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<"p21">
<"c3"> V. I. Lenin
THE DEVELOPMENT OF
CAPITALISM IN RUSSIAThe Process of the Formation of a
Home Market for Large-Scale Industry[Part 3 -- Chapters III and IV]
(pp. 189-330)
From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,
C H A P T E R III[79] THE LANDOWNERS' TRANSITION FROM CORVÉE
TO CAPITALIST ECONOMYFrom peasant economy we must now pass to landlord economy. Our task is to examine, in its main features, the present social-economic system of landlord economy and to describe the nature of the evolution of this system in the post-Reform epoch.
<"c3s1">I. THE MAIN FEATURES OF CORVÉE ECONOMY As our starting-point in examining the present system of landlord economy we must take the system of that economy which prevailed in the epoch of serfdom. The essence of the economic system of those days was that the entire land of a given unit of agrarian economy, i.e., of a given estate, was divided into the lord's and the peasants' land; the latter was distributed in allotments among the peasants, who (receiving other means of production in addition, as for example, timber, sometimes cattle, etc.) cultivated it with their own labour and their own implements, and obtained their livelihood from it. The product of this peasants' labour constituted the necessary product, to employ the terminology of theoretical political economy; necessary -- for the peasants in providing them with means of subsistence, and for the landlord in providing him with hands; in exactly the same way as the product which replaces the variable part of the value of capital is a necessary product in capitalist society. The peasants' surplus labour, on the other hand, consisted in their cultivation, with the same implements, of the landlord's land; the product of that labour went to the landlord. Hence, the surplus
page 192labour was separated then in space from the necessary labour: for the landlord they cultivated his land, for themselves their allotments; for the landlord they worked some days of the week and for themselves others. The peasant's allotment in this economy served, as it were, as wages in kind (to express oneself in modern terms), or as a means of providing the landlord with hands. The peasants' "own" farming of their allotments was a condition of the landlord economy, and its purpose was to "provide" not the peasant with means of livelihood but the landlord with hands.[*]
It is this system of economy which we call corvée [Russ.: barshchina] economy. Its prevalence obviously presumes the following necessary conditions: firstly, the predominance of natural economy. The feudal estate had to constitute a self-sufficing, self-contained entity, in very slight contact with the outside world. The production of grain by the landlords for sale, which developed particularly in the latter period of the existence of serfdom, was already a harbinger of the collapse of the old regime. Secondly, such an economy required that the direct producer be allotted the means of production in general, and land in particular; moreover, that he be tied to the land, since otherwise the landlord was not assured of hands. Hence, the methods of obtaining the surplus product under corvée and under capitalist economy are diametrically opposite: the former is based on the producer being provided with land, the latter on the producer being dispossessed of the land.** Thirdly, a <"fnp192">
* An extremely vivid description of this system of economy is given by A. Engelhardt in his Letters from the Countryside (St. Petersburg 1885, pp. 556-557). The author quite rightly points out that feudal economy was a definite, regular and complete system, the director of which was the landlord, who allotted land to the peasants and assigned them to various jobs.
** In opposing the view of Henry George, who said that the expropriation of the mass of the population is the great and universal cause of poverty and oppression, Engels wrote in 1887: "This is not quite correct historically. . . . In the Middle Ages, it was not the expropriation of the people from, but on the contrary, their appropriation to the land which became the source of feudal oppression. The peasant retained his land,<"p192"> but was attached to it as a serf or villein, and made liable to tribute to the lord in labour and in produce" (The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844, New York, 1887, Preface, p. III)[80]
page 193condition for such a system of economy was the personal dependence of the peasant on the landlord. If the landlord had not possessed direct power over the person of the peasant, he could not have compelled a man who had a plot of land and ran his own farm to work for him. Hence, "other than economic pressure," as Marx says in describing this economic regime,<"p193"> was necessary (and, as has already been indicated above, Marx assigned it to the category of labour-rent ; Das Kapital, III, 2, 324).[81] The form and degree of this coercion may be the most varied, ranging from the peasant's serf status to his lack of rights in the social estates. Fourthly, and finally, a condition and a consequence of the system of economy described was the extremely low and stagnant condition of technique, for farming was in the hands of small peasants, crushed by poverty and degraded by personal dependence and by ignorance.
<"c3s2">
II. THE COMBINATION OF THE CORVÉE AND
THE CAPITALIST SYSTEMS OF ECONOMYThe corvée system of economy was undermined by the abolition of serfdom. All the main foundations of this system were undermined: natural economy, the self-contained and the self-sufficient character of the landed estate, the close connection between its various constituents, and the landlord's power over the peasants. The peasant's farm was separated from that of the landlord; the peasant was to buy back his land and become the full owner of it; the landlord, to adopt the capitalist system of farming, which, as has just been observed, has a diametrically opposite basis. But such a transition to a totally different system could not, of course, take place at once, and for two different reasons. First, the conditions required for capitalist production did not yet exist. A class of people was required who were accustomed to work for hire; the peasants' implements had to be replaced by those of the landlord; agriculture had to be organised on the same lines as any other commercial and industrial enterprise and not as the business of the lord. All these conditions could only take shape gradually, and the attempts of some landlords,
page 194immediately after the Reform, to import machinery and even workers from abroad could not but end in a fiasco. The other reason why the transition to the capitalist conduct of affairs was not possible at once was that the old corvée system of economy had been undermined, but not yet completely destroyed. The peasants' farms were not entirely separated from those of the landlords,<"p194"> for the latter retained possession of very essential parts of the peasants' allotments: the "cut-off lands,"[82] the woods, meadows, watering places, pastures, etc. Without these lands (or easement rights) the peasants were absolutely unable to carry on independent farming, so that the landlords were able to continue the old system of economy in the form of labour-service. The possibility of exercising "other than economic pressure" also<"p194a"> remained in the shape of the peasants' temporarily-bound status,[83] collective responsibility, corporal punishment, forced labour on public works, etc.
Thus, capitalist economy could not emerge at once, and corvée economy could not disappear at once. The only possible system of economy was, accordingly, a transitional one, a system combining the features of both the corvée and the capitalist systems. And indeed, the post-Reform system of farming practised by the landlords bears precisely these features. With all the endless variety of forms characteristic of a transitional epoch, the economic organisation of contemporary landlord farming amounts to two main systems, in the most varied combinations -- the labour-service * system and the capitalist system. The first consists in the landlord's land being cultivated with the implements of the neighbouring peasants, the form of payment not altering the essential nature of this system (whether payment is in money, as in the case of job-hire, or in produce, as in the case of half-cropping, or in land or grounds, as in the case of labour-service in the narrow sense of the term). This is a direct survival of corvée economy,** and the economic characterisation of the latter, <"fnp194">
* We are now replacing the term "corvée" by the term "labour-service" since the latter expression corresponds in greater measure to post-Reform relations and is by now generally accepted in our literature.
** Here is a particularly striking example: "In the south of Yelets Uyezd (Orel Gubernia)," writes a correspondent of the Department [cont. onto p. 195. -- DJR] of Agriculture, "on the big landlords' farms, side by side with cultivation with the aid of annual labourers, a considerable part of the land is tilled by peasants in return for land leased to them. The ex-serfs continue to rent land from their former landlords, and in return till their land Such villages continue to bear the name of 'corvée ' of such-and-such a landlord" (S. A. Korolenko, Hired Labour, etc., p. 118) Here is one more example: "On my farm," writes another landlord, "all the work is done by my former peasants (8 villages with approximately 600 persons); in return for this they get the use of pastures for their cattle (from 2,000 to 2,500 dess.); except that seasonal workers do the first ploughing and sow with seed drills" (ibid., p. 325. From Kaluga Uyezd)
page 195given above, is applicable almost entirely to the labour-service system (the only exception being that in one of the forms of the labour-service system one of the conditions of corvée economy disappears, namely, under job-hire, where labour instead of being paid in kind is paid in money). The capitalist farming system consists of the hire of workers (annual, seasonal, day, etc.) who till the land with the owner's implements. The systems mentioned are actually interwoven in the most varied and fantastic fashion: on a mass of landlord estates there is a combination of the two systems, which are applied to different farming operations.[*] It is quite natural that the combination of such dissimilar and even opposite systems of economy leads in practice to a whole number of most profound and complicated conflicts and contradictions, and that the pressure of these contradictions results in a number of the farmers going bankrupt, etc. All these are phenomena characteristic of every transitional period.
If we raise the question as to the relative incidence of the two systems, we shall have to say, first of all, that no precise statistics are available on the matter, and it is not likely that they could be collected: that would require a registra- <"fnp195">
* "Most of the estates are managed in the following way: part, although a very small part, of the land is cultivated by the owners with their own implements, with the aid of labourers hired by the year" and other "workers, but all the rest of the land is leased to peasants for cultivation either on a half-crop basis" or in return for land, or for money (Hired Labour, ibid., 96). . . . "On the majority of estates simultaneous resort is made to nearly all, or at any rate many, forms of hire" (i.e., methods of "providing the farm with man power"). Agriculture and Forestry in Russia published by the Department of Agriculture for the Chicago Exhibition, St. Petersburg, 1893, p. 79.
page 196tion not only of all estates, but of all economic operations performed on all the estates. Only approximate data are available, in the shape of general descriptions of individual localities as to the predominance of one or another system. Data of this kind are given in a summarised form for the whole of Russia in the above-mentioned publication of the Department of Agriculture, Hired Labour, etc. On the basis of these data,<"p196"> Mr. Annensky has drawn up a very striking chart showing the incidence of these systems (The Influence of Harvests, etc.,[54] I, 170). Let us summarise these data in a table, and supplement them with figures on the cultivated area on private owners' lands in 1883-1887 (according to Statistics of the Russian Empire, IV. The average harvest in European Russia in the five years 1883 1887. St. Petersburg, 1888).[*]
<"fnp196">
N u m b e r o f
g u b e r n i a s
Gubernia groups according to
system of economy predominant
on landowners' estate
in
black-
earth
belt
in non-
black-
earth
belt
Total
Area under all
cereals and potatoes
on private owners'
estates (thous. dess.)
I.
II.
III.
Gubernias where the capitalist
system predominates . . . .
Gubernias where a mixed
system predominates . . . .
Gubernias where the labour-
service system predominates . .
9
3
12
10
4
5
19
7
17
7,407
2,222
6,281
Total . . .
24
19
43
15,910
* Of the 50 gubernias of European Russia the following are excluded: Archangel, Vologda, Olonets, Vyatka, Perm, Orenburg and Astrakhan. In these gubernias the area cultivated in 1883-1887 amounted to 562,000 dess. on private owners' estates out of a total of 16,472,000 dess. cultivated on such land in the whole of European Russia. -- Group I includes the following: the 3 Baltic gubernias, the 4 Western (Kovno, Vilna, Grodno and Minsk), the 3 South-Western (Kiev, Volhynia, Podolsk), the 5 Southern (Kherson, Taurida, Bessarabia, Ekaterinoslav, Don), and 1 South-Eastern (Saratov); then follow the St. Petersburg, Moscow and Yaroslavl gubernias. Group II includes: Vitebsk, Mogilev, Smolensk, Kaluga, Voronezh, Poltava and Kharkov. Group III includes the rest of the gubernias. -- To be more exact one should deduct from the total area cultivated on private owners' land the gown area belonging to tenants, but no such statistics are available. We would add that such a correction would [cont. onto p. 197. -- DJR] hardly alter our conclusion as to the predominance of the capitalist system, since a large part of the landowners' fields in the black-earth belt is rented, and the labour-service system predominates in the gubernias of this belt.
page 197
Thus, although the labour-service system predominates in the purely Russian gubernias, the capitalist system of landlord farming must be considered the predominant one at present in European Russia as a whole. Moreover, our table gives a far from complete picture of this predominance, for Group I of the gubernias includes some in which the labour-service system is not applied at all (the Baltic gubernias, for example), whereas Group III includes not a single gubernia, and in all probability not a single farmed estate in which the capitalist system is not applied at least in part. Here is an illustration of this based on Zemstvo statistics (Raspopin; "Private-Landowner Farming in Russia According to Zemstvo Statistics," in Yuridichesky Vestnik [Legal Messenger ], 1887, Nos. 11-12. No. 12, p. 634):
Uyezds in
Kursk Gubernia
% of estates hiring
labourers
% of estates employ-
ing farm labourers
medium
large
medium
large
Dmitrovsk . . . . .
Fetezh . . . . . .
Lgov . . . . . . .
Sudzha . . . . . .
53.3
77.1
58.7
53.0
84.3
88.2
78.8
81.1
68.5
86.0
73.1
66.9
85.0
94.1
96.9
90.5
Lastly, it must be observed that sometimes the labour-service system passes into the capitalist system and merges with it to such an extent that it becomes almost impossible to distinguish one from the other. For example, a peasant rents a plot of land, undertaking in return to perform a definite number of days' work (a practice which, as we know, is most widespread; see examples in the next section). How are we to draw a line of demarcation between such a "peasant" and the West-European or Ostsee "farm labourer" who receives a plot of land on undertaking to work a definite number of days? Life creates forms that unite in themselves with remarkable gradualness systems of economy whose basic features constitute opposites. It becomes impossible to say where "labour-service" ends and where "capitalism" begins.
page 198
Having established the fundamental fact that the whole variety of forms of contemporary landlord farming amounts to two systems -- the labour-service and the capitalist systems, in various combinations, we shall now proceed to give an economic description of the two systems and determine which of them is eliminating the other under the influence of the whole course of economic evolution.
<"c3s3">
III. DESCRIPTION OF THE LABOUR-SERVICE SYSTEMLabour-service, as has already been observed above, is of exceedingly varied types. Sometimes peasants undertake for a money payment to cultivate with their own implements the fields of the landowner -- so-called "job-hire,"<"p198"> "dessiatine employments,"[*] cultivation of "cycles"[**][85] (i.e., one dessiatine of spring crop and one of winter crop), etc. Sometimes the peasant borrows grain or money, under taking to work off either the entire loan or the interest on it.[***] Under this form a feature peculiar to the labour-service system in general stands out with great clarity -- the bondage, the usurious character of this sort of hire of labour. In some cases the peasants work "for trespass" (i.e., undertake to work off the legally established fine for cattle trespass), or work simply "out of respect" (cf. Engelhardt, loc. cit., 56), i.e., gratis, or just for a drink, so as not to lose other "employments" by the landowner. Lastly, labour-service in return for land is very widespread in the shape either of half-cropping or directly of work for land rented, for grounds used, etc.
Very often the payment for rented land assumes the most diverse forms, which sometimes are even combined, so that side by side with money rent we find rent in kind and "labour-service." Here are a couple of examples: for every dessiatine, 1 1/2 dess. to be cultivated + 10 eggs + <"fnp198">
* Statistical Returns for Ryazan Gubernia.
** Engelhardt, loc. cit.
*** Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia, Vol. V, Pt. 1, Moscow, 1879, pp, 186-189. We give these references only as an illustration. A mass of similar information is to be found in all the literature on peasant and private-landowner farming.
page 1991 chicken + 1 day's female labour; for 43 dess. of spring crop land 12 rubles per dess., and 51 dess. of winter-crop land 16 rubles per dess. in cash + threshing of so many stacks of oats, 7 stacks of buckwheat and 20 stacks of rye + manuring of not less than 5 dessiatines of rented land with manure from own animals, at the rate of 300 cart-loads per dessiatine (Karyshev, Rentings, p. 348). In this case even the peasant's manure is converted into a constituent part of the private landowner's farm! The widespread and varied character of labour-service is indicated by the abundance of terms used for it: otrabotki, otbuchi, otbutki, barshchina, basarinka, posobka, panshchina, postupok, viyemka, etc. (ibid., 342). Sometimes the peasant pledges himself to perform "whatever work the owner orders" (ibid., 346), or in general to "pay heed," "give ear" to him, to "help out." Labour-service embraces the "whole cycle of jobs in rural life. It is as labour-service that all operations relating to field-cultivation and grain and hay harvesting get done, firewood is stocked and loads are carted" (346-347), roofs and chimneys are repaired (354, 348), and the delivery of poultry and eggs is undertaken (ibid.). An investigator of Gdov Uyezd, St. Petersburg Gubernia, quite justly remarks that the types of labour-service to be met with are of the "former, pre-Reform, corvée character" (349).*
Particularly interesting is the form of labour-service for land, so-called labour-service renting and rent payment in kind.** In the preceding chapter we have seen how capitalist relations are manifested in peasant renting of land; here we see "renting" which is simply a survival of <"fnp">
* It is noteworthy that the enormous variety of forms of labour-service in Russia, and of forms of land renting with all sorts of supplementary payments, etc., are covered in their entirety by the main forms of pre-capitalist relations in agriculture indicated by Marx in Chapter 47, Vol. III of Capital. In the preceding chapter, we have indicated that there are three main forms: 1) labour-rent, 2) rent in kind, and 3) money rent. It is, therefore quite natural that Marx should want specifically Russian data as illustrations for the section dealing with ground-rent.
** According to Results of Zemstvo Statistical Investigations (Vol II), of all the land rented by peasants, 76% is paid for in money; 3 to 7% by labour-service, 13 to 17% with part of the product and, finally, 2 to 3% by a combination of methods.
page 200corvée economy,[*] and which sometimes passes imperceptibly into the capitalist system of providing the estate with agricultural workers by alloting patches of land to them. Zemstvo statistics establish beyond doubt this connection between such "renting" and the lessors' own farming. "With the development of their own farming on the private landowners' estates, the owners had to guarantee themselves a supply of workers at the required time. Hence, there develops in many places the tendency among them to distribute land to the peasants on the labour-service basis, or for a part of the crop together with labour-service. . . ." This system of farming ". . . is fairly widespread. The more frequently the lessors do their own farming, the smaller the amount of land available for leasing and the greater the demand for such land, the more widely does this form of land renting develop" (ibid., p. 266, cf. also 367). Thus, we have here renting of a very special kind, under which the landowner does not abandon his own farm, but which expresses the development of private-landowner cultivation, expresses not the consolidation of the peasant farm by the enlargement of area held, but the conversion of the peasant into an agricultural labourer. In the preceding chapter we have seen that on the peasant's farm the renting of land is of contradictory significance: for some it is a profitable expansion of their farms; for others it is a deal made out of dire need. Now we see that on the landlord's farm, too, the leasing of land is of contradictory significance: in some cases it is the transfer of the farm to another person for a payment of rent; in others it is a method of conducting one's own farm, a method of providing one's estate with manpower.
Let us pass to the question of the payment of labour under labour-service. The data from various sources are at one in testifying to the fact that the payment of labour where it is hired on a labour-service and bonded basis is always lower than under capitalist "free" hire. Firstly, this is proved by the fact that rent in kind, i.e., on the basis of labour-service and half-cropping (which, as we have just <"fnp200">
* Cf. examples given in footnote to pp. 194-195. When corvée economy existed, the landlord gave the peasant land so that the peasant might work for him. When land is leased on the labour-service basis, the economic aspect of the matter is obviously the same.
page 201seen, is merely labour-service and bonded hire), is every where, as a general rule, more costly than money rent, very much more costly (ibid., p. 350), sometimes twice as much (ibid., 356, Rzhev Uyezd, Tver Gubernia). Secondly, rent in kind is developed to the greatest degree among the poorest groups of peasants (ibid., 261 and foll.). This is renting from dire need, "renting" by the peasant who is no longer able to resist his conversion, in this way, into an agricultural wage-worker. The well-to-do peasants do what they can to rent land for money. "The tenant takes advantage of every opportunity to pay his rent in money, and thus to reduce the cost of using other people's land" (ibid., 265) -- and we would add, not only to reduce the cost of renting the land, but also to escape bonded hire. In Rostov-on-Don Uyezd the remarkable fact was even<"p201"> observed of money rent being abandoned in favour of skopshchina,[86] as rents went up, despite a drop in the peasants' share of the harvest (ibid., p. 266). The significance of rent in kind, which utterly ruins the peasant and turns him into a farm labourer, is quite clearly illustrated by this fact.* Thirdly,
* The summary of the latest data on land renting (Mr. Karyshev in the book: The Influence of Harvests, etc., Vol 1) has fully confirmed the fact that it is only want that compels peasants to rent land on a half-crop or a labour-service basis, and that the well-to-do peasants prefer to rent land for money (pp. 317-320), as rent in kind is everywhere incomparably more costly for the peasant than in cash (pp. 342-346). All these facts, however, have not prevented Mr. Karyshev from presenting the situation as though "the poor peasant . . . is better able to satisfy his need for food by slightly extending his crop area to other people's land on a half-crop basis" (321). Such are the fantastic ideas to which a bias in favour of "natural economy" can lead one! It has been proved that the payment of rent in kind is more costly than payment in cash, that it constitutes a sort of truck-system in agriculture, that the peasant is completely ruined and turned into a farm labourer -- and yet our economist talks of improving "food"! Half-crop payment for rent, if you please, "helps . . . the needy section of the rural population to obtain" Iand by renting it (320). Our economist here calls it "help" to obtain land on the worst conditions, on the condition that the peasant is turned into a farm labourer. The question arises: what is the difference between the Russian Narodniks and the Russian agrarians, who always have been and always are ready to render the "needy section of the rural population" this kind of "help"? By the way, here is an interesting example. In Khotin Uyezd, Bessarabia Gubernia, the average daily earnings of a half-cropper are estimated at 60 kopeks, and a day labourer in the summer [cont. onto p. 202. -- DJR] at 35 to 50 kopeks. "It seems that the earnings of a half-cropper are, after all, higher than the wages of a farm labourer " (344; Mr. Karyshev's italics). This "after all" is very characteristic. But, unlike the farm labourer, the half-cropper has his farm expenses, has he not? He has to have a horse and harness, has he not? Why was no account taken of these expenses? Whereas the average daily wage in the summer in Bessarabia Gubernia is 40 to 77 kopeks (1883-1887 and 1888-1892) the average wage of a labourer with horse and harness is 124 to 180 kopeks (1883-1887 and 1888-1892). Does it not rather "seem" that the farm labourer "after all" earns more than the half-cropper? The average daily wage of a labourer working without a horse of his own (average for a whole year) is estimated at 67 kopeks for Bessarabia Gubernia in the period 1882-1891 (ibid., 178)
page 202a direct comparison between the price of labour in the case of labour-service hire and of capitalist "free" hire shows the latter to be greater. In the above-quoted publication of the Department of Agriculture, Hired Labour, etc., it is calculated that the average pay for the complete cultivation, with the peasant's own implements, of a dessiatine of land under winter grain is 6 rubles (data for the central black-earth belt for the 8 years, 1883-1891). If, however, we calculate the cost of the same amount of work on a hired labour basis, we get 6 rubles 19 kopeks for the work of the labourer alone, not counting the work of the horse (the pay for the horse's work cannot be put at less than 4 rubles 50 kopeks, loc. cit., 45). The compiler rightly considers this to be "absolutely abnormal" (ibid.). We would merely observe that the fact that payment for labour under purely capitalist hire is greater than under all forms of bondage and under other pre-capitalist relations has been established not only in agriculture, but also in industry, and not only in Russia, but also in other countries. Here are more precise and more detailed Zemstvo statistics on this question (Statistical Returns for Saratov Uyezd, Vol. I, Pt. III, pp. 18-19. Quoted from Mr. Karyshev's Rentings, p. 353). (See Table on p. 203.)
Thus, under labour-service (just as under bonded hire combined with usury) the prices paid for labour are usually less than half those under capitalist hire.* Since labour
* After this, what can one do but describe as reactionary the criticism of capitalism made, for instance, by a Narodnik like Prince Vasilchikov? The very word "hired," he exclaims pathetically, is contradictory, for hire presupposes non-independence, and non- [cont. onto p. 203. -- DJR] independence rules out "freedom." This Narodnik-minded landlord forgets, of course, that capitalism substitutes free non-independence for bonded non-independence.
page 203
Saratov Uyezd
Average prices (in rubles) paid for cultivating
one dessiatine
Category of work
Under winter
contract, 80
to 100% of
wages being
advanced
Under labour-service
for the rent of arable
Hired labour,
according to
statements of:
hirers hired
according
to written
terms
according to
statements
of tenants
Complete cultivation and harvest-
ing, with carting and threshing
Ditto, without threshing (spring
crops) . . . . . . . .
Ditto, without threshing (winter
crops) . . . . . . . .
Tilling. . . . . . . . .
Harvesting (reaping and carting)
Reaping (without carting) . . .
Mowing (without carting) . . .
9.6
6.6
7.0
2.8
3.6
3.2
2.1
--
--
--
2.8
3.7
2.6
2.0
9.4
6.4
7.5
--
3.8
3.3
1.8
20.5
15.3
15.2
4.3
10.1
8.0
3.5
17.5
13.5
14.3
3.7
8.5
8.1
4.0
service can only be undertaken by a local peasant, and one who must be "provided with an allotment," the fact of the tremendous drop in pay clearly indicates the importance of the allotment as wages in kind. The allotment, in such cases, continues to this day to serve as a means of "guaranteeing" the landowner a supply of cheap labour. But the difference between free and "semi-free"* labour is far from exhausted by the difference in pay. Of enormous importance also is the circumstance that the latter form of labour always presupposes the personal dependence of the one hired upon the one who hires him, it always presupposes the greater or lesser retention of "other than economic pressure." Engelhardt very aptly says that the lending of money for repayment by labour-service is explained by the greater security of such debts: to extract payment from the peasant on a distraint order is a difficult matter, "but the authorities will compel the peasant to perform the work he
* An expression employed by Mr. Karyshev, loc. cit. It is a pity Mr. Karvshev did not draw the conclusion that half-crop renting "helps" the survival of "semi-free" labour!
page 204has undertaken to do, even if his own grain remains ungathered" (loc. cit., 216). "Only long years of slavery, of serf labour for the lord, have been able to produce the indifference" (only apparent) with which the cultivator leaves his own grain in the rain to go carting somebody else's sheaves (ibid., 429). Without one or other form of binding the population to their domiciles, to the "community," without a certain lack of civic rights, labour-service as a system would be impossible. It stands to reason that an inevitable consequence of the above-described features of the labour-service system is low productivity of labour: methods of farming based on labour-service can only be the most stereotyped; the labour of the bonded peasant cannot but approximate, in quality, to the labour of the serf.
The combination of the labour-service and the capitalist systems makes the present system of landlord farming extremely similar in its economic organisation to the system that prevailed in our textile industry before the development of large-scale machine industry. There, part of the operations was done by the merchant with his own implements and with wage-workers (fixing the yarn, dyeing and finishing the fabric, etc.), and part with the implements of peasant handicraftsmen who worked for him, using his material. Here, part of the operations is performed by wage-workers, using the employer's implements, and another part by the labour and the implements of peasants working on the land of others. There, combined with industrial capital was merchant's capital, and the handicraftsman, besides being weighed down by capital, was burdened with bondage, the operations of the subcontractor, the truck-system, etc. Here, likewise, combined with industrial capital is merchant's and usurer's capital accompanied by all forms of pay reduction and intensification of the producer's personal dependence. There, the transitional system lasted for centuries, being based on a primitive hand-labour technique, and was smashed in some three decades by large-scale machine industry; here, labour-service has continued almost since the rise of Rus<"p204"> (the landowners forced the villeins into bondage as far back as the time of Russkaya Pravda [87]), perpetuating routine technique, and has begun rapidly to give way to capitalism only in the post-Reform epoch. In both
page 205cases, the old system merely implies stagnation in the forms of production (and, consequently, in all social relations), and the domination of the Asiatic way of life. In both cases, the new, capitalist forms of economy constitute enormous progress, despite all the contradictions inherent in them.
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IV. THE DECLINE OF THE LABOUR-SERVICE SYSTEMThe question now arises: in what relation does the labour-service system stand to the post-Reform economy of Russia?
First of all, the growth of commodity economy conflicts with the labour-service system, since the latter is based on natural economy, on unchanging technique, on inseparable ties between the landlord and the peasant. That is why this system is totally impracticable in its complete form, and every advance in the development of commodity economy and commercial agriculture undermines the conditions of its practicability.
Next we must take account of the following circumstance. From the foregoing it follows that labour-service, as practised in present-day landlord farming, should be divided into two types: 1) labour-service that can only be performed by a peasant farmer who owns draught animals and implements (e.g., cultivation of "cycle dessiatine," ploughing, etc.), and 2) labour-service that can be performed by a rural proletarian who has no implements (for example, reaping, mowing, threshing, etc.). It is obvious that for both peasant and landlord farming, the first and the second type of labour-service are of opposite significance, and that the latter type constitutes a direct transition to capitalism, merging with it by a number of quite imperceptible transitions. In our literature labour-service is usually referred to in general, without this distinction being made. Yet in the process of the elimination of labour-service by capitalism the shifting of the centre of gravity from the first type of labour-service to the second is of enormous importance. Here is an example from Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia : "On the majority of the estates . . . the cultivation of the fields and the crops, i.e., the jobs on the careful
page 206fulfilment of which the harvest depends, are done by regular workers, whereas the harvesting, i.e., the job in the performance of which promptness and speed are the prime consideration, is given to neighbouring peasants to be done in return for money lent, or for the use of pasture and other grounds" (Vol. V, Pt. 2, p. 140). On such farms most of the hands are hired on the labour-service basis, but the capitalist system undoubtedly predominates, and the "neighbouring peasants" are at bottom turned into rural workers, similar to the "contract day labourers" in Germany, who also have land and also hire themselves out for a definite part of the year (see above, p. 179, footnote). The enormous drop in the number of horses owned by peasants and the increase in the number of horseless households as a result of the crop failures of the 90s* could not but exert great influence in accelerating this process of the elimination of labour-service by the capitalist system.[**]
Finally, one of the most important reasons for the decline of the labour-service system should be sought in the
* The horse census of 1893-1894 in 48 gubernias revealed a drop of 9.6% in the number of horses possessed by all horse owners, and a drop of 28,321 in the number of horse owners. In Tambov, Voronezh, Kursk, Ryazan, Orel, Tula and Nizhni-Novgorod gubernias, the decline in the number of horses between 1888 and 1893 was 21.2%. In seven other gubernias of the black-earth belt the decline between 1891 and 1893 was 17%. In 38 gubernias of European Russia in 1888-1891 there were 7,922 260 peasant households, of which 5,736,436 owned horses; in 1893-1894, there were in these gubernias 8,288,987 households, of which 5,647,233 owned horses. Consequently, the number of horse-owning households dropped by 89,000, while the number of horseless increased by 456,000 The percentage of horseless households rose from 27.6% to 31.9% (Statistics of the Russian Empire, XXXVII. St. Petersburg, 1896.) Above we have shown that in 48 gubernias of European Russia the number of horseless households rose from 2.8 million in 1888-1891 to 3.2 million in 1896-1900 -- i.e., from 27.3% to 29.2%. In four southern gubernias (Bessarabia, Ekaterinoslav, Taurida, Kherson), the number of horseless households rose from 305,800 in 1896 to 341,600 in 1904, i.e., from 34.7% to 36.4% (Note to 2nd edition.)
<"fnp206"> ** Cf. also S. A. Korolenko, Hired Labour, etc., pp. 46-47, where, on the basis of the horse censuses of 1882 and 1888, examples are cited of how the drop in the number of horses possessed by peasants is accompanied by an increase in the number of horses possessed by private landowners.
page 207differentiation of the peasantry. The connection between labour-service (of the first type) and the middle group of the peasantry is clear and a priori -- as we have already observed above -- and can be proved by Zemstvo statistics. For example, the abstract for Zadonsk Uyezd, Voronezh Gubernia, gives returns of the number of farms doing job-work, in the various groups of peasantry. Here are the data in percentages:
Group of householders
% of peasants taking
job-work to total
peasants in group
% of total
number of
households
households tak-
ing job-work
Horseless . . . . . .
1-horse . . . . . .
With 2-3 horses . . . .
" 4 " . . . .
9.9
27.4
29.0
16.5
24.5
40.5
31.8
3.2
10.5
47.6
39.6
2.3
In uyezd
23.3
100
100
From the above it is clear that participation in job-work is less prevalent in the two extreme groups. The largest percentage of households taking job-work is to be found in the middle group of the peasantry. Since job-work is also frequently assigned in Zemstvo statistical abstracts to the category of "employments" in general, we see here, consequently, an example of the typical "employments" of the middle peasantry -- exactly as in the preceding chapter we acquainted ourselves with the typical "employments" of the bottom and top groups of the peasantry. The types of "employments" examined there express the development of capitalism (commercial and industrial establishments and the sale of labour-power), whereas the type of "employments" mentioned here, on the contrary, expresses the backwardness of capitalism and the predominance of labour-service (if we assume that in the sum-total of "job-work" the predominant jobs are such as we have assigned to labour-service of the first type).The greater the decline of natural economy and of the middle peasantry, the more vigorously is labour-service bound to be eliminated by capitalism. The well-to-do peasants cannot, naturally, serve as a basis for the labour-service system, for it is only dire need that compels the peasant to undertake the worst-paid jobs, jobs that are ruinous for his own farm. But the rural proletariat are equally
page 208unsuitable for the labour-service system, though for another reason: having no farm of his own, or possessing a miserable patch of land, the rural proletarian is not tied down to it to the extent that the "middle" peasant is, and, as a consequence, it is far easier for him to go elsewhere and hire himself out on "free" terms, i.e., for higher pay and without bondage at all. Hence the universal dissatisfaction of our agrarians at the peasants leaving for the towns or for "outside employments" generally, hence their complaints that the peasants have "little attachment" (see below, p. 250). The development of purely capitalist wage-labour saps the very roots of the labour-service system.*
<"fnp208"> * Here is a particularly striking example. Zemstvo statisticians explain the comparative incidence of money renting and renting in kind in various parts of Bakhmut Uyezd, Ekaterinoslav Gubernia, in the following way:
"Money renting is most widespread . . . in the coal and salt-mining districts, and least widespread in the steppe and purely agricultural area The peasants, in general, are not eager to go out to work for others, and are particularly reluctant to accept irksome and badly paid work on private estates. Work in the coal mines, in ore-mining and in metallurgy generally, is arduous and injurious to the worker's health, but, generally speaking, it is better paid, and attracts the worker with the prospect of monthly or weekly wages in cash, as he does not usually get money when he works on the landlord's estate for the reason that there he is either working in payment of the 'bit' of land he has rented, or of straw or grain he has borrowed, or has managed to get his pay in advance to cover his ordinary needs, etc.
