V. I.

Lenin

Farm Labourers’ Wages

Wages in the manufacturing industry are known to have risen
by about twenty per cent since 1905.

A first attempt to study the situation as regards the wages of
agricultural labourers was made in the recently published pamphlet
by I. Drozdov, The Wages of Farm Labourers in Russia in Connection with the Agrarian Movement in 1905–06 (St. Petersburg, 1914, published by
M. I. Semyonov, price 50 kopeks). We shall deal with the main conclusions
of this interesting treatise.

The farm labourer’s average daily wage in European Russia was as
follows (in kopeks):

| | Kopeks | Per cent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Average for 1902–04 . . . . . | 64.0 | 100.0 |
| ” ” 1905 . . . . . | 64.8 | 101.2 |
| ” ” 1906 . . . . . | 72.0 | 112.5 |
| ” ” 1907 . . . . . | 73.1 | 114.2 |
| ” ” 1908 . . . . . | 72.4 | 113.1 |
| ” ” 1909 . . . . . | 75.8 | 118.4 |
| ” ” 1910 . . . . . | 76.6 | 119.6 |

These figures show that the highest increase in wages occurred in 1906,
the very year when the impact of the 1905 movement must have been at its
strongest.

Thus, beginning with 1905, an increase was achieved also in the
incredibly low pay of farm labourers! That this progress is still far from
adequate is evident from a comparison between money wages and grain
prices. The author of the pamphlet made this comparison and expressed the
money wages of farm labourers quoted above in terms of grain (rye)
at average local prices. He found that wages expressed in terms of grain
dropped from 0.93 poods in 1902-04 to 0.85 poods in 1905 and 0.91
poods in 1906.

In other words, for his day’s pay the farm labourer in Russia could buy
0.93 poods of rye in 1902–04 and only 0.91 poods in 1906. Obviously, if
not for the impetus of 1905 and 1906, the reduction in real wages
would have been even greater.

Wages fluctuate considerably from year to year according to the harvest
and other causes. For example, between 1905 and 1907 wages rose, though
very unevenly, and then in 1908 (the year when the reaction was strongest)
they dropped , to rise slightly again in 1909 and 1910.

In view of the fluctuation of wages from year to year, it is necessary
to take for the purposes of comparison, not individual years, but
decades. Making such a comparison, Mr. Drozdov defines the average wage of
farm labourers in European Russia for the ten years 1891–1900 at 55.08
kopeks per day, and for the subsequent ten years (1901–10) at 69.18 kopeks
per day. This shows an increase of 25.5 per cent.

This means that three million farm labourers in Russia (the
number is undoubtedly greatly understated) secured increases in pay
amounting to about eighty million rubles per year , if we count
only 200 working days per year.

True, during this period, the price of food products increased on an
average by 20.5 per cent. Hence, the actual increase in wages, or
increase in real wages, was very slight. Expressing daily money wages in
terms of grain, the author found an increase of only 3.9 per cent during
the revolutionary ten years as compared with, the pre-revolutionary ten
years. Thus, by exerting all their efforts the labourers succeeded in
keeping wages at their former level and in raising them only
very slightly .

On the other hand, a comparison of the changes in labourers’ wages and
in the price of land during the same two decades reveals an
enormous increase in the incomes of the landed gentry . Purchasing land means purchasing the income obtained
from the land; it means purchasing rent ; the price of land is
therefore capitalised rent. We see that during the two decades the average
price per dessiatine rose from R. 69.1 to R. 132.4, i.e., almost doubled !

The wages of millions of hired workers increased by one-fourth . The incomes of the landlords doubled . Wages
barely kept pace with the price of food products, but the landlords’ incomes rose five times as high as the price of food products. The
landowners and well-to-do peasant proprietors are growing steadily
richer.

It should be borne in mind that the increase in the income from land
and the increaso in the price of agricultural produce steadily and inevitably widen the class gulf between the rural
bourgeois and the rural proletarian, between the small proprietor
(albeit a “labouring” proprietor) and the wage-worker. Therefore, those
who say to the “labouring” peasants:
under capitalism your small farm will not save you from poverty and want,
your only salvation lies in joining the hired workers—speak the
truth. But those who, like our “Narodniks”, try to defend the interests
of the “labouring” peasant economy and declare that petty
economy is viable under capitalism—such people foster bourgeois
aspirations, cultivate the bourgeois, non-proletarian “streak” in the
small proprietor, and speak like bourgeois.