Written in 1896-99. |
Published according to the text |
From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,
Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1961
Vol. 3, pp. 21-603.
Translated by Joe Fineberg and by George Hanna
Edited by Victor Jerome
C O N T E N T S
[Part 5]
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Chapter VII. T h e D e v e l o p m e n t o f L a r g e - S c a l e |
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I. |
The Scientific Conception of the Factory and the Signifi- |
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II. |
Our Factory Statistics . . . . . .
. . . . . . . |
456 | |
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There sources 456. -- Publications of the 60s 457-458. -- The specific character of the Military Statistical Abstract 459-461. -- Mr. Orlov's Directory 461-462. -- The Collections of the Department of Commerce and Manufactures 463-464. -- The Returns for Russia for 1884-85 ; Mr. Karyshev's errors 464-465. -- Data of gubernia statistical committees 466. -- The List 466. -- Is the number of factories in Russia growing? |
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III. |
An Examination of Historical-Statistical Data on the Devel- |
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1) Textile Trades . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . |
469 |
IV. |
The Development of the Mining Industry . . .
. . . . |
484 | |
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The Urals, their specific features 484-488. -- The South 488-491. -- The Causasus 491-492. -- The big and small mines in the Donets Basin 492-494. -- The significance of the data on the development of the mining industry 494-496. |
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V. |
Is the Number of Workers in Large Capitalist Enterprises Growing? . . . . . . . . .
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Data for the years 1865, 1879, 1890 496-499. -- Mistaken Method of the Narodniks 499-507. |
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VI. |
Steam-Engine Statistics . . . . .
. . . . . . . |
507 | |
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Data for the years 1875-1878 and 1892 507-509. |
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VII. |
The Growth of Large Factories . . . .
. . . . . . |
509 | |
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Data for the years 1866, 1879, 1890 and 1894-95 509-514. -- The largest enterprises in factory industry and in the mining industry |
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VIII. |
The Distribution of Large-Scale Industry . .
. . . . . |
518 | |
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Data on the leading centres of factory industry in the years 1879 and 1890 518-519. -- Three types of centres 519-521. -- The classi- |
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IX. |
The Development of the Lumber and Building Industries .
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525 | |
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The growth of the lumber industry 525-526; its organisation 526- |
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X. |
The Appendage to the Factory . . . . .
. . . . . |
534 | |
XI. |
The Complete Separation of Industry from Agriculture .
. |
536 | |
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The error of the Narodniks 536-537. -- Moscow Zemstvo sanitary statistics 537-541. |
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XII. |
Three Stages in the Development of Capitalism in Russian |
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The connection between all the stages 541-543. -- Specific technical features 543. -- The growth of capitalist relationships 543-544. -- The character of the development of industry 544-545. -- The separa- |
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Chapter VIII. T h e F o r m a t i o n o f t h e H o m e M a r- |
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I. |
The Growth of Commodity Circulation . . .
. . . . . |
552 | |
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The development of the railways 552-553, water transport 553- |
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II. |
The Growth of the Commercial and Industrial Population . . |
557 | |
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1) The Growth of Towns . . . . . . . . . . . |
557 |
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Non-agricultural outside employments 568-581, their size and growth 568-576, their progressive role 576-579, the appraisal of them by Narodnik writers 579-581. |
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III. |
The Growth of the Employment of Wage-Labour . . . . . |
581 | |
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Approximate number of wage-workers 581-583. -- Capitalist surplus-population 583. -- The error of the Narodniks 583-586. |
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IV. |
The Formation of a Home Market for Labour-Power . . . . |
586 | |
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The main movements of wage-workers in connection with the size of wages 586-589. -- The formation of a home market 589-590. -- Mr. N-on's "theory" 590-591. |
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V. |
The Significance of the Border Regions. Home or Foreign Market? . . . . . . .
. . . . . .
. . . . |
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Capitalism's urge for expansion 591-592. -- The example of the Caucasus 593-594. -- Two aspects of the process of the formation of a market 594-596. |
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VI. |
The Mission of Capitalism . . . . .
. . . . . . . |
596 | |
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The increase in the productivity of social labour 596-598. -- The socialisation of labour 598-600. -- The cause of the difference with the Narodniks 600-601. |
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page 454
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LARGE-SCALE MACHlNE
INDUSTRY
I. THE SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTION OF THE FACTORY
AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF "FACTORY" STATISTICS[148]
Before dealing with large-scale machine (factory) industry, we must first establish the fact that the scientific conception of the term does not correspond at all to its common, everyday meaning. In our official statistics, and in literature generally, a factory is taken to mean any more or less big industrial establishment with a more or less considerable number of wage-workers. According to Marx's theory, however, the term large-scale machine (factory) industry applies only to a definite stage of capitalism in industry, namely, the highest stage. The principal and most important feature of this stage is the employment of a system of machines for production.[*] The transition from the manufactory to the factory signifies a complete technical revolution, which does away with the craftsman's manual skill that has taken centuries to acquire, and this technical revolution is inevitably followed by the most thoroughgoing destruction of social production relations, by a final split among the various groups of participants in production, by a complete break with tradition, by an intensification and extension of all the dark aspects of capitalism, and at the same time by a mass socialisation of labour by capitalism. Large-scale machine industry is thus the last word of capitalism, the last word of its "elements of social progress"** and regress.
From this it is clear that the transition from the manufactory to the factory is particularly important when we
page 455
deal with the development of capitalism. Whoever confuses these two stages deprives himself of the possibility of understanding the transforming, progressive role of capitalism. That is the mistake made by our Narodnik economists, who, as we have seen, naïvely identify capitalism generally with "factory" industry and propose to solve the problem of the "mission of capitalism" and even of its "unifying significance"[*] by simply referring to factory statistics. Apart from the fact that on matters of factory statistics these writers (as we shall show in detail below) have betrayed astonishing ignorance, they commit a still graver error in their amazingly stereotyped and narrow understanding of Marx's theory. In the first place, it is ridiculous to reduce the problem of the development of large-scale machine industry to mere factory statistics. It is a question not only of statistics, but of the forms assumed and the stages traversed by the development of capitalism in the industry of the country under consideration. Only after the substance of these forms and their distinguishing features have been made clear is there any sense in illustrating the development of this or that form by means of properly compiled statistics. If, however, they restrict themselves to Russian statistics, this inevitably leads to lumping together the most diverse forms of capitalism, to not seeing the wood for the trees. Secondly, to reduce the whole mission of capitalism to that of increasing the number of "factory" workers means to betray as profound an understanding of theory as did Mr. Mikhailovsky when he expressed surprise as to why people talk about the socialisation of labour by capitalism, when all that this socialisation amounts to, he averred, is that several hundred or thousand workers saw, chop, cut, plane, etc., under one roof.**
The task of our further exposition is twofold: on the one hand, we shall examine in detail the condition of our factory statistics and the question of their suitability.
page 456
This, largely negative, work is necessary because the data involved are positively abused in our literature. On the other hand, we shall examine the data attesting to the growth of large-scale machine industry in the post-Reform period.
The main source of factory statistics in Russia is the returns supplied annually by owners of factories and works to the Department of Commerce and Manufacture, in conformity with the law passed at the very beginning of the present century.[*] The very detailed regulations in this law concerning the submission of information by factory owners are nothing but a pious wish, and to this day the factory statistics are organised on the old, purely pre-Reform lines and are simply appendices to gubernatorial reports. There is no precise definition of the term "factory and-works," and consequently gubernia and even uyezd authorities employ it in the most diverse ways. There is no central body to direct the proper and uniform collection, and verification, of returns. The distribution of industrial establishments among various departments (Mining, Department of Commerce and Manufacture, Miscellaneous Taxes Department, etc.) still further increases the confusion.**
In Appendix II we cite the data on our factory industry in the post-Reform period that are to be found in official publications, namely, for the years of 1863-1879 and 1885-1891. These data relate only to trades not subject to excise duty; moreover, for different periods information is given for a different number of trades (the returns for
page 457
1864-1865 and for 1885 and subsequent years being the fullest); that is why we have singled out 34 trades for which data are available for 1864-1879 and 1885-1890, i.e., for 22 years. To judge the value of these data, let us first examine the most important publications on our factory statistics. Let us begin with the 60s.
The compilers of factory statistics in the 60s fully appreciated the extremely unsatisfactory nature of the returns they were handling. In their unanimous opinion the number of workers and the total output were considerably understated in the factory-owners' reports; "there is no uniform definition, even for the different gubernias, of what should be regarded as a factory and a works, since many gubernias include among the factories and works, for example, windmills, brick-making sheds and small industrial establishments, while others take no account of them, with the result that even comparative data on the total numbers of factories and works in the different gubernias are valueless."[*] Still more trenchant is the criticism by Bushen, Bok and Timiryazev,[**] who, in addition, point to the inclusion of those occupied at home among the factory workers, to the fact that some factory owners supply returns only for workers who live on the factory premises, etc. "There are no correct official statistics on manufactory and factory industry," says Mr. Bushen, "and there will be none until there is a change in the main principles on which the primary material is gathered."*** "The tables of factories and works for many trades include, evidently by misunderstanding, numerous purely artisan and handicraft establishments that possess nothing of the character of a factory or works."**** In view of this, the editors of the Yearbook refused even to summarise the data printed, "not desiring to pass on to the public incorrect and obviously exaggerated figures."**** To give the reader a precise idea of the extent
page 458
of this obvious exaggeration, let us turn to the data given in the Yearbook, which differs to advantage from all other sources, in that it contains a list of factories with an output exceeding 1,000 rubles. At the present time (since 1885), establishments with a smaller total output are not counted as factories. An estimate of these small establishments according to the Yearbook reveals that 2,366 were included in the general list of factories, employing 7,327 workers and an output amounting to 987,000 rubles. The total number of factories, however, in 71 trades, according to the Yearbook, was 6,891, with 342,473 workers and an output totalling 276,211,000 rubles. Consequently, the small establishments represent 34.3 % of the total number of establishments, 2.1% of the total number of workers, and 0.3% of the total output. It stands to reason that it is absurd to regard such small establishments (with an average per establishment of a little over 3 workers and less than 500 rubles output) as factories, and that there can be no question of there being anything like a complete registration of them. Not only have such establishments been classed as factories in our statistics, but there have even been cases of hundreds of handicraftsmen being quite artificially and arbitrarily combined as a "factory." For example, this very Yearbook mentions in the rope-making trade of the Izbylets Volost, Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, a factory "of the peasants of the Izbylets Volost; 929 workers; 308 spinning wheels; output 100,400 rubles" (p. 149); or in the village of Vorsma in the same uyezd, a factory of "temporarily bound peasants of Count Sheremetev; 100 smithies; 250 carpenters' benches (in homes); 3 horse-operated and 20 hand-operated grind stones; 902 workers; output 6,610 rubles" (p. 281). One can imagine what an idea of the real situation such statistics give!*
page 459
A special place among the sources of factory statistics of the 60s is held by the Military Statistical Abstract (Vol. IV. Russia, St. Petersburg, 1871). It gives data on all the factories and works of the Russian Empire, including mining and excise-paying establishments, and estimates that in 1866 there were in European Russia no more nor less than 70,631 factories, 829,573 workers, with an output totalling 583,317,000 rubles!! These curious figures were arrived at, firstly, because they were taken, not from the reports of the Ministry of Finance, but from the special returns of the Central Statistical Committee (these returns were never published in any of the Committee's publications, nor is it known by whom, how and when they were gathered and processed);* secondly, because the compilers of the Military Statistical Abstract did not hesitate in the least to class even the smallest establishments as factories. (Military Statistical Abstract, p. 319) and furthermore supplemented the basic returns with other material: returns of the Department of Commerce and Manufacture, returns of the Commissariat, returns of the Ordnance and Naval Departments, and finally, returns "from the most diverse sources" (ibid., p. XXIII).** Therefore, in using
page 460
the data of the Military Statistical Abstract for purposes of comparison with present-day data, Messrs. N.-on,[*] Karyshev** and Kablukov*** revealed their total unfamiliarity with the principal sources of our factory statistics and their utterly uncritical attitude towards these statistics.
During the debate in the Free Economic Society on the paper read by M. I. Tugan-Baranovsky, who pointed to the completely erroneous character of the figures in the Military Statistical Abstract, several speakers declared that even if there was an error in the number of workers, it was only a slight one -- 10 to 15%. That was said, for example, by Mr. V. V. (see verbatim report of debate, St. Petersburg, 1898, p. 1). He was "joined" by Mr. V. Pokrovsky, who also confined himself to a bald statement (p. 3). Without even attempting a critical examination of the various sources of our factory statistics, these people and their supporters contented themselves with generalities about the unsatisfactory nature of factory statistics, and about the data having recently become more exact (??) and so forth. The main issue, the crude error of Messrs. N.-on and Karyshev, was thus simply glossed over, as P. B. Struve quite rightly observed (p. 11). We therefore think it worth while to calculate those exaggerations in the data of the Military Statistical Abstract which could and should have been noticed by anybody handling the sources attentively. For 71 trades we have the parallel statistics for 1866 both of the Ministry of Finance (Ministry of Finance Yearbook, I) and of unknown origin (Military Statistical Abstract ). For these trades, leaving out the metallurgical, the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerated the number of workers employed in factories and works in European Russia by 50,000. Further, for those trades for which the Yearbook gave only gross figures for the Empire, refusing to analyse them in detail
page 461
in view of their "obvious exaggeration" (Yearbook, p. 306), the Military Statistical Abstract gives 95,000 workers over and above these figures. In brick-making the number of workers is exaggerated by a minimum of 10,000 ; to convince oneself of this, one should compare the data by gubernias given in the Military Statistical Abstract and those in Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance, No. 4 of 1866 and No. 6 of 1867. For the metallurgical trades the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerated the number of workers by 86,000 as compared withthat in the Yearbook, having evidently included some of the mine workers in its figure. For the excise-paying trades the Military Statistical Abstract, as we shall show in the next section, exaggerates the number of workers by nearly 40,000. Altogether there is an exaggeration of 280,000. This is a minimum and incomplete figure, for we lack material to verify the data of the Military Statistical Abstract for all trades. One can therefore judge to what extent those who assert that the error of Messrs. N.-on and Karyshev is trifling are informed on this subject!
In the 1870s much less was done to combine and analyse factory statistics than in the 1860s. The Ministry of Finance Yearbook contains data for only 40 trades (not subject to excise duty) for 1867-1879 (Vols. VIII, X and XII; see Appendix II), the exclusion of the other trades being ascribed to the "extremely unsatisfactory nature of the material" for industries "which are connected with agricultural life, or are appendages of artisan and handicraft industries" (Vol. VIII, p. 482; same, Vol. X, p. 590). The most valuable source for the 1870s is Mr. P. Orlov's Directory of Factories and Works (1st edition, St. Petersburg, 1881, returns for 1879 taken from the same reports of factory owners to the Department of Commerce and Manufacture). This publication lists all establishments with an output of not less than 2,000 rubles. The others, being small and inseparable from handicraft establishments, are not enumerated in this list, but are included in the summarised data given by the Directory. Since no separate totals are given for establishments with an output of 2,000 rubles and over, the general data of the Directory, like those of previous publications, combine the small
page 462
establishments with the large ones; for different trades and different gubernias unequal numbers of small establishments are included (quite fortuitously, of course) in the statistics.[*] Regarding trades connected with agriculture, the Directory repeats (p. 396) the Yearbook's reservation and refuses to give "even approximate totals" (author's italics) owing to the inaccuracy and incompleteness of the data.[**] This view (quite a legitimate one, as we shall see below) did not, however, prevent the inclusion in the Directory's general totals of all these particularly unreliable figures, which are thus lumped together with relatively reliable ones. Let us give the Directory's total figures for European Russia, with the observation that, unlike previous figures, they also embrace excise paying trades (the second edition of the Directory, 1887, gives the returns for 1884; the third, 1894, those for 1890):
Y e a r s |
No. of |
Total output |
No. of |
1879 [***] |
27,986 |
1,148,134 |
763,152 |
We shall show further that the drop in the number of factories indicated by these data was actually fictitious; the whole point is that at different times different numbers of small establishments were classed as factories. Thus, the number of establishments with an output exceeding 1,000 rubles was estimated in 1884 at 19,277, and in 1890, at 21,124; with an output of 2,000 rubles and over: in 1884 at 11,509, and in 1890 at 17,642.****
page 463
In 1889 the Department of Commerce and Manufactures began to issue in separate editions Collections of Data on Factory Industry in Russia (for 1885 and subsequent years). These data are based on the material mentioned (factory owners' reports), and their treatment is far from satisfactory, being inferior to that in the above-mentioned publications of the 60s. The only improvement is that the small establishments, i.e., those with an output of under 1,000 rubles, are not included among the factories and works, and information regarding them is given separately, without their being distributed according to trades.[*] This, of course, is a totally inadequate criterion of what a "factory" is; a complete registration of establishments with an output exceeding 1,000 rubles is out of the question under the present system of gathering information; the separation of "factories" in trades connected with agriculture is done quite haphazardly -- for instance, for some gubernias and in some years watermills and windmills are classed as factories, while in others they are not.** The author of the section "Chief Results of Factory Industry in Russia for 1885-1887" (in the Collection for these years) falls repeatedly into error in disregarding the fact that the data for the different gubernias are dissimilar and not comparable. Finally, to our characterisation of the Collections let us add that till 1891 inclusive they only covered trades not subject to excise duty, while from 1892 onwards they cover all trades, including mining and excise-paying; no special mention is made of data
page 464
comparable with others given previously, and no explanation whatever is given of the methods by which ironworks are included in the total number of factories and works (for instance, ironworks statistics have never given the value but merely the volume of works' output. How the compilers of the Collections arrived at the value of the output is unknown).
In the 1880s there was still another source of information about our factory industry, one deserving attention for its negative qualities and because Mr. Karyshev used data from this source.[*] This is the Returns for Russia for 1884-85 (St. Petersburg, 1887. Published by the Central Statistical Committee), which gives in one of its tables the "totals of output of factory industry in European Russia, 1885" (Table XXXIX); the number of factories and of workers is given only for Russia as a whole, without being distributed according to gubernias. The source of information is "data of reports of Messrs. the Governors" (p. 311). The data cover all trades, including both excise-paying and mining, and for every trade the "average" number of workers and output per works is given for the whole of European Russia. Now it is these "averages" that Mr. Karyshev proceeded to "analyse." To judge their value, let us compare the data in the Returns with those in the Collection (to make such a comparison we must subtract from the first-mentioned data the metallurgical, excise-paying, fishing and "other" trades; this will leave 53 trades; the data are for European Russia):
S o u r c e s |
Number of |
Output | |
factories |
workers | ||
"Returns for Russia" . . . . . |
54,179 |
559,476 |
569,705 |
|
| ||
|
+39,418 |
+59,844 |
-102,374 |
page 465
Thus, the gubernatorial reports included tens of thousands of small agricultural and handicraft establishments among the "factories"! Of course, such establishments were included among the factories quite fortuitously for the various trades, and for the various gubernias and uyezds. Here are examples of the number of works according to the Returns and the Collection, in some trades: fur -- 1,205 and 259; leather -- 4,079 and 2,026; mat-and-bag -- 562 and 55; starch-and-treacle -- 1,228 and 184; flour-milling -- 17,765 and 3,940; oil-pressing -- 9,341 and 574; tar-distilling -- 3,366 and 328; brick-making -- 5,067 and 1,488; pottery and glazed tile--2,573 and 147. One can imagine the sort of "statistics" that will be obtained if one estimates the "size of establishments"[*] in our factory industry by taking "average figures" based on such a method of computing "factories"! But Mr. Karyshev forms his estimate in precisely this manner when he classes under large-scale industry only those trades in which the above mentioned "average number " of workers per factory (for the whole of Russia) is over one hundred. By this phenomenal method the conclusion is reached that only a quarter of the total output is provided by "large-scale industry as understood within the above-indicated limits"!! (p. 47 of article cited).** Further on we shall show that factories with 100 and more workers actually account for more than half the total output of our factory industry.
page 466
Let us observe, incidentally, that the data of the local gubernia statistical committees (which are used for the gubernatorial reports) are always distinguished by the utter vagueness of the term "factory-and-works" and by the casual registration of small establishments. Thus, in Smolensk Gubernia, for 1893-94, some uyezds counted dozens of small oil-presses as factories, while others did not count any; the number of tar "works" in the gubernia was given as 152 (according to Directory for 1890, not one), with the same casual registration in the various uyezds, etc.[*] For Yaroslavl Gubernia, the local statisticians in the 90s gave the number of factories as 3,376 (against 472 in the Directory for 1890), including (for some uyezds) hundreds of flour-mills, smithies, small potato-processing works, etc.[**]
Quite recently our factory statistics have undergone a reform which has changed the plan for the gathering of information, changed the significance of the term "factory and-works" (new criteria have been adopted; the presence of an engine or of not less than 15 workers), and enlisted factory inspectors in the work of gathering and verifying information. We refer the reader for details to the above mentioned article in our Studies*** where a detailed examination is made of the List of Factories and Works (St. Petersburg, 1897)**** compiled according to the new plan, and where it is shown that despite the reform, improvements in our factory statistics are scarcely noticeable ; that the term "factory-and-works" has remained absolutely vague; that the data are very often still quite haphazard and must, therefore, be handled with extreme caution.(*)
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Only a proper industrial census, organised on Europeiin lines, can extricate our industrial statistics from their chaotic condition.[*]
It follows from the review of our factory statistics that the data they contain cannot in the overwhelming majority of cases be used without being specially processed, the principal object of which should be to separate the relatively useful from the utterly useless. In the next section we shall examine in this respect the data on the most important trades, but at the moment we put the question: is the numher of factories in Russia increasing or decreasing? The main difficulty in answering this question is that in our factory statistics the term "factory" is employed in the most chaotic manner; that is why the negative replies to this question which are sometimes given on the basis of factory statistics (e.g., by Mr. Karyshev) cannot be of any use. We must first establish some definite criterion for the term "factory"; without that condition it would be absurd to illustrate the development of large-scale machine industry with
page 468
data for establishments of which the totals have at various times included various numbers of small flour-mills, oil-presses, brick-sheds, etc., etc. Let us take as a criterion the employment of not fewer than 16 workers in the establishment, and then we shall see that the number of such industrial establishments in European Russia in 1866 was a maximum of from 2,500 to 3,000, in 1879 about 4,500, in 1890 about 6,000, in 1894-95 about 6,400, and in 1903 about 9,000.[*] Consequently, the number of factories in Russia in the post-Reform period is growing, and growing fairly rapidly.