"All this induces the worker to avoid working on estates, and he does avoid doing so when there is an opportunity of earning money in some place other than the landlord's 'estate.' And this opportunity occurs mostly where there are many mines, at which the workers are paid 'good' money. With the 'pence' the peasant earns in the mines, he can rent land, without having to pledge himself to work on an estate, and in this way renting for money establishes its sway" (quoted from Results of Zemstvo Statistical Investigations, Vol. II, p. 265). In the steppe, non-industrial divisions of the uyezd, on the other hand, land renting on a skopshchina and a labour-service basis establishes its sway.
Thus, to escape labour-service the peasant is ready to flee even to the mines! Prompt payment in cash, the impersonal form of hire and regular working hours "attract" the worker to such an extent that he even prefers the mines underground to agriculture, the agriculture about which our Narodniks wax so idyllic. The whole point is that the peasant knows from bitter experience the real value of the labour-service idealised by the agrarians and the Narodniks, and he knows how much better are purely capitalist relations.
page 209
It is supremely important to note that this inseparable connection between the differentiation of the peasantry and the elimination of labour-service by capitalism -- a connection so obvious in theory -- has long been noted by agricultural writers who have observed the various methods of farming on the landlord estates. In the preface to his collection of articles on Russian agriculture written between 1857 and 1882, Prof. Stebut points out that . . . "In community peasant agriculture the farmer-industrialists are becoming differentiated from the farm labourers. The former, who are becoming cultivators on a big scale, are beginning to employ farm labourers and usually cease to take job-work, unless they find it absolutely necessary to enlarge their crop area somewhat, or to obtain the use of pasture land, which in most cases cannot be done except by taking job-work; the latter, on the other hand, cannot take any job-work for lack of horses. Hence the obvious necessity for a transition, and a speedy transition, to farming based on wage-labour, since the peasants who still take job-work by the dessiatine are, due to the feeble state of their horses and to the multitude of jobs they undertake, beginning to turn out work that is bad from the viewpoint both of quality and of promptness of fulfilment" (p. 20).
References to the fact that the ruin of the peasantry is leading to the elimination of labour-service by capitalism are also made in current Zemstvo statistical material. In Orel Gubernia, for example, it has been observed that the drop in grain prices ruined many tenants and that the landowners were compelled to increase the area cultivated on capitalist lines. "Simultaneously with the expansion of the area cultivated by the landlords, we observe everywhere a tendency to replace job-work by the labour of regular farmhands and to do away with the use of peasants' implements . . . a tendency to improve the cultivation of the soil by the introduction of up-to-date implements . . . to change the system of farming, to introduce grass crops, to expand and improve livestock farming and to make it profitable" (Agricultural Survey of Orel Gubernia for 1887-88, pp. 124-126. Quoted from P. Struve's Critical Remarks, pp. 242-244). In Poltava Gubernia, in 1890, when grain prices were low, there was observed "a diminution in peasant renting of land . . . through-
page 210out the gubernia. . . . Correspondingly, in many places, despite the severe drop in grain prices, there was an increase in the area cultivated by landowners employing regular labour" (The Influence of Harvests, etc., I, 304). In Tambov Gubernia, a considerable increase has been observed in the prices paid for work done by horses: for the three years 1892-1894, these prices were 25 to 30% higher than for the three years 1889-1891 (Novoye Slovo, 1895, No. 3, p. 187). This rise in the cost of work done by horses, a natural result of the decline in the number of peasant horses, cannot but entail the ousting of labour-service by the capitalist system.
It is by no means our intention, of course, to use these separate references in order to prove that labour-service is being eliminated by capitalism: no complete statistics on this subject are available. We are merely using them to illustrate the point that there is a connection between the differentiation of the peasantry and the elimination of labour-service by capitalism. General and mass-scale data, which prove irrefutably that this elimination is going on, relate to the employment of machinery in agriculture and to the employment of labour freely hired. But before passing to these data, we must first deal with the views of the Narodnik economists on contemporary farming by private landowners in Russia.
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V. THE NARODNIK ATTITUDE TO THE PROBLEMThe point that the labour-service system is simply a survival of corvée economy is not denied even by the Narodniks. On the contrary, it is admitted -- although in an insufficiently general form -- by Mr. N.-on (Sketches, § IX) and by Mr. V. V. (particularly explicitly in his article "Our Peasant Farming and Agronomy," in Otechestvenniye Zapiski, 1882, No. 8-9). The more astonishing is it that the Narodniks do their utmost to avoid admitting the clear and simple fact that the present system of private-landowner farming is a combination of the labour-service and the capitalist systems, and that, consequently, the more developed the former, the weaker the latter, and vice versa. They avoid analysing the relation of each of these systems to the productivity of labour, to the payment of the worker's labour,
page 211to the basic features of the post-Reform economy of Russia, etc. To put the question on this basis, on the basis of recognising the "change " actually taking place, meant to admit the inevitability of the progressive elimination of labour-service by capitalism. To avoid drawing that conclusion, the Narodniks did not stop even at idealising the labour-service system. This monstrous idealisation is the basic feature of the Narodnik views on the evolution of landlord economy. Mr. V. V. even went so far as to write that "the people . . . are the victors in the struggle for the form of agricultural technique, although their victory has resulted in their greater ruin" (The Destiny of Capitalism, p. 288). To admit such a "victory" is more eloquent than to admit defeat! Mr. N.-on discerned in the allotment of land to the peasants under corvée and under labour-service economy the "principle" "of linking the producer and the means of production," but he forgot the tiny circumstance that this allotting of land served as a means of guaranteeing a supply of labour for the landlords. As we have indicated, Marx, in describing pre-capitalist systems of agriculture, analysed all the forms of economic relations that, in general, exist in Russia, and clearly emphasised the necessity of small-scale production and of a tie between the peasant and the land in the case of both labour-rent, rent in kind and money rent. But could it ever have entered his head to elevate this allotting of land to the dependent peasant into a "principle" of an eternal tie between the producer and the means of production? Did he forget even for a moment that this tie between the producer and the means of production was the source of, and condition for, medieval exploitation, constituted the basis for technical and social stagnation and necessarily required all sorts of "other than economic, pressure"?
An exactly similar idealisation of labour-service and of bondage is displayed by Messrs. Orlov and Kablukov in Moscow Zemstvo Returns when they quote as a model the farm of a certain Mme. Kostinskaya in Podolsk Uyezd (see Vol. V, Pt. I, pp. 175-176, and Vol. II, pp. 59-62, Sect. II). In Mr. Kablukov's opinion, this farm proves "that it is possible to arrange matters in such a way as to preclude (sic!!) such an antagonism" (i.e., antagonism of interests
page 212between landlord and peasant farming) "and assist in achieving a flourishing (sic!) condition of both peasant and private farming" (Vol. V, Pt. I, pp. 175-176). It seems, then, that the flourishing condition of the peasants consists in labour-service and bondage. They have no pastures or cattle-runs (Vol. II, pp. 60-61), -- which does not prevent Messrs. the Narodniks from regarding them as "sound" peasants -- and rent these grounds, for which they pay the proprietress in work, performing "all the jobs on her estate . . . thoroughly, punctually and promptly."[*]
That is the limit in idealising an economic system which is a direct survival of corvée service!
The methods employed in all such Narodnik reasoning are very simple; we have only to forget that the allotment of land to the peasant is one of the conditions of corvée or labour-service economy, we have only to omit the circumstance that this allegedly "independent" cultivator must render labour-rent, rent in kind or money rent, -- and we get the "pure" idea of "the tie between the producer and the means of production." But the actual relation between capitalism and pre-capitalist forms of exploitation does not change in the least from the fact of simply omitting these forms.** <"fnp212">
* Cf. Volgin, op. cit., pp 280-281.
** "It is said that the spread of labour-service renting in place of money renting . . . is a retrogressive fact. But do we say that it is desirable or beneficial? We . . . have never asserted that it is progressive,"<"p212"> stated Mr. Chuprov on behalf of all the authors of The Influence of Harvests, etc. (see Verbatim Report of the Debates in the F E. S. of March 1 and 2, 1897,[88] p. 38) This statement is untrue even formally, for Mr. Karyshev (see above) described labour-service as "help" to the rural population. And in substance this statement absolutely contradicts the actual content of all the Narodnik theories with their idealisation of labour-service. It is to the great credit of Messrs. T.-Baranovsky and Struve that they have correctly presented the question (1897) of the significance of low grain prices: the criterion for appraising them must be whether such prices promote the elimination of labour-service by capitalism or not. Such a question is obviously one of fact, and in answering it we differ somewhat from the writers mentioned. On the basis of the data given in the text (see particularly § VII of this chapter and also Chapter IV), we consider it possible and even probable that the period of low grain prices will be marked by a no less, if not more, rapid elimination of labour-service by capitalism than was the preceding historical period of high grain prices.
page 213
Let us deal somewhat with another, very curious, argument of Mr. Kablukov. We have seen that he idealises labour-service; but it is remarkable that when he, as a statistician, describes real types of purely capitalist farms in Moscow Gubernia, his description, in spite of himself, and in a distorted way, is a reflection of the very facts that prove the progressive nature of capitalism in Russian agriculture. We beg the reader's attention, and apologise in advance for our rather lengthy quotations.
Besides the old types of farms employing hired labour, there is to be found in Moscow Gubernia
"a new, recent, emergent type of farm that has totally broken with all tradition and regards things simply, in the way people regard every industry that is to serve as a source of income. Agriculture in this case is not regarded as . . . a lord's hobby, as an occupation anybody may engage in. . . . No, here the necessity is recognised of having . . . special knowledge. . . . The basis of calculation" (as to the organisation of production) "is the same as in all other forms of production" (Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia, Vol. V, Pt. I, pp. 185-186).
Mr. Kablukov does not notice that this description of the new type of farm which has only "recently emerged," in the 70s, proves precisely the progressive nature of capitalism in agriculture. It was capitalism that first turned agriculture from a "lord's hobby" into ordinary industry, it was capitalism that first compelled people "to regard things simply," "to break with tradition" and to equip themselves with "special knowledge." Before capitalism this was both unnecessary and impossible, because the farms of the different manors, village communities and peasant families were "self-sufficing," were not dependent on other farms, and no power on earth could drag them out of their age-long stagnation. Capitalism was the force which created (through the medium of the market) the social accounting of the output of the individual producers, and compelled them to reckon with the demands of social development. It is this that constitutes the progressive role of capitalism in agriculture in all European countries.
Listen now to the way Mr. Kablukov describes our purely capitalist farms:
page 214
"Only then is account taken of labour-power as a necessary factor in acting upon nature; without this factor all organisation of the landlord's estate will be fruitless. Thus, with all appreciation of its significance, this element, at the same time, is not regarded as an independent source of income, as was the case under serfdom, or as is the case now in those instances when what is made the basis of the estate's profitability is not the product of labour, the obtaining of which is the direct purpose of its application, not the striving to apply this labour to the production of its more valuable products and thereby to enjoy its results, but the striving to reduce the share of the product which the worker gets for himself, the desire to reduce the cost of labour to the master as near as possible to zero" (p. 186). Reference is made to farming based on labour in return for the use of cut-off lands. "Under these circumstances, for a farm to be profitable the owner requires neither knowledge nor special qualities. All that is obtained from this labour represents clear income for the owner or at all events such income as is obtained almost without any expenditure of circulating capital. But such farming cannot, of course, be well conducted and cannot be called farming in the strict sense of the term, any more than the leasing of all pasture and other grounds can be called such; there is no economic organisation here" (186). And quoting examples of the leasing of cut-off lands in return for labour-service, the author concludes: "The main emphasis in the farm economy, the manner of extracting an income from the soil, is rooted in the exertion of influence upon the worker rather than upon matter and its forces' (189),
This argument is an extremely interesting example of how distorted is the picture of actual facts when viewed from the angle of a wrong theory. Mr. Kablukov confuses production with the social system of production. Under every social system production consists in "the exertion of influence" upon matter and its forces. Under every social system only the surplus product can be the landowner's source of "income." In both respects the labour-service system of economy is fully identical with the capitalist system, Mr. Kablukov's opinion notwithstanding. The real difference between them is that labour-service necessarily presupposes the lowest productivity of labour; hence, no possibility exists for increasing income by increasing the surplus product; that can only be done by one means, namely, by employing all sorts of bonded forms of hire. Under purely capitalist economy, on the contrary, bonded forms of hire must go by the board, for the proletarian, not being tied to the land, is useless as an object of bondage; -- to raise the productivity of labour becomes not only possible, but also
page 215necessary as the sole means of increasing income and withstanding severe competition. Thus, the description of our purely capitalist farms, given by the very Mr. Kablukov who so zealously tried to idealise labour-service, fully confirms the fact that Russian capitalism is creating the social conditions which necessarily demand the rationalisation of agriculture and the abolition of bondage, whereas labour-service, on the contrary, precludes the possibility of rationalising agriculture and perpetuates technical stagnation and the producer's condition of bondage. Nothing could be more frivolous than the customary Narodnik exultation over the fact that capitalism in our agriculture is weak. So much the worse if it is weak, for it only indicates the strength of pre-capitalist forms of exploitation, which are incomparably more burdensome to the producer.
<"c3s6">
VI. THE STORY OF ENGELHARDT'S FARMQuite a special place among the Narodniks is held by Engelhardt. To criticise his appraisal of labour-service and capitalism would mean to repeat what has already been said in the preceding section. We think it far more expedient to set against Engelhardt's Narodnik views the story of Engelhardt's own farm. Such a critique will also be of positive value, because the evolution of this farm reflects in miniature, as it were, the main features of the evolution of all private-landowner farming in post-Reform Russia.
When Engelhardt settled down on the farm it was based on the traditional labour-service and bondage, which preclude "proper farming" (Letters from the Countryside, 559). Labour-service was the cause of the poor condition of cattle raising, of the poor cultivation of the soil and of the monotonous persistence of obsolete systems of field cultivation (118). "I saw that it was impossible . . . to go on farming in the old way" (118). The competition of grain from the steppe regions was bringing down prices and making farming unprofitable (p. 83).* We would observe that from the
* This fact that the competition of cheap grain serves as the motive for change in technique and, consequently, for replacing labour-service by free hire, deserves special attention. The competition of grain from the steppe regions was also felt even in the years of high [cont. onto p. 215. -- DJR] grain prices; the period of low prices, however, lends this competition particular force.
page 216very outset, along with the labour-service system a certain part was played on the farm by the capitalist system: wage-workers, although very few in number, were also employed on the farm when it was run in the old way (the cowman and others), and Engelhardt asserts that the wages of his farm labourer (drawn from among allotment-holding peasants) were "fabulously low" (11), low because "it was impossible to give more " considering that cattle-raising was in a bad way. The low productivity of labour made it impossible to raise wages. Thus, the starting-point on Engelhardt's farm was the features, familiar to us, of all Russian farms: labour-service, bondage, the very lowest productivity of labour, "incredibly low" payment of labour, routine farming.
What changes did Engelhardt introduce into this state of things? He began to sow flax -- a commercial and industrial crop requiring the employment of labour on a big scale. The commercial and capitalist character of the cultivation was accordingly enhanced. But how was he to obtain labour? Engelhardt tried at first to employ in the new (commercial) cultivation the old system, that of labour-service. Nothing came of that; the work was badly done, the "dessiatine" proved to be beyond the strength of the peasants, who resisted with all their might "gang work" and bonded terms of labour. "The system had to be changed. Meanwhile I got on my feet. I acquired my own horses, harness, carts, ploughs and harrows and was already in a position to run the farm with regular workers. I began to produce flax, partly with my regular workers and partly on a job basis, hiring labourers for definite jobs" (218). Thus, the transition to the new system of farming and to commercial cultivation demanded the replacement of labour-service by the capitalist system. To increase productivity of labour, Engelhardt resorted to the well-tried method of capitalist production: piece work. Women were engaged to work by the stack, or the pood, and Engelhardt (not without some naïve triumph) tells of the success of this system; the cost of cultivation increased (from 25 rubles per dess. to 35 rubles), but profit also increased by 10 to 20 rubles; the women's productivity
page 217of labour increased following the change from bonded to hired labour (from half a pood per night to a whole pood) and the earnings of the women increased to 30-50 kopeks per day ("unprecedented in our parts"). The local textile merchant was full of praise for Engelhardt: "Your flax has given a great fillip to trade" (219).
Applied at first to the cultivation of the commercial crop, hired labour gradually began to embrace other agricultural operations. One of the first operations to be withdrawn by capital from the labour-service system was threshing. It is well known that on all farms run by private landowners this work is mostly performed on capitalist lines. "Part of the land," wrote Engelhardt, "I lease to peasants for cultivation in cycles, for otherwise I would find it hard to cope with the reaping of the rye" (211). Thus, labour-service functions as a direct transition to capitalism, by ensuring the farmer a supply of day labourers in the busiest season. At first cycle-cultivation included threshing, but here, too, the poor quality of the work done compelled the farmer to resort to hired labour. Land began to be leased for cycle-cultivation without threshing, which latter was done partly by farm labourers and partly, through the medium of a contractor, by a team of wage-workers, at piece rates. Here, too, the results of replacing labour-service by the capitalist system were: 1) an increase in the productivity of labour: formerly 16 people threshed 900 sheaves per day, now 8 did 1,100 sheaves; 2) an increase in the yield; 3) a reduction in threshing time; 4) an increase in the worker's earnings; 5) an increase in the farmer's profits (212).
Further, the capitalist system also embraced tillage operations. Iron ploughs were introduced in place of the old wooden ones, and the work passed from the bound peasant to the farm labourer. Engelhardt triumphantly reports the success of his innovation, the diligence of the labourers, and quite justly shows that the customary accusations flung at the labourer of being lazy and dishonest are due to the "brand of serfdom" and to bonded labour "for the lord," and that the new organisation of farming also demands something of the farmer: a display of enterprise, a knowledge of people and ability to handle them, a knowledge of the job and its scope, acquaintance with the technical and commercial
page 218<"p89"> aspects of agriculture -- i.e., qualities that were not and could not be possessed by the Oblomovs[89] of the feudal or bondage suffering countryside. The various changes in the technique of agriculture are inseparably connected with one another and inevitably lead to the transformation of its economy. For example, let us suppose you introduce the cultivation of flax and clover -- that will immediately necessitate numerous other changes, and if these are not made, the business will not run smoothly. The ploughing implements will have to be changed and iron ploughs substituted for wooden ones, iron harrows for wooden ones, and this in turn will require a different type of horse, a different type of labourer, a different system of farming as regards the hire of labourers, etc." (154-155).
The change in the technique of agriculture thus proved to be inseparably bound up with the elimination of labour-service by capitalism. Particularly interesting in this regard is the gradualness with which this elimination takes place: the system of farming, as hitherto, combines labour-service and capitalism, but the main weight gradually shifts from the former to the latter. Here is a description of how Engelhardt's reorganised farm operated:
Nowadays I have much work to do, because I have changed the whole system of farming. A considerable part of the work is done by regular labourers and day labourers. The work is extremely varied. I clear brushwood for wheat growing, uproot birches for flax growing. I have rented meadow land by the Dnieper, and have sown clover, lots of rye and much flax. I need an enormous number of hands. To secure them, you have to make arrangements in good time, for when the busy season starts everybody will be occupied either at home or on other farms. This recruitment of labour is done by advancing money or grain for work to be done" (pp.116-117).
Labour-service and bondage remained, consequently, even on a "properly" conducted farm; but, firstly, they now occupied a subordinate position as compared with free hire, and, secondly, the very labour-service underwent a change; it was mainly the second type of labour-service which remained, that implying the labour not of peasant farmers, but of regular labourers and agricultural day labourers.
page 219
Thus, Engelhardt's own farm is better than all arguments in refuting Engelhardt's Narodnik theories. He set out to farm on rational lines, but was unable to do so, under the given social and economic conditions, except by organising the farm on the basis of employing farm labourers. The raising of the technical level of agriculture and the supplanting of labour-service by capitalism proceeded hand in hand on this farm, as it does on all private-landowner farms in general in Russia. This process is most clearly reflected in the employment of machinery in Russian agriculture.
<"c3s7">
VII. THE EMPLOYMENT OF MACHINERY IN AGRICULTUREThe post-Reform epoch is divided into four periods as regards the development of agricultural machinery production and the employment of machinery in agriculture.[*] The first period covers the years immediately preceding the peasant Reform and the years immediately following it. The landlords at first rushed to purchase foreign machinery so as to get along without the "unpaid" labour of the serfs and to avoid the difficulties connected with the hiring of free workers. This attempt ended, of course, in failure; the fever soon died down, and beginning with 1863-1864 the demand for foreign machinery dropped. The end of the 70s saw the beginning of the second period, which continued until 1885. It was marked by an extremely steady and extremely rapid increase in machinery imports from abroad; home production also grew steadily, but more slowly than imports. From 1881 to 1884 there was a particularly rapid increase in <"fnp219">
* See Historico-Statistical Survey of Russian Industry, Vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1883 (published for 1882 exhibition), article by V. Chernyayev: "Agricultural Machinery Production." -- Ditto, Vol. II, St. Petersburg, 1886, in group IX. -- Agriculture and Forestry in Russia (St. Petersburg, 1893, published for Chicago Exhibition), article by V. Chernyayev: "Agricultural Implements and Machines." -- Productive Forces of Russia (St. Petersburg, 1896, published for 1896 exhibition), article by Mr. Lenin: "Agricultural Implements and Machines" (sect. 1). -- Vestnik Finansov [Financial Messenger ], 1896, No 51 and 1897 No. 21. -- V. Raspopin, article cited. Only the last-mentioned article puts the question on a political-economic basis; all the previous ones were written by agricultural experts.
page 220imports of agricultural machinery, due partly to the abolition, in 1881, of the duty-free import of pig-iron and cast-iron for the needs of factories producing agricultural machinery. The third period extended from 1885 to the beginning of the 90s. Agricultural machinery, hitherto imported duty-free, now had an import duty imposed (of 50 kopeks gold per pood) . The high duty caused an enormous drop in machinery imports, while home production developed slowly owing to the agricultural crisis which set in at that time. Finally, the beginning of the 90s evidently saw the opening of a fourth period, marked by a fresh rise in the import of agricultural machinery, and by a particularly rapid increase of its home production.
Let us cite statistics to illustrate these points. Average annual imports of agricultural machinery at various periods were as follows:
Periods
Thousand
poods
Thousand
rubles
1869-1872
1873-1876
1877-1880
1881-1884
1885-1888
1889-1892
1893-1896
259.4
566.3
629.5
961.8
399.5
509.2
864.8
787.9
2,283.9
3,593.7
6,318
2,032
2,596
4,868
There are, unfortunately, no such complete and precise data on the production of agricultural machinery and implements in Russia. The unsatisfactory state of our factory-and-works statistics, the confusing of the production of machinery in general with the production of specifically agricultural machinery, and the absence of any firmly established rules for distinguishing between "factory" and "handicraft" production of agricultural machinery -- all this prevents a complete picture of the development of agricultural machinery production in Russia being obtained. Combining all the data available from the above-mentioned sources, we get the following picture of the development of agricultural machinery production in Russia:
page 221
Production, imports and employment of agricultural
machinery and implements
Year
In King-
dom
of Po-
land
In 3
Baltic
guber-
nias
In 4 southern
steppe guber-
nias: Don,
Ekaterinoslav,
Taurida,
Kherson
In the
remaining
gubernias
of
European
Russia
Total in 50
gubernias
of European
Russia and
in Kingdom
of Poland
Imports
of agri-
cultural
machinery
Employ-
ment of
agricultural
machinery
T h o u s a n d s o f r u b l e s
1876
1879
1890
1894
646
1,088
498
381
415
433
217
314
280
557
2,360
6,183
988
1,752
1,971
2,567
2,329
3,830
5,046
9,445
1,628
4,000
2,519
5,194
3,957
7,830
7,565
14,639
These data show the vigorousness of the process in which primitive agricultural implements are giving way to improved ones (and, consequently, primitive forms of farming to capitalism). In 18 years the employment of agricultural machinery increased more than 3.5-fold, and this was mainly because of the expansion of home production, which more than quadrupled. Noteworthy, too, was the shifting of the main centre of such production from the Vistula and Baltic gubernias to the south-Russian steppe gubernias. Whereas in the 70s the main centre of agricultural capitalism in Russia was the western outer gubernias, in the 1890s still more outstanding areas of agricultural capitalism were created in the purely Russian gubernias.*It is necessary to add, regarding the data just cited, that although they are based on official (and, as far as we know, the only) information on the subject under examination, they are far from complete and are not fully comparable for the different years. For the years 1876-1879 returns are available that were specially compiled for the 1882 exhibition; they are the most comprehensive, covering not only "factory"
* To make possible a judgement of the way the situation has changed in recent years, we quote data from the Yearbook of Russia (published by Central Statistical Committee, St. Petersburg, 1906), for 1900-1903. The value of the output of agricultural machinery in the Empire is estimated at 12,058,000 rubles, and of imports in 1902 at 15,240,000 rubles, and in 1903 at 20,615,000 rubles. (Note to 2nd edition.)
page 222but also "handicraft" production of agricultural implements; it was estimated that in 1876-1879 there were, on the average, 340 establishments in European Russia and the Kingdom of Poland, whereas according to "factory" statistical data there were in 1879 not more than 66 factories in European Russia producing agricultural machinery and implements (computed from Orlov's Directory of Factories and Works for 1879). The enormous difference in these figures is explained by the fact that of the 340 establishments less than one-third (100) were counted as possessing steam power, and more than half (196) as being operated by hand labour; 236 establishments of the 340 had no foundries of their own and had their castings made outside (Historico-Statistical Survey, loc. cit.). The data for 1890 and 1894, on the other hand, are from Collections of Data on Factory Industry in Russia (published by Department of Commerce and Industry).* These data do not fully cover even the "factory" production of agricultural machinery and implements; for example, in 1890, according to the Collection, there were in European Russia 149 works engaged in this industry, whereas Orlov's Directory mentions more than 163 works producing agricultural machinery and implements; in 1894, according to the first-mentioned returns, there were in European Russia 164 works of this kind (Vestnik Finansov, 1897, No. 21, p. 544), but according to the List of Factories and Works there were in 1894-95 over 173 factories producing agricultural machinery and implements. As for the small scale, "handicraft" production of agricultural machinery and implements, this is not included in these data at all.** That
* In the Vestnik Finansov, No. 21, for 1897, comparative data are given for 1888-1894, but their source is not given specifically.
** The total number of workshops engaged in the manufacture and repair of agricultural implements was given. for 1864 as 64; for 1871 as 112; for 1874 as 203; for 1879 as 340; for 1885 as 435; for 1892 as 400; and for 1895 as approximately 400 (Agriculture and Forestry in Russia, p. 358, and Vestnik Finansov, 1896, No. 51). The Collections, on the other hand, estimated that in 1888-1894 there were only from 157 to 217 factories of this kind (average of 183 for the 7 years). Here is an example illustrating the ratio of "factory" production of agricultural machinery to "handicraft" production: it was estimated that in Perm Gubernia in 1894 there were only 4 "factories," with a combined output of 28,000 rubles, whereas for this branch of industry the 1894-95 census showed 94 "handicraft establishments," with a [cont. onto p. 223. -- DJR] combined output of 50,000 rubles, and what is more, the number of "handicraft" establishments included such as employed 6 wage-workers and had an output of over 8,000 rubles. (A Sketch of the Condition of Handicraft Industry in Perm Gubernia, Perm, 1896.)
page 223is why there can be no doubt that the data for 1890 and 1894 greatly understate the actual facts; this is confirmed by the opinion of experts, who considered that in the beginning of the 1890s agricultural machinery and implements were manufactured in Russia to a sum of about 10 million rubles (Agriculture and Forestry, 359), and in 1895 to a sum of nearly 20 million rubles (Vestnik Finansov, 1896, No. 51).
Let us quote somewhat more detailed data on the types and quantity of agricultural machinery and implements manufactured in Russia. It is considered that in 1876 there were produced 25,835 implements; in 1877 -- 29,590; in 1878 -- 35,226; in 1879 -- 47,892 agricultural machines and implements. How far these figures are exceeded at the present time may be seen from the following: in 1879 about 14,500 iron ploughs were manufactured, and in 1894 -- 75,500 (Vestnik Finansov, 1897, No. 21). "Whereas five years ago the problem of the measures to be taken to bring about the wider use of iron ploughs on peasant farms was one awaiting solution, today it has solved itself. It is no longer a rarity for a peasant to buy an iron plough; it has become a common thing, and the number of iron ploughs now acquired by peasants every year runs into thousands."* The mass of primitive agricultural implements employed in Russia still leaves a wide field for the production and sale of iron ploughs.** The progress made in the use of ploughs has even raised the issue of the employment of electricity. According to a report in the Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta [Commercial and Industrial News ] (1902, No. 6), at the Second Congress of Electrical Engineers "considerable interest was aroused by a paper read by V. A. Rzhevsky on 'Electricity in Agriculture.'" The lecturer illustrated by means of some excellent drawings the tillage of fields in Germany with the aid of electric ploughs, and, from the plan and estimates he had
* Reports and Investigations of Handicraft Industry in Russia. Published by Ministry of State Properties, Vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1892, p. 202. The production of ploughs by peasants is simultaneously declining, being forced out by factory production.
** Agriculture and Forestry in Russia, p. 360.
page 224drawn up at a landowner's request for his estate in one of 3 the southern gubernias, cited figures showing the economies to be effected by this method of tilling the land. According to this plan, it was proposed to plough 540 dess. annually, and a part of this twice a year. The depth of furrow was to be from 4 1/2 to 5 vershoks.[*] The soil was pure black earth. In addition to ploughs, the plan provided for machinery for other field-work, and also for a threshing machine and a mill, the latter of 25 h.p., calculated to operate 2,000 hours per annum. The cost of completely equipping the estate, including six versts of overhead cable of 50-mm. thickness, was estimated at 41,000 rubles. The cost of ploughing one dessiatine would be 7 rubles 40 kopeks if the mill were put up, and 8 rubles 70 kopeks with no mill. It was shown that at the local costs of labour, draught animals, etc., the use of electrical equipment would in the first case effect a saving of 1,013 rubles, while in the second case, less power being used without a mill, the saving would be 966 rubles.
No such sharp change is to be noted in the output of threshing and winnowing machines, because their production was relatively well established long ago.[**] In fact, a special centre for the "handicraft" production of these machines was established in the town of Sapozhok, Ryazan Gubernia, and the surrounding villages, and the local members of the peasant bourgeoisie made plenty of money at this "industry" (cf. Reports and Investigations, I, pp. 208-210). A particularly rapid expansion is observed in the production of reaping machines. In 1879, about 780 of these machines were produced; in 1893 it was estimated that 7,000 to 8,000 were sold a year, and in 1894-95 about 27,000. In 1895, for example, the works belonging to J. Greaves in the town of Berdyansk, Taurida Gubernia, "the largest works in Europe in this line of production" (Vestnik Finansov, 1896, No. 51) i.e., in the production of reaping machines, turned out 4,464 reapers. Among the peasants in Taurida Gubernia reaping machines have become so widespread that a special <"fnp224">
* 7.8 to 8.7 inches. --Ed.
