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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
593
distinctive features mentioned and constitute, in the economic
sense, colonies of Central European Russia.* The term
colony is still more applicable to the other outer regions,
for example, the Caucasus. Its economic “conquest” by
Russia took place much later than the political conquest;
and to this day this economic conquest has not been completed
to the full. In the post-Reform period there has been,
on the one hand, an intensive colonisation of the Caucasus,**
an extensive ploughing up of the land (particularly in the
North Caucasus) by colonists producing wheat, tobacco,
etc., for sale, and attracting masses of rural wage-workers
from Russia. On the other hand, native age-old “handicraft”
industries, which are declining due to the competition
of wares from Moscow, are being eliminated. There has
been a decline in the ancient gunsmith’s craft due to the
competition of imported Tula and Belgian wares, a decline in
handicraft iron-work due to the competition of the imported
Russian products, as well as in the handicraft processing of
copper, gold and silver, clay, fats and soda, leather, etc.***
These products are turned out more cheaply in Russian factories,
which supply the Caucasus with their wares. There
has been a decline in the making of drinking-horns because
of the decay of the feudal system in Georgia and of the
steady disappearance of her memorable feasts; there has
been a decline in the headgear industry due to the replacement
of Asiatic dress by European; there has been a decline
in the production of wine-skins and pitchers for local wine,
which for the first time is now being sold (giving rise to the
barrel-making trade) and has in turn captured the Rus-
* “... It was thanks exclusively to them, thanks to these forms
of people’s production, and on the basis of them that the whole of
South Russia was colonised and settled.” (Mr. N. —on, Sketches, 284).
How wonderfully broad and comprehensive is the term: “forms of
people’s production”! It covers whatever you like: patriarchal peasant
farming, labour-service, primitive handicrafts, small commodityproduction,
and those typically capitalist relations within the
peasant community that we saw above in the data on the Taurida
and Samara gubernias (Chapter II), etc., etc.
** Cf. articles by Mr. P. Semyonov in Vestnik Finansov, 1897,
No. 21, and by V. Mikhailovsky in Novoye Slovo, June 1897.
*** See article by K. Khatisov in Vol. II of Reports and Investigations
of Handicraft Industry, and by P. Ostryakov in Vol. V. of
Transactions of the Handicraft Commission.