Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 16 - From Marx to Mao

THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM OF MODERN AGRICULTURE441the percentage of temporary workers is very high. As the sizeof the farm increases the percentage falls—with only oneexception. This exception is that among wage-workers of thebiggest capitalist farms the percentage of temporary workersincreases slightly, and since the number of family workersin this group is quite negligible, the percentage of temporaryworkers among the workers as a whole increases considerably,from 25 to 32 per cent.The difference between peasant and capitalist farms asregards the total number of temporary workers is not verygreat. The difference between the numbers of family andwage-workers is very considerable in all types of farm, andif we take into account that among temporary family workersthere is, as we shall see, an especially high percentage ofwomen and children this difference becomes still greater.Hence wage-workers are the most mobile element....IVLABOUR OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN AGRICULTURE... they carry on agriculture. Generally speaking, women’slabour predominates also in the peasant farm, and it is onlyin the big peasant and capitalist enterprises that men constitutethe majority.There are in general fewer women among wage-workersthan among family workers. Obviously, the capitalist cultivatorsin all the groups are among those farmers who obtainthe best labour forces. If the predominance of women overmen can be taken as a measure of the straitened circumstancesof the farmer and of the unsatisfactory state of a farm thathas no possibility of using the best labour forces (and thissupposition inevitably follows from all the data on women....SQUANDERING OF LABOUR IN SMALL-SCALE PRODUCTION. . . .THE CAPITALIST CHARACTER OF THE USE OF MACHINERYIN MODERN AGRICULTURE. . . .VVI