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

374
V. I. LENIN
workers; workroom owners and weavers; master industrialists
and the rest of the peasantry; households engaged in local
and in outside industries, etc. The general conclusion drawn
by Mr. Kharizomenov from these data is that if the “handicraftsmen”
are divided into three categories, viz.—1) big
industrialists; 2) small and medium industrialists; 3) wageworkers,
there is to be observed a deterioration of agriculture
as from the first category to the third, a diminution
in the amount of land and animals, an increase in the
proportion of “distressed” farms, etc.* Unfortunately,
Mr. Kharizomenov examined these data too restrictedly and
one-sidedly, and paid no attention to the parallel and
independent process of the differentiation of the peasant agriculturists.
That is why he failed to draw from these data the
conclusion that inevitably follows from them, namely, that
the peasantry both in agriculture and in industry are splitting
up into a petty bourgeoisie and a rural proletariat.**
That is why, in describing the different industries, he quite
often sinks to the traditional Narodnik arguments about the
influence of “industry” in general over “agriculture” in general
* See Yuridichesky Vestnik [The Legal Messenger], 1883, Vol.
XIV, Nos. 11 and 12.
** How near Mr. Kharizomenov was to drawing such a conclusion
may be seen from the following description of post-Reform
economic development which he gives in speaking of the silk trade:
“Serfdom evened out the economic level of the peasantry: it tied the
hands of the rich peasant, sustained the poor peasant and prevented
the family division of property. Natural economy narrowed too much
the arena for commercial and industrial activity. The local market
did not provide sufficiently wide scope for enterprise. The peasant
merchant or industrialist accumulated money—without risk, it is
true, but very slowly—accumulated it and put it away in his chest.
Beginning with the 60s conditions change. Serfdom comes to an end;
credit and the railways, by creating an extensive and distant market,
provide scope for the enterprising peasant merchant and industrialist.
All those who have been above the average economic level quickly
get on their feet, develop trade and industry and extend their exploiting
activities quantitatively and qualitatively. All those who have
been below that level fall, sink, drop into the ranks of the landless,
the non-farming, the horseless. The peasantry split up into the groups
of kulaks, semi-prosperous peasants and farmless proletariat. The
kulak element of the peasantry rapidly copy all the habits of a cultured
milieu; they live in grand style, and from them a huge class is
formed of the semi-cultured sections of Russian society” (III, 20, 21). 127