** In 1879 about 4,500 threshing machines were produced, and in 1894-1895 about 3,500. The latter figure, however, does not include output by handicraft industry.
page 225occupation has arisen, namely, the mechanical reaping of other people's grain.*
Similar data are available for other, less widespread, agricultural implements. Broadcast seeders, for example, are now being turned out at dozens of works, and the more perfect row drills, which were produced at only two works in 1893 (Agriculture and Forestry, 360), are now turned out at seven works (Productive Forces, I, 51), whose output has again a particularly wide sale in the south of Russia. Machinery is employed in all branches of agriculture and in all operations connected with the production of some kinds of produce: in special reviews reference is made to the extended use of winnowing machines, seed-sorters, seed-cleaners (trieurs), seed-driers, hay presses, flax-scutchers, etc. In the Addendum to the Report on Agriculture for 1898,
* In 1893, for example, "700 peasants gathered with their machines on the Uspensky estate belonging to Falz-Fein (who owned 200,000 dessiatines) and offered their services, but half of them went away empty-handed, as only 350 were engaged" (Shakhovskoi, Agricultural Outside Employments, Moscow, 1896, p. 161). In the other steppe gubernias, however, especially the Transvolga gubernias, reaping machines are not widely used as yet. Still, in recent years these gubernias too have been trying very hard to overtake Novorossia. Thus, the Syzran-Vyazma railway carried agricultural machinery, traction-engines and parts weighing 75,000 poods in 1890, 62,000 poods in 1891, 88,000 poods in 1892, 120,000 poods in 1893, and 212,000 poods in 1894; in other words, in a matter of five years the quantities carried almost trebled. Ukholovo railway station dispatched agricultural machinery of local manufacture to the extent of about 30,000 poods in 1893, and about 82,000 poods in 1894, whereas up to and including 1892 the weight of agricultural machinery dispatched from that station was even less than 10,000 poods per annum. "Ukholovo station dispatches mainly threshing machines produced in the villages of Kanino and Smykovo, and partly in the uyezd town of Sapozhok, Ryazan Gubernia. In the village of Kanino there are three foundries, belonging to Yermakov, Karev and Golikov, mainly engaged on agricultural-machinery parts. The work of finishing and assembling the machines is done in the above-mentioned two villages (Kanino and Smykovo), of which almost the entire populations are thus employed" (Brief Review of the Commercial Activity of the Syzran-Vyazma Railway in 1894, Pt. IV, Kaluga, 1896, pp. 62-63). Interesting in this example are, first, the fact of the enormous increase in production precisely in recent years, which have been years of low grain prices; and, second, the fact of the connection between "factory" and so-called "handicraft" production. The latter is nothing more nor less than an "annex" to the factory,
page 226published by the Pskov Gubernia Zemstvo Administration (Severny Kurier [Northern Courier ], 1899, No. 32), the in creasing use of machinery is noted, particularly of flax-scutchers, in connection with the transition from flax production for home use to that for commercial purposes. There is an increase in the number of iron ploughs. Reference is made to the influence of migration in augmenting the number of agricultural machines and in raising wages. In Stavropol Gubernia (ibid., No. 33), agricultural machinery is being employed on an increasing scale in connection with the growing immigration into this gubernia. In 1882, there were 908 machines: in 1891-1893, an average of 29,275; in 1894-1896, an average of 54,874; and in 1895, as many as 64,000 agricultural implements and machines.
The growing employment of machines naturally gives rise to a demand for engines: along with steam-engines, "oil engines have latterly begun to spread rapidly on our farms" (Productive Forces, I, 56), and although the first engine of this type appeared abroad only seven years ago, there are already 7 factories in Russia manufacturing them. In Kherson Gubernia in the 70s only 134 steam-engines were registered in agriculture (Material for the Statistics of Steam-Engines in the Russian Empire, St. Petersburg, 1882), and in 1881 about 500 (Historico-Statistical Survey, Vol. II, section on agricultural implements). In 1884-1886, in three uyezds of the gubernia (out of six), 435 steam threshing machines were registered. "At the present time (1895) there must be at least twice as many" (Tezyakov, Agricultural Workers and the Organisation of Sanitary Supervision over Them, in Kherson Gubernia, Kherson, 1896, p. 71). The Vestnik Finansov (1897, No. 21) states that in Kherson Gubernia, "there are about 1,150 steam-threshers, and in the Kuban Region the number is about the same, etc. . . . Latterly the acquisition of steam-threshers has assumed an industrial character. . . . There have been cases of a five-thousand-ruble threshing machine with steam-engine fully covering its cost in two or three good harvest years, and of the owner immediately getting another on the same terms. Thus, 5 and even 10 such machines are often to be met with on small farms in the Kuban Region. There they have become an essential accessory of every farm that is at all well
page 227organised." "Generally speaking, in the south of Russia today, more than ten thousand steam-engines are in use for agricultural purposes" (Productive Forces, IX, 151).[*]
If we remember that the number of steam-engines in use in agriculture throughout European Russia in 1875 1878 was only 1,351 and that in 1901, according to incomplete returns (Collection of Factory Inspectors' Reports for 1903 ), the number was 12,091, in 1902 -- 14,609, in 1903 -- 16,021 and in 1904 -- 17,287, the gigantic revolution brought about by capitalism in agriculture in this country during the last two or three decades will be clear to us. Great service in accelerating this process has been rendered by the Zemstvos. By the beginning of 1897, Zemstvo agricultural machinery and implement depots "existed under the auspices of 11 gubernia and 203 uyezd Zemstvo boards, with a total working capital of about a million rubles" (Vestnik Finansov, 1897, No. 21). In Poltava Gubernia, the turnover of the Zemstvo depots increased from 22,600 rubles in 1890 to 94,900 rubles in 1892 and 210,100 rubles in 1895. In the six years, 12,600 iron ploughs, 500 winnowing machines and seed-sorters, 300 reaping machines, and 200 horse-threshers were sold. "The principal buyers of implements at the Zemstvo depots are Cossacks and peasants; they account for 70% of the total number of iron ploughs and horse-threshers sold. The purchasers of seeding and reaping machines were mainly landowners, and large ones at that, possessing over 100 dessiatines" (Vestnik Finansov, 1897, No. 4). <"fnp227">
* Cf. an item from Perekop Uyezd, Taurida Gubernia, in Russkiye Vedomosti [Russian Gazette ] of August 19, 1898 (No. 167). "Owing to the widespread use of reaping machines and steam- and horse-threshing machines among our farmers . . . field-work is proceeding very rapidly. The old-fashioned method of the threshing with 'rollers' is a thing of the past. . . . Every year the Crimean farmer increases his crop area and therefore has willy-nilly to resort to the aid of improved agricultural implements and machines. While it is not possible with rollers to thresh more than 150 to 200 poods of grain per day, a 10-h.p. steam-thresher will do from 2,000 to 2,500 poods, and a horse-thresher from 700 to 800 poods. That is why the demand for agricultural implements, reapers and threshers is growing so rapidly from year to year that the factories and works producing agricultural implements exhaust their stocks, as has happened this year, and are unable to satisfy the farmers' demand." The drop in grain prices, which compels farmers to reduce production costs, must be regarded as one of the most important causes of the increased use of improved implements.
page 228
According to the report of the Ekaterinoslav Gubernia Zemstvo Board for 1895, "the use of improved agricultural implements in the gubernia is spreading very rapidly." For example, in the Verkhne-Dnieper Uyezd there were:
1894
1895
Ploughs, scarifiers and cultivators:
" " " "
" " " "
Horse-threshers:
" "
" "
private landowners'
peasants'
private landowners'
peasants'
5,220
27,271
131
671
6,752
30,112
290
838
(Vestnik Finansov, 1897, No. 6)
According to the data of the Moscow Gubernia Zemstvo Board, peasants in Moscow Gubernia in 1895 owned 41,210 iron ploughs; 20.2% of all householders owned such ploughs (Vestnik Finansov, 1896, No. 31). In Tver Gubernia, according to a special record made in 1896, there were 51,266 iron ploughs, owned by 16.5% of the total number of householders. In Tver Uyezd there were only 290 iron ploughs in 1890, and 5,581 in 1896 (Statistical Returns for Tver Gubernia, Vol. XIII, Pt. 2, pp. 91, 94). One can judge, therefore, how rapid is the consolidation and improvement of the farms of the peasant bourgeoisie.<"c3s8">
VIII. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MACHINERY IN AGRICULTUREHaving established the fact of the extremely rapid development of the production of agricultural machinery and of the employment of machines in Russia's post-Reform agriculture, we must now examine the social and economic significance of this phenomenon. From what has been said above regarding the economics of peasant and landlord farming, the following conclusions may be drawn: on the one hand, capitalism is the factor giving rise to, and extending the use of, machines in agriculture; on the other, the application of machinery to agriculture is of a capitalist character, i.e., it leads to the establishment of capitalist relations and their further development.
page 229
Let us dwell on the first of these conclusions. We have seen that the labour-service system of economy and the patriarchal peasant economy inseparably connected with it are by their very nature based on routine technique, on the preservation of antiquated methods of production. There is nothing in the internal structure of that economic regime to stimulate the transformation of technique; on the contrary, the secluded and isolated character of that system of economy, and the poverty and downtrodden condition of the dependent peasant preclude the possibility of improvements. In particular, we would point to the fact that the payment of labour under the labour-service system is much lower (as we have seen) than where hired labour is employed; and it is well known that low wages are one of the most important obstacles to the introduction of machines. And the facts do indeed show us that an extensive movement for the transformation of agricultural technique only commenced in the post-Reform period of the development of commodity economy and capitalism. The competition that is the product of capitalism, and the dependence of the cultivator on the world market made the transformation of technique a necessity, while the drop in grain prices made this necessity particularly urgent.*
To explain the second conclusion, we must examine landlord and peasant farming separately. When a landlord introduces a machine or an improved implement, he replaces the implements of the peasant (who has worked for him) with his own; he goes over, consequently, from labour-service to the capitalist system of farming. The spread of agricultural machines means the elimination of labour-
* "In the past two years, under the influence of low grain prices and of the need to cheapen agricultural jobs at all costs, reaping machines have also . . . begun to be so widely employed that depots are unable to meet all requirements on time" (Tezyakov, loc cit., p. 71) The present agricultural crisis is a capitalist crisis. Like all capitalist crises, it ruins capitalist farmers and peasants in one locality, in one country, in one branch of agriculture, and at the same time gives a tremendous impulse to the development of capitalism in another locality, in another country, in other branches of agriculture. It is the failure to understand this fundamental feature of the present crisis and of its economic nature that constitutes the main error in the reasoning on this theme of Messrs. N.-on, Kablukov, etc., etc.
page 230service by capitalism. It is possible, of course, that a condition laid down, for example, for the leasing of land is the performance of labour-service in the shape of day-work at a reaping machine, thresher, etc., but this will be labour-service of the second type, labour-service which converts the peasant into a day labourer. Such "exceptions," consequently, merely go to prove the general rule that the introduction of improved implements on the farms of private landowners means converting the bonded ("independent" according to Narodnik terminology) peasant into a wage-worker -- in exactly the same way as the acquisition of his own instruments of production by the buyer-up, who gives out work to be done in the home, means converting the bonded "handicraftsman" into a wage-worker. The acquisition by the landlord farm of its own implements leads inevitably to the undermining of the middle peasantry, who get means of subsistence by engaging in labour-service: We have already seen that labour-service is the specific "industry" of the middle peasant, whose implements, consequently, are a component part not only of peasant, but also of landlord, farming.* Hence, the spread of agricultural machinery and improved implements and the expropriation of the peasantry are inseparably connected. That the spread of improved implements among the peasantry is of the same significance hardly requires explanation after what has been said in the preceding chapter. The systematic employment of machinery in agriculture ousts the patriarchal "middle" peasant as inexorably as the steam-power loom ousts the handicraft weaver.
The results of the employment of machinery in agriculture confirm what has been said, and reveal all the typical features of capitalist progress with all its inherent contra-
* Mr V. V. expresses this truth (that the existence of the middle peasant is largely conditioned by the existence of the labour-service system of farming among the landlords) in the following original way: "the owner shares, so to speak, the cost of maintaining his (the peasant's) implements." "It appears," says Mr. Sanin, in a just comment on this, "that it is not the labourer who works for the landowner, but the landowner who works for the labourer." A. Sanin, Some Remarks on the Theory of People's Production, in the appendix to the Russian translation of Hourwich's Economics of the Russian Village, Moscow, 1896, p. 47.
page 231dictions. Machines enormously increase the productivity of labour in agriculture, which, before the present epoch, was almost entirely untouched by social development. That is why the mere fact of the growing employment of machines in Russian agriculture is sufficient to enable one to see how utterly unsound is Mr. N.-on's assertion that there is "absolute stagnation" (Sketches, p. 32) in grain production in Russia, and that there is even a "decline in the productivity" of agricultural labour. We shall return to this assertion, which contradicts generally established facts and which Mr. N.-on needed for his idealisation of the pre-capitalist order.
Further, machines lead to the concentration of production and to the practice of capitalist co-operation in agriculture. The introduction of machinery, on the one hand, calls for capital on a big scale, and consequently is only within the capacity of the big farmers; on the other hand, machines pay only when there is a huge amount of products to be dealt with; the expansion of production becomes a necessity with the introduction of machines. The wide use of reaping machines, steam-threshers, etc., is therefore indicative of the concentration of agricultural production -- and we shall indeed see later that the Russian agricultural region where the employment of machines is particularly widespread (Novorossia) is also distinguished by the quite considerable size of its farms. Let us merely observe that it would be a mistake to conceive the concentration of agriculture in just the one form of extensive enlargement of the crop area (as Mr. N.-on does); as a matter of fact, the concentration of agricultural production manifests itself in the most diverse forms, depending on the forms of commercial agriculture (see next chapter on this point). The concentration of production is inseparably connected with the extensive co-operation of workers on the farm. Above we saw an example of a large estate on which the grain was harvested by setting hundreds of reaping machines into operation simultaneously. "Threshers drawn by 4 to 8 horses require from 14 to 23 and even more workers, half of whom are women and boys, i.e., semi-workers. . . . The 8 to 10 h. p. steam-threshers to be found on all large farms" (of Kherson Gubernia), "require simultaneously from 50
page 232to 70 workers, of whom more than half are semi-workers, boys and girls of 12 to 17 years of age" (Tezyakov, loc. cit., 93). "Large farms, on each of which from 500 to 1,000 workers are gathered together simultaneously, may safely be likened to industrial establishments," the same author justly observes (p. 151).[*] Thus, while our Narodniks were arguing that the "village community" "could easily" introduce co-operation in agriculture, life went on in its own way, and capitalism, splitting up the village community into economic groups with opposite interests, created large farms based on the extensive co-operation of wage-workers.
From the foregoing it is clear that machines create a home market for capitalism: first, a market for means of production (for the products of the machine-building industry, mining industry, etc., etc.), and second, a market for labour-power. The introduction of machines, as we have seen, leads to the replacement of labour-service by hired labour and to the creation of peasant farms employing labourers. The mass-scale employment of agricultural machinery presupposes the existence of a mass of agricultural wage-workers. In the localities where agricultural capitalism is most highly developed, this process of the introduction of wage-labour along with the introduction of machines is intersected by another process, namely, the ousting of wage-workers by the machine. On the one hand, the formation of a peasant bourgeoisie and the transition of the landowners from labour-service to capitalism create a demand for wage-workers; on the other hand, in places where farming has long been based on wage-labour, machines oust wage-workers. No precise and extensive statistics are available to show what is the general effect of both these processes for the whole of Russia, i.e., whether the number of agricultural wage-workers is increasing or decreasing. There can be no doubt that hitherto the number has been increasing (see next section). We imagine that now too it is continuing to increase**: firstly, data on the ousting of wage-workers in <"fnp232">
* Cf. also next chapter, § 2, where more detailed data are given on the size of capitalist farms in this part of Russia.
** It hardly needs to be explained that in a country with a mass of peasantry, an absolute increase in the number of agricultural wage-workers is quite compatible not only with a relative, but also with an absolute, decrease of the rural population.
page 233agriculture by machines are available only for Novorossia, while in other areas of capitalist agriculture (the Baltic and western region, the outer regions in the East, some of the industrial gubernias) this process has not yet been noted on a large scale. There still remains an enormous area where labour-service predominates, and in that area the introduction of machinery is giving rise to a demand for wage-workers. Secondly, the growth of intensive farming (introduction of root crops, for example) enormously increases the demand for wage-labour (see Chapter IV). A decline in the absolute number of agricultural (as against industrial) wage-workers must, of course, take place at a certain stage in the development of capitalism, namely, when agriculture throughout the country is fully organised on capitalist lines and when the employment of machinery for the most diverse agricultural operations is general.
As regards Novorossia, local investigators note here the usual consequences of highly developed capitalism. Machines are ousting wage-workers and creating a capitalist reserve army in agriculture. "The days of fabulous prices for hands have passed in Kherson Gubernia too. Thanks to . . . the increased spread of agricultural implements . . ." (and other causes) "the prices of hands are steadily falling " (author's italics). . . . "The distribution of agricultural implements, which makes the large farms independent of workers* and at the same time reduces the demand for hands, places the workers in a difficult position" (Tezyakov, loc. cit., 66-71). The same thing is noted by another Zemstvo Medical Officer, Mr. Kudryavtsev, in his work Migrant Agricultural Workers at the Nikolayev Fair in the Township of Kakhovka, Taurida Gubernia, and Their Sanitary Supervision in 1895 (Kherson, 1896). "The prices of hands . . . continue to fall, and a considerable number of migrant workers find
* Mr. Ponomaryov expresses himself on this score thus. "Machines, by regulating the harvesting price, in all probability discipline the workers at the same time" (article in Selskoye Khozyaistvo i Lesovodstvo [Agriculture and Forestry ],<"fnp233"> quoted in Vestnik Finansov, 1896, No. 14). It will be remembered that the "Pindar of the capitalist factory,"[90] Dr. Andrew Ure, welcomed machines as creating "order" and "discipline" among the workers. Agricultural capitalism in Russia has already managed to create not only "agricultural factories," but also the "Pindars" of these factories.
page 234themselves without employment and are unable to earn anything; i.e., there is created what in the language of economic science is called a reserve army of labour -- artificial surplus-population" (61). The drop in the prices of labour caused by this reserve army is sometimes so great that "many farmers possessing machines preferred" (in 1895) "to harvest with hand labour rather than with machines" (ibid., 66, from Sbornik Khersonskogo Zemstva [Kherson Zemstvo Symposium ], August 1895)! More strikingly and convincingly than any argument this fact reveals how profound are the contradictions inherent in the capitalist employment of machinery!
Another consequence of the use of machinery is the growing employment of female and child labour. The existing system of capitalist agriculture has, generally speaking, given rise to a certain hierarchy of workers, very much reminiscent of the hierarchy among factory workers. For example, on the estates in South Russia there are the following categories: a) full workers, adult males capable of doing all jobs b) semi-workers, women and males up to the age of 20; semi-workers are divided again into two categories: aa) 12, 13 to 15, 16 years of age -- these are semi-workers in the stricter sense of the term -- and bb) semi-workers of great strength ; "in the language used on the estates, 'three-quarter' workers,"[*] from 16 to 20 years of age, capable of doing all the jobs done by the full worker, except mowing. Lastly, c) semi-workers rendering little help, children not under 8 and not over 14 years of age; these act as swine-herds, calf-herds, weeders and plough-boys. Often they work merely for their food and clothing. The introduction of agricultural implements "lowers the price of the full worker's labour" and renders possible its replacement by the cheaper labour of women and juveniles. Statistics on migrant labour confirm the fact of the displacement of male by female labour: in 1890, of the total number of workers registered in the township of Kakhovka and in the city of Kherson, 12.7% were women; in 1894, for the whole gubernia women constituted 18.2% (10,239 out of 56,464); in 1895, 25.6% (13,474 out of 48,753). Children in 1893 constituted 0.7% (from 10 to 14 years of <"fnp234">
* Tezyakov, loc. cit., 72.
page 235age), and in 1895, 1.69% (from 7 to 14 years of age). Among local workers on estates in Elisavetgrad Uyezd, Kherson Gubernia, children constituted 10.6% (ibid.).
Machines increase the intensity of the workers' labour. For example, the most widespread type of reaping machine (with hand delivery) has acquired the characteristic name of "lobogreyka" or "chubogreyka,"[*] since working with it calls for extraordinary exertion on the part of the worker: he takes the place of the delivery apparatus (cf. Productive Forces, I, 52). Similarly, intensity of labour increases with the use of the threshing machine. The capitalist mode of employing machinery creates here (as everywhere) a powerful stimulus to the lengthening of the working day. Night work, something previously unknown, makes its appearance in agriculture too. "In good harvest years . . . work on some estates and on many peasant farms is carried on even at night" (Tezyakov, loc. cit., 126), by artificial illumination -- torchlight (92). Finally, the systematic employment of machines results in traumatism among agricultural workers; the employment of young women and children at machines naturally results in a particularly large toll of injuries. The Zemstvo hospitals and dispensaries in Kherson Gubernia, for example, are filled, during the agricultural season, "almost exclusively with traumatic patients" and serve as "field hospitals, as it were, for the treatment of the enormous army of agricultural workers who are constantly being disabled as a result of the ruthless destructive work of agricultural machines and implements" (ibid., 126). A special medical literature is appearing that deals with injuries caused by agricultural machines. Proposals are being made to introduce compulsory regulations governing the use of agricultural machines (ibid.). The large-scale manufacture of machinery imperatively calls for public control and regulation of production in agriculture, as in industry. Of the attempts to introduce such control we shall speak below.
Let us note, in conclusion, the extremely inconsistent attitude of the Narodniks towards the employment of machinery in agriculture. To admit the benefit and progressive nature of the employment of machinery, to defend all <"fnp235">
* Literally "brow-heater" or "forelock-heater." --Ed.
page 236measures that develop and facilitate it, and at the same time to ignore the fact that machinery in Russian agriculture is employed in the capitalist manner, means to sink to the view point of the small and big agrarians. Yet what our Narodniks do is precisely to ignore the capitalist character of the employment of agricultural machinery and improved implements, without even attempting to analyse what types of peasant and landlord farms introduce machinery. Mr. V. V. angrily calls Mr. V. Chernyayev "a representative of capitalist technique" (Progressive Trends, 11). Presumably it is Mr. V. Chernyayev, or some other official in the Ministry of Agriculture, who is to blame for the fact that the employment of machinery in Russia is capitalist in character! Mr. N.-on, despite his grandiloquent promise "not to depart from the facts" (Sketches, XIV), has preferred to ignore the fact that it is capitalism that has developed the employment of machinery in our agriculture, and he has even invented the amusing theory that exchange reduces the productivity of labour in agriculture (p. 74)! To criticise this theory, which is proclaimed without any analysis of the facts, is neither possible nor necessary. Let us confine ourselves to citing a small sample of Mr. N.-on's reasoning. "If," says he, "the productivity of labour in this country were to double, we should have to pay for a chetvert (about six bushels) of wheat not 12 rubles, but six, that is all" (234). Not all, by far, most worthy economist. "In this country" (as indeed in any society where there is commodity economy), the improvement of technique is undertaken by individual farmers, the rest only gradually following suit. "In this country," only the rural entrepreneurs are in a position to improve their technique. "In this country," this progress of the rural entrepreneurs, small and big, is inseparably connected with the ruin of the peasantry and the creation of a rural proletariat. Hence, if the improved technique used on the farms of rural entrepreneurs were to become socially necessary (only on that condition would the price be reduced by half), it would mean the passing of almost the whole of agriculture into the hands of capitalists, it would mean the complete proletarisation of millions of peasants, it would mean an enormous increase in the non-agricultural population and an increase in the number of factories (for the
page 237productivity of labour in our agriculture to double, there must be an enormous development of the machine-building industry, the mining industry, steam transport, the construction of a mass of new types of farm buildings, shops, warehouses, canals, etc., etc.). Mr. N.-on here repeats the little error of reasoning that is customary with him: he skips over the consecutive steps that are necessary with the development of capitalism, he skips over the intricate complex of social-economic changes which necessarily accompany the development of capitalism, and then weeps and wails over the danger of "destruction" by capitalism.
<"c3s9">
IX. WAGE-LABOUR IN AGRICULTUREWe now pass to the principal manifestation of agricultural capitalism -- to the employment of hired labour. This feature of post-Reform economy was marked most strongly in the outer regions of south and east European Russia, in that mass shift of agricultural wage-workers known as the "agricultural migration." For this reason we shall first cite data concerning this main region of agricultural capitalism in Russia and then examine the data relating to the whole of Russia.
The tremendous movements of our peasants in search of work for hire have long ago been noted in our literature. Reference to them was made by Flerovsky (Condition of the Working Class in Russia, St. Petersburg, 1869), who tried to determine their relative incidence in the various gubernias. In 1875, Mr. Chaslavsky gave a general review of "agricultural outside employments" (Compendium of Political Knowledge, Vol. II) and noted their real significance ("there was formed . . . something in the nature of a semi-vagrant population . . . something in the nature of future farm labourers"). In 1887, Mr. Raspopin gathered together Zemstvo statistics on this phenomenon and regarded them not as "employments" of the peasants in general, but as a process of the formation of a class of wage-workers in agriculture. In the 90s, the works of Messrs. S. Korolenko, Rudnev, Tezyakov, Kudryavtsev and Shakhovskoi appeared, thanks to which a much fuller study of this phenomenon was made.
The principal area to which agricultural wage-workers
page 238migrate embraces Bessarabia, Kherson, Taurida, Ekaterinoslav, Don, Samara, Saratov (southern part) and Orenburg gubernias. We confine ourselves to European Russia, but it must be observed that the movement spreads, ever further afield (especially in the recent period), and covers the North Caucasus and the Ural region, etc. Data concerning capitalist agriculture in this area (the area of commercial grain farming) will be given in the next chapter; there, too, we shall point to other localities to which agricultural labourers migrate. The principal area from which agricultural labourers migrate is the central black-earth gubernias: Kazan, Simbirsk, Penza, Tambov, Ryazan, Tula, Orel, Kursk, Voronezh, Kharkov, Poltava, Chernigov, Kiev, Podolia and Volhynia.[*] Thus the movement of workers proceeds from the most thickly-populated to the most thinly-populated localities, the ones being colonised; from the localities where serfdom was most developed to those where it was least developed [**]; from localities where labour-service is most developed to localities where it is little developed and capitalism is highly developed. Hence, the workers flee from "semi-free" to free labour. It would be a mistake to think that this flight amounts exclusively to a movement from thickly-populated to thinly-populated areas. A study of the movement of workers (Mr. S. Korolenko, loc. cit.) has revealed the singular and important fact that workers migrate from many areas in such great numbers as to create a shortage of hands in these places, one that is compensated by the arrival of workers from other places. Hence, the departure of workers expresses not only the tendency of the population to spread more evenly over the given territory, but also the tendency of the workers to go to areas where conditions are better. This tendency will become quite clear to us if we recall that in the area of departure, the area of labour-service, agricultural workers' wages are <"fnp238">
* In Chapter VIII, where we examine the movement of wage-workers in Russia as an entire process, we shall describe in greater detail the character and direction of migration from the various localities.
** In his day Chaslavsky pointed out that in the localities in which workers arrived, serfs constituted from 4 to 15% of the total, and in the localities which workers left, from 40 to 60%.
page 239particularly low, while in the area of attraction, the area of capitalism, wages are far higher.[*]
As to the extent of "agricultural migration," general data exist only in the above-mentioned book by Mr. S Korolenko, who calculates the surplus of workers (relative to the local demand for them) at 6,360,000 for the whole of European Russia, including 2,137,000 in the above-enumerated 15 gubernias of agricultural emigration, whereas in the 8 gubernias of immigration the shortage of workers is estimated at 2,173,000 persons. Despite the fact that Mr. S. Korolenko's methods of calculation are by no means always satisfactory, his general conclusions (as we shall see repeatedly below) must be regarded as approximately correct, and the number of migratory workers not only not an exaggeration, but if anything an understatement of the facts. There can be no doubt that part of these two million workers who come to the South are non-agricultural workers. But Mr. Shakhovskoi (loc. cit.) estimates quite arbitrarily, approximately, that industrial workers account for half this number. Firstly, we know from all sources that the workers who migrate to this region are mainly agricultural, and secondly, agricultural workers come there not only from the gubernias mentioned above. Mr. Shakhovskoi himself quotes a figure which confirms Mr. S. Korolenko's calculations. He states that in 11 black-earth gubernias (which are included in the above-described area from which agricultural workers emigrate) there were issued in 1891 a total of 2,000,703 passports and identity cards (loc. cit., p. 24), whereas according to Mr. S. Korolenko's calculations the number of workers who left these gubernias was only 1,745,913. Consequently, Mr. S. Korolenko's figures are not in the least exaggerated, and the total number of migratory rural workers in Russia must obviously be over 2 million.** The <"fnp239">
* See table of data for 10 years in Chapter VIII, § IV: the formation of a home market for labour-power.
** There is another way of checking Mr. S. Korolenko's figure. We learn from the above-quoted books of Messrs. Tezyakov and Kudryavtsev that the number of agricultural workers who in their search for "employments" use the railways at least in part, is about 1/10 of the total workers (combining the figures of both authors, we get the result that out of 72,635 workers interrogated, only 7,827 travelled at least part of the journey by rail). Yet the number of workers [cont. onto p. 240. -- DJR] carried in 1891 by the three principal railways in the direction examined does not exceed 200,000 (170,000 to 189,000) -- as we are told by Mr. Shakhovskoi (loc. cit., p. 71, according to railway returns). Consequently, the total number of workers leaving for the South must be about 2 million. Incidentally, the very small proportion of agricultural workers who travel by rail points to the incorrectness of Mr. N.-on's view when he assumed that the passenger traffic on our railways is in the main that of agricultural workers. Mr. N.-on lost sight of the fact that non-agricultural workers receive higher wages and therefore make greater use of the railways and that the migration season of these workers (for example, builders, navvies, stevedores and many others) is also spring and summer.
page 240existence of such a mass of "peasants" who abandon their homes and allotments (where they have homes and allotments) vividly testifies to the tremendous process of the conversion of small cultivators into rural proletarians, of the enormous demand by growing agricultural capitalism for wage-labour.
The question now arises, what is the total number of rural wage-workers in European Russia, both migratory and resident? The only attempt to answer this question that we know is the one made in Mr. Rudnev's work Peasant Industries in European Russia (Sbornik Saratovskogo Zemstva [Symposium of the Saratov Zemstvo ], 1894, Nos. 6 and 11). This work, an extremely valuable one, gives a summary of the Zemstvo statistics for 148 uyezds in 19 gubernias of European Russia. The total number of "industrialists" is put at 2,798,122, out of 5,129,863 working males (18 to 60 years of age), i.e., 55% of the total number of working peasants.* Under "agricultural industries" the author includes only work as hired agricultural labourers (farm labourers, day labourers, herdsmen, stockyard workers). An estimate of the percentage of agricultural workers to the total number of males of working age in various gubernias and districts of Russia, leads the author to the conclusion
* By "industries," as Mr. Rudnev also points out, are meant all sorts ot occupations by peasants except cultivation on their own, purchased or rented land. Undoubtedly, the majority of these "industrialists" are wage-workers in agriculture or in industry. We therefore call the reader's attention to the closeness of these figures to our estimate of the number of rural proletarians: in Chapter II, it was assumed that the latter constitute about 40% of the peasants. Here we see that "industrialists" constitute 55%, and of these, in all probability, over 40% are engaged in all sorts of hired labour.
page 241that in the black-earth belt about 25% of all working males are engaged in hired agricultural labour, and in the non-black-earth area about 10%. This gives us the number of agricultural workers in European Russia as 3,395,000, or, in round numbers, 3 1/2 million (Rudnev, loc. cit., p. 448. This number is about 20% of the total number of males of working age). It must be observed in this connection that, according to Mr. Rudnev, "day labour and agricultural job-work were placed in the category of industries by the statisticians only when they were the chief occupation of the given person or family" (loc. cit., 446).[*]
Mr. Rudnev's figure should be regarded as the minimum, because, firstly, the Zemstvo census returns are more or less out-of-date, relating to the 80s and at times even to the 70s, and because, secondly, in determining the percentage of agricultural workers, no account whatever was taken of the Baltic and Western gubernias, where agricultural capitalism is highly developed. For want of other data, however, we are obliged to take this figure of 3 1/2 million.
It appears, consequently, that about one-fifth of the peasants have already reached a position where their "chief occupation" is that of wage-labour for rich peasants and landlords. We see here the first group of the entrepreneurs who present a demand for the labour-power of the rural proletariat. These are the rural entrepreneurs, who employ about half of the bottom group of the peasantry. Thus, there is to be observed a complete interdependence between the formation of a class of rural entrepreneurs and the expansion of the bottom group of the "peasantry," i.e., the increase in the number of rural proletarians. Among these rural entrepreneurs a prominent part is played by the peasant bourgeoisie: for example, in 9 uyezds of Voronezh Gubernia, 43.4% of the farm labourers are employed by peasants (Rudnev, 434). Were we to take this percentage as the standard for all rural workers and for the whole of Russia, it would be seen that the peasant bourgeoisie present a demand for <"fnp241">
* This figure does not include, therefore, the mass of peasants for whom hired agricultural labour is not the chief occupation, but one of equal importance with their own farms.
page 242some one and a half million agricultural workers. One and the same "peasantry" throws on to the market millions of workers in search of employers -- and presents an impressive demand for wage-workers.
<"c3s10">
X. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HIRED LABOUR IN AGRICULTURELet us now attempt to depict the principal features of the new social relations that take shape in agriculture with the employment of hired labour, and to define their significance.
