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

386
V. I. LENIN
production, regarding the “artificiality” of the former
and the “people’s” character of the latter, is so widespread
that we think it particularly important to examine the data
on all the more important branches of manufacturing
industry and to show their economic organisation after
they had grown out of the stage of small peasant industries,
and before they were transformed by large-scale
machine industry.
II. CAPITALIST MANUFACTURE IN RUSSIAN INDUSTRY
Let us begin with the industries that process fibres.
1) T h e W e a v i n g I n d u s t r i e s
The weaving of linen, wool, cotton and silk fabrics, galloons,
etc., was organised everywhere in Russia as follows
(before the appearance of large-scale machine industry).
The industry was headed by big capitalist workshops
employing tens and hundreds of wage-workers; the owners
of these workshops, possessing sizable capital, undertook
the large-scale purchase of raw material, partly working
it up in their own establishments, and partly giving out
yarn and warp to small producers (workroom owners, middlemen,
133 subcontractors, peasant-“handicraftsmen” etc.) who
wove the cloth at home or in small workshops at piece
rates. The work itself was done by hand, and the following
operations were distributed among the workers: 1) yarn-dyeing;
2) yarn-winding (very often women and children specialised
in this operation); 3) yarn-fixing (“fixers”); 4) weaving;
5) weft-winding for weavers (bobbin hands, mostly
children). Sometimes in the big workshops there were
special “threaders” (who threaded the warp through the eyes of
the batten and reed.)* Division of labour is usually applied,
not only to single operations, but to wares, that is, the
* Cf. Statistical Returns for Moscow Gubernia, Vol. VII, Pt. III
(Moscow, 1883), pp. 63-64.