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most important laws of the history of civilisation" (sic! p. 18). "The entire history of the nineteenth century . . . with its problems of riches and poverty would be unintelligible without this law." "I have not the least doubt that the social question as it is posed today is materially linked with this law." (Our strict scientist hastens to make this declaration on page 18 of his "Inquiry"!) . . . "There is no doubt," he declares at the end of his work, "that where over-population exists, a certain part of the poverty that prevails must be put under the heading of absolute poverty, the poverty of production and not of distribution" (II, 221). "The population problem, in the special form in which it presents itself to us as a result of the conditions of agricultural production, is, in my opinion, the principal obstacle -- at the present time at any rate -- in the way of any extensive application of the principles of collectivism or co-operation in agricultural enterprise" (II, 265). "The past leaves to the future a heritage in the shape of a grain problem more terrible and more difficult than the social problem -- the problem of production and not of distribution" (II, 455), and so on and so forth. There is no need for us to discuss the scientific significance of this "theory", which is inseparably connected with the universal law of diminishing returns, since we have already examined this law. The fact that critical flirtation with Malthusianism in its logical development has inevitably resulted in a descent to the most vulgar bourgeois apologetics is proved by the above-quoted arguments, which Mr. Bulgakov has presented with a frankness that leaves nothing to be desired.
    In a further essay we shall examine data from several new sources cited by our Critics (who constantly din into our ears that orthodox Marxists fear specification) and show that Mr. Bulgakov generally stereotypes the word "over population", the use of which relieves him of the necessity of making any kind of analysis, particularly of analysing the class antagonisms among the "peasantry". Here we shall confine ourselves to the general theoretical aspect of the agrarian question and touch on the theory of rent. "As for Marx," writes Mr. Bulgakov, "we must say that in Volume III of Capital, in the form in which we have it now, he adds nothing worthy of attention to Ricardo's theory of differ-

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ential rent" (87). Let us bear this "nothing worthy of attention" in mind and compare the Critic's verdict with the following statement made by him previously: "Notwithstanding his obvious opposition to this law [the law of diminishing returns], Marx appropriates, in its fundamental principles, Ricardo's theory of rent, which is based on this law" (13). Thus, according to Mr. Bulgakov, Marx failed to see the connection between Ricardo's theory of rent and the law of diminishing returns, and therefore he never carried his argument to its logical conclusion! In regard to such a statement we can say but one thing -- that no one distorts Marx to the degree that the ex-Marxists do and no one is so incredibly un. . . un. . . unabashed in ascribing to the writer he is criticising a thousand and one mortal sins.
    Mr. Bulgakov's assertion is a glaring distortion of the truth. Actually, Marx not only saw the connection between Ricardo's theory of rent and his erroneous doctrine of diminishing returns, but quite definitely exposed Ricardo's error. Anyone who has read Volume III of Capital with even a grain of "attention" could not but have observed the fact, very much "worthy of attention", that it was precisely Marx who freed the theory of differential rent from all connection with the notorious "law of diminishing returns". Marx demonstrated that the unequal productivity of different investments of capital in land was all that was necessary for the formation of differential rent. The question as to whether the transition is from better land to worse land or vice versa, as to whether the productivity of the additional investments of capital in land diminishes or increases, is absolutely immaterial. In actual practice, all sorts of combinations of these varying cases take place; and it is utterly impossible to subject these combinations to a single general rule. For example, Marx first of all describes the first form of differential rent, which arises from the unequal productivity of capital invested in unequal plots of land, and he explains his case by tables (concerning which Mr. Bulgakov severely rebukes Marx for his "excessive predilection for clothing what are often very simple thoughts in a complicated mathematical garb". This complicated mathematical garb is simply the four rules of arithmetic, and the very simple ideas, as we see, were completely mis-

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(I, 105). This contrasting of a "material thing" to a "concept" is a striking example of the scholasticism which is now so freely offered in the guise of "criticism". What would be the use of a "concept" of the share of the social product if there were not definite "material things" corresponding to that concept? Surplus-value is the money equivalent of the surplus product, which consists of a definite share of cloth, cotton, grain, and of all other commodities (the word "definite" must not, of course, be understood in the sense that science can concretely define that share, but in the sense that the conditions which, in general outline, define the dimensions of this share are known). In agriculture, the surplus product is larger (in proportion to the capital) than in other branches of industry, and this surplus (which does not enter into the equalisation of profit owing to the monopoly of private property in land) may, naturally, "suffice or not suffice to cover the demand" of the monopolist landowner.
    We shall not burden the reader with a detailed exposition of the theory of rent which Mr. Bulgakov has created, as he modestly remarks, "by his own efforts", "pursuing his own path" (I, 111). A few remarks will suffice to characterise this product of the "last and least productive investment" of professorial "effort". The "new" theory of rent is brewed ascording to the ancient recipe: "What is worth doing at all is worth doing thoroughly". Since free competition exists, then without any restrictions (although absolutely free competition has nowhere and at no time existed). Since monopoly exists, there is nothing more to be said. Consequently, rent is not taken from surplus-value, and not even from the agricultural product; it is taken from the product of non-agricultural labour; it is simply a tribute, a tax, a deduction from the total social product, a promissory note in favour of the landlord. "Agricultural capital, with its profit, and agricultural labour, agriculture in general as a sphere of investment for capital and labour, are therefore a status in statu* in the kingdom of capitalism. . . . All [sic!] definitions of capital, surplus-value, wages, and value generally are imaginary quantities when applied to agriculture" (I, 99).

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    So, now everything is clear: both capitalists and wage-workers in agriculture are imaginary quantities. But if Mr. Bulgakov at times wanders into the clouds, he, at others, argues not altogether irrationally. Fourteen pages farther on we read: "The production of agricultural products costs society a certain quantity of labour; that is the value of these products." Excellent. Consequently, at least the "definition" of value is not altogether an imaginary quantity. Farther we read: "Since production is organised on a capitalist basis, and since capital stands at the head of production, the price of grain will be determined by the price of production, that is, the productivity of the given labour and capital invested will be calculated according to average social productivity." Fine! Consequently, the "definitions" of capital, surplus-value, and wages are not altogether imaginary quantities. Consequently, free competition (although not absolutely free) exists; for unless capital could flow from agriculture into industry and vice versa, "the calculation of productivity according to average social productivity" would be impossible. Again: "The monopoly in land causes price to rise above value to the limits permitted by market conditions." Excellent! But where has Mr. Bulgakov seen that tribute, taxes, promissory notes, etc., are dependent upon market conditions? If the monopoly causes price to rise to the limits permitted by market conditions, then the only difference between the "new" theory of rent and the "old" is this: the author, pursuing "his own path", failed to understand the difference between the influence of the limitedness of land and the influence of private property in land, on the one hand, and the connection between the concept "monopoly" and the concept "the last and least productive investment of labour and capital", on the other. Is it surprising, therefore, that seven pages farther on (I, 120) Mr. Bulgakov should completely lose sight of "his own" theory and argue about the "method of distributing this [agricultural] product among the landowner, the capitalist farmer, and the agricultural labourers"? A brilliant finale to a brilliant criticism! A remarkable outcome of the new Bulgakov theory of rent, which, henceforth, will enrich the science of political economy!

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tailed analysis of the data relating to each special type of machine as published in agricultural literature and of his own findings obtained in a special inquiry, Bensing arrives at the following general conclusion: the increase in gross income obtained by the use of a steam plough is ten per cent, of a seed-drill ten per cent, and of a threshing-machine fifteen per cent; moreover, the seed-drill causes a saving of twenty per cent in seed; only the use of potato-digging machines shows a decline of five per cent in gross income. Mr. Bul gakov's assertion that "at all events, the steam plough is the only agricultural machine about which anything favourable can be said from the technical point of view" (I, 47-48) is at all events refuted by the very Bensing to whom incautious Mr. Bulgakov here refers.
    In order to present the significance of machinery in agriculture as precisely and completely as possible, Bensing makes a number of detailed calculations of the results of farming carried on without machinery, with one machine, with two machines, and so forth, and, finally, with the use of all the important machines, including the steam plough and light railways (Feldbahnen). He found that in farming without the aid of machinery gross income amounted to 69,040 marks -- expenditure, 68,615 marks, net income, 425 marks, or 1.37 marks per hectare. In farming that made use of all the important machines gross income amounted to 81,078 marks -- expenditure, 62,551.5 marks, net income, 18,526.5 marks, or 59.76 marks per hectare, i.e., more than forty times as much as in the first case. That is the effect of machinery alone, for the system of cultivation is assumed to have remained unchanged. It goes without saying that the use of machinery is accompanied, as Bensing's calculations show, by an enormous increase in constant capital and a diminution in variable capital (i.e., in the capital expended on labour-power and in the number of workers employed). In short, Bensing's work entirely refutes Mr. Bulgakov and proves the superiority of large-scale production in agriculture, as well as the fact that the law of the growth of constant capital at the expense of variable capital is applicable to agriculture.
    Only one thing makes Mr. Bulgakov akin to Bensing, and that is that the latter adopts the purely bourgeois point of

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    Confirmation indeed of the statement of David and Hertz that seeding-machines and mowers are "frequently" found "even on very small farms"! And if Hertz draws the "conclusion" that, "judged by statistics, Kautsky's assertion will not stand criticism", who is it that really employs feuilleton methods?
    It should be pointed out as a curiosity that whereas the "Critics" deny the superiority of large-scale farming in regard to the use of machinery and deny the overwork and under-consumption caused by this fact in small farming, they outrageously contradict themselves when compelled to deal with the actual facts of the situation (and when they forget their "principal task" -- to refute "orthodox" Marxism). Thus, in Volume II of his book (p. 115) Mr. Bulgakov says: "Large-scale farming always works with greater capital intensity than small-scale farming, and therefore, naturally, gives preference to the mechanical factors of production over live labour-power." That Mr. Bulgakov as a"Critic" should follow Messrs. Struve and Tugan-Baranovsky in their inclination towards vulgar political economy by contrasting mechanical "factors of production" to live factors is indeed quite "natural". But is it natural that he should so incautiously deny the superiority of large-scale farming?
    On concentration in agricultural production Mr. Bulgakov can find no other words with which to express himself than "the mystical law of concentration", and so forth. But he comes up against the figures for England, and they show that a tendency towards the concentration of farms was