The agricultural workers who come to the South in such masses belong to the poorest strata of the peasantry. Of the workers who come to Kherson Gubernia, 7/10 make the journey on foot, since they lack the money for railway fare; "they tramp for hundreds and thousands of versts along the railway track and the banks of navigable rivers, admiring the splendid pictures of rapidly-moving trains and smoothly-gliding ships" (Tezyakov, 35). On the average, the worker takes with him about 2 rubles[*]; often enough he even lacks the money to pay for a passport, and gets a monthly identity card for ten kopeks. The journey takes from 10 to 12 days, and after such a long tramp (sometimes undertaken barefoot in the cold spring mud), the traveller's feet swell and become calloused and bruised. About 1/10 of the workers travel on dubi (large boats made out of rough boards, holding from 50 to 80 persons and usually packed to the limit). The reports<"p242"> of an official commission (the Zvegintsev Commission)[91] note the grave danger of this form of travel: "not a year passes but that one, two or even more of these overcrowded dubi go to the bottom with their passengers" (ibid., 34). The overwhelming majority of the workers have allotments, but of absolutely insignificant dimensions. "As a matter of fact," Mr. Tezyakov quite justly observes, "all these thousands of agricultural workers are landless village proletarians, for whom outside employ- <"fnp242">
* Money for the journey is obtained by the sale of property, even household goods, by mortgaging the allotment, by pawning things, clothes, etc., and even by borrowing money, to be repaid in labour, from priests, landlords and local kulaks" (Shakhovskoi, 55).
page 243ments are now the sole means of livelihood. . . . Landlessness is growing rapidly, and at the same time is swelling the ranks of the rural proletariat" (77). Striking confirmation of the rapidity of this growth is the number of worker novices, i.e., of those seeking employment for the first time. These novices constitute as many as 30%. Incidentally, this figure enables us to judge how rapid is the process that creates bodies of permanent agricultural workers.
The mass migration of workers has given rise to special forms of hire peculiar to highly-developed capitalism. In the South and South-East, numerous labour markets have arisen where thousands of workers gather and employers assemble. These markets are usually held in towns, industrial centres, trading villages and at fairs. The industrial character of the centres is of particular attraction to the workers, who readily accept employment on non-agricultural jobs, too. Thus, in Kiev Gubernia, labour markets are held in Shpola and Smela (large centres of the beet-sugar industry), and in the town of Belaya Tserkov. In Kherson Gubernia, they are held in the commercial villages (Novoukrainka, Birzula and Mostovoye, where on Sundays over 9,000 workers gather, and many other villages), at railway stations (Znamenka, Dolinskaya, etc.), and in towns (Elisavetgrad, Bobrinets, Voznesensk, Odessa, and others). In the summer, townspeople, labourers and "cadets" (the local name for tramps) from Odessa also come to hire themselves out for agricultural work. In Odessa rural workers hire themselves out in what is called Seredinskaya Square (or the "Mowers' Market"). "The workers make for Odessa, avoiding other markets, in the hope of getting better earnings here" (Tezyakov, 58). The township of Krivoi Rog is an important centre where workers are hired for agriculture and mining. In Taurida Gubernia, the township of Kakhovka is particularly noted for its labour market, where formerly as many as 40,000 workers gathered; in the nineties from 20,000 to 30,000 gathered there, and now, judging from certain data, the number is still smaller. In Bessarabia Gubernia, mention should be made of the town of Akkerman; in Ekaterinoslav Gubernia, of the town of Ekaterinoslav, and Lozovaya Station; in Don Gubernia, of Rostov-on-Don, frequented every year by as many as 150,000 workers. In
page 244North Caucasus, of the towns of Ekaterinodar and Novorossiisk, Tikhoretskaya Station, and other places. In Samara Gubernia, of the village of Pokrovskaya (opposite Saratov), the village of Balakovo and other places. In Saratov Gubernia, of the towns of Khvalynsk and Volsk. In Simbirsk Gubernia, of the town of Syzran. Thus, capitalism has created in the outer regions a new form of the "combination of agriculture with industries," namely, the combination of agricultural and non-agricultural hired labour. Such a combination is possible on a wide scale only in the period of the final and highest stage of capitalism, that of large-scale machine industry, which attenuates the importance of skill of "hand labour," facilitates the transition from one occupation to another, and levels the forms of hire.[*]
Indeed, the forms of hire in this locality are very peculiar and very characteristic of capitalist agriculture. All the semi-patriarchal, semi-bonded forms of hired labour which one so frequently meets in the central black-earth belt disappear here. The only relationships left are those between hirers and hired, a commercial transaction for the purchase and sale of labour-power. As always under developed capitalist relations, the workers prefer hire by the day, or by the week, which enables them to make the pay correspond more exactly to the demand for labour. "Prices are fixed for the area of each market (within a radius of about 40 versts) with mathematical precision, and it is very hard for the employers to beat down the price, because the muzhik who has come to the market prefers to lie around or go on to another place rather than work for lower pay" (Shakhovskoi, 104). It goes without saying that violent fluctuations in prices paid for labour cause innumerable breaches of contract -- only not on one side, as the employers usually claim, but on both sides: "concerted action is taken by both sides": the labourers agree among themselves <"fnp244">
* Mr. Shakhovskoi refers to another form of the combination of agricultural and non-agricultural labour. Thousands of rafts are floated down the Dnieper to the towns in the lower reaches of the river. On every raft there are from 15 to 20 workers (raftsmen), mostly Byelorussians and Great-Russians from Orel Gubernia. "For the whole voyage they get practically nothing"; they count chiefly on getting employment at reaping and threshing. These hopes are rewarded only in "good" years.
page 245to demand more, and the employers -- to offer less (ibid., 107).[*] How openly "callous cash payment" reigns here in the relations between the classes may be seen, for example, from the following fact: "experienced employers know very well" that the workers will "give in" only when they have eaten up their food stock. "A farmer related that when he came to the market to hire workers . . . he walked among them, poking with his stick at their knapsacks (sic !): if they had bread left, he would not talk to them; he would leave the market" and wait "until the knapsacks in the market were empty" (from the Selsky Vestnik [Rural Herald ], 1890, No. 15, ibid., 107-108).
As under developed capitalism anywhere, so here, we see that the worker is particularly oppressed by small capital. The big employer is forced by sheer commercial considerations[**] to abstain from petty oppression, which is of little advantage and is fraught with considerable loss should disputes arise. That is why the big employers, for example (those employing from 300 to 800 workers), try to keep their workers from leaving at the end of the week, and themselves fix prices according to the demand for labour; some even adopt a system of wage increases if the price of labour in the area goes up -- and all evidence goes to show that these increases are more than compensated by better work and the absence of disputes (ibid., 130-132; 104). A small employer, on the contrary, sticks at nothing. "The farmsteaders and German colonists carefully 'choose' their workers and pay them 15 or 20% more; but the amount of work they 'squeeze' out of them is 50 per cent more" (ibid., 116). The "wenches" who work for such an employer <"fnp245">
* "At harvest time in a good year the worker triumphs, and it is a hard job to get him to give way. He is offered a price, but he won't consider it; he keeps repeating: give me what I ask and it's a go. And that is not because labour is scarce, but because, as the workers say, 'it's our turn now.'"- (Reported by a volost clerk; Shakhovskoi, 125.)
"If the crop is a bad one and the price of labour has dropped, the kulak employer takes advantage of this condition to discharge the worker before the contract has expired, and the worker loses the season either in seeking work in the same district or in tramping the country," a landlord correspondent confesses (ibid., 132).
<"p245"> ** Cf. Fr. Engels, Zur Wohnungsfrage. Vorwort. (F. Engels, The Housing Question. Preface. --Ed.)[92]
page 246"don't know day from night," as they themselves say. The colonists who hire mowers get their sons to follow on their heels (i.e., to speed up the workers!) in shifts, so that the speeders-up, replacing one another three times a day, come with renewed energy to drive the workers on: "that is why it is so easy to recognise those who have worked for the German colonists by their haggard appearance. Generally speaking, the farmsteaders and the Germans avoid hiring those who have formerly worked on landowners' estates. 'You'll not stand the pace with us,' they say quite frankly" (ibid.).[*]
Large-scale machine industry, by concentrating large masses of workers, transforming the methods of production, and destroying all the traditional, patriarchal cloaks and screens that have obscured the relations between classes, always leads to the directing of public attention towards these relations, to attempts at public control and regulation. This phenomenon, which has found particularly striking expression in factory inspection, is also beginning to be observed in Russian capitalist agriculture, precisely in the region where it is most developed. The question of the workers' sanitary conditions was raised in Kherson Gubernia as early as 1875 at the Second Gubernia Congress of Doctors of the Kherson Zemstvo, and was dealt with again in 1888; in 1889 there was drawn up a programme for the study of the workers' conditions. The investigation of sanitary conditions that was carried out (on a far from adequate scale) in 1889-1890 slightly lifted the veil concealing the conditions of labour in the remote villages. It was seen, for instance, that in the majority of cases the workers have no living quarters; where barracks are provided, they are usually very badly built from a hygienic point of view, and "not <"fnp246">
* The same characteristics are displayed by the "Cossacks" of the Kuban Region: "The Cossack resorts to every possible method to force down the price of labour, acting either individually or through the community" (sic ! What a pity we lack more detailed information about this latest function of the "community"!): "cutting down the food, increasing the work quota, docking the pay, retaining the workers' passports, adopting public resolutions prohibiting specific farmers from employing workers, on pain of a fine, at above a definite rate, etc." ("Migrant Workers in the Kuban Region" by A. Beloborodov, in Severny Vestnik, February 1896, p. 5.)
page 247infrequently" dug-outs are met with -- they are inhabited, for example, by shepherds, who suffer severely from dampness, overcrowding, cold, darkness and the stifling atmosphere. The food provided is very often unsatisfactory. The working day, as a rule, is from 12 1/2 to 15 hours, which is much longer than the usual working day in large-scale industry (11 to 12 hours). An interval during the hottest part of the day is met with only "as an exception" -- and cases of brain diseases are no rarity. Work at machines gives rise to occupational division of labour and occupational diseases. For example, working at threshing machines are "drummers" (they put the sheaves into the drum; the work is very dangerous and most laborious: thick corn-dust beats into their faces), and "pitchers" (they pitch up the sheaves; the work is so heavy that the shifts have to be changed every hour or two). Women sweep up the straw, which boys carry aside, while from 3 to 5 labourers stack it in ricks. The number employed on threshing in the whole gubernia must exceed 200,000 (Tezyakov, 94).[*] Mr.-Tezyakov's conclusions regarding the sanitary conditions of agricultural work, are as follows: "Generally speaking, the opinion of the ancients that the labour of the husbandman is "the pleasantest and healthiest of occupations' is hardly sound at the present time, when the capitalist spirit reigns in agriculture. With the introduction of machinery into agriculture, the sanitary conditions of agricultural labour have not improved, but have changed for the worse. Machinery has brought into the field of agriculture a specialisation of labour so little known here before that it has had the effect of developing among the rural population occupational diseases and a host of serious injuries" (94).
A result of the investigations into sanitary conditions (after the famine year and the cholera) was the attempt to organise medical and food depots, at which the labourers were to be registered, placed under sanitary supervision and provided with cheap dinners. However modest the scale and the results of this organisation may be and however <"fnp247">
* Let us observe, in passing, that this operation, threshing, is most frequently done by hired labourers. One can judge, therefore how large must be the number employed on threshing all over Russia!
page 248precarious its existence,[*] it remains an important historical fact, revealing the trends of capitalism in agriculture. At the Congress of Doctors of Kherson Gubernia it was proposed, on the basis of data gathered by practitioners: to recognise the importance of medical and food depots and the need for improving their sanitary condition and extending their activities to give them the character of labour exchanges providing information on the prices of labour and their fluctuations; to extend sanitary inspection to all more or less big farms employing considerable numbers of labourers, "as is done in industrial establishments" (p. 155); to issue strict regulations governing the employment of agricultural machines and the registration of accidents; to raise the question of the workers' right to compensation and of providing better and cheaper steam transport. The Fifth Congress of Russian Doctors passed a resolution calling the attention of the Zemstvos concerned to the activities of the Kherson Zemstvo in the organisation of medical and sanitary inspection.
In conclusion, let us return to the Narodnik economists. Above we have seen that they idealise labour-service and close their eyes to the progressive nature of capitalism as compared with that system. Now we must add that they are unfavourably disposed to the "migration" of workers, and favour local "employments." Here, for example, is how this usual Narodnik view is expressed by Mr. N.-on: "The peasants . . . set off in quest of work. . . . How far, one may ask, is it advantageous from the economic point of view? Not personally for each individual peasant, but how far is it advantageous for the peasantry as a whole, from the national-economic point of view?. . . What we want is to point to the purely economic disadvantage of the annual peregrination, God knows where to, for the entire summer, when it would seem that one could find plenty of occupations at hand. . . (23-24). <"fnp248">
* Of the six uyezd Zemstvo assemblies in Kherson Gubernia whose views on the question of organising supervision over workers are reported by Mr. Tezyakov, four declared against this system. The local landowners accused the gubernia Zemstvo board of "turning the workers into absolute idlers," etc.
page 249
We assert, the Narodnik theory notwithstanding, that the "peregrination" of the workers not only yields "purely economic" advantages to the workers themselves, but in general should be regarded as progressive; that public attention should not be directed towards replacing outside employments by local "occupations close at hand," but, on the contrary, towards removing all the obstacles in the way of migration, towards facilitating it in every way, towards improving and reducing the costs of all conditions of the workers' travel, etc. The grounds for our assertion are as follows:
1) "Purely economic" advantage accrues to the workers from "peregrination" in that they go to places where wages are higher, where their position as seekers of employment is a more advantageous one. Simple as this argument is, it is too often forgotten by those who love to rise to a higher, allegedly "national-economic" point of view.
2) "Peregrination" destroys bonded forms of hire and labour-service.
Let us recall, for example, that formerly, when migration was little developed, the southern landowners (and other employers) readily resorted to the following system of hiring labourers: they sent their agents to the northern gubernias and (through the medium of rural officials) hired tax-defaulters on terms extremely disadvantageous to the latter.* Those offering employment consequently enjoyed the advantage of free competition, but those seeking it did not. We have quoted instances of the peasant's readiness to flee from labour-service and bondage even to the mines.
It is not surprising, therefore, that on the question of "peregrination" our agrarians go hand in hand with the Narodniks. Take Mr. S. Korolenko, for example. In his book he quotes numerous opinions of landlords in opposition to the "migration" of workers, and adduces a host of "arguments" against outside employments": "dissipation,"
* Shakhovskoi, loc. cit., 98 and foll. The author cites even the list of "fees" paid to clerks and village elders for the hire of peasants on advantageous terms. -- Tezyakov loc. cit., 65 -- Trirogov The Village Community and the Poll Tax; article entitled "Bondage in the National Economy."
page 250"rowdy habits," "drunkenness," "dishonesty," "the striving to leave the family in order to get rid of it and escape parental supervision," "the craving for amusement and a brighter life," etc. But here is a particularly interesting argument: "Finally, as the proverb says, 'if it stay at one spot, a stone will gather moss,' and a man who stays at one spot will certainly amass property and cherish it" (loc. cit., p. 84). The proverb does indeed very strikingly indicate what happens to a man who is tied to one spot. Mr. S. Korolenko is particularly displeased with the phenomenon we referred to above, namely, that "too" many workers leave certain gubernias and that the shortage thus created is made good by the arrival of workers from other gubernias. In noting this fact as regards, for example, Voronezh Gubernia, Mr. S. Korolenko points to one of the reasons for this,<"p250"> namely, the large number of peasants possessing gift-land allotments. "Evidently such peasants, who are relatively worse off materially and are not worried about their all too meagre property, more frequently fail to carry out the obligations they undertake and in general more readily leave for other gubernias, even when they could find plenty of employment at home." "Such peasants, having little attachment (sic !) to their own inadequate allotments, and sometimes not even possessing implements, more readily abandon their homes and go to seek their fortunes far from their native villages, without troubling about employment locally, and sometimes even about obligations undertaken, since they have nothing on which distraint can be made" (ibid.).
"Little attachment!" That's just the term.
It should give food for thought to those who talk about the disadvantages of "peregrination" and the preferableness of local "occupations close at hand"!*
* Here is another example of the pernicious influence of Narodnik prejudices. Mr. Tezyakov, whose splendid work we have frequently quoted, notes the fact that from Kherson Gubernia many local workers go to that of Taurida, although there is a great shortage of labour in the former gubernia. He calls this "an extremely queer phenomenon": it means a loss to the employers and a loss to the workers, who abandon jobs at home and risk finding none in Taurida" (33). We, on the contrary, think that Mr. Tezyakov's statement is extremely queer. Do the workers really not understand what is to their advantage, [cont. onto p. 251. -- DJR] and have they not the right to seek the most advantageous conditions of employment they can get? (In Taurida Gubernia the wages of agricultural workers are higher than in Kherson Gubernia.) Are we really to think that it is obligatory for the muzhik to live and work where he is registered and "provided with an allotment"?
page 251
3) "Peregrinations" mean creating mobility of the population. Peregrinations are one of the most important factors preventing the peasants from "gathering moss," of which more than enough has been fastened on them by history. Unless the population becomes mobile, it cannot develop, and it would be naïve to imagine that a village school can teach people what they can learn from an independent acquaintance with the different relations and orders of things in the South and in the North, in agriculture and in industry, in the capital and in the backwoods.
page 252<"c4">
C H A P T E R I V THE GROWTH OF COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURE
Having examined the internal economic structure of peasant and landlord economy, we must now take up the question of the changes in agricultural production and ask: do these changes express a growth of capitalism and of the home market?<"c4s1">
I. GENERAL DATA ON AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION
IN POST-REFORM RUSSIA AND ON THE TYPES
OF COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURELet us glance first of all at the general statistics on grain production in European Russia. The considerable harvest fluctuations render the data for individual periods or for individual years quite useless.* It is necessary to take different periods and the data for a whole number of years. We have at our disposal the following data: for the period of the 60s, the data for 1864-1866 (Military Statistical Abstract, IV, St. Petersburg, 1871, data of gubernatorial reports). For the 70s, the returns of the Department of Agriculture for the entire decade (Historico-Statistical Survey of Russian Industry, Vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1883). And lastly, for the 1880s, we have data for the five years of 1883-1887 (Statistics of the Russian Empire, IV); this five-year period can represent the whole of the eighties, since the average harvest for the ten years, 1880-1889, is even somewhat higher than for the five years 1883-1887 (see Agricul-
* If only for this reason, Mr. N.-on is absolutely wrong in drawing the boldest conclusions from the returns for 8 years of one decade (1871-1878)!
page 253ture and Forestry in Russia, published for the Chicago Exhibition, pp. 132 and 142). Further, in order to judge of the trend of evolution in the 90s we take the data for the decade 1885-1894 (Productive Forces, I, 4). Lastly, the data for 1905 (Yearbook of Russia, 1906) are quite adequate for a judgement of the present time. The 1905 harvest was only a little lower than the average for the five years 1900-1904.
Let us compare all these data.[*]
Fifty gubernias of European Russia [93] Million chetverts
Period
Popu-
lation
(both
sexes,
millions)
Sown
Net
yield
Sown
Net
yield
Net
per capita yield,
in chetverts, of
All crops,
i.e., cereals
plus potatoes
Potatoes
Cer-
eals
Pota-
toes
All
crops
1864-1866
1870-1879
1883-1887
1885-1894
(1900-1904)
-1905
61.4
69.8
81.7
86.3
107.8
72.2
75.6
80.3
92.6
103.5
152.8
211.3
255.2
265.2
396.5
6.9
8.7
10.8
16.5
24.9
17.0
30.4
36.2
44.3
93.9
2.21
2.59
2.68
2.57
2.81
0.27
0.43
0.44
0.50
0.87
2.48
3.02
3.12
3.07
3.68
We see from this that until the 1890s the post-Reform era is characterised by an undoubted increase in the production both of cereals and potatoes. The productivity of agricultural labour rises: firstly, the size of the net yield grows faster than that of the sown area (with occasional exceptions); secondly, we must bear in mind that the proportion of the population engaged in agricultural production steadily diminished during this period owing to the diversion of the population from agriculture to commerce and industry, and also owing to the migration of peasants beyond the bounds of European Russia.** What is particularly <"fnp253">
* For the period 1883-1887 we have taken the population of 1885; the increase is taken at 1.2%. The difference between the data of the gubernatorial reports and those of the Department of Agriculture is, as we know, inconsiderable. The figures for 1905 have been arrived at by converting poods into chetverts (about six bushels each. --Ed.)
** Mr. N.-on is quite wrong when he asserts that "there are no grounds whatever for assuming a decline in their number" (the number of persons engaged in agricultural production), "quite the contrary" (Sketches, 33, note). See Chapter VIII, § II.
page 254noteworthy is the fact that it is commercial agriculture that is growing: there is an increase in the amount of grain gathered (after subtracting seed) per head of the population, while among this population there is an ever-growing division of social labour; there is an increase in the commercial and industrial population; the agricultural population splits up into rural entrepreneurs and a rural proletariat; there is an extension of specialisation in agriculture itself, so that the amount of grain produced for sale grows far more rapidly than the total amount of grain produced in the country. The capitalist character of the process is strikingly illustrated by the increased share of potatoes in the total agricultural production.[*] The increase in the area under potatoes signifies, on the one hand, an improvement in agricultural technique (the introduction of root-crops) and increased technical processing of agricultural produce (distilling and the manufacture of potato starch). On the other hand, it is, from the viewpoint of the rural entrepreneur class, the production of relative surplus-value (cheapening of the cost of maintaining labour-power, deterioration of the people's nourishment). The data for the decade 1885-1894 show further that the crisis of 1891-1892, which tremendously intensified the expropriation of the peasantry, led to a considerable reduction in the output of cereals and to a reduction in the yield of all crops; but the process of the displacement of cereals by potatoes continued with such force that the per-capita output of potatoes increased, notwithstanding the reduced yield. Finally, the last five years (1900-1904) also show an increase in agricultural production, an increase in the productivity of agricultural labour <"fnp254">
* The net per-capita potato crop increased between 1864-1866 and 1870-1879 in all areas of European Russia without exception. Between 1870-1879 and 1883-1887 the increase took place in 7 areas out of 11 (the Baltic, Western, Industrial, North-Western, Northern, Southern, Steppe, Lower- and Transvolga areas).<"p254">
Cf. Agricultural Statistical Information Based on Material Obtained from Farmers, Vol. VII, St. Petersburg, 1897 (published by Ministry of Agriculture).[94] In 1871, in the 50 gubernias of European Russia, the area under potatoes was 790,000 dess. in 1881 -- 1,375,000 dess. and in 1895 -- 2,154,000 dess, i.e., an increase during the 15 years of 55% . Taking the potato crop in 1841 as 100, we get the following figures for the later years: 1861 -- 120; 1871 -- 162; 1881 -- 297; 1895 -- 530.
page 255and a worsening of the conditions of the working-class (increase in the part played by potatoes).
As we have noted above, the growth of commercial agriculture manifests itself in the specialisation of agriculture. Mass-scale and gross data on the production of all crops can give (and then not always) only the most general indications of this process, since the specific features of the different areas thereby disappear. Yet it is precisely the segregation of the different agricultural areas that is one of the most characteristic features of post-Reform agriculture in Russia. Thus, the Historico-Statistical Survey of Russian Industry (Vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1883), quoted by us, enumerates the following agricultural areas: the flax area, "the region where stock farming predominates," and where, in particular, "dairy farming is considerably developed"; the region where grain crops predominate, particularly the three-field area and the area with the improved fallow or multi-field grass system (part of the steppe belt, which "is characterised by the production of the most valuable, so-called élite grains, mainly intended for the foreign market"); the beet area, and the area in which potatoes are cultivated for distilling purposes. "The economic areas indicated have arisen in European Russia comparatively recently, and with every passing year continue increasingly to develop and become more segregated" (loc. cit., p. 15).* Our task should now be, consequently, to study this process of the specialisation of agriculture, and we should ascertain whether a growth of commercial agriculture is to be observed in its various forms, whether capitalist agriculture comes into existence in the process, and whether agricultural capitalism bears the features we indicated above in analysing the general data on peasant and landlord farming. It goes without saying that for our purposes it will be sufficient if we confine ourselves to describing the principal areas of commercial agriculture.
* Cf. also Agriculture and Forestry in Russia, pp. 84-88; here a tobacco area is added. The maps drawn by Messrs. D. Semyonov and A. Fortunatov show the areas according to the particular crops predominating in them; for example the rye, oat and flax area, Pskov and Yaroslavl gubernias; the rye, oat and potato area, Grodno and Moscow gubernias, and so on.
page 256
But before examining the data for the separate areas, let us note the following: the Narodnik economists, as we have seen, do all they can to evade the fact that the characteristic feature of the post-Reform period is the growth of commercial agriculture. Naturally, in doing so they also ignore the circumstance that the drop in grain prices is bound to stimulate the specialisation of agriculture and the drawing of agricultural produce into the sphere of exchange. Here is an instance. The authors of the well-known book The Influence of Harvests and Grain Prices all proceed from the postulate that the price of grain is of no importance to natural economy, and they repeat this "truism" endlessly. One of them, Mr. Kablukov, has observed, however, that under the general conditions of commodity production this postulate is substantially wrong. "It is possible, of course," he writes, "that the grain placed on the market has cost less to produce than that grown on the consumer's farm, in which case it would appear to be in the interest also of the consuming farm to change from cultivating cereals to other crops" (or to other occupations, we would add), "and, consequently, for it too the market price of grain assumes importance as soon as it fails to coincide with its cost of production" (I, 98, note, author's italics). "But we cannot take that into account," he says peremptorily. Why is that? Because, it seems: 1) a change-over to other crops is possible "only where certain conditions exist." By means of this empty truism (everything on earth is possible only under certain conditions!) Mr. Kablukov calmly evades the fact that the post-Reform period in Russia has created, and continues to create, the very conditions that call for the specialisation of agriculture and the diversion of the population from agriculture. . . . 2) Because "in our climate it is impossible to find a crop equal to cereals in food value". The argument is highly original, expressing a mere evasion of the issue. What has the food value of other crops to do with the matter, if we are dealing with the sale of these other crops and the purchase of cheap grain? . . . 3) Because "grain farms of the consuming type always have a rational basis for their existence." In other words, because Mr. Kablukov "and colleagues" regard natural economy as "rational." The argument, as you see, is irrefutable. . . .
page 257<"c4s2">
II. THE COMMERCIAL GRAIN-FARMING AREAThis area covers the outer region in the south and the east of European Russia, the steppe gubernias of Novorossia and the Transvolga. Agriculture is distinguished here for its extensive character and the enormous scale of the production of grain for sale. If we take the eight gubernias of Kherson, Bessarabia, Taurida, Don, Ekaterinoslav, Saratov, Samara and Orenburg, we shall find that in 1883-1887 the net crop of cereals (not including oats) for a population of 13,877,000 amounted to 41.3 million chetverts, i.e., more than one-fourth of the total net yield of the 50 gubernias of European Russia. The crop most commonly sown here is wheat -- the principal export grain.[*] Agriculture develops here fastest of all (by comparison with the other areas of Russia), and these gubernias relegate the central black-earth gubernias, formerly in the lead, to the background:
Net per capita cereal crop
in the periods[**]
Areas of gubernias
1864-1866
1870-1879
1883-1887
Southern-steppe . . . . . . .
Lower Volga and Transvolga . . . .
Central black-earth . . . . . .
2.09
2.12
3.32
2.14
2.96
3.88
3.42
3.35
3.28
Thus there is a shifting of the principal centre of grain production: in the 1860s and 1870s the central black-earth gubernias were ahead of all the rest, but in the 1880s they yielded priority to the steppe and Lower Volga gubernias: their production of grain began to diminish.This interesting fact of the enormous growth of agricultural production in the area described is to be explained by the circumstance that in the post-Reform period the outer steppe regions have been colonies of the central, long-settled part of European Russia. The abundance of free land has attracted an enormous stream of settlers, who <"fnp257">
* Except for Saratov Gubernia, with 14.3% under wheat, in the rest of the gubernias mentioned we find 37.6% to 57.8% under wheat.
** Sources given above. Areas of gubernias according to Historico-Statistical Survey. The "Lower Volga and Transvolga area is badly constituted, for to the steppe gubernias, with their enormous production of grain, have been added that of Astrakhan (lacking grain for its food requirements) and of Kazan and of Simbirsk, which should more appropriately be included in the central black-earth belt.
page 258have quickly increased the area under crops.[*] The extensive development of commercial crops was possible only because of the close economic ties of these colonies with central Russia, on the one hand, and the European grain-importing countries, on the other. The development of industry in central Russia and the development of commercial farming in the outer regions are inseparably connected and create a market for each other. The industrial gubernias received grain from the South, selling there the products of their factories and supplying the colonies with labour, artisans (see Chapter V, § III on the migration of small industrialists to the outer regions), and means of production (timber, building materials, tools, etc.). Only because of this social division of labour could the settlers in the steppe localities engage exclusively in agriculture and sell huge quantities of grain in the home and particularly in the foreign market. Only because of their close connection with the home and foreign markets could the economic development of these localities proceed so rapidly; and it was precisely capitalist development, for along with the growth of commercial farming there was an equally rapid process of the diversion of the population into industry, the process of the growth of towns and of the formation of new centres of large-scale industry (see below, Chapters VII and VIII).** <"fnp258">
* See Mr. V. Mikhailovsky's material (Novoye Slovo, [New Word ], June 1897) on the enormous increase in the population of the outer regions and on the migration to these parts, from 1885 to 1897, of hundreds of thousands of peasants from the interior gubernias. On the increase in the area under crops, see the above-mentioned work by V. Postnikov, the Zemstvo statistical returns for Samara Gubernia; Grigoryev's Peasant Migration from Ryazan Gubernia. On Ufa Gubernia, see Remezov's Sketches of the Life of Wild Bashkiria -- a vivid description of how the "colonisers" felled timber for shipbuilding and transformed the fields "cleared" of "wild" Bashkirs into "wheat factories." This is a sample of colonial policy that bears comparison with any of the Germans' exploits in a place like Africa.
<"p295"> ** Cf. Marx, Das Kapital, III, 2, 289, -- one of the basic features of the capitalist colony is abundance of free land easily accessible to settlers (the Russian translation of this passage, p.623, is quite wrong).[95] Also see III, 2, 210. Russ. trans., p. 553, -- the enormous grain surplus in the agricultural colonies is to be explained by the fact that their entire population is at first "almost exclusively engaged in farming, and particularly in producing agricultural mass products," which [cont. onto p. 259. --<"p259"> DJR] are exchanged for industrial products "They [the colonial states] receive through the world market finished products . . . which they would have to produce themselves under other circumstances."[96]
page 259
As to the question of whether the growth of commercial farming in this area is bound up with technical progress in agriculture and with the creation of capitalist relations, that has been dealt with above. In Chapter II we saw how large the areas cultivated by peasants in these localities are and how sharply capitalist relations manifest themselves there even within the village community. In the preceding chapter we saw that in this area there has been a particularly rapid development in the use of machinery, that the capitalist farms in the outer regions attract hundreds of thousands and millions of wage-workers, with huge farms created on a scale unprecedented in agriculture, on which there is extensive co-operation of wage-workers, etc. We have little left now to add in completion of this picture.
In the outer steppe regions the privately-owned estates are not only distinguished occasionally for their enormous size, but are also the scene of farming on a very big scale. Above we made reference to crop areas of 8, 10 and 15 thousand dessiatines in Samara Gubernia. In Taurida Gubernia, Falz-Fein owns 200,000 dess., Mordvinov 80,000 dess.; two individuals own 60,000 dess. each, "and many proprietors have from 10,000 to 25,000 dessiatines" (Shakhovskoi, 42). An idea of the scale of farming can be obtained, for example, from the fact that in 1893 there were 1,100 machines (of which 1,000 belonged to the peasantry) haymaking for Falz-Fein. In Kherson Gubernia there were 3.3 million dessiatines under cultivation in 1893, of which 1.3 million dess. belonged to private owners; in five uyezds of the gubernia (without Odessa Uyezd) there were 1,237 medium-sized farms (250 to 1,000 dess. of land), 405 big farms(1,000 to 2,500 dess.) and 226 farms each of over 2,500 dess. According to data gathered in 1890 on 526 farms, they employed 35,514 workers, i.e., an average of 67 workers per farm, of whom from 16 to 30 were annual labourers. In 1893, 100 more or less big farms in Elisavetgrad Uyezd employed 11,197 workers (an average of 112 per farm!), of whom 17.4% were annual,
page 26039.5% seasonal, and 43.1% day labourers.[*] Here are data on the distribution of crop area among all the agricultural undertakings in the uyezd, both of private landowners and of peasants.[**]
Approximate
area under crops
(in thousand
dess.)
Farms with no cultivation
" " up to 5 dess. sown
" " 5 to 10 " "
" " 10 to 25 " "
" " 25 to 100 " "
" " 100 to 1,000 " "
" " over 1,000 " "
15,228
26,963
19,194
10,234
2,005
372
10
\
> 2,387
/
--
74.6
144
157
91 \
110
14 /
> 215
Total for uyezd
74,006
590.6
Thus, a little over 3 per cent of the peasants (and if we count only those who cultivated, 4 per cent) concentrate in their hands more than a third of the total area under crops, for the tilling and harvesting of which masses of seasonal and day labourers are required.Lastly, here are the data for Novouzensk Uyezd, Samara Gubernia. In Chapter II we took only Russian peasants farming community allotments; now we add Germans and farmstead peasants (those farming non-community holdings). Unfortunately no data are available for the farms of private landowners.*** <"fnp260">
* Tezyakov, loc. cit.
** Material for Evaluating the Lands of Kherson Gubernia, Vol. II, Kherson 1886. The number of dessiatines cultivated by each group was determined by multiplying the average area under crops by the number of farms. The number of groups has been reduced.
