry brings it to the necessity of
“seeking a foreign market.”

Thus, the necessity of seeking a foreign market by no means proves that
capitalism is unsound, as the Narodnik economists like to picture matters. Quite the contrary. This necessity
demonstrates the progressive historical work of capitalism, which destroys
the age-old isolation and seclusion of systems of economy (and,
consequently, the narrowness of intellectual and political life), and
which links all countries of the world into a single economic whole.

From this we see that the two latter causes of the need for a foreign
market are again causes of a historical character. In order to understand
them one must examine each separate industry, its development within the
country, its transformation into a capitalist industry—in short, one
must take the facts about the development of capitalism in the
country; and it is not surprising that the Narodniks take the opportunity
to evade these facts under cover of worthless (and meaningless) phrases
about the “impossibility” of both the home and the foreign
markets.

---
Notes:
[1]
Mr. Bulgakov very correctly observes in the above-quoted book: “Till
now the cotton industry, which supplies the peasant market, has been
growing steadily, so that the absolute diminution of popular
consumption. ..” (which Mr. N.–on talks about) “...is conceivable only theoretically” (pp, 214-215).
— Lenin

[2]
Volgin, The Substantiation of Narodism in the Works of Mr. Vorontsov , St. Petersburg, 1896, pp. 71-76. [3]
— Lenin

[3]
Volgin –pseudonym of G. V. Plekhanov. The work here cited is included in Vol. IX of his Works .

| | VII. The Theory of the National Income | | | IX. Conclusions From Chapter I | |

# Conclusions from Chapter I

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8i/i8ix.htm

Chapter I. The Theoretical Mistakes of the Narodnik Economists

### IX. Conclusions From Chapter I

Let us now sum up the theoretical propositions examined above, which have
a direct bearing on the problem of the home market.

1) The basic process of the formation of a home market (i.e., of the
development of commodity production and of capitalism) is the social
division of labour. This consists of various forms of processing raw
materials (and various operations in this processing) separating from
agriculture one after another and becoming independent branches of
industry, which exchange their products (now commodities ) for
the products of agriculture. Thus, agriculture itself becomes industry
(i.e., produces commodities), and the same process of specialisation takes
place in it.

2) A direct conclusion from the preceding proposition is the law governing
all developing commodity economy, and the more so capitalist
economy—the industrial (i.e., non-agricultural) population grows
faster than the agricultural and diverts an ever-growing part of the
population from agriculture to manufacturing industry.

3) The separation of the direct producer from the means of production,
i.e., his expropriation, signifying the transition from simple commodity production to capitalist production (and
constituting the necessary condition for this transition),
creates the home market. The process of this creation of
the home market proceeds in two directions: on the one hand, the means of production from which the small producer is “freed”
are converted into capital in the hands of their new owner, serve to
produce commodities and, consequently, are themselves converted into
commodities. Thus, even the simple reproduction of these means of
production now requires that they be purchased (previously, these means of
production were reproduced in greater part in the natural form and partly
were made at home), i.e., provides a market for means of production, and
then the product now produced with the aid of these means of production is
also converted into a commodity. On the other hand, the means of subsistence of the small producer become the material elements of the
variable capital, i.e., of the sum of money expended by the employer
(whether a landowner, contractor, lumber-dealer, factory owner, etc.,
makes no difference) on hiring workers. Thus, these means of subsistence
are now also converted into commodities, i.e., create a home market for
articles of consumption.

4) The realisation of the product in capitalist society (and,
consequently, the realisation of surplus-value) cannot be explained
without clearing up the point—1) that the social product, like the
individual product, resolves itself in terms of value into three parts and
not two (constant capital + variable capital + surplus-value, and not only
into variable capital + surplus-value, as taught by Adam Smith and the
entire school of political economy that came after him and before Marx),
and 2) that in its natural form it must be divided into two big
departments: means of production (consumed productively) and articles of
consumption (consumed personally). By establishing these main theoretical
propositions, Marx fully explained the process of realisation of the
product in general and of surplus-value in particular in capitalist
production, and revealed that it is utterly wrong to drag the foreign
market into the problem of realisation.

5) Marx’s theory of realisation also threw light on the problem of
national consumption and income.

From what has been said above, it follows automatically that the problem
of the home market as a separate, self-sufficient problem not depending on
that of the degree of capitalist development does not exist at all. That
is why Marx’s theory does not anywhere or ever raise this problem
separately. The home market appears when commodity economy appears; it is
created by the development of this commodity economy, and the degree to
which the social division of labour is ramified determines the level of
its development; it spreads with the extension of commodity production
from products to labour-power, and only in proportion as the latter is
transformed into a commodity does capitalism embrace the entire production
of the country, developing mainly on account of means of production, which
occupy an increasingly important place in capitalist society. The
“home market” for capitalism is created by developing capitalism itself, which deepens the social division of labour and
resolves the direct producers into capitalists and workers. The degree of
the development of the home market is the degree of development of
capitalism in the country. To raise the question of the limits of the home
market separately from that of the degree of the development of capitalism
(as the Narodnik economists do) is wrong.

That is why the question of how a home market is being formed for Russian
capitalism reduces itself to the following: How and in what direction are
the diverse aspects of the Russian national economy developing? What
constitutes the connection between and interdependence of these diverse
aspects?

The next chapters will be devoted to an examination of data containing the
answers to these questions.

| | VIII. Why Does the Capitalist Nation
Need a Foreign Market? | | | | |

# Zemstvo Statistics for Novorossia

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8ii/ii8i.htm

Chapter II. The Differentiation of the Peasantry

We have seen that in capitalist production the basis for the formation of
a home market is the process of the disintegration of the small
cultivators into agricultural entrepreneurs and workers. Almost every work
on the economic position of the Russian peasantry in the post-Reform
period refers to the so-called “differentiation” of the
peasantry. It must consequently be our task to study the principal
features of this phenomenon and to determine its significance. In the
following exposition we employ the statistical data of Zemstvo
house-to-house censuses. [17]

I. Zemstvo Statistics For
Novorossia [18]

Mr. V. Postnikov, in his book Peasant Farming in South Russia
(Moscow, 1891), [19] has collected and processed the Zemstvo statistics for the Taurida and
partly the Kherson and the Ekaterinoslav gubernias. This book should be
given first place in the literature on the differentiation of the
peasantry, and we consider it necessary to arrange according to the
system we have adopted the data gathered by Mr. Postnikov, supplementing
them occasionally with data from Zemstvo publications. The Zemstvo
statisticians of Taurida have grouped the peasant households according
to area under crops—a very sound method, one that renders it
possible to form a precise judgement of the economy of each
group due to the predominance in that locality of grain cultivation with
extensive farming. Here are the general data for the economic groups of the Taurida peasantry. [1]

The unevenness in the distribution of the area under crops is very
considerable: 2/5 of the total households (comprising about 3/10 of the
population, for the size of these families s below the average) possess
about 1/8 of the total area under crops; they belong to the poor group,
cultivating little land, who cannot cover their needs with their income
from farming. Further, there are the middle peasants, also constituting
about 2/5 of the total households, who cover their average expenditure by
income from the land (Mr. Postnikov considers that a family requires from
16 to 18 dessiatines [Dessiatine = 2.70 acres. — Ed ] under crops to cover its
average expenditure). Lastly, there are the well-to-do peasants
(about 1/5 of the households and 3/10 of the population), who
concentrate in their hands over half the area cultivated, the
crop area per household clearly indicating the “commercial” character of the farming done by this
group. In order exactly to estimate the extent of this commercial agriculture in the various groups, Mr. Postnikov employs the following method. From the total crop area of
the farm, he separates the following: the food area (which provides
sustenance for the family and the farm labourers), the fodder area (which
provides fodder for the cattle) and the farm-service area (seed-plot, land
occupied by buildings, etc.), and thus arrives at the size of the
market or commercial area, the produce of which goes for sale. It
is shown that in the group with 5 to 10 dess. under crops, only 11.8% of
the cultivated area yields produce for the market, whereas this percentage
grows with the increase in the area under crops (by groups) as follows:
36.5%—52%—61%. Consequently, the well-to-do peasants (the top
two groups) engage in what is commercial cultivation, and secure a gross
money income ranging from 574 to 1,500 rubles per annum. This commercial
cultivation then becomes capitalist farming, for the areas cultivated by
the well-to-do peasants exceed the family labour norm (i.e., the amount of
land that a family can cultivate by its own labour), and compel them to
resort to the hiring of workers : in the three northern uyezds of
Taurida Gubernia, the author estimates, the well-to-do peasants hire over
14,000 rural workers. The poor peasants, on the contrary, “provide
workers” (over 5,000), that is, resort to the sale of their
labour-power, since the income from cultivating the land amounts, in the 5
to 10 dess. group, for example, to only about 30 rubles in cash per household. [3]

We
observe here, consequently, the very process of the creation of a home
market that is dealt with by the theory of capitalist production—the
“home market” grows as a result of the conversion into a
commodity of the product of commercial, entrepreneur farming, on the one
hand, and of the conversion into a commodity of the labour-power sold by
the badly-off peasants, on the other.

In order to acquaint ourselves more closely with this phenomenon, let us
examine the position of each separate group of the peasantry. Let us start
with the top group. Here are the data for the amount of land it owns and
uses:

We see, accordingly, that the well-to-do peasants, not withstanding the
fact that they are best provided with allotment land, [20] concentrate in their
hands the bulk of the purchased and the rented land and turn into small
land owners and capitalist farmers. [4]

On the renting of 17 to 44 dess. of land there is an annual expenditure, at local prices, of about 70 to 160
rubles. Obviously we are dealing here with a commercial transaction: the
land becomes a commodity, “a money-making machine.”

Let us take the data for livestock and implements [Carting: carts, covered and open wagons, etc. Ploughing: iron ploughs, scarifiers (cultivators), etc.] :

Thus the well-to-do peasantry are far better supplied with implements than
the poor and even the middle peasantry. It is sufficient to glance at this
table to see how totally fictitious are the “average” figures
which people are so fond of bringing into play when they talk of the
“peasantry”. The commercial cultivation of the peasant bourgeoisie is accompanied here by commercial livestock farming, namely,
the breeding of coarse-wool sheep. Regarding implements, we shall quote in
addition figures for improved implements, which we have taken from Zemstvo
statistical returns. [6]

Out of the total reaping and mowing machines (3,061), 2,841, or 92.8%, belong to the peasant bourgeoisie (1/5 of the
total households).

It is quite natural that the well-to-do peasantry also employ a
farming technique much above the average (larger size of farm,
more plentiful supply of implements, available financial resources, etc.);
that is to say, the well-to-do peasants “do their sowing faster,
make better use of favourable weather, sow the seed in more humid
soil,” and reap their harvest in proper time; they thresh their
grain as it is carted in from the field, etc. It is also natural that the
expenditure on the production of agricultural produce diminishes (per unit
of product) as the size of the farm increases. Mr. Postnikov proves this
proposition in particular detail, using the following system of
calculation: he determines the number of people working (including hired
labourers), the number of draught animals, implements, etc., per 100
dessiatines of crop area in the various groups of the peasantry. It is
proved that these numbers diminish as the size of the farm increases. For
example, those cultivating under 5 dessiatines have per 100 dessiatines of
allotment land 28 people working, 28 draught animals, 4.7 ploughs and
scarifiers, and 10 carts, whereas those cultivating over 50 dessiatines
have 7 people working, 14 draught animals, 3.8 ploughs and scarifiers, and
4.3 carts. (We omit more detailed data for all groups, referring those
interested in the details to Mr. Postnikov’s book.) The
author’s general conclusion is: “With the increase in the size of the farm and in the
area cultivated by the peasant, the expenditure on the maintenance of
labour-power, human and animal, that prime item of expenditure in
agriculture, progressively decreases, and, among the groups that cultivate
large areas, drops to nearly one half per dessiatine under crops of the
expenditure among the groups with small cultivated areas”
( op . cit ., p. 117). To this law of the greater productivity and, hence, of the greater stability of the big peasant farms
Mr. Postnikov quite rightly attaches great importance, proving it with very
detailed data not only for Novorossia alone, but also for the central
gubernias of

Russia. [7]

The further the penetration of commodity production into crop cultivation, and, consequently, the keener the
competition among the agriculturists, the struggle for land and for
economic independence, the more vigorously must this law be manifested, a
law which leads to the ousting of the middle and poor peasants by the
peasant bourgeoisie. It must, however, be noted that technical progress in
agriculture expresses itself in different ways, depending on the system of
agriculture, on the system of field cultivation. Whereas in the case of
grain growing and extensive cultivation this progress may find expression
in a mere expansion of the crop area and reduction of the number of workers, animals, etc., per unit of crop
area, in the case of livestock or industrial crop farming, with the
adoption of intensive agriculture, this same progress may find expression,
for example, in the cultivation of root crops, which require more workers
per unit of crop area, or in the acquisition of dairy cattle, the
cultivation of fodder grasses, etc., etc.

The description of the top group of the peasantry must be supplemented by
indicating the considerable employment of wage-labour. Here are the data
for the three uyezds of Taurida Gubernia:

Mr. V. V., in the above-mentioned article, argued about this question as
follows: he took the farms employing workers as a percentage of the total
number of peasant farms and arrived at the conclusion that “the
number of peasants resorting to hired labour for the cultivation of the
land, as compared to the aggregate mass of the people, is quite
insignificant: 2 to 3, a maximum of 5 peasant farmers out of 100 are all
that represent peasant capitalism . . . it” (peasant farming in
Russia employing labourers) “is not a system firmly rooted in
contemporary economic life, but something fortuitous, such as occurred 100
and 200 years ago” ( Vestnik Yevropy , 1884, No. 7,
p. 332). What sense is there in comparing the number of farms employing
workers with the total number of “peasant” farms, when the
latter figure also includes the plots of farm labourers? Why, by this
method one could also get rid of capitalism in Russian industry: one would
only need to take the families engaging in industries who employ
wage-workers (i.e., the families of manufacturers, large and small) as a percentage of the total number of
families engaging in industries in Russia; the result would be a quite
insignificant” percentage of the “mass of the people.”
It is far more correct to compare the number of farms employing labourers
with the number of actually independent farms, i.e., of those living on
agriculture alone and not resorting to the sale of their labour
power. Furthermore, Mr. V. V. lost sight of a trifle, namely, that the
peasant farms employing labourers are among the biggest: the percentage of
farms employing labourers, “insignificant” when taken “in general and on the average,” turns out to be very imposing
(34-64%) among the well-to-do peasantry, who account for more than half of
the total production and produce large quantities of grain for sale. One
can therefore judge how absurd is the opinion that farming based on the
employment of labourers is “fortuitous,” something that
occurred 100 to 200 years ago! Thirdly, only by disregarding the real
specific features of cultivation can one take as the criterion of
“peasant capitalism” only farm labourers, i.e., regular
workers, and ignore the day labourers. It is commonly known that the
hiring of day labourers plays a particularly important role in agriculture. [8]

Let us take the bottom group. It consists of peasants who cultivate no
land or who cultivate little; they “do not differ much in economic
status . . . both groups serve as farm labourers for their fellow
villagers, or engage in outside, mainly agricultural employments”
(p. 134, op . cit .), i.e., belong to the rural proletariat. Let us note, for example, that in Dnieper Uyezd the bottom
group constitutes 40% of the households, and those having no ploughing
implements 39% of the total households. In addition to selling their
labour-power, the rural proletariat obtain an income from leasing their
allotment land:

In the three uyezds of Taurida Gubernia, the land leased (in 1884-86)
amounted to 25% of the total peasant arable; this does not include land
leased, not to peasants, but to middle-class intellectuals. In all, nearly
1/3 of the population in these three uyezds lease land; the allotments of
the rural proletariat are rented mainly by the peasant bourgeoisie. Here
are data in this regard:

“Allotment land is now an object of extensive speculation among the
South-Russian peasants. Land is used as security for loans on promissory
notes. . . . Land is leased, or sold, for one or two years and for longer
periods—8, 9 or 11 years” (p. 139, op . cit .). Thus, the peasant bourgeoisie is also a
representative of merchant’s and usurer’s capital. [9]

Here we have a striking refutation of the Narodnik prejudice that the “kulak” and the “usurer” have nothing in
common with the “enterprising muzhik.” On the contrary, the
threads both of merchant’s capital (the loaning of money on the
security of land, the buying-up of various products, etc.) and of
industrial capital (commercial agriculture with the aid of wage-workers,
etc,.) merge in the hands of the peasant bourgeoisie. It depends on
surrounding circumstances, on the greater or lesser degree to which the
Asiatic way of life is eliminated and culture is widespread in our
countryside as to which of these forms of capital will develop at the
expense of the other.

Let us examine, finally, the position of the middle group (cultivating
from 10 to 25 dess. per household, with an average of 16.4 dess.). Its
position is a transitional one: its money income from agriculture (191
rubles) is somewhat lower than the sum annually spent by the average
Tauridian (200 to 250 rubles). Here draught animals work out at 3.2 head
per household, whereas for a full team 4 are required. Hence the position
of the middle peasant’s farm is an unstable one, and to till his
land he has to resort to “yoking.” [10]
[21]

The cultivation of the land on a “yoking” basis is, it goes
without saying, less productive (time lost in moving from place to place,
shortage of horses, etc.), so that in one village, for example,
Mr. Postnikov was informed that “yokers often scarify no more than
one dessiatine per day, which is half the normal rate.” [11]

If to this we add that in the middle group about 116 of the households have no ploughing
implements, that this group provides more workers than it hires (according
to Mr. Postnikov’s calculations), its unstable character and its
transitional position between the peasant bourgeoisie and the rural proletariat will be clear. We shall
quote somewhat more detailed data about the ousting of the middle group.

Thus, the distribution of allotment land is the most “equalised,” although here, too, the ousting of the bottom
group by the top ones is marked. But the situation radically changes when
we pass from this compulsorily-held land to the free , i.e., to the purchased and the rented land. The concentration of this land
is enormous, and as a result, the distribution of the total land in use by
the peasants is quite unlike the distribution of the allotment land: the
middle group is pushed into second place (46% of allotment land—41%
of land in use), the well-to-do group very considerably enlarges its
holdings (28% of allotment land—46% of land in use), while the poor
group is being pushed out of the ranks of the cultivators (25% of
allotment land—12% of land in use).

The table reveals an interesting phenomenon, one that we shall meet again,
namely, the decline in the role of allotment land in peasant farming. In
the bottom group this is due to the leasing out of land; in the top group
to the fact that in the total farming area purchased and rented land is
overwhelmingly predominant. The remnants of the pre-Reform system (the
tying of the peasants to the land, and equalised, tax-assessed land
tenure) are being utterly destroyed by the penetration of capitalism into
agriculture.

As for land renting in particular, the figures given enable us to clear up
a very common mistake in the arguments of the Narodnik economists on this
subject. Take the arguments of Mr. V. V. In the article quoted above he
bluntly raised the issue of the relation of the renting of land to the
break-up of the peasantry. “Does the renting of land help to
differentiate the peasant farms into big and small and to destroy the
average, typical group?” ( Vestnik Yevropy , loc . cit ., pp. 339-340.) Mr. V. V. answered this
question in the negative. Here are his arguments: 1) “The large
percentage of persons who resort to the renting of land.” Examples:
38 to 68%; 40 to 70%; 30 to 66%; 50 to 60% respectively in different
uyezds of different gubernias.—2) The small size of the rented plots
per household: 3 to 5 dess., according to Tambov statistical returns.—3) The peasants with small allotments rent more
land than those with big ones.

To enable the reader clearly to judge the appropriateness of such
arguments, let alone their soundness, we quote the corresponding figures
for Dnieper

Uyezd. [13]

The question arises, of what importance can “average” figures
be here? Does the fact that those who rent land are “many”—56%—really do away with the concentration
of the rented land in the hands of the rich? Is it not ridiculous to take
the “average” area of rented land [12 dess. per renting
household. Very often it is not even per renting household, but per
existing household that is taken. That is what Mr. Karyshev, for example,
does in his work “Peasant Rentings of Non-Allotment Land”
(Dorpat, 1892; Vol. II of Results of Zemstvo Statistical Investigations )] by putting together peasants of whom one takes 2 dessiatines at a fabulous price (15 rubles), evidently out of dire
need, on ruinous terms, while another takes 48 dessiatines , over
and above his own adequate amount of land, “buying” the land
wholesale at the incomparably lower price of 3.55 rubles per
dessiatine? No less hollow is the third argument: Mr. V. V. himself took
care to refute it by admitting that figures relating “to entire
village communities” (in classifying the peasants according to
allotment) “do not present a true picture of what is taking place in
the community itself” (p. 342, op .

cit .). [14]

It would be a great mistake to imagine that the concentration of rented
land in the hands of the peasant bourgeoisie is limited to individual
renting and does not apply to renting by the village community. Nothing of
the kind. The rented land is always distributed “according to where
the money lies,” and the relation between the groups of the
peasantry does not change in the least where land is rented by the
community. Hence, the argument of Mr. Karyshev, for example, that the
relation between community renting and individual renting expresses a
“conflict between two principles (!?),the communal and the
individual” (p.159, loc . cit .), that community renting “is characterised by the labour principle and the principle
of even distribution of rented land among the community members”
( ibid ., 230)—this argument belongs entirely to the sphere
of Narodnik prejudices. Not withstanding the task he set himself of
summing up the “results of Zemstvo statistical investigation,”
Mr. Karyshev carefully avoided all the abundant Zemstvo statistical
material about the concentration of rented land in the hands of small
groups of well-to-do peasants. Let us quote an example. In the three
indicated uyezds of Taurida Gubernia, state lands rented by peasant
communities are distributed among the groups as follows:

A little illustration of the “labour principle” and of the
“principle of even distribution”!

Such are the Zemstvo statistical data on peasant farming in South
Russia. No room is left by these data for doubting the complete
differentiation of the peasantry, the complete domination in the
countryside of the peasant bourgeoisie. [15]

Highly interesting, therefore, is the attitude of Messrs. V. V. and N.–on towards these data, the more so that formerly
both these writers admitted the need of raising the problem of the
differentiation of the peasantry (Mr. V. V. in the above mentioned article
of 1884, and Mr. N.–on in Slovo [ The Word ] in 1880, when
he remarked on the interesting phenomenon in the village community itself
that the “unenterprising” muzhiks neglect their land, while
the “enterprising” ones take the best land for themselves;
cf. Sketches , p. 71). It should be noted that
Mr. Postnikov’s work is of a dual character: on the one hand the
author skillfully gathered and carefully processed extremely valuable
Zemstvo statistics and managed, in doing so, to escape the “tendency
to regard the peasant community as something integral and homogeneous, as
it is still held to be by our urban intelligentsia” (p. 351,
op . cit .). On the other hand, the author, not being guided by theory, failed totally to appraise the data he had processed,
and regarded them from the extremely narrow point of view of
“measures,” proceeding to concoct projects about “agricultural-handicraft-factory communities” and about
the necessity of “restricting,” “enjoining,” “observing,” etc., etc. Well then, our Narodniks did their
best to ignore the first, the positive part of Mr. Postnikov’s work
and concentrated their attention on the second part. Both Mr. V. V. and
Mr. N.–on began with highly serious air to “refute”
Mr. Postnikov’s absolutely unserious “projects” (Mr. V. V. in Russkaya Mysl [ Russian Thought ], 1894,
No. 2; Mr. N.–on in his Sketches , p. 233, footnote), accusing
him of the evil intention of introducing capitalism into Russia, and
carefully avoiding the data which revealed the prevalence of capitalist
relations in the countryside of South Russia today. [16]

---
Notes:
[1]
The following data relate mostly to the three northern mainland uyezds of
Taurida Gubernia, namely the Berdyansk, Melitopol and Dnieper, or to the
latter one alone.— Lenin

[2]
Dessiatine=2.70 acres.– Ed .

[3]
Mr. Postnikov rightly observes that in reality the differences between the
groups as to size of money income from the land are much more
considerable, for the computations assume 1) equal yield, and 2) equal
price for grain sold, actually, however, the well-to-do peasants secure
better yields and sell their grain to greater advantage.— Lenin

[4]
We would point out that the relatively considerable amount of purchased
land held by those who cultivate no land is due to the fact that this
group includes shopkeepers, owners of industrial establishments, and so
forth. The mixing of such “peasants” with real cultivators is
a common defect of Zemstvo statistics. We shall refer again to this defect
later on.— Lenin

[5]
Carting: carts, covered and open waggons, etc. Ploughing: iron ploughs,
scarifiers (cultivators), etc.— Lenin

[6]
Statistical Returns for Melitopol Uyezd , Simferopol, 1885
( Statistical Returns for Taurida Gubernia , Vol. I), [22] — Statistical Returns for Dnieper Uyezd , Vol. II, Simferopol, 1886.— Lenin

[7]
“Zemstvo statistics prove incontrovertibly that the larger the scale
of the peasant farm, the smaller the number of implements, workers, and
draught animals employed on a given tillage area” ( op . cit ., p. 162).

It is interesting to note how this law is reflected in Mr. V, V.’s
arguments. In the above-quoted article ( Vestnik Yevropy , 1884,
No. 7) he makes the following comparison: In the central black-earth belt
there are 5-7-8 dess. of arable per peasant horse, whereas
“according to the rules of three-field crop rotation” there
should be 7-10 dess. (Batalin’s
Calendar ). “Consequently, the decline in horse-ownership by
part of the population of this area of Russia must to a certain extent be
regarded as the restoration of the normal proportion between the number of
draught animals and the area to be cultivated” (p. 346 in the
article mentioned). Thus the ruin of the peasantry leads to progress in
agriculture. Had Mr V. V. paid attention not only to the agronomic
but also to the social-economic aspect of this process he could have seen
that this is the progress of capitalist agriculture, for “the
restoration of the normal proportion” between draught animals and
arable is achieved either by landlords who acquire their own implements,
or by big peasant crop growers, i.e., by the peasant bourgeoisie.— Lenin

[8]
England is the classic land of agricultural capitalism. And in that
country 40.8% of the farmers employ no hired labour; 68.1% employ not more
than 2 workers; 82% employ not more than 4 workers (Yanson,
Comparative Statistics , Vol. II pp. 22-23; quoted from Kablukov,
The Workers in Agriculture , p. i6). But he would be a fine
economist, indeed, who forgot the mass of agricultural proletarians, both
migratory and also resident (i.e., such as get “employments”
in their own villages), who hire themselves out by the day.— Lenin

[9]
And itself resorts to the “very numerous” village banks and
loan-and-savings societies, which render “substantial assistance” to “prosperous peasants.” “The
economically weak peasants cannot find guarantors and do not get
loans” (p. 368, op cit.).— Lenin

[10]
In Melitopol Uyezd, out of 13,789 households in this group only 4,218 till
their land with their own animals animals; 9,201 “yoke.” In
Dnieper Uyezd, out of 8,234 households, 4,029 till the land with their own
animals, and 3,835 “yoke.” See zemstvo statistical returns for
Melitopol Uyezd (p. B. 195) and for Dnieper Uyezd (p. B. 123).— Lenin

[11]
In the above-mentioned article Mr. V. V. argues a great deal about yoking
being the “principle of co-operation,” etc. It is really so
simple to hush up the fact that the peasantry are breaking up into sharply
distinct groups, that yoking is the co-operation of tottering farms which
are being ousted by the peasant bourgeoisie, and then to talk in general
about the “principle of co-operation”—probably co-operation between the rural proletariat and the rural bourgeoisie!— Lenin

[12]
Data taken from the Zemstvo Statistical Returns. They cover the whole
uyezd, including settlements not embraced by volosts. [23] The figures in the
column “Total land used by group” have been calculated by
myself, by adding together the allotment, rented and purchased land, and
subtracting the leased land.— Lenin

[13]
The data for the Melitopol and
Berdyansk uyezds are analogous.— Lenin

[14]
Mr. Postnikov cites an interesting example of a similar mistake made by
Zemstvo statisticians. Noting the fact of commercial farming by the
well-to-do peasants and their demand for land, he points out that
“the Zemstvo statisticians, evidently regarding such manifestations
in peasant life as something illegitimate, try to belittle their
importance” and to prove that the renting of land is determined not
by the competition of rich peasants but by the peasants’ need for
land. To prove this, Mr. Werner, the compiler of Taurida Gubernia Handbook (1889), classified the peasants of the entire Taurida
Gubernia according to size of allotment, taking the group of peasants with
1 or 2 people working and 2 or 3 draught animals. It turned out that,
within the bounds of this group, as the size of the allotment increases
the number of renting households and the amount of rented land
decrease. Obviously, such a method of calculation proves nothing at all,
since only peasants with an equal number of draught animals are taken, and
it is the extreme groups that are omitted. It is quite natural that where
the number of draught animals is equal the amount of cultivated land must
also be equal, and consequently, the smaller the allotment, the larger the
amount of rented land. The question is how the rented land is distributed
among households with unequal numbers of draught animals, implements,
etc.— Lenin

[15]
It is usually said that the data for Novorossia do not permit the drawing
of general conclusions, because of the specific features of that
locality. We do not deny that the differentiation of the agricultural
peasantry is more marked here than in the rest of Russia; but it will be
seen from what follows that the specific nature of Novorossia is by no
means so great as is sometimes imagined.— Lenin

[16]
“It is interesting,” wrote Mr. N.–on, that Mr. Postnikov
“has projects for 60-dessiatine peasant farms.” But “since agriculture has fallen into the hands of capitalists,”
productivity of labour may grow still more “tomorrow,” “and it will be necessary (!) to convert the 60-dessiatine into 200-
or 300-dessiatine farms.” You see how simple it is: because
the petty bourgeoisie of today in our countryside will be threatened
tomorrow by the big bourgeoisie, therefore Mr. N.–on refuses to
recognise either today’s petty or tomorrow’s big bourgeoisie!— Lenin

[17]
Zemstvo house-to-house censuses were investigations of peasant
farms undertaken by statistical agencies of the Zemstvos or rural
government bodies. These censuses, which were conducted mainly for
taxation purposes, became very common in the 1880s. The household censuses
provided a wealth of factual material which was published in statistical
abstracts covering the different gubernias and their uyezds or
subdivisions. The Zemstvo statisticians, however, many of whom were
Narodniks, were very often biased in the way they processed the
statistical data and classified them incorrectly, thereby robbing them of
much of their value. “Here is the weakest spot in our Zemstvo
statistics, splendid as they are for the care and detail with which they
are compiled,” wrote Lenin. (See present edition, Vol. 20.)
Phenomena of the economic type were hidden under piles of figures in the
Zemstvo returns and reviews, while the essential differences between, and
features of, various peasant groups that took shape as capitalism
developed were lost in the columns of average figures.

Lenin made a comprehensive analysis of Zemstvo statistical data, and carefully studied
and processed them. He made calculations of his own, drew up tables and
statistical summaries, gave a Marxist analysis of the peasant-farm data
secured, and grouped them scientifically. Lenin used the wealth of Zemstvo
statistical material to expose the artificiality of Narodnik schemes and
to draw a true picture of Russia’s economic development. He made
extensive use of Zemstvo statistical material in his writings and
especially in The Development of Capitalism in Russia .

[18]
Novorossia —the name given to the Southern steppe area of
European Russia.— Lenin

[19]
V. Y. Postnikov’s Peasant Farming in South Russia is
examined in detail by Lenin in one of his first works, New Economic Trends in Peasant Life . (See present edition, Vol. 1.)

[20]
Allotment land —land left for the use of the peasants after
the abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861. Held by the peasant community,
it was periodically redistributed among the peasants.— Lenin

[22]
The full title of this source is Statistical Returns for Taurida Gubernia. Statistical Tables Concerning Economic Conditions in the Villages of Melitopol Uyezd. Appendix to Vol. I , Simferopol, 1885.

[21]
Yoking ( supryaga )—cultivation of the land with draught animals belonging to different peasants yoked together in a team.

[23]
Volost –the lowest administrative territorial unit of the uyezd
in pre-revolutionary Russia.

| | | | | II. Zemstvo Statistics For Samara Gubernia | |

# Zemstvo Statistics for Samara Gubernia

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8ii/ii8ii.htm

Chapter II. The Differentiation of the Peasantry

### II. Zemstvo Statistics For Samara Gubernia

From the country’s southern outer area let us pass to the eastern
region, to Samara Gubernia. Let us take Novouzensk Uyezd, the last one
investigated; in the statistical report for this uyezd we find the most
detailed classification of the peasants according to economic status. [1]

Here are the general data on the groups of the peasantry (the data that follow
cover 28,276 allotment-holding households, numbering 164,146 persons of
both sexes, i.e., only the Russian population of the uyezd, without
Germans or farmsteaders—householders who farm both on community land
and on separate non-community farmsteads. The inclusion of the Germans and the farmsteaders would considerably heighten the
picture of differentiation).

The concentration of agricultural production turns out to be very
considerable: the “community” capitalists (1/14 of the total households, namely, households with 10 and more draught
animals) possess 36.5% of the area under crops—as much as do 75.3 %,
the poor and middle peasantry put together! Here, too, as always, the
“average” figure (15.9 dess. under crops per household) is
absolutely fictitious and creates the illusion of universal
prosperity. Let us examine other data on the economy of the various
groups.

Thus, in the bottom group there are very few independent peasant farmers;
the poor peasants have no improved implements at all, while the middle
peasantry have them in insignificant numbers. The concentration of animals
is still greater than the concentration of area under crops; the well
to-do peasants evidently combine capitalist livestock raising with their
large-scale capitalist cropping. At the opposite pole we have
“peasants” who ought to be classed as allotment-holding farm
labourers and day labourers, for their main source of livelihood is the
sale of their labour-power (as we shall see in a moment), and the
landowners sometimes give one or two animals to their labourers to tie
them down to their farms and to reduce wages.

It goes without saying that the peasant groups differ not only as to the
size of their farms, but also in their methods of farming: firstly, in the
top group a very large proportion of the peasant farmers (40 to 60%) are
supplied with improved implements (mainly iron ploughs, and also horse and
steam threshers, winnowing machines, reapers, etc.). In the hands of 24.7%
of the households, the top group, are concentrated 82.9% of the total
improved implements; 38.2% of the households, the middle group, possess
17% of the improved implements; 37.1%, the poor, possess 0.1% (7
implements out of

5,724). [2]

Secondly, the peasants with few horses are compelled by necessity to carry on “a different system of farming, a
system of economic activity” entirely different from that of the
peasants with many horses, as the compiler of Returns for Novouzensk Uyezd
says (pp. 44-46). The well-to-do peasants “let their land rest
. . . plough in the autumn

. . . plough it again in the spring and sow after harrowing . . . roll the
ploughed land when the soil has aired . . . plough twice for rye,”
whereas the badly-off peasants “do not let their land rest but sow
Russian wheat year after year . . . for wheat they plough in the spring
once . . . for rye they provide neither fallow nor ploughed land, but
merely break the surface before sowing . . . for wheat they plough in the
late spring, and as a result the corn often does not come up . . . for rye
they plough once, or merely break the surface and not at the proper time
. . . they plough the same plot of land unwisely year after year, without
allowing it to rest.” “And so on and so forth without end,” the compiler concludes this list. “The facts enumerated
concerning the radical difference between the farming systems of the
better- and the badly-off peasants result in grain of poor quality and bad
harvests for the latter and comparatively better harvests for the
former” ( ibid .).

But how could such a big bourgeoisie arise under the agricultural
community system? The answer is supplied by the figures for land possessed
and in use according to groups. The peasants in the section taken by us
(76 households) have a total of 57,128 dess. of purchased land and 304,514
dess. of rented land, of which 177,789 dess. are non-allotment land rented
by 5,602 households; 47,494 dess. of the allotment land rented from other
village communities are held by 3,129 households, and 79,231 dess. of the
allotment land rented in their own village communities are held by 7,092
households. The distribution of this enormous area of land, constituting
more than 2/3 of the peasants’ total area under crops, is as follows
(see Table on p. 89).

We see here an enormous concentration of purchased and rented land. More
than 9/10 of the total purchased land is in the hands of 1.8% of the
households, the very richest. Of all the rented land, 69.7% is
concentrated in the hands of peasant capitalists, and 86.6% is in the
hands of the top group of the peasantry. A comparison of the figures on
the renting and the leasing-out of allotment land clearly reveals the
passage of the land into the hands of the peasant bourgeoisie. Here, too,
the conversion of the land into a commodity leads to the cheapening of the
wholesale purchase price of land (and, consequently, to profiteering in
land). If we determine the price of one dessiatine of rented non-allotment
land

we get the following figures, counting from the bottom group to the top:
3.94; 3.20; 2.90; 2.75; 2.57; 2.08; 1.78 rubles. To show what mistakes the
Narodniks fall into by thus ignoring the concentration of rented land, let
us quote by way of example the arguments of Mr. Karyshev in the well-known
symposium The Influence of Harvests and Grain Prices on Certain Aspects of the Russian National Economy (St. Petersburg, 1897). When
grain prices fall, with an improvement of the harvest, and renting prices
rise, the entrepreneur renters, concludes Mr. Karyshev, have to reduce
demand and hence the renting prices had been raised by the representatives
of consumers’ economy (I, 288). The conclusion is absolutely
arbitrary: it is quite possible that the peasant bourgeoisie raise renting
prices in spite of a drop in grain prices, for an improvement in the
harvest may compensate for the drop in prices. It is quite possible that
the well-to-do peasants raise renting prices even when there is no such
compensation, reducing the cost of production of grain by introducing
machinery. We know that the employment of machines in agriculture is
growing and that these machines are concentrated in the hands of the
peasant bourgeoisie. Instead of studying the differentiation of the
peasantry, Mr. Karyshev introduces arbitrary and incorrect premises about
an average peasantry. That is why all the conclusions and deductions
similarly arrived at by him in the publication quoted are of no value
whatever.

Having ascertained that diverse elements exist among the peasantry, we can
now easily get clarity on the question of the home market. If the
well-to-do peasants control about 2/3 of the total agricultural
production, it is obvious that they must account for an incomparably
larger share of the grain on sale. They produce grain for sale, whereas
the badly-off peasants have to buy additional grain and sell their
labour-power. Here are the data: [3]

We suggest that the reader compare the arguments of our Narodniks with
these data regarding the process of the formation of the home
market. . . . “If the muzhik is prosperous, the factory flourishes,
and vice versa” (V. V., Progressive Trends ,
p. 9). Mr. V. V. is evidently not in the least interested in the social
form of the wealth which the “factory” needs and which is
created only by the conversion of the product and the means of production,
on the one hand, and of labour-power, on the other, into a
commodity. Mr. N.–on, when speaking of the sale of grain, consoles
himself with the thought that this grain is produced by the “muzhik
farmer” ( Sketches , p. 24), that by transporting this grain
“the railways live at the expense of the muzhik” (p. 16). Really, are not these “community-member” capitalists
“muzhiks”? “Some day we shall have occasion to point out,” wrote Mr. N.–on in 1880, and reprinted it in 1893,
“that in the localities where communal land tenure prevails,
agriculture based on capitalist principles is almost completely absent
( sic !!) and that it is possible only where communal ties have
either been entirely broken or are breaking down” (p. 59). Mr. N.–on has never had this “occasion,” nor could
he have had, for the facts point precisely to the development of
capitalist agriculture among “community members” [4] and to the complete adaptation of the notorious “communal ties” to
the farms of big crop growers that employ labourers.

The relationship between the peasant groups proves to be absolutely
analogous in Nikolayevsk Uyezd (cited statistical returns, p. 826 and
foll.; we leave out those living away from home and the landless). For
example, 7.4%, the rich households (having 10 and more draught animals),
comprising 13.7% of the population, concentrate in their hands 27.6% of
the total livestock and 42.6% of the rented land, whereas 29%, the poor
households (horseless and one-horse), comprising 19.7% of the population,
have only 7.2% of the livestock and 3% of the rented land. Unfortunately,
the tables for Nikolayevsk Uyezd, we repeat, are too scanty. To finish
with Samara Gubernia, let us quote the following highly instructive
description of the position of the peasantry from the Combined Returns for Samara Gubernia.

“... The natural increase in the population, augmented by the
Immigration of land-poor peasants from the western gubernias, in
connection with the appearance in the sphere of agricultural production of
money-grubbing speculators in land, has with every passing year
complicated the forms of the renting of land, raised its worth and
converted the land into a commodity which has so quickly and immensely
enriched some and ruined many others. To illustrate the latter point, let
us indicate the area cultivated by some of the southern merchant- and
peasant-owned farms, where the tillage of 3,000 to 6,000 dessiatines is no
rarity, while some practise the cultivation of 8-10-15 thousand
dessiatines of land, renting several tens of thousands of state-owned
land.

“The existence and the growth of the agricultural (rural)
proletariat in Samara Gubernia are to a considerable extent the product of
recent times, with their increasing production of grain for sale, rise in
renting prices, ploughing up of virgin and pasture land, clearing of
forests, and so forth. The landless households throughout the gubernia
number 21,624 in all, whereas the non-farming ones number 33,772 (of those
households that have allotments), while the horseless and one-horse
households together number 110,60 families, with a total of 600,000
persons of both sexes, counting five and a fraction persons per family. We
take the liberty of counting these, too, as proletarians, although legally
they

have a share of communal land; actually, these are day labourers,
ploughmen, shepherds, reapers and similar workers on big farms who
cultivate 1/2 to 1 dessiatine of their own allotments so as to feed their
families who remain at home” (pp. 57-58).

Thus, the investigators regard as proletarians not only the horseless
peasants, but also those who have one horse. We note this important
conclusion, which fully coincides with that of Mr. Postnikov (and with the
data in the classified tables) and points to the real social-economic
significance of the bottom group of the peasantry.

---
Notes:
[1]
Statistical Returns for Samara Gubernia , Vol. VII, Nolvousensk Uyezd , Samara, 1890. An analogous classification is
also given for Nikolayevsk Uyezd (Vol. VI, Samara, 1889), but the data are
much less detailed. The Combined Returns for Samara Gubernia
(Vol. VIII, Pt. 1, Samara, 1892) contains only a classification according
to size of allotment, the unsatisfactory nature of which we shall deal
with later on.— Lenin

[2]
It is interesting to note that from these very data
Mr. V. V. ( Progressive Trends in Peasant Farming , St. Petersburg,
1892, p. 225) concluded that there was a movement by the “peasant
masses” to replace obsolete implements by improved ones
(p. 254). The method by which this absolutely false conclusion was reached
is very simple: Mr. V. V. took the total figures from the Zemstvo returns,
without troubling to look at the tables showing how the implements were
distributed! The progress of the capitalist farmers (community members),
who employ machines to cheapen the cost of producing commodity grain, is
transformed by a stroke of the pen into the progress of the “peasant
masses.” And Mr. V.V. did not hesitate to write “Although the
machines are acquired by the well-to-do peasants; they are used by all
( sic !!) the peasants” (221). Comment is superfluous.— Lenin

[3]
We identify with the sale of labour-power what the statisticians call
“agricultural industries” (local and away from the village). That by these “industries is meant employment as regular and day labourers is clear from the table of
industries ( Combined Returns for Samara Gubernia , Vol. VIII): of
14,063 males engaged in “agricultural industries,” 13,297 are
farm labourers and day labourers (including shepherds and ploughmen).— Lenin

[4]
Novouzensk Uyezd, which we have taken as an illustration, reveals a
particular “tenacity of the village community” (to use the
terminology of Messrs. V. V. & Co.): from the table in the
Combined Returns (p. 26) we find that in this uyezd 60% of the
communities have redivided the land, whereas in the other uyezds only 11
to 23% have done so (for the gubernia 13.8% of the communities).— Lenin

| | I. Zemstvo Statistics For Novorossia | | | III. Zemstvo Statistics For Saratov Gubernia | |

# Zemstvo Statistics for Saratov Gubernia

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8ii/ii8iii.htm

Chapter II. The Differentiation of the Peasantry

### III. Zemstvo Statistics For Saratov Gubernia

We now pass to the central black-earth belt, to Saratov Gubernia. We take
Kamyshin Uyezd, the only one for which a fairly complete classification of
the peasants according to draught animals held is available. [1]

Here are the data for the whole uyezd (40,157 households, 263,135 persons
of both sexes. Area under crops, 435,945 dessiatines, i.e., 10.8
dessiatines per “average” household):

Thus, here again we see the concentration of land under crops in the hands
of the big crop growers: the well-to-do peasantry, constituting only a
fifth of the households (and about a third of the population), [2] hold more than half
the total area under crops (53.3%), the size of this area clearly
indicating the commercial character of the farming: an aver age of 27.6
dess. per household. The well-to-do peasantry have also a considerable
number of animals per household: 14.6 head (in terms of cattle, i.e.,
counting 10 head of small domestic animals for one of cattle), and of the
total number of peasants’ cattle in the uyezd, nearly 3/5 (56%) is
concentrated in the hands of the peasant bourgeoisie. At the opposite pole
in the countryside, we find the opposite state of affairs; the complete
dispossession of the bottom group, the rural proletariat, who in our
example comprise a little less than 1/2 of the households (nearly 1/3 of
the population), but who have only 1/8 of the total area under crops, and
even less (11.8%) of the total number of animals. These are mainly
allotment-holding farm labourers, day labourers and industrial workers.

Side by side with the concentration of crop areas and with the enhancement
of the commercial character of agriculture there takes place its
transformation into capitalist agriculture. We see the already familiar
phenomenon: the sale of labour-power in the bottom groups and its purchase in the top ones.

Here an important explanation is needed. P. N. Skvortsov has quite rightly
noted in one of his articles that Zemstvo statistics attach far too
“wide” a meaning to the term “industry” (or “employments”). In fact, all sorts of occupations
engaged in by the peasants outside their allotments are assigned to the
category of “industries”; factory owners and workers, owners
of flour mills and of melon fields, day labourers, regular farm labourers;
buyers-up, traders and unskilled labourers; lumber-dealers and lumbermen;
building contractors and building workers; members of the liberal
professions, clerks, beggars, etc., all these are “industrialists”! This barbarous misuse of words is a survival
of the traditional—and we have the right even to say:
official—view that the “allotment” is the “real,” “natural” occupation of the muzhik, while
all other occupations are assigned indiscriminately to “outside” industries. Under serfdom this use of the word had its raison d’ etre , but now it is a glaring
anachronism. Such terminology is retained partly because it harmonises
wonderfully with the fiction about an “average” peasantry and
rules right out the possibility of studying the differentiation
of the peasantry (particularly in those places where peasant
“outside” occupations are numerous and varied. Let us remind
the reader that Kamyshin Uyezd is a noted centre of the sarpinka industry [11] ).

The

processing [3] of household returns on peasant farming will be unsatisfactory so long as
peasant “industries” are not classified according to their
economic types, so long as among the “industrialists” employers are not separated from wage-workers . This is
the minimum number of economic types without discriminating between which
economic statistics cannot be regarded as satisfactory. A more detailed
classification is, of course, desirable; for example; proprietors
employing wage-workers—proprietors not employing wage-workers—traders, buyers-up, shopkeepers, etc., artisans,
meaning industrialists who work for customers, etc.

Coming back to our table, let us observe that after all we had some right
to consider “industries” as being the sale of labour-power,
for it is usually wage-workers who predominate among peasant
“industrialists.” If it were possible to single the wage-workers out of the latter, we would, of course, obtain an
incomparably smaller percentage of “industrialists” in the top
groups.

As to the data regarding wage-workers, we must note here the absolutely
mistaken character of Mr. Kharizomenov’s opinion that the
“short-term hire[of workers] for reaping, mowing and day labouring,
which is too widespread a phenomenon, cannot serve as a characteristic
criterion of the strength or weakness of a farm” (p. 46 of
“Introduction” to the Combined Returns ). Theoretical considerations, the example of Western Europe, and the facts of Russia
(dealt with below) compel us, on the contrary, to regard the hiring of day
labourers as a very characteristic feature of the rural bourgeoisie.

Lastly, as regards rented land, the data show, here too, the same
concentration of it in the hands of the peasant bourgeoisie. Let us note
that the combined tables of the Saratov statisticians do not show the
number of peasants who rent land and lease it out, but only the total land
rented and leased out [4] ; we have, therefore, to determine the amount of land rented and leased per
existing , and not per renting household.

Thus we see, here too, that the wealthier the peasants the more
they rent land, despite the fact that they are better provided
with allotment land. Here too we see that the well-to-do are ousting the
middle peasantry, and that the role of allotment land in peasant farming
tends to diminish at both poles of the countryside.

Let us examine in greater detail these data on land renting. With them are
connected the very interesting and important investigations and arguments
of Mr. Karyshev (quoted Results ) and Mr. N.–on’s “corrections” to them.

Mr. Karyshev devotes a special chapter (III) to “the dependence of
land renting on the prosperity of the lessees.” The general
conclusion he arrives at is that, “ other things being equal , the struggle for rentable land tends to go in favour of the
better-off” (p. 156). “The relatively more prosperous households . . . push the less prosperous ones into the background”
(p. 154). We see, consequently, that the conclusion drawn from a general
review of Zemstvo statistical data is the same as that to which we are led
by the data we are studying. Moreover, a study of the dependence of the
amount of rented land on the size of the allotment led Mr. Karyshev to the
conclusion that classification according to allotment “obscures the
meaning of the phenomenon that interests us” (p. 139): “land
renting . . . is more resorted to by a) the categories that are
worse provided with land, but by b) the groups within them that are better provided. Evidently, we have here two
diametrically opposed influences, the confusion of which prevents the understanding of either” ( ibid .). This
conclusion follows naturally if we consistently adhere to the viewpoint
that distinguishes the peasant groups according to economic strength ; we have seen everywhere in our data that the well-to-do
peasants grab rentable land, despite the fact that they are better
provided with allotment land. It is clear that the degree of prosperity of
the household is the determining factor in the renting of land,
and that this factor merely undergoes a change but does not cease to be
determining, with the change in the conditions of land allotment and
renting. But, although Mr. Karyshev investigated the influence of
“prosperity,” he did not adhere consistently to the viewpoint
mentioned, and therefore characterised the phenomenon inaccurately , speaking of the direct connection between the
degree to which the lessee is supplied with land and the renting of
land. This is one point. Another point is that the one-sidedness of
Mr. Karyshev’s investigation prevented him from appraising the full
significance of the way rentable land is grabbed by the rich peasants. In
his study of “non-allotment renting”, he limits himself to
summarising the Zemstvo statistics on land renting, without taking account
of the lessees’ own farms. Naturally, with such a method of study, a
more formal one, the problem of the relation between land renting and the
“prosperity,” of the commercial character of land renting
could not be solved. Mr. Karyshev, for example, was in possession of the
same data on Kamyshin Uyezd as we are, but he limited himself to
reproducing absolute figures only of land renting (see Appendix No. 8,
p. XXXVI) and to calculating the average amount of rented land per
allotment holding household (text, p. 143). The concentration of land
renting in the hands of the well-to-do peasants, its industrial character,
its connection with land leasing by the bottom group of the peasantry,
were all overlooked. Thus, Mr. Karyshev could not but see that the Zemstvo
statistics refute the Narodnik notion of land renting and show that the
poor are ousted by the well-to-do peasants; but he gave an inaccurate
description of this phenomenon, did not study it from all sides and came
into conflict with the data, repeating the old song about the
“labour principle,” etc. But even the mere statement of the
fact of economic discord and conflict among the peasantry seemed heresy to
the Narodniks, and they proceeded to “correct” Mr. Karyshev in their own way. Here is how
Mr. N.–on does it, “using,” as he says (p. 153, note), Mr. N. Kablukov’s arguments against Mr. Karyshev. In § IX of his
Sketches , Mr. N.–on discusses land renting and the various forms
it assumes. “When a peasant,” he says, “has sufficient land to enable him to obtain his livelihood by tilling his own, he does
not rent any land” (152). Thus, Mr. N.–on flatly denies the
existence of entrepreneur activity in peasant land renting and the
grabbing of rentable land by rich peasants engaged in commercial crop
growing. His proof? Absolutely none: the theory of “people’s
production” is not proved, but laid down as law. In answer to
Mr. Karyshev, Mr. N.–on quotes a table from the Zemstvo abstract for
Khvalynsk Uyezd showing that “the number of draught animals being
equal, the smaller the allotment the more must this deficiency be
compensated by renting” (153), [5] and again, “if the peasants are placed in
absolutely identical conditions as regards the possession of animals, and
if they have sufficient workers in their households, then the smaller the
allotment they have, the more the land they rent” (154). The reader
will see that such “conclusions” are merely a quibble at
Mr. Karyshev’s inaccurate formulation, that Mr. N.–on’s empty
trifles simply obscure the issue of the connection between land renting
and prosperity. Is it not self-evident that where an equal number of
draught animals is possessed, the less land a household has, the more it
rents? That goes without saying, for it is the very prosperity whose
differences are under discussion that is taken as equal. Mr. N.–on’s assertion that peasants with sufficient land do
not rent land is not in any way proved by this, and his tables merely show
that he does not understand the figures he quotes: by comparing the
peasants as to amount of allotment land held, he brings out the more
strikingly the role of “prosperity” and the grabbing of
rentable land in connection with the leasing of land by the poor (leasing
it to these same well-to-do peasants, of course.) [6]

Let the reader recall the data we have quoted on the distribution of rented land in Kamyshin Uyezd; imagine that we have
singled out the peasants with “an equal number of draught
animals” and, dividing them into categories according to allotment
and into subdivisions according to the number of persons working, we
declare that the less land a peasant has, the more he rents, etc. Does
such a method result in the disappearance of the group of well-to-do
peasants? Yet Mr. N.–on, with his empty phrases, has succeeded in
bringing about its disappearance and has been enabled to repeat the old
prejudices of Narodism.

Mr. N.–on’s absolutely useless method of computing the land rented
by peasants per household according to groups with 0, 1, 2, etc., persons
working is repeated by Mr. L. Maress in the book The Influence of Harvests and Grain Prices , etc. (I, 34). Here is a little example of
the “averages” boldly employed by Mr. Maress (as by the other
contributors to this book, written from a biased Narodnik point of
view). In Melitopol Uyezd, he argues, the amount of rented land per
renting household is 1.6 dess. in households having no working males, 4.4
dess. in households having one working male, 8.3 in households having two,
and 14.0 in households having three (p. 34). And the conclusion is that
there is an “approximately equal per-capita distribution of rented
land”!! Mr. Maress did not think it necessary to examine the
actual distribution of rented land according to groups of
households of different economic strength, although he was in a position
to learn this both from Mr. V. Postnikov’s book and from the Zemstvo
abstracts. The “average” figure of 4.4 dess. of rented land
per renting household in the group of households having one working male
was obtained by adding together such figures as 4 dess . in the group of households cultivating 5 to 10 dess. and with 2
to 3 draught animals, and 38 dess . in the group of households
cultivating over 50 dess. of land and with 4 and more draught
animals. (See Returns for Melitopol Uyezd, p. D.10-11.) It is not
surprising that by adding together the rich and the poor and
dividing the total by the number of items added, one can obtain
“equal distribution” wherever desired!

Actually, however, in Melitopol Uyezd 21% of the households, the rich ones
(those with 25 dess. and more under crops), comprising 29.5% of the
peasant population, account—despite the fact that they are best
provided with allotment and purchased land—for 66.3% of the total rented arable
(Returns for Melitopol Uyezd, p. B. 190-194). On the other hand, 40% of
the households, the poor ones (those with up to 10 dess. under crops),
comprising 30.1 % of the peasant population, account—despite the
fact that they are worst provided with allotment and purchased
land—for 5.6% of the total rented arable. As can be seen, this
closely resembles “equal per-capita distribution”!

Mr. Maress bases all his calculations of peasant land-renting on the
“assumption” that “the renting households are mainly in
the two groups worst provided” (provided with allotment land ); that “among the renting population there is equal per
capita ( sic !) distribution of rented land”; and that “the renting of land enables the peasants to pass from the groups
worst provided to those best provided” (34-35). We have already
shown that all these “assumptions” of Mr. Maress directly contradict the facts . Actually, the very contrary is the case, as
Mr. Maress could not but have noted, had he—in dealing with
inequalities in economic life (p. 35)—taken the data for the
classification of households according to economic indices (instead of
according to allotment tenure ), and not limited himself to the
unfounded “assumption” of Narodnik prejudices.

Let us now compare Kamyshin Uyezd with other uyezds in Saratov
Gubernia. The ratios between the peasant groups are everywhere the same,
as is shown by the following data for the four uyezds (Volsk, Kuznetsk,
Balashov and Serdobsk) in which, as we have said, the middle and the
well-to-do peasants are combined:

Hence, we see everywhere the ousting of the poor by the prosperous
peasants. But in Kamyshin Uyezd the well-to-do peasantry are more numerous
and richer than in the other uyezds. Thus, in five uyezds of the gubernia
(including the Kamyshin Uyezd) the households are distributed according to
draught animals held as follows: with no draught animals—25.3%; with
1 animal—25.5%; with 2—20%; with 3—10.8%; and with 4 and
more—18.4%, whereas in Kamyshin Uyezd, as we have seen, the
well-to-do group is larger, and the badly-off group somewhat
smaller. Further, if we combine the middle and well-to-do peasantry, i.e.,
if we take the households with 2 draught animals and more, we get the
following data for the respective uyezds:

This means that in Kamyshin Uyezd the prosperous peasants are richer. This
uyezd is one of those with the greatest abundance of land: 7.1 dess. of
allotment land per registered person, [12] male, as against 5.4 dess. for the
gubernia. Hence, the land-abundance of the “peasantry” merely
means the greater numbers and greater wealth of the peasant bourgeoisie.

In concluding this review of the data for Saratov Gubernia, we consider it
necessary to deal with the classification of the peasant households. As
the reader has probably observed, we reject a limine [7] any classification
according to allotment and exclusively employ classification according to
economic strength (draught animals, area under crops). The reasons for
adopting this system must be given. Classification according to allotment is far more widespread in our Zemstvo statistics, and in its
defence the two following, at first sight very convincing, arguments are
usually

advanced. [8]

It is said, firstly, that to study the life of the agricultural peasants
it is natural and necessary to classify them according to land. This
argument ignores a fundamental feature of Russian life, namely, the unfree
character of allotment-land tenure, in that by force of law it bears an
equalitarian character, and that the purchase and sale of allotment land
is hindered in the extreme. The whole process of the differentiation of
the agricultural peasantry is one of real life evading these legal
bounds. In classifying the peasants according to allotment, we lump
together the poor peasant who leases out land and the rich peasant who
rents or buys land; the poor peasant who abandons the land and the rich
peasant who “gathers” land; the poor peasant who runs his most
wretched farm with an insignificant number of animals and the rich peasant
who owns many animals, fertilises his soil, introduces improvements.,
etc., etc. In other words, we lump together the rural proletarian and the
members of the rural bourgeoisie. The “averages” thus obtained
obscure the differentiation , and are therefore purely fictitious. [9]

The combined tables of the Saratov statisticians described above enable us to demonstrate clearly the
uselessness of classification according to allotment. Take, for example,
the category of non-allotment peasants in Kamyshin Uyezd (see Combined Returns , p. 450 and foll., the Returns for Kamyshin Uyezd, Vol. XI,
p. 174 and foll.). The compiler of the Combined Returns , in
describing this category, says that the area under crops is “very
negligible” (“Introduction”, p. 45), i.e., he assigns it
to the category of the poor. Let us take the tables. The
“average” area under crops in this category is 2.9 dess. per
household. But see how this “average” was reached: by adding
together the big crop growers (18 dess. per household in the group with 5
and more draught animals; the households in this group constitute about
1/8 of the whole category, but they possess about half of this
category’s area under crops) and the poor, the horseless peasants,
with 0.2 dess. per household! Take the households employing farm
labourers. There are very few of them in this category—77 in all, or
2.5%. But of these 77 there are 60 in the top group, in which the area
cultivated is 18 dess. per household; and in this group the households
employing farm labourers constitute 24.5%. Clearly, we obscure the
differentiation of the peasantry, depict the propertyless peasants in a
better light than they actually are (by adding the rich to them and
striking averages), while, on the contrary, we depict the well-to-do
peasants as being of lesser strength, because the category of peasants
with large allotments includes, in addition to the majority, the well-off,
also the badly-off (it is a known fact that even the large-allotment
village communities always include indigent peasants). We are now clear,
too, as to the incorrectness of the second argument in defence of
classification according to allotment. It is argued that by such
classification the indices of economic strength (number of animals, area
under crops, etc.) always show a regular increase according to the
increase in the size of the allotment. That is an undoubted fact, for the
allotment is one of the major factors of well-being. Where, consequently,
the peasants are large-allotment holders there are always more members of
the peasant bourgeoisie and, as a result, the “average”
allotment figures for the whole category are raised. All this, however,
gives no grounds whatever for inferring that a method combining the rural bourgeoisie with the rural
proletariat is correct.

We conclude: in systematising peasant household statistics one should not
limit oneself to classification according to allotment. Economic
statistics must necessarily take the scale and type of farm as
the basis of classification. The indices for distinguishing these types
should be taken in conformity with local conditions and forms of
agriculture, while in dealing with extensive grain farming, one can limit
oneself to classifying according to area under crops (or to the number of
draught animals); under other conditions one must take account of the area
under industrial crops, the technical processing of agricultural produce,
the cultivation of root crops or of fodder grasses, dairy farming,
vegetable growing, etc. When the peasantry combine agricultural and
industrial occupations on a large scale, a combination of the two systems
of classification is necessary, i.e., of classification according to the
scale and type of agriculture, and of classification according to the
scale and type of “industries.” The methods of summarising
peasant household returns are not such a narrowly specific and second-rate
problem as one might imagine at first sight. On the contrary, it will be
no exaggeration to say that at the present time it is the basic problem of
Zemstvo statistics. The completeness of household returns and the
technique of collecting them [10] have reached a high degree of perfection, but
owing to unsatisfactory summarising, a vast amount of most valuable
information is simply lost, and the investigator has at his disposal
merely “average” figures (for village communities, volosts,
categories of peasants, size of allotment, etc.). But these
“averages,” as we have seen already, and shall see later, are
often absolutely fictitious.

---
Notes:
[1]
For the other four uyezds of this gubernia the classification according to
draught animals held merges the middle and well-to-do peasantry. See
Combined Statistical Returns for Saratov Gubernia , Part 1,
Saratov, 1888. B. Combined Tables for Saratov Gubernia according to
categories of peasants—The Saratov statisticians compiled their
combined tables as follows: all the householders are divided into six
categories according to size of allotment, each category is
divided into six groups according to the number of draught
animals, and each group is divided into four subdivisions
according to the number of working males in the family. Summarised data
are given only for the categories , so that we have to calculate
those for the groups ourselves. We shall deal with the significance of this table later on.— Lenin

[2]
Let us note that when classifying households according to economic
strength, or to size of farm, we always get larger families among
the well-to-do strata of the peasantry. This phenomenon points to the
connection between the peasant bourgeoisie and large families, which
receive a larger number of allotments; partly it shows the opposite: it
indicates the lesser desire of the well-to-do peasantry to divide up the
land. One should not, however, exaggerate the significance of large
families among the well-to-do peasants, who, as our figures show, resort
in the greatest measure to the employment of hired labour. The
“family co-operation” of which our Narodniks are so fond of
talking is thus the basis of capitalist co-operation.— Lenin

[3]
We say “processing” because the data on peasant industries collected in the house-to-house
censuses are very comprehensive and detailed.— Lenin

[4]
The total amount of arable leased out in the uyezd is 61,639 dess., i.e., about 1/6 , of the aggregate
allotment arable (377,305 dess.).— Lenin

[5]
An exactly similar table is given by the statisticians for Kamyshin
Uyezd. Statistical Returns for Saratov Gubernia , Vol. XI Kamyshin
Uyezd, p. 249 and foll. We can just as well, therefore make use of the
data for the uyezd we have taken.— Lenin

[6]
That the data quoted by Mr. N.–on refute his conclusions has already been
pointed to by Mr. P. Struve in his Critical Remarks .— Lenin

[7]
At once.— Ed .

[8]
See, for example, the introductions to the Combined Returns for
Saratov Gubernia, to the Combined Returns for Samara Gubernia,
and to Evaluation Returns for four uyezds of Voronezh Gubernia,
and other Zemstvo statistical publications.— Lenin

[9]
We take this rare opportunity of expressing our agreement with Mr. V. V.,
who in his magazine articles of 1885 and subsequent years welcomed
“the new type of Zemstvo statistical publications,” namely,
the combined tables, which make it possible to classify household data not
only according to allotment, but also according to economic
strength. “The statistical data,” wrote Mr. V. V. at that
time, “must be adapted to the groups themselves and not to such a conglomeration of the most diverse economic groups of peasants as the village or the village community ” (V. V., “A New Type of
Local Statistical Publication,” pp. 189 and 190 in Severny Vestnik [ Northern Herald ], 1885, No. 3. Quoted in the
“Introduction” to the Combined Returns for Saratov
Gubernia, p. 36). To our extreme regret in none of his later works has
Mr. V. V. made any effort to glance at the data on the various groups of
the peasantry, and, as we have seen, he has even ignored the factual part
of the book by Mr. V. Postnikov, who was probably the first to attempt the
arrangement of the data according to the various groups of the peasantry
and not according to “conglomerations of the most diverse
groups”. Why is this?— Lenin

[10]
About the technique of Zemstvo censuses see, in addition to the
above-mentioned publications., the article by Mr. Fortunatov in Vol. I of
Results of Zemstvo Statistical Investigation . Specimens of
household registration cards are reproduced in the “Introduction” to the Combined Returns for Samara Gubernia and to the Combined Returns for Saratov Gubernia ,
in the Statistical Returns for Orel Gubernia (Vol. II, Yelets Uyezd ) and in Material for the Statistical Survey of Perm Gubernia , Krasnoufimsk Uyezd , Vol. IV. The Perm registration
card is particularly comprehensive.— Lenin

[11]
Sarpinka —a thin striped or check cotton cloth; originally
made in Sarepta.

[12]
The registered males were those members of the male population of
feudal Russia subject to the poll-tax (the peasantry and urban middle
class were chiefly affected) and to this end were recorded in special
censuses (so-called “registrations”). Such “registrations” took place in Russia from 1718 onwards; the
tenth and last ”registration was made in 1857-1859.” In a
number of districts redistribution of the land within the village
communities took place on the basis of those recorded in the
“registration” lists.

| | II. Zemstvo Statistics For Samara Gubernia | | | IV. Zemstvo Statistics For Perm Gubernia | |

# Zemstvo Statistics for Perm Gubernia

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8ii/ii8iv.htm

Chapter II. The Differentiation of the Peasantry

### IV. Zemstvo Statistics For Perm Gubernia

In our review of Zemstvo statistics let us now turn to a gubernia where
conditions are totally different: Perm Gubernia. Let us take Krasnoufimsk
Uyezd, for which we have a household classification made according to
scale of farming. [1]

Here are the general data regarding the agricultural part of the uyezd
(23,574 households, 129,439 persons of both sexes).

Hence, here too, notwithstanding the considerably smaller areas under
crops, we find the same ratios between the groups, the same concentration
of crop areas and animals in the hands of a small group of well-to-do
peasants. The ratio between the land held and the land in actual economic
use is the same as in the gubernias with which we are already familiar. [2]

The same grabbing of rentable land by the well-to-do peasants, those
already best provided; the same transfer of allotment land (by leasing)
from the poor to the affluent peasantry; the same diminution of the role
of allotment land, proceeding in two different directions, at both poles
of the countryside. To enable the reader to get a more concrete picture of
these processes, we give the data on land renting in greater detail:

In the top groups of peasants (who, as we know, concentrate in their hands
most of the rented land), land renting is consequently of an obviously
industrial, entrepreneur character, despite the widespread view to the
contrary of the Narodnik economists.

Let us pass to the data on hired labour, which are particularly valuable
as regards this uyezd owing to their completeness (specifically, data have
been added on the hiring of day labourers):

We see here a clear refutation of the view of the Saratov statisticians
that the hiring of day labourers is not a characteristic index of a
farm’s strength or weakness. On the contrary, it is a supremely
characteristic index of the peasant bourgeoisie. In all forms of hiring by
the day we observe that the percentage of peasants who hire labourers
increases together with the increase in economic strength, despite the
fact that the most affluent peasants are best provided with workers in
their families. Here, too, family co-operation is the basis of capitalist
co-operation. Further, we see that the number of farms hiring day
labourers is 2 1/2 times (average for the uyezd) the number
hiring seasonal workers—we take the hiring of day labourers for
reaping; unfortunately, the statisticians did not give the total number of
farms hiring day labourers, although this information was available. In
the three top groups, of 7,679 households 2,190 employ farm labourers,
while 4,017 households, i.e., the majority of the peasants in the
well-to-do group, hire day labourers for reaping. Of course, the hiring of
day labourers is by no means specific to Perm Gubernia, and if we have
seen above that in the well-to-do peasant groups from 2 to 6 and 9 tenths of the total number of proprietors
employ farm labourers, the direct conclusion is the following. The
majority of the well-to-do peasant households employ hired labour
in one form or another. The formation of a body of regular farm labourers and day labourers is an essential condition for the existence of the well-to-do peasantry . Lastly, it is extremely interesting to note
that the ratio between the number of farms hiring day labourers and the
number employing regular farm labourers diminishes from the bottom peasant groups to the top . In the bottom groups the number of farms
hiring day labourers always exceeds, many times over, the number employing
regular farm labourers. In the top groups, on the contrary, the number of
farms employing regular farm labourers is sometimes even larger than the
number hiring day labourers. This fact clearly points to the formation in
the top groups of the peasantry of farms employing labourers, farms based
on the regular employment of wage-labour; wage-labour is more evenly
distributed over the seasons of the year, and it becomes possible to
dispense with the more costly and more troublesome hiring of day
labourers. Let us quote, incidentally, the returns on hired labour for
Elabuga Uyezd, Vyatka Gubernia (the well-to-do peasants are here merged
with the middle peasants).

Assuming that every day labourer works one month (28 days), the number of
day labourers will be three times the number of seasonal workers. Let us
note in passing that in Vyatka Gubernia, too, we find the already familiar
ratios

between the groups as regards both the hiring of workers and the renting
and leasing of land.

Very interesting are the household data on the use of manure, cited by the
Perm statisticians. Here is the result of an analysis of these data:

Thus, here too, we see a profound difference in the systems and methods of
farming employed by the poor and the affluent peasants. And this
difference must exist everywhere, since the well-to-do peasants everywhere
concentrate in their hands the greater part of the peasant-owned animals,
and have more opportunities for expending-their labour on farm
improvements. Therefore, if we learn, for example, that the post-Reform
“peasantry” have at one and the same time created a group of
horseless and cattleless households and “raised agricultural
efficiency” by adopting the practice of manuring the soil (described
in detail by Mr. V. V. in his Progressive Trends in Peasant Farming , pp. 123-160 and foll.), this quite clearly shows us that the
“progressive trends” simply indicate the progress of the rural
bourgeoisie. This is seen even more distinctly in the distribution of
improved agricultural implements, data regarding which are also available
in the Perm statistics. These data, however, have been collected not for
the whole of the agricultural part of the uyezd, but only for its 3rd, 5th
and 4th districts, comprising 15,076 households out of 23,574. The
following improved implements are registered: winnowers 1,049,
seed-sorters 225, threshers 354, totalling 1,628. They are distributed
among the groups as follows:

One more illustration of Mr. V. V.’s “Narodnik” thesis that improved implements are used by “all” peasants!

The data on “industries” enable us this time to single out two
main types of “industries,” indicating 1) the transformation
of the peasantry into a rural bourgeoisie (ownership of commercial and
industrial establishment), and 2) the transformation of the peasantry into
a rural proletariat (sale of labour-power, the so-called
“agricultural industries”}. The following table shows the
distribution by groups of these diametrically opposite types of “industrialists” [3] :

A comparison of these data with those showing the distribution of the area
under crops and the hiring of workers once again shows that the
differentiation of the peasantry creates a home market for capitalism.

We see also how profoundly the facts are distorted when the most varied
types of occupations are lumped together under the heading of
“industries” or “employments,” when the “combination of agriculture with industries” is depicted (as,
for example, by Messrs. V. V. and N.–on) as something uniform, identical
in nature and precluding capitalism.

Let us point in conclusion to the similarity of the data for Ekaterinburg
Uyezd. If from the 59,709 households in the uyezd we subtract the landless
(14,601 households), those having only meadow land (15,679 households),
and those neglecting their allotments entirely (1,612 households), we get
for the remaining 27,817 households the following data; the 20,000
households that cultivate no land or cultivate little (up to 5 dess.) have
an aggregate area under crops of 41,000 dess. out of 124,000 dess., i.e.,
less than 1/3 . On the other hand, 2,859 well-to-do households (with over
10 dess. under crops) have 49,751 dess. under crops, and 53,000 dess. of
rented land out of a total of 67,000 dess. (including 47,000 dess. out of
55,000 dess. of rented peasant land). The distribution of the two opposite
types of “industries” and also of the households employing
farm labourers in Ekaterinburg Uyezd is shown to be quite similar to the
distribution of these indices of differentiation for Krasnoufimsk Uyezd.

---
Notes:
[1]
Material for the Statistical Survey of Perm Gubernia , Krasnoufimsk Uyezd , Vol. III: Tables, Kazan, 1894. For purposes
of comparison we shall quote later the main data for Ekaterinburg Uyezd,
for which the same classification is given. Statistical Returns for Ekaterinburg Uyezd , Perm Gubernia . Published by the
Zemstvo of Ekaterinburg Uyezd, Ekaterinburg, 1891.— Lenin

[2]
The total allotment-land held by these peasants (all groups) is 410,428
dess., i.e., an “average” of 17.5 dess. per household. Then
the peasants rent 53,882 dess. of arable and 597,180 dess. of meadow land,
making a total of 651,062 dess. (households renting arable—8,903,
and renting meadow land—9,167) and they lease out allotment
land—arable—50,548 dess. (8,553 peasants) and meadow land—7,186 dess (2,180 peasants), making a total of 57,734 dess.— Lenin

[3]
“Agricultural industries” are also singled out only for the
last three districts. The commercial and industrial establishments total
692, namely 132 water-mills, 16 oil-mills, 97 pitch and tar works, 283
“smithies, etc” and 164 “shops, taverns, etc.”— Lenin

| | III. Zemstvo Statistics For Saratov Gubernia | | | V. Zemstvo Statistics For Orel Gubernia | |

# Zemstvo Statistics for Orel Gubernia

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8ii/ii8v.htm

Chapter II. The Differentiation of the Peasantry

### V. Zemstvo Statistics For Orel Gubernia

We have at our disposal two volumes of statistics, for the Yelets and
Trubchevsk uyezds of this gubernia, which classify the peasant households
according to the number of draught horses owned. [1]

Combining the two uyezds, we give the following joint data by groups.

From this we see that the general relations between the groups are the
same as those we have seen earlier (the concentration of purchased and
rented land in the hands of the well to-do, the transfer of the land to
them from the poor peasants, etc.). Quite similar, too, are the relations
between the groups as regards hired labour, “industries,” and
“progressive trends” in farming.

And so, in Orel Gubernia also we see the differentiation of the peasantry
into two directly opposite types: on the one hand, into a rural
proletariat (abandonment of land and sale of labour-power), and, on the
other, into a peasant bourgeoisie (purchase of land, renting on a
considerable scale, especially of allotment land, improved methods of farming, hiring of
regular farm labourers and day labourers, here omitted, and the combining
of commercial and industrial enterprises with agriculture. The scale of
farming by the peasants here, however, is generally much smaller than in
the above-quoted cases; there are far fewer big crop growers, and the
differentiation of the peasantry, to judge by these two uyezds, therefore
seems weaker. We say “seems” on the following grounds:
firstly, though we observe here that the “peasantry” turn more
rapidly into a rural proletariat and produce hardly perceptible groups of
rural bourgeois, we have, on the other hand, already seen examples of the
reverse, where this latter pole of the countryside becomes particularly
perceptible. Secondly, here the differentiation of the agricultural peasantry (we confine ourselves in this chapter to
the agricultural peasantry) is obscured by the “industries,”
the development of which is particularly extensive (40% of the
families). And the “industrialists” here too include, besides
a majority of wage-workers, a minority of merchants, buyers-up,
entrepreneurs, proprietors, etc. Thirdly, here the differentiation of the
peasantry is obscured because of the absence of data regarding the aspects
of local agriculture that are most closely connected with the
market. Commercial, market cultivation is not developed here to expand the
crop areas to produce grain for sale but for the production of hemp. The
largest number of commercial operations are bound up with this crop but
the data of the tables given in the volume do not single out this particular aspect of agriculture among the various
groups. “Hemp growing is the main source of the peasants’
income” (that is, money income. Returns for Trubchevsk Uyezd , p. 5 of descriptions of villages, and many others), “the
peasants devote their attention mainly to the cultivation of
hemp. . . . All the manure . . . is used on the hemp fields”
( ibid ., 87), everywhere loans are contracted “on security
of hemp,” and debts are paid with hemp ( ibid ., passim ). For the manuring of their hemp fields the well-to-do
peasants buy manure from the poor ( Returns for Orel Uyezd ,
Vol. VIII, Orel, 1895, pp. 91-105), hemp fields are leased out and rented
in home and outside village communities ( ibid ., 260), and the
processing of the hemp is done by part of the “industrial
establishments” of whose concentration we have spoken. It is clear how incomplete is that picture of differentiation
which gives no information about the main commercial product of local agriculture. [2]

---
Notes:
[1]
Statistical Returns for Orel Gubernia , Vol. II, Moscow,
1887. Yelets Uyezd, and Vol. III, Orel, 1887. Trubchevsk Uyezd. For the
latter uyezd the data do not include those for the suburban village
communities. We take joint data for the renting of land, combining the
allotment and non-allotment rented land. We have determined the amount of
leased land approximately, from the number of households leasing out the
whole of their allotments. The figures obtained constitute the basis for
determining the amount of land in use by each group (allotment + purchased
land + rented land - land leased out).— Lenin

[2]
The compiler of the returns for Orel Uyezd states (Table No.57) that the
well-to-do peasants obtain nearly twice as much manure per head
of cattle as do the poor (391 poods per head where there are 7.4 animals
per household, as against 208 poods per head where there are 2.8 animals
per household. And this conclusion was reached by classifying according to
allotment, which obscures the real depth of differentiation). This is due
to the fact that the poor are compelled to use straw and dung as fuel, to
sell it, etc. Consequently, only the peasant bourgeoisie secure the
“normal” quantity of manure (400 poods) per head of cattle. In
this connection, too, Mr. V. V. might argue (as he does about the decline
in horse possession) about “the restoration of the normal
proportion” between the number of animals and the quantity of
manure.— Lenin

| | IV. Zemstvo Statistics For Perm Gubernia | | | VI. Zemstvo Statistics For Voronezh Gubernia | |

# Zemstvo Statistics for Voronezh Gubernia

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8ii/ii8vi.htm

Chapter II. The Differentiation of the Peasantry

### VI. Zemstvo Statistics For Voronezh Gubernia

The returns for Voronezh Gubernia are distinguished for their
exceptionally complete information and abundance of classifications. In
addition to the usual classification according to allotment, we have for
several uyezds a classification according to draught animals, to persons
working (working strength of family), to industries (not engaged in
industries; engaged in industries: a—agricultural, b—mixed and
c—commercial and industrial), to farm labourers (farms with members
employed as farm labourers;—with no farm labourers and with no
members employed as such;—households employing farm labourers). The
last classification is given for the largest number of uyezds, and at
first glance one might think that it is the most suitable for studying the
differentiation of the peasantry. Actually, however, this is not the case:
the group of farms providing farm labourers does not by any means embrace
the whole of the rural proletariat, for it does not include farms
providing day labourers, unskilled labourers, factory workers,
builders’ labourers, navvies, domestic servants, etc. Farm labourers
constitute only a part of the wage-workers provided by the
“peasantry.” The group of farms that employ farm labourers is
also very incomplete, for it does not include farms that hire day
labourers. The neutral group (which neither provides nor employs farm
labourers) lumps together in each uyezd tens of thousands of families, combining thousands of peasants who own no horses with thousands
who own many, peasants who rent land and peasants who lease land,
cultivators and non-cultivators, thousands of wage-workers and a minority
of employers, etc. General “averages” for the entire neutral
group are obtained, for example, by adding together landless households or
those possessing 3 to 4 dess. per household (of allotment and purchased
land in all) and households possessing 25, 50 and more dessiatines of
allotment land and purchasing additionally tens and hundreds of
dessiatines of land (Returns for Bobrov Uyezd, p. 336, Col. No. 148; for
Novokhopersk Uyezd, p. 222)—by adding together households with 0.8
to 2.7 animals per family and those with 12 to 21 animals
( ibid .). Naturally, one cannot depict the differentiation of the
peasantry with the aid of such “averages,” and so we have to
take the classification according to draught animals as the one most
closely approximating classification according to scale of farming. We
have at our disposal four volumes of returns with this classification (for
Zemlyansk, Zadonsk, Nizhnedevitsk and Korotoyak uyezds), and from these we
must choose Zadonsk Uyezd, because no separate returns are given for the
others on the purchase and leasing of land according to groups. Below we
shall give combined data for all these four uyezds and the reader will see
that the conclusions they yield are the same. Here are general data for
the groups in Zadonsk Uyezd (15,704 households, 106,288 persons of both
sexes, 135,656 dess. of allotment land, 2,882 dess. of purchased land,
24,046 dess. of rented, and 6,482 dess. of land leased out).

The relations between the groups are similar here to those in the
gubernias and uyezds already mentioned (concentration of purchased and of
rented land, the transfer of allotment land from the poor peasants, who
lease out land, to the renting and affluent peasants, etc.); but here the
significance of the affluent peasants is very much smaller. The extremely
negligible scale of peasant farming even raises the question, and
naturally so, of whether the local peasants do not belong to the
“industrialists” rather than to the tillers of the soil. Here
are data on the “industries,” first of all on their distribution according to groups:

The distribution of improved implements and of the two opposite types of
“industries” (the sale of labour-power and commercial and
industrial enterprise) is the same as in the data examined above. The
enormous percentage of households engaging in “industries,”
the preponderance of grain-purchasing over grain-selling farms, the
preponderance of money income from “industries” over money
income from agriculture [1] —all this gives us grounds for regarding this
uyezd as “industrial” rather than agricultural. Let us,
however, see what sort of industries these are. The Evaluation Returns on Peasant Landownership in Zemlyansk , Zadonsk , Korotoyak and Nizhnedevitsk Uyezds (Voronezh,1889) contains a list of all the
trades of the “industrialists,” working locally and away from
home (222 trades in all), classified in groups according to allotment, and
indicating the size of earnings in each trade. This list shows that the
overwhelming majority of the peasant “industries” consist of work for hire . Of 24,134 “industrialists” in Zadonsk
Uyezd, 14,135 are farm labourers, carters, shepherds and unskilled
labourers, 1,813 are builders’ labourers, 298 are town, factory and
other workers, 446 are engaged in private service, 301 are beggars,
etc. In other words, the overwhelming majority of the “industrialists” are members of the rural proletariat,
allotment-holding wage-workers , who sell their labour-power to
rural and industrial employers. [2]

Thus, if we take the ratio between the different groups of the peasantry in a given gubernia or a given uyezd, we find
everywhere the typical features of differentiation, both in the
land-abundant steppe gubernias with their relatively huge peasant crop
areas, and in the most land-poor localities with their miniature peasant
“farms”; despite the most profound difference in agrarian and agricultural conditions, the ratio between the
top group of the peasantry and the bottom is everywhere the same. If,
however, we compare the different localities, in some we see with
particular clarity the formation of rural entrepreneurs from among the
peasants and in others we see the formation of a rural proletariat. It
goes without saying that in Russia, as in every other capitalist country,
the latter aspect of the process of differentiation embraces an
incomparably larger number of small cultivators (and very likely a larger
number of localities) than the former.

---
Notes:
[1]
In the numerically small top group of the peasantry we see the opposite:
the preponderance of grain sales over purchase, the receipt of money
income mainly from the land, and a high percentage of peasants employing
farm labourers, possessing improved implements, and owning commercial and
industrial establishments. All the typical features of the peasant
bourgeoisie are clearly visible here too (despite its small numbers); they
are visible in the shape of the growth of commercial and capitalist
agriculture.— Lenin

[2]
To supplement what has been said above about the term “industries” as used in Zemstvo statistics, let us quote more
detailed data on peasant industries in this locality. The Zemstvo
statisticians have divided them into six categories: 1) Agricultural
industries (59,277 persons out of a total of 92,889 “industrialists” in the 4 uyezds). The overwhelming majority
are wage-workers, but among them we also find proprietors (melon growers,
vegetable growers, bee-keepers, perhaps some coachmen, etc.). 2) Artisans
and handicraftsmen (20,784 persons) Among the genuine artisans (= those
who work on orders for customers ) are included very many
wage-workers, particularly building workers, etc. Of the latter we have
counted over 8,000 (the figure probably includes some proprietors: bakers,
etc.). 3) Servants—1,737 persons. 4) Merchants and master-industrialists—7,104 persons. As we have said, it is
particularly necessary to single out this category from the general mass
of “industrialists.” 5) Liberal professions—2,881 persons, including 1,090 beggars; in addition to these there are tramps,
gendarmes, prostitutes, policemen, etc. 6) Town, factory and other
workers—1,106 persons, local industrialists—71,112, migratory
industrialists—21,777, males—85,255, females—7,634. The
earnings are the most varied: for example, in Zadonsk Uyezd 8,580
unskilled labourers earn 234,677 rubles, while 647 merchants and
master-industrialists earn 71,799 rubles. One can imagine the confusion
that results when all these most diverse “industries” are
lumped together—but that is what is usually done by our Zemstvo
statisticians and our Narodniks.— Lenin

| | V. Zemstvo Statistics For Orel Gubernia | | | VII. Zemstvo Statistics For Nizhni-Novgorod
Gubernia | |

# Zemstvo Statistics for Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8ii/ii8vii.htm

Chapter II. The Differentiation of the Peasantry

### VII. Zemstvo Statistics For Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia

For three uyezds of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia—the Knyaginin, Makaryev
and Vasil uyezds—the Zemstvo house-to-house census returns have been
reduced to one table, which divides the peasant farms (only
allotment-holding and only of peasants living in their own villages) into
five groups according to draught animals held ( Material for the Evaluation of the Lands of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia . Economic Section . Vols. IV, IX and XII, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1888, 1889, 1890).

Combining these three uyezds, we get the following data on the groups of
households (in the three uyezds mentioned the data cover 52,260 households
and 294,798 persons of both sexes. Allotment land—433,593 dess.,
purchased—51,960 dess., rented—86,007 dess., counting all
kinds of rented land, allotment and non-allotment, arable and meadow land;
land leased out—19,274 dess.):

Here too, consequently, we see that the well-to-do peasants, despite their
better provision with allotment land (the percentage of allotment land in
the top groups is larger than the percentage these groups constitute in
the population), concentrate in their hands the purchased land (the
well-to-do households, 9.6% of the total, have 46.2% of the purchased
land, whereas the poor peasants, 2/3 of the households, have less than a
quarter), as well as concentrate the rented land, and “gather”
the allotment land leased by the poor. As a result of all this the
actual distribution of the land in use by the “peasantry” is quite unlike the distribution of the allotment
land. The horseless peasants have actually less land at their disposal
than the allotment guaranteed them by law. The one-horse and two-horse
peasants increase their holdings by only 10 to 30% (from 8.1 dess. to 9.4
dess., and from 10.5 dess. to 13.8 dess.), whereas the well to-do peasants
increase their holdings one and a half times to double . While the
differences in the allotment land of the groups are negligible, the
differences in the actual scale of cultivation are enormous, as
can be seen from the above quoted data on animals and from the following
data on area under crops:

When assessed by the area under crops the differences between the groups
are seen to be even greater than when assessed by the amount of land
actually held and in use, to say nothing of the differences in the size of
the

allotments. [2]

This shows again and again the utter uselessness of classification by
allotment holding, the “equality” of which has now become a
legal fiction. The other columns of the table show how the
“combination of agriculture with industry” is taking place
among the peasantry: the well-to-do peasants combine commercial and
capitalist agriculture (the high percentage of households employing farm
labourers) with commercial and industrial undertakings, whereas the poor
combine the sale of their labour-power (“outside employments”}
with crop growing on an insignificant scale, that is, are converted into
allotment-holding farm labourers and day labourers. Let us observe that
the absence of a proportionate diminution in the percentage of the
households with outside employments is explained by the extreme variety of
these “employments” and “industries” of the
Nizhni-Novgorod peasantry: besides agricultural workers, unskilled
labourers, building and shipbuilding workers, etc., the industrialists
here include a relatively very large number of “handicraftsmen,” owners of industrial workshops, merchants,
buyers-up, etc. Obviously, the lumping together of “industrialists” of such diverse types distorts the data on
“households with outside earnings.” [3]

On the question of the differences in cultivation by the various groups of
peasants, let us observe that in the Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia,
“manuring the land . . . is one of the chief conditions determining
the degree of productivity” of the ploughlands (p. 79 of the Returns
for Knyaginin Uyezd). The average rye yield grows in proportion to the increase in the amount of
manure used: with 300 to 500 cart-loads of manure per 100 dess. of
allotment land, the rye crop amounts to 47.1 meras [4] per dess.; with 1,500
cart-loads and more, to 62.7 meras ( ibid ., p. 84). Clearly,
therefore, the difference between the groups in the scale of their
agricultural production should be still greater than the difference in
area under crops, and the Nizhni-Novgorod statisticians made a big mistake
in studying the produce of the peasant fields in general, and not of the
fields of the poor and the well-to-do peasantry separately.

---
Notes:
[1]
For Knyaginin Uyezd only.— Lenin

[2]
If we take the size of the allotment of the horseless peasants (per
household) as l00, the allotments of the higher groups will be expressed
by the figures: 159, 206, 259, 321. The corresponding figures for land
actually held by each group will be as follows: 100, 214, 314, 477, 786;
and for area under crops the figures for the groups will be: 100, 231,
378, 568, 873.— Lenin

[3]
On the “industries” of the Nizhni-Novgorod peasantry, see
Mr. Plotnikov’s Handicraft Industries of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia (Nizhni-Novgorod, 1894), tables at the end of the book, also
Zemstvo statistical returns, particularly for the Gorbatov and Semyonov
uyezds.— Lenin

[4] 1 mera = 204 pounds— Ed .

| | VI. Zemstvo Statistics For Voronezh Gubernia | | | VIII. Review Of Zemstvo Statistics For
Other Gubernias | |

# Review of Zemstvo Statistics for Other Gubernias

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8ii/ii8viii.htm

Chapter II. The Differentiation of the Peasantry

### VIII. Review Of Zemstvo Statistics For Other Gubernias

As the reader will have observed, in studying the process of the
differentiation of the peasantry we use exclusively Zemstvo house-to-house
census statistics, if they cover more or less extensive areas, if they
give sufficiently detailed information on the most important indices of
differentiation, and if (which is particularly important) they have been
processed in such a way as to make it possible to single out the various
groups of peasants according to their economic strength. The data given
above, relating to seven gubernias, exhaust the Zemstvo statistical
material that answers these conditions and that we have been able to
use. For the sake of completeness, let us now point briefly to the
remaining, less complete, data of a similar kind (i.e., based on
house-to-house censuses).

For Demyansk Uyezd of Novgorod Gubernia we have a table on peasant farms
grouped according to the number of horses ( Material for Evaluating the Farmlands of Novgorod Gubernia , Demyansk Uyezd , Novgorod,
1888). There is no information here on land renting and leasing (in
dessiatines), but the data given reveal the complete similarity of the
relations between the well-to-do and the indigent peasants in this
gubernia, as compared with the other gubernias. Here too, for example, as
we proceed from the bottom group to the top (from the horseless households
to those with 3 and more horses), there is an increase in the percentage
of farms with purchased and rented land, despite the fact that those with many horses have an amount
of allotment land above the average. Households with 3 or more horses,
10.7% of the total number of households and 16.1 % of the population,
possess 18.3% of all allotment land, 43.4% of the purchased land, 26.2% of
the rented land (to judge from the area under rye and oats on rented
land), and 29.4% of the total “industrial buildings.” On the
other hand 51.3 %, the horseless and one-horse households, constituting
40.1% of the population, have only 33.2% of the allotment land, 13.8% of
the purchased land, 20.8% of the rented land (in the sense indicated
above), and 28.8% of the “industrial buildings.” In other
words, here too the well-to-do peasants “gather” the land and
combine commercial and industrial “trades” with agriculture,
while the poor abandon the land and turn into wage-workers (the percentage
of “persons engaged in industries” diminishes as we pass from
the bottom group to the top—from 26.6 % among the horseless peasants
to 7.8% among those having 3 and more horses). The incompleteness of these
data compels us to omit them from the following summary of the material on
the differentiation of the peasantry.

For the same reason we omit the data on part of Kozelets Uyezd,
Chernigov Gubernia ( Material for Evaluating Farmlands ,
Compiled by the Chernigov Statistical Department of the Gubernia Zemstvo Board , Vol. V, Chernigov, 1882; the data on the number of
draught animals are classified for 8,717 households of the black-earth
district of the uyezd). The relationships between the groups are the same
here too: 36.8% of the households, with no draught animals and
constituting 28.8% of the population, have 21% of their own and allotment
land and 7% of the rented land, but account for 63% of the total land let
out on lease by these 8,717 households. On the other hand, 14.3% of the
households, with 4 and more draught animals and constituting 17.3 % of the
population, have 33.4% of their own and allotment land and 32.1% of the
rented land, and account for only 7% of the land let out on
lease. Unfortunately, the other households (owning 1 to 3 draught animals)
are not subdivided into smaller groups.

In Material for an Investigation of the Land-Usage and Domestic Life of the Rural Population of Irkutsk and Yenisei

Gubernias there is a very interesting table (classification
according to number of draught horses) of peasant and settler farms in
four regions of Yenisei Gubernia (Vol. III, Irkutsk,1893, p.730 and
foll.). It is very interesting to observe that the relationship between
the well-to-do Siberian and the settler (and in this relationship the most
ardent Narodnik would hardly dare to seek the famous community principle!)
is essentially the same as that between our well-to-do village community
members and their horseless and one-horse “brethren.” By
combining the settlers and the peasant old-timers (such a combination is
necessary because the former serve as labour-power for the latter), we get
the familiar features of the top and bottom groups. Of the households,
39.4%,the bottom groups (those with no horses, and with 1 or 2),
constituting 24% of the population, have only 6.2% of the total arable and
7.1% of the total animals, whereas 36.4% of the households, those with 5
and more horses, constituting 51.2% of the population, have 73% of the
arable and 74.5% of the total cattle. The latter groups (5 to 9,10 and
more horses), cultivating 15 to 36 dess. per household, resort extensively
to wage-labour (30 to 70 % of the farms employ wage-workers), whereas the
bottom three groups, cultivating 0—0.2—3—5 dess. per household provide workers (20—35—59% of the
farms). The data on the renting and leasing out of land are the only
exception we have met to the rule (of the concentration of rented land in
the hands of the well-to-do), and this is the sort of exception that
proves the rule. The point is that in Siberia there are none of the
conditions that created this rule, there is no compulsory and
“equalitarian” allotment of land, there is no established
private property in land. The well-to-do peasant neither purchases nor
rents land, but appropriates it (at least that has been the case till
now); the leasing out and the renting of land are rather of the character
of neighbourly exchange, and that is why the group data on the renting and
the leasing of land display no consistency. [1]

For three uyezds of Poltava Gubernia we can determine approximately the
way the area under crops is distributed (knowing the number of farms with
different areas under crops—indicated in the statistical reports as
“from—to” so many dessiatines—and multiplying the number of households in each division by the average area under crops
within the limits indicated). We get the following data for 76,032
households (villagers, excluding non-peasants) with 362,298 dess. under
crops: 31,001 households (40.8%) cultivate no land or only up to 3
dess. per household, to a total of 36,040 dess. under crops (9.9%); 19,017
households (25%) cultivate over 6 dess. per household and have 209,195
dess. under crops (57.8%). (See Economic Statistical Returns for Poltava Gubernia , Konstantinograd, Khorol and Piryatin uyezds.) [5] The
distribution of area under crops is very much the same as what we
have seen in the case of Taurida Gubernia, despite the basically smaller
areas under crops. Naturally, such an uneven distribution is possible only
where the purchased and rented land is concentrated in the hands of a
minority. We have no complete data on this, since the statistics do not
classify households according to economic strength and must therefore
confine ourselves to the following data on Konstantinograd Uyezd. In the
chapter of farming by the rural social-estates (Chapter II, § 5,
“Agriculture”} the compiler of the abstract states: “In
general, if rented plots are divided into three categories: area per
lessee of 1) up to 10 dess., 2) from 10 to 30 dess. and 3) over 30 dess.,
the data for each will be as follows: [2]

For Kaluga Gubernia we have only the following very fragmentary and
incomplete data on grain-sowing by 8,626 households (about 1/20 of the
total number of peasant households in the gubernia [3] ).

That is to say, 21.6% of the households, constituting 30.6% of the
population, possess 36.6% of the draught horses, 45.1% of the area under
crops and 43.1% of the gross income from crops. Clearly, these figures
also point to the concentration of purchased and rented land in the hands
of the well-to-do peasantry.

For Tver Gubernia, despite the wealth of information in the statistical
returns the house-to-house censuses have been very inadequately processed;
there is no classification of households according to economic
strength. This defect is used by Mr. Vikhlyayev in the Statistical Returns for Tver Gubernia (Vol. XIII, Part 2, Peasant Farming , Tver, 1897) to deny “differentiation” among the
peasantry, to detect a drive towards “greater equality,” and
to sing hymns in praise of “people’s production” (p. 312) and “natural economy.” Mr. Vikhlyayev enters into the
most hazardous and unfounded arguments on stratification,” not only without citing any precise
data on the peasant groups, but without even having made clear for himself
the elementary truth that differentiation is taking place within the
village community, and that therefore to talk about “stratification” and to classify exclusively
according to village communities or to volosts is simply ridiculous. [4]

---
Notes:
[1]
“The locally collected material giving facts on the leasing and
renting of farmland was considered to be unworthy of especial treatment,
because the phenomenon exists only in a rudimentary form isolated cases of
leasing out and renting occur now and again, but are of an utterly
fortuitous character and exercise no influence yet on the economic life of
Yenisei Gubernia” ( Material , Vol. IV, Part 1,
p. V,

Introduction). Of 424,624 dess. of soft arable land belonging to the
peasant old-timers of Yenisei Gubernia, 417,086 dess. are
“appropriated family” land. [6] Renting (2,686 dess.) nearly equals leasing 2,639
dess.) and represents not even one per cent of the total land
appropriated.— Lenin

[2]
Abstract,
p. 142.— Lenin

[3]
Statistical Survey of Kaluga Gubernia for 1896 , Kaluga, 1897, p. 43 and foll., 83, 113 of appendices.— Lenin

[4]
As a curiosity, let us quote one sample, Mr. Vikhlyayev’s
“general conclusion” reads: “The purchase of land by the
peasants of Tver Gubernia tends to equalise the size of holdings”
(p. 11). Proof?—If we take the groups of village communities according to size of allotment, we shall find that the
small-allotment communities have a larger percentage of
households with purchased land. Mr. Vikhlyayev does not even suspect that
it is the well-to-do members of the small allotment communities
who buy land! Of course, there is no need to examine such
“conclusions” of an out-and-out Narodnik, the more so that
Mr. Vikhlyayev’s boldness has embarrassed even the economists in his
own camp. Mr. Karyshev, in Russkoye Bogatstvo [ Russian Wealth ] (1898, No. 8), although expressing his profound sympathy with
the way Mr Vikhlyayev “orientates himself well among the problems
with which the economy of the country is faced at the present time,”
is yet compelled to admit that Mr. Vikhlyayev is too great an
“optimist,” that his conclusions about the drive towards
equality are “not very convincing,” that his data “tell
us nothing,” and that his conclusions “are groundless.”— Lenin

[6]
Appropriated family land –land in Siberia appropriated mainly by
rich peasants, who did what they pleased with it, making gifts of it,
selling it, or handing it down in the family.

[5]
For the notes containing preliminary calculations made by Lenin in the
margins of these publications, see Lenin Miscellany XXXIII ,
pp. 144-150.

| | VII. Zemstvo Statistics For Nizhni-Novgorod
Gubernia | | | IX. Summary Of The Above Zemstvo Statistics
On The Differentiation Of The Peasantry | |

# Summary of the Above Zemstvo Statistics on the Differentiation of the Peasantry

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8ii/ii8ix.htm

Chapter II. The Differentiation of the Peasantry

IX. Summary Of The Above Zemstvo Statistics On The
Differentiation Of The Peasantry

In order to compare and combine the above-quoted data on the
differentiation of the peasantry, we obviously cannot take absolute
figures and put them into groups: for that we should require complete data
for the whole group of districts and identical methods of
classification. We can only compare and juxtapose the relation of the top to the bottom groups (as regards possession of land, animals,
implements, etc.). The relationship expressed, for example, in the fact
that 10% of the households have 30% of the area under crops, does away
with the difference in the absolute figures and is therefore suitable for
comparison with every similar relationship in any locality. But to make
such a comparison we must single out in the other locality 10% of the
households, too, neither more nor less. But the sizes of the groups in the
different uyezds and gubernias are not equal. And so, we have to split up these groups so as to take in each
locality an equal percentage of households . Let us agree to take
20% of the households for the well-to-do peasants and 50% for the poor,
i.e., let us form out of the top groups one of 20% of the households, and
out of the bottom groups one of 50%. Let us illustrate this method by an
example. Suppose we have five groups of the following proportions, from
the bottom to the top: 30%, 25%, 20%, 15% and 10% of the households (S =
100%). To form a bottom group, we take the first group and 4/5 of the
second group (30 + (25x4) / 5 = 50%), and to form a top group
we take the last group and 2/3 of the penultimate group (10 + (15x2) /
3 = 20%), the percentages for area under crops, animals,
implements, etc., being determined, of course, in the same way. That is to
say, if the percentages for area under crops corresponding to the
above-stated percentages of the households are as follows: 15%, 20%, 20%,
21% and 24% (S = 100%), then our top group, 20% of the households, will
account for (24 + (21x2) / 3 = 38%) of the area under crops,
while our bottom group, 50% of the households, will account for (15 +
(20x4) / 5 = 31%) of the area under crops. Obviously, in
splitting up the groups in this manner, we do not change by one iota the
actual relationship between the bottom and top strata of the peasantry. [1]

This splitting up is necessary, firstly, because in this way, instead of
4—5—6—7 different groups, we get three large groups with
clearly defined indices [2] ; secondly, because only in this way are data on
the differentiation of the peasantry in the most varied localities under
the most varied conditions comparable.

To judge the interrelation between the groups we take the following data,
the most important on the question of differentiation: 1) number of
households; 2) number of persons of both sexes of the peasant population;
3) amount of allotment land; 4) purchased land; 5) rented land; 6) land
leased out; 7) total land owned or in use by the group (allotment +
purchased + rented - land leased out); 8) area under crops; 9) number of
draught animals; 10) total number of animals; 11) number of households
employing farm labourers; 12) number of households with employments (singling out as far as possible those forms of
“employment” among which work for hire, sale of labour-power
predominates); 13) commercial and industrial establishments and 14)
improved agricultural implements. The items given in italics
(“leasing of land” and “employments”} are of negative significance, since they indicate the decline of the
farm, the ruin of the peasant and his conversion into a worker. All the
other data are of positive significance, since they indicate the
expansion of the farm and the conversion of the peasant into a rural
entrepreneur.

On all these points we compute for each group of farms the percentages of
the total for the uyezd or for several uyezds of one gubernia, and then
ascertain (by the method we have described) what percentage of the land,
area under crops, animals, etc., falls to the 20% of the households of the
top groups and to the 50% of the households of the bottom groups. [3]

We give a table drawn up in this manner covering the data for 21 uyezds in
7 gubernias, with a total of 558,570 peasant farms and a population of
3,523,418 persons of both sexes.

## Notes to tables A and B

1. For Taurida Gubernia the returns for land leased out concern only two
uyezds: Berdyansk and Dnieper.

2. For the same gubernia the category of improved implements includes
mowers and reapers.

3. For the two uyezds of Samara Gubernia instead of the percentage of land
leased out the percentage of allotment-leasing non-farming households has
been taken.

4. For Orel Gubernia the amount of land leased out (and consequently of
the total land in use) has been determined approximately. The same applies
to the four uyezds of Voronezh Gubernia.

5. For Orel Gubernia the returns for improved implements exist for only
Yelets Uyezd.

6. For Voronezh Gubernia, instead of the number of households with
employments we have taken (for three uyezds: Zadonsk, Korotoyak and
Nizhnedevitsk) the number of households providing farm labourers.

7. For Voronezh Gubernia returns for improved implements exist for only
two uyezds: Zemlyansk and Zadonsk.

8. For Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, instead of households engaged in
“industries” in general, we have taken the households engaging
in outside employments.

9. For some of the uyezds, instead of the number of commercial and
industrial establishments, we have had to take the number of households
with commercial and industrial establishments.

10. Where the statistical returns give several columns of
“employments” we have tried to single out those “employments” which most exactly indicate work for hire, the
sale of labour-power.

11. All rented land, as far as possible, has been taken—allotment
and non-allotment, arable and meadow land.

12. We would remind the reader that for Novouzensk Uyezd farm-stead
peasants and Germans are excluded, for Krasnoufimsk Uyezd only the
agricultural part of the uyezd has been taken for Ekaterinburg Uyezd
landless peasants and those possessing a share in meadow land alone are
excluded, for Trubchevsk Uyezd suburban village communities are excluded,
for Knyaginin Uyezd the industrial village of Bolshoye Murashkino is
excluded, etc. These exclusions are partly ours, and are partly due to the
nature of the material. Obviously, therefore, the differentiation of the
peasantry must actually be more pronounced than appears in our table and
chart.

To illustrate this combined table and to show clearly the complete
similarity, of the relationship of the top to the bottom peasant groups in
the most varied localities, we have drawn the following chart on which are
plotted the percentages in the table. To the right of the column
indicating the percentages of total households, runs a curve showing the
positive indices of economic strength (enlargement of holding, increase in the number of animals, etc.), while to the left runs
a curve showing the negative indices of economic strength (leasing out of
land, sale of labour-power; these columns are shaded). The distance from
the top horizontal line of the chart to each continuous curve shows the
share of the well-to-do groups in the sum-total of peasant farming, while
the distance from the bottom horizontal line to each broken curve shows
the share of the poor groups in that sum total. Lastly, to give a clear
picture of the general character of the combined data, we have plotted an
“average” curve (arrived at by calculating arithmetical
averages from the percentages indicated in the chart. To distinguish it
from the others, this “average” curve is in red). This “average” curve indicates, so to speak, the typical
differentiation of the Russian peasantry today.

Now, in order to sum up the data on differentiation given above (§§
I-VII), let us examine this chart column by column.

The first column to the right of the one indicating the percentages of
households shows the proportion of the population belonging to the top and
the bottom groups. We see that everywhere the size of the families of the
well-to-do peasantry is above the average and that of the poor below the
average. We have already spoken of the significance of this fact. Let us
add that it would be wrong to take as the unit for all comparisons the
individual (as the Narodniks are fond of doing) and not the household, the
family. While the expenditure of the well-to-do family grows because of
the larger size of the family, the mass of expenditure, on the other hand,
in the large-family household diminishes (on buildings, domestic effects,
household needs, etc., etc. The economic advantages of large families are
particularly stressed by Engelhardt in his Letters From the Countryside , [8]
and by Trirogov in his book, The Village Community and the Poll Tax , St. Petersburg, 1882). Therefore, to take the individual as the
unit for comparisons, and to take no account of this diminution, means
artificially and falsely to identify the condition of the
“individual” in the large and in the small families. Incidentally, the chart clearly shows that the well-to-do group
of peasants concentrate in their hands a far larger share of agricultural
production than would follow from a calculation per head of population.

The next column refers to allotment land. In its distribution we see the
greatest degree of equality, as should be the case by virtue of the legal
status of allotment land. But even here the process of the poor being
ousted by the well-to-do peasants is beginning: everywhere we
find that the top groups hold a somewhat larger share of the allotment
land than the share they represent in the population, while the bottom
groups hold a somewhat smaller one. The “village community”
tends to serve the interests of the peasant bourgeoisie. Compared,
however, with the actual land tenure the inequality in the
distribution of allotment land is still quite insignificant. The
distribution of allotment land does not (as is clearly evident from the
chart) give any idea of the actual distribution of land and farm property. [4]

Then comes the column for purchased land. In all cases this land is
concentrated in the hands of the well-to-do: one fifth of the households
have about 6 or 7 tenths of all peasant owned purchased land, whereas the
poor peasants, constituting half the households, account for a maximum of
15%! One can judge, therefore, the significance of the “Narodnik” fuss about enabling the “peasantry” to
buy as much land as possible and as cheaply as possible.

The next column is that for rented land. Here too we see everywhere the
concentration of the land in the hands of the well-to-do (one-fifth of the
households account for 5 to 8 tenths of the total rented land) who,
moreover, rent land at cheaper rates, as we have seen above. This grabbing
of rentable land by the peasant bourgeoisie clearly demonstrates that
“peasant renting” carries an industrial character (the purchase of land for the purpose of selling the product.) [5]

In saying this, however, we do not at all deny the fact of land renting being due to want. On the contrary, the chart
shows the entirely different character of renting by the poor,
who cling to the land (half the households account for 1 to 2 tenths of
the total rented land). There are peasants and peasants.

The contradictory significance of land renting in “peasant
farming” stands out particularly vividly when we compare the column
on land renting with that on the leasing out of land (first
column to the left , i.e., among the negative indices). Here we
see the very opposite: the principal lessors of land are the bottom groups
(half the households account for 7 to 8 tenths of the land leased), who
strive to get rid of their allotments, which pass (despite legal
prohibitions and restrictions) into the hands of employer farmers. Thus,
when we are told that the “peasantry” rent land and that the
“peasantry” lease out their land, we know that the first
applies mainly to the peasant bourgeoisie and the second to the peasant
proletariat.

The relation of purchased, rented and leased land to the allotment
determines also the actual land held by the groups (5th column to
the right). In all cases we see that the actual distribution of the total
land at the disposal of the peasants has nothing in common with the
“equality” of the allotments. Of the households 20% account
for 35% to 50% of the total land, while 50% account for 20% to 30%. In the
distribution of area under crops (next column) the ousting of the
bottom group by the top stands out in still greater relief, probably
because the poor peasantry are often unable to make economic use of their land and abandon it. Both
columns (total land held and area under crops) show that the purchase and
the renting of land lead to a diminution of the share of the
bottom groups in the general system of economy, i.e., to their being
ousted by the well-to-do minority. The latter now play a dominant role in
the peasant economy, concentrating in their hands almost as much of the
area under crops as do all the rest of the peasants put together.

The next two columns show the distribution of draught and other animals
among the peasantry. The percentages of animals differ very slightly from
those of area under crops; nor could it be otherwise, for the number of
draught animals (and also of other animals) determines the area under
crops, and in its turn is determined by it.

The next column shows the share of the various groups of the peasantry in
the total number of commercial and industrial establishments. One-fifth of
the households (the well-to-do group) concentrate in their hands about
half of these establishments, while half the households, the poor, account
for about

1/5, [6] that is to say, the “industries” that express the conversion
of the peasantry into a bourgeoisie are concentrated mainly in the hands
of the most affluent cultivators. The well-to-do peasants, consequently,
invest capital in agriculture (purchase and renting of land, hire of
workers, improvement of implements, etc.), industrial establishments,
commerce, and usury: merchant’s and entrepreneur capital are closely
connected, and surrounding conditions determine which of these forms of
capital becomes predominant.

The data on households with “employments” (the first column to
the left , among the negative indices) also characterise the
“industries,” which are, however, of opposite significance,
and mark the conversion of the peasant into a proletarian. These
“industries” are concentrated in the hands of the poor (they
constitute 50% of the households and account for 60% to 90% of the total households with employments), whereas the part
played in them by the well-to-do groups is insignificant (it must not be
forgotten that we have not been able to draw an exact line of demarcation
between masters and workers in this category of “industrialists” either). One has only to compare the data on
“employments” with the data on “commercial and industrial establishments” to see how utterly opposite are these two
types of “industries,” and to realise what incredible confusion is created by the customary lumping together of these types.

Households employing farm labourers are in all cases concentrated
in the group of well-to-do peasants (20% of the households account for 5
to 7 tenths of the total number of farms employing labourers), who
(despite their having larger families) cannot exist without a class of
agricultural labourers to “supplement” them. Here we have a
striking confirmation of the proposition expressed above: that to compare
the number of farms employing labourers with the total number of peasant
“farms” (including the “farms” of the agricultural labourers) is absurd. It is much more correct to compare the
number of farms employing labourers with one-fifth of the peasant
households, for the well-to-do minority account for about 3/5 , or even
2/3 , of the total of such farms. The entrepreneur hiring of labourers
from among the peasantry far exceeds hiring from necessity, that is,
because of a shortage of workers in the family: the poor and
small-family peasants, constituting 50% of the households,
account for only about 1/10 of the total number of farms employing
labourers (here too, incidentally, shopkeepers, industrialists, etc., who
do not hire workers on account of necessity, are included among the poor).

The last column, showing the distribution of improved implements, we could
have headed “progressive trends in peasant farming,” following
the example of Mr. V. V. The “fairest” distribution of these
implements is that in Novouzensk Uyezd, Samara Gubernia, where the
well-to-do households, constituting one-fifth of the total, have only 73
out of 100 implements, whereas the poor, constituting half the households,
have as many as three out of a hundred.

Let us now compare the degree of peasant differentiation in the different
localities. In the chart two types of localities stand out very clear]y in
this regard: in Taurida, Samara, Saratov and Perm gubernias the
differentiation of the agricultural peasantry is markedly more intense
than in Orel, Voronezh and Nizhni-Novgorod gubernias. The curves of the
first four gubernias in the run below the red average line, while those of
the last three gubernias run above the average, i.e., show a smaller
concentration of farming in the hands of the well-to-do minority. The
localities of the first type are the most land-abundant and strictly
agricultural (in Perm Gubernia the agricultural parts of the uyezds have
been singled out), with extensive farming. With farming of this character
the differentiation of the agricultural peasantry is easily noted and
therefore clearly visible. Conversely, in the localities of the second
type we see, on the one hand, a development of commercial agriculture such
as is not noted in our data; for example, the sowing of hemp in Orel
Gubernia. On the other hand, we see the tremendous significance of
“industries,” both in the sense of work for hire (Zadonsk
Uyezd, Voronezh Gubernia) and in the sense of non-agricultural occupations
(Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia). The significance of both these circumstances
for the question of the differentiation of the agricultural peasantry is
enormous. Of the former (the different forms of commercial agriculture and
agricultural progress in the different localities) we have already
spoken. The significance of the latter (the role of the
“industries”} is no less obvious. If in a given locality the
bulk of the peasants are allotment-holding farm labourers, day labourers
or wage-workers in industries, the differentiation of the agricultural
peasantry will, of course, be marked very feebly. [7]

But to get a proper idea of the matter, these typical representatives of the rural proletariat must be compared
with typical representatives of the peasant bourgeoisie. The
allotment-holding Voronezh day labourer who goes south in search of odd jobs must be compared with the Taurida peasant who
cultivates huge tracts of land. The Kaluga, Nizhni-Novgorod and Yaroslavl
carpenter must be compared with the Yaroslavl or Moscow vegetable grower
or peasant who keeps cows to sell the milk, etc. Similarly, if the bulk of
the peasants in a locality are engaged in the manufacturing industries,
their allotments providing them with only a small part of their means of
livelihood, the data on the differentiation of the agricultural peasantry
must be supplemented with data on the differentiation of those who engage
in industries. In Chapter 5 we shall deal with this latter question; at
the moment we are concerned only with the differentiation of the typically
agricultural peasantry.

---
Notes:
[1]
This method involves a slight error, as a consequence of which the
differentiation appears to be less than it really is. Namely: to the top
group are added average, and not the top members of the next group; to the
bottom group are added average, and not the bottom members of the next
group. Clearly the error becomes greater as the groups become larger and
the number of groups smaller.— Lenin

[2]
In the next section we shall see that the proportions of the groups we
have taken come very close to those of the groups of the Russian peasantry
as a whole, divided according to the number of horses per household.— Lenin

[3]
We beg the reader not to forget that now we are dealing not with absolute
figures, but with relationships between the top and the bottom strata of
the peasantry. Therefore, for example, we now take the number of
households employing farm labourers (or with “employments”} as
percentages, not of the number of households in the given group, but of
the total number of households employing farm labourers (or with
“employments”} in the uyezd. In other words, what we now
ascertain is not the extent to which each group employs wage-labour (or
resorts to the sale of labour-power) but merely the relationships between
the top and bottom groups as to the employment of wage-labour (or to
participation in “employments,” in the sale of labour-power).— Lenin

[4]
A single glance at the chart is sufficient to see how useless is
classification according to allotment for a study of the differentiation
of the peasantry.— Lenin

[5]
Very curious in Mr. Karyshev’s book on the subject of rentings is
the Conclusion (Chapter VI). After all his assertions about the absence of
an industrial character in peasant renting, assertions devoid of
foundation and contradicting Zemstvo statistics, Mr. Karyshev advances a
“theory of rent” (borrowed from W. Roscher, etc ), in other
words, serves up with a scientific sauce the desiderata of West-European
capitalist farmers: “long leases” (“what is needed is
. . . ‘ efficient’ use of the land by . . . the peasant,” p. 371) and moderate rents that leave the tenant enough to
cover wages, interest and the repayment of invested capital, and
employer’s profit (373). And Mr. Karyshev is not in the least
disturbed by the fact that this sort of theory” appears side by side
with the usual Narodnik recipe: “avert” (398). In order to
“avert” capitalist farming Mr. Karyshev advances the “theory” of capitalist farming! This sort of
“conclusion” naturally crowned the basic contradiction in the
book by Mr. Karyshev who, on the one hand, shares all the Narodnik
prejudices and wholeheartedly sympathises with such classical
theoreticians of the petty bourgeoisie as Sismondi (see Karyshev,
Perpetual Hereditary Land Hire on the European Continent , Moscow,
1885), but on the other hand, cannot avoid the admission that land renting
gives an “impetus” (p. 396) to the differentiation of the
peasantry, that the “better-off strata” oust the poorer, and
that the development of agrarian relations leads precisely to agricultural
wage-labour (p. 397)— Lenin

[6]
Even this figure (about 1/5 of all the establishments) is, of course, an
exaggeration, for the category of non-sowing and horseless and one-horse
peasants lumps agricultural labourers, unskilled labourers, etc., together
with non-cultivators (shopkeepers, artisans, etc.).— Lenin

[7]
It is quite possible that in the central black-earth gubernias, like Orel,
Voronezh and others, the differentiation of the peasantry is indeed much
feebler, because of land-poverty, heavy taxation and the wide prevalence
of the labour-service system: all these are circumstances retarding
differentiation.— Lenin

[8]
See A. N. Engelhardt, From the Countryside . 11 Letters . 1872-1882, St. Petersburg, 1885. In 1937 this book was
republished by the Publishing House for Social and Economic Literature,
Moscow.

| | VIII. Review Of Zemstvo Statistics For
Other Gubernias | | | X. Summary Of Zemstvo Statistics And Army-Horse
Census Returns | |

# Summary of Zemstvo Statistics and Army-Horse Census Returns

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8ii/ii8x.htm

Chapter II. The Differentiation of the Peasantry

### X. Summary Of Zemstvo Statistics And Army-Horse Census

Returns [5]

We have shown that the relation of the top to the bottom group of the
peasantry bears the very features that characterise the relation of the
rural bourgeoisie to the rural proletariat; that these relationships are
remarkably similar in the most varied localities with the most varied
conditions; that even their numerical expression (i.e., percentages of the
groups in the total area under crops, number of animals, etc.) fluctuates
within limits that, comparatively speaking, are very small. The question
naturally arises: how far can these data on the relationships between the
groups in the different localities be utilised for forming an idea of the
groups into which the entire Russian peasantry is divided? In other words,
what returns can enable us to judge the composition of, and the
interrelation between, the top and the bottom groups of the entire Russian
peasantry?

There are very few of these returns, for no agricultural censuses are
taken in Russia that register all the crop raising farms in the
country. The only material by which we can judge into which economic
groups our peasantry is divided is the combined Zemstvo statistics and the
army horse census. returns showing the distribution of draught animals (or
horses) among the peasant households. Meagre as this material is, one can nevertheless draw from it conclusions
(certainly very general, approximate, aggregate) that are not without
interest, particularly since the ratio of peasants with many horses to
those with few has already been analysed and found to be remarkably
similar in the most varied localities.

According to the data in Mr. Blagoveshchensky’s Combined Zemstvo House-to-House Census Economic Returns (Vol. I, Peasant Farming , Moscow, 1893), [6] the Zemstvo censuses covered 123 uyezds in 22
gubernias, having 2,983,733 peasant households and a population of
17,996,317 persons of both sexes. But the data on the distribution of
households according to draught animals are not everywhere of the same
kind. Thus, in three gubernias we have to omit

11 uyezds [1] where the households are classified not in
four, but in only three groups. For the remaining 112 uyezds in 21 gubernias we get the following combined figures covering nearly 2 1/2
million households with a population of 15 million:

These data cover slightly less than one-fourth of the total peasant
households in European Russia (the Combined Statistical Material on the Economic Position of the Rural Population in European Russia ,
published by the Chancellery of the Committee of Ministers, St. Petersburg, 1894, considers that in the
50 gubernias of European Russia there are 11,223,962 households in the
volosts, including 10,589,967 peasant households). For the whole of Russia
we have data on the distribution of horses among the peasants in
Statistics of the Russian Empire . XX. Army-Horse Census of 1888 (St. Petersburg, 1891), and Statistics of the Russian Empire . XXXI. Army-Horse Census of 1891 (St. Petersburg,
1894). The first publication contains an analysis of the data collected in
1888 for 41 gubernias (including the 10 gubernias in the Kingdom of
Poland), and the second for 18 gubernias in European Russia, plus the
Caucasus, the Kalmyk Steppe and the Don Military Region.

Singling out 49 gubernias in European Russia (the returns for Don Region
are not complete) and combining the data for 1888 and 1891, we get the
following picture of the distribution of the total number of horses
belonging to the peasants in village communities .

Thus, all over Russia the distribution of draught horses among the
peasantry is very close to the “average” degree of differentiation we have depicted in our chart. Actually, the
disintegration is even somewhat deeper: in the hands of 22 per cent of the
households (2.2 million out of 10.2 million) are concentrated 9 1/2
million horses out of 17 million, i.e., 56.3% of the total number. A vast
mass of 2.8 million households has none at all, while 2.9 million one-horse households have only 17.2% of the total number of horses. [3]

Taking as our basis the above-established regularities in the relationship
between the groups, we can now ascertain the real significance of these
data. If a fifth of the households possesses a half of the total number of
horses, one may unerringly conclude that no less (and probably more) than
half the total peasant agricultural production is in their hands. Such a
concentration of production is possible only where this well-to-do
peasantry concentrates in its hands the major part of the purchased lands
and of peasant-rented land, both non-allotment and allotment. It is this
well-to-do minority who mainly do the buying and renting of land, despite
the fact that in all probability they are best supplied with allotment
land. While the “average” Russian peasant in the very best of
times barely makes ends meet (and it is doubtful whether he does), the
well-to-do minority, whose circumstances are considerably above the
average, not only cover all their expenditure by independent farming, but
also obtain a surplus. And this means that they are commodity producers,
that they grow agricultural produce for sale. More, they turn into a rural
bourgeoisie, combining with relatively large-scale crop farms commercial
and industrial enterprises,—we have seen that it is precisely
“industries” of this kind that are most typical of the Russian
“enterprising” muzhik. Despite the fact that their families
are the largest, that they have the largest number of family workers
(these features have always been characteristic of the well-to-do
peasantry, and the 1/5 of the households should account for a large share
of the

population, approximately 3/10 ), the well-to-do minority employ permanent
farm labourers and day labourers on the biggest scale. Of the total number
of Russian peasant farms that resort to the hiring of labourers, a
considerable majority should be those of this well-to-do minority. We are
justified in drawing this conclusion both on the basis of the preceding
analysis and from a comparison between the proportion of the population
represented by this group and the share it has of the total number of
draught animals, and hence of the cultivated area, of farming in
general. Lastly, only this well-to-do minority can take a steady part in
the “progressive trends in peasant farming.” [7] Such should be the
relation between this minority and the rest of the peasantry; but it goes
without saying that this relation assumes different forms and manifests
itself in other ways depending on differences in agrarian conditions,
systems of farming and forms of commercial agriculture. [4]

The main trends of peasant differentiation are one thing; the forms it assumes, depending on
the different local conditions, are another.

The position of the horseless and one-horse peasants is the very
opposite. We have seen above that the Zemstvo statisticians put even the
latter (to say nothing of the former) in the category of the rural
proletariat. Thus, we hardly exaggerate in our approximate calculation,
which places in the category of the rural proletariat all the horseless
and up to 3/4 of the one-horse peasants (about half the total
households). These peasants, who are worst provided with allotment land,
often lease out their allotments because of lack of implements, seed,
etc. Of the total peasant-rented and purchased land theirs are but
miserable scraps. Their farms will never yield enough for subsistence, and
their main source of livelihood is “industries” or “employments,” i.e., the sale of their labour-power. These are
a class of wage-workers with allotments, permanent farm labourers, day
labourers, unskilled labourers, building workers, etc., etc.

---
Notes:
[1]
5 uyezds in Saratov Gubernia, 5 in Samara Gubernia, and 1
in Bessarabia Gubernia.— Lenin

[2]
To horses are added oxen, calculated at a pair for one horse.— Lenin

[3]
The way the distribution of horses among the peasantry has been changing
latterly can be judged from the following data of the army horse census of
1893-1894 ( Statistics of the Russian Empire , XXXVII). In 38
gubernias of European Russia there were in 1893-1894: 8,288,987 peasant
households; of these, horseless were 2,641,754, or 31.9%;
one-horse—31.4%; 2-horse—20.2%; 3-horse—8.7%; 4-horse and over—7.8%. The horses owned by the peasants numbered 11,560,358
of which 22.5% belonged to the one-horse peasants, 28.9% to the 2-horse;
18.8% to the 3-horse and 29.8% to those with many horses. Thus, 16.5% of
the peasants, the well-to-do, owned 48.6% of the total number of horses.— Lenin

[4]
It is quite possible, for example, that in dairy-farming districts it
would be much more correct to classify according to the number of cows
held and not according to the number of horses. Where market gardening
prevails, neither index can be satisfactory, etc.— Lenin

[5]
Army-horse censuses —a register of the number of horses fit
for army service in case of mobilisation, was, as a rule, taken in tsarist
Russia every six years. The first census was taken in 1876 in 33 gubernias
in the west of Russia. The second census was taken in 1882 and covered the
whole of European Russia, the results being published in 1884 under the
title Horse Census of 1882 . In 1888 a census was taken in 41
gubernias, and in 1891 in the remaining 18 gubernias and in the
Caucasus. The examination of the data gathered was undertaken by the
Central Statistical Committee, which published them in the abstracts:
Statistics of the Russian Empire . XX . Army-Horse Census of 1888 (St. Petersburg, 1891) and Statistics of the Russian Empire . XXXI . Army-Horse Census of 1891
(St. Petersburg 1894). The next census was taken in the years 1893-1894
and covered 38 gubernias of European Russia, the results being published
under the title Statistics of the Russian Empire . XXXVII . Army-Horse Census of 1893 and 1894
(St. Petersburg, 1896). Data of the army-horse census for the years
1899-1901, covering 43 gubernias of European Russia, one Caucasian
gubernia and the Kalmyk steppe of the Astrakhan Gubernia made up Vol. LV
of the Statistics of the Russian Empire (St. Petersburg,
1902).

The army-horse censuses were investigations that covered all the
peasant farms. In his book, Lenin utilised the census material when
examining the process of the differentiation of the peasantry.

[6]
Lenin made a detailed analysis of the material contained in
Blagoveshchensky’s compilation in a special notebook and in the
remarks he wrote in the margins. These have been published in Lenin Miscellany XXXIII , pp. 89-99.

[7]
Lenin refers here to the title of the previously mentioned essay by the
Liberal Narodnik, Vorontsov (V. V.), that appeared in 1892.

| | IX. Summary Of The Above Zemstvo Statistics
On The Differentiation Of The Peasantry | | | XI. A Comparison of the Army-Horse Censuses
of 1888-1891 and 1896-1900 | |

# A Comparison of the Army-Horse Censuses of 1888-1891 and 1896-1900

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8ii/ii8xi.htm

Chapter II. The Differentiation of the Peasantry

### XI. A Comparison of the Army-Horse Censuses of 1888-1891 and 1896-1900

The army-horse censuses of 1896 and 1899-1900 enable us now to compare the
latest data with those quoted above.

By combining the 5 southern gubernias (1896) with 43 of the rest
(1899-1900), we get the following data for 48 gubernias of European
Russia:

For 1888-1891 we cited data for 49 gubernias. Of these, the latest data
are lacking only for one, namely, Archangel Gubernia. Subtracting the
figures for this gubernia from those given above, we get for the same 48
gubernias in 1888-1891 the following picture:

A comparison of 1888-1891 and 1896-1900 reveals the growing expropriation
of the peasantry. The number of households increased by nearly 1
million. The number of horses diminished, although very slightly. The
number of horseless households increased with particular rapidity, and
their percentage rose from 27.3 to 29.2. Instead of 5.6 million poor
peasants (horseless and one-horse), we now have

6.6 million. The entire increase in the number of households has gone to enlarging the number of
poor ones. The percentage of households rich in horses diminished. Instead
of 2.2 million households with many horses, we have only 2 million. The
number of middle and well-to-do households combined (with 2 and more
horses) remained almost stationary (4,465,000 in 1888-1891 and 4,508,000
in 1896 1900).

Thus the conclusions to be drawn from these data are as follows.

The increasing poverty and expropriation of the peasantry is beyond doubt.

As for the relation of the top group of the peasantry to the bottom one,
this remained almost unchanged. If, in the manner described above, we
constitute the bottom groups of 50% of the households and the top groups
of 20% of the households, we shall get the following: in 1888-1891 the
poor, 50% of the households, had 13.7% of the horses. The rich, 20% of the
households, had 52.6%. In 1896-1900 the poor, 50% of the households, also
had 13.7% of the total peasant-owned horses, while the rich, 20% of the
households, had 53.2% of the total number of horses. Consequently, the
relationship between the groups remained almost unchanged.

Lastly, the peasantry as a whole became poorer in horses. Both the number
and the percentage of the many-horse households decreased. On the one
hand, this evidently marks the decline of peasant farming generally in
European Russia. On the other hand, one must not forget that the number of
horses employed in agriculture in Russia is abnormally high for the area
cultivated. It could not be other wise in a small-peasant country. The
drop in the number of horses consequently represents to a certain degree
“the restoration of the normal proportion between the number of
draught animals and the amount of arable” among the peasant bourgeoisie (see Mr. V. V.’s arguments on this point above, in
Chapter II, § 1).

It will be appropriate here to touch on the arguments on this question in
the latest works of Mr. Vikhlyayev (“Sketches of Russian
Agricultural Reality,” St. Petersburg, published by the magazine
Khozyain [ Farmer ]) and of

Mr. Chernenkov ( A Characterisation of Peasant Farming , Part I, Moscow, 1905). They were
so carried away by the diversity of the figures on the distribution of
horses among the peasantry that they turned economic analysis into a
statistical exercise. Instead of studying the types of peasant farm (day
labourer, middle peasant, entrepreneur), they make a study, like amateurs,
of endless columns of figures, just as though they have set out to
astonish the world by their arithmetical zeal.

Only thanks to such play with figures was Mr. Chernenkov able to fling the
objection at me that I am “prejudiced” in interpreting “differentiation” as a new (and not old) and for some reason
completely capitalist phenomenon. Mr. Chernenkov was, of course, free to
think that I was drawing conclusions from statistics and forgetting
economics!—that I was proving something from a mere change in the
number and the distribution of horses! To view intelligently the
differentiation of the peasantry, one must take the picture as a whole:
the renting of land, the purchase of land, machines, outside employments,
the growth of commercial agriculture, and wage-labour. Or maybe
Mr. Chernenkov considers these also are neither “new” nor
“capitalist” phenomena?

| | X. Summary Of Zemstvo Statistics And Army-Horse
Census Returns | | | XII. Zemstvo Statistics On Peasant Budgets | |

# Zemstvo Statistics on Peasant Budgets

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8ii/ii8xii.htm

Chapter II. The Differentiation of the Peasantry

### XII. Zemstvo Statistics On Peasant Budgets

To finish with the problem of the differentiation of the peasantry, let us
examine it from yet another aspect—that of the highly specific data
of peasant budgets. We shall thus see clearly how profound is the
difference between the types of peasantry under discussion.

In the appendix to Evaluation Returns on Peasant Landownership in Zemlyansk , Zadonsk , Korotoyak and Nizhnedevitsk Uyezds (Voronezh, 1889) there are “statistics on the
composition and budgets of typical farms,” which are distinguished
for their extraordinary completeness. [1]

Of the

67 budgets we leave out one, as being quite incomplete (budget No. 14 for
Korotoyak Uyezd), and divide the rest into six groups according to draught
animals, as follows: a —with no hoses; b —with
1 horse; c —with 2 horses; d —with 3 horses; e —with 4 horses and f —with 5 horses and more
(we shall designate the groups only by these letters a to
f ). True, classification along these lines is not quite suitable
for this locality (in view of the enormous significance of
“industries” in the economy of both the bottom groups and the
top), but we have to take it for the sake of comparing the budget data
with the above-examined house-to-house census data. Such a comparison can
only be made by dividing the “peasantry” into groups, whereas
general and all-round “averages” are purely fictitious, as we
have seen and shall see further on. [2]

Let us note here, incidentally, the interesting phenomenon that “average” budget figures nearly always
characterise the farm of above average type, i.e., they picture the facts
in a better light than they actually are. [3]

This happens, probably, because the very term “budget” presupposes a farm that is balanced to at least a
minimum degree, a kind that is not easily found among the poor. To
illustrate this let us compare the budget and other data of the
households, classified according to draught animals held.

This makes it clear that the budget figures can only be used by striking
the average for each separate group of peasants. This is what we have done
with the data mentioned. We give them under three headings: (A) general
budget results; (B) characterisation of crop farming; and (C)
characterisation of the standard of living.

(A) The general data regarding the magnitude of expenditure and income are
as follows:

Thus, the sizes of the budgets of the different groups vary enormously;
even if we leave aside the extreme groups, the budget in e is over five times that in b , whereas the
size of the family in e is less than three times that in
b .

Let us examine the distribution of expenditures [4] :

It is sufficient to glance at the farm expenditure as compared with the
total expenditure for each group to see that here we have both
proletarians and proprietors : in group a the farm expenditure is
only 14% of the total expenditure, whereas in group f it is
61%. The differences in the absolute figures of farm expenditure go
without saying. Such expenditure is negligible in the case not only of the
horseless but also of the one-horse peasant, and the one-horse
“peasant” is much closer to the ordinary type (in capitalist
countries) of allotment-holding farm labourer and day labourer. Let us
also note the very considerable differences in the percentage of
expenditure on food ( a ’s nearly double f ’s); as we know, a big percentage is evidence of a low standard
of living and is what most sharply differentiates the budget of the
proprietor from that of the worker .

Now let us take the items of income  [5] :

Thus, income from “industries” exceeds the gross income from
agriculture in the two extreme groups: the proletarian horseless peasant,
and the rural entrepreneur. The “personal industries” of the
bottom peasant groups consist, of course, mainly of work for hire, while
income from the leasing of land is an important item in the
“miscellaneous incomes.” The group of “independent farmers” even includes those whose income from the leasing of land
is slightly less, and sometimes even more, than the gross income from
agriculture. For example, in the case of one horseless peasant, the gross
income from agriculture is 61.9 rubles, and from the leasing of land 40
rubles; in the case of another, the income from agriculture is 31.9 rubles
and from the leasing of land 40 rubles. It must not be forgotten,
furthermore, that the income from the leasing of land and from farm
labouring goes entirely to cover the personal needs of the
“peasant,” while from the gross agricultural income we must
deduct expenditure on the conduct of the farm. After making this
deduction, we shall find that the net income of the horseless peasant from agriculture is 41.99 rubles, and from
“industries” 59.04 rubles, and in the case of the one-horse
peasant, 69.37 and 49.22 rubles. The mere juxtaposition of these figures
shows that we have before us types of agricultural labourers with
allotments which cover part of the subsistence expenditure (and because of
this reduce wages). To confuse such types of peasants with
proprietors (agriculturists and industrialists) means blatantly
to disregard all the requirements of scientific research.

At the other pole of the countryside we see just such proprietors
as combine with independent crop farming commercial and industrial
operations which yield an income that is considerable (under the given
standard of living) and amounts to several hundred rubles. The utter
indefiniteness of the heading “personal industries” conceals
the differences between the bottom and the top groups in this respect, but
the very size of the incomes from these “personal industries”
reveals the extent of this difference (let us remind the reader that in
the Voronezh statistics the category “personal industries” may
include begging, agricultural labouring, service as steward, manager,
etc., etc.).

As regards the size of net income, the horseless and one-horse peasants
again stand out very sharply, with their most miserable
“balances” (1 to 2 rubles) and even deficits on the money
side. The resources of these peasants are no larger, if not smaller, than
those of wage-workers. Only beginning with the 2-horse peasants do we see
at least some net incomes and balances of a few dozen rubles (without
which there cannot be the slightest question of proper farming). Among the
well-to-do peasantry net incomes reach sums (120 to 170 rubles) that raise
them well above the general level of the Russian working class. [6]

Naturally, the combining of workers and employers in one category and the
striking of an “average” budget provide a picture of “moderate sufficiency” and of a “moderate” net
income: income 491 rubles, expenditure 443 rubles, balance 48 rubles,
including 18 rubles in cash. But that sort of average is absolutely
fictitious. It simply conceals the utter poverty of the mass of peasants
in the bottom groups ( a and b , i.e., 30 budgets out of
66), who with their trivial incomes (120 to 180 rubles per family
gross income) are unable to make ends meet and live mainly by
regular farm labouring and day labouring.

An exact calculation of income and expenditure in cash and kind enables us
to determine the relation of the differentiation of the peasantry to the
market , for which only cash income and expenditure are
important. The proportion of the cash part of the budget to the total
budget in the various groups is as follows:

We see, consequently, that the percentage of the cash income and
expenditure increases (expenditure with particular regularity) from the middle groups to the extreme ones . The farming is of the most
sharply expressed commercial character in the case of the peasant with no
horses and of the one with many. This means that both live mainly by
selling commodities, except that in the one instance the commodity is labour-power, while in the other it is goods produced for sale, with
(as we shall see) a considerable employment of wage-labour, i.e., a
product that assumes the form of capital. In other words, these budgets
also show that the differentiation of the peasantry creates a home market for capitalism by converting the peasant into a farm labourer,
on the one hand, and into a small-commodity producer, a petty bourgeois,
on the other.

Another, and no less important, deduction from these data, is that in all the peasant groups farming has to a very large extent become commercial , has become dependent upon the market: in no case does the
cash part of income or expenditure fall below 40%. And this percentage
must be regarded as a high one, for we are discussing the gross incomes of
small agriculturists, in which even the maintenance of cattle is included,
i.e., straw, bran, etc. [7]

Evidently, even the peasantry in the central black-earth belt (where money economy is, on the whole, more feebly
developed than in the industrial belt, or in the outlying steppe regions)
cannot exist at all without buying and selling and are already completely
dependent on the market, on the power of money . It is needless to
say how tremendously important this fact is, and how grave the error our
Narodniks commit when they try to hush it up, [8] being carried away by their sympathies
for the natural economy which has passed out of existence never to
return. In modern society it is impossible to exist without selling, and
anything that retards the development of commodity production merely
results in a worsening of the conditions of the producers. “The
disadvantages of the capitalist mode of production,” says Marx,
speaking of the peasant, “. . . coincide here therefore with the
disadvantages occasioned by the imperfect development of the capitalist
mode of production. The peasant turns merchant and industrialist without
the

conditions enabling him to produce his products as commodities”
( Das Kapital , III, 2, 346. Russ. trans.,

p. 671). [29]

Let us observe that the budget data utterly refute the view, still fairly
widespread, that taxes play an important part in the development of
commodity production. Undoubtedly, quit-rents and taxes were at one time
an important factor in the development of exchange, but at the present
time commodity economy has become firmly established, and the
indicated importance of taxes is becoming altogether secondary. A
comparison of the expenditure on taxes and duties with the peasants’
total cash expenditure shows a ratio of 15.8% (for the respective groups
it is: a —24.8%; b —21.9%; c —19.3%; d —18.8%; e —15.4% and
f —9.0%). Hence, the maximum expenditure on taxes is one
third of the remaining cash expenditure unavoidably incurred by the
peasant under the present conditions of social economy. If, however, we do
not take the role of taxes in the development of exchange, but take them
relative to the income, we shall see that it is an excessively high
one. How heavily the traditions of the pre-Reform epoch weigh down upon
the peasant of today is seen most strikingly in the existence of taxes
which absorb one-seventh of the gross expenditure of the small farmer, or
even of the allotment-holding farm labourer. Moreover, the distribution of
taxes within the village community is astonishingly uneven: the better off
the peasant, the smaller the part of his total expenditure that goes in
taxes. The horseless peasant pays in proportion to his income nearly three
times as much as the peasant owning many horses (see above, table on
distribution of expenditure). We speak of the distribution of taxes within
the village community, because if we calculate the amount of taxes and
duties per dessiatine of allotment land, it will be found to be nearly
uniform. After all that has been stated, this unevenness should not
astonish us; it is inevitable in our village community, so long as the
village community retains its compulsory, feudal character. As we know,
the peasants share all taxes according to land held: share of taxes and
share of land merge in their minds in the one concept “soul,”
or

person. [9]

As

we have seen, however, the differentiation of the peasantry leads to a
diminution of the role of allotment land at both poles of the contemporary
countryside. Naturally, under such conditions the distribution of taxes
according to allotment land held (which is inseparably connected with the
compulsory nature of the village community) leads to the shifting of the
tax burden from the well-to-do peasants to the poor. The village
community (i.e., collective responsibility [30] with no right to refuse land) becomes
more and more harmful to the peasant poor. [10] (B) Passing to the characterisation of peasant farming, let us start by
citing general data on the farms:

From this table it is evident that the relationship existing between the
groups in regard to the leasing out and the renting of land, size of
families and area under crops, hiring of farm labourers, etc., is
identical with that shown by the budget data and the above-examined mass
data. But that is not all: the absolute figures on the economy of each
group also prove to be very close to the data for whole uyezds. Here is a
comparison of the budget and above examined data:

Thus, the position of the horseless and one-horse peasants in all the
localities indicated is almost identical, so that the budget data may be
regarded as sufficiently typical.

We cite data on the property and implements of the peasant farms in the
different groups.

This table graphically illustrates the difference in the extent to which
the various groups are provided with implements and livestock, a point we
mentioned above on the basis of the mass data. We see here the completely
different degree to which the various groups hold property, this
difference being such that even the horses of the poor peasant are very
different from those of the affluent peasant. [12]

The horse of the one-horse peasant is a veritable “living
fraction”—not a “quarter of a horse,” to be sure, but fully “twenty-seven fifty-seconds” of a horse! [13]
[31]

Let us take further the data regarding the items of farm expenditure. [14]

These data are very eloquent. They strikingly reveal to us how utterly
wretched is the “farm” not only of the horseless but also of
the one-horse peasant; and how utterly wrong is the customary method of
lumping such peasants with the few but powerful peasants who spend
hundreds of rubles on their farms, are in a position to improve their
implements, hire “working folk,” and “buy in” land on a large scale, renting to the amount of 50, 100 and 200 rubles a year. [15]

Let us note, by the way, that the relatively high expenditure of the horseless
peasant on “labourers and job-work” is very likely to be
explained by the fact that the statisticians have placed under this
heading two entirely different things: the hiring of a worker who has to
work with his employer’s implements, i.e., the hiring of a farm
labourer or day labourer; and the hiring of a neighbouring peasant who has
with his own implements to cultivate the hirer’s land. These types
of “hire,” diametrically opposite in significance, must be strictly distinguished from one another,
as is done, for example, by V. Orlov (see Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. 1).

Let us now examine the data on income from agriculture. Unfortunately, in
the Returns these data are far too inadequately analysed (partly,
maybe, because of their paucity). For example, the question of yield is
not examined: there is no information on the sale of each particular kind
of produce and on the conditions of sale. Let us therefore confine
ourselves to the following brief table:

What immediately strikes one in this table is the glaring exception: the
huge drop in the percentage of cash income from agriculture in the top
group, despite the fact that it cultivates the biggest area. Farming on
the biggest scale is thus apparently in the greatest degree natural
economy. It will be extremely interesting to make a closer examination of
this seeming exception, which throws light on the highly important
question of the connection between agriculture and “industries” of an entrepreneur character. As we have already
seen, the significance of industries of this type is particularly great in
the budgets of the peasants owning many horses. Judging from the data
under examination, especially typical of the peasant bourgeoisie in this
locality is the tendency to combine agriculture with commercial and industrial enterprises. [16]

It
is not difficult to see, firstly, that it is wrong to compare farmers of
this type with cultivators pure and simple, and, secondly, that
agriculture under such circumstances very often only seems to be
natural economy. When agriculture is combined with the technical
processing of agricultural produce (flour milling, oil-pressing,
potato-starch manufacture, distilling, etc.), the money income from such
farming may be assigned to income from the industrial establishments and
not from agriculture. Actually, indeed, the agriculture in this case will
be commercial, not natural, economy. The same thing has to be said of the
farm in which a mass of agricultural produce is consumed in kind on the
maintenance of farm labourers and of horses employed on some industrial
enterprise (for example, mail-carrying). And it is precisely this type of
farm that we have among the top group (budget No. 1 in Korotoyak
Uyezd. Family of 18 persons, 4 working members, 5 farm labourers, 20
horses; income from agriculture—1,294 rubles, nearly all in kind,
and from industrial enterprises—2,675 rubles. And such a
“natural-economy peasant farm” is combined with the horseless
and one-horse farms for the purpose of striking a general
“average”}. This example shows us once again how important it
is to combine classification according to scale and type of agricultural
activity with classification according to scale and type of
“industrial” activity.

(C) Let us now examine the data on the peasants’ standard of
living. Expenditure on food in kind is given incompletely in the
Returns . We single out the most important items: agricultural
produce and meat. [17]

This table shows that we were right in combining the horseless and
one-horse peasants and contrasting them to the rest. The distinguishing
feature of the groups of peasants mentioned is insufficiency of food and
its inferior quality (potatoes). The food of the one-horse peasant is in
some respects even worse than that of the horseless peasant. The general
“average” even on this question is entirely fictitious, the
insufficient nourishment of the mass of the peasants being obscured by the
satisfactory nourishment of the well-off peasantry, who consume almost one
and a half times as much agricultural produce and three times as much meat [18] as do the
poor peasants.

For the purpose of comparing the remaining data on the peasants’
food, all produce must be taken at its value—in rubles:

Thus, the general data on the peasants’ food confirm what has been
said above. Three groups stand out clearly: the bottom group (horseless
and one-horse), the middle group (two and three-horse), and the top group,
whose food is nearly twice as good as that of the bottom one. The general
“average” wipes out both extreme groups. Cash expenditure on
food is highest, both absolutely and relatively, in the two extreme
groups—among the rural proletarians and the rural bourgeoisie. The
former buy more, although they consume less, than the middle peasants;
they buy the most essential agricultural produce, that of which they
suffer a shortage. The latter buy more because they consume more,
increasing particularly their consumption of non-agricultural produce. A
comparison of these two extreme groups shows us clearly how a home market
is created in a capitalist country for articles of personal consumption. [21]

The remaining items of expenditure on personal consumption are as follows:

It is not always correct to calculate this expenditure per head of both
sexes, because the cost of fuel, lighting, household effects, etc., for
example, is not proportionate to the number of members of the family.

These data also show the division of the peasantry (according to standard
of living) into three different groups. Moreover, the following
interesting peculiarity comes to light: the cash part of the expenditure
on all personal consumption is highest in the bottom groups (in
group a about half the expenditure is in money), whereas in the
top groups the cash expenditure does not increase, amounting to only about
a third. How can this be reconciled with the above noted fact that, in
general, the percentage of money expenditure increases in both extreme
groups? Obviously in the top groups the cash expenditure is
incurred mainly on productive consumption (expenditure on the
farm), whereas in the bottom groups it is on personal consumption . Here are the exact data on this:

Consequently, the transformation of the peasantry into a rural proletariat
creates a market mainly for articles of consumption, whereas its
transformation into a rural bourgeoisie creates a market mainly for means
of production. In other words, among the bottom groups of the
“peasantry” we observe the transformation of labour-power into
a commodity, and in the top ones the transformation of means of production
into capital. Both these transformations result in precisely that process
of the creation of a home market which theory has established for
capitalist countries in general. That is why F. Engels, writing on the
famine of 1891, said that it signified the creation of a home market for capitalism [32] —a
proposition that is unintelligible to the Narodniks, who regard the ruin of the peasantry merely as the decay of
“people’s production,” and not as the transformation of
patriarchal into capitalist economy.

Mr. N.–on has written a whole book on the home market, without noticing
the process of the creation of a home market by the differentiation of the
peasantry. In his article “How Are We to Explain the Increase in Our
State Revenues?” ( Novoye Slovo [ New Word ], 1896, No. 5, February) he deals with this question in the following argument:
the tables of the income of the American worker show that the lower the
income, the larger is the relative expenditure on food. Consequently, with
a decline in food consumption there is a still greater decline in the consumption of other
products. And in Russia there is a decline in the consumption of bread and
vodka; hence there is also a decline in the consumption of other products,
from which it follows that the greater consumption of the well-to-do
“stratum” (p. 70) of the peasantry is more than balanced by
the diminution of the consumption of the masses.—This argument
contains three errors: firstly, by substituting the worker for the
peasant, Mr. N.–on skips over the question; the point at issue is the
process of the creation of workers and employers . Secondly, by substituting the worker for the peasant,
Mr. N.–on reduces all consumption to personal consumption and forgets
about productive consumption, about the market for means of
production. Thirdly, Mr. N.–on forgets that the process of the
differentiation of the peasantry is at the same time one of the
displacement of natural by commodity economy, that, consequently, the
market cannot be created by increasing consumption, but by transforming
consumption in kind (even if more abundant) into cash or paying
consumption (even if less abundant). We have just seen that the horseless
peasants consume less, but buy more articles of personal consumption than
the middle peasantry. They become poorer, but at the same time receive and
spend more money,—and both these sides of the process are necessary
for

capitalism. [22]

In conclusion, let us make use of the budget figures to compare the
standard of living of the peasants and the rural workers. Calculating the
extent of personal consumption, not per head, but per adult working person
(according to the rates of the Nizhni-Novgorod statisticians in the above
mentioned compilation), we get the following table:

To compare the data on the standard of living of rural workers with this,
we may take, firstly, average prices of labour. For 10 years (1881-1891)
the average pay of a farm labourer hired by the year in Voronezh Gubernia
was 57 rubles, and including keep, 99 rubles, [23] so that keep cost 42 rubles. The
amount of personal consumption by allotment-holding farm labourers and day
labourers (horseless and one-horse peasants) is below this level. The
total cost of a family’s keep amounts to only 78 rubles in the case
of the horseless “peasant” (in a family of 4) and 98 rubles in
the case of the one-horse “peasant” (in a family of 5), i.e.,
less than the cost of a farm labourer’s keep . (We have
omitted from the budgets of the horseless and one-horse peasants farm
expenditure and also taxes and duties, for in this locality the allotment
is leased at not less than the amount of the taxes.) As was to be
expected, the position of the labourer who is tied to his allotment is
worse than that of the labourer who is free from such tie (we say nothing
of the tremendous degree to which the tying of people down to allotments
develops relations of bondage and personal dependence). The cash
expenditure of the farm labourer is far higher than the cash expenditure
on personal consumption of the one-horse and horseless peasant.

Consequently, the tying of people down to allotments retards the growth of
the home market.

Secondly, we can make use of Zemstvo statistics on consumption by farm
labourers. Let us take from the Statistical Returns for Orel Gubernia the data on Karachev Uyezd (Vol. V, Pt. 2, 1892), which are
based on information concerning 158 cases of agricultural wage-labour. [24]

Converting the monthly ration into one for a year, we get the following:

Consequently, the standard of living of the one-horse and horseless
peasants is not higher than that of farm labourers , and if
anything rather approximates to the minimum standard of living of the
latter.

The general conclusion from our review of the data on the bottom group of
the peasantry is, accordingly, the following: both in its relation to the
other groups, which are ousting the bottom section of the peasantry from
agriculture, in its scale of farming, which covers only part of the
expenditure on maintaining the family, in its source of livelihood (sale
of labour-power), and, lastly, in its standard of living, this group should be assigned to the
allotment-holding farm labourers and day labourers . [26]

In thus concluding our exposition of the Zemstvo statistics on peasant
budgets, we cannot but stop to examine the methods of treating the budget
data employed by Mr. Shcherbina, the compiler of Evaluation Returns and author of the article on peasant budgets in the
well-known book The Influence of Harvests and Grain Prices ,
etc.

(Vol. II). [33]
Mr. Shcherbina states on some point in the
Returns that he is using the theory “of the well-known political economist K. Marx” (p. 111); as a matter of fact, he
positively distorts this theory, confusing the difference between constant
and variable capital with the difference between fixed and circulating
capital ( ibid .), and quite senselessly applying these terms and
categories of developed capitalism to peasant farming ( passim ),
etc. The whole of Mr. Shcherbina’s treatment of the budget figures
is nothing but a gross and incredible abuse of “average
magnitudes.” All the evaluation returns concern the “average” peasant. The income from the land computed for the 4
uyezds is divided by the number of farms (recall that for the horseless
peasant this income is about 60 rubles per family, and for the rich
peasant about 700 rubles). The “magnitude of constant capital”
( sic !!?) “per farm” (p. 114), i.e., the value of the whole property, is determined; the “average” value of
implements, the average value of commercial and industrial establishments
( sic !) is determined as 15 rubles per farm. Mr. Shcherbina
ignores the detail that these establishments are the private property of
the well-to-do minority, and divides them among all “equally”!
The “average” expenditure on the renting of land (p. 118) is
determined; as we have seen, it amounts to 6 rubles in the case of the one-horse
peasant and to 100 to 200 rubles in the case of the rich peasant. All this
is added together and divided by the number of farms. Even the
“average” expenditure on “repair of capitals” is determined ( ibid .). The Lord alone knows what that means! If it
means replenishment and repair of implements and livestock, here are the
figures we have already cited: with the horseless peasant this expenditure
equals 8 (eight) kopeks per farm, and with the rich peasant
75 rubles . Is it not evident that if we add such “peasant
farms” together and divide by the number of items added, we shall
get the “law of average requirements” discovered by
Mr. Shcherbina in the returns for Ostrogozhsk Uyezd (Vol. II, Pt. 2, 1887)
and so brilliantly applied subsequently? And from such a “law”
it will not be difficult to draw the conclusion that “the peasant
satisfies not his minimum requirements, but their average level”
(p. 123 and many others), that peasant farming is a special “type of
development” (p. 100), etc., etc. This ingenuous device of
“equalising” the rural proletariat and the peasant bourgeoisie
is reinforced by the already familiar classification according to
allotment. Had we applied it, for example, to the budget data, we would
have combined in one group such peasants, for example (in the category of
those having large allotments, with 15 to 25 dess. per family), as: one
who leases half his allotment (of 23.5 dess.) sows 1.3 dess., lives mainly
by means of “personal industries” (how surprisingly well this
sounds!) and secures an income of 190 rubles for 10 persons of both sexes
(budget No. 10 in Korotoyak Uyezd); and another who rents an additional
14.7 dess., sows 23.7 dess., employs farm labourers and has an income of
1,400 rubles for 10 persons of both sexes (budget No. 2 in Zadonsk
Uyezd). Is it not clear that we shall get a special “type of
development” if we add the farms of farm labourers and day labourers
to those of peasants employing workers, and divide the total by the number
of items added? One has only to make regular and exclusive use of
“average” data on peasant farming, and all “false ideas” about the differentiation of the peasantry will be eliminated
once and for all. That is exactly what Mr. Shcherbina does by adopting
this method en grand [27] in his article in the book The Influence of Harvests ,
etc . Here a huge effort is made to calculate the budgets of the
whole of the Russian peasantry—and all by means of the very same,
tried and tested, “averages.” The future historian of Russian
economic literature will note with astonishment that the prejudices of
Narodism caused the most elementary requirements of economic statistics to
be forgotten, namely, that a strict distinction be drawn between employers
and wage-workers, regardless of the form of land tenure that unites them,
and regardless of the multiplicity and variety of the intermediary types
between them.

---
Notes:
[1]
A big defect of these data is, firstly, lack of classification according
to different indices; secondly, lack of text giving that information about
the farms selected which could not be included in the tables (that sort of
text is supplied, for example, to the data on the budgets for Ostrogozhsk
Uyezd). Thirdly, extremely inadequate treatment of data on all
non-agricultural occupations and all sorts of “employments”
(all “industries” are given only 4 columns , whereas the description of clothing and footwear alone takes up 152 columns!).— Lenin

[2]
“Averages” of exclusively this kind are used, for example, by
Mr. Shcherbina both in the publications of the Voronezh Zemstvo and in his
article on peasant budgets in the book The Influence of Harvests and Grain Prices , etc .— Lenin

[3]
This applies, for example, to the budget data for Moscow Gubernia
( Returns , Vols. VI and VII), Vladimir Gubernia ( Industries of Vladimir Gubernia ), Ostrogozhsk Uyezd of Voronezh Gubernia
( Returns , Vol. II, Part 2), and particularly to the budgets cited
in the Transactions of the Commission of Inquiry into Handicraft Industry [34] (of
Vyatka, Kherson, Nizhni-Novgorod, Perm and other gubernias). The budgets
given by Messrs. Karpov and Manokhin in the Transactions and also
by Mr. P. Semyonov (in Material for a Study of the Village Community , St. Petersburg, 1880) and by Mr. Osadchy ( Shcherbani Volost , Elisavetgrad Uyezd , Kherson Gubernia )
compare favourably with the others in that they describe the various
groups of peasants.— Lenin

[4]
The Returns separate all “expenditure on personal and farm
needs other than food” from expenditure on the maintenance of
animals, and under the first heading, expenditures on lighting and on
rent, for example, are put side by side. This is obviously wrong. We have
separated personal from farm (“productive”)
consumption, and under the latter heading we have included expenditure on
tar, rope, horse-shoeing, building repairs, implements, harness; on
labourers and job workers, on herdsman, on the renting of land, and on the
maintenance of animals and poultry.— Lenin

[5]
The item “balances from previous years” consists of grain (in
kind) and cash; here the total figures are given, as we are dealing with
gross expenditure and income, in cash and kind.

The four columns relating to “industries” are copied from the
Returns , which give no other information about the “industries.” Let us observe that in group e , carting
should obviously be put under the heading of industrial establishments; it
furnishes two members of this group with 250 rubles income each, and one
of them employs a farm labourer.— Lenin

[6]
An apparent exception is provided by category e with its big
deficit (41 rubles), which, however, is covered by a loan. This is
explained by the fact that in three of the households (out of the 5 in
this category) they celebrated weddings that cost 200 rubles. (The total
deficit of these 5 households amounted to 206 rubles 90 kopeks.) As a
result, this group’s expenditure on personal consumption, other than
food, rose to the very high figure of 10 rubles 41 kopeks per person of
both sexes, whereas in no other group, not excepting the rich group
( f ), does this expenditure amount to even 6 rubles. Consequently,
this deficit is quite opposite in character to that of the poor
peasants.

It is a deficit resulting not from inability to satisfy minimum
requirements, but from increased requirements out of proportion to the
income of the given year.— Lenin

[7]
Expenditure on the maintenance of cattle is almost entirely in kind: of a
total expenditure of 6,316.21 rubles on this item by the 66 households,
only 1,535.2 rubles were spent in cash, and of this sum 1 , 102.5 rubles were spent by one
farmer -entrepreneur who kept 20 horses, evidently for industrial
use.— Lenin

[8]
This error was particularly often met with in the debates (of 1897) on the
significance of low grain prices. [35] — Lenin

[9]
V. Orlov, Peasant Farming, Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. IV, Pt. I.—Trirogov, The Village Community and the Poll Tax .—Keussler, Zur Geschichte und Krttik des βauerlichen Gemeindebesitzes in Russland ( A Contribution to the History and Critique of Peasant Communal Landownership in Russia . — Ed .).—V. V., The Peasant Community ( Results of Zemstvo Statistical Investigation ,
Vol. 1).— Lenin

[10]
It goes without saying that still greater harm will be done to the peasant
poor by Stolypin’s (November 1906? breaking up of the village
community. This is the Russian “ enrichissez-vous ” (“enrich yourselves”— Ed .). Black
Hundreds—rich peasants! Loot all you can, so long as you bolster up
tottering absolutism! ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[11]
Area under crops not for 4 uyezds, but only for Zadonsk Uyezd, Voronezh
Gubernia.— Lenin

[12]
German agricultural literature includes several monographs by Drechsler
containing data on the weight of the cattle owned by farmers of
various groups, classified according to amount of land held. [36] These data show
even more strikingly than the figures we have cited from Russian Zemstvo
statistics the immeasurably inferior quality of the cattle owned
by the small peasants as compared with those owned by the big peasants,
particularly by the landlords. I hope to analyse these data for the press
in the near future. ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[13]
If these budget standards of the value of buildings, implements and
animals to be found in the various groups of peasants were applied to the
summary data for 49 gubernias of European Russia that were cited above, it
would be seen that one-fifth of the peasant households owns a considerably
larger quantity of means of production than all the rest of the peasantry.— Lenin

[14]
Expenditure on the maintenance of livestock is mostly in kind, the rest of
the farm expenditure is mostly in money.— Lenin

[15]
How dear to the heart of such an “enterprising muzhik” must be
Mr. Karyshev’s “theory of rent” which advocates long leases, lower rents, compensation for improvements, etc. That is just what
he needs.— Lenin

[16]
Of the 12 horseless peasants not one obtains any income from industrial
establishments and undertakings; of the 18 with one horse each, one does;
of the 17 with two horses two do; of the 9 with three horses three do; of
the 5 with four horses two do; of the 5 owning more than 4 horses four do.— Lenin

[17]
Under this head we combine the following items in the Returns :
beef, mutton, pork and lard. Where other cereals are calculated in terms
of rye it is according to the standards in Yanson’s Comparative Statistics adopted by the Nizhni-Novgorod statisticians (see
Material for Gorbatov Uyezd. Basis of calculation: percentage of
absorbable protein). [37] — Lenin

[18]
The extent to which the meat consumption of the village peasants is
smaller than that of town dwellers is seen from even the following
fragmentary data. In Moscow in 1900, cattle weighing about 4 million poods
and of a total value of 18,986,714 rubles 59 kopeks were slaughtered in
the city abattoirs ( Moskovsktve Vedormosti [ Moscow Recorder ], 1901, No. 55). This works out per head, both sexes, at
about 4 poods or nearly 18 rubles per annum. ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[19]
Beef, pork, lard, mutton, butter, dairy produce, poultry and eggs.— Lenin

[20]
Salt, salted and fresh fish, herrings, vodka, beer, tea and sugar.— Lenin

[21]
Of the money expenditure on agricultural produce first place goes to the
purchase of rye, mainly by the poor, then the purchase of vegetables
Expenditure on vegetables is valued at 85 kopeks per head of both sexes
(ranging from 56 kopeks in group b to 1 ruble 31 kopeks in group
e ), including 47 kopeks in money. This interesting fact shows us
that even among the rural population, not to speak or the urban, a market
is created for the produce of one of the forms of commercial agriculture,
namely, market gardening. Expenditure on vegetable oil is 2/3 in kind;
that is to say, in this sphere domestic production and primitive
handicraft still prevail.— Lenin

[22]
This fact, which at first sight seems a paradox, is actually fully in
keeping with the fundamental contradictions of capitalism, which are met
with at every step in real life. That is why close observers of rural life
have been able to note this fact quite independently of theory. “For
the development of his activities,” says Engelhardt about the kulak,
the huckster, etc, “it is important that the peasants should be poor
. . . that the peasants should receive much money” ( Letters from the Countryside , p. 493). Engelhardt’ s sympathy for a
substantial ( sic !!) agricultural life” ( ibid .)
did not prevent him at times from disclosing the most profound
contradictions within the celebrated village community.— Lenin

[23]
Agricultural and Statistical Information Obtained from Farmers . Published by the Department of Agriculture. Vol. V, St,
Petersburg, 1892, S. A. Korolenko, Hired Labour on Farms ,
etc .— Lenin

[24]
The difference between the conditions in Orel and Voronezh gubernias is
slight, and, as we shall see, the data given are of the usual kind. We do
not take the data in the above-mentioned work of S. A. Korolenko (see the
juxtaposition of those data in Mr. Maress’s article in The Influence of Harvests , etc ., I, 11), for even the author
himself admits that Messrs. the landowners from whom these data were
obtained sometimes “were carried away”... .— Lenin

[25]
Computed in the manner stated above.— Lenin

[26]
The Narodniks will probably draw from our comparison between the standard
of living of farm labourers and that of the bottom group of the peasantry,
the conclusion that we “stand for” dispossessing the peasantry
of the land, etc. Such a conclusion will be a wrong one. All that follows
from what has been said is that we “stand for” abolishing all
restrictions on the peasants’ right freely to dispose of their land,
to give up their allotments, and to leave the village community. Only the
peasant himself can be the judge of whether it is more advantageous to be
a farm labourer with an allotment or without one. Hence such restrictions
can on no account and in no way be justified. The defence of these
restrictions by the Narodniks, on the other hand, turns the latter into
servants of the interests of our agrarians.— Lenin

[27]
Extensively.— Ed .

[34]
The Transactions of the Commission of Inquiry into Handicraft Industry in Russia mentioned here and further on constitute a series of 16
volumes, which appeared from time to time in the years 1879 to 1887. The
“Commission of Inquiry into

Handicraft Industry in Russia” (called, for short, the “Handicraft Commission”} was set up in
1874 under the auspices of the Council of Trade and Manufactures, at the
request of the First All-Russia Congress of Owners of Factories and Works,
that took place in 1870. The Commission included representatives of the
Ministries of Finance, Home Affairs, State Properties, and of the Russian
Geographical Society, Free Economic Society, Moscow Agricultural Society,
Russian Technical Society and Society for the Promotion of Russian
Industry and Trade. The valuable material published by the
“Handicraft Commission” in its Transactions were mainly the fruits of the work of local, often little-known,
officials. Lenin, who made a detailed study of the Commission’s
Transactions , drew from them numerous facts and figures showing
the development of capitalist relations in Russia’s handicraft
industry. [p. 149]

[28]
In this column Lenin also includes incomes from fruit growing and stock
raising.

[35]
A paper by Prof. A. I. Chuprov on grain prices was discussed by the Free
Economic Society in March 1897.

The Free Economic Society (F.E.S.) was a privileged scientific body, founded in 1765 with the aim,
as its Statutes indicated of “disseminating information beneficial
to agriculture and industry.” Scientists, from the ranks of liberal
nobles or bourgeoisie, made up the membership of the F.E.S. The Society
undertook investigations by questionnaire and sent out expeditions to
study various branches of the national economy and parts of the country;
it periodically issued Transactions of the F.E.S. , containing the
results of investigations conducted, and verbatim reports of papers read
and of discussions held in the Society’s sections. The
Transactions of the F.E.S. are frequently mentioned by Lenin in
his works.

[29]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 791.

[30]
Collective responsibility —the peasants of each village
community were collectively responsible for making timely and full
payments and for the fulfillment of all sorts of services to the state and
the landlords (payment of taxes and of land redemption installments,
provision of recruits for the army, etc.). This form of bondage, which was
retained even after serfdom was abolished in Russia, was done away with
only in 1906.

[36]
Drechsler’s data are analysed by Lenin in his The Agrarian Question and the “Critics of Marx” (Chapter XI,
“Stock Raising on Small and Large Farms”}. See present edition, Vol. 13. [p. 159]

[31]
The expressions “quarter of a horse” and “living fraction” belong to the writer Gleb Uspensky. See his sketches
Living Figures in the Selected Works of Uspensky, 1938 edition.

[37]
See Y. E. Yanson, Comparative Statistics of Russia and West European Countries . Vol. II. Industry and Trade. Section I. Agricultural
Statistics. St. Petersburg, 1880, pp. 422-423 326, etc.

[32]
The famine of 1891 affected the east and south-east gubernias of European
Russia with particular severity, its scale exceeding all similar
calamities that had befallen the country. It ruined masses of peasants and
at the same time hastened the process of the creation of a home market and
the development of capitalism in Russia. This was dealt with by Engels in
his article “Socialism in Germany.” He also referred to it in
his letters to Nikolai-on dated October 29, 1891, March 15 and June 18,
1892.

[33]
Lenin’s comments on F. A. Shcherbina’s article are published
in the Lenin Miscellany XXXIII , pp. 70-84.

| | XI. A Comparison of the Army-Horse Censuses
of 1888-1891 and 1896-1900 | | | XIII. Conclusions From Chapter II | |

# Conclusions from Chapter II.

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8ii/ii8xiii.htm

Chapter II. The Differentiation of the Peasantry

### XIII. Conclusions From Chapter II

Let us sum up the main points that follow from the data examined above:

1) The social-economic situation in which the contemporary Russian
peasantry find themselves is that of commodity economy. Even in the
central agricultural belt (which is most backward in this respect as
compared with the south eastern border regions or the industrial
gubernias), the peasant is completely subordinated to the market, on which
he is dependent as regards both his personal consumption and his farming,
not to mention the payment of taxes.

2) The system of social-economic relations existing among the peasantry
(agricultural and village-community) shows us the presence of all those
contradictions which are inherent in every commodity economy and every
order of capitalism: competition, the struggle for economic independence,
the grabbing of land (purchasable and rentable), the concentration of
production in the hands of a minority, the forcing of the majority into
the ranks of the proletariat, their exploitation by a minority through the
medium of merchant’s capital and the hiring of farm labourers. There
is not a single economic phenomenon among the peasantry that does not bear
this contradictory form, one specifically peculiar to the capitalist
system, i.e., that does not express a struggle and antagonism of
interests, that does not imply advantage for some and disadvantage for
others. It is the case with the renting of land, the purchase of land, and
with “industries” in their diametrically opposite types; it is
also the case with the technical progress of farming.

We attach cardinal importance to this conclusion not only as regards
capitalism in Russia, but also as regards the significance of the Narodnik
doctrine in general. It is these contradictions that show us clearly and
irrefutably that the system of economic relations in the
“community” village does not at all constitute a special
economic form (“people’s production,” etc.), but is an ordinary petty-bourgeois one. Despite the theories that have prevailed
here during the past half-century, the Russian community peasantry are not
antagonists of capitalism, but, on the contrary, are its deepest and most
durable foundation. The deepest—because it is here, remote from all
“artificial” influences, and in spite of the institutions
which restrict the development of capitalism, that we see the constant
formation of the elements of capitalism within the “community”
itself. The most durable—because agriculture in general, and the
peasantry in particular, are weighed down most heavily by the traditions
of the distant past, the traditions of patriarchal life, as a consequence
of which the transformative effects of capitalism (the development of the
productive forces, the changing of all social relations, etc.) manifest
themselves here most slowly and gradually. [1]

3) The sum-total of all the economic contradictions among the peasantry
constitutes what we call the differentiation of the peasantry. The
peasants themselves very aptly and strikingly characterise this process
with the term “depeasantising.” [2]

This process signifies the utter dissolution of the old, patriarchal peasantry and the creation of new types of rural inhabitants.

Before we proceed to describe these types, let us note the
following. Reference to this process was made in our literature long ago
and has been repeated very often. For example, in his day Mr. Vasilchikov,
who made use of the works of the Valuyev

Commission, [16] noted the formation of a “rural proletariat” in Russia and the “differentiation of the peasant
social estate” ( Landownership and Agriculture , 1st ed.,
Vol. I, Chapter IX). This fact was also mentioned by V. Orlov
( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. IV, Pt. 1, p. 14)
and by many others. But all these references were very fragmentary. No attempt was ever made to study this
phenomenon systematically, and that is why we lack, to this day, adequate
information about this phenomenon notwithstanding the wealth of data
provided by the Zemstvo house-to-house censuses. Connected with this is
the fact that the majority of the writers who have dealt with this problem
regard the break-up of the peasantry simply as the emergence of property
inequality, as simple “differentiation,” to use the favourite
term of the Narodniks in general and of Mr. Karyshev in particular (see
his book on Rentings and his articles in Russkoye Bogatstvo ). Undoubtedly, the emergence of property inequality is the
starting-point of the whole process, but the process is not at all
confined to property “differentiation.” The old peasantry is
not only “differentiating,” it is being completely dissolved,
it is ceasing to exist, it is being ousted by absolutely new types of
rural inhabitants—types that are the basis of a society in which
commodity economy and capitalist production prevail. These types are the
rural bourgeoisie (chiefly petty bourgeoisie) and the rural
proletariat—a class of commodity producers in agriculture and a
class of agricultural wage-workers.

It is extremely instructive that the purely theoretical analysis of the
process of the formation of agricultural capitalism points to the
differentiation of the small producers as an important factor in this
process. We have in mind one of the most interesting chapters in Vol. III
of Capital , namely Chapter 47, “Genesis of Capitalist
Ground-Rent.” As the starting-point of this genesis Marx takes
labour-rent ( Arbeitsrente ) [3]

—“. . .

where the direct producer, using instruments of labour (plough, cattle, etc.) which actually or legally belong to him, cultivates
soil actually owned by him during part of the week, and works during the
remaining days upon the estate of the feudal lord without any compensation
from the feudal lord. . .” ( Das Kapital , III, 2, 323. Russ. trans., 651). The next form of rent is rent in kind ( Produktenrente ), when the direct producer produces the
entire product on land which he himself exploits, and gives up to the
landowner the whole of the surplus product in kind. The producer here
becomes more independent and is enabled to acquire by his labour a certain
surplus over and above the amount of produce that satisfies his
indispensable needs. “Similarly, this form” of rent “will give rise to greater differences in the economic position of
the individual direct producers. At least the possibility for such a
differentiation exists, and the possibility for the direct producer to
have in turn acquired the means to exploit other labourers directly”
(S. 329. Russ. trans., 657.) [17]
And so, while natural economy still prevails, at the very first expansion of the independence of the dependent peasants,
there already appear the germs of their differentiation. But these germs
can develop only under the next form of rent, money rent , which
represents a mere change in the form of rent in kind. The direct producer
gives up to the landowner not produce, but the price of this produce. [4]

The basis of this type of rent remains the same: the direct producer is as hitherto the
traditional possessor of the land, but “the basis of this type of
rent . . . is approaching its dissolution” (330). Money rent
“presupposes a considerable development of commerce, of urban
industry, of commodity production in general, and thereby of money
circulation” (331). [18]
The traditional, common-law relationship between the dependent peasant and the landowner is transformed here into a purely
cash, contract-based relationship. This leads, on the one hand, to the expropriation of the old
peasantry, and, on the other, to the peasant buying out his land and his
liberty. The transformation of rent in kind into money rent is furthermore
not only inevitably accompanied, but even anticipated, by the formation of
a class of propertyless day labourers, who hire themselves out for
money. During their genesis, when this new class appears but sporadically,
the custom necessarily develops among the more prosperous peasants subject
to rent payments ( rentepflichtigen ) of exploiting agricultural
wage-labourers for their own account. . . . In this way, they gradually
acquire the possibility of accumulating a certain amount of wealth and
themselves becoming transformed into future capitalists. The old
self-employed possessors of land themselves thus give rise to a nursery
school for capitalist tenants, whose development is conditioned by the
general development of capitalist production beyond the bounds of the
countryside” ( Das Kapital , III, 2, 332. Russ. trans., 659–660). [19]

4) The differentiation of the peasantry, which develops the latter’s
extreme groups at the expense of the middle “peasantry,”
creates two new types of rural inhabitants. The feature common to both
types is the commodity, money character of their economy. The first new
type is the rural bourgeoisie or the well-to-do peasantry. These include
the independent farmers who carry on commercial agriculture in all its
varied forms (the principal ones of which we shall describe in Chapter),
then come the owners of commercial and industrial establishments, the
proprietors of commercial enterprises, etc. The combining of commercial
agriculture with commercial and industrial enterprises is the type of
“combination of agriculture with industries” that is specifically peculiar to this peasantry. From among these
well-to-do peasants a class of capitalist farmers is created, since the
renting of land for the sale of grain plays (in the agricultural belt) an
enormous part in their farms, often a more important part than the
allotment. The size of the farm, in the majority of cases, requires a
labour force larger than that available in the family, for which reason
the formation of a body of farm labourers, and still more of day
labourers, is a necessary condition for the existence of the well-to-do peasantry. [5]

The spare cash obtained by these peasants in the shape of net income is either directed towards commercial operations and
usury, which are so excessively developed in our rural districts, or,
under favourable conditions, is invested in the purchase of land, farm
improvements, etc. In a word, these are small agrarians. Numerically, the
peasant bourgeoisie constitute a small minority of the peasantry, probably
not more than one-fifth of the total number of households (which is
approximately three-tenths of the population), although, of course, the
proportion fluctuates considerably according to district. But as to their
weight in the sum-total of peasant farming, in the total, quantity of
means of production belonging to the peasantry, in the total amount of
produce raised by the peasantry, the peasant bourgeoisie are undoubtedly
predominant. They are the masters of the contemporary countryside.

5) The other new type is the rural proletariat, the class of
allotment-holding wage-workers . This covers the poor peasants,
including those that are completely landless; but the most typical
representative of the Russian rural proletariat is the allotment-holding
farm labourer, day labourer, unskilled labourer, building worker or other
allotment holding worker. Insignificant farming on a patch of land, with
the farm in a state of utter ruin (particularly evidenced by the leasing
out of land), inability to exist without the sale of labour-power (=
“industries” of the indigent peasants), an extremely low
standard of living (probably lower even than that of the worker without an
allotment)—such are the distinguishing features of this type. [6]

One must assign not less than half the total peasant households (which is approximately 4/10 of the population) to membership of the rural
proletariat, i.e., all the horseless and a large part of the one-horse
peasants (this, of course, is only a wholesale, approximate calculation,
one subject to more or less considerable modifications in the different
areas, according to local conditions). The grounds which compel us to
believe that such a considerable proportion of the peasantry already
belong to the rural proletariat have been advanced above. [7]

It should be added that our literature frequently contains too stereotyped an understanding
of the theoretical proposition that capitalism requires the free, landless
worker. This proposition is quite correct as indicating the main trend,
but capitalism penetrates into agriculture particularly slowly and in
extremely varied forms. The allotment of land to the rural worker is very
often to the interests of the rural employers themselves, and that is why
the allotment-holding rural worker is a type to be found in all capitalist
countries. The type assumes different forms in different countries: the
English cottager is not the same as the small-holding peasant of France or
the Rhine provinces, and the latter again is not the same as the
Knecht in Prussia. Each of these bears traces of a specific
agrarian system, of a specific history of agrarian relations—but
this does not prevent the economist from classing them all as one type of
agricultural proletarian. The juridical basis of his right to his plot of
land is absolutely immaterial to such a classification. Whether the land
is his full property (as a small-holding peasant), or whether he is only allowed the use of it by the
landlord or the

Rittergutsbesitzer , [8] or, finally, whether he possesses it as a member of a Great Russian
peasant community—makes no difference at all. [9]

In assigning the indigent peasants to the rural proletariat we are saying nothing new. This term has already
been used repeatedly by many writers, and only the Narodnik economists
persist in speaking of the peasantry in general, as of something
anti-capitalist, and close their eyes to the fact that the mass of the
“peasantry” have already taken a quite definite place in the
general system of capitalist production, namely, as agricultural and
industrial wage-workers. In our country, people are very fond of singing
the praises of our agrarian system, which retains the village community
and the peasantry, etc., and of contrasting this to the Ostsee system,
with its capitalist organisation of agriculture. It will not be without
interest, therefore, to see what types of the agricultural population in
the Ostsee region [20] are sometimes assigned to the class of farm
labourers and day labourers. The peasants in the Ostsee gubernias are
divided into those with large plots (25 to 50 dess. in separate lots),
cottagers (with plots of 3 to 10 dess.) and landless peasants. As
Mr. S. Korolenko quite rightly remarks, the cottager “most closely approximates to
the general type of Russian peasant of the central gubernias”
( Hired Labour , p. 495); he is everlastingly compelled to divide
his time between seeking employment and cultivating his plot of land. But
what is particularly interesting to us is the economic position of the
farm labourers . The fact is that the landlords themselves find it
advantageous to allot them land on account of wages. Here are
some examples of the holdings of Ostsee farm labourers: 1) 2 dess. of land
(we have converted Loftstelle into dessiatines: 1 Loftstelle =
1/3 dess.); the husband works 275 days and the wife 50 days a year at a
wage of 25 kopeks per day; 2) 2 2/3 dess. of land; “the farm
labourer keeps 1 horse, 3 cows, 3 sheep and 2 pigs” (pp. 508, 518);
the farm labourer works alternate weeks and the wife works 50 days; 3) 6
dess. of land (Bauska Uyezd, Courland Gubernia), “the farm labourer
keeps 1 horse, 3 cows, 3 sheep and several pigs” (p. 518), he works
3 days a week and his wife 35 days a year; 4) in Hasenpoth Uyezd, Courland
Gubernia—8 dess. of land, “in all cases the farm labourers get
their flour milled gratis and free medical aid and medicine, and their
children attend school” (p. 519), etc. We draw the reader’s
attention to the size of the holdings and the scale of the farming of these farm labourers, i.e., to the very conditions that,
in the opinion of the Narodniks, set our peasants apart from the general
European agrarian system, which corresponds to capitalist production. We
combine all the examples given in the publication quoted: 10 farm
labourers own 31.5 dess. of land, that is, an average of 3.15 dess. per
labourer. The farm labourers here include peasants who work the lesser part of the year for the landlord (the husband half the year, and the
wife 35 to 50 days) and also one-horse peasants who own 2 and even 3 cows
each. The question arises: what constitutes the notorious difference
between our “community peasant” and the Ostsee farm labourer
of this type? In the Ostsee region they call things by their proper names,
whereas in Russia one-horse farm labourers are combined with wealthy
peasants, “averages” are struck, and sentimental talk is
indulged in about the “community spirit,” the “labour principle,” “people’s production” and the
“combination of agriculture with industries”... .

6) The intermediary link between these post-Reform types of
“peasantry” is the middle peasantry . It is distinguished by the least development of commodity
production. The independent agricultural labour of this category of
peasant covers his maintenance in perhaps only the best years and under
particularly favourable conditions, and that is why his position is an
extremely precarious one. In the majority of cases the middle peasant
cannot make ends meet without resorting to loans, to be repaid by
labour-service, etc., without seeking “subsidiary” employment
on the side, which also consists partly in the sale of labour power,
etc. Every crop failure flings masses of the middle peasants into the
ranks of the proletariat. In its social relations this group fluctuates
between the top group, towards which it gravitates but which only a small
minority of lucky ones succeed in entering, and the bottom group, into
which it is pushed by the whole course of social evolution. We have seen
that the peasant bourgeoisie oust not only the bottom group, but also the
middle group, of the peasantry. Thus a process specifically characteristic
of capitalist economy takes place, the middle members are swept away and
the extremes are reinforced—the process of “depeasantising.”

7) The differentiation of the peasantry creates a home market for capitalism . In the bottom group, this formation of a market takes
place on account of articles of consumption (the market of personal
consumption). The rural proletarian, by comparison with the middle
peasantry, consumes less , and, moreover, consumes food of worse
quality (potatoes instead of bread, etc.), but buys more . The
formation and development of a peasant bourgeoisie creates a market in
twofold fashion: firstly and mainly on account of means of production
(the market of productive consumption), since the well-to-do peasant
strives to convert into capital those means of production which he
“gathers” from both landlords “in straitened circumstances” and peasants in the grip of ruin. Secondly, a
market is also created here on account of personal consumption, due to
the expansion of the requirements of the more affluent peasants. [10]

8) On the question of whether the differentiation of the peasantry is
progressing, and if so at what rate, we have no precise statistics that
can be compared with the data in the combined tables (§§ I-VI). This is
not surprising, for till now (as we have already remarked) no attempt
whatever has been made to study even the statics of the differentiation of
the peasantry systematically and to indicate the forms in which this
process is taking place. [11]

But all the general data on the economy of our rural districts indicate an uninterrupted and rapidly increasing
differentiation: on the one hand, the “peasants” are abandoning and leasing out their land, the number of horseless peasants is
growing, the “peasants” are fleeing to the towns, etc.; on the
other hand, the “progressive trends in peasant farming” are
also taking their course, the “peasants” are buying land,
improving their farms, introducing iron ploughs, developing grass
cultivation, dairy farming, etc. We now know which “peasants” are taking part in these two diametrically opposite
sides of the process.

Furthermore, the development of the migration movement is giving a
tremendous impetus to the differentiation of the peasantry, and especially
of the agricultural peasantry. It is well known that the migration of
peasants is mainly from the agricultural gubernias (migration from the
industrial gubernias is quite negligible), and precisely from the densely
populated central gubernias, where there is the greatest development of
labour-service (which retards the differentiation of the peasantry). That
is the first point. The second point is that it is mainly the peasants in
medium circumstances who are leaving the areas of emigration and mainly the extreme groups who are remaining at home. Thus, migration
is accelerating the differentiation of the peasantry in the areas of
emigration and is carrying the elements of differentiation to the new
places (the agricultural wage-labour of settlers in Siberia in the first
period of their new life. [12]

This connection between migration and the differentiation of the peasantry is fully proved by I. Hourwich in his
superb research work, Peasant Migration to Siberia (Moscow,
1888). We strongly recommend to the reader this book which our Narodnik
press has strenuously tried to hush up. [13]

9) A tremendous part, as is known, is played in our rural districts by
merchant’s and usurer’s capital. We consider it superfluous to
cite numerous facts and indicate sources relating to this phenomenon: the
facts are well known and do not directly concern our theme. The only
question of interest to us is the following: What relation has
merchant’s and usurer’s capital in our countryside to the
differentiation of the peasantry? Is there any connection between the
relations among the various groups of peasants described above and the
relations between peasant creditors and peasant debtors? Is usury a factor
and a motive force of differentiation, or does it retard this
differentiation?

Let us first indicate how theory presents this question. In the analysis
of capitalist production given by the author of Capital very
great significance was attached, as we know, to merchant’s and
usurer’s capital. The main points of Marx’s views on this
subject are the following: 1) merchant’s and usurer’s capital,
on the one hand, and industrial capital[i.e., capital invested in
production, whether agricultural or industrial, on the other, represent a
single type of economic phenomenon, which is covered by the general
formula: the buying of commodities in order to sell at a profit ( Das Kapital , I, 2. Abschnitt, Chapter IV, especially pp. 148-149 of the
second German edition [21] ).
2) Merchant’s and usurer’s capital
always historically precede the formation of industrial capital and are logically the
necessary premise of its formation ( Das Kapital , III, 1,
S. 312-316; Russ. trans., pp. 262-265; III, 2, 132-137, 149;
Russ. trans., pp. 488-492,

502) [22] ;
but in themselves neither merchant’s capital nor usurer’s capital represents a sufficient
premise for the rise of industrial capital (i.e., capitalist
production ); they do not always break up the old mode of production and replace it by the capitalist mode of
production; the formation of the latter “depends entirely upon the stage of historical
development and the attendant circumstances” ( ibid ., 2, 133; Russ. trans., p.

489). [23] “To what extent they” (commercial and merchant’s capital)
“bring about a dissolution of the old mode of production depends on
their solidity and internal structure. And whither this process of
dissolution will lead, in other words, what new mode of production will
replace the old, does not depend on commerce, but on the character of the
old mode of production itself” ( ibid ., III, 1, 316; Russ. trans., 265). [24] 3) The
independent development of merchant’s capital is inversely
proportional to the degree of development of capitalist
production ( ibid ., S. 312; Russ. trans.,

262) [25] ; the
greater the development of merchant’s and usurer’s capital,
the smaller the development of industrial capital (= capitalist
production ), and vice versa.

Consequently, as applied to Russia, the question to be answered is: Is
merchant’s and usurer’s capital being linked up with industrial capital? Are commerce and usury, in disintegrating the old mode
of production, leading to its replacement by the capitalist mode of
production, or by some other system? [14]

These are questions of fact, questions that must be answered in regard to all aspects of the national economy of Russia. As regards peasant cultivation the data
reviewed above contain the reply, and an affirmative reply, to this
question. The ordinary Narodnik view that the “kulak” and the
“enterprising muzhik” are not two forms of one and the same
economic phenomenon, but totally unconnected and opposite types of
phenomena, is absolutely without foundation. It is one of those Narodnik
prejudices which no one has ever even attempted to prove by an analysis of
precise economic data. The data indicate the contrary. Whether the peasant
hires workers for the purpose of expanding production, whether he trades
in land (recall the data quoted above on the large scale of land renting
among the rich) or in groceries, or whether he trades in hemp, hay,
cattle, etc., or money (usurer), he represents a single economic type, and
his operations amount, at bottom, to one and the same economic
relation. Furthermore, that in the Russian community village the role of
capital is not confined to bondage and usury, that capital is also
invested in production, is apparent from the fact that the well-to-do
peasant puts his money into the improvement of his farm, into the purchase
and renting of land, the acquisition of improved implements, the hiring of
workers, etc., and not only into trading establishments and undertakings
(see above). If capital in our countryside were incapable of creating
anything but bondage and usury, we could not, from the data on production,
establish the differentiation of the peasantry, the formation of a rural
bourgeoisie and a rural proletariat; the whole of the peasantry would
represent a fairly even type of poverty-stricken cultivators, among whom
only usurers would stand out, and they only to the extent of money owned
and not to the extent and organisation of agricultural production. Finally, from the above-examined data follows the important
proposition that the independent development of merchant’s and
usurer’s capital in our countryside retards the differentiation of the peasantry. The further the development of commerce
proceeds, bringing the country closer to the town, eliminating the
primitive village markets and undermining the monopoly of the village
shopkeeper, and the more there develop forms of credit that accord with
European standards, displacing the village usurer, the further and deeper must the differentiation of the peasantry proceed. The capital
of the well-to-do peasants, forced out of petty trade and usury, will flow
more abundantly into production, whither it is already beginning to flow.

10) Another important phenomenon in the economy of our countryside that
retards the differentiation of the peasantry is the survivals of corvée
economy, i.e., labour-service. Labour-service is based on the payment of
labour in kind, hence, on a poor development of commodity
economy. Labour-service presupposes and requires the middle peasant, one
who is not very affluent (otherwise he would not agree to the bondage of
labour-service) but is also not a proletarian (to undertake labour-service
one must have one’s own implements, one must be at least in some
measure a “sound” peasant).

When we said above that the peasant bourgeoisie are the masters of the
contemporary countryside, we disregarded the factors retarding
differentiation: bondage, usury, labour-service, etc. Actually, the real
masters of the contemporary countryside are often enough not the
representatives of the peasant bourgeoisie, but the village usurers and
the neighbouring landowners. It is, however, quite legitimate to disregard
them, for otherwise it is impossible to study the internal system of
economic relationships among the peasantry. It is interesting to note that
the Narodnik also employs this procedure, only he stops half-way and does
not carry his reasoning to its logical conclusion. Speaking of the burden
of taxes, etc., in The Destiny of Capitalism , Mr. V. V. observes
that due to these reasons “the conditions for a natural
( sic !) life no longer exist” (287) for the village community, for the “mir”. Excellent! But the whole question is
precisely: what are these “natural conditions” that do not yet
exist in our countryside? To obtain a reply to this question one must
study the system of economic relationships within the village community,
lifting away, if one may so express it, the survivals of pre-Reform times
which obscure these “natural conditions” of life in our
countryside. Had Mr. V. V. done this, he would have seen that this system
of village relationships reveals the absolute differentiation of the
peasantry, that the more completely bondage, usury, labour-service, etc., are forced out,
the more profoundly will the differentiation of the peasantry proceed. [15]

Above we have shown, on the basis of Zemstvo statistics, that this differentiation is
already an accomplished fact, that the peasantry have completely split up
into opposite groups.

---
Notes:
[1]
Cf. Das Kapital , I 2 ,

S. 527. [26] — Lenin

[2]
Agricultural Survey of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia for 1892.— Lenin

[3]
In the Russian translation (p. 651 and foll.) this term is given as
“trudovaya renta” (“trudovaya” is the adjectival form of “trud”—labour. — Ed .). We think
that our translation (“otrabotochnaya renta”—from “otrabotat,” to work off, to pay off by
labour. — Ed .) is more correct, for the Russian language
contains the specific term “otrabotki” (labour-service) which
means precisely the work of the dependent peasant for the landowner. [27] — Lenin

[4]
A strict distinction must be drawn between money rent and capitalist
ground-rent the latter presupposes the existences in agriculture of
capitalists and wage-workers; the former the existence of dependent
peasants. Capitalist rent is that part of surplus-value which remains
after the deduction of the employer’s profit, whereas money rent is
the price of the entire surplus product paid by the peasant to the
landowner. An example of money rent in Russia is the quit-rent paid by the
peasant to the landlord. Undoubtedly, the taxes which our peasants now
have to pay represent, in part, money rent. Sometimes peasant renting of
land also approximates to the paying of money rent; that is when the high
rent the peasant has to pay for the land leaves him no more than a meagre
wage.— Lenin

[5]
Let us note that the employment of wage-labour is not an essential feature
of the concept “petty bourgeoisie.” This concept covers all
independent production for the market, where the social system of economy
contains the contradictions described by us above (Sec. 2), particularly
where the mass of producers are transformed into wage-workers.— Lenin

[6]
To prove that it is correct to assign the indigent peasants to the class
of allotment-holding wage-workers, one must show not only how, and what
sort of, peasants sell labour-power, but also how and what sort of,
employers buy labour-power. This will be shown in subsequent chapters.— Lenin

[7]
Prof. Conrad considers the criterion for the real peasant in Germany to be
ownership of a pair of draught animals ( Gespann bauernguter ), see
Landownership and Agriculture (Moscow, 1896 pp. 84-85). For
Russia the criterion should rather be put higher. In defining the concept
“peasant,” what Conrad takes is the percentage of persons or
households engaged in “hired labour” or “subsidiary industries” generally ( ibid .),—Prof Stebut, who
cannot be denied authority on questions of fact, wrote in 1882 :
“Since the fall of serfdom, the peasant with his small economic
unit, engaged exclusively in growing grain, that is to say, principally in
the central black-earth belt of Russia, has in the majority of cases
become an artisan, a farm labourer or a day labourer, for whom agriculture
is only a subsidiary occupation” (“Articles on Russian
Agriculture, Its Defects and the Measures for Its Improvement,”
Moscow, 1883, p. 11) Evidently the artisans here also include wage-workers
in industry (building, etc.) However incorrect this use of terms, it is
very widespread in our literature, even in specifically economic
literature.— Lenin

[8]
Lord of the manor.— Ed .

[9]
Let us quote examples of the various European forms of wage-labour in
agriculture from the Handw\"ort der Staatswiss . ( Land ownership and Agriculture , Moscow, 1896). “The peasants’
holding,” says J. Conrad, “must be distinguished from the
parcel, from the patch of the ‘ landless peasant’ or the
‘ market gardener,’ the owner of which is obliged to seek
additionally outside occupation and employment” (pp. 83-84). “In France, according to the 1881 census, 18 million
persons, i.e., somewhat less than half the population, obtained their
livelihood in agriculture about 9 million owners of land, 5 million tenant
farmers and half-croppers, 4 million day labourers and owners of small
plots, or tenants obtaining their livelihood mainly by wage-labour. . . . It is assumed that at least 75% of the agricultural
labourers in France have their own land” (p. 233, Goltz). In
Germany, the rural workers include the following categories who possess land : 1) cottars, cottagers, gardeners[something like our
gift-land peasants]; 2) contract day labourers; they possess land, and
hire themselves out for a definite part of the year[cf. our “three-dayers”].  [28] “Contract day labourers
constitute the bulk of the agricultural labourers in those parts of Germany where big
landed property predominates” (p. 236); 3) agricultural labourers
who do their farming on rented land (p. 237).— Lenin

[10]
Only this fact that a home market is created by the differentiation of the
peasantry can explain, for example, the enormous growth of the home market
for cotton goods, the manufacture of which has grown so rapidly in the
post-Reform period along with the wholesale ruin of the
peasantry. Mr. N.–on, who illustrates his theories about the home market
with this very example of our textile industry, was totally unable to
explain the existence of this contradictory phenomenon.— Lenin

[11]
The sole exception is I. Hourwich’s splendid work The Economics of the Russian Village , New York,
1892. Russ. trans. <<[ Transcriber’s Note : Here the
title is given in Russian characters.— ]>> Moscow,
1896. One must marvel at the skill with which Mr. Hourwich processed the
Zemstvo statistical returns, which furnish no combined tables of groups
of peasants according to economic strength.— Lenin

[12]
Restriction of migration thus has an enormously retarding effect upon the
differentiation of the peasantry.— Lenin

[13]
See also Mr. Preemak’s Material in Figures for a Study of Migration to Siberia . ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[14]
Mr V. V. touched upon this question on the very first page of The Destiny of Capitalism , but neither in this nor in any other of his
works did he attempt to examine the facts about the relation between
merchant’s and industrial capital in Russia. Mr. N.–on, although
claiming to be a faithful follower of Marx’s theory, preferred,
however, to replace the precise and clear category “merchant’s
capital” by the vague and diffuse term of his own coinage—”capitalisation” or “the capitalisation of
income”; and under cover of this hazy term successfully evaded,
positively evaded, this question. The predecessor of capitalist production
in Russia, according to him, is not merchant’s capital, but
. . . “people’s production.” [29] — Lenin

[15]
Incidentally. In speaking of Mr. V. V.’s The Destiny of Capitalism , and particularly of Chapter VI, from which the
annotation is taken, one cannot but indicate that it contains very good
and quite fair pages. These are the pages where the author does
not deal with the “destiny of capitalism” and not even with capitalism at all, but with the methods of
exacting taxes. It is characteristic that Mr. V. V. does not notice the
inseparable connection between these methods and the survivals of corvée
economy, which latter (as we shall see below) he is capable of
idealising!— Lenin

[26]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 504-505. [p. 173]

[16]
The Valuyev Commission —the “Commission to Investigate the Condition of Russian Agriculture “ which functioned under the
chairmanship of the tsar’s minister P. A. Valuyev. In the years
1872-1873 the Commission collected a large amount of material dealing with
the condition of agriculture in post-Reform Russia: Governors’
reports, statements and depositions of landlords, marshals of the
nobility, Zemstvo administrations, volost boards, grain merchants, village
priests, kulaks, statistical and agricultural societies and other bodies
connected with agriculture. This material was published in Papers of the Commission of Inquiry into the Condition of Russian Agriculture ,
St. Petersburg, 1873.

[27]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 770.

Lenin’s note on the wrong translation of the term “Arbeitsrente” as
“trudovaya renta” refers to the translation by Nikolai-on
(Danielson) of 1896. [p. 174]

[17]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 776.

[18]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 777-778.

[19]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 779.

[28]
Gift-land peasants , those of the former landlords’ peasants, who, at the time of the Reform of 1861, by
“agreement” with their landlords received their allotments as
a gift (without having to redeem them). The gilt-lander received a
miserable strip, amounting altogether to a quarter of the so-called
“top” or “statutory” allotment, i.e., of the allotment established by law for the given locality. All the rest of the
lands that had constituted the peasants’ allotments before the
Reform were seized by the landlord, who held his “gift-landers,” forcibly dispossessed of their land, in a
state of economic bondage even after serfdom was abolished.

“ Three-dayers ,” a category of allotment-holding agricultural wage-workers. Farming the land he held on a poverty level,
the “three-dayer” was a day labourer who, in return for grain
or 20 to 30 rubles in cash, had to agree to conditions of bondage or pay
off the debt by working three days a week throughout the summer on the
farm of the kulak or the landlord who made the loan. This type of
allotment-holding agricultural labourer was met with on a particularly
extensive scale in the north western gubernias of tsarist Russia.

[20]
Ostsee region —the Baltic region of tsarist Russia, which
included the gubernias of Esthland, Courland and Liflandia. This area is
now the territory of the Latvian and Estonian Soviet Socialist Republics.

[21]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 163-165.

[22]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 322-327, 580-584,
595-596.

[23]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 581.

[24]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 326.

[25]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 323.

[29]
The Narodnik theory of “people’s production” is criticised by Lenin in his earlier work What the “Friends of the People” Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats . (See
present edition, Vol. 1.)

| | XII. Zemstvo Statistics On Peasant Budgets | | | | |

# The Main Features of Corvée Economy

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iii/iii8i.htm

Chapter III. The Landowners’ Transition from Corvée to Capitalist Economy

From peasant economy we must now pass to landlord economy. Our task is to
examine, in its main features, the present social-economic system of
landlord economy and to describe the nature of the evolution of this
system in the post-Reform epoch.

### I. The Main Features of Corvée Economy

As our starting-point in examining the present system of landlord economy
we must take the system of that economy which prevailed in the epoch of
serfdom. The essence of the economic system of those days was that the
entire land of a given unit of agrarian economy, i.e., of a given estate,
was divided into the lord’s and the peasants’ land; the latter
was distributed in allotments among the peasants, who (receiving other
means of production in addition, as for example, timber, sometimes cattle,
etc.) cultivated it with their own labour and their own implements, and
obtained their livelihood from it. The product of this peasants’
labour constituted the necessary product, to employ the terminology of
theoretical political economy; necessary – for the peasants in providing
them with means of subsistence, and for the landlord in providing him with
hands; in exactly the same way as the product which replaces the variable
part of the value of capital is a necessary product in capitalist
society. The peasants’ surplus labour, on the other hand, consisted
in their cultivation, with the same implements, of the landlord’s
land; the product of that labour went to the landlord. Hence, the surplus labour was separated then in space from the necessary labour: for the
landlord they cultivated his land, for themselves their allotments; for
the landlord they worked some days of the week and for themselves
others. The peasant’s allotment in this economy served, as it were,
as wages in kind (to express oneself in modern terms), or as a means of
providing the landlord with hands. The peasants’ “own” farming of their allotments was a condition of the landlord economy, and
its purpose was to “provide” not the peasant with means of
livelihood but the landlord with hands. [1]

It is this system of economy which we call Corvée [Russ.: barshchina]
economy. Its prevalence obviously presumes the following necessary
conditions: firstly, the predominance of natural economy. The feudal
estate had to constitute a self-sufficing, self-contained entity, in very
slight contact with the outside world. The production of grain by the
landlords for sale, which developed particularly in the latter period of
the existence of serfdom, was already a harbinger of the collapse of the
old regime. Secondly, such an economy required that the direct producer be
allotted the means of production in general, and land in particular;
moreover, that he be tied to the land, since otherwise the landlord was
not assured of hands. Hence, the methods of obtaining the surplus product
under Corvée and under capitalist economy are diametrically opposite: the
former is based on the producer being provided with land, the latter on
the producer being dispossessed of the land. [2]

Thirdly, a condition for such a system of economy was the personal dependence of the
peasant on the landlord. If the landlord had not possessed direct power
over the person of the peasant, he could not have compelled a man who had
a plot of land and ran his own farm to work for him. Hence, “other
than economic pressure,” as Marx says in describing this economic
regime, was necessary (and, as has already been indicated above, Marx
assigned it to the category of labour-rent ; Das Kapital , III, 2, 324). [3] The form and degree of this coercion may be the
most varied, ranging from the peasant’s serf status to his lack of
rights in the social estates. Fourthly, and finally, a condition and a
consequence of the system of economy described was the extremely low and
stagnant condition of technique, for farming was in the hands of small
peasants, crushed by poverty and degraded by personal dependence and by
ignorance.

---
Notes:
[1]
An extremely vivid description of this system of economy is given by
A. Engelhardt in his Letters from the Countryside (St. Petersburg
1885, pp. 556-557). The author quite rightly points out that feudal
economy was a definite, regular and complete system, the director of which
was the landlord, who allotted land to the peasants and assigned them to
various jobs.— Lenin

[2]
In opposing the view of Henry George, who said that the expropriation of
the mass of the population is the great and universal cause of poverty and
oppression, Engels wrote in 1887: “This is not quite correct
historically. . . . In the Middle Ages, it was not the expropriation of
the people from, but on the contrary, their appropriation to the land
which became the source of feudal oppression. The peasant retained his
land, but was attached to it as a serf or villein, and made liable to
tribute to the lord in labour and in produce” ( The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 , New York, 1887, Preface,

p. III). [4] — Lenin

[4]
See Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, On Britain , Moscow, 1953,
p. 10.

[3]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 771.

| | | | | II. The Combination of the Corvée and the Capitalist Systems of Economy | |

# The Combination of the Corvée and the Capitalist Systems of Economy

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iii/iii8ii.htm

Chapter III. The Landowners’ Transition from Corvée to Capitalist Economy

II. The Combination of the Corvée and the
Capitalist Systems of Economy

The Corvée system of economy was undermined by the abolition of
serfdom. All the main foundations of this system were undermined: natural
economy, the self-contained and the self-sufficient character of the
landed estate, the close connection between its various constituents, and
the landlord’s power over the peasants. The peasant’s farm was
separated from that of the landlord; the peasant was to buy back his land
and become the full owner of it; the landlord, to adopt the capitalist
system of farming, which, as has just been observed, has a diametrically
opposite basis. But such a transition to a totally different system could
not, of course, take place at once, and for two different reasons. First,
the conditions required for capitalist production did not yet exist. A
class of people was required who were accustomed to work for hire; the
peasants’ implements had to be replaced by those of the landlord;
agriculture had to be organised on the same lines as any other commercial
and industrial enterprise and not as the business of the lord. All these
conditions could only take shape gradually, and the attempts of some
landlords, immediately after the Reform, to import machinery and even workers from
abroad could not but end in a fiasco. The other reason why the transition
to the capitalist conduct of affairs was not possible at once was that the
old Corvée system of economy had been undermined, but not yet completely
destroyed. The peasants’ farms were not entirely separated from
those of the landlords, for the latter retained possession of very
essential parts of the peasants’ allotments: the “cut-off lands,” [5] the
woods, meadows, watering places, pastures, etc. Without these lands (or
easement rights) the peasants were absolutely unable to carry on
independent farming, so that the landlords were able to continue the old
system of economy in the form of labour-service. The possibility of
exercising “other than economic pressure” also remained in the shape of the peasants’
temporarily-bound status, [6] collective responsibility, corporal punishment,
forced labour on public works, etc.

Thus, capitalist economy could not emerge at once, and Corvée economy
could not disappear at once. The only possible system of economy was,
accordingly, a transitional one, a system combining the features of both
the Corvée and the capitalist systems. And indeed, the post-Reform system
of farming practised by the landlords bears precisely these features.
With all the endless variety of forms characteristic of a transitional
epoch, the economic organisation of contemporary landlord farming amounts
to two main systems, in the most varied combinations – the labour-service [1] system and the capitalist system. The
first consists in the landlord’s land being cultivated with the
implements of the neighbouring peasants, the form of payment not altering
the essential nature of this system (whether payment is in money, as in
the case of job-hire, or in produce, as in the case of half-cropping, or
in land or grounds, as in the case of labour-service in the narrow sense
of the term). This is a direct survival of Corvée economy, [2] and the economic
characterisation of the latter, given above, is applicable almost entirely to the labour-service system
(the only exception being that in one of the forms of the labour-service
system one of the conditions of Corvée economy disappears, namely, under
job-hire, where labour instead of being paid in kind is paid in
money). The capitalist farming system consists of the hire of workers
(annual, seasonal, day, etc.) who till the land with the owner’s
implements. The systems mentioned are actually interwoven in the most
varied and fantastic fashion: on a mass of landlord estates there is a
combination of the two systems, which are applied to different
farming

operations. [3]

It is quite natural that the combination of such dissimilar and even opposite
systems of economy leads in practice to a whole number of most profound
and complicated conflicts and contradictions, and that the pressure of
these contradictions results in a number of the farmers going bankrupt,
etc. All these are phenomena characteristic of every transitional period.

If we raise the question as to the relative incidence of the two systems,
we shall have to say, first of all, that no precise statistics are
available on the matter, and it is not likely that they could be
collected: that would require a registration not only of all estates, but of all economic operations performed on all
the estates. Only approximate data are available, in the shape of general
descriptions of individual localities as to the predominance of one or
another system. Data of this kind are given in a summarised form for the
whole of Russia in the above-mentioned publication of the Department of
Agriculture, Hired Labour , etc . On the basis of these
data, Mr. Annensky has drawn up a very striking chart showing the
incidence of these systems ( The Influence of Harvests , etc ., [7] I,
170). Let us summarise these data in a table, and supplement them with
figures on the cultivated area on private owners’ lands in 1883-1887
(according to Statistics of the Russian Empire , IV. The average
harvest in European Russia in the five years 1883 1887. St. Petersburg, 1888). [4]

Thus, although the labour-service system predominates in the purely
Russian gubernias, the capitalist system of landlord farming must be
considered the predominant one at present in European Russia as a whole.
Moreover, our table gives a far from complete picture of this
predominance, for Group I of the gubernias includes some in which the
labour-service system is not applied at all (the Baltic gubernias, for
example), whereas Group III includes not a single gubernia, and in all
probability not a single farmed estate in which the capitalist system is
not applied at least in part. Here is an illustration of this based on
Zemstvo statistics (Raspopin; “Private-Landowner Farming in Russia
According to Zemstvo Statistics,” in Yuridichesky Vestnik
[ Legal Messenger ], 1887, Nos. 11-12. No. 12, p. 634):

Lastly, it must be observed that sometimes the labour-service system
passes into the capitalist system and merges with it to such an extent
that it becomes almost impossible to distinguish one from the other. For
example, a peasant rents a plot of land, undertaking in return to perform
a definite number of days’ work (a practice which, as we know, is
most widespread; see examples in the next section). How are we to draw a
line of demarcation between such a “peasant” and the
West-European or Ostsee “farm labourer” who receives a plot of
land on undertaking to work a definite number of days? Life creates forms
that unite in themselves with remarkable gradualness systems of economy
whose basic features constitute opposites. It becomes impossible to say
where “labour-service” ends and where “capitalism” begins.

Having established the fundamental fact that the whole variety of forms of
contemporary landlord farming amounts to two systems – the labour-service and the capitalist systems, in various combinations, we shall now proceed
to give an economic description of the two systems and determine which of
them is eliminating the other under the influence of the whole course of
economic evolution.

---
Notes:
[1]
We are now replacing the term “Corvée” by the term “labour-service” since the latter expression corresponds in
greater measure to post-Reform relations and is by now generally accepted
in our literature.— Lenin

[2]
Here is a particularly striking example: “In the south of Yelets
Uyezd (Orel Gubernia),” writes a correspondent of the Department of
Agriculture, “on the big landlords’ farms, side by side with
cultivation with the aid of annual labourers, a considerable part of the
land is tilled by peasants in return for land leased to them. The ex-serfs
continue to rent land from their former landlords, and in return till
their land Such villages continue to bear the name of
‘Corvée’ of such-and-such a landlord” (S.
A. Korolenko, Hired Labour , etc , p. 118) Here is one
more example: “On my farm,” writes another landlord, “all the work is done by my former peasants (8 villages with
approximately 600 persons); in return for this they get the use of
pastures for their cattle (from 2,000 to 2,500 dess.); except that
seasonal workers do the first ploughing and sow with seed drills”
( ibid ., p. 325. From Kaluga Uyezd)— Lenin

[3]
“Most of the estates are managed in the following way: part,
although a very small part, of the land is cultivated by the owners with
their own implements, with the aid of labourers hired by the year”
and other “workers, but all the rest of the land is leased to
peasants for cultivation either on a half-crop basis” or in return
for land, or for money ( Hired Labour , ibid ., 96). . . . “On the majority of estates simultaneous resort is made
to nearly all, or at any rate many, forms of hire” (i.e., methods of
“providing the farm with man power”). Agriculture and Forestry in Russia published by the Department of Agriculture for the
Chicago Exhibition, St. Petersburg, 1893, p. 79.— Lenin

[4]
Of the 50 gubernias of European Russia the following are excluded:
Archangel, Vologda, Olonets, Vyatka, Perm, Orenburg and Astrakhan. In
these gubernias the area cultivated in 1883-1887 amounted to 562,000
dess. on private owners’ estates out of a total of 16,472,000 dess.
cultivated on such land in the whole of European Russia. – Group I
includes the following: the 3 Baltic gubernias, the 4 Western (Kovno,
Vilna, Grodno and Minsk), the 3 South-Western (Kiev, Volhynia, Podolsk),
the 5 Southern (Kherson, Taurida, Bessarabia, Ekaterinoslav, Don), and 1
South-Eastern (Saratov); then follow the St. Petersburg, Moscow and
Yaroslavl gubernias. Group II includes: Vitebsk, Mogilev, Smolensk,
Kaluga, Voronezh, Poltava and Kharkov. Group III includes the rest of the
gubernias. – To be more exact one should deduct from the total area
cultivated on private owners’ land the gown area belonging to
tenants, but no such statistics are available. We would add that such a
correction would hardly alter our conclusion as to the predominance of the
capitalist system, since a large part of the landowners’ fields in
the black-earth belt is rented, and the labour-service system predominates
in the gubernias of this belt.— Lenin

[5]
“ Cut-off-lands ” ( otrezki ) – the pasture lands woods, etc., which the landlords “cut off,” i.e., of
which they deprived the peasants when serfdom was abolished in Russia.

[6]
Temporarily-bound peasants – serfs who, after the abolition of
serfdom in 1861, were obliged to perform certain services for the
landlords, i.e., do Corvée service or pay quit-rent. The
“temporarily-bound status” continued until the peasants, by
agreement with the landlords, had acquired their allotments by the payment
of redemption money. The landlords were obliged to accept redemption
payments only after the edict of 1881, by which the “obligatory
relation” between the peasants and the landlords had to cease as
from January 1, 1883.

[7]
The two volumes of The Influence of Harvests and Grain Prices on Certain Aspects of the Russian National Economy reached Lenin in the
village of Shushenskoye in 1897. He made a careful study of them while
working on The Development of Capitalism in Russia , as is proved
by his numerous marginal comments in the volumes. While he exposed the
method which the Narodniks were so fond of employing, the distortion of
the actual situation by quoting “average” statistics which in
fact obscured the differentiation of the peasantry, Lenin carefully
checked and made use of the concrete material in the volumes. Thus, on
page 153 of Vol. 1 Lenin drew up a table showing the distribution, in the
different gubernias of Russia, of the various forms of economy
(capitalist, labour-service, and mixed). This material, along with some
additions from other sources, went to make up the table given in the text.

| | I. The Main Features of Corvée Economy | | | III. Description of the Labour-Service System | |

# Description of the Labour-Service System

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iii/iii8iii.htm

Chapter III. The Landowners’ Transition from Corvée to Capitalist Economy

### III. Description of the Labour-Service System

Labour-service, as has already been observed above, is of exceedingly
varied types. Sometimes peasants undertake for a money payment to
cultivate with their own implements the fields of the landowner –
so-called “job-hire,” “dessiatine employments,” [1] cultivation of “cycles” [2]
[10]

(i.e., one dessiatine of spring crop and one of winter crop), etc. Sometimes the peasant borrows grain or money,
under taking to work off either the entire loan or the interest on it. [3]

Under this form a feature peculiar to the labour-service system in general stands out with
great clarity – the bondage, the usurious character of this sort of hire
of labour. In some cases the peasants work “for trespass”
(i.e., undertake to work off the legally established fine for cattle
trespass), or work simply “out of respect” (cf. Engelhardt,
loc . cit ., 56), i.e., gratis, or just for a drink, so as
not to lose other “employments” by the landowner. Lastly,
labour-service in return for land is very widespread in the shape either
of half-cropping or directly of work for land rented, for grounds used,
etc.

Very often the payment for rented land assumes the most diverse forms,
which sometimes are even combined, so that side by side with money rent we
find rent in kind and “labour-service.” Here are a couple of
examples: for every dessiatine, 1 1/2 dess. to be cultivated + 10 eggs +

1 chicken + 1 day’s female labour; for 43 dess. of spring crop land
12 rubles per dess., and 51 dess. of winter-crop land 16 rubles per
dess. in cash + threshing of so many stacks of oats, 7 stacks of buckwheat
and 20 stacks of rye + manuring of not less than 5 dessiatines of rented
land with manure from own animals, at the rate of 300 cart-loads
per dessiatine (Karyshev, Rentings , p. 348). In this case even
the peasant’s manure is converted into a constituent part of the
private landowner’s farm! The widespread and varied character of
labour-service is indicated by the abundance of terms used for it:
otrabotki, otbuchi, otbutki, barshchina, basarinka, posobka, panshchina,
postupok, viyemka, etc. ( ibid ., 342). Sometimes the peasant
pledges himself to perform “whatever work the owner orders”
( ibid ., 346), or in general to “pay heed,” “give ear” to him, to “help out.” Labour-service
embraces the “whole cycle of jobs in rural life. It is as
labour-service that all operations relating to field-cultivation and grain
and hay harvesting get done, firewood is stocked and loads are
carted” (346-347), roofs and chimneys are repaired (354, 348), and
the delivery-of poultry and eggs is undertaken ( ibid .). An
investigator of Gdov Uyezd, St. Petersburg Gubernia, quite justly remarks
that the types of labour-service to be met with are of the “former,
pre-Reform, Corvée character” (349). [4]

Particularly interesting is the form of labour-service for land, so-called
labour-service renting and rent payment in kind. [5]

In the preceding chapter we have seen how capitalist relations are manifested in peasant renting of land; here
we see “renting” which is simply a survival of

Corvée

economy, [6] and which sometimes passes imperceptibly into the capitalist system of
providing the estate with agricultural workers by alloting patches of land
to them. Zemstvo statistics establish beyond doubt this connection
between such “renting” and the lessors’ own farming. “With the development of their own farming on the private
landowners’ estates, the owners had to guarantee themselves a supply of workers at the required time . Hence, there develops in many
places the tendency among them to distribute land to the peasants on the
labour-service basis, or for a part of the crop together with
labour-service. . . .” This system of farming “. . . is fairly
widespread. The more frequently the lessors do their own farming, the
smaller the amount of land available for leasing and the greater the
demand for such land, the more widely does this form of land renting
develop” ( ibid ., p. 266, cf. also 367). Thus, we have here
renting of a very special kind, under which the landowner does not abandon
his own farm, but which expresses the development of private-landowner cultivation , expresses not the consolidation of the peasant farm by
the enlargement of area held, but the conversion of the peasant into an agricultural labourer . In the preceding chapter we have seen that
on the peasant’s farm the renting of land is of contradictory
significance: for some it is a profitable expansion of their farms; for
others it is a deal made out of dire need. Now we see that on the
landlord’s farm, too, the leasing of land is of contradictory
significance: in some cases it is the transfer of the farm to another
person for a payment of rent; in others it is a method of conducting
one’s own farm, a method of providing one’s estate with
manpower.

Let us pass to the question of the payment of labour under
labour-service. The data from various sources are at one in testifying to
the fact that the payment of labour where it is hired on a labour-service
and bonded basis is always lower than under capitalist “free” hire. Firstly, this is proved by the fact that rent in
kind, i.e., on the basis of labour-service and half-cropping (which, as we
have just seen, is merely labour-service and bonded hire), is every where, as a
general rule, more costly than money rent, very much more costly
( ibid ., p. 350), sometimes twice as much ( ibid ., 356,
Rzhev Uyezd, Tver Gubernia). Secondly, rent in kind is developed to the
greatest degree among the poorest groups of peasants ( ibid ., 261
and foll.). This is renting from dire need, “renting” by the
peasant who is no longer able to resist his conversion, in this way, into
an agricultural wage-worker. The well-to-do peasants do what they can to
rent land for money. “The tenant takes advantage of every
opportunity to pay his rent in money, and thus to reduce the cost of using
other people’s land” ( ibid ., 265) – and we would add, not only to reduce the cost of renting the land, but also to escape
bonded hire. In Rostovon-Don Uyezd the remarkable fact was even observed
of money rent being abandoned in favour of skopshchina, [11] as rents went up,
despite a drop in the peasants’ share of the harvest ( ibid ., p. 266). The significance of rent in kind, which utterly
ruins the peasant and turns him into a farm labourer, is quite clearly
illustrated by this fact. [7]

Thirdly, a direct comparison between the price of labour in the case of
labour-service hire and of capitalist “free” hire shows the
latter to be greater. In the above-quoted publication of the Department of
Agriculture, Hired Labour , etc ., it is calculated that
the average pay for the complete cultivation, with the peasant’s own
implements, of a dessiatine of land under winter grain is 6 rubles (data
for the central black-earth belt for the 8 years, 1883-1891). If, however,
we calculate the cost of the same amount of work on a hired labour basis,
we get 6 rubles 19 kopeks for the work of the labourer alone, not counting
the work of the horse (the pay for the horse’s work cannot be put at
less than 4 rubles 50 kopeks, loc . cit ., 45). The compiler rightly considers this to be “absolutely abnormal”
( ibid .). We would merely observe that the fact that payment for
labour under purely capitalist hire is greater than under all forms of
bondage and under other pre-capitalist relations has been established not
only in agriculture, but also in industry, and not only in Russia, but
also in other countries. Here are more precise and more detailed Zemstvo
statistics on this question ( Statistical Returns for Saratov Uyezd , Vol. I, Pt. III, pp. 18-19. Quoted from Mr. Karyshev’s
Rentings, p. 353). (See Table on p. 203.)

Thus, under labour-service (just as under bonded hire combined with usury)
the prices paid for labour are usually less than half those under
capitalist hire. [8]

Since labour service can only be undertaken by a local peasant, and one who must
be “provided with an allotment,” the fact of the tremendous
drop in pay clearly indicates the importance of the allotment as wages in
kind. The allotment, in such cases, continues to this day to serve as a
means of “guaranteeing” the landowner a supply of cheap
labour. But the difference between free and “semi-free” [9] labour is far from
exhausted by the difference in pay. Of enormous importance also is the
circumstance that the latter form of labour always presupposes the
personal dependence of the one hired upon the one who hires him, it always
presupposes the greater or lesser retention of “other than economic
pressure.” Engelhardt very aptly says that the lending of money for
repayment by labour-service is explained by the greater security of such
debts: to extract payment from the peasant on a distraint order is a
difficult matter, “but the authorities will compel the peasant to perform the work he has undertaken to do, even if his own grain remains ungathered”
( loc . cit ., 216). “Only long years of slavery, of serf labour for the lord, have been able to produce the
indifference” (only apparent) with which the cultivator leaves his
own grain in the rain to go carting somebody else’s sheaves
( ibid ., 429). Without one or other form of binding the population
to their domiciles, to the “community,” without a certain lack
of civic rights, labour-service as a system would be impossible. It stands
to reason that an inevitable consequence of the above-described features
of the labour-service system is low productivity of labour: methods of
farming based on labour-service can only be the most stereotyped; the
labour of the bonded peasant cannot but approximate, in quality, to the
labour of the serf.

The combination of the labour-service and the capitalist systems makes the
present system of landlord farming extremely similar in its economic
organisation to the system that prevailed in our textile industry before
the development of large-scale machine industry. There, part of the
operations was done by the merchant with his own implements and with
wage-workers (fixing the yarn, dyeing and finishing the fabric, etc.), and
part with the implements of peasant handicraftsmen who worked for him,
using his material. Here, part of the operations is performed by
wage-workers, using the employer’s implements, and another part by
the labour and the implements of peasants working on the land of
others. There, combined with industrial capital was merchant’s
capital, and the handicrafts man, besides being weighed down by capital,
was burdened with bondage, the operations of the subcontractor, the truck
system, etc. Here, likewise, combined with industrial capital is
merchant’s and usurer’s capital accompanied by all forms of
pay reduction and intensification of the producer’s personal
dependence. There, the transitional system lasted for centuries, being
based on a primitive hand-labour technique, and was smashed in some three
decades by large-scale machine industry; here, labour-service has
continued almost since the rise of Rus (the landowners forced the
villeins into bondage as far back as the time of Russkaya Pravda [12] ),
perpetuating routine technique, and has begun rapidly to give way to
capitalism only in the post-Reform epoch. In both cases, the old system merely implies stagnation in the forms of production
(and, consequently, in all social relations), and the domination of the
Asiatic way of life. In both cases, the new, capitalist forms of economy
constitute enormous progress, despite all the contradictions inherent in
them.

---
Notes:
[1]
Statistical Returns for Ryazan Gubernia .— Lenin

[2]
Engelhardt, loc . cit .— Lenin

[3]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. V, Pt 1, Moscow,
l879, pp, 186-189. We give these references only as an illustration. A
mass of similar information is to be found in all the literature on
peasant and private-landowner farming.— Lenin

[4]
It is noteworthy that the enormous variety of forms of labour-service in
Russia, and of forms of land renting with all sorts of supplementary
payments, etc., are covered in their entirety by the main forms
of pre-capitalist relations in agriculture indicated by Marx in Chapter
47, Vol. III of Capital . In the preceding chapter, we have
indicated that there are three main forms: 1) labour-rent, 2) rent in
kind, and 3) money rent. It is, therefore quite natural that Marx should
want specifically Russian data as illustrations for the section dealing
with ground-rent.— Lenin

[5]
According to Results of Zemstvo Statistical Investigations
(Vol. II), of all the land rented by peasants, 76% is paid for in money;
3 to 7% by labour-service, 13 to 17% with part of the product and,
finally, 2 to 3% by a combination of methods.— Lenin

[6]
Cf. examples given in footnote to pp. 194-195. When Corvée economy
existed, the landlord gave the peasant land so that the peasant might work
for him. When land is leased on the labour-service basis, the economic
aspect of the matter is obviously the same.— Lenin

[7]
The summary of the latest data on land renting (Mr. Karyshev in the book:
The Influence of Harvests , etc ., Vol 1) has fully confirmed the fact that it is only want that compels peasants to rent land
on a half-crop or a labour-service basis, and that the well-to-do peasants
prefer to rent land for money (pp. 317-320), as rent in kind is everywhere
incomparably more costly for the peasant than in cash (pp. 342-346). All
these facts, however, have not prevented Mr. Karyshev from presenting the
situation as though “the poor peasant . . . is better able to
satisfy his need for food by slightly extending his crop area to other
people’s land on a half-crop basis” (321). Such are the
fantastic ideas to which a bias in favour of “natural economy”
can lead one! It has been proved that the payment of rent in kind is more
costly than payment in cash, that it constitutes a sort of truck-system in
agriculture, that the peasant is completely ruined and turned into a farm
labourer – and yet our economist talks of improving “food”!
Half-crop payment for rent, if you please, “helps . . . the needy
section of the rural population to obtain” land by renting it
(320). Our economist here calls it “help” to obtain land on
the worst conditions, on the condition that the peasant is turned into a
farm labourer. The question arises: what is the difference between the
Russian Narodniks and the Russian agrarians, who always have been and
always are ready to render the “needy section of the rural
population” this kind of “help”? By the way, here is an
interesting example. In Khotin Uyezd, Bessarabia Gubernia, the average
daily earnings of a half cropper are estimated at 60 kopeks, and a day
labourer in the summer at 35 to 50 kopeks. “It seems that the earnings of a half-cropper are , after all , higher than the wages of a farm labourer ” (344; Mr. Karyshev’s
italics). This “after all” is very characteristic. But, unlike
the farm labourer, the half-cropper has his farm expenses, has he not? He
has to have a horse and harness, has he not? Why was no account taken of
these expenses? Whereas the average daily wage in the summer in Bessarabia
Gubernia is 40 to 77 kopeks (1883-1887 and 1888-1892) the average wage of
a labourer with horse and harness is 124 to 180 kopeks (1883-1887 and
1888-1892). Does it not rather “seem” that the farm labourer
“after all” earns more than the half-cropper? The average
daily wage of a labourer working without a horse of his own (average for a
whole year) is estimated at 67 kopeks for Bessarabia Gubernia in the
period 1882-1891 ( ibid ., 178)— Lenin

[8]
After this, what can one do but describe as reactionary the criticism of
capitalism made, for instance, by a Narodnik like Prince Vasilchikov? The
very word “hired,” he exclaims pathetically, is contradictory,
for hire presupposes non-independence, and non-independence rules out
“freedom.” This Narodnik-minded landlord forgets, of course,
that capitalism substitutes free non-independence for bonded
non-independence.— Lenin

[9]
An expression employed by Mr. Karyshev, loc . cit . It is
a pity Mr. Karvshev did not draw the conclusion that half-crop renting
“helps” the survival of “semi-free” labour!— Lenin

[10]
Cultivation of cycles – an enslaving form of labour-service
rendered to the landlord by the peasant as rental for land obtained from
him in post-Reform Russia. The landlord lent the peasant land or made him
a loan in cash or kind for which the peasant undertook to cultivate a
“cycle,” using his own implements and draught animals; this
meant cultivating one dessiatine of spring crops and one of winter crops,
occasionally supplemented by reaping a dessiatine of crops.

[11]
Skopshchina – the name given in the southern parts of Russia to
the payment of land rent in kind, on terms of bondage, the tenant paying
the landowner “s kopny” (from the corn-shock) a portion of the
harvest (a half, and sometimes more), and usually fulfilling miscellaneous
labour services in addition.

[12]
Villeins – feudally dependent peasants in ancient Rus (9th-13th
centuries) who performed Corvée service for the princes and other temporal
and clerical lords and also paid rent in kind. The feudal lords seized the
land of the villeins and compelled them to work on the feudal estates.

Russkaya Pravda ( Russian Law ) – the first written codification of laws and princes’ decrees (11th-12th centuries). The
statutes of the Russkaya Pravda protected the lives and property
of the feudal lord and are indicative of the bitter class struggle between
peasants in feudal bondage and their exploiters.

| | II. The Combination of the Corvée and the Capitalist Systems of Economy | | | IV. The Decline of the Labour-Service System | |

# The Decline of the Labour-Service System

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iii/iii8iv.htm

Chapter III. The Landowners’ Transition from Corvée to Capitalist Economy

### IV. The Decline of the Labour-Service System

The question now arises: in what relation does the labour-service system
stand to the post-Reform economy of Russia?

First of all, the growth of commodity economy conflicts with the
labour-service system, since the latter is based on natural economy, on
unchanging technique, on inseparable ties between the landlord and the
peasant. That is why this system is totally impracticable in its complete
form, and every advance in the development of commodity economy and
commercial agriculture undermines the conditions of its practicability.

Next we must take account of the following circumstance. From the
foregoing it follows that labour-service, as practised in present-day
landlord farming, should be divided into two types: 1) labour-service that
can only be performed by a peasant farmer who owns draught animals and
implements (e. g., cultivation of “cycle dessiatine,” ploughing, etc.), and 2) labour-service that can be performed by a rural
proletarian who has no implements (for example, reaping, mowing,
threshing, etc.). It is obvious that for both peasant and landlord
farming, the first and the second type of labour-service are of opposite
significance, and that the latter type constitutes a direct transition to
capitalism, merging with it by a number of quite imperceptible
transitions. In our literature labour-service is usually referred to in
general, without this distinction being made. Yet in the process of the
elimination of labour-service by capitalism the shifting of the centre of
gravity from the first type of labour-service to the second is of enormous
importance. Here is an example from Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia : “On the majority of the estates . . . the
cultivation of the fields and the crops, i.e., the jobs on the careful fulfilment of which the harvest depends, are done by regular workers,
whereas the harvesting, i.e., the job in the performance of which
promptness and speed are the prime consideration, is given to neighbouring
peasants to be done in return for money lent, or for the use of pasture
and other grounds” (Vol. V, Pt. 2, p. 140). On such farms most of
the hands are hired on the labour-service basis, but the capitalist system
undoubtedly predominates, and the “neighbouring peasants” are
at bottom turned into rural workers, similar to the “contract day
labourers” in Germany, who also have land and also hire themselves
out for a definite part of the year (see above, p. 179, footnote). The
enormous drop in the number of horses owned by peasants and the increase
in the number of horseless households as a result of the crop failures of
the

90s [1]

could not but exert great influence in accelerating this process of the elimination
of labour-service by the capitalist system. [2]

Finally, one of the most important reasons for the decline of the
labour-service system should be sought in the differentiation of the peasantry. The connection between labour-service
(of the first type) and the middle group of the peasantry is
clear and a priori – as we have already observed above – and
can be proved by Zemstvo statistics. For example, the abstract for Zadonsk
Uyezd, Voronezh Gubernia, gives returns of the number of farms doing
job-work, in the various groups of peasantry. Here are the data in
percentages:

From the above it is clear that participation in job-work is less
prevalent in the two extreme groups. The largest percentage of households
taking job-work is to be found in the middle group of the peasantry. Since
job-work is also frequently assigned in Zemstvo statistical abstracts to
the category of “employments” in general, we see here, consequently, an example of the typical “employments” of the
middle peasantry – exactly as in the preceding chapter we acquainted
ourselves with the typical “employments” of the bottom and top
groups of the peasantry. The types of “employments” examined
there express the development of capitalism (commercial and industrial
establishments and the sale of labour-power), whereas the type of
“employments” mentioned here, on the contrary, expresses the
backwardness of capitalism and the predominance of labour-service (if we
assume that in the sum-total of “job-work” the predominant
jobs are such as we have assigned to labour-service of the first type).

The greater the decline of natural economy and of the middle peasantry,
the more vigorously is labour-service bound to be eliminated by
capitalism. The well-to-do peasants cannot, naturally, serve as a basis
for the labour-service system, for it is only dire need that compels the
peasant to undertake the worst-paid jobs, jobs that are ruinous for his
own farm. But the rural proletariat are equally unsuitable for the labour-service system, though for another reason:
having no farm of his own, or possessing a miserable patch of land, the
rural proletarian is not tied down to it to the extent that the
“middle” peasant is, and, as a consequence, it is far easier
for him to go elsewhere and hire himself out on “free” terms,
i.e., for higher pay and without bondage at all. Hence the universal
dissatisfaction of our agrarians at the peasants leaving for the towns or
for “outside employments” generally, hence their complaints
that the peasants have “little attachment” (see below,

p. ). The development of purely capitalist wage-labour saps
the very roots of the labour-service system. [3]

It is supremely important to note that this inseparable connection between
the differentiation of the peasantry and the elimination of labour-service
by capitalism – a connection so obvious in theory – has long been noted
by agricultural writers who have observed the various methods of farming
on the landlord estates. In the preface to his collection of articles on
Russian agriculture written between 1857 and 1882, Prof. Stebut points out
that . . . “In community peasant agriculture the farmer-industrialists are becoming differentiated from the farm labourers . The former, who are becoming cultivators on a big scale,
are beginning to employ farm labourers and usually cease to take job-work,
unless they find it absolutely necessary to enlarge their crop area
somewhat, or to obtain the use of pasture land, which in most cases cannot
be done except by taking job-work; the latter, on the other hand, cannot
take any job-work for lack of horses. Hence the obvious necessity for a transition , and a speedy transition, to farming based on wage-labour , since the peasants who still take job-work by the
dessiatine are, due to the feeble state of their horses and to the
multitude of jobs they undertake, beginning to turn out work that is bad
from the viewpoint both of quality and of promptness of fulfilment”
(p. 20).

References to the fact that the ruin of the peasantry is leading to the
elimination of labour-service by capitalism are also made in current
Zemstvo statistical material. In Orel Gubernia, for example, it has been
observed that the drop in grain prices ruined many tenants and that the
land owners were compelled to increase the area cultivated on capitalist
lines. “Simultaneously with the expansion of the area cultivated by
the landlords, we observe everywhere a tendency to replace job-work by the
labour of regular farm hands and to do away with the use of
peasants’ implements . . . a tendency to improve the cultivation of
the soil by the introduction of up-to-date implements . . . to change the
system of farming, to introduce grass crops, to expand and improve
livestock farming and to make it profitable” ( Agricultural Survey of Orel Gubernia for 1887-88 , pp. 124-126. Quoted from
P. Struve’s Critical Remarks , pp. 242-244). In Poltava
Gubernia, in 1890, when grain prices were low, there was observed “a
diminution in peasant renting of land . . .

throughout the gubernia. . . . Correspondingly, in many places, despite
the severe drop in grain prices, there was an increase in the area
cultivated by landowners employing regular labour” ( The Influence of Harvests , etc ., I, 304). In Tambov Gubernia, a
considerable increase has been observed in the prices paid for work done
by horses: for the three years 1892-1894, these prices were 25 to 30%
higher than for the three years 1889-1891 ( Novoye Slovo , 1895,
No. 3, p. 187). This rise in the cost of work done by horses, a natural
result of the decline in the number of peasant horses, cannot but entail
the ousting of labour-service by the capitalist system.

It is by no means our intention, of course, to use these separate
references in order to prove that labour-service is being eliminated by
capitalism: no complete statistics on this subject are available. We are
merely using them to illustrate the point that there is a
connection between the differentiation of the peasantry and the
elimination of labour-service by capitalism. General and mass-scale data,
which prove irrefutably that this elimination is going on, relate to the
employment of machinery in agriculture and to the employment of labour
freely hired. But before passing to these data, we must first deal with
the views of the Narodnik economists on contemporary farming by private
landowners in Russia.

---
Notes:
[1]
The horse census of 1893-1894 in 48 gubernias revealed a drop of 9.6% in
the number of horses possessed by all horse owners, and a drop of 28,321
in the number of horse owners. In Tambov, Voronezh, Kursk, Ryazan, Orel,
Tula and Nizhni-Novgorod gubernias, the decline in the number of horses
between 1888 and 1893 was 21.2%. In seven other gubernias of the
black-earth belt the decline between 1891 and 1893 was 17%. In 38
gubernias of European Russia in 1888-1891 there were 7,922 260 peasant
households, of which 5,736,436 owned horses; in 1893-1894, there were in
these gubernias 8,288,987 households, of which 5,647,233 owned
horses. Consequently, the number of horse-owning households dropped by
89,000, while the number of horseless increased by 456,000 The percentage
of horseless households rose from 27.6% to 31.9% ( Statistics of the Russian Empire , XXXVII. St. Petersburg, 1896.) Above we have shown
that in 48 gubernias of European Russia the number of horseless households
rose from 2.8 million in 1888-1891 to 3.2 million in 1896-1900 – i.e.,
from 27.3% to 29.2%. In four southern gubernias (Bessarabia,
Ekaterinoslav, Taurida, Kherson), the number of horseless households rose
from 305,800 in 1896 to 341,600 in 1904, i.e., from 34.7% to 36.4%
( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[2]
Cf. also S. A. Korolenko, Hired Labour , etc ., pp. 46-47, where, on the basis of the horse censuses of 1882 and 1888,
examples are cited of how the drop in the number of horses possessed by
peasants is accompanied by an increase in the number of horses possessed
by private landowners.— Lenin

[3]
Here is a particularly striking example. Zemstvo statisticians explain the
comparative incidence of money renting and renting in kind in various
parts of Bakhmut Uyezd, Ekaterinoslav Gubernia, in the following way:

“Money renting is most widespread . . . in the coal and
salt-mining districts, and least widespread in the steppe and purely
agricultural area The peasants, in general, are not eager to go out to
work for others, and are particularly reluctant to accept irksome and
badly paid work on private estates. Work in the coal mines, in ore-mining
and in metallurgy generally, is arduous and injurious to the
worker’s health, but, generally speaking, it is better paid, and
attracts the worker with the prospect of monthly or weekly wages in cash,
as he does not usually get money when he works on the landlord’s
estate for the reason that there he is either working in payment of the
‘bit’ of land he has rented, or of straw or grain he has
borrowed, or has managed to get his pay in advance to cover his ordinary
needs, etc.

“All this induces the worker to avoid working on estates, and
he does avoid doing so when there is an opportunity of earning money in
some place other than the landlord’s ‘estate.’ And this
opportunity occurs mostly where there are many mines, at which the workers
are paid ‘good’ money. With the ‘pence’ the peasant earns in the mines, he can rent land, without having to pledge
himself to work on an estate, and in this way renting for money
establishes its sway” (quoted from Results of Zemstw Statistical Investigations , Vol. II, p. 265). In the steppe, non-industrial
divisions of the uyezd, on the other hand, land renting on a skopshchina
and a labour-service basis establishes its sway.

Thus, to escape labour-service the peasant is ready to flee even to
the mines! Prompt payment in cash, the impersonal form of hire and
regular working hours “attract” the worker to such an extent
that he even prefers the mines underground to agriculture, the agriculture
about which our Narodniks wax so idyllic. The whole point is that the
peasant knows from bitter experience the real value of the labour-service
idealised by the agrarians and the Narodniks, and he knows how much better
are purely capitalist relations.— Lenin

| | III. Description of the Labour-Service System | | | V. The Narodnik Attitude to the Problem | |

# The Narodnik Attitude to the Problem

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iii/iii8v.htm

Chapter III. The Landowners’ Transition from Corvée to Capitalist Economy

### V. The Narodnik Attitude to the Problem

The point that the labour-service system is simply a survival of Corvée
economy is not denied even by the Narodniks. On the contrary, it is
admitted – although in an insufficiently general form – by Mr. N.–on
( Sketches , § IX) and by Mr. V. V. (particularly explicitly in his
article “Our Peasant Farming and Agronomy,” in
Otechestvenniye Zapiski , 1882, No. 8-9). The more astonishing is
it that the Narodniks do their utmost to avoid admitting the clear and
simple fact that the present system of private-landowner farming is a
combination of the labour-service and the capitalist systems, and that,
consequently, the more developed the former, the weaker the latter, and
vice versa. They avoid analysing the relation of each of these systems to
the productivity of labour, to the payment of the worker’s labour, to the basic features of the post-Reform economy of Russia, etc. To put
the question on this basis, on the basis of recognising the
“ change ” actually taking place , meant to admit the inevitability of the progressive elimination of labour-service
by capitalism. To avoid drawing that conclusion, the Narodniks did not
stop even at idealising the labour-service system . This monstrous
idealisation is the basic feature of the Narodnik views on the evolution
of landlord economy. Mr. V. V. even went so far as to write that
“the people . . . are the victors in the struggle for the form of
agricultural technique, although their victory has resulted in their
greater ruin” ( The Destiny of Capitalism , p. 288). To admit
such a “victory” is more eloquent than to admit defeat! Mr. N.–on discerned in the allotment of land to the peasants
under Corvée and under labour-service economy the “principle”
“of linking the producer and the means of production,” but he
forgot the tiny circumstance that this allotting of land served as a means
of guaranteeing a supply of labour for the landlords. As we have
indicated, Marx, in describing pre-capitalist systems of agriculture,
analysed all the forms of economic relations that, in general,
exist in Russia, and clearly emphasised the necessity of small-scale
production and of a tie between the peasant and the land in the case of
both labour-rent, rent in kind and money rent. But could it ever have
entered his head to elevate this allotting of land to the dependent
peasant into a “principle” of an eternal tie between the
producer and the means of production? Did he forget even for a moment that
this tie between the producer and the means of production was the
source of, and condition for, medieval exploitation, constituted the basis
for technical and social stagnation and necessarily required all sorts of
“other than economic, pressure”?

An exactly similar idealisation of labour-service and of bondage is
displayed by Messrs. Orlov and Kablukov in Moscow Zemstvo Returns when
they quote as a model the farm of a certain Mme. Kostinskaya in Podolsk
Uyezd (see Vol. V, Pt. I, pp. 175-176, and Vol. II, pp. 59-62,
Sect. II). In Mr. Kablukov’s opinion, this farm proves “that
it is possible to arrange matters in such a way as to preclude ( sic !!) such an antagonism” (i.e., antagonism of interests between landlord and peasant farming) “and assist in achieving a
flourishing ( sic !) condition of both peasant and private
farming” (Vol. V, Pt. I, pp. 175-176). It seems, then, that the
flourishing condition of the peasants consists in labour-service and
bondage. They have no pastures or cattle runs (Vol. II,
pp. 60-61), – which does not prevent Messrs. the Narodniks from regarding
them as “sound” peasants – and rent these grounds, for which
they pay the proprietress in work , performing “all the jobs
on her estate ... thoroughly, punctually and promptly.” [1]

That is the limit in idealising an economic system which is a direct
survival of Corvée service!

The methods employed in all such Narodnik reasoning are very simple; we
have only to forget that the allotment of land to the peasant is one of
the conditions of Corvée or labour-service economy, we have only to omit
the circumstance that this allegedly “independent” cultivator
must render labour-rent, rent in kind or money rent, – and we get the
“pure” idea of “the tie between the producer and the means of production.” But the actual relation between capitalism and
pre-capitalist forms of exploitation does not change in the least from the
fact of simply omitting these forms. [2]

Let us deal somewhat with another, very curious, argument of
Mr. Kablukov. We have seen that he idealises labour-service; but it is
remarkable that when he, as a statistician, describes real types
of purely capitalist farms in Moscow Gubernia, his description,
in spite of himself, and in a distorted way, is a reflection of the very
facts that prove the progressive nature of capitalism in Russian
agriculture. We beg the reader’s attention, and apologise in advance
for our rather lengthy quotations.

Besides the old types of farms employing hired labour, there is to be
found in Moscow Gubernia “a new, recent, emergent type of farm that has totally broken
with all tradition and regards things simply, in the way people
regard every industry that is to serve as a source of income. Agriculture in this case is not regarded as . . . a
lord’s hobby, as an occupation anybody may engage in. . . . No,
here the necessity is recognised of having . . . special
knowledge. . . . The basis of calculation” (as to the organisation of production) “is the same as in all other forms
of production” ( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. V, Pt. I, pp. 185-186).

Mr. Kablukov does not notice that this description of the new type of farm
which has only “recently emerged,” in the 70s, proves precisely the progressive nature of capitalism in agriculture. It was
capitalism that first turned agriculture from a “lord’s
hobby” into ordinary industry, it was capitalism that first
compelled people “to regard things simply,” “to break with tradition” and to equip themselves with “special
knowledge.” Before capitalism this was both unnecessary and
impossible, because the farms of the different manors, village communities
and peasant families were “self-sufficing,” were not dependent
on other farms, and no power on earth could drag them out of their
age-long stagnation. Capitalism was the force which created (through the
medium of the market) the social accounting of the output of the
individual producers, and compelled them to reckon with the demands of
social development. It is this that constitutes the progressive role of
capitalism in agriculture in all European countries.

Listen now to the way Mr. Kablukov describes our purely capitalist farms:

“Only then is account taken of labour-power as a necessary factor in
acting upon nature; without this factor all organisation of the
landlord’s estate will be fruitless. Thus, with all appreciation of
its significance, this element, at the same time, is not regarded as an
independent source of income, as was the case under serfdom, or as is the
case now in those instances when what is made the basis of the
estate’s profitability is not the product of labour, the obtaining
of which is the direct purpose of its application, not the striving to
apply this labour to the production of its more valuable products and
thereby to enjoy its results, but the striving to reduce the share of the
product which the worker gets for himself, the desire to reduce the cost
of labour to the master as near as possible to zero” (p. 186). Reference is made to farming based on labour in return for the
use of cut-off lands. “Under these circumstances, for a farm to be
profitable the owner requires neither knowledge nor special qualities. All
that is obtained from this labour represents clear income for the owner or
at all events such income as is obtained almost without any expenditure of
circulating capital. But such farming cannot, of course, be well conducted
and cannot be called farming in the strict sense of the term, any more
than the leasing of all pasture and other grounds can be called such;
there is no economic organisation here” (186). And quoting examples
of the leasing of cut-off lands in return for labour-service, the author
concludes: “The main emphasis in the farm economy, the manner of
extracting an income from the soil, is rooted in the exertion of influence
upon the worker rather than upon matter and its forces” (189).

This argument is an extremely interesting example of how distorted is the
picture of actual facts when viewed from the angle of a wrong
theory. Mr. Kablukov confuses production with the social system of
production. Under every social system production consists in “the
exertion of influence” upon matter and its forces. Under every
social system only the surplus product can be the landowner’s source
of “income.” In both respects the labour-service system of
economy is fully identical with the capitalist system, Mr.
Kablukov’s opinion notwithstanding. The real difference between them
is that labour-service necessarily presupposes the lowest productivity of
labour; hence, no possibility exists for increasing income by increasing
the surplus product; that can only be done by one means, namely, by
employing all sorts of bonded forms of hire. Under purely capitalist
economy, on the contrary, bonded forms of hire must go by the board, for
the proletarian, not being tied to the land, is useless as an object of
bondage; – to raise the productivity of labour becomes not only possible,
but also necessary as the sole means of increasing income and with standing severe
competition. Thus, the description of our purely capitalist farms, given
by the very Mr. Kablukov who so zealously tried to idealise
labour-service, fully confirms the fact that Russian capitalism is
creating the social conditions which necessarily demand
the rationalisation of agriculture and the abolition of bondage, whereas
labour-service, on the contrary, precludes the possibility of
rationalising agriculture and perpetuates technical stagnation and the
producer’s condition of bondage. Nothing could be more frivolous
than the customary Narodnik exultation over the fact that capitalism in
our agriculture is weak. So much the worse if it is weak, for it only
indicates the strength of pre-capitalist forms of exploitation, which are
incomparably more burdensome to the producer.

