V. I.

Lenin

Capitalism in Agriculture

Nachalo ,No. 1-2 (Section II, pp. 1-21), contains an article by
Mr. S. Bulgakov entitled: “A Contribution to the Question of the
Capitalist Evolution of Agriculture,” which is a criticism of Kautsky’s
work on the agrarian question. Mr. Bulgakov rightly says that
“Kautsky’s book represents a whole world outlook,” that it is of
great theoretical and practical importance. It is, perhaps, the first
systematic and scientific investigation of a question that has stimulated
a heated controversy in all countries, and still continues to do so, even
among writers who are agreed on general views and who regard themselves as
Marxists. Mr. Bulgakov “confines himself to negative criticism,” to
criticism of “individual postulates in Kautsky’s book” (which
he “briefly”—too briefly and very inexactly, as we shall
see—re views for the readers of Nachalo). “Later on,”
Mr. Bulgakov hopes “to give a systematic exposition of the question
of the capitalist evolution of agriculture” and thus “also
present a whole world outlook” in opposition to Kautsky’s.

Wehave no doubt that Kautsky’s book will give rise to no little
controversy among Marxists in Russia, and that in Russia, too, some will
oppose Kautsky, while others will support him. At all events, the writer
of these lines disagrees most emphatically with Mr. Bulgakov’s opinion,
with his appraisal of Kautsky’s book. Notwithstanding Mr. Bulgakov’s
admission that Die Agrarfrage [1] is “a remark able work,” his appraisal is astonishingly sharp, and
is written in a tone unusual in a controversy between authors of related tendencies. Here are samples of the expressions Mr. Bulgakov uses:
“extremely superficial” .. ."equally little of both real
agronomics and real economics” ... “Kautsky employs empty phrases to evade serious scientific problems” (Mr. Bulgakov’s
italics!!), etc., etc. We shall therefore care fully examine the
expressions used by the stern critic and at the same time introduce the
reader to Kautsky’s book.

I

Evenbefore Mr. Bulgakov gets to Kautsky, he, in passing, takes a shot at
Marx. It goes without saying that Mr. Bulgakov emphasises the enormous
services rendered by the great economist, but observes that in Marx’s
works one “some times” comes across even “erroneous views.., which have been sufficiently refuted by history.” “Among
such views is, for example, the one that in agriculture variable capital
diminishes in relation to constant capital just as it does in
manufacturing industry, so that the organic composition of agricultural
capital continuously rises.” Who is mistaken here, Marx or Mr. Bulgakov?
Mr. Bulgakov has in mind the fact that in agriculture the progress of
technique and the growing intensity of farming often lead to an increase in the amount of labour necessary to cultivate a given plot
of land. This is indisputable; but it is very far from being a refutation
of the theory of the diminution of variable capital relatively to
constant capital, in proportion to constant capital. Marx’s
theory merely asserts that the ratio v / c ( v = variable capital, C = constant capital)

in general has a tendency to diminish, even when v increases per
unit of area. Is Marx’s theory refuted if, simultaneously, c
increases still more rapidly? Agriculture in capitalist countries, taken
by and large, shows a diminution of v and an increase of
c . The rural population and the number of workers employed in
agriculture are diminishing in Germany, in France, and in England, whereas
the number of machines employed in agriculture is increasing. In Germany,
for example, from 1882 to 1895, the rural population diminished from
19,200,000 to 18,500,000 (the number of wage-workers in agriculture
diminished from 5,900,000 to 5,600,000), whereas the number of machines employed in agriculture increased from 458,369 to

913,391 [2]

;

the number of steam-driven machines employed in agriculture increased from 2,731 (in
1879) to 12,856 (in 1897), while the total horse power of the steam-driven
machinery employed increased still more. The number of cattle in creased
from 15,800,000 to 17,500,000 and the number of pigs from 9,200,000 to
12,200,000 (in 1883 and 1892 respectively). In France, the rural
population diminished from 6,900,000 (“independent”) in 1882 to
6,600,000 in 1892; and the number of agricultural machines increased as
follows: 1862—132,784; 1882—278,896; 1892—355,795. The number of cattle was as follows: 12,000,000; 13,000,000; 13,700,000
respectively; the number of horses: 2,910,000; 2,840,000; 2,790,000
respectively (the reduction in the number of horses in the period 1882-92
was less significant than the reduction in the rural population). Thus, by
and large, the history of modern capitalist countries has certainly not
refuted, but has confirmed the applicability of Marx’s law to
agriculture. The mistake Mr. Bulgakov made was that he too hastily raised
certain facts in agronomics, without examining their significance, to the
level of general economic laws. We emphasise “general,”
because neither Marx nor his disciples ever regarded this law otherwise
than as the law of the general tendencies of capitalism, and not as a law
for all individual cases. Even in regard to industry Marx himself pointed
out that periods of technical change (when the ratio v / c diminishes) are followed by periods of progress on the given technical
basis (when the ratio v / c remains constant, and in certain cases may even increase). We know of
cases in the industrial history of capitalist countries in which this law
is contravened by entire branches of industry, as when large capitalist
workshops (incorrectly termed factories) are broken up and supplanted by
capitalist domestic industry. There cannot be any doubt that in
agriculture the process of development of capitalism is immeasurably more
complex and assumes incomparably more diverse forms.

Letus now pass to Kautsky. The outline of agriculture in the feudal epoch
with which Kautsky begins is said to be “very superficially compiled
and superfluous.” It is difficult to understand the motive for such a
verdict. We are sure that if Mr. Bulgakov succeeds in realising his plan
to give a systematic exposition of the capitalist evolution of
agriculture, he will have to outline the main features of the
pre-capitalist economics of agriculture. Without this the
character of capitalist economics and the transitional forms
which connect it with feudal economics cannot be understood. Mr. Bulgakov
himself admits the enormous importance of “the form which
agriculture assumed at the beginning [Mr. Bulgakov’s italics] of
its capitalist course.” It is precisely with “the beginning of the
capitalist course” of European agriculture that Kautsky begins. In
our opinion, Kautsky’s out line of feudal agriculture is excellent; it
reveals that remark able distinctness and ability to select what is most
important and essential without becoming submerged in details of secondary
importance which, in general, are characteristic of this author. In his
introduction Kautsky first of all gives an extremely precise and correct
presentation of the question. In most emphatic terms he declares:
“There is not the slightest doubt—we are prepared to accept
this a priori ( von vornherein )—that agriculture does not
develop according to the same pattern as industry: it is subject to
special laws” (S. 5-6). The task is “to investigate whether
capital is bringing agriculture under its domination and how it is
dominating it, how it transforms it, how it invalidates old forms of
production and forms of property and creates the need for new forms”
(S. 6). Such, and only such, a presentation of the question can result in
a satisfactory explanation of “the development of agriculture in
capitalist society” (the title of the first, theoretical, part of
Kautsky’s book).

Atthe beginning of the “capitalist course,” agriculture was in the
hands of the peasantry , which, as a general rule, was subordinated to the feudal regime of social economy. Kautsky first of all
characterises the system of peasant farming, the combining of
agriculture with domestic industry, and further the elements of decay in
this paradise of petty-bourgeois and conservative writers ( à la
Sismondi), the significance of usury and the gradual “penetration
into the countryside, deep into the peasant household itself, of the class antagonism which
destroys the ancient harmony and community of interests”
(S. 13). This process, which began as far back as the Middle Ages, has not
completely come to an end to this day. We emphasise this statement because
it shows immediately the utter incorrectness of Mr. Bulgakov’s assertion
that Kautsky did not even raise the question of who was the carrier of
technical progress in agriculture. Kautsky raised and answered that
question quite definitely; anyone who reads his book carefully will grasp
the truth (often forgotten by the Narodniks, agronomists, and many others)
that the carrier of technical progress in modern agriculture is the
rural bourgeoisie , both petty and big; and (as Kautsky has shown)
the big bourgeoisie plays a more important role in this respect than the
petty bourgeoisie.