We have noted above that to judge the development of ]arge-scale industry from factory statistics it is necessary to separate the relatively useful material in these statistics from the utterly useless. Let us, with this in view, examine the main branches of our manufacturing industry.
page 469
At the head of the wool trades is cloth production, which in 1890 had an output of over 35 million rubles and employed 45,000 workers. The historico-statistical data on this trade indicate a considerable drop in the number of workers, namely, from 72,638 in 1866 to 46,740 in 1890.[*] To appraise this phenomenon we must take account of the fact that up to the 1860s inclusive, felt cloth production was organised on specific and original lines: it was concentrated in relatively large establishments which, however, did not in any way come under the category of capitalisf factory industry, since they were based on the labour of serfs, or of temporarily bound peasants. In the surveys of the "factory" industry of the 60s we therefore meet with the division of cloth mills into 1) those owned by landlords or nobles, and 2) those owned by merchants. The former produced mainly army cloth, the government contracts having been distributed equally among the mills in proportion to the number of machines. Compulsory labour was the cause of the technical backwardness of such establishments and of their employing a much larger number of workers than the merchant mills based on the employment of hired labour.** The principal drop in the number of workers, engaged in felt cloth production took place in the gubernias with landlord factories; thus, in the 13 such gubernias (enumerated in the Survey of Manufactory Industries ), the number of workers dropped from 32,921 to 14,539 (1866 and 1890), while in the 5 gubernias with merchant factories
page 470
(Moscow, Grodno, Liflandia, Chernigov and St. Petersburg) it dropped from 31,291 to 28,257. From this it is clear that we have here two opposite trends, both of which, however, indicate the development of capitalism -- on the one hand, the decline of landlord establishments of a manorial-posses sional character,[150] and on the other, the development of purely capitalist factories out of merchant establishments. A considerable number of the workers employed in felt cloth production in the 60s were not factory workers at all in the strict sense of the term; they were dependent peasants working for landlords.[*] Cloth production is an example of that specific phenomenon of Russian history -- the employment of serf labour in industry. Since we are dealing only with the post-Reform period, the above brief remarks will suffice to show the way in which this phenomenon is reflected in factory statistics.[**] We shall now quote some figures drawn from statistics on steam-engines in order to estimate the development of large-scale machine production in this industry: in 1875-1878, in the wool-spinning and cloth industries of European Russia there were 167 mechanised establishments using 209 steam-engines with a total of 4,632 h.p., and in 1890 there were 197 establishments using
page 471
341 steam-engines with a total of 6,602 h.p. The use of steam power, therefore, did not make very rapid progress; this is to be explained partly by the traditions of landlord factories and partly by the displacement of felt cloth by the cheaper worsted and mixed fabrics.[*] In the years 1875-1878 there were seven mechanised establishments using 20 steam-engines with a total of 303 h.p., and in 1890 there were 28 mechanised establishments employing 61 steam-engines to a total of 1,375 h.p.[**]
In regard to the woollen-goods industry let us also take note of felt-making, a branch that shows in particularly striking fashion the impossibility of comparing factory statistics for different times: the figures for 1866 are 77 factories with a total of 295 workers, while for 1890 they are 57 factories with 1,217 workers. The former figure includes 60 small establishments employing 137 workers with an output of under 2,000 rubles, while the latter includes an establishment with four workers. In 1866 39 small establishments were recorded in Semyonov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, where felt-making is now highly developed but is regarded as a "handicraft" and not a "factory" industry (see Chapter VI, § II, 2).
Further, a particularly important place in the textile trades is held by cotton processing, a branch which now employs over 200,000 workers. Here we observe one of the biggest errors of our factory statistics, namely, the combining of factory workers and capitalistically occupied home workers. Large-scale machine industry developed here (as in many other cases) by drawing home workers into the factory. It is obvious how distorted this process will appear if work-distributing offices and work rooms are classed as "factories," if home workers are lumped
page 472
together with factory workers! For 1866 (according to the Yearbook ) up to 22,000 home workers were included among factory workers (by no means the full number, for the Yearbook, evidently by pure accident, omits in the case of Moscow Gubernia those notes about "work from village to village" which are so abundant for Vladimir Gubernia). For 1890 (according to the Directory ) we found only about 9,000 such workers. Clearly, the figures given in the factory statistics (1866 -- 59,000 workers in the cotton weaving mills; 1890 -- 75,000) underrate the increase in the number of factory workers that actually took place.[*] Here are data showing what different establishments were classed at different times as cotton-weaving "factories":[**]
Y e a r s |
Total |
These include | |||||
factories |
|
offices |
workrooms | ||||
1866 |
436 |
|
|
|
142 | ||
1879 |
411 |
209 |
|
66 |
136 |
Thus, the decrease in the number of "factories" shown by the "statistics" actually indicates the displacing of distributing offices and workrooms by the factory. Let us illustrate this by the example of two factories:
page 473
Y |
I. M. Terentyev's factory |
I. N. Garelin's factory | ||||||||||
|
No. of |
Number |
Total |
|
No. of |
Number |
Total | |||||
on prem- |
out- |
total |
on prem- |
out- |
total | |||||||
1866 |
Hand |
-- |
205 |
670 |
875 |
130 |
Distrib- |
-- |
? |
1,917 |
1,917 |
158 |
Hence, to assess the development of large-scale machine production in this branch of industry it is best to take the data giving the number of power-looms. In the 18609 there were about 11,000,[*] and in 1890 about 87,000. Large-scale machine industry was consequently developing at enormous speed. In cotton spinning and weaving there was recorded in 1875-1878 a total of 148 mechanised establishments, having 481 steam-engines totalling 20,504 h.p., and in 1890, 168 mechanised establishments, having 554 steam-engines with a total of 38,750 h.p.
Precisely the same mistake is made in Russian statistics in relation to linen production, wherein a decrease in the number of factory workers is erroneously shown (1866 -- 17,171; 1890 -- 15,497). Actually, in 1866, of 16,900 looms belonging to linen-mill owners only 4,749 were kept in their establishments, the remaining 12,151 being held by work room owners.** The number of factory workers for 1866, therefore, included about 12,000 home workers, and for 1890 only about 3,000 (computed from Directory ). The number of power-looms, however, grew from 2,263 in 1866 (computed from Military Statistical Abstract ) to 4,041 in
page 474
1890, and of spindles from 95,495 to 218,012. In flax spinning and linen-weaving in the years 1875-1878 there were 28 mechanised establishments, having 47 steam engines with a total of 1,604 h.p., while in 1890 there were 48 mechanised establishments, having 83 steam-engines with a total of 5,027 h.p.[*]
Lastly, of the textile trades mention should be made of dyeing, printing and finishing, in which trades the factory statistics combine factories and the very smallest handicraft establishments with only 1 or 2 workers each and an output of a few hundred rubles.[**] Naturally, this causes no little confusion and obscures the rapid growth of large-scale machine industry. The following figures reflect this growth: in the wool-cleaning, dyeing, bleaching and finishing trades in 1875-1878 there were 80 mechanised establishments with 255 steam-engines totalling 2,634 h.p.; in 1890 there were 189 mechanised establishments with 858 steam-engines totalling 9,100 h.p.
In this section the most reliable data are those on saw milling, although in the past small establishments were also included here.[***] The enormous development of this trade in the post-Reform period (1866 -- 4 million rubles 1890 -- 19 million rubles), accompanied by a considerable increase in the number of workers (4,000 and 15,000) and in the number of steam-powered establishments (26 and 430), is particularly interesting, in that it affords striking evidence of the growth of the lumber industry. Saw-milling is but one of the operations of the lumber industry, which is a necessary concomitant of the first steps of large-scale machine industry.
As to the rest of the trades in this section, namely,
page 475
furnishing and carpentry, bast-matting, and pitch and tar -- the factory statistics relating to them are distinguished for their particularly chaotic condition. The small establishments so numerous in these trades were formerly included among the "factories" in numbers fixed arbitrarily, and the same is sometimes done even today.[*]
The statistics on the chemical industry proper are distinguished for their relative reliability. The following returns show its growth: in 1857 chemical products were consumed in Russia to a total of 14 million rubles (3.4 million rubles home produced and 10.6 million rubles imported); in 1880, to a total of 36 1/4 million rubles (7 1/2 million rubles home produced and 28 3/4 imported); and in 1890, to a total of 42.7 million rubles (16.1 million rubles home produced and 26.6 imported).[**] These data are particularly interesting because the chemical industries are extremely important as producers of auxiliary materials for large-scale machine industry, i.e., articles of productive (and not personal) consumption. As to potash and saltpetre production, let us remark that the number of factories given is unreliable, again due to the inclusion of small establishments.[***]
page 476
The tallow trade has undoubtedly declined in the post-Reform period. Thus, the value of output of the tallow candle and tallow-boiling trade was estimated in 1866-1868 at 13.6 million rubles, and in 1890 at 5 million rubles.[*] This decline is to be explained by the growing use of mineral oils for lighting, which are displacing the old-time tallow candle.
For leather production (1866: 2,308 establishments with 11,463 workers and an output totalling 14.6 million rubles; 1890: 1,621 establishments with 15,564 workers and an output totalling 26.7 million rubles) statistics constantly lump together factories and small establishments. The relatively high cost of raw materials, which explains the high total output, and the fact that this trade requires very few workers, make it particularly difficult to draw a line of demarcation between the handicraft establishments and the factories. In 1890, of the total number of factories (1,621), only 103 had an output of less than 2,000 rubles; in 1879 there were 2,008 out of a total of 3,320[**]; in 1866, of 2,308 factories*** 1,042 had an output of less than 1,000 rubles (these 1,042 factories employed 2,059 workers and had an output totalling 474,000 rubles). Thus, the number of factories increased, although the factory statistics show a decrease. As for the small leather establishments, their number is still very large today: for instance, The Factory Industry and Trade of Russia, published by the Ministry of Finance (St. Petersburg, 1893), gives a total of nearly 9,500 handicraft works, with 21,000 workers and an output of 12 million rubles. These "handicraft" establishments are much larger than those which in the 60s were included among "factories and works." Since small establishments
page 477
are included among the "factories and works" in unequal numbers in the different gubernias and in different years, the statistics on this trade should be treated with great caution. The steam-engine statistics for 1875-1878 gave for this industry 28 mechanised establishments with 33 steam-engines to a total of 488 h.p. and in 1890 there were 66 mechanised establishments with 82 steam-engines to a total of 1,112 h.p. In these 66 factories 5,522 workers (more than a third of the total) were concentrated with an output totalling 12.3 million rubles (46% of the total), so that the concentration of production was very con siderable, and the productivity of labour in the large establishments far above the average.[*]
The ceramic trades fall into two categories ir accord ance with the character of the factory statistics: in some, there is hardly any combining of small-scale production with large. That is why these statistics are fairly reliable. This applies to the following industries: glass, porcelain and chinaware, plaster and cement. Particularly remark able is the rapid growth of the last-mentioned trade, which is evidence of the development of the building industry: the total output in 1866 was estimated at 530,000 rubles (Military Statistical Abstract ), and in 1890 at 3,826,000 rubles; the number of power-operated establishments in 1875-1878 was 8, and in 1890 it was 39. On the other hand, in the pottery and brick trades the inclusion of small establishments is observed on a tremendous scale, and for that reason the factory statistics are very unsatisfactory, being particularly exaggerated for the 60s and 70s. Thus, in the pottery trade in 1879 there were listed 552 establish ments, with 1,900 workers and an output totalling 538,000 rubles, and in 1890, 158 establishments with 1,978 workers and an output totalling 919,000 rubles. lf we subtract the small establishments (those with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) we get: 1879 -- 70 establishments, with
page 478
840 workers and an output of 505,000 rubles; 1890 -- 143 establishments, with 1,859 workers and an output of 857,000 rubles. That is to say, instead of the decrease in the number of "factories" and stagnation in the number of workers shown in the statistics, there was actually a considerable increase in both the one and the other. In brick-making the official data for 1879 showed 2,627 establishments, with 28,800 workers and an output totalling 6,963,000 rubles; for 1890 -- 1,292 establishments, with 24,334 workers and an output of 7,249,000 rubles; and without the small establishments (those with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) we get for 1879 -- 518 establishments, with 19,057 workers and an output of 5,625,000 rubles; and for 1890 -- 1,096 establishments, with 23,222 workers and an output of 7,240,000 rubles.[*]
In the factory statistics for the metallurgical indus tries the sources of confusion are, firstly, the inclusion of small establishments (exclusively in the 60s and 70s),[**] and, secondly and mainly, the fact that metallurgical plants are "subject, not to the jurisdiction" of the Department of Commerce and Manufacture, but to that of the Department of Mines. The returns of the Ministry of Finance usually omit ironworks "on principle"; but there have never been uniform and invariable rules for the separation of ironworks from the other works (and it would hardly
page 479
be possible to devise them). That is why the factory statistics published by the Ministry of Finance always include ironworks to some extent, although the actual degree to which they are included varies for different gubernias and for different years.[*] General data on the increased use of steam-engines in metallurgy since the Reform will be given below, when we deal with the mining and metallurgical industry.
These industries merit special attention for the question that concerns us, since the confusion in factory statistics attains here its maximum. And yet, these industries occupy a prominent place in our factory industry as a whole. Thus, according to the Directory for 1890 these industries account for 7,095 factories, with 45,000 workers and an output totalling 174 million rubles out of a total for European Russia of 21,124 factories, with 875,764 workers and an output of 1,501 million rubles. The fact is that the principal trades of this group -- flour-milling, groat milling and oil-pressing -- consist of the processing of agricultural produce. There are hundreds and thousands of small establishments in Russia engaged in this processing in every gubernia, and since there are no generally established rules for selecting the "factories and works" from among them, the statistics pick out such small establishments quite fortuitously. That is why the numbers of "factories and works" for different years and for different gubernias fluctuate enormously. Here, for example, are the figures for the flour-milling trade for various years, as taken from various sources: 1865 -- 857 mills (Returns and Material of the Ministry of Finance ); 1866 -- 2,176 (Yearbook ); 1866 -- 18,426 (Military Statistical Abstract ); 1885 -- 3,940 (Collection ); 17,765 (Returns for Russia ); 1889, 1890 and 1891 -- 5,073,
page 480
5,605 and 5,201[*] (Collection ); 1894-95 -- 2,308 (List ). Among the 5,041 mills listed in 1892 (Collection ), 803 were steam-, 2,907 water-, 1,323 wind- and 8 horse-operated! Some gubernias counted only steam-mills, others included watermills (in numbers ranging from 1 to 425), still others (the minority) included also windmills (from 1 to 530) and horse-operated mills. One can imagine the value of such statistics, and of conclusions based on a credulous use of the data they provide![**] Obviously, to judge the growth of large-scale machine industry we must first establish a definite criterion for the term "factory." Let us take as such a criterion the employment of steam-engines: steam-mills are a characteristic concomitant of the epoch of large-scale machine industry.[***]
We get the following picture of the development of factory production in this branch of industry.[****]
Fifty Gubernias of European
Russia | |||
Years |
No. of |
No. of |
Total output |
1866 |
126 |
? |
? |
The statistics for the oil-pressing trade are unsatisfactory for the same reason. For instance, in 1879 2,450 works were listed with 7,207 workers and an output totalling 6,486,000 rubles, and in 1890 there were 383 works, with 4,746 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles. But this decrease in the number of factories and of workers is
page 481
only apparent. If the data for 1879 and 1890 are made comparable, i.e., if we exclude establishments with an output of less than 2,000 rubles (not included in the lists) we get for 1879: 272 works, with 2,941 workers and an output totalling 5,771,000 rubles, and for 1890 -- 379 works, with 4,741 workers and an output totalling 12,232,000 rubles. That large-scale machine industry has developed in this trade no less rapidly than in flour-milling is evident, for example, from the statistics for steam-engines; in 1875-1878 there were 27 steam-powered works, with 28 steam engines of 521 h.p., while in 1890 there were 113 mechanised works, with 116 steam-engines totalling 1,886 h.p.
The other trades of this group are relatively small. Let us note that in the mustard and fish-products trades, for instance, the statistics of the 60s included hundreds of small establishments such as have nothing whatever in common with factories and are now not classed as such. The extent to which our factory statistics for various years need correction is evident from the following: with the exception of flour-milling, the Directory for 1879 gave in this section a total of 3,555 establishments with 15,313 workers, and for 1890 -- 1,842 establishments with 19,159 workers. For 7 trades,[*] small establishments (with an output of less than 2,000 rubles) were included as follows: in 1879 -- 2,487 with 5,176 workers and an output totalling 916,000 rubles and in 1890, seven establishments, employing ten workers and with an output totalling two thousand rubles! To make the data comparable, one should, consequently, subtract in one case iive thousand workers, and in the other, ten persons!
In some of the excise-paying trades we observe a decrease in the number of factory workers between the 1860s and the present day, but the decrease is not nearly as considerable as is asserted by Mr. N.-on,** who blindly
page 482
believes every figure in print. The fact is that for the majority of excise-paying trades the only source of information is the Military Statistical Abstract, which, as we know, tremendously exaggerates the totals in the factory statistics. Unfortunately, however, we have little material with which to verify the data in the Abstract . In distilling, the Military Statistical Abstract counted in 1866 a total of 3,836 distilleries with 52,660 workers (in 1890 -- 1,620, with 26,102 workers), but the number of distilleries does not coincide with the data of the Ministry of Finance, which in 1865-66 calculated 2,947 operating distilleries and in 1866-67 -- 3,386.[*] Judging by this, the number of workers is exaggerated by some 5,000 to 9,000. In vodka distilling, the Military Statistical Abstract computes 4,841 distilleries, with 8,326 workers (1890: 242 distilleries with 5,266 workers); of these Bessarabia Gubernia has 3,207 distilleries with 6,873 workers. The absurdity of these figures is glaring. In fact, we learn from material published by the Ministry of Finance[**] that the actual number of vodka distilleries in Bessarabia Gubernia was 10 or 12, and in the whole of European Russia 1,157. The number of workers was consequently exaggerated by a minimum of 6 thousand. The cause of this exaggeration is, evidently, that the Bessarabian "statisticians" included vineyard owners among the owners of distilleries (see below on tobacco making). In beer- and mead-brewing, the Military Statistical Abstract counts 2,374 breweries, with 6,825 workers (1890 -- 918 breweries, with 8,364 workers), whereas The Ministry of Finance Yearbook estimates a total of 2,087 breweries in European Russia for 1866. The number of workers is exaggerated here too.*** In the beet-sugar and sugar-refining trades, the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerates the number of workers by 11 thousand, counting 92,126 per-
page 483
sons, as against 80,919 according to the data of The Ministry of Finance Yearbook (1890 -- 77,875 workers). In tobacco-making, the Military Statistical Abstract gives 5,327 factories, with 26,116 workers (1890 -- 281 factories, with 26,720 workers); of these, 4,993 factories with 20,038 workers are in Bessarabia Gubernia. Actually, the number of tobacco factories in Russia in 1866 was 343, and in Bessarabia Gubernia 13.[*] The number of workers has been exaggerated by about 20 thousand, and even the compilers of the Military Statistical Abstract themselves indicated that "the factories shown in Bessarabia Gubernia . . . are nothing but tobacco plantations" (p. 414). Mr. N.-on evidently thought it superfluous to glance at the text of the statistical publication he uses; that is why he failed to notice the error, and discoursed with a highly serious air about a "slight increase in the number of workers in the . . . tobacco factories" (article cited, p. 104)!! Mr. N.-on simply takes the total number of workers in the excise paying trades from the Military Statistical Abstract and the Directory for 1890 (186,053 and 144,332) and calculates the percentage of decrease. . . . "In a period of 25 years there has been a considerable drop in the number of workers employed. It has diminished by 22.4%. . . . "Here" (i.e., in the excise-paying trades) "we see no signs of an increase, the plain fact being that the number of workers has simply declined by a quarter of its previous magnitude" (ibid.). Indeed, what could be "simpler"! Take the first figure you lay your hands on, and calculate a percentage! As for the trifling circumstance that the figure given in the Military Statistical Abstract exaggerates the number of workers by some forty thousand, that can be ignored.
The criticism of our factory statistics given in the last two sections leads us to the following main conclusions:
page 484
1. The number of factories in Russia has been rapidly growing in the post-Reform period.
The opposite conclusion, which follows from our factory statistics, is erroneous. The point is that the figures we are given of factories include small artisan, handicraft and agricultural establishments, and the further back we go from the present day, the larger the number of small establishments included in the number of factories.
2. The number of factory workers and the volume of output of factories and works are likewise exaggerated for the past period in our statistics. This is due, firstly, to the fact that former]y a greater number of small establishments were included. Hence, the data for the industries that merge with handicrafts are particularly unreliable.[*] Secondly, it is due to the fact that in the past more capitalistically employed home workers were classified as factory workers than today.
3. It is customary in this country to think that if figures are taken from the official factory statistics they must be considered comparable with other figures taken from the same source, and must be regarded as more or less reliable, until the contrary is proved. What has been said above, however, leads to the opposite conclusion, namely, that all comparisons of our factory statistics for different times and for different gubernias must be regarded as unreliable until the reverse is proved.
In the initial period of Russia's post-Reform development the principal centre of ore-mining was the Urals. Constituting a single area, until quite recently separated sharply
page 485
from Central Russia, it has at the same time an original industrial structure. For ages the basis of the "organisation of labour" in the Urals was serfdom, which to this day, the very end of the 19th century, leaves its impress on quite important aspects of life in this mining area. In the old days serfdom was the basis of the greatest prosperity of the Urals and of its dominant position, not only in Russia, but partly also in Europe. In the 18th century iron was one of Russia's principal items of export; in 1782 nearly 3.8 million poods of iron were exported; in 1800-1815 from 2 to 1 1/2 million poods; in 1815-1838 about 1 1/3 million poods. Already "in the 20s of the 19th century Russia was producing 1 1/2 times as much pig-iron as France, 4 1/2 times as much as Prussia and 3 times as much as Belgium." But the very serfdom that helped the Urals to rise to such heights when European capitalism was in its initial period was the very cause of the Urals' decline when capitalism was in its heyday. The iron industry in the Urals developed very slowly. In 1718 Russia's output of pig-iron was about 6 1/2 million poods, in 1767 about 9 1/2 million poods, in 1806 12 million poods, in the 30s -- 9 to 11 million poods, in the 40s -- 11 to 13 million poods, in the 50s -- 12 to 16 million poods, in the 60s -- 13 to 18 million poods, in 1867 -- 17 1/2 million poods. In one hundred years the output was not even doubled, and Russia dropped far behind other European
page 486
countries, where large-scale machine industry had given rise to a tremendous development of metallurgy.
