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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
277
negative part in the benefits of dairy farming. The peasant
with one cow will sell milk only out of need, to the detriment
of his children’s nourishment. On the other hand,
about one-fifth of the households (those with 3 cows and
more) concentrate in their hands probably more than half
the total dairy farming since the quality of their cattle
and the profitableness of their farms should be higher than
in the case of the “average” peasant.* An interesting illustration
of this conclusion is provided by the data on a locality
where dairy farming and capitalism in general are highly
developed. We refer to Petersburg Uyezd.** Dairy farming
is particularly widely developed in the summer residential
part of the uyezd, inhabited mainly by Russians; here the
most widely cultivated crops are: grasses (23.5% of the
allotment arable, as against 13.7% for the uyezd), oats
(52.3% of the arable) and potatoes (10.1%). Agriculture is
directly influenced by the St. Petersburg market, which
needs oats, potatoes, hay, milk and horse traction (loc.
cit., 168). The families of the registered population are
46.3% engaged “in the milk industry.” Of the total number
of cows 91% provide milk for the market. The income from
this industry amounts to 713,470 rubles (203 rubles per
family, 77 rubles per cow). The nearer the locality is to St.
Petersburg, the higher is the quality of the cattle and the
better the attention they receive. The milk is sold in two
ways: 1) to buyers-up on the spot and 2) in St. Petersburg to
“dairy farms,” etc. The latter type of marketing is much
* These data regarding the opposite groups of peasants should
be borne in mind when one meets sweeping statements like the following:
“An annual income from dairy stock farming ranging from 20
to 200 rubles per household is, over the enormous area of the northern
gubernias, not only a most considerable means of extending and
improving stock farming, but has also had the effect of improving field
cultivation and even of reducing migration in search of employment,
by providing the population with work at home—both in tending
cattle and in bringing hitherto neglected land into a properly cultivated
condition” (Productive Forces, III, 18). On the whole, migration
is not decreasing, but increasing. In some localities, however, the
decrease may be due either to the increase in the percentage of wellto-do
peasants, or to the development of “work at home,” i.e., work
for local rural entrepreneurs.
** Material for Statistics on the Economy in St. Petersburg
Gubernia, Vol. V, Pt. II, St. Petersburg, 1887.