The DEVELOPMENT of CAPITALISM in RUSSIA

Chapter IV. The Growth of Commercial Agriculture

X. Narodnik Theories on Capitalism in
Agriculture.
“The Freeing of Winter Time”

The foregoing positive conclusions regarding the significance of
capitalism must be supplemented by an examination of certain special
“theories” on this question current in our literature. Our
Narodniks in most cases have been totally unable to digest Marx’s
fundamental views on agricultural capitalism. The more candid among them
have bluntly declared that Marx’s theory does not cover agriculture
(Mr. V. V. in Our Trends ), while others (like Mr. N.–on) have
preferred diplomatically to evade the question of the relation between
their “postulates” and Marx’s theory. One of the postulates most widespread among the Narodnik economists is the theory of
“the freeing of winter time.” The essence of it is as follows. [1]

Under the capitalist system agriculture becomes a separate industry,
unconnected with the others. However, it is not carried on the whole year
but only for five or six months. Therefore, the capitalisation of
agriculture leads to “the freeing of winter time,” to the
“limitation of the working time of the agricultural class to part of
the working year,” which is the “fundamental cause of the
deterioration of the economic conditions of the agricultural
classes” (N.–on, 229), of the “diminishing of the home market” and of
“the wastage of the productive forces” of society (Mr. V. V.).

Here you have the whole of this celebrated theory, which bases the most
sweeping historical and philosophical conclusions solely on the great
truth that in agriculture jobs are distributed over the year very
unevenly! To take this one feature, to reduce it to absurdity by means of
abstract assumptions, to discard all the other specific features of the
complex process which transforms patriarchal agriculture into capitalist
agriculture—such are the simple methods used in this latest attempt
to restore the romantic theories about pre-capitalist “people’s production.”

To show how inordinately narrow this abstract postulate is, let us
indicate briefly those aspects of the actual process that are either
entirely lost sight of, or are underrated by our Narodniks. Firstly, the
further the specialisation of agriculture proceeds, the more the
agricultural population decreases, becoming an ever-diminishing part of
the total population. The Narodniks forget this, although in their
abstractions they raise the specialisation of agriculture to a level it
hardly ever reaches in actual fact. They assume that only the operations
of sowing and reaping grain have become a separate industry; the
cultivation and the manuring of the soil, the processing and the carting
of produce, stock raising, forestry, the repair of buildings and
implements, etc., etc.—all these operations have been turned into
separate capitalist industries. The application of such
abstractions to present-day realities will not contribute much towards
explaining them. Secondly, the assumption that agriculture undergoes such
complete specialisation presupposes a purely capitalist organisation of
agriculture, a complete division into capitalist farmers and
wage-workers. To talk under such circumstances about “the
peasant” (as Mr. N.–on does, p. 215) is the height of illogicality. The purely capitalist organisation of agriculture
presupposes, in its turn, a more even distribution of jobs throughout the
year (due to crop rotation, rational stock raising, etc.), the combination
with agriculture, in many cases, of the technical processing of produce,
the application of a greater quantity of labour to the preparation of the soil, etc. [2]

Thirdly, capitalism presupposes the complete separation of agricultural
from industrial enterprises . But whence does it follow that this
separation does not permit the combination of agricultural and industrial
wage-labour ? We find such a combination in developed capitalist
society everywhere. Capitalism separates the skilled workers from the
plain labourers, the unskilled, who pass from one occupation to another,
now drawn into jobs at some large enterprise, and now thrown into the
ranks of the workless. [3]

The greater the development of capitalism and large-scale industry, the greater, in general, are the fluctuations in the demand for
workers not only in agriculture, but also in industry. [4]

