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First published in 1908; Chapters X -XI in the miscellany: Vl. Ilyin, The Agrarian Question, Part I, St. Petersburg, and Chapter XII in the collection Current Life, St. Petersburg

Published according to the text in the miscellany and the collection

 

From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,
Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1972

Vol. 13, pp. 169-216.

Translated from the Russian by Bernard Isaacs
Edited by Clemens Dutt

 

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Prepared © for the Internet by David J. Romagnolo, djr@cruzio.com (August 1997)
 

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X

THE "WORK" OF THE GERMAN BULCAKOV, E. DAVlD

    Ed. David's book, Socialism and Agriculture, is an exceptionally clumsy and cumbrous summary of all the erroneous methods and arguments which we have seen in the works of Bulgakov, Hertz, and Chernov. We could, therefore, completely ignore David; but since his "work" is undoubtedly at the present time the principal work of revisionism on the agrarian question, we think it necessary once again to show how the revisionist fraternity write learned treatises.

    To the question of machinery in agriculture David devotes the whole of Chapter IV of his book (pp. 115-93 of the Russian translation), apart from numerous references to the same subject in other chapters. The politico-economic essence of the matter is completely submerged in hundreds of technicalities which the author examines in minute detail. Machinery does not play the same role in agriculture as in industry; in agriculture there is no central motor; most of the machines are only temporarily employed; some machines make no saving in production costs, and so on and so forth. David regards such conclusions (see pp. 190-93, the question of machinery summed up) as a refutation of Marxist theory! But this merely obscures the question instead of clarifying it. That agriculture is backward compared with manufacturing industry is not open to the slightest doubt. This backwardness requires no proof. By examining, point by point, the various ways in which that backwardness is displayed, by piling example upon example and case upon case, David merely pushes into the background the actual subject of the research, namely: is the use

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of machines of a capitalist character? Is the increased use of machines due to the growth of capitalist agriculture?

    David utterly fails to understand how the question should be presented by a Marxist. David's standpoint is essentially that of the petty bourgeois, who consoles himself with the relatively slow progress of capitalism and is afraid to look at social evolution as a whole. Thus, on the question of agricultural machinery, David quotes Bensing, quotes him innumerable times[88] (pp. 125, 135, 180, 182, 184, 186, 189, 506, and others of the Russian translation). David can positively be said to exasperate the reader by passing from detail to detail without sifting his material, without coherence, without a reasoned presentation of the question, without aim. Consequently, David provides no summing up of Bensing's conclusions. What I said in 1901 in opposition to Mr. Bulgakov fully applies to David.[*] First, a summary of Bensing's conclusions shows the indisputable advantage which farms using machines have over those that do not use them. None of the "corrections" to Bensing in minor details, with which David has stuffed his book, can alter this conclusion. David passes over this general conclusion in silence in exactly the same way as Mr. Bulgakov did! Secondly, while quoting Bensing without end, without reason, without coherence, David, like Mr. Bulgakov, failed to note Bensing's bourgeois views concerning machinery in both industry and agriculture. In short, David does not even understand the socio-economic aspect of the question. He is unable to generalise and connect the factual data showing the superiority of large-scale over small-scale production. As a result, nothing remains but the reactionary lamentations of the petty bourgeois who places his hopes in technical backwardness, in the slow development of capitalism. In the matter of theory, the Right-wing Cadet and "Christian" renegade Mr. Bulgakov is quite on a level with the opportunist Social-Democrat David.

    David fails, hopelessly fails to understand the socio-economic aspect of other questions as well. Take his fundamental thesis, his pet idea, the "kingpin" of the whole

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    * See present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 133-34. --Ed. [Transcriber's Note: Throughout this document, all references to page numbers in Vol. 5 by the Editor are to those in Lenin's 1901 text, The Agrarian Question and the "Critics of Marx". -- DJR]

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work: the viability of small-scale production in agriculture and its superiority to large-scale production. Ask David: What is small-scale production?

    On page 29, footnote, you will find a neat answer: "Wherever we refer to small-scale production we mean the economic category which functions without regular outside assistance and without an auxiliary occupation." Though clumsily expressed and poorly translated by Mr. Grossman, this is more or less clear. After that we have a right to expect David to outline the conditions of small-scale (in area ) farming from the standpoint of the employment of hired labour, or the sale of the latter by the farmer.

    Nothing of the kind.

    Nothing brings out David's bourgeois nature so strongly as his complete disregard of the question of the employment of hired labour by "small" farmers and of the conversion of the latter into wage-labourers. Complete disregard -- that is literally true. Statistical data on this are to be found in German statistics; Kautsky quotes them briefiy in his Agrarian Question (I have quoted them in detail[*]). David knows those statistics, but he does not analyse them. He gives a mass of references to separate monographs, but completely ignores the data they contain on this question. In short, this is a case of a petty bourgeois completely passing over in silence the question of the "farm-hands" employed by the thrifty muzhik.

    Here are examples:

    On page 109 we read: "On the whole, in market gardening as in agriculture, small-scale production flourishes."

    You look for proof. All you are given is the following:

    "According to the industrial statistics** for 1895, out of 32,540 orchards and vegetable gardens 13,247 = 40 per cent were of an area less than 20 ares; 8,257 = 25 per cent ranged from 20 to 50 ares; 5,707 = 14 per cent from 50 ares to one hectare; 3,397 = 10 per cent ranged in area from 1

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    * See present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 194-95. --Ed.
    ** Evidently, this is the way Mr. Grossman, the editor of the translation, translated the word Betriebsstatistik. That's the trouble with Russian translations! It should have been translated: "statistics of agricultural enterprises".

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to 2 hectares, and only 1,932 = 6 per cent occupied an area of 2 hectares and over."

    That is all. And this is supposed to prove that small-scale production is flourishing in market gardening. This is supposed to be a scientific work by a man well versed in agronomics. If it is, then we do not know what charlatanry in science is.

    Only 6 per cent have an area of 2 hectares and over, says David. In the very same statistics from which he takes those figures there are figures showing the amount of land which these 6 per cent occupy. David ignores those figures. He ignores them because they demolish his theory. "But more than half of this area (51.39 per cent)," I wrote concerning those very figures,[*] "is concentrated in the hands of 1,932 proprietors, or 5.94 per cent of all the market gardeners." Of these 1,932 market gardeners 1,441 have vegetable gardens ranging from two to five hectares, making an average of 2.76 hectares per farm and total land amounting to an average of 109.6 hectares per farm; 491 farmers have vegetable gardens of five hectares or more, making an average of 16.54 hectares per farm, and total land amounting to an average of 134.7 hectares per farm (ibid.).

    Thus, only 6 per cent of the market gardeners concentrate in their hands 51.39 per cent of the totaI market garden land. They are big capitalists for whom vegetable gardens are supplementary to capitalist agriculture (farms of 100 to 135 hectares). Consequently, market gardening is enormously concentrated capitalistically. But David has the . . . temerity to assert that "small-scale production is flourishing", i.e., production not using hired labour. As to what size farms in market gardening require hired labourers he gives no information.

    That is how the scholarly David handles statistics. An example of the way in which he handles monographs is provided by Hecht,[89] the same notorious Hecht quoted by Bulgakov, Hertz, and Chernov.** In his "work" David paraphrases Hecht for the space of two pages (pp. 394-95). But how does he paraphrase him? Not a word about hired

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    * See present edition, Vol. 5, p. 215. --Ed.
    ** See present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 162-67. --Ed.

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labour. Not a word about the fact that Hecht embellishes the "settled state " of the factory worker who has a plot of land, lumping together workers and well-to-do peasants. Not a word about the fact that while a small number of well to-do peasants are "flourishing", the conditions of the bulk of the peasants are such that they even have to sell their milk and use cheaper margarine as a substitute.

    David not only says nothing about this; he even declares that "Hecht quotes extremely interesting data on the high living standards of these peasants" (p. 395). A grosser example of bourgeois apologetics is difficult to imagine.

    Incidentally, about Hecht's statement that the peasants sell their milk in order to buy cheaper margarine. One would think that this is a generally known fact among economists. As far back as 1847, Marx in The Poverty of Philosophy referred to the deterioration of the people's diet under capitalism.[90] In Russia, ever since the time of Engelllardt[91] (the 1870s), this fact has been noted very many times by all who have made a more or less conscientious study of the progress of capitalism in dairy farming. The "scholarly" David failed to notice this. He even sneers when socialists point to it.

    On pages 427-28 of David's book we read scoffing remarks about Kautsky, who says that the amalgamated dairies, which promote the sale of milk by the peasants, cause a deterioration in the latter's diet. To enable the reader to judge the German Narodnik David at his true worth we shall quote his own words:

    ". . . AII other people are in the habit, when receiving a larger income, of using some part of it for the benefit of their stomachs. It is only human nature that a man should want to eat something better, if only he has a little money to enable him to do so. It is, therefore very strange that the peasant who, as is generally admitted, is getting more money than before for his milk and pigs, thanks to the co-operative, should behave differently from other mortals," and so on and so forth.

    This buffoonery of a reactionary petty bourgeois is not worth answering, of course. It is sufficieut to exhibit him to the reading public; it is sufficient to drag him into the light of day from under the heap of disconnected agronomic quotations scattered through five hundred and fifty pages.

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It is sufficient to note that even the bourgeois apologist Hecht, quoted by David, admits as a fact the deterioration in diet as a consequence of the substitution of cheap margarine for marketed milk. This applies to South Germany, the region where small-peasant farming predominates. Concerning another region, East Prussia, we have the very similar statement of Klawki[*] that the small peasants "consume very little butter and whole milk".

