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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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446<br />

V. I. LENIN<br />

application <strong>of</strong> capitalist home-work, artificially binds the<br />

peasant <strong>to</strong> these worst forms <strong>of</strong> exploitation. Obsolete<br />

institutions and an agrarian system that is thoroughly<br />

saturated with the social-estate principle thus exert a most<br />

pernicious influence in both agriculture and industry,<br />

perpetuating technically backward forms <strong>of</strong> production which<br />

go hand in hand with the greatest development <strong>of</strong> bondage<br />

and personal dependence, with the hardest lot and the most<br />

helpless position <strong>of</strong> the working people.*<br />

Furthermore, there is also an undoubted connection<br />

between home-work for capitalists and the differentiation <strong>of</strong><br />

the peasantry. Extensive incidence <strong>of</strong> home-work presupposes<br />

two conditions: 1) the existence <strong>of</strong> a mass <strong>of</strong> rural<br />

proletarians who have <strong>to</strong> sell their labour-power, and <strong>to</strong> sell<br />

it cheaply; 2) the existence <strong>of</strong> well-<strong>to</strong>-do peasants, well<br />

acquainted with local conditions, who can undertake the<br />

function <strong>of</strong> agents in distributing work. A salesman sent in<br />

by the merchant will not always be able <strong>to</strong> fulfil this<br />

function (particularly in the more or less complex industries)<br />

and will hardly ever be able <strong>to</strong> fulfil it with such “virtuosity”<br />

as can a local peasant, “one <strong>of</strong> themselves.”** The<br />

big entrepreneurs would probably be unable <strong>to</strong> carry out<br />

half their operations in distributing work <strong>to</strong> home workers<br />

if they did not have at their command a whole army <strong>of</strong><br />

small entrepreneurs who can be trusted with goods on<br />

credit or on commission, and who greedily clutch at every<br />

opportunity <strong>of</strong> enlarging their small commercial operations.<br />

Finally, it is extremely important <strong>to</strong> point <strong>to</strong> the significance<br />

<strong>of</strong> capitalist domestic industry in the theory <strong>of</strong> the<br />

* Of course, in all capitalist society there will always be a rural<br />

proletariat that agrees <strong>to</strong> take home-work on the worst terms; but<br />

obsolete institutions enlarge the sphere <strong>of</strong> application <strong>of</strong> domestic<br />

industry and hinder the struggle against it. Korsak, as far back as<br />

1861, pointed <strong>to</strong> the connection between the tremendously widespread<br />

nature <strong>of</strong> domestic industry in Russia and our agrarian system (loc.<br />

cit., 305-307).<br />

** We have seen that the big master-industrialists, the buyersup,<br />

workroom owners and subcontrac<strong>to</strong>rs are at the same time well<strong>to</strong>-do<br />

agriculturists. “The subcontrac<strong>to</strong>r,” we read, for example, in<br />

a description <strong>of</strong> galloon-weaving in Moscow Gubernia (Statistical<br />

Returns for Moscow Gubernia, <strong>Vol</strong>. VI, Pt. II, p. 147), “is a peasant<br />

just like his weaver, but has a cottage, a horse and a cow more than<br />

the weaver has, and perhaps is able with his whole family <strong>to</strong> drink<br />

tea twice a day.”

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