Written in 1896-99.
Published according to the text
Vol. 3, pp. 21-607.
Translated by Joe Fineberg and by George Hanna
V. I. Lenin
THE DEVELOPMENT OF
CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
The Process of the Formation of a
Home Market for Large-Scale Industry[1]
[Contents]
First printed in book form
at the end of March 1899
of the second edition, 1908
From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,
Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1961
Edited by Victor Jerome
Prepared © for the Internet by David J. Romagnolo,
djr@marx2mao.org
(Corrected and Updated December 2001)
[Transcriber's Note: Although this "electronic" version of The Development of Capitalism in Russia follows the pagination scheme of Volume 3 of Lenin's Collected Works (4th English Edition), I had to referred periodically to the "Fourth printing" (1974) of an edition not carrying the binding of the Collected Works to correct assorted printing errors in punctuation and to eliminate numerous ambiguities in the column headings of many of the data tables presented in the text. It is also worth noting that there were various technical difficulties that arose in transcribing the text which I failed to resolve to my satisfaction. From among the 115 data tables distributed throughout the text (half of which are in Chapter II) there were bound to be some that were so large that they could not be reasonably "cut up" to fit the width of the screen. As such, the reader will, on occasion, have to scroll to the right to view the right side of certain tables. The book also contains four charts and diagrams (Chapters II, V and VI) which are reproduced as image files ("gifs"). Given the very large size of the text (1.9MB), it has been divided into six parts, each consisting of one or two chapters. As always, the endnotes for each chapter accompany the chapter, and all links within and between "parts" are (or should be) functional. What follows is the COMPLETE table of contents for The Development of Capitalism in Russia, from which you will be able to access the various chapters. -- DJR] |
C O N T E N T S
[Part 1 -- Prefaces and Chapter I (137k)]
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Preface to the First Edition . . .
. . . . . . .
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25 | |
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Preface to the Second Edition . .
. . . . . . .
. . |
31 | |
Chapter I. T h e T h e o r e t i c a l M i s t a k e s o f t h e |
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I. |
The Social Division of Labour. . . . . .
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37 | |
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The increase in the number of industries 37-38. -- The creation |
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II. |
The Growth of the Industrial Population at the Expense |
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The necessary connection between this phenomenon and the very |
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III. |
The Ruin of the Small Producers . . . . .
. . . . . |
41 | |
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The mistaken view of the Narodniks 41. -- The view of the author |
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IV. |
The Narodnik Theory of the Impossibility of Realising |
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The substance of the theory of Messrs. V. V. and N.-on: its errone- |
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V. |
The Views of Adam Smith on the Production and Circu- |
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Adam Smith's omission of constant capital 47-49. -- The influ- |
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VI. |
Marx's Theory of Realisation . . . . . .
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51 | |
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The basis premises of Marx's theory 51-52. -- The realisation |
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VII. |
The Theory of the National Income. . . . .
. . . . . |
58 | |
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Proudhon 59-60. -- Rodbertus 60-62. --
Contemporary |
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VIII. |
Why Does the Capitalist Nation Need a Foreign Market? . |
64 | |
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The causes of the need for a foreign market 64-66. -- The for- |
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IX. |
Conclusions from Chapter I. . . . . . .
. . . . . . |
67 | |
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Résumé of the propositions examined above 67-68. -- The essence of the problem of the home market 69. |
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[Part 2 -- Chapter II (458k)]
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Chapter II. T h e D i f f e r e n t i a t i o n o f t h e P e a s- |
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I. |
Zemstvo Statistics for Novorossia. . . . .
. . . . . |
70 | |
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Economic groups of the peasantry 70-71. -- Commercial agri- |
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II. |
Zemstvo Statistics for Samara Gubernia . . . . .
. . |
85 | |
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Data concerning the farms of the different peasant groups in Nov- |
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III. |
Zemstvo Statistics for Saratov Gubernia . . . . .
. . |
93 | |
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Data concerning the farms of the different groups 93-94. -- The |
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IV. |
Zemstvo Statistics for Perm Gubernia . . . . .
. . . |
106 | |
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Data concerning the farms of the different groups 106-107. -- |
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V. |
Zemstvo Statistics for Orel Gubernia . . . .
