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

480
V. I. LENIN
5,605 and 5,201* (Collection); 1894-95—2,308 (List). Among
the 5,041 mills listed in 1892 (Collection), 803 were steam-,
2,907 water-, 1,323 wind- and 8 horse-operated! Some
gubernias counted only steam-mills, others included
watermills (in numbers ranging from 1 to 425), still others
(the minority) included also windmills (from 1 to 530) and
horse-operated mills. One can imagine the value of such
statistics, and of conclusions based on a credulous use of
the data they provide!** Obviously, to judge the growth
of large-scale machine industry we must first establish a
definite criterion for the term “factory.” Let us take as such
a criterion the employment of steam-engines: steam-mills
are a characteristic concomitant of the epoch of large-scale
FROM MARX
TO MAO
machine industry.***
�⋆
We get the following picture of the development of
factory production in this branch of industry.****
Fifty gubernias of European Russia
No. of
Yearssteam- No. of
Total output
(thousand
millsworkersrubles)
1866
1879
126
205
?
3,621
?
21,353
1890 649 10,453 67,481
1892 803 11,927 80,559
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The statistics for the oil-pressing trade are unsatisfactory
for the same reason. For instance, in 1879 2,450 works
were listed with 7,207 workers and an output totalling
6,486,000 rubles, and in 1890 there were 383 works, with
4,746 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles.
But this decrease in the number of factories and of workers is
* And in addition 32,957 “small windmills,” not counted among
the “factories and works.”
** See examples of such conclusions drawn by Mr. Karyshev
in the above-quoted article in the Studies. (See present edition, Vol. 4,
op. cit.—Ed.)
*** Large watermills are also in the nature of factories, of course,
but we have no data to enable us to single them out from among the
small ones. In the Directory for 1890 we saw listed 250 watermills
each employing 10 and more workers. They employed 6,378 workers.
**** Military Statistical Abstract, Directories and Collection.
According to the List for 1894-95, there are 1,192 steam-mills in European
Russia. The statistics for steam-engines gave the number of
steam-mills in European Russia in 1875-1878 as 294.