---
Notes:
[1]
Cf. Volgin, op . cit ., pp 280-281.— Lenin

[2]
“It is said that the spread of labour-service renting in place of
money renting . . . is a retrogressive fact. But do we say that it is
desirable or beneficial? We . . . have never asserted that it is
progressive,” stated Mr. Chuprov on behalf of all the authors of
The Influence of Harvests , etc . (see Verbatim Report of
the Debates in the F E. S. of March 1 and 2, 1897, [3] p. 38) This statement is untrue even
formally, for Mr. Karyshev (see above) described labour-service as
“help” to the rural population. And in substance this statement absolutely contradicts the actual content of all the Narodnik
theories with their idealisation of labour-service. It is to the great
credit of Messrs. T.-Baranovsky and Struve that they have correctly
presented the question (1897) of the significance of low grain
prices: the criterion for appraising them must be whether such prices
promote the elimination of labour-service by capitalism or not. Such a
question is obviously one of fact, and in answering it we differ somewhat
from the writers mentioned. On the basis of the data given in the text
(see particularly § VII of this chapter and also Chapter IV ), we consider
it possible and even probable that the period of low grain prices will be
marked by a no less, if not more, rapid elimination of labour-service by
capitalism than was the preceding historical period of high grain prices.— Lenin

[3]
The Verbatim Report of the Debates of March 1 and 2 appeared in the
Transactions of the Free Economic Society , 1897, No. 4.

| | IV. The Decline of the Labour-Service System | | | VI. The Story of Engelhardt’s Farm | |

# The Story of Engelhardt’s Farm

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iii/iii8vi.htm

Chapter III. The Landowners’ Transition from Corvée to Capitalist Economy

### VI. The Story of Engelhardt’s Farm

Quite a special place among the Narodniks is held by Engelhardt. To
criticise his appraisal of labour-service and capitalism would mean to
repeat what has already been said in the preceding section. We think it
far more expedient to set against Engelhardt’s Narodnik views the
story of Engelhardt’s own farm. Such a critique will also be of
positive value, because the evolution of this farm reflects in miniature,
as it were, the main features of the evolution of all private-landowner
farming in post-Reform Russia.

When Engelhardt settled down on the farm it was based on the traditional
labour-service and bondage, which preclude “proper farming”
( Letters from the Countryside , 559). Labour-service was the cause
of the poor condition of cattle raising, of the poor cultivation of the
soil and of the monotonous persistence of obsolete systems of field
cultivation (118). “I saw that it was impossible . . . to go on
farming in the old way” (118). The competition of grain from the
steppe regions was bringing down prices and making farming unprofitable (p. 83). [1]

We would observe that from the very outset, along with the labour-service system a certain part was
played on the farm by the capitalist system: wage-workers, although very
few in number, were also employed on the farm when it was run in the old
way (the cowman and others), and Engelhardt asserts that the wages of his
farm labourer (drawn from among allotment-holding peasants) were
“fabulously low” (11), low because “ it was impossible to give more ” considering that cattle-raising was
in a bad way. The low productivity of labour made it impossible to raise
wages. Thus, the starting-point on Engelhardt’s farm was the
features, familiar to us, of all Russian farms: labour-service, bondage,
the very lowest productivity of labour, “incredibly low”
payment of labour, routine farming.

What changes did Engelhardt introduce into this state of things? He began
to sow flax – a commercial and industrial crop requiring the employment
of labour on a big scale. The commercial and capitalist character of the
cultivation was accordingly enhanced. But how was he to obtain labour?
Engelhardt tried at first to employ in the new (commercial) cultivation
the old system, that of labour-service. Nothing came of that; the work was
badly done, the “dessiatine” proved to be beyond the strength
of the peasants, who resisted with all their might “gang work”
and bonded terms of labour. “The system had to be changed. Meanwhile
I got on my feet. I acquired my own horses, harness, carts, ploughs and
harrows and was already in a position to run the farm with regular
workers. I began to produce flax, partly with my regular workers and
partly on a job basis, hiring labourers for definite jobs”
(218). Thus, the transition to the new system of farming and to commercial
cultivation demanded the replacement of labour-service by the capitalist
system. To increase productivity of labour, Engelhardt resorted to the
well-tried method of capitalist production: piece work. Women were engaged
to work by the stack, or the pood, and Engelhardt (not without some na\"ive
triumph) tells of the success of this system; the cost of cultivation
increased (from 25 rubles per dess. to 35 rubles), but profit also
increased by 10 to 20 rubles; the women’s productivity of labour increased following the change from bonded to hired labour (from
half a pood per night to a whole pood) and the earnings of the women
increased to 30-50 kopeks per day (“unprecedented in our
parts”). The local textile merchant was full of praise for
Engelhardt: “Your flax has given a great fillip to trade”
(219).

Applied at first to the cultivation of the commercial crop, hired labour
gradually began to embrace other agricultural operations. One of the first
operations to be withdrawn by capital from the labour-service system was
threshing. It is well known that on all farms run by private landowners
this work is mostly performed on capitalist lines. “Part of the
land,” wrote Engelhardt, “I lease to peasants for cultivation
in cycles, for otherwise I would find it hard to cope with the reaping of
the rye” (211). Thus, labour-service functions as a direct
transition to capitalism, by ensuring the farmer a supply of day labourers
in the busiest season. At first cycle-cultivation included threshing, but
here, too, the poor quality of the work done compelled the farmer to
resort to hired labour. Land began to be leased for cycle-cultivation
without threshing, which latter was done partly by farm labourers and
partly, through the medium of a contractor, by a team of wage-workers, at
piece rates. Here, too, the results of replacing labour-service by the
capitalist system were: 1) an increase in the productivity of labour:
formerly 16 people threshed 900 sheaves per day, now 8 did 1,100 sheaves;
2) an increase in the yield; 3) a reduction in threshing time; 4) an
increase in the worker’s earnings; 5) an increase in the
farmer’s profits (212).

Further, the capitalist system also embraced tillage operations. Iron
ploughs were introduced in place of the old wooden ones, and the work
passed from the bound peasant to the farm labourer. Engelhardt
triumphantly reports the success of his innovation, the diligence of the
labourers, and quite justly shows that the customary accusations flung at
the labourer of being lazy and dishonest are due to the “brand of
serfdom” and to bonded labour “for the lord,” and that the new organisation of farming also demands something of the farmer: a
display of enterprise, a knowledge of people and ability to handle them, a
knowledge of the job and its scope, acquaintance with the technical and
commercial aspects of agriculture – i.e., qualities that were not and could not be
possessed by the

Oblomovs [2] of the feudal or bondage suffering countryside. The various changes in the technique of agriculture are
inseparably connected with one another and inevitably lead to the
transformation of its economy. “For example, let us suppose you
introduce the cultivation of flax and clover – that will immediately
necessitate numerous other changes, and if these are not made, the
business will not run smoothly. The ploughing implements will have to be
changed and iron ploughs substituted for wooden ones, iron harrows for
wooden ones, and this in turn will require a different type of horse, a
different type of labourer, a different system of farming as regards the hire of labourers , etc.” (154-155).

The change in the technique of agriculture thus proved to be inseparably
bound up with the elimination of labour-service by capitalism.
Particularly interesting in this regard is the gradualness with which this
elimination takes place: the system of farming, as hitherto, combines
labour-service and capitalism, but the main weight gradually shifts from
the former to the latter. Here is a description of how Engelhardt’s
reorganised farm operated:

“Nowadays I have much work to do, because I have changed the whole
system of farming. A considerable part of the work is done by regular
labourers and day labourers. The work is extremely varied. I clear
brushwood for wheat growing, uproot birches for flax growing. I have
rented meadow land by the Dnieper, and have sown clover, lots of rye and
much flax. I need an enormous number of hands. To secure them, you have to
make arrangements in good time, for when the busy season starts everybody
will be occupied either at home or on other farms. This recruitment of
labour is done by advancing money or grain for work to be done”
(pp.116-117).

Labour-service and bondage remained, consequently, even on a
“properly” conducted farm; but, firstly, they now occupied a
subordinate position as compared with free hire, and, secondly, the very
labour-service underwent a change; it was mainly the second type of
labour-service which remained, that implying the labour not of peasant
farmers, but of regular labourers and agricultural day labourers.

Thus, Engelhardt’s own farm is better than all arguments in refuting
Engelhardt’s Narodnik theories. He set out to farm on rational
lines, but was unable to do so, under the given social and economic
conditions, except by organising the farm on the basis of employing farm
labourers. The raising of the technical level of agriculture and the
supplanting of labour-service by capitalism proceeded hand in hand on this
farm, as it does on all private-landowner farms in general in Russia. This
process is most clearly reflected in the employment of machinery in
Russian agriculture.

---
Notes:
[1]
This fact that the competition of cheap grain serves as the motive for
change in technique and, consequently, for replacing labour-service by
free hire, deserves special attention. The competition of grain from the
steppe regions was also felt even in the years of high grain prices; the
period of low prices, however, lends this competition particular force.— Lenin

[2]
Oblomov – a type of landlord who lacked will-power, did nothing
and was extremely lazy. A character in Goncharov’s novel of that
name.

| | V. The Narodnik Attitude to the Problem | | | VII. The Employment of Machinery in Agriculture | |

# The Employment of Machinery in Agriculture

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iii/iii8vii.htm

Chapter III. The Landowners’ Transition from Corvée to Capitalist Economy

### VII. The Employment of Machinery in Agriculture

The post-Reform epoch is divided into four periods as regards the
development of agricultural machinery production and the employment of
machinery in agriculture. [1]

The first period covers the years immediately preceding the peasant Reform and
the years immediately following it. The landlords at first rushed to
purchase foreign machinery so as to get along without the
“unpaid” labour of the serfs and to avoid the difficulties
connected with the hiring of free workers. This attempt ended, of course,
in failure; the fever soon died down, and beginning with 1863-1864 the
demand for foreign machinery dropped. The end of the 70s saw the beginning
of the second period, which continued until 1885. It was marked by an
extremely steady and extremely rapid increase in machinery imports from abroad; home production also grew steadily, but
more slowly than imports. From 1881 to 1884 there was a particularly rapid
increase in imports of agricultural machinery, due partly to the abolition, in 1881,
of the duty-free import of pig-iron and cast-iron for the needs of
factories producing agricultural machinery. The third period extended from
1885 to the beginning of the 90s. Agricultural machinery, hitherto
imported duty-free, now had an import duty imposed (of 50 kopeks gold per
pood) . The high duty caused an enormous drop in machinery imports, while
home production developed slowly owing to the agricultural crisis which
set in at that time. Finally, the beginning of the 90s evidently saw the
opening of a fourth period, marked by a fresh rise in the import of
agricultural machinery, and by a particularly rapid increase of its home
production.

Let us cite statistics to illustrate these points. Average annual imports
of agricultural machinery at various periods were as follows:

There are, unfortunately, no such complete and precise data on the
production of agricultural machinery and implements in Russia. The
unsatisfactory state of our factory and-works statistics, the confusing of
the production of machinery in general with the production of specifically
agricultural machinery, and the absence of any firmly established rules
for distinguishing between “factory” and “handicraft” production of agricultural machinery – all this
prevents a complete picture of the development of agricultural machinery
production in Russia being obtained. Combining all the data available from
the above-mentioned sources, we get the following picture of the
development of agricultural machinery production in Russia:

These data show the vigorousness of the process in which primitive
agricultural implements are giving way to improved ones (and,
consequently, primitive forms of farming to capitalism). In 18 years the
employment of agricultural machinery increased more than 3.5-fold, and
this was mainly because of the expansion of home production, which more
than quadrupled. Noteworthy, too, was the shifting of the main centre of
such production from the Vistula and Baltic gubernias to the south-Russian
steppe gubernias. Whereas in the 70s the main centre of agricultural
capitalism in Russia was the western outer gubernias, in the 1890s still
more outstanding areas of agricultural capitalism were created in the
purely Russian gubernias. [2]

It is necessary to add, regarding the data just cited, that although they
are based on official (and, as far as we know, the only) information on
the subject under examination, they are far from complete and are not
fully comparable for the different years. For the years 1876-1879 returns
are available that were specially compiled for the 1882 exhibition; they
are the most comprehensive, covering not only “factory” but also “handicraft” production of agricultural implements;
it was estimated that in 1876-1879 there were, on the average, 340
establishments in European Russia and the Kingdom of Poland, whereas
according to “factory” statistical data there were in 1879 not
more than 66 factories in European Russia producing agricultural machinery
and implements (computed from Orlov’s Directory of Factories and Works for 1879). The enormous difference in these figures is
explained by the fact that of the 340 establishments less than one-third
(100) were counted as possessing steam power, and more than half (196) as
being operated by hand labour; 236 establishments of the 340 had no
foundries of their own and had their castings made outside
( Historico-Statistical Survey , loc . cit .). The data for 1890 and 1894, on the other hand, are from Collections of Data on Factory Industry in Russia (published by Department of
Commerce and

Industry). [3]

These data do not fully cover even the “factory” production of agricultural machinery and implements;
for example, in 1890, according to the Collection , there were in
European Russia 149 works engaged in this industry, whereas Orlov’s
Directory mentions more than 163 works producing agricultural
machinery and implements; in 1894, according to the first-mentioned
returns, there were in European Russia 164 works of this kind ( Vestnik Finansov , 1897, No. 21, p. 544), but according to the List of Factories and Works there were in 1894-95 over 173 factories
producing agricultural machinery and implements. As for the small scale,
“handicraft” production of agricultural machinery and implements, this is not included in these data at all. [4]

That

is why there can be no doubt that the data for 1890 and 1894 greatly
understate the actual facts; this is confirmed by the opinion of experts,
who considered that in the beginning of the 1890s agricultural machinery
and implements were manufactured in Russia to a sum of about 10 million
rubles ( Agriculture and Forestry , 359), and in 1895 to a sum of
nearly 20 million rubles ( Vestnik Finansov , 1896, No. 51).

Let us quote somewhat more detailed data on the types and quantity of
agricultural machinery and implements manufactured in Russia. It is
considered that in 1876 there were produced 25,835 implements; in 1877 –
29,590; in 1878 – 35,226; in 1879 – 47,892 agricultural machines and
implements. How far these figures are exceeded at the present time may be
seen from the following: in 1879 about 14,500 iron ploughs were
manufactured, and in 1894 – 75,500 ( Vestnik Finansov , 1897,
No. 21). “Whereas five years ago the problem of the measures to be
taken to bring about the wider use of iron ploughs on peasant farms was
one awaiting solution, today it has solved itself. It is no longer a
rarity for a peasant to buy an iron plough; it has become a common thing,
and the number of iron ploughs now acquired by peasants every year runs
into

thousands.” [5]

The mass of primitive agricultural implements employed in Russia still leaves a wide field for the production and sale
of iron

ploughs. [6]

The progress made in the use of ploughs has even raised the issue of the
employment of electricity. According to a report in the
Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta [ Commercial and Industrial News ] (1902, No. 6), at the Second Congress of Electrical Engineers
“considerable interest was aroused by a paper read by V. A. Rzhevsky
on ‘Electricity in Agriculture.’” The lecturer illustrated by means of some excellent drawings the tillage of fields in
Germany with the aid of electric ploughs, and, from the plan and estimates
he had

drawn up at a landowner’s request for his estate in one of 3 the
southern gubernias, cited figures showing the economies to be effected by
this method of tilling the land. According to this plan, it was proposed
to plough 540 dess. annually, and a part of this twice a year. The depth
of furrow was to be from 4 1/2 to

5 vershoks. [7]

The soil was pure black earth. In addition to ploughs, the plan provided for machinery for other field-work,
and also for a threshing machine and a mill, the latter of 25 h.p.,
calculated to operate 2,000 hours per annum. The cost of completely
equipping the estate, including six versts of overhead cable of
50-mm. thickness, was estimated at 41,000 rubles. The cost of ploughing
one dessiatine would be 7 rubles 40 kopeks if the mill were put up, and 8
rubles 70 kopeks with no mill. It was shown that at the local costs of
labour, draught animals, etc., the use of electrical equipment would in
the first case effect a saving of 1,013 rubles, while in the second case,
less power being used without a mill, the saving would be 966 rubles.

No such sharp change is to be noted in the output of threshing and
winnowing machines, because their production was relatively well
established long ago. [8]

In fact, a special centre for the “handicraft” production of these machines was established in
the town of Sapozhok, Ryazan Gubernia, and the surrounding villages, and
the local members of the peasant bourgeoisie made plenty of money at this
“industry” (cf. Reports and Investigations , I, pp.
208-210). A particularly rapid expansion is observed in the production of
reaping machines. In 1879, about 780 of these machines were produced; in
1893 it was estimated that 7,000 to 8,000 were sold a year, and in 1894-95
about 27,000. In 1895, for example, the works belonging to J. Greaves in
the town of Berdyansk, Taurida Gubernia, “the largest works in
Europe in this line of production” ( Vestnik Finansov , 1896,
No. 51) i.e., in the production of reaping machines, turned out 4,464
reapers. Among the peasants in Taurida Gubernia reaping machines have
become so widespread that a special occupation has arisen, namely, the mechanical reaping of other
people’s grain. [9]

Similar data are available for other, less widespread, agricultural
implements. Broadcast seeders, for example, are now being turned out at
dozens of works, and the more perfect row drills, which were produced at
only two works in 1893 ( Agriculture and Forestry , 360), are now
turned out at seven works ( Productive Forces , I, 51), whose
output has again a particularly wide sale in the south of
Russia. Machinery is employed in all branches of agriculture and in all
operations connected with the production of some kinds of produce: in
special reviews reference is made to the extended use of winnowing
machines, seed-sorters, seed-cleaners (trieurs), seed-driers, hay presses,
flax-scutchers, etc. In the Addendum to the Report on Agriculture
for 1898, published by the Pskov Gubernia Zemstvo Administration ( Severny Kurier [ Northern Courier ], 1899, No. 32), the in creasing
use of machinery is noted, particularly of flax scutchers, in connection
with the transition from flax production for home use to that for
commercial purposes. There is an increase in the number of iron
ploughs. Reference is made to the influence of migration in augmenting the
number of agricultural machines and in raising wages. In Stavropol
Gubernia ( ibid ., No. 33), agricultural machinery is being
employed on an increasing scale in connection with the growing immigration
into this gubernia. In 1882, there were 908 machines: in 1891-1893, an
average of 29,275; in 1894-1896, an average of 54,874; and in 1895, as
many as 64,000 agricultural implements and machines.

The growing employment of machines naturally gives rise to a demand for
engines: along with steam-engines, “oil engines have latterly begun
to spread rapidly on our farms” ( Productive Forces , I, 56),
and although the first engine of this type appeared abroad only seven
years ago, there are already 7 factories in Russia manufacturing them. In
Kherson Gubernia in the 70s only 134 steam-engines were registered in
agriculture ( Material for the Statistics of Steam-Engines in the Russian Empire , St. Petersburg, 1882), and in 1881 about 500
( Historico-Statistical Survey , Vol. II, section on agricultural
implements). In 1884-1886, in three uyezds of the gubernia (out of six),
435 steam threshing machines were registered. “At the present time
(1895) there must be at least twice as many” (Tezyakov,
Agricultural Workers and the Organisation of Sanitary Supervision over Them , in Kherson Gubernia , Kherson, 1896, p. 71). The
Vestnik Finansov (1897, No. 21) states that in Kherson Gubernia,
“there are about 1,150 steam-threshers, and in the Kuban Region the
number is about the same, etc. . . . Latterly the acquisition of
steam-threshers has assumed an industrial character. . . . There have been
cases of a five thousand-ruble threshing machine with steam-engine fully
covering its cost in two or three good harvest years, and of the owner
immediately getting another on the same terms. Thus, 5 and even 10 such
machines are often to be met with on small farms in the Kuban
Region. There they have become an essential accessory of every farm that
is at all well organised.” “Generally speaking, in the south of Russia today,
more than ten thousand steam-engines are in use for agricultural
purposes” ( Productive Forces , IX, 151). [10]

If we remember that the number of steam-engines in use in agriculture
throughout European Russia in 1875 1878 was only 1,351 and that in 1901,
according to incomplete returns ( Collection of Factory Inspectors’ Reports for 1903 ), the number was 12,091, in 1902
– 14,609, in 1903 – 16,021 and in 1904 – 17,287, the gigantic
revolution brought about by capitalism in agriculture in this country
during the last two or three decades will be clear to us. Great service in
accelerating this process has been rendered by the Zemstvos. By the
beginning of 1897, Zemstvo agricultural machinery and implement depots
“existed under the auspices of 11 gubernia and 203 uyezd Zemstvo
boards, with a total working capital of about a million rubles”
( Vestnik Finansov , 1897, No. 21). In Poltava Gubernia, the
turnover of the Zemstvo depots increased from 22,600 rubles in 1890 to
94,900 rubles in 1892 and 210,100 rubles in 1895. In the six years, 12,600
iron ploughs, 500 winnowing machines and seed-sorters, 300 reaping
machines, and 200 horse-threshers were sold. “The principal buyers
of implements at the Zemstvo depots are Cossacks and peasants; they
account for 70% of the total number of iron ploughs and horse-threshers
sold. The purchasers of seeding and reaping machines were mainly
landowners, and large ones at that, possessing over 100 dessiatines”
( Vestnik Finansov , 1897, No. 4).

According to the report of the Ekaterinoslav Gubernia Zemstvo Board for
1895, “the use of improved agricultural implements in the gubernia
is spreading very rapidly.” For example, in the Verkhne-Dnieper
Uyezd there were:

According to the data of the Moscow Gubernia Zemstvo Board, peasants in
Moscow Gubernia in 1895 owned 41,210 iron ploughs; 20.2% of all
householders owned such ploughs ( Vestnik Finansov , 1896,
No. 31). In Tver Gubernia, according to a special record made in 1896,
there were 51,266 iron ploughs, owned by 16.5% of the total number of
householders. In Tver Uyezd there were only 290 iron ploughs in 1890, and
5,581 in 1896 ( Statistical Returns for Tver Gubernia , Vol. XIII,
Pt. 2, pp. 91, 94). One can judge, therefore, how rapid is the
consolidation and improvement of the farms of the peasant bourgeoisie.

---
Notes:
[1]
See Historico-Statistical Survey of Russian Industry , Vol. I,
St. Petersburg, 1883 (published for 1882 exhibition), article by
V. Chernyayev: “Agricultural Machinery Production.” – Ditto,
Vol. II, St. Petersburg, 1886, in group IX. – Agriculture and Forestry in Russia (St. Petersburg, 1893, published for Chicago
Exhibition), article by V. Chernyayev: “Agricultural Implements and
Machines.” – Productive Forces of Russia (St. Petersburg,
1896, published for 1896 exhibition), article by Mr. Lenin:
“Agricultural Implements and Machines” (sect. 1). – Vestnik Finansov [ Financial Messenger ], 1896, No 51 and
1897 No. 21. – V. Raspopin, article cited. Only the last mentioned
article puts the question on a political-economic basis; all the previous
ones were written by agricultural experts.— Lenin

[2]
To make possible a judgment of the way the situation has changed in recent
years, we quote data from the Yearbook of Russia (published by
Central Statistical Committee, St. Petersburg, 1906), for 1900-1903. The
value of the output of agricultural machinery in the Empire is estimated
at 12,058,000 rubles, and of imports in 1902 at 15,240,000 rubles, and in
1903 at 20,615,000 rubles. ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[3]
In the Vestnik Finansov , No. 21, for 1897, comparative data are
given for 1888-1894, but their source is not given specifically.— Lenin

[4]
The total number of workshops engaged in the manufacture and repair of
agricultural implements was given. for 1864 as 64; for 1871 as 112; for
1874 as 203; for 1879 as 340; for 1885 as 435; for 1892 as 400; and for
1895 as approximately 400 ( Agriculture and Forestry in Russia ,
p. 358, and Vestnik Finansov , 1896, No. 51). The
Collections , on the other hand, estimated that in 1888-1894 there
were only from 157 to 217 factories of this kind (average of 183 for the 7
years). Here is an example illustrating the ratio of “factory” production of agricultural machinery to
“handicraft” production: it was estimated that in Perm
Gubernia in 1894 there were only 4 “factories,” with a combined output of 28,000 rubles, whereas for this branch of industry the
1894-95 census showed 94 “handicraft establishments,” with a combined output of 50,000 rubles, and what is more, the number of
“handicraft” establishments included such as employed 6
wage-workers and had an output of over 8,000 rubles. ( A Sketch of the Condition of Handicraft Industry in Perm Gubernia , Perm, 1896.)— Lenin

[5]
Reports and Investigations of Handicraft Industry in Russia . Published by Ministry of State Properties, Vol. I, St.
Petersburg, 1892, p. 202. The production of ploughs by peasants is
simultaneously declining, being forced out by factory production.— Lenin

[6]
Agriculture and Forestry in Russia , p. 360.— Lenin

[7]
7.8 to 8.7 inches. – Ed .— Lenin

[8]
In 1879 about 4,500 threshing machines were produced, and in 1894-1895
about 3,500. The latter figure, however, does not include output by
handicraft industry.— Lenin

[9]
In 1893, for example, “700 peasants gathered with their machines on
the Uspensky estate belonging to Falz-Fein (who owned 200,000 dessiatines)
and offered their services, but half of them went away empty-handed, as
only 350 were engaged” (Shakhovskoi, Agricultural Outside Employments , Moscow, 1896, p. 161). In the other steppe gubernias,
however, especially the Transvolga gubernias, reaping machines are not
widely used as yet. Still, in recent years these gubernias too have been
trying very hard to overtake Novorossia. Thus, the Syzran-Vyazma railway
carried agricultural machinery, traction-engines and parts weighing 75,000
poods in 1890, 62,000 poods in 1891, 88,000 poods in 1892, 120,000 poods
in 1893, and 212,000 poods in 1894; in other words, in a matter of five
years the quantities carried almost trebled. Ukholovo railway station
dispatched agricultural machinery of local manufacture to the extent of
about 30,000 poods in 1893, and about 82,000 poods in 1894, whereas up to
and including 1892 the weight of agricultural machinery dispatched from
that station was even less than 10,000 poods per annum. “Ukholovo
station dispatches mainly threshing machines produced in the villages of
Kanino and Smykovo, and partly in the uyezd town of Sapozhok, Ryazan
Gubernia. In the village of Kanino there are three foundries, belonging to
Yermakov, Karev and Golikov, mainly engaged on agricultural-machinery
parts. The work of finishing and assembling the machines is done in the
above-mentioned two villages (Kanino and Smykovo), of which almost the
entire populations are thus employed” ( Brief Review of the Commercial Activity of the Syzran-Vyazma Railway in 1894 , Pt. IV,
Kaluga, 1896, pp. 62-63). Interesting in this example are, first, the fact
of the enormous increase in production precisely in recent years, which
have been years of low grain prices; and, second, the fact of the
connection between “factory” and so called “handicraft” production. The latter is nothing more nor less
than an “annex” to the factory,— Lenin

[10]
Cf. an item from Perekop Uyezd, Taurida Gubernia, in Russkiye Vedomosti [ Russian Gazette ] of August 19, 1898
(No. 167). “Owing to the widespread use of reaping machines and
steam- and horse-threshing machines among our farmers . . . field-work is
proceeding very rapidly. The old-fashioned method of the threshing with
‘rollers’ is a thing of the past. . . . Every year the Crimean
farmer increases his crop area and therefore has willy-nilly to resort to
the aid of improved agricultural implements and machines. While it is not
possible with rollers to thresh more than 150 to 200 poods of grain per
day, a 10-h.p. steam-thresher will do from 2,000 to 2,500 poods, and a
horse-thresher from 700 to 800 poods. That is why the demand for
agricultural implements, reapers and threshers is growing so rapidly from
year to year that the factories and works producing agricultural
implements exhaust their stocks, as has happened this year, and are unable
to satisfy the farmers’ demand.” The drop in grain prices,
which compels farmers to reduce production costs, must be
regarded as one of the most important causes of the increased use of
improved implements.— Lenin

| | VI. The Story of Engelhardt’s Farm | | | VIII. The Significance of Machinery in Agriculture | |

# The Significance of Machinery in Agriculture

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iii/iii8viii.htm

Chapter III. The Landowners’ Transition from Corvée to Capitalist Economy

VIII. The Significance of Machinery in
Agriculture

Having established the fact of the extremely rapid development of the
production of agricultural machinery and of the employment of machines in
Russia’s post-Reform agriculture, we must now examine the social and
economic significance of this phenomenon. From what has been said above
regarding the economics of peasant and landlord farming, the following
conclusions may be drawn: on the one hand, capitalism is the factor giving
rise to, and extending the use of, machines in agriculture; on the other,
the application of machinery to agriculture is of a capitalist character,
i.e., it leads to the establishment of capitalist relations and their
further development.

Let us dwell on the first of these conclusions. We have seen that the
labour-service system of economy and the patriarchal peasant economy
inseparably connected with it are by their very nature based on routine
technique, on the preservation of antiquated methods of production. There
is nothing in the internal structure of that economic regime to stimulate
the transformation of technique; on the contrary, the secluded and
isolated character of that system of economy, and the poverty and
downtrodden condition of the dependent peasant preclude the possibility of
improvements. In particular, we would point to the fact that the payment
of labour under the labour-service system is much lower (as we have seen)
than where hired labour is employed; and it is well known that low wages
are one of the most important obstacles to the introduction of
machines. And the facts do indeed show us that an extensive movement for
the transformation of agricultural technique only commenced in the
post-Reform period of the development of commodity economy and
capitalism. The competition that is the product of capitalism, and the
dependence of the cultivator on the world market made the transformation
of technique a necessity, while the drop in grain prices made this
necessity particularly urgent. [1]

To explain the second conclusion, we must examine landlord and peasant
farming separately. When a landlord introduces a machine or an improved
implement, he replaces the implements of the peasant (who has worked for
him) with his own; he goes over, consequently, from labour-service to the
capitalist system of farming. The spread of agricultural machines means
the elimination of labour-service by capitalism. It is possible, of course, that a condition laid down, for
example, for the leasing of land is the performance of labour-service in
the shape of day-work at a reaping machine, thresher, etc., but this will
be labour-service of the second type, labour-service which converts the
peasant into a day labourer. Such “exceptions,” consequently,
merely go to prove the general rule that the introduction of improved
implements on the farms of private landowners means converting the bonded
(“independent” according to Narodnik terminology) peasant into
a wage-worker – in exactly the same way as the acquisition of his own
instruments of production by the buyer-up, who gives out work to be done
in the home, means converting the bonded “handicraftsman” into
a wage-worker. The acquisition by the landlord farm of its own implements
leads inevitably to the undermining of the middle peasantry, who get means
of subsistence by engaging in labour-service: We have already seen that
labour-service is the specific “industry” of the middle
peasant, whose implements, consequently, are a component part not only of
peasant, but also of landlord, farming. [2]

Hence, the spread of agricultural machinery and improved implements and the expropriation of the peasantry are inseparably
connected. That the spread of improved implements among the peasantry is
of the same significance hardly requires explanation after what has been
said in the preceding chapter. The systematic employment of machinery in
agriculture ousts the patriarchal “middle” peasant as inexorably as the steam-power loom ousts the handicraft weaver.

The results of the employment of machinery in agriculture confirm what has
been said, and reveal all the typical features of capitalist progress with
all its inherent contradictions.

Machines enormously increase the productivity of labour in agriculture,
which, before the present epoch, was almost entirely untouched by social
development. That is why the mere fact of the growing employment of
machines in Russian agriculture is sufficient to enable one to see how
utterly unsound is Mr. N.–on’s assertion that there is “absolute stagnation” ( Sketches , p. 32) in grain
production in Russia, and that there is even a “decline in the
productivity” of agricultural labour. We shall return to this
assertion, which contradicts generally established facts and which Mr.
N.–on needed for his idealisation of the pre-capitalist order.

Further, machines lead to the concentration of production and to the
practice of capitalist co-operation in agriculture. The introduction of
machinery, on the one hand, calls for capital on a big scale, and
consequently is only within the capacity of the big farmers; on the other
hand, machines pay only when there is a huge amount of products to be
dealt with; the expansion of production becomes a necessity with the
introduction of machines. The wide use of reaping machines,
steam-threshers, etc., is therefore indicative of the concentration of
agricultural production – and we shall indeed see later that the Russian
agricultural region where the employment of machines is particularly
widespread (Novorossia) is also distinguished by the quite considerable
size of its farms. Let us merely observe that it would be a mistake to
conceive the concentration of agriculture in just the one form of
extensive enlargement of the crop area (as Mr. N.–on does); as a matter
of fact, the concentration of agricultural production manifests itself in
the most diverse forms, depending on the forms of commercial agriculture
(see next chapter on this point). The concentration of production is
inseparably connected with the extensive co-operation of workers on the
farm. Above we saw an example of a large estate on which the grain was
harvested by setting hundreds of reaping machines into operation
simultaneously. “Threshers drawn by 4 to 8 horses require from 14 to
23 and even more workers, half of whom are women and boys, i.e.,
semi-workers. . . . The 8 to 10 h. p. steam-threshers to be found on all
large farms” (of Kherson Gubernia), “require simultaneously
from 50

to 70 workers, of whom more than half are semi-workers, boys and girls of
12 to 17 years of age” (Tezyakov, loc . cit ., 93). “Large farms, on each of which from 500 to 1,000 workers are
gathered together simultaneously, may safely be likened to industrial
establishments,” the same author justly observes (p. 151). [3]

Thus, while our
Narodniks were arguing that the “village community” “could easily” introduce co-operation in agriculture, life
went on in its own way, and capitalism, splitting up the village community
into economic groups with opposite interests, created large farms based on
the extensive co-operation of wage-workers.

From the foregoing it is clear that machines create a home market for
capitalism: first, a market for means of production (for the products of
the machine-building industry, mining industry, etc., etc.), and second, a
market for labour-power. The introduction of machines, as we have seen,
leads to the replacement of labour-service by hired labour and to the
creation of peasant farms employing labourers. The mass-scale employment
of agricultural machinery presupposes the existence of a mass of
agricultural wage-workers. In the localities where agricultural capitalism
is most highly developed, this process of the introduction of wage-labour
along with the introduction of machines is intersected by another process,
namely, the ousting of wage-workers by the machine. On the one hand, the
formation of a peasant bourgeoisie and the transition of the landowners
from labour-service to capitalism create a demand for wage-workers; on the
other hand, in places where farming has long been based on wage-labour,
machines oust wage-workers. No precise and extensive statistics are
available to show what is the general effect of both these processes for
the whole of Russia, i.e., whether the number of agricultural wage-workers
is increasing or decreasing. There can be no doubt that hitherto the
number has been increasing (see >next section). We imagine that now too it
is continuing to increase [4] :

firstly, data on the ousting of wage-workers in agriculture by machines are available only for Novorossia, while in other
areas of capitalist agriculture (the Baltic and western region, the outer
regions in the East, some of the industrial gubernias) this process has
not yet been noted on a large scale. There still remains an enormous area
where labour-service predominates, and in that area the introduction of
machinery is giving rise to a demand for wage-workers. Secondly, the
growth of intensive farming (introduction of root crops, for example)
enormously increases the demand for wage-labour (see Chapter IV) . A
decline in the absolute number of agricultural (as against industrial)
wage-workers must, of course, take place at a certain stage in the
development of capitalism, namely, when agriculture through out the
country is fully organised on capitalist lines and when the employment of
machinery for the most diverse agricultural operations is general.

As regards Novorossia, local investigators note here the usual
consequences of highly developed capitalism. Machines are ousting
wage-workers and creating a capitalist reserve army in agriculture. “The days of fabulous prices for hands have passed in
Kherson Gubernia too. Thanks to . . . the increased spread of
agricultural implements . . .” (and other causes) “ the prices of hands are steadily falling ” (author’s
italics). . . . “The distribution of agricultural implements, which
makes the large farms independent of workers [5] and at the same time reduces the demand
for hands, places the workers in a difficult position” (Tezyakov,
loc . cit ., 66-71). The same thing is noted by another
Zemstvo Medical Officer, Mr. Kudryavtsev, in his work Migrant Agricultural Workers at the Nikolayev Fair in the Township of Kakhovka , Taurida Gubernia , and Their Sanitary Supervision in 1895 (Kherson, 1896). “The prices of hands
. . . continue to fall, and a considerable number of migrant workers find themselves without employment and are unable to earn anything; i.e., there
is created what in the language of economic science is called a reserve
army of labour – artificial surplus-population” (61). The drop in
the prices of labour caused by this reserve army is sometimes so great
that “many farmers possessing machines preferred” (in 1895)
“to harvest with hand labour rather than with machines”
( ibid ., 66, from Sbornik Khersonskogo Zemstva
[ Kherson Zemstvo Symposium ], August 1895)! More strikingly and
convincingly than any argument this fact reveals how profound are the
contradictions inherent in the capitalist employment of machinery!

Another consequence of the use of machinery is the growing employment of
female and child labour. The existing system of capitalist agriculture
has, generally speaking, given rise to a certain hierarchy of workers,
very much reminiscent of the hierarchy among factory workers. For example,
on the estates in South Russia there are the following categories: a)
full workers , adult males capable of doing all jobs b)
semi-workers , women and males up to the age of 20; semi-workers
are divided again into two categories: aa) 12, 13 to 15, 16 years of age
– these are semi-workers in the stricter sense of the term – and bb)
semi-workers of great strength ; “in the language used on
the estates, ‘three-quarter’ workers,” [6] from 16 to 20 years of
age, capable of doing all the jobs done by the full worker, except
mowing. Lastly, c) semi-workers rendering little help , children
not under 8 and not over 14 years of age; these act as swine-herds,
calf-herds, weeders and plough-boys. Often they work merely for their food
and clothing. The introduction of agricultural implements “lowers
the price of the full worker’s labour” and renders possible
its replacement by the cheaper labour of women and juveniles. Statistics
on migrant labour confirm the fact of the displacement of male by female
labour: in 1890, of the total number of workers registered in the township
of Kakhovka and in the city of Kherson, 12.7% were women; in 1894, for the
whole gubernia women constituted 18.2% (10,239 out of 56,464); in 1895,
25.6% (13,474 out of 48,753). Children in 1893 constituted 0.7% (from 10
to 14 years of age), and in 1895, 1.69% (from 7 to 14 years of age). Among local workers
on estates in Elisavetgrad Uyezd, Kherson Gubernia, children constituted
10.6% ( ibid .).

Machines increase the intensity of the workers’ labour. For example,
the most widespread type of reaping machine (with hand delivery) has
acquired the characteristic name of “lobogreyka” or “chubogreyka,” [7] since working with it calls for extraordinary
exertion on the part of the worker: he takes the place of the delivery
apparatus (cf. Productive Forces , I, 52). Similarly, intensity of
labour increases with the use of the threshing machine. The capitalist
mode of employing machinery creates here (as everywhere) a powerful
stimulus to the lengthening of the working day. Night work, something
previously unknown, makes its appearance in agriculture too. “In
good harvest years . . . work on some estates and on many peasant farms is
carried on even at night” (Tezyakov, loc . cit ., 126), by artificial illumination – torchlight (92). Finally, the
systematic employment of machines results in traumatism among agricultural
workers; the employment of young women and children at machines naturally
results in a particularly large toll of injuries. The Zemstvo hospitals
and dispensaries in Kherson Gubernia, for example, are filled, during the
agricultural season, “almost exclusively with traumatic
patients” and serve as “field hospitals, as it were, for the
treatment of the enormous army of agricultural workers who are constantly
being disabled as a result of the ruthless destructive work of
agricultural machines and implements” ( ibid ., 126). A
special medical literature is appearing that deals with injuries caused by
agricultural machines. Proposals are being made to introduce compulsory
regulations governing the use of agricultural machines ( ibid .). The large-scale manufacture of machinery imperatively
calls for public control and regulation of production in agriculture, as
in industry. Of the attempts to introduce such control we shall speak
below.

Let us note, in conclusion, the extremely inconsistent attitude of the
Narodniks towards the employment of machinery in agriculture. To admit
the benefit and progressive nature of the employment of machinery, to
defend all measures that develop and facilitate it, and at the same time to ignore
the fact that machinery in Russian agriculture is employed in the
capitalist manner, means to sink to the view point of the small and big
agrarians. Yet what our Narodniks do is precisely to ignore the capitalist
character of the employment of agricultural machinery and improved
implements, without even attempting to analyse what types of peasant and
landlord farms introduce machinery. Mr. V. V. angrily calls
Mr. V. Chernyayev “a representative of capitalist technique”
( Progressive Trends , 11). Presumably it is Mr. V. Chernyayev, or
some other official in the Ministry of Agriculture, who is to blame for
the fact that the employment of machinery in Russia is capitalist in
character! Mr. N.–on, despite his grandiloquent promise “not to
depart from the facts” ( Sketches , XIV), has preferred to
ignore the fact that it is capitalism that has developed the employment of
machinery in our agriculture, and he has even invented the amusing theory
that exchange reduces the productivity of labour in agriculture (p. 74)!
To criticise this theory, which is proclaimed without any analysis of the
facts, is neither possible nor necessary. Let us confine ourselves to
citing a small sample of Mr. N.–on’s reasoning. “If,” says he, “the productivity of labour in this country were to double,
we should have to pay for a chetvert (about six bushels) of wheat not 12
rubles, but six, that is all” (234). Not all, by far, most worthy
economist. “In this country” (as indeed in any society where
there is commodity economy), the improvement of technique is undertaken by
individual farmers, the rest only gradually following suit. “In this
country,” only the rural entrepreneurs are in a position to improve
their technique. “In this country,” this progress of the rural
entrepreneurs, small and big, is inseparably connected with the ruin of
the peasantry and the creation of a rural proletariat. Hence, if the
improved technique used on the farms of rural entrepreneurs were to become
socially necessary (only on that condition would the price be reduced by
half), it would mean the passing of almost the whole of agriculture into
the hands of capitalists, it would mean the complete proletarisation of
millions of peasants, it would mean an enormous increase in the
non-agricultural population and an increase in the number of factories
(for the productivity of labour in our agriculture to double, there must be an
enormous development of the machine-building industry, the mining
industry, steam transport, the construction of a mass of new types of farm
buildings, shops, warehouses, canals, etc., etc.). Mr. N.–on here repeats
the little error of reasoning that is customary with him: he skips over
the consecutive steps that are necessary with the development of
capitalism, he skips over the intricate complex of social-economic changes
which necessarily accompany the development of capitalism, and then weeps
and wails over the danger of “destruction” by capitalism.

---
Notes:
[1]
“In the past two years, under the influence of low grain prices and
of the need to cheapen agricultural jobs at all costs, reaping machines
have also . . . begun to be so widely employed that depots are unable to
meet all requirements on time” (Tezyakov, loc cit., p. 71) The
present agricultural crisis is a capitalist crisis. Like all capitalist
crises, it ruins capitalist farmers and peasants in one locality, in one
country, in one branch of agriculture, and at the same time gives a
tremendous impulse to the development of capitalism in another locality,
in another country, in other branches of agriculture. It is the failure to
understand this fundamental feature of the present crisis and of its
economic nature that constitutes the main error in the reasoning on this
theme of Messrs. N.–on, Kablukov, etc., etc.— Lenin

[2]
Mr V. V. expresses this truth (that the existence of the middle peasant is
largely conditioned by the existence of the labour-service system of
farming among the landlords) in the following original way: “the
owner shares, so to speak, the cost of maintaining his (the
peasant’s) implements.” “It appears,” says
Mr. Sanin, in a just comment on this, “that it is not the labourer
who works for the landowner, but the landowner who works for the
labourer.” A. Sanin, Some Remarks on the Theory of People’s Production , in the appendix to the Russian translation
of Hourwich’s Economics of the Russian Village , Moscow,
1896, p. 47.— Lenin

[3]
Cf. also next chapter, § I , where more detailed data are given on the
size of capitalist farms in this part of Russia.— Lenin

[4]
It hardly needs to be explained that in a country with a mass of
peasantry, an absolute increase in the number of agricultural wage-workers
is quite compatible not only with a relative, but also with an absolute,
decrease of the rural population.— Lenin

[5]
Mr. Ponomaryov expresses himself on this score thus. “Machines, by
regulating the harvesting price, in all probability discipline the workers
at the same time” (article in Selskoye Khozyaistvo i Lesowdstvo [ Agriculture and Forestry ], quoted in
Vestnik Finansov , 1896, No. 14). It will be remembered that the
“Pindar of the capitalist factory,” [8] Dr. Andrew Ure, welcomed machines as
creating “order” and “discipline” among the workers. Agricultural capitalism in Russia has already managed to create
not only “agricultural factories,” but also the “Pindars” of these factories.— Lenin

[6]
Tezyakov, loc . cit ., 72.— Lenin

[7]
Literally “brow-heater” or “forelock-heater.”– Ed .— Lenin

[8]
Pindar – ancient Greek lyrical poet. Of his numerous works, four
volumes of poems have survived in which he extols the victors at the
games. Pindar’s name has become an epithet used to designate those
who “eulogise” beyond measure.

In speaking of the Pindar of the capitalist factory Lenin has in mind the
term applied by Marx in Capita , Volume I, to that apologist of
capitalism, Dr. Ure.

| | VII. The Employment of Machinery in Agriculture | | | IX. Wage-Labour in Agriculture | |

# Wage-Labour in Agriculture

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iii/iii8ix.htm

Chapter III. The Landowners’ Transition from Corvée to Capitalist Economy

### IX. Wage-Labour in Agriculture

We now pass to the principal manifestation of agricultural capitalism –
to the employment of hired labour. This feature of post-Reform economy was
marked most strongly in the outer regions of south and east European
Russia, in that mass shift of agricultural wage-workers known as the
“agricultural migration.” For this reason we shall first cite
data concerning this main region of agricultural capitalism in Russia and
then examine the data relating to the whole of Russia.

The tremendous movements of our peasants in search of work for hire have
long ago been noted in our literature. Reference to them was made by
Flerovsky ( Condition of the Working Class in Russia , St.
Petersburg, 1869), who tried to determine their relative incidence in the
various gubernias. In 1875, Mr. Chaslavsky gave a general review of
“agricultural outside employments” ( Compendium of Political Knowledge , Vol. II) and noted their real significance
(“there was formed . . . something in the nature of a semi-vagrant
population . . . something in the nature of future farm
labourers”). In 1887, Mr. Raspopin gathered together Zemstvo
statistics on this phenomenon and regarded them not as “employments” of the peasants in general, but as a process of
the formation of a class of wage-workers in agriculture. In the 90s, the
works of Messrs. S. Korolenko, Rudnev, Tezyakov, Kudryavtsev and
Shakhovskoi appeared, thanks to which a much fuller study of this
phenomenon was made.

The principal area to which agricultural wage-workers migrate embraces Bessarabia, Kherson, Taurida, Ekaterinoslav,
Don, Samara, Saratov (southern part) and Orenburg gubernias. We confine
ourselves to European Russia, but it must be observed that the movement
spreads, ever further afield (especially in the recent period), and covers
the North Caucasus and the Ural region, etc. Data concerning capitalist
agriculture in this area (the area of commercial grain farming) will be
given in the next chapter; there, too, we shall point to other localities
to which agricultural labourers migrate. The principal area from which
agricultural labourers migrate is the central black-earth gubernias:
Kazan, Simbirsk, Penza, Tambov, Ryazan, Tula, Orel, Kursk, Voronezh,
Kharkov, Poltava, Chernigov, Kiev, Podolia and

Volhynia. [1]

Thus the movement of workers proceeds from the most thickly-populated to the most thinly
populated localities, the ones being colonised; from the localities where
serfdom was most developed to those where it was least developed [2] ; from localities where
labour-service is most developed to localities where it is little
developed and capitalism is highly developed. Hence, the workers flee from
“semi-free” to free labour. It would be a mistake to think
that this flight amounts exclusively to a movement from thickly-populated
to thinly-populated areas. A study of the movement of workers
(Mr. S. Korolenko, loc . cit .) has revealed the singular
and important fact that workers migrate from many areas in such great
numbers as to create a shortage of hands in these places, one that is
compensated by the arrival of workers from other places. Hence, the
departure of workers expresses not only the tendency of the population to
spread more evenly over the given territory, but also the tendency of the
workers to go to areas where conditions are better. This tendency will
become quite clear to us if we recall that in the area of departure, the
area of labour-service, agricultural workers’ wages are particularly low , while in the area of attraction, the area of
capitalism, wages are far higher. [3]

As to the extent of “agricultural migration,” general data
exist only in the above-mentioned book by Mr. S Korolenko, who calculates
the surplus of workers (relative to the local demand for them) at
6,360,000 for the whole of European Russia, including 2,137,000 in the
above-enumerated 15 gubernias of agricultural emigration, whereas in the 8
gubernias of immigration the shortage of workers is estimated at 2,173,000
persons. Despite the fact that Mr. S. Korolenko’s methods of
calculation are by no means always satisfactory, his general conclusions
(as we shall see repeatedly below) must be regarded as approximately
correct, and the number of migratory workers not only not an exaggeration,
but if anything an understatement of the facts. There can be no doubt
that part of these two million workers who come to the South are
non-agricultural workers. But Mr. Shakhovskoi ( loc .
cit .) estimates quite arbitrarily, approximately, that
industrial workers account for half this number. Firstly, we know from all
sources that the workers who migrate to this region are mainly
agricultural, and secondly, agricultural workers come there not only from
the gubernias mentioned above. Mr. Shakhovskoi himself quotes a figure
which confirms Mr. S. Korolenko’s calculations. He states that in 11
black-earth gubernias (which are included in the above-described area from
which agricultural workers emigrate) there were issued in 1891 a total of
2,000,703 passports and identity cards ( loc . cit .,
p. 24), whereas according to Mr. S. Korolenko’s calculations the
number of workers who left these gubernias was only
1,745,913. Consequently, Mr. S. Korolenko’s figures are not in the
least exaggerated, and the total number of migratory rural workers in
Russia must obviously be over 2 million. [4]

The

existence of such a mass of “peasants” who abandon their homes
and allotments (where they have homes and allotments) vividly testifies to
the tremendous process of the conversion of small cultivators into rural
proletarians, of the enormous demand by growing agricultural capitalism
for wage-labour.

The question now arises, what is the total number of rural wage-workers in
European Russia, both migratory and resident? The only attempt to answer
this question that we know is the one made in Mr. Rudnev’s work
Peasant Industries in European Russia ( Sbornik Saratovskogo Zemstva [ Symposium of the Saratov Zemstvo ], 1894, Nos. 6
and 11). This work, an extremely valuable one, gives a summary of the
Zemstvo statistics for 148 uyezds in 19 gubernias of European Russia. The
total number of “industrialists” is put at 2,798,122, out of
5,129,863 working males (18 to 60 years of age), i.e., 55% of the total
number of working peasants. [5]

Under “agricultural industries” the author includes only work as hired agricultural labourers (farm
labourers, day labourers, herdsmen, stockyard workers). An estimate of the
percentage of agricultural workers to the total number of males of working
age in various gubernias and districts of Russia, leads the author to the
conclusion that in the black-earth belt about 25% of all working males are engaged in
hired agricultural labour, and in the non-black-earth area about 10%. This
gives us the number of agricultural workers in European Russia as
3,395,000, or, in round numbers, 3 1/2 million (Rudnev, loc .
cit ., p. 448. This number is about 20% of the total number of
males of working age). It must be observed in this connection that,
according to Mr. Rudnev, “day labour and agricultural job-work were
placed in the category of industries by the statisticians only when they
were the chief occupation of the given person or family”
( loc . cit ., 446). [6]

Mr. Rudnev’s figure should be regarded as the minimum, because,
firstly, the Zemstvo census returns are more or less out-of-date, relating
to the 80s and at times even to the 70s, and because, secondly, in
determining the percentage of agricultural workers, no account whatever
was taken of the Baltic and Western gubernias, where agricultural
capitalism is highly developed. For want of other data, however, we are
obliged to take this figure of 3 1/2 million.

It appears, consequently, that about one-fifth of the peasants
have already reached a position where their “chief occupation”
is that of wage-labour for rich peasants and landlords. We see here the
first group of the entrepreneurs who present a demand for the labour-power
of the rural proletariat. These are the rural entrepreneurs, who employ
about half of the bottom group of the peasantry . Thus, there is
to be observed a complete interdependence between the formation of a class
of rural entrepreneurs and the expansion of the bottom group of the
“peasantry,” i.e., the increase in the number of rural proletarians. Among these rural entrepreneurs a prominent part is played
by the peasant bourgeoisie: for example, in 9 uyezds of Voronezh Gubernia, 43.4% of the farm
labourers are employed by peasants (Rudnev, 434).

Were we to take this percentage as the standard for all rural
workers and for the whole of Russia, it would be seen that the
peasant bourgeoisie present a demand for some one and a half million agricultural workers. One and the same
“peasantry” throws on to the market millions of workers in search of employers – and presents an
impressive demand for wage-workers.

---
Notes:
[1]
In Chapter VIII , where we examine the movement of wage-workers in Russia
as an entire process, we shall describe in greater detail the character
and direction of migration from the various localities.— Lenin

[2]
In his day Chaslavsky pointed out that in the localities in which workers
arrived, serfs constituted from 4 to 15% of the total, and in the
localities which workers left, from 40 to 60%.— Lenin

[3]
See table of data for 10 years in Chapter VIII, § V: the formation of a
home market for labour-power.— Lenin

[4]
There is another way of checking Mr. S. Korolenko’s figure. We learn
from the above-quoted books of Messrs. Tezyakov and Kudryavtsev that the
number of agricultural workers who in their search for “employments” use the railways at least in part, is about 1/10
of the total workers (combining the figures of both authors, we get the
result that out of 72,635 workers interrogated, only 7,827 traveled at
least part of the journey by rail). Yet the number of workers carried in
1891 by the three principal railways in the direction examined does not
exceed 200,000 (170,000 to 189,000) – as we are told by Mr. Shakhovskoi
( loc . cit ., p. 71, according to railway returns). Consequently, the total number of workers leaving for the South
must be about 2 million. Incidentally, the very small proportion of
agricultural workers who travel by rail points to the incorrectness of
Mr. N.–on’s view when he assumed that the passenger traffic on our
railways is in the main that of agricultural workers. Mr. N.–on lost
sight of the fact that non-agricultural workers receive higher wages and
therefore make greater use of the railways and that the migration season
of these workers (for example, builders, navvies, stevedores and many
others) is also spring and summer.— Lenin

[5]
By “industries,” as Mr. Rudnev also points out, are meant all
sorts of occupations by peasants except cultivation on their own,
purchased or rented land. Undoubtedly, the majority of these
“industrialists” are wage-workers in agriculture or in industry. We therefore call the reader’s attention to the closeness
of these figures to our estimate of the number of rural proletarians: in
Chapter II, it was assumed that the latter constitute about 40% of the
peasants. Here we see that “industrialists” constitute 55%,
and of these, in all probability, over 40% are engaged in all sorts of
hired labour.— Lenin

[6]
This figure does not include, therefore, the mass of peasants for whom
hired agricultural labor is not the chief occupation, but one of equal
importance with their own farms.— Lenin

| | VIII. The Significance of Machinery in Agriculture | | | X. The Significance of Hired Labour in Agriculture | |

# The Significance of Hired Labour in Agriculture

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iii/iii8x.htm

Chapter III. The Landowners’ Transition from Corvée to Capitalist Economy

X. The Significance of Hired Labour in
Agriculture

Let us now attempt to depict the principal features of the new social
relations that take shape in agriculture with the employment of hired
labour, and to define their significance.

The agricultural workers who come to the South in such masses belong to
the poorest strata of the peasantry. Of the workers who come to Kherson
Gubernia, 7/10 make the journey on foot, since they lack the money for
railway fare; “they tramp for hundreds and thousands of versts along
the railway track and the banks of navigable rivers, admiring the splendid
pictures of rapidly-moving trains and smoothly-gliding ships”
(Tezyakov, 35). On the average, the worker takes with him about

2 rubles [1] ; often enough he even lacks the money to pay for a passport, and gets a monthly
identity card for ten kopeks. The journey takes from 10 to 12 days, and
after such a long tramp (sometimes undertaken barefoot in the cold spring
mud), the traveler’s feet swell and become calloused and
bruised. About 1/10 of the workers travel on dubi (large boats
made out of rough boards, holding from 50 to 80 persons and usually packed
to the limit). The reports of an official commission (the Zvegintsev

Commission) [10] note the grave danger of this form of travel: “not a year passes but that
one, two or even more of these overcrowded dubi go to the bottom
with their passengers” ( ibid ., 34). The overwhelming majority of the workers have allotments, but of absolutely insignificant
dimensions. “As a matter of fact,” Mr. Tezyakov quite justly
observes, “all these thousands of agricultural workers are landless
village proletarians, for whom outside employments are now the sole means of livelihood. . . . Landlessness is growing
rapidly, and at the same time is swelling the ranks of the rural
proletariat” (77). Striking confirmation of the rapidity of this
growth is the number of worker novices, i.e., of those seeking employment
for the first time. These novices constitute as many as 30%. Incidentally,
this figure enables us to judge how rapid is the process that creates
bodies of permanent agricultural workers.

The mass migration of workers has given rise to special forms of hire
peculiar to highly-developed capitalism. In the South and South-East,
numerous labour markets have arisen where thousands of workers gather and
employers assemble. These markets are usually held in towns, industrial
centres, trading villages and at fairs. The industrial character of the
centres is of particular attraction to the workers, who readily accept
employment on non-agricultural jobs, too. Thus, in Kiev Gubernia, labour
markets are held in Shpola and Smela (large centres of the beet-sugar
industry), and in the town of Belaya Tserkov. In Kherson Gubernia, they
are held in the commercial villages (Novoukrainka, Birzula and Mostovoye,
where on Sundays over 9,000 workers gather, and many other villages), at
railway stations (Znamenka, Dolinskaya, etc.), and in towns (Elisavetgrad,
Bobrinets, Voznesensk, Odessa, and others). In the summer, townspeople,
labourers and “cadets” (the local name for tramps) from Odessa
also come to hire themselves out for agricultural work. In Odessa rural
workers hire themselves out in what is called Seredinskaya Square (or the
“Mowers’ Market”). “The workers make for Odessa, avoiding other markets, in the hope of getting better earnings here”
(Tezyakov, 58). The township of Krivoi Rog is an important centre where
workers are hired for agriculture and mining. In Taurida Gubernia, the
township of Kakhovka is particularly noted for its labour market, where
formerly as many as 40,000 workers gathered; in the nineties from 20,000
to 30,000 gathered there, and now, judging from certain data, the number
is still smaller. In Bessarabia Gubernia, mention should be made of the
town of Akkerman; in Ekaterinoslav Gubernia, of the town of Ekaterinoslav,
and Lozovaya Station; in Don Gubernia, of Rostov-on-Don, frequented every
year by as many as 150,000 workers. In

North Caucasus, of the towns of Ekaterinodar and Novorossiisk,
Tikhoretskaya Station, and other places. In Samara Gubernia, of the
village of Pokrovskaya (opposite Saratov), the village of Balakovo and
other places. In Saratov Gubernia, of the towns of Khvalynsk and Volsk. In
Simbirsk Gubernia, of the town of Syzran. Thus, capitalism has created in
the outer regions a new form of the “combination of agriculture with
industries,” namely, the combination of agricultural and
non-agricultural hired labour. Such a combination is possible on a wide
scale only in the period of the final and highest stage of capitalism,
that of large-scale machine industry, which attenuates the importance of
skill of “hand labour,” facilitates the transition from one
occupation to another, and levels the forms of hire. [2]

Indeed, the forms of hire in this locality are very peculiar and very
characteristic of capitalist agriculture. All the semi-patriarchal,
semi-bonded forms of hired labour which one so frequently meets in the
central black-earth belt disappear here. The only relationships left are
those between hirers and hired, a commercial transaction for the purchase
and sale of labour-power. As always under developed capitalist relations,
the workers prefer hire by the day, or by the week, which enables them to
make the pay correspond more exactly to the demand for labour. “Prices are fixed for the area of each market (within a
radius of about 40 versts) with mathematical precision, and it is very
hard for the employers to beat down the price, because the muzhik who has
come to the market prefers to lie around or go on to another place rather
than work for lower pay” (Shakhovskoi, 104). It goes without saying
that violent fluctuations in prices paid for labour cause innumerable
breaches of contract – only not on one side, as the employers usually
claim, but on both sides: “concerted action is taken by both
sides”: the labourers agree among themselves to demand more, and the employers – to offer less ( ibid ., 107). [3]

How openly “callous cash payment” reigns here in the relations between
the classes may be seen, for example, from the following fact:
“experienced employers know very well” that the workers will
“give in” only when they have eaten up their food stock. “A farmer related that when he came to the market to hire
workers . . . he walked among them, poking with his stick at their
knapsacks ( sic !): if they had bread left, he would not talk to
them; he would leave the market” and wait “until the knapsacks
in the market were empty” (from the Selsky Vestnik
[ Rural Herald ], 1890, No. 15, ibid ., 107-108).

As under developed capitalism anywhere, so here, we see that the worker is
particularly oppressed by small capital. The big employer is forced by
sheer commercial considerations [4] to abstain from petty oppression, which is of
little advantage and is fraught with considerable loss should disputes
arise. That is why the big employers, for example (those employing from
300 to 800 workers), try to keep their workers from leaving at the end of
the week, and themselves fix prices according to the demand for labour;
some even adopt a system of wage increases if the price of labour in the
area goes up – and all evidence goes to show that these increases are
more than compensated by better work and the absence of disputes
( ibid ., 130-132; 104). A small employer, on the contrary, sticks
at nothing. “The farmsteaders and German colonists carefully
‘choose’ their workers and pay them 15 or 20% more; but the
amount of work they ‘squeeze’ out of them is 50 per cent
more” ( ibid ., 116). The “wenches” who work for such an employer “don’t know day from night,” as they themselves say. The
colonists who hire mowers get their sons to follow on their heels (i.e.,
to speed up the workers!) in shifts , so that the speeders-up,
replacing one another three times a day, come with renewed energy to drive
the workers on: “that is why it is so easy to recognise those who
have worked for the German colonists by their haggard appearance. Generally speaking, the farmsteaders and the Germans avoid
hiring those who have formerly worked on landowners’ estates.
‘You’ll not stand the pace with us ,’ they say quite frankly” ( ibid .). [5]

Large-scale machine industry, by concentrating large masses of workers,
transforming the methods of production, and destroying all the
traditional, patriarchal cloaks and screens that have obscured the
relations between classes, always leads to the directing of public
attention towards these relations, to attempts at public control and
regulation. This phenomenon, which has found particularly striking
expression in factory inspection, is also beginning to be observed in
Russian capitalist agriculture, precisely in the region where it is most
developed. The question of the workers’ sanitary conditions was
raised in Kherson Gubernia as early as 1875 at the Second Gubernia
Congress of Doctors of the Kherson Zemstvo, and was dealt with again in
1888; in 1889 there was drawn up a programme for the study of the
workers’ conditions. The investigation of sanitary conditions that
was carried out (on a far from adequate scale) in 1889-1890 slightly
lifted the veil concealing the conditions of labour in the remote
villages. It was seen, for instance, that in the majority of cases the
workers have no living quarters; where barracks are provided, they are
usually very badly built from a hygienic point of view, and “not infrequently” dug-outs are met with – they are inhabited,
for example, by shepherds, who suffer severely from dampness,
overcrowding, cold, darkness and the stifling atmosphere. The food
provided is very often unsatisfactory. The working day, as a rule, is from
12 1/2 to 15 hours, which is much longer than the usual working day in
large-scale industry (11 to 12 hours). An interval during the hottest part
of the day is met with only “as an exception” – and cases of
brain diseases are no rarity. Work at machines gives rise to occupational
division of labour and occupational diseases. For example, working at
threshing machines are “drummers” (they put the sheaves into
the drum; the work is very dangerous and most laborious: thick corn-dust
beats into their faces), and “pitchers” (they pitch up the
sheaves; the work is so heavy that the shifts have to be changed every
hour or two). Women sweep up the straw, which boys carry aside, while from
3 to 5 labourers stack it in ricks. The number employed on threshing in
the whole gubernia must exceed 200,000 (Tezyakov, 94). [6]

Mr. Tezyakov’s conclusions regarding the sanitary conditions of agricultural work, are as
follows: “Generally speaking, the opinion of the ancients that the
labour of the husbandman is ‘the pleasantest and healthiest of
occupations’ is hardly sound at the present time, when the
capitalist spirit reigns in agriculture. With the introduction of
machinery into agriculture, the sanitary conditions of agricultural labour
have not improved, but have changed for the worse. Machinery has brought
into the field of agriculture a specialisation of labour so little known
here before that it has had the effect of developing among the rural
population occupational diseases and a host of serious injuries”
(94).

A result of the investigations into sanitary conditions (after the famine
year and the cholera) was the attempt to organise medical and food depots,
at which the labourers were to be registered, placed under sanitary
supervision and provided with cheap dinners. However modest the scale and
the results of this organisation may be, and however precarious its existence, [7] it
remains an important historical fact, revealing the trends of capitalism
in agriculture. At the Congress of Doctors of Kherson Gubernia it was
proposed, on the basis of data gathered by practitioners: to recognise the
importance of medical and food depots and the need for improving their
sanitary condition and extending their activities to give them the
character of labour exchanges providing information on the prices of
labour and their fluctuations; to extend sanitary inspection to all more
or less big farms employing considerable numbers of labourers, “as
is done in industrial establishments” (p. 155); to issue strict
regulations governing the employment of agricultural machines and the
registration of accidents; to raise the question of the workers’
right to compensation and of providing better and cheaper steam
transport. The Fifth Congress of Russian Doctors passed a resolution
calling the attention of the Zemstvos concerned to the activities of the
Kherson Zemstvo in the organisation of medical and sanitary inspection.

In conclusion, let us return to the Narodnik economists. Above we have
seen that they idealise labour-service and close their eyes to the
progressive nature of capitalism as compared with that system. Now we must
add that they are unfavourably disposed to the “migration” of
workers, and favour local “employments.” Here, for example, is
how this usual Narodnik view is expressed by Mr. N.–on: “The
peasants . . . set off in quest of work. . . . How far, one may ask, is
it advantageous from the economic point of view? Not personally for each
individual peasant, but how far is it advantageous for the peasantry as a
whole, from the national economic point of view?. . . What we want is to
point to the purely economic disadvantage of the annual peregrination, God
knows where to, for the entire summer, when it would seem that one could
find plenty of occupations at hand. . .” (23-24).

We assert, the Narodnik theory notwithstanding, that the
“peregrination” of the workers not only yields “purely economic” advantages to the workers themselves, but in general
should be regarded as progressive; that public attention should not be
directed towards replacing outside employments by local “occupations
close at hand,” but, on the contrary, towards removing all the
obstacles in the way of migration, towards facilitating it in every way,
towards improving and reducing the costs of all conditions of the
workers’ travel, etc. The grounds for our assertion are as follows:

1) “Purely economic” advantage accrues to the workers from
“peregrination” in that they go to places where wages are
higher, where their position as seekers of employment is a more
advantageous one. Simple as this argument is, it is too often forgotten by
those who love to rise to a higher, allegedly “national-economic” point of view.

2) “Peregrination” destroys bonded forms of hire and
labour-service.

Let us recall, for example, that formerly, when migration was little
developed, the southern landowners (and other employers) readily resorted
to the following system of hiring labourers: they sent their agents to the
northern gubernias and (through the medium of rural officials) hired
tax-defaulters on terms extremely disadvantageous to the latter. [8]

Those offering employment consequently enjoyed the advantage of free competition, but
those seeking it did not. We have quoted instances of the peasant’s
readiness to flee from labour-service and bondage even to the mines.

It is not surprising, therefore, that on the question of
“peregrination” our agrarians go hand in hand with the
Narodniks. Take Mr. S. Korolenko, for example. In his book he quotes
numerous opinions of landlords in opposition to the “migration” of workers, and adduces a host of
“arguments” against “outside employments”:

“dissipation,” “rowdy habits,” “drunkenness,” “dishonesty,” “the striving to leave the family in order
to get rid of it and escape parental supervision,” “the
craving for amusement and a brighter life,” etc. But here is a
particularly interesting argument: “Finally, as the proverb says,
‘if it stay at one spot, a stone will gather moss,’ and a man
who stays at one spot will certainly amass property and cherish it”
( loc . cit ., p. 84). The proverb does indeed very strikingly indicate what happens to a man who is tied to one
spot. Mr. S. Korolenko is particularly displeased with the phenomenon we
referred to above, namely, that “too” many workers leave
certain gubernias and that the shortage thus created is made good by the
arrival of workers from other gubernias. In noting this fact as regards,
for example, Voronezh Gubernia, Mr. S. Korolenko points to one of the
reasons for this, namely, the large number of peasants possessing
gift-land allotments. “Evidently such peasants, who are relatively
worse off materially and are not worried about their all too meagre
property, more frequently fail to carry out the obligations they undertake
and in general more readily leave for other gubernias, even when they
could find plenty of employment at home.” “Such peasants,
having little attachment ( sic !) to their own inadequate
allotments, and sometimes not even possessing implements, more readily
abandon their homes and go to seek their fortunes far from their native
villages, without troubling about employment locally, and sometimes even
about obligations undertaken, since they have nothing on which distraint
can be made” ( ibid .).

“Little attachment!” That’s just the term.

It should give food for thought to those who talk about the disadvantages
of “peregrination” and the preferableness of local “occupations close at hand”! [9]

3) “Peregrinations” mean creating mobility of the
population. Peregrinations are one of the most important factors
preventing the peasants from “gathering moss,” of which more
than enough has been fastened on them by history. Unless the population
becomes mobile, it cannot develop, and it would be na\"ive to imagine that a
village school can teach people what they can learn from an independent
acquaintance with the different relations and orders of things in the
South and in the North, in agriculture and in industry, in the capital and
in the backwoods.

---
Notes:
[1]
Money for the journey is obtained by the sale of property, even household
goods, by mortgaging the allotment, by pawning things, clothes, etc., and
even by borrowing money, to be repaid in labour, “from priests,
landlords and local kulaks” (Shakhovskoi, 55).— Lenin

[2]
Mr. Shakhovskoi refers to another form of the combination of agricultural
and non-agricultural labour. Thousands of rafts are floated down the
Dnieper to the towns in the lower reaches of the river. On every raft
there are from 15 to 20 workers (raftsmen), mostly Byelorussians and
Great-Russians from Orel Gubernia. “For the whole voyage they get
practically nothing”; they count chiefly on getting employment at
reaping and threshing. These hopes are rewarded only in “good”
years.— Lenin

[3]
“At harvest time in a good year the worker triumphs, and it is a
hard job to get him to give way. He is offered a price, but he won’t
consider it; he keeps repeating: give me what I ask and it’s a
go. And that is not because labour is scarce, but because, as the workers
say, ‘it’s our turn now.’”- (Reported by a volost clerk; Shakhovskoi, 125.)

“If the crop is a bad one and the price of labour has dropped, the
kulak employer takes advantage of this condition to discharge the worker
before the contract has expired, and the worker loses the season either in
seeking work in the same district or in tramping the country,” a
landlord correspondent confesses ( ibid ., 132).— Lenin

[4]
Cf. Fr. Engels, Zur Wohnungsfrage . Vorwort. (F. Engels, The Housing Question .

Preface. – Ed .) [11] — Lenin

[5]
The same characteristics are displayed by the “Cossacks” of
the Kuban Region: “The Cossack resorts to every possible method to
force down the price of labour, acting either individually or through the
community” ( sic ! What a pity we lack more detailed information about this latest function of the “community”!):
“cutting down the food, increasing the work quota, docking the pay,
retaining the workers’ passports, adopting public resolutions
prohibiting specific farmers from employing workers, on Dain of a fine, at
above a definite rate, etc.” (“Migrant Workers in the Kuban
Region” by A. Beloborodov, in Severny Vestnik , February
1896, p. 5.)— Lenin

[6]
Let us observe, in passing, that this operation, threshing, is most
frequently done by hired labourers. One can judge, therefore how large
must be the number employed on threshing all over Russia!— Lenin

[7]
Of the six uyezd Zemstvo assemblies in Kherson Gubernia whose views on the
question of organising supervision over workers are reported by
Mr. Tezyakov, four declared against this system. The local landowners
accused the gubernia Zemstvo board of “turning the workers into
absolute idlers,” etc.— Lenin

[8]
Shakhovskoi, loc . cit ., 98 and foll. The author cites
even the list of “fees” paid to clerks and village elders for
the hire of peasants on advantageous terms. – Tezyakov loc .
cit ., 65 – Trirogov The Village Community and the Poll Tax ; article entitled “Bondage in the National Economy.”— Lenin

[9]
Here is another example of the pernicious influence of Narodnik
prejudices. Mr. Tezyakov, whose splendid work we have frequently quoted,
notes the fact that from Kherson Gubernia many local workers go to that of
Taurida, although there is a great shortage of labour in the former
gubernia. He calls this “an extremely queer phenomenon”:
“it means a loss to the employers and a loss to the workers, who
abandon jobs at home and risk finding none in Taurida” (33). We, on
the contrary, think that Mr. Tezyakov’s statement is extremely
queer. Do the workers really not understand what is to their advantage, and have they not the right to seek the most advantageous conditions of
employment they can get? (In Taurida Gubernia the wages of agricultural
workers are higher than in Kherson Gubernia.) Are we really to think that
it is obligatory for the muzhik to live and work where he is
registered and “provided with an allotment”?— Lenin

[10]
Zvegintsev Commission – was established in 1894 under the
auspices of the Zemstvo Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs to draw
up measures for “introducing order into employments outside the
village and regulating the movement of agricultural labourers.”

[11]
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works , Vol. I, Moscow,
1958, p. 546.

| | IX. Wage-Labour in Agriculture | | | | |

# General Data on Agricultural Production in Post-Reform Russia and on the Types of Commercial Agriculture

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iv/iv8i.htm

Chapter IV. The Growth of Commercial Agriculture

Having examined the internal economic structure of peasant and landlord
economy, we must now take up the question of the changes in agricultural
production and ask: do these changes express a growth of capitalism and of
the home market?

I. General Data on Agricultural Production in Post-Reform Russia
and on The Types of Commercial Agriculture

Let us glance first of all at the general statistics on grain production
in European Russia. The considerable harvest fluctuations render the data
for individual periods or for individual years quite useless. [1]

It is necessary to take different periods and the data for a whole number of years. We have
at our disposal the following data: for the period of the 60s, the data
for 1864-1866 ( Military Statistical Abstract , IV, St. Petersburg,
1871, data of gubernatorial reports). For the 70s, the returns of the
Department of Agriculture for the entire decade ( Historico-Statistical Survey of Russian Industry , Vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1883). And
lastly, for the 1880s, we have data for the five years of 1883-1887
( Statistics of the Russian Empire , IV); this five-year period can
represent the whole of the eighties, since the average harvest for the ten
years, 1880-1889, is even somewhat higher than for the five years
1883-1887 (see Agriculture and Forestry in Russia , published for the Chicago Exhibition,
pp. 132 and 142). Further, in order to judge of the trend of evolution in
the 90s we take the data for the decade 1885-1894 ( Productive Forces , I, 4). Lastly, the data for 1905 ( Yearbook of Russia , 1906) are quite adequate for a judgement of the present
time. The 1905 harvest was only a little lower than the average for the
five years 1900-1904.

Let us compare all these data. [2]

We see from this that until the 1890s the post-Reform era is characterised
by an undoubted increase in the production both of cereals and
potatoes. The productivity of agricultural labour rises: firstly, the size
of the net yield grows faster than that of the sown area (with occasional
exceptions); secondly, we must bear in mind that the proportion of the
population engaged in agricultural production steadily diminished during
this period owing to the diversion of the population from agriculture to
commerce and industry, and also owing to the migration of peasants beyond
the bounds of European

Russia. [3]

What is particularly noteworthy is the fact that it is commercial agriculture that is
growing: there is an increase in the amount of grain gathered (after
subtracting seed) per head of the population, while among this population
there is an ever-growing division of social labour; there is an increase
in the commercial and industrial population; the agricultural population
splits up into rural entrepreneurs and a rural proletariat; there is an
extension of specialisation in agriculture itself, so that the amount of
grain produced for sale grows far more rapidly than the total amount of
grain produced in the country. The capitalist character of the process is
strikingly illustrated by the increased share of potatoes in the total
agricultural production. [4]

The increase in the area under potatoes signifies, on the one hand, an improvement in agricultural technique (the
introduction of root-crops) and increased technical processing of
agricultural produce (distilling and the manufacture of potato starch). On
the other hand, it is, from the viewpoint of the rural entrepreneur class,
the production of relative surplus-value (cheapening of the cost of
maintaining labour-power, deterioration of the people’s
nourishment). The data for the decade 1885-1894 show further that the
crisis of 1891-1892, which tremendously intensified the expropriation of
the peasantry, led to a considerable reduction in the output of cereals
and to a reduction in the yield of all crops; but the process of the
displacement of cereals by potatoes continued with such force that the
per-capita output of potatoes increased, not withstanding the reduced
yield. Finally, the last five years (1900-1904) also show an increase in
agricultural production, an increase in the productivity of agricultural
labour

and a worsening of the conditions of the working-class (increase in the
part played by potatoes).

As we have noted above, the growth of commercial agriculture manifests
itself in the specialisation of agriculture. Mass-scale and gross data on
the production of all crops can give (and then not always) only the most
general indications of this process, since the specific features of the
different areas thereby disappear. Yet it is precisely the segregation of
the different agricultural areas that is one of the most characteristic
features of post-Reform agriculture in Russia. Thus, the
Historico-Statistical Survey of Russian Industry (Vol. I,
St. Petersburg, 1883), quoted by us, enumerates the following agricultural
areas: the flax area, “the region where stock farming predominates,” and where, in particular, “dairy farming is
considerably developed”; the region where grain crops predominate,
particularly the three-field area and the area with the improved fallow or
multi-field grass system (part of the steppe belt, which “is
characterised by the production of the most valuable, so-called elite
grains, mainly intended for the foreign market”); the beet area, and
the area in which potatoes are cultivated for distilling
purposes. “The economic areas indicated have arisen in European
Russia comparatively recently, and with every passing year continue
increasingly to develop and become more segregated” ( loc .
cit .,

p. 15). [5]

Our task should now be, consequently, to study this process of the specialisation of agriculture, and we should ascertain
whether a growth of commercial agriculture is to be observed in its
various forms, whether capitalist agriculture comes into existence in the
process, and whether agricultural capitalism bears the features we
indicated above in analysing the general data on peasant and landlord
farming. It goes without saying that for our purposes it will be
sufficient if we confine ourselves to describing the principal areas of
commercial agriculture.

But before examining the data for the separate areas, let us note the
following: the Narodnik economists, as we have seen, do all they can to
evade the fact that the characteristic feature of the post-Reform period
is the growth of commercial agriculture. Naturally, in doing so they also
ignore the circumstance that the drop in grain prices is bound to
stimulate the specialisation of agriculture and the drawing of
agricultural produce into the sphere of exchange. Here is an instance. The
authors of the well-known book The Influence of Harvests and Grain Prices all proceed from the postulate that the price of grain is of
no importance to natural economy, and they repeat this “truism” endlessly. One of them, Mr. Kablukov, has observed,
however, that under the general conditions of commodity production this postulate is substantially wrong. “It is
possible, of course,” he writes, “that the grain placed on the
market has cost less to produce than that grown on the consumer’s
farm, in which case it would appear to be in the interest also of the
consuming farm to change from cultivating cereals to other crops”
(or to other occupations, we would add), “and, consequently, for it
too the market price of grain assumes importance as soon as it fails to
coincide with its cost of production” (I, 98, note, author’s italics). “But we cannot take that into
account,” he says peremptorily. Why is that? Because, it seems: 1) a
change-over to other crops is possible “only where certain
conditions exist.” By means of this empty truism (everything on
earth is possible only under certain conditions!) Mr. Kablukov calmly
evades the fact that the post-Reform period in Russia has created, and
continues to create, the very conditions that call for the specialisation
of agriculture and the diversion of the population from
agriculture. . . . 2) Because “in our climate it is impossible to
find a crop equal to cereals in food value”. The argument is highly
original, expressing a mere evasion of the issue. What has the food value
of other crops to do with the matter, if we are dealing with the sale of
these other crops and the purchase of cheap grain? . . . 3) Because
“grain farms of the consuming type always have a rational basis for
their existence.” In other words, because Mr. Kablukov “and
colleagues” regard natural economy as “rational.” The argument, as you see, is irrefutable. . . .

---
Notes:
[1]
If only for this reason, Mr. N.–on is absolutely wrong in drawing the
boldest conclusions from the returns for 8 years of one decade
(1871-1878)!— Lenin

[2]
For the period 1883-1887 we have taken the population of 1885; the
increase is taken at 1.2%. The difference between the data of the
gubernatorial reports and those of the Department of Agriculture is, as we
know, inconsiderable. The figures for 1905 have been arrived at by
converting poods into chetverts (about six bushels each.— Ed .)— Lenin

[3]
Mr. N.–on is quite wrong when he asserts that “there are no grounds
whatever for assuming a decline in their number” (the number of
persons engaged in agricultural production), “quite the
contrary” ( Sketches , 33, note). See Chapter VIII, § II.— Lenin

[4]
The net per-capita potato crop increased between 1864-1866 and 1870-1879
in all areas of European Russia without exception. Between 1870-1879 and
1883-1887 the increase took place in 7 areas out of 11 (the Baltic,
Western, Industrial, North-Western, Northern, Southern, Steppe, Lower- and
Transvolga areas).

Cf. Agricultural Statistical Information Based on Material Obtained from Farmers , Vol. VII, St. Petersburg, 1897 (published by Ministry
of

Agriculture). [7]
In 1871, in the 50 gubernias of European Russia, the area under potatoes
was 790,000 dess. in 1881—1,375,000 dess. and in
1895—2,154,000 dess, i.e., an increase during the 15 years of 55%
. Taking the potato crop in 1841 as 100, we get the following figures
for the later years: 1861—120; 1871—162; 1881—297; 1895—530.— Lenin

[5]
Cf. also Agriculture and Forestry in Russia , pp. 84-88; here a
tobacco area is added. The maps drawn by Messrs. D. Semyonov and
A. Fortunatov show the areas according to the particular crops
predominating in them; for example the rye, oat and flax area, Pskov and
Yaroslavl gubernias; the rye, oat and potato area, Grodno and Moscow
gubernias, and so on.— Lenin

[6]
In the first edition (1899) of The Development of Capitalism in Russia the table was given as follows:

[7]
Lenin’s notes on this publication and his preliminary calculations
are published in Lenin Miscellany XXXIII , pp. 165-175.

| | | | | II. The Commercial Grain-Farming Area | |

# The Commercial Grain-Farming Area

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iv/iv8ii.htm

Chapter IV. The Growth of Commercial Agriculture

### II. The Commercial Grain-Farming Area

This area covers the outer region in the south and the east of European
Russia, the steppe gubernias of Novorossia and the Transvolga.
Agriculture is distinguished here for its extensive character and the
enormous scale of the production of grain for sale. If we take the eight
gubernias of Kherson, Bessarabia, Taurida, Don, Ekaterinoslav, Saratov,
Samara and Orenburg, we shall find that in 1883-1887 the net crop of
cereals (not including oats) for a population of 13,877,000 amounted to
41.3 million chetverts, i.e., more than one-fourth of the total net yield
of the 50 gubernias of European Russia. The crop most commonly sown here
is wheat—the principal export grain. [1]

Agriculture develops here fastest of all (by comparison with the other areas of Russia), and these gubernias relegate
the central black-earth gubernias, formerly in the lead, to the
background:

Thus there is a shifting of the principal centre of grain
production: in the 1860s and 1870s the central black-earth gubernias were
ahead of all the rest, but in the 1880s they yielded priority to the
steppe and Lower Volga gubernias: their production of grain began to
diminish .

This interesting fact of the enormous growth of agricultural production in
the area described is to be explained by the circumstance that in the
post-Reform period the outer steppe regions have been colonies of
the central, long-settled part of European Russia. The abundance of free
land has attracted an enormous stream of settlers, who have quickly increased the area under crops. [3]

The extensive development of commercial crops was possible only because of the close economic
ties of these colonies with central Russia, on the one hand, and the
European grain importing countries, on the other. The development of
industry in central Russia and the development of commercial farming in
the outer regions are inseparably connected and create a market for each
other. The industrial gubernias received grain from the South, selling
there the products of their factories and supplying the colonies with
labour, artisans (see Chapter V, § III on the migration of small
industrialists to the outer regions), and means of production (timber,
building materials, tools, etc.). Only because of this social division of
labour could the settlers in the steppe localities engage exclusively in
agriculture and sell huge quantities of grain in the home and particularly
in the foreign market. Only because of their close connection with the
home and foreign markets could the economic development of these
localities proceed so rapidly; and it was precisely capitalist
development, for along with the growth of commercial farming there was an
equally rapid process of the diversion of the population into industry,
the process of the growth of towns and of the formation of new centres of
large-scale industry (see below, Chapters VII and

VIII). [4]

As to the question of whether the growth of commercial farming in this
area is bound up with technical progress in agriculture and with the
creation of capitalist relations, that has been dealt with above. In
Chapter II we saw how large the areas cultivated by peasants in these
localities are and how sharply capitalist relations manifest themselves
there even within the village community. In the preceding chapter we saw
that in this area there has been a particularly rapid development in the
use of machinery, that the capitalist farms in the outer regions attract
hundreds of thousands and millions of wage-workers, with huge farms
created on a scale unprecedented in agriculture, on which there is
extensive co-operation of wage-workers, etc. We have little left now to
add in completion of this picture.

In the outer steppe regions the privately-owned estates are not only
distinguished occasionally for their enormous size, but are also the scene
of farming on a very big scale. Above we made reference to crop areas of
8, 10 and 15 thousand dessiatines in Samara Gubernia. In Taurida Gubernia,
Falz-Fein owns 200,000 dess., Mordvinov 80,000 dess.; two individuals own
60,000 dess. each, “and many proprietors have from 10,000 to 25,000
dessiatines” (Shakhovskoi, 42). An idea of the scale of farming can
be obtained, for example, from the fact that in 1893 there were 1,100
machines (of which 1,000 belonged to the peasantry) haymaking for
Falz-Fein. In Kherson Gubernia there were 3.3 million dessiatines under
cultivation in 1893, of which 1.3 million dess. belonged to private
owners; in five uyezds of the gubernia (without Odessa Uyezd) there were
1,237 medium-sized farms (250 to 1,000 dess. of land), 405 big farms(1,000
to 2,500 dess.) and 226 farms each of over 2,500 dess. According to data
gathered in 1890 on 526 farms, they employed 35,514 workers, i.e., an
average of 67 workers per farm, of whom from 16 to 30 were annual
labourers. In 1893, 100 more or less big farms in Elisavetgrad Uyezd
employed 11,197 workers (an average of 112 per farm!), of whom 17.4% were
annual,

39.5% seasonal, and 43.1% day labourers. [5]

Here are data on the distribution of crop area among all the agricultural undertakings in the uyezd, both of private
landowners and of peasants. [6]

Thus, a little over 3 per cent of the peasants (and if we count only those
who cultivated, 4 per cent) concentrate in their hands more than a third
of the total area under crops, for the tilling and harvesting of which
masses of seasonal and day labourers are required.

Lastly, here are the data for Novouzensk Uyezd, Samara Gubernia. In
Chapter II we took only Russian peasants farming community allotments; now
we add Germans and farmstead peasants (those farming non-community
holdings). Unfortunately no data are available for the farms of private landowners. [7]

There is no need, apparently, to comment on these data. We have had
occasion to observe that the area described is the most typical of
agricultural capitalism in Russia—typical not in the agricultural
sense, of course, but in the social-economic sense. These colonies, having
developed with the greatest freedom, show us what relations could and
should have developed in the rest of Russia, had not the numerous
survivals of pre-Reform life retarded the development of capitalism. The
forms, however, of agricultural capitalism, as will be seen from what
follows, are extremely varied.

---
Notes:
[1]
Except for Saratov Gubernia, with 14.3% under wheat, in the rest of the
gubernias mentioned we find 37.6% to 57.8% under wheat.— Lenin

[2]
Sources given above. Areas of gubernias according to
Historico-Statistical Survey . The “Lower Volga and
Transvolga” area is badly constituted, for to the steppe gubernias,
with their enormous production of grain, have been added that of Astrakhan
(lacking grain for its food requirements) and of Kazan and of Simbirsk,
which should more appropriately be included in the central black-earth
belt.— Lenin

[3]
See Mr. V. Mikhailovsky’s material ( Novoye Slovo , [ New Word ], June 1897) on the enormous increase in the population of the
outer regions and on the migration to these parts, from 1885 to 1897, of
hundreds of thousands of peasants from the interior gubernias. On the
increase in the area under crops, see the above-mentioned work by V.
Postnikov, the Zemstvo statistical returns for Samara Gubernia;
Grigoryev’s Peasant Migration from Ryazan Gubernia . On Ufa
Gubernia, see Remezov’s Sketches of the Life of Wild Bashkiria —a vivid description of how the
“colonisers” felled timber for shipbuilding and transformed
the fields “cleared” of “wild” Bashkirs into “wheat factories.” This is a sample of colonial policy that
bears comparison with any of the Germans’ exploits in a place like
Africa.— Lenin

[4]
Cf. Marx, Das Kapital , III, 2, 289,—one of the basic features of the capitalist colony is abundance of free land easily
accessible to settlers (the Russian translation of this passage, p.623, is
quite

wrong). [8] Also see III, 2, 210. Russ. trans., p. 553,—the enormous grain surplus in
the agricultural colonies is to be explained by the fact that their entire
population is at first “almost exclusively engaged in farming, and
particularly in producing agricultural mass products,” which are
exchanged for industrial products “They [the colonial states]
receive through the world market finished products . . . which they would
have to produce themselves under other circumstances.” [9] — Lenin

[5]
Tezyakov, loc . cit .— Lenin

[6]
Material for Evaluating the Lands of Kherson Gubernia , Vol. II,
Kherson 1886. The number of dessiatines cultivated by each group was
determined by multiplying the average area under crops by the number of
farms. The number of groups has been reduced.— Lenin

[7]
Returns for Novouzensk Uyezd.—All rented land, state, privately-owned and allotment, has been taken. Here is a list of the
improved implements owned by the Russian farmstead peasants: 609 iron
ploughs, 16 steam threshers, 89 horse-threshers, 110 mowers 64 horse-drawn
rakes, 61 winnowers and 64 reaping machines. The number of employed
workers did not include day labourers.— Lenin

[8]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 738-39.

[9]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 655.

| | I. General Data on Agricultural Production in Post-Reform Russia and on The Types of Commercial Agriculture | | | III. The Commercial Stock-Farming Area. General Data on the Development of Dairy Farming | |

# The Commercial Stock-Farming Area. General Data on the Development of Dairy Farming.

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iv/iv8iii.htm

Chapter IV. The Growth of Commercial Agriculture

III. The Commercial Stock-Farming Area.
General Data on the Development of Dairy Farming

We now pass to another very important area of agricultural capitalism in
Russia, namely, the region in which not cereal, but livestock produce is
of predominant significance. This region embraces, apart from the Baltic
and the western gubernias, the northern, the industrial and parts of some
of the central gubernias (Ryazan, Orel, Tula, and Nizhni Novgorod). Here
animals are kept for dairy produce, and the whole character of agriculture
is adapted to obtaining as large a quantity as possible of the more
valuable market produce of this sort. [1] “Before our very eyes a marked transition is
taking place from stock farming for manure to stock farming for dairy
produce; it has been particularly notice able during the past ten
years” (work quoted in previous footnote, ibid .). It is
very difficult by the use of statistics to describe the various regions of
Russia in this respect, because it is not the total number of horned
cattle that is here important, but the number of dairy cattle and their
quality. If we take the total number of animals per hundred inhabitants,
we shall find that it is biggest in the outer steppe regions of Russia and
smallest in the non-black-earth belt ( Agriculture and Forestry ,
274); we shall find that as time goes on the number diminishes
( Productive Forces , III, 6. Cf. Historico-Statistical Survey , I). Hence, we observe here what Roscher noted in his day,
namely, that the number of animals per unit of the population is largest
in districts of “extensive livestock farming” (W. Roscher,
Nationaloekonomik des Ackerbaues . 7-te Aufl., Stuttg., 1873, S.

563–564 [2] ).

We, however, are interested in intensive livestock farming, and in dairy
farming in particular. We are compelled, therefore, to confine ourselves
to the approximate computation made by the authors of the
above-mentioned, Sketch , without claiming to make an exact
estimate of the phenomenon; such a computation clearly illustrates the
relative positions of the various regions of Russia as to degree of
dairy-farm development. We quote this computation in extenso ,
supplementing it with some averages arrived at and data on the
cheese-making industry in 1890 according to “factory” statistics.

This table clearly illustrates (though the data are very obsolete) the
emergence of special dairy-farming areas, the development there of
commercial farming (the sale of milk and milk-processing) and the increase
in the productivity of dairy cattle.

To judge the development of dairy farming, we can only make use of data on
butter production and cheese making. This industry arose in Russia at the
very end of the 18th century (1795); cheese making on landlords’
estates began to develop in the 19th century, but suffered a severe crisis
in the 1860s, which opened the period of cheese making by peasants and
merchants.

The number of cheese-making establishments in the 50 gubernias of European
Russia was as follows: [3]

Thus, in 25 years production increased more than ten-fold; only the
dynamics of the phenomenon may be judged from these data, which are
extremely incomplete. Let us quote some more detailed material. In Vologda
Gubernia an improvement in dairy farming began, properly speaking, in
1872, when the Yaroslavl-Vologda railway was opened; since then
“farmers have begun to see to the improvement of their herds, to
introduce grass cultivation, to acquire improved implements . . . and have
tried to place dairy farming on a purely commercial basis”
( Statistical Sketch , 20). In Yaroslavl Gubernia “the ground was prepared” by the
so-called “cheese-making artels” of the 70s, and “cheese
making continues to develop on the basis of private enterprise, merely
retaining the title of ‘artel’” (25); cheese making “artels” figure—may we add—in the Directory of Factories and Works as establishments employing wage-workers. Instead
of 295,000 rubles, the authors of the Sketch estimate the output
of cheese and butter, according to official returns, at 412,000
rubles (computed from figures scattered throughout the book); correction
of the figure brings the value of the output of fresh butter and cheese to
1,600,000 rubles, and if we add clarified butter and soft cheese, to
4,701,400 rubles, not counting either the Baltic or the western gubernias.

For the later period let us quote the following opinions from the
above-cited publication of the Department of Agriculture Hired Labour , etc . Concerning the industrial gubernias in general
we read: “A complete revolution in the position of the farms in this
area has been brought about by the development of dairy farming”; it
“indirectly has also helped to bring about an improvement in
agriculture”; “dairy farming in the area is developing with
every year” (258). In Tver Gubernia “there is to be observed
the tendency both among private landowners and peasants to improve the
methods of maintaining cattle”; the income from stock farming is
estimated at 10 million rubles (274). In Yaroslavl Gubernia “dairy
farming . . . is developing with every year. . . . Cheese and butter
making have even begun to assume something of an industrial character
. . . milk . . . is bought up from neighbours and even from peasants. One
comes across cheese factories run by a whole company of owners”
(285). “The general trend of private-landowner farming here,”
writes a correspondent from Danilov Uyezd, Yaroslavl Gubernia, “is
marked at the present time by the following: 1) the transition from
three-field to five- and seven-field crop rotation, with the sowing of
herbage in the fields; 2) the ploughing up of disused lands; 3) the
introduction of dairy farming, and as a consequence, the stricter
selection of cattle and an improvement in their maintenance”
(292). The same thing is said of Smolensk Gubernia, where the value of the
output of cheese and butter amounted to

240,000 rubles in 1889—according to a report of the Governor
(according to statistical returns, 136,000 rubles in 1890). The
development of dairy farming is noted in the Kaluga, Kovno,
Nizhni-Novgorod, Pskov, Esthland and Vologda gubernias. The value of the
output of butter and cheese in the last-mentioned gubernia was estimated
at 35,000 rubles according to statistics for 1890, to 108,000 rubles
according to the Governor’s report, and to 500 , 000 rubles according to local returns for 1894, which gave a total of
389 factories . “That is what the statistics say. Actually,
however, there are far more factories, since, according to investigations
by the Vologda Zemstvo Board, there are 224 factories in Vologda Uyezd
alone.” Production is developed in three uyezds, and has partly
penetrated a fourth. [4]

One can judge from this how many times the above quoted figures need to be multiplied in order to approach the real
situation. The plain view of an expert that at the present time the number
of butter and cheese-making establishments “amounts to several
thousand” ( Agriculture and Forestry in Russia , 299), gives
a truer picture of the facts than the allegedly exact figure of 265.

Thus the data leave not the slightest doubt about the enormous development
of this special type of commercial farming. The growth of capitalism was
accompanied here too by the transformation of routine technique. “In
the sphere of cheese making,” we read, for example, in
Agriculture and Forestry , “more has been done in Russia
during the last 25 years than perhaps in any other country”
(301). Mr. Blazhin says the same thing in his article “Technical
Progress in Dairy Farming” ( Productive Forces , III, 38-45). The principal change is that the “age-old” method of
leaving cream to settle has been replaced by the system of separating cream in centrifugal machines (separators). [5]

The machine has enabled the work to be carried on irrespective of atmospheric temperature,
increased the butter yield from milk by 10%, improved the quality of the
product, reduced the cost of butter production (the machine requires less
labour, space, and ice, as well as fewer utensils), and has led to the
concentration of production. Large peasant butteries have grown up,
handling “as much as 500 poods of milk a day, which was physically
impossible . . . when the milk was left to settle” ( ibid .). Improvements are being made in the instruments of
production (permanent boilers, screw presses, improved cellars), and
production is being assisted by bacteriology, which is providing pure
cultures of the type of lactic-acid bacilli needed for fermenting cream.

Thus, in the two areas of commercial farming we have described, the
technical improvements called into being by the requirements of the market
were effected primarily in those operations that were easiest to change
and are particularly important for the market: reaping, threshing and
winnowing in commercial grain farming, and the technical processing of
animal produce in the area of commercial stock farming. As to the keeping
of cattle, capital finds it more profitable for the time being to leave
that to the small producer: let him “diligently” and “industriously” tend “his” cattle (and charm
Mr. V. V. with his diligence—see Progressive Trends ,
p. 73), let him bear the brunt of the hardest and roughest work of tending
the milk-yielding machine. Capital possesses the latest improvements and
methods not only of separating the cream from the milk, but also of
separating the “cream” from this “diligence”, of separating the milk from the children of the peasant poor.

---
Notes:
[1]
In other parts of Russia stock farming is of a different kind. For
example, in the extreme South and South-East, the most extensive form of
stock farming has become established, namely, cattle-fattening for
beef. Further north, horned cattle are used as draught animals. Lastly, in
the central black-earth belt cattle are used as “manure-making
machines.” V. Kovalevsky and I. Levitsky, Statistical Sketch of Dairy Farming in the Northern and Central Belts of European Russia
(St. Petersburg, 1879). The authors of this work, like the majority of
agricultural experts, display very little interest in the social-economic
aspect of the matter or understanding of this aspect It is quite wrong,
for example, to draw from the fact of farms becoming more profitable the
direct conclusion that they ensure “the people’s well-being
and nutriment” (p. 2).— Lenin

[2]
W. Roscher, Economics of Agriculture , 7th edition, Stuttgart
1873, pp. 563-564.— Lenin

[3]
Data from Military Statistical Abstract and Mr. Orlov’s
Directory (1st and 3rd eds.). Concerning these sources, see
Chapter VII. Let us merely observe that the figures quoted minimise the
actual rapidity of development, since the term “factory” or
“works” was employed in a narrower sense in 1879 than in 1866;
and in 1890 in a still narrower sense than in 1879. The 3rd ed of the
Directory contains information on the date of establishment of
230 factories; it appears that only 26 were established before 1870, 68 in
the 70s, 122 in the 80s and 14 in 1890. This speaks of a rapid increase in
production. As for the latest List of Factories and Works
(St. Petersburg, 1897), utter chaos reigns there: cheese making is
registered for two or three gubernias and for the rest omitted altogether.— Lenin

[4]
Nedelya [ Week ], 1896, No. 13. Dairy farming is so profitable that urban traders have rushed into the business and,
incidentally, have introduced such methods as the settlement of accounts
in goods. One local landowner, who has a large factory, organised an artel
“with prompt cash payment for milk” in order to release the
peasants from bondage to buyers-up and to “capture new markets.” A characteristic example, showing the real significance of
artels and of the celebrated “organisation of sales,” namely,
“emancipation” from merchant’s capital through the development of industrial capital.— Lenin

[5]
Until 1882 there were hardly any separators in Russia. From 1886 onward
they spread so rapidly as to displace the old method utterly. In the 1890s
even butter-extractor separators appeared.— Lenin

| | II. The Commercial Grain-Farming Area | | | IV. Continuation. The Economy of Landlord Farming in the Area Described | |

# Continuation. The Economy of Landlord Farming in the Area Described

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URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iv/iv8iv.htm

Chapter IV. The Growth of Commercial Agriculture

### IV. Continuation. The Economy of Landlord Farming in the Area Described

We have cited the evidence of agronomists and farmers to the effect that
dairy farming on the landlord estates leads to the rationalisation of
agriculture. Let us add here that the analysis of the Zemstvo statistics on this question made
by

Mr. Raspopin [1] fully confirms this conclusion. We refer the reader to
Mr. Raspopin’s article for detailed data and give here only his main
conclusion. “The interdependence of the condition of stock raising
and dairy farming, on the one hand, and the number of dilapidated estates
and the intensity of farming, on the other, is beyond question. The uyezds
(of Moscow Gubernia) where dairy cattle raising, dairy farming, is most
developed show the smallest percentage of dilapidated farms and the
highest percentage of estates with highly developed field
cultivation. Throughout Moscow Gubernia ploughland is being reduced and
turned into meadow and pastureland, while grain rotations are yielding
place to multi-field herbage rotations. Fodder grasses and dairy cattle,
and not grain, are now predominant . . . not only on the farming estates
in Moscow Gubernia but throughout the Moscow industrial district”
( loc . cit .).

The scale of butter production and cheese making is particularly important
precisely because it testifies to a complete revolution in agriculture,
which becomes entrepreneur farming and breaks with routine. Capitalism
subordinates to itself one of the products of agriculture, and all other
aspects of farming are fitted in with this principal product. The keeping
of dairy cattle calls forth the cultivation of grasses, the change-over
from the three-field system to multi-field systems, etc. The waste
products of cheese making go to fatten cattle for the market. Not only
milk processing, but the whole of agriculture becomes a commercial enterprise. [2]

The influence of cheese production and butter making is not confined to the farms on which they are carried on,
since milk is often bought up from the surrounding peasants and
landlords. By buying up the milk, capital subordinates to itself the small
agriculturists too, particularly with the organisation of the so-called
“amalgamated dairies,” the spread of which was noted in the
70s (see Sketch by Messrs. Kovalevsky and Levitsky). These are
establishments organised in big towns, or in their vicinity, which process
very large quantities of milk brought in by rail. As soon as the milk
arrives the cream is skimmed and sold fresh, while the skimmed milk is
sold at a low price to poorer purchasers. To ensure that they get produce
of a certain quality, these establishments sometimes conclude contracts
with the suppliers, obliging them to adhere to certain rules in feeding
their cows. One can easily see how great is the significance of large
establishments of this kind: on the one hand they capture the public
market (the sale of skimmed milk to the poorer town-dwellers), and on the
other hand they enormously expand the market for the rural
entrepreneurs. The latter are given a tremendous impetus to expand and
improve commercial farming. Large-scale industry brings them into line, as
it were, by demanding produce of a definite quality and forcing out of the
market (or placing at the mercy of the usurers) the small producer who
falls below the “normal” standard. There should also operate
in the same direction the grading of milk as to quality (fat content, for
example), on which technicians are so busily engaged, inventing all sorts
of lacto-densimeters, etc., and of which the experts are so heartily in
favour (cf. Productive Forces , III, 9 and 38). In this respect
the role of the amalgamated dairies in the development of capitalism is
quite analogous to that of elevators in commercial grain farming. By
sorting grain as to quality the elevators turn it into a product that is
not individual but generic ( res fungibilis , [7] as the lawyers say), i.e., for the first time they
adapt it fully to exchange (cf. M. Sering’s article on the grain
trade in the United States of America in the symposium Landownership and Agriculture , p. 281 and foll.). Thus, the elevators give a
powerful impetus to commodity-grain production and spur on its technical
development by also introducing grading for quality. Such a system strikes
a double blow at the small producer. Firstly, it sets up as a standard,
legalises, the higher-quality grain of the big crop sowers and thereby
greatly depreciates the inferior grain of the peasant poor. Secondly, by
organising the grading and storing of grain on the lines of large-scale
capitalist industry, it reduces the big sowers’ expenses on this
item and facilitates and simplifies the sale of grain for them, thereby
placing the small producer, with his patriarchal and primitive methods of
selling from the cart in the market, totally at the mercy of the kulaks
and the usurers. Hence, the rapid development of elevator construction in
recent years means as big a victory for capital and degradation of the
small commodity-producer in the grain business as does the appearance and
development of capitalist “amalgamated dairies.”

From the foregoing material it is clear that the development of commercial
stock farming creates a home market, [3] firstly, for means of
production—milk-processing equipment, premises, cattle sheds,
improved agricultural implements required for the change-over from the
routine three-field system to multi-field crop rotations, etc.; and
secondly, for labour-power. Stock farming placed on an industrial footing
requires a far larger number of workers than the old stock farming “for manure.” The dairy farming
area—the industrial and north-western gubernias—does really
attract masses of agricultural labourers. Very many people go to seek
agricultural work in the Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yaroslavl and Vladimir
gubernias; fewer, but nevertheless a considerable number, go to the
Novgorod, Nizhni Novgorod and other non-black-earth gubernias. According
to correspondents of the Department of Agriculture in the Moscow and other
gubernias private-landowner farming is actually conducted in the main by
labourers from other areas. This paradox— the migration of
agricultural workers from the agricultural gubernias (they come mostly
from the central black-earth gubernias and partly from the northern) to
the industrial gubernias to do agricultural jobs in place of industrial
workers who abandon the area en masse—is an extremely characteristic
phenomenon (see S. A. Korolenko on this point, loc. cit). It proves more
convincingly than do any calculations or arguments that the standard of
living and the conditions of the working people in the central black-earth
gubernias, the least capitalist ones, are incomparably lower and worse
than in the industrial gubernias, the most capitalist ones; it proves that
in Russia, too, the following has become a universal fact, namely, the
phenomenon characteristic of all capitalist countries, that the conditions
of the workers in industry are better than those of the workers in
agriculture (because in agriculture oppression by capitalism is
supplemented by the oppression of pre-capitalist forms of
exploitation). That explains the flight from agriculture to industry,
whereas not only is there no flow from the industrial gubernias towards
agriculture (for example, there is no migration from these gubernias at
all), but there is even a tendency to look down upon the “raw”
rural workers, who are called “cowherds” (Yaroslavl Gubernia),
“cossacks” (Vladimir Gubernia) and “land labourers” (Moscow Gubernia).

It is important also to note that cattle herding requires a larger number
of workers in winter than in summer. For that reason, and also because of
the development of agricultural processing trades, the demand for labour
in the area described not only grows, but is more evenly distributed over the whole year and over a period of years. The most reliable material for judging this interesting fact is the data on wages, if taken
for a number of years. We give these data, confining ourselves to the
groups of Great-Russian and Little-Russian gubernias. [8] We omit the western
gubernias, owing to their specific social conditions and artificial
congestion of population (the Jewish pale of settlement), and quote the
Baltic gubernias only to illustrate the relations that arise where
capitalism is most highly developed. [4]

Let us examine this table, in which the three principal columns are
printed in italics. The first column shows the proportion of summer to
yearly pay. The lower this proportion is, and the nearer the
summer pay approximates to half the yearly pay, the more evenly is the
demand for labour spread over the entire year and the less the winter unemployment . The least favourably placed in this respect are the
central black-earth gubernias—the area where labour-service prevails
and where capitalism is poorly developed. [5]

In the industrial gubernias, in the dairy-farming area the demand for labour is higher and winter unemployment is less. Over
a period of years, too, the pay is most stable here, as may be seen from
the second column, which shows the difference between the lowest and the
highest pay in the harvest season. Lastly, the difference between the pay
in the sowing season and the pay in the harvest season is also least in
the non black-earth belt, i.e., the demand for workers is more evenly
distributed over the spring and summer. In all respects mentioned the
Baltic gubernias stand even higher than the non-black-earth gubernias,
while the steppe gubernias, with their immigrant workers and with harvest
fluctuations of the greatest intensity, are marked by the greatest
instability of wages. Thus, the data on wages testify that agricultural
capitalism in the area described not only creates a demand for
wage-labour, but also distributes this demand more evenly over the whole
year.

Lastly, reference must be made to one more type of dependence of the small
agriculturist in the area described upon the big farmer. This is the
replenishment of landlords’ herds by the purchase of cattle from
peasants. The landlords find it more profitable to buy cattle from
peasants driven by need to sell “at a loss” than to breed
cattle themselves—just as our buyers-up in so-called handicraft
industry often prefer to buy finished articles from the handicraftsmen at a ruinously cheap price rather than manufacture them in their own
workshops. This fact, which testifies to the extreme degradation of the
small producer, and to his being able to keep going in modern society only
by endlessly reducing his requirements, is turned by Mr. V. V. into an
argument in favour of small “people’s” production!
. . . “We are entitled to draw the conclusion that our big farmers
. . . do not display a sufficient degree of independence. . . . The
peasant, however . . . reveals greater ability to effect real farming
improvements” ( Progressive Trends , 77). This lack of independence is expressed in the fact that “our dairy farmers
. . . buy up the peasants’ (cows) at a price rarely amounting to
half the cost of raising them—usually at not more than a third, and
often even a quarter of this cost” ( ibid ., 71). The merchant’s capital of the stock farmers has made the small peasants
completely dependent, it has turned them into its cowherds, who breed
cattle for a mere song, and has turned their wives into its milkmaids. [6]

One would think that the conclusion to be drawn from this is that there is no sense in
retarding the transformation of merchant’s capital into industrial
capital, no sense in supporting small production, which leads to forcing
down the producer’s standard of living below that of the farm
labourer. But

Mr. V. V. thinks otherwise. He is delighted with the “zeal”
(p. 73, loc . cit .) of the peasant in tending his cattle;
he is delighted with the “good results from livestock farming”
obtained by the peasant woman who “spends all her life with her cow
and sheep” (80). What a blessing, to be sure! To “spend all
her life with her cow” (the milk of which goes to the improved cream
separator), and as a reward for this life, to receive “one-fourth of
the cost” of tending this cow! Now really, how after that can one
fail to declare in favour of “small people’s production”!

---
Notes:
[1]
This problem also has been raised by Mr. Raspopin (perhaps for the first
time in our literature) from the correct, theoretically sound point of
view. At the very outset he observes that “the enhancement of the
productivity of stock farming”—in particular, the development
of dairy farming—is proceeding in this country along capitalist
lines and serves as one of the most important indices of the penetration
of capital into agriculture.— Lenin

[2]
Dr. Zhbankov says in his Sanitary Investigation of Factories and Works of Smolensk Gubernia (Smolensk, 1894, Vol. I, p. 7) that “the
number of workers engaged in cheese making proper . . . is very
inconsiderable. . . . There are far more auxiliary workers, needed both
for cheese making and for agriculture; these are herdsmen, milkmaids, etc.; in all the [cheese] factories these workers outnumber the cheese
makers proper, two, three and even four times over.” Let us note
in passing that according to Dr. Zhbankov’s description, the
conditions of labour here are very insanitary, and the working day is
excessively long (16 to 17 hours), etc. Thus, in the case of this area
of commercial agriculture, too, the traditional notion of the idyllic
occupation of the agriculturist is a false one.— Lenin

[3]
The market for commercial stock farming is created chiefly by the
growth of the industrial population, with which we shall deal in detail
later on (Chapter VIII, § II). As regards foreign trade, let us confine
ourselves to the following remarks: cheese exports in the early part of
the post-Reform period were much below imports; but in the 90s they almost
equalled them (for the 4 years 1891-1894, the annual average imports
amounted to 41,800 poods, and exports to 40,600 poods; in the five years
1886-1890, exports even exceeded imports). The exports of cow and ewe
butter have always greatly exceeded imports; these exports are rapidly
increasing: in 1866-1870 the average annual exports amounted to 190,000
poods and in 1891-1894 to 370,000 poods ( Productive Forces , III,
37).— Lenin

[4]
Group I (the area of capitalist grain farming) consists of 8 gubernias:
Bessarabia, Kherson, Taurida, Ekaterinoslav, Don, Samara, Saratov and
Orenburg. Group II (the area where capitalism is least developed) consists
of 12 gubernias: Kazan, Simbirsk, Penza, Tambov Ryazan, Tula, Orel, Kursk,
Voronezh, Kharkov, Poltava and Chernigov. Group III (the area of
capitalist dairy farming and industrial capitalism) consists of 10
gubernias: Moscow, Tver, Kaluga, Vladimir, Yaroslavl, Kostroma,
Nizhni-Novgorod, St. Petersburg, Novgorod and Pskov. The figures showing
wages are average gubernia figures. Source: Department of Agriculture
publication Hired Labour , etc .— Lenin

[5]
A similar conclusion is drawn by Mr. Rudnev: “In those localities
where the work of labourers hired by the year is given a relatively high
valuation the wages of the summer worker approximate more closely to half
the yearly pay. Hence, on the contrary, in the western gubernias, and in
nearly all the densely-populated central black-earth gubernias, the
worker’s labour in the summer is given a very low valuation”
( loc . cit ., 455).— Lenin

[6]
Here are two descriptions of the living standard and living conditions of
the Russian peasant in general. M. Y. Saltykov, in Petty Things of Life , writes about the “enterprising muzhik” as follows:
“The muzhik needs everything, but what he needs most of all . . . is
the ability to exhaust himself, not to stint his own labour. . . . The
enterprising muzhik simply expires at it” (work). “His wife
and grown up children, too, all toil worse than galley-slaves.”

V. Veresayev, in a story entitled “Lizar” Severny Kurier [ Northern Courier ], 1899, No. 1), tells the story of
a muzhik in the Pskov Gubernia named Lizar, who advocates the use of
drops, etc., “to prevent an increase.”
“Subsequently,” observes the author, “I heard from many
Zemstvo doctors, and particularly from midwives, that they frequently have
similar requests from village husbands and wives.” “Moving in
a certain direction, life has tried all roads and at last has reached a
blind alley. There is no escape from it. And so a new solution of the
problem is naturally arising and increasingly maturing.”

The position of the peasant in capitalist society is indeed hopeless, and
in Russia with its village communities, as in France with its
smallholders, leads “naturally” not to an unnatural
. . . “solution of the problem,” of course, but to an unnatural means of postponing the doom of small economy. ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[7]
Res fungibilis —replaceable thing—an old juridical term. “Replaceable things” are those which in contracts are
indicated by simple numerical quantity or measure (“so many bushels
of rye,” “so many bricks”). They are distinguished from
“irreplaceable things”—things that are specifically indicated (“such and such a thing,” “article number so
and so”).

[8]
Little Russia , i.e., Malorossia—as the territory of the
Ukraine was officially called in tsarist Russia.

| | III. The Commercial Stock-Farming Area. General Data on the Development of Dairy Farming | | | V. Continuation. The Differentiation of the Peasantry in the Dairy-Farming Area | |

# Continuation. The Differentiation of the Peasantry in the Dairy-Farming Area

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iv/iv8v.htm

Chapter IV. The Growth of Commercial Agriculture

V. Continuation. The Differentiation of the Peasantry
in the Dairy-Farming Area

In the literature dealing with the effect of dairy farming on the
conditions of the peasantry, we constantly come up against contradictions:
on the one hand reference is made to progress in farming, the enlargement
of incomes, the improvement of agricultural technique and the acquisition
of improved implements; on the other hand, we have statements about the
deterioration of food, the creation of new types of bondage and the ruin
of the peasants. After what was stated in Chapter II, we should not be
surprised at these contradictions: we know that these opposite opinions
relate to opposite groups of the peasantry. For a more precise judgement
of the subject, let us take the data showing the classification of peasant
households according to the number of cows per household. [1]

Thus, the distribution of cows among the peasants in the non-black-earth
belt is found to be very similar to the distribution of draught animals
among the peasants in the black-earth gubernias (see Chapter
II). Moreover, the concentration of dairy cattle in the area described
proves to be greater than the concentration of draught animals. This
clearly points to the fact that it is with the local form of commercial
farming that the differentiation of the peasantry is closely
connected. The same connection is evidently indicated by the following
data (unfortunately, not sufficiently complete). If we take the aggregate
Zemstvo statistics (given by Mr. Blagoveshchensky; for 122 uyezds of 21
gubernias), we get an average of 1.2 cows per household. Hence, in the
non-black-earth belt the peasantry evidently own more cows than in the
black-earth belt, and in Petersburg Gubernia they are better off than in
the non-black earth belt in general. On the other hand, in 123 uyezds of
22 gubernias the cattleless households constitute 13 %, while in the 18
uyezds we have taken, they amount to 17%, and in the 6 uyezds of
Petersburg Gubernia 18.8%. Hence, the differentiation of the peasantry (in
the respect we are now examining) is most marked in Petersburg Gubernia,
followed by the non-black-earth belt in general. By this indication,
commercial farming is the principal factor in the differentiation of the
peasantry.

The data show that about half the peasant households (those having no
cows, or one cow) can take only a negative part in the benefits of dairy farming. The peasant with one cow
will sell milk only out of need, to the detriment of his children’s
nourishment. On the other hand, about one-fifth of the households (those
with 3 cows and more) concentrate in their hands probably more than half
the total dairy farming since the quality of their cattle and the
profitableness of their farms should be higher than in the case of the
“average” peasant. [2]

An interesting illustration of this conclusion is provided by the data on a locality where dairy farming and capitalism in
general are highly developed. We refer to Petersburg

Uyezd. [3]

Dairy farming is particularly widely developed in the summer residential part of the uyezd,
inhabited mainly by Russians; here the most widely cultivated crops are:
grasses (23.5% of the allotment arable, as against 13.7% for the uyezd),
oats (52.3% of the arable) and potatoes (10.1%). Agriculture is directly
influenced by the St. Petersburg market, which needs oats, potatoes, hay,
milk and horse traction ( loc . cit ., 168). The families
of the registered population are 46.3% engaged “in the milk
industry.” Of the total number of cows 91% provide milk for the
market. The income from this industry amounts to 713,470 rubles (203
rubles per family, 77 rubles per cow). The nearer the locality is to
St. Petersburg, the higher is the quality of the cattle and the better the
attention they receive. The milk is sold in two ways: 1) to buyers-up on
the spot and 2) in St. Petersburg to “dairy farms,” etc. The
latter type of marketing is much more profitable, but “the majority of the farms having one or two
cows, and sometimes more, are not . . . able to deliver their milk to
St. Petersburg direct”—they have no horses, it does not pay to
cart small quantities, etc. The buyers-up of the milk include not only
specialist merchants, but individuals with dairies of their own. The
following data are for two volosts in the uyezd:

One can judge from this how the benefits of dairy farming are distributed
among all the peasants in the non-black earth belt, among whom, as we have
seen, the concentration of dairy cattle is even greater than among these
560 families. It remains for us to add that 23.1% of the peasant families
in St. Petersburg Uyezd hire workers (most of whom, here, as everywhere in
agriculture, are day labourers). “Bearing in mind that agricultural
workers are hired almost exclusively by families having fully-operating
farms” (constituting only 40.4% of the total number of families in
the uyezd) “the conclusion must be that more than half of such farms
do not manage without hired labour” (158).

Thus, at opposite ends of Russia, in the most varying localities, in
St. Petersburg and, say, Taurida gubernias, the social and economic
relations within the “village community,” prove to be absolutely identical. The “muzhik-cultivators”
(Mr. N.–on’s term) in both places differentiate into a minority of
rural entrepreneurs and a mass of rural proletarians. The specific feature
of agriculture is that capitalism subjugates one aspect of rural economy in one district, and another aspect in another, which is why identical
economic relations are manifested in the most varied forms of agronomy and
everyday life.

Having established the fact that in the area described, too, the peasantry
splits up into opposite classes, we shall easily achieve clarity about the
contradictory opinions usually expressed as to the role of dairy
farming. Quite naturally, the well-to-do peasantry receive an incentive to
develop and improve their farming methods and as a result grass
cultivation is widespread and becomes an essential part of commercial
stock-farming. The development of grass cultivation is observed, for
example, in Tver Gubernia; in Kashin Uyezd, the most progressive in that
gubernia, as many as one-sixth of all peasant households plant clover
( Returns , XIII, 2, p. 171). It is interesting, moreover, to note
that on the purchased lands a larger proportion of arable is occupied by
herbage than on the allotments: the peasant bourgeoisie naturally prefer
private ownership of land to communal tenure. [4]

In the Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia (Vol. II, 1896) we also find numerous references to the
increase in grass cultivation, and again mainly on purchased and rented lands. [5]

In the same publication we find references to the spread of improved implements: iron
ploughs, threshing machines, rollers, etc. Butter and cheese making, etc.,
are developing very considerably. In Novgorod Gubernia it was noted as far
back as the beginning of the 80s that along with a general deterioration
and diminution of peasant stock breeding, there was an improvement in
certain individual localities where there was a profitable market for milk
and where the milk-feeding of calves was an old-established industry
(Bychkov: An Essay in the House-to-House Investigation of the Economic Position and Farming of the Peasants in Three Volosts of Novgorod Uyezd , Novgorod, 1882). The
milk-feeding of calves, which is also a type of commercial livestock
farming, is, generally speaking, a fairly widespread industry in the
Novgorod and Tver gubernias and in other places not far from the big
cities (see Hired Labour , etc ., published by the
Department of Agriculture). “This industry,” says Mr. Bychkov,
“by its very nature, brings an income to the already well-provided
peasants possessing considerable numbers of cows, since with one cow, and
sometimes even with two of poor yield, the milk-feeding of calves is
unthinkable” ( loc . cit ., 101). [6]

But the most outstanding index of the economic successes of the peasant
bourgeoisie in the area described is the hiring of labourers by
peasants. The local landowners feel that they are being confronted by
competitors, and in their communications to the Department of Agriculture
they sometimes even attribute the shortage of workers to the fact that
these are snatched up by the well-to-do peasants ( Hired Labour ,
490). The hiring of labourers by peasants is noted in the Yaroslavl,
Vladimir, St. Petersburg and Novgorod gubernias ( loc . cit ., passim ). A mass of such references
is also scattered throughout the Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia .

This progress of the well-to-do minority, however, is a heavy burden upon
the mass of the poor peasants. In Koprin Volost, Rybinsk Uyezd, Yaroslavl
Gubernia, for example, one finds the spread of cheese making—on the
initiative of “V. I. Blandov, the well-known founder of
cheese-making artels.” [7] “When the poorer peasants, with only one cow each, deliver . . .
their milk (to the cheese factory) they do so, of course, to the detriment of their own
nourishment”; whereas the well-to-do peasants improve their cattle
(pp. 32-33). Among the types of wage-labour undertaken, one finds
employment away from home, at cheese-making establishments; from among the
young peasants a body of skilled cheese makers is arising. In the
Poshekhonye Uyezd “the number . . . of cheese and butter
establishments is increasing from year to year,” but “the
benefits accruing to peasant farming from cheese and butter making hardly
compensate for the disadvantages to peasant life resulting from our cheese
and butter establishments.” On the peasants’ own admission
they are often compelled to starve, for with the opening of a cheese or
butter factory in some locality, the milk is sent there and the peasants
usually drink diluted milk. The system of payment in kind is coming into
vogue (pp.43, 54, 59 and others), so that it is to be regretted that our
“people’s” petty production is not covered by the law prohibiting payment in kind in “capitalist” factories. [8]

Thus, the opinions of people directly acquainted with the matter confirm
our conclusion that the majority of the peasants play a purely negative
part in the progress of local agriculture. The progress of commercial
farming worsens the position of the bottom groups of peasants and forces
them out of the ranks of the cultivators altogether. Be it noted that
reference has been made in Narodnik literature to this contradiction
between the progress of dairy farming and the deterioration of the peasants’ nourishment (for the
first time, I think, by Engelhardt). But it is precisely this example that
enables one to see the narrowness of the Narodnik appraisal of the
phenomena occurring among the peasantry and in agriculture. They note a
contradiction in one form, in one locality, and do not realise that it is
typical of the entire social and economic system, manifesting itself
everywhere in different forms. They note the contradictory significance of
one “profitable industry,” and strongly urge the “implanting” among the peasantry of all sorts of other
“local industries.” They note the contradictory significance
of one form of agricultural progress and do not understand that machines,
for example, have exactly the same political and economic significance in
agriculture as in industry.

---
Notes:
[1]
Zemstvo statistics taken from Mr. Blagoveshchensky’s Combined Returns . [9]
About 14,000 households in these 18 uyezds are not classified according to
the number of cows owned: the total is not 289,079 households, but
303,262. Mr. Blagoveshchensky cites similar data for two other uyezds in
the black-earth gubernias, but these uyezds are evidently not typical. In
11 uyezds of Tver Gubernia ( Statistical Returns , XIII, 2) the
percentage of allotment households owning no cows is not high (9.8), but
21.9% of the households, having 3 and more cows, concentrate in their
hands 48.4% of the total number of cows. Horseless households constitute
12.2%; households with 3 and more horses constitute only 5.1% and they own
only 13.9% of the total number of horses. Let us note, in passing, that a
smaller concentration of horses (as compared with that of cows) is also to
be observed in other non-black-earth gubernias.— Lenin

[2]
These data regarding the opposite groups of peasants should be borne in
mind when one meets sweeping statements like the following: “An
annual income from dairy stock farming ranging from 20 to 200 rubles per
household is, over the enormous area of the northern gubernias, not only a
most considerable means of extending and improving stock farming, but has
also had the effect of improving field cultivation and even of reducing
migration in search of employment, by providing the population with work
at home—both in tending cattle and in bringing hitherto neglected
land into a properly cultivated condition” ( Productive Forces , III, 18). On the whole, migration is not decreasing, but
increasing. In some localities, however, the decrease may be due either to
the increase in the percentage of well to-do peasants, or to the
development of “work at home,” i.e., work for local rural
entrepreneurs.— Lenin

[3]
Material for Statistics on the Economy in St. Petersburg Gubernia , Vol. V, Pt. II, St. Petersburg, 1887.— Lenin

[4]
A substantial improvement in the maintenance of cattle is observed only
where there has been a development in the production of milk for sale
(pp. 219, 224).— Lenin

[5]
Pp. 39, 65, 136, 150, 154, 167, 170, 177 and others. Our pre-Reform system
of taxation retards the progress of agriculture here too. “Owing to
the congestion of the farmsteads,” writes a correspondent,
“grass cultivation has been introduced all over the volost; the
clover, however, is sold to cover tax arrears” (91). The taxes in
this gubernia are sometimes to high that the peasant who leases his land
has himself to pay a sum to the new holder of the allotment.— Lenin

[6]
Let us note, by the way, that the variety of “industries” of
the local peasantry prompted Mr. Bychkov to distinguish two types of
industrialists, according to the amount of earnings. It appeared that less
than 100 rubles was earned by 3,251 persons (27.4% of the population);
their earnings totalled 102,000 rubles, or an average of 31 rubles per
person. Over 100 rubles was obtained by 454 (3.8% of the population):
their earnings totalled 107,000 rubles, or an average of 236 rubles per
person The first group consisted mainly of wage-workers of every kind, the
second of traders, hay merchants, timber dealers, etc.— Lenin

[7]
The “cheese-making artels” of Koprin Volost are mentioned in
the Directory of Factories and Works , and the Blandovs are the
largest firm in the cheese-making industry: in 1890 they owned 25
factories in six gubernias.— Lenin

[8]
Here is the characteristic view of Mr. Stary Maslodel [Old Butter
Maker]. “Whoever has seen and knows the countryside today and
remembers what it was 40 or 50 years ago will be amazed at the difference.
In the old villages all the houses were the same both outside and inside;
today, however side by side with hovels stand fine houses, side by side
with the indigent live the rich, side by side with the downtrodden and
despised live those who feast and make merry. In former times one often
came across villages in which there was not a single landless peasant; now
in every village there are no less than five and sometimes a full
dozen. And to tell the truth, butter making is much to blame for this
transformation of the villages. In 30 years butter making has enriched
many, has beautified their homes; many peasants who supplied milk during
the period of development of the butter industry have become prosperous,
acquired more cattle, and purchased land on a community or individual
basis; but many more have fallen into poverty; landless peasants and
beggars have appeared in the villages” ( Zhizn [ Life ]

1899, No. 8 quoted from Severny Krai [ Northern Region ], 1899, No 223). ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[9]
N. A. Blagoveshchensky’s Peasant Farming . Combined Zemstvo House-to-House Census Economic Returns , Vol. 1, Moscow,
1893.

| | IV. Continuation. The Economy of Landlord Farming in the Area Described | | | VI. The Flax-Growing Area | |

# The Flax-Growing Area

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iv/iv8vi.htm

Chapter IV. The Growth of Commercial Agriculture

### VI. The Flax-Growing Area

We have described the first two areas of capitalist agriculture in fairly
great detail because of their widespread character and of the typical
nature of the relations observed there. In our further exposition we shall
confine ourselves to briefer remarks on some highly important areas.

Flax is the chief of the so-called “industrial crops.” The
very term indicates that we are dealing here with commercial farming. For
example, in the “flax” gubernia of Pskov, flax has long been
the peasants’ “first money,” to use a local expression ( Military Statistical Abstract , 260). Flax growing is simply a
means of making money. The post-Reform period is marked on the whole by an
undoubted increase in commercial flax growing. Thus, at the end of the
60s, the output of flax in Russia was estimated at approximately 12
million poods of fibre ( ibid ., 260); at the beginning of the 80s
at 20 million poods of fibre ( Historico-Statistical Survey of Russian Industry , Vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1883, p. 74); at the present time,
in the 50 gubernias of European Russia over 26 million poods of fibre are gathered. [1]

In the flax-growing area proper (19 gubernias of the non-black-earth belt) the area under flax has changed in recent years as
follows; 1893—756,600 dess.; 1894—816,500 dess.; 1895—901,800 dess.; 1896—952,100 dess., and 1897—967,500
dess. For the whole of European Russia (50 gubernias) the figure for 1896
was 1,617,000 dess. under flax and for 1897—1,669,000 dess. ( Vestnik Finansov , ibid ., and 1898, No. 7), as
against 1,399,000 dess. at the beginning of the 1890s ( Productive Forces , I, 36). Similarly, general opinions expressed in publications
also testify to the growth of commercial flax growing. Thus, regarding the
first two decades after the Reform, the Historico-Statistical Survey states that “the region of flax cultivation for
industrial purposes has been enlarged by several gubernias”
( loc . cit ., 71), which is due particularly to the extension of the railways. Concerning the Yuryev Uyezd, Vladimir Gubernia,
Mr. V. Prugavin wrote at the beginning of the eighties: “The
cultivation of flax . . . has become very widespread here during the past
10 to 15 years.” “Some large family households sell flax to
the extent of 300 to 500 rubles and more per annum. . . . They buy”
(flax seed) “in Rostov. . . . The peasants in these parts are very
careful in selecting seed” ( The Village Community , Handicraft Industries and Agriculture of Yuryev Uyezd ,
Vladimir Gubernia , Moscow, 1884, pp. 86-89). The Zemstvo Statistical Returns for Tver Gubernia (Vol. XIII, Pt. 2) notes that
“the most important spring grain crops, barley and oats, are
yielding place to potatoes and flax” (p. 151); in some uyezds flax
occupies from 1/3 to 3/4 of the area under spring crops, for example, in
Zubtsov, Kashin and other uyezds, “in which flax growing has assumed the clearly expressed speculative character of an
industry” (p. 145), developing particularly on rented virgin and
disused land. Moreover, it is noted that in some gubernias, where free
land is still available (virgin soil, wasteland, forest-cleared tracts),
flax growing is particularly expanding, but in some of the old established
flax-growing gubernias “the cultivation of flax is either on the old
scale or is even yielding place, for example, to the newly-introduced
cultivation of root-crops, vegetables, etc.” ( Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 6, p. 376, and 1897, No. 29), i.e., to other
types of commercial farming.

As for flax exports, during the first two decades after the Reform they
increased with remarkable rapidity: from an average of 4.6 million poods
in the years 1857-1861 to 8.5 million poods in the years 1867-1871 and to
12.4 million poods in the years 1877-1881; but then exports seemed to
become stationary, amounting in the years 1894-1897 to an average of 13.3
million

poods. [2]

The development of commercial flax growing led, naturally, to exchange not
only between agriculture and industry (sale of flax and purchase of
manufactured goods), but between different types of commercial agriculture
(sale of flax and purchase of grain) The following data concerning this
interesting phenomenon clearly demonstrate that a home market for
capitalism is created not only by the diversion of population from
agriculture to industry, but also by the specialisation of commercial farming. [3]

How does this growth of commercial flax growing affect the peasantry, who,
as we know, are the principal flax producer? [4] “Travelling through Pskov Gubernia
and observing its economic life, one cannot help noticing that side by
side with occasional large and rich units, hamlets and villages, there are
extremely poor units; these extremes are a characteristic feature of the economic life of the flax area .” “Flax growing has
taken a speculative turn,” and “the greater part” of the
income from flax “is pocketed by buyers-up and by those who lease
out land for flax growing” (Strokin, 22-23). The ruinous rents
constitute real “money rent” (see above), and the mass of the
peasants are in a state of “complete and hopeless dependence”
(Strokin, ibid .) upon the buyers-up. The sway of merchant’s capital was established in this locality long ago, [5] and what distinguishes
the post-Reform period is the enormous concentration of this capital, the
undermining of the monopoly of the former small buyers-up and the
formation of “flax agencies” which have captured the whole
flax trade. The significance of flax growing, says Mr. Strokin about
Pskov Gubernia, “is expressed . . . in the concentration of capital
in a few hands” (p. 31). Turning flax growing into a gamble,
capital ruined vast numbers of small agriculturists, who worsened the
quality of the flax, exhausted the land, were reduced to leasing out their
allotments and finally swelled the ranks of “migratory”
workers. On the other hand, a slight minority of well-to-do peasants and
traders were able—and competition made it necessary—to introduce technical improvements. Couté scutchers, both
hand-worked (costing up to 25 rubles) and horse-operated (three times
dearer), were introduced. In 1869 there were only 557 such machines in
Pskov Gubernia, in 1881 there were 5,710 (4,521 hand-worked and 1,189 horse- operated). [6] “Today,” we read in the Historico-Statistical Survey ,
“every sound peasant family engaged in flax growing has a
Couté hand-machine, which has actually come to be called the
‘Pskov scutcher’” ( loc . cit ., 82-83). What proportion this minority of “sound” householders
who acquire machines is to the rest of the peasantry, we have already seen
in Chapter II. Instead of the primitive contrivances which cleaned the
seeds very badly, the Pskov Zemstvo began to introduce improved
seed-cleaners ( trieurs ), and “the more prosperous peasant
industrialists” now find it profitable to buy these machines
themselves and to hire them out to flax growers ( Vestnik Finansov , 1897, No. 29, p. 85). The bigger buyers-up of flax
establish drying rooms and presses and hire workers to sort and scutch the
flax (see example given by Mr. V. Prugavin, loc . cit .,
115). Lastly, it should be added that the processing of flax-fibre
requires quite a large number of workers: it is estimated that the
cultivation of one dessiatine of flax requires 26 working days of
agricultural work proper, and 77 days to extract the fibre from stalks
( Historico-Statistical Survey , 72). Thus, the development of flax
growing leads, on the one hand, to the farmer being more fully occupied
during the winter and, on the other, to the creation of a demand for
wage-labour on the part of those landlords and well-to-do peasants who
engage in flax growing (see the example in Chapter III, § VI).

Thus, in the flax-growing area, too, the growth of commercial farming
leads to the domination of capital and to the differentiation of the
peasantry. A tremendous obstacle to the latter process is undoubtedly the
ruinously high renting prices of land, [7] the pressure of merchant’s capital, the
tying of the peasant to his allotment and the high payments for the
allotted land. Hence, the wider the development of land purchase by the peasants, [8] and of migration in search of employment, [9] and the more
widespread the use of improved implements and methods of cultivation, the
more rapidly will merchant’s capital be supplanted by industrial
capital, and the more rapidly will a rural bourgeoisie be formed from
among the peasantry, and the system of labour-service for the landlord
replaced by the capitalist system.

---
Notes:
[1]
The average for 1893-1897 was 26,291,000 poods, according to the figures
of the Central Statistical Committee. See Vestnik Finansov , 1897,
No. 9, and 1898, No. 6. Formerly the statistics for flax production were
very inexact; that is why we have preferred to take approximate estimates
based on comparisons of the most varied source made by experts. The amount
of flax produced fluctuates considerably year by year. For that reason
Mr. N.–on, for example, who set out to draw the boldest conclusions about
the “diminution” of flax production and “the reduction of the area under flax” ( Sketches , p. 236 and foll.) from
figures for some six years, slipped into the most curious errors (see
P. B. Struve’s examination of them in Critical Remarks ,
p. 233 and foll.). Let us add to what has been said in the text that
according to the data cited by Mr. N.–on, the maximum area under flax in
the 1880s was 1,372,000 dess. and the weight of gathered fibre 19,245,000
poods, whereas in 1896-1897 the area was 1,617,000- 1,669,000 dess., and
the weight of gathered fibre 31,713,000-30,139,000 poods.— Lenin

[2]
The figures are for the exports of flax, flax-combings and tow. See
Historico-Statistical Survey , P. Struve, Critical Remarks and Vestnik Finansov , 1897, No. 26, and 1898,
No. 36.— Lenin

[3]
See N. Strokin, Flax Growing in Pskov Gubernia , St. Petersburg,
1882. The author borrowed these data from the Proceedings of
the Commission on Taxation.— Lenin

[4]
Of 1,399,000 dess. under flax, 745,400 dess. are in the non-black-earth
belt, where only 13% belongs to private landowners. In the black-earth
belt, of 609,600 dess. under flax 44.4% belongs to private owners
( Productive Forces , 1, 36).— Lenin

[5]
The Military Statistical Abstract in its day pointed to the fact
that the “flax sown by the peasants very often really belongs to the
bulinyas ” (local name for small buyers-up), “while the peasant is merely a labourer on his field”
(595). Cf. Historico-Statistical Survey , p, 88.— Lenin

[6]
Strokin, 12.— Lenin

[7]
At the present time renting prices of flax land are falling due to the
drop in the price of flax, but the area of land under flax, in the Pskov
flax area in 1896, for example, has not diminished ( Vestnik Finansov , 1897, No. 29)— Lenin

[8]
Pskov Gubernia is one of the foremost in Russia in the development of the
purchase of land by peasants. According to the Combined Statistical Material on the Economic Position of the Rural Population (published
by Chancellery of the Committee of Ministers), the lands purchased by
peasants amount here to 23% of the total allotment arable, this is the
maximum for all the 50 gubernias. It works out at an average of 0.7
dess. of purchased land per head of the male peasant population as of
January 1, 1892. In this respect only Novgorod and Taurida gubernias
exceed Pskov Gubernia.— Lenin

[9]
The number of males leaving Pskov Gubernia in search of employment
increased, statistics show from 1865-1875 to 1896 nearly fourfold
( Industries of the Peasant Population of Pskov Gubernia , Pskov,
1898, p. 3).— Lenin

| | V. Continuation. The Differentiation of the Peasantry in the Dairy-Farming Area | | | VII. The Technical Processing of Agricultural Produce | |

# The Technical Processing of Agricultural Produce

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iv/iv8vii.htm

Chapter IV. The Growth of Commercial Agriculture

VII. The Technical Processing of Agricultural
Produce

Above we have already had occasion to note (Chapter I, § I) that writers
on agriculture, in classifying systems of farming according to the
principal market product, assign the industrial or technical system of
farming to a special category. The essence of this system is that the
agricultural product, before going into consumption (personal or
productive), undergoes technical processing. The establishments which
effect this processing either constitute part of the very farms on which
the raw material is produced or belong to special industrialists who buy
up the raw material from the peasant farmers. From the standpoint of
political economy the difference between these two types is
unimportant. The growth of agricultural technical trades is extremely
important as regards the development of capitalism. Firstly, this growth
represents one of the forms of the development of commercial farming, and
is, moreover, the form that shows most vividly the conversion of
agriculture into a branch of industry of capitalist society. Secondly, the development of the technical
processing of agricultural produce is usually connected intimately with
technical progress in agriculture: on the one hand, the very production of
the raw material for processing often necessitates agricultural
improvement (the planting of root-crops, for example); on the other hand,
the waste products of the processing are frequently utilised in
agriculture, thus increasing its effectiveness and restoring, at least in
some measure, the equilibrium, the interdependence, between agriculture
and industry, the disturbance of which constitutes one of the most
profound contradictions of capitalism.

We must accordingly now describe the development of technical agricultural
trades in post-Reform Russia.

1) Distilling

Here we regard distilling only from the point of view of
agriculture. Accordingly, there is no need for us to dwell on the rapid
concentration of distilling in large plants (partly due to excise
requirements), on the rapid progress of factory technique, with the
consequent cheapening of production, and the increase in excise duties
which has outstripped this cheapening of production and because of its
excessive amount has retarded the growth of consumption and production.

Here are data for “agricultural” distilling in the whole of
the Russian

Empire [1] :

Thus, over 9/10 of the distilleries (accounting for over 4/5 of the total
output) are directly connected with agriculture. Being large capitalist
enterprises, these establishments lend the same character to all the
landlord farms on which they are set up (the distilleries belong almost
without exception to landlords, mainly to members of the nobility). The
type of commercial farming under review is particularly developed in the
central black-earth gubernias, in which are concentrated over

1/10 of the total number of distilleries in the Russian Empire
(239 in 1896-97, of which 225 were agricultural and mixed),
producing over a quarter of the total output of spirits
(7,785,000 vedros in 1896-97, of which 6,828,000 at agricultural
and at mixed distilleries). Thus in the area where labour-service predominates, the commercial character of
agriculture most frequently (as compared with other areas)
manifests itself in the distilling of vodka from grain and
potatoes. Distilling from potatoes has undergone a particularly
rapid development since the Reform, as may be seen from the
following data relating to the whole of the Russian

Empire [2] :

Thus, with a general twofold increase in the quantity of crops distilled,
the quantity of potatoes used increased about 15-fold. This fact
strikingly corroborates the proposition established above (§ I in this
chapter) that the enormous increase in the potato area and crop signifies
the growth of precisely commercial and capitalist farming, along with
improvement of agricultural technique, with the replacement of the
three-field system by multi-field crop rotation, etc. [3]

The area of the biggest development of distilling is also distinguished for the
biggest (in the Russian gubernias, i.e., not counting the Baltic and the
western gubernias) net per-capita harvest of potatoes. Thus in the
northern black-earth gubernias the figures for 1864-1866, 1870-1879 and
1883-1887 were 0.44, 0.62 and 0.60 chetverts respectively, whereas for the
whole of European Russia (50 gubernias) the corresponding figures were
0.27, 0.43 and 0.44 chetverts. As far back as the beginning of the 80s the
Historico-Statistical Survey noted that “the region marked
by the greatest expansion of potato cultivation covers all the gubernias
of the central and northern parts of the black-earth belt, the Volga and
Transvolga gubernias and the central non-black-earth gubernias”
( loc . cit .,

p. 44). [4]

The expansion of potato cultivation by landlords and well-to-do peasants
means an increase in the demand for hired labour; the cultivation of a
dessiatine of potatoes absorbs much more labour [5] than the cultivation of a dessiatine of
cereals and the use of machinery in, for example, the central black-earth area is still very slight. Thus, while the number
of workers engaged in the distilling industry proper has decreased, [6] the elimination of
labour-service by the capitalist system of farming, with the cultivation
of root-crops, has increased the demand for rural day labourers.

2) Beet-Sugar Production

The processing of sugar-beet is even more highly concentrated in big
capitalist enterprises than distilling is, and is likewise an adjunct of
the landlords’ (mainly noblemen’s) estates. The principal area
of this industry is the south-western gubernias, and then the southern
black-earth and central black-earth gubernias. The area under sugar-beet
amounted in the 60s to about 100,000 dess., [7] in the 70s to about 160,000 dess. [8] ; in 1886-1895 to
239,000

dess., [9] in
1896-1898 to 369,000 dess., [10] in 1900 to 478,778 dess., in 1901 to 528,076
dess. ( Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta , 1901, No. 123), in 1905-06
to 483,272 dess. ( Vestnik Finansov , 1906, No. 12). Hence, in the
period following the Reform the area cultivated has increased more than
5-fold. Incomparably more rapid has been the growth of the amount of
sugar-beet harvested and processed: on an average the weight of sugar-beet
processed in the Empire in the years

1860-1864 was 4.1 million berkovets [11] ; in
1870-1874—9.3 million; in 1875-1879—12.8 million; in
1890-1894—29.3 million; and in 1895-96 and 1897-98—35 million. [12]

The amount of processed sugar-beet has grown since the 60s more than 8-fold.
Hence, there has been an enormous increase in the beet yield, i.e., in
labour productivity, on the big estates organised on capitalist lines. [13]

The introduction of a root-plant like beet into the rotation is indissolubly linked with the
transition to a more advanced system of cultivation, with improved tillage
and cattle feed, etc. “The tillage of the soil for beetroot,”
we read in the Historico-Statistical Survey (Vol. I), “which, generally speaking, is rather complicated and difficult, has
been brought to a high degree of perfection on many beet farms, especially
in the south-western and Vistula gubernias. In different localities,
various more or less improved implements and ploughs are used for tilling;
in some cases even steam ploughing has been introduced” (p. 109).

This progress of large-scale capitalist farming gives rise to quite a
considerable increase in the demand for agricultural wage-workers—
regular and particularly day labourers—the employment of female and
child labour being particularly extensive (cf. Historico-Statistical Survey , II, 32). Among the peasants of the neighbouring gubernias a
special type of migration has arisen, known as migration “to
sugar” ( ibid ., 42). It is estimated that the complete
cultivation of a morg (= 2/3 dess.) [14] of beet land requires 40 working days ( Hired Labour , 72). The Combined Material on the Position of the Rural Population (published by Committee of Ministers) estimates that the
cultivation of one dessiatine of beet land, when done by machine, requires
12, and when by hand 25, working days of males, not counting women and
juveniles (pp. X-XI). Thus, the cultivation of the total beet area in
Russia probably engages not less than 300,000 agricultural day labourers,
men and women.

But the increase in the number of dessiatines under beet is not enough to
give a complete idea of the demand for hired labour, since some jobs are
paid for at so much per berkovets. Here, for example, is what we read in
Reports and Investigations of Handicraft Industry in Russia
(published by Ministry of State Properties, Vol. II, St. Petersburg, 1894,
p. 82).

“The female population both of the town, and of the uyezd”
(the town of Krolevets, Chernigov Gubernia, is referred to) “think
highly of work on the beet fields; in the autumn the cleaning of beets is
paid at 10 kopeks per berkovets, and two women clean from six to ten
berkovets a day, but some contract to work during the growing season as
well, weeding and hoeing; in that case, for the full job, including
digging and cleaning, they get 25 kopeks per berkovets of cleaned
beets.” The conditions of the workers on the beet plantations are
extremely bad. For instance, the Vrachebnaya Khronika Kharkovskoi Gubernii [15] (September 1899, quoted in Russkiye Vedomosti , 1899, No. 254)
cites “a number of exceedingly deplorable facts about the conditions
of those working on the red-beet plantations . Thus, the Zemstvo
physician, Dr. Podolsky, of the village of Kotelva, Akhtyrka Uyezd,
writes: ‘In the autumn typhus usually breaks out among young people employed on the red-beet plantations of the well-to-do peasants . The sheds assigned for the workers’ leisure and
sleeping quarters are kept by such planters in a very filthy condition; by
the time the job ends the straw used for sleeping is literally converted
into dung, for it is never changed: this becomes a breeding ground of
infection. Typhus has had to be diagnosed immediately in the case of four
or five patients brought in from one and the same plantation.’ In
the opinion of this doctor, ‘most of the syphilis cases come from
the red-beet plantations.’ Mr. Feinberg rightly asserts that
‘work on the plantations, which is no less injurious to the workers
themselves and to the surrounding population than work in the factories,
has particularly disastrous consequences, because large numbers of women
and juveniles are engaged in it, and because the workers here are without
the most elementary protection from society and the State’; in view
of this, the author wholly supports the opinion expressed by Dr. Romanenko at the Seventh Congress of
Doctors of Kharkov Gubernia that ‘in issuing compulsory
regulations, consideration must also be given to the conditions of the workers on the beet plantations . These workers lack
the most essential things; they live for months under the open sky and eat
from a common bowl.’”

Thus, the growth of beet cultivation has enormously increased the demand
for rural workers, converting the neighbouring peasantry into a rural
proletariat. The increase in the number of rural workers has been but
slightly checked by the inconsiderable drop in the number of workers
engaged in the beet-sugar industry proper. [16]

3) Potato-Starch Production

From branches of technical production conducted exclusively on landlord
farms let us pass to such as are more or less within the reach of the
peasantry. These include, primarily, the processing of potatoes (partly
also wheat and other cereals) into starch and treacle. Starch production
has developed with particular rapidity in the post-Reform period owing to
the enormous growth of the textile industry, which raises a demand for
starch. The area covered by this branch of production is mainly the
non-black-earth, the industrial, and, partly, the northern black-earth
gubernias. The Historico-Statistical Survey (Vol. II) estimates
that in the middle of the 60s, there were about 60 establishments with an
output valued at about 270,000 rubles, while in 1880 there were 224
establishments with an output valued at 1,317,000 rubles. In 1890,
according to the Directory of Factories and Works there were 192
establishments employing 3,418 workers, with an output valued at 1,760,000 rubles. [17] “In the past 25 years,” we read in the

Historico-Statistical Survey , “the number of establishments
engaged in starch production has increased 4 1/2 times and the total
output 10 3/4 times; nevertheless, this productivity is far from covering
the demand for starch” (p. 116), as evidenced by the increased
starch imports from abroad. Analysing the data for each gubernia, the
Historico-Statistical Survey reaches the conclusion that our
production of potato starch (unlike that of wheat-starch) is of an
agricultural character, being concentrated in the hands of peasants and
landlords. “Showing promise of extensive development” in the
future, “it is even now furnishing our rural population with
considerable advantages” (126).

We shall see in a moment who enjoys these advantages. But first let us
note that two processes must be distinguished in the development of starch
production: on the one hand, the appearance of new small factories and the
growth of peasant production, and on the other, the concentration of
production in large steam-powered factories. For instance, in 1890 there
were 77 steam-powered factories, with 52% of the total number of workers
and 60% of the total output concentrated in them. Of these works only 11
were established before 1870, 17 in the 70s, 45 in the 80s, and 2 in 1890
(Mr. Orlov’s Directory ).

To acquaint ourselves with the economy of peasant starch production, let
us turn to local investigations. In Moscow Gubernia, in 1880-81, 43
villages in 4 uyezds engaged in starch making. [18]

The number of establishments was estimated at 130, employing 780 workers and having an output valued at not
less than 137,000 rubles. The industry spread mainly after the Reform; its
technique gradually improved and larger establishments were formed
requiring more fixed capital and showing a higher productivity of
labour. Hand graters were replaced by improved ones, then horse power
appeared, and finally the drum was introduced, considerably
improving and cheapening production. Here are data we have compiled from
a house-to-house census of “handicraftsmen,” according to size
of establishment:

Thus we have here small capitalist establishments in which, as production
expands, the employment of hired labour increases and the productivity of
labour rises. These establishments bring the peasant bourgeoisie
considerable profit, and also improve agricultural technique. But the
situation of the workers in these workshops is very unsatisfactory, owing
to the extremely insanitary working conditions and the long working day. [20]

The peasants who own “grating” establishments farm under very
favourable conditions. The planting of potatoes (on allotment, and chiefly on rented land) yields a considerably larger income
than the planting of rye or oats. To enlarge their business the workshop
owners rent a considerable amount of allotment land from the poor
peasants. For example, in the village of Tsybino (Bronnitsy Uyezd), 18
owners of starch workshops (out of 105 peasant families in the village)
rent allotments from peasants who have left in search of employment, and
also from horseless peasants, thus adding to their own 61 allotments 133
more, which they have rented; concentrated in their hands are a total of
194 allotments, i.e., 44.5% of the total number of allotments in the
village. “Exactly similar things,” we read in the
Returns , “are met with in other villages where the starch
industry is more or less developed” ( loc . cit ., 42). [21]

The owners of the starch workshops have twice as much livestock as the other
peasants: they average 3.5 horses and 3.4 cows per household, as against
1.5 horses and 1.7 cows among the local peasants in general. Of the 68
workshop owners (covered by the house-to-house census) 10 own purchased
land, 22 rent non-allotment land and 23 rent allotment land. In short,
these are typical representatives of the peasant bourgeoisie.

Exactly analogous relations are to be found in the starch making industry
in the Yuryev Uyezd, Vladimir Gubernia (V. Prugavin, loc . cit ., p. 104 and foll.). Here, too, the workshop
owners carry on production mainly with the aid of wage-labour (out of 128
workers in 30 workshops, 86 are hired); and here, too, the workshop owners
are far above the mass of the peasantry as far as stock-breeding and
agriculture are concerned; they use potato pulp as feed for their
cattle. Even real capitalist farmers emerge from among the
peasants. Mr. Prugavin describes the farm of a peasant who owns a starch
works (valued at about 1,500 rubles) employing 12 wage-workers. This
peasant grows potatoes on his own farm, which he has enlarged by renting
land. The crop rotation is seven-field and includes clover. For the farm
work he employs from 7 to 8 workers, hired from spring to autumn (“from end to end”). The pulp is used as cattle feed,
and the owner intends to use the waste water for his fields.

Mr. V. Prugavin assures us that this works enjoys “quite exceptional
conditions.” Of course, in any capitalist society the rural
bourgeoisie will always constitute a very small minority of the rural
population, and in this sense will, if you like, be an “exception.” But this term will not eliminate the fact that in
the starch-making area, as in all the other commercial farming areas in
Russia, a class of rural entrepreneurs is being formed, who are organising
capitalist agriculture. [22]

4) Vegetable-Oil Production

The extraction of oil from linseed, hemp, sunflower and other seeds is
also frequently an agricultural industry. One can gauge the development of
vegetable-oil production in the post-Reform period from the fact that in
1864 the vegetable-oil output had an estimated value of 1,619,000 rubles,
in 1879 of 6,486,000 rubles, and in 1890 of 12,232,000 rubles. [23]

In this branch of production, too, a double process of development is to be observed: on the
one hand, small peasant (and sometimes also landlord) oil presses
producing oil for sale are established in the villages. On the other hand,
large steam-driven works develop, which concentrate production and oust
the small establishments. [24]

Here

we are interested solely in the agricultural processing of oil-bearing
plants. “The owners of the hempseed oil presses,” we read in
the Historico-Statistical Survey (Vol. II), “belong to the
well-to-do members of the peasantry”; they attach particular value
to vegetable-oil production because it enables them to obtain excellent
feed for their cattle (oil cake). Mr. Prugavin ( loc . cit .), noting the “extensive development of
the production of linseed oil” in the Yuryev Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia, states that the peasants derive “no little advantage” from it (pp. 65-66), that crop and stock raising is
conducted on a far higher level by peasants who own oil presses than by
the bulk of the peasantry and that some of the oil millers also resort to
the hire of rural workers ( loc . cit ., tables, pp. 26-27
and 146-147). The Perm handicraft census for 1894-95 also showed that crop
raising is conducted on a much higher level by handicraft oil millers than
by the bulk of the peasants (larger areas under crops, far more animals,
better harvests, etc.), and that this improvement in cultivation is
accompanied by the hiring of rural workers. [25]

In the post-Reform period in Voronezh
Gubernia, there has been a particular development of the commercial
cultivation of sunflower seed, which is crushed for oil in local
presses. The area under sunflowers in Russia in the 70s was estimated at
about 80,000 dess. ( Historico-Statistical Survey , I), and in the
80s at about 136,000 dess., of which 2/3 belonged to peasants. “Since then, however, judging by certain data, the area
under this plant has considerably increased, in some places by 100 per
cent and even more” ( Productive Forces , I, 37). “In the village of Alexeyevka alone” (Biryuch Uyezd, Voronezh Gubernia),
we read in the Historico-Statistical

Survey , Vol. II, “there are more than 40 oil presses, and
Alexeyevka itself, solely owing to sunflowers, has prospered and grown
from a wretched little hamlet into a rich town ship, with houses and shops
roofed with sheet iron” (p. 41). How this wealth of the peasant
bourgeoisie was reflected in the condition of the mass of the peasantry
may be seen from the fact that in 1890, in the village of Alexeyevka, out
of 2,273 families registered (13,386 persons of both sexes), 1,761 had no
draught animals, 1,699 had no implements, 1,480 cultivated no land, and
only 33 families did not engage in industries. [26]

In general, it should be stated that peasant oil presses usually figure,
in Zemstvo house-to-house censuses, among the “commercial and
industrial establishments,” of whose distribution and role we have
already spoken in Chapter II.

5) Tobacco Growing

In conclusion, let us make some brief observations on the development of
tobacco growing. The average crop in Russia for the years 1863-1867 was
1,923,000 poods from 32,161 dess.; for 1872-1878 it was 2,783,000 poods
from 46,425 dess.; for the 80s, it was 4 million poods from 50,000 dess. [27]

The number of plantations in the same periods was estimated at 75,000, 95,000
and 650,000 respectively, which evidently indicates a very considerable
increase in the number of small cultivators drawn into this type of
commercial farming. Tobacco growing requires a considerable number of
workers. Among the types of agricultural migration note is therefore made of migration to tobacco plantations (particularly to the
outer gubernias in the South, where the cultivation of tobacco has
recently expanded with exceptional rapidity). Reference has already been
made in publications to the fact that the workers on the tobacco
plantations lead a very hard life. [28]

In the Survey of Tobacco Growing in Russia (Parts II and III,
St. Petersburg, 1894, published by order of the Department of
Agriculture), there are very detailed and interesting data on tobacco
growing as a branch of commercial farming. Mr. V. S. Shcherbachov,
describing tobacco growing in Malorossia, gives wonderfully precise
information on three uyezds of Poltava Gubernia (Priluki, Lokhvitsa and
Romny). This information, gathered by the author and arranged by the
Bureau of Statistics, Poltava Gubernia Zemstvo Board, covers 25,089
peasant farms in the three uyezds that grow tobacco; they have 6,844
dessiatines under tobacco and 146,774 dessiatines under cereals. The farms
are distributed as follows:

We see an enormous concentration of both the tobacco and the cereal area
in the hands of the capitalist farms. Less than one-eighth of the farms
(3,000 out of 25,000) hold more than half the area under cereals (74,000
dess. out of 147,000), with an average of nearly 25 dess. per farm.

Almost half the area under tobacco (3,200 dess. out of 6,800) belongs to
these farms, the average per farm being over 1 dessiatine, whereas for all
the other groups the area under tobacco does not exceed one- to two-tenths
of a dessiatine per household.

Mr. Shcherbachov, in addition, gives data showing the same farms grouped
according to area under tobacco:

From this it can be seen that the concentration of the tobacco area is
considerably greater than that of the cereal area. The branch of
specifically commercial agriculture in this locality is concentrated in
the hands of capitalists to a greater extent than is agriculture in
general. Out of 25,000 farms, 2,773 account for 4,145 dess. under tobacco
out of 6,844 dess., or more than three-fifths. The biggest tobacco
planters, numbering 324 (a little over one-tenth of all the planters),
have 2,360 dess. under tobacco, or over one-third of the total area. This
averages over 7 dessiatines under tobacco per farm. To judge of
the sort of farm it must be, let us recall that tobacco cultivation
requires at least two workers for a period of 4 to 8 summer
months, depending on the grade of tobacco.

The owner of 7 dessiatines under tobacco must there fore have at least 14
workers; in other words, he must undoubtedly base his farm on
wage-labour. Some grades of tobacco require not two but three seasonal
workers per dessiatine, and day labourers in addition. In a word, we see
quite clearly that the greater the degree to which agriculture becomes
commercial, the more highly developed is its capitalist organisation.

The preponderance of small and tiny farms among the tobacco growers
(11,997 farms out of 25,089 have up to one-tenth of a dessiatine
planted) does not in the least refute the fact of the capitalist
organisation of this branch of commercial agriculture; for this mass of
tiny farms accounts for an insignificant share of the output (11,997,
i.e., nearly half the farms, have in all 522 dess. out of 6,844, or less
than one-tenth). Nor do “average” figures, to which people so
often confine themselves, provide a picture of the real situation (the
average per farm is a little over 114 dessiatine under tobacco).

In some uyezds the development of capitalist agriculture and the
concentration of production are still more marked. In the Lokhvitsa Uyezd,
for example, 229 farms out of 5,957 each have 20 dessiatines and more
under cereals. Their owners have 22,799 dess. under cereals out of a total
of 44,751, i.e., more than half. Each farmer has about 100 dess. under
crops. Of the land under tobacco they have 1,126 dess. out of 2,003
dess. And if the farms are grouped according to area under tobacco, we
have in this uyezd 132 farmers out of 5,957 with two and more dessiatines
under tobacco. These 132 farmers have 1,441 dess. under tobacco out of
2,003, i.e., 72% and more than ten dessiatines under tobacco per
farm. At the other extreme of the same Lokhvitsa Uyezd we have 4,360 farms
(out of 5,957) having up to one-tenth of a dessiatine each under tobacco,
and altogether 133 dessiatines out of 2,003, i.e., 6%.

It goes without saying that the capitalist organisation of
production is accompanied here by a very considerable development
of merchant’s capital and by all sorts of exploitation outside the sphere of production. The small tobacco growers have no drying
sheds, are unable to give their tobacco time to ferment and to sell it (in
3 to 6 weeks) as a finished product. They sell the unfinished product at
half the price to buyers-up, who very often plant tobacco
themselves on rented land. The buyers-up “squeeze the small planters
in every way” (p. 31 of cited publication). Commercial agriculture
is commercial capitalist production: this relation can be clearly traced
(if only one is able to select the proper methods) in this branch of
agriculture too.

---
Notes:
[1]
The law of June 4, 1890, laid down the following criteria of agricultural
distilling: 1) distilling season, from September 1 to June 1, when no
field-work is done; 2) proportion between the quantity of spirits
distilled and the number of dessiatines of arable land on the estate.
Plants carrying on partly agricultural and partly industrial distilling
are called mixed distilleries (cf. Vestnik Finansov , 1896,
No. 25, and 1898, No. 10).— Lenin

[2]
Sources: Military Statistical Abstract , 427; Productive Forces , IX, 49, and Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 14.— Lenin

[3]
Cf. Raspopin, loc . cit .,— Historico-Statistical Survey , loc . cit .,
p. 14. The by-products of distilling (wash) are often used (even by
commercial and not only agricultural establishments) in commercial
beef-cattle raising.—Cf. Agricultural Statistical Information , Vol. VII, p. 122 and passim .— Lenin

[4]
The great rapidity with which the use of potatoes for distilling has
increased in the central agricultural gubernias can be seen from the
following data. In six gubernias: Kursk, Orel, Tula, Ryazan, Tambov and
Voronezh, during the period 1864-65 to 1873-74 an average of 407,000 poods
of potatoes was distilled per annum; during 1874-75 to
1883-84—7,482,000 poods; during 1884-85 to 1893-94, 20,077,000
poods. For the whole of European Russia the corresponding figures are:
10,633,000 poods, 30,599,000 poods and 69,620,000 poods. The number of
distilleries using potatoes in the above gubernias averaged 29 per annum
in the period 1867-68 to 1875-76; in the period 1876-77 to 1884-85, 130;
and in the period 1885-86 to 1893-94, 163. For the whole of European
Russia the corresponding figures are: 739, 979, 1,195 (see
Agricultural Statistical Information , Vol. VII).— Lenin

[5]
For example, according to the Zemstvo statistical returns for Balakhna
Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the cultivation of one dess. of potatoes
requires 77.2 working days, including 59.2 working days of a woman
occupied in planting, hoeing, weeding and digging. The greatest increase,
therefore, is in the demand for the day labour of local peasant women.— Lenin

[6]
In 1867 the number of workers in European Russia employed in distilleries
was estimated at 52,660 ( Military Statistical Abstract . In
Chapter VII we shall show that this source tremendously overstates the
number of factory workers), and in 1890 at 26,102 (according to
Orlov’s Directory ). The workers engaged in distilling proper are few in number and, moreover, differ but little from rural
workers. “All the workers employed in the village distilleries,” says Dr. Zhbankov, for example, “which,
moreover, do not operate regularly, since the workers leave for field-work
in the summer, differ very distinctly from regular factory workers they
wear peasant clothes, retain their rural habits, and do not acquire the
particular polish characteristic of factory workers” ( loc . cit ., II, 121).— Lenin

[7]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , Vol.I.— Military Statistical Abstract .— Historico-Statistical Survey ,
Vol. II.— Lenin

[8]
Historico-Statistical Survey , I.— Lenin

[9]
Productive Forces , I, 41.— Lenin

[10]
Vestnik Finansov [ Financial Messenger ], 1897, No. 27, and 1898,
No 36. In European Russia, without the Kingdom of Poland, there was in
1896-1898 an area of 327,000 dess, under sugar-beet.— Lenin

[11]
Berkovets—360 lbs. – Ed .— Lenin

[12]
In addition to above sources see Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 32.— Lenin

[13]
Taking the average for the period 1890-1894, out of 285,000 dess. under
beet in the Empire, 118,000 dess. belonged to refineries and 167,000
dess. to planters ( Productive Forces , IX, 44).— Lenin

[14]
1.8 acres.— Lenin

[15]
Medical Chronicle of Kharkov Gubernia .— Lenin

[16]
In European Russia 80,919 workers were employed in 1867 at beet-sugar
factories and refineries ( The Ministry of Finance Yearbook ,
I. The Military Statistical Abstract overstated the figure here
too, giving it as 92,000, evidently counting the same workers twice). The
figure for 1890 is 77,875 workers (Orlov’s Directory ).— Lenin

[17]
We take the data given in the Historico-Statistical Survey as
being the most uniform and comparable. The Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance (1866, No. 4, April), on the basis of official
data of the Department of Commerce and Manufacture, estimated that in 1864
there were in Russia 55 starch-making establishments whose output was
valued at 231,000 rubles. The Military Statistical Abstract
estimates that in 1866 there were 198 establishments with an output valued
at 563,000 rubles, but this undoubtedly included small establishments, not
now reckoned as factories. Generally speaking, the statistics of this
trade are very unsatisfactory: small factories are some times counted, and
at others (much more often) are not. Thus, Orlov’s
Directory gives the number of establishments in Yaroslavl
Gubernia in 1890 as 25 (the List for 1894-95 gives 20), while
according to the Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia (Vol. 11, 1896), in
Rostov Uyezd alone there were 810 starch and treacle establishments. Hence, the figures given in the text can indicate only the
dynamics of the phenomenon, but not the actual development of the
industry.— Lenin

[18]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VII, Pt 1, Moscow,
1882.— Lenin

[19]
See Appendix to Chapter V, Industry No. 24.— Lenin

[20]
Loc. cit ., p. 32. The working day in the peasant workshops is 13
to 14 hours, while in the big works in the same industry (according to

Dementyev [29] ) a
12-hour working day prevails.— Lenin

[21]
Compare with this statement the general view of V. Orlov on Moscow
Gubernia as a whole ( Returns , Vol. IV, Pt. 1, p. 14): the
prosperous peasants frequently rent the allotments of the peasant poor,
and sometimes hold from 5 to 10 rented allotments.— Lenin

[22]
As a matter of interest, let us mention that both Mr. Prugavin
( loc . cit ., 107), the author of the description of the
Moscow industry ( loc . cit ., 45), and Mr. V.
V. ( Essays on Handicraft Industry , 127), have discerned the
“artel principle” in the fact that some grating establishments
belong to several owners. Our sharp-eyed Narodniks have contrived to
observe a special “principle” in the association of rural
entrepreneurs, and have failed to see any new social-economic
“principles” in the very existence and development of a class
of rural entrepreneurs.— Lenin

[23]
Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance 1866, no.4,
Orlov’s Directory , 1st and 3rd editions. We do not give
figures for the number of establishments because our factory statistics
confuse small agricultural oil-pressing establishments with big industrial
ones, at times including the former, and at others not including them for
different gubernias at different times. In the 1860s, for example, a host
of small oil presses were included in the category of “works.”— Lenin

[24]
For example, in 1890, 11 works out of 383 had an output valued at
7,170,000 rubles out of 12,232,000 rubles. This victory of the industrial
over the rural entrepreneurs is causing profound dissatisfaction among our
agrarians (e.g., Mr. S. Korolenko, loc . cit .) and our
Narodniks (e.g., Mr. N-on’s Sketches , pp. 241-242). We do
not share their views. The big works will raise the productivity of labour
and socialise production. That is one point. Another is that the workers
the workers conditions in the big works will probably be better, and not
only from the material angle, than at the small agricultural oil presses.— Lenin

[25]
V. Ilyin, Economic Studies and Essays , St. Petersburg, 1899,
pp. 139-140. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia and General Problems of “Handicraft” Industry .— Ed )— Lenin

[26]
Statistical Returns for Biryuch Uyezd, Voronesh Gubernia .—The number of industrial establishments counted in
the village was 153. According to Mr. Orlov’s Directory
for 1890 there were in this village 6 oil presses employing 34 workers,
with output valued at 17,000 rubles, and according to the List of Factories and Works for 1894-95 there were 8 oil presses employing
60 workers, with an output valued at 151,000 rubles.— Lenin

[27]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , I.— Historico-Statistical Survey , Vol. I.—
Productive Forces , IX, 62. The area under tobacco fluctuates
considerably from year to year: for example, the average for 1889-1894 was
47,813 dess. (crop—4,180,000 poods), and for 1892-1894 was 52,516
dess. with a crop of 4,878,000 poods. See Returns for Russia ,
1896, pp. 208-209.— Lenin

[28]
Belborodov, above-mentioned article in Severny Vestnik , 1896,
No. 2. Russkiye Vedomosti , 1897, No. 127 (May 10) reported a
trial in which 20 working women sued the owner of a tobacco plantation in
the Crimea, and stated that “numerous facts were revealed in court,
depicting the impossible hard life of the plantation workers.”— Lenin

[29]
See Y. M. Dementyev’s The Factory , What It Gives and What It Takes from the Population , Moscow, 1893, pp. 88-97.

| | VI. The Flax-Growing Area | | | VIII. Industrial Vegetable and Fruit Growing; Suburban Farming | |

# Industrial Vegetable and Fruit Growing; Suburban Farming.

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iv/iv8viii.htm

Chapter IV. The Growth of Commercial Agriculture

### VIII. Industrial Vegetable and Fruit Growing; Suburban Farming

With the fall of serfdom, “landlord fruit growing,” which had
been developed on quite a considerable scale, “suddenly and rapidly
fell into decline almost all over

Russia.” [1]

The construction of railways changed the situation, giving a “tremendous impetus” to the development of
new, commercial fruit growing, and brought about a “complete change
for the better” in this branch of commercial agriculture. [2]

On the one hand, the influx of cheap fruit from the South undermined the industry in the
centres where it was formerly conducted [3] ; and on the other hand, industrial fruit growing
developed, for example, in the Kovno, Vilna, Minsk, Grodno, Mogilev and
Nizhni-Novgorod gubernias, along with the expansion of the fruit market. [4]

Mr.
V. Pashkevich points out that an investigation into the condition of fruit
farming in 1893-94 revealed a considerable development of it as an
industrial branch of agriculture in the previous ten years, an increase in
the demand for gardeners, undergardeners, etc. [5]

Statistics confirm such views: the amount of fruit carried by the Russian railways is increasing, [6] fruit imports, which
increased in the first decade after the Reform, are declining. [7]

It stands to reason that commercial vegetable growing, which provides
articles of consumption for incomparably larger masses of the population
than fruit growing does, has developed still more rapidly and still more
extensively. Industrial vegetable growing becomes widespread, firstly,
near the towns [8]

;

secondly, near factory and commercial and industrial settlements [9] and also along the railways; and thirdly, in
certain villages, scattered throughout Russia and famous for their vegetables. [10]

It
should be observed that there is a demand for this type of produce not
only among the industrial, but also among the agricultural population: let
us recall that the budgets of the Voronezh peasants show a per-capita
expenditure on vegetables of 47 kopeks, more than half of this expenditure
being on purchased produce.

To acquaint ourselves with the social and economic relations that arise in
this type of commercial agriculture we must turn to the data of local
investigations in the particularly developed vegetable-growing areas.
Near St. Petersburg, for example, frame and hot-house vegetable growing is
widely developed, having been introduced by migratory vegetable growers
from Rostov. The number of frames owned by big growers runs into
thousands, and by medium growers, into hundreds. “Some of the big
vegetable growers supply tens of thousands of poods of pickled cabbage to
the

army.” [11]

According to Zemstvo statistics in Petersburg
Uyezd 474 households of the local population are engaged in vegetable
growing (about 400 rubles income per household) and 230 in fruit
growing. Capitalist relations are very extensively developed both in the
form of merchant’s capital (the industry is “ruthlessly
exploited by profiteers”) and in the form of hiring workers. Among
the immigrant population, for example, there are 115 master vegetable
growers (with an income of over 3,000 rubles each) and 711 worker
vegetable growers (with an income of 116 rubles each.) [12]

The peasant vegetable growers near Moscow are the same sort of typical
members of the rural bourgeoisie. “According to an approximate
estimate, over 4 million poods of vegetables and greens reach
Moscow’s markets every year. Some of the villages do a big trade in
pickled vegetables: Nogatino Volost sells nearly a million vedros of
pickled cabbage to factories and barracks, and even sends consignments to
Kronstadt. . . . Commercial vegetable growing is widespread in all the
Moscow uyezds, chiefly in the vicinity of towns and factories.” [13] “The cabbage
is chopped by hired labourers who come from Volokolamsk Uyezd”
( Historico-Statistical Survey , I, p. 19).

Exactly similar relations exist in the well-known vegetable-growing
district in Rostov Uyezd, Yaroslavl Gubernia, embracing 55
vegetable-growing villages—Porechye, Ugodichi and others. All the
land, except pastures and meadows, has long been turned into vegetable
fields. The technical processing of vegetables—preserving—is
highly

developed. [14]

Together with the product of the land, the land itself and labour-power are converted into commodities. Despite the
“village community,” the inequality of land tenure, for
example, in the village of Porechye, is very great: in one case a family
of 4 has 7 “vegetable plots,” in another a family of 3 has 17;
this is explained by the fact that no periodical land redistribution takes
place here; only private redivisions take place, and the peasants
“freely exchange” their “vegetable plots” or “patches” ( Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia , 97–98). [15] “A large part
of the field-work . . . is done by male and female day labourers, many of
whom come to Porechye in the summer season both from neighbouring villages and from
neighbouring gubernias” ( ibid ., 99). It is estimated that
in the whole of Yaroslavl Gubernia 10,322 persons (of whom 7,689 are from
Rostov) engaged in “agriculture and vegetable growing” are
migratory workers—i.e., in the majority of cases are wage-workers in the given occupation. [16]

The above quoted data on the migration of rural workers to the metropolitan gubernias, [25] Yaroslavl Gubernia, etc., should be brought into
connection with the development not only of dairy farming but also of
commercial vegetable growing.

Vegetable growing also includes the hot-house cultivation of vegetables,
an industry that is rapidly developing among the well-to-do peasants of
Moscow and Tver gubernias. [17]

In the first-named gubernia the 1880-81 census showed 88 establishments with 3,011 frames; there were 213 workers, of
whom 47 (22.6%) were hired; the total output was valued at 54,400
rubles. The average hot-house vegetable grower had to put at least 300
rubles into the “business.” Of the 74 peasants for whom
house-to-house returns are given, 41 possess purchased land, and as many
rent land, there is an average of 2.2 horses per peasant. It is clear from
this that the hot-house vegetable industry is only within the reach of
members of the peasant bourgeoisie. [18]

In the south of Russia melon growing also comes within the type of
commercial agriculture under review. Here are some brief observations
about its development in a district described in an interesting article in
the Vestnik Finansov (1897, No. 16) on “industrial melon growing.” This branch of
production arose in the village of Bykovo (Tsarev Uyezd, Astrakhan
Gubernia) at the end of the 60s and the beginning of the 70s. The melons,
which at first went only to the Volga region, were consigned, with the
coming of the railways, to the capital cities. In the 80s the output
“increased at least tenfold” owing to the enormous profits
(150 to 200 rubles per dess.) made by the initiators of the business. Like
true petty bourgeois, they did all they could to prevent the number of
growers from increasing and were most careful in guarding from their
neighbours the “secret” of this new and profitable occupation. Of course, all these heroic efforts of the “muzhik cultivator” [19] to stave off “fatal competition” [20] were in vain, and
the industry spread much wider—to Saratov Gubernia and the Don
region. The drop in grain prices in the 90s gave a particularly strong
impetus to production, compelling “local cultivators to seek a way
out of their difficulties in crop rotation systems.” [21]

The expansion of production considerably increased the demand for hired labour (melon
growing requires a considerable amount of labour, so that the cultivation
of one dessiatine costs from 30 to 50 rubles), and still more considerably
increased the profits of the employers and ground-rent. Near
“Log” Station (Gryazi-Tsaritsyn Railway), the area under
water-melons in 1884 was 20 dess., in 1890 between 500 and 600 dess., and
in 1896 between 1,400 and 1,500 dess., while rent rose from 30 kopeks to
between 1.50 and 2 rubles and to between 4 and 14 rubles per dess. for the
respective years. The over-rapid expansion of melon planting led at last,
in 1896, to overproduction and a crisis, which finally confirmed the
capitalist character of this branch of commercial agriculture. Melon
prices fell to a point where they did not cover railway charges. The
melons were left ungathered in the fields. After tasting tremendous
profits the entrepreneurs now learned what losses were like. But the most
interesting thing is the means they have chosen for combating the crisis:
the means chosen is to win new markets, to effect such a cheapening of
produce

and of railway tariffs as to transform it from an item of luxury into an
item of consumption for the people (and at points of production, into
cattle feed). “Industrial melon growing,” the entrepreneurs
assure us, “is on the road to further development; apart from high
railway tariffs there is no obstacle to its further growth. On the
contrary, the Tsaritsyn-Tikhoretskaya Railway now under construction
. . . opens a new and extensive area for industrial melon growing.”
Whatever the further destiny of this “industry” may be, at any
rate the history of the “melon crisis” is very instructive,
constituting a miniature picture, it is true, but a very vivid one, of the
capitalist evolution of agriculture.

We still have to say a few words about suburban farming . The
difference between it and the above-described types of commercial
agriculture is that in their case the entire farm is adapted to some one
chief market product. In the case of suburban farming, however, the
small cultivator trades in bits of everything: he trades in his house by
letting it to summer tenants and permanent lodgers, in his yard, in his
horse and in all sorts of produce from his fields and farmyard: grain,
cattle feed, milk, meat, vegetables, berries, fish, timber, etc.; he
trades in his wife’s milk (baby-farming near the capitals), he
makes money by rendering the most diverse (not always even mentionable)
services to visiting townsfolk, [22] etc., etc. [23]

The complete transformation by capitalism of the ancient type of patriarchal farmer, the complete subjugation of the
latter to the “power of money” is expressed here so vividly
that the suburban peasant is usually put in a separate category by the
Narodnik who says that he is “no longer a peasant.” But the
difference between this type and all preceding types is only one of
form. The political and economic essence of the all-round transformation effected in the small cultivator by capitalism is everywhere the same. The
more rapid the increase in the number of towns, the number of factory,
commercial and industrial townships, and the number of railway stations,
the more extensive is the area of the transformation of our “village
community man” into this type of peasant. We should not forget what
was said in his day by Adam Smith—that improved communications tend
to convert every village into a suburb. [24]

Remote areas cut off from the outside world, already an exception, are with every passing day increasingly becoming as
rare as antiquities, and the cultivator is turning with ever-growing
rapidity into an industrialist subjected to the general laws of commodity
production.

In thus concluding the review of the data on the growth of commercial
agriculture, we think it not superfluous to repeat here that our aim has
been to examine the main (by no means all) forms of commercial
agriculture.

---
Notes:
[1]
Historico-Statistical Survey , I, p. 2.— Lenin

[2]
Ibid .— Lenin

[3]
For example, in Moscow Gubernia. See S. Korolenko, Hired Labour ,
etc ., p. 262.— Lenin

[4]
Ibid ., pp. 335, 344, etc.— Lenin

[5]
Productive Forces , IV, 13.— Lenin

[6]
Ibid ., p. 31, also Historico-Statistical Survey , p. 31
and foll.— Lenin

[7]
In the 60s imports amounted to nearly 1 million poods; in 1878-1880 to 3.8
million poods; in 1886-1890 to 2.6 million poods; in 1889-1893 to 2
million poods.— Lenin

[8]
Anticipating somewhat, let us note here that in 1863 there were in
European Russia 13 towns with populations of 50,000 and over and in 1897
there were 44 (See Chapter VIII, § II).— Lenin

[9]
See examples of settlements of this type in Chapters VI and VII.— Lenin

[10]
See references to such villages of the Vyatka, Kostroma, Vladimir, Tver,
Moscow, Kaluga, Penza, Nizhni-Novgorod and many other gubernias, to say
nothing of Yaroslavl Gubernia, in Historico-Statistical Survey ,
1, p. 13 and foll., and in Productive Forces , IV, 38 and
foll. Cf. also Zemstvo statistical returns for Semyonov, Nizhni-Novgorod
and Balakhna uyezds of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia.— Lenin

[11]
Productive Forces , IV, 42.— Lenin

[12]
Material for Statistics on the Economy in St. Petersburg Gubernia , Vol. V. Actually there are far more vegetable growers than
stated in the text, for most of them have been classed under
private-landowner farming, whereas the data cited refer only to peasant
farming.— Lenin

[13]
Productive Forces , IV, 49 and foll. It is interesting to note
that different villages specialise in producing particular kinds of
vegetables.— Lenin

[14]
Historico-Statistical Survey , I—Mr. Orlov’s
Directory of Factories—Transactions of the Commission of Inquiry into Handicraft Industry , Vol XIV, article by
Mr. Stolpyansky. — Productive Forces , IV, 46 and foll.— Survey of Yarodarvl Gubernia , Vol 2, Yaroslavl,
1896. A comparison of the data given by Mr. Stolpyansky (1885) and by the
Directory (1890) shows a considerable increase in the factory production
of canned goods in this area.— Lenin

[15]
Thus the publication mentioned has fully confirmed Mr. Volgin’s
“doubt” as to whether “the land occupied by vegetable plots is often redivided” ( op . cit ., 172,
footnote).— Lenin

[16]
Here, too, a characteristic specialisation of agriculture is to be
observed: “It is noteworthy that in places where vegetable growing
has become the special occupation of part of the peasant population, the
others grow hardly any vegetables at all, but buy them at local markets
and fairs” (S. Korolenko, loc . cit ., 285)— Lenin

[17]
Productive Forces , IV, 50-51. S. Korolenko, loc . cit ., 273.— Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol VII, Pt. 1.— Statistical Returns for Tver Gubernia , Vol. VIII, Pt. 1, Tver Uyezd: the census of
1886-1890 counted here something over 4,426 frames belonging to 174
peasants and 7 private landowners, i.e., an average of about 25 frames
per owner. “In peasant farming it (the industry) is a big help,
but only for the well-to-do peasants. . . . If there are more than 20
frames, workers are hired” (p. 167).— Lenin

[18]
See data on this industry in appendix to Chapter V, Industry No. 9.— Lenin

[19]
Mr. N.–on’s term for the Russian peasant.— Lenin

[20]
Mr. V. Prugavin’s term.— Lenin

[21]
Better tilth is required to raise water-melons and this renders the soil
more fertile when sown later to cereals.— Lenin

[22]
Cf . Uspensky, A Village Diary .— Lenin

[23]
Let us refer, in illustration, to the above-quoted Material on
peasant farming in Petersburg Uyezd. The most varied types of petty
traffic have here assumed the form of “industries”; summer
letting, boarding, milk-selling, vegetable-selling, berry-selling,
“horse employments,” baby-farming, crayfish-catching, fishing,
etc. Exactly similar are the industries of the suburban peasants of Tula
Uyezd: see article by Mr. Borisov in Vol. IX of Transactions of the Commission of Inquiry into Handicraft Industry .— Lenin

[24]
“Good roads, canals and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expense
of carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon a level
with those in the neighbourhood of the town.” Op .
cit ., Vol. I, pp. 228-229.— Lenin

[25]
“Metropolitan gubernias” here refers to the gubernias of St.
Petersburg and Moscow.

| | VII. The Technical Processing of Agricultural Produce | | | IX. Conclusions on the Significance of Capitalism in Russian Agriculture | |

# Conclusions on the Significance of Capitalism in Agriculture in Russia

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iv/iv8ix.htm

Chapter IV. The Growth of Commercial Agriculture

### IX. Conclusions on the Significance of Capitalism in Russian Agriculture

In chapters II-IV the problem of capitalism in Russian agriculture has
been examined from two angles. First we examined the existing system of
social and economic relations in peasant and landlord economy, the system
which has taken shape in the post-Reform period. It was seen that the
peasantry have been splitting up at enormous speed into a numerically
small but economically strong rural bourgeoisie and a rural
proletariat. Inseparably connected with this “depeasantising”
process is the landowners’ transition from the labour-service to the
capitalist system of farming. Then we examined this same process from
another angle: we took as our starting-point the manner in which
agriculture is transformed into commodity production, and examined the
social and economic relations characteristic of each of the principal
forms of commercial agriculture. It was shown that the very same processes
were conspicuous in both peasant and private-landowner farming under a great variety of
agricultural conditions.

Let us now examine the conclusions that follow from all the data given
above.

1) The main feature of the post-Reform evolution of agriculture is its
growing commercial, entrepreneur character. As regards private-landowner
farming, this fact is so obvious as to require no special explanation. As
regards peasant farming, however, it is not so easily established,
firstly, because the employment of hired labour is not an absolutely
essential feature of the small rural bourgeoisie. As we have observed
above, this category includes every small commodity-producer who covers
his expenditure by independent farming, provided the general system of
economy is based on the capitalist contradictions examined in Chapter
II. Secondly, the small rural bourgeois (in Russia, as in other capitalist
countries) is connected by a number of transitional stages with the
small-holding “peasant,” and with the rural proletarian who
has been allotted a patch of land. This circumstance is one of the reasons
for the viability of the theories which do not distinguish the existence
of a rural bourgeoisie and a rural proletariat among “the peasantry.” [1]

2) From the very nature of agriculture its transformation into commodity
production proceeds in a special way, unlike the corresponding process in
industry. Manufacturing industry splits up into separate, quite
independent branches, each devoted exclusively to the manufacture of one
product or one part of a product. The agricultural industry, however, does
not split up into quite separate branches, but merely specialises in one
market product in one case, and in another market product in another, all
the other aspects of agriculture being adapted to this principal (i.e.,
market) product. That is why the forms of commercial agriculture show
immense diversity, varying not only in different areas, but also on different farms. That is why, when examining
the question of the growth of commercial agriculture, we must on no
account confine ourselves to gross data for agricultural production as a whole. [2]

3) The growth of commercial agriculture creates a home market for
capitalism. Firstly, the specialisation of agriculture gives rise to
exchange between the various agricultural areas, between the various
agricultural undertakings, and between the various agricultural products.
Secondly, the further agriculture is drawn into the sphere of commodity
circulation the more rapid is the growth of the demand made by the rural
population for those products of manufacturing industry that serve for
personal consumption; and thirdly, the more rapid is the growth of the
demand for means of production, since neither the small nor the big rural
entrepreneur is able, with the old-fashioned “peasant” implements, buildings, etc., etc., to engage in the new, commercial
agriculture. Fourthly and lastly, a demand is created for labour-power,
since the formation of a small rural bourgeoisie and the change-over by
the landowners to capitalist farming presuppose the formation of a body of
regular agricultural labourers and day labourers. Only the fact of the
growth of commercial agriculture can explain the circumstance that the
post-Reform period is characterised by an expansion of the home market for
capitalism (development of capitalist agriculture, development of factory
industry in general, development of the agricultural engineering industry in particular, development of the so-called peasant
“agricultural industries,” i.e., work for hire, etc.).

4) Capitalism enormously extends and intensifies among the agricultural
population the contradictions without which this mode of production cannot
exist. Notwithstanding this, however, agricultural capitalism in Russia,
in its historical significance, is a big progressive force. Firstly,
capitalism has transformed the cultivator from a “lord of the
manor,” on the one hand, and a patriarchal, dependent peasant, on
the other, into the same sort of industrialist that every other
proprietor is in present-day society. Before capitalism appeared,
agriculture in Russia was the business of the gentry, a lord’s hobby
for some, and a duty, an obligation for others; consequently, it could not
be conducted except according to age-old routine, necessarily involving
the complete isolation of the cultivator from all that went on in the
world beyond the confines of his village. The labour-service
system—that living survival of old times in present-day
economy—strikingly confirms this characterisation. Capitalism for
the first time broke with the system of social estates in land tenure by
converting the land into a commodity. The farmer’s product was put
on sale and began to be subject to social reckoning—first in the
local, then in the national, and finally in the international market, and
in this way the former isolation of the uncouth farmer from the rest of
the world was completely broken down. The farmer was compelled willy
nilly, on pain of ruin, to take account of the sum-total of social
relations both in his own country and in other countries, now linked
together by the world market. Even the labour-service system, which
formerly guaranteed Oblomov an assured income without any risk on his
part, without any expenditure of capital, without any changes in the
age-old routine of production, now proved incapable of saving him from the
competition of the American farmer. That is why one can fully apply to
post-Reform Russia what was said half a century ago about Western
Europe—that agricultural capitalism hag been “the motive force
which has drawn the idyll into the movement of history.” [3]

Secondly, agricultural capitalism has for the first time undermined the
age-old stagnation of our agriculture; it has given a tremendous impetus
to the transformation of its technique, and to the development of the
productive forces of social labour. A few decades of “destructive
work” by capitalism have done more in this respect than entire
centuries of preceding history. The monotony of routine natural economy
has been replaced by a diversity of forms of commercial agriculture;
primitive agricultural implements have begun to yield place to improved
implements and machines; the immobility of the old-fashioned farming
systems has been undermined by new methods of agriculture. The course of
all these changes is linked inseparably with the above-mentioned
phenomenon of the specialisation of agriculture. By its very nature,
capitalism in agriculture (as in industry) cannot develop evenly: in one
place (in one country, in one area, on one farm) it pushes forward one
aspect of agriculture, in another place another aspect, etc. In one case
it transforms the technique of some, and in other cases of other
agricultural operations, divorcing them from patriarchal peasant economy
or from the patriarchal labour-service. Since the whole of this process is
guided by market requirements that are capricious and not always known to
the producer, capitalist agriculture, in each separate instance (often in
each separate area, sometimes even in each separate country), becomes more
one sided and lopsided than that which preceded it, but, taken as a whole,
becomes immeasurably more many-sided and rational than patriarchal
agriculture. The emergence of separate types of commercial agriculture renders possible and inevitable
capitalist crises in agriculture and cases of capitalist overproduction,
but these crises (like all capitalist crises) give a still more powerful
impetus to the development of world production and of the socialisation
of

labour. [4]

Thirdly, capitalism has for the first time created in Russia large-scale
agricultural production based on the employment of machines and the
extensive co-operation of workers. Before capitalism appeared, the
production of agricultural produce was always carried on in an unchanging,
wretchedly small way—both when the peasant worked for himself and
when he worked for the landlord—and no “community character” of land tenure was capable of destroying this
tremendously scattered production. Inseparably linked with this scattered
production was the scattered nature of the farmers themselves. [5]

Tied to their allotment, to their tiny “village community,” they were
completely fenced off even from the peasants of the neighbouring village community by the difference in the categories to which they belonged
(former landowners’ peasants, former state peasants, etc.), by
differences in the size of their holdings—by differences in the
terms on which their emancipation took place (which terms were sometimes
determined simply by the individual attributes of the landlords and by
their whims). Capitalism for the first time broke down these purely
medieval barriers—and it was a very good thing that it did. Now the
differences between the various grades of peasants, between the various
categories based on the size of allotment holdings, are far less important
than the economic differences within each grade, each category and each
village community. Capitalism destroys local seclusion and insularity, and
replaces the minute medieval divisions among cultivators by a major
division, embracing the whole nation, that divides them into classes
occupying different positions in the general system of capitalist economy. [6]

The mass of cultivators were formerly tied to their place of residence by the very
conditions of production, whereas the creation of diverse forms and
diverse areas of commercial and capitalist agriculture could not but cause
the movement of enormous masses of the population throughout the country;
and unless the population is mobile (as we have said above) there can be
no question of developing its understanding and initiative.

Fourthly, and lastly, agricultural capitalism in Russia for the first time
cut at the root of labour-service and the personal dependency of the
farmer. This system of labour-service has held undivided sway in our
agriculture from the days of Russkaya Pravda [7] down to the present
day cultivation of the fields of private landowners with the peasants’ implements; the wretchedness and uncouthness of the
farmer, degraded by his labour being “semi-free” if not
feudal, in character, are inevitable concomitants of this system; if the
civil rights of the cultivator had not been impaired (by, for example, his
belonging to the lowest social estate; corporal punishment; assignment to
public works; attachment to allotment, etc.) the labour-service system
would have been impossible. That is why agricultural capitalism in Russia
has performed a great historical service in replacing labour-service by
hired

labour. [8]

Summing up what has been said above on the progressive historical role of
Russian agricultural capitalism, it may be said that it is socialising
agricultural production. Indeed, the fact that agriculture has been
transformed from the privileged occupation of the top estate or the duty
of the bottom estate into an ordinary commercial and industrial
occupation; that the product of the cultivator’s labour has become
subject to social reckoning on the market; that routine, uniform
agriculture is being converted into technically transformed and diverse
forms of commercial farming; that the local seclusion and scattered nature
of the small farmers is breaking down; that the diverse forms of bondage
and personal dependence are being replaced by impersonal transactions in
the purchase and sale of labour-power, these are all links in a single
process, which is socialising agricultural labour and is increasingly
intensifying the contradiction between the anarchy of market fluctuations,
between the individual character of the separate agricultural enterprises
and the collective character of large-scale capitalist agriculture.

Thus (we repeat once more), in emphasising the progressive historical role
of capitalism in Russian agriculture we do not in the least forget either the historically transient character
of this economic regime or the profound social contradictions inherent in
it. On the contrary, we have shown above that it is precisely the
Narodniks who, capable only of bewailing the “destructive
work” of capitalism, give an extremely superficial appraisal of
these contradictions, glossing over the differentiation of the peasantry,
ignoring the capitalist character of the employment of machinery in our
agriculture, and covering up with such expressions as “agricultural
industries” and “employments” the emergence of a class of agricultural wage-workers.

---
Notes:
[1]
The favourite proposition of the Narodnik economists that “Russian
peasant farming is in the majority of cases purely natural economy”
is, incidentally, built up by ignoring this fact. ( The Influence of Harvests and Grain Prices , I, 52.) One has but to take
“average” figures, which lump together both the rural bourgeoisie and the rural proletariat—and this proposition will pass
as proved!— Lenin

[2]
It is to data of this kind that the authors of the book mentioned in the
preceding note confine themselves when they speak of “the
peasantry.” They assume that every peasant sows just those
cereals that he consumes, that he sows all those types of cereals
that he consumes, and that he sows them in just that proportion
in which they are consumed. It does not require much effort to
“deduce” from such “assumptions” (which contradict the facts and ignore the main feature of the post-Reform period) that
natural economy predominates.

In Narodnik literature one may also encounter the following ingenious
method of argument: each separate type of commercial agriculture
is an “exception”—by comparison with agriculture as a whole. Hence , all commercial agriculture in general, it is
averred, must be regarded as an exception, and natural economy must be
considered the general rule! In college textbooks on logic, in the section
on sophisms, numerous parallels of such lines of reasoning are to be
found.— Lenin

[3]
Misère de la philosophie (Paris, 1896), p. 223; the author
contemptuously describes as reactionary jeremiads, the longings of those who thirst for a return to the good old patriarchal life, simple manners,
etc, and who condemn the “subjection of the soil to the laws which
dominate all other industries.” [9]

We are fully aware that to the Narodniks the whole of the argument given
in the text may appear not only unconvincing but positively
unintelligible, But it would be too thankless a task to analyse in detail
such opinions as, for example, that the purchase-and-sale of the land is
an “abnormal” phenomenon (Mr. Chuprov, in the debate on grain
prices, p. 39 of the verbatim report), that the inalienability of the
peasants’ allotments is an institution that can be defended, that
the labour-service system of farming is better, or at all events no worse,
than the capitalist system, etc. All that has been said above goes to
refute the political and economic arguments advanced by the Narodniks in
support of such views.— Lenin

[4]
The West-European romanticists and Russian Narodniks strongly emphasise in
this process the one-sidedness of capitalist agriculture, the instability
created by capitalism, and crises—and on this basis deny the
progressive character of capitalist advance as compared with
pre-capitalist stagnation.— Lenin

[5]
Accordingly, notwithstanding the difference in the forms of land tenure,
one can fully apply to the Russian peasant what Marx said of the small
French peasant: “The small-holding peasants form a vast mass, the
members of which live in similar conditions but without entering into
manifold relations with one another. Their mode of production isolates
them from one another instead of bringing them into mutual
intercourse. The isolation is increased by France’s bad means of
communication and by the poverty of the peasants. Their field of
production ( Produktionsfeld ), the small holding, admits of no
division of labour in its cultivation, no application of science and,
therefore, no diversity of development, no variety of talent, no wealth of
social relationships. Each individual peasant family is almost
self-sufficient, it itself directly produces the major part of its
consumption and thus acquires its means of life more through exchange with
nature than in intercourse with society. A small holding, a peasant and
his family; alongside them another small holding, another peasant and
another family. A few score of these make up a village, and a few score of
villages make up a Department. In this way, the great mass of the French
nation is formed by simple addition of homologous magnitudes, much as
potatoes in a sack form a sack of potatoes.” ( Der achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte , Hmb., 1885,

S. 98–99.) [10] — Lenin

[6]
“The need for association, for organisation in capitalist society,
has not diminished but, on the contrary, has grown immeasurably. But it is
utterly absurd to measure this need of the new society with the old
yardstick. This new society is already demanding firstly, that the
association shall not be according to locality, social-estate or category;
secondly, that its starting-point shall be the difference in status and
interests that has been created by capitalism and by the differentiation
of the peasantry.” [V. Ilyin, loc . cit ., pp. 91-92 footnote. (See present edition, Vol. 2, “A Characterisation of
Economic Romanticism.”— Ed .)— Lenin

[7]
Russian Law.— Lenin

[8]
One of Mr. N.–on’s innumerable plaints and lamentations over the
destructive work of capitalism in Russia deserves special attention:
“. . . Neither the strife among the appanage princes nor the Tartar
invasion affected the forms of our economic life” ( Sketches , p. 284); only capitalism has displayed “contempt
for its own historical past” (p. 283). The sacred truth! Capitalism
in Russian agriculture is progressive precisely because it has displayed
“contempt” for the “age-old”, “time-hallowed” forms of labour-service and bondage, which,
indeed, no political storms, the “strife among the appanage
princes” and the “Tartar invasion” inclusive, were able
to destroy.— Lenin

[9]
See Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy , Moscow, p. 180.

[10]
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works , Vol. I, Moscow,
1958, p. 334 ( The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte ).

| | VIII. Industrial Vegetable and Fruit Growing; Suburban Farming | | | X. Narodnik Theories on Capitalism in Agriculture. “The Freeing of Winter Time” | |

# Narodnik Theories on Capitalism in Agriculture. " The Freeing of Winter Time"

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iv/iv8x.htm

Chapter IV. The Growth of Commercial Agriculture

X. Narodnik Theories on Capitalism in
Agriculture.
“The Freeing of Winter Time”

The foregoing positive conclusions regarding the significance of
capitalism must be supplemented by an examination of certain special
“theories” on this question current in our literature. Our
Narodniks in most cases have been totally unable to digest Marx’s
fundamental views on agricultural capitalism. The more candid among them
have bluntly declared that Marx’s theory does not cover agriculture
(Mr. V. V. in Our Trends ), while others (like Mr. N.–on) have
preferred diplomatically to evade the question of the relation between
their “postulates” and Marx’s theory. One of the postulates most widespread among the Narodnik economists is the theory of
“the freeing of winter time.” The essence of it is as follows. [1]

Under the capitalist system agriculture becomes a separate industry,
unconnected with the others. However, it is not carried on the whole year
but only for five or six months. Therefore, the capitalisation of
agriculture leads to “the freeing of winter time,” to the
“limitation of the working time of the agricultural class to part of
the working year,” which is the “fundamental cause of the
deterioration of the economic conditions of the agricultural
classes” (N.–on, 229), of the “diminishing of the home market” and of
“the wastage of the productive forces” of society (Mr. V. V.).

Here you have the whole of this celebrated theory, which bases the most
sweeping historical and philosophical conclusions solely on the great
truth that in agriculture jobs are distributed over the year very
unevenly! To take this one feature, to reduce it to absurdity by means of
abstract assumptions, to discard all the other specific features of the
complex process which transforms patriarchal agriculture into capitalist
agriculture—such are the simple methods used in this latest attempt
to restore the romantic theories about pre-capitalist “people’s production.”

To show how inordinately narrow this abstract postulate is, let us
indicate briefly those aspects of the actual process that are either
entirely lost sight of, or are underrated by our Narodniks. Firstly, the
further the specialisation of agriculture proceeds, the more the
agricultural population decreases, becoming an ever-diminishing part of
the total population. The Narodniks forget this, although in their
abstractions they raise the specialisation of agriculture to a level it
hardly ever reaches in actual fact. They assume that only the operations
of sowing and reaping grain have become a separate industry; the
cultivation and the manuring of the soil, the processing and the carting
of produce, stock raising, forestry, the repair of buildings and
implements, etc., etc.—all these operations have been turned into
separate capitalist industries. The application of such
abstractions to present-day realities will not contribute much towards
explaining them. Secondly, the assumption that agriculture undergoes such
complete specialisation presupposes a purely capitalist organisation of
agriculture, a complete division into capitalist farmers and
wage-workers. To talk under such circumstances about “the
peasant” (as Mr. N.–on does, p. 215) is the height of illogicality. The purely capitalist organisation of agriculture
presupposes, in its turn, a more even distribution of jobs throughout the
year (due to crop rotation, rational stock raising, etc.), the combination
with agriculture, in many cases, of the technical processing of produce,
the application of a greater quantity of labour to the preparation of the soil, etc. [2]

Thirdly, capitalism presupposes the complete separation of agricultural
from industrial enterprises . But whence does it follow that this
separation does not permit the combination of agricultural and industrial
wage-labour ? We find such a combination in developed capitalist
society everywhere. Capitalism separates the skilled workers from the
plain labourers, the unskilled, who pass from one occupation to another,
now drawn into jobs at some large enterprise, and now thrown into the
ranks of the workless. [3]

The greater the development of capitalism and large-scale industry, the greater, in general, are the fluctuations in the demand for
workers not only in agriculture, but also in industry. [4]

Therefore, if we presuppose the maximum development of capitalism, we must also presuppose
the maximum facility for the transfer of workers from agricultural to
non-agricultural occupations, we must presuppose the formation of a
general reserve army from which labour-power is drawn by all sorts of
employers. Fourthly, if we take the present-day rural employers, it
cannot, of course, be denied that sometimes they experience difficulty in
providing their farms with. workers. But it must not be for gotten,
either, that they have a means of tying the workers to their farms,
namely, by allotting them patches of land, etc. The allotment-holding farm
labourer or day labourer is a type common to all capitalist countries. One
of the chief errors of the Narodniks is that they ignore the formation of
a similar type in Russia. Fifthly, it is quite wrong to discuss the
freeing of the farmer’s winter time independently of the general
question of capitalist surplus-population. The formation of a reserve army
of unemployed is characteristic of capitalism in general, and the specific
features of agriculture merely give rise to special forms of this
phenomenon. That is why the author of Capital , for instance,
deals with the distribution of employment in agriculture in connection
with the question of “relative surplus-population,” [5] as well as in a
special chapter where he discusses the difference between the “working period” and the
“time of production” ( Das Kapital , II. B., Chapter
13). The working period is the period in which labour is applied to the
product; the time of production is the time during which the product is in
production, including the period in which labour is not applied to it. The
working period does not coincide with the time of production in very many
industries, among which agriculture is merely the most typical, but by no
means the only one. [6]

In Russia, as compared with other European countries, the difference between the working period in agriculture and
the time of production is a particularly big one. “When capitalist
production later accomplishes the separation of manufacture and
agriculture, the rural labourer becomes ever more dependent on merely
casual accessory employment and his condition deteriorates thereby. For
capital . . . all differences in the turnover are evened out. Not so for
the labourer” ( ibid ., 223–224). [8] So then, the only conclusion that
follows from the specific features of agriculture in the instance under
review is that the position of the agricultural worker must be even worse
than that of the industrial worker. This is still a very long way from
Mr. N.–on’s “theory” that the freeing of winter time is
the “fundamental reason” for the deterioration of the conditions of the “agricultural classes” (?!). If the working
period in our agriculture equalled 12 months, the process of the
development of capitalism would go on exactly as it does now; the entire
difference would be that the conditions of the agricultural worker would
come somewhat closer to those of the industrial worker. [7]

Thus the “theory” of Messrs. V. V. and N.–on makes absolutely
no contribution whatever even to the general problem of the development of
agricultural capitalism. As for the specific features of Russia, it not
only does not explain them, but on the contrary obscures them. Winter
unemployment among our peasantry depends not so much on capitalism as on
the inadequate development of capitalism. We have shown above (§IV of this
chapter), from the data on wages, that of the Great-Russian gubernias,
winter unemployment is most prevalent in those where capitalism is least
developed and where labour-service prevails. That is quite
understandable. Labour-service retards the. development of labour
productivity, retards the development of industry and agriculture, and,
consequently, the demand for labour-power, and at the same time, while
tying the peasant to his allotment, provides him neither with employment
in winter time nor with the possibility of existing by his wretched
farming.

---
Notes:
[1]
V. V., Essay on Theoretical Economics , p.
108 and foll. N.–on Sketches , p. 214 and foll. The same
ideas are to be found in Mr. Kablukov’s Lectures on Agricultural Economics , Moscow, 1897, p. 55 and foll.— Lenin

[2]
To make no bald assertion, let us give examples of our private landowner farms whose organisation approximates
in the greatest measure to the purely capitalist type. Let us
take Orel Gubernia ( Zemstvo Statistical Returns for Kromy Uyezd , Vol. IV, Pt. 2, Orel 1892). The estate of Khlyustin,
a member of the nobility, covers 1,129 dess., of which 562 are
under crops, there are 8 buildings, and various improved
implements. Artificial grass cultivation. Stud farm. Stock
raising. Marsh drainage by ditch-cutting and other measures
(“drainage is mainly done in spare time,” p. 146). The number
of workers in summer, 50 to 80 per day, in winter, up to 30. In
1888 there were 81 workers employed, of whom 25 were for the
summer. In 1889 there were 19 carpenters employed.—Estate
of Count Ribopier: 3,000 dess., 1,293 under crops, 898 leased to
peasants. Twelve-crop rotation system. Peat-cutting for manure,
extraction of phosphorites. Since 1889 operation of experimental
field of 30 dess. Manure carted in winter and spring. Grass
cultivation. Proper exploitation of forests (200 to 300
lumbermen employed from October to March) Cattle raising. Dairy
farming. In 1888 had 90 employees, of whom 34 were for the
summer.—Menshchikov estate in Moscow Gubernia ( Returns , Vol. V, Pt. 2), 23,000 dess. Manpower in
return for “cut-off” lands, and also hired. Forestry. “In the
summer the horses and the permanent workers are busy round the
fields; in late autumn and partly in winter they cart potatoes
and starch to the drying sheds and starch factory, and also cart
timber from the woods to the . . . station; thanks to all this,
the work is spread fairly evenly now over the whole year”
(p. 145), as is evident, incidentally, from the register showing
the number of days worked monthly: average number of horse days,
293 per month; fluctuations: from 223 (April) to 362 (June). Average male days, 216; fluctuations: from 126
(February) to 279 (November). Average female days 23; fluctuations: from 13 (January) to 27 (March). Is this reality
anything like the abstraction the Narodniks are busying
themselves with?— Lenin

[3]
Large-scale capitalist industry creates a nomad working class. It is formed from the rural population, but is
chiefly engaged in industrial occupations. “They are the light
infantry of capital, thrown by it, according to its needs, now to
this point, now to that. . . . Nomad labour is used for various
operations of building and draining, brick making, lime-burning,
railway-making, etc.” ( Das Kapital ,

I 2 ,

S. 692 [9] .)
“In general such large-scale undertakings as railways with draw a definite quantity of labour-power from the
labour-market, which can come only from certain branches of
economy, for example, agriculture . . .” ( ibid ., II. B.,

S. 303). [10] — Lenin

[4]
For example the Moscow Medical Statistics placed the number of factory workers in this gubernia at 114,381; this was
the number at work; the highest figure was 146,338 and the lowest,
94,214 ( General Summary , etc., Vol. IV, Pt. I, p. 98); in
percentages: 128%—100%— 82%. By increasing, in general, the fluctuations in the number of workers, capitalism
evens out, in this respect too, the differences between industry
and agriculture.— Lenin

[5]
For example, in regard to the agricultural relations of England, Marx says: “There are always
too many agricultural labourers for the ordinary, and always too
few for the exceptional or temporary needs of the cultivation of
the soil” (I 2 , 725), [11] so that, notwithstanding the permanent “relative surplus-population,” the countryside
seems to be inadequately populated. As capitalist production
takes possession of agriculture, says Marx in another place, a
surplus rural population is formed. “Part of the agricultural
population is therefore constantly on the point of passing over
into an urban or manufacturing proletariat” ( ibid .,

668) [12] ;
this part of the population suffers chronically from unemployment; the work it gets is extremely irregular and is the
worst paid (e.g., working at home for shops, etc.)— Lenin

[6]
Particularly noteworthy in this connection is
Marx’s observation that in agriculture too there are ways of
distributing the demand for labour “more evenly over the entire
year,” namely, by raising a greater variety of products, by
substituting crop rotation for the three-field system, cultivating
root-crops, grasses, etc. but all these methods “require an
increase of the circulating capital advanced in production,
invested in wages, fertilisers, seed, etc.” ( ibid .,

S. 225-226). [13] — Lenin

[7]
We say “somewhat,” because the deterioration of the conditions of the agricultural worker is far from being due to
irregularity of employment alone.— Lenin

[9]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958,
p. 663.

[10]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. II, Moscow, 1957,
p. 316.

[11]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958,
p. 693.

[12]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958,
p. 642.

[13]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. II, Moscow, 1957, pp. 242-243.

[8]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. II, Moscow, 1957,
p. 241.

| | IX. Conclusions on the Significance of Capitalism in Russian Agriculture | | | XI. Continuation.—The Village Community.—Marx’s Views on Small-Scale Agriculture.—Engels’s Opinion of the Contemporary Agricultural Crisis | |

# Continuation.—The Village Community.—Marx’s View on Small-Scale Agriculture.—Engels’s Opinion of the Contemporary Agricultural Crisis

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8iv/iv8xi.htm

Chapter IV. The Growth of Commercial Agriculture

XI. Continuation.—The Village
Community.—Marx’s
Views on Small-Scale Agriculture.—Engels’ Opinion of the
Contemporary Agricultural Crisis “The community principle prevents capital from seizing agricultural
production,”—that is how Mr. N.—on (p. 72) expresses another current Narodnik theory, formulated in just as abstract a fashion
as the previous one. In Chapter II we quoted a series of facts showing the
fallacy of this stock premise. Now let us add the following. It is a
great mistake to think that the inception of agricultural capitalism
itself requires some special- form of land tenure. “But the form of
landed property with which the incipient capitalist mode of production is
confronted does not suit it. It first creates for itself the form required
by subordinating agriculture to capital. It thus transforms feudal landed
property, clan property, small-peasant property in mark communes [1] ( Markgemeinschaft )—no matter how divergent their juristic forms may be—into the economic form
corresponding to the requirements of this mode of production”
( Das Kapital , III, 2, 156). Thus, by the very nature of the case,
no peculiarities in the system of land tenure can serve as an
insurmountable obstacle to capitalism, which assumes different forms in
accordance with the different conditions in agriculture, legal
relationships and manner of life. One can see from this how wrong is the
very presentation of the question by our Narodniks, who have
created a whole literature on the subject of “village community or
capitalism?” Should some Anglomaniac aristocrat happen to offer a
prize for the best work on the introduction of capitalist farming in
Russia, should some learned society come forward with a scheme to settle
peasants on farmsteads, should some idle government official concoct a
project for 60-dessiatine holdings, the Narodnik hastens to throw down the
gauntlet and fling himself into the fray against these “bourgeois
projects” to “introduce capitalism” and destroy that
Palladium of “people’s industry,” the village community. It has never entered the head of our good Narodnik that
capitalism has been proceeding on its way while all sorts of projects have
been drafted and refuted, and the community village has been turning, and
has actually turned, [2] into the village of small agrarians.

That is why we are very indifferent to the question of the form of peasant
land tenure. Whatever the form of land tenure may be, the relation between
the peasant bourgeoisie and the rural proletariat will not undergo any
essential change. The really important question concerns not the form of
land tenure at all, but the remnants of the purely medieval past, which continue to weigh down upon the peasantry—the
social-estate seclusion of the peasant communities, collective
responsibility, excessively high taxation of peasant land out of all
proportion to the taxation of privately-held land, the absence of full
freedom in the purchase and sale of peasant lands, and in the movement and
settlement of the peasantry. [3]

All these obsolete institutions, while not in the least safeguarding the peasantry against break-up, only lead to the
multiplication of diverse forms of labour-service and bondage, to
tremendous delay in social development as a whole.

In conclusion we must deal with an original Narodnik attempt to give an
interpretation to some statements made by Marx and Engels in Volume III of
Capital , in favour of their views that small-scale agriculture is
superior to large-scale, and that agricultural capitalism does not play a
progressive historical role. Quite often, with this end in view, they
quote the following passage from Volume III of Capital :

“The moral of history, also to be deduced from other observations
concerning agriculture, is that the capitalist system works against a
rational agriculture, or that a rational agriculture is incompatible with
the capitalist system (although the latter promotes technical improvements
in agriculture), and needs either the hand of the small farmer living by
his own labour ( selbst arbeitenden ) or the control of associated
producers” (III, 1, 98. Russ. trans., 83). [8]

What follows from this assertion (which, let us note in passing, is an
absolutely isolated fragment that has found its way into a chapter dealing
with the way changes in the prices of raw materials affect profits, and
not into Part VI, which deals specifically with agriculture)? That
capitalism is incompatible with the rational organisation of agriculture
(as also of industry) has long been known; nor is that the point at issue
with the Narodniks. And the progressive historical role of
capitalism in agriculture is especially emphasised by Marx here. There remains Marx’s reference
to the “small peasant living by his own labour.” None of the
Narodniks who have referred to this point has taken the trouble to explain
how he understands this, has taken the trouble to connect this point with
the context, on the one hand, and with Marx’s general theory of
small-scale agriculture, on the other. —In the passage quoted from
Capital the point dealt with is how considerably the prices of
raw materials fluctuate, how these fluctuations disturb the
proportionality and systematic working of production, how they disturb the
conformity of agriculture and industry. It is only in this respect —in respect of the proportionality, systematic working
and planned operation of production—that Marx places small peasant
economy on a par with the economy of “associated producers.”
In this respect, even small medieval industry (handicraft) is similar to
the economy of “associated producers” (cf. Misère de la philosophie , edition cited, p. 90), whereas capitalism differs from
both these systems of social economy in its anarchy of production. By what
logic can one draw the conclusion from this that Marx admitted the
viability of small-scale agriculture, [4] that he did not acknowledge the progressive
historical role of capitalism in agriculture? Here is what Marx said about
this in the special part dealing with agriculture, in the special section on small peasant economy (Chapter 47, § V):

“Proprietorship of land parcels by its very nature excludes the
development of social productive forces of labour, social forms of labour,
social concentration of capital, large-scale cattle raising, and the
progressive application of science.

“Usury and a taxation system must impoverish it every where. The
expenditure of capital in the price of the land withdraws this capital
from cultivation. An infinite fragmentation of means of production, and
isolation of the producers themselves. Monstrous waste of human energy.

Progressive deterioration of conditions of production and increased prices
of means of production—an inevitable law of proprietorship of
parcels. Calamity of seasonal abundance for this mode of production”
(III, 2, 341-342. Russ. trans., 667). [9] “Small landed property presupposes that the overwhelming majority of
the population is rural, and that not social, but isolated labour
predominates; and that, therefore, under such conditions wealth and
development of reproduction, both of its material and spiritual
prerequisites, are out of the question, and thereby also the prerequisites for rational cultivation” (III, 2,
347. Russ. trans.,

p. 672). [10]

The writer of these lines, far from closing his eyes to the contradictions
inherent in large-scale capitalist agriculture, ruthlessly exposed
them. But this did not prevent him from appreciating the
historical role of capitalism:

“... One of the major results of the capitalist mode of production is
that, on the one hand, it transforms agriculture from a mere empirical and
mechanical self-perpetuating process employed by the least developed part
of society into the conscious scientific application of agronomy, in so
far as this is at all feasible under conditions of private property; that
it divorces landed property from the relations of dominion and servitude,
on the one hand, and, on the other, totally separates land as an
instrument of production from landed property and landowner. . . . The
rationalising of agriculture, on the one hand, which makes it for the
first time capable of operating on a social scale, and the reduction
ad absurdum of property in land, on the other, are the great
achievements of the capitalist mode of production. Like all of its other
historical advances, it also attained these by first completely impoverishing the direct producers” (III, 2,
156-157. Russ. trans., 509–510). [11]

One would think that after such categorical statements by Marx there could
be no two opinions as to how he viewed the question of the progressive
historical role of agricultural capitalism. Mr. N.–on, however, found one
more subterfuge: he quoted Engels’s opinion on the present
agricultural crisis, which should, in his view, refute the proposition of the progressive role of capitalism in agriculture. [5]

Let us see what Engels actually says. After summarising the main
propositions of Marx’s theory of differential rent, Engels
establishes the law that “the more capital is invested in the land,
and the higher the development of agriculture and civilisation in general
in a given country, the more rents rise per acre as well as in total
amount, and the more immense becomes the tribute paid by society to the
big landowners in the form of surplus-profits” ( Das Kapital , III, 2, 258. Russ. trans., 597). [12] This law, says Engels, explains
“the wonderful vitality of the class of big landowners,” who
accumulate a mass of debts and nevertheless “land on their
feet” in all crises; for example, the abolition of the Corn Laws in
England, which caused a drop in grain prices, far from ruining the
landlords, exceedingly enriched them.

It might thus seem that capitalism is unable to weaken the power of the
monopoly represented by landed property.

“But everything is transitory,” continues Engels.
“Trans-oceanic steamships and the railways of North and South
America and India” called forth new competitors. The North American
prairies and the Argentine pampas, etc., flooded the world market with
cheap grain. “And in face of this competition—coming from
virgin plains as well as from Russian and Indian peasants ground down by
taxation—the European tenant farmer and peasant could not prevail at the old rents. A portion of the land in Europe fell decisively out of
competition as regards grain cultivation, and rents fell everywhere; our
second case, variant 2—falling prices and falling productivity of
the additional investment of capital—became the rule for Europe; and
therefore the lament of landlords from Scotland to Italy and from the
south of France to the east of Prussia. Fortunately, the plains are far
from being entirely brought under cultivation; there are enough left to
ruin all the big landlords of Europe and the small ones into the
bargain” ( ibid ., 260. Russ. trans., 598, where the word
“fortunately” is omitted.). [13]

If the reader has read this passage carefully it should be clear to him
that Engels says the very opposite of what Mr. N.–on wants to foist on
him. In Engels’s opinion the present agricultural crisis is reducing
rent and is even tending to abolish it altogether; in other words,
agricultural capitalism is pursuing its natural tendency to abolish the
monopoly of landed property. No, Mr. N.–on is positively out of luck with
his “quotations.” Agricultural capitalism is taking another,
enormous step forward; it is boundlessly expanding the commercial
production of agricultural produce and drawing a number of new countries
into the world arena; it is driving patriarchal agriculture out of its
last refuges, such as India or Russia; it is creating something hitherto
unknown to agriculture, namely, the purely industrial production of grain,
based on the co-operation of masses of workers equipped with the most
up-to-date machinery; it is tremendously aggravating the position of the
old European countries, reducing rents, thus undermining what seemed to be
the most firmly established monopolies and reducing landed property
“to absurdity” not only in theory, but also in practice; it is
raising so vividly the need to socialise agricultural production that this
need is beginning to be realised in the West even by representatives of
the propertied classes. [6]

And Engels, with his characteristic cheerful irony, welcomes the latest steps of world capitalism: fortunately, he says, there is still enough uncultivated
prairie land left to enable things to continue as they have been
doing. But our good Mr. N.–on, à propos des bottes , [7] sighs for the
“muzhik cultivator” of yore, for the “time-hallowed” . . . stagnation of our agriculture and of all
the various forms of agricultural bondage which “neither the strife
among the appanage princes nor the Tartar invasion” could shake, and
which now—oh, horror!—are beginning to be most thoroughly
shaken by this monstrous capitalism! O , sancta simplicitas !

---
Notes:
[1]
In another place Marx points out that “common lands ( Gemeineigentum ) constitute the second supplement of the
management of land parcels.” ( Das Kapital , III, 2, 341). [14] — Lenin

[2]
If we are told that we are running ahead in making such an assertion, our
reply will be the following. Whoever wants to depict some living
phenomenon in its development is inevitably and necessarily confronted
with the dilemma of either running ahead or lagging behind. There is no
middle course. And if all the facts show that the character of the social
evolution is precisely such that this evolution has already gone very far
(see Chapter II), and if, furthermore, precise reference is made to the
circumstances and institutions that retard this evolution (excessively
high taxes, social-estate exclusiveness of the peasantry, lack of full
freedom in the purchase and sale of land, and in movement and settlement),
then there is nothing wrong in such running ahead.— Lenin

[3]
The defence of some of these institutions by the Narodniks very glaringly
reveals the reactionary character of their views, which is gradually
bringing them closer and closer to the agrarians.— Lenin

[4]
Let us recall that Engels, shortly before his death, and at a time when
the agricultural crisis connected with the drop in prices was fully
manifest, considered it necessary to protest emphatically against the
French “disciples,” who had made some concessions to the
doctrine of the viability of small-scale agriculture. [15] — Lenin

[5]
See Novoye Slovo , 1896, No. 5, February, letter to editors by
Mr. N.–on, pp. 256-261. Here also is the “quotation” on the
“moral of history.” It is remarkable that neither Mr. N.–on
nor any other of the numerous Narodnik economists who have tried to use
the present agricultural crisis to refute the theory of the progressive
historical role of capitalism in agriculture, has ever once raised the
question in a straightforward manner, on the basis of a definite economic
theory; has ever once stated the grounds which induced Marx to admit the
progressiveness of the historical role of agricultural capitalism, or has
definitely indicated just which of these grounds he repudiates, and
why. In this, as in other cases, the Narodnik economists prefer not to
oppose Marx’s theory outright, but confine themselves to casting
vague hints at the “Russian disciples.” Confining ourselves in
this work to the economy of Russia, we have given above the grounds for
our opinions on this question.— Lenin

[6]
Are not, indeed, such manifestations as the celebrated Antrag Kanitz
(Kanitz plan – Ed .) proposed in the German

Reichstag, [16] or the proposal of the American farmers that all elevators be made state property typical
“signs of the times”?— Lenin

[7]
Without rhyme or reason. – Ed .

[14]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 603, 787.

[8]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 119.

[15]
This refers to the article by Engels entitled “The Peasant Question
in France and Germany,” published in Die Neue Zeit , Issue
No. 10 of the year 1894-95. (See Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,
Selected Works , Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, pp. 420-440.) The French
“disciples”—the name given, with an eye to censorship, to Marxists (in the article mentioned Engels calls them “French
Socialists of the Marxist trend”).

[9]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 787.

[10]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 792-793.

[11]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 603-604.

[12]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 709.

[13]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 709-710.

[16]
In the years 1894-1895 Count Kanitz, representative of the agrarians,
introduced into the German Reichstag the proposal known as the
“Antrag Kanitz” calling on the government to assume control of
the purchase of grain abroad, and undertake the sale of all such imported
grain at average prices. The proposal was rejected by the Reichstag.

| | X. Narodnik Theories on Capitalism in Agriculture. “The Freeing of Winter Time” | | | | |

# Domestic Industry and Handicrafts

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8v/v8i.htm

Chapter V. The First Stages of Capitalism in Industry

Let us now pass from agriculture to industry. Here, too, our task is
formulated as in the case of agriculture: we have to analyse the forms of
industry in post-Reform Russia, that is, to study the present system of
social and economic relations in manufacturing industry and the character
of the evolution of that system. Let us start with the most simple and
primitive forms of industry and trace their development.

### I. Domestic Industry And Handicrafts

By domestic industry we mean the processing of raw materials in the
household (peasant family) that produces them. Domestic industries are a
necessary adjunct of natural economy, remnants of which are nearly always
retained where there is a small peasantry. It is natural, therefore, that
in Russian economic literature one should meet repeated references to this
type of industry (the domestic production of articles from flax, hemp,
wood, etc., for consumption in the home). However, the existence of
domestic industry on any extensive scale is rarely found nowadays and only
in the most remote localities; until very recently, Siberia, for example,
was one of them. Industry as a profession does not yet exist in this form:
industry here is linked inseparably with agriculture, together they
constitute a single whole.

The first form of industry to be separated from patriarchal agriculture is
artisan production, i.e., the production of articles to the order of a consumer. [1]

The raw materials may belong either to the customer-consumer or to the artisan,
and payment for the latter’s work is made either in cash or in kind
(artisan’s premises and keep, remuneration with part of the product,
for example, flour, etc.). While constituting an essential part of urban
life, artisan production is to be met on a considerable scale in the rural
districts too, where it serves as a supplement to peasant farming. A
certain percentage of the rural population consists of specialist-artisans
engaged (sometimes exclusively, sometimes in conjunction with agriculture)
in tanning, boot-making, tailoring, blacksmithery, dyeing of homespun
fabrics, finishing of peasant-made woollens, flour-milling, etc. Owing to
the extremely unsatisfactory state of our economic statistics we have no
precise data on the degree to which artisan production is spread
throughout Russia; but isolated references to this form of industry are
scattered through nearly all descriptions of peasant farming and
investigations of what is called “handicraft” industry, [2] and are even to be
found in official factory statistics. [3]

The Zemstvo statistical returns, in registering peasant industries, sometimes single out a special group,
“artisans” (cf. Rudnev, loc . cit .), but this category (according to current terminology) includes all building workers. From the viewpoint
of political economy this is utterly wrong, for the bulk of the building
workers belong to the category, not of independent industrialists working
on orders from customers, but of wage-workers employed by contractors. Of
course, it is not always easy to distinguish the village-artisan from the
small commodity-producer or from the wage-worker; this requires an
economic analysis of the data concerning every small industrialist. A
noteworthy attempt to draw a strict line of demarcation between artisan
production and the other forms of small industry is the analysis of the
returns of the Perm handicraft census of

1894–95. [4]

The number of local village artisans was estimated at approximately one per cent of the peasant population, and (as
might have been expected) the largest percentage of artisans was found in
the uyezds where industry was least developed. As compared with the small
commodity-producers, the artisans are more closely connected with the
land: 80.6 per 100 artisans engage in agriculture (among the other
“handicraftsmen” the percentage is lower). The employment of
wage-labour is met with among artisans too, but is less developed among
industrialists of this type than among the others. The size of
establishments (taking the number of workers) is also smaller among the
artisans. The average earnings of the artisan-cultivator are estimated at
43.9 rubles per year, and of the non-cultivator at 102.9 rubles.

We confine ourselves to these brief remarks, since a detailed examination
of artisan production does not enter into our task. In this form of
industry commodity production does not yet exist; here only commodity
circulation makes its appearance, in the case where the artisan receives
payment in money, or sells the share of the product he has received for
work done and buys himself raw materials and instruments of
production. The product of the artisan’s labour does not appear in the market, hardly ever leaving the sphere of
peasant natural economy. [5]

It is natural, therefore, that artisan production is characterised by the same routine, fragmentation and narrowness as
small patriarchal agriculture. The only element of development native to
this form of industry is the migration of artisans to other areas in
search of employment. Such migration was fairly widely developed,
particularly in the old days, in our rural districts; usually it led to
the organisation of independent artisan establishments in the areas of
attraction.

---
Notes:
[1]
Kundenproduktion . Cf. Karl Blucher, Die Entstehung der Volkswirtschaft , Tubingen, 1893. (Work done to order. Cf. Karl
Blucher, The Rise of the National Economy .— Ed .) [6] — Lenin

[2]
It would be impossible to cite quotations in support of this; innumerable
references to artisan production are scattered throughout all
investigations of handicraft industry, although according to the most
accepted view, artisans do not come within the category known as
handicraftsmen. We shall have more than one occasion to see how hopelessly
indefinite is the term “handicraft.”— Lenin

[3]
The chaotic condition of these statistics is illustrated particularly
vividly by the fact that no criteria have yet been decided on for
distinguishing handicraft from factory establishments. In the 60s, for
example, village dyeing sheds of a purely handicraft type were classified
with the latter ( The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , Vol. I,
pp. 172-176), and in 1890, peasant fulling mills were mixed up with
woollen factories (Orlov’s Directory of Factories and Works , 3rd ed., p. 21), etc. Nor is the latest List of Factories (St. Petersburg, 1897) free from this confusion. For
examples, see our Studies , pp. 270-271. [See also present
edition, Vol, 4, “On the Question of Our Factory
Statistics.” Ed .]— Lenin

[4]
We have devoted a special article to this census in our Studies,
pp. 113-199. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia and General Problems of “Handicraft” Industry .— Ed .) All the facts cited in the text
concerning the Perm “handicraftsmen” are taken from that
article.— Lenin

[5]
The closeness of artisan production to the natural economy of the peasants
sometimes leads to attempts on their part to organise such production for
the whole village, the peasants providing the artisan with his keep, he
undertaking to work for all the inhabitants of the village
concerned. Nowadays this system of industry is to be met with only by way
of exception, or in the most remote border regions (for example, the
blacksmith’s trade is organised on these lines in some of the
villages in Transcaucasia. See Reports and Investigations of Handicraft Industry in Russia , Vol. II, p. 321).— Lenin

[6]
Lenin gives an appreciation of the research done by B\"ucher, and of the
latter’s classification of the stages and forms of industrial
development, in Chapter VII of The Development of Capitalism in Russia , in his footnote on page 550. The most important part of
Blucher’s work, that devoted to the origin of the national economy,
was translated into Russian by Lenin apparently when he was in exile, in
the village of Shushenskoye. Lenin’s translation has not been
published. [p.332]

| | | | | II. Small Commodity-Producers In Industry. The Craft Spirit In The Small Industries | |

# Small Commodity-Producers in Industry. The Craft Spirit in the Small Industries

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8v/v8ii.htm

Chapter V. The First Stages of Capitalism in Industry

II. Small Commodity-Producers In Industry. The Craft Spirit In
The Small Industries

We have seen that the artisan appears on the market, although not with the
wares he produces. Naturally, once he comes into contact with the market,
he begins in time to produce for the market, i.e., becomes a commodity producer . This transition takes place gradually, at first as an
experiment: goods are sold which are left on his hands by chance, or are
produced in his spare time. The gradualness of the transition is
heightened by the fact that the market for wares is at first extremely
restricted, so that the distance between the producer and the consumer
increases very slightly, and the product passes as hitherto directly from
the producer to the consumer, its sale sometimes being preceded by its
exchange for agricultural produce. [1]

The further development of commodity production is expressed in the expansion of
commerce in the appearance of specialist merchants, buyers-up; the market
for wares is not the small village bazaar or the district fair, [2] but the whole region,
then the whole country, and sometimes even other countries. The production
of industrial wares in the shape of commodities is the first step to the
separation of industry from agriculture, and to mutual exchange between
them. Mr. N.-on, with his characteristically stereotyped and abstract way
of understanding things, limits himself to declaring that the
“separation of industry from agriculture” is a quality of
“capitalism” in general, without taking the trouble to examine
either the different forms of this separation or the different stages of
capitalism. It is important to note, therefore, that commodity production
on the smallest scale in the peasant industries already begins to separate
industry from agriculture, although at that stage of development the
industrialist does not, in the majority of cases, separate from the
agriculturist. Later on we shall show how the more developed stages of
capitalism lead to the separation of industrial from agricultural
enterprises, to the separation of industrial workers from agriculturists.

In the rudimentary forms of commodity production, competition among the
“handicraftsmen” is still very slight, but as the market
expands and embraces wide areas, this competition grows steadily stronger
and disturbs the small industrialist’s patriarchal prosperity, the
basis of which is his virtually monopolist position. The small
commodity-producer feels that his interests, as opposed to the interests
of the rest of society, demand the preservation of this monopolist
position, and he therefore fears competition. He exerts every
effort, individually and with others, to check competition, “not to
let” rivals into his district, and to consolidate his assured
position as a small master possessing a definite circle of customers. This fear of competition so strikingly
reveals the true social nature of the small commodity-producer that we
think it necessary to examine the relative facts in greater detail. In the
first place, let us quote an example relative to handicraft. The Kaluga
sheepskin dressers go off to other gubernias to treat sheepskins; this
industry has declined since the abolition of serfdom; the landlords, when
they released serfs for “sheepskinning,” in return for a
sizable tribute, took great care that the sheepskinners knew their
“definite places” and did not permit other dressers to invade
their districts. Organised on these lines the industry was so profitable
that “places” were transferred for as much as 500 and 1,000
rubles, and if an artisan came to a district other than his own, it
sometimes led to sanguinary clashes. The abolition of serfdom undermined
this medieval prosperity: “the convenience of railway travel in this
case also aids competition.” [3]

One of the phenomena of the same type observed in a number of industries and bearing fully the character of a general rule,
is the desire of the small industrialists to keep technical inventions and
improvements secret, to conceal profitable occupations from others, in
order to stave off “fatal competition.” Those who establish a
new industry or introduce some improvement in an old one, do their utmost
to conceal these profitable occupations from their fellow-villagers and
resort to all sorts of devices for this purpose (e.g., as a make-believe
they keep the old arrangements in the establishment), let no one enter
their workshops, work in garrets and say nothing about their work even to
their own children. [4]

The slow development of the brush-making industry in Moscow Gubernia “is usually attributed to
the present producers’ objection to having new competitors. It is
said that they do all they can to conceal their work from strangers, and
so only one producer has apprentices from outside.” [5]

Concerning the village of Bezvodnoye, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, famous for its metalware
industry, we read the following: “It is remarkable that to this
day” (the beginning of the 80s; the industry has existed since the
beginning of the 50s) “the inhabitants of Bezvodnoye carefully
conceal their craft from the neighbouring peasants. They have made more
than one attempt to induce the volost administration to issue an
instruction making it a punishable offence to carry the craft to another
village; though they have failed to get this formality adopted, each of
them seems to be morally bound by such an instruction, in virtue of which
they refrain from giving their daughters in marriage to inhabitants of
neighbouring villages, and as far as possible avoid taking girls in
marriage from those villages.” [6]

The Narodnik economists have not only tried to obscure the fact that the
bulk of the small peasant industrialists belong to the category of
commodity-producers, but have even created quite a legend about some
profound antagonism allegedly existing between the economic organisation
of the small peasant industries and large-scale industry. The unsoundness
of this view is also evident, by the way, from the above-quoted data. If
the big industrialist stops at nothing to ensure himself a monopoly, the
peasant engaging in “handicrafts” is in this respect his twin
brother; the petty bourgeois endeavours with his petty resources to uphold
substantially the same class interests the big manufacturer seeks to
protect when he clamours for protection, bonuses, privileges, etc. [7]

---
Notes:
[1]
E.g., the exchange of earthenware utensils for grain, etc. When grain was
cheap the equivalent of a pot was sometimes considered to be the amount of
grain the pot would hold. Cf. Reports and Investigations , I,
340.— Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , V, 140.— Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , I, 61.— Lenin

[2]
An investigation of one of these country fairs showed that 31% of the
total turnover (about 15,000 rubles out of 50,000 rubles) was accounted
for by “handicraft” goods. See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , I, 38. How restricted the market is at first
for the small commodity-producers is seen, for example, from the fact that
the Poltava boot-makers sell their wares within a radius of some 60 vorsts
from their village, Reports and Investigations , I, 287.— Lenin

[3]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , I, 35-36.— Lenin

[4]
See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , I, 81. V, 460; IX,
25-26.— Industries of Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. 1,
6-7; 253; Vol. VI, Pt. 2, 142; Vol. VII, Pt. 1, Sec. 2 about the founder
of the “printing industry.” Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , I, 145, 149.— Reports and Investigations ,
1, 89.—Grigoryev: Handicraft Lock- and Cutlery-Making in Pavlow District (Supplement to Volga publication, Moscow,
1881), p. 39.—Mr V. V. cited some of these facts in his Essay on Handicraft Industry (St. Petersburg, 1886), p. 192 and foll.;
the only conclusion he draws from them is that the handicraftsmen are
not afraid of innovations; it never enters his head that these facts
characterise the class position and the class interests of the small
commodity-producers in contemporary society.— Lenin

[5]
Industries of Moscow Gubernia, VI, 2, 193.— Lenin

[6]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, 2404.— Lenin

[7]
Sensing that competition will be fatal to him, the petty bourgeois strives
to stave it off, just as his ideologist, the Narodnik, senses that
capitalism is fatal to the “foundations” so dear to his heart,
and for that reason strives to “avert,” to prevent, to stave
off, etc., etc.— Lenin

| | I. Domestic Industry And Handicrafts | | | III. The Growth of Small Industries After the Reform. Two Forces of This Process and its Significance | |

# The Growth of Small Industries after the Reform. Two Forms of This Process and Its Significance.

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8v/v8iii.htm

Chapter V. The First Stages of Capitalism in Industry

III. The Growth of Small Industries After the Reform. Two Forces of
This Process and its Significance

From the foregoing there also emerge the following features of small
production that merit attention. The appearance of a new industry
signifies, as we have already observed, a process of growing social
division of labour. Hence, such a process must necessarily take place in
every capitalist society, to the extent that a peasantry and semi-natural
agriculture still remain to one degree or other, and to the extent that
diverse ancient institutions and traditions (due to bad means of
communication, etc.) prevent large-scale machine industry from directly
replacing domestic industry. Every step in the development of commodity
economy inevitably leads to the peasantry producing an ever-increasing
number of industrialists from their ranks; this process turns up new soil,
as it were, prepares new regions in the most backward parts of the
country, or new spheres in the most backward branches of industry, for
subsequent seizure by capitalism. The very same growth of capitalism
manifests itself in other parts of the country, or in other branches of
industry, in an entirely different way; not in an increase but in a
decrease in the number of small workshops and of home workers absorbed by
the factory. It is clear that a study of the development of capitalism in
the industry of a given country requires that the strictest distinction be
made between these processes; to mix them up is to lead to an utter
confusion of concepts. [1]

In post-Reform Russia the growth of small industries, expressing the first
steps in the development of capitalism, has manifested, and manifests,
itself in two ways: firstly, in the migration of small industrialists and
handicraftsmen from the central, long-settled and economically most
advanced gubernias, to the outer regions; secondly, in the formation of
new small industries and the spread of previously existing industries
among the local population.

The first of these processes is one of the manifestations of the
colonisation of the border regions to which we have referred (Chapter IV,
§ II). The peasant industrialist in the Nizhni-Novgorod, Vladimir, Tver,
Kaluga and other gubernias, sensing the increased competition accompanying
the growth of the population, and the growth of capitalist manufacture and
of the factory that constitute a menace to small production, leaves for
the South, where “artisans” are still few, earnings high and
the living cost low. In the new locality a small establishment was set up
which laid the foundations for a new peasant industry that spread later in
the village concerned and in its environs. The central districts of the
country, possessing an industrial culture of long standing, thus helped
the development of the same culture in new parts of the country, where
settlement was beginning. Capitalist relations (which, as we shall see
below, are also characteristic of the small peasant industries) were thus
carried to the entire country. [2]

Let us pass to the facts that express the second of the above-mentioned
processes. We shall first say that although we note the growth of small peasant establishments and industries, we do
not as yet deal with their economic organisation: from what follows it
will be evident that these industries either lead to the formation of
capitalist simple co-operation and merchant’s capital or constitute
a component part of capitalist manufacture.

The fur industry in Arzamas Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, began in the
town of Arzamas and then gradually spread to the surrounding villages,
embracing an ever larger area. At first there were few furriers in the
villages and they employed numerous workers; labour was cheap, since
people hired themselves out in order to learn the trade. After learning it
they left and opened small establishments of their own, thus preparing a
wider field for the domination of capital, which now controls a large
section of the industrialists. [3]

Let us note in general that this abundance of wage-workers in the first establishments of a rising industry and the
subsequent transformation of these wage-workers into small masters is a
very widespread phenomenon, bearing the character of a general rule. [4]

Obviously, It would be a profound error to deduce from this that “in spite of various
historical considerations . . . it is not big establishments that absorb
small ones, but small ones that grow out of big ones.” [5]

The large size of the first establishments expresses no concentration of the industry; it is
explained by the solitary character of these establishments and by the
eagerness of local peasants to learn a profitable trade in them. As to the
process of the spread of peasant industries from their old centres to the
surrounding villages, it is observed in many cases. For example, the
post-Reform period saw the development (as regards the number of villages
involved in industry, the number of industrialists, and the total output)
of the following exceptionally important industries: the lock and cutlery industry of Pavlovo, tanning and
boot-making in the village of Kimry, the knitting of woollen slippers in
the town of Arzamas and in its environs, [15] the metalware industry of the village of
Burmakino, the cap-making industry of the village and of the district of
Molvitino, the glass, hat and lace industries of Moscow Gubernia, the
jewellery industry of Krasnoselskoye District, etc. [6]

The author of an article on handicraft industries in seven volosts of Tula Uyezd notes as a general phenomenon
“an increase in the number of artisans since the peasant
Reform,” “the appearance of artisans and handicraftsmen in
places where there were none in pre-Reform times.” [7]

A similar view is expressed by Moscow statisticians. [8]

We can support this view with statistics regarding the date of origin of 523 handicraft establishments in 10 industries of
Moscow

Gubernia. [9]

Similarly, the Perm handicraft census revealed (according to data showing
the time of origin of 8,884 small artisan and handicraft establishments)
that the post-Reform period is characterised by a particularly rapid
growth of small industries. It will be interesting to take a closer glance
at this process of the rise of new industries. The production of woollen
and semi-silk fabrics in Vladimir Gubernia began recently, in 1861. At
first this was a peasant outside occupation, but later “subcontractors” made their appearance in the villages, who
distributed yarn. One of the first “factory owners” at one
time traded in groats, buying them up in the Tambov and Saratov
“steppes.” With the building of railways, grain prices were
levelled out, the grain trade became concentrated in the hands of
millionaires, and so our merchant decided to invest his capital in an
industrial weaving enterprise; he went to work in a factory, learnt the
business and became a “subcontractor.” [10]

Thus, the formation of a new “industry” in this locality was due to the fact that the
general economic development of the country was forcing capital out of
trade and directing it towards industry. [11]

The investigator of the industry we have taken as an example points out that the case he has described is by no means an
isolated one: the peasants who earned their living by outside employments
“were pioneers in all sorts of industries, carried their technical
knowledge to their native villages, got new labour forces to follow their
example and migrate, and fired the imagination of the rich muzhiks with
stories of the fabulous profits which the industry brought the workroom
owner and the subcontractor. The rich muzhik, who used to store his money
away in a chest, or traded in grain, paid heed to these stories and put
his money into industrial undertakings” ( ibid .). The boot
and felt industries in Alexandrov Uyezd, Vladimir Gubernia, arose in some
places in the following way: the owners of calico workrooms or of small yarn-distributing shops, seeing that handweaving was
declining, opened workshops of another kind, sometimes hiring craftsmen so
as to get to know the trade and to teach their children. [12]

To the extent that large-scale industry forces small capital out of the branch of production,
this capital flows into others and stimulates their development in the
same direction.

The general conditions of the post-Reform period which called forth the
development of small industries in the rural districts are very vividly
described by investigators of Moscow industries. “On the one hand,
the conditions of peasant life have greatly deteriorated during this
period,” we read in a description of the lace industry, “but
on the other, the requirements of the population, of that part which lives
under more favourable conditions, have considerably increased. [13]

And the author, using the data of the region he has taken, notes an increase in the number
of those owning no horses and raising no crops, side by side with an
increase in the number of peasants owning many horses and in the total
number of cattle belonging to peasants. Thus, on the one hand, there was
an increase in the number of persons in need of “outside
earnings” and in search of industrial work, while on the other, a
minority of prosperous families grew rich, accumulated “savings,” and were “able to hire a worker or two, or
give out work to poor peasants to be done at home.” “Of
course,” the author explains, “we are not dealing here with
cases where individuals who are known as kulaks, or blood-suckers, develop
from among such families; we are merely examining most ordinary phenomena
among the peasant population.”

