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

176V. I. LENINIt is sufficient to note that even the bourgeois apologistHecht, quoted by David, admits as a fact the deteriorationin diet as a consequence of the substitution of cheap margarinefor marketed milk. This applies to South Germany,the region where small-peasant farming predominates.Concerning another region, East Prussia, we have the verysimilar statement of Klawki* that the small peasants “consumevery little butter and whole milk”.David’s bourgeois apologetics can be traced in absolutelyall the questions he deals with. Thus, he extols the dairyco-operatives of Germany and Denmark in over a score ofpages (413-35 and others). He also quotes statistics ... butonly on the numerical growth of the co-operatives! Hedoes not quote the German statistics showing the concentrationof “co-operative” dairy farming in the hands ofbig capitalist farms.** The Davids have a blind eye for suchdata in the statistics they handle!“The Danish peasants organised in co-operatives,” saysDavid, “have even excelled the privately owned farms ofthe big landed proprietors.” Then follows an example: aquotation from the 46th Report of a test laboratory to theeffect that the butter produced by the co-operatives is ofbetter quality than that manufactured by the landlord.And David continues:“Such results have been achieved by peasants who at one timeon their small farms, produced only inferior grades of butter forwhich they obtained only half the price paid for that of the bigproprietors. Moreover, by and large, we are dealing here with middleand small peasants [David’s italics]. In 1898, there were in Denmark179,740 cow-sheds of which only 7,544 or 4 per cent contained 30 ormore cows each; 49,371 or 27.82 per cent, each contained from 10to 29 cows, 122,589 or 68.97 per cent contained less than 10cows each. More than half of these cow-sheds, namely, 70,218, comprising39.85 per cent of the total, contained only from 1 to 3 cowseach, i.e., they belonged to quite small farms. That the great majorityof these small farms belong to co-operative organisations is shownby the fact that in 1900 the milk of approximately 900,000 cows outof Denmark’s 1,110,000 milch cows was delivered to dairy co-operatives”(p. 424).Thus argues the scholarly David. He avoids quoting precisedata on the distribution of the cows among the farms* See present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 176-77.—Ed.** Ibid., p. 216.—Ed.