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

628
V. I. LENIN
impossible to “quote” Marx. The question is: What is the
point of this argument about the “historical” classification of
village communities, when I am dealing with the classification
of house-to-house data? By what miraculous means can the
classification of present-day house-to-house data “utterly confuse”
the long-established historical data on village communities?
Mr. Skvortsov is entitled to use the word “historical” in
this connection only to the extent that he turns his back
on history: if the classification of village communities according
to size of allotment per registered person relates to the
history of what happened 40 years ago, then what is going on
before our eyes with ever-increasing rapidity is also history.
Further, it is altogether inexplicable how a man who studies
Zemstvo statistics and talks of all things in nothing less
than the tone of a prophet can write that “there are two classifications”
(of village communities according to allotment
and of households according to allotment), when everyone
knows that there are very many classifications: according to
area under crops, number of draught animals, number of
working members, number of farm labourers, house ownership,
and so forth? How can Mr. Skvortsov declare so
categorically, and without a shadow of proof, that only
classification according to allotment is “factual,” when the
point at issue is precisely: is this classification a factual
one? I show for a number of uyezds that the distribution of
allotment land among the peasant farms continues to this day
to be marked by an “equality” that is relatively very great
(20% of well-to-do households, 26-30% of the population,
account for 29-36% of the allotment land in various
uyezds or groups of uyezds), whereas the distribution of the
factual indices of farming, draught animals, area under
crops, improved implements, etc., is everywhere, without
exception, incomparably less equal. Mr. Skvortsov contrives
to criticise, and even berate, my statements, without
saying a word about fundamentals.
It goes without saying that, not being a professional
statistician, I laid no claims to solving the problem of classification.
I think, however, that the basic problems of Zemstvo
statistics (and the problem of the methods of classifying
information concerning households is a basic one, as I point
out in the passage quoted by Mr. Skvortsov) are things