So then, local investigators point to a connection between the
differentiation of the peasantry and the growth of small peasant
industries. And that is quite natural. From the data given in Chapter II
it follows that the differentiation of the agricultural peasantry had
necessarily to be supplemented by a growth of small peasant industries. As
natural economy declined, one form of raw-material processing after
another turned into separate branches of industry; the formation of a peasant bourgeoisie and of a rural proletariat increased the demand for
the products of the small peasant industries, while at the same time
supplying free hands for these industries and free money. [14]

---
Notes:
[1]
Here is an interesting example of how these two different processes occur
in one and the same gubernia, at one and the same time and in one and the
same industry. The spinning-wheel industry (in Vyatka Gubernia) is
ancillary to the domestic production of fabrics. The development of this
industry marks the rise of commodity production, which embraces the making
of one of the instruments for the production of fabrics. Well, we see that
in the remote parts of the gubernia, in the north, the spinning wheel is
almost unknown ( Material for a Description of the Industries of Vyatka Gubernia , II, 27) and there “the industry might newly
emerge,” i.e., might make the first breach in the patriarchal
natural economy of the peasants. Meanwhile, in other parts of the gubernia
this industry is already declining, and the investigators believe that the
probable cause of the decline is “the increasingly widespread use
among the peasantry of factory-made cotton fabrics” (p 26). Here,
consequently, the growth of commodity production and of capitalism is
manifested in the elimination of petty industry by the factory.— Lenin

[2]
See, for example, S. A. Korolenko, loc . cit ., on the movement of industrial workers to the outer regions, where part of them
settle. Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. I (on the
preponderance in Stavropol Gubernia of industrialists from the central
gubernias), Vol. III, pp. 33-34 (the migration of boot-makers from
Viyezdnaya, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, to the Lower-Volga towns); Vol. IX
(tanners from the village of Bogorodskoye in the same gubernia established
tanneries all over Russia). Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , IV,
136 (Vladimir potters carried their trade into Astrakhan
Gubernia). Cf. Reports and Investigations , Vol. I, pp. 125, 210;
Vol. II, pp. 160-165, 168, 222 for general remarks on the preponderance
“all over the South” of industrialists from the Great-Russian
gubernias.— Lenin

[3]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III.— Lenin

[4]
For example, the same thing has been noted in the dyeing industry of
Moscow Gubernia ( Industries of Moscow Gubernia , VI, I, 73-99), in
the hat ( ibid ., VI, Pt. I), in the fur ( ibid ., VII,
Pt. I, Sec. 2), in the Pavlovo lock and cutlery industries (Grigoryev,
loc . cit ., 37-38), and others.— Lenin

[5]
Mr. V. V. hastened to draw this conclusion from a fact of this kind in his
Destiny of Capitalism , 78-79.— Lenin

[6]
A. Smirnov: Pavlovo and Vorsma , Moscow, 1864.—N. Labzin:
An Investigation of the Cutlery Industry , etc ., St. Petersburg, 1870.—Grigoryev,
loc . cit .—N. Annensky, Report , etc ., in No. 1 of Nizhegorodsky Vestnik Parokhodstva i Promyshlennosti [ The Nizhni-Novgorod Steam-Shipping and Industrial Journal ] for 1891.— Material of Zemstvo
statistics for Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1892.—A. N. Potresov, Report in the St. Petersburg Branch of the
Loan and Savings Society Committee in 1895.— Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II, Vol. 3, St. Petersburg,
1872.— Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , VIII.— Reports and Investigations , I,
III.— Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , VI, XIII.— Industries of Moscow Gubernia , VI, Pt. I, p. 111,
ibid ., 177; VII, Pt II, p. 8.— Historico-Statistical Survey of Russian Industry , II, Col. VI, Industry
1.— Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42. Cf. also Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III 18-19 and others.— Lenin

[7]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, 2303-2304.— Lenin

[8]
Industries of Moscow Gubernia , VII, Pt. I, Sec. 2, 196.— Lenin

[9]
The data on the brush, pin, hook, hat, starch, boot, spectacle frame,
harness, fringe and furniture industries have been selected from the
handicraft house-to-house census material quoted in Industries of Moscow Gubernia and in Mr. Isayev’s book of the same title.— Lenin

[10]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III, 242-243.— Lenin

[11]
In his researches into the historical destiny of the Russian factory,
M. I. T.-Baranovsky showed that merchant’s capital was a necessary
historical condition for the formation of large-scale industry. See his
The Factory , etc ., St. Petersburg, 1898.— Lenin

[12]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , II, 25, 270.— Lenin

[13]
Industries of Moscow Gubernia , Vol. II, Pt. II, p. 8 and foll.— Lenin

[14]
The fundamental theoretical error made by Mr. N.-on in his arguments about
the “capitalisation of industries” is that he ignores the
initial steps of commodity production and capitalism in its consecutive
stages. Mr. N.-on leaps right over from “people’s production” to “capitalism,” and then is surprised, with
amusing naïvety, to find that he has got a capitalism that is without
basis that is artificial, etc.— Lenin

[15]
In the middle of the 19th century, the knitting of slippers with designs
in coloured wools was widespread in Arzamas and its outskirts. In the
1860s ten thousand and more pairs of knitted footwear were made annually
in the town, the Nikolsky Convent and the village of Viyezdnaya
Sloboda. The wares were sold at the Nizhni-Novgorod fair, and from there
were dispatched to Siberia, the Caucasus and other parts of Russia.
[p. 341]

| | II. Small Commodity-Producers In Industry. The Craft Spirit In The Small Industries | | | IV. The Differentiation Of The Small Commodity-Producers. Data On House-To-House Censuses Of Handicraftsmen In Moscow Gubernia | |

# The Differentiation of the Small Commodity-Producers. Data on House-to-House Censuses of Handicraftsmen in Moscow Gubernia

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8v/v8iv.htm

Chapter V. The First Stages of Capitalism in Industry

IV. The Differentiation Of The Small Commodity-Producers. Data
On House-To-House Censuses Of Handicraftsmen In Moscow Gubernia

Let us now examine the social and economic relations that develop among
the small commodity-producers in industry. The task of defining the
character of these relations is similar to the one outlined above, in
Chapter II, in relation to the small farmers. Instead of the scale of
farming, we must now take as our basis the size of the industrial
establishments; we must classify the small industrialists according to the
size of their output, ascertain the part wage-labour plays in each group,
the conditions of technique, etc. [1]

The handicraft house-to-house censuses that we need for such an analysis are available for Moscow

Gubernia. [2]

For

a number of industries the investigators quote precise statistics on
output, and sometimes also on the farms of each separate craftsman (date
of origin of establishment, number of workers, family and hired, total
annual output, number of horses owned by craftsmen, method of cultivating
the soil, etc.). The investigators provide no classified tables, however,
and we have therefore been obliged to compile them ourselves, dividing the
craftsmen in each industry into grades (I, bottom; II, middle and III,
top) according to the number of workers (family and hired) per
establishment, and sometimes according to the volume of output, technical
organisation, etc. In general, the criteria according to which the
craftsmen have been divided into grades are based on all the data given in
the description of the industry; but in different industries we have found
it necessary to take different criteria for dividing the craftsmen into
grades. For example, in very small industries we have placed in the bottom
grade establishments with 1 worker, in the middle grade those with 2, and
in the top grade those with 3 and more; whereas in the bigger industries
we have placed in the bottom grade establishments with 1 to 5 workers, in
the middle grade those with 6 to 10, etc. Had we not employed different
methods of classification we could not have presented for each industry
data concerning establishments of different size. The table drawn up on
these lines is given in the Appendix (see Appendix I); it shows the
criteria according to which the craftsmen in each industry are divided up
into grades, gives for each grade in each industry absolute figures of the
number of establishments, workers (family and hired combined), aggregate
output, establishments employing wage-workers, number of wage-workers. To
describe the farms of the handicraftsmen we have calculated the average
number of horses per peasant household in each grade and the percentage of
craftsmen who cultivate their land with the aid of “a labourer” (i.e., resort to the hire of rural workers). The table covers a total of 37
industries, with 2,278 establishments and 11,833 employed and an aggregate
output valued at over 5 million rubles; but if we subtract the 4
industries not included in the general list because of incompleteness of
data, or because of their exceptional character, [3] there is a total of 33 industries, 2,085
establishments, 9,427 workers and an aggregate output of 3,466,000 rubles,
or, with corrections (in the case of 2 industries), about 3 3/4 million
rubles.

Since there is no need to examine the data for all the 33 industries, and
as it would be too arduous a task, we have divided these industries into
four categories: 1) 9 industries with an average of 1.6 to 2.5 workers
(family and hired combined) per establishment; 2) 9 industries with an
average of 2.7 to 4.4 workers; 3) 10 industries with an average of 5.1 to
8.4 workers; and 4) 5 industries with an average of 11.5 to 17.8
workers. Thus, in each category we have combined industries that are
fairly similar as regards the number of workers per establishment, and in
our further exposition we shall limit ourselves to the data for these four
categories of industries. We give these data in extenso . (See
Table on p. 347.)

This table combines those principal data on the relations between the top
and bottom grades of handicrafts men that will serve us for our subsequent
conclusions. We can illustrate the summarised data for all four categories
with a chart drawn up in exactly the same way as the one with which, in
Chapter II, we illustrated the differentiation of the agricultural
peasantry. We ascertain what percentage each grade constitutes of the
total number of establishments, of the total number of family workers, of
the total number of establishments with wage-workers, of the total number
of workers (family and wage combined), of the aggregate output and of the
total number of wage-workers, and we indicate these percentages (in the
manner described in Chapter II) on the chart (see chart on p. 349).

Let us now examine the conclusions to be drawn from these data.

We begin with the role of wage-labour. In the 33 industries wage-labour
predominates over family labour: 51% of the workers are hired; for the
“handicraftsmen” of Moscow Gubernia this percentage is even
lower than the actual one. We have computed the data for 54 industries of
Moscow Gubernia for which exact figures as to wage-workers employed are
available, and got the figure of 17,566 wage-workers out of a total of
29,446 workers, i.e., 59.65%. For Perm Gubernia the percentage of
wage-workers among all handicraftsmen and artisans combined was
established as 24.5%, and among commodity-producers alone, as from 29.4 to
31.2%. But these gross figures, as we shall see below, embrace not only
small commodity-producers, but also capitalist manufacture. Far more
interesting, therefore, is the conclusion that the role of wage-labour
rises parallel to the increase in the size of establishments: this is
observed both in comparing one category with another and in comparing the
different grades in the same category. The larger the establishments, the
higher the percentage of those employing wage-workers and the higher the
percentage of wage-workers. The Narodnik economists usually limit
themselves to declaring that among the “handicraftsmen” small
establishments with exclusively family workers prevail, and in support of
this often cite “average” figures. As is evident from the data
given, these “averages” are unsuitable for characterising the
phenomenon in this regard, and the numerical preponderance of small
establishments with family workers does not in the least eliminate the
basic fact that the tendency of small commodity production is towards the ever-growing employment of wage-labour , towards the formation of capitalist workshops . Moreover, the data cited also refute
another, no less widespread, Narodnik assertion, namely, that wage-labour
in “handicraft” production really serves to “supplement” family labour, that it is resorted to not for the
purpose of profit-making, etc. [4]

Actually, however, it turns out that among the small industrialists—just as among the small agriculturists—the
growing employment of wage-labour runs parallel to the increase in the number of family workers . In the majority of industries we see that
the employment of wage-labour increases as we pass from the bottom grade
to the top, notwithstanding the fact that the number of family
workers per establishment also increases. The employment of wage-labour
does not smooth out differences in the size of the “handicraftsmen’s” families, but accentuates them. The
chart very clearly shows this common feature of the small industries: the
top grade employs the bulk of the wage-workers, despite the fact that it
is best provided with family workers. “ Family co-operation ” is thus the basis of capitalist co-operation . [5]

It goes without saying, of course, that this “law” applies only to the
smallest commodity-producers, only to the rudiments of capitalism; this
law proves that the tendency of the peasantry is to turn into petty
bourgeois. As soon as workshops with a fairly large number of wage-workers
arise, the significance of “family co-operation” must inevitably decline. And we see, indeed, from our data that this law does
not apply to the biggest grades of the top categories. When the
“handicraftsman” turns into a real capitalist employing from
15 to 30 wage-workers, the part played by family labour in his workshops
declines and becomes quite insignificant (for example, in the top grade of
the top category, family workers constitute only 7% of the total number of
workers). In other words, to the extent that the “handicraft”
industries are so small that “family co-operation” predominates in them, this family co-operation is the surest guarantee of
the development of capitalist co-operation. Here, consequently, stand out
in full relief the dialectics of commodity production, which transform
“working with our own hands” into working with others’ hands, into exploitation.

Let us pass to the data on productivity of labour. The data on total
output per worker in each grade show that with the increase in the size of the establishment labour productivity improves . This is to be
observed in the overwhelming majority of the industries, and in all categories of industries without
exception; the chart graphically illustrates this law, showing that the
share of the top grade in total output is greater than is its share in the
total number of workers; in the bottom grade the reverse is the case. The
total output per worker in the establishments of the top grades is from 20
to 40 per cent higher than that in the bottom grade establishments. It is
true that the big establishments usually have a longer working period and
sometimes handle more valuable material than do the small ones, but these
two circumstances cannot eliminate the fact that labour productivity is
considerably higher in the big workshops than in the small ones. [6]

Nor can it be otherwise. The big establishments have from 3 to 5 times as many workers
(family and hired combined) as the small ones, and co-operation on a
larger scale cannot but increase the productivity of labour. The big
workshops are always better equipped technically, they have better
implements, tools, accessories, machines, etc. For example, in the brush
industry, a “properly organised workshop” must have as many as
15 workers, and in hook-making 9 to 10 workers. In the toy industry the
majority of handicraftsmen make shift with ordinary stoves for drying
their goods; the bigger toy-makers have special drying ovens, and the
biggest makers have special drying premises. In metal toy-making, 8 makers
out of 16 have special workshops, divided as follows: I) 6 have none; II)
5 have 3; and III) 5 have 5. A total of 142 mirror and picture-frame
makers have 18 special workshops, the figures by grades being: I) 99 have
3; II) 27 have 4; and III) 16 have 11. In the screen-plaiting industry
screens are plaited by hand (in grade I), and woven mechanically (in
grades II and III). In the tailoring industry the number of
sewing-machines per owner according to grade is as follows: I) 1.3; II)
2.1; and III) 3.4, etc., etc. In investigating the furniture industry,
Mr. Isayev notes that the one-man business suffers the following
disadvantages: 1) lack of a complete set of tools; 2) limited assortment of articles made, because
there is no room in the craftsman’s hut for bulky articles; 3) much
higher cost of materials when bought retail (30 to 35% higher); 4)
necessity of selling wares cheaper, partly due to lack of confidence in
the small “handicraftsman” and partly to his need of money. [7]

It is well known that exactly the same sort of thing is to be observed not only in
the furniture industry, but also in the vast majority of small peasant
industries. Lastly, it must be added that the value of the goods produced
per worker not only increases from the bottom to the top grade in the
majority of industries, but also from the small to the big industries. In
the first category of industries the average output per worker is 202
rubles, in the second and third about 400 rubles, and in the fourth over
500 rubles (the figure 381 should, for the reason stated above, be
increased by about fifty per cent). This circumstance points to the
connection between the rise in the price of raw materials and the ousting
of the small establishments by the big ones. Every step in the development
of capitalist society is inevitably accompanied by a rise in the price of
such materials as timber, etc., and thus hastens the doom of the small
establishments.

From the foregoing it follows that the relatively big capitalist
establishments also play a tremendous part in the small peasant
industries. While constituting a small minority of the total number of
establishments, they concentrate, however, quite a big share of the total
number of workers, and a still bigger share of the total output. Thus, in
33 industries of Moscow Gubernia, the top-grade establishments,
constituting 15% of the total, account for 45% of the aggregate output;
while the bottom-grade establishments, constituting 53% of the total,
account for only 21% of the aggregate output. It goes without saying that
the distribution of the net income from the industries must be far more
uneven. The data of the Perm handicraft census of 1894-95 clearly
illustrate this. Selecting the largest establishments in 7 industries we get the following picture of the
relations between the small and big establishments. [8]

An insignificant number of big establishments (less than 1/10 of the total
number), which employ about 1/5 of the total number of workers, account
for almost half the total output and nearly 2/5 of the total income
(combining the workers’ wages and the employers’ incomes). The
small proprietors obtain a net income considerably below the wages of the
hired workers employed in the big establishments; elsewhere we have shown
in detail that this phenomenon is no exception but is a general rule for
small peasant industries. [9]

Summing up the conclusions that follow from the data we have analysed, we
must say that the economic system of the small peasant industries is
typically petty bourgeois, the same as that which we have seen among the
small farmers. The expansion, development and improvement of the small
peasant industries cannot take place in the present social and economic
atmosphere except by generating a minority of small capitalists on the one
hand, and a majority of wage-workers, or of “independent
craftsmen” who lead a harder and worse life than the wage-workers,
on the other. We observe, consequently, in the smallest peasant industries
the most pronounced rudiments of capitalism—of that very capitalism
which various economists of the

Manilov [11] type depict as something divorced from “people’s production.” From the viewpoint of the home
market theory the facts we have examined are also of no little
importance. The development of small peasant industries leads to an
expansion of the demand by the more prosperous industrialists for means of
production and for labour-power, which is drawn from the ranks of the
rural proletariat. The number of wage-workers employed by village artisans
and small industrialists all over Russia should be quite impressive, if in
the Perm Gubernia alone, for example, there are about

6,500. [10]

---
Notes:
[1]
Describing “handicraft” industry in Chernigov Gubernia,
Mr. Varzer notes “the variety of economic units” (on the one
hand families with incomes from 500 to 800 rubles, and on the other,
“almost paupers”) and makes the following observation:
“Under such circumstances, the only way to present a full picture of
the economic life of the craftsmen is to make a house-to-house inventory
and to classify their establishments in a number of average types with all
their accessories. Anything else will be either a fantasy of casual
impressions or arm-chair exercises in arithmetical calculations based on a
diversity of average norms. . . “ ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. V, p. 354).— Lenin

[2]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vols. VI and
VII. Industries of Moscow Gubernia , and A. Isayev’s
Industries of Moscow Gubernia , Moscow, 1876-1877, 2 vols. For a
small number of industries similar information is given in Industries of
Vladimir Gubernia . It goes without saying that in the present
chapter we confine ourselves to an examination of only those industries in
which the small commodity-producers work for the market and not for
buyers-up,—at all events, in the overwhelming majority of
cases. Work for buyers-up is a more complicated phenomenon, one that we
shall examine separately later on. The house-to-house censuses of
handicraftsmen who work for buyers-up are unsuitable for judging the
relations existing among small commodity-producers.— Lenin

[3]
On these grounds the pottery “industry,” in which 20 establishments employ 1,817 wage-workers, has been excluded. It is
characteristic of the confusion of terms prevailing among us that the
Moscow statisticians included this industry, too, among the
“handicraft” industries (see combined tables in Part III of
Vol. VII, loc . cit .).— Lenin

[4]
See, for example, Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia ,
Vol. VI, Pt. 1, p. 21.— Lenin

[5]
The same conclusion follows from the data regarding the Perm
“handicraftsmen”, see our Studies , pp. 126-128. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia .— Ed .)— Lenin

[6]
For the starch-making industry, which is included in our tables, data are
available on the duration of the working period in establishments of
various sizes. It appears (as we have seen above) that even in an equal
period the output per worker in a big establishment is higher than that in
a small one.— Lenin

[7]
The small producer tries to make up for these unfavourable conditions by
working longer hours and with greater intensity (loc cit., p 38). Under
commodity production, the small producer both in agriculture and in
industry carries on only by cutting down his requirements.— Lenin

[8]
See our Studies , p. l53 and foll. (see present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia .— Ed .) where data are given for each industry
separately. Let us note that all these data refer to handicraftsmen
cultivators who work for the market.— Lenin

[9]
From the data given in the text it can be seen that in the small peasant
industries a tremendous, and even predominant, part is played by
establishments with an output exceeding 1,000 rubles. Let us recall that
in our official statistics establishments of this kind have always been,
and still are, classed among “factories and works”
[cf. Studies , pp. 267 and 270 (see present edition, Vol, 4,
“On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.” Ed .) and
Chapter VII, § II]. Thus, if we thought it permissible for an economist to
use the current, traditional terminology beyond which our Narodniks have
never gone, we would be entitled to establish the following
“law”: among peasant “handicraft” establishments a predominant part is played by “factories and works,” not
included in official statistics because of their unsatisfactory nature.— Lenin

[10]
Let us add that in other gubernias, besides Moscow and Perm, the sources
note quite analogous relations among the small commodity producers. See,
for instance, Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II,
house-to-house censuses of shoemakers and fullers; Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol II—on the wheelwrights of Medyn
Uyezd; Vol. II—on the sheepskin dressers of the same uyezd;
Vol. III—on the furriers of Arzamas Uyezd, Vol. IV—on the
fullers of Semyonov Uyezd and on the tanners of Vasil Uyezd,
etc. Cf. Nizhni-Novgorod Handbook , Vol. IV,
p. 137,—A. S. Gatsisky’s general remarks about the small
industries speak of the rise of big workshops. Cf, Annensky’s report
on the Pavlovo handicraftsmen (mentioned above), on the classification of
families according to weekly earnings, etc. etc. All these sources differ
from the house-to-house census data we have examined only in their
incompleteness and poverty. The essence of the matter, however, is
identical everywhere.— Lenin

[11]
Manilov —a character in Gogol’s Dead Souls , typifying the weak willed, hollow dreamer and inert windbag. [p. 355]

| | III. The Growth of Small Industries After the Reform. Two Forces of This Process and its Significance | | | V. Capitalist Simple Co-Operation | |

# Capitalist Simple Co-operation

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8v/v8v.htm

Chapter V. The First Stages of Capitalism in Industry

### V. Capitalist Simple Co-Operation

The establishment by small commodity-producers of relatively large
workshops marks the transition to a higher form of industry. Out of
scattered small production rises capitalist simple co-operation . “Capitalist production only then really begins
. . . when each individual capital employs simultaneously a comparatively
large number of labourers; when consequently the labour-process is carried
on an extensive scale and yields, relatively, large quantities of
products. A greater number of labourers working together, at the same
time, in one place (or, if you will, in the same field of labour), in
order to produce the same sort of commodity under the mastership of one
capitalist, constitutes, both historically and logically, the
starting-point of capitalist production. With regard to the mode of
production itself, manufacture, in its strict meaning, is hardly to be
distinguished, in its earliest stages, from the artisan trades of the
guilds, otherwise than by the greater number of workmen simultaneously
employed by one and the same individual capital. The workshop of the
medieval master handicraftsman is simply enlarged” ( Das Kapital ,

I2,

S. 329). [4]

It is this starting-point of capitalism that is to be seen, consequently,
in our small peasant (“handicraft”) industries. The different
historical situation (absence or slight development of guild handicrafts)
merely changes the way in which identical capitalist relations are made
manifest. The difference between the capitalist workshop and the workshop
of the small industrialist lies at first only in the number of workers
simultaneously employed. That is why the first capitalist establishments,
being numerically in the minority, are submerged, as it were, in the
general mass of small establishments. However, the employment of a larger
number of workers inevitably leads to consecutive changes in production
itself, to the gradual transformation of production. Under primitive hand
technique differences between the individual workers (in strength,
dexterity, skill, etc.) are always very considerable; if only for this
reason the position of the small industrialist is extremely precarious;
his dependence upon market fluctuations assumes the most burdensome forms. Where, however, several workers are
employed in an establishment, the individual differences between them are
smoothed out in the workshop itself: “the collective working day of
a large number of workmen simultaneously employed . . . gives one day of
average social labour,” [5] and as a consequence, the manufacture and sale of
the products of the capitalist workshop acquire incomparably greater
regularity and stability. It becomes possible to make fuller use of
premises, warehouses, implements, instruments of labour, etc.; and this
leads to a cheapening of production costs in the larger workshops. [1]

The organisation of production on a larger scale and the simultaneous employment of many
workers require the accumulation of a fairly large capital, which is often
formed, not in the sphere of production, but in the sphere of trade,
etc. The size of this capital determines the form in which the proprietor
himself takes part in the enterprise—whether he himself is a worker,
if his capital is still very small, or whether he gives up working himself
and specialises in commercial and entrepreneur functions. “One can
establish a connection between the position of the workshop owner and the
number of his workers”we read, for example, in a description of the
furniture industry. “The employment of 2 or 3 workers provides the
proprietor with such a small surplus that he has to work alongside of
them. . . . The employment of 5 workers already gives the proprietor
enough to enable him to give up manual labour in some measure, to take it easy somewhat, and to engage mainly in the last two business
functions” (i.e., purchase of materials and sale of goods). “As soon as the number of wage-workers reaches 10 or exceeds
this figure, the proprietor not only gives up manual labour but
practically ceases to supervise his workers: he appoints a foreman for the
purpose. . . . He now becomes a small capitalist, a ’born
master’” (Isayev, Industries of Moscow Gubernia , I, 52-53). The statistics we have cited graphically confirm this description,
showing a decline in the number of family workers with the appearance of a
considerable number of wage-workers.

The general significance of capitalist simple co-operation in the
development of capitalist forms of industry is described by the author of
Capital as follows:

“Historically, however, this form is developed in opposition
to peasant agriculture and to the carrying on of independent handicrafts
whether in guilds or not. . . . Just as the social productive power of
labour that is developed by co-operation, appears to be the productive
power of capital, so co-operation itself, contrasted with the process of
production carried on by isolated independent labourers, or even by small
employers, appears to be a specific form of the capitalist process of
production. It is the first change experienced by the actual
labour-process, when subjected to capital. . . . The simultaneous
employment of a large number of wage-labourers, in one and the same
process, which is a necessary condition of this change, also forms the
starting-point of capitalist production. . . . If then, on the one hand,
the capitalist mode of production presents itself to us historically, as a
necessary condition to the transformation of the labour-process into a
social process, so, on the other hand, this social form of the
labour-process presents itself, as a method employed by capital for the
more profitable exploitation of labour, by increasing that labour’s
productiveness.

“In the elementary form, under which we have hitherto viewed it,
co-operation is a necessary concomitant of all production on a large
scale, but it does not, in itself, represent a fixed form characteristic
of a particular epoch in the development of the capitalist mode of
production. At the most it appears to do so, and that only approximately, in the handicraft-like beginnings of manufacture. . .” (Das Kapital,
I 2 ,

344–345). [6]

We shall see later how closely small “handicraft” establishments in Russia which employ wage-workers are connected with
incomparably more highly developed and more widespread forms of
capitalism. As for the role of these establishments in the small peasant
industries, the statistics already given show that these establishments
create fairly wide capitalist co-operation in place of the previous
scattered production and considerably raise the productivity of labour.

Our conclusion as to the tremendous role of capitalist co-operation in the
small peasant industries and as to its progressive significance is in
sharp contrast to the widespread Narodnik doctrine of the predominance of
all sorts of manifestations of the “artel principle” in the
small peasant industries. As a matter of fact, the reverse is the case;
the distinguishing feature of small industry (and handicrafts) is the
extremely scattered nature of the individual producers. In support of the
contrary view Narodnik literature could advance nothing more than a
collection of individual examples, the overwhelming majority of which do
not apply to co-operation at all, but to temporary, miniature associations
of masters, big and small, for the common purchase of raw materials, for
the building of a common workshop, etc. Such artels do not in the least
affect the predominant significance of capitalist co-operation. [2]

To obtain an exact idea of how widely the “artel principle” is actually applied
it is not enough to cite examples taken at random here and there; it is necessary to take the data for some area which has been
thoroughly investigated, and to examine the relative incidence and
significance of the various forms of co-operation. Such, for example, are
the data of the Perm “handicrafts” census of 1894-95; and we
have shown elsewhere ( Studies , pp. 182-187 [3] )

what an amazing dispersion of small industrialists was revealed by the census, and what importance attaches to
the very few big establishments. The conclusion we have drawn as to the
role of capitalist co-operation is based not on isolated examples, but on
the precise data of the house-to-house censuses, which embrace scores of
the most diverse industries in different localities.

---
Notes:
[1]
For example, concerning the metal-beaters [7] of Vladimir Gubernia, we read: “With the
employment of a larger number of workers a considerable reduction in
expenditure may be effected; this concerns expenditure on light, blocks,
anvil-stone and casing” ( Industries of Vladimir Gubernia ,
III, 188). In the copper-beating industry of Perm Gubernia a one-man
establishment needs a complete set of tools (16 items); for two workers
“a very small addition” is required. “For workshops employing 6 or 8 persons three or four sets of tools are
required. . . . Only one lathe is kept even in a workshop employing 8
men” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , X, 2939). The fixed capital of a big workshop is estimated at 466 rubles, of
a medium workshop at 294 rubles, and of a small one at 80 rubles; and the
total output at 6,200 rubles, 3,655 rubles, and 871 rubles
respectively. That is to say, in the small workshops the output is 11
times the amount of the fixed capital, in the medium ones 12 times, and in
the big ones 14 times.— Lenin

[2]
We do not think it worth our while to support the statement made in the
text with examples, a host of which may be found in Mr V. V.’s
The Artel in Handicraft Industry (St. Petersburg, 1895). Mr. Volgin has dealt with the true significance of the examples
cited by Mr. V. V. ( op . cit ., p. 182 and foll.) and has
shown the very negligible part played by the “artel principle”
in our “handicraft” industry. Let us merely note the following
assertion by Mr. V. V.: “. . . the amalgamation of several
independent handicraftsmen into one production unit . . . is not
imperatively dictated by competition, as is proved by the absence in the
majority of industries of workshops of any size employing
wage-workers” (93). To advance such a bald and sweeping thesis is,
of course, much easier than to analyse the house-to-house census data
available on this question.— Lenin

[3]
See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia .— Ed .

[4]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 322. [p.356]

[5]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 323. [p. 357]

[7]
Metal-beaters —workers who beat gold, silver, tin, copper
and other metals into the foil or leaf formerly used for decorative
purposes; icons and other church property were among the articles so
decorated. [p.357]

[6]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 334-335. [p. 359]

| | IV. The Differentiation Of The Small Commodity-Producers. Data On House-To-House Censuses Of Handicraftsmen In Moscow Gubernia | | | VI. Merchant’s Capital in the Small Industries | |

# Merchant’s Capital in the Small Industries

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8v/v8vi.htm

Chapter V. The First Stages of Capitalism in Industry

### VI. Merchant’s Capital in the Small Industries

As we know, the small peasant industries in many cases give rise to
special buyers-up, who are particularly engaged in the commercial
operations of marketing products and purchasing raw materials, and who
usually in one way or another subject the small tradesmen to
themselves. Let us see what connection this phenomenon has with the
general system of small peasant industries and what its significance is.

The principal economic operation of the buyer-up is to buy goods (finished
products or raw materials) in order to resell them. In other words, the
buyer-up is a representative of merchant’s capital. The
starting-point of all capital—both industrial and merchant’s—is the accumulation of free money in the hands of
individuals (by free money we mean that money which is not needed for
personal consumption, etc.). How this property differentiation takes place
in our rural districts has been shown in detail above by the data on the
differentiation of the agricultural and the industrial peasantry. These
data revealed one of the conditions giving rise to the appearance of the
buyer-up, namely: the scattered nature, the isolation of the small
producers, the existence of economic conflict and strife among them.

Another condition relates to the character of the functions performed by
merchant’s capital, i.e., to the marketing of wares and to the
purchase of raw materials. Where the development of commodity production
is slight, the small producer limits himself to disposing of his wares in
the small local market, sometimes even to disposing of them directly to
the consumer. This is the lowest stage of the development of commodity
production, hardly to be distinguished from artisan production. As the
market expands, this petty, scattered marketing (which fully conforms to
petty, scattered production) becomes impossible . In the big
market, selling must he on a big, on a mass scale. And so the petty
character of production proves to be in irreconcilable contradiction with
the need for big, wholesale marketing. Under the existing social and
economic conditions, with the isolation of the small producers and their
differentiation, this contradiction could only be resolved by the
well-to-do minority taking charge of marketing, concentrating it in their
hands. By buying-up goods (or raw materials) on a large scale, the
buyers-up thus cheapened marketing costs and transformed marketing from a
petty, casual and irregular operation into a large and regular one; and
this purely economic advantage of large-scale marketing inevitably led to
the small producer finding himself cut off from the market and defenceless
in face of the power of merchant’s capital. Thus, under commodity
economy, the small producer inevitably falls into dependence upon
merchant’s capital by virtue of the purely economic superiority of
large, mass-scale marketing over scattered, petty marketing. [1]

It goes without saying that actually the profits of the buyers-up are often far from limited to
the difference between the returns of mass sales and those of petty sales, just as the profits of the industrial
capitalists often consist of deductions from normal wages. Nevertheless,
to explain the profits of the industrial capitalists we must assume that
labour-power is sold at its real value. Similarly, to explain the role of
the buyer-up we must assume that he buys and sells goods in accordance
with the general laws of commodity exchange. Only these economic causes of
the domination of merchant’s capital can provide the key to an
understanding of the variety of forms which it assumes in real life, and
among which we constantly meet (there can be no doubt of that) the
plainest fraud. To proceed otherwise, as the Narodniks usually do, that
is, to confine oneself to enumerating the various tricks of the
“kulaks,” and on these grounds completely to brush aside the
economic nature of the phenomenon would be to adopt the viewpoint of
vulgar

economics. [2]

To substantiate our thesis concerning a necessary causal relation between
small production for the market and the domination of merchant’s
capital, lot us deal in greater detail with one of the best descriptions
of how the buyer-up appears and of the part he plays. We have in mind the
investigation of the lace industry in Moscow Gubernia ( Industries of Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. II). The “tradeswomen” came
into being in the following way. In the 1820s, when this industry first
developed, and later, when the number of lace-makers was still small, the
principal buyers were the landlords, the “gentry”. The consumer was in the neighbourhood of the producer. As the industry spread,
the peasants began to send their lace to Moscow “as chance
offered,” for example, through comb-makers. The inconvenience of this primitive form of marketing very soon made itself felt: “how
can a muzhik not engaged in this business go from house to house?”
The sale of the lace was entrusted to one of the lace-makers, who was
compensated for the time she lost. “She also brought back thread for
the lace.” Thus the inconveniences of isolated marketing led to
turning trade into a special function performed by one person who gathered
the wares from many lace-makers. The patriarchal proximity of these women
workers one to the other (relatives, neighbours, fellow-villagers, etc.)
at first gave rise to attempts at the co-operative organisation of sales,
to attempts at entrusting this function to one of the women workers. But
money economy at once causes a breach in the age-old patriarchal
relations, at once gives rise to the phenomena we noted above when
examining the mass-scale data on the differentiation of the
peasantry. Production for sale teaches that time is money. It becomes
necessary to compensate the intermediary for her lost time and labour; she
becomes accustomed to this occupation and begins to make it her
profession. “Journeys of this kind, repeated several times, gave
rise to the tradeswoman type” ( loc . cit ., 30). The woman who has been to Moscow several times establishes the
permanent connections which are so necessary for proper
marketing. “Thus the need and habit of living on earnings from
commission operations develops.” In addition to commission earnings,
the tradeswoman “does what she can to advance the price of
materials, paper, thread”; she sells the lace above the set price
and pockets the difference; the tradeswomen declare that the price
received was less than the one agreed on: “take it or leave
it,” they say. “The tradeswomen begin . . . to bring goods
from the towns and make a considerable profit.” The commission agent
thus becomes an independent trader who now begins to monopolise sales and
to take advantage of her monopoly to subjugate the lace-makers
completely. Usurious operations appear alongside commercial
operations—the lending of money to the lace-makers, the taking of
goods from them at reduced prices, etc. “The girls . . . pay 10
kopeks per ruble as a commission for sales. . . . They know very well that
the tradeswoman makes even more out of them by selling the lace at a
higher price. But they simply do not knowhow to arrange things
differently. When

I suggested that they should take turns in going to Moscow, they replied
that this would be worse, because they did not know where to sell the
lace, whereas the tradeswoman already knew all the places. She sells the
finished lace for them and brings back orders, materials, patterns, etc.;
she always gives them money in advance, or on loan, and one can even sell
her a piece of lace outright, should the need arise. Thus, on the one
hand, the tradeswoman becomes a most needed, indispensable person; on the
other, she gradually develops into a person who cruelly exploits the
labour of others—a woman kulak” (32). To this it should be
added that such types develop from among the small producers themselves:
“However many enquiries we made, we found that all the tradeswomen
had formerly been lace-makers themselves, and consequently, were familiar
with the trade; they came from the ranks of these same lace-makers; they
had had no capital to start with, and had only gradually begun to trade in
calico and other goods, as they made money out of their commissions” (31). [3]

There can, therefore, be no doubt that under commodity economy, not only prosperous
industrialists in general, but also, and particularly, representatives of
merchant’s capital emerge from among the small producers. [4]

And once they have emerged, the elimination of small, scattered marketing by large-scale,
wholesale marketing becomes inevitable. [5]

Here are a few examples of how marketing is organised by the bigger “handicraft” proprietors who are at
the same time buyers-up. The marketing of abacuses by craftsmen of Moscow
Gubernia (see the statistics relating to them in our table; Appendix I) is done mainly at fairs all
over Russia. To do business oneself at a fair one must have, firstly, a
considerable amount of capital, as only wholesale trade is conducted at
the fairs; and, secondly, one must have an agent to buy up wares where
they are made, and to send them on to the merchant. These requirements are
met “by the one merchant-peasant,” who is also a “craftsman,” possesses a considerable amount of capital and
engages in finishing the abacuses (i.e., fitting the frames and beads) and
marketing them; his six sons are “engaged exclusively in
commerce,” so that two persons have to be hired to cultivate the
allotment. “It is not surprising,” observes the investigator,
“that he is able to sell his wares . . . at all the fairs, whereas
the smaller traders usually sell theirs at nearby markets”
( Industries of Moscow Gubernia , VII, Pt. I, Sec. 2, p. 141). In
this case the representative of merchant’s capital was still so
little differentiated from the general mass of “muzhik cultivators” that he even continued to retain his allotment farm and
his large patriarchal family. The spectacle-frame makers of Moscow
Gubernia are entirely dependent upon the industrialists to whom they sell
their wares. These buyers-up are at the same time “craftsmen”
possessing their own workshops; they lend raw materials to the poor on
condition that the finished articles are delivered to them, the
“masters,” etc. The small industrialists made an attempt to
sell their wares in Moscow themselves, but failed; it did not pay to sell
goods in small quantities amounting to a matter of 10 or 15 rubles
( ibid ., 263). In the lace industry of Ryazan Gubernia the
tradeswomen make profits amounting to 12 to 50% of the lace-makers’
earnings. The “substantial” tradeswomen have established
regular-connections with marketing centres and send goods by mail, which
saves travelling expenses. How necessary wholesale marketing is can be
seen from the fact that the traders consider that even sales amounting to
150 and 200 rubles do not cover marketing expenses ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , VII, 1184). The marketing of Belyov lace
is organised as follows. In the town of Belyov there are three grades of
tradeswomen: 1) The distributor, who hands out small orders, makes the
round of the lace-makers herself and delivers the finished article to the bigger tradeswomen. 2) The subcontractor, who places orders herself, or
buys up goods from the distributors and delivers them to the big cities,
etc. 3) The big tradeswomen (2 or 3 “firms”), who do business
with commission agents, to whom they send lace and from whom they receive
big orders. It is “practically impossible” for the provincial
trades women to sell their goods to the big shops: “the shops prefer
to do business with the wholesale buyers-up who deliver the wares in big
quantities . . . of the most diverse patterns”; the tradeswomen are
obliged to sell to these “suppliers”; “it is from them that they learn all the requirements of the market; it is they who fix
prices; in short, but for them, there is no way out” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , X,
pp. 2823-2824). Numerous such examples could be given. But those given are
quite sufficient to show how utterly impossible is small, scattered
marketing where production is for big markets. In view of the scattered
state of the small producers and of their complete differentiation [6] large-scale marketing can only be organised by large capital ,
which, by virtue of this, reduces the handicraftsmen to a position of
utter helplessness and dependence. One can therefore judge how absurd are
the current Narodnik theories which recommend helping the
“handicraftsmen” by “organising marketing.” From the purely theoretical aspect such theories belong to the category of
petty-bourgeois utopias, based on a failure to understand the indissoluble
connection between commodity production and capitalist marketing. [7]

As for the facts of Russian reality, the authors of such theories simply ignore
them: they ignore the scattered state of the small commodity-producers and their utter differentiation; they ignore the fact that it is from their
very midst that “buyers-up” have emerged and continue to
emerge; that in capitalist society marketing can only be organised by big
capital. It is natural that if one leaves out of account all these
features of the unpleasant but undoubted reality, it is not difficult to
conjure up phantasies [8] ins Blaue hinein . [9]

We are unable here to go into descriptive details showing exactly how
merchant’s capital manifests itself in our “handicraft”
industries, and how helpless and wretched is the position in which it
places the small industrialist. Moreover, in the next chapter we shall
have to describe the dominance of merchant’s capital at a higher
stage of development, where (as an adjunct of manufacture) it organises
capitalist domestic industry on a mass scale. Here let us confine
ourselves to indicating the main forms assumed by merchant’s capital in the small industries. The first and simplest form is the
purchase of wares by the merchant (or owner of a big workshop) from the
small commodity producers. Where buying-up is poorly developed, or where
there are numerous competing buyers-up, the sale of goods to the merchant
may not differ from any other sale; but in the vast majority of cases the
local buyer-up is the only person to whom the peasant can regularly
dispose of his wares, and then the buyer-up takes advantage of his
monopoly position to force the price he pays to the producer down to rock
bottom. The second form of merchant’s capital consists in its
combination with usury: the peasant, who is constantly in need of money,
borrows it from the buyer-up and repays the debt with his goods. The sale
of his goods in this case (which is very widespread) always takes place at
artificially reduced prices, which often do not leave the handicraftsman
as much as a wage-worker could get. Moreover, the relations of the
creditor to the debtor inevitably lead to the personal dependence of the
latter, to bondage, to the creditor taking advantage of specific occasions
of the debtor’s need, etc. The third form of merchant’s
capital is payment for wares with goods, a common practice among village
buyers-up. The specific feature of this form is that it is typical not
only of the small industries but of absolutely all undeveloped stages of
commodity production and capitalism. Only large-scale machine industry,
which has socialised labour and broken radically with all patriarchal
usages, has eliminated this form of bondage by causing it to be legally
prohibited in large industrial establishments. The fourth form of
merchant’s capital is payment by the merchant with the particular
kinds of goods that are needed by the “handicraftsman” for
production (raw or auxiliary materials, etc.). The sale of materials of
production to the small industrialist may also be an independent operation
of merchant’s capital, quite analogous to the operation of buying-up
finished goods. When, however, the buyer-up of finished goods begins to
pay for them with the raw materials needed by the “handicraftsman,” this marks a very big step in the
development of capitalist relations. Having cut off the small
industrialist from the finished-goods market, the buyer-up now cuts him
off from the raw-materials market, and thereby brings him completely under his sway. It is only one step from this form
to that higher form of merchant’s capital under which the buyer-up
directly hands out materials to the “handicraftsmen” to be
worked up for a definite payment. The handicraftsman becomes de facto a wage-worker, working at home for the capitalist; the
merchant’s capital of the buyer-up is here transformed into
industrial capital. [10]

Capitalist domestic industry arises. In the small industries it is met with more or less sporadically; its
introduction on a mass scale, however, relates to the next and higher
stage of capitalist development.

---
Notes:
[1]
Regarding the significance of trading, merchant’s capital in the
development of capitalism in general we would refer the reader to
Capital , Vol. III. See especially III, I, S. 253-254 (Russ. trans., 212), on the essence of commodity-trading capital; S. 259
(Russ. trans., 217), on the cheapening of marketing by merchant’s
capital, S. 278 279 (Russ. trans., 233-234), on the economic necessity of
the phenomenon that “concentration appears earlier historically in
the merchant’s business than in the industrial workshop”;
S. 308 (Russ. trans., 259) and S. 310-311 (Russ. trans., 260-261), on the
historical role of merchant’s capital as necessary “premises
for the development of capitalist production.” [11] — Lenin

[2]
The preconceived viewpoint of the Narodniks, who have idealised the
“handicraft” industries and pictured merchant’s capital
as a sort of deplorable deviation and not as a necessary accessory to
small production for the market is unfortunately reflected in statistical
investigations. Thus, we have a number of house-to-house censuses of
handicraftsmen (for Moscow, Vladimir and Perm Gubernias) which carefully
investigated the business of each small industrialist, but ignored the
business of the buyers-up, did not investigate how his capital is
built up and what determines its magnitude, what are the sales’
receipts and purchase costs of the buyer-up etc. Cf. our Studies ,
p. 169 (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia .— Ed .).— Lenin

[3]
The emergence of buyers-up from among the small producers themselves is a
common thing noted by investigators almost everywhere as soon as they
touch upon this question. See, for example, the same remark about
“distributors” in the kid-glove industry ( Industries of Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VII, Pt. II, pp. 175-176), about the buyers-up
in the Pavlovo industry (Grigoryev, loc . cit ., 92), and
many others.— Lenin

[4]
Korsak ( Forms of Industry ) in his day quite rightly noted the
connection between the unprofitableness of small-scale marketing (and of
small-scale buying of raw materials) and the “general character of
small scattered production” (pp. 23 and 239).— Lenin

[5]
Very often the big handicraft proprietors whom we discussed in detail
above are also in some measure buyers-up. For instance, the purchase of
the wares of small industrialists by big ones is a very widespread
practice.— Lenin

[6]
Mr. V. V. asserts that the handicraftsman who is under the sway of
merchant’s capital “suffers losses that are fundamentally
quite superfluous” ( Essays on Handicraft Industry , 150). Maybe Mr. V. V. imagines that the differentiation of the small
producers is “fundamentally” a “quite superfluous” phenomenon, i.e., fundamentally as regards the commodity economy under
which the small producer lives?— Lenin

[7]
“It is not a matter of the kulak, but of the shortage of capital
among the handicraftsmen,” say the Perm Narodniks ( A Sketch of the Condition of Handicraft Industry in Perm Gubernia , p. 8). But
what is a kulak if not a handicraftsman with capital? The trouble is just
that the Narodniks refuse to investigate the process of differentiation of
the small producers which yields entrepreneurs and “kulaks”
from their ranks.— Lenin

[8]
Among the quasi-economic arguments advanced in support of the Narodnik
theories is the one about the small amount of “fixed” and
“circulating” capital needed by the “independent handicraftsman.” The line of this extremely widespread argument is
as follows: handicraft industries greatly benefit the peasant and
therefore should be implanted. (We do not dwell on the amusing notion that
the mass of the peasantry which is being steadily ruined can be helped by
turning some of their number into small commodity-producers.) And in
order to implant these industries one must know how much
“capital” the handicraftsman needs to carry on his business. Here is one of numerous calculations of this sort. The Pavlovo
handicraftsman, says Mr. Grigoryev for our edification, needs a fixed
“capital” of 3 to 5 rubles, 10-13-15 rubles, etc., counting
cost of implements, and a circulating “capital” of 6 to 8
rubles, counting weekly expenditure on food and raw materials. “Thus, the amount of the fixed and circulating capital
( sic !) in Pavlovo District is so small that it is very easy to
acquire the tools and materials needed for independent ( sic !!)
production” ( loc . cit ., 75). And indeed, what could be “easier” than such an argument? With a stroke of the
pen the Pavlovo proletarian is turned into a “capitalist”; all
that was needed was to call his weekly keep and miserably cheap tools
“capital.” But the real capital of the big buyers-up who have
monopolised sales, who alone are able to be “independent”
de facto , and who handle capital running into the thousands this
real capital the author simply passes over! Queer people, indeed, these
well-to-do Pavlovians: for generations they have used, and continue to
use, every foul means to pile up thousands of rubles of capital, whereas
according to the latest discoveries it seems that a “capital”
of a few dozen rubles is sufficient to make one “independent”!— Lenin

[9]
at random.— Ed .

[10]
The pure form of merchant’s capital is the purchase of a commodity
in order to sell this same commodity at a profit. The pure form
of industrial capital is the purchase of a commodity in order to sell it
in worked-up form , hence the purchase of raw materials, etc., and
the purchase of labour-power, which processes the material.— Lenin

[11]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 263-264, 270-271,
290, 319-320, 321-320, 321-322. [p. 361]

| | V. Capitalist Simple Co-Operation | | | VII. “Industry And Agriculture” | |

# " Industry and Agricultural"

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8v/v8vii.htm

Chapter V. The First Stages of Capitalism in Industry

### VII. “Industry And Agriculture”

Such is the usual heading of special sections in descriptions of peasant
industries. In view of the fact that at the initial stage of capitalism
which we are examining the industrialist has hardly yet become
differentiated from the peasant, his connection with the land is something
indeed highly characteristic and requires special examination.

Let us begin with the data given in our table (see

Appendix I). To characterise the farms of the “handicraftsmen”
there are given here, firstly, data on the average number of horses owned
by the industrialists of each grade. By combining the 19 industries for
which such data are available we get an all-round average per
industrialist (master or petty master) of 1.4 horses, and for the grades:
I) 1.1; II) 1.5 and III) 2.0. Thus the higher the proprietor’s
position in respect to the size of his industrial establishment, the
higher his position as an agriculturist. The biggest industrialists have
almost twice as many draught animals as the small ones. But with regard to
their farms even the smallest industrialists (grade I) are above the
middle peasantry, for the general average for Moscow Gubernia in 1877 was
0.87 horses per peasant household. [1]

Thus it is only the relatively prosperous peasants who become master and petty-master industrialists. The
poor peasants, on the other hand, do not, in the main, provide master
industrialists but worker industrialists (wage-workers employed by
“handicraftsmen,” migratory workers, etc.). Unfortunately, for
the overwhelming majority of Moscow industries no data are available on
the farms of the wage-workers engaged in small industries. An exception is
the hat industry (see general data on it in our table, Appendix I). Here
are exceedingly instructive data on the farms of master hat-makers and
worker hat-makers.

Thus, the master industrialists belong to the category of very
“sound” farmers, i.e., are members of the peasant bourgeoisie,
whereas the wage-workers are recruited from the mass of ruined peasants. [2]

Still more important for characterising the relations described are the data on
the methods by which the master industrialists cultivate their land. The
Moscow investigators distinguished three methods of cultivating the soil:
1) by means of the personal labour of the householder; 2) by “hiring,” i.e., by hiring some
neighbour who tills the land of the “distressed” householder
with his own implements. This method of cultivation is characteristic of
the poor peasant who is being steadily ruined. Of opposite significance is
the third method, namely, cultivation with the aid of a
“labourer,” i.e., the hire of agricultural (“land”) labourers by the farmer. These workers are usually
hired for the whole summer; and, particularly in the busy season, the
master usually reinforces them with employees from his workshop. “Thus, the method of cultivating the soil with the aid of
the ’land’ labourer is quite a profitable one” ( Industries of Moscow Gubernia , VI, I, 48). In our table we have
assembled the data on this method of cultivation for 16 industries, in 7
of which there are no masters who hire “land labourers.” In
all these 16 industries the master industrialists who hire rural labourers
constitute 12% of the total, and by grades: I) 4.5%; II) 16.7% and III)
27.3%. The better off the industrialists are, the more often we find rural
entrepreneurs among them. The analysis of the data on the industrial
peasantry consequently reveals the same picture of parallel
differentiation in both industry and agriculture that we observed in
Chapter II on the basis of the data on the agricultural peasantry.

The hiring of “land labourers” by “handicraft” masters is very widespread in all the industrial gubernias. We meet, for
example, with references to the hiring of agricultural labourers by the
rich bast-matting makers of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia. The furriers of the
same gubernia hire agricultural labourers, who usually come from the
purely agricultural surrounding villages. The “village-community
peasants of Kimry Volost engaged in the boot industry find it profitable
to hire for the cultivation of their fields men and women labourers who
come to Kimry in large numbers from Tver Uyezd and neighbouring
. . . localities.” The pottery decorators of Kostroma Gubernia send
their wage-workers, when not occupied at their regular jobs, to work in
the

fields. [3] “The independent masters” (metal-beaters of Vladimir Gubernia)
“keep special field workers”; that is why their fields are well cultivated, although they themselves
“quite often can neither plough nor mow.” [4]

In Moscow Gubernia, the hiring of “land labourers” is resorted to by many
industrialists apart from those about whom data are given in our table;
for example, pin-makers, felt-makers and toy-makers send their workers to
jobs in the fields too; the glass-bead-makers, metal-beaters, button
makers, cap-makers and harness-makers employ agricultural labourers, etc. [5]

The significance of this fact—the hiring of agricultural
workers by peasant industrialists —is very great. It shows
that even in the small peasant industries the phenomenon characteristic of
all capitalist countries is beginning to be manifested, and that goes to
confirm the progressive historical role of capitalism, namely, a rise in
the standard of living of the population, an increase in its
requirements. The industrialist is beginning to look down upon the
“raw” agriculturist with his coarse patriarchal manners and is
trying to rid himself of the hardest and worst-paid agricultural jobs. In
the small industries, in which capitalism is least developed, this is to
be observed very slightly as yet; the industrial worker is only just
beginning to be differentiated from the agricultural worker. In the
succeeding stages of development of capitalist industry this phenomenon,
as we shall see, is to be observed on a mass scale.

The importance of the “tie between agriculture and industry”
compels us to review in greater detail the data relating to other
gubernias besides Moscow.

Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia. Among the mass of bast-matting makers
agriculture is on the decline, and they are neglecting the land; about 1/3
of the winter-crop area and 1/2 of the spring-crop area are
“wasteland.” For the “well to-do muzhiks,” however, “the land is no longer a wicked stepmother, but a mother
bountiful”: they have enough animals, they have manure, they rent
land, they try to keep their strips out of the periodical redistribution
and tend them better. “Now the wealthy muzhik has become a landlord
while the other muzhik, the poor one, is in serf dependence name=fnp> upon him” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III,
65). The furriers “are bad farmers,” but here too we must
single out the bigger proprietors who “rent land from their poor
fellow-villagers,” etc. The following is a summary of typical
budgets of furriers of different groups:

The parallel process of differentiation of the agriculturists and
industrialists stands out here in bold relief. Concerning the blacksmiths,
the investigator says that “industry is more important than
agriculture” for the rich masters, on the one hand, and for the
“landless” labourers, on the other ( ibid ., IV, 168).

In Industries of Vladimir Gubernia the question of the relation
between industry and agriculture is dealt with much more thoroughly than
in any other work of investigation. For a whole number of industries
precise data are given on the farms, not only of “handicraftsmen” in general (such “average”
figures, as is clear from all the aforesaid, are quite fictitious), but of
the various grades and groups of “handicraftsmen,” such as:
big masters, small masters, wage-workers; workroom owners and weavers; master industrialists and the rest of the
peasantry; households engaged in local and in outside industries, etc. The
general conclusion drawn by Mr. Kharizomenov from these data is that if
the “handicraftsmen” are divided into three categories,
viz.—1) big industrialists; 2) small and medium industrialists; 3)
wage-workers, there is to be observed a deterioration of agriculture as from the first category to the third, a diminution in
the amount of land and animals, an increase in the proportion of
“distressed” farms, etc. [8]

Unfortunately, Mr. Kharizomenov examined these data too restrictedly and one-sidedly, and paid no attention to the
parallel and independent process of the differentiation of the peasant
agriculturists. That is why he failed to draw from these data the
conclusion that inevitably follows from them, namely, that the peasantry
both in agriculture and in industry are splitting up into a petty
bourgeoisie and a rural proletariat. [9]

That is why, in describing the different industries, he quite often sinks to the traditional Narodnik arguments
about the influence of “industry” in general over “agriculture” in general (see, for example, Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , II, 288; III,
91), i.e., to the ignoring of the profound contradictions in the very
system of both industry and agriculture, the existence of which he himself was obliged to admit. Another investigator of the
industries of Vladimir Gubernia, Mr. V. Prugavin, is a typical spokesman
of the Narodnik views on this subject. Here is a sample of his
reasoning. The cotton-weaving industry in Pokrov Uyezd “cannot be
regarded at all as a harmful factor ( sic !!) in the agricultural
life of the weavers” (IV, 53). The data testify to the poor farms of
the mass of weavers, and to the fact that among the workroom owners,
farming is conducted at a level far above the general ( ibid .);
from the tables it is evident that some workroom owners hire agricultural
labourers too. Conclusion: “industry and agriculture march hand in
hand, conditioning each other’s development and prosperity”
(60). A fine specimen of the phrases used to obscure the fact that the
development and prosperity of the peasant bourgeoisie go hand in hand both
in industry and in agriculture. [10]

The data of the Perm handicraft census of 1894-95 revealed the same thing:
it is among the small commodity-producers (masters and petty masters) that
the level of agriculture is highest and rural labourers are met with;
among the artisans agriculture is on a lower level, while among the
craftsmen who work for buyers-up the condition of agriculture is worst (as
to the agriculture of the wage-workers and of various groups of masters,
no data, unfortunate]y, have been gathered). The census also revealed that
the “handicraftsmen” who do not engage in agriculture differ
from those who do in that 1) their labour productivity is higher, 2) their
net incomes from industry are incomparably higher, and 3) their level of
culture and literacy is higher. All these are evidences which confirm the
conclusion drawn above, namely, that even the initial stage of capitalism manifests the tendency
of industry to raise the population’s standard of living (see
Studies , p. 138 and foll.). [11]

Lastly, the following point is connected with the question of the relation
of industry to agriculture. The larger establishments usually have a
longer working period. For example, in the furniture industry of Moscow
Gubernia, the working period of those working in plain wood equals 8
months (the average workshop staff here is 1.9 workers); for the bent-wood
establishments it is 10 months (2.9 workers per establishment), and in the
heavy-furniture trade it is 11 months (4.2 workers per establishment). In
the shoe industry of Vladimir Gubernia the working period in 14 small
workshops equals 40 weeks, and that in 8 large ones (9.5 workers per
establishment, as against 2.4 in the small workshops) 48 weeks, etc. [12]

Naturally, this fact is connected with the large number of workers (family, hired
industrial and hired agricultural) in the big establishments and explains
the great stability of these establishments and their tendency to
specialise in industrial activities.

Let us now sum up the data given above on “industry and
agriculture.” It is usual at the lower stage of capitalism which we
are reviewing for the industrialist still to be scarcely differentiated
from the peasant. The combination of industry with agriculture plays an
extremely important part in aggravating and accentuating the
differentiation of the peasantry: the prosperous and the well-off peasants
open workshops, hire workers from among the rural proletariat, and
accumulate money for commercial and usurious transactions. The peasant
poor, on the other hand, provide the wage-workers, the handicraftsmen who
work for buyers-up, and the bottom groups of petty-master handicraftsmen,
those most crushed by the power of merchant’s capital. Thus, the
combination of industry with agriculture consolidates and develops capitalist relations, spreading them from industry to
agriculture and vice versa. [13]

That characteristic feature of capitalist society, the separation of industry from agriculture, manifests itself at
this stage in the most rudimentary form, but it does manifest itself
and—what is particularly important—in a way totally different
from what the Narodniks imagine. When the Narodnik says that industry does
no “damage” to agriculture, he discerns damage in the abandonment of agriculture for profitable industry. But such a notion is
an invention (and not a deduction from the facts), and a bad invention at
that, for it ignores the contradictions which permeate the entire economic
system of the peasantry. The separation of industry from agriculture takes
place in connection with the differentiation of the peasantry, and does so
by different paths at the two poles of the countryside: the well-to-do
minority open industrial establishments, enlarge them, improve their
farming methods, hire farm labourers to till the land, devote an
increasing part of the year to industry, and—at a certain stage of
the development of the industry—find it more convenient to separate
their industrial from their agricultural undertakings, i.e., to hand over
the farm to other members of the family, or to sell farm buildings,
animals, etc., and adopt the status of burghers, of merchants. [14]

The separation of industry from agriculture is preceded in this case by the formation of
entrepreneur relations in agriculture. At the other pole of the
countryside the separation of industry from agriculture consists in the
fact that the poor peasants are being ruined and turned into wage-workers
(industrial and agricultural). At this pole of the countryside it is not the profitableness of industry, but need and ruin, that compels
the peasant to abandon the land, and not only the land but also
independent industrial labour; here the process of the separation of
industry from agriculture is one of the expropriation of the small
producer.

---
Notes:
[1]
See Combined Statistical Material on the Economic Position of the Rural Population , published by the Committee of Ministers, Appendix
I: Data of Zemstvo house-to-house investigations, pp. 372-373.— Lenin

[2]
It is characteristic that the author of the description of the hat
industry “did not observe” even here the differentiation of
the peasantry both in agriculture and in industry. Like all Narodniks, he
limited himself in his conclusions to the absolutely vapid banality that
“industry does not prevent one from engaging in agriculture”
( Industries of Moscow Gubernia , VI, I, p. 231) The social and
economic contradictions both in the system of industry and in the system
of agriculture were thus safely passed over.— Lenin

[3]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, 57, 112; VIII,
1354; IX, 1931, 2093, 2185.— Lenin

[4]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III, 187, 190.— Lenin

[5]
Industries of Moscow Gubernia , loc . cit .— Lenin

[6]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, 38, and
foll. The figures are approximate and have been arrived at on the
author’s estimate as to how long the family’s own grain
suffices.— Lenin

[7]
"*" DUPLICATE (see above footnote).

[8]
See Yuridichesky Vestnik [ The Legal Messenger ], 1883,
Vol. XIV, Nos. 11 and 12.— Lenin

[9]
How near Mr. Kharizomonov was to drawing such a conclusion may be seen
from the following description of post-Reform economic development which
he gives in speaking of the silk trade: “Serfdom evened out the
economic level of the peasantry: it tied the hands of the rich peasant,
sustained the poor peasant and prevented the family division of
property. Natural economy narrowed too much the arena for commercial and
industrial activity. The local market did not provide sufficiently wide
scope for enterprise. The peasant merchant or industrialist accumulated
money—without risk, it is true, but very slowly—accumulated it
and put it away in his chest. Beginning with the 60s conditions
change. Serfdom comes to an and, credit and the railways, by creating an
extensive and distant market, provide scope for the enterprising peasant
merchant and industrialist. All those who have been above the average
economic level quickly get on their feet, develop trade and industry and
extend their exploiting activities quantitatively and qualitatively. All
those who have been below that level fall, sink, drop into the ranks of
the landless, the non-farming, the horseless. The peasantry split up into
the groups of kulaks, semi-prosperous peasants and farmless
proletariat. The kulak element of the peasantry rapidly copy all the
habits of a cultured milieu;name=p374> they live in grand style, and from
them a huge class is formed of the semi-cultured sections of Russian
society” (III, 20, 21). [15] — Lenin

[10]
Mr. V. V. confines himself to the same sort of phrases in dealing with
this subject in Chapter VIII of his Essays on Handicraft Industry . “Farming . . . is sustained by industry”
(205). “Handicraft industries are one of the most reliable mainstays
of agriculture in the industrial gubernias” (219). Proof? Any
amount: take, for example, the master tanners, starch-makers,
oil-millers ( ibid ., 224), etc, and you will find that their
farming is on a higher level than that of the masses!— Lenin

[11]
See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia .— Ed .

[12]
Sources are indicated above. The same thing is revealed by the household
censuses of the basket-makers, guitar-makers and starch-makers in Moscow
Gubernia. The Perm handicraft census also mentions the longer working
period of the large workshops (see Sketch of Handicraft Industry in Perm Gubernia , p. 78. No precise data, unfortunately, are given).— Lenin

[13]
For instance, in the woollen trade of Vladimir Gubernia the big
“factory owners” and subcontractors are distinguished by the
fact of their farming being on the highest level. “During periods of
stagnation in production the subcontractors try to buy estates, to engage
in farming, and to give up industry altogether” ( Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , II, 131). This instance is worth noting, since
facts of this kind sometimes lead the Narodniks to conclude that
“the peasants are going back to agriculture,” that the “exiles from the soil must be restored to the land”
(Mr. V. V. in Vestnik Yevropy , No. 7, 1884).— Lenin

[14]
“The peasants explained that latterly some of the prosperous master
industrialists had moved to Moscow to carry on their business.”
The Brush Industry According to the Investigation of 1895 , p. 5.— Lenin

[15]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. III, an investigation by
S. Kharizomenov, Moscow, 1882, pp. 20-21. [p. 374]

| | VI. Merchant’s Capital in the Small Industries | | | VIII. “The Combination Of Industry With Agriculture” | |

# " The Combination of Industry with Agriculture"

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8v/v8viii.htm

Chapter V. The First Stages of Capitalism in Industry

VIII. “The Combination Of Industry With
Agriculture”

Such is the favourite Narodnik formula with the aid of which
Messrs. V. V., N.-on and Co. hope to solve the problem of capitalism in
Russia. “Capitalism” separates industry from agriculture;
“people’s production” combines them in the typical and normal peasant farm—in this ingenuous contra-position lies a good
part of their theory. We are now in a position to sum up as regards the
question of how in reality our peasantry “combine industry with
agriculture,” since a detailed examination has been made above of
the typical relations existing among the agricultural and among the
industrial peasantry. Let us enumerate the diverse forms of the
“combination of industry with agriculture” to be observed in
the economics of Russian peasant farming.

1) Patriarchal (natural) agriculture is combined with domestic industries
(i.e., with the working up of raw materials for home consumption) and with
corvée service for the landowner.

This form of combining peasant “industries” with agriculture
is most typical of the medieval economic regime, of which it is an
essential component. [1]

In post-Reform Russia all that is left of such patriarchal economy—in which there is as yet absolutely no
capitalism, commodity production, or commodity circulation—is
vestiges in the shape of the domestic industries of the peasants and
labour-service.

2) Patriarchal agriculture is combined with industry in the form of
artisan production.

This form of combination is still very close to the preceding one,
differing from it only in that here commodity circulation manifests
itself—when the artisan is paid in money and appears on the market
to purchase tools, raw materials, etc.

3) Patriarchal agriculture is combined with the small-scale production of
industrial products for the market, i.e., with commodity production in
industry. The patriarchal peasant is transformed into a small
commodity-producer, who, as we have shown, tends to the employment of
wage-labour, i.e., to capitalist production. A condition for this
transformation is now a certain degree of differentiation among the
peasantry: we have seen that the small masters and petty masters in
industry belong, in the majority of cases, to the prosperous or to the
well-off group of peasants. In its turn, the development of small
commodity production in industry gives a further impetus to the
differentiation of the peasant agriculturists.

4) Patriarchal agriculture is combined with work for hire in industry (and
also in

agriculture). [2]

This form is a necessary addition to the preceding one: there it is the
product that becomes a commodity, here it is labour-power. Small-scale
commodity production in industry is necessarily accompanied, as we have
seen, by the appearance of wage-workers and of handicraftsmen who work for
buyers-up. This form of the “combination of agriculture with
industry” is characteristic of all capitalist countries, and one of the most striking features of the post-Reform history of Russia
is the extremely rapid and extremely wide incidence of this form.

5) Petty-bourgeois (commercial) agriculture is combined with
petty-bourgeois industries (small commodity production in industry, petty
trade, etc.).

The difference between this form and the third is that here
petty-bourgeois relations embrace not only industry but also
agriculture. Being the most typical form of the combination of industry
with agriculture in the economy of the small rural bourgeoisie, this form
is therefore characteristic of all capitalist countries. The honour of
discovering a capitalism without a petty bourgeoisie fell to the
Russian Narodnik economists alone.

6) Wage-labour in agriculture is combined with wage-labour in industry. We
have already discussed how such a combination of industry and
agriculture manifests itself and what it signifies.

Thus, the forms of the “combination of agriculture with
industry” among our peasantry are extremely varied: there are those
which express the most primitive economic system with the dominance of
natural economy; there are those which express a high development of
capitalism; there are a whole number of transitional stages between the
former and the latter. By confining oneself to general formulas such as:
the “combination of industry with agriculture,” or the “separation of industry from agriculture”), one can not
advance a single step in explaining the actual process of development of
capitalism.

---
Notes:
[1]
Korsak, in Chapter IV of the book mentioned above, cites historical
evidence of the following nature, for example: “the abbot gave out
(in the village) flax for spinning”; the peasants were bound to
yield to the landowner “work or wares,”— Lenin

[2]
As has been shown above, such confusion of terminology prevails in our
economic literature and economic statistics that the category
peasants’ “industries” is used to cover domestic industry, labour-service, handicrafts, small commodity production,
trading, work for hire in industry, work for hire in agriculture,
etc. Here is an example of how the Narodniks take advantage of this
confusion. Mr. V. V., singing the praises of the “combination of
industry with agriculture,” points, in illustration, to the
“timber industry” and “unskilled labour”:
“He (the peasant) is strong and accustomed to hard work; that is why
he can do all kinds of unskilled labour” ( Essays on Handicraft Industry , 26). And this sort of fact figures among a heap of others
to back the conclusion that: “We observe a protest against the
splitting-up of occupations,” “the durability of the organisation of production that arose when natural economy still
predominated” (41). Thus, even the conversion of the peasant into a
lumberworker and unskilled labourer was passed off, among other things, as
evidence of the durability of natural economy!— Lenin

| | VII. “Industry And Agriculture” | | | IX. Some Remarks on the Pre-Capitalist Economy of Our Countryside | |

# Some Remarks on the Pre-Capitalist Economy of Our Countryside

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8v/v8ix.htm

Chapter V. The First Stages of Capitalism in Industry

IX. Some Remarks on the Pre-Capitalist Economy of
Our Countryside

The essence of the problem of “the destiny of capitalism in
Russia” is often presented as though prime importance attaches to
the question: how fast ? (i.e., how fast is capitalism developing?). Actually, however, far greater importance attaches to the
question: how exactly ? and to the question: where from ? (i.e., what was the nature of the pre-capitalist economic system in
Russia?). The principal errors of Narodnik economics are the false replies given to
precisely these two questions, i.e., in a wrong presentation of exactly
how capitalism is developing in Russia, in a false idealisation of the
pre-capitalist order. In Chapter II (and partly in Chapter III) and in the
present one we have examined the most primitive stages of capitalism in
small-scale agriculture and in the small peasant industries; in doing so
we could not avoid many references to the features of the pre-capitalist
order. If we now try to summarise these features we shall arrive at the
conclusion that the pre-capitalist countryside constituted (from the
economic point of view) a network of small local markets which linked up tiny groups of small producers , severed from each other by their separate farms , by the innumerable medieval barriers between them, and by the remnants of medieval dependence .

As to the scattered nature of the small producers, it stands out in
boldest relief in their differentiation both in agriculture and in
industry, which we established above. But their fragmentation is far from
being confined to this. Although united by the village community into tiny
administrative, fiscal and land-holding associations, the peasants are
split up by a mass of diverse divisions into grades, into categories
according to size of allotment, amount of payments, etc. Let us take, for
example, the Zemstvo statistical returns for Saratov Gubernia; there the
peasants are divided into the following grades: gift-land, owner, full
owner and state peasants, state peasants with community holdings, state
peasants with quarter holdings, [1] state peasants that formerly belonged to
landlords, appanage, state-land tenant, and landless peasants, owners who
were formerly landlords’ peasants, peasants whose farmsteads have
been redeemed, owners who are former appanage peasants, colonist
freeholder, settler, gift-land peasants who formerly belonged to
landlords, owners who were former state peasants, manumitted, those who did not pay quitrent, free tiller, [2]
temporarily bound, former factory-bound, etc.; further, there are
registered peasants, migrant, etc. All these grades differ in the history
of their agrarian relations, in size of allotments, amount of payments,
etc., etc. And within the grades there are innumerable differences of a similar kind: sometimes even the peasants of one and the same village
are divided into two quite distinct categories: “Mr. X’s
former peasants” and “Mrs. Y’s former peasants.”
All this diversity was natural and necessary in the Middle Ages, in the
remote past; at the present time, however, the preservation of the
social-estate exclusiveness of the peasant communities is a crying
anachronism and greatly worsens the conditions of the toiling masses,
while at the same time not in the least safeguarding them against the
burdens of the new, capitalist era. The Narodniks usually shut their eyes
to this fragmentation, and when the Marxists express the view that the
splitting up of the peasantry is progressive, the Narodniks confine
themselves to hackneyed outcries against “supporters of land
dispossession,” thereby covering up the utter fallacy of their views
about the pre-capitalist countryside. One has only to picture to oneself
the amazing fragmentation of the small producers, an inevitable
consequence of patriarchal agriculture, to become convinced of the
progressiveness of capitalism, which is shattering to the very foundations
the ancient forms of economy and life, with their age-old immobility and
routine, destroying the settled life of the peasants who vegetated behind
their medieval partitions, and creating new social classes striving of
necessity towards contact, unification, and active participation in the
whole of the economic (and not only economic) life of the country, and of
the whole world.

If we take the peasants who are handicraftsmen or small industrialists we
shall find the same thing. Their interests do not transcend the bounds of
the small area of surrounding villages. Owing to the insignificant area
covered by the local market they do not come into contact with the
industrialists of other districts; they are in mortal terror of
“competition,” which ruthlessly destroys the patriarchal
paradise of the small handicraftsmen and industrialists, who live lives of
stagnant routine undisturbed by anybody or anything. With respect to these
small industrialists, competition and capitalism perform a useful
historical function by dragging them out of their backwoods and
confronting them with all the issues that already face the more developed
strata of the population.

A necessary attribute of the small local markets is, apart from primitive
forms of artisan production, primitive forms of merchant’s and usury
capital. The more remote a village is, the further away it is from the
influence of the new capitalist order, from railways, big factories and
large-scale capitalist agriculture, the greater the monopoly of the local
merchants and usurers, the more they subjugate the surrounding peasantry,
and the cruder the forms of this subjugation. The number of these small
leeches is enormous (when compared with the meagre produce of the
peasants), and there is a rich variety of local names to designate
them. Recall all these “prasols,” “shibais,” “shchetinniks,” “mayaks,” “ivashes,”
“bulinyas,” etc., etc. The predominance of natural economy,
which accounts for the scarcity and dearness of money in the countryside,
results in the assumption of an importance by all these
“kulaks” out of all proportion to the size of their capital. The dependence of the peasants on the money owners inevitably
acquires the form of bondage. Just as one cannot conceive of developed
capitalism without large-scale merchant’s capital in the form of
commodities or money so the pre-capitalist village is inconceivable
without small traders and buyers-up, who are the “masters” of
the small local markets. Capitalism draws these markets together, combines
them into a big national market, and then into a world market, destroys
the primitive forms of bondage and personal dependence, develops in depth
and in breadth the contradictions which in a rudimentary form are also to
be observed among the community peasantry—and thus paves the way for
their resolution.

---
Notes:
[1]
State peasants with quarter holdings – the name given in tsarist
Russia to the category of former state peasants, descendants of lower-rank
servicemen who in the 16th to 17th centuries were settled in the border
lands of the state of Muscovy. For their services in guarding the state
frontiers the settlers (Cossacks musketeers, soldiers) were given the use
of small plots of land either temporarily or in perpetuity. The area of
such a plot amounted to a so-called quarter [1.35 acres]. From
the year 1719 such settlers were called odnodvortsi [i.e., those
possessing only their own farmsteads and no community land]. Formerly they
enjoyed various kinds of privileges and had the right to own peasants, but
during the 19th century were gradually deprived of these rights and
reduced to the status of ordinary peasants. By a regulation of 1866 the
quarter lots were recognised as the private property of the former
quarter-lot peasants and their descendants. [p.381]

[2]
Free tillers – the category of peasants freed from serf
dependence by the law of February 20, 1803. This law permitted landlords
themselves to decide the terms on which they freed the peasants from the
land. [p.381]

| | VIII. “The Combination Of Industry With Agriculture” | | | | |

# The Rise of Manufacture and Its Main Features

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vi/vi8i.htm

Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry

### I. The Rise of Manufacture and its Main Features

By manufacture is meant, as we know, co-operation based on division of
labour. In origin, manufacture belongs directly to the above-described
“first stages of capitalism in industry.” On the one hand,
workshops with a more or less considerable number of workers gradually
introduce division of labour, and in this way capitalist simple
co-operation grows into capitalist manufacture. The statistics on the
Moscow industries quoted in the preceding chapter clearly show the process
of this genesis of manufacture: the larger workshops in all fourth
category industries, in some of the third category, and in individual
cases of the second category, systematically apply division of labour on a
wide scale and must therefore be classed as types of capitalist
manufacture. More detailed data on the technique and the economics of some
of these industries will be given below.

On the other hand, we have seen how merchant’s capital in the small
industries, upon reaching its highest stage of development, reduces the
producer to the position of a wage-worker processing the raw material of
others for payment by the piece. If further development leads to the
introduction of systematic division of labour into production and transforms the technique of the small producer, if the
“buyer-up” singles out certain detailed operations and gets
them done by wage-workers in his own workshop, if, parallel with the
distribution of work to be done in the home, and inseparably connected
with it, big workshops with division of labour emerge (belonging very
often to these same buyers-up), we are confronted with a process of the
genesis of capitalist manufacture of another kind. [1]

Manufacture is highly important in the development of capitalist forms of
industry, as the link between handicrafts and small commodity production
with primitive forms of capital, and large-scale machine industry (the
factory). Manufacture is closer to the small industries because it
continues to be based on hand technique, so that the big establishments
cannot, therefore, fully displace the small ones, cannot completely
divorce the industrialist from agriculture. “Manufacture was unable,
either to seize upon the production of society to its full extent, or to
revolutionise that production to its very core ( in ihrer Tiefe ). It towered up as an economic work of art, on the broad foundation
of the town handicrafts, and of the rural domestic industries.” [2]

What brings manufacture closer to the factory is the rise of the big market, of big
establishments with wage-workers, of big capital, which has brought masses
of propertyless workers under its complete domination.

In Russian literature the prejudice regarding the isolation of so-called
“factory” production from “handicraft” production, regarding the “artificiality” of the former and
the “people’s” character of the latter, is so widespread
that we think it particularly important to examine the data on all the
more important branches of manufacturing industry and to show their
economic organisation after they had grown out of the stage of small
peasant industries, and before they were transformed by large-scale
machine industry.

---
Notes:
[1]
For a description of this process of the genesis of capitalist
manufacture, see Marx’s Das Kapital , III, 318-320. Russ
trans.,

267–270. [3] “It was not even in the bosom of the old guilds that manufacture was
born. It was the merchant that became the head of the modern workshop, and
not the old guild-master.” ( Misère de la philosophie ,

190. [4] We have had
occasion elsewhere to enumerate the principal features of the concept
manufacture according to Marx. [ Studies , 179 (See present
edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .)]— Lenin

[2]
Das Kapital , I 2 ,

S. 383. [5] — Lenin

[3]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 329-331. [p.385]

[4]
See Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy , Moscow, p. 154.
[p.385]

[5]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 368. [p.385]

| | | | | II. Capitalist Manufacture in Russian Industry | |

# Capitalist Manufacture in Russian Industry

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vi/vi8ii.htm

Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry

II. Capitalist Manufacture in Russian Industry

Let us begin with the industries that process fibres.

1) The Weaving Industries

The weaving of linen, wool, cotton and silk fabrics, galloons, etc., was
organised everywhere in Russia as follows (before the appearance of
large-scale machine industry). The industry was headed by big capitalist
workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers; the owners of these
workshops, possessing sizable capital, undertook the large-scale purchase
of raw material, partly working it up in their own establishments, and partly giving out yarn and warp to small producers
(workroom owners, middlemen, [88] , peasant-“handicraftsmen” etc.) who wove the cloth at home or
in small workshops at piece rates. The work itself was done by hand, and
the following operations were distributed among the workers: 1)
yarn-dyeing; 2) yarn-winding (very often women and children specialised in
this operation); 3) yarn-fixing (“fixers”); 4) weaving; 5)
weft-winding for weavers (bobbin hands, mostly children). Sometimes in the
big workshops there were special “threaders” (who threaded the
warp through the eyes of the batten and reed.) [1] of labour
is usually applied, not only to single operations, but to wares, that is,
the

weavers specialise in producing various sorts of cloth. The selection of
some operations to be done in the home does not, of course, make any
change whatever to the economic structure of this type of industry. The
workrooms or homes where the weavers work are simply external departments
of the manufactory. The technical basis of such industry is hand
production with extensive and systematic division of labour; from the
economic point of view we see here the formation of large capital which
controls the purchase of raw materials and the sale of wares on an
extremely extensive (national) market, and under whose complete sway are a
mass of proletarian weavers; a few large establishments (manufactories in
the narrow sense of the term) dominate a mass of small ones. Division of
labour leads to the emergence of specialist artisans from among the
peasantry; non-agricultural centres of manufacture arise, such as the
village of Ivanovo in Vladimir Gubernia (in 1871 it became the town of
Ivanovo-Voznesensk and is now a centre of large-scale machine industry),
the village of Velikoye in Yaroslavl Gubernia, and many other villages in
Moscow, Kostroma, Vladimir and Yaroslavl gubernias, which have now turned
into factory towns. [2]

In our economic literature and statistics the industry organised in this way is
usually split up into two parts: peasants who work in their homes, or in
not particularly big workrooms, workshops, etc., are classed under
“handicraft” industry, while the bigger workrooms and workshops are placed among the “factories and works” (and,
moreover, quite fortuitously, since no definitely established and
uniformly applied rules exist as to the separation of small establishments
from big ones, of workrooms from manufactories, of workers occupied in
their homes from workers occupied in the workshop of the capitalist). [3]

Naturally, such classification, which places some wage-workers on one
side, and some masters who hire these very wage-workers (in addition to
the workers in their establishments) on the other, is nonsense from the
scientific viewpoint.

Let us illustrate this by detailed data regarding one of the
“handicraft weaving” industries, namely, silk weaving in
Vladimir

Gubernia. [4]

The “silk industry” is a typical specimen of capitalist
manufacture. Hand labour prevails. Of the total number of establishments
the small ones constitute the majority (179 out of 313, or 57% of the
total, have from 1 to 5 workers), but in greater part they are not
independent and are far behind the big ones in their significance to the
industry as a whole. Establishments with 20 to 150 workers constitute 8%
of the total (25), but in them 41.5% of the aggregate number of workers
are concentrated, and they account for 51% of the total output. Of the
total number of workers in the industry (2,823) there are 2,092
wage-workers, i.e., 74.1%. “On the job we meet with division of
labour both in wares and in individual operations.” Weavers are
rarely able to make both “velvet” and “satin” (the two principal lines in this trade). “The division of labour into
separate operations within the workshop is most strictly practised only in
the big factories” (i.e., manufactories) “that employ wage-workers.” The fully independent proprietors number only 123,
who alone buy the raw materials themselves and sell the finished article;
they have 242 family workers and “employ 2,498 wage-workers, who in
greater part are paid by the piece,” a total, consequently, of 2,740
workers, or 97% of the aggregate number of workers. It is thus clear that
the distribution by these manufactory owners, through the medium of
“middle-men” (workroom owners), of work to be done in the home
is no special form of industry at all, but is merely one of the operations
of capital in manufacture. Mr. Kharizomenov rightly observes that the
“mass of small establishments (57%) alongside the small number of
big ones (8%), and the insignificant number of workers employed per establishment (7 1/2) conceal the true character of the trade”
( loc . cit ., 39). The specialisation characteristic of
manufacture is seen here clearly in the separation of the industrialists
from agriculture (the land is abandoned, on the one hand by the
impoverished weavers, and on the other by the big manufactory owners) and
in the formation of a special type of industrial population, who live much
more “decently” than do the agriculturists, and look down upon
the muzhik ( loc . cit ., 106). Our factory statistics have
always registered only a very casually selected fraction of this industry. [5]

The “galloon industry” in Moscow Gubernia is capitalist
manufacture organised in a quite analogous fashion. [6]

Such precisely is the case with regard to the printed calico industry in
Kamyshin Uyezd, Saratov Gubernia. According to the Directory for
1890, there were here 31 “factories” with 4,250 workers and
output totalling 265,000 rubles, while according to the List
there was one “work distributing office” with 33 workers in
the establishment and an output totalling 47,000 rubles. (In other words,
in 1890 workers employed in the establishment and on the side were lumped
together!) According to local investigators, in 1888 nearly 7,000 looms
were engaged in producing printed calico, [7] an output
totalling 2 million rubles, and “the whole business is run by a few manufacturers,” who employ
“handicraftsmen” too, including children of 6 and 7 years of
age for a payment of 7 to 8 kopeks per day ( Reports and Investigations , Vol. I). [8]

And so forth.

2) Other Branches of the Textile Industry. The Felt Trade.

To judge by official factory statistics, felt production shows a very poor
development of “capitalism”: in all European Russia there are
altogether 55 factories, with 1,212 workers and an output totalling
454,000 rubles ( Directory for 1890). But these figures merely
show a casually picked fragment of a widely developed capitalist
industry. Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia occupies first place for the
development of “factory” felt production, and in that gubernia
the principal centre of the industry is the town of Arzamas and the suburb
Viyezdnaya Sloboda (where there are 8 “factories” with 278
workers and an output totalling 120,000 rubles; in 1897 there were 3,221
inhabitants; and in the village of Krasnoye, 2,835). It is in the environs
of these centres that “handicraft” felt-making is developed,
in some 243 establishments, employing 935 workers, with an output
totalling 103,847 rubles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V). To illustrate clearly the economic organisation of
felt-making in this district, let us try the graphic method and indicate
by specific symbols the producers who occupy special places in the general
structure of the industry.

It is clear, therefore, that the separation of “factory” and
“handicraft” industry is purely artificial, that what we have
before us is a single and integral structure of industry which fully fits
into the concept of capitalist (approximately) [9] manufacture. [10]

From the technical aspect it is hand production. The organisation of the
work is that of co-operation based on division of labour, which is here
observed in two forms: as to wares (some villages specialise in plain
felt, others in boots, hats, socks, etc.), and as to individual operations (for example,
the whole village of Vasilyev Vrag shapes hats and socks for the
village of Krasnoye, where the semi-prepared article is finished,
etc.). This is capitalist co-operation, for it is headed by big capital,
which has created large manufactories and has brought under its sway (by
an intricate web of economic relations) a mass of small
establishments. The overwhelming majority of the producers have been
transformed into workers performing one operation and producing
for entrepreneurs under extremely insanitary conditions. [11]

The long standing of the industry and the fully established capitalist
relations result in the separation of the industrialists from agriculture:
in the village of Krasnoye agriculture is in utter ruin, and the life of
the inhabitants differs from that of the agricultural population. [12]

Quite analogous is the organisation of the felt industry in a number of
other districts. In 363 village communities of Semyonov Uyezd in the same
gubernia, the industry in 1889 was carried on by 3,180 households, with
4,038 persons working. Of 3,946 workers, only 752 worked for the market,
576 were wage-workers and 2,618 worked for masters on the basis, in
greater part, of using the latter’s materials; 189 households gave
out work to 1,805 households. The big owners have workshops with as many
as 25 wage-workers, and buy wool to a value of some 10,000 rubles per year. [13]

The big owners are called thousanders ; their turnover runs to from 5,000
to 100,000 rubles; they have their own wool warehouses, and their own
booths for the sale of wares. [14]

For
Kazan Gubernia the List gives 5 felt “factories,” with 122 workers and an output totalling 48,000 rubles, as well as 60
outside workers. Evidently the latter are also included among the
“handicraftsmen,” concerning whom we read that they often work
for “buyers-up” and that there are establishments having 60 workers. [15]

Of 29 felt “factories” in Kostroma Gubernia, 28 are concentrated in
Kineshma Uyezd, and have 593 workers employed in the establishments and
458 outside ( List , pp. 68-70; two of the enterprises have only
outside workers. Steam-engines already appear). From the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (XV) we learn that out of a total of
3,908 wool-carders and felt-makers in this gubernia, 2,008 are
concentrated in Kineshma Uyezd. The Kostroma felt-makers are in greater
part dependent or work for wages in extremely insanitary workshops. [16]

In
Kalyazin Uyezd, Tver Gubernia, we find, on the one hand, that home work is
done for “factory owners” ( List , 113), and, on the other, that precisely this uyezd is a centre of “handicraft”
felt-makers; as many as 3,000 of them come from this uyezd, passing
through the wasteland called “Zimnyak” (in the 60s it was the
site of Alexeyev’s cloth mill), and forming “an enormous
labour market of wool-carders and felt-makers.” [17]

In Yaroslavl Gubernia outside work for “factory owners is a]so done” ( List , 115) and there
are “handicraftsmen” who work for merchant proprietors, using
the latter’s wool, etc.

3) The Hat-and-Cap and Hemp-and-Rope Trades

Above we gave statistics for the hat industry of Moscow

Gubernia. [18]

They show that two-thirds of the total output and of the total number of
workers are concentrated in 18 establishments, which have an average of 15.6 wage-workers. [19]

The “handicraft” hat-makers perform only part of the hat-making operations: they make the shapes, which are sold to Moscow
merchants who have their own “finishing establishments”; on
the other hand, “clippers” (women who clip the down) work at
home for the “handicraft” hat-makers. Thus, all in all, we
find here capitalist co-operation based on division of labour and
entangled in a whole network of diverse forms of economic dependence. In
the centre of the industry (the village of Klenovo, Podolsk Uyezd) the
separation of the industrialists (mainly wage-workers) from agriculture [20] is
clearly to be seen, together with a rise in the level of the
population’s requirements: they live “more decently,” dress in calico and even in cloth, buy samovars, abandon ancient customs,
etc., thereby evoking the bitter complaints of the local admirers of old times. [21]

The new era even occasioned the appearance of migratory hat-makers.

A typical example of capitalist manufacture is the cap industry in the
village of Molvitino, Bui Uyezd, Kostroma

Gubernia. [22] “The principal . . . occupation in the village of Molvitino and in
. . . 36 hamlets is the cap industry.” Agriculture is being
abandoned. Since 1861 the industry has greatly developed; sewing-machines
have become widely used. In Molvitino 10 workshops are busy all year round
with 5 to 25 male and 1 to 5 female workers each. “The best workshop
. . . has a turnover of about 100,000 rubles per annum.” [23]

Work is also distributed to homes (for example, materials for the crowns
are made by women in their homes). Division of labour cripples the
workers, who work under the most insanitary conditions and usually
contract tuberculosis. The lengthy existence of the industry (for over 200
years) has produced highly skilled craftsmen; the Molvitino craftsmen are
known in the big cities and in the remote outer regions.

The centre of the hemp industry in the Medyn Uyezd, Kaluga Gubernia, is
the village of Polotnyani Zavod. This is a large village (according to the
census of 1897 it had 3,685 inhabitants) with a population that is
landless and highly industrial (over 1,000 “handicraftsmen”);
it is the centre of the “handicraft” industries of Medyn

Uyezd. [24]

The hemp industry is organised in the following way: the big proprietors (of whom
there are three, the biggest being Yerokhin) have workshops employing
wage-workers and circulating capital of more or less considerable
dimensions for purchasing raw materials. The hemp is combed in the
“factory,” spun by spinners in their homes, and twisted both
in the factory and in the home. It is warped in the factory and woven both
in the factory and in the home. In 1878 a total of 841 “handicraftsmen” was counted in the hemp industry; Yerokhin is
considered to be both a “handicraftsman” and a “factory
owner,” employing 94-64 workers in 1890 and in 1894-1895; according
to Reports and Investigations (Vol. II, p.187), “hundreds
of peasants” work for him.

In Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the rope industry is also centred in
non-agricultural industrial villages, Nizhni Izbylets and Verkhni Izbylets
in the Gorbatov

Uyezd. [25]

According to Mr. Karpov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII), the Gorbatov-Izbylets district is one large
rope-making area; part of the inhabitants of the town of Gorbatov are also
engaged in the industry, and the villages of Verkhni Izbylets and Nizhni
Izbylets are, in fact, “almost part of the town of Gorbatov”;
the inhabitants live like townspeople, drink tea every day, wear clothing
bought in the shops, and eat white bread. Altogether, as many as
two-thirds of the inhabitants of 32 villages are engaged in the industry,
a total of 4,701 working (2,096 men and 2,605 women) with an output of
about 1 1/2 million rubles. The industry has been in existence for nearly 200 years, and is now declining. It is organised as follows:
all work for 29 proprietors, using the latter’s materials, are paid
by the piece, are “totally dependent upon the proprietors” and
work from 14 to 15 hours a day. According to Zemstvo statistics (1889) the
industry employs 1,699 male workers (plus 558 females and males of
non-working age). Of 1,648 working only 197 work for sale, 1,340 work for proprietors [26] and 111 are wage-workers employed in the workshops of 58
proprietors. Of 1,288 allotment households, only 727, or a little over half, cultivate all their land themselves. Of
1,573 allotment-holding working persons, 306, or 19.4%, do not
engage in agriculture at all. Turning to the question as to who
these “proprietors” are, we must pass from the sphere of
“handicraft” industry to that of “factory” industry. According
to the List for 1894-95 there were two rope factories there, with 231 workers employed on the premises and 1,155
working outside, with an output totalling 423,000 rubles. Both
these establishments have installed motors (which they did not
have either in 1879 or in 1890), and we therefore clearly see
here the transition from capitalist manufacture to capitalist
machine industry, and the transformation of “handicraft” work
distributors and buyers-up into real factory owners.

In Perm Gubernia the handicraft census of 1894-95 registered 68 peasant
rope-and-string yards, with 343 workers (of whom 143 were hired) and an
output totalling 115,000 rubles. [27]

These small establishments are headed by big manufactories,
which are reckoned together, viz.: 6 owners employ 101 workers
(91 hired) and have an output totalling 81,000 rubles. [28]

The system of production in these big establishments may serve as the most
striking example of “serial manufacture” (as Marx calls it [89] ), i.e., the
sort of manufacture in which different workers perform different consecutive operations in working up the raw material: 1) hemp
scutching; 2) combing; 3) spinning; 4) coiling; 5) tarring; 6) winding on
drum; 7) passing threads through perforated board; 8) passing threads
through iron bush; 9) stranding of plaits, twisting and gathering of ropes. [29]

The organisation of the hemp industry in Orel Gubernia is evidently
similar: from among the considerable number of small peasant
establishments big manufactories emerge, principally in the towns, and are
included among the “factories and works” (according to the
Directory for 1890 there were in Orel Gubernia 100 hemp-scutching
factories, with 1,671 workers and an output totalling 795,000 rubles). The
peasants work in the hemp industry “for merchants” (probably
for the very same manufacturers), using the latter’s materials, at
piece rates, the work being divided up into special operations:
“scutchers” scutch the hemp; “spinners” spin it; “bearders” trim it, “wheelmen” turn the wheel. The
work is very hard; many contract consumption and “rupture.”
The dust is so thick that “unless accustomed you will not stay in it
for a quarter of an hour.” The work is done in ordinary sheds from
dawn to dusk, from May to

September. [30]

4) The Wood-Working Trades

The most typical example of capitalist manufacture in this sphere is the
chest-making industry. According to the data, for instance, of the Perm
investigators, “this industry is organised as follows: a few big
proprietors, owning workshops that employ wage-workers, purchase
materials, partly make the wares on their own premises, but mainly give
out material to small workshops making parts, and in their own shops
assemble them and, after finishing, send the ready article to
market. Division of labour . . . is employed on the job extensively: the making of the entire chest is divided into ten
or twelve operations, each separately performed by handicraftsmen. The
organisation of the industry consists in the combination of workers
performing one operation ( Teilarbeiter , as they are called in
Das Kapital ) under the command of capital .” [31]

This is heterogeneous manufacture ( heterogene Manufaktur , as Marx calls it [90] ), in which
the different workers do not perform consecutive operations in turning the
raw material into the product, but make the various parts of the product,
which are afterwards assembled. The preference of the capitalists for the
domestic work of “handicraftsmen” is to be explained partly by
the above mentioned character of manufacture, and partly (and mainly) by
the cheaper labour of the home workers. [32]

Let us observe that the relatively big workshops in this industry are sometimes
also included among “factories and works.” [33]

In all probability, the chest-making industry is organised similarly in
Vladimir Gubernia, in Murom Uyezd where, according to the List ,
there are 9 “factories” (all hand-operated), with 89 workers
on the premises and 11 outside, and an output totalling 69,810
rubles.

The carriage industry, in Perm Gubernia, for example, is organised on
similar lines: from among the mass of small establishments there emerge
assembly workshops employing wage-workers; the small handicraftsmen are
workers who make parts of the carriages both out of their own materials,
and out of materials supplied by the “buyers-up” (i.e., owners
of the assembly workshops.) [34]

We
read about the Poltava “handicraft” carriage builders that in
the suburb of Ardon there are workshops that employ wage-workers and also
distribute work to homes (the bigger masters having as many as 20 outside workers). [35]

In
Kazan Gubernia, division of labour as to wares is to be observed in the building of town carriages:
some villages specialise in sleighs, others in wheeled vehicles,
etc. “The town carriages, completely assembled in the villages (but
without the metal work, wheels or shafts), are sent to Kazan merchant
customers, who in turn send them to blacksmiths for the metal work. The
carriages are then sent back again to the shops and workshops in the town,
where they are finished off, i.e., are upholstered and painted. . . . Kazan, where town carriages were formerly iron-mounted,
gradually passed this work on to handicraftsmen, who work at home for a
smaller payment than do the town craftsmen....” [36]

Hence, capital prefers to distribute work to home workers because this reduces the cost of labour-power. The
organisation of the carriage industry, as is evident from the data quoted,
constitutes, in the majority of cases, a system of handicraftsmen making
parts, who are under the sway of capital.

The large industrial village of Vorontsovka, Pavlovsk Uyezd, Voronezh
Gubernia (9,541 inhabitants in 1897), constitutes, as it were, a single
manufactory of wooden articles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., Vol. IX, article by Rev. M. Popov). Over 800 houses
are engaged in the industry (as well as some households in the suburb of
Alexandrovka, which has over 5,000 inhabitants). They make carts,
tarantasses, wheels, chests, etc., to a total of about 267,000
rubles. Less than one-third are independent masters; hired workers in
masters’ workshops are rare. [37]

The majority work to order for peasant merchants at piece rates. The workers
are in debt to the proprietors and are worn out by arduous toil: the
people are growing feebler. The inhabitants of the suburb are industrial,
not of the rural type, and scarcely engage in agriculture at all (except
to work vegetable plots), since their allotments are miserably small. The
industry has been long in existence, diverting the population from agriculture and increasingly widening the
rift between the rich and the poor. The people subsist on meagre food;
they dress “more smartly than before,” “but beyond their
means,” in clothing that is entirely bought. “The population
has succumbed to the spirit of industry and trade.” “Nearly
all who have no craft carry on some trading. . . . Under the influence of
industry and trade, the peasant has, generally speaking, become more
unreserved, and this has made him more developed and resourceful.” [38]

The celebrated wooden-spoon industry of the Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, is close to capitalist manufacture in its
organisation. True, there are no big workshops standing out from among the
mass of small workshops and dominating them, but we find a deeply-rooted
division of labour and the complete subjection of the mass of part-job
workers to capital. Before it is ready, the spoon passes through no less
than 10 hands, the buyers-up getting some of the operations done by
specially hired workers or giving them out to specialist workers (for
example, for varnishing); some of the villages specialise in particular
operations (for example, the village of Dyakovo specialises in spoon
finishing to the order of the buyer-up, at piece rates; the villages of
Khvostikovo, Dianovo and Zhuzhelka specialise in varnishing, etc.). The
buyers-up purchase the timber wholesale in the Samara and other gubernias,
where they send parties of hired workers; they own warehouses for raw
material and manufactured goods, supply the most valuable material to
handicraftsmen for processing, etc. The mass of workers doing part jobs
merge into a single, complex mechanism of production, entirely under the
sway of capital. “It is all the same to the spoon-makers whether
they work for hire at the master’s cost and on his premises, or are
occupied in their own cottages, for in this industry, as in others,
everything has been weighed, measured and counted. The spoon-maker never
earns more than just enough to keep body and soul together.” [39]

It is quite natural that under such conditions the capitalists who dominate the whole trade are in no hurry to open their
own workshops, and the industry, based on hand skill and traditional
division of labour, stagnates in its seclusion and immobility. Tied to the
land, the “handicraftsmen” seem to have become petrified in
their routine: as in 1879, so in 1889, they still count money in the old
style, in banknotes and not in silver.

The toy industry in Moscow Gubernia is headed similarly by establishments
of the capitalist-manufactory type. [40]

Of 481 workshops, 20 have over 10 workers each. Division of labour, both as to
wares and as to individual operations, is practised on a very wide scale,
enormously raising the productivity of labour (at the cost of crippling
the worker). For example, it is estimated that a small workshop yields a
return of 26% of the selling price, and a big workshop, one of

58%. [41]

Of course, the fixed capital of the big proprietors is also much larger; technical
devices are met with (for example, drying sheds). The centre of the
industry is a non-agricultural township, the suburb of Sergiyevsky (where
there are 1,055 workers out of a total of 1,398, with an output to the
amount of 311,000 rubles out of a total of 405,000 rubles; the population,
according to the 1897 census, numbers 15,155). The author of the article
on this industry, referring to the prevalence of small workshops, etc.,
considers it more, but still not very, likely that the industry will
develop into manufacture rather than into factory industry. “In the
future, too,” he says, “the small producers will always be
able to compete more or less successfully with large-scale
production” ( loc . cit ., 93). The author forgets that in manufacture the technical basis is always the same hand-production
that obtains in the small industries; that the division of labour can
never be such a decisive advantage that it will entirely eliminate the small producers,
particularly if the latter resort to such means as lengthening the working
day, etc.; and that manufacture is never in a position to embrace the
whole of production, but remains a mere superstructure over the mass of
small establishments.

5) The Processing of Livestock Produce. [The Leather and Fur Trades]

The most extensive areas of the leather industry present particularly
striking examples of the complete merging of “handicraft” and
factory industry, examples of capitalist manufacture highly developed (in
depth and in breadth). What is characteristic is the fact that the
gubernias which are conspicuous for the size of their “factory” leather industry (Vyatka, Nizhni-Novgorod, Perm and
Tver) are marked by a particular development of “handicraft”
industries in this sphere.

In the village of Bogorodskoye, Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia,
there were, according to the Directory for 1890, 58 “factories” with 392 workers and an output totalling 547,000
rubles; according to the List for 1894-95 there were 119
“works,” with 1,499 workers on the premises and 205 outside,
and with an output totalling 934,000 rubles (the latter figures covering
only the processing of livestock produce, the principal local
industry). But these data deal only with the top levels of
capitalist manufacture. Mr. Karpov in 1879 computed in this village and
its environs over 296 establishments, with 5,669 workers (a large number
of whom worked at home for capitalists), and with an output totalling
about 1,490,000 rubles [42] in the following industries: tanning, shingle-gluing, basket-weaving (for packing
goods), harness-making, horse-collar-making, mitten-making and, standing
by itself, pottery. The Zemstvo census of 1889 listed 4,401 industrialists
for this district, and of 1,842 workers for whom detailed information is
given, 1,119 work for hire in other people’s workshops and 405 work
at home for masters. [43] “Bogorodskoye, with its population of 8,000, is a huge tannery in continuous operation.” [44]

To be more precise, it is a “serial” manufactory controlled by a few big capitalists who buy the raw materials,
tan the hides, and turn them into a variety of articles, hiring several
thousand absolutely propertyless workers for the job and ruling over the
small

establishments. [45]

This industry has had a very long existence, since the 17th century;
particularly memorable in the industry’s history are the Sheremetevs
(beginning of the 19th century), landlords who helped considerably to
develop the industry and, incidentally, protected the proletariat, which
came into existence here long ago, from the local rich. After 1861 the
industry greatly developed, and particularly did big establishments grow
at the expense of the small ones; centuries of industrial activity
produced from among the population remarkably skilled craftsmen who have
carried the trade all over Russia. The firmly-rooted capitalist relations
have led to the separation of industry from agriculture: hardly any
farming is done in Bogorodskoye village itself, which, on the contrary,
divorces neighbouring peasants who move into this “town” from
the

land. [46]

Mr. Karpov notes in this village “a complete absence of peasant
characteristics among the inhabitants,” so that “you would
never think you were in a village and not a town.” This village
leaves Gorbatov and all the other uyezd towns of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia
far behind, with the exception, perhaps, of Arzamas. It is “one of
the considerable commercial and industrial centres in the gubernia, and its industry and
commerce run into the millions.” “The radius of the industrial
and commercial influence of Bogorodskoye is very wide; but most closely
connected with the industry of Bogorodskoye is that of its environs within
a radius of 10 to 12 versts. These industrial environs are, as it were, a
continuation of Bogorodskoye itself.” “The inhabitants of
Bogorodskoye do not in the least resemble the ordinary, raw muzhiks: they
are artisans of the burgher type, shrewd, experienced people, who look
down on the peasants. The manner of life and the ethical standards of the
Bogorodskoye inhabitants are completely urban.” To this we must add
that the industrial villages of Gorbatov Uyezd are marked by a relatively
high level of literacy among the population. Thus, the percentage of
literate and student men and women is, in the villages of Pavlovo,
Bogorodskoye and Vorsma, 37.8% and 20% respectively, as against 21.5% and
4.4% in the rest of the uyezd (see Zemstvo statistical Material ).

Quite analogous (only on a smaller scale) are the relations in the
leather-processing industries of the villages of Katunki and Gorodets
(Balakhna Uyezd), Bolshoye Murashkino (Knyaginin Uyezd), Yurino (Vasil
Uyezd), and Tubanayevka, Spasskoye, Vatras and Latyshikha in the same
uyezd. These are similar non-agricultural centres with a
“ring” of surrounding agricultural villages, and with similar
diverse industries and numerous small establishments (and also workers in
the home) subordinated to big entrepreneurs, whose capitalist workshops
are occasionally included among “factories and works.” [47]

Without going into statistical details, which will provide nothing new
compared with what has already been said, let us merely quote the
following extremely interesting description of the village of

Katunki: [48] “A certain patriarchal simplicity in the relations between masters
and workmen, which, however, is not so noticeable at first sight and is, unfortunately (?), disappearing increasingly every year
. . . testifies to the handicraft character of the industries (?). It is
only recently that the factory character both of the industries and of the
population has begun to be observed, under the influence, in particular,
of the town, intercourse with which has been facilitated by the
inauguration of the steamboat service. Today the village looks like a
regular industrial township: there is no sign of agriculture whatever, the
houses are built close together as in the towns; the fine brick houses of
the rich, and alongside of them the miserable hovels of the poor; the long
wooden and brick buildings of the factories crowded in the middle of the
village — all this sharply distinguishes Katunki from the neighbouring
villages and clearly points to the industrial character of the local
population. The inhabitants themselves possess features of character that
also call to mind the type of “factory hand” who has already
taken shape in Russia: a certain showiness in house furniture, in clothes
and manners, spendthrift habits of life in most cases, and little care for
the morrow, a forwardness and often affectation in speech, a certain
superciliousness towards the country yokel — all these features are
possessed by them in common with all Russian factory people.” [49]

In the town of Arzamas, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the “factory” statistics listed in 1890 a total of 6 tanneries,
employing 64 workers ( Directory ); this is only a small fraction
of the capitalist manufacture which embraces the fur, boot-making and
other industries. The same factories employ workers in the home, both in
the town of Arzamas (in 1878, estimated at 400) and in 5 suburban
villages, where out of the 360 furrier households, 330 work for Arzamas
merchants, using their materials and working 14 hours a day for 6 to 9
rubles per month [50] ; that is why the furriers are pallid, feeble and degenerating folk. In the suburb of Viyezdnaya Sloboda, of the 600 boot-maker households, 500 work for
masters, from whom they receive the cut-out leather. The industry is of
long standing, being about 200 years old, and is still growing and
developing. The inhabitants hardly engage in agriculture at all; their
whole manner of life is purely urban, and they live “in grand
style.” The same applies to the furrier villages mentioned above,
the inhabitants of which “look down with disdain upon the peasant
and call him a ‘country bumpkin’.” [51]

We find exactly the same thing in Vyatka Gubernia. The Vyatka and
Slobodskoi uyezds are centres both of “factory” and of “handicraft” leather and fur trades. In the Vyatka Uyezd, the
handicraft tanneries are concentrated on the outskirts of the town and
“supplement” the industrial activities of the big works, [52] for
example, by working for the big owners; working for the latter also, in
the majority of cases, are the handicraft harness-makers and glue
makers. The fur factory owners have hundreds working for them in the home,
sewing sheepskins, etc. This is just a single capitalist manufactory with
branches: sheepskin dressing and sheepskin-coat-making, leather and
harness, etc. Still more striking are the relations existing in the
Slobodskoi Uyezd (the centre of the industries is the suburb of Demyanka);
here we see a small number of big factory owners [53] at the
head of handicraft tanners (numbering 870), boot- and mitten-makers (855),
sheepskin-dressers (940), and tailors (309 make short sheepskin coats to
order from capitalists). Generally speaking, such organisation of the
production of leather goods is evidently very widespread: thus, in the
town of Sarapul, Vyatka Gubernia, the List gives 6 tanneries,
also making footwear, which employ, in addition to 214 workers on the
premises, 1,080 outside workers (p. 495). What would become of our
“handicrafts men,” those representatives of “people’s” industry who are depicted in such bright hues by all sorts of Manilovs, if all the Russian
merchants and factory owners were to compute with equal detail and
precision the outside workers employed by them? [54]

Reference should be made here to the industrial village of Rasskazovo,
Tambov Uyezd, Tambov Gubernia (population in 1897 was 8,283), a centre
both of “factory” industry (cloth mills, soap-works, tanneries
and distilleries) and of “handicraft” industry, the latter
being closely connected with the former; and to the industries: tanning,
felt-making (as many as 70 masters, and establishments employing from 20
to 30 workers), glue-making, boot-making, stocking knitting (there is not
a household where stockings are not knit from wool that
“buyers-up” give out by weight), etc. Near this village is the
suburb of Belaya Polyana (300 households), celebrated for industries of
the same kind. In Morshansk Uyezd, the centre of the handicraft industries
is the village of Pokrovskoye-Vasilyevskoye, which is also the centre of
factory industry (see Directory and Reports and Investigations , Vol. III). In Kursk Gubernia, noteworthy as
industrial villages and centres of “handicraft” industries are
the suburbs: Veliko-Mikhailovka (Novy Oskol Uyezd; population in 1897 was
11,853), Borisovka (Graivoron Uyezd — 18,071 inhabitants), Tomarovka
(Belgorod Uyezd, 8,716 inhabitants), Miropolye (Sudzha Uyezd, over 10,000
inhabitants. See Reports and Investigations , Vol. I, Information
for 1888-1889). In the same villages you will also find leather
“works” (see Directory for 1890). The principal “handicraft” industry is leather and boot-making. It arose as far back as the first half of the 18th century and reached the peak of its
development in the 60s of the 19th century having become “a stable
organisation of a purely commercial character.” The whole business
was monopolised by contractors, who bought the leather and gave it out to
be processed by handicraftsmen. The railways destroyed this monopoly
character of capital, and the capitalist contractors transferred their
capital to more profitable undertakings. Today it is organised as follows:
there are about 120 big entrepreneurs; they own workshops where
wage-workers are employed, and also distribute work to homes; there are as
many as 3,000 small independent masters (who, however, buy their leather
from the big ones); there are 400 people who work at home (for the big
masters), and as many wage-workers; then there are the apprentices. The
total number of boot-makers is over 4,000. In addition, there are
handicraft potters, icon-case makers, icon painters, table-cloth weavers,
etc.

A highly characteristic and typical example of capitalist manufacture is
the squirrel-fur industry in Kargopol Uyezd, Olonets Gubernia, described
with such knowledge of the facts, and with truthful and artless
presentation of the whole life of the industrial population by a craftsman
and teacher in the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission
(Vol. IV). According to his description (in 1878), the industry has
existed since the beginning of the 19th century: 8 masters employ 175
workers, in addition to which they have as many as 1,000 seamstresses and
some 35 families of furriers working for them at home (in different
villages), 1,300 to 1,500 persons in all, with an output totalling 336,000
rubles. As a point of interest, it should be noted that when this was a
flourishing industry it was not included in the “factory”
statistics. The Directory for 1879 makes no mention of it. But
when it began to decline the statistics included it. The
Directory for 1890 listed for the town and the uyezd of Kargopol
7 works, with 121 workers and an output totalling 50,000 rubles, whereas
the List gave 5 works, with 79 workers (plus 57 outside) and an
output totalling 49,000 rubles. [55]

The order of things prevailing in this branch of capitalist manufacture is very instructive as a specimen of what goes on
in our age-old, purely native “handicraft industries,” that
have been left stranded in one of Russia’s numerous rural
backwoods. The craftsmen work 15 hours a day in a very unhealthy
atmosphere and earn 8 rubles per month, less than 60 or 70 rubles per
year. The masters’ incomes amount to about 5,000 rubles per
annum. The relations between masters and workers are “patriarchal”: according to ancient custom, the master gives
the workers kvass and salt gratis, which they have to beg from his
cook. As a mark of gratitude to the master (for “giving” them
work) the workers come, without pay, to pull squirrel tails, and also
clean furs after work. The workers live in the workshop all the week, and
the masters knock them about, seemingly in a joke (p. 218,
loc . cit .), make them do all sorts of jobs, such as raking hay, shovelling snow, fetching water, rinsing clothes, etc. Labour
is astonishingly cheap in Kargopol itself, and the peasants in the
vicinity “are ready to work for next to nothing.” Work is done
by hand, there is systematic division of labour, and there is a lengthy
apprenticeship (8 to 12 years); the lot of the apprentices can easily be
imagined.

6) The Remaining Livestock Processing Trades

A particularly noteworthy example of capitalist manufacture is the
celebrated boot industry of the village of Kimry, Korcheva Uyezd, Tver
Gubernia, and its environs. [56]

The industry is a very old one, having existed since the 16th
century. Since the Reform, it has continued to grow and develop. In the
early 70s Pletnev counted 4 volosts in the area covered by this industry,
but in 1888 the area included 9 volosts. Basically the organisation of the
industry is as follows. It is headed by the owners of big workshops
employing wage-workers; they distribute the cut-out leather to be made up
by outside workers. Mr. Pletnev counted 20 such masters, employing 124
adults and 60 boys, with an output totalling 818,000 rubles, while the
number of workers occupied at home for these capitalists is estimated by
the author approximately at 1,769 adults and 1,833 boys. Then come the
small masters, each with 1 to 5 wage-workers and 1 to 3 boys. These
masters dispose of their goods mainly in the village market in Kimry; they
number 224 and have 460 adults and 301 boys working for them; output
totals 187,000 rubles. Hence, there are 244 masters altogether, employing
2,353 adults (of whom 1,769 work at home) and 2,194 boys (of whom 1,833
work at home), with an output totalling 1,005,000 rubles. Further, there
are workshops which do various individual operations: currying
(skin-cleaning with scraper); chipping (gluing of chips left from
currying); special carting (4 masters, with 16 employees and up to 50 horses); special
carpentry (box-making), etc. [57]

Pletnev calculated the total output at 4.7 million rubles for the whole
district. In 1881 the number of handicraftsmen was computed at 10,638, and
with migrants, 26,000, with an output totalling 3.7 million rubles. As to
conditions of labour, it is important to note the excessively long working day (14 to
15 hours) and the extremely insanitary working conditions, payment in
goods, etc. The centre of the industry, Kimry village, “is more like
a small town” ( Reports and Investigations , I, 224); the
inhabitants are poor agriculturists, and are engaged in their industry all
the year round; only the rural handicraftsmen give up the industry during
haymaking. The houses in Kimry village are urban, and the inhabitants are
distinguished for their urban habits of life (such as “showiness”). Until very recently this industry was not
included in “factory” statistics, probably because the masters
“readily style themselves handicraftsmen” ( ibid ., 228). The List has for the first time included 6 boot workshops
in Kimry district, with 15 to 40 workers each on the premises, and with no
outside workers. Of course, it contains no end of gaps.

Manufacture also includes the button industry of Moscow Gubernia,
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds — the making of buttons from hoofs and
rams’ horns. Engaged in this industry are 487 workers, employed in
52 establishments; the output totals 264,000 rubles. Establishments with
fewer than 5 employees number 16; those with 5 to 10 — 26; those with 10
and more — 10. Masters who do without wage-workers number only 10; these
work for big masters, using the latter’s materials. Only the big
industrialists (who, as is evident from the figures given, should have
from 17 to 21 workers per establishment) are quite independent. It is
they, evidently, who figure in the Directory as “factory
owners” (see p. 291: 2 establishments with an output totalling 4,000
rubles and with 73 workers). This is “serial manufacture”; the
horns are first steamed in what is called the “smithy” (a
wooden hut with a furnace); then they are passed on to the
workshop where they are cut up, after which they go to a stamping
press, where the pattern is imprinted, and, lastly, are finished and
polished on lathes. The industry has its apprentices. The working day is
14 hours. Payment in goods is a regular thing. The relations between
masters and men are patriarchal, as seen in the following: the master
calls the workers “boys,” and the pay-book is called the
“boys’ book”; when the master pays the workers, he lectures them and never grants in full their
“requests” for payment.

The horn industry, which is included in our table of small industries
(Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 31 and 33), is also of the same
type. “Handicraftsmen” employing dozens of wage-workers figure
also in the Directory as “factory owners” (p. 291). Division
of labour is practised; work is also given out to home workers (horn
trimmers). The centre of the industry in Bogorodsk Uyezd is the big
village of Khoteichi, where agriculture is receding into the background
(population in 1897 was 2,494). The Moscow Zemstvo publication stated
quite rightly: Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd ,
Moscow Gubernia , in 1890 , that this village “ is nothing but a large comb manufactory ” (p. 24,
our italics). In 1890, over 500 industrialists were counted in this
village, with an output of from 3.5 to 5.5 million combs. “More
often than not, the horn dealer is also a buyer-up of finished goods, and
in many cases a big comb-maker as well.” The position of those
makers who are compelled to take horns “at piece rates” is
particularly bad: “their position is actually worse than that of the
wage-workers in the big establishments.” Dire need compels them to
exploit the labour of their whole families beyond measure, to lengthen their working day and to put juveniles to work. “During the
winter, work in Khoteichi starts at one o’clock in the morning, and
it is hard to say for certain when it ends in the cottage of the
‘independent’ craftsman doing ‘piece-work.’”
Payment in goods is widely practised. “This system, eliminated with
such difficulty from the factories, is still in full force in the small
handicraft establishments” (27). Probably, the horn goods industry
is organised on similar lines in Kadnikov Uyezd, Vologda Gubernia, in the
area of Ustye village (known as “Ustyanshchina”), where there
are 58 hamlets. Mr. V. Borisov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX) counts 388 handicraftsmen here, with an output
totalling 45,000 rubles; all the handicraftsmen work for capitalists, who
buy horns in St. Petersburg and tortoise-shell abroad.

At the head of the brush industry in Moscow Gubernia (see Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industry No. 20) we find big establishments with a large number
of wage-workers and with systematic division of labour. [58]

It is interesting to note at this point the changes that took place in the
organisation of this industry between 1879 and 1895 (see Moscow Zemstvo
publication: The Brush Industry According to the Investigation of 1895 ). Some well-to-do industrialists went to Moscow to carry on the
industry there. The number of industrialists increased 70%, the increase
being particularly large in the number of women (+170%) and girls
(+159%). The number of big workshops with wage-workers diminished: the
proportion of establishments with wage-workers dropped from 62% to
39%. This was due to the fact that the masters began to distribute work to be done in the home . The introduction into general use of the
drilling machine (for making holes in brush blocks) accelerated and
facilitated one of the main processes in brushmaking. The demand for
“setters” (craftsmen who “set” bristle in the block) increased; and this operation, which became increasingly
specialised, fell to the lot of women, their labour being cheaper. The
women began to work at home setting bristle, and were paid by the
piece. Thus, the growing resort to domestic industry was caused in this
case by progress in technique (drilling machine), progress in division of
labour (the women do nothing but set bristle), and progress in capitalist
exploitation (the labour of women and girls being cheaper). This example
shows very clearly that domestic industry by no means eliminates the concept of capitalist manufacture , but, on the contrary, is sometimes
even a sign of its further development .

7) The Processing of Mineral Products

In the section relating to ceramics we get an example of capitalist
manufacture in the industries of the Gzhel district (an area of 25 villages
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds, Moscow Gubernia). The relevant
statistics are given in our table of small industries (Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industries Nos. 15, 28 and 37). From these data it is evident that despite the enormous differences between the three Gzhel industries:
pottery, porcelain and decorative, these differences disappear as we pass
from one grade of establishment to another in each industry, and we get a
series of workshops of successively increasing dimensions. Here are the
average numbers of workers per establishment according to grade in these
three industries: 2.4 — 4.3 — 8.4 — 4.4. — 7.9 — 13.5 — 18 — 69 —
226.4. In other words, the workshops range from the very smallest to the
very biggest. There is no doubt that the big establishments belong to the
category of capitalist manufacture (inasmuch as they have not introduced
machines, have not developed into factories); what is important, however,
is not only this, but also that the small establishments are connected with the big ones ; that we have a single system of industry
here and not separate workshops of one or other type of economic
organisation. “Gzhel constitutes a single economic whole”
(Isayev, loc . cit ., 138), and the big workshops in the
district have grown slowly and gradually out of the small ones
( ibid ., 121). The work is done by hand, [59] with considerable division of labour : among the potters we find wheel
hands (specialising in different sorts of pottery), kilnmen, etc., and
sometimes special workers for preparing colours. In the manufacture of
porcelain-ware division of labour is extremely detailed: crushers, wheel
hands, feeders, kilnmen, decorators, etc. The wheel hands even specialise
in the various kinds of porcelain ware (cf. Isayev, loc . cit ., 140: in one case division of labour increases
productivity of labour by 25%). The decorators’ shops work for the
porcelain makers and are, therefore, only departments of the
latter’s manufactories, performing a special detailed operation. It
is characteristic of developed capitalist manufacture that physical
strength itself becomes a specialty. Thus, in Gzhel, some of the villages
are engaged (almost to a man) in clay digging; for heavy work not requiring special
skill (grinding), workers from the Tula and Ryazan gubernias are employed
almost exclusively, being superior in strength and vigour to the not very
robust Gzhelians. Payment in goods is widely practised. Agriculture is in
a bad way. “The Gzhelians are a degenerating race” (Isayev,
168) — weak-chested, narrow-shouldered, feeble; the decorators lose their
sight at an early age, etc. Capitalist division of labour breaks up the
worker and deforms him. The working day is from 12 to 13 hours.

8) The Metal Trades. The Pavlovo Industries

The celebrated Pavlovo lock and cutlery industries cover the whole of
Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, and Murom Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. These industries originated very long ago. Smirnov states that
as far back as 1621 there were (according to the cadastres [91] ) 11
smithies in Pavlovo. By the middle of the 19th century these industries
constituted a far-flung network of fully developed capitalist
relations. After the Reform, the industries in this district continued to
develop and expand. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889, in Gorbatov
Uyezd 13 volosts and 119 villages were engaged in industry; a total of
5,953 households, 6,570 male workers (54% of the total number working in
these villages) and 2,741 old men, juveniles and women, 9,311 persons in
all. In the Murom Uyezd, Mr. Grigoryev in 1881 registered 6 industrial
volosts, 66 villages, 1,545 households and 2,205 male workers (39% of the
total number working in these villages). Not only were large,
non-agricultural industrial villages formed (Pavlovo, Vorsma), but even
the surrounding peasants were diverted from agriculture: outside of
Pavlovo and Vorsma, in Gorbatov Uyezd, 4,492 persons were engaged in
industries, of whom 2,357, or more than half did not engage in
agriculture. Life in centres like Pavlovo has become quite urban and has
given rise to incomparably more developed requirements, more cultured
environment, clothes, manner of life, etc., than among the surrounding
“raw”

peasants. [60]

Turning to the economic organisation of the Pavlovo industries, we must
first of all note the indubitable fact that the “handicraftsmen” are headed by the most typical capitalist
manufactories. For example, in the Zavyalovs’ establishment (which
already in the 60s employed over 100 workers at the bench and has now
introduced a steam engine) a penknife passes through 8 or 9 hands: the
forger, blade-maker, handle-maker (usually an outside worker), hardener,
facer, polisher, finisher, grinder and marker. This is extensive
capitalist co-operation based on division of labour, with a considerable
number of the workers performing individual operations employed at home
and not in the capitalist’s workshop. Here are facts given by
Mr. Labzin (in 1866) on the bigger establishments in the villages of
Pavlovo, Vorsma and Vacha, covering all branches of production in this
district: 15 proprietors had 500 workers occupied on the premises and
1,134 workers outside, making a total of 1,634, with an output totalling
351,700 rubles. How far this description of economic relations is
applicable to the whole district at the present time may be seen from the
following data [61] :

Thus, the organisation of the industry as outlined by us prevails in all
the districts. All in all, about three-fifths of the total number
of workers are employed capitalistically. Here too, consequently, we find
manufacture predominating in the general structure of the industry [62] and
holding masses of workers under its sway, without, however, being able to
eradicate small production. The relative tenacity of the latter is fully
explained, firstly, by the fact that in some branches of the Pavlovo
industry mechanised production has not yet been introduced at all (for
instance, in lock-making); and, secondly, by the fact that the small
producer tries to save himself from sinking by resorting to means that
cause him to sink far lower than the wage-worker. These means are:
lengthening the working day, and reducing the standard of living and of
general requirements. “The earnings of the group of handicraftsmen
who work for proprietors are less subject to fluctuation”
(Grigoryev, loc . cit ., 65); at Zavyalovs’, for example, the lowest-paid worker is the handle-maker; “he works at
home, and that is why he is satisfied with lower earnings” (68). The
handicraftsmen who work “for factory owners” are “able to earn somewhat more than the average earnings of the one who takes his
products to the market. Larger earnings are particularly noticeable among
the workers who live in the factories” (70). [63]

The working day in the “factories” is from 14 1/2 to 15 hours,
with a maximum of 16 hours. “The working day of the home-working
handicraftsmen, on the other hand, is never less than 17 hours and
sometimes as much as 18 and even 19 hours” ( ibid .). It
would not be in the least surprising if the law of June 2, 1897 [92] caused an
increase here in home-work; it is high time these “handicraftsmen” directed their efforts towards compelling the
proprietors to organise factories! Let the reader also recall the
notorious Pavlovo “loan-purchase,” “exchange,” “wife-pawning” and similar forms of bondage and personal
degradation which grind down the quasi-independent small producer. [64]

Fortunately, rapidly developing large-scale machine industry does not so
readily tolerate these worst forms of exploitation as manufacture
does. Running ahead a little, let us quote data on the growth of factory
production in this district. [65]

We thus see that ever-increasing numbers of workers are being drawn into
large establishments, which are going over to the use of machines. [66]

9) Other Metal Trades

The industries of Bezvodnoye village, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia and Uyezd
also come under the head of capitalist manufacture. This is also an
industrial village, the majority of whose inhabitants do not engage in
agriculture at all, and which serves as the centre of an industrial area
of several villages. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889
( Material , Vol. VIII, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1895), in the Bezvodnoye
Volost (581 households) 67.3% of the households cultivated no land, 78.3%
had no horses, 82.4% engaged in industries, and 57.7% had literate persons
and schoolchildren in the family (as against an average for the uyezd of
44.6%). The Bezvodnoye industries are devoted to the production of various
metal goods: chains, fish-hooks, and metal fabrics; the output was
estimated at 2 1/2 million rubles in

1883 [67] and 1 1/2 million rubles in

1888-89. [68]

The organisation of the industry is as follows: work for proprietors, using
their materials, which is distributed among a number of workers performing
single operations and done partly in the employers’ workshops and
partly in the home. For example, in the making of fish-hooks the various
operations are performed by “benders,” “cutters” (who work in a special shed) and “pointers” (women and
children who sharpen the hook-points in their homes); all these work at
piece rates for the capitalist, while the bender gives out work on his own
account to the cutters and pointers. “Metal wire is now done by
horse-driven windlasses; formerly the wire was drawn by blind men, who
were brought here in large numbers. . . .” One of the “specialities” of capitalist manufacture! “The
conditions under which this work is done differ very much from those in
all the other trades.

People have to work in a stifling atmosphere filled with the harmful
vapours emanating from accumulated horse dung.” [69]

Organised on the same lines of capitalist manufacture are the screen, [70] the pin, [71] and the gold-thread industries. [72]

In the last-named industry at the beginning of the 80s there were 66 establishments, employing 670 workers (of
whom 79% were hired), with an output totalling 368,500 rubles;
some of these capitalist establishments were occasionally also
included among the “factories and works.” [73]

The locksmith industries of the Burmakino Volost (and surrounding volosts)
of Yaroslavl Gubernia and Uyezd are probably organised on the same
lines. At all events, here we observe the same division of labour
(blacksmiths, blowers and locksmiths), the same extensive development of
wage-labour (of 307 smithies in the Burmakino Volost, 231 employ
wage-workers), the same predominance of big capital over all these detail
workers (the buyers-up are at the top; the blacksmiths work for them, and
the locksmiths for the blacksmiths), the same combination of the buying up
of wares with the production of wares in capitalist workshops, some of
which are occasionally included among the “factories and works.” [74]

In the appendix to the preceding chapter, statistics were given on the
tray and the copper industries [75] of Moscow Gubernia (the latter in the district known as
“Zagarye”). The data show that wage-labour plays a predominant
part in these industries, that the industries are headed by large
workshops employing an average of from 18 to 23 wage-workers per
establishment, with an average output of from

16,000 to 17,000 rubles. If we add to this that division of labour is very
widely practised here, [76] it will be clear that what we have is capitalist manufacture. [77] “The small industrial units, which are an anomaly under the existing
conditions of technique and division of labour, can only hold out
alongside the big workshops by lengthening the working day to the utmost” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., p. 33) — among the tray-makers, for example, for as long as 19 hours. The ordinary working day
here is from 13 to 15 hours; with the small proprietors it is
from 16 to 17 hours. Payment in goods is widely practised (both
in 1876 and in

1890). [78]

Let us add that the lengthy existence of this industry (it arose at the beginning
of the 19th century, at the latest) and extensive specialisation have, in
this case too, produced highly skilled workers; the Zagarians are famed
for their craftsmanship. Specialities have also sprung up in the industry
which need no preliminary training and are within the grasp of even
under-age workers. “This very possibility,” Mr. Isayev rightly
observes, “of becoming an under-age worker at once and acquiring a
trade, as it were, without having to study, indicates that the handicraft
spirit, which demands the training of labour-power, is disappearing; the
simplicity of many of the detailed operations is a symptom of the
transition of handicraft to manufacture” ( loc . cit ., 34). Let us only observe that to a certain
degree the “handicraft spirit” always remains in manufacture,
for its basis is the same hand production.

10) The Jewellery, Samovar and Accordion Trades

The village of Krasnoye, Kostroma Gubernia and Uyezd, is one of the
industrial villages usually held up as centres of our “people’s” capitalist manufacture. This large village
(in 1897 it had 2,612 inhabitants) is purely urban in character; the
inhabitants live like townspeople and (with very few exceptions) do not
engage in agriculture. Krasnoye is the centre of the jewellery industry
which covers 4 volosts and 51 villages (including Sidorovskoye Volost of
Nerekhta Uyezd), and in them 735 households and about 1,706 workers. [79] “The principal representatives of industry,” said Mr. Tillo,
“are undoubtedly the big industrialists of the village of Krasnoye:
the Pushilovs, Mazovs, Sorokins, Chulkovs and other merchants. They buy
materials (gold, silver and copper), employ craftsmen, buy up finished
articles, distribute orders for work to be done in the home, supply
samples, etc.” (2043). The big industrialists have their workshops,
so-called “rabotorni” (laboratories), where the metal is
smelted and forged, then to be given out for finishing to
“handicraftsmen”; they have technical appliances, such as
“pretsi” (presses and dies for stamping), “punches” (for embossing designs), “rollers” (for
stretching the metal), benches, etc. Division of labour is widely
practised: “Nearly every article passes through several hands in an
established order in the course of manufacture. For example, in the making
of ear-rings, the master industrialist first sends the silver to his own
workshop, where part of it is rolled and part drawn into wire; then on
receipt of an order the material is given to a craftsman who, if he has a
family, divides the work among several persons; one uses a punch to cut
the silver plates into the shapes for the ear-rings, another bends the
wire into the rings with which the ear-rings are attached to the ears, a third solders these parts, and, lastly, a fourth polishes
the finished ear-rings. None of this work is difficult, or requires much
training; very often the soldering and the polishing are done by women and
by children of 7 or 8 years of age” (2041). [80]

Here, too, the working day is excessively long, usually as much as 16
hours. Payment in provisions is common.

The following statistics (published quite recently by a local assay
inspector) clearly illustrate the economic structure of the industry: [93] “Both the first groups (about two-thirds of the total number of
craftsmen) should be classed as home-working factory workers rather than
as handicraftsmen.” In the top group “wage-labour occurs more
and more frequently. . . . The craftsmen have begun to buy articles made
by others”; in the upper strata of this group “buying-up predominates,” and “four of the buyers-up have no workshops at all.” [81]

The samovar and accordion industries in Tula town and environs are highly
typical examples of capitalist manufacture. Generally speaking, the
“handicraft” industries in this district have a long history,
dating back to the 15th century. [82]

They evidenced a particularly rapid development in the middle of the 17th
century; Mr. Borisov considers that the second period in the development
of the Tula industries then began. In 1637 the first iron foundry was
built (by the Dutchman Vinius). The Tula gunsmiths formed a separate
smiths’ suburb, constituted a separate social estate, enjoying
special rights and privileges. In 1696 the first iron foundry was erected
in Tula by a famous Tula blacksmith, and the industry spread to the Urals
and

Siberia. [83]

Then began the third period in the history of the Tula industries. The
craftsmen set up their own workshops and taught the trade to surrounding
peasants. In the 1810s and 1820s the first samovar factories were
started. “By 1825 there were in Tula 43 different factories that
belonged to gunsmiths, while those in existence at the present time nearly
all belong to one-time gunsmiths, now Tula merchants” ( loc . cit ., 2262). Here, consequently, we observe a
direct continuity and connection between the old guild masters and the
principals of subsequent capitalist manufacture. In 1864 the Tula
gunsmiths were freed from serf dependence [94] and assigned to the burgher estate; earnings dropped as a consequence of the
severe competition of the village handicraftsmen (which caused a reverse
flow of industrialists from town to country); the workers turned to the
samovar, lock, cutlery, and accordion industries (the first Tula
accordions appeared in 1830-1835).

The samovar industry is at present organised as follows. It is headed by
big capitalists who own workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers, but they also distribute many separate
operations to be done by workers, urban and rural, in their homes; those
who perform these operations sometimes still have their own workshops and
employ wage-workers. Naturally, side by side with the big there are small
workshops, with all the consecutive stages of dependence upon the
capitalists. Division of labour is the general basis of the whole
structure of this trade. The process of samovar-making is divided into the
following separate operations: 1) rolling the copper sheets into tubes
(tubing); 2) soldering the tubes; 3) filing the seams; 4) fitting the
bottoms; 5) beating out the shapes; 6) cleaning the insides: 7) turning
the bodies and necks; 8) plating; 9) press-punching the vents in the
bottoms and the covers; 10) assembling the samovars. Further, there are
the separate processes of casting the small copper parts: a) preparing the
moulds and b)

casting. [84]

Where work is given out to be done in the home, each of these operations may
constitute a special “handicraft” industry. One of these
“industries” was described by Mr. Borisov in Vol. VII of the
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission . This industry (samovar
tubing) consists in peasants doing at piece rates one of the operations we
have described, using merchants’ materials. The handicraftsmen left
Tula town to work in the countryside after 1861; the cost of living and
standard of requirements were lower in the countryside ( loc . cit ., p. 893). Mr. Borisov quite rightly
attributes this tenacity of the “handicraftsman” to the
retention of hand-labour in the beating out of samovars; “it will
always be profitable for the manufacturer to employ the village
handicraftsman, because he works at from 10 to 20% below the rate of the
urban artisan” (916).

Mr. Borisov estimated the value of the output of samovars in 1882 at
approximately 5 million rubles, the number of workers (handicraftsmen
included) totalling from 4,000 to 5,000. In this case also the factory
statistics cover only a fraction of capitalist manufacture. The Directory for 1879
counted in Tula Gubernia 53 samovar “factories” (all hand-operated) with 1,479 workers and an output totalling 836,000
rubles. The Directory for 1890 gives 162 factories, 2,175
workers, and an output of 1.1 million rubles; the list of firms, however,
contains only 50 factories (1 steam operated), with 1,326 workers and an
output totalling 698,000 rubles. Evidently, some hundred small
establishments were in this case classed as “factories.”
Lastly, the List gives the following for 1894-95: 25 factories (4
steam-operated), 1,202 workers (+ 607 outside), and an output totalling
1,613,000 rubles. In these data neither the number of factories nor the
number of workers are comparable (for the reason given above, and also
because of the lumping together in previous years of workers on the
premises and outside). The only thing beyond doubt is that manufacture is
being steadily displaced by large-scale machine industry: in 1879, there
were 2 factories with 100 and more workers; in 1890 there were 2 (one
steam-operated) and in 1894-95 there were 4 (three steam-operated). [85]

The accordion industry, which is at a lower stage of economic development,
is organised in precisely the same way. [86] “In the making of accordions there are
over ten separate trades” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, 236); the making of the different parts of an
accordion or the performance of some of the operations constitute
separate, quasi-independent “handicraft” industries. “When things are quiet all the handicraftsmen work for factories or for more or less big workshops, the owners of which
supply them with materials; when, however, there is a brisk demand for
accordions, a large number of small producers appear, who buy up parts
from the handicraftsmen, assemble them and take the finished articles to
the local shops where accordions are very readily purchased”
( ibid .). Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated from 2,000 to 3,000
workers in this industry, with an output totalling about 4 million rubles;
factory statistics in 1879 showed two “factories,” with 22
workers and an output totalling 5,000 rubles; in 1890, 19 factories, with
275 workers and an output totalling 82,000 rubles; in 1894-95 one factory,
with 23 workers (plus 17 outside) and an output totalling 20,000 rubles. [87]

Steam-engines are not employed at all. All these figure variations
indicate a purely haphazard picking of individual establishments which are
component parts of the complex organism of capitalist manufacture.

---
Notes:
[1]
Cf. Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VII, Pt. III
(Moscow, 1883), pp. 63-64.— Lenin

[2]
For a list of the most important towns of this type, see next chapter.— Lenin

[3]
Examples of such confusion will be given in the next chapter.— Lenin

[4]
See Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III. It would be impossible
and superfluous to give detailed data on all the weaving industries
described in the literature on our handicraft industry. Moreover, in the
majority of these industries the factory now reigns supreme. On the
subject of “handicraft weaving” see also Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vols. VI and VII. — Transactions of the Handicraft Commission — Material on Hand-Labour Statistics . [95]
— Reports and Investigations . — Korsak, loc . cit .— Lenin

[5]
The Military Statistical Abstract managed to count in Vladimir
Gubernia, in 1866, 98 silk factories (!) with 98 workers and a total
output of 4,000 rubles(!). The Directory for 1890 gives 35
factories, 2,112 workers, and 936,000 rubles. According to the
List for 1894-95 there were 98 factories, 2,281 workers, with an
output of 1,918,000 rubles, and in addition, 2,477 workers “outside
of establishments, on the side.” Just try to distinguish
“handicraftsmen” here from “factory workers”!— Lenin

[6]
According to the Directory for 1890 there were outside of Moscow
10 galloon factories, with 303 workers and an output totalling 58,000
rubles. But according to Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia
(Vol. VI, Pt. II), there were 400 establishments, with 2,619 workers (of
whom 72.8% were wage-workers) and with an output totalling 963,000 rubles.— Lenin

[7]
The Collection of Factory Inspectors’ Reports for 1903 (St. Petersburg, 1906) states that in Saratov Gubernia there were 33
distributing offices with 10,000 workers. ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[8]
The centre of this industry is Sosnovka Volost, where the Zemstvo census
of 1886 counted 4,626 households, with a population of 38,000 persons of
both sexes; 291 industrial establishments. Altogether in the volost 10% of
the households were houseless (as against 6.2% in the uyezd), and 44.5% of
the households cultivated on land (as against 22.8% in the uyezd). See
Statistical Returns for Saratou Gubernia , Vol. XI. — Capitalist
manufacture has, consequently, created industrial centres here too which
divorce the workers from the land.— Lenin

[9]
The sources are shown in the text. The number of establishments is about
half the number of independent workers (52 establishments in Vasilyev
Vrag, 5 + 55 + 110 in Krasnoye village and 21 establishments in the 4
small villages). On the other hand, the figures for the town of Arzamas
and Viyezdnaya Sloboda stands for the number of “factories,”
and not of workers.— Lenin

[10]
Let us note that the diagram given is typical of all Russian industries
organised on the lines of capitalist manufacture: everywhere at the head
of the industry we find big establishments (sometimes classed among
“factories and works”), and a mass of small establishments
completely under their sway — in a word, capitalist co-operation based on
division of labour and hand production. Non-agricultural centres are
formed by manufacture in exactly the same way, not only here, but also in
the majority of other industries.— Lenin

[11]
They are naked as they work in a temperature of 22° to 24°
Réaumur. The air is full of fine and also coarse dust, wool and
other stuff. The floors in the “factories” are earthen (in the
washing sheds of all places), etc.— Lenin

[12]
It is not without interest to note here the specific jargon of the
inhabitants of Krasnoye; this is characteristic of the territorial
isolation peculiar to manufacture. “In the village of Krasnoye
factories are given the Matroisk name of povarnyas (lit. kitchens — Ed .). . . . Matroisk is one of the
numerous branches of the Ophen dialect, the three main branches of which
are Ophen proper, spoken mainly in Vladimir Gubernia; Galivon , in Kostroma Gubernia; and Matroisk , in the
Nizhni-Novgorod and Vladimir gubernias” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V, p 465). Only large-scale machine industry
completely destroys the local character of social ties and replaces them
by national (and international) ties.— Lenin

[13]
Material for Evaluation of the Lands of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia ,
Vol. XI, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1893, pp. 211-214.— Lenin

[14]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , VI.— Lenin

[15]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[16]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II.— Lenin

[17]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II, p. 271.— Lenin

[18]
See Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 27.— Lenin

[19]
Some of these establishments were occasionally included among
“factories and works.” See, for example, the
Directory for 1879, p.126.— Lenin

[20]
See above, Chapter V, § VII.— Lenin

[21]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , IV, Pt.I, pp. 282-287.— Lenin

[22]
See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, and
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[23]
By some accident, such workshops have not yet been included among
“factories and works.”— Lenin

[24]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , II.— Lenin

[25]
According to Zemstvo statistics (Vol. VII of Material ,
Nizhni-Novgorod, 1892) in these villages in 1889 there were 341 and 119
households, numbering respectively 1,277 and 540 persons of both
sexes. There were 253 and 103 allotment households. Households
participating in industries numbered 284 and 91, of which 257 and 32 did
not engage in agriculture. There were 218 and 51 horseless
households. Those leasing their allotments numbered 237 and 53.— Lenin

[26]
Cf. Nizhni-Novgorod Handbook , Vol IV, article by Rev. Roslavlev.— Lenin

[27]
Sketch of Condition of Handicraft Industry in Perm Gubernia ,
p. 158; in the table totals there is a mistake or a misprint.— Lenin

[28]
Ibid ., pp. 40 and 188 of table. To all appearances these same
establishments also figure in the List , p. 152. For the purpose
of comparing the big establishments with the small ones we have singled
out the agriculturist commodity-producers, see Studies ,
p. 156. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[29]
The Handicraft Industries of Perm Gubernia at the Siberian Urals Exhibition , Pt. III, p. 47 and foll.— Lenin

[30]
See Zemstvo statistical returns for Trubchevsk, Karachev and Orel uyezds
of Orel Gubernia. The connection between the big manufactories and the
small peasant establishments is also evident from the fact that the
employment of wage-labour develops in the latter as well: for example, in
Orel Uyezd, 16 peasant master spinners employ 77 workers.— Lenin

[31]
V. Ilyin, Studies, p. 176. (See present edition, Vol.2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[32]
See precise data on Perm handicraft census about this, ibid .,
p. 177 (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[33]
See Directory and List on Perm Gubernia and the village
of Nevyansky Zavod (non-agricultural), which is the centre of this
“handicraft industry.”— Lenin

[34]
Cf. our Studies , pp. 177-178. (See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[35]
Reports and Investigations , I.— Lenin

[36]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[37]
There are 14 big timber merchants. These have timber-seasoning rooms
(costing about 300 rubles), of which there are 24 in the village, each
employing 6 workers. These merchants also give out materials to workers,
whom they get into their grip by advancing them money.— Lenin

[38]
It will be appropriate here to note in general the process of development
of capitalism in the timber industry. The timber merchants do not sell the
timber raw; they hire workers to dress it and to make various wooden
articles, which they then sell. See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., VIII, pp. 1268, 1314. Also Statistical Returns for Orel Gubernia , Trubchevsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[39]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol II, 1879. See also
Zemstvo statistical Material for Semyonov Uyezd, Vol. XI, 1893.— Lenin

[40]
The statistics we have given (Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 2,
7, 26) cover only a small fraction of the toy-makers; but these data show
the appearance of workshops with 11 to 18 workers.— Lenin

[41]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. II, p. 47.— Lenin

[42]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[43]
Material for the Evaluation of the Lands in Gorbatov Uyezd.— Lenin

[44]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[45]
Thus, at the head of the horse-collar industry are 13 big proprietors,
each with 10 to 30 wage-workers and 5 to 10 outside workers. The big
mitten-makers do the cutting in their own workshops (employing 2 or 3
wage-workers) and get the mittens sewn off the premises by from 10 to 20
women; these are divided into thumb-makers and stitchers , the former taking the work from the owners and
sub-dividing it among the latter, whom they exploit (information for
1879).— Lenin

[46]
In 1889, of 1,812 households (with 9,241 inhabitants) 1,469 cultivated no
land (in 1897 there were 12,342 inhabitants). The villages of Pavlovo and
Bogorodskoye differ from the other villages of Gorbatov Uyezd in that very
few of their inhabitants leave them on the contrary, of all the peasants
of the Gorbatov Uyezd who have left their villages, 14.9% live in Pavlovo
and 4.9% in Bogorodskoye. The increase of the population between 1858 and
1889 was 22.1% for the uyezd, but 42% for the village of
Bogorodskoye. (See Zemstvo statistical Material .)— Lenin

[47]
See Zemstvo statistical Material for uyezds mentioned. —
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX and VI. —
Directory and List . — Reports and Investigations , II.— Lenin

[48]
In 1889 it had 380 households (none cultivating land) with 1,305
inhabitants In the whole of the Katunki Volost, 90.6% of the households
are engaged in industries, 70.1% of working people being occupied in
industries alone (i.e., not engaging in agriculture). As regards literacy,
this volost stands far above the average for the uyezd, yielding in this
respect only to the Chernoretsk Volost, which is also non-agricultural and
has highly developed boat-building industries. The village of Bolshoye
Murashkino had in 1887 a total of 856 households (of which 853 cultivated
no land) with 3,473 persons of both sexes. According to the 1897 census,
the population of Gorodets was 6,330, of Bolshoye Murashkino 5,341, of
Yurino 2,189, of Spasskoye 4,494 and of Vatras 3,012.— Lenin

[49]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX,
p. 2567. Information for 1880.— Lenin

[50]
The conditions of the workers in the Arzamas factories are better than
those of the rural workers ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 133).— Lenin

[51]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 76.— Lenin

[52]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. XI,
p. 3084. (Cf. Directory for 1890). Included among the
handicraftsmen is the peasant-agriculturist Dolgushin, who owns a works
employing 60 workers. There are several handicraftsmen of this type.— Lenin

[53]
According to the Directory for 1890, there were some 27 masters
employing over 700 workers.— Lenin

[54]
Cf. also List , p. 489, regarding the well-known “handicraft” village of Dunilovo, Shuya Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. The Directory for 1890 listed here 6 fur factories
employing 151 workers, while according to the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (Vol. X) there are about 2,200 furriers and
2,300 sheepskin-coat-makers in this district; in 1877 as many as 5,500
“handicraftsmen” were counted. Probably, the making of hair
sieves in this uyezd is organised in the same way; in this industry there
are engaged about 40 villages and as many as 4,000 people, known as
“Mardassers” (from the name of this district). We have described the similar organisation of the leather and cobbling industries
in Perm Gubernia in our Studies , p. 171 and foll (See present
edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[55]
Here is some information about the “handicraftsmen” relating
to 1894. “The squirrel furs are sewn by some of the poorest women in
the town of Kargopol and by peasant women of the Pavlovo Volost. They are
paid the very lowest price,” so that a seamstress earns only from 2
rubles 40 kopeks to 3 rubles per month, providing her own food, and for
this pay (at piece rates) she has to sit without a break for 12 hours a
day. “The work is very exhausting, for it calls for great strain and
assiduity.” The number of seamstresses is now about 200
( Handicraft Industry in Olonets Gubernia , Essay by
Messrs. Blagoveshchensky and Garyazin. Petrozavodsk, 1895, pp. 92-93).— Lenin

[56]
See Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II, Vol. III,
St. Petersburg, 1872. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and
Hand-Labour in Russia. Compiled by L. Maikov . Article by V
A. Pletnev. This work is the best for clarity of description of the whole
organisation of the industry. The latest works give valuable statistics and facts of the people’s life, but give a less
satisfactory exposition of the economic structure of this complex
industry. See, further, Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII, article by Mr. Pokrovsky, — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I.— Lenin

[57]
Cf. Reports and Investigations : 7 groups of industrialists: 1)
traders in leather goods; 2) buyers-up of footwear; 3) masters of big
workshops (5-6 of them), who stock leather and distribute it to home
workers; 4) masters of small workshops employing wage-workers; also give
out material to home workers; 5) one-man establishments — working either
for the market or for masters (sub 3 and 4); 6) wage-workers (craftsmen,
journeymen, boys); 7) “last-makers, notchers, and also owners and
workers in currying, greasing and gluing workshops” (p. 227,
loc . cit .). The population of Kimry village, according
to the 1897 census, is 7,017.— Lenin

[58]
The “sawyer” saws the brush blocks; the “borer” bores holes in them; the “cleaner” cleans the bristle; the
“setter” “sets” the bristle; the “joiner” glues wooden strips on the brush backs
( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. I, p. 18).— Lenin

[59]
Let us observe that in this industry, as in the above-described weaving
industries, capitalist manufacture is, strictly speaking, the economy of
yesterday. Characteristic of the post-Reform era is the transformation of
this manufacture into large-scale machine industry. The number of Gzhel
potteries using steam-engines was 1 in 1866, 2 in 1879 and 3 in 1890
(according to data in The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , Vol. I,
and Directory for 1879 and 1890).— Lenin

[60]
See above regarding the greater literacy of the population of Pavlovo and
Vorsma and the migration of peasants from the villages to these centres.— Lenin

[61]
Data from Zemstvo statistical Material , and Mr. Annensky’s
Report, and also A. N. Potresov’s researches (cited above). The
figures for the Murom district are approximate. The number of inhabitants,
according to the 1897 census, was 4,674 in Vorsma, and 12,431 in Pavlovo.— Lenin

[62]
The data we have given by no means express this predominance to the full:
as will presently be seen, the handicraftsmen who work for the market are
subjugated to capital even more than those who work for proprietors, and
the latter handicraftsmen even more than the wage-workers. The
Pavlovo industries show in strong relief that inseparable connection
between merchant’s and industrial capital which in general is
characteristic of capitalist manufacture in its relation to the small
producers.— Lenin

[63]
Connection with the land is also an important factor in reducing
earnings. The village handicraftsmen “on the whole earn less than
the Pavlovo locksmiths” (Annensky Report, p. 61). True, we must bear
in mind that the former grow their own grain, but even so “the
conditions of the ordinary village handicraftsman can scarcely be
considered better than those of the average Pavlovo locksmith” (61).— Lenin

[64]
During crises it also happens that they work literally without pay,
exchange “white for black,” i.e., finished goods for raw
materials; this happens “quite often” (Grigoryev, ibid ., 93).— Lenin

[65]
Data taken from Directory and List for the whole district, including the villages of Selitba and Vacha and their
environs. The Directory for 1890 undoubtedly included outside
workers in the total number of factory workers; we have estimated the
number of outside workers approximately, confining ourselves to a
correction only for the two biggest establishments (the Zavyalovs and
F. Varypayev). To compare the figures for “factories and
works” in the List and the Directory , only establishments with 15 and more workers must be taken (this is examined in
greater detail in our Studies , article: On the Question of Our
Factory Statistics) (See present edition, Vol. 4.— Ed .)— Lenin

[66]
In one branch of the Pavlovo industry, lock-making, there is, on the
contrary, a decline in the number of workshops employing wage-workers. A. N. Potresov ( loc . cit .), who recorded
this fact in detail, pointed to its cause — the competition of the
lock-making factory in Kovno Gubernia (Schmidt Brothers, which in 1890 had
500 workers, with an output of 500,000 rubles, and in 1894-95 had 625
workers, with an output of 730,000 rubles).— Lenin

[67]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX. The population of
Bezvodnoye village in 1897 was 3,296.— Lenin

[68]
Reports and Investigations , Vol. I. — The List gives 4
“factories” for this district, with 21 workers on premises and
29 outside workers, and output totalling 68,000 rubles.— Lenin

[69]
Reports and Investigations , I, p. 186.— Lenin

[70]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 29.— Lenin

[71]
Ibid ., No. 32.— Lenin

[72]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. 1, Sec. 2,
and Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd in 1890. — Lenin

[73]
See, for example, the List , No. 8819.— Lenin

[74]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VI, investigation
of 1880. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I (1888-1889),
cf. p. 271: “nearly the whole trade . . . is concentrated in
workshops employing wage-workers.” Cf. also Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia , Vol. II, Yaroslavl, 1896, pp. 8, 11. — List ,
p. 403.— Lenin

[75]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 19 and 30.— Lenin

[76]
A copper-smith’s workshop needs five operatives to do the different
jobs; a tray-maker’s at least 3, while a “normal workshop” needs 9 workers. “In the large establishments”
a “fine division” (of labour) is practised “with the object of increasing productivity” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., 27 and 31).— Lenin

[77]
The Directory for 1890 gives for the district of Zagarye 14
factories employing 184 workers, with an output totalling 37,000 rubles. A
comparison of these figures with the above-quoted Zemstvo statistics shows
that in this case too the factory statistics covered only the upper strata
of widely developed capitalist manufacture.— Lenin

[78]
Cf. Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[79]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, article by
Mr. A. Tillo. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. III (1893). The
industry continues to develop. Cf. letter to Russkiye Vedomosti ,
1897, No. 231. Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42. Output totals over
1 million rubles, of which about 200,000 rubles is received by the workers
and about 300,000 rubles by buyers-up and merchants.— Lenin

[80]
“Among the Krasnoye handicraftsmen every kind of article and even
every part is made by a specific craftsman, and therefore one rarely
finds, for example, rings and ear-rings, bracelets and brooches, etc.,
made in the same house; usually a particular article is made in parts by
different worker-specialists who live not only in different houses but
even in different villages” ( Reports and Investigations ,
Vol. III, p. 76).— Lenin

[81]
Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42.— Lenin

[82]
See Mr. V. Borisov’s article in Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX.— Lenin

[83]
The Tula blacksmith, Nikita Demidov Antufyev, won Peter the Great’s
favour by building an ironworks near the town of Tula; in 1702 he was
granted the Nevyansk works. His descendants were the famous Urals iron
manufacturers, the Demidovs.— Lenin

[84]
The Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. X, contain an
excellent description by Mr. Manokhin of the samovar industry in Suksun,
Perm Gubernia. Its organisation is the same as that in Tula
Gubernia. Cf. ibid ., Vol. IX, Mr. Borisov’s article on
handicraft industries at the 1882 exhibition.— Lenin

[85]
Evidently there are analogous features in the organisation of the
mechanical trades in Tula and its environs. Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated
that the number of workers employed in these industries was from 2,000 to
3,000, producing wares to a value of nearly 2 1/2 million rubles. These
“handicraftsmen” are very much under the heel of merchant’s capital. The hardware “factories” in Tula
Gubernia sometimes also have outside workers (cf. List ,
pp. 393-395).— Lenin

[86]
The development of accordion-making is also interesting as a process of
the elimination of primitive folk instruments and of the creation of a
wide, national market; without this market there could have been no
division of labour by processes, and without division of labour the
finished article could not have been produced cheaply “Owing to
their cheapness . . . the accordions have nearly everywhere displaced the
primitive string folk instrument, the balalaika” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, p. 2276).— Lenin

[87]
The Tula town census of November 29, 1891, gave 36 establishments selling
accordions and 34 accordion workshops (see Tula Gubernia Handbook for 1895 , Tula, 1895).— Lenin

[88]
Workroom owners , middlemen — owners of premises who rented them to manufacturers for the installation of hand-looms, and
themselves worked there. The middleman or workroom owner, by arrangement
with the employer, undertook to heat or repair the premises, deliver raw
materials to the weavers, send the finished product to the employer or act
as overseer. [p.386]

[95]
Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II. Vol. III. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and Hand
Labour in Russia. Part 1. Published by the Central Statistical Committee
of the Ministry of Home Affairs. St. Petersburg, 1872. [p.388]

[89]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.396]

[90]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.398]

[91]
Cadastre — a public record of the extent, value and ownership of
land, etc., for purposes of taxation. The cadastral surveys gave
particulars of land held, incomes of inhabitants and descriptions of
streets, monasteries, fortifications, etc. The oldest cadastre now extant
dates back to the 15th century, but most of those that have been preserved
relate to the 17th century. Surveys for the cadastre were made by special
commissions appointed by the central government authorities. [p.415]

[92]
The Law of June 2 , 1897 established a working day of 11
1/2 hours for industrial enterprises and railway workshops. Prior to the
adoption of this law the working day in Russia was unlimited and lasted as
long as 14 and 15 hours and even more. The tsar’s government was
forced to adopt this law due to the pressure of the working-class
movement, which was led by the “League of Struggle for the
Emancipation of the Working Class” headed by Lenin. A detailed
analysis and criticism of the law is given by Lenin in his pamphlet:
The New Factory Law . (See present edition, Vol. 2.) [p. 418]

[93]
The table that follows is based on a similar but more detailed table
published in the Vestnik Finansov , Issue No. 42, 1898. [p.423]

[94]
Prior to 1864 the gunsmiths of Tula were serfs of the state and lived in
special suburbs (slobodas). (The state blacksmiths’ sloboda, etc.)
They were divided into guilds: barrel, gun-stock, lock, instrumental,
etc. For the carrying out of auxiliary work serf-peasants from a number of
villages were attached to the Tula arms factories, their task being to
prepare charcoal for the gunsmiths, guard the forests allocated to the
factories, and do jobs in the factory yards.

In Tula at the time of their liberation from feudal dependence there were
nearly 4,000 gunsmiths, of whom 1,276 were employed in factories and 2,362
worked at home. In all, the gunsmiths and their families numbered over
20,000. [p.424]

| | I. The Rise of Manufacture and its Main Features | | | III. Technique in Manufacture. Division of Labour and its Significance | |

# The Weaving Industry

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vi/vi8ii.htm#sect01

Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry

II. Capitalist Manufacture in Russian Industry

Let us begin with the industries that process fibres.

1) The Weaving Industries

The weaving of linen, wool, cotton and silk fabrics, galloons, etc., was
organised everywhere in Russia as follows (before the appearance of
large-scale machine industry). The industry was headed by big capitalist
workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers; the owners of these
workshops, possessing sizable capital, undertook the large-scale purchase
of raw material, partly working it up in their own establishments, and partly giving out yarn and warp to small producers
(workroom owners, middlemen, [88] , peasant-“handicraftsmen” etc.) who wove the cloth at home or
in small workshops at piece rates. The work itself was done by hand, and
the following operations were distributed among the workers: 1)
yarn-dyeing; 2) yarn-winding (very often women and children specialised in
this operation); 3) yarn-fixing (“fixers”); 4) weaving; 5)
weft-winding for weavers (bobbin hands, mostly children). Sometimes in the
big workshops there were special “threaders” (who threaded the
warp through the eyes of the batten and reed.) [1] of labour
is usually applied, not only to single operations, but to wares, that is,
the

weavers specialise in producing various sorts of cloth. The selection of
some operations to be done in the home does not, of course, make any
change whatever to the economic structure of this type of industry. The
workrooms or homes where the weavers work are simply external departments
of the manufactory. The technical basis of such industry is hand
production with extensive and systematic division of labour; from the
economic point of view we see here the formation of large capital which
controls the purchase of raw materials and the sale of wares on an
extremely extensive (national) market, and under whose complete sway are a
mass of proletarian weavers; a few large establishments (manufactories in
the narrow sense of the term) dominate a mass of small ones. Division of
labour leads to the emergence of specialist artisans from among the
peasantry; non-agricultural centres of manufacture arise, such as the
village of Ivanovo in Vladimir Gubernia (in 1871 it became the town of
Ivanovo-Voznesensk and is now a centre of large-scale machine industry),
the village of Velikoye in Yaroslavl Gubernia, and many other villages in
Moscow, Kostroma, Vladimir and Yaroslavl gubernias, which have now turned
into factory towns. [2]

In our economic literature and statistics the industry organised in this way is
usually split up into two parts: peasants who work in their homes, or in
not particularly big workrooms, workshops, etc., are classed under
“handicraft” industry, while the bigger workrooms and workshops are placed among the “factories and works” (and,
moreover, quite fortuitously, since no definitely established and
uniformly applied rules exist as to the separation of small establishments
from big ones, of workrooms from manufactories, of workers occupied in
their homes from workers occupied in the workshop of the capitalist). [3]

Naturally, such classification, which places some wage-workers on one
side, and some masters who hire these very wage-workers (in addition to
the workers in their establishments) on the other, is nonsense from the
scientific viewpoint.

Let us illustrate this by detailed data regarding one of the
“handicraft weaving” industries, namely, silk weaving in
Vladimir

Gubernia. [4]

The “silk industry” is a typical specimen of capitalist
manufacture. Hand labour prevails. Of the total number of establishments
the small ones constitute the majority (179 out of 313, or 57% of the
total, have from 1 to 5 workers), but in greater part they are not
independent and are far behind the big ones in their significance to the
industry as a whole. Establishments with 20 to 150 workers constitute 8%
of the total (25), but in them 41.5% of the aggregate number of workers
are concentrated, and they account for 51% of the total output. Of the
total number of workers in the industry (2,823) there are 2,092
wage-workers, i.e., 74.1%. “On the job we meet with division of
labour both in wares and in individual operations.” Weavers are
rarely able to make both “velvet” and “satin” (the two principal lines in this trade). “The division of labour into
separate operations within the workshop is most strictly practised only in
the big factories” (i.e., manufactories) “that employ wage-workers.” The fully independent proprietors number only 123,
who alone buy the raw materials themselves and sell the finished article;
they have 242 family workers and “employ 2,498 wage-workers, who in
greater part are paid by the piece,” a total, consequently, of 2,740
workers, or 97% of the aggregate number of workers. It is thus clear that
the distribution by these manufactory owners, through the medium of
“middle-men” (workroom owners), of work to be done in the home
is no special form of industry at all, but is merely one of the operations
of capital in manufacture. Mr. Kharizomenov rightly observes that the
“mass of small establishments (57%) alongside the small number of
big ones (8%), and the insignificant number of workers employed per establishment (7 1/2) conceal the true character of the trade”
( loc . cit ., 39). The specialisation characteristic of
manufacture is seen here clearly in the separation of the industrialists
from agriculture (the land is abandoned, on the one hand by the
impoverished weavers, and on the other by the big manufactory owners) and
in the formation of a special type of industrial population, who live much
more “decently” than do the agriculturists, and look down upon
the muzhik ( loc . cit ., 106). Our factory statistics have
always registered only a very casually selected fraction of this industry. [5]

The “galloon industry” in Moscow Gubernia is capitalist
manufacture organised in a quite analogous fashion. [6]

Such precisely is the case with regard to the printed calico industry in
Kamyshin Uyezd, Saratov Gubernia. According to the Directory for
1890, there were here 31 “factories” with 4,250 workers and
output totalling 265,000 rubles, while according to the List
there was one “work distributing office” with 33 workers in
the establishment and an output totalling 47,000 rubles. (In other words,
in 1890 workers employed in the establishment and on the side were lumped
together!) According to local investigators, in 1888 nearly 7,000 looms
were engaged in producing printed calico, [7] an output
totalling 2 million rubles, and “the whole business is run by a few manufacturers,” who employ
“handicraftsmen” too, including children of 6 and 7 years of
age for a payment of 7 to 8 kopeks per day ( Reports and Investigations , Vol. I). [8]

And so forth.

2) Other Branches of the Textile Industry. The Felt Trade.

To judge by official factory statistics, felt production shows a very poor
development of “capitalism”: in all European Russia there are
altogether 55 factories, with 1,212 workers and an output totalling
454,000 rubles ( Directory for 1890). But these figures merely
show a casually picked fragment of a widely developed capitalist
industry. Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia occupies first place for the
development of “factory” felt production, and in that gubernia
the principal centre of the industry is the town of Arzamas and the suburb
Viyezdnaya Sloboda (where there are 8 “factories” with 278
workers and an output totalling 120,000 rubles; in 1897 there were 3,221
inhabitants; and in the village of Krasnoye, 2,835). It is in the environs
of these centres that “handicraft” felt-making is developed,
in some 243 establishments, employing 935 workers, with an output
totalling 103,847 rubles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V). To illustrate clearly the economic organisation of
felt-making in this district, let us try the graphic method and indicate
by specific symbols the producers who occupy special places in the general
structure of the industry.

It is clear, therefore, that the separation of “factory” and
“handicraft” industry is purely artificial, that what we have
before us is a single and integral structure of industry which fully fits
into the concept of capitalist (approximately) [9] manufacture. [10]

From the technical aspect it is hand production. The organisation of the
work is that of co-operation based on division of labour, which is here
observed in two forms: as to wares (some villages specialise in plain
felt, others in boots, hats, socks, etc.), and as to individual operations (for example,
the whole village of Vasilyev Vrag shapes hats and socks for the
village of Krasnoye, where the semi-prepared article is finished,
etc.). This is capitalist co-operation, for it is headed by big capital,
which has created large manufactories and has brought under its sway (by
an intricate web of economic relations) a mass of small
establishments. The overwhelming majority of the producers have been
transformed into workers performing one operation and producing
for entrepreneurs under extremely insanitary conditions. [11]

The long standing of the industry and the fully established capitalist
relations result in the separation of the industrialists from agriculture:
in the village of Krasnoye agriculture is in utter ruin, and the life of
the inhabitants differs from that of the agricultural population. [12]

Quite analogous is the organisation of the felt industry in a number of
other districts. In 363 village communities of Semyonov Uyezd in the same
gubernia, the industry in 1889 was carried on by 3,180 households, with
4,038 persons working. Of 3,946 workers, only 752 worked for the market,
576 were wage-workers and 2,618 worked for masters on the basis, in
greater part, of using the latter’s materials; 189 households gave
out work to 1,805 households. The big owners have workshops with as many
as 25 wage-workers, and buy wool to a value of some 10,000 rubles per year. [13]

The big owners are called thousanders ; their turnover runs to from 5,000
to 100,000 rubles; they have their own wool warehouses, and their own
booths for the sale of wares. [14]

For
Kazan Gubernia the List gives 5 felt “factories,” with 122 workers and an output totalling 48,000 rubles, as well as 60
outside workers. Evidently the latter are also included among the
“handicraftsmen,” concerning whom we read that they often work
for “buyers-up” and that there are establishments having 60 workers. [15]

Of 29 felt “factories” in Kostroma Gubernia, 28 are concentrated in
Kineshma Uyezd, and have 593 workers employed in the establishments and
458 outside ( List , pp. 68-70; two of the enterprises have only
outside workers. Steam-engines already appear). From the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (XV) we learn that out of a total of
3,908 wool-carders and felt-makers in this gubernia, 2,008 are
concentrated in Kineshma Uyezd. The Kostroma felt-makers are in greater
part dependent or work for wages in extremely insanitary workshops. [16]

In
Kalyazin Uyezd, Tver Gubernia, we find, on the one hand, that home work is
done for “factory owners” ( List , 113), and, on the other, that precisely this uyezd is a centre of “handicraft”
felt-makers; as many as 3,000 of them come from this uyezd, passing
through the wasteland called “Zimnyak” (in the 60s it was the
site of Alexeyev’s cloth mill), and forming “an enormous
labour market of wool-carders and felt-makers.” [17]

In Yaroslavl Gubernia outside work for “factory owners is a]so done” ( List , 115) and there
are “handicraftsmen” who work for merchant proprietors, using
the latter’s wool, etc.

3) The Hat-and-Cap and Hemp-and-Rope Trades

Above we gave statistics for the hat industry of Moscow

Gubernia. [18]

They show that two-thirds of the total output and of the total number of
workers are concentrated in 18 establishments, which have an average of 15.6 wage-workers. [19]

The “handicraft” hat-makers perform only part of the hat-making operations: they make the shapes, which are sold to Moscow
merchants who have their own “finishing establishments”; on
the other hand, “clippers” (women who clip the down) work at
home for the “handicraft” hat-makers. Thus, all in all, we
find here capitalist co-operation based on division of labour and
entangled in a whole network of diverse forms of economic dependence. In
the centre of the industry (the village of Klenovo, Podolsk Uyezd) the
separation of the industrialists (mainly wage-workers) from agriculture [20] is
clearly to be seen, together with a rise in the level of the
population’s requirements: they live “more decently,” dress in calico and even in cloth, buy samovars, abandon ancient customs,
etc., thereby evoking the bitter complaints of the local admirers of old times. [21]

The new era even occasioned the appearance of migratory hat-makers.

A typical example of capitalist manufacture is the cap industry in the
village of Molvitino, Bui Uyezd, Kostroma

Gubernia. [22] “The principal . . . occupation in the village of Molvitino and in
. . . 36 hamlets is the cap industry.” Agriculture is being
abandoned. Since 1861 the industry has greatly developed; sewing-machines
have become widely used. In Molvitino 10 workshops are busy all year round
with 5 to 25 male and 1 to 5 female workers each. “The best workshop
. . . has a turnover of about 100,000 rubles per annum.” [23]

Work is also distributed to homes (for example, materials for the crowns
are made by women in their homes). Division of labour cripples the
workers, who work under the most insanitary conditions and usually
contract tuberculosis. The lengthy existence of the industry (for over 200
years) has produced highly skilled craftsmen; the Molvitino craftsmen are
known in the big cities and in the remote outer regions.

The centre of the hemp industry in the Medyn Uyezd, Kaluga Gubernia, is
the village of Polotnyani Zavod. This is a large village (according to the
census of 1897 it had 3,685 inhabitants) with a population that is
landless and highly industrial (over 1,000 “handicraftsmen”);
it is the centre of the “handicraft” industries of Medyn

Uyezd. [24]

The hemp industry is organised in the following way: the big proprietors (of whom
there are three, the biggest being Yerokhin) have workshops employing
wage-workers and circulating capital of more or less considerable
dimensions for purchasing raw materials. The hemp is combed in the
“factory,” spun by spinners in their homes, and twisted both
in the factory and in the home. It is warped in the factory and woven both
in the factory and in the home. In 1878 a total of 841 “handicraftsmen” was counted in the hemp industry; Yerokhin is
considered to be both a “handicraftsman” and a “factory
owner,” employing 94-64 workers in 1890 and in 1894-1895; according
to Reports and Investigations (Vol. II, p.187), “hundreds
of peasants” work for him.

In Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the rope industry is also centred in
non-agricultural industrial villages, Nizhni Izbylets and Verkhni Izbylets
in the Gorbatov

Uyezd. [25]

According to Mr. Karpov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII), the Gorbatov-Izbylets district is one large
rope-making area; part of the inhabitants of the town of Gorbatov are also
engaged in the industry, and the villages of Verkhni Izbylets and Nizhni
Izbylets are, in fact, “almost part of the town of Gorbatov”;
the inhabitants live like townspeople, drink tea every day, wear clothing
bought in the shops, and eat white bread. Altogether, as many as
two-thirds of the inhabitants of 32 villages are engaged in the industry,
a total of 4,701 working (2,096 men and 2,605 women) with an output of
about 1 1/2 million rubles. The industry has been in existence for nearly 200 years, and is now declining. It is organised as follows:
all work for 29 proprietors, using the latter’s materials, are paid
by the piece, are “totally dependent upon the proprietors” and
work from 14 to 15 hours a day. According to Zemstvo statistics (1889) the
industry employs 1,699 male workers (plus 558 females and males of
non-working age). Of 1,648 working only 197 work for sale, 1,340 work for proprietors [26] and 111 are wage-workers employed in the workshops of 58
proprietors. Of 1,288 allotment households, only 727, or a little over half, cultivate all their land themselves. Of
1,573 allotment-holding working persons, 306, or 19.4%, do not
engage in agriculture at all. Turning to the question as to who
these “proprietors” are, we must pass from the sphere of
“handicraft” industry to that of “factory” industry. According
to the List for 1894-95 there were two rope factories there, with 231 workers employed on the premises and 1,155
working outside, with an output totalling 423,000 rubles. Both
these establishments have installed motors (which they did not
have either in 1879 or in 1890), and we therefore clearly see
here the transition from capitalist manufacture to capitalist
machine industry, and the transformation of “handicraft” work
distributors and buyers-up into real factory owners.

In Perm Gubernia the handicraft census of 1894-95 registered 68 peasant
rope-and-string yards, with 343 workers (of whom 143 were hired) and an
output totalling 115,000 rubles. [27]

These small establishments are headed by big manufactories,
which are reckoned together, viz.: 6 owners employ 101 workers
(91 hired) and have an output totalling 81,000 rubles. [28]

The system of production in these big establishments may serve as the most
striking example of “serial manufacture” (as Marx calls it [89] ), i.e., the
sort of manufacture in which different workers perform different consecutive operations in working up the raw material: 1) hemp
scutching; 2) combing; 3) spinning; 4) coiling; 5) tarring; 6) winding on
drum; 7) passing threads through perforated board; 8) passing threads
through iron bush; 9) stranding of plaits, twisting and gathering of ropes. [29]

The organisation of the hemp industry in Orel Gubernia is evidently
similar: from among the considerable number of small peasant
establishments big manufactories emerge, principally in the towns, and are
included among the “factories and works” (according to the
Directory for 1890 there were in Orel Gubernia 100 hemp-scutching
factories, with 1,671 workers and an output totalling 795,000 rubles). The
peasants work in the hemp industry “for merchants” (probably
for the very same manufacturers), using the latter’s materials, at
piece rates, the work being divided up into special operations:
“scutchers” scutch the hemp; “spinners” spin it; “bearders” trim it, “wheelmen” turn the wheel. The
work is very hard; many contract consumption and “rupture.”
The dust is so thick that “unless accustomed you will not stay in it
for a quarter of an hour.” The work is done in ordinary sheds from
dawn to dusk, from May to

September. [30]

4) The Wood-Working Trades

The most typical example of capitalist manufacture in this sphere is the
chest-making industry. According to the data, for instance, of the Perm
investigators, “this industry is organised as follows: a few big
proprietors, owning workshops that employ wage-workers, purchase
materials, partly make the wares on their own premises, but mainly give
out material to small workshops making parts, and in their own shops
assemble them and, after finishing, send the ready article to
market. Division of labour . . . is employed on the job extensively: the making of the entire chest is divided into ten
or twelve operations, each separately performed by handicraftsmen. The
organisation of the industry consists in the combination of workers
performing one operation ( Teilarbeiter , as they are called in
Das Kapital ) under the command of capital .” [31]

This is heterogeneous manufacture ( heterogene Manufaktur , as Marx calls it [90] ), in which
the different workers do not perform consecutive operations in turning the
raw material into the product, but make the various parts of the product,
which are afterwards assembled. The preference of the capitalists for the
domestic work of “handicraftsmen” is to be explained partly by
the above mentioned character of manufacture, and partly (and mainly) by
the cheaper labour of the home workers. [32]

Let us observe that the relatively big workshops in this industry are sometimes
also included among “factories and works.” [33]

In all probability, the chest-making industry is organised similarly in
Vladimir Gubernia, in Murom Uyezd where, according to the List ,
there are 9 “factories” (all hand-operated), with 89 workers
on the premises and 11 outside, and an output totalling 69,810
rubles.

The carriage industry, in Perm Gubernia, for example, is organised on
similar lines: from among the mass of small establishments there emerge
assembly workshops employing wage-workers; the small handicraftsmen are
workers who make parts of the carriages both out of their own materials,
and out of materials supplied by the “buyers-up” (i.e., owners
of the assembly workshops.) [34]

We
read about the Poltava “handicraft” carriage builders that in
the suburb of Ardon there are workshops that employ wage-workers and also
distribute work to homes (the bigger masters having as many as 20 outside workers). [35]

In
Kazan Gubernia, division of labour as to wares is to be observed in the building of town carriages:
some villages specialise in sleighs, others in wheeled vehicles,
etc. “The town carriages, completely assembled in the villages (but
without the metal work, wheels or shafts), are sent to Kazan merchant
customers, who in turn send them to blacksmiths for the metal work. The
carriages are then sent back again to the shops and workshops in the town,
where they are finished off, i.e., are upholstered and painted. . . . Kazan, where town carriages were formerly iron-mounted,
gradually passed this work on to handicraftsmen, who work at home for a
smaller payment than do the town craftsmen....” [36]

Hence, capital prefers to distribute work to home workers because this reduces the cost of labour-power. The
organisation of the carriage industry, as is evident from the data quoted,
constitutes, in the majority of cases, a system of handicraftsmen making
parts, who are under the sway of capital.

The large industrial village of Vorontsovka, Pavlovsk Uyezd, Voronezh
Gubernia (9,541 inhabitants in 1897), constitutes, as it were, a single
manufactory of wooden articles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., Vol. IX, article by Rev. M. Popov). Over 800 houses
are engaged in the industry (as well as some households in the suburb of
Alexandrovka, which has over 5,000 inhabitants). They make carts,
tarantasses, wheels, chests, etc., to a total of about 267,000
rubles. Less than one-third are independent masters; hired workers in
masters’ workshops are rare. [37]

The majority work to order for peasant merchants at piece rates. The workers
are in debt to the proprietors and are worn out by arduous toil: the
people are growing feebler. The inhabitants of the suburb are industrial,
not of the rural type, and scarcely engage in agriculture at all (except
to work vegetable plots), since their allotments are miserably small. The
industry has been long in existence, diverting the population from agriculture and increasingly widening the
rift between the rich and the poor. The people subsist on meagre food;
they dress “more smartly than before,” “but beyond their
means,” in clothing that is entirely bought. “The population
has succumbed to the spirit of industry and trade.” “Nearly
all who have no craft carry on some trading. . . . Under the influence of
industry and trade, the peasant has, generally speaking, become more
unreserved, and this has made him more developed and resourceful.” [38]

The celebrated wooden-spoon industry of the Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, is close to capitalist manufacture in its
organisation. True, there are no big workshops standing out from among the
mass of small workshops and dominating them, but we find a deeply-rooted
division of labour and the complete subjection of the mass of part-job
workers to capital. Before it is ready, the spoon passes through no less
than 10 hands, the buyers-up getting some of the operations done by
specially hired workers or giving them out to specialist workers (for
example, for varnishing); some of the villages specialise in particular
operations (for example, the village of Dyakovo specialises in spoon
finishing to the order of the buyer-up, at piece rates; the villages of
Khvostikovo, Dianovo and Zhuzhelka specialise in varnishing, etc.). The
buyers-up purchase the timber wholesale in the Samara and other gubernias,
where they send parties of hired workers; they own warehouses for raw
material and manufactured goods, supply the most valuable material to
handicraftsmen for processing, etc. The mass of workers doing part jobs
merge into a single, complex mechanism of production, entirely under the
sway of capital. “It is all the same to the spoon-makers whether
they work for hire at the master’s cost and on his premises, or are
occupied in their own cottages, for in this industry, as in others,
everything has been weighed, measured and counted. The spoon-maker never
earns more than just enough to keep body and soul together.” [39]

It is quite natural that under such conditions the capitalists who dominate the whole trade are in no hurry to open their
own workshops, and the industry, based on hand skill and traditional
division of labour, stagnates in its seclusion and immobility. Tied to the
land, the “handicraftsmen” seem to have become petrified in
their routine: as in 1879, so in 1889, they still count money in the old
style, in banknotes and not in silver.

The toy industry in Moscow Gubernia is headed similarly by establishments
of the capitalist-manufactory type. [40]

Of 481 workshops, 20 have over 10 workers each. Division of labour, both as to
wares and as to individual operations, is practised on a very wide scale,
enormously raising the productivity of labour (at the cost of crippling
the worker). For example, it is estimated that a small workshop yields a
return of 26% of the selling price, and a big workshop, one of

58%. [41]

Of course, the fixed capital of the big proprietors is also much larger; technical
devices are met with (for example, drying sheds). The centre of the
industry is a non-agricultural township, the suburb of Sergiyevsky (where
there are 1,055 workers out of a total of 1,398, with an output to the
amount of 311,000 rubles out of a total of 405,000 rubles; the population,
according to the 1897 census, numbers 15,155). The author of the article
on this industry, referring to the prevalence of small workshops, etc.,
considers it more, but still not very, likely that the industry will
develop into manufacture rather than into factory industry. “In the
future, too,” he says, “the small producers will always be
able to compete more or less successfully with large-scale
production” ( loc . cit ., 93). The author forgets that in manufacture the technical basis is always the same hand-production
that obtains in the small industries; that the division of labour can
never be such a decisive advantage that it will entirely eliminate the small producers,
particularly if the latter resort to such means as lengthening the working
day, etc.; and that manufacture is never in a position to embrace the
whole of production, but remains a mere superstructure over the mass of
small establishments.

5) The Processing of Livestock Produce. [The Leather and Fur Trades]

The most extensive areas of the leather industry present particularly
striking examples of the complete merging of “handicraft” and
factory industry, examples of capitalist manufacture highly developed (in
depth and in breadth). What is characteristic is the fact that the
gubernias which are conspicuous for the size of their “factory” leather industry (Vyatka, Nizhni-Novgorod, Perm and
Tver) are marked by a particular development of “handicraft”
industries in this sphere.

In the village of Bogorodskoye, Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia,
there were, according to the Directory for 1890, 58 “factories” with 392 workers and an output totalling 547,000
rubles; according to the List for 1894-95 there were 119
“works,” with 1,499 workers on the premises and 205 outside,
and with an output totalling 934,000 rubles (the latter figures covering
only the processing of livestock produce, the principal local
industry). But these data deal only with the top levels of
capitalist manufacture. Mr. Karpov in 1879 computed in this village and
its environs over 296 establishments, with 5,669 workers (a large number
of whom worked at home for capitalists), and with an output totalling
about 1,490,000 rubles [42] in the following industries: tanning, shingle-gluing, basket-weaving (for packing
goods), harness-making, horse-collar-making, mitten-making and, standing
by itself, pottery. The Zemstvo census of 1889 listed 4,401 industrialists
for this district, and of 1,842 workers for whom detailed information is
given, 1,119 work for hire in other people’s workshops and 405 work
at home for masters. [43] “Bogorodskoye, with its population of 8,000, is a huge tannery in continuous operation.” [44]

To be more precise, it is a “serial” manufactory controlled by a few big capitalists who buy the raw materials,
tan the hides, and turn them into a variety of articles, hiring several
thousand absolutely propertyless workers for the job and ruling over the
small

establishments. [45]

This industry has had a very long existence, since the 17th century;
particularly memorable in the industry’s history are the Sheremetevs
(beginning of the 19th century), landlords who helped considerably to
develop the industry and, incidentally, protected the proletariat, which
came into existence here long ago, from the local rich. After 1861 the
industry greatly developed, and particularly did big establishments grow
at the expense of the small ones; centuries of industrial activity
produced from among the population remarkably skilled craftsmen who have
carried the trade all over Russia. The firmly-rooted capitalist relations
have led to the separation of industry from agriculture: hardly any
farming is done in Bogorodskoye village itself, which, on the contrary,
divorces neighbouring peasants who move into this “town” from
the

land. [46]

Mr. Karpov notes in this village “a complete absence of peasant
characteristics among the inhabitants,” so that “you would
never think you were in a village and not a town.” This village
leaves Gorbatov and all the other uyezd towns of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia
far behind, with the exception, perhaps, of Arzamas. It is “one of
the considerable commercial and industrial centres in the gubernia, and its industry and
commerce run into the millions.” “The radius of the industrial
and commercial influence of Bogorodskoye is very wide; but most closely
connected with the industry of Bogorodskoye is that of its environs within
a radius of 10 to 12 versts. These industrial environs are, as it were, a
continuation of Bogorodskoye itself.” “The inhabitants of
Bogorodskoye do not in the least resemble the ordinary, raw muzhiks: they
are artisans of the burgher type, shrewd, experienced people, who look
down on the peasants. The manner of life and the ethical standards of the
Bogorodskoye inhabitants are completely urban.” To this we must add
that the industrial villages of Gorbatov Uyezd are marked by a relatively
high level of literacy among the population. Thus, the percentage of
literate and student men and women is, in the villages of Pavlovo,
Bogorodskoye and Vorsma, 37.8% and 20% respectively, as against 21.5% and
4.4% in the rest of the uyezd (see Zemstvo statistical Material ).

Quite analogous (only on a smaller scale) are the relations in the
leather-processing industries of the villages of Katunki and Gorodets
(Balakhna Uyezd), Bolshoye Murashkino (Knyaginin Uyezd), Yurino (Vasil
Uyezd), and Tubanayevka, Spasskoye, Vatras and Latyshikha in the same
uyezd. These are similar non-agricultural centres with a
“ring” of surrounding agricultural villages, and with similar
diverse industries and numerous small establishments (and also workers in
the home) subordinated to big entrepreneurs, whose capitalist workshops
are occasionally included among “factories and works.” [47]

Without going into statistical details, which will provide nothing new
compared with what has already been said, let us merely quote the
following extremely interesting description of the village of

Katunki: [48] “A certain patriarchal simplicity in the relations between masters
and workmen, which, however, is not so noticeable at first sight and is, unfortunately (?), disappearing increasingly every year
. . . testifies to the handicraft character of the industries (?). It is
only recently that the factory character both of the industries and of the
population has begun to be observed, under the influence, in particular,
of the town, intercourse with which has been facilitated by the
inauguration of the steamboat service. Today the village looks like a
regular industrial township: there is no sign of agriculture whatever, the
houses are built close together as in the towns; the fine brick houses of
the rich, and alongside of them the miserable hovels of the poor; the long
wooden and brick buildings of the factories crowded in the middle of the
village — all this sharply distinguishes Katunki from the neighbouring
villages and clearly points to the industrial character of the local
population. The inhabitants themselves possess features of character that
also call to mind the type of “factory hand” who has already
taken shape in Russia: a certain showiness in house furniture, in clothes
and manners, spendthrift habits of life in most cases, and little care for
the morrow, a forwardness and often affectation in speech, a certain
superciliousness towards the country yokel — all these features are
possessed by them in common with all Russian factory people.” [49]

In the town of Arzamas, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the “factory” statistics listed in 1890 a total of 6 tanneries,
employing 64 workers ( Directory ); this is only a small fraction
of the capitalist manufacture which embraces the fur, boot-making and
other industries. The same factories employ workers in the home, both in
the town of Arzamas (in 1878, estimated at 400) and in 5 suburban
villages, where out of the 360 furrier households, 330 work for Arzamas
merchants, using their materials and working 14 hours a day for 6 to 9
rubles per month [50] ; that is why the furriers are pallid, feeble and degenerating folk. In the suburb of Viyezdnaya Sloboda, of the 600 boot-maker households, 500 work for
masters, from whom they receive the cut-out leather. The industry is of
long standing, being about 200 years old, and is still growing and
developing. The inhabitants hardly engage in agriculture at all; their
whole manner of life is purely urban, and they live “in grand
style.” The same applies to the furrier villages mentioned above,
the inhabitants of which “look down with disdain upon the peasant
and call him a ‘country bumpkin’.” [51]

We find exactly the same thing in Vyatka Gubernia. The Vyatka and
Slobodskoi uyezds are centres both of “factory” and of “handicraft” leather and fur trades. In the Vyatka Uyezd, the
handicraft tanneries are concentrated on the outskirts of the town and
“supplement” the industrial activities of the big works, [52] for
example, by working for the big owners; working for the latter also, in
the majority of cases, are the handicraft harness-makers and glue
makers. The fur factory owners have hundreds working for them in the home,
sewing sheepskins, etc. This is just a single capitalist manufactory with
branches: sheepskin dressing and sheepskin-coat-making, leather and
harness, etc. Still more striking are the relations existing in the
Slobodskoi Uyezd (the centre of the industries is the suburb of Demyanka);
here we see a small number of big factory owners [53] at the
head of handicraft tanners (numbering 870), boot- and mitten-makers (855),
sheepskin-dressers (940), and tailors (309 make short sheepskin coats to
order from capitalists). Generally speaking, such organisation of the
production of leather goods is evidently very widespread: thus, in the
town of Sarapul, Vyatka Gubernia, the List gives 6 tanneries,
also making footwear, which employ, in addition to 214 workers on the
premises, 1,080 outside workers (p. 495). What would become of our
“handicrafts men,” those representatives of “people’s” industry who are depicted in such bright hues by all sorts of Manilovs, if all the Russian
merchants and factory owners were to compute with equal detail and
precision the outside workers employed by them? [54]

Reference should be made here to the industrial village of Rasskazovo,
Tambov Uyezd, Tambov Gubernia (population in 1897 was 8,283), a centre
both of “factory” industry (cloth mills, soap-works, tanneries
and distilleries) and of “handicraft” industry, the latter
being closely connected with the former; and to the industries: tanning,
felt-making (as many as 70 masters, and establishments employing from 20
to 30 workers), glue-making, boot-making, stocking knitting (there is not
a household where stockings are not knit from wool that
“buyers-up” give out by weight), etc. Near this village is the
suburb of Belaya Polyana (300 households), celebrated for industries of
the same kind. In Morshansk Uyezd, the centre of the handicraft industries
is the village of Pokrovskoye-Vasilyevskoye, which is also the centre of
factory industry (see Directory and Reports and Investigations , Vol. III). In Kursk Gubernia, noteworthy as
industrial villages and centres of “handicraft” industries are
the suburbs: Veliko-Mikhailovka (Novy Oskol Uyezd; population in 1897 was
11,853), Borisovka (Graivoron Uyezd — 18,071 inhabitants), Tomarovka
(Belgorod Uyezd, 8,716 inhabitants), Miropolye (Sudzha Uyezd, over 10,000
inhabitants. See Reports and Investigations , Vol. I, Information
for 1888-1889). In the same villages you will also find leather
“works” (see Directory for 1890). The principal “handicraft” industry is leather and boot-making. It arose as far back as the first half of the 18th century and reached the peak of its
development in the 60s of the 19th century having become “a stable
organisation of a purely commercial character.” The whole business
was monopolised by contractors, who bought the leather and gave it out to
be processed by handicraftsmen. The railways destroyed this monopoly
character of capital, and the capitalist contractors transferred their
capital to more profitable undertakings. Today it is organised as follows:
there are about 120 big entrepreneurs; they own workshops where
wage-workers are employed, and also distribute work to homes; there are as
many as 3,000 small independent masters (who, however, buy their leather
from the big ones); there are 400 people who work at home (for the big
masters), and as many wage-workers; then there are the apprentices. The
total number of boot-makers is over 4,000. In addition, there are
handicraft potters, icon-case makers, icon painters, table-cloth weavers,
etc.

A highly characteristic and typical example of capitalist manufacture is
the squirrel-fur industry in Kargopol Uyezd, Olonets Gubernia, described
with such knowledge of the facts, and with truthful and artless
presentation of the whole life of the industrial population by a craftsman
and teacher in the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission
(Vol. IV). According to his description (in 1878), the industry has
existed since the beginning of the 19th century: 8 masters employ 175
workers, in addition to which they have as many as 1,000 seamstresses and
some 35 families of furriers working for them at home (in different
villages), 1,300 to 1,500 persons in all, with an output totalling 336,000
rubles. As a point of interest, it should be noted that when this was a
flourishing industry it was not included in the “factory”
statistics. The Directory for 1879 makes no mention of it. But
when it began to decline the statistics included it. The
Directory for 1890 listed for the town and the uyezd of Kargopol
7 works, with 121 workers and an output totalling 50,000 rubles, whereas
the List gave 5 works, with 79 workers (plus 57 outside) and an
output totalling 49,000 rubles. [55]

The order of things prevailing in this branch of capitalist manufacture is very instructive as a specimen of what goes on
in our age-old, purely native “handicraft industries,” that
have been left stranded in one of Russia’s numerous rural
backwoods. The craftsmen work 15 hours a day in a very unhealthy
atmosphere and earn 8 rubles per month, less than 60 or 70 rubles per
year. The masters’ incomes amount to about 5,000 rubles per
annum. The relations between masters and workers are “patriarchal”: according to ancient custom, the master gives
the workers kvass and salt gratis, which they have to beg from his
cook. As a mark of gratitude to the master (for “giving” them
work) the workers come, without pay, to pull squirrel tails, and also
clean furs after work. The workers live in the workshop all the week, and
the masters knock them about, seemingly in a joke (p. 218,
loc . cit .), make them do all sorts of jobs, such as raking hay, shovelling snow, fetching water, rinsing clothes, etc. Labour
is astonishingly cheap in Kargopol itself, and the peasants in the
vicinity “are ready to work for next to nothing.” Work is done
by hand, there is systematic division of labour, and there is a lengthy
apprenticeship (8 to 12 years); the lot of the apprentices can easily be
imagined.

6) The Remaining Livestock Processing Trades

A particularly noteworthy example of capitalist manufacture is the
celebrated boot industry of the village of Kimry, Korcheva Uyezd, Tver
Gubernia, and its environs. [56]

The industry is a very old one, having existed since the 16th
century. Since the Reform, it has continued to grow and develop. In the
early 70s Pletnev counted 4 volosts in the area covered by this industry,
but in 1888 the area included 9 volosts. Basically the organisation of the
industry is as follows. It is headed by the owners of big workshops
employing wage-workers; they distribute the cut-out leather to be made up
by outside workers. Mr. Pletnev counted 20 such masters, employing 124
adults and 60 boys, with an output totalling 818,000 rubles, while the
number of workers occupied at home for these capitalists is estimated by
the author approximately at 1,769 adults and 1,833 boys. Then come the
small masters, each with 1 to 5 wage-workers and 1 to 3 boys. These
masters dispose of their goods mainly in the village market in Kimry; they
number 224 and have 460 adults and 301 boys working for them; output
totals 187,000 rubles. Hence, there are 244 masters altogether, employing
2,353 adults (of whom 1,769 work at home) and 2,194 boys (of whom 1,833
work at home), with an output totalling 1,005,000 rubles. Further, there
are workshops which do various individual operations: currying
(skin-cleaning with scraper); chipping (gluing of chips left from
currying); special carting (4 masters, with 16 employees and up to 50 horses); special
carpentry (box-making), etc. [57]

Pletnev calculated the total output at 4.7 million rubles for the whole
district. In 1881 the number of handicraftsmen was computed at 10,638, and
with migrants, 26,000, with an output totalling 3.7 million rubles. As to
conditions of labour, it is important to note the excessively long working day (14 to
15 hours) and the extremely insanitary working conditions, payment in
goods, etc. The centre of the industry, Kimry village, “is more like
a small town” ( Reports and Investigations , I, 224); the
inhabitants are poor agriculturists, and are engaged in their industry all
the year round; only the rural handicraftsmen give up the industry during
haymaking. The houses in Kimry village are urban, and the inhabitants are
distinguished for their urban habits of life (such as “showiness”). Until very recently this industry was not
included in “factory” statistics, probably because the masters
“readily style themselves handicraftsmen” ( ibid ., 228). The List has for the first time included 6 boot workshops
in Kimry district, with 15 to 40 workers each on the premises, and with no
outside workers. Of course, it contains no end of gaps.

Manufacture also includes the button industry of Moscow Gubernia,
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds — the making of buttons from hoofs and
rams’ horns. Engaged in this industry are 487 workers, employed in
52 establishments; the output totals 264,000 rubles. Establishments with
fewer than 5 employees number 16; those with 5 to 10 — 26; those with 10
and more — 10. Masters who do without wage-workers number only 10; these
work for big masters, using the latter’s materials. Only the big
industrialists (who, as is evident from the figures given, should have
from 17 to 21 workers per establishment) are quite independent. It is
they, evidently, who figure in the Directory as “factory
owners” (see p. 291: 2 establishments with an output totalling 4,000
rubles and with 73 workers). This is “serial manufacture”; the
horns are first steamed in what is called the “smithy” (a
wooden hut with a furnace); then they are passed on to the
workshop where they are cut up, after which they go to a stamping
press, where the pattern is imprinted, and, lastly, are finished and
polished on lathes. The industry has its apprentices. The working day is
14 hours. Payment in goods is a regular thing. The relations between
masters and men are patriarchal, as seen in the following: the master
calls the workers “boys,” and the pay-book is called the
“boys’ book”; when the master pays the workers, he lectures them and never grants in full their
“requests” for payment.

The horn industry, which is included in our table of small industries
(Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 31 and 33), is also of the same
type. “Handicraftsmen” employing dozens of wage-workers figure
also in the Directory as “factory owners” (p. 291). Division
of labour is practised; work is also given out to home workers (horn
trimmers). The centre of the industry in Bogorodsk Uyezd is the big
village of Khoteichi, where agriculture is receding into the background
(population in 1897 was 2,494). The Moscow Zemstvo publication stated
quite rightly: Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd ,
Moscow Gubernia , in 1890 , that this village “ is nothing but a large comb manufactory ” (p. 24,
our italics). In 1890, over 500 industrialists were counted in this
village, with an output of from 3.5 to 5.5 million combs. “More
often than not, the horn dealer is also a buyer-up of finished goods, and
in many cases a big comb-maker as well.” The position of those
makers who are compelled to take horns “at piece rates” is
particularly bad: “their position is actually worse than that of the
wage-workers in the big establishments.” Dire need compels them to
exploit the labour of their whole families beyond measure, to lengthen their working day and to put juveniles to work. “During the
winter, work in Khoteichi starts at one o’clock in the morning, and
it is hard to say for certain when it ends in the cottage of the
‘independent’ craftsman doing ‘piece-work.’”
Payment in goods is widely practised. “This system, eliminated with
such difficulty from the factories, is still in full force in the small
handicraft establishments” (27). Probably, the horn goods industry
is organised on similar lines in Kadnikov Uyezd, Vologda Gubernia, in the
area of Ustye village (known as “Ustyanshchina”), where there
are 58 hamlets. Mr. V. Borisov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX) counts 388 handicraftsmen here, with an output
totalling 45,000 rubles; all the handicraftsmen work for capitalists, who
buy horns in St. Petersburg and tortoise-shell abroad.

At the head of the brush industry in Moscow Gubernia (see Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industry No. 20) we find big establishments with a large number
of wage-workers and with systematic division of labour. [58]

It is interesting to note at this point the changes that took place in the
organisation of this industry between 1879 and 1895 (see Moscow Zemstvo
publication: The Brush Industry According to the Investigation of 1895 ). Some well-to-do industrialists went to Moscow to carry on the
industry there. The number of industrialists increased 70%, the increase
being particularly large in the number of women (+170%) and girls
(+159%). The number of big workshops with wage-workers diminished: the
proportion of establishments with wage-workers dropped from 62% to
39%. This was due to the fact that the masters began to distribute work to be done in the home . The introduction into general use of the
drilling machine (for making holes in brush blocks) accelerated and
facilitated one of the main processes in brushmaking. The demand for
“setters” (craftsmen who “set” bristle in the block) increased; and this operation, which became increasingly
specialised, fell to the lot of women, their labour being cheaper. The
women began to work at home setting bristle, and were paid by the
piece. Thus, the growing resort to domestic industry was caused in this
case by progress in technique (drilling machine), progress in division of
labour (the women do nothing but set bristle), and progress in capitalist
exploitation (the labour of women and girls being cheaper). This example
shows very clearly that domestic industry by no means eliminates the concept of capitalist manufacture , but, on the contrary, is sometimes
even a sign of its further development .

7) The Processing of Mineral Products

In the section relating to ceramics we get an example of capitalist
manufacture in the industries of the Gzhel district (an area of 25 villages
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds, Moscow Gubernia). The relevant
statistics are given in our table of small industries (Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industries Nos. 15, 28 and 37). From these data it is evident that despite the enormous differences between the three Gzhel industries:
pottery, porcelain and decorative, these differences disappear as we pass
from one grade of establishment to another in each industry, and we get a
series of workshops of successively increasing dimensions. Here are the
average numbers of workers per establishment according to grade in these
three industries: 2.4 — 4.3 — 8.4 — 4.4. — 7.9 — 13.5 — 18 — 69 —
226.4. In other words, the workshops range from the very smallest to the
very biggest. There is no doubt that the big establishments belong to the
category of capitalist manufacture (inasmuch as they have not introduced
machines, have not developed into factories); what is important, however,
is not only this, but also that the small establishments are connected with the big ones ; that we have a single system of industry
here and not separate workshops of one or other type of economic
organisation. “Gzhel constitutes a single economic whole”
(Isayev, loc . cit ., 138), and the big workshops in the
district have grown slowly and gradually out of the small ones
( ibid ., 121). The work is done by hand, [59] with considerable division of labour : among the potters we find wheel
hands (specialising in different sorts of pottery), kilnmen, etc., and
sometimes special workers for preparing colours. In the manufacture of
porcelain-ware division of labour is extremely detailed: crushers, wheel
hands, feeders, kilnmen, decorators, etc. The wheel hands even specialise
in the various kinds of porcelain ware (cf. Isayev, loc . cit ., 140: in one case division of labour increases
productivity of labour by 25%). The decorators’ shops work for the
porcelain makers and are, therefore, only departments of the
latter’s manufactories, performing a special detailed operation. It
is characteristic of developed capitalist manufacture that physical
strength itself becomes a specialty. Thus, in Gzhel, some of the villages
are engaged (almost to a man) in clay digging; for heavy work not requiring special
skill (grinding), workers from the Tula and Ryazan gubernias are employed
almost exclusively, being superior in strength and vigour to the not very
robust Gzhelians. Payment in goods is widely practised. Agriculture is in
a bad way. “The Gzhelians are a degenerating race” (Isayev,
168) — weak-chested, narrow-shouldered, feeble; the decorators lose their
sight at an early age, etc. Capitalist division of labour breaks up the
worker and deforms him. The working day is from 12 to 13 hours.

8) The Metal Trades. The Pavlovo Industries

The celebrated Pavlovo lock and cutlery industries cover the whole of
Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, and Murom Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. These industries originated very long ago. Smirnov states that
as far back as 1621 there were (according to the cadastres [91] ) 11
smithies in Pavlovo. By the middle of the 19th century these industries
constituted a far-flung network of fully developed capitalist
relations. After the Reform, the industries in this district continued to
develop and expand. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889, in Gorbatov
Uyezd 13 volosts and 119 villages were engaged in industry; a total of
5,953 households, 6,570 male workers (54% of the total number working in
these villages) and 2,741 old men, juveniles and women, 9,311 persons in
all. In the Murom Uyezd, Mr. Grigoryev in 1881 registered 6 industrial
volosts, 66 villages, 1,545 households and 2,205 male workers (39% of the
total number working in these villages). Not only were large,
non-agricultural industrial villages formed (Pavlovo, Vorsma), but even
the surrounding peasants were diverted from agriculture: outside of
Pavlovo and Vorsma, in Gorbatov Uyezd, 4,492 persons were engaged in
industries, of whom 2,357, or more than half did not engage in
agriculture. Life in centres like Pavlovo has become quite urban and has
given rise to incomparably more developed requirements, more cultured
environment, clothes, manner of life, etc., than among the surrounding
“raw”

peasants. [60]

Turning to the economic organisation of the Pavlovo industries, we must
first of all note the indubitable fact that the “handicraftsmen” are headed by the most typical capitalist
manufactories. For example, in the Zavyalovs’ establishment (which
already in the 60s employed over 100 workers at the bench and has now
introduced a steam engine) a penknife passes through 8 or 9 hands: the
forger, blade-maker, handle-maker (usually an outside worker), hardener,
facer, polisher, finisher, grinder and marker. This is extensive
capitalist co-operation based on division of labour, with a considerable
number of the workers performing individual operations employed at home
and not in the capitalist’s workshop. Here are facts given by
Mr. Labzin (in 1866) on the bigger establishments in the villages of
Pavlovo, Vorsma and Vacha, covering all branches of production in this
district: 15 proprietors had 500 workers occupied on the premises and
1,134 workers outside, making a total of 1,634, with an output totalling
351,700 rubles. How far this description of economic relations is
applicable to the whole district at the present time may be seen from the
following data [61] :

Thus, the organisation of the industry as outlined by us prevails in all
the districts. All in all, about three-fifths of the total number
of workers are employed capitalistically. Here too, consequently, we find
manufacture predominating in the general structure of the industry [62] and
holding masses of workers under its sway, without, however, being able to
eradicate small production. The relative tenacity of the latter is fully
explained, firstly, by the fact that in some branches of the Pavlovo
industry mechanised production has not yet been introduced at all (for
instance, in lock-making); and, secondly, by the fact that the small
producer tries to save himself from sinking by resorting to means that
cause him to sink far lower than the wage-worker. These means are:
lengthening the working day, and reducing the standard of living and of
general requirements. “The earnings of the group of handicraftsmen
who work for proprietors are less subject to fluctuation”
(Grigoryev, loc . cit ., 65); at Zavyalovs’, for example, the lowest-paid worker is the handle-maker; “he works at
home, and that is why he is satisfied with lower earnings” (68). The
handicraftsmen who work “for factory owners” are “able to earn somewhat more than the average earnings of the one who takes his
products to the market. Larger earnings are particularly noticeable among
the workers who live in the factories” (70). [63]

The working day in the “factories” is from 14 1/2 to 15 hours,
with a maximum of 16 hours. “The working day of the home-working
handicraftsmen, on the other hand, is never less than 17 hours and
sometimes as much as 18 and even 19 hours” ( ibid .). It
would not be in the least surprising if the law of June 2, 1897 [92] caused an
increase here in home-work; it is high time these “handicraftsmen” directed their efforts towards compelling the
proprietors to organise factories! Let the reader also recall the
notorious Pavlovo “loan-purchase,” “exchange,” “wife-pawning” and similar forms of bondage and personal
degradation which grind down the quasi-independent small producer. [64]

Fortunately, rapidly developing large-scale machine industry does not so
readily tolerate these worst forms of exploitation as manufacture
does. Running ahead a little, let us quote data on the growth of factory
production in this district. [65]

We thus see that ever-increasing numbers of workers are being drawn into
large establishments, which are going over to the use of machines. [66]

9) Other Metal Trades

The industries of Bezvodnoye village, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia and Uyezd
also come under the head of capitalist manufacture. This is also an
industrial village, the majority of whose inhabitants do not engage in
agriculture at all, and which serves as the centre of an industrial area
of several villages. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889
( Material , Vol. VIII, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1895), in the Bezvodnoye
Volost (581 households) 67.3% of the households cultivated no land, 78.3%
had no horses, 82.4% engaged in industries, and 57.7% had literate persons
and schoolchildren in the family (as against an average for the uyezd of
44.6%). The Bezvodnoye industries are devoted to the production of various
metal goods: chains, fish-hooks, and metal fabrics; the output was
estimated at 2 1/2 million rubles in

1883 [67] and 1 1/2 million rubles in

1888-89. [68]

The organisation of the industry is as follows: work for proprietors, using
their materials, which is distributed among a number of workers performing
single operations and done partly in the employers’ workshops and
partly in the home. For example, in the making of fish-hooks the various
operations are performed by “benders,” “cutters” (who work in a special shed) and “pointers” (women and
children who sharpen the hook-points in their homes); all these work at
piece rates for the capitalist, while the bender gives out work on his own
account to the cutters and pointers. “Metal wire is now done by
horse-driven windlasses; formerly the wire was drawn by blind men, who
were brought here in large numbers. . . .” One of the “specialities” of capitalist manufacture! “The
conditions under which this work is done differ very much from those in
all the other trades.

People have to work in a stifling atmosphere filled with the harmful
vapours emanating from accumulated horse dung.” [69]

Organised on the same lines of capitalist manufacture are the screen, [70] the pin, [71] and the gold-thread industries. [72]

In the last-named industry at the beginning of the 80s there were 66 establishments, employing 670 workers (of
whom 79% were hired), with an output totalling 368,500 rubles;
some of these capitalist establishments were occasionally also
included among the “factories and works.” [73]

The locksmith industries of the Burmakino Volost (and surrounding volosts)
of Yaroslavl Gubernia and Uyezd are probably organised on the same
lines. At all events, here we observe the same division of labour
(blacksmiths, blowers and locksmiths), the same extensive development of
wage-labour (of 307 smithies in the Burmakino Volost, 231 employ
wage-workers), the same predominance of big capital over all these detail
workers (the buyers-up are at the top; the blacksmiths work for them, and
the locksmiths for the blacksmiths), the same combination of the buying up
of wares with the production of wares in capitalist workshops, some of
which are occasionally included among the “factories and works.” [74]

In the appendix to the preceding chapter, statistics were given on the
tray and the copper industries [75] of Moscow Gubernia (the latter in the district known as
“Zagarye”). The data show that wage-labour plays a predominant
part in these industries, that the industries are headed by large
workshops employing an average of from 18 to 23 wage-workers per
establishment, with an average output of from

16,000 to 17,000 rubles. If we add to this that division of labour is very
widely practised here, [76] it will be clear that what we have is capitalist manufacture. [77] “The small industrial units, which are an anomaly under the existing
conditions of technique and division of labour, can only hold out
alongside the big workshops by lengthening the working day to the utmost” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., p. 33) — among the tray-makers, for example, for as long as 19 hours. The ordinary working day
here is from 13 to 15 hours; with the small proprietors it is
from 16 to 17 hours. Payment in goods is widely practised (both
in 1876 and in

1890). [78]

Let us add that the lengthy existence of this industry (it arose at the beginning
of the 19th century, at the latest) and extensive specialisation have, in
this case too, produced highly skilled workers; the Zagarians are famed
for their craftsmanship. Specialities have also sprung up in the industry
which need no preliminary training and are within the grasp of even
under-age workers. “This very possibility,” Mr. Isayev rightly
observes, “of becoming an under-age worker at once and acquiring a
trade, as it were, without having to study, indicates that the handicraft
spirit, which demands the training of labour-power, is disappearing; the
simplicity of many of the detailed operations is a symptom of the
transition of handicraft to manufacture” ( loc . cit ., 34). Let us only observe that to a certain
degree the “handicraft spirit” always remains in manufacture,
for its basis is the same hand production.

10) The Jewellery, Samovar and Accordion Trades

The village of Krasnoye, Kostroma Gubernia and Uyezd, is one of the
industrial villages usually held up as centres of our “people’s” capitalist manufacture. This large village
(in 1897 it had 2,612 inhabitants) is purely urban in character; the
inhabitants live like townspeople and (with very few exceptions) do not
engage in agriculture. Krasnoye is the centre of the jewellery industry
which covers 4 volosts and 51 villages (including Sidorovskoye Volost of
Nerekhta Uyezd), and in them 735 households and about 1,706 workers. [79] “The principal representatives of industry,” said Mr. Tillo,
“are undoubtedly the big industrialists of the village of Krasnoye:
the Pushilovs, Mazovs, Sorokins, Chulkovs and other merchants. They buy
materials (gold, silver and copper), employ craftsmen, buy up finished
articles, distribute orders for work to be done in the home, supply
samples, etc.” (2043). The big industrialists have their workshops,
so-called “rabotorni” (laboratories), where the metal is
smelted and forged, then to be given out for finishing to
“handicraftsmen”; they have technical appliances, such as
“pretsi” (presses and dies for stamping), “punches” (for embossing designs), “rollers” (for
stretching the metal), benches, etc. Division of labour is widely
practised: “Nearly every article passes through several hands in an
established order in the course of manufacture. For example, in the making
of ear-rings, the master industrialist first sends the silver to his own
workshop, where part of it is rolled and part drawn into wire; then on
receipt of an order the material is given to a craftsman who, if he has a
family, divides the work among several persons; one uses a punch to cut
the silver plates into the shapes for the ear-rings, another bends the
wire into the rings with which the ear-rings are attached to the ears, a third solders these parts, and, lastly, a fourth polishes
the finished ear-rings. None of this work is difficult, or requires much
training; very often the soldering and the polishing are done by women and
by children of 7 or 8 years of age” (2041). [80]

Here, too, the working day is excessively long, usually as much as 16
hours. Payment in provisions is common.

The following statistics (published quite recently by a local assay
inspector) clearly illustrate the economic structure of the industry: [93] “Both the first groups (about two-thirds of the total number of
craftsmen) should be classed as home-working factory workers rather than
as handicraftsmen.” In the top group “wage-labour occurs more
and more frequently. . . . The craftsmen have begun to buy articles made
by others”; in the upper strata of this group “buying-up predominates,” and “four of the buyers-up have no workshops at all.” [81]

The samovar and accordion industries in Tula town and environs are highly
typical examples of capitalist manufacture. Generally speaking, the
“handicraft” industries in this district have a long history,
dating back to the 15th century. [82]

They evidenced a particularly rapid development in the middle of the 17th
century; Mr. Borisov considers that the second period in the development
of the Tula industries then began. In 1637 the first iron foundry was
built (by the Dutchman Vinius). The Tula gunsmiths formed a separate
smiths’ suburb, constituted a separate social estate, enjoying
special rights and privileges. In 1696 the first iron foundry was erected
in Tula by a famous Tula blacksmith, and the industry spread to the Urals
and

Siberia. [83]

Then began the third period in the history of the Tula industries. The
craftsmen set up their own workshops and taught the trade to surrounding
peasants. In the 1810s and 1820s the first samovar factories were
started. “By 1825 there were in Tula 43 different factories that
belonged to gunsmiths, while those in existence at the present time nearly
all belong to one-time gunsmiths, now Tula merchants” ( loc . cit ., 2262). Here, consequently, we observe a
direct continuity and connection between the old guild masters and the
principals of subsequent capitalist manufacture. In 1864 the Tula
gunsmiths were freed from serf dependence [94] and assigned to the burgher estate; earnings dropped as a consequence of the
severe competition of the village handicraftsmen (which caused a reverse
flow of industrialists from town to country); the workers turned to the
samovar, lock, cutlery, and accordion industries (the first Tula
accordions appeared in 1830-1835).

The samovar industry is at present organised as follows. It is headed by
big capitalists who own workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers, but they also distribute many separate
operations to be done by workers, urban and rural, in their homes; those
who perform these operations sometimes still have their own workshops and
employ wage-workers. Naturally, side by side with the big there are small
workshops, with all the consecutive stages of dependence upon the
capitalists. Division of labour is the general basis of the whole
structure of this trade. The process of samovar-making is divided into the
following separate operations: 1) rolling the copper sheets into tubes
(tubing); 2) soldering the tubes; 3) filing the seams; 4) fitting the
bottoms; 5) beating out the shapes; 6) cleaning the insides: 7) turning
the bodies and necks; 8) plating; 9) press-punching the vents in the
bottoms and the covers; 10) assembling the samovars. Further, there are
the separate processes of casting the small copper parts: a) preparing the
moulds and b)

casting. [84]

Where work is given out to be done in the home, each of these operations may
constitute a special “handicraft” industry. One of these
“industries” was described by Mr. Borisov in Vol. VII of the
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission . This industry (samovar
tubing) consists in peasants doing at piece rates one of the operations we
have described, using merchants’ materials. The handicraftsmen left
Tula town to work in the countryside after 1861; the cost of living and
standard of requirements were lower in the countryside ( loc . cit ., p. 893). Mr. Borisov quite rightly
attributes this tenacity of the “handicraftsman” to the
retention of hand-labour in the beating out of samovars; “it will
always be profitable for the manufacturer to employ the village
handicraftsman, because he works at from 10 to 20% below the rate of the
urban artisan” (916).

Mr. Borisov estimated the value of the output of samovars in 1882 at
approximately 5 million rubles, the number of workers (handicraftsmen
included) totalling from 4,000 to 5,000. In this case also the factory
statistics cover only a fraction of capitalist manufacture. The Directory for 1879
counted in Tula Gubernia 53 samovar “factories” (all hand-operated) with 1,479 workers and an output totalling 836,000
rubles. The Directory for 1890 gives 162 factories, 2,175
workers, and an output of 1.1 million rubles; the list of firms, however,
contains only 50 factories (1 steam operated), with 1,326 workers and an
output totalling 698,000 rubles. Evidently, some hundred small
establishments were in this case classed as “factories.”
Lastly, the List gives the following for 1894-95: 25 factories (4
steam-operated), 1,202 workers (+ 607 outside), and an output totalling
1,613,000 rubles. In these data neither the number of factories nor the
number of workers are comparable (for the reason given above, and also
because of the lumping together in previous years of workers on the
premises and outside). The only thing beyond doubt is that manufacture is
being steadily displaced by large-scale machine industry: in 1879, there
were 2 factories with 100 and more workers; in 1890 there were 2 (one
steam-operated) and in 1894-95 there were 4 (three steam-operated). [85]

The accordion industry, which is at a lower stage of economic development,
is organised in precisely the same way. [86] “In the making of accordions there are
over ten separate trades” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, 236); the making of the different parts of an
accordion or the performance of some of the operations constitute
separate, quasi-independent “handicraft” industries. “When things are quiet all the handicraftsmen work for factories or for more or less big workshops, the owners of which
supply them with materials; when, however, there is a brisk demand for
accordions, a large number of small producers appear, who buy up parts
from the handicraftsmen, assemble them and take the finished articles to
the local shops where accordions are very readily purchased”
( ibid .). Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated from 2,000 to 3,000
workers in this industry, with an output totalling about 4 million rubles;
factory statistics in 1879 showed two “factories,” with 22
workers and an output totalling 5,000 rubles; in 1890, 19 factories, with
275 workers and an output totalling 82,000 rubles; in 1894-95 one factory,
with 23 workers (plus 17 outside) and an output totalling 20,000 rubles. [87]

Steam-engines are not employed at all. All these figure variations
indicate a purely haphazard picking of individual establishments which are
component parts of the complex organism of capitalist manufacture.

---
Notes:
[1]
Cf. Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VII, Pt. III
(Moscow, 1883), pp. 63-64.— Lenin

[2]
For a list of the most important towns of this type, see next chapter.— Lenin

[3]
Examples of such confusion will be given in the next chapter.— Lenin

[4]
See Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III. It would be impossible
and superfluous to give detailed data on all the weaving industries
described in the literature on our handicraft industry. Moreover, in the
majority of these industries the factory now reigns supreme. On the
subject of “handicraft weaving” see also Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vols. VI and VII. — Transactions of the Handicraft Commission — Material on Hand-Labour Statistics . [95]
— Reports and Investigations . — Korsak, loc . cit .— Lenin

[5]
The Military Statistical Abstract managed to count in Vladimir
Gubernia, in 1866, 98 silk factories (!) with 98 workers and a total
output of 4,000 rubles(!). The Directory for 1890 gives 35
factories, 2,112 workers, and 936,000 rubles. According to the
List for 1894-95 there were 98 factories, 2,281 workers, with an
output of 1,918,000 rubles, and in addition, 2,477 workers “outside
of establishments, on the side.” Just try to distinguish
“handicraftsmen” here from “factory workers”!— Lenin

[6]
According to the Directory for 1890 there were outside of Moscow
10 galloon factories, with 303 workers and an output totalling 58,000
rubles. But according to Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia
(Vol. VI, Pt. II), there were 400 establishments, with 2,619 workers (of
whom 72.8% were wage-workers) and with an output totalling 963,000 rubles.— Lenin

[7]
The Collection of Factory Inspectors’ Reports for 1903 (St. Petersburg, 1906) states that in Saratov Gubernia there were 33
distributing offices with 10,000 workers. ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[8]
The centre of this industry is Sosnovka Volost, where the Zemstvo census
of 1886 counted 4,626 households, with a population of 38,000 persons of
both sexes; 291 industrial establishments. Altogether in the volost 10% of
the households were houseless (as against 6.2% in the uyezd), and 44.5% of
the households cultivated on land (as against 22.8% in the uyezd). See
Statistical Returns for Saratou Gubernia , Vol. XI. — Capitalist
manufacture has, consequently, created industrial centres here too which
divorce the workers from the land.— Lenin

[9]
The sources are shown in the text. The number of establishments is about
half the number of independent workers (52 establishments in Vasilyev
Vrag, 5 + 55 + 110 in Krasnoye village and 21 establishments in the 4
small villages). On the other hand, the figures for the town of Arzamas
and Viyezdnaya Sloboda stands for the number of “factories,”
and not of workers.— Lenin

[10]
Let us note that the diagram given is typical of all Russian industries
organised on the lines of capitalist manufacture: everywhere at the head
of the industry we find big establishments (sometimes classed among
“factories and works”), and a mass of small establishments
completely under their sway — in a word, capitalist co-operation based on
division of labour and hand production. Non-agricultural centres are
formed by manufacture in exactly the same way, not only here, but also in
the majority of other industries.— Lenin

[11]
They are naked as they work in a temperature of 22° to 24°
Réaumur. The air is full of fine and also coarse dust, wool and
other stuff. The floors in the “factories” are earthen (in the
washing sheds of all places), etc.— Lenin

[12]
It is not without interest to note here the specific jargon of the
inhabitants of Krasnoye; this is characteristic of the territorial
isolation peculiar to manufacture. “In the village of Krasnoye
factories are given the Matroisk name of povarnyas (lit. kitchens — Ed .). . . . Matroisk is one of the
numerous branches of the Ophen dialect, the three main branches of which
are Ophen proper, spoken mainly in Vladimir Gubernia; Galivon , in Kostroma Gubernia; and Matroisk , in the
Nizhni-Novgorod and Vladimir gubernias” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V, p 465). Only large-scale machine industry
completely destroys the local character of social ties and replaces them
by national (and international) ties.— Lenin

[13]
Material for Evaluation of the Lands of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia ,
Vol. XI, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1893, pp. 211-214.— Lenin

[14]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , VI.— Lenin

[15]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[16]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II.— Lenin

[17]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II, p. 271.— Lenin

[18]
See Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 27.— Lenin

[19]
Some of these establishments were occasionally included among
“factories and works.” See, for example, the
Directory for 1879, p.126.— Lenin

[20]
See above, Chapter V, § VII.— Lenin

[21]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , IV, Pt.I, pp. 282-287.— Lenin

[22]
See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, and
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[23]
By some accident, such workshops have not yet been included among
“factories and works.”— Lenin

[24]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , II.— Lenin

[25]
According to Zemstvo statistics (Vol. VII of Material ,
Nizhni-Novgorod, 1892) in these villages in 1889 there were 341 and 119
households, numbering respectively 1,277 and 540 persons of both
sexes. There were 253 and 103 allotment households. Households
participating in industries numbered 284 and 91, of which 257 and 32 did
not engage in agriculture. There were 218 and 51 horseless
households. Those leasing their allotments numbered 237 and 53.— Lenin

[26]
Cf. Nizhni-Novgorod Handbook , Vol IV, article by Rev. Roslavlev.— Lenin

[27]
Sketch of Condition of Handicraft Industry in Perm Gubernia ,
p. 158; in the table totals there is a mistake or a misprint.— Lenin

[28]
Ibid ., pp. 40 and 188 of table. To all appearances these same
establishments also figure in the List , p. 152. For the purpose
of comparing the big establishments with the small ones we have singled
out the agriculturist commodity-producers, see Studies ,
p. 156. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[29]
The Handicraft Industries of Perm Gubernia at the Siberian Urals Exhibition , Pt. III, p. 47 and foll.— Lenin

[30]
See Zemstvo statistical returns for Trubchevsk, Karachev and Orel uyezds
of Orel Gubernia. The connection between the big manufactories and the
small peasant establishments is also evident from the fact that the
employment of wage-labour develops in the latter as well: for example, in
Orel Uyezd, 16 peasant master spinners employ 77 workers.— Lenin

[31]
V. Ilyin, Studies, p. 176. (See present edition, Vol.2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[32]
See precise data on Perm handicraft census about this, ibid .,
p. 177 (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[33]
See Directory and List on Perm Gubernia and the village
of Nevyansky Zavod (non-agricultural), which is the centre of this
“handicraft industry.”— Lenin

[34]
Cf. our Studies , pp. 177-178. (See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[35]
Reports and Investigations , I.— Lenin

[36]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[37]
There are 14 big timber merchants. These have timber-seasoning rooms
(costing about 300 rubles), of which there are 24 in the village, each
employing 6 workers. These merchants also give out materials to workers,
whom they get into their grip by advancing them money.— Lenin

[38]
It will be appropriate here to note in general the process of development
of capitalism in the timber industry. The timber merchants do not sell the
timber raw; they hire workers to dress it and to make various wooden
articles, which they then sell. See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., VIII, pp. 1268, 1314. Also Statistical Returns for Orel Gubernia , Trubchevsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[39]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol II, 1879. See also
Zemstvo statistical Material for Semyonov Uyezd, Vol. XI, 1893.— Lenin

[40]
The statistics we have given (Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 2,
7, 26) cover only a small fraction of the toy-makers; but these data show
the appearance of workshops with 11 to 18 workers.— Lenin

[41]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. II, p. 47.— Lenin

[42]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[43]
Material for the Evaluation of the Lands in Gorbatov Uyezd.— Lenin

[44]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[45]
Thus, at the head of the horse-collar industry are 13 big proprietors,
each with 10 to 30 wage-workers and 5 to 10 outside workers. The big
mitten-makers do the cutting in their own workshops (employing 2 or 3
wage-workers) and get the mittens sewn off the premises by from 10 to 20
women; these are divided into thumb-makers and stitchers , the former taking the work from the owners and
sub-dividing it among the latter, whom they exploit (information for
1879).— Lenin

[46]
In 1889, of 1,812 households (with 9,241 inhabitants) 1,469 cultivated no
land (in 1897 there were 12,342 inhabitants). The villages of Pavlovo and
Bogorodskoye differ from the other villages of Gorbatov Uyezd in that very
few of their inhabitants leave them on the contrary, of all the peasants
of the Gorbatov Uyezd who have left their villages, 14.9% live in Pavlovo
and 4.9% in Bogorodskoye. The increase of the population between 1858 and
1889 was 22.1% for the uyezd, but 42% for the village of
Bogorodskoye. (See Zemstvo statistical Material .)— Lenin

[47]
See Zemstvo statistical Material for uyezds mentioned. —
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX and VI. —
Directory and List . — Reports and Investigations , II.— Lenin

[48]
In 1889 it had 380 households (none cultivating land) with 1,305
inhabitants In the whole of the Katunki Volost, 90.6% of the households
are engaged in industries, 70.1% of working people being occupied in
industries alone (i.e., not engaging in agriculture). As regards literacy,
this volost stands far above the average for the uyezd, yielding in this
respect only to the Chernoretsk Volost, which is also non-agricultural and
has highly developed boat-building industries. The village of Bolshoye
Murashkino had in 1887 a total of 856 households (of which 853 cultivated
no land) with 3,473 persons of both sexes. According to the 1897 census,
the population of Gorodets was 6,330, of Bolshoye Murashkino 5,341, of
Yurino 2,189, of Spasskoye 4,494 and of Vatras 3,012.— Lenin

[49]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX,
p. 2567. Information for 1880.— Lenin

[50]
The conditions of the workers in the Arzamas factories are better than
those of the rural workers ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 133).— Lenin

[51]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 76.— Lenin

[52]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. XI,
p. 3084. (Cf. Directory for 1890). Included among the
handicraftsmen is the peasant-agriculturist Dolgushin, who owns a works
employing 60 workers. There are several handicraftsmen of this type.— Lenin

[53]
According to the Directory for 1890, there were some 27 masters
employing over 700 workers.— Lenin

[54]
Cf. also List , p. 489, regarding the well-known “handicraft” village of Dunilovo, Shuya Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. The Directory for 1890 listed here 6 fur factories
employing 151 workers, while according to the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (Vol. X) there are about 2,200 furriers and
2,300 sheepskin-coat-makers in this district; in 1877 as many as 5,500
“handicraftsmen” were counted. Probably, the making of hair
sieves in this uyezd is organised in the same way; in this industry there
are engaged about 40 villages and as many as 4,000 people, known as
“Mardassers” (from the name of this district). We have described the similar organisation of the leather and cobbling industries
in Perm Gubernia in our Studies , p. 171 and foll (See present
edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[55]
Here is some information about the “handicraftsmen” relating
to 1894. “The squirrel furs are sewn by some of the poorest women in
the town of Kargopol and by peasant women of the Pavlovo Volost. They are
paid the very lowest price,” so that a seamstress earns only from 2
rubles 40 kopeks to 3 rubles per month, providing her own food, and for
this pay (at piece rates) she has to sit without a break for 12 hours a
day. “The work is very exhausting, for it calls for great strain and
assiduity.” The number of seamstresses is now about 200
( Handicraft Industry in Olonets Gubernia , Essay by
Messrs. Blagoveshchensky and Garyazin. Petrozavodsk, 1895, pp. 92-93).— Lenin

[56]
See Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II, Vol. III,
St. Petersburg, 1872. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and
Hand-Labour in Russia. Compiled by L. Maikov . Article by V
A. Pletnev. This work is the best for clarity of description of the whole
organisation of the industry. The latest works give valuable statistics and facts of the people’s life, but give a less
satisfactory exposition of the economic structure of this complex
industry. See, further, Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII, article by Mr. Pokrovsky, — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I.— Lenin

[57]
Cf. Reports and Investigations : 7 groups of industrialists: 1)
traders in leather goods; 2) buyers-up of footwear; 3) masters of big
workshops (5-6 of them), who stock leather and distribute it to home
workers; 4) masters of small workshops employing wage-workers; also give
out material to home workers; 5) one-man establishments — working either
for the market or for masters (sub 3 and 4); 6) wage-workers (craftsmen,
journeymen, boys); 7) “last-makers, notchers, and also owners and
workers in currying, greasing and gluing workshops” (p. 227,
loc . cit .). The population of Kimry village, according
to the 1897 census, is 7,017.— Lenin

[58]
The “sawyer” saws the brush blocks; the “borer” bores holes in them; the “cleaner” cleans the bristle; the
“setter” “sets” the bristle; the “joiner” glues wooden strips on the brush backs
( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. I, p. 18).— Lenin

[59]
Let us observe that in this industry, as in the above-described weaving
industries, capitalist manufacture is, strictly speaking, the economy of
yesterday. Characteristic of the post-Reform era is the transformation of
this manufacture into large-scale machine industry. The number of Gzhel
potteries using steam-engines was 1 in 1866, 2 in 1879 and 3 in 1890
(according to data in The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , Vol. I,
and Directory for 1879 and 1890).— Lenin

[60]
See above regarding the greater literacy of the population of Pavlovo and
Vorsma and the migration of peasants from the villages to these centres.— Lenin

[61]
Data from Zemstvo statistical Material , and Mr. Annensky’s
Report, and also A. N. Potresov’s researches (cited above). The
figures for the Murom district are approximate. The number of inhabitants,
according to the 1897 census, was 4,674 in Vorsma, and 12,431 in Pavlovo.— Lenin

[62]
The data we have given by no means express this predominance to the full:
as will presently be seen, the handicraftsmen who work for the market are
subjugated to capital even more than those who work for proprietors, and
the latter handicraftsmen even more than the wage-workers. The
Pavlovo industries show in strong relief that inseparable connection
between merchant’s and industrial capital which in general is
characteristic of capitalist manufacture in its relation to the small
producers.— Lenin

[63]
Connection with the land is also an important factor in reducing
earnings. The village handicraftsmen “on the whole earn less than
the Pavlovo locksmiths” (Annensky Report, p. 61). True, we must bear
in mind that the former grow their own grain, but even so “the
conditions of the ordinary village handicraftsman can scarcely be
considered better than those of the average Pavlovo locksmith” (61).— Lenin

[64]
During crises it also happens that they work literally without pay,
exchange “white for black,” i.e., finished goods for raw
materials; this happens “quite often” (Grigoryev, ibid ., 93).— Lenin

[65]
Data taken from Directory and List for the whole district, including the villages of Selitba and Vacha and their
environs. The Directory for 1890 undoubtedly included outside
workers in the total number of factory workers; we have estimated the
number of outside workers approximately, confining ourselves to a
correction only for the two biggest establishments (the Zavyalovs and
F. Varypayev). To compare the figures for “factories and
works” in the List and the Directory , only establishments with 15 and more workers must be taken (this is examined in
greater detail in our Studies , article: On the Question of Our
Factory Statistics) (See present edition, Vol. 4.— Ed .)— Lenin

[66]
In one branch of the Pavlovo industry, lock-making, there is, on the
contrary, a decline in the number of workshops employing wage-workers. A. N. Potresov ( loc . cit .), who recorded
this fact in detail, pointed to its cause — the competition of the
lock-making factory in Kovno Gubernia (Schmidt Brothers, which in 1890 had
500 workers, with an output of 500,000 rubles, and in 1894-95 had 625
workers, with an output of 730,000 rubles).— Lenin

[67]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX. The population of
Bezvodnoye village in 1897 was 3,296.— Lenin

[68]
Reports and Investigations , Vol. I. — The List gives 4
“factories” for this district, with 21 workers on premises and
29 outside workers, and output totalling 68,000 rubles.— Lenin

[69]
Reports and Investigations , I, p. 186.— Lenin

[70]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 29.— Lenin

[71]
Ibid ., No. 32.— Lenin

[72]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. 1, Sec. 2,
and Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd in 1890. — Lenin

[73]
See, for example, the List , No. 8819.— Lenin

[74]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VI, investigation
of 1880. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I (1888-1889),
cf. p. 271: “nearly the whole trade . . . is concentrated in
workshops employing wage-workers.” Cf. also Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia , Vol. II, Yaroslavl, 1896, pp. 8, 11. — List ,
p. 403.— Lenin

[75]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 19 and 30.— Lenin

[76]
A copper-smith’s workshop needs five operatives to do the different
jobs; a tray-maker’s at least 3, while a “normal workshop” needs 9 workers. “In the large establishments”
a “fine division” (of labour) is practised “with the object of increasing productivity” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., 27 and 31).— Lenin

[77]
The Directory for 1890 gives for the district of Zagarye 14
factories employing 184 workers, with an output totalling 37,000 rubles. A
comparison of these figures with the above-quoted Zemstvo statistics shows
that in this case too the factory statistics covered only the upper strata
of widely developed capitalist manufacture.— Lenin

[78]
Cf. Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[79]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, article by
Mr. A. Tillo. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. III (1893). The
industry continues to develop. Cf. letter to Russkiye Vedomosti ,
1897, No. 231. Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42. Output totals over
1 million rubles, of which about 200,000 rubles is received by the workers
and about 300,000 rubles by buyers-up and merchants.— Lenin

[80]
“Among the Krasnoye handicraftsmen every kind of article and even
every part is made by a specific craftsman, and therefore one rarely
finds, for example, rings and ear-rings, bracelets and brooches, etc.,
made in the same house; usually a particular article is made in parts by
different worker-specialists who live not only in different houses but
even in different villages” ( Reports and Investigations ,
Vol. III, p. 76).— Lenin

[81]
Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42.— Lenin

[82]
See Mr. V. Borisov’s article in Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX.— Lenin

[83]
The Tula blacksmith, Nikita Demidov Antufyev, won Peter the Great’s
favour by building an ironworks near the town of Tula; in 1702 he was
granted the Nevyansk works. His descendants were the famous Urals iron
manufacturers, the Demidovs.— Lenin

[84]
The Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. X, contain an
excellent description by Mr. Manokhin of the samovar industry in Suksun,
Perm Gubernia. Its organisation is the same as that in Tula
Gubernia. Cf. ibid ., Vol. IX, Mr. Borisov’s article on
handicraft industries at the 1882 exhibition.— Lenin

[85]
Evidently there are analogous features in the organisation of the
mechanical trades in Tula and its environs. Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated
that the number of workers employed in these industries was from 2,000 to
3,000, producing wares to a value of nearly 2 1/2 million rubles. These
“handicraftsmen” are very much under the heel of merchant’s capital. The hardware “factories” in Tula
Gubernia sometimes also have outside workers (cf. List ,
pp. 393-395).— Lenin

[86]
The development of accordion-making is also interesting as a process of
the elimination of primitive folk instruments and of the creation of a
wide, national market; without this market there could have been no
division of labour by processes, and without division of labour the
finished article could not have been produced cheaply “Owing to
their cheapness . . . the accordions have nearly everywhere displaced the
primitive string folk instrument, the balalaika” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, p. 2276).— Lenin

[87]
The Tula town census of November 29, 1891, gave 36 establishments selling
accordions and 34 accordion workshops (see Tula Gubernia Handbook for 1895 , Tula, 1895).— Lenin

[88]
Workroom owners , middlemen — owners of premises who rented them to manufacturers for the installation of hand-looms, and
themselves worked there. The middleman or workroom owner, by arrangement
with the employer, undertook to heat or repair the premises, deliver raw
materials to the weavers, send the finished product to the employer or act
as overseer. [p.386]

[95]
Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II. Vol. III. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and Hand
Labour in Russia. Part 1. Published by the Central Statistical Committee
of the Ministry of Home Affairs. St. Petersburg, 1872. [p.388]

[89]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.396]

[90]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.398]

[91]
Cadastre — a public record of the extent, value and ownership of
land, etc., for purposes of taxation. The cadastral surveys gave
particulars of land held, incomes of inhabitants and descriptions of
streets, monasteries, fortifications, etc. The oldest cadastre now extant
dates back to the 15th century, but most of those that have been preserved
relate to the 17th century. Surveys for the cadastre were made by special
commissions appointed by the central government authorities. [p.415]

[92]
The Law of June 2 , 1897 established a working day of 11
1/2 hours for industrial enterprises and railway workshops. Prior to the
adoption of this law the working day in Russia was unlimited and lasted as
long as 14 and 15 hours and even more. The tsar’s government was
forced to adopt this law due to the pressure of the working-class
movement, which was led by the “League of Struggle for the
Emancipation of the Working Class” headed by Lenin. A detailed
analysis and criticism of the law is given by Lenin in his pamphlet:
The New Factory Law . (See present edition, Vol. 2.) [p. 418]

[93]
The table that follows is based on a similar but more detailed table
published in the Vestnik Finansov , Issue No. 42, 1898. [p.423]

[94]
Prior to 1864 the gunsmiths of Tula were serfs of the state and lived in
special suburbs (slobodas). (The state blacksmiths’ sloboda, etc.)
They were divided into guilds: barrel, gun-stock, lock, instrumental,
etc. For the carrying out of auxiliary work serf-peasants from a number of
villages were attached to the Tula arms factories, their task being to
prepare charcoal for the gunsmiths, guard the forests allocated to the
factories, and do jobs in the factory yards.

In Tula at the time of their liberation from feudal dependence there were
nearly 4,000 gunsmiths, of whom 1,276 were employed in factories and 2,362
worked at home. In all, the gunsmiths and their families numbered over
20,000. [p.424]

| | I. The Rise of Manufacture and its Main Features | | | III. Technique in Manufacture. Division of Labour and its Significance | |

# Other Branches of the Textile Industry. The Felt Trade

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vi/vi8ii.htm#sect02

Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry

II. Capitalist Manufacture in Russian Industry

Let us begin with the industries that process fibres.

1) The Weaving Industries

The weaving of linen, wool, cotton and silk fabrics, galloons, etc., was
organised everywhere in Russia as follows (before the appearance of
large-scale machine industry). The industry was headed by big capitalist
workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers; the owners of these
workshops, possessing sizable capital, undertook the large-scale purchase
of raw material, partly working it up in their own establishments, and partly giving out yarn and warp to small producers
(workroom owners, middlemen, [88] , peasant-“handicraftsmen” etc.) who wove the cloth at home or
in small workshops at piece rates. The work itself was done by hand, and
the following operations were distributed among the workers: 1)
yarn-dyeing; 2) yarn-winding (very often women and children specialised in
this operation); 3) yarn-fixing (“fixers”); 4) weaving; 5)
weft-winding for weavers (bobbin hands, mostly children). Sometimes in the
big workshops there were special “threaders” (who threaded the
warp through the eyes of the batten and reed.) [1] of labour
is usually applied, not only to single operations, but to wares, that is,
the

weavers specialise in producing various sorts of cloth. The selection of
some operations to be done in the home does not, of course, make any
change whatever to the economic structure of this type of industry. The
workrooms or homes where the weavers work are simply external departments
of the manufactory. The technical basis of such industry is hand
production with extensive and systematic division of labour; from the
economic point of view we see here the formation of large capital which
controls the purchase of raw materials and the sale of wares on an
extremely extensive (national) market, and under whose complete sway are a
mass of proletarian weavers; a few large establishments (manufactories in
the narrow sense of the term) dominate a mass of small ones. Division of
labour leads to the emergence of specialist artisans from among the
peasantry; non-agricultural centres of manufacture arise, such as the
village of Ivanovo in Vladimir Gubernia (in 1871 it became the town of
Ivanovo-Voznesensk and is now a centre of large-scale machine industry),
the village of Velikoye in Yaroslavl Gubernia, and many other villages in
Moscow, Kostroma, Vladimir and Yaroslavl gubernias, which have now turned
into factory towns. [2]

In our economic literature and statistics the industry organised in this way is
usually split up into two parts: peasants who work in their homes, or in
not particularly big workrooms, workshops, etc., are classed under
“handicraft” industry, while the bigger workrooms and workshops are placed among the “factories and works” (and,
moreover, quite fortuitously, since no definitely established and
uniformly applied rules exist as to the separation of small establishments
from big ones, of workrooms from manufactories, of workers occupied in
their homes from workers occupied in the workshop of the capitalist). [3]

Naturally, such classification, which places some wage-workers on one
side, and some masters who hire these very wage-workers (in addition to
the workers in their establishments) on the other, is nonsense from the
scientific viewpoint.

Let us illustrate this by detailed data regarding one of the
“handicraft weaving” industries, namely, silk weaving in
Vladimir

Gubernia. [4]

The “silk industry” is a typical specimen of capitalist
manufacture. Hand labour prevails. Of the total number of establishments
the small ones constitute the majority (179 out of 313, or 57% of the
total, have from 1 to 5 workers), but in greater part they are not
independent and are far behind the big ones in their significance to the
industry as a whole. Establishments with 20 to 150 workers constitute 8%
of the total (25), but in them 41.5% of the aggregate number of workers
are concentrated, and they account for 51% of the total output. Of the
total number of workers in the industry (2,823) there are 2,092
wage-workers, i.e., 74.1%. “On the job we meet with division of
labour both in wares and in individual operations.” Weavers are
rarely able to make both “velvet” and “satin” (the two principal lines in this trade). “The division of labour into
separate operations within the workshop is most strictly practised only in
the big factories” (i.e., manufactories) “that employ wage-workers.” The fully independent proprietors number only 123,
who alone buy the raw materials themselves and sell the finished article;
they have 242 family workers and “employ 2,498 wage-workers, who in
greater part are paid by the piece,” a total, consequently, of 2,740
workers, or 97% of the aggregate number of workers. It is thus clear that
the distribution by these manufactory owners, through the medium of
“middle-men” (workroom owners), of work to be done in the home
is no special form of industry at all, but is merely one of the operations
of capital in manufacture. Mr. Kharizomenov rightly observes that the
“mass of small establishments (57%) alongside the small number of
big ones (8%), and the insignificant number of workers employed per establishment (7 1/2) conceal the true character of the trade”
( loc . cit ., 39). The specialisation characteristic of
manufacture is seen here clearly in the separation of the industrialists
from agriculture (the land is abandoned, on the one hand by the
impoverished weavers, and on the other by the big manufactory owners) and
in the formation of a special type of industrial population, who live much
more “decently” than do the agriculturists, and look down upon
the muzhik ( loc . cit ., 106). Our factory statistics have
always registered only a very casually selected fraction of this industry. [5]

The “galloon industry” in Moscow Gubernia is capitalist
manufacture organised in a quite analogous fashion. [6]

Such precisely is the case with regard to the printed calico industry in
Kamyshin Uyezd, Saratov Gubernia. According to the Directory for
1890, there were here 31 “factories” with 4,250 workers and
output totalling 265,000 rubles, while according to the List
there was one “work distributing office” with 33 workers in
the establishment and an output totalling 47,000 rubles. (In other words,
in 1890 workers employed in the establishment and on the side were lumped
together!) According to local investigators, in 1888 nearly 7,000 looms
were engaged in producing printed calico, [7] an output
totalling 2 million rubles, and “the whole business is run by a few manufacturers,” who employ
“handicraftsmen” too, including children of 6 and 7 years of
age for a payment of 7 to 8 kopeks per day ( Reports and Investigations , Vol. I). [8]

And so forth.

2) Other Branches of the Textile Industry. The Felt Trade.

To judge by official factory statistics, felt production shows a very poor
development of “capitalism”: in all European Russia there are
altogether 55 factories, with 1,212 workers and an output totalling
454,000 rubles ( Directory for 1890). But these figures merely
show a casually picked fragment of a widely developed capitalist
industry. Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia occupies first place for the
development of “factory” felt production, and in that gubernia
the principal centre of the industry is the town of Arzamas and the suburb
Viyezdnaya Sloboda (where there are 8 “factories” with 278
workers and an output totalling 120,000 rubles; in 1897 there were 3,221
inhabitants; and in the village of Krasnoye, 2,835). It is in the environs
of these centres that “handicraft” felt-making is developed,
in some 243 establishments, employing 935 workers, with an output
totalling 103,847 rubles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V). To illustrate clearly the economic organisation of
felt-making in this district, let us try the graphic method and indicate
by specific symbols the producers who occupy special places in the general
structure of the industry.

It is clear, therefore, that the separation of “factory” and
“handicraft” industry is purely artificial, that what we have
before us is a single and integral structure of industry which fully fits
into the concept of capitalist (approximately) [9] manufacture. [10]

From the technical aspect it is hand production. The organisation of the
work is that of co-operation based on division of labour, which is here
observed in two forms: as to wares (some villages specialise in plain
felt, others in boots, hats, socks, etc.), and as to individual operations (for example,
the whole village of Vasilyev Vrag shapes hats and socks for the
village of Krasnoye, where the semi-prepared article is finished,
etc.). This is capitalist co-operation, for it is headed by big capital,
which has created large manufactories and has brought under its sway (by
an intricate web of economic relations) a mass of small
establishments. The overwhelming majority of the producers have been
transformed into workers performing one operation and producing
for entrepreneurs under extremely insanitary conditions. [11]

The long standing of the industry and the fully established capitalist
relations result in the separation of the industrialists from agriculture:
in the village of Krasnoye agriculture is in utter ruin, and the life of
the inhabitants differs from that of the agricultural population. [12]

Quite analogous is the organisation of the felt industry in a number of
other districts. In 363 village communities of Semyonov Uyezd in the same
gubernia, the industry in 1889 was carried on by 3,180 households, with
4,038 persons working. Of 3,946 workers, only 752 worked for the market,
576 were wage-workers and 2,618 worked for masters on the basis, in
greater part, of using the latter’s materials; 189 households gave
out work to 1,805 households. The big owners have workshops with as many
as 25 wage-workers, and buy wool to a value of some 10,000 rubles per year. [13]

The big owners are called thousanders ; their turnover runs to from 5,000
to 100,000 rubles; they have their own wool warehouses, and their own
booths for the sale of wares. [14]

For
Kazan Gubernia the List gives 5 felt “factories,” with 122 workers and an output totalling 48,000 rubles, as well as 60
outside workers. Evidently the latter are also included among the
“handicraftsmen,” concerning whom we read that they often work
for “buyers-up” and that there are establishments having 60 workers. [15]

Of 29 felt “factories” in Kostroma Gubernia, 28 are concentrated in
Kineshma Uyezd, and have 593 workers employed in the establishments and
458 outside ( List , pp. 68-70; two of the enterprises have only
outside workers. Steam-engines already appear). From the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (XV) we learn that out of a total of
3,908 wool-carders and felt-makers in this gubernia, 2,008 are
concentrated in Kineshma Uyezd. The Kostroma felt-makers are in greater
part dependent or work for wages in extremely insanitary workshops. [16]

In
Kalyazin Uyezd, Tver Gubernia, we find, on the one hand, that home work is
done for “factory owners” ( List , 113), and, on the other, that precisely this uyezd is a centre of “handicraft”
felt-makers; as many as 3,000 of them come from this uyezd, passing
through the wasteland called “Zimnyak” (in the 60s it was the
site of Alexeyev’s cloth mill), and forming “an enormous
labour market of wool-carders and felt-makers.” [17]

In Yaroslavl Gubernia outside work for “factory owners is a]so done” ( List , 115) and there
are “handicraftsmen” who work for merchant proprietors, using
the latter’s wool, etc.

3) The Hat-and-Cap and Hemp-and-Rope Trades

Above we gave statistics for the hat industry of Moscow

Gubernia. [18]

They show that two-thirds of the total output and of the total number of
workers are concentrated in 18 establishments, which have an average of 15.6 wage-workers. [19]

The “handicraft” hat-makers perform only part of the hat-making operations: they make the shapes, which are sold to Moscow
merchants who have their own “finishing establishments”; on
the other hand, “clippers” (women who clip the down) work at
home for the “handicraft” hat-makers. Thus, all in all, we
find here capitalist co-operation based on division of labour and
entangled in a whole network of diverse forms of economic dependence. In
the centre of the industry (the village of Klenovo, Podolsk Uyezd) the
separation of the industrialists (mainly wage-workers) from agriculture [20] is
clearly to be seen, together with a rise in the level of the
population’s requirements: they live “more decently,” dress in calico and even in cloth, buy samovars, abandon ancient customs,
etc., thereby evoking the bitter complaints of the local admirers of old times. [21]

The new era even occasioned the appearance of migratory hat-makers.

A typical example of capitalist manufacture is the cap industry in the
village of Molvitino, Bui Uyezd, Kostroma

Gubernia. [22] “The principal . . . occupation in the village of Molvitino and in
. . . 36 hamlets is the cap industry.” Agriculture is being
abandoned. Since 1861 the industry has greatly developed; sewing-machines
have become widely used. In Molvitino 10 workshops are busy all year round
with 5 to 25 male and 1 to 5 female workers each. “The best workshop
. . . has a turnover of about 100,000 rubles per annum.” [23]

Work is also distributed to homes (for example, materials for the crowns
are made by women in their homes). Division of labour cripples the
workers, who work under the most insanitary conditions and usually
contract tuberculosis. The lengthy existence of the industry (for over 200
years) has produced highly skilled craftsmen; the Molvitino craftsmen are
known in the big cities and in the remote outer regions.

The centre of the hemp industry in the Medyn Uyezd, Kaluga Gubernia, is
the village of Polotnyani Zavod. This is a large village (according to the
census of 1897 it had 3,685 inhabitants) with a population that is
landless and highly industrial (over 1,000 “handicraftsmen”);
it is the centre of the “handicraft” industries of Medyn

Uyezd. [24]

The hemp industry is organised in the following way: the big proprietors (of whom
there are three, the biggest being Yerokhin) have workshops employing
wage-workers and circulating capital of more or less considerable
dimensions for purchasing raw materials. The hemp is combed in the
“factory,” spun by spinners in their homes, and twisted both
in the factory and in the home. It is warped in the factory and woven both
in the factory and in the home. In 1878 a total of 841 “handicraftsmen” was counted in the hemp industry; Yerokhin is
considered to be both a “handicraftsman” and a “factory
owner,” employing 94-64 workers in 1890 and in 1894-1895; according
to Reports and Investigations (Vol. II, p.187), “hundreds
of peasants” work for him.

In Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the rope industry is also centred in
non-agricultural industrial villages, Nizhni Izbylets and Verkhni Izbylets
in the Gorbatov

Uyezd. [25]

According to Mr. Karpov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII), the Gorbatov-Izbylets district is one large
rope-making area; part of the inhabitants of the town of Gorbatov are also
engaged in the industry, and the villages of Verkhni Izbylets and Nizhni
Izbylets are, in fact, “almost part of the town of Gorbatov”;
the inhabitants live like townspeople, drink tea every day, wear clothing
bought in the shops, and eat white bread. Altogether, as many as
two-thirds of the inhabitants of 32 villages are engaged in the industry,
a total of 4,701 working (2,096 men and 2,605 women) with an output of
about 1 1/2 million rubles. The industry has been in existence for nearly 200 years, and is now declining. It is organised as follows:
all work for 29 proprietors, using the latter’s materials, are paid
by the piece, are “totally dependent upon the proprietors” and
work from 14 to 15 hours a day. According to Zemstvo statistics (1889) the
industry employs 1,699 male workers (plus 558 females and males of
non-working age). Of 1,648 working only 197 work for sale, 1,340 work for proprietors [26] and 111 are wage-workers employed in the workshops of 58
proprietors. Of 1,288 allotment households, only 727, or a little over half, cultivate all their land themselves. Of
1,573 allotment-holding working persons, 306, or 19.4%, do not
engage in agriculture at all. Turning to the question as to who
these “proprietors” are, we must pass from the sphere of
“handicraft” industry to that of “factory” industry. According
to the List for 1894-95 there were two rope factories there, with 231 workers employed on the premises and 1,155
working outside, with an output totalling 423,000 rubles. Both
these establishments have installed motors (which they did not
have either in 1879 or in 1890), and we therefore clearly see
here the transition from capitalist manufacture to capitalist
machine industry, and the transformation of “handicraft” work
distributors and buyers-up into real factory owners.

In Perm Gubernia the handicraft census of 1894-95 registered 68 peasant
rope-and-string yards, with 343 workers (of whom 143 were hired) and an
output totalling 115,000 rubles. [27]

These small establishments are headed by big manufactories,
which are reckoned together, viz.: 6 owners employ 101 workers
(91 hired) and have an output totalling 81,000 rubles. [28]

The system of production in these big establishments may serve as the most
striking example of “serial manufacture” (as Marx calls it [89] ), i.e., the
sort of manufacture in which different workers perform different consecutive operations in working up the raw material: 1) hemp
scutching; 2) combing; 3) spinning; 4) coiling; 5) tarring; 6) winding on
drum; 7) passing threads through perforated board; 8) passing threads
through iron bush; 9) stranding of plaits, twisting and gathering of ropes. [29]

The organisation of the hemp industry in Orel Gubernia is evidently
similar: from among the considerable number of small peasant
establishments big manufactories emerge, principally in the towns, and are
included among the “factories and works” (according to the
Directory for 1890 there were in Orel Gubernia 100 hemp-scutching
factories, with 1,671 workers and an output totalling 795,000 rubles). The
peasants work in the hemp industry “for merchants” (probably
for the very same manufacturers), using the latter’s materials, at
piece rates, the work being divided up into special operations:
“scutchers” scutch the hemp; “spinners” spin it; “bearders” trim it, “wheelmen” turn the wheel. The
work is very hard; many contract consumption and “rupture.”
The dust is so thick that “unless accustomed you will not stay in it
for a quarter of an hour.” The work is done in ordinary sheds from
dawn to dusk, from May to

September. [30]

4) The Wood-Working Trades

The most typical example of capitalist manufacture in this sphere is the
chest-making industry. According to the data, for instance, of the Perm
investigators, “this industry is organised as follows: a few big
proprietors, owning workshops that employ wage-workers, purchase
materials, partly make the wares on their own premises, but mainly give
out material to small workshops making parts, and in their own shops
assemble them and, after finishing, send the ready article to
market. Division of labour . . . is employed on the job extensively: the making of the entire chest is divided into ten
or twelve operations, each separately performed by handicraftsmen. The
organisation of the industry consists in the combination of workers
performing one operation ( Teilarbeiter , as they are called in
Das Kapital ) under the command of capital .” [31]

This is heterogeneous manufacture ( heterogene Manufaktur , as Marx calls it [90] ), in which
the different workers do not perform consecutive operations in turning the
raw material into the product, but make the various parts of the product,
which are afterwards assembled. The preference of the capitalists for the
domestic work of “handicraftsmen” is to be explained partly by
the above mentioned character of manufacture, and partly (and mainly) by
the cheaper labour of the home workers. [32]

Let us observe that the relatively big workshops in this industry are sometimes
also included among “factories and works.” [33]

In all probability, the chest-making industry is organised similarly in
Vladimir Gubernia, in Murom Uyezd where, according to the List ,
there are 9 “factories” (all hand-operated), with 89 workers
on the premises and 11 outside, and an output totalling 69,810
rubles.

The carriage industry, in Perm Gubernia, for example, is organised on
similar lines: from among the mass of small establishments there emerge
assembly workshops employing wage-workers; the small handicraftsmen are
workers who make parts of the carriages both out of their own materials,
and out of materials supplied by the “buyers-up” (i.e., owners
of the assembly workshops.) [34]

We
read about the Poltava “handicraft” carriage builders that in
the suburb of Ardon there are workshops that employ wage-workers and also
distribute work to homes (the bigger masters having as many as 20 outside workers). [35]

In
Kazan Gubernia, division of labour as to wares is to be observed in the building of town carriages:
some villages specialise in sleighs, others in wheeled vehicles,
etc. “The town carriages, completely assembled in the villages (but
without the metal work, wheels or shafts), are sent to Kazan merchant
customers, who in turn send them to blacksmiths for the metal work. The
carriages are then sent back again to the shops and workshops in the town,
where they are finished off, i.e., are upholstered and painted. . . . Kazan, where town carriages were formerly iron-mounted,
gradually passed this work on to handicraftsmen, who work at home for a
smaller payment than do the town craftsmen....” [36]

Hence, capital prefers to distribute work to home workers because this reduces the cost of labour-power. The
organisation of the carriage industry, as is evident from the data quoted,
constitutes, in the majority of cases, a system of handicraftsmen making
parts, who are under the sway of capital.

The large industrial village of Vorontsovka, Pavlovsk Uyezd, Voronezh
Gubernia (9,541 inhabitants in 1897), constitutes, as it were, a single
manufactory of wooden articles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., Vol. IX, article by Rev. M. Popov). Over 800 houses
are engaged in the industry (as well as some households in the suburb of
Alexandrovka, which has over 5,000 inhabitants). They make carts,
tarantasses, wheels, chests, etc., to a total of about 267,000
rubles. Less than one-third are independent masters; hired workers in
masters’ workshops are rare. [37]

The majority work to order for peasant merchants at piece rates. The workers
are in debt to the proprietors and are worn out by arduous toil: the
people are growing feebler. The inhabitants of the suburb are industrial,
not of the rural type, and scarcely engage in agriculture at all (except
to work vegetable plots), since their allotments are miserably small. The
industry has been long in existence, diverting the population from agriculture and increasingly widening the
rift between the rich and the poor. The people subsist on meagre food;
they dress “more smartly than before,” “but beyond their
means,” in clothing that is entirely bought. “The population
has succumbed to the spirit of industry and trade.” “Nearly
all who have no craft carry on some trading. . . . Under the influence of
industry and trade, the peasant has, generally speaking, become more
unreserved, and this has made him more developed and resourceful.” [38]

The celebrated wooden-spoon industry of the Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, is close to capitalist manufacture in its
organisation. True, there are no big workshops standing out from among the
mass of small workshops and dominating them, but we find a deeply-rooted
division of labour and the complete subjection of the mass of part-job
workers to capital. Before it is ready, the spoon passes through no less
than 10 hands, the buyers-up getting some of the operations done by
specially hired workers or giving them out to specialist workers (for
example, for varnishing); some of the villages specialise in particular
operations (for example, the village of Dyakovo specialises in spoon
finishing to the order of the buyer-up, at piece rates; the villages of
Khvostikovo, Dianovo and Zhuzhelka specialise in varnishing, etc.). The
buyers-up purchase the timber wholesale in the Samara and other gubernias,
where they send parties of hired workers; they own warehouses for raw
material and manufactured goods, supply the most valuable material to
handicraftsmen for processing, etc. The mass of workers doing part jobs
merge into a single, complex mechanism of production, entirely under the
sway of capital. “It is all the same to the spoon-makers whether
they work for hire at the master’s cost and on his premises, or are
occupied in their own cottages, for in this industry, as in others,
everything has been weighed, measured and counted. The spoon-maker never
earns more than just enough to keep body and soul together.” [39]

It is quite natural that under such conditions the capitalists who dominate the whole trade are in no hurry to open their
own workshops, and the industry, based on hand skill and traditional
division of labour, stagnates in its seclusion and immobility. Tied to the
land, the “handicraftsmen” seem to have become petrified in
their routine: as in 1879, so in 1889, they still count money in the old
style, in banknotes and not in silver.

The toy industry in Moscow Gubernia is headed similarly by establishments
of the capitalist-manufactory type. [40]

Of 481 workshops, 20 have over 10 workers each. Division of labour, both as to
wares and as to individual operations, is practised on a very wide scale,
enormously raising the productivity of labour (at the cost of crippling
the worker). For example, it is estimated that a small workshop yields a
return of 26% of the selling price, and a big workshop, one of

58%. [41]

Of course, the fixed capital of the big proprietors is also much larger; technical
devices are met with (for example, drying sheds). The centre of the
industry is a non-agricultural township, the suburb of Sergiyevsky (where
there are 1,055 workers out of a total of 1,398, with an output to the
amount of 311,000 rubles out of a total of 405,000 rubles; the population,
according to the 1897 census, numbers 15,155). The author of the article
on this industry, referring to the prevalence of small workshops, etc.,
considers it more, but still not very, likely that the industry will
develop into manufacture rather than into factory industry. “In the
future, too,” he says, “the small producers will always be
able to compete more or less successfully with large-scale
production” ( loc . cit ., 93). The author forgets that in manufacture the technical basis is always the same hand-production
that obtains in the small industries; that the division of labour can
never be such a decisive advantage that it will entirely eliminate the small producers,
particularly if the latter resort to such means as lengthening the working
day, etc.; and that manufacture is never in a position to embrace the
whole of production, but remains a mere superstructure over the mass of
small establishments.

5) The Processing of Livestock Produce. [The Leather and Fur Trades]

The most extensive areas of the leather industry present particularly
striking examples of the complete merging of “handicraft” and
factory industry, examples of capitalist manufacture highly developed (in
depth and in breadth). What is characteristic is the fact that the
gubernias which are conspicuous for the size of their “factory” leather industry (Vyatka, Nizhni-Novgorod, Perm and
Tver) are marked by a particular development of “handicraft”
industries in this sphere.

In the village of Bogorodskoye, Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia,
there were, according to the Directory for 1890, 58 “factories” with 392 workers and an output totalling 547,000
rubles; according to the List for 1894-95 there were 119
“works,” with 1,499 workers on the premises and 205 outside,
and with an output totalling 934,000 rubles (the latter figures covering
only the processing of livestock produce, the principal local
industry). But these data deal only with the top levels of
capitalist manufacture. Mr. Karpov in 1879 computed in this village and
its environs over 296 establishments, with 5,669 workers (a large number
of whom worked at home for capitalists), and with an output totalling
about 1,490,000 rubles [42] in the following industries: tanning, shingle-gluing, basket-weaving (for packing
goods), harness-making, horse-collar-making, mitten-making and, standing
by itself, pottery. The Zemstvo census of 1889 listed 4,401 industrialists
for this district, and of 1,842 workers for whom detailed information is
given, 1,119 work for hire in other people’s workshops and 405 work
at home for masters. [43] “Bogorodskoye, with its population of 8,000, is a huge tannery in continuous operation.” [44]

To be more precise, it is a “serial” manufactory controlled by a few big capitalists who buy the raw materials,
tan the hides, and turn them into a variety of articles, hiring several
thousand absolutely propertyless workers for the job and ruling over the
small

establishments. [45]

This industry has had a very long existence, since the 17th century;
particularly memorable in the industry’s history are the Sheremetevs
(beginning of the 19th century), landlords who helped considerably to
develop the industry and, incidentally, protected the proletariat, which
came into existence here long ago, from the local rich. After 1861 the
industry greatly developed, and particularly did big establishments grow
at the expense of the small ones; centuries of industrial activity
produced from among the population remarkably skilled craftsmen who have
carried the trade all over Russia. The firmly-rooted capitalist relations
have led to the separation of industry from agriculture: hardly any
farming is done in Bogorodskoye village itself, which, on the contrary,
divorces neighbouring peasants who move into this “town” from
the

land. [46]

Mr. Karpov notes in this village “a complete absence of peasant
characteristics among the inhabitants,” so that “you would
never think you were in a village and not a town.” This village
leaves Gorbatov and all the other uyezd towns of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia
far behind, with the exception, perhaps, of Arzamas. It is “one of
the considerable commercial and industrial centres in the gubernia, and its industry and
commerce run into the millions.” “The radius of the industrial
and commercial influence of Bogorodskoye is very wide; but most closely
connected with the industry of Bogorodskoye is that of its environs within
a radius of 10 to 12 versts. These industrial environs are, as it were, a
continuation of Bogorodskoye itself.” “The inhabitants of
Bogorodskoye do not in the least resemble the ordinary, raw muzhiks: they
are artisans of the burgher type, shrewd, experienced people, who look
down on the peasants. The manner of life and the ethical standards of the
Bogorodskoye inhabitants are completely urban.” To this we must add
that the industrial villages of Gorbatov Uyezd are marked by a relatively
high level of literacy among the population. Thus, the percentage of
literate and student men and women is, in the villages of Pavlovo,
Bogorodskoye and Vorsma, 37.8% and 20% respectively, as against 21.5% and
4.4% in the rest of the uyezd (see Zemstvo statistical Material ).

Quite analogous (only on a smaller scale) are the relations in the
leather-processing industries of the villages of Katunki and Gorodets
(Balakhna Uyezd), Bolshoye Murashkino (Knyaginin Uyezd), Yurino (Vasil
Uyezd), and Tubanayevka, Spasskoye, Vatras and Latyshikha in the same
uyezd. These are similar non-agricultural centres with a
“ring” of surrounding agricultural villages, and with similar
diverse industries and numerous small establishments (and also workers in
the home) subordinated to big entrepreneurs, whose capitalist workshops
are occasionally included among “factories and works.” [47]

Without going into statistical details, which will provide nothing new
compared with what has already been said, let us merely quote the
following extremely interesting description of the village of

Katunki: [48] “A certain patriarchal simplicity in the relations between masters
and workmen, which, however, is not so noticeable at first sight and is, unfortunately (?), disappearing increasingly every year
. . . testifies to the handicraft character of the industries (?). It is
only recently that the factory character both of the industries and of the
population has begun to be observed, under the influence, in particular,
of the town, intercourse with which has been facilitated by the
inauguration of the steamboat service. Today the village looks like a
regular industrial township: there is no sign of agriculture whatever, the
houses are built close together as in the towns; the fine brick houses of
the rich, and alongside of them the miserable hovels of the poor; the long
wooden and brick buildings of the factories crowded in the middle of the
village — all this sharply distinguishes Katunki from the neighbouring
villages and clearly points to the industrial character of the local
population. The inhabitants themselves possess features of character that
also call to mind the type of “factory hand” who has already
taken shape in Russia: a certain showiness in house furniture, in clothes
and manners, spendthrift habits of life in most cases, and little care for
the morrow, a forwardness and often affectation in speech, a certain
superciliousness towards the country yokel — all these features are
possessed by them in common with all Russian factory people.” [49]

In the town of Arzamas, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the “factory” statistics listed in 1890 a total of 6 tanneries,
employing 64 workers ( Directory ); this is only a small fraction
of the capitalist manufacture which embraces the fur, boot-making and
other industries. The same factories employ workers in the home, both in
the town of Arzamas (in 1878, estimated at 400) and in 5 suburban
villages, where out of the 360 furrier households, 330 work for Arzamas
merchants, using their materials and working 14 hours a day for 6 to 9
rubles per month [50] ; that is why the furriers are pallid, feeble and degenerating folk. In the suburb of Viyezdnaya Sloboda, of the 600 boot-maker households, 500 work for
masters, from whom they receive the cut-out leather. The industry is of
long standing, being about 200 years old, and is still growing and
developing. The inhabitants hardly engage in agriculture at all; their
whole manner of life is purely urban, and they live “in grand
style.” The same applies to the furrier villages mentioned above,
the inhabitants of which “look down with disdain upon the peasant
and call him a ‘country bumpkin’.” [51]

We find exactly the same thing in Vyatka Gubernia. The Vyatka and
Slobodskoi uyezds are centres both of “factory” and of “handicraft” leather and fur trades. In the Vyatka Uyezd, the
handicraft tanneries are concentrated on the outskirts of the town and
“supplement” the industrial activities of the big works, [52] for
example, by working for the big owners; working for the latter also, in
the majority of cases, are the handicraft harness-makers and glue
makers. The fur factory owners have hundreds working for them in the home,
sewing sheepskins, etc. This is just a single capitalist manufactory with
branches: sheepskin dressing and sheepskin-coat-making, leather and
harness, etc. Still more striking are the relations existing in the
Slobodskoi Uyezd (the centre of the industries is the suburb of Demyanka);
here we see a small number of big factory owners [53] at the
head of handicraft tanners (numbering 870), boot- and mitten-makers (855),
sheepskin-dressers (940), and tailors (309 make short sheepskin coats to
order from capitalists). Generally speaking, such organisation of the
production of leather goods is evidently very widespread: thus, in the
town of Sarapul, Vyatka Gubernia, the List gives 6 tanneries,
also making footwear, which employ, in addition to 214 workers on the
premises, 1,080 outside workers (p. 495). What would become of our
“handicrafts men,” those representatives of “people’s” industry who are depicted in such bright hues by all sorts of Manilovs, if all the Russian
merchants and factory owners were to compute with equal detail and
precision the outside workers employed by them? [54]

Reference should be made here to the industrial village of Rasskazovo,
Tambov Uyezd, Tambov Gubernia (population in 1897 was 8,283), a centre
both of “factory” industry (cloth mills, soap-works, tanneries
and distilleries) and of “handicraft” industry, the latter
being closely connected with the former; and to the industries: tanning,
felt-making (as many as 70 masters, and establishments employing from 20
to 30 workers), glue-making, boot-making, stocking knitting (there is not
a household where stockings are not knit from wool that
“buyers-up” give out by weight), etc. Near this village is the
suburb of Belaya Polyana (300 households), celebrated for industries of
the same kind. In Morshansk Uyezd, the centre of the handicraft industries
is the village of Pokrovskoye-Vasilyevskoye, which is also the centre of
factory industry (see Directory and Reports and Investigations , Vol. III). In Kursk Gubernia, noteworthy as
industrial villages and centres of “handicraft” industries are
the suburbs: Veliko-Mikhailovka (Novy Oskol Uyezd; population in 1897 was
11,853), Borisovka (Graivoron Uyezd — 18,071 inhabitants), Tomarovka
(Belgorod Uyezd, 8,716 inhabitants), Miropolye (Sudzha Uyezd, over 10,000
inhabitants. See Reports and Investigations , Vol. I, Information
for 1888-1889). In the same villages you will also find leather
“works” (see Directory for 1890). The principal “handicraft” industry is leather and boot-making. It arose as far back as the first half of the 18th century and reached the peak of its
development in the 60s of the 19th century having become “a stable
organisation of a purely commercial character.” The whole business
was monopolised by contractors, who bought the leather and gave it out to
be processed by handicraftsmen. The railways destroyed this monopoly
character of capital, and the capitalist contractors transferred their
capital to more profitable undertakings. Today it is organised as follows:
there are about 120 big entrepreneurs; they own workshops where
wage-workers are employed, and also distribute work to homes; there are as
many as 3,000 small independent masters (who, however, buy their leather
from the big ones); there are 400 people who work at home (for the big
masters), and as many wage-workers; then there are the apprentices. The
total number of boot-makers is over 4,000. In addition, there are
handicraft potters, icon-case makers, icon painters, table-cloth weavers,
etc.

A highly characteristic and typical example of capitalist manufacture is
the squirrel-fur industry in Kargopol Uyezd, Olonets Gubernia, described
with such knowledge of the facts, and with truthful and artless
presentation of the whole life of the industrial population by a craftsman
and teacher in the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission
(Vol. IV). According to his description (in 1878), the industry has
existed since the beginning of the 19th century: 8 masters employ 175
workers, in addition to which they have as many as 1,000 seamstresses and
some 35 families of furriers working for them at home (in different
villages), 1,300 to 1,500 persons in all, with an output totalling 336,000
rubles. As a point of interest, it should be noted that when this was a
flourishing industry it was not included in the “factory”
statistics. The Directory for 1879 makes no mention of it. But
when it began to decline the statistics included it. The
Directory for 1890 listed for the town and the uyezd of Kargopol
7 works, with 121 workers and an output totalling 50,000 rubles, whereas
the List gave 5 works, with 79 workers (plus 57 outside) and an
output totalling 49,000 rubles. [55]

The order of things prevailing in this branch of capitalist manufacture is very instructive as a specimen of what goes on
in our age-old, purely native “handicraft industries,” that
have been left stranded in one of Russia’s numerous rural
backwoods. The craftsmen work 15 hours a day in a very unhealthy
atmosphere and earn 8 rubles per month, less than 60 or 70 rubles per
year. The masters’ incomes amount to about 5,000 rubles per
annum. The relations between masters and workers are “patriarchal”: according to ancient custom, the master gives
the workers kvass and salt gratis, which they have to beg from his
cook. As a mark of gratitude to the master (for “giving” them
work) the workers come, without pay, to pull squirrel tails, and also
clean furs after work. The workers live in the workshop all the week, and
the masters knock them about, seemingly in a joke (p. 218,
loc . cit .), make them do all sorts of jobs, such as raking hay, shovelling snow, fetching water, rinsing clothes, etc. Labour
is astonishingly cheap in Kargopol itself, and the peasants in the
vicinity “are ready to work for next to nothing.” Work is done
by hand, there is systematic division of labour, and there is a lengthy
apprenticeship (8 to 12 years); the lot of the apprentices can easily be
imagined.

6) The Remaining Livestock Processing Trades

A particularly noteworthy example of capitalist manufacture is the
celebrated boot industry of the village of Kimry, Korcheva Uyezd, Tver
Gubernia, and its environs. [56]

The industry is a very old one, having existed since the 16th
century. Since the Reform, it has continued to grow and develop. In the
early 70s Pletnev counted 4 volosts in the area covered by this industry,
but in 1888 the area included 9 volosts. Basically the organisation of the
industry is as follows. It is headed by the owners of big workshops
employing wage-workers; they distribute the cut-out leather to be made up
by outside workers. Mr. Pletnev counted 20 such masters, employing 124
adults and 60 boys, with an output totalling 818,000 rubles, while the
number of workers occupied at home for these capitalists is estimated by
the author approximately at 1,769 adults and 1,833 boys. Then come the
small masters, each with 1 to 5 wage-workers and 1 to 3 boys. These
masters dispose of their goods mainly in the village market in Kimry; they
number 224 and have 460 adults and 301 boys working for them; output
totals 187,000 rubles. Hence, there are 244 masters altogether, employing
2,353 adults (of whom 1,769 work at home) and 2,194 boys (of whom 1,833
work at home), with an output totalling 1,005,000 rubles. Further, there
are workshops which do various individual operations: currying
(skin-cleaning with scraper); chipping (gluing of chips left from
currying); special carting (4 masters, with 16 employees and up to 50 horses); special
carpentry (box-making), etc. [57]

Pletnev calculated the total output at 4.7 million rubles for the whole
district. In 1881 the number of handicraftsmen was computed at 10,638, and
with migrants, 26,000, with an output totalling 3.7 million rubles. As to
conditions of labour, it is important to note the excessively long working day (14 to
15 hours) and the extremely insanitary working conditions, payment in
goods, etc. The centre of the industry, Kimry village, “is more like
a small town” ( Reports and Investigations , I, 224); the
inhabitants are poor agriculturists, and are engaged in their industry all
the year round; only the rural handicraftsmen give up the industry during
haymaking. The houses in Kimry village are urban, and the inhabitants are
distinguished for their urban habits of life (such as “showiness”). Until very recently this industry was not
included in “factory” statistics, probably because the masters
“readily style themselves handicraftsmen” ( ibid ., 228). The List has for the first time included 6 boot workshops
in Kimry district, with 15 to 40 workers each on the premises, and with no
outside workers. Of course, it contains no end of gaps.

Manufacture also includes the button industry of Moscow Gubernia,
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds — the making of buttons from hoofs and
rams’ horns. Engaged in this industry are 487 workers, employed in
52 establishments; the output totals 264,000 rubles. Establishments with
fewer than 5 employees number 16; those with 5 to 10 — 26; those with 10
and more — 10. Masters who do without wage-workers number only 10; these
work for big masters, using the latter’s materials. Only the big
industrialists (who, as is evident from the figures given, should have
from 17 to 21 workers per establishment) are quite independent. It is
they, evidently, who figure in the Directory as “factory
owners” (see p. 291: 2 establishments with an output totalling 4,000
rubles and with 73 workers). This is “serial manufacture”; the
horns are first steamed in what is called the “smithy” (a
wooden hut with a furnace); then they are passed on to the
workshop where they are cut up, after which they go to a stamping
press, where the pattern is imprinted, and, lastly, are finished and
polished on lathes. The industry has its apprentices. The working day is
14 hours. Payment in goods is a regular thing. The relations between
masters and men are patriarchal, as seen in the following: the master
calls the workers “boys,” and the pay-book is called the
“boys’ book”; when the master pays the workers, he lectures them and never grants in full their
“requests” for payment.

The horn industry, which is included in our table of small industries
(Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 31 and 33), is also of the same
type. “Handicraftsmen” employing dozens of wage-workers figure
also in the Directory as “factory owners” (p. 291). Division
of labour is practised; work is also given out to home workers (horn
trimmers). The centre of the industry in Bogorodsk Uyezd is the big
village of Khoteichi, where agriculture is receding into the background
(population in 1897 was 2,494). The Moscow Zemstvo publication stated
quite rightly: Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd ,
Moscow Gubernia , in 1890 , that this village “ is nothing but a large comb manufactory ” (p. 24,
our italics). In 1890, over 500 industrialists were counted in this
village, with an output of from 3.5 to 5.5 million combs. “More
often than not, the horn dealer is also a buyer-up of finished goods, and
in many cases a big comb-maker as well.” The position of those
makers who are compelled to take horns “at piece rates” is
particularly bad: “their position is actually worse than that of the
wage-workers in the big establishments.” Dire need compels them to
exploit the labour of their whole families beyond measure, to lengthen their working day and to put juveniles to work. “During the
winter, work in Khoteichi starts at one o’clock in the morning, and
it is hard to say for certain when it ends in the cottage of the
‘independent’ craftsman doing ‘piece-work.’”
Payment in goods is widely practised. “This system, eliminated with
such difficulty from the factories, is still in full force in the small
handicraft establishments” (27). Probably, the horn goods industry
is organised on similar lines in Kadnikov Uyezd, Vologda Gubernia, in the
area of Ustye village (known as “Ustyanshchina”), where there
are 58 hamlets. Mr. V. Borisov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX) counts 388 handicraftsmen here, with an output
totalling 45,000 rubles; all the handicraftsmen work for capitalists, who
buy horns in St. Petersburg and tortoise-shell abroad.

At the head of the brush industry in Moscow Gubernia (see Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industry No. 20) we find big establishments with a large number
of wage-workers and with systematic division of labour. [58]

It is interesting to note at this point the changes that took place in the
organisation of this industry between 1879 and 1895 (see Moscow Zemstvo
publication: The Brush Industry According to the Investigation of 1895 ). Some well-to-do industrialists went to Moscow to carry on the
industry there. The number of industrialists increased 70%, the increase
being particularly large in the number of women (+170%) and girls
(+159%). The number of big workshops with wage-workers diminished: the
proportion of establishments with wage-workers dropped from 62% to
39%. This was due to the fact that the masters began to distribute work to be done in the home . The introduction into general use of the
drilling machine (for making holes in brush blocks) accelerated and
facilitated one of the main processes in brushmaking. The demand for
“setters” (craftsmen who “set” bristle in the block) increased; and this operation, which became increasingly
specialised, fell to the lot of women, their labour being cheaper. The
women began to work at home setting bristle, and were paid by the
piece. Thus, the growing resort to domestic industry was caused in this
case by progress in technique (drilling machine), progress in division of
labour (the women do nothing but set bristle), and progress in capitalist
exploitation (the labour of women and girls being cheaper). This example
shows very clearly that domestic industry by no means eliminates the concept of capitalist manufacture , but, on the contrary, is sometimes
even a sign of its further development .

7) The Processing of Mineral Products

In the section relating to ceramics we get an example of capitalist
manufacture in the industries of the Gzhel district (an area of 25 villages
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds, Moscow Gubernia). The relevant
statistics are given in our table of small industries (Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industries Nos. 15, 28 and 37). From these data it is evident that despite the enormous differences between the three Gzhel industries:
pottery, porcelain and decorative, these differences disappear as we pass
from one grade of establishment to another in each industry, and we get a
series of workshops of successively increasing dimensions. Here are the
average numbers of workers per establishment according to grade in these
three industries: 2.4 — 4.3 — 8.4 — 4.4. — 7.9 — 13.5 — 18 — 69 —
226.4. In other words, the workshops range from the very smallest to the
very biggest. There is no doubt that the big establishments belong to the
category of capitalist manufacture (inasmuch as they have not introduced
machines, have not developed into factories); what is important, however,
is not only this, but also that the small establishments are connected with the big ones ; that we have a single system of industry
here and not separate workshops of one or other type of economic
organisation. “Gzhel constitutes a single economic whole”
(Isayev, loc . cit ., 138), and the big workshops in the
district have grown slowly and gradually out of the small ones
( ibid ., 121). The work is done by hand, [59] with considerable division of labour : among the potters we find wheel
hands (specialising in different sorts of pottery), kilnmen, etc., and
sometimes special workers for preparing colours. In the manufacture of
porcelain-ware division of labour is extremely detailed: crushers, wheel
hands, feeders, kilnmen, decorators, etc. The wheel hands even specialise
in the various kinds of porcelain ware (cf. Isayev, loc . cit ., 140: in one case division of labour increases
productivity of labour by 25%). The decorators’ shops work for the
porcelain makers and are, therefore, only departments of the
latter’s manufactories, performing a special detailed operation. It
is characteristic of developed capitalist manufacture that physical
strength itself becomes a specialty. Thus, in Gzhel, some of the villages
are engaged (almost to a man) in clay digging; for heavy work not requiring special
skill (grinding), workers from the Tula and Ryazan gubernias are employed
almost exclusively, being superior in strength and vigour to the not very
robust Gzhelians. Payment in goods is widely practised. Agriculture is in
a bad way. “The Gzhelians are a degenerating race” (Isayev,
168) — weak-chested, narrow-shouldered, feeble; the decorators lose their
sight at an early age, etc. Capitalist division of labour breaks up the
worker and deforms him. The working day is from 12 to 13 hours.

8) The Metal Trades. The Pavlovo Industries

The celebrated Pavlovo lock and cutlery industries cover the whole of
Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, and Murom Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. These industries originated very long ago. Smirnov states that
as far back as 1621 there were (according to the cadastres [91] ) 11
smithies in Pavlovo. By the middle of the 19th century these industries
constituted a far-flung network of fully developed capitalist
relations. After the Reform, the industries in this district continued to
develop and expand. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889, in Gorbatov
Uyezd 13 volosts and 119 villages were engaged in industry; a total of
5,953 households, 6,570 male workers (54% of the total number working in
these villages) and 2,741 old men, juveniles and women, 9,311 persons in
all. In the Murom Uyezd, Mr. Grigoryev in 1881 registered 6 industrial
volosts, 66 villages, 1,545 households and 2,205 male workers (39% of the
total number working in these villages). Not only were large,
non-agricultural industrial villages formed (Pavlovo, Vorsma), but even
the surrounding peasants were diverted from agriculture: outside of
Pavlovo and Vorsma, in Gorbatov Uyezd, 4,492 persons were engaged in
industries, of whom 2,357, or more than half did not engage in
agriculture. Life in centres like Pavlovo has become quite urban and has
given rise to incomparably more developed requirements, more cultured
environment, clothes, manner of life, etc., than among the surrounding
“raw”

peasants. [60]

Turning to the economic organisation of the Pavlovo industries, we must
first of all note the indubitable fact that the “handicraftsmen” are headed by the most typical capitalist
manufactories. For example, in the Zavyalovs’ establishment (which
already in the 60s employed over 100 workers at the bench and has now
introduced a steam engine) a penknife passes through 8 or 9 hands: the
forger, blade-maker, handle-maker (usually an outside worker), hardener,
facer, polisher, finisher, grinder and marker. This is extensive
capitalist co-operation based on division of labour, with a considerable
number of the workers performing individual operations employed at home
and not in the capitalist’s workshop. Here are facts given by
Mr. Labzin (in 1866) on the bigger establishments in the villages of
Pavlovo, Vorsma and Vacha, covering all branches of production in this
district: 15 proprietors had 500 workers occupied on the premises and
1,134 workers outside, making a total of 1,634, with an output totalling
351,700 rubles. How far this description of economic relations is
applicable to the whole district at the present time may be seen from the
following data [61] :

Thus, the organisation of the industry as outlined by us prevails in all
the districts. All in all, about three-fifths of the total number
of workers are employed capitalistically. Here too, consequently, we find
manufacture predominating in the general structure of the industry [62] and
holding masses of workers under its sway, without, however, being able to
eradicate small production. The relative tenacity of the latter is fully
explained, firstly, by the fact that in some branches of the Pavlovo
industry mechanised production has not yet been introduced at all (for
instance, in lock-making); and, secondly, by the fact that the small
producer tries to save himself from sinking by resorting to means that
cause him to sink far lower than the wage-worker. These means are:
lengthening the working day, and reducing the standard of living and of
general requirements. “The earnings of the group of handicraftsmen
who work for proprietors are less subject to fluctuation”
(Grigoryev, loc . cit ., 65); at Zavyalovs’, for example, the lowest-paid worker is the handle-maker; “he works at
home, and that is why he is satisfied with lower earnings” (68). The
handicraftsmen who work “for factory owners” are “able to earn somewhat more than the average earnings of the one who takes his
products to the market. Larger earnings are particularly noticeable among
the workers who live in the factories” (70). [63]

The working day in the “factories” is from 14 1/2 to 15 hours,
with a maximum of 16 hours. “The working day of the home-working
handicraftsmen, on the other hand, is never less than 17 hours and
sometimes as much as 18 and even 19 hours” ( ibid .). It
would not be in the least surprising if the law of June 2, 1897 [92] caused an
increase here in home-work; it is high time these “handicraftsmen” directed their efforts towards compelling the
proprietors to organise factories! Let the reader also recall the
notorious Pavlovo “loan-purchase,” “exchange,” “wife-pawning” and similar forms of bondage and personal
degradation which grind down the quasi-independent small producer. [64]

Fortunately, rapidly developing large-scale machine industry does not so
readily tolerate these worst forms of exploitation as manufacture
does. Running ahead a little, let us quote data on the growth of factory
production in this district. [65]

We thus see that ever-increasing numbers of workers are being drawn into
large establishments, which are going over to the use of machines. [66]

9) Other Metal Trades

The industries of Bezvodnoye village, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia and Uyezd
also come under the head of capitalist manufacture. This is also an
industrial village, the majority of whose inhabitants do not engage in
agriculture at all, and which serves as the centre of an industrial area
of several villages. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889
( Material , Vol. VIII, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1895), in the Bezvodnoye
Volost (581 households) 67.3% of the households cultivated no land, 78.3%
had no horses, 82.4% engaged in industries, and 57.7% had literate persons
and schoolchildren in the family (as against an average for the uyezd of
44.6%). The Bezvodnoye industries are devoted to the production of various
metal goods: chains, fish-hooks, and metal fabrics; the output was
estimated at 2 1/2 million rubles in

1883 [67] and 1 1/2 million rubles in

1888-89. [68]

The organisation of the industry is as follows: work for proprietors, using
their materials, which is distributed among a number of workers performing
single operations and done partly in the employers’ workshops and
partly in the home. For example, in the making of fish-hooks the various
operations are performed by “benders,” “cutters” (who work in a special shed) and “pointers” (women and
children who sharpen the hook-points in their homes); all these work at
piece rates for the capitalist, while the bender gives out work on his own
account to the cutters and pointers. “Metal wire is now done by
horse-driven windlasses; formerly the wire was drawn by blind men, who
were brought here in large numbers. . . .” One of the “specialities” of capitalist manufacture! “The
conditions under which this work is done differ very much from those in
all the other trades.

People have to work in a stifling atmosphere filled with the harmful
vapours emanating from accumulated horse dung.” [69]

Organised on the same lines of capitalist manufacture are the screen, [70] the pin, [71] and the gold-thread industries. [72]

In the last-named industry at the beginning of the 80s there were 66 establishments, employing 670 workers (of
whom 79% were hired), with an output totalling 368,500 rubles;
some of these capitalist establishments were occasionally also
included among the “factories and works.” [73]

The locksmith industries of the Burmakino Volost (and surrounding volosts)
of Yaroslavl Gubernia and Uyezd are probably organised on the same
lines. At all events, here we observe the same division of labour
(blacksmiths, blowers and locksmiths), the same extensive development of
wage-labour (of 307 smithies in the Burmakino Volost, 231 employ
wage-workers), the same predominance of big capital over all these detail
workers (the buyers-up are at the top; the blacksmiths work for them, and
the locksmiths for the blacksmiths), the same combination of the buying up
of wares with the production of wares in capitalist workshops, some of
which are occasionally included among the “factories and works.” [74]

In the appendix to the preceding chapter, statistics were given on the
tray and the copper industries [75] of Moscow Gubernia (the latter in the district known as
“Zagarye”). The data show that wage-labour plays a predominant
part in these industries, that the industries are headed by large
workshops employing an average of from 18 to 23 wage-workers per
establishment, with an average output of from

16,000 to 17,000 rubles. If we add to this that division of labour is very
widely practised here, [76] it will be clear that what we have is capitalist manufacture. [77] “The small industrial units, which are an anomaly under the existing
conditions of technique and division of labour, can only hold out
alongside the big workshops by lengthening the working day to the utmost” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., p. 33) — among the tray-makers, for example, for as long as 19 hours. The ordinary working day
here is from 13 to 15 hours; with the small proprietors it is
from 16 to 17 hours. Payment in goods is widely practised (both
in 1876 and in

1890). [78]

Let us add that the lengthy existence of this industry (it arose at the beginning
of the 19th century, at the latest) and extensive specialisation have, in
this case too, produced highly skilled workers; the Zagarians are famed
for their craftsmanship. Specialities have also sprung up in the industry
which need no preliminary training and are within the grasp of even
under-age workers. “This very possibility,” Mr. Isayev rightly
observes, “of becoming an under-age worker at once and acquiring a
trade, as it were, without having to study, indicates that the handicraft
spirit, which demands the training of labour-power, is disappearing; the
simplicity of many of the detailed operations is a symptom of the
transition of handicraft to manufacture” ( loc . cit ., 34). Let us only observe that to a certain
degree the “handicraft spirit” always remains in manufacture,
for its basis is the same hand production.

10) The Jewellery, Samovar and Accordion Trades

The village of Krasnoye, Kostroma Gubernia and Uyezd, is one of the
industrial villages usually held up as centres of our “people’s” capitalist manufacture. This large village
(in 1897 it had 2,612 inhabitants) is purely urban in character; the
inhabitants live like townspeople and (with very few exceptions) do not
engage in agriculture. Krasnoye is the centre of the jewellery industry
which covers 4 volosts and 51 villages (including Sidorovskoye Volost of
Nerekhta Uyezd), and in them 735 households and about 1,706 workers. [79] “The principal representatives of industry,” said Mr. Tillo,
“are undoubtedly the big industrialists of the village of Krasnoye:
the Pushilovs, Mazovs, Sorokins, Chulkovs and other merchants. They buy
materials (gold, silver and copper), employ craftsmen, buy up finished
articles, distribute orders for work to be done in the home, supply
samples, etc.” (2043). The big industrialists have their workshops,
so-called “rabotorni” (laboratories), where the metal is
smelted and forged, then to be given out for finishing to
“handicraftsmen”; they have technical appliances, such as
“pretsi” (presses and dies for stamping), “punches” (for embossing designs), “rollers” (for
stretching the metal), benches, etc. Division of labour is widely
practised: “Nearly every article passes through several hands in an
established order in the course of manufacture. For example, in the making
of ear-rings, the master industrialist first sends the silver to his own
workshop, where part of it is rolled and part drawn into wire; then on
receipt of an order the material is given to a craftsman who, if he has a
family, divides the work among several persons; one uses a punch to cut
the silver plates into the shapes for the ear-rings, another bends the
wire into the rings with which the ear-rings are attached to the ears, a third solders these parts, and, lastly, a fourth polishes
the finished ear-rings. None of this work is difficult, or requires much
training; very often the soldering and the polishing are done by women and
by children of 7 or 8 years of age” (2041). [80]

Here, too, the working day is excessively long, usually as much as 16
hours. Payment in provisions is common.

The following statistics (published quite recently by a local assay
inspector) clearly illustrate the economic structure of the industry: [93] “Both the first groups (about two-thirds of the total number of
craftsmen) should be classed as home-working factory workers rather than
as handicraftsmen.” In the top group “wage-labour occurs more
and more frequently. . . . The craftsmen have begun to buy articles made
by others”; in the upper strata of this group “buying-up predominates,” and “four of the buyers-up have no workshops at all.” [81]

The samovar and accordion industries in Tula town and environs are highly
typical examples of capitalist manufacture. Generally speaking, the
“handicraft” industries in this district have a long history,
dating back to the 15th century. [82]

They evidenced a particularly rapid development in the middle of the 17th
century; Mr. Borisov considers that the second period in the development
of the Tula industries then began. In 1637 the first iron foundry was
built (by the Dutchman Vinius). The Tula gunsmiths formed a separate
smiths’ suburb, constituted a separate social estate, enjoying
special rights and privileges. In 1696 the first iron foundry was erected
in Tula by a famous Tula blacksmith, and the industry spread to the Urals
and

Siberia. [83]

Then began the third period in the history of the Tula industries. The
craftsmen set up their own workshops and taught the trade to surrounding
peasants. In the 1810s and 1820s the first samovar factories were
started. “By 1825 there were in Tula 43 different factories that
belonged to gunsmiths, while those in existence at the present time nearly
all belong to one-time gunsmiths, now Tula merchants” ( loc . cit ., 2262). Here, consequently, we observe a
direct continuity and connection between the old guild masters and the
principals of subsequent capitalist manufacture. In 1864 the Tula
gunsmiths were freed from serf dependence [94] and assigned to the burgher estate; earnings dropped as a consequence of the
severe competition of the village handicraftsmen (which caused a reverse
flow of industrialists from town to country); the workers turned to the
samovar, lock, cutlery, and accordion industries (the first Tula
accordions appeared in 1830-1835).

The samovar industry is at present organised as follows. It is headed by
big capitalists who own workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers, but they also distribute many separate
operations to be done by workers, urban and rural, in their homes; those
who perform these operations sometimes still have their own workshops and
employ wage-workers. Naturally, side by side with the big there are small
workshops, with all the consecutive stages of dependence upon the
capitalists. Division of labour is the general basis of the whole
structure of this trade. The process of samovar-making is divided into the
following separate operations: 1) rolling the copper sheets into tubes
(tubing); 2) soldering the tubes; 3) filing the seams; 4) fitting the
bottoms; 5) beating out the shapes; 6) cleaning the insides: 7) turning
the bodies and necks; 8) plating; 9) press-punching the vents in the
bottoms and the covers; 10) assembling the samovars. Further, there are
the separate processes of casting the small copper parts: a) preparing the
moulds and b)

casting. [84]

Where work is given out to be done in the home, each of these operations may
constitute a special “handicraft” industry. One of these
“industries” was described by Mr. Borisov in Vol. VII of the
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission . This industry (samovar
tubing) consists in peasants doing at piece rates one of the operations we
have described, using merchants’ materials. The handicraftsmen left
Tula town to work in the countryside after 1861; the cost of living and
standard of requirements were lower in the countryside ( loc . cit ., p. 893). Mr. Borisov quite rightly
attributes this tenacity of the “handicraftsman” to the
retention of hand-labour in the beating out of samovars; “it will
always be profitable for the manufacturer to employ the village
handicraftsman, because he works at from 10 to 20% below the rate of the
urban artisan” (916).

Mr. Borisov estimated the value of the output of samovars in 1882 at
approximately 5 million rubles, the number of workers (handicraftsmen
included) totalling from 4,000 to 5,000. In this case also the factory
statistics cover only a fraction of capitalist manufacture. The Directory for 1879
counted in Tula Gubernia 53 samovar “factories” (all hand-operated) with 1,479 workers and an output totalling 836,000
rubles. The Directory for 1890 gives 162 factories, 2,175
workers, and an output of 1.1 million rubles; the list of firms, however,
contains only 50 factories (1 steam operated), with 1,326 workers and an
output totalling 698,000 rubles. Evidently, some hundred small
establishments were in this case classed as “factories.”
Lastly, the List gives the following for 1894-95: 25 factories (4
steam-operated), 1,202 workers (+ 607 outside), and an output totalling
1,613,000 rubles. In these data neither the number of factories nor the
number of workers are comparable (for the reason given above, and also
because of the lumping together in previous years of workers on the
premises and outside). The only thing beyond doubt is that manufacture is
being steadily displaced by large-scale machine industry: in 1879, there
were 2 factories with 100 and more workers; in 1890 there were 2 (one
steam-operated) and in 1894-95 there were 4 (three steam-operated). [85]

The accordion industry, which is at a lower stage of economic development,
is organised in precisely the same way. [86] “In the making of accordions there are
over ten separate trades” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, 236); the making of the different parts of an
accordion or the performance of some of the operations constitute
separate, quasi-independent “handicraft” industries. “When things are quiet all the handicraftsmen work for factories or for more or less big workshops, the owners of which
supply them with materials; when, however, there is a brisk demand for
accordions, a large number of small producers appear, who buy up parts
from the handicraftsmen, assemble them and take the finished articles to
the local shops where accordions are very readily purchased”
( ibid .). Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated from 2,000 to 3,000
workers in this industry, with an output totalling about 4 million rubles;
factory statistics in 1879 showed two “factories,” with 22
workers and an output totalling 5,000 rubles; in 1890, 19 factories, with
275 workers and an output totalling 82,000 rubles; in 1894-95 one factory,
with 23 workers (plus 17 outside) and an output totalling 20,000 rubles. [87]

Steam-engines are not employed at all. All these figure variations
indicate a purely haphazard picking of individual establishments which are
component parts of the complex organism of capitalist manufacture.

---
Notes:
[1]
Cf. Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VII, Pt. III
(Moscow, 1883), pp. 63-64.— Lenin

[2]
For a list of the most important towns of this type, see next chapter.— Lenin

[3]
Examples of such confusion will be given in the next chapter.— Lenin

[4]
See Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III. It would be impossible
and superfluous to give detailed data on all the weaving industries
described in the literature on our handicraft industry. Moreover, in the
majority of these industries the factory now reigns supreme. On the
subject of “handicraft weaving” see also Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vols. VI and VII. — Transactions of the Handicraft Commission — Material on Hand-Labour Statistics . [95]
— Reports and Investigations . — Korsak, loc . cit .— Lenin

[5]
The Military Statistical Abstract managed to count in Vladimir
Gubernia, in 1866, 98 silk factories (!) with 98 workers and a total
output of 4,000 rubles(!). The Directory for 1890 gives 35
factories, 2,112 workers, and 936,000 rubles. According to the
List for 1894-95 there were 98 factories, 2,281 workers, with an
output of 1,918,000 rubles, and in addition, 2,477 workers “outside
of establishments, on the side.” Just try to distinguish
“handicraftsmen” here from “factory workers”!— Lenin

[6]
According to the Directory for 1890 there were outside of Moscow
10 galloon factories, with 303 workers and an output totalling 58,000
rubles. But according to Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia
(Vol. VI, Pt. II), there were 400 establishments, with 2,619 workers (of
whom 72.8% were wage-workers) and with an output totalling 963,000 rubles.— Lenin

[7]
The Collection of Factory Inspectors’ Reports for 1903 (St. Petersburg, 1906) states that in Saratov Gubernia there were 33
distributing offices with 10,000 workers. ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[8]
The centre of this industry is Sosnovka Volost, where the Zemstvo census
of 1886 counted 4,626 households, with a population of 38,000 persons of
both sexes; 291 industrial establishments. Altogether in the volost 10% of
the households were houseless (as against 6.2% in the uyezd), and 44.5% of
the households cultivated on land (as against 22.8% in the uyezd). See
Statistical Returns for Saratou Gubernia , Vol. XI. — Capitalist
manufacture has, consequently, created industrial centres here too which
divorce the workers from the land.— Lenin

[9]
The sources are shown in the text. The number of establishments is about
half the number of independent workers (52 establishments in Vasilyev
Vrag, 5 + 55 + 110 in Krasnoye village and 21 establishments in the 4
small villages). On the other hand, the figures for the town of Arzamas
and Viyezdnaya Sloboda stands for the number of “factories,”
and not of workers.— Lenin

[10]
Let us note that the diagram given is typical of all Russian industries
organised on the lines of capitalist manufacture: everywhere at the head
of the industry we find big establishments (sometimes classed among
“factories and works”), and a mass of small establishments
completely under their sway — in a word, capitalist co-operation based on
division of labour and hand production. Non-agricultural centres are
formed by manufacture in exactly the same way, not only here, but also in
the majority of other industries.— Lenin

[11]
They are naked as they work in a temperature of 22° to 24°
Réaumur. The air is full of fine and also coarse dust, wool and
other stuff. The floors in the “factories” are earthen (in the
washing sheds of all places), etc.— Lenin

[12]
It is not without interest to note here the specific jargon of the
inhabitants of Krasnoye; this is characteristic of the territorial
isolation peculiar to manufacture. “In the village of Krasnoye
factories are given the Matroisk name of povarnyas (lit. kitchens — Ed .). . . . Matroisk is one of the
numerous branches of the Ophen dialect, the three main branches of which
are Ophen proper, spoken mainly in Vladimir Gubernia; Galivon , in Kostroma Gubernia; and Matroisk , in the
Nizhni-Novgorod and Vladimir gubernias” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V, p 465). Only large-scale machine industry
completely destroys the local character of social ties and replaces them
by national (and international) ties.— Lenin

[13]
Material for Evaluation of the Lands of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia ,
Vol. XI, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1893, pp. 211-214.— Lenin

[14]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , VI.— Lenin

[15]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[16]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II.— Lenin

[17]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II, p. 271.— Lenin

[18]
See Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 27.— Lenin

[19]
Some of these establishments were occasionally included among
“factories and works.” See, for example, the
Directory for 1879, p.126.— Lenin

[20]
See above, Chapter V, § VII.— Lenin

[21]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , IV, Pt.I, pp. 282-287.— Lenin

[22]
See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, and
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[23]
By some accident, such workshops have not yet been included among
“factories and works.”— Lenin

[24]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , II.— Lenin

[25]
According to Zemstvo statistics (Vol. VII of Material ,
Nizhni-Novgorod, 1892) in these villages in 1889 there were 341 and 119
households, numbering respectively 1,277 and 540 persons of both
sexes. There were 253 and 103 allotment households. Households
participating in industries numbered 284 and 91, of which 257 and 32 did
not engage in agriculture. There were 218 and 51 horseless
households. Those leasing their allotments numbered 237 and 53.— Lenin

[26]
Cf. Nizhni-Novgorod Handbook , Vol IV, article by Rev. Roslavlev.— Lenin

[27]
Sketch of Condition of Handicraft Industry in Perm Gubernia ,
p. 158; in the table totals there is a mistake or a misprint.— Lenin

[28]
Ibid ., pp. 40 and 188 of table. To all appearances these same
establishments also figure in the List , p. 152. For the purpose
of comparing the big establishments with the small ones we have singled
out the agriculturist commodity-producers, see Studies ,
p. 156. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[29]
The Handicraft Industries of Perm Gubernia at the Siberian Urals Exhibition , Pt. III, p. 47 and foll.— Lenin

[30]
See Zemstvo statistical returns for Trubchevsk, Karachev and Orel uyezds
of Orel Gubernia. The connection between the big manufactories and the
small peasant establishments is also evident from the fact that the
employment of wage-labour develops in the latter as well: for example, in
Orel Uyezd, 16 peasant master spinners employ 77 workers.— Lenin

[31]
V. Ilyin, Studies, p. 176. (See present edition, Vol.2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[32]
See precise data on Perm handicraft census about this, ibid .,
p. 177 (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[33]
See Directory and List on Perm Gubernia and the village
of Nevyansky Zavod (non-agricultural), which is the centre of this
“handicraft industry.”— Lenin

[34]
Cf. our Studies , pp. 177-178. (See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[35]
Reports and Investigations , I.— Lenin

[36]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[37]
There are 14 big timber merchants. These have timber-seasoning rooms
(costing about 300 rubles), of which there are 24 in the village, each
employing 6 workers. These merchants also give out materials to workers,
whom they get into their grip by advancing them money.— Lenin

[38]
It will be appropriate here to note in general the process of development
of capitalism in the timber industry. The timber merchants do not sell the
timber raw; they hire workers to dress it and to make various wooden
articles, which they then sell. See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., VIII, pp. 1268, 1314. Also Statistical Returns for Orel Gubernia , Trubchevsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[39]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol II, 1879. See also
Zemstvo statistical Material for Semyonov Uyezd, Vol. XI, 1893.— Lenin

[40]
The statistics we have given (Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 2,
7, 26) cover only a small fraction of the toy-makers; but these data show
the appearance of workshops with 11 to 18 workers.— Lenin

[41]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. II, p. 47.— Lenin

[42]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[43]
Material for the Evaluation of the Lands in Gorbatov Uyezd.— Lenin

[44]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[45]
Thus, at the head of the horse-collar industry are 13 big proprietors,
each with 10 to 30 wage-workers and 5 to 10 outside workers. The big
mitten-makers do the cutting in their own workshops (employing 2 or 3
wage-workers) and get the mittens sewn off the premises by from 10 to 20
women; these are divided into thumb-makers and stitchers , the former taking the work from the owners and
sub-dividing it among the latter, whom they exploit (information for
1879).— Lenin

[46]
In 1889, of 1,812 households (with 9,241 inhabitants) 1,469 cultivated no
land (in 1897 there were 12,342 inhabitants). The villages of Pavlovo and
Bogorodskoye differ from the other villages of Gorbatov Uyezd in that very
few of their inhabitants leave them on the contrary, of all the peasants
of the Gorbatov Uyezd who have left their villages, 14.9% live in Pavlovo
and 4.9% in Bogorodskoye. The increase of the population between 1858 and
1889 was 22.1% for the uyezd, but 42% for the village of
Bogorodskoye. (See Zemstvo statistical Material .)— Lenin

[47]
See Zemstvo statistical Material for uyezds mentioned. —
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX and VI. —
Directory and List . — Reports and Investigations , II.— Lenin

[48]
In 1889 it had 380 households (none cultivating land) with 1,305
inhabitants In the whole of the Katunki Volost, 90.6% of the households
are engaged in industries, 70.1% of working people being occupied in
industries alone (i.e., not engaging in agriculture). As regards literacy,
this volost stands far above the average for the uyezd, yielding in this
respect only to the Chernoretsk Volost, which is also non-agricultural and
has highly developed boat-building industries. The village of Bolshoye
Murashkino had in 1887 a total of 856 households (of which 853 cultivated
no land) with 3,473 persons of both sexes. According to the 1897 census,
the population of Gorodets was 6,330, of Bolshoye Murashkino 5,341, of
Yurino 2,189, of Spasskoye 4,494 and of Vatras 3,012.— Lenin

[49]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX,
p. 2567. Information for 1880.— Lenin

[50]
The conditions of the workers in the Arzamas factories are better than
those of the rural workers ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 133).— Lenin

[51]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 76.— Lenin

[52]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. XI,
p. 3084. (Cf. Directory for 1890). Included among the
handicraftsmen is the peasant-agriculturist Dolgushin, who owns a works
employing 60 workers. There are several handicraftsmen of this type.— Lenin

[53]
According to the Directory for 1890, there were some 27 masters
employing over 700 workers.— Lenin

[54]
Cf. also List , p. 489, regarding the well-known “handicraft” village of Dunilovo, Shuya Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. The Directory for 1890 listed here 6 fur factories
employing 151 workers, while according to the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (Vol. X) there are about 2,200 furriers and
2,300 sheepskin-coat-makers in this district; in 1877 as many as 5,500
“handicraftsmen” were counted. Probably, the making of hair
sieves in this uyezd is organised in the same way; in this industry there
are engaged about 40 villages and as many as 4,000 people, known as
“Mardassers” (from the name of this district). We have described the similar organisation of the leather and cobbling industries
in Perm Gubernia in our Studies , p. 171 and foll (See present
edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[55]
Here is some information about the “handicraftsmen” relating
to 1894. “The squirrel furs are sewn by some of the poorest women in
the town of Kargopol and by peasant women of the Pavlovo Volost. They are
paid the very lowest price,” so that a seamstress earns only from 2
rubles 40 kopeks to 3 rubles per month, providing her own food, and for
this pay (at piece rates) she has to sit without a break for 12 hours a
day. “The work is very exhausting, for it calls for great strain and
assiduity.” The number of seamstresses is now about 200
( Handicraft Industry in Olonets Gubernia , Essay by
Messrs. Blagoveshchensky and Garyazin. Petrozavodsk, 1895, pp. 92-93).— Lenin

[56]
See Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II, Vol. III,
St. Petersburg, 1872. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and
Hand-Labour in Russia. Compiled by L. Maikov . Article by V
A. Pletnev. This work is the best for clarity of description of the whole
organisation of the industry. The latest works give valuable statistics and facts of the people’s life, but give a less
satisfactory exposition of the economic structure of this complex
industry. See, further, Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII, article by Mr. Pokrovsky, — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I.— Lenin

[57]
Cf. Reports and Investigations : 7 groups of industrialists: 1)
traders in leather goods; 2) buyers-up of footwear; 3) masters of big
workshops (5-6 of them), who stock leather and distribute it to home
workers; 4) masters of small workshops employing wage-workers; also give
out material to home workers; 5) one-man establishments — working either
for the market or for masters (sub 3 and 4); 6) wage-workers (craftsmen,
journeymen, boys); 7) “last-makers, notchers, and also owners and
workers in currying, greasing and gluing workshops” (p. 227,
loc . cit .). The population of Kimry village, according
to the 1897 census, is 7,017.— Lenin

[58]
The “sawyer” saws the brush blocks; the “borer” bores holes in them; the “cleaner” cleans the bristle; the
“setter” “sets” the bristle; the “joiner” glues wooden strips on the brush backs
( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. I, p. 18).— Lenin

[59]
Let us observe that in this industry, as in the above-described weaving
industries, capitalist manufacture is, strictly speaking, the economy of
yesterday. Characteristic of the post-Reform era is the transformation of
this manufacture into large-scale machine industry. The number of Gzhel
potteries using steam-engines was 1 in 1866, 2 in 1879 and 3 in 1890
(according to data in The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , Vol. I,
and Directory for 1879 and 1890).— Lenin

[60]
See above regarding the greater literacy of the population of Pavlovo and
Vorsma and the migration of peasants from the villages to these centres.— Lenin

[61]
Data from Zemstvo statistical Material , and Mr. Annensky’s
Report, and also A. N. Potresov’s researches (cited above). The
figures for the Murom district are approximate. The number of inhabitants,
according to the 1897 census, was 4,674 in Vorsma, and 12,431 in Pavlovo.— Lenin

[62]
The data we have given by no means express this predominance to the full:
as will presently be seen, the handicraftsmen who work for the market are
subjugated to capital even more than those who work for proprietors, and
the latter handicraftsmen even more than the wage-workers. The
Pavlovo industries show in strong relief that inseparable connection
between merchant’s and industrial capital which in general is
characteristic of capitalist manufacture in its relation to the small
producers.— Lenin

[63]
Connection with the land is also an important factor in reducing
earnings. The village handicraftsmen “on the whole earn less than
the Pavlovo locksmiths” (Annensky Report, p. 61). True, we must bear
in mind that the former grow their own grain, but even so “the
conditions of the ordinary village handicraftsman can scarcely be
considered better than those of the average Pavlovo locksmith” (61).— Lenin

[64]
During crises it also happens that they work literally without pay,
exchange “white for black,” i.e., finished goods for raw
materials; this happens “quite often” (Grigoryev, ibid ., 93).— Lenin

[65]
Data taken from Directory and List for the whole district, including the villages of Selitba and Vacha and their
environs. The Directory for 1890 undoubtedly included outside
workers in the total number of factory workers; we have estimated the
number of outside workers approximately, confining ourselves to a
correction only for the two biggest establishments (the Zavyalovs and
F. Varypayev). To compare the figures for “factories and
works” in the List and the Directory , only establishments with 15 and more workers must be taken (this is examined in
greater detail in our Studies , article: On the Question of Our
Factory Statistics) (See present edition, Vol. 4.— Ed .)— Lenin

[66]
In one branch of the Pavlovo industry, lock-making, there is, on the
contrary, a decline in the number of workshops employing wage-workers. A. N. Potresov ( loc . cit .), who recorded
this fact in detail, pointed to its cause — the competition of the
lock-making factory in Kovno Gubernia (Schmidt Brothers, which in 1890 had
500 workers, with an output of 500,000 rubles, and in 1894-95 had 625
workers, with an output of 730,000 rubles).— Lenin

[67]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX. The population of
Bezvodnoye village in 1897 was 3,296.— Lenin

[68]
Reports and Investigations , Vol. I. — The List gives 4
“factories” for this district, with 21 workers on premises and
29 outside workers, and output totalling 68,000 rubles.— Lenin

[69]
Reports and Investigations , I, p. 186.— Lenin

[70]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 29.— Lenin

[71]
Ibid ., No. 32.— Lenin

[72]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. 1, Sec. 2,
and Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd in 1890. — Lenin

[73]
See, for example, the List , No. 8819.— Lenin

[74]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VI, investigation
of 1880. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I (1888-1889),
cf. p. 271: “nearly the whole trade . . . is concentrated in
workshops employing wage-workers.” Cf. also Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia , Vol. II, Yaroslavl, 1896, pp. 8, 11. — List ,
p. 403.— Lenin

[75]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 19 and 30.— Lenin

[76]
A copper-smith’s workshop needs five operatives to do the different
jobs; a tray-maker’s at least 3, while a “normal workshop” needs 9 workers. “In the large establishments”
a “fine division” (of labour) is practised “with the object of increasing productivity” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., 27 and 31).— Lenin

[77]
The Directory for 1890 gives for the district of Zagarye 14
factories employing 184 workers, with an output totalling 37,000 rubles. A
comparison of these figures with the above-quoted Zemstvo statistics shows
that in this case too the factory statistics covered only the upper strata
of widely developed capitalist manufacture.— Lenin

[78]
Cf. Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[79]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, article by
Mr. A. Tillo. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. III (1893). The
industry continues to develop. Cf. letter to Russkiye Vedomosti ,
1897, No. 231. Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42. Output totals over
1 million rubles, of which about 200,000 rubles is received by the workers
and about 300,000 rubles by buyers-up and merchants.— Lenin

[80]
“Among the Krasnoye handicraftsmen every kind of article and even
every part is made by a specific craftsman, and therefore one rarely
finds, for example, rings and ear-rings, bracelets and brooches, etc.,
made in the same house; usually a particular article is made in parts by
different worker-specialists who live not only in different houses but
even in different villages” ( Reports and Investigations ,
Vol. III, p. 76).— Lenin

[81]
Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42.— Lenin

[82]
See Mr. V. Borisov’s article in Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX.— Lenin

[83]
The Tula blacksmith, Nikita Demidov Antufyev, won Peter the Great’s
favour by building an ironworks near the town of Tula; in 1702 he was
granted the Nevyansk works. His descendants were the famous Urals iron
manufacturers, the Demidovs.— Lenin

[84]
The Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. X, contain an
excellent description by Mr. Manokhin of the samovar industry in Suksun,
Perm Gubernia. Its organisation is the same as that in Tula
Gubernia. Cf. ibid ., Vol. IX, Mr. Borisov’s article on
handicraft industries at the 1882 exhibition.— Lenin

[85]
Evidently there are analogous features in the organisation of the
mechanical trades in Tula and its environs. Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated
that the number of workers employed in these industries was from 2,000 to
3,000, producing wares to a value of nearly 2 1/2 million rubles. These
“handicraftsmen” are very much under the heel of merchant’s capital. The hardware “factories” in Tula
Gubernia sometimes also have outside workers (cf. List ,
pp. 393-395).— Lenin

[86]
The development of accordion-making is also interesting as a process of
the elimination of primitive folk instruments and of the creation of a
wide, national market; without this market there could have been no
division of labour by processes, and without division of labour the
finished article could not have been produced cheaply “Owing to
their cheapness . . . the accordions have nearly everywhere displaced the
primitive string folk instrument, the balalaika” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, p. 2276).— Lenin

[87]
The Tula town census of November 29, 1891, gave 36 establishments selling
accordions and 34 accordion workshops (see Tula Gubernia Handbook for 1895 , Tula, 1895).— Lenin

[88]
Workroom owners , middlemen — owners of premises who rented them to manufacturers for the installation of hand-looms, and
themselves worked there. The middleman or workroom owner, by arrangement
with the employer, undertook to heat or repair the premises, deliver raw
materials to the weavers, send the finished product to the employer or act
as overseer. [p.386]

[95]
Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II. Vol. III. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and Hand
Labour in Russia. Part 1. Published by the Central Statistical Committee
of the Ministry of Home Affairs. St. Petersburg, 1872. [p.388]

[89]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.396]

[90]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.398]

[91]
Cadastre — a public record of the extent, value and ownership of
land, etc., for purposes of taxation. The cadastral surveys gave
particulars of land held, incomes of inhabitants and descriptions of
streets, monasteries, fortifications, etc. The oldest cadastre now extant
dates back to the 15th century, but most of those that have been preserved
relate to the 17th century. Surveys for the cadastre were made by special
commissions appointed by the central government authorities. [p.415]

[92]
The Law of June 2 , 1897 established a working day of 11
1/2 hours for industrial enterprises and railway workshops. Prior to the
adoption of this law the working day in Russia was unlimited and lasted as
long as 14 and 15 hours and even more. The tsar’s government was
forced to adopt this law due to the pressure of the working-class
movement, which was led by the “League of Struggle for the
Emancipation of the Working Class” headed by Lenin. A detailed
analysis and criticism of the law is given by Lenin in his pamphlet:
The New Factory Law . (See present edition, Vol. 2.) [p. 418]

[93]
The table that follows is based on a similar but more detailed table
published in the Vestnik Finansov , Issue No. 42, 1898. [p.423]

[94]
Prior to 1864 the gunsmiths of Tula were serfs of the state and lived in
special suburbs (slobodas). (The state blacksmiths’ sloboda, etc.)
They were divided into guilds: barrel, gun-stock, lock, instrumental,
etc. For the carrying out of auxiliary work serf-peasants from a number of
villages were attached to the Tula arms factories, their task being to
prepare charcoal for the gunsmiths, guard the forests allocated to the
factories, and do jobs in the factory yards.

In Tula at the time of their liberation from feudal dependence there were
nearly 4,000 gunsmiths, of whom 1,276 were employed in factories and 2,362
worked at home. In all, the gunsmiths and their families numbered over
20,000. [p.424]

| | I. The Rise of Manufacture and its Main Features | | | III. Technique in Manufacture. Division of Labour and its Significance | |

# The Hat-and-Cap and Hemp-and-Rope Trades

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vi/vi8ii.htm#sect03

Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry

II. Capitalist Manufacture in Russian Industry

Let us begin with the industries that process fibres.

1) The Weaving Industries

The weaving of linen, wool, cotton and silk fabrics, galloons, etc., was
organised everywhere in Russia as follows (before the appearance of
large-scale machine industry). The industry was headed by big capitalist
workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers; the owners of these
workshops, possessing sizable capital, undertook the large-scale purchase
of raw material, partly working it up in their own establishments, and partly giving out yarn and warp to small producers
(workroom owners, middlemen, [88] , peasant-“handicraftsmen” etc.) who wove the cloth at home or
in small workshops at piece rates. The work itself was done by hand, and
the following operations were distributed among the workers: 1)
yarn-dyeing; 2) yarn-winding (very often women and children specialised in
this operation); 3) yarn-fixing (“fixers”); 4) weaving; 5)
weft-winding for weavers (bobbin hands, mostly children). Sometimes in the
big workshops there were special “threaders” (who threaded the
warp through the eyes of the batten and reed.) [1] of labour
is usually applied, not only to single operations, but to wares, that is,
the

weavers specialise in producing various sorts of cloth. The selection of
some operations to be done in the home does not, of course, make any
change whatever to the economic structure of this type of industry. The
workrooms or homes where the weavers work are simply external departments
of the manufactory. The technical basis of such industry is hand
production with extensive and systematic division of labour; from the
economic point of view we see here the formation of large capital which
controls the purchase of raw materials and the sale of wares on an
extremely extensive (national) market, and under whose complete sway are a
mass of proletarian weavers; a few large establishments (manufactories in
the narrow sense of the term) dominate a mass of small ones. Division of
labour leads to the emergence of specialist artisans from among the
peasantry; non-agricultural centres of manufacture arise, such as the
village of Ivanovo in Vladimir Gubernia (in 1871 it became the town of
Ivanovo-Voznesensk and is now a centre of large-scale machine industry),
the village of Velikoye in Yaroslavl Gubernia, and many other villages in
Moscow, Kostroma, Vladimir and Yaroslavl gubernias, which have now turned
into factory towns. [2]

In our economic literature and statistics the industry organised in this way is
usually split up into two parts: peasants who work in their homes, or in
not particularly big workrooms, workshops, etc., are classed under
“handicraft” industry, while the bigger workrooms and workshops are placed among the “factories and works” (and,
moreover, quite fortuitously, since no definitely established and
uniformly applied rules exist as to the separation of small establishments
from big ones, of workrooms from manufactories, of workers occupied in
their homes from workers occupied in the workshop of the capitalist). [3]

Naturally, such classification, which places some wage-workers on one
side, and some masters who hire these very wage-workers (in addition to
the workers in their establishments) on the other, is nonsense from the
scientific viewpoint.

Let us illustrate this by detailed data regarding one of the
“handicraft weaving” industries, namely, silk weaving in
Vladimir

Gubernia. [4]

The “silk industry” is a typical specimen of capitalist
manufacture. Hand labour prevails. Of the total number of establishments
the small ones constitute the majority (179 out of 313, or 57% of the
total, have from 1 to 5 workers), but in greater part they are not
independent and are far behind the big ones in their significance to the
industry as a whole. Establishments with 20 to 150 workers constitute 8%
of the total (25), but in them 41.5% of the aggregate number of workers
are concentrated, and they account for 51% of the total output. Of the
total number of workers in the industry (2,823) there are 2,092
wage-workers, i.e., 74.1%. “On the job we meet with division of
labour both in wares and in individual operations.” Weavers are
rarely able to make both “velvet” and “satin” (the two principal lines in this trade). “The division of labour into
separate operations within the workshop is most strictly practised only in
the big factories” (i.e., manufactories) “that employ wage-workers.” The fully independent proprietors number only 123,
who alone buy the raw materials themselves and sell the finished article;
they have 242 family workers and “employ 2,498 wage-workers, who in
greater part are paid by the piece,” a total, consequently, of 2,740
workers, or 97% of the aggregate number of workers. It is thus clear that
the distribution by these manufactory owners, through the medium of
“middle-men” (workroom owners), of work to be done in the home
is no special form of industry at all, but is merely one of the operations
of capital in manufacture. Mr. Kharizomenov rightly observes that the
“mass of small establishments (57%) alongside the small number of
big ones (8%), and the insignificant number of workers employed per establishment (7 1/2) conceal the true character of the trade”
( loc . cit ., 39). The specialisation characteristic of
manufacture is seen here clearly in the separation of the industrialists
from agriculture (the land is abandoned, on the one hand by the
impoverished weavers, and on the other by the big manufactory owners) and
in the formation of a special type of industrial population, who live much
more “decently” than do the agriculturists, and look down upon
the muzhik ( loc . cit ., 106). Our factory statistics have
always registered only a very casually selected fraction of this industry. [5]

The “galloon industry” in Moscow Gubernia is capitalist
manufacture organised in a quite analogous fashion. [6]

Such precisely is the case with regard to the printed calico industry in
Kamyshin Uyezd, Saratov Gubernia. According to the Directory for
1890, there were here 31 “factories” with 4,250 workers and
output totalling 265,000 rubles, while according to the List
there was one “work distributing office” with 33 workers in
the establishment and an output totalling 47,000 rubles. (In other words,
in 1890 workers employed in the establishment and on the side were lumped
together!) According to local investigators, in 1888 nearly 7,000 looms
were engaged in producing printed calico, [7] an output
totalling 2 million rubles, and “the whole business is run by a few manufacturers,” who employ
“handicraftsmen” too, including children of 6 and 7 years of
age for a payment of 7 to 8 kopeks per day ( Reports and Investigations , Vol. I). [8]

And so forth.

2) Other Branches of the Textile Industry. The Felt Trade.

To judge by official factory statistics, felt production shows a very poor
development of “capitalism”: in all European Russia there are
altogether 55 factories, with 1,212 workers and an output totalling
454,000 rubles ( Directory for 1890). But these figures merely
show a casually picked fragment of a widely developed capitalist
industry. Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia occupies first place for the
development of “factory” felt production, and in that gubernia
the principal centre of the industry is the town of Arzamas and the suburb
Viyezdnaya Sloboda (where there are 8 “factories” with 278
workers and an output totalling 120,000 rubles; in 1897 there were 3,221
inhabitants; and in the village of Krasnoye, 2,835). It is in the environs
of these centres that “handicraft” felt-making is developed,
in some 243 establishments, employing 935 workers, with an output
totalling 103,847 rubles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V). To illustrate clearly the economic organisation of
felt-making in this district, let us try the graphic method and indicate
by specific symbols the producers who occupy special places in the general
structure of the industry.

It is clear, therefore, that the separation of “factory” and
“handicraft” industry is purely artificial, that what we have
before us is a single and integral structure of industry which fully fits
into the concept of capitalist (approximately) [9] manufacture. [10]

From the technical aspect it is hand production. The organisation of the
work is that of co-operation based on division of labour, which is here
observed in two forms: as to wares (some villages specialise in plain
felt, others in boots, hats, socks, etc.), and as to individual operations (for example,
the whole village of Vasilyev Vrag shapes hats and socks for the
village of Krasnoye, where the semi-prepared article is finished,
etc.). This is capitalist co-operation, for it is headed by big capital,
which has created large manufactories and has brought under its sway (by
an intricate web of economic relations) a mass of small
establishments. The overwhelming majority of the producers have been
transformed into workers performing one operation and producing
for entrepreneurs under extremely insanitary conditions. [11]

The long standing of the industry and the fully established capitalist
relations result in the separation of the industrialists from agriculture:
in the village of Krasnoye agriculture is in utter ruin, and the life of
the inhabitants differs from that of the agricultural population. [12]

Quite analogous is the organisation of the felt industry in a number of
other districts. In 363 village communities of Semyonov Uyezd in the same
gubernia, the industry in 1889 was carried on by 3,180 households, with
4,038 persons working. Of 3,946 workers, only 752 worked for the market,
576 were wage-workers and 2,618 worked for masters on the basis, in
greater part, of using the latter’s materials; 189 households gave
out work to 1,805 households. The big owners have workshops with as many
as 25 wage-workers, and buy wool to a value of some 10,000 rubles per year. [13]

The big owners are called thousanders ; their turnover runs to from 5,000
to 100,000 rubles; they have their own wool warehouses, and their own
booths for the sale of wares. [14]

For
Kazan Gubernia the List gives 5 felt “factories,” with 122 workers and an output totalling 48,000 rubles, as well as 60
outside workers. Evidently the latter are also included among the
“handicraftsmen,” concerning whom we read that they often work
for “buyers-up” and that there are establishments having 60 workers. [15]

Of 29 felt “factories” in Kostroma Gubernia, 28 are concentrated in
Kineshma Uyezd, and have 593 workers employed in the establishments and
458 outside ( List , pp. 68-70; two of the enterprises have only
outside workers. Steam-engines already appear). From the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (XV) we learn that out of a total of
3,908 wool-carders and felt-makers in this gubernia, 2,008 are
concentrated in Kineshma Uyezd. The Kostroma felt-makers are in greater
part dependent or work for wages in extremely insanitary workshops. [16]

In
Kalyazin Uyezd, Tver Gubernia, we find, on the one hand, that home work is
done for “factory owners” ( List , 113), and, on the other, that precisely this uyezd is a centre of “handicraft”
felt-makers; as many as 3,000 of them come from this uyezd, passing
through the wasteland called “Zimnyak” (in the 60s it was the
site of Alexeyev’s cloth mill), and forming “an enormous
labour market of wool-carders and felt-makers.” [17]

In Yaroslavl Gubernia outside work for “factory owners is a]so done” ( List , 115) and there
are “handicraftsmen” who work for merchant proprietors, using
the latter’s wool, etc.

3) The Hat-and-Cap and Hemp-and-Rope Trades

Above we gave statistics for the hat industry of Moscow

Gubernia. [18]

They show that two-thirds of the total output and of the total number of
workers are concentrated in 18 establishments, which have an average of 15.6 wage-workers. [19]

The “handicraft” hat-makers perform only part of the hat-making operations: they make the shapes, which are sold to Moscow
merchants who have their own “finishing establishments”; on
the other hand, “clippers” (women who clip the down) work at
home for the “handicraft” hat-makers. Thus, all in all, we
find here capitalist co-operation based on division of labour and
entangled in a whole network of diverse forms of economic dependence. In
the centre of the industry (the village of Klenovo, Podolsk Uyezd) the
separation of the industrialists (mainly wage-workers) from agriculture [20] is
clearly to be seen, together with a rise in the level of the
population’s requirements: they live “more decently,” dress in calico and even in cloth, buy samovars, abandon ancient customs,
etc., thereby evoking the bitter complaints of the local admirers of old times. [21]

The new era even occasioned the appearance of migratory hat-makers.

A typical example of capitalist manufacture is the cap industry in the
village of Molvitino, Bui Uyezd, Kostroma

Gubernia. [22] “The principal . . . occupation in the village of Molvitino and in
. . . 36 hamlets is the cap industry.” Agriculture is being
abandoned. Since 1861 the industry has greatly developed; sewing-machines
have become widely used. In Molvitino 10 workshops are busy all year round
with 5 to 25 male and 1 to 5 female workers each. “The best workshop
. . . has a turnover of about 100,000 rubles per annum.” [23]

Work is also distributed to homes (for example, materials for the crowns
are made by women in their homes). Division of labour cripples the
workers, who work under the most insanitary conditions and usually
contract tuberculosis. The lengthy existence of the industry (for over 200
years) has produced highly skilled craftsmen; the Molvitino craftsmen are
known in the big cities and in the remote outer regions.

The centre of the hemp industry in the Medyn Uyezd, Kaluga Gubernia, is
the village of Polotnyani Zavod. This is a large village (according to the
census of 1897 it had 3,685 inhabitants) with a population that is
landless and highly industrial (over 1,000 “handicraftsmen”);
it is the centre of the “handicraft” industries of Medyn

Uyezd. [24]

The hemp industry is organised in the following way: the big proprietors (of whom
there are three, the biggest being Yerokhin) have workshops employing
wage-workers and circulating capital of more or less considerable
dimensions for purchasing raw materials. The hemp is combed in the
“factory,” spun by spinners in their homes, and twisted both
in the factory and in the home. It is warped in the factory and woven both
in the factory and in the home. In 1878 a total of 841 “handicraftsmen” was counted in the hemp industry; Yerokhin is
considered to be both a “handicraftsman” and a “factory
owner,” employing 94-64 workers in 1890 and in 1894-1895; according
to Reports and Investigations (Vol. II, p.187), “hundreds
of peasants” work for him.

In Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the rope industry is also centred in
non-agricultural industrial villages, Nizhni Izbylets and Verkhni Izbylets
in the Gorbatov

Uyezd. [25]

According to Mr. Karpov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII), the Gorbatov-Izbylets district is one large
rope-making area; part of the inhabitants of the town of Gorbatov are also
engaged in the industry, and the villages of Verkhni Izbylets and Nizhni
Izbylets are, in fact, “almost part of the town of Gorbatov”;
the inhabitants live like townspeople, drink tea every day, wear clothing
bought in the shops, and eat white bread. Altogether, as many as
two-thirds of the inhabitants of 32 villages are engaged in the industry,
a total of 4,701 working (2,096 men and 2,605 women) with an output of
about 1 1/2 million rubles. The industry has been in existence for nearly 200 years, and is now declining. It is organised as follows:
all work for 29 proprietors, using the latter’s materials, are paid
by the piece, are “totally dependent upon the proprietors” and
work from 14 to 15 hours a day. According to Zemstvo statistics (1889) the
industry employs 1,699 male workers (plus 558 females and males of
non-working age). Of 1,648 working only 197 work for sale, 1,340 work for proprietors [26] and 111 are wage-workers employed in the workshops of 58
proprietors. Of 1,288 allotment households, only 727, or a little over half, cultivate all their land themselves. Of
1,573 allotment-holding working persons, 306, or 19.4%, do not
engage in agriculture at all. Turning to the question as to who
these “proprietors” are, we must pass from the sphere of
“handicraft” industry to that of “factory” industry. According
to the List for 1894-95 there were two rope factories there, with 231 workers employed on the premises and 1,155
working outside, with an output totalling 423,000 rubles. Both
these establishments have installed motors (which they did not
have either in 1879 or in 1890), and we therefore clearly see
here the transition from capitalist manufacture to capitalist
machine industry, and the transformation of “handicraft” work
distributors and buyers-up into real factory owners.

In Perm Gubernia the handicraft census of 1894-95 registered 68 peasant
rope-and-string yards, with 343 workers (of whom 143 were hired) and an
output totalling 115,000 rubles. [27]

These small establishments are headed by big manufactories,
which are reckoned together, viz.: 6 owners employ 101 workers
(91 hired) and have an output totalling 81,000 rubles. [28]

The system of production in these big establishments may serve as the most
striking example of “serial manufacture” (as Marx calls it [89] ), i.e., the
sort of manufacture in which different workers perform different consecutive operations in working up the raw material: 1) hemp
scutching; 2) combing; 3) spinning; 4) coiling; 5) tarring; 6) winding on
drum; 7) passing threads through perforated board; 8) passing threads
through iron bush; 9) stranding of plaits, twisting and gathering of ropes. [29]

The organisation of the hemp industry in Orel Gubernia is evidently
similar: from among the considerable number of small peasant
establishments big manufactories emerge, principally in the towns, and are
included among the “factories and works” (according to the
Directory for 1890 there were in Orel Gubernia 100 hemp-scutching
factories, with 1,671 workers and an output totalling 795,000 rubles). The
peasants work in the hemp industry “for merchants” (probably
for the very same manufacturers), using the latter’s materials, at
piece rates, the work being divided up into special operations:
“scutchers” scutch the hemp; “spinners” spin it; “bearders” trim it, “wheelmen” turn the wheel. The
work is very hard; many contract consumption and “rupture.”
The dust is so thick that “unless accustomed you will not stay in it
for a quarter of an hour.” The work is done in ordinary sheds from
dawn to dusk, from May to

September. [30]

4) The Wood-Working Trades

The most typical example of capitalist manufacture in this sphere is the
chest-making industry. According to the data, for instance, of the Perm
investigators, “this industry is organised as follows: a few big
proprietors, owning workshops that employ wage-workers, purchase
materials, partly make the wares on their own premises, but mainly give
out material to small workshops making parts, and in their own shops
assemble them and, after finishing, send the ready article to
market. Division of labour . . . is employed on the job extensively: the making of the entire chest is divided into ten
or twelve operations, each separately performed by handicraftsmen. The
organisation of the industry consists in the combination of workers
performing one operation ( Teilarbeiter , as they are called in
Das Kapital ) under the command of capital .” [31]

This is heterogeneous manufacture ( heterogene Manufaktur , as Marx calls it [90] ), in which
the different workers do not perform consecutive operations in turning the
raw material into the product, but make the various parts of the product,
which are afterwards assembled. The preference of the capitalists for the
domestic work of “handicraftsmen” is to be explained partly by
the above mentioned character of manufacture, and partly (and mainly) by
the cheaper labour of the home workers. [32]

Let us observe that the relatively big workshops in this industry are sometimes
also included among “factories and works.” [33]

In all probability, the chest-making industry is organised similarly in
Vladimir Gubernia, in Murom Uyezd where, according to the List ,
there are 9 “factories” (all hand-operated), with 89 workers
on the premises and 11 outside, and an output totalling 69,810
rubles.

The carriage industry, in Perm Gubernia, for example, is organised on
similar lines: from among the mass of small establishments there emerge
assembly workshops employing wage-workers; the small handicraftsmen are
workers who make parts of the carriages both out of their own materials,
and out of materials supplied by the “buyers-up” (i.e., owners
of the assembly workshops.) [34]

We
read about the Poltava “handicraft” carriage builders that in
the suburb of Ardon there are workshops that employ wage-workers and also
distribute work to homes (the bigger masters having as many as 20 outside workers). [35]

In
Kazan Gubernia, division of labour as to wares is to be observed in the building of town carriages:
some villages specialise in sleighs, others in wheeled vehicles,
etc. “The town carriages, completely assembled in the villages (but
without the metal work, wheels or shafts), are sent to Kazan merchant
customers, who in turn send them to blacksmiths for the metal work. The
carriages are then sent back again to the shops and workshops in the town,
where they are finished off, i.e., are upholstered and painted. . . . Kazan, where town carriages were formerly iron-mounted,
gradually passed this work on to handicraftsmen, who work at home for a
smaller payment than do the town craftsmen....” [36]

Hence, capital prefers to distribute work to home workers because this reduces the cost of labour-power. The
organisation of the carriage industry, as is evident from the data quoted,
constitutes, in the majority of cases, a system of handicraftsmen making
parts, who are under the sway of capital.

The large industrial village of Vorontsovka, Pavlovsk Uyezd, Voronezh
Gubernia (9,541 inhabitants in 1897), constitutes, as it were, a single
manufactory of wooden articles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., Vol. IX, article by Rev. M. Popov). Over 800 houses
are engaged in the industry (as well as some households in the suburb of
Alexandrovka, which has over 5,000 inhabitants). They make carts,
tarantasses, wheels, chests, etc., to a total of about 267,000
rubles. Less than one-third are independent masters; hired workers in
masters’ workshops are rare. [37]

The majority work to order for peasant merchants at piece rates. The workers
are in debt to the proprietors and are worn out by arduous toil: the
people are growing feebler. The inhabitants of the suburb are industrial,
not of the rural type, and scarcely engage in agriculture at all (except
to work vegetable plots), since their allotments are miserably small. The
industry has been long in existence, diverting the population from agriculture and increasingly widening the
rift between the rich and the poor. The people subsist on meagre food;
they dress “more smartly than before,” “but beyond their
means,” in clothing that is entirely bought. “The population
has succumbed to the spirit of industry and trade.” “Nearly
all who have no craft carry on some trading. . . . Under the influence of
industry and trade, the peasant has, generally speaking, become more
unreserved, and this has made him more developed and resourceful.” [38]

The celebrated wooden-spoon industry of the Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, is close to capitalist manufacture in its
organisation. True, there are no big workshops standing out from among the
mass of small workshops and dominating them, but we find a deeply-rooted
division of labour and the complete subjection of the mass of part-job
workers to capital. Before it is ready, the spoon passes through no less
than 10 hands, the buyers-up getting some of the operations done by
specially hired workers or giving them out to specialist workers (for
example, for varnishing); some of the villages specialise in particular
operations (for example, the village of Dyakovo specialises in spoon
finishing to the order of the buyer-up, at piece rates; the villages of
Khvostikovo, Dianovo and Zhuzhelka specialise in varnishing, etc.). The
buyers-up purchase the timber wholesale in the Samara and other gubernias,
where they send parties of hired workers; they own warehouses for raw
material and manufactured goods, supply the most valuable material to
handicraftsmen for processing, etc. The mass of workers doing part jobs
merge into a single, complex mechanism of production, entirely under the
sway of capital. “It is all the same to the spoon-makers whether
they work for hire at the master’s cost and on his premises, or are
occupied in their own cottages, for in this industry, as in others,
everything has been weighed, measured and counted. The spoon-maker never
earns more than just enough to keep body and soul together.” [39]

It is quite natural that under such conditions the capitalists who dominate the whole trade are in no hurry to open their
own workshops, and the industry, based on hand skill and traditional
division of labour, stagnates in its seclusion and immobility. Tied to the
land, the “handicraftsmen” seem to have become petrified in
their routine: as in 1879, so in 1889, they still count money in the old
style, in banknotes and not in silver.

The toy industry in Moscow Gubernia is headed similarly by establishments
of the capitalist-manufactory type. [40]

Of 481 workshops, 20 have over 10 workers each. Division of labour, both as to
wares and as to individual operations, is practised on a very wide scale,
enormously raising the productivity of labour (at the cost of crippling
the worker). For example, it is estimated that a small workshop yields a
return of 26% of the selling price, and a big workshop, one of

58%. [41]

Of course, the fixed capital of the big proprietors is also much larger; technical
devices are met with (for example, drying sheds). The centre of the
industry is a non-agricultural township, the suburb of Sergiyevsky (where
there are 1,055 workers out of a total of 1,398, with an output to the
amount of 311,000 rubles out of a total of 405,000 rubles; the population,
according to the 1897 census, numbers 15,155). The author of the article
on this industry, referring to the prevalence of small workshops, etc.,
considers it more, but still not very, likely that the industry will
develop into manufacture rather than into factory industry. “In the
future, too,” he says, “the small producers will always be
able to compete more or less successfully with large-scale
production” ( loc . cit ., 93). The author forgets that in manufacture the technical basis is always the same hand-production
that obtains in the small industries; that the division of labour can
never be such a decisive advantage that it will entirely eliminate the small producers,
particularly if the latter resort to such means as lengthening the working
day, etc.; and that manufacture is never in a position to embrace the
whole of production, but remains a mere superstructure over the mass of
small establishments.

5) The Processing of Livestock Produce. [The Leather and Fur Trades]

The most extensive areas of the leather industry present particularly
striking examples of the complete merging of “handicraft” and
factory industry, examples of capitalist manufacture highly developed (in
depth and in breadth). What is characteristic is the fact that the
gubernias which are conspicuous for the size of their “factory” leather industry (Vyatka, Nizhni-Novgorod, Perm and
Tver) are marked by a particular development of “handicraft”
industries in this sphere.

In the village of Bogorodskoye, Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia,
there were, according to the Directory for 1890, 58 “factories” with 392 workers and an output totalling 547,000
rubles; according to the List for 1894-95 there were 119
“works,” with 1,499 workers on the premises and 205 outside,
and with an output totalling 934,000 rubles (the latter figures covering
only the processing of livestock produce, the principal local
industry). But these data deal only with the top levels of
capitalist manufacture. Mr. Karpov in 1879 computed in this village and
its environs over 296 establishments, with 5,669 workers (a large number
of whom worked at home for capitalists), and with an output totalling
about 1,490,000 rubles [42] in the following industries: tanning, shingle-gluing, basket-weaving (for packing
goods), harness-making, horse-collar-making, mitten-making and, standing
by itself, pottery. The Zemstvo census of 1889 listed 4,401 industrialists
for this district, and of 1,842 workers for whom detailed information is
given, 1,119 work for hire in other people’s workshops and 405 work
at home for masters. [43] “Bogorodskoye, with its population of 8,000, is a huge tannery in continuous operation.” [44]

To be more precise, it is a “serial” manufactory controlled by a few big capitalists who buy the raw materials,
tan the hides, and turn them into a variety of articles, hiring several
thousand absolutely propertyless workers for the job and ruling over the
small

establishments. [45]

This industry has had a very long existence, since the 17th century;
particularly memorable in the industry’s history are the Sheremetevs
(beginning of the 19th century), landlords who helped considerably to
develop the industry and, incidentally, protected the proletariat, which
came into existence here long ago, from the local rich. After 1861 the
industry greatly developed, and particularly did big establishments grow
at the expense of the small ones; centuries of industrial activity
produced from among the population remarkably skilled craftsmen who have
carried the trade all over Russia. The firmly-rooted capitalist relations
have led to the separation of industry from agriculture: hardly any
farming is done in Bogorodskoye village itself, which, on the contrary,
divorces neighbouring peasants who move into this “town” from
the

land. [46]

Mr. Karpov notes in this village “a complete absence of peasant
characteristics among the inhabitants,” so that “you would
never think you were in a village and not a town.” This village
leaves Gorbatov and all the other uyezd towns of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia
far behind, with the exception, perhaps, of Arzamas. It is “one of
the considerable commercial and industrial centres in the gubernia, and its industry and
commerce run into the millions.” “The radius of the industrial
and commercial influence of Bogorodskoye is very wide; but most closely
connected with the industry of Bogorodskoye is that of its environs within
a radius of 10 to 12 versts. These industrial environs are, as it were, a
continuation of Bogorodskoye itself.” “The inhabitants of
Bogorodskoye do not in the least resemble the ordinary, raw muzhiks: they
are artisans of the burgher type, shrewd, experienced people, who look
down on the peasants. The manner of life and the ethical standards of the
Bogorodskoye inhabitants are completely urban.” To this we must add
that the industrial villages of Gorbatov Uyezd are marked by a relatively
high level of literacy among the population. Thus, the percentage of
literate and student men and women is, in the villages of Pavlovo,
Bogorodskoye and Vorsma, 37.8% and 20% respectively, as against 21.5% and
4.4% in the rest of the uyezd (see Zemstvo statistical Material ).

Quite analogous (only on a smaller scale) are the relations in the
leather-processing industries of the villages of Katunki and Gorodets
(Balakhna Uyezd), Bolshoye Murashkino (Knyaginin Uyezd), Yurino (Vasil
Uyezd), and Tubanayevka, Spasskoye, Vatras and Latyshikha in the same
uyezd. These are similar non-agricultural centres with a
“ring” of surrounding agricultural villages, and with similar
diverse industries and numerous small establishments (and also workers in
the home) subordinated to big entrepreneurs, whose capitalist workshops
are occasionally included among “factories and works.” [47]

Without going into statistical details, which will provide nothing new
compared with what has already been said, let us merely quote the
following extremely interesting description of the village of

Katunki: [48] “A certain patriarchal simplicity in the relations between masters
and workmen, which, however, is not so noticeable at first sight and is, unfortunately (?), disappearing increasingly every year
. . . testifies to the handicraft character of the industries (?). It is
only recently that the factory character both of the industries and of the
population has begun to be observed, under the influence, in particular,
of the town, intercourse with which has been facilitated by the
inauguration of the steamboat service. Today the village looks like a
regular industrial township: there is no sign of agriculture whatever, the
houses are built close together as in the towns; the fine brick houses of
the rich, and alongside of them the miserable hovels of the poor; the long
wooden and brick buildings of the factories crowded in the middle of the
village — all this sharply distinguishes Katunki from the neighbouring
villages and clearly points to the industrial character of the local
population. The inhabitants themselves possess features of character that
also call to mind the type of “factory hand” who has already
taken shape in Russia: a certain showiness in house furniture, in clothes
and manners, spendthrift habits of life in most cases, and little care for
the morrow, a forwardness and often affectation in speech, a certain
superciliousness towards the country yokel — all these features are
possessed by them in common with all Russian factory people.” [49]

In the town of Arzamas, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the “factory” statistics listed in 1890 a total of 6 tanneries,
employing 64 workers ( Directory ); this is only a small fraction
of the capitalist manufacture which embraces the fur, boot-making and
other industries. The same factories employ workers in the home, both in
the town of Arzamas (in 1878, estimated at 400) and in 5 suburban
villages, where out of the 360 furrier households, 330 work for Arzamas
merchants, using their materials and working 14 hours a day for 6 to 9
rubles per month [50] ; that is why the furriers are pallid, feeble and degenerating folk. In the suburb of Viyezdnaya Sloboda, of the 600 boot-maker households, 500 work for
masters, from whom they receive the cut-out leather. The industry is of
long standing, being about 200 years old, and is still growing and
developing. The inhabitants hardly engage in agriculture at all; their
whole manner of life is purely urban, and they live “in grand
style.” The same applies to the furrier villages mentioned above,
the inhabitants of which “look down with disdain upon the peasant
and call him a ‘country bumpkin’.” [51]

We find exactly the same thing in Vyatka Gubernia. The Vyatka and
Slobodskoi uyezds are centres both of “factory” and of “handicraft” leather and fur trades. In the Vyatka Uyezd, the
handicraft tanneries are concentrated on the outskirts of the town and
“supplement” the industrial activities of the big works, [52] for
example, by working for the big owners; working for the latter also, in
the majority of cases, are the handicraft harness-makers and glue
makers. The fur factory owners have hundreds working for them in the home,
sewing sheepskins, etc. This is just a single capitalist manufactory with
branches: sheepskin dressing and sheepskin-coat-making, leather and
harness, etc. Still more striking are the relations existing in the
Slobodskoi Uyezd (the centre of the industries is the suburb of Demyanka);
here we see a small number of big factory owners [53] at the
head of handicraft tanners (numbering 870), boot- and mitten-makers (855),
sheepskin-dressers (940), and tailors (309 make short sheepskin coats to
order from capitalists). Generally speaking, such organisation of the
production of leather goods is evidently very widespread: thus, in the
town of Sarapul, Vyatka Gubernia, the List gives 6 tanneries,
also making footwear, which employ, in addition to 214 workers on the
premises, 1,080 outside workers (p. 495). What would become of our
“handicrafts men,” those representatives of “people’s” industry who are depicted in such bright hues by all sorts of Manilovs, if all the Russian
merchants and factory owners were to compute with equal detail and
precision the outside workers employed by them? [54]

Reference should be made here to the industrial village of Rasskazovo,
Tambov Uyezd, Tambov Gubernia (population in 1897 was 8,283), a centre
both of “factory” industry (cloth mills, soap-works, tanneries
and distilleries) and of “handicraft” industry, the latter
being closely connected with the former; and to the industries: tanning,
felt-making (as many as 70 masters, and establishments employing from 20
to 30 workers), glue-making, boot-making, stocking knitting (there is not
a household where stockings are not knit from wool that
“buyers-up” give out by weight), etc. Near this village is the
suburb of Belaya Polyana (300 households), celebrated for industries of
the same kind. In Morshansk Uyezd, the centre of the handicraft industries
is the village of Pokrovskoye-Vasilyevskoye, which is also the centre of
factory industry (see Directory and Reports and Investigations , Vol. III). In Kursk Gubernia, noteworthy as
industrial villages and centres of “handicraft” industries are
the suburbs: Veliko-Mikhailovka (Novy Oskol Uyezd; population in 1897 was
11,853), Borisovka (Graivoron Uyezd — 18,071 inhabitants), Tomarovka
(Belgorod Uyezd, 8,716 inhabitants), Miropolye (Sudzha Uyezd, over 10,000
inhabitants. See Reports and Investigations , Vol. I, Information
for 1888-1889). In the same villages you will also find leather
“works” (see Directory for 1890). The principal “handicraft” industry is leather and boot-making. It arose as far back as the first half of the 18th century and reached the peak of its
development in the 60s of the 19th century having become “a stable
organisation of a purely commercial character.” The whole business
was monopolised by contractors, who bought the leather and gave it out to
be processed by handicraftsmen. The railways destroyed this monopoly
character of capital, and the capitalist contractors transferred their
capital to more profitable undertakings. Today it is organised as follows:
there are about 120 big entrepreneurs; they own workshops where
wage-workers are employed, and also distribute work to homes; there are as
many as 3,000 small independent masters (who, however, buy their leather
from the big ones); there are 400 people who work at home (for the big
masters), and as many wage-workers; then there are the apprentices. The
total number of boot-makers is over 4,000. In addition, there are
handicraft potters, icon-case makers, icon painters, table-cloth weavers,
etc.

A highly characteristic and typical example of capitalist manufacture is
the squirrel-fur industry in Kargopol Uyezd, Olonets Gubernia, described
with such knowledge of the facts, and with truthful and artless
presentation of the whole life of the industrial population by a craftsman
and teacher in the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission
(Vol. IV). According to his description (in 1878), the industry has
existed since the beginning of the 19th century: 8 masters employ 175
workers, in addition to which they have as many as 1,000 seamstresses and
some 35 families of furriers working for them at home (in different
villages), 1,300 to 1,500 persons in all, with an output totalling 336,000
rubles. As a point of interest, it should be noted that when this was a
flourishing industry it was not included in the “factory”
statistics. The Directory for 1879 makes no mention of it. But
when it began to decline the statistics included it. The
Directory for 1890 listed for the town and the uyezd of Kargopol
7 works, with 121 workers and an output totalling 50,000 rubles, whereas
the List gave 5 works, with 79 workers (plus 57 outside) and an
output totalling 49,000 rubles. [55]

The order of things prevailing in this branch of capitalist manufacture is very instructive as a specimen of what goes on
in our age-old, purely native “handicraft industries,” that
have been left stranded in one of Russia’s numerous rural
backwoods. The craftsmen work 15 hours a day in a very unhealthy
atmosphere and earn 8 rubles per month, less than 60 or 70 rubles per
year. The masters’ incomes amount to about 5,000 rubles per
annum. The relations between masters and workers are “patriarchal”: according to ancient custom, the master gives
the workers kvass and salt gratis, which they have to beg from his
cook. As a mark of gratitude to the master (for “giving” them
work) the workers come, without pay, to pull squirrel tails, and also
clean furs after work. The workers live in the workshop all the week, and
the masters knock them about, seemingly in a joke (p. 218,
loc . cit .), make them do all sorts of jobs, such as raking hay, shovelling snow, fetching water, rinsing clothes, etc. Labour
is astonishingly cheap in Kargopol itself, and the peasants in the
vicinity “are ready to work for next to nothing.” Work is done
by hand, there is systematic division of labour, and there is a lengthy
apprenticeship (8 to 12 years); the lot of the apprentices can easily be
imagined.

6) The Remaining Livestock Processing Trades

A particularly noteworthy example of capitalist manufacture is the
celebrated boot industry of the village of Kimry, Korcheva Uyezd, Tver
Gubernia, and its environs. [56]

The industry is a very old one, having existed since the 16th
century. Since the Reform, it has continued to grow and develop. In the
early 70s Pletnev counted 4 volosts in the area covered by this industry,
but in 1888 the area included 9 volosts. Basically the organisation of the
industry is as follows. It is headed by the owners of big workshops
employing wage-workers; they distribute the cut-out leather to be made up
by outside workers. Mr. Pletnev counted 20 such masters, employing 124
adults and 60 boys, with an output totalling 818,000 rubles, while the
number of workers occupied at home for these capitalists is estimated by
the author approximately at 1,769 adults and 1,833 boys. Then come the
small masters, each with 1 to 5 wage-workers and 1 to 3 boys. These
masters dispose of their goods mainly in the village market in Kimry; they
number 224 and have 460 adults and 301 boys working for them; output
totals 187,000 rubles. Hence, there are 244 masters altogether, employing
2,353 adults (of whom 1,769 work at home) and 2,194 boys (of whom 1,833
work at home), with an output totalling 1,005,000 rubles. Further, there
are workshops which do various individual operations: currying
(skin-cleaning with scraper); chipping (gluing of chips left from
currying); special carting (4 masters, with 16 employees and up to 50 horses); special
carpentry (box-making), etc. [57]

Pletnev calculated the total output at 4.7 million rubles for the whole
district. In 1881 the number of handicraftsmen was computed at 10,638, and
with migrants, 26,000, with an output totalling 3.7 million rubles. As to
conditions of labour, it is important to note the excessively long working day (14 to
15 hours) and the extremely insanitary working conditions, payment in
goods, etc. The centre of the industry, Kimry village, “is more like
a small town” ( Reports and Investigations , I, 224); the
inhabitants are poor agriculturists, and are engaged in their industry all
the year round; only the rural handicraftsmen give up the industry during
haymaking. The houses in Kimry village are urban, and the inhabitants are
distinguished for their urban habits of life (such as “showiness”). Until very recently this industry was not
included in “factory” statistics, probably because the masters
“readily style themselves handicraftsmen” ( ibid ., 228). The List has for the first time included 6 boot workshops
in Kimry district, with 15 to 40 workers each on the premises, and with no
outside workers. Of course, it contains no end of gaps.

Manufacture also includes the button industry of Moscow Gubernia,
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds — the making of buttons from hoofs and
rams’ horns. Engaged in this industry are 487 workers, employed in
52 establishments; the output totals 264,000 rubles. Establishments with
fewer than 5 employees number 16; those with 5 to 10 — 26; those with 10
and more — 10. Masters who do without wage-workers number only 10; these
work for big masters, using the latter’s materials. Only the big
industrialists (who, as is evident from the figures given, should have
from 17 to 21 workers per establishment) are quite independent. It is
they, evidently, who figure in the Directory as “factory
owners” (see p. 291: 2 establishments with an output totalling 4,000
rubles and with 73 workers). This is “serial manufacture”; the
horns are first steamed in what is called the “smithy” (a
wooden hut with a furnace); then they are passed on to the
workshop where they are cut up, after which they go to a stamping
press, where the pattern is imprinted, and, lastly, are finished and
polished on lathes. The industry has its apprentices. The working day is
14 hours. Payment in goods is a regular thing. The relations between
masters and men are patriarchal, as seen in the following: the master
calls the workers “boys,” and the pay-book is called the
“boys’ book”; when the master pays the workers, he lectures them and never grants in full their
“requests” for payment.

The horn industry, which is included in our table of small industries
(Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 31 and 33), is also of the same
type. “Handicraftsmen” employing dozens of wage-workers figure
also in the Directory as “factory owners” (p. 291). Division
of labour is practised; work is also given out to home workers (horn
trimmers). The centre of the industry in Bogorodsk Uyezd is the big
village of Khoteichi, where agriculture is receding into the background
(population in 1897 was 2,494). The Moscow Zemstvo publication stated
quite rightly: Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd ,
Moscow Gubernia , in 1890 , that this village “ is nothing but a large comb manufactory ” (p. 24,
our italics). In 1890, over 500 industrialists were counted in this
village, with an output of from 3.5 to 5.5 million combs. “More
often than not, the horn dealer is also a buyer-up of finished goods, and
in many cases a big comb-maker as well.” The position of those
makers who are compelled to take horns “at piece rates” is
particularly bad: “their position is actually worse than that of the
wage-workers in the big establishments.” Dire need compels them to
exploit the labour of their whole families beyond measure, to lengthen their working day and to put juveniles to work. “During the
winter, work in Khoteichi starts at one o’clock in the morning, and
it is hard to say for certain when it ends in the cottage of the
‘independent’ craftsman doing ‘piece-work.’”
Payment in goods is widely practised. “This system, eliminated with
such difficulty from the factories, is still in full force in the small
handicraft establishments” (27). Probably, the horn goods industry
is organised on similar lines in Kadnikov Uyezd, Vologda Gubernia, in the
area of Ustye village (known as “Ustyanshchina”), where there
are 58 hamlets. Mr. V. Borisov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX) counts 388 handicraftsmen here, with an output
totalling 45,000 rubles; all the handicraftsmen work for capitalists, who
buy horns in St. Petersburg and tortoise-shell abroad.

At the head of the brush industry in Moscow Gubernia (see Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industry No. 20) we find big establishments with a large number
of wage-workers and with systematic division of labour. [58]

It is interesting to note at this point the changes that took place in the
organisation of this industry between 1879 and 1895 (see Moscow Zemstvo
publication: The Brush Industry According to the Investigation of 1895 ). Some well-to-do industrialists went to Moscow to carry on the
industry there. The number of industrialists increased 70%, the increase
being particularly large in the number of women (+170%) and girls
(+159%). The number of big workshops with wage-workers diminished: the
proportion of establishments with wage-workers dropped from 62% to
39%. This was due to the fact that the masters began to distribute work to be done in the home . The introduction into general use of the
drilling machine (for making holes in brush blocks) accelerated and
facilitated one of the main processes in brushmaking. The demand for
“setters” (craftsmen who “set” bristle in the block) increased; and this operation, which became increasingly
specialised, fell to the lot of women, their labour being cheaper. The
women began to work at home setting bristle, and were paid by the
piece. Thus, the growing resort to domestic industry was caused in this
case by progress in technique (drilling machine), progress in division of
labour (the women do nothing but set bristle), and progress in capitalist
exploitation (the labour of women and girls being cheaper). This example
shows very clearly that domestic industry by no means eliminates the concept of capitalist manufacture , but, on the contrary, is sometimes
even a sign of its further development .

7) The Processing of Mineral Products

In the section relating to ceramics we get an example of capitalist
manufacture in the industries of the Gzhel district (an area of 25 villages
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds, Moscow Gubernia). The relevant
statistics are given in our table of small industries (Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industries Nos. 15, 28 and 37). From these data it is evident that despite the enormous differences between the three Gzhel industries:
pottery, porcelain and decorative, these differences disappear as we pass
from one grade of establishment to another in each industry, and we get a
series of workshops of successively increasing dimensions. Here are the
average numbers of workers per establishment according to grade in these
three industries: 2.4 — 4.3 — 8.4 — 4.4. — 7.9 — 13.5 — 18 — 69 —
226.4. In other words, the workshops range from the very smallest to the
very biggest. There is no doubt that the big establishments belong to the
category of capitalist manufacture (inasmuch as they have not introduced
machines, have not developed into factories); what is important, however,
is not only this, but also that the small establishments are connected with the big ones ; that we have a single system of industry
here and not separate workshops of one or other type of economic
organisation. “Gzhel constitutes a single economic whole”
(Isayev, loc . cit ., 138), and the big workshops in the
district have grown slowly and gradually out of the small ones
( ibid ., 121). The work is done by hand, [59] with considerable division of labour : among the potters we find wheel
hands (specialising in different sorts of pottery), kilnmen, etc., and
sometimes special workers for preparing colours. In the manufacture of
porcelain-ware division of labour is extremely detailed: crushers, wheel
hands, feeders, kilnmen, decorators, etc. The wheel hands even specialise
in the various kinds of porcelain ware (cf. Isayev, loc . cit ., 140: in one case division of labour increases
productivity of labour by 25%). The decorators’ shops work for the
porcelain makers and are, therefore, only departments of the
latter’s manufactories, performing a special detailed operation. It
is characteristic of developed capitalist manufacture that physical
strength itself becomes a specialty. Thus, in Gzhel, some of the villages
are engaged (almost to a man) in clay digging; for heavy work not requiring special
skill (grinding), workers from the Tula and Ryazan gubernias are employed
almost exclusively, being superior in strength and vigour to the not very
robust Gzhelians. Payment in goods is widely practised. Agriculture is in
a bad way. “The Gzhelians are a degenerating race” (Isayev,
168) — weak-chested, narrow-shouldered, feeble; the decorators lose their
sight at an early age, etc. Capitalist division of labour breaks up the
worker and deforms him. The working day is from 12 to 13 hours.

8) The Metal Trades. The Pavlovo Industries

The celebrated Pavlovo lock and cutlery industries cover the whole of
Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, and Murom Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. These industries originated very long ago. Smirnov states that
as far back as 1621 there were (according to the cadastres [91] ) 11
smithies in Pavlovo. By the middle of the 19th century these industries
constituted a far-flung network of fully developed capitalist
relations. After the Reform, the industries in this district continued to
develop and expand. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889, in Gorbatov
Uyezd 13 volosts and 119 villages were engaged in industry; a total of
5,953 households, 6,570 male workers (54% of the total number working in
these villages) and 2,741 old men, juveniles and women, 9,311 persons in
all. In the Murom Uyezd, Mr. Grigoryev in 1881 registered 6 industrial
volosts, 66 villages, 1,545 households and 2,205 male workers (39% of the
total number working in these villages). Not only were large,
non-agricultural industrial villages formed (Pavlovo, Vorsma), but even
the surrounding peasants were diverted from agriculture: outside of
Pavlovo and Vorsma, in Gorbatov Uyezd, 4,492 persons were engaged in
industries, of whom 2,357, or more than half did not engage in
agriculture. Life in centres like Pavlovo has become quite urban and has
given rise to incomparably more developed requirements, more cultured
environment, clothes, manner of life, etc., than among the surrounding
“raw”

peasants. [60]

Turning to the economic organisation of the Pavlovo industries, we must
first of all note the indubitable fact that the “handicraftsmen” are headed by the most typical capitalist
manufactories. For example, in the Zavyalovs’ establishment (which
already in the 60s employed over 100 workers at the bench and has now
introduced a steam engine) a penknife passes through 8 or 9 hands: the
forger, blade-maker, handle-maker (usually an outside worker), hardener,
facer, polisher, finisher, grinder and marker. This is extensive
capitalist co-operation based on division of labour, with a considerable
number of the workers performing individual operations employed at home
and not in the capitalist’s workshop. Here are facts given by
Mr. Labzin (in 1866) on the bigger establishments in the villages of
Pavlovo, Vorsma and Vacha, covering all branches of production in this
district: 15 proprietors had 500 workers occupied on the premises and
1,134 workers outside, making a total of 1,634, with an output totalling
351,700 rubles. How far this description of economic relations is
applicable to the whole district at the present time may be seen from the
following data [61] :

Thus, the organisation of the industry as outlined by us prevails in all
the districts. All in all, about three-fifths of the total number
of workers are employed capitalistically. Here too, consequently, we find
manufacture predominating in the general structure of the industry [62] and
holding masses of workers under its sway, without, however, being able to
eradicate small production. The relative tenacity of the latter is fully
explained, firstly, by the fact that in some branches of the Pavlovo
industry mechanised production has not yet been introduced at all (for
instance, in lock-making); and, secondly, by the fact that the small
producer tries to save himself from sinking by resorting to means that
cause him to sink far lower than the wage-worker. These means are:
lengthening the working day, and reducing the standard of living and of
general requirements. “The earnings of the group of handicraftsmen
who work for proprietors are less subject to fluctuation”
(Grigoryev, loc . cit ., 65); at Zavyalovs’, for example, the lowest-paid worker is the handle-maker; “he works at
home, and that is why he is satisfied with lower earnings” (68). The
handicraftsmen who work “for factory owners” are “able to earn somewhat more than the average earnings of the one who takes his
products to the market. Larger earnings are particularly noticeable among
the workers who live in the factories” (70). [63]

The working day in the “factories” is from 14 1/2 to 15 hours,
with a maximum of 16 hours. “The working day of the home-working
handicraftsmen, on the other hand, is never less than 17 hours and
sometimes as much as 18 and even 19 hours” ( ibid .). It
would not be in the least surprising if the law of June 2, 1897 [92] caused an
increase here in home-work; it is high time these “handicraftsmen” directed their efforts towards compelling the
proprietors to organise factories! Let the reader also recall the
notorious Pavlovo “loan-purchase,” “exchange,” “wife-pawning” and similar forms of bondage and personal
degradation which grind down the quasi-independent small producer. [64]

Fortunately, rapidly developing large-scale machine industry does not so
readily tolerate these worst forms of exploitation as manufacture
does. Running ahead a little, let us quote data on the growth of factory
production in this district. [65]

We thus see that ever-increasing numbers of workers are being drawn into
large establishments, which are going over to the use of machines. [66]

9) Other Metal Trades

The industries of Bezvodnoye village, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia and Uyezd
also come under the head of capitalist manufacture. This is also an
industrial village, the majority of whose inhabitants do not engage in
agriculture at all, and which serves as the centre of an industrial area
of several villages. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889
( Material , Vol. VIII, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1895), in the Bezvodnoye
Volost (581 households) 67.3% of the households cultivated no land, 78.3%
had no horses, 82.4% engaged in industries, and 57.7% had literate persons
and schoolchildren in the family (as against an average for the uyezd of
44.6%). The Bezvodnoye industries are devoted to the production of various
metal goods: chains, fish-hooks, and metal fabrics; the output was
estimated at 2 1/2 million rubles in

1883 [67] and 1 1/2 million rubles in

1888-89. [68]

The organisation of the industry is as follows: work for proprietors, using
their materials, which is distributed among a number of workers performing
single operations and done partly in the employers’ workshops and
partly in the home. For example, in the making of fish-hooks the various
operations are performed by “benders,” “cutters” (who work in a special shed) and “pointers” (women and
children who sharpen the hook-points in their homes); all these work at
piece rates for the capitalist, while the bender gives out work on his own
account to the cutters and pointers. “Metal wire is now done by
horse-driven windlasses; formerly the wire was drawn by blind men, who
were brought here in large numbers. . . .” One of the “specialities” of capitalist manufacture! “The
conditions under which this work is done differ very much from those in
all the other trades.

People have to work in a stifling atmosphere filled with the harmful
vapours emanating from accumulated horse dung.” [69]

Organised on the same lines of capitalist manufacture are the screen, [70] the pin, [71] and the gold-thread industries. [72]

In the last-named industry at the beginning of the 80s there were 66 establishments, employing 670 workers (of
whom 79% were hired), with an output totalling 368,500 rubles;
some of these capitalist establishments were occasionally also
included among the “factories and works.” [73]

The locksmith industries of the Burmakino Volost (and surrounding volosts)
of Yaroslavl Gubernia and Uyezd are probably organised on the same
lines. At all events, here we observe the same division of labour
(blacksmiths, blowers and locksmiths), the same extensive development of
wage-labour (of 307 smithies in the Burmakino Volost, 231 employ
wage-workers), the same predominance of big capital over all these detail
workers (the buyers-up are at the top; the blacksmiths work for them, and
the locksmiths for the blacksmiths), the same combination of the buying up
of wares with the production of wares in capitalist workshops, some of
which are occasionally included among the “factories and works.” [74]

In the appendix to the preceding chapter, statistics were given on the
tray and the copper industries [75] of Moscow Gubernia (the latter in the district known as
“Zagarye”). The data show that wage-labour plays a predominant
part in these industries, that the industries are headed by large
workshops employing an average of from 18 to 23 wage-workers per
establishment, with an average output of from

16,000 to 17,000 rubles. If we add to this that division of labour is very
widely practised here, [76] it will be clear that what we have is capitalist manufacture. [77] “The small industrial units, which are an anomaly under the existing
conditions of technique and division of labour, can only hold out
alongside the big workshops by lengthening the working day to the utmost” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., p. 33) — among the tray-makers, for example, for as long as 19 hours. The ordinary working day
here is from 13 to 15 hours; with the small proprietors it is
from 16 to 17 hours. Payment in goods is widely practised (both
in 1876 and in

1890). [78]

Let us add that the lengthy existence of this industry (it arose at the beginning
of the 19th century, at the latest) and extensive specialisation have, in
this case too, produced highly skilled workers; the Zagarians are famed
for their craftsmanship. Specialities have also sprung up in the industry
which need no preliminary training and are within the grasp of even
under-age workers. “This very possibility,” Mr. Isayev rightly
observes, “of becoming an under-age worker at once and acquiring a
trade, as it were, without having to study, indicates that the handicraft
spirit, which demands the training of labour-power, is disappearing; the
simplicity of many of the detailed operations is a symptom of the
transition of handicraft to manufacture” ( loc . cit ., 34). Let us only observe that to a certain
degree the “handicraft spirit” always remains in manufacture,
for its basis is the same hand production.

10) The Jewellery, Samovar and Accordion Trades

The village of Krasnoye, Kostroma Gubernia and Uyezd, is one of the
industrial villages usually held up as centres of our “people’s” capitalist manufacture. This large village
(in 1897 it had 2,612 inhabitants) is purely urban in character; the
inhabitants live like townspeople and (with very few exceptions) do not
engage in agriculture. Krasnoye is the centre of the jewellery industry
which covers 4 volosts and 51 villages (including Sidorovskoye Volost of
Nerekhta Uyezd), and in them 735 households and about 1,706 workers. [79] “The principal representatives of industry,” said Mr. Tillo,
“are undoubtedly the big industrialists of the village of Krasnoye:
the Pushilovs, Mazovs, Sorokins, Chulkovs and other merchants. They buy
materials (gold, silver and copper), employ craftsmen, buy up finished
articles, distribute orders for work to be done in the home, supply
samples, etc.” (2043). The big industrialists have their workshops,
so-called “rabotorni” (laboratories), where the metal is
smelted and forged, then to be given out for finishing to
“handicraftsmen”; they have technical appliances, such as
“pretsi” (presses and dies for stamping), “punches” (for embossing designs), “rollers” (for
stretching the metal), benches, etc. Division of labour is widely
practised: “Nearly every article passes through several hands in an
established order in the course of manufacture. For example, in the making
of ear-rings, the master industrialist first sends the silver to his own
workshop, where part of it is rolled and part drawn into wire; then on
receipt of an order the material is given to a craftsman who, if he has a
family, divides the work among several persons; one uses a punch to cut
the silver plates into the shapes for the ear-rings, another bends the
wire into the rings with which the ear-rings are attached to the ears, a third solders these parts, and, lastly, a fourth polishes
the finished ear-rings. None of this work is difficult, or requires much
training; very often the soldering and the polishing are done by women and
by children of 7 or 8 years of age” (2041). [80]

Here, too, the working day is excessively long, usually as much as 16
hours. Payment in provisions is common.

The following statistics (published quite recently by a local assay
inspector) clearly illustrate the economic structure of the industry: [93] “Both the first groups (about two-thirds of the total number of
craftsmen) should be classed as home-working factory workers rather than
as handicraftsmen.” In the top group “wage-labour occurs more
and more frequently. . . . The craftsmen have begun to buy articles made
by others”; in the upper strata of this group “buying-up predominates,” and “four of the buyers-up have no workshops at all.” [81]

The samovar and accordion industries in Tula town and environs are highly
typical examples of capitalist manufacture. Generally speaking, the
“handicraft” industries in this district have a long history,
dating back to the 15th century. [82]

They evidenced a particularly rapid development in the middle of the 17th
century; Mr. Borisov considers that the second period in the development
of the Tula industries then began. In 1637 the first iron foundry was
built (by the Dutchman Vinius). The Tula gunsmiths formed a separate
smiths’ suburb, constituted a separate social estate, enjoying
special rights and privileges. In 1696 the first iron foundry was erected
in Tula by a famous Tula blacksmith, and the industry spread to the Urals
and

Siberia. [83]

Then began the third period in the history of the Tula industries. The
craftsmen set up their own workshops and taught the trade to surrounding
peasants. In the 1810s and 1820s the first samovar factories were
started. “By 1825 there were in Tula 43 different factories that
belonged to gunsmiths, while those in existence at the present time nearly
all belong to one-time gunsmiths, now Tula merchants” ( loc . cit ., 2262). Here, consequently, we observe a
direct continuity and connection between the old guild masters and the
principals of subsequent capitalist manufacture. In 1864 the Tula
gunsmiths were freed from serf dependence [94] and assigned to the burgher estate; earnings dropped as a consequence of the
severe competition of the village handicraftsmen (which caused a reverse
flow of industrialists from town to country); the workers turned to the
samovar, lock, cutlery, and accordion industries (the first Tula
accordions appeared in 1830-1835).

The samovar industry is at present organised as follows. It is headed by
big capitalists who own workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers, but they also distribute many separate
operations to be done by workers, urban and rural, in their homes; those
who perform these operations sometimes still have their own workshops and
employ wage-workers. Naturally, side by side with the big there are small
workshops, with all the consecutive stages of dependence upon the
capitalists. Division of labour is the general basis of the whole
structure of this trade. The process of samovar-making is divided into the
following separate operations: 1) rolling the copper sheets into tubes
(tubing); 2) soldering the tubes; 3) filing the seams; 4) fitting the
bottoms; 5) beating out the shapes; 6) cleaning the insides: 7) turning
the bodies and necks; 8) plating; 9) press-punching the vents in the
bottoms and the covers; 10) assembling the samovars. Further, there are
the separate processes of casting the small copper parts: a) preparing the
moulds and b)

casting. [84]

Where work is given out to be done in the home, each of these operations may
constitute a special “handicraft” industry. One of these
“industries” was described by Mr. Borisov in Vol. VII of the
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission . This industry (samovar
tubing) consists in peasants doing at piece rates one of the operations we
have described, using merchants’ materials. The handicraftsmen left
Tula town to work in the countryside after 1861; the cost of living and
standard of requirements were lower in the countryside ( loc . cit ., p. 893). Mr. Borisov quite rightly
attributes this tenacity of the “handicraftsman” to the
retention of hand-labour in the beating out of samovars; “it will
always be profitable for the manufacturer to employ the village
handicraftsman, because he works at from 10 to 20% below the rate of the
urban artisan” (916).

Mr. Borisov estimated the value of the output of samovars in 1882 at
approximately 5 million rubles, the number of workers (handicraftsmen
included) totalling from 4,000 to 5,000. In this case also the factory
statistics cover only a fraction of capitalist manufacture. The Directory for 1879
counted in Tula Gubernia 53 samovar “factories” (all hand-operated) with 1,479 workers and an output totalling 836,000
rubles. The Directory for 1890 gives 162 factories, 2,175
workers, and an output of 1.1 million rubles; the list of firms, however,
contains only 50 factories (1 steam operated), with 1,326 workers and an
output totalling 698,000 rubles. Evidently, some hundred small
establishments were in this case classed as “factories.”
Lastly, the List gives the following for 1894-95: 25 factories (4
steam-operated), 1,202 workers (+ 607 outside), and an output totalling
1,613,000 rubles. In these data neither the number of factories nor the
number of workers are comparable (for the reason given above, and also
because of the lumping together in previous years of workers on the
premises and outside). The only thing beyond doubt is that manufacture is
being steadily displaced by large-scale machine industry: in 1879, there
were 2 factories with 100 and more workers; in 1890 there were 2 (one
steam-operated) and in 1894-95 there were 4 (three steam-operated). [85]

The accordion industry, which is at a lower stage of economic development,
is organised in precisely the same way. [86] “In the making of accordions there are
over ten separate trades” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, 236); the making of the different parts of an
accordion or the performance of some of the operations constitute
separate, quasi-independent “handicraft” industries. “When things are quiet all the handicraftsmen work for factories or for more or less big workshops, the owners of which
supply them with materials; when, however, there is a brisk demand for
accordions, a large number of small producers appear, who buy up parts
from the handicraftsmen, assemble them and take the finished articles to
the local shops where accordions are very readily purchased”
( ibid .). Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated from 2,000 to 3,000
workers in this industry, with an output totalling about 4 million rubles;
factory statistics in 1879 showed two “factories,” with 22
workers and an output totalling 5,000 rubles; in 1890, 19 factories, with
275 workers and an output totalling 82,000 rubles; in 1894-95 one factory,
with 23 workers (plus 17 outside) and an output totalling 20,000 rubles. [87]

Steam-engines are not employed at all. All these figure variations
indicate a purely haphazard picking of individual establishments which are
component parts of the complex organism of capitalist manufacture.

---
Notes:
[1]
Cf. Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VII, Pt. III
(Moscow, 1883), pp. 63-64.— Lenin

[2]
For a list of the most important towns of this type, see next chapter.— Lenin

[3]
Examples of such confusion will be given in the next chapter.— Lenin

[4]
See Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III. It would be impossible
and superfluous to give detailed data on all the weaving industries
described in the literature on our handicraft industry. Moreover, in the
majority of these industries the factory now reigns supreme. On the
subject of “handicraft weaving” see also Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vols. VI and VII. — Transactions of the Handicraft Commission — Material on Hand-Labour Statistics . [95]
— Reports and Investigations . — Korsak, loc . cit .— Lenin

[5]
The Military Statistical Abstract managed to count in Vladimir
Gubernia, in 1866, 98 silk factories (!) with 98 workers and a total
output of 4,000 rubles(!). The Directory for 1890 gives 35
factories, 2,112 workers, and 936,000 rubles. According to the
List for 1894-95 there were 98 factories, 2,281 workers, with an
output of 1,918,000 rubles, and in addition, 2,477 workers “outside
of establishments, on the side.” Just try to distinguish
“handicraftsmen” here from “factory workers”!— Lenin

[6]
According to the Directory for 1890 there were outside of Moscow
10 galloon factories, with 303 workers and an output totalling 58,000
rubles. But according to Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia
(Vol. VI, Pt. II), there were 400 establishments, with 2,619 workers (of
whom 72.8% were wage-workers) and with an output totalling 963,000 rubles.— Lenin

[7]
The Collection of Factory Inspectors’ Reports for 1903 (St. Petersburg, 1906) states that in Saratov Gubernia there were 33
distributing offices with 10,000 workers. ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[8]
The centre of this industry is Sosnovka Volost, where the Zemstvo census
of 1886 counted 4,626 households, with a population of 38,000 persons of
both sexes; 291 industrial establishments. Altogether in the volost 10% of
the households were houseless (as against 6.2% in the uyezd), and 44.5% of
the households cultivated on land (as against 22.8% in the uyezd). See
Statistical Returns for Saratou Gubernia , Vol. XI. — Capitalist
manufacture has, consequently, created industrial centres here too which
divorce the workers from the land.— Lenin

[9]
The sources are shown in the text. The number of establishments is about
half the number of independent workers (52 establishments in Vasilyev
Vrag, 5 + 55 + 110 in Krasnoye village and 21 establishments in the 4
small villages). On the other hand, the figures for the town of Arzamas
and Viyezdnaya Sloboda stands for the number of “factories,”
and not of workers.— Lenin

[10]
Let us note that the diagram given is typical of all Russian industries
organised on the lines of capitalist manufacture: everywhere at the head
of the industry we find big establishments (sometimes classed among
“factories and works”), and a mass of small establishments
completely under their sway — in a word, capitalist co-operation based on
division of labour and hand production. Non-agricultural centres are
formed by manufacture in exactly the same way, not only here, but also in
the majority of other industries.— Lenin

[11]
They are naked as they work in a temperature of 22° to 24°
Réaumur. The air is full of fine and also coarse dust, wool and
other stuff. The floors in the “factories” are earthen (in the
washing sheds of all places), etc.— Lenin

[12]
It is not without interest to note here the specific jargon of the
inhabitants of Krasnoye; this is characteristic of the territorial
isolation peculiar to manufacture. “In the village of Krasnoye
factories are given the Matroisk name of povarnyas (lit. kitchens — Ed .). . . . Matroisk is one of the
numerous branches of the Ophen dialect, the three main branches of which
are Ophen proper, spoken mainly in Vladimir Gubernia; Galivon , in Kostroma Gubernia; and Matroisk , in the
Nizhni-Novgorod and Vladimir gubernias” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V, p 465). Only large-scale machine industry
completely destroys the local character of social ties and replaces them
by national (and international) ties.— Lenin

[13]
Material for Evaluation of the Lands of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia ,
Vol. XI, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1893, pp. 211-214.— Lenin

[14]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , VI.— Lenin

[15]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[16]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II.— Lenin

[17]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II, p. 271.— Lenin

[18]
See Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 27.— Lenin

[19]
Some of these establishments were occasionally included among
“factories and works.” See, for example, the
Directory for 1879, p.126.— Lenin

[20]
See above, Chapter V, § VII.— Lenin

[21]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , IV, Pt.I, pp. 282-287.— Lenin

[22]
See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, and
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[23]
By some accident, such workshops have not yet been included among
“factories and works.”— Lenin

[24]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , II.— Lenin

[25]
According to Zemstvo statistics (Vol. VII of Material ,
Nizhni-Novgorod, 1892) in these villages in 1889 there were 341 and 119
households, numbering respectively 1,277 and 540 persons of both
sexes. There were 253 and 103 allotment households. Households
participating in industries numbered 284 and 91, of which 257 and 32 did
not engage in agriculture. There were 218 and 51 horseless
households. Those leasing their allotments numbered 237 and 53.— Lenin

[26]
Cf. Nizhni-Novgorod Handbook , Vol IV, article by Rev. Roslavlev.— Lenin

[27]
Sketch of Condition of Handicraft Industry in Perm Gubernia ,
p. 158; in the table totals there is a mistake or a misprint.— Lenin

[28]
Ibid ., pp. 40 and 188 of table. To all appearances these same
establishments also figure in the List , p. 152. For the purpose
of comparing the big establishments with the small ones we have singled
out the agriculturist commodity-producers, see Studies ,
p. 156. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[29]
The Handicraft Industries of Perm Gubernia at the Siberian Urals Exhibition , Pt. III, p. 47 and foll.— Lenin

[30]
See Zemstvo statistical returns for Trubchevsk, Karachev and Orel uyezds
of Orel Gubernia. The connection between the big manufactories and the
small peasant establishments is also evident from the fact that the
employment of wage-labour develops in the latter as well: for example, in
Orel Uyezd, 16 peasant master spinners employ 77 workers.— Lenin

[31]
V. Ilyin, Studies, p. 176. (See present edition, Vol.2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[32]
See precise data on Perm handicraft census about this, ibid .,
p. 177 (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[33]
See Directory and List on Perm Gubernia and the village
of Nevyansky Zavod (non-agricultural), which is the centre of this
“handicraft industry.”— Lenin

[34]
Cf. our Studies , pp. 177-178. (See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[35]
Reports and Investigations , I.— Lenin

[36]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[37]
There are 14 big timber merchants. These have timber-seasoning rooms
(costing about 300 rubles), of which there are 24 in the village, each
employing 6 workers. These merchants also give out materials to workers,
whom they get into their grip by advancing them money.— Lenin

[38]
It will be appropriate here to note in general the process of development
of capitalism in the timber industry. The timber merchants do not sell the
timber raw; they hire workers to dress it and to make various wooden
articles, which they then sell. See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., VIII, pp. 1268, 1314. Also Statistical Returns for Orel Gubernia , Trubchevsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[39]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol II, 1879. See also
Zemstvo statistical Material for Semyonov Uyezd, Vol. XI, 1893.— Lenin

[40]
The statistics we have given (Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 2,
7, 26) cover only a small fraction of the toy-makers; but these data show
the appearance of workshops with 11 to 18 workers.— Lenin

[41]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. II, p. 47.— Lenin

[42]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[43]
Material for the Evaluation of the Lands in Gorbatov Uyezd.— Lenin

[44]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[45]
Thus, at the head of the horse-collar industry are 13 big proprietors,
each with 10 to 30 wage-workers and 5 to 10 outside workers. The big
mitten-makers do the cutting in their own workshops (employing 2 or 3
wage-workers) and get the mittens sewn off the premises by from 10 to 20
women; these are divided into thumb-makers and stitchers , the former taking the work from the owners and
sub-dividing it among the latter, whom they exploit (information for
1879).— Lenin

[46]
In 1889, of 1,812 households (with 9,241 inhabitants) 1,469 cultivated no
land (in 1897 there were 12,342 inhabitants). The villages of Pavlovo and
Bogorodskoye differ from the other villages of Gorbatov Uyezd in that very
few of their inhabitants leave them on the contrary, of all the peasants
of the Gorbatov Uyezd who have left their villages, 14.9% live in Pavlovo
and 4.9% in Bogorodskoye. The increase of the population between 1858 and
1889 was 22.1% for the uyezd, but 42% for the village of
Bogorodskoye. (See Zemstvo statistical Material .)— Lenin

[47]
See Zemstvo statistical Material for uyezds mentioned. —
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX and VI. —
Directory and List . — Reports and Investigations , II.— Lenin

[48]
In 1889 it had 380 households (none cultivating land) with 1,305
inhabitants In the whole of the Katunki Volost, 90.6% of the households
are engaged in industries, 70.1% of working people being occupied in
industries alone (i.e., not engaging in agriculture). As regards literacy,
this volost stands far above the average for the uyezd, yielding in this
respect only to the Chernoretsk Volost, which is also non-agricultural and
has highly developed boat-building industries. The village of Bolshoye
Murashkino had in 1887 a total of 856 households (of which 853 cultivated
no land) with 3,473 persons of both sexes. According to the 1897 census,
the population of Gorodets was 6,330, of Bolshoye Murashkino 5,341, of
Yurino 2,189, of Spasskoye 4,494 and of Vatras 3,012.— Lenin

[49]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX,
p. 2567. Information for 1880.— Lenin

[50]
The conditions of the workers in the Arzamas factories are better than
those of the rural workers ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 133).— Lenin

[51]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 76.— Lenin

[52]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. XI,
p. 3084. (Cf. Directory for 1890). Included among the
handicraftsmen is the peasant-agriculturist Dolgushin, who owns a works
employing 60 workers. There are several handicraftsmen of this type.— Lenin

[53]
According to the Directory for 1890, there were some 27 masters
employing over 700 workers.— Lenin

[54]
Cf. also List , p. 489, regarding the well-known “handicraft” village of Dunilovo, Shuya Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. The Directory for 1890 listed here 6 fur factories
employing 151 workers, while according to the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (Vol. X) there are about 2,200 furriers and
2,300 sheepskin-coat-makers in this district; in 1877 as many as 5,500
“handicraftsmen” were counted. Probably, the making of hair
sieves in this uyezd is organised in the same way; in this industry there
are engaged about 40 villages and as many as 4,000 people, known as
“Mardassers” (from the name of this district). We have described the similar organisation of the leather and cobbling industries
in Perm Gubernia in our Studies , p. 171 and foll (See present
edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[55]
Here is some information about the “handicraftsmen” relating
to 1894. “The squirrel furs are sewn by some of the poorest women in
the town of Kargopol and by peasant women of the Pavlovo Volost. They are
paid the very lowest price,” so that a seamstress earns only from 2
rubles 40 kopeks to 3 rubles per month, providing her own food, and for
this pay (at piece rates) she has to sit without a break for 12 hours a
day. “The work is very exhausting, for it calls for great strain and
assiduity.” The number of seamstresses is now about 200
( Handicraft Industry in Olonets Gubernia , Essay by
Messrs. Blagoveshchensky and Garyazin. Petrozavodsk, 1895, pp. 92-93).— Lenin

[56]
See Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II, Vol. III,
St. Petersburg, 1872. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and
Hand-Labour in Russia. Compiled by L. Maikov . Article by V
A. Pletnev. This work is the best for clarity of description of the whole
organisation of the industry. The latest works give valuable statistics and facts of the people’s life, but give a less
satisfactory exposition of the economic structure of this complex
industry. See, further, Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII, article by Mr. Pokrovsky, — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I.— Lenin

[57]
Cf. Reports and Investigations : 7 groups of industrialists: 1)
traders in leather goods; 2) buyers-up of footwear; 3) masters of big
workshops (5-6 of them), who stock leather and distribute it to home
workers; 4) masters of small workshops employing wage-workers; also give
out material to home workers; 5) one-man establishments — working either
for the market or for masters (sub 3 and 4); 6) wage-workers (craftsmen,
journeymen, boys); 7) “last-makers, notchers, and also owners and
workers in currying, greasing and gluing workshops” (p. 227,
loc . cit .). The population of Kimry village, according
to the 1897 census, is 7,017.— Lenin

[58]
The “sawyer” saws the brush blocks; the “borer” bores holes in them; the “cleaner” cleans the bristle; the
“setter” “sets” the bristle; the “joiner” glues wooden strips on the brush backs
( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. I, p. 18).— Lenin

[59]
Let us observe that in this industry, as in the above-described weaving
industries, capitalist manufacture is, strictly speaking, the economy of
yesterday. Characteristic of the post-Reform era is the transformation of
this manufacture into large-scale machine industry. The number of Gzhel
potteries using steam-engines was 1 in 1866, 2 in 1879 and 3 in 1890
(according to data in The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , Vol. I,
and Directory for 1879 and 1890).— Lenin

[60]
See above regarding the greater literacy of the population of Pavlovo and
Vorsma and the migration of peasants from the villages to these centres.— Lenin

[61]
Data from Zemstvo statistical Material , and Mr. Annensky’s
Report, and also A. N. Potresov’s researches (cited above). The
figures for the Murom district are approximate. The number of inhabitants,
according to the 1897 census, was 4,674 in Vorsma, and 12,431 in Pavlovo.— Lenin

[62]
The data we have given by no means express this predominance to the full:
as will presently be seen, the handicraftsmen who work for the market are
subjugated to capital even more than those who work for proprietors, and
the latter handicraftsmen even more than the wage-workers. The
Pavlovo industries show in strong relief that inseparable connection
between merchant’s and industrial capital which in general is
characteristic of capitalist manufacture in its relation to the small
producers.— Lenin

[63]
Connection with the land is also an important factor in reducing
earnings. The village handicraftsmen “on the whole earn less than
the Pavlovo locksmiths” (Annensky Report, p. 61). True, we must bear
in mind that the former grow their own grain, but even so “the
conditions of the ordinary village handicraftsman can scarcely be
considered better than those of the average Pavlovo locksmith” (61).— Lenin

[64]
During crises it also happens that they work literally without pay,
exchange “white for black,” i.e., finished goods for raw
materials; this happens “quite often” (Grigoryev, ibid ., 93).— Lenin

[65]
Data taken from Directory and List for the whole district, including the villages of Selitba and Vacha and their
environs. The Directory for 1890 undoubtedly included outside
workers in the total number of factory workers; we have estimated the
number of outside workers approximately, confining ourselves to a
correction only for the two biggest establishments (the Zavyalovs and
F. Varypayev). To compare the figures for “factories and
works” in the List and the Directory , only establishments with 15 and more workers must be taken (this is examined in
greater detail in our Studies , article: On the Question of Our
Factory Statistics) (See present edition, Vol. 4.— Ed .)— Lenin

[66]
In one branch of the Pavlovo industry, lock-making, there is, on the
contrary, a decline in the number of workshops employing wage-workers. A. N. Potresov ( loc . cit .), who recorded
this fact in detail, pointed to its cause — the competition of the
lock-making factory in Kovno Gubernia (Schmidt Brothers, which in 1890 had
500 workers, with an output of 500,000 rubles, and in 1894-95 had 625
workers, with an output of 730,000 rubles).— Lenin

[67]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX. The population of
Bezvodnoye village in 1897 was 3,296.— Lenin

[68]
Reports and Investigations , Vol. I. — The List gives 4
“factories” for this district, with 21 workers on premises and
29 outside workers, and output totalling 68,000 rubles.— Lenin

[69]
Reports and Investigations , I, p. 186.— Lenin

[70]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 29.— Lenin

[71]
Ibid ., No. 32.— Lenin

[72]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. 1, Sec. 2,
and Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd in 1890. — Lenin

[73]
See, for example, the List , No. 8819.— Lenin

[74]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VI, investigation
of 1880. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I (1888-1889),
cf. p. 271: “nearly the whole trade . . . is concentrated in
workshops employing wage-workers.” Cf. also Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia , Vol. II, Yaroslavl, 1896, pp. 8, 11. — List ,
p. 403.— Lenin

[75]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 19 and 30.— Lenin

[76]
A copper-smith’s workshop needs five operatives to do the different
jobs; a tray-maker’s at least 3, while a “normal workshop” needs 9 workers. “In the large establishments”
a “fine division” (of labour) is practised “with the object of increasing productivity” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., 27 and 31).— Lenin

[77]
The Directory for 1890 gives for the district of Zagarye 14
factories employing 184 workers, with an output totalling 37,000 rubles. A
comparison of these figures with the above-quoted Zemstvo statistics shows
that in this case too the factory statistics covered only the upper strata
of widely developed capitalist manufacture.— Lenin

[78]
Cf. Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[79]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, article by
Mr. A. Tillo. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. III (1893). The
industry continues to develop. Cf. letter to Russkiye Vedomosti ,
1897, No. 231. Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42. Output totals over
1 million rubles, of which about 200,000 rubles is received by the workers
and about 300,000 rubles by buyers-up and merchants.— Lenin

[80]
“Among the Krasnoye handicraftsmen every kind of article and even
every part is made by a specific craftsman, and therefore one rarely
finds, for example, rings and ear-rings, bracelets and brooches, etc.,
made in the same house; usually a particular article is made in parts by
different worker-specialists who live not only in different houses but
even in different villages” ( Reports and Investigations ,
Vol. III, p. 76).— Lenin

[81]
Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42.— Lenin

[82]
See Mr. V. Borisov’s article in Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX.— Lenin

[83]
The Tula blacksmith, Nikita Demidov Antufyev, won Peter the Great’s
favour by building an ironworks near the town of Tula; in 1702 he was
granted the Nevyansk works. His descendants were the famous Urals iron
manufacturers, the Demidovs.— Lenin

[84]
The Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. X, contain an
excellent description by Mr. Manokhin of the samovar industry in Suksun,
Perm Gubernia. Its organisation is the same as that in Tula
Gubernia. Cf. ibid ., Vol. IX, Mr. Borisov’s article on
handicraft industries at the 1882 exhibition.— Lenin

[85]
Evidently there are analogous features in the organisation of the
mechanical trades in Tula and its environs. Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated
that the number of workers employed in these industries was from 2,000 to
3,000, producing wares to a value of nearly 2 1/2 million rubles. These
“handicraftsmen” are very much under the heel of merchant’s capital. The hardware “factories” in Tula
Gubernia sometimes also have outside workers (cf. List ,
pp. 393-395).— Lenin

[86]
The development of accordion-making is also interesting as a process of
the elimination of primitive folk instruments and of the creation of a
wide, national market; without this market there could have been no
division of labour by processes, and without division of labour the
finished article could not have been produced cheaply “Owing to
their cheapness . . . the accordions have nearly everywhere displaced the
primitive string folk instrument, the balalaika” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, p. 2276).— Lenin

[87]
The Tula town census of November 29, 1891, gave 36 establishments selling
accordions and 34 accordion workshops (see Tula Gubernia Handbook for 1895 , Tula, 1895).— Lenin

[88]
Workroom owners , middlemen — owners of premises who rented them to manufacturers for the installation of hand-looms, and
themselves worked there. The middleman or workroom owner, by arrangement
with the employer, undertook to heat or repair the premises, deliver raw
materials to the weavers, send the finished product to the employer or act
as overseer. [p.386]

[95]
Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II. Vol. III. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and Hand
Labour in Russia. Part 1. Published by the Central Statistical Committee
of the Ministry of Home Affairs. St. Petersburg, 1872. [p.388]

[89]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.396]

[90]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.398]

[91]
Cadastre — a public record of the extent, value and ownership of
land, etc., for purposes of taxation. The cadastral surveys gave
particulars of land held, incomes of inhabitants and descriptions of
streets, monasteries, fortifications, etc. The oldest cadastre now extant
dates back to the 15th century, but most of those that have been preserved
relate to the 17th century. Surveys for the cadastre were made by special
commissions appointed by the central government authorities. [p.415]

[92]
The Law of June 2 , 1897 established a working day of 11
1/2 hours for industrial enterprises and railway workshops. Prior to the
adoption of this law the working day in Russia was unlimited and lasted as
long as 14 and 15 hours and even more. The tsar’s government was
forced to adopt this law due to the pressure of the working-class
movement, which was led by the “League of Struggle for the
Emancipation of the Working Class” headed by Lenin. A detailed
analysis and criticism of the law is given by Lenin in his pamphlet:
The New Factory Law . (See present edition, Vol. 2.) [p. 418]

[93]
The table that follows is based on a similar but more detailed table
published in the Vestnik Finansov , Issue No. 42, 1898. [p.423]

[94]
Prior to 1864 the gunsmiths of Tula were serfs of the state and lived in
special suburbs (slobodas). (The state blacksmiths’ sloboda, etc.)
They were divided into guilds: barrel, gun-stock, lock, instrumental,
etc. For the carrying out of auxiliary work serf-peasants from a number of
villages were attached to the Tula arms factories, their task being to
prepare charcoal for the gunsmiths, guard the forests allocated to the
factories, and do jobs in the factory yards.

In Tula at the time of their liberation from feudal dependence there were
nearly 4,000 gunsmiths, of whom 1,276 were employed in factories and 2,362
worked at home. In all, the gunsmiths and their families numbered over
20,000. [p.424]

| | I. The Rise of Manufacture and its Main Features | | | III. Technique in Manufacture. Division of Labour and its Significance | |

# The Wood-Working Trades

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vi/vi8ii.htm#sect04

Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry

II. Capitalist Manufacture in Russian Industry

Let us begin with the industries that process fibres.

1) The Weaving Industries

The weaving of linen, wool, cotton and silk fabrics, galloons, etc., was
organised everywhere in Russia as follows (before the appearance of
large-scale machine industry). The industry was headed by big capitalist
workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers; the owners of these
workshops, possessing sizable capital, undertook the large-scale purchase
of raw material, partly working it up in their own establishments, and partly giving out yarn and warp to small producers
(workroom owners, middlemen, [88] , peasant-“handicraftsmen” etc.) who wove the cloth at home or
in small workshops at piece rates. The work itself was done by hand, and
the following operations were distributed among the workers: 1)
yarn-dyeing; 2) yarn-winding (very often women and children specialised in
this operation); 3) yarn-fixing (“fixers”); 4) weaving; 5)
weft-winding for weavers (bobbin hands, mostly children). Sometimes in the
big workshops there were special “threaders” (who threaded the
warp through the eyes of the batten and reed.) [1] of labour
is usually applied, not only to single operations, but to wares, that is,
the

weavers specialise in producing various sorts of cloth. The selection of
some operations to be done in the home does not, of course, make any
change whatever to the economic structure of this type of industry. The
workrooms or homes where the weavers work are simply external departments
of the manufactory. The technical basis of such industry is hand
production with extensive and systematic division of labour; from the
economic point of view we see here the formation of large capital which
controls the purchase of raw materials and the sale of wares on an
extremely extensive (national) market, and under whose complete sway are a
mass of proletarian weavers; a few large establishments (manufactories in
the narrow sense of the term) dominate a mass of small ones. Division of
labour leads to the emergence of specialist artisans from among the
peasantry; non-agricultural centres of manufacture arise, such as the
village of Ivanovo in Vladimir Gubernia (in 1871 it became the town of
Ivanovo-Voznesensk and is now a centre of large-scale machine industry),
the village of Velikoye in Yaroslavl Gubernia, and many other villages in
Moscow, Kostroma, Vladimir and Yaroslavl gubernias, which have now turned
into factory towns. [2]

In our economic literature and statistics the industry organised in this way is
usually split up into two parts: peasants who work in their homes, or in
not particularly big workrooms, workshops, etc., are classed under
“handicraft” industry, while the bigger workrooms and workshops are placed among the “factories and works” (and,
moreover, quite fortuitously, since no definitely established and
uniformly applied rules exist as to the separation of small establishments
from big ones, of workrooms from manufactories, of workers occupied in
their homes from workers occupied in the workshop of the capitalist). [3]

Naturally, such classification, which places some wage-workers on one
side, and some masters who hire these very wage-workers (in addition to
the workers in their establishments) on the other, is nonsense from the
scientific viewpoint.

Let us illustrate this by detailed data regarding one of the
“handicraft weaving” industries, namely, silk weaving in
Vladimir

Gubernia. [4]

The “silk industry” is a typical specimen of capitalist
manufacture. Hand labour prevails. Of the total number of establishments
the small ones constitute the majority (179 out of 313, or 57% of the
total, have from 1 to 5 workers), but in greater part they are not
independent and are far behind the big ones in their significance to the
industry as a whole. Establishments with 20 to 150 workers constitute 8%
of the total (25), but in them 41.5% of the aggregate number of workers
are concentrated, and they account for 51% of the total output. Of the
total number of workers in the industry (2,823) there are 2,092
wage-workers, i.e., 74.1%. “On the job we meet with division of
labour both in wares and in individual operations.” Weavers are
rarely able to make both “velvet” and “satin” (the two principal lines in this trade). “The division of labour into
separate operations within the workshop is most strictly practised only in
the big factories” (i.e., manufactories) “that employ wage-workers.” The fully independent proprietors number only 123,
who alone buy the raw materials themselves and sell the finished article;
they have 242 family workers and “employ 2,498 wage-workers, who in
greater part are paid by the piece,” a total, consequently, of 2,740
workers, or 97% of the aggregate number of workers. It is thus clear that
the distribution by these manufactory owners, through the medium of
“middle-men” (workroom owners), of work to be done in the home
is no special form of industry at all, but is merely one of the operations
of capital in manufacture. Mr. Kharizomenov rightly observes that the
“mass of small establishments (57%) alongside the small number of
big ones (8%), and the insignificant number of workers employed per establishment (7 1/2) conceal the true character of the trade”
( loc . cit ., 39). The specialisation characteristic of
manufacture is seen here clearly in the separation of the industrialists
from agriculture (the land is abandoned, on the one hand by the
impoverished weavers, and on the other by the big manufactory owners) and
in the formation of a special type of industrial population, who live much
more “decently” than do the agriculturists, and look down upon
the muzhik ( loc . cit ., 106). Our factory statistics have
always registered only a very casually selected fraction of this industry. [5]

The “galloon industry” in Moscow Gubernia is capitalist
manufacture organised in a quite analogous fashion. [6]

Such precisely is the case with regard to the printed calico industry in
Kamyshin Uyezd, Saratov Gubernia. According to the Directory for
1890, there were here 31 “factories” with 4,250 workers and
output totalling 265,000 rubles, while according to the List
there was one “work distributing office” with 33 workers in
the establishment and an output totalling 47,000 rubles. (In other words,
in 1890 workers employed in the establishment and on the side were lumped
together!) According to local investigators, in 1888 nearly 7,000 looms
were engaged in producing printed calico, [7] an output
totalling 2 million rubles, and “the whole business is run by a few manufacturers,” who employ
“handicraftsmen” too, including children of 6 and 7 years of
age for a payment of 7 to 8 kopeks per day ( Reports and Investigations , Vol. I). [8]

And so forth.

2) Other Branches of the Textile Industry. The Felt Trade.

To judge by official factory statistics, felt production shows a very poor
development of “capitalism”: in all European Russia there are
altogether 55 factories, with 1,212 workers and an output totalling
454,000 rubles ( Directory for 1890). But these figures merely
show a casually picked fragment of a widely developed capitalist
industry. Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia occupies first place for the
development of “factory” felt production, and in that gubernia
the principal centre of the industry is the town of Arzamas and the suburb
Viyezdnaya Sloboda (where there are 8 “factories” with 278
workers and an output totalling 120,000 rubles; in 1897 there were 3,221
inhabitants; and in the village of Krasnoye, 2,835). It is in the environs
of these centres that “handicraft” felt-making is developed,
in some 243 establishments, employing 935 workers, with an output
totalling 103,847 rubles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V). To illustrate clearly the economic organisation of
felt-making in this district, let us try the graphic method and indicate
by specific symbols the producers who occupy special places in the general
structure of the industry.

It is clear, therefore, that the separation of “factory” and
“handicraft” industry is purely artificial, that what we have
before us is a single and integral structure of industry which fully fits
into the concept of capitalist (approximately) [9] manufacture. [10]

From the technical aspect it is hand production. The organisation of the
work is that of co-operation based on division of labour, which is here
observed in two forms: as to wares (some villages specialise in plain
felt, others in boots, hats, socks, etc.), and as to individual operations (for example,
the whole village of Vasilyev Vrag shapes hats and socks for the
village of Krasnoye, where the semi-prepared article is finished,
etc.). This is capitalist co-operation, for it is headed by big capital,
which has created large manufactories and has brought under its sway (by
an intricate web of economic relations) a mass of small
establishments. The overwhelming majority of the producers have been
transformed into workers performing one operation and producing
for entrepreneurs under extremely insanitary conditions. [11]

The long standing of the industry and the fully established capitalist
relations result in the separation of the industrialists from agriculture:
in the village of Krasnoye agriculture is in utter ruin, and the life of
the inhabitants differs from that of the agricultural population. [12]

Quite analogous is the organisation of the felt industry in a number of
other districts. In 363 village communities of Semyonov Uyezd in the same
gubernia, the industry in 1889 was carried on by 3,180 households, with
4,038 persons working. Of 3,946 workers, only 752 worked for the market,
576 were wage-workers and 2,618 worked for masters on the basis, in
greater part, of using the latter’s materials; 189 households gave
out work to 1,805 households. The big owners have workshops with as many
as 25 wage-workers, and buy wool to a value of some 10,000 rubles per year. [13]

The big owners are called thousanders ; their turnover runs to from 5,000
to 100,000 rubles; they have their own wool warehouses, and their own
booths for the sale of wares. [14]

For
Kazan Gubernia the List gives 5 felt “factories,” with 122 workers and an output totalling 48,000 rubles, as well as 60
outside workers. Evidently the latter are also included among the
“handicraftsmen,” concerning whom we read that they often work
for “buyers-up” and that there are establishments having 60 workers. [15]

Of 29 felt “factories” in Kostroma Gubernia, 28 are concentrated in
Kineshma Uyezd, and have 593 workers employed in the establishments and
458 outside ( List , pp. 68-70; two of the enterprises have only
outside workers. Steam-engines already appear). From the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (XV) we learn that out of a total of
3,908 wool-carders and felt-makers in this gubernia, 2,008 are
concentrated in Kineshma Uyezd. The Kostroma felt-makers are in greater
part dependent or work for wages in extremely insanitary workshops. [16]

In
Kalyazin Uyezd, Tver Gubernia, we find, on the one hand, that home work is
done for “factory owners” ( List , 113), and, on the other, that precisely this uyezd is a centre of “handicraft”
felt-makers; as many as 3,000 of them come from this uyezd, passing
through the wasteland called “Zimnyak” (in the 60s it was the
site of Alexeyev’s cloth mill), and forming “an enormous
labour market of wool-carders and felt-makers.” [17]

In Yaroslavl Gubernia outside work for “factory owners is a]so done” ( List , 115) and there
are “handicraftsmen” who work for merchant proprietors, using
the latter’s wool, etc.

3) The Hat-and-Cap and Hemp-and-Rope Trades

Above we gave statistics for the hat industry of Moscow

Gubernia. [18]

They show that two-thirds of the total output and of the total number of
workers are concentrated in 18 establishments, which have an average of 15.6 wage-workers. [19]

The “handicraft” hat-makers perform only part of the hat-making operations: they make the shapes, which are sold to Moscow
merchants who have their own “finishing establishments”; on
the other hand, “clippers” (women who clip the down) work at
home for the “handicraft” hat-makers. Thus, all in all, we
find here capitalist co-operation based on division of labour and
entangled in a whole network of diverse forms of economic dependence. In
the centre of the industry (the village of Klenovo, Podolsk Uyezd) the
separation of the industrialists (mainly wage-workers) from agriculture [20] is
clearly to be seen, together with a rise in the level of the
population’s requirements: they live “more decently,” dress in calico and even in cloth, buy samovars, abandon ancient customs,
etc., thereby evoking the bitter complaints of the local admirers of old times. [21]

The new era even occasioned the appearance of migratory hat-makers.

A typical example of capitalist manufacture is the cap industry in the
village of Molvitino, Bui Uyezd, Kostroma

Gubernia. [22] “The principal . . . occupation in the village of Molvitino and in
. . . 36 hamlets is the cap industry.” Agriculture is being
abandoned. Since 1861 the industry has greatly developed; sewing-machines
have become widely used. In Molvitino 10 workshops are busy all year round
with 5 to 25 male and 1 to 5 female workers each. “The best workshop
. . . has a turnover of about 100,000 rubles per annum.” [23]

Work is also distributed to homes (for example, materials for the crowns
are made by women in their homes). Division of labour cripples the
workers, who work under the most insanitary conditions and usually
contract tuberculosis. The lengthy existence of the industry (for over 200
years) has produced highly skilled craftsmen; the Molvitino craftsmen are
known in the big cities and in the remote outer regions.

The centre of the hemp industry in the Medyn Uyezd, Kaluga Gubernia, is
the village of Polotnyani Zavod. This is a large village (according to the
census of 1897 it had 3,685 inhabitants) with a population that is
landless and highly industrial (over 1,000 “handicraftsmen”);
it is the centre of the “handicraft” industries of Medyn

Uyezd. [24]

The hemp industry is organised in the following way: the big proprietors (of whom
there are three, the biggest being Yerokhin) have workshops employing
wage-workers and circulating capital of more or less considerable
dimensions for purchasing raw materials. The hemp is combed in the
“factory,” spun by spinners in their homes, and twisted both
in the factory and in the home. It is warped in the factory and woven both
in the factory and in the home. In 1878 a total of 841 “handicraftsmen” was counted in the hemp industry; Yerokhin is
considered to be both a “handicraftsman” and a “factory
owner,” employing 94-64 workers in 1890 and in 1894-1895; according
to Reports and Investigations (Vol. II, p.187), “hundreds
of peasants” work for him.

In Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the rope industry is also centred in
non-agricultural industrial villages, Nizhni Izbylets and Verkhni Izbylets
in the Gorbatov

Uyezd. [25]

According to Mr. Karpov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII), the Gorbatov-Izbylets district is one large
rope-making area; part of the inhabitants of the town of Gorbatov are also
engaged in the industry, and the villages of Verkhni Izbylets and Nizhni
Izbylets are, in fact, “almost part of the town of Gorbatov”;
the inhabitants live like townspeople, drink tea every day, wear clothing
bought in the shops, and eat white bread. Altogether, as many as
two-thirds of the inhabitants of 32 villages are engaged in the industry,
a total of 4,701 working (2,096 men and 2,605 women) with an output of
about 1 1/2 million rubles. The industry has been in existence for nearly 200 years, and is now declining. It is organised as follows:
all work for 29 proprietors, using the latter’s materials, are paid
by the piece, are “totally dependent upon the proprietors” and
work from 14 to 15 hours a day. According to Zemstvo statistics (1889) the
industry employs 1,699 male workers (plus 558 females and males of
non-working age). Of 1,648 working only 197 work for sale, 1,340 work for proprietors [26] and 111 are wage-workers employed in the workshops of 58
proprietors. Of 1,288 allotment households, only 727, or a little over half, cultivate all their land themselves. Of
1,573 allotment-holding working persons, 306, or 19.4%, do not
engage in agriculture at all. Turning to the question as to who
these “proprietors” are, we must pass from the sphere of
“handicraft” industry to that of “factory” industry. According
to the List for 1894-95 there were two rope factories there, with 231 workers employed on the premises and 1,155
working outside, with an output totalling 423,000 rubles. Both
these establishments have installed motors (which they did not
have either in 1879 or in 1890), and we therefore clearly see
here the transition from capitalist manufacture to capitalist
machine industry, and the transformation of “handicraft” work
distributors and buyers-up into real factory owners.

In Perm Gubernia the handicraft census of 1894-95 registered 68 peasant
rope-and-string yards, with 343 workers (of whom 143 were hired) and an
output totalling 115,000 rubles. [27]

These small establishments are headed by big manufactories,
which are reckoned together, viz.: 6 owners employ 101 workers
(91 hired) and have an output totalling 81,000 rubles. [28]

The system of production in these big establishments may serve as the most
striking example of “serial manufacture” (as Marx calls it [89] ), i.e., the
sort of manufacture in which different workers perform different consecutive operations in working up the raw material: 1) hemp
scutching; 2) combing; 3) spinning; 4) coiling; 5) tarring; 6) winding on
drum; 7) passing threads through perforated board; 8) passing threads
through iron bush; 9) stranding of plaits, twisting and gathering of ropes. [29]

The organisation of the hemp industry in Orel Gubernia is evidently
similar: from among the considerable number of small peasant
establishments big manufactories emerge, principally in the towns, and are
included among the “factories and works” (according to the
Directory for 1890 there were in Orel Gubernia 100 hemp-scutching
factories, with 1,671 workers and an output totalling 795,000 rubles). The
peasants work in the hemp industry “for merchants” (probably
for the very same manufacturers), using the latter’s materials, at
piece rates, the work being divided up into special operations:
“scutchers” scutch the hemp; “spinners” spin it; “bearders” trim it, “wheelmen” turn the wheel. The
work is very hard; many contract consumption and “rupture.”
The dust is so thick that “unless accustomed you will not stay in it
for a quarter of an hour.” The work is done in ordinary sheds from
dawn to dusk, from May to

September. [30]

4) The Wood-Working Trades

The most typical example of capitalist manufacture in this sphere is the
chest-making industry. According to the data, for instance, of the Perm
investigators, “this industry is organised as follows: a few big
proprietors, owning workshops that employ wage-workers, purchase
materials, partly make the wares on their own premises, but mainly give
out material to small workshops making parts, and in their own shops
assemble them and, after finishing, send the ready article to
market. Division of labour . . . is employed on the job extensively: the making of the entire chest is divided into ten
or twelve operations, each separately performed by handicraftsmen. The
organisation of the industry consists in the combination of workers
performing one operation ( Teilarbeiter , as they are called in
Das Kapital ) under the command of capital .” [31]

This is heterogeneous manufacture ( heterogene Manufaktur , as Marx calls it [90] ), in which
the different workers do not perform consecutive operations in turning the
raw material into the product, but make the various parts of the product,
which are afterwards assembled. The preference of the capitalists for the
domestic work of “handicraftsmen” is to be explained partly by
the above mentioned character of manufacture, and partly (and mainly) by
the cheaper labour of the home workers. [32]

Let us observe that the relatively big workshops in this industry are sometimes
also included among “factories and works.” [33]

In all probability, the chest-making industry is organised similarly in
Vladimir Gubernia, in Murom Uyezd where, according to the List ,
there are 9 “factories” (all hand-operated), with 89 workers
on the premises and 11 outside, and an output totalling 69,810
rubles.

The carriage industry, in Perm Gubernia, for example, is organised on
similar lines: from among the mass of small establishments there emerge
assembly workshops employing wage-workers; the small handicraftsmen are
workers who make parts of the carriages both out of their own materials,
and out of materials supplied by the “buyers-up” (i.e., owners
of the assembly workshops.) [34]

We
read about the Poltava “handicraft” carriage builders that in
the suburb of Ardon there are workshops that employ wage-workers and also
distribute work to homes (the bigger masters having as many as 20 outside workers). [35]

In
Kazan Gubernia, division of labour as to wares is to be observed in the building of town carriages:
some villages specialise in sleighs, others in wheeled vehicles,
etc. “The town carriages, completely assembled in the villages (but
without the metal work, wheels or shafts), are sent to Kazan merchant
customers, who in turn send them to blacksmiths for the metal work. The
carriages are then sent back again to the shops and workshops in the town,
where they are finished off, i.e., are upholstered and painted. . . . Kazan, where town carriages were formerly iron-mounted,
gradually passed this work on to handicraftsmen, who work at home for a
smaller payment than do the town craftsmen....” [36]

Hence, capital prefers to distribute work to home workers because this reduces the cost of labour-power. The
organisation of the carriage industry, as is evident from the data quoted,
constitutes, in the majority of cases, a system of handicraftsmen making
parts, who are under the sway of capital.

The large industrial village of Vorontsovka, Pavlovsk Uyezd, Voronezh
Gubernia (9,541 inhabitants in 1897), constitutes, as it were, a single
manufactory of wooden articles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., Vol. IX, article by Rev. M. Popov). Over 800 houses
are engaged in the industry (as well as some households in the suburb of
Alexandrovka, which has over 5,000 inhabitants). They make carts,
tarantasses, wheels, chests, etc., to a total of about 267,000
rubles. Less than one-third are independent masters; hired workers in
masters’ workshops are rare. [37]

The majority work to order for peasant merchants at piece rates. The workers
are in debt to the proprietors and are worn out by arduous toil: the
people are growing feebler. The inhabitants of the suburb are industrial,
not of the rural type, and scarcely engage in agriculture at all (except
to work vegetable plots), since their allotments are miserably small. The
industry has been long in existence, diverting the population from agriculture and increasingly widening the
rift between the rich and the poor. The people subsist on meagre food;
they dress “more smartly than before,” “but beyond their
means,” in clothing that is entirely bought. “The population
has succumbed to the spirit of industry and trade.” “Nearly
all who have no craft carry on some trading. . . . Under the influence of
industry and trade, the peasant has, generally speaking, become more
unreserved, and this has made him more developed and resourceful.” [38]

The celebrated wooden-spoon industry of the Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, is close to capitalist manufacture in its
organisation. True, there are no big workshops standing out from among the
mass of small workshops and dominating them, but we find a deeply-rooted
division of labour and the complete subjection of the mass of part-job
workers to capital. Before it is ready, the spoon passes through no less
than 10 hands, the buyers-up getting some of the operations done by
specially hired workers or giving them out to specialist workers (for
example, for varnishing); some of the villages specialise in particular
operations (for example, the village of Dyakovo specialises in spoon
finishing to the order of the buyer-up, at piece rates; the villages of
Khvostikovo, Dianovo and Zhuzhelka specialise in varnishing, etc.). The
buyers-up purchase the timber wholesale in the Samara and other gubernias,
where they send parties of hired workers; they own warehouses for raw
material and manufactured goods, supply the most valuable material to
handicraftsmen for processing, etc. The mass of workers doing part jobs
merge into a single, complex mechanism of production, entirely under the
sway of capital. “It is all the same to the spoon-makers whether
they work for hire at the master’s cost and on his premises, or are
occupied in their own cottages, for in this industry, as in others,
everything has been weighed, measured and counted. The spoon-maker never
earns more than just enough to keep body and soul together.” [39]

It is quite natural that under such conditions the capitalists who dominate the whole trade are in no hurry to open their
own workshops, and the industry, based on hand skill and traditional
division of labour, stagnates in its seclusion and immobility. Tied to the
land, the “handicraftsmen” seem to have become petrified in
their routine: as in 1879, so in 1889, they still count money in the old
style, in banknotes and not in silver.

The toy industry in Moscow Gubernia is headed similarly by establishments
of the capitalist-manufactory type. [40]

Of 481 workshops, 20 have over 10 workers each. Division of labour, both as to
wares and as to individual operations, is practised on a very wide scale,
enormously raising the productivity of labour (at the cost of crippling
the worker). For example, it is estimated that a small workshop yields a
return of 26% of the selling price, and a big workshop, one of

58%. [41]

Of course, the fixed capital of the big proprietors is also much larger; technical
devices are met with (for example, drying sheds). The centre of the
industry is a non-agricultural township, the suburb of Sergiyevsky (where
there are 1,055 workers out of a total of 1,398, with an output to the
amount of 311,000 rubles out of a total of 405,000 rubles; the population,
according to the 1897 census, numbers 15,155). The author of the article
on this industry, referring to the prevalence of small workshops, etc.,
considers it more, but still not very, likely that the industry will
develop into manufacture rather than into factory industry. “In the
future, too,” he says, “the small producers will always be
able to compete more or less successfully with large-scale
production” ( loc . cit ., 93). The author forgets that in manufacture the technical basis is always the same hand-production
that obtains in the small industries; that the division of labour can
never be such a decisive advantage that it will entirely eliminate the small producers,
particularly if the latter resort to such means as lengthening the working
day, etc.; and that manufacture is never in a position to embrace the
whole of production, but remains a mere superstructure over the mass of
small establishments.

5) The Processing of Livestock Produce. [The Leather and Fur Trades]

The most extensive areas of the leather industry present particularly
striking examples of the complete merging of “handicraft” and
factory industry, examples of capitalist manufacture highly developed (in
depth and in breadth). What is characteristic is the fact that the
gubernias which are conspicuous for the size of their “factory” leather industry (Vyatka, Nizhni-Novgorod, Perm and
Tver) are marked by a particular development of “handicraft”
industries in this sphere.

In the village of Bogorodskoye, Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia,
there were, according to the Directory for 1890, 58 “factories” with 392 workers and an output totalling 547,000
rubles; according to the List for 1894-95 there were 119
“works,” with 1,499 workers on the premises and 205 outside,
and with an output totalling 934,000 rubles (the latter figures covering
only the processing of livestock produce, the principal local
industry). But these data deal only with the top levels of
capitalist manufacture. Mr. Karpov in 1879 computed in this village and
its environs over 296 establishments, with 5,669 workers (a large number
of whom worked at home for capitalists), and with an output totalling
about 1,490,000 rubles [42] in the following industries: tanning, shingle-gluing, basket-weaving (for packing
goods), harness-making, horse-collar-making, mitten-making and, standing
by itself, pottery. The Zemstvo census of 1889 listed 4,401 industrialists
for this district, and of 1,842 workers for whom detailed information is
given, 1,119 work for hire in other people’s workshops and 405 work
at home for masters. [43] “Bogorodskoye, with its population of 8,000, is a huge tannery in continuous operation.” [44]

To be more precise, it is a “serial” manufactory controlled by a few big capitalists who buy the raw materials,
tan the hides, and turn them into a variety of articles, hiring several
thousand absolutely propertyless workers for the job and ruling over the
small

establishments. [45]

This industry has had a very long existence, since the 17th century;
particularly memorable in the industry’s history are the Sheremetevs
(beginning of the 19th century), landlords who helped considerably to
develop the industry and, incidentally, protected the proletariat, which
came into existence here long ago, from the local rich. After 1861 the
industry greatly developed, and particularly did big establishments grow
at the expense of the small ones; centuries of industrial activity
produced from among the population remarkably skilled craftsmen who have
carried the trade all over Russia. The firmly-rooted capitalist relations
have led to the separation of industry from agriculture: hardly any
farming is done in Bogorodskoye village itself, which, on the contrary,
divorces neighbouring peasants who move into this “town” from
the

land. [46]

Mr. Karpov notes in this village “a complete absence of peasant
characteristics among the inhabitants,” so that “you would
never think you were in a village and not a town.” This village
leaves Gorbatov and all the other uyezd towns of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia
far behind, with the exception, perhaps, of Arzamas. It is “one of
the considerable commercial and industrial centres in the gubernia, and its industry and
commerce run into the millions.” “The radius of the industrial
and commercial influence of Bogorodskoye is very wide; but most closely
connected with the industry of Bogorodskoye is that of its environs within
a radius of 10 to 12 versts. These industrial environs are, as it were, a
continuation of Bogorodskoye itself.” “The inhabitants of
Bogorodskoye do not in the least resemble the ordinary, raw muzhiks: they
are artisans of the burgher type, shrewd, experienced people, who look
down on the peasants. The manner of life and the ethical standards of the
Bogorodskoye inhabitants are completely urban.” To this we must add
that the industrial villages of Gorbatov Uyezd are marked by a relatively
high level of literacy among the population. Thus, the percentage of
literate and student men and women is, in the villages of Pavlovo,
Bogorodskoye and Vorsma, 37.8% and 20% respectively, as against 21.5% and
4.4% in the rest of the uyezd (see Zemstvo statistical Material ).

Quite analogous (only on a smaller scale) are the relations in the
leather-processing industries of the villages of Katunki and Gorodets
(Balakhna Uyezd), Bolshoye Murashkino (Knyaginin Uyezd), Yurino (Vasil
Uyezd), and Tubanayevka, Spasskoye, Vatras and Latyshikha in the same
uyezd. These are similar non-agricultural centres with a
“ring” of surrounding agricultural villages, and with similar
diverse industries and numerous small establishments (and also workers in
the home) subordinated to big entrepreneurs, whose capitalist workshops
are occasionally included among “factories and works.” [47]

Without going into statistical details, which will provide nothing new
compared with what has already been said, let us merely quote the
following extremely interesting description of the village of

Katunki: [48] “A certain patriarchal simplicity in the relations between masters
and workmen, which, however, is not so noticeable at first sight and is, unfortunately (?), disappearing increasingly every year
. . . testifies to the handicraft character of the industries (?). It is
only recently that the factory character both of the industries and of the
population has begun to be observed, under the influence, in particular,
of the town, intercourse with which has been facilitated by the
inauguration of the steamboat service. Today the village looks like a
regular industrial township: there is no sign of agriculture whatever, the
houses are built close together as in the towns; the fine brick houses of
the rich, and alongside of them the miserable hovels of the poor; the long
wooden and brick buildings of the factories crowded in the middle of the
village — all this sharply distinguishes Katunki from the neighbouring
villages and clearly points to the industrial character of the local
population. The inhabitants themselves possess features of character that
also call to mind the type of “factory hand” who has already
taken shape in Russia: a certain showiness in house furniture, in clothes
and manners, spendthrift habits of life in most cases, and little care for
the morrow, a forwardness and often affectation in speech, a certain
superciliousness towards the country yokel — all these features are
possessed by them in common with all Russian factory people.” [49]

In the town of Arzamas, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the “factory” statistics listed in 1890 a total of 6 tanneries,
employing 64 workers ( Directory ); this is only a small fraction
of the capitalist manufacture which embraces the fur, boot-making and
other industries. The same factories employ workers in the home, both in
the town of Arzamas (in 1878, estimated at 400) and in 5 suburban
villages, where out of the 360 furrier households, 330 work for Arzamas
merchants, using their materials and working 14 hours a day for 6 to 9
rubles per month [50] ; that is why the furriers are pallid, feeble and degenerating folk. In the suburb of Viyezdnaya Sloboda, of the 600 boot-maker households, 500 work for
masters, from whom they receive the cut-out leather. The industry is of
long standing, being about 200 years old, and is still growing and
developing. The inhabitants hardly engage in agriculture at all; their
whole manner of life is purely urban, and they live “in grand
style.” The same applies to the furrier villages mentioned above,
the inhabitants of which “look down with disdain upon the peasant
and call him a ‘country bumpkin’.” [51]

We find exactly the same thing in Vyatka Gubernia. The Vyatka and
Slobodskoi uyezds are centres both of “factory” and of “handicraft” leather and fur trades. In the Vyatka Uyezd, the
handicraft tanneries are concentrated on the outskirts of the town and
“supplement” the industrial activities of the big works, [52] for
example, by working for the big owners; working for the latter also, in
the majority of cases, are the handicraft harness-makers and glue
makers. The fur factory owners have hundreds working for them in the home,
sewing sheepskins, etc. This is just a single capitalist manufactory with
branches: sheepskin dressing and sheepskin-coat-making, leather and
harness, etc. Still more striking are the relations existing in the
Slobodskoi Uyezd (the centre of the industries is the suburb of Demyanka);
here we see a small number of big factory owners [53] at the
head of handicraft tanners (numbering 870), boot- and mitten-makers (855),
sheepskin-dressers (940), and tailors (309 make short sheepskin coats to
order from capitalists). Generally speaking, such organisation of the
production of leather goods is evidently very widespread: thus, in the
town of Sarapul, Vyatka Gubernia, the List gives 6 tanneries,
also making footwear, which employ, in addition to 214 workers on the
premises, 1,080 outside workers (p. 495). What would become of our
“handicrafts men,” those representatives of “people’s” industry who are depicted in such bright hues by all sorts of Manilovs, if all the Russian
merchants and factory owners were to compute with equal detail and
precision the outside workers employed by them? [54]

Reference should be made here to the industrial village of Rasskazovo,
Tambov Uyezd, Tambov Gubernia (population in 1897 was 8,283), a centre
both of “factory” industry (cloth mills, soap-works, tanneries
and distilleries) and of “handicraft” industry, the latter
being closely connected with the former; and to the industries: tanning,
felt-making (as many as 70 masters, and establishments employing from 20
to 30 workers), glue-making, boot-making, stocking knitting (there is not
a household where stockings are not knit from wool that
“buyers-up” give out by weight), etc. Near this village is the
suburb of Belaya Polyana (300 households), celebrated for industries of
the same kind. In Morshansk Uyezd, the centre of the handicraft industries
is the village of Pokrovskoye-Vasilyevskoye, which is also the centre of
factory industry (see Directory and Reports and Investigations , Vol. III). In Kursk Gubernia, noteworthy as
industrial villages and centres of “handicraft” industries are
the suburbs: Veliko-Mikhailovka (Novy Oskol Uyezd; population in 1897 was
11,853), Borisovka (Graivoron Uyezd — 18,071 inhabitants), Tomarovka
(Belgorod Uyezd, 8,716 inhabitants), Miropolye (Sudzha Uyezd, over 10,000
inhabitants. See Reports and Investigations , Vol. I, Information
for 1888-1889). In the same villages you will also find leather
“works” (see Directory for 1890). The principal “handicraft” industry is leather and boot-making. It arose as far back as the first half of the 18th century and reached the peak of its
development in the 60s of the 19th century having become “a stable
organisation of a purely commercial character.” The whole business
was monopolised by contractors, who bought the leather and gave it out to
be processed by handicraftsmen. The railways destroyed this monopoly
character of capital, and the capitalist contractors transferred their
capital to more profitable undertakings. Today it is organised as follows:
there are about 120 big entrepreneurs; they own workshops where
wage-workers are employed, and also distribute work to homes; there are as
many as 3,000 small independent masters (who, however, buy their leather
from the big ones); there are 400 people who work at home (for the big
masters), and as many wage-workers; then there are the apprentices. The
total number of boot-makers is over 4,000. In addition, there are
handicraft potters, icon-case makers, icon painters, table-cloth weavers,
etc.

A highly characteristic and typical example of capitalist manufacture is
the squirrel-fur industry in Kargopol Uyezd, Olonets Gubernia, described
with such knowledge of the facts, and with truthful and artless
presentation of the whole life of the industrial population by a craftsman
and teacher in the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission
(Vol. IV). According to his description (in 1878), the industry has
existed since the beginning of the 19th century: 8 masters employ 175
workers, in addition to which they have as many as 1,000 seamstresses and
some 35 families of furriers working for them at home (in different
villages), 1,300 to 1,500 persons in all, with an output totalling 336,000
rubles. As a point of interest, it should be noted that when this was a
flourishing industry it was not included in the “factory”
statistics. The Directory for 1879 makes no mention of it. But
when it began to decline the statistics included it. The
Directory for 1890 listed for the town and the uyezd of Kargopol
7 works, with 121 workers and an output totalling 50,000 rubles, whereas
the List gave 5 works, with 79 workers (plus 57 outside) and an
output totalling 49,000 rubles. [55]

The order of things prevailing in this branch of capitalist manufacture is very instructive as a specimen of what goes on
in our age-old, purely native “handicraft industries,” that
have been left stranded in one of Russia’s numerous rural
backwoods. The craftsmen work 15 hours a day in a very unhealthy
atmosphere and earn 8 rubles per month, less than 60 or 70 rubles per
year. The masters’ incomes amount to about 5,000 rubles per
annum. The relations between masters and workers are “patriarchal”: according to ancient custom, the master gives
the workers kvass and salt gratis, which they have to beg from his
cook. As a mark of gratitude to the master (for “giving” them
work) the workers come, without pay, to pull squirrel tails, and also
clean furs after work. The workers live in the workshop all the week, and
the masters knock them about, seemingly in a joke (p. 218,
loc . cit .), make them do all sorts of jobs, such as raking hay, shovelling snow, fetching water, rinsing clothes, etc. Labour
is astonishingly cheap in Kargopol itself, and the peasants in the
vicinity “are ready to work for next to nothing.” Work is done
by hand, there is systematic division of labour, and there is a lengthy
apprenticeship (8 to 12 years); the lot of the apprentices can easily be
imagined.

6) The Remaining Livestock Processing Trades

A particularly noteworthy example of capitalist manufacture is the
celebrated boot industry of the village of Kimry, Korcheva Uyezd, Tver
Gubernia, and its environs. [56]

The industry is a very old one, having existed since the 16th
century. Since the Reform, it has continued to grow and develop. In the
early 70s Pletnev counted 4 volosts in the area covered by this industry,
but in 1888 the area included 9 volosts. Basically the organisation of the
industry is as follows. It is headed by the owners of big workshops
employing wage-workers; they distribute the cut-out leather to be made up
by outside workers. Mr. Pletnev counted 20 such masters, employing 124
adults and 60 boys, with an output totalling 818,000 rubles, while the
number of workers occupied at home for these capitalists is estimated by
the author approximately at 1,769 adults and 1,833 boys. Then come the
small masters, each with 1 to 5 wage-workers and 1 to 3 boys. These
masters dispose of their goods mainly in the village market in Kimry; they
number 224 and have 460 adults and 301 boys working for them; output
totals 187,000 rubles. Hence, there are 244 masters altogether, employing
2,353 adults (of whom 1,769 work at home) and 2,194 boys (of whom 1,833
work at home), with an output totalling 1,005,000 rubles. Further, there
are workshops which do various individual operations: currying
(skin-cleaning with scraper); chipping (gluing of chips left from
currying); special carting (4 masters, with 16 employees and up to 50 horses); special
carpentry (box-making), etc. [57]

Pletnev calculated the total output at 4.7 million rubles for the whole
district. In 1881 the number of handicraftsmen was computed at 10,638, and
with migrants, 26,000, with an output totalling 3.7 million rubles. As to
conditions of labour, it is important to note the excessively long working day (14 to
15 hours) and the extremely insanitary working conditions, payment in
goods, etc. The centre of the industry, Kimry village, “is more like
a small town” ( Reports and Investigations , I, 224); the
inhabitants are poor agriculturists, and are engaged in their industry all
the year round; only the rural handicraftsmen give up the industry during
haymaking. The houses in Kimry village are urban, and the inhabitants are
distinguished for their urban habits of life (such as “showiness”). Until very recently this industry was not
included in “factory” statistics, probably because the masters
“readily style themselves handicraftsmen” ( ibid ., 228). The List has for the first time included 6 boot workshops
in Kimry district, with 15 to 40 workers each on the premises, and with no
outside workers. Of course, it contains no end of gaps.

Manufacture also includes the button industry of Moscow Gubernia,
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds — the making of buttons from hoofs and
rams’ horns. Engaged in this industry are 487 workers, employed in
52 establishments; the output totals 264,000 rubles. Establishments with
fewer than 5 employees number 16; those with 5 to 10 — 26; those with 10
and more — 10. Masters who do without wage-workers number only 10; these
work for big masters, using the latter’s materials. Only the big
industrialists (who, as is evident from the figures given, should have
from 17 to 21 workers per establishment) are quite independent. It is
they, evidently, who figure in the Directory as “factory
owners” (see p. 291: 2 establishments with an output totalling 4,000
rubles and with 73 workers). This is “serial manufacture”; the
horns are first steamed in what is called the “smithy” (a
wooden hut with a furnace); then they are passed on to the
workshop where they are cut up, after which they go to a stamping
press, where the pattern is imprinted, and, lastly, are finished and
polished on lathes. The industry has its apprentices. The working day is
14 hours. Payment in goods is a regular thing. The relations between
masters and men are patriarchal, as seen in the following: the master
calls the workers “boys,” and the pay-book is called the
“boys’ book”; when the master pays the workers, he lectures them and never grants in full their
“requests” for payment.

The horn industry, which is included in our table of small industries
(Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 31 and 33), is also of the same
type. “Handicraftsmen” employing dozens of wage-workers figure
also in the Directory as “factory owners” (p. 291). Division
of labour is practised; work is also given out to home workers (horn
trimmers). The centre of the industry in Bogorodsk Uyezd is the big
village of Khoteichi, where agriculture is receding into the background
(population in 1897 was 2,494). The Moscow Zemstvo publication stated
quite rightly: Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd ,
Moscow Gubernia , in 1890 , that this village “ is nothing but a large comb manufactory ” (p. 24,
our italics). In 1890, over 500 industrialists were counted in this
village, with an output of from 3.5 to 5.5 million combs. “More
often than not, the horn dealer is also a buyer-up of finished goods, and
in many cases a big comb-maker as well.” The position of those
makers who are compelled to take horns “at piece rates” is
particularly bad: “their position is actually worse than that of the
wage-workers in the big establishments.” Dire need compels them to
exploit the labour of their whole families beyond measure, to lengthen their working day and to put juveniles to work. “During the
winter, work in Khoteichi starts at one o’clock in the morning, and
it is hard to say for certain when it ends in the cottage of the
‘independent’ craftsman doing ‘piece-work.’”
Payment in goods is widely practised. “This system, eliminated with
such difficulty from the factories, is still in full force in the small
handicraft establishments” (27). Probably, the horn goods industry
is organised on similar lines in Kadnikov Uyezd, Vologda Gubernia, in the
area of Ustye village (known as “Ustyanshchina”), where there
are 58 hamlets. Mr. V. Borisov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX) counts 388 handicraftsmen here, with an output
totalling 45,000 rubles; all the handicraftsmen work for capitalists, who
buy horns in St. Petersburg and tortoise-shell abroad.

At the head of the brush industry in Moscow Gubernia (see Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industry No. 20) we find big establishments with a large number
of wage-workers and with systematic division of labour. [58]

It is interesting to note at this point the changes that took place in the
organisation of this industry between 1879 and 1895 (see Moscow Zemstvo
publication: The Brush Industry According to the Investigation of 1895 ). Some well-to-do industrialists went to Moscow to carry on the
industry there. The number of industrialists increased 70%, the increase
being particularly large in the number of women (+170%) and girls
(+159%). The number of big workshops with wage-workers diminished: the
proportion of establishments with wage-workers dropped from 62% to
39%. This was due to the fact that the masters began to distribute work to be done in the home . The introduction into general use of the
drilling machine (for making holes in brush blocks) accelerated and
facilitated one of the main processes in brushmaking. The demand for
“setters” (craftsmen who “set” bristle in the block) increased; and this operation, which became increasingly
specialised, fell to the lot of women, their labour being cheaper. The
women began to work at home setting bristle, and were paid by the
piece. Thus, the growing resort to domestic industry was caused in this
case by progress in technique (drilling machine), progress in division of
labour (the women do nothing but set bristle), and progress in capitalist
exploitation (the labour of women and girls being cheaper). This example
shows very clearly that domestic industry by no means eliminates the concept of capitalist manufacture , but, on the contrary, is sometimes
even a sign of its further development .

7) The Processing of Mineral Products

In the section relating to ceramics we get an example of capitalist
manufacture in the industries of the Gzhel district (an area of 25 villages
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds, Moscow Gubernia). The relevant
statistics are given in our table of small industries (Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industries Nos. 15, 28 and 37). From these data it is evident that despite the enormous differences between the three Gzhel industries:
pottery, porcelain and decorative, these differences disappear as we pass
from one grade of establishment to another in each industry, and we get a
series of workshops of successively increasing dimensions. Here are the
average numbers of workers per establishment according to grade in these
three industries: 2.4 — 4.3 — 8.4 — 4.4. — 7.9 — 13.5 — 18 — 69 —
226.4. In other words, the workshops range from the very smallest to the
very biggest. There is no doubt that the big establishments belong to the
category of capitalist manufacture (inasmuch as they have not introduced
machines, have not developed into factories); what is important, however,
is not only this, but also that the small establishments are connected with the big ones ; that we have a single system of industry
here and not separate workshops of one or other type of economic
organisation. “Gzhel constitutes a single economic whole”
(Isayev, loc . cit ., 138), and the big workshops in the
district have grown slowly and gradually out of the small ones
( ibid ., 121). The work is done by hand, [59] with considerable division of labour : among the potters we find wheel
hands (specialising in different sorts of pottery), kilnmen, etc., and
sometimes special workers for preparing colours. In the manufacture of
porcelain-ware division of labour is extremely detailed: crushers, wheel
hands, feeders, kilnmen, decorators, etc. The wheel hands even specialise
in the various kinds of porcelain ware (cf. Isayev, loc . cit ., 140: in one case division of labour increases
productivity of labour by 25%). The decorators’ shops work for the
porcelain makers and are, therefore, only departments of the
latter’s manufactories, performing a special detailed operation. It
is characteristic of developed capitalist manufacture that physical
strength itself becomes a specialty. Thus, in Gzhel, some of the villages
are engaged (almost to a man) in clay digging; for heavy work not requiring special
skill (grinding), workers from the Tula and Ryazan gubernias are employed
almost exclusively, being superior in strength and vigour to the not very
robust Gzhelians. Payment in goods is widely practised. Agriculture is in
a bad way. “The Gzhelians are a degenerating race” (Isayev,
168) — weak-chested, narrow-shouldered, feeble; the decorators lose their
sight at an early age, etc. Capitalist division of labour breaks up the
worker and deforms him. The working day is from 12 to 13 hours.

8) The Metal Trades. The Pavlovo Industries

The celebrated Pavlovo lock and cutlery industries cover the whole of
Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, and Murom Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. These industries originated very long ago. Smirnov states that
as far back as 1621 there were (according to the cadastres [91] ) 11
smithies in Pavlovo. By the middle of the 19th century these industries
constituted a far-flung network of fully developed capitalist
relations. After the Reform, the industries in this district continued to
develop and expand. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889, in Gorbatov
Uyezd 13 volosts and 119 villages were engaged in industry; a total of
5,953 households, 6,570 male workers (54% of the total number working in
these villages) and 2,741 old men, juveniles and women, 9,311 persons in
all. In the Murom Uyezd, Mr. Grigoryev in 1881 registered 6 industrial
volosts, 66 villages, 1,545 households and 2,205 male workers (39% of the
total number working in these villages). Not only were large,
non-agricultural industrial villages formed (Pavlovo, Vorsma), but even
the surrounding peasants were diverted from agriculture: outside of
Pavlovo and Vorsma, in Gorbatov Uyezd, 4,492 persons were engaged in
industries, of whom 2,357, or more than half did not engage in
agriculture. Life in centres like Pavlovo has become quite urban and has
given rise to incomparably more developed requirements, more cultured
environment, clothes, manner of life, etc., than among the surrounding
“raw”

peasants. [60]

Turning to the economic organisation of the Pavlovo industries, we must
first of all note the indubitable fact that the “handicraftsmen” are headed by the most typical capitalist
manufactories. For example, in the Zavyalovs’ establishment (which
already in the 60s employed over 100 workers at the bench and has now
introduced a steam engine) a penknife passes through 8 or 9 hands: the
forger, blade-maker, handle-maker (usually an outside worker), hardener,
facer, polisher, finisher, grinder and marker. This is extensive
capitalist co-operation based on division of labour, with a considerable
number of the workers performing individual operations employed at home
and not in the capitalist’s workshop. Here are facts given by
Mr. Labzin (in 1866) on the bigger establishments in the villages of
Pavlovo, Vorsma and Vacha, covering all branches of production in this
district: 15 proprietors had 500 workers occupied on the premises and
1,134 workers outside, making a total of 1,634, with an output totalling
351,700 rubles. How far this description of economic relations is
applicable to the whole district at the present time may be seen from the
following data [61] :

Thus, the organisation of the industry as outlined by us prevails in all
the districts. All in all, about three-fifths of the total number
of workers are employed capitalistically. Here too, consequently, we find
manufacture predominating in the general structure of the industry [62] and
holding masses of workers under its sway, without, however, being able to
eradicate small production. The relative tenacity of the latter is fully
explained, firstly, by the fact that in some branches of the Pavlovo
industry mechanised production has not yet been introduced at all (for
instance, in lock-making); and, secondly, by the fact that the small
producer tries to save himself from sinking by resorting to means that
cause him to sink far lower than the wage-worker. These means are:
lengthening the working day, and reducing the standard of living and of
general requirements. “The earnings of the group of handicraftsmen
who work for proprietors are less subject to fluctuation”
(Grigoryev, loc . cit ., 65); at Zavyalovs’, for example, the lowest-paid worker is the handle-maker; “he works at
home, and that is why he is satisfied with lower earnings” (68). The
handicraftsmen who work “for factory owners” are “able to earn somewhat more than the average earnings of the one who takes his
products to the market. Larger earnings are particularly noticeable among
the workers who live in the factories” (70). [63]

The working day in the “factories” is from 14 1/2 to 15 hours,
with a maximum of 16 hours. “The working day of the home-working
handicraftsmen, on the other hand, is never less than 17 hours and
sometimes as much as 18 and even 19 hours” ( ibid .). It
would not be in the least surprising if the law of June 2, 1897 [92] caused an
increase here in home-work; it is high time these “handicraftsmen” directed their efforts towards compelling the
proprietors to organise factories! Let the reader also recall the
notorious Pavlovo “loan-purchase,” “exchange,” “wife-pawning” and similar forms of bondage and personal
degradation which grind down the quasi-independent small producer. [64]

Fortunately, rapidly developing large-scale machine industry does not so
readily tolerate these worst forms of exploitation as manufacture
does. Running ahead a little, let us quote data on the growth of factory
production in this district. [65]

We thus see that ever-increasing numbers of workers are being drawn into
large establishments, which are going over to the use of machines. [66]

9) Other Metal Trades

The industries of Bezvodnoye village, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia and Uyezd
also come under the head of capitalist manufacture. This is also an
industrial village, the majority of whose inhabitants do not engage in
agriculture at all, and which serves as the centre of an industrial area
of several villages. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889
( Material , Vol. VIII, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1895), in the Bezvodnoye
Volost (581 households) 67.3% of the households cultivated no land, 78.3%
had no horses, 82.4% engaged in industries, and 57.7% had literate persons
and schoolchildren in the family (as against an average for the uyezd of
44.6%). The Bezvodnoye industries are devoted to the production of various
metal goods: chains, fish-hooks, and metal fabrics; the output was
estimated at 2 1/2 million rubles in

1883 [67] and 1 1/2 million rubles in

1888-89. [68]

The organisation of the industry is as follows: work for proprietors, using
their materials, which is distributed among a number of workers performing
single operations and done partly in the employers’ workshops and
partly in the home. For example, in the making of fish-hooks the various
operations are performed by “benders,” “cutters” (who work in a special shed) and “pointers” (women and
children who sharpen the hook-points in their homes); all these work at
piece rates for the capitalist, while the bender gives out work on his own
account to the cutters and pointers. “Metal wire is now done by
horse-driven windlasses; formerly the wire was drawn by blind men, who
were brought here in large numbers. . . .” One of the “specialities” of capitalist manufacture! “The
conditions under which this work is done differ very much from those in
all the other trades.

People have to work in a stifling atmosphere filled with the harmful
vapours emanating from accumulated horse dung.” [69]

Organised on the same lines of capitalist manufacture are the screen, [70] the pin, [71] and the gold-thread industries. [72]

In the last-named industry at the beginning of the 80s there were 66 establishments, employing 670 workers (of
whom 79% were hired), with an output totalling 368,500 rubles;
some of these capitalist establishments were occasionally also
included among the “factories and works.” [73]

The locksmith industries of the Burmakino Volost (and surrounding volosts)
of Yaroslavl Gubernia and Uyezd are probably organised on the same
lines. At all events, here we observe the same division of labour
(blacksmiths, blowers and locksmiths), the same extensive development of
wage-labour (of 307 smithies in the Burmakino Volost, 231 employ
wage-workers), the same predominance of big capital over all these detail
workers (the buyers-up are at the top; the blacksmiths work for them, and
the locksmiths for the blacksmiths), the same combination of the buying up
of wares with the production of wares in capitalist workshops, some of
which are occasionally included among the “factories and works.” [74]

In the appendix to the preceding chapter, statistics were given on the
tray and the copper industries [75] of Moscow Gubernia (the latter in the district known as
“Zagarye”). The data show that wage-labour plays a predominant
part in these industries, that the industries are headed by large
workshops employing an average of from 18 to 23 wage-workers per
establishment, with an average output of from

16,000 to 17,000 rubles. If we add to this that division of labour is very
widely practised here, [76] it will be clear that what we have is capitalist manufacture. [77] “The small industrial units, which are an anomaly under the existing
conditions of technique and division of labour, can only hold out
alongside the big workshops by lengthening the working day to the utmost” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., p. 33) — among the tray-makers, for example, for as long as 19 hours. The ordinary working day
here is from 13 to 15 hours; with the small proprietors it is
from 16 to 17 hours. Payment in goods is widely practised (both
in 1876 and in

1890). [78]

Let us add that the lengthy existence of this industry (it arose at the beginning
of the 19th century, at the latest) and extensive specialisation have, in
this case too, produced highly skilled workers; the Zagarians are famed
for their craftsmanship. Specialities have also sprung up in the industry
which need no preliminary training and are within the grasp of even
under-age workers. “This very possibility,” Mr. Isayev rightly
observes, “of becoming an under-age worker at once and acquiring a
trade, as it were, without having to study, indicates that the handicraft
spirit, which demands the training of labour-power, is disappearing; the
simplicity of many of the detailed operations is a symptom of the
transition of handicraft to manufacture” ( loc . cit ., 34). Let us only observe that to a certain
degree the “handicraft spirit” always remains in manufacture,
for its basis is the same hand production.

10) The Jewellery, Samovar and Accordion Trades

The village of Krasnoye, Kostroma Gubernia and Uyezd, is one of the
industrial villages usually held up as centres of our “people’s” capitalist manufacture. This large village
(in 1897 it had 2,612 inhabitants) is purely urban in character; the
inhabitants live like townspeople and (with very few exceptions) do not
engage in agriculture. Krasnoye is the centre of the jewellery industry
which covers 4 volosts and 51 villages (including Sidorovskoye Volost of
Nerekhta Uyezd), and in them 735 households and about 1,706 workers. [79] “The principal representatives of industry,” said Mr. Tillo,
“are undoubtedly the big industrialists of the village of Krasnoye:
the Pushilovs, Mazovs, Sorokins, Chulkovs and other merchants. They buy
materials (gold, silver and copper), employ craftsmen, buy up finished
articles, distribute orders for work to be done in the home, supply
samples, etc.” (2043). The big industrialists have their workshops,
so-called “rabotorni” (laboratories), where the metal is
smelted and forged, then to be given out for finishing to
“handicraftsmen”; they have technical appliances, such as
“pretsi” (presses and dies for stamping), “punches” (for embossing designs), “rollers” (for
stretching the metal), benches, etc. Division of labour is widely
practised: “Nearly every article passes through several hands in an
established order in the course of manufacture. For example, in the making
of ear-rings, the master industrialist first sends the silver to his own
workshop, where part of it is rolled and part drawn into wire; then on
receipt of an order the material is given to a craftsman who, if he has a
family, divides the work among several persons; one uses a punch to cut
the silver plates into the shapes for the ear-rings, another bends the
wire into the rings with which the ear-rings are attached to the ears, a third solders these parts, and, lastly, a fourth polishes
the finished ear-rings. None of this work is difficult, or requires much
training; very often the soldering and the polishing are done by women and
by children of 7 or 8 years of age” (2041). [80]

Here, too, the working day is excessively long, usually as much as 16
hours. Payment in provisions is common.

The following statistics (published quite recently by a local assay
inspector) clearly illustrate the economic structure of the industry: [93] “Both the first groups (about two-thirds of the total number of
craftsmen) should be classed as home-working factory workers rather than
as handicraftsmen.” In the top group “wage-labour occurs more
and more frequently. . . . The craftsmen have begun to buy articles made
by others”; in the upper strata of this group “buying-up predominates,” and “four of the buyers-up have no workshops at all.” [81]

The samovar and accordion industries in Tula town and environs are highly
typical examples of capitalist manufacture. Generally speaking, the
“handicraft” industries in this district have a long history,
dating back to the 15th century. [82]

They evidenced a particularly rapid development in the middle of the 17th
century; Mr. Borisov considers that the second period in the development
of the Tula industries then began. In 1637 the first iron foundry was
built (by the Dutchman Vinius). The Tula gunsmiths formed a separate
smiths’ suburb, constituted a separate social estate, enjoying
special rights and privileges. In 1696 the first iron foundry was erected
in Tula by a famous Tula blacksmith, and the industry spread to the Urals
and

Siberia. [83]

Then began the third period in the history of the Tula industries. The
craftsmen set up their own workshops and taught the trade to surrounding
peasants. In the 1810s and 1820s the first samovar factories were
started. “By 1825 there were in Tula 43 different factories that
belonged to gunsmiths, while those in existence at the present time nearly
all belong to one-time gunsmiths, now Tula merchants” ( loc . cit ., 2262). Here, consequently, we observe a
direct continuity and connection between the old guild masters and the
principals of subsequent capitalist manufacture. In 1864 the Tula
gunsmiths were freed from serf dependence [94] and assigned to the burgher estate; earnings dropped as a consequence of the
severe competition of the village handicraftsmen (which caused a reverse
flow of industrialists from town to country); the workers turned to the
samovar, lock, cutlery, and accordion industries (the first Tula
accordions appeared in 1830-1835).

The samovar industry is at present organised as follows. It is headed by
big capitalists who own workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers, but they also distribute many separate
operations to be done by workers, urban and rural, in their homes; those
who perform these operations sometimes still have their own workshops and
employ wage-workers. Naturally, side by side with the big there are small
workshops, with all the consecutive stages of dependence upon the
capitalists. Division of labour is the general basis of the whole
structure of this trade. The process of samovar-making is divided into the
following separate operations: 1) rolling the copper sheets into tubes
(tubing); 2) soldering the tubes; 3) filing the seams; 4) fitting the
bottoms; 5) beating out the shapes; 6) cleaning the insides: 7) turning
the bodies and necks; 8) plating; 9) press-punching the vents in the
bottoms and the covers; 10) assembling the samovars. Further, there are
the separate processes of casting the small copper parts: a) preparing the
moulds and b)

casting. [84]

Where work is given out to be done in the home, each of these operations may
constitute a special “handicraft” industry. One of these
“industries” was described by Mr. Borisov in Vol. VII of the
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission . This industry (samovar
tubing) consists in peasants doing at piece rates one of the operations we
have described, using merchants’ materials. The handicraftsmen left
Tula town to work in the countryside after 1861; the cost of living and
standard of requirements were lower in the countryside ( loc . cit ., p. 893). Mr. Borisov quite rightly
attributes this tenacity of the “handicraftsman” to the
retention of hand-labour in the beating out of samovars; “it will
always be profitable for the manufacturer to employ the village
handicraftsman, because he works at from 10 to 20% below the rate of the
urban artisan” (916).

Mr. Borisov estimated the value of the output of samovars in 1882 at
approximately 5 million rubles, the number of workers (handicraftsmen
included) totalling from 4,000 to 5,000. In this case also the factory
statistics cover only a fraction of capitalist manufacture. The Directory for 1879
counted in Tula Gubernia 53 samovar “factories” (all hand-operated) with 1,479 workers and an output totalling 836,000
rubles. The Directory for 1890 gives 162 factories, 2,175
workers, and an output of 1.1 million rubles; the list of firms, however,
contains only 50 factories (1 steam operated), with 1,326 workers and an
output totalling 698,000 rubles. Evidently, some hundred small
establishments were in this case classed as “factories.”
Lastly, the List gives the following for 1894-95: 25 factories (4
steam-operated), 1,202 workers (+ 607 outside), and an output totalling
1,613,000 rubles. In these data neither the number of factories nor the
number of workers are comparable (for the reason given above, and also
because of the lumping together in previous years of workers on the
premises and outside). The only thing beyond doubt is that manufacture is
being steadily displaced by large-scale machine industry: in 1879, there
were 2 factories with 100 and more workers; in 1890 there were 2 (one
steam-operated) and in 1894-95 there were 4 (three steam-operated). [85]

The accordion industry, which is at a lower stage of economic development,
is organised in precisely the same way. [86] “In the making of accordions there are
over ten separate trades” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, 236); the making of the different parts of an
accordion or the performance of some of the operations constitute
separate, quasi-independent “handicraft” industries. “When things are quiet all the handicraftsmen work for factories or for more or less big workshops, the owners of which
supply them with materials; when, however, there is a brisk demand for
accordions, a large number of small producers appear, who buy up parts
from the handicraftsmen, assemble them and take the finished articles to
the local shops where accordions are very readily purchased”
( ibid .). Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated from 2,000 to 3,000
workers in this industry, with an output totalling about 4 million rubles;
factory statistics in 1879 showed two “factories,” with 22
workers and an output totalling 5,000 rubles; in 1890, 19 factories, with
275 workers and an output totalling 82,000 rubles; in 1894-95 one factory,
with 23 workers (plus 17 outside) and an output totalling 20,000 rubles. [87]

Steam-engines are not employed at all. All these figure variations
indicate a purely haphazard picking of individual establishments which are
component parts of the complex organism of capitalist manufacture.

---
Notes:
[1]
Cf. Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VII, Pt. III
(Moscow, 1883), pp. 63-64.— Lenin

[2]
For a list of the most important towns of this type, see next chapter.— Lenin

[3]
Examples of such confusion will be given in the next chapter.— Lenin

[4]
See Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III. It would be impossible
and superfluous to give detailed data on all the weaving industries
described in the literature on our handicraft industry. Moreover, in the
majority of these industries the factory now reigns supreme. On the
subject of “handicraft weaving” see also Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vols. VI and VII. — Transactions of the Handicraft Commission — Material on Hand-Labour Statistics . [95]
— Reports and Investigations . — Korsak, loc . cit .— Lenin

[5]
The Military Statistical Abstract managed to count in Vladimir
Gubernia, in 1866, 98 silk factories (!) with 98 workers and a total
output of 4,000 rubles(!). The Directory for 1890 gives 35
factories, 2,112 workers, and 936,000 rubles. According to the
List for 1894-95 there were 98 factories, 2,281 workers, with an
output of 1,918,000 rubles, and in addition, 2,477 workers “outside
of establishments, on the side.” Just try to distinguish
“handicraftsmen” here from “factory workers”!— Lenin

[6]
According to the Directory for 1890 there were outside of Moscow
10 galloon factories, with 303 workers and an output totalling 58,000
rubles. But according to Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia
(Vol. VI, Pt. II), there were 400 establishments, with 2,619 workers (of
whom 72.8% were wage-workers) and with an output totalling 963,000 rubles.— Lenin

[7]
The Collection of Factory Inspectors’ Reports for 1903 (St. Petersburg, 1906) states that in Saratov Gubernia there were 33
distributing offices with 10,000 workers. ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[8]
The centre of this industry is Sosnovka Volost, where the Zemstvo census
of 1886 counted 4,626 households, with a population of 38,000 persons of
both sexes; 291 industrial establishments. Altogether in the volost 10% of
the households were houseless (as against 6.2% in the uyezd), and 44.5% of
the households cultivated on land (as against 22.8% in the uyezd). See
Statistical Returns for Saratou Gubernia , Vol. XI. — Capitalist
manufacture has, consequently, created industrial centres here too which
divorce the workers from the land.— Lenin

[9]
The sources are shown in the text. The number of establishments is about
half the number of independent workers (52 establishments in Vasilyev
Vrag, 5 + 55 + 110 in Krasnoye village and 21 establishments in the 4
small villages). On the other hand, the figures for the town of Arzamas
and Viyezdnaya Sloboda stands for the number of “factories,”
and not of workers.— Lenin

[10]
Let us note that the diagram given is typical of all Russian industries
organised on the lines of capitalist manufacture: everywhere at the head
of the industry we find big establishments (sometimes classed among
“factories and works”), and a mass of small establishments
completely under their sway — in a word, capitalist co-operation based on
division of labour and hand production. Non-agricultural centres are
formed by manufacture in exactly the same way, not only here, but also in
the majority of other industries.— Lenin

[11]
They are naked as they work in a temperature of 22° to 24°
Réaumur. The air is full of fine and also coarse dust, wool and
other stuff. The floors in the “factories” are earthen (in the
washing sheds of all places), etc.— Lenin

[12]
It is not without interest to note here the specific jargon of the
inhabitants of Krasnoye; this is characteristic of the territorial
isolation peculiar to manufacture. “In the village of Krasnoye
factories are given the Matroisk name of povarnyas (lit. kitchens — Ed .). . . . Matroisk is one of the
numerous branches of the Ophen dialect, the three main branches of which
are Ophen proper, spoken mainly in Vladimir Gubernia; Galivon , in Kostroma Gubernia; and Matroisk , in the
Nizhni-Novgorod and Vladimir gubernias” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V, p 465). Only large-scale machine industry
completely destroys the local character of social ties and replaces them
by national (and international) ties.— Lenin

[13]
Material for Evaluation of the Lands of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia ,
Vol. XI, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1893, pp. 211-214.— Lenin

[14]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , VI.— Lenin

[15]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[16]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II.— Lenin

[17]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II, p. 271.— Lenin

[18]
See Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 27.— Lenin

[19]
Some of these establishments were occasionally included among
“factories and works.” See, for example, the
Directory for 1879, p.126.— Lenin

[20]
See above, Chapter V, § VII.— Lenin

[21]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , IV, Pt.I, pp. 282-287.— Lenin

[22]
See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, and
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[23]
By some accident, such workshops have not yet been included among
“factories and works.”— Lenin

[24]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , II.— Lenin

[25]
According to Zemstvo statistics (Vol. VII of Material ,
Nizhni-Novgorod, 1892) in these villages in 1889 there were 341 and 119
households, numbering respectively 1,277 and 540 persons of both
sexes. There were 253 and 103 allotment households. Households
participating in industries numbered 284 and 91, of which 257 and 32 did
not engage in agriculture. There were 218 and 51 horseless
households. Those leasing their allotments numbered 237 and 53.— Lenin

[26]
Cf. Nizhni-Novgorod Handbook , Vol IV, article by Rev. Roslavlev.— Lenin

[27]
Sketch of Condition of Handicraft Industry in Perm Gubernia ,
p. 158; in the table totals there is a mistake or a misprint.— Lenin

[28]
Ibid ., pp. 40 and 188 of table. To all appearances these same
establishments also figure in the List , p. 152. For the purpose
of comparing the big establishments with the small ones we have singled
out the agriculturist commodity-producers, see Studies ,
p. 156. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[29]
The Handicraft Industries of Perm Gubernia at the Siberian Urals Exhibition , Pt. III, p. 47 and foll.— Lenin

[30]
See Zemstvo statistical returns for Trubchevsk, Karachev and Orel uyezds
of Orel Gubernia. The connection between the big manufactories and the
small peasant establishments is also evident from the fact that the
employment of wage-labour develops in the latter as well: for example, in
Orel Uyezd, 16 peasant master spinners employ 77 workers.— Lenin

[31]
V. Ilyin, Studies, p. 176. (See present edition, Vol.2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[32]
See precise data on Perm handicraft census about this, ibid .,
p. 177 (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[33]
See Directory and List on Perm Gubernia and the village
of Nevyansky Zavod (non-agricultural), which is the centre of this
“handicraft industry.”— Lenin

[34]
Cf. our Studies , pp. 177-178. (See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[35]
Reports and Investigations , I.— Lenin

[36]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[37]
There are 14 big timber merchants. These have timber-seasoning rooms
(costing about 300 rubles), of which there are 24 in the village, each
employing 6 workers. These merchants also give out materials to workers,
whom they get into their grip by advancing them money.— Lenin

[38]
It will be appropriate here to note in general the process of development
of capitalism in the timber industry. The timber merchants do not sell the
timber raw; they hire workers to dress it and to make various wooden
articles, which they then sell. See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., VIII, pp. 1268, 1314. Also Statistical Returns for Orel Gubernia , Trubchevsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[39]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol II, 1879. See also
Zemstvo statistical Material for Semyonov Uyezd, Vol. XI, 1893.— Lenin

[40]
The statistics we have given (Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 2,
7, 26) cover only a small fraction of the toy-makers; but these data show
the appearance of workshops with 11 to 18 workers.— Lenin

[41]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. II, p. 47.— Lenin

[42]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[43]
Material for the Evaluation of the Lands in Gorbatov Uyezd.— Lenin

[44]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[45]
Thus, at the head of the horse-collar industry are 13 big proprietors,
each with 10 to 30 wage-workers and 5 to 10 outside workers. The big
mitten-makers do the cutting in their own workshops (employing 2 or 3
wage-workers) and get the mittens sewn off the premises by from 10 to 20
women; these are divided into thumb-makers and stitchers , the former taking the work from the owners and
sub-dividing it among the latter, whom they exploit (information for
1879).— Lenin

[46]
In 1889, of 1,812 households (with 9,241 inhabitants) 1,469 cultivated no
land (in 1897 there were 12,342 inhabitants). The villages of Pavlovo and
Bogorodskoye differ from the other villages of Gorbatov Uyezd in that very
few of their inhabitants leave them on the contrary, of all the peasants
of the Gorbatov Uyezd who have left their villages, 14.9% live in Pavlovo
and 4.9% in Bogorodskoye. The increase of the population between 1858 and
1889 was 22.1% for the uyezd, but 42% for the village of
Bogorodskoye. (See Zemstvo statistical Material .)— Lenin

[47]
See Zemstvo statistical Material for uyezds mentioned. —
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX and VI. —
Directory and List . — Reports and Investigations , II.— Lenin

[48]
In 1889 it had 380 households (none cultivating land) with 1,305
inhabitants In the whole of the Katunki Volost, 90.6% of the households
are engaged in industries, 70.1% of working people being occupied in
industries alone (i.e., not engaging in agriculture). As regards literacy,
this volost stands far above the average for the uyezd, yielding in this
respect only to the Chernoretsk Volost, which is also non-agricultural and
has highly developed boat-building industries. The village of Bolshoye
Murashkino had in 1887 a total of 856 households (of which 853 cultivated
no land) with 3,473 persons of both sexes. According to the 1897 census,
the population of Gorodets was 6,330, of Bolshoye Murashkino 5,341, of
Yurino 2,189, of Spasskoye 4,494 and of Vatras 3,012.— Lenin

[49]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX,
p. 2567. Information for 1880.— Lenin

[50]
The conditions of the workers in the Arzamas factories are better than
those of the rural workers ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 133).— Lenin

[51]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 76.— Lenin

[52]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. XI,
p. 3084. (Cf. Directory for 1890). Included among the
handicraftsmen is the peasant-agriculturist Dolgushin, who owns a works
employing 60 workers. There are several handicraftsmen of this type.— Lenin

[53]
According to the Directory for 1890, there were some 27 masters
employing over 700 workers.— Lenin

[54]
Cf. also List , p. 489, regarding the well-known “handicraft” village of Dunilovo, Shuya Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. The Directory for 1890 listed here 6 fur factories
employing 151 workers, while according to the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (Vol. X) there are about 2,200 furriers and
2,300 sheepskin-coat-makers in this district; in 1877 as many as 5,500
“handicraftsmen” were counted. Probably, the making of hair
sieves in this uyezd is organised in the same way; in this industry there
are engaged about 40 villages and as many as 4,000 people, known as
“Mardassers” (from the name of this district). We have described the similar organisation of the leather and cobbling industries
in Perm Gubernia in our Studies , p. 171 and foll (See present
edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[55]
Here is some information about the “handicraftsmen” relating
to 1894. “The squirrel furs are sewn by some of the poorest women in
the town of Kargopol and by peasant women of the Pavlovo Volost. They are
paid the very lowest price,” so that a seamstress earns only from 2
rubles 40 kopeks to 3 rubles per month, providing her own food, and for
this pay (at piece rates) she has to sit without a break for 12 hours a
day. “The work is very exhausting, for it calls for great strain and
assiduity.” The number of seamstresses is now about 200
( Handicraft Industry in Olonets Gubernia , Essay by
Messrs. Blagoveshchensky and Garyazin. Petrozavodsk, 1895, pp. 92-93).— Lenin

[56]
See Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II, Vol. III,
St. Petersburg, 1872. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and
Hand-Labour in Russia. Compiled by L. Maikov . Article by V
A. Pletnev. This work is the best for clarity of description of the whole
organisation of the industry. The latest works give valuable statistics and facts of the people’s life, but give a less
satisfactory exposition of the economic structure of this complex
industry. See, further, Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII, article by Mr. Pokrovsky, — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I.— Lenin

[57]
Cf. Reports and Investigations : 7 groups of industrialists: 1)
traders in leather goods; 2) buyers-up of footwear; 3) masters of big
workshops (5-6 of them), who stock leather and distribute it to home
workers; 4) masters of small workshops employing wage-workers; also give
out material to home workers; 5) one-man establishments — working either
for the market or for masters (sub 3 and 4); 6) wage-workers (craftsmen,
journeymen, boys); 7) “last-makers, notchers, and also owners and
workers in currying, greasing and gluing workshops” (p. 227,
loc . cit .). The population of Kimry village, according
to the 1897 census, is 7,017.— Lenin

[58]
The “sawyer” saws the brush blocks; the “borer” bores holes in them; the “cleaner” cleans the bristle; the
“setter” “sets” the bristle; the “joiner” glues wooden strips on the brush backs
( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. I, p. 18).— Lenin

[59]
Let us observe that in this industry, as in the above-described weaving
industries, capitalist manufacture is, strictly speaking, the economy of
yesterday. Characteristic of the post-Reform era is the transformation of
this manufacture into large-scale machine industry. The number of Gzhel
potteries using steam-engines was 1 in 1866, 2 in 1879 and 3 in 1890
(according to data in The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , Vol. I,
and Directory for 1879 and 1890).— Lenin

[60]
See above regarding the greater literacy of the population of Pavlovo and
Vorsma and the migration of peasants from the villages to these centres.— Lenin

[61]
Data from Zemstvo statistical Material , and Mr. Annensky’s
Report, and also A. N. Potresov’s researches (cited above). The
figures for the Murom district are approximate. The number of inhabitants,
according to the 1897 census, was 4,674 in Vorsma, and 12,431 in Pavlovo.— Lenin

[62]
The data we have given by no means express this predominance to the full:
as will presently be seen, the handicraftsmen who work for the market are
subjugated to capital even more than those who work for proprietors, and
the latter handicraftsmen even more than the wage-workers. The
Pavlovo industries show in strong relief that inseparable connection
between merchant’s and industrial capital which in general is
characteristic of capitalist manufacture in its relation to the small
producers.— Lenin

[63]
Connection with the land is also an important factor in reducing
earnings. The village handicraftsmen “on the whole earn less than
the Pavlovo locksmiths” (Annensky Report, p. 61). True, we must bear
in mind that the former grow their own grain, but even so “the
conditions of the ordinary village handicraftsman can scarcely be
considered better than those of the average Pavlovo locksmith” (61).— Lenin

[64]
During crises it also happens that they work literally without pay,
exchange “white for black,” i.e., finished goods for raw
materials; this happens “quite often” (Grigoryev, ibid ., 93).— Lenin

[65]
Data taken from Directory and List for the whole district, including the villages of Selitba and Vacha and their
environs. The Directory for 1890 undoubtedly included outside
workers in the total number of factory workers; we have estimated the
number of outside workers approximately, confining ourselves to a
correction only for the two biggest establishments (the Zavyalovs and
F. Varypayev). To compare the figures for “factories and
works” in the List and the Directory , only establishments with 15 and more workers must be taken (this is examined in
greater detail in our Studies , article: On the Question of Our
Factory Statistics) (See present edition, Vol. 4.— Ed .)— Lenin

[66]
In one branch of the Pavlovo industry, lock-making, there is, on the
contrary, a decline in the number of workshops employing wage-workers. A. N. Potresov ( loc . cit .), who recorded
this fact in detail, pointed to its cause — the competition of the
lock-making factory in Kovno Gubernia (Schmidt Brothers, which in 1890 had
500 workers, with an output of 500,000 rubles, and in 1894-95 had 625
workers, with an output of 730,000 rubles).— Lenin

[67]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX. The population of
Bezvodnoye village in 1897 was 3,296.— Lenin

[68]
Reports and Investigations , Vol. I. — The List gives 4
“factories” for this district, with 21 workers on premises and
29 outside workers, and output totalling 68,000 rubles.— Lenin

[69]
Reports and Investigations , I, p. 186.— Lenin

[70]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 29.— Lenin

[71]
Ibid ., No. 32.— Lenin

[72]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. 1, Sec. 2,
and Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd in 1890. — Lenin

[73]
See, for example, the List , No. 8819.— Lenin

[74]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VI, investigation
of 1880. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I (1888-1889),
cf. p. 271: “nearly the whole trade . . . is concentrated in
workshops employing wage-workers.” Cf. also Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia , Vol. II, Yaroslavl, 1896, pp. 8, 11. — List ,
p. 403.— Lenin

[75]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 19 and 30.— Lenin

[76]
A copper-smith’s workshop needs five operatives to do the different
jobs; a tray-maker’s at least 3, while a “normal workshop” needs 9 workers. “In the large establishments”
a “fine division” (of labour) is practised “with the object of increasing productivity” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., 27 and 31).— Lenin

[77]
The Directory for 1890 gives for the district of Zagarye 14
factories employing 184 workers, with an output totalling 37,000 rubles. A
comparison of these figures with the above-quoted Zemstvo statistics shows
that in this case too the factory statistics covered only the upper strata
of widely developed capitalist manufacture.— Lenin

[78]
Cf. Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[79]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, article by
Mr. A. Tillo. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. III (1893). The
industry continues to develop. Cf. letter to Russkiye Vedomosti ,
1897, No. 231. Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42. Output totals over
1 million rubles, of which about 200,000 rubles is received by the workers
and about 300,000 rubles by buyers-up and merchants.— Lenin

[80]
“Among the Krasnoye handicraftsmen every kind of article and even
every part is made by a specific craftsman, and therefore one rarely
finds, for example, rings and ear-rings, bracelets and brooches, etc.,
made in the same house; usually a particular article is made in parts by
different worker-specialists who live not only in different houses but
even in different villages” ( Reports and Investigations ,
Vol. III, p. 76).— Lenin

[81]
Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42.— Lenin

[82]
See Mr. V. Borisov’s article in Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX.— Lenin

[83]
The Tula blacksmith, Nikita Demidov Antufyev, won Peter the Great’s
favour by building an ironworks near the town of Tula; in 1702 he was
granted the Nevyansk works. His descendants were the famous Urals iron
manufacturers, the Demidovs.— Lenin

[84]
The Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. X, contain an
excellent description by Mr. Manokhin of the samovar industry in Suksun,
Perm Gubernia. Its organisation is the same as that in Tula
Gubernia. Cf. ibid ., Vol. IX, Mr. Borisov’s article on
handicraft industries at the 1882 exhibition.— Lenin

[85]
Evidently there are analogous features in the organisation of the
mechanical trades in Tula and its environs. Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated
that the number of workers employed in these industries was from 2,000 to
3,000, producing wares to a value of nearly 2 1/2 million rubles. These
“handicraftsmen” are very much under the heel of merchant’s capital. The hardware “factories” in Tula
Gubernia sometimes also have outside workers (cf. List ,
pp. 393-395).— Lenin

[86]
The development of accordion-making is also interesting as a process of
the elimination of primitive folk instruments and of the creation of a
wide, national market; without this market there could have been no
division of labour by processes, and without division of labour the
finished article could not have been produced cheaply “Owing to
their cheapness . . . the accordions have nearly everywhere displaced the
primitive string folk instrument, the balalaika” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, p. 2276).— Lenin

[87]
The Tula town census of November 29, 1891, gave 36 establishments selling
accordions and 34 accordion workshops (see Tula Gubernia Handbook for 1895 , Tula, 1895).— Lenin

[88]
Workroom owners , middlemen — owners of premises who rented them to manufacturers for the installation of hand-looms, and
themselves worked there. The middleman or workroom owner, by arrangement
with the employer, undertook to heat or repair the premises, deliver raw
materials to the weavers, send the finished product to the employer or act
as overseer. [p.386]

[95]
Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II. Vol. III. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and Hand
Labour in Russia. Part 1. Published by the Central Statistical Committee
of the Ministry of Home Affairs. St. Petersburg, 1872. [p.388]

[89]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.396]

[90]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.398]

[91]
Cadastre — a public record of the extent, value and ownership of
land, etc., for purposes of taxation. The cadastral surveys gave
particulars of land held, incomes of inhabitants and descriptions of
streets, monasteries, fortifications, etc. The oldest cadastre now extant
dates back to the 15th century, but most of those that have been preserved
relate to the 17th century. Surveys for the cadastre were made by special
commissions appointed by the central government authorities. [p.415]

[92]
The Law of June 2 , 1897 established a working day of 11
1/2 hours for industrial enterprises and railway workshops. Prior to the
adoption of this law the working day in Russia was unlimited and lasted as
long as 14 and 15 hours and even more. The tsar’s government was
forced to adopt this law due to the pressure of the working-class
movement, which was led by the “League of Struggle for the
Emancipation of the Working Class” headed by Lenin. A detailed
analysis and criticism of the law is given by Lenin in his pamphlet:
The New Factory Law . (See present edition, Vol. 2.) [p. 418]

[93]
The table that follows is based on a similar but more detailed table
published in the Vestnik Finansov , Issue No. 42, 1898. [p.423]

[94]
Prior to 1864 the gunsmiths of Tula were serfs of the state and lived in
special suburbs (slobodas). (The state blacksmiths’ sloboda, etc.)
They were divided into guilds: barrel, gun-stock, lock, instrumental,
etc. For the carrying out of auxiliary work serf-peasants from a number of
villages were attached to the Tula arms factories, their task being to
prepare charcoal for the gunsmiths, guard the forests allocated to the
factories, and do jobs in the factory yards.

In Tula at the time of their liberation from feudal dependence there were
nearly 4,000 gunsmiths, of whom 1,276 were employed in factories and 2,362
worked at home. In all, the gunsmiths and their families numbered over
20,000. [p.424]

| | I. The Rise of Manufacture and its Main Features | | | III. Technique in Manufacture. Division of Labour and its Significance | |

# The Processing of Livestock Produce. The Leather and Fur Trades

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vi/vi8ii.htm#sect05

Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry

II. Capitalist Manufacture in Russian Industry

Let us begin with the industries that process fibres.

1) The Weaving Industries

The weaving of linen, wool, cotton and silk fabrics, galloons, etc., was
organised everywhere in Russia as follows (before the appearance of
large-scale machine industry). The industry was headed by big capitalist
workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers; the owners of these
workshops, possessing sizable capital, undertook the large-scale purchase
of raw material, partly working it up in their own establishments, and partly giving out yarn and warp to small producers
(workroom owners, middlemen, [88] , peasant-“handicraftsmen” etc.) who wove the cloth at home or
in small workshops at piece rates. The work itself was done by hand, and
the following operations were distributed among the workers: 1)
yarn-dyeing; 2) yarn-winding (very often women and children specialised in
this operation); 3) yarn-fixing (“fixers”); 4) weaving; 5)
weft-winding for weavers (bobbin hands, mostly children). Sometimes in the
big workshops there were special “threaders” (who threaded the
warp through the eyes of the batten and reed.) [1] of labour
is usually applied, not only to single operations, but to wares, that is,
the

weavers specialise in producing various sorts of cloth. The selection of
some operations to be done in the home does not, of course, make any
change whatever to the economic structure of this type of industry. The
workrooms or homes where the weavers work are simply external departments
of the manufactory. The technical basis of such industry is hand
production with extensive and systematic division of labour; from the
economic point of view we see here the formation of large capital which
controls the purchase of raw materials and the sale of wares on an
extremely extensive (national) market, and under whose complete sway are a
mass of proletarian weavers; a few large establishments (manufactories in
the narrow sense of the term) dominate a mass of small ones. Division of
labour leads to the emergence of specialist artisans from among the
peasantry; non-agricultural centres of manufacture arise, such as the
village of Ivanovo in Vladimir Gubernia (in 1871 it became the town of
Ivanovo-Voznesensk and is now a centre of large-scale machine industry),
the village of Velikoye in Yaroslavl Gubernia, and many other villages in
Moscow, Kostroma, Vladimir and Yaroslavl gubernias, which have now turned
into factory towns. [2]

In our economic literature and statistics the industry organised in this way is
usually split up into two parts: peasants who work in their homes, or in
not particularly big workrooms, workshops, etc., are classed under
“handicraft” industry, while the bigger workrooms and workshops are placed among the “factories and works” (and,
moreover, quite fortuitously, since no definitely established and
uniformly applied rules exist as to the separation of small establishments
from big ones, of workrooms from manufactories, of workers occupied in
their homes from workers occupied in the workshop of the capitalist). [3]

Naturally, such classification, which places some wage-workers on one
side, and some masters who hire these very wage-workers (in addition to
the workers in their establishments) on the other, is nonsense from the
scientific viewpoint.

Let us illustrate this by detailed data regarding one of the
“handicraft weaving” industries, namely, silk weaving in
Vladimir

Gubernia. [4]

The “silk industry” is a typical specimen of capitalist
manufacture. Hand labour prevails. Of the total number of establishments
the small ones constitute the majority (179 out of 313, or 57% of the
total, have from 1 to 5 workers), but in greater part they are not
independent and are far behind the big ones in their significance to the
industry as a whole. Establishments with 20 to 150 workers constitute 8%
of the total (25), but in them 41.5% of the aggregate number of workers
are concentrated, and they account for 51% of the total output. Of the
total number of workers in the industry (2,823) there are 2,092
wage-workers, i.e., 74.1%. “On the job we meet with division of
labour both in wares and in individual operations.” Weavers are
rarely able to make both “velvet” and “satin” (the two principal lines in this trade). “The division of labour into
separate operations within the workshop is most strictly practised only in
the big factories” (i.e., manufactories) “that employ wage-workers.” The fully independent proprietors number only 123,
who alone buy the raw materials themselves and sell the finished article;
they have 242 family workers and “employ 2,498 wage-workers, who in
greater part are paid by the piece,” a total, consequently, of 2,740
workers, or 97% of the aggregate number of workers. It is thus clear that
the distribution by these manufactory owners, through the medium of
“middle-men” (workroom owners), of work to be done in the home
is no special form of industry at all, but is merely one of the operations
of capital in manufacture. Mr. Kharizomenov rightly observes that the
“mass of small establishments (57%) alongside the small number of
big ones (8%), and the insignificant number of workers employed per establishment (7 1/2) conceal the true character of the trade”
( loc . cit ., 39). The specialisation characteristic of
manufacture is seen here clearly in the separation of the industrialists
from agriculture (the land is abandoned, on the one hand by the
impoverished weavers, and on the other by the big manufactory owners) and
in the formation of a special type of industrial population, who live much
more “decently” than do the agriculturists, and look down upon
the muzhik ( loc . cit ., 106). Our factory statistics have
always registered only a very casually selected fraction of this industry. [5]

The “galloon industry” in Moscow Gubernia is capitalist
manufacture organised in a quite analogous fashion. [6]

Such precisely is the case with regard to the printed calico industry in
Kamyshin Uyezd, Saratov Gubernia. According to the Directory for
1890, there were here 31 “factories” with 4,250 workers and
output totalling 265,000 rubles, while according to the List
there was one “work distributing office” with 33 workers in
the establishment and an output totalling 47,000 rubles. (In other words,
in 1890 workers employed in the establishment and on the side were lumped
together!) According to local investigators, in 1888 nearly 7,000 looms
were engaged in producing printed calico, [7] an output
totalling 2 million rubles, and “the whole business is run by a few manufacturers,” who employ
“handicraftsmen” too, including children of 6 and 7 years of
age for a payment of 7 to 8 kopeks per day ( Reports and Investigations , Vol. I). [8]

And so forth.

2) Other Branches of the Textile Industry. The Felt Trade.

To judge by official factory statistics, felt production shows a very poor
development of “capitalism”: in all European Russia there are
altogether 55 factories, with 1,212 workers and an output totalling
454,000 rubles ( Directory for 1890). But these figures merely
show a casually picked fragment of a widely developed capitalist
industry. Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia occupies first place for the
development of “factory” felt production, and in that gubernia
the principal centre of the industry is the town of Arzamas and the suburb
Viyezdnaya Sloboda (where there are 8 “factories” with 278
workers and an output totalling 120,000 rubles; in 1897 there were 3,221
inhabitants; and in the village of Krasnoye, 2,835). It is in the environs
of these centres that “handicraft” felt-making is developed,
in some 243 establishments, employing 935 workers, with an output
totalling 103,847 rubles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V). To illustrate clearly the economic organisation of
felt-making in this district, let us try the graphic method and indicate
by specific symbols the producers who occupy special places in the general
structure of the industry.

It is clear, therefore, that the separation of “factory” and
“handicraft” industry is purely artificial, that what we have
before us is a single and integral structure of industry which fully fits
into the concept of capitalist (approximately) [9] manufacture. [10]

From the technical aspect it is hand production. The organisation of the
work is that of co-operation based on division of labour, which is here
observed in two forms: as to wares (some villages specialise in plain
felt, others in boots, hats, socks, etc.), and as to individual operations (for example,
the whole village of Vasilyev Vrag shapes hats and socks for the
village of Krasnoye, where the semi-prepared article is finished,
etc.). This is capitalist co-operation, for it is headed by big capital,
which has created large manufactories and has brought under its sway (by
an intricate web of economic relations) a mass of small
establishments. The overwhelming majority of the producers have been
transformed into workers performing one operation and producing
for entrepreneurs under extremely insanitary conditions. [11]

The long standing of the industry and the fully established capitalist
relations result in the separation of the industrialists from agriculture:
in the village of Krasnoye agriculture is in utter ruin, and the life of
the inhabitants differs from that of the agricultural population. [12]

Quite analogous is the organisation of the felt industry in a number of
other districts. In 363 village communities of Semyonov Uyezd in the same
gubernia, the industry in 1889 was carried on by 3,180 households, with
4,038 persons working. Of 3,946 workers, only 752 worked for the market,
576 were wage-workers and 2,618 worked for masters on the basis, in
greater part, of using the latter’s materials; 189 households gave
out work to 1,805 households. The big owners have workshops with as many
as 25 wage-workers, and buy wool to a value of some 10,000 rubles per year. [13]

The big owners are called thousanders ; their turnover runs to from 5,000
to 100,000 rubles; they have their own wool warehouses, and their own
booths for the sale of wares. [14]

For
Kazan Gubernia the List gives 5 felt “factories,” with 122 workers and an output totalling 48,000 rubles, as well as 60
outside workers. Evidently the latter are also included among the
“handicraftsmen,” concerning whom we read that they often work
for “buyers-up” and that there are establishments having 60 workers. [15]

Of 29 felt “factories” in Kostroma Gubernia, 28 are concentrated in
Kineshma Uyezd, and have 593 workers employed in the establishments and
458 outside ( List , pp. 68-70; two of the enterprises have only
outside workers. Steam-engines already appear). From the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (XV) we learn that out of a total of
3,908 wool-carders and felt-makers in this gubernia, 2,008 are
concentrated in Kineshma Uyezd. The Kostroma felt-makers are in greater
part dependent or work for wages in extremely insanitary workshops. [16]

In
Kalyazin Uyezd, Tver Gubernia, we find, on the one hand, that home work is
done for “factory owners” ( List , 113), and, on the other, that precisely this uyezd is a centre of “handicraft”
felt-makers; as many as 3,000 of them come from this uyezd, passing
through the wasteland called “Zimnyak” (in the 60s it was the
site of Alexeyev’s cloth mill), and forming “an enormous
labour market of wool-carders and felt-makers.” [17]

In Yaroslavl Gubernia outside work for “factory owners is a]so done” ( List , 115) and there
are “handicraftsmen” who work for merchant proprietors, using
the latter’s wool, etc.

3) The Hat-and-Cap and Hemp-and-Rope Trades

Above we gave statistics for the hat industry of Moscow

Gubernia. [18]

They show that two-thirds of the total output and of the total number of
workers are concentrated in 18 establishments, which have an average of 15.6 wage-workers. [19]

The “handicraft” hat-makers perform only part of the hat-making operations: they make the shapes, which are sold to Moscow
merchants who have their own “finishing establishments”; on
the other hand, “clippers” (women who clip the down) work at
home for the “handicraft” hat-makers. Thus, all in all, we
find here capitalist co-operation based on division of labour and
entangled in a whole network of diverse forms of economic dependence. In
the centre of the industry (the village of Klenovo, Podolsk Uyezd) the
separation of the industrialists (mainly wage-workers) from agriculture [20] is
clearly to be seen, together with a rise in the level of the
population’s requirements: they live “more decently,” dress in calico and even in cloth, buy samovars, abandon ancient customs,
etc., thereby evoking the bitter complaints of the local admirers of old times. [21]

The new era even occasioned the appearance of migratory hat-makers.

A typical example of capitalist manufacture is the cap industry in the
village of Molvitino, Bui Uyezd, Kostroma

Gubernia. [22] “The principal . . . occupation in the village of Molvitino and in
. . . 36 hamlets is the cap industry.” Agriculture is being
abandoned. Since 1861 the industry has greatly developed; sewing-machines
have become widely used. In Molvitino 10 workshops are busy all year round
with 5 to 25 male and 1 to 5 female workers each. “The best workshop
. . . has a turnover of about 100,000 rubles per annum.” [23]

Work is also distributed to homes (for example, materials for the crowns
are made by women in their homes). Division of labour cripples the
workers, who work under the most insanitary conditions and usually
contract tuberculosis. The lengthy existence of the industry (for over 200
years) has produced highly skilled craftsmen; the Molvitino craftsmen are
known in the big cities and in the remote outer regions.

The centre of the hemp industry in the Medyn Uyezd, Kaluga Gubernia, is
the village of Polotnyani Zavod. This is a large village (according to the
census of 1897 it had 3,685 inhabitants) with a population that is
landless and highly industrial (over 1,000 “handicraftsmen”);
it is the centre of the “handicraft” industries of Medyn

Uyezd. [24]

The hemp industry is organised in the following way: the big proprietors (of whom
there are three, the biggest being Yerokhin) have workshops employing
wage-workers and circulating capital of more or less considerable
dimensions for purchasing raw materials. The hemp is combed in the
“factory,” spun by spinners in their homes, and twisted both
in the factory and in the home. It is warped in the factory and woven both
in the factory and in the home. In 1878 a total of 841 “handicraftsmen” was counted in the hemp industry; Yerokhin is
considered to be both a “handicraftsman” and a “factory
owner,” employing 94-64 workers in 1890 and in 1894-1895; according
to Reports and Investigations (Vol. II, p.187), “hundreds
of peasants” work for him.

In Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the rope industry is also centred in
non-agricultural industrial villages, Nizhni Izbylets and Verkhni Izbylets
in the Gorbatov

Uyezd. [25]

According to Mr. Karpov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII), the Gorbatov-Izbylets district is one large
rope-making area; part of the inhabitants of the town of Gorbatov are also
engaged in the industry, and the villages of Verkhni Izbylets and Nizhni
Izbylets are, in fact, “almost part of the town of Gorbatov”;
the inhabitants live like townspeople, drink tea every day, wear clothing
bought in the shops, and eat white bread. Altogether, as many as
two-thirds of the inhabitants of 32 villages are engaged in the industry,
a total of 4,701 working (2,096 men and 2,605 women) with an output of
about 1 1/2 million rubles. The industry has been in existence for nearly 200 years, and is now declining. It is organised as follows:
all work for 29 proprietors, using the latter’s materials, are paid
by the piece, are “totally dependent upon the proprietors” and
work from 14 to 15 hours a day. According to Zemstvo statistics (1889) the
industry employs 1,699 male workers (plus 558 females and males of
non-working age). Of 1,648 working only 197 work for sale, 1,340 work for proprietors [26] and 111 are wage-workers employed in the workshops of 58
proprietors. Of 1,288 allotment households, only 727, or a little over half, cultivate all their land themselves. Of
1,573 allotment-holding working persons, 306, or 19.4%, do not
engage in agriculture at all. Turning to the question as to who
these “proprietors” are, we must pass from the sphere of
“handicraft” industry to that of “factory” industry. According
to the List for 1894-95 there were two rope factories there, with 231 workers employed on the premises and 1,155
working outside, with an output totalling 423,000 rubles. Both
these establishments have installed motors (which they did not
have either in 1879 or in 1890), and we therefore clearly see
here the transition from capitalist manufacture to capitalist
machine industry, and the transformation of “handicraft” work
distributors and buyers-up into real factory owners.

In Perm Gubernia the handicraft census of 1894-95 registered 68 peasant
rope-and-string yards, with 343 workers (of whom 143 were hired) and an
output totalling 115,000 rubles. [27]

These small establishments are headed by big manufactories,
which are reckoned together, viz.: 6 owners employ 101 workers
(91 hired) and have an output totalling 81,000 rubles. [28]

The system of production in these big establishments may serve as the most
striking example of “serial manufacture” (as Marx calls it [89] ), i.e., the
sort of manufacture in which different workers perform different consecutive operations in working up the raw material: 1) hemp
scutching; 2) combing; 3) spinning; 4) coiling; 5) tarring; 6) winding on
drum; 7) passing threads through perforated board; 8) passing threads
through iron bush; 9) stranding of plaits, twisting and gathering of ropes. [29]

The organisation of the hemp industry in Orel Gubernia is evidently
similar: from among the considerable number of small peasant
establishments big manufactories emerge, principally in the towns, and are
included among the “factories and works” (according to the
Directory for 1890 there were in Orel Gubernia 100 hemp-scutching
factories, with 1,671 workers and an output totalling 795,000 rubles). The
peasants work in the hemp industry “for merchants” (probably
for the very same manufacturers), using the latter’s materials, at
piece rates, the work being divided up into special operations:
“scutchers” scutch the hemp; “spinners” spin it; “bearders” trim it, “wheelmen” turn the wheel. The
work is very hard; many contract consumption and “rupture.”
The dust is so thick that “unless accustomed you will not stay in it
for a quarter of an hour.” The work is done in ordinary sheds from
dawn to dusk, from May to

September. [30]

4) The Wood-Working Trades

The most typical example of capitalist manufacture in this sphere is the
chest-making industry. According to the data, for instance, of the Perm
investigators, “this industry is organised as follows: a few big
proprietors, owning workshops that employ wage-workers, purchase
materials, partly make the wares on their own premises, but mainly give
out material to small workshops making parts, and in their own shops
assemble them and, after finishing, send the ready article to
market. Division of labour . . . is employed on the job extensively: the making of the entire chest is divided into ten
or twelve operations, each separately performed by handicraftsmen. The
organisation of the industry consists in the combination of workers
performing one operation ( Teilarbeiter , as they are called in
Das Kapital ) under the command of capital .” [31]

This is heterogeneous manufacture ( heterogene Manufaktur , as Marx calls it [90] ), in which
the different workers do not perform consecutive operations in turning the
raw material into the product, but make the various parts of the product,
which are afterwards assembled. The preference of the capitalists for the
domestic work of “handicraftsmen” is to be explained partly by
the above mentioned character of manufacture, and partly (and mainly) by
the cheaper labour of the home workers. [32]

Let us observe that the relatively big workshops in this industry are sometimes
also included among “factories and works.” [33]

In all probability, the chest-making industry is organised similarly in
Vladimir Gubernia, in Murom Uyezd where, according to the List ,
there are 9 “factories” (all hand-operated), with 89 workers
on the premises and 11 outside, and an output totalling 69,810
rubles.

The carriage industry, in Perm Gubernia, for example, is organised on
similar lines: from among the mass of small establishments there emerge
assembly workshops employing wage-workers; the small handicraftsmen are
workers who make parts of the carriages both out of their own materials,
and out of materials supplied by the “buyers-up” (i.e., owners
of the assembly workshops.) [34]

We
read about the Poltava “handicraft” carriage builders that in
the suburb of Ardon there are workshops that employ wage-workers and also
distribute work to homes (the bigger masters having as many as 20 outside workers). [35]

In
Kazan Gubernia, division of labour as to wares is to be observed in the building of town carriages:
some villages specialise in sleighs, others in wheeled vehicles,
etc. “The town carriages, completely assembled in the villages (but
without the metal work, wheels or shafts), are sent to Kazan merchant
customers, who in turn send them to blacksmiths for the metal work. The
carriages are then sent back again to the shops and workshops in the town,
where they are finished off, i.e., are upholstered and painted. . . . Kazan, where town carriages were formerly iron-mounted,
gradually passed this work on to handicraftsmen, who work at home for a
smaller payment than do the town craftsmen....” [36]

Hence, capital prefers to distribute work to home workers because this reduces the cost of labour-power. The
organisation of the carriage industry, as is evident from the data quoted,
constitutes, in the majority of cases, a system of handicraftsmen making
parts, who are under the sway of capital.

The large industrial village of Vorontsovka, Pavlovsk Uyezd, Voronezh
Gubernia (9,541 inhabitants in 1897), constitutes, as it were, a single
manufactory of wooden articles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., Vol. IX, article by Rev. M. Popov). Over 800 houses
are engaged in the industry (as well as some households in the suburb of
Alexandrovka, which has over 5,000 inhabitants). They make carts,
tarantasses, wheels, chests, etc., to a total of about 267,000
rubles. Less than one-third are independent masters; hired workers in
masters’ workshops are rare. [37]

The majority work to order for peasant merchants at piece rates. The workers
are in debt to the proprietors and are worn out by arduous toil: the
people are growing feebler. The inhabitants of the suburb are industrial,
not of the rural type, and scarcely engage in agriculture at all (except
to work vegetable plots), since their allotments are miserably small. The
industry has been long in existence, diverting the population from agriculture and increasingly widening the
rift between the rich and the poor. The people subsist on meagre food;
they dress “more smartly than before,” “but beyond their
means,” in clothing that is entirely bought. “The population
has succumbed to the spirit of industry and trade.” “Nearly
all who have no craft carry on some trading. . . . Under the influence of
industry and trade, the peasant has, generally speaking, become more
unreserved, and this has made him more developed and resourceful.” [38]

The celebrated wooden-spoon industry of the Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, is close to capitalist manufacture in its
organisation. True, there are no big workshops standing out from among the
mass of small workshops and dominating them, but we find a deeply-rooted
division of labour and the complete subjection of the mass of part-job
workers to capital. Before it is ready, the spoon passes through no less
than 10 hands, the buyers-up getting some of the operations done by
specially hired workers or giving them out to specialist workers (for
example, for varnishing); some of the villages specialise in particular
operations (for example, the village of Dyakovo specialises in spoon
finishing to the order of the buyer-up, at piece rates; the villages of
Khvostikovo, Dianovo and Zhuzhelka specialise in varnishing, etc.). The
buyers-up purchase the timber wholesale in the Samara and other gubernias,
where they send parties of hired workers; they own warehouses for raw
material and manufactured goods, supply the most valuable material to
handicraftsmen for processing, etc. The mass of workers doing part jobs
merge into a single, complex mechanism of production, entirely under the
sway of capital. “It is all the same to the spoon-makers whether
they work for hire at the master’s cost and on his premises, or are
occupied in their own cottages, for in this industry, as in others,
everything has been weighed, measured and counted. The spoon-maker never
earns more than just enough to keep body and soul together.” [39]

It is quite natural that under such conditions the capitalists who dominate the whole trade are in no hurry to open their
own workshops, and the industry, based on hand skill and traditional
division of labour, stagnates in its seclusion and immobility. Tied to the
land, the “handicraftsmen” seem to have become petrified in
their routine: as in 1879, so in 1889, they still count money in the old
style, in banknotes and not in silver.

