In Russia, as in all capitalist countries, there is occurring a concentration of production, i.e., its concentration more and more in the hands of a small number of large and largest enterprises.

Under the capitalist system, each individual enterprise is in complete dependence upon the market. And under such dependence, the larger the enterprise, the cheaper it is able to sell its product. The large capitalist purchases raw materials more cheaply, expends them more economically, employs the best machines, and so forth. Small proprietors are ruined and perish. Production becomes increasingly concentrated, concentrated in the hands of a few millionaires. The millionaires ordinarily further strengthen their power by means of joint-stock companies, which place at their disposal the capitals of medium-sized proprietors and "small fry."

Here, for example, are the data on factory and manufacturing industry in Russia for 1910 in comparison with 1901{44}.

Such is the usual picture in all capitalist countries. The number of small establishments diminishes: the petty bourgeoisie, small proprietors are ruined and perish, passing into the ranks of employees, sometimes proletarians.

The number of largest enterprises grows rapidly, and their share in all production grows even more.

From 1901 to 1910, the number of the largest factories, having more than 1000 workers, grew almost one and a half times: from 243 to 324.

In them there were workers in 1901 of about half a million (526 thousand), i.e., less than a third of the total number, but in 1910 it became more than 700 thousand, more than a third of the total number.

The largest factories stifle the small ones and increasingly concentrate production. Ever larger masses of workers are gathered in a small number of enterprises, but all the profit from the labor of united millions of workers goes to a handful of millionaires.

*Pravda* No. 89, August 12, 1912. Signed: T.

Printed from the text of the newspaper *Pravda*