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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
233
agriculture by machines are available only for Novorossia,
while in other areas of capitalist agriculture (the Baltic and
western region, the outer regions in the East, some of the
industrial gubernias) this process has not yet been noted on
a large scale. There still remains an enormous area where
labour-service predominates, and in that area the introduction
of machinery is giving rise to a demand for wage-workers.
Secondly, the growth of intensive farming (introduction
of root crops, for example) enormously increases the
demand for wage-labour (see Chapter IV). A decline in the
absolute number of agricultural (as against industrial) wageworkers
must, of course, take place at a certain stage in the
development of capitalism, namely, when agriculture throughout
the country is fully organised on capitalist lines and
when the employment of machinery for the most diverse
agricultural operations is general.
As regards Novorossia, local investigators note here the
usual consequences of highly developed capitalism. Machines
are ousting wage-workers and creating a capitalist reserve
army in agriculture. “The days of fabulous prices for hands
have passed in Kherson Gubernia too. Thanks to . . .
the increased spread of agricultural implements . . .” (and
other causes) “the prices of hands are steadily falling”
(author’s italics). . . . “The distribution of agricultural imple-
ments, which makes the large farms independent of workers*
and at the same time reduces the demand for hands, places
the workers in a difficult position” (Tezyakov, loc. cit., 66-
71). The same thing is noted by another Zemstvo Medical
Officer, Mr. Kudryavtsev, in his work Migrant Agricultural
Workers at the Nikolayev Fair in the Township of Kakhovka,
Taurida Gubernia, and Their Sanitary Supervision in 1895
(Kherson, 1896). “The prices of hands . . . continue to
fall, and a considerable number of migrant workers find
* Mr. Ponomaryov expresses himself on this score thus. “Machines,
by regulating the harvesting price, in all probability discipline
the workers at the same time” (article in Selskoye Khozyaistvo
i Lesovodstvo [Agriculture and Forestry], quoted in Vestnik Finansov,
1896, No. 14). It will be remembered that the “Pindar of the capitalist
factory,” 90 Dr. Andrew Ure, welcomed machines as creating
“order” and “discipline” among the workers. Agricultural capitalism in
Russia has already managed to create not only “agricultural factories,”
but also the “Pindars” of these factories.