The toy industry in Moscow Gubernia is headed similarly by establishments
of the capitalist-manufactory type. [40]

Of 481 workshops, 20 have over 10 workers each. Division of labour, both as to
wares and as to individual operations, is practised on a very wide scale,
enormously raising the productivity of labour (at the cost of crippling
the worker). For example, it is estimated that a small workshop yields a
return of 26% of the selling price, and a big workshop, one of

58%. [41]

Of course, the fixed capital of the big proprietors is also much larger; technical
devices are met with (for example, drying sheds). The centre of the
industry is a non-agricultural township, the suburb of Sergiyevsky (where
there are 1,055 workers out of a total of 1,398, with an output to the
amount of 311,000 rubles out of a total of 405,000 rubles; the population,
according to the 1897 census, numbers 15,155). The author of the article
on this industry, referring to the prevalence of small workshops, etc.,
considers it more, but still not very, likely that the industry will
develop into manufacture rather than into factory industry. “In the
future, too,” he says, “the small producers will always be
able to compete more or less successfully with large-scale
production” ( loc . cit ., 93). The author forgets that in manufacture the technical basis is always the same hand-production
that obtains in the small industries; that the division of labour can
never be such a decisive advantage that it will entirely eliminate the small producers,
particularly if the latter resort to such means as lengthening the working
day, etc.; and that manufacture is never in a position to embrace the
whole of production, but remains a mere superstructure over the mass of
small establishments.

5) The Processing of Livestock Produce. [The Leather and Fur Trades]

The most extensive areas of the leather industry present particularly
striking examples of the complete merging of “handicraft” and
factory industry, examples of capitalist manufacture highly developed (in
depth and in breadth). What is characteristic is the fact that the
gubernias which are conspicuous for the size of their “factory” leather industry (Vyatka, Nizhni-Novgorod, Perm and
Tver) are marked by a particular development of “handicraft”
industries in this sphere.

In the village of Bogorodskoye, Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia,
there were, according to the Directory for 1890, 58 “factories” with 392 workers and an output totalling 547,000
rubles; according to the List for 1894-95 there were 119
“works,” with 1,499 workers on the premises and 205 outside,
and with an output totalling 934,000 rubles (the latter figures covering
only the processing of livestock produce, the principal local
industry). But these data deal only with the top levels of
capitalist manufacture. Mr. Karpov in 1879 computed in this village and
its environs over 296 establishments, with 5,669 workers (a large number
of whom worked at home for capitalists), and with an output totalling
about 1,490,000 rubles [42] in the following industries: tanning, shingle-gluing, basket-weaving (for packing
goods), harness-making, horse-collar-making, mitten-making and, standing
by itself, pottery. The Zemstvo census of 1889 listed 4,401 industrialists
for this district, and of 1,842 workers for whom detailed information is
given, 1,119 work for hire in other people’s workshops and 405 work
at home for masters. [43] “Bogorodskoye, with its population of 8,000, is a huge tannery in continuous operation.” [44]

To be more precise, it is a “serial” manufactory controlled by a few big capitalists who buy the raw materials,
tan the hides, and turn them into a variety of articles, hiring several
thousand absolutely propertyless workers for the job and ruling over the
small

establishments. [45]

This industry has had a very long existence, since the 17th century;
particularly memorable in the industry’s history are the Sheremetevs
(beginning of the 19th century), landlords who helped considerably to
develop the industry and, incidentally, protected the proletariat, which
came into existence here long ago, from the local rich. After 1861 the
industry greatly developed, and particularly did big establishments grow
at the expense of the small ones; centuries of industrial activity
produced from among the population remarkably skilled craftsmen who have
carried the trade all over Russia. The firmly-rooted capitalist relations
have led to the separation of industry from agriculture: hardly any
farming is done in Bogorodskoye village itself, which, on the contrary,
divorces neighbouring peasants who move into this “town” from
the

land. [46]

Mr. Karpov notes in this village “a complete absence of peasant
characteristics among the inhabitants,” so that “you would
never think you were in a village and not a town.” This village
leaves Gorbatov and all the other uyezd towns of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia
far behind, with the exception, perhaps, of Arzamas. It is “one of
the considerable commercial and industrial centres in the gubernia, and its industry and
commerce run into the millions.” “The radius of the industrial
and commercial influence of Bogorodskoye is very wide; but most closely
connected with the industry of Bogorodskoye is that of its environs within
a radius of 10 to 12 versts. These industrial environs are, as it were, a
continuation of Bogorodskoye itself.” “The inhabitants of
Bogorodskoye do not in the least resemble the ordinary, raw muzhiks: they
are artisans of the burgher type, shrewd, experienced people, who look
down on the peasants. The manner of life and the ethical standards of the
Bogorodskoye inhabitants are completely urban.” To this we must add
that the industrial villages of Gorbatov Uyezd are marked by a relatively
high level of literacy among the population. Thus, the percentage of
literate and student men and women is, in the villages of Pavlovo,
Bogorodskoye and Vorsma, 37.8% and 20% respectively, as against 21.5% and
4.4% in the rest of the uyezd (see Zemstvo statistical Material ).

Quite analogous (only on a smaller scale) are the relations in the
leather-processing industries of the villages of Katunki and Gorodets
(Balakhna Uyezd), Bolshoye Murashkino (Knyaginin Uyezd), Yurino (Vasil
Uyezd), and Tubanayevka, Spasskoye, Vatras and Latyshikha in the same
uyezd. These are similar non-agricultural centres with a
“ring” of surrounding agricultural villages, and with similar
diverse industries and numerous small establishments (and also workers in
the home) subordinated to big entrepreneurs, whose capitalist workshops
are occasionally included among “factories and works.” [47]

Without going into statistical details, which will provide nothing new
compared with what has already been said, let us merely quote the
following extremely interesting description of the village of

Katunki: [48] “A certain patriarchal simplicity in the relations between masters
and workmen, which, however, is not so noticeable at first sight and is, unfortunately (?), disappearing increasingly every year
. . . testifies to the handicraft character of the industries (?). It is
only recently that the factory character both of the industries and of the
population has begun to be observed, under the influence, in particular,
of the town, intercourse with which has been facilitated by the
inauguration of the steamboat service. Today the village looks like a
regular industrial township: there is no sign of agriculture whatever, the
houses are built close together as in the towns; the fine brick houses of
the rich, and alongside of them the miserable hovels of the poor; the long
wooden and brick buildings of the factories crowded in the middle of the
village — all this sharply distinguishes Katunki from the neighbouring
villages and clearly points to the industrial character of the local
population. The inhabitants themselves possess features of character that
also call to mind the type of “factory hand” who has already
taken shape in Russia: a certain showiness in house furniture, in clothes
and manners, spendthrift habits of life in most cases, and little care for
the morrow, a forwardness and often affectation in speech, a certain
superciliousness towards the country yokel — all these features are
possessed by them in common with all Russian factory people.” [49]

In the town of Arzamas, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the “factory” statistics listed in 1890 a total of 6 tanneries,
employing 64 workers ( Directory ); this is only a small fraction
of the capitalist manufacture which embraces the fur, boot-making and
other industries. The same factories employ workers in the home, both in
the town of Arzamas (in 1878, estimated at 400) and in 5 suburban
villages, where out of the 360 furrier households, 330 work for Arzamas
merchants, using their materials and working 14 hours a day for 6 to 9
rubles per month [50] ; that is why the furriers are pallid, feeble and degenerating folk. In the suburb of Viyezdnaya Sloboda, of the 600 boot-maker households, 500 work for
masters, from whom they receive the cut-out leather. The industry is of
long standing, being about 200 years old, and is still growing and
developing. The inhabitants hardly engage in agriculture at all; their
whole manner of life is purely urban, and they live “in grand
style.” The same applies to the furrier villages mentioned above,
the inhabitants of which “look down with disdain upon the peasant
and call him a ‘country bumpkin’.” [51]

We find exactly the same thing in Vyatka Gubernia. The Vyatka and
Slobodskoi uyezds are centres both of “factory” and of “handicraft” leather and fur trades. In the Vyatka Uyezd, the
handicraft tanneries are concentrated on the outskirts of the town and
“supplement” the industrial activities of the big works, [52] for
example, by working for the big owners; working for the latter also, in
the majority of cases, are the handicraft harness-makers and glue
makers. The fur factory owners have hundreds working for them in the home,
sewing sheepskins, etc. This is just a single capitalist manufactory with
branches: sheepskin dressing and sheepskin-coat-making, leather and
harness, etc. Still more striking are the relations existing in the
Slobodskoi Uyezd (the centre of the industries is the suburb of Demyanka);
here we see a small number of big factory owners [53] at the
head of handicraft tanners (numbering 870), boot- and mitten-makers (855),
sheepskin-dressers (940), and tailors (309 make short sheepskin coats to
order from capitalists). Generally speaking, such organisation of the
production of leather goods is evidently very widespread: thus, in the
town of Sarapul, Vyatka Gubernia, the List gives 6 tanneries,
also making footwear, which employ, in addition to 214 workers on the
premises, 1,080 outside workers (p. 495). What would become of our
“handicrafts men,” those representatives of “people’s” industry who are depicted in such bright hues by all sorts of Manilovs, if all the Russian
merchants and factory owners were to compute with equal detail and
precision the outside workers employed by them? [54]

Reference should be made here to the industrial village of Rasskazovo,
Tambov Uyezd, Tambov Gubernia (population in 1897 was 8,283), a centre
both of “factory” industry (cloth mills, soap-works, tanneries
and distilleries) and of “handicraft” industry, the latter
being closely connected with the former; and to the industries: tanning,
felt-making (as many as 70 masters, and establishments employing from 20
to 30 workers), glue-making, boot-making, stocking knitting (there is not
a household where stockings are not knit from wool that
“buyers-up” give out by weight), etc. Near this village is the
suburb of Belaya Polyana (300 households), celebrated for industries of
the same kind. In Morshansk Uyezd, the centre of the handicraft industries
is the village of Pokrovskoye-Vasilyevskoye, which is also the centre of
factory industry (see Directory and Reports and Investigations , Vol. III). In Kursk Gubernia, noteworthy as
industrial villages and centres of “handicraft” industries are
the suburbs: Veliko-Mikhailovka (Novy Oskol Uyezd; population in 1897 was
11,853), Borisovka (Graivoron Uyezd — 18,071 inhabitants), Tomarovka
(Belgorod Uyezd, 8,716 inhabitants), Miropolye (Sudzha Uyezd, over 10,000
inhabitants. See Reports and Investigations , Vol. I, Information
for 1888-1889). In the same villages you will also find leather
“works” (see Directory for 1890). The principal “handicraft” industry is leather and boot-making. It arose as far back as the first half of the 18th century and reached the peak of its
development in the 60s of the 19th century having become “a stable
organisation of a purely commercial character.” The whole business
was monopolised by contractors, who bought the leather and gave it out to
be processed by handicraftsmen. The railways destroyed this monopoly
character of capital, and the capitalist contractors transferred their
capital to more profitable undertakings. Today it is organised as follows:
there are about 120 big entrepreneurs; they own workshops where
wage-workers are employed, and also distribute work to homes; there are as
many as 3,000 small independent masters (who, however, buy their leather
from the big ones); there are 400 people who work at home (for the big
masters), and as many wage-workers; then there are the apprentices. The
total number of boot-makers is over 4,000. In addition, there are
handicraft potters, icon-case makers, icon painters, table-cloth weavers,
etc.

A highly characteristic and typical example of capitalist manufacture is
the squirrel-fur industry in Kargopol Uyezd, Olonets Gubernia, described
with such knowledge of the facts, and with truthful and artless
presentation of the whole life of the industrial population by a craftsman
and teacher in the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission
(Vol. IV). According to his description (in 1878), the industry has
existed since the beginning of the 19th century: 8 masters employ 175
workers, in addition to which they have as many as 1,000 seamstresses and
some 35 families of furriers working for them at home (in different
villages), 1,300 to 1,500 persons in all, with an output totalling 336,000
rubles. As a point of interest, it should be noted that when this was a
flourishing industry it was not included in the “factory”
statistics. The Directory for 1879 makes no mention of it. But
when it began to decline the statistics included it. The
Directory for 1890 listed for the town and the uyezd of Kargopol
7 works, with 121 workers and an output totalling 50,000 rubles, whereas
the List gave 5 works, with 79 workers (plus 57 outside) and an
output totalling 49,000 rubles. [55]

The order of things prevailing in this branch of capitalist manufacture is very instructive as a specimen of what goes on
in our age-old, purely native “handicraft industries,” that
have been left stranded in one of Russia’s numerous rural
backwoods. The craftsmen work 15 hours a day in a very unhealthy
atmosphere and earn 8 rubles per month, less than 60 or 70 rubles per
year. The masters’ incomes amount to about 5,000 rubles per
annum. The relations between masters and workers are “patriarchal”: according to ancient custom, the master gives
the workers kvass and salt gratis, which they have to beg from his
cook. As a mark of gratitude to the master (for “giving” them
work) the workers come, without pay, to pull squirrel tails, and also
clean furs after work. The workers live in the workshop all the week, and
the masters knock them about, seemingly in a joke (p. 218,
loc . cit .), make them do all sorts of jobs, such as raking hay, shovelling snow, fetching water, rinsing clothes, etc. Labour
is astonishingly cheap in Kargopol itself, and the peasants in the
vicinity “are ready to work for next to nothing.” Work is done
by hand, there is systematic division of labour, and there is a lengthy
apprenticeship (8 to 12 years); the lot of the apprentices can easily be
imagined.

6) The Remaining Livestock Processing Trades

A particularly noteworthy example of capitalist manufacture is the
celebrated boot industry of the village of Kimry, Korcheva Uyezd, Tver
Gubernia, and its environs. [56]

The industry is a very old one, having existed since the 16th
century. Since the Reform, it has continued to grow and develop. In the
early 70s Pletnev counted 4 volosts in the area covered by this industry,
but in 1888 the area included 9 volosts. Basically the organisation of the
industry is as follows. It is headed by the owners of big workshops
employing wage-workers; they distribute the cut-out leather to be made up
by outside workers. Mr. Pletnev counted 20 such masters, employing 124
adults and 60 boys, with an output totalling 818,000 rubles, while the
number of workers occupied at home for these capitalists is estimated by
the author approximately at 1,769 adults and 1,833 boys. Then come the
small masters, each with 1 to 5 wage-workers and 1 to 3 boys. These
masters dispose of their goods mainly in the village market in Kimry; they
number 224 and have 460 adults and 301 boys working for them; output
totals 187,000 rubles. Hence, there are 244 masters altogether, employing
2,353 adults (of whom 1,769 work at home) and 2,194 boys (of whom 1,833
work at home), with an output totalling 1,005,000 rubles. Further, there
are workshops which do various individual operations: currying
(skin-cleaning with scraper); chipping (gluing of chips left from
currying); special carting (4 masters, with 16 employees and up to 50 horses); special
carpentry (box-making), etc. [57]

Pletnev calculated the total output at 4.7 million rubles for the whole
district. In 1881 the number of handicraftsmen was computed at 10,638, and
with migrants, 26,000, with an output totalling 3.7 million rubles. As to
conditions of labour, it is important to note the excessively long working day (14 to
15 hours) and the extremely insanitary working conditions, payment in
goods, etc. The centre of the industry, Kimry village, “is more like
a small town” ( Reports and Investigations , I, 224); the
inhabitants are poor agriculturists, and are engaged in their industry all
the year round; only the rural handicraftsmen give up the industry during
haymaking. The houses in Kimry village are urban, and the inhabitants are
distinguished for their urban habits of life (such as “showiness”). Until very recently this industry was not
included in “factory” statistics, probably because the masters
“readily style themselves handicraftsmen” ( ibid ., 228). The List has for the first time included 6 boot workshops
in Kimry district, with 15 to 40 workers each on the premises, and with no
outside workers. Of course, it contains no end of gaps.

Manufacture also includes the button industry of Moscow Gubernia,
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds — the making of buttons from hoofs and
rams’ horns. Engaged in this industry are 487 workers, employed in
52 establishments; the output totals 264,000 rubles. Establishments with
fewer than 5 employees number 16; those with 5 to 10 — 26; those with 10
and more — 10. Masters who do without wage-workers number only 10; these
work for big masters, using the latter’s materials. Only the big
industrialists (who, as is evident from the figures given, should have
from 17 to 21 workers per establishment) are quite independent. It is
they, evidently, who figure in the Directory as “factory
owners” (see p. 291: 2 establishments with an output totalling 4,000
rubles and with 73 workers). This is “serial manufacture”; the
horns are first steamed in what is called the “smithy” (a
wooden hut with a furnace); then they are passed on to the
workshop where they are cut up, after which they go to a stamping
press, where the pattern is imprinted, and, lastly, are finished and
polished on lathes. The industry has its apprentices. The working day is
14 hours. Payment in goods is a regular thing. The relations between
masters and men are patriarchal, as seen in the following: the master
calls the workers “boys,” and the pay-book is called the
“boys’ book”; when the master pays the workers, he lectures them and never grants in full their
“requests” for payment.

The horn industry, which is included in our table of small industries
(Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 31 and 33), is also of the same
type. “Handicraftsmen” employing dozens of wage-workers figure
also in the Directory as “factory owners” (p. 291). Division
of labour is practised; work is also given out to home workers (horn
trimmers). The centre of the industry in Bogorodsk Uyezd is the big
village of Khoteichi, where agriculture is receding into the background
(population in 1897 was 2,494). The Moscow Zemstvo publication stated
quite rightly: Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd ,
Moscow Gubernia , in 1890 , that this village “ is nothing but a large comb manufactory ” (p. 24,
our italics). In 1890, over 500 industrialists were counted in this
village, with an output of from 3.5 to 5.5 million combs. “More
often than not, the horn dealer is also a buyer-up of finished goods, and
in many cases a big comb-maker as well.” The position of those
makers who are compelled to take horns “at piece rates” is
particularly bad: “their position is actually worse than that of the
wage-workers in the big establishments.” Dire need compels them to
exploit the labour of their whole families beyond measure, to lengthen their working day and to put juveniles to work. “During the
winter, work in Khoteichi starts at one o’clock in the morning, and
it is hard to say for certain when it ends in the cottage of the
‘independent’ craftsman doing ‘piece-work.’”
Payment in goods is widely practised. “This system, eliminated with
such difficulty from the factories, is still in full force in the small
handicraft establishments” (27). Probably, the horn goods industry
is organised on similar lines in Kadnikov Uyezd, Vologda Gubernia, in the
area of Ustye village (known as “Ustyanshchina”), where there
are 58 hamlets. Mr. V. Borisov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX) counts 388 handicraftsmen here, with an output
totalling 45,000 rubles; all the handicraftsmen work for capitalists, who
buy horns in St. Petersburg and tortoise-shell abroad.

At the head of the brush industry in Moscow Gubernia (see Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industry No. 20) we find big establishments with a large number
of wage-workers and with systematic division of labour. [58]

It is interesting to note at this point the changes that took place in the
organisation of this industry between 1879 and 1895 (see Moscow Zemstvo
publication: The Brush Industry According to the Investigation of 1895 ). Some well-to-do industrialists went to Moscow to carry on the
industry there. The number of industrialists increased 70%, the increase
being particularly large in the number of women (+170%) and girls
(+159%). The number of big workshops with wage-workers diminished: the
proportion of establishments with wage-workers dropped from 62% to
39%. This was due to the fact that the masters began to distribute work to be done in the home . The introduction into general use of the
drilling machine (for making holes in brush blocks) accelerated and
facilitated one of the main processes in brushmaking. The demand for
“setters” (craftsmen who “set” bristle in the block) increased; and this operation, which became increasingly
specialised, fell to the lot of women, their labour being cheaper. The
women began to work at home setting bristle, and were paid by the
piece. Thus, the growing resort to domestic industry was caused in this
case by progress in technique (drilling machine), progress in division of
labour (the women do nothing but set bristle), and progress in capitalist
exploitation (the labour of women and girls being cheaper). This example
shows very clearly that domestic industry by no means eliminates the concept of capitalist manufacture , but, on the contrary, is sometimes
even a sign of its further development .

7) The Processing of Mineral Products

In the section relating to ceramics we get an example of capitalist
manufacture in the industries of the Gzhel district (an area of 25 villages
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds, Moscow Gubernia). The relevant
statistics are given in our table of small industries (Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industries Nos. 15, 28 and 37). From these data it is evident that despite the enormous differences between the three Gzhel industries:
pottery, porcelain and decorative, these differences disappear as we pass
from one grade of establishment to another in each industry, and we get a
series of workshops of successively increasing dimensions. Here are the
average numbers of workers per establishment according to grade in these
three industries: 2.4 — 4.3 — 8.4 — 4.4. — 7.9 — 13.5 — 18 — 69 —
226.4. In other words, the workshops range from the very smallest to the
very biggest. There is no doubt that the big establishments belong to the
category of capitalist manufacture (inasmuch as they have not introduced
machines, have not developed into factories); what is important, however,
is not only this, but also that the small establishments are connected with the big ones ; that we have a single system of industry
here and not separate workshops of one or other type of economic
organisation. “Gzhel constitutes a single economic whole”
(Isayev, loc . cit ., 138), and the big workshops in the
district have grown slowly and gradually out of the small ones
( ibid ., 121). The work is done by hand, [59] with considerable division of labour : among the potters we find wheel
hands (specialising in different sorts of pottery), kilnmen, etc., and
sometimes special workers for preparing colours. In the manufacture of
porcelain-ware division of labour is extremely detailed: crushers, wheel
hands, feeders, kilnmen, decorators, etc. The wheel hands even specialise
in the various kinds of porcelain ware (cf. Isayev, loc . cit ., 140: in one case division of labour increases
productivity of labour by 25%). The decorators’ shops work for the
porcelain makers and are, therefore, only departments of the
latter’s manufactories, performing a special detailed operation. It
is characteristic of developed capitalist manufacture that physical
strength itself becomes a specialty. Thus, in Gzhel, some of the villages
are engaged (almost to a man) in clay digging; for heavy work not requiring special
skill (grinding), workers from the Tula and Ryazan gubernias are employed
almost exclusively, being superior in strength and vigour to the not very
robust Gzhelians. Payment in goods is widely practised. Agriculture is in
a bad way. “The Gzhelians are a degenerating race” (Isayev,
168) — weak-chested, narrow-shouldered, feeble; the decorators lose their
sight at an early age, etc. Capitalist division of labour breaks up the
worker and deforms him. The working day is from 12 to 13 hours.

8) The Metal Trades. The Pavlovo Industries

The celebrated Pavlovo lock and cutlery industries cover the whole of
Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, and Murom Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. These industries originated very long ago. Smirnov states that
as far back as 1621 there were (according to the cadastres [91] ) 11
smithies in Pavlovo. By the middle of the 19th century these industries
constituted a far-flung network of fully developed capitalist
relations. After the Reform, the industries in this district continued to
develop and expand. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889, in Gorbatov
Uyezd 13 volosts and 119 villages were engaged in industry; a total of
5,953 households, 6,570 male workers (54% of the total number working in
these villages) and 2,741 old men, juveniles and women, 9,311 persons in
all. In the Murom Uyezd, Mr. Grigoryev in 1881 registered 6 industrial
volosts, 66 villages, 1,545 households and 2,205 male workers (39% of the
total number working in these villages). Not only were large,
non-agricultural industrial villages formed (Pavlovo, Vorsma), but even
the surrounding peasants were diverted from agriculture: outside of
Pavlovo and Vorsma, in Gorbatov Uyezd, 4,492 persons were engaged in
industries, of whom 2,357, or more than half did not engage in
agriculture. Life in centres like Pavlovo has become quite urban and has
given rise to incomparably more developed requirements, more cultured
environment, clothes, manner of life, etc., than among the surrounding
“raw”

peasants. [60]

Turning to the economic organisation of the Pavlovo industries, we must
first of all note the indubitable fact that the “handicraftsmen” are headed by the most typical capitalist
manufactories. For example, in the Zavyalovs’ establishment (which
already in the 60s employed over 100 workers at the bench and has now
introduced a steam engine) a penknife passes through 8 or 9 hands: the
forger, blade-maker, handle-maker (usually an outside worker), hardener,
facer, polisher, finisher, grinder and marker. This is extensive
capitalist co-operation based on division of labour, with a considerable
number of the workers performing individual operations employed at home
and not in the capitalist’s workshop. Here are facts given by
Mr. Labzin (in 1866) on the bigger establishments in the villages of
Pavlovo, Vorsma and Vacha, covering all branches of production in this
district: 15 proprietors had 500 workers occupied on the premises and
1,134 workers outside, making a total of 1,634, with an output totalling
351,700 rubles. How far this description of economic relations is
applicable to the whole district at the present time may be seen from the
following data [61] :

Thus, the organisation of the industry as outlined by us prevails in all
the districts. All in all, about three-fifths of the total number
of workers are employed capitalistically. Here too, consequently, we find
manufacture predominating in the general structure of the industry [62] and
holding masses of workers under its sway, without, however, being able to
eradicate small production. The relative tenacity of the latter is fully
explained, firstly, by the fact that in some branches of the Pavlovo
industry mechanised production has not yet been introduced at all (for
instance, in lock-making); and, secondly, by the fact that the small
producer tries to save himself from sinking by resorting to means that
cause him to sink far lower than the wage-worker. These means are:
lengthening the working day, and reducing the standard of living and of
general requirements. “The earnings of the group of handicraftsmen
who work for proprietors are less subject to fluctuation”
(Grigoryev, loc . cit ., 65); at Zavyalovs’, for example, the lowest-paid worker is the handle-maker; “he works at
home, and that is why he is satisfied with lower earnings” (68). The
handicraftsmen who work “for factory owners” are “able to earn somewhat more than the average earnings of the one who takes his
products to the market. Larger earnings are particularly noticeable among
the workers who live in the factories” (70). [63]

The working day in the “factories” is from 14 1/2 to 15 hours,
with a maximum of 16 hours. “The working day of the home-working
handicraftsmen, on the other hand, is never less than 17 hours and
sometimes as much as 18 and even 19 hours” ( ibid .). It
would not be in the least surprising if the law of June 2, 1897 [92] caused an
increase here in home-work; it is high time these “handicraftsmen” directed their efforts towards compelling the
proprietors to organise factories! Let the reader also recall the
notorious Pavlovo “loan-purchase,” “exchange,” “wife-pawning” and similar forms of bondage and personal
degradation which grind down the quasi-independent small producer. [64]

Fortunately, rapidly developing large-scale machine industry does not so
readily tolerate these worst forms of exploitation as manufacture
does. Running ahead a little, let us quote data on the growth of factory
production in this district. [65]

We thus see that ever-increasing numbers of workers are being drawn into
large establishments, which are going over to the use of machines. [66]

9) Other Metal Trades

The industries of Bezvodnoye village, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia and Uyezd
also come under the head of capitalist manufacture. This is also an
industrial village, the majority of whose inhabitants do not engage in
agriculture at all, and which serves as the centre of an industrial area
of several villages. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889
( Material , Vol. VIII, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1895), in the Bezvodnoye
Volost (581 households) 67.3% of the households cultivated no land, 78.3%
had no horses, 82.4% engaged in industries, and 57.7% had literate persons
and schoolchildren in the family (as against an average for the uyezd of
44.6%). The Bezvodnoye industries are devoted to the production of various
metal goods: chains, fish-hooks, and metal fabrics; the output was
estimated at 2 1/2 million rubles in

1883 [67] and 1 1/2 million rubles in

1888-89. [68]

The organisation of the industry is as follows: work for proprietors, using
their materials, which is distributed among a number of workers performing
single operations and done partly in the employers’ workshops and
partly in the home. For example, in the making of fish-hooks the various
operations are performed by “benders,” “cutters” (who work in a special shed) and “pointers” (women and
children who sharpen the hook-points in their homes); all these work at
piece rates for the capitalist, while the bender gives out work on his own
account to the cutters and pointers. “Metal wire is now done by
horse-driven windlasses; formerly the wire was drawn by blind men, who
were brought here in large numbers. . . .” One of the “specialities” of capitalist manufacture! “The
conditions under which this work is done differ very much from those in
all the other trades.

People have to work in a stifling atmosphere filled with the harmful
vapours emanating from accumulated horse dung.” [69]

Organised on the same lines of capitalist manufacture are the screen, [70] the pin, [71] and the gold-thread industries. [72]

In the last-named industry at the beginning of the 80s there were 66 establishments, employing 670 workers (of
whom 79% were hired), with an output totalling 368,500 rubles;
some of these capitalist establishments were occasionally also
included among the “factories and works.” [73]

The locksmith industries of the Burmakino Volost (and surrounding volosts)
of Yaroslavl Gubernia and Uyezd are probably organised on the same
lines. At all events, here we observe the same division of labour
(blacksmiths, blowers and locksmiths), the same extensive development of
wage-labour (of 307 smithies in the Burmakino Volost, 231 employ
wage-workers), the same predominance of big capital over all these detail
workers (the buyers-up are at the top; the blacksmiths work for them, and
the locksmiths for the blacksmiths), the same combination of the buying up
of wares with the production of wares in capitalist workshops, some of
which are occasionally included among the “factories and works.” [74]

In the appendix to the preceding chapter, statistics were given on the
tray and the copper industries [75] of Moscow Gubernia (the latter in the district known as
“Zagarye”). The data show that wage-labour plays a predominant
part in these industries, that the industries are headed by large
workshops employing an average of from 18 to 23 wage-workers per
establishment, with an average output of from

16,000 to 17,000 rubles. If we add to this that division of labour is very
widely practised here, [76] it will be clear that what we have is capitalist manufacture. [77] “The small industrial units, which are an anomaly under the existing
conditions of technique and division of labour, can only hold out
alongside the big workshops by lengthening the working day to the utmost” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., p. 33) — among the tray-makers, for example, for as long as 19 hours. The ordinary working day
here is from 13 to 15 hours; with the small proprietors it is
from 16 to 17 hours. Payment in goods is widely practised (both
in 1876 and in

1890). [78]

Let us add that the lengthy existence of this industry (it arose at the beginning
of the 19th century, at the latest) and extensive specialisation have, in
this case too, produced highly skilled workers; the Zagarians are famed
for their craftsmanship. Specialities have also sprung up in the industry
which need no preliminary training and are within the grasp of even
under-age workers. “This very possibility,” Mr. Isayev rightly
observes, “of becoming an under-age worker at once and acquiring a
trade, as it were, without having to study, indicates that the handicraft
spirit, which demands the training of labour-power, is disappearing; the
simplicity of many of the detailed operations is a symptom of the
transition of handicraft to manufacture” ( loc . cit ., 34). Let us only observe that to a certain
degree the “handicraft spirit” always remains in manufacture,
for its basis is the same hand production.

10) The Jewellery, Samovar and Accordion Trades

The village of Krasnoye, Kostroma Gubernia and Uyezd, is one of the
industrial villages usually held up as centres of our “people’s” capitalist manufacture. This large village
(in 1897 it had 2,612 inhabitants) is purely urban in character; the
inhabitants live like townspeople and (with very few exceptions) do not
engage in agriculture. Krasnoye is the centre of the jewellery industry
which covers 4 volosts and 51 villages (including Sidorovskoye Volost of
Nerekhta Uyezd), and in them 735 households and about 1,706 workers. [79] “The principal representatives of industry,” said Mr. Tillo,
“are undoubtedly the big industrialists of the village of Krasnoye:
the Pushilovs, Mazovs, Sorokins, Chulkovs and other merchants. They buy
materials (gold, silver and copper), employ craftsmen, buy up finished
articles, distribute orders for work to be done in the home, supply
samples, etc.” (2043). The big industrialists have their workshops,
so-called “rabotorni” (laboratories), where the metal is
smelted and forged, then to be given out for finishing to
“handicraftsmen”; they have technical appliances, such as
“pretsi” (presses and dies for stamping), “punches” (for embossing designs), “rollers” (for
stretching the metal), benches, etc. Division of labour is widely
practised: “Nearly every article passes through several hands in an
established order in the course of manufacture. For example, in the making
of ear-rings, the master industrialist first sends the silver to his own
workshop, where part of it is rolled and part drawn into wire; then on
receipt of an order the material is given to a craftsman who, if he has a
family, divides the work among several persons; one uses a punch to cut
the silver plates into the shapes for the ear-rings, another bends the
wire into the rings with which the ear-rings are attached to the ears, a third solders these parts, and, lastly, a fourth polishes
the finished ear-rings. None of this work is difficult, or requires much
training; very often the soldering and the polishing are done by women and
by children of 7 or 8 years of age” (2041). [80]

Here, too, the working day is excessively long, usually as much as 16
hours. Payment in provisions is common.

The following statistics (published quite recently by a local assay
inspector) clearly illustrate the economic structure of the industry: [93] “Both the first groups (about two-thirds of the total number of
craftsmen) should be classed as home-working factory workers rather than
as handicraftsmen.” In the top group “wage-labour occurs more
and more frequently. . . . The craftsmen have begun to buy articles made
by others”; in the upper strata of this group “buying-up predominates,” and “four of the buyers-up have no workshops at all.” [81]

The samovar and accordion industries in Tula town and environs are highly
typical examples of capitalist manufacture. Generally speaking, the
“handicraft” industries in this district have a long history,
dating back to the 15th century. [82]

They evidenced a particularly rapid development in the middle of the 17th
century; Mr. Borisov considers that the second period in the development
of the Tula industries then began. In 1637 the first iron foundry was
built (by the Dutchman Vinius). The Tula gunsmiths formed a separate
smiths’ suburb, constituted a separate social estate, enjoying
special rights and privileges. In 1696 the first iron foundry was erected
in Tula by a famous Tula blacksmith, and the industry spread to the Urals
and

Siberia. [83]

Then began the third period in the history of the Tula industries. The
craftsmen set up their own workshops and taught the trade to surrounding
peasants. In the 1810s and 1820s the first samovar factories were
started. “By 1825 there were in Tula 43 different factories that
belonged to gunsmiths, while those in existence at the present time nearly
all belong to one-time gunsmiths, now Tula merchants” ( loc . cit ., 2262). Here, consequently, we observe a
direct continuity and connection between the old guild masters and the
principals of subsequent capitalist manufacture. In 1864 the Tula
gunsmiths were freed from serf dependence [94] and assigned to the burgher estate; earnings dropped as a consequence of the
severe competition of the village handicraftsmen (which caused a reverse
flow of industrialists from town to country); the workers turned to the
samovar, lock, cutlery, and accordion industries (the first Tula
accordions appeared in 1830-1835).

The samovar industry is at present organised as follows. It is headed by
big capitalists who own workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers, but they also distribute many separate
operations to be done by workers, urban and rural, in their homes; those
who perform these operations sometimes still have their own workshops and
employ wage-workers. Naturally, side by side with the big there are small
workshops, with all the consecutive stages of dependence upon the
capitalists. Division of labour is the general basis of the whole
structure of this trade. The process of samovar-making is divided into the
following separate operations: 1) rolling the copper sheets into tubes
(tubing); 2) soldering the tubes; 3) filing the seams; 4) fitting the
bottoms; 5) beating out the shapes; 6) cleaning the insides: 7) turning
the bodies and necks; 8) plating; 9) press-punching the vents in the
bottoms and the covers; 10) assembling the samovars. Further, there are
the separate processes of casting the small copper parts: a) preparing the
moulds and b)

casting. [84]

Where work is given out to be done in the home, each of these operations may
constitute a special “handicraft” industry. One of these
“industries” was described by Mr. Borisov in Vol. VII of the
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission . This industry (samovar
tubing) consists in peasants doing at piece rates one of the operations we
have described, using merchants’ materials. The handicraftsmen left
Tula town to work in the countryside after 1861; the cost of living and
standard of requirements were lower in the countryside ( loc . cit ., p. 893). Mr. Borisov quite rightly
attributes this tenacity of the “handicraftsman” to the
retention of hand-labour in the beating out of samovars; “it will
always be profitable for the manufacturer to employ the village
handicraftsman, because he works at from 10 to 20% below the rate of the
urban artisan” (916).

Mr. Borisov estimated the value of the output of samovars in 1882 at
approximately 5 million rubles, the number of workers (handicraftsmen
included) totalling from 4,000 to 5,000. In this case also the factory
statistics cover only a fraction of capitalist manufacture. The Directory for 1879
counted in Tula Gubernia 53 samovar “factories” (all hand-operated) with 1,479 workers and an output totalling 836,000
rubles. The Directory for 1890 gives 162 factories, 2,175
workers, and an output of 1.1 million rubles; the list of firms, however,
contains only 50 factories (1 steam operated), with 1,326 workers and an
output totalling 698,000 rubles. Evidently, some hundred small
establishments were in this case classed as “factories.”
Lastly, the List gives the following for 1894-95: 25 factories (4
steam-operated), 1,202 workers (+ 607 outside), and an output totalling
1,613,000 rubles. In these data neither the number of factories nor the
number of workers are comparable (for the reason given above, and also
because of the lumping together in previous years of workers on the
premises and outside). The only thing beyond doubt is that manufacture is
being steadily displaced by large-scale machine industry: in 1879, there
were 2 factories with 100 and more workers; in 1890 there were 2 (one
steam-operated) and in 1894-95 there were 4 (three steam-operated). [85]

The accordion industry, which is at a lower stage of economic development,
is organised in precisely the same way. [86] “In the making of accordions there are
over ten separate trades” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, 236); the making of the different parts of an
accordion or the performance of some of the operations constitute
separate, quasi-independent “handicraft” industries. “When things are quiet all the handicraftsmen work for factories or for more or less big workshops, the owners of which
supply them with materials; when, however, there is a brisk demand for
accordions, a large number of small producers appear, who buy up parts
from the handicraftsmen, assemble them and take the finished articles to
the local shops where accordions are very readily purchased”
( ibid .). Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated from 2,000 to 3,000
workers in this industry, with an output totalling about 4 million rubles;
factory statistics in 1879 showed two “factories,” with 22
workers and an output totalling 5,000 rubles; in 1890, 19 factories, with
275 workers and an output totalling 82,000 rubles; in 1894-95 one factory,
with 23 workers (plus 17 outside) and an output totalling 20,000 rubles. [87]

Steam-engines are not employed at all. All these figure variations
indicate a purely haphazard picking of individual establishments which are
component parts of the complex organism of capitalist manufacture.

---
Notes:
[1]
Cf. Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VII, Pt. III
(Moscow, 1883), pp. 63-64.— Lenin

[2]
For a list of the most important towns of this type, see next chapter.— Lenin

[3]
Examples of such confusion will be given in the next chapter.— Lenin

[4]
See Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III. It would be impossible
and superfluous to give detailed data on all the weaving industries
described in the literature on our handicraft industry. Moreover, in the
majority of these industries the factory now reigns supreme. On the
subject of “handicraft weaving” see also Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vols. VI and VII. — Transactions of the Handicraft Commission — Material on Hand-Labour Statistics . [95]
— Reports and Investigations . — Korsak, loc . cit .— Lenin

[5]
The Military Statistical Abstract managed to count in Vladimir
Gubernia, in 1866, 98 silk factories (!) with 98 workers and a total
output of 4,000 rubles(!). The Directory for 1890 gives 35
factories, 2,112 workers, and 936,000 rubles. According to the
List for 1894-95 there were 98 factories, 2,281 workers, with an
output of 1,918,000 rubles, and in addition, 2,477 workers “outside
of establishments, on the side.” Just try to distinguish
“handicraftsmen” here from “factory workers”!— Lenin

[6]
According to the Directory for 1890 there were outside of Moscow
10 galloon factories, with 303 workers and an output totalling 58,000
rubles. But according to Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia
(Vol. VI, Pt. II), there were 400 establishments, with 2,619 workers (of
whom 72.8% were wage-workers) and with an output totalling 963,000 rubles.— Lenin

[7]
The Collection of Factory Inspectors’ Reports for 1903 (St. Petersburg, 1906) states that in Saratov Gubernia there were 33
distributing offices with 10,000 workers. ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[8]
The centre of this industry is Sosnovka Volost, where the Zemstvo census
of 1886 counted 4,626 households, with a population of 38,000 persons of
both sexes; 291 industrial establishments. Altogether in the volost 10% of
the households were houseless (as against 6.2% in the uyezd), and 44.5% of
the households cultivated on land (as against 22.8% in the uyezd). See
Statistical Returns for Saratou Gubernia , Vol. XI. — Capitalist
manufacture has, consequently, created industrial centres here too which
divorce the workers from the land.— Lenin

[9]
The sources are shown in the text. The number of establishments is about
half the number of independent workers (52 establishments in Vasilyev
Vrag, 5 + 55 + 110 in Krasnoye village and 21 establishments in the 4
small villages). On the other hand, the figures for the town of Arzamas
and Viyezdnaya Sloboda stands for the number of “factories,”
and not of workers.— Lenin

[10]
Let us note that the diagram given is typical of all Russian industries
organised on the lines of capitalist manufacture: everywhere at the head
of the industry we find big establishments (sometimes classed among
“factories and works”), and a mass of small establishments
completely under their sway — in a word, capitalist co-operation based on
division of labour and hand production. Non-agricultural centres are
formed by manufacture in exactly the same way, not only here, but also in
the majority of other industries.— Lenin

[11]
They are naked as they work in a temperature of 22° to 24°
Réaumur. The air is full of fine and also coarse dust, wool and
other stuff. The floors in the “factories” are earthen (in the
washing sheds of all places), etc.— Lenin

[12]
It is not without interest to note here the specific jargon of the
inhabitants of Krasnoye; this is characteristic of the territorial
isolation peculiar to manufacture. “In the village of Krasnoye
factories are given the Matroisk name of povarnyas (lit. kitchens — Ed .). . . . Matroisk is one of the
numerous branches of the Ophen dialect, the three main branches of which
are Ophen proper, spoken mainly in Vladimir Gubernia; Galivon , in Kostroma Gubernia; and Matroisk , in the
Nizhni-Novgorod and Vladimir gubernias” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V, p 465). Only large-scale machine industry
completely destroys the local character of social ties and replaces them
by national (and international) ties.— Lenin

[13]
Material for Evaluation of the Lands of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia ,
Vol. XI, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1893, pp. 211-214.— Lenin

[14]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , VI.— Lenin

[15]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[16]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II.— Lenin

[17]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II, p. 271.— Lenin

[18]
See Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 27.— Lenin

[19]
Some of these establishments were occasionally included among
“factories and works.” See, for example, the
Directory for 1879, p.126.— Lenin

[20]
See above, Chapter V, § VII.— Lenin

[21]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , IV, Pt.I, pp. 282-287.— Lenin

[22]
See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, and
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[23]
By some accident, such workshops have not yet been included among
“factories and works.”— Lenin

[24]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , II.— Lenin

[25]
According to Zemstvo statistics (Vol. VII of Material ,
Nizhni-Novgorod, 1892) in these villages in 1889 there were 341 and 119
households, numbering respectively 1,277 and 540 persons of both
sexes. There were 253 and 103 allotment households. Households
participating in industries numbered 284 and 91, of which 257 and 32 did
not engage in agriculture. There were 218 and 51 horseless
households. Those leasing their allotments numbered 237 and 53.— Lenin

[26]
Cf. Nizhni-Novgorod Handbook , Vol IV, article by Rev. Roslavlev.— Lenin

[27]
Sketch of Condition of Handicraft Industry in Perm Gubernia ,
p. 158; in the table totals there is a mistake or a misprint.— Lenin

[28]
Ibid ., pp. 40 and 188 of table. To all appearances these same
establishments also figure in the List , p. 152. For the purpose
of comparing the big establishments with the small ones we have singled
out the agriculturist commodity-producers, see Studies ,
p. 156. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[29]
The Handicraft Industries of Perm Gubernia at the Siberian Urals Exhibition , Pt. III, p. 47 and foll.— Lenin

[30]
See Zemstvo statistical returns for Trubchevsk, Karachev and Orel uyezds
of Orel Gubernia. The connection between the big manufactories and the
small peasant establishments is also evident from the fact that the
employment of wage-labour develops in the latter as well: for example, in
Orel Uyezd, 16 peasant master spinners employ 77 workers.— Lenin

[31]
V. Ilyin, Studies, p. 176. (See present edition, Vol.2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[32]
See precise data on Perm handicraft census about this, ibid .,
p. 177 (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[33]
See Directory and List on Perm Gubernia and the village
of Nevyansky Zavod (non-agricultural), which is the centre of this
“handicraft industry.”— Lenin

[34]
Cf. our Studies , pp. 177-178. (See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[35]
Reports and Investigations , I.— Lenin

[36]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[37]
There are 14 big timber merchants. These have timber-seasoning rooms
(costing about 300 rubles), of which there are 24 in the village, each
employing 6 workers. These merchants also give out materials to workers,
whom they get into their grip by advancing them money.— Lenin

[38]
It will be appropriate here to note in general the process of development
of capitalism in the timber industry. The timber merchants do not sell the
timber raw; they hire workers to dress it and to make various wooden
articles, which they then sell. See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., VIII, pp. 1268, 1314. Also Statistical Returns for Orel Gubernia , Trubchevsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[39]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol II, 1879. See also
Zemstvo statistical Material for Semyonov Uyezd, Vol. XI, 1893.— Lenin

[40]
The statistics we have given (Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 2,
7, 26) cover only a small fraction of the toy-makers; but these data show
the appearance of workshops with 11 to 18 workers.— Lenin

[41]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. II, p. 47.— Lenin

[42]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[43]
Material for the Evaluation of the Lands in Gorbatov Uyezd.— Lenin

[44]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[45]
Thus, at the head of the horse-collar industry are 13 big proprietors,
each with 10 to 30 wage-workers and 5 to 10 outside workers. The big
mitten-makers do the cutting in their own workshops (employing 2 or 3
wage-workers) and get the mittens sewn off the premises by from 10 to 20
women; these are divided into thumb-makers and stitchers , the former taking the work from the owners and
sub-dividing it among the latter, whom they exploit (information for
1879).— Lenin

[46]
In 1889, of 1,812 households (with 9,241 inhabitants) 1,469 cultivated no
land (in 1897 there were 12,342 inhabitants). The villages of Pavlovo and
Bogorodskoye differ from the other villages of Gorbatov Uyezd in that very
few of their inhabitants leave them on the contrary, of all the peasants
of the Gorbatov Uyezd who have left their villages, 14.9% live in Pavlovo
and 4.9% in Bogorodskoye. The increase of the population between 1858 and
1889 was 22.1% for the uyezd, but 42% for the village of
Bogorodskoye. (See Zemstvo statistical Material .)— Lenin

[47]
See Zemstvo statistical Material for uyezds mentioned. —
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX and VI. —
Directory and List . — Reports and Investigations , II.— Lenin

[48]
In 1889 it had 380 households (none cultivating land) with 1,305
inhabitants In the whole of the Katunki Volost, 90.6% of the households
are engaged in industries, 70.1% of working people being occupied in
industries alone (i.e., not engaging in agriculture). As regards literacy,
this volost stands far above the average for the uyezd, yielding in this
respect only to the Chernoretsk Volost, which is also non-agricultural and
has highly developed boat-building industries. The village of Bolshoye
Murashkino had in 1887 a total of 856 households (of which 853 cultivated
no land) with 3,473 persons of both sexes. According to the 1897 census,
the population of Gorodets was 6,330, of Bolshoye Murashkino 5,341, of
Yurino 2,189, of Spasskoye 4,494 and of Vatras 3,012.— Lenin

[49]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX,
p. 2567. Information for 1880.— Lenin

[50]
The conditions of the workers in the Arzamas factories are better than
those of the rural workers ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 133).— Lenin

[51]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 76.— Lenin

[52]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. XI,
p. 3084. (Cf. Directory for 1890). Included among the
handicraftsmen is the peasant-agriculturist Dolgushin, who owns a works
employing 60 workers. There are several handicraftsmen of this type.— Lenin

[53]
According to the Directory for 1890, there were some 27 masters
employing over 700 workers.— Lenin

[54]
Cf. also List , p. 489, regarding the well-known “handicraft” village of Dunilovo, Shuya Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. The Directory for 1890 listed here 6 fur factories
employing 151 workers, while according to the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (Vol. X) there are about 2,200 furriers and
2,300 sheepskin-coat-makers in this district; in 1877 as many as 5,500
“handicraftsmen” were counted. Probably, the making of hair
sieves in this uyezd is organised in the same way; in this industry there
are engaged about 40 villages and as many as 4,000 people, known as
“Mardassers” (from the name of this district). We have described the similar organisation of the leather and cobbling industries
in Perm Gubernia in our Studies , p. 171 and foll (See present
edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[55]
Here is some information about the “handicraftsmen” relating
to 1894. “The squirrel furs are sewn by some of the poorest women in
the town of Kargopol and by peasant women of the Pavlovo Volost. They are
paid the very lowest price,” so that a seamstress earns only from 2
rubles 40 kopeks to 3 rubles per month, providing her own food, and for
this pay (at piece rates) she has to sit without a break for 12 hours a
day. “The work is very exhausting, for it calls for great strain and
assiduity.” The number of seamstresses is now about 200
( Handicraft Industry in Olonets Gubernia , Essay by
Messrs. Blagoveshchensky and Garyazin. Petrozavodsk, 1895, pp. 92-93).— Lenin

[56]
See Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II, Vol. III,
St. Petersburg, 1872. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and
Hand-Labour in Russia. Compiled by L. Maikov . Article by V
A. Pletnev. This work is the best for clarity of description of the whole
organisation of the industry. The latest works give valuable statistics and facts of the people’s life, but give a less
satisfactory exposition of the economic structure of this complex
industry. See, further, Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII, article by Mr. Pokrovsky, — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I.— Lenin

[57]
Cf. Reports and Investigations : 7 groups of industrialists: 1)
traders in leather goods; 2) buyers-up of footwear; 3) masters of big
workshops (5-6 of them), who stock leather and distribute it to home
workers; 4) masters of small workshops employing wage-workers; also give
out material to home workers; 5) one-man establishments — working either
for the market or for masters (sub 3 and 4); 6) wage-workers (craftsmen,
journeymen, boys); 7) “last-makers, notchers, and also owners and
workers in currying, greasing and gluing workshops” (p. 227,
loc . cit .). The population of Kimry village, according
to the 1897 census, is 7,017.— Lenin

[58]
The “sawyer” saws the brush blocks; the “borer” bores holes in them; the “cleaner” cleans the bristle; the
“setter” “sets” the bristle; the “joiner” glues wooden strips on the brush backs
( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. I, p. 18).— Lenin

[59]
Let us observe that in this industry, as in the above-described weaving
industries, capitalist manufacture is, strictly speaking, the economy of
yesterday. Characteristic of the post-Reform era is the transformation of
this manufacture into large-scale machine industry. The number of Gzhel
potteries using steam-engines was 1 in 1866, 2 in 1879 and 3 in 1890
(according to data in The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , Vol. I,
and Directory for 1879 and 1890).— Lenin

[60]
See above regarding the greater literacy of the population of Pavlovo and
Vorsma and the migration of peasants from the villages to these centres.— Lenin

[61]
Data from Zemstvo statistical Material , and Mr. Annensky’s
Report, and also A. N. Potresov’s researches (cited above). The
figures for the Murom district are approximate. The number of inhabitants,
according to the 1897 census, was 4,674 in Vorsma, and 12,431 in Pavlovo.— Lenin

[62]
The data we have given by no means express this predominance to the full:
as will presently be seen, the handicraftsmen who work for the market are
subjugated to capital even more than those who work for proprietors, and
the latter handicraftsmen even more than the wage-workers. The
Pavlovo industries show in strong relief that inseparable connection
between merchant’s and industrial capital which in general is
characteristic of capitalist manufacture in its relation to the small
producers.— Lenin

[63]
Connection with the land is also an important factor in reducing
earnings. The village handicraftsmen “on the whole earn less than
the Pavlovo locksmiths” (Annensky Report, p. 61). True, we must bear
in mind that the former grow their own grain, but even so “the
conditions of the ordinary village handicraftsman can scarcely be
considered better than those of the average Pavlovo locksmith” (61).— Lenin

[64]
During crises it also happens that they work literally without pay,
exchange “white for black,” i.e., finished goods for raw
materials; this happens “quite often” (Grigoryev, ibid ., 93).— Lenin

[65]
Data taken from Directory and List for the whole district, including the villages of Selitba and Vacha and their
environs. The Directory for 1890 undoubtedly included outside
workers in the total number of factory workers; we have estimated the
number of outside workers approximately, confining ourselves to a
correction only for the two biggest establishments (the Zavyalovs and
F. Varypayev). To compare the figures for “factories and
works” in the List and the Directory , only establishments with 15 and more workers must be taken (this is examined in
greater detail in our Studies , article: On the Question of Our
Factory Statistics) (See present edition, Vol. 4.— Ed .)— Lenin

[66]
In one branch of the Pavlovo industry, lock-making, there is, on the
contrary, a decline in the number of workshops employing wage-workers. A. N. Potresov ( loc . cit .), who recorded
this fact in detail, pointed to its cause — the competition of the
lock-making factory in Kovno Gubernia (Schmidt Brothers, which in 1890 had
500 workers, with an output of 500,000 rubles, and in 1894-95 had 625
workers, with an output of 730,000 rubles).— Lenin

[67]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX. The population of
Bezvodnoye village in 1897 was 3,296.— Lenin

[68]
Reports and Investigations , Vol. I. — The List gives 4
“factories” for this district, with 21 workers on premises and
29 outside workers, and output totalling 68,000 rubles.— Lenin

[69]
Reports and Investigations , I, p. 186.— Lenin

[70]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 29.— Lenin

[71]
Ibid ., No. 32.— Lenin

[72]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. 1, Sec. 2,
and Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd in 1890. — Lenin

[73]
See, for example, the List , No. 8819.— Lenin

[74]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VI, investigation
of 1880. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I (1888-1889),
cf. p. 271: “nearly the whole trade . . . is concentrated in
workshops employing wage-workers.” Cf. also Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia , Vol. II, Yaroslavl, 1896, pp. 8, 11. — List ,
p. 403.— Lenin

[75]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 19 and 30.— Lenin

[76]
A copper-smith’s workshop needs five operatives to do the different
jobs; a tray-maker’s at least 3, while a “normal workshop” needs 9 workers. “In the large establishments”
a “fine division” (of labour) is practised “with the object of increasing productivity” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., 27 and 31).— Lenin

[77]
The Directory for 1890 gives for the district of Zagarye 14
factories employing 184 workers, with an output totalling 37,000 rubles. A
comparison of these figures with the above-quoted Zemstvo statistics shows
that in this case too the factory statistics covered only the upper strata
of widely developed capitalist manufacture.— Lenin

[78]
Cf. Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[79]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, article by
Mr. A. Tillo. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. III (1893). The
industry continues to develop. Cf. letter to Russkiye Vedomosti ,
1897, No. 231. Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42. Output totals over
1 million rubles, of which about 200,000 rubles is received by the workers
and about 300,000 rubles by buyers-up and merchants.— Lenin

[80]
“Among the Krasnoye handicraftsmen every kind of article and even
every part is made by a specific craftsman, and therefore one rarely
finds, for example, rings and ear-rings, bracelets and brooches, etc.,
made in the same house; usually a particular article is made in parts by
different worker-specialists who live not only in different houses but
even in different villages” ( Reports and Investigations ,
Vol. III, p. 76).— Lenin

[81]
Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42.— Lenin

[82]
See Mr. V. Borisov’s article in Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX.— Lenin

[83]
The Tula blacksmith, Nikita Demidov Antufyev, won Peter the Great’s
favour by building an ironworks near the town of Tula; in 1702 he was
granted the Nevyansk works. His descendants were the famous Urals iron
manufacturers, the Demidovs.— Lenin

[84]
The Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. X, contain an
excellent description by Mr. Manokhin of the samovar industry in Suksun,
Perm Gubernia. Its organisation is the same as that in Tula
Gubernia. Cf. ibid ., Vol. IX, Mr. Borisov’s article on
handicraft industries at the 1882 exhibition.— Lenin

[85]
Evidently there are analogous features in the organisation of the
mechanical trades in Tula and its environs. Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated
that the number of workers employed in these industries was from 2,000 to
3,000, producing wares to a value of nearly 2 1/2 million rubles. These
“handicraftsmen” are very much under the heel of merchant’s capital. The hardware “factories” in Tula
Gubernia sometimes also have outside workers (cf. List ,
pp. 393-395).— Lenin

[86]
The development of accordion-making is also interesting as a process of
the elimination of primitive folk instruments and of the creation of a
wide, national market; without this market there could have been no
division of labour by processes, and without division of labour the
finished article could not have been produced cheaply “Owing to
their cheapness . . . the accordions have nearly everywhere displaced the
primitive string folk instrument, the balalaika” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, p. 2276).— Lenin

[87]
The Tula town census of November 29, 1891, gave 36 establishments selling
accordions and 34 accordion workshops (see Tula Gubernia Handbook for 1895 , Tula, 1895).— Lenin

[88]
Workroom owners , middlemen — owners of premises who rented them to manufacturers for the installation of hand-looms, and
themselves worked there. The middleman or workroom owner, by arrangement
with the employer, undertook to heat or repair the premises, deliver raw
materials to the weavers, send the finished product to the employer or act
as overseer. [p.386]

[95]
Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II. Vol. III. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and Hand
Labour in Russia. Part 1. Published by the Central Statistical Committee
of the Ministry of Home Affairs. St. Petersburg, 1872. [p.388]

[89]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.396]

[90]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.398]

[91]
Cadastre — a public record of the extent, value and ownership of
land, etc., for purposes of taxation. The cadastral surveys gave
particulars of land held, incomes of inhabitants and descriptions of
streets, monasteries, fortifications, etc. The oldest cadastre now extant
dates back to the 15th century, but most of those that have been preserved
relate to the 17th century. Surveys for the cadastre were made by special
commissions appointed by the central government authorities. [p.415]

[92]
The Law of June 2 , 1897 established a working day of 11
1/2 hours for industrial enterprises and railway workshops. Prior to the
adoption of this law the working day in Russia was unlimited and lasted as
long as 14 and 15 hours and even more. The tsar’s government was
forced to adopt this law due to the pressure of the working-class
movement, which was led by the “League of Struggle for the
Emancipation of the Working Class” headed by Lenin. A detailed
analysis and criticism of the law is given by Lenin in his pamphlet:
The New Factory Law . (See present edition, Vol. 2.) [p. 418]

[93]
The table that follows is based on a similar but more detailed table
published in the Vestnik Finansov , Issue No. 42, 1898. [p.423]

[94]
Prior to 1864 the gunsmiths of Tula were serfs of the state and lived in
special suburbs (slobodas). (The state blacksmiths’ sloboda, etc.)
They were divided into guilds: barrel, gun-stock, lock, instrumental,
etc. For the carrying out of auxiliary work serf-peasants from a number of
villages were attached to the Tula arms factories, their task being to
prepare charcoal for the gunsmiths, guard the forests allocated to the
factories, and do jobs in the factory yards.

In Tula at the time of their liberation from feudal dependence there were
nearly 4,000 gunsmiths, of whom 1,276 were employed in factories and 2,362
worked at home. In all, the gunsmiths and their families numbered over
20,000. [p.424]

| | I. The Rise of Manufacture and its Main Features | | | III. Technique in Manufacture. Division of Labour and its Significance | |

# The Remaining Livestock Processing Trades

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vi/vi8ii.htm#sect06

Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry

II. Capitalist Manufacture in Russian Industry

Let us begin with the industries that process fibres.

1) The Weaving Industries

The weaving of linen, wool, cotton and silk fabrics, galloons, etc., was
organised everywhere in Russia as follows (before the appearance of
large-scale machine industry). The industry was headed by big capitalist
workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers; the owners of these
workshops, possessing sizable capital, undertook the large-scale purchase
of raw material, partly working it up in their own establishments, and partly giving out yarn and warp to small producers
(workroom owners, middlemen, [88] , peasant-“handicraftsmen” etc.) who wove the cloth at home or
in small workshops at piece rates. The work itself was done by hand, and
the following operations were distributed among the workers: 1)
yarn-dyeing; 2) yarn-winding (very often women and children specialised in
this operation); 3) yarn-fixing (“fixers”); 4) weaving; 5)
weft-winding for weavers (bobbin hands, mostly children). Sometimes in the
big workshops there were special “threaders” (who threaded the
warp through the eyes of the batten and reed.) [1] of labour
is usually applied, not only to single operations, but to wares, that is,
the

weavers specialise in producing various sorts of cloth. The selection of
some operations to be done in the home does not, of course, make any
change whatever to the economic structure of this type of industry. The
workrooms or homes where the weavers work are simply external departments
of the manufactory. The technical basis of such industry is hand
production with extensive and systematic division of labour; from the
economic point of view we see here the formation of large capital which
controls the purchase of raw materials and the sale of wares on an
extremely extensive (national) market, and under whose complete sway are a
mass of proletarian weavers; a few large establishments (manufactories in
the narrow sense of the term) dominate a mass of small ones. Division of
labour leads to the emergence of specialist artisans from among the
peasantry; non-agricultural centres of manufacture arise, such as the
village of Ivanovo in Vladimir Gubernia (in 1871 it became the town of
Ivanovo-Voznesensk and is now a centre of large-scale machine industry),
the village of Velikoye in Yaroslavl Gubernia, and many other villages in
Moscow, Kostroma, Vladimir and Yaroslavl gubernias, which have now turned
into factory towns. [2]

In our economic literature and statistics the industry organised in this way is
usually split up into two parts: peasants who work in their homes, or in
not particularly big workrooms, workshops, etc., are classed under
“handicraft” industry, while the bigger workrooms and workshops are placed among the “factories and works” (and,
moreover, quite fortuitously, since no definitely established and
uniformly applied rules exist as to the separation of small establishments
from big ones, of workrooms from manufactories, of workers occupied in
their homes from workers occupied in the workshop of the capitalist). [3]

Naturally, such classification, which places some wage-workers on one
side, and some masters who hire these very wage-workers (in addition to
the workers in their establishments) on the other, is nonsense from the
scientific viewpoint.

Let us illustrate this by detailed data regarding one of the
“handicraft weaving” industries, namely, silk weaving in
Vladimir

Gubernia. [4]

The “silk industry” is a typical specimen of capitalist
manufacture. Hand labour prevails. Of the total number of establishments
the small ones constitute the majority (179 out of 313, or 57% of the
total, have from 1 to 5 workers), but in greater part they are not
independent and are far behind the big ones in their significance to the
industry as a whole. Establishments with 20 to 150 workers constitute 8%
of the total (25), but in them 41.5% of the aggregate number of workers
are concentrated, and they account for 51% of the total output. Of the
total number of workers in the industry (2,823) there are 2,092
wage-workers, i.e., 74.1%. “On the job we meet with division of
labour both in wares and in individual operations.” Weavers are
rarely able to make both “velvet” and “satin” (the two principal lines in this trade). “The division of labour into
separate operations within the workshop is most strictly practised only in
the big factories” (i.e., manufactories) “that employ wage-workers.” The fully independent proprietors number only 123,
who alone buy the raw materials themselves and sell the finished article;
they have 242 family workers and “employ 2,498 wage-workers, who in
greater part are paid by the piece,” a total, consequently, of 2,740
workers, or 97% of the aggregate number of workers. It is thus clear that
the distribution by these manufactory owners, through the medium of
“middle-men” (workroom owners), of work to be done in the home
is no special form of industry at all, but is merely one of the operations
of capital in manufacture. Mr. Kharizomenov rightly observes that the
“mass of small establishments (57%) alongside the small number of
big ones (8%), and the insignificant number of workers employed per establishment (7 1/2) conceal the true character of the trade”
( loc . cit ., 39). The specialisation characteristic of
manufacture is seen here clearly in the separation of the industrialists
from agriculture (the land is abandoned, on the one hand by the
impoverished weavers, and on the other by the big manufactory owners) and
in the formation of a special type of industrial population, who live much
more “decently” than do the agriculturists, and look down upon
the muzhik ( loc . cit ., 106). Our factory statistics have
always registered only a very casually selected fraction of this industry. [5]

The “galloon industry” in Moscow Gubernia is capitalist
manufacture organised in a quite analogous fashion. [6]

Such precisely is the case with regard to the printed calico industry in
Kamyshin Uyezd, Saratov Gubernia. According to the Directory for
1890, there were here 31 “factories” with 4,250 workers and
output totalling 265,000 rubles, while according to the List
there was one “work distributing office” with 33 workers in
the establishment and an output totalling 47,000 rubles. (In other words,
in 1890 workers employed in the establishment and on the side were lumped
together!) According to local investigators, in 1888 nearly 7,000 looms
were engaged in producing printed calico, [7] an output
totalling 2 million rubles, and “the whole business is run by a few manufacturers,” who employ
“handicraftsmen” too, including children of 6 and 7 years of
age for a payment of 7 to 8 kopeks per day ( Reports and Investigations , Vol. I). [8]

And so forth.

2) Other Branches of the Textile Industry. The Felt Trade.

To judge by official factory statistics, felt production shows a very poor
development of “capitalism”: in all European Russia there are
altogether 55 factories, with 1,212 workers and an output totalling
454,000 rubles ( Directory for 1890). But these figures merely
show a casually picked fragment of a widely developed capitalist
industry. Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia occupies first place for the
development of “factory” felt production, and in that gubernia
the principal centre of the industry is the town of Arzamas and the suburb
Viyezdnaya Sloboda (where there are 8 “factories” with 278
workers and an output totalling 120,000 rubles; in 1897 there were 3,221
inhabitants; and in the village of Krasnoye, 2,835). It is in the environs
of these centres that “handicraft” felt-making is developed,
in some 243 establishments, employing 935 workers, with an output
totalling 103,847 rubles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V). To illustrate clearly the economic organisation of
felt-making in this district, let us try the graphic method and indicate
by specific symbols the producers who occupy special places in the general
structure of the industry.

It is clear, therefore, that the separation of “factory” and
“handicraft” industry is purely artificial, that what we have
before us is a single and integral structure of industry which fully fits
into the concept of capitalist (approximately) [9] manufacture. [10]

From the technical aspect it is hand production. The organisation of the
work is that of co-operation based on division of labour, which is here
observed in two forms: as to wares (some villages specialise in plain
felt, others in boots, hats, socks, etc.), and as to individual operations (for example,
the whole village of Vasilyev Vrag shapes hats and socks for the
village of Krasnoye, where the semi-prepared article is finished,
etc.). This is capitalist co-operation, for it is headed by big capital,
which has created large manufactories and has brought under its sway (by
an intricate web of economic relations) a mass of small
establishments. The overwhelming majority of the producers have been
transformed into workers performing one operation and producing
for entrepreneurs under extremely insanitary conditions. [11]

The long standing of the industry and the fully established capitalist
relations result in the separation of the industrialists from agriculture:
in the village of Krasnoye agriculture is in utter ruin, and the life of
the inhabitants differs from that of the agricultural population. [12]

Quite analogous is the organisation of the felt industry in a number of
other districts. In 363 village communities of Semyonov Uyezd in the same
gubernia, the industry in 1889 was carried on by 3,180 households, with
4,038 persons working. Of 3,946 workers, only 752 worked for the market,
576 were wage-workers and 2,618 worked for masters on the basis, in
greater part, of using the latter’s materials; 189 households gave
out work to 1,805 households. The big owners have workshops with as many
as 25 wage-workers, and buy wool to a value of some 10,000 rubles per year. [13]

The big owners are called thousanders ; their turnover runs to from 5,000
to 100,000 rubles; they have their own wool warehouses, and their own
booths for the sale of wares. [14]

For
Kazan Gubernia the List gives 5 felt “factories,” with 122 workers and an output totalling 48,000 rubles, as well as 60
outside workers. Evidently the latter are also included among the
“handicraftsmen,” concerning whom we read that they often work
for “buyers-up” and that there are establishments having 60 workers. [15]

Of 29 felt “factories” in Kostroma Gubernia, 28 are concentrated in
Kineshma Uyezd, and have 593 workers employed in the establishments and
458 outside ( List , pp. 68-70; two of the enterprises have only
outside workers. Steam-engines already appear). From the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (XV) we learn that out of a total of
3,908 wool-carders and felt-makers in this gubernia, 2,008 are
concentrated in Kineshma Uyezd. The Kostroma felt-makers are in greater
part dependent or work for wages in extremely insanitary workshops. [16]

In
Kalyazin Uyezd, Tver Gubernia, we find, on the one hand, that home work is
done for “factory owners” ( List , 113), and, on the other, that precisely this uyezd is a centre of “handicraft”
felt-makers; as many as 3,000 of them come from this uyezd, passing
through the wasteland called “Zimnyak” (in the 60s it was the
site of Alexeyev’s cloth mill), and forming “an enormous
labour market of wool-carders and felt-makers.” [17]

In Yaroslavl Gubernia outside work for “factory owners is a]so done” ( List , 115) and there
are “handicraftsmen” who work for merchant proprietors, using
the latter’s wool, etc.

3) The Hat-and-Cap and Hemp-and-Rope Trades

Above we gave statistics for the hat industry of Moscow

Gubernia. [18]

They show that two-thirds of the total output and of the total number of
workers are concentrated in 18 establishments, which have an average of 15.6 wage-workers. [19]

The “handicraft” hat-makers perform only part of the hat-making operations: they make the shapes, which are sold to Moscow
merchants who have their own “finishing establishments”; on
the other hand, “clippers” (women who clip the down) work at
home for the “handicraft” hat-makers. Thus, all in all, we
find here capitalist co-operation based on division of labour and
entangled in a whole network of diverse forms of economic dependence. In
the centre of the industry (the village of Klenovo, Podolsk Uyezd) the
separation of the industrialists (mainly wage-workers) from agriculture [20] is
clearly to be seen, together with a rise in the level of the
population’s requirements: they live “more decently,” dress in calico and even in cloth, buy samovars, abandon ancient customs,
etc., thereby evoking the bitter complaints of the local admirers of old times. [21]

The new era even occasioned the appearance of migratory hat-makers.

A typical example of capitalist manufacture is the cap industry in the
village of Molvitino, Bui Uyezd, Kostroma

Gubernia. [22] “The principal . . . occupation in the village of Molvitino and in
. . . 36 hamlets is the cap industry.” Agriculture is being
abandoned. Since 1861 the industry has greatly developed; sewing-machines
have become widely used. In Molvitino 10 workshops are busy all year round
with 5 to 25 male and 1 to 5 female workers each. “The best workshop
. . . has a turnover of about 100,000 rubles per annum.” [23]

Work is also distributed to homes (for example, materials for the crowns
are made by women in their homes). Division of labour cripples the
workers, who work under the most insanitary conditions and usually
contract tuberculosis. The lengthy existence of the industry (for over 200
years) has produced highly skilled craftsmen; the Molvitino craftsmen are
known in the big cities and in the remote outer regions.

The centre of the hemp industry in the Medyn Uyezd, Kaluga Gubernia, is
the village of Polotnyani Zavod. This is a large village (according to the
census of 1897 it had 3,685 inhabitants) with a population that is
landless and highly industrial (over 1,000 “handicraftsmen”);
it is the centre of the “handicraft” industries of Medyn

Uyezd. [24]

The hemp industry is organised in the following way: the big proprietors (of whom
there are three, the biggest being Yerokhin) have workshops employing
wage-workers and circulating capital of more or less considerable
dimensions for purchasing raw materials. The hemp is combed in the
“factory,” spun by spinners in their homes, and twisted both
in the factory and in the home. It is warped in the factory and woven both
in the factory and in the home. In 1878 a total of 841 “handicraftsmen” was counted in the hemp industry; Yerokhin is
considered to be both a “handicraftsman” and a “factory
owner,” employing 94-64 workers in 1890 and in 1894-1895; according
to Reports and Investigations (Vol. II, p.187), “hundreds
of peasants” work for him.

In Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the rope industry is also centred in
non-agricultural industrial villages, Nizhni Izbylets and Verkhni Izbylets
in the Gorbatov

Uyezd. [25]

According to Mr. Karpov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII), the Gorbatov-Izbylets district is one large
rope-making area; part of the inhabitants of the town of Gorbatov are also
engaged in the industry, and the villages of Verkhni Izbylets and Nizhni
Izbylets are, in fact, “almost part of the town of Gorbatov”;
the inhabitants live like townspeople, drink tea every day, wear clothing
bought in the shops, and eat white bread. Altogether, as many as
two-thirds of the inhabitants of 32 villages are engaged in the industry,
a total of 4,701 working (2,096 men and 2,605 women) with an output of
about 1 1/2 million rubles. The industry has been in existence for nearly 200 years, and is now declining. It is organised as follows:
all work for 29 proprietors, using the latter’s materials, are paid
by the piece, are “totally dependent upon the proprietors” and
work from 14 to 15 hours a day. According to Zemstvo statistics (1889) the
industry employs 1,699 male workers (plus 558 females and males of
non-working age). Of 1,648 working only 197 work for sale, 1,340 work for proprietors [26] and 111 are wage-workers employed in the workshops of 58
proprietors. Of 1,288 allotment households, only 727, or a little over half, cultivate all their land themselves. Of
1,573 allotment-holding working persons, 306, or 19.4%, do not
engage in agriculture at all. Turning to the question as to who
these “proprietors” are, we must pass from the sphere of
“handicraft” industry to that of “factory” industry. According
to the List for 1894-95 there were two rope factories there, with 231 workers employed on the premises and 1,155
working outside, with an output totalling 423,000 rubles. Both
these establishments have installed motors (which they did not
have either in 1879 or in 1890), and we therefore clearly see
here the transition from capitalist manufacture to capitalist
machine industry, and the transformation of “handicraft” work
distributors and buyers-up into real factory owners.

In Perm Gubernia the handicraft census of 1894-95 registered 68 peasant
rope-and-string yards, with 343 workers (of whom 143 were hired) and an
output totalling 115,000 rubles. [27]

These small establishments are headed by big manufactories,
which are reckoned together, viz.: 6 owners employ 101 workers
(91 hired) and have an output totalling 81,000 rubles. [28]

The system of production in these big establishments may serve as the most
striking example of “serial manufacture” (as Marx calls it [89] ), i.e., the
sort of manufacture in which different workers perform different consecutive operations in working up the raw material: 1) hemp
scutching; 2) combing; 3) spinning; 4) coiling; 5) tarring; 6) winding on
drum; 7) passing threads through perforated board; 8) passing threads
through iron bush; 9) stranding of plaits, twisting and gathering of ropes. [29]

The organisation of the hemp industry in Orel Gubernia is evidently
similar: from among the considerable number of small peasant
establishments big manufactories emerge, principally in the towns, and are
included among the “factories and works” (according to the
Directory for 1890 there were in Orel Gubernia 100 hemp-scutching
factories, with 1,671 workers and an output totalling 795,000 rubles). The
peasants work in the hemp industry “for merchants” (probably
for the very same manufacturers), using the latter’s materials, at
piece rates, the work being divided up into special operations:
“scutchers” scutch the hemp; “spinners” spin it; “bearders” trim it, “wheelmen” turn the wheel. The
work is very hard; many contract consumption and “rupture.”
The dust is so thick that “unless accustomed you will not stay in it
for a quarter of an hour.” The work is done in ordinary sheds from
dawn to dusk, from May to

September. [30]

4) The Wood-Working Trades

The most typical example of capitalist manufacture in this sphere is the
chest-making industry. According to the data, for instance, of the Perm
investigators, “this industry is organised as follows: a few big
proprietors, owning workshops that employ wage-workers, purchase
materials, partly make the wares on their own premises, but mainly give
out material to small workshops making parts, and in their own shops
assemble them and, after finishing, send the ready article to
market. Division of labour . . . is employed on the job extensively: the making of the entire chest is divided into ten
or twelve operations, each separately performed by handicraftsmen. The
organisation of the industry consists in the combination of workers
performing one operation ( Teilarbeiter , as they are called in
Das Kapital ) under the command of capital .” [31]

This is heterogeneous manufacture ( heterogene Manufaktur , as Marx calls it [90] ), in which
the different workers do not perform consecutive operations in turning the
raw material into the product, but make the various parts of the product,
which are afterwards assembled. The preference of the capitalists for the
domestic work of “handicraftsmen” is to be explained partly by
the above mentioned character of manufacture, and partly (and mainly) by
the cheaper labour of the home workers. [32]

Let us observe that the relatively big workshops in this industry are sometimes
also included among “factories and works.” [33]

In all probability, the chest-making industry is organised similarly in
Vladimir Gubernia, in Murom Uyezd where, according to the List ,
there are 9 “factories” (all hand-operated), with 89 workers
on the premises and 11 outside, and an output totalling 69,810
rubles.

The carriage industry, in Perm Gubernia, for example, is organised on
similar lines: from among the mass of small establishments there emerge
assembly workshops employing wage-workers; the small handicraftsmen are
workers who make parts of the carriages both out of their own materials,
and out of materials supplied by the “buyers-up” (i.e., owners
of the assembly workshops.) [34]

We
read about the Poltava “handicraft” carriage builders that in
the suburb of Ardon there are workshops that employ wage-workers and also
distribute work to homes (the bigger masters having as many as 20 outside workers). [35]

In
Kazan Gubernia, division of labour as to wares is to be observed in the building of town carriages:
some villages specialise in sleighs, others in wheeled vehicles,
etc. “The town carriages, completely assembled in the villages (but
without the metal work, wheels or shafts), are sent to Kazan merchant
customers, who in turn send them to blacksmiths for the metal work. The
carriages are then sent back again to the shops and workshops in the town,
where they are finished off, i.e., are upholstered and painted. . . . Kazan, where town carriages were formerly iron-mounted,
gradually passed this work on to handicraftsmen, who work at home for a
smaller payment than do the town craftsmen....” [36]

Hence, capital prefers to distribute work to home workers because this reduces the cost of labour-power. The
organisation of the carriage industry, as is evident from the data quoted,
constitutes, in the majority of cases, a system of handicraftsmen making
parts, who are under the sway of capital.

The large industrial village of Vorontsovka, Pavlovsk Uyezd, Voronezh
Gubernia (9,541 inhabitants in 1897), constitutes, as it were, a single
manufactory of wooden articles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., Vol. IX, article by Rev. M. Popov). Over 800 houses
are engaged in the industry (as well as some households in the suburb of
Alexandrovka, which has over 5,000 inhabitants). They make carts,
tarantasses, wheels, chests, etc., to a total of about 267,000
rubles. Less than one-third are independent masters; hired workers in
masters’ workshops are rare. [37]

The majority work to order for peasant merchants at piece rates. The workers
are in debt to the proprietors and are worn out by arduous toil: the
people are growing feebler. The inhabitants of the suburb are industrial,
not of the rural type, and scarcely engage in agriculture at all (except
to work vegetable plots), since their allotments are miserably small. The
industry has been long in existence, diverting the population from agriculture and increasingly widening the
rift between the rich and the poor. The people subsist on meagre food;
they dress “more smartly than before,” “but beyond their
means,” in clothing that is entirely bought. “The population
has succumbed to the spirit of industry and trade.” “Nearly
all who have no craft carry on some trading. . . . Under the influence of
industry and trade, the peasant has, generally speaking, become more
unreserved, and this has made him more developed and resourceful.” [38]

The celebrated wooden-spoon industry of the Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, is close to capitalist manufacture in its
organisation. True, there are no big workshops standing out from among the
mass of small workshops and dominating them, but we find a deeply-rooted
division of labour and the complete subjection of the mass of part-job
workers to capital. Before it is ready, the spoon passes through no less
than 10 hands, the buyers-up getting some of the operations done by
specially hired workers or giving them out to specialist workers (for
example, for varnishing); some of the villages specialise in particular
operations (for example, the village of Dyakovo specialises in spoon
finishing to the order of the buyer-up, at piece rates; the villages of
Khvostikovo, Dianovo and Zhuzhelka specialise in varnishing, etc.). The
buyers-up purchase the timber wholesale in the Samara and other gubernias,
where they send parties of hired workers; they own warehouses for raw
material and manufactured goods, supply the most valuable material to
handicraftsmen for processing, etc. The mass of workers doing part jobs
merge into a single, complex mechanism of production, entirely under the
sway of capital. “It is all the same to the spoon-makers whether
they work for hire at the master’s cost and on his premises, or are
occupied in their own cottages, for in this industry, as in others,
everything has been weighed, measured and counted. The spoon-maker never
earns more than just enough to keep body and soul together.” [39]

It is quite natural that under such conditions the capitalists who dominate the whole trade are in no hurry to open their
own workshops, and the industry, based on hand skill and traditional
division of labour, stagnates in its seclusion and immobility. Tied to the
land, the “handicraftsmen” seem to have become petrified in
their routine: as in 1879, so in 1889, they still count money in the old
style, in banknotes and not in silver.

The toy industry in Moscow Gubernia is headed similarly by establishments
of the capitalist-manufactory type. [40]

Of 481 workshops, 20 have over 10 workers each. Division of labour, both as to
wares and as to individual operations, is practised on a very wide scale,
enormously raising the productivity of labour (at the cost of crippling
the worker). For example, it is estimated that a small workshop yields a
return of 26% of the selling price, and a big workshop, one of

58%. [41]

Of course, the fixed capital of the big proprietors is also much larger; technical
devices are met with (for example, drying sheds). The centre of the
industry is a non-agricultural township, the suburb of Sergiyevsky (where
there are 1,055 workers out of a total of 1,398, with an output to the
amount of 311,000 rubles out of a total of 405,000 rubles; the population,
according to the 1897 census, numbers 15,155). The author of the article
on this industry, referring to the prevalence of small workshops, etc.,
considers it more, but still not very, likely that the industry will
develop into manufacture rather than into factory industry. “In the
future, too,” he says, “the small producers will always be
able to compete more or less successfully with large-scale
production” ( loc . cit ., 93). The author forgets that in manufacture the technical basis is always the same hand-production
that obtains in the small industries; that the division of labour can
never be such a decisive advantage that it will entirely eliminate the small producers,
particularly if the latter resort to such means as lengthening the working
day, etc.; and that manufacture is never in a position to embrace the
whole of production, but remains a mere superstructure over the mass of
small establishments.

5) The Processing of Livestock Produce. [The Leather and Fur Trades]

The most extensive areas of the leather industry present particularly
striking examples of the complete merging of “handicraft” and
factory industry, examples of capitalist manufacture highly developed (in
depth and in breadth). What is characteristic is the fact that the
gubernias which are conspicuous for the size of their “factory” leather industry (Vyatka, Nizhni-Novgorod, Perm and
Tver) are marked by a particular development of “handicraft”
industries in this sphere.

In the village of Bogorodskoye, Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia,
there were, according to the Directory for 1890, 58 “factories” with 392 workers and an output totalling 547,000
rubles; according to the List for 1894-95 there were 119
“works,” with 1,499 workers on the premises and 205 outside,
and with an output totalling 934,000 rubles (the latter figures covering
only the processing of livestock produce, the principal local
industry). But these data deal only with the top levels of
capitalist manufacture. Mr. Karpov in 1879 computed in this village and
its environs over 296 establishments, with 5,669 workers (a large number
of whom worked at home for capitalists), and with an output totalling
about 1,490,000 rubles [42] in the following industries: tanning, shingle-gluing, basket-weaving (for packing
goods), harness-making, horse-collar-making, mitten-making and, standing
by itself, pottery. The Zemstvo census of 1889 listed 4,401 industrialists
for this district, and of 1,842 workers for whom detailed information is
given, 1,119 work for hire in other people’s workshops and 405 work
at home for masters. [43] “Bogorodskoye, with its population of 8,000, is a huge tannery in continuous operation.” [44]

To be more precise, it is a “serial” manufactory controlled by a few big capitalists who buy the raw materials,
tan the hides, and turn them into a variety of articles, hiring several
thousand absolutely propertyless workers for the job and ruling over the
small

establishments. [45]

This industry has had a very long existence, since the 17th century;
particularly memorable in the industry’s history are the Sheremetevs
(beginning of the 19th century), landlords who helped considerably to
develop the industry and, incidentally, protected the proletariat, which
came into existence here long ago, from the local rich. After 1861 the
industry greatly developed, and particularly did big establishments grow
at the expense of the small ones; centuries of industrial activity
produced from among the population remarkably skilled craftsmen who have
carried the trade all over Russia. The firmly-rooted capitalist relations
have led to the separation of industry from agriculture: hardly any
farming is done in Bogorodskoye village itself, which, on the contrary,
divorces neighbouring peasants who move into this “town” from
the

land. [46]

Mr. Karpov notes in this village “a complete absence of peasant
characteristics among the inhabitants,” so that “you would
never think you were in a village and not a town.” This village
leaves Gorbatov and all the other uyezd towns of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia
far behind, with the exception, perhaps, of Arzamas. It is “one of
the considerable commercial and industrial centres in the gubernia, and its industry and
commerce run into the millions.” “The radius of the industrial
and commercial influence of Bogorodskoye is very wide; but most closely
connected with the industry of Bogorodskoye is that of its environs within
a radius of 10 to 12 versts. These industrial environs are, as it were, a
continuation of Bogorodskoye itself.” “The inhabitants of
Bogorodskoye do not in the least resemble the ordinary, raw muzhiks: they
are artisans of the burgher type, shrewd, experienced people, who look
down on the peasants. The manner of life and the ethical standards of the
Bogorodskoye inhabitants are completely urban.” To this we must add
that the industrial villages of Gorbatov Uyezd are marked by a relatively
high level of literacy among the population. Thus, the percentage of
literate and student men and women is, in the villages of Pavlovo,
Bogorodskoye and Vorsma, 37.8% and 20% respectively, as against 21.5% and
4.4% in the rest of the uyezd (see Zemstvo statistical Material ).

Quite analogous (only on a smaller scale) are the relations in the
leather-processing industries of the villages of Katunki and Gorodets
(Balakhna Uyezd), Bolshoye Murashkino (Knyaginin Uyezd), Yurino (Vasil
Uyezd), and Tubanayevka, Spasskoye, Vatras and Latyshikha in the same
uyezd. These are similar non-agricultural centres with a
“ring” of surrounding agricultural villages, and with similar
diverse industries and numerous small establishments (and also workers in
the home) subordinated to big entrepreneurs, whose capitalist workshops
are occasionally included among “factories and works.” [47]

Without going into statistical details, which will provide nothing new
compared with what has already been said, let us merely quote the
following extremely interesting description of the village of

Katunki: [48] “A certain patriarchal simplicity in the relations between masters
and workmen, which, however, is not so noticeable at first sight and is, unfortunately (?), disappearing increasingly every year
. . . testifies to the handicraft character of the industries (?). It is
only recently that the factory character both of the industries and of the
population has begun to be observed, under the influence, in particular,
of the town, intercourse with which has been facilitated by the
inauguration of the steamboat service. Today the village looks like a
regular industrial township: there is no sign of agriculture whatever, the
houses are built close together as in the towns; the fine brick houses of
the rich, and alongside of them the miserable hovels of the poor; the long
wooden and brick buildings of the factories crowded in the middle of the
village — all this sharply distinguishes Katunki from the neighbouring
villages and clearly points to the industrial character of the local
population. The inhabitants themselves possess features of character that
also call to mind the type of “factory hand” who has already
taken shape in Russia: a certain showiness in house furniture, in clothes
and manners, spendthrift habits of life in most cases, and little care for
the morrow, a forwardness and often affectation in speech, a certain
superciliousness towards the country yokel — all these features are
possessed by them in common with all Russian factory people.” [49]

In the town of Arzamas, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the “factory” statistics listed in 1890 a total of 6 tanneries,
employing 64 workers ( Directory ); this is only a small fraction
of the capitalist manufacture which embraces the fur, boot-making and
other industries. The same factories employ workers in the home, both in
the town of Arzamas (in 1878, estimated at 400) and in 5 suburban
villages, where out of the 360 furrier households, 330 work for Arzamas
merchants, using their materials and working 14 hours a day for 6 to 9
rubles per month [50] ; that is why the furriers are pallid, feeble and degenerating folk. In the suburb of Viyezdnaya Sloboda, of the 600 boot-maker households, 500 work for
masters, from whom they receive the cut-out leather. The industry is of
long standing, being about 200 years old, and is still growing and
developing. The inhabitants hardly engage in agriculture at all; their
whole manner of life is purely urban, and they live “in grand
style.” The same applies to the furrier villages mentioned above,
the inhabitants of which “look down with disdain upon the peasant
and call him a ‘country bumpkin’.” [51]

We find exactly the same thing in Vyatka Gubernia. The Vyatka and
Slobodskoi uyezds are centres both of “factory” and of “handicraft” leather and fur trades. In the Vyatka Uyezd, the
handicraft tanneries are concentrated on the outskirts of the town and
“supplement” the industrial activities of the big works, [52] for
example, by working for the big owners; working for the latter also, in
the majority of cases, are the handicraft harness-makers and glue
makers. The fur factory owners have hundreds working for them in the home,
sewing sheepskins, etc. This is just a single capitalist manufactory with
branches: sheepskin dressing and sheepskin-coat-making, leather and
harness, etc. Still more striking are the relations existing in the
Slobodskoi Uyezd (the centre of the industries is the suburb of Demyanka);
here we see a small number of big factory owners [53] at the
head of handicraft tanners (numbering 870), boot- and mitten-makers (855),
sheepskin-dressers (940), and tailors (309 make short sheepskin coats to
order from capitalists). Generally speaking, such organisation of the
production of leather goods is evidently very widespread: thus, in the
town of Sarapul, Vyatka Gubernia, the List gives 6 tanneries,
also making footwear, which employ, in addition to 214 workers on the
premises, 1,080 outside workers (p. 495). What would become of our
“handicrafts men,” those representatives of “people’s” industry who are depicted in such bright hues by all sorts of Manilovs, if all the Russian
merchants and factory owners were to compute with equal detail and
precision the outside workers employed by them? [54]

Reference should be made here to the industrial village of Rasskazovo,
Tambov Uyezd, Tambov Gubernia (population in 1897 was 8,283), a centre
both of “factory” industry (cloth mills, soap-works, tanneries
and distilleries) and of “handicraft” industry, the latter
being closely connected with the former; and to the industries: tanning,
felt-making (as many as 70 masters, and establishments employing from 20
to 30 workers), glue-making, boot-making, stocking knitting (there is not
a household where stockings are not knit from wool that
“buyers-up” give out by weight), etc. Near this village is the
suburb of Belaya Polyana (300 households), celebrated for industries of
the same kind. In Morshansk Uyezd, the centre of the handicraft industries
is the village of Pokrovskoye-Vasilyevskoye, which is also the centre of
factory industry (see Directory and Reports and Investigations , Vol. III). In Kursk Gubernia, noteworthy as
industrial villages and centres of “handicraft” industries are
the suburbs: Veliko-Mikhailovka (Novy Oskol Uyezd; population in 1897 was
11,853), Borisovka (Graivoron Uyezd — 18,071 inhabitants), Tomarovka
(Belgorod Uyezd, 8,716 inhabitants), Miropolye (Sudzha Uyezd, over 10,000
inhabitants. See Reports and Investigations , Vol. I, Information
for 1888-1889). In the same villages you will also find leather
“works” (see Directory for 1890). The principal “handicraft” industry is leather and boot-making. It arose as far back as the first half of the 18th century and reached the peak of its
development in the 60s of the 19th century having become “a stable
organisation of a purely commercial character.” The whole business
was monopolised by contractors, who bought the leather and gave it out to
be processed by handicraftsmen. The railways destroyed this monopoly
character of capital, and the capitalist contractors transferred their
capital to more profitable undertakings. Today it is organised as follows:
there are about 120 big entrepreneurs; they own workshops where
wage-workers are employed, and also distribute work to homes; there are as
many as 3,000 small independent masters (who, however, buy their leather
from the big ones); there are 400 people who work at home (for the big
masters), and as many wage-workers; then there are the apprentices. The
total number of boot-makers is over 4,000. In addition, there are
handicraft potters, icon-case makers, icon painters, table-cloth weavers,
etc.

A highly characteristic and typical example of capitalist manufacture is
the squirrel-fur industry in Kargopol Uyezd, Olonets Gubernia, described
with such knowledge of the facts, and with truthful and artless
presentation of the whole life of the industrial population by a craftsman
and teacher in the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission
(Vol. IV). According to his description (in 1878), the industry has
existed since the beginning of the 19th century: 8 masters employ 175
workers, in addition to which they have as many as 1,000 seamstresses and
some 35 families of furriers working for them at home (in different
villages), 1,300 to 1,500 persons in all, with an output totalling 336,000
rubles. As a point of interest, it should be noted that when this was a
flourishing industry it was not included in the “factory”
statistics. The Directory for 1879 makes no mention of it. But
when it began to decline the statistics included it. The
Directory for 1890 listed for the town and the uyezd of Kargopol
7 works, with 121 workers and an output totalling 50,000 rubles, whereas
the List gave 5 works, with 79 workers (plus 57 outside) and an
output totalling 49,000 rubles. [55]

The order of things prevailing in this branch of capitalist manufacture is very instructive as a specimen of what goes on
in our age-old, purely native “handicraft industries,” that
have been left stranded in one of Russia’s numerous rural
backwoods. The craftsmen work 15 hours a day in a very unhealthy
atmosphere and earn 8 rubles per month, less than 60 or 70 rubles per
year. The masters’ incomes amount to about 5,000 rubles per
annum. The relations between masters and workers are “patriarchal”: according to ancient custom, the master gives
the workers kvass and salt gratis, which they have to beg from his
cook. As a mark of gratitude to the master (for “giving” them
work) the workers come, without pay, to pull squirrel tails, and also
clean furs after work. The workers live in the workshop all the week, and
the masters knock them about, seemingly in a joke (p. 218,
loc . cit .), make them do all sorts of jobs, such as raking hay, shovelling snow, fetching water, rinsing clothes, etc. Labour
is astonishingly cheap in Kargopol itself, and the peasants in the
vicinity “are ready to work for next to nothing.” Work is done
by hand, there is systematic division of labour, and there is a lengthy
apprenticeship (8 to 12 years); the lot of the apprentices can easily be
imagined.

6) The Remaining Livestock Processing Trades

A particularly noteworthy example of capitalist manufacture is the
celebrated boot industry of the village of Kimry, Korcheva Uyezd, Tver
Gubernia, and its environs. [56]

The industry is a very old one, having existed since the 16th
century. Since the Reform, it has continued to grow and develop. In the
early 70s Pletnev counted 4 volosts in the area covered by this industry,
but in 1888 the area included 9 volosts. Basically the organisation of the
industry is as follows. It is headed by the owners of big workshops
employing wage-workers; they distribute the cut-out leather to be made up
by outside workers. Mr. Pletnev counted 20 such masters, employing 124
adults and 60 boys, with an output totalling 818,000 rubles, while the
number of workers occupied at home for these capitalists is estimated by
the author approximately at 1,769 adults and 1,833 boys. Then come the
small masters, each with 1 to 5 wage-workers and 1 to 3 boys. These
masters dispose of their goods mainly in the village market in Kimry; they
number 224 and have 460 adults and 301 boys working for them; output
totals 187,000 rubles. Hence, there are 244 masters altogether, employing
2,353 adults (of whom 1,769 work at home) and 2,194 boys (of whom 1,833
work at home), with an output totalling 1,005,000 rubles. Further, there
are workshops which do various individual operations: currying
(skin-cleaning with scraper); chipping (gluing of chips left from
currying); special carting (4 masters, with 16 employees and up to 50 horses); special
carpentry (box-making), etc. [57]

Pletnev calculated the total output at 4.7 million rubles for the whole
district. In 1881 the number of handicraftsmen was computed at 10,638, and
with migrants, 26,000, with an output totalling 3.7 million rubles. As to
conditions of labour, it is important to note the excessively long working day (14 to
15 hours) and the extremely insanitary working conditions, payment in
goods, etc. The centre of the industry, Kimry village, “is more like
a small town” ( Reports and Investigations , I, 224); the
inhabitants are poor agriculturists, and are engaged in their industry all
the year round; only the rural handicraftsmen give up the industry during
haymaking. The houses in Kimry village are urban, and the inhabitants are
distinguished for their urban habits of life (such as “showiness”). Until very recently this industry was not
included in “factory” statistics, probably because the masters
“readily style themselves handicraftsmen” ( ibid ., 228). The List has for the first time included 6 boot workshops
in Kimry district, with 15 to 40 workers each on the premises, and with no
outside workers. Of course, it contains no end of gaps.

Manufacture also includes the button industry of Moscow Gubernia,
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds — the making of buttons from hoofs and
rams’ horns. Engaged in this industry are 487 workers, employed in
52 establishments; the output totals 264,000 rubles. Establishments with
fewer than 5 employees number 16; those with 5 to 10 — 26; those with 10
and more — 10. Masters who do without wage-workers number only 10; these
work for big masters, using the latter’s materials. Only the big
industrialists (who, as is evident from the figures given, should have
from 17 to 21 workers per establishment) are quite independent. It is
they, evidently, who figure in the Directory as “factory
owners” (see p. 291: 2 establishments with an output totalling 4,000
rubles and with 73 workers). This is “serial manufacture”; the
horns are first steamed in what is called the “smithy” (a
wooden hut with a furnace); then they are passed on to the
workshop where they are cut up, after which they go to a stamping
press, where the pattern is imprinted, and, lastly, are finished and
polished on lathes. The industry has its apprentices. The working day is
14 hours. Payment in goods is a regular thing. The relations between
masters and men are patriarchal, as seen in the following: the master
calls the workers “boys,” and the pay-book is called the
“boys’ book”; when the master pays the workers, he lectures them and never grants in full their
“requests” for payment.

The horn industry, which is included in our table of small industries
(Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 31 and 33), is also of the same
type. “Handicraftsmen” employing dozens of wage-workers figure
also in the Directory as “factory owners” (p. 291). Division
of labour is practised; work is also given out to home workers (horn
trimmers). The centre of the industry in Bogorodsk Uyezd is the big
village of Khoteichi, where agriculture is receding into the background
(population in 1897 was 2,494). The Moscow Zemstvo publication stated
quite rightly: Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd ,
Moscow Gubernia , in 1890 , that this village “ is nothing but a large comb manufactory ” (p. 24,
our italics). In 1890, over 500 industrialists were counted in this
village, with an output of from 3.5 to 5.5 million combs. “More
often than not, the horn dealer is also a buyer-up of finished goods, and
in many cases a big comb-maker as well.” The position of those
makers who are compelled to take horns “at piece rates” is
particularly bad: “their position is actually worse than that of the
wage-workers in the big establishments.” Dire need compels them to
exploit the labour of their whole families beyond measure, to lengthen their working day and to put juveniles to work. “During the
winter, work in Khoteichi starts at one o’clock in the morning, and
it is hard to say for certain when it ends in the cottage of the
‘independent’ craftsman doing ‘piece-work.’”
Payment in goods is widely practised. “This system, eliminated with
such difficulty from the factories, is still in full force in the small
handicraft establishments” (27). Probably, the horn goods industry
is organised on similar lines in Kadnikov Uyezd, Vologda Gubernia, in the
area of Ustye village (known as “Ustyanshchina”), where there
are 58 hamlets. Mr. V. Borisov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX) counts 388 handicraftsmen here, with an output
totalling 45,000 rubles; all the handicraftsmen work for capitalists, who
buy horns in St. Petersburg and tortoise-shell abroad.

At the head of the brush industry in Moscow Gubernia (see Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industry No. 20) we find big establishments with a large number
of wage-workers and with systematic division of labour. [58]

It is interesting to note at this point the changes that took place in the
organisation of this industry between 1879 and 1895 (see Moscow Zemstvo
publication: The Brush Industry According to the Investigation of 1895 ). Some well-to-do industrialists went to Moscow to carry on the
industry there. The number of industrialists increased 70%, the increase
being particularly large in the number of women (+170%) and girls
(+159%). The number of big workshops with wage-workers diminished: the
proportion of establishments with wage-workers dropped from 62% to
39%. This was due to the fact that the masters began to distribute work to be done in the home . The introduction into general use of the
drilling machine (for making holes in brush blocks) accelerated and
facilitated one of the main processes in brushmaking. The demand for
“setters” (craftsmen who “set” bristle in the block) increased; and this operation, which became increasingly
specialised, fell to the lot of women, their labour being cheaper. The
women began to work at home setting bristle, and were paid by the
piece. Thus, the growing resort to domestic industry was caused in this
case by progress in technique (drilling machine), progress in division of
labour (the women do nothing but set bristle), and progress in capitalist
exploitation (the labour of women and girls being cheaper). This example
shows very clearly that domestic industry by no means eliminates the concept of capitalist manufacture , but, on the contrary, is sometimes
even a sign of its further development .

7) The Processing of Mineral Products

In the section relating to ceramics we get an example of capitalist
manufacture in the industries of the Gzhel district (an area of 25 villages
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds, Moscow Gubernia). The relevant
statistics are given in our table of small industries (Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industries Nos. 15, 28 and 37). From these data it is evident that despite the enormous differences between the three Gzhel industries:
pottery, porcelain and decorative, these differences disappear as we pass
from one grade of establishment to another in each industry, and we get a
series of workshops of successively increasing dimensions. Here are the
average numbers of workers per establishment according to grade in these
three industries: 2.4 — 4.3 — 8.4 — 4.4. — 7.9 — 13.5 — 18 — 69 —
226.4. In other words, the workshops range from the very smallest to the
very biggest. There is no doubt that the big establishments belong to the
category of capitalist manufacture (inasmuch as they have not introduced
machines, have not developed into factories); what is important, however,
is not only this, but also that the small establishments are connected with the big ones ; that we have a single system of industry
here and not separate workshops of one or other type of economic
organisation. “Gzhel constitutes a single economic whole”
(Isayev, loc . cit ., 138), and the big workshops in the
district have grown slowly and gradually out of the small ones
( ibid ., 121). The work is done by hand, [59] with considerable division of labour : among the potters we find wheel
hands (specialising in different sorts of pottery), kilnmen, etc., and
sometimes special workers for preparing colours. In the manufacture of
porcelain-ware division of labour is extremely detailed: crushers, wheel
hands, feeders, kilnmen, decorators, etc. The wheel hands even specialise
in the various kinds of porcelain ware (cf. Isayev, loc . cit ., 140: in one case division of labour increases
productivity of labour by 25%). The decorators’ shops work for the
porcelain makers and are, therefore, only departments of the
latter’s manufactories, performing a special detailed operation. It
is characteristic of developed capitalist manufacture that physical
strength itself becomes a specialty. Thus, in Gzhel, some of the villages
are engaged (almost to a man) in clay digging; for heavy work not requiring special
skill (grinding), workers from the Tula and Ryazan gubernias are employed
almost exclusively, being superior in strength and vigour to the not very
robust Gzhelians. Payment in goods is widely practised. Agriculture is in
a bad way. “The Gzhelians are a degenerating race” (Isayev,
168) — weak-chested, narrow-shouldered, feeble; the decorators lose their
sight at an early age, etc. Capitalist division of labour breaks up the
worker and deforms him. The working day is from 12 to 13 hours.

8) The Metal Trades. The Pavlovo Industries

The celebrated Pavlovo lock and cutlery industries cover the whole of
Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, and Murom Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. These industries originated very long ago. Smirnov states that
as far back as 1621 there were (according to the cadastres [91] ) 11
smithies in Pavlovo. By the middle of the 19th century these industries
constituted a far-flung network of fully developed capitalist
relations. After the Reform, the industries in this district continued to
develop and expand. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889, in Gorbatov
Uyezd 13 volosts and 119 villages were engaged in industry; a total of
5,953 households, 6,570 male workers (54% of the total number working in
these villages) and 2,741 old men, juveniles and women, 9,311 persons in
all. In the Murom Uyezd, Mr. Grigoryev in 1881 registered 6 industrial
volosts, 66 villages, 1,545 households and 2,205 male workers (39% of the
total number working in these villages). Not only were large,
non-agricultural industrial villages formed (Pavlovo, Vorsma), but even
the surrounding peasants were diverted from agriculture: outside of
Pavlovo and Vorsma, in Gorbatov Uyezd, 4,492 persons were engaged in
industries, of whom 2,357, or more than half did not engage in
agriculture. Life in centres like Pavlovo has become quite urban and has
given rise to incomparably more developed requirements, more cultured
environment, clothes, manner of life, etc., than among the surrounding
“raw”

peasants. [60]

Turning to the economic organisation of the Pavlovo industries, we must
first of all note the indubitable fact that the “handicraftsmen” are headed by the most typical capitalist
manufactories. For example, in the Zavyalovs’ establishment (which
already in the 60s employed over 100 workers at the bench and has now
introduced a steam engine) a penknife passes through 8 or 9 hands: the
forger, blade-maker, handle-maker (usually an outside worker), hardener,
facer, polisher, finisher, grinder and marker. This is extensive
capitalist co-operation based on division of labour, with a considerable
number of the workers performing individual operations employed at home
and not in the capitalist’s workshop. Here are facts given by
Mr. Labzin (in 1866) on the bigger establishments in the villages of
Pavlovo, Vorsma and Vacha, covering all branches of production in this
district: 15 proprietors had 500 workers occupied on the premises and
1,134 workers outside, making a total of 1,634, with an output totalling
351,700 rubles. How far this description of economic relations is
applicable to the whole district at the present time may be seen from the
following data [61] :

Thus, the organisation of the industry as outlined by us prevails in all
the districts. All in all, about three-fifths of the total number
of workers are employed capitalistically. Here too, consequently, we find
manufacture predominating in the general structure of the industry [62] and
holding masses of workers under its sway, without, however, being able to
eradicate small production. The relative tenacity of the latter is fully
explained, firstly, by the fact that in some branches of the Pavlovo
industry mechanised production has not yet been introduced at all (for
instance, in lock-making); and, secondly, by the fact that the small
producer tries to save himself from sinking by resorting to means that
cause him to sink far lower than the wage-worker. These means are:
lengthening the working day, and reducing the standard of living and of
general requirements. “The earnings of the group of handicraftsmen
who work for proprietors are less subject to fluctuation”
(Grigoryev, loc . cit ., 65); at Zavyalovs’, for example, the lowest-paid worker is the handle-maker; “he works at
home, and that is why he is satisfied with lower earnings” (68). The
handicraftsmen who work “for factory owners” are “able to earn somewhat more than the average earnings of the one who takes his
products to the market. Larger earnings are particularly noticeable among
the workers who live in the factories” (70). [63]

The working day in the “factories” is from 14 1/2 to 15 hours,
with a maximum of 16 hours. “The working day of the home-working
handicraftsmen, on the other hand, is never less than 17 hours and
sometimes as much as 18 and even 19 hours” ( ibid .). It
would not be in the least surprising if the law of June 2, 1897 [92] caused an
increase here in home-work; it is high time these “handicraftsmen” directed their efforts towards compelling the
proprietors to organise factories! Let the reader also recall the
notorious Pavlovo “loan-purchase,” “exchange,” “wife-pawning” and similar forms of bondage and personal
degradation which grind down the quasi-independent small producer. [64]

Fortunately, rapidly developing large-scale machine industry does not so
readily tolerate these worst forms of exploitation as manufacture
does. Running ahead a little, let us quote data on the growth of factory
production in this district. [65]

We thus see that ever-increasing numbers of workers are being drawn into
large establishments, which are going over to the use of machines. [66]

9) Other Metal Trades

The industries of Bezvodnoye village, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia and Uyezd
also come under the head of capitalist manufacture. This is also an
industrial village, the majority of whose inhabitants do not engage in
agriculture at all, and which serves as the centre of an industrial area
of several villages. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889
( Material , Vol. VIII, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1895), in the Bezvodnoye
Volost (581 households) 67.3% of the households cultivated no land, 78.3%
had no horses, 82.4% engaged in industries, and 57.7% had literate persons
and schoolchildren in the family (as against an average for the uyezd of
44.6%). The Bezvodnoye industries are devoted to the production of various
metal goods: chains, fish-hooks, and metal fabrics; the output was
estimated at 2 1/2 million rubles in

1883 [67] and 1 1/2 million rubles in

1888-89. [68]

The organisation of the industry is as follows: work for proprietors, using
their materials, which is distributed among a number of workers performing
single operations and done partly in the employers’ workshops and
partly in the home. For example, in the making of fish-hooks the various
operations are performed by “benders,” “cutters” (who work in a special shed) and “pointers” (women and
children who sharpen the hook-points in their homes); all these work at
piece rates for the capitalist, while the bender gives out work on his own
account to the cutters and pointers. “Metal wire is now done by
horse-driven windlasses; formerly the wire was drawn by blind men, who
were brought here in large numbers. . . .” One of the “specialities” of capitalist manufacture! “The
conditions under which this work is done differ very much from those in
all the other trades.

People have to work in a stifling atmosphere filled with the harmful
vapours emanating from accumulated horse dung.” [69]

Organised on the same lines of capitalist manufacture are the screen, [70] the pin, [71] and the gold-thread industries. [72]

In the last-named industry at the beginning of the 80s there were 66 establishments, employing 670 workers (of
whom 79% were hired), with an output totalling 368,500 rubles;
some of these capitalist establishments were occasionally also
included among the “factories and works.” [73]

The locksmith industries of the Burmakino Volost (and surrounding volosts)
of Yaroslavl Gubernia and Uyezd are probably organised on the same
lines. At all events, here we observe the same division of labour
(blacksmiths, blowers and locksmiths), the same extensive development of
wage-labour (of 307 smithies in the Burmakino Volost, 231 employ
wage-workers), the same predominance of big capital over all these detail
workers (the buyers-up are at the top; the blacksmiths work for them, and
the locksmiths for the blacksmiths), the same combination of the buying up
of wares with the production of wares in capitalist workshops, some of
which are occasionally included among the “factories and works.” [74]

In the appendix to the preceding chapter, statistics were given on the
tray and the copper industries [75] of Moscow Gubernia (the latter in the district known as
“Zagarye”). The data show that wage-labour plays a predominant
part in these industries, that the industries are headed by large
workshops employing an average of from 18 to 23 wage-workers per
establishment, with an average output of from

16,000 to 17,000 rubles. If we add to this that division of labour is very
widely practised here, [76] it will be clear that what we have is capitalist manufacture. [77] “The small industrial units, which are an anomaly under the existing
conditions of technique and division of labour, can only hold out
alongside the big workshops by lengthening the working day to the utmost” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., p. 33) — among the tray-makers, for example, for as long as 19 hours. The ordinary working day
here is from 13 to 15 hours; with the small proprietors it is
from 16 to 17 hours. Payment in goods is widely practised (both
in 1876 and in

1890). [78]

Let us add that the lengthy existence of this industry (it arose at the beginning
of the 19th century, at the latest) and extensive specialisation have, in
this case too, produced highly skilled workers; the Zagarians are famed
for their craftsmanship. Specialities have also sprung up in the industry
which need no preliminary training and are within the grasp of even
under-age workers. “This very possibility,” Mr. Isayev rightly
observes, “of becoming an under-age worker at once and acquiring a
trade, as it were, without having to study, indicates that the handicraft
spirit, which demands the training of labour-power, is disappearing; the
simplicity of many of the detailed operations is a symptom of the
transition of handicraft to manufacture” ( loc . cit ., 34). Let us only observe that to a certain
degree the “handicraft spirit” always remains in manufacture,
for its basis is the same hand production.

10) The Jewellery, Samovar and Accordion Trades

The village of Krasnoye, Kostroma Gubernia and Uyezd, is one of the
industrial villages usually held up as centres of our “people’s” capitalist manufacture. This large village
(in 1897 it had 2,612 inhabitants) is purely urban in character; the
inhabitants live like townspeople and (with very few exceptions) do not
engage in agriculture. Krasnoye is the centre of the jewellery industry
which covers 4 volosts and 51 villages (including Sidorovskoye Volost of
Nerekhta Uyezd), and in them 735 households and about 1,706 workers. [79] “The principal representatives of industry,” said Mr. Tillo,
“are undoubtedly the big industrialists of the village of Krasnoye:
the Pushilovs, Mazovs, Sorokins, Chulkovs and other merchants. They buy
materials (gold, silver and copper), employ craftsmen, buy up finished
articles, distribute orders for work to be done in the home, supply
samples, etc.” (2043). The big industrialists have their workshops,
so-called “rabotorni” (laboratories), where the metal is
smelted and forged, then to be given out for finishing to
“handicraftsmen”; they have technical appliances, such as
“pretsi” (presses and dies for stamping), “punches” (for embossing designs), “rollers” (for
stretching the metal), benches, etc. Division of labour is widely
practised: “Nearly every article passes through several hands in an
established order in the course of manufacture. For example, in the making
of ear-rings, the master industrialist first sends the silver to his own
workshop, where part of it is rolled and part drawn into wire; then on
receipt of an order the material is given to a craftsman who, if he has a
family, divides the work among several persons; one uses a punch to cut
the silver plates into the shapes for the ear-rings, another bends the
wire into the rings with which the ear-rings are attached to the ears, a third solders these parts, and, lastly, a fourth polishes
the finished ear-rings. None of this work is difficult, or requires much
training; very often the soldering and the polishing are done by women and
by children of 7 or 8 years of age” (2041). [80]

Here, too, the working day is excessively long, usually as much as 16
hours. Payment in provisions is common.

The following statistics (published quite recently by a local assay
inspector) clearly illustrate the economic structure of the industry: [93] “Both the first groups (about two-thirds of the total number of
craftsmen) should be classed as home-working factory workers rather than
as handicraftsmen.” In the top group “wage-labour occurs more
and more frequently. . . . The craftsmen have begun to buy articles made
by others”; in the upper strata of this group “buying-up predominates,” and “four of the buyers-up have no workshops at all.” [81]

The samovar and accordion industries in Tula town and environs are highly
typical examples of capitalist manufacture. Generally speaking, the
“handicraft” industries in this district have a long history,
dating back to the 15th century. [82]

They evidenced a particularly rapid development in the middle of the 17th
century; Mr. Borisov considers that the second period in the development
of the Tula industries then began. In 1637 the first iron foundry was
built (by the Dutchman Vinius). The Tula gunsmiths formed a separate
smiths’ suburb, constituted a separate social estate, enjoying
special rights and privileges. In 1696 the first iron foundry was erected
in Tula by a famous Tula blacksmith, and the industry spread to the Urals
and

Siberia. [83]

Then began the third period in the history of the Tula industries. The
craftsmen set up their own workshops and taught the trade to surrounding
peasants. In the 1810s and 1820s the first samovar factories were
started. “By 1825 there were in Tula 43 different factories that
belonged to gunsmiths, while those in existence at the present time nearly
all belong to one-time gunsmiths, now Tula merchants” ( loc . cit ., 2262). Here, consequently, we observe a
direct continuity and connection between the old guild masters and the
principals of subsequent capitalist manufacture. In 1864 the Tula
gunsmiths were freed from serf dependence [94] and assigned to the burgher estate; earnings dropped as a consequence of the
severe competition of the village handicraftsmen (which caused a reverse
flow of industrialists from town to country); the workers turned to the
samovar, lock, cutlery, and accordion industries (the first Tula
accordions appeared in 1830-1835).

The samovar industry is at present organised as follows. It is headed by
big capitalists who own workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers, but they also distribute many separate
operations to be done by workers, urban and rural, in their homes; those
who perform these operations sometimes still have their own workshops and
employ wage-workers. Naturally, side by side with the big there are small
workshops, with all the consecutive stages of dependence upon the
capitalists. Division of labour is the general basis of the whole
structure of this trade. The process of samovar-making is divided into the
following separate operations: 1) rolling the copper sheets into tubes
(tubing); 2) soldering the tubes; 3) filing the seams; 4) fitting the
bottoms; 5) beating out the shapes; 6) cleaning the insides: 7) turning
the bodies and necks; 8) plating; 9) press-punching the vents in the
bottoms and the covers; 10) assembling the samovars. Further, there are
the separate processes of casting the small copper parts: a) preparing the
moulds and b)

casting. [84]

Where work is given out to be done in the home, each of these operations may
constitute a special “handicraft” industry. One of these
“industries” was described by Mr. Borisov in Vol. VII of the
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission . This industry (samovar
tubing) consists in peasants doing at piece rates one of the operations we
have described, using merchants’ materials. The handicraftsmen left
Tula town to work in the countryside after 1861; the cost of living and
standard of requirements were lower in the countryside ( loc . cit ., p. 893). Mr. Borisov quite rightly
attributes this tenacity of the “handicraftsman” to the
retention of hand-labour in the beating out of samovars; “it will
always be profitable for the manufacturer to employ the village
handicraftsman, because he works at from 10 to 20% below the rate of the
urban artisan” (916).

Mr. Borisov estimated the value of the output of samovars in 1882 at
approximately 5 million rubles, the number of workers (handicraftsmen
included) totalling from 4,000 to 5,000. In this case also the factory
statistics cover only a fraction of capitalist manufacture. The Directory for 1879
counted in Tula Gubernia 53 samovar “factories” (all hand-operated) with 1,479 workers and an output totalling 836,000
rubles. The Directory for 1890 gives 162 factories, 2,175
workers, and an output of 1.1 million rubles; the list of firms, however,
contains only 50 factories (1 steam operated), with 1,326 workers and an
output totalling 698,000 rubles. Evidently, some hundred small
establishments were in this case classed as “factories.”
Lastly, the List gives the following for 1894-95: 25 factories (4
steam-operated), 1,202 workers (+ 607 outside), and an output totalling
1,613,000 rubles. In these data neither the number of factories nor the
number of workers are comparable (for the reason given above, and also
because of the lumping together in previous years of workers on the
premises and outside). The only thing beyond doubt is that manufacture is
being steadily displaced by large-scale machine industry: in 1879, there
were 2 factories with 100 and more workers; in 1890 there were 2 (one
steam-operated) and in 1894-95 there were 4 (three steam-operated). [85]

The accordion industry, which is at a lower stage of economic development,
is organised in precisely the same way. [86] “In the making of accordions there are
over ten separate trades” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, 236); the making of the different parts of an
accordion or the performance of some of the operations constitute
separate, quasi-independent “handicraft” industries. “When things are quiet all the handicraftsmen work for factories or for more or less big workshops, the owners of which
supply them with materials; when, however, there is a brisk demand for
accordions, a large number of small producers appear, who buy up parts
from the handicraftsmen, assemble them and take the finished articles to
the local shops where accordions are very readily purchased”
( ibid .). Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated from 2,000 to 3,000
workers in this industry, with an output totalling about 4 million rubles;
factory statistics in 1879 showed two “factories,” with 22
workers and an output totalling 5,000 rubles; in 1890, 19 factories, with
275 workers and an output totalling 82,000 rubles; in 1894-95 one factory,
with 23 workers (plus 17 outside) and an output totalling 20,000 rubles. [87]

Steam-engines are not employed at all. All these figure variations
indicate a purely haphazard picking of individual establishments which are
component parts of the complex organism of capitalist manufacture.

---
Notes:
[1]
Cf. Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VII, Pt. III
(Moscow, 1883), pp. 63-64.— Lenin

[2]
For a list of the most important towns of this type, see next chapter.— Lenin

[3]
Examples of such confusion will be given in the next chapter.— Lenin

[4]
See Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III. It would be impossible
and superfluous to give detailed data on all the weaving industries
described in the literature on our handicraft industry. Moreover, in the
majority of these industries the factory now reigns supreme. On the
subject of “handicraft weaving” see also Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vols. VI and VII. — Transactions of the Handicraft Commission — Material on Hand-Labour Statistics . [95]
— Reports and Investigations . — Korsak, loc . cit .— Lenin

[5]
The Military Statistical Abstract managed to count in Vladimir
Gubernia, in 1866, 98 silk factories (!) with 98 workers and a total
output of 4,000 rubles(!). The Directory for 1890 gives 35
factories, 2,112 workers, and 936,000 rubles. According to the
List for 1894-95 there were 98 factories, 2,281 workers, with an
output of 1,918,000 rubles, and in addition, 2,477 workers “outside
of establishments, on the side.” Just try to distinguish
“handicraftsmen” here from “factory workers”!— Lenin

[6]
According to the Directory for 1890 there were outside of Moscow
10 galloon factories, with 303 workers and an output totalling 58,000
rubles. But according to Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia
(Vol. VI, Pt. II), there were 400 establishments, with 2,619 workers (of
whom 72.8% were wage-workers) and with an output totalling 963,000 rubles.— Lenin

[7]
The Collection of Factory Inspectors’ Reports for 1903 (St. Petersburg, 1906) states that in Saratov Gubernia there were 33
distributing offices with 10,000 workers. ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[8]
The centre of this industry is Sosnovka Volost, where the Zemstvo census
of 1886 counted 4,626 households, with a population of 38,000 persons of
both sexes; 291 industrial establishments. Altogether in the volost 10% of
the households were houseless (as against 6.2% in the uyezd), and 44.5% of
the households cultivated on land (as against 22.8% in the uyezd). See
Statistical Returns for Saratou Gubernia , Vol. XI. — Capitalist
manufacture has, consequently, created industrial centres here too which
divorce the workers from the land.— Lenin

[9]
The sources are shown in the text. The number of establishments is about
half the number of independent workers (52 establishments in Vasilyev
Vrag, 5 + 55 + 110 in Krasnoye village and 21 establishments in the 4
small villages). On the other hand, the figures for the town of Arzamas
and Viyezdnaya Sloboda stands for the number of “factories,”
and not of workers.— Lenin

[10]
Let us note that the diagram given is typical of all Russian industries
organised on the lines of capitalist manufacture: everywhere at the head
of the industry we find big establishments (sometimes classed among
“factories and works”), and a mass of small establishments
completely under their sway — in a word, capitalist co-operation based on
division of labour and hand production. Non-agricultural centres are
formed by manufacture in exactly the same way, not only here, but also in
the majority of other industries.— Lenin

[11]
They are naked as they work in a temperature of 22° to 24°
Réaumur. The air is full of fine and also coarse dust, wool and
other stuff. The floors in the “factories” are earthen (in the
washing sheds of all places), etc.— Lenin

[12]
It is not without interest to note here the specific jargon of the
inhabitants of Krasnoye; this is characteristic of the territorial
isolation peculiar to manufacture. “In the village of Krasnoye
factories are given the Matroisk name of povarnyas (lit. kitchens — Ed .). . . . Matroisk is one of the
numerous branches of the Ophen dialect, the three main branches of which
are Ophen proper, spoken mainly in Vladimir Gubernia; Galivon , in Kostroma Gubernia; and Matroisk , in the
Nizhni-Novgorod and Vladimir gubernias” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V, p 465). Only large-scale machine industry
completely destroys the local character of social ties and replaces them
by national (and international) ties.— Lenin

[13]
Material for Evaluation of the Lands of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia ,
Vol. XI, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1893, pp. 211-214.— Lenin

[14]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , VI.— Lenin

[15]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[16]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II.— Lenin

[17]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II, p. 271.— Lenin

[18]
See Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 27.— Lenin

[19]
Some of these establishments were occasionally included among
“factories and works.” See, for example, the
Directory for 1879, p.126.— Lenin

[20]
See above, Chapter V, § VII.— Lenin

[21]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , IV, Pt.I, pp. 282-287.— Lenin

[22]
See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, and
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[23]
By some accident, such workshops have not yet been included among
“factories and works.”— Lenin

[24]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , II.— Lenin

[25]
According to Zemstvo statistics (Vol. VII of Material ,
Nizhni-Novgorod, 1892) in these villages in 1889 there were 341 and 119
households, numbering respectively 1,277 and 540 persons of both
sexes. There were 253 and 103 allotment households. Households
participating in industries numbered 284 and 91, of which 257 and 32 did
not engage in agriculture. There were 218 and 51 horseless
households. Those leasing their allotments numbered 237 and 53.— Lenin

[26]
Cf. Nizhni-Novgorod Handbook , Vol IV, article by Rev. Roslavlev.— Lenin

[27]
Sketch of Condition of Handicraft Industry in Perm Gubernia ,
p. 158; in the table totals there is a mistake or a misprint.— Lenin

[28]
Ibid ., pp. 40 and 188 of table. To all appearances these same
establishments also figure in the List , p. 152. For the purpose
of comparing the big establishments with the small ones we have singled
out the agriculturist commodity-producers, see Studies ,
p. 156. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[29]
The Handicraft Industries of Perm Gubernia at the Siberian Urals Exhibition , Pt. III, p. 47 and foll.— Lenin

[30]
See Zemstvo statistical returns for Trubchevsk, Karachev and Orel uyezds
of Orel Gubernia. The connection between the big manufactories and the
small peasant establishments is also evident from the fact that the
employment of wage-labour develops in the latter as well: for example, in
Orel Uyezd, 16 peasant master spinners employ 77 workers.— Lenin

[31]
V. Ilyin, Studies, p. 176. (See present edition, Vol.2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[32]
See precise data on Perm handicraft census about this, ibid .,
p. 177 (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[33]
See Directory and List on Perm Gubernia and the village
of Nevyansky Zavod (non-agricultural), which is the centre of this
“handicraft industry.”— Lenin

[34]
Cf. our Studies , pp. 177-178. (See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[35]
Reports and Investigations , I.— Lenin

[36]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[37]
There are 14 big timber merchants. These have timber-seasoning rooms
(costing about 300 rubles), of which there are 24 in the village, each
employing 6 workers. These merchants also give out materials to workers,
whom they get into their grip by advancing them money.— Lenin

[38]
It will be appropriate here to note in general the process of development
of capitalism in the timber industry. The timber merchants do not sell the
timber raw; they hire workers to dress it and to make various wooden
articles, which they then sell. See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., VIII, pp. 1268, 1314. Also Statistical Returns for Orel Gubernia , Trubchevsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[39]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol II, 1879. See also
Zemstvo statistical Material for Semyonov Uyezd, Vol. XI, 1893.— Lenin

[40]
The statistics we have given (Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 2,
7, 26) cover only a small fraction of the toy-makers; but these data show
the appearance of workshops with 11 to 18 workers.— Lenin

[41]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. II, p. 47.— Lenin

[42]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[43]
Material for the Evaluation of the Lands in Gorbatov Uyezd.— Lenin

[44]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[45]
Thus, at the head of the horse-collar industry are 13 big proprietors,
each with 10 to 30 wage-workers and 5 to 10 outside workers. The big
mitten-makers do the cutting in their own workshops (employing 2 or 3
wage-workers) and get the mittens sewn off the premises by from 10 to 20
women; these are divided into thumb-makers and stitchers , the former taking the work from the owners and
sub-dividing it among the latter, whom they exploit (information for
1879).— Lenin

[46]
In 1889, of 1,812 households (with 9,241 inhabitants) 1,469 cultivated no
land (in 1897 there were 12,342 inhabitants). The villages of Pavlovo and
Bogorodskoye differ from the other villages of Gorbatov Uyezd in that very
few of their inhabitants leave them on the contrary, of all the peasants
of the Gorbatov Uyezd who have left their villages, 14.9% live in Pavlovo
and 4.9% in Bogorodskoye. The increase of the population between 1858 and
1889 was 22.1% for the uyezd, but 42% for the village of
Bogorodskoye. (See Zemstvo statistical Material .)— Lenin

[47]
See Zemstvo statistical Material for uyezds mentioned. —
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX and VI. —
Directory and List . — Reports and Investigations , II.— Lenin

[48]
In 1889 it had 380 households (none cultivating land) with 1,305
inhabitants In the whole of the Katunki Volost, 90.6% of the households
are engaged in industries, 70.1% of working people being occupied in
industries alone (i.e., not engaging in agriculture). As regards literacy,
this volost stands far above the average for the uyezd, yielding in this
respect only to the Chernoretsk Volost, which is also non-agricultural and
has highly developed boat-building industries. The village of Bolshoye
Murashkino had in 1887 a total of 856 households (of which 853 cultivated
no land) with 3,473 persons of both sexes. According to the 1897 census,
the population of Gorodets was 6,330, of Bolshoye Murashkino 5,341, of
Yurino 2,189, of Spasskoye 4,494 and of Vatras 3,012.— Lenin

[49]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX,
p. 2567. Information for 1880.— Lenin

[50]
The conditions of the workers in the Arzamas factories are better than
those of the rural workers ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 133).— Lenin

[51]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 76.— Lenin

[52]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. XI,
p. 3084. (Cf. Directory for 1890). Included among the
handicraftsmen is the peasant-agriculturist Dolgushin, who owns a works
employing 60 workers. There are several handicraftsmen of this type.— Lenin

[53]
According to the Directory for 1890, there were some 27 masters
employing over 700 workers.— Lenin

[54]
Cf. also List , p. 489, regarding the well-known “handicraft” village of Dunilovo, Shuya Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. The Directory for 1890 listed here 6 fur factories
employing 151 workers, while according to the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (Vol. X) there are about 2,200 furriers and
2,300 sheepskin-coat-makers in this district; in 1877 as many as 5,500
“handicraftsmen” were counted. Probably, the making of hair
sieves in this uyezd is organised in the same way; in this industry there
are engaged about 40 villages and as many as 4,000 people, known as
“Mardassers” (from the name of this district). We have described the similar organisation of the leather and cobbling industries
in Perm Gubernia in our Studies , p. 171 and foll (See present
edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[55]
Here is some information about the “handicraftsmen” relating
to 1894. “The squirrel furs are sewn by some of the poorest women in
the town of Kargopol and by peasant women of the Pavlovo Volost. They are
paid the very lowest price,” so that a seamstress earns only from 2
rubles 40 kopeks to 3 rubles per month, providing her own food, and for
this pay (at piece rates) she has to sit without a break for 12 hours a
day. “The work is very exhausting, for it calls for great strain and
assiduity.” The number of seamstresses is now about 200
( Handicraft Industry in Olonets Gubernia , Essay by
Messrs. Blagoveshchensky and Garyazin. Petrozavodsk, 1895, pp. 92-93).— Lenin

[56]
See Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II, Vol. III,
St. Petersburg, 1872. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and
Hand-Labour in Russia. Compiled by L. Maikov . Article by V
A. Pletnev. This work is the best for clarity of description of the whole
organisation of the industry. The latest works give valuable statistics and facts of the people’s life, but give a less
satisfactory exposition of the economic structure of this complex
industry. See, further, Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII, article by Mr. Pokrovsky, — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I.— Lenin

[57]
Cf. Reports and Investigations : 7 groups of industrialists: 1)
traders in leather goods; 2) buyers-up of footwear; 3) masters of big
workshops (5-6 of them), who stock leather and distribute it to home
workers; 4) masters of small workshops employing wage-workers; also give
out material to home workers; 5) one-man establishments — working either
for the market or for masters (sub 3 and 4); 6) wage-workers (craftsmen,
journeymen, boys); 7) “last-makers, notchers, and also owners and
workers in currying, greasing and gluing workshops” (p. 227,
loc . cit .). The population of Kimry village, according
to the 1897 census, is 7,017.— Lenin

[58]
The “sawyer” saws the brush blocks; the “borer” bores holes in them; the “cleaner” cleans the bristle; the
“setter” “sets” the bristle; the “joiner” glues wooden strips on the brush backs
( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. I, p. 18).— Lenin

[59]
Let us observe that in this industry, as in the above-described weaving
industries, capitalist manufacture is, strictly speaking, the economy of
yesterday. Characteristic of the post-Reform era is the transformation of
this manufacture into large-scale machine industry. The number of Gzhel
potteries using steam-engines was 1 in 1866, 2 in 1879 and 3 in 1890
(according to data in The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , Vol. I,
and Directory for 1879 and 1890).— Lenin

[60]
See above regarding the greater literacy of the population of Pavlovo and
Vorsma and the migration of peasants from the villages to these centres.— Lenin

[61]
Data from Zemstvo statistical Material , and Mr. Annensky’s
Report, and also A. N. Potresov’s researches (cited above). The
figures for the Murom district are approximate. The number of inhabitants,
according to the 1897 census, was 4,674 in Vorsma, and 12,431 in Pavlovo.— Lenin

[62]
The data we have given by no means express this predominance to the full:
as will presently be seen, the handicraftsmen who work for the market are
subjugated to capital even more than those who work for proprietors, and
the latter handicraftsmen even more than the wage-workers. The
Pavlovo industries show in strong relief that inseparable connection
between merchant’s and industrial capital which in general is
characteristic of capitalist manufacture in its relation to the small
producers.— Lenin

[63]
Connection with the land is also an important factor in reducing
earnings. The village handicraftsmen “on the whole earn less than
the Pavlovo locksmiths” (Annensky Report, p. 61). True, we must bear
in mind that the former grow their own grain, but even so “the
conditions of the ordinary village handicraftsman can scarcely be
considered better than those of the average Pavlovo locksmith” (61).— Lenin

[64]
During crises it also happens that they work literally without pay,
exchange “white for black,” i.e., finished goods for raw
materials; this happens “quite often” (Grigoryev, ibid ., 93).— Lenin

[65]
Data taken from Directory and List for the whole district, including the villages of Selitba and Vacha and their
environs. The Directory for 1890 undoubtedly included outside
workers in the total number of factory workers; we have estimated the
number of outside workers approximately, confining ourselves to a
correction only for the two biggest establishments (the Zavyalovs and
F. Varypayev). To compare the figures for “factories and
works” in the List and the Directory , only establishments with 15 and more workers must be taken (this is examined in
greater detail in our Studies , article: On the Question of Our
Factory Statistics) (See present edition, Vol. 4.— Ed .)— Lenin

[66]
In one branch of the Pavlovo industry, lock-making, there is, on the
contrary, a decline in the number of workshops employing wage-workers. A. N. Potresov ( loc . cit .), who recorded
this fact in detail, pointed to its cause — the competition of the
lock-making factory in Kovno Gubernia (Schmidt Brothers, which in 1890 had
500 workers, with an output of 500,000 rubles, and in 1894-95 had 625
workers, with an output of 730,000 rubles).— Lenin

[67]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX. The population of
Bezvodnoye village in 1897 was 3,296.— Lenin

[68]
Reports and Investigations , Vol. I. — The List gives 4
“factories” for this district, with 21 workers on premises and
29 outside workers, and output totalling 68,000 rubles.— Lenin

[69]
Reports and Investigations , I, p. 186.— Lenin

[70]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 29.— Lenin

[71]
Ibid ., No. 32.— Lenin

[72]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. 1, Sec. 2,
and Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd in 1890. — Lenin

[73]
See, for example, the List , No. 8819.— Lenin

[74]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VI, investigation
of 1880. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I (1888-1889),
cf. p. 271: “nearly the whole trade . . . is concentrated in
workshops employing wage-workers.” Cf. also Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia , Vol. II, Yaroslavl, 1896, pp. 8, 11. — List ,
p. 403.— Lenin

[75]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 19 and 30.— Lenin

[76]
A copper-smith’s workshop needs five operatives to do the different
jobs; a tray-maker’s at least 3, while a “normal workshop” needs 9 workers. “In the large establishments”
a “fine division” (of labour) is practised “with the object of increasing productivity” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., 27 and 31).— Lenin

[77]
The Directory for 1890 gives for the district of Zagarye 14
factories employing 184 workers, with an output totalling 37,000 rubles. A
comparison of these figures with the above-quoted Zemstvo statistics shows
that in this case too the factory statistics covered only the upper strata
of widely developed capitalist manufacture.— Lenin

[78]
Cf. Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[79]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, article by
Mr. A. Tillo. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. III (1893). The
industry continues to develop. Cf. letter to Russkiye Vedomosti ,
1897, No. 231. Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42. Output totals over
1 million rubles, of which about 200,000 rubles is received by the workers
and about 300,000 rubles by buyers-up and merchants.— Lenin

[80]
“Among the Krasnoye handicraftsmen every kind of article and even
every part is made by a specific craftsman, and therefore one rarely
finds, for example, rings and ear-rings, bracelets and brooches, etc.,
made in the same house; usually a particular article is made in parts by
different worker-specialists who live not only in different houses but
even in different villages” ( Reports and Investigations ,
Vol. III, p. 76).— Lenin

[81]
Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42.— Lenin

[82]
See Mr. V. Borisov’s article in Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX.— Lenin

[83]
The Tula blacksmith, Nikita Demidov Antufyev, won Peter the Great’s
favour by building an ironworks near the town of Tula; in 1702 he was
granted the Nevyansk works. His descendants were the famous Urals iron
manufacturers, the Demidovs.— Lenin

[84]
The Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. X, contain an
excellent description by Mr. Manokhin of the samovar industry in Suksun,
Perm Gubernia. Its organisation is the same as that in Tula
Gubernia. Cf. ibid ., Vol. IX, Mr. Borisov’s article on
handicraft industries at the 1882 exhibition.— Lenin

[85]
Evidently there are analogous features in the organisation of the
mechanical trades in Tula and its environs. Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated
that the number of workers employed in these industries was from 2,000 to
3,000, producing wares to a value of nearly 2 1/2 million rubles. These
“handicraftsmen” are very much under the heel of merchant’s capital. The hardware “factories” in Tula
Gubernia sometimes also have outside workers (cf. List ,
pp. 393-395).— Lenin

[86]
The development of accordion-making is also interesting as a process of
the elimination of primitive folk instruments and of the creation of a
wide, national market; without this market there could have been no
division of labour by processes, and without division of labour the
finished article could not have been produced cheaply “Owing to
their cheapness . . . the accordions have nearly everywhere displaced the
primitive string folk instrument, the balalaika” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, p. 2276).— Lenin

[87]
The Tula town census of November 29, 1891, gave 36 establishments selling
accordions and 34 accordion workshops (see Tula Gubernia Handbook for 1895 , Tula, 1895).— Lenin

[88]
Workroom owners , middlemen — owners of premises who rented them to manufacturers for the installation of hand-looms, and
themselves worked there. The middleman or workroom owner, by arrangement
with the employer, undertook to heat or repair the premises, deliver raw
materials to the weavers, send the finished product to the employer or act
as overseer. [p.386]

[95]
Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II. Vol. III. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and Hand
Labour in Russia. Part 1. Published by the Central Statistical Committee
of the Ministry of Home Affairs. St. Petersburg, 1872. [p.388]

[89]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.396]

[90]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.398]

[91]
Cadastre — a public record of the extent, value and ownership of
land, etc., for purposes of taxation. The cadastral surveys gave
particulars of land held, incomes of inhabitants and descriptions of
streets, monasteries, fortifications, etc. The oldest cadastre now extant
dates back to the 15th century, but most of those that have been preserved
relate to the 17th century. Surveys for the cadastre were made by special
commissions appointed by the central government authorities. [p.415]

[92]
The Law of June 2 , 1897 established a working day of 11
1/2 hours for industrial enterprises and railway workshops. Prior to the
adoption of this law the working day in Russia was unlimited and lasted as
long as 14 and 15 hours and even more. The tsar’s government was
forced to adopt this law due to the pressure of the working-class
movement, which was led by the “League of Struggle for the
Emancipation of the Working Class” headed by Lenin. A detailed
analysis and criticism of the law is given by Lenin in his pamphlet:
The New Factory Law . (See present edition, Vol. 2.) [p. 418]

[93]
The table that follows is based on a similar but more detailed table
published in the Vestnik Finansov , Issue No. 42, 1898. [p.423]

[94]
Prior to 1864 the gunsmiths of Tula were serfs of the state and lived in
special suburbs (slobodas). (The state blacksmiths’ sloboda, etc.)
They were divided into guilds: barrel, gun-stock, lock, instrumental,
etc. For the carrying out of auxiliary work serf-peasants from a number of
villages were attached to the Tula arms factories, their task being to
prepare charcoal for the gunsmiths, guard the forests allocated to the
factories, and do jobs in the factory yards.

In Tula at the time of their liberation from feudal dependence there were
nearly 4,000 gunsmiths, of whom 1,276 were employed in factories and 2,362
worked at home. In all, the gunsmiths and their families numbered over
20,000. [p.424]

| | I. The Rise of Manufacture and its Main Features | | | III. Technique in Manufacture. Division of Labour and its Significance | |

# The Processing of Mineral Products

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vi/vi8ii.htm#sect07

Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry

II. Capitalist Manufacture in Russian Industry

Let us begin with the industries that process fibres.

1) The Weaving Industries

The weaving of linen, wool, cotton and silk fabrics, galloons, etc., was
organised everywhere in Russia as follows (before the appearance of
large-scale machine industry). The industry was headed by big capitalist
workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers; the owners of these
workshops, possessing sizable capital, undertook the large-scale purchase
of raw material, partly working it up in their own establishments, and partly giving out yarn and warp to small producers
(workroom owners, middlemen, [88] , peasant-“handicraftsmen” etc.) who wove the cloth at home or
in small workshops at piece rates. The work itself was done by hand, and
the following operations were distributed among the workers: 1)
yarn-dyeing; 2) yarn-winding (very often women and children specialised in
this operation); 3) yarn-fixing (“fixers”); 4) weaving; 5)
weft-winding for weavers (bobbin hands, mostly children). Sometimes in the
big workshops there were special “threaders” (who threaded the
warp through the eyes of the batten and reed.) [1] of labour
is usually applied, not only to single operations, but to wares, that is,
the

weavers specialise in producing various sorts of cloth. The selection of
some operations to be done in the home does not, of course, make any
change whatever to the economic structure of this type of industry. The
workrooms or homes where the weavers work are simply external departments
of the manufactory. The technical basis of such industry is hand
production with extensive and systematic division of labour; from the
economic point of view we see here the formation of large capital which
controls the purchase of raw materials and the sale of wares on an
extremely extensive (national) market, and under whose complete sway are a
mass of proletarian weavers; a few large establishments (manufactories in
the narrow sense of the term) dominate a mass of small ones. Division of
labour leads to the emergence of specialist artisans from among the
peasantry; non-agricultural centres of manufacture arise, such as the
village of Ivanovo in Vladimir Gubernia (in 1871 it became the town of
Ivanovo-Voznesensk and is now a centre of large-scale machine industry),
the village of Velikoye in Yaroslavl Gubernia, and many other villages in
Moscow, Kostroma, Vladimir and Yaroslavl gubernias, which have now turned
into factory towns. [2]

In our economic literature and statistics the industry organised in this way is
usually split up into two parts: peasants who work in their homes, or in
not particularly big workrooms, workshops, etc., are classed under
“handicraft” industry, while the bigger workrooms and workshops are placed among the “factories and works” (and,
moreover, quite fortuitously, since no definitely established and
uniformly applied rules exist as to the separation of small establishments
from big ones, of workrooms from manufactories, of workers occupied in
their homes from workers occupied in the workshop of the capitalist). [3]

Naturally, such classification, which places some wage-workers on one
side, and some masters who hire these very wage-workers (in addition to
the workers in their establishments) on the other, is nonsense from the
scientific viewpoint.

Let us illustrate this by detailed data regarding one of the
“handicraft weaving” industries, namely, silk weaving in
Vladimir

Gubernia. [4]

The “silk industry” is a typical specimen of capitalist
manufacture. Hand labour prevails. Of the total number of establishments
the small ones constitute the majority (179 out of 313, or 57% of the
total, have from 1 to 5 workers), but in greater part they are not
independent and are far behind the big ones in their significance to the
industry as a whole. Establishments with 20 to 150 workers constitute 8%
of the total (25), but in them 41.5% of the aggregate number of workers
are concentrated, and they account for 51% of the total output. Of the
total number of workers in the industry (2,823) there are 2,092
wage-workers, i.e., 74.1%. “On the job we meet with division of
labour both in wares and in individual operations.” Weavers are
rarely able to make both “velvet” and “satin” (the two principal lines in this trade). “The division of labour into
separate operations within the workshop is most strictly practised only in
the big factories” (i.e., manufactories) “that employ wage-workers.” The fully independent proprietors number only 123,
who alone buy the raw materials themselves and sell the finished article;
they have 242 family workers and “employ 2,498 wage-workers, who in
greater part are paid by the piece,” a total, consequently, of 2,740
workers, or 97% of the aggregate number of workers. It is thus clear that
the distribution by these manufactory owners, through the medium of
“middle-men” (workroom owners), of work to be done in the home
is no special form of industry at all, but is merely one of the operations
of capital in manufacture. Mr. Kharizomenov rightly observes that the
“mass of small establishments (57%) alongside the small number of
big ones (8%), and the insignificant number of workers employed per establishment (7 1/2) conceal the true character of the trade”
( loc . cit ., 39). The specialisation characteristic of
manufacture is seen here clearly in the separation of the industrialists
from agriculture (the land is abandoned, on the one hand by the
impoverished weavers, and on the other by the big manufactory owners) and
in the formation of a special type of industrial population, who live much
more “decently” than do the agriculturists, and look down upon
the muzhik ( loc . cit ., 106). Our factory statistics have
always registered only a very casually selected fraction of this industry. [5]

The “galloon industry” in Moscow Gubernia is capitalist
manufacture organised in a quite analogous fashion. [6]

Such precisely is the case with regard to the printed calico industry in
Kamyshin Uyezd, Saratov Gubernia. According to the Directory for
1890, there were here 31 “factories” with 4,250 workers and
output totalling 265,000 rubles, while according to the List
there was one “work distributing office” with 33 workers in
the establishment and an output totalling 47,000 rubles. (In other words,
in 1890 workers employed in the establishment and on the side were lumped
together!) According to local investigators, in 1888 nearly 7,000 looms
were engaged in producing printed calico, [7] an output
totalling 2 million rubles, and “the whole business is run by a few manufacturers,” who employ
“handicraftsmen” too, including children of 6 and 7 years of
age for a payment of 7 to 8 kopeks per day ( Reports and Investigations , Vol. I). [8]

And so forth.

2) Other Branches of the Textile Industry. The Felt Trade.

To judge by official factory statistics, felt production shows a very poor
development of “capitalism”: in all European Russia there are
altogether 55 factories, with 1,212 workers and an output totalling
454,000 rubles ( Directory for 1890). But these figures merely
show a casually picked fragment of a widely developed capitalist
industry. Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia occupies first place for the
development of “factory” felt production, and in that gubernia
the principal centre of the industry is the town of Arzamas and the suburb
Viyezdnaya Sloboda (where there are 8 “factories” with 278
workers and an output totalling 120,000 rubles; in 1897 there were 3,221
inhabitants; and in the village of Krasnoye, 2,835). It is in the environs
of these centres that “handicraft” felt-making is developed,
in some 243 establishments, employing 935 workers, with an output
totalling 103,847 rubles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V). To illustrate clearly the economic organisation of
felt-making in this district, let us try the graphic method and indicate
by specific symbols the producers who occupy special places in the general
structure of the industry.

It is clear, therefore, that the separation of “factory” and
“handicraft” industry is purely artificial, that what we have
before us is a single and integral structure of industry which fully fits
into the concept of capitalist (approximately) [9] manufacture. [10]

From the technical aspect it is hand production. The organisation of the
work is that of co-operation based on division of labour, which is here
observed in two forms: as to wares (some villages specialise in plain
felt, others in boots, hats, socks, etc.), and as to individual operations (for example,
the whole village of Vasilyev Vrag shapes hats and socks for the
village of Krasnoye, where the semi-prepared article is finished,
etc.). This is capitalist co-operation, for it is headed by big capital,
which has created large manufactories and has brought under its sway (by
an intricate web of economic relations) a mass of small
establishments. The overwhelming majority of the producers have been
transformed into workers performing one operation and producing
for entrepreneurs under extremely insanitary conditions. [11]

The long standing of the industry and the fully established capitalist
relations result in the separation of the industrialists from agriculture:
in the village of Krasnoye agriculture is in utter ruin, and the life of
the inhabitants differs from that of the agricultural population. [12]

Quite analogous is the organisation of the felt industry in a number of
other districts. In 363 village communities of Semyonov Uyezd in the same
gubernia, the industry in 1889 was carried on by 3,180 households, with
4,038 persons working. Of 3,946 workers, only 752 worked for the market,
576 were wage-workers and 2,618 worked for masters on the basis, in
greater part, of using the latter’s materials; 189 households gave
out work to 1,805 households. The big owners have workshops with as many
as 25 wage-workers, and buy wool to a value of some 10,000 rubles per year. [13]

The big owners are called thousanders ; their turnover runs to from 5,000
to 100,000 rubles; they have their own wool warehouses, and their own
booths for the sale of wares. [14]

For
Kazan Gubernia the List gives 5 felt “factories,” with 122 workers and an output totalling 48,000 rubles, as well as 60
outside workers. Evidently the latter are also included among the
“handicraftsmen,” concerning whom we read that they often work
for “buyers-up” and that there are establishments having 60 workers. [15]

Of 29 felt “factories” in Kostroma Gubernia, 28 are concentrated in
Kineshma Uyezd, and have 593 workers employed in the establishments and
458 outside ( List , pp. 68-70; two of the enterprises have only
outside workers. Steam-engines already appear). From the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (XV) we learn that out of a total of
3,908 wool-carders and felt-makers in this gubernia, 2,008 are
concentrated in Kineshma Uyezd. The Kostroma felt-makers are in greater
part dependent or work for wages in extremely insanitary workshops. [16]

In
Kalyazin Uyezd, Tver Gubernia, we find, on the one hand, that home work is
done for “factory owners” ( List , 113), and, on the other, that precisely this uyezd is a centre of “handicraft”
felt-makers; as many as 3,000 of them come from this uyezd, passing
through the wasteland called “Zimnyak” (in the 60s it was the
site of Alexeyev’s cloth mill), and forming “an enormous
labour market of wool-carders and felt-makers.” [17]

In Yaroslavl Gubernia outside work for “factory owners is a]so done” ( List , 115) and there
are “handicraftsmen” who work for merchant proprietors, using
the latter’s wool, etc.

3) The Hat-and-Cap and Hemp-and-Rope Trades

Above we gave statistics for the hat industry of Moscow

Gubernia. [18]

They show that two-thirds of the total output and of the total number of
workers are concentrated in 18 establishments, which have an average of 15.6 wage-workers. [19]

The “handicraft” hat-makers perform only part of the hat-making operations: they make the shapes, which are sold to Moscow
merchants who have their own “finishing establishments”; on
the other hand, “clippers” (women who clip the down) work at
home for the “handicraft” hat-makers. Thus, all in all, we
find here capitalist co-operation based on division of labour and
entangled in a whole network of diverse forms of economic dependence. In
the centre of the industry (the village of Klenovo, Podolsk Uyezd) the
separation of the industrialists (mainly wage-workers) from agriculture [20] is
clearly to be seen, together with a rise in the level of the
population’s requirements: they live “more decently,” dress in calico and even in cloth, buy samovars, abandon ancient customs,
etc., thereby evoking the bitter complaints of the local admirers of old times. [21]

The new era even occasioned the appearance of migratory hat-makers.

A typical example of capitalist manufacture is the cap industry in the
village of Molvitino, Bui Uyezd, Kostroma

Gubernia. [22] “The principal . . . occupation in the village of Molvitino and in
. . . 36 hamlets is the cap industry.” Agriculture is being
abandoned. Since 1861 the industry has greatly developed; sewing-machines
have become widely used. In Molvitino 10 workshops are busy all year round
with 5 to 25 male and 1 to 5 female workers each. “The best workshop
. . . has a turnover of about 100,000 rubles per annum.” [23]

Work is also distributed to homes (for example, materials for the crowns
are made by women in their homes). Division of labour cripples the
workers, who work under the most insanitary conditions and usually
contract tuberculosis. The lengthy existence of the industry (for over 200
years) has produced highly skilled craftsmen; the Molvitino craftsmen are
known in the big cities and in the remote outer regions.

The centre of the hemp industry in the Medyn Uyezd, Kaluga Gubernia, is
the village of Polotnyani Zavod. This is a large village (according to the
census of 1897 it had 3,685 inhabitants) with a population that is
landless and highly industrial (over 1,000 “handicraftsmen”);
it is the centre of the “handicraft” industries of Medyn

Uyezd. [24]

The hemp industry is organised in the following way: the big proprietors (of whom
there are three, the biggest being Yerokhin) have workshops employing
wage-workers and circulating capital of more or less considerable
dimensions for purchasing raw materials. The hemp is combed in the
“factory,” spun by spinners in their homes, and twisted both
in the factory and in the home. It is warped in the factory and woven both
in the factory and in the home. In 1878 a total of 841 “handicraftsmen” was counted in the hemp industry; Yerokhin is
considered to be both a “handicraftsman” and a “factory
owner,” employing 94-64 workers in 1890 and in 1894-1895; according
to Reports and Investigations (Vol. II, p.187), “hundreds
of peasants” work for him.

In Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the rope industry is also centred in
non-agricultural industrial villages, Nizhni Izbylets and Verkhni Izbylets
in the Gorbatov

Uyezd. [25]

According to Mr. Karpov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII), the Gorbatov-Izbylets district is one large
rope-making area; part of the inhabitants of the town of Gorbatov are also
engaged in the industry, and the villages of Verkhni Izbylets and Nizhni
Izbylets are, in fact, “almost part of the town of Gorbatov”;
the inhabitants live like townspeople, drink tea every day, wear clothing
bought in the shops, and eat white bread. Altogether, as many as
two-thirds of the inhabitants of 32 villages are engaged in the industry,
a total of 4,701 working (2,096 men and 2,605 women) with an output of
about 1 1/2 million rubles. The industry has been in existence for nearly 200 years, and is now declining. It is organised as follows:
all work for 29 proprietors, using the latter’s materials, are paid
by the piece, are “totally dependent upon the proprietors” and
work from 14 to 15 hours a day. According to Zemstvo statistics (1889) the
industry employs 1,699 male workers (plus 558 females and males of
non-working age). Of 1,648 working only 197 work for sale, 1,340 work for proprietors [26] and 111 are wage-workers employed in the workshops of 58
proprietors. Of 1,288 allotment households, only 727, or a little over half, cultivate all their land themselves. Of
1,573 allotment-holding working persons, 306, or 19.4%, do not
engage in agriculture at all. Turning to the question as to who
these “proprietors” are, we must pass from the sphere of
“handicraft” industry to that of “factory” industry. According
to the List for 1894-95 there were two rope factories there, with 231 workers employed on the premises and 1,155
working outside, with an output totalling 423,000 rubles. Both
these establishments have installed motors (which they did not
have either in 1879 or in 1890), and we therefore clearly see
here the transition from capitalist manufacture to capitalist
machine industry, and the transformation of “handicraft” work
distributors and buyers-up into real factory owners.

In Perm Gubernia the handicraft census of 1894-95 registered 68 peasant
rope-and-string yards, with 343 workers (of whom 143 were hired) and an
output totalling 115,000 rubles. [27]

These small establishments are headed by big manufactories,
which are reckoned together, viz.: 6 owners employ 101 workers
(91 hired) and have an output totalling 81,000 rubles. [28]

The system of production in these big establishments may serve as the most
striking example of “serial manufacture” (as Marx calls it [89] ), i.e., the
sort of manufacture in which different workers perform different consecutive operations in working up the raw material: 1) hemp
scutching; 2) combing; 3) spinning; 4) coiling; 5) tarring; 6) winding on
drum; 7) passing threads through perforated board; 8) passing threads
through iron bush; 9) stranding of plaits, twisting and gathering of ropes. [29]

The organisation of the hemp industry in Orel Gubernia is evidently
similar: from among the considerable number of small peasant
establishments big manufactories emerge, principally in the towns, and are
included among the “factories and works” (according to the
Directory for 1890 there were in Orel Gubernia 100 hemp-scutching
factories, with 1,671 workers and an output totalling 795,000 rubles). The
peasants work in the hemp industry “for merchants” (probably
for the very same manufacturers), using the latter’s materials, at
piece rates, the work being divided up into special operations:
“scutchers” scutch the hemp; “spinners” spin it; “bearders” trim it, “wheelmen” turn the wheel. The
work is very hard; many contract consumption and “rupture.”
The dust is so thick that “unless accustomed you will not stay in it
for a quarter of an hour.” The work is done in ordinary sheds from
dawn to dusk, from May to

September. [30]

4) The Wood-Working Trades

The most typical example of capitalist manufacture in this sphere is the
chest-making industry. According to the data, for instance, of the Perm
investigators, “this industry is organised as follows: a few big
proprietors, owning workshops that employ wage-workers, purchase
materials, partly make the wares on their own premises, but mainly give
out material to small workshops making parts, and in their own shops
assemble them and, after finishing, send the ready article to
market. Division of labour . . . is employed on the job extensively: the making of the entire chest is divided into ten
or twelve operations, each separately performed by handicraftsmen. The
organisation of the industry consists in the combination of workers
performing one operation ( Teilarbeiter , as they are called in
Das Kapital ) under the command of capital .” [31]

This is heterogeneous manufacture ( heterogene Manufaktur , as Marx calls it [90] ), in which
the different workers do not perform consecutive operations in turning the
raw material into the product, but make the various parts of the product,
which are afterwards assembled. The preference of the capitalists for the
domestic work of “handicraftsmen” is to be explained partly by
the above mentioned character of manufacture, and partly (and mainly) by
the cheaper labour of the home workers. [32]

Let us observe that the relatively big workshops in this industry are sometimes
also included among “factories and works.” [33]

In all probability, the chest-making industry is organised similarly in
Vladimir Gubernia, in Murom Uyezd where, according to the List ,
there are 9 “factories” (all hand-operated), with 89 workers
on the premises and 11 outside, and an output totalling 69,810
rubles.

The carriage industry, in Perm Gubernia, for example, is organised on
similar lines: from among the mass of small establishments there emerge
assembly workshops employing wage-workers; the small handicraftsmen are
workers who make parts of the carriages both out of their own materials,
and out of materials supplied by the “buyers-up” (i.e., owners
of the assembly workshops.) [34]

We
read about the Poltava “handicraft” carriage builders that in
the suburb of Ardon there are workshops that employ wage-workers and also
distribute work to homes (the bigger masters having as many as 20 outside workers). [35]

In
Kazan Gubernia, division of labour as to wares is to be observed in the building of town carriages:
some villages specialise in sleighs, others in wheeled vehicles,
etc. “The town carriages, completely assembled in the villages (but
without the metal work, wheels or shafts), are sent to Kazan merchant
customers, who in turn send them to blacksmiths for the metal work. The
carriages are then sent back again to the shops and workshops in the town,
where they are finished off, i.e., are upholstered and painted. . . . Kazan, where town carriages were formerly iron-mounted,
gradually passed this work on to handicraftsmen, who work at home for a
smaller payment than do the town craftsmen....” [36]

Hence, capital prefers to distribute work to home workers because this reduces the cost of labour-power. The
organisation of the carriage industry, as is evident from the data quoted,
constitutes, in the majority of cases, a system of handicraftsmen making
parts, who are under the sway of capital.

The large industrial village of Vorontsovka, Pavlovsk Uyezd, Voronezh
Gubernia (9,541 inhabitants in 1897), constitutes, as it were, a single
manufactory of wooden articles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., Vol. IX, article by Rev. M. Popov). Over 800 houses
are engaged in the industry (as well as some households in the suburb of
Alexandrovka, which has over 5,000 inhabitants). They make carts,
tarantasses, wheels, chests, etc., to a total of about 267,000
rubles. Less than one-third are independent masters; hired workers in
masters’ workshops are rare. [37]

The majority work to order for peasant merchants at piece rates. The workers
are in debt to the proprietors and are worn out by arduous toil: the
people are growing feebler. The inhabitants of the suburb are industrial,
not of the rural type, and scarcely engage in agriculture at all (except
to work vegetable plots), since their allotments are miserably small. The
industry has been long in existence, diverting the population from agriculture and increasingly widening the
rift between the rich and the poor. The people subsist on meagre food;
they dress “more smartly than before,” “but beyond their
means,” in clothing that is entirely bought. “The population
has succumbed to the spirit of industry and trade.” “Nearly
all who have no craft carry on some trading. . . . Under the influence of
industry and trade, the peasant has, generally speaking, become more
unreserved, and this has made him more developed and resourceful.” [38]

The celebrated wooden-spoon industry of the Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, is close to capitalist manufacture in its
organisation. True, there are no big workshops standing out from among the
mass of small workshops and dominating them, but we find a deeply-rooted
division of labour and the complete subjection of the mass of part-job
workers to capital. Before it is ready, the spoon passes through no less
than 10 hands, the buyers-up getting some of the operations done by
specially hired workers or giving them out to specialist workers (for
example, for varnishing); some of the villages specialise in particular
operations (for example, the village of Dyakovo specialises in spoon
finishing to the order of the buyer-up, at piece rates; the villages of
Khvostikovo, Dianovo and Zhuzhelka specialise in varnishing, etc.). The
buyers-up purchase the timber wholesale in the Samara and other gubernias,
where they send parties of hired workers; they own warehouses for raw
material and manufactured goods, supply the most valuable material to
handicraftsmen for processing, etc. The mass of workers doing part jobs
merge into a single, complex mechanism of production, entirely under the
sway of capital. “It is all the same to the spoon-makers whether
they work for hire at the master’s cost and on his premises, or are
occupied in their own cottages, for in this industry, as in others,
everything has been weighed, measured and counted. The spoon-maker never
earns more than just enough to keep body and soul together.” [39]

It is quite natural that under such conditions the capitalists who dominate the whole trade are in no hurry to open their
own workshops, and the industry, based on hand skill and traditional
division of labour, stagnates in its seclusion and immobility. Tied to the
land, the “handicraftsmen” seem to have become petrified in
their routine: as in 1879, so in 1889, they still count money in the old
style, in banknotes and not in silver.

The toy industry in Moscow Gubernia is headed similarly by establishments
of the capitalist-manufactory type. [40]

Of 481 workshops, 20 have over 10 workers each. Division of labour, both as to
wares and as to individual operations, is practised on a very wide scale,
enormously raising the productivity of labour (at the cost of crippling
the worker). For example, it is estimated that a small workshop yields a
return of 26% of the selling price, and a big workshop, one of

58%. [41]

Of course, the fixed capital of the big proprietors is also much larger; technical
devices are met with (for example, drying sheds). The centre of the
industry is a non-agricultural township, the suburb of Sergiyevsky (where
there are 1,055 workers out of a total of 1,398, with an output to the
amount of 311,000 rubles out of a total of 405,000 rubles; the population,
according to the 1897 census, numbers 15,155). The author of the article
on this industry, referring to the prevalence of small workshops, etc.,
considers it more, but still not very, likely that the industry will
develop into manufacture rather than into factory industry. “In the
future, too,” he says, “the small producers will always be
able to compete more or less successfully with large-scale
production” ( loc . cit ., 93). The author forgets that in manufacture the technical basis is always the same hand-production
that obtains in the small industries; that the division of labour can
never be such a decisive advantage that it will entirely eliminate the small producers,
particularly if the latter resort to such means as lengthening the working
day, etc.; and that manufacture is never in a position to embrace the
whole of production, but remains a mere superstructure over the mass of
small establishments.

5) The Processing of Livestock Produce. [The Leather and Fur Trades]

The most extensive areas of the leather industry present particularly
striking examples of the complete merging of “handicraft” and
factory industry, examples of capitalist manufacture highly developed (in
depth and in breadth). What is characteristic is the fact that the
gubernias which are conspicuous for the size of their “factory” leather industry (Vyatka, Nizhni-Novgorod, Perm and
Tver) are marked by a particular development of “handicraft”
industries in this sphere.

In the village of Bogorodskoye, Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia,
there were, according to the Directory for 1890, 58 “factories” with 392 workers and an output totalling 547,000
rubles; according to the List for 1894-95 there were 119
“works,” with 1,499 workers on the premises and 205 outside,
and with an output totalling 934,000 rubles (the latter figures covering
only the processing of livestock produce, the principal local
industry). But these data deal only with the top levels of
capitalist manufacture. Mr. Karpov in 1879 computed in this village and
its environs over 296 establishments, with 5,669 workers (a large number
of whom worked at home for capitalists), and with an output totalling
about 1,490,000 rubles [42] in the following industries: tanning, shingle-gluing, basket-weaving (for packing
goods), harness-making, horse-collar-making, mitten-making and, standing
by itself, pottery. The Zemstvo census of 1889 listed 4,401 industrialists
for this district, and of 1,842 workers for whom detailed information is
given, 1,119 work for hire in other people’s workshops and 405 work
at home for masters. [43] “Bogorodskoye, with its population of 8,000, is a huge tannery in continuous operation.” [44]

To be more precise, it is a “serial” manufactory controlled by a few big capitalists who buy the raw materials,
tan the hides, and turn them into a variety of articles, hiring several
thousand absolutely propertyless workers for the job and ruling over the
small

establishments. [45]

This industry has had a very long existence, since the 17th century;
particularly memorable in the industry’s history are the Sheremetevs
(beginning of the 19th century), landlords who helped considerably to
develop the industry and, incidentally, protected the proletariat, which
came into existence here long ago, from the local rich. After 1861 the
industry greatly developed, and particularly did big establishments grow
at the expense of the small ones; centuries of industrial activity
produced from among the population remarkably skilled craftsmen who have
carried the trade all over Russia. The firmly-rooted capitalist relations
have led to the separation of industry from agriculture: hardly any
farming is done in Bogorodskoye village itself, which, on the contrary,
divorces neighbouring peasants who move into this “town” from
the

land. [46]

Mr. Karpov notes in this village “a complete absence of peasant
characteristics among the inhabitants,” so that “you would
never think you were in a village and not a town.” This village
leaves Gorbatov and all the other uyezd towns of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia
far behind, with the exception, perhaps, of Arzamas. It is “one of
the considerable commercial and industrial centres in the gubernia, and its industry and
commerce run into the millions.” “The radius of the industrial
and commercial influence of Bogorodskoye is very wide; but most closely
connected with the industry of Bogorodskoye is that of its environs within
a radius of 10 to 12 versts. These industrial environs are, as it were, a
continuation of Bogorodskoye itself.” “The inhabitants of
Bogorodskoye do not in the least resemble the ordinary, raw muzhiks: they
are artisans of the burgher type, shrewd, experienced people, who look
down on the peasants. The manner of life and the ethical standards of the
Bogorodskoye inhabitants are completely urban.” To this we must add
that the industrial villages of Gorbatov Uyezd are marked by a relatively
high level of literacy among the population. Thus, the percentage of
literate and student men and women is, in the villages of Pavlovo,
Bogorodskoye and Vorsma, 37.8% and 20% respectively, as against 21.5% and
4.4% in the rest of the uyezd (see Zemstvo statistical Material ).

Quite analogous (only on a smaller scale) are the relations in the
leather-processing industries of the villages of Katunki and Gorodets
(Balakhna Uyezd), Bolshoye Murashkino (Knyaginin Uyezd), Yurino (Vasil
Uyezd), and Tubanayevka, Spasskoye, Vatras and Latyshikha in the same
uyezd. These are similar non-agricultural centres with a
“ring” of surrounding agricultural villages, and with similar
diverse industries and numerous small establishments (and also workers in
the home) subordinated to big entrepreneurs, whose capitalist workshops
are occasionally included among “factories and works.” [47]

Without going into statistical details, which will provide nothing new
compared with what has already been said, let us merely quote the
following extremely interesting description of the village of

Katunki: [48] “A certain patriarchal simplicity in the relations between masters
and workmen, which, however, is not so noticeable at first sight and is, unfortunately (?), disappearing increasingly every year
. . . testifies to the handicraft character of the industries (?). It is
only recently that the factory character both of the industries and of the
population has begun to be observed, under the influence, in particular,
of the town, intercourse with which has been facilitated by the
inauguration of the steamboat service. Today the village looks like a
regular industrial township: there is no sign of agriculture whatever, the
houses are built close together as in the towns; the fine brick houses of
the rich, and alongside of them the miserable hovels of the poor; the long
wooden and brick buildings of the factories crowded in the middle of the
village — all this sharply distinguishes Katunki from the neighbouring
villages and clearly points to the industrial character of the local
population. The inhabitants themselves possess features of character that
also call to mind the type of “factory hand” who has already
taken shape in Russia: a certain showiness in house furniture, in clothes
and manners, spendthrift habits of life in most cases, and little care for
the morrow, a forwardness and often affectation in speech, a certain
superciliousness towards the country yokel — all these features are
possessed by them in common with all Russian factory people.” [49]

In the town of Arzamas, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the “factory” statistics listed in 1890 a total of 6 tanneries,
employing 64 workers ( Directory ); this is only a small fraction
of the capitalist manufacture which embraces the fur, boot-making and
other industries. The same factories employ workers in the home, both in
the town of Arzamas (in 1878, estimated at 400) and in 5 suburban
villages, where out of the 360 furrier households, 330 work for Arzamas
merchants, using their materials and working 14 hours a day for 6 to 9
rubles per month [50] ; that is why the furriers are pallid, feeble and degenerating folk. In the suburb of Viyezdnaya Sloboda, of the 600 boot-maker households, 500 work for
masters, from whom they receive the cut-out leather. The industry is of
long standing, being about 200 years old, and is still growing and
developing. The inhabitants hardly engage in agriculture at all; their
whole manner of life is purely urban, and they live “in grand
style.” The same applies to the furrier villages mentioned above,
the inhabitants of which “look down with disdain upon the peasant
and call him a ‘country bumpkin’.” [51]

We find exactly the same thing in Vyatka Gubernia. The Vyatka and
Slobodskoi uyezds are centres both of “factory” and of “handicraft” leather and fur trades. In the Vyatka Uyezd, the
handicraft tanneries are concentrated on the outskirts of the town and
“supplement” the industrial activities of the big works, [52] for
example, by working for the big owners; working for the latter also, in
the majority of cases, are the handicraft harness-makers and glue
makers. The fur factory owners have hundreds working for them in the home,
sewing sheepskins, etc. This is just a single capitalist manufactory with
branches: sheepskin dressing and sheepskin-coat-making, leather and
harness, etc. Still more striking are the relations existing in the
Slobodskoi Uyezd (the centre of the industries is the suburb of Demyanka);
here we see a small number of big factory owners [53] at the
head of handicraft tanners (numbering 870), boot- and mitten-makers (855),
sheepskin-dressers (940), and tailors (309 make short sheepskin coats to
order from capitalists). Generally speaking, such organisation of the
production of leather goods is evidently very widespread: thus, in the
town of Sarapul, Vyatka Gubernia, the List gives 6 tanneries,
also making footwear, which employ, in addition to 214 workers on the
premises, 1,080 outside workers (p. 495). What would become of our
“handicrafts men,” those representatives of “people’s” industry who are depicted in such bright hues by all sorts of Manilovs, if all the Russian
merchants and factory owners were to compute with equal detail and
precision the outside workers employed by them? [54]

Reference should be made here to the industrial village of Rasskazovo,
Tambov Uyezd, Tambov Gubernia (population in 1897 was 8,283), a centre
both of “factory” industry (cloth mills, soap-works, tanneries
and distilleries) and of “handicraft” industry, the latter
being closely connected with the former; and to the industries: tanning,
felt-making (as many as 70 masters, and establishments employing from 20
to 30 workers), glue-making, boot-making, stocking knitting (there is not
a household where stockings are not knit from wool that
“buyers-up” give out by weight), etc. Near this village is the
suburb of Belaya Polyana (300 households), celebrated for industries of
the same kind. In Morshansk Uyezd, the centre of the handicraft industries
is the village of Pokrovskoye-Vasilyevskoye, which is also the centre of
factory industry (see Directory and Reports and Investigations , Vol. III). In Kursk Gubernia, noteworthy as
industrial villages and centres of “handicraft” industries are
the suburbs: Veliko-Mikhailovka (Novy Oskol Uyezd; population in 1897 was
11,853), Borisovka (Graivoron Uyezd — 18,071 inhabitants), Tomarovka
(Belgorod Uyezd, 8,716 inhabitants), Miropolye (Sudzha Uyezd, over 10,000
inhabitants. See Reports and Investigations , Vol. I, Information
for 1888-1889). In the same villages you will also find leather
“works” (see Directory for 1890). The principal “handicraft” industry is leather and boot-making. It arose as far back as the first half of the 18th century and reached the peak of its
development in the 60s of the 19th century having become “a stable
organisation of a purely commercial character.” The whole business
was monopolised by contractors, who bought the leather and gave it out to
be processed by handicraftsmen. The railways destroyed this monopoly
character of capital, and the capitalist contractors transferred their
capital to more profitable undertakings. Today it is organised as follows:
there are about 120 big entrepreneurs; they own workshops where
wage-workers are employed, and also distribute work to homes; there are as
many as 3,000 small independent masters (who, however, buy their leather
from the big ones); there are 400 people who work at home (for the big
masters), and as many wage-workers; then there are the apprentices. The
total number of boot-makers is over 4,000. In addition, there are
handicraft potters, icon-case makers, icon painters, table-cloth weavers,
etc.

A highly characteristic and typical example of capitalist manufacture is
the squirrel-fur industry in Kargopol Uyezd, Olonets Gubernia, described
with such knowledge of the facts, and with truthful and artless
presentation of the whole life of the industrial population by a craftsman
and teacher in the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission
(Vol. IV). According to his description (in 1878), the industry has
existed since the beginning of the 19th century: 8 masters employ 175
workers, in addition to which they have as many as 1,000 seamstresses and
some 35 families of furriers working for them at home (in different
villages), 1,300 to 1,500 persons in all, with an output totalling 336,000
rubles. As a point of interest, it should be noted that when this was a
flourishing industry it was not included in the “factory”
statistics. The Directory for 1879 makes no mention of it. But
when it began to decline the statistics included it. The
Directory for 1890 listed for the town and the uyezd of Kargopol
7 works, with 121 workers and an output totalling 50,000 rubles, whereas
the List gave 5 works, with 79 workers (plus 57 outside) and an
output totalling 49,000 rubles. [55]

The order of things prevailing in this branch of capitalist manufacture is very instructive as a specimen of what goes on
in our age-old, purely native “handicraft industries,” that
have been left stranded in one of Russia’s numerous rural
backwoods. The craftsmen work 15 hours a day in a very unhealthy
atmosphere and earn 8 rubles per month, less than 60 or 70 rubles per
year. The masters’ incomes amount to about 5,000 rubles per
annum. The relations between masters and workers are “patriarchal”: according to ancient custom, the master gives
the workers kvass and salt gratis, which they have to beg from his
cook. As a mark of gratitude to the master (for “giving” them
work) the workers come, without pay, to pull squirrel tails, and also
clean furs after work. The workers live in the workshop all the week, and
the masters knock them about, seemingly in a joke (p. 218,
loc . cit .), make them do all sorts of jobs, such as raking hay, shovelling snow, fetching water, rinsing clothes, etc. Labour
is astonishingly cheap in Kargopol itself, and the peasants in the
vicinity “are ready to work for next to nothing.” Work is done
by hand, there is systematic division of labour, and there is a lengthy
apprenticeship (8 to 12 years); the lot of the apprentices can easily be
imagined.

6) The Remaining Livestock Processing Trades

A particularly noteworthy example of capitalist manufacture is the
celebrated boot industry of the village of Kimry, Korcheva Uyezd, Tver
Gubernia, and its environs. [56]

The industry is a very old one, having existed since the 16th
century. Since the Reform, it has continued to grow and develop. In the
early 70s Pletnev counted 4 volosts in the area covered by this industry,
but in 1888 the area included 9 volosts. Basically the organisation of the
industry is as follows. It is headed by the owners of big workshops
employing wage-workers; they distribute the cut-out leather to be made up
by outside workers. Mr. Pletnev counted 20 such masters, employing 124
adults and 60 boys, with an output totalling 818,000 rubles, while the
number of workers occupied at home for these capitalists is estimated by
the author approximately at 1,769 adults and 1,833 boys. Then come the
small masters, each with 1 to 5 wage-workers and 1 to 3 boys. These
masters dispose of their goods mainly in the village market in Kimry; they
number 224 and have 460 adults and 301 boys working for them; output
totals 187,000 rubles. Hence, there are 244 masters altogether, employing
2,353 adults (of whom 1,769 work at home) and 2,194 boys (of whom 1,833
work at home), with an output totalling 1,005,000 rubles. Further, there
are workshops which do various individual operations: currying
(skin-cleaning with scraper); chipping (gluing of chips left from
currying); special carting (4 masters, with 16 employees and up to 50 horses); special
carpentry (box-making), etc. [57]

Pletnev calculated the total output at 4.7 million rubles for the whole
district. In 1881 the number of handicraftsmen was computed at 10,638, and
with migrants, 26,000, with an output totalling 3.7 million rubles. As to
conditions of labour, it is important to note the excessively long working day (14 to
15 hours) and the extremely insanitary working conditions, payment in
goods, etc. The centre of the industry, Kimry village, “is more like
a small town” ( Reports and Investigations , I, 224); the
inhabitants are poor agriculturists, and are engaged in their industry all
the year round; only the rural handicraftsmen give up the industry during
haymaking. The houses in Kimry village are urban, and the inhabitants are
distinguished for their urban habits of life (such as “showiness”). Until very recently this industry was not
included in “factory” statistics, probably because the masters
“readily style themselves handicraftsmen” ( ibid ., 228). The List has for the first time included 6 boot workshops
in Kimry district, with 15 to 40 workers each on the premises, and with no
outside workers. Of course, it contains no end of gaps.

Manufacture also includes the button industry of Moscow Gubernia,
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds — the making of buttons from hoofs and
rams’ horns. Engaged in this industry are 487 workers, employed in
52 establishments; the output totals 264,000 rubles. Establishments with
fewer than 5 employees number 16; those with 5 to 10 — 26; those with 10
and more — 10. Masters who do without wage-workers number only 10; these
work for big masters, using the latter’s materials. Only the big
industrialists (who, as is evident from the figures given, should have
from 17 to 21 workers per establishment) are quite independent. It is
they, evidently, who figure in the Directory as “factory
owners” (see p. 291: 2 establishments with an output totalling 4,000
rubles and with 73 workers). This is “serial manufacture”; the
horns are first steamed in what is called the “smithy” (a
wooden hut with a furnace); then they are passed on to the
workshop where they are cut up, after which they go to a stamping
press, where the pattern is imprinted, and, lastly, are finished and
polished on lathes. The industry has its apprentices. The working day is
14 hours. Payment in goods is a regular thing. The relations between
masters and men are patriarchal, as seen in the following: the master
calls the workers “boys,” and the pay-book is called the
“boys’ book”; when the master pays the workers, he lectures them and never grants in full their
“requests” for payment.

The horn industry, which is included in our table of small industries
(Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 31 and 33), is also of the same
type. “Handicraftsmen” employing dozens of wage-workers figure
also in the Directory as “factory owners” (p. 291). Division
of labour is practised; work is also given out to home workers (horn
trimmers). The centre of the industry in Bogorodsk Uyezd is the big
village of Khoteichi, where agriculture is receding into the background
(population in 1897 was 2,494). The Moscow Zemstvo publication stated
quite rightly: Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd ,
Moscow Gubernia , in 1890 , that this village “ is nothing but a large comb manufactory ” (p. 24,
our italics). In 1890, over 500 industrialists were counted in this
village, with an output of from 3.5 to 5.5 million combs. “More
often than not, the horn dealer is also a buyer-up of finished goods, and
in many cases a big comb-maker as well.” The position of those
makers who are compelled to take horns “at piece rates” is
particularly bad: “their position is actually worse than that of the
wage-workers in the big establishments.” Dire need compels them to
exploit the labour of their whole families beyond measure, to lengthen their working day and to put juveniles to work. “During the
winter, work in Khoteichi starts at one o’clock in the morning, and
it is hard to say for certain when it ends in the cottage of the
‘independent’ craftsman doing ‘piece-work.’”
Payment in goods is widely practised. “This system, eliminated with
such difficulty from the factories, is still in full force in the small
handicraft establishments” (27). Probably, the horn goods industry
is organised on similar lines in Kadnikov Uyezd, Vologda Gubernia, in the
area of Ustye village (known as “Ustyanshchina”), where there
are 58 hamlets. Mr. V. Borisov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX) counts 388 handicraftsmen here, with an output
totalling 45,000 rubles; all the handicraftsmen work for capitalists, who
buy horns in St. Petersburg and tortoise-shell abroad.

At the head of the brush industry in Moscow Gubernia (see Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industry No. 20) we find big establishments with a large number
of wage-workers and with systematic division of labour. [58]

It is interesting to note at this point the changes that took place in the
organisation of this industry between 1879 and 1895 (see Moscow Zemstvo
publication: The Brush Industry According to the Investigation of 1895 ). Some well-to-do industrialists went to Moscow to carry on the
industry there. The number of industrialists increased 70%, the increase
being particularly large in the number of women (+170%) and girls
(+159%). The number of big workshops with wage-workers diminished: the
proportion of establishments with wage-workers dropped from 62% to
39%. This was due to the fact that the masters began to distribute work to be done in the home . The introduction into general use of the
drilling machine (for making holes in brush blocks) accelerated and
facilitated one of the main processes in brushmaking. The demand for
“setters” (craftsmen who “set” bristle in the block) increased; and this operation, which became increasingly
specialised, fell to the lot of women, their labour being cheaper. The
women began to work at home setting bristle, and were paid by the
piece. Thus, the growing resort to domestic industry was caused in this
case by progress in technique (drilling machine), progress in division of
labour (the women do nothing but set bristle), and progress in capitalist
exploitation (the labour of women and girls being cheaper). This example
shows very clearly that domestic industry by no means eliminates the concept of capitalist manufacture , but, on the contrary, is sometimes
even a sign of its further development .

7) The Processing of Mineral Products

In the section relating to ceramics we get an example of capitalist
manufacture in the industries of the Gzhel district (an area of 25 villages
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds, Moscow Gubernia). The relevant
statistics are given in our table of small industries (Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industries Nos. 15, 28 and 37). From these data it is evident that despite the enormous differences between the three Gzhel industries:
pottery, porcelain and decorative, these differences disappear as we pass
from one grade of establishment to another in each industry, and we get a
series of workshops of successively increasing dimensions. Here are the
average numbers of workers per establishment according to grade in these
three industries: 2.4 — 4.3 — 8.4 — 4.4. — 7.9 — 13.5 — 18 — 69 —
226.4. In other words, the workshops range from the very smallest to the
very biggest. There is no doubt that the big establishments belong to the
category of capitalist manufacture (inasmuch as they have not introduced
machines, have not developed into factories); what is important, however,
is not only this, but also that the small establishments are connected with the big ones ; that we have a single system of industry
here and not separate workshops of one or other type of economic
organisation. “Gzhel constitutes a single economic whole”
(Isayev, loc . cit ., 138), and the big workshops in the
district have grown slowly and gradually out of the small ones
( ibid ., 121). The work is done by hand, [59] with considerable division of labour : among the potters we find wheel
hands (specialising in different sorts of pottery), kilnmen, etc., and
sometimes special workers for preparing colours. In the manufacture of
porcelain-ware division of labour is extremely detailed: crushers, wheel
hands, feeders, kilnmen, decorators, etc. The wheel hands even specialise
in the various kinds of porcelain ware (cf. Isayev, loc . cit ., 140: in one case division of labour increases
productivity of labour by 25%). The decorators’ shops work for the
porcelain makers and are, therefore, only departments of the
latter’s manufactories, performing a special detailed operation. It
is characteristic of developed capitalist manufacture that physical
strength itself becomes a specialty. Thus, in Gzhel, some of the villages
are engaged (almost to a man) in clay digging; for heavy work not requiring special
skill (grinding), workers from the Tula and Ryazan gubernias are employed
almost exclusively, being superior in strength and vigour to the not very
robust Gzhelians. Payment in goods is widely practised. Agriculture is in
a bad way. “The Gzhelians are a degenerating race” (Isayev,
168) — weak-chested, narrow-shouldered, feeble; the decorators lose their
sight at an early age, etc. Capitalist division of labour breaks up the
worker and deforms him. The working day is from 12 to 13 hours.

8) The Metal Trades. The Pavlovo Industries

The celebrated Pavlovo lock and cutlery industries cover the whole of
Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, and Murom Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. These industries originated very long ago. Smirnov states that
as far back as 1621 there were (according to the cadastres [91] ) 11
smithies in Pavlovo. By the middle of the 19th century these industries
constituted a far-flung network of fully developed capitalist
relations. After the Reform, the industries in this district continued to
develop and expand. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889, in Gorbatov
Uyezd 13 volosts and 119 villages were engaged in industry; a total of
5,953 households, 6,570 male workers (54% of the total number working in
these villages) and 2,741 old men, juveniles and women, 9,311 persons in
all. In the Murom Uyezd, Mr. Grigoryev in 1881 registered 6 industrial
volosts, 66 villages, 1,545 households and 2,205 male workers (39% of the
total number working in these villages). Not only were large,
non-agricultural industrial villages formed (Pavlovo, Vorsma), but even
the surrounding peasants were diverted from agriculture: outside of
Pavlovo and Vorsma, in Gorbatov Uyezd, 4,492 persons were engaged in
industries, of whom 2,357, or more than half did not engage in
agriculture. Life in centres like Pavlovo has become quite urban and has
given rise to incomparably more developed requirements, more cultured
environment, clothes, manner of life, etc., than among the surrounding
“raw”

peasants. [60]

Turning to the economic organisation of the Pavlovo industries, we must
first of all note the indubitable fact that the “handicraftsmen” are headed by the most typical capitalist
manufactories. For example, in the Zavyalovs’ establishment (which
already in the 60s employed over 100 workers at the bench and has now
introduced a steam engine) a penknife passes through 8 or 9 hands: the
forger, blade-maker, handle-maker (usually an outside worker), hardener,
facer, polisher, finisher, grinder and marker. This is extensive
capitalist co-operation based on division of labour, with a considerable
number of the workers performing individual operations employed at home
and not in the capitalist’s workshop. Here are facts given by
Mr. Labzin (in 1866) on the bigger establishments in the villages of
Pavlovo, Vorsma and Vacha, covering all branches of production in this
district: 15 proprietors had 500 workers occupied on the premises and
1,134 workers outside, making a total of 1,634, with an output totalling
351,700 rubles. How far this description of economic relations is
applicable to the whole district at the present time may be seen from the
following data [61] :

Thus, the organisation of the industry as outlined by us prevails in all
the districts. All in all, about three-fifths of the total number
of workers are employed capitalistically. Here too, consequently, we find
manufacture predominating in the general structure of the industry [62] and
holding masses of workers under its sway, without, however, being able to
eradicate small production. The relative tenacity of the latter is fully
explained, firstly, by the fact that in some branches of the Pavlovo
industry mechanised production has not yet been introduced at all (for
instance, in lock-making); and, secondly, by the fact that the small
producer tries to save himself from sinking by resorting to means that
cause him to sink far lower than the wage-worker. These means are:
lengthening the working day, and reducing the standard of living and of
general requirements. “The earnings of the group of handicraftsmen
who work for proprietors are less subject to fluctuation”
(Grigoryev, loc . cit ., 65); at Zavyalovs’, for example, the lowest-paid worker is the handle-maker; “he works at
home, and that is why he is satisfied with lower earnings” (68). The
handicraftsmen who work “for factory owners” are “able to earn somewhat more than the average earnings of the one who takes his
products to the market. Larger earnings are particularly noticeable among
the workers who live in the factories” (70). [63]

The working day in the “factories” is from 14 1/2 to 15 hours,
with a maximum of 16 hours. “The working day of the home-working
handicraftsmen, on the other hand, is never less than 17 hours and
sometimes as much as 18 and even 19 hours” ( ibid .). It
would not be in the least surprising if the law of June 2, 1897 [92] caused an
increase here in home-work; it is high time these “handicraftsmen” directed their efforts towards compelling the
proprietors to organise factories! Let the reader also recall the
notorious Pavlovo “loan-purchase,” “exchange,” “wife-pawning” and similar forms of bondage and personal
degradation which grind down the quasi-independent small producer. [64]

Fortunately, rapidly developing large-scale machine industry does not so
readily tolerate these worst forms of exploitation as manufacture
does. Running ahead a little, let us quote data on the growth of factory
production in this district. [65]

We thus see that ever-increasing numbers of workers are being drawn into
large establishments, which are going over to the use of machines. [66]

9) Other Metal Trades

The industries of Bezvodnoye village, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia and Uyezd
also come under the head of capitalist manufacture. This is also an
industrial village, the majority of whose inhabitants do not engage in
agriculture at all, and which serves as the centre of an industrial area
of several villages. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889
( Material , Vol. VIII, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1895), in the Bezvodnoye
Volost (581 households) 67.3% of the households cultivated no land, 78.3%
had no horses, 82.4% engaged in industries, and 57.7% had literate persons
and schoolchildren in the family (as against an average for the uyezd of
44.6%). The Bezvodnoye industries are devoted to the production of various
metal goods: chains, fish-hooks, and metal fabrics; the output was
estimated at 2 1/2 million rubles in

1883 [67] and 1 1/2 million rubles in

1888-89. [68]

The organisation of the industry is as follows: work for proprietors, using
their materials, which is distributed among a number of workers performing
single operations and done partly in the employers’ workshops and
partly in the home. For example, in the making of fish-hooks the various
operations are performed by “benders,” “cutters” (who work in a special shed) and “pointers” (women and
children who sharpen the hook-points in their homes); all these work at
piece rates for the capitalist, while the bender gives out work on his own
account to the cutters and pointers. “Metal wire is now done by
horse-driven windlasses; formerly the wire was drawn by blind men, who
were brought here in large numbers. . . .” One of the “specialities” of capitalist manufacture! “The
conditions under which this work is done differ very much from those in
all the other trades.

People have to work in a stifling atmosphere filled with the harmful
vapours emanating from accumulated horse dung.” [69]

Organised on the same lines of capitalist manufacture are the screen, [70] the pin, [71] and the gold-thread industries. [72]

In the last-named industry at the beginning of the 80s there were 66 establishments, employing 670 workers (of
whom 79% were hired), with an output totalling 368,500 rubles;
some of these capitalist establishments were occasionally also
included among the “factories and works.” [73]

The locksmith industries of the Burmakino Volost (and surrounding volosts)
of Yaroslavl Gubernia and Uyezd are probably organised on the same
lines. At all events, here we observe the same division of labour
(blacksmiths, blowers and locksmiths), the same extensive development of
wage-labour (of 307 smithies in the Burmakino Volost, 231 employ
wage-workers), the same predominance of big capital over all these detail
workers (the buyers-up are at the top; the blacksmiths work for them, and
the locksmiths for the blacksmiths), the same combination of the buying up
of wares with the production of wares in capitalist workshops, some of
which are occasionally included among the “factories and works.” [74]

In the appendix to the preceding chapter, statistics were given on the
tray and the copper industries [75] of Moscow Gubernia (the latter in the district known as
“Zagarye”). The data show that wage-labour plays a predominant
part in these industries, that the industries are headed by large
workshops employing an average of from 18 to 23 wage-workers per
establishment, with an average output of from

16,000 to 17,000 rubles. If we add to this that division of labour is very
widely practised here, [76] it will be clear that what we have is capitalist manufacture. [77] “The small industrial units, which are an anomaly under the existing
conditions of technique and division of labour, can only hold out
alongside the big workshops by lengthening the working day to the utmost” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., p. 33) — among the tray-makers, for example, for as long as 19 hours. The ordinary working day
here is from 13 to 15 hours; with the small proprietors it is
from 16 to 17 hours. Payment in goods is widely practised (both
in 1876 and in

1890). [78]

Let us add that the lengthy existence of this industry (it arose at the beginning
of the 19th century, at the latest) and extensive specialisation have, in
this case too, produced highly skilled workers; the Zagarians are famed
for their craftsmanship. Specialities have also sprung up in the industry
which need no preliminary training and are within the grasp of even
under-age workers. “This very possibility,” Mr. Isayev rightly
observes, “of becoming an under-age worker at once and acquiring a
trade, as it were, without having to study, indicates that the handicraft
spirit, which demands the training of labour-power, is disappearing; the
simplicity of many of the detailed operations is a symptom of the
transition of handicraft to manufacture” ( loc . cit ., 34). Let us only observe that to a certain
degree the “handicraft spirit” always remains in manufacture,
for its basis is the same hand production.

10) The Jewellery, Samovar and Accordion Trades

The village of Krasnoye, Kostroma Gubernia and Uyezd, is one of the
industrial villages usually held up as centres of our “people’s” capitalist manufacture. This large village
(in 1897 it had 2,612 inhabitants) is purely urban in character; the
inhabitants live like townspeople and (with very few exceptions) do not
engage in agriculture. Krasnoye is the centre of the jewellery industry
which covers 4 volosts and 51 villages (including Sidorovskoye Volost of
Nerekhta Uyezd), and in them 735 households and about 1,706 workers. [79] “The principal representatives of industry,” said Mr. Tillo,
“are undoubtedly the big industrialists of the village of Krasnoye:
the Pushilovs, Mazovs, Sorokins, Chulkovs and other merchants. They buy
materials (gold, silver and copper), employ craftsmen, buy up finished
articles, distribute orders for work to be done in the home, supply
samples, etc.” (2043). The big industrialists have their workshops,
so-called “rabotorni” (laboratories), where the metal is
smelted and forged, then to be given out for finishing to
“handicraftsmen”; they have technical appliances, such as
“pretsi” (presses and dies for stamping), “punches” (for embossing designs), “rollers” (for
stretching the metal), benches, etc. Division of labour is widely
practised: “Nearly every article passes through several hands in an
established order in the course of manufacture. For example, in the making
of ear-rings, the master industrialist first sends the silver to his own
workshop, where part of it is rolled and part drawn into wire; then on
receipt of an order the material is given to a craftsman who, if he has a
family, divides the work among several persons; one uses a punch to cut
the silver plates into the shapes for the ear-rings, another bends the
wire into the rings with which the ear-rings are attached to the ears, a third solders these parts, and, lastly, a fourth polishes
the finished ear-rings. None of this work is difficult, or requires much
training; very often the soldering and the polishing are done by women and
by children of 7 or 8 years of age” (2041). [80]

Here, too, the working day is excessively long, usually as much as 16
hours. Payment in provisions is common.

The following statistics (published quite recently by a local assay
inspector) clearly illustrate the economic structure of the industry: [93] “Both the first groups (about two-thirds of the total number of
craftsmen) should be classed as home-working factory workers rather than
as handicraftsmen.” In the top group “wage-labour occurs more
and more frequently. . . . The craftsmen have begun to buy articles made
by others”; in the upper strata of this group “buying-up predominates,” and “four of the buyers-up have no workshops at all.” [81]

The samovar and accordion industries in Tula town and environs are highly
typical examples of capitalist manufacture. Generally speaking, the
“handicraft” industries in this district have a long history,
dating back to the 15th century. [82]

They evidenced a particularly rapid development in the middle of the 17th
century; Mr. Borisov considers that the second period in the development
of the Tula industries then began. In 1637 the first iron foundry was
built (by the Dutchman Vinius). The Tula gunsmiths formed a separate
smiths’ suburb, constituted a separate social estate, enjoying
special rights and privileges. In 1696 the first iron foundry was erected
in Tula by a famous Tula blacksmith, and the industry spread to the Urals
and

Siberia. [83]

Then began the third period in the history of the Tula industries. The
craftsmen set up their own workshops and taught the trade to surrounding
peasants. In the 1810s and 1820s the first samovar factories were
started. “By 1825 there were in Tula 43 different factories that
belonged to gunsmiths, while those in existence at the present time nearly
all belong to one-time gunsmiths, now Tula merchants” ( loc . cit ., 2262). Here, consequently, we observe a
direct continuity and connection between the old guild masters and the
principals of subsequent capitalist manufacture. In 1864 the Tula
gunsmiths were freed from serf dependence [94] and assigned to the burgher estate; earnings dropped as a consequence of the
severe competition of the village handicraftsmen (which caused a reverse
flow of industrialists from town to country); the workers turned to the
samovar, lock, cutlery, and accordion industries (the first Tula
accordions appeared in 1830-1835).

The samovar industry is at present organised as follows. It is headed by
big capitalists who own workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers, but they also distribute many separate
operations to be done by workers, urban and rural, in their homes; those
who perform these operations sometimes still have their own workshops and
employ wage-workers. Naturally, side by side with the big there are small
workshops, with all the consecutive stages of dependence upon the
capitalists. Division of labour is the general basis of the whole
structure of this trade. The process of samovar-making is divided into the
following separate operations: 1) rolling the copper sheets into tubes
(tubing); 2) soldering the tubes; 3) filing the seams; 4) fitting the
bottoms; 5) beating out the shapes; 6) cleaning the insides: 7) turning
the bodies and necks; 8) plating; 9) press-punching the vents in the
bottoms and the covers; 10) assembling the samovars. Further, there are
the separate processes of casting the small copper parts: a) preparing the
moulds and b)

casting. [84]

Where work is given out to be done in the home, each of these operations may
constitute a special “handicraft” industry. One of these
“industries” was described by Mr. Borisov in Vol. VII of the
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission . This industry (samovar
tubing) consists in peasants doing at piece rates one of the operations we
have described, using merchants’ materials. The handicraftsmen left
Tula town to work in the countryside after 1861; the cost of living and
standard of requirements were lower in the countryside ( loc . cit ., p. 893). Mr. Borisov quite rightly
attributes this tenacity of the “handicraftsman” to the
retention of hand-labour in the beating out of samovars; “it will
always be profitable for the manufacturer to employ the village
handicraftsman, because he works at from 10 to 20% below the rate of the
urban artisan” (916).

Mr. Borisov estimated the value of the output of samovars in 1882 at
approximately 5 million rubles, the number of workers (handicraftsmen
included) totalling from 4,000 to 5,000. In this case also the factory
statistics cover only a fraction of capitalist manufacture. The Directory for 1879
counted in Tula Gubernia 53 samovar “factories” (all hand-operated) with 1,479 workers and an output totalling 836,000
rubles. The Directory for 1890 gives 162 factories, 2,175
workers, and an output of 1.1 million rubles; the list of firms, however,
contains only 50 factories (1 steam operated), with 1,326 workers and an
output totalling 698,000 rubles. Evidently, some hundred small
establishments were in this case classed as “factories.”
Lastly, the List gives the following for 1894-95: 25 factories (4
steam-operated), 1,202 workers (+ 607 outside), and an output totalling
1,613,000 rubles. In these data neither the number of factories nor the
number of workers are comparable (for the reason given above, and also
because of the lumping together in previous years of workers on the
premises and outside). The only thing beyond doubt is that manufacture is
being steadily displaced by large-scale machine industry: in 1879, there
were 2 factories with 100 and more workers; in 1890 there were 2 (one
steam-operated) and in 1894-95 there were 4 (three steam-operated). [85]

The accordion industry, which is at a lower stage of economic development,
is organised in precisely the same way. [86] “In the making of accordions there are
over ten separate trades” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, 236); the making of the different parts of an
accordion or the performance of some of the operations constitute
separate, quasi-independent “handicraft” industries. “When things are quiet all the handicraftsmen work for factories or for more or less big workshops, the owners of which
supply them with materials; when, however, there is a brisk demand for
accordions, a large number of small producers appear, who buy up parts
from the handicraftsmen, assemble them and take the finished articles to
the local shops where accordions are very readily purchased”
( ibid .). Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated from 2,000 to 3,000
workers in this industry, with an output totalling about 4 million rubles;
factory statistics in 1879 showed two “factories,” with 22
workers and an output totalling 5,000 rubles; in 1890, 19 factories, with
275 workers and an output totalling 82,000 rubles; in 1894-95 one factory,
with 23 workers (plus 17 outside) and an output totalling 20,000 rubles. [87]

Steam-engines are not employed at all. All these figure variations
indicate a purely haphazard picking of individual establishments which are
component parts of the complex organism of capitalist manufacture.

---
Notes:
[1]
Cf. Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VII, Pt. III
(Moscow, 1883), pp. 63-64.— Lenin

[2]
For a list of the most important towns of this type, see next chapter.— Lenin

[3]
Examples of such confusion will be given in the next chapter.— Lenin

[4]
See Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III. It would be impossible
and superfluous to give detailed data on all the weaving industries
described in the literature on our handicraft industry. Moreover, in the
majority of these industries the factory now reigns supreme. On the
subject of “handicraft weaving” see also Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vols. VI and VII. — Transactions of the Handicraft Commission — Material on Hand-Labour Statistics . [95]
— Reports and Investigations . — Korsak, loc . cit .— Lenin

[5]
The Military Statistical Abstract managed to count in Vladimir
Gubernia, in 1866, 98 silk factories (!) with 98 workers and a total
output of 4,000 rubles(!). The Directory for 1890 gives 35
factories, 2,112 workers, and 936,000 rubles. According to the
List for 1894-95 there were 98 factories, 2,281 workers, with an
output of 1,918,000 rubles, and in addition, 2,477 workers “outside
of establishments, on the side.” Just try to distinguish
“handicraftsmen” here from “factory workers”!— Lenin

[6]
According to the Directory for 1890 there were outside of Moscow
10 galloon factories, with 303 workers and an output totalling 58,000
rubles. But according to Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia
(Vol. VI, Pt. II), there were 400 establishments, with 2,619 workers (of
whom 72.8% were wage-workers) and with an output totalling 963,000 rubles.— Lenin

[7]
The Collection of Factory Inspectors’ Reports for 1903 (St. Petersburg, 1906) states that in Saratov Gubernia there were 33
distributing offices with 10,000 workers. ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[8]
The centre of this industry is Sosnovka Volost, where the Zemstvo census
of 1886 counted 4,626 households, with a population of 38,000 persons of
both sexes; 291 industrial establishments. Altogether in the volost 10% of
the households were houseless (as against 6.2% in the uyezd), and 44.5% of
the households cultivated on land (as against 22.8% in the uyezd). See
Statistical Returns for Saratou Gubernia , Vol. XI. — Capitalist
manufacture has, consequently, created industrial centres here too which
divorce the workers from the land.— Lenin

[9]
The sources are shown in the text. The number of establishments is about
half the number of independent workers (52 establishments in Vasilyev
Vrag, 5 + 55 + 110 in Krasnoye village and 21 establishments in the 4
small villages). On the other hand, the figures for the town of Arzamas
and Viyezdnaya Sloboda stands for the number of “factories,”
and not of workers.— Lenin

[10]
Let us note that the diagram given is typical of all Russian industries
organised on the lines of capitalist manufacture: everywhere at the head
of the industry we find big establishments (sometimes classed among
“factories and works”), and a mass of small establishments
completely under their sway — in a word, capitalist co-operation based on
division of labour and hand production. Non-agricultural centres are
formed by manufacture in exactly the same way, not only here, but also in
the majority of other industries.— Lenin

[11]
They are naked as they work in a temperature of 22° to 24°
Réaumur. The air is full of fine and also coarse dust, wool and
other stuff. The floors in the “factories” are earthen (in the
washing sheds of all places), etc.— Lenin

[12]
It is not without interest to note here the specific jargon of the
inhabitants of Krasnoye; this is characteristic of the territorial
isolation peculiar to manufacture. “In the village of Krasnoye
factories are given the Matroisk name of povarnyas (lit. kitchens — Ed .). . . . Matroisk is one of the
numerous branches of the Ophen dialect, the three main branches of which
are Ophen proper, spoken mainly in Vladimir Gubernia; Galivon , in Kostroma Gubernia; and Matroisk , in the
Nizhni-Novgorod and Vladimir gubernias” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V, p 465). Only large-scale machine industry
completely destroys the local character of social ties and replaces them
by national (and international) ties.— Lenin

[13]
Material for Evaluation of the Lands of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia ,
Vol. XI, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1893, pp. 211-214.— Lenin

[14]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , VI.— Lenin

[15]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[16]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II.— Lenin

[17]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II, p. 271.— Lenin

[18]
See Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 27.— Lenin

[19]
Some of these establishments were occasionally included among
“factories and works.” See, for example, the
Directory for 1879, p.126.— Lenin

[20]
See above, Chapter V, § VII.— Lenin

[21]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , IV, Pt.I, pp. 282-287.— Lenin

[22]
See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, and
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[23]
By some accident, such workshops have not yet been included among
“factories and works.”— Lenin

[24]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , II.— Lenin

[25]
According to Zemstvo statistics (Vol. VII of Material ,
Nizhni-Novgorod, 1892) in these villages in 1889 there were 341 and 119
households, numbering respectively 1,277 and 540 persons of both
sexes. There were 253 and 103 allotment households. Households
participating in industries numbered 284 and 91, of which 257 and 32 did
not engage in agriculture. There were 218 and 51 horseless
households. Those leasing their allotments numbered 237 and 53.— Lenin

[26]
Cf. Nizhni-Novgorod Handbook , Vol IV, article by Rev. Roslavlev.— Lenin

[27]
Sketch of Condition of Handicraft Industry in Perm Gubernia ,
p. 158; in the table totals there is a mistake or a misprint.— Lenin

[28]
Ibid ., pp. 40 and 188 of table. To all appearances these same
establishments also figure in the List , p. 152. For the purpose
of comparing the big establishments with the small ones we have singled
out the agriculturist commodity-producers, see Studies ,
p. 156. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[29]
The Handicraft Industries of Perm Gubernia at the Siberian Urals Exhibition , Pt. III, p. 47 and foll.— Lenin

[30]
See Zemstvo statistical returns for Trubchevsk, Karachev and Orel uyezds
of Orel Gubernia. The connection between the big manufactories and the
small peasant establishments is also evident from the fact that the
employment of wage-labour develops in the latter as well: for example, in
Orel Uyezd, 16 peasant master spinners employ 77 workers.— Lenin

[31]
V. Ilyin, Studies, p. 176. (See present edition, Vol.2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[32]
See precise data on Perm handicraft census about this, ibid .,
p. 177 (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[33]
See Directory and List on Perm Gubernia and the village
of Nevyansky Zavod (non-agricultural), which is the centre of this
“handicraft industry.”— Lenin

[34]
Cf. our Studies , pp. 177-178. (See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[35]
Reports and Investigations , I.— Lenin

[36]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[37]
There are 14 big timber merchants. These have timber-seasoning rooms
(costing about 300 rubles), of which there are 24 in the village, each
employing 6 workers. These merchants also give out materials to workers,
whom they get into their grip by advancing them money.— Lenin

[38]
It will be appropriate here to note in general the process of development
of capitalism in the timber industry. The timber merchants do not sell the
timber raw; they hire workers to dress it and to make various wooden
articles, which they then sell. See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., VIII, pp. 1268, 1314. Also Statistical Returns for Orel Gubernia , Trubchevsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[39]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol II, 1879. See also
Zemstvo statistical Material for Semyonov Uyezd, Vol. XI, 1893.— Lenin

[40]
The statistics we have given (Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 2,
7, 26) cover only a small fraction of the toy-makers; but these data show
the appearance of workshops with 11 to 18 workers.— Lenin

[41]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. II, p. 47.— Lenin

[42]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[43]
Material for the Evaluation of the Lands in Gorbatov Uyezd.— Lenin

[44]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[45]
Thus, at the head of the horse-collar industry are 13 big proprietors,
each with 10 to 30 wage-workers and 5 to 10 outside workers. The big
mitten-makers do the cutting in their own workshops (employing 2 or 3
wage-workers) and get the mittens sewn off the premises by from 10 to 20
women; these are divided into thumb-makers and stitchers , the former taking the work from the owners and
sub-dividing it among the latter, whom they exploit (information for
1879).— Lenin

[46]
In 1889, of 1,812 households (with 9,241 inhabitants) 1,469 cultivated no
land (in 1897 there were 12,342 inhabitants). The villages of Pavlovo and
Bogorodskoye differ from the other villages of Gorbatov Uyezd in that very
few of their inhabitants leave them on the contrary, of all the peasants
of the Gorbatov Uyezd who have left their villages, 14.9% live in Pavlovo
and 4.9% in Bogorodskoye. The increase of the population between 1858 and
1889 was 22.1% for the uyezd, but 42% for the village of
Bogorodskoye. (See Zemstvo statistical Material .)— Lenin

[47]
See Zemstvo statistical Material for uyezds mentioned. —
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX and VI. —
Directory and List . — Reports and Investigations , II.— Lenin

[48]
In 1889 it had 380 households (none cultivating land) with 1,305
inhabitants In the whole of the Katunki Volost, 90.6% of the households
are engaged in industries, 70.1% of working people being occupied in
industries alone (i.e., not engaging in agriculture). As regards literacy,
this volost stands far above the average for the uyezd, yielding in this
respect only to the Chernoretsk Volost, which is also non-agricultural and
has highly developed boat-building industries. The village of Bolshoye
Murashkino had in 1887 a total of 856 households (of which 853 cultivated
no land) with 3,473 persons of both sexes. According to the 1897 census,
the population of Gorodets was 6,330, of Bolshoye Murashkino 5,341, of
Yurino 2,189, of Spasskoye 4,494 and of Vatras 3,012.— Lenin

[49]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX,
p. 2567. Information for 1880.— Lenin

[50]
The conditions of the workers in the Arzamas factories are better than
those of the rural workers ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 133).— Lenin

[51]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 76.— Lenin

[52]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. XI,
p. 3084. (Cf. Directory for 1890). Included among the
handicraftsmen is the peasant-agriculturist Dolgushin, who owns a works
employing 60 workers. There are several handicraftsmen of this type.— Lenin

[53]
According to the Directory for 1890, there were some 27 masters
employing over 700 workers.— Lenin

[54]
Cf. also List , p. 489, regarding the well-known “handicraft” village of Dunilovo, Shuya Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. The Directory for 1890 listed here 6 fur factories
employing 151 workers, while according to the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (Vol. X) there are about 2,200 furriers and
2,300 sheepskin-coat-makers in this district; in 1877 as many as 5,500
“handicraftsmen” were counted. Probably, the making of hair
sieves in this uyezd is organised in the same way; in this industry there
are engaged about 40 villages and as many as 4,000 people, known as
“Mardassers” (from the name of this district). We have described the similar organisation of the leather and cobbling industries
in Perm Gubernia in our Studies , p. 171 and foll (See present
edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[55]
Here is some information about the “handicraftsmen” relating
to 1894. “The squirrel furs are sewn by some of the poorest women in
the town of Kargopol and by peasant women of the Pavlovo Volost. They are
paid the very lowest price,” so that a seamstress earns only from 2
rubles 40 kopeks to 3 rubles per month, providing her own food, and for
this pay (at piece rates) she has to sit without a break for 12 hours a
day. “The work is very exhausting, for it calls for great strain and
assiduity.” The number of seamstresses is now about 200
( Handicraft Industry in Olonets Gubernia , Essay by
Messrs. Blagoveshchensky and Garyazin. Petrozavodsk, 1895, pp. 92-93).— Lenin

[56]
See Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II, Vol. III,
St. Petersburg, 1872. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and
Hand-Labour in Russia. Compiled by L. Maikov . Article by V
A. Pletnev. This work is the best for clarity of description of the whole
organisation of the industry. The latest works give valuable statistics and facts of the people’s life, but give a less
satisfactory exposition of the economic structure of this complex
industry. See, further, Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII, article by Mr. Pokrovsky, — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I.— Lenin

[57]
Cf. Reports and Investigations : 7 groups of industrialists: 1)
traders in leather goods; 2) buyers-up of footwear; 3) masters of big
workshops (5-6 of them), who stock leather and distribute it to home
workers; 4) masters of small workshops employing wage-workers; also give
out material to home workers; 5) one-man establishments — working either
for the market or for masters (sub 3 and 4); 6) wage-workers (craftsmen,
journeymen, boys); 7) “last-makers, notchers, and also owners and
workers in currying, greasing and gluing workshops” (p. 227,
loc . cit .). The population of Kimry village, according
to the 1897 census, is 7,017.— Lenin

[58]
The “sawyer” saws the brush blocks; the “borer” bores holes in them; the “cleaner” cleans the bristle; the
“setter” “sets” the bristle; the “joiner” glues wooden strips on the brush backs
( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. I, p. 18).— Lenin

[59]
Let us observe that in this industry, as in the above-described weaving
industries, capitalist manufacture is, strictly speaking, the economy of
yesterday. Characteristic of the post-Reform era is the transformation of
this manufacture into large-scale machine industry. The number of Gzhel
potteries using steam-engines was 1 in 1866, 2 in 1879 and 3 in 1890
(according to data in The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , Vol. I,
and Directory for 1879 and 1890).— Lenin

[60]
See above regarding the greater literacy of the population of Pavlovo and
Vorsma and the migration of peasants from the villages to these centres.— Lenin

[61]
Data from Zemstvo statistical Material , and Mr. Annensky’s
Report, and also A. N. Potresov’s researches (cited above). The
figures for the Murom district are approximate. The number of inhabitants,
according to the 1897 census, was 4,674 in Vorsma, and 12,431 in Pavlovo.— Lenin

[62]
The data we have given by no means express this predominance to the full:
as will presently be seen, the handicraftsmen who work for the market are
subjugated to capital even more than those who work for proprietors, and
the latter handicraftsmen even more than the wage-workers. The
Pavlovo industries show in strong relief that inseparable connection
between merchant’s and industrial capital which in general is
characteristic of capitalist manufacture in its relation to the small
producers.— Lenin

[63]
Connection with the land is also an important factor in reducing
earnings. The village handicraftsmen “on the whole earn less than
the Pavlovo locksmiths” (Annensky Report, p. 61). True, we must bear
in mind that the former grow their own grain, but even so “the
conditions of the ordinary village handicraftsman can scarcely be
considered better than those of the average Pavlovo locksmith” (61).— Lenin

[64]
During crises it also happens that they work literally without pay,
exchange “white for black,” i.e., finished goods for raw
materials; this happens “quite often” (Grigoryev, ibid ., 93).— Lenin

[65]
Data taken from Directory and List for the whole district, including the villages of Selitba and Vacha and their
environs. The Directory for 1890 undoubtedly included outside
workers in the total number of factory workers; we have estimated the
number of outside workers approximately, confining ourselves to a
correction only for the two biggest establishments (the Zavyalovs and
F. Varypayev). To compare the figures for “factories and
works” in the List and the Directory , only establishments with 15 and more workers must be taken (this is examined in
greater detail in our Studies , article: On the Question of Our
Factory Statistics) (See present edition, Vol. 4.— Ed .)— Lenin

[66]
In one branch of the Pavlovo industry, lock-making, there is, on the
contrary, a decline in the number of workshops employing wage-workers. A. N. Potresov ( loc . cit .), who recorded
this fact in detail, pointed to its cause — the competition of the
lock-making factory in Kovno Gubernia (Schmidt Brothers, which in 1890 had
500 workers, with an output of 500,000 rubles, and in 1894-95 had 625
workers, with an output of 730,000 rubles).— Lenin

[67]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX. The population of
Bezvodnoye village in 1897 was 3,296.— Lenin

[68]
Reports and Investigations , Vol. I. — The List gives 4
“factories” for this district, with 21 workers on premises and
29 outside workers, and output totalling 68,000 rubles.— Lenin

[69]
Reports and Investigations , I, p. 186.— Lenin

[70]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 29.— Lenin

[71]
Ibid ., No. 32.— Lenin

[72]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. 1, Sec. 2,
and Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd in 1890. — Lenin

[73]
See, for example, the List , No. 8819.— Lenin

[74]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VI, investigation
of 1880. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I (1888-1889),
cf. p. 271: “nearly the whole trade . . . is concentrated in
workshops employing wage-workers.” Cf. also Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia , Vol. II, Yaroslavl, 1896, pp. 8, 11. — List ,
p. 403.— Lenin

[75]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 19 and 30.— Lenin

[76]
A copper-smith’s workshop needs five operatives to do the different
jobs; a tray-maker’s at least 3, while a “normal workshop” needs 9 workers. “In the large establishments”
a “fine division” (of labour) is practised “with the object of increasing productivity” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., 27 and 31).— Lenin

[77]
The Directory for 1890 gives for the district of Zagarye 14
factories employing 184 workers, with an output totalling 37,000 rubles. A
comparison of these figures with the above-quoted Zemstvo statistics shows
that in this case too the factory statistics covered only the upper strata
of widely developed capitalist manufacture.— Lenin

[78]
Cf. Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[79]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, article by
Mr. A. Tillo. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. III (1893). The
industry continues to develop. Cf. letter to Russkiye Vedomosti ,
1897, No. 231. Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42. Output totals over
1 million rubles, of which about 200,000 rubles is received by the workers
and about 300,000 rubles by buyers-up and merchants.— Lenin

[80]
“Among the Krasnoye handicraftsmen every kind of article and even
every part is made by a specific craftsman, and therefore one rarely
finds, for example, rings and ear-rings, bracelets and brooches, etc.,
made in the same house; usually a particular article is made in parts by
different worker-specialists who live not only in different houses but
even in different villages” ( Reports and Investigations ,
Vol. III, p. 76).— Lenin

[81]
Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42.— Lenin

[82]
See Mr. V. Borisov’s article in Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX.— Lenin

[83]
The Tula blacksmith, Nikita Demidov Antufyev, won Peter the Great’s
favour by building an ironworks near the town of Tula; in 1702 he was
granted the Nevyansk works. His descendants were the famous Urals iron
manufacturers, the Demidovs.— Lenin

[84]
The Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. X, contain an
excellent description by Mr. Manokhin of the samovar industry in Suksun,
Perm Gubernia. Its organisation is the same as that in Tula
Gubernia. Cf. ibid ., Vol. IX, Mr. Borisov’s article on
handicraft industries at the 1882 exhibition.— Lenin

[85]
Evidently there are analogous features in the organisation of the
mechanical trades in Tula and its environs. Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated
that the number of workers employed in these industries was from 2,000 to
3,000, producing wares to a value of nearly 2 1/2 million rubles. These
“handicraftsmen” are very much under the heel of merchant’s capital. The hardware “factories” in Tula
Gubernia sometimes also have outside workers (cf. List ,
pp. 393-395).— Lenin

[86]
The development of accordion-making is also interesting as a process of
the elimination of primitive folk instruments and of the creation of a
wide, national market; without this market there could have been no
division of labour by processes, and without division of labour the
finished article could not have been produced cheaply “Owing to
their cheapness . . . the accordions have nearly everywhere displaced the
primitive string folk instrument, the balalaika” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, p. 2276).— Lenin

[87]
The Tula town census of November 29, 1891, gave 36 establishments selling
accordions and 34 accordion workshops (see Tula Gubernia Handbook for 1895 , Tula, 1895).— Lenin

[88]
Workroom owners , middlemen — owners of premises who rented them to manufacturers for the installation of hand-looms, and
themselves worked there. The middleman or workroom owner, by arrangement
with the employer, undertook to heat or repair the premises, deliver raw
materials to the weavers, send the finished product to the employer or act
as overseer. [p.386]

[95]
Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II. Vol. III. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and Hand
Labour in Russia. Part 1. Published by the Central Statistical Committee
of the Ministry of Home Affairs. St. Petersburg, 1872. [p.388]

[89]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.396]

[90]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.398]

[91]
Cadastre — a public record of the extent, value and ownership of
land, etc., for purposes of taxation. The cadastral surveys gave
particulars of land held, incomes of inhabitants and descriptions of
streets, monasteries, fortifications, etc. The oldest cadastre now extant
dates back to the 15th century, but most of those that have been preserved
relate to the 17th century. Surveys for the cadastre were made by special
commissions appointed by the central government authorities. [p.415]

[92]
The Law of June 2 , 1897 established a working day of 11
1/2 hours for industrial enterprises and railway workshops. Prior to the
adoption of this law the working day in Russia was unlimited and lasted as
long as 14 and 15 hours and even more. The tsar’s government was
forced to adopt this law due to the pressure of the working-class
movement, which was led by the “League of Struggle for the
Emancipation of the Working Class” headed by Lenin. A detailed
analysis and criticism of the law is given by Lenin in his pamphlet:
The New Factory Law . (See present edition, Vol. 2.) [p. 418]

[93]
The table that follows is based on a similar but more detailed table
published in the Vestnik Finansov , Issue No. 42, 1898. [p.423]

[94]
Prior to 1864 the gunsmiths of Tula were serfs of the state and lived in
special suburbs (slobodas). (The state blacksmiths’ sloboda, etc.)
They were divided into guilds: barrel, gun-stock, lock, instrumental,
etc. For the carrying out of auxiliary work serf-peasants from a number of
villages were attached to the Tula arms factories, their task being to
prepare charcoal for the gunsmiths, guard the forests allocated to the
factories, and do jobs in the factory yards.

In Tula at the time of their liberation from feudal dependence there were
nearly 4,000 gunsmiths, of whom 1,276 were employed in factories and 2,362
worked at home. In all, the gunsmiths and their families numbered over
20,000. [p.424]

| | I. The Rise of Manufacture and its Main Features | | | III. Technique in Manufacture. Division of Labour and its Significance | |

# The Metal Trades. The Pavlovo Industries

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vi/vi8ii.htm#sect08

Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry

II. Capitalist Manufacture in Russian Industry

Let us begin with the industries that process fibres.

1) The Weaving Industries

The weaving of linen, wool, cotton and silk fabrics, galloons, etc., was
organised everywhere in Russia as follows (before the appearance of
large-scale machine industry). The industry was headed by big capitalist
workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers; the owners of these
workshops, possessing sizable capital, undertook the large-scale purchase
of raw material, partly working it up in their own establishments, and partly giving out yarn and warp to small producers
(workroom owners, middlemen, [88] , peasant-“handicraftsmen” etc.) who wove the cloth at home or
in small workshops at piece rates. The work itself was done by hand, and
the following operations were distributed among the workers: 1)
yarn-dyeing; 2) yarn-winding (very often women and children specialised in
this operation); 3) yarn-fixing (“fixers”); 4) weaving; 5)
weft-winding for weavers (bobbin hands, mostly children). Sometimes in the
big workshops there were special “threaders” (who threaded the
warp through the eyes of the batten and reed.) [1] of labour
is usually applied, not only to single operations, but to wares, that is,
the

weavers specialise in producing various sorts of cloth. The selection of
some operations to be done in the home does not, of course, make any
change whatever to the economic structure of this type of industry. The
workrooms or homes where the weavers work are simply external departments
of the manufactory. The technical basis of such industry is hand
production with extensive and systematic division of labour; from the
economic point of view we see here the formation of large capital which
controls the purchase of raw materials and the sale of wares on an
extremely extensive (national) market, and under whose complete sway are a
mass of proletarian weavers; a few large establishments (manufactories in
the narrow sense of the term) dominate a mass of small ones. Division of
labour leads to the emergence of specialist artisans from among the
peasantry; non-agricultural centres of manufacture arise, such as the
village of Ivanovo in Vladimir Gubernia (in 1871 it became the town of
Ivanovo-Voznesensk and is now a centre of large-scale machine industry),
the village of Velikoye in Yaroslavl Gubernia, and many other villages in
Moscow, Kostroma, Vladimir and Yaroslavl gubernias, which have now turned
into factory towns. [2]

In our economic literature and statistics the industry organised in this way is
usually split up into two parts: peasants who work in their homes, or in
not particularly big workrooms, workshops, etc., are classed under
“handicraft” industry, while the bigger workrooms and workshops are placed among the “factories and works” (and,
moreover, quite fortuitously, since no definitely established and
uniformly applied rules exist as to the separation of small establishments
from big ones, of workrooms from manufactories, of workers occupied in
their homes from workers occupied in the workshop of the capitalist). [3]

Naturally, such classification, which places some wage-workers on one
side, and some masters who hire these very wage-workers (in addition to
the workers in their establishments) on the other, is nonsense from the
scientific viewpoint.

Let us illustrate this by detailed data regarding one of the
“handicraft weaving” industries, namely, silk weaving in
Vladimir

Gubernia. [4]

The “silk industry” is a typical specimen of capitalist
manufacture. Hand labour prevails. Of the total number of establishments
the small ones constitute the majority (179 out of 313, or 57% of the
total, have from 1 to 5 workers), but in greater part they are not
independent and are far behind the big ones in their significance to the
industry as a whole. Establishments with 20 to 150 workers constitute 8%
of the total (25), but in them 41.5% of the aggregate number of workers
are concentrated, and they account for 51% of the total output. Of the
total number of workers in the industry (2,823) there are 2,092
wage-workers, i.e., 74.1%. “On the job we meet with division of
labour both in wares and in individual operations.” Weavers are
rarely able to make both “velvet” and “satin” (the two principal lines in this trade). “The division of labour into
separate operations within the workshop is most strictly practised only in
the big factories” (i.e., manufactories) “that employ wage-workers.” The fully independent proprietors number only 123,
who alone buy the raw materials themselves and sell the finished article;
they have 242 family workers and “employ 2,498 wage-workers, who in
greater part are paid by the piece,” a total, consequently, of 2,740
workers, or 97% of the aggregate number of workers. It is thus clear that
the distribution by these manufactory owners, through the medium of
“middle-men” (workroom owners), of work to be done in the home
is no special form of industry at all, but is merely one of the operations
of capital in manufacture. Mr. Kharizomenov rightly observes that the
“mass of small establishments (57%) alongside the small number of
big ones (8%), and the insignificant number of workers employed per establishment (7 1/2) conceal the true character of the trade”
( loc . cit ., 39). The specialisation characteristic of
manufacture is seen here clearly in the separation of the industrialists
from agriculture (the land is abandoned, on the one hand by the
impoverished weavers, and on the other by the big manufactory owners) and
in the formation of a special type of industrial population, who live much
more “decently” than do the agriculturists, and look down upon
the muzhik ( loc . cit ., 106). Our factory statistics have
always registered only a very casually selected fraction of this industry. [5]

The “galloon industry” in Moscow Gubernia is capitalist
manufacture organised in a quite analogous fashion. [6]

Such precisely is the case with regard to the printed calico industry in
Kamyshin Uyezd, Saratov Gubernia. According to the Directory for
1890, there were here 31 “factories” with 4,250 workers and
output totalling 265,000 rubles, while according to the List
there was one “work distributing office” with 33 workers in
the establishment and an output totalling 47,000 rubles. (In other words,
in 1890 workers employed in the establishment and on the side were lumped
together!) According to local investigators, in 1888 nearly 7,000 looms
were engaged in producing printed calico, [7] an output
totalling 2 million rubles, and “the whole business is run by a few manufacturers,” who employ
“handicraftsmen” too, including children of 6 and 7 years of
age for a payment of 7 to 8 kopeks per day ( Reports and Investigations , Vol. I). [8]

And so forth.

2) Other Branches of the Textile Industry. The Felt Trade.

To judge by official factory statistics, felt production shows a very poor
development of “capitalism”: in all European Russia there are
altogether 55 factories, with 1,212 workers and an output totalling
454,000 rubles ( Directory for 1890). But these figures merely
show a casually picked fragment of a widely developed capitalist
industry. Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia occupies first place for the
development of “factory” felt production, and in that gubernia
the principal centre of the industry is the town of Arzamas and the suburb
Viyezdnaya Sloboda (where there are 8 “factories” with 278
workers and an output totalling 120,000 rubles; in 1897 there were 3,221
inhabitants; and in the village of Krasnoye, 2,835). It is in the environs
of these centres that “handicraft” felt-making is developed,
in some 243 establishments, employing 935 workers, with an output
totalling 103,847 rubles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V). To illustrate clearly the economic organisation of
felt-making in this district, let us try the graphic method and indicate
by specific symbols the producers who occupy special places in the general
structure of the industry.

It is clear, therefore, that the separation of “factory” and
“handicraft” industry is purely artificial, that what we have
before us is a single and integral structure of industry which fully fits
into the concept of capitalist (approximately) [9] manufacture. [10]

From the technical aspect it is hand production. The organisation of the
work is that of co-operation based on division of labour, which is here
observed in two forms: as to wares (some villages specialise in plain
felt, others in boots, hats, socks, etc.), and as to individual operations (for example,
the whole village of Vasilyev Vrag shapes hats and socks for the
village of Krasnoye, where the semi-prepared article is finished,
etc.). This is capitalist co-operation, for it is headed by big capital,
which has created large manufactories and has brought under its sway (by
an intricate web of economic relations) a mass of small
establishments. The overwhelming majority of the producers have been
transformed into workers performing one operation and producing
for entrepreneurs under extremely insanitary conditions. [11]

The long standing of the industry and the fully established capitalist
relations result in the separation of the industrialists from agriculture:
in the village of Krasnoye agriculture is in utter ruin, and the life of
the inhabitants differs from that of the agricultural population. [12]

Quite analogous is the organisation of the felt industry in a number of
other districts. In 363 village communities of Semyonov Uyezd in the same
gubernia, the industry in 1889 was carried on by 3,180 households, with
4,038 persons working. Of 3,946 workers, only 752 worked for the market,
576 were wage-workers and 2,618 worked for masters on the basis, in
greater part, of using the latter’s materials; 189 households gave
out work to 1,805 households. The big owners have workshops with as many
as 25 wage-workers, and buy wool to a value of some 10,000 rubles per year. [13]

The big owners are called thousanders ; their turnover runs to from 5,000
to 100,000 rubles; they have their own wool warehouses, and their own
booths for the sale of wares. [14]

For
Kazan Gubernia the List gives 5 felt “factories,” with 122 workers and an output totalling 48,000 rubles, as well as 60
outside workers. Evidently the latter are also included among the
“handicraftsmen,” concerning whom we read that they often work
for “buyers-up” and that there are establishments having 60 workers. [15]

Of 29 felt “factories” in Kostroma Gubernia, 28 are concentrated in
Kineshma Uyezd, and have 593 workers employed in the establishments and
458 outside ( List , pp. 68-70; two of the enterprises have only
outside workers. Steam-engines already appear). From the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (XV) we learn that out of a total of
3,908 wool-carders and felt-makers in this gubernia, 2,008 are
concentrated in Kineshma Uyezd. The Kostroma felt-makers are in greater
part dependent or work for wages in extremely insanitary workshops. [16]

In
Kalyazin Uyezd, Tver Gubernia, we find, on the one hand, that home work is
done for “factory owners” ( List , 113), and, on the other, that precisely this uyezd is a centre of “handicraft”
felt-makers; as many as 3,000 of them come from this uyezd, passing
through the wasteland called “Zimnyak” (in the 60s it was the
site of Alexeyev’s cloth mill), and forming “an enormous
labour market of wool-carders and felt-makers.” [17]

In Yaroslavl Gubernia outside work for “factory owners is a]so done” ( List , 115) and there
are “handicraftsmen” who work for merchant proprietors, using
the latter’s wool, etc.

3) The Hat-and-Cap and Hemp-and-Rope Trades

Above we gave statistics for the hat industry of Moscow

Gubernia. [18]

They show that two-thirds of the total output and of the total number of
workers are concentrated in 18 establishments, which have an average of 15.6 wage-workers. [19]

The “handicraft” hat-makers perform only part of the hat-making operations: they make the shapes, which are sold to Moscow
merchants who have their own “finishing establishments”; on
the other hand, “clippers” (women who clip the down) work at
home for the “handicraft” hat-makers. Thus, all in all, we
find here capitalist co-operation based on division of labour and
entangled in a whole network of diverse forms of economic dependence. In
the centre of the industry (the village of Klenovo, Podolsk Uyezd) the
separation of the industrialists (mainly wage-workers) from agriculture [20] is
clearly to be seen, together with a rise in the level of the
population’s requirements: they live “more decently,” dress in calico and even in cloth, buy samovars, abandon ancient customs,
etc., thereby evoking the bitter complaints of the local admirers of old times. [21]

The new era even occasioned the appearance of migratory hat-makers.

A typical example of capitalist manufacture is the cap industry in the
village of Molvitino, Bui Uyezd, Kostroma

Gubernia. [22] “The principal . . . occupation in the village of Molvitino and in
. . . 36 hamlets is the cap industry.” Agriculture is being
abandoned. Since 1861 the industry has greatly developed; sewing-machines
have become widely used. In Molvitino 10 workshops are busy all year round
with 5 to 25 male and 1 to 5 female workers each. “The best workshop
. . . has a turnover of about 100,000 rubles per annum.” [23]

Work is also distributed to homes (for example, materials for the crowns
are made by women in their homes). Division of labour cripples the
workers, who work under the most insanitary conditions and usually
contract tuberculosis. The lengthy existence of the industry (for over 200
years) has produced highly skilled craftsmen; the Molvitino craftsmen are
known in the big cities and in the remote outer regions.

The centre of the hemp industry in the Medyn Uyezd, Kaluga Gubernia, is
the village of Polotnyani Zavod. This is a large village (according to the
census of 1897 it had 3,685 inhabitants) with a population that is
landless and highly industrial (over 1,000 “handicraftsmen”);
it is the centre of the “handicraft” industries of Medyn

Uyezd. [24]

The hemp industry is organised in the following way: the big proprietors (of whom
there are three, the biggest being Yerokhin) have workshops employing
wage-workers and circulating capital of more or less considerable
dimensions for purchasing raw materials. The hemp is combed in the
“factory,” spun by spinners in their homes, and twisted both
in the factory and in the home. It is warped in the factory and woven both
in the factory and in the home. In 1878 a total of 841 “handicraftsmen” was counted in the hemp industry; Yerokhin is
considered to be both a “handicraftsman” and a “factory
owner,” employing 94-64 workers in 1890 and in 1894-1895; according
to Reports and Investigations (Vol. II, p.187), “hundreds
of peasants” work for him.

In Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the rope industry is also centred in
non-agricultural industrial villages, Nizhni Izbylets and Verkhni Izbylets
in the Gorbatov

Uyezd. [25]

According to Mr. Karpov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII), the Gorbatov-Izbylets district is one large
rope-making area; part of the inhabitants of the town of Gorbatov are also
engaged in the industry, and the villages of Verkhni Izbylets and Nizhni
Izbylets are, in fact, “almost part of the town of Gorbatov”;
the inhabitants live like townspeople, drink tea every day, wear clothing
bought in the shops, and eat white bread. Altogether, as many as
two-thirds of the inhabitants of 32 villages are engaged in the industry,
a total of 4,701 working (2,096 men and 2,605 women) with an output of
about 1 1/2 million rubles. The industry has been in existence for nearly 200 years, and is now declining. It is organised as follows:
all work for 29 proprietors, using the latter’s materials, are paid
by the piece, are “totally dependent upon the proprietors” and
work from 14 to 15 hours a day. According to Zemstvo statistics (1889) the
industry employs 1,699 male workers (plus 558 females and males of
non-working age). Of 1,648 working only 197 work for sale, 1,340 work for proprietors [26] and 111 are wage-workers employed in the workshops of 58
proprietors. Of 1,288 allotment households, only 727, or a little over half, cultivate all their land themselves. Of
1,573 allotment-holding working persons, 306, or 19.4%, do not
engage in agriculture at all. Turning to the question as to who
these “proprietors” are, we must pass from the sphere of
“handicraft” industry to that of “factory” industry. According
to the List for 1894-95 there were two rope factories there, with 231 workers employed on the premises and 1,155
working outside, with an output totalling 423,000 rubles. Both
these establishments have installed motors (which they did not
have either in 1879 or in 1890), and we therefore clearly see
here the transition from capitalist manufacture to capitalist
machine industry, and the transformation of “handicraft” work
distributors and buyers-up into real factory owners.

In Perm Gubernia the handicraft census of 1894-95 registered 68 peasant
rope-and-string yards, with 343 workers (of whom 143 were hired) and an
output totalling 115,000 rubles. [27]

These small establishments are headed by big manufactories,
which are reckoned together, viz.: 6 owners employ 101 workers
(91 hired) and have an output totalling 81,000 rubles. [28]

The system of production in these big establishments may serve as the most
striking example of “serial manufacture” (as Marx calls it [89] ), i.e., the
sort of manufacture in which different workers perform different consecutive operations in working up the raw material: 1) hemp
scutching; 2) combing; 3) spinning; 4) coiling; 5) tarring; 6) winding on
drum; 7) passing threads through perforated board; 8) passing threads
through iron bush; 9) stranding of plaits, twisting and gathering of ropes. [29]

The organisation of the hemp industry in Orel Gubernia is evidently
similar: from among the considerable number of small peasant
establishments big manufactories emerge, principally in the towns, and are
included among the “factories and works” (according to the
Directory for 1890 there were in Orel Gubernia 100 hemp-scutching
factories, with 1,671 workers and an output totalling 795,000 rubles). The
peasants work in the hemp industry “for merchants” (probably
for the very same manufacturers), using the latter’s materials, at
piece rates, the work being divided up into special operations:
“scutchers” scutch the hemp; “spinners” spin it; “bearders” trim it, “wheelmen” turn the wheel. The
work is very hard; many contract consumption and “rupture.”
The dust is so thick that “unless accustomed you will not stay in it
for a quarter of an hour.” The work is done in ordinary sheds from
dawn to dusk, from May to

September. [30]

4) The Wood-Working Trades

The most typical example of capitalist manufacture in this sphere is the
chest-making industry. According to the data, for instance, of the Perm
investigators, “this industry is organised as follows: a few big
proprietors, owning workshops that employ wage-workers, purchase
materials, partly make the wares on their own premises, but mainly give
out material to small workshops making parts, and in their own shops
assemble them and, after finishing, send the ready article to
market. Division of labour . . . is employed on the job extensively: the making of the entire chest is divided into ten
or twelve operations, each separately performed by handicraftsmen. The
organisation of the industry consists in the combination of workers
performing one operation ( Teilarbeiter , as they are called in
Das Kapital ) under the command of capital .” [31]

This is heterogeneous manufacture ( heterogene Manufaktur , as Marx calls it [90] ), in which
the different workers do not perform consecutive operations in turning the
raw material into the product, but make the various parts of the product,
which are afterwards assembled. The preference of the capitalists for the
domestic work of “handicraftsmen” is to be explained partly by
the above mentioned character of manufacture, and partly (and mainly) by
the cheaper labour of the home workers. [32]

Let us observe that the relatively big workshops in this industry are sometimes
also included among “factories and works.” [33]

In all probability, the chest-making industry is organised similarly in
Vladimir Gubernia, in Murom Uyezd where, according to the List ,
there are 9 “factories” (all hand-operated), with 89 workers
on the premises and 11 outside, and an output totalling 69,810
rubles.

The carriage industry, in Perm Gubernia, for example, is organised on
similar lines: from among the mass of small establishments there emerge
assembly workshops employing wage-workers; the small handicraftsmen are
workers who make parts of the carriages both out of their own materials,
and out of materials supplied by the “buyers-up” (i.e., owners
of the assembly workshops.) [34]

We
read about the Poltava “handicraft” carriage builders that in
the suburb of Ardon there are workshops that employ wage-workers and also
distribute work to homes (the bigger masters having as many as 20 outside workers). [35]

In
Kazan Gubernia, division of labour as to wares is to be observed in the building of town carriages:
some villages specialise in sleighs, others in wheeled vehicles,
etc. “The town carriages, completely assembled in the villages (but
without the metal work, wheels or shafts), are sent to Kazan merchant
customers, who in turn send them to blacksmiths for the metal work. The
carriages are then sent back again to the shops and workshops in the town,
where they are finished off, i.e., are upholstered and painted. . . . Kazan, where town carriages were formerly iron-mounted,
gradually passed this work on to handicraftsmen, who work at home for a
smaller payment than do the town craftsmen....” [36]

Hence, capital prefers to distribute work to home workers because this reduces the cost of labour-power. The
organisation of the carriage industry, as is evident from the data quoted,
constitutes, in the majority of cases, a system of handicraftsmen making
parts, who are under the sway of capital.

The large industrial village of Vorontsovka, Pavlovsk Uyezd, Voronezh
Gubernia (9,541 inhabitants in 1897), constitutes, as it were, a single
manufactory of wooden articles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., Vol. IX, article by Rev. M. Popov). Over 800 houses
are engaged in the industry (as well as some households in the suburb of
Alexandrovka, which has over 5,000 inhabitants). They make carts,
tarantasses, wheels, chests, etc., to a total of about 267,000
rubles. Less than one-third are independent masters; hired workers in
masters’ workshops are rare. [37]

The majority work to order for peasant merchants at piece rates. The workers
are in debt to the proprietors and are worn out by arduous toil: the
people are growing feebler. The inhabitants of the suburb are industrial,
not of the rural type, and scarcely engage in agriculture at all (except
to work vegetable plots), since their allotments are miserably small. The
industry has been long in existence, diverting the population from agriculture and increasingly widening the
rift between the rich and the poor. The people subsist on meagre food;
they dress “more smartly than before,” “but beyond their
means,” in clothing that is entirely bought. “The population
has succumbed to the spirit of industry and trade.” “Nearly
all who have no craft carry on some trading. . . . Under the influence of
industry and trade, the peasant has, generally speaking, become more
unreserved, and this has made him more developed and resourceful.” [38]

The celebrated wooden-spoon industry of the Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, is close to capitalist manufacture in its
organisation. True, there are no big workshops standing out from among the
mass of small workshops and dominating them, but we find a deeply-rooted
division of labour and the complete subjection of the mass of part-job
workers to capital. Before it is ready, the spoon passes through no less
than 10 hands, the buyers-up getting some of the operations done by
specially hired workers or giving them out to specialist workers (for
example, for varnishing); some of the villages specialise in particular
operations (for example, the village of Dyakovo specialises in spoon
finishing to the order of the buyer-up, at piece rates; the villages of
Khvostikovo, Dianovo and Zhuzhelka specialise in varnishing, etc.). The
buyers-up purchase the timber wholesale in the Samara and other gubernias,
where they send parties of hired workers; they own warehouses for raw
material and manufactured goods, supply the most valuable material to
handicraftsmen for processing, etc. The mass of workers doing part jobs
merge into a single, complex mechanism of production, entirely under the
sway of capital. “It is all the same to the spoon-makers whether
they work for hire at the master’s cost and on his premises, or are
occupied in their own cottages, for in this industry, as in others,
everything has been weighed, measured and counted. The spoon-maker never
earns more than just enough to keep body and soul together.” [39]

It is quite natural that under such conditions the capitalists who dominate the whole trade are in no hurry to open their
own workshops, and the industry, based on hand skill and traditional
division of labour, stagnates in its seclusion and immobility. Tied to the
land, the “handicraftsmen” seem to have become petrified in
their routine: as in 1879, so in 1889, they still count money in the old
style, in banknotes and not in silver.

The toy industry in Moscow Gubernia is headed similarly by establishments
of the capitalist-manufactory type. [40]

Of 481 workshops, 20 have over 10 workers each. Division of labour, both as to
wares and as to individual operations, is practised on a very wide scale,
enormously raising the productivity of labour (at the cost of crippling
the worker). For example, it is estimated that a small workshop yields a
return of 26% of the selling price, and a big workshop, one of

58%. [41]

Of course, the fixed capital of the big proprietors is also much larger; technical
devices are met with (for example, drying sheds). The centre of the
industry is a non-agricultural township, the suburb of Sergiyevsky (where
there are 1,055 workers out of a total of 1,398, with an output to the
amount of 311,000 rubles out of a total of 405,000 rubles; the population,
according to the 1897 census, numbers 15,155). The author of the article
on this industry, referring to the prevalence of small workshops, etc.,
considers it more, but still not very, likely that the industry will
develop into manufacture rather than into factory industry. “In the
future, too,” he says, “the small producers will always be
able to compete more or less successfully with large-scale
production” ( loc . cit ., 93). The author forgets that in manufacture the technical basis is always the same hand-production
that obtains in the small industries; that the division of labour can
never be such a decisive advantage that it will entirely eliminate the small producers,
particularly if the latter resort to such means as lengthening the working
day, etc.; and that manufacture is never in a position to embrace the
whole of production, but remains a mere superstructure over the mass of
small establishments.

5) The Processing of Livestock Produce. [The Leather and Fur Trades]

The most extensive areas of the leather industry present particularly
striking examples of the complete merging of “handicraft” and
factory industry, examples of capitalist manufacture highly developed (in
depth and in breadth). What is characteristic is the fact that the
gubernias which are conspicuous for the size of their “factory” leather industry (Vyatka, Nizhni-Novgorod, Perm and
Tver) are marked by a particular development of “handicraft”
industries in this sphere.

In the village of Bogorodskoye, Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia,
there were, according to the Directory for 1890, 58 “factories” with 392 workers and an output totalling 547,000
rubles; according to the List for 1894-95 there were 119
“works,” with 1,499 workers on the premises and 205 outside,
and with an output totalling 934,000 rubles (the latter figures covering
only the processing of livestock produce, the principal local
industry). But these data deal only with the top levels of
capitalist manufacture. Mr. Karpov in 1879 computed in this village and
its environs over 296 establishments, with 5,669 workers (a large number
of whom worked at home for capitalists), and with an output totalling
about 1,490,000 rubles [42] in the following industries: tanning, shingle-gluing, basket-weaving (for packing
goods), harness-making, horse-collar-making, mitten-making and, standing
by itself, pottery. The Zemstvo census of 1889 listed 4,401 industrialists
for this district, and of 1,842 workers for whom detailed information is
given, 1,119 work for hire in other people’s workshops and 405 work
at home for masters. [43] “Bogorodskoye, with its population of 8,000, is a huge tannery in continuous operation.” [44]

To be more precise, it is a “serial” manufactory controlled by a few big capitalists who buy the raw materials,
tan the hides, and turn them into a variety of articles, hiring several
thousand absolutely propertyless workers for the job and ruling over the
small

establishments. [45]

This industry has had a very long existence, since the 17th century;
particularly memorable in the industry’s history are the Sheremetevs
(beginning of the 19th century), landlords who helped considerably to
develop the industry and, incidentally, protected the proletariat, which
came into existence here long ago, from the local rich. After 1861 the
industry greatly developed, and particularly did big establishments grow
at the expense of the small ones; centuries of industrial activity
produced from among the population remarkably skilled craftsmen who have
carried the trade all over Russia. The firmly-rooted capitalist relations
have led to the separation of industry from agriculture: hardly any
farming is done in Bogorodskoye village itself, which, on the contrary,
divorces neighbouring peasants who move into this “town” from
the

land. [46]

Mr. Karpov notes in this village “a complete absence of peasant
characteristics among the inhabitants,” so that “you would
never think you were in a village and not a town.” This village
leaves Gorbatov and all the other uyezd towns of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia
far behind, with the exception, perhaps, of Arzamas. It is “one of
the considerable commercial and industrial centres in the gubernia, and its industry and
commerce run into the millions.” “The radius of the industrial
and commercial influence of Bogorodskoye is very wide; but most closely
connected with the industry of Bogorodskoye is that of its environs within
a radius of 10 to 12 versts. These industrial environs are, as it were, a
continuation of Bogorodskoye itself.” “The inhabitants of
Bogorodskoye do not in the least resemble the ordinary, raw muzhiks: they
are artisans of the burgher type, shrewd, experienced people, who look
down on the peasants. The manner of life and the ethical standards of the
Bogorodskoye inhabitants are completely urban.” To this we must add
that the industrial villages of Gorbatov Uyezd are marked by a relatively
high level of literacy among the population. Thus, the percentage of
literate and student men and women is, in the villages of Pavlovo,
Bogorodskoye and Vorsma, 37.8% and 20% respectively, as against 21.5% and
4.4% in the rest of the uyezd (see Zemstvo statistical Material ).

