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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
273
Let us examine this table, in which the three principal
columns are printed in italics. The first column shows the
proportion of summer to yearly pay. The lower this proportion
is, and the nearer the summer pay approximates to half
the yearly pay, the more evenly is the demand for labour
spread over the entire year and the less the winter unemployment.
The least favourably placed in this respect are the
central black-earth gubernias—the area where labour-service
prevails and where capitalism is poorly developed.* In the
industrial gubernias, in the dairy-farming area the demand
for labour is higher and winter unemployment is less. Over
a period of years, too, the pay is most stable here, as may be
seen from the second column, which shows the difference
between the lowest and the highest pay in the harvest season.
Lastly, the difference between the pay in the sowing season
and the pay in the harvest season is also least in the nonblack-earth
belt, i.e., the demand for workers is more evenly
distributed over the spring and summer. In all respects
mentioned the Baltic gubernias stand even higher than
the non-black-earth gubernias, while the steppe gubernias,
with their immigrant workers and with harvest fluctuations
of the greatest intensity, are marked by the greatest instability
of wages. Thus, the data on wages testify that agricultural
capitalism in the area described not only creates a
demand for wage-labour, but also distributes this demand
more evenly over the whole year.
Lastly, reference must be made to one more type of
dependence of the small agriculturist in the area described
upon the big farmer. This is the replenishment of landlords’
herds by the purchase of cattle from peasants. The landlords
find it more profitable to buy cattle from peasants driven
by need to sell “at a loss” than to breed cattle themselves—
just as our buyers-up in so-called handicraft industry often
prefer to buy finished articles from the handicraftsmen at
* A similar conclusion is drawn by Mr. Rudnev: “In those localities
where the work of labourers hired by the year is given a relatively
high valuation the wages of the summer worker approximate
more closely to half the yearly pay. Hence, on the contrary, in the
western gubernias, and in nearly all the densely-populated central
black-earth gubernias, the worker’s labour in the summer is given a
very low valuation” (loc. cit., 455).