The DEVELOPMENT of CAPITALISM in RUSSIA

Chapter II. The Differentiation of the Peasantry

XII. Zemstvo Statistics On Peasant Budgets

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

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

Of the

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let us examine the distribution of expenditures [4] :

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

p. 671). [29]

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

person. [9]

As

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

capitalism. [22]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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