Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 3 - From Marx to Mao

Groups of
householders
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
Dessiantines per % of total land Total land
allotment in use
household (allotment
+ rented
- leased)
Allotment
arable
Rented
land
Leased
land
Allotment
With no draught
animals5.4 0.3 3.0 16 1.7 52.8 5.5
” 1 ” animal 6.5 1.6 1.3 14 6 17.8 10.3
” 2 ” animals8.5 3.5 0.9 13 9.5 8.4 12.3
{
” 3 ” ” 10.1 5.6 0.8 10 34 9.5 30.1 4.8 17.3 10.4 34.6
” 4 ” ” 12.5 7.4 0.7 11 11.1 4.1 11.9
” 5 and more
animals16.1 16.6 0.9 36 62.2 12.3 49.6
Total 9.3 5.4 1.5 100 100 100 100
Thus we see, here too, that the wealthier the peasants the
more they rent land, despite the fact that they are better
provided with allotment land. Here too we see that the wellto-do
are ousting the middle peasantry, and that the role
of allotment land in peasant farming tends to diminish at
both poles of the countryside.
Let us examine in greater detail these data on land renting.
With them are connected the very interesting and
important investigations and arguments of Mr. Karyshev
(quoted Results) and Mr. N. —on’s “corrections” to them.
Mr. Karyshev devotes a special chapter (III) to “the dependence
of land renting on the prosperity of the lessees.” The
general conclusion he arrives at is that, “other things being
equal, the struggle for rentable land tends to go in favour of
the better-off” (p. 156). “The relatively more prosperous households
. . . push the less prosperous ones into the background”
(p. 154). We see, consequently, that the conclusion drawn
from a general review of Zemstvo statistical data is the same
as that to which we are led by the data we are studying. Moreover,
a study of the dependence of the amount of rented land
on the size of the allotment led Mr. Karyshev to the conclusion
that classification according to allotment “obscures the
meaning of the phenomenon that interests us” (p. 139):
“land renting . . . is more resorted to by a) the categories
that are worse provided with land, but by b) the groups
within them that are better provided. Evidently, we have here
two diametrically opposed influences, the confusion of which
Rented
{
Leased
{
%
{
97