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    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

 
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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.

    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

 
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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

    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

 
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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

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):

    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

 
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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):

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.

    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 number 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

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 large-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.

 
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    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 capitalist 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

(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-possessional 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

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

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":[**]

    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 workroom 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

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,

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.[***]

    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

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 considerable, and the productivity of labour in the large establishments far above the average.[*]

    The ceramic trades fall into two categories in accordance 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 remarkable 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 establishments, 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

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

 
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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,

 
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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.[****]

    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

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-

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:

    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 formerly 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

    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.**

 
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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

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

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]:

    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 output 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

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

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

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

showed 380,638 factory workers in all trades except distilling, brewing, beet-sugar and tobacco.[*] To determine the number of workers in these trades, we have to take the only data available, those of the Military Statistical Abstract, which, as has been shown above, must 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,

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 .[****]

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 workers 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

engaged in manufacturing industry was 341,991, distributed as follows:[*]

    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):

    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

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;

    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

 
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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:

    Comparing the data on the large factories with those on all "factories and works" given in our of official statistics,

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.[**]

    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.[*]

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

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 accurate 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

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.**

    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.

    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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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

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.

    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,

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 figure 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).(*)

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 industrialists.[*] 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

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

 
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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

    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

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 Tver 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

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.

    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 belong 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

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

    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,

 
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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.***

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

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

    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

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 handicraftsman.(**) 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.****

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.

 
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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

 
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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.*

 
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    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

 
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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 poorly 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 Bronnitsi 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 commercial ties 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,

    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

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):[***]

    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:***

    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.

    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.

 
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    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 considerable, 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

    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 percentage 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.

    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

 
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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

 
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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.

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.**