    David's bourgeois apologetics can be traced in absolutely all the questions he deals with. Thus, he extols the dairy co-operatives of Germany and Denmark in over a score of pages (413-35 and others). He also quotes statistics . . . but only on the numerical growth of the co-operatives! He does not quote the German statistics showing the concentration of "co-operative" dairy farming in the hands of big capitalist farms.[**] The Davids have a blind eye for such data in the statistics they handle!

    "The Danish peasants organised in co-operatives," says David, "have even excelled the privately owned farms of the big landed proprietors." Then follows an example: a quotation from the 46th Report of a test laboratory to the effect that the butter produced by the co-operatives is of better quality than that manufactured by the landlord. And David continues:

    "Such results have been achieved by peasants who at one time on their small farms, produced only inferior grades of butter for which they obtained only half the price paid for that of the big proprietors. Moreover, by and large, we are dealing here with mlddle and small peasants [David's italics]. In 1898, there were in Denmark 179,740 cow-sheds of which only 7,544 or 4 per cent contained 30 or more cows each; 49,371 or 27.82 per cent, each contained from 10 to 29 cows, 122,589 or 68.97 per cent contained less than 10 cows each. More than half of these cow-sheds, namely, 70,218, comprising 39.85 per cent of the total, contained only from 1 to 3 cows each, i.e., they belonged to quite small farms. That the great majority of these small farms belong to co-operative organisations is shown by the fact that in 1900 the milk of approximat.ely 900,000 cows out of Denmark's 1,110,000 milch cows was delivered to dairy co-operatives" (p. 424).

    Thus argues the scholarly David. He avoids quoting precise data on the distribution of the cows among the farms

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    * See present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 176-77. --Ed.
    ** Ibid., p. 216. --Ed.

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in the various groups; that is distasteful to him, But even the fragmentary figures he does quote show that he completely distorts the reality. By comparing the total number of cows with the distribution of cow-sheds according to the number of cattle in them we get the following picture, which, though an approximate one,[*] undoubtedly, on the whole, corresponds to the reality:

 

Denmark	Number of farms (thousands)	Number of cows in them (thousands)	Number of cows per farm
Farms with 1 to  3 cows   "     "   4 to  9  "   "     "  10 to 29  "   "     "  30 or more "	70  52  49   8	100   250   550   200	1.43  4.81 11.22 25.00
Total	179	1,100	6.14

 

    From these figures it is seen, first, that the concentration of dairy farming in Denmark is very high. 750,000 cows out of 1,100,000, i. e., over two-thirds of the total, belong to the big farms -- 57,000 out of 179,000, i.e., less than a third of the total number of farmers. Since each of these farms has ten or more cows, they certainly do not dispense with hired labour. Thus, David "failed to notice" that the size of the farms which keep livestock is by no means small here; Danish farms must not be judged by area of land. David "failed to notice" that here, as everywhere and always in capitalist agriculture, a vast number of

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    * These figures are approximate, first, because the number of cows is given for 1900, while the number of farms is given for 1898; secondly, because we had to determine the number of cows in each group approximately, since David does not give exact figures. We have put the big farms share lower than it actually is: 7,544 farms have 30 or more cows each. Thus, even if we take the minimum, i.e., 30 cows per farm, we get 7,544 x 30 = 226,320 cows. We have taken a smaller figure, otherwise the size of the small farms would approach too closely to the minimum and not to the maximum limits of the groups.

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small farms account for an insignificant share of the total production. The small farmers number 70,000, i.e., nearly 40 per cent; but they own one-eleventh of the total number of cows.

    Secondly, the figures quoted show that both in Denmark and in Germany the benefits of co-operation are enjoyed mainly by the capitalists. If out of 1,100,000 cows the milk of 900,000 is delivered to the dairy co-operatives, it follows that 200,000 cows remain outside the "beneficial" scope of co-operative marketing. These are mainly the cows of the smallest farmers, for we have seen from the figures for Germany that of the farms up to two hectares, only 0.3 per cent of the total belong to dairy co-operatives, but of the farms of 100 hectares and over, 35.1 per cent belong to such co-operatives. Consequently, all this leads us to assume that the small farmers (70,000 owning 100,000 cows) least enjoy the benefits of co-operative marketing.

    The example of Denmark completely refutes David, since it proves that not the small, and not the medium, but the big farms predominate in the production of dairy produce.

    To put some life into these lifeless figures and tables and show the class character of bourgeois agriculture (which the obtuse petty bourgeois David totally ignores) we shall quote an outstanding fact from the history of the working-class movement in Denmark. In 1902, the Danish shipowners reduced the wages of the stokers, who answered by going on strike. The union to which all the dock workers belonged supported the stokers and also ceased work. But . . . they were unable to make the strike a general one, to extend it to all the ports of Denmark. "Port Esbjerg [on the west coast of Denmark, important for trade with England], which plays such a great part in the export of Danish agricultural produce, could not be drawn into the strike because the Danish agricultural co-operatives declared that they would immediately send the required number of their members to work on loading the ships, that the Danish peasants would not allow a stoppage in the export of their produce."*

    Thus, the Danish co-operatives took the side of the ship-

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    * Emil Helms, Die socialdemokratische und gewerkschaftliche Bewegung in Dänenmark, Leipzig, 1907, S. 138.

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owners against the workers and made the strike a failure. It is quite understandable, of course, that capitalist farmers, owning ten and more cows each, should support their fellow-capitalists against the workers. What is not understandable is that writers like David, who gloss over the class struggle, call themselves socialists.

    On the question of combining farming with technical crop industries (sugar refining, distilling, etc.) David makes the very same mistake as Mr. Bulgakov. Like the Russian professor, the German "learned" opportunist simply copied the tables given in the German enquiry, without stopping to think what these tables refer to! Kautsky asserts that sugar production is an example of agricultural large-scale industry. To refute this David, like Bulgakov, quotes figures showing that there are more small farms connected with technical-crop industries than big ones (pages 406, 407, and 410 of David's book). The learned statistician forgot that, in general, there are more small farms than big ones. Instead of showing what percentage of the farms in each group is combined with technical industries he copied a table giving the percentage of such farms in each group in relation to the total number of farms. I have already dealt in detail with this mistake made by Mr. Bulgakov.[*] It only remains for me to point out that the equally scientifically conscientious Ed. David equally failed to take the trouble to glance at the figures showing what share of the land under sugar beet is in the hands of capitalists.

    What a comical degree of soul affinity exists between the German opportunist and the Russian liberal professor can be seen from the fact that not only do they both handle statistics with the same carelessness and lack of skill, but both quote Marx with the same carelessness. Like Bulgakov David recognises the "law of diminishing returns". True, he tries to expound it with special limitations, to surround it with special conditions, but that does not improve matters in the least. For example, on page 476, David says that "this law does not at all concern the change of productivity in the transition from one scientific-technical stage

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    * See present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 209-10. --Ed.

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of agriculture to another. It concerns exclusively the change of productivity at one and the same scientific-technical stage." This is exactly the limitation of the notorious law that I mentioned when opposing Mr. Bulgakov,[*] and I at once added that this makes the "law" "so relative that it cannot be called a law, or even a cardinal specific fealure of agriculture ".

    Nevertheless, David continues to elevate this Iaw to a specific feature of agriculture. The result is a hopeless muddle, for if "scientific-technical" conditions remain unchanged, additional investments of capital are extremely restricted in industry too.

    "The backwardness of agriculture," says David in the concluding chapter, "is due, in the first place, to the conservatism of organic nature, which finds expression in the law of diminishing returns" (501). This conclusion throws overboard the very thesis that has just been put forward, namely, that the "law" does not apply to transitions to a higher technical stage! "The conservatism of organic nature" is simply a verbal subterfuge of reactionary philistinism which is incapable of understanding the social conditions that hinder particularly the development of agriculture. David shows that he does not understand that among those social conditions are, first, the survivals of feudalism in agriculture, the inequality of rights of agricultural labourers, and so on and so forth; and secondly, ground rent, which inflates prices and embodies high rents in the price of land.

    "We think," writes David, "that German agriculture today could not produce the total quantity of grain required . . . at the level of productivity which, thanks to overseas production, is considered normal from the standpoint of world economy. The law of diminishing returns does not permit an unlimited increase in the quantity of products on a limited area of land without a diminution in productivity" (519) -- the last sentence is in italics in David's book.

    Take a look, if you please, at this economist! He declares that the "law" of diminishing returns deals exclusively with

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    * See present edidion, Vol. 5, pp. 108-09. --Ed.

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the change of productivity at one and the same scientific technical stage (476). Yet he draws the conclusion: "the law does not permit an 'unlimited' increase in the quantity of products!" (519). Why, then, does it follow that German agriculture could not be raised to the next "scientific technical stage" if this were not prevented by the private ownership of the land, by inflated rent, by the lack of rights, the downtrodden state, and degradation of the agricultural labourer, by the barbarous medieval privileges of the Junkers?

    The bourgeois apologist naturally tries to ignore the social and historical causes of the backwardness of agriculture and throws the blame on the "conservatism of organic nature" and on the "law of diminishing returns". That notorious law contains nothing but apologetics and obtuseness.

