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

202
V. I. LENIN
a direct comparison between the price of labour in the case
of labour-service hire and of capitalist “free” hire shows
the latter to be greater. In the above-quoted publication
of the Department of Agriculture, Hired Labour, etc.,
it is calculated that the average pay for the complete cultivation,
with the peasant’s own implements, of a dessiatine
of land under winter grain is 6 rubles (data for the central
black-earth belt for the 8 years, 1883-1891). If, however,
we calculate the cost of the same amount of work on a hired
labour basis, we get 6 rubles 19 kopeks for the work of the
labourer alone, not counting the work of the horse (the pay
for the horse’s work cannot be put at less than 4 rubles
50 kopeks, loc. cit., 45). The compiler rightly considers
this to be “absolutely abnormal” (ibid.). We would merely
observe that the fact that payment for labour under purely
capitalist hire is greater than under all forms of bondage
and under other pre-capitalist relations has been established
not only in agriculture, but also in industry, and not
only in Russia, but also in other countries. Here are more
precise and more detailed Zemstvo statistics on this question
(Statistical Returns for Saratov Uyezd, Vol. I, Pt. III, pp.
18-19. Quoted from Mr. Karyshev’s Rentings, p. 353).
(See Table on p. 203.)
Thus, under labour-service (just as under bonded hire
combined with usury) the prices paid for labour are usually
less than half those under capitalist hire.* Since labour
at 35 to 50 kopeks. “It seems that the earnings of a half-cropper are,
after all, higher than the wages of a farm labourer” (344; Mr. Karyshev’s
italics). This “after all” is very characteristic. But, unlike the farm
labourer, the half-cropper has his farm expenses, has he not? He has
to have a horse and harness, has he not? Why was no account taken
of these expenses? Whereas the average daily wage in the summer
in Bessarabia Gubernia is 40 to 77 kopeks (1883-1887 and 1888-1892),
the average wage of a labourer with horse and harness is 124 to 180
kopeks (1883-1887 and 1888-1892). Does it not rather “seem” that
the farm labourer “after all” earns more than the half-cropper? The
average daily wage of a labourer working without a horse of his own
(average for a whole year) is estimated at 67 kopeks for Bessarabia
Gubernia in the period 1882-1891 (ibid., 178).
* After this, what can one do but describe as reactionary the
criticism of capitalism made, for instance, by a Narodnik like Prince
Vasilchikov? The very word “hired,” he exclaims pathetically, is
contradictory, for hire presupposes non-independence, and non-