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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
363
this primitive form of marketing very soon made itself felt:
“how can a muzhik not engaged in this business go from house
to house?” The sale of the lace was entrusted to one of the
lace-makers, who was compensated for the time she lost.
“She also brought back thread for the lace.” Thus the inconveniences
of isolated marketing led to turning trade into a
special function performed by one person who gathered the
wares from many lace-makers. The patriarchal proximity
of these women workers one to the other (relatives, neighbours,
fellow-villagers, etc.) at first gave rise to attempts at
the co-operative organisation of sales, to attempts at entrusting
this function to one of the women workers. But money
economy at once causes a breach in the age-old patriarchal
relations, at once gives rise to the phenomena we noted above
when examining the mass-scale data on the differentiation
of the peasantry. Production for sale teaches that time is
money. It becomes necessary to compensate the intermediary
for her lost time and labour; she becomes accustomed to
this occupation and begins to make it her profession. “Journeys
of this kind, repeated several times, gave rise to the
tradeswoman type” (loc. cit., 30). The woman who has been
to Moscow several times establishes the permanent connections
which are so necessary for proper marketing. “Thus
the need and habit of living on earnings from commission
operations develops.” In addition to commission earnings,
the tradeswoman “does what she can to advance the price of
materials, paper, thread”; she sells the lace above the set
price and pockets the difference; the tradeswomen declare
that the price received was less than the one agreed on:
“take it or leave it,” they say. “The tradeswomen begin . . . to
bring goods from the towns and make a considerable profit.”
The commission agent thus becomes an independent trader
who now begins to monopolise sales and to take advantage
of her monopoly to subjugate the lace-makers completely.
Usurious operations appear alongside commercial operations—
the lending of money to the lace-makers, the taking
of goods from them at reduced prices, etc. “The girls . . .
pay 10 kopeks per ruble as a commission for sales. . . . They
know very well that the tradeswoman makes even more
out of them by selling the lace at a higher price. But they
simply do not know how to arrange things differently. When