New Economic Developments In Peasant Life - Part 5

Lenin notes that it is not the producer's income/revenue per se that is important. A farm may have a large income from its production manifest in a large quantity of commodities obtained in exchange for it. But, if these commodities are then mostly consumed by the household, this is still essentially a continuation of direct production. It is production of products exchanged for other products for consumption, C – C, or even C – M – C. In other words, it continues to be really production on the basis of production of use values for consumption, not production of exchange values. What is significant is the income in cash.

“The producer’s possession of monetary resources is not determined by his degree of prosperity: the peasant who obtains from his plot of land sufficient produce to satisfy his own requirements fully, but who engages in natural economy, is well-off, but he possesses no monetary resources; on the other hand, the half-ruined peasant who obtains from his plot of land only a small part of the grain he needs and who secures the rest (although in a lesser amount and of poorer quality) by casual earnings, is not well-off, but possesses monetary resources. It is clear from this that no discussion on the importance to the market of peasant farms and the incomes they yield can be of any value if not based on a calculation of the cash part of the income.” (p 39) 

Lenin provides a table from Potsnikov which sets out the distribution of this cash income.

	100 dess. under drops consist of				Cash income
	Farm service	Food	Fodder	Com- mercial	Per dess. under crops	Per house- hold
	areas
	(rubles)
Cultivating up to 5 dess. ” 5 to 10 " "10 to 25 " "25 to 50 " ” over 50 "	6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0	90.7 44.7 27.5 17.0 12.0	42.3 37.5 30.0 25.0 21.0	-39.0 +11.8 36.5 52.0 61.0	— 3.77 11.68 16.64 19.52	— 30 191 574 1,500

Postnikov had also shown that the largest cost for farms was the reproduction of labour-power, but as productivity rose, as farm size increased, and as cash income rose proportionally more, as farm size rose, so it meant that labour cost per dessiatine and unit of output fell, resulting in rising profits.

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