    To cover up his shameful retreat to the old prejudices of bourgeois political economy David, exactly like Bulgakov, presents us with a falsified quotation from Marx. David quotes the same page of Volume III of Capital (III. B., II. Teil, S. 277) which Mr. Bulgakov quotes! (See page 481 of David's book and our previous criticism of Mr. Bulgakov.[*])

    What I have said about the scientific conscientiousness of Mr. Bulgakov applies wholly to David as well. Mr. Bulgakov garbled a passage from Marx. David confined himself to quoting the first words of the same passage: "Concerning decreasing productiveness of the soil with successive investments of capital, see Liebig" (Das Kapital, III. B., II. Teil, S. 277)[92] Like Bulgakov, David distorted Marx, making it appear to the reader that this is the only reference by Marx. Actually, we repeat, anyone who has read Volume III of Capital (and the second part of Volume II of Theorien über den Mehrwert [93]) knows that the opposite is the case. Marx points out dozens of times that he regards cases of diminished productivity of additional investments of capital as being quite as legitimate and quite as possible as cases of increased productivity of additional investments of capital.

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    * See present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 116-19. --Ed.

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    In a footnote on page 481 David promises in the future to examine the connection between this law and rent, and also "to examine critically Marx's attempt to develop and extend the theory of rent, while rejecting the basis given by Malthus and Ricardo".

    We venture to predict that David's critical examination will be a repetition of bourgeois prejudices à la Mr. Bulgakov, or . . . à la Comrade Maslov.

    Let us now examine another radically erroneous thesis of David's. To refute his apologetics or his distortion of statistics is a very thankless task. On the question we are now about to deal with we have some new data which enable us to contrast a factual picture of reality with.the theories of present-day philistinism.


 

XI

LIVESTOCK IN SMALL AND LARGE FARMS

    The "critics" or Bernsteinians in the agrarian question, when defending small-scale production, very often refer to the following circumstance. Small farmers keep far more cattle on a given unit of land than big farmers. Consequently, they say, the small farmers manure their land better. Their farms are on a technically higher level, for manure plays a decisive role in modern agriculture, and the manure obtained from cattle kept on the farm is far superior to any artificial fertilisers.

    Ed. David in his book Socialism and Agriculture attaches decisive significance to this argument (pp. 326, 526, and 527 of the Russian translation). He writes in italics: "manure is the soul of agriculture" (p. 308), and makes this truism the main basis of his defence of small-scale farming. He quotes German statistics showing that the small farms keep far more cattle per unit of land than the big ones. David is convinced that these figures definitely decide in his favour the question of the advantages of large-scale or small-scale production in agriculture.

    Let us examine this theory and the manurial soul of agriculture more closely.

page 183

 

    The main argument advanced by David and his numerous adherents among the bourgeois economists is a statistical one. They compare the number of cattle (per unit of land) on different-sized farms, it being tacitly assumed that identical quantities are compared, i.e., that an equal number of cattle of a particular kind represents an equal agricultural value, so to speak, on both big and small farms. It is assumed that an equal number of cattle provides an equal quantity of manure, that the cattle on big and small farms have more or less the same qualities, and so forth.

    Obviously, the cogency of the argument in question depends entirely upon whether this usually tacit assumption is correct. Is this postulate correct? If we pass from the bare and rough, indiscriminate statistics to an analysis of the socio-economic conditions of small-scale and large-scale agricultural production as a whole we shall find at once that that postulate takes for granted the very thing that has still to be proved. Marxism affirms that the conditions under which cattle are kept (and also, as we have seen, the tending of the land and the conditions of the agricultural worker) are worse in small-scale than in large-scale farming. Bourgeois political economy asserts the opposite, and the Bernsteinians repeat this assertion, namely, that thanks to the diligence of the small farmer, cattle are kept under far better conditions on a small farm than on a big one. To find data which would throw light on this question requires quite different statistics from those with which David operates. It requires a statistical study not of the number of cattle on different-sized farms, but of their quality. Such a study exists in German economic literature, and perhaps more than one. It is highly characteristic that David, who filled his book with a mass of irrelevant quotations from all kinds of works on agronomics, completely ignored the attempts to be found in the literature to reveal the internal conditions of small-scale and large-scale farming by means of detailed research. We shall acquaint the reader with one of those researches undeservedly ignored by David.

    Drechsler, a well-known German writer on agricultural questions, published the results of a monographic "agricul-

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tural statistical investigation", which, he rightly said, "for the accuracy of its results is surely without equal". In the Province of Hanover, 25 settlements were investigated (22 villages and three landlord estates), and data showing not only the amount of land and number of cattle, but also the quality of the cattle were collected separately for each farm. To determine the quality of the cattle a particularly accurate method was adopted: the live weight [*] of each animal was ascertained in kilogrammes "on the basis of the most careful possible appraisal of the individual animals -- an appraisal made by experts". Data were obtained giving the live weight of each type of animal of different-sized farms. The investigation was carried out twice: the first in 1875, the second in 1884. The figures were published by Drechsler[**] in rough form for each of three estates and for three groups of villages, the peasant farms in the villages being divided into seven groups according to the amount of land (over 50 hectares; 25 to 53; 12.5 to 25; 7.5 to 12.5; 2.5 to 7.5; 1.25 to 2.5, and up to 1.25 hectares). Considering that Drechsler's figures relate to eIeven different types of animals, the reader will realise how complicated all these tables are. To obtain summarised figures which will enable us to draw general and basic conclusions, we shall divide all the farms into five main groups: (a) big estates; (b) peasant farms having over 25 hectares of lands; (c) 7.5 to 25 hectares; (d) 2.5 to 7.5 hectares; and (e) less than 2.5 hectares.

    The number of farms in these groups and the amount of land in them in 1875 and in 1884 were as follows:

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    * David is well aware of this method, employed by agronomists, of ascertaining the live weight of animals. On page 367 he tells us in detail the live weight of different breeds of beef and dairy cattle draught animals, etc. He copies these data from the agronomists. It never occurs to him that what matters to an economist in general, and to a socialist in particular, is not the difference in the breeds of cattle, but the difference in the conditions under which they are kept in small and large farms, in "peasant" and in capitalist farming.
    ** For 1875 in Schriften des Vereins für Sozialpolitik, Band XXIV, S. 112 ("Bäuerliche Zustände", B. III), and for 1884 in Thiel's landwirtschaftliche Jahrbücher, Band XV (1886).

page 185


 

 

	1875			1884
	Number of farms	Amount of land	Land per farm	Number of farms	Amount of land	Land per farm
	(Hectares)
(a) Estates (b) Farms of 25 ha and over (c)    "   " 7.5 to 25 ha (d)    "   " 5.5 to  7.5 ha (e)    "   "  up  to  2.5 ha	3 51 274 442 1,449	689 1,949 3,540 1,895 1,279	229    38    13    4.3  0.88	3 58 248 407 1,109	766 2,449 3,135 1,774 1,027	255   42   12   4.3 0.9
Total	2,219	9,352	4.2	1,825	9,151	5.0

 

    To explain these figures we shall deal first of all with the economic types of the different-sized farms. Drechsler considers that all the farms of 7.5 hectares and over employ hired labour. Thus, we get (in 1875) 325 peasant farms employing workers. All the farmers having up to 2.5 hectares have to hire themselves out. Of the farmers having 2.5 to 7.5 hectares (average = 4.3 ha) half, according to Drechsler's calculations, do not employ labour, while the other half have to provide hired labourers. Thus, of the total peasant farms, 325 are capitalist farms, 221 are small "Trudovik" farms (as our Narodniks would call them) which do not employ labour nor provide hired labourers, and 1,670 are semi-proletarian, which provide hired labourers.

    Unfortunately, Drechsler's grouping differs from that of the general German statistics, which regard as middle peasants those having from 5 to 20 hectares. Nevertheless, it remains an undoubted fact that the majority of these middle peasants do not dispense with hired workers. The "middle peasants" in Germany are small capitalists. The peasants who do not hire labour and do not hire themselves out constitute an insignificant minority: 221 out of 2,216, i.e., one-tenth.

    Thus, the groups of farms which we have selected according to their cconomic type are characterised as follows: (a) big capitalist; (b) middle capitalist ("Grossbauer "); (c) small capitalist; (d) small peasant; and (e) semi-proletarian.

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    The total number of farms and the total amount of land they occupied diminished between 1875 and 1884. This decrease mainly applied to the small farms: the number of farms occupying up to 2.5 hectares dropped from 1,449 to 1,109, i.e., by 340, or nearly one-fourth. On the other hand, the number of the biggest farms (over 25 hectares) increased from 54 to 61, and the amount of land they occupied increased from 2,638 to 3,215 hectares, i.e., by 577 hectares. Consequently, the general improvement in farming and the raising of agricultural standards in the given area, about which Drechsler goes into raptures, signify the concentration of agriculture in the hands of a diminishing number of owners: "Progress" has pushed out of agriculture nearly 400 farmers out of 2,219 (by 1884 there remained 1,825), and raised the average amount of land per farm among the remainder from 4.2 to 5 hectares. In one locality capitalism concentrates the given branch of agriculture and pushes a number of small farmers into the ranks of the proletariat. In another locality the growth of commercial farming creates a number of new small farms (for example dairy farming in suburban villages and in entire countries which export their produce, such as Denmark). In still other localities the splitting up of the medium farms increases the number of small farms. Indiscriminate statistics conceal all these processes, for the study of which detailed investigations must be made.

    The progress of agriculture in the locality described found particular expression in the improvement of livestockrearing, although the total head of livestock diminished. In 1875, there were 7,208 head of livestock (in terms of cattle); in 1884 there were 6,993. Going by the gross statistics, this decrease in the total number of livestock would be a sign of decline in livestock breeding. Actually, there was an improvement in the quality of the stock, so that, if we take not the number of animals, but their total "live weight", we shall get 2,556,872 kilogrammes in 1875 and 2,696,107 kilogrammes in 1884.

    Capitalist progress in livestock rearing shows itself not only, sometimes even not so much, in an increase in numbers as in an improvement in quality, in the replacement of inferior by better cattle, increase in fodder, etc.