The main cause of stagnation in the Urals was serfdom; the ironmasters were at once feudal landlords and industrialists, and their power was based not on capital and competition, but on monopoly[*] and their possessional right. The Ural ironmasters are big landowners even today. In 1890, the 262 ironworks in the Empire had 11.4 million dessiatines of land (including 8.7 million dessiatines of forestland), of which 10.2 million belonged to 111 Urals ironworks (forestland covering 7.7 million dessiatines). On the average, consequently, each Urals works possesses vast latifundia covering some hundred thousand dessiatines. The allotment of land to the peasants from these estates has to this day not been completed. Labour is obtained in the Urals, not only by hire, but also on the labour-service basis. The Zemstvo statistics for Krasnoufimsk Uyezd, Perm Gubernia, for example, estimate that there are thousands of peasant farms that have the use of factory-owned land, pastures, woodland, etc., either gratis, or at a low rent. It stands to reason that this free use of the land actually has a very high cost, for it serves to reduce wages to a very low level; the ironworks get their "own" workers, tied down to the works and cheaply paid.**
page 487
Here is the way Mr. V. D. Belov describes these relationships:
The Urals enjoy the advantage, says Mr. Belov, of having workers who have been moulded by their "original" history. "Workers in other factories, abroad, or even in St. Petersburg, have not the interests of their factory at heart: they are here today and gone tomorrow. While the factory is running they work; when losses take the place of profits, they take up their knapsacks and go off as fast and as readily as they came. They and their employers are permanent enemies. . . . The position is entirely different in the case of the Ural workers. They are natives of the place and in the vicinity of the works they have their land, their farms and their families. Their own welfare is closely, inseparably, bound up with the welfare of the works. If it does well, they do well; if it does badly, it is bad for them; but they cannot leave it (sic !): they have more here than a knapsack (sic !); to leave means to wreck their whole world, to abandon the land, farm and family. . . . And so they are ready to hang on for years to work at half pay, or, what amounts to the same thing, to remain unemployed half their working time so that other local workers like themselves may earn a crust of bread. In short, they are ready to accept any terms the employers offer, so long as they are allowed to remain. . . . Thus, there is an inseparable bond between the Ural workers and the works; the relationships are the same today as they were in the past, before their emancipation from serf dependence; only the form of these relationships has changed, nothing more. The former principle of serfdom has been superseded by the lofty principle of mutual benefit."[*]
This lofty principle of mutual benefit manifests itself primarily in reduction of wages to a particularly low level. "In the South . . . a worker costs twice and even three times as much as in the Urals" -- for example, according to data covering several thousand workers, 450 rubles (annually per worker) as against 177 rubles. In the South "at the first opportunity of earning a decent wage in the fields of their native villages or anywhere e]se, the workers leave the iron works, and coal- or ore-mines" (Vestnik Finansov, 1897, No. 17, p. 265). In the Urals, however, a decent wage is not to be dreamt of.
Naturally and inseparably connected with the low wages and servile status of the Ural workers is the technical backwardness of the Urals. There pig-iron is smelted mostly
page 488
with the aid of wood fuel, in old-fashioned furnaces with cold or slightly heated blast. In 1893, the number of cold-blast furnaces in the Urals was 37 out of 110, while in the South, there were 3 out of 18. A mineral-fuel furnace had an average output of 1.4 million poods per year, while a wood-fuel furnace had one of 217,000 poods. In 1890 Mr. Keppen wrote: "The refining process of smelting pig-iron is still firmly established in the ironworks of the Urals, whereas in other parts of Russia it has been almost entirely displaced by the puddling process."[152] Steam-engines are used to a far less extent in the Urals than in the South. Lastly, we cannot but note the seclusion of the Urals, its isolation from the centre of Russia owing to the vast distance and the absence of railways. Until quite recently the products of the Urals were transported to Moscow mainly by the primitive method of "floating" by river once a year.[*]
Thus the most direct survivals of the pre-Reform system, extensive practice of labour-service, bonded condition of the workers, low productivity of labour, backwardness of technique, low wages, prevalence of hand production, primitive and rapaciously antediluvian exploitation of the region's natural wealth, monopolies, hindrances to competition, seclusion and isolation from the general commercial and industrial march of the times -- such is the general picture of the Urals.
The mining area in the South** is in many respects the very opposite of the Urals. The South is in the period of
page 489
formation and is as young as the Urals are old and the system prevailing there "time-hallowed." The purely capitalist industry which has arisen here during recent decades recognises no traditions, no social-estate or national divisions, no seclusion of definite sections of the population. There has been a mass influx of foreign capital, engineers and workers into South Russia; and in the present period of boom (1898) entire factories are being brought there from America.[*] International capital has not hesitated to settle within the tariff wall and establish itself on "foreign" soil: ubi bene, ibi patria [**]. . . . The following are statistics on the displacement of the Urals by the South[153]:
|
Output of pig-iron (thousand
poods) |
Total coal | |||||
Total for |
% |
In |
% |
In |
% | ||
1867 |
17,028 |
100 |
11,084 |
65.1 |
56 |
0.3 |
26.7 |
1877 |
24,579 |
100 |
16,157 |
65.7 |
1,596 |
6.5 |
110.1 |
1887 |
37,389 |
100 |
23,759 |
63.5 |
4,158 |
11.1 |
276.8 |
1897 |
114,782 |
100 |
41,180 |
35.8 |
46,349 |
40.4 |
683.9 |
1902 |
158,618 |
100 |
44,775 |
28.2 |
84,273 |
53.1 |
1,005.21 |
These figures clearly show what a technical revolution is now taking place in Russia, and what an enormous capacity for the development of productive forces is possessed by large-scale capitalist industry. The predominance of the Urals meant the predominance of serf labour, technical backwardness and stagnation.*** On the contrary, we now
page 490
see that the development of metallurgical industry is proceeding faster in Russia than in Western Europe and in some respects even faster than in the United States. In 1870 Russia produced 2.9% of the world output of pig-iron (22 million poods out of 745 million), and in 1894 -- 5.1% (81.3 million poods out of 1,584.2) (Vestnik Finansov, 1897, No. 22). In the last 10 years (1886-1896) Russia has trebled her output of pig-iron (32 1/2 to 96 1/2 million poods), whereas it took France, for example, 28 years to do so (1852-1880), the U.S.A. 23 years (1845-1868), England 22 (1824-1846) and Germany 12 (1859-1871; see Vestnik Finansov, 1897, No. 50). The development of capitalism in the young countries is greatly accelerated by the example and the aid of the old countries. Of course, the last decade (1888-1898) has been a period of exceptional boom, which, like all capitalist prosperity, will inevitably lead to a crisis; but capitalist development cannot proceed at all except in spurts.
The introduction of machinery into production and the increase in the number of workers have been much more rapid in the South than in the Urals.*
page 491
Y |
Steam-engines and h. p. |
No. of mine-workers employed | |||||||
in whole |
in Urals |
in South |
in whole |
in |
in | ||||
steam- |
total |
steam- |
total |
steam- |
total | ||||
1877 |
895 |
27,880 |
286 |
8,070 |
161 |
5,129 |
256,919 |
145,455 |
13,865 |
1893 |
2,853 |
115,429 |
550 |
21,330 |
585 |
30,759 |
444,646 |
238,630 |
54,670 |
Thus we see that in the Urals the increase in the use of steam-power was only some 2 1/2 times, whereas in the South it was sixfold ; the increase in the number of workers in the Urals was 1 2/3 times, whereas in the South it was nearly fourfold.[*] Consequently, it is capitalist large-scale industry that rapidly increases the number of workers, at the same time enormously increasing the productivity of their labour.
Alongside of the South, mention should be made of the Caucasus, which is also characterised by an amazing growth of the mining industry in the post-Reform period. The out put of oil, which in the 60s did not even reach a million poods (557,000 in 1865), was in 1870 -- I.7 million poods, in 1875 -- 5.2 million poods, in 1880 -- 21.5 million poods, in 1885 -- 116 million poods, in 1890 -- 242.9 million poods, in 1895 -- 38k million poods and in 1902 -- 637.7 million poods. Nearly all the oil is obtained in Baku Gubernia, and Baku "from an insignificant town has turned into a first-class Russian industrial centre, with 112,000 inhabitants."** The
page 492
enormous development of the extraction and processing of oil has given rise in Russia to a greater consumption of kerosene that has completely ousted the American product (increase of personal consumption with the cheapening of the product by factory processing), and to a still greater consumption of oil by-products as fuel in factories, in works and on the railways (increase of productive consumption).[*] The number of workers in the mining industry of the Caucasus has also grown very rapidly: from 3,431 in 1877 to 17,603 in 1890, i.e., has increased fivefold .
To illustrate the structure of industry in the South let us take the data for the coal industry in the Donets Basin (where the average mine is smaller than in any other part of Russia). Classifying the mines according to number of workers employed, we get the following picture:[**] (See Table on p. 493.)
Thus, in this area (and in this one only) there are extremely small peasants' mines, which, however, despite their great number, play an absolutely insignificant part in the total output (104 small mines account for only 2% of the total coal output) and are marked by an exceedingly low productivity of labour. On the other hand, the 37 largest mines employ nearly all of the total number of workers and produce over 70% of the total coal output. Productivity of labour increases parallel with the increase in the size of the mines, even irrespective of whether machinery is used or not (cf., for example, categories V and III of mines, as to quantity of steam-power and output per worker). Concentration of production in the Donets Basin is steadily increasing: thus, in the four years 1882-1886, of 512 coal consigners, 21 dispatched over 5,000 wagon-loads (i.e., 3 million poods) each, making 229,700 wagon-loads out
page 493
Groups |
In Donets Basin |
Average per mine |
Out- | ||||||||
Number of |
Coal |
No. |
total |
work- |
Coal |
No. |
total | ||||
m |
pits |
work- | |||||||||
I. Mines with up to |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mines with un- |
|
|
? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total . . . |
269 |
762 |
25,167 |
183,267 |
228 |
5,826 |
93.5 |
681.3 |
0.9 |
21.6 |
7.3 |
page 494
of 480,800, i.e., less than half. In the four years 1891-1895, however, there were 872 consigners, of whom 55 dispatched over 5,000 wagon-loads each, making 925,400 wagon-loads out of 1,178,000, i.e., over 8/10 of the total number.[*]
The foregoing data on the development of the mining industry are particularly important in two respects: firstly, they reveal with exceptional clarity the essence of the change in social-economic relations that is taking place in Russia in all spheres of the national economy; secondly, they illustrate the theoretical proposition that in a developing capitalist society there is a particularly rapid growth of those branches of industry which produce means of production, i.e., articles not of personal, but of productive, consumption. The replacement of one form of social economy by another is particularly clear in the mining industry, because here the typical representatives of the two forms are distinct areas. In one area there is the old pre-capitalist world, with its primitive, routine technique, personal dependence of a population tied to place of residence, firmly established social-estate traditions, monopolies, etc.; while in the other area one finds a complete break with all tradition, a technical revolution, and the rapid growth of purely capitalist machine industry.** This example brings out in bold relief the mistake of the Narodnik economists. They deny the progressive nature of capitalism in Russia, pointing to the fact that in agriculture our entrepreneurs readily resort to labour-service and in industry to the distribution of home work and that in mining they seek to secure the tying down of the worker, legislative prohibition of competition by small
page 495
establishments, etc., etc. The illogicality of such arguments and their flagrant distortion of historical perspective are glaring. Whence, indeed, does it follow that the efforts of our entrepreneurs to utilise the advantages of pre-capitalist methods of production should be charged to our capitalism, and not to those survivals of the past which retard the development of capitalism and which in many cases are preserved by force of law? Can one be surprised, for instance, at the southern mine owners being eager to tie the workers down and to secure the legislative prohibition of competition by small establishments, when in the other mining area such tying down and such prohibitions have existed for ages, and exist to this day, and when in another area the ironmasters, by using more primitive methods and employing cheaper and more docile labour, get a profit on their pig-iron, without effort, of "kopek per kopek and sometimes even one and a half kopeks per kopek"?[*] Should we not, on the contrary, be surprised at the fact that, under these circumstances, there are people who are capable of idealising the pre-capitalist economic order in Russia, and who shut their eyes to the most urgent and pressing necessity of abolishing all obsolete institutions that hinder the development of capitalism?[**]
On the other hand, the data on the growth of the mining industry are important because they clearly reveal a more rapid growth of capitalism and of the home market on account of articles of productive consumption than on account of articles of personal consumption. This circumstance is ignored by Mr. N.-on, for instance, who argues that the satisfaction of the entire home demand for the products of the mining industry "will probably take place very soon" (Sketches, 123). The fact is that the consumption of metals, coal, etc. (per inhabitant), does not and cannot remain stationary in capitalist society, but necessarily
page 496
increases. Every new mile of railway, every new workshop, every iron plough acquired by a rural bourgeois increases the demand for the products of ore-mining. Although from 1851 to 1897 the consumption of pig-iron, for example, in Russia increased from 14 pounds per head to 1 1/3 poods, even this latter amount will have to increase very considerably before it approaches the size of the demand for pig-iron in the advanced countries (in Belgium and England it is over 6 poods per inhabitant).
Having examined the statistics of the factory and mining industries, we can now attempt to answer this question, one which has so much engaged the attention of the Narodnik economists, and which they have answered in the negative (Messrs. V. V., N.-on, Karyshev and Kablukov have asserted that the number of factory workers in Russia is increasing -- if it is increasing -- more slowly than the population). Let us observe first of all that the question must be whether an increase is taking place in the commercial and industrial population at the expense of the agricultural population (of this below), or whether an increase is taking place in the number of workers employed in large-scale machine industry. It cannot be asserted that the number of workers in small industrial establishments or in manufactories must increase in a developing capitalist society, for the factory constantly eliminates the more primitive forms of industry. Our factory statistics, however, as was shown in detail above, do not always refer to the factory in the scientific sense of the term.
To examine the data on the question that interests us, we must take, firstly, the returns for all branches, and, secondly, the returns for a long period. Only if we do that is there a guarantee that the data will be more or less comparable. We take the years 1865 and 1890, a stretch of twenty-five years in the post-Reform period. Let us sum up the available statistics. The factory statistics give the fullest data for 1865; for European Russia they
page 497
showed 380,638 factory workers in all trades except distilling, brewing, beet-sugar and tobacco.[*] To determine the num ber of workers in these trades, we have to take the only data available, those of the Military Slatistical Abstract, which, as has been shown above, mu~t be corrected. By adding the 127,935 workers in the trades mentioned,[**] we get the total number of factory workers in European Russia in 1865 (in excise-paying and non-excise-paying trades) as 508,573.[***] For 1890 the corresponding figure will be 839,730.[****] The increase is 65%, much greater than the increase in population. It must, however, be borne in mind that actually the increase was undoubtedly bigger than these figures show : above it was demonstrated in detail that the factory statistics for the 1860s are exaggerated due to their inclusion of small handicraft, artisan and agricultural establishments, as well as home workers. Unfortunately, we are unable, for lack of material, to correct all these exaggerations in full, and prefer not to correct them in part, especially as more exact data will be given below regarding the number of workers in large factories.
Let us pass to the mining and metallurgical statistics. For 1865 the number of mine workers was given only for the copper and iron trades, as well as the gold and platinum fields; for European Russia it was 133,176.[(*)] In 1890,
page 498
there were in the same trades 274,748 workers,[*] i.e., more than twice as many. The latter figure represents 80.6% of the total number of mine workers in European Russia in 1890; if we assume that in 1865 the trades mentioned also covered 80.6% of the total mine workers,[**] we get the total number of mine workers for 1865 as 165,230 and for 1890 as 340,912. An increase of 107%.
Further, railway workers also belong to the category of workers in big capitalist enterprises. In 1890, in European Russia, together with Poland and the Caucasus, they numbered 252,415 .[***] The figure for 1865 is unknown, but it can be determined with a sufficient degree of approximation, since the number of railway workers employed per verst of railway fluctuates very slightly. Counting 9 workers per verst, we get the total number of railway workers in 1865 as 32,076 .[****]
page 499
Let us sum up our calculations.
Years |
In factory |
In |
On |
Total |
1865 |
509 |
165 |
32 |
706 |
Thus, in 25 years the number of workers in large capitalist enterprises more than doubled, i.e., it increased not only much faster than the population in general, but even faster than the urban population.* The steadily increasing diversion of workers from agriculture and from the small industries to big industrial enterprises is consequently beyond doubt.** This is indicated by the very statistics that are so often resorted to and abused by our Narodniks. But the culminating point of their abuse of the statistics is the following truly phenomenal device: they work out the proportion of factory workers to the total population (!) and on the basis of the figure arrived at (about 1%) expatiate on how insignificant this "handful"[***] of workers is! Mr. Kablukov, for example, after repeating the calculation of
page 500
the proportion of "factory workers in Russia"[*] to the population, goes on to say: "In the West, however (!!), the number of workers engaged in manufacturing industry . . ." (is it not obvious to every schoolboy that "factory workers" and "workers engaged in manufacturing industry" are not one and the same thing at all?) . . . "constitute quite a different proportion of the population," namely, from 53% in Britain to 23% in France. "It is not difficult to see that the difference in the proportion of the class of factory workers (!!) there and here is so great that it is out of the question to identify the course of our development with that of Western Europe." And this is written by a professor and specialist in statistics! With extraordinary valour he perpetrates two misrepresentations at one blow: 1) factory workers are replaced by workcrs engaged in manufacturing industry, and 2) the latter are replaced by the population engaged in manufacturing industry. Let us explain the meaning of these categories to our learned statisticians. In France, according to the census of 1891, the workers engaged in manufacturing industry numbered 3.3 million -- less than one-tenth of the population (36.8 million classified according to occupation; and 1.3 million not classified according to occupation). These are workers employed in all industrial establishments and enterprises, and not only factory workers. The population, however, that is engaged in manufacturing industry numbered 9.5 million (about 26% of the total population). Added here to the number of workers are employers, etc. (1 million); then office employees, clerks, etc., 0.2 million; dependents in household, 4.8 million; and domestic servants, 0.2 million.** To illustrate the corresponding proportions in Russia, we must take particular centres as our examples, for we have no statistics showing the occupations of the whole population. Let us take one urban and one rural centre. In Petersburg the factory statistics for 1890 gave the number of factory workers as 51,760 (according to the Directory ), whereas according to the St. Petersburg census of December 15, 1890, the number of persons of both sexes
page 501
engaged in manufacturing industry was 341,991, distributed as follows:[*]
|
Number of persons of both sexes | ||
Independent |
Members of |
Total | |
Employers . . . . . . . . |
13,853 |
37,109 |
50,962 |
| |||
Total .
. . . . |
215,704 |
126,287 |
341,991 |
Another example: In Bogorodskoye village, Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia (which, as we have seen, does not engage in agriculture, but constitutes "a single tannery as it were"), there are, according to the Directory for 1890, 392 factory workers, whereas the population engaging in industries, according to the Zemstvo census of 1889, numbers nearly 8,000 (the total population equals 9,241; more than 9/10 of the families engage in industries). Let these figures give food for thought to Messrs. N. -- on, Kablukov and Co.!
Addendum to second edition. We now have the returns of the national census of 1897, giving statistics on the occupations of the entire population. Here are the data, summarised by us, for the whole of the Russian Empire** (in millions):
page 502
|
Inde- |
Members |
Total | |
|
|
| ||
a) |
Government officials and armed |
|
|
|
|
| |||
Total unproductive population . . |
4.1 |
2.8 |
6.9 | |
e) |
Commerce . . . . .
. . . |
1.6 |
3.4 |
5.0 |
|
| |||
Total semi-productive population . |
5.7 |
7.0 |
12.7 | |
h) |
Agriculture . . . . .
. . . |
18.2 |
75.5 |
93.7 |
|
| |||
Total productive population. . . |
23.4 |
82.6 |
106.0 | |
| ||||
Grand total .
. . . . . |
33.2 |
92.4 |
125.6 |
Needless to say, these data fully confirm what has been said above regarding the absurdity of the Narodnik device of comparing the number of factory workers with the whole population.
It will be interesting, first of all, to group the data on the occupational distribution of the whole population of Russia, in a way that will illustrate the division of social labour as the basis of the whole of commodity production and capitalism in Russia. From this point of view, the entire population should be distributed into three large subdivisions: I. Agricultural. II. Commercial and industrial. III. Unproductive (more precisely, not participating in economic activity). Of the nine groups given (a to i ), only one cannot be directly and entirely assigned to any one of these three main subdivisions. That is group g : private service, domestic servants and day labourers. This group has to be distributed approximately between the commercial-and-industrial and the agricultural population. We have assigned to the former the section of this group which is shown as residing in towns
page 503
(2.5 million), and to the latter those residing in rural areas (3.3 million). We then get the following picture of the distribution of the total popu]ation of Russia:
Agricultural population of Russia . . .
. . . . |
97.0 million |
| |
Total . . . . . . . . |
125.6 million |
This picture clearly shows, on the one hand, that commodity circulation and, hence, commodity production are firmly implanted in Russia. Russia is a capitalist country. On the other hand, it follows from this that Russia is still very backward, as compared with other capitalist countries, in her economic development.
To proceed. After the analysis we have made in the present work, the statistics of the occupations of the whole population of Russia can and should be used to determine approximately the main categories into which the entire population of Russia is divided according to class status, i.e., according to their status in the social system of production.
It is possible to determine these categories -- only approximately, of course -- because we know the main economic groups into which the peasantry are divided. And the entire mass of the agricultural population of Russia may safely be regarded as peasants, for the number of landlords in the sum-total is quite negligible. Quite a considerable section of landlords, moreover, are included in the category of rentiers, government officials, high dignitaries, etc. In the peasant mass of 97 millions, however, one must distinguish three main groups: the bottom group -- the proletarian and semi-proletarian strata of the population; the middle group -- the poor small peasant farmers; and the top group -- the well-to-do small peasant farmers. We have analysed above the main economic features of these groups as distinct class elements. The bottom group is the propertyless population, which earns its livelihood mainly, or half of it, by the sale of labour-power. The middle group comprises the poor small peasant farmers, for the middle peasant in
page 504
the best of years just barely manages to make ends meet, but the principal means of livelihood of this group is "independent" (supposedly independent, of course) small-scale farming. Finally, the top group consists of the well-to-do small peasant farmers, who exploit more or less considerable numbers of allotment-holding farm labourers and day labourers and all sorts of wage-labourers in general.
These groups constitute approximately 50%, 30% and 20% respectively of the total. Above we invariably took the share of each group in the total number of households or farms. Now we shall take them as a proportion of the population. This change effects an increase in the bottom group and a decrease in the top one. But this, undoubtedly, is precisely the change that has taken place in Russia in the past decade, as is proved incontrovertibly by the decline in horse-ownership and by the ruin of the peasantry, the growth of poverty and unemployment in the rural districts, etc.
That is to say, among the agricultural population we have about 48.5 million proletarians and semi-proletarians about 29.1 million poor small peasant farmers and their families, and about 19.4 million of the population on the well-to-do small farms.
Now the question is how to distribute the commercial and industrial and the unproductive population. The latter group contains sections of the population who obviously belong to the big bourgeoisie: all the rentiers ("living on income from capital and real estate" -- first subdivision of group 14 in our statistics: 900,000), then part of the bourgeois intelligentsia, the high military and civil officials, etc. Altogether, these will number about 1 1/2 million. At the opposite pole of this group of unproductive population are the lower ranks of the army, navy, gendarmerie and police (about 1.3 million), domestics and numerous servants (about 1/2 million altogether), nearly 1/2 million beggars, tramps, etc., etc. Here we can only roughly distribute the groups that most closely approximate to the main economic types: about 2 million will go to the proletarian and semi-proletarian population (partly lumpen-proletarians), about 1.9 million to the poor small proprietors, and about
page 505
1.5 million to the well-to-do small proprietors, including the bulk of the clerks, managerial personnel, bourgeois intellectuals, etc.