II

Afterdescribing (in Chapter III) the main features of feudal agriculture:
the predominance of the three-field system, the most conservative system
in agriculture; the oppression and expropriation of the peasantry by the
big landed aristocracy; the organisation of feudal-capitalist farming by
the latter; the transformation of the peasantry into starving paupers
(Hungerleider ) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the
development of bourgeois peasants (Grossbauern , who cannot manage
without regular farm labourers and day labourers), for whom the old forms
of rural relations and land tenure were unsuitable; the abolition of these
forms and the paving of the way for “capitalist, intensive
farming” (S. 26) by the forces of the bourgeois class which had
developed in the womb of industry and the towns—after describing all
this, Kautsky goes on to characterise “modern agriculture”
(Chapter IV).

Thischapter contains a remarkably exact, concise, and lucid outline of
the gigantic revolution which capitalism brought about in agriculture by
transforming the routine craft of peasants crushed by poverty and
ignorance into the scientific application of agronomics, by disturbing the
age long stagnation of agriculture, and by giving (and continuing to give) an impetus to the rapid development of the productive forces of
social labour. The three-field system gave way to the crop rotation
system, the maintenance of cattle and the cultivation of the soil were
improved, the yield increased and specialisation in agriculture and the
division of labour among individual farms greatly developed. Pre-capitalist uniformity was replaced by increasing diversity,
accompanied by technical progress in all branches of agriculture. Both the
use of machinery in agriculture and the application of steam power were
introduced and underwent rapid development; the employment of electric
power, which, as specialists point out., is destined to play an even
greater role in this branch of production than steam power, has begun. The
use of access roads, land improvement schemes, and the application of
artificial fertilisers adapted to the physiology of plants have been
developed; the application of bacteriology to agriculture has
begun. Mr. Bulgakov’s assertion that “Kautsky’s data [3] are not
accompanied by an economic analysis” is completely groundless. Kautsky shows precisely the connection between this revolution
and the growth of the market (especially the growth of the
towns), and the sub ordination of agriculture to competition
which forced the changes and specialisation. “This revolution, which has its origin in urban capital, increases the
dependence of the farmer on the market and, moreover, constantly changes
market conditions of importance to him. A branch of production that was
profitable while the local market’s only connection with the world market
was a high road becomes unprofitable and must necessarily be superseded by
another branch of production when a railway is run through the
locality. If, for example, the railway brings cheaper grain, grain
production becomes unprofitable; but at the same time a market for milk is
created. The growth of commodity circulation makes it possible to
introduce new, improved varieties of crops into the country,”
etc. (S. 37-38). “In the feudal epoch,” says Kautsky, “the
only agriculture was small-scale agriculture, for the landlord cultivated
his fields with the peasant’s implements. Capitalism first created the
possibility for large-scale production in agriculture, which is
technically more rational than small-scale production.” In discussing
agricultural machinery, Kautsky (who, it should be said in passing, points
precisely to the specific features of agriculture in this respect)
explains the capitalist nature of its employment; he explains the
influence of agricultural machinery upon the workers, the significance of
machinery as a factor of progress, and the “reactionary
utopianism” of schemes for restricting the employment of
agricultural machinery. “Agricultural machines will continue their
transformative activity: they will drive the rural workers into the towns
and in this way serve as a powerful instrument for raising wages in the
rural districts, on the one hand, and for the further development of the
employment of machinery in agriculture, on the other” (S. 41). Let
it be added that in special chapters Kautsky explains in detail the
capitalist character of modern agriculture, the relation between largeand small-scale production, and the proletarisation of the peasantry. As
we see, Mr. Bulgakov’s assertion that Kautsky “does not raise the
question of knowing why all these wonder-working changes were necessary”
is entirely untrue.

In Chapter V (“The Capitalist Character of Modern Agriculture”)
Kautsky expounds Marx’s theory of value, profit, and rent. “Without
money, modern agricultural production is impossible,” says Kautsky,
“or, what is the same thing, it is impossible without capital . Indeed, under the present mode of production any sum of
money which does not serve the purpose of individual consumption can be
transformed into capital, i.e., into a value begetting surplus-value and,
as a general rule, actually is transformed into capital. Hence, modern
agricultural production is capitalist production” (S.
56). This passage, incidentally, enables us to appraise the following
statement made by Mr. Bulgakov: “I employ this term (capitalist
agriculture) in the ordinary sense (Kautsky also employs it in the same sense), i.e., in the sense of
large-scale production in agriculture. Actually, however (sic! ),
when the whole of the national economy is organised on capitalist
lines, there is no non-capitalist agriculture, the whole of it
being determined by the general conditions of the organisation of
production, and only within these limits should the distinction be made
between large-scale, entrepreneur farming and small-scale farming. For
the sake of clarity a new term is required here also.” And so it seems,
Mr. Bulgakov is correcting Kautsky.... “Actually, however,”
as the reader sees, Kautsky does not employ the term “capitalist agriculture” in the “ordinary,” inexact
sense in which Mr. Bulgakov employs it. Kautsky understands perfectly
well, and says so very precisely and clearly, that under the capitalist
mode of production all agricultural production is “as a general
rule” capitalist production. In support of this opinion he adduces
the simple fact that in order to carry on modern agriculture money is
needed, and that in modern society money which does not serve the purpose
of individual consumption becomes capital. It seems to us that this is
somewhat clearer than Mr. Bulgakov’s “correction,” and that Kautsky
has fully proved that it is possible to. dispense with a
“new term.”

In Chapter V of his book Kautsky asserts, inter alia , that both
the tenant farmer system, which has developed so fully in England, and the
mortgage system, which is developing with astonishing rapidity in
continental Europe, express, in essence, one and the same process, viz.,
the separation of the land from the farmer . [4]

Under the capitalist tenant farmer system this separation is as clear as daylight. Under the
mortgage system it is “less clear, and things are not so simple; but
in essence it amounts to the same thing” (S. 86). Indeed, It is
obvious that the mortgaging of land is the mortgaging, or sale, of ground
rent. Consequently, under the mortgage system, as well as under the tenant
farmer system, the recipients of rent (=the landowners) are separated from
the

recipients of the profit of enterprise (=farmers, rural
entrepreneurs). “In general, the significance of this assertion of
Kautsky is unclear” to Mr. Bulgakov. “It can hardly be considered as proved that the mortgage system expresses the separation of
the land from the farmer.” “Firstly, it cannot be proved that debt
absorbs the whole rent; this is possible only by way of
exception....” To this we reply: There is no need to prove that interest
on mortgage debts absorbs the whole rent, just as there is no
need to prove that the actual amount paid for land leased
coincides with rent. It is sufficient to prove that mortgage debts are
growing with enormous rapidity; that the landowners strive to mortgage all
their land, to sell the whole of the rent. The existence of this
tendency—a theoretical economic analysis can, in general, deal only
with tendencies—cannot be doubted. Consequently, there can be no
doubt about the process of separation of the land from the farmer. The
combination of the recipient of rent and the recipient of the profit of
enterprise in one person is, “from the historical point of view, an
exception” (ist historisch eine Ausnahme, S.
91).... “Secondly, the causes and sources of the debt must be
analysed in each separate case for its significance to be understood.”
Probably this is either a misprint or a slip. Mr. Bulgakov cannot demand
that an economist (who, moreover, is dealing with the “development
of agriculture in capitalist society” in general ) should
investigate the causes of the debt “in each separate case” or even expect that he would be able to do so. If
Mr. Bulgakov wanted to say that it is necessary to analyse the causes of
debt in different countries at different periods, we cannot agree with
him. Kautsky is perfectly right in saying that too many monographs on the
agrarian question have accumulated, and that the urgent task of modern
theory is not to add new monographs but to “investigate the main
trends of the capitalist evolution of agriculture as a whole”
(Vorrede ,

S. vi [5]

).

Among these main trends is undoubtedly the separation of the land from the farmer in the form of an increase in
mortgage debts. Kautsky precisely and clearly defined the real
significance of mortgages, their progressive historical character (the
separation of the land from the farmer being one of the conditions for the socialisation of agriculture, S. 88), and the essential role they
play in the capitalist evolution of agriculture. [6]

All Kautsky’s arguments on this question are extremely valuable theoretically and provide a
powerful weapon against the widespread bourgeois talk (particularly in
“any handbook of the economics of agriculture”) about the
“misfortune” of debts and about “measures of assistance.”

