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

396
V. I. LENIN
for nearly 200 years, and is now declining. It is organised
as follows: all work for 29 proprietors, using the latter’s
materials, are paid by the piece, are “totally dependent
upon the proprietors” and work from 14 to 15 hours a day.
According to Zemstvo statistics (1889) the industry employs
1,699 male workers (plus 558 females and males of nonworking
age). Of 1,648 working only 197 work for sale, 1,340
work for proprietors* and 111 are wage-workers employed
in the workshops of 58 proprietors. Of 1,288 allotment
households, only 727, or a little over half, cultivate all their
land themselves. Of 1,573 allotment-holding working
persons, 306, or 19.4%, do not engage in agriculture at all.
Turning to the question as to who these “proprietors” are,
we must pass from the sphere of “handicraft” industry to
that of “factory” industry. According to the List for 1894-95
there were two rope factories there, with 231 workers
employed on the premises and 1,155 working outside, with an
output totalling 423,000 rubles. Both these establishments
have installed motors (which they did not have either
in 1879 or in 1890), and we therefore clearly see here
the transition from capitalist manufacture to capitalist
machine industry, and the transformation of “handicraft”
work distributors and buyers-up into real factory owners.
In Perm Gubernia the handicraft census of 1894-95 registered
68 peasant rope-and-string yards, with 343 workers
(of whom 143 were hired) and an output totalling 115,000
rubles.** These small establishments are headed by big manufactories,
which are reckoned together, viz.: 6 owners
employ 101 workers (91 hired) and have an output totalling
81,000 rubles.*** The system of production in these big establishments
may serve as the most striking example of
“serial manufacture” (as Marx calls it135 ), i.e., the sort of
manufacture in which different workers perform different
* Cf. Nizhni-Novgorod Handbook, Vol IV, article by Rev. Roslavlev.
** Sketch of Condition of Handicraft Industry in Perm Gubernia,
p. 158; in the table totals there is a mistake or a misprint.
*** ibid., pp. 40 and 188 of table. To all appearances these same
establishments also figure in the List, p. 152. For the purpose of comparing
the big establishments with the small ones we have singled
out the agriculturist commodity-producers, see Studies, p. 156. (See
present edition, Vol. 2, The Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm
Gubernia.—Ed.)