Lastly, among the commercial and industrial population the largest section is undoubtedly the proletariat, and the gulf is widest between the proletariat and the big bourgeoisie. But the census returns supply no data as to the distribution of this section of the population into employers, one-man producers, workers, etc. We have no alternative but to take as a model the above-quoted data on the industrial population of St. Petersburg, classified according to position in production. On the basis of these data we may roughly assign about 7% to the big bourgeoisie, 10% to the well-to-do petty bourgeoisie, 22% to the poor small proprietors and 61% to the proletariat. In Russia as a whole, small production in industry is, of course, much more tenacious than it is in St. Petersburg, but then we do not assign to the semi-proletarian population the mass of one-man producers and handicraftsmen who work in their homes for masters. Hence, on the whole, the proportions taken will in all probability not differ very much from what they actually are. For the commercial and industrial population we shall then get about 1.5 million big bourgeoisie, about 2.2 million well-to-do, about 4.8 million needy small producers, and about 13.2 million belonging to the proletarian and semi-proletarian strata of the population.
By combining the agricultural, commercial and industrial, and unproductive sections of the population, we shall get the following approximate distribution of the entire population of Russia according to class status:
|
Total population, | |
Big bourgeoisie, landlords, high officials, etc. .
. . |
about |
3 million |
| ||
Total . . .
. . . . . . . |
" |
125.6 million |
page 506
We have no doubt that our Cadet and quasi-Cadet economists and politicians will raise their voices in indignation against this "over-simplified" concept of the economy of Russia. After all, it is so convenient, so advantageous to gloss over the profundity of economic contradictions in a detailed analysis and at the same time to complain of the "crudity" of socialist views on these contradictions as a whole. Such criticism of the conclusion we have reached is, of course, without scientific value. Differences of opinion are, of course, possible about the degree of approximation of various figures. It is of interest to note, from this point of view, the work of Mr. Lositsky, Studies of the Population of Russia Based on the Census of 1897 (Mir Bozhy,[*] 1905, No. 8). The author took the bare census figures of the number of workers and servants, and from these estimated the proletarian population in Russia at 22 million; the peasant and land-owning population at 80 million, employers and clerks in commerce and industry at about 12 million, and the population not engaged in industry at about 12 million.
The number of proletarians according to these figures comes quite close to the figure we have arrived at.** To deny the existence of a vast mass of semi-proletarians among the poor peasants who are dependent upon "employments," among the handicraftsmen, etc., would be to scoff at all the data on the Russian economy. One need but recall the 3 1/4 million horseless households in European Russia alone, the 3.4 million one-horse households, the sum-total of Zemstvo statistics on rented land, "employments," budgets, etc., to abandon all doubt about the huge size of the semi-proletarian population. To agree that the proletarian and semi-proletarian population taken together comprises one-half of the peasantry is probably no understatement and no exaggeration of its numbers. And outside
page 507
of the agricultural population, the proletarians and semi-proletarians undoubtedly constitute a still higher percentage.
Further, if we are not to replace the complete economic picture by petty details, we should include among the well-to-do small proprietors a considerable section of the commercial and industrial managerial personnel, clerks, bourgeois intellectuals, government officials, and so on. Here we have perhaps been too cautious and fixed the number of this group of the population too high: it is quite possible that we-should have put the poor small proprietors at a higher figure and the well-to-do at a lower. But, of course, in making such divisions one does not lay claim to absolute statistical accuracy.
Statistics should illustrate the socio-economic relations established by an all-round analysis, and not be made an end in themselves, as too often happens in our country. To gloss over the large numbers of the petty-bourgeois strata in the population of Russia would be simply to falsify the picture of our real economic situation.
The employment of steam-engines in production is one of the most characteristic features of large-scale machine industry. It will be interesting therefore to examine the data available on this subject. For the years 1875-1878 the number of steam-engines is supplied by Material for the Statistics of Steam-Engines in the Russian Empire (St. Petersburg, 1882. Published by the Central Statistical Committee).* For 1892 we have the figures of Collection of Data on Factory Industry, which cover all factory and mining trades.
Here are these data compared:
page 508
|
1875-1878 |
1892 | ||||
Steam- |
Steam- |
h. p. |
Steam- |
Steam- |
h. p. | |
European Russia (50 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total in Empire |
8,510 |
6,353 |
114,977 |
14,248 |
13,085 |
345,209 |
In 16 years the total h.p. capacity of steam-engines in Russia increased threefold and in European Russia 2 1/2 times. The number of steam-engines increased to a lesser degree, so that the average capacity per steam-engine rose considerably: in European Russia from 18 h.p. to 24 h.p., and in the Kingdom of Poland from 18 h.p. to 41 h.p. Large scale machine industry, consequently, developed very rapidly during this period. As regards steam-power capacity, the following gubernias, in 1875-1878, were in the lead: St. Petersburg (17,808 h.p.), Moscow (13,668), Kiev (8,363), Perm (7,348) and Vladimir (5,684) -- the total for these five gubernias being 52,871 h.p. or about 3/5 of the total for European Russia. Then follow the Podolsk (5,480), Petrokov (5,071) and Warsaw (4,760) gubernias. In 1892 the order changed: Petrokov (59,063), St. Petersburg (43,961), Ekaterinoslav (27,839), Moscow (24,704), Vladimir (15,857) and Kiev (14,211) -- the total for the last five gubernias being 126,572 h.p., or nearly 1/2 the total for European Russia. Then follow the gubernias of Warsaw (11,310) and Perm (11,245). These figures clearly indicate the formation of two new industrial centres: in Poland and in the South. In Petrokov GubeInia, the total capacity increased 11.6-fold, and in the Ekaterinoslav and Don gubernias taken together,* from 2,834 to 30,932 h.p. or 10.9-fold. These industrial centres, which have grown so rapidly,
page 509
have moved up from the bottom to the top places and have supplanted the old industrial centres. Let us observe that these data, too, reveal the particularly rapid growth of the industries producing articles of productive consumption, namely, the mining and metallurgical industries. In 1875-78 these industries employed 1,040 steam-engines with a total of 22,966 h.p. (in European Russia) and in 1890 1,960 steam engines with a total of 74,204 h.p., i.e., an increase in 14 years that exceeds the increase in the total number of steam-engines in industry as a whole in 16 years. The industries producing means of production constitute an ever-growing part of industry as a whole.[*]
The unsatisfactory nature of our factory statistics, as demonstrated above, has compelled us to resort to more complex calculations in order to determine the development of large-scale machine industry in Russia since the Reform. We have selected data for 1866, 1879, 1890 and 1894-95 on the largest factories, namely, those with 100 and more workers per establishment.** Outside workers are strictly separated only in the data of the List for 1894-95;
page 510
Groups of factories |
1866 |
1879 |
1890 |
1894-95 | ||||||||||||
No. of |
No. of |
Output |
No. of |
No. of |
Output |
No. of |
No. of |
Output |
No. of |
No. of |
Output | |||||
Total |
with |
Total |
with |
Total |
with |
Total |
with | |||||||||
A) With 100 to |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |||
Total [*] |
604 |
307 |
231,729 |
201,066 |
852 |
549 |
390,374 |
489,905 |
951 |
964 |
464,337 |
587,965 |
| |||
A) With 100 to |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ||||||
Total ** |
|
1,238 |
762 |
509,643 |
629,926 |
1,431 |
1,067 |
623,146 |
858,588 |
| ||||||
A) With 100 to |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |||
Total *** |
|
1,229 |
754 |
496,416 |
607,087 |
1,421 |
1,057 |
599,206 |
815,153 |
1,468 |
1,264 |
655,670 |
955,233 | |||
|
page 511
hence, the data for previous years (particularly 1866 and 1879) may still be somewhat exaggerated, notwithstanding the corrections referred to in the footnote.
We give the returns on these largest factories (p. 510).
Let us commence our analysis of this table with the data for the years 1866, 1879 and 1890. The total number of large factories changed during these years as follows: 644, 852, 951, or in percentages: 100, 132, 147. In the course of 24 years the number of large factories increased, consequently, by nearly fifty per cent. Moreover, if we take the data for the different categories of large factories, we shall see that the larger the factories, the faster their number grows (A: 512, 641, 712 factories; B: 90, 130, 140; C: 42, 81, 99). This indicates a growing concentration of production.
The number of mechanised establishments grows more rapidly than the total number of factories; in percentages as follows: 100, 178, 226. An increasing number of large factories introduce steam-engines. The larger the factories, the greater the number of mechanised establishments among them; if we calculate the percentage of these establishments to the total number of factories in the given category, we obtain the following: A) 39%, 53%, 63%; B) 75%, 91%, 100%; C) 83%, 94%, 100%. The employment of steam-engines is closely bound up with the expansion of the volume of output, with the expansion of co-operation in production.
The number of workers in all large factories changed in percentages as follows: 100, 168, 200. During the 24 years the number of workers doubled, i.e., exceeded the increase in the total number of "factory workers." The average number of workers per large factory was by years: 359, 458, 488, and by categories: A) 213, 221, 220; B) 665, 706, 673; C) 1,495, 1,935, 2,154. An increasing number of workers are thus being concentrated in the largest factories. In 1866, factories with 1,000 workers and over employed 27% of the total number of workers in large factories; in 1879, 40%; in 1890, 46%.
The change in the output of all large factories expressed in percentages will be: 100, 243, 292; and by categories: A) 100, 201, 187; B) 100, 245, 308; C) 100, 323, 479. Hence, the volume of output of all large factories increased almost threefold, and the larger the factory, the more rapid the
page 512
increase. But if we compare the productivity of labour for each separate year according to the different categories, we shall get a somewhat different picture. The average output per worker in all large factories will be: 866 rubles, 1,250, 1,260; and by categories: A) 901, 1,410, 1,191; B) 800, 1,282, 1,574; C) 841, 1,082, 1,188. Thus, for each separate year we observe no increase in output (per worker) as we pass from the bottom category to the top. This is because the various categories include, in unequal proportions, factories in industries using raw materials of different value and obtaining, therefore, an annual output per worker of different value.[*]
We do not think it worth while to examine in equal detail the data for the years 1879-1890 and for the years 1879-1890-1894-1895, since this would mean repeating all that has been said above for somewhat different percentages.
Latterly, the Collection of Factory Inspectors' Reports has supplied data on the distribution of factories and works into groups according to the number of workers employed. Here are the data for 1903:
|
In 64 gubernias of |
In 50 gubernias of | |||
No. of |
No. of |
No. of |
No. of | ||
Under |
20 workers |
5,749 |
63,652 |
4,533 |
51,728 |
| |||||
Total |
15,821 |
1,640,406 |
12,997 |
1,397,538 |
A comparison of these with the afore-cited data will involve a certain inaccuracy, a slight one, it is true. At all events, they show that the number of large factories (those with over 99 or over 100 workers) and the number of workers employed in them are rapidly increasing. The concentration of workers and, consequently, of production, also increases in the largest of these large factories.
Comparing the data on the large factories with those on all "factories and works" given in our of official statistics,
[facsimile] page 513
page 514 [blank]
page 515
we see that in 1879 the large factories, constituting 4.4% of all "factories and works" concentrated 66.8% of the total number of factory workers and 54.8% of the total output. In 1890 they constituted 6.7% of the total number of "factories and works," and concentrated 71.1% of all factory workers and 57.2% of the total output. In 1894-95 they constituted 10.1% of all "factories and works," and concentrated 74% of all factory workers and 70.8% of the total output. In 1903, the large factories in European Russia, those with over 100 workers, constituted 17% of the total number of factories and works and concentrated 76.6% of the total number of factory workers.[*] Thus, the large, mostly steam-powered, factories, despite their small numbers, concentrate an overwhelming and ever-growing proportion of the workers and output of all "factories and works." The tremendous rapidity with which these large factories have been growing in the post-Reform period has already been noted. Let us now cite data on the equally large enterprises in the mining industry.[**]
Groups of factories, |
In the mining |
In factory and mining | ||||||
No. of |
No. of |
No. of |
No. of | |||||
Total |
Em- |
Total |
Em- | |||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ||
Total |
380 |
176 |
257,954 |
1,810 |
1,243 |
881,101 |
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In the mining industry the concentration of workers in large enterprises is still greater (although the percentage of enterprises employing steam-engines is smaller); 258,000 workers out of 305,000, i.e., 84.5%, are concentrated in enterprises with 100 and more workers; almost half of the mine workers (145,000 out of 305,000) are employed in a few very large establishments each employing 1,000 and more workers. And of the total number of factory and mining workers in European Russia (1,180,000 in 1890), three-fourths (74.6%) are concentrated in enterprises employing 100 workers and over; nearly half (570,000 out of 1,180,000) are concentrated in enterprises each employing 500 and more workers.[*]
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cates a shrinkage of the home market. If the number of factory workers is growing faster than the population (and this is precisely the case according to Mr. N.-on's own data; an increase between 1880 and 1890 of 25%), this shows that the population is being diverted from agriculture and that the home market is growing even for articles of personal consumption. (We say nothing of the market for means of production.) Secondly, a "decline in the growth," expressed in percentages always has to take place in a capitalist country at a certain stage of development, for small magnitudes always grow faster, in percentages, than big ones. The only deduction one can draw from the fact that the initial steps in the development of capitalism are particularly rapid is that the young country is striving to overtake the older ones. It is wrong, however, to take the percentage increase in the initial period as a standard for subsequent periods. Thirdly, the fact itself of a "decline in the growth" is not proved at all by comparing the periods taken by Mr. N.-on. The development of capitalist industry cannot proceed except in cycles; therefore, to compare different periods, one must take data for a whole number of years,[*] so that the particularly prosperous, boom years and the slump years may stand out distinctly. Mr. N.-on did not do this and slipped into profound error, for he overlooked the fact that the year 1880 was a high boom year. Moreover, Mr. N.-on did not even hesitate to "concoct" the opposite assertion. "We must also note," he argues, "that the intervening year (between 1865 and 1890) of 1880 was a year of crop failure, so that the number of workers registered in that year was below the normal"!! (ibid., pp. 103-104). Mr. N.-on had only to glance at the text of the very publication from which he plucked the figures for 1880 (Directory, 3rd edition), to read there that 1880 was marked by a "spurt" in industry, particularly in leather and machine building (p. IV), and that this was due to the enhanced demand for goods after the war and to increased government orders. It is sufficient to look through the
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Directory for 1879 to get a clear idea of the extent of this spurt.[*] But Mr. N.-on does not hesitate completely to distort the facts to suit his romantic theory.
Besides the concentration of production in very large establishments, the concentration of production in separate factory industrial centres and the different types of factory centres are also important in characterising large-scale machine industry. Unfortunately, our factory statistics not only supply unsatisfactory and incomparable material, but arrange it in a far from adequate manner. For example, in contemporary publications the distribution of industry is shown only by gubernias (and not by towns and uyezds as was done in the best publications of the 60s, which, in addition, illustrated the distribution of factory industry with maps). But in order to present an ascurate picture of the distribution of large-scale industry, the data must be taken for separate centres, i.e., for separate towns, industrial settlements, or groups of industrial settlements situated close together; gubernias or uyezds are too big as territorial units.** In view of this, we thought it
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advisable to compute from the Directory for 1879 and 1890 data on the concentration of our factory industry in the most important centres. The table given in the appendix (Appendix III) contains data for 103 factory centres in European Russia, centres in which about half the total number of factory workers are concentrated.[*]
The table shows three main types of factory centres in Russia. 1) The towns. These take first place, being distinguished for the greatest concentration of both workers and establishments. Particularly outstanding in this respect are the large towns. In each of the metropolitan cities (including the suburbs) about 70,000 factory workers are concentrated; Riga has 16,000, Ivanovo-Voznesensk 15,000 and Bogorodsk had 10,000 in 1890; the other towns have fewer than 10,000 each. It is sufficient to take a cursory glance at the official figures on factory workers in several large cities (Odessa -- 8,600 in 1890, Kiev -- 6,000, Rostov on-Don -- 5,700, etc.) to be convinced that these figures are ridiculously low. The instance of St. Petersburg given above shows how many times these figures would have to be multiplied for the correct number of industrial workers in these centres to be obtained. In addition to the towns, the suburbs must also be indicated. The suburbs of large towns are very often big industrial centres, but from the data we possess we have been able to separate only one such centre, the suburbs of St. Petersburg, where in 1890 the number of workers was 18,900. Several of the settlements in the Moscow Uyezd included in our table are also actually suburbs.**
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The second type of centre is the factory villages, which are particularly numerous in the Moscow, Vladimir and Kostroma gubernias (of the 63 most important rural centres included in our table, 42 are in these gubernias). These centres are headed by the township of Orekhovo-Zuyevo (in the table, Orekhovo and Zuyevo are given separately, but they are actually one centre); as to the number of workers, it comes second only to the capitals (26,800 in 1890).[*] In the three gubernias indicated, as also in the Yaroslavl and Tver gubernias, the majority of the rural factory centres are formed by huge textile mills (cotton-spinning and weaving, linen, wool-weaving, etc.). Formerly, there were almost always work-distributing offices in such villages, i.e., centres of capitalist manufacture, which held sway over masses of neighbouring hand weavers. In those cases where the statistics do not confuse home workers with factory workers, the data on the development of such centres clearly reveal the growth of large-scale machine industry which attracts thousands of peasants from the surrounding areas and transforms them into factory workers. Further, a considerable number of rural factory centres are formed by large mining and metallurgical plants (Kolomna Works in the village of Bobrovo, Yuzovka Works, Bryansk Works, and others); the majority of these are classified under mining, and for that reason were not included in our table. The beet sugar refineries situated in the villages and townships of the south-western gubernias also form quite a number of village factory centres; for our example we have taken one of the largest, the township of Smela, in Kiev Gubernia.
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The third type of factory centre is the "handicraft" villages, the largest establishments in which are often classified as "factories and works." In our table, the villages of Pavlovo, Vorsma, Bogorodskoye and Dubovka serve as examples of such centres. A comparison between the number of factory workers in such centres and the total of their industrial population was made above in the case of Bogorodskoye village.
If we group the centres given in our table according to number of workers in each centre and according to the type of centre (town or village), we get the following data (see next page).
The table shows that in 1879 there were 356,000 workers (out of a total of 752,000) concentrated in these 103 centres, while in 1890 there were 451,000 (out of 876,000). Accordingly, the number of workers increased by 26.8%, whereas in the large factories in general (of 100 and more workers) the increase was only 22.2%, while the total number of workers increased over this period by only 16.5%. Thus the workers are being concentrated in the largest centres. In 1879, only 11 centres had over 5,000 workers; in 1890 there were 21. Particularly striking is the increase in the number of centres with from 5,000 to 10,000 workers. This occurred for two reasons: 1) because of the exceptional growth of factory industry in the South (Odessa, Rostov-on-Don, etc.); and 2) because of the growth of the factory villages in the central gubernias
A comparison between the urban and the rural centres shows that in 1890 the latter embraced about one-third of the total number of workers in the leading centres (152,000 out of 451,000). For the whole of Russia this proportion should be higher, i.e., more than one-third of the factory workers must be outside of the towns. Indeed, all the outstanding urban centres are included in our table, whereas rural centres with several hundred workers each, apart from those we have mentioned, exist in exceedingly large numbers (settlements with glass-works, brickworks, distilleries, beet-sugar refineries, etc.). Mining workers are also to be found mainly outside of towns. One may consider, therefore, that of the total number of factory and mining workers in European Russia not less (and maybe more) than half are to
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Categories of centres |
1879 |
1890 | ||||||||||
No. of centres |
No. of |
Output |
No. of |
No. of centres |
No. of |
Output |
No. of | |||||
In |
In |
T |
In |
In |
T | |||||||
Centers with 10,000 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total centres with |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total . . . . . . |
40 |
63 |
103 |
2,831 |
536,687 |
355,777 |
40 |
63 |
103 |
3,638 |
706,981 |
451,244 |
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be found outside of towns. This conclusion is very important, for it shows that the industrial population in Russia greatly exceeds the urban population.[*]
If we now turn to the pace at which factory industry develops in urban and in rural centres, we see that it is undoubtedly faster in the latter. The number of urban centres with 1,000 workers and over in the period taken grew very slightly (from 32 to 33), while the number of rural centres in this category grew very considerably (from 38 to 53). The number of workers in the 40 urban centres grew by only 16.1 % (from 257,000 to 299,000), while in the 63 rural centres it grew by 54.7% (from 98,500 to 152,500). The average number of workers per urban centre rose only from 6,400 to 7,500, whereas the average number per rural centre rose from 1,500 to 2,400. Thus, factory industry evidently tends to spread with particular rapidity outside the towns, to create new factory centres and to push them forward faster than the urban centres, and to penetrate deep into remote rural areas that would seem to be isolated from the world of big capitalist enterprises. This supremely important circumstance shows us, firstly, the rapidity with which large-scale machine industry transforms social and economic relationships. What formerly took ages to take shape now springs up in a decade or so. We have only to compare, for instance, the formation of such non-agricultural centres as the "handicraft villages" indicated in the previous chapter -- Bogorodskoye, Pavlovo, Kimry, Khoteichi, Velikoye and others -- with the process of the establishment of new centres by the modern factory, which at once draws the rural population by the thousands into industrial settlements.** Social division of labour
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receives a tremendous impetus. Mobility of the population replaces the former immobility and isolation as a necessary condition of economic life. Secondly, the transfer of factories into the rural districts shows that capitalism is surmounting the obstacles which the social-estate seclusion of the peasant community creates for it, and is even deriving benefit from this seclusion. While the erection of factories in the countryside involves quite a few inconveniences, it does, however, guarantee a supply of cheap labour. The muzhik is not allowed to go to the factory, so the factory goes to the muzhik.* The muzhik lacks complete freedom (thanks to the collective-responsibility system and the obstacles to his leaving the community) to seek the employer who gives the greatest advantage; but the employer has a perfect way of seeking out the cheapest worker. Thirdly, the large number of rural factory centres and their rapid growth proves groundless the opinion that the Russian factory is isolated from the mass of the peasantry, that it exercises little influence over them. The specific char-
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acter of the distribution of our factory industry shows, on the contrary, that its influence is very widespread, and that it is far from being confined to the walls of the factory.[*] On the other hand, however, this specific character of the distribution of our factory industry cannot but result in a temporary retardation of the transforming influence of large-scale machine industry on the population it employs. By converting the backwoodsman-muzhik into a factory worker at one stroke, the factory may for a time ensure for itself a supply of the cheapest, least developed and least exacting "hands." It is obvious, however, that such retardation cannot go on for long, and that it is purchased at the price of a still greater expansion of the area subjected to the influence of large-scale machine industry.
One of the necessary conditions for the growth of large-scale machine industry (and a highly characteristic concomitant of its advance) is the development of the industry for the supply of fuel and building materials, as well as of the building industry. Let us begin with the lumber industry.
