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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
225
occupation has arisen, namely, the mechanical reaping of
other people’s grain.*
Similar data are available for other, less widespread,
agricultural implements. Broadcast seeders, for example,
are now being turned out at dozens of works, and the more
perfect row drills, which were produced at only two works
in 1893 (Agriculture and Forestry, 360), are now turned
out at seven works (Productive Forces, I, 51), whose output
has again a particularly wide sale in the south of Russia.
Machinery is employed in all branches of agriculture
and in all operations connected with the production
of some kinds of produce: in special reviews reference is made
to the extended use of winnowing machines, seed-sorters, seedcleaners
(trieurs), seed-driers, hay presses, flax-scutchers, etc.
In the Addendum to the Report on Agriculture for 1898,
* In 1893, for example, “700 peasants gathered with their machines
on the Uspensky estate belonging to Falz-Fein (who owned 200,000
dessiatines) and offered their services, but half of them went away
empty-handed, as only 350 were engaged” (Shakhovskoi, Agricultural Outside
Employments, Moscow, 1896, p. 161). In the other steppe
gubernias, however, especially the Transvolga gubernias, reaping
machines are not widely used as yet. Still, in recent years these
gubernias too have been trying very hard to overtake Novorossia. Thus,
the Syzran-Vyazma railway carried agricultural machinery, tractionengines
and parts weighing 75,000 poods in 1890, 62,000 poods in 1891,
88,000 poods in 1892, 120,000 poods in 1893, and 212,000 poods in
1894; in other words, in a matter of five years the quantities carried
almost trebled. Ukholovo railway station dispatched agricultural
machinery of local manufacture to the extent of about 30,000 poods
in 1893, and about 82,000 poods in 1894, whereas up to and including
1892 the weight of agricultural machinery dispatched from that station
was even less than 10,000 poods per annum. “Ukholovo station
dispatches mainly threshing machines produced in the villages of
Kanino and Smykovo, and partly in the uyezd town of Sapozhok,
Ryazan Gubernia. In the village of Kanino there are three foundries,
belonging to Yermakov, Karev and Golikov, mainly engaged on
agricultural-machinery parts. The work of finishing and assembling
the machines is done in the above-mentioned two villages (Kanino
and Smykovo), of which almost the entire populations are thus employed”
(Brief Review of the Commercial Activity of the Syzran-Vyazma
Railway in 1894, Pt. IV, Kaluga, 1896, pp. 62-63). Interesting in
this example are, first, the fact of the enormous increase in production
precisely in recent years, which have been years of low grain prices;
and, second, the fact of the connection between “factory” and socalled
“handicraft” production. The latter is nothing more nor less
than an “annex” to the factory.