The Narodniks pointed to the leather tanning industries to support their argument. The data, however, showed that, of the 129 businesses, 90 were established after 1870, and in 1869, there had been 161 handicraft tanneries, whilst, by 1895, there were 153. What does this show? Nothing more than that some small tanneries were being continually set up, whilst others were closing down, or being sold to other tannery owners, who, thereby, consolidated the production. Moreover, Lenin points out that the tannery industry had lagged behind others in its development, and what was classified as a handicraft tannery, in 1869, was quite different to what it meant in 1895. The process described, here, is the same as that I have described previously in relation to the Small Business Myth. That is that it is quite possible for there to be a continual large number of new small businesses created, along with a relative diminution in the number of small businesses. As around half of all new business fold within a year, and around 75% within five years, the basis of that is clear.
“In the 1860s the overwhelming majority of the “leather factories” in Perm Gubernia (according to the factory statistics) had an output valued at less than 1,000 rubles (see the Ministry of Finance Yearbook, Part I, St. Petersburg, 1869. Tables and notes); in the 1890s establishments with an output of less than 1,000 rubles were, on the one hand, excluded from the list of factories, and the list of “handicraft tanneries,” on the other, happened to include many establishments with an output of over 1,000 rubles, some even with an output of 5,000 rubles, 10,000 rubles and more (Sketch, p. 70, and pp. 149 and 150 of the tables).” (p 384)
In fact, production in this industry was concentrated in the hands of just three large enterprises.
“In all, there are 148 establishments in this industry. Workers: 267 family + 172 wage-workers = 439; aggregate output = 151,022 rubles; net income = 26,207 rubles. Among these establishments there are 3 with 0 family workers + 65 wage-workers = 65. Value of output = 44,275 rubles; net income = 3,391 rubles (p. 70 of the text, and pp. 149 and 150 of the tables).” (p 385)
The Narodniks pointed to the fact that these three enterprises constituted just 2.1% of the total of 148, just as, today, petty bourgeois liberals point to the plethora of small businesses as characteristic, as against the actual dominance of a few very large producers. As Lenin put it,
“... there is a concentration of nearly one-third of the total output of the “handicraft tanning industry,” yielding their owners thousands of rubles of income without their taking any part in production.” (p 385)
In their account of the three businesses, the authors of The Sketch described one of them as owned by “an agriculturist”, but who “is apparently occupied exclusively in commerce, having his leather shops in the village of Beloyarskoye and the city of Ekaterinburg” (p 385) Lenin points out that this is an example of the way the larger capitalists combined involvement in production with commerce, “a fact that should be noted by the authors of the Sketch, who depict “kulakdom” and commercial operations as something adventitious, divorced from production!” (p 385)
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