Therefore, if we presuppose the maximum development of capitalism, we must also presuppose
the maximum facility for the transfer of workers from agricultural to
non-agricultural occupations, we must presuppose the formation of a
general reserve army from which labour-power is drawn by all sorts of
employers. Fourthly, if we take the present-day rural employers, it
cannot, of course, be denied that sometimes they experience difficulty in
providing their farms with. workers. But it must not be for gotten,
either, that they have a means of tying the workers to their farms,
namely, by allotting them patches of land, etc. The allotment-holding farm
labourer or day labourer is a type common to all capitalist countries. One
of the chief errors of the Narodniks is that they ignore the formation of
a similar type in Russia. Fifthly, it is quite wrong to discuss the
freeing of the farmer’s winter time independently of the general
question of capitalist surplus-population. The formation of a reserve army
of unemployed is characteristic of capitalism in general, and the specific
features of agriculture merely give rise to special forms of this
phenomenon. That is why the author of Capital , for instance,
deals with the distribution of employment in agriculture in connection
with the question of “relative surplus-population,” [5] as well as in a
special chapter where he discusses the difference between the “working period” and the
“time of production” ( Das Kapital , II. B., Chapter
13). The working period is the period in which labour is applied to the
product; the time of production is the time during which the product is in
production, including the period in which labour is not applied to it. The
working period does not coincide with the time of production in very many
industries, among which agriculture is merely the most typical, but by no
means the only one. [6]

In Russia, as compared with other European countries, the difference between the working period in agriculture and
the time of production is a particularly big one. “When capitalist
production later accomplishes the separation of manufacture and
agriculture, the rural labourer becomes ever more dependent on merely
casual accessory employment and his condition deteriorates thereby. For
capital . . . all differences in the turnover are evened out. Not so for
the labourer” ( ibid ., 223–224). [8] So then, the only conclusion that
follows from the specific features of agriculture in the instance under
review is that the position of the agricultural worker must be even worse
than that of the industrial worker. This is still a very long way from
Mr. N.–on’s “theory” that the freeing of winter time is
the “fundamental reason” for the deterioration of the conditions of the “agricultural classes” (?!). If the working
period in our agriculture equalled 12 months, the process of the
development of capitalism would go on exactly as it does now; the entire
difference would be that the conditions of the agricultural worker would
come somewhat closer to those of the industrial worker. [7]

Thus the “theory” of Messrs. V. V. and N.–on makes absolutely
no contribution whatever even to the general problem of the development of
agricultural capitalism. As for the specific features of Russia, it not
only does not explain them, but on the contrary obscures them. Winter
unemployment among our peasantry depends not so much on capitalism as on
the inadequate development of capitalism. We have shown above (§IV of this
chapter), from the data on wages, that of the Great-Russian gubernias,
winter unemployment is most prevalent in those where capitalism is least
developed and where labour-service prevails. That is quite
understandable. Labour-service retards the. development of labour
productivity, retards the development of industry and agriculture, and,
consequently, the demand for labour-power, and at the same time, while
tying the peasant to his allotment, provides him neither with employment
in winter time nor with the possibility of existing by his wretched
farming.

---
Notes:
[1]
V. V., Essay on Theoretical Economics , p.
108 and foll. N.–on Sketches , p. 214 and foll. The same
ideas are to be found in Mr. Kablukov’s Lectures on Agricultural Economics , Moscow, 1897, p. 55 and foll.— Lenin

