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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
375
(see, for example, Industries of Vladimir Gubernia, II, 288;
III, 91), i.e., to the ignoring of the profound contradictions
in the very system of both industry and agriculture, the existence
of which he himself was obliged to admit. Another
investigator of the industries of Vladimir Gubernia, Mr. V.
Prugavin, is a typical spokesman of the Narodnik views on
this subject. Here is a sample of his reasoning. The cottonweaving
industry in Pokrov Uyezd “cannot be regarded at all
as a harmful factor (sic!!) in the agricultural life of the
weavers” (IV, 53). The data testify to the poor farms of
the mass of weavers, and to the fact that among the workroom
owners, farming is conducted at a level far above the
general (ibid.); from the tables it is evident that some workroom
owners hire agricultural labourers too. Conclusion:
“industry and agriculture march hand in hand, conditioning
each other’s development and prosperity” (60). A fine specimen
of the phrases used to obscure the fact that the development
and prosperity of the peasant bourgeoisie go hand in
hand both in industry and in agriculture.*
The data of the Perm handicraft census of 1894-95 revealed
the same thing: it is among the small commodityproducers
(masters and petty masters) that the level of agriculture
is highest and rural labourers are met with; among
the artisans agriculture is on a lower level, while among the
craftsmen who work for buyers-up the condition of agriculture
is worst (as to the agriculture of the wage-workers and
of various groups of masters, no data, unfortunately, have
been gathered). The census also revealed that the “handicraftsmen”
who do not engage in agriculture differ from those
who do in that 1) their labour productivity is higher,
2) their net incomes from industry are incomparably higher,
and 3) their level of culture and literacy is higher. All these
are evidences which confirm the conclusion drawn above,
* Mr. V. V. confines himself to the same sort of phrases in dealing
with this subject in Chapter VIII of his Essays on Handicraft
Industry. “Farming ... is sustained by industry” (205). “Handicraft
industries are one of the most reliable mainstays of agriculture in the
industrial gubernias” (219). Proof? Any amount: take, for example,
the master tanners, starch-makers, oil-millers (ibid., 224), etc, and
you will find that their farming is on a higher level than that of the
masses!