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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
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capitalist society) which theory describes as latent*; a
certain (and, as we have seen, quite large) section of the
rural population must always be ready to undertake such
work, must always be in need of it. That is a condition for
the existence and development of capitalism. To the extent
that the forests are destroyed by the rapacious methods of
the lumber industrialists (which proceeds with tremendous
rapidity), an ever-growing need is felt for replacing wood
by coal, and the coal industry, which alone is capable
of serving as a firm basis for large-scale machine
industry, develops at an ever faster rate. Cheap fuel,
obtainable at any time and in any quantity, at a definite
and little fluctuating price—such is the demand of the
modern factory. The lumber industry is not in a
position to meet this demand.** That is why its predominance
over the coal industry as a source of fuel supply
corresponds to a low level of capitalist development. As
for the social relations of production, in this respect the
lumber industry is to the coal industry approximately
what capitalist manufacture is to large-scale machine
industry. The lumber industry means a technique of the
most elementary kind, the exploitation of natural
resources by primitive methods; the coal industry leads to a
complete technical revolution and to the extensive use of
machinery. The lumber industry leaves the producer a peasant;
the coal industry transforms him into a factory hand.
The lumber industry leaves all the old, patriarchal way of
life practically intact, enmeshing in the worst forms of
bondage the workers left to toil in the remote forest depths
and taking advantage of their ignorance, defencelessness
and isolation. The coal industry creates mobility of
the population, establishes large industrial centres and
inevitably leads to the introduction of public control over
* Das Kapital, I 2 , S. 668. 156
** Here is an illustration of this taken from the Report of the
Members of the Commission of Inquiry into Factory Industry in the
Kingdom of Poland (St. Petersburg, 1888, Pt. I). Coal in Poland costs
half the Moscow price. The average expense of fuel per pood of yarn
in Poland is 16 to 37 kopeks, and in the Moscow area—50 to 73 kopeks.
In the Moscow area fuel is stocked for 12 to 20 months, in Poland for
not more than 3 months, and in most cases for 1 to 4 weeks.