*** Returns for Novouzensk Uyezd. -- All rented land, state, privately-owned and allotment, has been taken. Here is a list of the improved implements owned by the Russian farmstead peasants: 609 iron ploughs, 16 steam threshers, 89 horse-threshers, 110 mowers 64 horse-drawn rakes, 61 winnowers and 64 reaping machines. The number of employed workers did not include day labourers.
page 261
Novouzensk
Uyezd,
Samara
Gubernia
House-
holds
Land
Area
culti-
vated
Animals
(total,
in
terms
of
cattle)
Im-
proved
agri-
cultural
imple-
ments
Em-
ploy-
ed work-
ers
Average per household
pur-
chased
rent-
ed
Land
Area
cul-
tiv-
ated
Animals (total, in terms of cattle)
pur-
chased
rent-
ed
Dessiatines
Dessiatines
Total for
uyezd
51,348
130,422
751,873
816,133
343,260
13,778
8,278
2.5
14.6
15.9
6.7
Farms with
10 and more
draught
animals
3,958
117,621
580,158
327,527
151,744
10,598
6,055
29
146
82
38
Of which --
Russian
farmstead
peasants
with 20 and
more draught
animals
218
57,083
253,669
59.137
39,520
1,013
1,379
261
1,163
271
181
There is no need, apparently, to comment on these data. We have had occasion to observe that the area described is the most typical of agricultural capitalism in Russia -- typical not in the agricultural sense, of course, but in the social-economic sense. These colonies, having developed with the greatest freedom, show us what relations could and should have developed in the rest of Russia, had not the numerous survivals of pre-Reform life retarded the development of capitalism. The forms, however, of agricultural capitalism, as will be seen from what follows, are extremely varied.<"c4s3">
III. THE COMMERCIAL STOCK-FARMING AREA.
GENERAL DATA ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF DAIRY FARMINGWe now pass to another very important area of agricultural capitalism in Russia, namely, the region in which not cereal, but livestock produce is of predominant significance. This region embraces, apart from the Baltic and the western gubernias, the northern, the industrial and parts of some of the central gubernias (Ryazan, Orel, Tula, and Nizhni-Novgorod). Here animals are kept for dairy produce, and the whole character of agriculture is adapted to obtaining as large a quantity as possible of the more valuable market
page 262produce of this sort.[*] "Before our very eyes a marked transition is taking place from stock farming for manure to stock farming for dairy produce; it has been particularly noticeable during the past ten years" (work quoted in previous footnote, ibid.). It is very difficult by the use of statistics to describe the various regions of Russia in this respect, because it is not the total number of horned cattle that is here important, but the number of dairy cattle and their quality. If we take the total number of animals per hundred inhabitants, we shall find that it is biggest in the outer steppe regions of Russia and smallest in the non-black-earth belt (Agriculture and Forestry, 274); we shall find that as time goes on the number diminishes (Productive Forces, III, 6. Cf. Historico-Statistical Survey, I). Hence, we observe here what Roscher noted in his day, namely, that the number of animals per unit of the population is largest in districts of "extensive livestock farming" (W. Roscher, Nationaloekonomik des Ackerbaues. 7-te Aufl., Stuttg., 1873, S. 563 564[**]). We, however, are interested in intensive livestock farming, and in dairy farming in particular. We are compelled, therefore, to confine ourselves to the approximate computation made by the authors of the above-mentioned, Sketch, without claiming to make an exact estimate of the phenomenon; such a computation clearly illustrates the relative positions of the various regions of Russia as to degree of dairy-farm development. We quote this computation in extenso, supplementing it with some averages arrived at and data on the cheese-making industry in 1890 according to "factory" statistics. <"fnp262">
* In other parts of Russia stock farming is of a different kind. For example, in the extreme South and South-East, the most extensive form of stock farming has become established, namely, cattle-fattening for beef. Further north, horned cattle are used as draught animals. Lastly, in the central black-earth belt cattle are used as "manure-making machines." V. Kovalevsky and I. Levitsky, Statistical Sketch of Dairy Farming in the Northern and Central Belts of European Russia (St. Petersburg, 1879). The authors of this work, like the majority of agricultural experts, display very little interest in the social-economic aspect of the matter or understanding of this aspect It is quite wrong, for example, to draw from the fact of farms becoming more profitable the direct conclusion that they ensure "the people's well-being and nutriment" (p. 2).
<"fnp262a"> ** W. Roscher, Economics of Agriculture, 7th edition, Stuttgart 1873, pp. 563-564. --Ed.
page 263
Groups
of
gubernias
Popu-
lation,
both
sexes
(thous.)
(1873)
Milch
cows
(thous.)
Amount of
Aver-
age
milk
yield
per
cow
(ved-
ros)
Per 100
inhabitants
Thousand rubles
milk,
in
thous.
ved-
ros[*]
but-
ter,
in
thous.
poods
milch
cows
milk,
ved-
ros
but-
ter,
poods
Approx-
imate output
of cheese,
soft cheese
and butter
in 1879
Cheese
output
in
1890
I. Baltic and Western
(9) . . . . .
8,127
1,101
34,070
297
31
13.6
420
3.6
?
469
II. Northern (10) . .
12,227
1,407
50,000
461
35
11.4
409
3.7
3,370.7
563
III. Industrial (non-
black-earth (7). .
8,822
662
18,810
154
28
7.5
214
1.7
1,088
295
IV. Central (black-
earth) (8) . . .
12,387
785
16,140
133
20
6.3
130
1.0
242.7
23
V. South black-earth,
South-West, South-
ern and East-steppe
(16) . . . . .
24,087
1,123
20,880
174
18
4.6
86
0.7
--
--
Total for 50 gubernias
of European Russia. .
65,650
5,078
139,900
1,219
27
7.7
213
1.8
4,701.4
1,350
<"fnp263"> * 1 vedros = 2.6 gallons. -- Ed.
page 264
This table clearly illustrates (though the data are very obsolete) the emergence of special dairy-farming areas, the development there of commercial farming (the sale of milk and milk-processing) and the increase in the productivity of dairy cattle.
To judge the development of dairy farming, we can only make use of data on butter production and cheese making. This industry arose in Russia at the very end of the 18th century (1795); cheese making on landlords' estates began to develop in the 19th century, but suffered a severe crisis in the 1860s, which opened the period of cheese making by peasants and merchants.
The number of cheese-making establishments in the 50 gubernias of European Russia was as follows:*
In
"
"
1866 72 with 226 workers and output valued at
1879 108 " 289 " " " " "
1890 265 " 865 " " " " "
119,000 rbs.
225,000 "
1,350,000 "
Thus, in 25 years production increased more than ten-fold; only the dynamics of the phenomenon may be judged from these data, which are extremely incomplete. Let us quote some more detailed material. In Vologda Gubernia an improvement in dairy farming began, properly speaking, in 1872, when the Yaroslavl-Vologda railway was opened; since then "farmers have begun to see to the improvement of their herds, to introduce grass cultivation, to acquire improved implements . . . and have tried to place dairy farming on a purely commercial basis" (Statistical Sketch,
* Data from Military Statistical Abstract and Mr. Orlov's Directory (1st and 3rd eds.). Concerning these sources, see Chapter VII. Let us merely observe that the figures quoted minimise the actual rapidity of development, since the term "factory" or "works" was employed in a narrower sense in 1879 than in 1866; and in 1890 in a still narrower sense than in 1879. The 3rd ed of the Directory contains information on the date of establishment of 230 factories; it appears that only 26 were established before 1870, 68 in the 70s, 122 in the 80s and 14 in 1890. This speaks of a rapid increase in production. As for the latest List of Factories and Works (St. Petersburg, 1897), utter chaos reigns there: cheese making is registered for two or three gubernias and for the rest omitted altogether.
page 26520). In Yaroslavl Gubernia "the ground was prepared" by the so-called "cheese-making artels" of the 70s, and "cheese making continues to develop on the basis of private enterprise, merely retaining the title of 'artel'" (25); cheese making "artels" figure -- may we add -- in the Directory of Factories and Works as establishments employing wage-workers. Instead of 295,000 rubles, the authors of the Sketch estimate the output of cheese and butter, according to official returns, at 412,000 rubles (computed from figures scattered throughout the book); correction of the figure brings the value of the output of fresh butter and cheese to 1,600,000 rubles, and if we add clarified butter and soft cheese, to 4,701,400 rubles, not counting either the Baltic or the western gubernias.
For the later period let us quote the following opinions from the above-cited publication of the Department of Agriculture Hired Labour, etc. Concerning the industrial gubernias in general we read: "A complete revolution in the position of the farms in this area has been brought about by the development of dairy farming"; it "indirectly has also helped to bring about an improvement in agriculture"; "dairy farming in the area is developing with every year" (258). In Tver Gubernia "there is to be observed the tendency both among private landowners and peasants to improve the methods of maintaining cattle"; the income from stock farming is estimated at 10 million rubles (274). In Yaroslavl Gubernia "dairy farming . . . is developing with every year. . . . Cheese and butter making have even begun to assume something of an industrial character . . . milk . . . is bought up from neighbours and even from peasants. One comes across cheese factories run by a whole company of owners" (285). "The general trend of private-landowner farming here," writes a correspondent from Danilov Uyezd, Yaroslavl Gubernia, "is marked at the present time by the following: 1) the transition from three-field to five- and seven-field crop rotation, with the sowing of herbage in the fields; 2) the ploughing up of disused lands; 3) the introduction of dairy farming, and as a consequence, the stricter selection of cattle and an improvement in their maintenance" (292). The same thing is said of Smolensk Gubernia, where the value of the output of cheese and butter amounted to
page 266240,000 rubles in 1889 -- according to a report of the Governor (according to statistical returns, 136,000 rubles in 1890). The development of dairy farming is noted in the Kaluga, Kovno, Nizhni-Novgorod, Pskov, Esthland and Vologda gubernias. The value of the output of butter and cheese in the last-mentioned gubernia was estimated at 35,000 rubles according to statistics for 1890, to 108,000 rubles according to the Governor's report, and to 500,000 rubles according to local returns for 1894, which gave a total of 389 factories. "That is what the statistics say. Actually, however, there are far more factories, since, according to investigations by the Vologda Zemstvo Board, there are 224 factories in Vologda Uyezd alone." Production is developed in three uyezds, and has partly penetrated a fourth.[*] One can judge from this how many times the above quoted figures need to be multiplied in order to approach the real situation. The plain view of an expert that at the present time the number of butter and cheese-making establishments "amounts to several thousand" (Agriculture and Forestry in Russia, 299), gives a truer picture of the facts than the allegedly exact figure of 265.
Thus the data leave not the slightest doubt about the enormous development of this special type of commercial farming. The growth of capitalism was accompanied here too by the transformation of routine technique. "In the sphere of cheese making," we read, for example, in Agriculture and Forestry, "more has been done in Russia during the last 25 years than perhaps in any other country" (301). Mr. Blazhin says the same thing in his article "Technical Progress in Dairy Farming" (Productive Forces, III, 38-45). The principal change is that the "age-old" method of leaving cream to settle has been replaced by the system of <"fnp266">
* Nedelya [Week ], 1896, No. 13. Dairy farming is so profitable that urban traders have rushed into the business and, incidentally, have introduced such methods as the settlement of accounts in goods. One local landowner, who has a large factory, organised an artel "with prompt cash payment for milk" in order to release the peasants from bondage to buyers-up and to "capture new markets." A characteristic example, showing the real significance of artels and of the celebrated "organisation of sales," namely, "emancipation" from merchant's capital through the development of industrial capital.
page 267separating cream in centrifugal machines (separators);[*] The machine has enabled the work to be carried on irrespective of atmospheric temperature, increased the butter yield from milk by 10%, improved the quality of the product, reduced the cost of butter production (the machine requires less labour, space, and ice, as well as fewer utensils), and has led to the concentration of production. Large peasant butteries have grown up, handling "as much as 500 poods of milk a day, which was physically impossible . . . when the milk was left to settle" (ibid.). Improvements are being made in the instruments of production (permanent boilers, screw presses, improved cellars), and production is being assisted by bacteriology, which is providing pure cultures of the type of lactic-acid bacilli needed for fermenting cream.
Thus, in the two areas of commercial farming we have described, the technical improvements called into being by the requirements of the market were effected primarily in those operations that were easiest to change and are particularly important for the market: reaping, threshing and winnowing in commercial grain farming, and the technical processing of animal produce in the area of commercial stock farming. As to the keeping of cattle, capital finds it more profitable for the time being to leave that to the small producer: let him "diligently" and "industriously" tend "his" cattle (and charm Mr. V. V. with his diligence -- see Progressive Trends, p. 73), let him bear the brunt of the hardest and roughest work of tending the milk-yielding machine. Capital possesses the latest improvements and methods not only of separating the cream from the milk, but also of separating the "cream" from this "diligence", of separating the milk from the children of the peasant poor.
<"c4s4">
IV. CONTINUATION. THE ECONOMY OF LANDLORD FARMING
IN THE AREA DESCRIBEDWe have cited , the evidence of agronomists and farmers to the effect that dairy farming on the landlord estates leads to the rationalisation of agriculture. Let us <"fnp267">
* Until 1882 there were hardly any separators in Russia. From 1886 onward they spread so rapidly as to displace the old method utterly. In the 1890s even butter-extractor separators appeared.
page 268add here that the analysis of the Zemstvo statistics on this question made by Mr. Raspopin[*] fully confirms this conclusion. We refer the reader to Mr. Raspopin's article for detailed data and give here only his main conclusion. "The interdependence of the condition of stock raising and dairy farming, on the one hand, and the number of dilapidated estates and the intensity of farming, on the other, is beyond question. The uyezds (of Moscow Gubernia) where dairy cattle raising, dairy farming, is most developed show the smallest percentage of dilapidated farms and the highest percentage of estates with highly developed field cultivation. Throughout Moscow Gubernia ploughland is being reduced and turned into meadow and pastureland, while grain rotations are yielding place to multi-field herbage rotations. Fodder grasses and dairy cattle, and not grain, are now predominant . . . not only on the farming estates in Moscow Gubernia but throughout the Moscow industrial district" (loc. cit.).
The scale of butter production and cheese making is particularly important precisely because it testifies to a complete revolution in agriculture, which becomes entrepreneur farming and breaks with routine. Capitalism subordinates to itself one of the products of agriculture, and all other aspects of farming are fitted in with this principal product. The keeping of dairy cattle calls forth the cultivation of grasses, the change-over from the three-field system to multi-field systems, etc. The waste products of cheese making go to fatten cattle for the market. Not only milk processing, but the whole of agriculture becomes a commercial enterprise.** The influence of cheese production and <"fnp268">
* This problem also has been raised by Mr. Raspopin (perhaps for the first time in our literature) from the correct, theoretically sound point of view. At the very outset he observes that "the enhancement of the productivity of stock farming -- in particular, the development of dairy farming -- is proceeding in this country along capitalist lines and serves as one of the most important indices of the penetration of capital into agriculture.
** Dr. Zhbankov says in his Sanitary Investigation of Factories and Works of Smolensk Gubernia (Smolensk, 1894, Vol. I, p. 7) that "the number of workers engaged in cheese making proper . . . is very inconsiderable. . . . There are far more auxiliary workers, needed both for cheese making and for agriculture; these are herdsmen, milkmaids, [cont. onto p. 269. -- DJR] etc.; in all the [cheese] factories these workers outnumber the cheese makers proper, two, three and even four times over." Let us note in passing that according to Dr. Zhbankov's description, the conditions of labour here are very insanitary, and the working day is excessively long (16 to 17 hours), etc. Thus, in the case of this area of commercial agriculture, too, the traditional notion of the idyllic occupation of the agriculturist is a false one.
page 269butter making is not confined to the farms on which they are carried on, since milk is often bought up from the surrounding peasants and landlords. By buying up the milk, capital subordinates to itself the small agriculturists too, particularly with the organisation of the so-called "amalgamated dairies," the spread of which was noted in the 70s (see Sketch by Messrs. Kovalevsky and Levitsky). These are establishments organised in big towns, or in their vicinity, which process very large quantities of milk brought in by rail. As soon as the milk arrives the cream is skimmed and sold fresh, while the skimmed milk is sold at a low price to poorer purchasers. To ensure that they get produce of a certain quality, these establishments sometimes conclude contracts with the suppliers, obliging them to adhere to certain rules in feeding their cows. One can easily see how great is the significance of large establishments of this kind: on the one hand they capture the public market (the sale of skimmed milk to the poorer town-dwellers), and on the other hand they enormously expand the market for the rural entrepreneurs. The latter are given a tremendous impetus to expand and improve commercial farming. Large-scale industry brings them into line, as it were, by demanding produce of a definite quality and forcing out of the market (or placing at the mercy of the usurers) the small producer who falls below the "normal" standard. There should also operate in the same direction the grading of milk as to quality (fat content, for example), on which technicians are so busily engaged, inventing all sorts of lacto-densimeters, etc., and of which the experts are so heartily in favour (cf. Productive Forces, III, 9 and 38). In this respect the role of the amalgamated dairies in the development of capitalism is quite analogous to that of elevators in commercial grain farming. By sorting grain as to quality the elevators turn it into a product that is not individual
page 270<"p270"> but generic (res fungibilis,[97] as the lawyers say), i.e., for the first time they adapt it fully to exchange (cf. M. Sering's article on the grain trade in the United States of America in the symposium Landownership and Agriculture, p. 281 and foll.). Thus, the elevators give a powerful impetus to commodity-grain production and spur on its technical development by also introducing grading for quality. Such a system strikes a double blow at the small producer. Firstly, it sets up as a standard, legalises, the higher-quality grain of the big crop sowers and thereby greatly depreciates the inferior grain of the peasant poor. Secondly, by organising the grading and storing of grain on the lines of large-scale capitalist industry, it reduces the big sowers' expenses on this item and facilitates and simplifies the sale of grain for them, thereby placing the small producer, with his patriarchal and primitive methods of selling from the cart in the market, totally at the mercy of the kulaks and the usurers. Hence, the rapid development of elevator construction in recent years means as big a victory for capital and degradation of the small commodity-producer in the grain business as does the appearance and development of capitalist "amalgamated dairies."
From the foregoing material it is clear that the development of commercial stock farming creates a home market,* firstly, for means of production -- milk-processing equipment, premises, cattle sheds, improved agricultural implements required for the change-over from the routine three-field system to multi-field crop rotations, etc.; and secondly, for labour-power. Stock farming placed on an industrial footing requires a far larger number of workers <"fnp270">
* The market for commercial stock farming is created chiefly by the growth of the industrial population, with which we shall deal in detail later on (Chapter VIII, § II). As regards foreign trade, let us confine ourselves to the following remarks: cheese exports in the early part of the post-Reform period were much below imports; but in the 90s they almost equalled them (for the 4 years 1891-1894, the annual average imports amounted to 41,800 poods, and exports to 40,600 poods; in the five years 1886-1890, exports even exceeded imports). The exports of cow and ewe butter have always greatly exceeded imports; these exports are rapidly increasing: in 1866-1870 the average annual exports amounted to 190,000 poods and in 1891-1894 to 370,000 poods (Productive Forces, III, 37).
page 271than the old stock farming "for manure." The dairy farming area -- the industrial and north-western gubernias -- does really attract masses of agricultural labourers. Very many people go to seek agricultural work in the Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yaroslavl and Vladimir gubernias; fewer, but nevertheless a considerable number, go to the Novgorod, Nizhni-Novgorod and other non-black-earth gubernias. According to correspondents of the Department of Agriculture in the Moscow and other gubernias private-landowner farming is actually conducted in the main by labourers from other areas. This paradox -- the migration of agricultural workers from the agricultural gubernias (they come mostly from the central black-earth gubernias and partly from the northern) to the industrial gubernias to do agricultural jobs in place of industrial workers who abandon the area en masse -- is an extremely characteristic phenomenon (see S. A. Korolenko on this point, loc. cit). It proves more convincingly than do any calculations or arguments that the standard of living and the conditions of the working people in the central black-earth gubernias, the least capitalist ones, are incomparably lower and worse than in the industrial gubernias, the most capitalist ones; it proves that in Russia, too, the following has become a universal fact, namely, the phenomenon characteristic of all capitalist countries, that the conditions of the workers in industry are better than those of the workers in agriculture (because in agriculture oppression by capitalism is supplemented by the oppression of pre-capitalist forms of exploitation). That explains the flight from agriculture to industry, whereas not only is there no flow from the industrial gubernias towards agriculture (for example, there is no migration from these gubernias at all), but there is even a tendency to look down upon the "raw" rural workers, who are called "cowherds" (Yaroslavl Gubernia), "cossacks" (Vladimir Gubernia) and "land labourers" (Moscow Gubernia).
It is important also to note that cattle herding requires a larger number of workers in winter than in summer. For that reason, and also because of the development of agricultural processing trades, the demand for labour in the area described not only grows, but is more evenly distributed over the whole year and over a period of years. The most reliable
page 272material for judging this interesting fact is the data on wages, if taken for a number of years. We give these data,<"p272"> confining ourselves to the groups of Great-Russian and Little-Russian gubernias.[98] We omit the western gubernias, owing to their specific social conditions and artificial congestion of population (the Jewish pale of settlement), and quote the Baltic gubernias only to illustrate the relations that arise where capitalism is most highly developed.[*]
<"fnp272">
Groups of
gubernias
Averages for 10 years
(1881-1891)
Averages for 8 years
(1883-1891)
Pay of
worker
in rubles
sum-
mer
pay,
% of
year-
ly
pay
Pay of day
labourer during
harvesting,
in kopeks
D
i
f
f
e
r
e
n
c
e
Pay of
day labourer
in kopeks
D
i
f
f
e
r
e
n
c
e
hired
by the
year
hired
for the
summer
low-
est
aver-
age
high-
est
aver-
age
Dur-
ing
sow-
ing
Average
during
harvest-
ing
I. Southern and east-
ern outer regions
78
50
64%
64
181
117
45
97
52
II. Central black-
earth gubernias
54
38
71%
47
76
29
35
58
23
III. Non-black-earth
gubernias
70
48
68%
54
68
14
49
60
11
Baltic gubernias
82
53
65%
61
70
9
60
67
7
* Group I (the area of capitalist grain farming) consists of 8 gubernias: Bessarabia, Kherson, Taurida, Ekaterinoslav, Don, Samara, Saratov and Orenburg. Group II (the area where capitalism is least developed) consists of 12 gubernias: Kazan, Simbirsk, Penza, Tambov Ryazan, Tula, Orel, Kursk, Voronezh, Kharkov, Poltava and Chernigov. Group III (the area of capitalist dairy farming and industrial capitalism) consists of 10 gubernias: Moscow, Tver, Kaluga, Vladimir, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Nizhni-Novgorod, St. Petersburg, Novgorod and Pskov. The figures showing wages are average gubernia figures. Source: Department of Agriculture publication Hired Labour, etc.
page 273
Let us examine this table, in which the three principal columns are printed in italics. The first column shows the proportion of summer to yearly pay. The lower this proportion is, and the nearer the summer pay approximates to half the yearly pay, the more evenly is the demand for labour spread over the entire year and the less the winter unemployment. The least favourably placed in this respect are the central black-earth gubernias -- the area where labour-service prevails and where capitalism is poorly developed.[*] In the industrial gubernias, in the dairy-farming area the demand for labour is higher and winter unemployment is less. Over a period of years, too, the pay is most stable here, as may be seen from the second column, which shows the difference between the lowest and the highest pay in the harvest season. Lastly, the difference between the pay in the sowing season and the pay in the harvest season is also least in the non-black-earth belt, i.e., the demand for workers is more evenly distributed over the spring and summer. In all respects mentioned the Baltic gubernias stand even higher than the non-black-earth gubernias, while the steppe gubernias, with their immigrant workers and with harvest fluctuations of the greatest intensity, are marked by the greatest instability of wages. Thus, the data on wages testify that agricultural capitalism in the area described not only creates a demand for wage-labour, but also distributes this demand more evenly over the whole year. Lastly, reference must be made to one more type of dependence of the small agriculturist in the area described upon the big farmer. This is the replenishment of landlords' herds by the purchase of cattle from peasants. The landlords find it more profitable to buy cattle from peasants driven by need to sell "at a loss" than to breed cattle themselves -- just as our buyers-up in so-called handicraft industry often prefer to buy finished articles from the handicraftsmen at <"fnp273">
* A similar conclusion is drawn by Mr. Rudnev: "In those localities where the work of labourers hired by the year is given a relatively high valuation the wages of the summer worker approximate more closely to half the yearly pay. Hence, on the contrary, in the western gubernias, and in nearly all the densely-populated central black-earth gubernias, the worker's labour in the summer is given a very low valuation" (loc. cit., 455).
page 274a ruinously cheap price rather than manufacture them in their own workshops. This fact, which testifies to the extreme degradation of the small producer, and to his being able to keep going in modern society only by endlessly reducing his requirements, is turned by Mr. V. V. into an argument in favour of small "people's" production! . . . "We are entitled to draw the conclusion that our big farmers . . . do not display a sufficient degree of independence. . . . The peasant, however . . . reveals greater ability to effect real farming improvements" (Progressive Trends, 77). This lack of independence is expressed in the fact that "our dairy farmers . . . buy up the peasants' (cows) at a price rarely amounting to half the cost of raising them -- usually at not more than a third, and often even a quarter of this cost" (ibid., 71). The merchant's capital of the stock farmers has made the small peasants completely dependent, it has turned them into its cowherds, who breed cattle for a mere song, and has turned their wives into its milkmaids.* One would think that the conclusion to be drawn from this is that there is no sense in retarding the transformation of merchant's capital into industrial capital, no sense in supporting small production, which leads to forcing down the producer's standard of living below that of the farm labourer. But <"fnp274">
* Here are two descriptions of the living standard and living conditions of the Russian peasant in general. M. Y. Saltykov, in Petty Things of Life, writes about the "enterprising muzhik" as follows: "The muzhik needs everything, but what he needs most of all . . . is the ability to exhaust himself, not to stint his own labour. . . . The enterprising muzhik simply expires at it" (work). "His wife and grown up children, too, all toil worse than galley-slaves."
V. Veresayev, in a story entitled "Lizar" Severny Kurier [Northern Courier ], 1899, No. 1), tells the story of a muzhik in the Pskov Gubernia named Lizar, who advocates the use of drops, etc., "to prevent an increase." "Subsequently," observes the author, "I heard from many Zemstvo doctors, and particularly from midwives, that they frequently have similar requests from village husbands and wives." "Moving in a certain direction, life has tried all roads and at last has reached a blind alley. There is no escape from it. And so a new solution of the problem is naturally arising and increasingly maturing."
The position of the peasant in capitalist society is indeed hopeless, and in Russia with its village communities, as in France with its smallholders, leads "naturally" not to an unnatural . . . solution of the problem," of course, but to an unnatural means of postponing the doom of small economy. (Note to 2nd edition.)
page 275Mr. V. V. thinks otherwise. He is delighted with the "zeal" (p. 73, loc. cit.) of the peasant in tending his cattle; he is delighted with the "good results from livestock farming" obtained by the peasant woman who "spends all her life with her cow and sheep" (80). What a blessing, to be sure! To "spend all her life with her cow" (the milk of which goes to the improved cream separator), and as a reward for this life, to receive "one-fourth of the cost" of tending this cow! Now really, how after that can one fail to declare in favour of "small people's production"!
<"c4s5">
V. CONTINUATION. THE DIFFERENTIATION
OF THE PEASANTRY IN THE DAIRY-FARMING AREAIn the literature dealing with the effect of dairy farming on the conditions of the peasantry, we constantly come up against contradictions: on the one hand reference is made to progress in farming, the enlargement of incomes, the improvement of agricultural technique and the acquisition of improved implements; on the other hand, we have statements about the deterioration of food, the creation of new types of bondage and the ruin of the peasants. After what was stated in Chapter II, we should not be surprised at these contradictions: we know that these opposite opinions relate to opposite groups of the peasantry. For a more precise judgement of the subject, let us take the data showing the classification of peasant households according to the number of cows per household.* <"fnp275">
* Zemstvo statistics taken from Mr. Blagoveshchensky's Combined Returns.[99] About 14,000 households in these 18 uyezds are not classified according to the number of cows owned: the total is not 289,079 households, but 303,262. Mr. Blagoveshchensky cites similar data for two other uyezds in the black-earth gubernias, but these uyezds are evidently not typical. In 11 uyezds of Tver Gubernia (Statistical Returns, XIII, 2) the percentage of allotment households owning no cows is not high (9.8), but 21.9% of the households, having 3 and more cows, concentrate in their hands 48.4% of the total number of cows. Horseless households constitute 12.2%; households with 3 and more horses constitute only 5.1% and they own only 13.9% of the total number of horses. Let us note, in passing, that a smaller concentration of horses (as compared with that of cows) is also to be observed in other non-black-earth gubernias.
page 276
Groups of
households
18 uyezds of St. Petersburg, Moscow,
Tver and Smolensk gubernias
St. Petersburg Gubernia,
6 uyezds
No. of
hhlds.
%
No. of
cows
%
cows
per
hhld.
No. of
hhlds.
%
No. of
cows
%
cows
per
hhld.
Households
with no cows
59,336
20.5
--
--
--
15,196
21.2
--
--
--
" " 1 cow
91,737
31.7
91,737
19.8
1
17,579
24.6
17,579
13.5
1
" " 2 cows
81,937
28.4
163,874
35.3
2
20,050
28.0
40,100
31.0
2
" " 3 cows
and more
56,069
19.4
208,735
44.9
3.7
18,676
26.2
71,474
55.5
3.8
Total . . .
289,079
100
464,346
100
1.6
71,501
100
129,153
100
1.8
Thus, the distribution of cows among the peasants in the non-black-earth belt is found to be very similar to the distribution of draught animals among the peasants in the black-earth gubernias (see Chapter II). Moreover, the concentration of dairy cattle in the area described proves to be greater than the concentration of draught animals. This clearly points to the fact that it is with the local form of commercial farming that the differentiation of the peasantry is closely connected. The same connection is evidently indicated by the following data (unfortunately, not sufficiently complete). If we take the aggregate Zemstvo statistics (given by Mr. Blagoveshchensky; for 122 uyezds of 21 gubernias), we get an average of 1.2 cows per household. Hence, in the non-black-earth belt the peasantry evidently own more cows than in the black-earth belt, and in Petersburg Gubernia they are better off than in the non-black earth belt in general. On the other hand, in 123 uyezds of 22 gubernias the cattleless households constitute 13%, while in the 18 uyezds we have taken, they amount to 17%, and in the 6 uyezds of Petersburg Gubernia 18.8%. Hence, the differentiation of the peasantry (in the respect we are now examining) is most marked in Petersburg Gubernia, followed by the non-black-earth belt in general. By this indication, commercial farming is the principal factor in the differentiation of the peasantry.The data show that about half the peasant households (those having no cows, or one cow) can take only a
page 277negative part in the benefits of dairy farming. The peasant with one cow will sell milk only out of need, to the detriment of his children's nourishment. On the other hand, about one-fifth of the households (those with 3 cows and more) concentrate in their hands probably more than half the total dairy farming since the quality of their cattle and the profitableness of their farms should be higher than in the case of the "average" peasant.[*] An interesting illustration of this conclusion is provided by the data on a locality where dairy farming and capitalism in general are highly developed. We refer to Petersburg Uyezd.[**] Dairy farming is particularly widely developed in the summer residential part of the uyezd, inhabited mainly by Russians; here the most widely cultivated crops are: grasses (23.5% of the allotment arable, as against 13.7% for the uyezd), oats (52.3% of the arable) and potatoes (10.1%). Agriculture is directly influenced by the St. Petersburg market, which needs oats, potatoes, hay, milk and horse traction (loc. cit., 168). The families of the registered population are 46.3% engaged "in the milk industry." Of the total number of cows 91% provide milk for the market. The income from this industry amounts to 713,470 rubles (203 rubles per family, 77 rubles per cow). The nearer the locality is to St. Petersburg, the higher is the quality of the cattle and the better the attention they receive. The milk is sold in two ways: 1) to buyers-up on the spot and 2) in St. Petersburg to "dairy farms," etc. The latter type of marketing is much <"fnp277">
* These data regarding the opposite groups of peasants should be borne in mind when one meets sweeping statements like the following: "An annual income from dairy stock farming ranging from 20 to 200 rubles per household is, over the enormous area of the northern gubernias, not only a most considerable means of extending and improving stock farming, but has also had the effect of improving field cultivation and even of reducing migration in search of employment, by providing the population with work at home‹both in tending cattle and in bringing hitherto neglected land into a properly cultivated condition" (Productive Forces, III, 18). On the whole, migration is not decreasing, but increasing. In some localities, however, the decrease may be due either to the increase in the percentage of well-to-do peasants, or to the development of "work at home," i.e., work for local rural entrepreneurs.
<"fnp277a"> ** Material for Statistics on the Economy in St. Petersburg Gubernia, Vol. V, Pt. II, St. Petersburg, 1887.
page 278more profitable, but "the majority of the farms having one or two cows, and sometimes more, are not . . . able to deliver their milk to St. Petersburg direct" -- they have no horses, it does not pay to cart small quantities, etc. The buyers-up of the milk include not only specialist merchants, but individuals with dairies of their own. The following data are for two volosts in the uyezd:
Two volosts in
St. Petersburg Uyezd
No. of
families
No. of
cows
belonging
to them
Cows
per
family
"Earnings"
of these
families
(rubles)
Earnings
Per
family
Per
cow
Families selling milk
to buyers-up . . .
