Above 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 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.
Here 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[1]:
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[2]:
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, etc.[3] 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).[4]
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[5] than the cultivation of a dessiatine of cereals and the use of machinery in, for example, the central black-earth area is still very slight. Thus, while the number of workers engaged in the distilling industry proper has decreased,[6] 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.
The 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.,[7] in the 70s to about 160,000 dess.[8]; in 1886-1895 to 239,000 dess.,[9] in 1896-1898 to 369,000 dess.,[10] 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 1860-1864 was 4.1 million berkovets[11]; 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.[12] 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.[13] 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.)[14] 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. 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[15] (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 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.[16]
From 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.[17] “In the past 25 years,” we read in the 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.[18] The number of establishments was 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:
establishments[19]
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.[20]
The peasants who own “grating” establishments farm under very favourable conditions. The planting of potatoes (on 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).[21] 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 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. V. 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.[22]
The 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.[23] 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.[24] Here 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.[25] 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 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 town ship, 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.[26]
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.
In 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.[27] 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 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.[28]
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:
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. 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:
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 there fore 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.
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 114 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.
[1] 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 distilling are called mixed distilleries (cf. Vestnik Finansov, 1896, No. 25, and 1898, No. 10).—Lenin
[2] Sources: Military Statistical Abstract, 427; Productive Forces, IX, 49, and Vestnik Finansov, 1898, No. 14.—Lenin
[3] 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.—Lenin
[4] 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).—Lenin
[5] 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.—Lenin
[6] 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).—Lenin
[7] The Ministry of Finance Yearbook, Vol.I.—Military Statistical Abstract.—Historico-Statistical Survey, Vol. II.—Lenin
[8] Historico-Statistical Survey, I.—Lenin
[9] Productive Forces, I, 41.—Lenin
[10] 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.—Lenin
[11] Berkovets—360 lbs. –Ed.—Lenin
[12] In addition to above sources see Vestnik Finansov, 1898, No. 32.—Lenin
[13] 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).—Lenin
[14] 1.8 acres.—Lenin
[15] Medical Chronicle of Kharkov Gubernia.—Lenin
[16] 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 ).—Lenin
[17] 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 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. 11, 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.—Lenin
[18] Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia, Vol. VII, Pt 1, Moscow, 1882.—Lenin
[19] See Appendix to Chapter V, Industry No. 24.—Lenin
[20] 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[29]) a 12-hour working day prevails.—Lenin
[21] 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.—Lenin
[22] 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.—Lenin
[23] 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.”—Lenin
[24] 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 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.—Lenin
[25] 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)—Lenin
[26] Statistical Returns for Biryuch Uyezd, Voronesh 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.—Lenin
[27] 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.—Lenin
[28] Belborodov, 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.”—Lenin
[29] See Y. M. Dementyev’s The Factory, What It Gives and What It Takes from the Population, Moscow, 1893, pp. 88-97.
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