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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
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the consumer and the producer and becomes a real capitalist.
The spasmodic development of capitalist economy, the
alternation of prolonged periods of bad business with
periods of “building booms” (like the one we are experiencing
now, in 1898) tremendously accelerate the expansion
and deepening of capitalist relationships in the building
industry.
Such, according to the material of Russian economic
literature, has been the post-Reform evolution of the industry
under review.* This evolution finds particularly striking
expression in the territorial division of labour, in the
formation of large areas in which the working population
specialises in some particular branch of building.** This
specialisation of areas presupposes the formation of large
markets for building work and, in this connection, the rise
of capitalist relationships. To illustrate this point let us quote
data for one such area. Pokrov Uyezd, Vladimir Gubernia,
has long been celebrated for its carpenters, who already at the
beginning of the century constituted more than half the
total population. After the Reform carpentry continued to
spread.*** In “the carpenters’ area the contractors are an
element analogous to the subcontractors and factory owners”;
they are usually drawn from among the most enterprising
members of carpenters’ artels. “Cases are not rare of contractors
in ten years accumulating from 50,000 to 60,000 rubles
and more of clear profit. Some of the contractors employ from
* As we have had occasion to state above, it is difficult to
establish this evolution because in our literature building workers in
general are often called “artisans,” wage-workers being quite incorrectly
classified in this category.—Regarding the analogous development
of the organisation of the building industry in the West see,
for instance Webb, Die Geschichte des britischen Trade Unionismus,
Stuttgart, 1895, S. 7. 157
** In Yaroslavl Gubernia, for instance, Danilov Uyezd is particularly
famous for its stove builders, plasterers and bricklayers,
its different volosts mainly supplying specialists in one or other of
these trades. Quite a large number of painters come from the Transvolga
part of Yaroslavl Uyezd; carpenters come from the central part
of Mologa Uyezd, etc. (Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia, Vol II, Yaroslavl,
1896, p. 135 and others.)
*** At the end of the 50s, about 10,000 carpenters used to leave
the Argunovo district (Argunovo Volost is the centre of the industry).
In the 60s, out of 548 villages in the Pokrov Uyezd, 503 were engaged
in carpentry (Industries of Vladimir Gubernia, IV, p. 161, and foll.).