The felling and preliminary dressing of trees for their own needs has been an occupation of the peasantry from time immemorial, one that nearly everywhere forms part of the tiller's round of work. By the lumber industry, however, we mean exclusively the preparation of lumber for sale. Characteristic of the post-Reform period is a particularly rapid growth of this industry, the demand for timber having grown rapidly both for personal consumption (the growth of towns, the increase of the non-agricultural population in the villages, and the loss of woodland by the peasants upon their emancipation) and, particularly, for
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productive consumption. The development of commerce, industry, urban life, military requirements, railroads, etc., etc., has led to an enormous increase in the demand for timber to be used, not by human beings, but by capital. In the industrial gubernias, for instance, the price of wood fuel has risen "by leaps and bounds": "in the last five years (up to 1881) the price of wood fuel has more than doubled".[*] "The price of timber has begun to rise enormously."[**] ln Kostroma Gubernia "with the huge consumption of wood fuel by the factories the price has doubled in the past seven years,"[***] etc. Timber exports rose from 5,947,000 rubles in 1856 to 30,153,000 rubles in 1881 and 39,200,000 rubles in 1894, i.e., in the ratio 100: 507: 659.[****] The amount of building timber and wood fuel transported along 1he inland waterways of European Russia in 1866-1868 averaged 156 million poods per year [(*)] and in 1888-1890, 701 million poods per year,[(**)] i.e., there was a more than fourfold increase. The amount transported by railway in 1888-1890 averaged 290 million poods,[(***)] whereas in 1866-1868 it was probably no more than 70 million poods.[(****)] That is to say, total timber freights in the 60s amounted to about 226 million poods, and in 1888-1890 to 991 million poods -- a more than fourfold increase. The vast growth of the lumber industry in precisely the post Reform period is thus beyond doubt.
How is this industry organised? On purely capitalist lines. Forestland is bought from landowners by entrepreneurs -- "lumber industrialists," who hire workers to fell and saw the timber, to float it, etc. In Moscow Gubernia,
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for example, the Zemstvo statisticians listed only 337 lumber industrialists out of 24,000 peasants engaged in lumber industries.[*] In Slobodskoi Uyezd, Vyatka Gubernia, 123 lumber industrialists were listed ("the small ones are mostly subcontractors of the big ones," of whom there were only 10), while the number of workers engaged in lumbering was 18,865, with average earnings of 19 1/2 rubles per worker.[**] Mr. S. Korolenko calculated that in the whole of European Russia as many as 2 million peasants were engaged in lumbering,[***] and this fgure is hardly an exaggeration if, for instance, in 9 uyezds of Vyatka Gubernia (out of 11) about 56,430 lumber workers were listed, and in the whole of Kostroma Gubernia, about 47,000.[****] Lumbering is one of the worst paid occupations; the sanitary conditions are atrocious, and the workers' health is severely affected. Left to toil in the remote forest depths, these workers are in a totally defenceless position, and in this branch of industry bondage, the truck system, and such-like concomitants of the "patriarchal" peasant industries prevail. In confirmation of this description, let us quote some opinions of local investigators. Moscow statisticians mention the "compulsory purchase of provisions," which usually reduces to a marked degree the lumber workers' earnings. The Kostroma lumbermen "live in teams in the forests, in hastily and badly erected shanties, where there are no stoves, and which are heated by open hearths. Bad food, consisting of bad soup and of bread which is like stone by the end of the week, fetid air . . . constantly damp clothes . . . all this is bound to have a disastrous effect upon the health of the lumber industrialists." The people live in "much dirtier" conditions in the "lumber" volosts than in the industrial volosts (i.e., the volosts in which outside employment predominates).(*)
page 528
Regarding Tikhvin Uyezd, Novgorod Gubernia, we read: "Agriculture . . . constitutes an auxiliary source of income, although in all official statistics you will find that the people engage in farming. . . . All that the peasant gets to meet his essential needs is earned in felling and floating lumber for the lumber industrialists. But a crisis will set in soon: in some five or ten years, no forests will be left. . . ." "The men who work in the lumber camps are more like boatmen[155]; they spend the winter in the forest-encircled lumber camps . . . and in the spring, having lost the habit of working at home, are drawn to the work of lumber floating; harvesting and haymaking alone make them return to their homes. . . ." The peasants are in "perpetual bondage" to the lumber in dustrialists.[*] Vyatka investigators note that the hiring season for lumbering is usually arranged to coincide with tax-paying time, and that the purchase of provisions from the employer greatly reduces earnings. . . . "Both the tree fellers and the wood-choppers receive about 17 kopeks per summer day, and about 33 kopeks per day when they work with their own horses. . . . This paltry pay is an inadequate remuneration for labour, if we bear in mind the extremely insanitary conditions under which it is done,"[**] etc., etc.
Thus, the lumber workers constitute one of the big sections of the rural proletariat; they have tiny plots of land and are compelled to sell their labour-power on the most disadvantageous terms. The occupation is extremely irregular and casual. The lumbermen, therefore, represent that form of the reserve army (or relative surplus-population in
page 529
capitalist society) which theory describes as latent [*]; a certain (and, as we have seen, quite large) section of the rural population must always be ready to undertake such work, must always be in need of it. That is a condition for the existence and development of capitalism. To the extent that the forests are destroyed by the rapacious methods of the lumber industrialists (which proceeds with tremendous rapidity), an ever-growing need is felt for replacing wood by coal, and the coal industry, which alone is capable of serving as a firm basis for large-scale machine industry, develops at an ever faster rate. Cheap fuel, obtainable at any time and in any quantity, at a definite and little fluctuating price -- such is the demand of the modern factory. The lumber industry is not in a position to meet this demand.[**] That is why its predominance over the coal industry as a source of fuel supply corresponds to a low level of capitalist development. As for the social relations of production, in this respect the lumber industry is to the coal industry approximately what capitalist manufacture is to large-scale machine industry. The lumber industry means a technique of the most elementary kind, the exploitation of natural resources by primitive methods; the coal industry leads to a complete technical revolution and to the extensive use of machinery. The lumber industry leaves the producer a peasant; the coal industry transforms him into a factory hand. The lumber industry leaves all the old, patriarchal way of life practically intact, enmeshing in the worst forms of bondage the workers left to toil in the remote forest depths and taking advantage of their ignorance, defencelessness and isolation. The coal industry creates mobility of the population, establishes large industrial centres and inevitably leads to the introduction of public control over
page 530
production. In a word, the change-over described is of the same progressive significance as the replacement of the manufactory by the factory.[*]
Building was originally also part of the peasant's round of domestic occupations, and it continues to be so to this day wherever semi-natural peasant economy is preserved. Subsequent development leads to the building workers' turning into specialist artisans, who work to customers' orders. In the villages and small towns the building industry is largely organised on these lines even today; the artisan usually maintains his connection with the land and works for a very narrow circle of small clients. With the development of capitalism, the retention of this system of industry becomes impossible. The growth of trade, factories, towns and railways creates a demand for types of buildings that are architecturally and dimensionally different from the old buildings of the patriarchal epoch. The new buildings require very diverse and costly materials, the co-operation of masses of workers of the most varied specialities and a considerable length of time for their completion; the distribution of these new buildings does not correspond at all to the traditional distribution of the population; they are erected in large towns or suburbs, in uninhabited places, along railways in process of construction, etc. The local artisan turns into a migratory worker and is hired by an entrepreneur contractor, who gradually thrusts himself in between
page 531
the consumer and the producer and becomes a real capitalist. The spasmodic development of capitalist economy, the alternation of prolonged periods of bad business with periods of "building booms" (like the one we are experiencing now, in 1898) tremendously accelerate the expansion and deepening of capitalist relationships in the building industry.
Such, according to the material of Russian economic literature, has been the post-Reform evolution of the industry under review.[*] This evolution finds particularly striking expression in the territorial division of labour, in the formation of large areas in which the working population specialises in some particular branch of building.[**] This specialisation of areas presupposes the formation of large markets for building work and, in this connection, the rise of capitalist relationships. To illustrate this point let us quote data for one such area. Pokrov Uyezd, Vladimir Gubernia, has long been celebrated for its carpenters, who already at the beginning of the century constituted more than half the total population. After the Reform carpentry continued to spread.[***] In "the carpenters' area the contractors are an element analogous to the subcontractors and factory owners"; they are usually drawn from among the most enterprising members of carpenters' artels. "Cases are not rare of contractors in ten years accumulating from 50,000 to 60,000 rubles and more of clear profit. Some of the contractors employ from
page 532
300 to 500 carpenters and have become real capitalists. . . . It is not surprising that the local peasants say that 'nothing pays so well as trading in carpenters.'"[*] It would be hard to give a more striking characterisation of the quintessence of the present organisation of the industry! "Carpentry has left a deep impress upon the whole of peasant life in this locality. . . . The peasant carpenter devotes less and less time to agriculture, and eventually gives it up altogether." Life in the cities has laid the impress of culture on the carpenter: he lives a much cleaner life than do the surrounding peasants, and is conspicuous for his "cultured appearance," for "his relatively high mental development."[**]
The total number of building workers in European Russia must be very considerable, judging from the fragmentary data available. In Kaluga Gubernia the number of building workers in 1896 was estimated at 39,860, both local and migratory. In Yaroslavl Gubernia there were in 1894-95 -- according to official data -- 20,170 migratory. In Kostroma Gubernia there were about 39,500 migratory. In 9 uyezds of Vyatka Gubernia (out of 11), there were about 30,500 migratory (in the 80s). In 4 uyezds in Tyer Gubernia (out of 12), there were 15,585, both local and migratory. In Gorbatov Uyezd, Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, there were 2,221, both local and migratory. The number of carpenters alone who left Ryazan Gubernia every year to work in other districts was, according to official figures for 1875 and 1876, not less than 20,000. In Orel Uyezd, Orel Gubernia, there are 2,000
page 533
building workers. In 3 uyezds of Poltava Gubernia (out of 15), there are 1,440. In Nikolayevsk Uyezd, Samara Gubernia, there are 1,339.[*] Judging by these figures, the number of building workers in European Russia must be not less than one million.[**] This figure must rather be considered a minimum, for all the sources show that the number of building workers has grown rapidly in the post-Reform period.[***] The building workers are industrial proletarians in the making, whose connection with the land -- already very slight today [****] -- is becoming slighter every year. The conditions of building workers are very different from those of lumber workers and are more like those of factory workers. They work in large urban and industrial centres, which, as we have seen, considerably raise their cultural standards. While the declining lumber industry typifies weakly developed forms of a capitalism that still tolerates the patriarchal way of life, the developing building industry typifies a higher stage of capitalism, leads to the formation of a new class of industrial workers, and marks a deep-going differentiation of the old peasantry.
page 534
By the appendage to the factory we mean those forms of wage-labour and small industry whose existence is directly connected with the factory. These include, first of all (in part), the lumber and building workers, of whom we have spoken and who in some cases directly form part of the industrial population of factory centres, and in others beIong to the population of surrounding villages.[*] Further, they include workers employed on peat bogs -- which are sometimes worked by factory owners themselves[*]; carters, loaders, packers, and so-called labourers generally, who always constitute a fairly considerable part of the population of industrial centres. In St. Petersburg, for instance, the census of December 15, 1890, registered 44,814 persons (of both sexes) in the group of "day labourers and labourers"; then 51,000 persons (of both sexes) in the carting industry, of whom 9,500 are specially engaged in carting heavy and miscellaneous loads. Further, certain auxiliary work is done for factories by small "independent" industrialists; in factory centres or their environs such industries spring up as barrel-making for oil-mills and distilleries,[***] basket-making for packing glassware,[****] packing-case making for hardware, the making of wooden
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handles for joiners' and fitters' tools,[*] the making of brads for footwear factories, and of "tanning" for leather works, etc.,[**] the weaving of bast-matting for the packing of factory wares (in the Kostroma and other gubernias), the making of "sticks" for matches (in the Ryazan, Kaluga and other gubernias), cardboard-box making for tobacco factories (in the environs of St. Petersburg),[***] the making of wood-dust for vinegar factories,[****] the spinning of waste yarn in small spinning sheds (in Lodz), which has developed owing to the demand created by the big mills,[(*)] etc., etc. All these small industrialists, like the wage-workers referred to above, belong either to the industrial population of factory centres, or to the semi-agricultural population of the surrounding villages. Furthermore, when a factory's work is limited to the production of a semi-manufactured article, small industries are sometimes called into existence which engage in treating it further; for example, machine spinning has given an impetus to handicraft weaving, and "handicraft" producers of metal goods cluster around ironworks, etc. Finally, capitalist domestic industry is often an appendage to the factory.(**) The epoch of large-scale machine industry is marked in all countries by the extensive development of capitalist domestic industry in such branches as, for
page 536
example, ready-made clothing. We have spoken above of the wide extent of such industry in Russia, of the conditions peculiar to it and of the reason for considering it more correct to describe it in the chapter on manufacture.
In order to give anything like a full description of the appendage to the factory one needs complete statistics on the occupations of the population, or monographic descriptions of the entire economic life of factory centres and their environs. But even the fragmentary data with which we have had to content ourselves show the incorrectness of the opinion widespread here that factory industry is isolated from other forms of industry, that the factory population is isolated from the population not employed in factories. The development of forms of industry, like that of all social relationships in general, cannot but proceed very gradually, among a mass of interlocking, transitional forms and seeming reversions to the past. Thus, the growth of small industries may express (as we have seen) the progress of capitalist manufacture; now we see that the factory, too, may sometimes develop small industries. Work for the "buyer-up," is also an appendage to both the manufactory and the factory. To give a proper assessment of the significance of such phenomena, we must consider them in conjunction with the whole structure of industry at the given stage of its development and with the main trends of this development.
The complete separation of industry from agriculture is effected only by large-scale machine industry. The Russian facts fully confirm this thesis, which was established by the author of Capital for other countries,* but which is usually ignored by the Narodnik economists. Mr. N.-on in his Sketches talks in and out of season about "the separation of industry from agriculture," without, however, taking the trouble to examine, on the basis of precise data,
page 537
how this process is actually taking place and what different forms it assumes. Mr. V. V. points to the connection of our industrial worker with the land (in manufacture ; our author does not think it necessary to distinguish the various stages of capitalism, although he pretends he is following the theory of the author of Capital !) and declaims in this regard about the "shameful (sic !) dependence" "of our (author's italics) capitalist industry" upon the worker farmer, etc. (Destiny of Capitalism, p. 114 and others). Mr. V. V. has apparently not heard, or has forgotten if he has beard, that not only in "our country" but everywhere in the West, capitalism failed to bring about the complete separation of the workers from the land before large-scale machine industry was established. Finally, Mr. Kablukov has quite recently presented his students with the following amazing distortion of the facts: "Whereas in the West work in the factory is the sole means of livelihood for the worker, in our country, with relatively few exceptions (sic !!!), the worker regards work in the factory as a subsidiary occupation, he is more attracted to the land."[*]
A factual analysis of this question has been made in Mr. Dementyev's essay on the "factory workers' connection with agriculture" in the Moscow sanitary statistics.** Systematically collated statistics embracing about 20,000 workers have shown that only 14.1% of the factory workers leave for agricultural employment. But far more important is the fact, proved in the greatest detail in the work mentioned, that it is precisely machine production that divorces the workers from the land. Of a whole series of figures quoted in proof of this fact we select the following most striking ones.***
page 538
We have supplemented the author's table by dividing 8 of the trades into those carried on by hand and those by machinery. As regards the ninth, felt cloth production, let us note that it is conducted partly by hand and partly by machinery. Of the weavers in hand-loom factories about 63% leave for field-work, while of those working on power-looms not one leaves; of the workers in departments of cloth mills that are mechanised 3.3% leave. "Thus, the most important reason for factory workers breaking their ties with the land is the transition from hand to machine production. Despite the still relatively considerable number of factories with hand production, the number of workers employed in them, as compared with the number in factories with machine production, is quite negligible, that is why, of those who leave for field-work, we get proportions as small as 14.1% of adult workers in general and 15.4% of adult workers belonging exclusively to the peasant social estate."* Let us recall that the returns of the sanitary inspection of factories in Moscow Gubernia gave the following figures: mechanical factories, 22.6% of the total (including 18.4% using steam-engines); in these, 80.7% of the total number of workers are concentrated. Hand-labour factories constitute 69.2%, employing only 16.2% of the total number of workers. At the 244 mechanised factories there are 92,302 workers (378 workers per factory), while at the 747 hand labour factories there are 18,520 workers (25 workers per
page 539
factory).[*] We have shown above the considerable concentration of all Russian factory workers in the largest enterprises, mostly mechanised, which have an average of 488 and more workers per establishment. Mr. Dementyev has studied in detail the influence of the workers' place of birth on their separation from the land, differences between local-born and migrant workers, differences in social estate (burgher or peasant), etc., and it turned out that all these differences are eclipsed by the influence of the main factor: the transition from hand to machine production.[**] "Whatever causes may have helped to turn the former cultivator into a factory worker, these special workers already exist. They are merely counted as peasants, but their only connection with the village is by way of the taxes they pay when renewing their passports, for actually they have no farm in the village, and very often not even a house, which has usually been sold. Even their right to land they retain only juridically, so to speak, and the disorders that took place in 1885-1886 at many factories showed that these workers themselves feel totally alien to the village, just as the peasants in their turn regard them, offspring of their fellow-villagers, as strangers. We are consequently faced with an already crystallised class of workers, possessing no homes of their own and virtually no property, a class bound by no ties and living from hand to mouth. And its origin does not date from yesterday. It has its factory genealogy, and a fairly large section of it is already in its third generation."*** Lastly, interesting material on the separation of the factory from agriculture
page 540
is provided by the latest factory statistics. The List of Factories and Works (data for 1894-95) gives information on the number of days in the year during which each factory operates. Mr. Kasperov hastened to use these data in support of the Narodnik theories when he calculated that "on the average, the Russian factory works 165 days a year," that "35% of the factories in this country work less than 200 days a year."[*] It goes without saying that in view of the vagueness of the term "factory," such overall figures are practically valueless, since they do not indicate how many workers are employed for specific numbers of days in the year. We have computed the appropriate figures of the List for those large factories (with 100 and more workers) which, as we have seen above (§ VII), employ about 3/4 of the total number of factory workers. It turns out that the average number of working days per year in the different categories was as follows: A) 242; B) 235; C) 273,[**] and for all the large factories, 244. If we calculate the average number of working days per worker we will get 253 working days per year as the average number per worker of a large factory. Of the 12 sections into which the various trades are divided in the List, only in one is the average number of working days, for the bottom categories, below 200, namely in section XI (food products): A) 189; B) 148; C) 280. Factories in categories A and B in this section employ 110,588 workers, which is 16.2% of the total number of workers in the large factories (655,670). We would point out that this section combines quite diverse trades, e.g., beet-sugar and tobacco, distilling and flour-milling, etc. For the remaining sections the average number of working days per factory is as follows: A) 259; B) 271; C) 272. Thus, the larger the factories the greater the number of days they operate in the course of the year. The general data for all the biggest factories in European Russia, therefore, confirm the conclusions of the Moscow sanitary statistical returns
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and prove that the factory creates a class of permanent factory workers.
So then, the data on Russian factory workers fully confirm the theory of Capital that it is large-scale machine industry that brings about a complete and definite revolution in the conditions of life of the industrial population, separating it once and for all from agriculture and from the century-old traditions of patriarchal life connected with it. But, by destroying patriarchal and petty-bourgeois relationships, large-scale machine industry creates, on the other hand, conditions which draw wage-workers in agriculture and industry closer together: firstly, it introduces into the rural districts generally the commercial and industrial way of life which has first arisen in the non-agricultural centres; secondly, it creates mobility of the population and large markets for the hiring of both agricultural and industrial workers; thirdly, by introducing machinery into agriculture, large-scale machine industry brings into the rural districts skilled industrial workers, distinguished for their higher standard of living.
Let us now sum up the main conclusions to be drawn from the data on the development of capitalism in our industry.[*]
There are three main stages in this development: small commodity-production (small, mainly peasant industries); capitalist manufacture; and the factory (large-scale machine industry). The facts utterly refute the view widespread here in Russia that "factory" and "handicraft" industry are isolated from each other. On the contrary, such a division is purely artificial. The connection and continuity between the forms of industry mentioned is of the most direct and intimate kind. The facts quite clearly show that the main trend of small commodity-production is towards the development of capitalism, in particular, towards the rise of manufacture; and manufacture is
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growing with enormous rapidity before our very eyes into large-scale machine industry. Perhaps one of the most striking manifestations of the intimate and direct connection between the consecutive forms of industry is the fact that many of the big and even the biggest factory owners were at one time the smallest of small industrialists and passed through all the stages from "popular production" to "capitalism." Savva Morozov was a peasant serf (he purchased his freedom in 1820), a cowherd, a carter, a worker weaver, a handicraft weaver who used to journey to Moscow on foot in order to sell his goods to buyers-up; then he became the owner of a small establishment, a work-distributing office, a factory. When he died in 1862, he and his numerous sons owned two large factories. In 1890, the 4 factories belonging to his descendants employed 39,000 workers, producing goods to the value of 35 million rubles.[*] In the silk industry of Vladimir Gubernia, a number of big factory owners were formerly worker weavers or "handicraft" weavers.[**] The biggest factory owners in Ivanovo-Voznesensk (the Kuvayevs, Fokins, Zubkovs, Kokushkins, Bobrovs and many others) were formerly handicraftsmen.[***] The brocade factories in Moscow Gubernia all grew out of handicraft workrooms.[****] The factory owner Zavyalov, of Pavlovo district, still had in 1864 "a vivid recollection of the time when he was a plain employee of craftsman Khabarov."[(*)] Factory owner Varypayev used to be a small handicrafts man.[(**)] Kondratov was a handicraftsman who used to walk to Pavlovo carrying his wares in a bag.*** Millowner Asmolov used to be a pedlars' horse-driver, then a small trader, then proprietor of a small tobacco workshop, and finally owner of a factory with a turnover of many millions.****
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And so on and so forth. It would be interesting to see how, in these and similar cases, the Narodnik economists would determine where "artificial" capitalism begins and "people's" industry ends.
The three main forms of industry enumerated above differ first of all in their systems of technique. Small commodity-production is characterised by its totally primitive, hand technique that remained unchanged almost from time immemorial. The small producer in industry remains a peasant who follows tradition in his methods of processing raw mat rial. Manufacture introduces division of labour, which effects a substantial change in technique and transforms the peasant into a factory-hand, a "labourer performing one detailed operation." But production by hand remains, and, on its basis, progress in methods of production is inevitably very slow. Division of labour springs up spontaneously and is passed on by tradition just as peasant labour is. Large-scale machine industry alone introduces a radical change, throws manual skill overboard, transforms production on new, rational principles, and systematically applies science to production. So long as capitalism in Russia did not organise large-scale machine industry, and in those industries in which it has not done so yet, we see almost complete stagnation in technique, we see the employment of the same hand-loom and the same watermill or windmill that were used in production centuries ago. On the other hand, in industries subordinated to the factory we observe a complete technical revolution and extremely rapid progress in the methods of machine production.
