New Economic Developments In Peasant Life - Part 3

The village community that may have existed in the 1870's, therefore, no longer existed, Postnikov concludes, as a result of this sharp differentiation of the peasantry. Postnikov provided a mass of data to support this conclusion, and Lenin turns to an examination of it. I only intend to refer to a very small selection of the data, which, as Lenin says, disproves the idea of an homogeneous peasantry. Lenin notes that Postnikov's analysis had shown significant differences in the property status of different peasant households within each village. 

“The next step was the introduction of combined tables: prompted by the conviction that the property differences among the peasants within the village community are more profound than the differences between the various juridical categories of peasants, the statisticians began to classify all the indices of peasant economic status according to definite property differences; for example, they grouped the peasants according to the number of dessiatines under crops, the number of draught animals, the amount of allotment arable per household, and so on.” (p 19) 

This division is vital, Lenin says, because it is directly related to the prosperity of the peasant household. Lenin provides a table from Postnikov setting out the extent of land cultivation in these different Uyezds.

	Uyezds			Average area (dess.) under crops per household in all three uyezds
Percentages of Households Cultivating Land in the following sizes (Dessiatines)	Berdyansk %	Melitopol %	Dnieper %
0	6.0	7.5	9.0	—
0 to 5	12.0	11.5	11.0	3.5
5 to 10	22.0	21.0	20.0	8.0
10 to 25	38.0	39.0	41.8	16.4
25 to 50	19.0	16.6	15.1	34.5
over 50	3	4.4	3.1	75

This shows, Postnikov says, that 40% cultivate small areas, 40% medium and 20% large areas. Lenin further demonstrates that the extent of the cultivation of the larger areas cannot be explained by larger family size. He provides data on the family composition, as set out by Postnikov, which illustrates this point. Lenin concludes, 

“It is clear that what determines the size of the allotment, apart from the composition of the family, is the prosperity of the household.” (p 23) 

It is these more affluent peasant families that are the ones that buy additional land, or rent it from peasants who cannot sustains themselves on it, “and chiefly the very big cultivators, those with 75 dessiatines under crops per household.” (p 23) 

The purchase of land was undertaken by an affluent minority, constituting no more than 20% of the population. And, it was these same groups that rented additional land. Lenin notes that 91% of of the most affluent peasants, who already had enough land, also rented additional land. By contrast, only 25% of the poorest peasants, who mostly had insufficient land, resorted to renting additional land. In the first case, it represents capital accumulation, in the second dire need. Even where additional land was rented by villages as a whole, this was determined by where the most money was, and the additional land was almost exclusively used by the most affluent peasants in the village. 

By contrast, those most likely to rent out their land are the poorer peasants who lack the animals and other means of production to farm it efficiently. As Postnikov says, 

“The majority of the lessors undoubtedly belong to the category of impoverished, declining householders” (pp, 136-37).” (p 29) 

This point, that it is the more affluent households, with more draught animals, that can cultivate, and so buy and rent, additional land, is shown by another table provided by Postnikov.

Land Cultivated (Dessiatines)	Average per household (Total)
	Horses	Oxen	Draught animals	Other animals	In all	% of house holds possessing no dr. animals
0 0 - 5 5 -10 10 - 25 25 - 50 over 50	— 6,467 25,152 80,517 62,823 21,003	— 3,082 8,924 24,943 19,030 11,648	0.3 1.0 1.9 3.2 5.8 10.5	0.8 1.4 2.3 4.1 8.1 19.5	1.1 2.4 4.2 7.3 13.9 30.0	80.50 48.30 12.50 1.40 0.10 0.03
Total. . .	195,962	67,627	3.1	4.5	7.6	—

Lenin notes, 

“Here we shall only mention that the difference between peasant groups with regard to the number of draught animals they own is so profound that we see far more animals in the top groups than can possibly be required for the needs of the family, while the bottom groups have so few (especially draught animals) that independent farming becomes impossible.” (p 31) 

Similar data is presented in respect of the distribution of ownership of farm implements and tools. The distribution of tools and implements, relative to family size, also indicates that, whilst the poorest households could not subsist, the most affluent households needed to hire labour, so as to utilise all of the implements, and farm all of the land under cultivation.

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