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

388
V. I. LENIN
Let us illustrate this by detailed data regarding one
of the “handicraft weaving” industries, namely, silkweaving
in Vladimir Gubernia.* The “silk industry” is a
typical specimen of capitalist manufacture. Hand labour
prevails. Of the total number of establishments the small
ones constitute the majority (179 out of 313, or 57% of the
total, have from 1 to 5 workers), but in greater part they
are not independent and are far behind the big ones in their
significance to the industry as a whole. Establishments
with 20 to 150 workers constitute 8% of the total (25), but
in them 41.5% of the aggregate number of workers are concentrated,
and they account for 51% of the total output.
Of the total number of workers in the industry (2,823) there
are 2,092 wage-workers, i.e., 74.1%. “On the job we meet
with division of labour both in wares and in individual
operations.” Weavers are rarely able to make both “velvet”
and “satin” (the two principal lines in this trade). “The
division of labour into separate operations within the workshop
is most strictly practised only in the big factories”
(i.e., manufactories) “that employ wage-workers.” The
fully independent proprietors number only 123, who alone
buy the raw materials themselves and sell the finished
article; they have 242 family workers and “employ 2,498
wage-workers, who in greater part are paid by the piece,”
a total, consequently, of 2,740 workers, or 97% of the
aggregate number of workers. It is thus clear that the distribution
by these manufactory owners, through the medium
of “middle-men” (workroom owners), of work to be done in
the home is no special form of industry at all, but is
merely one of the operations of capital in manufacture.
Mr. Kharizomenov rightly observes that the “mass of small
establishments (57%) alongside the small number of big
ones (8%), and the insignificant number of workers employed
* See Industries of Vladimir Gubernia, III. It would be impossible
and superfluous to give detailed data on all the weaving
industries described in the literature on our handicraft industry. Moreover,
in the majority of these industries the factory now reigns
supreme. On the subject of “handicraft weaving” see also Statistical
Returns for Moscow Gubernia, Vols. VI and VII.—Transactions of
the Handicraft Commission—Material on Hand-Labour Statistics. 134 —
Reports and Investigations.—Korsak, loc. cit.