. . . . |
112 | |
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Data concerning the farms of the different groups 112-113. -- Incompleteness of the picture of differentiation from the data for Orel Gubernia 113-115. |
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VI. |
Zemstvo Statistics for Voronezh Gubernia . . . .
. . |
115 | |
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Methods of classification in Voronezh abstracts 115-116. -- |
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VII. |
Zemstvo Statistics for Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia . . . |
119 | |
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Data concerning groups of farms for three uyezds 119-122. |
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VIII. |
Review of Zemstvo Statistics for Other Gubernias . . . |
122 | |
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Novgorod Gubernia, Demyansk Uyezd 122-123. -- Chernigov |
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IX. |
Summary of the Above Zemstvo Statistics on the Dif- |
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Methods of marking the summary 127-129. -- Combined table |
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X. |
Summary of Zemstvo Statistics and Army-Horse Census |
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Zemstvo Statistics for 112 uyezds of 21 gubernias 141-143. -- |
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XI. |
A Comparison of the Army-Horse Censuses of 1888- |
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Data for 48 gubernias of European Russia 146-147. -- Statisti- |
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XII. |
Zemstvo Statistics on Peasant Budgets. . . .
. . . . |
148 | |
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Character of the data and methods of treating them 148-150. -- (A). General results of the budgets 150-157. -- Magnitude of ex- |
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XIII. |
Conclusions from Chapter II . . . . . .
. . . . . . |
172 | |
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The significance of commodity economy 172. -- 1) Capitalist contradictions within the village community 172-173. -- 2) "De- |
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[Part 3 -- Chapters III and IV (443k)]
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Chapter III. T h e L a n d o w n e r s' T r a n s i t i o n f r o m |
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I. |
The Main Features of Corvée Economy . . .
. . . . . |
191 | |
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The essence of the serf system of economy and the conditions for it |
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II. |
The Combination of the Corvée and the Capitalist Sys- |
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The remnants of the old system after the Reform 193-194. -- |
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III. |
Description of the Labour-Service System . . . .
. . |
198 | |
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Types of labour-service 198-199. -- Rentings in kind and |
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IV. |
The Decline of the Labour-Service System . . . .
. . |
205 | |
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Two types of labour-service 205-206. -- The significance of |
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V. |
The Narodnik Attitude to the Problem . . . .
.
. . . |
210 | |
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The idealisation of labour-service 210-211. -- Mr. Kablukov's |
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VI. |
The Story of Engelhardt's Farm . . . . .
. . . . . . |
215 | |
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The original condition of the farm and the nature of the gradual |
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VII. |
The Employment of Machinery in Agriculture . . .
. . |
219 | |
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Four periods in the development of agricultural machinery pro- |
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VIII. |
The Significance of Machinery in Agriculture . . .
. . |
228 | |
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The capitalist character of the employment of machinery 228- |
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IX. |
Wage-Labour in Agriculture . . . . . .
. . . . . . |
237 | |
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"Agricultural outside employments" 237, their significance |
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X. |
The Significance of Hired Labour in Agriculture . . .
. |
242 | |
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The conditions of agricultural workers 242-243. -- Specific |
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Chapter IV. T h e G r o w t h o f C o m m e r c i a l A g r i- |
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I. |
General Data on agricultural Production in Post-Reform |
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The production of cereals and potatoes in 1864-1865, 1870- |
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II. |
The Commercial Grain-Farming Area. . . . .
. . . . |
257 | |
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The shifting of the principal centre of cereal production 257. -- |
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III. |
The Commercial Stock-Farming Area. General Data on the Development of Dairy Farming . . . . . . . . .
. |
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The significance of stock farming in the different areas 261- |
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IV. |
Continuation. The Economy of Landlord Farming in the Area Described.
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . |
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The rationalisation of agriculture 267-268. -- "Amalgamated |
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V. |
Continuation. The Differentiation of the Peasantry in |
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The distribution of cows among the peasants 275-276. -- De- |
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VI. |
The Flax-Growing Area . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . |
282 | |
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The growth of commercial flax-growing 282-284. -- Exchange |
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VII. |
The Technical Processing of Agricultural Produce . .
. |
287 | |
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The significance of the factory or technical system of farming 287-288. |
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1) Distilling . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
. |
288 |
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The extent of agricultural distilling 288-289. -- The develop- |
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2) Beet-Sugar Production . . . .
