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

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

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA<br />

197<br />

Thus, although the labour-service system predominates<br />

in the purely Russian gubernias, the capitalist system <strong>of</strong><br />

landlord farming must be considered the predominant one<br />

at present in European Russia as a whole. Moreover, our<br />

table gives a far from complete picture <strong>of</strong> this predominance,<br />

for Group I <strong>of</strong> the gubernias includes some in which the<br />

labour-service system is not applied at all (the Baltic<br />

gubernias, for example), whereas Group III includes not a<br />

single gubernia, and in all probability not a single farmed<br />

estate in which the capitalist system is not applied at least<br />

in part. Here is an illustration <strong>of</strong> this based on Zemstvo<br />

statistics (Raspopin; “Private-Landowner Farming in Russia<br />

According <strong>to</strong> Zemstvo Statistics,” in Yuridichesky Vestnik<br />

[Legal Messenger], 1887, Nos. 11-12. No. 12, p. 634):<br />

Uyezds in Kursk % <strong>of</strong> estates hiring % <strong>of</strong> estates employing<br />

Gubernia labourersfarm labourers<br />

medium large medium large<br />

Dmitrovsk . . . . . 53.3 84.3 68.5 85.0<br />

Fetezh . . . . . . 77.1 88.2 86.0 94.1<br />

Lgov . . . . . . . 58.7 78.8 73.1 96.9<br />

Sudzha . . . . . . 53.0 81.1 66.9 90.5<br />

Lastly, it must be observed that sometimes the labourservice<br />

system passes in<strong>to</strong> the capitalist system and merges<br />

with it <strong>to</strong> such an extent that it becomes almost impossible<br />

<strong>to</strong> distinguish one from the other. For example, a<br />

peasant rents a plot <strong>of</strong> land, undertaking in return <strong>to</strong> perform<br />

a definite number <strong>of</strong> days’ work (a practice which, as we<br />

know, is most widespread; see examples in the next section).<br />

How are we <strong>to</strong> draw a line <strong>of</strong> demarcation between such<br />

a “peasant” and the West-European or Ostsee “farm labourer”<br />

who receives a plot <strong>of</strong> land on undertaking <strong>to</strong> work a<br />

definite number <strong>of</strong> days? Life creates forms that unite<br />

in themselves with remarkable gradualness systems <strong>of</strong> economy<br />

whose basic features constitute opposites. It becomes<br />

impossible <strong>to</strong> say where “labour-service” ends and where<br />

“capitalism” begins.<br />

hardly alter our conclusion as <strong>to</strong> the predominance <strong>of</strong> the capitalist<br />

system, since a large part <strong>of</strong> the landowners’ fields in the black-earth<br />

belt is rented, and the labour-service system predominates in the<br />

gubernias <strong>of</strong> this belt.

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