On The So Called Market Question - Part 13

In addition to the data previously cited, Lenin also presents data from the Moscow Gubernia, relating to the handicraft industries, and in particular the lace industry. 

Lenin presents a table showing the growth of the industry from the 1820's. 

“The lace industry arose in the twenties of the present century in two neighbouring villages of Voronovo Volost, Podolsk Uyezd. “In the 1840’s it began to spread slowly to other nearby villages, although it did not yet cover a big area. But beginning with the sixties and especially during the last three or four years, it. has spread rapidly to the surrounding countryside.” 

Of the 32 villages in which this industry is practised at the present time it began:”

in 2 villages in 1820

" 4 " " 1840

" 5 " " the 1860’s

" 7 " " 1870-4875

" 14 " " 1876-1879

The author of the statistics says that the more rapid spread of the industry in the latter years went along with a deterioration of the condition of the peasants “and, on the other hand, that the requirements of the population—that part of it which is in more favourable circumstances—considerably increased.”

In other words, there is the same process of differentiation of the peasantry into a bourgeoisie and proletariat. In support of that, Lenin reproduces a table provided by the author of the statistics. 

The author of the essay on the lace industry notes the same process by which some families acquired more animals etc., whereas others had to hire out their labour. The more prosperous peasants also had more contact with Moscow, and used some of their excess money to buy the kinds of commodities that were more common in urban areas, “samovars, table crockery and glass, they wear ‘neater’ clothes.” (p 121) 

Previously, peasant families clothed themselves, producing flax from which to produce linen. It was the extent of all this time spent on such domestic production that explained the low development of the lace industry. 

“Lace was made mainly by the young women of the more prosperous or of the larger families, where it was not necessary for all the women to spin flax or weave linen. But cheap calico gradually began to oust linen, and to this other circumstances were added: either the flax crop failed, or the wife wanted to make her husband a red calico shirt and herself a smarter dress, and so the custom of weaving various sorts of linen and kerchiefs at home for peasants’ clothing gradually died out, or became very restricted. And the clothing itself underwent a change, partly because homespun cloth was displaced by factory-made cloth…” (p 121-2) 

And, in order to buy these commodities from the market, the peasants then needed money, which meant producing commodities themselves for sale. 

“This artless narrative of a careful observer clearly shows how the process of division of social labour takes place among our peasant masses, how it leads to the enhancement of commodity production land, consequently, of the market], and how this commodity production, of itself, i.e., by virtue of the very relations in which it places the producer to the market, leads to the purchase and sale of labour-power becoming “a most ordinary occurrence.”” (p 122) 

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