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

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA<br />

1) T e x t i l e T r a d e s<br />

469<br />

At the head <strong>of</strong> the wool trades is cloth production, which<br />

in 1890 had an output <strong>of</strong> over 35 million rubles and<br />

employed 45,000 workers. The his<strong>to</strong>rico-statistical data on this<br />

trade indicate a considerable drop in the number <strong>of</strong><br />

workers, namely, from 72,638 in 1866 <strong>to</strong> 46,740 in 1890.* To<br />

appraise this phenomenon we must take account <strong>of</strong> the<br />

fact that up <strong>to</strong> the 1860s inclusive, felt cloth production<br />

was organised on specific and original lines: it was concentrated<br />

in relatively large establishments which, however,<br />

did not in any way come under the category <strong>of</strong> capitalist<br />

fac<strong>to</strong>ry industry, since they were based on the labour <strong>of</strong><br />

serfs, or <strong>of</strong> temporarily bound peasants. In the surveys <strong>of</strong><br />

the “fac<strong>to</strong>ry” industry <strong>of</strong> the 60s we therefore meet with the<br />

division <strong>of</strong> cloth mills in<strong>to</strong> 1) those owned by landlords<br />

or nobles, and 2) those owned by merchants. The former<br />

produced mainly army cloth, the government contracts having<br />

been distributed equally among the mills in proportion <strong>to</strong><br />

the number <strong>of</strong> machines. Compulsory labour was the cause<br />

<strong>of</strong> the technical backwardness <strong>of</strong> such establishments and<br />

<strong>of</strong> their employing a much larger number <strong>of</strong> workers than<br />

the merchant mills based on the employment <strong>of</strong> hired<br />

labour.** The principal drop in the number <strong>of</strong> workers,<br />

engaged in felt cloth production <strong>to</strong>ok place in the gubernias<br />

with landlord fac<strong>to</strong>ries; thus, in the 13 such gubernias<br />

(enumerated in the Survey <strong>of</strong> Manufac<strong>to</strong>ry Industries),<br />

the number <strong>of</strong> workers dropped from 32,921 <strong>to</strong> 14,539 (1866<br />

and 1890), while in the 5 gubernias with merchant fac<strong>to</strong>ries<br />

* In all cases, unless otherwise stated, we take the data <strong>of</strong> the<br />

Yearbook for 1866 and those <strong>of</strong> the Direc<strong>to</strong>ries for 1879 and 1890.—<br />

The His<strong>to</strong>rico-Statistical Survey (<strong>Vol</strong>. II) gives annual information<br />

on cloth production from 1855 <strong>to</strong> 1879; the following are the fiveyear<br />

averages <strong>of</strong> workers employed from 1855-1859 <strong>to</strong> 1875-1879:<br />

107,433; 96,131; 92,117; 87,960 and 81,458.<br />

** See A Survey <strong>of</strong> Various Branches <strong>of</strong> Manufac<strong>to</strong>ry Industry<br />

in Russia, <strong>Vol</strong>. I, St. Petersburg, 1862, particularly pp. 165 and 167.<br />

Cf. also Military Statistical Abstract, D. 357 and foll. At the present<br />

time we rarely meet in the lists <strong>of</strong> cloth manufacturers the celebrated<br />

noble families that constituted the overwhelming majority in the<br />

1860s.

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