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

288
V. I. LENIN
industry of capitalist society. Secondly, the development of
the technical processing of agricultural produce is usually
connected intimately with technical progress in agriculture:
on the one hand, the very production of the raw material
for processing often necessitates agricultural improvement
(the planting of root-crops, for example); on the other hand,
the waste products of the processing are frequently utilised
in agriculture, thus increasing its effectiveness and restoring,
at least in some measure, the equilibrium, the interdependence,
between agriculture and industry, the
disturbance of which constitutes one of the most profound
contradictions of capitalism.
We must accordingly now describe the development of
technical agricultural trades in post-Reform Russia.
1) D i s t i l l i n g
Here we regard distilling only from the point of view
of agriculture. Accordingly, there is no need for us to dwell
on the rapid concentration of distilling in large plants
(partly due to excise requirements), on the rapid progress
of factory technique, with the consequent cheapening of
production, and the increase in excise duties which has
outstripped this cheapening of production and because of
its excessive amount has retarded the growth of consumption
and production.
Here are data for “agricultural” distilling in the whole of
the Russian Empire*:
Distilleries in 1896-97
No. of Spirit distilled
distilleries (thousand vedros)
Agricultural .
Mixed . . .
.
.
.
.
. .
. .
.
.
1,474
404
1,878
13,521
10,810
Industrial . . . . . . . 159 5,457
Total . . . . . . 2,037 29,788
24,331
* The law of June 4, 1890, laid down the following criteria of
agricultural distilling: 1) distilling season, from September 1 to June 1,
when no field-work is done; 2) proportion between the quantity of
spirits distilled and the number of dessiatines of arable land on the
estate. Plants carrying on partly agricultural and partly industrial
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