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

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

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238<br />

V. I. LENIN<br />

migrate embraces Bessarabia, Kherson, Taurida, Ekaterinoslav,<br />

Don, Samara, Sara<strong>to</strong>v (southern part) and Orenburg<br />

gubernias. We confine ourselves <strong>to</strong> European Russia, but<br />

it must be observed that the movement spreads, ever further<br />

afield (especially in the recent period), and covers the North<br />

Caucasus and the Ural region, etc. Data concerning capitalist<br />

agriculture in this area (the area <strong>of</strong> commercial grain<br />

farming) will be given in the next chapter; there, <strong>to</strong>o, we<br />

shall point <strong>to</strong> other localities <strong>to</strong> which agricultural labourers<br />

migrate. The principal area from which agricultural<br />

labourers migrate is the central black-earth gubernias:<br />

Kazan, Simbirsk, Penza, Tambov, Ryazan, Tula, Orel,<br />

Kursk, Voronezh, Kharkov, Poltava, Chernigov, Kiev,<br />

Podolia and <strong>Vol</strong>hynia.* Thus the movement <strong>of</strong> workers<br />

proceeds from the most thickly-populated <strong>to</strong> the most thinlypopulated<br />

localities, the ones being colonised; from the<br />

localities where serfdom was most developed <strong>to</strong> those where<br />

it was least developed**; from localities where labour-service<br />

is most developed <strong>to</strong> localities where it is little developed<br />

and capitalism is highly developed. Hence, the workers<br />

flee from “semi-free” <strong>to</strong> free labour. It would be a mistake<br />

<strong>to</strong> think that this flight amounts exclusively <strong>to</strong> a movement<br />

from thickly-populated <strong>to</strong> thinly-populated areas. A study<br />

<strong>of</strong> the movement <strong>of</strong> workers (Mr. S. Korolenko, loc. cit.)<br />

has revealed the singular and important fact that workers<br />

migrate from many areas in such great numbers as <strong>to</strong><br />

create a shortage <strong>of</strong> hands in these places, one that is compensated<br />

by the arrival <strong>of</strong> workers from other places. Hence,<br />

the departure <strong>of</strong> workers expresses not only the tendency <strong>of</strong><br />

the population <strong>to</strong> spread more evenly over the given<br />

terri<strong>to</strong>ry, but also the tendency <strong>of</strong> the workers <strong>to</strong> go <strong>to</strong> areas<br />

where conditions are better. This tendency will become quite<br />

clear <strong>to</strong> us if we recall that in the area <strong>of</strong> departure, the<br />

area <strong>of</strong> labour-service, agricultural workers’ wages are<br />

* In Chapter VIII, where we examine the movement <strong>of</strong> wageworkers<br />

in Russia as an entire process, we shall describe in greater<br />

detail the character and direction <strong>of</strong> migration from the various<br />

localities.<br />

** In his day Chaslavsky pointed out that in the localities in<br />

which workers arrived, serfs constituted from 4 <strong>to</strong> 15% <strong>of</strong> the <strong>to</strong>tal,<br />

and in the localities which workers left, from 40 <strong>to</strong> 60%.

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