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

144
V. I. LENIN
one-horse households have only 17.2% of the total number
of horses.*
Taking as our basis the above-established regularities
in the relationship between the groups, we can now ascertain
the real significance of these data. If a fifth of the households
possesses a half of the total number of horses, one may unerringly
conclude that no less (and probably more) than
half the total peasant agricultural production is in their
hands. Such a concentration of production is possible only
where this well-to-do peasantry concentrates in its hands
the major part of the purchased lands and of peasant-rented
land, both non-allotment and allotment. It is this well-to-do
minority who mainly do the buying and renting of land,
despite the fact that in all probability they are best supplied
with allotment land. While the “average” Russian peasant
in the very best of times barely makes ends meet (and
it is doubtful whether he does), the well-to-do minority,
whose circumstances are considerably above the average,
not only cover all their expenditure by independent
farming, but also obtain a surplus. And this means that
they are commodity producers, that they grow agricultural
produce for sale. More, they turn into a rural bourgeoisie,
combining with relatively large-scale crop farms commercial
and industrial enterprises,—we have seen that it is
precisely “industries” of this kind that are most typical of
the Russian “enterprising” muzhik. Despite the fact that
their families are the largest, that they have the largest
number of family workers (these features have always been
characteristic of the well-to-do peasantry, and the 5 of
the households should account for a large share of the
* The way the distribution of horses among the peasantry has been
changing latterly can be judged from the following data of the armyhorse
census of 1893-1894 (Statistics of the Russian Empire, XXXVII).
In 38 gubernias of European Russia there were in 1893-1894: 8,288,987
peasant households; of these, horseless were 2,641,754, or 31.9%;
one-horse—31.4%; 2-horse—20.2%; 3-horse—8.7%; 4-horse and
over—7.8%. The horses owned by the peasants numbered 11,560,358,
of which 22.5% belonged to the one-horse peasants, 28.9% to the
2-horse; 18.8% to the 3-horse and 29.8% to those with many horses.
Thus, 16.5% of the peasants, the well-to-do, owned 48.6% of the
total number of horses.