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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
II. THE COMMERCIAL GRAIN-FARMING AREA
257
This area covers the outer region in the south and the
east of European Russia, the steppe gubernias of Novorossia
and the Transvolga. Agriculture is distinguished here for
its extensive character and the enormous scale of the production
of grain for sale. If we take the eight gubernias of
Kherson, Bessarabia, Taurida, Don, Ekaterinoslav, Saratov,
Samara and Orenburg, we shall find that in 1883-1887
the net crop of cereals (not including oats) for a population
of 13,877,000 amounted to 41.3 million chetverts,
i.e., more than one-fourth of the total net yield of the 50
gubernias of European Russia. The crop most commonly
sown here is wheat—the principal export grain.* Agriculture
develops here fastest of all (by comparison with the
other areas of Russia), and these gubernias relegate the
central black-earth gubernias, formerly in the lead, to the
background:
Net per capita cereal crop
in the periods**
Areas of gubernias 1864-1866 1870-1879 1883-1887
Southern-steppe . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.09 2.14 3.42
Lower Volga and Transvolga . . . . . . . 2.12 2.96 3.35
Central black-earth . . . . . . . . . . . 3.32 3.88 3.28
Thus there is a shifting of the principal centre of grain
production: in the 1860s and 1870s the central black-earth
gubernias were ahead of all the rest, but in the 1880s they
yielded priority to the steppe and Lower Volga gubernias:
their production of grain began to diminish.
This interesting fact of the enormous growth of agricultural
production in the area described is to be explained
by the circumstance that in the post-Reform period the
outer steppe regions have been colonies of the central,
long-settled part of European Russia. The abundance of
free land has attracted an enormous stream of settlers, who
* Except for Saratov Gubernia, with 14.3% under wheat, in
the rest of the gubernias mentioned we find 37.6% to 57.8% under
wheat.
** Sources given above. Areas of gubernias according to Historico-Statistical
Survey. The “Lower Volga and Transvolga area is
badly constituted, for to the steppe gubernias, with their enormous
production of grain, have been added that of Astrakhan (lacking
grain for its food requirements) and of Kazan and of Simbirsk, which
should more appropriately be included in the central black-earth belt.