Families selling milk
in St. Petersburg . .
441
119
1,129
649
2.5
5.4
14,884
29,187
33.7
245.2
13.2
44.9
Total . . .
560
1,778
3.2
44,071
78.8
24.7
One can judge from this how the benefits of dairy farming are distributed among all the peasants in the non-black-earth belt, among whom, as we have seen, the concentration of dairy cattle is even greater than among these 560 families. It remains for us to add that 23.1% of the peasant families in St. Petersburg Uyezd hire workers (most of whom, here, as everywhere in agriculture, are day labourers). Bearing in mind that agricultural workers are hired almost exclusively by families having fully-operating farms" (constituting only 40.4% of the total number of families in the uyezd) "the conclusion must be that more than half of such farms do not manage without hired labour" (158). Thus, at opposite ends of Russia, in the most varying localities, in St. Petersburg and, say, Taurida gubernias, the social and economic relations within the "village community," prove to be absolutely identical. The "muzhik-cultivators" (Mr. N.-on's term) in both places differentiate into a minority of rural entrepreneurs and a mass of rural proletarians. The specific feature of agriculture is that capitalism subjugates one aspect of rural economy
page 279in one district, and another aspect in another, which is why identical economic relations are manifested in the most varied forms of agronomy and everyday life.
Having established the fact that in the area described, too, the peasantry splits up into opposite classes, we shall easily achieve clarity about the contradictory opinions usually expressed as to the role of dairy farming. Quite naturally, the well-to-do peasantry receive an incentive to develop and improve their farming methods and as a result grass cultivation is widespread and becomes an essential part of commercial stock-farming. The development of grass cultivation is observed, for example, in Tver Gubernia; in Kashin Uyezd, the most progressive in that gubernia, as many as one-sixth of all peasant households plant clover (Returns, XIII, 2, p. 171). It is interesting, moreover, to note that on the purchased lands a larger proportion of arable is occupied by herbage than on the allotments: the peasant bourgeoisie naturally prefer private ownership of land to communal tenure.[*] In the Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia (Vol. II, 1896) we also find numerous references to the increase in grass cultivation, and again mainly on purchased and rented lands.[**] In the same publication we find references to the spread of improved implements: iron ploughs, threshing machines, rollers, etc. Butter and cheese making, etc., are developing very considerably. In Novgorod Guberniaitwas noted as far back as the beginning of the 80s that along with a general deterioration and diminution of peasant stock-breeding, there was an improvement in certain individual localities where there was a profitable market for milk and where the milk-feeding of calves was an old-established industry (Bychkov: An Essay in the House-to-House Investigation of the Economic Position and Farming of the Peasants <"fnp279">
* A substantial improvement in the maintenance of cattle is observed only where there has been a development in the production of milk for sale (pp. 219, 224).
** Pp. 39, 65, 136, 150, 154, 167, 170, 177 and others. Our pre-Reform system of taxation retards the progress of agriculture here too. "Owing to the congestion of the farmsteads," writes a correspondent, "grass cultivation has been introduced all over the volost; the clover, however, is sold to cover tax arrears (91). The taxes in this gubernia are sometimes to high that the peasant who leases his land has himself to pay a sum to the new holder of the allotment.
page 280in Three Volosts of Novgorod Uyezd, Novgorod, 1882). The milk-feeding of calves, which is also a type of commercial livestock farming, is, generally speaking, a fairly widespread industry in the Novgorod and Tver gubernias and in other places not far from the big cities (see Hired Labour, etc., published by the Department of Agriculture). "This industry," says Mr. Bychkov, "by its very nature, brings an income to the already well-provided peasants possessing considerable numbers of cows, since with one cow, and sometimes even with two of poor yield, the milk-feeding of calves is unthinkable" (loc. cit., 101).[*]
But the most outstanding index of the economic successes of the peasant bourgeoisie in the area described is the hiring of labourers by peasants. The local landowners feel that they are being confronted by competitors, and in their communications to the Department of Agriculture they sometimes even attribute the shortage of workers to the fact that these are snatched up by the well-to-do peasants (Hired Labour, 490). The hiring of labourers by peasants is noted in the Yaroslavl, Vladimir, St. Petersburg and Novgorod gubernias (loc. cit., passim ). A mass of such references is also scattered throughout the Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia.
This progress of the well-to-do minority, however, is a heavy burden upon the mass of the poor peasants. In Koprin Volost, Rybinsk Uyezd, Yaroslavl Gubernia, for example, one finds the spread of cheese making -- on the initiative of "V. I. Blandov, the well-known founder of cheese-making artels."** "When the poorer peasants, with only one cow each, deliver . . . their milk (to the cheese <"fnp280">
* Let us note, by the way, that the variety of "industries" of the local peasantry prompted Mr. Bychkov to distinguish two types of industrialists, according to the amount of earnings. It appeared that less than 100 rubles was earned by 3,251 persons (27.4% of the population); their earnings totalled 102,000 rubles, or an average of 31 rubles per person. Over 100 rubles was obtained by 454 (3.8% of the population): their earnings totalled 107,000 rubles, or an average of 236 rubles per person The first group consisted mainly of wage-workers of every kind, the second of traders, hay merchants, timber dealers, etc.
** The "cheese-making artels" of Koprin Volost are mentioned in the Directory of Factories and Works, and the Blandovs are the largest firm in the cheese-making industry: in 1890 they owned 25 factories in six gubernias.
page 281factory) they do so, of course, to the detriment of their own nourishment"; whereas the well-to-do peasants improve their cattle (pp. 32-33). Among the types of wage-labour undertaken, one finds employment away from home, at cheese-making establishments; from among the young peasants a body of skilled cheese makers is arising. In the Poshekhonye Uyezd "the number . . . of cheese and butter establishments is increasing from year to year," but "the benefits accruing to peasant farming from cheese and butter making hardly compensate for the disadvantages to peasant life resulting from our cheese and butter establishments." On the peasants' own admission they are often compelled to starve, for with the opening of a cheese or butter factory in some locality, the milk is sent there and the peasants usually drink diluted milk. The system of payment in kind is coming into vogue (pp. 43, 54, 59 and others), so that it is to be regretted that our "people's" petty production is not covered by the law prohibiting payment in kind in "capitalist" factories.*
Thus, the opinions of people directly acquainted with the matter confirm our conclusion that the majority of the peasants play a purely negative part in the progress of local agriculture. The progress of commercial farming worsens the position of the bottom groups of peasants and forces them out of the ranks of the cultivators altogether. Be it noted that reference has been made in Narodnik literature to this contradiction between the progress of dairy
* Here is the characteristic view of Mr. Stary Maslodel [Old Butter Maker]. "Whoever has seen and knows the countryside today and remembers what it was 40 or 50 years ago will be amazed at the difference. In the old villages all the houses were the same both outside and inside; today, however side by side with hovels stand fine houses, side by side with the indigent live the rich, side by side with the downtrodden and despised live those who feast and make merry. In former times one often came across villages in which there was not a single landless peasant; now in every village there are no less than five and sometimes a full dozen. And to tell the truth, butter making is much to blame for this transformation of the villages. In 30 years butter making has enriched many, has beautified their homes; many peasants who supplied milk during the period of development of the butter industry have become prosperous, acquired more cattle, and purchased land on a community or individual basis; but many more have fallen into poverty; landless peasants and beggars have appeared in the villages" (Zhizn [Life ] 1899, No. 8 quoted from Severny Krai [Northern Region ], 1899, No 223). (Note to 2nd edition.)
page 282farming and the deterioration of the peasants' nourishment (for the first time, I think, by Engelhardt). But it is precisely this example that enables one to see the narrowness of the Narodnik appraisal of the phenomena occurring among the peasantry and in agriculture. They note a contradiction in one form, in one locality, and do not realise that it is typical of the entire social and economic system, manifesting itself everywhere in different forms. They note the contradictory significance of one "profitable industry," and strongly urge the "implanting" among the peasantry of all sorts of other "local industries." They note the contradictory significance of one form of agricultural progress and do not understand that machines, for example, have exactly the same political and economic significance in agriculture as in industry.
<"c4s6">
VI. THE FLAX-GROWING AREAWe have described the first two areas of capitalist agriculture in fairly great detail because of their widespread character and of the typical nature of the relations observed there. In our further exposition we shall confine ourselves to briefer remarks on some highly important areas.
Flax is the chief of the so-called "industrial crops." The very term indicates that we are dealing here with commercial farming. For example, in the "flax" gubernia of Pskov, flax has long been the peasants' "first money," to use a local expression (Military Statistical Abstract, 260). Flax growing is simply a means of making money. The post-Reform period is marked on the whole by an undoubted increase in commercial flax growing. Thus, at the end of the 60s, the output of flax in Russia was estimated at approximately 12 million poods of fibre (ibid., 260); at the beginning of the 80s at 20 million poods of fibre (Historico-Statistical Survey of Russian Industry, Vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1883, p. 74); at the present time, in the 50 gubernias of European Russia over 26 million poods of fibre are gathered.* In the flax-growing area proper (19 gubernias of the
* The average for 1893-1897 was 26,291,000 poods, according to the figures of the Central Statistical Committee. See Vestnik Finansov, 1897, No. 9, and 1898, No. 6. Formerly the statistics for flax produc- [cont. onto p. 283. -- DJR] tion were very inexact; that is why we have preferred to take approximate estimates based on comparisons of the most varied source made by experts. The amount of flax produced fluctuates considerably year by year. For that reason Mr. N.-on, for example, who set out to draw the boldest conclusions about the "diminution" of flax production and "the reduction of the area under flax" (Sketches, p. 236 and foll.) from figures for some six years, slipped into the most curious errors (see P. B. Struve's examination of them in Critical Remarks, p. 233 and foll.). Let us add to what has been said in the text that according to the data cited by Mr. N.-on, the maximum area under flax in the 1880s was 1,372,000 dess. and the weight of gathered fibre 19,245,000 poods, whereas in 1896-1897 the area was 1,617,000-1,669,000 dess., and the weight of gathered fibre 31,713,000-30,139,000 poods.
page 283non-black-earth belt) the area under flax has changed in recent years as follows; 1893 -- 756,600 dess.; 1894 -- 816,500 dess.; 1895 -- 901,800 dess.; 1896 -- 952,100 dess., and 1897 -- 967,500 dess. For the whole of European Russia (50 gubernias) the figure for 1896 was 1,617,000 dess. under flax and for 1897 -- 1,669,000 dess. (Vestnik Finansov, ibid., and 1898, No. 7), as against 1,399,000 dess. at the beginning of the 1890s (Productive Forces, I, 36). Similarly, general opinions expressed in publications also testify to the growth of commercial flax growing. Thus, regarding the first two decades after the Reform, the Historico-Statistical Survey states that "the region of flax cultivation for industrial purposes has been enlarged by several gubernias" (loc. cit., 71), which is due particularly to the extension of the railways. Concerning the Yuryev Uyezd, Vladimir Gubernia, Mr. V. Prugavin wrote at the beginning of the eighties: "The cultivation of flax . . . has become very widespread here during the past 10 to 15 years." "Some large-family households sell flax to the extent of 300 to 500 rubles and more per annum. . . . They buy" (flax seed) "in Rostov. . . . The peasants in these parts are very careful in selecting seed" (The Village Community, Handicraft Industries and Agriculture of Yuryev Uyezd, Vladimir Gubernia, Moscow, 1884, pp. 86-89). The Zemstvo Statistical Returns for Tver Gubernia (Vol. XIII, Pt. 2) notes that "the most important spring grain crops, barley and oats, are yielding place to potatoes and flax" (p. 151); in some uyezds flax occupies from 1/3 to 3/4 of the area under spring crops, for example, in Zubtsov, Kashin and other uyezds, "in which flax growing
page 284has assumed the clearly expressed speculative character of an industry" (p. 145), developing particularly on rented virgin and disused land. Moreover, it is noted that in some gubernias, where free land is still available (virgin soil, wasteland, forest-cleared tracts), flax growing is particularly expanding, but in some of the old established flax-growing gubernias "the cultivation of flax is either on the old scale or is even yielding place, for example, to the newly-introduced cultivation of root-crops, vegetables, etc." (Vestnik Finansov, 1898, No. 6, p. 376, and 1897, No. 29), i.e., to other types of commercial farming.
As for flax exports, during the first two decades after the Reform they increased with remarkable rapidity: from an average of 4.6 million poods in the years 1857-1861 to 8.5 million poods in the years 1867-1871 and to 12.4 million poods in the years 1877-1881; but then exports seemed to become stationary, amounting in the years 1894-1897 to an average of 13.3 million poods.[*] The development of commercial flax growing led, naturally, to exchange not only between agriculture and industry (sale of flax and purchase of manufactured goods), but between different types of commercial agriculture (sale of flax and purchase of grain) The following data concerning this interesting phenomenon clearly demonstrate that a home market for capitalism is created not only by the diversion of population from agriculture to industry, but also by the specialisation of commercial farming.**
Railway traffic to and from Pskov ("flax") Gubernia.
(Averages, in thousand poods)
Periods
Outgoing
flax
Incoming
grain and flour
1860-1861
1863-1864
1865-1866
1867-1868
1869-1870
255.9
551.1
793.0
1,053.2
1,406.9
43.4
464.7
842.6
1,157.9
1,809.3
<"fnp284">
* The figures are for the exports of flax, flax-combings and tow. See Historico-Statistical Survey, P. Struve, Critical Remarks and Vestnik Finansov, 1897, No. 26, and 1898, No. 36.
** See N. Strokin, Flax Growing in Pskov Gubernia, St. Petersburg, 1882. The author borrowed these data from the Proceedings of the Commission on Taxation.
page 285
How does this growth of commercial flax growing affect the peasantry, who, as we know, are the principal flax producer?[*] "Travelling through Pskov Gubernia and observing its economic life, one cannot help noticing that side by side with occasional large and rich units, hamlets and villages, there are extremely poor units; these extremes are a characteristic feature of the economic life of the flax area." "Flax growing has taken a speculative turn," and "the greater part" of the income from flax "is pocketed by buyers-up and by those who lease out land for flax growing" (Strokin, 22-23). The ruinous rents constitute real "money rent" (see above), and the mass of the peasants are in a state of "complete and hopeless dependence" (Strokin, ibid.) upon the buyers-up. The sway of merchant's capital was established in this locality long ago,[**] and what distinguishes the post-Reform period is the enormous concentration of this capital, the undermining of the monopoly of the former small buyers-up and the formation of "flax agencies" which have captured the whole flax trade. The significance of flax growing, says Mr. Strokin about Pskov Gubernia, "is expressed . . . in the concentration of capital in a few hands" (p. 31). Turning flax growing into a gamble, capital ruined vast numbers of small agriculturists, who worsened the quality of the flax, exhausted the land, were reduced to leasing out their allotments and finally swelled the ranks of "migratory" workers. On the other hand, a slight minority of well-to-do peasants and traders were able -- and competition made it necessary -- to introduce technical improvements. Couté scutchers, both hand-worked (costing up to 25 rubles) and horse-operated (three times dearer), were introduced. In 1869 there were only 557 such machines in Pskov Gubernia, in 1881 there were 5,710 (4,521 hand-worked and 1,189 horse- <"fnp285">
* Of 1,399,000 dess. under flax, 745,400 dess. are in the non-black-earth belt, where only 13% belongs to private landowners. In the black-earth belt, of 609,600 dess. under flax 44.4% belongs to private owners (Productive Forces, 1, 36).
** The Military Statistical Abstract in its day pointed to the fact that the "flax sown by the peasants very often really belongs to the bulinyas " (local name for small buyers-up), "while the peasant is merely a labourer on his field" (595). Cf. Historico-Statistical Survey, p, 88.
page 286operated).[*] "Today," we read in the Historico-Statistical Survey, "every sound peasant family engaged in flax growing has a Couté hand-machine, which has actually come to be called the 'Pskov scutcher'" (loc. cit., 82-83). What proportion this minority of "sound" householders who acquire machines is to the rest of the peasantry, we have already seen in Chapter II. Instead of the primitive contrivances which cleaned the seeds very badly, the Pskov Zemstvo began to introduce improved seed-cleaners (trieurs), and "the more prosperous peasant industrialists" now find it profitable to buy these machines themselves and to hire them out to flax growers (Vestnik Finansov, 1897, No. 29, p. 85). The bigger buyers-up of flax establish drying rooms and presses and hire workers to sort and scutch the flax (see example given by Mr. V. Prugavin, loc. cit., 115). Lastly, it should be added that the processing of flax-fibre requires quite a large number of workers: it is estimated that the cultivation of one dessiatine of flax requires 26 working days of agricultural work proper, and 77 days to extract the fibre from stalks (Historico-Statistical Survey, 72). Thus, the development of flax growing leads, on the one hand, to the farmer being more fully occupied during the winter and, on the other, to the creation of a demand for wage-labour on the part of those landlords and well-to-do peasants who engage in flax growing (see the example in Chapter III, § VI).
Thus, in the flax-growing area, too, the growth of commercial farming leads to the domination of capital and to the differentiation of the peasantry. A tremendous obstacle to the latter process is undoubtedly the ruinously high renting prices of land,** the pressure of merchant's capital, the tying of the peasant to his allotment and the high payments for the allotted land. Hence, the wider the development <"fnp286">
* Strokin, 12.
** At the present time renting prices of flax land are falling due to the drop in the price of flax, but the area of land under flax, in the Pskov flax area in 1896, for example, has not diminished (Vestnik Finansov, 1897, No. 29)
page 287of land purchase by the peasants,[*] and of migration in search of employment,[**] and the more widespread the use of improved implements and methods of cultivation, the more rapidly will merchant's capital be supplanted by industrial capital, and the more rapidly will a rural bourgeoisie be formed from among the peasantry, and the system of labour-service for the landlord replaced by the capitalist system.
<"c4s7">
VII. THE TECHNICAL PROCESSING OF AGRICULTURAL
PRODUCEAbove we have already had occasion to note (Chapter I, § I) that writers on agriculture, in classifying systems of farming according to the principal market product, assign the industrial or technical system of farming to a special category. The essence of this system is that the agricultural product, before going into consumption (personal or productive), undergoes technical processing. The establishments which effect this processing either constitute part of the very farms on which the raw material is produced or belong to special industrialists who buy up the raw material from the peasant farmers. From the standpoint of political economy the difference between these two types is unimportant. The growth of agricultural technical trades is extremely important as regards the development of capitalism. Firstly, this growth represents one of the forms of the development of commercial farming, and is, moreover, the form that shows most vividly the conversion of agriculture into a branch of <"fnp287">
* Pskov Gubernia is one of the foremost in Russia in the development of the purchase of land by peasants. According to the Combined Statistical Material on the Economic Position of the Rural Population (published by Chancellery of the Committee of Ministers), the lands purchased by peasants amount here to 23% of the total allotment arable, this is the maximum for all the 50 gubernias. It works out at an average of 0.7 dess. of purchased land per head of the male peasant population as of January 1, 1892. In this respect only Novgorod and Taurida gubernias exceed Pskov Gubernia.
** The number of males leaving Pskov Gubernia in search of employment increased, statistics show from 1865-1875 to 1896 nearly fourfold (Industries of the Peasant Population of Pskov Gubernia, Pskov, 1898, p. 3).page 288
industry of capitalist society. Secondly, the development of the technical processing of agricultural produce is usually connected intimately with technical progress in agriculture: on the one hand, the very production of the raw material for processing often necessitates agricultural improvement (the planting of root-crops, for example); on the other hand, the waste products of the processing are frequently utilised in agriculture, thus increasing its effectiveness and restoring, at least in some measure, the equilibrium, the interdependence, between agriculture and industry, the disturbance of which constitutes one of the most profound contradictions of capitalism.
We must accordingly now describe the development of technical agricultural trades in post-Reform Russia.
<"c4s7i">
1) D i s t i l l i n gHere we regard distilling only from the point of view of agriculture. Accordingly, there is no need for us to dwell on the rapid concentration of distilling in large plants (partly due to excise requirements), on the rapid progress of factory technique, with the consequent cheapening of production, and the increase in excise duties which has outstripped this cheapening of production and because of its excessive amount has retarded the growth of consumption and production.
Here are data for "agricultural" distilling in the whole of the Russian Empire*:
Distilleries in 1896-97
No. of
distilleries
Spirit distilled
(thousand vedros)
Agricultural . . . .
Mixed . . . . . .
Industrial . . . . .
1,474 \
404 /
159
1,878
13,521 \
10,810 /
5,457
24,331
Total . . . . .
2,037
29,788
* The law of June 4, 1890, laid down the following criteria of agricultural distilling: 1) distilling season, from September 1 to June 1, when no field-work is done; 2) proportion between the quantity of spirits distilled and the number of dessiatines of arable land on the estate. Plants carrying on partly agricultural and partly industrial [cont. onto p. . -- DJR] distilling are called mixed distilleries (cf. Vestnik Finansov, 1896, No. 25, and 1898, No. 10).page 289
Thus, over 9/10 of the distilleries (accounting for over 4/5 of the total output) are directly connected with agriculture. Being large capitalist enterprises, these establishments lend the same character to all the landlord farms on which they are set up (the distilleries belong almost without exception to landlords, mainly to members of the nobility). The type of commercial farming under review is particularly developed in the central black-earth gubernias, in which are concentrated over 1/10 of the total number of distilleries in the Russian Empire (239 in 1896-97, of which 225 were agricultural and mixed), producing over a quarter of the total output of spirits (7,785,000 vedros in 1896-97, of which 6,828,000 at agricultural and at mixed distilleries). Thus in the area where labour-service predominates, the commercial character of agriculture most frequently (as compared with other areas) manifests itself in the distilling of vodka from grain and potatoes. Distilling from potatoes has undergone a particularly rapid development since the Reform, as may be seen from the following data relating to the whole of the Russian Empire[*]:
Materials used for distilling
(thousand poods)
All crops
Potatoes
% Potatoes
In 1867 . . . . . . . . . . . .
Average for \ 1873-74 and 1882-83 . .
10 years / 1882-83 and 1891-92 . .
In 1893-94 . . . . . . . . . .
" 1896-97 . . . . . . . . . .
76,925
123,066
128,706
150,857
144,038
6,950
65,508
79,803
115,850
101,993
9.1
53
62
76
70.8
Thus, with a general twofold increase in the quantity of crops distilled, the quantity of potatoes used increased about 15-fold. This fact strikingly corroborates the proposition established above (§ I in this chapter) that the enormous increase in the potato area and crop signifies the growth of precisely commercial and capitalist farming, along with improvement of agricultural technique, with the replacement of the three-field system by multi-field crop rotation, <"fnp289">
* Sources: Military Statistical Abstract, 427; Productive Forces, IX, 49, and Vestnik Finansov, 1898, No. 14.page 290
etc.[*] The area of the biggest development of distilling is also distinguished for the biggest (in the Russian gubernias, i.e., not counting the Baltic and the western gubernias) net per-capita harvest of potatoes. Thus in the northern black-earth gubernias the figures for 1864-1866, 1870-1879 and 1883-1887 were 0.44, 0.62 and 0.60 chetverts respectively, whereas for the whole of European Russia (50 gubernias) the corresponding figures were 0.27, 0.43 and 0.44 chetverts. As far back as the beginning of the 80s the Historico-Statistical Survey noted that "the region marked by the greatest expansion of potato cultivation covers all the gubernias of the central and northern parts of the black-earth belt, the Volga and Transvolga gubernias and the central non-black-earth gubernias" (loc. cit., p. 44).**
The expansion of potato cultivation by landlords and well-to-do peasants means an increase in the demand for hired labour; the cultivation of a dessiatine of potatoes absorbs much more labour[***] than the cultivation of a dessiatine of cereals and the use of machinery in, for example, <"fnp290">
* Cf. Raspopin, loc. cit., -- Historico-Statistical Survey, loc. cit., p. 14. The by-products of distilling (wash) are often used (even by commercial and not only agricultural establishments) in commercial beef-cattle raising. -- Cf. Agricultural Statistical Information, Vol. VII, p. 122 and passim.
** The great rapidity with which the use of potatoes for distilling has increased in the central agricultural gubernias can be seen from the following data. In six gubernias: Kursk, Orel, Tula, Ryazan, Tambov and Voronezh, during the period 1864-65 to 1873-74 an average of 407,000 poods of potatoes was distilled per annum; during 1874-75 to 1883-84 -- 7,482,000 poods; during 1884-85 to 1893-94, 20,077,000 poods. For the whole of European Russia the corresponding figures are: 10,633,000 poods, 30,599,000 poods and 69,620,000 poods. The number of distilleries using potatoes in the above gubernias averaged 29 per annum in the period 1867-68 to 1875-76; in the period 1876-77 to 1884-85, 130; and in the period 1885-86 to 1893-94, 163. For the whole of European Russia the corresponding figures are: 739, 979, 1,195 (see Agricultural Statistical Information, Vol. VII).
<"fnp290a"> *** For example, according to the Zemstvo statistical returns for Balakhna Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, the cultivation of one dess. of potatoes requires 77.2 working days, including 59.2 working days of a woman occupied in planting, hoeing, weeding and digging. The greatest increase, therefore, is in the demand for the day labour of local peasant women.page 291
the central black-earth area is still very slight. Thus, while the number of workers engaged in the distilling industry proper has decreased,[*] the elimination of labour-service by the capitalist system of farming, with the cultivation of root-crops, has increased the demand for rural day labourers.
<"c4s7ii">
2) B e e t - S u g a r P r o d u c t i o nThe processing of sugar-beet is even more highly concentrated in big capitalist enterprises than distilling is, and is likewise an adjunct of the landlords' (mainly noblemen's) estates. The principal area of this industry is the south-western gubernias, and then the southern black-earth and central black-earth gubernias. The area under sugar-beet amounted in the 60s to about 100,000 dess.,[**] in the 70s to about 160,000 dess.***; in 1886-1895 to 239,000dess.,**** in 1896-1898 to 369,000 dess.,(*) in 1900 to 478,778 dess., in 1901 to 528,076 dess. (Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta, 1901, No. 123), in 1905-06 to 483,272 dess. (Vestnik Finansov, 1906, No. 12). Hence, in the period following the Reform the area cultivated has increased more than 5-fold. Incomparably more rapid has been the growth of the amount of sugar-beet harvested and processed: on an average the weight of sugar-beet processed in the Empire in the years <"fnp291">
* In 1867 the number of workers in European Russia employed in distilleries was estimated at 52,660 (Military Statistical Abstract. In Chapter VII we shall show that this source tremendously overstates the number of factory workers), and in 1890 at 26,102 (according to Orlov's Directory ). The workers engaged in distilling proper are few in number and, moreover, differ but little from rural workers. "All the workers employed in the village distilleries," says Dr. Zhbankov, for example, "which, moreover, do not operate regularly, since the workers leave for field-work in the summer, differ very distinctly from regular factory workers they wear peasant clothes, retain their rural habits, and do not acquire the particular polish characteristic of factory workers" (loc. cit., II, 121).
<"fnp291a"> ** The Ministry of Finance Yearbook, Vol.I. -- Military Statistical Abstract. -- Historico-Statistical Survey, Vol. II.
*** Historico-Statistical Survey, I.
**** Productive Forces, I, 41.
(*) Vestnik Finansov [Financial Messenger ], 1897, No. 27, and 1898, No 36. In European Russia, without the Kingdom of Poland, there was in 1896-1898 an area of 327,000 dess, under sugar-beet.page 292
1860-1864 was 4.1 million berkovets[*]; in 1870-1874 -- 9.3 million; in 1875-1879 -- 12.8 million; in 1890-1894 -- 29.3 million; and in 1895-96 and 1897-98 -- 35 million.[**] The amount of processed sugar-beet has grown since the 60s more than 8-fold. Hence, there has been an enormous increase in the beet yield, i.e., in labour productivity, on the big estates organised on capitalist lines.[***] The introduction of a root-plant like beet into the rotation is indissolubly linked with the transition to a more advanced system of cultivation, with improved tillage and cattle feed, etc. "The tillage of the soil for beetroot," we read in the Historico-Statistical Survey (Vol. I), "which, generally speaking, is rather complicated and difficult, has been brought to a high degree of perfection on many beet farms, especially in the south-western and Vistula gubernias. In different localities, various more or less improved implements and ploughs are used for tilling; in some cases even steam ploughing has been introduced" (p. 109).
This progress of large-scale capitalist farming gives rise to quite a considerable increase in the demand for agricultural wage-workers -- regular and particularly day labourers -- the employment of female and child labour being particularly extensive (cf. Historico-Statistical Survey, II, 32). Among the peasants of the neighbouring gubernias a special type of migration has arisen, known as migration "to sugar" (ibid., 42). It is estimated that the complete cultivation of a morg (= 2/3 dess.)**** of beet land requires 40 working days (Hired Labour, 72). The Combined Material on the Position of the Rural Population (published by Committee of Ministers) estimates that the cultivation of one dessiatine of beet land, when done by machine, requires 12, and when by hand 25, working days of males, not counting women and juveniles (pp. X-XI). Thus, the cultivation of the total beet area in Russia probably engages not less than 300,000 agricultural day labourers, men and women. <"fnp292">
* Berkovets -- 360 lbs. --Ed.
** In addition to above sources see Vestnik Finansov, 1898, No. 32.
*** Taking the average for the period 1890-1894, out of 285,000 dess. under beet in the Empire, 118,000 dess. belonged to refineries and 167,000 dess. to planters (Productive Forces, IX, 44).
**** 1.8 acres. --Ed.page 293
But the increase in the number of dessiatines under beet is not enough to give a complete idea of the demand for hired labour, since some jobs are paid for at so much per berkovets. Here, for example, is what we read in Reports and Investigations of Handicraft Industry in Russia (published by Ministry of State Properties, Vol. II, St. Petersburg, 1894, p. 82).
"The female population both of the town, and of the uyezd" (the town of Krolevets, Chernigov Gubernia, is referred to) "think highly of work on the beet fields; in the autumn the cleaning of beets is paid at 10 kopeks per berkovets, and two women clean from six to ten berkovets a day, but some contract to work during the growing season as well, weeding and hoeing; in that case, for the full job, including digging and cleaning, they get 25 kopeks per berkovets of cleaned beets." The conditions of the workers on the beet plantations are extremely bad. For instance, the Vrachebnaya Khronika Kharkovskoi Gubernii [*] (September 1899, quoted in Russkiye Vedomosti, 1899, No. 254) cites "a number of exceedingly deplorable facts about the conditions of those working on the red-beet plantations. Thus, the Zemstvo physician, Dr. Podolsky, of the village of Kotelva, Akhtyrka Uyezd, writes: 'In the autumn typhus usually breaks out among young people employed on the red-beet plantations of the well-to-do peasants. The sheds assigned for the workers' leisure and sleeping quarters are kept by such planters in a very filthy condition; by the time the job ends the straw used for sleeping is literally converted into dung, for it is never changed: this becomes a breeding ground of infection. Typhus has had to be diagnosed immediately in the case of four or five patients brought in from one and the same plantation.' In the opinion of this doctor, 'most of the syphilis cases come from the red-beet plantations.' Mr. Feinberg rightly asserts that 'work on the plantations, which is no less injurious to the workers themselves and to the surrounding population than work in the factories, has particularly disastrous consequences, because large numbers of women and juveniles are engaged in it, and because the workers here are without the most elementary protection from society and the State'; in view of this, the author wholly <"fnp293">
* Medical Chronicle of Kharkov Gubernia. --Ed.page 294
supports the opinion expressed by Dr. Romanenko at the Seventh Congress of Doctors of Kharkov Gubernia that 'in issuing compulsory regulations, consideration must also be given to the conditions of the workers on the beet plantations. These workers lack the most essential things; they live for months under the open sky and eat from a common bowl.'" Thus, the growth of beet cultivation has enormously increased the demand for rural workers, converting the neighbouring peasantry into a rural proletariat. The increase in the number of rural workers has been but slightly checked by the inconsiderable drop in the number of workers engaged in the beet-sugar industry proper.[*]
<"c4s7iii">
3) P o t a t o - S t a r c h P r o d u c t i o nFrom branches of technical production conducted exclusively on landlord farms let us pass to such as are more or less within the reach of the peasantry. These include, primarily, the processing of potatoes (partly also wheat and other cereals) into starch and treacle. Starch production has developed with particular rapidity in the post-Reform period owing to the enormous growth of the textile industry, which raises a demand for starch. The area covered by this branch of production is mainly the non-black-earth, the industrial, and, partly, the northern black-earth gubernias. The Historico-Statistical Survey (Vol. II) estimates that in the middle of the 60s, there were about 60 establishments with an output valued at about 270,000 rubles, while in 1880 there were 224 establishments with an output valued at 1,317,000 rubles. In 1890, according to the Directory of Factories and Works there were 192 establishments employing 3,418 workers, with an output valued at 1,760,000 rubles.** "In the past 25 years," we read in the <"fnp294">
* In European Russia 80,919 workers were employed in 1867 at beet-sugar factories and refineries (The Ministry of Finance Yearbook, I. The Military Statistical Abstract overstated the figure here too, giving it as 92,000, evidently counting the same workers twice). The figure for 1890 is 77,875 workers (Orlov's Directory ).
