Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 13 - From Marx to Mao

AGRARIAN QUESTION AND “CRITICS OF MARX”173work: the viability of small-scale production in agricultureand its superiority to large-scale production. Ask David:What is small-scale production?On page 29, footnote, you will find a neat answer: “Whereverwe refer to small-scale production we mean the economiccategory which functions without regular outsideassistance and without an auxiliary occupation.” Thoughclumsily expressed and poorly translated by Mr. Grossman,this is more or less clear. After that we have a right to expectDavid to outline the conditions of small-scale (inarea) farming from the standpoint of the employment ofhired labour, or the sale of the latter by the farmer.Nothing of the kind.FROM MARXTO MAONothing brings out David’s bourgeois nature so strongly⋆as his complete disregard of the question of the employmentof hired labour by “small” farmers and of the conversionof the latter into wage-labourers. Complete disregard—that is literally true. Statistical data on this are to befound in German statistics; Kautsky quotes them brieflyin his Agrarian Question (I have quoted them in detail*).David knows those statistics, but he does not analysethem. He gives a mass of references to separate monographs,but completely ignores the data they contain on this question.In short, this is NOT a case of FOR a petty bourgeois completelypassing over in silence the question of the “farm-hands”employed by the thrifty muzhik.Here are examples:COMMERCIALOn page 109 we read: “On the whole, in market gardeningas in agriculture, DISTRIBUTIONsmall-scale production flourishes.”You look for proof. All you are given is the following:“According to the industrial statistics** for 1895, outof 32,540 orchards and vegetable gardens 13,247= 40 percent were of an area less than 20 ares; 8,257= 25 per centranged from 20 to 50 ares; 5,707= 14 per cent from 50 aresto one hectare; 3,397= 10 per cent ranged in area from 1* See present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 194-95.—Ed.** Evidently, this is the way Mr. Grossman, the editor of thetranslation, translated the word Betriebsstatistik. That’s the troublewith Russian translations! It should have been translated: “statisticsof agricultural enterprises”.