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

566
V. I. LENIN
3) T h e G r o w t h o f F a c t o r y a n d o f C o m m e r c i a l
a n d I n d u s t r i a l T o w n s h i p s a n d V i l l a g e s
In addition to the towns, the following have the significance
of industrial centres: firstly, suburbs, which are not
always counted with the towns and which are spreading in
an increasing area around the big towns; and secondly, factory
townships and villages. Such industrial centres* are
particularly numerous in the industrial gubernias where the
percentage of urban population is extremely low.** The
above table containing the data, by areas, of the town
population shows that in the 9 industrial gubernias the percentage
in 1863 was 7.3% and in 1897, 8.6%. The fact is
that the commercial and industrial population of these
gubernias is concentrated mainly, not in towns, but in industrial
villages. Among the “towns” of Vladimir, Kostroma,
Nizhni-Novgorod and other gubernias there are not a few
with less than 3,000, 2,000 or even 1,000 inhabitants, whereas
there are numerous “villages” in each of which there
are 2,000, 3,000 or 5,000 factory workers alone. In the post-
Reform period, rightly observes the compiler of the Survey
of Yaroslavl Gubernia (Vol. II., 191), “the towns have begun
to grow still faster, and in addition there has been the growth
of settlements of a new type, a type of factory centre
midway between the town and the village.” We have
cited data showing the enormous growth of these centres
and the number of factory workers concentrated in them.
We have seen that there are quite a few centres of this kind
throughout Russia, not only in the industrial gubernias,
but also in the South. In the Urals the percentage of urban
population is lowest: in Vyatka and Perm gubernias it was
3.2% in 1863 and 4.7% in 1897. But here is an example of
the relative size of the “urban” and the industrial populations:
in Krasnoufimsk Uyezd, Perm Gubernia, the urban
population numbers 6,400 (1897), whereas according to
the Zemstvo census of 1888-1891, the population of the
* See above, Chapter VII, §VIII, and Appendix III to Chapter
VII.
** On the significance of this circumstance, to which Korsak in
his day drew attention, compare the just remarks of Mr. Volgin (loc.
cit., pp. 215-216).