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

UNCRITICAL CRITICISM
627
Finally, the last point on which one can discuss fundamentals
with Mr. Skvortsov is that of the classification of
Zemstvo statistics on the peasantry. Mr. Skvortsov has made
a special study of Zemstvo statistics, and, if we are not
mistaken, still continues to do so. One would, therefore, be
justified in expecting him to say something based on facts and
explaining this controversial and extremely interesting subject.
I wrote: “we reject a limine any classification according
to allotment and exclusively employ classification according
to economic strength (draught animals, area under crops),”
and I went on to say that classification according
to allotment, which is far more common in our Zemstvo
statistics, is absolutely unsuitable because life disturbs
the equality (within the village community) of allotment
land tenure: it is sufficient to recall such universally known
and unchallenged facts as the leasing of allotments, their
abandonment, the purchase and the renting of land and the
supplementing of agriculture with commercial and industrial
enterprises and with work for hire. “Economic statistics
must necessarily take the scale and type of farm as the basis
of classification” (105). Mr. Skvortsov’s “criticism” consists in
the following: “Mr. Ilyin is displeased with the classification
of statistics on the peasantry according to allotment.
There are two (sic!) classifications of statistics. One is the
historical classification, according to which village communities
(!) having the same amount of allotment land per
registered person are gathered into one group. The other is
a factual classification, according to which peasant farms
having allotments of equal size, regardless of the communities
to which they belong, are gathered into one group. What
makes the historical classification important is that it clearly
shows what the conditions were under which the peasantry
passed from feudal to capitalist society . . .” and so forth on
this theme, also examined above. . . . “The classification Mr.
llyin proposes . . . utterly confuses the historical conception
of the conditions of our peasantry’s transition from the one
social formation to the other. Mr. Ilyin’s proposal is more in
the nature of an industrial census (sic!), such as is taken in
Germany” (2289). This is a sample of Mr. Skvortsov’s
criticism on a subject on which he specialises, and on a
question on which, with the best will in the world, it is