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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
521
The third type of factory centre is the “handicraft”
villages, the largest establishments in which are often
classified as “factories and works.” In our table, the villages
of Pavlovo, Vorsma, Bogorodskoye and Dubovka serve
as examples of such centres. A comparison between the
number of factory workers in such centres and the total of
their industrial population was made above in the case of
Bogorodskoye village.
If we group the centres given in our table according to
number of workers in each centre and according to the type of
centre (town or village), we get the following data (see
next page).
The table shows that in 1879 there were 356,000 workers
(out of a total of 752,000) concentrated in these 103
centres, while in 1890 there were 451,000 (out of 876,000).
Accordingly, the number of workers increased by 26.8%,
whereas in the large factories in general (of 100 and
more workers) the increase was only 22.2%, while the total
number of workers increased over this period by only 16.5%.
Thus the workers are being concentrated in the largest
centres. In 1879, only 11 centres had over 5,000 workers; in
1890 there were 21. Particularly striking is the increase
in the number of centres with from 5,000 to 10,000 workers.
This occurred for two reasons: 1) because of the exceptional
growth of factory industry in the South (Odessa,
Rostov-on-Don, etc.); and 2) because of the growth of the
factory villages in the central gubernias
A comparison between the urban and the rural centres
shows that in 1890 the latter embraced about one-third of
the total number of workers in the leading centres (152,000
out of 451,000). For the whole of Russia this proportion
should be higher, i.e., more than one-third of the factory
workers must be outside of the towns. Indeed, all the outstanding
urban centres are included in our table, whereas
rural centres with several hundred workers each, apart from
those we have mentioned, exist in exceedingly large numbers
(settlements with glass-works, brickworks, distilleries, beetsugar
refineries, etc.). Mining workers are also to be found
mainly outside of towns. One may consider, therefore, that
of the total number of factory and mining workers in
European Russia not less (and maybe more) than half are to