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observed from the fifties to the end of the seventies. "Small subsistence farms combined into larger farms," writes Mr. Bulgakov. "This consolidation of land was by no means the result of the conflict between large-scale and small-scale production [?] but of a conscious [?!] striving on the part of the landlords to increase their rents by combining several small farms which provided them with very low rents into large farms capable of paying them larger rents" (I, 239). We are to understand from this: Not conflict between large-scale and small-scale farming, but the elimination of the latter, because it is less remunerative. "Since farming is established on a capitalist basis, it is indisputable that within certain limits large-scale capitalist farming possesses undoubted advantages over small-scale capitalist farming" (I, 239-40). If this is indisputable, why the clamour? Why did Mr. Bulgakov cry murder (in Nachalo) against Kautsky, who begins his chapter on large-scale and small-scale production (in his Agrarian Question) with the statement: "The more capitalistic agriculture becomes, the more qualitative becomes the difference in technique between large-scale and small-scale production"?
    But not only the period of prosperity of English agriculture -- also the period of crisis leads to conclusions unfavourable to small-scale farming. The reports of commissions published during recent years "with astonishing persistence assert that the crisis has most severely affected the small farmers" (I, 311). One report dealing with small owners says: "Their homes are worse than the average labourers' cottages. . . . All of them work astonishingly hard and for many more hours than the labourers, and many of them say that their material conditions are not so good as those of the latter, that they do not live as well and rarely eat fresh meat. . . . The yeomen, burdened with mortgages, were the first to go under. . ." (I, 316). "They stint themselves in all things as only few labourers do. . . . The small farmers keep going as long as they are able to avail themselves of the unpaid labour of the members of their families. . . . It is hardly necessary to add that the living conditions of the small farmers are far worse than those of the labourers" (I, 320-21). We have quoted these passages so that the reader may judge the correctness of the following conclusion drawn by Mr.

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Bulgakov: "The severe ruination of the farms which had survived until the epoch of the agrarian crisis indicates merely [!!] that in such circumstances small producers succumb more quickly than large producers -- and nothing more [sic!!]. It is utterly impossible to draw from this any general conclusion concerning the economic viability of small farms, for in that epoch the whole of English agriculture was insolvent" (I, 333). Isn't this priceless? And in the chapter dealing with the general conditions of development of peasant farming, Mr. Bulgakov even generalises this remarkable method of reasoning in the following manner: "A sudden drop in prices has a serious effect on all forms of production; but peasant production, having least capital at its disposal, is naturally less stable than large-scale production (which does not in the slightest affect the question of its general viability)" (II, 247). Thus, in capitalist society, enterprises having less capital at their disposal are less stable; but that does not affect their "general" viability!
    Hertz is not more consistent in his reasoning. He "refutes" Kautsky (in the manner described above); but in discussing America he admits the superiority of large-scale farming in that country, which permits "the employment of machinery on a far larger scale than our parcellised farming permits" (S. 36, Russian translation, p. 93). He admits that "the European peasant, employing antiquated, routine methods of production, frequently toils [robotend ] for a crust of bread like a labourer, without striving for anything better" (ibid.). Hertz admits generally that "small-scale production employs a relatively larger amount of labour than large-scale production" (S. 74, Russian translation, p. 177); he could well communicate to Mr. Bulgakov the data on the increase in yield resulting from the introduction of the steam plough (S. 67-68, Russian translation, pp. 162-63), etc.
    The natural concomitant of our Critics' faulty theoretical reasoning on the signiffcance of agricultural machinery is their helpless repetition of the views of downright reaction ary agrarians who are opposed to machinery. Hertz, it is true, still hesitates on this delicate point; in speaking of the "difficulties" in the way of introducing machinery in agriculture, he observes: "The opinion is expressed that so much free time is left in the winter that hand threshing is

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winter occupation, drives them into the towns, and intensifies the depopulation of the countryside. Goltz proposes to restrict the use of the threshing-machine, and, Kautsky adds, proposes this "ostensibly in the interests of agricultural labourers, but in fact in the interests of the landlords, for whom," as Goltz himself says, "the loss resulting from such restriction will be amply compensated -- if not immediately, then in the future -- by the larger number of workers they will be able to obtain in the summer-time". "Fortunately," continues Kautsky, "this conservative friendship for the labourers is nothing more nor less than reactionary utopianism. The threshing-machine is of too great an 'immediate' advantage for the landlord to be induced to abandon its use for the sake of profits 'in the future'. And so, the thresher will continue to perform its revolutionary work; it will continue to drive the agricultural labourers into the towns, and as a result will become a powerful instrument for the raising of wages in the rural districts, on the one hand, and for the further development of the agricultural machine industry, on the other."
    Mr. Bulgakov's attitude towards the problem as presented by a Social-Democrat and by an agrarian is very characteristic; it is an example in miniature of the position all the contemporary "Critics" occupy midway between the party of the proletariat and the party of the bourgeoisie. The Critic, of course, is not so narrow-minded and not so banal as to adopt the point of view of the class struggle and the revolutionising of all social relationships by capitalism. On the other hand, however, although our Critic "has grown wiser", the recollection of the time when he was "young and foolish", and shared the prejudices of Marxism, prevents him from adopting in its entirety the programme of his new comrade, the agrarian, who quite reasonably and consistently passes from the conclusion that machinery is harmful "for the whole of agriculture" to the desire to prohibit its use. And our good Critic finds himself in the position of Buridan's ass, between two bundles of hay. On the one hand, he has lost all understanding of the class struggle and is now capable of saying that machinery is harmful for "the whole of agriculture", forgetting that the whole of modern agriculture is conducted mainly by entrepreneurs, who are concerned only

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tion. For a long time the small producer tried to counteract this superiority by the lengthened working day and curtailed consumption which are so characteristic of the handicraftsman and of the modern small peasant. The predominance of hand labour in the manufacture stage enabled the small producer to hold his own for a time by "heroic" measures such as these. But those who were deceived by this and talked about the viability of the handicraftsman (even as our contemporary Critics talk of the viability of the peasant) very soon found themselves refuted by the "temporary tendency" which paralysed the "universal law" of technological stagnation. Let us recall, for instance, the Russian investigators into the handicraft weaving industry in Moscow Gubernia in the seventies. As far as cotton weaving was concerned, they said, the hand weaver was doomed; the machine had triumphed. The handicraft silk weaver, however, may still hold his own for a time, the machinery being still far from perfect. Two decades have passed, and machinery has driven the small producer from still another of his last refuges, as if telling those who have ears to hear and eyes to see that the economist must always look forward, towards technological progress, or else be left behind at once; for he who will not look ahead turns his back on history; there is not and there cannot be any middle path.
    "Writers who, like Hertz, in treating of competition between small- and large-scale production in agriculture ignored electrical engineering, must start their investigation all over again," aptly remarked Pringsheim, which remark applies with still greater force to Mr. Bulgakov's two-volume work.
    Electricity is cheaper than steam power. It is more easily divisible into small units, it can be more easily transmitted over very long distances; machinery powered by electricity runs more smoothly and precisely, and for that reason it is more convenient to use it in threshing, ploughing, milking, cutting fodder,* etc. Kautsky describes one of the Hungar-

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not proceed in a straight line, but in zigzag fashion; however, that the employment of new methods will take place, that the revolution in agriculture is inevitable, can hardly be doubted. "The substitution of electric motors for the majority of draught animals," rightly says Pringsheim, "means opening up the possibility of the machine system in agriculture. . . . What could not be achieved by steam power will certainly be achieved by electrical engineering, namely, the advancement of agriculture from the old manufacture stage to modern large-scale production" (loc. cit., p. 414.)
    We shall not dilate upon the enormous victory the introduction of electrical engineering in agriculture will represent (and partly already represents) for large-scale production; it is too obvious to require emphasis. It will be better to see which modern farms contain the rudiments of this "machine system" that will be set in motion by a central power station. Before the machine system can be introduced, it is first of all necessary to test various kinds of machines, to conduct experiments with many combinations of machines. The information we require can be found in the returns of the German agricultural census of June 14, 1895. We have figures showing the number of farms in each category that used their own or hired machines. (Mr. Bulgakov, when citing some of these figures on page 114, Vol. II, erroneously takes them to apply to the number of machines used. In passing, it may be said that the statistics on the number of farms using machines, their own or hired, naturally bring out the superiority of large-scale farming to a smaller extent than is really the case. Big farmers have their own machines more often than small farmers, who are obliged to pay exorbitant prices for the hire of machines.) The data relate to the use either of machines in general, or of a certain kind of machine, so that we are not able to determine how many machines the farms in each group use. But if for each group we compute the number of farms using each separate kind of machine, we shall obtain the number of cases in which agricultural machines of all kinds are used. The following table presents the data drawn up in this manner and shows how the ground is being prepared for the "machine system" in agriculture.

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course, is that this meaningless attempt to include into a general concept all the partial symptoms of single phenomena, or, conversely, to "avoid conflict with extremely varied phcnomena" -- an attempt that merely reveals an elementary failure to understand what science is -- leads the "theoretician" to a point where he cannot see the wood for the trees. Thus, Hertz lost sight of such a detail as commodity production and the transformation of labour-power into a commodity! Instead, he invented the following genetic definition, which -- as punishment for the inventor -- ought to be quoted in full: Capitalism is "that state of national economy in which the realisation of the principles of free exchange and freedom of the person and of property has reached its (relative) high point which is determined by the economic development and the empirical conditions of each separate national economy" (S. 10, Russian translation, pp. 38-39, not quite exact). Filled with awe and admiration, Mr. Chernov, of course, transcribes and describes this twaddle, and, moreover, treats the readers of Russkoye Bogatstvo for the space of thirty pages to an "analysis" of the types of national capitalism. From this highly instructive analysis we can extract a number of extremely valuable and by no means stereotyped references, for example, to the "independent, proud, and energetic character of the Briton"; to the "substantial" English bourgeoisie and the "unattractiveness" of their foreign policy; to the "passionate and impulsive temper ament of the Latin race" and to the "methodicalness of the Germans" (Russkoye Bogatstvo, No. 4, p. 152). "Dogmatic" Marxism, of course, is utterly annihilated by this analysis.
    No less annihilating is Hertz' analysis of mortgage statistics. At all events, Mr. Chernov goes into ecstasies over it. "The fact is," he writes, ". . . Hertz' figures have not yet been refuted by anyone. Kautsky, in his reply to Hertz, dwelt at extreme length upon certain details [such as his proof of Hertz' distortions -- a fine 'detail'!], but to Hertz' argument on the question of mortgages he made no reply whatever" (Russkoye Bogatstvo, No. 10, p. 217, Mr. Chernov's italics). As can be seen from the reference on page 238 in the cited issue of Russkoye Bogatstvo, Mr. Chernov is aware of the article Kautsky wrote in reply (,"Zwei Kritiker meiner

