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

108
V. I. LENIN
Let us pass to the data on hired labour, which are particularly
valuable as regards this uyezd owing to their completeness
(specifically, data have been added on the hiring of
day labourers):
Groups of
households
No. of working
males per household
seasonal
No. of farms hiring % of farms hiring
labourerslabourers
for mowing
Cultivating no land 0.6 4 16 — — 0.15 0.6 — —
” up to 5 dess. 1.0 51 364 340 655 0.7 5.1 4.7 9.2
” 5–10 ” 1.2 268 910 1,385 1,414 4.2 14.3 20.1 22.3
” 10–20 ” 1.5 940 1,440 2,325 1,371 17.7 27.2 43.9 25.9
” 20–50 ” 1.7 1,107 1,043 1,542 746 50.0 47.9 69.6 33.7
” over 50 ” 2.0 143 111 150 77 83.1 64.5 87.2 44.7
Total . . . . . . . 1.2 2,513 3,884 5,742 4,263 10.6 16.4 24.3 18.8
We see here a clear refutation of the view of the Saratov
statisticians that the hiring of day labourers is not a characteristic
index of a farm’s strength or weakness. On the contrary,
it is a supremely characteristic index of the peasant bourgeoisie.
In all forms of hiring by the day we observe that the
percentage of peasants who hire labourers increases together
with the increase in economic strength, despite the fact that
the most affluent peasants are best provided with workers in
their families. Here, too, family co-operation is the basis
of capitalist co-operation. Further, we see that the number of
farms hiring day labourers is 22 times (average for the uyezd)
the number hiring seasonal workers—we take the hiring of
day labourers for reaping; unfortunately, the statisticians
did not give the total number of farms hiring day labourers,
although this information was available. In the three top
groups, of 7,679 households 2,190 employ farm labourers,
while 4,017 households, i.e., the majority of the peasants in
the well-to-do group, hire day labourers for reaping. Of course,
the hiring of day labourers is by no means specific to Perm
Gubernia, and if we have seen above that in the well-to-do
for reaping
for threshing
seasonal
for mowing
for reaping
for threshing