We see that the different stages of the development of capitalism are connected with different systems of technique. Small commodity-production and manufacture are characterised by the prevalence of small establishments, from among which only a few large ones emerge. Large-scale machine industry completely eliminates the small establishments. Capitalist relationships arise in the small industries too (in the form of workshops employing wage-workers and of merchant's capital), but these are still poorly developed and are not crystallised in sharp oppositions between the groups participating in production. Neither big capital nor extensive proletarian strata as yet exist.
page 544
In manufacture we see the rise of both. The gulf between the one who owns the means of production and the one who works now becomes very wide. "Wealthy" industrial settlements spring up, the bulk of whose inhabitants are poor working people. A small number of merchants, who do an enormous business buying raw materials and selling finished goods, and a mass of detail workers living from hand to mouth -- such is the general picture of manufacture. But the multitude of small establishments, the retention of the tie with the land, the adherence to tradition in production and in the whole manner of living -- all this creates a mass of intermediary elements between the extremes of manufacture and retards the development of these extremes. In large-scale machine industry all these retarding factors disappear; the acuteness of social contradictions reaches the highest point. All the dark sides of capitalism become concentrated, as it were: the machine, as we know, gives a tremendous impulse to the greatest possible prolongation of the working day; women and children are drawn into industry; a reserve army of unemployed is formed (and must be formed by virtue of the conditions of factory production), etc. However, the socialisation of labour effected on a vast scale by the factory, and the transformation of the sentiments and conceptions of the people it employs (in particular, the destruction of patriarchal and petty-bourgeois traditions) cause a reaction: large-scale machine industry, unlike the preceding stages, imperatively calls for the planned regulation of production and public control over it (a manifestation of the latter tendency is factory legislation).*
The very character of the development of production changes at the various stages of capitalism. In the small industries this development follows in the wake of the development of peasant economy; the market is extremely narrow, the distance between the producer and the consumer is short, and the insignificant scale of production easily adapts itself to the slightly fluctuating local demand. That
page 545
is why industry at this stage is characterised by the greatest stability, but this stability is tantamount to stagnation in technique and the preservation of patriarchal social relationships tangled up with all sorts of survivals of medieval traditions. The manufactories work for a big market -- sometimes for the whole country -- and, accordingly, production acquires the instability characteristic of capitalism, an instability which attains the greatest intensity under factory production. Large-scale machine industry can only develop in spurts, in alternating periods of prosperity and of crisis. The ruin of small producers is tremendously accelerated by this spasmodic growth of the factory; the workers are drawn into the factory in masses during a boom period, and are then thrown out. The formation of a vast reserve army of unemployed, ready to undertake any kind of work, becomes a condition for the existence and development of large-scale machine industry. In Chapter II we showed from which strata of the peasantry this army is recruited, and in subsequent chapters we indicated the main types of occupations for which capital keeps these reserves ready. The "instability" of large-scale machine industry has always evoked, and continues to evoke, reactionary complaints from individuals who continue to look at things through the eyes of the small producer and who forget that it is this "instability" alone that replaced the former stagnation by the rapid transformation of methods of production and of all social relationships.
One of the manifestations of this transformation is the separation of industry from agriculture, the liberation of social relations in industry from the traditions of the feudal and patriarchal system that weigh down on agriculture. In small commodity-production the industrialist has not yet emerged at all from his peasant shell; in the majority of cases he remains a farmer, and this connection between small industry and small agriculture is so profound that we observe the interesting law of the parallel differentiation of the small producers in industry and in agriculture. The formation of a petty bourgeoisie and of wage-workers proceeds simultaneously in both spheres of the national economy, thereby preparing the way, at both poles of differentiation, for the industrialist to break with agriculture.
page 546
Under manufacture this break is already very considerable. A whole number of industrial centres arise that do not engage in agriculture. The chief representative of industry is no longer the peasant, but the merchant and the manufactory owner on the one hand, and the "artisan" on the other. Industry and the relatively developed commercial intercourse with the rest of the world raise the standard of living and the culture of the population; the peasant is now regarded with disdain by the manufactory workman. Large-scale machine industry completes this transformation, separates industry from agriculture once and for all, and, as we have seen, creates a special class of the population totally alien to the old peasantry and differing from the latter in its manner of living, its family relationships and its higher standard of requirements, both material and spiritual.[*] In the small industries and in manufacture we always find survivals of patriarchal relations and of diverse forms of personal dependence, which, in the general conditions of capitalist economy, exceedingly worsen the condition of the working people, and degrade and corrupt them. Large-scale machine industry, which concentrates masses of workers who often come from various parts of the country, absolutely refuses to tolerate survivals of patriarchalism and personal dependence, and is marked by a truly "contemptuous attitude to the past." It is this break with obsolete tradition that is one of the substantial conditions which have created the possibility and evoked the necessity of regulating production and of public control over it. In particular, speaking of the transformation brought about by the factory in the conditions of life of the population, it must be stated that the drawing of women and juveniles into production** is, at bottom, progressive. It is
page 547
indisputable that the capitalist factory places these categories of the working population in particularly hard conditions, and that for them it is particularly necessary to regulate and shorten the working day, to guarantee hygienic conditions of labour, etc.; but endeavours completely to ban the work of women and juveniles in industry, or to maintain the patriarchal manner of life that ruled out such work, would he reactionary and utopian. By destroying the patriarchal isolation of these categories of the population who formerly never emerged from the narrow circle of domestic, family relationships, by drawing them into direct participation in social production, large-scale machine industry stimulates their development and increases their independence, in other words, creates conditions of life that are incomparably superior to the patriarchal immobility of pre-capitalist relations.*
page 548
The settled character of the population is typical of the first two stages of industrial development. The small industrialist, remaining a peasant, is bound to his village by his farm. The artisan under manufacture is usually tied to the small, isolated industrial area which is created by manufacture. In the very system of industry at the first and second stages of its development there is nothing to disturb this settled and isolated condition of the producer. Intercourse between the various industrial areas is rare. The transfer of industry to other areas is due only to the migration of individual small producers, who establish new small industries in the outlying parts of the country. Large-scale machine industry, on the other hand, necessarily creates mobility of the population; commercial intercourse between the various districts grows enormously; railways facilitate travel. The demand for labour increases on the whole -- rising in periods of boom and falling in periods of crisis, so that it becomes a necessity for workers to go from one factory to another, from one part of the country to another. Large-scale machine industry creates a number of new industrial centres, which grow up with unprecedented rapidity, sometimes in unpopulated places, a thing that would be impossible without the mass migration of workers. Further on we shall speak of the dimensions and the significance of the so-called outside non-agricultural industries. At the moment we shall limit ourselves to a brief presentation of Zemstvo sanitation statistics for Moscow Gubernia. An inquiry among 103,175 factory workers showed that 53,238, or 51.6% of the total, were born in the uyezd in which they worked. Hence, nearly half the workers had migrated from one uyezd to another. The number of workers who were born in Moscow Gubernia was 66,038, or 64%.* More than a third of the workers came from other gubernias (chiefly from gubernias of the central industrial zone adjacent to Moscow
page 549
Gubernia). A comparison af the different uyezds shows the most highly industrialised ones to be marked by the lowest percentage of locally-born workers. For example, in the poor]y industrialised Mozhaisk and Volokolamsk uyezds from 92 to 93% of the factory workers are natives of the uyezd where they work. In the very highly industrialised Moscow, Kolomna and Bogorodsk uyezds the percentage of locally born workers drops to 24%, 40% and 50%. From this the investigators draw the conclusion that "the considerable development of factory production in an uyezd encourages the influx of outside elements."[*] These facts show also (let us add) that the movement of industrial workers bears the same features that we observed in the movement of agricultural workers. That is to say, industrial workers, too, migrate not only from localities where there is a surplus of labour, but also from those where there is a shortage. For example, the Bronnltsi Uyezd attracts 1,125 workers from other uyezds of Moscow Gubernia and from other gubernias, while at the same time providing 1,246 workers for the more highly industrialised Moscow and Bogorodsk uyezds. Hence, workers leave not only because they do not find "local occupations at hand," but also because they make for the places where conditions are better. Elementary as this fact is, it is worth while giving the Narodnik economists a further reminder of it, for they idealise local occupations and condemn migration to industrial districts, ignoring the progressive significance of the mobility of the population created by capitalism.
The above-described characteristic features which distinguish large-scale machine industry from the preceding forms of industry may be summed up in the words -- socialisation of labour. Indeed, production for an enormous national and international market, development of close commercialties with various parts of the country and with different countries for the purchase of raw and auxiliary materials, enormous technical progress, concentration of production and of the population in colossal enterprises, demolition of the worn-out traditions of patriarchal life,
page 550
creation of mobility of the population, and improvement of the worker's standard of requirements and his development -- all these are elements of the capitalist process which is increasingly socialising production in the country, and with it those who participate in production.*
On the problem of the relation of large-scale machine industry in Russia to the home market for capitalism, the data given above lead to the following conclusion. The rapid development of factory industry in Russia is creating an enormous and ever-growing market for means of production (building materials, fuel, metals, etc.) and is increasing with particular rapidity the part of the population engaged in
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making articles of productive and not personal consumption. But the market for articles of personal consumption is also growing rapidly, owning to the growth of large-scale machine industry, which is diverting an increasingly large part of the population from agriculture into commercial and industrial occupations. As for the home market for factory-made products, the process of the formation of that market was examined in detail in the early chapters of this book.
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THE FORMATlON OF THE HOME MARKET
We now have to sum up the data examined in the preceding chapters and to try to give an idea of the interdependence of the various spheres of the national economy in their capitalist development.
It is well known that commodity circulation precedes commodity production and constitutes one of the conditions (but not the sole condition) of the rise of the latter. In the present work we have confined ourselves to an examination of data on commodity and capitalist production, and for that reason do not intend to deal in detail with the important problem of the growth of commodity circulation in post-Reform Russia. In order to give a general idea of how rapidly the home market has grown, the following brief data will suffice.
The length of the Russian railway system increased from 3,819 kilometres in 1865 to 29,063 km. in 1890,* i.e., more than 7-fold. Similar progress was made by Britain in a longer period (1845--4,082 km.; 1875--26,819 km., a 6-fold increase), by Germany in a shorter period (1845-- 2,143 km.; 1875--27,981 km., a 12-fold increase). The length of new railway opened per year differed considerably in different periods; for example, in the 5 years 1868-1872
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8,806 versts of new railway were opened and in the 5 years 1878-1882, only 2,221.[*] The extent of this fluctuation enables us to judge what an enormous reserve army of unemployed is required by capitalism, which now expands, and then contracts the demand for labour. There have been two boom periods in railway development in Russia: the end of the 60s (and the beginning of the 70s), and the latter half of the 90s. From 1865 to 1875, the average annual increase in the length of the Russian railway system was 1,500 kilometres, and from 1893 to 1897, about 2,500 kilometres. The amount of railway freight carried was as follows: 1868--439 million poods; 1873 -- 1,117 million poods; 1881 -- 2,532 million poods; 1893 -- 4,846 million poods; 1896 -- 6,145 million poods; 1904 -- 11,072 million poods. No less rapid has been the growth of passenger traffic: 1868 -- 10.4 million passengers; 1873--22.7; 1881--34.4; 1893 -- 49.4; 1896 -- 65.5; 1904 -- 123.6 million.[**]
The development of water transport is as follows (data for the whole of Russia):[***]
Years |
Steamers |
No. of |
Carrying capacity |
Value of craft |
Number of men in crews | |||||||
No. |
Total |
steam |
other |
Total |
steam |
other |
Total |
steam |
other |
Total | ||
1868 |
646 |
47,313 |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
1884 |
1,246 |
72,105 |
20,095 |
6.1 |
362 |
368.1 |
48.9 |
32.1 |
81 |
18,766 |
94,099 |
112,865 |
1890 |
1,824 |
103,206 |
20,125 |
9.2 |
401 |
410.2 |
75.6 |
38.3 |
113.9 |
25,814 |
90,.356 |
116,170 |
1895 |
2,539 |
129,759 |
20,580 |
12.3 |
526.9 |
539.2 |
97.9 |
46.0 |
143.9 |
32,689 |
85,608 |
118,297 |
page 554
The amount of freight carried on inland waterways in European Russia in 1881 was 899.7 million poods; in 1893 -- 1,181.5 million poods; in 1896 -- 1,553 million poods. The value of these freights was 186.5 million rubles; 257.2 million rubles; 290 million rubles.
Russia's merchant marine in 1868 consisted of 51 steamers with a capacity of 14,300 lasts,[160] and of 700 sailing ships with a capacity of 41,800 lasts; and in 1896 of 522 steamers with a capacity of 161,600 lasts.[*]
The development of mercantile shipping at all ports on the outer seas was as follows: during the five years 1856-1860 the number of homeward plus outward bound vessels averaged 18,901, with a total capacity of 3,783,000 tons; for the period 1886-1890 it averaged 23,201 vessels (+23%) with a total capacity of 13,845,000 tons (+266%). Capacity, therefore, increased 3 2/3 times. In 39 years (from 1856 to 1894) capacity grew 5.5-fold, and if we take Russian and foreign vessels separately, it is seen that during these 39 years the number of the former grew 3.4-fold (from 823 to 2,789), while their capacity grew 12.1-fold (from 112,800 tons to 1,368,000 tons), whereas the number of the latter grew by 16% (from 18,284 to 21,160) and their capacity 5.3-fold (from 3,448,000 tons to 18,267,000 tons).** Let us remark that the capacity of homeward and outward bound vessels also fluctuates very considerably from year to year (e.g., 1878 -- 13 million tons; 1881 -- 8.6 million tons), and these fluctuations enable us to gauge in part the fluctuations in the demand for unskilled labourers, dockers, etc. Here, too, capitalism requires the existence of a mass of people always in want of work and ready at the first call to accept it, however casual it may be.
The development of foreign trade can be seen from the following data:***
page 555
Y e a r s |
No. of inhabitants |
Value of exports and |
Value of total foreign |
1856-1860 |
69.0 |
314.0 |
4.55 |
The following data give a general idea of the volume of bank turnover and capital accumulation. Total withdrawals from the State Bank rose from 113 million rubles in 1860-1863 (170 million rubles in 1864-1868) to 620 million rubles in 1884-1888, and total deposits on current account from 335 million rubles in 1864-1868 to 1,495 million rubles in 1884-1888.[*] The turnover of loan and savings societies and banks (rural and industrial) grew from 2 3/4 million rubles in 1872 (21.8 million rubles in 1875) to 82.6 million rubles in 1892., and 189.6 million rubles in 1903.[**] Mortgages increased from 1889 to 1894 as follows: the assessment of mortgaged land rose from 1,395 million rubles to 1,827 million rubles, and total loans from 791 million rubles to 1,044 million rubles.*** The operations of savings banks grew particularly in the 80s and 90s. In 1880 there were 75 savings banks, in 1897 -- 4,315 (of which 3,454 were post-office banks). In 1880, deposits amounted to 4.4 million rubles, in 1897 to 276.6 million rubles. Balance on account at the end of the year totalled 9.0 million rubles in 1880, and 494.3 million rubles in 1897. The annual capital increase is particularly striking in the famine years 1891 and 1892 (52.9 and 50.5 million rubles), and in the last two years (1896 -- 51.6 million rubles; 1897 -- 65.5 mil lion rubles).****
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The latest statistics show an even greater development of the savings banks. In 1904, over the whole of Russia there were 6,557 savings banks with 5.1 million depositors and total deposits of 1,105.5 million rubles. Incidentally, in this country both the old Narodniks and the new opportunists in the socialist movement have frequently been very naïve (to put it mildly) in talking about the increase in the number of savings banks constituting a sign of the "people's" well-being. It will perhaps not be out of place, therefore, to compare the distribution of savings-bank deposits in Russia (1904) with that of France (1900. Information from Bulletin de l'Office du travail, 1901, No. 10).
What a wealth of material there is here for Narodnik-Revisionist-Cadet apologists! It is interesting, in passing, to note that in Russia deposits are also divided into 12 groups according to the occupations and professions of depositors. It appears that the largest sum of deposits -- 228.5 million rubles -- is that of persons engaged in agriculture and rural industries, and these deposits are growing with particular rapidity. The village is becoming civilised, and to make the
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muzhik's ruin a source of business is becoming increasingly profitable.
But let us return to our immediate theme. As we see, the data indicate an enormous growth of commodity circulation and capital accumulation. How the field for the employment of capital in all branches of the national economy was created and how merchant's capital was transformed into industrial capital, i.e., was directed into production and created capitalist relationships between those taking part in production, has been shown above.
We have stated above that the growth of the industrial population at the expense of the agricultural is a requisite phenomenon of every capitalist society. In what way the separation of industry from agriculture steadily takes place has also been examined, and now all that remains is to sum up on this question.
The most striking expression of the process under examination is the growth of the towns. Here are data on this growth in European Russia (50 gubernias) in the post Reform period*:
page 558
Y |
Population of European Russia |
Percent- |
No. of towns with |
Population of large towns |
Population | ||||||||
Total |
In |
In |
Over |
100k |
50k |
Total |
Over |
100k |
50k |
Total | |||
1863 |
61,420.5 |
6,105.1 |
55,315.4 |
9.94 |
2 |
1 |
10 |
13 |
891.1 |
119.0 |
683.4 |
1,693.5 |
1,741.9 |
[facimile] page 559
page 560 [blank]
page 561
Thus, the percentage of urban population is constantly growing, that is, the population is being diverted from agriculture into commercial and industrial occupations.[*] The population of the towns is growing twice as fast as that of the rest of the country: from 1863 to 1897 the total population increased 53.3%, the rural 48.5%, while the urban increased 97%. Over a period of 11 years (1885-1897) "the influx, at a minimum, of the rural population into the towns" was 2 1/2 million persons, according to Mr. V. Mikhailovsky's estimate,[**] i.e., more than 200,000 per annum.
The population of towns that are important industrial and commercial centres is growing much more rapidly than the urban population generally. The number of towns with 50,000 and more inhabitants more than trebled between 1863 and 1897 (13 and 44). In 1863, of the total urban population only about 27% (1.7 million out of 6.1) were concentrated in such large centres; in 1885 it was nearly 41% (4.1 million out of 9.9),[***] and in 1897 it was already more than half, about 53% (6.4 million out of 12 million). In the 1860s, therefore, the smaller towns provided the general pattern of the urban population, but in the 1890s they were completely outweighed by the big cities. The population of the 14 towns that had been the biggest in 1863 increased from 1.7 million inhabitants to 4.3 million, i.e., by 153%, whereas the overall urban population increased by only 97% . Hence, the enormous growth of large industrial centres and the emergence of a large number of new centres is one of the most characteristic features of the post-Reform period.
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As we have pointed out above (Chapter I, § II, p. 40), theory deduces the law that the industrial population grows at the expense of the agricultural from the fact that in industry variable capital increases absolutely (the growth of variable capital means a growth of the number of industrial workers and a growth of the total commercial and industrial population), whereas in agriculture the "variable capital required for the exploitation of a certain plot of land decreases absolutely." "It can thus only increase," Marx adds, "to the extent that new land is taken into cultivation, but this again requires as a prerequisite a still greater growth of the non-agricultural population."[161] Hence it is clear that the growth of the industrial population is a phenomenon observable in its pure form only when we have before us an already populated territory in which all the land is already occupied. The inhabitants of such a territory, when forced-out of agriculture by capitalism, have no other alternative but to migrate to the industrial centres or to other countries. But the situation is essentially different when we have before us a territory in which not all the land is occupied, and which is not yet fully populated. The inhabitants of such a territory, when forced out of agriculture in a populated area, may remove to an unpopulated part of that territory and set about "taking new land into cultivation." The result will be an increase in the agricultural population, and this increase may be (for some time) no less, if not more, rapid than the increase in the industrial population. In that case, we have before us two different processes: 1) the development of capitalism in the old, populated country or part of the country; 2) the development of capitalism on "new land." The first process expresses the further development of established capitalist relationships; the second, the rise of new capitalist relationships on new territory. The first process means the development of capitalism in depth, the second, in breadth. Obviously, to confuse these two processes must inevitably lead to a wrong conception of the process which diverts the population from agriculture to commercial and industrial occupations.
page 563
Post-Reform Russia affords us an example of the two processes going on simultaneously. At the beginning of the post-Reform period, in the 60s, the southern and eastern outer regions of European Russia were largely unpopulated, and there was an enormous influx into those areas of migrants from the central agricultural part of Russia. It was this formation of a new agricultural population on new territory that to some extent obscured the parallel process of the diversion of the population from agriculture to industry. To get a clear picture, from data on the urban population, of the specific feature of Russia here described, we must divide the 50 gubernias of European Russia into separate groups. We give data on the urban population in 9 areas of European Russia in 1863 and in 1897 (see p. 564).
As far as the question that interests us is concerned, the greatest importance attaches to three areas: 1) the non-agricultural industrial area (the 11 gubernias in the first two groups, including the 2 metropolitan gubernias).[*] This is an area from which migration to other areas has been very slight. 2) The central agricultural area (the 13 gubernias in group 3). Migration from this area has been very consider able, partly to the previous area, but mainly to the next. 3) The agricultural outer regions (the 9 gubernias in group 4) constitute an area that has been colonised in the post-Reform period. The percentage of urban population in all these 33 gubernias differs very little, as the table shows, from the percentage of urban population in European Russia as a whole.
In the first area, the non-agricultural or industrial, we observe a particularly rapid rise in the percentage of urban population: from 14.1% to 21.1%. The growth of the rural population is here very slight, being little more than half of that for the whole of Russia. The growth of the urban
page 564
Groups of gubernias |
No. |
Population (thousands) |
Urban |
% increase | ||||||||
1863 |
1897 | |||||||||||
Total |
In |
In |
Total |
In |
In |
1863 |
1897 |
T |
R |
U | ||
I. Metropolitan . . . . . . |
2 |
2,738.4 |
1,680.0 |
1,058.4 |
4,541.0 |
1,989.7 |
2,551.3 |
38.6 |
56.2 |
65 |
18 |
141 |
Metropolitan gubernias, |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total for first four groups |
33 |
42,661.3 |
38,110.7 |
4,550.6 |
63,930.6 |
55,027.4 |
8,903.2 |
10.5 |
13.9 |
49 |
44 |
95.6 |
Total . . . . . . |
50 |
61,420.5 |
55,315.4 |
6,105.1 |
94,215.4 |
82,188.2 |
12,027.2 |
9.94 |
12.76 |
53.3 |
48.5 |
97.0 |
page 565
population, on the other hand, is considerably above the average (105% as against 97%). If Russia is to be compared with West-European industrial countries (as is often done here), then these countries should be compared with just this one area, for it alone has conditions approximately similar to those of the industrial capitalist countries.
