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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
573
The question now arises: how large is the number of nonagricultural
and of agricultural migratory workers? Mr.
N. —on very boldly and quite mistakenly asserts that “the
overwhelming majority of peasant outside employments
are agricultural” (Sketches, p. 16). Chaslavsky, whom Mr.
N. —on cites, expresses himself much more cautiously;
he cites no data and limits himself to general remarks about
the size of the areas which provide workers of one type or
another. On the other hand, Mr. N. —on’s railway passenger
traffic data prove absolutely nothing, for non-agricultural
workers also leave their homes mainly in spring and,
moreover, use the railways much more than agricultural
workers do.* We presume, on the contrary, that the
majority (although not the “overwhelming” majority) of the
migratory workers are probably non-agricultural workers.
This view is based, firstly, on data concerning the distribution
of passport revenue, and, secondly, on Mr. Vesin’s
data. Years ago Flerovsky, on the basis of the returns
for 1862-63 showing the distribution of revenue from “miscellaneous
duties” (more than one-third of which was
obtained from the issue of passports), drew the conclusion that
the greatest movement of peasants in search of work was
from the metropolitan and the non-agricultural gubernias.**
If we take the 11 non-agricultural gubernias which we combined
above (part 2 of this section) into a single area, and
which non-agricultural workers leave in large numbers, we
shall see that these gubernias in 1885 contained only 18.7%
of the population of all European Russia (in 1897—18.3%),
whereas they accounted for 42.9% of the passport revenue
in 1885 (in 1891—40.7%).*** Non-agricultural workers are
provided by very many other gubernias, and we must therefore
conclude that agricultural workers constitute less than
half of the migrants. Mr. Vesin divides 38 gubernias of European
Russia (which account for 90% of the departure
* Cf. above, p. 239, footnote.
** The Condition of the Working Class in Russia, St. Petersburg,
1869, p. 400 and foll.
*** Data on passport revenue taken from Returns for Russia
for 1884-85 and for 1896. In 1885, passport revenue in European
Russia amounted to 37 rubles per 1,000 inhabitants; in the 11 nonagricultural
gubernias it was 86 rubles per 1,000 inhabitants.