..." Thirdly,” concludes Mr. Bulgakov, “land leased out may, in
its turn, be mortgaged; and in this sense it may assume the same position
as land not leased out.” A strange argument! Let Mr. Bulgakov point to at
least one economic phenomenon, to at least one economic category, that is
not interwoven with others. The fact that there are cases of combined
leasing and mortgaging does not refute, does not even weaken, the
theoretical proposition that the separation of the land from the farmer is
expressed in two forms: in the tenant farmer system and in mortgage debts.

Mr. Bulgakov also declares that Kautsky’s statement that “countries
in which the tenant farmer system is developed are also countries in which
large land ownership predominates” (S. 88) is “still more
unexpected” and “altogether untrue.” Kautsky speaks here of
the concentration of land ownership (under the tenant farmer system) and
the concentration of mortgages (under the system in which the landowners
manage their own farms) as conditions that facilitate the abolition of the
private ownership of land. On the question of concentration of land
ownership, continues Kautsky, there are no statistics “which would
enable one to trace the amalgamation of several properties in single
hands”; but “in general it may be taken” that the increase in the number of leases and in the area of the leased land
proceeds side by side with concentration of land ownership. “Countries in which the tenant farmer system is developed
are also countries in which large land ownership predominates.”

It is clear that Kautsky’s entire argument applies only to countries in
which the tenant farmer system is developed; but Mr. Bulgakov refers to
East Prussia, where he “hopes to show” an increase in the
number of leases side by side with the break-up of large landed
properties—and he thinks that by means of this single example he is
refuting Kautsky! It is a pity, however, that Mr. Bulgakov forgets to
inform his readers that Kautsky himself points to the break-up of large
estates and the growth of peasant tenant farming in the East Elbe province
and, in doing so, explains, as we shall see later, the real significance
of these processes.

Kautskypoints to the concentration of mortgage institutions as proof that
the concentration of land ownership is taking place in countries in which
mortgage debts exist. Mr. Bulgakov thinks that this is no proof. In his
opinion, “It might easily be the case that the deconcentration of
capital (by the issue of shares) is proceeding side by side with the
concentration of credit institutions.” Well, we shall not argue with
Mr. Bulgakov on this point.

III

Afterexamining the main features of feudal and capitalist agriculture,
Kautsky passes on to the question of “large and small-scale
production” in agriculture (Chapter VI). This chapter is one of the
best in Kautsky’s book. In it he first examines the"technical superiority
of large-scale production." In deciding the question in favour of
large-scale production, Kautsky does not give an abstract formula that
ignores the enormous variety of agricultural relations (as Mr. Bulgakov,
altogether groundlessly, supposes); on the contrary, he clearly and
precisely points to the necessity of taking this variety into account in
the practical applications of the theoretical law. In the first place,
“it goes without saying” that the superiority of large-scale over small-scale production in agriculture is inevitable only
when “all other conditions are equal” (S. 100. My italics). In industry, also, the law of the superiority of large-scale
production is not as absolute and as simple as is sometimes thought;
there, too, it is the equality of “other conditions” (not always existing in reality) that ensures the full applicability of
the law. In agriculture, however, which is distinguished for the incomparably greater
complexity and variety of its relations, the full applicability of the law
of the superiority of large-scale production is hampered by considerably
stricter conditions. For instance, Kautsky very aptly observes that on the
borderline between the peasant and the small landlord estates quantity is
transformed into quality”: the big peasant farm may be “economically, if not technically, superior” to the small
landlord farm. The employment of a scientifically educated manager (one of
the important advantages of large-scale production) is too costly for a
small estate; and the management by the owner himself, is very often
merely “Junker,” and by no means scientific, management. Secondly,
large-scale production in agriculture is superior to small production only
up to a certain limit. Kautsky closely investigates this limit further
on. It also goes without saying that this limit differs in different
branches of agriculture and under different social-economic
conditions. Thirdly, Kautsky does not in the least ignore the fact that,
“so far," there are branches of agriculture in which, as
experts admit, small-scale production can compete with large-scale
production; for example, vegetable gardening, grape growing, industrial
crops, etc. (S. 115). But these branches occupy a position quite
subordinate to the decisive (entscheidenden ) branches of
agriculture, viz., the production of grain and animal husbandry. Moreover,
“even in vegetable gardening and grape growing there are already
fairly successful large-scale enterprises” (S. 115). Hence,
“taking agriculture as a whole (in Allgemeinen ), those
branches in which small-scale production is superior to large-scale
production need not be taken into account, and it is quite permissible to
say that large-scale production is decidedly superior to small-scale
production” (S. 116).

Afterdemonstrating the technical superiority of large-scale production in
agriculture (we shall present Kautsky’s arguments in greater detail later
on in examining Mr. Bulgakov’s objections), Kautsky asks: “What can
small production offer against the advantages of large-scale production?”
And he replies: “The greater diligence and greater care of the
worker, who, unlike the hired labourer, works for himself, and the low
level of requirements of the small independent farmer, which is even lower than that of the agricultural labourer”
(S. 106); and, by adducing a number of striking facts concerning the
position of the peasants in France, England, and Germany, Kautsky leaves
no doubt whatever about “overwork and under-consumption in
small-scale production.” Finally, he points out that the superiority of
large-scale production also finds expression in the striving of farmers to
form associations: “Associated production is large-scale
production.” The fuss made by the ideologists of the petty bourgeoisie in
general, and the Russian Narodniks in particular (e.g., the
above-mentioned book by Mr. Kablukov), over the small farmers’
associations is well known. The more significant, therefore, is Kautsky’s
excellent analysis of the role of these associations. Of course, the small
farmers’ associations are a link in economic progress; but they ex press a
transition to capitalism (Fortschritt zum Kapitalismus) and not toward collectivism , as is often thought and asserted (S. 118). Associations
do not diminish but enhance the superiority (Vorsprung ) of
large-scale over small-scale production in agriculture, because the big
farmers enjoy greater opportunities of forming associations and take
greater ad vantage of these opportunities. It goes without saying that
Kautsky very emphatically maintains that communal, collective large-scale
production is superior to capitalist large- scale production. He deals with the experiments in collective farming made in
England by the followers of Robert

Owen [7] and with analogous communes in the United States of North America. All these experiments, says Kautsky,
irrefutably prove that it is quite possible for workers to carry
on large-scale modern farming collectively, but that for this possibility
to become a reality “a number of definite economic, political, and
intellectual conditions” are necessary. The transition of the small
producer (both artisan and peasant) to collective production is hindered
by the extremely low development of solidarity and discipline, the
isolation, and the “property-owner fanaticism,” noted not only among
West-European peasants, but, let us add, also among the Russian “commune” peasants (recall A.
N. Engelhardt and G. Uspensky). Kautsky categorically declares that
“it is absurd to expect that the peas ant in modern society
will go over to communal production” (S. 129).

Suchis the extremely rich content of Chapter VI of Kautsky’s
book. Mr. Bulgakov is particularly displeased with this chapter. Kautsky,
we are told, is guilty of the “fundamental sin” of confusing
various concepts; “technical advantages are confused with economic
advantages.” Kautsky “proceeds from the false assumption that the
technically more perfect mode of production is also economically more perfect, i.e., more viable.” Mr. Bulgakov’s
emphatic statement is altogether groundless, of which, we hope, the reader
has been convinced by our exposition of Kautsky’s line of
argument. Without in the least confusing technique with economics, [8]

Kautsky rightly investigates the question of the relation of large-scale
to small-scale production in agriculture, other conditions being equal , under the capitalist system of production. In the opening sentence of the first section of Chapter VI Kautsky points precisely to this connection between the level of development of capitalism and the degree of the general applicability of the law of the superiority of large-scale agriculture : “The more capitalist agriculture becomes, the
more it develops the qualitative difference between the techniques of
small- and large-scale production” (S. 92). This qualitative
difference did not exist in pre-capitalist agriculture. What then can be
said of this stern admonition to which Mr. Bulgakov treats Kautsky:

“In point of fact, the question should have been put as follows: what
significance in the competition between large- and small-scale production
can any of the specific features of either of these forms of production
have under the present social-economic conditions ?” This
“correction” bears the same character as the one we examined above.

