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

442
V. I. LENIN
period, however, of capitalist development, with its
characteristic retention of the worker’s connection with the
land, and with an abundance of small establishments around
big ones—can be imagined with difficulty, or hardly at
all, without the distribution of home work.* And the facts
of Russia do indeed show, as we have seen, that in the
industries organised on the lines of capitalist manufacture
the distribution of home work is particularly widespread.
That is why we think it most appropriate to examine in
precisely this chapter the characteristic features of capitalist
domestic industry, although some of the examples
quoted below cannot be assigned specifically to manufacture.
Let us point, first of all, to the multitude of middlemen
between the capitalist and the worker in domestic
industry. The big entrepreneur cannot himself distribute
materials to hundreds and thousands of workers, scattered
sometimes in different villages; what is needed is the
appearance of middle-men (in some cases even of a hierarchy
of middle-men) to take the materials in bulk and distribute
them in small quantities. We get a regular sweating
system,** a system of the severest exploitation: the “subcontractor”
(or “workroom owner,” or “tradeswoman” in the lace
industry, etc., etc.), who is close to the worker, knows how
to take advantage even of specific cases of his distress
and devises such methods of exploitation as would be
inconceivable in a big establishment, and as absolutely
preclude all possibility of control or supervision.***
* In Western Europe also, as we know, the manufactory period
of capitalism was distinguished by the extensive development of
domestic industry—in the weaving industries for instance. It is
interesting to note that in describing clock-making, which he cites as
a classic example of manufacture, Marx points out that the dial, spring
and case are rarely made in the manufactory itself, and that, in
general, the detail worker often works at home (Das Kapital, I, 2-te
Aufl., S. 353-354). 144
** These words are in English in the original.—Ed.
*** That, incidentally, is why the factory fights such middlemen,
as, for example, the “jobbers,” workers who hire workmen on
their own account. Cf. Kobelyatsky: Handbook for Factory Owners, etc.,
St. Petersburg, 1897, p. 24 and foll. All the literature on the handicraft
industries teems with facts testifying to the extreme exploitation