The DEVELOPMENT of CAPITALISM in RUSSIA

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?