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

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526<br />

V. I. LENIN<br />

productive consumption. The development <strong>of</strong> commerce,<br />

industry, urban life, military requirements, railroads, etc.,<br />

etc., has led <strong>to</strong> an enormous increase in the demand for<br />

timber <strong>to</strong> be used, not by human beings, but by capital. In<br />

the industrial gubernias, for instance, the price <strong>of</strong> wood<br />

fuel has risen “by leaps and bounds”: “in the last five years<br />

(up <strong>to</strong> 1881) the price <strong>of</strong> wood fuel has more than doubled”.*<br />

“The price <strong>of</strong> timber has begun <strong>to</strong> rise enormously.”**<br />

In Kostroma Gubernia “with the huge consumption <strong>of</strong><br />

wood fuel by the fac<strong>to</strong>ries the price has doubled in the<br />

past seven years,”*** etc. Timber exports rose from 5,947,000<br />

rubles in 1856 <strong>to</strong> 30,153,000 rubles in 1881 and 39,200,000<br />

rubles in 1894, i.e., in the ratio 100: 507: 659.**** The<br />

amount <strong>of</strong> building timber and wood fuel transported along<br />

the inland waterways <strong>of</strong> European Russia in 1866-1868<br />

averaged 156 million poods per year(*) and in 1888-1890,<br />

701 million poods per year,(**) i.e., there was a more<br />

than fourfold increase. The amount transported by railway<br />

in 1888-1890 averaged 290 million poods,(***) whereas in<br />

1866-1868 it was probably no more than 70 million<br />

poods.(****) That is <strong>to</strong> say, <strong>to</strong>tal timber freights in the 60s<br />

amounted <strong>to</strong> about 226 million poods, and in 1888-1890<br />

<strong>to</strong> 991 million poods—a more than fourfold increase. The<br />

vast growth <strong>of</strong> the lumber industry in precisely the post-<br />

Reform period is thus beyond doubt.<br />

How is this industry organised? On purely capitalist<br />

lines. Forestland is bought from landowners by entrepre-<br />

neurs—“lumber industrialists,” who hire workers <strong>to</strong> fell<br />

and saw the timber, <strong>to</strong> float it, etc. In Moscow Gubernia,<br />

* Industries <strong>of</strong> Vladimir Gubernia, I, 61.<br />

** Ibid., IV, 80.<br />

*** Zhbankov, The Influence <strong>of</strong> Industries Employing Migra<strong>to</strong>ry<br />

Workers on the Movement <strong>of</strong> the Population, Kostroma, 1887, p. 25.<br />

**** Productive Forces. Russia’s Foreign Trade, p. 39. Timber<br />

exports in 1902—55.7 million rubles; in 1903—66.3 million rubles.<br />

(Note <strong>to</strong> 2nd edition.)<br />

(*) Military Statistical Abstract, pp. 486-487.<br />

(**) Statistical Survey <strong>of</strong> Railways and Inland Waterways, St.<br />

Petersburg, 1893 (published by Ministry <strong>of</strong> Communications), p. 40.<br />

(***) Ibid., p. 26.<br />

(****) Assuming that it amounted approximately <strong>to</strong> 5, <strong>of</strong> <strong>to</strong>tal<br />

railway freights (Military Statistical Abstract, p. 511; cf. 518-519).

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