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    "No!" retort Hertz, Bulgakov, Chernov & Co. "We find a very decided tendency towards decentralisation and the break-up of property" (Russkoye Bogatstvo, No. 10, p. 216); for "more than a fourth of the mortgage credits are concentrated in the hands of democratic [sic!] credit institutions with a vast number of small depositors" (ibid.). Presenting a series of tables, Hertz attempts with extraordinary zeal to prove that the bulk of the depositors in savings-banks, etc., are small depositors. The only question is -- what is the purpose of this argument? Kautsky himself referred to the mutual credit societies and savings-banks (while not, of course, imagining, as does Mr. Chernov, that they are particularly "democratic" institutions). Kautsky speaks of the centralisation of rent in the hands of a few central institutions, and he is met with the argument about the large number of small depositors in savings-banks!! And this they call "the break up of property"! What has the number of depositors in mortgage banks to do with agriculture (the subject under discussion being the concentration of rent)? Does a big factory cease to signify the centralisation of production because its shares are distributed among a large number of small capitalists? "Until Hertz and David informed me," wrote Kautsky in his reply to the former, "I had not the slightest idea where the savings-banks obtained their money. I thought they operated with the savings of the Rothschilds and the Vanderbilts."
    In regard to transferring mortgages to the state, Hertz says: "This would be the poorest way of fighting big capital, but, of course, the best means of arousing the large and constantly increasing army of the smallest property-owners, particularly the agricultural labourers, against the proponents of such a reform" (S. 29, Russian translation, p. 78. Mr. Chernov smugly repeats this on pp. 217-18 of Russkoye Bogatstvo).
    These then are the "property-owners" over whose increase Bernstein & Co. get so wrought up! -- retorts Kautsky. Servant girls with twenty marks in the savings-bank! And again we have the threadhare argument employed against the socialists that by "expropriation" they will rob a large army of working people. None other thlln Eugen Richter zealously advanced this argument in the pamphlet he published after the repeal of the Exceptional Law Against the

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of the gems of this tirade. "Kautsky, again following Marx," writes Mr. Chernov in Russkoye Bogatstvo, No. 8, p. 229, "admits that the progress of capitalist agriculture leads to the reduction of nutritive matter in the soil: in the form of various products, something is continuously being taken from the land, sent to the towns, and never restored to the land. . . . As you see, on the question of the laws of the fertility of the soil, Kautsky helplessly [sic!] repeats the words of Marx, who bases himself upon the theory of Liebig. But when Marx wrote his first volume, Liebig's 'law of restoration' was the last word in agronomics. More than half a century has elapsed since that discovery. A complete revolution has taken place in our knowledge of the laws governing soil fertility. And what do we see? The whole post-Liebig period, all the subsequent discoveries of Pasteur and Ville, Solari's experiments with nitrates, the discoveries of Berthelot, Hellriegel, Wilfahrt, and Vinogradsky in the sphere of the bacteriology of the soil -- all this is beyond Kautsky's ken. . . ." Dear Mr. Chernov! How wonderfully he resembles Turgenev's Voroshilov: you remember him in Smoke, the young Russian Privatdocent who went on a tour abroad. This Voroshilov was a very taciturn young man; but now and again he would break his silence and pour forth scores and hundreds of the most learned of names, the rarest of the rare. Our learned Mr. Chernov, who has utterly annihilated that ignoramus Kautsky, behaves in exactly the same manner. Only . . . only had we not better consult Kautsky's book -- glance at least at its chapter headings? We come to Chapter IV: "Modern Agriculture", section d, "Fertilisers, Bacteria". We turn to section d and read:
    "Towards the end of the last decade the discovery was made that leguminous plants . . . unlike other cultivated plants, obtain nearly the whole of their nitrogen supply, not from the soil, but from the air, and that far from robbing the soil of nitrogen they enrich it. But they possess this property only when the soil contains certain micro-organisms which adhere to their roots. Where these micro-organisms do not exist, it is possible by means of certain inoculations to give these leguminous plants the property of converting soil poor in nitrogen into nitrogen-rich soil, and in this way to fertilise this soil to a certain extent for other crops. As a general

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rule, by inoculating bacteria into these plants and by using a suitable mineral fertiliser (phosphoric acid salts and potash fertilisers), it is possible to obtain the highest steady yields from the soil even without stable manure. Only thanks to this discovery has 'free farming' acquired a really firm basis" (Kautsky, pp. 51-52). Who, however, gave a scientific basis to the remarkable discovery of nitrogen-gathering bacteria? -- Hellriegel. . . .
    Kautsky's fault is his bad habit (possessed by many of the narrow orthodox) of never forgetting that members of a militant socialist party must, even in their scientific works, keep the working-class reader in mind, that they must strive to write simply, without employing unnecessary clever turns of phrase and those outer symptoms of "learning" which so captivate decadents and the titled representatives of official science. In this work, too, Kautsky preferred to relate in a clear and simple manner the latest discoveries in agronomics and to omit scientific names that mean nothing to nine-tenths of the readers. The Voroshilovs, however, act in precisely the opposite manner; they prefer to effuse a veritable stream of scientific names in the domains of agronomics, political economy, critical philosophy, etc., and thus bury essentials under this scientific lumber.
    Thus, Voroshilov-Chernov, by his slanderous accusation that Kautsky is not acquainted with scientific names and scientific discoveries, blocked from view an extremely interesting and instructive episode in fashionable criticism, namely, the attack of bourgeois economics upon the socialist idea of abolishing the antithesis between town and country. Prof. Lujo Brentano, for instance, asserts that migration from the country to the towns is caused, not by given social conditions, but by natural necessity, by the law of diminishing returns.* Mr. Bulgakov, following in the foot-

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steps of his teacher, stated in Nachalo (March 1899, p. 29) that the idea of abolishing the antithesis between town and country was "an absolute fantasy", which would "cause an agronomist to smile". Hertz writes in his book: "The abolition of the distinction between town and country is, it is true, the principal striving of the old utopians [and even of the Manifesto]. Nevertheless, we do not believe that a social system containing all the conditions necessary for directing human culture to the highest aims achievable would really abolish such great centres of energy and culture as the big cities and, to soothe offended aesthetic sentiments, abandon these abundant depositories of science and art, without which progress is impossible" (S. 76. The Russian translator, on p. 182, rendered the word "potenziert "* as "potential". These Russian translations are an awful nuisance! On page 270, the same translator translates the sentence, "Wer isst zuletzt das Schwein?"** as "Who, in the end, is the pig?"). As can be seen, Hertz defends the bourgeois system from socialist "fantasies" with phrases that convey the "struggle for idealism" no less than do the writings of Messrs. Struve and Berdyaev. But his defence is not in the least strengthened by this bombastic, idealistic phrase-mongering.

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than that of Mr. Chernov reproving others for lack of principles and for opportunism.
    All the other critical exploits of our Voroshilov are identical to what we have just examined.
    Voroshilov assures us that Kautsky fails to understand the difference between capitalist credit and usury; that he betrays utter failure, or unwillingness, to understand Marx, in maintaining that the peasant fulfils the functions of entrepreneur and, as such, stands in the same relation to the proletariat as the factory owner. Beating his breast, Voroshilov cries out: "I say this boldly because I feel [sic!] the ground firmly under my feet" (At the Glorious Post, p. 169). In all this, rest assured, Voroshilov is again hopelessly confusing things and boasting as usual. He "failed to see" the passages in Kautsky's book that deal with usury assuch (Agrarfrage, S. 11, 102-04, especially 118, 290-92), and with all his might forces an open door, shouting as usual about Kautsky's "doctrinaire formalism", "moral hard-heartedness", "mockery at human sufferings", and so forth. In regard to the peasant fulfilling the functions of entrepreneur, apparently this astonishingly complicated idea is beyond the scope of Voroshilov's comprehension. In the next essay, however, we shall try to clarify this for him with very concrete examples.
    When Voroshilov seeks to prove that he is a real representative of the "interests of labour" and abuses Kautsky for "driving from the ranks of the proletariat numerous genuine working people" (op. cit., p. 167), such as the Lumpenproletariat, domestic servants, handicraftsmen, etc., then the reader can be assured that Voroshilov is again muddling things together. Kautsky examines the distinguishing characteristics of the "modern proletariat" which created the modern "Social-Democratic proletarian movement" (Agrarfrage, S. 306); but to date the Voroshilovs have produced nothing to show that tramps, handicraftsmen, and domestic servants have created a Social-Democratic movement. The charge directed at Kautsky that he is capable of "driving" domestic servants (who in Germany are now beginning to join the movement), handicraftsmen, etc., from the ranks of the proletariat merely exposes to the full the impudence of the Voroshilovs; their display of friendship for the "genuine working people" increases as such phrases decrease in prac-

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compares this yield with the average yield for the whole of Germany (in double centners per hectare: potatoes, 150-160 and 87.8; rye and wheat, 20-23 and 10-13; hay, 50-G0 and 28.G) and exclaims: What do you think of that as an example of "backward small peasants"! In the first place, we reply, insofar as no comparison is made between small-and large-scale farming conducted under the same conditions, it is absurd to view this as an argument against Kautsky. Mr. Chernov appears even more absurd when he asserts, in Russkoye Bogatstvo, No. 8, p. 229, that "Kautsky's rudimentary view [regarding the agronomic exploitation of the village by the town] even exaggerates the shady aspects of capitalism", and when he cites, on page 209 of the same issue, as an argument against Kautsky, an instance in which this capitalist obstacle to the progress of agriculture is eliminated by the fact that the villages he selects are situated in proximity to towns. While the overwheIining majority of the agricultural population lose an enormous quantity of natural fertilisers as a result of the depopulation of the rural districts by capitalism and the concentration of the population in the cities, an insignificant minority of suburban peasants obtain special benefits from their situation and become rich at the expense of the impoverishment of the masses. It is not surprising that the yield in the villages described is so high, considering that they spend the sum of 41,000 marks annually on manure from the army stables in the three neighbouring garrison towns (Karlsruhe, Bruchsal, and Durlach) and on liquid refuse from the urban drainage systems (Hecht, S. 65); artificial fertilisers are purchased only to the amount of 7,000 marks annually.* To attempt to refute the technical superiority of large-scale over small-scale farming by adducing instances of small farms