Letus see now how Mr. Bulgakov refutes Kautsky’s arguments in favour of
the technical superiority of large-scale production in agriculture. Kautsky says: “One of the most important features
distinguishing agriculture from industry is that in agriculture production
in the proper sense of the word [ Wirtschaftsbetrieb , an economic
enterprise] is usually connected with the household (Haushalt ),
which is not the case in industry.” That the larger household has the
advantage over the small household in the saving of labour and materials
hardly needs proof.... The former purchases (note this! V. I. )
“kerosene, chicory, and margarine wholesale; the latter purchases
these articles retail, etc.” (S. 93). Mr. Bulgakov “corrects”:
“Kautsky did not mean to say that this was technically more
advantageous, but that it cost less”!... Is it not clear that in
this case (as in all the others) Mr. Bulgakov’s attempt to
“correct” Kautsky was more than unfortunate? “This argument,” continues the stern critic, “is also very questionable in
itself; because under certain conditions the value of the product may not
include the value of the scattered huts, whereas the value of a common
house is included, even with the interest added. This, too, depends upon
social-economic conditions, which—and not the alleged technical
advantages of large-scale over small-scale production—should have
been investigated."... In the first place, Mr. Bulgakov forgets the trifle
that Kautsky, after comparing the significance of large-scale production
with that of small-scale production, all other conditions being equal , proceeds to examine these conditions in detail. Consequently,
Mr. Bulgakov wants to throw different questions together. Secondly, how
is it that the value of the peasants’ huts does not enter into the value
of the product? Only because the peasant “does not count”
the value of the timber he uses or the labour he expends in building and
repairing his hut. Insofar as the peasant still conducts a natural
economy, he, of course, may “not count” his labour; there is
no justification for Mr. Bulgakov’s not telling his readers that
Kautsky very clearly and precisely points this out on pp. 166-67 of his book (Chapter VIII, “The Proletarisation of the
Peasant”). But we are now discussing the “social-economic
condition” of capitalism and not of natural economy or of simple
commodity production. Under capitalist social conditions “not to
count” one’s labour means to work for nothing (for the merchant or
another capitalist); it means to work for incomplete remuneration for
the labour-power expended; it means to lower the level of consumption
below the standard. As we have seen, Kautsky fully recognised and
correctly appraised this distinguishing feature of small
production. In his objection to Kautsky, Mr. Bulgakov repeats the usual
trick and the usual mistake of the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois
economists. These economists have deafened us with their praises of the
“viability” of the small peasant, who, they say, need not
count his own labour, or chase after profit and rent, etc. These good
people merely forget that such arguments confuse the “social-economic conditions” of natural economy, simple
commodity production, and capitalism. Kautsky excellently explains all
these mistakes and draws a strict distinction between the
various systems of social-economic relations. He says: “If the
agricultural production of the small peasant is not drawn into the
sphere of commodity production, if it is merely a part of household
economy, it also remains outside the sphere of the centralising
tendencies of the modern mode of production. However irrational his
parcellised economy may be, no matter what waste of effort it may lead
to, he clings to it tightly, just as his wife clings to her wretched
household economy, which likewise produces infinitely miserable results
with an enormous expenditure of labour-power, but which represents the
only sphere in which she is not subject to another’s rule and is free from exploitation” (S. 165). The situation changes when
natural economy is supplanted by commodity economy. The peasant then has
to sell his produce, purchase implements, and purchase land. As
long as the peasant remains a simple commodity producer , he can
be satisfied with the standard of living of the wage-worker; he needs
neither profit nor rent; he can pay a higher price for land than the
capitalist entrepreneur (S. 166). But simple commodity production is
supplanted by capitalist production. If, for instance, the
peasant has mortgaged his land, he must also obtain the rent which he
has sold to the creditor. At this stage of development the peasant can
only formally be regarded as a simple commodity producer. De facto , he usually has to deal with the
capitalist—the creditor, the merchant, the industrial entrepreneur—from whom he must seek “auxiliary employment,”
i.e., to whom he must sell his labour-power. At this stage— and
Kautsky, we repeat, compares large-scale with small-scale farming in
capitalist society—the possibility for the peasant “not to
count his labour” means only one thing to him, namely, to work
himself to death and continually to cut down his consumption.

Equallyunsound are the other objections raised by
Mr. Bulgakov. Small-scale production permits of the employment of
machinery within narrower limits; the small proprietor finds credit more
difficult to obtain and more expensive, says Kautsky. Mr. Bulgakov
considers these arguments false and refers to—peasant associations!
He completely ignores the evidence brought forward by Kautsky, whose
appraisal of these associations and their significance we quoted above. On
the question of machinery, Mr. Bulgakov again reproaches Kautsky for not
raising the “more general economic question: What, upon the whole,
is the economic role of machinery in agriculture [Mr. Bulgakov has
forgotten Chapter IV of Kautsky’s book!] and is it as inevitable an
instrument in agriculture as in manufacturing industry?” Kautsky clearly
pointed to the capitalist nature of the use of machinery in modern
agriculture (S. 39, 40, et seq.); noted the specific features of
agriculture which create “technical and economic difficulties”
for the employment of machinery in agriculture (S. 38, et seq.); and
adduced data on the growing employment of machinery (S. 40), on its
technical significance (42, et seq.), and on the role of steam and
electricity. Kautsky indicated the size of farm necessary, according to
agronomic data, for making the fullest use of various machines (94), and
pointed out that according to the German census of 1895 the employment of
machinery steadily and rapidly increases from the small farms to the big
ones (2 per cent in farms up to two hectares, 13.8 per cent in farms of 2
to 5 hectares, 45.8 per cent in farms of 5 to 20 hectares, 78.8 per cent
in farms of 20 to 100 hectares, and 94.2 per cent in farms of 100 and more
hectares). Instead of these figures, Mr. Bulgakov would have preferred
“general” arguments about the “invincibility” or non-invincibility of machines!...

“Theargument that a larger number of draught animals per hectare is
employed in small-scale production is unconvincing.., because the relative
intensity of animal maintenance per farm... is not investigated"—says Mr. Bulgakov. We open Kautsky’s book at the page
that contains this argument and read the following: “The large
number of cows in small-scale farming [per 1,000 hectares] is to no small
extent also determined by the fact that the peasant engages more in animal
husbandry and less in the production of grain than the big farmer; but
this does not explain the difference in the number of horses
maintained” (page 96, on which are quoted figures for Saxony for
1860, for the whole of Germany for 1883, and for England for 1880). We
remind the reader of the fact that in Russia the Zemstvo statistics reveal
the same law expressing the superiority of large-scale over small-scale
farming: the big peasant farms manage with a smaller number of cattle and
implements per unit of land. [9]

Mr. Bulgakov gives a far from complete exposition of Kautsky’s arguments
on the superiority of large-scale over small-scale production in
capitalist agriculture. The superiority of large-scale farming does not
only lie in the fact that there is less waste of cultivated area, a saving
in live stock and implements, fuller utilisation of implements, wider possibilities of employing machinery, and more opportunities for
obtaining credit; it also lies in the commercial superiority of
large-scale production, the employment in the latter of scientifically
trained managers (Kautsky, S. 104). Large-scale farming utilises the
co-operation of workers and division of labour to a larger extent. Kautsky
attaches particular importance to the scientific, agronomic education of
the farmer. “A scientifically well-educated farmer can be employed
only by a farm sufficiently large for the work of management and
supervision to engage fully the person’s labour-power” (S. 98:
“The size of such farms varies, according to the type of
production,” from three hectares of vineyards to 500 hectares of extensive
farming). In this connection Kautsky mentions the interesting and
extremely characteristic fact that the establishment of primary and
secondary agricultural schools benefits the big farmer and not the peasant
by providing the former with employees (the same thing is observed in
Russia). “The higher education that is required for fully
rationalised production is hardly compatible with the peasants’ present
conditions of existence. This, of course, is a condemnation, not of higher
education, but of the peasant.s’ conditions of life. It merely means that
peas ant production is able to exist side by side with large-scale
production, not because of its higher productivity, but be cause of its
lower requirements” (S. 99). Large-scale production must employ, not
only peasant labourers, but also urban workers, whose requirements are on
an incomparably higher level.

