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

174V. I. LENINto 2 hectares, and only 1,932= 6 per cent occupied an areaof 2 hectares and over.”That is all. And this is supposed to prove that smallscaleproduction is flourishing in market gardening. Thisis supposed to be a scientific work by a man well versedin agronomics. If it is, then we do not know what charlatanryin science is.Only 6 per cent have an area of 2 hectares and over, saysDavid. In the very same statistics from which he takes thosefigures there are figures showing the amount of land whichthese 6 per cent occupy. David ignores those figures. Heignores them because they demolish his theory. “But morethan half of this area (51.39 per cent),” I wrote concerningthose very figures,* “is concentrated in the hands of 1,932proprietors, or 5.94 per cent of all the market gardeners.”Of these 1,932 market gardeners 1,441 have vegetable gardensranging from two to five hectares, making an averageof 2.76 hectares per farm and total land amounting to anaverage of 109.6 hectares per farm; 491 farmers have vegetablegardens of five hectares or more, making an averageof 16.54 hectares per farm, and total land amounting to anaverage of 134.7 hectares per farm (ibid.).Thus, only 6 per cent of the market gardeners concentratein their hands 51.39 per cent of the total market gardenland. They are big capitalists for whom vegetable gardensare supplementary to capitalist agriculture (farms of 100to 135 hectares). Consequently, market gardening is enormouslyconcentrated capitalistically. But David has the ...temerity to assert that “small-scale production is flourishing”,i.e., production not using hired labour. As to whatsize farms in market gardening require hired labourers hegives no information.That is how the scholarly David handles statistics. Anexample of the way in which he handles monographs is providedby Hecht, 89 the same notorious Hecht quoted byBulgakov, Hertz, and Chernov.** In his “work” David paraphrasesHecht for the space of two pages (pp. 394-95).But how does he paraphrase him? Not a word about hired* See present edition, Vol. 5, p. 215.—Ed.** See present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 162-67.—Ed.