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Average Number of Livestock per farm
 

	1875			1884
	Cattle	Other live- stock	Total	Cattle	Other live- stock	Total
	(In terms of cattle)
(a) Estates (b) Farms of 25 ha and over (c)    "   " 7.5 to 25 ha (d)    "   " 5.5 to  7.5 ha (e)    "   "  up  to  2.5 ha	150   13.2 5.4 2.2 0.3	69   11.0 3.8 1.4 0.6	174   24.2 9.2 3.6 0.9	110   13.7 4.9 2.2 0.4	41   10.5 4.2 1.8 0.7	151   24.2 9.1 4.0 1.1
Total	1.7	1.5	3.2	2.0	1.8	3.8

    On the biggest farms the number of cattle diminished. In the smallest the number grew, and the smaller the farm the more rapid was the increase. This seems to show progress in small-scale and regression in large-scale production, that is, confirmation of David's theory, does it not?

    But we have only to take the figures of the average weight of the cattle for this illusion to be dispelled.

 

	Average weight per animal (kilogrammes)
	1875			1884
	Cattle	Other live- stock*	Total	Cattle	Other live- stock	Total
(a) Estates (b) Farms of 25 ha and over (c)    "   " 7.5 to 25 ha (d)    "   " 5.5 to  7.5 ha (e)    "   "  up  to  2.5 ha	562 439 409 379 350	499 300 281 270 243	537 376 356 337 280	617 486 432 404 373	624 349 322 287 261	619 427 382 352 301
Average	412	256	354	446	316	385

 

---

    * The various other types of livestock are expressed in terms of cattle according to the usual standards. For one year, and for one of the eleven types of animals, the number given is approximate: the figures refer only to weight, not to the number of cattle.

page 188

 

    The first conclusion to be drawn from these figures is that the bigger the farm the better the quality of the cattle. The difference in this respect between the capitalist farms and the small-peasant, or semi-proletarian, farms is enormous. For example, in 1884, this difference between the biggest and smallest farms was over one hundred per cent : the average weight of the average animal on the big capitalist farms was 619 kilogrammes; on the semi-proletarian farms it was 301 kilogrammes, i.e., less than half! One can judge from this how superficial are the arguments of David and those who think like him when they assume that the quality of the cattle is the same on large and small farms.

    We have already mentioned above that cattle are generally kept worse in small farms. Now we have factual confirmation of this. The figures for live weight give us a very accurate idea of all the conditions under which the cattle are kept: feeding, housing, work, care -- all this is summarised, so to speak, in the results which found statistical expression in Drechsler's monograph. It turns out that for all the "diligence" displayed by the small farmer in care for his cattle -- a diligence extolled by our Mr. V. V.[94] and by the German David -- he is unable even approximately to match the advantages of large-scale production, which yields products of a quality twice as good. Capitalism condemns the small peasant to eternal drudgery, to a wasteful expenditure of labour, for with insufficient means, insufficient fodder, poor quality cattle, poor housing, and so forth, the most careful tending is a sheer waste of labour. In its appraisal bourgeois political economy puts in the forefront not this ruin and oppression of the peasant by capitalism, but the "diligence" of the toiler (toiling for the benefit of capital under the worst conditions of exploitation).

    The second conclusion to be drawn from the figures quoted above is that the quality of cattle improved during the ten years both on the average and in all the categories of farms. But as a result of this general improvement, the difference in the conditions of livestock rearing in the large and small farms became not less, but more glaring. The general improvement widened rather than narrowed the gulf between the large and small farms, for in this process

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of improvement large-scale farming outstrips small-scale farming. Here is a comparison of the average weight of the average animal by groups in 1875 and in 1884.

 

	Averge weight of average animal in kilogrammes		Increase	Per cent increase
	1875	1884
(a) Estates (b) Farms of 25 ha and over (c)    "   " 7.5 to 25 ha (d)    "   " 5.5 to  7.5 ha (e)    "   "  up  to  2.5 ha	537 376 356 337 280	619 427 382 352 301	+82 +51 +26 +15 +21	+15.2  +13.6  +7.3 +4.4 +7.5
Average	354	385	+31	+8.7

 

    The improvement is greatest on the big capitalist farms, then come the medium-sized capitalist farms; it is entirely negligible on the small peasant farms and very inconsiderable in the rest. Like the great majority of agronomists who write on problems of agricultural economics, Drechsler noted only the technical aspect of the matter. In the fifth conclusion he draws from the comparison between 1875 and 1884 he says: "A very considerable improvement in the keeping of livestock* has taken place: a reduction in the number of cattle and an improvement in quality; the average live weight per animal increased considerably in each of the three groups of villages.** That shows that the marked improvement in cattle rearing, feeding, and tending of cattle was more or less general (ziemlich allgemein )."

---

    * Drechsler speaks here of all cattle except draught animals (called Nutzvieh ). Further we quote figures on draught animals separately. The general conclusion remains the same whatever type or type groups of animals we take.
    ** Drechsler divides the 22 villages into three groups according to geographical location and other farming conditions. We have taken only the summarised data in order not to overburden this article with figures. The couclusions remain the same whatever groups of villages we take.

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    The words "more or less general", which we have underlined, show precisely that the author ignored the socio-economic aspect of the question; "more" applies to the big farms, "less" to the small ones. Drechsler overlooked this, because he paid attention only to the figures concerning the groups of villages and not groups of farms of diflerent types.

    Let us now pass to the figures on draught animals, which throw light on farming conditions in the narrow sense of the term "agriculture". In regard to the number of draught animals the farms under review are characterised by the following figures:

 

	Averge number of draught animals per farm
	1875	1884
(a) Estates (b) Farms of 25 ha and over (c)    "   " 7.5 to 25 ha (d)    "   " 5.5 to  7.5 ha (e)    "   "  up  to  2.5 ha	27    4.7 2.1 1.3  0.07	44    5.5 2.4 1.5  0.16
Average	0.7	1.0

 

    Thus, the overwhelming majority of the semi-proletarian farms (up to 2.5 hectares; in 1884, they numbered 1,109 out of 1,825) had no draught animals at all. They cannot even be regarded as agricultural farms in the real sense of the term. In any case, as regards the use of draught animals, there can be no comparison between the big farms and those farms of which 93 or 84 per cent employ no draught animals at all. If, however, we compare the big capitalist farms with the small peasant farms in this respect, we shall find that the former (group a) have 132 draught animals to 766 hectares of land, and the latter (group d) 632 to 1,774 hectares (1884), i.e., the former has one draught animal to approximately six hectares, and the latter one to approximately three hectares. Obviously, the small farms spend twice as

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much on the keeping of draught animals. Small-scale production implies dispersion of the technical means of farming and a squandering of labour as a result of this dispersion.

    This dispersion is partly due to the fact that the small farmers are obliged to use draught anirnals of an inferior quality, that is, to use cows as draught animals. The percentage of cows in relation to the total number of draught animals was as follows:

 

	1875	1884
(a) Estates (b) Farms of 25 ha and over (c)    "   " 7.5 to 25 ha (d)    "   " 5.5 to  7.5 ha (e)    "   "  up  to  2.5 ha	-- --  6.3% 60.7% 67.7%	--  2.5% 11.4% 64.9% 77.9%
Average	27.0%	33.4%

 

    From this it is clearly evident that the use of cows in field work is increasing, and that cows are the principal draught animals on the semi-proletarian and small-peasant farms. David is inclined to regard this as progress in exactly the same way as Drechsler, who takes entirely the bourgeois standpoint. In his conclusions Drechsler writes: "A large number of the small farms have gone over to the use of cows as draught animals, which is more expedient for them." It is "more expedient" for the small farmers because it is cheaper. And it is cheaper because inferior draught animals are substituted for better ones. The progress of the small peasants which rouses the admiration of the Drechslers and Davids is quite on a par with the progress of the vanishing hand weavers, who are going over to worse and worse materials, waste products of the mills.

    The average weight of draught cows in 1884 was 381 kilogrammes,* that of draught horses being 482 kilogrammes,

---

    * The average weight of cows not employed for field work was 421 kilogrammes.

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and oxen 553 kilogrammes. The latter type of draught animal, the strongest, accounted in 1884 for more than half of the total draught animals of the big capitalist farmers, for about a fourth of those of the medium and small capitalists, for less than a fifth of those of the small peasants, and for less than a tenth of those of the semi-proletarian farmers. Consequently, the bigger the farm the higher the quality of the draught animals. The average weight of an average draught animal was as follows:

 

	1875	1884
(a) Estates (b) Farms of 25 ha and over (c)    "   " 7.5 to 25 ha (d)    "   " 5.5 to  7.5 ha (e)    "   "  up  to  2.5 ha	554 542 488 404 377	598 537 482 409 378
Average	464	460

 

    Consequently, on the whole, the draught animals have deteriorated. Actually, in the large capitalist farms we see a considerable improvement; in all the others there was either no change, or a deterioration. As regards the quality of draught animals, the difference between large-scale and small-scale production also increased between 1875 and 1884. The use of cows as draught animals by the small farmers has become general practice in Germany.* Our figures show with documentary accuracy that this practice dehotes a deterioration of the conditions of agricultural production, the increasing poverty of the peasantry.

    To complete our survey of the data in Drechsler's monograph, we shall quote an estimate of the number ahd weight of all animals per unit of land area, i.e., the estimate which

---

    * Concerning this see above, Chapter VIII, "General Statistics of German Agriculture". (See present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 194-205. --Ed.)