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operating under such conditions means merely to expose one's impotence. Secondly, to what extent do these instances really represent "genuine small peasants", echte und rechte Kleinbauern, as David says, and as Hertz and Chernov repeat after him? They mention only the area of the farms, and in this way prove only their inability to handle detailed statistics. As everyone knows, a hectare of land is to a suburban peasant what ten hectares are to a peasant living in a remote district; moreover, the very type of farms undergoes radical change because of the proximity of towns. Thus, the price of land in Friedrichsthal, the village which has the least land, but which is the most prosperous of the suburban villages, ranges from 9,000 to 10,000 marks, five times the average price of land in Baden (1,938 marks), and about twenty times the price in remote districts in East Prussia. Consequently, judged by the size of output (the only exact index of the size of a farm), these are by no means "small" peasants. In regard to the type of farming, we see here a remarkably high stage of development of money economy and the specialisation of agriculture, which is particularly emphasised by Hecht. They cultivate tobacco (45 per cent of the area under cultivation in Friedrichsthal) and high grades of potatoes (used partly for seed and partly for the table of the "gentry" -- Hecht, S. 17 -- in Karlsruhe); they sell milk, butter, sucking-pigs, and grown pigs to the capital, and themselves buy grain and hay. Agriculture here has assumed a completely commercial character, and the peasant who conducts his farm in the neighbourhood of the capital is the purest type of petty bourgeois; so that, had Mr. Chernov really familiarised himself with the details he borrows from others, he might have acquired some understanding of this category of "petty-bourgeois" peasant which is to him so mysterious (see Russkoye Bogatstvo, No. 7, p. 163). It is most curious that both Hertz and Mr. Chernov, while declaring that they are totally unable to understand how the peasant fulfils the functions of an entrepreneur, how he is able to figure as a

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worker at one moment and as an entrepreneur at another, refer to the detailed investigation of an author who says bluntly: "The peasant of the eighteenth century, with his eight-to-ten hectares of land, was a peasant ["was a peasant", Mr. Chernov!] and a manual labourer; the dwarf peasant of the nineteenth century, with his one or two hectares of land, is a brainworker, an entrepreneur and a merchant" (Hecht, S. 69; cf. S. 12: "The farmer has become a merchant and an entrepreneur." Hecht's italics). Well, have not Hertz and Mr. Chernov "annihilated" Kautsky in the Voroshilov manner for confusing the peasant with the entrepreneur?
    The clearest indication of the "entrepreneur" is his employment of wage-labour. It is highly characteristic that not one of the quasi-socialists who referred to Hecht's work uttered a single word about that fact. Hecht, a most typical Kleinbürger of the ultra-loyal type, who waxes enthusiastic over the piety of the peasants and the "paternal solicitude" shown them by the Grand Duchy officials in general, and over their adoption of such an "important" measure as, in particular, the establishment of cookery schools, naturally tries to obscure those facts and to show that no "social gulf" separates the rich from the poor, the peasant from the agricultural labourer, or the peasant from the factory worker. "No agricultural day-labourer category exists," writes Hecht. "The majority of the peasants are able to cultivate their land themselves, with the help of their families; only a few in those three villages experience the need for outside help during the harvest or at threshing time; such families 'request' ['bitten'], to employ the local expression, certain men or women, who would never dream of calling themselves 'day-labourers', 'to help them'" (S. 31). There is nothing surprising in the fact that only a few farmers in the three villages mentioned hire day-labourers, because many "farmers", as we shall see, are factory workers. What proportion of pure farmers employ hired labour Hecht does not say; he prefers to pack his candidate's thesis (the Germans call it doctoral dissertation), which is devoted only to three villages (of one of which he is a native), not with exact statistics concerning the various categories of peasants, but with reflections on the high moral significance of diligence and thrift. (Notwithstanding this, or perhaps because of it, Hertz and David extol Hecht's

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work to the skies.) All we learn is that the wages of day-labourers are lowest in the most prosperous and purely agricultural village, Friedrichsthal, which is farthest away from Karlsruhe (14 kilometres). In Friedrichsthal, a day-labourer gets two marks a day, paying for his own keep, while in Hagsfeld (4 kilometres from Karlsruhe and inhabited by factory workers) the wages of a day-labourer are three marks a day. Such is one of the conditions of the "prosperity" of the "real small peasants" so much admired by the Critics. "In those three villages," Hecht informs us, "purely patriarchal relations still exist between the masters and their servants [Gesinde in German means both domestic servants and farm labourers]. The 'master', i.e., the peasant with three to four hectares of land, addresses his men and women labourers as 'thou' and calls them by their forenames; they call the peasant 'uncle' [Vetter ] and the peasant's wife 'auntie' [Base], and address them as 'you'. . . . The labourers eat at the family table and are regarded as members of the family" (S. 93). Our "most thorough" Hecht says nothing about the extent to which hired labour is emp]oyed in tobacco growing, which is so widely developed in that district and which requires a particularly large number of labourers; but since he has said at least something about wage-labour, even this very loyal little bourgeois must be regarded as being much better able to handle the "details" of a research than the Voroshilovs of "critical" socialism.
    Thirdly, Hecht's research was used to refute the fact that the peasantry suffers from overwork and undernourishment. But here it turns out that the Critics preferred to ignore facts of the kind mentioned by Hecht. They cleverly utilised that conception of the "middle" peasant by means of which both the Russian Narodniks and the West-European bourgeois economists so extensively idealise the "peasantry". Speaking "generally", the peasants in the three villages mentioned are very prosperous; but even from Hecht's far from thorough monograph it is apparent that in this respect the peasants must be divided into three large groups. About one-fourth (or 30 per cent) of the farmers (the majority in Friedrichsthal and a few in Blankenloch) are prosperous petty bourgeois, who have grown rich as a result of living in the vicinity of the capital. They engage in remunerative dairy farming (selling

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class into a class of rural factory workers possessing extreme ly small plots of land" (S. 27). Parenthetically, it should be said that between 1882 and 1895 the number of goats in Germany increased enormously: from 2,400,000 to 3,100,000, which clearly reveals the reverse of the progress of the "sturdy peasantry" which the Bulgakovs and the petty-bourgeois socialist "Critics" laud to the skies. The majority of the workers walk three and a half kilometres every day to their factory in the town, because they cannot afford to spend even one mark (48 kopeks) a week on railway fares. Nearly 150 workers out of the 300 in Hagsfeld find it beyond their means to pay even 40 or 50 pfennigs for dinner in the "public diningroom" and have their dinners brought to them from home. "Punctually at eleven o'clock," writes Hecht, "the poor womenfolk put the dinners in their pots and carry them to the factory" (S. 79). As for the working women, they, too, work at the factory ten hours a day, and all they receive for their toil is from 1.10 to 1.50 marks (the men receive 2.50 to 2.70 marks); at piece-work they earn from 1.70 to 2.00 marks. "Some of the working women try to supplement their meagre wages by some auxiliary employment. In Blankenloch four girls work at the paper mill in Karlsruhe, and they take home paper to make bags at night. Working from eight p. m. to eleven p. m. [sic!], they can make 300 bags, for which they receive 45-50 pfennigs; this supplement to their small daily earnings goes to pay their railway fares to and from work. In Hagsfeld, several women who worked in factories as girls earn a little extra money polishing silverware on winter evenings" (S. 36). "The Hagsfeld worker," says Hecht, moved, "has a permanent residence not by imperial order, but as a result of his own efforts; he has a little house which he is not compelled to share with others, and a small plot of land. But more important than these real possessions is the consciousness that they have been acquired by his own diligence. The Hagsfeld worker is both a factory worker and a peasant. Those with no land of their own rent at least a few strips to supplement their income by working in their spare time. In the summer, when work in the factory starts only ["only"!] at seven o'clock, the worker rises at four in order to hoe potatoes in his field, or to carry fodder to theccattle. Or when he returns from work at seven in the evening, what is

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productivity of large and small farms," writes Mr. Bulgakov, "cannot provide an answer to the question of their technical advantages, since the farms compared may be operating under different economic conditions. The most that can be obtained from such data is the factual confirmation of the negative conclusion that large-scale production possesses no technical advantages over small-scale production, not only theoretically, but, under certain conditions, also practically. Quite a few comparisons of this kind have been made in economic literature, at all events sufficient to undermine the belief of the unbiased and unprejudiced reader in the advantages of large-scale production generally" (I, 57-58). In a footnote the author cites two instances. The first is Auhagen's work, quoted by Kautsky in his Agrarfrage (S. 111), as well as by Hertz (S. 69, Russian translation, p. 166), in which a comparison is made only between two farms in Hanover, one of 4.6 hectares and one of 26.5 hectares. In this example, the small farm has a higher yield per hectare than the large one, and Auhagen determined the income of the small farm to be higher than that of the large farm. Kautsky, however, has shown that this higher income is the result of under-consumption. Hertz attempted to refute this evidence, but with his usual success. Since Hertz' work has now been translated into Russian, while Kautsky's reply to Hertz is unknown in Russia, we shall, very briefly, give the substance of this reply (in the cited article in Neue Zeit). Hertz, as usual, distorted Kautsky's arguments and alleged that he referred only to the fact that the owner of the big farm is able to send his son to the Gymnasium. In actuality, Kautsky mentioned this merely to illustrate the standard of living, and had Hertz quoted in full the budgets of the two families in question (each consisting of five persons), he would have obtained the following figures: 1,158.40 marks for the small farm and 2,739.25 marks for the large farm. If the family of the small farm lived on the same standard as that of the large farm, the small farm would prove less profitable than the large one. Auhagen estimates the income of the small farm at 1,806 marks, i.e., 5.45 per cent of the capital invested (33,651 marks), and that of the large farm at 2,720 marks, or 1.82 per cent of the capital invested (149,559 marks). If we make allowance for the under-consumption of the small

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120 pages of which are devoted to a description of twelve typical farms existing under equal conditions. In the first place, we shall cite the statistics pertaining to these farms, and in the interest of space and clarity we shall confine ourselves to the average figures for the large, medium, and small farms (the average size of the farms in each category being 358, 50, and 5 hectares respectively).