In the second, the central agricultural area, we see a different picture. The percentage of urban population here is very low and grows with less than average rapidity. The increase in the population between 1863 and 1897, both urban and rural, was much below the average for Russia. This is to be explained by the vast stream of migrants from this area to the border regions. According to Mr. V. Mikhailovsky's calculations, between 1885 and 1897 nearly 3 million people, or more than one-tenth of the population left these parts.[*]
In the third area, the outer regions, we see that the per centage of urban population underwent an increase that "was slightly below the average (from 11.2% to 13.3%, i.e., in the proportion of 100 : 118, whereas the average is from 9.94 to 12.76, i.e., in the proportion of 100 : 128). And yet the absolute growth of the urban population here, far from being less, was considerably above the average (+130% as against +97%). The diversion of population from agriculture to industry has, consequently, been very intense, but it is hidden by the enormous growth of the agricultural population as a result of influx: in this area the rural population increased by 87%, as against an average for Russia of 48.5%. In certain gubernias this obscuring of the process of the industrialisation of the population is still more striking. For instance, in Taurida Gubernia the percentage of urban population was the same in 1897 as in 1863 (19.6%), and in Kherson Gubernia actually declined (from 25.9% to 25.4%), although the growth of the towns in both the gubernias was not far behind that of the metropolitan cities (+131%, +135%, as against +141% in the two metropolitan gubernias). The rise of a new agricultural population on new territory thus leads, in turn, to a still greater growth of the non-agricultural population.
page 566
In addition to the towns, the following have the significance of industrial centres: firstly, suburbs, which are not always counted with the towns and which are spreading in an increasing area around the big towns; and secondly, factory townships and villages. Such industrial centres[*] are particularly numerous in the industrial gubernias where the percentage of urban population is extremely low.[**] The above table containing the data, by areas, of the town population shows that in the 9 industrial gubernias the percentage in 1863 was 7.3% and in 1897, 8.6%. The fact is that the commercial and industrial population of these gubernias is concentrated mainly, not in towns, but in industrial villages. Among the "towns" of Vladimir, Kostroma, Nizhni-Novgorod and other gubernias there are not a few with less than 3,000, 2,000 or even 1,000 inhabitants, where as there are numerous "villages" in each of which there are 2,000, 3,000 or 5,000 factory workers alone. In the post-Reform period, rightly observes the compiler of the Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia (Vol. II., 191),"the towns have begun to grow still faster, and in addition there has been the growth of settlements of a new type, a type of factory centre midway between the town and the village." We have cited data showing the enormous growth of these centres and the number of factory workers concentrated in them. We have seen that there are quite a few centres of this kind throughout Russia, not only in the industrial gubernias, but also in the South. In the Urals the percentage of urban population is lowest: in Vyatka and Perm gubernias it was 3.2% in 1863 and 4.7% in 1897. But here is an example of the relative size of the "urban" and the industrial populations: in Krasnoufimsk Uyezd, Perm Gubernia, the urban population numbers 6,400 (1897), whereas according to the Zemstvo census of 1888-1891, the population of the
page 567
industrial section of the uyezd numbers 84,700, of whom 56,000 do not engage in agriculture at all, and only 5,600 obtain their livelihood mainly from the land. In Ekaterinburg Uyezd, according to the Zemstvo census, 65,000 inhabitants are landless and 81,000 have only meadow land. Hence, the industrial non-urban population of two uyezds alone is larger than the urban population of the whole gubernia (in 1897 it was 195,600!).
Finally, in addition to factory settlements, the significance of industrial centres attaches to the trading and industrial villages, which are either at the head of large handicraft districts, or have developed rapidly since the Reform, owing to their situation on the banks of rivers, near railway stations, etc. Several examples of such villages were given in Chapter VI, § II, and we saw that, like the towns, they attract the rural population, and that they are usually marked by a level of literacy among the population above the average.* As a further example let us quote data on Voronezh Gubernia in order to show the relative importance
page 568
of urban and non-urban industrial and commercial centres of population. The Combined Returns for Voronezh Gubernia gives a combined table classifying the villages in 8 uyezds of the gubernia. In these uyezds there are 8 towns, with a population of 56,149 (in 1897). Of the villages, on the other hand, 4 stand out with 9,376 households, and with 53,732 inhabitants, i.e., they are much bigger than the towns. In 5 these villages there are 240 commercial and 404 industrial establishments. Of the total households, 60% do not cultivate at all, 21% cultivate by neighbour-hire or on a half-crop basis, 71% have neither draught animals nor implements, 63% buy grain all year round, 86% engage in industries. By placing the entire population of these centres in the category of commercial and industrial, we not only do not exaggerate, but rather minimise, the size of the latter, for altogether in these 8 uyezds 21,956 households cultivate no land at all. Nevertheless, in the agricultural gubernia we have taken, the commercial and industrial population outside the towns turns out to be not less than that inside the towns.
But even if we add to the towns the factory and commercial and industrial villages and townships we are far from exhausting the total industrial population of Russia. The lack of freedom of movement and the social-estate exclusiveness of the village community fully explain the remarkable characteristic of Russia that we have to include no small part of the rural population in its industrial population, that part which obtains its livelihood by working in industrial centres and spends part of the year in these centres. We refer to the so-called non-agricultural "outside employments." From the official point of view, these "industrialits" are peasant farmers who merely have "subsidiary employments," and the majority of the Narodnik economists have, without further ado, adopted that viewpoint. There is no need, after what has been said above, to prove in detail how unsound it is. At all events, however much opinions on it may vary, there cannot be the slightest doubt that it
page 569
indicates a diversion of the population from agriculture into commercial and industrial occupations.[*] How far this fact changes our idea of the size of the industrial population in the towns may be seen from the following example. In Kaluga Gubernia the percentage of urban population is much lower than the average for Russia (8.3%, as against 12.8%). Now the Statistical Survey of that gubernia for 1896 calculates, on the basis of passport data, the total number of months during which migratory workers were absent from their homes. It appears that the total is 1,491,600 months; divided by 12 this will give an absent population of 124,300 persons, i.e., "nearly 11% of the total population " (loc. cit., 46)! Add this number to the urban population (in 1897 -- 97,900), and the percentage of industrial population will be a very considerable one.
Of course, a certain part of the migratory non-agricultural workers are registered among the existing town population, and are also part of the population of the non-urban industrial centres to which we have already referred. But only a part, for owing to the mobile character of this section of the population, it is difficult to cover them by any local census; furthermore, population censuses are usually taken in the winter, whereas most of these industrial workers leave their homes in the spring. Here are data for some of the principal gubernias of non-agricultural migration.**
page 570
Percentage distribution of residential permits issued | |||||||||
Season |
Moscow |
Tver |
Smolensk |
Pskov (1895) |
Kostroma (1880) | ||||
Male |
Female |
Male and female |
Male |
Female |
Male |
Female | |||
Pass- |
Cards | ||||||||
Winter |
19.3 |
18.6 |
22.3 |
22.4 |
20.4 |
19.3 |
16.2 |
16.2 |
17.2 |
Total |
100.1 |
99.9 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
The number of passports issued reaches the maximum everywhere in the spring. Hence, a large part of the temporarily absent workers are not included in the censuses of the towns.* But these temporary town-dwellers may also more legitimately be assigned to the urban rather than the rural population. "A family which gets its livelihood throughout the year, or during the greater part of it, in the town has far more reason to regard the town, which provides its subsistence, as its place of domicile than the village, with which it has only family and fiscal ties."** The enormous significance these fiscal ties have to this day can be seen from the fact, for instance, that among migratory
page 571
Kostroma people "it is a rare thing for peasants to get for it [the land] some small part of the taxes to be paid; usually they lease it on the sole condition that the tenants put it to use, the owner himself paying all the taxes" (D. Zhbankov, Women's Country, Kostroma, 1891, p. 21). In the Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia (Vol. II, Yaroslavl, 1896), we also find repeated references to migratory industrial workers having to purchase their release from their villages and allotments (pp. 28, 48, 149, 150, 166 and others).*
How many migratory non-agricultural workers are there? The number of people engaged in all kinds of industries employing migratory workers is not less than from 5 to 6 millions. In fact, in 1884, about 4.67 million passports and
page 572
identity cards were issued in European Russia,[*] and passport revenue grew between 1884 and 1894 by more than one-third (from 3.3 to 4.5 million rubles). In 1897 the total number of passports and cards issued in Russia was 9,495,700 (of which 9,333,200 were issued in the 50 gubernias of European Russia). In 1898 the number was 8,259,900 (European Russia, 7,809,600).[**] The number of workers superfluous (as compared with local demand) in European Russia has been estimated by Mr. S. Korolenko at 6.3 million. Above we have seen (Chapter III, § IX, p. 239) that in 11 agricultural gubernias the number of passports issued exceeded Mr. Korolenko's estimate (2 million as against 1.7 million). Now we can add the data for 6 non-agricultural gubernias: Mr. Korolenko sets the number of superfluous workers in these at 1,287,800, while the number of passports issued was 1,298,600.[***] Thus, in 17 gubernias of European Russia (11 black-earth, plus 6 non-black earth) there are, according to Mr. Korolenko, 3 million workers who are superfluous (as against the local demand). In the 90s, however, the number of passports and cards issued in these 17 gubernias was 3.3 million. In 1891, these gubernias provided 52.2% of the total passport revenue. Hence, the number of migratory workers in all probability exceeds 6 million. Finally, Zemstvo statistical data (most of which are obsolete) led Mr. Uvarov to the conclusion that Mr. Korolenko's figure was close to the truth, and that the figure of 5 million migratory workers was "very highly probable."****
page 573
The question now arises: how large is the number of non-agricultural and of agricultural migratory workers? Mr. N.-on very boldly and quite mistakenly asserts that "the overwhelming majority of peasant outside employments are agricultural" (Sketches, p. 16). Chaslavsky, whom Mr. N.-on cites, expresses himself much more cautiously; he cites no data and limits himself to general remarks about the size of the areas which provide workers of one type or another. On the other hand, Mr. N.-on's railway passenger traffic data prove absolutely nothing, for non-agricultural workers also leave their homes mainly in spring and, moreover, use the railways much more than agricultural workers do.[*] We presume, on the contrary, that the majority (although not the "overwhelming" majority) of the migratory workers are probably non-agricultural workers. This view is based, firstly, on data concerning the distribution of passport revenue, and, secondly, on Mr. Vesin's data. Years ago Flerovsky, on the basis of the returns for 1862-63 showing the distribution of revenue from "miscellaneous duties" (more than one-third of which was obtained from the issue of passports), drew the conclusion that the greatest movement of peasants in search of work was from the metropolitan and the non-agricultural gubernias.** If we take the 11 non-agricultural gubernias which we com bined above (part 2 of this section) into a single area, and which non-agricultural workers leave in large numbers, we shall see that these gubernias in 1885 contained only 18.7% of the population of all European Russia (in 1897 -- 18.3%), whereas they accounted for 42.9% of the passport revenue in 1885 (in 1891 -- 40.7%).*** Non-agricultural workers are provided by very many other gubernias, and we must there fore conclude that agricultural workers constitute less than half of the migrants. Mr. Vesin divides 38 gubernias of European Russia (which account for 90% of the departure
page 574
permits) into groups according to the different types of migration that predominate, and obtains the following results.[*]
Groups of gubernias |
No. of departure permits |
Population |
Permits | ||
Passports |
Cards |
Total | |||
I. 17 gubernias with predom- |
|
|
|
|
|
38 gubernias .
. . . |
2,092.1 |
2,140.1 |
4,232.2 |
69,169.5 |
61 |
"These figures show that industries employing migratory workers are more prevalent in the first group than in the third. . . . These figures also show that there is a
page 575
diversity in the duration of absence to secure employment corresponding to the difference in the groups. Where non-agricultural industries employing migratory workers predominate, the length of absence is much greater" (Dyelo, 1886, No. 7, p. 134).
Finally, the statistics given above for excise-paying trades, etc., enable us to classify the residential permits issued in all the 50 gubernias of European Russia. Making the indicated corrections to Mr. Vesin's classification, and distributing among these same groups the 12 gubernias for which figures are lacking for 1884 (Olonets and Pskov gubernias to group I; the 9 Baltic and North-West gubernias to group II; and Astrakhan Gubernia to group III), we get the following picture:
|
Total residential | ||
G ro u p s o f g u b e r n i a s |
1897 |
1898[*] | |
I. |
17 gubernias with predominance |
|
|
| |||
Total for 50 gubernias |
9,333,195 |
7,809,590 |
Migration for work away from home, according to these data, is much more prevalent in group I than in group III.
Thus, there can be no doubt that the mobility of the population is far greater in Russia's non-agricultural zone than in the agricultural. The number of non-agricultural migratory workers must be greater than that of the agricultural, and must be not less than three million.
The enormous and ever-increasing growth of migration is confirmed by all sources. Passport revenue increased
page 576
from 2.1 million rubles in 1868 (1.75 million rubles in 1866) to 4.5 million rubles in 1893-94, i.e., it more than doubled. The number of passports and identity cards issued increased in Moscow Gubernia between 1877 and 1885 by 20% (males) and 53% (females); in Tver Gubernia, between 1893 and 1896 by 5.6%, in Kaluga Gubernia, between 1885 and 1895 by 23% (and the number of months of absence by 26%); in Smolensk Gubernia, from 100,000 in 1875 to 117,000 in 1885 and 140,000 in 1895; in Pskov Gubernia, from 11,716 in 1865-1875 to 14,944 in 1876 and to 43,765 in 1896 (males). In Kostroma Gubernia, in 1868, 23.8 passports and cards per 100 males were issued and 0.85 per 100 females, and in 1880 -- 33.1 and 2.2. And so on and so forth.
Like the diversion of the population from agriculture to the towns, non-agricultural migration is a progressive phenomenon. It tears the population out of the neglected, backward, history-forgotten remote spots and draws them into the whirlpool of modern social life. It increases literacy among the population,* heightens their understanding,** and gives them civilised habits and requirements.***
page 577
The peasants are induced to migrate by "motives of a higher order," i.e., by the greater smartness and polish of the Petersburger; they look for places where "things are better." "Life and work in Petersburg are considered to be easier than in the country."[*] "All country-folk are called raw, and the strange thing is that they are not in the least offended at this, but refer to themselves as such and complain that their parents did not send them to St. Petersburg to study. It should be stated, however, that these raw country people are not nearly so raw as those in the purely agricultural districts; they unconsciously copy the outward appearance and the habits of the Petersburgers; the light of the metropolis falls indirectly on them."[**] In Yaroslavl Gubernia (apart from examples of people growing rich) "there is still another cause which drives everyone from his home. That is -- public opinion, which dubs a bumpkin to the end of his days anybody who has not lived in Peters burg, or somewhere else, but engages in agriculture or some handicraft, and such a man finds it hard to get a wife" (Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia, II, 118). Migration to the town elevates the peasant as a citizen, releasing him from the host of patriarchal and personal relationships of dependence and social-estate divisions so strongly entrenched in the rural districts. . . .*** "A prime factor that fosters migration is the growing sense of human dignity among the people. Liberation from serf dependence, and the long-standing association of the more active section of the rural population with town life, have long since roused the desire in the Yaroslavl peasant to uphold his 'ego,' to get away from the state of poverty and dependence to which rural life has doomed him, to a state of sufficiency, independence and respect. . . . The peasant who lives on outside earnings feels freer and more on a level of equality with people belonging to other social estates, which is why the rural
page 578
youth are so eager to go to the town" (Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia, II, 189-190).
Migration to the towns loosens the old patriarchal family ties and places women in a more independent position, on an equal footing with men. "Compared with those in the localities of no migration, the families of Soligalich and Chukhloma" (the uyezds of Kostroma Gubernia where migration is greatest) "are much less closely knit, not only in the sense of the patriarchal authority of the older, but even in the relations between parents and children, husband and wife. One cannot, of course, expect strong affection for their parents and attachment to the parental home from sons who are sent to Petersburg from the age of 12; unconsciously they become cosmopolitans: 'where it is well, there is my country.'"[*] "Accustomed to dispense with the authority and assistance of her husband, the Soligalich woman is quite unlike the downtrodden peasant woman of the agricultural zone: she is independent and self-reliant. . . . Wife-beating is a rare exception here. . . . Generally speaking, equality between women and men is to be observed almost everywhere and in all things."[**]
Last but not least,[***] non-agricultural migration raises the wages not only of the wage-workers who migrate but also of those who stay behind. This fact is most strikingly reflected in the general circumstance that the non-agricultural gubernias where wages are higher than in the agricultural gubernias, attract agricultural workers from the latter.**** Here are some interesting data for Kaluga Gubernia:
|
Monthly earnings in rubles | ||
Groups of uyezds |
of migratory male |
of migratory |
of rural worker |
I. |
38.7 |
9 |
5.9 |
page 579
"These figures fully illustrate the phenomena . . . 1) that migration for work in industry helps to raise wages in agriculture, and 2) that it attracts the best forces of the population."[*] Not only money wages, but real wages also rise. In the group of uyezds from which not fewer than 60 out of every 100 working people migrate the average wage of the farm labourer employed by the year is 69 rubles, or 123 poods of rye; in the uyezds where from 40 to 60% migrate, it is 64 rubles, or 125 poods of rye; in the uyezds which supply less than 40% of the migrants, it is 59 rubles, or 116 poods of rye.[**] In these same groups of uyezds the percentage of letters of complaint about a shortage of labour steadily drops: 58%, 42% and 35%. In manufacturing industry wages are higher than in agriculture, and "the industries, according to the statements of numerous correspondents, help to develop new requirements (tea, calico, boots, clocks, etc.) among the peasant population, raise their general standard of living, and in this way bring about a rise in wages."[***] Here is a typical view by a correspondent: "The shortage [of labour] is always acute, and the reason is that the suburban population is spoilt, it works in the railway workshops and serves on the railways. The nearness of Kaluga and its markets always attract the surrounding inhabitants, who come to sell eggs, milk, etc., and then engage in orgies of drunkenness in the taverns; the reason is that everybody wants to get the highest pay for the least work. To be an agricultural labourer is considered a disgrace : all strive to get to the town, where they swell the ranks of the proletariat and the riff-raff; the countryside, on the other hand, suffers from a shortage of capable and healthy labourers."**** We would be quite justified in describing this appraisal of industries employing migratory workers as Narodist. Mr. Zhbankov, for instance, while pointing out that those who migrate are not superfluous but "necessary" workers whose places are taken by entering peasants, considers it "obvious" that "such mutual replacements are
page 580
very disadvantageous."[*] For whom, dear Mr. Zhbankov? "Life in the capitals cultivates many civilised habits of the lower order and an inclination to luxury and showiness, and this results in a useless (sic !!) waste of money"[**], the expenditure on this showiness, etc., is largely "unproductive" (!!)[***] Mr. Hertzenstein positively howls about the "sham culture," "the riotous living," "wild carousing," "orgies of drunkenness and filthy debauchery," etc.[****] From the fact of wholesale migration the Moscow statisticians draw the outright conclusion that it is necessary to take "measures that would diminish the need for migratory labour."[(*)] Mr. Karyshev argues about migratory labour as follows: "Only an increase in the peasants' holdings to a size sufficient to provide the main (!) requirements of their families can solve this most serious problem of our national economy.[(**)]
And it does not occur to any of these serene-spirited gentlemen that before talking about "solving most serious problems," one must see to it that the peasants obtain complete freedom of movement, freedom to give up their land and leave the community, freedom to settle (without having
page 581
to pay "riddance" money) in any community, urban or rural, whatsoever!
And so the diversion of the population from agriculture is expressed, in Russia, in the growth of the towns (a growth partly obscured by home colonisation), suburbs, factory and commercial and industrial villages and townships, as well as in non-agricultural migration. All these processes, which have been and are rapidly developing in breadth and depth in the post-Reform period, are necessary components of capitalist development and are profoundly progressive as compared with the old forms of life.
In considering the development of capitalism, perhaps the greatest importance attaches to the extent to which wage-labour is employed. Capitalism is that stage in the development of commodity-production in which labour power, too, becomes a commodity. The main tendency of capitalism is to apply the sum-total of labour-power in the national economy to production only after it has been sold and has been purchased by the employers. Above, we made an attempt to show in detail how this tendency has manifested itself in post-Reform Russia; now, we must draw the necessary conclusions. Firstly, let us compute the data on the number of sellers of labour-power given in the preceding chapters and then (in the next section) describe the purchasers of labour-power.
The sellers of labour-power are provided by the country's working population engaged in the production of material values. It is estimated that this population numbers about 15.5 million adult male workers.* In Chapter II we showed
page 582
that the bottom group of the peasantry is nothing else than a rural proletariat; and we stated (p. 177, footnote) that the forms in which this proletariat sells its labour-power would be examined later. Let us now combine the categories of wage-workers previously enumerated: 1) agricultural wage-workers. These number about 3 1/2 million (in European Russia). 2) Factory, mining and railway workers -- about 1 1/2 million. Total, five million professional wage-workers. Further: 3) building workers -- about 1 million. 4) Lumber workers (tree-fellers, log trimmers, rafters, etc.), navvies, railway builders, goods loaders and unloaders, and in general all kinds of "unskilled" labourers in industrial centres. These number about 2 million.[*] 5) Workers occupied at home for capitalists, and also those working for wages in the manufacturing industries not included in "factory industry." These number about 2 million.
Total -- about ten million wage-workers. If we deduct the women and children, say one-fourth,[**] we get 7 1/2 million adult male wage-workers, i.e., about half the total adult male population that is engaged in the production of material values [***] in the country. Part of this vast mass of wage-workers have completely broken with the land, and live entirely by the sale of their labour-power. They include the great majority of factory (undoubtedly also of mining and railway) workers, then a section of the building and shipbuilding workers, and unskilled labourers; finally, a fairly large section of the workers employed in capitalist
page 583
manufactories and the inhabitants of non-agricultural centres engaged in home work for capitallsts. The other, and larger, section has not yet broken with the land, covers its expenditures in part with the produce that comes from farming tiny plots of land, and, consequently, forms the type of allotment-holding wage-worker which we attempted to describe in detail in Chapter II. In earlier remarks it was shown that this vast mass of wage-workers has been formed mainly in the post-Reform period and that it continues to grow rapidly.
