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

322
V. I. LENIN
discusses the difference between the “working period” and
the “time of production” (Das Kapital, II. B., Chapter 13).
The working period is the period in which labour is applied
to the product; the time of production is the time during
which the product is in production, including the period
in which labour is not applied to it. The working period
does not coincide with the time of production in very many
industries, among which agriculture is merely the most
typical, but by no means the only one.* In Russia, as compared
with other European countries, the difference
between the working period in agriculture and the time of
production is a particularly big one. “When capitalist production
later accomplishes the separation of manufacture
and agriculture, the rural labourer becomes ever more
dependent on merely casual accessory employment and his
condition deteriorates thereby. For capital . . . all differences
in the turnover are evened out. Not so for the labourer”
(ibid., 223-224). 109 So then, the only conclusion that follows
from the specific features of agriculture in the instance
under review is that the position of the agricultural worker
must be even worse than that of the industrial worker.
This is still a very long way from Mr. N. —on’s “theory”
that the freeing of winter time is the “fundamental reason”
for the deterioration of the conditions of the “agricultural
classes” (?!). If the working period in our agriculture equalled
12 months, the process of the development of capitalism
would go on exactly as it does now; the entire difference
would be that the conditions of the agricultural worker would
come somewhat closer to those of the industrial worker.**
population is formed. “Part of the agricultural population is therefore
constantly on the point of passing over into an urban or manufacturing
proletariat” (ibid., 668) 107 ; this part of the population suffers
chronically from unemployment; the work it gets is extremely irregular
and is the worst paid (e.g., working at home for shops, etc.)
* Particularly noteworthy in this connection is Marx’s observation
that in agriculture too there are ways of distributing the demand
for labour more evenly over the entire year,” namely, by raising a
greater variety of products, by substituting crop rotation for the threefield
system, cultivating root-crops, grasses, etc. But all these methods
“require an increase of the circulating capital advanced in production,
invested in wages, fertilisers, seed, etc.” (ibid., S. 225-226). 108
** We say “somewhat,” because the deterioration of the conditions
of the agricultural worker is far from being due to irregularity of
employment alone.