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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
459
A special place among the sources of factory statistics
of the 60s is held by the Military Statistical Abstract
(Vol. IV. Russia, St. Petersburg, 1871). It gives data on
all the factories and works of the Russian Empire, including
mining and excise-paying establishments, and estimates
that in 1866 there were in European Russia no more
nor less than 70,631 factories, 829,573 workers, with an
output totalling 583,317,000 rubles!! These curious
figures were arrived at, firstly, because they were taken, not
from the reports of the Ministry of Finance, but from the
special returns of the Central Statistical Committee (these
returns were never published in any of the Committee’s
publications, nor is it known by whom, how and when they
were gathered and processed);* secondly, because the compilers
of the Military Statistical Abstract did not hesitate
in the least to class even the smallest establishments as
factories. (Military Statistical Abstract, p. 319) and furthermore
supplemented the basic returns with other material:
returns of the Department of Commerce and Manufacture,
returns of the Commissariat, returns of the Ordnance and
Naval Departments, and finally, returns “from the most
diverse sources” (ibid., p. XXIII).** Therefore, in using
Committee, as an experiment, instituted a special investigation of
factory industry in Moscow and Vladimir gubernias (where in 1868
nearly half of all the workers and of the total output of the factories and
works of European Russia were concentrated). If we take the trades
for which data are given both by the Ministry of Finance and the Central
Statistical Committee, we get the following figures: according to the
Ministry of Finance there were 1,749 factories, 186,521 workers,
with an output totalling 131,568,000 rubles, whereas according to
the investigation by the Central Statistical Committee there were 1,704
factories, 196,315 workers on premises plus 33,485 outside workers,
and an output totalling 137,758,000 rubles.
* It is very possible that these returns were simply taken from
gubernatorial reports, which, as we shall see below, always enormously
exaggerate the number of factories and works.
** How widely the Military Statistical Abstract applied the term
“factory” becomes particularly evident through the following: the
Yearbook statistics are called “the statistics of our large establishments”
(p. 319, authors’ italics). As we have seen, 3, of these “large”
establishments have an output of less than 1,000 rubles!! We omit
more detailed proof of the point that the figures given in the Military
Statistical Abstract must not be used for purposes of comparison
with present-day factory statistics, since this task has already been