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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
109
peasant groups from 2 to 6 and 9 tenths of the total number
of proprietors employ farm labourers, the direct conclusion is
the following. The majority of the well-to-do peasant households
employ hired labour in one form or another. The formation
of a body of regular farm labourers and day labourers is an
essential condition for the existence of the well-to-do peasantry.
Lastly, it is extremely interesting to note that the ratio
between the number of farms hiring day labourers and the
number employing regular farm labourers diminishes from
the bottom peasant groups to the top. In the bottom groups the
number of farms hiring day labourers always exceeds, many
times over, the number employing regular farm labourers.
In the top groups, on the contrary, the number of farms
employing regular farm labourers is sometimes even larger
than the number hiring day labourers. This fact clearly points
to the formation in the top groups of the peasantry of farms
employing labourers, farms based on the regular employment
of wage-labour; wage-labour is more evenly distributed over
the seasons of the year, and it becomes possible to dispense
with the more costly and more troublesome hiring of day
labourers. Let us quote, incidentally, the returns on hired
labour for Elabuga Uyezd, Vyatka Gubernia (the well-to-do
peasants are here merged with the middle peasants).
Households Hired labourers % of households
% of persons
of both sexes
Groups of seasonal day
householders
No. % No. % No. %
% of total
animals
% of allotment
arable
renting
land
leasing
out land
Horseless . . 4,258 12.7 8.3 56 3.2 16,031 10.6 1.4 5.5 7.9 42.3
With 1 horse 12,851 38.2 33.3 218 12.4 28,015 18.6 24.5 27.6 23.7 21.8
With several
horses . . 16,484 49.1 58.4 1,481 84.4 106,318 70.8 74.1 66.9 35.3 9.1
Total . . 33,593 100 100 1,755 100 150,364 100 100 100 27.4 18.1
Assuming that every day labourer works one month (28
days), the number of day labourers will be three times the
number of seasonal workers. Let us note in passing that
in Vyatka Gubernia, too, we find the already familiar ratios