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

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

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA<br />

409<br />

capitalist manufacture is very instructive as a specimen <strong>of</strong><br />

what goes on in our age-old, purely native “handicraft<br />

industries,” that have been left stranded in one <strong>of</strong> Russia’s<br />

numerous rural backwoods. The craftsmen work 15 hours a<br />

day in a very unhealthy atmosphere and earn 8 rubles per<br />

month, less than 60 or 70 rubles per year. The masters’<br />

incomes amount <strong>to</strong> about 5,000 rubles per annum. The<br />

relations between masters and workers are “patriarchal”:<br />

according <strong>to</strong> ancient cus<strong>to</strong>m, the master gives the workers<br />

kvass and salt gratis, which they have <strong>to</strong> beg from his<br />

cook. As a mark <strong>of</strong> gratitude <strong>to</strong> the master (for “giving”<br />

them work) the workers come, without pay, <strong>to</strong> pull squirrel<br />

tails, and also clean furs after work. The workers live in the<br />

workshop all the week, and the masters knock them about,<br />

seemingly in a joke (p. 218, loc. cit.), make them do all<br />

sorts <strong>of</strong> jobs, such as raking hay, shovelling snow, fetching<br />

water, rinsing clothes, etc. Labour is as<strong>to</strong>nishingly cheap in<br />

Kargopol itself, and the peasants in the vicinity “are ready<br />

<strong>to</strong> work for next <strong>to</strong> nothing.” Work is done by hand, there<br />

is systematic division <strong>of</strong> labour, and there is a lengthy<br />

apprenticeship (8 <strong>to</strong> 12 years); the lot <strong>of</strong> the apprentices<br />

can easily be imagined.<br />

6) T h e R e m a i n i n g L i v e s t o c k P r o c e s s i n g T r a d e s<br />

A particularly noteworthy example <strong>of</strong> capitalist manufacture<br />

is the celebrated boot industry <strong>of</strong> the village <strong>of</strong><br />

Kimry, Korcheva Uyezd, Tver Gubernia, and its environs.*<br />

in the <strong>to</strong>wn <strong>of</strong> Kargopol and by peasant women <strong>of</strong> the Pavlovo <strong>Vol</strong>ost.<br />

They are paid the very lowest price,” so that a seamstress earns only<br />

from 2 rubles 40 kopeks <strong>to</strong> 3 rubles per month, providing her own<br />

food, and for this pay (at piece rates) she has <strong>to</strong> sit without a break<br />

for 12 hours a day. “The work is very exhausting, for it calls for great<br />

strain and assiduity.” The number <strong>of</strong> seamstresses is now about 200<br />

(Handicraft Industry in Olonets Gubernia, Essay by Messrs. Blagoveshchensky<br />

and Garyazin. Petrozavodsk, 1895, pp. 92-93).<br />

* See Statistical Chronicle <strong>of</strong> the Russian Empire, II, <strong>Vol</strong>. III,<br />

St. Petersburg, 1872. Material for the Study <strong>of</strong> Handicraft Industry<br />

and Hand-Labour in Russia. Compiled by L. Maikov. Article by<br />

V. A. Pletnev. This work is the best for clarity <strong>of</strong> description <strong>of</strong> the<br />

whole organisation <strong>of</strong> the industry. The latest works give valuable

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