Category of farms

Income and expenditure per morgen in marks (1 morgen = 1/4 hectare)

Expen- diture per 100 marks of prod- ucts[*]

Per 100 mor- gen

Total Income

Income from the sale of produce

Consump- tion of own prod- uce

Total

A g r i c u l t u r e

S t o c k f a r m i n g

T o t a l

A g r i c u l t u r e

S t o c k f a r m i n g

T o t a l

A g r i c u l t u r e

S t o c k f a r m i n g

T o t a l

I n c o m e

E x p e n s e s

N e t p r o f i t

Marks

H i r e d w o r k d a y s

T o t o l w o r k d a y s

a

b

Large Medium Small

17 18 23

16 27 41

33 45 64

11 12  9

14 17 27

25 29 36

6  6 14

2 10 14

8 16 28

33 45 64

23 27 52

10 18 12

65 35  8

70 60 80

887 744 ---

887 924 ---

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Of course, no "opinion" of any admirer of peasant farming can make us believe that grain-sorting machines, seed-drills, rollers, etc., do not affect the size of the crop. Incidentally, we have here data on machines belonging to certain definite owners, unlike the general run of German statistics, which register only cases of the use of machines, whether owned or hired. Obviously, such a registration will also have the effect of minimising the superiority of large-scale farming and of obscuring forms of "borrowing" machines, like the following described by Klawki: "The big farmer willingly lends the small farmer his roller, horse rake, and grain-sorting machine, if the latter promises to supply a man to do the mowing for him in the busy season" (443). Consequently, a certain number of the cases in which machines are employed on small farms, which, as we have shown, are rare, represent a transmuted form of acquiring labour-power.
    To continue. Another case of erroneous comparison of obviously unequal quantities is Klawki's method of computing the price of the product on the market as being equal for all categories of farms. Instead of taking actual transactions, the author takes as a basis an assumption that he himself points to as incorrect. The peasants sell most of their grain in their own locality, and merchants in small towns force down prices very considerably. "The large estates are better off in this respect, for they can send grain to the principal city in the province in considerable quantities. In doing so, they usually receive from 20 to 30 pfennigs more per centner than they could get in the small town" (373). The big farmers are better able to assess the value of their grain (451), and they sell it, not by measure, as the peasants do to their disadvantage, but by weight. Similarly, the big farmers sell their cattle by weight, whereas the price of the peasants' cattle is fixed simply on the basis of outer appearance. The big farmers can also make better arrangements for selling their dairy products, for they can send their milk to the towns and obtain a higher price than the middle farmers, who convert their milk into butter and sell it to merchants. Moreover, the butter produced on the medium farms is superior to that produced on the small farms (use of separators, daily churning, and so forth), and the latter get from five to ten pfennigs per pound less. The small farmers have to

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sell their fat stock sooner (i.e., less matured) than the middle farmers, because they have a smaller supply of fodder (444). Klawki, in his monograph, leaves out of his calculations all these advantages -- in their totality by no means unimportant -- which the large farms possess as sellers, just as the theoreticians who admire small-scale farming leave out this fact and refer to the possibility of improving matters by means of co-operation. We do not wish to confound the realities of capitalism with the possibilities of a petty-bourgeois co-operative paradise. Below we shall bring forward facts showing who really derives the most advantage out of co-operatives.
    Let us note that Klawki "is not concerned with" the labour of the small and middle farmers themselves in draining the soil and in all kinds of repair work ("the peasants do the work themselves"), and so forth. The socialist calls this "advantage" enjoyed by the small farmer Ueberarbeit, overwork, and the bourgeois economist refers to it as one of the advantageous aspects ("for society"!) of peasant farming. Let us note that, as Klawki points out, the hired labourers get better pay and food on the medium farms than on the large farms, but they work harder: the "example" set by the farmer stimulates "greater diligence and thoroughness" (465). Which of these two capitalist masters -- the landlord or his "own kind", the peasant -- squeezes more work out of the labourer for the given wages, Klawki does not attempt to determine. We shall therefore confine ourselves to stating that the expenditure of the big farmers on accident and old-age insurance for their labourers amounts to 0.29 marks per morgen and that of the middle farmer to 0.13 marks (the small farmer here, too, enjoys an advantage in that he does not insure himself at all; needless to say, to the "great advantage of the society" of capitalists and landlords). We shall also bring an example from Russian agricultural capitalism. The reader who is familiar with Shakhovskoi's work Outside Agricultural Employment will probably remember the following characteristic observation: The Russian homestead farmers and the German colonists (in the south) "pick" their labourers, pay them from 15 to 20 per cent more than do the big employers and squeeze 50 per cent more work out of them. This was reported by Shakhovskoi in 1896; this year we read

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ously uncomparable; now it is declared that the standard of living must decline with the diminution in the size of the farm. But that means the a priori recognition of the fact that capitalism degrades the small peasants, a fact ostensibly to have been refuted by the computations of the "net profit"!
    And if, by the author's assumption, the money income diminishes with the diminution in the size of the farm, the drop in consumption is evident by direct data. Consumption of agricultural products on the farms amounts to the following per person (counting two children as one adult): large farm, 227 marks (average of two figures); medium farm, 218 marks (average of four figures); small farm, 135 (sic!) marks (average of four figures). And the larger the farm, the larger is the quantity of additional food products purchased (S. 453). Klawki himself observes that here it is necessary to raise the question of Unterkonsumption (under-consumption), which Mr. Bulgakov denied, and which here he preferred to ignore, thus proving to be even more of an apologist than Klawki. Klawki seeks to minimise the significance of this fact. "Whether there is any under-consumption among the small farmers or not, we cannot say," he states, "but we think it is probable in the case of small farm IV [97 marks per head]. The fact is that the small peasants live very frugally [!] and sell much of what they, so to speak, save out of their mouths" (sich sozusagen vom Munde absparen).* He attempts to prove that this fact does not refute the higher "productivity" of small-scale farming. If consumption were increased to 170 marks, which is quite adequate (for the "younger broth- >

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    "Due to lack of space," writes Hertz, "we cannot render the detailed and interesting judgements of the Inquiry into 37 communities in Baden. In the majority of cases they are analogous to those presented above: side by side with favourable, we find unfavourable and indifferent judgements; but nowhere in these entire three volumes of the Inquiry do the detailed budgets of expenditure give any grounds for the conclusion that 'under-consumption ' (Unterkonsumption), 'sordid and degrading poverty', etc., are prevalent" (S. 79; Russian translation, p. 188). The words we have emphasised represent, as usual, a direct untruth. The very Baden Inquiry to which Hertz refers contains documentary evidence attesting to "under-consumption" precisely among the small peasantry. Hertz' distortion of the facts closely resembles the method that was especially cultivated by the Russian Narodniks and is now practised by all the "Critics" on the agrarian question, viz., sweeping statements about "the peasantry". Since the term "peasantry" is still more vague in the West than it is in Russia (in the West this social-estate is not sharply defined), and since "average" facts and conclusions conceal the relative "prosperity" (or at all events, the absence of starvation) among the minority and the privation suffered by the majority, apologists of all sorts have an unlimited field of activity. In actual fact, the Baden Inquiry enables us to distinguish various groups of peasants, which Hertz, although an advocate of "details", preferred not to see. Out of 37 typical communities, a selection was made of typical farms of big peasants (Grossbauer), middle peasants, and small peasants, as well as of day-labourers, making a total of 70 peasants' (31 big, 21 middle, and 18 small) and 17 day-labourers' households; and the budgets of these households were subjected to a very detailed examination. We have not been able to analyse all the data; but the principal results cited below will suffice to enable us to draw very definite conclusions.
    Let us first present the data on the general economic type of (a) large, (b) middle, and (c) small peasant farms (Anlage VI: "Uebersichtliche Darstellung der Ergebnisse

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struggle is the rise of a minority of wealthy, prosperous farmers (an insignificant minority in most cases -- and in every case when particularly favourable conditions are absent, such as proximity to the capital, the construction of a railway, or the opening up of some new, remunerative branch of commercial agriculture, etc.) and the continuously increasing impoverishment of the majority, which steadily saps the strength of the peasants by chronic starvation and exhausting toil, and causes the quality of the land and cattle to deteriorate. The inevitable result of the struggle is the rise of a minority of capitalist farms based on wage-labour, and the increasing necessity for the majority to work at "side lines", i.e., their conversion into industrial and agricultural wage-workers. The data on wage-labour very clearly reveal the immanent tendency, inevitable under the present system of society, for all small producers to become small capitalists.
    We quite understand why bourgeois economists, on the one hand, and opportunists of various shades, on the other, shun this aspect of the matter and why they cannot help doing so. The differentiation of the peasantry reveals to us the profoundest contradictions of capitalism in the very process of their inception and their further development. A complete evaluation of these contradictions inevitably leads to the recognition of the small peasantry's blind-alley and hopeless position (hopeless, outside the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat against the entire capitalist system). It is not surprising that these most profound and most undeveloped contradictions are not mentioned; there is an attempt to evade the fact of the overwork and under-consumption of the small peasants, which can be denied only by unconscionable or ignorant people. The question of the hired labour employed by the peasant bourgeoisie and of wage-work of the rural poor is left in the shade. Thus, Mr. Bulgakov submitted an "essay on the theory of agrarian development", passing over both these questions in eloquent silence!*

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"Peasant farming," he says, "may be defined as that form of farming in which the labour of the peasant's own family is exclusively, or almost exclusively employed. Very rarely do even peasant farms dispense altogether with outside labour, -- the help of neighbours or casual hired labour -- but this does not change [naturally!] the economic features of peasant farming" (I, 141). Hertz is somewhat more naïve, and at the very beginning of his book he makes the following reservation: "Hereinafter, by small or peasant farms I shall always assume a form of farming in which the farmer, the members of his family, and not more than one or two workers are employed" (S. 6, Russian translation, p. 29). When they discuss the hiring of a "hand" our Kleinbürger soon forget the very "peculiarities" of agriculture which they constantly make so much of with no regard for relevance. In agriculture, one or two labourers is by no means a small number, even if they work only in the summer. But the main thing is not whether this is a small or a large number; the main thing is that hired labourers are employed by the