. . . . . . . . |
291 |
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The growth of sugar-beet production 291-292. -- The prog- |
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3) Potato-Starch Production . . . .
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294 |
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Its growth 294-295. -- Two processes in the development of |
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4) Vegetable Oil Production . . . .
. . . . . . . |
298 |
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The dual processes of its development 298. -- Oil pressing as |
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5) Tobacco Growing . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . |
300 |
VIII. |
Industrial Vegetable and Fruit Growing; Suburban |
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The growth of commercial fruit growing 304 and vegetable |
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IX. |
Conclusions on the Significance of Capitalism in Agri- |
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1) On the transformation of agriculture into enterprise 310. -- |
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X. |
Narodnik Theories on Capitalism in Agriculture. "The |
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The narrow and stereotyped character of this theory 318. -- |
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XI. |
Continuation. -- The Village Community. -- Marx's View |
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The Narodnik's wrong presentation of the problem of the village |
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[Part 4 -- Chapters V and VI (366k)]
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Chapter V. T h e F i r s t S ta g e s o f C a p i t a l i s m |
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I. |
Domestic Industry and Handicrafts . . . . .
. . . . |
331 | |
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The remants of domestic industry 331. -- The extent of the prevalence of handicrafts 332-333, their basic features 333- |
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II. |
Small Commodity-Producers in Industry. The Craft |
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The transition from handicrafts to commodity production 334- |
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III. |
The Growth of Small Industries after the Reform. Two |
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Causes of the growth of small industries 338. -- The settlement |
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IV. |
The Differentiation of the Small Commodity-Producers. |
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Presentation of the problem 344. -- The method of processing |
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V. |
Capitalist Simple Co-operation . . . . . .
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356 | |
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Its significance and influence on production 356-359. -- Artels |
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VI. |
Merchant's Capital in the Small Industries . . . . .
. |
360 | |
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The conditions that give rise to the buyer-up 360-361. -- |
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VII. |
"Industry and Agricultural". . . . . . .
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369 | |
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Data of the table 369-370. -- The agriculture of wage-work- |
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VIII. |
"The Combination of Industry with Agriculture" . . .
. |
378 | |
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The Narodnik's theory 378. -- The forms in which industry is |
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IX. |
Some Remarks on the Pre-Capitalist Economy of Our |
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Chapter VI. C a p i t a l i s t M a n u f a c t u r e a n d C a p- |
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I. |
The Rise of Manufacture and Its Main Features. . . .
. |
384 | |
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The concept of manufacture 384, its dual origin 384-385 and |
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II. |
Capitalist Manufacture in Russian Industry . . . .
. . |
386 | |
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1) The Weaving Industry . . .
. . . . . . . . |
386 |
III. |
Technique in Manufacture. Division of Labour and Its |
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Hand production 427-428. -- apprenticeship 427-28. -- |
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IV. |
The Territorial Division of Labour and the Separation |
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Mr. Kharizomenov's opinion 431-432. -- Non-agricultural |
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V. |
The Economic Structure of Manufacture. . . .
. . . . |
435 | |
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The circumstances of production 435-436. -- How Mr. Ovayan- |
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VI. |
Merchant's and Industrial Capital in Manufacture. The |
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The connection between the big and the small establishments |
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VII. |
Capitalist Domestic Industry as an Appendage of Manu- |
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Its incidence 441-442, its characteristic features 442-445, |
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VIII. |
What Is "Handicraft" Industry? . . . . .
. . . . . . |
448 | |
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Some aggregate statistics on handicraftsmen 448-450. -- The |
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[Part 5 -- Chapters VII and VIII (466k)]
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Chapter VII. T h e D e v e l o p m e n t o f L a r g e-S c a l e |
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I. |
The Scientific Conception of the Factory and the Sig- |
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II. |
Our Factory Statistics . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . |
456 | |
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There sources 456. -- Publications of the 60s 457-458. -- |
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III. |
An Examination of Historical-Statistical Data on the |
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1) Textile Trades . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . |
469 |
IV. |
The Development of the Mining Industry . .
. . . . . |
484 | |
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The Urals, their specific features 484-488. -- The South |
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V. |
Is the Number of Workers in Large Capitalist Enterprises Growing? .
. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . |
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Data for the years 1865, 1879, 1890 496-499. -- Mistaken |
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VI. |
Steam-Engine Statistics. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . |
507 | |
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Data for the years 1875-1878 and 1892 507-509. |
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VII. |
The Growth of Large Factories . . . .
. . . . . . . |
509 | |
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Data for the years 1866, 1879, 1890 and 1894-95 509-514. |
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VIII. |
The Distribution of Large-Scale Industry . . . . .
. . |
518 | |
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Data on the leading centres of factory industry in the years 1879 |
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IX. |
The Development of the Lumber and Building Industries . |
525 | |
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The growth of the lumber industry 525-526; its organisation |
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X. |
The Appendage to the Factory. . . . .
. . . . . . . |
534 | |
XI. |
The Complete Separation of Industry from Agriculture . |
536 | |
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The error of the Narodniks 536-537. -- Moscow Zemstvo san- |
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XII. |
Three Stages in the Development of Capitalism in Rus- |
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The connection between all the stages 541-543. -- Specific |
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Chapter VIII. T h e F o r m a t i o n o f t h e H o m e M a r- |
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I. |
The Growth of Commodity Circulation . . . .
. . . . |
552 | |
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The development of the railways 552-553, water transport |
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II. |
The Growth of the Commercial and Industrial Popula- |
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1) The Growth of Towns. . . . .
. . . . . . . |
557 |
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Non-agricultural outside employments 568-581, their size |
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III. |
The Growth of the Employment of Wage-Labour . . .
. |
581 | |
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Approximate number of wage-workers 581-583. -- Capitalist |
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IV. |
The Formation of a Home Market for Labour-Power . . . |
586 | |
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The main movements of wage-workers in connection with the size |
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V. |
The Significance of the Border Regions. Home or Foreign |
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Capitalism's urge for expansion 591-592. -- The example of |
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VI. |
The Mission of Capitalism . . . . . . .
. . . . . . |
596 | |
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The increase in the productivity of social labour 596-598. -- |
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| |||
I. |
Combined Table of Statistics on Small Peasant Indus- |
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II. |
Table of Statistics on the Factory Industry of European |
| |
III. |
The Chief Centres of Factory Industry in European Rus- |
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Part 1 -- Prefaces and Chapter I (137k)
Part 2 -- Chapter II (458k)
Part 3 -- Chapters III and IV (443k)
Part 4 -- Chapters V and VI (369k)
Part 5 -- Chapters VII and VIII (466k)
Appendices (83k)
Notes on |
page 635
[1]
Lenin's book The Development of Capitaiism in Russia was the result of tremendous research lasting more than three years. Lenin began intensive work on his book when in prison, soon after his arrest in connection with the case of the St. Petersburg "League of Struggle for the Emancipation of tho Working Class," and finished it in the village of Shushenskoye where he lived in exile. He had, however, been gathering material for his book long before he began writing it.
page 636
Lenin's sister, A. I. Ulyanova-Elizarova, relates in her reminiscences that while Vladimir Ilyich was working on his book in prison "he decided to use the St. Petersburg libraries in order to obtain material needed for the work he had planned and that he knew he would not be able to get in exile. And so in prison he made an intense study of a mass of source material, and copied out numerous extracts. I dragged heaps of books to him from the Free Economic Society library, from the Academy of Sciences and from other scientific book repositories."
page 637
just be in time for this season." (See present edition, Vol. 37.) Much time was needed to give the manuscript the finishing touches and the job was completed at the end of January 1899.
In his first letter from prison, dated January 2, 1896, Lenin wrote: "I have a plan that has occupied my mind considerably ever since I was arrested, increasingly so as time passes. I have long been engaged on an economic problem (that of the marketing of the products of manufacturing industry within the country), have selected some literature, drawn up a plan for its analysis and have even done some writing with a view to having my work published in book form, should its dimensions exceed those of a magazine article. I should be very unwilling to give up the job, and am now, apparently, faced with the alternative of either writing it here or of abandoning it altogether." (See present edition Vol. 37.)