[2]
To make no bald assertion, let us give examples of our private landowner farms whose organisation approximates
in the greatest measure to the purely capitalist type. Let us
take Orel Gubernia ( Zemstvo Statistical Returns for Kromy Uyezd , Vol. IV, Pt. 2, Orel 1892). The estate of Khlyustin,
a member of the nobility, covers 1,129 dess., of which 562 are
under crops, there are 8 buildings, and various improved
implements. Artificial grass cultivation. Stud farm. Stock
raising. Marsh drainage by ditch-cutting and other measures
(“drainage is mainly done in spare time,” p. 146). The number
of workers in summer, 50 to 80 per day, in winter, up to 30. In
1888 there were 81 workers employed, of whom 25 were for the
summer. In 1889 there were 19 carpenters employed.—Estate
of Count Ribopier: 3,000 dess., 1,293 under crops, 898 leased to
peasants. Twelve-crop rotation system. Peat-cutting for manure,
extraction of phosphorites. Since 1889 operation of experimental
field of 30 dess. Manure carted in winter and spring. Grass
cultivation. Proper exploitation of forests (200 to 300
lumbermen employed from October to March) Cattle raising. Dairy
farming. In 1888 had 90 employees, of whom 34 were for the
summer.—Menshchikov estate in Moscow Gubernia ( Returns , Vol. V, Pt. 2), 23,000 dess. Manpower in
return for “cut-off” lands, and also hired. Forestry. “In the
summer the horses and the permanent workers are busy round the
fields; in late autumn and partly in winter they cart potatoes
and starch to the drying sheds and starch factory, and also cart
timber from the woods to the . . . station; thanks to all this,
the work is spread fairly evenly now over the whole year”
(p. 145), as is evident, incidentally, from the register showing
the number of days worked monthly: average number of horse days,
293 per month; fluctuations: from 223 (April) to 362 (June). Average male days, 216; fluctuations: from 126
(February) to 279 (November). Average female days 23; fluctuations: from 13 (January) to 27 (March). Is this reality
anything like the abstraction the Narodniks are busying
themselves with?— Lenin

[3]
Large-scale capitalist industry creates a nomad working class. It is formed from the rural population, but is
chiefly engaged in industrial occupations. “They are the light
infantry of capital, thrown by it, according to its needs, now to
this point, now to that. . . . Nomad labour is used for various
operations of building and draining, brick making, lime-burning,
railway-making, etc.” ( Das Kapital ,

I 2 ,

S. 692 [9] .)
“In general such large-scale undertakings as railways with draw a definite quantity of labour-power from the
labour-market, which can come only from certain branches of
economy, for example, agriculture . . .” ( ibid ., II. B.,

S. 303). [10] — Lenin

[4]
For example the Moscow Medical Statistics placed the number of factory workers in this gubernia at 114,381; this was
the number at work; the highest figure was 146,338 and the lowest,
94,214 ( General Summary , etc., Vol. IV, Pt. I, p. 98); in
percentages: 128%—100%— 82%. By increasing, in general, the fluctuations in the number of workers, capitalism
evens out, in this respect too, the differences between industry
and agriculture.— Lenin

[5]
For example, in regard to the agricultural relations of England, Marx says: “There are always
too many agricultural labourers for the ordinary, and always too
few for the exceptional or temporary needs of the cultivation of
the soil” (I 2 , 725), [11] so that, notwithstanding the permanent “relative surplus-population,” the countryside
seems to be inadequately populated. As capitalist production
takes possession of agriculture, says Marx in another place, a
surplus rural population is formed. “Part of the agricultural
population is therefore constantly on the point of passing over
into an urban or manufacturing proletariat” ( ibid .,

668) [12] ;
this part of the population suffers chronically from unemployment; the work it gets is extremely irregular and is the
worst paid (e.g., working at home for shops, etc.)— Lenin

[6]
Particularly noteworthy in this connection is
Marx’s observation that in agriculture too there are ways of
distributing the demand for labour “more evenly over the entire
year,” namely, by raising a greater variety of products, by
substituting crop rotation for the three-field system, cultivating
root-crops, grasses, etc. but all these methods “require an
increase of the circulating capital advanced in production,
invested in wages, fertilisers, seed, etc.” ( ibid .,

S. 225-226). [13] — Lenin

[7]
We say “somewhat,” because the deterioration of the conditions of the agricultural worker is far from being due to
irregularity of employment alone.— Lenin

[9]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958,
p. 663.

[10]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. II, Moscow, 1957,
p. 316.

[11]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958,
p. 693.

[12]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958,
p. 642.

[13]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. II, Moscow, 1957, pp. 242-243.

[8]
Karl Marx, Capital , Vol. II, Moscow, 1957,
p. 241.