Quite analogous (only on a smaller scale) are the relations in the
leather-processing industries of the villages of Katunki and Gorodets
(Balakhna Uyezd), Bolshoye Murashkino (Knyaginin Uyezd), Yurino (Vasil
Uyezd), and Tubanayevka, Spasskoye, Vatras and Latyshikha in the same
uyezd. These are similar non-agricultural centres with a
“ring” of surrounding agricultural villages, and with similar
diverse industries and numerous small establishments (and also workers in
the home) subordinated to big entrepreneurs, whose capitalist workshops
are occasionally included among “factories and works.” [47]

Without going into statistical details, which will provide nothing new
compared with what has already been said, let us merely quote the
following extremely interesting description of the village of

Katunki: [48] “A certain patriarchal simplicity in the relations between masters
and workmen, which, however, is not so noticeable at first sight and is, unfortunately (?), disappearing increasingly every year
. . . testifies to the handicraft character of the industries (?). It is
only recently that the factory character both of the industries and of the
population has begun to be observed, under the influence, in particular,
of the town, intercourse with which has been facilitated by the
inauguration of the steamboat service. Today the village looks like a
regular industrial township: there is no sign of agriculture whatever, the
houses are built close together as in the towns; the fine brick houses of
the rich, and alongside of them the miserable hovels of the poor; the long
wooden and brick buildings of the factories crowded in the middle of the
village — all this sharply distinguishes Katunki from the neighbouring
villages and clearly points to the industrial character of the local
population. The inhabitants themselves possess features of character that
also call to mind the type of “factory hand” who has already
taken shape in Russia: a certain showiness in house furniture, in clothes
and manners, spendthrift habits of life in most cases, and little care for
the morrow, a forwardness and often affectation in speech, a certain
superciliousness towards the country yokel — all these features are
possessed by them in common with all Russian factory people.” [49]

In the town of Arzamas, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the “factory” statistics listed in 1890 a total of 6 tanneries,
employing 64 workers ( Directory ); this is only a small fraction
of the capitalist manufacture which embraces the fur, boot-making and
other industries. The same factories employ workers in the home, both in
the town of Arzamas (in 1878, estimated at 400) and in 5 suburban
villages, where out of the 360 furrier households, 330 work for Arzamas
merchants, using their materials and working 14 hours a day for 6 to 9
rubles per month [50] ; that is why the furriers are pallid, feeble and degenerating folk. In the suburb of Viyezdnaya Sloboda, of the 600 boot-maker households, 500 work for
masters, from whom they receive the cut-out leather. The industry is of
long standing, being about 200 years old, and is still growing and
developing. The inhabitants hardly engage in agriculture at all; their
whole manner of life is purely urban, and they live “in grand
style.” The same applies to the furrier villages mentioned above,
the inhabitants of which “look down with disdain upon the peasant
and call him a ‘country bumpkin’.” [51]

We find exactly the same thing in Vyatka Gubernia. The Vyatka and
Slobodskoi uyezds are centres both of “factory” and of “handicraft” leather and fur trades. In the Vyatka Uyezd, the
handicraft tanneries are concentrated on the outskirts of the town and
“supplement” the industrial activities of the big works, [52] for
example, by working for the big owners; working for the latter also, in
the majority of cases, are the handicraft harness-makers and glue
makers. The fur factory owners have hundreds working for them in the home,
sewing sheepskins, etc. This is just a single capitalist manufactory with
branches: sheepskin dressing and sheepskin-coat-making, leather and
harness, etc. Still more striking are the relations existing in the
Slobodskoi Uyezd (the centre of the industries is the suburb of Demyanka);
here we see a small number of big factory owners [53] at the
head of handicraft tanners (numbering 870), boot- and mitten-makers (855),
sheepskin-dressers (940), and tailors (309 make short sheepskin coats to
order from capitalists). Generally speaking, such organisation of the
production of leather goods is evidently very widespread: thus, in the
town of Sarapul, Vyatka Gubernia, the List gives 6 tanneries,
also making footwear, which employ, in addition to 214 workers on the
premises, 1,080 outside workers (p. 495). What would become of our
“handicrafts men,” those representatives of “people’s” industry who are depicted in such bright hues by all sorts of Manilovs, if all the Russian
merchants and factory owners were to compute with equal detail and
precision the outside workers employed by them? [54]

Reference should be made here to the industrial village of Rasskazovo,
Tambov Uyezd, Tambov Gubernia (population in 1897 was 8,283), a centre
both of “factory” industry (cloth mills, soap-works, tanneries
and distilleries) and of “handicraft” industry, the latter
being closely connected with the former; and to the industries: tanning,
felt-making (as many as 70 masters, and establishments employing from 20
to 30 workers), glue-making, boot-making, stocking knitting (there is not
a household where stockings are not knit from wool that
“buyers-up” give out by weight), etc. Near this village is the
suburb of Belaya Polyana (300 households), celebrated for industries of
the same kind. In Morshansk Uyezd, the centre of the handicraft industries
is the village of Pokrovskoye-Vasilyevskoye, which is also the centre of
factory industry (see Directory and Reports and Investigations , Vol. III). In Kursk Gubernia, noteworthy as
industrial villages and centres of “handicraft” industries are
the suburbs: Veliko-Mikhailovka (Novy Oskol Uyezd; population in 1897 was
11,853), Borisovka (Graivoron Uyezd — 18,071 inhabitants), Tomarovka
(Belgorod Uyezd, 8,716 inhabitants), Miropolye (Sudzha Uyezd, over 10,000
inhabitants. See Reports and Investigations , Vol. I, Information
for 1888-1889). In the same villages you will also find leather
“works” (see Directory for 1890). The principal “handicraft” industry is leather and boot-making. It arose as far back as the first half of the 18th century and reached the peak of its
development in the 60s of the 19th century having become “a stable
organisation of a purely commercial character.” The whole business
was monopolised by contractors, who bought the leather and gave it out to
be processed by handicraftsmen. The railways destroyed this monopoly
character of capital, and the capitalist contractors transferred their
capital to more profitable undertakings. Today it is organised as follows:
there are about 120 big entrepreneurs; they own workshops where
wage-workers are employed, and also distribute work to homes; there are as
many as 3,000 small independent masters (who, however, buy their leather
from the big ones); there are 400 people who work at home (for the big
masters), and as many wage-workers; then there are the apprentices. The
total number of boot-makers is over 4,000. In addition, there are
handicraft potters, icon-case makers, icon painters, table-cloth weavers,
etc.

A highly characteristic and typical example of capitalist manufacture is
the squirrel-fur industry in Kargopol Uyezd, Olonets Gubernia, described
with such knowledge of the facts, and with truthful and artless
presentation of the whole life of the industrial population by a craftsman
and teacher in the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission
(Vol. IV). According to his description (in 1878), the industry has
existed since the beginning of the 19th century: 8 masters employ 175
workers, in addition to which they have as many as 1,000 seamstresses and
some 35 families of furriers working for them at home (in different
villages), 1,300 to 1,500 persons in all, with an output totalling 336,000
rubles. As a point of interest, it should be noted that when this was a
flourishing industry it was not included in the “factory”
statistics. The Directory for 1879 makes no mention of it. But
when it began to decline the statistics included it. The
Directory for 1890 listed for the town and the uyezd of Kargopol
7 works, with 121 workers and an output totalling 50,000 rubles, whereas
the List gave 5 works, with 79 workers (plus 57 outside) and an
output totalling 49,000 rubles. [55]

The order of things prevailing in this branch of capitalist manufacture is very instructive as a specimen of what goes on
in our age-old, purely native “handicraft industries,” that
have been left stranded in one of Russia’s numerous rural
backwoods. The craftsmen work 15 hours a day in a very unhealthy
atmosphere and earn 8 rubles per month, less than 60 or 70 rubles per
year. The masters’ incomes amount to about 5,000 rubles per
annum. The relations between masters and workers are “patriarchal”: according to ancient custom, the master gives
the workers kvass and salt gratis, which they have to beg from his
cook. As a mark of gratitude to the master (for “giving” them
work) the workers come, without pay, to pull squirrel tails, and also
clean furs after work. The workers live in the workshop all the week, and
the masters knock them about, seemingly in a joke (p. 218,
loc . cit .), make them do all sorts of jobs, such as raking hay, shovelling snow, fetching water, rinsing clothes, etc. Labour
is astonishingly cheap in Kargopol itself, and the peasants in the
vicinity “are ready to work for next to nothing.” Work is done
by hand, there is systematic division of labour, and there is a lengthy
apprenticeship (8 to 12 years); the lot of the apprentices can easily be
imagined.

6) The Remaining Livestock Processing Trades

A particularly noteworthy example of capitalist manufacture is the
celebrated boot industry of the village of Kimry, Korcheva Uyezd, Tver
Gubernia, and its environs. [56]

The industry is a very old one, having existed since the 16th
century. Since the Reform, it has continued to grow and develop. In the
early 70s Pletnev counted 4 volosts in the area covered by this industry,
but in 1888 the area included 9 volosts. Basically the organisation of the
industry is as follows. It is headed by the owners of big workshops
employing wage-workers; they distribute the cut-out leather to be made up
by outside workers. Mr. Pletnev counted 20 such masters, employing 124
adults and 60 boys, with an output totalling 818,000 rubles, while the
number of workers occupied at home for these capitalists is estimated by
the author approximately at 1,769 adults and 1,833 boys. Then come the
small masters, each with 1 to 5 wage-workers and 1 to 3 boys. These
masters dispose of their goods mainly in the village market in Kimry; they
number 224 and have 460 adults and 301 boys working for them; output
totals 187,000 rubles. Hence, there are 244 masters altogether, employing
2,353 adults (of whom 1,769 work at home) and 2,194 boys (of whom 1,833
work at home), with an output totalling 1,005,000 rubles. Further, there
are workshops which do various individual operations: currying
(skin-cleaning with scraper); chipping (gluing of chips left from
currying); special carting (4 masters, with 16 employees and up to 50 horses); special
carpentry (box-making), etc. [57]

Pletnev calculated the total output at 4.7 million rubles for the whole
district. In 1881 the number of handicraftsmen was computed at 10,638, and
with migrants, 26,000, with an output totalling 3.7 million rubles. As to
conditions of labour, it is important to note the excessively long working day (14 to
15 hours) and the extremely insanitary working conditions, payment in
goods, etc. The centre of the industry, Kimry village, “is more like
a small town” ( Reports and Investigations , I, 224); the
inhabitants are poor agriculturists, and are engaged in their industry all
the year round; only the rural handicraftsmen give up the industry during
haymaking. The houses in Kimry village are urban, and the inhabitants are
distinguished for their urban habits of life (such as “showiness”). Until very recently this industry was not
included in “factory” statistics, probably because the masters
“readily style themselves handicraftsmen” ( ibid ., 228). The List has for the first time included 6 boot workshops
in Kimry district, with 15 to 40 workers each on the premises, and with no
outside workers. Of course, it contains no end of gaps.

Manufacture also includes the button industry of Moscow Gubernia,
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds — the making of buttons from hoofs and
rams’ horns. Engaged in this industry are 487 workers, employed in
52 establishments; the output totals 264,000 rubles. Establishments with
fewer than 5 employees number 16; those with 5 to 10 — 26; those with 10
and more — 10. Masters who do without wage-workers number only 10; these
work for big masters, using the latter’s materials. Only the big
industrialists (who, as is evident from the figures given, should have
from 17 to 21 workers per establishment) are quite independent. It is
they, evidently, who figure in the Directory as “factory
owners” (see p. 291: 2 establishments with an output totalling 4,000
rubles and with 73 workers). This is “serial manufacture”; the
horns are first steamed in what is called the “smithy” (a
wooden hut with a furnace); then they are passed on to the
workshop where they are cut up, after which they go to a stamping
press, where the pattern is imprinted, and, lastly, are finished and
polished on lathes. The industry has its apprentices. The working day is
14 hours. Payment in goods is a regular thing. The relations between
masters and men are patriarchal, as seen in the following: the master
calls the workers “boys,” and the pay-book is called the
“boys’ book”; when the master pays the workers, he lectures them and never grants in full their
“requests” for payment.

The horn industry, which is included in our table of small industries
(Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 31 and 33), is also of the same
type. “Handicraftsmen” employing dozens of wage-workers figure
also in the Directory as “factory owners” (p. 291). Division
of labour is practised; work is also given out to home workers (horn
trimmers). The centre of the industry in Bogorodsk Uyezd is the big
village of Khoteichi, where agriculture is receding into the background
(population in 1897 was 2,494). The Moscow Zemstvo publication stated
quite rightly: Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd ,
Moscow Gubernia , in 1890 , that this village “ is nothing but a large comb manufactory ” (p. 24,
our italics). In 1890, over 500 industrialists were counted in this
village, with an output of from 3.5 to 5.5 million combs. “More
often than not, the horn dealer is also a buyer-up of finished goods, and
in many cases a big comb-maker as well.” The position of those
makers who are compelled to take horns “at piece rates” is
particularly bad: “their position is actually worse than that of the
wage-workers in the big establishments.” Dire need compels them to
exploit the labour of their whole families beyond measure, to lengthen their working day and to put juveniles to work. “During the
winter, work in Khoteichi starts at one o’clock in the morning, and
it is hard to say for certain when it ends in the cottage of the
‘independent’ craftsman doing ‘piece-work.’”
Payment in goods is widely practised. “This system, eliminated with
such difficulty from the factories, is still in full force in the small
handicraft establishments” (27). Probably, the horn goods industry
is organised on similar lines in Kadnikov Uyezd, Vologda Gubernia, in the
area of Ustye village (known as “Ustyanshchina”), where there
are 58 hamlets. Mr. V. Borisov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX) counts 388 handicraftsmen here, with an output
totalling 45,000 rubles; all the handicraftsmen work for capitalists, who
buy horns in St. Petersburg and tortoise-shell abroad.

At the head of the brush industry in Moscow Gubernia (see Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industry No. 20) we find big establishments with a large number
of wage-workers and with systematic division of labour. [58]

It is interesting to note at this point the changes that took place in the
organisation of this industry between 1879 and 1895 (see Moscow Zemstvo
publication: The Brush Industry According to the Investigation of 1895 ). Some well-to-do industrialists went to Moscow to carry on the
industry there. The number of industrialists increased 70%, the increase
being particularly large in the number of women (+170%) and girls
(+159%). The number of big workshops with wage-workers diminished: the
proportion of establishments with wage-workers dropped from 62% to
39%. This was due to the fact that the masters began to distribute work to be done in the home . The introduction into general use of the
drilling machine (for making holes in brush blocks) accelerated and
facilitated one of the main processes in brushmaking. The demand for
“setters” (craftsmen who “set” bristle in the block) increased; and this operation, which became increasingly
specialised, fell to the lot of women, their labour being cheaper. The
women began to work at home setting bristle, and were paid by the
piece. Thus, the growing resort to domestic industry was caused in this
case by progress in technique (drilling machine), progress in division of
labour (the women do nothing but set bristle), and progress in capitalist
exploitation (the labour of women and girls being cheaper). This example
shows very clearly that domestic industry by no means eliminates the concept of capitalist manufacture , but, on the contrary, is sometimes
even a sign of its further development .

7) The Processing of Mineral Products

In the section relating to ceramics we get an example of capitalist
manufacture in the industries of the Gzhel district (an area of 25 villages
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds, Moscow Gubernia). The relevant
statistics are given in our table of small industries (Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industries Nos. 15, 28 and 37). From these data it is evident that despite the enormous differences between the three Gzhel industries:
pottery, porcelain and decorative, these differences disappear as we pass
from one grade of establishment to another in each industry, and we get a
series of workshops of successively increasing dimensions. Here are the
average numbers of workers per establishment according to grade in these
three industries: 2.4 — 4.3 — 8.4 — 4.4. — 7.9 — 13.5 — 18 — 69 —
226.4. In other words, the workshops range from the very smallest to the
very biggest. There is no doubt that the big establishments belong to the
category of capitalist manufacture (inasmuch as they have not introduced
machines, have not developed into factories); what is important, however,
is not only this, but also that the small establishments are connected with the big ones ; that we have a single system of industry
here and not separate workshops of one or other type of economic
organisation. “Gzhel constitutes a single economic whole”
(Isayev, loc . cit ., 138), and the big workshops in the
district have grown slowly and gradually out of the small ones
( ibid ., 121). The work is done by hand, [59] with considerable division of labour : among the potters we find wheel
hands (specialising in different sorts of pottery), kilnmen, etc., and
sometimes special workers for preparing colours. In the manufacture of
porcelain-ware division of labour is extremely detailed: crushers, wheel
hands, feeders, kilnmen, decorators, etc. The wheel hands even specialise
in the various kinds of porcelain ware (cf. Isayev, loc . cit ., 140: in one case division of labour increases
productivity of labour by 25%). The decorators’ shops work for the
porcelain makers and are, therefore, only departments of the
latter’s manufactories, performing a special detailed operation. It
is characteristic of developed capitalist manufacture that physical
strength itself becomes a specialty. Thus, in Gzhel, some of the villages
are engaged (almost to a man) in clay digging; for heavy work not requiring special
skill (grinding), workers from the Tula and Ryazan gubernias are employed
almost exclusively, being superior in strength and vigour to the not very
robust Gzhelians. Payment in goods is widely practised. Agriculture is in
a bad way. “The Gzhelians are a degenerating race” (Isayev,
168) — weak-chested, narrow-shouldered, feeble; the decorators lose their
sight at an early age, etc. Capitalist division of labour breaks up the
worker and deforms him. The working day is from 12 to 13 hours.

8) The Metal Trades. The Pavlovo Industries

The celebrated Pavlovo lock and cutlery industries cover the whole of
Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, and Murom Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. These industries originated very long ago. Smirnov states that
as far back as 1621 there were (according to the cadastres [91] ) 11
smithies in Pavlovo. By the middle of the 19th century these industries
constituted a far-flung network of fully developed capitalist
relations. After the Reform, the industries in this district continued to
develop and expand. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889, in Gorbatov
Uyezd 13 volosts and 119 villages were engaged in industry; a total of
5,953 households, 6,570 male workers (54% of the total number working in
these villages) and 2,741 old men, juveniles and women, 9,311 persons in
all. In the Murom Uyezd, Mr. Grigoryev in 1881 registered 6 industrial
volosts, 66 villages, 1,545 households and 2,205 male workers (39% of the
total number working in these villages). Not only were large,
non-agricultural industrial villages formed (Pavlovo, Vorsma), but even
the surrounding peasants were diverted from agriculture: outside of
Pavlovo and Vorsma, in Gorbatov Uyezd, 4,492 persons were engaged in
industries, of whom 2,357, or more than half did not engage in
agriculture. Life in centres like Pavlovo has become quite urban and has
given rise to incomparably more developed requirements, more cultured
environment, clothes, manner of life, etc., than among the surrounding
“raw”

peasants. [60]

Turning to the economic organisation of the Pavlovo industries, we must
first of all note the indubitable fact that the “handicraftsmen” are headed by the most typical capitalist
manufactories. For example, in the Zavyalovs’ establishment (which
already in the 60s employed over 100 workers at the bench and has now
introduced a steam engine) a penknife passes through 8 or 9 hands: the
forger, blade-maker, handle-maker (usually an outside worker), hardener,
facer, polisher, finisher, grinder and marker. This is extensive
capitalist co-operation based on division of labour, with a considerable
number of the workers performing individual operations employed at home
and not in the capitalist’s workshop. Here are facts given by
Mr. Labzin (in 1866) on the bigger establishments in the villages of
Pavlovo, Vorsma and Vacha, covering all branches of production in this
district: 15 proprietors had 500 workers occupied on the premises and
1,134 workers outside, making a total of 1,634, with an output totalling
351,700 rubles. How far this description of economic relations is
applicable to the whole district at the present time may be seen from the
following data [61] :

Thus, the organisation of the industry as outlined by us prevails in all
the districts. All in all, about three-fifths of the total number
of workers are employed capitalistically. Here too, consequently, we find
manufacture predominating in the general structure of the industry [62] and
holding masses of workers under its sway, without, however, being able to
eradicate small production. The relative tenacity of the latter is fully
explained, firstly, by the fact that in some branches of the Pavlovo
industry mechanised production has not yet been introduced at all (for
instance, in lock-making); and, secondly, by the fact that the small
producer tries to save himself from sinking by resorting to means that
cause him to sink far lower than the wage-worker. These means are:
lengthening the working day, and reducing the standard of living and of
general requirements. “The earnings of the group of handicraftsmen
who work for proprietors are less subject to fluctuation”
(Grigoryev, loc . cit ., 65); at Zavyalovs’, for example, the lowest-paid worker is the handle-maker; “he works at
home, and that is why he is satisfied with lower earnings” (68). The
handicraftsmen who work “for factory owners” are “able to earn somewhat more than the average earnings of the one who takes his
products to the market. Larger earnings are particularly noticeable among
the workers who live in the factories” (70). [63]

The working day in the “factories” is from 14 1/2 to 15 hours,
with a maximum of 16 hours. “The working day of the home-working
handicraftsmen, on the other hand, is never less than 17 hours and
sometimes as much as 18 and even 19 hours” ( ibid .). It
would not be in the least surprising if the law of June 2, 1897 [92] caused an
increase here in home-work; it is high time these “handicraftsmen” directed their efforts towards compelling the
proprietors to organise factories! Let the reader also recall the
notorious Pavlovo “loan-purchase,” “exchange,” “wife-pawning” and similar forms of bondage and personal
degradation which grind down the quasi-independent small producer. [64]

Fortunately, rapidly developing large-scale machine industry does not so
readily tolerate these worst forms of exploitation as manufacture
does. Running ahead a little, let us quote data on the growth of factory
production in this district. [65]

We thus see that ever-increasing numbers of workers are being drawn into
large establishments, which are going over to the use of machines. [66]

9) Other Metal Trades

The industries of Bezvodnoye village, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia and Uyezd
also come under the head of capitalist manufacture. This is also an
industrial village, the majority of whose inhabitants do not engage in
agriculture at all, and which serves as the centre of an industrial area
of several villages. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889
( Material , Vol. VIII, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1895), in the Bezvodnoye
Volost (581 households) 67.3% of the households cultivated no land, 78.3%
had no horses, 82.4% engaged in industries, and 57.7% had literate persons
and schoolchildren in the family (as against an average for the uyezd of
44.6%). The Bezvodnoye industries are devoted to the production of various
metal goods: chains, fish-hooks, and metal fabrics; the output was
estimated at 2 1/2 million rubles in

1883 [67] and 1 1/2 million rubles in

1888-89. [68]

The organisation of the industry is as follows: work for proprietors, using
their materials, which is distributed among a number of workers performing
single operations and done partly in the employers’ workshops and
partly in the home. For example, in the making of fish-hooks the various
operations are performed by “benders,” “cutters” (who work in a special shed) and “pointers” (women and
children who sharpen the hook-points in their homes); all these work at
piece rates for the capitalist, while the bender gives out work on his own
account to the cutters and pointers. “Metal wire is now done by
horse-driven windlasses; formerly the wire was drawn by blind men, who
were brought here in large numbers. . . .” One of the “specialities” of capitalist manufacture! “The
conditions under which this work is done differ very much from those in
all the other trades.

People have to work in a stifling atmosphere filled with the harmful
vapours emanating from accumulated horse dung.” [69]

Organised on the same lines of capitalist manufacture are the screen, [70] the pin, [71] and the gold-thread industries. [72]

In the last-named industry at the beginning of the 80s there were 66 establishments, employing 670 workers (of
whom 79% were hired), with an output totalling 368,500 rubles;
some of these capitalist establishments were occasionally also
included among the “factories and works.” [73]

The locksmith industries of the Burmakino Volost (and surrounding volosts)
of Yaroslavl Gubernia and Uyezd are probably organised on the same
lines. At all events, here we observe the same division of labour
(blacksmiths, blowers and locksmiths), the same extensive development of
wage-labour (of 307 smithies in the Burmakino Volost, 231 employ
wage-workers), the same predominance of big capital over all these detail
workers (the buyers-up are at the top; the blacksmiths work for them, and
the locksmiths for the blacksmiths), the same combination of the buying up
of wares with the production of wares in capitalist workshops, some of
which are occasionally included among the “factories and works.” [74]

In the appendix to the preceding chapter, statistics were given on the
tray and the copper industries [75] of Moscow Gubernia (the latter in the district known as
“Zagarye”). The data show that wage-labour plays a predominant
part in these industries, that the industries are headed by large
workshops employing an average of from 18 to 23 wage-workers per
establishment, with an average output of from

16,000 to 17,000 rubles. If we add to this that division of labour is very
widely practised here, [76] it will be clear that what we have is capitalist manufacture. [77] “The small industrial units, which are an anomaly under the existing
conditions of technique and division of labour, can only hold out
alongside the big workshops by lengthening the working day to the utmost” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., p. 33) — among the tray-makers, for example, for as long as 19 hours. The ordinary working day
here is from 13 to 15 hours; with the small proprietors it is
from 16 to 17 hours. Payment in goods is widely practised (both
in 1876 and in

1890). [78]

Let us add that the lengthy existence of this industry (it arose at the beginning
of the 19th century, at the latest) and extensive specialisation have, in
this case too, produced highly skilled workers; the Zagarians are famed
for their craftsmanship. Specialities have also sprung up in the industry
which need no preliminary training and are within the grasp of even
under-age workers. “This very possibility,” Mr. Isayev rightly
observes, “of becoming an under-age worker at once and acquiring a
trade, as it were, without having to study, indicates that the handicraft
spirit, which demands the training of labour-power, is disappearing; the
simplicity of many of the detailed operations is a symptom of the
transition of handicraft to manufacture” ( loc . cit ., 34). Let us only observe that to a certain
degree the “handicraft spirit” always remains in manufacture,
for its basis is the same hand production.

10) The Jewellery, Samovar and Accordion Trades

The village of Krasnoye, Kostroma Gubernia and Uyezd, is one of the
industrial villages usually held up as centres of our “people’s” capitalist manufacture. This large village
(in 1897 it had 2,612 inhabitants) is purely urban in character; the
inhabitants live like townspeople and (with very few exceptions) do not
engage in agriculture. Krasnoye is the centre of the jewellery industry
which covers 4 volosts and 51 villages (including Sidorovskoye Volost of
Nerekhta Uyezd), and in them 735 households and about 1,706 workers. [79] “The principal representatives of industry,” said Mr. Tillo,
“are undoubtedly the big industrialists of the village of Krasnoye:
the Pushilovs, Mazovs, Sorokins, Chulkovs and other merchants. They buy
materials (gold, silver and copper), employ craftsmen, buy up finished
articles, distribute orders for work to be done in the home, supply
samples, etc.” (2043). The big industrialists have their workshops,
so-called “rabotorni” (laboratories), where the metal is
smelted and forged, then to be given out for finishing to
“handicraftsmen”; they have technical appliances, such as
“pretsi” (presses and dies for stamping), “punches” (for embossing designs), “rollers” (for
stretching the metal), benches, etc. Division of labour is widely
practised: “Nearly every article passes through several hands in an
established order in the course of manufacture. For example, in the making
of ear-rings, the master industrialist first sends the silver to his own
workshop, where part of it is rolled and part drawn into wire; then on
receipt of an order the material is given to a craftsman who, if he has a
family, divides the work among several persons; one uses a punch to cut
the silver plates into the shapes for the ear-rings, another bends the
wire into the rings with which the ear-rings are attached to the ears, a third solders these parts, and, lastly, a fourth polishes
the finished ear-rings. None of this work is difficult, or requires much
training; very often the soldering and the polishing are done by women and
by children of 7 or 8 years of age” (2041). [80]

Here, too, the working day is excessively long, usually as much as 16
hours. Payment in provisions is common.

The following statistics (published quite recently by a local assay
inspector) clearly illustrate the economic structure of the industry: [93] “Both the first groups (about two-thirds of the total number of
craftsmen) should be classed as home-working factory workers rather than
as handicraftsmen.” In the top group “wage-labour occurs more
and more frequently. . . . The craftsmen have begun to buy articles made
by others”; in the upper strata of this group “buying-up predominates,” and “four of the buyers-up have no workshops at all.” [81]

The samovar and accordion industries in Tula town and environs are highly
typical examples of capitalist manufacture. Generally speaking, the
“handicraft” industries in this district have a long history,
dating back to the 15th century. [82]

They evidenced a particularly rapid development in the middle of the 17th
century; Mr. Borisov considers that the second period in the development
of the Tula industries then began. In 1637 the first iron foundry was
built (by the Dutchman Vinius). The Tula gunsmiths formed a separate
smiths’ suburb, constituted a separate social estate, enjoying
special rights and privileges. In 1696 the first iron foundry was erected
in Tula by a famous Tula blacksmith, and the industry spread to the Urals
and

Siberia. [83]

Then began the third period in the history of the Tula industries. The
craftsmen set up their own workshops and taught the trade to surrounding
peasants. In the 1810s and 1820s the first samovar factories were
started. “By 1825 there were in Tula 43 different factories that
belonged to gunsmiths, while those in existence at the present time nearly
all belong to one-time gunsmiths, now Tula merchants” ( loc . cit ., 2262). Here, consequently, we observe a
direct continuity and connection between the old guild masters and the
principals of subsequent capitalist manufacture. In 1864 the Tula
gunsmiths were freed from serf dependence [94] and assigned to the burgher estate; earnings dropped as a consequence of the
severe competition of the village handicraftsmen (which caused a reverse
flow of industrialists from town to country); the workers turned to the
samovar, lock, cutlery, and accordion industries (the first Tula
accordions appeared in 1830-1835).

The samovar industry is at present organised as follows. It is headed by
big capitalists who own workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers, but they also distribute many separate
operations to be done by workers, urban and rural, in their homes; those
who perform these operations sometimes still have their own workshops and
employ wage-workers. Naturally, side by side with the big there are small
workshops, with all the consecutive stages of dependence upon the
capitalists. Division of labour is the general basis of the whole
structure of this trade. The process of samovar-making is divided into the
following separate operations: 1) rolling the copper sheets into tubes
(tubing); 2) soldering the tubes; 3) filing the seams; 4) fitting the
bottoms; 5) beating out the shapes; 6) cleaning the insides: 7) turning
the bodies and necks; 8) plating; 9) press-punching the vents in the
bottoms and the covers; 10) assembling the samovars. Further, there are
the separate processes of casting the small copper parts: a) preparing the
moulds and b)

casting. [84]

Where work is given out to be done in the home, each of these operations may
constitute a special “handicraft” industry. One of these
“industries” was described by Mr. Borisov in Vol. VII of the
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission . This industry (samovar
tubing) consists in peasants doing at piece rates one of the operations we
have described, using merchants’ materials. The handicraftsmen left
Tula town to work in the countryside after 1861; the cost of living and
standard of requirements were lower in the countryside ( loc . cit ., p. 893). Mr. Borisov quite rightly
attributes this tenacity of the “handicraftsman” to the
retention of hand-labour in the beating out of samovars; “it will
always be profitable for the manufacturer to employ the village
handicraftsman, because he works at from 10 to 20% below the rate of the
urban artisan” (916).

Mr. Borisov estimated the value of the output of samovars in 1882 at
approximately 5 million rubles, the number of workers (handicraftsmen
included) totalling from 4,000 to 5,000. In this case also the factory
statistics cover only a fraction of capitalist manufacture. The Directory for 1879
counted in Tula Gubernia 53 samovar “factories” (all hand-operated) with 1,479 workers and an output totalling 836,000
rubles. The Directory for 1890 gives 162 factories, 2,175
workers, and an output of 1.1 million rubles; the list of firms, however,
contains only 50 factories (1 steam operated), with 1,326 workers and an
output totalling 698,000 rubles. Evidently, some hundred small
establishments were in this case classed as “factories.”
Lastly, the List gives the following for 1894-95: 25 factories (4
steam-operated), 1,202 workers (+ 607 outside), and an output totalling
1,613,000 rubles. In these data neither the number of factories nor the
number of workers are comparable (for the reason given above, and also
because of the lumping together in previous years of workers on the
premises and outside). The only thing beyond doubt is that manufacture is
being steadily displaced by large-scale machine industry: in 1879, there
were 2 factories with 100 and more workers; in 1890 there were 2 (one
steam-operated) and in 1894-95 there were 4 (three steam-operated). [85]

The accordion industry, which is at a lower stage of economic development,
is organised in precisely the same way. [86] “In the making of accordions there are
over ten separate trades” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, 236); the making of the different parts of an
accordion or the performance of some of the operations constitute
separate, quasi-independent “handicraft” industries. “When things are quiet all the handicraftsmen work for factories or for more or less big workshops, the owners of which
supply them with materials; when, however, there is a brisk demand for
accordions, a large number of small producers appear, who buy up parts
from the handicraftsmen, assemble them and take the finished articles to
the local shops where accordions are very readily purchased”
( ibid .). Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated from 2,000 to 3,000
workers in this industry, with an output totalling about 4 million rubles;
factory statistics in 1879 showed two “factories,” with 22
workers and an output totalling 5,000 rubles; in 1890, 19 factories, with
275 workers and an output totalling 82,000 rubles; in 1894-95 one factory,
with 23 workers (plus 17 outside) and an output totalling 20,000 rubles. [87]

Steam-engines are not employed at all. All these figure variations
indicate a purely haphazard picking of individual establishments which are
component parts of the complex organism of capitalist manufacture.

---
Notes:
[1]
Cf. Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VII, Pt. III
(Moscow, 1883), pp. 63-64.— Lenin

[2]
For a list of the most important towns of this type, see next chapter.— Lenin

[3]
Examples of such confusion will be given in the next chapter.— Lenin

[4]
See Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III. It would be impossible
and superfluous to give detailed data on all the weaving industries
described in the literature on our handicraft industry. Moreover, in the
majority of these industries the factory now reigns supreme. On the
subject of “handicraft weaving” see also Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vols. VI and VII. — Transactions of the Handicraft Commission — Material on Hand-Labour Statistics . [95]
— Reports and Investigations . — Korsak, loc . cit .— Lenin

[5]
The Military Statistical Abstract managed to count in Vladimir
Gubernia, in 1866, 98 silk factories (!) with 98 workers and a total
output of 4,000 rubles(!). The Directory for 1890 gives 35
factories, 2,112 workers, and 936,000 rubles. According to the
List for 1894-95 there were 98 factories, 2,281 workers, with an
output of 1,918,000 rubles, and in addition, 2,477 workers “outside
of establishments, on the side.” Just try to distinguish
“handicraftsmen” here from “factory workers”!— Lenin

[6]
According to the Directory for 1890 there were outside of Moscow
10 galloon factories, with 303 workers and an output totalling 58,000
rubles. But according to Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia
(Vol. VI, Pt. II), there were 400 establishments, with 2,619 workers (of
whom 72.8% were wage-workers) and with an output totalling 963,000 rubles.— Lenin

[7]
The Collection of Factory Inspectors’ Reports for 1903 (St. Petersburg, 1906) states that in Saratov Gubernia there were 33
distributing offices with 10,000 workers. ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[8]
The centre of this industry is Sosnovka Volost, where the Zemstvo census
of 1886 counted 4,626 households, with a population of 38,000 persons of
both sexes; 291 industrial establishments. Altogether in the volost 10% of
the households were houseless (as against 6.2% in the uyezd), and 44.5% of
the households cultivated on land (as against 22.8% in the uyezd). See
Statistical Returns for Saratou Gubernia , Vol. XI. — Capitalist
manufacture has, consequently, created industrial centres here too which
divorce the workers from the land.— Lenin

[9]
The sources are shown in the text. The number of establishments is about
half the number of independent workers (52 establishments in Vasilyev
Vrag, 5 + 55 + 110 in Krasnoye village and 21 establishments in the 4
small villages). On the other hand, the figures for the town of Arzamas
and Viyezdnaya Sloboda stands for the number of “factories,”
and not of workers.— Lenin

[10]
Let us note that the diagram given is typical of all Russian industries
organised on the lines of capitalist manufacture: everywhere at the head
of the industry we find big establishments (sometimes classed among
“factories and works”), and a mass of small establishments
completely under their sway — in a word, capitalist co-operation based on
division of labour and hand production. Non-agricultural centres are
formed by manufacture in exactly the same way, not only here, but also in
the majority of other industries.— Lenin

[11]
They are naked as they work in a temperature of 22° to 24°
Réaumur. The air is full of fine and also coarse dust, wool and
other stuff. The floors in the “factories” are earthen (in the
washing sheds of all places), etc.— Lenin

[12]
It is not without interest to note here the specific jargon of the
inhabitants of Krasnoye; this is characteristic of the territorial
isolation peculiar to manufacture. “In the village of Krasnoye
factories are given the Matroisk name of povarnyas (lit. kitchens — Ed .). . . . Matroisk is one of the
numerous branches of the Ophen dialect, the three main branches of which
are Ophen proper, spoken mainly in Vladimir Gubernia; Galivon , in Kostroma Gubernia; and Matroisk , in the
Nizhni-Novgorod and Vladimir gubernias” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V, p 465). Only large-scale machine industry
completely destroys the local character of social ties and replaces them
by national (and international) ties.— Lenin

[13]
Material for Evaluation of the Lands of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia ,
Vol. XI, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1893, pp. 211-214.— Lenin

[14]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , VI.— Lenin

[15]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[16]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II.— Lenin

[17]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II, p. 271.— Lenin

[18]
See Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 27.— Lenin

[19]
Some of these establishments were occasionally included among
“factories and works.” See, for example, the
Directory for 1879, p.126.— Lenin

[20]
See above, Chapter V, § VII.— Lenin

[21]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , IV, Pt.I, pp. 282-287.— Lenin

[22]
See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, and
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[23]
By some accident, such workshops have not yet been included among
“factories and works.”— Lenin

[24]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , II.— Lenin

[25]
According to Zemstvo statistics (Vol. VII of Material ,
Nizhni-Novgorod, 1892) in these villages in 1889 there were 341 and 119
households, numbering respectively 1,277 and 540 persons of both
sexes. There were 253 and 103 allotment households. Households
participating in industries numbered 284 and 91, of which 257 and 32 did
not engage in agriculture. There were 218 and 51 horseless
households. Those leasing their allotments numbered 237 and 53.— Lenin

[26]
Cf. Nizhni-Novgorod Handbook , Vol IV, article by Rev. Roslavlev.— Lenin

[27]
Sketch of Condition of Handicraft Industry in Perm Gubernia ,
p. 158; in the table totals there is a mistake or a misprint.— Lenin

[28]
Ibid ., pp. 40 and 188 of table. To all appearances these same
establishments also figure in the List , p. 152. For the purpose
of comparing the big establishments with the small ones we have singled
out the agriculturist commodity-producers, see Studies ,
p. 156. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[29]
The Handicraft Industries of Perm Gubernia at the Siberian Urals Exhibition , Pt. III, p. 47 and foll.— Lenin

[30]
See Zemstvo statistical returns for Trubchevsk, Karachev and Orel uyezds
of Orel Gubernia. The connection between the big manufactories and the
small peasant establishments is also evident from the fact that the
employment of wage-labour develops in the latter as well: for example, in
Orel Uyezd, 16 peasant master spinners employ 77 workers.— Lenin

[31]
V. Ilyin, Studies, p. 176. (See present edition, Vol.2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[32]
See precise data on Perm handicraft census about this, ibid .,
p. 177 (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[33]
See Directory and List on Perm Gubernia and the village
of Nevyansky Zavod (non-agricultural), which is the centre of this
“handicraft industry.”— Lenin

[34]
Cf. our Studies , pp. 177-178. (See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[35]
Reports and Investigations , I.— Lenin

[36]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[37]
There are 14 big timber merchants. These have timber-seasoning rooms
(costing about 300 rubles), of which there are 24 in the village, each
employing 6 workers. These merchants also give out materials to workers,
whom they get into their grip by advancing them money.— Lenin

[38]
It will be appropriate here to note in general the process of development
of capitalism in the timber industry. The timber merchants do not sell the
timber raw; they hire workers to dress it and to make various wooden
articles, which they then sell. See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., VIII, pp. 1268, 1314. Also Statistical Returns for Orel Gubernia , Trubchevsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[39]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol II, 1879. See also
Zemstvo statistical Material for Semyonov Uyezd, Vol. XI, 1893.— Lenin

[40]
The statistics we have given (Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 2,
7, 26) cover only a small fraction of the toy-makers; but these data show
the appearance of workshops with 11 to 18 workers.— Lenin

[41]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. II, p. 47.— Lenin

[42]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[43]
Material for the Evaluation of the Lands in Gorbatov Uyezd.— Lenin

[44]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[45]
Thus, at the head of the horse-collar industry are 13 big proprietors,
each with 10 to 30 wage-workers and 5 to 10 outside workers. The big
mitten-makers do the cutting in their own workshops (employing 2 or 3
wage-workers) and get the mittens sewn off the premises by from 10 to 20
women; these are divided into thumb-makers and stitchers , the former taking the work from the owners and
sub-dividing it among the latter, whom they exploit (information for
1879).— Lenin

[46]
In 1889, of 1,812 households (with 9,241 inhabitants) 1,469 cultivated no
land (in 1897 there were 12,342 inhabitants). The villages of Pavlovo and
Bogorodskoye differ from the other villages of Gorbatov Uyezd in that very
few of their inhabitants leave them on the contrary, of all the peasants
of the Gorbatov Uyezd who have left their villages, 14.9% live in Pavlovo
and 4.9% in Bogorodskoye. The increase of the population between 1858 and
1889 was 22.1% for the uyezd, but 42% for the village of
Bogorodskoye. (See Zemstvo statistical Material .)— Lenin

[47]
See Zemstvo statistical Material for uyezds mentioned. —
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX and VI. —
Directory and List . — Reports and Investigations , II.— Lenin

[48]
In 1889 it had 380 households (none cultivating land) with 1,305
inhabitants In the whole of the Katunki Volost, 90.6% of the households
are engaged in industries, 70.1% of working people being occupied in
industries alone (i.e., not engaging in agriculture). As regards literacy,
this volost stands far above the average for the uyezd, yielding in this
respect only to the Chernoretsk Volost, which is also non-agricultural and
has highly developed boat-building industries. The village of Bolshoye
Murashkino had in 1887 a total of 856 households (of which 853 cultivated
no land) with 3,473 persons of both sexes. According to the 1897 census,
the population of Gorodets was 6,330, of Bolshoye Murashkino 5,341, of
Yurino 2,189, of Spasskoye 4,494 and of Vatras 3,012.— Lenin

[49]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX,
p. 2567. Information for 1880.— Lenin

[50]
The conditions of the workers in the Arzamas factories are better than
those of the rural workers ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 133).— Lenin

[51]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 76.— Lenin

[52]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. XI,
p. 3084. (Cf. Directory for 1890). Included among the
handicraftsmen is the peasant-agriculturist Dolgushin, who owns a works
employing 60 workers. There are several handicraftsmen of this type.— Lenin

[53]
According to the Directory for 1890, there were some 27 masters
employing over 700 workers.— Lenin

[54]
Cf. also List , p. 489, regarding the well-known “handicraft” village of Dunilovo, Shuya Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. The Directory for 1890 listed here 6 fur factories
employing 151 workers, while according to the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (Vol. X) there are about 2,200 furriers and
2,300 sheepskin-coat-makers in this district; in 1877 as many as 5,500
“handicraftsmen” were counted. Probably, the making of hair
sieves in this uyezd is organised in the same way; in this industry there
are engaged about 40 villages and as many as 4,000 people, known as
“Mardassers” (from the name of this district). We have described the similar organisation of the leather and cobbling industries
in Perm Gubernia in our Studies , p. 171 and foll (See present
edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[55]
Here is some information about the “handicraftsmen” relating
to 1894. “The squirrel furs are sewn by some of the poorest women in
the town of Kargopol and by peasant women of the Pavlovo Volost. They are
paid the very lowest price,” so that a seamstress earns only from 2
rubles 40 kopeks to 3 rubles per month, providing her own food, and for
this pay (at piece rates) she has to sit without a break for 12 hours a
day. “The work is very exhausting, for it calls for great strain and
assiduity.” The number of seamstresses is now about 200
( Handicraft Industry in Olonets Gubernia , Essay by
Messrs. Blagoveshchensky and Garyazin. Petrozavodsk, 1895, pp. 92-93).— Lenin

[56]
See Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II, Vol. III,
St. Petersburg, 1872. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and
Hand-Labour in Russia. Compiled by L. Maikov . Article by V
A. Pletnev. This work is the best for clarity of description of the whole
organisation of the industry. The latest works give valuable statistics and facts of the people’s life, but give a less
satisfactory exposition of the economic structure of this complex
industry. See, further, Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII, article by Mr. Pokrovsky, — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I.— Lenin

[57]
Cf. Reports and Investigations : 7 groups of industrialists: 1)
traders in leather goods; 2) buyers-up of footwear; 3) masters of big
workshops (5-6 of them), who stock leather and distribute it to home
workers; 4) masters of small workshops employing wage-workers; also give
out material to home workers; 5) one-man establishments — working either
for the market or for masters (sub 3 and 4); 6) wage-workers (craftsmen,
journeymen, boys); 7) “last-makers, notchers, and also owners and
workers in currying, greasing and gluing workshops” (p. 227,
loc . cit .). The population of Kimry village, according
to the 1897 census, is 7,017.— Lenin

[58]
The “sawyer” saws the brush blocks; the “borer” bores holes in them; the “cleaner” cleans the bristle; the
“setter” “sets” the bristle; the “joiner” glues wooden strips on the brush backs
( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. I, p. 18).— Lenin

[59]
Let us observe that in this industry, as in the above-described weaving
industries, capitalist manufacture is, strictly speaking, the economy of
yesterday. Characteristic of the post-Reform era is the transformation of
this manufacture into large-scale machine industry. The number of Gzhel
potteries using steam-engines was 1 in 1866, 2 in 1879 and 3 in 1890
(according to data in The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , Vol. I,
and Directory for 1879 and 1890).— Lenin

[60]
See above regarding the greater literacy of the population of Pavlovo and
Vorsma and the migration of peasants from the villages to these centres.— Lenin

[61]
Data from Zemstvo statistical Material , and Mr. Annensky’s
Report, and also A. N. Potresov’s researches (cited above). The
figures for the Murom district are approximate. The number of inhabitants,
according to the 1897 census, was 4,674 in Vorsma, and 12,431 in Pavlovo.— Lenin

[62]
The data we have given by no means express this predominance to the full:
as will presently be seen, the handicraftsmen who work for the market are
subjugated to capital even more than those who work for proprietors, and
the latter handicraftsmen even more than the wage-workers. The
Pavlovo industries show in strong relief that inseparable connection
between merchant’s and industrial capital which in general is
characteristic of capitalist manufacture in its relation to the small
producers.— Lenin

[63]
Connection with the land is also an important factor in reducing
earnings. The village handicraftsmen “on the whole earn less than
the Pavlovo locksmiths” (Annensky Report, p. 61). True, we must bear
in mind that the former grow their own grain, but even so “the
conditions of the ordinary village handicraftsman can scarcely be
considered better than those of the average Pavlovo locksmith” (61).— Lenin

[64]
During crises it also happens that they work literally without pay,
exchange “white for black,” i.e., finished goods for raw
materials; this happens “quite often” (Grigoryev, ibid ., 93).— Lenin

[65]
Data taken from Directory and List for the whole district, including the villages of Selitba and Vacha and their
environs. The Directory for 1890 undoubtedly included outside
workers in the total number of factory workers; we have estimated the
number of outside workers approximately, confining ourselves to a
correction only for the two biggest establishments (the Zavyalovs and
F. Varypayev). To compare the figures for “factories and
works” in the List and the Directory , only establishments with 15 and more workers must be taken (this is examined in
greater detail in our Studies , article: On the Question of Our
Factory Statistics) (See present edition, Vol. 4.— Ed .)— Lenin

[66]
In one branch of the Pavlovo industry, lock-making, there is, on the
contrary, a decline in the number of workshops employing wage-workers. A. N. Potresov ( loc . cit .), who recorded
this fact in detail, pointed to its cause — the competition of the
lock-making factory in Kovno Gubernia (Schmidt Brothers, which in 1890 had
500 workers, with an output of 500,000 rubles, and in 1894-95 had 625
workers, with an output of 730,000 rubles).— Lenin

[67]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX. The population of
Bezvodnoye village in 1897 was 3,296.— Lenin

[68]
Reports and Investigations , Vol. I. — The List gives 4
“factories” for this district, with 21 workers on premises and
29 outside workers, and output totalling 68,000 rubles.— Lenin

[69]
Reports and Investigations , I, p. 186.— Lenin

[70]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 29.— Lenin

[71]
Ibid ., No. 32.— Lenin

[72]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. 1, Sec. 2,
and Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd in 1890. — Lenin

[73]
See, for example, the List , No. 8819.— Lenin

[74]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VI, investigation
of 1880. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I (1888-1889),
cf. p. 271: “nearly the whole trade . . . is concentrated in
workshops employing wage-workers.” Cf. also Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia , Vol. II, Yaroslavl, 1896, pp. 8, 11. — List ,
p. 403.— Lenin

[75]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 19 and 30.— Lenin

[76]
A copper-smith’s workshop needs five operatives to do the different
jobs; a tray-maker’s at least 3, while a “normal workshop” needs 9 workers. “In the large establishments”
a “fine division” (of labour) is practised “with the object of increasing productivity” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., 27 and 31).— Lenin

[77]
The Directory for 1890 gives for the district of Zagarye 14
factories employing 184 workers, with an output totalling 37,000 rubles. A
comparison of these figures with the above-quoted Zemstvo statistics shows
that in this case too the factory statistics covered only the upper strata
of widely developed capitalist manufacture.— Lenin

[78]
Cf. Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[79]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, article by
Mr. A. Tillo. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. III (1893). The
industry continues to develop. Cf. letter to Russkiye Vedomosti ,
1897, No. 231. Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42. Output totals over
1 million rubles, of which about 200,000 rubles is received by the workers
and about 300,000 rubles by buyers-up and merchants.— Lenin

[80]
“Among the Krasnoye handicraftsmen every kind of article and even
every part is made by a specific craftsman, and therefore one rarely
finds, for example, rings and ear-rings, bracelets and brooches, etc.,
made in the same house; usually a particular article is made in parts by
different worker-specialists who live not only in different houses but
even in different villages” ( Reports and Investigations ,
Vol. III, p. 76).— Lenin

[81]
Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42.— Lenin

[82]
See Mr. V. Borisov’s article in Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX.— Lenin

[83]
The Tula blacksmith, Nikita Demidov Antufyev, won Peter the Great’s
favour by building an ironworks near the town of Tula; in 1702 he was
granted the Nevyansk works. His descendants were the famous Urals iron
manufacturers, the Demidovs.— Lenin

[84]
The Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. X, contain an
excellent description by Mr. Manokhin of the samovar industry in Suksun,
Perm Gubernia. Its organisation is the same as that in Tula
Gubernia. Cf. ibid ., Vol. IX, Mr. Borisov’s article on
handicraft industries at the 1882 exhibition.— Lenin

[85]
Evidently there are analogous features in the organisation of the
mechanical trades in Tula and its environs. Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated
that the number of workers employed in these industries was from 2,000 to
3,000, producing wares to a value of nearly 2 1/2 million rubles. These
“handicraftsmen” are very much under the heel of merchant’s capital. The hardware “factories” in Tula
Gubernia sometimes also have outside workers (cf. List ,
pp. 393-395).— Lenin

[86]
The development of accordion-making is also interesting as a process of
the elimination of primitive folk instruments and of the creation of a
wide, national market; without this market there could have been no
division of labour by processes, and without division of labour the
finished article could not have been produced cheaply “Owing to
their cheapness . . . the accordions have nearly everywhere displaced the
primitive string folk instrument, the balalaika” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, p. 2276).— Lenin

[87]
The Tula town census of November 29, 1891, gave 36 establishments selling
accordions and 34 accordion workshops (see Tula Gubernia Handbook for 1895 , Tula, 1895).— Lenin

[88]
Workroom owners , middlemen — owners of premises who rented them to manufacturers for the installation of hand-looms, and
themselves worked there. The middleman or workroom owner, by arrangement
with the employer, undertook to heat or repair the premises, deliver raw
materials to the weavers, send the finished product to the employer or act
as overseer. [p.386]

[95]
Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II. Vol. III. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and Hand
Labour in Russia. Part 1. Published by the Central Statistical Committee
of the Ministry of Home Affairs. St. Petersburg, 1872. [p.388]

[89]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.396]

[90]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.398]

[91]
Cadastre — a public record of the extent, value and ownership of
land, etc., for purposes of taxation. The cadastral surveys gave
particulars of land held, incomes of inhabitants and descriptions of
streets, monasteries, fortifications, etc. The oldest cadastre now extant
dates back to the 15th century, but most of those that have been preserved
relate to the 17th century. Surveys for the cadastre were made by special
commissions appointed by the central government authorities. [p.415]

[92]
The Law of June 2 , 1897 established a working day of 11
1/2 hours for industrial enterprises and railway workshops. Prior to the
adoption of this law the working day in Russia was unlimited and lasted as
long as 14 and 15 hours and even more. The tsar’s government was
forced to adopt this law due to the pressure of the working-class
movement, which was led by the “League of Struggle for the
Emancipation of the Working Class” headed by Lenin. A detailed
analysis and criticism of the law is given by Lenin in his pamphlet:
The New Factory Law . (See present edition, Vol. 2.) [p. 418]

[93]
The table that follows is based on a similar but more detailed table
published in the Vestnik Finansov , Issue No. 42, 1898. [p.423]

[94]
Prior to 1864 the gunsmiths of Tula were serfs of the state and lived in
special suburbs (slobodas). (The state blacksmiths’ sloboda, etc.)
They were divided into guilds: barrel, gun-stock, lock, instrumental,
etc. For the carrying out of auxiliary work serf-peasants from a number of
villages were attached to the Tula arms factories, their task being to
prepare charcoal for the gunsmiths, guard the forests allocated to the
factories, and do jobs in the factory yards.

In Tula at the time of their liberation from feudal dependence there were
nearly 4,000 gunsmiths, of whom 1,276 were employed in factories and 2,362
worked at home. In all, the gunsmiths and their families numbered over
20,000. [p.424]

| | I. The Rise of Manufacture and its Main Features | | | III. Technique in Manufacture. Division of Labour and its Significance | |

# Other Metal Trades

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vi/vi8ii.htm#sect09

Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry

II. Capitalist Manufacture in Russian Industry

Let us begin with the industries that process fibres.

1) The Weaving Industries

The weaving of linen, wool, cotton and silk fabrics, galloons, etc., was
organised everywhere in Russia as follows (before the appearance of
large-scale machine industry). The industry was headed by big capitalist
workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers; the owners of these
workshops, possessing sizable capital, undertook the large-scale purchase
of raw material, partly working it up in their own establishments, and partly giving out yarn and warp to small producers
(workroom owners, middlemen, [88] , peasant-“handicraftsmen” etc.) who wove the cloth at home or
in small workshops at piece rates. The work itself was done by hand, and
the following operations were distributed among the workers: 1)
yarn-dyeing; 2) yarn-winding (very often women and children specialised in
this operation); 3) yarn-fixing (“fixers”); 4) weaving; 5)
weft-winding for weavers (bobbin hands, mostly children). Sometimes in the
big workshops there were special “threaders” (who threaded the
warp through the eyes of the batten and reed.) [1] of labour
is usually applied, not only to single operations, but to wares, that is,
the

weavers specialise in producing various sorts of cloth. The selection of
some operations to be done in the home does not, of course, make any
change whatever to the economic structure of this type of industry. The
workrooms or homes where the weavers work are simply external departments
of the manufactory. The technical basis of such industry is hand
production with extensive and systematic division of labour; from the
economic point of view we see here the formation of large capital which
controls the purchase of raw materials and the sale of wares on an
extremely extensive (national) market, and under whose complete sway are a
mass of proletarian weavers; a few large establishments (manufactories in
the narrow sense of the term) dominate a mass of small ones. Division of
labour leads to the emergence of specialist artisans from among the
peasantry; non-agricultural centres of manufacture arise, such as the
village of Ivanovo in Vladimir Gubernia (in 1871 it became the town of
Ivanovo-Voznesensk and is now a centre of large-scale machine industry),
the village of Velikoye in Yaroslavl Gubernia, and many other villages in
Moscow, Kostroma, Vladimir and Yaroslavl gubernias, which have now turned
into factory towns. [2]

In our economic literature and statistics the industry organised in this way is
usually split up into two parts: peasants who work in their homes, or in
not particularly big workrooms, workshops, etc., are classed under
“handicraft” industry, while the bigger workrooms and workshops are placed among the “factories and works” (and,
moreover, quite fortuitously, since no definitely established and
uniformly applied rules exist as to the separation of small establishments
from big ones, of workrooms from manufactories, of workers occupied in
their homes from workers occupied in the workshop of the capitalist). [3]

Naturally, such classification, which places some wage-workers on one
side, and some masters who hire these very wage-workers (in addition to
the workers in their establishments) on the other, is nonsense from the
scientific viewpoint.

Let us illustrate this by detailed data regarding one of the
“handicraft weaving” industries, namely, silk weaving in
Vladimir

Gubernia. [4]

The “silk industry” is a typical specimen of capitalist
manufacture. Hand labour prevails. Of the total number of establishments
the small ones constitute the majority (179 out of 313, or 57% of the
total, have from 1 to 5 workers), but in greater part they are not
independent and are far behind the big ones in their significance to the
industry as a whole. Establishments with 20 to 150 workers constitute 8%
of the total (25), but in them 41.5% of the aggregate number of workers
are concentrated, and they account for 51% of the total output. Of the
total number of workers in the industry (2,823) there are 2,092
wage-workers, i.e., 74.1%. “On the job we meet with division of
labour both in wares and in individual operations.” Weavers are
rarely able to make both “velvet” and “satin” (the two principal lines in this trade). “The division of labour into
separate operations within the workshop is most strictly practised only in
the big factories” (i.e., manufactories) “that employ wage-workers.” The fully independent proprietors number only 123,
who alone buy the raw materials themselves and sell the finished article;
they have 242 family workers and “employ 2,498 wage-workers, who in
greater part are paid by the piece,” a total, consequently, of 2,740
workers, or 97% of the aggregate number of workers. It is thus clear that
the distribution by these manufactory owners, through the medium of
“middle-men” (workroom owners), of work to be done in the home
is no special form of industry at all, but is merely one of the operations
of capital in manufacture. Mr. Kharizomenov rightly observes that the
“mass of small establishments (57%) alongside the small number of
big ones (8%), and the insignificant number of workers employed per establishment (7 1/2) conceal the true character of the trade”
( loc . cit ., 39). The specialisation characteristic of
manufacture is seen here clearly in the separation of the industrialists
from agriculture (the land is abandoned, on the one hand by the
impoverished weavers, and on the other by the big manufactory owners) and
in the formation of a special type of industrial population, who live much
more “decently” than do the agriculturists, and look down upon
the muzhik ( loc . cit ., 106). Our factory statistics have
always registered only a very casually selected fraction of this industry. [5]

The “galloon industry” in Moscow Gubernia is capitalist
manufacture organised in a quite analogous fashion. [6]

Such precisely is the case with regard to the printed calico industry in
Kamyshin Uyezd, Saratov Gubernia. According to the Directory for
1890, there were here 31 “factories” with 4,250 workers and
output totalling 265,000 rubles, while according to the List
there was one “work distributing office” with 33 workers in
the establishment and an output totalling 47,000 rubles. (In other words,
in 1890 workers employed in the establishment and on the side were lumped
together!) According to local investigators, in 1888 nearly 7,000 looms
were engaged in producing printed calico, [7] an output
totalling 2 million rubles, and “the whole business is run by a few manufacturers,” who employ
“handicraftsmen” too, including children of 6 and 7 years of
age for a payment of 7 to 8 kopeks per day ( Reports and Investigations , Vol. I). [8]

And so forth.

2) Other Branches of the Textile Industry. The Felt Trade.

To judge by official factory statistics, felt production shows a very poor
development of “capitalism”: in all European Russia there are
altogether 55 factories, with 1,212 workers and an output totalling
454,000 rubles ( Directory for 1890). But these figures merely
show a casually picked fragment of a widely developed capitalist
industry. Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia occupies first place for the
development of “factory” felt production, and in that gubernia
the principal centre of the industry is the town of Arzamas and the suburb
Viyezdnaya Sloboda (where there are 8 “factories” with 278
workers and an output totalling 120,000 rubles; in 1897 there were 3,221
inhabitants; and in the village of Krasnoye, 2,835). It is in the environs
of these centres that “handicraft” felt-making is developed,
in some 243 establishments, employing 935 workers, with an output
totalling 103,847 rubles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V). To illustrate clearly the economic organisation of
felt-making in this district, let us try the graphic method and indicate
by specific symbols the producers who occupy special places in the general
structure of the industry.

It is clear, therefore, that the separation of “factory” and
“handicraft” industry is purely artificial, that what we have
before us is a single and integral structure of industry which fully fits
into the concept of capitalist (approximately) [9] manufacture. [10]

From the technical aspect it is hand production. The organisation of the
work is that of co-operation based on division of labour, which is here
observed in two forms: as to wares (some villages specialise in plain
felt, others in boots, hats, socks, etc.), and as to individual operations (for example,
the whole village of Vasilyev Vrag shapes hats and socks for the
village of Krasnoye, where the semi-prepared article is finished,
etc.). This is capitalist co-operation, for it is headed by big capital,
which has created large manufactories and has brought under its sway (by
an intricate web of economic relations) a mass of small
establishments. The overwhelming majority of the producers have been
transformed into workers performing one operation and producing
for entrepreneurs under extremely insanitary conditions. [11]

The long standing of the industry and the fully established capitalist
relations result in the separation of the industrialists from agriculture:
in the village of Krasnoye agriculture is in utter ruin, and the life of
the inhabitants differs from that of the agricultural population. [12]

Quite analogous is the organisation of the felt industry in a number of
other districts. In 363 village communities of Semyonov Uyezd in the same
gubernia, the industry in 1889 was carried on by 3,180 households, with
4,038 persons working. Of 3,946 workers, only 752 worked for the market,
576 were wage-workers and 2,618 worked for masters on the basis, in
greater part, of using the latter’s materials; 189 households gave
out work to 1,805 households. The big owners have workshops with as many
as 25 wage-workers, and buy wool to a value of some 10,000 rubles per year. [13]

The big owners are called thousanders ; their turnover runs to from 5,000
to 100,000 rubles; they have their own wool warehouses, and their own
booths for the sale of wares. [14]

For
Kazan Gubernia the List gives 5 felt “factories,” with 122 workers and an output totalling 48,000 rubles, as well as 60
outside workers. Evidently the latter are also included among the
“handicraftsmen,” concerning whom we read that they often work
for “buyers-up” and that there are establishments having 60 workers. [15]

Of 29 felt “factories” in Kostroma Gubernia, 28 are concentrated in
Kineshma Uyezd, and have 593 workers employed in the establishments and
458 outside ( List , pp. 68-70; two of the enterprises have only
outside workers. Steam-engines already appear). From the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (XV) we learn that out of a total of
3,908 wool-carders and felt-makers in this gubernia, 2,008 are
concentrated in Kineshma Uyezd. The Kostroma felt-makers are in greater
part dependent or work for wages in extremely insanitary workshops. [16]

In
Kalyazin Uyezd, Tver Gubernia, we find, on the one hand, that home work is
done for “factory owners” ( List , 113), and, on the other, that precisely this uyezd is a centre of “handicraft”
felt-makers; as many as 3,000 of them come from this uyezd, passing
through the wasteland called “Zimnyak” (in the 60s it was the
site of Alexeyev’s cloth mill), and forming “an enormous
labour market of wool-carders and felt-makers.” [17]

In Yaroslavl Gubernia outside work for “factory owners is a]so done” ( List , 115) and there
are “handicraftsmen” who work for merchant proprietors, using
the latter’s wool, etc.

3) The Hat-and-Cap and Hemp-and-Rope Trades

Above we gave statistics for the hat industry of Moscow

Gubernia. [18]

They show that two-thirds of the total output and of the total number of
workers are concentrated in 18 establishments, which have an average of 15.6 wage-workers. [19]

The “handicraft” hat-makers perform only part of the hat-making operations: they make the shapes, which are sold to Moscow
merchants who have their own “finishing establishments”; on
the other hand, “clippers” (women who clip the down) work at
home for the “handicraft” hat-makers. Thus, all in all, we
find here capitalist co-operation based on division of labour and
entangled in a whole network of diverse forms of economic dependence. In
the centre of the industry (the village of Klenovo, Podolsk Uyezd) the
separation of the industrialists (mainly wage-workers) from agriculture [20] is
clearly to be seen, together with a rise in the level of the
population’s requirements: they live “more decently,” dress in calico and even in cloth, buy samovars, abandon ancient customs,
etc., thereby evoking the bitter complaints of the local admirers of old times. [21]

The new era even occasioned the appearance of migratory hat-makers.

A typical example of capitalist manufacture is the cap industry in the
village of Molvitino, Bui Uyezd, Kostroma

Gubernia. [22] “The principal . . . occupation in the village of Molvitino and in
. . . 36 hamlets is the cap industry.” Agriculture is being
abandoned. Since 1861 the industry has greatly developed; sewing-machines
have become widely used. In Molvitino 10 workshops are busy all year round
with 5 to 25 male and 1 to 5 female workers each. “The best workshop
. . . has a turnover of about 100,000 rubles per annum.” [23]

Work is also distributed to homes (for example, materials for the crowns
are made by women in their homes). Division of labour cripples the
workers, who work under the most insanitary conditions and usually
contract tuberculosis. The lengthy existence of the industry (for over 200
years) has produced highly skilled craftsmen; the Molvitino craftsmen are
known in the big cities and in the remote outer regions.

The centre of the hemp industry in the Medyn Uyezd, Kaluga Gubernia, is
the village of Polotnyani Zavod. This is a large village (according to the
census of 1897 it had 3,685 inhabitants) with a population that is
landless and highly industrial (over 1,000 “handicraftsmen”);
it is the centre of the “handicraft” industries of Medyn

Uyezd. [24]

The hemp industry is organised in the following way: the big proprietors (of whom
there are three, the biggest being Yerokhin) have workshops employing
wage-workers and circulating capital of more or less considerable
dimensions for purchasing raw materials. The hemp is combed in the
“factory,” spun by spinners in their homes, and twisted both
in the factory and in the home. It is warped in the factory and woven both
in the factory and in the home. In 1878 a total of 841 “handicraftsmen” was counted in the hemp industry; Yerokhin is
considered to be both a “handicraftsman” and a “factory
owner,” employing 94-64 workers in 1890 and in 1894-1895; according
to Reports and Investigations (Vol. II, p.187), “hundreds
of peasants” work for him.

In Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the rope industry is also centred in
non-agricultural industrial villages, Nizhni Izbylets and Verkhni Izbylets
in the Gorbatov

Uyezd. [25]

According to Mr. Karpov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII), the Gorbatov-Izbylets district is one large
rope-making area; part of the inhabitants of the town of Gorbatov are also
engaged in the industry, and the villages of Verkhni Izbylets and Nizhni
Izbylets are, in fact, “almost part of the town of Gorbatov”;
the inhabitants live like townspeople, drink tea every day, wear clothing
bought in the shops, and eat white bread. Altogether, as many as
two-thirds of the inhabitants of 32 villages are engaged in the industry,
a total of 4,701 working (2,096 men and 2,605 women) with an output of
about 1 1/2 million rubles. The industry has been in existence for nearly 200 years, and is now declining. It is organised as follows:
all work for 29 proprietors, using the latter’s materials, are paid
by the piece, are “totally dependent upon the proprietors” and
work from 14 to 15 hours a day. According to Zemstvo statistics (1889) the
industry employs 1,699 male workers (plus 558 females and males of
non-working age). Of 1,648 working only 197 work for sale, 1,340 work for proprietors [26] and 111 are wage-workers employed in the workshops of 58
proprietors. Of 1,288 allotment households, only 727, or a little over half, cultivate all their land themselves. Of
1,573 allotment-holding working persons, 306, or 19.4%, do not
engage in agriculture at all. Turning to the question as to who
these “proprietors” are, we must pass from the sphere of
“handicraft” industry to that of “factory” industry. According
to the List for 1894-95 there were two rope factories there, with 231 workers employed on the premises and 1,155
working outside, with an output totalling 423,000 rubles. Both
these establishments have installed motors (which they did not
have either in 1879 or in 1890), and we therefore clearly see
here the transition from capitalist manufacture to capitalist
machine industry, and the transformation of “handicraft” work
distributors and buyers-up into real factory owners.

In Perm Gubernia the handicraft census of 1894-95 registered 68 peasant
rope-and-string yards, with 343 workers (of whom 143 were hired) and an
output totalling 115,000 rubles. [27]

These small establishments are headed by big manufactories,
which are reckoned together, viz.: 6 owners employ 101 workers
(91 hired) and have an output totalling 81,000 rubles. [28]

The system of production in these big establishments may serve as the most
striking example of “serial manufacture” (as Marx calls it [89] ), i.e., the
sort of manufacture in which different workers perform different consecutive operations in working up the raw material: 1) hemp
scutching; 2) combing; 3) spinning; 4) coiling; 5) tarring; 6) winding on
drum; 7) passing threads through perforated board; 8) passing threads
through iron bush; 9) stranding of plaits, twisting and gathering of ropes. [29]

The organisation of the hemp industry in Orel Gubernia is evidently
similar: from among the considerable number of small peasant
establishments big manufactories emerge, principally in the towns, and are
included among the “factories and works” (according to the
Directory for 1890 there were in Orel Gubernia 100 hemp-scutching
factories, with 1,671 workers and an output totalling 795,000 rubles). The
peasants work in the hemp industry “for merchants” (probably
for the very same manufacturers), using the latter’s materials, at
piece rates, the work being divided up into special operations:
“scutchers” scutch the hemp; “spinners” spin it; “bearders” trim it, “wheelmen” turn the wheel. The
work is very hard; many contract consumption and “rupture.”
The dust is so thick that “unless accustomed you will not stay in it
for a quarter of an hour.” The work is done in ordinary sheds from
dawn to dusk, from May to

September. [30]

4) The Wood-Working Trades

The most typical example of capitalist manufacture in this sphere is the
chest-making industry. According to the data, for instance, of the Perm
investigators, “this industry is organised as follows: a few big
proprietors, owning workshops that employ wage-workers, purchase
materials, partly make the wares on their own premises, but mainly give
out material to small workshops making parts, and in their own shops
assemble them and, after finishing, send the ready article to
market. Division of labour . . . is employed on the job extensively: the making of the entire chest is divided into ten
or twelve operations, each separately performed by handicraftsmen. The
organisation of the industry consists in the combination of workers
performing one operation ( Teilarbeiter , as they are called in
Das Kapital ) under the command of capital .” [31]

This is heterogeneous manufacture ( heterogene Manufaktur , as Marx calls it [90] ), in which
the different workers do not perform consecutive operations in turning the
raw material into the product, but make the various parts of the product,
which are afterwards assembled. The preference of the capitalists for the
domestic work of “handicraftsmen” is to be explained partly by
the above mentioned character of manufacture, and partly (and mainly) by
the cheaper labour of the home workers. [32]

Let us observe that the relatively big workshops in this industry are sometimes
also included among “factories and works.” [33]

In all probability, the chest-making industry is organised similarly in
Vladimir Gubernia, in Murom Uyezd where, according to the List ,
there are 9 “factories” (all hand-operated), with 89 workers
on the premises and 11 outside, and an output totalling 69,810
rubles.

The carriage industry, in Perm Gubernia, for example, is organised on
similar lines: from among the mass of small establishments there emerge
assembly workshops employing wage-workers; the small handicraftsmen are
workers who make parts of the carriages both out of their own materials,
and out of materials supplied by the “buyers-up” (i.e., owners
of the assembly workshops.) [34]

We
read about the Poltava “handicraft” carriage builders that in
the suburb of Ardon there are workshops that employ wage-workers and also
distribute work to homes (the bigger masters having as many as 20 outside workers). [35]

In
Kazan Gubernia, division of labour as to wares is to be observed in the building of town carriages:
some villages specialise in sleighs, others in wheeled vehicles,
etc. “The town carriages, completely assembled in the villages (but
without the metal work, wheels or shafts), are sent to Kazan merchant
customers, who in turn send them to blacksmiths for the metal work. The
carriages are then sent back again to the shops and workshops in the town,
where they are finished off, i.e., are upholstered and painted. . . . Kazan, where town carriages were formerly iron-mounted,
gradually passed this work on to handicraftsmen, who work at home for a
smaller payment than do the town craftsmen....” [36]

Hence, capital prefers to distribute work to home workers because this reduces the cost of labour-power. The
organisation of the carriage industry, as is evident from the data quoted,
constitutes, in the majority of cases, a system of handicraftsmen making
parts, who are under the sway of capital.

The large industrial village of Vorontsovka, Pavlovsk Uyezd, Voronezh
Gubernia (9,541 inhabitants in 1897), constitutes, as it were, a single
manufactory of wooden articles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., Vol. IX, article by Rev. M. Popov). Over 800 houses
are engaged in the industry (as well as some households in the suburb of
Alexandrovka, which has over 5,000 inhabitants). They make carts,
tarantasses, wheels, chests, etc., to a total of about 267,000
rubles. Less than one-third are independent masters; hired workers in
masters’ workshops are rare. [37]

The majority work to order for peasant merchants at piece rates. The workers
are in debt to the proprietors and are worn out by arduous toil: the
people are growing feebler. The inhabitants of the suburb are industrial,
not of the rural type, and scarcely engage in agriculture at all (except
to work vegetable plots), since their allotments are miserably small. The
industry has been long in existence, diverting the population from agriculture and increasingly widening the
rift between the rich and the poor. The people subsist on meagre food;
they dress “more smartly than before,” “but beyond their
means,” in clothing that is entirely bought. “The population
has succumbed to the spirit of industry and trade.” “Nearly
all who have no craft carry on some trading. . . . Under the influence of
industry and trade, the peasant has, generally speaking, become more
unreserved, and this has made him more developed and resourceful.” [38]

The celebrated wooden-spoon industry of the Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, is close to capitalist manufacture in its
organisation. True, there are no big workshops standing out from among the
mass of small workshops and dominating them, but we find a deeply-rooted
division of labour and the complete subjection of the mass of part-job
workers to capital. Before it is ready, the spoon passes through no less
than 10 hands, the buyers-up getting some of the operations done by
specially hired workers or giving them out to specialist workers (for
example, for varnishing); some of the villages specialise in particular
operations (for example, the village of Dyakovo specialises in spoon
finishing to the order of the buyer-up, at piece rates; the villages of
Khvostikovo, Dianovo and Zhuzhelka specialise in varnishing, etc.). The
buyers-up purchase the timber wholesale in the Samara and other gubernias,
where they send parties of hired workers; they own warehouses for raw
material and manufactured goods, supply the most valuable material to
handicraftsmen for processing, etc. The mass of workers doing part jobs
merge into a single, complex mechanism of production, entirely under the
sway of capital. “It is all the same to the spoon-makers whether
they work for hire at the master’s cost and on his premises, or are
occupied in their own cottages, for in this industry, as in others,
everything has been weighed, measured and counted. The spoon-maker never
earns more than just enough to keep body and soul together.” [39]

It is quite natural that under such conditions the capitalists who dominate the whole trade are in no hurry to open their
own workshops, and the industry, based on hand skill and traditional
division of labour, stagnates in its seclusion and immobility. Tied to the
land, the “handicraftsmen” seem to have become petrified in
their routine: as in 1879, so in 1889, they still count money in the old
style, in banknotes and not in silver.

The toy industry in Moscow Gubernia is headed similarly by establishments
of the capitalist-manufactory type. [40]

Of 481 workshops, 20 have over 10 workers each. Division of labour, both as to
wares and as to individual operations, is practised on a very wide scale,
enormously raising the productivity of labour (at the cost of crippling
the worker). For example, it is estimated that a small workshop yields a
return of 26% of the selling price, and a big workshop, one of

58%. [41]

Of course, the fixed capital of the big proprietors is also much larger; technical
devices are met with (for example, drying sheds). The centre of the
industry is a non-agricultural township, the suburb of Sergiyevsky (where
there are 1,055 workers out of a total of 1,398, with an output to the
amount of 311,000 rubles out of a total of 405,000 rubles; the population,
according to the 1897 census, numbers 15,155). The author of the article
on this industry, referring to the prevalence of small workshops, etc.,
considers it more, but still not very, likely that the industry will
develop into manufacture rather than into factory industry. “In the
future, too,” he says, “the small producers will always be
able to compete more or less successfully with large-scale
production” ( loc . cit ., 93). The author forgets that in manufacture the technical basis is always the same hand-production
that obtains in the small industries; that the division of labour can
never be such a decisive advantage that it will entirely eliminate the small producers,
particularly if the latter resort to such means as lengthening the working
day, etc.; and that manufacture is never in a position to embrace the
whole of production, but remains a mere superstructure over the mass of
small establishments.

5) The Processing of Livestock Produce. [The Leather and Fur Trades]

The most extensive areas of the leather industry present particularly
striking examples of the complete merging of “handicraft” and
factory industry, examples of capitalist manufacture highly developed (in
depth and in breadth). What is characteristic is the fact that the
gubernias which are conspicuous for the size of their “factory” leather industry (Vyatka, Nizhni-Novgorod, Perm and
Tver) are marked by a particular development of “handicraft”
industries in this sphere.

In the village of Bogorodskoye, Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia,
there were, according to the Directory for 1890, 58 “factories” with 392 workers and an output totalling 547,000
rubles; according to the List for 1894-95 there were 119
“works,” with 1,499 workers on the premises and 205 outside,
and with an output totalling 934,000 rubles (the latter figures covering
only the processing of livestock produce, the principal local
industry). But these data deal only with the top levels of
capitalist manufacture. Mr. Karpov in 1879 computed in this village and
its environs over 296 establishments, with 5,669 workers (a large number
of whom worked at home for capitalists), and with an output totalling
about 1,490,000 rubles [42] in the following industries: tanning, shingle-gluing, basket-weaving (for packing
goods), harness-making, horse-collar-making, mitten-making and, standing
by itself, pottery. The Zemstvo census of 1889 listed 4,401 industrialists
for this district, and of 1,842 workers for whom detailed information is
given, 1,119 work for hire in other people’s workshops and 405 work
at home for masters. [43] “Bogorodskoye, with its population of 8,000, is a huge tannery in continuous operation.” [44]

To be more precise, it is a “serial” manufactory controlled by a few big capitalists who buy the raw materials,
tan the hides, and turn them into a variety of articles, hiring several
thousand absolutely propertyless workers for the job and ruling over the
small

establishments. [45]

This industry has had a very long existence, since the 17th century;
particularly memorable in the industry’s history are the Sheremetevs
(beginning of the 19th century), landlords who helped considerably to
develop the industry and, incidentally, protected the proletariat, which
came into existence here long ago, from the local rich. After 1861 the
industry greatly developed, and particularly did big establishments grow
at the expense of the small ones; centuries of industrial activity
produced from among the population remarkably skilled craftsmen who have
carried the trade all over Russia. The firmly-rooted capitalist relations
have led to the separation of industry from agriculture: hardly any
farming is done in Bogorodskoye village itself, which, on the contrary,
divorces neighbouring peasants who move into this “town” from
the

land. [46]

Mr. Karpov notes in this village “a complete absence of peasant
characteristics among the inhabitants,” so that “you would
never think you were in a village and not a town.” This village
leaves Gorbatov and all the other uyezd towns of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia
far behind, with the exception, perhaps, of Arzamas. It is “one of
the considerable commercial and industrial centres in the gubernia, and its industry and
commerce run into the millions.” “The radius of the industrial
and commercial influence of Bogorodskoye is very wide; but most closely
connected with the industry of Bogorodskoye is that of its environs within
a radius of 10 to 12 versts. These industrial environs are, as it were, a
continuation of Bogorodskoye itself.” “The inhabitants of
Bogorodskoye do not in the least resemble the ordinary, raw muzhiks: they
are artisans of the burgher type, shrewd, experienced people, who look
down on the peasants. The manner of life and the ethical standards of the
Bogorodskoye inhabitants are completely urban.” To this we must add
that the industrial villages of Gorbatov Uyezd are marked by a relatively
high level of literacy among the population. Thus, the percentage of
literate and student men and women is, in the villages of Pavlovo,
Bogorodskoye and Vorsma, 37.8% and 20% respectively, as against 21.5% and
4.4% in the rest of the uyezd (see Zemstvo statistical Material ).

Quite analogous (only on a smaller scale) are the relations in the
leather-processing industries of the villages of Katunki and Gorodets
(Balakhna Uyezd), Bolshoye Murashkino (Knyaginin Uyezd), Yurino (Vasil
Uyezd), and Tubanayevka, Spasskoye, Vatras and Latyshikha in the same
uyezd. These are similar non-agricultural centres with a
“ring” of surrounding agricultural villages, and with similar
diverse industries and numerous small establishments (and also workers in
the home) subordinated to big entrepreneurs, whose capitalist workshops
are occasionally included among “factories and works.” [47]

Without going into statistical details, which will provide nothing new
compared with what has already been said, let us merely quote the
following extremely interesting description of the village of

Katunki: [48] “A certain patriarchal simplicity in the relations between masters
and workmen, which, however, is not so noticeable at first sight and is, unfortunately (?), disappearing increasingly every year
. . . testifies to the handicraft character of the industries (?). It is
only recently that the factory character both of the industries and of the
population has begun to be observed, under the influence, in particular,
of the town, intercourse with which has been facilitated by the
inauguration of the steamboat service. Today the village looks like a
regular industrial township: there is no sign of agriculture whatever, the
houses are built close together as in the towns; the fine brick houses of
the rich, and alongside of them the miserable hovels of the poor; the long
wooden and brick buildings of the factories crowded in the middle of the
village — all this sharply distinguishes Katunki from the neighbouring
villages and clearly points to the industrial character of the local
population. The inhabitants themselves possess features of character that
also call to mind the type of “factory hand” who has already
taken shape in Russia: a certain showiness in house furniture, in clothes
and manners, spendthrift habits of life in most cases, and little care for
the morrow, a forwardness and often affectation in speech, a certain
superciliousness towards the country yokel — all these features are
possessed by them in common with all Russian factory people.” [49]

In the town of Arzamas, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the “factory” statistics listed in 1890 a total of 6 tanneries,
employing 64 workers ( Directory ); this is only a small fraction
of the capitalist manufacture which embraces the fur, boot-making and
other industries. The same factories employ workers in the home, both in
the town of Arzamas (in 1878, estimated at 400) and in 5 suburban
villages, where out of the 360 furrier households, 330 work for Arzamas
merchants, using their materials and working 14 hours a day for 6 to 9
rubles per month [50] ; that is why the furriers are pallid, feeble and degenerating folk. In the suburb of Viyezdnaya Sloboda, of the 600 boot-maker households, 500 work for
masters, from whom they receive the cut-out leather. The industry is of
long standing, being about 200 years old, and is still growing and
developing. The inhabitants hardly engage in agriculture at all; their
whole manner of life is purely urban, and they live “in grand
style.” The same applies to the furrier villages mentioned above,
the inhabitants of which “look down with disdain upon the peasant
and call him a ‘country bumpkin’.” [51]

We find exactly the same thing in Vyatka Gubernia. The Vyatka and
Slobodskoi uyezds are centres both of “factory” and of “handicraft” leather and fur trades. In the Vyatka Uyezd, the
handicraft tanneries are concentrated on the outskirts of the town and
“supplement” the industrial activities of the big works, [52] for
example, by working for the big owners; working for the latter also, in
the majority of cases, are the handicraft harness-makers and glue
makers. The fur factory owners have hundreds working for them in the home,
sewing sheepskins, etc. This is just a single capitalist manufactory with
branches: sheepskin dressing and sheepskin-coat-making, leather and
harness, etc. Still more striking are the relations existing in the
Slobodskoi Uyezd (the centre of the industries is the suburb of Demyanka);
here we see a small number of big factory owners [53] at the
head of handicraft tanners (numbering 870), boot- and mitten-makers (855),
sheepskin-dressers (940), and tailors (309 make short sheepskin coats to
order from capitalists). Generally speaking, such organisation of the
production of leather goods is evidently very widespread: thus, in the
town of Sarapul, Vyatka Gubernia, the List gives 6 tanneries,
also making footwear, which employ, in addition to 214 workers on the
premises, 1,080 outside workers (p. 495). What would become of our
“handicrafts men,” those representatives of “people’s” industry who are depicted in such bright hues by all sorts of Manilovs, if all the Russian
merchants and factory owners were to compute with equal detail and
precision the outside workers employed by them? [54]

Reference should be made here to the industrial village of Rasskazovo,
Tambov Uyezd, Tambov Gubernia (population in 1897 was 8,283), a centre
both of “factory” industry (cloth mills, soap-works, tanneries
and distilleries) and of “handicraft” industry, the latter
being closely connected with the former; and to the industries: tanning,
felt-making (as many as 70 masters, and establishments employing from 20
to 30 workers), glue-making, boot-making, stocking knitting (there is not
a household where stockings are not knit from wool that
“buyers-up” give out by weight), etc. Near this village is the
suburb of Belaya Polyana (300 households), celebrated for industries of
the same kind. In Morshansk Uyezd, the centre of the handicraft industries
is the village of Pokrovskoye-Vasilyevskoye, which is also the centre of
factory industry (see Directory and Reports and Investigations , Vol. III). In Kursk Gubernia, noteworthy as
industrial villages and centres of “handicraft” industries are
the suburbs: Veliko-Mikhailovka (Novy Oskol Uyezd; population in 1897 was
11,853), Borisovka (Graivoron Uyezd — 18,071 inhabitants), Tomarovka
(Belgorod Uyezd, 8,716 inhabitants), Miropolye (Sudzha Uyezd, over 10,000
inhabitants. See Reports and Investigations , Vol. I, Information
for 1888-1889). In the same villages you will also find leather
“works” (see Directory for 1890). The principal “handicraft” industry is leather and boot-making. It arose as far back as the first half of the 18th century and reached the peak of its
development in the 60s of the 19th century having become “a stable
organisation of a purely commercial character.” The whole business
was monopolised by contractors, who bought the leather and gave it out to
be processed by handicraftsmen. The railways destroyed this monopoly
character of capital, and the capitalist contractors transferred their
capital to more profitable undertakings. Today it is organised as follows:
there are about 120 big entrepreneurs; they own workshops where
wage-workers are employed, and also distribute work to homes; there are as
many as 3,000 small independent masters (who, however, buy their leather
from the big ones); there are 400 people who work at home (for the big
masters), and as many wage-workers; then there are the apprentices. The
total number of boot-makers is over 4,000. In addition, there are
handicraft potters, icon-case makers, icon painters, table-cloth weavers,
etc.

A highly characteristic and typical example of capitalist manufacture is
the squirrel-fur industry in Kargopol Uyezd, Olonets Gubernia, described
with such knowledge of the facts, and with truthful and artless
presentation of the whole life of the industrial population by a craftsman
and teacher in the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission
(Vol. IV). According to his description (in 1878), the industry has
existed since the beginning of the 19th century: 8 masters employ 175
workers, in addition to which they have as many as 1,000 seamstresses and
some 35 families of furriers working for them at home (in different
villages), 1,300 to 1,500 persons in all, with an output totalling 336,000
rubles. As a point of interest, it should be noted that when this was a
flourishing industry it was not included in the “factory”
statistics. The Directory for 1879 makes no mention of it. But
when it began to decline the statistics included it. The
Directory for 1890 listed for the town and the uyezd of Kargopol
7 works, with 121 workers and an output totalling 50,000 rubles, whereas
the List gave 5 works, with 79 workers (plus 57 outside) and an
output totalling 49,000 rubles. [55]

The order of things prevailing in this branch of capitalist manufacture is very instructive as a specimen of what goes on
in our age-old, purely native “handicraft industries,” that
have been left stranded in one of Russia’s numerous rural
backwoods. The craftsmen work 15 hours a day in a very unhealthy
atmosphere and earn 8 rubles per month, less than 60 or 70 rubles per
year. The masters’ incomes amount to about 5,000 rubles per
annum. The relations between masters and workers are “patriarchal”: according to ancient custom, the master gives
the workers kvass and salt gratis, which they have to beg from his
cook. As a mark of gratitude to the master (for “giving” them
work) the workers come, without pay, to pull squirrel tails, and also
clean furs after work. The workers live in the workshop all the week, and
the masters knock them about, seemingly in a joke (p. 218,
loc . cit .), make them do all sorts of jobs, such as raking hay, shovelling snow, fetching water, rinsing clothes, etc. Labour
is astonishingly cheap in Kargopol itself, and the peasants in the
vicinity “are ready to work for next to nothing.” Work is done
by hand, there is systematic division of labour, and there is a lengthy
apprenticeship (8 to 12 years); the lot of the apprentices can easily be
imagined.

6) The Remaining Livestock Processing Trades

A particularly noteworthy example of capitalist manufacture is the
celebrated boot industry of the village of Kimry, Korcheva Uyezd, Tver
Gubernia, and its environs. [56]

The industry is a very old one, having existed since the 16th
century. Since the Reform, it has continued to grow and develop. In the
early 70s Pletnev counted 4 volosts in the area covered by this industry,
but in 1888 the area included 9 volosts. Basically the organisation of the
industry is as follows. It is headed by the owners of big workshops
employing wage-workers; they distribute the cut-out leather to be made up
by outside workers. Mr. Pletnev counted 20 such masters, employing 124
adults and 60 boys, with an output totalling 818,000 rubles, while the
number of workers occupied at home for these capitalists is estimated by
the author approximately at 1,769 adults and 1,833 boys. Then come the
small masters, each with 1 to 5 wage-workers and 1 to 3 boys. These
masters dispose of their goods mainly in the village market in Kimry; they
number 224 and have 460 adults and 301 boys working for them; output
totals 187,000 rubles. Hence, there are 244 masters altogether, employing
2,353 adults (of whom 1,769 work at home) and 2,194 boys (of whom 1,833
work at home), with an output totalling 1,005,000 rubles. Further, there
are workshops which do various individual operations: currying
(skin-cleaning with scraper); chipping (gluing of chips left from
currying); special carting (4 masters, with 16 employees and up to 50 horses); special
carpentry (box-making), etc. [57]

Pletnev calculated the total output at 4.7 million rubles for the whole
district. In 1881 the number of handicraftsmen was computed at 10,638, and
with migrants, 26,000, with an output totalling 3.7 million rubles. As to
conditions of labour, it is important to note the excessively long working day (14 to
15 hours) and the extremely insanitary working conditions, payment in
goods, etc. The centre of the industry, Kimry village, “is more like
a small town” ( Reports and Investigations , I, 224); the
inhabitants are poor agriculturists, and are engaged in their industry all
the year round; only the rural handicraftsmen give up the industry during
haymaking. The houses in Kimry village are urban, and the inhabitants are
distinguished for their urban habits of life (such as “showiness”). Until very recently this industry was not
included in “factory” statistics, probably because the masters
“readily style themselves handicraftsmen” ( ibid ., 228). The List has for the first time included 6 boot workshops
in Kimry district, with 15 to 40 workers each on the premises, and with no
outside workers. Of course, it contains no end of gaps.

Manufacture also includes the button industry of Moscow Gubernia,
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds — the making of buttons from hoofs and
rams’ horns. Engaged in this industry are 487 workers, employed in
52 establishments; the output totals 264,000 rubles. Establishments with
fewer than 5 employees number 16; those with 5 to 10 — 26; those with 10
and more — 10. Masters who do without wage-workers number only 10; these
work for big masters, using the latter’s materials. Only the big
industrialists (who, as is evident from the figures given, should have
from 17 to 21 workers per establishment) are quite independent. It is
they, evidently, who figure in the Directory as “factory
owners” (see p. 291: 2 establishments with an output totalling 4,000
rubles and with 73 workers). This is “serial manufacture”; the
horns are first steamed in what is called the “smithy” (a
wooden hut with a furnace); then they are passed on to the
workshop where they are cut up, after which they go to a stamping
press, where the pattern is imprinted, and, lastly, are finished and
polished on lathes. The industry has its apprentices. The working day is
14 hours. Payment in goods is a regular thing. The relations between
masters and men are patriarchal, as seen in the following: the master
calls the workers “boys,” and the pay-book is called the
“boys’ book”; when the master pays the workers, he lectures them and never grants in full their
“requests” for payment.

The horn industry, which is included in our table of small industries
(Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 31 and 33), is also of the same
type. “Handicraftsmen” employing dozens of wage-workers figure
also in the Directory as “factory owners” (p. 291). Division
of labour is practised; work is also given out to home workers (horn
trimmers). The centre of the industry in Bogorodsk Uyezd is the big
village of Khoteichi, where agriculture is receding into the background
(population in 1897 was 2,494). The Moscow Zemstvo publication stated
quite rightly: Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd ,
Moscow Gubernia , in 1890 , that this village “ is nothing but a large comb manufactory ” (p. 24,
our italics). In 1890, over 500 industrialists were counted in this
village, with an output of from 3.5 to 5.5 million combs. “More
often than not, the horn dealer is also a buyer-up of finished goods, and
in many cases a big comb-maker as well.” The position of those
makers who are compelled to take horns “at piece rates” is
particularly bad: “their position is actually worse than that of the
wage-workers in the big establishments.” Dire need compels them to
exploit the labour of their whole families beyond measure, to lengthen their working day and to put juveniles to work. “During the
winter, work in Khoteichi starts at one o’clock in the morning, and
it is hard to say for certain when it ends in the cottage of the
‘independent’ craftsman doing ‘piece-work.’”
Payment in goods is widely practised. “This system, eliminated with
such difficulty from the factories, is still in full force in the small
handicraft establishments” (27). Probably, the horn goods industry
is organised on similar lines in Kadnikov Uyezd, Vologda Gubernia, in the
area of Ustye village (known as “Ustyanshchina”), where there
are 58 hamlets. Mr. V. Borisov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX) counts 388 handicraftsmen here, with an output
totalling 45,000 rubles; all the handicraftsmen work for capitalists, who
buy horns in St. Petersburg and tortoise-shell abroad.

At the head of the brush industry in Moscow Gubernia (see Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industry No. 20) we find big establishments with a large number
of wage-workers and with systematic division of labour. [58]

It is interesting to note at this point the changes that took place in the
organisation of this industry between 1879 and 1895 (see Moscow Zemstvo
publication: The Brush Industry According to the Investigation of 1895 ). Some well-to-do industrialists went to Moscow to carry on the
industry there. The number of industrialists increased 70%, the increase
being particularly large in the number of women (+170%) and girls
(+159%). The number of big workshops with wage-workers diminished: the
proportion of establishments with wage-workers dropped from 62% to
39%. This was due to the fact that the masters began to distribute work to be done in the home . The introduction into general use of the
drilling machine (for making holes in brush blocks) accelerated and
facilitated one of the main processes in brushmaking. The demand for
“setters” (craftsmen who “set” bristle in the block) increased; and this operation, which became increasingly
specialised, fell to the lot of women, their labour being cheaper. The
women began to work at home setting bristle, and were paid by the
piece. Thus, the growing resort to domestic industry was caused in this
case by progress in technique (drilling machine), progress in division of
labour (the women do nothing but set bristle), and progress in capitalist
exploitation (the labour of women and girls being cheaper). This example
shows very clearly that domestic industry by no means eliminates the concept of capitalist manufacture , but, on the contrary, is sometimes
even a sign of its further development .

7) The Processing of Mineral Products

In the section relating to ceramics we get an example of capitalist
manufacture in the industries of the Gzhel district (an area of 25 villages
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds, Moscow Gubernia). The relevant
statistics are given in our table of small industries (Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industries Nos. 15, 28 and 37). From these data it is evident that despite the enormous differences between the three Gzhel industries:
pottery, porcelain and decorative, these differences disappear as we pass
from one grade of establishment to another in each industry, and we get a
series of workshops of successively increasing dimensions. Here are the
average numbers of workers per establishment according to grade in these
three industries: 2.4 — 4.3 — 8.4 — 4.4. — 7.9 — 13.5 — 18 — 69 —
226.4. In other words, the workshops range from the very smallest to the
very biggest. There is no doubt that the big establishments belong to the
category of capitalist manufacture (inasmuch as they have not introduced
machines, have not developed into factories); what is important, however,
is not only this, but also that the small establishments are connected with the big ones ; that we have a single system of industry
here and not separate workshops of one or other type of economic
organisation. “Gzhel constitutes a single economic whole”
(Isayev, loc . cit ., 138), and the big workshops in the
district have grown slowly and gradually out of the small ones
( ibid ., 121). The work is done by hand, [59] with considerable division of labour : among the potters we find wheel
hands (specialising in different sorts of pottery), kilnmen, etc., and
sometimes special workers for preparing colours. In the manufacture of
porcelain-ware division of labour is extremely detailed: crushers, wheel
hands, feeders, kilnmen, decorators, etc. The wheel hands even specialise
in the various kinds of porcelain ware (cf. Isayev, loc . cit ., 140: in one case division of labour increases
productivity of labour by 25%). The decorators’ shops work for the
porcelain makers and are, therefore, only departments of the
latter’s manufactories, performing a special detailed operation. It
is characteristic of developed capitalist manufacture that physical
strength itself becomes a specialty. Thus, in Gzhel, some of the villages
are engaged (almost to a man) in clay digging; for heavy work not requiring special
skill (grinding), workers from the Tula and Ryazan gubernias are employed
almost exclusively, being superior in strength and vigour to the not very
robust Gzhelians. Payment in goods is widely practised. Agriculture is in
a bad way. “The Gzhelians are a degenerating race” (Isayev,
168) — weak-chested, narrow-shouldered, feeble; the decorators lose their
sight at an early age, etc. Capitalist division of labour breaks up the
worker and deforms him. The working day is from 12 to 13 hours.

8) The Metal Trades. The Pavlovo Industries

The celebrated Pavlovo lock and cutlery industries cover the whole of
Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, and Murom Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. These industries originated very long ago. Smirnov states that
as far back as 1621 there were (according to the cadastres [91] ) 11
smithies in Pavlovo. By the middle of the 19th century these industries
constituted a far-flung network of fully developed capitalist
relations. After the Reform, the industries in this district continued to
develop and expand. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889, in Gorbatov
Uyezd 13 volosts and 119 villages were engaged in industry; a total of
5,953 households, 6,570 male workers (54% of the total number working in
these villages) and 2,741 old men, juveniles and women, 9,311 persons in
all. In the Murom Uyezd, Mr. Grigoryev in 1881 registered 6 industrial
volosts, 66 villages, 1,545 households and 2,205 male workers (39% of the
total number working in these villages). Not only were large,
non-agricultural industrial villages formed (Pavlovo, Vorsma), but even
the surrounding peasants were diverted from agriculture: outside of
Pavlovo and Vorsma, in Gorbatov Uyezd, 4,492 persons were engaged in
industries, of whom 2,357, or more than half did not engage in
agriculture. Life in centres like Pavlovo has become quite urban and has
given rise to incomparably more developed requirements, more cultured
environment, clothes, manner of life, etc., than among the surrounding
“raw”

peasants. [60]

Turning to the economic organisation of the Pavlovo industries, we must
first of all note the indubitable fact that the “handicraftsmen” are headed by the most typical capitalist
manufactories. For example, in the Zavyalovs’ establishment (which
already in the 60s employed over 100 workers at the bench and has now
introduced a steam engine) a penknife passes through 8 or 9 hands: the
forger, blade-maker, handle-maker (usually an outside worker), hardener,
facer, polisher, finisher, grinder and marker. This is extensive
capitalist co-operation based on division of labour, with a considerable
number of the workers performing individual operations employed at home
and not in the capitalist’s workshop. Here are facts given by
Mr. Labzin (in 1866) on the bigger establishments in the villages of
Pavlovo, Vorsma and Vacha, covering all branches of production in this
district: 15 proprietors had 500 workers occupied on the premises and
1,134 workers outside, making a total of 1,634, with an output totalling
351,700 rubles. How far this description of economic relations is
applicable to the whole district at the present time may be seen from the
following data [61] :

Thus, the organisation of the industry as outlined by us prevails in all
the districts. All in all, about three-fifths of the total number
of workers are employed capitalistically. Here too, consequently, we find
manufacture predominating in the general structure of the industry [62] and
holding masses of workers under its sway, without, however, being able to
eradicate small production. The relative tenacity of the latter is fully
explained, firstly, by the fact that in some branches of the Pavlovo
industry mechanised production has not yet been introduced at all (for
instance, in lock-making); and, secondly, by the fact that the small
producer tries to save himself from sinking by resorting to means that
cause him to sink far lower than the wage-worker. These means are:
lengthening the working day, and reducing the standard of living and of
general requirements. “The earnings of the group of handicraftsmen
who work for proprietors are less subject to fluctuation”
(Grigoryev, loc . cit ., 65); at Zavyalovs’, for example, the lowest-paid worker is the handle-maker; “he works at
home, and that is why he is satisfied with lower earnings” (68). The
handicraftsmen who work “for factory owners” are “able to earn somewhat more than the average earnings of the one who takes his
products to the market. Larger earnings are particularly noticeable among
the workers who live in the factories” (70). [63]

The working day in the “factories” is from 14 1/2 to 15 hours,
with a maximum of 16 hours. “The working day of the home-working
handicraftsmen, on the other hand, is never less than 17 hours and
sometimes as much as 18 and even 19 hours” ( ibid .). It
would not be in the least surprising if the law of June 2, 1897 [92] caused an
increase here in home-work; it is high time these “handicraftsmen” directed their efforts towards compelling the
proprietors to organise factories! Let the reader also recall the
notorious Pavlovo “loan-purchase,” “exchange,” “wife-pawning” and similar forms of bondage and personal
degradation which grind down the quasi-independent small producer. [64]

Fortunately, rapidly developing large-scale machine industry does not so
readily tolerate these worst forms of exploitation as manufacture
does. Running ahead a little, let us quote data on the growth of factory
production in this district. [65]

We thus see that ever-increasing numbers of workers are being drawn into
large establishments, which are going over to the use of machines. [66]

9) Other Metal Trades

The industries of Bezvodnoye village, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia and Uyezd
also come under the head of capitalist manufacture. This is also an
industrial village, the majority of whose inhabitants do not engage in
agriculture at all, and which serves as the centre of an industrial area
of several villages. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889
( Material , Vol. VIII, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1895), in the Bezvodnoye
Volost (581 households) 67.3% of the households cultivated no land, 78.3%
had no horses, 82.4% engaged in industries, and 57.7% had literate persons
and schoolchildren in the family (as against an average for the uyezd of
44.6%). The Bezvodnoye industries are devoted to the production of various
metal goods: chains, fish-hooks, and metal fabrics; the output was
estimated at 2 1/2 million rubles in

1883 [67] and 1 1/2 million rubles in

1888-89. [68]

The organisation of the industry is as follows: work for proprietors, using
their materials, which is distributed among a number of workers performing
single operations and done partly in the employers’ workshops and
partly in the home. For example, in the making of fish-hooks the various
operations are performed by “benders,” “cutters” (who work in a special shed) and “pointers” (women and
children who sharpen the hook-points in their homes); all these work at
piece rates for the capitalist, while the bender gives out work on his own
account to the cutters and pointers. “Metal wire is now done by
horse-driven windlasses; formerly the wire was drawn by blind men, who
were brought here in large numbers. . . .” One of the “specialities” of capitalist manufacture! “The
conditions under which this work is done differ very much from those in
all the other trades.

People have to work in a stifling atmosphere filled with the harmful
vapours emanating from accumulated horse dung.” [69]

Organised on the same lines of capitalist manufacture are the screen, [70] the pin, [71] and the gold-thread industries. [72]

In the last-named industry at the beginning of the 80s there were 66 establishments, employing 670 workers (of
whom 79% were hired), with an output totalling 368,500 rubles;
some of these capitalist establishments were occasionally also
included among the “factories and works.” [73]

The locksmith industries of the Burmakino Volost (and surrounding volosts)
of Yaroslavl Gubernia and Uyezd are probably organised on the same
lines. At all events, here we observe the same division of labour
(blacksmiths, blowers and locksmiths), the same extensive development of
wage-labour (of 307 smithies in the Burmakino Volost, 231 employ
wage-workers), the same predominance of big capital over all these detail
workers (the buyers-up are at the top; the blacksmiths work for them, and
the locksmiths for the blacksmiths), the same combination of the buying up
of wares with the production of wares in capitalist workshops, some of
which are occasionally included among the “factories and works.” [74]

In the appendix to the preceding chapter, statistics were given on the
tray and the copper industries [75] of Moscow Gubernia (the latter in the district known as
“Zagarye”). The data show that wage-labour plays a predominant
part in these industries, that the industries are headed by large
workshops employing an average of from 18 to 23 wage-workers per
establishment, with an average output of from

16,000 to 17,000 rubles. If we add to this that division of labour is very
widely practised here, [76] it will be clear that what we have is capitalist manufacture. [77] “The small industrial units, which are an anomaly under the existing
conditions of technique and division of labour, can only hold out
alongside the big workshops by lengthening the working day to the utmost” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., p. 33) — among the tray-makers, for example, for as long as 19 hours. The ordinary working day
here is from 13 to 15 hours; with the small proprietors it is
from 16 to 17 hours. Payment in goods is widely practised (both
in 1876 and in

1890). [78]

Let us add that the lengthy existence of this industry (it arose at the beginning
of the 19th century, at the latest) and extensive specialisation have, in
this case too, produced highly skilled workers; the Zagarians are famed
for their craftsmanship. Specialities have also sprung up in the industry
which need no preliminary training and are within the grasp of even
under-age workers. “This very possibility,” Mr. Isayev rightly
observes, “of becoming an under-age worker at once and acquiring a
trade, as it were, without having to study, indicates that the handicraft
spirit, which demands the training of labour-power, is disappearing; the
simplicity of many of the detailed operations is a symptom of the
transition of handicraft to manufacture” ( loc . cit ., 34). Let us only observe that to a certain
degree the “handicraft spirit” always remains in manufacture,
for its basis is the same hand production.

10) The Jewellery, Samovar and Accordion Trades

The village of Krasnoye, Kostroma Gubernia and Uyezd, is one of the
industrial villages usually held up as centres of our “people’s” capitalist manufacture. This large village
(in 1897 it had 2,612 inhabitants) is purely urban in character; the
inhabitants live like townspeople and (with very few exceptions) do not
engage in agriculture. Krasnoye is the centre of the jewellery industry
which covers 4 volosts and 51 villages (including Sidorovskoye Volost of
Nerekhta Uyezd), and in them 735 households and about 1,706 workers. [79] “The principal representatives of industry,” said Mr. Tillo,
“are undoubtedly the big industrialists of the village of Krasnoye:
the Pushilovs, Mazovs, Sorokins, Chulkovs and other merchants. They buy
materials (gold, silver and copper), employ craftsmen, buy up finished
articles, distribute orders for work to be done in the home, supply
samples, etc.” (2043). The big industrialists have their workshops,
so-called “rabotorni” (laboratories), where the metal is
smelted and forged, then to be given out for finishing to
“handicraftsmen”; they have technical appliances, such as
“pretsi” (presses and dies for stamping), “punches” (for embossing designs), “rollers” (for
stretching the metal), benches, etc. Division of labour is widely
practised: “Nearly every article passes through several hands in an
established order in the course of manufacture. For example, in the making
of ear-rings, the master industrialist first sends the silver to his own
workshop, where part of it is rolled and part drawn into wire; then on
receipt of an order the material is given to a craftsman who, if he has a
family, divides the work among several persons; one uses a punch to cut
the silver plates into the shapes for the ear-rings, another bends the
wire into the rings with which the ear-rings are attached to the ears, a third solders these parts, and, lastly, a fourth polishes
the finished ear-rings. None of this work is difficult, or requires much
training; very often the soldering and the polishing are done by women and
by children of 7 or 8 years of age” (2041). [80]

Here, too, the working day is excessively long, usually as much as 16
hours. Payment in provisions is common.

The following statistics (published quite recently by a local assay
inspector) clearly illustrate the economic structure of the industry: [93] “Both the first groups (about two-thirds of the total number of
craftsmen) should be classed as home-working factory workers rather than
as handicraftsmen.” In the top group “wage-labour occurs more
and more frequently. . . . The craftsmen have begun to buy articles made
by others”; in the upper strata of this group “buying-up predominates,” and “four of the buyers-up have no workshops at all.” [81]

The samovar and accordion industries in Tula town and environs are highly
typical examples of capitalist manufacture. Generally speaking, the
“handicraft” industries in this district have a long history,
dating back to the 15th century. [82]

They evidenced a particularly rapid development in the middle of the 17th
century; Mr. Borisov considers that the second period in the development
of the Tula industries then began. In 1637 the first iron foundry was
built (by the Dutchman Vinius). The Tula gunsmiths formed a separate
smiths’ suburb, constituted a separate social estate, enjoying
special rights and privileges. In 1696 the first iron foundry was erected
in Tula by a famous Tula blacksmith, and the industry spread to the Urals
and

Siberia. [83]

Then began the third period in the history of the Tula industries. The
craftsmen set up their own workshops and taught the trade to surrounding
peasants. In the 1810s and 1820s the first samovar factories were
started. “By 1825 there were in Tula 43 different factories that
belonged to gunsmiths, while those in existence at the present time nearly
all belong to one-time gunsmiths, now Tula merchants” ( loc . cit ., 2262). Here, consequently, we observe a
direct continuity and connection between the old guild masters and the
principals of subsequent capitalist manufacture. In 1864 the Tula
gunsmiths were freed from serf dependence [94] and assigned to the burgher estate; earnings dropped as a consequence of the
severe competition of the village handicraftsmen (which caused a reverse
flow of industrialists from town to country); the workers turned to the
samovar, lock, cutlery, and accordion industries (the first Tula
accordions appeared in 1830-1835).

The samovar industry is at present organised as follows. It is headed by
big capitalists who own workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers, but they also distribute many separate
operations to be done by workers, urban and rural, in their homes; those
who perform these operations sometimes still have their own workshops and
employ wage-workers. Naturally, side by side with the big there are small
workshops, with all the consecutive stages of dependence upon the
capitalists. Division of labour is the general basis of the whole
structure of this trade. The process of samovar-making is divided into the
following separate operations: 1) rolling the copper sheets into tubes
(tubing); 2) soldering the tubes; 3) filing the seams; 4) fitting the
bottoms; 5) beating out the shapes; 6) cleaning the insides: 7) turning
the bodies and necks; 8) plating; 9) press-punching the vents in the
bottoms and the covers; 10) assembling the samovars. Further, there are
the separate processes of casting the small copper parts: a) preparing the
moulds and b)

casting. [84]

Where work is given out to be done in the home, each of these operations may
constitute a special “handicraft” industry. One of these
“industries” was described by Mr. Borisov in Vol. VII of the
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission . This industry (samovar
tubing) consists in peasants doing at piece rates one of the operations we
have described, using merchants’ materials. The handicraftsmen left
Tula town to work in the countryside after 1861; the cost of living and
standard of requirements were lower in the countryside ( loc . cit ., p. 893). Mr. Borisov quite rightly
attributes this tenacity of the “handicraftsman” to the
retention of hand-labour in the beating out of samovars; “it will
always be profitable for the manufacturer to employ the village
handicraftsman, because he works at from 10 to 20% below the rate of the
urban artisan” (916).

Mr. Borisov estimated the value of the output of samovars in 1882 at
approximately 5 million rubles, the number of workers (handicraftsmen
included) totalling from 4,000 to 5,000. In this case also the factory
statistics cover only a fraction of capitalist manufacture. The Directory for 1879
counted in Tula Gubernia 53 samovar “factories” (all hand-operated) with 1,479 workers and an output totalling 836,000
rubles. The Directory for 1890 gives 162 factories, 2,175
workers, and an output of 1.1 million rubles; the list of firms, however,
contains only 50 factories (1 steam operated), with 1,326 workers and an
output totalling 698,000 rubles. Evidently, some hundred small
establishments were in this case classed as “factories.”
Lastly, the List gives the following for 1894-95: 25 factories (4
steam-operated), 1,202 workers (+ 607 outside), and an output totalling
1,613,000 rubles. In these data neither the number of factories nor the
number of workers are comparable (for the reason given above, and also
because of the lumping together in previous years of workers on the
premises and outside). The only thing beyond doubt is that manufacture is
being steadily displaced by large-scale machine industry: in 1879, there
were 2 factories with 100 and more workers; in 1890 there were 2 (one
steam-operated) and in 1894-95 there were 4 (three steam-operated). [85]

The accordion industry, which is at a lower stage of economic development,
is organised in precisely the same way. [86] “In the making of accordions there are
over ten separate trades” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, 236); the making of the different parts of an
accordion or the performance of some of the operations constitute
separate, quasi-independent “handicraft” industries. “When things are quiet all the handicraftsmen work for factories or for more or less big workshops, the owners of which
supply them with materials; when, however, there is a brisk demand for
accordions, a large number of small producers appear, who buy up parts
from the handicraftsmen, assemble them and take the finished articles to
the local shops where accordions are very readily purchased”
( ibid .). Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated from 2,000 to 3,000
workers in this industry, with an output totalling about 4 million rubles;
factory statistics in 1879 showed two “factories,” with 22
workers and an output totalling 5,000 rubles; in 1890, 19 factories, with
275 workers and an output totalling 82,000 rubles; in 1894-95 one factory,
with 23 workers (plus 17 outside) and an output totalling 20,000 rubles. [87]

Steam-engines are not employed at all. All these figure variations
indicate a purely haphazard picking of individual establishments which are
component parts of the complex organism of capitalist manufacture.

---
Notes:
[1]
Cf. Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VII, Pt. III
(Moscow, 1883), pp. 63-64.— Lenin

[2]
For a list of the most important towns of this type, see next chapter.— Lenin

[3]
Examples of such confusion will be given in the next chapter.— Lenin

[4]
See Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III. It would be impossible
and superfluous to give detailed data on all the weaving industries
described in the literature on our handicraft industry. Moreover, in the
majority of these industries the factory now reigns supreme. On the
subject of “handicraft weaving” see also Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vols. VI and VII. — Transactions of the Handicraft Commission — Material on Hand-Labour Statistics . [95]
— Reports and Investigations . — Korsak, loc . cit .— Lenin

[5]
The Military Statistical Abstract managed to count in Vladimir
Gubernia, in 1866, 98 silk factories (!) with 98 workers and a total
output of 4,000 rubles(!). The Directory for 1890 gives 35
factories, 2,112 workers, and 936,000 rubles. According to the
List for 1894-95 there were 98 factories, 2,281 workers, with an
output of 1,918,000 rubles, and in addition, 2,477 workers “outside
of establishments, on the side.” Just try to distinguish
“handicraftsmen” here from “factory workers”!— Lenin

[6]
According to the Directory for 1890 there were outside of Moscow
10 galloon factories, with 303 workers and an output totalling 58,000
rubles. But according to Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia
(Vol. VI, Pt. II), there were 400 establishments, with 2,619 workers (of
whom 72.8% were wage-workers) and with an output totalling 963,000 rubles.— Lenin

[7]
The Collection of Factory Inspectors’ Reports for 1903 (St. Petersburg, 1906) states that in Saratov Gubernia there were 33
distributing offices with 10,000 workers. ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[8]
The centre of this industry is Sosnovka Volost, where the Zemstvo census
of 1886 counted 4,626 households, with a population of 38,000 persons of
both sexes; 291 industrial establishments. Altogether in the volost 10% of
the households were houseless (as against 6.2% in the uyezd), and 44.5% of
the households cultivated on land (as against 22.8% in the uyezd). See
Statistical Returns for Saratou Gubernia , Vol. XI. — Capitalist
manufacture has, consequently, created industrial centres here too which
divorce the workers from the land.— Lenin

[9]
The sources are shown in the text. The number of establishments is about
half the number of independent workers (52 establishments in Vasilyev
Vrag, 5 + 55 + 110 in Krasnoye village and 21 establishments in the 4
small villages). On the other hand, the figures for the town of Arzamas
and Viyezdnaya Sloboda stands for the number of “factories,”
and not of workers.— Lenin

[10]
Let us note that the diagram given is typical of all Russian industries
organised on the lines of capitalist manufacture: everywhere at the head
of the industry we find big establishments (sometimes classed among
“factories and works”), and a mass of small establishments
completely under their sway — in a word, capitalist co-operation based on
division of labour and hand production. Non-agricultural centres are
formed by manufacture in exactly the same way, not only here, but also in
the majority of other industries.— Lenin

[11]
They are naked as they work in a temperature of 22° to 24°
Réaumur. The air is full of fine and also coarse dust, wool and
other stuff. The floors in the “factories” are earthen (in the
washing sheds of all places), etc.— Lenin

[12]
It is not without interest to note here the specific jargon of the
inhabitants of Krasnoye; this is characteristic of the territorial
isolation peculiar to manufacture. “In the village of Krasnoye
factories are given the Matroisk name of povarnyas (lit. kitchens — Ed .). . . . Matroisk is one of the
numerous branches of the Ophen dialect, the three main branches of which
are Ophen proper, spoken mainly in Vladimir Gubernia; Galivon , in Kostroma Gubernia; and Matroisk , in the
Nizhni-Novgorod and Vladimir gubernias” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V, p 465). Only large-scale machine industry
completely destroys the local character of social ties and replaces them
by national (and international) ties.— Lenin

[13]
Material for Evaluation of the Lands of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia ,
Vol. XI, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1893, pp. 211-214.— Lenin

[14]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , VI.— Lenin

[15]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[16]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II.— Lenin

[17]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II, p. 271.— Lenin

[18]
See Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 27.— Lenin

[19]
Some of these establishments were occasionally included among
“factories and works.” See, for example, the
Directory for 1879, p.126.— Lenin

[20]
See above, Chapter V, § VII.— Lenin

[21]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , IV, Pt.I, pp. 282-287.— Lenin

[22]
See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, and
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[23]
By some accident, such workshops have not yet been included among
“factories and works.”— Lenin

[24]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , II.— Lenin

[25]
According to Zemstvo statistics (Vol. VII of Material ,
Nizhni-Novgorod, 1892) in these villages in 1889 there were 341 and 119
households, numbering respectively 1,277 and 540 persons of both
sexes. There were 253 and 103 allotment households. Households
participating in industries numbered 284 and 91, of which 257 and 32 did
not engage in agriculture. There were 218 and 51 horseless
households. Those leasing their allotments numbered 237 and 53.— Lenin

[26]
Cf. Nizhni-Novgorod Handbook , Vol IV, article by Rev. Roslavlev.— Lenin

[27]
Sketch of Condition of Handicraft Industry in Perm Gubernia ,
p. 158; in the table totals there is a mistake or a misprint.— Lenin

[28]
Ibid ., pp. 40 and 188 of table. To all appearances these same
establishments also figure in the List , p. 152. For the purpose
of comparing the big establishments with the small ones we have singled
out the agriculturist commodity-producers, see Studies ,
p. 156. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[29]
The Handicraft Industries of Perm Gubernia at the Siberian Urals Exhibition , Pt. III, p. 47 and foll.— Lenin

[30]
See Zemstvo statistical returns for Trubchevsk, Karachev and Orel uyezds
of Orel Gubernia. The connection between the big manufactories and the
small peasant establishments is also evident from the fact that the
employment of wage-labour develops in the latter as well: for example, in
Orel Uyezd, 16 peasant master spinners employ 77 workers.— Lenin

[31]
V. Ilyin, Studies, p. 176. (See present edition, Vol.2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[32]
See precise data on Perm handicraft census about this, ibid .,
p. 177 (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[33]
See Directory and List on Perm Gubernia and the village
of Nevyansky Zavod (non-agricultural), which is the centre of this
“handicraft industry.”— Lenin

[34]
Cf. our Studies , pp. 177-178. (See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[35]
Reports and Investigations , I.— Lenin

[36]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[37]
There are 14 big timber merchants. These have timber-seasoning rooms
(costing about 300 rubles), of which there are 24 in the village, each
employing 6 workers. These merchants also give out materials to workers,
whom they get into their grip by advancing them money.— Lenin

[38]
It will be appropriate here to note in general the process of development
of capitalism in the timber industry. The timber merchants do not sell the
timber raw; they hire workers to dress it and to make various wooden
articles, which they then sell. See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., VIII, pp. 1268, 1314. Also Statistical Returns for Orel Gubernia , Trubchevsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[39]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol II, 1879. See also
Zemstvo statistical Material for Semyonov Uyezd, Vol. XI, 1893.— Lenin

[40]
The statistics we have given (Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 2,
7, 26) cover only a small fraction of the toy-makers; but these data show
the appearance of workshops with 11 to 18 workers.— Lenin

[41]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. II, p. 47.— Lenin

[42]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[43]
Material for the Evaluation of the Lands in Gorbatov Uyezd.— Lenin

[44]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[45]
Thus, at the head of the horse-collar industry are 13 big proprietors,
each with 10 to 30 wage-workers and 5 to 10 outside workers. The big
mitten-makers do the cutting in their own workshops (employing 2 or 3
wage-workers) and get the mittens sewn off the premises by from 10 to 20
women; these are divided into thumb-makers and stitchers , the former taking the work from the owners and
sub-dividing it among the latter, whom they exploit (information for
1879).— Lenin

[46]
In 1889, of 1,812 households (with 9,241 inhabitants) 1,469 cultivated no
land (in 1897 there were 12,342 inhabitants). The villages of Pavlovo and
Bogorodskoye differ from the other villages of Gorbatov Uyezd in that very
few of their inhabitants leave them on the contrary, of all the peasants
of the Gorbatov Uyezd who have left their villages, 14.9% live in Pavlovo
and 4.9% in Bogorodskoye. The increase of the population between 1858 and
1889 was 22.1% for the uyezd, but 42% for the village of
Bogorodskoye. (See Zemstvo statistical Material .)— Lenin

[47]
See Zemstvo statistical Material for uyezds mentioned. —
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX and VI. —
Directory and List . — Reports and Investigations , II.— Lenin

[48]
In 1889 it had 380 households (none cultivating land) with 1,305
inhabitants In the whole of the Katunki Volost, 90.6% of the households
are engaged in industries, 70.1% of working people being occupied in
industries alone (i.e., not engaging in agriculture). As regards literacy,
this volost stands far above the average for the uyezd, yielding in this
respect only to the Chernoretsk Volost, which is also non-agricultural and
has highly developed boat-building industries. The village of Bolshoye
Murashkino had in 1887 a total of 856 households (of which 853 cultivated
no land) with 3,473 persons of both sexes. According to the 1897 census,
the population of Gorodets was 6,330, of Bolshoye Murashkino 5,341, of
Yurino 2,189, of Spasskoye 4,494 and of Vatras 3,012.— Lenin

[49]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX,
p. 2567. Information for 1880.— Lenin

[50]
The conditions of the workers in the Arzamas factories are better than
those of the rural workers ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 133).— Lenin

[51]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 76.— Lenin

[52]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. XI,
p. 3084. (Cf. Directory for 1890). Included among the
handicraftsmen is the peasant-agriculturist Dolgushin, who owns a works
employing 60 workers. There are several handicraftsmen of this type.— Lenin

[53]
According to the Directory for 1890, there were some 27 masters
employing over 700 workers.— Lenin

[54]
Cf. also List , p. 489, regarding the well-known “handicraft” village of Dunilovo, Shuya Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. The Directory for 1890 listed here 6 fur factories
employing 151 workers, while according to the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (Vol. X) there are about 2,200 furriers and
2,300 sheepskin-coat-makers in this district; in 1877 as many as 5,500
“handicraftsmen” were counted. Probably, the making of hair
sieves in this uyezd is organised in the same way; in this industry there
are engaged about 40 villages and as many as 4,000 people, known as
“Mardassers” (from the name of this district). We have described the similar organisation of the leather and cobbling industries
in Perm Gubernia in our Studies , p. 171 and foll (See present
edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[55]
Here is some information about the “handicraftsmen” relating
to 1894. “The squirrel furs are sewn by some of the poorest women in
the town of Kargopol and by peasant women of the Pavlovo Volost. They are
paid the very lowest price,” so that a seamstress earns only from 2
rubles 40 kopeks to 3 rubles per month, providing her own food, and for
this pay (at piece rates) she has to sit without a break for 12 hours a
day. “The work is very exhausting, for it calls for great strain and
assiduity.” The number of seamstresses is now about 200
( Handicraft Industry in Olonets Gubernia , Essay by
Messrs. Blagoveshchensky and Garyazin. Petrozavodsk, 1895, pp. 92-93).— Lenin

[56]
See Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II, Vol. III,
St. Petersburg, 1872. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and
Hand-Labour in Russia. Compiled by L. Maikov . Article by V
A. Pletnev. This work is the best for clarity of description of the whole
organisation of the industry. The latest works give valuable statistics and facts of the people’s life, but give a less
satisfactory exposition of the economic structure of this complex
industry. See, further, Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII, article by Mr. Pokrovsky, — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I.— Lenin

[57]
Cf. Reports and Investigations : 7 groups of industrialists: 1)
traders in leather goods; 2) buyers-up of footwear; 3) masters of big
workshops (5-6 of them), who stock leather and distribute it to home
workers; 4) masters of small workshops employing wage-workers; also give
out material to home workers; 5) one-man establishments — working either
for the market or for masters (sub 3 and 4); 6) wage-workers (craftsmen,
journeymen, boys); 7) “last-makers, notchers, and also owners and
workers in currying, greasing and gluing workshops” (p. 227,
loc . cit .). The population of Kimry village, according
to the 1897 census, is 7,017.— Lenin

[58]
The “sawyer” saws the brush blocks; the “borer” bores holes in them; the “cleaner” cleans the bristle; the
“setter” “sets” the bristle; the “joiner” glues wooden strips on the brush backs
( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. I, p. 18).— Lenin

[59]
Let us observe that in this industry, as in the above-described weaving
industries, capitalist manufacture is, strictly speaking, the economy of
yesterday. Characteristic of the post-Reform era is the transformation of
this manufacture into large-scale machine industry. The number of Gzhel
potteries using steam-engines was 1 in 1866, 2 in 1879 and 3 in 1890
(according to data in The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , Vol. I,
and Directory for 1879 and 1890).— Lenin

[60]
See above regarding the greater literacy of the population of Pavlovo and
Vorsma and the migration of peasants from the villages to these centres.— Lenin

[61]
Data from Zemstvo statistical Material , and Mr. Annensky’s
Report, and also A. N. Potresov’s researches (cited above). The
figures for the Murom district are approximate. The number of inhabitants,
according to the 1897 census, was 4,674 in Vorsma, and 12,431 in Pavlovo.— Lenin

[62]
The data we have given by no means express this predominance to the full:
as will presently be seen, the handicraftsmen who work for the market are
subjugated to capital even more than those who work for proprietors, and
the latter handicraftsmen even more than the wage-workers. The
Pavlovo industries show in strong relief that inseparable connection
between merchant’s and industrial capital which in general is
characteristic of capitalist manufacture in its relation to the small
producers.— Lenin

[63]
Connection with the land is also an important factor in reducing
earnings. The village handicraftsmen “on the whole earn less than
the Pavlovo locksmiths” (Annensky Report, p. 61). True, we must bear
in mind that the former grow their own grain, but even so “the
conditions of the ordinary village handicraftsman can scarcely be
considered better than those of the average Pavlovo locksmith” (61).— Lenin

[64]
During crises it also happens that they work literally without pay,
exchange “white for black,” i.e., finished goods for raw
materials; this happens “quite often” (Grigoryev, ibid ., 93).— Lenin

[65]
Data taken from Directory and List for the whole district, including the villages of Selitba and Vacha and their
environs. The Directory for 1890 undoubtedly included outside
workers in the total number of factory workers; we have estimated the
number of outside workers approximately, confining ourselves to a
correction only for the two biggest establishments (the Zavyalovs and
F. Varypayev). To compare the figures for “factories and
works” in the List and the Directory , only establishments with 15 and more workers must be taken (this is examined in
greater detail in our Studies , article: On the Question of Our
Factory Statistics) (See present edition, Vol. 4.— Ed .)— Lenin

[66]
In one branch of the Pavlovo industry, lock-making, there is, on the
contrary, a decline in the number of workshops employing wage-workers. A. N. Potresov ( loc . cit .), who recorded
this fact in detail, pointed to its cause — the competition of the
lock-making factory in Kovno Gubernia (Schmidt Brothers, which in 1890 had
500 workers, with an output of 500,000 rubles, and in 1894-95 had 625
workers, with an output of 730,000 rubles).— Lenin

[67]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX. The population of
Bezvodnoye village in 1897 was 3,296.— Lenin

[68]
Reports and Investigations , Vol. I. — The List gives 4
“factories” for this district, with 21 workers on premises and
29 outside workers, and output totalling 68,000 rubles.— Lenin

[69]
Reports and Investigations , I, p. 186.— Lenin

[70]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 29.— Lenin

[71]
Ibid ., No. 32.— Lenin

[72]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. 1, Sec. 2,
and Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd in 1890. — Lenin

[73]
See, for example, the List , No. 8819.— Lenin

[74]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VI, investigation
of 1880. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I (1888-1889),
cf. p. 271: “nearly the whole trade . . . is concentrated in
workshops employing wage-workers.” Cf. also Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia , Vol. II, Yaroslavl, 1896, pp. 8, 11. — List ,
p. 403.— Lenin

[75]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 19 and 30.— Lenin

[76]
A copper-smith’s workshop needs five operatives to do the different
jobs; a tray-maker’s at least 3, while a “normal workshop” needs 9 workers. “In the large establishments”
a “fine division” (of labour) is practised “with the object of increasing productivity” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., 27 and 31).— Lenin

[77]
The Directory for 1890 gives for the district of Zagarye 14
factories employing 184 workers, with an output totalling 37,000 rubles. A
comparison of these figures with the above-quoted Zemstvo statistics shows
that in this case too the factory statistics covered only the upper strata
of widely developed capitalist manufacture.— Lenin

[78]
Cf. Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[79]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, article by
Mr. A. Tillo. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. III (1893). The
industry continues to develop. Cf. letter to Russkiye Vedomosti ,
1897, No. 231. Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42. Output totals over
1 million rubles, of which about 200,000 rubles is received by the workers
and about 300,000 rubles by buyers-up and merchants.— Lenin

[80]
“Among the Krasnoye handicraftsmen every kind of article and even
every part is made by a specific craftsman, and therefore one rarely
finds, for example, rings and ear-rings, bracelets and brooches, etc.,
made in the same house; usually a particular article is made in parts by
different worker-specialists who live not only in different houses but
even in different villages” ( Reports and Investigations ,
Vol. III, p. 76).— Lenin

[81]
Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42.— Lenin

[82]
See Mr. V. Borisov’s article in Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX.— Lenin

[83]
The Tula blacksmith, Nikita Demidov Antufyev, won Peter the Great’s
favour by building an ironworks near the town of Tula; in 1702 he was
granted the Nevyansk works. His descendants were the famous Urals iron
manufacturers, the Demidovs.— Lenin

[84]
The Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. X, contain an
excellent description by Mr. Manokhin of the samovar industry in Suksun,
Perm Gubernia. Its organisation is the same as that in Tula
Gubernia. Cf. ibid ., Vol. IX, Mr. Borisov’s article on
handicraft industries at the 1882 exhibition.— Lenin

[85]
Evidently there are analogous features in the organisation of the
mechanical trades in Tula and its environs. Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated
that the number of workers employed in these industries was from 2,000 to
3,000, producing wares to a value of nearly 2 1/2 million rubles. These
“handicraftsmen” are very much under the heel of merchant’s capital. The hardware “factories” in Tula
Gubernia sometimes also have outside workers (cf. List ,
pp. 393-395).— Lenin

[86]
The development of accordion-making is also interesting as a process of
the elimination of primitive folk instruments and of the creation of a
wide, national market; without this market there could have been no
division of labour by processes, and without division of labour the
finished article could not have been produced cheaply “Owing to
their cheapness . . . the accordions have nearly everywhere displaced the
primitive string folk instrument, the balalaika” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, p. 2276).— Lenin

[87]
The Tula town census of November 29, 1891, gave 36 establishments selling
accordions and 34 accordion workshops (see Tula Gubernia Handbook for 1895 , Tula, 1895).— Lenin

[88]
Workroom owners , middlemen — owners of premises who rented them to manufacturers for the installation of hand-looms, and
themselves worked there. The middleman or workroom owner, by arrangement
with the employer, undertook to heat or repair the premises, deliver raw
materials to the weavers, send the finished product to the employer or act
as overseer. [p.386]

[95]
Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II. Vol. III. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and Hand
Labour in Russia. Part 1. Published by the Central Statistical Committee
of the Ministry of Home Affairs. St. Petersburg, 1872. [p.388]

[89]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.396]

[90]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.398]

[91]
Cadastre — a public record of the extent, value and ownership of
land, etc., for purposes of taxation. The cadastral surveys gave
particulars of land held, incomes of inhabitants and descriptions of
streets, monasteries, fortifications, etc. The oldest cadastre now extant
dates back to the 15th century, but most of those that have been preserved
relate to the 17th century. Surveys for the cadastre were made by special
commissions appointed by the central government authorities. [p.415]

[92]
The Law of June 2 , 1897 established a working day of 11
1/2 hours for industrial enterprises and railway workshops. Prior to the
adoption of this law the working day in Russia was unlimited and lasted as
long as 14 and 15 hours and even more. The tsar’s government was
forced to adopt this law due to the pressure of the working-class
movement, which was led by the “League of Struggle for the
Emancipation of the Working Class” headed by Lenin. A detailed
analysis and criticism of the law is given by Lenin in his pamphlet:
The New Factory Law . (See present edition, Vol. 2.) [p. 418]

[93]
The table that follows is based on a similar but more detailed table
published in the Vestnik Finansov , Issue No. 42, 1898. [p.423]

[94]
Prior to 1864 the gunsmiths of Tula were serfs of the state and lived in
special suburbs (slobodas). (The state blacksmiths’ sloboda, etc.)
They were divided into guilds: barrel, gun-stock, lock, instrumental,
etc. For the carrying out of auxiliary work serf-peasants from a number of
villages were attached to the Tula arms factories, their task being to
prepare charcoal for the gunsmiths, guard the forests allocated to the
factories, and do jobs in the factory yards.

In Tula at the time of their liberation from feudal dependence there were
nearly 4,000 gunsmiths, of whom 1,276 were employed in factories and 2,362
worked at home. In all, the gunsmiths and their families numbered over
20,000. [p.424]

| | I. The Rise of Manufacture and its Main Features | | | III. Technique in Manufacture. Division of Labour and its Significance | |

# The Jewellery, Samovar and Accordian Trades

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vi/vi8ii.htm#sect10

Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry

II. Capitalist Manufacture in Russian Industry

Let us begin with the industries that process fibres.

1) The Weaving Industries

The weaving of linen, wool, cotton and silk fabrics, galloons, etc., was
organised everywhere in Russia as follows (before the appearance of
large-scale machine industry). The industry was headed by big capitalist
workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers; the owners of these
workshops, possessing sizable capital, undertook the large-scale purchase
of raw material, partly working it up in their own establishments, and partly giving out yarn and warp to small producers
(workroom owners, middlemen, [88] , peasant-“handicraftsmen” etc.) who wove the cloth at home or
in small workshops at piece rates. The work itself was done by hand, and
the following operations were distributed among the workers: 1)
yarn-dyeing; 2) yarn-winding (very often women and children specialised in
this operation); 3) yarn-fixing (“fixers”); 4) weaving; 5)
weft-winding for weavers (bobbin hands, mostly children). Sometimes in the
big workshops there were special “threaders” (who threaded the
warp through the eyes of the batten and reed.) [1] of labour
is usually applied, not only to single operations, but to wares, that is,
the

weavers specialise in producing various sorts of cloth. The selection of
some operations to be done in the home does not, of course, make any
change whatever to the economic structure of this type of industry. The
workrooms or homes where the weavers work are simply external departments
of the manufactory. The technical basis of such industry is hand
production with extensive and systematic division of labour; from the
economic point of view we see here the formation of large capital which
controls the purchase of raw materials and the sale of wares on an
extremely extensive (national) market, and under whose complete sway are a
mass of proletarian weavers; a few large establishments (manufactories in
the narrow sense of the term) dominate a mass of small ones. Division of
labour leads to the emergence of specialist artisans from among the
peasantry; non-agricultural centres of manufacture arise, such as the
village of Ivanovo in Vladimir Gubernia (in 1871 it became the town of
Ivanovo-Voznesensk and is now a centre of large-scale machine industry),
the village of Velikoye in Yaroslavl Gubernia, and many other villages in
Moscow, Kostroma, Vladimir and Yaroslavl gubernias, which have now turned
into factory towns. [2]

In our economic literature and statistics the industry organised in this way is
usually split up into two parts: peasants who work in their homes, or in
not particularly big workrooms, workshops, etc., are classed under
“handicraft” industry, while the bigger workrooms and workshops are placed among the “factories and works” (and,
moreover, quite fortuitously, since no definitely established and
uniformly applied rules exist as to the separation of small establishments
from big ones, of workrooms from manufactories, of workers occupied in
their homes from workers occupied in the workshop of the capitalist). [3]

Naturally, such classification, which places some wage-workers on one
side, and some masters who hire these very wage-workers (in addition to
the workers in their establishments) on the other, is nonsense from the
scientific viewpoint.

Let us illustrate this by detailed data regarding one of the
“handicraft weaving” industries, namely, silk weaving in
Vladimir

Gubernia. [4]

The “silk industry” is a typical specimen of capitalist
manufacture. Hand labour prevails. Of the total number of establishments
the small ones constitute the majority (179 out of 313, or 57% of the
total, have from 1 to 5 workers), but in greater part they are not
independent and are far behind the big ones in their significance to the
industry as a whole. Establishments with 20 to 150 workers constitute 8%
of the total (25), but in them 41.5% of the aggregate number of workers
are concentrated, and they account for 51% of the total output. Of the
total number of workers in the industry (2,823) there are 2,092
wage-workers, i.e., 74.1%. “On the job we meet with division of
labour both in wares and in individual operations.” Weavers are
rarely able to make both “velvet” and “satin” (the two principal lines in this trade). “The division of labour into
separate operations within the workshop is most strictly practised only in
the big factories” (i.e., manufactories) “that employ wage-workers.” The fully independent proprietors number only 123,
who alone buy the raw materials themselves and sell the finished article;
they have 242 family workers and “employ 2,498 wage-workers, who in
greater part are paid by the piece,” a total, consequently, of 2,740
workers, or 97% of the aggregate number of workers. It is thus clear that
the distribution by these manufactory owners, through the medium of
“middle-men” (workroom owners), of work to be done in the home
is no special form of industry at all, but is merely one of the operations
of capital in manufacture. Mr. Kharizomenov rightly observes that the
“mass of small establishments (57%) alongside the small number of
big ones (8%), and the insignificant number of workers employed per establishment (7 1/2) conceal the true character of the trade”
( loc . cit ., 39). The specialisation characteristic of
manufacture is seen here clearly in the separation of the industrialists
from agriculture (the land is abandoned, on the one hand by the
impoverished weavers, and on the other by the big manufactory owners) and
in the formation of a special type of industrial population, who live much
more “decently” than do the agriculturists, and look down upon
the muzhik ( loc . cit ., 106). Our factory statistics have
always registered only a very casually selected fraction of this industry. [5]

The “galloon industry” in Moscow Gubernia is capitalist
manufacture organised in a quite analogous fashion. [6]

Such precisely is the case with regard to the printed calico industry in
Kamyshin Uyezd, Saratov Gubernia. According to the Directory for
1890, there were here 31 “factories” with 4,250 workers and
output totalling 265,000 rubles, while according to the List
there was one “work distributing office” with 33 workers in
the establishment and an output totalling 47,000 rubles. (In other words,
in 1890 workers employed in the establishment and on the side were lumped
together!) According to local investigators, in 1888 nearly 7,000 looms
were engaged in producing printed calico, [7] an output
totalling 2 million rubles, and “the whole business is run by a few manufacturers,” who employ
“handicraftsmen” too, including children of 6 and 7 years of
age for a payment of 7 to 8 kopeks per day ( Reports and Investigations , Vol. I). [8]

And so forth.

2) Other Branches of the Textile Industry. The Felt Trade.

To judge by official factory statistics, felt production shows a very poor
development of “capitalism”: in all European Russia there are
altogether 55 factories, with 1,212 workers and an output totalling
454,000 rubles ( Directory for 1890). But these figures merely
show a casually picked fragment of a widely developed capitalist
industry. Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia occupies first place for the
development of “factory” felt production, and in that gubernia
the principal centre of the industry is the town of Arzamas and the suburb
Viyezdnaya Sloboda (where there are 8 “factories” with 278
workers and an output totalling 120,000 rubles; in 1897 there were 3,221
inhabitants; and in the village of Krasnoye, 2,835). It is in the environs
of these centres that “handicraft” felt-making is developed,
in some 243 establishments, employing 935 workers, with an output
totalling 103,847 rubles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V). To illustrate clearly the economic organisation of
felt-making in this district, let us try the graphic method and indicate
by specific symbols the producers who occupy special places in the general
structure of the industry.

It is clear, therefore, that the separation of “factory” and
“handicraft” industry is purely artificial, that what we have
before us is a single and integral structure of industry which fully fits
into the concept of capitalist (approximately) [9] manufacture. [10]

From the technical aspect it is hand production. The organisation of the
work is that of co-operation based on division of labour, which is here
observed in two forms: as to wares (some villages specialise in plain
felt, others in boots, hats, socks, etc.), and as to individual operations (for example,
the whole village of Vasilyev Vrag shapes hats and socks for the
village of Krasnoye, where the semi-prepared article is finished,
etc.). This is capitalist co-operation, for it is headed by big capital,
which has created large manufactories and has brought under its sway (by
an intricate web of economic relations) a mass of small
establishments. The overwhelming majority of the producers have been
transformed into workers performing one operation and producing
for entrepreneurs under extremely insanitary conditions. [11]

The long standing of the industry and the fully established capitalist
relations result in the separation of the industrialists from agriculture:
in the village of Krasnoye agriculture is in utter ruin, and the life of
the inhabitants differs from that of the agricultural population. [12]

Quite analogous is the organisation of the felt industry in a number of
other districts. In 363 village communities of Semyonov Uyezd in the same
gubernia, the industry in 1889 was carried on by 3,180 households, with
4,038 persons working. Of 3,946 workers, only 752 worked for the market,
576 were wage-workers and 2,618 worked for masters on the basis, in
greater part, of using the latter’s materials; 189 households gave
out work to 1,805 households. The big owners have workshops with as many
as 25 wage-workers, and buy wool to a value of some 10,000 rubles per year. [13]

The big owners are called thousanders ; their turnover runs to from 5,000
to 100,000 rubles; they have their own wool warehouses, and their own
booths for the sale of wares. [14]

For
Kazan Gubernia the List gives 5 felt “factories,” with 122 workers and an output totalling 48,000 rubles, as well as 60
outside workers. Evidently the latter are also included among the
“handicraftsmen,” concerning whom we read that they often work
for “buyers-up” and that there are establishments having 60 workers. [15]

Of 29 felt “factories” in Kostroma Gubernia, 28 are concentrated in
Kineshma Uyezd, and have 593 workers employed in the establishments and
458 outside ( List , pp. 68-70; two of the enterprises have only
outside workers. Steam-engines already appear). From the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (XV) we learn that out of a total of
3,908 wool-carders and felt-makers in this gubernia, 2,008 are
concentrated in Kineshma Uyezd. The Kostroma felt-makers are in greater
part dependent or work for wages in extremely insanitary workshops. [16]

In
Kalyazin Uyezd, Tver Gubernia, we find, on the one hand, that home work is
done for “factory owners” ( List , 113), and, on the other, that precisely this uyezd is a centre of “handicraft”
felt-makers; as many as 3,000 of them come from this uyezd, passing
through the wasteland called “Zimnyak” (in the 60s it was the
site of Alexeyev’s cloth mill), and forming “an enormous
labour market of wool-carders and felt-makers.” [17]

In Yaroslavl Gubernia outside work for “factory owners is a]so done” ( List , 115) and there
are “handicraftsmen” who work for merchant proprietors, using
the latter’s wool, etc.

3) The Hat-and-Cap and Hemp-and-Rope Trades

Above we gave statistics for the hat industry of Moscow

Gubernia. [18]

They show that two-thirds of the total output and of the total number of
workers are concentrated in 18 establishments, which have an average of 15.6 wage-workers. [19]

The “handicraft” hat-makers perform only part of the hat-making operations: they make the shapes, which are sold to Moscow
merchants who have their own “finishing establishments”; on
the other hand, “clippers” (women who clip the down) work at
home for the “handicraft” hat-makers. Thus, all in all, we
find here capitalist co-operation based on division of labour and
entangled in a whole network of diverse forms of economic dependence. In
the centre of the industry (the village of Klenovo, Podolsk Uyezd) the
separation of the industrialists (mainly wage-workers) from agriculture [20] is
clearly to be seen, together with a rise in the level of the
population’s requirements: they live “more decently,” dress in calico and even in cloth, buy samovars, abandon ancient customs,
etc., thereby evoking the bitter complaints of the local admirers of old times. [21]

The new era even occasioned the appearance of migratory hat-makers.

A typical example of capitalist manufacture is the cap industry in the
village of Molvitino, Bui Uyezd, Kostroma

Gubernia. [22] “The principal . . . occupation in the village of Molvitino and in
. . . 36 hamlets is the cap industry.” Agriculture is being
abandoned. Since 1861 the industry has greatly developed; sewing-machines
have become widely used. In Molvitino 10 workshops are busy all year round
with 5 to 25 male and 1 to 5 female workers each. “The best workshop
. . . has a turnover of about 100,000 rubles per annum.” [23]

Work is also distributed to homes (for example, materials for the crowns
are made by women in their homes). Division of labour cripples the
workers, who work under the most insanitary conditions and usually
contract tuberculosis. The lengthy existence of the industry (for over 200
years) has produced highly skilled craftsmen; the Molvitino craftsmen are
known in the big cities and in the remote outer regions.

The centre of the hemp industry in the Medyn Uyezd, Kaluga Gubernia, is
the village of Polotnyani Zavod. This is a large village (according to the
census of 1897 it had 3,685 inhabitants) with a population that is
landless and highly industrial (over 1,000 “handicraftsmen”);
it is the centre of the “handicraft” industries of Medyn

Uyezd. [24]

The hemp industry is organised in the following way: the big proprietors (of whom
there are three, the biggest being Yerokhin) have workshops employing
wage-workers and circulating capital of more or less considerable
dimensions for purchasing raw materials. The hemp is combed in the
“factory,” spun by spinners in their homes, and twisted both
in the factory and in the home. It is warped in the factory and woven both
in the factory and in the home. In 1878 a total of 841 “handicraftsmen” was counted in the hemp industry; Yerokhin is
considered to be both a “handicraftsman” and a “factory
owner,” employing 94-64 workers in 1890 and in 1894-1895; according
to Reports and Investigations (Vol. II, p.187), “hundreds
of peasants” work for him.

In Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the rope industry is also centred in
non-agricultural industrial villages, Nizhni Izbylets and Verkhni Izbylets
in the Gorbatov

Uyezd. [25]

According to Mr. Karpov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII), the Gorbatov-Izbylets district is one large
rope-making area; part of the inhabitants of the town of Gorbatov are also
engaged in the industry, and the villages of Verkhni Izbylets and Nizhni
Izbylets are, in fact, “almost part of the town of Gorbatov”;
the inhabitants live like townspeople, drink tea every day, wear clothing
bought in the shops, and eat white bread. Altogether, as many as
two-thirds of the inhabitants of 32 villages are engaged in the industry,
a total of 4,701 working (2,096 men and 2,605 women) with an output of
about 1 1/2 million rubles. The industry has been in existence for nearly 200 years, and is now declining. It is organised as follows:
all work for 29 proprietors, using the latter’s materials, are paid
by the piece, are “totally dependent upon the proprietors” and
work from 14 to 15 hours a day. According to Zemstvo statistics (1889) the
industry employs 1,699 male workers (plus 558 females and males of
non-working age). Of 1,648 working only 197 work for sale, 1,340 work for proprietors [26] and 111 are wage-workers employed in the workshops of 58
proprietors. Of 1,288 allotment households, only 727, or a little over half, cultivate all their land themselves. Of
1,573 allotment-holding working persons, 306, or 19.4%, do not
engage in agriculture at all. Turning to the question as to who
these “proprietors” are, we must pass from the sphere of
“handicraft” industry to that of “factory” industry. According
to the List for 1894-95 there were two rope factories there, with 231 workers employed on the premises and 1,155
working outside, with an output totalling 423,000 rubles. Both
these establishments have installed motors (which they did not
have either in 1879 or in 1890), and we therefore clearly see
here the transition from capitalist manufacture to capitalist
machine industry, and the transformation of “handicraft” work
distributors and buyers-up into real factory owners.

In Perm Gubernia the handicraft census of 1894-95 registered 68 peasant
rope-and-string yards, with 343 workers (of whom 143 were hired) and an
output totalling 115,000 rubles. [27]

These small establishments are headed by big manufactories,
which are reckoned together, viz.: 6 owners employ 101 workers
(91 hired) and have an output totalling 81,000 rubles. [28]

The system of production in these big establishments may serve as the most
striking example of “serial manufacture” (as Marx calls it [89] ), i.e., the
sort of manufacture in which different workers perform different consecutive operations in working up the raw material: 1) hemp
scutching; 2) combing; 3) spinning; 4) coiling; 5) tarring; 6) winding on
drum; 7) passing threads through perforated board; 8) passing threads
through iron bush; 9) stranding of plaits, twisting and gathering of ropes. [29]

The organisation of the hemp industry in Orel Gubernia is evidently
similar: from among the considerable number of small peasant
establishments big manufactories emerge, principally in the towns, and are
included among the “factories and works” (according to the
Directory for 1890 there were in Orel Gubernia 100 hemp-scutching
factories, with 1,671 workers and an output totalling 795,000 rubles). The
peasants work in the hemp industry “for merchants” (probably
for the very same manufacturers), using the latter’s materials, at
piece rates, the work being divided up into special operations:
“scutchers” scutch the hemp; “spinners” spin it; “bearders” trim it, “wheelmen” turn the wheel. The
work is very hard; many contract consumption and “rupture.”
The dust is so thick that “unless accustomed you will not stay in it
for a quarter of an hour.” The work is done in ordinary sheds from
dawn to dusk, from May to

September. [30]

4) The Wood-Working Trades

The most typical example of capitalist manufacture in this sphere is the
chest-making industry. According to the data, for instance, of the Perm
investigators, “this industry is organised as follows: a few big
proprietors, owning workshops that employ wage-workers, purchase
materials, partly make the wares on their own premises, but mainly give
out material to small workshops making parts, and in their own shops
assemble them and, after finishing, send the ready article to
market. Division of labour . . . is employed on the job extensively: the making of the entire chest is divided into ten
or twelve operations, each separately performed by handicraftsmen. The
organisation of the industry consists in the combination of workers
performing one operation ( Teilarbeiter , as they are called in
Das Kapital ) under the command of capital .” [31]

This is heterogeneous manufacture ( heterogene Manufaktur , as Marx calls it [90] ), in which
the different workers do not perform consecutive operations in turning the
raw material into the product, but make the various parts of the product,
which are afterwards assembled. The preference of the capitalists for the
domestic work of “handicraftsmen” is to be explained partly by
the above mentioned character of manufacture, and partly (and mainly) by
the cheaper labour of the home workers. [32]

Let us observe that the relatively big workshops in this industry are sometimes
also included among “factories and works.” [33]

In all probability, the chest-making industry is organised similarly in
Vladimir Gubernia, in Murom Uyezd where, according to the List ,
there are 9 “factories” (all hand-operated), with 89 workers
on the premises and 11 outside, and an output totalling 69,810
rubles.

The carriage industry, in Perm Gubernia, for example, is organised on
similar lines: from among the mass of small establishments there emerge
assembly workshops employing wage-workers; the small handicraftsmen are
workers who make parts of the carriages both out of their own materials,
and out of materials supplied by the “buyers-up” (i.e., owners
of the assembly workshops.) [34]

We
read about the Poltava “handicraft” carriage builders that in
the suburb of Ardon there are workshops that employ wage-workers and also
distribute work to homes (the bigger masters having as many as 20 outside workers). [35]

In
Kazan Gubernia, division of labour as to wares is to be observed in the building of town carriages:
some villages specialise in sleighs, others in wheeled vehicles,
etc. “The town carriages, completely assembled in the villages (but
without the metal work, wheels or shafts), are sent to Kazan merchant
customers, who in turn send them to blacksmiths for the metal work. The
carriages are then sent back again to the shops and workshops in the town,
where they are finished off, i.e., are upholstered and painted. . . . Kazan, where town carriages were formerly iron-mounted,
gradually passed this work on to handicraftsmen, who work at home for a
smaller payment than do the town craftsmen....” [36]

Hence, capital prefers to distribute work to home workers because this reduces the cost of labour-power. The
organisation of the carriage industry, as is evident from the data quoted,
constitutes, in the majority of cases, a system of handicraftsmen making
parts, who are under the sway of capital.

The large industrial village of Vorontsovka, Pavlovsk Uyezd, Voronezh
Gubernia (9,541 inhabitants in 1897), constitutes, as it were, a single
manufactory of wooden articles ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., Vol. IX, article by Rev. M. Popov). Over 800 houses
are engaged in the industry (as well as some households in the suburb of
Alexandrovka, which has over 5,000 inhabitants). They make carts,
tarantasses, wheels, chests, etc., to a total of about 267,000
rubles. Less than one-third are independent masters; hired workers in
masters’ workshops are rare. [37]

The majority work to order for peasant merchants at piece rates. The workers
are in debt to the proprietors and are worn out by arduous toil: the
people are growing feebler. The inhabitants of the suburb are industrial,
not of the rural type, and scarcely engage in agriculture at all (except
to work vegetable plots), since their allotments are miserably small. The
industry has been long in existence, diverting the population from agriculture and increasingly widening the
rift between the rich and the poor. The people subsist on meagre food;
they dress “more smartly than before,” “but beyond their
means,” in clothing that is entirely bought. “The population
has succumbed to the spirit of industry and trade.” “Nearly
all who have no craft carry on some trading. . . . Under the influence of
industry and trade, the peasant has, generally speaking, become more
unreserved, and this has made him more developed and resourceful.” [38]

The celebrated wooden-spoon industry of the Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, is close to capitalist manufacture in its
organisation. True, there are no big workshops standing out from among the
mass of small workshops and dominating them, but we find a deeply-rooted
division of labour and the complete subjection of the mass of part-job
workers to capital. Before it is ready, the spoon passes through no less
than 10 hands, the buyers-up getting some of the operations done by
specially hired workers or giving them out to specialist workers (for
example, for varnishing); some of the villages specialise in particular
operations (for example, the village of Dyakovo specialises in spoon
finishing to the order of the buyer-up, at piece rates; the villages of
Khvostikovo, Dianovo and Zhuzhelka specialise in varnishing, etc.). The
buyers-up purchase the timber wholesale in the Samara and other gubernias,
where they send parties of hired workers; they own warehouses for raw
material and manufactured goods, supply the most valuable material to
handicraftsmen for processing, etc. The mass of workers doing part jobs
merge into a single, complex mechanism of production, entirely under the
sway of capital. “It is all the same to the spoon-makers whether
they work for hire at the master’s cost and on his premises, or are
occupied in their own cottages, for in this industry, as in others,
everything has been weighed, measured and counted. The spoon-maker never
earns more than just enough to keep body and soul together.” [39]

It is quite natural that under such conditions the capitalists who dominate the whole trade are in no hurry to open their
own workshops, and the industry, based on hand skill and traditional
division of labour, stagnates in its seclusion and immobility. Tied to the
land, the “handicraftsmen” seem to have become petrified in
their routine: as in 1879, so in 1889, they still count money in the old
style, in banknotes and not in silver.

The toy industry in Moscow Gubernia is headed similarly by establishments
of the capitalist-manufactory type. [40]

Of 481 workshops, 20 have over 10 workers each. Division of labour, both as to
wares and as to individual operations, is practised on a very wide scale,
enormously raising the productivity of labour (at the cost of crippling
the worker). For example, it is estimated that a small workshop yields a
return of 26% of the selling price, and a big workshop, one of

58%. [41]

Of course, the fixed capital of the big proprietors is also much larger; technical
devices are met with (for example, drying sheds). The centre of the
industry is a non-agricultural township, the suburb of Sergiyevsky (where
there are 1,055 workers out of a total of 1,398, with an output to the
amount of 311,000 rubles out of a total of 405,000 rubles; the population,
according to the 1897 census, numbers 15,155). The author of the article
on this industry, referring to the prevalence of small workshops, etc.,
considers it more, but still not very, likely that the industry will
develop into manufacture rather than into factory industry. “In the
future, too,” he says, “the small producers will always be
able to compete more or less successfully with large-scale
production” ( loc . cit ., 93). The author forgets that in manufacture the technical basis is always the same hand-production
that obtains in the small industries; that the division of labour can
never be such a decisive advantage that it will entirely eliminate the small producers,
particularly if the latter resort to such means as lengthening the working
day, etc.; and that manufacture is never in a position to embrace the
whole of production, but remains a mere superstructure over the mass of
small establishments.

5) The Processing of Livestock Produce. [The Leather and Fur Trades]

The most extensive areas of the leather industry present particularly
striking examples of the complete merging of “handicraft” and
factory industry, examples of capitalist manufacture highly developed (in
depth and in breadth). What is characteristic is the fact that the
gubernias which are conspicuous for the size of their “factory” leather industry (Vyatka, Nizhni-Novgorod, Perm and
Tver) are marked by a particular development of “handicraft”
industries in this sphere.

In the village of Bogorodskoye, Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia,
there were, according to the Directory for 1890, 58 “factories” with 392 workers and an output totalling 547,000
rubles; according to the List for 1894-95 there were 119
“works,” with 1,499 workers on the premises and 205 outside,
and with an output totalling 934,000 rubles (the latter figures covering
only the processing of livestock produce, the principal local
industry). But these data deal only with the top levels of
capitalist manufacture. Mr. Karpov in 1879 computed in this village and
its environs over 296 establishments, with 5,669 workers (a large number
of whom worked at home for capitalists), and with an output totalling
about 1,490,000 rubles [42] in the following industries: tanning, shingle-gluing, basket-weaving (for packing
goods), harness-making, horse-collar-making, mitten-making and, standing
by itself, pottery. The Zemstvo census of 1889 listed 4,401 industrialists
for this district, and of 1,842 workers for whom detailed information is
given, 1,119 work for hire in other people’s workshops and 405 work
at home for masters. [43] “Bogorodskoye, with its population of 8,000, is a huge tannery in continuous operation.” [44]

To be more precise, it is a “serial” manufactory controlled by a few big capitalists who buy the raw materials,
tan the hides, and turn them into a variety of articles, hiring several
thousand absolutely propertyless workers for the job and ruling over the
small

establishments. [45]

This industry has had a very long existence, since the 17th century;
particularly memorable in the industry’s history are the Sheremetevs
(beginning of the 19th century), landlords who helped considerably to
develop the industry and, incidentally, protected the proletariat, which
came into existence here long ago, from the local rich. After 1861 the
industry greatly developed, and particularly did big establishments grow
at the expense of the small ones; centuries of industrial activity
produced from among the population remarkably skilled craftsmen who have
carried the trade all over Russia. The firmly-rooted capitalist relations
have led to the separation of industry from agriculture: hardly any
farming is done in Bogorodskoye village itself, which, on the contrary,
divorces neighbouring peasants who move into this “town” from
the

land. [46]

Mr. Karpov notes in this village “a complete absence of peasant
characteristics among the inhabitants,” so that “you would
never think you were in a village and not a town.” This village
leaves Gorbatov and all the other uyezd towns of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia
far behind, with the exception, perhaps, of Arzamas. It is “one of
the considerable commercial and industrial centres in the gubernia, and its industry and
commerce run into the millions.” “The radius of the industrial
and commercial influence of Bogorodskoye is very wide; but most closely
connected with the industry of Bogorodskoye is that of its environs within
a radius of 10 to 12 versts. These industrial environs are, as it were, a
continuation of Bogorodskoye itself.” “The inhabitants of
Bogorodskoye do not in the least resemble the ordinary, raw muzhiks: they
are artisans of the burgher type, shrewd, experienced people, who look
down on the peasants. The manner of life and the ethical standards of the
Bogorodskoye inhabitants are completely urban.” To this we must add
that the industrial villages of Gorbatov Uyezd are marked by a relatively
high level of literacy among the population. Thus, the percentage of
literate and student men and women is, in the villages of Pavlovo,
Bogorodskoye and Vorsma, 37.8% and 20% respectively, as against 21.5% and
4.4% in the rest of the uyezd (see Zemstvo statistical Material ).

Quite analogous (only on a smaller scale) are the relations in the
leather-processing industries of the villages of Katunki and Gorodets
(Balakhna Uyezd), Bolshoye Murashkino (Knyaginin Uyezd), Yurino (Vasil
Uyezd), and Tubanayevka, Spasskoye, Vatras and Latyshikha in the same
uyezd. These are similar non-agricultural centres with a
“ring” of surrounding agricultural villages, and with similar
diverse industries and numerous small establishments (and also workers in
the home) subordinated to big entrepreneurs, whose capitalist workshops
are occasionally included among “factories and works.” [47]

Without going into statistical details, which will provide nothing new
compared with what has already been said, let us merely quote the
following extremely interesting description of the village of

Katunki: [48] “A certain patriarchal simplicity in the relations between masters
and workmen, which, however, is not so noticeable at first sight and is, unfortunately (?), disappearing increasingly every year
. . . testifies to the handicraft character of the industries (?). It is
only recently that the factory character both of the industries and of the
population has begun to be observed, under the influence, in particular,
of the town, intercourse with which has been facilitated by the
inauguration of the steamboat service. Today the village looks like a
regular industrial township: there is no sign of agriculture whatever, the
houses are built close together as in the towns; the fine brick houses of
the rich, and alongside of them the miserable hovels of the poor; the long
wooden and brick buildings of the factories crowded in the middle of the
village — all this sharply distinguishes Katunki from the neighbouring
villages and clearly points to the industrial character of the local
population. The inhabitants themselves possess features of character that
also call to mind the type of “factory hand” who has already
taken shape in Russia: a certain showiness in house furniture, in clothes
and manners, spendthrift habits of life in most cases, and little care for
the morrow, a forwardness and often affectation in speech, a certain
superciliousness towards the country yokel — all these features are
possessed by them in common with all Russian factory people.” [49]

In the town of Arzamas, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the “factory” statistics listed in 1890 a total of 6 tanneries,
employing 64 workers ( Directory ); this is only a small fraction
of the capitalist manufacture which embraces the fur, boot-making and
other industries. The same factories employ workers in the home, both in
the town of Arzamas (in 1878, estimated at 400) and in 5 suburban
villages, where out of the 360 furrier households, 330 work for Arzamas
merchants, using their materials and working 14 hours a day for 6 to 9
rubles per month [50] ; that is why the furriers are pallid, feeble and degenerating folk. In the suburb of Viyezdnaya Sloboda, of the 600 boot-maker households, 500 work for
masters, from whom they receive the cut-out leather. The industry is of
long standing, being about 200 years old, and is still growing and
developing. The inhabitants hardly engage in agriculture at all; their
whole manner of life is purely urban, and they live “in grand
style.” The same applies to the furrier villages mentioned above,
the inhabitants of which “look down with disdain upon the peasant
and call him a ‘country bumpkin’.” [51]

We find exactly the same thing in Vyatka Gubernia. The Vyatka and
Slobodskoi uyezds are centres both of “factory” and of “handicraft” leather and fur trades. In the Vyatka Uyezd, the
handicraft tanneries are concentrated on the outskirts of the town and
“supplement” the industrial activities of the big works, [52] for
example, by working for the big owners; working for the latter also, in
the majority of cases, are the handicraft harness-makers and glue
makers. The fur factory owners have hundreds working for them in the home,
sewing sheepskins, etc. This is just a single capitalist manufactory with
branches: sheepskin dressing and sheepskin-coat-making, leather and
harness, etc. Still more striking are the relations existing in the
Slobodskoi Uyezd (the centre of the industries is the suburb of Demyanka);
here we see a small number of big factory owners [53] at the
head of handicraft tanners (numbering 870), boot- and mitten-makers (855),
sheepskin-dressers (940), and tailors (309 make short sheepskin coats to
order from capitalists). Generally speaking, such organisation of the
production of leather goods is evidently very widespread: thus, in the
town of Sarapul, Vyatka Gubernia, the List gives 6 tanneries,
also making footwear, which employ, in addition to 214 workers on the
premises, 1,080 outside workers (p. 495). What would become of our
“handicrafts men,” those representatives of “people’s” industry who are depicted in such bright hues by all sorts of Manilovs, if all the Russian
merchants and factory owners were to compute with equal detail and
precision the outside workers employed by them? [54]

Reference should be made here to the industrial village of Rasskazovo,
Tambov Uyezd, Tambov Gubernia (population in 1897 was 8,283), a centre
both of “factory” industry (cloth mills, soap-works, tanneries
and distilleries) and of “handicraft” industry, the latter
being closely connected with the former; and to the industries: tanning,
felt-making (as many as 70 masters, and establishments employing from 20
to 30 workers), glue-making, boot-making, stocking knitting (there is not
a household where stockings are not knit from wool that
“buyers-up” give out by weight), etc. Near this village is the
suburb of Belaya Polyana (300 households), celebrated for industries of
the same kind. In Morshansk Uyezd, the centre of the handicraft industries
is the village of Pokrovskoye-Vasilyevskoye, which is also the centre of
factory industry (see Directory and Reports and Investigations , Vol. III). In Kursk Gubernia, noteworthy as
industrial villages and centres of “handicraft” industries are
the suburbs: Veliko-Mikhailovka (Novy Oskol Uyezd; population in 1897 was
11,853), Borisovka (Graivoron Uyezd — 18,071 inhabitants), Tomarovka
(Belgorod Uyezd, 8,716 inhabitants), Miropolye (Sudzha Uyezd, over 10,000
inhabitants. See Reports and Investigations , Vol. I, Information
for 1888-1889). In the same villages you will also find leather
“works” (see Directory for 1890). The principal “handicraft” industry is leather and boot-making. It arose as far back as the first half of the 18th century and reached the peak of its
development in the 60s of the 19th century having become “a stable
organisation of a purely commercial character.” The whole business
was monopolised by contractors, who bought the leather and gave it out to
be processed by handicraftsmen. The railways destroyed this monopoly
character of capital, and the capitalist contractors transferred their
capital to more profitable undertakings. Today it is organised as follows:
there are about 120 big entrepreneurs; they own workshops where
wage-workers are employed, and also distribute work to homes; there are as
many as 3,000 small independent masters (who, however, buy their leather
from the big ones); there are 400 people who work at home (for the big
masters), and as many wage-workers; then there are the apprentices. The
total number of boot-makers is over 4,000. In addition, there are
handicraft potters, icon-case makers, icon painters, table-cloth weavers,
etc.

A highly characteristic and typical example of capitalist manufacture is
the squirrel-fur industry in Kargopol Uyezd, Olonets Gubernia, described
with such knowledge of the facts, and with truthful and artless
presentation of the whole life of the industrial population by a craftsman
and teacher in the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission
(Vol. IV). According to his description (in 1878), the industry has
existed since the beginning of the 19th century: 8 masters employ 175
workers, in addition to which they have as many as 1,000 seamstresses and
some 35 families of furriers working for them at home (in different
villages), 1,300 to 1,500 persons in all, with an output totalling 336,000
rubles. As a point of interest, it should be noted that when this was a
flourishing industry it was not included in the “factory”
statistics. The Directory for 1879 makes no mention of it. But
when it began to decline the statistics included it. The
Directory for 1890 listed for the town and the uyezd of Kargopol
7 works, with 121 workers and an output totalling 50,000 rubles, whereas
the List gave 5 works, with 79 workers (plus 57 outside) and an
output totalling 49,000 rubles. [55]

The order of things prevailing in this branch of capitalist manufacture is very instructive as a specimen of what goes on
in our age-old, purely native “handicraft industries,” that
have been left stranded in one of Russia’s numerous rural
backwoods. The craftsmen work 15 hours a day in a very unhealthy
atmosphere and earn 8 rubles per month, less than 60 or 70 rubles per
year. The masters’ incomes amount to about 5,000 rubles per
annum. The relations between masters and workers are “patriarchal”: according to ancient custom, the master gives
the workers kvass and salt gratis, which they have to beg from his
cook. As a mark of gratitude to the master (for “giving” them
work) the workers come, without pay, to pull squirrel tails, and also
clean furs after work. The workers live in the workshop all the week, and
the masters knock them about, seemingly in a joke (p. 218,
loc . cit .), make them do all sorts of jobs, such as raking hay, shovelling snow, fetching water, rinsing clothes, etc. Labour
is astonishingly cheap in Kargopol itself, and the peasants in the
vicinity “are ready to work for next to nothing.” Work is done
by hand, there is systematic division of labour, and there is a lengthy
apprenticeship (8 to 12 years); the lot of the apprentices can easily be
imagined.

6) The Remaining Livestock Processing Trades

A particularly noteworthy example of capitalist manufacture is the
celebrated boot industry of the village of Kimry, Korcheva Uyezd, Tver
Gubernia, and its environs. [56]

The industry is a very old one, having existed since the 16th
century. Since the Reform, it has continued to grow and develop. In the
early 70s Pletnev counted 4 volosts in the area covered by this industry,
but in 1888 the area included 9 volosts. Basically the organisation of the
industry is as follows. It is headed by the owners of big workshops
employing wage-workers; they distribute the cut-out leather to be made up
by outside workers. Mr. Pletnev counted 20 such masters, employing 124
adults and 60 boys, with an output totalling 818,000 rubles, while the
number of workers occupied at home for these capitalists is estimated by
the author approximately at 1,769 adults and 1,833 boys. Then come the
small masters, each with 1 to 5 wage-workers and 1 to 3 boys. These
masters dispose of their goods mainly in the village market in Kimry; they
number 224 and have 460 adults and 301 boys working for them; output
totals 187,000 rubles. Hence, there are 244 masters altogether, employing
2,353 adults (of whom 1,769 work at home) and 2,194 boys (of whom 1,833
work at home), with an output totalling 1,005,000 rubles. Further, there
are workshops which do various individual operations: currying
(skin-cleaning with scraper); chipping (gluing of chips left from
currying); special carting (4 masters, with 16 employees and up to 50 horses); special
carpentry (box-making), etc. [57]

Pletnev calculated the total output at 4.7 million rubles for the whole
district. In 1881 the number of handicraftsmen was computed at 10,638, and
with migrants, 26,000, with an output totalling 3.7 million rubles. As to
conditions of labour, it is important to note the excessively long working day (14 to
15 hours) and the extremely insanitary working conditions, payment in
goods, etc. The centre of the industry, Kimry village, “is more like
a small town” ( Reports and Investigations , I, 224); the
inhabitants are poor agriculturists, and are engaged in their industry all
the year round; only the rural handicraftsmen give up the industry during
haymaking. The houses in Kimry village are urban, and the inhabitants are
distinguished for their urban habits of life (such as “showiness”). Until very recently this industry was not
included in “factory” statistics, probably because the masters
“readily style themselves handicraftsmen” ( ibid ., 228). The List has for the first time included 6 boot workshops
in Kimry district, with 15 to 40 workers each on the premises, and with no
outside workers. Of course, it contains no end of gaps.

Manufacture also includes the button industry of Moscow Gubernia,
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds — the making of buttons from hoofs and
rams’ horns. Engaged in this industry are 487 workers, employed in
52 establishments; the output totals 264,000 rubles. Establishments with
fewer than 5 employees number 16; those with 5 to 10 — 26; those with 10
and more — 10. Masters who do without wage-workers number only 10; these
work for big masters, using the latter’s materials. Only the big
industrialists (who, as is evident from the figures given, should have
from 17 to 21 workers per establishment) are quite independent. It is
they, evidently, who figure in the Directory as “factory
owners” (see p. 291: 2 establishments with an output totalling 4,000
rubles and with 73 workers). This is “serial manufacture”; the
horns are first steamed in what is called the “smithy” (a
wooden hut with a furnace); then they are passed on to the
workshop where they are cut up, after which they go to a stamping
press, where the pattern is imprinted, and, lastly, are finished and
polished on lathes. The industry has its apprentices. The working day is
14 hours. Payment in goods is a regular thing. The relations between
masters and men are patriarchal, as seen in the following: the master
calls the workers “boys,” and the pay-book is called the
“boys’ book”; when the master pays the workers, he lectures them and never grants in full their
“requests” for payment.

The horn industry, which is included in our table of small industries
(Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 31 and 33), is also of the same
type. “Handicraftsmen” employing dozens of wage-workers figure
also in the Directory as “factory owners” (p. 291). Division
of labour is practised; work is also given out to home workers (horn
trimmers). The centre of the industry in Bogorodsk Uyezd is the big
village of Khoteichi, where agriculture is receding into the background
(population in 1897 was 2,494). The Moscow Zemstvo publication stated
quite rightly: Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd ,
Moscow Gubernia , in 1890 , that this village “ is nothing but a large comb manufactory ” (p. 24,
our italics). In 1890, over 500 industrialists were counted in this
village, with an output of from 3.5 to 5.5 million combs. “More
often than not, the horn dealer is also a buyer-up of finished goods, and
in many cases a big comb-maker as well.” The position of those
makers who are compelled to take horns “at piece rates” is
particularly bad: “their position is actually worse than that of the
wage-workers in the big establishments.” Dire need compels them to
exploit the labour of their whole families beyond measure, to lengthen their working day and to put juveniles to work. “During the
winter, work in Khoteichi starts at one o’clock in the morning, and
it is hard to say for certain when it ends in the cottage of the
‘independent’ craftsman doing ‘piece-work.’”
Payment in goods is widely practised. “This system, eliminated with
such difficulty from the factories, is still in full force in the small
handicraft establishments” (27). Probably, the horn goods industry
is organised on similar lines in Kadnikov Uyezd, Vologda Gubernia, in the
area of Ustye village (known as “Ustyanshchina”), where there
are 58 hamlets. Mr. V. Borisov ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX) counts 388 handicraftsmen here, with an output
totalling 45,000 rubles; all the handicraftsmen work for capitalists, who
buy horns in St. Petersburg and tortoise-shell abroad.

At the head of the brush industry in Moscow Gubernia (see Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industry No. 20) we find big establishments with a large number
of wage-workers and with systematic division of labour. [58]

It is interesting to note at this point the changes that took place in the
organisation of this industry between 1879 and 1895 (see Moscow Zemstvo
publication: The Brush Industry According to the Investigation of 1895 ). Some well-to-do industrialists went to Moscow to carry on the
industry there. The number of industrialists increased 70%, the increase
being particularly large in the number of women (+170%) and girls
(+159%). The number of big workshops with wage-workers diminished: the
proportion of establishments with wage-workers dropped from 62% to
39%. This was due to the fact that the masters began to distribute work to be done in the home . The introduction into general use of the
drilling machine (for making holes in brush blocks) accelerated and
facilitated one of the main processes in brushmaking. The demand for
“setters” (craftsmen who “set” bristle in the block) increased; and this operation, which became increasingly
specialised, fell to the lot of women, their labour being cheaper. The
women began to work at home setting bristle, and were paid by the
piece. Thus, the growing resort to domestic industry was caused in this
case by progress in technique (drilling machine), progress in division of
labour (the women do nothing but set bristle), and progress in capitalist
exploitation (the labour of women and girls being cheaper). This example
shows very clearly that domestic industry by no means eliminates the concept of capitalist manufacture , but, on the contrary, is sometimes
even a sign of its further development .

7) The Processing of Mineral Products

In the section relating to ceramics we get an example of capitalist
manufacture in the industries of the Gzhel district (an area of 25 villages
Bronnitsi and Bogorodskoye uyezds, Moscow Gubernia). The relevant
statistics are given in our table of small industries (Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industries Nos. 15, 28 and 37). From these data it is evident that despite the enormous differences between the three Gzhel industries:
pottery, porcelain and decorative, these differences disappear as we pass
from one grade of establishment to another in each industry, and we get a
series of workshops of successively increasing dimensions. Here are the
average numbers of workers per establishment according to grade in these
three industries: 2.4 — 4.3 — 8.4 — 4.4. — 7.9 — 13.5 — 18 — 69 —
226.4. In other words, the workshops range from the very smallest to the
very biggest. There is no doubt that the big establishments belong to the
category of capitalist manufacture (inasmuch as they have not introduced
machines, have not developed into factories); what is important, however,
is not only this, but also that the small establishments are connected with the big ones ; that we have a single system of industry
here and not separate workshops of one or other type of economic
organisation. “Gzhel constitutes a single economic whole”
(Isayev, loc . cit ., 138), and the big workshops in the
district have grown slowly and gradually out of the small ones
( ibid ., 121). The work is done by hand, [59] with considerable division of labour : among the potters we find wheel
hands (specialising in different sorts of pottery), kilnmen, etc., and
sometimes special workers for preparing colours. In the manufacture of
porcelain-ware division of labour is extremely detailed: crushers, wheel
hands, feeders, kilnmen, decorators, etc. The wheel hands even specialise
in the various kinds of porcelain ware (cf. Isayev, loc . cit ., 140: in one case division of labour increases
productivity of labour by 25%). The decorators’ shops work for the
porcelain makers and are, therefore, only departments of the
latter’s manufactories, performing a special detailed operation. It
is characteristic of developed capitalist manufacture that physical
strength itself becomes a specialty. Thus, in Gzhel, some of the villages
are engaged (almost to a man) in clay digging; for heavy work not requiring special
skill (grinding), workers from the Tula and Ryazan gubernias are employed
almost exclusively, being superior in strength and vigour to the not very
robust Gzhelians. Payment in goods is widely practised. Agriculture is in
a bad way. “The Gzhelians are a degenerating race” (Isayev,
168) — weak-chested, narrow-shouldered, feeble; the decorators lose their
sight at an early age, etc. Capitalist division of labour breaks up the
worker and deforms him. The working day is from 12 to 13 hours.

8) The Metal Trades. The Pavlovo Industries

The celebrated Pavlovo lock and cutlery industries cover the whole of
Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, and Murom Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. These industries originated very long ago. Smirnov states that
as far back as 1621 there were (according to the cadastres [91] ) 11
smithies in Pavlovo. By the middle of the 19th century these industries
constituted a far-flung network of fully developed capitalist
relations. After the Reform, the industries in this district continued to
develop and expand. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889, in Gorbatov
Uyezd 13 volosts and 119 villages were engaged in industry; a total of
5,953 households, 6,570 male workers (54% of the total number working in
these villages) and 2,741 old men, juveniles and women, 9,311 persons in
all. In the Murom Uyezd, Mr. Grigoryev in 1881 registered 6 industrial
volosts, 66 villages, 1,545 households and 2,205 male workers (39% of the
total number working in these villages). Not only were large,
non-agricultural industrial villages formed (Pavlovo, Vorsma), but even
the surrounding peasants were diverted from agriculture: outside of
Pavlovo and Vorsma, in Gorbatov Uyezd, 4,492 persons were engaged in
industries, of whom 2,357, or more than half did not engage in
agriculture. Life in centres like Pavlovo has become quite urban and has
given rise to incomparably more developed requirements, more cultured
environment, clothes, manner of life, etc., than among the surrounding
“raw”

peasants. [60]

Turning to the economic organisation of the Pavlovo industries, we must
first of all note the indubitable fact that the “handicraftsmen” are headed by the most typical capitalist
manufactories. For example, in the Zavyalovs’ establishment (which
already in the 60s employed over 100 workers at the bench and has now
introduced a steam engine) a penknife passes through 8 or 9 hands: the
forger, blade-maker, handle-maker (usually an outside worker), hardener,
facer, polisher, finisher, grinder and marker. This is extensive
capitalist co-operation based on division of labour, with a considerable
number of the workers performing individual operations employed at home
and not in the capitalist’s workshop. Here are facts given by
Mr. Labzin (in 1866) on the bigger establishments in the villages of
Pavlovo, Vorsma and Vacha, covering all branches of production in this
district: 15 proprietors had 500 workers occupied on the premises and
1,134 workers outside, making a total of 1,634, with an output totalling
351,700 rubles. How far this description of economic relations is
applicable to the whole district at the present time may be seen from the
following data [61] :

Thus, the organisation of the industry as outlined by us prevails in all
the districts. All in all, about three-fifths of the total number
of workers are employed capitalistically. Here too, consequently, we find
manufacture predominating in the general structure of the industry [62] and
holding masses of workers under its sway, without, however, being able to
eradicate small production. The relative tenacity of the latter is fully
explained, firstly, by the fact that in some branches of the Pavlovo
industry mechanised production has not yet been introduced at all (for
instance, in lock-making); and, secondly, by the fact that the small
producer tries to save himself from sinking by resorting to means that
cause him to sink far lower than the wage-worker. These means are:
lengthening the working day, and reducing the standard of living and of
general requirements. “The earnings of the group of handicraftsmen
who work for proprietors are less subject to fluctuation”
(Grigoryev, loc . cit ., 65); at Zavyalovs’, for example, the lowest-paid worker is the handle-maker; “he works at
home, and that is why he is satisfied with lower earnings” (68). The
handicraftsmen who work “for factory owners” are “able to earn somewhat more than the average earnings of the one who takes his
products to the market. Larger earnings are particularly noticeable among
the workers who live in the factories” (70). [63]

The working day in the “factories” is from 14 1/2 to 15 hours,
with a maximum of 16 hours. “The working day of the home-working
handicraftsmen, on the other hand, is never less than 17 hours and
sometimes as much as 18 and even 19 hours” ( ibid .). It
would not be in the least surprising if the law of June 2, 1897 [92] caused an
increase here in home-work; it is high time these “handicraftsmen” directed their efforts towards compelling the
proprietors to organise factories! Let the reader also recall the
notorious Pavlovo “loan-purchase,” “exchange,” “wife-pawning” and similar forms of bondage and personal
degradation which grind down the quasi-independent small producer. [64]

Fortunately, rapidly developing large-scale machine industry does not so
readily tolerate these worst forms of exploitation as manufacture
does. Running ahead a little, let us quote data on the growth of factory
production in this district. [65]

We thus see that ever-increasing numbers of workers are being drawn into
large establishments, which are going over to the use of machines. [66]

9) Other Metal Trades

The industries of Bezvodnoye village, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia and Uyezd
also come under the head of capitalist manufacture. This is also an
industrial village, the majority of whose inhabitants do not engage in
agriculture at all, and which serves as the centre of an industrial area
of several villages. According to the Zemstvo census of 1889
( Material , Vol. VIII, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1895), in the Bezvodnoye
Volost (581 households) 67.3% of the households cultivated no land, 78.3%
had no horses, 82.4% engaged in industries, and 57.7% had literate persons
and schoolchildren in the family (as against an average for the uyezd of
44.6%). The Bezvodnoye industries are devoted to the production of various
metal goods: chains, fish-hooks, and metal fabrics; the output was
estimated at 2 1/2 million rubles in

1883 [67] and 1 1/2 million rubles in

1888-89. [68]

The organisation of the industry is as follows: work for proprietors, using
their materials, which is distributed among a number of workers performing
single operations and done partly in the employers’ workshops and
partly in the home. For example, in the making of fish-hooks the various
operations are performed by “benders,” “cutters” (who work in a special shed) and “pointers” (women and
children who sharpen the hook-points in their homes); all these work at
piece rates for the capitalist, while the bender gives out work on his own
account to the cutters and pointers. “Metal wire is now done by
horse-driven windlasses; formerly the wire was drawn by blind men, who
were brought here in large numbers. . . .” One of the “specialities” of capitalist manufacture! “The
conditions under which this work is done differ very much from those in
all the other trades.

People have to work in a stifling atmosphere filled with the harmful
vapours emanating from accumulated horse dung.” [69]

Organised on the same lines of capitalist manufacture are the screen, [70] the pin, [71] and the gold-thread industries. [72]

In the last-named industry at the beginning of the 80s there were 66 establishments, employing 670 workers (of
whom 79% were hired), with an output totalling 368,500 rubles;
some of these capitalist establishments were occasionally also
included among the “factories and works.” [73]

The locksmith industries of the Burmakino Volost (and surrounding volosts)
of Yaroslavl Gubernia and Uyezd are probably organised on the same
lines. At all events, here we observe the same division of labour
(blacksmiths, blowers and locksmiths), the same extensive development of
wage-labour (of 307 smithies in the Burmakino Volost, 231 employ
wage-workers), the same predominance of big capital over all these detail
workers (the buyers-up are at the top; the blacksmiths work for them, and
the locksmiths for the blacksmiths), the same combination of the buying up
of wares with the production of wares in capitalist workshops, some of
which are occasionally included among the “factories and works.” [74]

In the appendix to the preceding chapter, statistics were given on the
tray and the copper industries [75] of Moscow Gubernia (the latter in the district known as
“Zagarye”). The data show that wage-labour plays a predominant
part in these industries, that the industries are headed by large
workshops employing an average of from 18 to 23 wage-workers per
establishment, with an average output of from

16,000 to 17,000 rubles. If we add to this that division of labour is very
widely practised here, [76] it will be clear that what we have is capitalist manufacture. [77] “The small industrial units, which are an anomaly under the existing
conditions of technique and division of labour, can only hold out
alongside the big workshops by lengthening the working day to the utmost” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., p. 33) — among the tray-makers, for example, for as long as 19 hours. The ordinary working day
here is from 13 to 15 hours; with the small proprietors it is
from 16 to 17 hours. Payment in goods is widely practised (both
in 1876 and in

1890). [78]

Let us add that the lengthy existence of this industry (it arose at the beginning
of the 19th century, at the latest) and extensive specialisation have, in
this case too, produced highly skilled workers; the Zagarians are famed
for their craftsmanship. Specialities have also sprung up in the industry
which need no preliminary training and are within the grasp of even
under-age workers. “This very possibility,” Mr. Isayev rightly
observes, “of becoming an under-age worker at once and acquiring a
trade, as it were, without having to study, indicates that the handicraft
spirit, which demands the training of labour-power, is disappearing; the
simplicity of many of the detailed operations is a symptom of the
transition of handicraft to manufacture” ( loc . cit ., 34). Let us only observe that to a certain
degree the “handicraft spirit” always remains in manufacture,
for its basis is the same hand production.

10) The Jewellery, Samovar and Accordion Trades

The village of Krasnoye, Kostroma Gubernia and Uyezd, is one of the
industrial villages usually held up as centres of our “people’s” capitalist manufacture. This large village
(in 1897 it had 2,612 inhabitants) is purely urban in character; the
inhabitants live like townspeople and (with very few exceptions) do not
engage in agriculture. Krasnoye is the centre of the jewellery industry
which covers 4 volosts and 51 villages (including Sidorovskoye Volost of
Nerekhta Uyezd), and in them 735 households and about 1,706 workers. [79] “The principal representatives of industry,” said Mr. Tillo,
“are undoubtedly the big industrialists of the village of Krasnoye:
the Pushilovs, Mazovs, Sorokins, Chulkovs and other merchants. They buy
materials (gold, silver and copper), employ craftsmen, buy up finished
articles, distribute orders for work to be done in the home, supply
samples, etc.” (2043). The big industrialists have their workshops,
so-called “rabotorni” (laboratories), where the metal is
smelted and forged, then to be given out for finishing to
“handicraftsmen”; they have technical appliances, such as
“pretsi” (presses and dies for stamping), “punches” (for embossing designs), “rollers” (for
stretching the metal), benches, etc. Division of labour is widely
practised: “Nearly every article passes through several hands in an
established order in the course of manufacture. For example, in the making
of ear-rings, the master industrialist first sends the silver to his own
workshop, where part of it is rolled and part drawn into wire; then on
receipt of an order the material is given to a craftsman who, if he has a
family, divides the work among several persons; one uses a punch to cut
the silver plates into the shapes for the ear-rings, another bends the
wire into the rings with which the ear-rings are attached to the ears, a third solders these parts, and, lastly, a fourth polishes
the finished ear-rings. None of this work is difficult, or requires much
training; very often the soldering and the polishing are done by women and
by children of 7 or 8 years of age” (2041). [80]

Here, too, the working day is excessively long, usually as much as 16
hours. Payment in provisions is common.

The following statistics (published quite recently by a local assay
inspector) clearly illustrate the economic structure of the industry: [93] “Both the first groups (about two-thirds of the total number of
craftsmen) should be classed as home-working factory workers rather than
as handicraftsmen.” In the top group “wage-labour occurs more
and more frequently. . . . The craftsmen have begun to buy articles made
by others”; in the upper strata of this group “buying-up predominates,” and “four of the buyers-up have no workshops at all.” [81]

The samovar and accordion industries in Tula town and environs are highly
typical examples of capitalist manufacture. Generally speaking, the
“handicraft” industries in this district have a long history,
dating back to the 15th century. [82]

They evidenced a particularly rapid development in the middle of the 17th
century; Mr. Borisov considers that the second period in the development
of the Tula industries then began. In 1637 the first iron foundry was
built (by the Dutchman Vinius). The Tula gunsmiths formed a separate
smiths’ suburb, constituted a separate social estate, enjoying
special rights and privileges. In 1696 the first iron foundry was erected
in Tula by a famous Tula blacksmith, and the industry spread to the Urals
and

Siberia. [83]

Then began the third period in the history of the Tula industries. The
craftsmen set up their own workshops and taught the trade to surrounding
peasants. In the 1810s and 1820s the first samovar factories were
started. “By 1825 there were in Tula 43 different factories that
belonged to gunsmiths, while those in existence at the present time nearly
all belong to one-time gunsmiths, now Tula merchants” ( loc . cit ., 2262). Here, consequently, we observe a
direct continuity and connection between the old guild masters and the
principals of subsequent capitalist manufacture. In 1864 the Tula
gunsmiths were freed from serf dependence [94] and assigned to the burgher estate; earnings dropped as a consequence of the
severe competition of the village handicraftsmen (which caused a reverse
flow of industrialists from town to country); the workers turned to the
samovar, lock, cutlery, and accordion industries (the first Tula
accordions appeared in 1830-1835).

The samovar industry is at present organised as follows. It is headed by
big capitalists who own workshops employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers, but they also distribute many separate
operations to be done by workers, urban and rural, in their homes; those
who perform these operations sometimes still have their own workshops and
employ wage-workers. Naturally, side by side with the big there are small
workshops, with all the consecutive stages of dependence upon the
capitalists. Division of labour is the general basis of the whole
structure of this trade. The process of samovar-making is divided into the
following separate operations: 1) rolling the copper sheets into tubes
(tubing); 2) soldering the tubes; 3) filing the seams; 4) fitting the
bottoms; 5) beating out the shapes; 6) cleaning the insides: 7) turning
the bodies and necks; 8) plating; 9) press-punching the vents in the
bottoms and the covers; 10) assembling the samovars. Further, there are
the separate processes of casting the small copper parts: a) preparing the
moulds and b)

casting. [84]

Where work is given out to be done in the home, each of these operations may
constitute a special “handicraft” industry. One of these
“industries” was described by Mr. Borisov in Vol. VII of the
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission . This industry (samovar
tubing) consists in peasants doing at piece rates one of the operations we
have described, using merchants’ materials. The handicraftsmen left
Tula town to work in the countryside after 1861; the cost of living and
standard of requirements were lower in the countryside ( loc . cit ., p. 893). Mr. Borisov quite rightly
attributes this tenacity of the “handicraftsman” to the
retention of hand-labour in the beating out of samovars; “it will
always be profitable for the manufacturer to employ the village
handicraftsman, because he works at from 10 to 20% below the rate of the
urban artisan” (916).

Mr. Borisov estimated the value of the output of samovars in 1882 at
approximately 5 million rubles, the number of workers (handicraftsmen
included) totalling from 4,000 to 5,000. In this case also the factory
statistics cover only a fraction of capitalist manufacture. The Directory for 1879
counted in Tula Gubernia 53 samovar “factories” (all hand-operated) with 1,479 workers and an output totalling 836,000
rubles. The Directory for 1890 gives 162 factories, 2,175
workers, and an output of 1.1 million rubles; the list of firms, however,
contains only 50 factories (1 steam operated), with 1,326 workers and an
output totalling 698,000 rubles. Evidently, some hundred small
establishments were in this case classed as “factories.”
Lastly, the List gives the following for 1894-95: 25 factories (4
steam-operated), 1,202 workers (+ 607 outside), and an output totalling
1,613,000 rubles. In these data neither the number of factories nor the
number of workers are comparable (for the reason given above, and also
because of the lumping together in previous years of workers on the
premises and outside). The only thing beyond doubt is that manufacture is
being steadily displaced by large-scale machine industry: in 1879, there
were 2 factories with 100 and more workers; in 1890 there were 2 (one
steam-operated) and in 1894-95 there were 4 (three steam-operated). [85]

The accordion industry, which is at a lower stage of economic development,
is organised in precisely the same way. [86] “In the making of accordions there are
over ten separate trades” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, 236); the making of the different parts of an
accordion or the performance of some of the operations constitute
separate, quasi-independent “handicraft” industries. “When things are quiet all the handicraftsmen work for factories or for more or less big workshops, the owners of which
supply them with materials; when, however, there is a brisk demand for
accordions, a large number of small producers appear, who buy up parts
from the handicraftsmen, assemble them and take the finished articles to
the local shops where accordions are very readily purchased”
( ibid .). Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated from 2,000 to 3,000
workers in this industry, with an output totalling about 4 million rubles;
factory statistics in 1879 showed two “factories,” with 22
workers and an output totalling 5,000 rubles; in 1890, 19 factories, with
275 workers and an output totalling 82,000 rubles; in 1894-95 one factory,
with 23 workers (plus 17 outside) and an output totalling 20,000 rubles. [87]

Steam-engines are not employed at all. All these figure variations
indicate a purely haphazard picking of individual establishments which are
component parts of the complex organism of capitalist manufacture.

---
Notes:
[1]
Cf. Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VII, Pt. III
(Moscow, 1883), pp. 63-64.— Lenin

[2]
For a list of the most important towns of this type, see next chapter.— Lenin

[3]
Examples of such confusion will be given in the next chapter.— Lenin

[4]
See Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III. It would be impossible
and superfluous to give detailed data on all the weaving industries
described in the literature on our handicraft industry. Moreover, in the
majority of these industries the factory now reigns supreme. On the
subject of “handicraft weaving” see also Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vols. VI and VII. — Transactions of the Handicraft Commission — Material on Hand-Labour Statistics . [95]
— Reports and Investigations . — Korsak, loc . cit .— Lenin

[5]
The Military Statistical Abstract managed to count in Vladimir
Gubernia, in 1866, 98 silk factories (!) with 98 workers and a total
output of 4,000 rubles(!). The Directory for 1890 gives 35
factories, 2,112 workers, and 936,000 rubles. According to the
List for 1894-95 there were 98 factories, 2,281 workers, with an
output of 1,918,000 rubles, and in addition, 2,477 workers “outside
of establishments, on the side.” Just try to distinguish
“handicraftsmen” here from “factory workers”!— Lenin

[6]
According to the Directory for 1890 there were outside of Moscow
10 galloon factories, with 303 workers and an output totalling 58,000
rubles. But according to Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia
(Vol. VI, Pt. II), there were 400 establishments, with 2,619 workers (of
whom 72.8% were wage-workers) and with an output totalling 963,000 rubles.— Lenin

[7]
The Collection of Factory Inspectors’ Reports for 1903 (St. Petersburg, 1906) states that in Saratov Gubernia there were 33
distributing offices with 10,000 workers. ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[8]
The centre of this industry is Sosnovka Volost, where the Zemstvo census
of 1886 counted 4,626 households, with a population of 38,000 persons of
both sexes; 291 industrial establishments. Altogether in the volost 10% of
the households were houseless (as against 6.2% in the uyezd), and 44.5% of
the households cultivated on land (as against 22.8% in the uyezd). See
Statistical Returns for Saratou Gubernia , Vol. XI. — Capitalist
manufacture has, consequently, created industrial centres here too which
divorce the workers from the land.— Lenin

[9]
The sources are shown in the text. The number of establishments is about
half the number of independent workers (52 establishments in Vasilyev
Vrag, 5 + 55 + 110 in Krasnoye village and 21 establishments in the 4
small villages). On the other hand, the figures for the town of Arzamas
and Viyezdnaya Sloboda stands for the number of “factories,”
and not of workers.— Lenin

[10]
Let us note that the diagram given is typical of all Russian industries
organised on the lines of capitalist manufacture: everywhere at the head
of the industry we find big establishments (sometimes classed among
“factories and works”), and a mass of small establishments
completely under their sway — in a word, capitalist co-operation based on
division of labour and hand production. Non-agricultural centres are
formed by manufacture in exactly the same way, not only here, but also in
the majority of other industries.— Lenin

[11]
They are naked as they work in a temperature of 22° to 24°
Réaumur. The air is full of fine and also coarse dust, wool and
other stuff. The floors in the “factories” are earthen (in the
washing sheds of all places), etc.— Lenin

[12]
It is not without interest to note here the specific jargon of the
inhabitants of Krasnoye; this is characteristic of the territorial
isolation peculiar to manufacture. “In the village of Krasnoye
factories are given the Matroisk name of povarnyas (lit. kitchens — Ed .). . . . Matroisk is one of the
numerous branches of the Ophen dialect, the three main branches of which
are Ophen proper, spoken mainly in Vladimir Gubernia; Galivon , in Kostroma Gubernia; and Matroisk , in the
Nizhni-Novgorod and Vladimir gubernias” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , V, p 465). Only large-scale machine industry
completely destroys the local character of social ties and replaces them
by national (and international) ties.— Lenin

[13]
Material for Evaluation of the Lands of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia ,
Vol. XI, Nizhni-Novgorod, 1893, pp. 211-214.— Lenin

[14]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , VI.— Lenin

[15]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[16]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II.— Lenin

[17]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. II, p. 271.— Lenin

[18]
See Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 27.— Lenin

[19]
Some of these establishments were occasionally included among
“factories and works.” See, for example, the
Directory for 1879, p.126.— Lenin

[20]
See above, Chapter V, § VII.— Lenin

[21]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , IV, Pt.I, pp. 282-287.— Lenin

[22]
See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX, and
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[23]
By some accident, such workshops have not yet been included among
“factories and works.”— Lenin

[24]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , II.— Lenin

[25]
According to Zemstvo statistics (Vol. VII of Material ,
Nizhni-Novgorod, 1892) in these villages in 1889 there were 341 and 119
households, numbering respectively 1,277 and 540 persons of both
sexes. There were 253 and 103 allotment households. Households
participating in industries numbered 284 and 91, of which 257 and 32 did
not engage in agriculture. There were 218 and 51 horseless
households. Those leasing their allotments numbered 237 and 53.— Lenin

[26]
Cf. Nizhni-Novgorod Handbook , Vol IV, article by Rev. Roslavlev.— Lenin

[27]
Sketch of Condition of Handicraft Industry in Perm Gubernia ,
p. 158; in the table totals there is a mistake or a misprint.— Lenin

[28]
Ibid ., pp. 40 and 188 of table. To all appearances these same
establishments also figure in the List , p. 152. For the purpose
of comparing the big establishments with the small ones we have singled
out the agriculturist commodity-producers, see Studies ,
p. 156. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[29]
The Handicraft Industries of Perm Gubernia at the Siberian Urals Exhibition , Pt. III, p. 47 and foll.— Lenin

[30]
See Zemstvo statistical returns for Trubchevsk, Karachev and Orel uyezds
of Orel Gubernia. The connection between the big manufactories and the
small peasant establishments is also evident from the fact that the
employment of wage-labour develops in the latter as well: for example, in
Orel Uyezd, 16 peasant master spinners employ 77 workers.— Lenin

[31]
V. Ilyin, Studies, p. 176. (See present edition, Vol.2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[32]
See precise data on Perm handicraft census about this, ibid .,
p. 177 (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[33]
See Directory and List on Perm Gubernia and the village
of Nevyansky Zavod (non-agricultural), which is the centre of this
“handicraft industry.”— Lenin

[34]
Cf. our Studies , pp. 177-178. (See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[35]
Reports and Investigations , I.— Lenin

[36]
Reports and Investigations , III.— Lenin

[37]
There are 14 big timber merchants. These have timber-seasoning rooms
(costing about 300 rubles), of which there are 24 in the village, each
employing 6 workers. These merchants also give out materials to workers,
whom they get into their grip by advancing them money.— Lenin

[38]
It will be appropriate here to note in general the process of development
of capitalism in the timber industry. The timber merchants do not sell the
timber raw; they hire workers to dress it and to make various wooden
articles, which they then sell. See Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , etc., VIII, pp. 1268, 1314. Also Statistical Returns for Orel Gubernia , Trubchevsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[39]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol II, 1879. See also
Zemstvo statistical Material for Semyonov Uyezd, Vol. XI, 1893.— Lenin

[40]
The statistics we have given (Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 2,
7, 26) cover only a small fraction of the toy-makers; but these data show
the appearance of workshops with 11 to 18 workers.— Lenin

[41]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. II, p. 47.— Lenin

[42]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[43]
Material for the Evaluation of the Lands in Gorbatov Uyezd.— Lenin

[44]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX.— Lenin

[45]
Thus, at the head of the horse-collar industry are 13 big proprietors,
each with 10 to 30 wage-workers and 5 to 10 outside workers. The big
mitten-makers do the cutting in their own workshops (employing 2 or 3
wage-workers) and get the mittens sewn off the premises by from 10 to 20
women; these are divided into thumb-makers and stitchers , the former taking the work from the owners and
sub-dividing it among the latter, whom they exploit (information for
1879).— Lenin

[46]
In 1889, of 1,812 households (with 9,241 inhabitants) 1,469 cultivated no
land (in 1897 there were 12,342 inhabitants). The villages of Pavlovo and
Bogorodskoye differ from the other villages of Gorbatov Uyezd in that very
few of their inhabitants leave them on the contrary, of all the peasants
of the Gorbatov Uyezd who have left their villages, 14.9% live in Pavlovo
and 4.9% in Bogorodskoye. The increase of the population between 1858 and
1889 was 22.1% for the uyezd, but 42% for the village of
Bogorodskoye. (See Zemstvo statistical Material .)— Lenin

[47]
See Zemstvo statistical Material for uyezds mentioned. —
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX and VI. —
Directory and List . — Reports and Investigations , II.— Lenin

[48]
In 1889 it had 380 households (none cultivating land) with 1,305
inhabitants In the whole of the Katunki Volost, 90.6% of the households
are engaged in industries, 70.1% of working people being occupied in
industries alone (i.e., not engaging in agriculture). As regards literacy,
this volost stands far above the average for the uyezd, yielding in this
respect only to the Chernoretsk Volost, which is also non-agricultural and
has highly developed boat-building industries. The village of Bolshoye
Murashkino had in 1887 a total of 856 households (of which 853 cultivated
no land) with 3,473 persons of both sexes. According to the 1897 census,
the population of Gorodets was 6,330, of Bolshoye Murashkino 5,341, of
Yurino 2,189, of Spasskoye 4,494 and of Vatras 3,012.— Lenin

[49]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX,
p. 2567. Information for 1880.— Lenin

[50]
The conditions of the workers in the Arzamas factories are better than
those of the rural workers ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 133).— Lenin

[51]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 76.— Lenin

[52]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. XI,
p. 3084. (Cf. Directory for 1890). Included among the
handicraftsmen is the peasant-agriculturist Dolgushin, who owns a works
employing 60 workers. There are several handicraftsmen of this type.— Lenin

[53]
According to the Directory for 1890, there were some 27 masters
employing over 700 workers.— Lenin

[54]
Cf. also List , p. 489, regarding the well-known “handicraft” village of Dunilovo, Shuya Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia. The Directory for 1890 listed here 6 fur factories
employing 151 workers, while according to the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission (Vol. X) there are about 2,200 furriers and
2,300 sheepskin-coat-makers in this district; in 1877 as many as 5,500
“handicraftsmen” were counted. Probably, the making of hair
sieves in this uyezd is organised in the same way; in this industry there
are engaged about 40 villages and as many as 4,000 people, known as
“Mardassers” (from the name of this district). We have described the similar organisation of the leather and cobbling industries
in Perm Gubernia in our Studies , p. 171 and foll (See present
edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . — Ed .)— Lenin

[55]
Here is some information about the “handicraftsmen” relating
to 1894. “The squirrel furs are sewn by some of the poorest women in
the town of Kargopol and by peasant women of the Pavlovo Volost. They are
paid the very lowest price,” so that a seamstress earns only from 2
rubles 40 kopeks to 3 rubles per month, providing her own food, and for
this pay (at piece rates) she has to sit without a break for 12 hours a
day. “The work is very exhausting, for it calls for great strain and
assiduity.” The number of seamstresses is now about 200
( Handicraft Industry in Olonets Gubernia , Essay by
Messrs. Blagoveshchensky and Garyazin. Petrozavodsk, 1895, pp. 92-93).— Lenin

[56]
See Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II, Vol. III,
St. Petersburg, 1872. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and
Hand-Labour in Russia. Compiled by L. Maikov . Article by V
A. Pletnev. This work is the best for clarity of description of the whole
organisation of the industry. The latest works give valuable statistics and facts of the people’s life, but give a less
satisfactory exposition of the economic structure of this complex
industry. See, further, Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VIII, article by Mr. Pokrovsky, — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I.— Lenin

[57]
Cf. Reports and Investigations : 7 groups of industrialists: 1)
traders in leather goods; 2) buyers-up of footwear; 3) masters of big
workshops (5-6 of them), who stock leather and distribute it to home
workers; 4) masters of small workshops employing wage-workers; also give
out material to home workers; 5) one-man establishments — working either
for the market or for masters (sub 3 and 4); 6) wage-workers (craftsmen,
journeymen, boys); 7) “last-makers, notchers, and also owners and
workers in currying, greasing and gluing workshops” (p. 227,
loc . cit .). The population of Kimry village, according
to the 1897 census, is 7,017.— Lenin

[58]
The “sawyer” saws the brush blocks; the “borer” bores holes in them; the “cleaner” cleans the bristle; the
“setter” “sets” the bristle; the “joiner” glues wooden strips on the brush backs
( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. I, p. 18).— Lenin

[59]
Let us observe that in this industry, as in the above-described weaving
industries, capitalist manufacture is, strictly speaking, the economy of
yesterday. Characteristic of the post-Reform era is the transformation of
this manufacture into large-scale machine industry. The number of Gzhel
potteries using steam-engines was 1 in 1866, 2 in 1879 and 3 in 1890
(according to data in The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , Vol. I,
and Directory for 1879 and 1890).— Lenin

[60]
See above regarding the greater literacy of the population of Pavlovo and
Vorsma and the migration of peasants from the villages to these centres.— Lenin

[61]
Data from Zemstvo statistical Material , and Mr. Annensky’s
Report, and also A. N. Potresov’s researches (cited above). The
figures for the Murom district are approximate. The number of inhabitants,
according to the 1897 census, was 4,674 in Vorsma, and 12,431 in Pavlovo.— Lenin

[62]
The data we have given by no means express this predominance to the full:
as will presently be seen, the handicraftsmen who work for the market are
subjugated to capital even more than those who work for proprietors, and
the latter handicraftsmen even more than the wage-workers. The
Pavlovo industries show in strong relief that inseparable connection
between merchant’s and industrial capital which in general is
characteristic of capitalist manufacture in its relation to the small
producers.— Lenin

[63]
Connection with the land is also an important factor in reducing
earnings. The village handicraftsmen “on the whole earn less than
the Pavlovo locksmiths” (Annensky Report, p. 61). True, we must bear
in mind that the former grow their own grain, but even so “the
conditions of the ordinary village handicraftsman can scarcely be
considered better than those of the average Pavlovo locksmith” (61).— Lenin

[64]
During crises it also happens that they work literally without pay,
exchange “white for black,” i.e., finished goods for raw
materials; this happens “quite often” (Grigoryev, ibid ., 93).— Lenin

[65]
Data taken from Directory and List for the whole district, including the villages of Selitba and Vacha and their
environs. The Directory for 1890 undoubtedly included outside
workers in the total number of factory workers; we have estimated the
number of outside workers approximately, confining ourselves to a
correction only for the two biggest establishments (the Zavyalovs and
F. Varypayev). To compare the figures for “factories and
works” in the List and the Directory , only establishments with 15 and more workers must be taken (this is examined in
greater detail in our Studies , article: On the Question of Our
Factory Statistics) (See present edition, Vol. 4.— Ed .)— Lenin

[66]
In one branch of the Pavlovo industry, lock-making, there is, on the
contrary, a decline in the number of workshops employing wage-workers. A. N. Potresov ( loc . cit .), who recorded
this fact in detail, pointed to its cause — the competition of the
lock-making factory in Kovno Gubernia (Schmidt Brothers, which in 1890 had
500 workers, with an output of 500,000 rubles, and in 1894-95 had 625
workers, with an output of 730,000 rubles).— Lenin

[67]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IX. The population of
Bezvodnoye village in 1897 was 3,296.— Lenin

[68]
Reports and Investigations , Vol. I. — The List gives 4
“factories” for this district, with 21 workers on premises and
29 outside workers, and output totalling 68,000 rubles.— Lenin

[69]
Reports and Investigations , I, p. 186.— Lenin

[70]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industry No. 29.— Lenin

[71]
Ibid ., No. 32.— Lenin

[72]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. 1, Sec. 2,
and Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd in 1890. — Lenin

[73]
See, for example, the List , No. 8819.— Lenin

[74]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VI, investigation
of 1880. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. I (1888-1889),
cf. p. 271: “nearly the whole trade . . . is concentrated in
workshops employing wage-workers.” Cf. also Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia , Vol. II, Yaroslavl, 1896, pp. 8, 11. — List ,
p. 403.— Lenin

[75]
Appendix I to Chapter V, Industries Nos. 19 and 30.— Lenin

[76]
A copper-smith’s workshop needs five operatives to do the different
jobs; a tray-maker’s at least 3, while a “normal workshop” needs 9 workers. “In the large establishments”
a “fine division” (of labour) is practised “with the object of increasing productivity” (Isayev,
loc . cit ., 27 and 31).— Lenin

[77]
The Directory for 1890 gives for the district of Zagarye 14
factories employing 184 workers, with an output totalling 37,000 rubles. A
comparison of these figures with the above-quoted Zemstvo statistics shows
that in this case too the factory statistics covered only the upper strata
of widely developed capitalist manufacture.— Lenin

[78]
Cf. Handicraft Industries of Bogorodsk Uyezd .— Lenin

[79]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, article by
Mr. A. Tillo. — Reports and Investigations , Vol. III (1893). The
industry continues to develop. Cf. letter to Russkiye Vedomosti ,
1897, No. 231. Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42. Output totals over
1 million rubles, of which about 200,000 rubles is received by the workers
and about 300,000 rubles by buyers-up and merchants.— Lenin

[80]
“Among the Krasnoye handicraftsmen every kind of article and even
every part is made by a specific craftsman, and therefore one rarely
finds, for example, rings and ear-rings, bracelets and brooches, etc.,
made in the same house; usually a particular article is made in parts by
different worker-specialists who live not only in different houses but
even in different villages” ( Reports and Investigations ,
Vol. III, p. 76).— Lenin

[81]
Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 42.— Lenin

[82]
See Mr. V. Borisov’s article in Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX.— Lenin

[83]
The Tula blacksmith, Nikita Demidov Antufyev, won Peter the Great’s
favour by building an ironworks near the town of Tula; in 1702 he was
granted the Nevyansk works. His descendants were the famous Urals iron
manufacturers, the Demidovs.— Lenin

[84]
The Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. X, contain an
excellent description by Mr. Manokhin of the samovar industry in Suksun,
Perm Gubernia. Its organisation is the same as that in Tula
Gubernia. Cf. ibid ., Vol. IX, Mr. Borisov’s article on
handicraft industries at the 1882 exhibition.— Lenin

[85]
Evidently there are analogous features in the organisation of the
mechanical trades in Tula and its environs. Mr. Borisov in 1882 estimated
that the number of workers employed in these industries was from 2,000 to
3,000, producing wares to a value of nearly 2 1/2 million rubles. These
“handicraftsmen” are very much under the heel of merchant’s capital. The hardware “factories” in Tula
Gubernia sometimes also have outside workers (cf. List ,
pp. 393-395).— Lenin

[86]
The development of accordion-making is also interesting as a process of
the elimination of primitive folk instruments and of the creation of a
wide, national market; without this market there could have been no
division of labour by processes, and without division of labour the
finished article could not have been produced cheaply “Owing to
their cheapness . . . the accordions have nearly everywhere displaced the
primitive string folk instrument, the balalaika” ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. IX, p. 2276).— Lenin

[87]
The Tula town census of November 29, 1891, gave 36 establishments selling
accordions and 34 accordion workshops (see Tula Gubernia Handbook for 1895 , Tula, 1895).— Lenin

[88]
Workroom owners , middlemen — owners of premises who rented them to manufacturers for the installation of hand-looms, and
themselves worked there. The middleman or workroom owner, by arrangement
with the employer, undertook to heat or repair the premises, deliver raw
materials to the weavers, send the finished product to the employer or act
as overseer. [p.386]

[95]
Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , II. Vol. III. Material for the Study of Handicraft Industry and Hand
Labour in Russia. Part 1. Published by the Central Statistical Committee
of the Ministry of Home Affairs. St. Petersburg, 1872. [p.388]

[89]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.396]

[90]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-350. [p.398]

[91]
Cadastre — a public record of the extent, value and ownership of
land, etc., for purposes of taxation. The cadastral surveys gave
particulars of land held, incomes of inhabitants and descriptions of
streets, monasteries, fortifications, etc. The oldest cadastre now extant
dates back to the 15th century, but most of those that have been preserved
relate to the 17th century. Surveys for the cadastre were made by special
commissions appointed by the central government authorities. [p.415]

[92]
The Law of June 2 , 1897 established a working day of 11
1/2 hours for industrial enterprises and railway workshops. Prior to the
adoption of this law the working day in Russia was unlimited and lasted as
long as 14 and 15 hours and even more. The tsar’s government was
forced to adopt this law due to the pressure of the working-class
movement, which was led by the “League of Struggle for the
Emancipation of the Working Class” headed by Lenin. A detailed
analysis and criticism of the law is given by Lenin in his pamphlet:
The New Factory Law . (See present edition, Vol. 2.) [p. 418]

[93]
The table that follows is based on a similar but more detailed table
published in the Vestnik Finansov , Issue No. 42, 1898. [p.423]

[94]
Prior to 1864 the gunsmiths of Tula were serfs of the state and lived in
special suburbs (slobodas). (The state blacksmiths’ sloboda, etc.)
They were divided into guilds: barrel, gun-stock, lock, instrumental,
etc. For the carrying out of auxiliary work serf-peasants from a number of
villages were attached to the Tula arms factories, their task being to
prepare charcoal for the gunsmiths, guard the forests allocated to the
factories, and do jobs in the factory yards.

In Tula at the time of their liberation from feudal dependence there were
nearly 4,000 gunsmiths, of whom 1,276 were employed in factories and 2,362
worked at home. In all, the gunsmiths and their families numbered over
20,000. [p.424]

| | I. The Rise of Manufacture and its Main Features | | | III. Technique in Manufacture. Division of Labour and its Significance | |

# Technique in Manufacture. Division of Labour and Its Significance

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vi/vi8iii.htm

Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry

III. Technique in Manufacture. Division of Labour and its
Significance

Let us now draw conclusions from the foregoing data and see whether they
are really indicative of a special stage in the development of capitalism
in our industry.

The feature common to all the industries we have examined is the retention
of hand production and systematic, widely practised division of
labour. The process of production is split up into several single
operations performed by different specialist craftsmen. The training of
such specialists takes a fairly long time, and therefore a natural
concomitant of manufacture is apprenticeship . It is well known
that under the general conditions of commodity economy and capitalism this
gives rise to the worst forms of personal dependence and exploitation. [1]

The disappearance of apprenticeship is connected with a higher development of
manufacture and with the advent of large-scale machine industry, when
machines reduce the period of training to a minimum or when such simple
single operations arise as can be done even by children (see above example
of Zagarye).

The retention of hand production as the basis of manufacture explains its
comparative immobility, which is particularly striking when compared with
the factory. The development and extension of division of labour proceeds
very slowly, so that for whole decades (and even centuries) manufacture
retains its form once it has been adopted; as we have seen, quite a number
of the industries examined are of quite ancient origin, yet no great
changes in methods of production have been observed in the majority of
them until recently.

As for division of labour, we shall not repeat here the commonly known
tenets of theoretical economics concerning the part it plays in the
process of development of the productive powers of labour. On the basis of
hand production no other progress in technique was possible except by
division of labour. [2]

Let us merely note the two major circumstances that make clear the need for
division of labour as a preparatory stage for large-scale machine
industry. Firstly, the introduction of machines is possible only when the
production process has been split into a number of the simplest, purely
mechanical operations; machines are first used for the simplest operations and their spread to the more
complicated processes is very gradual. For example, in weaving, the
power-loom has long predominated in the production of plain fabrics,
whereas silk weaving continues to be carried on mainly by hand; in the
engineering trade the machine is applied first of all to one of the
simplest operations – grinding, etc. But this splitting of production
into the simplest operations, while being a necessary preparatory step to
the introduction of large-scale machine production, leads at the same time
to a growth of small industries. The surrounding population is enabled to
perform such detailed operations in its homes, either to order of the
manufactory owners, using their materials (bristle setting in brush
manufacture, sewing sheepskins, sheepskin coats, mittens, boots, etc., in
the leather trade, horn trimming in comb manufacture, samovar
“tubing,” etc.), or even “independently” buying the materials, making certain parts of the product and selling them to the
manufacturers (in the hat, carriage, accordion and other industries,
etc.). It seems paradoxical that the growth of small (sometimes even
“independent”) industries should be an expression of the
growth of capitalist manufacture: nevertheless it is a fact. The
“independence” of such “handicraftsmen” is quite fictitious. Their work could not be done, and their product would on
occasion even have no use-value, if there were no connection with
other detailed operations, with other parts of the product. And only
big capital , ruling (in one form or another) over a mass of
workers performing separate operations was able [3] to and did
create this connection. One of the main errors of Narodnik economics is
that it ignores or obscures the fact that the “handicraftsman”
performing a single operation is a constituent part of the capitalist
manufactory.

The second circumstance that must particularly be stressed is that
manufacture trains skilled workers. Large-scale machine industry could not
have developed so quickly in the post-Reform period had it not been preceded by a long period in
which manufacture trained workers. For instance, the investigators of the
“handicraft” weaving industry of the Pokrov Uyezd, Vladimir
Gubernia, note the remarkable “technical skill and experience”
of the weavers of Kudykino Volost (where the village of Orekhovo and the
famous Morozov mills are situated): “nowhere. . . do we find such
intensity . . . of labour . . . ; a strict division of labour between the
weaver and the bobbin-hand is invariably practised here. . . .”
“The past . . . has imparted to the Kudykinians . . . expert skill
in the technique of production . . . an ability to cope with all sorts of difficulties.” [4] “Factories cannot be erected in any village
and in any number,” we read in reference to silk weaving: “the
factory must follow the weaver into the villages where, due to migratory
labour” (or, let us add, due to domestic industry), “a contingent of proficient workers has been formed.” [5]

Establishments like the St. Petersburg boot factory [10] [6] could not have
developed so quickly if in the district around Kimry village, say, skilled
workers who have now taken to migration had not been developing for
centuries, etc. That, incidentally, is why very great importance attaches
to the formation by manufacture of a whole number of large districts which
specialised in certain trades and trained large numbers of skilled workers. [7]

Division of labour in capitalist manufacture disfigures and cripples the
worker, including the “handicraftsman” who makes single
parts. It produces virtuosi and cripples; the former as rare exceptions,
whose skill arouses the astonishment of investigators, [8] and
the latter in the shape of the mass of “handicraftsmen,” –
weak-chested, with inordinately developed arms, “curvature of the spine,” [9] etc., etc.

---
Notes:
[1]
Let us confine ourselves to one example. In the village of Borisovka,
Graivoron Uyezd, Kursk Gubernia, there is an icon-painting industry,
employing about 500 persons. The majority of the craftsmen hire no
workers, but keep apprentices, who work from 14 to 15 hours a day. When a
proposal was made to set up an art school, these craftsmen strongly
opposed it, for fear of losing the gratuitous labour-power of their
apprentices ( Reports and Investigations , I, 333). In domestic
industry the conditions of children under capitalist manufacture are no
better than those of apprentices, since the domestic worker is compelled
to lengthen the working day and exert all the efforts of his family to the
utmost.— Lenin

[2]
“The domestic form of large-scale production and manufacture are an
inevitable and to a certain extent even a desirable way out for small
independent industry when it covers a large district” (Kharizomenov,
in Yuridichesky Vestnik , 1883, No. 11, p. 435).— Lenin

[3]
Why is it that only capital was able to create this connection?
Because, as we have seen, commodity production gives rise to the scattered
condition of the small producers and to their complete differentiation,
and because the small industries bequeathed to manufacture a heritage of
capitalist workshops and merchant’s capital.— Lenin

[4]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , IV, 22.— Lenin

[5]
Ibid ., III, 63.— Lenin

[6]
In 1890 it had 514 workers and an output of 600,000 rubles; in 1894-95,
845 workers, output 1,288,000 rubles.— Lenin

[7]
This is very aptly described by the term “wholesale crafts.”
“Beginning with the 17th century,” writes Korsak, “rural
industry began to develop more perceptibly; whole villages, especially
those near Moscow and situated along the high roads, began to engage in
some particular industry; the inhabitants of some became tanners, of
others weavers, and of still others dyers, cartwrights, smiths,
etc. . . . Towards the close of the last century very many of these
wholesale crafts , as some call them, had developed in
Russia” ( loc . cit ., 119-121).— Lenin

[8]
Let us confine ourselves to two examples: Khvorov, the celebrated Pavlovo
locksmith, made 24 locks to a weight of one zolotnik (4.25
grammes. – Ed .); some of the parts of these locks were no larger
than a pin’s head (Labzin, loc . cit ., 44). One toy-maker in Moscow Gubernia spent nearly all his life finishing harnessed
horses and achieved such dexterity that he could finish 400 a day
( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. II,
pp. 38-39).— Lenin

[9]
This is how Mr. Grigoryev describes the Pavlovo handicraftsmen. “I
met one of these workers . . . who for six years had been working at the
same vice and had with his bare left foot worn more than half way through
the board on which he stood; with bitter irony he said that the employer
intended to get rid of him when he had worn the board right through”
( op . cit ., pp. 108-109).— Lenin

[10]
Lenin refers here to the factory owned by the St. Petersburg Footwear
Manufacturing Company, established in 1878. In 1894-95 the factory
employed 845 workers and the value of its output was 1,287,912 rubles
(figures taken from the List of Factories and Works , St. Petersburg, 1897, Issue No. 13450, pp. 548-549). [p. 430]

| | II. Capitalist Manufacture in Russian Industry | | | IV. The Territorial Division of Labour and the Separation of Agriculture From Industry | |

# The Territorial Division of Labour and the Separation of Agriculture from Industry

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vi/vi8iv.htm

Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry

IV. The Territorial Division of Labour and the Separation of
Agriculture From Industry

Directly connected with division of labour in general is, as has been
noted, territorial division of labour – the specialisation of certain
districts in the production of some one product, of one sort of product
and even of a certain part of a product. The predominance of hand
production, the existence of a mass of small establishments, the
preservation of the worker’s connection with the land, the tying of
the craftsman to a given trade, – all this inevitably gives rise to the
seclusion of the different industrial districts of manufacture; sometimes
this local seclusion amounts to complete isolation from the rest of the world, [1] with which
only the merchant masters have dealings.

In the following effusion Mr. Kharizomenov underrates the significance of
the territorial division of labour: “The vast distances of the
Empire go hand in hand with sharp differences of natural conditions: one
locality is rich in timber and wild animals, another in cattle, while a
third abounds in clay or iron. These natural features determined the
character of industry. The great distances and inconveniences of communication made the transport of raw materials impossible, or
extremely costly. As a result, industry had necessarily to nestle where an
abundance of raw material was close at hand. Hence the characteristic
feature of our industry – the specialisation of commodity production in
large and compact areas” ( Yuridichesky Vestnik , loc . cit ., p. 440).

Territorial division of labour is not a characteristic feature of our
industry, but of manufacture (both in Russia and in other countries); the
small industries did not produce such extensive districts, while the
factory broke down their seclusion and facilitated the transfer of
establishments and masses of workers to other places. Manufacture not only
creates compact areas, but introduces specialisation within these areas
(division of labour as to wares). The availability of raw materials in the
given locality is not at all essential for manufacture, and is hardly even
usual for it, for manufacture presupposes fairly wide commercial intercourse. [2]

Connected with the above-described features of manufacture is the
circumstance that this stage of capitalist evolution is marked by a
specific form of separation of agriculture from industry. It is no longer
the peasant who is the most typical industrialist, but the non-farming
“artisan” (and at the other pole – the merchant and the
workshop owner). In most cases (as we have seen) the industries organised
on the lines of manufacture have non-agricultural centres: either towns or
(much more often) villages, whose inhabitants hardly engage in agriculture
at all, and which should be classed as settlements of a commercial and
industrial character. The separation of industry from agriculture is here
deeply rooted in the technique of manufacture, in its economy, and in the
peculiarities of its way of life (or culture). Technique ties the worker
to one trade and therefore, on the one hand, renders him unfit for
agriculture (physically weak, etc.), and, on the other, demands continuous and long pursuit of the craft. The economic
structure of manufacture is characterised by a far deeper differentiation
among the industrialists than is the case in the small industries; and we
have seen that in the small industries, differentiation in industry is
paralleled by differentiation in agriculture. With the utter pauperisation
of the mass of producers, which is a condition and a consequence of
manufacture, its working personnel cannot be recruited from among farmers
who are at all economically sound. Among the cultural peculiarities of
manufacture are, firstly, the very lengthy (sometimes age-old) existence
of the industry, which leaves its impress upon the population; and
secondly, the higher standard of living of the population. [3]

We shall deal with the latter circumstance in greater detail further on, but first let us note
that manufacture does not bring about the complete separation of industry
from agriculture. Under hand technique the big establishments cannot
eliminate the small ones completely, especially if the small
handicraftsmen lengthen their working day and reduce the level of their
requirements: under such conditions, manufacture, as we have seen, even
develops the small industries. It is natural, therefore, that in the
majority of cases we see around the non-agricultural centre of manufacture
a whole region of agricultural settlements, the inhabitants of which also
engage in industries. Hence, in this respect, too, we find clearly
revealed the transitional character of manufacture between small hand
production and the factory. If even in the West the manufacturing period of capitalism could not bring about the
complete separation of the industrial workers from agriculture, [4] in Russia, with the
preservation of many institutions that tie the peasants to the land, such
separation could not but be retarded. Therefore, we repeat, what is most
typical of Russian capitalist manufacture is the non-agricultural centre
which attracts the population of the surrounding villages – the
inhabitants of which are semi-agriculturists and semi-industrialists –
and dominates these villages.

Particularly noteworthy in this connection is the fact of the higher
cultural level of the population of such non-agricultural centres. A
higher degree of literacy, a considerably higher standard of requirements
and life, vigorous dissociation from the “rawness” of “native village soil” – such are the usual distinguishing
features of the inhabitants of such centres. [5]

One can understand the enormous significance of this fact, which clearly demonstrates the progressive
historical role of capitalism, and moreover of purely “people’s” capitalism, which even the most ardent
Narodnik would scarcely dare characterise as “artificial,”
since the overwhelming majority of the centres described are usually
classified under the heading of “handicraft” industry! The
transitional character of manufacture is revealed here too, since it
merely begins the transformation of the mentality of the population, and
only large-scale machine industry completes it.

---
Notes:
[1]
The squirrel-fur industry in Kargopol Uyezd, the wooden spoon industry in
Semyonov Uyezd.— Lenin

[2]
Imported (i.e., not local) raw material is used in the weaving industries,
the Pavlovo and Gzhel industries, the Perm leather industries, and many
others (cf. Studies , pp. 122-124). (See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .)— Lenin

[3]
Mr. V. V. in his Essays on Handicraft Industry , assures us that
“in our country . . . there are very few localities of handicraft
industry where agriculture has been entirely abandoned” (36) – we
have shown above that, on the contrary, there are very many – and that
“the slight manifestations of division of labour that we observe in
our country must be ascribed not so much to the energy of industrial
progress as to the immobility of the size of peasant holdings. . . ”
(40). Mr. V. V. fails to notice that these “localities of handicraft
industry” are distinguished by a special system of technique,
economy and culture, and that they characterise a specific stage in the
development of capitalism. The important thing is that the majority of
“industrial villages” received the “smallest allotments” (39) – (in 1861, after their industrial life had
proceeded for scores and in some cases hundreds of years!) – and of
course, had there not been this connivance of the authorities there would
have been no capitalism.— Lenin

[4]
Das Kapital , I 2 , 779-780. [6] — Lenin

[5]
The importance of this fact impels us to supplement the data given in § II
with the following. Buturlinovka settlement, Bobrov Uyezd, Voronezh
Gubernia, is one of the centres of leather production. There are 3,681
households, of which 2,383 do not engage in agriculture. Population over
21,000. Households with literate persons constitute 53%, as against 38%
for the uyezd (Zemstvo statistical returns for Bobrov Uyezd). Pokrovskaya
settlement and Balakovo village, Samara Gubernia, each have over 15,000
inhabitants, of whom very many are from outside. Non-farming households –
50% and 42%. Literacy is above average. The statistical materials state
that the commercial and industrial villages in general are distinguished
for their higher literacy and the “mass-scale appearance of
non-farming households” (Zemstvo statistical returns for Novouzensk
and Nikolayevgk uyezds). Regarding the higher cultural level of
“handicraftsmen” cf. additionally Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , III, p. 42; VII, p. 914; Smirnov,
loc . cit ., p. 59; Grigoryev, loc . cit ., p. 106 and foll.: Annensky,
loc . cit ., p. 61, Nizhni-Novgorod Handbook , Vol. II, pp. 223-239; Reports and Investigations , II, p. 243;
III, 151. Then Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III, p. 109,
giving a lively account of the conversation of the investigator,
Mr. Kharizomenov, with his driver, a silk-weaver. This weaver strongly and
bitterly declaimed against the “drab” life of the peasants,
the scantiness of their requirements, their backwardness, etc., and wound
up with the exclamation: “Good Lord, to think what these people live
for!” It has long been observed that what the Russian peasant is
poorest in is consciousness of his own poverty. Of the artisan in the
capitalist manufactory (not to mention the factory), it must be said that
in this respect he is, comparatively speaking, very rich.— Lenin

[6]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 747-749. [p. 434]

| | III. Technique in Manufacture. Division of Labour and its Significance | | | V. The Economic Structure of Manufacture | |

# The Economic Structure of Manufacture

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vi/vi8v.htm

Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry

### V. The Economic Structure of Manufacture

In all the industries organised on the lines of manufacture that we have
examined, the vast mass of the workers are not independent, are
subordinated to capital, and receive only wages, owning neither raw
material nor finished product. At bottom, the overwhelming majority of the
workers in these “industries” are wage-workers, although this
relationship never achieves in manufacture the completeness and purity
characteristic of the factory. In manufacture, merchant’s capital is
combined with industrial capital, is interwoven with it in the most
diverse ways, and the dependence of the operative on the capitalist
assumes a host of forms and shades, from work for hire in another
person’s workshop, to work at home for a “master,” and finally to dependence in the purchase of raw material or in the sale of
the product. Under manufacture, side by side with the mass of dependent
workers, there always remains a more or less considerable number of
quasi-independent producers. But all this diversity of forms of dependence
merely covers up the main feature of manufacture, the fact that the split
between the representatives of labour and of capital is already manifested
in full force. By the time the emancipation of the peasants took place
this split in the larger centres of Russian manufacture had already been
sealed by a continuity of several generations. In all the
“industries” above examined we see a mass of people whose only
means of livelihood is to work in a condition of dependence upon members
of the propertied class; on the other hand, we see a small minority of well-to-do industrialists
who control (in one form or another) nearly the whole industry of the
given district. It is this fundamental fact that imparts to our
manufacture a pronounced capitalist character, as distinct from the
preceding stage. Dependence on capital and work for hire existed then too,
but it had not yet taken definite shape, had not yet embraced the mass of
industrialists, the mass of the population, had not given rise to a split
among the various groups of individuals participating in
production. Moreover, production itself in the preceding stage still
preserves its small dimensions – the difference between the master and
the worker is relatively small – there are scarcely any big capitalists
(who always head manufacture) – nor are there any workers tied to a
single operation and thereby tied to capital, which combines these
detailed operations into a single mechanism of production.

Here is an old writer’s evidence which strikingly confirms this
characterisation of the data cited by us above: “In the village of
Kimry, as in other so-called rich Russian villages, Pavlovo, for example,
half the population are beggars who live entirely on alms. . . . If an
operative falls sick, and moreover lives alone, he risks going the next
week without a crust of bread.” [1]

Thus, the main feature of the economy of Russian manufacture was already
fully revealed by the 60s – the contrast between the “wealth”
of a whole number of “celebrated” “villages” and the complete proletarisation of the overwhelming majority of
“handicraftsmen.” Connected with this feature is the circumstance that the most typical workers in manufacture (namely,
artisans who have entirely or virtually broken with the land) are already
gravitating towards the next, and not the preceding, stage of capitalism,
that they stand closer to the worker in large-scale machine industry than
to the peasant. The above-quoted data on the cultural level of the handicraftsmen are striking proof of this. But
that description cannot be extended to the whole mass of the working
personnel in manufacture. The retention of a vast number of small
establishments and small masters, the retention of connection with the
land and the exceedingly extensive development of work in the home – all
this leads to large numbers of “handicraftsmen” in manufacture
gravitating still towards the peasantry, towards becoming small masters,
towards the past and not the future, [2] and clinging to all sorts of illusions about the
possibility (by supreme exertion, by thrift and resource fullness) of
becoming independent masters. [3]

Here is a remarkably fair appraisal of these petty-bourgeois illusions given by an investigator of the
“handicraft industries” of Vladimir Gubernia:

“The final victory of large-scale industry over small industry, the
bringing together of the workers, scattered in numerous work rooms, within
the walls of a single silk mill, is only a matter of time, and the sooner
this victory is achieved the better it will be for the weavers.

“Characteristic of the present organisation of the silk industry are
the instability and indefiniteness of economic categories, the struggle
between large-scale production, and small production and agriculture. This
struggle drags the small master and the weaver into fevers of excitement,
yielding them nothing but divorcing them from the land, dragging them into
debt and overwhelming them in periods of depression. Concentration of
production will not reduce the weaver’s wages, but will make it
unnecessary to entice workers and intoxicate them, to attract them with
advances that do not correspond to their annual earnings. With the
diminution of mutual competition factory owners lose interest in expending
considerable sums on involving the weaver in debt. Moreover, large-scale
production so clearly counterposes the interests of the factory owner and
the workers, the wealth of the one and the poverty of the others, that the
weaver cannot develop the desire to become a factory owner himself. Small
production gives the weaver no more than large-scale production does, but
it lacks the stability of the latter and for that reason corrupts the
worker much more deeply. False hopes arise in the mind of the handicraft
weaver, he looks forward to the opportunity of setting up his own loom. To
achieve this ideal he strains himself to the utmost, falls into debt,
steals, lies, regards his fellow-weavers not as friends in misfortune, but as enemies, as competitors for the very
wretched loom that he sees in his mind’s eye in the remote
future. The small master does not understand his economic insignificance;
he cringes to the buyers-up and the factory owners, hides from his
fellow-weavers where and on what terms he buys his raw materials and sells
his product. Imagining that he is an independent master, he becomes a
voluntary and wretched tool, a plaything in the hands of the big
traders. No sooner does he succeed in dragging himself out of the mire, in
acquiring three or four looms, than he begins to talk about the troubles
of the employer, the laziness and drunkenness of the weavers, about the
necessity of insuring the factory owner against non-payment of debts. The
small master is the incarnation of industrial servility, just as in the
good old days the butler and the housekeeper were the incarnation of serf
servility. So long as the instruments of production are not entirely
divorced from the producer and the latter still has opportunities of
becoming an independent master, so long as the economic gulf between the
buyer-up and the weaver is bridged by proprietors, small masters and
middle-men, who direct and exploit the lower economic categories and are
subject to the exploitation of the upper ones, the social consciousness of
those who work is obscured and their imagination is distorted by
fictions. Competition arises where there should be solidarity, and the
interests of what are really antagonistic economic groups are united. Not
confining itself to economic exploitation, the present organisation of
silk production finds its agents among the exploited and lays upon them
the task of obscuring the minds and corrupting the hearts of those who
work” ( Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , Vol. III, pp. 124-126).

---
Notes:
[1]
N. Ovsyannikov, “Relation of the Upper Volga Area to the
Nizhni-Novgorod Fair.” Article in Nizhni-Novgorod Handbook ,
Vol. II (Nizhni-Novgorod, 1869). The author bases himself on data for
Kimry village for 1865. This author supplements his review of the fair
with a description of the social and economic relations in the industries
represented there.— Lenin

[2]
Exactly like their Narodnik ideologists.— Lenin

[3]
For isolated heroes of individual endeavour (such as Duzhkin in
V. Korolenko’s Pavlovo Sketches ) this is still possible in
the period of manufacture, but, of course, not for the mass of
propertyless workers who perform a single operation.— Lenin

| | IV. The Territorial Division of Labour and the Separation of Agriculture From Industry | | | VI. Merchant’s and Industrial Capital In Manufacture. The “Buyer-Up” and the “Factory Owner” | |

# Merchant’s and Industrial Capital in Manufacture. The " Buyer-up" and the " Factory Owner"

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vi/vi8vi.htm

Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry

VI. Merchant’s and Industrial Capital In Manufacture. The
“Buyer-Up” and the “Factory Owner”

From the data given above it is evident that along with big capitalist
workshops we always find an extremely large number of small establishments
at this stage of capitalist development; numerically, these, as a rule,
even predominate, although they play a quite subordinate role in the
sum-total of production. This retention (and even, as we have seen above,
development) of small establishments under manufacture is quite a natural
phenomenon. Under hand production, the large establishments have no
decisive advantage over the small ones; division of labour, by creating
the simplest detailed operations, facilitates the rise of small
workshops. For this reason, a typical feature of capitalist
manufacture is precisely the small number of relatively large
establishments side by side with a considerable number of small establishments. Is there any connection between the one
and the other? The data examined above leave no doubt that the connection
between them is of the closest, that it is out of the small establishments
that the large ones grow, that the small establishments are sometimes
merely outside departments of the manufactories, that in the overwhelming
majority of cases the connection between them is maintained by
merchant’s capital, which belongs to the big masters and holds sway
over the small ones. The owner of the big workshop has to buy raw
materials and sell his wares on a large scale; the bigger his turnover,
the smaller (per unit of product) are his expenses on the purchase and
sale of goods, on sorting, warehousing, etc., etc.; and so there arises
the retail reselling of raw materials to small masters, and the purchase
of their wares, which the manufactory owner resells as his own. [1]

If (as is often the case) bondage and usury are linked with these transactions in the sale of
raw materials and the purchase of wares, if the small master gets
materials on credit and delivers wares in payment of debt, the big
manufactory owner obtains a high level of profit on his capital such as he
could never obtain from wage-workers. Division of labour gives a fresh
impetus to the development of such relations of dependence of the small
masters upon the big ones: the latter either distribute materials in the
homes for making up (or for the performance of certain detailed
operations), or buy up from the “handicraftsmen” parts of
products, special sorts of products, etc. In short, the closest and most inseparable tie between merchant’s and industrial capital is
one of the most characteristic features of manufacture. The
“buyer-up” nearly always merges here with the manufactory
owner (the “factory owner,” to use the current but wrong term,
which classifies every workshop of any size as a “factory”). That is why, in the overwhelming majority of
cases, data on the scale of production of the big establishments in themselves give no idea of their real significance in our
“handicraft industries,” [2] for the owners of such establishments have at
their command the labour, not only of the workers employed in their
establishments, but of a mass of domestic workers, and even ( de facto ) of a mass of quasi-independent small masters, in relation to whom
they are “buyers-up.” [3]

The data on Russian manufacture thus bring out in striking relief the law established by the author of Capital ,
namely, that the degree of development of merchant’s capital is
inversely proportional to the degree of development of industrial capital. [4] And
indeed, we may characterise all the industries described in § II as
follows: the fewer the big workshops in them, the more is
“buying-up” developed, and vice versa; all that changes is the
form of capital that dominates in each case and that places the “independent” handicraftsman in conditions which
often are incomparably worse than those of the wage-worker.

The fundamental error of Narodnik economics is that it ignores, or glosses
over, the connection between the big and the small establishments, on the
one hand, and between merchant’s and industrial capital, on the
other. “The factory owner of the Pavlovo area is nothing more than a
complex type of buyer-up,” says Mr. Grigoryev ( loc . cit ., p. 119). That is true, not only of Pavlovo,
but of the majority of industries organised on the lines of capitalist
manufacture; the reverse is likewise true: the buyer-up in manufacture is
a complex type of “factory owner”; this, incidentally, is one
of the fundamental differences between the buyer-up in manufacture and the
buyer-up in the small peasant industries. But to see in this fact of the
connection between the “buyer-up” and the “factory owner” some argument in favour of small industry (as Mr. Grigoryev
and many other Narodniks do) means drawing absolutely arbitrary
conclusions and distorting facts to fit preconceived notions. A host of
facts testify, as we have seen, to the point that the combination of
merchant’s capital with industrial capital makes the position of the
direct producer considerably worse than that of the wage-worker, lengthens
his working day, reduces his earnings, and retards economic and cultural
development.

---
Notes:
[1]
Let us supplement the above by one other example. In the furnishing
industry of Moscow Gubernia (information dated 1876, from
Mr. Isayev’s book), the biggest industrialists are the Zemns, who
introduced the making of costly furniture and “trained generations
of skilled artisans.” In 1845 they established a sawmill of their
own (in 1894-95 – 12,000 rubles output, 14 workers, steam-engine). Let us
note that altogether in this industry there were 708 establishments, 1,979
workers, of whom 846, or 42.7%, were hired, and an output totalling
459,000 rubles. In the beginning of the 60s the Zenins began to buy raw
materials wholesale in Nizhni-Novgorod. They bought timber in waggon-loads
at 13 rubles per hundred planks and sold it to small handicraftsmen at
18-20 rubles. In 7 villages (where 116 are at work) the majority sell
furniture to Zenin, who has a furniture and plywood warehouse in Moscow
(established in 1874) with a turnover reaching 40,000 rubles. About 20
one-man jobbers are working for the Zenins.— Lenin

[2]
Here is an example illustrating what has been said above. In the village
of Negino, Trubchevsk Uyezd, Orel Gubernia, there is an oil works
employing 8 workers, with an output of 2,000 rubles ( Directory
for 1890). This small works would seem to indicate that the role of
capital in the local oil-pressing industry is very slight But the slight
development of industrial capital is merely indicative of an enormous
development of merchant’s and usurer’s capital. From the
Zemstvo statistical returns we learn of this village that of 186
households 160 are completely in the grip of the local factory owner, who
even pays all their taxes for them , lends them all they need (and that over many, many years), receiving help at a reduced
price in payment of debt. The mass of the peasants in Orel Gubernia are in
a similar state of bondage. Can one, under such circumstances, rejoice
over the slight development of industrial capital?— Lenin

[3]
One can therefore imagine what sort of picture one gets of the economic
organisation of such “handicraft industries” if the big
manufactory owners are left out of account (after all, this is not
handicraft, but factory industry!), while the “buyers-up” are
depicted as being “virtually quite superfluous and called into being
solely by the failure to organise the sale of products” (Mr. V. V.,
Essays on Handicraft Industry , 150)!— Lenin

[4]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 323. [p.440]

| | V. The Economic Structure of Manufacture | | | VII. Capitalist Domestic Industry as an Appendage of Manufacture | |

# Capitalist Domestic Industry as an Appendage of Manufacture

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vi/vi8vii.htm

Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry

### VII. Capitalist Domestic Industry as an Appendage of Manufacture

Capitalist domestic industry – i.e., the processing at home, for payment
by the piece, of raw materials obtained from an entrepreneur – is also
met with, as indicated in the preceding chapter, in the small peasant
industries. Later we shall see that it is met with again (and on a large
scale) alongside the factory, i.e., large-scale machine industry. Thus,
capitalist domestic industry is met with at all stages of the development
of capitalism in industry, but is most characteristic of manufacture. Both
the small peasant industries and large-scale machine industry manage very
easily without domestic industry. The manufactory period, however, of capitalist development, with its characteristic
retention of the worker’s connection with the land, and with an
abundance of small establishments around big ones – can be imagined with
difficulty, or hardly at all, without the distribution of home work. [1]

And the facts of
Russia do indeed show, as we have seen, that in the industries organised
on the lines of capitalist manufacture the distribution of home work is
particularly widespread. That is why we think it most appropriate to
examine in precisely this chapter the characteristic features of
capitalist domestic industry, although some of the examples quoted below
cannot be assigned specifically to manufacture.

Let us point, first of all, to the multitude of middlemen between the
capitalist and the worker in domestic industry. The big entrepreneur
cannot himself distribute materials to hundreds and thousands of workers,
scattered sometimes in different villages; what is needed is the
appearance of middle-men (in some cases even of a hierarchy of middle-men)
to take the materials in bulk and distribute them in small quantities. We
get a regular sweating system, [2] a system of the severest exploitation: the
“subcontractor” (or “workroom owner,” or “tradeswoman” in the lace industry, etc., etc.), who is close
to the worker, knows how to take advantage even of specific cases of his
distress and devises such methods of exploitation as would be
inconceivable in a big establishment, and as absolutely preclude all
possibility of control or supervision. [3]

Alongside the sweating system, and perhaps as one of its forms, should be
placed the truck system [4]

--the system of payment in provisions–which is prohibited in factories, but continues to reign in handicraft industries,
especially where the work is distributed to homes. Above, in describing
the various industries, instances were given of this widespread practice.

Further, capitalist domestic industry inevitably entails extremely
insanitary working conditions. The utter poverty of the worker, the utter
impossibility of controlling working conditions by regulations of any
kind, and the combination of the living and working premises, such are the
conditions that convert the dwellings of the home workers into hotbeds of
infection and occupational disease. In the large establishments one can
fight such things; domestic industry, however, is in this respect the most
“liberal” form of capitalist exploitation.

An excessively long working day is also an essential feature of domestic
work for the capitalist and of the small industries in general. Instances
have been given illustrating the comparative length of the working day in
the “factories” and among the “handicraftsmen.”

The drawing of women and of children of the tenderest age into production
is nearly always observed in domestic industry. To illustrate this, let us
cite some facts from a description of the women’s industries of
Moscow Gubernia. There are 10,004 women engaged in cotton winding;
children start work at the age of 5 or 6 (!); daily earnings are 10
kopeks, yearly 17 rubles. The working day in the women’s industries
in general is as much as 18 hours. In the knitting industry children start
work from the age of six, daily earnings are 10 kopeks, yearly 22
rubles. Altogether 37,514 females are employed in the women’s
industries; they begin working from the age of 5 or 6 (in 6 out of 19
industries, which 6 industries account for 32,400 female workers); the average daily earnings are 13 kopeks, yearly 26 rubles 20 kopeks. [5]

One of the most pernicious aspects of capitalist domestic industry is that
it leads to a reduction in the level of the worker’s requirements. The employer is able to recruit workers in remote districts
where the popular standard of living is particularly low and where the
worker’s connection with the land enables him to work for a bare
pittance. For example, the owner of a village stocking establishment
explains that in Moscow rents are high and that, besides, the knitters
“have to be . . . supplied with white bread . . . whereas here the
workers do the job in their own cottages and eat black bread. . . . Now
how can Moscow compete with us!” [6]

In the cotton-winding industry the explanation of the very low wages is that for the peasants’ wives, daughters, etc.,
this is merely a supplementary source of income. “Thus, the system
prevailing in this trade forces down to the utmost limit the wages of
those for whom it is the sole means of livelihood, reduces the wages of
those who obtain their livelihood exclusively by factory labour below
their minimum needs, or retards the raising of their standard of
living. In both cases it creates extremely abnormal conditions.” [7] “The factory
seeks cheap weavers,” says Mr. Kharizomenov, “and it finds
them in their native villages, far from the centres of industry. . . . That wages drop steadily as one moves from the industrial
centres to the outer regions is an undoubted fact.” [8]

Hence, the employers are perfectly well able to take advantage of the conditions
which artificially tie the population to the rural districts.

The isolation of the home workers is a no less pernicious aspect of this
system. Here is a graphic description of this aspect of the matter, as
given by buyers-up themselves: “The operations of both” (the small and the big
buyers-up of nails from the Tver blacksmiths) “are organised
according to one system – when they collect the nails, they pay partly in
money and partly in iron, and to make the blacksmiths more tractable always have them working in their homes.” [9]

These words provide a simple clue to the “vitality” of our
“handicraft” industry!

The isolation of the home workers and the abundance of middle-men
naturally lead to widespread bondage, to all kinds of personal dependence,
which usually accompany “patriarchal” relationships in remote
rural districts. Workers’ indebtedness to employers is extremely
widespread in the “handicraft” industries in general, and in
domestic industry in particular. [10]

Usually the worker is not only a
Lohnsklave but also a

Schuldsklave . [11]

Instances were given above of the conditions in which the worker is placed by the “patriarchal character” of
rural

relationships. [12]

Passing from the description of capitalist domestic industry to the
conditions making for its spread, we must first make mention of the
connection between this system and the tying of the peasant to his
allotment. The lack of freedom of movement, the necessity of occasionally
suffering monetary loss in order to get rid of land (when payments for the
land exceed returns from it, so that a peasant who leases his allotment
finds himself paying a sum to the lessee), the social-estate exclusiveness
of the peasant community – all this artificially enlarges the sphere of application of capitalist home-work, artificially binds the peasant to
these worst forms of exploitation. Obsolete institutions and an agrarian
system that is thoroughly saturated with the social-estate principle thus
exert a most pernicious influence in both agriculture and industry,
perpetuating technically backward forms of production which go hand in
hand with the greatest development of bondage and personal dependence,
with the hardest lot and the most helpless position of the working people. [13]

Furthermore, there is also an undoubted connection between home-work for
capitalists and the differentiation of the peasantry. Extensive incidence
of home-work presupposes two conditions: 1) the existence of a mass of
rural proletarians who have to sell their labour-power, and to
sell it cheaply; 2) the existence of well-to-do peasants, well
acquainted with local conditions, who can undertake the function of agents
in distributing work. A salesman sent in by the merchant will not always
be able to fulfil this function (particularly in the more or less complex
industries) and will hardly ever be able to fulfil it with such
“virtuosity” as can a local peasant, “one of themselves.” [14]

The big entrepreneurs would probably be unable to carry out half their operations in distributing work to home workers if
they did not have at their command a whole army of small entrepreneurs who
can be trusted with goods on credit or on commission, and who greedily
clutch at every opportunity of enlarging their small commercial
operations.

Finally, it is extremely important to point to the significance of
capitalist domestic industry in the theory of the surplus-population created by capitalism. No one has talked so much about
the “freeing” of the Russian workers by capitalism as have
Messrs. V. V., N.-on and other Narodniks, but none of them has taken the
trouble to analyse the specific forms of the “reserve army” of
labour that have arisen and are arising in Russia in the post-Reform
period. None of the Narodniks has even noticed the trifling detail that
home workers constitute what is, perhaps, the largest section of our
“reserve army” of capitalism. [15]

By distributing work to be done in the home the entrepreneurs are enabled to increase production immediately to
the desired dimensions without any considerable expenditure of
capital and time on setting up workshops, etc. Such an immediate
expansion of production is very often dictated by the conditions
of the market, when increased demand results from a livening up
of some large branch of industry (e.g., railway construction),
or from such circumstances as war, etc. [16]

Hence, another aspect of the process which we described in Chapter II as the formation of an agricultural proletariat
of millions, is, incidentally, the enormous development in the post-Reform
period of capitalist domestic industry. “What has become of the
hands released from the occupations of domestic, strictly natural economy,
which had in view the family and the few consumers in the neighbouring
market? The factories overcrowded with workers, the rapid expansion of large-scale domestic industry provide a clear answer”
( Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III, 20. Our italics). The
figures given in the following section will show how great the number of
workers employed by entrepreneurs in domestic industry must be in Russia
today.

