The DEVELOPMENT of CAPITALISM in RUSSIA

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.