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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
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inferring that a method combining the rural bourgeoisie with
the rural proletariat is correct.
We conclude: in systematising peasant household statistics
one should not limit oneself to classification according to
allotment. Economic statistics must necessarily take the scale
and type of farm as the basis of classification. The indices
for distinguishing these types should be taken in conformity
with local conditions and forms of agriculture, while in dealing
with extensive grain farming, one can limit oneself to classifying
according to area under crops (or to the number of
draught animals); under other conditions one must take account
of the area under industrial crops, the technical processing
of agricultural produce, the cultivation of root crops or of
fodder grasses, dairy farming, vegetable growing, etc. When
the peasantry combine agricultural and industrial occupations
on a large scale, a combination of the two systems of classification
is necessary, i.e., of classification according to the scale
and type of agriculture, and of classification according to the
scale and type of “industries.” The methods of summarising
peasant household returns are not such a narrowly specific
and second-rate problem as one might imagine at first sight.
On the contrary, it will be no exaggeration to say that at
the present time it is the basic problem of Zemstvo statistics.
The completeness of household returns and the technique of
collecting them* have reached a high degree of perfection,
but owing to unsatisfactory summarising, a vast amount of
most valuable information is simply lost, and the investigator
has at his disposal merely “average” figures (for village
communities, volosts, categories of peasants, size of allotment,
etc.). But these “averages,” as we have seen already,
and shall see later, are often absolutely fictitious.
* About the technique of Zemstvo censuses see, in addition to
the above-mentioned publications, the article by Mr. Fortunatov
in Vol. I of Results of Zemstvo Statistical Investigation. Specimens
of household registration cards are reproduced in the “Introduction”
to the Combined Returns for Samara Gubernia and to the Combined
Returns for Saratov Gubernia, in the Statistical Returns for Orel
Gubernia (Vol. II, Yelets Uyezd) and in Material for the Statistical
Survey of Perm Gubernia, Krasnoufimsk Uyezd, Vol. IV. The Perm
registration card is particularly comprehensive.