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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
297
allotment, and chiefly on rented land) yields a considerably
larger income than the planting of rye or oats. To enlarge
their business the workshop owners rent a considerable
amount of allotment land from the poor peasants. For
example, in the village of Tsybino (Bronnitsy Uyezd), 18
owners of starch workshops (out of 105 peasant families in
the village) rent allotments from peasants who have left
in search of employment, and also from horseless peasants,
thus adding to their own 61 allotments 133 more, which
they have rented; concentrated in their hands are a total of
194 allotments, i.e., 44.5% of the total number of allotments
in the village. “Exactly similar things,” we read in
the Returns, “are met with in other villages where the starch
industry is more or less developed” (loc. cit., 42).* The
owners of the starch workshops have twice as much livestock
as the other peasants: they average 3.5 horses and
3.4 cows per household, as against 1.5 horses and 1.7 cows
among the local peasants in general. Of the 68 workshop
owners (covered by the house-to-house census) 10 own
purchased land, 22 rent non-allotment land and 23 rent
allotment land. In short, these are typical representatives
of the peasant bourgeoisie.
Exactly analogous relations are to be found in the starchmaking
industry in the Yuryev Uyezd, Vladimir Gubernia
(V. Prugavin, loc. cit., p. 104 and foll.). Here, too, the workshop
owners carry on production mainly with the aid of
wage-labour (out of 128 workers in 30 workshops, 86 are
hired); and here, too, the workshop owners are far above
the mass of the peasantry as far as stock-breeding and agriculture
are concerned; they use potato pulp as feed for their
cattle. Even real capitalist farmers emerge from among
the peasants. Mr. Prugavin describes the farm of a peasant
who owns a starch works (valued at about 1,500 rubles)
employing 12 wage-workers. This peasant grows potatoes on
his own farm, which he has enlarged by renting land. The
crop rotation is seven-field and includes clover. For the farm
work he employs from 7 to 8 workers, hired from spring to
* Compare with this statement the general view of V. Orlov on
Moscow Gubernia as a whole (Returns, Vol. IV, Pt. 1, p. 14): the
prosperous peasants frequently rent the allotments of the peasant
poor, and sometimes hold from 5 to 10 rented allotments.