---
Notes:
[1]
In Western Europe also, as we know, the manufactory period of capitalism
was distinguished by the extensive development of domestic industry – in
the weaving industries for instance. It is interesting to note that in
describing clock-making, which he cites as a classic example of
manufacture, Marx points out that the dial, spring and case are rarely
made in the manufactory itself, and that, in general, the detail worker
often works at home ( Das Kapital , 1, 2-te Aufl.,

S. 353-354). [17] — Lenin

[2]
These words are in English in the original.— Ed .

[3]
That, incidentally, is why the factory fights such middle-men, as, for
example, the “jobbers,” workers who hire workmen on their own
account. Cf. Kobelyatsky: Handbook for Factory Owners ,
etc ., St. Petersburg, 1897, p. 24 and foll. All the literature on
the handicraft industries teems with facts testifying to the extreme
exploitation of craftsmen by middle-men where work is distributed to
homes. Let us cite as an example Korsak’s general opinion,
loc . cit ., .p. 258, the description of “handicraft” weaving (quoted above), the descriptions of the
women’s industries in Moscow Gubernia ( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vols. VI and VII), and many others.— Lenin

[4]
These words are in English in the original.— Ed .

[5]
Mme. Gorbunova, who has described the women’s industries, wrongly
gives the earnings as 18 kopeks and 37 rubles 77 kopeks respectively, for
she takes only the average figures for each industry and leaves out of
account the different numbers of women working in the different industries. [18] — Lenin

[6]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VII, Pt. II,
p. 104.— Lenin

[7]
Ibid ., p. 285.— Lenin

[8]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III, 63. Cf. ibid ., 250.— Lenin

[9]
Reports and Investigations , 1, 218. Cf. ibid ., 280:
statement by factory owner Irodov that he finds it more profitable to give
out work to hand weavers working in their homes.— Lenin

[10]
Examples of workers’ indebtedness to employers in the brush industry
of Moscow Gubernia ( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia ,
Vol. VI, Pt. I, p. 32), the comb industry ( ibid ., 261), the toy
industry (Vol. VI, Pt. II, 44), the stone-setting industry, etc., etc. In
the silk industry the weaver is up to his ears in debt to the factory
owner, who pays his taxes and, in general, “rents the weaver as one
rents land,” etc. ( Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III,
51-55).— Lenin

[11]
Not only a wage-slave, but also a debt-slave.— Lenin

[12]
“Of course,” we read of the blacksmiths of Nizhni-Novgorod
Gubernia, “here, too, the master exploits the worker’s labour,
but to a lesser degree (?), and moreover it is done patriarchally, as it
were, by common consent (!) without any misunderstandings”
( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , IV, 199).— Lenin

[13]
Of course, in all capitalist society there will always be a rural
proletariat that agrees to take home-work on the worst terms; but obsolete
institutions enlarge the sphere of application of domestic industry and
hinder the struggle against it. Korsak, as far back as 1861, pointed to
the connection between the tremendously widespread nature of domestic
industry in Russia and our agrarian system ( loc . cit .,
305-307).— Lenin

[14]
We have seen that the big master-industrialists, the buyers up, workroom
owners and subcontractors are at the same time well to-do
agriculturists. “The subcontractor,” we read, for example, in
a description of galloon-weaving in Moscow Gubernia ( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. II, p. 147), “is a
peasant just like his weaver, but has a cottage, a horse and a cow more
than the weaver has, and perhaps is able with his whole family to drink
tea twice a day.”— Lenin

[15]
This error of the Narodniks is all the more gross in that the majority of
them want to follow the theory of Marx, who most emphatically stressed the
capitalist character of “modern domestic industry” and pointed especially to the fact that these home workers constitute one of the forms of the relative surplus-population characteristic of capitalism . ( Das Kapital , I2, S. S. 503 u. ff.; 668 u. ff.;
Chapter 23, § 4 particularly.) [19] — Lenin

[16]
A small example. In Moscow Gubernia, the tailoring industry is widespread
(Zemstvo statistics counted in the gubernia at the end of the 1870s a
total of 1,123 tailors working locally and 4,291 working away from home);
most of the tailors worked for the Moscow ready-made clothing
merchants. The centre of the industry is the Perkhushkovo Volost,
Zvenigorod Uyezd (see data on the Perkhushkovo tailors in Appendix I to
Chapter V, Industry No. 36). The Perkhushkovo tailors did particularly
well during the war of 1877. They made army tents to the order of special
contractors; subcontractors with 3 sewing-machines and ten women day
workers “made” from 5 to 6 rubles a day. The women were paid
20 kopeks per day. “It is said that in those busy days over 300
women day workers from various surrounding villages lived in Shadrino (the
principal village in the Perkhushkovo Volost)” ( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VI, Pt. II,
loc . cit ., 256). “At that time the Perkhushkovo tailors, that is, the owners of the workshops, made so much money that
nearly all of them built themselves fine homes” ( ibid .). These hundreds of women day workers who, perhaps, would
have a busy season once in 5 to 10 years, must always be available, in the
ranks of the reserve army of the proletariat.— Lenin

[17]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 342-343. [p.442]

[18]
The reference here is to M. K. Gorbunova’s Women’s Industries in Moscow Gubernia , Part IV ( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia . Section covering economic statistics, Vol. VII, Part
II, Moscow, 1882). Introduction, p. IX. [p.444]

[19]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 478, etc., pp. 643,
etc.; Chapter XXV, Section 4 particularly. [p.447]

| | VI. Merchant’s and Industrial Capital In Manufacture. The “Buyer-Up” and the “Factory Owner” | | | VIII. What Is “Handicraft” Industry? | |

# What Is " Handicraft" Industry?

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vi/vi8viii.htm

Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry

### VIII. What Is “Handicraft” Industry?

In the two preceding chapters we dealt mainly with what in Russia is
usually called “handicraft” industry; we may now try to answer
the question put in the heading.

Let us begin with some statistics, so as to judge which of the forms of
industry analysed above figure in publications among the general mass of
“handicraft industries.”

The Moscow statisticians, in concluding their investigation of the peasant
“industries,” summarised all and sundry non-agricultural
occupations. They listed altogether 141,329 persons (Vol. VII, Pt. III)
engaged in local industries (in the making of commodities), but among
these were included artisans (a section of the shoe-makers, glaziers and
many others), wood sawyers, etc., etc. Not fewer than 87,000 (according to
our calculations of the different industries) were domestic workers
employed by capitalists. [1]

The number of wage-workers in the 54 industries for which we have been able to
combine the data is 17,566, out of 29,446, i.e., 59.65%. For Vladimir
Gubernia we have obtained the following results (from five issues of
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia ): altogether, 18,286 engaged in
31 industries; of these 15,447 were engaged in industries in which capitalist domestic industry predominates (including
5,504 wage-workers, i.e., hirelings of the second degree, so to
speak). Further, there are 150 rural artisans (of whom 45 are hired) and
2,689 small commodity producers (of whom 511 are hired). The total number
of capitalistically engaged workers is (15,447 + 45 + 511 =) 16,003, i.e., 87.5%. [2]

In Kostroma
Gubernia (on the basis of Mr. Tillo’s tables in the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission ), there are 83,633 local
industrialists, of whom 19,701 are lumber-workers (fine
“handicraftsmen”!), while 29,564 work in their homes for
capitalists; some 19,954 are engaged in industries in which small
commodity-producers predominate, and some 14,414 are village artisans. [3]

In 9 uyezds of Vyatka Gubernia there are (according to the same
Transactions ) 60,019 local industrialists; of these, 9,672 are
millers and oil-pressers; 2,032 are pure artisans (engaged in
fabric-dyeing); 14,928 are partly artisans and partly commodity-producers,
the overwhelming majority working independently; 14,424 engage in
industries partly subordinated to capital; 14,875 engage in industries
entirely subordinated to capital; 4,088 engage in industries in which wage-labour completely predominates.

On the basis of the data in the Transactions regarding the other
gubernias we have compiled a table of those industries on the organisation of which more or less detailed information is
available. We get 97 industries employing 107,957 persons, with an output
totalling 21,151,000 rubles. Of these, industries in which wage-labour and
capitalist domestic industry predominate employ 70,204 persons (18,621,000
rubles); industries in which wage-workers and workers occupied at home for
capitalists constitute only a minority employ 26,935 persons (1,706,000
rubles); and, finally, industries in which independent labour almost
completely predominates employ 10,818 persons (824,000 rubles). According
to Zemstvo statistical materials regarding 7 industries of Gorbatov and
Semyonov uyezds of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, there are 16,303
handicraftsmen, of whom 4,614 work for the local market; 8,520 work
“for a master,” and 3,169 as wage-workers; in other words,
11,689 are capitalistically employed workers. According to the returns of
the 1894-95 Perm handicraft census, of 26,000 handicraftsmen, 6,500 (25%)
are wage-workers, and 5,200 (20%) work for buyers-up, in other words, 45%
are capitalistically employed workers. [4]

Fragmentary as the data are (no others were available), they nevertheless
clearly show that, taken as a whole, a mass of capitalistically employed
workers are classified among the “handicraftsmen.” For instance, those working at home for capitalists number (according to the
above-quoted data) over 200,000. And this is for some 50 or 60 uyezds, by
no means all of which have been investigated thoroughly. For the whole of
Russia the number of workers of this type must be something like two million. [5]

If to these are added the wage-workers employed by “handicraftsmen” – and, as may
be seen from the above-quoted figures, their number is by no means as
small as is sometimes thought here in Russia – we shall have to concede
that the figure of 2 million industrial workers capitalistically employed
outside the so-called “factories and works” is, if anything, a
minimum

figure. [6]

To the question – “What is handicraft industry?” – the data
quoted in the last two chapters compel us to give the answer that the term
used is absolutely unsuitable for purposes of scientific investigation,
and is one usually employed to cover all and sundry forms of industry,
from domestic industries and handicrafts to wage-labour in very large manufactories. [7]

This lumping together of the most diverse types of economic organisation,
which prevails in a host of descriptions of “handicraft industries,” [8] was taken over quite uncritically and quite senselessly by the Narodnik
economists, who made a tremendous step backward by comparison, for
example, with a writer like Korsak, and availed themselves of the
prevailing confusion of terms to evolve the most curious
theories. “Handicraft industry” was regarded as something
economically homogeneous, something sufficient unto itself, and was
“ counterposed ” ( sic !) to “capitalism,” which without further ado was taken to mean
“factory” industry. Let us take Mr. N.-on, for instance. On
p. 79 of his Sketches we find the heading “Capitalisation
(?) of

Industries,” [9] and then, without any reservation or explanation, “Data on Factories.”. . . The simplicity is
positively touching: “capitalism” = “factory industry,” and factory industry = what is classified under this
heading in official publications. And on the basis of such a
profound “analysis” the masses of capitalistically employed
workers included among the “handicraftsmen” are wiped off
capitalism’s account. On the basis of this sort of “analysis” the question of the different forms of industry in
Russia is completely evaded. On the basis of this sort of
“analysis” one of the most absurd and pernicious prejudices is
built up concerning the distinction between our “handicraft”
industry and our “factory” industry, the divorcement of the
latter from the former, the “artificial character” of “factory” industry, etc. It is a prejudice because no one has
ever so much as attempted to examine the data, which in all branches of industry show a very close and inseparable connection between
“handicraft” industry and “factory” industry.

The object of this chapter has been to show in what precisely this
connection consists and precisely which specific technical, economic and
cultural features are represented by the form of industry that in Russia
stands between small-scale industry and large-scale machine industry.

---
Notes:
[1]
Let us recall that Mr. Kharizomenov (article quoted above) calculated that
of 102,245 persons engaged in 42 industries of Moscow Gubernia, 66% were
engaged in industries where there was an absolute predominance of the
domestic system of large-scale production.— Lenin

[2]
Unfortunately, we are unable to acquaint ourselves with the latest work on
handicraft industry in Yaroslavl Gubernia ( Handicraft Industries . Published by Statistical Bureau of Yaroslavl Gubernia
Zemstvo. Yaroslavl, 1904). Judging from the detailed review in
Russkiye Vedomosti (1904, No. 248), it is an extremely valuable
piece of research. The number of handicraftsmen in the gubernia is
estimated as 18,000 (the number of factory workers in 1903 was placed at
33,898). Industries are on the decline. One-fifth of the enterprises
employ wage-workers. One quarter of the total number of handicraftsmen are
wage-workers. Of the total number of handicraftsmen 15% are engaged in
establishments with 5 and more workers. Exactly one half of all the
handicraftsmen work for masters, with materials supplied by the
latter. Agriculture is on the decline; one-sixth of the handicraftsmen
have neither horses nor cows, one-third cultivate by hiring a neighbour;
one-fifth have no land under crops. The earnings of a handicraftsman are 1
1/2, rubles a week! ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[3]
All these figures are approximate, for the source does not give precise
figures. Among the village artisans are included millers, blacksmiths,
etc., etc.— Lenin

[4]
See Studies , pp. 181-182. The figures for “handicraftsmen” here include artisans (25%). If we exclude
the artisans, we get 29.3% wage-workers and 29.5% working for buyers-up
(p. 122), i.e., 58.8% are capitalistically employed workers. (See present
edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .)— Lenin

[5]
For example, capitalist work in the home is particularly developed in the
ready-made clothing industry, which is growing rapidly. “The demand
for such an article of prime necessity as ready made clothing is
increasing from year to year” ( Vestnik Finansov , 1897
No. 52, Survey of Nizhni-Novgorod Fair). The enormous development of this
industry has taken place only since the 80s. At the present time, in
Moscow alone ready-made clothing is produced to a total value of not less
than 16 million rubles, with some 20,000 workers employed. It is estimated
that for the whole of Russia the output reaches the sum of 100 million
rubles ( Successes of Russian Industry According to Surveys of Expert Commissions , St. Petersburg 1897, pp. l36-137). In St. Petersburg,
the 1890 census gave the number employed in ready-made clothing (Group XI,
Classes 116-118) as 39,912, counting members of industrialists families,
including 19,000 workers, and 13,000 one-man producers with their families
( St. Petersburg According to the Census of December 15 , 1890 ). The 1897 census shows that the total number of persons employed in
the clothing industry in Russia was 1,158,865, the members of their
families numbering 1,621,511; total 2,780,376. ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[6]
Let us recall that the number of “handicraftsmen” in Russia is
estimated at no less than 4 million (Mr. Kharizomenov’s figure
Mr. Andreyev gave the figure of 7 1/2 million, but his methods are too sweeping) [10] ; consequently, the total figures given in the text cover about one-tenth of
the total number of “handicraftsmen.”— Lenin

[7]
Cf. Studies , p. 179 and foll. (See present edition, Vol, 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .)— Lenin

[8]
The desire to retain the term “handicraftsmanship” for the
purpose of scientifically defining forms of industry has led in our
publications to purely scholastic arguments about, and definitions of,
this “handicraftsmanship.” One economist “understood” handicraftsmen to mean only commodity-producers,
while another included artisans in this term; one considered connection
with the land as an essential feature, while another allowed for
exceptions; one excluded wage-labour, while another allowed for it where,
for example, there were up to 16 workers, etc., etc. It goes without
saying that arguments of this sort (instead of investigation of the
different forms of industry) could lead nowhere. Let us observe that the
tenacity of the special term “handicraftsmanship” is to be
explained most of all by the social-estate divisions in Russian society; a
“handicraftsman” is an industrialist belonging to the lower
estates, a person who may be patronised and in relation to whom schemes
may be concocted without compunction; the form of industry is left out of
account. The merchant, however and the member of the nobility (even though
they be small industrialists) are rarely classified as “handicraftsmen.” By “handicraft” industries are
usually meant all sorts of peasant, and only peasant, industries.— Lenin

[9]
This term “capitalisation,” of which Messrs. V. V. and N.-on
are so fond, is permissible in a newspaper article, for the sake of
brevity, but it is totally out of place in an economic investigation of
which the whole purpose is to analyse the various forms and stages of
capitalism, their significance, their connection, and their consecutive
development. “Capitalisation” may be taken to mean anything in
the world: the hiring of a single “labourer,” buying-up, and a
steam-driven factory. How can one make head or tail of it, with all these
things jumbled together!— Lenin

[10]
Lenin refers to Y. N. Andreyev’s Handicraft Industry in Russia According to the Investigations of the “Commission of Inquiry into Handicraft Industry in Russia” and Other Sources ,
St. Petersburg, 1885 (the estimate of the number of persons engaged in
“subsidiary trades” as 7 1/2 millions is given on p. 69 of the
book). Lenin also refers to the pamphlet by the same author entitled
Handicraft Industry in Russia , St. Petersburg, 1882, p. 12.
[p.451]

| | VII. Capitalist Domestic Industry as an Appendage of Manufacture | | | | |

# The Scientific Conception of the Factory and the Significance of " Factory" Statistics

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8i.htm

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

I. The Scientific Conception of the Factory and the Significance
of “Factory”
Statistics [5]

Before dealing with large-scale machine (factory) industry, we must first
establish the fact that the scientific conception of the term does not
correspond at all to its common, everyday meaning. In our official
statistics, and in literature generally, a factory is taken to mean any
more or less big industrial establishment with a more or less considerable
number of wage-workers. According to Marx’s theory, however, the
term large-scale machine (factory) industry applies only to a definite
stage of capitalism in industry, namely, the highest stage. The principal
and most important feature of this stage is the employment of a system of
machines for production. [1]

The transition from the manufactory to the factory signifies a complete technical revolution, which does away with the
craftsman’s manual skill that has taken centuries to acquire, and
this technical revolution is inevitably followed by the most thoroughgoing
destruction of social production relations, by a final split among the
various groups of participants in production, by a complete break with
tradition, by an intensification and extension of all the dark aspects of
capitalism, and at the same time by a mass socialisation of labour by
capitalism. Large-scale machine industry is thus the last word of
capitalism, the last word of its “elements of social progress” [2] and regress.

From this it is clear that the transition from the manufactory to the
factory is particularly important when we deal with the development of capitalism. Whoever confuses these two stages
deprives himself of the possibility of understanding the transforming,
progressive role of capitalism. That is the mistake made by our Narodnik
economists, who, as we have seen, na\"ively identify capitalism generally
with “factory” industry and propose to solve the problem of
the “mission of capitalism” and even of its “unifying significance” [3] by simply referring to factory statistics. Apart
from the fact that on matters of factory statistics these writers (as we
shall show in detail below) have betrayed astonishing ignorance, they
commit a still graver error in their amazingly stereotyped and narrow
understanding of Marx’s theory. In the first place, it is ridiculous
to reduce the problem of the development of large-scale machine industry
to mere factory statistics. It is a question not only of statistics, but
of the forms assumed and the stages traversed by the development of
capitalism in the industry of the country under consideration. Only after
the substance of these forms and their distinguishing features have been
made clear is there any sense in illustrating the development of this or
that form by means of properly compiled statistics. If, however, they
restrict themselves to Russian statistics, this inevitably leads to
lumping together the most diverse forms of capitalism, to not seeing the
wood for the trees. Secondly, to reduce the whole mission of capitalism to
that of increasing the number of “factory” workers means to
betray as profound an understanding of theory as did Mr. Mikhailovsky when
he expressed surprise as to why people talk about the socialisation of
labour by capitalism, when all that this socialisation amounts to, he
averred, is that several hundred or thousand workers saw, chop, cut,
plane, etc., under one roof. [4]

The task of our further exposition is twofold: on the one hand, we shall
examine in detail the condition of our factory statistics and the question
of their suitability.

This, largely negative, work is necessary because the data involved are
positively abused in our literature. On the other hand, we shall examine
the data attesting to the growth of large-scale machine industry in the
post-Reform period.

---
Notes:
[1]
Das Kapital , I, Chapter 13 [Chap. 15, Eng. ed. – Ed .].— Lenin

[2]
Ibid ., I 2 ,

S. 499. [6] — Lenin

[3]
Mr. N.–on in Russkoye Bogatstvo , 1894, No. 6, pp. 103 and
119.—See also his Sketches , and Mr. V. V.’s
Destiny of Capitalism , passim .— Lenin

[4]
Otechestvenniye Zapiski , 1883, No. 7, Letter to the editor from
Mr. Postoronny [Outsider].— Lenin

[5]
To characterise the development of large-scale industry in tsarist Russia
in the post-Reform period Lenin examined the material contained in
numerous factory statistical sources of that period (statistical returns,
monographs and works of research, official reference books, magazine and
newspaper reports, papers, etc.). Lenin’s work of checking,
processing, combining and scientifically grouping statistical data is
shown in the notes he made in various books and from other material
published in section 2 of Lenin Miscellany XXXIII . For
Lenin’s estimation of the main sources of factory statistics see
also his article “On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.”
(See present edition, Vol. 4.) [p. 454]

[6]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 474. [p. 454]

| | | | | II. Our Factory Statistics | |

# Our Factory Statistics

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8ii.htm

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

### II. Our Factory Statistics

The main source of factory statistics in Russia is the returns supplied
annually by owners of factories and works to the Department of Commerce
and Manufacture, in conformity with the law passed at the very beginning
of the present century. [1]

The very detailed regulations in this law concerning the submission of information by factory owners are nothing but
a pious wish, and to this day the factory statistics are organised on the
old, purely pre-Reform lines and are simply appendices to gubernatorial
reports. There is no precise definition of the term “factory
and-works,” and consequently gubernia and even uyezd authorities
employ it in the most diverse ways. There is no central body to direct the
proper and uniform collection, and verification, of returns. The
distribution of industrial establishments among various departments
(Mining, Department of Commerce and Manufacture, Miscellaneous Taxes
Department, etc.) still further increases the confusion. [2]

In Appendix II we cite the data on our factory industry in the post-Reform
period that are to be found in official publications, namely, for the
years of 1863-1879 and 1885-1891. These data relate only to trades not
subject to excise duty; moreover, for different periods information is
given for a different number of trades (the returns for

1864-1865 and for 1885 and subsequent years being the fullest); that is
why we have singled out 34 trades for which data are available for
1864-1879 and 1885-1890, i.e., for 22 years. To judge the value of these
data, let us first examine the most important publications on our factory
statistics. Let us begin with the 60s.

The compilers of factory statistics in the 60s fully appreciated the
extremely unsatisfactory nature of the returns they were handling. In
their unanimous opinion the number of workers and the total output were
considerably understated in the factory-owners’ reports;
“there is no uniform definition, even for the different gubernias,
of what should be regarded as a factory and a works, since many gubernias
include among the factories and works, for example, windmills,
brick-making sheds and small industrial establishments, while others take
no account of them, with the result that even comparative data on the
total numbers of factories and works in the different gubernias are valueless.” [3]

Still more trenchant is the criticism by Bushen, Bok and

Timiryazev, [4] who, in addition, point to the inclusion of those occupied at home among the
factory workers, to the fact that some factory owners supply returns only
for workers who live on the factory premises, etc. “There are no
correct official statistics on manufactory and factory industry,”
says Mr. Bushen, “and there will be none until there is a change in
the main principles on which the primary material is gathered.” [5] “The tables of factories and works for many trades include,
evidently by misunderstanding, numerous purely artisan and handicraft
establishments that possess nothing of the character of a factory or works.” [6]

In
view of this, the editors of the Yearbook refused even to summarise the data printed, “not desiring to pass on to the
public incorrect and obviously exaggerated figures.” [7]

To
give the reader a precise idea of the extent of this obvious exaggeration, let us turn to the data given in the
Yearbook , which differs to advantage from all other sources, in
that it contains a list of factories with an output exceeding 1,000
rubles. At the present time (since 1885), establishments with a smaller
total output are not counted as factories. An estimate of these small
establishments according to the Yearbook reveals that 2,366 were
included in the general list of factories, employing 7,327 workers and an
output amounting to 987,000 rubles. The total number of factories,
however, in 71 trades, according to the Yearbook , was 6,891, with
342,473 workers and an output totalling 276,211,000 rubles. Consequently,
the small establishments represent 34.3 % of the total number of
establishments, 2.1% of the total number of workers, and 0.3% of the total
output. It stands to reason that it is absurd to regard such small
establishments (with an average per establishment of a little over 3
workers and less than 500 rubles output) as factories, and that there can
be no question of there being anything like a complete registration of
them. Not only have such establishments been classed as factories in our
statistics, but there have even been cases of hundreds of handicraftsmen
being quite artificially and arbitrarily combined as a “factory.” For example, this very Yearbook mentions in the
rope-making trade of the Izbylets Volost, Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod
Gubernia, a factory “of the peasants of the Izbylets Volost; 929
workers; 308 spinning wheels; output 100,400 rubles” (p. 149); or in
the village of Vorsma in the same uyezd, a factory of “temporarily
bound peasants of Count Sheremetev; 100 smithies; 250 carpenters’
benches (in homes); 3 horse-operated and 20 hand-operated grind stones;
902 workers; output 6,610 rubles” (p. 281). One can imagine what an
idea of the real situation such statistics give! [8]

A special place among the sources of factory statistics of the 60s is held
by the Military Statistical Abstract (Vol. IV. Russia, St. Petersburg, 1871). It gives data on all the factories and works of the
Russian Empire, including mining and excise-paying establishments, and
estimates that in 1866 there were in European Russia no more nor less than
70,631 factories, 829,573 workers, with an output totalling 583,317,000
rubles!! These curious figures were arrived at, firstly, because they were
taken, not from the reports of the Ministry of Finance, but from the
special returns of the Central Statistical Committee (these returns were
never published in any of the Committee’s publications, nor is it
known by whom, how and when they were gathered and processed); [9] secondly, because the compilers of the Military Statistical Abstract did not hesitate in the least to class even the smallest
establishments as factories. ( Military Statistical Abstract ,
p. 319) and furthermore supplemented the basic returns with other
material: returns of the Department of Commerce and Manufacture, returns
of the Commissariat, returns of the Ordnance and Naval Departments, and
finally, returns “from the most diverse sources” ( ibid. ,

p. XXIII). [10]

Therefore, in using the data of the Military Statistical Abstract for purposes of
comparison with present-day data, Messrs.

N.–on, [11]

Karyshev [12] and Kablukov [13] revealed their total unfamiliarity with the principal sources of our
factory statistics and their utterly uncritical attitude towards these
statistics.

During the debate in the Free Economic Society on the paper read by
M. I. Tugan-Baranovsky, who pointed to the completely erroneous character
of the figures in the Military Statistical Abstract , several
speakers declared that even if there was an error in the number of
workers, it was only a slight one—10 to 15%. That was said, for
example, by Mr. V. V. (see verbatim report of debate, St. Petersburg,
1898, p. 1). He was “joined” by Mr. V. Pokrovsky, who also
confined himself to a bald statement (p. 3). Without even attempting a
critical examination of the various sources of our factory statistics,
these people and their supporters contented themselves with generalities
about the unsatisfactory nature of factory statistics, and about the data
having recently become more exact (??) and so forth. The main issue, the
crude error of Messrs. N.–on and Karyshev, was thus simply glossed over,
as P. B. Struve quite rightly observed (p. 11). We therefore think it
worth while to calculate those exaggerations in the data of the
Military Statistical Abstract which could and should have been
noticed by anybody handling the sources attentively. For 71 trades we have
the parallel statistics for 1866 both of the Ministry of Finance
( Ministry of Finance Yearbook , I) and of unknown origin
( Military Statistical Abstract ). For these trades, leaving out
the metallurgical, the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerated
the number of workers employed in factories and works in European Russia
by 50 , 000 . Further, for those trades for which the
Yearbook gave only gross figures for the Empire, refusing to
analyse them in detail in view of their “obvious exaggeration” ( Yearbook ,
p. 306), the Military Statistical Abstract gives 95,000 workers
over and above these figures. In brick-making the number of workers is
exaggerated by a minimum of 10 , 000 ; to convince oneself
of this, one should compare the data by gubernias given in the
Military Statistical Abstract and those in Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance , No. 4 of 1866 and No. 6 of
1867. For the metallurgical trades the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerated the number of workers by 86 , 000 as compared with that in the Yearbook ,
having evidently included some of the mine workers in its figure. For the
excise-paying trades the Military Statistical Abstract , as we
shall show in the next section, exaggerates the number of workers by
nearly 40 , 000 . Altogether there is an exaggeration of
280 , 000 . This is a minimum and incomplete figure, for we
lack material to verify the data of the Military Statistical Abstract for all trades. One can therefore judge to what extent those
who assert that the error of Messrs. N.–on and Karyshev is trifling are
informed on this subject!

In the 1870s much less was done to combine and analyse factory statistics
than in the 1860s. The Ministry of Finance Yearbook contains data
for only 40 trades (not subject to excise duty) for 1867-1879 (Vols. VIII,
X and XII; see Appendix II), the exclusion of the other trades being
ascribed to the “extremely unsatisfactory nature of the
material” for industries “which are connected with agricultural life, or are appendages of artisan and handicraft
industries” (Vol. VIII, p. 482; same, Vol. X, p. 590). The most
valuable source for the 1870s is Mr. P. Orlov’s Directory of Factories and Works (1st edition, St. Petersburg, 1881, returns for
1879 taken from the same reports of factory owners to the Department of
Commerce and Manufacture). This publication lists all establishments with
an output of not less than 2,000 rubles. The others, being small and
inseparable from handicraft establishments, are not enumerated in this
list, but are included in the summarised data given by the
Directory . Since no separate totals are given for establishments
with an output of 2,000 rubles and over, the general data of the
Directory , like those of previous publications, combine the small establishments with the large ones; for different trades and different
gubernias unequal numbers of small establishments are included (quite
fortuitously, of course) in the statistics. [14]

Regarding trades connected with agriculture, the Directory
repeats (p. 396) the Yearbook ’s reservation and refuses to
give “ even approximate totals” (author’s italics) owing to the inaccuracy and incompleteness of the data. [15]

This view (quite a legitimate one, as we shall see below) did not, however, prevent
the inclusion in the Directory ’s general totals of all
these particularly unreliable figures, which are thus lumped together with
relatively reliable ones. Let us give the Directory ’s total
figures for European Russia, with the observation that, unlike previous
figures, they also embrace excise paying trades (the second edition of the
Directory , 1887, gives the returns for 1884; the third, 1894,
those for 1890):

We shall show further that the drop in the number of factories indicated
by these data was actually fictitious; the whole point is that at
different times different numbers of small establishments were classed as
factories. Thus, the number of establishments with an output exceeding
1,000 rubles was estimated in 1884 at 19,277, and in 1890, at 21,124; with
an output of 2,000 rubles and over: in 1884 at 11,509, and in 1890 at

17,642. [17]

In 1889 the Department of Commerce and Manufactures began to issue in
separate editions Collections of Data on Factory Industry in Russia (for 1885 and subsequent years). These data are based on the
material mentioned (factory owners’ reports), and their treatment is
far from satisfactory, being inferior to that in the above-mentioned
publications of the 60s. The only improvement is that the small
establishments, i.e., those with an output of under 1,000 rubles, are not
included among the factories and works, and information regarding them is
given separately, without their being distributed according to trades. [18]

This, of course, is a totally inadequate criterion of what a
“factory” is; a complete registration of establishments with an output exceeding 1,000 rubles is out of the
question under the present system of gathering information; the separation
of “factories” in trades connected with agriculture is done
quite haphazardly—for instance, for some gubernias and in some years
watermills and windmills are classed as factories, while in others they
are

not. [19]

The author of the section “Chief Results of Factory Industry in Russia for
1885-1887” (in the Collection for these years) falls repeatedly into error in disregarding the fact that the data for the
different gubernias are dissimilar and not comparable. Finally, to our
characterisation of the Collections let us add that till 1891
inclusive they only covered trades not subject to excise duty, while from
1892 onwards they cover all trades, including mining and excise-paying; no
special mention is made of data comparable with others given previously, and no explanation whatever is
given of the methods by which ironworks are included in the total number
of factories and works (for instance, ironworks statistics have never
given the value but merely the volume of works’ output. How the
compilers of the Collections arrived at the value of the output
is unknown).

In the 1880s there was still another source of information about our
factory industry, one deserving attention for its negative qualities and
because Mr. Karyshev used data from this source. [20]

This is the Returns for Russia for 1884-85 (St. Petersburg,
1887. Published by the Central Statistical Committee), which gives in one
of its tables the “totals of output of factory industry in European
Russia, 1885” (Table XXXIX); the number of factories and of workers
is given only for Russia as a whole, without being distributed according
to gubernias. The source of information is “data of reports of
Messrs. the Governors” (p. 311). The data cover all trades,
including both excise-paying and mining, and for every trade the
“average” number of workers and output per works is given for
the whole of European Russia. Now it is these “averages” that
Mr. Karyshev proceeded to “analyse.” To judge their value, let
us compare the data in the Returns with those in the
Collection (to make such a comparison we must subtract from the
first-mentioned data the metallurgical, excise-paying, fishing and
“other” trades; this will leave 53 trades; the data are for
European Russia):

Thus, the gubernatorial reports included tens of thousands of small
agricultural and handicraft establishments among the “factories”! Of course, such establishments were included
among the factories quite fortuitously for the various trades, and for the
various gubernias and uyezds. Here are examples of the number of works
according to the Returns and the Collection , in some trades: fur—1,205 and 259; leather—4,079 and 2,026;
mat-and-bag—562 and 55; starch-and-treacle—1,228 and 184;
flour-milling—17,765 and 3,940; oil-pressing—9,341 and 574;
tar-distilling—3,366 and 328; brick-making—5,067 and 1,488;
pottery and glazed tile–2,573 and 147. One can imagine the sort of
“statistics” that will be obtained if one estimates the
“size of establishments” [21] in our factory industry by taking “average
figures” based on such a method of computing “factories”! But Mr. Karyshev forms his estimate in precisely
this manner when he classes under large-scale industry only those trades
in which the above mentioned “ average number ” of workers per factory (for the whole of Russia) is over one hundred . By this phenomenal method the conclusion is reached that
only a quarter of the total output is provided by “large-scale
industry as understood within the above-indicated limits”!! (p. 47
of article cited). [22]

Further on we shall show that factories with 100 and more workers actually account
for more than half the total output of our factory industry.

Let us observe, incidentally, that the data of the local gubernia
statistical committees (which are used for the gubernatorial reports) are
always distinguished by the utter vagueness of the term
“factory-and-works” and by the casual registration of small
establishments. Thus, in Smolensk Gubernia, for 1893-94, some uyezds
counted dozens of small oil-presses as factories, while others did not
count any; the number of tar “works” in the gubernia was given
as 152 (according to Directory for 1890, not one), with the same
casual registration in the various uyezds, etc. [23]

For
Yaroslavl Gubernia, the local statisticians in the 90s gave the number of
factories as 3,376 (against 472 in the Directory for 1890),
including (for some uyezds) hundreds of flour-mills, smithies, small
potato-processing works, etc. [24]

Quite recently our factory statistics have undergone a reform which has
changed the plan for the gathering of information, changed the
significance of the term “factory and-works” (new criteria
have been adopted; the presence of an engine or of not less than 15
workers), and enlisted factory inspectors in the work of gathering and
verifying information. We refer the reader for details to the above
mentioned article in our

Studies [25] where a detailed examination is made of the
List of Factories and Works (St. Petersburg,

1897) [26]

compiled according to the new plan, and where it is shown that despite the reform,
improvements in our factory statistics are scarcely noticeable ;
that the term “factory-and-works” has remained absolutely
vague; that the data are very often still quite haphazard and must,
therefore, be handled with extreme caution. [27]

Only a proper industrial census, organised on European lines, can
extricate our industrial statistics from their chaotic condition. [28]

It follows from the review of our factory statistics that the data they
contain cannot in the overwhelming majority of cases be used without being
specially processed, the principal object of which should be to separate
the relatively useful from the utterly useless. In the next section we
shall examine in this respect the data on the most important trades, but
at the moment we put the question: is the number of factories in Russia
increasing or decreasing? The main difficulty in answering this question
is that in our factory statistics the term “factory” is
employed in the most chaotic manner; that is why the negative replies to
this question which are sometimes given on the basis of factory statistics
(e.g., by Mr. Karyshev) cannot be of any use. We must first establish some
definite criterion for the term “factory”; without that
condition it would be absurd to illustrate the development of large-scale
machine industry with data for establishments of which the totals have at various times included
various numbers of small flour-mills, oil-presses, brick-sheds, etc.,
etc. Let us take as a criterion the employment of not fewer than 16
workers in the establishment, and then we shall see that the number of
such industrial establishments in European Russia in 1866 was a maximum of
from 2,500 to 3,000, in 1879 about 4,500, in 1890 about 6,000, in 1894-95
about 6,400, and in 1903 about

9,000. [29]

Consequently, the number of factories in Russia in the post-Reform period is growing, and growing fairly rapidly .

---
Notes:
[1]
For a detailed review of the sources of our factory statistics, see in
Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire , Series II, Vol. VI,
St. Petersburg, 1872, Material for the Statistics of Factory Industry in European Russia for 1868 . Compiled by Mr. Bok. Introduction,
pp. I-XXIII.— Lenin

[2]
See article “On the Question of Our Factory Statistics” in
Studies , where the latest publication of the Department of
Commerce and Manufacture on our factory industries is examined in
detail. (See present edition, Vol. 4. – Ed .)— Lenin

[3]
P. Semyonov in the preface to Statistical Chronicle , I, 1866,
p.XXVII.— Lenin

[4]
Statistical Atlas of Main Branches of Factory Industry of European Russia , with List of Factories and Works , 3 vols.,
St. Petersburg 1869, 1870 and 1873.— Lenin

[5]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , I, p. 140.— Lenin

[6]
Ibid ., p. 306.— Lenin

[7]
Ibid ., p. 306.— Lenin

[8]
As to understatements by factory owners in their returns regarding the
number of employed workers and the output, the above mentioned sources
make two interesting attempts at verification. Timiryazev compared the
returns made by over a hundred big factory owners for the official
statistics with the returns they made for the 1865 Exhibition. The latter
figures proved to be 22% higher than the former ( loc . cit ., I, pp. IV-V). In 1868 the Central
Statistical

Committee, as an experiment, instituted a special investigation of factory industry in Moscow and Vladimir gubernias (where
in 1868 nearly half of all the workers and of the total output of the
factories and works of European Russia were concentrated). If we take the
trades for which data are given both by the Ministry of Finance and the
Central Statistical Committee, we get the following figures: according to
the Ministry of Finance there were 1,749 factories, 186,521 workers, with
an output totalling 131,568,000 rubles, whereas according to the
investigation by the Central Statistical Committee there were 1,704
factories, 196,315 workers on premises plus 33,485 outside workers, and an
output totalling 137,758,000 rubles.— Lenin

[9]
It is very possible that these returns were simply taken from
gubernatorial reports, which, as we shall see below, always enormously
exaggerate the number of factories and works.— Lenin

[10]
How widely the Military Statistical Abstract applied the term
“factory” becomes particularly evident through the following:
the Yearbook statistics are called “the statistics of our
large establishments” (p. 319, authors’ italics). As we have seen, 1/3, of these “large” establishments have an
output of less than 1,000 rubles!! We omit more detailed proof of the
point that the figures given in the Military Statistical Abstract
must not be used for purposes of comparison with present-day factory
statistics, since this task has already been performed by
Mr. Tugan-Baranovsky (see his book The Factory , etc .,
p. 336 and foll.). Cf. Studies , pp. 271 and 275. (See present
edition, Vol. 4, “On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.”
– Ed .)— Lenin

[11]
Sketches , p. 125 and Russkoye Bogatstvo , 1894, No 6.— Lenin

[12]
Yuridichesky Vestnik , 1889 No. 9, and Material on the Russian National Economy , Moscow, 1898.— Lenin

[13]
Lectures on Agricultural Economics , Moscow, 1897, p. 13.— Lenin

[14]
Examples will be given in the next section. Here let us refer to p. 679
and foll. of the Directory ; a glance at these pages will readily
convince anyone of the justice of what has been said in the text.— Lenin

[15]
In the third edition of the Directory (St. Petersburg, 1894),
this reservation is not repeated, regrettably so, for the data are as
unsatisfactory as ever.— Lenin

[16]
Certain missing data have been added approximately; see
Directory , p. 695.— Lenin

[17]
See classification of factories according to total output in the second
and third editions of the Directory .— Lenin

[18]
It goes without saying that the data on the small establishments are quite
haphazard: in some gubernias and in some years their number is given in
hundreds and thousands, in others in tens and units. For example, in
Bessarabia Gubernia, from 1887 to 1890: 1,479—272—262— 1,684; in Penza Gubernia, from 1885 to 1891
4—15—0—1,127—1,135— 2,148—2,264, etc., etc.— Lenin

[19]
Cf. examples in Studies , p. 274. (See present edition, Vol. 4,
“On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.” – Ed .)
Mr. Tugan-Baranovsky was somewhat mistaken in asserting that the number of
actual factories dropped between 1885 and 1891 ( The Factory ,
p. 350), and comparing the average number of workers per factory for
different trades at different times ( ibid ., 355). The data in the
Collection are too chaotic for use, without being specially
processed, in drawing such conclusions.— Lenin

[20]
N. A. Karyshev, “Statistical Survey of the Distribution of the
Principal Branches of Manufacturing Industry in Russia.”
Yuridichesky Vestnik , 1889, No. 9, September. Together with
Mr. Karyshev’s latest work, examined by us in our Studies ,
this article serves as an example of how not to handle our factory
statistics.— Lenin

[21]
Section IV of Mr. Karyshev’s article. Let us observe that for
comparison with the Returns we could, instead of the
Collection , have taken Mr. Orlov’s Directory , the second edition of which (1884) is quoted by Mr. Karyshev too.— Lenin

[22]
“Thus, three quarters of the latter” (total annual output)
“is provided by establishments of a relatively small type. This
phenomenon may have its roots in many extremely important elements of
Russian national economy. To them, by the way, should be assigned the
system of land tenure of the mass of the population , the tenacity
of the village community ( sic !), which raises serious obstacles
to the development of a professional class of factory workers in our
country. With this is combined (!) the widespread character of the domestic form of the processing of products in the very (central)
zone of Russia in which our factories and works are mainly
concentrated” ( ibid ., Mr. Karyshev’s italics). Poor “village community”! It alone must bear all the blame for
everything, even for the statistical errors of its learned admirers!— Lenin

[23]
Data from Mr. D Zhbankov’s Sanitary Investigation of Factories and Works of Smolensk Gubernia (Smolensk, Vol. I, 1896).— Lenin

[24]
Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia , Vol. II, Yaroslavl, 1896 Cf. also
Tula Gubernia Handbook for 1895 (Tula, 1895), Sec. VI; pp. 14-15:
Factory Returns for 1893 .— Lenin

[25]
See present edition, Vol. 4, “On the Question of Our Factory
Statistics.”— Ed .

[26]
According to Mr. Karyshev’s calculations, the totals of the figures
given in the List relating to European Russia are: 14,578
factories, with 885,555 workers and an output totalling 1,345,346,000
rubles.— Lenin

[27]
The collections of factory inspectors’ reports published by the
Ministry of Commerce and Industry (for 1901-1903) give data on the number
of factories and works, as well as workers employed in them (for 64
gubernias of Russia), the factories and works being classified according
to the number of workers (up to 20; 21-50; 51-100; 101-500- 501-1,000;
over 1,000). This is a big step forward in our factory statistics. The
data for large workshops (21 workers and over) are probably reliable, at
least in some degree. The data for “factories” with fewer than
20 workers are obviously casual and utterly worthless. For example, in
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia the number of factories employing fewer than 20
workers in 1903 is given as 266; the number of workers employed in
them—1,975, or an average of fewer than 8 workers. In Perm Gubernia
there are 10 such factories with 159 workers! Ridiculous, of course. The
total for 1903 for 64 gubernias: 15,821 factories with 1,640,406 workers;
and if we deduct factories and works employing fewer than 20 workers, we
get 10,072 factories and works with 1,576,754 workers. ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[28]
Cf. Vestnik Finansov , 1896, No. 35. Reports of papers and debates at Nizhni-Novgorod
congress. Mr. Mikhailovsky very vividly described the chaotic
condition of factory statistics, showing how the questionnaire
travels “down to the lowest police official, who circulates it
at last, getting a receipt, of course, to those industrial
establishments which he deems worthy of attention, but most
often in those of them which he circularised the previous
years”;—how the replies given to the various questions are
either: “same as last year”—(it is enough to go over the
Collections of the Department of Commerce and
Manufacture for the various trades in various gubernias to be
convinced of the truth of this) —or are absolutely meaningless, etc.— Lenin

[29]
The data concern all trades (i.e., including excise-paying) except
mining. For 1879, 1890 and 1894-95 we have computed the data from
Directories and the List . From the data in the
List we have excluded printing works, of which no account was
taken formerly in factory statistics (see Studies , p. 273) [See
present edition, Vol 4, “On the Question of Our Factory
Statistics.” – Ed .]. For 1866 we have according to the data
in the Yearbook for 71 trades, 1,861 establishments each
employing 16 and more workers, out of a total of 6,891 establishments; in
1890 these 71 trades accounted for about four-fifths of the total number
of establishments with 16 and more workers. The criterion adopted by us
for the term “factory” is, in our view, the most exact, since
the most varied programmes for our factory statistics have undoubtedly
accepted the inclusion of establishments with 16 and more workers among
the factories, and this for all branches of industry. There can be no
doubt that the factory statistics never could, and cannot now, register
all establishments employing 16 and more workers (see instances in Chapter
VI, II), but we have no grounds for thinking that there were more
omissions formerly than now. For 1903 the data are from the Collection of Factory Inspectors’ Reports . In the 50 gubernias of European
Russia there were 8,856 factories and works with over 20 workers 41 each.— Lenin

| | I. The Scientific Conception of the Factory and the Significance of “Factory” Statistics | | | III. An Examination of Historico-Statistical Data On the Development of Large-Scale Industry | |

# An Examination of Historical-Statistical Data on the Development of Large-Scale Industry

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8iii.htm

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

III. An Examination of Historico-Statistical Data On the
Development of Large-Scale Industry

We have noted above that to judge the development of large-scale industry
from factory statistics it is necessary to separate the relatively useful
material in these statistics from the utterly useless. Let us, with this
in view, examine the main branches of our manufacturing industry.

1) Textile Trades

At the head of the wool trades is cloth production, which in 1890 had an
output of over 35 million rubles and employed 45,000 workers. The
historico-statistical data on this trade indicate a considerable drop in
the number of workers, namely, from 72,638 in 1866 to 46,740 in

1890. [1]

To appraise this phenomenon we must take account of the fact that up to the 1860s
inclusive, felt cloth production was organised on specific and original
lines: it was concentrated in relatively large establishments which,
however, did not in any way come under the category of capitalist factory
industry, since they were based on the labour of serfs, or of temporarily
bound peasants. In the surveys of the “factory” industry of
the 60s we therefore meet with the division of cloth mills into 1) those
owned by landlords or nobles, and 2) those owned by merchants. The former
produced mainly army cloth, the government contracts having been
distributed equally among the mills in proportion to the number of
machines. Compulsory labour was the cause of the technical backwardness of
such establishments and of their employing a much larger number of workers
than the merchant mills based on the employment of hired labour. [2]

The principal drop in the number of workers, engaged in felt cloth production
took place in the gubernias with landlord factories; thus, in the 13 such
gubernias (enumerated in the Survey of Manufactory Industries ),
the number of workers dropped from 32,921 to 14,539 (1866 and 1890), while
in the 5 gubernias with merchant factories (Moscow, Grodno, Liflandia, Chernigov and St. Petersburg) it dropped from
31,291 to 28,257. From this it is clear that we have here two opposite
trends, both of which, however, indicate the development of
capitalism—on the one hand, the decline of landlord establishments
of a manorial-possessional character, [35] and on the other, the development of purely capitalist factories out of merchant
establishments. A considerable number of the workers employed in felt
cloth production in the 60s were not factory workers at all in
the strict sense of the term; they were dependent peasants working for landlords. [3]

Cloth production is an example of that specific phenomenon of Russian
history—the employment of serf labour in industry. Since we are
dealing only with the post-Reform period, the above brief remarks will
suffice to show the way in which this phenomenon is reflected in factory statistics. [4]

We
shall now quote some figures drawn from statistics on steam-engines in
order to estimate the development of large-scale machine production in
this industry: in 1875-1878, in the wool-spinning and cloth industries of
European Russia there were 167 mechanised establishments using 209
steam-engines with a total of 4,632 h.p., and in 1890 there were 197
establishments using

341 steam-engines with a total of 6,602 h.p. The use of steam power,
therefore, did not make very rapid progress; this is to be explained
partly by the traditions of landlord factories and partly by the
displacement of felt cloth by the cheaper worsted and mixed fabrics. [5]

In the years 1875-1878 there were seven mechanised establishments using 20
steam-engines with a total of 303 h.p., and in 1890 there were 28
mechanised establishments employing 61 steam-engines to a total of 1,375 h.p. [6]

In regard to the woollen-goods industry let us also take note of
felt-making, a branch that shows in particularly striking fashion the
impossibility of comparing factory statistics for different times: the
figures for 1866 are 77 factories with a total of 295 workers, while for
1890 they are 57 factories with 1,217 workers. The former figure includes
60 small establishments employing 137 workers with an output of under
2,000 rubles, while the latter includes an establishment with four
workers. In 1866 39 small establishments were recorded in Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, where felt-making is now highly developed but is
regarded as a “handicraft” and not a “factory” industry (see Chapter VI, § II, 2).

Further, a particularly important place in the textile trades is held by
cotton processing, a branch which now employs over 200,000 workers. Here
we observe one of the biggest errors of our factory statistics, namely,
the combining of factory workers and capitalistically occupied home
workers. Large-scale machine industry developed here (as in many other
cases) by drawing home workers into the factory. It is obvious how
distorted this process will appear if work-distributing offices and work
rooms are classed as “factories,” if home workers are lumped together with factory workers! For 1866 (according to the Yearbook ) up to 22,000 home workers were included among factory workers (by
no means the full number, for the Yearbook , evidently by pure
accident, omits in the case of Moscow Gubernia those notes about
“work from village to village” which are so abundant for
Vladimir Gubernia). For 1890 (according to the Directory ) we
found only about 9,000 such workers. Clearly, the figures given in the
factory statistics (1866—59,000 workers in the cotton weaving mills;
1890—75,000) underrate the increase in the number of factory workers that actually took place. [7]

Here are data showing what different establishments were classed at different times
as cotton-weaving “factories”: [8]

Thus, the decrease in the number of “factories” shown by the
“statistics” actually indicates the displacing of distributing
offices and workrooms by the factory. Let us illustrate this by the
example of two factories:

Hence, to assess the development of large-scale machine production in this
branch of industry it is best to take the data giving the number of
power-looms. In the 18609 there were about

11,000, [9] and in
1890 about 87,000. Large-scale machine industry was consequently
developing at enormous speed. In cotton spinning and weaving there was
recorded in 1875-1878 a total of 148 mechanised establishments, having 481
steam-engines totalling 20,504 h.p., and in 1890, 168 mechanised
establishments, having 554 steam-engines with a total of 38,750 h.p.

Precisely the same mistake is made in Russian statistics in relation to
linen production, wherein a decrease in the number of factory workers is
erroneously shown (1866—17,171; 1890—15,497). Actually, in
1866, of 16,900 looms belonging to linen-mill owners only 4,749 were kept
in their establishments, the remaining 12,151 being held by work room owners. [10]

The number of factory workers for 1866, therefore, included about 12,000 home
workers, and for 1890 only about 3,000 (computed from Directory ). The number of power-looms, however, grew from 2,263 in 1866
(computed from Military Statistical Abstract ) to 4,041 in

1890, and of spindles from 95,495 to 218,012. In flax spinning and
linen-weaving in the years 1875-1878 there were 28 mechanised
establishments, having 47 steam engines with a total of 1,604 h.p., while
in 1890 there were 48 mechanised establishments, having 83 steam-engines
with a total of 5,027 h.p. [11]

Lastly, of the textile trades mention should be made of dyeing, printing
and finishing, in which trades the factory statistics combine factories
and the very smallest handicraft establishments with only 1 or 2 workers
each and an output of a few hundred rubles. [12]

Naturally, this causes no little confusion and obscures the rapid growth
of large-scale machine industry. The following figures reflect this
growth: in the wool-cleaning, dyeing, bleaching and finishing trades in
1875-1878 there were 80 mechanised establishments with 255 steam-engines
totalling 2,634 h.p.; in 1890 there were 189 mechanised establishments
with 858 steam-engines totalling 9,100 h.p.

2) Wood - Working Industries

In this section the most reliable data are those on saw milling, although
in the past small establishments were also included here. [13]

The enormous development of this trade in the post-Reform period (1866—4
million rubles 1890—19 million rubles), accompanied by a
considerable increase in the number of workers (4,000 and 15,000) and in
the number of steam-powered establishments (26 and 430), is particularly
interesting, in that it affords striking evidence of the growth of the
lumber industry. Saw-milling is but one of the operations of the lumber
industry, which is a necessary concomitant of the first steps of
large-scale machine industry.

As to the rest of the trades in this section, namely, furnishing and carpentry, bast-matting, and pitch and tar—the
factory statistics relating to them are distinguished for their
particularly chaotic condition. The small establishments so numerous in
these trades were formerly included among the “factories” in
numbers fixed arbitrarily, and the same is sometimes done even today. [14]

3) Chemical, Livestock - Product and
Ceramic Industries

The statistics on the chemical industry proper are distinguished for their
relative reliability. The following returns show its growth: in 1857
chemical products were consumed in Russia to a total of 14 million rubles
(3.4 million rubles home produced and 10.6 million rubles imported); in
1880, to a total of 36 1/4 million rubles (7 1/2 million rubles home
produced and 28 3/4 imported); and in 1890, to a total of 42.7 million
rubles (16.1 million rubles home produced and 26.6 imported). [15]

These data are particularly interesting because the chemical industries
are extremely important as producers of auxiliary materials for
large-scale machine industry, i.e., articles of productive (and
not personal) consumption. As to potash and saltpetre production, let us
remark that the number of factories given is unreliable, again due to the
inclusion of small establishments. [16]

The tallow trade has undoubtedly declined in the post-Reform period. Thus,
the value of output of the tallow candle and tallow-boiling trade was
estimated in 1866-1868 at 13.6 million rubles, and in 1890 at 5 million rubles. [17]

This decline is to be explained by the growing use of mineral oils for
lighting, which are displacing the old-time tallow candle.

For leather production (1866: 2,308 establishments with 11,463 workers and
an output totalling 14.6 million rubles; 1890: 1,621 establishments with
15,564 workers and an output totalling 26.7 million rubles) statistics
constantly lump together factories and small establishments. The
relatively high cost of raw materials, which explains the high total
output, and the fact that this trade requires very few workers, make it
particularly difficult to draw a line of demarcation between the
handicraft establishments and the factories. In 1890, of the total number
of factories (1,621), only 103 had an output of less than 2,000 rubles; in
1879 there were 2,008 out of a total of

3,320 [18] ; in 1866, of 2,308 factories [19]

1,042 had an output of less than 1,000 rubles (these 1,042 factories employed
2,059 workers and had an output totalling 474,000 rubles). Thus, the
number of factories increased, although the factory statistics show a
decrease. As for the small leather establishments, their number is still
very large today: for instance, The Factory Industry and Trade of Russia , published by the Ministry of Finance (St. Petersburg, 1893),
gives a total of nearly 9,500 handicraft works, with 21,000 workers and an
output of 12 million rubles. These “handicraft” establishments
are much larger than those which in the 60s were included among
“factories and works.” Since small establishments are included among the “factories and works” in unequal
numbers in the different gubernias and in different years, the statistics
on this trade should be treated with great caution. The steam-engine
statistics for 1875-1878 gave for this industry 28 mechanised
establishments with 33 steam-engines to a total of 488 h.p. and in 1890
there were 66 mechanised establishments with 82 steam-engines to a total
of 1,112 h.p. In these 66 factories 5,522 workers (more than a third of
the total) were concentrated with an output totalling 12.3 million rubles
(46% of the total), so that the concentration of production was very
considerable, and the productivity of labour in the large establishments
far above the average. [20]

The ceramic trades fall into two categories in accordance with the
character of the factory statistics: in some, there is hardly any
combining of small-scale production with large. That is why these
statistics are fairly reliable. This applies to the following industries:
glass, porcelain and chinaware, plaster and cement. Particularly remark
able is the rapid growth of the last-mentioned trade, which is evidence of
the development of the building industry: the total output in 1866 was
estimated at 530,000 rubles ( Military Statistical Abstract ), and
in 1890 at 3,826,000 rubles; the number of power-operated establishments
in 1875-1878 was 8, and in 1890 it was 39. On the other hand, in the
pottery and brick trades the inclusion of small establishments is observed
on a tremendous scale, and for that reason the factory statistics are very
unsatisfactory, being particularly exaggerated for the 60s and 70s. Thus,
in the pottery trade in 1879 there were listed 552 establishments, with
1,900 workers and an output totalling 538,000 rubles, and in 1890, 158
establishments with 1,978 workers and an output totalling 919,000
rubles. If we subtract the small establishments (those with an output of
less than 2,000 rubles) we get: 1879—70 establishments, with

840 workers and an output of 505,000 rubles; 1890—143 establishments, with 1,859 workers and an output of 857,000 rubles. That
is to say, instead of the decrease in the number of “factories” and stagnation in the number of workers shown in
the statistics, there was actually a considerable increase in both the one
and the other. In brick-making the official data for 1879 showed 2,627
establishments, with 28,800 workers and an output totalling 6,963,000
rubles; for 1890—1,292 establishments, with 24,334 workers and an
output of 7,249,000 rubles; and without the small establishments (those
with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) we get for 1879—518
establishments, with 19,057 workers and an output of 5,625,000 rubles; and
for 1890—1,096 establishments, with 23,222 workers and an output of
7,240,000 rubles. [21]

4) Metallurgical Industries

In the factory statistics for the metallurgical industries the sources of
confusion are, firstly, the inclusion of small establishments (exclusively
in the 60s and

70s), [22] and, secondly and mainly, the fact that metallurgical plants are
“subject, not to the jurisdiction” of the Department of
Commerce and Manufacture, but to that of the Department of Mines. The
returns of the Ministry of Finance usually omit ironworks “on
principle”; but there have never been uniform and invariable rules
for the separation of ironworks from the other works (and it would hardly be possible to devise them). That is why the factory statistics published
by the Ministry of Finance always include ironworks to some extent,
although the actual degree to which they are included varies for different
gubernias and for different years. [23]

General data on the increased use of steam-engines in metallurgy since the Reform
will be given below, when we deal with the mining and metallurgical
industry.

5) Food Industries

These industries merit special attention for the question that concerns
us, since the confusion in factory statistics attains here its
maximum. And yet, these industries occupy a prominent place in our factory
industry as a whole.

Thus, according to the Directory for 1890 these industries
account for 7,095 factories, with 45,000 workers and an output totalling
174 million rubles out of a total for European Russia of 21,124 factories,
with 875,764 workers and an output of 1,501 million rubles. The fact is
that the principal trades of this group—flour-milling, groat milling
and oil-pressing—consist of the processing of agricultural
produce. There are hundreds and thousands of small establishments in
Russia engaged in this processing in every gubernia, and since there are
no generally established rules for selecting the “factories and
works” from among them, the statistics pick out such small
establishments quite fortuitously. That is why the numbers of
“factories and works” for different years and for different
gubernias fluctuate enormously. Here, for example, are the figures for the
flour-milling trade for various years, as taken from various sources:
1865— 857 mills ( Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance ); 1866— 2,176 ( Yearbook ); 1866—18,426
( Military Statistical Abstract ); 1885—3,940 ( Collection ); 17,765 ( Returns for Russia ); 1889, 1890
and 1891—5,073, 5,605 and

5,201 [24] ( Collection ); 1894-95—2,308 ( List ). Among the
5,041 mills listed in 1892 ( Collection ), 803 were steam-, 2,907
water-, 1,323 wind- and 8 horse-operated! Some gubernias counted only
steam-mills, others included watermills (in numbers ranging from 1 to
425), still others (the minority) included also windmills (from 1 to 530)
and horse-operated mills. One can imagine the value of such statistics,
and of conclusions based on a credulous use of the data they provide! [25]

Obviously, to judge the growth of large-scale machine industry we must first
establish a definite criterion for the term “factory.” Let us
take as such a criterion the employment of steam-engines:
steam-mills are a characteristic concomitant of the epoch of
large-scale machine industry. [26]

We get the following picture of the development of factory production in
this branch of industry. [27]

The statistics for the oil-pressing trade are unsatisfactory for the same
reason. For instance, in 1879 2,450 works were listed with 7,207 workers
and an output totalling 6,486,000 rubles, and in 1890 there were 383
works, with 4,746 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles. But
this decrease in the number of factories and of workers is only apparent. If the data for 1879 and 1890 are made comparable, i.e., if
we exclude establishments with an output of less than 2,000 rubles (not
included in the lists) we get for 1879: 272 works, with 2,941 workers and
an output totalling 5,771,000 rubles, and for 1890—379 works, with
4,741 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles. That large-scale
machine industry has developed in this trade no less rapidly than in
flour-milling is evident, for example, from the statistics for
steam-engines; in 1875-1878 there were 27 steam-powered works, with 28
steam engines of 521 h.p., while in 1890 there were 113 mechanised works,
with 116 steam-engines totalling 1,886 h.p.

The other trades of this group are relatively small. Let us note that in
the mustard and fish-products trades, for instance, the statistics of the
60s included hundreds of small establishments such as have nothing
whatever in common with factories and are now not classed as such. The
extent to which our factory statistics for various years need correction
is evident from the following: with the exception of flour-milling, the
Directory for 1879 gave in this section a total of 3,555
establishments with 15,313 workers, and for 1890—1,842 establishments with 19,159 workers. For 7 trades, [28] small
establishments (with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) were included as
follows: in 1879—2,487 with 5,176 workers and an output totalling
916,000 rubles and in 1890, seven establishments, employing ten workers
and with an output totalling two thousand rubles! To make the data
comparable, one should, consequently, subtract in one case five thousand
workers, and in the other, ten persons!

6) Excise - Paying and Other Trades

In some of the excise-paying trades we observe a decrease in the number of
factory workers between the 1860s and the present day, but the decrease is
not nearly as considerable as is asserted by Mr.

N.–on, [29] who blindly believes every figure in print. The fact is that for the majority of
excise-paying trades the only source of information is the Military Statistical Abstract , which, as we know, tremendously exaggerates the
totals in the factory statistics. Unfortunately, however, we have little
material with which to verify the data in the Abstract . In
distilling, the Military Statistical Abstract counted in 1866 a
total of 3,836 distilleries with 52,660 workers (in 1890—1,620, with
26,102 workers), but the number of distilleries does not coincide with the
data of the Ministry of Finance, which in 1865-66 calculated 2,947
operating distilleries and in

1866-67—3,386. [30]

Judging by this, the number of workers is exaggerated by some 5,000 to 9,000. In vodka distilling, the Military Statistical Abstract computes 4,841 distilleries, with 8,326 workers
(1890: 242 distilleries with 5,266 workers); of these Bessarabia Gubernia
has 3,207 distilleries with 6,873 workers. The absurdity of these figures
is glaring. In fact, we learn from material published by the Ministry of

Finance [31] that the actual number of vodka distilleries in Bessarabia Gubernia was 10 or
12, and in the whole of European Russia 1,157. The number of workers was
consequently exaggerated by a minimum of 6 thousand. The cause of this
exaggeration is, evidently, that the Bessarabian “statisticians” included vineyard owners among the owners of
distilleries (see below on tobacco making). In beer- and mead-brewing, the
Military Statistical Abstract counts 2,374 breweries, with 6,825
workers (1890—918 breweries, with 8,364 workers), whereas The Ministry of Finance Yearbook estimates a total of 2,087 breweries in
European Russia for 1866. The number of workers is exaggerated here too. [32]

In the beet-sugar and sugar-refining trades, the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerates the number of workers by 11 thousand, counting
92,126 persons, as against 80,919 according to the data of The Ministry of Finance Yearbook (1890—77,875 workers). In tobacco-making, the
Military Statistical Abstract gives 5,327 factories, with 26,116
workers (1890— 281 factories, with 26,720 workers); of these, 4,993
factories with 20,038 workers are in Bessarabia Gubernia. Actually, the
number of tobacco factories in Russia in 1866 was 343, and in Bessarabia
Gubernia

13. [33]

The number of workers has been exaggerated by about 20 thousand , and even
the compilers of the Military Statistical Abstract themselves
indicated that “the factories shown in Bessarabia Gubernia . . . are
nothing but tobacco plantations” (p. 414). Mr. N.–on evidently
thought it superfluous to glance at the text of the statistical
publication he uses; that is why he failed to notice the error, and
discoursed with a highly serious air about a “slight increase in the
number of workers in the . . . tobacco factories” (article cited,
p. 104)!! Mr. N.–on simply takes the total number of workers in the
excise paying trades from the Military Statistical Abstract and
the Directory for 1890 (186,053 and 144,332) and calculates the
percentage of decrease. . . . “In a period of 25 years there has
been a considerable drop in the number of workers employed. It has
diminished by 22.4%. . . . “Here” (i.e., in the excise-paying
trades) “we see no signs of an increase, the plain fact being that
the number of workers has simply declined by a quarter of its previous
magnitude” ( ibid .). Indeed, what could be “simpler”! Take the first figure you lay your hands on, and
calculate a percentage! As for the trifling circumstance that the figure
given in the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerates the number
of workers by some forty thousand , that can be ignored.

7) Conclusions

The criticism of our factory statistics given in the last two sections
leads us to the following main conclusions:

1. The number of factories in Russia has been rapidly growing in the post-Reform period .

The opposite conclusion, which follows from our factory statistics, is
erroneous. The point is that the figures we are given of factories include
small artisan, handicraft and agricultural establishments, and the further back we go from the present day , the larger the number of small establishments included in the number of factories .

2. The number of factory workers and the volume of output of factories and works are likewise exaggerated for the past period in our statistics . This is due, firstly, to the fact that former]y a
greater number of small establishments were included. Hence, the data
for the industries that merge with handicrafts are particularly unreliable. [34]

Secondly, it is due to the fact that in the past more capitalistically employed home workers were classified as
factory workers than today.

3. It is customary in this country to think that if figures are taken from
the official factory statistics they must be considered comparable with
other figures taken from the same source, and must be regarded as more or
less reliable, until the contrary is proved. What has been said above,
however, leads to the opposite conclusion, namely, that all comparisons of
our factory statistics for different times and for different gubernias
must be regarded as unreliable until the reverse is proved.

---
Notes:
[1]
In all cases, unless otherwise stated, we take the data of the
Yearbook for 1866 and those of the Directories for 1879
and 1890.—The Historico-Statistical Survey (Vol. II) gives
annual information on cloth production from 1855 to 1879; the following
are the five-year averages of workers employed from 1855-1859 to
1875-1879: 107,433-96,131- 92,117; 87,960 and 81,458.— Lenin

[2]
See A Survey of Various Branches of Manufactory Industry in Russia , Vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1862, particularly pp. 165 and
167. Cf. also Military Statistical Abstract , D. 357 and foll. At
the present time we rarely meet in the lists of cloth manufacturers the
celebrated noble families that constituted the overwhelming majority in
the 1860s.— Lenin

[3]
The following examples are taken from Zemstvo statistical
material. Concerning N. P. Gladkov’s cloth factory in Volsk Uyezd
Saratov Gubernia (in 1866 it had 306 workers), we read in the Zemstvo
statistical abstract for this uyezd (p. 275) that peasants were forced to
work in the factory belonging to the lord. “They worked in the
factory until they married, and then became tax-paying members of the
peasant community.” In the village of Rvassy, Ranenburg Uyezd,
Ryazan Gubernia, there was in 1866 a cloth factory employing 180
workers. The peasants performed their Corvée by working in the mill, which
was closed down in 1870 ( Statistical Returns for Ryazan Gubernia ,
Vol. II, Pt. I, Moscow, 1882, p. 330).— Lenin

[4]
See Nisselovich, A History of the Factory Legislation of the Russian Empire , Pts. I and II, St. Petersburg, 1883-1884.—A. Semyonov,
A Study of Historical Data on Russian Foreign Trade and Industry ,
St. Petersburg, 1858-1859, 3 parts.—V. I. Semevsky, The Peasants in the Reign of Catherine II , St. Petersburg,
1881.— Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia . Sanitary
Statistical Sec, Vol IV, Pt. I (general summary), Moscow, 1890, article by
A. V. Pogozhev, “The Manorial-Possessional Factories of Moscow
Gubernia.”—M. Tugan-Baranovsky, The Russian Factory , St. Petersburg, 1898, Vol. I.— Lenin

[5]
Cf. Successes of Russian Industry According to Surveys of Expert Commissions , St. Petersburg, 1897, p. 60.— Lenin

[6]
The data on steam-engines in this and the following instances are taken
from Material for the Statistics of Steam-Engines in the Russian Empire published by the Central Statistical Committee,
St. Petersburg, 1882; for 1890 they are taken from Collection of Data on Factory Industry ; data on mechanised establishments are from the
Directory .— Lenin

[7]
Cf. Tugan-Baranovsky, loc . cit ., p. 420.—The total number of village hand weavers working for capitalists was estimated by
Semyonov at approximately 385,857 in 1859 ( loc . cit .,
III, 273) to these he added another 200,000 village workers engaged
“in other factory trades” ( ibid ., p. 302). At the present time, as we have seen above, the number of capitalistically
employed home workers is much larger.— Lenin

[8]
Establishments with an output of under 2,000 rubles are classed as
workrooms. The data of the special investigation of factories and works in
Moscow and Vladimir gubernias made in 1868 by the Central Statistical
Committee contain the repeated statement that the output figures of the
small weaving establishments merely indicate pay for work
done. Establishments that distribute work to home workers are classed as
offices. For 1866 the figure given for these establishments is far from
complete, owing to obvious omissions in the case of Moscow Gubernia.— Lenin

[9]
Military Statistical Abstract , 380.— Survey of Manufactory Industry , Vol, II, St. Petersburg, 1863,
p. 451. —In 1898 the number of power-looms used in cotton weaving
(for the whole Empire, evidently) was reckoned at 100,630. Successes of Russian Industry , p. 33.— Lenin

[10]
Military Statistical Abstract , pp. 367-368: Commissariat returns.— Lenin

[11]
In silk-weaving in 1879 there were 495 power-looms and 5,996 hand-looms
( Historico-Statistical Survey ), and in 1890 there were 2,899 of
the former and over 7,500 of the latter.— Lenin

[12]
For example, in 1879 the number of factories computed in these trades was
729; of this number, 466 had 977 workers and an output of 170,000
rubles. Even today one can find many such “factories”—for instance, in the description of the
handicraft industries of Vyatka and Perm gubernias.— Lenin

[13]
Cf. Military Statistical Abstract , p. 389. Survey of Manufactory Industry , I, 309.— Lenin

[14]
Thus in 1879, of 91 bast-matting factories 39 had an output of less than
1,000 rubles each (Cf. Studies , p. 155). [See present edition
Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .] In the pitch-and-tar trade for f890 there
were computed 140 factories, all with an output exceeding 2,000 rubles;
for 1879, 1,033 were computed, of which 911 had an output of less than
2,000 rubles; for 1866 the number listed was 669 (for the Empire), while
the Military Statistical Abstract even gave the figure of 3,164!!
(Cf. Studies , pp. 156 and 271.) [See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia , and Vol. 4,
“On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.” – Ed .]— Lenin

[15]
Military Statistical Abstract , Historico-Statistical Survey and Productive Forces , IX, 16.—The number of
workers in 1866—5,645; in 1890—25,471; in 1875-1878—38 mechanised establishments, with 34 steam-engines to a total of 332 h.p.;
and in 1890—141 mechanised establishments, with 208 steam-engines to
a total of 3,319 h.p.— Lenin

[16]
Cf. Directory for 1879 and 1890 about potash production. The
production of saltpetre is now concentrated in one factory in
St. Petersburg, whereas in the 60s and 70s saltpetre was obtained from
burti (dungheaps).— Lenin

[17]
Here, too, the number of factories in the 60s and 709 included a host of
small establishments.— Lenin

[18]
In 1875, Prof. Kittary, in his Map of Leather Production in Russia , gave an aggregate of 12,939 establishments, with output
totalling 47 1/2 million rubles, whereas the factory statistics gave 2,764
establishments, with output totalling 26 1/2 million rubles
(Historico-Statistical Survey). In the fur trade, another in this section,
a similar lumping is observed of small establishments together with
factories: Cf. Directory for 1879 and for 1890.— Lenin

[19]
The Military Statistical Abstract gave an aggregate of even
3,890!!— Lenin

[20]
If we distribute the factories shown in the Directory as for 1890
according to date of establishment we get the following: of 1,506
factories the number established at dates unknown was 91, before 1850
—331; in the 1850s—147; in the 60s—239; in the
70s—320; in the 80s —351; in 1890—21. In every succeeding decade more factories were established than in the preceding
one.— Lenin

[21]
The small establishments in these industries are now classed with the
handicrafts. Cf., for instance, the table of small industries (Appendix I)
or Studies , pp. 158-159. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .). The Ministry of Finance Yearbook
(Vol. I) refused to give totals for these industries because the figures
were obviously exaggerated. Progress in statistics since then is expressed
in an increased boldness and disregard of the quality of material used.— Lenin

[22]
Thus, in the 60s, dozens of smithies were classed for some gubernias as
“ironworks.”– See Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance , 1866, No. 4, p. 406; 1867, No. 6
p. 384.— Statistical Chronicle , Series II,
Vol. 6.—Cf. also the example quoted above (§ II) where the
Yearbook for 1866 includes the small handicraftsmen of the
Pavlovo district among the “factory owners.”— Lenin

[23]
See examples in Studies , p. 269 and p. 284 (see present edition,
Vol. 4, “On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.”
– Ed .), where Mr. Karyshev’s error in ignoring this circumstance is examined. The Directory for 1879, for instance,
includes the Kulebaki and Vyksa ironworks, or departments of them (pp. 356
and 374), which are omitted in the Directory for 1890.— Lenin

[24]
And in addition 32,957 “small windmills,” not counted among
the “factories and works.”— Lenin

[25]
See examples of such conclusions drawn by Mr. Karyshev in the above-quoted
article in the Studies . (See present edition, Vol. 4, op . cit . – Ed .)— Lenin

[26]
Large watermills are also in the nature of factories, of course, but we
have no data to enable us to single them out from among the small ones. In
the Directory for 1890 we saw listed 250 watermills each
employing 10 and more workers. They employed 6,378 workers.— Lenin

[27]
Military Statistical Abstract , Directories and
Collection . According to the List for 1894-95, there are
1,192 steam-mills in European Russia. The statistics for steam-engines
gave the number of steam-mills in European Russia in 1875-1878 as 294.— Lenin

[28]
Oil-pressing, starch, treacle, malt, confectionery, preserves and vinegar.— Lenin

[29]
Russkoye Bogatstvo , 1894, No. 6, pp. 104-105.— Lenin

[30]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , I, pp. 76 and 82. The total
number of distilleries (including those not in operation) was 4,737 and
4,646 respectively.— Lenin

[31]
Yearbook , I, p. 104.— Lenin

[32]
E.g., in Simbirsk Gubernia, the Military Statistical Abstract
computes 218 distilleries (!) with 299 workers and an output totalling
21,600 rubles. (According to the Yearbook there were 7 distilleries in the gubernia.) Very likely, these were small domestic or
peasant establishments.— Lenin

[33]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , p. 61. Cf. Survey of Manufactory Industry (Vol. II St. Petersburg, 1863), which gives
detailed information for 1861: 534 factories, with 6,937 workers; and in
Bessarabia Gubernia, 31 factories, with 73 workers. The number of tobacco
factories fluctuates greatly from year to year.— Lenin

[34]
If we take the gross figures for all trades and for long periods, the
exaggeration resulting from the cause mentioned will not be great, for the
small establishments account for a small percentage of the total number of
workers and the total output. It goes without saying that one presumes a
comparison of figures taken from similar sources (there can be no question
of comparing the returns of the Ministry of Finance with those of
gubernatorial reports, or of the Military Statistical Abstract ).— Lenin

[35]
The “ landlord establishment of a manorial-possessional character ” was a feudal manorial manufactory belonging to a landlord and employing his serf-peasants. By a decree of Peter I issued in 1721,
merchant factory owners were permitted to purchase peasants for work in
their factories. The feudal workers attached to such enterprises were
called “possessional peasants.” [p. 470]

| | II. Our Factory Statistics | | | IV. The Development of the Mining Industry | |

# Textile Trades

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8iii.htm#sect01

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

III. An Examination of Historico-Statistical Data On the
Development of Large-Scale Industry

We have noted above that to judge the development of large-scale industry
from factory statistics it is necessary to separate the relatively useful
material in these statistics from the utterly useless. Let us, with this
in view, examine the main branches of our manufacturing industry.

1) Textile Trades

At the head of the wool trades is cloth production, which in 1890 had an
output of over 35 million rubles and employed 45,000 workers. The
historico-statistical data on this trade indicate a considerable drop in
the number of workers, namely, from 72,638 in 1866 to 46,740 in

1890. [1]

To appraise this phenomenon we must take account of the fact that up to the 1860s
inclusive, felt cloth production was organised on specific and original
lines: it was concentrated in relatively large establishments which,
however, did not in any way come under the category of capitalist factory
industry, since they were based on the labour of serfs, or of temporarily
bound peasants. In the surveys of the “factory” industry of
the 60s we therefore meet with the division of cloth mills into 1) those
owned by landlords or nobles, and 2) those owned by merchants. The former
produced mainly army cloth, the government contracts having been
distributed equally among the mills in proportion to the number of
machines. Compulsory labour was the cause of the technical backwardness of
such establishments and of their employing a much larger number of workers
than the merchant mills based on the employment of hired labour. [2]

The principal drop in the number of workers, engaged in felt cloth production
took place in the gubernias with landlord factories; thus, in the 13 such
gubernias (enumerated in the Survey of Manufactory Industries ),
the number of workers dropped from 32,921 to 14,539 (1866 and 1890), while
in the 5 gubernias with merchant factories (Moscow, Grodno, Liflandia, Chernigov and St. Petersburg) it dropped from
31,291 to 28,257. From this it is clear that we have here two opposite
trends, both of which, however, indicate the development of
capitalism—on the one hand, the decline of landlord establishments
of a manorial-possessional character, [35] and on the other, the development of purely capitalist factories out of merchant
establishments. A considerable number of the workers employed in felt
cloth production in the 60s were not factory workers at all in
the strict sense of the term; they were dependent peasants working for landlords. [3]

Cloth production is an example of that specific phenomenon of Russian
history—the employment of serf labour in industry. Since we are
dealing only with the post-Reform period, the above brief remarks will
suffice to show the way in which this phenomenon is reflected in factory statistics. [4]

We
shall now quote some figures drawn from statistics on steam-engines in
order to estimate the development of large-scale machine production in
this industry: in 1875-1878, in the wool-spinning and cloth industries of
European Russia there were 167 mechanised establishments using 209
steam-engines with a total of 4,632 h.p., and in 1890 there were 197
establishments using

341 steam-engines with a total of 6,602 h.p. The use of steam power,
therefore, did not make very rapid progress; this is to be explained
partly by the traditions of landlord factories and partly by the
displacement of felt cloth by the cheaper worsted and mixed fabrics. [5]

In the years 1875-1878 there were seven mechanised establishments using 20
steam-engines with a total of 303 h.p., and in 1890 there were 28
mechanised establishments employing 61 steam-engines to a total of 1,375 h.p. [6]

In regard to the woollen-goods industry let us also take note of
felt-making, a branch that shows in particularly striking fashion the
impossibility of comparing factory statistics for different times: the
figures for 1866 are 77 factories with a total of 295 workers, while for
1890 they are 57 factories with 1,217 workers. The former figure includes
60 small establishments employing 137 workers with an output of under
2,000 rubles, while the latter includes an establishment with four
workers. In 1866 39 small establishments were recorded in Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, where felt-making is now highly developed but is
regarded as a “handicraft” and not a “factory” industry (see Chapter VI, § II, 2).

Further, a particularly important place in the textile trades is held by
cotton processing, a branch which now employs over 200,000 workers. Here
we observe one of the biggest errors of our factory statistics, namely,
the combining of factory workers and capitalistically occupied home
workers. Large-scale machine industry developed here (as in many other
cases) by drawing home workers into the factory. It is obvious how
distorted this process will appear if work-distributing offices and work
rooms are classed as “factories,” if home workers are lumped together with factory workers! For 1866 (according to the Yearbook ) up to 22,000 home workers were included among factory workers (by
no means the full number, for the Yearbook , evidently by pure
accident, omits in the case of Moscow Gubernia those notes about
“work from village to village” which are so abundant for
Vladimir Gubernia). For 1890 (according to the Directory ) we
found only about 9,000 such workers. Clearly, the figures given in the
factory statistics (1866—59,000 workers in the cotton weaving mills;
1890—75,000) underrate the increase in the number of factory workers that actually took place. [7]

Here are data showing what different establishments were classed at different times
as cotton-weaving “factories”: [8]

Thus, the decrease in the number of “factories” shown by the
“statistics” actually indicates the displacing of distributing
offices and workrooms by the factory. Let us illustrate this by the
example of two factories:

Hence, to assess the development of large-scale machine production in this
branch of industry it is best to take the data giving the number of
power-looms. In the 18609 there were about

11,000, [9] and in
1890 about 87,000. Large-scale machine industry was consequently
developing at enormous speed. In cotton spinning and weaving there was
recorded in 1875-1878 a total of 148 mechanised establishments, having 481
steam-engines totalling 20,504 h.p., and in 1890, 168 mechanised
establishments, having 554 steam-engines with a total of 38,750 h.p.

Precisely the same mistake is made in Russian statistics in relation to
linen production, wherein a decrease in the number of factory workers is
erroneously shown (1866—17,171; 1890—15,497). Actually, in
1866, of 16,900 looms belonging to linen-mill owners only 4,749 were kept
in their establishments, the remaining 12,151 being held by work room owners. [10]

The number of factory workers for 1866, therefore, included about 12,000 home
workers, and for 1890 only about 3,000 (computed from Directory ). The number of power-looms, however, grew from 2,263 in 1866
(computed from Military Statistical Abstract ) to 4,041 in

1890, and of spindles from 95,495 to 218,012. In flax spinning and
linen-weaving in the years 1875-1878 there were 28 mechanised
establishments, having 47 steam engines with a total of 1,604 h.p., while
in 1890 there were 48 mechanised establishments, having 83 steam-engines
with a total of 5,027 h.p. [11]

Lastly, of the textile trades mention should be made of dyeing, printing
and finishing, in which trades the factory statistics combine factories
and the very smallest handicraft establishments with only 1 or 2 workers
each and an output of a few hundred rubles. [12]

Naturally, this causes no little confusion and obscures the rapid growth
of large-scale machine industry. The following figures reflect this
growth: in the wool-cleaning, dyeing, bleaching and finishing trades in
1875-1878 there were 80 mechanised establishments with 255 steam-engines
totalling 2,634 h.p.; in 1890 there were 189 mechanised establishments
with 858 steam-engines totalling 9,100 h.p.

2) Wood - Working Industries

In this section the most reliable data are those on saw milling, although
in the past small establishments were also included here. [13]

The enormous development of this trade in the post-Reform period (1866—4
million rubles 1890—19 million rubles), accompanied by a
considerable increase in the number of workers (4,000 and 15,000) and in
the number of steam-powered establishments (26 and 430), is particularly
interesting, in that it affords striking evidence of the growth of the
lumber industry. Saw-milling is but one of the operations of the lumber
industry, which is a necessary concomitant of the first steps of
large-scale machine industry.

As to the rest of the trades in this section, namely, furnishing and carpentry, bast-matting, and pitch and tar—the
factory statistics relating to them are distinguished for their
particularly chaotic condition. The small establishments so numerous in
these trades were formerly included among the “factories” in
numbers fixed arbitrarily, and the same is sometimes done even today. [14]

3) Chemical, Livestock - Product and
Ceramic Industries

The statistics on the chemical industry proper are distinguished for their
relative reliability. The following returns show its growth: in 1857
chemical products were consumed in Russia to a total of 14 million rubles
(3.4 million rubles home produced and 10.6 million rubles imported); in
1880, to a total of 36 1/4 million rubles (7 1/2 million rubles home
produced and 28 3/4 imported); and in 1890, to a total of 42.7 million
rubles (16.1 million rubles home produced and 26.6 imported). [15]

These data are particularly interesting because the chemical industries
are extremely important as producers of auxiliary materials for
large-scale machine industry, i.e., articles of productive (and
not personal) consumption. As to potash and saltpetre production, let us
remark that the number of factories given is unreliable, again due to the
inclusion of small establishments. [16]

The tallow trade has undoubtedly declined in the post-Reform period. Thus,
the value of output of the tallow candle and tallow-boiling trade was
estimated in 1866-1868 at 13.6 million rubles, and in 1890 at 5 million rubles. [17]

This decline is to be explained by the growing use of mineral oils for
lighting, which are displacing the old-time tallow candle.

For leather production (1866: 2,308 establishments with 11,463 workers and
an output totalling 14.6 million rubles; 1890: 1,621 establishments with
15,564 workers and an output totalling 26.7 million rubles) statistics
constantly lump together factories and small establishments. The
relatively high cost of raw materials, which explains the high total
output, and the fact that this trade requires very few workers, make it
particularly difficult to draw a line of demarcation between the
handicraft establishments and the factories. In 1890, of the total number
of factories (1,621), only 103 had an output of less than 2,000 rubles; in
1879 there were 2,008 out of a total of

3,320 [18] ; in 1866, of 2,308 factories [19]

1,042 had an output of less than 1,000 rubles (these 1,042 factories employed
2,059 workers and had an output totalling 474,000 rubles). Thus, the
number of factories increased, although the factory statistics show a
decrease. As for the small leather establishments, their number is still
very large today: for instance, The Factory Industry and Trade of Russia , published by the Ministry of Finance (St. Petersburg, 1893),
gives a total of nearly 9,500 handicraft works, with 21,000 workers and an
output of 12 million rubles. These “handicraft” establishments
are much larger than those which in the 60s were included among
“factories and works.” Since small establishments are included among the “factories and works” in unequal
numbers in the different gubernias and in different years, the statistics
on this trade should be treated with great caution. The steam-engine
statistics for 1875-1878 gave for this industry 28 mechanised
establishments with 33 steam-engines to a total of 488 h.p. and in 1890
there were 66 mechanised establishments with 82 steam-engines to a total
of 1,112 h.p. In these 66 factories 5,522 workers (more than a third of
the total) were concentrated with an output totalling 12.3 million rubles
(46% of the total), so that the concentration of production was very
considerable, and the productivity of labour in the large establishments
far above the average. [20]

The ceramic trades fall into two categories in accordance with the
character of the factory statistics: in some, there is hardly any
combining of small-scale production with large. That is why these
statistics are fairly reliable. This applies to the following industries:
glass, porcelain and chinaware, plaster and cement. Particularly remark
able is the rapid growth of the last-mentioned trade, which is evidence of
the development of the building industry: the total output in 1866 was
estimated at 530,000 rubles ( Military Statistical Abstract ), and
in 1890 at 3,826,000 rubles; the number of power-operated establishments
in 1875-1878 was 8, and in 1890 it was 39. On the other hand, in the
pottery and brick trades the inclusion of small establishments is observed
on a tremendous scale, and for that reason the factory statistics are very
unsatisfactory, being particularly exaggerated for the 60s and 70s. Thus,
in the pottery trade in 1879 there were listed 552 establishments, with
1,900 workers and an output totalling 538,000 rubles, and in 1890, 158
establishments with 1,978 workers and an output totalling 919,000
rubles. If we subtract the small establishments (those with an output of
less than 2,000 rubles) we get: 1879—70 establishments, with

840 workers and an output of 505,000 rubles; 1890—143 establishments, with 1,859 workers and an output of 857,000 rubles. That
is to say, instead of the decrease in the number of “factories” and stagnation in the number of workers shown in
the statistics, there was actually a considerable increase in both the one
and the other. In brick-making the official data for 1879 showed 2,627
establishments, with 28,800 workers and an output totalling 6,963,000
rubles; for 1890—1,292 establishments, with 24,334 workers and an
output of 7,249,000 rubles; and without the small establishments (those
with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) we get for 1879—518
establishments, with 19,057 workers and an output of 5,625,000 rubles; and
for 1890—1,096 establishments, with 23,222 workers and an output of
7,240,000 rubles. [21]

4) Metallurgical Industries

In the factory statistics for the metallurgical industries the sources of
confusion are, firstly, the inclusion of small establishments (exclusively
in the 60s and

70s), [22] and, secondly and mainly, the fact that metallurgical plants are
“subject, not to the jurisdiction” of the Department of
Commerce and Manufacture, but to that of the Department of Mines. The
returns of the Ministry of Finance usually omit ironworks “on
principle”; but there have never been uniform and invariable rules
for the separation of ironworks from the other works (and it would hardly be possible to devise them). That is why the factory statistics published
by the Ministry of Finance always include ironworks to some extent,
although the actual degree to which they are included varies for different
gubernias and for different years. [23]

General data on the increased use of steam-engines in metallurgy since the Reform
will be given below, when we deal with the mining and metallurgical
industry.

5) Food Industries

These industries merit special attention for the question that concerns
us, since the confusion in factory statistics attains here its
maximum. And yet, these industries occupy a prominent place in our factory
industry as a whole.

Thus, according to the Directory for 1890 these industries
account for 7,095 factories, with 45,000 workers and an output totalling
174 million rubles out of a total for European Russia of 21,124 factories,
with 875,764 workers and an output of 1,501 million rubles. The fact is
that the principal trades of this group—flour-milling, groat milling
and oil-pressing—consist of the processing of agricultural
produce. There are hundreds and thousands of small establishments in
Russia engaged in this processing in every gubernia, and since there are
no generally established rules for selecting the “factories and
works” from among them, the statistics pick out such small
establishments quite fortuitously. That is why the numbers of
“factories and works” for different years and for different
gubernias fluctuate enormously. Here, for example, are the figures for the
flour-milling trade for various years, as taken from various sources:
1865— 857 mills ( Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance ); 1866— 2,176 ( Yearbook ); 1866—18,426
( Military Statistical Abstract ); 1885—3,940 ( Collection ); 17,765 ( Returns for Russia ); 1889, 1890
and 1891—5,073, 5,605 and

5,201 [24] ( Collection ); 1894-95—2,308 ( List ). Among the
5,041 mills listed in 1892 ( Collection ), 803 were steam-, 2,907
water-, 1,323 wind- and 8 horse-operated! Some gubernias counted only
steam-mills, others included watermills (in numbers ranging from 1 to
425), still others (the minority) included also windmills (from 1 to 530)
and horse-operated mills. One can imagine the value of such statistics,
and of conclusions based on a credulous use of the data they provide! [25]

Obviously, to judge the growth of large-scale machine industry we must first
establish a definite criterion for the term “factory.” Let us
take as such a criterion the employment of steam-engines:
steam-mills are a characteristic concomitant of the epoch of
large-scale machine industry. [26]

We get the following picture of the development of factory production in
this branch of industry. [27]

The statistics for the oil-pressing trade are unsatisfactory for the same
reason. For instance, in 1879 2,450 works were listed with 7,207 workers
and an output totalling 6,486,000 rubles, and in 1890 there were 383
works, with 4,746 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles. But
this decrease in the number of factories and of workers is only apparent. If the data for 1879 and 1890 are made comparable, i.e., if
we exclude establishments with an output of less than 2,000 rubles (not
included in the lists) we get for 1879: 272 works, with 2,941 workers and
an output totalling 5,771,000 rubles, and for 1890—379 works, with
4,741 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles. That large-scale
machine industry has developed in this trade no less rapidly than in
flour-milling is evident, for example, from the statistics for
steam-engines; in 1875-1878 there were 27 steam-powered works, with 28
steam engines of 521 h.p., while in 1890 there were 113 mechanised works,
with 116 steam-engines totalling 1,886 h.p.

The other trades of this group are relatively small. Let us note that in
the mustard and fish-products trades, for instance, the statistics of the
60s included hundreds of small establishments such as have nothing
whatever in common with factories and are now not classed as such. The
extent to which our factory statistics for various years need correction
is evident from the following: with the exception of flour-milling, the
Directory for 1879 gave in this section a total of 3,555
establishments with 15,313 workers, and for 1890—1,842 establishments with 19,159 workers. For 7 trades, [28] small
establishments (with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) were included as
follows: in 1879—2,487 with 5,176 workers and an output totalling
916,000 rubles and in 1890, seven establishments, employing ten workers
and with an output totalling two thousand rubles! To make the data
comparable, one should, consequently, subtract in one case five thousand
workers, and in the other, ten persons!

6) Excise - Paying and Other Trades

In some of the excise-paying trades we observe a decrease in the number of
factory workers between the 1860s and the present day, but the decrease is
not nearly as considerable as is asserted by Mr.

N.–on, [29] who blindly believes every figure in print. The fact is that for the majority of
excise-paying trades the only source of information is the Military Statistical Abstract , which, as we know, tremendously exaggerates the
totals in the factory statistics. Unfortunately, however, we have little
material with which to verify the data in the Abstract . In
distilling, the Military Statistical Abstract counted in 1866 a
total of 3,836 distilleries with 52,660 workers (in 1890—1,620, with
26,102 workers), but the number of distilleries does not coincide with the
data of the Ministry of Finance, which in 1865-66 calculated 2,947
operating distilleries and in

1866-67—3,386. [30]

Judging by this, the number of workers is exaggerated by some 5,000 to 9,000. In vodka distilling, the Military Statistical Abstract computes 4,841 distilleries, with 8,326 workers
(1890: 242 distilleries with 5,266 workers); of these Bessarabia Gubernia
has 3,207 distilleries with 6,873 workers. The absurdity of these figures
is glaring. In fact, we learn from material published by the Ministry of

Finance [31] that the actual number of vodka distilleries in Bessarabia Gubernia was 10 or
12, and in the whole of European Russia 1,157. The number of workers was
consequently exaggerated by a minimum of 6 thousand. The cause of this
exaggeration is, evidently, that the Bessarabian “statisticians” included vineyard owners among the owners of
distilleries (see below on tobacco making). In beer- and mead-brewing, the
Military Statistical Abstract counts 2,374 breweries, with 6,825
workers (1890—918 breweries, with 8,364 workers), whereas The Ministry of Finance Yearbook estimates a total of 2,087 breweries in
European Russia for 1866. The number of workers is exaggerated here too. [32]

In the beet-sugar and sugar-refining trades, the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerates the number of workers by 11 thousand, counting
92,126 persons, as against 80,919 according to the data of The Ministry of Finance Yearbook (1890—77,875 workers). In tobacco-making, the
Military Statistical Abstract gives 5,327 factories, with 26,116
workers (1890— 281 factories, with 26,720 workers); of these, 4,993
factories with 20,038 workers are in Bessarabia Gubernia. Actually, the
number of tobacco factories in Russia in 1866 was 343, and in Bessarabia
Gubernia

13. [33]

The number of workers has been exaggerated by about 20 thousand , and even
the compilers of the Military Statistical Abstract themselves
indicated that “the factories shown in Bessarabia Gubernia . . . are
nothing but tobacco plantations” (p. 414). Mr. N.–on evidently
thought it superfluous to glance at the text of the statistical
publication he uses; that is why he failed to notice the error, and
discoursed with a highly serious air about a “slight increase in the
number of workers in the . . . tobacco factories” (article cited,
p. 104)!! Mr. N.–on simply takes the total number of workers in the
excise paying trades from the Military Statistical Abstract and
the Directory for 1890 (186,053 and 144,332) and calculates the
percentage of decrease. . . . “In a period of 25 years there has
been a considerable drop in the number of workers employed. It has
diminished by 22.4%. . . . “Here” (i.e., in the excise-paying
trades) “we see no signs of an increase, the plain fact being that
the number of workers has simply declined by a quarter of its previous
magnitude” ( ibid .). Indeed, what could be “simpler”! Take the first figure you lay your hands on, and
calculate a percentage! As for the trifling circumstance that the figure
given in the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerates the number
of workers by some forty thousand , that can be ignored.

7) Conclusions

The criticism of our factory statistics given in the last two sections
leads us to the following main conclusions:

1. The number of factories in Russia has been rapidly growing in the post-Reform period .

The opposite conclusion, which follows from our factory statistics, is
erroneous. The point is that the figures we are given of factories include
small artisan, handicraft and agricultural establishments, and the further back we go from the present day , the larger the number of small establishments included in the number of factories .

2. The number of factory workers and the volume of output of factories and works are likewise exaggerated for the past period in our statistics . This is due, firstly, to the fact that former]y a
greater number of small establishments were included. Hence, the data
for the industries that merge with handicrafts are particularly unreliable. [34]

Secondly, it is due to the fact that in the past more capitalistically employed home workers were classified as
factory workers than today.

3. It is customary in this country to think that if figures are taken from
the official factory statistics they must be considered comparable with
other figures taken from the same source, and must be regarded as more or
less reliable, until the contrary is proved. What has been said above,
however, leads to the opposite conclusion, namely, that all comparisons of
our factory statistics for different times and for different gubernias
must be regarded as unreliable until the reverse is proved.

---
Notes:
[1]
In all cases, unless otherwise stated, we take the data of the
Yearbook for 1866 and those of the Directories for 1879
and 1890.—The Historico-Statistical Survey (Vol. II) gives
annual information on cloth production from 1855 to 1879; the following
are the five-year averages of workers employed from 1855-1859 to
1875-1879: 107,433-96,131- 92,117; 87,960 and 81,458.— Lenin

[2]
See A Survey of Various Branches of Manufactory Industry in Russia , Vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1862, particularly pp. 165 and
167. Cf. also Military Statistical Abstract , D. 357 and foll. At
the present time we rarely meet in the lists of cloth manufacturers the
celebrated noble families that constituted the overwhelming majority in
the 1860s.— Lenin

[3]
The following examples are taken from Zemstvo statistical
material. Concerning N. P. Gladkov’s cloth factory in Volsk Uyezd
Saratov Gubernia (in 1866 it had 306 workers), we read in the Zemstvo
statistical abstract for this uyezd (p. 275) that peasants were forced to
work in the factory belonging to the lord. “They worked in the
factory until they married, and then became tax-paying members of the
peasant community.” In the village of Rvassy, Ranenburg Uyezd,
Ryazan Gubernia, there was in 1866 a cloth factory employing 180
workers. The peasants performed their Corvée by working in the mill, which
was closed down in 1870 ( Statistical Returns for Ryazan Gubernia ,
Vol. II, Pt. I, Moscow, 1882, p. 330).— Lenin

[4]
See Nisselovich, A History of the Factory Legislation of the Russian Empire , Pts. I and II, St. Petersburg, 1883-1884.—A. Semyonov,
A Study of Historical Data on Russian Foreign Trade and Industry ,
St. Petersburg, 1858-1859, 3 parts.—V. I. Semevsky, The Peasants in the Reign of Catherine II , St. Petersburg,
1881.— Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia . Sanitary
Statistical Sec, Vol IV, Pt. I (general summary), Moscow, 1890, article by
A. V. Pogozhev, “The Manorial-Possessional Factories of Moscow
Gubernia.”—M. Tugan-Baranovsky, The Russian Factory , St. Petersburg, 1898, Vol. I.— Lenin

[5]
Cf. Successes of Russian Industry According to Surveys of Expert Commissions , St. Petersburg, 1897, p. 60.— Lenin

[6]
The data on steam-engines in this and the following instances are taken
from Material for the Statistics of Steam-Engines in the Russian Empire published by the Central Statistical Committee,
St. Petersburg, 1882; for 1890 they are taken from Collection of Data on Factory Industry ; data on mechanised establishments are from the
Directory .— Lenin

[7]
Cf. Tugan-Baranovsky, loc . cit ., p. 420.—The total number of village hand weavers working for capitalists was estimated by
Semyonov at approximately 385,857 in 1859 ( loc . cit .,
III, 273) to these he added another 200,000 village workers engaged
“in other factory trades” ( ibid ., p. 302). At the present time, as we have seen above, the number of capitalistically
employed home workers is much larger.— Lenin

[8]
Establishments with an output of under 2,000 rubles are classed as
workrooms. The data of the special investigation of factories and works in
Moscow and Vladimir gubernias made in 1868 by the Central Statistical
Committee contain the repeated statement that the output figures of the
small weaving establishments merely indicate pay for work
done. Establishments that distribute work to home workers are classed as
offices. For 1866 the figure given for these establishments is far from
complete, owing to obvious omissions in the case of Moscow Gubernia.— Lenin

[9]
Military Statistical Abstract , 380.— Survey of Manufactory Industry , Vol, II, St. Petersburg, 1863,
p. 451. —In 1898 the number of power-looms used in cotton weaving
(for the whole Empire, evidently) was reckoned at 100,630. Successes of Russian Industry , p. 33.— Lenin

[10]
Military Statistical Abstract , pp. 367-368: Commissariat returns.— Lenin

[11]
In silk-weaving in 1879 there were 495 power-looms and 5,996 hand-looms
( Historico-Statistical Survey ), and in 1890 there were 2,899 of
the former and over 7,500 of the latter.— Lenin

[12]
For example, in 1879 the number of factories computed in these trades was
729; of this number, 466 had 977 workers and an output of 170,000
rubles. Even today one can find many such “factories”—for instance, in the description of the
handicraft industries of Vyatka and Perm gubernias.— Lenin

[13]
Cf. Military Statistical Abstract , p. 389. Survey of Manufactory Industry , I, 309.— Lenin

[14]
Thus in 1879, of 91 bast-matting factories 39 had an output of less than
1,000 rubles each (Cf. Studies , p. 155). [See present edition
Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .] In the pitch-and-tar trade for f890 there
were computed 140 factories, all with an output exceeding 2,000 rubles;
for 1879, 1,033 were computed, of which 911 had an output of less than
2,000 rubles; for 1866 the number listed was 669 (for the Empire), while
the Military Statistical Abstract even gave the figure of 3,164!!
(Cf. Studies , pp. 156 and 271.) [See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia , and Vol. 4,
“On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.” – Ed .]— Lenin

[15]
Military Statistical Abstract , Historico-Statistical Survey and Productive Forces , IX, 16.—The number of
workers in 1866—5,645; in 1890—25,471; in 1875-1878—38 mechanised establishments, with 34 steam-engines to a total of 332 h.p.;
and in 1890—141 mechanised establishments, with 208 steam-engines to
a total of 3,319 h.p.— Lenin

[16]
Cf. Directory for 1879 and 1890 about potash production. The
production of saltpetre is now concentrated in one factory in
St. Petersburg, whereas in the 60s and 70s saltpetre was obtained from
burti (dungheaps).— Lenin

[17]
Here, too, the number of factories in the 60s and 709 included a host of
small establishments.— Lenin

[18]
In 1875, Prof. Kittary, in his Map of Leather Production in Russia , gave an aggregate of 12,939 establishments, with output
totalling 47 1/2 million rubles, whereas the factory statistics gave 2,764
establishments, with output totalling 26 1/2 million rubles
(Historico-Statistical Survey). In the fur trade, another in this section,
a similar lumping is observed of small establishments together with
factories: Cf. Directory for 1879 and for 1890.— Lenin

[19]
The Military Statistical Abstract gave an aggregate of even
3,890!!— Lenin

[20]
If we distribute the factories shown in the Directory as for 1890
according to date of establishment we get the following: of 1,506
factories the number established at dates unknown was 91, before 1850
—331; in the 1850s—147; in the 60s—239; in the
70s—320; in the 80s —351; in 1890—21. In every succeeding decade more factories were established than in the preceding
one.— Lenin

[21]
The small establishments in these industries are now classed with the
handicrafts. Cf., for instance, the table of small industries (Appendix I)
or Studies , pp. 158-159. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .). The Ministry of Finance Yearbook
(Vol. I) refused to give totals for these industries because the figures
were obviously exaggerated. Progress in statistics since then is expressed
in an increased boldness and disregard of the quality of material used.— Lenin

[22]
Thus, in the 60s, dozens of smithies were classed for some gubernias as
“ironworks.”– See Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance , 1866, No. 4, p. 406; 1867, No. 6
p. 384.— Statistical Chronicle , Series II,
Vol. 6.—Cf. also the example quoted above (§ II) where the
Yearbook for 1866 includes the small handicraftsmen of the
Pavlovo district among the “factory owners.”— Lenin

[23]
See examples in Studies , p. 269 and p. 284 (see present edition,
Vol. 4, “On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.”
– Ed .), where Mr. Karyshev’s error in ignoring this circumstance is examined. The Directory for 1879, for instance,
includes the Kulebaki and Vyksa ironworks, or departments of them (pp. 356
and 374), which are omitted in the Directory for 1890.— Lenin

[24]
And in addition 32,957 “small windmills,” not counted among
the “factories and works.”— Lenin

[25]
See examples of such conclusions drawn by Mr. Karyshev in the above-quoted
article in the Studies . (See present edition, Vol. 4, op . cit . – Ed .)— Lenin

[26]
Large watermills are also in the nature of factories, of course, but we
have no data to enable us to single them out from among the small ones. In
the Directory for 1890 we saw listed 250 watermills each
employing 10 and more workers. They employed 6,378 workers.— Lenin

[27]
Military Statistical Abstract , Directories and
Collection . According to the List for 1894-95, there are
1,192 steam-mills in European Russia. The statistics for steam-engines
gave the number of steam-mills in European Russia in 1875-1878 as 294.— Lenin

[28]
Oil-pressing, starch, treacle, malt, confectionery, preserves and vinegar.— Lenin

[29]
Russkoye Bogatstvo , 1894, No. 6, pp. 104-105.— Lenin

[30]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , I, pp. 76 and 82. The total
number of distilleries (including those not in operation) was 4,737 and
4,646 respectively.— Lenin

[31]
Yearbook , I, p. 104.— Lenin

[32]
E.g., in Simbirsk Gubernia, the Military Statistical Abstract
computes 218 distilleries (!) with 299 workers and an output totalling
21,600 rubles. (According to the Yearbook there were 7 distilleries in the gubernia.) Very likely, these were small domestic or
peasant establishments.— Lenin

[33]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , p. 61. Cf. Survey of Manufactory Industry (Vol. II St. Petersburg, 1863), which gives
detailed information for 1861: 534 factories, with 6,937 workers; and in
Bessarabia Gubernia, 31 factories, with 73 workers. The number of tobacco
factories fluctuates greatly from year to year.— Lenin

[34]
If we take the gross figures for all trades and for long periods, the
exaggeration resulting from the cause mentioned will not be great, for the
small establishments account for a small percentage of the total number of
workers and the total output. It goes without saying that one presumes a
comparison of figures taken from similar sources (there can be no question
of comparing the returns of the Ministry of Finance with those of
gubernatorial reports, or of the Military Statistical Abstract ).— Lenin

[35]
The “ landlord establishment of a manorial-possessional character ” was a feudal manorial manufactory belonging to a landlord and employing his serf-peasants. By a decree of Peter I issued in 1721,
merchant factory owners were permitted to purchase peasants for work in
their factories. The feudal workers attached to such enterprises were
called “possessional peasants.” [p. 470]

| | II. Our Factory Statistics | | | IV. The Development of the Mining Industry | |

# Wood-Working Industries

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8iii.htm#sect02

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

III. An Examination of Historico-Statistical Data On the
Development of Large-Scale Industry

We have noted above that to judge the development of large-scale industry
from factory statistics it is necessary to separate the relatively useful
material in these statistics from the utterly useless. Let us, with this
in view, examine the main branches of our manufacturing industry.

1) Textile Trades

At the head of the wool trades is cloth production, which in 1890 had an
output of over 35 million rubles and employed 45,000 workers. The
historico-statistical data on this trade indicate a considerable drop in
the number of workers, namely, from 72,638 in 1866 to 46,740 in

1890. [1]

To appraise this phenomenon we must take account of the fact that up to the 1860s
inclusive, felt cloth production was organised on specific and original
lines: it was concentrated in relatively large establishments which,
however, did not in any way come under the category of capitalist factory
industry, since they were based on the labour of serfs, or of temporarily
bound peasants. In the surveys of the “factory” industry of
the 60s we therefore meet with the division of cloth mills into 1) those
owned by landlords or nobles, and 2) those owned by merchants. The former
produced mainly army cloth, the government contracts having been
distributed equally among the mills in proportion to the number of
machines. Compulsory labour was the cause of the technical backwardness of
such establishments and of their employing a much larger number of workers
than the merchant mills based on the employment of hired labour. [2]

The principal drop in the number of workers, engaged in felt cloth production
took place in the gubernias with landlord factories; thus, in the 13 such
gubernias (enumerated in the Survey of Manufactory Industries ),
the number of workers dropped from 32,921 to 14,539 (1866 and 1890), while
in the 5 gubernias with merchant factories (Moscow, Grodno, Liflandia, Chernigov and St. Petersburg) it dropped from
31,291 to 28,257. From this it is clear that we have here two opposite
trends, both of which, however, indicate the development of
capitalism—on the one hand, the decline of landlord establishments
of a manorial-possessional character, [35] and on the other, the development of purely capitalist factories out of merchant
establishments. A considerable number of the workers employed in felt
cloth production in the 60s were not factory workers at all in
the strict sense of the term; they were dependent peasants working for landlords. [3]

Cloth production is an example of that specific phenomenon of Russian
history—the employment of serf labour in industry. Since we are
dealing only with the post-Reform period, the above brief remarks will
suffice to show the way in which this phenomenon is reflected in factory statistics. [4]

We
shall now quote some figures drawn from statistics on steam-engines in
order to estimate the development of large-scale machine production in
this industry: in 1875-1878, in the wool-spinning and cloth industries of
European Russia there were 167 mechanised establishments using 209
steam-engines with a total of 4,632 h.p., and in 1890 there were 197
establishments using

341 steam-engines with a total of 6,602 h.p. The use of steam power,
therefore, did not make very rapid progress; this is to be explained
partly by the traditions of landlord factories and partly by the
displacement of felt cloth by the cheaper worsted and mixed fabrics. [5]

In the years 1875-1878 there were seven mechanised establishments using 20
steam-engines with a total of 303 h.p., and in 1890 there were 28
mechanised establishments employing 61 steam-engines to a total of 1,375 h.p. [6]

In regard to the woollen-goods industry let us also take note of
felt-making, a branch that shows in particularly striking fashion the
impossibility of comparing factory statistics for different times: the
figures for 1866 are 77 factories with a total of 295 workers, while for
1890 they are 57 factories with 1,217 workers. The former figure includes
60 small establishments employing 137 workers with an output of under
2,000 rubles, while the latter includes an establishment with four
workers. In 1866 39 small establishments were recorded in Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, where felt-making is now highly developed but is
regarded as a “handicraft” and not a “factory” industry (see Chapter VI, § II, 2).

Further, a particularly important place in the textile trades is held by
cotton processing, a branch which now employs over 200,000 workers. Here
we observe one of the biggest errors of our factory statistics, namely,
the combining of factory workers and capitalistically occupied home
workers. Large-scale machine industry developed here (as in many other
cases) by drawing home workers into the factory. It is obvious how
distorted this process will appear if work-distributing offices and work
rooms are classed as “factories,” if home workers are lumped together with factory workers! For 1866 (according to the Yearbook ) up to 22,000 home workers were included among factory workers (by
no means the full number, for the Yearbook , evidently by pure
accident, omits in the case of Moscow Gubernia those notes about
“work from village to village” which are so abundant for
Vladimir Gubernia). For 1890 (according to the Directory ) we
found only about 9,000 such workers. Clearly, the figures given in the
factory statistics (1866—59,000 workers in the cotton weaving mills;
1890—75,000) underrate the increase in the number of factory workers that actually took place. [7]

Here are data showing what different establishments were classed at different times
as cotton-weaving “factories”: [8]

Thus, the decrease in the number of “factories” shown by the
“statistics” actually indicates the displacing of distributing
offices and workrooms by the factory. Let us illustrate this by the
example of two factories:

Hence, to assess the development of large-scale machine production in this
branch of industry it is best to take the data giving the number of
power-looms. In the 18609 there were about

11,000, [9] and in
1890 about 87,000. Large-scale machine industry was consequently
developing at enormous speed. In cotton spinning and weaving there was
recorded in 1875-1878 a total of 148 mechanised establishments, having 481
steam-engines totalling 20,504 h.p., and in 1890, 168 mechanised
establishments, having 554 steam-engines with a total of 38,750 h.p.

Precisely the same mistake is made in Russian statistics in relation to
linen production, wherein a decrease in the number of factory workers is
erroneously shown (1866—17,171; 1890—15,497). Actually, in
1866, of 16,900 looms belonging to linen-mill owners only 4,749 were kept
in their establishments, the remaining 12,151 being held by work room owners. [10]

The number of factory workers for 1866, therefore, included about 12,000 home
workers, and for 1890 only about 3,000 (computed from Directory ). The number of power-looms, however, grew from 2,263 in 1866
(computed from Military Statistical Abstract ) to 4,041 in

1890, and of spindles from 95,495 to 218,012. In flax spinning and
linen-weaving in the years 1875-1878 there were 28 mechanised
establishments, having 47 steam engines with a total of 1,604 h.p., while
in 1890 there were 48 mechanised establishments, having 83 steam-engines
with a total of 5,027 h.p. [11]

Lastly, of the textile trades mention should be made of dyeing, printing
and finishing, in which trades the factory statistics combine factories
and the very smallest handicraft establishments with only 1 or 2 workers
each and an output of a few hundred rubles. [12]

Naturally, this causes no little confusion and obscures the rapid growth
of large-scale machine industry. The following figures reflect this
growth: in the wool-cleaning, dyeing, bleaching and finishing trades in
1875-1878 there were 80 mechanised establishments with 255 steam-engines
totalling 2,634 h.p.; in 1890 there were 189 mechanised establishments
with 858 steam-engines totalling 9,100 h.p.

2) Wood - Working Industries

In this section the most reliable data are those on saw milling, although
in the past small establishments were also included here. [13]

The enormous development of this trade in the post-Reform period (1866—4
million rubles 1890—19 million rubles), accompanied by a
considerable increase in the number of workers (4,000 and 15,000) and in
the number of steam-powered establishments (26 and 430), is particularly
interesting, in that it affords striking evidence of the growth of the
lumber industry. Saw-milling is but one of the operations of the lumber
industry, which is a necessary concomitant of the first steps of
large-scale machine industry.

As to the rest of the trades in this section, namely, furnishing and carpentry, bast-matting, and pitch and tar—the
factory statistics relating to them are distinguished for their
particularly chaotic condition. The small establishments so numerous in
these trades were formerly included among the “factories” in
numbers fixed arbitrarily, and the same is sometimes done even today. [14]

3) Chemical, Livestock - Product and
Ceramic Industries

The statistics on the chemical industry proper are distinguished for their
relative reliability. The following returns show its growth: in 1857
chemical products were consumed in Russia to a total of 14 million rubles
(3.4 million rubles home produced and 10.6 million rubles imported); in
1880, to a total of 36 1/4 million rubles (7 1/2 million rubles home
produced and 28 3/4 imported); and in 1890, to a total of 42.7 million
rubles (16.1 million rubles home produced and 26.6 imported). [15]

These data are particularly interesting because the chemical industries
are extremely important as producers of auxiliary materials for
large-scale machine industry, i.e., articles of productive (and
not personal) consumption. As to potash and saltpetre production, let us
remark that the number of factories given is unreliable, again due to the
inclusion of small establishments. [16]

The tallow trade has undoubtedly declined in the post-Reform period. Thus,
the value of output of the tallow candle and tallow-boiling trade was
estimated in 1866-1868 at 13.6 million rubles, and in 1890 at 5 million rubles. [17]

This decline is to be explained by the growing use of mineral oils for
lighting, which are displacing the old-time tallow candle.

For leather production (1866: 2,308 establishments with 11,463 workers and
an output totalling 14.6 million rubles; 1890: 1,621 establishments with
15,564 workers and an output totalling 26.7 million rubles) statistics
constantly lump together factories and small establishments. The
relatively high cost of raw materials, which explains the high total
output, and the fact that this trade requires very few workers, make it
particularly difficult to draw a line of demarcation between the
handicraft establishments and the factories. In 1890, of the total number
of factories (1,621), only 103 had an output of less than 2,000 rubles; in
1879 there were 2,008 out of a total of

3,320 [18] ; in 1866, of 2,308 factories [19]

1,042 had an output of less than 1,000 rubles (these 1,042 factories employed
2,059 workers and had an output totalling 474,000 rubles). Thus, the
number of factories increased, although the factory statistics show a
decrease. As for the small leather establishments, their number is still
very large today: for instance, The Factory Industry and Trade of Russia , published by the Ministry of Finance (St. Petersburg, 1893),
gives a total of nearly 9,500 handicraft works, with 21,000 workers and an
output of 12 million rubles. These “handicraft” establishments
are much larger than those which in the 60s were included among
“factories and works.” Since small establishments are included among the “factories and works” in unequal
numbers in the different gubernias and in different years, the statistics
on this trade should be treated with great caution. The steam-engine
statistics for 1875-1878 gave for this industry 28 mechanised
establishments with 33 steam-engines to a total of 488 h.p. and in 1890
there were 66 mechanised establishments with 82 steam-engines to a total
of 1,112 h.p. In these 66 factories 5,522 workers (more than a third of
the total) were concentrated with an output totalling 12.3 million rubles
(46% of the total), so that the concentration of production was very
considerable, and the productivity of labour in the large establishments
far above the average. [20]

The ceramic trades fall into two categories in accordance with the
character of the factory statistics: in some, there is hardly any
combining of small-scale production with large. That is why these
statistics are fairly reliable. This applies to the following industries:
glass, porcelain and chinaware, plaster and cement. Particularly remark
able is the rapid growth of the last-mentioned trade, which is evidence of
the development of the building industry: the total output in 1866 was
estimated at 530,000 rubles ( Military Statistical Abstract ), and
in 1890 at 3,826,000 rubles; the number of power-operated establishments
in 1875-1878 was 8, and in 1890 it was 39. On the other hand, in the
pottery and brick trades the inclusion of small establishments is observed
on a tremendous scale, and for that reason the factory statistics are very
unsatisfactory, being particularly exaggerated for the 60s and 70s. Thus,
in the pottery trade in 1879 there were listed 552 establishments, with
1,900 workers and an output totalling 538,000 rubles, and in 1890, 158
establishments with 1,978 workers and an output totalling 919,000
rubles. If we subtract the small establishments (those with an output of
less than 2,000 rubles) we get: 1879—70 establishments, with

840 workers and an output of 505,000 rubles; 1890—143 establishments, with 1,859 workers and an output of 857,000 rubles. That
is to say, instead of the decrease in the number of “factories” and stagnation in the number of workers shown in
the statistics, there was actually a considerable increase in both the one
and the other. In brick-making the official data for 1879 showed 2,627
establishments, with 28,800 workers and an output totalling 6,963,000
rubles; for 1890—1,292 establishments, with 24,334 workers and an
output of 7,249,000 rubles; and without the small establishments (those
with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) we get for 1879—518
establishments, with 19,057 workers and an output of 5,625,000 rubles; and
for 1890—1,096 establishments, with 23,222 workers and an output of
7,240,000 rubles. [21]

4) Metallurgical Industries

In the factory statistics for the metallurgical industries the sources of
confusion are, firstly, the inclusion of small establishments (exclusively
in the 60s and

70s), [22] and, secondly and mainly, the fact that metallurgical plants are
“subject, not to the jurisdiction” of the Department of
Commerce and Manufacture, but to that of the Department of Mines. The
returns of the Ministry of Finance usually omit ironworks “on
principle”; but there have never been uniform and invariable rules
for the separation of ironworks from the other works (and it would hardly be possible to devise them). That is why the factory statistics published
by the Ministry of Finance always include ironworks to some extent,
although the actual degree to which they are included varies for different
gubernias and for different years. [23]

General data on the increased use of steam-engines in metallurgy since the Reform
will be given below, when we deal with the mining and metallurgical
industry.

5) Food Industries

These industries merit special attention for the question that concerns
us, since the confusion in factory statistics attains here its
maximum. And yet, these industries occupy a prominent place in our factory
industry as a whole.

Thus, according to the Directory for 1890 these industries
account for 7,095 factories, with 45,000 workers and an output totalling
174 million rubles out of a total for European Russia of 21,124 factories,
with 875,764 workers and an output of 1,501 million rubles. The fact is
that the principal trades of this group—flour-milling, groat milling
and oil-pressing—consist of the processing of agricultural
produce. There are hundreds and thousands of small establishments in
Russia engaged in this processing in every gubernia, and since there are
no generally established rules for selecting the “factories and
works” from among them, the statistics pick out such small
establishments quite fortuitously. That is why the numbers of
“factories and works” for different years and for different
gubernias fluctuate enormously. Here, for example, are the figures for the
flour-milling trade for various years, as taken from various sources:
1865— 857 mills ( Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance ); 1866— 2,176 ( Yearbook ); 1866—18,426
( Military Statistical Abstract ); 1885—3,940 ( Collection ); 17,765 ( Returns for Russia ); 1889, 1890
and 1891—5,073, 5,605 and

5,201 [24] ( Collection ); 1894-95—2,308 ( List ). Among the
5,041 mills listed in 1892 ( Collection ), 803 were steam-, 2,907
water-, 1,323 wind- and 8 horse-operated! Some gubernias counted only
steam-mills, others included watermills (in numbers ranging from 1 to
425), still others (the minority) included also windmills (from 1 to 530)
and horse-operated mills. One can imagine the value of such statistics,
and of conclusions based on a credulous use of the data they provide! [25]

Obviously, to judge the growth of large-scale machine industry we must first
establish a definite criterion for the term “factory.” Let us
take as such a criterion the employment of steam-engines:
steam-mills are a characteristic concomitant of the epoch of
large-scale machine industry. [26]

We get the following picture of the development of factory production in
this branch of industry. [27]

The statistics for the oil-pressing trade are unsatisfactory for the same
reason. For instance, in 1879 2,450 works were listed with 7,207 workers
and an output totalling 6,486,000 rubles, and in 1890 there were 383
works, with 4,746 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles. But
this decrease in the number of factories and of workers is only apparent. If the data for 1879 and 1890 are made comparable, i.e., if
we exclude establishments with an output of less than 2,000 rubles (not
included in the lists) we get for 1879: 272 works, with 2,941 workers and
an output totalling 5,771,000 rubles, and for 1890—379 works, with
4,741 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles. That large-scale
machine industry has developed in this trade no less rapidly than in
flour-milling is evident, for example, from the statistics for
steam-engines; in 1875-1878 there were 27 steam-powered works, with 28
steam engines of 521 h.p., while in 1890 there were 113 mechanised works,
with 116 steam-engines totalling 1,886 h.p.

The other trades of this group are relatively small. Let us note that in
the mustard and fish-products trades, for instance, the statistics of the
60s included hundreds of small establishments such as have nothing
whatever in common with factories and are now not classed as such. The
extent to which our factory statistics for various years need correction
is evident from the following: with the exception of flour-milling, the
Directory for 1879 gave in this section a total of 3,555
establishments with 15,313 workers, and for 1890—1,842 establishments with 19,159 workers. For 7 trades, [28] small
establishments (with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) were included as
follows: in 1879—2,487 with 5,176 workers and an output totalling
916,000 rubles and in 1890, seven establishments, employing ten workers
and with an output totalling two thousand rubles! To make the data
comparable, one should, consequently, subtract in one case five thousand
workers, and in the other, ten persons!

6) Excise - Paying and Other Trades

In some of the excise-paying trades we observe a decrease in the number of
factory workers between the 1860s and the present day, but the decrease is
not nearly as considerable as is asserted by Mr.

N.–on, [29] who blindly believes every figure in print. The fact is that for the majority of
excise-paying trades the only source of information is the Military Statistical Abstract , which, as we know, tremendously exaggerates the
totals in the factory statistics. Unfortunately, however, we have little
material with which to verify the data in the Abstract . In
distilling, the Military Statistical Abstract counted in 1866 a
total of 3,836 distilleries with 52,660 workers (in 1890—1,620, with
26,102 workers), but the number of distilleries does not coincide with the
data of the Ministry of Finance, which in 1865-66 calculated 2,947
operating distilleries and in

1866-67—3,386. [30]

Judging by this, the number of workers is exaggerated by some 5,000 to 9,000. In vodka distilling, the Military Statistical Abstract computes 4,841 distilleries, with 8,326 workers
(1890: 242 distilleries with 5,266 workers); of these Bessarabia Gubernia
has 3,207 distilleries with 6,873 workers. The absurdity of these figures
is glaring. In fact, we learn from material published by the Ministry of

Finance [31] that the actual number of vodka distilleries in Bessarabia Gubernia was 10 or
12, and in the whole of European Russia 1,157. The number of workers was
consequently exaggerated by a minimum of 6 thousand. The cause of this
exaggeration is, evidently, that the Bessarabian “statisticians” included vineyard owners among the owners of
distilleries (see below on tobacco making). In beer- and mead-brewing, the
Military Statistical Abstract counts 2,374 breweries, with 6,825
workers (1890—918 breweries, with 8,364 workers), whereas The Ministry of Finance Yearbook estimates a total of 2,087 breweries in
European Russia for 1866. The number of workers is exaggerated here too. [32]

In the beet-sugar and sugar-refining trades, the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerates the number of workers by 11 thousand, counting
92,126 persons, as against 80,919 according to the data of The Ministry of Finance Yearbook (1890—77,875 workers). In tobacco-making, the
Military Statistical Abstract gives 5,327 factories, with 26,116
workers (1890— 281 factories, with 26,720 workers); of these, 4,993
factories with 20,038 workers are in Bessarabia Gubernia. Actually, the
number of tobacco factories in Russia in 1866 was 343, and in Bessarabia
Gubernia

13. [33]

The number of workers has been exaggerated by about 20 thousand , and even
the compilers of the Military Statistical Abstract themselves
indicated that “the factories shown in Bessarabia Gubernia . . . are
nothing but tobacco plantations” (p. 414). Mr. N.–on evidently
thought it superfluous to glance at the text of the statistical
publication he uses; that is why he failed to notice the error, and
discoursed with a highly serious air about a “slight increase in the
number of workers in the . . . tobacco factories” (article cited,
p. 104)!! Mr. N.–on simply takes the total number of workers in the
excise paying trades from the Military Statistical Abstract and
the Directory for 1890 (186,053 and 144,332) and calculates the
percentage of decrease. . . . “In a period of 25 years there has
been a considerable drop in the number of workers employed. It has
diminished by 22.4%. . . . “Here” (i.e., in the excise-paying
trades) “we see no signs of an increase, the plain fact being that
the number of workers has simply declined by a quarter of its previous
magnitude” ( ibid .). Indeed, what could be “simpler”! Take the first figure you lay your hands on, and
calculate a percentage! As for the trifling circumstance that the figure
given in the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerates the number
of workers by some forty thousand , that can be ignored.

7) Conclusions

The criticism of our factory statistics given in the last two sections
leads us to the following main conclusions:

1. The number of factories in Russia has been rapidly growing in the post-Reform period .

The opposite conclusion, which follows from our factory statistics, is
erroneous. The point is that the figures we are given of factories include
small artisan, handicraft and agricultural establishments, and the further back we go from the present day , the larger the number of small establishments included in the number of factories .

2. The number of factory workers and the volume of output of factories and works are likewise exaggerated for the past period in our statistics . This is due, firstly, to the fact that former]y a
greater number of small establishments were included. Hence, the data
for the industries that merge with handicrafts are particularly unreliable. [34]

Secondly, it is due to the fact that in the past more capitalistically employed home workers were classified as
factory workers than today.

3. It is customary in this country to think that if figures are taken from
the official factory statistics they must be considered comparable with
other figures taken from the same source, and must be regarded as more or
less reliable, until the contrary is proved. What has been said above,
however, leads to the opposite conclusion, namely, that all comparisons of
our factory statistics for different times and for different gubernias
must be regarded as unreliable until the reverse is proved.

---
Notes:
[1]
In all cases, unless otherwise stated, we take the data of the
Yearbook for 1866 and those of the Directories for 1879
and 1890.—The Historico-Statistical Survey (Vol. II) gives
annual information on cloth production from 1855 to 1879; the following
are the five-year averages of workers employed from 1855-1859 to
1875-1879: 107,433-96,131- 92,117; 87,960 and 81,458.— Lenin

[2]
See A Survey of Various Branches of Manufactory Industry in Russia , Vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1862, particularly pp. 165 and
167. Cf. also Military Statistical Abstract , D. 357 and foll. At
the present time we rarely meet in the lists of cloth manufacturers the
celebrated noble families that constituted the overwhelming majority in
the 1860s.— Lenin

[3]
The following examples are taken from Zemstvo statistical
material. Concerning N. P. Gladkov’s cloth factory in Volsk Uyezd
Saratov Gubernia (in 1866 it had 306 workers), we read in the Zemstvo
statistical abstract for this uyezd (p. 275) that peasants were forced to
work in the factory belonging to the lord. “They worked in the
factory until they married, and then became tax-paying members of the
peasant community.” In the village of Rvassy, Ranenburg Uyezd,
Ryazan Gubernia, there was in 1866 a cloth factory employing 180
workers. The peasants performed their Corvée by working in the mill, which
was closed down in 1870 ( Statistical Returns for Ryazan Gubernia ,
Vol. II, Pt. I, Moscow, 1882, p. 330).— Lenin

[4]
See Nisselovich, A History of the Factory Legislation of the Russian Empire , Pts. I and II, St. Petersburg, 1883-1884.—A. Semyonov,
A Study of Historical Data on Russian Foreign Trade and Industry ,
St. Petersburg, 1858-1859, 3 parts.—V. I. Semevsky, The Peasants in the Reign of Catherine II , St. Petersburg,
1881.— Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia . Sanitary
Statistical Sec, Vol IV, Pt. I (general summary), Moscow, 1890, article by
A. V. Pogozhev, “The Manorial-Possessional Factories of Moscow
Gubernia.”—M. Tugan-Baranovsky, The Russian Factory , St. Petersburg, 1898, Vol. I.— Lenin

[5]
Cf. Successes of Russian Industry According to Surveys of Expert Commissions , St. Petersburg, 1897, p. 60.— Lenin

[6]
The data on steam-engines in this and the following instances are taken
from Material for the Statistics of Steam-Engines in the Russian Empire published by the Central Statistical Committee,
St. Petersburg, 1882; for 1890 they are taken from Collection of Data on Factory Industry ; data on mechanised establishments are from the
Directory .— Lenin

[7]
Cf. Tugan-Baranovsky, loc . cit ., p. 420.—The total number of village hand weavers working for capitalists was estimated by
Semyonov at approximately 385,857 in 1859 ( loc . cit .,
III, 273) to these he added another 200,000 village workers engaged
“in other factory trades” ( ibid ., p. 302). At the present time, as we have seen above, the number of capitalistically
employed home workers is much larger.— Lenin

[8]
Establishments with an output of under 2,000 rubles are classed as
workrooms. The data of the special investigation of factories and works in
Moscow and Vladimir gubernias made in 1868 by the Central Statistical
Committee contain the repeated statement that the output figures of the
small weaving establishments merely indicate pay for work
done. Establishments that distribute work to home workers are classed as
offices. For 1866 the figure given for these establishments is far from
complete, owing to obvious omissions in the case of Moscow Gubernia.— Lenin

[9]
Military Statistical Abstract , 380.— Survey of Manufactory Industry , Vol, II, St. Petersburg, 1863,
p. 451. —In 1898 the number of power-looms used in cotton weaving
(for the whole Empire, evidently) was reckoned at 100,630. Successes of Russian Industry , p. 33.— Lenin

[10]
Military Statistical Abstract , pp. 367-368: Commissariat returns.— Lenin

[11]
In silk-weaving in 1879 there were 495 power-looms and 5,996 hand-looms
( Historico-Statistical Survey ), and in 1890 there were 2,899 of
the former and over 7,500 of the latter.— Lenin

[12]
For example, in 1879 the number of factories computed in these trades was
729; of this number, 466 had 977 workers and an output of 170,000
rubles. Even today one can find many such “factories”—for instance, in the description of the
handicraft industries of Vyatka and Perm gubernias.— Lenin

[13]
Cf. Military Statistical Abstract , p. 389. Survey of Manufactory Industry , I, 309.— Lenin

[14]
Thus in 1879, of 91 bast-matting factories 39 had an output of less than
1,000 rubles each (Cf. Studies , p. 155). [See present edition
Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .] In the pitch-and-tar trade for f890 there
were computed 140 factories, all with an output exceeding 2,000 rubles;
for 1879, 1,033 were computed, of which 911 had an output of less than
2,000 rubles; for 1866 the number listed was 669 (for the Empire), while
the Military Statistical Abstract even gave the figure of 3,164!!
(Cf. Studies , pp. 156 and 271.) [See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia , and Vol. 4,
“On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.” – Ed .]— Lenin

[15]
Military Statistical Abstract , Historico-Statistical Survey and Productive Forces , IX, 16.—The number of
workers in 1866—5,645; in 1890—25,471; in 1875-1878—38 mechanised establishments, with 34 steam-engines to a total of 332 h.p.;
and in 1890—141 mechanised establishments, with 208 steam-engines to
a total of 3,319 h.p.— Lenin

[16]
Cf. Directory for 1879 and 1890 about potash production. The
production of saltpetre is now concentrated in one factory in
St. Petersburg, whereas in the 60s and 70s saltpetre was obtained from
burti (dungheaps).— Lenin

[17]
Here, too, the number of factories in the 60s and 709 included a host of
small establishments.— Lenin

[18]
In 1875, Prof. Kittary, in his Map of Leather Production in Russia , gave an aggregate of 12,939 establishments, with output
totalling 47 1/2 million rubles, whereas the factory statistics gave 2,764
establishments, with output totalling 26 1/2 million rubles
(Historico-Statistical Survey). In the fur trade, another in this section,
a similar lumping is observed of small establishments together with
factories: Cf. Directory for 1879 and for 1890.— Lenin

[19]
The Military Statistical Abstract gave an aggregate of even
3,890!!— Lenin

[20]
If we distribute the factories shown in the Directory as for 1890
according to date of establishment we get the following: of 1,506
factories the number established at dates unknown was 91, before 1850
—331; in the 1850s—147; in the 60s—239; in the
70s—320; in the 80s —351; in 1890—21. In every succeeding decade more factories were established than in the preceding
one.— Lenin

[21]
The small establishments in these industries are now classed with the
handicrafts. Cf., for instance, the table of small industries (Appendix I)
or Studies , pp. 158-159. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .). The Ministry of Finance Yearbook
(Vol. I) refused to give totals for these industries because the figures
were obviously exaggerated. Progress in statistics since then is expressed
in an increased boldness and disregard of the quality of material used.— Lenin

[22]
Thus, in the 60s, dozens of smithies were classed for some gubernias as
“ironworks.”– See Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance , 1866, No. 4, p. 406; 1867, No. 6
p. 384.— Statistical Chronicle , Series II,
Vol. 6.—Cf. also the example quoted above (§ II) where the
Yearbook for 1866 includes the small handicraftsmen of the
Pavlovo district among the “factory owners.”— Lenin

[23]
See examples in Studies , p. 269 and p. 284 (see present edition,
Vol. 4, “On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.”
– Ed .), where Mr. Karyshev’s error in ignoring this circumstance is examined. The Directory for 1879, for instance,
includes the Kulebaki and Vyksa ironworks, or departments of them (pp. 356
and 374), which are omitted in the Directory for 1890.— Lenin

[24]
And in addition 32,957 “small windmills,” not counted among
the “factories and works.”— Lenin

[25]
See examples of such conclusions drawn by Mr. Karyshev in the above-quoted
article in the Studies . (See present edition, Vol. 4, op . cit . – Ed .)— Lenin

[26]
Large watermills are also in the nature of factories, of course, but we
have no data to enable us to single them out from among the small ones. In
the Directory for 1890 we saw listed 250 watermills each
employing 10 and more workers. They employed 6,378 workers.— Lenin

[27]
Military Statistical Abstract , Directories and
Collection . According to the List for 1894-95, there are
1,192 steam-mills in European Russia. The statistics for steam-engines
gave the number of steam-mills in European Russia in 1875-1878 as 294.— Lenin

[28]
Oil-pressing, starch, treacle, malt, confectionery, preserves and vinegar.— Lenin

[29]
Russkoye Bogatstvo , 1894, No. 6, pp. 104-105.— Lenin

[30]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , I, pp. 76 and 82. The total
number of distilleries (including those not in operation) was 4,737 and
4,646 respectively.— Lenin

[31]
Yearbook , I, p. 104.— Lenin

[32]
E.g., in Simbirsk Gubernia, the Military Statistical Abstract
computes 218 distilleries (!) with 299 workers and an output totalling
21,600 rubles. (According to the Yearbook there were 7 distilleries in the gubernia.) Very likely, these were small domestic or
peasant establishments.— Lenin

[33]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , p. 61. Cf. Survey of Manufactory Industry (Vol. II St. Petersburg, 1863), which gives
detailed information for 1861: 534 factories, with 6,937 workers; and in
Bessarabia Gubernia, 31 factories, with 73 workers. The number of tobacco
factories fluctuates greatly from year to year.— Lenin

[34]
If we take the gross figures for all trades and for long periods, the
exaggeration resulting from the cause mentioned will not be great, for the
small establishments account for a small percentage of the total number of
workers and the total output. It goes without saying that one presumes a
comparison of figures taken from similar sources (there can be no question
of comparing the returns of the Ministry of Finance with those of
gubernatorial reports, or of the Military Statistical Abstract ).— Lenin

[35]
The “ landlord establishment of a manorial-possessional character ” was a feudal manorial manufactory belonging to a landlord and employing his serf-peasants. By a decree of Peter I issued in 1721,
merchant factory owners were permitted to purchase peasants for work in
their factories. The feudal workers attached to such enterprises were
called “possessional peasants.” [p. 470]

| | II. Our Factory Statistics | | | IV. The Development of the Mining Industry | |

# Chemical, Livestock Product and Ceramic Industries

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8iii.htm#sect03

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

III. An Examination of Historico-Statistical Data On the
Development of Large-Scale Industry

We have noted above that to judge the development of large-scale industry
from factory statistics it is necessary to separate the relatively useful
material in these statistics from the utterly useless. Let us, with this
in view, examine the main branches of our manufacturing industry.

1) Textile Trades

At the head of the wool trades is cloth production, which in 1890 had an
output of over 35 million rubles and employed 45,000 workers. The
historico-statistical data on this trade indicate a considerable drop in
the number of workers, namely, from 72,638 in 1866 to 46,740 in

1890. [1]

To appraise this phenomenon we must take account of the fact that up to the 1860s
inclusive, felt cloth production was organised on specific and original
lines: it was concentrated in relatively large establishments which,
however, did not in any way come under the category of capitalist factory
industry, since they were based on the labour of serfs, or of temporarily
bound peasants. In the surveys of the “factory” industry of
the 60s we therefore meet with the division of cloth mills into 1) those
owned by landlords or nobles, and 2) those owned by merchants. The former
produced mainly army cloth, the government contracts having been
distributed equally among the mills in proportion to the number of
machines. Compulsory labour was the cause of the technical backwardness of
such establishments and of their employing a much larger number of workers
than the merchant mills based on the employment of hired labour. [2]

The principal drop in the number of workers, engaged in felt cloth production
took place in the gubernias with landlord factories; thus, in the 13 such
gubernias (enumerated in the Survey of Manufactory Industries ),
the number of workers dropped from 32,921 to 14,539 (1866 and 1890), while
in the 5 gubernias with merchant factories (Moscow, Grodno, Liflandia, Chernigov and St. Petersburg) it dropped from
31,291 to 28,257. From this it is clear that we have here two opposite
trends, both of which, however, indicate the development of
capitalism—on the one hand, the decline of landlord establishments
of a manorial-possessional character, [35] and on the other, the development of purely capitalist factories out of merchant
establishments. A considerable number of the workers employed in felt
cloth production in the 60s were not factory workers at all in
the strict sense of the term; they were dependent peasants working for landlords. [3]

Cloth production is an example of that specific phenomenon of Russian
history—the employment of serf labour in industry. Since we are
dealing only with the post-Reform period, the above brief remarks will
suffice to show the way in which this phenomenon is reflected in factory statistics. [4]

We
shall now quote some figures drawn from statistics on steam-engines in
order to estimate the development of large-scale machine production in
this industry: in 1875-1878, in the wool-spinning and cloth industries of
European Russia there were 167 mechanised establishments using 209
steam-engines with a total of 4,632 h.p., and in 1890 there were 197
establishments using

341 steam-engines with a total of 6,602 h.p. The use of steam power,
therefore, did not make very rapid progress; this is to be explained
partly by the traditions of landlord factories and partly by the
displacement of felt cloth by the cheaper worsted and mixed fabrics. [5]

In the years 1875-1878 there were seven mechanised establishments using 20
steam-engines with a total of 303 h.p., and in 1890 there were 28
mechanised establishments employing 61 steam-engines to a total of 1,375 h.p. [6]

In regard to the woollen-goods industry let us also take note of
felt-making, a branch that shows in particularly striking fashion the
impossibility of comparing factory statistics for different times: the
figures for 1866 are 77 factories with a total of 295 workers, while for
1890 they are 57 factories with 1,217 workers. The former figure includes
60 small establishments employing 137 workers with an output of under
2,000 rubles, while the latter includes an establishment with four
workers. In 1866 39 small establishments were recorded in Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, where felt-making is now highly developed but is
regarded as a “handicraft” and not a “factory” industry (see Chapter VI, § II, 2).

Further, a particularly important place in the textile trades is held by
cotton processing, a branch which now employs over 200,000 workers. Here
we observe one of the biggest errors of our factory statistics, namely,
the combining of factory workers and capitalistically occupied home
workers. Large-scale machine industry developed here (as in many other
cases) by drawing home workers into the factory. It is obvious how
distorted this process will appear if work-distributing offices and work
rooms are classed as “factories,” if home workers are lumped together with factory workers! For 1866 (according to the Yearbook ) up to 22,000 home workers were included among factory workers (by
no means the full number, for the Yearbook , evidently by pure
accident, omits in the case of Moscow Gubernia those notes about
“work from village to village” which are so abundant for
Vladimir Gubernia). For 1890 (according to the Directory ) we
found only about 9,000 such workers. Clearly, the figures given in the
factory statistics (1866—59,000 workers in the cotton weaving mills;
1890—75,000) underrate the increase in the number of factory workers that actually took place. [7]

Here are data showing what different establishments were classed at different times
as cotton-weaving “factories”: [8]

Thus, the decrease in the number of “factories” shown by the
“statistics” actually indicates the displacing of distributing
offices and workrooms by the factory. Let us illustrate this by the
example of two factories:

Hence, to assess the development of large-scale machine production in this
branch of industry it is best to take the data giving the number of
power-looms. In the 18609 there were about

11,000, [9] and in
1890 about 87,000. Large-scale machine industry was consequently
developing at enormous speed. In cotton spinning and weaving there was
recorded in 1875-1878 a total of 148 mechanised establishments, having 481
steam-engines totalling 20,504 h.p., and in 1890, 168 mechanised
establishments, having 554 steam-engines with a total of 38,750 h.p.

Precisely the same mistake is made in Russian statistics in relation to
linen production, wherein a decrease in the number of factory workers is
erroneously shown (1866—17,171; 1890—15,497). Actually, in
1866, of 16,900 looms belonging to linen-mill owners only 4,749 were kept
in their establishments, the remaining 12,151 being held by work room owners. [10]

The number of factory workers for 1866, therefore, included about 12,000 home
workers, and for 1890 only about 3,000 (computed from Directory ). The number of power-looms, however, grew from 2,263 in 1866
(computed from Military Statistical Abstract ) to 4,041 in

1890, and of spindles from 95,495 to 218,012. In flax spinning and
linen-weaving in the years 1875-1878 there were 28 mechanised
establishments, having 47 steam engines with a total of 1,604 h.p., while
in 1890 there were 48 mechanised establishments, having 83 steam-engines
with a total of 5,027 h.p. [11]

Lastly, of the textile trades mention should be made of dyeing, printing
and finishing, in which trades the factory statistics combine factories
and the very smallest handicraft establishments with only 1 or 2 workers
each and an output of a few hundred rubles. [12]

Naturally, this causes no little confusion and obscures the rapid growth
of large-scale machine industry. The following figures reflect this
growth: in the wool-cleaning, dyeing, bleaching and finishing trades in
1875-1878 there were 80 mechanised establishments with 255 steam-engines
totalling 2,634 h.p.; in 1890 there were 189 mechanised establishments
with 858 steam-engines totalling 9,100 h.p.

2) Wood - Working Industries

In this section the most reliable data are those on saw milling, although
in the past small establishments were also included here. [13]

The enormous development of this trade in the post-Reform period (1866—4
million rubles 1890—19 million rubles), accompanied by a
considerable increase in the number of workers (4,000 and 15,000) and in
the number of steam-powered establishments (26 and 430), is particularly
interesting, in that it affords striking evidence of the growth of the
lumber industry. Saw-milling is but one of the operations of the lumber
industry, which is a necessary concomitant of the first steps of
large-scale machine industry.

As to the rest of the trades in this section, namely, furnishing and carpentry, bast-matting, and pitch and tar—the
factory statistics relating to them are distinguished for their
particularly chaotic condition. The small establishments so numerous in
these trades were formerly included among the “factories” in
numbers fixed arbitrarily, and the same is sometimes done even today. [14]

3) Chemical, Livestock - Product and
Ceramic Industries

The statistics on the chemical industry proper are distinguished for their
relative reliability. The following returns show its growth: in 1857
chemical products were consumed in Russia to a total of 14 million rubles
(3.4 million rubles home produced and 10.6 million rubles imported); in
1880, to a total of 36 1/4 million rubles (7 1/2 million rubles home
produced and 28 3/4 imported); and in 1890, to a total of 42.7 million
rubles (16.1 million rubles home produced and 26.6 imported). [15]

These data are particularly interesting because the chemical industries
are extremely important as producers of auxiliary materials for
large-scale machine industry, i.e., articles of productive (and
not personal) consumption. As to potash and saltpetre production, let us
remark that the number of factories given is unreliable, again due to the
inclusion of small establishments. [16]

The tallow trade has undoubtedly declined in the post-Reform period. Thus,
the value of output of the tallow candle and tallow-boiling trade was
estimated in 1866-1868 at 13.6 million rubles, and in 1890 at 5 million rubles. [17]

This decline is to be explained by the growing use of mineral oils for
lighting, which are displacing the old-time tallow candle.

For leather production (1866: 2,308 establishments with 11,463 workers and
an output totalling 14.6 million rubles; 1890: 1,621 establishments with
15,564 workers and an output totalling 26.7 million rubles) statistics
constantly lump together factories and small establishments. The
relatively high cost of raw materials, which explains the high total
output, and the fact that this trade requires very few workers, make it
particularly difficult to draw a line of demarcation between the
handicraft establishments and the factories. In 1890, of the total number
of factories (1,621), only 103 had an output of less than 2,000 rubles; in
1879 there were 2,008 out of a total of

3,320 [18] ; in 1866, of 2,308 factories [19]

1,042 had an output of less than 1,000 rubles (these 1,042 factories employed
2,059 workers and had an output totalling 474,000 rubles). Thus, the
number of factories increased, although the factory statistics show a
decrease. As for the small leather establishments, their number is still
very large today: for instance, The Factory Industry and Trade of Russia , published by the Ministry of Finance (St. Petersburg, 1893),
gives a total of nearly 9,500 handicraft works, with 21,000 workers and an
output of 12 million rubles. These “handicraft” establishments
are much larger than those which in the 60s were included among
“factories and works.” Since small establishments are included among the “factories and works” in unequal
numbers in the different gubernias and in different years, the statistics
on this trade should be treated with great caution. The steam-engine
statistics for 1875-1878 gave for this industry 28 mechanised
establishments with 33 steam-engines to a total of 488 h.p. and in 1890
there were 66 mechanised establishments with 82 steam-engines to a total
of 1,112 h.p. In these 66 factories 5,522 workers (more than a third of
the total) were concentrated with an output totalling 12.3 million rubles
(46% of the total), so that the concentration of production was very
considerable, and the productivity of labour in the large establishments
far above the average. [20]

The ceramic trades fall into two categories in accordance with the
character of the factory statistics: in some, there is hardly any
combining of small-scale production with large. That is why these
statistics are fairly reliable. This applies to the following industries:
glass, porcelain and chinaware, plaster and cement. Particularly remark
able is the rapid growth of the last-mentioned trade, which is evidence of
the development of the building industry: the total output in 1866 was
estimated at 530,000 rubles ( Military Statistical Abstract ), and
in 1890 at 3,826,000 rubles; the number of power-operated establishments
in 1875-1878 was 8, and in 1890 it was 39. On the other hand, in the
pottery and brick trades the inclusion of small establishments is observed
on a tremendous scale, and for that reason the factory statistics are very
unsatisfactory, being particularly exaggerated for the 60s and 70s. Thus,
in the pottery trade in 1879 there were listed 552 establishments, with
1,900 workers and an output totalling 538,000 rubles, and in 1890, 158
establishments with 1,978 workers and an output totalling 919,000
rubles. If we subtract the small establishments (those with an output of
less than 2,000 rubles) we get: 1879—70 establishments, with

840 workers and an output of 505,000 rubles; 1890—143 establishments, with 1,859 workers and an output of 857,000 rubles. That
is to say, instead of the decrease in the number of “factories” and stagnation in the number of workers shown in
the statistics, there was actually a considerable increase in both the one
and the other. In brick-making the official data for 1879 showed 2,627
establishments, with 28,800 workers and an output totalling 6,963,000
rubles; for 1890—1,292 establishments, with 24,334 workers and an
output of 7,249,000 rubles; and without the small establishments (those
with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) we get for 1879—518
establishments, with 19,057 workers and an output of 5,625,000 rubles; and
for 1890—1,096 establishments, with 23,222 workers and an output of
7,240,000 rubles. [21]

4) Metallurgical Industries

In the factory statistics for the metallurgical industries the sources of
confusion are, firstly, the inclusion of small establishments (exclusively
in the 60s and

70s), [22] and, secondly and mainly, the fact that metallurgical plants are
“subject, not to the jurisdiction” of the Department of
Commerce and Manufacture, but to that of the Department of Mines. The
returns of the Ministry of Finance usually omit ironworks “on
principle”; but there have never been uniform and invariable rules
for the separation of ironworks from the other works (and it would hardly be possible to devise them). That is why the factory statistics published
by the Ministry of Finance always include ironworks to some extent,
although the actual degree to which they are included varies for different
gubernias and for different years. [23]

General data on the increased use of steam-engines in metallurgy since the Reform
will be given below, when we deal with the mining and metallurgical
industry.

5) Food Industries

These industries merit special attention for the question that concerns
us, since the confusion in factory statistics attains here its
maximum. And yet, these industries occupy a prominent place in our factory
industry as a whole.

Thus, according to the Directory for 1890 these industries
account for 7,095 factories, with 45,000 workers and an output totalling
174 million rubles out of a total for European Russia of 21,124 factories,
with 875,764 workers and an output of 1,501 million rubles. The fact is
that the principal trades of this group—flour-milling, groat milling
and oil-pressing—consist of the processing of agricultural
produce. There are hundreds and thousands of small establishments in
Russia engaged in this processing in every gubernia, and since there are
no generally established rules for selecting the “factories and
works” from among them, the statistics pick out such small
establishments quite fortuitously. That is why the numbers of
“factories and works” for different years and for different
gubernias fluctuate enormously. Here, for example, are the figures for the
flour-milling trade for various years, as taken from various sources:
1865— 857 mills ( Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance ); 1866— 2,176 ( Yearbook ); 1866—18,426
( Military Statistical Abstract ); 1885—3,940 ( Collection ); 17,765 ( Returns for Russia ); 1889, 1890
and 1891—5,073, 5,605 and

5,201 [24] ( Collection ); 1894-95—2,308 ( List ). Among the
5,041 mills listed in 1892 ( Collection ), 803 were steam-, 2,907
water-, 1,323 wind- and 8 horse-operated! Some gubernias counted only
steam-mills, others included watermills (in numbers ranging from 1 to
425), still others (the minority) included also windmills (from 1 to 530)
and horse-operated mills. One can imagine the value of such statistics,
and of conclusions based on a credulous use of the data they provide! [25]

Obviously, to judge the growth of large-scale machine industry we must first
establish a definite criterion for the term “factory.” Let us
take as such a criterion the employment of steam-engines:
steam-mills are a characteristic concomitant of the epoch of
large-scale machine industry. [26]

We get the following picture of the development of factory production in
this branch of industry. [27]

The statistics for the oil-pressing trade are unsatisfactory for the same
reason. For instance, in 1879 2,450 works were listed with 7,207 workers
and an output totalling 6,486,000 rubles, and in 1890 there were 383
works, with 4,746 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles. But
this decrease in the number of factories and of workers is only apparent. If the data for 1879 and 1890 are made comparable, i.e., if
we exclude establishments with an output of less than 2,000 rubles (not
included in the lists) we get for 1879: 272 works, with 2,941 workers and
an output totalling 5,771,000 rubles, and for 1890—379 works, with
4,741 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles. That large-scale
machine industry has developed in this trade no less rapidly than in
flour-milling is evident, for example, from the statistics for
steam-engines; in 1875-1878 there were 27 steam-powered works, with 28
steam engines of 521 h.p., while in 1890 there were 113 mechanised works,
with 116 steam-engines totalling 1,886 h.p.

The other trades of this group are relatively small. Let us note that in
the mustard and fish-products trades, for instance, the statistics of the
60s included hundreds of small establishments such as have nothing
whatever in common with factories and are now not classed as such. The
extent to which our factory statistics for various years need correction
is evident from the following: with the exception of flour-milling, the
Directory for 1879 gave in this section a total of 3,555
establishments with 15,313 workers, and for 1890—1,842 establishments with 19,159 workers. For 7 trades, [28] small
establishments (with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) were included as
follows: in 1879—2,487 with 5,176 workers and an output totalling
916,000 rubles and in 1890, seven establishments, employing ten workers
and with an output totalling two thousand rubles! To make the data
comparable, one should, consequently, subtract in one case five thousand
workers, and in the other, ten persons!

6) Excise - Paying and Other Trades

In some of the excise-paying trades we observe a decrease in the number of
factory workers between the 1860s and the present day, but the decrease is
not nearly as considerable as is asserted by Mr.

N.–on, [29] who blindly believes every figure in print. The fact is that for the majority of
excise-paying trades the only source of information is the Military Statistical Abstract , which, as we know, tremendously exaggerates the
totals in the factory statistics. Unfortunately, however, we have little
material with which to verify the data in the Abstract . In
distilling, the Military Statistical Abstract counted in 1866 a
total of 3,836 distilleries with 52,660 workers (in 1890—1,620, with
26,102 workers), but the number of distilleries does not coincide with the
data of the Ministry of Finance, which in 1865-66 calculated 2,947
operating distilleries and in

1866-67—3,386. [30]

Judging by this, the number of workers is exaggerated by some 5,000 to 9,000. In vodka distilling, the Military Statistical Abstract computes 4,841 distilleries, with 8,326 workers
(1890: 242 distilleries with 5,266 workers); of these Bessarabia Gubernia
has 3,207 distilleries with 6,873 workers. The absurdity of these figures
is glaring. In fact, we learn from material published by the Ministry of

Finance [31] that the actual number of vodka distilleries in Bessarabia Gubernia was 10 or
12, and in the whole of European Russia 1,157. The number of workers was
consequently exaggerated by a minimum of 6 thousand. The cause of this
exaggeration is, evidently, that the Bessarabian “statisticians” included vineyard owners among the owners of
distilleries (see below on tobacco making). In beer- and mead-brewing, the
Military Statistical Abstract counts 2,374 breweries, with 6,825
workers (1890—918 breweries, with 8,364 workers), whereas The Ministry of Finance Yearbook estimates a total of 2,087 breweries in
European Russia for 1866. The number of workers is exaggerated here too. [32]

In the beet-sugar and sugar-refining trades, the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerates the number of workers by 11 thousand, counting
92,126 persons, as against 80,919 according to the data of The Ministry of Finance Yearbook (1890—77,875 workers). In tobacco-making, the
Military Statistical Abstract gives 5,327 factories, with 26,116
workers (1890— 281 factories, with 26,720 workers); of these, 4,993
factories with 20,038 workers are in Bessarabia Gubernia. Actually, the
number of tobacco factories in Russia in 1866 was 343, and in Bessarabia
Gubernia

13. [33]

The number of workers has been exaggerated by about 20 thousand , and even
the compilers of the Military Statistical Abstract themselves
indicated that “the factories shown in Bessarabia Gubernia . . . are
nothing but tobacco plantations” (p. 414). Mr. N.–on evidently
thought it superfluous to glance at the text of the statistical
publication he uses; that is why he failed to notice the error, and
discoursed with a highly serious air about a “slight increase in the
number of workers in the . . . tobacco factories” (article cited,
p. 104)!! Mr. N.–on simply takes the total number of workers in the
excise paying trades from the Military Statistical Abstract and
the Directory for 1890 (186,053 and 144,332) and calculates the
percentage of decrease. . . . “In a period of 25 years there has
been a considerable drop in the number of workers employed. It has
diminished by 22.4%. . . . “Here” (i.e., in the excise-paying
trades) “we see no signs of an increase, the plain fact being that
the number of workers has simply declined by a quarter of its previous
magnitude” ( ibid .). Indeed, what could be “simpler”! Take the first figure you lay your hands on, and
calculate a percentage! As for the trifling circumstance that the figure
given in the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerates the number
of workers by some forty thousand , that can be ignored.

7) Conclusions

The criticism of our factory statistics given in the last two sections
leads us to the following main conclusions:

1. The number of factories in Russia has been rapidly growing in the post-Reform period .

The opposite conclusion, which follows from our factory statistics, is
erroneous. The point is that the figures we are given of factories include
small artisan, handicraft and agricultural establishments, and the further back we go from the present day , the larger the number of small establishments included in the number of factories .

2. The number of factory workers and the volume of output of factories and works are likewise exaggerated for the past period in our statistics . This is due, firstly, to the fact that former]y a
greater number of small establishments were included. Hence, the data
for the industries that merge with handicrafts are particularly unreliable. [34]

Secondly, it is due to the fact that in the past more capitalistically employed home workers were classified as
factory workers than today.

3. It is customary in this country to think that if figures are taken from
the official factory statistics they must be considered comparable with
other figures taken from the same source, and must be regarded as more or
less reliable, until the contrary is proved. What has been said above,
however, leads to the opposite conclusion, namely, that all comparisons of
our factory statistics for different times and for different gubernias
must be regarded as unreliable until the reverse is proved.

---
Notes:
[1]
In all cases, unless otherwise stated, we take the data of the
Yearbook for 1866 and those of the Directories for 1879
and 1890.—The Historico-Statistical Survey (Vol. II) gives
annual information on cloth production from 1855 to 1879; the following
are the five-year averages of workers employed from 1855-1859 to
1875-1879: 107,433-96,131- 92,117; 87,960 and 81,458.— Lenin

[2]
See A Survey of Various Branches of Manufactory Industry in Russia , Vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1862, particularly pp. 165 and
167. Cf. also Military Statistical Abstract , D. 357 and foll. At
the present time we rarely meet in the lists of cloth manufacturers the
celebrated noble families that constituted the overwhelming majority in
the 1860s.— Lenin

[3]
The following examples are taken from Zemstvo statistical
material. Concerning N. P. Gladkov’s cloth factory in Volsk Uyezd
Saratov Gubernia (in 1866 it had 306 workers), we read in the Zemstvo
statistical abstract for this uyezd (p. 275) that peasants were forced to
work in the factory belonging to the lord. “They worked in the
factory until they married, and then became tax-paying members of the
peasant community.” In the village of Rvassy, Ranenburg Uyezd,
Ryazan Gubernia, there was in 1866 a cloth factory employing 180
workers. The peasants performed their Corvée by working in the mill, which
was closed down in 1870 ( Statistical Returns for Ryazan Gubernia ,
Vol. II, Pt. I, Moscow, 1882, p. 330).— Lenin

[4]
See Nisselovich, A History of the Factory Legislation of the Russian Empire , Pts. I and II, St. Petersburg, 1883-1884.—A. Semyonov,
A Study of Historical Data on Russian Foreign Trade and Industry ,
St. Petersburg, 1858-1859, 3 parts.—V. I. Semevsky, The Peasants in the Reign of Catherine II , St. Petersburg,
1881.— Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia . Sanitary
Statistical Sec, Vol IV, Pt. I (general summary), Moscow, 1890, article by
A. V. Pogozhev, “The Manorial-Possessional Factories of Moscow
Gubernia.”—M. Tugan-Baranovsky, The Russian Factory , St. Petersburg, 1898, Vol. I.— Lenin

[5]
Cf. Successes of Russian Industry According to Surveys of Expert Commissions , St. Petersburg, 1897, p. 60.— Lenin

[6]
The data on steam-engines in this and the following instances are taken
from Material for the Statistics of Steam-Engines in the Russian Empire published by the Central Statistical Committee,
St. Petersburg, 1882; for 1890 they are taken from Collection of Data on Factory Industry ; data on mechanised establishments are from the
Directory .— Lenin

[7]
Cf. Tugan-Baranovsky, loc . cit ., p. 420.—The total number of village hand weavers working for capitalists was estimated by
Semyonov at approximately 385,857 in 1859 ( loc . cit .,
III, 273) to these he added another 200,000 village workers engaged
“in other factory trades” ( ibid ., p. 302). At the present time, as we have seen above, the number of capitalistically
employed home workers is much larger.— Lenin

[8]
Establishments with an output of under 2,000 rubles are classed as
workrooms. The data of the special investigation of factories and works in
Moscow and Vladimir gubernias made in 1868 by the Central Statistical
Committee contain the repeated statement that the output figures of the
small weaving establishments merely indicate pay for work
done. Establishments that distribute work to home workers are classed as
offices. For 1866 the figure given for these establishments is far from
complete, owing to obvious omissions in the case of Moscow Gubernia.— Lenin

[9]
Military Statistical Abstract , 380.— Survey of Manufactory Industry , Vol, II, St. Petersburg, 1863,
p. 451. —In 1898 the number of power-looms used in cotton weaving
(for the whole Empire, evidently) was reckoned at 100,630. Successes of Russian Industry , p. 33.— Lenin

[10]
Military Statistical Abstract , pp. 367-368: Commissariat returns.— Lenin

[11]
In silk-weaving in 1879 there were 495 power-looms and 5,996 hand-looms
( Historico-Statistical Survey ), and in 1890 there were 2,899 of
the former and over 7,500 of the latter.— Lenin

[12]
For example, in 1879 the number of factories computed in these trades was
729; of this number, 466 had 977 workers and an output of 170,000
rubles. Even today one can find many such “factories”—for instance, in the description of the
handicraft industries of Vyatka and Perm gubernias.— Lenin

[13]
Cf. Military Statistical Abstract , p. 389. Survey of Manufactory Industry , I, 309.— Lenin

[14]
Thus in 1879, of 91 bast-matting factories 39 had an output of less than
1,000 rubles each (Cf. Studies , p. 155). [See present edition
Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .] In the pitch-and-tar trade for f890 there
were computed 140 factories, all with an output exceeding 2,000 rubles;
for 1879, 1,033 were computed, of which 911 had an output of less than
2,000 rubles; for 1866 the number listed was 669 (for the Empire), while
the Military Statistical Abstract even gave the figure of 3,164!!
(Cf. Studies , pp. 156 and 271.) [See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia , and Vol. 4,
“On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.” – Ed .]— Lenin

[15]
Military Statistical Abstract , Historico-Statistical Survey and Productive Forces , IX, 16.—The number of
workers in 1866—5,645; in 1890—25,471; in 1875-1878—38 mechanised establishments, with 34 steam-engines to a total of 332 h.p.;
and in 1890—141 mechanised establishments, with 208 steam-engines to
a total of 3,319 h.p.— Lenin

[16]
Cf. Directory for 1879 and 1890 about potash production. The
production of saltpetre is now concentrated in one factory in
St. Petersburg, whereas in the 60s and 70s saltpetre was obtained from
burti (dungheaps).— Lenin

[17]
Here, too, the number of factories in the 60s and 709 included a host of
small establishments.— Lenin

[18]
In 1875, Prof. Kittary, in his Map of Leather Production in Russia , gave an aggregate of 12,939 establishments, with output
totalling 47 1/2 million rubles, whereas the factory statistics gave 2,764
establishments, with output totalling 26 1/2 million rubles
(Historico-Statistical Survey). In the fur trade, another in this section,
a similar lumping is observed of small establishments together with
factories: Cf. Directory for 1879 and for 1890.— Lenin

[19]
The Military Statistical Abstract gave an aggregate of even
3,890!!— Lenin

[20]
If we distribute the factories shown in the Directory as for 1890
according to date of establishment we get the following: of 1,506
factories the number established at dates unknown was 91, before 1850
—331; in the 1850s—147; in the 60s—239; in the
70s—320; in the 80s —351; in 1890—21. In every succeeding decade more factories were established than in the preceding
one.— Lenin

[21]
The small establishments in these industries are now classed with the
handicrafts. Cf., for instance, the table of small industries (Appendix I)
or Studies , pp. 158-159. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .). The Ministry of Finance Yearbook
(Vol. I) refused to give totals for these industries because the figures
were obviously exaggerated. Progress in statistics since then is expressed
in an increased boldness and disregard of the quality of material used.— Lenin

[22]
Thus, in the 60s, dozens of smithies were classed for some gubernias as
“ironworks.”– See Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance , 1866, No. 4, p. 406; 1867, No. 6
p. 384.— Statistical Chronicle , Series II,
Vol. 6.—Cf. also the example quoted above (§ II) where the
Yearbook for 1866 includes the small handicraftsmen of the
Pavlovo district among the “factory owners.”— Lenin

[23]
See examples in Studies , p. 269 and p. 284 (see present edition,
Vol. 4, “On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.”
– Ed .), where Mr. Karyshev’s error in ignoring this circumstance is examined. The Directory for 1879, for instance,
includes the Kulebaki and Vyksa ironworks, or departments of them (pp. 356
and 374), which are omitted in the Directory for 1890.— Lenin

[24]
And in addition 32,957 “small windmills,” not counted among
the “factories and works.”— Lenin

[25]
See examples of such conclusions drawn by Mr. Karyshev in the above-quoted
article in the Studies . (See present edition, Vol. 4, op . cit . – Ed .)— Lenin

[26]
Large watermills are also in the nature of factories, of course, but we
have no data to enable us to single them out from among the small ones. In
the Directory for 1890 we saw listed 250 watermills each
employing 10 and more workers. They employed 6,378 workers.— Lenin

[27]
Military Statistical Abstract , Directories and
Collection . According to the List for 1894-95, there are
1,192 steam-mills in European Russia. The statistics for steam-engines
gave the number of steam-mills in European Russia in 1875-1878 as 294.— Lenin

[28]
Oil-pressing, starch, treacle, malt, confectionery, preserves and vinegar.— Lenin

[29]
Russkoye Bogatstvo , 1894, No. 6, pp. 104-105.— Lenin

[30]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , I, pp. 76 and 82. The total
number of distilleries (including those not in operation) was 4,737 and
4,646 respectively.— Lenin

[31]
Yearbook , I, p. 104.— Lenin

[32]
E.g., in Simbirsk Gubernia, the Military Statistical Abstract
computes 218 distilleries (!) with 299 workers and an output totalling
21,600 rubles. (According to the Yearbook there were 7 distilleries in the gubernia.) Very likely, these were small domestic or
peasant establishments.— Lenin

[33]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , p. 61. Cf. Survey of Manufactory Industry (Vol. II St. Petersburg, 1863), which gives
detailed information for 1861: 534 factories, with 6,937 workers; and in
Bessarabia Gubernia, 31 factories, with 73 workers. The number of tobacco
factories fluctuates greatly from year to year.— Lenin

[34]
If we take the gross figures for all trades and for long periods, the
exaggeration resulting from the cause mentioned will not be great, for the
small establishments account for a small percentage of the total number of
workers and the total output. It goes without saying that one presumes a
comparison of figures taken from similar sources (there can be no question
of comparing the returns of the Ministry of Finance with those of
gubernatorial reports, or of the Military Statistical Abstract ).— Lenin

[35]
The “ landlord establishment of a manorial-possessional character ” was a feudal manorial manufactory belonging to a landlord and employing his serf-peasants. By a decree of Peter I issued in 1721,
merchant factory owners were permitted to purchase peasants for work in
their factories. The feudal workers attached to such enterprises were
called “possessional peasants.” [p. 470]

| | II. Our Factory Statistics | | | IV. The Development of the Mining Industry | |

# Metallurgical Industries

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8iii.htm#sect04

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

III. An Examination of Historico-Statistical Data On the
Development of Large-Scale Industry

We have noted above that to judge the development of large-scale industry
from factory statistics it is necessary to separate the relatively useful
material in these statistics from the utterly useless. Let us, with this
in view, examine the main branches of our manufacturing industry.

1) Textile Trades

At the head of the wool trades is cloth production, which in 1890 had an
output of over 35 million rubles and employed 45,000 workers. The
historico-statistical data on this trade indicate a considerable drop in
the number of workers, namely, from 72,638 in 1866 to 46,740 in

1890. [1]

To appraise this phenomenon we must take account of the fact that up to the 1860s
inclusive, felt cloth production was organised on specific and original
lines: it was concentrated in relatively large establishments which,
however, did not in any way come under the category of capitalist factory
industry, since they were based on the labour of serfs, or of temporarily
bound peasants. In the surveys of the “factory” industry of
the 60s we therefore meet with the division of cloth mills into 1) those
owned by landlords or nobles, and 2) those owned by merchants. The former
produced mainly army cloth, the government contracts having been
distributed equally among the mills in proportion to the number of
machines. Compulsory labour was the cause of the technical backwardness of
such establishments and of their employing a much larger number of workers
than the merchant mills based on the employment of hired labour. [2]

The principal drop in the number of workers, engaged in felt cloth production
took place in the gubernias with landlord factories; thus, in the 13 such
gubernias (enumerated in the Survey of Manufactory Industries ),
the number of workers dropped from 32,921 to 14,539 (1866 and 1890), while
in the 5 gubernias with merchant factories (Moscow, Grodno, Liflandia, Chernigov and St. Petersburg) it dropped from
31,291 to 28,257. From this it is clear that we have here two opposite
trends, both of which, however, indicate the development of
capitalism—on the one hand, the decline of landlord establishments
of a manorial-possessional character, [35] and on the other, the development of purely capitalist factories out of merchant
establishments. A considerable number of the workers employed in felt
cloth production in the 60s were not factory workers at all in
the strict sense of the term; they were dependent peasants working for landlords. [3]

Cloth production is an example of that specific phenomenon of Russian
history—the employment of serf labour in industry. Since we are
dealing only with the post-Reform period, the above brief remarks will
suffice to show the way in which this phenomenon is reflected in factory statistics. [4]

We
shall now quote some figures drawn from statistics on steam-engines in
order to estimate the development of large-scale machine production in
this industry: in 1875-1878, in the wool-spinning and cloth industries of
European Russia there were 167 mechanised establishments using 209
steam-engines with a total of 4,632 h.p., and in 1890 there were 197
establishments using

341 steam-engines with a total of 6,602 h.p. The use of steam power,
therefore, did not make very rapid progress; this is to be explained
partly by the traditions of landlord factories and partly by the
displacement of felt cloth by the cheaper worsted and mixed fabrics. [5]

In the years 1875-1878 there were seven mechanised establishments using 20
steam-engines with a total of 303 h.p., and in 1890 there were 28
mechanised establishments employing 61 steam-engines to a total of 1,375 h.p. [6]

In regard to the woollen-goods industry let us also take note of
felt-making, a branch that shows in particularly striking fashion the
impossibility of comparing factory statistics for different times: the
figures for 1866 are 77 factories with a total of 295 workers, while for
1890 they are 57 factories with 1,217 workers. The former figure includes
60 small establishments employing 137 workers with an output of under
2,000 rubles, while the latter includes an establishment with four
workers. In 1866 39 small establishments were recorded in Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, where felt-making is now highly developed but is
regarded as a “handicraft” and not a “factory” industry (see Chapter VI, § II, 2).

Further, a particularly important place in the textile trades is held by
cotton processing, a branch which now employs over 200,000 workers. Here
we observe one of the biggest errors of our factory statistics, namely,
the combining of factory workers and capitalistically occupied home
workers. Large-scale machine industry developed here (as in many other
cases) by drawing home workers into the factory. It is obvious how
distorted this process will appear if work-distributing offices and work
rooms are classed as “factories,” if home workers are lumped together with factory workers! For 1866 (according to the Yearbook ) up to 22,000 home workers were included among factory workers (by
no means the full number, for the Yearbook , evidently by pure
accident, omits in the case of Moscow Gubernia those notes about
“work from village to village” which are so abundant for
Vladimir Gubernia). For 1890 (according to the Directory ) we
found only about 9,000 such workers. Clearly, the figures given in the
factory statistics (1866—59,000 workers in the cotton weaving mills;
1890—75,000) underrate the increase in the number of factory workers that actually took place. [7]

Here are data showing what different establishments were classed at different times
as cotton-weaving “factories”: [8]

Thus, the decrease in the number of “factories” shown by the
“statistics” actually indicates the displacing of distributing
offices and workrooms by the factory. Let us illustrate this by the
example of two factories:

Hence, to assess the development of large-scale machine production in this
branch of industry it is best to take the data giving the number of
power-looms. In the 18609 there were about

11,000, [9] and in
1890 about 87,000. Large-scale machine industry was consequently
developing at enormous speed. In cotton spinning and weaving there was
recorded in 1875-1878 a total of 148 mechanised establishments, having 481
steam-engines totalling 20,504 h.p., and in 1890, 168 mechanised
establishments, having 554 steam-engines with a total of 38,750 h.p.

Precisely the same mistake is made in Russian statistics in relation to
linen production, wherein a decrease in the number of factory workers is
erroneously shown (1866—17,171; 1890—15,497). Actually, in
1866, of 16,900 looms belonging to linen-mill owners only 4,749 were kept
in their establishments, the remaining 12,151 being held by work room owners. [10]

The number of factory workers for 1866, therefore, included about 12,000 home
workers, and for 1890 only about 3,000 (computed from Directory ). The number of power-looms, however, grew from 2,263 in 1866
(computed from Military Statistical Abstract ) to 4,041 in

1890, and of spindles from 95,495 to 218,012. In flax spinning and
linen-weaving in the years 1875-1878 there were 28 mechanised
establishments, having 47 steam engines with a total of 1,604 h.p., while
in 1890 there were 48 mechanised establishments, having 83 steam-engines
with a total of 5,027 h.p. [11]

Lastly, of the textile trades mention should be made of dyeing, printing
and finishing, in which trades the factory statistics combine factories
and the very smallest handicraft establishments with only 1 or 2 workers
each and an output of a few hundred rubles. [12]

Naturally, this causes no little confusion and obscures the rapid growth
of large-scale machine industry. The following figures reflect this
growth: in the wool-cleaning, dyeing, bleaching and finishing trades in
1875-1878 there were 80 mechanised establishments with 255 steam-engines
totalling 2,634 h.p.; in 1890 there were 189 mechanised establishments
with 858 steam-engines totalling 9,100 h.p.

2) Wood - Working Industries

In this section the most reliable data are those on saw milling, although
in the past small establishments were also included here. [13]

The enormous development of this trade in the post-Reform period (1866—4
million rubles 1890—19 million rubles), accompanied by a
considerable increase in the number of workers (4,000 and 15,000) and in
the number of steam-powered establishments (26 and 430), is particularly
interesting, in that it affords striking evidence of the growth of the
lumber industry. Saw-milling is but one of the operations of the lumber
industry, which is a necessary concomitant of the first steps of
large-scale machine industry.

As to the rest of the trades in this section, namely, furnishing and carpentry, bast-matting, and pitch and tar—the
factory statistics relating to them are distinguished for their
particularly chaotic condition. The small establishments so numerous in
these trades were formerly included among the “factories” in
numbers fixed arbitrarily, and the same is sometimes done even today. [14]

3) Chemical, Livestock - Product and
Ceramic Industries

The statistics on the chemical industry proper are distinguished for their
relative reliability. The following returns show its growth: in 1857
chemical products were consumed in Russia to a total of 14 million rubles
(3.4 million rubles home produced and 10.6 million rubles imported); in
1880, to a total of 36 1/4 million rubles (7 1/2 million rubles home
produced and 28 3/4 imported); and in 1890, to a total of 42.7 million
rubles (16.1 million rubles home produced and 26.6 imported). [15]

These data are particularly interesting because the chemical industries
are extremely important as producers of auxiliary materials for
large-scale machine industry, i.e., articles of productive (and
not personal) consumption. As to potash and saltpetre production, let us
remark that the number of factories given is unreliable, again due to the
inclusion of small establishments. [16]

The tallow trade has undoubtedly declined in the post-Reform period. Thus,
the value of output of the tallow candle and tallow-boiling trade was
estimated in 1866-1868 at 13.6 million rubles, and in 1890 at 5 million rubles. [17]

This decline is to be explained by the growing use of mineral oils for
lighting, which are displacing the old-time tallow candle.

For leather production (1866: 2,308 establishments with 11,463 workers and
an output totalling 14.6 million rubles; 1890: 1,621 establishments with
15,564 workers and an output totalling 26.7 million rubles) statistics
constantly lump together factories and small establishments. The
relatively high cost of raw materials, which explains the high total
output, and the fact that this trade requires very few workers, make it
particularly difficult to draw a line of demarcation between the
handicraft establishments and the factories. In 1890, of the total number
of factories (1,621), only 103 had an output of less than 2,000 rubles; in
1879 there were 2,008 out of a total of

3,320 [18] ; in 1866, of 2,308 factories [19]

1,042 had an output of less than 1,000 rubles (these 1,042 factories employed
2,059 workers and had an output totalling 474,000 rubles). Thus, the
number of factories increased, although the factory statistics show a
decrease. As for the small leather establishments, their number is still
very large today: for instance, The Factory Industry and Trade of Russia , published by the Ministry of Finance (St. Petersburg, 1893),
gives a total of nearly 9,500 handicraft works, with 21,000 workers and an
output of 12 million rubles. These “handicraft” establishments
are much larger than those which in the 60s were included among
“factories and works.” Since small establishments are included among the “factories and works” in unequal
numbers in the different gubernias and in different years, the statistics
on this trade should be treated with great caution. The steam-engine
statistics for 1875-1878 gave for this industry 28 mechanised
establishments with 33 steam-engines to a total of 488 h.p. and in 1890
there were 66 mechanised establishments with 82 steam-engines to a total
of 1,112 h.p. In these 66 factories 5,522 workers (more than a third of
the total) were concentrated with an output totalling 12.3 million rubles
(46% of the total), so that the concentration of production was very
considerable, and the productivity of labour in the large establishments
far above the average. [20]

The ceramic trades fall into two categories in accordance with the
character of the factory statistics: in some, there is hardly any
combining of small-scale production with large. That is why these
statistics are fairly reliable. This applies to the following industries:
glass, porcelain and chinaware, plaster and cement. Particularly remark
able is the rapid growth of the last-mentioned trade, which is evidence of
the development of the building industry: the total output in 1866 was
estimated at 530,000 rubles ( Military Statistical Abstract ), and
in 1890 at 3,826,000 rubles; the number of power-operated establishments
in 1875-1878 was 8, and in 1890 it was 39. On the other hand, in the
pottery and brick trades the inclusion of small establishments is observed
on a tremendous scale, and for that reason the factory statistics are very
unsatisfactory, being particularly exaggerated for the 60s and 70s. Thus,
in the pottery trade in 1879 there were listed 552 establishments, with
1,900 workers and an output totalling 538,000 rubles, and in 1890, 158
establishments with 1,978 workers and an output totalling 919,000
rubles. If we subtract the small establishments (those with an output of
less than 2,000 rubles) we get: 1879—70 establishments, with

840 workers and an output of 505,000 rubles; 1890—143 establishments, with 1,859 workers and an output of 857,000 rubles. That
is to say, instead of the decrease in the number of “factories” and stagnation in the number of workers shown in
the statistics, there was actually a considerable increase in both the one
and the other. In brick-making the official data for 1879 showed 2,627
establishments, with 28,800 workers and an output totalling 6,963,000
rubles; for 1890—1,292 establishments, with 24,334 workers and an
output of 7,249,000 rubles; and without the small establishments (those
with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) we get for 1879—518
establishments, with 19,057 workers and an output of 5,625,000 rubles; and
for 1890—1,096 establishments, with 23,222 workers and an output of
7,240,000 rubles. [21]

4) Metallurgical Industries

In the factory statistics for the metallurgical industries the sources of
confusion are, firstly, the inclusion of small establishments (exclusively
in the 60s and

70s), [22] and, secondly and mainly, the fact that metallurgical plants are
“subject, not to the jurisdiction” of the Department of
Commerce and Manufacture, but to that of the Department of Mines. The
returns of the Ministry of Finance usually omit ironworks “on
principle”; but there have never been uniform and invariable rules
for the separation of ironworks from the other works (and it would hardly be possible to devise them). That is why the factory statistics published
by the Ministry of Finance always include ironworks to some extent,
although the actual degree to which they are included varies for different
gubernias and for different years. [23]

General data on the increased use of steam-engines in metallurgy since the Reform
will be given below, when we deal with the mining and metallurgical
industry.

5) Food Industries

These industries merit special attention for the question that concerns
us, since the confusion in factory statistics attains here its
maximum. And yet, these industries occupy a prominent place in our factory
industry as a whole.

Thus, according to the Directory for 1890 these industries
account for 7,095 factories, with 45,000 workers and an output totalling
174 million rubles out of a total for European Russia of 21,124 factories,
with 875,764 workers and an output of 1,501 million rubles. The fact is
that the principal trades of this group—flour-milling, groat milling
and oil-pressing—consist of the processing of agricultural
produce. There are hundreds and thousands of small establishments in
Russia engaged in this processing in every gubernia, and since there are
no generally established rules for selecting the “factories and
works” from among them, the statistics pick out such small
establishments quite fortuitously. That is why the numbers of
“factories and works” for different years and for different
gubernias fluctuate enormously. Here, for example, are the figures for the
flour-milling trade for various years, as taken from various sources:
1865— 857 mills ( Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance ); 1866— 2,176 ( Yearbook ); 1866—18,426
( Military Statistical Abstract ); 1885—3,940 ( Collection ); 17,765 ( Returns for Russia ); 1889, 1890
and 1891—5,073, 5,605 and

5,201 [24] ( Collection ); 1894-95—2,308 ( List ). Among the
5,041 mills listed in 1892 ( Collection ), 803 were steam-, 2,907
water-, 1,323 wind- and 8 horse-operated! Some gubernias counted only
steam-mills, others included watermills (in numbers ranging from 1 to
425), still others (the minority) included also windmills (from 1 to 530)
and horse-operated mills. One can imagine the value of such statistics,
and of conclusions based on a credulous use of the data they provide! [25]

Obviously, to judge the growth of large-scale machine industry we must first
establish a definite criterion for the term “factory.” Let us
take as such a criterion the employment of steam-engines:
steam-mills are a characteristic concomitant of the epoch of
large-scale machine industry. [26]

We get the following picture of the development of factory production in
this branch of industry. [27]

The statistics for the oil-pressing trade are unsatisfactory for the same
reason. For instance, in 1879 2,450 works were listed with 7,207 workers
and an output totalling 6,486,000 rubles, and in 1890 there were 383
works, with 4,746 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles. But
this decrease in the number of factories and of workers is only apparent. If the data for 1879 and 1890 are made comparable, i.e., if
we exclude establishments with an output of less than 2,000 rubles (not
included in the lists) we get for 1879: 272 works, with 2,941 workers and
an output totalling 5,771,000 rubles, and for 1890—379 works, with
4,741 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles. That large-scale
machine industry has developed in this trade no less rapidly than in
flour-milling is evident, for example, from the statistics for
steam-engines; in 1875-1878 there were 27 steam-powered works, with 28
steam engines of 521 h.p., while in 1890 there were 113 mechanised works,
with 116 steam-engines totalling 1,886 h.p.

The other trades of this group are relatively small. Let us note that in
the mustard and fish-products trades, for instance, the statistics of the
60s included hundreds of small establishments such as have nothing
whatever in common with factories and are now not classed as such. The
extent to which our factory statistics for various years need correction
is evident from the following: with the exception of flour-milling, the
Directory for 1879 gave in this section a total of 3,555
establishments with 15,313 workers, and for 1890—1,842 establishments with 19,159 workers. For 7 trades, [28] small
establishments (with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) were included as
follows: in 1879—2,487 with 5,176 workers and an output totalling
916,000 rubles and in 1890, seven establishments, employing ten workers
and with an output totalling two thousand rubles! To make the data
comparable, one should, consequently, subtract in one case five thousand
workers, and in the other, ten persons!

6) Excise - Paying and Other Trades

In some of the excise-paying trades we observe a decrease in the number of
factory workers between the 1860s and the present day, but the decrease is
not nearly as considerable as is asserted by Mr.

N.–on, [29] who blindly believes every figure in print. The fact is that for the majority of
excise-paying trades the only source of information is the Military Statistical Abstract , which, as we know, tremendously exaggerates the
totals in the factory statistics. Unfortunately, however, we have little
material with which to verify the data in the Abstract . In
distilling, the Military Statistical Abstract counted in 1866 a
total of 3,836 distilleries with 52,660 workers (in 1890—1,620, with
26,102 workers), but the number of distilleries does not coincide with the
data of the Ministry of Finance, which in 1865-66 calculated 2,947
operating distilleries and in

1866-67—3,386. [30]

Judging by this, the number of workers is exaggerated by some 5,000 to 9,000. In vodka distilling, the Military Statistical Abstract computes 4,841 distilleries, with 8,326 workers
(1890: 242 distilleries with 5,266 workers); of these Bessarabia Gubernia
has 3,207 distilleries with 6,873 workers. The absurdity of these figures
is glaring. In fact, we learn from material published by the Ministry of

Finance [31] that the actual number of vodka distilleries in Bessarabia Gubernia was 10 or
12, and in the whole of European Russia 1,157. The number of workers was
consequently exaggerated by a minimum of 6 thousand. The cause of this
exaggeration is, evidently, that the Bessarabian “statisticians” included vineyard owners among the owners of
distilleries (see below on tobacco making). In beer- and mead-brewing, the
Military Statistical Abstract counts 2,374 breweries, with 6,825
workers (1890—918 breweries, with 8,364 workers), whereas The Ministry of Finance Yearbook estimates a total of 2,087 breweries in
European Russia for 1866. The number of workers is exaggerated here too. [32]

In the beet-sugar and sugar-refining trades, the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerates the number of workers by 11 thousand, counting
92,126 persons, as against 80,919 according to the data of The Ministry of Finance Yearbook (1890—77,875 workers). In tobacco-making, the
Military Statistical Abstract gives 5,327 factories, with 26,116
workers (1890— 281 factories, with 26,720 workers); of these, 4,993
factories with 20,038 workers are in Bessarabia Gubernia. Actually, the
number of tobacco factories in Russia in 1866 was 343, and in Bessarabia
Gubernia

13. [33]

The number of workers has been exaggerated by about 20 thousand , and even
the compilers of the Military Statistical Abstract themselves
indicated that “the factories shown in Bessarabia Gubernia . . . are
nothing but tobacco plantations” (p. 414). Mr. N.–on evidently
thought it superfluous to glance at the text of the statistical
publication he uses; that is why he failed to notice the error, and
discoursed with a highly serious air about a “slight increase in the
number of workers in the . . . tobacco factories” (article cited,
p. 104)!! Mr. N.–on simply takes the total number of workers in the
excise paying trades from the Military Statistical Abstract and
the Directory for 1890 (186,053 and 144,332) and calculates the
percentage of decrease. . . . “In a period of 25 years there has
been a considerable drop in the number of workers employed. It has
diminished by 22.4%. . . . “Here” (i.e., in the excise-paying
trades) “we see no signs of an increase, the plain fact being that
the number of workers has simply declined by a quarter of its previous
magnitude” ( ibid .). Indeed, what could be “simpler”! Take the first figure you lay your hands on, and
calculate a percentage! As for the trifling circumstance that the figure
given in the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerates the number
of workers by some forty thousand , that can be ignored.

7) Conclusions

The criticism of our factory statistics given in the last two sections
leads us to the following main conclusions:

1. The number of factories in Russia has been rapidly growing in the post-Reform period .

The opposite conclusion, which follows from our factory statistics, is
erroneous. The point is that the figures we are given of factories include
small artisan, handicraft and agricultural establishments, and the further back we go from the present day , the larger the number of small establishments included in the number of factories .

2. The number of factory workers and the volume of output of factories and works are likewise exaggerated for the past period in our statistics . This is due, firstly, to the fact that former]y a
greater number of small establishments were included. Hence, the data
for the industries that merge with handicrafts are particularly unreliable. [34]

Secondly, it is due to the fact that in the past more capitalistically employed home workers were classified as
factory workers than today.

3. It is customary in this country to think that if figures are taken from
the official factory statistics they must be considered comparable with
other figures taken from the same source, and must be regarded as more or
less reliable, until the contrary is proved. What has been said above,
however, leads to the opposite conclusion, namely, that all comparisons of
our factory statistics for different times and for different gubernias
must be regarded as unreliable until the reverse is proved.

---
Notes:
[1]
In all cases, unless otherwise stated, we take the data of the
Yearbook for 1866 and those of the Directories for 1879
and 1890.—The Historico-Statistical Survey (Vol. II) gives
annual information on cloth production from 1855 to 1879; the following
are the five-year averages of workers employed from 1855-1859 to
1875-1879: 107,433-96,131- 92,117; 87,960 and 81,458.— Lenin

[2]
See A Survey of Various Branches of Manufactory Industry in Russia , Vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1862, particularly pp. 165 and
167. Cf. also Military Statistical Abstract , D. 357 and foll. At
the present time we rarely meet in the lists of cloth manufacturers the
celebrated noble families that constituted the overwhelming majority in
the 1860s.— Lenin

[3]
The following examples are taken from Zemstvo statistical
material. Concerning N. P. Gladkov’s cloth factory in Volsk Uyezd
Saratov Gubernia (in 1866 it had 306 workers), we read in the Zemstvo
statistical abstract for this uyezd (p. 275) that peasants were forced to
work in the factory belonging to the lord. “They worked in the
factory until they married, and then became tax-paying members of the
peasant community.” In the village of Rvassy, Ranenburg Uyezd,
Ryazan Gubernia, there was in 1866 a cloth factory employing 180
workers. The peasants performed their Corvée by working in the mill, which
was closed down in 1870 ( Statistical Returns for Ryazan Gubernia ,
Vol. II, Pt. I, Moscow, 1882, p. 330).— Lenin

[4]
See Nisselovich, A History of the Factory Legislation of the Russian Empire , Pts. I and II, St. Petersburg, 1883-1884.—A. Semyonov,
A Study of Historical Data on Russian Foreign Trade and Industry ,
St. Petersburg, 1858-1859, 3 parts.—V. I. Semevsky, The Peasants in the Reign of Catherine II , St. Petersburg,
1881.— Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia . Sanitary
Statistical Sec, Vol IV, Pt. I (general summary), Moscow, 1890, article by
A. V. Pogozhev, “The Manorial-Possessional Factories of Moscow
Gubernia.”—M. Tugan-Baranovsky, The Russian Factory , St. Petersburg, 1898, Vol. I.— Lenin

[5]
Cf. Successes of Russian Industry According to Surveys of Expert Commissions , St. Petersburg, 1897, p. 60.— Lenin

[6]
The data on steam-engines in this and the following instances are taken
from Material for the Statistics of Steam-Engines in the Russian Empire published by the Central Statistical Committee,
St. Petersburg, 1882; for 1890 they are taken from Collection of Data on Factory Industry ; data on mechanised establishments are from the
Directory .— Lenin

[7]
Cf. Tugan-Baranovsky, loc . cit ., p. 420.—The total number of village hand weavers working for capitalists was estimated by
Semyonov at approximately 385,857 in 1859 ( loc . cit .,
III, 273) to these he added another 200,000 village workers engaged
“in other factory trades” ( ibid ., p. 302). At the present time, as we have seen above, the number of capitalistically
employed home workers is much larger.— Lenin

[8]
Establishments with an output of under 2,000 rubles are classed as
workrooms. The data of the special investigation of factories and works in
Moscow and Vladimir gubernias made in 1868 by the Central Statistical
Committee contain the repeated statement that the output figures of the
small weaving establishments merely indicate pay for work
done. Establishments that distribute work to home workers are classed as
offices. For 1866 the figure given for these establishments is far from
complete, owing to obvious omissions in the case of Moscow Gubernia.— Lenin

[9]
Military Statistical Abstract , 380.— Survey of Manufactory Industry , Vol, II, St. Petersburg, 1863,
p. 451. —In 1898 the number of power-looms used in cotton weaving
(for the whole Empire, evidently) was reckoned at 100,630. Successes of Russian Industry , p. 33.— Lenin

[10]
Military Statistical Abstract , pp. 367-368: Commissariat returns.— Lenin

[11]
In silk-weaving in 1879 there were 495 power-looms and 5,996 hand-looms
( Historico-Statistical Survey ), and in 1890 there were 2,899 of
the former and over 7,500 of the latter.— Lenin

[12]
For example, in 1879 the number of factories computed in these trades was
729; of this number, 466 had 977 workers and an output of 170,000
rubles. Even today one can find many such “factories”—for instance, in the description of the
handicraft industries of Vyatka and Perm gubernias.— Lenin

[13]
Cf. Military Statistical Abstract , p. 389. Survey of Manufactory Industry , I, 309.— Lenin

[14]
Thus in 1879, of 91 bast-matting factories 39 had an output of less than
1,000 rubles each (Cf. Studies , p. 155). [See present edition
Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .] In the pitch-and-tar trade for f890 there
were computed 140 factories, all with an output exceeding 2,000 rubles;
for 1879, 1,033 were computed, of which 911 had an output of less than
2,000 rubles; for 1866 the number listed was 669 (for the Empire), while
the Military Statistical Abstract even gave the figure of 3,164!!
(Cf. Studies , pp. 156 and 271.) [See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia , and Vol. 4,
“On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.” – Ed .]— Lenin

[15]
Military Statistical Abstract , Historico-Statistical Survey and Productive Forces , IX, 16.—The number of
workers in 1866—5,645; in 1890—25,471; in 1875-1878—38 mechanised establishments, with 34 steam-engines to a total of 332 h.p.;
and in 1890—141 mechanised establishments, with 208 steam-engines to
a total of 3,319 h.p.— Lenin

[16]
Cf. Directory for 1879 and 1890 about potash production. The
production of saltpetre is now concentrated in one factory in
St. Petersburg, whereas in the 60s and 70s saltpetre was obtained from
burti (dungheaps).— Lenin

[17]
Here, too, the number of factories in the 60s and 709 included a host of
small establishments.— Lenin

[18]
In 1875, Prof. Kittary, in his Map of Leather Production in Russia , gave an aggregate of 12,939 establishments, with output
totalling 47 1/2 million rubles, whereas the factory statistics gave 2,764
establishments, with output totalling 26 1/2 million rubles
(Historico-Statistical Survey). In the fur trade, another in this section,
a similar lumping is observed of small establishments together with
factories: Cf. Directory for 1879 and for 1890.— Lenin

[19]
The Military Statistical Abstract gave an aggregate of even
3,890!!— Lenin

[20]
If we distribute the factories shown in the Directory as for 1890
according to date of establishment we get the following: of 1,506
factories the number established at dates unknown was 91, before 1850
—331; in the 1850s—147; in the 60s—239; in the
70s—320; in the 80s —351; in 1890—21. In every succeeding decade more factories were established than in the preceding
one.— Lenin

[21]
The small establishments in these industries are now classed with the
handicrafts. Cf., for instance, the table of small industries (Appendix I)
or Studies , pp. 158-159. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .). The Ministry of Finance Yearbook
(Vol. I) refused to give totals for these industries because the figures
were obviously exaggerated. Progress in statistics since then is expressed
in an increased boldness and disregard of the quality of material used.— Lenin

[22]
Thus, in the 60s, dozens of smithies were classed for some gubernias as
“ironworks.”– See Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance , 1866, No. 4, p. 406; 1867, No. 6
p. 384.— Statistical Chronicle , Series II,
Vol. 6.—Cf. also the example quoted above (§ II) where the
Yearbook for 1866 includes the small handicraftsmen of the
Pavlovo district among the “factory owners.”— Lenin

[23]
See examples in Studies , p. 269 and p. 284 (see present edition,
Vol. 4, “On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.”
– Ed .), where Mr. Karyshev’s error in ignoring this circumstance is examined. The Directory for 1879, for instance,
includes the Kulebaki and Vyksa ironworks, or departments of them (pp. 356
and 374), which are omitted in the Directory for 1890.— Lenin

[24]
And in addition 32,957 “small windmills,” not counted among
the “factories and works.”— Lenin

[25]
See examples of such conclusions drawn by Mr. Karyshev in the above-quoted
article in the Studies . (See present edition, Vol. 4, op . cit . – Ed .)— Lenin

[26]
Large watermills are also in the nature of factories, of course, but we
have no data to enable us to single them out from among the small ones. In
the Directory for 1890 we saw listed 250 watermills each
employing 10 and more workers. They employed 6,378 workers.— Lenin

[27]
Military Statistical Abstract , Directories and
Collection . According to the List for 1894-95, there are
1,192 steam-mills in European Russia. The statistics for steam-engines
gave the number of steam-mills in European Russia in 1875-1878 as 294.— Lenin

[28]
Oil-pressing, starch, treacle, malt, confectionery, preserves and vinegar.— Lenin

[29]
Russkoye Bogatstvo , 1894, No. 6, pp. 104-105.— Lenin

[30]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , I, pp. 76 and 82. The total
number of distilleries (including those not in operation) was 4,737 and
4,646 respectively.— Lenin

[31]
Yearbook , I, p. 104.— Lenin

[32]
E.g., in Simbirsk Gubernia, the Military Statistical Abstract
computes 218 distilleries (!) with 299 workers and an output totalling
21,600 rubles. (According to the Yearbook there were 7 distilleries in the gubernia.) Very likely, these were small domestic or
peasant establishments.— Lenin

[33]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , p. 61. Cf. Survey of Manufactory Industry (Vol. II St. Petersburg, 1863), which gives
detailed information for 1861: 534 factories, with 6,937 workers; and in
Bessarabia Gubernia, 31 factories, with 73 workers. The number of tobacco
factories fluctuates greatly from year to year.— Lenin

[34]
If we take the gross figures for all trades and for long periods, the
exaggeration resulting from the cause mentioned will not be great, for the
small establishments account for a small percentage of the total number of
workers and the total output. It goes without saying that one presumes a
comparison of figures taken from similar sources (there can be no question
of comparing the returns of the Ministry of Finance with those of
gubernatorial reports, or of the Military Statistical Abstract ).— Lenin

[35]
The “ landlord establishment of a manorial-possessional character ” was a feudal manorial manufactory belonging to a landlord and employing his serf-peasants. By a decree of Peter I issued in 1721,
merchant factory owners were permitted to purchase peasants for work in
their factories. The feudal workers attached to such enterprises were
called “possessional peasants.” [p. 470]

| | II. Our Factory Statistics | | | IV. The Development of the Mining Industry | |

# Food Industries

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8iii.htm#sect05

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

III. An Examination of Historico-Statistical Data On the
Development of Large-Scale Industry

We have noted above that to judge the development of large-scale industry
from factory statistics it is necessary to separate the relatively useful
material in these statistics from the utterly useless. Let us, with this
in view, examine the main branches of our manufacturing industry.

1) Textile Trades

At the head of the wool trades is cloth production, which in 1890 had an
output of over 35 million rubles and employed 45,000 workers. The
historico-statistical data on this trade indicate a considerable drop in
the number of workers, namely, from 72,638 in 1866 to 46,740 in

1890. [1]

To appraise this phenomenon we must take account of the fact that up to the 1860s
inclusive, felt cloth production was organised on specific and original
lines: it was concentrated in relatively large establishments which,
however, did not in any way come under the category of capitalist factory
industry, since they were based on the labour of serfs, or of temporarily
bound peasants. In the surveys of the “factory” industry of
the 60s we therefore meet with the division of cloth mills into 1) those
owned by landlords or nobles, and 2) those owned by merchants. The former
produced mainly army cloth, the government contracts having been
distributed equally among the mills in proportion to the number of
machines. Compulsory labour was the cause of the technical backwardness of
such establishments and of their employing a much larger number of workers
than the merchant mills based on the employment of hired labour. [2]

The principal drop in the number of workers, engaged in felt cloth production
took place in the gubernias with landlord factories; thus, in the 13 such
gubernias (enumerated in the Survey of Manufactory Industries ),
the number of workers dropped from 32,921 to 14,539 (1866 and 1890), while
in the 5 gubernias with merchant factories (Moscow, Grodno, Liflandia, Chernigov and St. Petersburg) it dropped from
31,291 to 28,257. From this it is clear that we have here two opposite
trends, both of which, however, indicate the development of
capitalism—on the one hand, the decline of landlord establishments
of a manorial-possessional character, [35] and on the other, the development of purely capitalist factories out of merchant
establishments. A considerable number of the workers employed in felt
cloth production in the 60s were not factory workers at all in
the strict sense of the term; they were dependent peasants working for landlords. [3]

Cloth production is an example of that specific phenomenon of Russian
history—the employment of serf labour in industry. Since we are
dealing only with the post-Reform period, the above brief remarks will
suffice to show the way in which this phenomenon is reflected in factory statistics. [4]

We
shall now quote some figures drawn from statistics on steam-engines in
order to estimate the development of large-scale machine production in
this industry: in 1875-1878, in the wool-spinning and cloth industries of
European Russia there were 167 mechanised establishments using 209
steam-engines with a total of 4,632 h.p., and in 1890 there were 197
establishments using

341 steam-engines with a total of 6,602 h.p. The use of steam power,
therefore, did not make very rapid progress; this is to be explained
partly by the traditions of landlord factories and partly by the
displacement of felt cloth by the cheaper worsted and mixed fabrics. [5]

In the years 1875-1878 there were seven mechanised establishments using 20
steam-engines with a total of 303 h.p., and in 1890 there were 28
mechanised establishments employing 61 steam-engines to a total of 1,375 h.p. [6]

In regard to the woollen-goods industry let us also take note of
felt-making, a branch that shows in particularly striking fashion the
impossibility of comparing factory statistics for different times: the
figures for 1866 are 77 factories with a total of 295 workers, while for
1890 they are 57 factories with 1,217 workers. The former figure includes
60 small establishments employing 137 workers with an output of under
2,000 rubles, while the latter includes an establishment with four
workers. In 1866 39 small establishments were recorded in Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, where felt-making is now highly developed but is
regarded as a “handicraft” and not a “factory” industry (see Chapter VI, § II, 2).

Further, a particularly important place in the textile trades is held by
cotton processing, a branch which now employs over 200,000 workers. Here
we observe one of the biggest errors of our factory statistics, namely,
the combining of factory workers and capitalistically occupied home
workers. Large-scale machine industry developed here (as in many other
cases) by drawing home workers into the factory. It is obvious how
distorted this process will appear if work-distributing offices and work
rooms are classed as “factories,” if home workers are lumped together with factory workers! For 1866 (according to the Yearbook ) up to 22,000 home workers were included among factory workers (by
no means the full number, for the Yearbook , evidently by pure
accident, omits in the case of Moscow Gubernia those notes about
“work from village to village” which are so abundant for
Vladimir Gubernia). For 1890 (according to the Directory ) we
found only about 9,000 such workers. Clearly, the figures given in the
factory statistics (1866—59,000 workers in the cotton weaving mills;
1890—75,000) underrate the increase in the number of factory workers that actually took place. [7]

Here are data showing what different establishments were classed at different times
as cotton-weaving “factories”: [8]

Thus, the decrease in the number of “factories” shown by the
“statistics” actually indicates the displacing of distributing
offices and workrooms by the factory. Let us illustrate this by the
example of two factories:

Hence, to assess the development of large-scale machine production in this
branch of industry it is best to take the data giving the number of
power-looms. In the 18609 there were about

11,000, [9] and in
1890 about 87,000. Large-scale machine industry was consequently
developing at enormous speed. In cotton spinning and weaving there was
recorded in 1875-1878 a total of 148 mechanised establishments, having 481
steam-engines totalling 20,504 h.p., and in 1890, 168 mechanised
establishments, having 554 steam-engines with a total of 38,750 h.p.

Precisely the same mistake is made in Russian statistics in relation to
linen production, wherein a decrease in the number of factory workers is
erroneously shown (1866—17,171; 1890—15,497). Actually, in
1866, of 16,900 looms belonging to linen-mill owners only 4,749 were kept
in their establishments, the remaining 12,151 being held by work room owners. [10]

The number of factory workers for 1866, therefore, included about 12,000 home
workers, and for 1890 only about 3,000 (computed from Directory ). The number of power-looms, however, grew from 2,263 in 1866
(computed from Military Statistical Abstract ) to 4,041 in

1890, and of spindles from 95,495 to 218,012. In flax spinning and
linen-weaving in the years 1875-1878 there were 28 mechanised
establishments, having 47 steam engines with a total of 1,604 h.p., while
in 1890 there were 48 mechanised establishments, having 83 steam-engines
with a total of 5,027 h.p. [11]

Lastly, of the textile trades mention should be made of dyeing, printing
and finishing, in which trades the factory statistics combine factories
and the very smallest handicraft establishments with only 1 or 2 workers
each and an output of a few hundred rubles. [12]

Naturally, this causes no little confusion and obscures the rapid growth
of large-scale machine industry. The following figures reflect this
growth: in the wool-cleaning, dyeing, bleaching and finishing trades in
1875-1878 there were 80 mechanised establishments with 255 steam-engines
totalling 2,634 h.p.; in 1890 there were 189 mechanised establishments
with 858 steam-engines totalling 9,100 h.p.

2) Wood - Working Industries

In this section the most reliable data are those on saw milling, although
in the past small establishments were also included here. [13]

The enormous development of this trade in the post-Reform period (1866—4
million rubles 1890—19 million rubles), accompanied by a
considerable increase in the number of workers (4,000 and 15,000) and in
the number of steam-powered establishments (26 and 430), is particularly
interesting, in that it affords striking evidence of the growth of the
lumber industry. Saw-milling is but one of the operations of the lumber
industry, which is a necessary concomitant of the first steps of
large-scale machine industry.

As to the rest of the trades in this section, namely, furnishing and carpentry, bast-matting, and pitch and tar—the
factory statistics relating to them are distinguished for their
particularly chaotic condition. The small establishments so numerous in
these trades were formerly included among the “factories” in
numbers fixed arbitrarily, and the same is sometimes done even today. [14]

3) Chemical, Livestock - Product and
Ceramic Industries

The statistics on the chemical industry proper are distinguished for their
relative reliability. The following returns show its growth: in 1857
chemical products were consumed in Russia to a total of 14 million rubles
(3.4 million rubles home produced and 10.6 million rubles imported); in
1880, to a total of 36 1/4 million rubles (7 1/2 million rubles home
produced and 28 3/4 imported); and in 1890, to a total of 42.7 million
rubles (16.1 million rubles home produced and 26.6 imported). [15]

These data are particularly interesting because the chemical industries
are extremely important as producers of auxiliary materials for
large-scale machine industry, i.e., articles of productive (and
not personal) consumption. As to potash and saltpetre production, let us
remark that the number of factories given is unreliable, again due to the
inclusion of small establishments. [16]

The tallow trade has undoubtedly declined in the post-Reform period. Thus,
the value of output of the tallow candle and tallow-boiling trade was
estimated in 1866-1868 at 13.6 million rubles, and in 1890 at 5 million rubles. [17]

This decline is to be explained by the growing use of mineral oils for
lighting, which are displacing the old-time tallow candle.

For leather production (1866: 2,308 establishments with 11,463 workers and
an output totalling 14.6 million rubles; 1890: 1,621 establishments with
15,564 workers and an output totalling 26.7 million rubles) statistics
constantly lump together factories and small establishments. The
relatively high cost of raw materials, which explains the high total
output, and the fact that this trade requires very few workers, make it
particularly difficult to draw a line of demarcation between the
handicraft establishments and the factories. In 1890, of the total number
of factories (1,621), only 103 had an output of less than 2,000 rubles; in
1879 there were 2,008 out of a total of

3,320 [18] ; in 1866, of 2,308 factories [19]

1,042 had an output of less than 1,000 rubles (these 1,042 factories employed
2,059 workers and had an output totalling 474,000 rubles). Thus, the
number of factories increased, although the factory statistics show a
decrease. As for the small leather establishments, their number is still
very large today: for instance, The Factory Industry and Trade of Russia , published by the Ministry of Finance (St. Petersburg, 1893),
gives a total of nearly 9,500 handicraft works, with 21,000 workers and an
output of 12 million rubles. These “handicraft” establishments
are much larger than those which in the 60s were included among
“factories and works.” Since small establishments are included among the “factories and works” in unequal
numbers in the different gubernias and in different years, the statistics
on this trade should be treated with great caution. The steam-engine
statistics for 1875-1878 gave for this industry 28 mechanised
establishments with 33 steam-engines to a total of 488 h.p. and in 1890
there were 66 mechanised establishments with 82 steam-engines to a total
of 1,112 h.p. In these 66 factories 5,522 workers (more than a third of
the total) were concentrated with an output totalling 12.3 million rubles
(46% of the total), so that the concentration of production was very
considerable, and the productivity of labour in the large establishments
far above the average. [20]

The ceramic trades fall into two categories in accordance with the
character of the factory statistics: in some, there is hardly any
combining of small-scale production with large. That is why these
statistics are fairly reliable. This applies to the following industries:
glass, porcelain and chinaware, plaster and cement. Particularly remark
able is the rapid growth of the last-mentioned trade, which is evidence of
the development of the building industry: the total output in 1866 was
estimated at 530,000 rubles ( Military Statistical Abstract ), and
in 1890 at 3,826,000 rubles; the number of power-operated establishments
in 1875-1878 was 8, and in 1890 it was 39. On the other hand, in the
pottery and brick trades the inclusion of small establishments is observed
on a tremendous scale, and for that reason the factory statistics are very
unsatisfactory, being particularly exaggerated for the 60s and 70s. Thus,
in the pottery trade in 1879 there were listed 552 establishments, with
1,900 workers and an output totalling 538,000 rubles, and in 1890, 158
establishments with 1,978 workers and an output totalling 919,000
rubles. If we subtract the small establishments (those with an output of
less than 2,000 rubles) we get: 1879—70 establishments, with

840 workers and an output of 505,000 rubles; 1890—143 establishments, with 1,859 workers and an output of 857,000 rubles. That
is to say, instead of the decrease in the number of “factories” and stagnation in the number of workers shown in
the statistics, there was actually a considerable increase in both the one
and the other. In brick-making the official data for 1879 showed 2,627
establishments, with 28,800 workers and an output totalling 6,963,000
rubles; for 1890—1,292 establishments, with 24,334 workers and an
output of 7,249,000 rubles; and without the small establishments (those
with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) we get for 1879—518
establishments, with 19,057 workers and an output of 5,625,000 rubles; and
for 1890—1,096 establishments, with 23,222 workers and an output of
7,240,000 rubles. [21]

4) Metallurgical Industries

In the factory statistics for the metallurgical industries the sources of
confusion are, firstly, the inclusion of small establishments (exclusively
in the 60s and

70s), [22] and, secondly and mainly, the fact that metallurgical plants are
“subject, not to the jurisdiction” of the Department of
Commerce and Manufacture, but to that of the Department of Mines. The
returns of the Ministry of Finance usually omit ironworks “on
principle”; but there have never been uniform and invariable rules
for the separation of ironworks from the other works (and it would hardly be possible to devise them). That is why the factory statistics published
by the Ministry of Finance always include ironworks to some extent,
although the actual degree to which they are included varies for different
gubernias and for different years. [23]

General data on the increased use of steam-engines in metallurgy since the Reform
will be given below, when we deal with the mining and metallurgical
industry.

5) Food Industries

These industries merit special attention for the question that concerns
us, since the confusion in factory statistics attains here its
maximum. And yet, these industries occupy a prominent place in our factory
industry as a whole.

Thus, according to the Directory for 1890 these industries
account for 7,095 factories, with 45,000 workers and an output totalling
174 million rubles out of a total for European Russia of 21,124 factories,
with 875,764 workers and an output of 1,501 million rubles. The fact is
that the principal trades of this group—flour-milling, groat milling
and oil-pressing—consist of the processing of agricultural
produce. There are hundreds and thousands of small establishments in
Russia engaged in this processing in every gubernia, and since there are
no generally established rules for selecting the “factories and
works” from among them, the statistics pick out such small
establishments quite fortuitously. That is why the numbers of
“factories and works” for different years and for different
gubernias fluctuate enormously. Here, for example, are the figures for the
flour-milling trade for various years, as taken from various sources:
1865— 857 mills ( Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance ); 1866— 2,176 ( Yearbook ); 1866—18,426
( Military Statistical Abstract ); 1885—3,940 ( Collection ); 17,765 ( Returns for Russia ); 1889, 1890
and 1891—5,073, 5,605 and

5,201 [24] ( Collection ); 1894-95—2,308 ( List ). Among the
5,041 mills listed in 1892 ( Collection ), 803 were steam-, 2,907
water-, 1,323 wind- and 8 horse-operated! Some gubernias counted only
steam-mills, others included watermills (in numbers ranging from 1 to
425), still others (the minority) included also windmills (from 1 to 530)
and horse-operated mills. One can imagine the value of such statistics,
and of conclusions based on a credulous use of the data they provide! [25]

Obviously, to judge the growth of large-scale machine industry we must first
establish a definite criterion for the term “factory.” Let us
take as such a criterion the employment of steam-engines:
steam-mills are a characteristic concomitant of the epoch of
large-scale machine industry. [26]

We get the following picture of the development of factory production in
this branch of industry. [27]

The statistics for the oil-pressing trade are unsatisfactory for the same
reason. For instance, in 1879 2,450 works were listed with 7,207 workers
and an output totalling 6,486,000 rubles, and in 1890 there were 383
works, with 4,746 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles. But
this decrease in the number of factories and of workers is only apparent. If the data for 1879 and 1890 are made comparable, i.e., if
we exclude establishments with an output of less than 2,000 rubles (not
included in the lists) we get for 1879: 272 works, with 2,941 workers and
an output totalling 5,771,000 rubles, and for 1890—379 works, with
4,741 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles. That large-scale
machine industry has developed in this trade no less rapidly than in
flour-milling is evident, for example, from the statistics for
steam-engines; in 1875-1878 there were 27 steam-powered works, with 28
steam engines of 521 h.p., while in 1890 there were 113 mechanised works,
with 116 steam-engines totalling 1,886 h.p.

The other trades of this group are relatively small. Let us note that in
the mustard and fish-products trades, for instance, the statistics of the
60s included hundreds of small establishments such as have nothing
whatever in common with factories and are now not classed as such. The
extent to which our factory statistics for various years need correction
is evident from the following: with the exception of flour-milling, the
Directory for 1879 gave in this section a total of 3,555
establishments with 15,313 workers, and for 1890—1,842 establishments with 19,159 workers. For 7 trades, [28] small
establishments (with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) were included as
follows: in 1879—2,487 with 5,176 workers and an output totalling
916,000 rubles and in 1890, seven establishments, employing ten workers
and with an output totalling two thousand rubles! To make the data
comparable, one should, consequently, subtract in one case five thousand
workers, and in the other, ten persons!

6) Excise - Paying and Other Trades

In some of the excise-paying trades we observe a decrease in the number of
factory workers between the 1860s and the present day, but the decrease is
not nearly as considerable as is asserted by Mr.

N.–on, [29] who blindly believes every figure in print. The fact is that for the majority of
excise-paying trades the only source of information is the Military Statistical Abstract , which, as we know, tremendously exaggerates the
totals in the factory statistics. Unfortunately, however, we have little
material with which to verify the data in the Abstract . In
distilling, the Military Statistical Abstract counted in 1866 a
total of 3,836 distilleries with 52,660 workers (in 1890—1,620, with
26,102 workers), but the number of distilleries does not coincide with the
data of the Ministry of Finance, which in 1865-66 calculated 2,947
operating distilleries and in

1866-67—3,386. [30]

Judging by this, the number of workers is exaggerated by some 5,000 to 9,000. In vodka distilling, the Military Statistical Abstract computes 4,841 distilleries, with 8,326 workers
(1890: 242 distilleries with 5,266 workers); of these Bessarabia Gubernia
has 3,207 distilleries with 6,873 workers. The absurdity of these figures
is glaring. In fact, we learn from material published by the Ministry of

Finance [31] that the actual number of vodka distilleries in Bessarabia Gubernia was 10 or
12, and in the whole of European Russia 1,157. The number of workers was
consequently exaggerated by a minimum of 6 thousand. The cause of this
exaggeration is, evidently, that the Bessarabian “statisticians” included vineyard owners among the owners of
distilleries (see below on tobacco making). In beer- and mead-brewing, the
Military Statistical Abstract counts 2,374 breweries, with 6,825
workers (1890—918 breweries, with 8,364 workers), whereas The Ministry of Finance Yearbook estimates a total of 2,087 breweries in
European Russia for 1866. The number of workers is exaggerated here too. [32]

In the beet-sugar and sugar-refining trades, the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerates the number of workers by 11 thousand, counting
92,126 persons, as against 80,919 according to the data of The Ministry of Finance Yearbook (1890—77,875 workers). In tobacco-making, the
Military Statistical Abstract gives 5,327 factories, with 26,116
workers (1890— 281 factories, with 26,720 workers); of these, 4,993
factories with 20,038 workers are in Bessarabia Gubernia. Actually, the
number of tobacco factories in Russia in 1866 was 343, and in Bessarabia
Gubernia

13. [33]

The number of workers has been exaggerated by about 20 thousand , and even
the compilers of the Military Statistical Abstract themselves
indicated that “the factories shown in Bessarabia Gubernia . . . are
nothing but tobacco plantations” (p. 414). Mr. N.–on evidently
thought it superfluous to glance at the text of the statistical
publication he uses; that is why he failed to notice the error, and
discoursed with a highly serious air about a “slight increase in the
number of workers in the . . . tobacco factories” (article cited,
p. 104)!! Mr. N.–on simply takes the total number of workers in the
excise paying trades from the Military Statistical Abstract and
the Directory for 1890 (186,053 and 144,332) and calculates the
percentage of decrease. . . . “In a period of 25 years there has
been a considerable drop in the number of workers employed. It has
diminished by 22.4%. . . . “Here” (i.e., in the excise-paying
trades) “we see no signs of an increase, the plain fact being that
the number of workers has simply declined by a quarter of its previous
magnitude” ( ibid .). Indeed, what could be “simpler”! Take the first figure you lay your hands on, and
calculate a percentage! As for the trifling circumstance that the figure
given in the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerates the number
of workers by some forty thousand , that can be ignored.

7) Conclusions

The criticism of our factory statistics given in the last two sections
leads us to the following main conclusions:

1. The number of factories in Russia has been rapidly growing in the post-Reform period .

The opposite conclusion, which follows from our factory statistics, is
erroneous. The point is that the figures we are given of factories include
small artisan, handicraft and agricultural establishments, and the further back we go from the present day , the larger the number of small establishments included in the number of factories .

2. The number of factory workers and the volume of output of factories and works are likewise exaggerated for the past period in our statistics . This is due, firstly, to the fact that former]y a
greater number of small establishments were included. Hence, the data
for the industries that merge with handicrafts are particularly unreliable. [34]

Secondly, it is due to the fact that in the past more capitalistically employed home workers were classified as
factory workers than today.

3. It is customary in this country to think that if figures are taken from
the official factory statistics they must be considered comparable with
other figures taken from the same source, and must be regarded as more or
less reliable, until the contrary is proved. What has been said above,
however, leads to the opposite conclusion, namely, that all comparisons of
our factory statistics for different times and for different gubernias
must be regarded as unreliable until the reverse is proved.

---
Notes:
[1]
In all cases, unless otherwise stated, we take the data of the
Yearbook for 1866 and those of the Directories for 1879
and 1890.—The Historico-Statistical Survey (Vol. II) gives
annual information on cloth production from 1855 to 1879; the following
are the five-year averages of workers employed from 1855-1859 to
1875-1879: 107,433-96,131- 92,117; 87,960 and 81,458.— Lenin

[2]
See A Survey of Various Branches of Manufactory Industry in Russia , Vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1862, particularly pp. 165 and
167. Cf. also Military Statistical Abstract , D. 357 and foll. At
the present time we rarely meet in the lists of cloth manufacturers the
celebrated noble families that constituted the overwhelming majority in
the 1860s.— Lenin

[3]
The following examples are taken from Zemstvo statistical
material. Concerning N. P. Gladkov’s cloth factory in Volsk Uyezd
Saratov Gubernia (in 1866 it had 306 workers), we read in the Zemstvo
statistical abstract for this uyezd (p. 275) that peasants were forced to
work in the factory belonging to the lord. “They worked in the
factory until they married, and then became tax-paying members of the
peasant community.” In the village of Rvassy, Ranenburg Uyezd,
Ryazan Gubernia, there was in 1866 a cloth factory employing 180
workers. The peasants performed their Corvée by working in the mill, which
was closed down in 1870 ( Statistical Returns for Ryazan Gubernia ,
Vol. II, Pt. I, Moscow, 1882, p. 330).— Lenin

[4]
See Nisselovich, A History of the Factory Legislation of the Russian Empire , Pts. I and II, St. Petersburg, 1883-1884.—A. Semyonov,
A Study of Historical Data on Russian Foreign Trade and Industry ,
St. Petersburg, 1858-1859, 3 parts.—V. I. Semevsky, The Peasants in the Reign of Catherine II , St. Petersburg,
1881.— Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia . Sanitary
Statistical Sec, Vol IV, Pt. I (general summary), Moscow, 1890, article by
A. V. Pogozhev, “The Manorial-Possessional Factories of Moscow
Gubernia.”—M. Tugan-Baranovsky, The Russian Factory , St. Petersburg, 1898, Vol. I.— Lenin

[5]
Cf. Successes of Russian Industry According to Surveys of Expert Commissions , St. Petersburg, 1897, p. 60.— Lenin

[6]
The data on steam-engines in this and the following instances are taken
from Material for the Statistics of Steam-Engines in the Russian Empire published by the Central Statistical Committee,
St. Petersburg, 1882; for 1890 they are taken from Collection of Data on Factory Industry ; data on mechanised establishments are from the
Directory .— Lenin

[7]
Cf. Tugan-Baranovsky, loc . cit ., p. 420.—The total number of village hand weavers working for capitalists was estimated by
Semyonov at approximately 385,857 in 1859 ( loc . cit .,
III, 273) to these he added another 200,000 village workers engaged
“in other factory trades” ( ibid ., p. 302). At the present time, as we have seen above, the number of capitalistically
employed home workers is much larger.— Lenin

[8]
Establishments with an output of under 2,000 rubles are classed as
workrooms. The data of the special investigation of factories and works in
Moscow and Vladimir gubernias made in 1868 by the Central Statistical
Committee contain the repeated statement that the output figures of the
small weaving establishments merely indicate pay for work
done. Establishments that distribute work to home workers are classed as
offices. For 1866 the figure given for these establishments is far from
complete, owing to obvious omissions in the case of Moscow Gubernia.— Lenin

[9]
Military Statistical Abstract , 380.— Survey of Manufactory Industry , Vol, II, St. Petersburg, 1863,
p. 451. —In 1898 the number of power-looms used in cotton weaving
(for the whole Empire, evidently) was reckoned at 100,630. Successes of Russian Industry , p. 33.— Lenin

[10]
Military Statistical Abstract , pp. 367-368: Commissariat returns.— Lenin

[11]
In silk-weaving in 1879 there were 495 power-looms and 5,996 hand-looms
( Historico-Statistical Survey ), and in 1890 there were 2,899 of
the former and over 7,500 of the latter.— Lenin

[12]
For example, in 1879 the number of factories computed in these trades was
729; of this number, 466 had 977 workers and an output of 170,000
rubles. Even today one can find many such “factories”—for instance, in the description of the
handicraft industries of Vyatka and Perm gubernias.— Lenin

[13]
Cf. Military Statistical Abstract , p. 389. Survey of Manufactory Industry , I, 309.— Lenin

[14]
Thus in 1879, of 91 bast-matting factories 39 had an output of less than
1,000 rubles each (Cf. Studies , p. 155). [See present edition
Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .] In the pitch-and-tar trade for f890 there
were computed 140 factories, all with an output exceeding 2,000 rubles;
for 1879, 1,033 were computed, of which 911 had an output of less than
2,000 rubles; for 1866 the number listed was 669 (for the Empire), while
the Military Statistical Abstract even gave the figure of 3,164!!
(Cf. Studies , pp. 156 and 271.) [See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia , and Vol. 4,
“On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.” – Ed .]— Lenin

[15]
Military Statistical Abstract , Historico-Statistical Survey and Productive Forces , IX, 16.—The number of
workers in 1866—5,645; in 1890—25,471; in 1875-1878—38 mechanised establishments, with 34 steam-engines to a total of 332 h.p.;
and in 1890—141 mechanised establishments, with 208 steam-engines to
a total of 3,319 h.p.— Lenin

[16]
Cf. Directory for 1879 and 1890 about potash production. The
production of saltpetre is now concentrated in one factory in
St. Petersburg, whereas in the 60s and 70s saltpetre was obtained from
burti (dungheaps).— Lenin

[17]
Here, too, the number of factories in the 60s and 709 included a host of
small establishments.— Lenin

[18]
In 1875, Prof. Kittary, in his Map of Leather Production in Russia , gave an aggregate of 12,939 establishments, with output
totalling 47 1/2 million rubles, whereas the factory statistics gave 2,764
establishments, with output totalling 26 1/2 million rubles
(Historico-Statistical Survey). In the fur trade, another in this section,
a similar lumping is observed of small establishments together with
factories: Cf. Directory for 1879 and for 1890.— Lenin

[19]
The Military Statistical Abstract gave an aggregate of even
3,890!!— Lenin

[20]
If we distribute the factories shown in the Directory as for 1890
according to date of establishment we get the following: of 1,506
factories the number established at dates unknown was 91, before 1850
—331; in the 1850s—147; in the 60s—239; in the
70s—320; in the 80s —351; in 1890—21. In every succeeding decade more factories were established than in the preceding
one.— Lenin

[21]
The small establishments in these industries are now classed with the
handicrafts. Cf., for instance, the table of small industries (Appendix I)
or Studies , pp. 158-159. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .). The Ministry of Finance Yearbook
(Vol. I) refused to give totals for these industries because the figures
were obviously exaggerated. Progress in statistics since then is expressed
in an increased boldness and disregard of the quality of material used.— Lenin

[22]
Thus, in the 60s, dozens of smithies were classed for some gubernias as
“ironworks.”– See Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance , 1866, No. 4, p. 406; 1867, No. 6
p. 384.— Statistical Chronicle , Series II,
Vol. 6.—Cf. also the example quoted above (§ II) where the
Yearbook for 1866 includes the small handicraftsmen of the
Pavlovo district among the “factory owners.”— Lenin

[23]
See examples in Studies , p. 269 and p. 284 (see present edition,
Vol. 4, “On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.”
– Ed .), where Mr. Karyshev’s error in ignoring this circumstance is examined. The Directory for 1879, for instance,
includes the Kulebaki and Vyksa ironworks, or departments of them (pp. 356
and 374), which are omitted in the Directory for 1890.— Lenin

[24]
And in addition 32,957 “small windmills,” not counted among
the “factories and works.”— Lenin

[25]
See examples of such conclusions drawn by Mr. Karyshev in the above-quoted
article in the Studies . (See present edition, Vol. 4, op . cit . – Ed .)— Lenin

[26]
Large watermills are also in the nature of factories, of course, but we
have no data to enable us to single them out from among the small ones. In
the Directory for 1890 we saw listed 250 watermills each
employing 10 and more workers. They employed 6,378 workers.— Lenin

[27]
Military Statistical Abstract , Directories and
Collection . According to the List for 1894-95, there are
1,192 steam-mills in European Russia. The statistics for steam-engines
gave the number of steam-mills in European Russia in 1875-1878 as 294.— Lenin

[28]
Oil-pressing, starch, treacle, malt, confectionery, preserves and vinegar.— Lenin

[29]
Russkoye Bogatstvo , 1894, No. 6, pp. 104-105.— Lenin

[30]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , I, pp. 76 and 82. The total
number of distilleries (including those not in operation) was 4,737 and
4,646 respectively.— Lenin

[31]
Yearbook , I, p. 104.— Lenin

[32]
E.g., in Simbirsk Gubernia, the Military Statistical Abstract
computes 218 distilleries (!) with 299 workers and an output totalling
21,600 rubles. (According to the Yearbook there were 7 distilleries in the gubernia.) Very likely, these were small domestic or
peasant establishments.— Lenin

[33]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , p. 61. Cf. Survey of Manufactory Industry (Vol. II St. Petersburg, 1863), which gives
detailed information for 1861: 534 factories, with 6,937 workers; and in
Bessarabia Gubernia, 31 factories, with 73 workers. The number of tobacco
factories fluctuates greatly from year to year.— Lenin

[34]
If we take the gross figures for all trades and for long periods, the
exaggeration resulting from the cause mentioned will not be great, for the
small establishments account for a small percentage of the total number of
workers and the total output. It goes without saying that one presumes a
comparison of figures taken from similar sources (there can be no question
of comparing the returns of the Ministry of Finance with those of
gubernatorial reports, or of the Military Statistical Abstract ).— Lenin

[35]
The “ landlord establishment of a manorial-possessional character ” was a feudal manorial manufactory belonging to a landlord and employing his serf-peasants. By a decree of Peter I issued in 1721,
merchant factory owners were permitted to purchase peasants for work in
their factories. The feudal workers attached to such enterprises were
called “possessional peasants.” [p. 470]

| | II. Our Factory Statistics | | | IV. The Development of the Mining Industry | |

# Excise-Paying and Other Trades

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8iii.htm#sect06

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

III. An Examination of Historico-Statistical Data On the
Development of Large-Scale Industry

We have noted above that to judge the development of large-scale industry
from factory statistics it is necessary to separate the relatively useful
material in these statistics from the utterly useless. Let us, with this
in view, examine the main branches of our manufacturing industry.

1) Textile Trades

At the head of the wool trades is cloth production, which in 1890 had an
output of over 35 million rubles and employed 45,000 workers. The
historico-statistical data on this trade indicate a considerable drop in
the number of workers, namely, from 72,638 in 1866 to 46,740 in

1890. [1]

To appraise this phenomenon we must take account of the fact that up to the 1860s
inclusive, felt cloth production was organised on specific and original
lines: it was concentrated in relatively large establishments which,
however, did not in any way come under the category of capitalist factory
industry, since they were based on the labour of serfs, or of temporarily
bound peasants. In the surveys of the “factory” industry of
the 60s we therefore meet with the division of cloth mills into 1) those
owned by landlords or nobles, and 2) those owned by merchants. The former
produced mainly army cloth, the government contracts having been
distributed equally among the mills in proportion to the number of
machines. Compulsory labour was the cause of the technical backwardness of
such establishments and of their employing a much larger number of workers
than the merchant mills based on the employment of hired labour. [2]

The principal drop in the number of workers, engaged in felt cloth production
took place in the gubernias with landlord factories; thus, in the 13 such
gubernias (enumerated in the Survey of Manufactory Industries ),
the number of workers dropped from 32,921 to 14,539 (1866 and 1890), while
in the 5 gubernias with merchant factories (Moscow, Grodno, Liflandia, Chernigov and St. Petersburg) it dropped from
31,291 to 28,257. From this it is clear that we have here two opposite
trends, both of which, however, indicate the development of
capitalism—on the one hand, the decline of landlord establishments
of a manorial-possessional character, [35] and on the other, the development of purely capitalist factories out of merchant
establishments. A considerable number of the workers employed in felt
cloth production in the 60s were not factory workers at all in
the strict sense of the term; they were dependent peasants working for landlords. [3]

Cloth production is an example of that specific phenomenon of Russian
history—the employment of serf labour in industry. Since we are
dealing only with the post-Reform period, the above brief remarks will
suffice to show the way in which this phenomenon is reflected in factory statistics. [4]

We
shall now quote some figures drawn from statistics on steam-engines in
order to estimate the development of large-scale machine production in
this industry: in 1875-1878, in the wool-spinning and cloth industries of
European Russia there were 167 mechanised establishments using 209
steam-engines with a total of 4,632 h.p., and in 1890 there were 197
establishments using

341 steam-engines with a total of 6,602 h.p. The use of steam power,
therefore, did not make very rapid progress; this is to be explained
partly by the traditions of landlord factories and partly by the
displacement of felt cloth by the cheaper worsted and mixed fabrics. [5]

In the years 1875-1878 there were seven mechanised establishments using 20
steam-engines with a total of 303 h.p., and in 1890 there were 28
mechanised establishments employing 61 steam-engines to a total of 1,375 h.p. [6]

In regard to the woollen-goods industry let us also take note of
felt-making, a branch that shows in particularly striking fashion the
impossibility of comparing factory statistics for different times: the
figures for 1866 are 77 factories with a total of 295 workers, while for
1890 they are 57 factories with 1,217 workers. The former figure includes
60 small establishments employing 137 workers with an output of under
2,000 rubles, while the latter includes an establishment with four
workers. In 1866 39 small establishments were recorded in Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, where felt-making is now highly developed but is
regarded as a “handicraft” and not a “factory” industry (see Chapter VI, § II, 2).

Further, a particularly important place in the textile trades is held by
cotton processing, a branch which now employs over 200,000 workers. Here
we observe one of the biggest errors of our factory statistics, namely,
the combining of factory workers and capitalistically occupied home
workers. Large-scale machine industry developed here (as in many other
cases) by drawing home workers into the factory. It is obvious how
distorted this process will appear if work-distributing offices and work
rooms are classed as “factories,” if home workers are lumped together with factory workers! For 1866 (according to the Yearbook ) up to 22,000 home workers were included among factory workers (by
no means the full number, for the Yearbook , evidently by pure
accident, omits in the case of Moscow Gubernia those notes about
“work from village to village” which are so abundant for
Vladimir Gubernia). For 1890 (according to the Directory ) we
found only about 9,000 such workers. Clearly, the figures given in the
factory statistics (1866—59,000 workers in the cotton weaving mills;
1890—75,000) underrate the increase in the number of factory workers that actually took place. [7]

Here are data showing what different establishments were classed at different times
as cotton-weaving “factories”: [8]

Thus, the decrease in the number of “factories” shown by the
“statistics” actually indicates the displacing of distributing
offices and workrooms by the factory. Let us illustrate this by the
example of two factories:

Hence, to assess the development of large-scale machine production in this
branch of industry it is best to take the data giving the number of
power-looms. In the 18609 there were about

11,000, [9] and in
1890 about 87,000. Large-scale machine industry was consequently
developing at enormous speed. In cotton spinning and weaving there was
recorded in 1875-1878 a total of 148 mechanised establishments, having 481
steam-engines totalling 20,504 h.p., and in 1890, 168 mechanised
establishments, having 554 steam-engines with a total of 38,750 h.p.

Precisely the same mistake is made in Russian statistics in relation to
linen production, wherein a decrease in the number of factory workers is
erroneously shown (1866—17,171; 1890—15,497). Actually, in
1866, of 16,900 looms belonging to linen-mill owners only 4,749 were kept
in their establishments, the remaining 12,151 being held by work room owners. [10]

The number of factory workers for 1866, therefore, included about 12,000 home
workers, and for 1890 only about 3,000 (computed from Directory ). The number of power-looms, however, grew from 2,263 in 1866
(computed from Military Statistical Abstract ) to 4,041 in

1890, and of spindles from 95,495 to 218,012. In flax spinning and
linen-weaving in the years 1875-1878 there were 28 mechanised
establishments, having 47 steam engines with a total of 1,604 h.p., while
in 1890 there were 48 mechanised establishments, having 83 steam-engines
with a total of 5,027 h.p. [11]

Lastly, of the textile trades mention should be made of dyeing, printing
and finishing, in which trades the factory statistics combine factories
and the very smallest handicraft establishments with only 1 or 2 workers
each and an output of a few hundred rubles. [12]

Naturally, this causes no little confusion and obscures the rapid growth
of large-scale machine industry. The following figures reflect this
growth: in the wool-cleaning, dyeing, bleaching and finishing trades in
1875-1878 there were 80 mechanised establishments with 255 steam-engines
totalling 2,634 h.p.; in 1890 there were 189 mechanised establishments
with 858 steam-engines totalling 9,100 h.p.

2) Wood - Working Industries

In this section the most reliable data are those on saw milling, although
in the past small establishments were also included here. [13]

The enormous development of this trade in the post-Reform period (1866—4
million rubles 1890—19 million rubles), accompanied by a
considerable increase in the number of workers (4,000 and 15,000) and in
the number of steam-powered establishments (26 and 430), is particularly
interesting, in that it affords striking evidence of the growth of the
lumber industry. Saw-milling is but one of the operations of the lumber
industry, which is a necessary concomitant of the first steps of
large-scale machine industry.

As to the rest of the trades in this section, namely, furnishing and carpentry, bast-matting, and pitch and tar—the
factory statistics relating to them are distinguished for their
particularly chaotic condition. The small establishments so numerous in
these trades were formerly included among the “factories” in
numbers fixed arbitrarily, and the same is sometimes done even today. [14]

3) Chemical, Livestock - Product and
Ceramic Industries

The statistics on the chemical industry proper are distinguished for their
relative reliability. The following returns show its growth: in 1857
chemical products were consumed in Russia to a total of 14 million rubles
(3.4 million rubles home produced and 10.6 million rubles imported); in
1880, to a total of 36 1/4 million rubles (7 1/2 million rubles home
produced and 28 3/4 imported); and in 1890, to a total of 42.7 million
rubles (16.1 million rubles home produced and 26.6 imported). [15]

These data are particularly interesting because the chemical industries
are extremely important as producers of auxiliary materials for
large-scale machine industry, i.e., articles of productive (and
not personal) consumption. As to potash and saltpetre production, let us
remark that the number of factories given is unreliable, again due to the
inclusion of small establishments. [16]

The tallow trade has undoubtedly declined in the post-Reform period. Thus,
the value of output of the tallow candle and tallow-boiling trade was
estimated in 1866-1868 at 13.6 million rubles, and in 1890 at 5 million rubles. [17]

This decline is to be explained by the growing use of mineral oils for
lighting, which are displacing the old-time tallow candle.

For leather production (1866: 2,308 establishments with 11,463 workers and
an output totalling 14.6 million rubles; 1890: 1,621 establishments with
15,564 workers and an output totalling 26.7 million rubles) statistics
constantly lump together factories and small establishments. The
relatively high cost of raw materials, which explains the high total
output, and the fact that this trade requires very few workers, make it
particularly difficult to draw a line of demarcation between the
handicraft establishments and the factories. In 1890, of the total number
of factories (1,621), only 103 had an output of less than 2,000 rubles; in
1879 there were 2,008 out of a total of

3,320 [18] ; in 1866, of 2,308 factories [19]

1,042 had an output of less than 1,000 rubles (these 1,042 factories employed
2,059 workers and had an output totalling 474,000 rubles). Thus, the
number of factories increased, although the factory statistics show a
decrease. As for the small leather establishments, their number is still
very large today: for instance, The Factory Industry and Trade of Russia , published by the Ministry of Finance (St. Petersburg, 1893),
gives a total of nearly 9,500 handicraft works, with 21,000 workers and an
output of 12 million rubles. These “handicraft” establishments
are much larger than those which in the 60s were included among
“factories and works.” Since small establishments are included among the “factories and works” in unequal
numbers in the different gubernias and in different years, the statistics
on this trade should be treated with great caution. The steam-engine
statistics for 1875-1878 gave for this industry 28 mechanised
establishments with 33 steam-engines to a total of 488 h.p. and in 1890
there were 66 mechanised establishments with 82 steam-engines to a total
of 1,112 h.p. In these 66 factories 5,522 workers (more than a third of
the total) were concentrated with an output totalling 12.3 million rubles
(46% of the total), so that the concentration of production was very
considerable, and the productivity of labour in the large establishments
far above the average. [20]

The ceramic trades fall into two categories in accordance with the
character of the factory statistics: in some, there is hardly any
combining of small-scale production with large. That is why these
statistics are fairly reliable. This applies to the following industries:
glass, porcelain and chinaware, plaster and cement. Particularly remark
able is the rapid growth of the last-mentioned trade, which is evidence of
the development of the building industry: the total output in 1866 was
estimated at 530,000 rubles ( Military Statistical Abstract ), and
in 1890 at 3,826,000 rubles; the number of power-operated establishments
in 1875-1878 was 8, and in 1890 it was 39. On the other hand, in the
pottery and brick trades the inclusion of small establishments is observed
on a tremendous scale, and for that reason the factory statistics are very
unsatisfactory, being particularly exaggerated for the 60s and 70s. Thus,
in the pottery trade in 1879 there were listed 552 establishments, with
1,900 workers and an output totalling 538,000 rubles, and in 1890, 158
establishments with 1,978 workers and an output totalling 919,000
rubles. If we subtract the small establishments (those with an output of
less than 2,000 rubles) we get: 1879—70 establishments, with

840 workers and an output of 505,000 rubles; 1890—143 establishments, with 1,859 workers and an output of 857,000 rubles. That
is to say, instead of the decrease in the number of “factories” and stagnation in the number of workers shown in
the statistics, there was actually a considerable increase in both the one
and the other. In brick-making the official data for 1879 showed 2,627
establishments, with 28,800 workers and an output totalling 6,963,000
rubles; for 1890—1,292 establishments, with 24,334 workers and an
output of 7,249,000 rubles; and without the small establishments (those
with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) we get for 1879—518
establishments, with 19,057 workers and an output of 5,625,000 rubles; and
for 1890—1,096 establishments, with 23,222 workers and an output of
7,240,000 rubles. [21]

4) Metallurgical Industries

In the factory statistics for the metallurgical industries the sources of
confusion are, firstly, the inclusion of small establishments (exclusively
in the 60s and

70s), [22] and, secondly and mainly, the fact that metallurgical plants are
“subject, not to the jurisdiction” of the Department of
Commerce and Manufacture, but to that of the Department of Mines. The
returns of the Ministry of Finance usually omit ironworks “on
principle”; but there have never been uniform and invariable rules
for the separation of ironworks from the other works (and it would hardly be possible to devise them). That is why the factory statistics published
by the Ministry of Finance always include ironworks to some extent,
although the actual degree to which they are included varies for different
gubernias and for different years. [23]

General data on the increased use of steam-engines in metallurgy since the Reform
will be given below, when we deal with the mining and metallurgical
industry.

5) Food Industries

These industries merit special attention for the question that concerns
us, since the confusion in factory statistics attains here its
maximum. And yet, these industries occupy a prominent place in our factory
industry as a whole.

Thus, according to the Directory for 1890 these industries
account for 7,095 factories, with 45,000 workers and an output totalling
174 million rubles out of a total for European Russia of 21,124 factories,
with 875,764 workers and an output of 1,501 million rubles. The fact is
that the principal trades of this group—flour-milling, groat milling
and oil-pressing—consist of the processing of agricultural
produce. There are hundreds and thousands of small establishments in
Russia engaged in this processing in every gubernia, and since there are
no generally established rules for selecting the “factories and
works” from among them, the statistics pick out such small
establishments quite fortuitously. That is why the numbers of
“factories and works” for different years and for different
gubernias fluctuate enormously. Here, for example, are the figures for the
flour-milling trade for various years, as taken from various sources:
1865— 857 mills ( Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance ); 1866— 2,176 ( Yearbook ); 1866—18,426
( Military Statistical Abstract ); 1885—3,940 ( Collection ); 17,765 ( Returns for Russia ); 1889, 1890
and 1891—5,073, 5,605 and

5,201 [24] ( Collection ); 1894-95—2,308 ( List ). Among the
5,041 mills listed in 1892 ( Collection ), 803 were steam-, 2,907
water-, 1,323 wind- and 8 horse-operated! Some gubernias counted only
steam-mills, others included watermills (in numbers ranging from 1 to
425), still others (the minority) included also windmills (from 1 to 530)
and horse-operated mills. One can imagine the value of such statistics,
and of conclusions based on a credulous use of the data they provide! [25]

Obviously, to judge the growth of large-scale machine industry we must first
establish a definite criterion for the term “factory.” Let us
take as such a criterion the employment of steam-engines:
steam-mills are a characteristic concomitant of the epoch of
large-scale machine industry. [26]

We get the following picture of the development of factory production in
this branch of industry. [27]

The statistics for the oil-pressing trade are unsatisfactory for the same
reason. For instance, in 1879 2,450 works were listed with 7,207 workers
and an output totalling 6,486,000 rubles, and in 1890 there were 383
works, with 4,746 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles. But
this decrease in the number of factories and of workers is only apparent. If the data for 1879 and 1890 are made comparable, i.e., if
we exclude establishments with an output of less than 2,000 rubles (not
included in the lists) we get for 1879: 272 works, with 2,941 workers and
an output totalling 5,771,000 rubles, and for 1890—379 works, with
4,741 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles. That large-scale
machine industry has developed in this trade no less rapidly than in
flour-milling is evident, for example, from the statistics for
steam-engines; in 1875-1878 there were 27 steam-powered works, with 28
steam engines of 521 h.p., while in 1890 there were 113 mechanised works,
with 116 steam-engines totalling 1,886 h.p.

The other trades of this group are relatively small. Let us note that in
the mustard and fish-products trades, for instance, the statistics of the
60s included hundreds of small establishments such as have nothing
whatever in common with factories and are now not classed as such. The
extent to which our factory statistics for various years need correction
is evident from the following: with the exception of flour-milling, the
Directory for 1879 gave in this section a total of 3,555
establishments with 15,313 workers, and for 1890—1,842 establishments with 19,159 workers. For 7 trades, [28] small
establishments (with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) were included as
follows: in 1879—2,487 with 5,176 workers and an output totalling
916,000 rubles and in 1890, seven establishments, employing ten workers
and with an output totalling two thousand rubles! To make the data
comparable, one should, consequently, subtract in one case five thousand
workers, and in the other, ten persons!

6) Excise - Paying and Other Trades

In some of the excise-paying trades we observe a decrease in the number of
factory workers between the 1860s and the present day, but the decrease is
not nearly as considerable as is asserted by Mr.

N.–on, [29] who blindly believes every figure in print. The fact is that for the majority of
excise-paying trades the only source of information is the Military Statistical Abstract , which, as we know, tremendously exaggerates the
totals in the factory statistics. Unfortunately, however, we have little
material with which to verify the data in the Abstract . In
distilling, the Military Statistical Abstract counted in 1866 a
total of 3,836 distilleries with 52,660 workers (in 1890—1,620, with
26,102 workers), but the number of distilleries does not coincide with the
data of the Ministry of Finance, which in 1865-66 calculated 2,947
operating distilleries and in

1866-67—3,386. [30]

Judging by this, the number of workers is exaggerated by some 5,000 to 9,000. In vodka distilling, the Military Statistical Abstract computes 4,841 distilleries, with 8,326 workers
(1890: 242 distilleries with 5,266 workers); of these Bessarabia Gubernia
has 3,207 distilleries with 6,873 workers. The absurdity of these figures
is glaring. In fact, we learn from material published by the Ministry of

Finance [31] that the actual number of vodka distilleries in Bessarabia Gubernia was 10 or
12, and in the whole of European Russia 1,157. The number of workers was
consequently exaggerated by a minimum of 6 thousand. The cause of this
exaggeration is, evidently, that the Bessarabian “statisticians” included vineyard owners among the owners of
distilleries (see below on tobacco making). In beer- and mead-brewing, the
Military Statistical Abstract counts 2,374 breweries, with 6,825
workers (1890—918 breweries, with 8,364 workers), whereas The Ministry of Finance Yearbook estimates a total of 2,087 breweries in
European Russia for 1866. The number of workers is exaggerated here too. [32]

In the beet-sugar and sugar-refining trades, the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerates the number of workers by 11 thousand, counting
92,126 persons, as against 80,919 according to the data of The Ministry of Finance Yearbook (1890—77,875 workers). In tobacco-making, the
Military Statistical Abstract gives 5,327 factories, with 26,116
workers (1890— 281 factories, with 26,720 workers); of these, 4,993
factories with 20,038 workers are in Bessarabia Gubernia. Actually, the
number of tobacco factories in Russia in 1866 was 343, and in Bessarabia
Gubernia

13. [33]

The number of workers has been exaggerated by about 20 thousand , and even
the compilers of the Military Statistical Abstract themselves
indicated that “the factories shown in Bessarabia Gubernia . . . are
nothing but tobacco plantations” (p. 414). Mr. N.–on evidently
thought it superfluous to glance at the text of the statistical
publication he uses; that is why he failed to notice the error, and
discoursed with a highly serious air about a “slight increase in the
number of workers in the . . . tobacco factories” (article cited,
p. 104)!! Mr. N.–on simply takes the total number of workers in the
excise paying trades from the Military Statistical Abstract and
the Directory for 1890 (186,053 and 144,332) and calculates the
percentage of decrease. . . . “In a period of 25 years there has
been a considerable drop in the number of workers employed. It has
diminished by 22.4%. . . . “Here” (i.e., in the excise-paying
trades) “we see no signs of an increase, the plain fact being that
the number of workers has simply declined by a quarter of its previous
magnitude” ( ibid .). Indeed, what could be “simpler”! Take the first figure you lay your hands on, and
calculate a percentage! As for the trifling circumstance that the figure
given in the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerates the number
of workers by some forty thousand , that can be ignored.

