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

262
V. I. LENIN
produce of this sort.* “Before our very eyes a marked transition
is taking place from stock farming for manure to stock
farming for dairy produce; it has been particularly noticeable
during the past ten years” (work quoted in previous
footnote, ibid.). It is very difficult by the use of statistics
to describe the various regions of Russia in this respect,
because it is not the total number of horned cattle that is here
important, but the number of dairy cattle and their quality.
If we take the total number of animals per hundred inhabitants,
we shall find that it is biggest in the outer steppe
regions of Russia and smallest in the non-black-earth belt
(Agriculture and Forestry, 274); we shall find that as time
goes on the number diminishes (Productive Forces, III, 6.
Cf. Historico-Statistical Survey, I). Hence, we observe here
what Roscher noted in his day, namely, that the number of
animals per unit of the population is largest in districts
of “extensive livestock farming” (W. Roscher, Nationaloekonomik
des Ackerbaues. 7-te Aufl., Stuttg., 1873, S. 563-
564**). We, however, are interested in intensive livestock
farming, and in dairy farming in particular. We are compelled,
therefore, to confine ourselves to the approximate
computation made by the authors of the above-mentioned,
Sketch, without claiming to make an exact estimate of the
phenomenon; such a computation clearly illustrates the
relative positions of the various regions of Russia as to
degree of dairy-farm development. We quote this computation
in extenso, supplementing it with some averages arrived at
and data on the cheese-making industry in 1890 according
to “factory” statistics.
* In other parts of Russia stock farming is of a different kind.
For example, in the extreme South and South-East, the most extensive
form of stock farming has become established, namely, cattlefattening
for beef. Further north, horned cattle are used as draught
animals. Lastly, in the central black-earth belt cattle are used as
“manure-making machines.” V. Kovalevsky and I. Levitsky, Statistical
Sketch of Dairy Farming in the Northern and Central Belts
of European Russia (St. Petersburg, 1879). The authors of this work,
like the majority of agricultural experts, display very little interest
in the social-economic aspect of the matter or understanding of this
aspect It is quite wrong, for example, to draw from the fact of farms
becoming more profitable the direct conclusion that they ensure “the
people’s well-being and nutriment” (p. 2).
** W. Roscher, Economics of Agriculture, 7th edition, Stuttgart
1873, pp. 563-564.—Ed.