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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
285
How does this growth of commercial flax growing affect
the peasantry, who, as we know, are the principal flax
producer?* “Travelling through Pskov Gubernia and observing
its economic life, one cannot help noticing that side by
side with occasional large and rich units, hamlets and villages,
there are extremely poor units; these extremes are a
characteristic feature of the economic life of the flax area.”
“Flax growing has taken a speculative turn,” and “the greater
part” of the income from flax “is pocketed by buyers-up
and by those who lease out land for flax growing” (Strokin,
22-23). The ruinous rents constitute real “money rent”
(see above), and the mass of the peasants are in a state of
“complete and hopeless dependence” (Strokin, ibid.) upon the
buyers-up. The sway of merchant’s capital was established
in this locality long ago,** and what distinguishes the post-
Reform period is the enormous concentration of this capital,
the undermining of the monopoly of the former small
buyers-up and the formation of “flax agencies” which have
captured the whole flax trade. The significance of flax growing,
says Mr. Strokin about Pskov Gubernia, “is expressed
. . . in the concentration of capital in a few hands” (p. 31).
Turning flax growing into a gamble, capital ruined vast
numbers of small agriculturists, who worsened the quality
of the flax, exhausted the land, were reduced to leasing out
their allotments and finally swelled the ranks of “migratory”
workers. On the other hand, a slight minority of well-to-do
peasants and traders were able—and competition made it
necessary—to introduce technical improvements. Couté
scutchers, both hand-worked (costing up to 25 rubles) and
horse-operated (three times dearer), were introduced. In
1869 there were only 557 such machines in Pskov Gubernia,
in 1881 there were 5,710 (4,521 hand-worked and 1,189 horse-
* Of 1,399,000 dess. under flax, 745,400 dess. are in the nonblack-earth
belt, where only 13% belongs to private landowners. In
the black-earth belt, of 609,600 dess. under flax 44.4% belongs to private
owners (Productive Forces, 1, 36).
** The Military Statistical Abstract in its day pointed to the
fact that the “flax sown by the peasants very often really belongs to
the bulinyas” (local name for small buyers-up), “while the peasant
is merely a labourer on his field” (595). Cf. Historico-Statistical
Survey, p. 88.