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

434
V. I. LENIN
the West the manufacturing period of capitalism could not
bring about the complete separation of the industrial workers
from agriculture,* in Russia, with the preservation of
many institutions that tie the peasants to the land, such
separation could not but be retarded. Therefore, we repeat,
what is most typical of Russian capitalist manufacture
is the non-agricultural centre which attracts the population
of the surrounding villages—the inhabitants of
which are semi-agriculturists and semi-industrialists—and
dominates these villages.
Particularly noteworthy in this connection is the fact
of the higher cultural level of the population of such nonagricultural
centres. A higher degree of literacy, a considerably
higher standard of requirements and life, vigorous
dissociation from the “rawness” of “native village soil”—
such are the usual distinguishing features of the inhabitants
of such centres.** One can understand the enormous
* Das Kapital, I 2 , 779-780. 142
** The importance of this fact impels us to supplement the data
given in §II with the following. Buturlinovka settlement, Bobrov
Uyezd, Voronezh Gubernia, is one of the centres of leather production.
There are 3,681 households, of which 2,383 do not engage in
agriculture. Population over 21,000. Households with literate persons
constitute 53%, as against 38% for the uyezd (Zemstvo statistical
returns for Bobrov Uyezd). Pokrovskaya settlement and Balakovo
village, Samara Gubernia, each have over 15,000 inhabitants, of
whom very many are from outside. Non-farming households—50%
and 42%. Literacy is above average. The statistical materials state
that the commercial and industrial villages in general are distinguished
for their higher literacy and the “mass-scale appearance of non-farming
households” (Zemstvo statistical returns for Novouzensk and Nikolayevsk
uyezds). Regarding the higher cultural level of “handicraftsmen”
cf. additionally Transactions of the Handicraft Commission,
III, p. 42; VII, p. 914; Smirnov, loc. cit., p. 59; Grigoryev, loc. cit.,
p. 106 and foll.: Annensky, loc. cit., p. 61, Nizhni-Novgorod Handbook,
Vol. II, pp. 223-239; Reports and Investigations, II, p. 243; III, 151.
Then Industries of Vladimir Gubernia, III, p. 109, giving a lively
account of the conversation of the investigator, Mr. Kharizomenov,
with his driver, a silk-weaver. This weaver strongly and bitterly
declaimed against the “drab” life of the peasants, the scantiness of
their requirements, their backwardness, etc., and wound up with the
exclamation: “Good Lord, to think what these people live for!” It
has long been observed that what the Russian peasant is poorest in is
consciousness of his own poverty. Of the artisan in the capitalist
manufactory (not to mention the factory), it must be said that in
this respect he is, comparatively speaking, very rich.