Mr. Bulgakov calls the highly interesting and important data which Kautsky
adduces to prove “overwork and under consumption in small-scale
production” “a few [!] casual [??] quotations.” Mr. Bulgakov
“undertakes” to cite as many quotations of an opposite character." He merely forgets to say whether he also undertakes to make
an opposite assertion which he would prove by “quotations
of an opposite character.” This is the whole point! Does Mr. Bulgakov
undertake to assert that large-scale production in capitalist society
differs from peasant production in the prevalence of overwork and the
lower consumption of its workers? Mr. Bulgakov is too cautious to make
such a ludicrous assertion. He considers it possible to avoid the fact of
the peasants’ overwork and lower consumption by remarking that “in some places
peasants are prosperous and in other places they are poor”!! What would be
said of an economist who, instead of generalising the data on the position
of small- and large- scale production, began to investigate the difference
in the “prosperity” of the population of various “places”?

What would be said of, an economist who evaded the overwork and lower
consumption of handicraftsmen, as compared with factory workers, with the
remark that “in some places handicraftsmen are prosperous and in
other places they are poor”? Incidentally, a word about
handicraftsmen. Mr. Bulgakov writes: “Apparently Kautsky was
mentally drawing a parallel with

Hausindustrie , [10] where there are no technical limit.s
to overwork [as in agriculture], but this parallel is unsuitable here.” Apparently, we say in reply, Mr. Bulgakov was
astonishingly inattentive to the book he was criticising, for Kautsky did
not “mentally draw a parallel” with Hausindustrie , but pointed to it directly and precisely on the very fist page of that part of the chapter which deals with the question of overwork
(Chapter VI, b, S . 106): “As in domestic industry (Hausindustrie ), the work of the children of the family in small
peasant farming is even more harmful than wage-labour for others.”
However emphatically Mr. Bulgakov decrees that this parallel is unsuitable
here, his opinion is nevertheless entirely erroneous. In industry, over
work has no technical limits; but for the peasantry it is “limited
by the technical conditions of agriculture,” argues Mr. Bulgakov. The
question arises: who, indeed, confuses technique with economics, Kautsky
or Mr. Bulgakov? What has the technique of agriculture, or of domestic
industry, to do with the case when facts prove that the small producer in
agriculture and in industry drives his children to work at an earlier age,
works more hours per day, lives “more frugally,” and cuts down his
requirements to such a level that he stands out in a civilised country as
a real “barbarian” (Marx’s expression)? Can the economic
similarity of such phenomena in agriculture and in industry be denied on
the grounds that agriculture has a large number of specific features
(which Kautsky does not forget in the least) ?
“The

small peasant could not put in more work than his field requires even if
he wanted to,” says Mr. Bulgakov. But the small peasant can and does work
fourteen, and not twelve, hours a day; he can and does work with that
super-normal intensity which wears out his nerves and muscles much more
quickly than the normal intensity. Moreover, what an incorrect and extreme
abstraction it is to reduce all the peasant’s work to field work! You will
find nothing of the kind in Kant- sky’s book. Kautsky knows perfectly well
that the peasant also works in the household, works on building and
repairing his hut, his cowshed, his implements, etc., “not counting” all this additional work, for which a wage-worker on
a big farm would demand payment at the usual rate. Is it not clear to
every unprejudiced person that overwork has incomparably wider limits for the peasant—for the small farmer— than for the
small industrial producer if he is only such? The overwork of the
small farmer is strikingly demonstrated as a universal phenomenon by the
fact that all bourgeois writers unanimously testify to The
“diligence” and “frugality” of the peasant and accuse the workers of “indolence” and “extravagance.”

Thesmall peasants, says an investigator of the life of the rural
population in Westphalia quoted by Kautsky, overwork their children to
such an extent that their physical development is retarded; working for
wages has not such bad sides. A small Lincolnshire farmer stated the
following to the parliamentary commission which investigated agrarian
conditions in England (1897): “I have brought up a family and nearly
worked them to death.” Another said: “I and my children have been
working eighteen hours a day for several days and average ten to twelve
during the year.” A third:

“We work much harder than labourers, in fact, like slaves.” Mr. Read
described to the same commission the conditions of the small farmer, in
the districts where agriculture in the strict sense of the word
predominates, in the following manner: “The only way in which he can
possibly succeed is this, in doing the work of two agricultural labourers
and living at the expense of one ... as regards his family, they are worse
educated and harder worked than the children of the agricultural
labourers” (Royal Commission on Agriculture, Final Report, pp. 34,
358. Quoted by Kautsky,

S. 109). Will Mr. Bulgakov assert that not less frequently a day labourer does
the work of two peasants? Particularly characteristic is the following
fact cited by Kautsky showing that “the peasant art of starvation ( Hungerkunst ) may lead to the economic superiority of
small production”: a comparison of the profitableness of two peasant
farms in Baden shows a deficit of 933 marks in one, the large one ,
and a surplus of 191 marks in the other, which was only half the size of the first. But the first farm, which was con ducted
exclusively with the aid of hired labourers, had to feed the latter
properly, at a cost of nearly one mark (about 45 kopeks) per person per day;
whereas the smaller farm was conducted exclusively with the aid of the
members of the family (the wife and six grown-up children), whose
maintenance cost only half the amount spent on the day labourers:
48 pfennigs per person per day. If the family of the small peasant had
been fed as well as the labourers hired by the big farmer, the small
farmer would have suffered a deficit of 1,250 marks! “His surplus
came, not from his full corn bins, but from his empty stomach.” What a
huge number of similar examples would be discovered, were the comparison
of the “profitableness” of large and small farms accompanied
by calculation of the consumption and work of peasants and of wage-workers. [11]

Here is another calculation of the higher profit of a small farm (4.6 hectares) as compared with a big farm (26.5 hectares), a
calculation made in one of the special magazines. But how is this higher
profit obtained?—asks Kautsky. It turns out that the small farmer is
assisted by his children, assisted from the time they begin to walk;
whereas the big farmer has to spend money on his children (school,
gymnasium ). In the small farm even the old people, over 70 years
of age, “take the place of a full worker.” “An ordinary day
labourer, particularly on a big farm, goes about his work and thinks to
himself: ’I wish it was knocking-off time.’ The small peasant,
however, at all events in all the busy seasons, thinks to himself: ’Oh, if
only the day were an hour or two longer.” The small producers, the
author of this article in the agricultural magazine says didactically,
make

better use of their time in the busy seasons: “They rise earlier,
retire later and work more quickly, whereas the labourers employed by the
big farmer do not want to get up earlier, go to bed later or work harder
than at other times.” The peasant is able to obtain a net income thanks to
the simple” life he leads: he lives in a mud hut built mainly by the
labour of his family; his wife has been married for 17 years and has worn
out only one pair of shoes; usually she goes barefoot, or in wooden
sabots; and she makes all the clothes for her family. Their food consists
of potatoes, milk, and on rare occasions, herring. Only on Sundays does
the husband smoke a pipe of tobacco. “These people did not realise
that they were leading a particularly simple life and did not express
dissatisfaction with their position.... Following this simple way of life,
they obtained nearly every year a small surplus from their farm.”

