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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
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organised.” “Generally speaking, in the south of Russia today,
more than ten thousand steam-engines are in use for
agricultural purposes” (Productive Forces, IX, 151).*
If we remember that the number of steam-engines in
use in agriculture throughout European Russia in 1875-
1878 was only 1,351 and that in 1901, according to incomplete
returns (Collection of Factory Inspectors’ Reports for 1903),
the number was 12,091, in 1902—14,609, in 1903—16,021 and
in 1904—17,287, the gigantic revolution brought about by
capitalism in agriculture in this country during the last two
or three decades will be clear to us. Great service in accelerating
this process has been rendered by the Zemstvos. By
the beginning of 1897, Zemstvo agricultural machinery and
implement depots “existed under the auspices of 11 gubernia
and 203 uyezd Zemstvo boards, with a total working capital
of about a million rubles” (Vestnik Finansov, 1897, No. 21).
In Poltava Gubernia, the turnover of the Zemstvo depots
increased from 22,600 rubles in 1890 to 94,900 rubles in
1892 and 210,100 rubles in 1895. In the six years, 12,600
iron ploughs, 500 winnowing machines and seed-sorters, 300
reaping machines, and 200 horse-threshers were sold. “The
principal buyers of implements at the Zemstvo depots are
Cossacks and peasants; they account for 70% of the total
number of iron ploughs and horse-threshers sold. The purchasers
of seeding and reaping machines were mainly
landowners, and large ones at that, possessing over 100
dessiatines” (Vestnik Finansov, 1897, No. 4).
* Cf. an item from Perekop Uyezd, Taurida Gubernia, in Russkiye
Vedomosti [Russian Gazette] of August 19, 1898 (No. 167). “Owing
to the widespread use of reaping machines and steam- and horsethreshing
machines among our farmers ... field-work is proceeding very
rapidly. The old-fashioned method of the threshing with ‘rollers’
is a thing of the past.... Every year the Crimean farmer increases his
crop area and therefore has willy-nilly to resort to the aid of improved
agricultural implements and machines. While it is not possible with
rollers to thresh more than 150 to 200 poods of grain per day, a 10-h.p.
steam-thresher will do from 2,000 to 2,500 poods, and a horse-thresher
from 700 to 800 poods. That is why the demand for agricultural
implements, reapers and threshers is growing so rapidly from year to
year that the factories and works producing agricultural implements
exhaust their stocks, as has happened this year, and are unable to
satisfy the farmers’ demand.” The drop in grain prices, which compels
farmers to reduce production costs, must be regarded as one of the
most important causes of the increased use of improved implements.