V. I.

Lenin

In making a proper appraisal of the conditions in which
capitalism places small agricultural production the most important things
to study are the conditions of the worker, his earnings, the amount of
labour he expends, his conditions of life; then the way the livestock is
kept and tended, and, finally, the methods of cultivating and fertilising
the soil, the waste of its fertility, etc.

It is not difficult to understand that if these questions are ignored
(as they often are in bourgeois political economy) a totally distorted
picture of peasant farming is obtained, for the real “viability”
of the latter depends precisely on the conditions of the worker, on the
condition of his livestock, and on the way he tends his land. To assume
without proof that in this respect small production is in the same position
as large-scale production is merely begging the question. It means at once
adopting the bourgeois point of view.

The bourgeoisie wants to prove that the peasant is a sound and viable
“proprietor”, and not the slave of capital, crushed in the same way as
the wage-worker, but more tied up, more entangled than the latter. If one
seriously and conscientiously wants the data required to solve
this controversial problem, he must look for the regular and objective
indicators of the conditions of life and labour in small and
large-scale production.

One of these indicators, and a particularly important one, is the
extent to which child labour is employed. The more child labour is
exploited the worse, undoubtedly, is the position of the worker, and the
harder his life.

The Austrian and German agricultural censuses give the number of
children and adolescents employed in agriculture in relation to the total number of persons employed in agriculture. The
Austrian census gives separate figures for all workers, male and female,
under 16 years of age. Of these, there were 1,200,000 out of a
total of 9,000,000, i.e., 13 per cent. The German census gives figures only
for those of 14 years of age and under ; of these there were six
hundred thousand (601,637) out of fifteen million (15,169,549), or 3.9
per cent.

Clearly, the Austrian and German figures are not comparable. Nevertheless, the relative numbers of proletarian,
peasant and capitalist farms they reveal are quite comparable.

By proletarian farms we mean the tiny plots of land (up to two hectares
or almost two dessiatines per farm) which provide the wage-worker with
supplementary earnings. By peasant farms we mean those from 2 to 20
hectares; in these, family labour predominates over wage-labour. Finally,
there are the capitalist farms; these are big farms, in which wage-labour
predominates over family labour.

The following are the figures on child labour in the three types of
farms.

| Type of farm | Group according to size of farm | Children employed (% of total number of workers) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Austria (under 16) | Germany (under 14 |
| Proletarian { { | Less than half a hectare . . . | 8.8 | 2.2 |
| 1/2 to 2 hectares . . . . . . | 12.2 | 3.9 |
| Peasant { { { | 2 ” 5 ” . . . . . . | 15.3 | 4.6 |
| 5 ” 10 ” . . . . . . | 15.6 | 4.8 |
| 10 ” 20 ” . . . . . . | 12.8 | 4.5 |
| Capitalist { { | 20 ” 100 ” . . . . . . | 11.1 | 3.4 |
| 100 hectares and over . . . . | 4.2 | 3.6 |
| Total . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . | 13.0 | 3.9 |

We see from the above that in both countries the exploitation of child
labour is greatest in peasant farms in general, and among
the middle peasant farms (5 to 10 hectares, i.e., 4.5 to
9 dessiatines) in particular.

Thus, not only is small production worse-off than large-scale
production, we also see that the peasant farms, in particular, are worse-off than the capitalist farms and even than the
proletarian farms.

How is this to be explained?

On the proletarian farm, farming is conducted on such an insignificant
plot of land that, strictly speaking, it can not seriously be called a
“farm”. Here farming is a secondary occupation; the principal
occupation is wage-labour in agriculture and in industry. In general, the
influence of industry raises the standard of life of the worker, and in
particular, it reduces the exploitation of child labour. For example, the
German census shows the number of persons under the age of 14 employed in
industry to be only 0.3 per cent of the total (i.e., one-tenth of that in
agriculture) and those under 16 years of age only 18 per cent.

In peasant farming, however, the influence of industry is felt least of
all, while the competition of capitalist agriculture is felt most of
all. The peasant is unable to keep going without almost working himself to
death and compelling his children to work as hard. Want compels the peasant
to make up for his lack of capital and technical equipment with his own
muscles. The fact that the peasant’s children work hardest also indicates
that the peasant’s cattle work hard and are fed worse: the necessity of
exerting the utmost effort and of “economising” in everything inevitably
affects every side of the farm.

German statistics show that among wage-workers the largest percentage
of children (3.7 or nearly 4 per cent) is to be found in the big capitalist
farms (of 100 dessiatines and over). But among family workers, the largest
percent age of children is to be found among the peasants—about five
per cent (4.9 per cent to 5.2 per cent). As many as 9 per cent of
temporary wage-workers employed in big capitalist enterprises are
children; but among the peasants as many as 16.5 to 24.4 per cent of the
temporary family workers are children!

In the busy season the peasant suffers from a shortage of workers; he
can hire workers only to a small extent; he is compelled to employ the
labour of his own children to the greatest extent. The result is that in
German agriculture, in general, the percentage of children among family
workers is nearly hall as big again as that among wage-workers— children among family workers—4.4 per cent; among wage workers—3
per cent.

The peasant has to work harder than the wage-worker. This
fact, confirmed by thousands of independent observations, is now fully
proved by statistics for whole countries. Capitalism condemns the peasant
to extreme degradation and ruin. There is no other salvation for him than
through joining the class struggle of the wage-workers. But before the
peasant can arrive at this conclusion he will have to experience many years
of being disillusioned by deceptive bourgeois slogans.

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