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wealthier, more prosperous peasants, whose "progress" and "prosperity" our knights of philistinism are so fond of presenting as the prosperity of the mass of the population. And in order to put a better complexion on this distortion, these knights majestically declare: "The peasant is a working man no less than the proletarian" (Bulgakov, II, 288). And the author expresses satisfaction at the fact that "workers' parties are more and more losing the anti-peasant tinge characteristic of them hitherto" (characteristic of them hitherto!) (289). "Hitherto", you see, they "left out of account the fact that peasant property is not an instrument of exploitation, but a condition for the application of labour". That is how history is written! Frankly, we cannot refrain from saying: Distort, gentlemen, but have a sense of measure! And the same Mr. Bulgakov has written a two-volume "study" of 800 pages chock-full of "quotations" (how correct they are we have repeatedly shown) from all sorts of inquiries, descriptions, monographs, etc. But not once, literally not once, has he attempted even to examine the relations between the peasants whose property is an instrument of exploitation and those peasants whose property is "simply" a condition for the application of labour. Not once has he presented systematic statistics (which, as we have shown, were contained in the sources he cited) concerning the types of farms, the standard of living, etc., of the peasants who hire labour, of the peasants who neither hire labour nor hire themselves out as labourers, and of the peasants who hire themselves out as labourers. More than that. We have seen that to prove the "progress of peasant farming" (peasant farming in general!) he has given data on the Grossbauer and opinions that confirm the progress of some and the impoverishment and proletarisation of others. He even sees a general "social regeneration" (sic!) in the rise of "well-to-do peasant farms" (II, 138; for general conclusion, cf. p. 456), as if well-to-do peasant farm were not synonymous with bourgeois, entrepreneur-peasant farm. His one attempt to extricate himself from this tangle of contradictions is the following still more entangled argument: "The peasantry, of course, does not constitute a homogeneous mass; this has been shown above [probably in his argument about such a petty detail as the industrial wage-labour performed by farmers?]; a constant struggle is here in proc-

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    Having examined the detailed statistics of peasant farming, which are particularly important for us, because peasant farming is the centre of gravity of the modern agrarian question, let us now pass to the general statistics of German agriculture and verify the conclusions drawn from them by the "Critics". Below, in brief, are the principal returns of the censuses of 1882 and of 1895:

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    The increase in the number of the smallest farms indicates an enormous increase in poverty and proletarisation; for the overwhelming majority of the owners of less than two hectares cannot obtain a livelihood from agriculture alone but must seek auxiliary employment, i.e., work for wages. Of course, there are exceptions: the cultivation of special crops, viticulture, market gardening, industrial crop cultivation, suburban farming generally, etc., render possible the existence of independent (at times even not small) farmers even on one and a half hectares. But out of a total of three million farms, these exceptions are quite insignificant. The fact that the mass of these small "farmers" (representing three-fifths of the total number) are wage-labourers is strikingly proved by the German statistics concerning the principal occupations of the farmers in the various categories. The following is a brief summary of those statistics:

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occupation of 6.4% of the farmers is office employment (in military service, civil service, etc.), the liberal professions, etc. Of the farmers with farms under two hectares, one half are hired workers; the "independent" farmers among these 3,200,000 "owners" represent a small minority, only 17.4% of the total. Of this number, 17%, one-fourth (26.1 %), are engaged in auxiliary occupations, i.e., are hired workers, not in their principal occupations (like the above mentioned 50.3%), but in their side-line occupations. Even among the farmers owning from 2-5 hectares, only a little more than half (546,000 out of 1,016,000) are independent farmers without auxiliary occupations.
    We see from this how amazingly untrue is the picture presented by Mr. Bulgakov when, asserting (erroneously, as we have shown) that the total number of persons actually engaged in agriculture has grown, he explains this by the "increase in the number of independent farms -- as we already know, mainly middle-peasant farms, at the expense of the big farms" (II, 133). The fact that the number of middle peasant farms has expanded most in proportion to the total number of farms (from 17.6% to 18%, i.e., a rise of 0.4%) does not in the least prove that the increase in the agricultural population is due principally to the growth in the number of middle-peasant farms. On the question as to which category has contributed most to the general increase in the number of farms, we have direct data that leave no room for two opinions: the total number of farms has risen by 282,000, of which the number of farms under two hectares increased by 174,000. Consequently, the larger agricultural population (if and insofar as it is larger at all) is to be explained precisely by the increase in the number of non-independent farms (the bulk of the farmers with farms under two hectares not being independent). The rise is greatest in the small allotment farms, which indicates growing proletarisation. Even the increase (by 35,000) in the number of farms of 2-5 hectares cannot be wholly attributed to the expanded number of independent farms, for of those farmers only 546,000 out of the total of 1,016,000 are in dependent, drawing no subsidiary earnings.
    Coming now to the large farms, we must note, first of all, the following characteristic fact (of utmost importance for

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the refutation of all apologists): the combination of agriculture with other occupations has diverse and opposite significance for the various categories of farmers. Among the small farmers it signifies proletarisation and curtailed independence; for in this category agriculture is combined with occupations like those of hired labourers, small handicraftsmen, small traders, and so forth. Among the big farmers, it signifies either a rise in the political significance of landed proprietorship through the medium of government service, military service, etc., or the combination of agriculture with forestry and agricultural industries. As we know, the latter phenomenon is one of the most characteristic symptoms of capitalist advance in agriculture. That is why the percentage of farmers who regard "independent" farming as their principal occupation (who are engaged in farming as masters and not as labourers) sharply increases with the increase in the size of the farms (17-72-90-96%), but drops to 93% in the category of farms of 100 hectares and over. In this group 4.2% of the farmers regard office employment (under the heading of "other occupations") as their principal occupation; 0.4% of the farmers regard "non-independent" work as their principal occupations (what is here discussed is not hired labourers but managers, inspectors, etc., cf. Statistik des deutschen Reichs, B. 112, S. 49*). Similarly, we see that the percentage of independent farmers who engage in auxiliary occupations sharply diminishes with the increase in the size of the farms (26-25-15-9%), but greatly increases among the farmers possessing 100 hectares and over (23%).
    In regard to the number of large farms (100 hectares and over) and the area of land they occupy, the statistics given above indicate a diminution in their share in the total number of farms and the total area. The question arises: Does this imply that large-scale farming is being crowded out by small and middle-peasant farming, as Mr. Bulgakov hastens to assume? We think not; and by his angry thrusts at Kautsky on this point Mr. Bulgakov merely exposes his inability to refute Kautsky's opinion on the subject. In the first place, the diminution in the proportion of the large farms is extremely small (from 0.47% to 0.45%, i.e., two hundredths of one per cent of the total number of farms,

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and from 24.43% to 24.088%, i.e., 35-hundredths of one per cent of the total area). It is a generally known fact that with the intensification of farming it is sometimes necessary to make a slight reduction in the area of the farm, and that the big farmers lease small lots of land remote from the centre of the estate in order to secure labourers. We have shown above that the author of the detailed description of the large and small-scale farms in East Prussia openly admits the auxiliary role played by small in relation to big landownership, and that he strongly advises the settlement of labourers. Secondly, there can be no talk of the elimination of large-scale by small-scale farming, for the reason that data on the size of farms are not yet adequate for judging the scale of production. The fact that in this respect large-scale farming has made considerable progress is irrefutably proved by statistics on the use of machinery (see above), and on agricultural industries (to be examined in greater detail below, since Mr. Bulgakov gives an astonishingly incorrect interpretation of the German statistics on this subject). Thirdly, in the group of farms of 100 hectares and over a prominent place is occupied by latifundia, i.e., farms of 1,000 hectares and over. The number of these farms has increased proportionately more than the number of middle-peasant. farms, namely, from 515 to 572, or by 11%, whereas the number of middle-peasant farms has increased from 926,000 to 998,000, or by 7.8%. The area of latifundia has increased from 708,000 hectares to 802,000 hectares, or by 94,000 hectares. In 1882 latifundia occupied 2.22% of the total land under cultivation; by 1895 they occupied 2.46%. On this point Mr. Bulgakov, in his work, supplements the groundless objections to Kautsky he made in Nachalo with the following even more groundless generalisation: "An index of the decline of large-scale farming," he writes, "is . . . the increase of latifundia, although the progress of agriculture and the growth of intensive farming should be accompanied by the splitting-up of farms" (II,126). Mr. Bulgakov unconcernedly goes on to talk about the "latifundia [!] degeneration" of large-scale farming (II, 190, 363). With what remarkable logic our "scholar" reasons: since the diminution in the size of farms at times, with the intensification of farming, implies an increase in production,

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therefore an increase in the number and in the area of latifundia should, in general, signify a decline! But since logic is so bad, why not turn for help to statistics? The source from which Mr. Bulgakov draws his information contains a mass of data on latifundia farming. We present here some of the figures: in 1895, 572 of the largest agricultural enterprises occupied an area of 1,159,674 hectares, of which 802,000 hectares were given over to agriculture and 298,000 were covered by forests (a part of these latifundia proprietors were primarily timber merchants and not farmers). Livestock of all kinds is kept by 97.9% of these farmers, and draught animals by 97.7 % . Machines are used by 555 in this group, and, as we have seen, it is in this group that the maximum number of cases of the use of machines of various types occurs; steam ploughs are used by 81 farms, or 14% of the total number of latifundia farms; livestock is kept as follows: 148,678 head of cattle, 55,591 horses,703,813 sheep, and 53,543 pigs. Sixteen of these farms are combined with sugar refineries, 228 with distilleries, 6 with breweries, 16 with starch factories, and 64 with flour-mills. Intensification may be judged from the fact that 211 of these farms cultivate sugar-beet (26,000 hectares are devoted to this crop) and 302, potatoes for industrial purposes; 21 (with 1,822 cows, or 87 cows per farm) sell milk to the cities, and 204 belong to dairy co-operative societies (18,273 cows, or 89 per farm). A very strange "latifundia degeneration" indeed!
    We now pass to the middle-peasant farms (5-20 hectares). The proportion they represent of the total number of farms has increased from 17.6% to 18.0% (+0.4%), and of the total area, from 28.7% to 29.9% (+1.2%). Quite naturally, every "annihilator of Marxism" regards these figures as his trump card. Mr. Bulgakov draws from them the conclusion that "large-scale farming is being crowded out by small-scale farming", that there is a "tendency towards decentralisation", and so on and so forth. We have pointed out above that precisely with respect to the "peasantry" unclassified statistics are particularly unsuitable and can more than ever lead to error; it is precisely in this sphere that the processes of the formation of small enterprises and the "progress" of the peasant bourgeoisie are most likely to