It is important to note the significance of our conclusion regarding the relative surplus-population (or reserve army of unemployed) created by capitalism. The data regarding the total number of wage-workers in all branches of the national economy bring out very clearly the basic error committed by the Narodnik economists on this point. As we have had occasion to observe elsewhere (Studies, pp. 38-42),* this error lies in the fact that the Narodnik economists (Messrs. V. V., N.-on and others), who have talked a great deal about capitalism "freeing" the workers, have not thought of investigating the concrete forms of capitalist over-population in Russia; as well as in the fact that they failed completely to understand that the very existence and development of capitalism in this country require an enormous mass of reserve workers. By means of paltry phrases and curious calculations as to the number of "factory" workers,** they have transformed one of the basic conditions for the development of capitalism into proof
page 584
that capitalism is impossible, is an error, is devoid of foundation, etc. Actually, however, Russian capitalism could never have developed to its present level, could not have survived a single year, had the expropriation of the small producers not created an army of many millions of wage-workers ready at the first call to satisfy the maximum demand of the employers in agriculture, lumbering, building, commerce and in the manufacturing, mining, and transport industries, etc. We say the maximum demand, because capitalism can only develop spasmodically, and consequently, the number of producers who need to sell their labour-power must always exceed capitalism's average demand for workers. We have now estimated the total number of the various categories of wage-workers, but in doing so do not wish to say that capitalism is in a position to give regular employment to them all. There is not, nor can there be, such regularity of employment in capitalist society, whichever category of wage-worker we take. Of the millions of migratory and resident workers a certain section is constantly in the reserve army of unemployed, and this reserve army now swells to enormous dimensions -- in years of crisis, or if there is a slump in some industry in a particular district, or if there is a particularly rapid extension of machine production, which displaces workers -- and now shrinks to a minimum, even causing that "shortage" of labour which is often the subject of complaint by employers in some industries, in some years, in some parts of the country. It is impossible to determine even approximately the number of unemployed in an average year, owing to the complete absence of anything like reliable statistics; but there is no doubt that the number must be a very large one, as is evidenced by both the tremendous fluctuations in capitalist industry, trade and agriculture, to which repeated reference was made above, and by the usual deficits in the budgets of the bottom-group peasants recorded by Zemstvo statistics. The increase in the number of peasants thrown into the ranks of the industrial and rural proletariat, and the increase in the demand for wage-labour, are two sides of one medal. As for the forms of wage-labour, they are extremely diverse in n capitalist society still everywhere enmeshed in survivals and institutions of the pre-
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capitalist regime. It is a profound error to ignore this diversity of forms, and that is the error of those who, like Mr. V. V., argue that capitalism has "fenced off a corner for itself with some one to one-and-a-half million workers and never emerges from it."[*] Here we have large-scale machine industry instead of capitalism. But how arbitrarily and how artificially are these million and a half workers fenced off into a special "corner" that is supposedly in no way connected with the remaining spheres of wage-labour! As a matter of fact, the connection is a very close one, and it will be sufficient, in order to characterise it, to mention two basic features of the present economic system. Firstly, this system is based on money economy. The "power of money" manifests itself in full force in both industry and agriculture, in both town and country, but it reaches its full development, completely eliminates the remnants of patriarchal economy, is concentrated in a few gigantic institutions (banks) and is directly connected with large-scale social production only in the sphere of large-scale machine industry. Secondly, the economic system of today is based on the purchase and sale of labour-power. If we take even the smallest producers in agriculture or in industry, we will find that the one who does not hire himself out, or himself hire others, is the exception. But here again, these relationships reach full development and become completely separated from previous forms of economy only in large scale machine industry. Hence, the "corner" which seems so small to some Narodnik actually embodies the quintessence of modern social relationships, and the population of this "corner," i.e., the proletariat, is, in the literal sense of the word, the vanguard of the whole mass of toilers and exploited.**
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Therefore, only by examining the whole of the present economic system from the angle of the relationships that have grown up in this "corner" can one become clear about the main relations between the various groups of persons taking part in production, and, consequently, trace the system's main trend of development. On the other hand, whoever turns his back on this "corner" and examines economic phenomena from the angle of petty patriarchal production, is turned by the march of history into either an innocent dreamer or an ideologist of the petty bourgeoisie and the agrarians.
To sum up the data given earlier on this problem we shall confine ourselves to the picture of the movement of workers over the territory of European Russia. Such a picture is supplied by the Department of Agriculture's publication* based on statements by employers. The picture of the movement of workers will give a general idea of how the home market for labour-power is being formed; using the material of the publication mentioned, we have only tried to draw a distinction between the movement of agricultural and non-agricultural workers, although tha map appended to the publication and illustrating the movement of the workers does not show this distinction. The main movements of agricultural workers are the following: 1) From the central agricultural gubernias to
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the southern and eastern outer regions. 2) From the northern black-earth gubernias to the southern black-earth gubernias, from which, in turn, the workers go to the border regions (cf. Chapter III, § IX, pp. 237-238 and § X, pp. 242-243). 3) From the central agricultural gubernias to the industrial gubernias (cf. Chapter IV, § IV, pp. 270-271). 4) From the central and the south-western agricultural gubernias to the area of sugar-beet plantations (workers come in part to these places even from Galicia).
The main movements of non-agricultural workers are: 1) To the metropolitan cities and the large towns, chiefly from the non-agricultural gubernias, but to a considerable degree also from the agricultural gubernias. 2) To the industrial area, to the factories of Vladimir, Yaroslavl and other gubernias from the same localities. 3) To new centres of industry or to new branches of industry, to centres of non-factory industry, etc. These include the movement: a) to the beet-sugar refineries of the south-western gubernias; b) to the southern mining area; c) to jobs at the docks (Odessa, Rostov-on-Don, Riga, etc.); d) to the peat beds in Vladimir and other gubernias; e) to the mining and metallurgical area of the Urals; f) to the fisheries (Astrakhan, the Black Sea, Azov Sea, etc.); g) to shipbuilding, sailoring, lumbering and rafting jobs, etc.; h) to jobs on the railways, etc.
These are the main movements of the workers which, according to the evidence of employers, more or less materially affect the conditions of labour hire in the various localities. To appreciate more clearly the significance of these movements, let us compare them with the data on wages in the various districts from and to which the workers migrate. Confining ourselves to 28 gubernias in European Russia, we divide these into 6 groups according to the character of the movement of workers, and get the following data:*
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Groups of gubernia |
Average wages for 10 years (1881-1891) |
Extent of movement of workers | |||||||
of annual |
Money |
of |
of day |
Agricultural |
Non-agricultural | ||||
With- |
Includ- | ||||||||
Influx |
Departure |
Influx | |||||||
Rubles |
Rubles |
Kopeks | |||||||
1. Huge agricultural |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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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
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has been said above on the formation of a home market for capitalist society. The home market for capitalism is created by the parallel development of capitalism in agriculture and in industry,[*] by the formation of a class of rural and industrial employers, on the one hand, and of a class of rural and industrial wage-workers, on the other. The main streams of the movement of workers show the main forms of this process, but by far not all the forms; in what has gone before we have shown that the forms of this process differ in peasant and in landlord farming, in the different areas of commercial agriculture, in the different stages of the capitalist development of industry, etc.
How far this process is distorted and confused by the representatives of Narodnik economics is seen most clearly in § VI of Part 2 of Mr. N.-on's Sketches, which bears the significant heading: "The Influence of the Redistribution of the Social Productive Forces upon the Economic Position of the Agricultural Population." Here is how Mr. N.-on pictures this "redistribution": ". . . In capitalist . . . society, every increase in the productive power of labour entails the 'freeing' of a corresponding number of workers, who are compelled to seek some other employment; and since this occurs in all branches of production, and this 'freeing' takes place over the whole of capitalist society, the only thing left open to them is to turn to the means of production of which they have not yet been deprived, namely, the land" (p. 126). . . . "Our peasants have not been deprived of the land, and that is why they turn their efforts towards it. When they lose their employment in the factory, or are obliged to abandon their subsidiary domestic occupations, they see no other course but to set about the increased exploitation of the soil. AIl Zemstvo statistical returns
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note the fact that the area under cultivation is growing. . ." (128).
As you see, Mr. N.-on knows of quite a special sort of capitalism that has never existed anywhere and that no economist could conceive of. Mr. N.-on's capitalism does not divert the population from agriculture to industry, does not divide the agriculturists into opposite classes. Quite the contrary. Capitalism "frees" the workers from industry and there is nothing left for "them" to do but to turn to the land, for "our peasants have not been deprived of the land"!! At the bottom of this "theory," which originally "redistributes" in poetic disorder all the processes of capitalist development, lie the ingenious tricks of all Narodniks which we have examined in detail previously: they lump together the peasant bourgeoisie and the rural proletariat; they ignore the growth of commercial farming; they concoct stories about "people's" "handicraft industries" being isolated from "capitalist" "factory industry," instead of analysing the consecutive forms and diverse manifestations of capitalism in industry.
In Chapter I we pointed to the erroneous character of the theory that links the problem of a foreign market for capitalism with that of the realisation of the product (pp. 64-65 and foll.). Capitalism's need of a foreign market is by no means to be explained by the impossibility of realising the product on the home market, but by the circumstance that capitalism is in no position to go on repeating the same processes of production on the former scale, under unchanging conditions (as was the case under pre-capitalist regimes), and that it inevitably leads to an unlimited growth of production which overflows the old, narrow limits of earlier economic units. With the unevenness of development inherent in capitalism, one branch of production outstrips the others and strives to transcend the bounds of the old field of economic relations. Let us take, for example, the textile industry at the beginning of the post-Reform period. Being fairly
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well developed capitalistically (manufacture beginning to pass into factory industry), it had gained complete command of the market of Central Russia. But the big factories, growing so rapidly, could no longer be satisfied with the former dimensions of the market; they began to seek a market further afield, among the new population colonising Novorossia, the south-east Transvolga region, North Caucasus, then Siberia, etc. The efforts of the big factories to reach out beyond the old markets are undoubted. Does it mean that the areas which served as these old markets could not, in general, consume a larger quantity of the products of the textile industry? Does it mean, for example, that the industrial and central agricultural gubernias cannot, in general, absorb a larger quantity of wares? No, it does not. We know that the differentiation of the peasantry, the growth of commercial agriculture and the increase in the industrial population have also expanded, and continue to expand, the home market of this old area. But this expansion of the home market is retarded by many factors (chief among them the retention of obsolete institutions which hinder the development of agricultural capitalism); and the factory owners will not, of course, wait until the capltalist development of other branches of the national economy catches up with that of the textile industry. The mill owners need a market at once, and if the backwardness of other branches of the national economy restricts the market in the old area, they will seek for a market in another area, or in other countries, or in the colonies of the old country.
What is a colony in the politico-economic sense? It was stated above that, according to Marx, the main features of this concept are the following: 1) the existence of unoccupied, free lands, easily accessible to settlers; 2) the existence of an established world division of labour, of a world market, thanks to which the colonies can specialise in the mass production of agricultural produce, receiving in exchange finished industrial goods "which they would have to produce themselves under other circumstances" (see above, p. 258, footnote, Chapter IV, § II). Reference has been made elsewhere to the fact that the southern and the eastern border regions of European Russia, which have been settled in the post-Reform period, bear the
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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-
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sian market. Russian capitalism has thus been drawing the Caucasus into the sphere of world commodity circulation, obliterating its local peculiarities -- the remnants of ancient patriarchal isolation -- and providing itself with a market for its factories. A country thinly populated at the beginning of the post-Reform period, or populated by mountaineers living outside world economy and even outside history, has been turning into a land of oil industrialists, wine merchants, big wheat and tobacco growers, and Mr. Coupon[165] has been ruthlessly divesting the proud mountaineer of his picturesque national costume and dressing him in the livery of a European flunkey (Gleb Uspensky).[166] The process of rapid colonisation in the Caucasus and of the rapid growth of its agricultural population has been accompanied by a process (obscured by this growth) of the diversion of the population from agriculture to industry. The urban population of the Caucasus increased from 350,000 in 1863 to about 900,000 in 1897 (the total population increased between 1851 and 1897 by 95%). There is no need to add that the same thing has taken place and continues in both Central Asia and Siberia, etc.
Thus, the question naturally arises, where is the border line between the home and the foreign market? To take the political boundaries of the state would be too mechanical a solution -- and would it be a solution? If Central Asia is the home market and Persia the foreign market, to which category do Khiva and Bokhara belong? If Siberia is the home market and China the foreign market, to which category does Manchuria belong? Such questions are not of great importance. What is important is that capitalism cannot exist and develop without constantly expanding the sphere of its domination, without colonising new countries and drawing old non-capitalist countries into the whirlpool of world economy. And this feature of capitalism has been and continues to be manifested with tremendous force in post-Reform Russia.
Hence, the process of the formation of a market for capitalism has two aspects, namely, the development of capitalism in depth, i.e., the further growth of capitalist agriculture and industry in the given, definite and enclosed territory -- and the development of capitalism in breadth,
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i.e., the extension of the sphere of the capitalist domination to new territory. In accordance with the plan of the present work, we have confined ourselves almost exclusively to the first aspect of the process, and for this reason we consider it particular]y necessary to stress the point here that its other aspect is of exceptionally great importance. Anything like a complete study of the process of colonisation of the border regions and of the expansion of Russian territory, from the point of view of capitalist development, would require a special work. Suffice it to mention here that Russia is in a particularly favoured position as compared with other capitalist countries, due to the abundance of free land accessible for colonisation in her border regions.* To say nothing of Asiatic Russia we have also in European Russia border regions which, because of their exceeding remoteness and bad means of communication, are still very poorly connected economically with central Russia. Let us take, for instance, the "Far North" -- Archangel Gubernia; the boundless stretches of territory and their natural resources are still exploited very slightly. One of the principal local products, timber, was until recently exported mainly to England. In this respect, therefore, that part of European Russia was a foreign market for Britain without being a home market for Russia. The Russian entre-
page 596
preneurs naturally envied the British, and now, with the extension of the railway line to Archangel, they are jubilant at the prospect of "elevated moods and business activity in various branches of industry in the region."[*]
We still have, in conclusion, to sum up on the question which in literature has come to be known as that of the "mission" of capitalism, i.e., of its historical role in the economic development of Russia. Recognition of the progressiveness of this role is quite compatible (as we have tried to show in detail at every stage in our exposition of the facts) with the full recognition of the negative and dark sides of capitalism, with the full recognition of the profound and all-round social contradictions which are inevitably inherent in capitalism, and which reveal the historically transient character of this economic regime. It is the Narodniks -- who exert every effort to show that an admission of the historically progressive nature of capitalism means an apology for capitalism -- who are at fault in underrating (and some times in even ignoring) the most profound contradictions of Russian capitalism, by glossing over the differentiation of the peasantry, the capitalist character of the evolution of our agriculture, and the rise of a class of rural and industrial allotment-holding wage-labourers, by glossing over the complete predominance of the lowest and worst forms of capitalism in the celebrated "handicraft" industries.
The progressive historical role of capitalism may be summed up in two brief propositions: increase in the productive forces of social labour, and the socialisation of that labour. But both these facts manifest themselves in extremely diverse processes in different branches of the national economy.
The development of the productive forces of social labour is to be observed in full relief only in the epoch of large-scale machine industry. Until that highest stage of capitalism was reached, there still remained hand production and primitive technique, which developed quite spontaneously and exceedingly slowly. The post-Reform epoch differs radi-
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cally in this respect from previous epochs in Russian history. The Russia of the wooden plough and the flail, of the water-mill and the hand-loom, began rapidly to be transformed into the Russia of the iron plough and the threshing machine, of the steam-mill and the power-loom. An equally thorough transformation of technique is seen in every branch of the national economy where capitalist production predominates. This process of transformation must, by the very nature of capitalism, take place in the midst of much that is uneven and disproportionate: periods of prosperity alternate with periods of crisis, the development of one industry leads to the decline of another, there is progress in one aspect of agriculture in one area and in another aspect in another area, the growth of trade and industry outstrips the growth of agriculture, etc. A large number of errors made by Narodnik writers spring from their efforts to prove that this disproportionate, spasmodic, feverish development is not development.*
Another feature of the development by capitalism of the social productive forces is that the growth of the means of production (productive consumption) outstrips by far the growth of personal consumption: we have indicated on more than one occasion how this is manifested in agriculture and in industry. This feature springs from the general
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laws of the realisation of the product in capitalist society, and fully conforms to the antagonistic nature of this society.[*]
The socialisation of labour by capitalism is manifested in the following processes. Firstly, the very growth of commodity-production destroys the scattered condition of small economic units that is characteristic of natural economy and draws together the small local markets into an enormous national (and then world) market. Production for oneself is transformed into production for the whole of society; and the greater the development of capitalism, the stronger becomes the contradiction between this collective character of production and the individual character of appropriation. Secondly, capitalism replaces the former scattered production by an unprecedented concentration both in agriculture and in industry. That is the most striking and outstanding, but not the only, manifestation of the feature of capitalism under review. Thirdly, capitalism eliminates the forms of personal dependence that constituted an inalienable component of preceding systems of economy. In Russia, the progressive character of capitalism in this respect is particularly marked, since the personal dependence of the producer existed in our country (and partly continues to exist to this day), not only in agriculture, but in manufacturing industry ("factories" employing serf labour), in the mining and metallurgical industries, in the fishing industry,
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etc.[*] Compared with the labour of the dependent or bonded peasant, the labour of the hired worker is progressive in all branches of the national economy. Fourthly, capitalism necessarily creates mobility of the population, something not required by previous systems of social economy and impossible under them on anything like a large scale. Fifthly, capitalism constantly reduces the proportion of the population engaged in agriculture (where the most backward forms of social and economic relationships always prevail), and increases the number of large industrial centres. Sixthly, capitalist society increases the population's need for association, for organisation, and lends these organisations a character distinct from those of former times. While breaking down the narrow, local, social-estate associations of medieval society and creating fierce competition, capitalism at the same time splits the whole of society into large groups of persons occupying different positions in production, and gives a tremendous impetus to organisation within each such group.[**] Seventhly, all the above-mentioned changes effected in the old economic system by capitalism inevitably lead also to a change in the mentality of the population. The spasmodic character of economic development, the rapid transformation of the methods of production and the enormous concentration of production, the disappearance of all forms of personal dependence and patriarchalism in relationships, the mobility of the population, the influence of the big industrial centres, etc. -- all this cannot but lead to a profound change in the very character of the producers,
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and we have had occasion to note the corresponding observations of Russian investigators.
Turning now to Narodnik economics, with whose representatives we have constantly had to polemise, we may sum up the causes of our differences with them as follows. First, we cannot but regard as absolutely wrong the Narodniks' very conception of the process of capitalist development in Russia, and their notion of the system of economic relationships that preceded capitalism in Russia; and what is particularly important, from our point of view, is their ignoring of the capitalist contradictions in the structure of peasant economy (both agricultural and industrial). Furthermore, whether the development of capitalism in Russia is slow or rapid, depends entirely on what we compare this development with. If we compare the pre-capitalist epoch in Russia with the capitalist (and that is the comparison which is needed for arriving at a correct solution of the problem), the development of social economy under capitalism must be considered as extremely rapid. If, however, we compare the present rapidity of development with that which could be achieved with the general level of technique and culture as it is today, the present rate of development of capitalism in Russia really must be considered as slow. And it cannot but be slow, for in no single capitalist country has there been such an abundant survival of ancient institutions that are incompatible with capitalism, retard its development, and immeasurably worsen the condition of the producers, who "suffer not only from the development of capitalist production, but also from the incompleteness of that development.[168] Finally, perhaps the profoundest cause of disagreement with the Narodniks is the difference in our fundamental views on social and economic processes. When studying the latter, the Narodnik usually draws conclusions that point to some moral; he does not regard the diverse groups of persons taking part in production as creators of various forms of life; he does not set out to present the sum-total of social and economic relationships as the result of the mutual relations between these groups, which have different interests and different historical roles. . . . If the writer of these lines has succeeded in providing some material for clarifying these problems, he may regard his labours as not having been fruitless.
Notes for |
page 655
[148] To characterise the development of large-scale industry in tsarist Russia in the post-Reform period Lenin examined the material contained in numerous factory statistical sources of that period (statistical returns, monographs and works of research, official reference books, magazine and newspaper reports, papers, etc.). Lenin's work of checking, processing, combining and scientifically grouping statistical data is shown in the notes he made in various books and from other material published in section 2 of Lenin Miscellany XXXIII. For Lenin's estimation of the main sources of factory statistics see also his article "On the Question of Our Factory Statistics." (See present edition, Vol. 4.) [p.454]
[149] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 474. [p.454]
[150] The "landlord establishment of a manorial-possessional character " was a feudal manorial manufactory belonging to a landlord and
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employing his serf-peasants. By a decree of Peter I issued in 1721, merchant factory owners were permitted to purchase peasants for work in their factories. The feudal workers attached to such enterprises were called "possessional peasants." [p.470]
[151] Lenin refers to Material for the Statistics of Krasnoufimsk Uyezd, Perm Gubernia, Vol. V, Pt. 1 (Zavodsky district), Kazan, 1894, on p. 65 of which there is a table headed "Information on a team of workers bound by debt to their jobs in the shops of the Arta works in 1892." [p.486]
[152] Lenin quotes here The Mining and Metallurgical Industry of Russia. Published by the Department of Mines. International Columbia Exhibition, 1893, in Chicago, St. Petersburg, 1893, p. 52. [p.488]
[153] In the first edition of The Development of Capitalism in Russia the table contained the figures for the years 1890 and 1896. In the second edition these figures were omitted. Furthermore, the figures for 1897 differed somewhat from those for the same year cited in the second edition. The corresponding part of the table as it appeared in the first edition was as follows:
1890 |
56,560 |
100 |
28,174 |
49.7 |
13,418 |
23.7 |
367.2 |
The figures for 1897 given in the first edition had a footnote, also omitted in the second edition, stating: -- "In 1898 the pig iron output in the Empire is estimated at 133 million poods, of which 60 million poods were produced in the South and 43 million poods in the Urals (Russkiye Vedomosti [Russian Gazette ], 1899, No. 1)." [p.489]
[154] Lenin supplemented this table later with the corresponding figures for 1908 (see illustration on p. 513). The data entered by Lenin were taken from Collection of Factory Inspectors' Reports for 1908 (no. 50-51), published in 1910. Consequently. Lenin's entries were made either in 1910 or in 1911. [p.512]
[155] Boatmen -- workers who towed river craft by rope, or rowed them. [p.528]
[156] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 642. [p.529]
[157] While in exile in the village of Shushenskoye, Lenin, assisted by Krupskaya, translated volume one and edited the translation of volume two of The History of Trade Unionism, by Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Volume one of the Webbs' book "translated from the English by Vladimir Ilyin" (i.e., Lenin) was published in St. Petersburg in 1900 by O. N. Popova. Volume two appeared in 1901. [p.531]
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[158] The "Khludov Factory," the property of the brothers A. and G. Khludov was situated in the town of Yegoryovsk Ryazan Gubernia. The firm's full title was: "Yegoryevsk Cotton-Spinning Factory Co., A. and G. Khludov." The bracketed data (showing the number of workers and the value of output) given in Lenin's footnote were taken from the List of Factories, St. Petersburg, 1897, Issue No. 763. [p.534]
[159] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 747-749. [p.536]
[160] Last -- a term used on Russian merchant ships: equalled two tons. [p.554]
[161] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 622. [p.562]
[162] In the 1890s Russkaya Mysl was a liberal publication and Russky Vestnik, a magazine expressing the reactionary view. [p.580]
[163] Sobakevich-- a character in Gogol's Dead Souls, the personification of the bullying, tight-fisted landlord. [p.589]
[164] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, Chapter 30 (p. 745). [p.590]
[165] Mr. Coupon -- a term adopted in the 1880s and 1890s to indicate capital and capitalists. The expression "Mr. Coupon" was put in circulation by the writer Gleb Uspensky in his articles "Grave Sins." [p.594]
[166] See Gleb Uspensky's article "In the Caucasus." Works, Vol. II, 1918. [p.594]
[167] Pokrut -- the form of economic relations that existed among members of artels engaged in hunting sea animals or fishing in the north of Russia; the means of production in the artel belonged to an employer to whom the workers were in bondage. The employer usually received two-thirds of the catch, and the workers only one-third. The workers were compelled to sell part of their catch to the employer at a low price, payment being made in goods, which was very much to the disaavantage of the workers. [p.599]
[168] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 9. [p.600]