IV

Aftercompleting his analysis of the interrelations between large- and
small-scale production in capitalist agriculture, Kautsky proceeds to make
a special investigation of the “limits of capitalist agriculture” (Chapter VII). Kautsky says that objection to the
theory that large-scale farming is superior to small-scale is raised
mainly by the “friends of humanity” (we almost said, friends
of the people...) among the bourgeoisie, the pure Free Traders, and the
agrarians. Many economists have recently been advocating small-scale
farming. The statistics usually cited are those showing that big farms are
not eliminating small farms. And Kautsky quotes these statistics: in
Germany, from 1882 to 1895, it was the area of the medium-sized farms that
increased most; in France, from 1882 to 1892, it was the area of the
smallest and biggest farms that increased most; the area of the mediumsized farms diminished. In England, from 1.885 to 1895, the area of the
smallest and the biggest farms diminished; it was the area of the farms
ranging from 40 to 120 hectares (100 to 300 acres), i.e., farms that
cannot be put in the category of small farms, which increased most. In
America, the average area of farms is diminishing: in 1850 it was 203
acres; in 1860—199 acres; in 1870—153 acres; in 1880—134 acres; and in 1890—137 acres. Kautsky makes a closer examination of
the American statistics and, Mr. Bulgakov’s opinion notwithstanding, his
analysis is extremely important from the standpoint of principle.
The main reason for the diminution in the average farm area is the
break-up of the large plantations in the South after the emancipation of
the Negroes; in the Southern States the average farm area diminished by
more than one-half. “Not a single person who understands the subject
will regard these figures as evidence of the victory of small-scale over
modern [=capitalist] large-scale production.” In general, an
analysis of American statistics by regions shows a large variety
of relations. In the principal “wheat states,” in the northern part
of the Middle West, the average farm area increased from 122 to
133 acres. “Small-scale production becomes predominant only in those
places where agriculture is in a state of decline, or where
pre-capitalist, large-scale production enters into competition with
peasant production” (135). This conclusion of Kautsky is very
important, for it shows that if certain conditions are not adhered to, the
handling of statistics may become merely mishandling: a
distinction must be drawn between capitalist and pre-capitalist
large-scale production. A detailed analysis must be made for
separate districts that differ materially from one another in the forms of
farming and in the historical conditions of its development. It is said,
“Figures prove !" But one must analyse the figures to see what
they prove. They only prove what they directly say. The figures
do not speak directly of the scale on which production is carried on, hut
of the area of the farms. It is possible, and in fact it so
happens, that “with intensive farming, production can be carried on
upon a larger scale on a small estate than on a large estate extensively
farmed.” “Statistics that tell us only about the area of farms tell
us nothing as to whether the diminution of their area is due to the actual
diminution of the scale of farming, or to its intensification”
(146). Forestry and pastoral farming, these first forms of capitalist
large-scale farming, permit of the largest area of estates. Field
cultivation requires a smaller area. But the various systems of field
cultivation differ from one another in this respect: the exhaustive,
extensive system of farming (which has prevailed in America up to now) permits of huge farms (up to 10,000 hectares, such as the bonanza farms [12] of Dalrymple, Glenn, and others. In our steppes, too, peasant farms, and
particularly merchants’ farms, attain such dimensions). The introduction
of fertilisers, etc., necessarily leads to a diminution in the area of
farms, which in Europe, for instance, are smaller than in America. The
transition from field farming to animal husbandry again causes a
diminution in the area of farms: in England, in 1880, the average size of
livestock farms was 52.3 acres, whereas that of field farms was 74.2
acres. That is why the transition from field farming to animal husbandry
which is taking place in England mast give rise to a tendency for
the area of farms to diminish. “But it would be judging very
superficially if the conclusion were drawn from this that there has been a
decline in production” (149). In East Elbe (by the investigation of
which Mr. Bulgakov hopes some time to refute Kautsky), it is precisely the
introduction of intensive farming that is taking place: the big farmers,
says Sering, whom Kautsky quotes, are increasing the productivity of their
soil and are selling or leasing to peasants the remote parts of their
estates, since with intensive farming it is difficult to utilise these
remote parts. “Thus, large estates in East Elbe are being reduced in
size and in their vicinity small peasant farms are being established;
this, however, is not because small-scale production is superior to
large-scale, but because the former dimensions of the estates were adapted
to the needs of extensive farming” (150). The diminution in farm
area in all these cases usually leads to an increase in the quantity of
products (per unit of land) and frequently to an increase in the number of
workers employed, i.e., to an actual increase in the scale of
production.

Fromthis it is clear how little is proved by general agricultural
statistics on the area of farms, and how cautiously one must
handle them. In industrial statistics we have direct indices of
the scale of production (quantity of goods, total value of the output, and
number of workers employed), and, besides, it is easy to distinguish the
different branches. Agricultural statistics hardly ever satisfy these
necessary conditions of evidence.

Furthermore,the monopoly in landed property limits agricultural
capitalism: in industry, capital grows as a result of accumulation , as a result of the conversion of surplus- value
into capital; centralisation , i.e., the amalgamation of several
small units of capital into a large unit, plays a lesser role. In
agriculture, the situation is different. The whole of the land is occupied
(in civilised countries), and it is possible to enlarge the area of a farm
only by centralising several lots; this must be done in such a
way as to form one continuous area. Clearly, enlarging an estate
by purchasing the surrounding lots is a very difficult matter,
particularly in view of the fact that the small lots are partly occupied
by agricultural labourers (whom the big farmer needs), and partly by small
peasants who are masters of the art of maintaining their hold by reducing
consumption to an unbelievable minimum. For some reason or other the
statement of this simple and very clear fact, which indicates the limits
of agricultural capitalism, seemed to Mr. Bulgakov to be a mere
“phrase” (??!!) and provided a pretext for the most ground
less rejoicing: “And so [!], the superiority of large-scale
production comes to grief

HI at the very first obstacle." First, Mr. Bulgakov misunderstands the law of the superiority of large-scale
production, ascribing to it excessive abstractness, from which Kautsky is
very remote, and then turns his misunderstanding into an argument against
Kautsky! Truly strange is Mr. Bulgakov’s belief that he can refute Kautsky
by referring to Ireland (large landed property, but without large-scale
production). The fact that large landed property is one of the conditions
of large-scale production does not in the least signify that it is a
sufficient condition. Of course, Kautsky could not examine the historical
and other causes of the specific features of Ireland, or of any other
country, in a general work on capitalism in agriculture. It would not
occur to anyone to demand that Marx, in analysing the general laws of
capitalism in industry, should have explained why small industry continued
longer in France, why industry was developing slowly in Italy,
etc. Equally groundless is Mr. Bulgakov’s assertion that concentration
“could” proceed gradually: it is not as easy to enlarge
estates by purchasing neighbouring lots as it is to add new premises to a
factory for an additional number of machines, etc.

Inreferring to this purely fictitious possibility of the gradual concentration, or renting, of land for the
purpose of forming large farms, Mr. Bulgakov paid little attention to the
really specific feature of agriculture in the process of
concentration—a feature which Kautsky indicated. This is the
latifundia, the concentration of several estates in the hands of a single
owner. Statistics usually register the number of individual estates and
tell us nothing about the process of concentration of various estates in
the hands of big landowners. Kautsky cites very striking instances, in
Germany and Austria, of such concentration which leads to a special and
higher form of large-scale capitalist farming in which several large
estates are combined to form a single economic unit managed by a single
central body. Such gigantic agricultural enterprises make possible the
combination of the most varied branches of agriculture and the most
extensive use of the advantages of large-scale production.

Thereader will see how remote Kautsky is from abstractness and from a
stereotyped understanding of “Marx’s theory,” to which he remains
true. Kautsky warned against this stereotyped understanding, even
inserting a special section on the doom of small-scale production in
industry in the chapter under discussion. He rightly points out that even
in industry the victory of large-scale production is not so easy of
achievement, and is not so uniform, as those who talk about Marx’s theory
being inapplicable to agriculture are in the habit of thinking. It is
sufficient to point to capitalist domestic industry; it is sufficient to
recall the remark Marx made about the extreme variety of transitional and
mixed forms which obscure the victory of the factory system. How much more
complicated this is in agriculture! The increase in wealth and luxury
leads, for example, to millionaires purchasing huge estates which they
turn into forests for their pleasures. In Salzburg, in Austria, the number
of cattle has been declining since 1869. The reason is the sale of the
Alps to rich lovers of the hunt. Kautsky says very aptly that if
agricultural statistics are taken in general, and uncritically, it is
quite easy to discover in the capitalist mode of production a tendency to
transform modern nations into hunting tribes!

