By including landless industrial producers in the survey of handicraft production, the investigators had removed the justification, used previously, for not including handicraft production in the towns, i.e. the idea that it was somehow inextricably linked with agricultural production. Yet, having done so, the investigators included data from just one town, Kungur, in their findings.
“No explanation is given in the Sketch, and it remains a mystery why the census was taken for one town only, and why this particular town was chosen—whether by chance or for some sound reason. This causes no little confusion, and seriously detracts from the value of the general data. On the whole, therefore, the handicraft census repeats the usual Narodnik mistake of separating the country (“handicraftsmen”) from the town, although often enough an industrial district embraces a town and the surrounding villages. It is high time to abandon this distinction, which is due to prejudice and an exaggeration of outdated divisions into social estates.” (p 360)
The fact that urban artisans were sometimes included in the data for handicraftsmen, and sometimes not, indicated the inadequacy of the term handicraftsmen from a scientific perspective. In practice, Lenin says, everything other than machine industry tended to be included in the category of handicraft industry, which blurred the important socio-economic distinction between those that produced for the market and those that did not. Similarly, there is a distinct socio-economic difference between the first two groups and those that work for buyers up, this latter group being already essentially wage workers.
Lenin then provides a table (Table p 362) in which these divisions into the above groups and sub-groups are illustrated. It sets out their composition in terms of number of establishments in each, the number of family workers, wage workers, as well as the total number of establishments employing wage workers.
“We see from the table that although there is a preponderance of agriculturists (Group I) among the rural industrialists and artisans, they are more backward in the development of forms of industry than those who do not cultivate the land (Group II). Among the former primitive artisanship is far more prevalent than production for the market. The greater development of capitalism among the non-agriculturists is shown by the larger proportion of establishments employing wage-workers, of the wage-workers themselves, and of handicraftsmen who work for buyers up. It may therefore be concluded that the tie with agriculture tends to preserve the more backward forms of industry, and vice versa, that the development of capitalism in industry leads to a break with agriculture.” (p 362)
This is consistent with the data that Lenin has analysed in previous works. In other words, first industrial production separates from agriculture, and becomes concentrated in the towns, on the basis of a social division of labour. This division necessarily leads to an increase in commodity production, as the industrial producers become dependent on an exchange both between themselves, and with agricultural producers both for materials and food. As markets grow in the towns, so, as some industrial producers fail, for a variety of reasons, so the merchants step in to become buyers-up, employing the former producers as effectively wage labourers. Merchant capital enters capitalist production. The same process sees some of the more efficient producers able to expand. They are also able to become buyers-up, offering to take their neighbours production to more distant markets, along with their own. By this means, some independent producers become merchant capitalists, and they are also able to utilise the capital accumulated to employ wage labourers alongside family members.
As soon as more capitalistic methods become available, it is these producers that adopt them, whereas the agricultural producers continue in the old way. As Lenin demonstrated in On The So Called Market Question, the urban producers increasingly undercut those elements of domestic industry that the agricultural producers relied upon for additional income. At the same time, agriculture must provide a growing quantity of material for the expanding capitalist production in the towns. So, agricultural producers are themselves now led into increasing commodity production, to meet the needs of industrial centres.
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