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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
289
Thus, over � of the distilleries (accounting for over t
of the total output) are directly connected with agriculture.
Being large capitalist enterprises, these establishments lend
the same character to all the landlord farms on which they
are set up (the distilleries belong almost without exception
to landlords, mainly to members of the nobility). The
type of commercial farming under review is particularly
developed in the central black-earth gubernias, in which
are concentrated over 0 of the total number of distilleries
in the Russian Empire (239 in 1896-97, of which 225 were
agricultural and mixed), producing over a quarter of the
total output of spirits (7,785,000 vedros in 1896-97, of which
6,828,000 at agricultural and at mixed distilleries). Thus in
the area where labour-service predominates, the commercial
character of agriculture most frequently (as compared with
other areas) manifests itself in the distilling of vodka from
grain and potatoes. Distilling from potatoes has undergone
a particularly rapid development since the Reform, as may
be seen from the following data relating to the whole of the
Russian Empire*:
Materials used for distilling
(thousand poods)
All cropsPotatoes% Potatoes
In 1867 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76,925 6,950 9.1
Average for 1873-74 and 1882-83 . . . 123,066 65,508 53
10 years1882-83 and 1891-92 . . . 128,706 79,803 62
In 1893-94 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150,857 115,850 76
” 1896-97 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144,038 101,993 70.8
{
Thus, with a general twofold increase in the quantity of
crops distilled, the quantity of potatoes used increased about
15-fold. This fact strikingly corroborates the proposition
established above (§I in this chapter) that the enormous
increase in the potato area and crop signifies the growth
of precisely commercial and capitalist farming, along with
improvement of agricultural technique, with the replacement
of the three-field system by multi-field crop rotation,
distilling are called mixed distilleries (cf. Vestnik Finansov, 1896,
No. 25, and 1898, No. 10).
* Sources: Military Statistical Abstract, 427; Productive Forces,
IX, 49, and Vestnik Finansov, 1898, No. 14.