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David made on the basis of the general statistics of German agriculture:

 

	Per hectare of land there were
	Total number of livestock (in terms of cattle)		Weight of total livestock in kilogrammes
	1875	1884	1875	1884
(a) Estates (b) Farms of 25 ha and over (c)    "   " 7.5 to 25 ha (d)    "   " 5.5 to  7.5 ha (e)    "   "  up  to  2.5 ha	0.77 0.63 0.71 0.85 1.02	0.59 0.57 0.72 0.94 1.18	408 238 254 288 286	367 244 277 328 355
Average	0.77	0.76	273	294

 

    The figures of the number of livestock per hectare of land are the figures to which David confines himself. In our example, as in German agriculture as a whole, these figures show a reduction in the number of livestock per unit of land area in the big farms. In 1884, for example, the semi-proletarian farms had exactly twice as many cattle per hectare as the big capitalist farms (1.18 as against 0.59). But we are already aware that this estimate seeks to compare the incomparable. The actual relationship between the farms is shown by the figures for weight of livestock: in this respect, too, large-scale production is in a better position than small-scale, for it has the maximum of livestock in weight per unit of land area, and consequently, also the maximum of manure. Thus, David's conclusion that, on the whole, the small farms are better supplied with manure is the very opposite of the truth. Moreover, it must be borne in mind, first, that our figures do not cover artificial fertilisers, which only well-to-do farmers can afford to buy and secondly, that comparing the amount of livestock by weight puts cattle and smaller animals on the same level, for example, 45,625 kilogrammes -- the weight of 68 head of cattle in the big farms and 45,097 kilogrammes -- the weight of 1,786 goats in the small farms (1884). Actually,

page 194

the advantage the big farms enjoy as regards supplies of manure is greater than that shown in our figures.[*]

    Summary: by means of the phrase "manure is the soul of agriculture", David evaded socio-economic relations in livestock farming in particular and presented the matter in an utterly false light.

    Large-scale production in capitalist agriculture has a tremendous advantage over small-scale production as regards the quality of livestock in general, and of draught animals in particular, as regards the conditions under which the livestock is kept, its improvement, and its utilisation for providing manure.


 

THE "IDEAL COUNTRY"
FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THE OPPONENTS
    OF MARXISM ON THE AGRARIAN QUESTION^[**]

    Agrarian relations and the agrarian system in Denmark are especially interesting for the economist. We have already seen that Ed. David, the principal representative of revisionism in contemporary literature on the agrarian question, strongly stresses the example of the Danish agricultural unions and Danish (supposedly) "small peasant" farming. Heinrich Pudor, whose work Ed. David uses, calls Denmark "the ideal country of agricultural co-operation".**** In Russia, too, the exponents of liberal and Na-

---

    * Let us recall the statement made by Klawki, quoted above (Chapter VI) (see present edition, Vol. 5, p. 171. --Ed.). "The small farmers have inferior manure, their straw is shorter, it is largely used as fodder (which also means that the feed is inferior), and less straw is used for bedding."
    ** This article is a chapter (XII) of the author's book The Agrarian Qucstion and the "Critics of Marx" included in his recently published book The Agrarian Question, Part I (St. Petersburg, 1908). Only accidental delay in delivering this chapter prevented it from being included in the above-mentioned book. Hence, all the references given in the portion now published are to that book.
    *** Vl. llyin, The Agrarian Question, Part 1, article "The Agrarian Question and the 'Critics of Marx'", Chapters X and XI. (See pp. 171-194 of this volume. --Ed.)
    **** Dr. Heinrich Pudor, Das landwirtschaftliche Genossenschaftwesen im Auslande, I. B. S. V, Leipzig, 1904. Pudor is a violent opponent of Marxism.

page 195

rodnik views no less frequently resort to Denmark as their "trump card" against Marxism in support of the theory of the vitality of small-scale production in agriculture -- take, for example, the speech of the liberal Hertzenstein in the First Duma and that of the Narodnik Karavayev in the Second Duma.

    Compared with other European countries, "small-peasant" farming is indeed most widespread in Denmark; and agriculture, which has managed to adapt itself to the new requirements and conditions of the market, is most prosperous there. If "prosperity" is possible for small-scale farming in countries with commodity production, then, of course, of all European countries, Denmark is most favourably situated in that respect. A close study of the agrarian system in Denmark is, therefore, doubly interesting. We shall see from the example of a whole country what methods are employed by the revisionists in the agrarian question, and what the main features of the capitalist agrarian system really are in the "ideal" capitalist country.

    Denmark's agricultural statistics are compiled on the model of those of other European countries. In some respects, however, they give more detailed information and more elaborate figures, which enable one to study aspects of the question that usually remain in the shade. Let us start with the general data on the distribution of farms by groups according to area. We shall calculate the "hartkorn", the customary measure of land in Denmark, in terms of hectares, counting 10 hectares to one hartkorn, as indicated in the Danish agricultural statistics.*

    Danish agricultural statistics give information on the distribution of farms for the years 1873, 1885, and 1895. All the farms are divided into 11 groups, as follows: owning no land; up to 0.3 hectares (to be more precise: up to 1/32 of a hartkorn); 0.3 to 2.5 ha; 2.5 to 10 ha; 10 to 20 ha; 20 to 40 ha; 40 to 80 ha; 80 to 120 ha; 120 to 200 ha; 200 to 300 ha; 300 ha and over. To avoid the attention of the reader

---

    * "Danmarks Statistik. Statistik Aarbog ", 8-de aargang, 1903, p. 31 footnote. All the following statistics apply to Denmark proper, without Bornholm.

page 196

being excessively dispersed, we shall combine these groups into six larger groups.

    The main conclusion to be drawn first of all from these data -- one which bourgeois political economists and the revisionists who follow in their footsteps usually lose sight of -- is that the bulk of the land in Dellmark is owned by farmers engaged in capitalist agriculture. There can be no doubt that not only farmers owning 120 hectares and over run their farms with the aid of hired labour, but also those owning 40 hectares or more. These two higher groups accounted for only 11 per cent of the total number of farms in 1895, but they owned 62 per cent, or more than three fifths of the total land. The basis of Danish agriculture is large-scale and medium capitalist agriculture. All the talk about a "peasant country" and "small-scale farming" is sheer bourgeois apologetics, a distortion of the facts by various titled and untitled ideologists of capital.

    It should be mentioned in this connection that in Denmark, as in other European countries where the capitalist system of agriculture is fully established, the share of the higher capitalist groups in the whole national economy changes only slightly in the course of time. In 1873, 13.2 per cent of the capitalist farms occupied 63.9 per cent of all the land; in 1885, 11.5 per cent of the farms occupied 62.3 per cent of the land. This stability of large-scale farming must always be borne in mind when comparing the data for different years; for it is often possible to notice in the literature that the main features of the given socio-economic system are glossed over by means of such comparisons concerning changes in details.

    As in other European countries, the mass of small farms in Denmark account for an insignificant part of the total agricultural production. In 1895, the number of farms with areas of up to 10 hectares accounted for 72.2 per cent of the total number of farms, but they occupied only 11.2 per cent of the land. In the main, this ratio was the same in 1885 and in 1873. Often the small farms belong to semi proletarians -- as we have seen, the German statistics bore this out fully in regard to farms of up to two hectares, and partly also in regard to farms of up to five hectares. Later

 

	1873				1885				1895
	No. of farms	Per cent	Hectares	Per cent	No. of farms	Per cent	Hectares	Per cent	No. of farms	Per cent	Hectares	Per cent
Owning no land   Up to 2.5 ha  2.5 to 10 "   10 to 40 "   40 to 120 " 120 ha and over	31,253 65,490 65,672 41,671 29,288 1,856	13.3 27.9 27.9 17.7 12.5 0.7	--     54,340 333,760 928,310 1,809,590 522,410	--  1.5 9.1 25.5 49.6 14.3	35,329 82,487 67,773 43,740 27,938 1,953	13.6 31.8 26.2 16.9 10.8 0.7	--     62,260 345,060 966,850 1,722,820 551,530	--  1.7 9.5 26.5 47.1 15.2	32,946 92,656 66,491 44,557 27,301 2,031	12.4 34.8 25.0 16.8 10.3 0.7	--     63,490 341,020 981,070 1,691,950 568,220	--  1.8 9.4 26.8 46.4 15.6
Total	235,230	100.0	3,648,410	100.0	259,220	100.0	3,648,520	100.0	265,982	100.0	3,645,750	100.0

 

page 198

on, when quoting figures of livestock owned by the farms in the various groups, we shall see that there can be no question of any really independent and more or less stable agriculture as far as the bulk of these notorious representatives of "small-scale farming" are concerned. 47.2 per cent, i.e., nearly half of the farms are proletarian or semi-proletarian (those owning no land and those owning up to 2.5 hectares); 25 per cent, i.e., a further quarter of the farms (2.5 to 10 hectares), belong to needy small peasants -- such is the basis of the "prosperity" of agricultural capitalism in Denmark. Of course, land area statistics can give us only a general idea in total figures of a country with highly developed commercial livestock farming. As the reader will see, however, the figures of livestock, which we examine in detail below, only strengthen the conclusions that have been drawn.

