Leon Trotsky: 1905

Leon Trotsky: 1905: CHAPTER 2-- Russian Capitalism
relative but absolute. The second table shows that the same conclusions can be drawn in even more
striking form from a comparison between Russia and Belgium.
We shall see further on the enormous influence this highly concentrated character of Russian industry
had on the course of the Russian revolution, and indeed on Russia's whole political development.
At the same time we shall have to take into account another circumstance of a not less important nature:
this highly modernized industry of a highly capitalistic type involves only a minor ity of the population,
while the peasant majority continues to struggle under the net of class enslavement and pauperism. This
fact, in turn, sets narrow limits on the development of capitalist industry in our country.
GROUPS OF
FACTORIES AND
PLANTS
GERMANY (CENSUS OF 1895)
No. of enterprises
No. of workers
1,000 % average
RUSSIAN
(STATISTICS FOR 1902)
No. of
enterprises
No. of workers
1,000 % average
Between 6 & 50 workers 191,101 2,454.3 44 13 14,189 234.5 12.5 16.5
Between 51 & 1,000
workers
18,698 2,595.5 46 139 4,722 918.5 49.0 195
1,000 workers and above 296 562.6 10 1,900 302 710.2 38.5 2,351
TOTAL: 210,095 5,612.4 100 --- 19,213 1863.2 100 ---
GROUPS OF
FACTORIES AND
PLANTS
Between 5 & 49
workers
Between 50 & 499
workers
BELGIUM (CENSUS OF 1895)
No. of
enterprises
No. of workers
1,000 % average
RUSSIA
(STATISTICS FOR 1902)
No. of
enterprises
No. of workers
1,000 % average
13,000 162 28.3 12.5 14,189 234.5 12.6 16.5
1,446 250 43.7 170 4,298 628.9 33.8 146.3
500 workers or more 184 160 28 869 726 999.8 53.6 1,377
TOTAL: 14,650 572 100 --- 19,213 1863.2 100 ---
The breakdown of the industrially active population into agricultural and non-agricultural pursuits, for
Russia and the United States of America, is given in the table below.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1905/ch02.htm (6 of 8) [06/06/2002 13:41:32]