** We take the data given in the Historico-Statistical Survey as being the most uniform and comparable. The Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance (1866, No. 4, April), on the basis of [cont. onto p. 295. -- DJR] official data of the Department of Commerce and Manufacture, estimated that in 1864 there were in Russia 55 starch-making establishments whose output was valued at 231,000 rubles. The Military Statistical Abstract estimates that in 1866 there were 198 establishments with an output valued at 563,000 rubles, but this undoubtedly included small establishments, not now reckoned as factories. Generally speaking, the statistics of this trade are very unsatisfactory: small factories are some times counted, and at others (much more often) are not. Thus, Orlov's Directory gives the number of establishments in Yaroslavl Gubernia in 1890 as 25 (the List for 1894-95 gives 20), while according to the Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia (Vol. II, 1896), in Rostov Uyezd alone there were 810 starch and treacle establishments. Hence, the figures given in the text can indicate only the dynamics of the phenomenon, but not the actual development of the industry.page 295
Historico-Statistical Survey, "the number of establishments engaged in starch production has increased 4 1/2 times and the total output 10 3/4 times; nevertheless, this productivity is far from covering the demand for starch" (p. 116), as evidenced by the increased starch imports from abroad. Analysing the data for each gubernia, the Historico-Statistical Survey reaches the conclusion that our production of potato-starch (unlike that of wheat-starch) is of an agricultural character, being concentrated in the hands of peasants and landlords. "Showing promise of extensive development" in the future, "it is even now furnishing our rural population with considerable advantages" (126).
We shall see in a moment who enjoys these advantages. But first let us note that two processes must be distinguished in the development of starch production: on the one hand, the appearance of new small factories and the growth of peasant production, and on the other, the concentration of production in large steam-powered factories. For instance, in 1890 there were 77 steam-powered factories, with 52% of the total number of workers and 60% of the total output concentrated in them. Of these works only 11 were established before 1870, 17 in the 70s, 45 in the 80s, and 2 in 1890 (Mr. Orlov's Directory ).
To acquaint ourselves with the economy of peasant starch production, let us turn to local investigations. In Moscow Gubernia, in 1880-81, 43 villages in 4 uyezds engaged in starch making.* The number of establishments was
* Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia, Vol. VII, Pt. 1, Moscow, 1882.page 296
estimated at 130, employing 780 workers and having an output valued at not less than 137,000 rubles. The industry spread mainly after the Reform; its technique gradually improved and larger establishments were formed requiring more fixed capital and showing a higher productivity of labour. Hand graters were replaced by improved ones, then horse power appeared, and finally the drum was introduced, considerably improving and cheapening production. Here are data we have compiled from a house-to-house census of "handicraftsmen," according to size of establishment:
Categories of
establishments[*]
No.
of
est.
No. of
workers
Workers per
establishment
Aver.
no. of
work-
ing
weeks
Output (rubles)
F
a
m
i
l
y
H
i
r
e
d
T
o
t
a
l
F
a
m
i
l
y
H
i
r
e
d
T
o
t
a
l
Total
Per
estab.
Per
worker
in 4
weeksSmall . . . . .
15
30
45
75
2
3
5
5.3
12,636
842
126
Medium . . . .
42
96
165
261
2.2
4
6.2
5.5
55,890
1,331
156
Large . . . . .
11
26
67
93
2.4
6
8.4
6.4
61,282
5,571
416
Total . . . . .
68
152
277
429
2.2
4.1
6.3
5.5
129,808
1,908
341
Thus we have here small capitalist establishments in which, as production expands, the employment of hired labour increases and the productivity of labour rises. These establishments bring the peasant bourgeoisie considerable profit, and also improve agricultural technique. But the situation of the workers in these workshops is very unsatisfactory, owing to the extremely insanitary working conditions and the long working day.** The peasants who own "grating" establishments farm under very favourable conditions. The planting of potatoes (on <"fnp296">
* See Appendix to Chapter V, Industry No. 24.
** Loc. cit., p. 32. The working day in the peasant workshops is 13 to 14 hours, while in the big works in the same industry (according to Dementyev[100]) a 12-hour working day prevails.page 297
allotment, and chiefly on rented land) yields a considerably larger income than the planting of rye or oats. To enlarge their business the workshop owners rent a considerable amount of allotment land from the poor peasants. For example, in the village of Tsybino (Bronnitsy Uyezd), 18 owners of starch workshops (out of 105 peasant families in the village) rent allotments from peasants who have left in search of employment, and also from horseless peasants, thus adding to their own 61 allotments 133 more, which they have rented; concentrated in their hands are a total of 194 allotments, i.e., 44.5% of the total number of allotments in the village. "Exactly similar things," we read in the Returns, "are met with in other villages where the starch industry is more or less developed" (loc. cit., 42).[*] The owners of the starch workshops have twice as much livestock as the other peasants: they average 3.5 horses and 3.4 cows per household, as against 1.5 horses and 1.7 cows among the local peasants in general. Of the 68 workshop owners (covered by the house-to-house census) 10 own purchased land, 22 rent non-allotment land and 23 rent allotment land. In short, these are typical representatives of the peasant bourgeoisie.
Exactly analogous relations are to be found in the starch-making industry in the Yuryev Uyezd, Vladimir Gubernia (V. Prugavin, loc. cit., p. 104 and foll.). Here, too, the workshop owners carry on production mainly with the aid of wage-labour (out of 128 workers in 30 workshops, 86 are hired); and here, too, the workshop owners are far above the mass of the peasantry as far as stock-breeding and agriculture are concerned; they use potato pulp as feed for their cattle. Even real capitalist farmers emerge from among the peasants. Mr. Prugavin describes the farm of a peasant who owns a starch works (valued at about 1,500 rubles) employing 12 wage-workers. This peasant grows potatoes on his own farm, which he has enlarged by renting land. The crop rotation is seven-field and includes clover. For the farm work he employs from 7 to 8 workers, hired from spring to <"fnp297">
* Compare with this statement the general view of V. Orlov on Moscow Gubernia as a whole (Returns, Vol. IV, Pt. 1, p. 14): the prosperous peasants frequently rent the allotments of the peasant poor, and sometimes hold from 5 to 10 rented allotments.page 298
autumn ("from end to end"). The pulp is used as cattle feed, and the owner intends to use the waste water for his fields.
Mr. Y. Prugavin assures us that this works enjoys "quite exceptional conditions." Of course, in any capitalist society the rural bourgeoisie will always constitute a very small minority of the rural population, and in this sense will, if you like, be an "exception." But this term will not eliminate the fact that in the starch-making area, as in all the other commercial farming areas in Russia, a class of rural entrepreneurs is being formed, who are organising capitalist agriculture.[*]
<"c4s7iv">
4) V e g e t a b l e - O i l P r o d u c t i o nThe extraction of oil from linseed, hemp, sunflower and other seeds is also frequently an agricultural industry. One can gauge the development of vegetable-oil production in the post-Reform period from the fact that in 1864 the vegetable-oil output had an estimated value of 1,619,000 rubles, in 1879 of 6,486,000 rubles, and in 1890 of 12,232,000 rubles.** In this branch of production, too, a double process of development is to be observed: on the one hand, small peasant (and sometimes also landlord) oil presses producing oil for sale are established in the villages. On the other hand, large steam-driven works develop, which concentrate production and oust the small establishments.*** Here <"fnp298">
* As a matter of interest, let us mention that both Mr. Prugavin (loc. cit., 107), the author of the description of the Moscow industry (loc. cit., 45), and Mr. V. V. (Essays on Handicraft Industry, 127), have discerned the "artel principle" in the fact that some grating establishments belong to several owners. Our sharp-eyed Narodniks have contrived to observe a special "principle" in the association of rural entrepreneurs, and have failed to see any new social-economic "principles" in the very existence and development of a class of rural entrepreneurs.
** Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance 1866, no.4, Orlov's Directory, 1st and 3rd editions. We do not give figures for the number of establishments because our factory statistics confuse small agricultural oil-pressing establishments with big industrial ones, at times including the former, and at others not including them for different gubernias at different times. In the 1860s, for example, a host of small oil presses were included in the category of "works."
*** For example, in 1890, 11 works out of 383 had an output valued at 7,170,000 rubles out of 12,232,000 rubles. This victory of the industrial over the rural entrepreneurs is causing profound [cont. onto p. 299. -- DJR] dissatisfaction among our agrarians (e.g., Mr. S. Korolenko, loc. cit.) and our Narodniks (e.g., Mr. N-on's Sketches, pp. 241-242). We do not share their views. The big works will raise the productivity of labour and socialise production. That is one point. Another is that the workers the workers conditions in the big works will probably be better, and not only from the material angle, than at the small agricultural oil presses.page 299
we are interested solely in the agricultural processing of oil-bearing plants. "The owners of the hempseed oil presses," we read in the Historico-Statistical Survey (Vol. II), "belong to the well-to-do members of the peasantry"; they attach particular value to vegetable-oil production because it enables them to obtain excellent feed for their cattle (oil-cake). Mr. Prugavin (loc. cit.), noting the "extensive development of the production of linseed oil" in the Yuryev Uyezd, Vladimir Gubernia, states that the peasants derive "no little advantage" from it (pp. 65-66), that crop and stock raising is conducted on a far higher level by peasants who own oil presses than by the bulk of the peasantry and that some of the oil millers also resort to the hire of rural workers (loc. cit., tables, pp. 26-27 and 146-147). The Perm handicraft census for 1894-95 also showed that crop raising is conducted on a much higher level by handicraft oil millers than by the bulk of the peasants (larger areas under crops, far more animals, better harvests, etc.), and that this improvement in cultivation is accompanied by the hiring of rural workers.[*] In the post-Reform period in Voronezh Gubernia, there has been a particular development of the commercial cultivation of sunflower seed, which is crushed for oil in local presses. The area under sunflowers in Russia in the 70s was estimated at about 80,000 dess. (Historico-Statistical Survey, I), and in the 80s at about 136,000 dess., of which 2/3 belonged to peasants. "Since then, however, judging by certain data, the area under this plant has considerably increased, in some places by 100 per cent and even more" (Productive Forces, I, 37). "In the village of Alexeyevka alone" (Biryuch Uyezd, Voronezh Gubernia), we read in the Historico-Statistical <"fnp299">
* V. Ilyin, Economic Studies and Essays, St. Petersburg, 1899, pp. 139-140. (See present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia and General Problems of "Handicraft" Industry. --Ed.page 300
Survey, Vol. II, "there are more than 40 oil presses, and Alexeyevka itself, solely owing to sunflowers, has prospered and grown from a wretched little hamlet into a rich township, with houses and shops roofed with sheet iron" (p. 41). How this wealth of the peasant bourgeoisie was reflected in the condition of the mass of the peasantry may be seen from the fact that in 1890, in the village of Alexeyevka, out of 2,273 families registered (13,386 persons of both sexes), 1,761 had no draught animals, 1,699 had no implements, 1,480 cultivated no land, and only 33 families did not engage in industries.[*]
In general, it should be stated that peasant oil presses usually figure, in Zemstvo house-to-house censuses, among the "commercial and industrial establishments," of whose distribution and role we have already spoken in Chapter II.
<"c4s7v">
5) T o b a c c o G r o w i n gIn conclusion, let us make some brief observations on the development of tobacco growing. The average crop in Russia for the years 1863-1867 was 1,923,000 poods from 32,161 dess.; for 1872-1878 it was 2,783,000 poods from 46,425 dess.; for the 80s, it was 4 million poods from 50,000 dess.** The number of plantations in the same periods was estimated at 75,000, 95,000 and 650,000 respectively, which evidently indicates a very considerable increase in the number of small cultivators drawn into this type of commercial farming. Tobacco growing requires a considerable number of workers. Among the types of agricultural migration note is <"fnp300">
* Statistical Returns for Biryuch Uyezd, Voronezh Gubernia. -- The number of industrial establishments counted in the village was 153. According to Mr. Orlov's Directory for 1890 there were in this village 6 oil presses employing 34 workers, with output valued at 17,000 rubles, and according to the List of Factories and Works for 1894-95 there were 8 oil presses employing 60 workers, with an output valued at 151,000 rubles.
** The Ministry of Finance Yearbook, I. -- Historico-Statistical Survey, Vol. I. -- Productive Forces, IX, 62. The area under tobacco fluctuates considerably from year to year: for example, the average for 1889-1894 was 47,813 dess. (crop -- 4,180,000 poods), and for 1892-1894 was 52,516 dess. with a crop of 4,878,000 poods. See Returns for Russia, 1896, pp. 208-209.page 301
therefore made of migration to tobacco plantations (particularly to the outer gubernias in the South, where the cultivation of tobacco has recently expanded with exceptional rapidity). Reference has already been made in publications to the fact that the workers on the tobacco plantations lead a very hard life.[*]
In the Survey of Tobacco Growing in Russia (Parts II and III, St. Petersburg, 1894, published by order of the Department of Agriculture), there are very detailed and interesting data on tobacco growing as a branch of commercial farming. Mr. V. S. Shcherbachov, describing tobacco growing in Malorossia, gives wonderfully precise information on three uyezds of Poltava Gubernia (Priluki, Lokhvitsa and Romny). This information, gathered by the author and arranged by the Bureau of Statistics, Poltava Gubernia Zemstvo Board, covers 25,089 peasant farms in the three uyezds that grow tobacco; they have 6,844 dessiatines under tobacco and 146,774 dessiatines under cereals. The farms are distributed as follows:
Three uyezds of Poltava Gubernia (1888)
Area in dessiatines
Groups of farms according to
area under cereals
No. of
farms
under
tobacco
under
cereals
Less than 1 dess. . . . . . .
From 1 to 3 " . . . . . .
" 3 to 6 " . . . . . .
" 6 to 9 " . . . . . .
Over 9 " . . . . . .
2,231
7,668
8,856
3,319
3,015
374
895
1,482
854
3,239
448
13,974
34,967
22,820
74,565
Total . . . . . . . .
25,089
6,844
146,774
We see an enormous concentration of both the tobacco and the cereal area in the hands of the capitalist farms. Less than one-eighth of the farms (3,000 out of 25,000) hold more than half the area under cereals (74,000 dess. out of 147,000), with an average of nearly 25 dess. per farm. <"fnp301">
* Beloborodov, above-mentioned article in Severny Vestnik, 1896, No. 2. Russkiye Vedomosti, 1897, No. 127 (May 10) reported a trial in which 20 working women sued the owner of a tobacco plantation in the Crimea, and stated that "numerous facts were revealed in court, depicting the impossible hard life of the plantation workers."page 302
Almost half the area under tobacco (3,200 dess. out of 6,800) belongs to these farms, the average per farm being over 1 dessiatine, whereas for all the other groups the area under tobacco does not exceed one- to two-tenths of a dessiatine per household.
Mr. Shcherbachov, in addition, gives data showing the same farms grouped according to area under tobacco:
Groups of tobacco plantations
No. of
plantations
Area under
tobacco
(dessiatines)
0.01 dess and less . . . . . .
From 0.01 to 0.10 dess. . . . .
" 0.10 to 0.25 " . . . .
" 0.25 to 0.50 " . . . .
" 0.50 to 1.00 " . . . .
" 1.00 to 2.00 " . . . .
" 2.00 and more " . . . .
2,919
9,078
5,989
4,330
1,834
615
324
\
> 2,773
/
30
492
931
1,246
1,065
720
2,360
\
> 4,145
/
Total for uyezd . . . . .
25,089
6,844
From this it can be seen that the concentration of the tobacco area is considerably greater than that of the cereal area. The branch of specifically commercial agriculture in this locality is concentrated in the hands of capitalists to a greater extent than is agriculture in general. Out of 25,000 farms, 2,773 account for 4,145 dess. under tobacco out of 6,844 dess., or more than three-fifths. The biggest tobacco planters, numbering 324 (a little over one-tenth of all the planters), have 2,360 dess. under tobacco, or over one-third of the total area. This averages over 7 dessiatines under tobacco per farm. To judge of the sort of farm it must be, let us recall that tobacco cultivation requires at least two workers for a period of 4 to 8 summer months, depending on the grade of tobacco.The owner of 7 dessiatines under tobacco must therefore have at least 14 workers; in other words, he must undoubtedly base his farm on wage-labour. Some grades of tobacco require not two but three seasonal workers per dessiatine, and day labourers in addition. In a word, we see quite clearly that the greater the degree to which agriculture becomes commercial, the more highly developed is its capitalist organisation.
page 303
The preponderance of small and tiny farms among the tobacco growers (11,997 farms out of 25,089 have up to one-tenth of a dessiatine planted) does not in the least refute the fact of the capitalist organisation of this branch of commercial agriculture; for this mass of tiny farms accounts for an insignificant share of the output (11,997, i.e., nearly half the farms, have in all 522 dess. out of 6,844, or less than one-tenth). Nor do "average" figures, to which people so often confine themselves, provide a picture of the real situation (the average per farm is a little over 1/4 dessiatine under tobacco).
In some uyezds the development of capitalist agriculture and the concentration of production are still more marked. In the Lokhvitsa Uyezd, for example, 229 farms out of 5,957 each have 20 dessiatines and more under cereals. Their owners have 22,799 dess. under cereals out of a total of 44,751, i.e., more than half. Each farmer has about 100 dess. under crops. Of the land under tobacco they have 1,126 dess. out of 2,003 dess. And if the farms are grouped according to area under tobacco, we have in this uyezd 132 farmers out of 5,957 with two and more dessiatines under tobacco. These 132 farmers have 1,441 dess. under tobacco out of 2,003, i.e., 72% and more than ten dessiatines under tobacco per farm. At the other extreme of the same Lokhvitsa Uyezd we have 4,360 farms (out of 5,957) having up to one-tenth of a dessiatine each under tobacco, and altogether 133 dessiatines out of 2,003, i.e., 6%.
It goes without saying that the capitalist organisation of production is accompanied here by a very considerable development of merchant's capital and by all sorts of exploitation outside the sphere of production. The small tobacco growers have no drying sheds, are unable to give their tobacco time to ferment and to sell it (in 3 to 6 weeks) as a finished product. They sell the unfinished product at half the price to buyers-up, who very often plant tobacco themselves on rented land. The buyers-up "squeeze the small planters in every way" (p. 31 of cited publication). Commercial agriculture is commercial capitalist production: this relation can be clearly traced (if only one is able to select the proper methods) in this branch of agriculture too.
page 304
<"c4s8">
VIII. INDUSTRIAL VEGETABLE AND FRUIT GROWING;
SUBURBAN FARMINGWith the fall of serfdom, "landlord fruit growing," which had been developed on quite a considerable scale, "suddenly and rapidly fell into decline almost all over Russia."[*] The construction of railways changed the situation, giving a "tremendous impetus" to the development of new, commercial fruit growing, and brought about a "complete change for the better" in this branch of commercial agriculture.[**] On the one hand, the influx of cheap fruit from the South undermined the industry in the centres where it was formerly conducted [***]; and on the other hand, industrial fruit growing developed, for example, in the Kovno, Vilna, Minsk, Grodno, Mogilev and Nizhni-Novgorod gubernias, along with the expansion of the fruit market.[****] Mr. V. Pashkevich points out that an investigation into the condition of fruit farming in 1893-94 revealed a considerable development of it as an industrial branch of agriculture in the previous ten years, an increase in the demand for gardeners, undergardeners, etc.[(*)] Statistics confirm such views: the amount of fruit carried by the Russian railways is increasing, (**) fruit imports, which increased in the first decade after the Reform, are declining.(***)
It stands to reason that commercial vegetable growing, which provides articles of consumption for incomparably larger masses of the population than fruit growing does, has developed still more rapidly and still more extensively. Industrial vegetable growing becomes widespread, firstly, near the towns(****); secondly, near factory and commercial <"fnp304">
* Historico-Statistical Survey, I, p. 2.
** Ibid.
*** For example, in Moscow Gubernia. See S. Korolenko, Hired Labour, etc., p. 262.
**** Ibid., pp. 335, 344, etc.
<"fnp304a"> (*) Productive Forces, IV, 13.
(**) Ibid., p. 31, also Historico-Statistical Survey, p. 31 and foll.
(***) In the 60s imports amounted to nearly 1 million poods; in 1878-1880 to 3.8 million poods; in 1886-1890 to 2.6 million poods; in 1889-1893 to 2 million poods.
(****) Anticipating somewhat, let us note here that in 1863 there were in European Russia 13 towns with populations of 50,000 and over and in 1897 there were 44 (See Chapter VIII, § II).page 305
and industrial settlements[*] and also along the railways; and thirdly, in certain villages, scattered throughout Russia and famous for their vegetables.[**] It should be observed that there is a demand for this type of produce not only among the industrial, but also among the agricultural population: let us recall that the budgets of the Voronezh peasants show a per-capita expenditure on vegetables of 47 kopeks, more than half of this expenditure being on purchased produce.
To acquaint ourselves with the social and economic relations that arise in this type of commercial agriculture we must turn to the data of local investigations in the particularly developed vegetable-growing areas. Near St. Petersburg, for example, frame and hot-house vegetable growing is widely developed, having been introduced by migratory vegetable growers from Rostov. The number of frames owned by big growers runs into thousands, and by medium growers, into hundreds. "Some of the big vegetable growers supply tens of thousands of poods of pickled cabbage to the army."[***] According to Zemstvo statistics in Petersburg Uyezd 474 households of the local population are engaged in vegetable growing (about 400 rubles income per household) and 230 in fruit growing. Capitalist relations are very extensively developed both in the form of merchant's capital (the industry is "ruthlessly exploited by profiteers") and in the form of hiring workers. Among the immigrant population, for example, there are 115 master vegetable growers (with an income of over 3,000 rubles each) and 711 worker vegetable growers (with an income of 116 rubles each.)**** <"fnp305">
* See examples of settlements of this type in Chapters VI and VII.
** See references to such villages of the Vyatka, Kostroma, Vladimir, Tver, Moscow, Kaluga, Penza, Nizhni-Novgorod and many other gubernias, to say nothing of Yaroslavl Gubernia, in Historico-Statistical Survey, 1, p. 13 and foll., and in Productive Forces, IV, 38 and foll. Cf. also Zemstvo statistical returns for Semyonov, Nizhni-Novgorod and Balakhna uyezds of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia.
<"fnp305a"> *** Productive Forces, IV, 42.
**** Material for Statistics on the Economy in St. Petersburg Gubernia, Vol. V. Actually there are far more vegetable growers than stated in the text, for most of them have been classed under private-landowner farming, whereas the data cited refer only to peasant farming.page 306
The peasant vegetable growers near Moscow are the same sort of typical members of the rural bourgeoisie. "According to an approximate estimate, over 4 million poods of vegetables and greens reach Moscow's markets every year. Some of the villages do a big trade in pickled vegetables: Nogatino Volost sells nearly a million vedros of pickled cabbage to factories and barracks, and even sends consignments to Kronstadt. . . . Commercial vegetable growing is widespread in all the Moscow uyezds, chiefly in the vicinity of towns and factories."[*] "The cabbage is chopped by hired labourers who come from Volokolamsk Uyezd" (Historico-Statistical Survey, I, p. 19).
Exactly similar relations exist in the well-known vegetable-growing district in Rostov Uyezd, Yaroslavl Gubernia, embracing 55 vegetable-growing villages -- Porechye, Ugodichi and others. All the land, except pastures and meadows, has long been turned into vegetable fields. The technical processing of vegetables -- preserving -- is highly developed.[**] Together with the product of the land, the land itself and labour-power are converted into commodities. Despite the "village community," the inequality of land tenure, for example, in the village of Porechye, is very great: in one case a family of 4 has 7 "vegetable plots," in another a family of 3 has 17; this is explained by the fact that no periodical land redistribution takes place here; only private redivisions take place, and the peasants "freely exchange" their "vegetable plots" or "patches" (Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia, 97-98).*** "A large part of the field-work . . . is done by male and female day labourers, many of whom come <"fnp306">
* Productive Forces, IV, 49 and foll. It is interesting to note that different villages specialise in producing particular kinds of vegetables.
** Historico-Statistical Survey, I -- Mr. Orlov's Directory of Factories -- Transactions of the Commission of Inquiry into Handicraft Industry, Vol XIV, article by Mr. Stolpyansky. -- Productive Forces, IV, 46 and foll. -- Survey of Yarodarvl Gubernia, Vol 2, Yaroslavl, 1896. A comparison of the data given by Mr. Stolpyansky (1885) and by the Directory (1890) shows a considerable increase in the factory production of canned goods in this area.
*** Thus the publication mentioned has fully confirmed Mr. Volgin's "doubt" as to whether "the land occupied by vegetable plots is often redivided" (op. cit., 172, footnote).page 307
to Porechye in the summer season both from neighbouring villages and from neighbouring gubernias" (ibid., 99). It is estimated that in the whole of Yaroslavl Gubernia 10,322 persons (of whom 7,689 are from Rostov) engaged in "agriculture and vegetable growing" are migratory workers -- i.e., in the majority of cases are wage-workers in the given occupation.[*]<"p307"> The above quoted data on the migration of rural workers to the metropolitan gubernias,[101] Yaroslavl Gubernia, etc., should be brought into connection with the development not only of dairy farming but also of commercial vegetable growing.
Vegetable growing also includes the hot-house cultivation of vegetables, an industry that is rapidly developing among the well-to-do peasants of Moscow and Tver gubernias.[**] In the first-named gubernia the 1880-81 census showed 88 establishments with 3,011 frames; there were 213 workers, of whom 47 (22.6%) were hired; the total output was valued at 54,400 rubles. The average hot-house vegetable grower had to put at least 300 rubles into the "business." Of the 74 peasants for whom house-to-house returns are given, 41 possess purchased land, and as many rent land, there is an average of 2.2 horses per peasant. It is clear from this that the hot-house vegetable industry is only within the reach of members of the peasant bourgeoisie.[***]
In the south of Russia melon growing also comes within the type of commercial agriculture under review. Here are some brief observations about its development in a district described in an interesting article in the Vestnik Finansov <"fnp307">
* Here, too, a characteristic specialisation of agriculture is to be observed: "It is noteworthy that in places where vegetable growing has become the special occupation of part of the peasant population, the others grow hardly any vegetables at all, but buy them at local markets and fairs" (S. Korolenko, loc. cit., 285)
** Productive Forces, IV, 50-51. S. Korolenko, loc. cit., 273. -- Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia, Vol VII, Pt. 1. -- Statistical Returns for Tver Gubernia, Vol. VIII, Pt. 1, Tver Uyezd: the census of 1886-1890 counted here something over 4,426 frames belonging to 174 peasants and 7 private landowners, i.e., an average of about 25 frames per owner. "In peasant farming it (the industry) is a big help, but only for the well-to-do peasants. . . . If there are more than 20 frames, workers are hired" (p. 167).
<"fnp307a"> *** See data on this industry in appendix to Chapter V, Industry No. 9.page 308
(1897, No. 16) on "industrial melon growing." This branch of production arose in the village of Bykovo (Tsarev Uyezd, Astrakhan Gubernia) at the end of the 60s and the beginning of the 70s. The melons, which at first went only to the Volga region, were consigned, with the coming of the railways, to the capital cities. In the 80s the output "increased at least tenfold" owing to the enormous profits (150 to 200 rubles per dess.) made by the initiators of the business. Like true petty bourgeois, they did all they could to prevent the number of growers from increasing and were most careful in guarding from their neighbours the "secret" of this new and profitable occupation. Of course, all these heroic efforts of the "muzhik cultivator"[*] to stave off "fatal competition"[**] were in vain, and the industry spread much wider -- to Saratov Gubernia and the Don region. The drop in grain prices in the 90s gave a particularly strong impetus to production, compelling "local cultivators to seek a way out of their difficulties in crop rotation systems."[***] The expansion of production considerably increased the demand for hired labour (melon growing requires a considerable amount of labour, so that the cultivation of one dessiatine costs from 30 to 50 rubles), and still more considerably increased the profits of the employers and ground-rent. Near "Log" Station (Gryazi-Tsaritsyn Railway), the area under water-melons in 1884 was 20 dess., in 1890 between 500 and 600 dess., and in 1896 between 1,400 and 1,500 dess., while rent rose from 30 kopeks to between 1.50 and 2 rubles and to between 4 and 14 rubles per dess. for the respective years. The over-rapid expansion of melon planting led at last, in 1896, to overproduction and a crisis, which finally confirmed the capitalist character of this branch of commercial agriculture. Melon prices fell to a point where they did not cover railway charges. The melons were left ungathered in the fields. After tasting tremendous profits the entrepreneurs now learned what losses were like. But the most interesting thing is the means they have chosen for combating the crisis: the means chosen is to win new markets, to effect such a cheapening of produce <"fnp308">
* Mr. N.-on's term for the Russian peasant.
** Mr. V. Prugavin's term.
*** Better tilth is required to raise water-melons and this renders the soil more fertile when sown later to cereals.page 309
and of railway tariffs as to transform it from an item of luxury into an item of consumption for the people (and at points of production, into cattle feed). "Industrial melon growing," the entrepreneurs assure us, "is on the road to further development; apart from high railway tariffs there is no obstacle to its further growth. On the contrary, the Tsaritsyn-Tikhoretskaya Railway now under construction . . . opens a new and extensive area for industrial melon growing." Whatever the further destiny of this "industry" may be, at any rate the history of the "melon crisis" is very instructive, constituting a miniature picture, it is true, but a very vivid one, of the capitalist evolution of agriculture.
We still have to say a few words about suburban farming. The difference between it and the above-described types of commercial agriculture is that in their case the entire farm is adapted to some one chief market product. In the case of suburban farming, however, the small cultivator trades in bits of everything: he trades in his house by letting it to summer tenants and permanent lodgers, in his yard, in his horse and in all sorts of produce from his fields and farmyard: grain, cattle feed, milk, meat, vegetables, berries, fish, timber, etc.; he trades in his wife's milk (baby-farming near the capitals), he makes money by rendering the most diverse (not always even mentionable) services to visiting townsfolk,* etc., etc.** The complete transformation by capitalism of the ancient type of patriarchal farmer, the complete subjugation of the latter to the "power of money" is expressed here so vividly that the suburban peasant is usually put in a separate category by the Narodnik who says that he is "no longer a peasant." But the difference between this type and all preceding types is only one of form. The political and economic essence of the all-round transfor-
* Cf . Uspensky, A Village Diary.
** Let us refer, in illustration, to the above-quoted Material on peasant farming in Petersburg Uyezd. The most varied types of petty traffic have here assumed the form of "industries"; summer-letting, boarding, milk-selling, vegetable-selling, berry-selling, "horse employments," baby-farming, crayfish-catching, fishing, etc. Exactly similar are the industries of the suburban peasants of Tula Uyezd: see article by Mr. Borisov in Vol. IX of Transactions of the Commission of Inquiry into Handicraft Industry.page 310
mation effected in the small cultivator by capitalism is everywhere the same. The more rapid the increase in the number of towns, the number of factory, commercial and industrial townships, and the number of railway stations, the more extensive is the area of the transformation of our "village-community man" into this type of peasant. We should not forget what was said in his day by Adam Smith -- that improved communications tend to convert every village into a suburb.[*] Remote areas cut off from the outside world, already an exception, are with every passing day increasingly becoming as rare as antiquities, and the cultivator is turning with ever-growing rapidity into an industrialist subjected to the general laws of commodity production.
In thus concluding the review of the data on the growth of commercial agriculture, we think it not superfluous to repeat here that our aim has been to examine the main (by no means all) forms of commercial agriculture.
<"c4s9">
IX. CONCLUSIONS ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CAPITALISM
IN RUSSIAN AGRICULTUREIn chapters II-IV the problem of capitalism in Russian agriculture has been examined from two angles. First we examined the existing system of social and economic relations in peasant and landlord economy, the system which has taken shape in the post-Reform period. It was seen that the peasantry have been splitting up at enormous speed into a numerically small but economically strong rural bourgeoisie and a rural proletariat. Inseparably connected with this "depeasantising" process is the landowners' transition from the labour-service to the capitalist system of farming. Then we examined this same process from another angle: we took as our starting-point the manner in which agriculture is transformed into commodity production, and examined the social and economic relations characteristic of each of the principal forms of commercial agriculture. It was shown that the very same processes were conspicuous in both <"fnp310">
* "Good roads, canals and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expense of carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon a level with those in the neighbourhood of the town." Op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 228-229.page 311
peasant and private-landowner farming under a great variety of agricultural conditions.
Let us now examine the conclusions that follow from all the data given above.