    Now let us see what changes took place in Denmark between 1873 and 1895 in the distribution of land as between big and small farms. What strikes us immediately here is the typically capitalist increase at the extremes, and the diminution in the proportion of medium farms. Taking the number of agricultural farms (not counting farms with out land), the proportion of the smallest farms, those up to 2.5 hectares, increased 27.9 per cent in 1873, 31.8 per cent in 1885, and 34.8 per cent in 1895. The proportion diminished in all the medium groups, and only in the highest group, 120 hectares and over, did it remain unchanged (0.7 per cent). The percentage of the total land occupied by the largest farms, 120 hectares and over, increased, being 14.3 per cent, 15.2 per cent, and 15.6 per cent in the respective years; there was also an increase, but not to the same extent, among the medium peasant farms (those from 10 to 40 hectares: 25.5 per cent, 26.5 per cent, and 26.8 per cent for the respective years), while the total number of farms in this group diminished. There is an irregular increase in the farms of 2.5 to 10 hectares (9.1 per cent, 9.5 per cent, and 9.4 per cent for the respective years) and a steady increase in the smallest farms (1.5 per cent, 1.7 per cent, and 1.8 per cent). As a result, we have a very clearly marked tendency towards growth of the biggest and smallest farms. To obtain a clearer idea of this phenomenon we

page 199

must take the average area of farms according to groups for the respective years. Here are the figures:

 

Groups of farms	Average area of farms (hectares)
	1873	1885	1895
Up to 2.5 ha   2.5 to 10 "   10 to 40 "   40 to 120 "  120 ha and over	0.83  5.08 22.28 61.00 281.40	0.75  5.09 22.08 61.66 282.30	0.68  5.13 22.01 61.97 279.80
Average	15.50	14.07	13.70

 

    From these statistics we see that in the majority of groups the area of farms is extremely stable. The fluctuations are insignificant, being one to two per cent (for example: 279.8 to 282.3 hectares, or 22.01 to 22.28 hectares, etc.). The only exception is seen in the smallest farms, which are undoubtedly splitting up : a decrease in the average area of those farms (up to 2.5 hectares) by ten per cent between 1873 and 1885 (from 0.83 hectares to 0.75 hectares) and also between 1885 and 1895. The general increase in the total number of farms in Denmark is proceeding with almost no change in the total area of land (between 1885 and 1895 there was even a slight decrease in the total area of land). The increase in the main aflects the smallest farms. Thus, between 1873 and 1895 the total number of farms increased by 30,752, while the number of farms up to 2.5 hectares increased by 27,166. Clearly, this decrease in the average area of a1l farms in Denmark (15.5 hectares in 1873, 14.1 in 1885, and 13.7 in 1895) really signifies nothing more than the splitting-up of the smallest farms.

    The phenomenon we have noted becomes still more strik ing when we take the smaller divisions of groups. In the preface to the Danish agricu]tural statistics for 1895 (Danmarks Statistik, etc. Danmarks Jordbrug, 4-de Raekke,

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Nr. 9, litra C)[*] the compilers show the following changes in the number of farms according to groups:

 

Groups of farms	Per cent increase or decrease
	1885 to 1895[¥]	1873 to 1885[¥]
300 ha and over  200 to 300 ha  120 to 200 "   80 to 120 "   40 to  80 "   20 to  40 "   10 to  20 "   2.5 to  10 "   0.3 to  2.5  "     0 to  0.3  "	+4.2 0 +5.2 -1.5 -2.4 +1.0 +2.8 -1.9 +2.1 +25.1	+5.0 +6.1 +5.1 -2.1 -5.0 +3.6 +6.5 +3.2 +17.8  +37.9

 

    Thus, the increase takes place in dwarf farms, which are either farms devoted to the cultivation of special crops or wage workers' "farms".

    This conclusion is worth noting, because apologist professorial "science" is inclined to deduce from the decrease in the average area of all farms that small-scale production is beating large-scale production in agriculture. Actually we see progress in the largest-scale agriculture, stability in the sizes of farms in all groups except the very smallest, and the splitting-up of the farms in this last group. This splitting-up must be ascribed to the decline and impoverishment of small-scale farming: another possible explanation, namely, the transition from agriculture in the narrow sense of the word to livestock farming, cannot be applied to all the smallest farms, for this transition is taking place in all groups, as we shall see in a moment. For the purpose of judging the scale on which farming is conducted in a country like Denmark, statistics on livestock farming are far more important than statistics on farm areas, because farming on different scales can be conducted on the same area of land when livestock and dairy farming are developing at a particularly fast rate.

---

    * Danish Statistics, etc. Danish Agriculture, 4th series, No. 9, Letter C. --Ed.
    ^[¥] [Transcriber's Note: The years designating the column headings appear to be reversed. -- DJR]

page 201

 

    It is well known that it is just this phenomenon that is observed in Denmark. The "prosperity" of Danish agriculture is due mainly to the rapid successes of commercial livestock rearing and the export of dairy produce, meat, eggs, etc., to Britain. Here we meet with the solemn statement by Pudor that Denmark "owes the colossal development of her dairy farming to the decentralisation of her cattle breeding and livestock farming " (loc. cit., p. 48, Pudor's italics). It is not surprising that a man like Pudor, an out-and-out huckster in his whole system of views, who totally fails to understand the contradictions of capitalism, should take the liberty of distorting facts in this way. It is highly characteristic, however, that the petty bourgeois David, who, by some misunderstanding, passes as a socialist, uncritically trails along in his wake!

    As a matter of fact, Denmark serves as a striking example of the concentration of livestock farming in a capitalist country. That Pudor arrived at the opposite conclusion is due on]y to his crass ignorance and to the fact that he distorted the scraps of statistics which he quotes in his pamphlet. Pudor quotes, and David slavishly repeats after him, figures showing the distribution of the total number of livestock farms in Denmark according to the number of animals per farm. According to Pudor, 39.85 per cent of the total number of farms having livestock have only from one to three animals each; 29.12 per cent have from four to nine animals each, etc. Hence, Pudor concludes, most of the farms are "small"; "decentralisation", etc.

    In the first place Pudor quotes the wrong figures. This has to be noted, because Pudor boastfully declares that in his book one may find all the "latest" figures; and the revisionists "refute Marxism" by referring to ignorant bourgeois scribblers. Secondly, and this is most important, the method of agrument employed by the Pudors and Davids is too often repeated by our Cadets and Narodniks for us to refrain from dealing with it. Following such a method of argument we should inevitably come to the conclusion that industry in the most advanced capitalist countries is becoming "decentralised"; for everywhere and always the percentage of very small and small establishments is highest, and the percentage of large establishments is in

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significant. The Pudors and the Davids forget a "trifle": the concentration of by far the greater part of total production in large enterprises which constitute only a small percentage of the total number of enterprises.

    The actual distribution of the total cattle in Denmark according to the last census, taken on July 15, 1898, is shown in the following table.[*]

 

Farms having	Number of farms	Per cent	Total cattle	Per cent
1 head of cattle 2  "   "   "   3  "   "   "   4 to   5  "   "   "   6 to   9  "   "   "   10 to  14  "   "   "   15 to  29  "   "   "   30 to  49  "   "   "   50 to  99  "   "   "   100 to 199  "   "   "   200 head of cattle and over	18,376 27,394 22,522 27,561 26,022 20,375 30,460 5,650 1,498 588 195	10.2 15.2 12.5 15.5 14.4 11.3 16.9 3.1 0.8 0.3 0.1	18,376 54,788 67,566 121,721 188,533 242,690 615,507 202,683 99,131 81,417 52,385	1.0 3.1 3.9 7.0 10.8 13.9 35.3 11.6 5.7 4.7 3.0
Total	180,641	100.0	1,744,797	100.0

 

    We see from this what role in the total livestock farming in Denmark is played by the numerous small farms and the few big farms, and what the famous "decentralisation" of production in the "ideal country" really amounts to. Small farms having one to three head of cattle number 68,292, or 37.9 per cent of the total; they have 140,730 head, i.e., only 8 per cent of the total. An almost equal number, 133,802, or 7.7 per cent, is owned by 783 big farmers comprising 0.4 per cent of the total number of farmers. Those in the first group have on an average a little over two head of cattle each, i.e., an obviously inadequate number with which to carry on commercial livestock farming; dairy and meat

---

    * Danmarks Statistik. Statistlk Tabelvaerk. Femte Raekke, litra C, Nr. 2. Kreaturholdet d. 15 juli 1898. København, 1901.

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products can only be sold by cutting down household con sumption (let us recall well-known facts: butter is sold and cheaper margarine is purchased for home use, etc.). Those in the second group have on an average 171 head of cattle each. They are the biggest capita]ist farmers, "manu facturers" of milk and meat; "leaders" of technical progress and of all sorts of agricultural associatiolls, about which petty-bourgeois admirers of "social peace" wax so enthusiastic.

    If we add together the small and medium farmers we shall get a total of 121,875 farmers, or two-thirds of the total (67.5 per cent), who own up to nine head of cattle each. They own 450,984 head of cattle, or one-fourth of the total (25.8 per cent). An almost equal number, i.e., 435,616 (25 per cent) is owned by farmers having 30 and more head of cattle each. Those farmers number 7,931, or 4.3 per cent of the total. "Decentralisation" indeed!

