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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
207
differentiation of the peasantry. The connection between
labour-service (of the first type) and the middle group of the
peasantry is clear and a priori—as we have already observed
above—and can be proved by Zemstvo statistics. For
example, the abstract for Zadonsk Uyezd, Voronezh Gubernia,
gives returns of the number of farms doing job-work, in
the various groups of peasantry. Here are the data in percentages:
Group of house- % of peasants taking % of total
holders job-work to total number of households taking
peasants in group households job-work
Horseless . . . . . 9.9 24.5 10.5
1- horse . . . . . . 27.4 40.5 47.6
With 2-3 horses . . 29.0 31.8 39.6
” 4 ” . . . . 16.5 3.2 2.3
In uyezd 23.3 100 100
From the above it is clear that participation in job-work
is less prevalent in the two extreme groups. The largest
percentage of households taking job-work is to be found in
the middle group of the peasantry. Since job-work is also
frequently assigned in Zemstvo statistical abstracts to
the category of “employments” in general, we see here, consequently,
an example of the typical “employments” of
the middle peasantry—exactly as in the preceding chapter
we acquainted ourselves with the typical “employments”
of the bottom and top groups of the peasantry. The types of
“employments” examined there express the development of
capitalism (commercial and industrial establishments and
the sale of labour-power), whereas the type of “employments”
mentioned here, on the contrary, expresses the backwardness
of capitalism and the predominance of labour-service
(if we assume that in the sum-total of “job-work” the predominant
jobs are such as we have assigned to labour-service
of the first type).
The greater the decline of natural economy and of the
middle peasantry, the more vigorously is labour-service
bound to be eliminated by capitalism. The well-to-do peasants
cannot, naturally, serve as a basis for the labour-service
system, for it is only dire need that compels the peasant
to undertake the worst-paid jobs, jobs that are ruinous for
his own farm. But the rural proletariat are equally