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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
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to allotment is far more widespread in our Zemstvo statistics,
and in its defence the two following, at first sight
very convincing, arguments are usually advanced.* It is
said, firstly, that to study the life of the agricultural peasants
it is natural and necessary to classify them according to land.
This argument ignores a fundamental feature of Russian life,
namely, the unfree character of allotment-land tenure,
in that by force of law it bears an equalitarian character, and
that the purchase and sale of allotment land is hindered in
the extreme. The whole process of the differentiation of the
agricultural peasantry is one of real life evading these legal
bounds. In classifying the peasants according to allotment,
we lump together the poor peasant who leases out land and
the rich peasant who rents or buys land; the poor peasant who
abandons the land and the rich peasant who “gathers” land;
the poor peasant who runs his most wretched farm with an
insignificant number of animals and the rich peasant who
owns many animals, fertilises his soil, introduces improvements.,
etc., etc. In other words, we lump together the rural
proletarian and the members of the rural bourgeoisie. The
“averages” thus obtained obscure the differentiation, and are
therefore purely fictitious.** The combined tables of the Sara-
* See, for example, the introductions to the Combined Returns
for Saratov Gubernia, to the Combined Returns for Samara Gubernia,
and to Evaluation Returns for four uyezds of Voronezh Gubernia,
and other Zemstvo statistical publications.
** We take this rare opportunity of expressing our agreement
with Mr. V. V., who in his magazine articles of 1885 and subsequent
years welcomed “the new type of Zemstvo statistical publications,”
namely, the combined tables, which make it possible to classify
household data not only according to allotment, but also according
to economic strength. “The statistical data,” wrote Mr. V. V. at that
time, “must be adapted to the groups themselves and not to such a
conglomeration of the most diverse economic groups of peasants as
the village or the village community.” (V. V., “A New Type of Local
Statistical Publication,” pp. 189 and 190 in Severny Vestnik [Northern
Herald], 1885, No. 3. Quoted in the “Introduction” to the Combined
Returns for Saratov Gubernia, p. 36). To our extreme regret in
none of his later works has Mr. V. V. made any effort to glance at
the data on the various groups of the peasantry, and, as we have
seen, he has even ignored the factual part of the book by Mr. V. Postnikov,
who was probably the first to attempt the arrangement of the
data according to the various groups of the peasantry and not
according to “conglomerations of the most diverse groups”. Why
is this?