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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
525
acter of the distribution of our factory industry shows,
on the contrary, that its influence is very widespread, and
that it is far from being confined to the walls of the
factory.* On the other hand, however, this specific character
of the distribution of our factory industry cannot but
result in a temporary retardation of the transforming influence
of large-scale machine industry on the population it
employs. By converting the backwoodsman-muzhik into a
factory worker at one stroke, the factory may for a time
ensure for itself a supply of the cheapest, least developed
and least exacting “hands.” It is obvious, however, that
such retardation cannot go on for long, and that it is purchased
at the price of a still greater expansion of the area
subjected to the influence of large-scale machine industry.
IX. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LUMBER AND BUILDING
INDUSTRIES
One of the necessary conditions for the growth of largescale
machine industry (and a highly characteristic concomitant
of its advance) is the development of the industry for
the supply of fuel and building materials, as well as of
the building industry. Let us begin with the lumber
industry.
The felling and preliminary dressing of trees for their
own needs has been an occupation of the peasantry from
time immemorial, one that nearly everywhere forms part
of the tiller’s round of work. By the lumber industry,
however, we mean exclusively the preparation of lumber
for sale. Characteristic of the post-Reform period is a
particularly rapid growth of this industry, the demand for
timber having grown rapidly both for personal consumption
(the growth of towns, the increase of the non-agricultural
population in the villages, and the loss of woodland by the
peasants upon their emancipation) and, particularly, for
* Let us recall the fact cited above (Chapter III, §IV, p. 208,
footnote) of the influence exerted by the mining industry in Bakhmut
Uyezd, Ekaterinoslav Gubernia, on the local agricultural system.—
Characteristic also are the common complaints of landowners about
the factories “spoiling” the population.