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

206
V. I. LENIN
fulfilment of which the harvest depends, are done by regular
workers, whereas the harvesting, i.e., the job in the
performance of which promptness and speed are the prime
consideration, is given to neighbouring peasants to be done
in return for money lent, or for the use of pasture and other
grounds” (Vol. V, Pt. 2, p. 140). On such farms most of
the hands are hired on the labour-service basis, but the
capitalist system undoubtedly predominates, and the “neighbouring
peasants” are at bottom turned into rural workers,
similar to the “contract day labourers” in Germany, who
also have land and also hire themselves out for a definite
part of the year (see above, p. 179, footnote). The enormous
drop in the number of horses owned by peasants and the
increase in the number of horseless households as a result
of the crop failures of the 90s* could not but exert great
influence in accelerating this process of the elimination of
labour-service by the capitalist system.**
Finally, one of the most important reasons for the
decline of the labour-service system should be sought in the
* The horse census of 1893-1894 in 48 gubernias revealed a drop
of 9.6% in the number of horses possessed by all horse owners, and a
drop of 28,321 in the number of horse owners. In Tambov, Voronezh,
Kursk, Ryazan, Orel, Tula and Nizhni-Novgorod gubernias, the
decline in the number of horses between 1888 and 1893 was 21.2%.
In seven other gubernias of the black-earth belt the decline between
1891 and 1893 was 17%. In 38 gubernias of European Russia in 1888-
1891 there were 7,922 260 peasant households, of which 5,736,436
owned horses; in 1893-1894, there were in these gubernias 8,288,987
households, of which 5,647,233 owned horses. Consequently, the
number of horse-owning households dropped by 89,000, while the
number of horseless increased by 456,000 The percentage of horseless
households rose from 27.6% to 31.9% (Statistics of the Russian
Empire, XXXVII. St. Petersburg, 1896.) Above we have shown that
in 48 gubernias of European Russia the number of horseless households
rose from 2.8 million in 1888-1891 to 3.2 million in 1896-1900—
i.e., from 27.3% to 29.2%. In four southern gubernias (Bessarabia,
Ekaterinoslav, Taurida, Kherson), the number of horseless households
rose from 305,800 in 1896 to 341,600 in 1904, i.e., from 34.7%
to 36.4%. (Note to 2nd edition.)
** Cf. also S. A. Korolenko, Hired Labour, etc., pp. 46-47, where,
on the basis of the horse censuses of 1882 and 1888, examples are
cited of how the drop in the number of horses possessed by peasants
is accompanied by an increase in the number of horses possessed by
private landowners.