7) Conclusions

The criticism of our factory statistics given in the last two sections
leads us to the following main conclusions:

1. The number of factories in Russia has been rapidly growing in the post-Reform period .

The opposite conclusion, which follows from our factory statistics, is
erroneous. The point is that the figures we are given of factories include
small artisan, handicraft and agricultural establishments, and the further back we go from the present day , the larger the number of small establishments included in the number of factories .

2. The number of factory workers and the volume of output of factories and works are likewise exaggerated for the past period in our statistics . This is due, firstly, to the fact that former]y a
greater number of small establishments were included. Hence, the data
for the industries that merge with handicrafts are particularly unreliable. [34]

Secondly, it is due to the fact that in the past more capitalistically employed home workers were classified as
factory workers than today.

3. It is customary in this country to think that if figures are taken from
the official factory statistics they must be considered comparable with
other figures taken from the same source, and must be regarded as more or
less reliable, until the contrary is proved. What has been said above,
however, leads to the opposite conclusion, namely, that all comparisons of
our factory statistics for different times and for different gubernias
must be regarded as unreliable until the reverse is proved.

---
Notes:
[1]
In all cases, unless otherwise stated, we take the data of the
Yearbook for 1866 and those of the Directories for 1879
and 1890.—The Historico-Statistical Survey (Vol. II) gives
annual information on cloth production from 1855 to 1879; the following
are the five-year averages of workers employed from 1855-1859 to
1875-1879: 107,433-96,131- 92,117; 87,960 and 81,458.— Lenin

[2]
See A Survey of Various Branches of Manufactory Industry in Russia , Vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1862, particularly pp. 165 and
167. Cf. also Military Statistical Abstract , D. 357 and foll. At
the present time we rarely meet in the lists of cloth manufacturers the
celebrated noble families that constituted the overwhelming majority in
the 1860s.— Lenin

[3]
The following examples are taken from Zemstvo statistical
material. Concerning N. P. Gladkov’s cloth factory in Volsk Uyezd
Saratov Gubernia (in 1866 it had 306 workers), we read in the Zemstvo
statistical abstract for this uyezd (p. 275) that peasants were forced to
work in the factory belonging to the lord. “They worked in the
factory until they married, and then became tax-paying members of the
peasant community.” In the village of Rvassy, Ranenburg Uyezd,
Ryazan Gubernia, there was in 1866 a cloth factory employing 180
workers. The peasants performed their Corvée by working in the mill, which
was closed down in 1870 ( Statistical Returns for Ryazan Gubernia ,
Vol. II, Pt. I, Moscow, 1882, p. 330).— Lenin

[4]
See Nisselovich, A History of the Factory Legislation of the Russian Empire , Pts. I and II, St. Petersburg, 1883-1884.—A. Semyonov,
A Study of Historical Data on Russian Foreign Trade and Industry ,
St. Petersburg, 1858-1859, 3 parts.—V. I. Semevsky, The Peasants in the Reign of Catherine II , St. Petersburg,
1881.— Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia . Sanitary
Statistical Sec, Vol IV, Pt. I (general summary), Moscow, 1890, article by
A. V. Pogozhev, “The Manorial-Possessional Factories of Moscow
Gubernia.”—M. Tugan-Baranovsky, The Russian Factory , St. Petersburg, 1898, Vol. I.— Lenin

[5]
Cf. Successes of Russian Industry According to Surveys of Expert Commissions , St. Petersburg, 1897, p. 60.— Lenin

[6]
The data on steam-engines in this and the following instances are taken
from Material for the Statistics of Steam-Engines in the Russian Empire published by the Central Statistical Committee,
St. Petersburg, 1882; for 1890 they are taken from Collection of Data on Factory Industry ; data on mechanised establishments are from the
Directory .— Lenin

[7]
Cf. Tugan-Baranovsky, loc . cit ., p. 420.—The total number of village hand weavers working for capitalists was estimated by
Semyonov at approximately 385,857 in 1859 ( loc . cit .,
III, 273) to these he added another 200,000 village workers engaged
“in other factory trades” ( ibid ., p. 302). At the present time, as we have seen above, the number of capitalistically
employed home workers is much larger.— Lenin

[8]
Establishments with an output of under 2,000 rubles are classed as
workrooms. The data of the special investigation of factories and works in
Moscow and Vladimir gubernias made in 1868 by the Central Statistical
Committee contain the repeated statement that the output figures of the
small weaving establishments merely indicate pay for work
done. Establishments that distribute work to home workers are classed as
offices. For 1866 the figure given for these establishments is far from
complete, owing to obvious omissions in the case of Moscow Gubernia.— Lenin

[9]
Military Statistical Abstract , 380.— Survey of Manufactory Industry , Vol, II, St. Petersburg, 1863,
p. 451. —In 1898 the number of power-looms used in cotton weaving
(for the whole Empire, evidently) was reckoned at 100,630. Successes of Russian Industry , p. 33.— Lenin

[10]
Military Statistical Abstract , pp. 367-368: Commissariat returns.— Lenin

[11]
In silk-weaving in 1879 there were 495 power-looms and 5,996 hand-looms
( Historico-Statistical Survey ), and in 1890 there were 2,899 of
the former and over 7,500 of the latter.— Lenin

[12]
For example, in 1879 the number of factories computed in these trades was
729; of this number, 466 had 977 workers and an output of 170,000
rubles. Even today one can find many such “factories”—for instance, in the description of the
handicraft industries of Vyatka and Perm gubernias.— Lenin

[13]
Cf. Military Statistical Abstract , p. 389. Survey of Manufactory Industry , I, 309.— Lenin

[14]
Thus in 1879, of 91 bast-matting factories 39 had an output of less than
1,000 rubles each (Cf. Studies , p. 155). [See present edition
Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .] In the pitch-and-tar trade for f890 there
were computed 140 factories, all with an output exceeding 2,000 rubles;
for 1879, 1,033 were computed, of which 911 had an output of less than
2,000 rubles; for 1866 the number listed was 669 (for the Empire), while
the Military Statistical Abstract even gave the figure of 3,164!!
(Cf. Studies , pp. 156 and 271.) [See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia , and Vol. 4,
“On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.” – Ed .]— Lenin

[15]
Military Statistical Abstract , Historico-Statistical Survey and Productive Forces , IX, 16.—The number of
workers in 1866—5,645; in 1890—25,471; in 1875-1878—38 mechanised establishments, with 34 steam-engines to a total of 332 h.p.;
and in 1890—141 mechanised establishments, with 208 steam-engines to
a total of 3,319 h.p.— Lenin

[16]
Cf. Directory for 1879 and 1890 about potash production. The
production of saltpetre is now concentrated in one factory in
St. Petersburg, whereas in the 60s and 70s saltpetre was obtained from
burti (dungheaps).— Lenin

[17]
Here, too, the number of factories in the 60s and 709 included a host of
small establishments.— Lenin

[18]
In 1875, Prof. Kittary, in his Map of Leather Production in Russia , gave an aggregate of 12,939 establishments, with output
totalling 47 1/2 million rubles, whereas the factory statistics gave 2,764
establishments, with output totalling 26 1/2 million rubles
(Historico-Statistical Survey). In the fur trade, another in this section,
a similar lumping is observed of small establishments together with
factories: Cf. Directory for 1879 and for 1890.— Lenin

[19]
The Military Statistical Abstract gave an aggregate of even
3,890!!— Lenin

[20]
If we distribute the factories shown in the Directory as for 1890
according to date of establishment we get the following: of 1,506
factories the number established at dates unknown was 91, before 1850
—331; in the 1850s—147; in the 60s—239; in the
70s—320; in the 80s —351; in 1890—21. In every succeeding decade more factories were established than in the preceding
one.— Lenin

[21]
The small establishments in these industries are now classed with the
handicrafts. Cf., for instance, the table of small industries (Appendix I)
or Studies , pp. 158-159. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .). The Ministry of Finance Yearbook
(Vol. I) refused to give totals for these industries because the figures
were obviously exaggerated. Progress in statistics since then is expressed
in an increased boldness and disregard of the quality of material used.— Lenin

[22]
Thus, in the 60s, dozens of smithies were classed for some gubernias as
“ironworks.”– See Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance , 1866, No. 4, p. 406; 1867, No. 6
p. 384.— Statistical Chronicle , Series II,
Vol. 6.—Cf. also the example quoted above (§ II) where the
Yearbook for 1866 includes the small handicraftsmen of the
Pavlovo district among the “factory owners.”— Lenin

[23]
See examples in Studies , p. 269 and p. 284 (see present edition,
Vol. 4, “On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.”
– Ed .), where Mr. Karyshev’s error in ignoring this circumstance is examined. The Directory for 1879, for instance,
includes the Kulebaki and Vyksa ironworks, or departments of them (pp. 356
and 374), which are omitted in the Directory for 1890.— Lenin

[24]
And in addition 32,957 “small windmills,” not counted among
the “factories and works.”— Lenin

[25]
See examples of such conclusions drawn by Mr. Karyshev in the above-quoted
article in the Studies . (See present edition, Vol. 4, op . cit . – Ed .)— Lenin

[26]
Large watermills are also in the nature of factories, of course, but we
have no data to enable us to single them out from among the small ones. In
the Directory for 1890 we saw listed 250 watermills each
employing 10 and more workers. They employed 6,378 workers.— Lenin

[27]
Military Statistical Abstract , Directories and
Collection . According to the List for 1894-95, there are
1,192 steam-mills in European Russia. The statistics for steam-engines
gave the number of steam-mills in European Russia in 1875-1878 as 294.— Lenin

[28]
Oil-pressing, starch, treacle, malt, confectionery, preserves and vinegar.— Lenin

[29]
Russkoye Bogatstvo , 1894, No. 6, pp. 104-105.— Lenin

[30]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , I, pp. 76 and 82. The total
number of distilleries (including those not in operation) was 4,737 and
4,646 respectively.— Lenin

[31]
Yearbook , I, p. 104.— Lenin

[32]
E.g., in Simbirsk Gubernia, the Military Statistical Abstract
computes 218 distilleries (!) with 299 workers and an output totalling
21,600 rubles. (According to the Yearbook there were 7 distilleries in the gubernia.) Very likely, these were small domestic or
peasant establishments.— Lenin

[33]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , p. 61. Cf. Survey of Manufactory Industry (Vol. II St. Petersburg, 1863), which gives
detailed information for 1861: 534 factories, with 6,937 workers; and in
Bessarabia Gubernia, 31 factories, with 73 workers. The number of tobacco
factories fluctuates greatly from year to year.— Lenin

[34]
If we take the gross figures for all trades and for long periods, the
exaggeration resulting from the cause mentioned will not be great, for the
small establishments account for a small percentage of the total number of
workers and the total output. It goes without saying that one presumes a
comparison of figures taken from similar sources (there can be no question
of comparing the returns of the Ministry of Finance with those of
gubernatorial reports, or of the Military Statistical Abstract ).— Lenin

[35]
The “ landlord establishment of a manorial-possessional character ” was a feudal manorial manufactory belonging to a landlord and employing his serf-peasants. By a decree of Peter I issued in 1721,
merchant factory owners were permitted to purchase peasants for work in
their factories. The feudal workers attached to such enterprises were
called “possessional peasants.” [p. 470]

| | II. Our Factory Statistics | | | IV. The Development of the Mining Industry | |

# Conclusions

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8iii.htm#sect07

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

III. An Examination of Historico-Statistical Data On the
Development of Large-Scale Industry

We have noted above that to judge the development of large-scale industry
from factory statistics it is necessary to separate the relatively useful
material in these statistics from the utterly useless. Let us, with this
in view, examine the main branches of our manufacturing industry.

1) Textile Trades

At the head of the wool trades is cloth production, which in 1890 had an
output of over 35 million rubles and employed 45,000 workers. The
historico-statistical data on this trade indicate a considerable drop in
the number of workers, namely, from 72,638 in 1866 to 46,740 in

1890. [1]

To appraise this phenomenon we must take account of the fact that up to the 1860s
inclusive, felt cloth production was organised on specific and original
lines: it was concentrated in relatively large establishments which,
however, did not in any way come under the category of capitalist factory
industry, since they were based on the labour of serfs, or of temporarily
bound peasants. In the surveys of the “factory” industry of
the 60s we therefore meet with the division of cloth mills into 1) those
owned by landlords or nobles, and 2) those owned by merchants. The former
produced mainly army cloth, the government contracts having been
distributed equally among the mills in proportion to the number of
machines. Compulsory labour was the cause of the technical backwardness of
such establishments and of their employing a much larger number of workers
than the merchant mills based on the employment of hired labour. [2]

The principal drop in the number of workers, engaged in felt cloth production
took place in the gubernias with landlord factories; thus, in the 13 such
gubernias (enumerated in the Survey of Manufactory Industries ),
the number of workers dropped from 32,921 to 14,539 (1866 and 1890), while
in the 5 gubernias with merchant factories (Moscow, Grodno, Liflandia, Chernigov and St. Petersburg) it dropped from
31,291 to 28,257. From this it is clear that we have here two opposite
trends, both of which, however, indicate the development of
capitalism—on the one hand, the decline of landlord establishments
of a manorial-possessional character, [35] and on the other, the development of purely capitalist factories out of merchant
establishments. A considerable number of the workers employed in felt
cloth production in the 60s were not factory workers at all in
the strict sense of the term; they were dependent peasants working for landlords. [3]

Cloth production is an example of that specific phenomenon of Russian
history—the employment of serf labour in industry. Since we are
dealing only with the post-Reform period, the above brief remarks will
suffice to show the way in which this phenomenon is reflected in factory statistics. [4]

We
shall now quote some figures drawn from statistics on steam-engines in
order to estimate the development of large-scale machine production in
this industry: in 1875-1878, in the wool-spinning and cloth industries of
European Russia there were 167 mechanised establishments using 209
steam-engines with a total of 4,632 h.p., and in 1890 there were 197
establishments using

341 steam-engines with a total of 6,602 h.p. The use of steam power,
therefore, did not make very rapid progress; this is to be explained
partly by the traditions of landlord factories and partly by the
displacement of felt cloth by the cheaper worsted and mixed fabrics. [5]

In the years 1875-1878 there were seven mechanised establishments using 20
steam-engines with a total of 303 h.p., and in 1890 there were 28
mechanised establishments employing 61 steam-engines to a total of 1,375 h.p. [6]

In regard to the woollen-goods industry let us also take note of
felt-making, a branch that shows in particularly striking fashion the
impossibility of comparing factory statistics for different times: the
figures for 1866 are 77 factories with a total of 295 workers, while for
1890 they are 57 factories with 1,217 workers. The former figure includes
60 small establishments employing 137 workers with an output of under
2,000 rubles, while the latter includes an establishment with four
workers. In 1866 39 small establishments were recorded in Semyonov Uyezd,
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, where felt-making is now highly developed but is
regarded as a “handicraft” and not a “factory” industry (see Chapter VI, § II, 2).

Further, a particularly important place in the textile trades is held by
cotton processing, a branch which now employs over 200,000 workers. Here
we observe one of the biggest errors of our factory statistics, namely,
the combining of factory workers and capitalistically occupied home
workers. Large-scale machine industry developed here (as in many other
cases) by drawing home workers into the factory. It is obvious how
distorted this process will appear if work-distributing offices and work
rooms are classed as “factories,” if home workers are lumped together with factory workers! For 1866 (according to the Yearbook ) up to 22,000 home workers were included among factory workers (by
no means the full number, for the Yearbook , evidently by pure
accident, omits in the case of Moscow Gubernia those notes about
“work from village to village” which are so abundant for
Vladimir Gubernia). For 1890 (according to the Directory ) we
found only about 9,000 such workers. Clearly, the figures given in the
factory statistics (1866—59,000 workers in the cotton weaving mills;
1890—75,000) underrate the increase in the number of factory workers that actually took place. [7]

Here are data showing what different establishments were classed at different times
as cotton-weaving “factories”: [8]

Thus, the decrease in the number of “factories” shown by the
“statistics” actually indicates the displacing of distributing
offices and workrooms by the factory. Let us illustrate this by the
example of two factories:

Hence, to assess the development of large-scale machine production in this
branch of industry it is best to take the data giving the number of
power-looms. In the 18609 there were about

11,000, [9] and in
1890 about 87,000. Large-scale machine industry was consequently
developing at enormous speed. In cotton spinning and weaving there was
recorded in 1875-1878 a total of 148 mechanised establishments, having 481
steam-engines totalling 20,504 h.p., and in 1890, 168 mechanised
establishments, having 554 steam-engines with a total of 38,750 h.p.

Precisely the same mistake is made in Russian statistics in relation to
linen production, wherein a decrease in the number of factory workers is
erroneously shown (1866—17,171; 1890—15,497). Actually, in
1866, of 16,900 looms belonging to linen-mill owners only 4,749 were kept
in their establishments, the remaining 12,151 being held by work room owners. [10]

The number of factory workers for 1866, therefore, included about 12,000 home
workers, and for 1890 only about 3,000 (computed from Directory ). The number of power-looms, however, grew from 2,263 in 1866
(computed from Military Statistical Abstract ) to 4,041 in

1890, and of spindles from 95,495 to 218,012. In flax spinning and
linen-weaving in the years 1875-1878 there were 28 mechanised
establishments, having 47 steam engines with a total of 1,604 h.p., while
in 1890 there were 48 mechanised establishments, having 83 steam-engines
with a total of 5,027 h.p. [11]

Lastly, of the textile trades mention should be made of dyeing, printing
and finishing, in which trades the factory statistics combine factories
and the very smallest handicraft establishments with only 1 or 2 workers
each and an output of a few hundred rubles. [12]

Naturally, this causes no little confusion and obscures the rapid growth
of large-scale machine industry. The following figures reflect this
growth: in the wool-cleaning, dyeing, bleaching and finishing trades in
1875-1878 there were 80 mechanised establishments with 255 steam-engines
totalling 2,634 h.p.; in 1890 there were 189 mechanised establishments
with 858 steam-engines totalling 9,100 h.p.

2) Wood - Working Industries

In this section the most reliable data are those on saw milling, although
in the past small establishments were also included here. [13]

The enormous development of this trade in the post-Reform period (1866—4
million rubles 1890—19 million rubles), accompanied by a
considerable increase in the number of workers (4,000 and 15,000) and in
the number of steam-powered establishments (26 and 430), is particularly
interesting, in that it affords striking evidence of the growth of the
lumber industry. Saw-milling is but one of the operations of the lumber
industry, which is a necessary concomitant of the first steps of
large-scale machine industry.

As to the rest of the trades in this section, namely, furnishing and carpentry, bast-matting, and pitch and tar—the
factory statistics relating to them are distinguished for their
particularly chaotic condition. The small establishments so numerous in
these trades were formerly included among the “factories” in
numbers fixed arbitrarily, and the same is sometimes done even today. [14]

3) Chemical, Livestock - Product and
Ceramic Industries

The statistics on the chemical industry proper are distinguished for their
relative reliability. The following returns show its growth: in 1857
chemical products were consumed in Russia to a total of 14 million rubles
(3.4 million rubles home produced and 10.6 million rubles imported); in
1880, to a total of 36 1/4 million rubles (7 1/2 million rubles home
produced and 28 3/4 imported); and in 1890, to a total of 42.7 million
rubles (16.1 million rubles home produced and 26.6 imported). [15]

These data are particularly interesting because the chemical industries
are extremely important as producers of auxiliary materials for
large-scale machine industry, i.e., articles of productive (and
not personal) consumption. As to potash and saltpetre production, let us
remark that the number of factories given is unreliable, again due to the
inclusion of small establishments. [16]

The tallow trade has undoubtedly declined in the post-Reform period. Thus,
the value of output of the tallow candle and tallow-boiling trade was
estimated in 1866-1868 at 13.6 million rubles, and in 1890 at 5 million rubles. [17]

This decline is to be explained by the growing use of mineral oils for
lighting, which are displacing the old-time tallow candle.

For leather production (1866: 2,308 establishments with 11,463 workers and
an output totalling 14.6 million rubles; 1890: 1,621 establishments with
15,564 workers and an output totalling 26.7 million rubles) statistics
constantly lump together factories and small establishments. The
relatively high cost of raw materials, which explains the high total
output, and the fact that this trade requires very few workers, make it
particularly difficult to draw a line of demarcation between the
handicraft establishments and the factories. In 1890, of the total number
of factories (1,621), only 103 had an output of less than 2,000 rubles; in
1879 there were 2,008 out of a total of

3,320 [18] ; in 1866, of 2,308 factories [19]

1,042 had an output of less than 1,000 rubles (these 1,042 factories employed
2,059 workers and had an output totalling 474,000 rubles). Thus, the
number of factories increased, although the factory statistics show a
decrease. As for the small leather establishments, their number is still
very large today: for instance, The Factory Industry and Trade of Russia , published by the Ministry of Finance (St. Petersburg, 1893),
gives a total of nearly 9,500 handicraft works, with 21,000 workers and an
output of 12 million rubles. These “handicraft” establishments
are much larger than those which in the 60s were included among
“factories and works.” Since small establishments are included among the “factories and works” in unequal
numbers in the different gubernias and in different years, the statistics
on this trade should be treated with great caution. The steam-engine
statistics for 1875-1878 gave for this industry 28 mechanised
establishments with 33 steam-engines to a total of 488 h.p. and in 1890
there were 66 mechanised establishments with 82 steam-engines to a total
of 1,112 h.p. In these 66 factories 5,522 workers (more than a third of
the total) were concentrated with an output totalling 12.3 million rubles
(46% of the total), so that the concentration of production was very
considerable, and the productivity of labour in the large establishments
far above the average. [20]

The ceramic trades fall into two categories in accordance with the
character of the factory statistics: in some, there is hardly any
combining of small-scale production with large. That is why these
statistics are fairly reliable. This applies to the following industries:
glass, porcelain and chinaware, plaster and cement. Particularly remark
able is the rapid growth of the last-mentioned trade, which is evidence of
the development of the building industry: the total output in 1866 was
estimated at 530,000 rubles ( Military Statistical Abstract ), and
in 1890 at 3,826,000 rubles; the number of power-operated establishments
in 1875-1878 was 8, and in 1890 it was 39. On the other hand, in the
pottery and brick trades the inclusion of small establishments is observed
on a tremendous scale, and for that reason the factory statistics are very
unsatisfactory, being particularly exaggerated for the 60s and 70s. Thus,
in the pottery trade in 1879 there were listed 552 establishments, with
1,900 workers and an output totalling 538,000 rubles, and in 1890, 158
establishments with 1,978 workers and an output totalling 919,000
rubles. If we subtract the small establishments (those with an output of
less than 2,000 rubles) we get: 1879—70 establishments, with

840 workers and an output of 505,000 rubles; 1890—143 establishments, with 1,859 workers and an output of 857,000 rubles. That
is to say, instead of the decrease in the number of “factories” and stagnation in the number of workers shown in
the statistics, there was actually a considerable increase in both the one
and the other. In brick-making the official data for 1879 showed 2,627
establishments, with 28,800 workers and an output totalling 6,963,000
rubles; for 1890—1,292 establishments, with 24,334 workers and an
output of 7,249,000 rubles; and without the small establishments (those
with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) we get for 1879—518
establishments, with 19,057 workers and an output of 5,625,000 rubles; and
for 1890—1,096 establishments, with 23,222 workers and an output of
7,240,000 rubles. [21]

4) Metallurgical Industries

In the factory statistics for the metallurgical industries the sources of
confusion are, firstly, the inclusion of small establishments (exclusively
in the 60s and

70s), [22] and, secondly and mainly, the fact that metallurgical plants are
“subject, not to the jurisdiction” of the Department of
Commerce and Manufacture, but to that of the Department of Mines. The
returns of the Ministry of Finance usually omit ironworks “on
principle”; but there have never been uniform and invariable rules
for the separation of ironworks from the other works (and it would hardly be possible to devise them). That is why the factory statistics published
by the Ministry of Finance always include ironworks to some extent,
although the actual degree to which they are included varies for different
gubernias and for different years. [23]

General data on the increased use of steam-engines in metallurgy since the Reform
will be given below, when we deal with the mining and metallurgical
industry.

5) Food Industries

These industries merit special attention for the question that concerns
us, since the confusion in factory statistics attains here its
maximum. And yet, these industries occupy a prominent place in our factory
industry as a whole.

Thus, according to the Directory for 1890 these industries
account for 7,095 factories, with 45,000 workers and an output totalling
174 million rubles out of a total for European Russia of 21,124 factories,
with 875,764 workers and an output of 1,501 million rubles. The fact is
that the principal trades of this group—flour-milling, groat milling
and oil-pressing—consist of the processing of agricultural
produce. There are hundreds and thousands of small establishments in
Russia engaged in this processing in every gubernia, and since there are
no generally established rules for selecting the “factories and
works” from among them, the statistics pick out such small
establishments quite fortuitously. That is why the numbers of
“factories and works” for different years and for different
gubernias fluctuate enormously. Here, for example, are the figures for the
flour-milling trade for various years, as taken from various sources:
1865— 857 mills ( Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance ); 1866— 2,176 ( Yearbook ); 1866—18,426
( Military Statistical Abstract ); 1885—3,940 ( Collection ); 17,765 ( Returns for Russia ); 1889, 1890
and 1891—5,073, 5,605 and

5,201 [24] ( Collection ); 1894-95—2,308 ( List ). Among the
5,041 mills listed in 1892 ( Collection ), 803 were steam-, 2,907
water-, 1,323 wind- and 8 horse-operated! Some gubernias counted only
steam-mills, others included watermills (in numbers ranging from 1 to
425), still others (the minority) included also windmills (from 1 to 530)
and horse-operated mills. One can imagine the value of such statistics,
and of conclusions based on a credulous use of the data they provide! [25]

Obviously, to judge the growth of large-scale machine industry we must first
establish a definite criterion for the term “factory.” Let us
take as such a criterion the employment of steam-engines:
steam-mills are a characteristic concomitant of the epoch of
large-scale machine industry. [26]

We get the following picture of the development of factory production in
this branch of industry. [27]

The statistics for the oil-pressing trade are unsatisfactory for the same
reason. For instance, in 1879 2,450 works were listed with 7,207 workers
and an output totalling 6,486,000 rubles, and in 1890 there were 383
works, with 4,746 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles. But
this decrease in the number of factories and of workers is only apparent. If the data for 1879 and 1890 are made comparable, i.e., if
we exclude establishments with an output of less than 2,000 rubles (not
included in the lists) we get for 1879: 272 works, with 2,941 workers and
an output totalling 5,771,000 rubles, and for 1890—379 works, with
4,741 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles. That large-scale
machine industry has developed in this trade no less rapidly than in
flour-milling is evident, for example, from the statistics for
steam-engines; in 1875-1878 there were 27 steam-powered works, with 28
steam engines of 521 h.p., while in 1890 there were 113 mechanised works,
with 116 steam-engines totalling 1,886 h.p.

The other trades of this group are relatively small. Let us note that in
the mustard and fish-products trades, for instance, the statistics of the
60s included hundreds of small establishments such as have nothing
whatever in common with factories and are now not classed as such. The
extent to which our factory statistics for various years need correction
is evident from the following: with the exception of flour-milling, the
Directory for 1879 gave in this section a total of 3,555
establishments with 15,313 workers, and for 1890—1,842 establishments with 19,159 workers. For 7 trades, [28] small
establishments (with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) were included as
follows: in 1879—2,487 with 5,176 workers and an output totalling
916,000 rubles and in 1890, seven establishments, employing ten workers
and with an output totalling two thousand rubles! To make the data
comparable, one should, consequently, subtract in one case five thousand
workers, and in the other, ten persons!

6) Excise - Paying and Other Trades

In some of the excise-paying trades we observe a decrease in the number of
factory workers between the 1860s and the present day, but the decrease is
not nearly as considerable as is asserted by Mr.

N.–on, [29] who blindly believes every figure in print. The fact is that for the majority of
excise-paying trades the only source of information is the Military Statistical Abstract , which, as we know, tremendously exaggerates the
totals in the factory statistics. Unfortunately, however, we have little
material with which to verify the data in the Abstract . In
distilling, the Military Statistical Abstract counted in 1866 a
total of 3,836 distilleries with 52,660 workers (in 1890—1,620, with
26,102 workers), but the number of distilleries does not coincide with the
data of the Ministry of Finance, which in 1865-66 calculated 2,947
operating distilleries and in

1866-67—3,386. [30]

Judging by this, the number of workers is exaggerated by some 5,000 to 9,000. In vodka distilling, the Military Statistical Abstract computes 4,841 distilleries, with 8,326 workers
(1890: 242 distilleries with 5,266 workers); of these Bessarabia Gubernia
has 3,207 distilleries with 6,873 workers. The absurdity of these figures
is glaring. In fact, we learn from material published by the Ministry of

Finance [31] that the actual number of vodka distilleries in Bessarabia Gubernia was 10 or
12, and in the whole of European Russia 1,157. The number of workers was
consequently exaggerated by a minimum of 6 thousand. The cause of this
exaggeration is, evidently, that the Bessarabian “statisticians” included vineyard owners among the owners of
distilleries (see below on tobacco making). In beer- and mead-brewing, the
Military Statistical Abstract counts 2,374 breweries, with 6,825
workers (1890—918 breweries, with 8,364 workers), whereas The Ministry of Finance Yearbook estimates a total of 2,087 breweries in
European Russia for 1866. The number of workers is exaggerated here too. [32]

In the beet-sugar and sugar-refining trades, the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerates the number of workers by 11 thousand, counting
92,126 persons, as against 80,919 according to the data of The Ministry of Finance Yearbook (1890—77,875 workers). In tobacco-making, the
Military Statistical Abstract gives 5,327 factories, with 26,116
workers (1890— 281 factories, with 26,720 workers); of these, 4,993
factories with 20,038 workers are in Bessarabia Gubernia. Actually, the
number of tobacco factories in Russia in 1866 was 343, and in Bessarabia
Gubernia

13. [33]

The number of workers has been exaggerated by about 20 thousand , and even
the compilers of the Military Statistical Abstract themselves
indicated that “the factories shown in Bessarabia Gubernia . . . are
nothing but tobacco plantations” (p. 414). Mr. N.–on evidently
thought it superfluous to glance at the text of the statistical
publication he uses; that is why he failed to notice the error, and
discoursed with a highly serious air about a “slight increase in the
number of workers in the . . . tobacco factories” (article cited,
p. 104)!! Mr. N.–on simply takes the total number of workers in the
excise paying trades from the Military Statistical Abstract and
the Directory for 1890 (186,053 and 144,332) and calculates the
percentage of decrease. . . . “In a period of 25 years there has
been a considerable drop in the number of workers employed. It has
diminished by 22.4%. . . . “Here” (i.e., in the excise-paying
trades) “we see no signs of an increase, the plain fact being that
the number of workers has simply declined by a quarter of its previous
magnitude” ( ibid .). Indeed, what could be “simpler”! Take the first figure you lay your hands on, and
calculate a percentage! As for the trifling circumstance that the figure
given in the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerates the number
of workers by some forty thousand , that can be ignored.

7) Conclusions

The criticism of our factory statistics given in the last two sections
leads us to the following main conclusions:

1. The number of factories in Russia has been rapidly growing in the post-Reform period .

The opposite conclusion, which follows from our factory statistics, is
erroneous. The point is that the figures we are given of factories include
small artisan, handicraft and agricultural establishments, and the further back we go from the present day , the larger the number of small establishments included in the number of factories .

2. The number of factory workers and the volume of output of factories and works are likewise exaggerated for the past period in our statistics . This is due, firstly, to the fact that former]y a
greater number of small establishments were included. Hence, the data
for the industries that merge with handicrafts are particularly unreliable. [34]

Secondly, it is due to the fact that in the past more capitalistically employed home workers were classified as
factory workers than today.

3. It is customary in this country to think that if figures are taken from
the official factory statistics they must be considered comparable with
other figures taken from the same source, and must be regarded as more or
less reliable, until the contrary is proved. What has been said above,
however, leads to the opposite conclusion, namely, that all comparisons of
our factory statistics for different times and for different gubernias
must be regarded as unreliable until the reverse is proved.

---
Notes:
[1]
In all cases, unless otherwise stated, we take the data of the
Yearbook for 1866 and those of the Directories for 1879
and 1890.—The Historico-Statistical Survey (Vol. II) gives
annual information on cloth production from 1855 to 1879; the following
are the five-year averages of workers employed from 1855-1859 to
1875-1879: 107,433-96,131- 92,117; 87,960 and 81,458.— Lenin

[2]
See A Survey of Various Branches of Manufactory Industry in Russia , Vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1862, particularly pp. 165 and
167. Cf. also Military Statistical Abstract , D. 357 and foll. At
the present time we rarely meet in the lists of cloth manufacturers the
celebrated noble families that constituted the overwhelming majority in
the 1860s.— Lenin

[3]
The following examples are taken from Zemstvo statistical
material. Concerning N. P. Gladkov’s cloth factory in Volsk Uyezd
Saratov Gubernia (in 1866 it had 306 workers), we read in the Zemstvo
statistical abstract for this uyezd (p. 275) that peasants were forced to
work in the factory belonging to the lord. “They worked in the
factory until they married, and then became tax-paying members of the
peasant community.” In the village of Rvassy, Ranenburg Uyezd,
Ryazan Gubernia, there was in 1866 a cloth factory employing 180
workers. The peasants performed their Corvée by working in the mill, which
was closed down in 1870 ( Statistical Returns for Ryazan Gubernia ,
Vol. II, Pt. I, Moscow, 1882, p. 330).— Lenin

[4]
See Nisselovich, A History of the Factory Legislation of the Russian Empire , Pts. I and II, St. Petersburg, 1883-1884.—A. Semyonov,
A Study of Historical Data on Russian Foreign Trade and Industry ,
St. Petersburg, 1858-1859, 3 parts.—V. I. Semevsky, The Peasants in the Reign of Catherine II , St. Petersburg,
1881.— Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia . Sanitary
Statistical Sec, Vol IV, Pt. I (general summary), Moscow, 1890, article by
A. V. Pogozhev, “The Manorial-Possessional Factories of Moscow
Gubernia.”—M. Tugan-Baranovsky, The Russian Factory , St. Petersburg, 1898, Vol. I.— Lenin

[5]
Cf. Successes of Russian Industry According to Surveys of Expert Commissions , St. Petersburg, 1897, p. 60.— Lenin

[6]
The data on steam-engines in this and the following instances are taken
from Material for the Statistics of Steam-Engines in the Russian Empire published by the Central Statistical Committee,
St. Petersburg, 1882; for 1890 they are taken from Collection of Data on Factory Industry ; data on mechanised establishments are from the
Directory .— Lenin

[7]
Cf. Tugan-Baranovsky, loc . cit ., p. 420.—The total number of village hand weavers working for capitalists was estimated by
Semyonov at approximately 385,857 in 1859 ( loc . cit .,
III, 273) to these he added another 200,000 village workers engaged
“in other factory trades” ( ibid ., p. 302). At the present time, as we have seen above, the number of capitalistically
employed home workers is much larger.— Lenin

[8]
Establishments with an output of under 2,000 rubles are classed as
workrooms. The data of the special investigation of factories and works in
Moscow and Vladimir gubernias made in 1868 by the Central Statistical
Committee contain the repeated statement that the output figures of the
small weaving establishments merely indicate pay for work
done. Establishments that distribute work to home workers are classed as
offices. For 1866 the figure given for these establishments is far from
complete, owing to obvious omissions in the case of Moscow Gubernia.— Lenin

[9]
Military Statistical Abstract , 380.— Survey of Manufactory Industry , Vol, II, St. Petersburg, 1863,
p. 451. —In 1898 the number of power-looms used in cotton weaving
(for the whole Empire, evidently) was reckoned at 100,630. Successes of Russian Industry , p. 33.— Lenin

[10]
Military Statistical Abstract , pp. 367-368: Commissariat returns.— Lenin

[11]
In silk-weaving in 1879 there were 495 power-looms and 5,996 hand-looms
( Historico-Statistical Survey ), and in 1890 there were 2,899 of
the former and over 7,500 of the latter.— Lenin

[12]
For example, in 1879 the number of factories computed in these trades was
729; of this number, 466 had 977 workers and an output of 170,000
rubles. Even today one can find many such “factories”—for instance, in the description of the
handicraft industries of Vyatka and Perm gubernias.— Lenin

[13]
Cf. Military Statistical Abstract , p. 389. Survey of Manufactory Industry , I, 309.— Lenin

[14]
Thus in 1879, of 91 bast-matting factories 39 had an output of less than
1,000 rubles each (Cf. Studies , p. 155). [See present edition
Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .] In the pitch-and-tar trade for f890 there
were computed 140 factories, all with an output exceeding 2,000 rubles;
for 1879, 1,033 were computed, of which 911 had an output of less than
2,000 rubles; for 1866 the number listed was 669 (for the Empire), while
the Military Statistical Abstract even gave the figure of 3,164!!
(Cf. Studies , pp. 156 and 271.) [See present edition, Vol. 2,
The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia , and Vol. 4,
“On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.” – Ed .]— Lenin

[15]
Military Statistical Abstract , Historico-Statistical Survey and Productive Forces , IX, 16.—The number of
workers in 1866—5,645; in 1890—25,471; in 1875-1878—38 mechanised establishments, with 34 steam-engines to a total of 332 h.p.;
and in 1890—141 mechanised establishments, with 208 steam-engines to
a total of 3,319 h.p.— Lenin

[16]
Cf. Directory for 1879 and 1890 about potash production. The
production of saltpetre is now concentrated in one factory in
St. Petersburg, whereas in the 60s and 70s saltpetre was obtained from
burti (dungheaps).— Lenin

[17]
Here, too, the number of factories in the 60s and 709 included a host of
small establishments.— Lenin

[18]
In 1875, Prof. Kittary, in his Map of Leather Production in Russia , gave an aggregate of 12,939 establishments, with output
totalling 47 1/2 million rubles, whereas the factory statistics gave 2,764
establishments, with output totalling 26 1/2 million rubles
(Historico-Statistical Survey). In the fur trade, another in this section,
a similar lumping is observed of small establishments together with
factories: Cf. Directory for 1879 and for 1890.— Lenin

[19]
The Military Statistical Abstract gave an aggregate of even
3,890!!— Lenin

[20]
If we distribute the factories shown in the Directory as for 1890
according to date of establishment we get the following: of 1,506
factories the number established at dates unknown was 91, before 1850
—331; in the 1850s—147; in the 60s—239; in the
70s—320; in the 80s —351; in 1890—21. In every succeeding decade more factories were established than in the preceding
one.— Lenin

[21]
The small establishments in these industries are now classed with the
handicrafts. Cf., for instance, the table of small industries (Appendix I)
or Studies , pp. 158-159. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .). The Ministry of Finance Yearbook
(Vol. I) refused to give totals for these industries because the figures
were obviously exaggerated. Progress in statistics since then is expressed
in an increased boldness and disregard of the quality of material used.— Lenin

[22]
Thus, in the 60s, dozens of smithies were classed for some gubernias as
“ironworks.”– See Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance , 1866, No. 4, p. 406; 1867, No. 6
p. 384.— Statistical Chronicle , Series II,
Vol. 6.—Cf. also the example quoted above (§ II) where the
Yearbook for 1866 includes the small handicraftsmen of the
Pavlovo district among the “factory owners.”— Lenin

[23]
See examples in Studies , p. 269 and p. 284 (see present edition,
Vol. 4, “On the Question of Our Factory Statistics.”
– Ed .), where Mr. Karyshev’s error in ignoring this circumstance is examined. The Directory for 1879, for instance,
includes the Kulebaki and Vyksa ironworks, or departments of them (pp. 356
and 374), which are omitted in the Directory for 1890.— Lenin

[24]
And in addition 32,957 “small windmills,” not counted among
the “factories and works.”— Lenin

[25]
See examples of such conclusions drawn by Mr. Karyshev in the above-quoted
article in the Studies . (See present edition, Vol. 4, op . cit . – Ed .)— Lenin

[26]
Large watermills are also in the nature of factories, of course, but we
have no data to enable us to single them out from among the small ones. In
the Directory for 1890 we saw listed 250 watermills each
employing 10 and more workers. They employed 6,378 workers.— Lenin

[27]
Military Statistical Abstract , Directories and
Collection . According to the List for 1894-95, there are
1,192 steam-mills in European Russia. The statistics for steam-engines
gave the number of steam-mills in European Russia in 1875-1878 as 294.— Lenin

[28]
Oil-pressing, starch, treacle, malt, confectionery, preserves and vinegar.— Lenin

[29]
Russkoye Bogatstvo , 1894, No. 6, pp. 104-105.— Lenin

[30]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , I, pp. 76 and 82. The total
number of distilleries (including those not in operation) was 4,737 and
4,646 respectively.— Lenin

[31]
Yearbook , I, p. 104.— Lenin

[32]
E.g., in Simbirsk Gubernia, the Military Statistical Abstract
computes 218 distilleries (!) with 299 workers and an output totalling
21,600 rubles. (According to the Yearbook there were 7 distilleries in the gubernia.) Very likely, these were small domestic or
peasant establishments.— Lenin

[33]
The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , p. 61. Cf. Survey of Manufactory Industry (Vol. II St. Petersburg, 1863), which gives
detailed information for 1861: 534 factories, with 6,937 workers; and in
Bessarabia Gubernia, 31 factories, with 73 workers. The number of tobacco
factories fluctuates greatly from year to year.— Lenin

[34]
If we take the gross figures for all trades and for long periods, the
exaggeration resulting from the cause mentioned will not be great, for the
small establishments account for a small percentage of the total number of
workers and the total output. It goes without saying that one presumes a
comparison of figures taken from similar sources (there can be no question
of comparing the returns of the Ministry of Finance with those of
gubernatorial reports, or of the Military Statistical Abstract ).— Lenin

[35]
The “ landlord establishment of a manorial-possessional character ” was a feudal manorial manufactory belonging to a landlord and employing his serf-peasants. By a decree of Peter I issued in 1721,
merchant factory owners were permitted to purchase peasants for work in
their factories. The feudal workers attached to such enterprises were
called “possessional peasants.” [p. 470]

| | II. Our Factory Statistics | | | IV. The Development of the Mining Industry | |

# The Development of the Mining Industry

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8iv.htm

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

### IV. The Development of the Mining

Industry [1]

In the initial period of Russia’s post-Reform development the
principal centre of ore-mining was the Urals. Constituting a single area,
until quite recently separated sharply from Central Russia, it has at the same time an original industrial
structure. For ages the basis of the “organisation of labour”
in the Urals was serfdom, which to this day, the very end of the 19th
century, leaves its impress on quite important aspects of life in this
mining area. In the old days serfdom was the basis of the greatest
prosperity of the Urals and of its dominant position, not only in Russia,
but partly also in Europe. In the 18th century iron was one of
Russia’s principal items of export; in 1782 nearly 3.8 million poods
of iron were exported; in 1800-1815 from 2 to 1 1/2 million poods; in
1815-1838 about 1 1/3 million poods. Already “in the 20s of the 19th
century Russia was producing 1 1/2 times as much pig-iron as France, 4 1/2
times as much as Prussia and 3 times as much as Belgium.” But the
very serfdom that helped the Urals to rise to such heights when European
capitalism was in its initial period was the very cause of the
Urals’ decline when capitalism was in its heyday. The iron industry
in the Urals developed very slowly. In 1718 Russia’s output of
pig-iron was about 6 1/2 million poods, in 1767 about 9 1/2 million poods,
in 1806 12 million poods, in the 30s—9 to 11 million poods, in the
40s—11 to 13 million poods, in the 50s—12 to 16 million poods,
in the 60s—13 to 18 million poods, in 1867—17 1/2 million
poods. In one hundred years the output was not even doubled, and Russia
dropped far behind other European countries, where large-scale machine industry had given rise to a
tremendous development of metallurgy.

The main cause of stagnation in the Urals was serfdom; the ironmasters
were at once feudal landlords and industrialists, and their power was
based not on capital and competition, but on monopoly [2] and their
possessional right. The Ural ironmasters are big landowners even today. In
1890, the 262 ironworks in the Empire had 11.4 million dessiatines of land
(including 8.7 million dessiatines of forestland), of which 10.2 million
belonged to 111 Urals ironworks (forestland covering 7.7 million
dessiatines). On the average, consequently, each Urals works possesses
vast latifundia covering some hundred thousand dessiatines. The allotment
of land to the peasants from these estates has to this day not been
completed. Labour is obtained in the Urals, not only by hire, but also on
the labour-service basis. The Zemstvo statistics for Krasnoufimsk
Uyezd, Perm Gubernia, for example, estimate that there are thousands of
peasant farms that have the use of factory-owned land, pastures, woodland,
etc., either gratis, or at a low rent. It stands to reason that this free
use of the land actually has a very high cost, for it serves to reduce
wages to a very low level; the ironworks get their “own”
workers, tied down to the works and cheaply paid. [3]

Here is the way Mr. V. D. Belov describes these relationships:

The Urals enjoy the advantage, says Mr. Belov, of having workers who have
been moulded by their “original” history. “Workers in other factories, abroad, or even in St. Petersburg, have not the interests
of their factory at heart: they are here today and gone tomorrow. While
the factory is running they work; when losses take the place of profits,
they take up their knapsacks and go off as fast and as readily as they
came. They and their employers are permanent enemies. . . . The position
is entirely different in the case of the Ural workers. They are natives of
the place and in the vicinity of the works they have their land, their
farms and their families. Their own welfare is closely, inseparably, bound
up with the welfare of the works. If it does well, they do well; if it
does badly, it is bad for them; but they cannot leave it ( sic !):
they have more here than a knapsack ( sic !); to leave means to
wreck their whole world, to abandon the land, farm and family. . . . And
so they are ready to hang on for years to work at half pay, or, what
amounts to the same thing, to remain unemployed half their working time so
that other local workers like themselves may earn a crust of bread. In
short, they are ready to accept any terms the employers offer, so long as
they are allowed to remain. . . . Thus, there is an inseparable bond
between the Ural workers and the works; the relationships are the same
today as they were in the past, before their emancipation from serf
dependence; only the form of these relationships has changed, nothing
more. The former principle of serfdom has been superseded by the lofty
principle of mutual benefit.” [4]

This lofty principle of mutual benefit manifests itself primarily in
reduction of wages to a particularly low level. “In the South
. . . a worker costs twice and even three times as much as in the
Urals”—for example, according to data covering several thousand workers, 450 rubles (annually per worker) as against 177
rubles. In the South “at the first opportunity of earning a decent
wage in the fields of their native villages or anywhere else, the workers
leave the iron works, and coal- or ore-mines” ( Vestnik Finansov , 1897, No. 17, p. 265). In the Urals, however, a decent wage
is not to be dreamt of.

Naturally and inseparably connected with the low wages and servile status
of the Ural workers is the technical backwardness of the Urals. There
pig-iron is smelted mostly with the aid of wood fuel, in old-fashioned furnaces with cold or slightly
heated blast. In 1893, the number of cold-blast furnaces in the Urals was
37 out of 110, while in the South, there were 3 out of 18. A mineral-fuel
furnace had an average output of 1.4 million poods per year, while a
wood-fuel furnace had one of 217,000 poods. In 1890 Mr. Keppen wrote:
“The refining process of smelting pig-iron is still firmly
established in the ironworks of the Urals, whereas in other parts of
Russia it has been almost entirely displaced by the puddling process.” [19]
Steam-engines are used to a far less extent in the Urals than in the
South. Lastly, we cannot but note the seclusion of the Urals, its
isolation from the centre of Russia owing to the vast distance and the
absence of railways. Until quite recently the products of the Urals were
transported to Moscow mainly by the primitive method of
“floating” by river once a year. [5]

Thus the most direct survivals of the pre-Reform system, extensive
practice of labour-service, bonded condition of the workers, low
productivity of labour, backwardness of technique, low wages, prevalence
of hand production, primitive and rapaciously antediluvian exploitation of
the region’s natural wealth, monopolies, hindrances to competition,
seclusion and isolation from the general commercial and industrial march
of the times— such is the general picture of the Urals.

The mining area in the

South [6] is in many respects the very opposite of the Urals. The South is in the period of formation and is as young as the Urals are old and the system prevailing
there “time-hallowed.” The purely capitalist industry which
has arisen here during recent decades recognises no traditions, no
social-estate or national divisions, no seclusion of definite sections of
the population. There has been a mass influx of foreign capital, engineers
and workers into South Russia; and in the present period of boom (1898)
entire factories are being brought there from

America. [7]

International capital has not hesitated to settle within the tariff wall
and establish itself on “foreign” soil: ubi bene , ibi patria [8]

....

The following are statistics on the displacement of the Urals by
the

South [20] :

These figures clearly show what a technical revolution is now taking place
in Russia, and what an enormous capacity for the development of productive
forces is possessed by large-scale capitalist industry. The predominance
of the Urals meant the predominance of serf labour, technical backwardness
and

stagnation. [9]

On
the contrary, we now see that the development of metallurgical industry is proceeding faster in
Russia than in Western Europe and in some respects even faster than in the
United States. In 1870 Russia produced 2.9% of the world output of
pig-iron (22 million poods out of 745 million), and in 1894—5.1%
(81.3 million poods out of 1,584.2) ( Vestnik Finansov , 1897,
No. 22). In the last 10 years (1886-1896) Russia has trebled her output of
pig-iron (32 1/2 to 96 1/2 million poods), whereas it took France, for
example, 28 years to do so (1852-1880), the U.S.A. 23 years (1845-1868),
England 22 (1824-1846) and Germany 12 (1859-1871; see Vestnik Finansov , 1897, No. 50). The development of capitalism in the young
countries is greatly accelerated by the example and the aid of
the old countries. Of course, the last decade (1888-1898) has been a
period of exceptional boom, which, like all capitalist prosperity, will
inevitably lead to a crisis; but capitalist development cannot proceed at
all except in spurts.

The introduction of machinery into production and the increase in the
number of workers have been much more rapid in the South than in the

Urals. [10]

Thus we see that in the Urals the increase in the use of steam-power was
only some 2 1/2 times, whereas in the South it was sixfold ; the
increase in the number of workers in the Urals was 1 2/3 times, whereas in
the South it was nearly fourfold . [11]

Consequently, it is capitalist large-scale industry that rapidly increases the number of workers, at the same time
enormously increasing the productivity of their labour.

Alongside of the South, mention should be made of the Caucasus, which is
also characterised by an amazing growth of the mining industry in the
post-Reform period. The out put of oil, which in the 60s did not even
reach a million poods (557,000 in 1865), was in 1870—I.7 million
poods, in 1875—5.2 million poods, in 1880—21.5 million poods,
in 1885— 116 million poods, in 1890—242.9 million poods, in
1895—38k million poods and in 1902—637.7 million poods. Nearly
all the oil is obtained in Baku Gubernia, and Baku “from an
insignificant town has turned into a first-class Russian industrial
centre, with 112,000 inhabitants.” [12]

The

enormous development of the extraction and processing of oil has given
rise in Russia to a greater consumption of kerosene that has completely
ousted the American product (increase of personal consumption with the
cheapening of the product by factory processing), and to a still greater
consumption of oil by-products as fuel in factories, in works and on the
railways (increase of productive consumption). [13]

The number of workers in the mining industry of the Caucasus has also grown very
rapidly: from 3,431 in 1877 to 17,603 in 1890, i.e., has
increased fivefold .

To illustrate the structure of industry in the South let us take the data
for the coal industry in the Donets Basin (where the average mine is
smaller than in any other part of Russia). Classifying the mines according
to number of workers employed, we get the following picture: [14] (See
Table on p. 493.)

Thus, in this area (and in this one only) there are extremely small
peasants’ mines, which, however, despite their great number, play an
absolutely insignificant part in the total output (104 small mines account
for only 2% of the total coal output) and are marked by an exceedingly low
productivity of labour. On the other hand, the 37 largest mines employ
nearly all of the total number of workers and produce over 70% of the
total coal output. Productivity of labour increases parallel with the
increase in the size of the mines, even irrespective of whether machinery
is used or not (cf., for example, categories V and III of mines, as to
quantity of steam-power and output per worker). Concentration of
production in the Donets Basin is steadily increasing: thus, in the four
years 1882-1886, of 512 coal consigners, 21 dispatched over 5,000
wagon-loads (i.e., 3 million poods) each, making 229,700 wagon-loads out of 480,800, i.e., less than half. In the four years 1891-1895, however,
there were 872 consigners, of whom 55 dispatched over 5,000 wagon-loads
each, making 925,400 wagon-loads out of 1,178,000, i.e., over 8/10 of the
total

number. [15]

The foregoing data on the development of the mining industry are
particularly important in two respects: firstly, they reveal with
exceptional clarity the essence of the change in social-economic relations
that is taking place in Russia in all spheres of the national economy;
secondly, they illustrate the theoretical proposition that in a developing
capitalist society there is a particularly rapid growth of those branches
of industry which produce means of production, i.e., articles not of
personal, but of productive, consumption. The replacement of one form of
social economy by another is particularly clear in the mining industry,
because here the typical representatives of the two forms are distinct
areas. In one area there is the old pre-capitalist world, with its
primitive, routine technique, personal dependence of a population tied to
place of residence, firmly established social-estate traditions,
monopolies, etc.; while in the other area one finds a complete break with
all tradition, a technical revolution, and the rapid growth of purely
capitalist machine industry. [16]

This example brings out in bold relief the mistake of the Narodnik
economists. They deny the progressive nature of capitalism in Russia,
pointing to the fact that in agriculture our entrepreneurs readily resort
to labour-service and in industry to the distribution of home work and
that in mining they seek to secure the tying down of the worker,
legislative prohibition of competition by small establishments, etc., etc. The illogicality of such arguments and their
flagrant distortion of historical perspective are glaring. Whence, indeed,
does it follow that the efforts of our entrepreneurs to utilise the
advantages of pre-capitalist methods of production should be charged to
our capitalism, and not to those survivals of the past which retard the
development of capitalism and which in many cases are preserved by force
of law? Can one be surprised, for instance, at the southern mine owners
being eager to tie the workers down and to secure the legislative
prohibition of competition by small establishments, when in the other
mining area such tying down and such prohibitions have existed for ages,
and exist to this day, and when in another area the ironmasters, by using
more primitive methods and employing cheaper and more docile labour, get a
profit on their pig-iron, without effort, of “kopek per kopek and
sometimes even one and a half kopeks per kopek”? [17]

Should we not, on the contrary, be surprised at the fact that, under these
circumstances, there are people who are capable of idealising the
pre-capitalist economic order in Russia, and who shut their eyes to the
most urgent and pressing necessity of abolishing all obsolete institutions
that hinder the development of capitalism? [18]

On the other hand, the data on the growth of the mining industry are
important because they clearly reveal a more rapid growth of capitalism
and of the home market on account of articles of productive consumption
than on account of articles of personal consumption. This circumstance is
ignored by Mr. N.–on, for instance, who argues that the satisfaction of
the entire home demand for the products of the mining industry “will
probably take place very soon” ( Sketches , 123). The fact is
that the consumption of metals, coal, etc. (per inhabitant), does not and
cannot remain stationary in capitalist society, but necessarily increases . Every new mile of railway, every new workshop, every
iron plough acquired by a rural bourgeois increases the demand
for the products of ore-mining. Although from 1851 to 1897 the consumption
of pig-iron, for example, in Russia increased from 14 pounds per head to 1
1/3 poods, even this latter amount will have to increase very considerably
before it approaches the size of the demand for pig-iron in the advanced
countries (in Belgium and England it is over 6 poods per inhabitant).

---
Notes:
[1]
Sources: Semyonov, A Study of Historical Data on Russian Trade and Industry , Vol. III, St. Petersburg, 1859, pp. 323-339. Military Statistical Abstract , section on mining industry. The

Ministry of Finance Yearbook , Vol. I, St. Petersburg,
1869. Statistical Returns for Mining , for 1864-186i,
St. Petersburg, 1864 1867 (published by the Scientific Committee of the
Corps of Mining Engineers). I. Bogolyubsky, Essay in Mining Statistics for the Russian Empire , St. Petersburg,
1878. Historico-Statistical Survey of Russian Industry ,
St. Petersburg, 1883, Vol. I (article by Keppen). Statistical Returns for the Mining and Metallurgical Industries of Russia in 1890 ,
St. Petersburg, 1892. Ditto for 1901 (St. Petersburg, 1904) and for 1902
(St. Petersburg, 1905). K. Skalkovsky, Mining and Metallurgical Productivity of Russia in 1877 , St. Petersburg, 1879. The Mining and Metallurgical Industry of Russia , published by the Department of
Mines for the Chicago Exhibition, St. Petersburg, 1893 (compiled by
Keppen). Returns for Russia for 1890 , published by the Central
Statistical Committee, St. Petersburg, 1890. Ditto for 1896,
St. Petersburg, 1897. Productive Forces of Russia , St. Petersburg, 1896, Section VII. Vestnik Finansov for
1896-1897. Zemstvo Statistical Returns for Ekaterinburg and Krasnoufimsk
uyezds of Perm Gubernia, and others.— Lenin

[2]
When the peasants were emancipated, the Ural ironmasters particularly
insisted on, and secured the retention of, a law prohibiting the opening
of any coal- and wood-burning establishments within the area of their
undertakings. For some details, see Studies , pp. 193-194. (See
present edition Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia . – Ed .)— Lenin

[3]
The Ural worker “is . . . partly a cultivator, so that work in the
mines is of good assistance to him on his farm, although the pay is lower
than in the other mining-and-metal districts” ( Vestnik Finansov , 1897, No. 8). As we know, the terms on which the Ural
peasants were emancipated from serf dependence were made to correspond to
their position in the mining industry. The mining and works population was
divided into workmen having no land, who had to work in the industry all
year round, and agricultural labourers, having allotments, who had to do
auxiliary jobs. Highly characteristic is the term that has survived to
this day, namely, of Ural workers being “debtbound.” When, for
example, one reads in the Zemstvo statistics “information about a
team of workers bound by debt to their jobs in the shops of the Arta
works” one involuntarily turns to the title-page to see the date: Is
it really ninety-four, and not, say, forty-four? [21] — Lenin

[4]
Transactions of the Commission of Inquiry into Handicraft Industry , Vol. XVI, St. Petersburg, 1887, pp. 8-9 and foll. The same
author later goes on to talk about “healthy people’s” industry!— Lenin

[5]
For a description of this floating see Crags by Mr. Mamin
Sibiryak. In his writings this author vividly portrays the specific life
of the Urals, which differs very little from that of the pre-Reform
period, with the lack of rights, ignorance and degradation of a population
tied down to the factories, with the “earnest, childish
dissipations” of the “gentry,” and the absence of that middle stratum of society (middle class and other intellectuals) which is
so characteristic of capitalist development in all countries, not
excluding Russia.— Lenin

[6]
In mining statistics the term “South and South-West Russian”
means the Volhynia, Don, Ekaterinoslav, Kiev, Astrakhan, Bessarabia,
Podolsk, Taurida, Kharkov, Kherson and Chernigov gubernias. It is to these
that the quoted figures apply. All that is said further on about the South
could also be said (with slight modifications) of Poland, which forms
another mining area of outstanding significance in the post-Reform period.— Lenin

[7]
Vestnik Finansov , 1897, No. 16: The Nikopol-Mariupol Co. ordered
a pipe-rolling mill in America and had it brought to Russia.— Lenin

[8]
Where it is well, there is my country.— Ed .

[9]
It goes without saying that the Ural ironmasters depict the situation
somewhat differently. Here is a sample of their eloquent complaints at
last year’s congresses: “The historical services rendered by
the Urals are common knowledge. For two hundred years all Russia ploughed
and reaped, hammered, dug and hewed with the products of Ural
factories. The Russian people wore on their breasts crosses made of Ural
copper, rode on Ural axles, used fire-arms made of Ural steel, cooked
pancakes on Ural frying-pans, and rattled Ural pennies in their pockets
The Urals satisfied the requirements of the entire Russian
people. . .” (who used scarcely any iron. In 1851 the consumption of
pig-iron in Russia was estimated at about 14 pounds per inhabitant, in
1895—1.13 poods, and in 1897—1.33 poods)
“. . . producing articles to suit their needs and tastes. The Urals
generously (?) squandered their natural wealth, without chasing after
fashion, or being carried away by the making of rails, fire grates and
monuments. And in return for their centuries of service—they found
themselves one fine day forgotten and neglected” ( Vestnik Finansov , 1897, No. 32; Results of Mining Congresses in the Urals ). Indeed, what neglect of “time-hallowed”
institutions. And it is all the fault of insidious capitalism, which has
introduced such “instability” into our national economy. How
much nicer it would be to live in the old way, without “being
carried away by the making of rails,” and to cook oneself pancakes
on Ural frying-pans!— Lenin

[10]
Mr. Bogolyubsky estimates the number of steam-engines used in mining in
1868 at 526 with a total of 13,575 h.p.— Lenin

[11]
The number of workers in iron production in the Urals in 1886 was 145,910,
and in 1893—164,126, in the South 5,956 and 16,467. The increases
are 1/3, (approx.) and 2 3/4-fold. For 1902 there are no data on the
number of steam-engines and horse-power. The number however, of mine
workers employed (not including saltminers) in 1902 in the whole of Russia
was 604,972, including 249,805 in the Urals and 145,280 in the South.— Lenin

[12]
Vestnik Finansov , 1897, No. 21. In 1863 the population of Baku
was 14,000 and in 1885—45,700.— Lenin

[13]
In 1882, over 62% of the locomotives were fueled with wood; in 1895-96,
however, wood fueled 28.3%, oil 30% and coal 40.9% of the locomotives
( Productive Forces , XVII, 62). After capturing the home market,
the oil industry went in quest of foreign markets, and the export of oil
to Asia is growing very rapidly ( Vestnik Finansov , 1897, No. 32)
in spite of the a priori predictions of certain Russian
economists who love to talk about the absence of foreign markets for
Russian capitalism.— Lenin

[14]
Data taken from list of mines in Returns for the Mining and Metallurgical Industries in 1890 .— Lenin

[15]
From data of N. S. Avdakov: Brief Statistical Survey of the Donets Coal Industry , Kharkov, 1896.— Lenin

[16]
Latterly the Urals, too, have begun to change under the influence of the
new conditions of life; and this change will be still more rapid when the
Urals are tied closer to “Russia” by railway lines. Of particular importance in this respect will be the proposed connection by
rail of the Urals and the South with a view to the exchange of Ural
iron-ore for Donets coal. Till now the Urals and the South have scarcely
competed with each other, having worked for different markets and existed
mainly on government contracts. But the abundant rain of government
contracts will not go on for ever.— Lenin

[17]
Article by Yegunov in Reports and Investigations of Handicraft Industry , Vol. III, p. 130.— Lenin

[18]
For example, Mr. N.–on levelled all his complaints solely against
capitalism (cf., in particular, his observations on the southern mine
owners, Sketches , pp. 211 and 296) and thus utterly distorted the
relation between Russian capitalism and the pre-capitalist structure of
our mining industry.— Lenin

[21]
Lenin refers to Material for the Statistics of Krasnoufimsk Uyezd, Perm Gubernia , Vol. V, Pt. 1 (Zavodsky district), Kazan, 1894, on
p. 65 of which there is a table headed “Information on a team of
workers bound by debt to their jobs in the shops of the Arta works in
1892.” [p. 486]

[19]
Lenin quotes here The Mining and Metallurgical Industry of Russia . Published by the Department of Mines. International Columbia
Exhibition, 1893, in Chicago, St. Petersburg, 1893, p. 52. [p. 488]

[20]
In the first edition of The Development of Capitalism in Russia the table
contained the figures for the years 1890 and 1896. In the second edition
these figures were omitted. Furthermore, the figures for 1897 differed
somewhat from those for the same year cited in the second edition. The
corresponding part of the table as it appeared in the first edition was as
follows:

The figures for 1897 given in the first edition had a footnote, also
omitted in the second edition, stating:—“In 1898 the pig iron
output in the Empire is estimated at 133 million poods, of which 60
million poods were produced in the South and 43 million poods in the Urals
( Russkiye Vedomosti [ Russian Gazette ], 1899, No. 1).” [p. 489]

| | III. An Examination of Historico-Statistical Data On the Development of Large-Scale Industry | | | V. Is the Number of Workers in Large Capitalist Enterprises Growing? | |

# Is the Number of Workers in Large Capitalist Enterprises Growing?

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8v.htm

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

V. Is the Number of Workers in Large Capitalist
Enterprises Growing?

Having examined the statistics of the factory and mining industries, we
can now attempt to answer this question, one which has so much engaged the
attention of the Narodnik economists, and which they have answered in the
negative (Messrs. V. V., N.–on, Karyshev and Kablukov have asserted that
the number of factory workers in Russia is increasing—if it is
increasing—more slowly than the population). Let us observe first of
all that the question must be whether an increase is taking place in the
commercial and industrial population at the expense of the agricultural
population (of this below), or whether an increase is taking place in the
number of workers employed in large-scale machine industry. It cannot be
asserted that the number of workers in small industrial establishments or
in manufactories must increase in a developing capitalist society, for the
factory constantly eliminates the more primitive forms of industry. Our
factory statistics, however, as was shown in detail above, do not always
refer to the factory in the scientific sense of the term.

To examine the data on the question that interests us, we must take,
firstly, the returns for all branches, and, secondly, the returns for a
long period. Only if we do that is there a guarantee that the data will be
more or less comparable. We take the years 1865 and 1890, a stretch of
twenty-five years in the post-Reform period. Let us sum up the available
statistics. The factory statistics give the fullest data for 1865; for
European Russia they showed 380,638 factory workers in all trades except distilling, brewing,
beet-sugar and tobacco. [1]

To
determine the number of workers in these trades, we have to take the only
data available, those of the Military Statistical Abstract, which, as has
been shown above, must be corrected. By adding the 127,935 workers in the
trades

mentioned, [2] we get the total number of factory workers in European Russia in 1865 (in
excise-paying and non-excise-paying trades) as

508,573 . [3]

For 1890 the corresponding figure will be

839,730 . [4]

The increase is 65%, much greater than the increase in population. It must,
however, be borne in mind that actually the increase was undoubtedly bigger than these figures show : above it was demonstrated in detail
that the factory statistics for the 1860s are exaggerated due to their
inclusion of small handicraft, artisan and agricultural establishments, as
well as home workers. Unfortunately, we are unable, for lack of material,
to correct all these exaggerations in full, and prefer not to correct them
in part, especially as more exact data will be given below regarding the
number of workers in large factories.

Let us pass to the mining and metallurgical statistics. For 1865 the
number of mine workers was given only for the copper and iron trades, as
well as the gold and platinum fields; for European Russia it was

133,176 . [5]

In 1890, there were in the same trades 274 , 748 workers , [6] i.e., more than twice as many. The latter figure represents 80.6% of the
total number of mine workers in European Russia in 1890; if we assume that
in 1865 the trades mentioned also covered 80.6% of the total mine workers, [7] we get
the total number of mine workers for 1865 as 165 , 230 and
for 1890 as 340 , 912 . An increase of 107%.

Further, railway workers also belong to the category of workers in big
capitalist enterprises. In 1890, in European Russia, together with Poland
and the Caucasus, they numbered

252 , 415 . [8]

The figure for 1865 is unknown, but it can be determined with a sufficient degree of approximation, since the number of
railway workers employed per verst of railway fluctuates very
slightly. Counting 9 workers per verst, we get the total number of railway
workers in 1865 as

32,076 . [9]

Let us sum up our calculations.

Thus, in 25 years the number of workers in large capitalist enterprises
more than doubled, i.e., it increased not only much faster than the
population in general, but even faster than the urban population. [10]

The steadily increasing diversion of workers from agriculture and from the
small industries to big industrial enterprises is consequently beyond doubt. [11]

This is indicated by the very statistics that are so often resorted to and abused
by our Narodniks. But the culminating point of their abuse of the
statistics is the following truly phenomenal device: they work out the
proportion of factory workers to the total population (!) and on the basis
of the figure arrived at (about 1%) expatiate on how insignificant this “handful” [12] of workers is! Mr. Kablukov, for example, after
repeating the calculation of the proportion of “factory workers in

Russia” [13] to the population, goes on to say: “In the West, however (!!), the
number of workers engaged in manufacturing industry . . .” (is it
not obvious to every schoolboy that “factory workers” and
“workers engaged in manufacturing industry” are not one and
the same thing at all?) . . . “constitute quite a different
proportion of the population,” namely, from 53% in Britain to 23% in
France. “It is not difficult to see that the difference in the
proportion of the class of factory workers (!!) there and here is so great
that it is out of the question to identify the course of our development
with that of Western Europe.” And this is written by a professor and
specialist in statistics! With extraordinary valour he perpetrates two
misrepresentations at one blow: 1) factory workers are replaced by workers
engaged in manufacturing industry, and 2) the latter are replaced by the
population engaged in manufacturing industry. Let us explain the meaning
of these categories to our learned statisticians. In France, according to
the census of 1891, the workers engaged in manufacturing industry numbered
3.3 million—less than one-tenth of the population (36.8 million
classified according to occupation; and 1.3 million not classified
according to occupation). These are workers employed in all industrial
establishments and enterprises, and not only factory workers. The
population, however, that is engaged in manufacturing industry numbered
9.5 million (about 26% of the total population). Added here to the number
of workers are employers, etc. (1 million); then office employees, clerks,
etc., 0.2 million; dependents in household , 4.8 million; and
domestic servants, 0.2 million. [14]

To
illustrate the corresponding proportions in Russia, we must take
particular centres as our examples, for we have no statistics showing the
occupations of the whole population. Let us take one urban and one rural
centre. In Petersburg the factory statistics for 1890 gave the number of
factory workers as 51,760 (according to the Directory ), whereas
according to the St. Petersburg census of December 15, 1890, the number of
persons of both sexes engaged in manufacturing industry was 341,991, distributed as follows: [15]

Another example: In Bogorodskoye village, Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod
Gubernia (which, as we have seen, does not engage in agriculture, but
constitutes “a single tannery as it were”), there are, according to the Directory for 1890, 392 factory workers , whereas the population engaging in industries, according to
the Zemstvo census of 1889, numbers nearly 8,000 (the total population
equals 9,241; more than 9/10 of the families engage in industries). Let
these figures give food for thought to Messrs. N.—on, Kablukov and
Co.!

Addendum to second edition . We now have the returns of the
national census of 1897, giving statistics on the occupations of the
entire population. Here are the data, summarised by us, for the whole of
the Russian

Empire [16] (in millions):

Needless to say, these data fully confirm what has been said above
regarding the absurdity of the Narodnik device of comparing the number of
factory workers with the whole population.

It will be interesting, first of all, to group the data on the
occupational distribution of the whole population of Russia, in a way that
will illustrate the division of social labour as the basis of the
whole of commodity production and capitalism in Russia. From this point of
view, the entire population should be distributed into three large
subdivisions: I. Agricultural. II. Commercial and industrial. III. Unproductive (more precisely, not participating in
economic activity). Of the nine groups given ( a to i ),
only one cannot be directly and entirely assigned to any one of these
three main subdivisions. That is group g : private service,
domestic servants and day labourers. This group has to be distributed
approximately between the commercial-and-industrial and the
agricultural population. We have assigned to the former the section of
this group which is shown as residing in towns (2.5 million), and to the latter those residing in rural areas (3.3
million). We then get the following picture of the distribution of the
total population of Russia:

This picture clearly shows, on the one hand, that commodity circulation
and, hence, commodity production are firmly implanted in Russia. Russia is
a capitalist country. On the other hand, it follows from this that Russia
is still very backward, as compared with other capitalist countries, in
her economic development.

To proceed. After the analysis we have made in the present work, the
statistics of the occupations of the whole population of Russia can and
should be used to determine approximately the main categories into which the entire population of Russia is divided according
to class status, i.e., according to their status in the social
system of production.

It is possible to determine these categories—only approximately, of
course—because we know the main economic groups into which the
peasantry are divided. And the entire mass of the agricultural population
of Russia may safely be regarded as peasants, for the number of landlords
in the sum-total is quite negligible. Quite a considerable section of
landlords, moreover, are included in the category of rentiers, government
officials, high dignitaries, etc. In the peasant mass of 97 millions,
however, one must distinguish three main groups: the bottom
group—the proletarian and semi-proletarian strata of the population;
the middle group—the poor small peasant farmers; and the top
group—the well-to-do small peasant farmers. We have analysed above
the main economic features of these groups as distinct class elements. The
bottom group is the propertyless population, which earns its livelihood
mainly, or half of it, by the sale of labour-power . The middle
group comprises the poor small peasant farmers, for the middle peasant in the best of years just barely manages to make ends meet, but the
principal means of livelihood of this group is “independent” (supposedly independent, of course)
small-scale farming . Finally, the top group consists of the
well-to-do small peasant farmers, who exploit more or less considerable
numbers of allotment-holding farm labourers and day labourers and all
sorts of wage-labourers in general.

These groups constitute approximately 50%, 30% and 20% respectively of the
total. Above we invariably took the share of each group in the total
number of households or farms. Now we shall take them as a proportion of
the population. This change effects an increase in the bottom group and a
decrease in the top one. But this, undoubtedly, is precisely the change
that has taken place in Russia in the past decade, as is proved
incontrovertibly by the decline in horse-ownership and by the ruin of the
peasantry, the growth of poverty and unemployment in the rural districts,
etc.

That is to say, among the agricultural population we have about 48.5
million proletarians and semi-proletarians about 29.1 million poor small
peasant farmers and their families, and about 19.4 million of the
population on the well-to-do small farms.

Now the question is how to distribute the commercial and industrial and
the unproductive population. The latter group contains sections of the
population who obviously belong to the big bourgeoisie: all the rentiers
(“living on income from capital and real estate”—first subdivision of group 14 in our statistics: 900,000), then part of the
bourgeois intelligentsia, the high military and civil officials,
etc. Altogether, these will number about 1 1/2 million. At the opposite
pole of this group of unproductive population are the lower ranks of the
army, navy, gendarmerie and police (about 1.3 million), domestics and
numerous servants (about 1/2 million altogether), nearly 1/2 million
beggars, tramps, etc., etc. Here we can only roughly distribute the groups
that most closely approximate to the main economic types: about 2 million
will go to the proletarian and semi-proletarian population (partly
lumpen-proletarians), about 1.9 million to the poor small proprietors, and
about

1.5 million to the well-to-do small proprietors, including the bulk of the
clerks, managerial personnel, bourgeois intellectuals, etc.

Lastly, among the commercial and industrial population the largest section
is undoubtedly the proletariat, and the gulf is widest between the
proletariat and the big bourgeoisie. But the census returns supply no data
as to the distribution of this section of the population into employers,
one-man producers, workers, etc. We have no alternative but to take as a
model the above-quoted data on the industrial population of
St. Petersburg, classified according to position in production. On the
basis of these data we may roughly assign about 7% to the big bourgeoisie,
10% to the well-to-do petty bourgeoisie, 22% to the poor small proprietors
and 61% to the proletariat. In Russia as a whole, small production in
industry is, of course, much more tenacious than it is in St. Petersburg,
but then we do not assign to the semi-proletarian population the mass of
one-man producers and handicraftsmen who work in their homes for
masters. Hence, on the whole, the proportions taken will in all
probability not differ very much from what they actually are. For the
commercial and industrial population we shall then get about 1.5 million
big bourgeoisie, about 2.2 million well-to-do, about 4.8 million needy
small producers, and about 13.2 million belonging to the proletarian and
semi-proletarian strata of the population.

By combining the agricultural, commercial and industrial, and unproductive
sections of the population, we shall get the following approximate
distribution of the entire population of Russia according to class status:

We have no doubt that our Cadet and quasi-Cadet economists and politicians
will raise their voices in indignation against this “over-simplified” concept of the economy of Russia. After all,
it is so convenient, so advantageous to gloss over the profundity of
economic contradictions in a detailed analysis and at the same time to
complain of the “crudity” of socialist views on these contradictions as a whole. Such criticism of the conclusion we have
reached is, of course, without scientific value.

Differences of opinion are, of course, possible about the degree of
approximation of various figures. It is of interest to note, from this
point of view, the work of Mr. Lositsky, Studies of the Population of Russia Based on the Census of 1897 ( Mir Bozhy , [18]

1905, No. 8). The author took the bare census figures of the number of
workers and servants, and from these estimated the proletarian population
in Russia at 22 million; the peasant and land-owning population at 80
million, employers and clerks in commerce and industry at about 12
million, and the population not engaged in industry at about 12 million.

The number of proletarians according to these figures comes quite close to
the figure we have arrived at. [19]

To deny the existence of a vast mass of semi-proletarians among the poor peasants who
are dependent upon “employments,” among the handicraftsmen,
etc., would be to scoff at all the data on the Russian economy. One need
but recall the 3 1/4 million horseless households in European
Russia alone, the 3.4 million one-horse households, the sum-total of
Zemstvo statistics on rented land, “employments,” budgets,
etc., to abandon all doubt about the huge size of the semi-proletarian
population. To agree that the proletarian and semi-proletarian population
taken together comprises one-half of the peasantry is probably no
understatement and no exaggeration of its numbers. And outside of the agricultural population, the proletarians and semi-proletarians
undoubtedly constitute a still higher percentage.

Further, if we are not to replace the complete economic picture by petty
details, we should include among the well-to-do small proprietors a
considerable section of the commercial and industrial managerial
personnel, clerks, bourgeois intellectuals, government officials, and so
on. Here we have perhaps been too cautious and fixed the number of this
group of the population too high: it is quite possible that we-should have
put the poor small proprietors at a higher figure and the well-to-do at a
lower. But, of course, in making such divisions one does not lay claim to
absolute statistical accuracy.

Statistics should illustrate the socio-economic relations established by
an all-round analysis, and not be made an end in themselves, as too often
happens in our country. To gloss over the large numbers of the
petty-bourgeois strata in the population of Russia would be simply to
falsify the picture of our real economic situation.

---
Notes:
[1]
Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance , 1867, No 6. It
has been shown above that for comparison with contemporary data one can
only take data from the same source, i.e., those of the Ministry of
Finance.— Lenin

[2]
The number of workers in brewing is 6,825, this figure is also
exaggerated, but it cannot be corrected for lack of data; in beet sugar
making—68,334 (according to The Ministry of Finance Yearbook ); tobacco-making—6,116 (corrected) and distilling—
46,660 (corrected).— Lenin

[3]
Mr. Tugan-Baranovsky quotes for 1866 the figure given by
Mr. Veshnyakov—493,371 ( The Factory , p. 339). We do not
know how this figure was arrived at; it differs very slightly from the one
we give.— Lenin

[4]
According to the Directory for 1890. From the total of 875,764 we
have to subtract the number of workers duplicated in mining statistics,
viz., 291 in asphalt, 3,468 in salt, and 32,275 in rails production.— Lenin

[5]
For the number of mine workers in the 60s, see Statistical Chronicle , I, 1866; The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , I;
Statistical Returns for Mining , for 1864-1867, St. Petersburg,
1864-1867, published by the Mining Scientific Committee.— Lenin

[6]
Statistical Returns for the Mining and Metallurgical Industries in 1890 , St. Petersburg, 1892. According to this source the total for
European Russia is 342,166, and if we subtract the number of workers at
the kerosene refineries (included in the Directory ) and correct
certain minor errors, the total will be 340,912.— Lenin

[7]
Among the other branches of mining industries there are some in which the
number of workers has probably increased slightly (salt mining), there are
some in which the number must have increased very considerably
(coal-mining, stone-quarrying), and some which did not exist at all in the
1860s (such as quicksilver-mining).— Lenin

[8]
Statistical Survey of Railways and Inland Waterways , St. Petersburg, 1893, p. 22. Published by Ministry of
Communications. Unfortunately, we lack the data to separate European
Russia. Under railway workers we include, not only permanent, but
temporary (10,447) and day labourers (74,504). The average annual pay of a
temporary worker is 192 rubles, and of a day labourer 235 rubles. The
average daily pay is 78 kopeks. Consequently, both the temporary and the
day workers are engaged for the greater part of the year, so that to
disregard them, as Mr. N.–on does ( Sketches , p. 124), is wrong.— Lenin

[9]
The number of workers per verst employed on the railways in 1886 was 9.0,
in 1890 —9.5; in 1893—10.2 in 1894—10.6; in
1895—10.9; thus the number obviously tends to grow. See Returns for Russia for 1890 and 1896, and Vestnik Finansov , 1897,
No. 39.—Let us make the reservation that in this section we are
concerned exclusively with comparing the data for 1865 and 1890, it is
therefore absolutely immaterial whether we take the number of railway
workers for the whole of the Empire or only for European Russia; whether
we take 9 workers per verst or fewer, or whether we take all branches of
mining or only those for which data exist for 1865.— Lenin

[10]
In European Russia the urban population in 1863 was 6.1 million, and in
1897, 12.0 million.— Lenin

[11]
The latest data on the number of workers in large capitalist enterprises
are as follows for 1900 data exist regarding the number of factory workers
in non-excise-paying enterprises; for 1903, data are available for
excise-paying enterprises. On workers in the mining and metallurgical
industries data exist for 1902. The number of railway workers may be
determined by reckoning 11 men per verst (information as of January 1,
1904). See Yearbook of Russia , 1906, and Returns for the Mining and Metallurgical Industries , for 1902. Summing up these
data, we get the following: in the 50 gubernias of European Russia in
1900-1903 there were 1,261,571 factory workers 477,025 mining workers;
468,941 railway workers. Total, 2,207,537. In the entire Russian Empire
there were 1,509,516 factory workers 626,929 mining workers, 655,929
railway workers. Total, 2,792,374. These figures, too, fully bear out what
is said in the text. ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[12]
N.–on, loc . cit ., 326 and others.— Lenin

[13]
Lectures on Agricultural Economics , Moscow, 1897, p. 14.— Lenin

[14]
The Statesman’s Yearbook , 1897, p. 472.— Lenin

[15]
St. Petersburg According to the Census of 1890 . St. Petersburg,
1893. We have taken the total of groups II to XV. The total number of
persons engaged in industrial occupations is 551,700, of whom 200,748
are engaged in commerce, carting and innkeeping.—“One man
producers” refers to small producers who employ no workers.— Lenin

[16]
General Summary for the Empire of the Results of the Examination of the First General Population Census , January 28 ,
1897 . Published by the Central Statistical Committee, Vol. II,
Table XXI, p. 296. I have arranged the groups of occupations as follows:
a) 1, 2 and 4; b) 3 and 5-12; c) 14 and 15; d) 16 and 63-65; e) 46-62;
f) 41-45; g) 13; h) 17-21; i) 22-40.— Lenin

[17]
These number not less than 22 million. See further on.— Lenin

[18]
Wide World .— Ed .

[19]
This is not the place to go into details concerning the statistics on
workers and servants used by Mr. Lositsky. These statistics evidently err
in very considerably understating the number of workers.— Lenin

| | IV. The Development of the Mining Industry | | | VI. Steam-Engine Statistics | |

# Steam-Engine Statistics.

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8vi.htm

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

### VI. Steam-Engine Statistics

The employment of steam-engines in production is one of the most
characteristic features of large-scale machine industry. It will be
interesting therefore to examine the data available on this subject. For
the years 1875-1878 the number of steam-engines is supplied by
Material for the Statistics of Steam-Engines in the Russian Empire (St. Petersburg, 1882. Published by the Central Statistical

Committee). [1]

For 1892 we have the figures of Collection of Data on Factory Industry , which cover all factory
and mining trades.

Here are these data compared:

In 16 years the total h.p. capacity of steam-engines in Russia increased
threefold and in European Russia 2 1/2 times . The number
of steam-engines increased to a lesser degree, so that the average
capacity per steam-engine rose considerably: in European Russia from 18
h.p. to 24 h.p., and in the Kingdom of Poland from 18 h.p. to 41
h.p. Large scale machine industry, consequently, developed very rapidly
during this period. As regards steam-power capacity, the following
gubernias, in 1875-1878, were in the lead: St. Petersburg (17,808 h.p.),
Moscow (13,668), Kiev (8,363), Perm (7,348) and Vladimir (5,684)—the
total for these five gubernias being 52,871 h.p. or about 3/5 of the total
for European Russia. Then follow the Podolsk (5,480), Petrokov (5,071) and
Warsaw (4,760) gubernias. In 1892 the order changed: Petrokov (59,063),
St. Petersburg (43,961), Ekaterinoslav (27,839), Moscow (24,704), Vladimir
(15,857) and Kiev (14,211)—the total for the last five gubernias
being 126,572 h.p., or nearly 1/2 the total for European Russia. Then
follow the gubernias of Warsaw (11,310) and Perm (11,245). These figures
clearly indicate the formation of two new industrial centres: in Poland
and in the South. In Petrokov Gubernia, the total capacity increased
11.6-fold, and in the Ekaterinoslav and Don gubernias taken together, [2] from
2,834 to 30,932 h.p. or 10.9-fold. These industrial centres, which have
grown so rapidly, have moved up from the bottom to the top places and have supplanted the
old industrial centres. Let us observe that these data, too, reveal the
particularly rapid growth of the industries producing articles of
productive consumption, namely, the mining and metallurgical
industries. In 1875-78 these industries employed 1,040 steam-engines with
a total of 22,966 h.p. (in European Russia) and in 1890 1,960 steam
engines with a total of 74,204 h.p., i.e., an increase in 14 years that
exceeds the increase in the total number of steam-engines in industry as a
whole in 16 years. The industries producing means of production constitute
an ever-growing part of industry as a whole. [3]

---
Notes:
[1]
Of the 13 groups of trades we omit, for purposes of comparison with 1892,
the following groups: I (agriculture), XII (printing and lithography) and
XIII (“plumbing,” etc.). Locomobiles are counted with steam-engines.— Lenin

[2]
We combine these gubernias because their boundaries have changed since
1878.— Lenin

[3]
The progress made in the employment of steam-engines in Russia since 1892
may be seen from the fact that in 1904, according to the factory
inspectors’ reports, there were in 64 gubernias 27,579 factory
steam-boilers; the total, not including those employed in agriculture, was
31,887. ( Note to 2nd edition.—Ed .)— Lenin

| | V. Is the Number of Workers in Large Capitalist Enterprises Growing? | | | VII. The Growth of Large Factories | |

# The Growth of Large Factories

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8vii.htm

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

### VII. The Growth of Large Factories

The unsatisfactory nature of our factory statistics, as demonstrated
above, has compelled us to resort to more complex calculations in order to
determine the development of large-scale machine industry in Russia since
the Reform. We have selected data for 1866, 1879, 1890 and 1894-95 on the
largest factories, namely, those with 100 and more workers per establishment. [1]

Outside workers are strictly separated only in the data of the
List for 1894-95; hence, the data for previous years (particularly 1866 and 1879) may still
be somewhat exaggerated, notwithstanding the corrections referred to in
the footnote.

We give the returns on these largest factories (p. 510).

Let us commence our analysis of this table with the data for the years
1866, 1879 and 1890. The total number of large factories changed during
these years as follows: 644, 852, 951, or in percentages: 100, 132,
147. In the course of 24 years the number of large factories increased,
consequently, by nearly fifty per cent. Moreover, if we take the data for
the different categories of large factories, we shall see that the larger
the factories, the faster their number grows (A: 512, 641, 712 factories;
B: 90, 130, 140; C: 42, 81, 99). This indicates a growing concentration of
production.

The number of mechanised establishments grows more rapidly than the total
number of factories; in percentages as follows: 100, 178, 226. An
increasing number of large factories introduce steam-engines. The larger
the factories, the greater the number of mechanised establishments among
them; if we calculate the percentage of these establishments to the total
number of factories in the given category, we obtain the following: A)
39%, 53%, 63%; B) 75%, 91%, 100%; C) 83%, 94%, 100%. The employment of
steam-engines is closely bound up with the expansion of the volume of
output, with the expansion of co-operation in production.

The number of workers in all large factories changed in percentages as
follows: 100, 168, 200. During the 24 years the number of workers doubled,
i.e., exceeded the increase in the total number of “factory
workers.” The average number of workers per large factory was by
years: 359, 458, 488, and by categories: A) 213, 221, 220; B) 665, 706,
673; C) 1,495, 1,935, 2,154. An increasing number of workers are thus
being concentrated in the largest factories. In 1866, factories with 1,000
workers and over employed 27% of the total number of workers in large
factories; in 1879, 40%; in 1890, 46%.

The change in the output of all large factories expressed in percentages
will be: 100, 243, 292; and by categories: A) 100, 201, 187; B) 100, 245,
308; C) 100, 323, 479. Hence, the volume of output of all large factories
increased almost threefold, and the larger the factory, the more rapid the increase. But if we compare the productivity of labour for each separate
year according to the different categories, we shall get a somewhat
different picture. The average output per worker in all large factories
will be: 866 rubles, 1,250, 1,260; and by categories: A) 901, 1,410,
1,191; B) 800, 1,282, 1,574; C) 841, 1,082, 1,188. Thus, for each separate
year we observe no increase in output (per worker) as we pass from the
bottom category to the top. This is because the various categories
include, in unequal proportions, factories in industries using raw
materials of different value and obtaining, therefore, an annual output
per worker of different value. [2]

We do not think it worth while to examine in equal detail the data for the
years 1879-1890 and for the years 1879-1890-1894-1895, since this would
mean repeating all that has been said above for somewhat different
percentages.

Latterly, the Collection of Factory Inspectors’ Reports has
supplied data on the distribution of factories and works into groups
according to the number of workers employed. Here are the data for 1903:

A comparison of these with the afore-cited data will involve a certain
inaccuracy, a slight one, it is true. At all events, they show that the
number of large factories (those with over 99 or over 100 workers) and the
number of workers employed in them are rapidly increasing. The
concentration of workers and, consequently, of production, also increases
in the largest of these large factories.

Comparing the data on the large factories with those on all
“factories and works” given in our of official statistics, we see that in 1879 the large factories, constituting 4.4% of all
“factories and works” concentrated 66.8% of the total number
of factory workers and 54.8% of the total output. In 1890 they constituted
6.7% of the total number of “factories and works,” and concentrated 71.1% of all factory workers and 57.2% of the total
output. In 1894-95 they constituted 10.1% of all “factories and
works,” and concentrated 74% of all factory workers and 70.8% of the
total output. In 1903, the large factories in European Russia, those with
over 100 workers, constituted 17% of the total number of factories and
works and concentrated 76.6% of the total number of factory workers. [3]

Thus, the large, mostly steam-powered, factories, despite their small numbers,
concentrate an overwhelming and ever-growing proportion of the workers and
output of all “factories and works.” The tremendous rapidity
with which these large factories have been growing in the post-Reform
period has already been noted. Let us now cite data on the equally large
enterprises in the mining industry. [4]

In the mining industry the concentration of workers in large enterprises
is still greater (although the percentage of enterprises employing
steam-engines is smaller); 258,000 workers out of 305,000, i.e., 84.5%,
are concentrated in enterprises with 100 and more workers; almost half of
the mine workers (145,000 out of 305,000) are employed in a few very large
establishments each employing 1,000 and more workers. And of the total
number of factory and mining workers in European Russia (1,180,000 in
1890), three-fourths (74.6%) are concentrated in enterprises
employing 100 workers and over; nearly half (570,000 out of 1,180,000) are
concentrated in enterprises each employing 500 and more workers. [5]

We think it worth while to deal here with the question raised by
Mr. N.–on concerning a “slowing down” of the development of
capitalism and of the growth of the “factory population” in
the period of 1880-1890, as compared with that of

1865-1880. [6]

From this remarkable discovery Mr. N.–on contrived, thanks to the original
logic that distinguishes him, to draw the conclusion that “the facts
fully confirm” the assertion made in Sketches that “capitalism, after reaching certain limits of its development,
effects a shrinkage of its own home market.”—Firstly, it is
absurd to argue that a “slowing down in the rate of increase”
indicates a shrinkage of the home market. If the number of factory workers is
growing faster than the population (and this is precisely the case
according to Mr. N.–on’s own data; an increase between 1880 and
1890 of 25%), this shows that the population is being diverted from
agriculture and that the home market is growing even for articles of
personal consumption. (We say nothing of the market for means of
production.) Secondly, a “decline in the growth,” expressed in
percentages always has to take place in a capitalist country at a certain
stage of development, for small magnitudes always grow faster, in
percentages, than big ones. The only deduction one can draw from the fact
that the initial steps in the development of capitalism are particularly
rapid is that the young country is striving to overtake the older ones. It
is wrong, however, to take the percentage increase in the initial period
as a standard for subsequent periods. Thirdly, the fact itself of a “decline in the growth” is not proved at all by comparing the periods taken by Mr. N.–on . The development of capitalist industry
cannot proceed except in cycles; therefore, to compare different periods,
one must take data for a whole number of years, [7] so that the
particularly prosperous, boom years and the slump years may stand out
distinctly. Mr. N.–on did not do this and slipped into profound error,
for he overlooked the fact that the year 1880 was a high boom
year. Moreover, Mr. N.–on did not even hesitate to “concoct”
the opposite assertion. “We must also note,” he argues,
“that the intervening year (between 1865 and 1890) of 1880 was a
year of crop failure, so that the number of workers registered in that
year was below the normal”!! ( ibid ., pp. 103-104). Mr. N.–on had only to glance at the text of the very
publication from which he plucked the figures for 1880 ( Directory , 3rd edition), to read there that 1880 was marked by a
“spurt” in industry, particularly in leather and machine
building (p. IV), and that this was due to the enhanced demand for goods
after the war and to increased government orders. It is sufficient to look
through the

Directory for 1879 to get a clear idea of the extent of this spurt. [8]

But
Mr. N.–on does not hesitate completely to distort the facts to suit his
romantic theory.

---
Notes:
[1]
Sources: The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , I (data only for 71
trades)- Directories , first and third editions—data for all
trades, as well as those in the List ; but for a comparison of
the data in the List and in the Directory , the manufacture of rails must be omitted from the trades given in the latter
establishments for which home workers were included among the factory
workers are omitted. In some cases the inclusion of home workers is
specifically indicated in footnotes in the publications mentioned; in
others the fact emerges from a comparison of the data for different years:
cf., for instance, the data on cotton weaving in Saratov Gubernia for
1879, 1890, and 1894-95. (Cf. Chapter VI, § II, 1.)—Sinzheimer
( Ueber die Grenzen der Weiterbildung des fabrikm\"assigen Grossbetriebes in Deutschland , Stuttgart, 1893) [ On the Limits of Extension of Large-Scale Factory Production in Germany , Stuttgart,
1893. – Ed .] classifies under large factories enterprises with 50
and more workers. We do not think this standard low, but owing to the
difficulties involved in calculating Russian data, we have had to limit
ourselves to the largest factories.— Lenin

[2]
Thus, in 1866, category A included 17 sugar-refineries, where the average
annual output per worker was about 6,000 rubles, whereas in the textile
factories (included in the top categories) the average annual output per
worker ranged from 500 to 1,500 rubles.— Lenin

[3]
The total figures for our factory industry as given by the
Directory and the List were quoted above, in § II
[Cf. Studies , p. 276 (See present edition, Vol. 4 “On the
Question of Our Factory Statistics.” – Ed .)]. We would
point out that the rise in the percentage of large factories in the total
number of “factories and works” indicates above all that this
latter term is gradually acquiring a more restricted meaning in our
statistics.— Lenin

[4]
These data have been compiled from Statistical Returns for the Mining and Metallurgical Industries . In 1890, enterprises
enumerated in the Directory having been excluded. By this
exclusion, the total number of mining workers in European Russia is
reduced by 35,000 (340,000-35,000 = 305,000).— Lenin

[5]
The industrial census for 1895 for the whole of German industry,
including mine development, which is not registered in Russia, recorded a
total of 248 establishments with 1,000 and more workers; the aggregate
number of workers in these establishments was 430,286. Hence, the largest
factories in Russia are larger than those in Germany.— Lenin

[6]
Russkoye Bogatstvo , 1894, No. 6, p. 101 and foll. The data for
large factories which we have given above also indicate a lower percentage
of growth in 1879-1890 as compared with 1866-1879.— Lenin

[7]
As Mr. Tugan-Baranovsky, for example, did in his Factory , p. 307
and chart. The chart clearly shows that 1879, and especially 1880 and
1881, were years of particular boom.— Lenin

[8]
See, for instance, felt cloth production— increased output of army
cloth; tanning—enormous activity, leather goods— a large
factory produces goods to the amount of 2.5 million rubles “for the
War Department” (p. 288). The Izhevsk and the Sestroretsk works turn
out artillery supplies to the value of 7 1/2 million rubles, as against 1
1/4 million rubles in 1890. In copper-working one notes the production of
supplies for the troops and of military instruments pp. 388-389);
explosive factories work at full capacity, etc.— Lenin

[9]
154: Lenin supplemented this table later with the corresponding figures
for 1908 (see illustration on p. 513). The data entered by Lenin were
taken from Collection of Factory Inspectors’ Reports for 1908 (no. 50-51), published in 1910. Consequently. Lenin’s
entries were made either in 1910 or in 1911. [p. 512]

| | VI. Steam-Engine Statistics | | | VIII. The Distribution of Large-Scale Industry | |

# The Distribution of Large-Scale Industry

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8viii.htm

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

### VIII. The Distribution of Large-Scale Industry

Besides the concentration of production in very large establishments, the
concentration of production in separate factory industrial centres and the
different types of factory centres are also important in characterising
large-scale machine industry. Unfortunately, our factory statistics not
only supply unsatisfactory and incomparable material, but arrange it in a
far from adequate manner. For example, in contemporary publications the
distribution of industry is shown only by gubernias (and not by towns and
uyezds as was done in the best publications of the 60s, which, in
addition, illustrated the distribution of factory industry with maps). But
in order to present an accurate picture of the distribution of large-scale
industry, the data must be taken for separate centres, i.e., for separate
towns, industrial settlements, or groups of industrial settlements
situated close together; gubernias or uyezds are too big as territorial units. [1]

In view of this, we thought it advisable to compute from the Directory for 1879 and 1890 data on
the concentration of our factory industry in the most important
centres. The table given in the appendix (Appendix III) contains data for
103 factory centres in European Russia, centres in which about half the
total number of factory workers are concentrated. [2]

The table shows three main types of factory centres in Russia. 1) The
towns. These take first place, being distinguished for the greatest
concentration of both workers and establishments. Particularly outstanding
in this respect are the large towns. In each of the metropolitan cities
(including the suburbs) about 70,000 factory workers are concentrated;
Riga has 16,000, Ivanovo-Voznesensk 15,000 and Bogorodsk had 10,000 in
1890; the other towns have fewer than 10,000 each. It is sufficient to
take a cursory glance at the official figures on factory workers in
several large cities (Odessa—8,600 in 1890, Kiev—6,000, Rostov
on-Don—5,700, etc.) to be convinced that these figures are
ridiculously low. The instance of St. Petersburg given above shows how
many times these figures would have to be multiplied for the correct
number of industrial workers in these centres to be obtained. In addition
to the towns, the suburbs must also be indicated. The suburbs of large
towns are very often big industrial centres, but from the data we possess
we have been able to separate only one such centre, the suburbs of
St. Petersburg, where in 1890 the number of workers was 18,900. Several of
the settlements in the Moscow Uyezd included in our table are also
actually suburbs. [3]

The second type of centre is the factory villages, which are particularly
numerous in the Moscow, Vladimir and Kostroma gubernias (of the 63 most
important rural centres included in our table, 42 are in these
gubernias). These centres are headed by the township of Orekhovo-Zuyevo
(in the table, Orekhovo and Zuyevo are given separately, but they are
actually one centre); as to the number of workers, it comes second only to
the capitals (26,800 in

1890). [4]

In the three gubernias indicated, as also in the Yaroslavl and Tver gubernias,
the majority of the rural factory centres are formed by huge textile mills
(cotton-spinning and weaving, linen, wool-weaving, etc.). Formerly, there
were almost always work-distributing offices in such villages, i.e.,
centres of capitalist manufacture, which held sway over masses of
neighbouring hand weavers. In those cases where the statistics do not
confuse home workers with factory workers, the data on the development of
such centres clearly reveal the growth of large-scale machine industry
which attracts thousands of peasants from the surrounding areas and
transforms them into factory workers. Further, a considerable number of
rural factory centres are formed by large mining and metallurgical plants
(Kolomna Works in the village of Bobrovo, Yuzovka Works, Bryansk Works,
and others); the majority of these are classified under mining, and for
that reason were not included in our table. The beet sugar refineries
situated in the villages and townships of the south-western gubernias also
form quite a number of village factory centres; for our example we have
taken one of the largest, the township of Smela, in Kiev Gubernia.

The third type of factory centre is the “handicraft” villages,
the largest establishments in which are often classified as
“factories and works.” In our table, the villages of Pavlovo,
Vorsma, Bogorodskoye and Dubovka serve as examples of such centres. A
comparison between the number of factory workers in such centres and the
total of their industrial population was made above in the case of
Bogorodskoye village.

If we group the centres given in our table according to number of workers
in each centre and according to the type of centre (town or village), we
get the following data (see next page).

The table shows that in 1879 there were 356,000 workers (out of a total of
752,000) concentrated in these 103 centres, while in 1890 there were
451,000 (out of 876,000). Accordingly, the number of workers increased by
26.8%, whereas in the large factories in general (of 100 and more workers)
the increase was only 22.2%, while the total number of workers increased
over this period by only 16.5%. Thus the workers are being concentrated in
the largest centres. In 1879, only 11 centres had over 5,000 workers; in
1890 there were 21. Particularly striking is the increase in the number of
centres with from 5,000 to 10,000 workers. This occurred for two reasons:
1) because of the exceptional growth of factory industry in the South
(Odessa, Rostov-on-Don, etc.); and 2) because of the growth of the factory
villages in the central gubernias.

A comparison between the urban and the rural centres shows that in 1890
the latter embraced about one-third of the total number of
workers in the leading centres (152,000 out of 451,000). For the whole of
Russia this proportion should be higher, i.e., more than one-third of the
factory workers must be outside of the towns. Indeed, all the outstanding
urban centres are included in our table, whereas rural centres with
several hundred workers each, apart from those we have mentioned, exist in
exceedingly large numbers (settlements with glass-works, brickworks,
distilleries, beet-sugar refineries, etc.). Mining workers are also to be
found mainly outside of towns. One may consider, therefore, that of the
total number of factory and mining workers in European Russia not less
(and maybe more) than half are to be found outside of towns. This conclusion is very important, for it shows
that the industrial population in Russia greatly exceeds the
urban

population. [5]

If we now turn to the pace at which factory industry develops in urban and
in rural centres, we see that it is undoubtedly faster in the latter. The
number of urban centres with 1,000 workers and over in the period taken
grew very slightly (from 32 to 33), while the number of rural centres in
this category grew very considerably (from 38 to 53). The number of
workers in the 40 urban centres grew by only 16.1 % (from 257,000 to
299,000), while in the 63 rural centres it grew by 54.7% (from 98,500 to
152,500). The average number of workers per urban centre rose only from
6,400 to 7,500, whereas the average number per rural centre rose from
1,500 to 2,400. Thus, factory industry evidently tends to spread with
particular rapidity outside the towns, to create new factory centres and
to push them forward faster than the urban centres, and to penetrate deep
into remote rural areas that would seem to be isolated from the world of
big capitalist enterprises. This supremely important circumstance shows
us, firstly, the rapidity with which large-scale machine industry
transforms social and economic relationships. What formerly took ages to
take shape now springs up in a decade or so. We have only to compare, for
instance, the formation of such non-agricultural centres as the
“handicraft villages” indicated in the previous chapter—Bogorodskoye, Pavlovo, Kimry, Khoteichi, Velikoye and
others—with the process of the establishment of new centres by the
modern factory, which at once draws the rural population by the thousands
into industrial settlements. [6]

Social division of labour receives a tremendous impetus. Mobility of the population replaces the
former immobility and isolation as a necessary condition of economic
life. Secondly, the transfer of factories into the rural districts shows
that capitalism is surmounting the obstacles which the social-estate
seclusion of the peasant community creates for it, and is even deriving
benefit from this seclusion. While the erection of factories in the
countryside involves quite a few inconveniences, it does, however,
guarantee a supply of cheap labour. The muzhik is not allowed to go to the
factory, so the factory goes to the muzhik. [7]

The muzhik lacks complete freedom (thanks to the collective-responsibility system and
the obstacles to his leaving the community) to seek the employer who gives
the greatest advantage; but the employer has a perfect way of seeking out
the cheapest worker. Thirdly, the large number of rural factory centres
and their rapid growth proves groundless the opinion that the Russian
factory is isolated from the mass of the peasantry, that it exercises
little influence over them. The specific character of the distribution of our factory industry shows, on the contrary, that
its influence is very widespread, and that it is far from being confined
to the walls of the factory. [8]

On the other hand, however, this specific character of the distribution of our
factory industry cannot but result in a temporary retardation of the
transforming influence of large-scale machine industry on the population
it employs. By converting the backwoodsman-muzhik into a factory worker
at one stroke , the factory may for a time ensure for itself a
supply of the cheapest, least developed and least exacting
“hands.” It is obvious, however, that such retardation cannot
go on for long, and that it is purchased at the price of a still greater
expansion of the area subjected to the influence of large-scale machine
industry.

---
Notes:
[1]
“. . . In the uyezds (of Moscow Gubernia) the factories and works
are far from evenly distributed: in highly industrialised uyezds side by
side with localities which, because of the more or less considerable
concentration there of factory establishments, can be called real factory
centres, one comes across entire volosts almost wholly devoid of factory
industry; and, on the contrary, in uyezds generally poor in factories and
works, there are districts with a more or less considerable development of
one industry or another; side by side with handicraft cottages and
workrooms larger establishments have arisen possessing all the attributes
of large-scale production.” ( Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Section of sanitation Statistics, vol. IV, Sec.1, Moscow,
1890, p. 141.) This publication, the best in contemporary factory
statistical literature, illustrates the distribution of large-scale
industry with the aid of a detailed map. The only thing lacking for a
complete picture of the distribution of factory industry is a
classification of centres according to the number of factories, workers
and total output.— Lenin

[2]
The table includes only establishments with a minimum output of 2,000
rubles, and of the flour-mills only the steam-powered ones. Outside
workers are excluded wherever it has been stated that they are included
among factory workers; such exclusions are indicated by an asterisk
(*). The industrial boom of 1879 could not but affect these data, too.— Lenin

[3]
“. . . The large village of Cherkizovo in the vicinity of Moscow is,
according to the local inhabitants, one large factory, and is a
continuation of Moscow in the literal sense of the word. . . . Nearby,
beyond the Semyonovskaya Tollgate . . . again a large number of diverse
factories are clustered. . . . At no great distance from here we see the
village of Izmailovo, with its weaving sheds, and the enormous Izmailovo
Textile Mill.” That is to the north of Moscow. To the south,
“beyond the Serpukhov Tollgate, what we meet first is the immense
Danilov Textile Mill, in itself a whole township. . . . Further on, at no
great distance from each other, are a whole ring of large brick
works,” etc. ( Statistical Returns , IV, Sec. I, pp. 143-144). Thus, the concentration of factory industry is actually more
considerable than we were able to indicate in our table.— Lenin

[4]
In 1879, only 10,900 were recorded here. Evidently, different methods of
registration were employed.— Lenin

[5]
The population census of January 28, 1897, fully confirmed this
conclusion. The urban population throughout the Empire was given as
16,828,395 persons of both sexes. The commercial and industrial
population, as we showed above, is 21.7 millions. ( Note to 2nd edition.—Ed .)— Lenin

[6]
“In the township of Krivoi Rog the population grew between 1887 and
1896 from 6,000 to 17,000, at the Kamenka Works of the Dnieper
Company—from 2,000 to 18,000; near Druzhkovka station, where as late
as 1892 there was nothing but station buildings, there is now a settlement
of 6,000 people; at the Gdantsevka Works there are nearly 3,500 people;
near Konstantinovka station, where a number of works have been erected, a
new settlement is being formed; Yuzovka is now a town with a population of
29,000. . . . On the sandy wasteland at Nizhne-Dnieprovsk, near
Ekaterinoslav, where a number of factories are now situated, a new
settlement has sprung up with a population of 6,000. The works at Mariupol
has attracted a new population of 10,000, etc. Populated centres are
springing up around the coal mines” ( Vestnik Finansov ,
1897, No. 50). According to the Russkiye Vedomosti (November 21,
1897, No. 322), the Bakhmut Uyezd Zemstvo Assembly has filed an
application for the status of townships to be granted to commercial
settlements with a population of 1,000 and the status of towns to those
with a population of 5,000. . . . “There is to be observed here
. . . an unparalleled growth of commercial and factory settlements. . . . Altogether, there are by now as many as thirty
settlements, which have been springing up and growing at a truly American
pace. . . . In Volyntsevo, where a huge metallurgical works with 2 blast
furnaces, a foundry and a rolling mill is nearing completion and will be
started in the beginning of November, there is a population of from 5,000
to 6,000, which has settled on what only recently was almost uninhabited
steppe. With the influx of a factory population we also observe an influx
of traders, handicraftsmen and small industrialists in general, who
anticipate an easy and rapid sale to the working population of all kinds
of goods.”— Lenin

[7]
“The factory seeks cheap weavers, and finds them in their native
villages. . . . The factory must follow the weaver. . . .”
( Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III, 63.)— Lenin

[8]
Let us recall the fact cited above (Chapter III, § IV, p. 208, footnote)
of the influence exerted by the mining industry in Bakhmut Uyezd,
Ekaterinoslav Gubernia, on the local agricultural system.—Characteristic also are the common complaints of landowners
about the factories “spoiling” the population.— Lenin

| | VII. The Growth of Large Factories | | | IX. The Development of the Lumber and Building Industries | |

# The Development of the Lumber and Building Industries

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8ix.htm

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

### IX. The Development of the Lumber and Building Industries

One of the necessary conditions for the growth of large-scale machine
industry (and a highly characteristic concomitant of its advance) is the
development of the industry for the supply of fuel and building materials,
as well as of the building industry. Let us begin with the lumber
industry.

The felling and preliminary dressing of trees for their own needs has been
an occupation of the peasantry from time immemorial, one that nearly
everywhere forms part of the tiller’s round of work. By the lumber
industry, however, we mean exclusively the preparation of lumber for sale . Characteristic of the post-Reform period is a particularly
rapid growth of this industry, the demand for timber having grown rapidly
both for personal consumption (the growth of towns, the increase of the
non-agricultural population in the villages, and the loss of woodland by
the peasants upon their emancipation) and, particularly, for productive consumption. The development of commerce, industry, urban life,
military requirements, railroads, etc., etc., has led to an enormous
increase in the demand for timber to be used, not by human beings, but by
capital. In the industrial gubernias, for instance, the price of wood fuel
has risen “by leaps and bounds”: “in the last five years
(up to 1881) the price of wood fuel has more than doubled”. [1] “The price of timber has begun to rise enormously.” [2]

In Kostroma Gubernia “with the huge consumption of wood fuel by the
factories the price has doubled in the past seven years,” [3] etc. Timber exports rose from 5,947,000 rubles in 1856 to 30,153,000
rubles in 1881 and 39,200,000 rubles in 1894, i.e., in the ratio

100 : 507 : 659. [4]

The amount of building timber and wood fuel transported along 1he inland waterways of
European Russia in 1866-1868 averaged 156 million poods per year [5] and in
1888-1890, 701 million poods per year, [6] i.e., there was a more than fourfold increase. The amount transported by railway in
1888-1890 averaged 290 million poods, [7] whereas in
1866-1868 it was probably no more than 70 million poods. [8]

That is to say, total timber freights in the 60s amounted to about 226 million poods,
and in 1888-1890 to 991 million poods—a more than fourfold
increase. The vast growth of the lumber industry in precisely the post
Reform period is thus beyond doubt.

How is this industry organised? On purely capitalist lines. Forestland is
bought from landowners by entrepreneurs—“lumber industrialists,” who hire workers to fell and saw the timber, to
float it, etc. In Moscow Gubernia, for example, the Zemstvo statisticians listed only 337 lumber
industrialists out of 24,000 peasants engaged in lumber industries. [9]

In
Slobodskoi Uyezd, Vyatka Gubernia, 123 lumber industrialists were listed
(“the small ones are mostly subcontractors of the big ones,”
of whom there were only 10), while the number of workers engaged in
lumbering was 18,865, with average earnings of 19 1/2 rubles per worker. [10]

Mr. S. Korolenko calculated that in the whole of European Russia as many
as 2 million peasants were engaged in lumbering, [11] and
this figure is hardly an exaggeration if, for instance, in 9 uyezds of
Vyatka Gubernia (out of 11) about 56,430 lumber workers were listed, and
in the whole of Kostroma Gubernia, about

47,000. [12]

Lumbering is one of the worst paid occupations; the sanitary conditions
are atrocious, and the workers’ health is severely affected. Left to
toil in the remote forest depths, these workers are in a totally
defenceless position, and in this branch of industry bondage, the truck
system, and such-like concomitants of the “patriarchal”
peasant industries prevail. In confirmation of this description, let us
quote some opinions of local investigators. Moscow statisticians mention
the “compulsory purchase of provisions,” which usually reduces
to a marked degree the lumber workers’ earnings. The Kostroma
lumbermen “live in teams in the forests, in hastily and badly
erected shanties, where there are no stoves, and which are heated by open
hearths. Bad food, consisting of bad soup and of bread which is like stone
by the end of the week, fetid air . . . constantly damp clothes . . . all
this is bound to have a disastrous effect upon the health of the lumber
industrialists.” The people live in “much dirtier” conditions in the “lumber” volosts than in the industrial
volosts (i.e., the volosts in which outside employment predominates). [13]

Regarding Tikhvin Uyezd, Novgorod Gubernia, we read: “Agriculture
. . . constitutes an auxiliary source of income, although in all official
statistics you will find that the people engage in farming. . . . All that
the peasant gets to meet his essential needs is earned in felling and
floating lumber for the lumber industrialists. But a crisis will set in
soon: in some five or ten years, no forests will be left. . . .”
“The men who work in the lumber camps are more like boatmen [28] ; they
spend the winter in the forest-encircled lumber camps . . . and in the
spring, having lost the habit of working at home, are drawn to the work of
lumber floating; harvesting and haymaking alone make them return to their
homes. . . .” The peasants are in “perpetual bondage” to
the lumber industrialists. [14]

Vyatka investigators note that the hiring season for lumbering is usually
arranged to coincide with tax-paying time, and that the purchase of
provisions from the employer greatly reduces earnings. . . . “Both
the tree fellers and the wood-choppers receive about 17 kopeks per summer
day, and about 33 kopeks per day when they work with their own
horses. . . . This paltry pay is an inadequate remuneration for labour, if
we bear in mind the extremely insanitary conditions under which it is done,” [15] etc., etc.

Thus, the lumber workers constitute one of the big sections of the rural
proletariat; they have tiny plots of land and are compelled to sell their
labour-power on the most disadvantageous terms. The occupation is
extremely irregular and casual. The lumbermen, therefore, represent that
form of the reserve army (or relative surplus-population in capitalist society) which theory describes as latent [16] ; a certain (and, as we have seen, quite large)
section of the rural population must always be ready to undertake such
work, must always be in need of it. That is a condition for the existence
and development of capitalism. To the extent that the forests are
destroyed by the rapacious methods of the lumber industrialists (which
proceeds with tremendous rapidity), an ever-growing need is felt for
replacing wood by coal, and the coal industry, which alone is capable of
serving as a firm basis for large-scale machine industry, develops at an
ever faster rate. Cheap fuel, obtainable at any time and in any quantity,
at a definite and little fluctuating price—such is the demand of the
modern factory. The lumber industry is not in a position to meet this demand. [17]

That is why its predominance over the coal industry as a source of fuel supply
corresponds to a low level of capitalist development. As for the social
relations of production, in this respect the lumber industry is to the
coal industry approximately what capitalist manufacture is to large-scale
machine industry. The lumber industry means a technique of the most
elementary kind, the exploitation of natural resources by primitive
methods; the coal industry leads to a complete technical revolution and to
the extensive use of machinery. The lumber industry leaves the producer a
peasant; the coal industry transforms him into a factory hand. The lumber
industry leaves all the old, patriarchal way of life practically intact,
enmeshing in the worst forms of bondage the workers left to toil in the
remote forest depths and taking advantage of their ignorance,
defencelessness and isolation. The coal industry creates mobility of the
population, establishes large industrial centres and inevitably leads to
the introduction of public control over production. In a word, the change-over described is of the same
progressive significance as the replacement of the manufactory by the factory. [18]

Building was originally also part of the peasant’s round of domestic
occupations, and it continues to be so to this day wherever semi-natural
peasant economy is preserved. Subsequent development leads to the building
workers’ turning into specialist artisans , who work to
customers’ orders. In the villages and small towns the building
industry is largely organised on these lines even today; the artisan
usually maintains his connection with the land and works for a very narrow
circle of small clients. With the development of capitalism, the retention
of this system of industry becomes impossible. The growth of trade,
factories, towns and railways creates a demand for types of buildings that
are architecturally and dimensionally different from the old buildings of
the patriarchal epoch. The new buildings require very diverse and costly
materials, the co-operation of masses of workers of the most varied
specialities and a considerable length of time for their completion; the
distribution of these new buildings does not correspond at all to the
traditional distribution of the population; they are erected in large
towns or suburbs, in uninhabited places, along railways in process of
construction, etc. The local artisan turns into a migratory worker and is
hired by an entrepreneur contractor , who gradually thrusts
himself in between the consumer and the producer and becomes a real capitalist. The spasmodic
development of capitalist economy, the alternation of prolonged periods of
bad business with periods of “building booms” (like the one we
are experiencing now, in 1898) tremendously accelerate the expansion and
deepening of capitalist relationships in the building industry.

Such, according to the material of Russian economic literature, has been
the post-Reform evolution of the industry under review. [19]

This evolution finds particularly striking expression in the territorial
division of labour, in the formation of large areas in which the working
population specialises in some particular branch of building. [20]

This specialisation of areas presupposes the formation of large markets for
building work and, in this connection, the rise of capitalist
relationships. To illustrate this point let us quote data for one such
area. Pokrov Uyezd, Vladimir Gubernia, has long been celebrated for its
carpenters, who already at the beginning of the century constituted more
than half the total population. After the Reform carpentry continued to spread. [21]

In
“the carpenters’ area the contractors are an element analogous
to the subcontractors and factory owners”; they are usually drawn
from among the most enterprising members of carpenters’
artels. “Cases are not rare of contractors in ten years accumulating
from 50,000 to 60,000 rubles and more of clear profit. Some of the
contractors employ from

300 to 500 carpenters and have become real capitalists. . . . It is not
surprising that the local peasants say that ‘ nothing pays so well as trading in carpenters .’” [22]

It would be hard to give a more striking characterisation of the quintessence of the present organisation of the
industry! “Carpentry has left a deep impress upon the whole of
peasant life in this locality. . . . The peasant carpenter devotes less
and less time to agriculture, and eventually gives it up
altogether.” Life in the cities has laid the impress of culture on
the carpenter: he lives a much cleaner life than do the surrounding
peasants, and is conspicuous for his “cultured appearance,”
for “his relatively high mental development.” [23]

The total number of building workers in European Russia must be very
considerable, judging from the fragmentary data available. In Kaluga
Gubernia the number of building workers in 1896 was estimated at 39,860,
both local and migratory. In Yaroslavl Gubernia there were in
1894-95—according to official data—20,170 migratory. In
Kostroma Gubernia there were about 39,500 migratory. In 9 uyezds of Vyatka
Gubernia (out of 11), there were about 30,500 migratory (in the 80s). In 4
uyezds in Tyer Gubernia (out of 12), there were 15,585, both local and
migratory. In Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, there were 2,221,
both local and migratory. The number of carpenters alone who left Ryazan
Gubernia every year to work in other districts was, according to official
figures for 1875 and 1876, not less than 20,000. In Orel Uyezd, Orel
Gubernia, there are 2,000 building workers. In 3 uyezds of Poltava Gubernia (out of 15), there are
1,440. In Nikolayevsk Uyezd, Samara Gubernia, there are

1,339. [24]

Judging by these figures, the number of building workers in European Russia must
be not less than one million . [25]

This figure must rather be considered a minimum, for all the sources show
that the number of building workers has grown rapidly in the post-Reform period. [26]

The building workers are industrial proletarians in the making, whose
connection with the land—already very slight today [27]

—is

becoming slighter every year. The conditions of building workers are very
different from those of lumber workers and are more like those of factory
workers. They work in large urban and industrial centres, which, as we
have seen, considerably raise their cultural standards. While the
declining lumber industry typifies weakly developed forms of a capitalism
that still tolerates the patriarchal way of life, the developing building
industry typifies a higher stage of capitalism, leads to the formation of
a new class of industrial workers, and marks a deep-going differentiation
of the old peasantry.

---
Notes:
[1]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , I, 61.— Lenin

[2]
Ibid ., IV, 80.— Lenin

[3]
Zhbankov, The Influence of Industries Employing Migratory Workers on the Movement of the Population , Kostroma, 1887, p. 25.— Lenin

[4]
Productive Forces . Russia’s Foreign Trade, p. 39. Timber
exports in 1902—55.7 million rubles; in 1903—66.3 million
rubles. ( Note to 2nd edition.—Ed )— Lenin

[5]
Military Statistical Abstract , pp. 486-487.— Lenin

[6]
Statistical Survey of Railways and Inland Waterways , St. Petersburg, 1893 (published by Ministry of Communications), p. 40.— Lenin

[7]
Ibid .,
p. 26.— Lenin

[8]
Assuming that it amounted approximately to 1/5, of total railway freights
( Military Statistical Abstract , p. 511; cf. 518-519).— Lenin

[9]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VII, Pt. I,
Sec. 2. Frequently in this country no distinction is made in lumbering
between masters and workers, the latter also being described as lumber
industrialists.— Lenin

[10]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , XI, 397.— Lenin

[11]
Hired Labour. — Lenin

[12]
Calculated from Transactions of the Handicraft Commission .— Lenin

[13]
Loc . cit ., pp. 19-20 and 39. Cf. a quite analogous opinion in Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , XII, 265.— Lenin

[14]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , VIII, pp. 1372-1373,
1474. “Thanks to the requirements of the lumber industry there have
developed in Tikhvin Uyezd the blacksmith, tanning, fur and partly the
boot trades; the first makes boat-hooks, and the others boots, sheepskin
coats and mittens.” Incidentally, we see here an example of how the
making of means of production (i.e., the growth of Department I in
capitalist economy) gives an impetus to the making of articles of
consumption (i.e., Department II). It is not production that follows
consumption, but consumption that follows production.— Lenin

[15]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , XI, pp. 399-400, 405,
147. Cf. the numerous references in the Zemstvo Returns for Trubchevsk
Uyezd, Orel Gubernia, to the fact that “agriculture is of secondary
importance,” and that the principal part is played by industries,
particularly lumbering ( Statistical Returns for Trubchevsk Uyezd ,
Orel, 1887, particularly remarks on villages).— Lenin

[16]
Das Kapital , I 2 , S.

668. [29] — Lenin

[17]
Here is an illustration of this taken from the Report of the Members of the Commission of Inquiry into Factory Industry in the Kingdom of Poland (St. Petersburg, 1888, Pt. I). Coal in Poland costs half the
Moscow price. The average expense of fuel per pood of yarn in Poland is 16
to 37 kopeks, and in the Moscow area—50 to 73 kopeks. In the Moscow
area fuel is stocked for 12 to 20 months, in Poland for not more than 3
months, and in most cases for 1 to 4 weeks.— Lenin

[18]
Mr. N.–on, in dealing with the replacement of the lumber by the coal
industry ( Sketches , 211, 243), confined himself, as usual, to
mere lamentations. Our romanticist tries not to notice the trifling fact
that behind the capitalist coal industry stands the equally capitalist
lumber industry, which is marked by incomparably worse forms of
exploitation. But he dwells at length on the “number of
workers”! What are some 600,000 British miners compared to the
millions of unemployed peasants? —he asks (211). To this we reply:
that capitalism creates a relative surplus-population is beyond doubt, but
Mr. N.–on has absolutely failed to see the connection between this and
the requirements of large-scale machine industry. To compare the number of
peasants engaged in various occupations even casually and irregularly with
the number of specialist miners engaged exclusively in coal extraction, is
absolutely senseless. Mr. N.–on resorts to such devices only in order to
hide the fact of the rapid growth in Russia of both the number of factory
and mine workers, and of the commercial and industrial population in
general, since that mars his theory.— Lenin

[19]
As we have had occasion to state above, it is difficult to establish this
evolution because in our literature building workers in general are often
called “artisans,” wage-workers being quite incorrectly
classified in this category.—Regarding the analogous development of
the organisation of the building industry in the West see, for instance
Webb, Die Geschichte des britischen Trade Unionismus , Stuttgart,
1895,

S. 7. [30] — Lenin

[20]
In Yaroslavl Gubernia, for instance, Danilov Uyezd is particularly famous
for its stove builders, plasterers and bricklayers its different volosts
mainly supplying specialists in one or other of these trades. Quite a
large number of painters come from the Trans-volga part of Yaroslavl
Uyezd; carpenters come from the central part of Mologa Uyezd,
etc. ( Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia , Vol II, Yaroslavl, 1896,
p. 135 and others.)— Lenin

[21]
At the end of the 50s, about 10,000 carpenters used to leave the Argunovo
district (Argunovo Volost is the centre of the industry). In the 60s, out
of 548 villages in the Pokrov Uyezd, 503 were engaged in carpentry
( Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , IV, p. 161, and foll.).— Lenin

[22]
Ibid ., pp. 164-165. Our italics.— Lenin

[23]
Ibid ., 165-166. Similar descriptions may be found in other
sources. See Zhbankov: The Influence of Industries Employing Migratory Workers on the Movement of the Population of Kostroma Gubernia in 1866-1883 , Kostroma, 1887.— Urban Peasant Employments in Soligalich Uyezd, Kostroma Gubernia , in Yuridichesky Vestnik , 1890, No.9.— Women’s Country , Kostroma,
1891.— Essay in Drafting a General Programme for the Investigation of Peasant Outside Employments .— Industries Employing Migratory Workers in Smolensk Gubernia in 1892-1895 ,
Smolensk, 1896.— The Influence of Industries Employing Migratory Workers on the Movement of the Population , in Vrach
( Physician ), 1895, No. 25.—See also above-mentioned
Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia , Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Statistical Survey of Kaluga Gubernia for 1896 ,
Kaluga, 1897; Agricultural Survey of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia for 1896 , Nizhni-Novgorod, 1897, and other Zemstvo statistical
publications.— Lenin

[24]
Sources, apart from those mentioned in the preceding foot note, are
Zemstvo returns. Mr. V. V. ( Essays on Handicraft Industry , 61)
cites data for 13 uyezds in Poltava, Kursk and Tambov gubernias. The total
number of building workers (Mr. V. V. classifies them all; and wrongly so,
as “small industrialists”) is 28,644, ranging from 2.7% to
22.1% of the total adult male population of the uyezds. If we take the
average percentage (8.8%) as the standard, the number of building workers
in European Russia would be 1 1/3 million (counting 15 million adult male
workers). The gubernias mentioned occupy a position midway between those
where the building industries are most developed and those where they are
least developed.— Lenin

[25]
The census of January 28, 1897 ( General Summary , 1905), gives the
number of the independent population (those earning their own
livelihood) engaged in the building industry throughout the Empire as
717,000, plus 469,000 cultivators occupied in this industry as a side
line. ( Note to 2nd edition.—Ed .)— Lenin

[26]
Fire insurance figures may, to some extent, help us to gauge the
dimensions of the building industry. The value of buildings covered by
fire insurance amounted to 5,968 million rubles in 1884, and to 7,854
million rubles in 1893. ( Productive Forces , XII, 65.) This shows
an annual increase of 188 million rubles.— Lenin

[27]
In Yaroslavl Gubernia, for example, 11 to 20% of the total population, or
30 to 56%, of the male workers, leave their homes in search of work- 68.7%
of those who leave are away all the year round ( Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia ). Obviously, all these are “peasants only
by official designation ” (p. 117).— Lenin

[28]
Boatmen —workers who towed river craft by rope, or rowed
them. [p. 528]

[29]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 642. [p. 529]

[30]
While in exile in the village of Shushenskoye, Lenin, assisted by
Krupskaya, translated volume one and edited the translation of volume two
of The History of Trade Unionism , by Sidney and Beatrice
Webb. Volume one of the Webbs’ book “translated from the
English by Vladimir Ilyin” (i.e., Lenin) was published in
St. Petersburg in 1900 by O. N. Popova. Volume two appeared in 1901. [p.
531]

| | VIII. The Distribution of Large-Scale Industry | | | X. The Appendage to the Factory | |

# The Appendage to the Factory

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8x.htm

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

### X. The Appendage to the Factory

By the appendage to the factory we mean those forms of wage-labour and
small industry whose existence is directly connected with the
factory. These include, first of all (in part), the lumber and building
workers, of whom we have spoken and who in some cases directly form part
of the industrial population of factory centres, and in others belong to
the population of surrounding villages. [1]

Further, they include workers employed on peat bogs—which are sometimes
worked by factory owners themselves [2] ; carters, loaders, packers, and so-called labourers generally, who always
constitute a fairly considerable part of the population of industrial
centres. In St. Petersburg, for instance, the census of December 15, 1890,
registered 44,814 persons (of both sexes) in the group of “day
labourers and labourers”; then 51,000 persons (of both sexes) in the
carting industry, of whom 9,500 are specially engaged in carting heavy and
miscellaneous loads. Further, certain auxiliary work is done for factories
by small “independent” industrialists; in factory centres or
their environs such industries spring up as barrel-making for oil-mills
and

distilleries, [3] basket-making for packing glassware, [4] packing-case making for hardware, the making of wooden handles for joiners’ and fitters’ tools, [5] the making
of brads for footwear factories, and of “tanning” for leather
works,

etc., [6] the weaving of bast-matting for the packing of factory wares (in the Kostroma and
other gubernias), the making of “sticks” for matches (in the
Ryazan, Kaluga and other gubernias), cardboard-box making for tobacco
factories (in the environs of

St. Petersburg), [7] the making of wood-dust for vinegar factories, [8] the
spinning of waste yarn in small spinning sheds (in Lodz), which has
developed owing to the demand created by the big mills, [9] etc.,
etc. All these small industrialists, like the wage-workers referred to
above, belong either to the industrial population of factory centres, or
to the semi-agricultural population of the surrounding villages. Furthermore, when a factory’s work is limited to the
production of a semi-manufactured article, small industries are sometimes
called into existence which engage in treating it further; for example,
machine spinning has given an impetus to handicraft weaving, and
“handicraft” producers of metal goods cluster around ironworks, etc. Finally, capitalist domestic industry is often an
appendage to the factory. [10]

The epoch of large-scale machine industry is marked in all countries by the
extensive development of capitalist domestic industry in such branches as,
for

example, ready-made clothing. We have spoken above of the wide extent of
such industry in Russia, of the conditions peculiar to it and of the
reason for considering it more correct to describe it in the chapter on
manufacture.

In order to give anything like a full description of the appendage to the
factory one needs complete statistics on the occupations of the
population, or monographic descriptions of the entire economic life of
factory centres and their environs. But even the fragmentary data with
which we have had to content ourselves show the incorrectness of the
opinion widespread here that factory industry is isolated from other forms
of industry, that the factory population is isolated from the population
not employed in factories. The development of forms of industry, like that
of all social relationships in general, cannot but proceed very gradually,
among a mass of interlocking, transitional forms and seeming reversions to
the past. Thus, the growth of small industries may express (as we have
seen) the progress of capitalist manufacture; now we see that the factory,
too, may sometimes develop small industries. Work for the
“buyer-up,” is also an appendage to both the manufactory and
the factory. To give a proper assessment of the significance of such
phenomena, we must consider them in conjunction with the whole structure
of industry at the given stage of its development and with the main trends
of this development.

---
Notes:
[1]
For instance, in Ryazan Gubernia “at the Khludov factory
alone” (1894-95—4,849 workers, output 6 million rubles),
“as many as 7,000 horses are engaged in the winter in wood-carting,
most of them belonging to peasants of the Yegoryevsk

Uyezd” [11] ( Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , VII, pp. 1109-1110).— Lenin

[2]
Chaos also reigns in the statistics for the peat industry. As a rule this
industry is not classified among the “factory” trades (cf. Kobelyatsky, Handbook , p. 15), although at times it is. For
instance, the List gives 12 peat fields employing 2,201 workers
in Vladimir Gubernia and in that gubernia alone, although peat is
extracted in other gubernias as well. According to Svirsky ( Factories and Works of Vladimir Gubernia ), in 1890 there were 6,038 persons
employed in extracting peat in Vladimir Gubernia. The total number of
workers in Russia employed in the extraction of peat must be many times
greater.— Lenin

[3]
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission , Vol. VI.— Lenin

[4]
Ibid ., Vol. VIII, in Novgorod Gubernia.— Lenin

[5]
Ibid ., Vol. IX, in the suburban volosts of Tula Uyezd.— Lenin

[6]
In Perm Gubernia, near the town of Kungur, in Tver Gubernia in the village
of Kimry, etc.— Lenin

[7]
See Report of the Zemstvo Board of the St. Petersburg Uyezd for 1889 . Mr. Voinov’s report on Medical District V.— Lenin

[8]
Reports and Investigations , I, p. 360.— Lenin

[9]
Reports of Inquiry into Factory Industry in the Kingdom of Poland , St. Petersburg, 1888, p. 24.— Lenin

[10]
In the List we counted 16 factories, each employing 1,000 and
more workers on their premises, which had additionally a total of 7,857
outside workers. Fourteen factories, each with from 50.0 to 999 workers,
employed 1,352 outside workers. The registration of outside work by the
List is quite haphazard and full of gaps. The Collection of Factory Inspectors’ Reports estimates for 1903 a total of 632
work-distributing offices, giving work to 65,115 workers. These data are
very incomplete, of course; nevertheless, it is characteristic that the
overwhelming majority of these offices, and the workers they employ,
relate to centres of factory industry (Moscow area: 503 offices 49,345
workers; Saratov Gubernia—Sarpinka fabrics—33 offices, 10,000
workers). ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[11]
The “Khludov Factory,” the property of the brothers A. and
G. Khludov was situated in the town of Yegoryovsk Ryazan Gubernia. The
firm’s full title was: “Yegoryevsk Cotton-Spinning Factory
Co., A. and G. Khludov.” The bracketed data (showing the number of
workers and the value of output) given in Lenin’s footnote were
taken from the List of Factories , St. Petersburg, 1897, Issue
No. 763. [p. 534]

| | IX. The Development of the Lumber and Building Industries | | | XI. The Complete Separation of Industry From Agriculture | |

# The Complete Separation of Industry from Agriculture

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8xi.htm

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

### XI. The Complete Separation of Industry From Agriculture

The complete separation of industry from agriculture is effected only by
large-scale machine industry. The Russian facts fully confirm this thesis,
which was established by the author of Capital for other countries, [1] but
which is usually ignored by the Narodnik economists. Mr. N.–on in his
Sketches talks in and out of season about “the separation
of industry from agriculture,” without, however, taking the trouble
to examine, on the basis of precise data, how this process is actually taking place and what different forms it
assumes. Mr. V. V. points to the connection of our industrial worker with
the land ( in manufacture ; our author does not think it necessary
to distinguish the various stages of capitalism, although he pretends he
is following the theory of the author of Capital !) and declaims
in this regard about the “shameful ( sic !)
dependence” “of our (author’s italics)
capitalist industry” upon the worker farmer, etc. ( Destiny of Capitalism , p. 114 and others). Mr. V. V. has apparently not heard,
or has forgotten if he has beard, that not only in “our
country” but everywhere in the West, capitalism failed to bring
about the complete separation of the workers from the land before
large-scale machine industry was established. Finally, Mr. Kablukov has
quite recently presented his students with the following amazing
distortion of the facts: “Whereas in the West work in the factory is
the sole means of livelihood for the worker, in our country, with relatively few exceptions ( sic !!!), the worker regards work
in the factory as a subsidiary occupation, he is more attracted to the land .” [2]

A factual analysis of this question has been made in Mr. Dementyev’s
essay on the “factory workers’ connection with agriculture” in the Moscow sanitary statistics. [3]

Systematically collated statistics embracing about 20,000 workers have
shown that only 14.1% of the factory workers leave for agricultural
employment. But far more important is the fact, proved in the greatest
detail in the work mentioned, that it is precisely machine production that divorces the workers from the land . Of a whole series of figures
quoted in proof of this fact we select the following most striking ones. [4]

We have supplemented the author’s table by dividing 8 of the trades
into those carried on by hand and those by machinery. As regards the
ninth, felt cloth production, let us note that it is conducted partly by
hand and partly by machinery. Of the weavers in hand-loom factories about
63% leave for field-work, while of those working on power-looms not one
leaves; of the workers in departments of cloth mills that are mechanised
3.3% leave. “Thus, the most important reason for factory workers
breaking their ties with the land is the transition from hand to machine
production. Despite the still relatively considerable number of factories
with hand production, the number of workers employed in them, as compared
with the number in factories with machine production, is quite negligible,
that is why, of those who leave for field-work, we get proportions as
small as 14.1% of adult workers in general and 15.4% of adult workers
belonging exclusively to the peasant social estate.” [5]

Let us recall that the returns of the sanitary inspection of factories in
Moscow Gubernia gave the following figures: mechanical factories, 22.6% of
the total (including 18.4% using steam-engines); in these, 80.7% of the
total number of workers are concentrated. Hand-labour factories constitute
69.2%, employing only 16.2% of the total number of workers. At the 244
mechanised factories there are 92,302 workers (378 workers per factory),
while at the 747 hand labour factories there are 18,520 workers (25
workers per factory). [6]

We have shown above the considerable concentration of all Russian factory workers
in the largest enterprises, mostly mechanised, which have an average of
488 and more workers per establishment. Mr. Dementyev has studied in
detail the influence of the workers’ place of birth on their
separation from the land, differences between local-born and migrant
workers, differences in social estate (burgher or peasant), etc., and it
turned out that all these differences are eclipsed by the influence of the
main factor: the transition from hand to machine production. [7] “Whatever causes may have helped to turn the former cultivator into
a factory worker, these special workers already exist. They are merely
counted as peasants, but their only connection with the village is by way
of the taxes they pay when renewing their passports, for actually they
have no farm in the village, and very often not even a house, which has
usually been sold. Even their right to land they retain only juridically,
so to speak, and the disorders that took place in 1885-1886 at many
factories showed that these workers themselves feel totally alien to the
village, just as the peasants in their turn regard them, offspring of
their fellow-villagers, as strangers. We are consequently faced with an
already crystallised class of workers, possessing no homes of their own
and virtually no property, a class bound by no ties and living from hand
to mouth. And its origin does not date from yesterday. It has its factory
genealogy, and a fairly large section of it is already in its third generation.” [8]

Lastly, interesting material on the separation of the factory from
agriculture is provided by the latest factory statistics. The List of Factories and Works (data for 1894-95) gives information on the number of days
in the year during which each factory operates. Mr. Kasperov hastened to
use these data in support of the Narodnik theories when he calculated that
“on the average, the Russian factory works 165 days a year,”
that “35% of the factories in this country work less than 200 days a year.” [9]

It
goes without saying that in view of the vagueness of the term
“factory,” such overall figures are practically valueless,
since they do not indicate how many workers are employed for specific
numbers of days in the year. We have computed the appropriate figures of
the List for those large factories (with 100 and more workers)
which, as we have seen above (§ VII), employ about 3/4 of the total number
of factory workers. It turns out that the average number of working days
per year in the different categories was as follows: A) 242; B) 235;

C) 273, [10]

and for all the large factories, 244. If we calculate the average number of
working days per worker we will get 253 working days per year as the
average number per worker of a large factory. Of the 12 sections into
which the various trades are divided in the List , only in one is
the average number of working days, for the bottom categories, below 200,
namely in section XI (food products): A) 189; B) 148; C) 280. Factories in
categories A and B in this section employ 110,588 workers, which is 16.2% of the total number of workers in the large
factories (655,670). We would point out that this section combines quite
diverse trades, e.g., beet-sugar and tobacco, distilling and
flour-milling, etc. For the remaining sections the average number of
working days per factory is as follows: A) 259; B) 271; C) 272. Thus, the
larger the factories the greater the number of days they operate in the
course of the year. The general data for all the biggest factories in
European Russia, therefore, confirm the conclusions of the Moscow sanitary
statistical returns and prove that the factory creates a class of permanent factory workers.

So then, the data on Russian factory workers fully confirm the theory of
Capital that it is large-scale machine industry that brings about
a complete and definite revolution in the conditions of life of the
industrial population, separating it once and for all from agriculture and
from the century-old traditions of patriarchal life connected with
it. But, by destroying patriarchal and petty-bourgeois relationships,
large-scale machine industry creates, on the other hand, conditions which
draw wage-workers in agriculture and industry closer together: firstly, it
introduces into the rural districts generally the commercial and
industrial way of life which has first arisen in the non-agricultural
centres; secondly, it creates mobility of the population and large markets
for the hiring of both agricultural and industrial workers; thirdly, by
introducing machinery into agriculture, large-scale machine industry
brings into the rural districts skilled industrial workers, distinguished
for their higher standard of living.

---
Notes:
[1]
Das Kapital , I 2 ,

S. 779-780. [11] — Lenin

[2]
Lectures on Agricultural ( sic !) Economics , edition for students, Moscow, 1897, p, 13. Perhaps our learned
statistician thinks that we may regard as “relatively few
exceptions” 85% of all cases (see further in text)?— Lenin

[3]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Section of Sanitation
Statistics, Vol. IV, Sec. II, Moscow, 1893. Reprinted in
Mr. Dementyev’s well-known work: The Factory , etc .— Lenin

[4]
Statistical Returns , loc . cit ., p. 292. The Factory , 2nd ed., p. 36.— Lenin

[5]
Returns , p. 280. The Factory , p. 26.— Lenin

[6]
Returns , Vol. IV, Sec. I, pp. 167, 170, 177.— Lenin

[7]
Mr,

Zhbankov, in his Sanitary Investigation of Factories and Works of Smolensk Gubernia (Smolensk, 1894-1896), estimates the number of
workers who leave for field-work at approximately a mere 10 to 15% at the
Yartsevo Textile Mill only (Vol II, pp. 307, 445, in 1893-1894 the
Yartsevo Mill employed 3,106 out of the 8,810 factory workers in Smolensk
Gubernia). Of the men 28% (average for all factories, 29%) and of the
women 18.6% (average for all factories, 21%) employed in this factory were
casual workers, (See Vol. II, p. 469.) It should be noted that the casual
workers include 1) those employed at the factory for less than a year; 2)
those who leave for summer work in the fields, 3) those “who for
various reasons ceased work at the factory for several years” (II,
445).— Lenin

[8]
Returns , p. 296. The Factory , pp. 44-46.— Lenin

[9]
Statistical Summary of Russia’s Industrial Development . A
paper read by M. 1. Tugan-Baranovsky, member of the Free Economic Society,
and the debate on this paper at the sessions of section
III. St. Petersburg, 1898, p. 41.— Lenin

[10]
Let us recall that category A includes factories with 100 to 499
workers, B , with 500 to 999, and C , with 1,000 and more.— Lenin

[11]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 747-749. [p. 536]

| | X. The Appendage to the Factory | | | XII. Three Stages in the Development of Capitalism in Russian Industry | |

# Three Stages in the Development of Capitalism in Russian Industry

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8vii/vii8xii.htm

Chapter VII. The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry

XII. Three Stages in the Development of Capitalism in
Russian Industry

Let us now sum up the main conclusions to be drawn from the data on the
development of capitalism in our industry. [1]

There are three main stages in this development: small commodity-production (small, mainly peasant industries); capitalist
manufacture; and the factory (large-scale machine industry). The facts
utterly refute the view widespread here in Russia that “factory” and “handicraft” industry are isolated
from each other. On the contrary, such a division is purely
artificial. The connection and continuity between the forms of industry
mentioned is of the most direct and intimate kind. The facts quite clearly
show that the main trend of small commodity-production is towards the
development of capitalism, in particular, towards the rise of manufacture;
and manufacture is growing with enormous rapidity before our very eyes into large-scale
machine industry. Perhaps one of the most striking manifestations of the
intimate and direct connection between the consecutive forms of industry
is the fact that many of the big and even the biggest factory owners were
at one time the smallest of small industrialists and passed through all
the stages from “popular production” to “capitalism.” Savva Morozov was a peasant serf (he purchased
his freedom in 1820), a cowherd, a carter, a worker weaver, a handicraft
weaver who used to journey to Moscow on foot in order to sell his goods to
buyers-up; then he became the owner of a small establishment, a
work-distributing office, a factory. When he died in 1862, he and his
numerous sons owned two large factories. In 1890, the 4 factories
belonging to his descendants employed 39,000 workers, producing goods to
the value of 35 million rubles. [2]

In the silk industry of Vladimir Gubernia, a number of big factory owners were
formerly worker weavers or “handicraft” weavers. [3]

The biggest factory owners in Ivanovo-Voznesensk (the Kuvayevs, Fokins,
Zubkovs, Kokushkins, Bobrovs and many others) were formerly handicraftsmen. [4]

The brocade factories in Moscow Gubernia all grew out of handicraft workrooms. [5]

The factory owner Zavyalov, of Pavlovo district, still had in 1864
“a vivid recollection of the time when he was a plain employee of
craftsman

Khabarov.” [6]

Factory owner Varypayev used to be a small handicrafts man. [7]

Kondratov was a handicraftsman who used to walk to Pavlovo carrying his wares in a bag. [8]

Millowner
Asmolov used to be a pedlars’ horse-driver, then a small trader,
then proprietor of a small tobacco workshop, and finally owner of a
factory with a turnover of many millions. [9]

And so on and so forth. It would be interesting to see how, in these and
similar cases, the Narodnik economists would determine where
“artificial” capitalism begins and “people’s” industry ends.

The three main forms of industry enumerated above differ first of all in
their systems of technique. Small commodity-production is characterised by
its totally primitive, hand technique that remained unchanged almost from
time immemorial. The small producer in industry remains a peasant who
follows tradition in his methods of processing raw material. Manufacture
introduces division of labour, which effects a substantial change in
technique and transforms the peasant into a factory-hand, a
“labourer performing one detailed operation.” But production
by hand remains, and, on its basis, progress in methods of production is
inevitably very slow. Division of labour springs up spontaneously and is
passed on by tradition just as peasant labour is. Large-scale machine
industry alone introduces a radical change, throws manual skill overboard,
transforms production on new, rational principles, and systematically
applies science to production. So long as capitalism in Russia did not
organise large-scale machine industry, and in those industries in which it
has not done so yet, we see almost complete stagnation in technique, we
see the employment of the same hand-loom and the same watermill or
windmill that were used in production centuries ago. On the other hand, in
industries subordinated to the factory we observe a complete technical
revolution and extremely rapid progress in the methods of machine
production.

We see that the different stages of the development of capitalism are
connected with different systems of technique. Small commodity-production
and manufacture are characterised by the prevalence of small
establishments, from among which only a few large ones emerge. Large-scale
machine industry completely eliminates the small establishments. Capitalist relationships arise in the small industries too
(in the form of workshops employing wage-workers and of merchant’s
capital), but these are still poorly developed and are not crystallised in
sharp oppositions between the groups participating in production. Neither
big capital nor extensive proletarian strata as yet exist.

In manufacture we see the rise of both. The gulf between the one who owns the means of
production and the one who works now becomes very wide. “Wealthy” industrial settlements spring up, the bulk of
whose inhabitants are poor working people. A small number of merchants,
who do an enormous business buying raw materials and selling finished
goods, and a mass of detail workers living from hand to mouth—such
is the general picture of manufacture. But the multitude of small
establishments, the retention of the tie with the land, the adherence to
tradition in production and in the whole manner of living— all this
creates a mass of intermediary elements between the extremes of
manufacture and retards the development of these extremes. In large-scale
machine industry all these retarding factors disappear; the acuteness of
social contradictions reaches the highest point. All the dark sides of
capitalism become concentrated, as it were: the machine, as we know, gives
a tremendous impulse to the greatest possible prolongation of the working
day; women and children are drawn into industry; a reserve army of
unemployed is formed (and must be formed by virtue of the conditions of
factory production), etc. However, the socialisation of labour effected on
a vast scale by the factory, and the transformation of the sentiments and
conceptions of the people it employs (in particular, the destruction of
patriarchal and petty-bourgeois traditions) cause a reaction: large-scale
machine industry, unlike the preceding stages, imperatively calls for the
planned regulation of production and public control over it (a
manifestation of the latter tendency is factory legislation). [10]

The very character of the development of production changes at the various
stages of capitalism. In the small industries this development follows in
the wake of the development of peasant economy; the market is extremely
narrow, the distance between the producer and the consumer is short, and
the insignificant scale of production easily adapts itself to the slightly
fluctuating local demand. That is why industry at this stage is
characterised by the greatest stability, but this stability is tantamount
to stagnation in technique and the preservation of patriarchal social
relationships tangled up with all sorts of survivals of medieval
traditions. The manufactories work for a big market— sometimes for
the whole country—and, accordingly, production acquires the
instability characteristic of capitalism, an instability which attains the
greatest intensity under factory production. Large-scale machine industry
can only develop in spurts, in alternating periods of prosperity and of
crisis. The ruin of small producers is tremendously accelerated by this
spasmodic growth of the factory; the workers are drawn into the factory in
masses during a boom period, and are then thrown out. The formation of a
vast reserve army of unemployed, ready to undertake any kind of work,
becomes a condition for the existence and development of large-scale
machine industry. In Chapter II we showed from which strata of the
peasantry this army is recruited, and in subsequent chapters we indicated
the main types of occupations for which capital keeps these reserves
ready. The “instability” of large-scale machine industry has
always evoked, and continues to evoke, reactionary complaints from
individuals who continue to look at things through the eyes of the small
producer and who forget that it is this “instability” alone
that replaced the former stagnation by the rapid transformation of methods
of production and of all social relationships.

One of the manifestations of this transformation is the separation of
industry from agriculture, the liberation of social relations in industry
from the traditions of the feudal and patriarchal system that weigh down
on agriculture. In small commodity-production the industrialist has not
yet emerged at all from his peasant shell; in the majority of cases he
remains a farmer, and this connection between small industry and small
agriculture is so profound that we observe the interesting law of the
parallel differentiation of the small producers in industry and in
agriculture. The formation of a petty bourgeoisie and of wage-workers
proceeds simultaneously in both spheres of the national economy, thereby
preparing the way, at both poles of differentiation, for the industrialist
to break with agriculture.

Under manufacture this break is already very considerable. A whole number of industrial centres arise that do not
engage in agriculture. The chief representative of industry is no longer
the peasant, but the merchant and the manufactory owner on the one hand,
and the “artisan” on the other. Industry and the relatively
developed commercial intercourse with the rest of the world raise the
standard of living and the culture of the population; the peasant is now
regarded with disdain by the manufactory workman. Large-scale machine
industry completes this transformation, separates industry from
agriculture once and for all, and, as we have seen, creates a special
class of the population totally alien to the old peasantry and differing
from the latter in its manner of living, its family relationships and its
higher standard of requirements, both material and spiritual. [11]

In
the small industries and in manufacture we always find survivals of
patriarchal relations and of diverse forms of personal dependence, which,
in the general conditions of capitalist economy, exceedingly worsen the
condition of the working people, and degrade and corrupt them. Large-scale
machine industry, which concentrates masses of workers who often come from
various parts of the country, absolutely refuses to tolerate survivals of
patriarchalism and personal dependence, and is marked by a truly
“contemptuous attitude to the past.” It is this break with
obsolete tradition that is one of the substantial conditions which have
created the possibility and evoked the necessity of regulating production
and of public control over it. In particular, speaking of the
transformation brought about by the factory in the conditions of life of
the population, it must be stated that the drawing of women and juveniles
into

production [12] is, at bottom, progressive. It is indisputable that the capitalist factory
places these categories of the working population in particularly hard
conditions, and that for them it is particularly necessary to regulate and
shorten the working day, to guarantee hygienic conditions of labour, etc.;
but endeavours completely to ban the work of women and juveniles in
industry, or to maintain the patriarchal manner of life that ruled out
such work, would be reactionary and utopian. By destroying the patriarchal
isolation of these categories of the population who formerly never emerged
from the narrow circle of domestic, family relationships, by drawing them
into direct participation in social production, large-scale machine
industry stimulates their development and increases their independence, in
other words, creates conditions of life that are incomparably superior to
the patriarchal immobility of pre-capitalist relations. [13]

The settled character of the population is typical of the first two stages
of industrial development. The small industrialist, remaining a peasant,
is bound to his village by his farm. The artisan under manufacture is
usually tied to the small, isolated industrial area which is created by
manufacture. In the very system of industry at the first and second stages
of its development there is nothing to disturb this settled and isolated
condition of the producer. Intercourse between the various industrial
areas is rare. The transfer of industry to other areas is due only to the
migration of individual small producers, who establish new small
industries in the outlying parts of the country. Large-scale machine
industry, on the other hand, necessarily creates mobility of the
population; commercial intercourse between the various districts grows
enormously; railways facilitate travel. The demand for labour increases on
the whole—rising in periods of boom and falling in periods of
crisis, so that it becomes a necessity for workers to go from one factory
to another, from one part of the country to another. Large-scale machine
industry creates a number of new industrial centres, which grow up with
unprecedented rapidity, sometimes in unpopulated places, a thing that
would be impossible without the mass migration of workers. Further on we
shall speak of the dimensions and the significance of the so-called
outside non-agricultural industries. At the moment we shall limit
ourselves to a brief presentation of Zemstvo sanitation statistics for
Moscow Gubernia. An inquiry among 103,175 factory workers showed that
53,238, or 51.6% of the total, were born in the uyezd in which they
worked. Hence, nearly half the workers had migrated from one uyezd to
another. The number of workers who were born in Moscow Gubernia was
66,038, or

64%. [14]

More than a third of the workers came from other gubernias (chiefly from gubernias
of the central industrial zone adjacent to Moscow

Gubernia). A comparison of the different uyezds shows the most highly industrialised ones to be
marked by the lowest percentage of locally-born workers. For example, in
the poor]y industrialised Mozhaisk and Volokolamsk uyezds from 92 to 93%
of the factory workers are natives of the uyezd where they work. In the
very highly industrialised Moscow, Kolomna and Bogorodsk uyezds the
percentage of locally born workers drops to 24%, 40% and 50%. From this
the investigators draw the conclusion that “the considerable
development of factory production in an uyezd encourages the influx of
outside

elements.” [15]

These facts show also (let us add) that the movement of industrial workers bears the same features that we observed in
the movement of agricultural workers. That is to say, industrial workers,
too, migrate not only from localities where there is a surplus of labour,
but also from those where there is a shortage. For example, the Bronnitsi
Uyezd attracts 1,125 workers from other uyezds of Moscow Gubernia and from
other gubernias, while at the same time providing 1,246 workers for the
more highly industrialised Moscow and Bogorodsk uyezds. Hence, workers
leave not only because they do not find “local occupations at
hand,” but also because they make for the places where conditions
are better. Elementary as this fact is, it is worth while giving the
Narodnik economists a further reminder of it, for they idealise local
occupations and condemn migration to industrial districts, ignoring the
progressive significance of the mobility of the population created by
capitalism.

The above-described characteristic features which distinguish large-scale
machine industry from the preceding forms of industry may be summed up in
the words—socialisation of labour. Indeed, production for an
enormous national and international market, development of close
commercialties with various parts of the country and with different
countries for the purchase of raw and auxiliary materials, enormous
technical progress, concentration of production and of the population in
colossal enterprises, demolition of the worn-out traditions of patriarchal
life,

creation of mobility of the population, and improvement of the
worker’s standard of requirements and his development—all
these are elements of the capitalist process which is increasingly
socialising production in the country, and with it those who participate
in

production. [16]

On the problem of the relation of large-scale machine industry in Russia
to the home market for capitalism, the data given above lead to the
following conclusion. The rapid development of factory industry in Russia
is creating an enormous and ever-growing market for means of production
(building materials, fuel, metals, etc.) and is increasing with particular
rapidity the part of the population engaged in making articles of
productive and not personal consumption. But the market for articles of
personal consumption is also growing rapidly, owning to the growth of
large-scale machine industry, which is diverting an increasingly large
part of the population from agriculture into commercial and industrial
occupations. As for the home market for factory-made products, the process
of the formation of that market was examined in detail in the early
chapters of this book.

---
Notes:
[1]
Confining ourselves, as stated in the preface, to the post-Reform period,
we leave aside the forms of industry that were based on the labour of the
serf population.— Lenin

[2]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , IV, 5-7. — Directory for 1890.—Shishmaryov: A Brief Sketch of Industry in the Region of the Nizhni-Novgorod and Shuya-Ivanow Railways , St. Petersburg, 1892, pp. 28-32.— Lenin

[3]
Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III, p. 7 and foll.— Lenin

[4]
Shishmaryov, 56-62.— Lenin

[5]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol. VII, Pt. III,
Moscow, 1883, pp. 27-28.— Lenin

[6]
A. Smirnov, Pavlovo and Vorsma , p. 14.— Lenin

[7]
Labzin, loc . cit ., p. 66.— Lenin

[8]
Grigoryev, loc . cit ., p. 36.— Lenin

[9]
Historico-Statistical Survey , Vol. II, p. 27.— Lenin

[10]
On the connection between factory legislation and the conditions and
relationships brought into being by large-scale machine industry, see
Mr. Tugan-Baranovsky’s book, The Russian Factory , Chapter
II, Part 2, and especially the article in Novoye Slovo of July
1897.— Lenin

[11]
Regarding the “factory hand” type cf. above, Chapter VI, § II,
5, pp. 404-405.— Also Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Vol VII, Pt. III, Moscow, 1883, p. 58 (the factory hand is
a moralist, a “smart alec”).— Nizhni-Novgorod Handbook , I, pp. 42-43- Vol. IV, p. 335.— Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III, 113-114 and elsewhere.— Novoye Slovo , Oct. 1897, p. 63.—Cf. also the above-mentioned works of
Mr. Zhbankov which describe the workers who go off to the towns to
commercial and industrial occupations.— Lenin

[12]
According to the Directory , the factories and works of European
Russia in 1890 employed a total of 875,764 workers of whom 210,207 (24%)
were women, 17,793 (2%) boys, and 8,216 (1%) girls.— Lenin

[13]
“The poor woman-weaver follows her father and husband to the factory
and works alongside of them and independently of them. She is as much a
breadwinner as the man is.” “In the factory . . . the woman is
quite an independent producer, apart from her husband.” Literacy
spreads among the women factory workers with remarkable
rapidity. ( Industries of Vladimir Gubernia , III, 113, 118, 112
and elsewhere.) Mr. Kharizomenov is perfectly right in drawing the
following conclusion: industry destroys “the economic dependence of
the woman on the family . . . and on the husband. . . . At the factory,
the woman is the equal of the man; this is the equality of the
proletarian. . . . The capitalisation of industry is an important factor
in woman’s struggle for her independence in the family.”
“Industry creates a new position for the woman in which she is
completely independent of her family and husband.” ( Yuridichesky Vestnik , 1883, No. 12, pp. 582, 596.) In the Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia (Vol. VII, Pt. II, Moscow, 1882, pp. 152,
138-139), the investigators compare the position of women engaged in
making stockings by hand and by machine. The daily earnings of hand
workers are about 8 kopeks, and of machine workers, 14 to 30 kopeks. The
working woman’s conditions under machine production are described as
follows: “. . . Before us is a free young woman, hampered by no
obstacles, emancipated from the family and from all that constitutes the
peasant woman’s conditions of life, a young woman who at any moment
may leave one place for another, one employer for another, and may at any
moment find herself without a job . . . without a crust of
bread. . . . Under hand production, the knitter’s earnings are very
meagre, insufficient to cover the cost of her food, earnings only
acceptable if she, as a member of an allotment-holding and farming family,
enjoys in part the product of that land; under machine production the
working woman, in addition to food and tea, gets earnings which enable
. . . her to live away from the family and to do without the
family’s income from the land. . . . Moreover, the woman
worker’s earnings in machine industry, under present conditions, are
more secure.”— Lenin

[14]
In the less industrialised Smolensk Gubernia, an inquiry among 5,000
factory workers showed that 80% of them were natives of that gubernia
(Zhbankov, loc . cit ., II, 442).— Lenin

[15]
Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia , Sanitary Statistical
Section, Vol. IV, Sec. I (Moscow, 1890), p. 240.— Lenin

[16]
The data quoted in the last three chapters show, in our opinion, that the
classification of the capitalist forms and stages of industry given by
Marx is more correct and sound than the now current classification which
confuses the manufactory with the factory and regards working for a
buyer-up as a special form of industry (Held, B\"ucher). To confuse the
manufactory with the factory is to make purely superficial features the
basis for classification and to ignore the essential features of
technique, economy and social life which distinguish manufacture from the
machine period of capitalism. As to capitalist domestic industry, it
undoubtedly plays a very important part in the mechanism of capitalist
industry. Just as undoubtedly, work for the buyer-up is particularly
characteristic of pre-machine capitalism; but it is also to be met with
(and on no small scale) in the most diverse periods of capitalist
development. The significance of work for the buyer-up is not to be
understood unless studied in connection with the whole structure of
industry in the given period, or at the given stage of capitalist
development. The peasant who weaves baskets to the order of the village
shopkeeper, the Pavlovo artisan who makes knife-handles in his home to the
order of Zavyalov, the woman worker who makes clothes, footwear, gloves or
boxes to the order of big mill owners or merchants—all work for
buyers-up, but in all these instances capitalist domestic industry bears a
different character and has a different significance. We do not, of
course, in the least deny the merits of B\"ucher, for example, in studying
pre-capitalist forms of industry, but we think his classification of
capitalist forms of industry is wrong.—We cannot agree with the
views of Mr. Struve (see Mir Bozhy , 1898, No. 4) inasmuch as he
adopts B\"ucher’s theory (in the part mentioned) and applies it to
Russian “handicraftism.” (Since these lines were written, in
1899, Mr. Struve has managed to complete the cycle of his scientific and
political development. From a person oscillating between B\"ucher and Marx,
between liberal and socialist economics, he has become a liberal bourgeois
of the purest water. The writer of these lines is proud of having helped,
as far as has been in his power, to purge Social-Democracy of such
elements. ( Note to 2nd edition.—Ed. )— Lenin

| | XI. The Complete Separation of Industry From Agriculture | | | | |

# The Growth of Commodity Circulation

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8viii/viii8i.htm

Chapter VIII. The Formation of the Home Market

We now have to sum up the data examined in the preceding chapters and to
try to give an idea of the interdependence of the various spheres of the
national economy in their capitalist development.

### I. The Growth of Commodity Circulation

It is well known that commodity circulation precedes commodity production
and constitutes one of the conditions (but not the sole condition) of the
rise of the latter. In the present work we have confined ourselves to an
examination of data on commodity and capitalist production, and for that
reason do not intend to deal in detail with the important problem of the
growth of commodity circulation in post-Reform Russia. In order to give a
general idea of how rapidly the home market has grown, the following brief
data will suffice.

The length of the Russian railway system increased from 3,819 kilometres
in 1865 to 29,063 km. in

1890, [1] i.e., more than 7-fold. Similar progress was made by Britain in a longer period
(1845–4,082 km.; 1875–26,819 km., a 6-fold increase), by Germany in a
shorter period (1845– 2,143 km.; 1875–27,981 km., a 12-fold
increase). The length of new railway opened per year differed considerably
in different periods; for example, in the 5 years 1868-1872

8,806 versts of new railway were opened and in the 5 years 1878-1882, only

2,221. [2]

The extent of this fluctuation enables us to judge what an enormous reserve army of
unemployed is required by capitalism, which now expands, and then
contracts the demand for labour. There have been two boom periods in
railway development in Russia: the end of the 60s (and the beginning of
the 70s), and the latter half of the 90s. From 1865 to 1875, the average
annual increase in the length of the Russian railway system was 1,500
kilometres, and from 1893 to 1897, about 2,500 kilometres.

The amount of railway freight carried was as follows: 1868–439 million
poods; 1873—1,117 million poods; 1881—2,532 million poods;
1893—4,846 million poods; 1896—6,145 million poods; 1904— 11,072 million poods. No less rapid has been the growth of
passenger traffic: 1868—10.4 million passengers; 1873–22.7;
1881–34.4; 1893—49.4; 1896— 65.5; 1904—123.6 million. [3]

The development of water transport is as follows (data for the whole of

Russia): [4]

The amount of freight carried on inland waterways in European Russia in
1881 was 899.7 million poods; in 1893—1,181.5 million poods; in
1896—1,553 million poods. The value of these freights was 186.5
million rubles; 257.2 million rubles; 290 million rubles.

Russia’s merchant marine in 1868 consisted of 51 steamers with a
capacity of 14,300 lasts, [12] and of 700 sailing ships with a capacity of 41,800 lasts; and in 1896 of 522 steamers
with a capacity of 161,600 lasts. [5]

The development of mercantile shipping at all ports on the outer seas was
as follows: during the five years 1856-1860 the number of homeward plus
outward bound vessels averaged 18,901, with a total capacity of 3,783,000
tons; for the period 1886-1890 it averaged 23,201 vessels (+23%) with a
total capacity of 13,845,000 tons (+266%). Capacity, therefore, increased
3 2/3 times. In 39 years (from 1856 to 1894) capacity grew 5.5-fold, and
if we take Russian and foreign vessels separately, it is seen that during
these 39 years the number of the former grew 3.4-fold (from 823 to 2,789),
while their capacity grew 12.1-fold (from 112,800 tons to 1,368,000 tons),
whereas the number of the latter grew by 16% (from 18,284 to 21,160) and
their capacity 5.3-fold (from 3,448,000 tons to 18,267,000 tons). [6]

Let us remark that the capacity of homeward and outward bound vessels also
fluctuates very considerably from year to year (e.g., 1878—13
million tons; 1881—8.6 million tons), and these fluctuations enable
us to gauge in part the fluctuations in the demand for unskilled
labourers, dockers, etc. Here, too, capitalism requires the existence of a
mass of people always in want of work and ready at the first call to
accept it, however casual it may be.

The development of foreign trade can be seen from the following data: [7]

The following data give a general idea of the volume of bank turnover and
capital accumulation. Total withdrawals from the State Bank rose from 113
million rubles in 1860-1863 (170 million rubles in 1864-1868) to 620
million rubles in 1884-1888, and total deposits on current account from
335 million rubles in 1864-1868 to 1,495 million rubles in

1884–1888. [8]

The turnover of loan and savings societies and banks (rural and industrial)
grew from 2 3/4 million rubles in 1872 (21.8 million rubles in 1875) to
82.6 million rubles in 1892., and 189.6 million rubles in

1903. [9]

Mortgages increased from 1889 to 1894 as follows: the assessment of mortgaged land
rose from 1,395 million rubles to 1,827 million rubles, and total loans
from 791 million rubles to 1,044 million rubles. [10]

The operations of savings banks grew particularly in the 80s and 90s. In 1880
there were 75 savings banks, in 1897—4,315 (of which 3,454 were
post-office banks). In 1880, deposits amounted to 4.4 million rubles, in
1897 to 276.6 million rubles. Balance on account at the end of the year
totalled 9.0 million rubles in 1880, and 494.3 million rubles in 1897. The
annual capital increase is particularly striking in the famine years 1891
and 1892 (52.9 and 50.5 million rubles), and in the last two years
(1896—51.6 million rubles; 1897—65.5 mil lion rubles). [11]

The latest statistics show an even greater development of the savings
banks. In 1904, over the whole of Russia there were 6,557 savings banks
with 5.1 million depositors and total deposits of 1,105.5 million
rubles. Incidentally, in this country both the old Narodniks and the new
opportunists in the socialist movement have frequently been very na\"ive (to
put it mildly) in talking about the increase in the number of savings
banks constituting a sign of the “people’s” well-being. It will perhaps not be out of place, therefore, to compare the
distribution of savings-bank deposits in Russia (1904) with that of France
(1900. Information from Bulletin de l’Office du travail ,
1901, No. 10).

What a wealth of material there is here for Narodnik-Revisionist-Cadet
apologists! It is interesting, in passing, to note that in Russia deposits
are also divided into 12 groups according to the occupations and
professions of depositors. It appears that the largest sum of
deposits—228.5 million rubles—is that of persons engaged in
agriculture and rural industries, and these deposits are growing with
particular rapidity. The village is becoming civilised, and to make the muzhik’s ruin a source of business is becoming increasingly
profitable.

But let us return to our immediate theme. As we see, the data indicate an
enormous growth of commodity circulation and capital accumulation. How the
field for the employment of capital in all branches of the national
economy was created and how merchant’s capital was transformed into
industrial capital, i.e., was directed into production and created
capitalist relationships between those taking part in production, has been
shown above.

---
Notes:
[1]
Uebersichten der Weltwirtschaft ( Surveys of World Economy . – Ed .), loc. cit. In 1904 the length was 54,878
kilometres in European Russia (including the Kingdom of Poland, the
Caucasus and Finland) and 8,351 in Asiatic Russia. ( Note to 2nd edition.—Ed .)— Lenin

[2]
V. Mikhailovsky, The Development of the Russian Railway System in
Transactions of Free Economic Society , 1898, No. 2.— Lenin

[3]
Military Statistical Abstract , 511.– Mr. N.–on, Sketches , appendix to Productive Forces , XVII,
p. 67.— Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 43.— Yearbook of Russia for 1905, St. Petersburg, 1906.— Lenin

[4]
Military Statistical Abstract , 445.— Productive Forces , XVII, 42.— Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 44.— Lenin

[5]
Military Statistical Abstract , 758, and The Ministry of Finance Yearbook , I, 363.— Productive Forces , XVII, 30.— Lenin

[6]
Productive Forces . Russia’s Foreign Trade, p. 56, and foll.— Lenin

[7]
Ibid ., p. 17. Yearbook of Russia for 1904, St. Petersburg, 1905.— Lenin

[8]
Returns for Russia , 1890, CIX.— Lenin

[9]
Returns for Russia , 1896. Table CXXVII.— Lenin

[10]
Ibid .— Lenin

[11]
Vestnik Finansov , 1898, No. 26.— Lenin

[12]
Last —a term used on Russian merchant ships: equalled two
tons. [p. 554]

| | | | | II. The Growth of the Commercial and Industrial Population | |

# The Growth of the Commercial and Industrial Population

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8viii/viii8ii.htm

Chapter VIII. The Formation of the Home Market

### II. The Growth of the Commercial and Industrial Population

We have stated above that the growth of the industrial population at the
expense of the agricultural is a requisite phenomenon of every capitalist
society. In what way the separation of industry from agriculture steadily
takes place has also been examined, and now all that remains is to sum up
on this question.

1) The Growth of the Towns

The most striking expression of the process under examination is the
growth of the towns. Here are data on this growth in European Russia (50
gubernias) in the post Reform period [1] :

Thus, the percentage of urban population is constantly growing, that is,
the population is being diverted from agriculture into commercial and
industrial occupations. [2]

The population of the towns is growing twice as fast as that of the rest of
the country: from 1863 to 1897 the total population increased 53.3%, the
rural 48.5%, while the urban increased 97%. Over a period of 11 years
(1885-1897) “the influx, at a minimum, of the rural population into
the towns” was 2 1/2 million persons, according to
Mr. V. Mikhailovsky’s estimate, [3] i.e., more than 200,000 per annum.

The population of towns that are important industrial and commercial
centres is growing much more rapidly than the urban population
generally. The number of towns with 50,000 and more inhabitants more than
trebled between 1863 and 1897 (13 and 44). In 1863, of the total urban
population only about 27% (1.7 million out of 6.1) were concentrated in
such large centres; in 1885 it was nearly 41% (4.1 million out of

9.9), [4] and in 1897 it was already more than half, about 53% (6.4 million out of 12
million). In the 1860s, therefore, the smaller towns provided the general
pattern of the urban population, but in the 1890s they were completely
outweighed by the big cities. The population of the 14 towns that had been
the biggest in 1863 increased from 1.7 million inhabitants to 4.3 million,
i.e., by 153%, whereas the overall urban population increased by only 97%
. Hence, the enormous growth of large industrial centres and the emergence
of a large number of new centres is one of the most characteristic
features of the post-Reform period.

2) The Significance of Home Colonisation

As we have pointed out above (Chapter I, § II, p. 40), theory deduces the
law that the industrial population grows at the expense of the
agricultural from the fact that in industry variable capital increases
absolutely (the growth of variable capital means a growth of the number of
industrial workers and a growth of the total commercial and industrial
population), whereas in agriculture the “variable capital required
for the exploitation of a certain plot of land decreases
absolutely.” “It can thus only increase,” Marx adds, “to the extent that new land is taken into cultivation, but this
again requires as a prerequisite a still greater growth of the
non-agricultural population.” [44]
Hence it is clear that the growth of the industrial population is a
phenomenon observable in its pure form only when we have before us an
already populated territory in which all the land is already occupied. The
inhabitants of such a territory, when forced-out of agriculture by
capitalism, have no other alternative but to migrate to the industrial
centres or to other countries. But the situation is essentially different
when we have before us a territory in which not all the land is occupied,
and which is not yet fully populated. The inhabitants of such a territory,
when forced out of agriculture in a populated area, may remove to an
unpopulated part of that territory and set about “taking new land
into cultivation.” The result will be an increase in the
agricultural population, and this increase may be (for some time) no less,
if not more, rapid than the increase in the industrial population. In that
case, we have before us two different processes: 1) the development of
capitalism in the old, populated country or part of the country; 2) the
development of capitalism on “new land.” The first process
expresses the further development of established capitalist relationships;
the second, the rise of new capitalist relationships on new territory. The
first process means the development of capitalism in depth, the second, in
breadth. Obviously, to confuse these two processes must inevitably lead to
a wrong conception of the process which diverts the population from
agriculture to commercial and industrial occupations.

Post-Reform Russia affords us an example of the two processes going on
simultaneously. At the beginning of the post-Reform period, in the 60s,
the southern and eastern outer regions of European Russia were largely
unpopulated, and there was an enormous influx into those areas of migrants
from the central agricultural part of Russia. It was this formation of a
new agricultural population on new territory that to some extent obscured
the parallel process of the diversion of the population from agriculture
to industry. To get a clear picture, from data on the urban population, of
the specific feature of Russia here described, we must divide the 50
gubernias of European Russia into separate groups. We give data on the
urban population in 9 areas of European Russia in 1863 and in 1897 (see
p. 564).

As far as the question that interests us is concerned, the greatest
importance attaches to three areas: 1) the non-agricultural industrial
area (the 11 gubernias in the first two groups, including the 2
metropolitan gubernias). [5]

This is an area from which migration to other areas has been very slight. 2)
The central agricultural area (the 13 gubernias in group 3). Migration
from this area has been very consider able, partly to the previous area,
but mainly to the next. 3) The agricultural outer regions (the 9 gubernias
in group 4) constitute an area that has been colonised in the post-Reform
period. The percentage of urban population in all these 33 gubernias
differs very little, as the table shows, from the percentage of urban
population in European Russia as a whole.

In the first area, the non-agricultural or industrial, we observe a
particularly rapid rise in the percentage of urban population: from 14.1%
to 21.1%. The growth of the rural population is here very slight, being
little more than half of that for the whole of Russia. The growth of the
urban

population, on the other hand, is considerably above the average (105% as
against 97%). If Russia is to be compared with West-European industrial
countries (as is often done here), then these countries should be compared
with just this one area, for it alone has conditions approximately similar
to those of the industrial capitalist countries.

In the second, the central agricultural area, we see a different
picture. The percentage of urban population here is very low and grows
with less than average rapidity. The increase in the population between
1863 and 1897, both urban and rural, was much below the average for
Russia. This is to be explained by the vast stream of migrants from this
area to the border regions. According to Mr. V. Mikhailovsky’s
calculations, between 1885 and 1897 nearly 3 million people , or
more than one-tenth of the population left these parts. [6]

In the third area, the outer regions, we see that the percentage of urban
population underwent an increase that was slightly below the average (from 11.2% to 13.3%, i.e., in the proportion of 100 : 118,
whereas the average is from 9.94 to 12.76, i.e., in the proportion of 100
: 128). And yet the absolute growth of the urban population here, far from
being less, was considerably above the average (+130% as against
+97%). The diversion of population from agriculture to industry has,
consequently, been very intense, but it is hidden by the enormous growth
of the agricultural population as a result of influx: in this area the
rural population increased by 87%, as against an average for Russia of
48.5%. In certain gubernias this obscuring of the process of the
industrialisation of the population is still more striking. For instance,
in Taurida Gubernia the percentage of urban population was the same in
1897 as in 1863 (19.6%), and in Kherson Gubernia actually declined (from
25.9% to 25.4%), although the growth of the towns in both the gubernias
was not far behind that of the metropolitan cities (+131%, +135%, as
against +141% in the two metropolitan gubernias). The rise of a new
agricultural population on new territory thus leads, in turn, to a still
greater growth of the non-agricultural population.

3) The Growth of Factory and of Commercial and
Industrial Townships and Villages

In addition to the towns, the following have the significance of
industrial centres: firstly, suburbs, which are not always counted with
the towns and which are spreading in an increasing area around the big
towns; and secondly, factory townships and villages. Such industrial centres [7] are
particularly numerous in the industrial gubernias where the percentage of
urban population is extremely low. [8]

The above table containing the data, by areas, of the town population shows that in
the 9 industrial gubernias the percentage in 1863 was 7.3% and in 1897,
8.6%. The fact is that the commercial and industrial population of these
gubernias is concentrated mainly, not in towns, but in industrial
villages. Among the “towns” of Vladimir, Kostroma, Nizhni-Novgorod and other gubernias there are not a few with less than
3,000, 2,000 or even 1,000 inhabitants, where as there are numerous
“villages” in each of which there are 2,000, 3,000 or 5,000
factory workers alone. In the post-Reform period, rightly observes the
compiler of the Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia (Vol. II.,
191),“the towns have begun to grow still faster, and in addition
there has been the growth of settlements of a new type, a type of factory
centre midway between the town and the village.” We have cited data
showing the enormous growth of these centres and the number of factory
workers concentrated in them. We have seen that there are quite a few
centres of this kind throughout Russia, not only in the industrial
gubernias, but also in the South. In the Urals the percentage of urban
population is lowest: in Vyatka and Perm gubernias it was 3.2% in 1863 and
4.7% in 1897. But here is an example of the relative size of the
“urban” and the industrial populations: in Krasnoufimsk Uyezd,
Perm Gubernia, the urban population numbers 6,400 (1897), whereas
according to the Zemstvo census of 1888-1891, the population of the industrial section of the uyezd numbers 84,700, of whom 56,000 do not
engage in agriculture at all, and only 5,600 obtain their livelihood
mainly from the land. In Ekaterinburg Uyezd, according to the Zemstvo
census, 65,000 inhabitants are landless and 81,000 have only meadow
land. Hence, the industrial non-urban population of two uyezds alone is
larger than the urban population of the whole gubernia (in 1897 it was
195,600!).

Finally, in addition to factory settlements, the significance of
industrial centres attaches to the trading and industrial villages, which
are either at the head of large handicraft districts, or have developed
rapidly since the Reform, owing to their situation on the banks of rivers,
near railway stations, etc. Several examples of such villages were given
in Chapter VI, § II, and we saw that, like the towns, they attract the
rural population, and that they are usually marked by a level of literacy
among the population above the average. [9]

As a further example let us quote data on Voronezh Gubernia in order to show
the relative importance of urban and non-urban industrial and commercial centres of
population. The Combined Returns for Voronezh Gubernia gives a
combined table classifying the villages in 8 uyezds of the gubernia. In
these uyezds there are 8 towns, with a population of 56,149 (in 1897). Of
the villages, on the other hand, 4 stand out with 9,376 households, and
with 53,732 inhabitants, i.e., they are much bigger than the towns. In 5
these villages there are 240 commercial and 404 industrial
establishments. Of the total households, 60% do not cultivate at all, 21%
cultivate by neighbour-hire or on a half-crop basis, 71% have neither
draught animals nor implements, 63% buy grain all year round, 86% engage
in industries. By placing the entire population of these centres in the
category of commercial and industrial, we not only do not exaggerate, but
rather minimise, the size of the latter, for altogether in these 8 uyezds
21,956 households cultivate no land at all. Nevertheless, in the
agricultural gubernia we have taken, the commercial and industrial
population outside the towns turns out to be not less than that inside the
towns.

4) Non-Agricultural Outside Employments

But even if we add to the towns the factory and commercial and industrial
villages and townships we are far from exhausting the total industrial
population of Russia. The lack of freedom of movement and the
social-estate exclusiveness of the village community fully explain the
remarkable characteristic of Russia that we have to include no small part
of the rural population in its industrial population, that part which
obtains its livelihood by working in industrial centres and spends part of
the year in these centres. We refer to the so-called non-agricultural
“outside employments.” From the official point of view, these
“industrialists” are peasant farmers who merely have “subsidiary employments,” and the majority of the Narodnik
economists have, without further ado, adopted that viewpoint. There is no
need, after what has been said above, to prove in detail how unsound it
is. At all events, however much opinions on it may vary, there cannot be
the slightest doubt that it indicates a diversion of the population from agriculture into commercial and industrial occupations . [10]

How far this fact changes our idea of the size of the industrial population in the towns may be seen from the following
example. In Kaluga Gubernia the percentage of urban population is much
lower than the average for Russia (8.3%, as against 12.8%). Now the
Statistical Survey of that gubernia for 1896 calculates, on the
basis of passport data, the total number of months during which migratory
workers were absent from their homes. It appears that the total is
1,491,600 months; divided by 12 this will give an absent population of
124,300 persons, i.e., “ nearly 11% of the total population ” ( loc . cit ., 46)! Add this number to the
urban population (in 1897—97,900), and the percentage of industrial
population will be a very considerable one.

Of course, a certain part of the migratory non-agricultural workers are
registered among the existing town population, and are also part of the
population of the non-urban industrial centres to which we have already
referred. But only a part, for owing to the mobile character of this
section of the population, it is difficult to cover them by any local
census; furthermore, population censuses are usually taken in the winter,
whereas most of these industrial workers leave their homes in the
spring. Here are data for some of the principal gubernias of
non-agricultural migration. [11]

The number of passports issued reaches the maximum everywhere in the
spring. Hence, a large part of the temporarily absent workers are not
included in the censuses of the towns. [12]

But these temporary town-dwellers may also more legitimately be assigned to
the urban rather than the rural population. “A family which gets its
livelihood throughout the year, or during the greater part of it, in the
town has far more reason to regard the town, which provides its
subsistence, as its place of domicile than the village, with which it has
only family and fiscal ties.” [13]

The enormous significance these fiscal ties have to this day can be seen
from the fact, for instance, that among migratory

Kostroma people “it is a rare thing for peasants to get for it [the
land] some small part of the taxes to be paid; usually they lease it on
the sole condition that the tenants put it to use, the owner himself
paying all the taxes” (D. Zhbankov, Women’s Country , Kostroma, 1891, p. 21). In the Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia
(Vol. II, Yaroslavl, 1896), we also find repeated references to migratory
industrial workers having to purchase their release from their villages
and allotments (pp. 28, 48, 149, 150, 166 and others). [14]

How many migratory non-agricultural workers are there? The number of
people engaged in all kinds of industries employing migratory workers is
not less than from 5 to 6 millions . In fact, in 1884, about 4.67
million passports and identity cards were issued in European

Russia, [15] and passport revenue grew between 1884 and 1894 by more than one-third (from
3.3 to 4.5 million rubles). In 1897 the total number of passports and
cards issued in Russia was 9,495,700 (of which 9,333,200 were issued in
the 50 gubernias of European Russia). In 1898 the number was 8,259,900
(European Russia, 7,809,600). [16]

The number of workers superfluous (as compared with local demand) in European
Russia has been estimated by Mr. S. Korolenko at 6.3 million. Above we
have seen (Chapter III, § IX, p. 239) that in 11 agricultural gubernias
the number of passports issued exceeded Mr. Korolenko’s estimate (2
million as against 1.7 million). Now we can add the data for 6
non-agricultural gubernias: Mr. Korolenko sets the number of superfluous
workers in these at 1,287,800, while the number of passports issued was

1,298,600. [17]

Thus, in 17 gubernias of European Russia (11 black-earth, plus 6 non-black
earth) there are, according to Mr. Korolenko, 3 million workers who are
superfluous (as against the local demand). In the 90s, however, the number
of passports and cards issued in these 17 gubernias was 3.3 million. In
1891, these gubernias provided 52.2% of the total passport revenue. Hence,
the number of migratory workers in all probability exceeds 6 million . Finally, Zemstvo statistical data (most of which are
obsolete) led Mr. Uvarov to the conclusion that Mr. Korolenko’s
figure was close to the truth, and that the figure of 5 million migratory
workers was “very highly probable.” [18]

The question now arises: how large is the number of non-agricultural and
of agricultural migratory workers? Mr. N.–on very boldly and quite
mistakenly asserts that “the overwhelming majority of peasant
outside employments are agricultural” ( Sketches ,
p. 16). Chaslavsky, whom Mr. N.–on cites, expresses himself much more
cautiously; he cites no data and limits himself to general remarks about
the size of the areas which provide workers of one type or another. On the
other hand, Mr. N.–on’s railway passenger traffic data prove
absolutely nothing, for non-agricultural workers also leave their homes
mainly in spring and, moreover, use the railways much more than
agricultural workers do. [19]

We presume, on the contrary, that the majority (although not the
“overwhelming” majority) of the migratory workers are probably
non-agricultural workers. This view is based, firstly, on data concerning
the distribution of passport revenue, and, secondly, on Mr. Vesin’s
data. Years ago Flerovsky, on the basis of the returns for 1862-63 showing
the distribution of revenue from “miscellaneous duties” (more
than one-third of which was obtained from the issue of passports), drew
the conclusion that the greatest movement of peasants in search of work
was from the metropolitan and the non-agricultural gubernias. [20]

If
we take the 11 non-agricultural gubernias which we combined above (part 2
of this section) into a single area, and which non-agricultural workers
leave in large numbers, we shall see that these gubernias in 1885
contained only 18.7% of the population of all European Russia (in
1897— 18.3%), whereas they accounted for 42.9% of the passport
revenue in 1885 (in

1891—40.7%). [21]

Non-agricultural workers are provided by very many other gubernias, and we must there fore conclude that agricultural
workers constitute less than half of the migrants. Mr. Vesin divides 38
gubernias of European Russia (which account for 90% of the departure permits) into groups according to the different types of migration that
predominate, and obtains the following results. [22] “These figures show that industries employing migratory workers are
more prevalent in the first group than in the third. . . . These figures
also show that there is a diversity in the duration of absence to secure employment corresponding to
the difference in the groups. Where non-agricultural industries employing
migratory workers predominate, the length of absence is much
greater” ( Dyelo , 1886, No. 7, p. 134).

Finally, the statistics given above for excise-paying trades, etc., enable
us to classify the residential permits issued in all the 50 gubernias of
European Russia. Making the indicated corrections to Mr. Vesin’s
classification, and distributing among these same groups the 12 gubernias
for which figures are lacking for 1884 (Olonets and Pskov gubernias to
group I; the 9 Baltic and North-West gubernias to group II; and Astrakhan
Gubernia to group III), we get the following picture:

Migration for work away from home, according to these data, is much more
prevalent in group I than in group III.

Thus, there can be no doubt that the mobility of the population is far
greater in Russia’s non-agricultural zone than in the agricultural. The number of non-agricultural migratory workers must be
greater than that of the agricultural, and must be not less than three million .

The enormous and ever-increasing growth of migration is confirmed by all
sources. Passport revenue increased from 2.1 million rubles in 1868 (1.75 million rubles in 1866) to 4.5
million rubles in 1893-94, i.e., it more than doubled. The number of
passports and identity cards issued increased in Moscow Gubernia between
1877 and 1885 by 20% (males) and 53% (females); in Tver Gubernia, between
1893 and 1896 by 5.6%, in Kaluga Gubernia, between 1885 and 1895 by 23%
(and the number of months of absence by 26%); in Smolensk Gubernia, from
100,000 in 1875 to 117,000 in 1885 and 140,000 in 1895; in Pskov Gubernia,
from 11,716 in 1865-1875 to 14,944 in 1876 and to 43,765 in 1896
(males). In Kostroma Gubernia, in 1868, 23.8 passports and cards per 100
males were issued and 0.85 per 100 females, and in 1880—33.1 and
2.2. And so on and so forth.

Like the diversion of the population from agriculture to the towns,
non-agricultural migration is a progressive phenomenon . It tears
the population out of the neglected, backward, history-forgotten remote
spots and draws them into the whirlpool of modern social life. It
increases literacy among the population, [24] heightens their understanding, [25] and gives them civilised habits and requirements. [26]

The peasants are induced to migrate by “motives of a higher
order,” i.e., by the greater smartness and polish of the
Petersburger; they look for places where “things are better.”
“Life and work in Petersburg are considered to be easier than in the country.” [27] “All country-folk are called raw, and the strange thing is that they
are not in the least offended at this, but refer to themselves as such and
complain that their parents did not send them to St. Petersburg to
study. It should be stated, however, that these raw country
people are not nearly so raw as those in the purely agricultural
districts; they unconsciously copy the outward appearance and the habits
of the Petersburgers; the light of the metropolis falls indirectly on them.” [28]

In
Yaroslavl Gubernia (apart from examples of people growing rich)
“there is still another cause which drives everyone from his
home. That is—public opinion, which dubs a bumpkin to the end of his
days anybody who has not lived in Peters burg, or somewhere else, but
engages in agriculture or some handicraft, and such a man finds it hard to
get a wife” ( Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia , II, 118). Migration to the town elevates the peasant as a citizen, releasing
him from the host of patriarchal and personal relationships of dependence
and social-estate divisions so strongly entrenched in the rural districts.... [29] “A prime factor that fosters migration is the growing sense of human
dignity among the people. Liberation from serf dependence, and the
long-standing association of the more active section of the rural
population with town life, have long since roused the desire in the
Yaroslavl peasant to uphold his ‘ego,’ to get away from the
state of poverty and dependence to which rural life has doomed him, to a
state of sufficiency, independence and respect. . . . The peasant who
lives on outside earnings feels freer and more on a level of equality with
people belonging to other social estates, which is why the rural youth are so eager to go to the town” ( Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia , II, 189-190).

Migration to the towns loosens the old patriarchal family ties and places
women in a more independent position, on an equal footing with
men. “Compared with those in the localities of no migration, the
families of Soligalich and Chukhloma” (the uyezds of Kostroma
Gubernia where migration is greatest) “are much less closely knit,
not only in the sense of the patriarchal authority of the older, but even
in the relations between parents and children, husband and wife. One
cannot, of course, expect strong affection for their parents and
attachment to the parental home from sons who are sent to Petersburg from
the age of 12; unconsciously they become cosmopolitans: ‘where it is
well, there is my country.’” [30] “Accustomed to dispense with the authority
and assistance of her husband, the Soligalich woman is quite unlike the
downtrodden peasant woman of the agricultural zone: she is independent and
self-reliant. . . . Wife-beating is a rare exception here. . . . Generally
speaking, equality between women and men is to be observed almost
everywhere and in all things.” [31]

Last but not least, [32] non-agricultural migration raises the
wages not only of the wage-workers who migrate but also of those
who stay behind.

This fact is most strikingly reflected in the general circumstance that
the non-agricultural gubernias where wages are higher than in the
agricultural gubernias, attract agricultural workers from the latter. [33]

Here are some interesting data for Kaluga Gubernia:

“These figures fully illustrate the phenomena . . . 1) that
migration for work in industry helps to raise wages in agriculture, and 2)
that it attracts the best forces of the population.” [34]

Not only money wages, but real wages also rise. In the group of uyezds from which not fewer than 60 out of every 100
working people migrate the average wage of the farm labourer employed by
the year is 69 rubles, or 123 poods of rye; in the uyezds where from 40 to
60% migrate, it is 64 rubles, or 125 poods of rye; in the uyezds which
supply less than 40% of the migrants, it is 59 rubles, or 116 poods of rye. [35]

In these same groups of uyezds the percentage of letters of complaint about a
shortage of labour steadily drops: 58%, 42% and 35%. In manufacturing
industry wages are higher than in agriculture, and “the industries,
according to the statements of numerous correspondents, help to develop
new requirements (tea, calico, boots, clocks, etc.) among the peasant
population, raise their general standard of living, and in this way bring
about a rise in wages.” [36]

Here is a typical view by a correspondent: “The shortage [of labour]
is always acute, and the reason is that the suburban population is spoilt,
it works in the railway workshops and serves on the railways. The nearness
of Kaluga and its markets always attract the surrounding inhabitants, who
come to sell eggs, milk, etc., and then engage in orgies of drunkenness in
the taverns; the reason is that everybody wants to get the highest pay for
the least work. To be an agricultural labourer is considered a
disgrace : all strive to get to the town, where they swell the
ranks of the proletariat and the riff-raff; the countryside, on the other
hand, suffers from a shortage of capable and healthy labourers.” [37]

We would be quite justified in describing this appraisal of industries employing migratory workers as
Narodist . Mr. Zhbankov, for instance, while pointing out that
those who migrate are not superfluous but “necessary” workers
whose places are taken by entering peasants, considers it
“obvious” that “such mutual replacements are very disadvantageous.” [38]

For whom, dear Mr. Zhbankov? “Life in the capitals cultivates many civilised habits of the lower order and
an inclination to luxury and showiness, and this results in a useless
( sic !!) waste of money” [39] ; the expenditure on this showiness, etc., is largely “unproductive” (!!) [40]

Mr. Hertzenstein positively howls about the “sham culture,” “the riotous living,” “wild
carousing,” “orgies of drunkenness and filthy debauchery,” etc. [41]

From the fact of wholesale migration the Moscow statisticians draw the outright
conclusion that it is necessary to take “measures that would
diminish the need for migratory labour.” [42]

Mr. Karyshev argues about migratory labour as follows: “Only an
increase in the peasants’ holdings to a size sufficient to provide
the main (!) requirements of their families can solve this most serious
problem of our national economy.” [43]

And it does not occur to any of these serene-spirited gentlemen that
before talking about “solving most serious problems,” one must
see to it that the peasants obtain complete freedom of movement, freedom
to give up their land and leave the community, freedom to settle (without
having

to pay “riddance” money) in any community, urban or rural,
whatsoever!

And so the diversion of the population from agriculture is expressed, in
Russia, in the growth of the towns (a growth partly obscured by home
colonisation), suburbs, factory and commercial and industrial villages and
townships, as well as in non-agricultural migration. All these processes,
which have been and are rapidly developing in breadth and depth in the
post-Reform period, are necessary components of capitalist development and
are profoundly progressive as compared with the old forms of life.

---
Notes:
[1]
For 1863 the figures are from the Statistical Chronicle (I, 1866)
and the Military Statistical Abstract . The figures of the urban
population of the Orenburg and Ufa gubernias have been corrected according
to the tables of towns. That is why our figure for the total urban
population is 6,105,100 and not 6,087,100 as given in the Military Statistical Abstract .—For 1885 the data are from Returns for Russia for 1884-85 .—For 1897 the figures are those of the
returns of the census of January 28, 1897. ( First General Census of the Population of the Russian Empire , 1897, Central Statistical
Committee, St. Petersburg, 1897 and 1898, Pts. 1 and 2.) The permanent
urban population, according to the 1897 census, was 11,830,500, i.e.,
12.55%. We have taken the existing population of the towns.—Let us
observe that we cannot vouch for the figures for 1863, 1885 and 1897 being
absolutely uniform and comparable. For that reason we limit our comparison
to the most general proportions and give the data for the big towns
separately.— Lenin

[2]
“The number of urban settlements of an agricultural character is
extremely small and the number of their inhabitants is quite insignificant
compared with the total number of town-dwellers.” (Mr Grigoryev in
The Influence of Harvests and Grain Prices , Vol. II; p. 126.)— Lenin

[3]
Novoye Slovo , June 1897, p. 113.— Lenin

[4]
Mr. Grigoryev gives a table (loc, cit., 140) which shows that in 1885 of
all towns 85.6% had less than 20,000 inhabitants each; 38% of all
town-dwellers were living in them; 12.4% of the towns (82 out of 660) had
less than 2,000 inhabitants each, and only 1.1% of all town-dwellers
(110,000 out of 9,962,000) were living in them.— Lenin

[5]
That we are right in combining with the metropolitan gubernias the
non-agricultural gubernias taken by us is borne out by the fact that the
population of the metropolitan cities is augmented chiefly by migrants
from these gubernias. According to the Petersburg census of December
15,1890, there were in that city 726,000 members of the peasant and the
burgher estates, of these, 544,000 (i.e., three fourths) were members of
the peasant and the burgher estates from the 11 gubernias out of which we
constituted area No. 1.— Lenin

[6]
Loc . cit ., p. 109. “This movement has no parallel in the modern history of Western Europe” (110-111).— Lenin

[7]
See above, Chapter VII, § VIII, and Appendix III to Chapter VII.— Lenin

[8]
On the significance of this circumstance, to which Korsak in his day drew
attention, compare the just remarks of Mr. Volgin ( loc . cit ., pp. 215-216).— Lenin

[9]
How numerous in Russia are villages that constitute very big centres of
population may be judged from the following (though obsolete) data of the
Military Statistical Abstract : in 25 gubernias of European
Russia there were in the 60s a total of 1,334 villages with over 2,000
inhabitants each. Of them, 108 had from 5,000 to 10,000 inhabitants, 6
from 10,000 to 15,000, 1 from 15,000 to 20,000 and 1 over 20,000
(p. 169). The development of capitalism in all countries, not only in
Russia, has led to the rise of new industrial centres not officially
classified as towns. “Differences between town and country are
obliterated, near growing industrial towns this takes place due to the
removal of industrial enterprises and workers’ dwellings to the
suburbs and outskirts of the towns; near declining small towns it takes
place due to the merging of the latter with the surrounding villages and
also to the development of large industrial villages. . . . Differences
between the urban and rural populated areas are eliminated due to numerous
transitional formations. Statisticians have recognised this long ago, and
instead of the historico-juridical concept of the town have adopted the
statistical concept, which distinguishes centres of population solely
according to the number of inhabitants” (B\"ucher, Die Entstehung der Volkswirtschaft , T\"ubingen, 1893, S. 296-297 and 303-304). In this
respect also Russian statistics lag far behind European statistics. In
Germany and in France ( Statesman’s Yearbook , pp. 536, 474)
under towns are placed centres of population having more than 2,000
inhabitants, and in England “net urban sanitary districts,”
i.e., also factory villages, etc. Hence, Russian data on the
“urban” population are not at all comparable with European.— Lenin

[10]
Mr. N.–on has not noticed at all in Russia the process of the
industrialisation of the population! Mr. V. V. observed it and admitted
that the growth of migration expresses a diversion of the population from
agriculture ( The Destiny of Capitalism , 149); however, far from
including this process in the sum-total of his views on the “destiny
of capitalism,” he tried to hush it up with lamentations about the
point that “there are people who find all this very natural”
(for capitalist society? Can Mr. V. V. imagine capitalism without this
phenomenon?) “and almost desirable” ( ibid .). It is desirable without the “almost,” Mr. V. V.!— Lenin

[11]
Residential Permits Issued to the Peasant Population of Moscow Gubernia in 1880 and 1885 .— Statistical Yearbook of Tver Gubernia for 1897 .—Zhbankov: Industries Employing Migratory Workers in Smolensk Gubernia , Smolensk, 1896.—Same
author’s: The Influence of Industries Employing Migratory Workers , etc ., Kostroma, 1887.— Industries of the Peasant Population of Pskov Gubernia , Pskov, 1898.—Mistakes in
the percentages for Moscow Gubernia could not be corrected because there
were no absolute figures.—For

Kostroma Gubernia only uyezd figures are available, and then only in percentages. We had, therefore, to take
the average of the uyezd figures, and for this reason we give the data for
Kostroma Gubernia separately. As regards Yaroslavl Gubernia, it is
estimated that of the migratory industrialists 68.7% are absent all year
round: 12.6% in the autumn and winter, and 18.7% in the spring and
summer. We would observe that the data for Yaroslavl Gubernia ( Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia , Vol. II, Yaroslavl, 1896) are not comparable
with the preceding ones, since they are based on the statements of
priests, etc., and not on passport data.— Lenin

[12]
It is known, for instance, that in the suburbs of St. Petersburg the
population increases very considerably in the summer.— Lenin

[13]
Statistical Survey of Kaluga Gubernia for 1896 , Kaluga, 1897,
p. in Sec. II.— Lenin

[14]
“Industries employing migratory workers . . . are a form that
obscures the uninterrupted growth of the towns. . . . Communal land tenure
and various peculiarities of the financial and administrative life of
Russia do not allow the peasant to become a town-dweller as easily as in
the West. . . . Legal threads sustain his (the migratory worker’s)
tie with the village, but actually by occupation, habits and tastes he has
become completely assimilated with the town and often regards this tie
with his village as irksome” ( Russkaya Mysl , 1896, No. 11,
p. 227). That is very true, but for a publicist is not enough. Why did not
the author declare definitely for complete freedom of movement, for the
freedom of the peasant to leave the village community? Our liberals are
still afraid of our Narodniks. But they have no reason to be.

And here, for purposes of comparison, are the views of a sympathiser with
Narodism, Mr. Zhbankov: “Migration to the towns is, as it were, a
lightning conductor ( sic !) against the rapid growth of the
capitals and big cities and the increase of the urban and landless
proletariat. Both from the sanitary and from the social and economic
points of view, this influence of industries employing migratory workers
should be regarded as beneficial: so long as the masses of the people are
not completely divorced from the land, which provides the migratory
workers with some security” (a “security” they pay money
to break with!), “these workers cannot become the blind instruments
of capitalist production, and the hope remains of organising
agricultural-industrial communes” ( Yuridichesky Vestnik ,
1890, No. 9 p 145). Is not the retention of petty-bourgeois hopes really
beneficial? As for “ blind instruments,” the experience of Europe and all the facts observed in Russia show that this
description is far more applicable to the worker who retains his ties with
the land and with patriarchal relationships than to the one who has broken
these ties. The figures and facts given by Mr. Zhbankov himself show that
the migratory “Petersburger” is more literate, cultured and
developed than the settled Kostromer in some “backwoods”
uyezd.— Lenin

[15]
L. Vesin, The Significance of Industries Employing Migratory Workers , etc ., Dyelo ( Business ), 1886,
No. 7, and 1887, No. 2.— Lenin

[16]
Statistics of Excise-Paying Trades , etc ., for 1897-1898,
St. Petersburg, 1900. Published by Head Office of Non-Assessed Taxes
Department.— Lenin

[17]
Gubernias: Moscow (1885, obsolete data), Tver (1896), Kostroma (1892),
Smolensk (1895), Kaluga (1895), Pskov (1896). The sources have been
indicated above. The data refer to all departure permits, male and female.— Lenin

[18]
Vestnik obshchestvennoi gigieny , sudebnoi i prakticheskoi meditsiny ( Journal of Public Hygiene and of Forensic and Practical Medicine ), July, 1896. M. Uvarov: The Influence of Industry Employing Migratory Workers on the Sanitary Conditions of Russia . M. Uvarov gathered the data for 126 uyezds of 20 gubernias.— Lenin

[19]
Cf. above, p. 239, footnote.— Lenin

[20]
The Condition of the Working Class in Russia , St. Petersburg,
1869, p. 400 and foll.— Lenin

[21]
Data on passport revenue taken from Returns for Russia for
1884-85 and for 1896. In 1885, passport revenue in European Russia
amounted to 37 rubles per 1,000 inhabitants; in the 11 non-agricultural
gubernias it was 86 rubles per 1,000 inhabitants.— Lenin

[22]
The last two columns in the table have been added by us. Group 1 includes
the following gubernias: Archangel, Vladimir, Vologda Vyatka, Kaluga,
Kostroma, Moscow, Novgorod, Perm, St. Petersburg, Tver, Yaroslavl; group
II: Kazan, Nizhni-Novgorod, Ryazan, Tula, Smolensk; group III: Bessarabia,
Volhynia, Voronezh, Ekaterinoslav, Don, Kiev, Kursk, Orenburg, Orel,
Penza, Podolsk, Poltava, Samara, Saratov, Simbirsk, Taurida, Tambov, Ufa,
Kharkov, Kherson, Chernigov.—We must mention that this classification contains some inaccuracies exaggerating the proportion of
migration for agricultural work. The gubernias of Smolensk,
Nizhni-Novgorod and Tula should be included in group I (cf. Agricultural Survey of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia for 1896 ,
Chapter XI— Tula Gubernia Handbook for 1895 , Section VI,
p. 10: the number of persons leaving for work away from their homes is
given as 188,000—but Mr. Korolenko calculated that there were only
50,000 superfluous workers!—the 6 northern, non-black-earth uyezds
accounting for 107,000 migrants.) Kursk Gubernia should be included in
group II (S. Korolenko, loc . cit .: from 7 uyezds the majority leave for handicraft, and from the remaining 8 all leave for
agricultural industries). Unfortunately, Mr. Vesin does not give the
number, by gubernias, of departure permits issued.— Lenin

[23]
* Incidentally, the author of the survey of these data
( loc . cit ., Chapter VI, p. 639) ascribes the decrease in
the number of passports issued in 1898 to the drop in the migration of
summer workers to the southern gubernias resulting from the bad harvest
and the widespread use of machinery in agriculture. This explanation is of
no value whatever, since the number of residential permits issued declined
least in group III and most in group I. Are the methods of registration in
1897 and in 1898 comparable? ( Note to 2nd edition .)— Lenin

[24]
Zhbankov: The Influence of Industries Employing Migratory Workers , etc ., p. 36 and foll. The percentage of literate
males in the uyezds of Kostroma Gubernia from which there is migration is
55.9%; in the factory uyezds, 34.9%, in the settled (forest) uyezds,
25.8%; of literate females: 3.5%, 2.0% and 1.3%; school children: 1.44%,
1.43%, and 1.07%. Children in uyezds from which there is migration also
attend school in St. Petersburg.— Lenin

[25]
“The literate Petersburgers take a positively better and more
intelligent attitude to medical treatment” ( ibid ., 34), so
that infectious diseases are not so fatal among them as in the
“ little-cultured ” volosts (author’s italics).— Lenin

[26]
“The uyezds from which there is migration are much superior to the
agricultural and forest localities in the arrangement of their
lives. . . . The clothes of the Petersburgers are much cleaner, smarter
and more hygienic. . . . The children are kept cleaner, and that is why
the itch and other skin diseases are not so frequent among them”
( ibid ., 39. Cf. Industries Employing Migratory Workers in Smolensk Gubernia , p. 8). “The villages from which there is
migration differ considerably from those from which there is none: houses,
clothes, habits and amusements remind one more of town than of village
life” ( Industries Employing Migratory Workers in Smolensk Gubernia , p. 3). In the volosts of Kostroma Gubernia from which there
is migration “you find paper, ink, pencils and pens in half the
houses” ( Women’s Country , 67-68).— Lenin

[27]
Women’s Country , 26-27, 15.— Lenin

[28]
Ibid ., p. 27.— Lenin

[29]
For example, the Kostroma peasants are prompted to become registered as
burghers, among other things by possible “corporal punishment,” which is “even more awful to the flashy
Petersburger than to the raw country dweller” ( ibid ., 58).— Lenin

[30]
Ibid ., 88.— Lenin

[31]
Yuridichesky Vestnik , 1890, No. 9, p. 142.— Lenin

[32]
This expression is in English in the original.— Ed .

[33]
Cf. Chapter IV, § IV, pp. 270-271.— Lenin

[34]
Statistical Survey of Kaluga Gubernia for 1896 , Sec. II, p. 48.— Lenin

[35]
Ibid ., Sec. I, p. 27.— Lenin

[36]
Ibid ., p. 41.— Lenin

[37]
Ibid ., p. 40, author’s italics.— Lenin

[38]
Women’s Country , 39 and 8. “Will not these genuine peasants (newly-entered) exert a sobering influence, by the prosperous
life they lead, upon the native population, who regard not the land but
employment away from home as their main source of livelihood?” (p
40). “Incidentally,” remarks the author sadly, “we have
already cited an example of the opposite influence.” Here is the
example. Vologda folk bought land and lived “very prosperously.” “In reply to the question I put to one of them
as to why, though well-off, he let his son go to St. Petersburg, he said:
‘It’s true we are not poor, but life is very dull here, and my
son, seeing others go, wanted to get educated himself; at home too he was
the one with knowledge’” (p. 25). Poor Narodniks! How can they
help deploring the fact that even the example of well-to-do,
land-purchasing muzhik farmer cannot “sober” the youth, who,
in their desire to “get educated,” flee from the “allotment that secures them their livelihood”!— Lenin

[39]
The Influence of Industries Employing Migratory Workers ,
etc ., 33, author’s italics.— Lenin

[40]
Yuridichesky Vestnik , 1890, No. 9, 138.— Lenin

[41]
Russkaya Mysl (not Russky Vestnik , but Russkaya Mysl ), [45]
1887, No. 9, p. 163.— Lenin

[42]
Residential Permits , etc ., p. 7.— Lenin

[43]
Russkoye Bogatstvo , 1896, No. 7, p. 18. So then, the “main” requirements are to be met by the allotment, and the
rest apparently by “local employments” secured in the “countryside,” which “suffers from a shortage of capable
and healthy labourers”!— Lenin

[44]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 622. [p. 562]

[45]
In the 1890s Russkaya Mysl was a liberal publication and
Russky Vestnik , a magazine expressing the reactionary view.
[p. 580]

| | I. The Growth of Commodity Circulation | | | III. The Growth of the Employment of Wage-Labour | |

# The Growth of the Employment of Wage-Labour

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8viii/viii8iii.htm

Chapter VIII. The Formation of the Home Market

### III. The Growth of the Employment of Wage-Labour

In considering the development of capitalism, perhaps the greatest
importance attaches to the extent to which wage-labour is
employed. Capitalism is that stage in the development of
commodity-production in which labour power, too, becomes a commodity. The
main tendency of capitalism is to apply the sum-total of labour-power in
the national economy to production only after it has been sold and has
been purchased by the employers. Above, we made an attempt to show in
detail how this tendency has manifested itself in post-Reform Russia; now,
we must draw the necessary conclusions. Firstly, let us compute the data
on the number of sellers of labour-power given in the preceding chapters
and then (in the next section) describe the purchasers of labour-power.

The sellers of labour-power are provided by the country’s working
population engaged in the production of material values. It is estimated
that this population numbers about 15.5 million adult male workers. [1]

In
Chapter II we showed that the bottom group of the peasantry is nothing else than a rural
proletariat; and we stated (p. 177, footnote) that the forms in which this
proletariat sells its labour-power would be examined later. Let us now
combine the categories of wage-workers previously enumerated: 1)
agricultural wage-workers. These number about 3 1/2 million (in European
Russia). 2) Factory, mining and railway workers—about 1

1/2 million. Total, five million professional wage-workers. Further: 3)
building workers—about 1 million. 4) Lumber workers (tree-fellers,
log trimmers, rafters, etc.), navvies, railway builders, goods loaders and
unloaders, and in general all kinds of “unskilled” labourers
in industrial centres. These number about

2 million. [2]

5)
Workers occupied at home for capitalists, and also those working for wages
in the manufacturing industries not included in “factory
industry.” These number about 2 million.

Total— about ten million wage-workers . If we deduct the
women and children, say one-fourth, [3] we get
7 1/2 million adult male wage-workers , i.e., about half
the total adult male population that is engaged in the production of
material values [4] in the country. Part of this vast mass of wage-workers have completely broken
with the land, and live entirely by the sale of their labour-power. They
include the great majority of factory (undoubtedly also of mining and
railway) workers, then a section of the building and shipbuilding workers,
and unskilled labourers; finally, a fairly large section of the workers
employed in capitalist manufactories and the inhabitants of non-agricultural centres engaged in
home work for capitalists. The other, and larger, section has not yet
broken with the land, covers its expenditures in part with the produce
that comes from farming tiny plots of land, and, consequently, forms the
type of allotment-holding wage-worker which we attempted to describe in
detail in Chapter II. In earlier remarks it was shown that this vast mass
of wage-workers has been formed mainly in the post-Reform period and that
it continues to grow rapidly.

It is important to note the significance of our conclusion regarding the
relative surplus-population (or reserve army of unemployed) created by
capitalism. The data regarding the total number of wage-workers in all
branches of the national economy bring out very clearly the basic error
committed by the Narodnik economists on this point. As we have had
occasion to observe elsewhere ( Studies , pp. 38–42), [5] this error
lies in the fact that the Narodnik economists (Messrs. V. V., N.–on and
others), who have talked a great deal about capitalism “freeing” the workers, have not thought of investigating the
concrete forms of capitalist over-population in Russia; as well as in the
fact that they failed completely to understand that the very existence and
development of capitalism in this country require an enormous mass of
reserve workers. By means of paltry phrases and curious calculations as to
the number of “factory” workers, [6] they have transformed one of the basic conditions for the development of capitalism
into proof that capitalism is impossible, is an error, is devoid of foundation,
etc. Actually, however, Russian capitalism could never have developed to
its present level, could not have survived a single year, had the
expropriation of the small producers not created an army of many millions
of wage-workers ready at the first call to satisfy the maximum demand of
the employers in agriculture, lumbering, building, commerce and in the
manufacturing, mining, and transport industries, etc. We say the maximum
demand, because capitalism can only develop spasmodically, and
consequently, the number of producers who need to sell their labour-power
must always exceed capitalism’s average demand for workers. We have
now estimated the total number of the various categories of wage-workers,
but in doing so do not wish to say that capitalism is in a position to
give regular employment to them all. There is not, nor can there be, such
regularity of employment in capitalist society, whichever category of
wage-worker we take. Of the millions of migratory and resident workers a
certain section is constantly in the reserve army of unemployed, and this
reserve army now swells to enormous dimensions—in years of crisis,
or if there is a slump in some industry in a particular district, or if
there is a particularly rapid extension of machine production, which
displaces workers— and now shrinks to a minimum, even causing that
“shortage” of labour which is often the subject of complaint
by employers in some industries, in some years, in some parts of the
country. It is impossible to determine even approximately the number of
unemployed in an average year, owing to the complete absence of anything
like reliable statistics; but there is no doubt that the number must be a
very large one, as is evidenced by both the tremendous fluctuations in
capitalist industry, trade and agriculture, to which repeated reference
was made above, and by the usual deficits in the budgets of the
bottom-group peasants recorded by Zemstvo statistics. The increase in the
number of peasants thrown into the ranks of the industrial and rural
proletariat, and the increase in the demand for wage-labour, are two sides
of one medal. As for the forms of wage-labour, they are extremely diverse
in n capitalist society still everywhere enmeshed in survivals and
institutions of the pre-capitalist regime. It is a profound error to ignore this diversity of forms, and that
is the error of those who, like Mr. V. V., argue that capitalism has
“fenced off a corner for itself with some one to one-and-a-half
million workers and never emerges from it.” [7]

Here we have large-scale machine industry instead of capitalism. But how
arbitrarily and how artificially are these million and a half workers
fenced off into a special “corner” that is supposedly in no
way connected with the remaining spheres of wage-labour! As a matter of
fact, the connection is a very close one, and it will be sufficient, in
order to characterise it, to mention two basic features of the present
economic system. Firstly, this system is based on money economy. The
“power of money” manifests itself in full force in both
industry and agriculture, in both town and country, but it reaches its
full development, completely eliminates the remnants of patriarchal
economy, is concentrated in a few gigantic institutions (banks) and is
directly connected with large-scale social production only in the sphere
of large-scale machine industry. Secondly, the economic system of today is
based on the purchase and sale of labour-power. If we take even the
smallest producers in agriculture or in industry, we will find that the
one who does not hire himself out, or himself hire others, is the
exception. But here again, these relationships reach full development and
become completely separated from previous forms of economy only in large
scale machine industry. Hence, the “corner” which seems so
small to some Narodnik actually embodies the quintessence of modern social
relationships, and the population of this “corner,” i.e., the
proletariat, is, in the literal sense of the word, the vanguard of the
whole mass of toilers and exploited. [8]

Therefore, only by examining the whole of the present economic system from
the angle of the relationships that have grown up in this
“corner” can one become clear about the main relations between
the various groups of persons taking part in production, and,
consequently, trace the system’s main trend of development. On the
other hand, whoever turns his back on this “corner” and
examines economic phenomena from the angle of petty patriarchal
production, is turned by the march of history into either an innocent
dreamer or an ideologist of the petty bourgeoisie and the agrarians.

---
Notes:
[1]
The figure given in the Combined Statistical Material ,
etc . (published by Chancellory of the Committee of Ministers,
1894), is 15,546,618. This figure was reached in the following way. The
urban population was taken as equal to the population not participating in
the production of material values. The adult male peasant population was
reduced by 7% (4.5% on military service and 2.5% in civilian service).— Lenin

[2]
Above we saw that lumber workers alone are estimated at about 2
million. The number of workers employed in the last two groups of
occupations we have indicated should be larger than the total number of
non-agricultural migratory workers, for part of the building workers,
unskilled labourers, particularly lumber workers are local and not
migratory workers. And we have seen that the number of non-agricultural
migratory workers is not less than 3 million.— Lenin

[3]
In factory industry, as we have seen, women and children constitute a
little over 1/4 of the total number of workers. In the mining, building
and lumber industries, etc., few women and children are employed. In
capitalist domestic industry, on the other hand, they are probably more
numerous than men.— Lenin

[4]
To avoid misunderstanding, let us make the reservation that we do not
claim these figures to be statistically exact. We merely wish to show
approximately the diversity of the forms of wage-labour and the numbers of
those engaged in it.— Lenin

[5]
Cf. present edition, Vol. 2, “A Characterisation of Economic
Romanticism.”— Ed .

[6]
Let us recall the argument of Mr. N.–on about the “handful”
of workers, and also the following, truly classic, calculation by
Mr. V. V. ( Essays on Theoretical Economics , p. 131). In the 50
gubernias of European Russia there are 15,547,000 adult male workers
belonging to the peasant estate; of these, 1,020,000 (863,000 in factory
industry + 160,000 railway workers) are “united by capital”;
the rest are the “agricultural population.” With the “complete capitalisation of the manufacturing industries”
“capitalist factory industry” will employ twice as many hands
(13.3% in place of 7.6%, while the remaining 86.7% of the population
“will remain on the land and be idle during half the year”). Obviously, comment could only spoil the impression created
by this wonderful specimen of economic science and economic statistics.— Lenin

[7]
Novoye Slovo , 1896, No. 6, p. 21.— Lenin

[8]
Mutatis mutandis , the same may be said of the relation between
wage-workers in large-scale machine industry and the rest of the
wage-workers as the Webbs say of the relation between trade unionists in
Britain and non-unionists: “The trade unionists number about 4 per
cent of the total population . . . the trade unionists number about 20 per
cent of the adult male manual working class.” But “Die
Gewerkschaftler . . . zahlen . . . in der Regel die Elite des Gewerbes in
ihren Reihen. Der moralische und geistige Einfluss, den sie auf die Masse
ihrer Berufsgenossen ausuben, steht deshalb ausser jedem Verhaltniss zu
ihrer numerischen Starke” (S. & B. Webb: Die Geschichte des britischen

Trade Unionismus , Stuttgart, Dietz, 1895,
S. S. 363, 365, 381) [“the trade unionists . . . include, as a
general rule, the picked men in each trade. The moral and intellectual
influence which they exercise on the rest of their class is, therefore,
out of all proportion to their numbers.” (S. and B. Webb: The History of Trade Unionism , London, 1902, pp. 409, 411,
430). – Ed .]— Lenin

| | II. The Growth of the Commercial and Industrial Population | | | IV. The Formation of a Home Market for Labour-Power | |

# The Formation of a Home Market for Labour-Power

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8viii/viii8iv.htm

Chapter VIII. The Formation of the Home Market

### IV. The Formation of a Home Market for Labour-Power

To sum up the data given earlier on this problem we shall confine
ourselves to the picture of the movement of workers over the territory of
European Russia. Such a picture is supplied by the Department of
Agriculture’s publication [1] based on statements by employers. The picture of the movement of workers will
give a general idea of how the home market for labour-power is being
formed; using the material of the publication mentioned, we have only
tried to draw a distinction between the movement of agricultural and
non-agricultural workers, although the map appended to the publication and
illustrating the movement of the workers does not show this distinction.

The main movements of agricultural workers are the following: 1) From the
central agricultural gubernias to the southern and eastern outer regions. 2) From the northern black-earth
gubernias to the southern black-earth gubernias, from which, in turn, the
workers go to the border regions (cf. Chapter III, § IX, pp. 237-238 and
§ X, pp. 242-243). 3) From the central agricultural gubernias to the
industrial gubernias (cf. Chapter IV, § IV, pp. 270-271). 4) From the
central and the south-western agricultural gubernias to the area of
sugar-beet plantations (workers come in part to these places even from
Galicia).

The main movements of non-agricultural workers are: 1) To the
metropolitan cities and the large towns, chiefly from the non-agricultural
gubernias, but to a considerable degree also from the agricultural
gubernias. 2) To the industrial area, to the factories of Vladimir,
Yaroslavl and other gubernias from the same localities. 3) To new centres
of industry or to new branches of industry, to centres of non-factory
industry, etc. These include the movement: a) to the beet-sugar refineries
of the south-western gubernias; b) to the southern mining area; c) to jobs
at the docks (Odessa, Rostov-on-Don, Riga, etc.); d) to the peat beds in
Vladimir and other gubernias; e) to the mining and metallurgical area of
the Urals; f) to the fisheries (Astrakhan, the Black Sea, Azov Sea, etc.);
g) to shipbuilding, sailoring, lumbering and rafting jobs, etc.; h) to
jobs on the railways, etc.

These are the main movements of the workers which, according to the
evidence of employers, more or less materially affect the conditions of
labour hire in the various localities. To appreciate more clearly the
significance of these movements, let us compare them with the data on
wages in the various districts from and to which the workers
migrate. Confining ourselves to 28 gubernias in European Russia, we divide
these into 6 groups according to the character of the movement of workers,
and get the following data: [2]

This table clearly shows us the basis of the process that creates the home
market for labour-power and, consequently, the home market for
capitalism. Two main areas, those most developed capitalistically, attract
vast numbers of workers: the area of agricultural capitalism (the southern
and the eastern outer regions), and the area of industrial capitalism (the
metropolitan and the industrial gubernias). Wages are lowest in the area
of departure, the central agricultural gubernias, where capitalism, both
in agriculture and in industry, is least developed [3] ; in the
influx areas, on the other hand, wages rise for all types of work, as does
also the percentage of money wage to total wage, i.e., money economy gains
ground at the expense of natural economy. The intermediary areas, those
between the areas of the greatest influx (and of the highest wages) and
the area of departure (and of the lowest wages) reveal the mutual
replacement of workers to which reference was made above: workers leave in
such numbers that in the places of departure a shortage of labour is
created which attracts workers from the more “poorly paid”
gubernias.

In essence, the two-sided process shown in our table—that of the
diversion of population from agriculture to industry (industrialisation of
the population) and of the development of commercial-industrial,
capitalist agriculture (industrialisation of agriculture)—epitomises
all that has been said above on the formation of a home market for capitalist
society. The home market for capitalism is created by the parallel
development of capitalism in agriculture and in industry, [4] by the
formation of a class of rural and industrial employers, on the one hand,
and of a class of rural and industrial wage-workers, on the other. The
main streams of the movement of workers show the main forms of this
process, but by far not all the forms; in what has gone before we have
shown that the forms of this process differ in peasant and in landlord
farming, in the different areas of commercial agriculture, in the
different stages of the capitalist development of industry, etc.

How far this process is distorted and confused by the representatives of
Narodnik economics is seen most clearly in § VI of Part 2 of
Mr. N.–on’s Sketches , which bears the significant heading:
“The Influence of the Redistribution of the Social Productive Forces
upon the Economic Position of the Agricultural Population.” Here is
how Mr. N.–on pictures this “redistribution”: “. . . In
capitalist . . . society, every increase in the productive power of labour
entails the ‘freeing’ of a corresponding number of workers,
who are compelled to seek some other employment; and since this occurs in
all branches of production, and this ‘freeing’ takes place
over the whole of capitalist society, the only thing left open to them is
to turn to the means of production of which they have not yet been
deprived, namely, the land” (p. 126). . . . “Our peasants have
not been deprived of the land, and that is why they turn their efforts
towards it. When they lose their employment in the factory, or are obliged
to abandon their subsidiary domestic occupations, they see no other course
but to set about the increased exploitation of the soil. All Zemstvo
statistical returns note the fact that the area under cultivation is growing. . .”
(128).

As you see, Mr. N.–on knows of quite a special sort of capitalism that
has never existed anywhere and that no economist could conceive
of. Mr. N.–on’s capitalism does not divert the population from
agriculture to industry, does not divide the agriculturists into opposite
classes. Quite the contrary. Capitalism “frees” the workers
from industry and there is nothing left for “them” to do but
to turn to the land, for “our peasants have not been deprived of the
land”!! At the bottom of this “theory,” which originally
“redistributes” in poetic disorder all the processes of
capitalist development, lie the ingenious tricks of all Narodniks which we
have examined in detail previously: they lump together the peasant
bourgeoisie and the rural proletariat; they ignore the growth of
commercial farming; they concoct stories about “people’s” “handicraft industries” being
isolated from “capitalist” “factory industry,” instead of analysing the consecutive forms and diverse manifestations of
capitalism in industry.

---
Notes:
[1]
“Agricultural and statistical information based on material obtained
from farmers. Vol. V. Hired Labour on private-landowner farms and
the movement of workers, according to a statistical and economic survey of
agriculture and industry in European Russia.” Compiled by
S. A. Korolenko. Published by Department of Agriculture and Rural
Industries, St. Petersburg, 1892.— Lenin

[2]
The other gubernias are omitted in order not to complicate our exposition
with data that contribute nothing new to the subject under examination;
furthermore, the other gubernias are either untouched by the main, mass,
movements of workers (Urals, the North) or have their specific
ethnographical, administrative and juridical features (the Baltic
gubernias, the gubernias in the Jewish Pale of

Settlement, the
Byelorussian gubernias, etc.). Data from the publication cited above. Wage
figures are the average for the gubernias in the respective groups; the
day labourer’s summer wage is the average for three seasons: sowing,
haymaking and harvesting. The areas (1 to 6) include the following
gubernias: 1) Taurida, Bessarabia and Don; 2) Kherson, Ekaterinoslav,
Samara, Saratov, Orenburg; 3) Simbirsk, Voronezh, Kharkov; 4) Kazan,
Penza, Tambov, Ryazan, Tula, Orel, Kursk; 5) Pskov, Novgorod, Kaluga,
Kostroma, Tver, Nizhni-Novgorod; 6) St. Petersburg, Moscow, Yaroslavl,
Vladimir.— Lenin

[3]
Thus, the peasants flee in mass from the localities where patriarchal
economic relationships are most prevalent, where labour-service and
primitive forms of industry are preserved to the greatest extent, to
localities where the “pillars” are completely decayed. They
flee from “people’s production” and pay no heed to the chorus of voices from “society” following in their wake. In
this chorus two voices can be clearly distinguished: “They have
little attachment!” comes the menacing bellow of the Black-Hundred

Sobakevich. [5] “They have insufficient allotment land!” is the polite
correction of the Cadet Manilov.— Lenin

[4]
Theoretical economics established this simple truth long ago. To say
nothing of Marx, who pointed directly to the development of capitalism in
agriculture as a process that creates a “home market for industrial
capital” ( Das Kapital , I 2, S. 776, Chapter 24, Sec. 5),  [6] let us refer
to Adam Smith. In chapter XI of Book I and Chapter IV of Book III of
The Wealth of Nations , he pointed to the most characteristic
features of the development of capitalist agriculture and noted the
parallelism of this process with the process of the growth of the towns
and the development of industry.— Lenin

[5]
Sobakevich – a character in Gogol’s Dead Souls , the personification of the bullying, tight-fisted landlord. [p. 589]

[6]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, Chapter 30 (p. 745).
[p. 590]

| | III. The Growth of the Employment of Wage-Labour | | | V. The Significance of the Border Regions. Home or Foreign Market? | |

# The Significance of the Border Regions. Home or Foreign Market?

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8viii/viii8v.htm

Chapter VIII. The Formation of the Home Market

V. The Significance of the Border Regions. Home or Foreign
Market?

In Chapter I we pointed to the erroneous character of the theory that
links the problem of a foreign market for capitalism with that of the
realisation of the product (pp. 64-65 and foll.). Capitalism’s need
of a foreign market is by no means to be explained by the impossibility of
realising the product on the home market, but by the circumstance that
capitalism is in no position to go on repeating the same processes of
production on the former scale, under unchanging conditions (as was the
case under pre-capitalist regimes), and that it inevitably leads to an
unlimited growth of production which overflows the old, narrow limits of
earlier economic units. With the unevenness of development inherent in
capitalism, one branch of production outstrips the others and strives to
transcend the bounds of the old field of economic relations. Let us take,
for example, the textile industry at the beginning of the post-Reform
period. Being fairly well developed capitalistically (manufacture
beginning to pass into factory industry), it had gained complete command
of the market of Central Russia. But the big factories, growing so
rapidly, could no longer be satisfied with the former dimensions of the
market; they began to seek a market further afield, among the new
population colonising Novorossia, the south-east Transvolga region, North
Caucasus, then Siberia, etc. The efforts of the big factories to reach out
beyond the old markets are undoubted. Does it mean that the areas which
served as these old markets could not, in general, consume a larger
quantity of the products of the textile industry? Does it mean, for
example, that the industrial and central agricultural gubernias cannot, in
general, absorb a larger quantity of wares? No, it does not. We know that
the differentiation of the peasantry, the growth of commercial agriculture
and the increase in the industrial population have also expanded, and
continue to expand, the home market of this old area. But this expansion
of the home market is retarded by many factors (chief among them the
retention of obsolete institutions which hinder the development of
agricultural capitalism); and the factory owners will not, of course, wait
until the capitalist development of other branches of the national economy
catches up with that of the textile industry. The mill owners need a
market at once, and if the backwardness of other branches of the national
economy restricts the market in the old area, they will seek for a market
in another area, or in other countries, or in the colonies of the old
country.

What is a colony in the politico-economic sense? It was stated above that,
according to Marx, the main features of this concept are the following: 1)
the existence of unoccupied, free lands, easily accessible to settlers; 2)
the existence of an established world division of labour, of a world
market, thanks to which the colonies can specialise in the mass production
of agricultural produce, receiving in exchange finished industrial goods
“which they would have to produce themselves under other
circumstances” (see above, p. 258, footnote, Chapter IV,
§ II). Reference has been made elsewhere to the fact that the
southern and the eastern border regions of European Russia, which have been settled in
the post-Reform period, bear the distinctive features mentioned and
constitute, in the economic sense, colonies of Central European

Russia. [1]

The term colony is still more applicable to the other outer regions, for example,
the Caucasus. Its economic “conquest” by Russia took place
much later than the political conquest; and to this day this economic
conquest has not been completed to the full. In the post-Reform period
there has been, on the one hand, an intensive colonisation of the

Caucasus, [2] an extensive ploughing up of the land (particularly in the North Caucasus) by
colonists producing wheat, tobacco, etc., for sale, and attracting masses
of rural wage-workers from Russia. On the other hand, native age-old
“handicraft” industries, which are declining due to the
competition of wares from Moscow, are being eliminated. There has been a
decline in the ancient gunsmith’s craft due to the competition of
imported Tula and Belgian wares, a decline in handicraft iron-work due to
the competition of the imported Russian products, as well as in the
handicraft processing of copper, gold and silver, clay, fats and soda,
leather, etc. [3]

These products are turned out more cheaply in Russian factories, which supply
the Caucasus with their wares. There has been a decline in the making of
drinking-horns because of the decay of the feudal system in Georgia and of
the steady disappearance of her memorable feasts; there has been a decline
in the headgear industry due to the replacement of Asiatic dress by
European; there has been a decline in the production of wine-skins and
pitchers for local wine, which for the first time is now being sold
(giving rise to the barrel-making trade) and has in turn captured the
Russian

market. Russian capitalism has thus been drawing the Caucasus into
the sphere of world commodity circulation, obliterating its local
peculiarities— the remnants of ancient patriarchal isolation—and providing itself with a market for its
factories. A country thinly populated at the beginning of the post-Reform
period, or populated by mountaineers living outside world economy and even
outside history, has been turning into a land of oil industrialists, wine
merchants, big wheat and tobacco growers, and

Mr. Coupon [6] has been ruthlessly divesting the proud mountaineer of his picturesque national
costume and dressing him in the livery of a European flunkey (Gleb

Uspensky). [7] The process of rapid colonisation in the Caucasus and of the rapid growth of
its agricultural population has been accompanied by a process (obscured by
this growth) of the diversion of the population from agriculture to
industry. The urban population of the Caucasus increased from 350,000 in
1863 to about 900,000 in 1897 (the total population increased between 1851
and 1897 by 95%). There is no need to add that the same thing has taken
place and continues in both Central Asia and Siberia, etc.

Thus, the question naturally arises, where is the border line between the
home and the foreign market? To take the political boundaries of the state
would be too mechanical a solution—and would it be a solution? If
Central Asia is the home market and Persia the foreign market, to which
category do Khiva and Bokhara belong? If Siberia is the home market and
China the foreign market, to which category does Manchuria belong? Such
questions are not of great importance. What is important is that
capitalism cannot exist and develop without constantly expanding the
sphere of its domination, without colonising new countries and drawing old
non-capitalist countries into the whirlpool of world economy. And this
feature of capitalism has been and continues to be manifested with
tremendous force in post-Reform Russia.

Hence, the process of the formation of a market for capitalism has two
aspects, namely, the development of capitalism in depth, i.e., the further
growth of capitalist agriculture and industry in the given, definite and
enclosed territory—and the development of capitalism in breadth, i.e., the extension of the sphere of the capitalist domination to new
territory. In accordance with the plan of the present work, we have
confined ourselves almost exclusively to the first aspect of the process,
and for this reason we consider it particular]y necessary to stress the
point here that its other aspect is of exceptionally great
importance. Anything like a complete study of the process of colonisation
of the border regions and of the expansion of Russian territory, from the
point of view of capitalist development, would require a special
work. Suffice it to mention here that Russia is in a particularly favoured
position as compared with other capitalist countries, due to the abundance
of free land accessible for colonisation in her border regions. [4]

To say nothing of Asiatic Russia we have also in European Russia border regions
which, because of their exceeding remoteness and bad means of
communication, are still very poorly connected economically with central
Russia. Let us take, for instance, the “Far North”
—Archangel Gubernia; the boundless stretches of territory and their
natural resources are still exploited very slightly. One of the principal
local products, timber, was until recently exported mainly to England. In
this respect, therefore, that part of European Russia was a foreign market
for Britain without being a home market for Russia. The Russian
entrepreneurs naturally envied the British, and now, with the extension of
the railway line to Archangel, they are jubilant at the prospect of
“elevated moods and business activity in various branches of
industry in the region.” [5]

---
Notes:
[1]
“. . . It was thanks exclusively to them, thanks to these forms of
people’s production, and on the basis of them that the whole of
South Russia was colonised and settled.” (Mr. N.–on, Sketches , 284). How wonderfully broad and comprehensive is the
term: “forms of people’s production”! It covers whatever
you like: patriarchal peasant farming, labour-service, primitive
handicrafts, small commodity-production, and those typically capitalist
relations within the peasant community that we saw above in the data on
the Taurida and Samara gubernias (Chapter II, etc., etc.— Lenin

[2]
Cf. articles by Mr. P. Semyonov in Vestnik Finansov , 1897,
No. 21, and by V. Mikhailovsky in Novoye Slovo , June 1897.— Lenin

[3]
See article by K. Khatisov in Vol. II of Reports and Investigations of Handicraft Industry , and by P. Ostryakov in Vol. V. of
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission .— Lenin

[4]
The circumstance indicated in the text has another aspect. The development
of capitalism in depth in the old, long-inhabited territories is retarded
because of the colonisation of the outer regions. The solution of the
contradictions inherent in, and produced by, capitalism is temporarily
postponed because of the fact that capitalism can easily develop in
breadth. Thus, the simultaneous existence of the most advanced forms of
industry and of semi-medieval forms of agriculture is undoubtedly a
contradiction. If Russian capitalism had possessed no range for expansion
beyond the bounds of the territory already occupied at the beginning of
the post-Reform period, this contradiction between capitalist large-scale
industry and the archaic institutions in rural life (the tying of the
peasants to the land, etc.) would have had to lead quickly to the complete
abolition of these institutions, to the complete clearing of the path for
agricultural capitalism in Russia. But the possibility (for the mill
owner) of seeking and finding a market in the outer regions in process of
colonisation and the possibility (for the peasant) of moving to new
territory, mitigates the acuteness of this contradiction and delays its
solution. It goes without saying that such a deceleration of the growth of
capitalism is equivalent to preparing its even greater extension in the
near future.— Lenin

[5]
Productive Forces , XX, 12.— Lenin

[6]
Mr . Coupon —a term adopted in the 1880s and 1890s to indicate capital and capitalists. The expression
“Mr. Coupon” was put in circulation by the writer Gleb
Uspensky in his articles “Grave Sins.” [p. 594]

[7]
See Gleb Uspensky’s article “In the Caucasus.”
Works , Vol. II, 1918. [p. 594]

| | IV. The Formation of a Home Market for Labour-Power | | | VI. The “Mission” of Capitalism | |

# The " Mission" of Capitalism

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8viii/viii8vi.htm

Chapter VIII. The Formation of the Home Market

### VI. The “Mission” of Capitalism

We still have, in conclusion, to sum up on the question which in
literature has come to be known as that of the “mission” of
capitalism, i.e., of its historical role in the economic development of
Russia. Recognition of the progressiveness of this role is quite
compatible (as we have tried to show in detail at every stage in our
exposition of the facts) with the full recognition of the negative and
dark sides of capitalism, with the full recognition of the profound and
all-round social contradictions which are inevitably inherent in
capitalism, and which reveal the historically transient character of this
economic regime. It is the Narodniks—who exert every effort to show
that an admission of the historically progressive nature of capitalism
means an apology for capitalism—who are at fault in underrating (and
some times in even ignoring) the most profound contradictions of Russian
capitalism, by glossing over the differentiation of the peasantry, the
capitalist character of the evolution of our agriculture, and the rise of
a class of rural and industrial allotment-holding wage-labourers, by
glossing over the complete predominance of the lowest and worst forms of
capitalism in the celebrated “handicraft” industries.

The progressive historical role of capitalism may be summed up in two
brief propositions: increase in the productive forces of social labour,
and the socialisation of that labour. But both these facts manifest
themselves in extremely diverse processes in different branches of the
national economy.

The development of the productive forces of social labour is to be
observed in full relief only in the epoch of large-scale machine
industry. Until that highest stage of capitalism was reached, there still
remained hand production and primitive technique, which developed quite
spontaneously and exceedingly slowly. The post-Reform epoch differs
radically in this respect from previous epochs in Russian history. The Russia of the
wooden plough and the flail, of the water-mill and the hand-loom, began
rapidly to be transformed into the Russia of the iron plough and the
threshing machine, of the steam-mill and the power-loom. An equally
thorough transformation of technique is seen in every branch of the
national economy where capitalist production predominates. This process of
transformation must, by the very nature of capitalism, take place in the
midst of much that is uneven and disproportionate: periods of prosperity
alternate with periods of crisis, the development of one industry leads to
the decline of another, there is progress in one aspect of agriculture in
one area and in another aspect in another area, the growth of trade and
industry outstrips the growth of agriculture, etc. A large number of
errors made by Narodnik writers spring from their efforts to prove that
this disproportionate, spasmodic, feverish development is not development. [1]

Another feature of the development by capitalism of the social productive
forces is that the growth of the means of production (productive
consumption) outstrips by far the growth of personal consumption: we have
indicated on more than one occasion how this is manifested in agriculture
and in industry. This feature springs from the general laws of the realisation of the product in capitalist society, and fully
conforms to the antagonistic nature of this society. [2]

The socialisation of labour by capitalism is manifested in the following
processes. Firstly, the very growth of commodity-production destroys the
scattered condition of small economic units that is characteristic of
natural economy and draws together the small local markets into an
enormous national (and then world) market. Production for oneself is
transformed into production for the whole of society; and the greater the
development of capitalism, the stronger becomes the contradiction between
this collective character of production and the individual character of
appropriation. Secondly, capitalism replaces the former scattered
production by an unprecedented concentration both in agriculture and in
industry. That is the most striking and outstanding, but not the only,
manifestation of the feature of capitalism under review. Thirdly,
capitalism eliminates the forms of personal dependence that constituted an
inalienable component of preceding systems of economy. In Russia, the
progressive character of capitalism in this respect is particularly
marked, since the personal dependence of the producer existed in our
country (and partly continues to exist to this day), not only in
agriculture, but in manufacturing industry (“factories”
employing serf labour), in the mining and metallurgical industries, in the
fishing industry, etc. [3]

Compared with the labour of the dependent or bonded peasant, the labour of the hired
worker is progressive in all branches of the national economy. Fourthly,
capitalism necessarily creates mobility of the population, something not
required by previous systems of social economy and impossible under them
on anything like a large scale. Fifthly, capitalism constantly reduces the
proportion of the population engaged in agriculture (where the most
backward forms of social and economic relationships always prevail), and
increases the number of large industrial centres. Sixthly, capitalist
society increases the population’s need for association, for
organisation, and lends these organisations a character distinct from
those of former times. While breaking down the narrow, local,
social-estate associations of medieval society and creating fierce
competition, capitalism at the same time splits the whole of society into
large groups of persons occupying different positions in production, and
gives a tremendous impetus to organisation within each such group. [4]

Seventhly, all the above-mentioned changes effected in the old economic system by
capitalism inevitably lead also to a change in the mentality of the
population. The spasmodic character of economic development, the rapid
transformation of the methods of production and the enormous concentration
of production, the disappearance of all forms of personal dependence and
patriarchalism in relationships, the mobility of the population, the
influence of the big industrial centres, etc.—all this cannot but
lead to a profound change in the very character of the producers, and we have had occasion to note the corresponding observations of Russian
investigators.

Turning now to Narodnik economics, with whose representatives we have
constantly had to polemise, we may sum up the causes of our differences
with them as follows. First, we cannot but regard as absolutely wrong the
Narodniks’ very conception of the process of capitalist development
in Russia, and their notion of the system of economic relationships that
preceded capitalism in Russia; and what is particularly important, from
our point of view, is their ignoring of the capitalist contradictions in
the structure of peasant economy (both agricultural and
industrial). Furthermore, whether the development of capitalism in Russia
is slow or rapid, depends entirely on what we compare this development
with. If we compare the pre-capitalist epoch in Russia with the capitalist
(and that is the comparison which is needed for arriving at a correct
solution of the problem), the development of social economy under
capitalism must be considered as extremely rapid. If, however, we compare
the present rapidity of development with that which could be achieved with
the general level of technique and culture as it is today, the present
rate of development of capitalism in Russia really must be considered as
slow. And it cannot but be slow, for in no single capitalist country has
there been such an abundant survival of ancient institutions that are
incompatible with capitalism, retard its development, and immeasurably
worsen the condition of the producers, who “suffer not only from the
development of capitalist production, but also from the incompleteness of
that

development.” [5] Finally, perhaps the profoundest cause of
disagreement with the Narodniks is the difference in our fundamental views
on social and economic processes. When studying the latter, the Narodnik
usually draws conclusions that point to some moral; he does not regard the
diverse groups of persons taking part in production as creators of various
forms of life; he does not set out to present the sum-total of social and
economic relationships as the result of the mutual relations between these
groups, which have different interests and different historical
roles. . . . If the writer of these lines has succeeded in providing some
material for clarifying these problems, he may regard his labours as not
having been fruitless.

---
Notes:
[1]
“Let us see what the further development of capitalism could bring
even if we succeeded in sinking Britain to the bottom of the sea and in
taking her place” (Mr. N.–on, Sketches , 210). The cotton
industry of Britain and America, which meets 2/3 of the world’s
demand, employs only a little over 600,000 people all told. “And it
follows, that even if we got a considerable part of the world market...
capitalism would still be unable to exploit the whole mass of labouring
people which it is now continuously depriving of employment. What, indeed,
are some 600,000 British and American workers compared with millions of
peasants left for months on end without employment?” (211).

“History has gone on till now, but goes on no longer.” Till
now every step in the development of capitalism in the textile industry
has been accompanied by the differentiation of the peasantry, by the
growth of commercial agriculture and agricultural capitalism, by the
diversion of population from agriculture to industry, by “millions
of peasants” turning to building, lumbering and all sorts of other
non-agricultural work for hire, by the migration of masses of people to
the outer regions and by the conversion of these regions into a market for
capitalism. All this, however, has only gone on till now; nothing of the
sort occurs any longer!— Lenin

[2]
His ignoring of the significance of the means of production and his
careless attitude to “statistics” have led to the following
utterly untenable statement by Mr. N.–on: “. . . all (!)
capitalist production in the sphere of manufacturing industry at most
produces new values to the amount of not more than 400 to 500 million
rubles” ( Sketches , 328). Mr. N.–on bases this calculation
on the returns of the three-per-cent tax and the extra profits tax,
without stopping to think whether such returns can cover “all
capitalist production in the sphere of manufacturing industry.”
Moreover, he takes returns which (on his own admission) do not cover the
mining and metallurgical industries, and yet he includes in “new
values” only surplus-value and variable capital. Our theoretician
has forgotten that, in those branches of industry which produce goods for
personal consumption, constant capital also represents new value for society and is exchanged for the variable capital and surplus-value
of those branches of industry which produce means of production (mining
and metallurgical industries, building, lumbering, railway construction,
etc.). Had Mr. N.–on not confused the number of “factory”
workers with the total number of workers capitalistically employed in
manufacturing industry, he would easily have perceived the errors in his
calculations.— Lenin

[3]
For example, in one of the principal centres of the Russian fishing
industry, the Murmansk coast, the “age-old” and truly “time hallowed” form of economic relationships was the “pokrut,” [6] which was already fully established in the 17th
century and continued almost without change until recent times. “The
relations between the pokrutmen and their masters are not limited to the
time spent at the fisheries: on the contrary, they embrace the whole life
of the pokrutmen, who are permanently dependent economically on their
masters” ( Material on Artels in Russia , Vol. II, St. Petersburg, 1874, p. 33). Fortunately, in this branch of industry
also, capitalism is apparently marked by a “contemptuous attitude to
its own historical past.” “Monopoly . . . is giving way to
. . . the capitalist organisation of the industry with hired
labourers” ( Productive Forces , V, pp. 2-4).— Lenin

[4]
Cf Studies , p. 91, footnote 85, p. 198. (See present edition,
Vol. 2, “A Characterisation of Economic Romanticism.”
– Ed .)— Lenin

[6]
Pokrut —the form of economic relations that existed among
members of artels engaged in hunting sea animals or fishing in the north
of Russia; the means of production in the artel belonged to an employer to
whom the workers were in bondage. The employer usually received two-thirds
of the catch, and the workers only one-third. The workers were compelled
to sell part of their catch to the employer at a low price, payment being
made in goods, which was very much to the disadvantage of the workers.
[p. 599]

[5]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 9. [p. 600]

| | V. The Significance of the Border Regions. Home or Foreign Market? | | | | |

# Combined Table of Statistics on Small Peasant Industries of Moscow Gubernia (to Chapter V)

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8app/append01.htm

Appendices to “The Development of Capitalism in Russia”

Combined Table of Statistics on Small Peasant Industries of Moscow Gubernia
(to Chapter V)

This is a HUGE table pasted between pages 600 and 601.

| | | | | Table of Statistics on the Factory
Industry of European Russia (to Chapter VII) | |

# Table of Statistics on the Factory Industry of European Russia (to Chapter VII)

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8app/append02.htm

Appendices to “The Development of Capitalism in Russia”

Table of Statistics on the Factory Industry of European Russia (to Chapter
VII)

| | Combined Table of Statistics
on Small Peasant Industries of Moscow Gubernia (to Chapter V) | | | The Chief Centres of Factory Industry
in European Russia (to Chapter VII) | |

# The Chief Centres of Factory Industry in European Russia (to Chapter VII)

Source: CW03
URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8app/append03.htm

Appendices to “The Development of Capitalism in Russia”

## The Chief Centres of Factory Industry in European Russia (to Chapter VII)

This is another HUGE table on pages 603-607.

| | Table of Statistics on the Factory
Industry of European Russia (to Chapter VII) | | | | |