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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
589
This table clearly shows us the basis of the process that
creates the home market for labour-power and, consequently,
the home market for capitalism. Two main areas, those
most developed capitalistically, attract vast numbers of
workers: the area of agricultural capitalism (the southern
and the eastern outer regions), and the area of industrial
capitalism (the metropolitan and the industrial gubernias).
Wages are lowest in the area of departure, the central agricultural
gubernias, where capitalism, both in agriculture
and in industry, is least developed*; in the influx
areas, on the other hand, wages rise for all types of work, as
does also the percentage of money wage to total wage, i.e.,
money economy gains ground at the expense of natural
economy. The intermediary areas, those between the
areas of the greatest influx (and of the highest wages)
and the area of departure (and of the lowest wages) reveal
the mutual replacement of workers to which reference was
made above: workers leave in such numbers that in the
places of departure a shortage of labour is created which
attracts workers from the more “poorly paid” gubernias.
In essence, the two-sided process shown in our table—
that of the diversion of population from agriculture to
industry (industrialisation of the population) and of the
development of commercial-industrial, capitalist agriculture
(industrialisation of agriculture)—epitomises all that
Settlement, the Byelorussian gubernias, etc.). Data from the publication
cited above. Wage figures are the average for the gubernias
in the respective groups; the day labourer’s summer wage is the
average for three seasons: sowing, haymaking and harvesting. The areas
(1 to 6) include the following gubernias: 1) Taurida, Bessarabia and
Don; 2) Kherson, Ekaterinoslav, Samara, Saratov, Orenburg; 3)
Simbirsk, Voronezh, Kharkov; 4) Kazan, Penza, Tambov, Ryazan,
Tula, Orel, Kursk; 5) Pskov, Novgorod, Kaluga, Kostroma, Tver,
Nizhni-Novgorod; 6) St. Petersburg, Moscow, Yaroslavl, Vladimir.
* Thus, the peasants flee in mass from the localities where patriarchal
economic relationships are most prevalent, where labourservice
and primitive forms of industry are preserved to the greatest
extent, to localities where the “pillars” are completely decayed. They
flee from “people’s production” and pay no heed to the chorus of voices
from “society” following in their wake. In this chorus two voices can
be clearly distinguished: “They have little attachment!” comes the
menacing bellow of the Black-Hundred Sobakevich. 163 “They have
insufficient allotment land!” is the polite correction of the Cadet
Manilov.