1) The main feature of the post-Reform evolution of agriculture is its growing commercial, entrepreneur character. As regards private-landowner farming, this fact is so obvious as to require no special explanation. As regards peasant farming, however, it is not so easily established, firstly, because the employment of hired labour is not an absolutely essential feature of the small rural bourgeoisie. As we have observed above, this category includes every small commodity-producer who covers his expenditure by independent farming, provided the general system of economy is based on the capitalist contradictions examined in Chapter II. Secondly, the small rural bourgeois (in Russia, as in other capitalist countries) is connected by a number of transitional stages with the small-holding "peasant," and with the rural proletarian who has been allotted a patch of land. This circumstance is one of the reasons for the viability of the theories which do not distinguish the existence of a rural bourgeoisie and a rural proletariat among "the peasantry."[*]
2) From the very nature of agriculture its transformation into commodity production proceeds in a special way, unlike the corresponding process in industry. Manufacturing industry splits up into separate, quite independent branches, each devoted exclusively to the manufacture of one product or one part of a product. The agricultural industry, however, does not split up into quite separate branches, but merely specialises in one market product in one case, and in another market product in another, all the other aspects of agriculture being adapted to this principal (i.e., market) product. That is why the forms of commercial agriculture show immense diversity, varying not only in <"fnp311">
* The favourite proposition of the Narodnik economists that "Russian peasant farming is in the majority of cases purely natural economy" is, incidentally, built up by ignoring this fact. (The Influence of Harvests and Grain Prices, I, 52.) One has but to take "average" figures, which lump together both the rural bourgeoisie and the rural proletariat -- and this proposition will pass as proved!page 312
different areas, but also on different farms. That is why, when examining the question of the growth of commercial agriculture, we must on no account confine ourselves to gross data for agricultural production as a whole.[*]
3) The growth of commercial agriculture creates a home market for capitalism. Firstly, the specialisation of agriculture gives rise to exchange between the various agricultural areas, between the various agricultural undertakings, and between the various agricultural products. Secondly, the further agriculture is drawn into the sphere of commodity circulation the more rapid is the growth of the demand made by the rural population for those products of manufacturing industry that serve for personal consumption; and thirdly, the more rapid is the growth of the demand for means of production, since neither the small nor the big rural entrepreneur is able, with the old-fashioned "peasant" implements, buildings, etc., etc., to engage in the new, commercial agriculture. Fourthly and lastly, a demand is created for labour-power, since the formation of a small rural bourgeoisie and the change-over by the landowners to capitalist farming presuppose the formation of a body of regular agricultural labourers and day labourers. Only the fact of the growth of commercial agriculture can explain the circumstance that the post-Reform period is characterised by an expansion of the home market for capitalism (development of capitalist agriculture, development of factory industry in general, development of the agricultural engineer- <"fnp312">
* It is to data of this kind that the authors of the book mentioned in the preceding note confine themselves when they speak of "the peasantry." They assume that every peasant sows just those cereals that he consumes, that he sows all those types of cereals that he consumes, and that he sows them in just that proportion in which they are consumed. It does not require much effort to "deduce" from such "assumptions" (which contradict the facts and ignore the main feature of the post-Reform period) that natural economy predominates.
In Narodnik literature one may also encounter the following ingenious method of argument: each separate type of commercial agriculture is an "exception" -- by comparison with agriculture as a whole. Hence, all commercial agriculture in general, it is averred, must be regarded as an exception, and natural economy must be considered the general rule! In college textbooks on logic, in the section on sophisms, numerous parallels of such lines of reasoning are to be found.page 313
ing industry in particular, development of the so-called peasant "agricultural industries," i.e., work for hire, etc.).
4) Capitalism enormously extends and intensifies among the agricultural population the contradictions without which this mode of production cannot exist. Notwithstanding this, however, agricultural capitalism in Russia, in its historical significance, is a big progressive force. Firstly, capitalism has transformed the cultivator from a "lord of the manor," on the one hand, and a patriarchal, dependent peasant, on the other, into the same sort of industrialist that every other proprietor is in present-day society. Before capitalism appeared, agriculture in Russia was the business of the gentry, a lord's hobby for some, and a duty, an obligation for others; consequently, it could not be conducted except according to age-old routine, necessarily involving the complete isolation of the cultivator from all that went on in the world beyond the confines of his village. The labour-service system -- that living survival of old times in present-day economy -- strikingly confirms this characterisation. Capitalism for the first time broke with the system of social estates in land tenure by converting the land into a commodity. The farmer's product was put on sale and began to be subject to social reckoning -- first in the local, then in the national, and finally in the international market, and in this way the former isolation of the uncouth farmer from the rest of the world was completely broken down. The farmer was compelled willy-nilly, on pain of ruin, to take account of the sum-total of social relations both in his own country and in other countries, now linked together by the world market. Even the labour-service system, which formerly guaranteed Oblomov an assured income without any risk on his part, without any expenditure of capital, without any changes in the age-old routine of production, now proved incapable of saving him from the competition of the American farmer. That is why one can fully apply to post-Reform Russia what was said half a century ago about Western Europe -- that agricultural capitalism hag been "the motive force which has drawn the idyll into the movement of history."*
* Misère de la philosophie (Paris, 1896), p. 223; the author contemptuously describes as reactionary jeremiads, the longings of those [cont. onto p. 314. -- DJR] who thirst for a return to the good old patriarchal life, simple manners, etc, and who condemn the "subjection of the soil to the laws which dominate all other industries."[102]
We are fully aware that to the Narodniks the whole of the argument given in the text may appear not only unconvincing but positively unintelligible, But it would be too thankless a task to analyse in detail such opinions as, for example, that the purchase-and-sale of the land is an "abnormal" phenomenon (Mr. Chuprov, in the debate on grain prices, p. 39 of the verbatim report), that the inalienability of the peasants' allotments is an institution that can be defended, that the labour-service system of farming is better, or at all events no worse, than the capitalist system, etc. All that has been said above goes to refute the political and economic arguments advanced by the Narodniks in support of such views.page 314
Secondly, agricultural capitalism has for the first time undermined the age-old stagnation of our agriculture; it has given a tremendous impetus to the transformation of its technique, and to the development of the productive forces of social labour. A few decades of "destructive work" by capitalism have done more in this respect than entire centuries of preceding history. The monotony of routine natural economy has been replaced by a diversity of forms of commercial agriculture; primitive agricultural implements have begun to yield place to improved implements and machines; the immobility of the old-fashioned farming systems has been undermined by new methods of agriculture. The course of all these changes is linked inseparably with the above-mentioned phenomenon of the specialisation of agriculture. By its very nature, capitalism in agriculture (as in industry) cannot develop evenly: in one place (in one country, in one area, on one farm) it pushes forward one aspect of agriculture, in another place another aspect, etc. In one case it transforms the technique of some, and in other cases of other agricultural operations, divorcing them from patriarchal peasant economy or from the patriarchal labour-service. Since the whole of this process is guided by market requirements that are capricious and not always known to the producer, capitalist agriculture, in each separate instance (often in each separate area, sometimes even in each separate country), becomes more one-sided and lopsided than that which preceded it, but, taken as a whole, becomes immeasurably more many-sided and rational than patriarchal agriculture. The emergence of
page 315
separate types of commercial agriculture renders possible and inevitable capitalist crises in agriculture and cases of capitalist overproduction, but these crises (like all capitalist crises) give a still more powerful impetus to the development of world production and of the socialisation of labour.[*]
Thirdly, capitalism has for the first time created in Russia large-scale agricultural production based on the employment of machines and the extensive co-operation of workers. Before capitalism appeared, the production of agricultural produce was always carried on in an unchanging, wretchedly small way -- both when the peasant worked for himself and when he worked for the landlord -- and no "community character" of land tenure was capable of destroying this tremendously scattered production. Inseparably linked with this scattered production was the scattered nature of the farmers themselves.** Tied to their allotment, to their tiny "village community," they were completely fenced off even from the peasants of the neighbouring village <"fnp315">
* The West-European romanticists and Russian Narodniks strongly emphasise in this process the one-sidedness of capitalist agriculture, the instability created by capitalism, and crises -- and on this basis deny the progressive character of capitalist advance as compared with pre-capitalist stagnation.
** Accordingly, notwithstanding the difference in the forms of land tenure, one can fully apply to the Russian peasant what Marx said of the small French peasant: "The small-holding peasants form a vast mass, the members of which live in similar conditions but without entering into manifold relations with one another. Their mode of production isolates them from one another instead of bringing them into mutual intercourse. The isolation is increased by France's bad means of communication and by the poverty of the peasants. Their field of production (Produktionsfeld), the small holding, admits of no division of labour in its cultivation, no application of science and, therefore, no diversity of development, no variety of talent, no wealth of social relationships. Each individual peasant family is almost self-sufficient, it itself directly produces the major part of its consumption and thus acquires its means of life more through exchange with nature than in intercourse with society. A small holding, a peasant and his family; alongside them another small holding, another peasant and another family. A few score of these make up a village, and a few score of villages make up a Department. In this way, the great mass of the French nation is formed by simple addition of homologous magnitudes, much as potatoes in a sack form a sack of potatoes." (Der achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte, Hmb., 1885, S. 98-99.)[103]page 316
community by the difference in the categories to which they belonged (former landowners' peasants, former state peasants, etc.), by differences in the size of their holdings -- by differences in the terms on which their emancipation took place (which terms were sometimes determined simply by the individual attributes of the landlords and by their whims). Capitalism for the first time broke down these purely medieval barriers -- and it was a very good thing that it did. Now the differences between the various grades of peasants, between the various categories based on the size of allotment holdings, are far less important than the economic differences within each grade, each category and each village community. Capitalism destroys local seclusion and insularity, and replaces the minute medieval divisions among cultivators by a major division, embracing the whole nation, that divides them into classes occupying different positions in the general system of capitalist economy.[*] The mass of cultivators were formerly tied to their place of residence by the very conditions of production, whereas the creation of diverse forms and diverse areas of commercial and capitalist agriculture could not but cause the movement of enormous masses of the population throughout the country; and unless the population is mobile (as we have said above) there can be no question of developing its understanding and initiative.
Fourthly, and lastly, agricultural capitalism in Russia for the first time cut at the root of labour-service and the personal dependency of the farmer. This system of labour-service has held undivided sway in our agriculture from the days of Russkaya Pravda ** down to the present-day cultivation of the fields of private landowners with the <"fnp316">
* "The need for association, for organisation in capitalist society, has not diminished but, on the contrary, has grown immeasurably. But it is utterly absurd to measure this need of the new society with the old yardstick. This new society is already demanding firstly, that the association shall not be according to locality, social-estate or category; secondly, that its starting-point shall be the difference in status and interests that has been created by capitalism and by the differentiation of the peasantry." [V. Ilyin, loc. cit., pp. 91-92 footnote. (See present edition, Vol. 2, "A Characterisation of Economic Romanticism." --Ed.) [Transcriber's Note: See p. 241 of the cited text. -- DJR]
** Russian Law. --Ed.page 317
peasants' implements; the wretchedness and uncouthness of the farmer, degraded by his labour being "semi-free" if not feudal, in character, are inevitable concomitants of this system; if the civil rights of the cultivator had not been impaired (by, for example, his belonging to the lowest social estate; corporal punishment; assignment to public works; attachment to allotment, etc.) the labour-service system would have been impossible. That is why agricultural capitalism in Russia has performed a great historical service in replacing labour-service by hired labour.[*] Summing up what has been said above on the progressive historical role of Russian agricultural capitalism, it may be said that it is socialising agricultural production. Indeed, the fact that agriculture has been transformed from the privileged occupation of the top estate or the duty of the bottom estate into an ordinary commercial and industrial occupation; that the product of the cultivator's labour has become subject to social reckoning on the market; that routine, uniform agriculture is being converted into technically transformed and diverse forms of commercial farming; that the local seclusion and scattered nature of the small farmers is breaking down; that the diverse forms of bondage and personal dependence are being replaced by impersonal transactions in the purchase and sale of labour-power, these are all links in a single process, which is socialising agricultural labour and is increasingly intensifying the contradiction between the anarchy of market fluctuations, between the individual character of the separate agricultural enterprises and the collective character of large-scale capitalist agriculture.
Thus (we repeat once more), in emphasising the progressive historical role of capitalism in Russian agriculture <"fnp317">
* One of Mr. N.-on's innumerable plaints and lamentations over the destructive work of capitalism in Russia deserves special attention: ". . . Neither the strife among the appanage princes nor the Tartar invasion affected the forms of our economic life" (Sketches, p. 284); only capitalism has displayed "contempt for its own historical past" (p. 283). The sacred truth! Capitalism in Russian agriculture is progressive precisely because it has displayed "contempt" for the "age-old", "time-hallowed" forms of labour-service and bondage, which, indeed, no political storms, the "strife among the appanage princes" and the "Tartar invasion" inclusive, were able to destroy.page 318
we do not in the least forget either the historically transient character of this economic regime or the profound social contradictions inherent in it. On the contrary, we have shown above that it is precisely the Narodniks who, capable only of bewailing the "destructive work" of capitalism, give an extremely superficial appraisal of these contradictions, glossing over the differentiation of the peasantry, ignoring the capitalist character of the employment of machinery in our agriculture, and covering up with such expressions as "agricultural industries" and "employments" the emergence of a class of agricultural wage-workers.
<"c4s10">
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.*
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"
* V. V., Essays 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.page 319
(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
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of the soil, etc.* 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.[**]The greater the development of capitalism and large-
* 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?
<"fnp320"> ** 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,<"p321"> lime-burning, railway-making, etc." (Das Kapital, I2, S. [cont. onto p. 321. -- DJR] 692[104].) "In general such large-scale undertakings as railways withdraw 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)[105]page 321
scale industry, the greater, in general, are the fluctuations in the demand for workers not only in agriculture, but also in industry.[*] 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 forgotten, 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,"** as well as in a special chapter where he <"fnp321">
* 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.
<"p321a"> ** 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" (I2, 725),[106] 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 [cont. onto p. 322. -- DJR] 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)[107]; 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.)page 322
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.[*] 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 . . .<"p322"> all differences in the turnover are evened out. Not so for the labourer" (ibid., 223-224).[109] 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.** <"fnp322">
* 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).[108]
** We say "somewhat," because the deterioration of the conditions of the agricultural worker is far from being due to irregularity of employment alone.page 323
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.
<"c4s11">
XI. CONTINUATION. -- THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY. -- MARX'S
VIEWS ON SMALL-SCALE AGRICULTURE. -- ENGELS'S
OPINION OF THE CONTEMPORARY AGRICULTURAL CRISIS"The community principle prevents capital from seizing agricultural production," -- that is how Mr. N. -- on (p. 72) expresses another current Narodnik theory, formulated in just as abstract a fashion as the previous one. In Chapter II we quoted a series of facts showing the fallacy of this stock premise. Now let us add the following. It is a great mistake to think that the inception of agricultural capitalism itself requires some special- form of land tenure. "But the form of landed property with which the incipient capitalist mode of production is confronted does not suit it. It first creates for itself the form required by subordinating agriculture to capital. It thus transforms feudal landed property, clan property, small-peasant property in mark communes* (Markgemeinschaft) -- no matter <"fnp323">
* In another place Marx points out that "common lands (Gemeineigentum) constitute the second supplement of the management of land parcels." (Das Kapital, III, 2, 341).[110]page 324
how divergent their juristic forms may be -- into the economic form corresponding to the requirements of this mode of production" (Das Kapital, III, 2, 156). Thus, by the very nature of the case, no peculiarities in the system of land tenure can serve as an insurmountable obstacle to capitalism, which assumes different forms in accordance with the different conditions in agriculture, legal relationships and manner of life. One can see from this how wrong is the very presentation of the question by our Narodniks, who have created a whole literature on the subject of "village community or capitalism?" Should some Anglomaniac aristocrat happen to offer a prize for the best work on the introduction of capitalist farming in Russia, should some learned society come forward with a scheme to settle peasants on farmsteads, should some idle government official concoct a project for 60-dessiatine holdings, the Narodnik hastens to throw down the gauntlet and fling himself into the fray against these "bourgeois projects" to "introduce capitalism" and destroy that Palladium of "people's industry," the village community. It has never entered the head of our good Narodnik that capitalism has been proceeding on its way while all sorts of projects have been drafted and refuted, and the community village has been turning, and has actually turned,* into the village of small agrarians.
That is why we are very indifferent to the question of the form of peasant land tenure. Whatever the form of land tenure may be, the relation between the peasant bourgeoisie and the rural proletariat will not undergo any essential change. The really important question concerns not the form of land tenure at all, but the remnants of the purely
* If we are told that we are running ahead in making such an assertion, our reply will be the following. Whoever wants to depict some living phenomenon in its development is inevitably and necessarily confronted with the dilemma of either running ahead or lagging behind. There is no middle course. And if all the facts show that the character of the social evolution is precisely such that this evolution has already gone very far (see Chapter II), and if, furthermore, precise reference is made to the circumstances and institutions that retard this evolution (excessively high taxes, social-estate exclusiveness of the peasantry, lack of full freedom in the purchase and sale of land, and in movement and settlement), then there is nothing wrong in such running ahead.page 325
medieval past, which continue to weigh down upon the peasantry -- the social-estate seclusion of the peasant communities, collective responsibility, excessively high taxation of peasant land out of all proportion to the taxation of privately-held land, the absence of full freedom in the purchase and sale of peasant lands, and in the movement and settlement of the peasantry.[*] All these obsolete institutions, while not in the least safeguarding the peasantry against break-up, only lead to the multiplication of diverse forms of labour-service and bondage, to tremendous delay in social development as a whole.
In conclusion we must deal with an original Narodnik attempt to give an interpretation to some statements made by Marx and Engels in Volume III of Capital, in favour of their views that small-scale agriculture is superior to large-scale, and that agricultural capitalism does not play a progressive historical role. Quite often, with this end in view, they quote the following passage from Volume III of Capital :
"The moral of history, also to be deduced from other observations concerning agriculture, is that the capitalist system works against a rational agriculture, or that a rational agriculture is incompatible with the capitalist system (although the latter promotes technical improvements in agriculture), and needs either the hand of the small farmer living by his own labour (selbst arbeitenden<"p325">) or the control of associated producers" (III, 1, 98. Russ. trans., 83).[111]
What follows from this assertion (which, let us note in passing, is an absolutely isolated fragment that has found its way into a chapter dealing with the way changes in the prices of raw materials affect profits, and not into Part VI, which deals specifically with agriculture)? That capitalism is incompatible with the rational organisation of agriculture (as also of industry) has long been known; nor is that the point at issue with the Narodniks. And the progressive historical role of capitalism in agriculture is <"fnp325">
* The defence of some of these institutions bv the Narodniks very glaringly reveals the reactionary character of their views, which is gradually bringing them closer and closer to the agrarians.page 326
especially emphasised by Marx here. There remains Marx's reference to the "small peasant living by his own labour." None of the Narodniks who have referred to this point has taken the trouble to explain how he understands this, has taken the trouble to connect this point with the context, on the one hand, and with Marx's general theory of small-scale agriculture, on the other. -- In the passage quoted from Capital the point dealt with is how considerably the prices of raw materials fluctuate, how these fluctuations disturb the proportionality and systematic working of production, how they disturb the conformity of agriculture and industry. It is only in this respect -- in respect of the proportionality, systematic working and planned operation of production -- that Marx places small peasant economy on a par with the economy of "associated producers." In this respect, even small medieval industry (handicraft) is similar to the economy of "associated producers" (cf. Misère de la philosophie, edition cited, p. 90), whereas capitalism differs from both these systems of social economy in its anarchy of production. By what logic can one draw the conclusion from this that Marx admitted the viability of small-scale agriculture,[*] that he did not acknowledge the progressive historical role of capitalism in agriculture? Here is what Marx said about this in the special part dealing with agriculture, in the special section on small peasant economy (Chapter 47, § V):
"Proprietorship of land parcels by its very nature excludes the development of social productive forces of labour, social forms of labour, social concentration of capital, large-scale cattle raising, and the progressive application of science.
"Usury and a taxation system must impoverish it everywhere. The expenditure of capital in the price of the land withdraws this capital from cultivation. An infinite fragmentation of means of production, and isolation of the producers themselves. Monstrous waste of human energy. <"fnp326">
* Let us recall that Engels, shortly before his death, and at a time when the agricultural crisis connected with the drop in prices was fully manifest, considered it necessary to protest emphatically against the French "disciples," who had made some concessions to the doctrine of the viability of small-scale agriculture.[112]page 327
Progressive deterioration of conditions of production and increased prices of means of production -- <"p327">an inevitable law of proprietorship of parcels. Calamity of seasonal abundance for this mode of production" (III, 2, 341-342. Russ. trans., 667).[113]
"Small landed property presupposes that the overwhelming majority of the population is rural, and that not social, but isolated labour predominates; and that, therefore, under such conditions wealth and development of reproduction, both of its material and spiritual prerequisites, are out of the question,<"p327a"> and thereby also the prerequisites for rational cultivation" (III, 2, 347. Russ. trans., p. 672).[114]
The writer of these lines, far from closing his eyes to the contradictions inherent in large-scale capitalist agriculture, ruthlessly exposed them. But this did not prevent him from appreciating the historical role of capitalism:
". . . One of the major results of the capitalist mode of production is that, on the one hand, it transforms agriculture from a mere empirical and mechanical self-perpetuating process employed by the least developed part of society into the conscious scientific application of agronomy, in so far as this is at all feasible under conditions of private property; that it divorces landed property from the relations of dominion and servitude, on the one hand, and, on the other, totally separates land as an instrument of production from landed property and landowner. . . . The rationalising of agriculture, on the one hand, which makes it for the first time capable of operating on a social scale, and the reduction ad absurdum of property in land, on the other, are the great achievements of the capitalist mode of production. Like all of its other historical advances,<"p327b"> it also attained these by first completely impoverishing the direct producers" (III, 2, 156-157. Russ. trans., 509-510).[115]
One would think that after such categorical statements by Marx there could be no two opinions as to how he viewed the question of the progressive historical role of agricultural capitalism. Mr. N.-on, however, found one more subterfuge: he quoted Engels's opinion on the present agricultural crisis, which should, in his view, refute the
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proposition of the progressive role of capitalism in agriculture.[*]
Let us see what Engels actually says. After summarising the main propositions of Marx's theory of differential rent, Engels establishes the law that "the more capital is invested in the land, and the higher the development of agriculture and civilisation in general in a given country, the more rents rise per acre as well as in total amount,<"p328"> and the more immense becomes the tribute paid by society to the big landowners in the form of surplus-profits" (Das Kapital, III, 2, 258. Russ. trans., 597).[116] This law, says Engels, explains "the wonderful vitality of the class of big landowners," who accumulate a mass of debts and nevertheless "land on their feet" in all crises; for example, the abolition of the Corn Laws in England, which caused a drop in grain prices, far from ruining the landlords, exceedingly enriched them.
It might thus seem that capitalism is unable to weaken the power of the monopoly represented by landed property.
"But everything is transitory," continues Engels. "Trans-oceanic steamships and the railways of North and South America and India" called forth new competitors. The North American prairies and the Argentine pampas, etc., flooded the world market with cheap grain. "And in face of this competition -- coming from virgin plains as well as from Russian and Indian peasants ground down by taxation -- the European tenant farmer and peasant could not prevail <"fnp328">
* See Novoye Slovo, 1896, No. 5, February, letter to editors by Mr. N.-on, pp. 256-261. Here also is the "quotation" on the "moral of history." It is remarkable that neither Mr. N.-on nor any other of the numerous Narodnik economists who have tried to use the present agricultural crisis to refute the theory of the progressive historical role of capitalism in agriculture, has ever once raised the question in a straightforward manner, on the basis of a definite economic theory; has ever once stated the grounds which induced Marx to admit the progressiveness of the historical role of agricultural capitalism, or has definitely indicated just which of these grounds he repudiates, and why. In this, as in other cases, the Narodnik economists prefer not to oppose Marx's theory outright, but confine themselves to casting vague hints at the "Russian disciples." Confining ourselves in this work to the economy of Russia, we have given above the grounds for our opinions on this question.page 329
at the old rents. A portion of the land in Europe fell decisively out of competition as regards grain cultivation, and rents fell everywhere; our second case, variant 2 -- falling prices and falling productivity of the additional investment of capital -- became the rule for Europe; and therefore the lament of landlords from Scotland to Italy and from the south of France to the east of Prussia. Fortunately, the plains are far from being entirely brought under cultivation; there are enough left to ruin all the big landlords of Europe and the small ones into the bargain"<"p329"> (ibid., 260. Russ. trans., 598, where the word "fortunately" is omitted.)[117]
If the reader has read this passage carefully it should be clear to him that Engels says the very opposite of what Mr. N.-on wants to foist on him. In Engels's opinion the present agricultural crisis is reducing rent and is even tending to abolish it altogether; in other words, agricultural capitalism is pursuing its natural tendency to abolish the monopoly of landed property. No, Mr. N.-on is positively out of luck with his "quotations." Agricultural capitalism is taking another, enormous step forward; it is boundlessly expanding the commercial production of agricultural produce and drawing a number of new countries into the world arena; it is driving patriarchal agriculture out of its last refuges, such as India or Russia; it is creating something hitherto unknown to agriculture, namely, the purely industrial production of grain, based on the co-operation of masses of workers equipped with the most up-to-date machinery; it is tremendously aggravating the position of the old European countries, reducing rents, thus undermining what seemed to be the most firmly established monopolies and reducing landed property "to absurdity" not only in theory, but also in practice; it is raising so vividly the need to socialise agricultural production that this need is beginning to be realised in the West even by representatives of the propertied classes.* And Engels, with his characteristic cheerful irony, welcomes the latest steps of world <"fnp329">
* Are not, indeed, such manifestations as the celebrated Antrag Kanitz (Kanitz plan --Ed.) proposed in the German Reichstag,[118] or the proposal of the American farmers that all elevators be made state property typical signs of the times"?page 330
capitalism: fortunately, he says, there is still enough uncultivated prairie land left to enable things to continue as they have been doing. But our good Mr. N.-on, à propos des bottes,[*] sighs for the "muzhik cultivator" of yore, for the "time-hallowed" . . . stagnation of our agriculture and of all the various forms of agricultural bondage which "neither the strife among the appanage princes nor the Tartar invasion" could shake, and which now -- oh, horror! -- are beginning to be most thoroughly shaken by this monstrous capitalism! O, sancta simplicitas!
<"fnp330">
* Without rhyme or reason. --Ed. <"NOTES">NOTES <"en79">[79] The first six sections of this chapter originally appeared as an article in the journal Nachalo (Beginning ), Issue No. 3, March 1899 (pp. 96-117) under the title of "The Dislodgement of Corvée by Capitalist Economy in Contemporary Russian Agriculture." The article was accompanied by the following editorial note: "This article is an extract from the author's considerable investigation of the development of capitalism in Russia." [p.191]
<"en80">[80] See Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, On Britain, Moscow, 1953, p. 10. [p.192]
<"en81">[81] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 771. [p.193]
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<"en82">[82] "Cut-off-lands " (otrezki ) -- the pasture lands woods, etc., which the landlords "cut off," i.e., of which they deprived the peasants when serfdom was abolished in Russia. [p.194]
<"en83">[83] Temporarily-bound peasants -- serfs who, after the abolition of serfdom in 1861, were obliged to perform certain services for the landlords, i.e., do corvée service or pay quit-rent. The "temporarily-bound status" continued until the peasants, by agreement with the landlords, had acquired their allotments by the payment of redemption money. The landlords were obliged to accept redemption payments only after the edict of 1881, by which the "obligatory relation" between the peasants and the landlords had to cease as from January 1, 1883. [p.194]
<"en84">[84] The two volumes of The Influence of Harvests and Grain Prices on Certain Aspects of the Russian National Economy reached Lenin in the village of Shushenskoye in 1897. He made a careful study of them while working on The Development of Capitalism in Russia, as is proved by his numerous marginal comments in the volumes. While he exposed the method which the Narodniks were so fond of employing, the distortion of the actual situation by quoting "average" statistics which in fact obscured the differentiation of the peasantry, Lenin carefully checked and made use of the concrete material in the volumes. Thus, on page 153 of Vol. 1 Lenin drew up a table showing the distribution, in the different gubernias of Russia, of the various forms of economy (capitalist, labour-service, and mixed). This material, along with some additions from other sources, went to make up the table given in the text. [p.196]
<"en85">[85] Cultivation of cycles -- an enslaving form of labour-service rendered to the landlord by the peasant as rental for land obtained from him in post-Reform Russia. The landlord lent the peasant land or made him a loan in cash or kind for which the peasant undertook to cultivate a "cycle," using his own implements and draught animals; this meant cultivating one dessiatine of spring crops and one of winter crops, occasionally supplemented by reaping a dessiatine of crops. [p.198]
<"en86">[86] Skopshchina -- the name given in the southern parts of Russia to the payment of land rent in kind, on terms of bondage, the tenant paying the landowner "s kopny" (from the corn-shock) a portion of the harvest (a half, and sometimes more), and usually fulfilling miscellaneous labour services in addition. [p.201]
<"en87">[87] Villeins -- feudally dependent peasants in ancient Rus (9th-13th centuries) who performed corvée service for the princes and other temporal and clerical lords and also paid rent in kind. The feudal lords seized the land of the villeins and compelled them to work on the feudal estates.
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Russkaya Pravda (Russian Law ) -- the first written codification of laws and princes' decrees (11th-12th centuries). The statutes of the Russkaya Pravda protected the lives and property of the feudal lord and are indicative of the bitter class struggle between peasants in feudal bondage and their exploiters. [p.204]
<"en88">[88] The Verbatim Report of the Debates of March 1 and 2 appeared in the Transactions of the Free Economic Society, 1897, No. 4. [p.212]
<"en89">[89] Oblomov -- a type of landlord who lacked will-power, did nothing and was extremely lazy. A character in Goncharov's novel of that name. [p.218]
<"en90">[90] Pindar -- ancient Greek lyrical poet. Of his numerous works, four volumes of poems have survived in which he extols the victors at the games. Pindar's name has become an epithet used to designate those who "eulogise" beyond measure.
In speaking of the Pindar of the capitalist factory Lenin has in mind the term applied by Marx in Capita, Volume I, to that apologist of capitalism, Dr. Ure. [p.233]
<"en91">[91] Zvegintsev Commission -- was established in 1894 under the auspices of the Zemstvo Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs to draw up measures for "introducing order into employments outside the village and regulating the movement of agricultural labourers." [p.242]
<"en92">[92] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 546. [p.245]
<"en93">[93] In the first edition (1899) of The Development of Capitalism in Russia the table was given as follows: [p.253]
50 Gubernias of European Russia
Periods
Population
Sown
all crops sown, i.e.,
cereals plus potatoes
Thousands of Chetverts
Net yield sown
Potatoes
Net yield
Net per-capita
yield, in
chetverts of
000's
in % %
in % %
in % %
in % %
in % %
cere-
als
pota-
toes
Total
crops
1864-66
1870-79
1883-87
1885-94
61,400
69,853
81,725
86,282
100
114
132
140
100
117
123
100
105
72,225
75,620
80,293
92,616
100
104
111
128
100
106
122
100
115
152,851
211,325
255,178
265,254
100
138
166
173
100
120
126
100
104
6,918
8,757
10,847
16,552
100
126
156
239
100
123
187
100
152
16,966
30,379
36,164
44,348
100
178
212
260
100
119
146
100
123
2.21
2.59
2.68
2.57
0.27
0.43
0.44
0.50
2.48
3.02
3.12
3.07
page 651
<"en94">[94] Lenin's notes on this publication and his preliminary calculations are published in Lenin Miscellany XXXIII, pp. 165-175. [p.254]
<"en95">[95] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 738-39. [p.258]
<"en96">[96] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 655. [p.259]
<"en97">[97] Res fungibilis -- replaceable thing -- an old juridical term. "Replaceable things" are those which in contracts are indicated by simple numerical quantity or measure ("so many bushels of rye," "so many bricks"). They are distinguished from "irreplaceable things" -- things that are specifically indicated ("such and such a thing," "article number so and so"). [p.270]
<"en98">[98] Little Russia, i.e., Malorossia -- as the territory of the Ukraine was officially called in tsarist Russia. [p.272]
<"en99">[99] N. A. Blagoveshchensky's Peasant Farming. Combined Zemstvo House-to-House Census Economic Returns, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1893. [p.272]
<"en100">[100] See Y. M. Dementyev's The Factory, What It Gives and What It Takes from the Population, Moscow, 1893, pp. 88-97. [p.296]
<"en101">[101] "Metropolitan gubernias" here refers to the gubernias of St. Petersburg and Moscow. [p.307]
<"en102">[102] See Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, Moscow, p. 180. [p.314]
<"en103">[103] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 334 (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte ). [p.315]
<"en104">[104] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 663. [p.320]
page 652
<"en105">[105] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. II, Moscow, 1957, p. 316. [p.321]
<"en106">[106] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 693. [p.321]
<"en107">[107] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 642. [p.321]
<"en108">[108] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. II, Moscow, 1957, pp. 242-243. [p.322]
<"en109">[109] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. II, Moscow, 1957, p. 241. [p.322]
<"en110">[110] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 603, 787. [p.323]
<"en111">[111] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 119. [p.325]
<"en112">[112] This refers to the article by Engels entitled "The Peasant Question in France and Germany," published in Die Neue Zeit, Issue No. 10 of the year 1894-95. (See Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, pp. 420-440.) The French "disciples" -- the name given, with an eye to censorship, to Marxists (in the article mentioned Engels calls them "French Socialists of the Marxist trend"). [p.326]
<"en113">[113] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 787. [p.327]
<"en114">[114] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 792-793. [p.327]
<"en115">[115] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 603-604. [p.327]
<"en116">[116] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 709. [p.328]
<"en117">[117] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp. 709-710. [p.329]
<"en118">[118] In the years 1894-1895 Count Kanitz, representative of the agrarians, introduced into the German Reichstag the proposal known as the "Antrag Kanitz" calling on the government to assume control of the purchase of grain abroad, and undertake the sale of all such imported grain at average prices. The proposal was rejected by the Reichstag. [p.329]