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

372
V. I. LENIN
that is why their fields are well cultivated, although they
themselves “quite often can neither plough nor mow.”*
In Moscow Gubernia, the hiring of “land labourers” is resorted
to by many industrialists apart from those about whom
data are given in our table; for example, pin-makers, feltmakers
and toy-makers send their workers to jobs in the
fields too; the glass-bead-makers, metal-beaters, buttonmakers,
cap-makers and harness-makers employ agricultural
labourers, etc.** The significance of this fact—the hiring
of agricultural workers by peasant industrialists—is very
great. It shows that even in the small peasant industries
the phenomenon characteristic of all capitalist countries
is beginning to be manifested, and that goes to confirm the
progressive historical role of capitalism, namely, a rise
in the standard of living of the population, an increase in
its requirements. The industrialist is beginning to look
down upon the “raw” agriculturist with his coarse patriarchal
manners and is trying to rid himself of the hardest
and worst-paid agricultural jobs. In the small industries,
in which capitalism is least developed, this is to be observed
very slightly as yet; the industrial worker is only just
beginning to be differentiated from the agricultural worker.
In the succeeding stages of development of capitalist industry
this phenomenon, as we shall see, is to be observed on
a mass scale.
The importance of the “tie between agriculture and
industry” compels us to review in greater detail the data
relating to other gubernias besides Moscow.
Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia. Among the mass of bastmatting
makers agriculture is on the decline, and they are
neglecting the land; about 3 of the winter-crop area and
2 of the spring-crop area are “wasteland.” For the “wellto-do
muzhiks,” however, “the land is no longer a wicked
stepmother, but a mother bountiful”: they have enough animals,
they have manure, they rent land, they try to keep
their strips out of the periodical redistribution and tend them
better. “Now the wealthy muzhik has become a landlord,
while the other muzhik, the poor one, is in serf dependence
* Industries of Vladimir Gubernia, III, 187, 190.
** Industries of Moscow Gubernia, loc. cit.