Finally,among the conditions setting the limits to capitalist
agriculture, Kautsky also points to the fact that the shortage of
workers—due to the migration of the rural population—compels
the big landowners to allot land to labourers, to create a small peasantry
to provide labour-power for the landlord. An absolutely propertyless
agricultural labourer is a rarity, because in agriculture rural economy,
in the strict sense, is connected with household economy. Whole categories
of agricultural wage-workers own or have the use of land. When small
production is eliminated too greatly, the big landowners try to strengthen or revive it by the sale or lease of land. Sering, whom
Kautsky quotes, says: “In all European countries, a movement has
recently been observed towards... settling rural labourers by allotting
plots of land to them.” Thus, within the limits of the capitalist mode of
production it is impossible to count on small-scale production being
entirely eliminated from agriculture, for the capitalists and agrarians
themselves strive to revive it when the ruination of the peasantry has
gone too far. Marx pointed to this rotation of concentration and
parcellisation of the land in capitalist society as far back as 1850, in
the Neue Rheinische Zeitung . [22]

Mr. Bulgakov is of the opinion that these arguments of Kautsky contain
“an element of truth, but still more of error.” Like all
Mr. Bulgakov’s other verdicts, this one has also extremely weak and
nebulous grounds. Mr. Bulgakov thinks that Kautsky has “constructed
a theory of proletarian small-scale production,” and that this theory is
true for a very limited region. We hold a different opinion. The
agricultural wage-labour of small cultivators (or what is the same thing,
the agricultural labourer and day labourer with an allotment) is a phenomenon characteristic, more or less, of all capitalist countries.
No writer who desires to describe capitalism in agriculture can, without
violating the truth, leave this phenomenon in the background. [13]

Kautsky, in Chapter VIII of his book, viz., “The Proletarisation of
the Peasant,” adduces extensive evidence to prove that in Germany, in particular, proletarian small-scale production is general. Mr. Bulgakov’s
statement that other writers, including Mr. Kablukov, have pointed to the
“shortage of workers” leaves the most important thing in the background —the enormous difference in principle between
Mr. Kablukov’s theory and Kautsky’s theory. Because of his
characteristically

Kleinbürger [14] point of view, Mr. Kablukov “constructs” out of the shortage
of workers the theory that large-scale production is unsound and that
small-scale production is sound. Kautsky gives an accurate description of
the facts and indicates their true significance in modern class society:
the class interests of the landowners compel them to strive to allot land
to the workers. As far as class position is concerned, the agricultural
wage-workers with allotments are situated between the petty bourgeoisie
and the proletariat, but closer to the latter. In other words,
Mr. Kablukov develops one side of a complicated process into a theory of
the unsoundness of large-scale production, whereas Kautsky analyses the
special forms of social-economic relations created by the interests of
large-scale production at a certain stage of its development and under
certain historical conditions.

V

Weshall now pass to the next chapter of Kautsky’s book, the title of
which we have just quoted. In this chapter Kautsky investigates, firstly,
the “tendency toward the parcellisation of landholdings,” and,
secondly, the “forms of peasant auxiliary employments.” Thus, here
are depicted those extremely important trends of capitalism in agriculture
that are typical of the overwhelming majority of capitalist
countries. Kautsky says that the break-up of landholdings leads to an
increased demand for small plots on the part of small peasants, who pay a
higher price for the land than the big farmers. Several writers have
adduced this fact to prove that small-scale farming is superior to
large-scale farming. Kautsky very appropriately replies to this by
comparing the price of land with the price of houses: it is well known
that small and cheap houses are dearer per unit of capacity (per cubic foot, etc.) than large and costly houses. The higher
price of small plots of land is not due to the superiority of small-scale
farming, but to the particularly oppressed condition of the peasant. The
enormous number of dwarf farms that capitalism has called into being is
seen from the following figures: in Germany (1895), out of 5,500,000
farms, 4,250,000, i.e., more than three-fourths, are of an area of less
than five hectares (58 per cent are less than two hectares). In Belgium,
78 per cent (709,500 out of 909,000) are less than two hectares. In
England (1895), 118,000 out of 520,000 are less than two hectares. In
France (1892), 2,200,000 (out of 5,700,000) are less than one hectare; 4,000,000 are less than five hectares. Mr. Bulgakov thinks that he can
refute Kautsky’s argument that these dwarf farms are very irrational
(insufficient cattle, implements, money, and labour-power which is
diverted to auxiliary occupations) by arguing that “very
often” (??) the land is spade-tilled “with an incredible
degree of intensity,” although with “an extremely irrational expenditure of labour-power.” It goes
without saying that this objection is totally ground less, that individual
examples of excellent cultivation of the soil by small peasants are as
little able to refute Kautsky’s general characterisation of this type of
farming as the above-quoted example of the greater profitableness of a
small farm is able to refute the thesis of the superiority of large-scale
production. That Kautsky is quite right in placing these farms, taken as a whole , [15] in the proletarian category is seen from the fact, revealed by the German
census of 1895, that very many of the small farmers cannot dispense with
subsidiary earnings. Of a total of 4,700,000 persons obtaining an
independent livelihood in agriculture, 2,700,000, or 57 per cent ,
have subsidiary earnings. Of 3,200,000 farms of less than two hectares
each, only 400,000, or 13 per cent , have no subsidiary incomes!
In the whole of Germany, out of

5,500,000 farms, 1,500,000 belong to agricultural and industrial
wage-workers (±704,000 to artisans). And after this Mr. Bulgakov
presumes to assert that the theory of proletarian small landholdings was
“constructed” by

Kautsky! [16]

Kautsky thoroughly investigated the forms assumed by the proletarisation
of the peasantry (the forms of peasant auxiliary employment)
(S. 174-93). Unfortunately, space does not permit us to deal in detail
with his description of these forms (agricultural work for wages, domestic
industry— Hausindustrie , “the vilest system of capitalist exploitation—work in factories and mines, etc.). Our
only observation is that Kautsky makes the same appraisal of auxiliary employment as that made by Russian economists. Migratory workers are less developed and have a lower level of requirements than urban
workers; not infrequently, they have a harmful effect on the living
conditions of the urban workers. “But for those places from which
they come and to which they return they are pioneers of progress.... They
acquire new wants and new ideas” (S. 192), they awaken among the
back woods peasants consciousness, a sense of human dignity, and
confidence in their own strength.

Inconclusion we shall deal with the last and particularly sharp attack
Mr. Bulgakov makes upon Kautsky. Kautsky says that in Germany, from 1882
to 1895, it was the smallest (in area) and the largest farms that grew
most in number (so that the parcellisation of the land proceeded at the
expense of the medium farms). Indeed, the number of farms under one
hectare increased by 8.8 per cent; those of 5 to 20 hectares increased by
7.8 per cent; while those of over

1,000 hectares increased by 1.1 per cent (the number of those in the
intervening categories hardly increased at all, while the total number of
farms increased by 5.3 per cent). Mr. Bulgakov is extremely indignant
because the percentage is taken of the biggest farms, the number of which
is insignificant (515 and 572 for the respective years). Mr. Bulgakov’s
indignation is quite groundless. He forgets that these farms,
insignificant in number, are the largest in size and that they occupy nearly as much land as 2,300,000 to 2,500,000 dwarf farms (up to one
hectare). If I were to say that the number of very big factories in a
country, those employing 1,000 and more workers, increased, say, from 51
to 57, by 11 per cent, while the total number of factories increased 5.3
per cent, would not that show an increase in large-scale production,
notwithstanding the fact that the number of very large factories
may be insignificant as compared with the total number of factories?
Kautsky is fully aware of the fact that it was the peasant farms of from 5
to 20 hectares which grew most in total area (Mr. Bulgakov, p. 18), and he
deals with it in the ensuing chapter.

