The Narodniks also tried to present the handicraft producers, in Russia, as not being capitalist. Marx, in his historical analysis of the development of capitalism indicates the way first individual handicraft producers are employed as wage labourers by capitalists. First, these producers go into debt for whatever reason. The merchant then provides them with material, and the labourer then converts it into cloth etc. The labourer is no longer independent, but has become a wage labourer, employed by the merchant, and the merchant becomes an industrial capitalist. Similarly, the merchant, or an existing master craftsman, in some trade, may establish a workshop in which a number of former independent producers, who have fallen on hard times, are brought together. At first, they continue their handicraft production on the existing basis, but now within the manufactory. They each independently negotiate with the factory owner the price they will be paid for their individual production, but this price now, essentially, represents a wage paid for their labour-power. They are now wage labourers, employed by capital.
But, the Narodniks sought to present the continuation of this handicraft production – now on a capitalist basis – as simply a continuation of peasant production.
“The author is evidently referring to data on the number of handicraftsmen, which is as many as 4 million, or, according to another estimate, 7 million. But who does not know that the form of economy predominating in our handicraft industries is the domestic system of large-scale production? that the bulk of the handicraftsmen occupy a position in production that is not independent at all, but completely dependent, subordinate, that they do not process their own material but that of the merchant, who merely pays the handicraftsman a wage?” (p 206)
Lenin cites data from the statistician S. Kharizomenov, in the official publication Yurisdichesky-Vestnik.
“Summarising the published data on our handicraft industries in the central gubernias, where they are most highly developed, S. Kharizomenov reached the conclusion that there is an absolute predominance of the domestic system of large-scale production, i.e., an unquestionably capitalist form of industry. “Defining the economic role of small-scale independent industry,” he says, “we arrive at the following conclusions: in Moscow Gubernia 86.5% of the annual turnover of handicraft industry is accounted for by the domestic system of large-scale production, and only 13.5% by small-scale independent industry. In the Alexandrov and Pokrov uyezds of Vladimir Gubernia, 96% of the annual turnover of handicraft industry falls to the share of the domestic system of large-scale production and manufacture, and only 4% is accounted for by small-scale independent industry.”” (p 206-7)
The reason the Narodniks, and other liberals, ignored these facts was because they wanted to ignore the class contradictions in society. Insofar as they wanted to recognise the existence of capital and capitalism, they wanted to present it as only existing in the form of the very large machine industry, and as in some way a defect, in the same way that, today, liberals describe the existence of monopoly as some form of anomaly or defect as against the normal condition of free market competition.
Lenin also refers to Krivenko's description of the Pavlovo cutlery trade as being “a trade of semi-artisan character”, and yet, Lenin points out, the cutlers produced exclusively for the market and not for order.
“As a matter of fact, the making of cutlery has least of all (compared with other Pavlovo industries) preserved the small-scale handicraft form, with its (seeming) independence of the producers. “The production of table and industrial cutlery,” says N. F. Annensky, “is already largely approaching the factory, or, more correctly, the manufactory form.” Of the 396 handicraftsmen engaged in the making of table cutlery in Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, only 62 (16%) work for the market, 273 (69%) work for a master, and 61 (15%) are wage-workers. Hence, only one-sixth of them are not directly enslaved to an employer.” (p 207-8)
Working for a master, here, means that they are provided with materials by a capitalist, who takes the finished product from them and sells it, i.e. either via the Putting Out System, or by the labourers being employed in a handicraft workshop or manufactory. In either case, it is capitalist production, and the fact that the labourer obtains a “price” for their output simply obscures the fact that they are only being paid a wage for the value of their labour-power.
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