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conceal the proletarisation and impoverishment of the majority. In German agriculture as a whole we see an undoubted development of large-scale capitalist farming (the growth of latifundia, the increase in the use of machinery, and the development of agricultural industries), on the one hand; on the other, there is a still more undoubted growth of proletarisation and impoverishment (flight to the cities, expanded parcellisation of the land, growth in the number of small allotment holdings, increase in auxiliary hired labour, decline in the food consumption of the small peasants, etc.). Hence, it would be clearly improbable and impossible that these processes should not be current among the "peasantry". Moreover, the detailed statistics definitely indicate these processes and confirm the opinion that data on the size of farms alone are totally inadequate in this case. Hence, Kautsky rightly pointed out, on the basis of the general state of the capitalist development of German agriculture, the incorrectness of drawing from those statistics the conclusion that small-scale production was gaining over large scale production.
    We have, however, direct data abundantly proving that the increase in the number of "middle-peasant farms" indicates an increase in poverty and not in wealth and prosperity. We refer to the very data on draught animals which Mr. Bulgakov utilised so clumsily both in Nachalo and in his book. "If this required further proof," wrote Mr. Bulgakov with reference to his assertion that medium farming was progressing and large-scale farming declining, "then to the indices of the amount of labour-power we could add the indices of the number of draught animals. Here is an eloquent table."*

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    "The number of farms with draught animals declined among the large as well as the small farms, and increased only among the medium farms" (Nachalo, No. 1, p. 20).
    Mr. Bulgakov could be pardoned for having, in a hurriedly written magazine article, erred in arriving at a conclusion diametrically opposed to the one the statistics on draught animals logically lead to. But our "strict scientist" repeated this error in his "investigation" (Vol. II, p. 127, where, moreover, he used the figures +30, 407 and -360 as applying to the number of animals, whereas they apply to the number of farms using draught animals. But that, of course, is a minor point).
    We ask our "strict scientist", who talks so boldly of the "decline of large-scale farming" (II, 127): What is the significance of the increase of 30,000 in the number of middle peasant farms with draught animals when the total number of middle-peasant farms increased by 72,000 (II, 124)? Is it not clear from this that the percentage of middle-peasant farms with draught animals is declining? This being the case, should not Mr. Bulgakov have ascertained what percentage of farms in the various categories kept draught animals in 1882 and in 1895, the more so, since the data are given on the very page, and in the very table from which he took his absolute figures (Statistik des deutsehen Reichs, B. 112, S. 31*)?
    The data are here given:

    Thus, the farms with draught animals diminished on the average by over 2 per cent; but the reduction was above the average among the small- and middle-peasant farms, and below the average among the large farms.* Moreover, it

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must not be forgotten that "it is precisely on the large farms that animal power is frequently displaced by mechanical power in the form of machines of various kinds, including steam-driven machines (steam ploughs, etc.)" (Statistitk des deutschen Reichs, B. 112, S. 32*). Therefore, if in the group of large farms (of 100 hectares and over) the number with draught animals diminished by 360, and if at the same time the number with steam ploughs increased by 615 (710 in 1882 and 1,325 in 1895), it is clear that, taken as a whole, large-scale farming has not lost, but has benefited thereby. Consequently, we come to the conclusion that the only group of German farmers who have undoubtedly improved their conditions of farming (with respect to the use of animals for field work, or the substitution of steam power for animals) are the big farmers, with farms of 100 hectares and over. In all the remaining groups the conditions of farming have deteriorated; and they have deteriorated most in the group of middle-peasant farms, in which the percentage of farms using draught animals has diminished most. The difference in the percentage of large farms (of 100 hectares and over) and medium farms (of 5-20 hectares) with draught animals was formerly less than 3% (99.42 and 96.56); the difference is now more than 5% (97.70 and 92.62).
    This conclusion is still more strongly confirmed by the data on the types of draught animals used. The smaller the farm, the weaker the types: a relatively smaller number of oxen and horses and a larger number of cows, which are much weaker, are used for field work. The following data show the situation in this respect for the years 1882 and 1895:
    For one hundred farms using draught animals the data are:

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    With the exception of the small allotment farms, an increase in the number of draught animals proper is seen only among the big farmers.
    Consequently, the general conclusion to be drawn from the changes in farming conditions with regard to animal and mechanical power employed for field work, is as

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follows: improvement only among the big farmers; deterioration among the rest; the greatest deterioration among the middle-peasant farms.
    The statistics for 1895 enable us to divide the middle-peasant farm group into two subgroups: with 5 to 10 hectares and with 10 to 20 hectares respectively. As was to be expected, in the first subgroup (which has by far the greater number of farms), farming conditions insofar as they aftect the use of draught animals are incomparably worse than in the second. Of the total of 606,000 owners of 5-10 hectares, 90.5% possess draught animals (of the 393,000 with 10-20 hectares -- 95.8%), and of this number, 46.3% use cows for field work (17.9% in the 10-20 hectare group); the number using only cows amounts to 41.3% (4.2% in the 10-20 hectare group). It turns out that precisely the 5-10 hectare group, the one most poorly equipped with draught animals, shows the greatest increase from 1882 to 1895 both in the number of farms and in area. The relevant figures follow:

    In the 10-20 hectare group the increase in the number of farms is quite insignificant. The proportion of the total area even diminished, while the proportion of the cultivated area increased to a much lesser extent than that of the farms in the 5-10 hectare group. Consequently, the increase in the middle-peasant farm group is accounted for mainly (and partly even exclusively) by the 5-10 hectare group, i.e., the very group in which farming conditions with regard to the use of draught animals are particularly bad.
    Thus, we see that the statistics irrefutably reveal the true significance of the notorious increase in the number of middle-peasant farms: it is not an increase in prosperity, but an increase in poverty; not the progress of small farming, but its degradation. If the conditions of farming have deteriorated most among the middle-peasant farms, and if

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    We have dealt in such detail with the data on draught animals because these are the only data (apart from those dealing with machinery, which we have earlier examined) that enable us to obtain an inside view, as it were, of agriculture, of its equipment and organisation. All the other data -- on the amount of land (which we have cited), and the number of livestock (to be cited below) -- merely describe the external aspects of agriculture, equating things that are obviously unequal, since treatment of the soil and, consequently, its yield, and the quality and productivity of livestock are different in the different categories of farms. Although these differences are well known, they are usually forgotten in statistical compilations; the data on machines and draught animals alone enable us, at least to some extent, to form a judgement of these diiferences and to decide

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who gains (on the whole) from them. If the large farms use, to a larger extent than the rest, particularly complex and costly machines, which alone are taken into account by statistics, then it is obvious that the other types of agricultural implements, which statistics ignore (ploughs, harrows, waggons, etc.), are of a better quality, are used in larger numbers, and (because the farms are bigger) are more fully utilised on the large farms. The same applies to livestock. The small farmer must inevitably make up for the lack of these advantages by greater industry and frugality (he has no other weapons in his struggle for existence), and for this reason those qualities are not merely casual but always and inevitably distinguish the small farmer in capitalist society. The bourgeois economist (and the modern "Critic", who on this question, as on all others, drags along at the tail of the bourgeois economist) calls this the virtue of thrift, perseverance, etc. (cf. Hecht and Bulgakov), ascribing it to the peasant as a merit. The socialist calls it overwork (Ueberarbeit) and under-consumption (Unterkonsumption) and holds capitalism responsible for it; he tries to open the eyes of the peasant to the deception practised by those who deliver Manilov orations, picturing social degradation as a virtue and thereby striving to perpetuate it.
    We shall now deal with the data on the distribution of livestock among the various groups of German farmers in 1882 and 1895. The following are the main summaries (in percentages of total):

    Thus, the share of the total livestock owned by the large farms has diminished, whereas that of the middle-peasant farms has increased most. We speak of the total livestock, notwithstanding the fact that the statistics refer only to value, because the statisticians' assumption that the value of each animal is equal for all groups is obviously wrong.

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The data on value, which make it possible to add different kinds of livestock (the result could have been obtained by expressing all the livestock in terms of cattle; but this would have entailed fresh calculations, without however, altering the conclusions materially), actually show the distribution of all livestock according to number and not according to real value. Since the livestock belonging to the big farmers is of a better quality and probably improves to a greater extent than that of the small farmers (to judge by the improvement in the implements), the figures considerably minimise the real superiority of large-scale farming.
    With regard to certain types of livestock, it must be said that the diminution of the share of the large farms is entirely due to the decline in commercial sheep farming: from 1882 to 1895 the number of sheep diminished from 21,100,000 to 12,600,000, i.e., by 8,500,000; of this total diminution, farms of 20 hectares and over accounted for 7,000,000. As is known, stock raising for the dairy-product and meat markets is one of the developing branches of commercial livestock farming in Germany. For this reason we took the data on cattle and pigs, finding that the greatest progress in these two branches of livestock farming has been made on the large farms (of 100 hectares and over): share in the total number of cattle and pigs has increased most. This fact stands out the more for the reason that the area of livestock farms is usually smaller than that of agricultural farms and one would thus expect a more rapid development, not of large, but of middle, capitalist farms. The general conclusion to be drawn (in regard to the number, not the quality, of cattle) should be the following: the big farmers have lost most as a result of the sharp decline in commercial sheep farming, and this loss has not entirely, but only partly, been compensated by a greater increase (as compared with the small and medium farms) in the raising of cattle and pigs.
    In speaking of dairy farming, we cannot ignore the extremely instructive and, as far as we know, unutilised material on this question furnished by German statistics. But this concerns the general question of combining agriculture with agricultural industries, and we are obliged to deal with it because of the amazing distortion of the facts of which Mr. Bulgakov is again guilty. As is known, the com-

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    Thus, the percentage of farms in combination with agricultural industries is negligible in small-scale farming and reaches marked dimensions only in large-scale farming (and enormous dimensions on the latifundia, of which more than half enjoy the benefits of this combination). If this fact is compared with the above-cited data on the use of machines and draught animals, the reader will understand the pretentious nonsense of Mr. Bulgakov's aphorisms on the "illusion fostered by conservative" Marxists "that large-scale farming is the vehicle of economic progress and that small-scale farming is the vehicle of retrogression" (II, 260).
    "The great bulk (of sugar-beet and potatoes for distilling alcohol!) was produced on the small farms," continues Mr. Bulgakov.
    But the very opposite is the case: it was precisely on the large farms:

    Thus, we see again that the percentage of farms cultivating sugar-beet and potatoes for industrial purposes is negligible in the small-farm group, considerable in the large farm group, and very high on the latifundia. The great bulk of the beets (83.7 per cent, judging by the area under beet) is produced on the large farms.*

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Similarly, Mr. Bulgakov failed to ascertain the "share of large-scale farming" in dairy farming (II, 117); yet this branch of commercial livestock farming is one of those that are developing with particular rapidity over the whole of Europe, as well as being one of the characteristics of the progress of agriculture. The following figures show the number of farms selling milk and dairy products to the towns:

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and over, and even 87 on the latifundia. Generally speaking, the obviously capitalist farms (20 hectares and over) own 41.5% of the total number of cows, whose milk is sold to the towns, although these proprietors represent an insignificant percentage of the total number of farmers (5.52%), and a very small percentage of the number of farmers selling milk to the towns (15.6%). The progress of capitalist farming and the capitalist concentration of this branch of commercial livestock farming are therefore an indubitable fact.
    But the concentration of dairy farming is by no means fully brought out by data on farms grouped according to area. It is clear a priori that there can and must be farms equal in area but unequal in regard to livestock in general, and to dairy cattle in particular. Let us, first, compare the distribution of the total number of cattle among the various groups of farms with the distribution of the total number of cows whose milk is sold to the towns.