Kautskythen takes the changes in area in the various categories in 1882
and 1895. It appears that the largest increase (±563,477 hectares)
occurred among the peasant farms of from 5 to 20 hectares, and the next
largest among the biggest farms, those of more than 1,000 hectares
(±94,014), whereas the area of farms of from 20 to 1,000 hectares diminished by
86,809 hectares. Farms up to one hectare increased their area by 32,683
hectares, and those from 1 to 5 hectares, by 45,604 hectares.

And Kautsky draws the following conclusion: the diminution in the area of
farms of from 20 to 1,000 hectares (more than balanced by an increase in
the area of farms of 1,000 hectares and over) is due, not to the decline
of large-scale production, but to its intensification. We have already
seen that intensive farming is making progress in Germany and that it
frequently requires a diminution in the area of farms. That there is
intensification of large-scale production can be seen from the growing
utilisation of steam-driven machinery, as well as from the enormous
increase in the number of agricultural non-manual employees, who in
Germany are employed only on large farms. The number of estate managers
(inspectors), overseers, bookkeepers, etc., increased from 47,465 in 1882
to 76,978 in 1895, i.e., by 62 per cent; the percentage of women among
these employees increased from 12 to 23.4.

“Allthis shows clearly how much more intensive and more capitalist
large-scale farming has become since the beginning of the eighties. The next
chapter will explain why simultaneously there has been such a big increase in
the area of middle-peasant farms” (S. 174).

Mr. Bulgakov regards this description as being “in crying
contradiction to reality,” but the arguments he falls back on again fail
to justify such an emphatic and bold verdict, and not by one iota do they
shake Kautsky’s conclusion. “In the first place, the intensification
of farming, if it took place, would not in itself explain the relative and
absolute diminution of the cultivated area, the diminution of the total
pro portion of farms in the 20- to 1,000-hectare group. The cultivated
area could have increased simultaneously with the increase in the number
of farms. The latter need merely ( sic !) have increased somewhat
faster, so that the area of each farm would have diminished.” [17]

Wehave deliberately quoted in full this argument, from which Mr. Bulgakov
draws the conclusion that “the diminution in the size of farms owing
to the growth of intensive farming is pure fantasy” ( sic !),
because it strikingly reveals the very mistake of mishandling
“statistics” against which Kautsky seriously warned. Mr. Bulgakov puts ridiculously strict demands upon the statistics
of the area of farms and ascribes to these statistics a
significance which they never can have. Why, indeed, should the cultivated
area have increased “somewhat”? Why “should not” the intensification of farming (which, as we have seen, some times leads to
the sale and renting to peasants of parts of estates remote from the
centre) have shifted a certain number of farms from a higher category to a
lower? Why “should it not” have diminished the cultivated area
of farms of from 20 to 1,000 hectares? [18]

In industrial statistics a reduction in the output of the very big factories would have
indicated a decline in large-scale production. But the diminution in
area of large estates by 1.2 per cent does not and cannot indicate the volume of production, which very often increases with a
decrease in the area of the farm. We know that the process of livestock
breeding replacing grain farming, particularly marked in England, is going
on in Europe as a whole. We know that sometimes this change causes a
decrease in the farm area; but would it not be strange to draw from this
the conclusion that the smaller farm area implied a decline in large-scale
production? That is why, incidentally, the “eloquent table”
given by Mr. Bulgakov on page 20, showing the reduction in the number of
large and small farms and the increase in the number of medium farms (5 to
20 hectares) possessing animals for field work, proves nothing at
all. This may have been due to a change in the system of farming.

Thatlarge-scale agricultural production in Germany has become more
intensive and more capitalist is evident, firstly, from the increase in
the number of steam-driven machines employed: from 1879 to 1897
their number increased fivefold. It is quite useless for Mr. Bulgakov to argue in his objection
that the number of all machines in general (and not steam-driven machines only) owned by small farms (up to 20 hectares) is
much larger than that owned by the large farms; and also that in America
machines are employed in extensive farming. We are not discussing America
now, but Germany, where there are no bonanza farms . [19]

The following table gives the percentage of farms in Germany (1895) employing steam ploughs and steam threshing machines:

| Farms | Per cent of farms employing |
| --- | --- |
| steam ploughs | steam threshing machines |
| Under 2 hectares | 0.00 | 1.08 |
| 2 to 5 " | 0.00 | 5.20 |
| 5 to 20 " | 0.01 | 10.95 |
| 2O to 100 " | 0.10 | 16.60 |
| 100 hectares and over | 5.29 | 61.22 |

Andnow, if the total number of steam-driven machines employed in
agriculture in Germany has increased fivefold, does it not prove that
large-scale farming has become more intensive? Only it must not be
forgotten, as Mr. Bulgakov forgets on page 21, that an increase in the
size of enterprises in agriculture is not always identical with an
increase in the area of farms.

Secondly,the fact that large-scale production has become more capitalist is
evident from the increase in the number of agricultural non-manual
employees. It is useless for Bulgakov to call this argument of Kautsky a
“curiosity”:

“an increase in the number of officers, side by side with a reduction of
the army”—with a reduction in the number of agricultural
wage-workers. Again we say: Rira bien qui rira le dernier ! [20]

Kautsky not only does not forget the reduction in the number of
agricultural labourers, but shows it in detail in regard to a number of countries; only this fact has
absolutely nothing to do with the matter in hand, be cause the rural
population as a whole is diminishing, while the number of proletarian
small farmers is increasing. Let us assume that the big farmer abandons
the production of grain and takes up the production of sugar-beet and the
manufacture of sugar (in Germany in 1871-72, 2,200,000 tons of beets were
converted into sugar; in 1881-82, 6,300,000 tons; in 1891-92, 9,500,000
tons, and in 1896-97, 13,700,000 tons). He might even sell, or rent, the
remote parts of his estate to small peasants, particularly If he needs the
wives and children of the peasants as day labourers on the beet
plantations. Let us assume that he introduces a steam plough which
eliminates the former ploughmen (on the beet plantations in
Saxony—“models of intensive farming” [21]

–steam

ploughs have now come into common use). The number of wage-workers diminishes. The number of
higher grade employees (bookkeepers, managers, technicians, etc.)
necessarily increases. Will Mr. Bulgakov deny that we see here an increase
in intensive farming and capitalism in large-scale production? Will he
assert that nothing of the kind is taking place in Germany?

Toconclude the exposition of Chapter VIII of Kautsky’s book, viz., on the
proletarisation of the peasants, we need to quote the following
passage. “What interests us here,” says Kautsky, after the passage
we have cited above, quoted also by Mr. Bulgakov, “is the fact that
the proletarisation of the rural population is proceeding in Germany, as
in other places, notwithstanding the fact that the tendency to parcellise
medium estates has ceased to operate there. From 1882 to 1895 the total
number of farms increased by 281,000. By far the greater part of this
increase was due to the greater number of proletarian farms up to one
hectare in area. The number of these farms increased by 206,000.

“Aswe see, the development of agriculture is quite a special one,
quite different from the development of industrial and trading capital. In
the preceding chapter we pointed out that in agriculture the tendency to
centralise farms does not lead to the complete elimination of small-scale
production.

When this tendency goes too far it gives rise to an opposite tendency, so
that the tendency to centralise and the tendency to parcellise alternate
with each other. Now we see that both tendencies can operate side by
side. There is an increase in the number of farms whose owners come into
the commodity market as proletarians, as sellers of labour-power.... All
the material interests of these small farmers as sellers of the commodity
labour-power are identical with the interests of the industrial
proletariat, and their land owner ship does not give rise to antagonism
between them and the proletariat. His land more or less emancipates the
peasant small holder from the dealer in food products; but it does not
emancipate him from the exploitation of the capitalist entrepreneur,
whether industrial or agricultural” (S. 174).

Inthe following article we shall deal with the remaining part of
Kautsky’s book and give the work a general appraisal; in passing, we shall
examine the objections Mr. Bulgakov raises in a later article.