    By combining the small divisions of Danish statistics given above into three large groups we get the following:

 

Farms having	Number of farms	Per cent	Number of cattle	Per cent	Aver- age per farm
1 to 3 head of cattle  4 to 9  "   "   "   10 head and over	68,292 53,583 58,766	37.9  29.6  32.5	140,730 310,254 1,293,813	8.0  17.8  74.2	2.1  5.8 22.0
Total	180,641	100.0	1,744,797	100.0	9.7

 

    Thus, three-fourths of the total livestock farming in Denmark is concentrated in the hands of 58,766 farmers, that is, less than one-third of the total number of farmers. This one-third enjoys the lion's share of all the "prosperity" of capitalism in Danish agriculture. It should be borne in mind that this high percentage of well-to-do peasants and rich capitalists (32.5 per cent, or nearly one-third) is obtained by an artificial method of calculation which eliminates all farmers who own no livestock. Actually, the per-

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centage is much lower. According to the census of 1895, as we have seen, the total number of farmers in Denmark is 265,982; and the livestock census of July 15, 1898, puts the total number of farmers at 278,673. In relation to this actual total number of farmers, the 58,766 well-to-do and rich farmers represent only 21.1 per cent, i.e., only one-fifth. The number of "farmers" who own no land is 12.4 per cent of the total number of farmers in Denmark (1895: 32,946 out of 265,982), while the farmers who own no livestock[*] represent 35.1 per cent of the total number of farmers in Denmark, i.e., more than one-third (1898: 98,032 out of 278,673). One call judge from this the "socialism" of gentlemen of the David type who fail to ses that the capitalist prosperity of Danish agriculture is based on the mass

 

[Transcriber's Note: The following table and accompanying "Note" span two facing pages in the text. They have been modified to accommodate this medium. -- DJR]

 

Agriculture and Livestock Farming in Denmark
According to the Census of July 15, 1898

 

Groups of farms	Number  of farms	Per cent	Hectares	Per cent	Horses	Per cent	Cows	Per cent
Owning no land  Amount of land     unknown   Up to 2.5 ha   2.5 to 10 "   10 to 40 "   40 to 120 "  120 ha and over	13,435   45,896 80,582 63,420 45,519 27,620  2,201	4.8   16.5 28.9 22.8 16.3 9.9 0.8	--      ?     55,272 323,430 984,983 1,692,285 588,318	--    ?   1.5 8.9 27.0 46.4 16.2	1,970   28,9.9 24,540 54,900 133,793 168,410 36,807	0.5   6.4 5.5 12.2 29.8 37.5 8.1	3,707   28,072 66,171 175,182 303,244 361,669 129,220	0.3   2.6 6.2 16.4 28.5 33.9 12.1
Total	278,673	100.0	3,644,288	100.0	449,329	100.0	1,067,265	100.0

 

 

Groups of farms	Total cattle	Per cent	Sheep	Per cent	Pigs	Per cent	Poultry	Per cent
Owning no land  Amount of land     unknown   Up to 2.5 ha   2.5 to 10 "   10 to 40 "   40 to 120 "  120 ha and over	4,633   42,150 88,720 247,618 515,832 639,563 206,281	0.3   2.4 5.1 14.2 29.6 36.6 11.8	8,943   42,987 99,705 187,460 383,950 310,686 40,682	0.8   4.0 9.3 17.5 35.7 28.9 3.8	8,865   42.699 94,656 191,291 308,863 409,294 112,825	0.8   3.7 8.1 16.4 26.4 35.0 9.6	220,147   780,585 1,649,452 1,871,242 1,957,726 1,998,595 289,155	2.5   8.9 18.8 21.4 22.3 22.8 3.3
Total	1,744,797	100.0	1,074,413	100.0	1,168,493	100.0	8,766,902	100.0

 

    Note : The figures for 1898 differ from those for 1895 in regard to the distribution of farms according to the amount of land. This may be due both to changes in time and to somewhat different methods of collecting information. But the general relation between the groups remains the same. The census of 1895 takes into account [cont. onto p. 205. -- DJR] 45,860 hectares of undistributed land in addilion t0 3,645,750 hectares of distributed land. The group of farms with "amount of land unknown" (1898) consists largely of the lower groups, which is proved by the number of livestock.

---

    * To be more precise, farmers who own no cattle, for unfortunately the Danish statistics do not give the number of farmers who own no [cont. onto p. 205. -- DJR] animals whatever. From these statistics we only learn the number of owners of each type of animal. But undoubtedly, cattle form the principal basis of livestock farming in Denmark.

page 205

proletarianisation of the rural population, on the fact that the mass of the "farmers" are deprived of the means of production.

    We shall now pass to the figures characterising agriculture and livestock farming in Denmark as a whole. The census of July 15, 1898 gives detailed information on the number of livestock of the various groups of farmers owning certain amounts of land. The number of these groups in the Danish statistics is particularly large (14 groups: with no land; with up to 1/32 of a hartkorn; 1/32 to 1/16; 1/16 to 1/8; 1/8 to 1/4; 1/4 to 1/2; 1/2 to 1; 1 to 2; 2 to 4; 4 to 8; 8 to 12; 12 to 20; 20 to 30; 30 and over); but we have reduced them to 6 large groups, as we did with the preceding figures.

page 206

 

    From these figures we see first of all how great is the concentration of livestock farming as a whole in Denmark. Big capitalist farmers owning over 40 hectares of land constitute only one-tenth of the total number of farmers (10.7 per cent); but they concentrate in their hands more than three-fifths of all the land (62.6 per cent) and nearly half of all the livestock: 45.6 per cent of all the horses, 48.4 per cent of all the cattle, 32.7 per cent of all the sheep, and 44.6 per cent of all the pigs.

    If to these capitalist farmers we add the well-to-do peasants, i.e., those owning from 10 to 40 hectares, we shall get a little over a quarter of the total number of farmers (27.0 per cent) who concentrate in their hands nine-tenths of all the land, three-fourths of all the horses, four-fifths of all the cattle, seven-tenths of all the pigs, and nearly half of all the poultry. The great bulk of the "farmers", nearly three-fourths (73 per cent), own less than 10 hectares of land each and, on the whole, represent the proletarianised and semi-proletarianised mass, which plays an insignificant part in the sum total of the country's agricultural and livestock economy.

    As far as the distribution of the various types of animals is concerned, sheep and pig breeding deserve special attention. The first is a declining branch of livestock farming, unprofitable for the majority of European countries at the present time owing to market conditions and overseas competition. The state of the international market calls for other forms of livestock farming to take the place of sheep farming. On the other hand, pig breeding is a particularly profitable and rapidly developing branch of livestock farming for meat in Europe. Statistics show that sheep farming is also declining in Denmark, whereas pig breeding is increasing very rapid]y. From 1861 to 1898, the number of sheep in Denmark dropped from 1,700,000 to 1,100,000. The number of cattle increased from 1,100,000 to 1,700,000. The number of pigs increased from 300,000 to 1,200,000, i.e., almost a fourfold increase.

    Comparing the distribution of sheep and pigs among the small and big farms we thus clearly see in the former the maximum of routine, the least adaptability to the require-

page 207

ments of the market, and slowness in readjusting the farm to the new conditions. The big capitalist farms (40 to 120 hectares, 120 hectares and over) cut down unprofitable sheep farming most (28.9 per cent and 3.8 per cent of sheep, as against 33-37 per cent and 8-12 per cent of other types of livestock). The small farms were less adaptable: they still keep a larger number of sheep; for example, farms up to 2.5 hectares have 9.3 per cent of the total number of sheep, as against 6-5 per cent of the other types of livestock. They possess 8.1 per cent of the pigs -- a smaller proportion than of sheep. The capitalists have 35 and 9.6 per cent, i.e., a larger share than of sheep. Capitalist agriculture is much better able to adapt itself to the requirements of the international market. In regard to the peasant, we still have to say, in the words of Marx: the peasant turns merchant and industrialist without the conditions enabling him to become a real merchant and industrialist.[95] The market demands of every farmer, as an absolute necessity, submission to the new conditions and speedy adjustment to them. But this speedy adjustment is impossible without capital. Thus, under capitalism small-scale farming is condemned to the utmost of routine and backwardness and the least adaptability to the market.

    To envisage more concretely the real economic features of this needy mass and of the small wealthy minority, we shall quote figures of the average amount of land and livestock on the farms of the various groups. It is natural for bourgeois political economy (and for the revisionist gentry) to gloss over capitalist contradictions; socialist political economy must ascertain the difference in types of farms and standard of living between the prosperous capitalist farmers and the needy small farmers. See table, page 208.

    These figures clearly show that all three lower groups, comprising half the total number of farms, belong to poor peasants. "Farmers" owning no horses and no cows predominate. Only in the group with land up to 2.5 hectares is there one whole head of cattle, one sheep, and one pig per farm. Obviously, there can be no question of this half of the total number of farms making any profit out of dairy and meat livestock farming. For this half, the prosperity of Danish agriculture means dependence upou the big

page 208

 

Average per Farm

 

Groups of farms	Hectares	Horses	Cows	Total cattle	Sheep	Pigs	Poultry
Owning no land  Amount of land unknown   Up to 2.5 ha   2.5 to 10 "   10 to 40 "   40 to 120 "  120 ha and over	--  ?   0.6   5.1  21.6  61.3 267.3	0.1  0.6  0.3  0.9  2.9  6.1 16.7	0.3  0.6  0.8  2.7  6.6 13.8 58.7	0.3  0.9  1.1  3.9 11.3 23.1 93.7	0.7  0.9  1.2  2.9  8.4 11.2 18.5	0.7  0.9  1.2  3.0  6.8 14.9 51.2	16.4 17.0 20.4 29.5 43.0 72.4 131.3
Average	13.1	1.6	3.8	6.3	3.9	4.2	31.5

 

farmers, the necessity of seeking "auxiliary employment", i.e., of selling their labour power in one way or another, perpetual poverty and semi-ruined farms.

    Of course, this conclusion holds good only for the whole mass of those poorest farms. We have already shown with the aid of German, French, and Russian agricultural statistics that even among the farms having a small amount of land there are big livestock owners, tobacco growers, and so forth. The differentiation is deeper than can be imagined from the returns of Danish statistics. But this differentiation, by singling out in each group an insignificant minority of farms growing special crops, only emphasises the poverty and want of the majority of the farmers in the poorest groups.