    Thus, we see again that it is the middle-peasant farms which are the worst off; this group utilises the smallest share of its cattle for the urban milk trade (the most profitable branch of dairy farming). On the other hand, the large farms occupy a very favourable position and utilise a relatively large proportion of their cattle for the urban milk trade.* But the position of the smallest farms is most favourable of all, for they utilise the largest proportion of their cattle for the urban milk trade. Consequently, in this

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group, special "milk" farms are developing on which agricul ture is forced into the background, or even abandoned alto gether (out of 8,998 farms in this group which sell milk to the towns, 471 have no arable land, and the farmers possess a total of 5,344 cows, or 11.3 cows per farm). We obtain an interesting picture of the concentration of dairy farming within one and the same group according to area of tilled land if, with the aid of the Germanstatistics, wesingle out the farms with one and with two cows each:

    Among the farms with a negligible amount of agricultural land (0-0.5 hectares) we see an enormous concentration of dairy farming: fewer than one half of these farmers (850 out of 1,944) concentrate in their hands almost nine-tenths of the total number of cows in this group (9,789 out of 11,255), with an average of 11.5 cows per farm. These are by no means "small" farmers; they are farmers having a turnover in all probability (especially those adjacent to big cities) of several thousand marks per annum, and it is doubtful whether they can manage without hired labour. The rapid growth of the towns causes a steady increase in the number of such "dairy farmers", and, of course, there will always be the Hechts, Davids, Hertzes, and Chernovs to console the mass of the small peasants crushed by poverty with the example of isolated cases of their fellow-farmers who have "got on in the world" by means of dairy farming, tobacco cultivation, and so forth.
    In the 0.5-2 hectare group of farms we see that fewer than one-fifth of the total number of farmers (1,200 out of 7,054) concentrate in their hands over two-fifths of the total number of cows (5,367 out of 13,773); in the 2-5 hectare

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are always eager to talk of what it is "possible" to achieve by co-operative societies (cf. the instance given above). We, however, prefer to show what is actually achieved by the aid of co-operative societies under the present capitalist system. On the occasion of the census of enterprises and occupations in Germany in 1895 a register was made of all farms participating in co-operatives for the sale of dairy products (Molkereigenossenschaften und Sammelmolkereien ), as well as of the number of cows from which each farmer obtained milk and milk products for sale. As far as we know, those are perhaps the only mass data that determine with precision, not only the extent to which farmers of various categories participate in co-operative societies, but, what is particularly important, the economic, so to speak, extent of this participation, viz., the size of the particular branch of each farm in the co-operative society (the number of cows providing products for sale organised by co-operative societies). We cite the figures, divided into the five principal groups according to area of farms:

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of the large, obviously capitalist, farms which participate in co-operative societies is from three to seven times greater than that of even the middle-peasant farms. The percentage of the latifundia participating in co-operatives is largest of all. We can now form an idea of the boundless naïveté of the Austrian Voroshilov, Hertz, who, in retorting to Kautsky, states that the "German Agricultural Co-operative Wholesale Society [Bezugsvereinigung], with which the largest co-operative societies are affiliated, represents 1,050,000 farmers" (S. 112, Russian translation, p. 267, Hertz' italics) from which he concludes that this means that not only big farmers (holding more than 20 hectares, who number 306,000) participate in these co-operatives, but peasants too! Hertz had only to ponder a little over his own assumption (that all the large farms participate in co-operatives), in order to realise that if all big farmers are members of co-operative societies, this implies that of the rest a smaller percentage participate in them, which means that Kautsky's conclusion concerning the superiority of large-scale over small-scale farming even with respect to co-operative organisation is fully confirmed.
    But still more interesting are the data on the number of cows furnishing the products, the sale of which is organised by the co-operatives. The overwhelming majority of these cows, almost three-fourths (72%), belong to big farmers engaged in capitalist dairy farming and owning ten, forty, and (on the latifundia) even eighty cows per farm. And now let us listen to Hertz. "We assert that co-operative societies bring most benefit to the small and smallest farmers. . ." (op. cit., S. 112, Russian translation, p. 269, Hertz' italics). The Voroshilovs are alike everywhere: be it in Russia or in Austria. When the Voroshilovs beat their breasts and exclaim vehemently, "We assert", we can be quite sure that they are asserting that which is not.
    To conclude our review of German agrarian statistics, let us examine briefly the general situation in regard to the distribution of the agricultural population according to its position in the economy. Of course, we take agriculture proper (A 1, and not A 1 to 6, according to the German nomenclature, i.e., we do not include among the agriculturists fishermen, lumbermen, and hunters); we then take the

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data on persons for whom agriculture is the principal occupation. German statistics divide this population into three main groups: (a) independent (viz., farmer owners, tenant farmers, etc.), (b) non-manual employees (managers, foremen, supervisors, office clerks, etc.), and (c) labourers. The last-named group is split up into the following four subgroups: (c1) "members of families employed on a farm belonging to the head of the family -- father, brother, etc.," in other words, labourers that are members of the family, as distinct from hired labourers, to which category all the other subgroups of group c belong. Clearly, therefore, in order to study the social composition of the population (and its capitalist evolution), the labourers that are members of the family must not be grouped with the hired labourers, as is usually done, but with the farmers in group a; for they are in fact the farmers' partners, enjoying right of inheritance, etc. Other subgroups are: (c2) agricultural labourers, men and women (Knechte und Mägde), and (c3) "agricultural day-labourers and other labourers (shepherds, herdsmen) owning or renting land". Consequently, the last-named subgroup consists of persons who are at the same time farmers and wage-labourers, i.e., an intermediate and transitional group which should be placed in a special category. Finally, there is the subgroup (c4) "ditto -- neither owning nor renting land". In this way, we obtain three main groups: I. Farmers -- owners of land and the members of their families. II. Farmers -- owners of land and at the same time wage-labourers. III. Wage-workers not owning land (non-manual employees, labourers, and day-labourers). The following table illustrates the manner in which the rural population* of Ger-

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many was distributed among these groups in the years 1882 and 1895:

    Thus, the active population has diminished, although only slightly. Among this population we see a diminution in the landowning section (I+II) and an increase in the landless section (III). This clearly shows that the expropriation of the rural population is progressing, and that it is precisely the small landowners who are being expropriated; for we know by now that the wage-labourers with small plots of land belong to the group of smallest farmers. Furthermore, of the persons owning land, the number of farmer-labourers is diminishing, while the number of farmers is increasing. We see, therefore, the disappearance of middle groups and the growth of the extreme groups: the intermediary group is disappearing; capitalist contradictions are becoming more acute. Of the wage-labourers there is an increase in the number of those entirely expropriated, while the number owning land is diminishing. Of the farmers there is an increase in the number directly owning enterprises, while

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the number employed in the enterprises of heads of families is diminishing. (In all prohability the latter circumstance is due to the fact that in the majority of cases working members of peasant families receive no pay whatever from the head of the family and for that reason are particularly prone to migrate to the cities.)
    If we take the data on the population for whom agriculture is an auxiliary occupation, we shall see that this (active or self-employed) population increased from 3,144,000 to 3,578,000, i.e., by 434,000. This increase is almost entirely due to the growth in the number of working members of farmers' families, which expanded by 397,000 (from 664,000 to 1,O61,000). The number of farmers increased by 40,000 (from 2,120,000 to 2,160,000); the number of labourers owning land increased by 51,000 (from 9,000 to 60,000); while the number of landless labourers diminished by 54,000 (from 351,000 to 297,000). This enormous increase from 664,000 to 1,O61,000, or 59.8% in the course of 13 years, is further evidence of the growth of proletarisation -- the growth of the number of peasants, members of peasants' families, who have come to regard agriculture merely as an auxiliary occupation. We know that in those cases the principal occupation is working for wages (next in importance being petty trading, handicraft, etc.). If we combine the numbers of all working members of peasant families -- those for whom agriculture is the principal occupation and those for whom it is merely an auxiliary occupation -- we shall get the following: 1882 -- 2,559,000; 1895 -- 2,960,000. This increase may easily provide occasion for erroneous interpretations and apologetic conclusions, especially if it is compared with the number of wage-labourers, which, on the whole, is diminishing. Actually, the general increase is obtained by the diminution in the number of working members of peasant families for whom agriculture is the principal occupation and by the increase in the number for whom it is an auxiliary occupation; the latter amounted in 1882 to only 21.7% of the total number of working members of peasant families, whereas in 1895 they amounted to 35.8%. Thus, the statistics covering the entire agricultural population distinctly reveal to us the two processes of proletarisation to which orthodox Marxism has always pointed, and

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opinion notwithstanding, the technical progress of German agriculture is first and foremost the progress of large-scale production, as has been irrefutably proved by statistics relating to the use of machinery, the percentage of enterprises using draught animals and the type used, the development of industries connected with agriculture, the growth of dairy farming, and so forth. Inseverably connected with the progress of large-scale production are the growth of the proletarisation and expropriation of the rural population; the expanding number of small allotment farms and of peasants whose principal source of livelihood is auxiliary occupations; the increased poverty among the middle-peasant population, whose farming conditions have deteriorated most (the largest increase in the percentage of horseless farms and in the percentage of farms using cows for field work), and, consequently, whose general living conditions and quality of land cultivation have undergone greatest deterioration.

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