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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
of manufacturers, large and small) as a percentage of the
total number of families engaging in industries in Russia;
the result would be a “quite insignificant” percentage of the
“mass of the people.” It is far more correct to compare the
number of farms employing labourers with the number of
actually independent farms, i.e., of those living on agriculture
alone and not resorting to the sale of their labourpower.
Furthermore, Mr. V. V. lost sight of a trifle, namely,
that the peasant farms employing labourers are among the
biggest: the percentage of farms employing labourers,
“insignificant” when taken “in general and on the average,”
turns out to be very imposing (34-64%) among the well-to-do
peasantry, who account for more than half of the total production
and produce large quantities of grain for sale. One
can therefore judge how absurd is the opinion that farming
based on the employment of labourers is “fortuitous,” something
that occurred 100 to 200 years ago! Thirdly, only
by disregarding the real specific features of cultivation can
one take as the criterion of “peasant capitalism” only farm
labourers, i.e., regular workers, and ignore the day labourers.
It is commonly known that the hiring of day labourers
plays a particularly important role in agriculture.*
Let us take the bottom group. It consists of peasants who
cultivate no land or who cultivate little; they “do not differ
much in economic status . . . both groups serve as farm
labourers for their fellow villagers, or engage in outside,
mainly agricultural employments” (p. 134, op. cit.), i.e.,
belong to the rural proletariat. Let us note, for example,
that in Dnieper Uyezd the bottom group constitutes 40%
of the households, and those having no ploughing implements
39% of the total households. In addition to selling their
labour-power, the rural proletariat obtain an income from
leasing their allotment land:
* England is the classic land of agricultural capitalism. And in
that country 40.8% of the farmers employ no hired labour; 68.1%
employ not more than 2 workers; 82% employ not more than 4 workers
(Yanson, Comparative Statistics, Vol. II, pp. 22-23; quoted from
Kablukov, The Workers in Agriculture, p. 16). But he would be a fine
economist, indeed, who forgot the mass of agricultural proletarians,
both migratory and also resident (i.e., such as get “employments”
in their own villages), who hire themselves out by the day.
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