In the same letter, in addition to giving instructions about books to be obtained according to a list he had drawn up, Lenin unfolded his plan of work:
"The list of books," he wrote, "is divided into the two parts into which my book is divided. A -- The general theoretical part. This requires fewer books, so that, in any case, I hope to write it, although it needs more preparatory work. B -- The application of the theoretical principles to Russian facts. This part requires very many books. The chief difficulty will be: 1) Zemstvo publications. Part of them, by the way, I already have, but another part (small monographs) may be ordered, and a part may be obtained through statisticians I know; 2) Government publications -- the papers of commissions, reports and minutes of congresses, etc. These are important, but they are more difficult to obtain. Some of them, even the majority, I think, are in the library of the Free Economic Society. (See present edition, Vol. 37.)
Lenin also worked on the book while on his way to exile. In a letter dated March 15, 1897, he wrote that while on the way he had looked over some "books borrowed for a short while," and that he intended to send them back from Krasnoyarsk. During a halt at Krasnoyarsk (en route for Shushenskoye village), Lenin made a study of books and magazines that he found in the rich private library of G. V. Yudin, a merchant, and also in the local city library.
While in exile Lenin continued to work hard on The Development of Capitalism in Russia. Since he did not possess the means to buy large numbers of books, he wrote to his relatives asking them to make arrangements to supply him from libraries in the capital. ". . . It would very likely be more profitable for me to spend money on postage and have many books than to spend much more money on buying a few books." (See present edition, Vol. 37.) On Lenin's instructions, his sister, M. I. Ulyanova, copied out numerous extracts from various books in the Rumyantsev Library in Moscow. Lenin received these extracts at the end of May 1897. From the autumn of the same year, he received the material he needed regularly and set to work on the new sources, particularly on the numerous statistical abstracts. In the spring of 1898, N. K. Krupskaya, who had secured a transfer from her place of exile in Ufa to Shushenskoye, brought Lenin many books.
During his three years' work on The Development of Capitalism in Russia, Lenin studied and made a critical analysis of everything that had been written on Russian economics. In this monograph mention is made of, and passages are quoted from, over 500 different books, abstracts, research papers, reviews and articles. The literature, however, actually studied and used by Lenin, but not included among the sources he mentions, was much more extensive. But even this list gives an idea of the colossal amount of work involved in his study of the development of Russian capitalism.
The draft of The Development of Capitalism in Russia was completed in August 1898. In a letter dated October 11, 1898 Lenin wrote: "I have finished drafting my markets, and I have begun to give them the finishing touches. The making of a fair copy will go on simultaneously, so that I have thought of sending it on in parts and of having it printed as it gets there in order to avoid delay (I expect to send off the first lot in a month's time at the very latest); if they begin printing it in December, it might
Lenin paid careful attention to the remarks of comrades and relatives who read The Development of Capitalism while it was still in manuscript. Each chapter was copied into a separate little notebook, and, apart from Krupskaya, was read and discussed by other Social-Democrats who were in exile at that time in the Minusinsk area. "We were the 'first readers,' so to speak, of The Development of Capitalism in Russia," wrote G. M. Krzhizhanovsky in his reminiscences (he lived in exile not far from Shushenskoye village). "Whatever was sent to us, we read carefully and returned it to Lenin with our comments. He took our comments very much into consideration."
The Development of Capitalism in Russia came off the press at the end of March, 1899, under the pseudonym of "Vladimir llyin." The issue of 2,400 copies was sold out very quickly and circulated mainly among the Social-Democratic intelligentsia, the student youth, and also through the medium of propagandists in workers' study circles.
The bourgeois press tried to pass over Lenin's monograph in silence, and the first reviews did not appear until the autumn of 1899. One of them received a crushing retort from Lenin in his article "Uncritical Criticism," which was printed in the magazine Nauchnoye Obozreniye (Scientific Review ) for May-June 1900 (see pp. 609-32 in this volume).
A second edition of The Development of Capitalism in Russia appeared in 1908.
Since the establishment of Soviet power The Development of Capitalism in Russia has, according to data as of October 1, 1957 been published 75 times, in a total of 3,372,000 copies and in 20 of the languages of the Soviet peoples. In addition it has appeared in the English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Czech, Hungarian, Japanese, Turkish and other foreign languages.
Part of the preparatory work for The Development of Capitalism in Russia, which shows the volume of the research done by Lenin, and the methods he employed, has been published in the Lenin Miscellany XXXIII.
The present volume follows the second, 1908, edition, which was published after the text had been corrected and supplemented by Lenin. In addition, account has been taken of all the author's remarks concerning the first, 1899, edition.
[p.21]