    Further, it is also evident from the figures quoted that even the group of small peasants owning from 2.5 hectares to 10 hectares cannot be regarded as being at all secure and economically well established. Let us recall the fact that in this group there are 63,000 farms, or 22.8 per cent of the total, and that the average is 0.9 horses per farm. The horseless farmers probably use their cows for draught, thus worsening the conditions of both agricultural farming (shallower ploughing) and livestock farming (weakening the cattle). The average number of cows in this group is

page 209

2.7 per farm. Even if the household consumption of milk and meat products is reduced -- and such a reduction is itself a direct sign of bitter need -- this number of cows could provide only a very small quantity of products for sale. The share such farms with an average of 2.7 cows and 3 pigs per household enjoy in the "prosperity" of the "national" sale of milk and meat to Britain can only be very insignificant. With farms of this size, commercial agriculture and livestock farming mean, partly, selling what is necessary for the family, poorer diet, increased poverty, and partly, selling in very small quantities, i.e., under the most disadvantageous conditions, and the impossibility of having money put by to meet inevitable extra expenses. And the natural economy of the small peasant under the conditions prevailing in modern capitalist countries is doomed to stagnation, to a slow painful death; it certainly cannot prosper. The whole "trick" of bourgeois and revisionist political economy lies in not making a separate study of the conditions of this particular type of small farm, which is below the "average" (the "average" Danish farmer has 1.6 horses and 3.8 cows), and which represents the overwhelming majority of the total number of farms. Not only is this type of farm not specially studied; it is glossed over by references exclusively to "average" figures, to the general increase in "production" and "sales", and by saying nothing about the fact that only the well-to-do farms, which represent the small minority, can sell profitably.

    It is only among the farmers having from 10 to 40 hectares that we see a sufficient number of livestock to create the possibility of "prosperity". But these farms represent only 16 per cent of the total. And it is questionable whether they manage entirely without hired labour, since they have on an average 21.6 hectares of land per farm. In view of the high degree of intensive farming in Denmark, farms of such dimensions probably cannot be carried on without the assistance of farm-hands or day-labourers. UnfortuIlately, both Danish statisticians and the majority of those who write about Danish agriculture adhere entirell to the bourgeois point of view and do not explore the question of hired labour, the size of farms requiring its employment, and so forth. From the Danish census of occupations of 1901

page 210

we learn only that in the group of "day-labourers", etc., there are 60,000 men and 56,000 women, i.e., 116,000 out of a total of 972,000 of the rural population distributed according to occupation. As to whether these tens of thousands of wage-workers (and in addition to them small peasants do "by work" for hire) are employed exclusively by the 30,000 big capitalist farmers (27,620 owning from 40 to 120 hectares and 2,201 owning over 120 hectares each), or whether some of them are also employed by the well-to-do peasants owIling from 10 to 40 hectares, we have no information.

    Of the two highest groups, the upper Thirty Thousand of Danish agriculture, there is little to say: the capitalist character of their agriculture and livestock farming is graphically illustrated by the figures quoted at the beginning.

    Fina]ly, the last data of general interest touched upon and partly analysed in Danish agricultural statistics are those relating to the question whether the development of livestock farming, that main foundation of the "prosperity" of the "ideal country", is accompanied by a process of decentralisation or concentration. The statistics for 1898, alreadly quoted by us, provide extremely interesting data compared with those for 1893; and for one type of livestock, the most important, it is true, namely, total cattle, we can also make a comparison between the figures for 1876 and 1898.

    Between 1893 and 1898 the branch of livestock farming which made most progress in Denmark was pig breeding. In this period the number of pigs increased from 829,000 to 1,168,000, or by 40 per cent, while the number of horses increased only from 410,000 to 449,000, of cattle from 1,696,000 to 1,744,000, and the number of sheep even diminished. Who reaped the main benefits of this tremendous progress of the Danish farmers, united in innumerable co-operative societies? The compilers of the 1898 statistics answer this by comparing the returns for 1893 and 1898. All the pig-owners are divided into four groups: big owners having 50 and more pigs; medium-big owners with from 15 to 49; medium-small owners with from 4 to 14; and small owners with from 1 to 3 pigs. The compilers give the following figures for these four groups:

page 211


 

Groups of farms	1893		1898		Per cent increase or decrease		Per cent distribution of total pigs
	Number of		Number of
	Farms	Pigs	Farms	Pigs	Farms	Pigs	1893	1898
50 head and over 15 to 49  4 to 14  1 to   3	844 20,602 38,357 108,820	79,230 350,277 211,868 187,756	1,487 30,852 50,668 108,544	135,999 554,979 282,642 194,873	76.2 48.2 32.1 0.3	71.7 58.4 33.4 3.8	9.6 42.3 25.5 22.6	11.6 47.5 24.2 16.7
Total	168,623	829,131	191,551	1,168,493	13.6	40.9	100.0	100.0

    These figures clearly show that a rapid concentration of livestock farming is taking place. The larger the farm, the more it gained from the "progress" of livestock farming. The big farms increased their number of livestock by 71.7 per cent; the medium-big farms increased theirs by 58.4 per cent; the medium-small farms by 33.4 per cent; and the small farms only by 3.8 per cent. The increase in wealth occurred mainly among the small "upper" minority. The total increase of pigs during the five years was 339,000; of these 261,000, or, more than three-fourths, were accounted for by the big and medium-big farms, numbering 32,000 (out of a total of 266,000-277,000 farms!). Small-scale production in livestock farming of this type is being ousted by large-scale production: during the five years there was an increase in the share of the big farms (from 9.6 per cent to 11.6 per cent) and that of the medium-big farms (from 42.3 per cent to 47.5 per cent); whereas that of the medium-small farms diminished (from 25.5 per cent to 24.2 per cent), and that of the small farms diminished still more (from 22.6 per cent to 16.7 per cent).

    If instead of the bare figures of area we could get statistics of agricultural farming expressing the scale of production as precisely as the figures of the number of livestock

page 212

express[*] the scale of livestock farming, there is no doubt that here as well we would see the process of concentration which the bourgeois professors and opportunists deny.

    Still more interesting are the corresponding figures of total cattle. We can supplement the comparison of the figures of 1893 and 1898 made by the compilers of the 1898 statistics with the returns of the census of July 17, 1876. (Danmarks Statistik. Statistik Tabelvaerk, 4-de Raekke, litra C, Nr. 1. Kreaturholdet d. 17 juli, 1876, København, 1878.) Here are the figures for the three years.

    These figures, covering a longer period of time and a more important type of livestock, illustrate the process of capitalist concentration as graphically as those previously quoted. The growth of livestock farming in Denmark indicates the progress almost exclusively of large-scale capitalist farming. The total livestock increase between 1876 and 1898 was 424,000 head. Of these, 76,000 belonged to farms having 50 head and more, and 303,000 to farms having from 15 to 49 head each, i.e., these upper 38,000 farms gained 379,000 head, or nearly nine-tenths of the total increase. No more striking picture of capitalist concentration could be imagined.

    The total number of cattle-owning farms increased between 1876 and 1898 by 12,645 (180,641-167,996), or by 7.5 per cent. The total population of Denmark increased between 1880 and 1901 (i.e., during a slightly shorter period of time) from 1,969,039 to 2,449,540,** i.e., by 24.4 per cent. Clearly, the relative number of "haves", i.e., owners of livestock, diminished. The smaller part of the population belongs to the class of property-owners. The number of smallest owners (one to three head of livestock) steadily diminisned. The number of medium-small owners (with 4 to 14 head) increased very slowly (+12.5 per cent between 1876 and 1893, +2.5 per cent between 1893 and

---

    * We showed above, according to Drechsler's figures, that the livestock in the big farms are bigger. Here too, therefore, the overall statistics minimize the degree of concentration.
    ** In 1880, the urban population constituted 28 per cent, and in 1901, 38 per cent.

page 312

 

 

Groups of farms	1876		1893		1898		Per cent increase or decrease				Per cent distribution of total cattle
	Number of		Number of		Number of		1876 to 1893		1893 to 1898
							Number of		Number of		1876	1893	1898
	Farms	Cattle	Farms	Cattle	Farms	Cattle	Farms	Cattle	Farms	Cattle
50 head and over 15 to 49  4 to 14  1 to   3	1,634 24,096 64,110 78,156	156,728 514,678 504,193 144,930	2,209 35,200 72,173 70,218	221,667 793,474 539,301 141,748	2,281 36,110 73,958 68,292	232,933 818,190 552.944 140.730	35.2 46.1 12.5 10.2	41.4 54.1 6.9 2.2	3.3 2.6 2.5 2.7	5.1 3.1 2.5 0.7	11.8 39.0 38.2 11.0	13.0 46.8 31.8 8.4	13.4 46.8 31.7 8.1
Total	167,996	1,320,529	179,800	1,396,190	180,641	1,744,797	7.0	28.4	0.5	2.9	100.0	100.0	100.0

 

page 214

1898) and lagged behind the increase of the population. A real and rapid increase is observed only in large-scale capitalist livestock farming. Between 1876 and 1893 the medium-big farms increased more rapidly than the big farms; but between 1893 and 1898, the biggest farms increased more rapidly.

    Taking the figures for 1876 and 1898 for the group of biggest farms, i.e., owners of 200 or more head of cattle, we find that in 1876 they numbered 79 (0.05 per cent of the total number of livestock owners) with 18,970 head of cattle (1.4 per cent of the total); while in 1898, there were twice as many, viz., 195 (0.1 per cent of the total) with 52,385 head of cattle (3.0 per cent of the total). The number of the biggest farmers more than doubled and their output nearly trebled.

    The ousting of small-scale production by large-scale production proceeded steadily between 1876 and 1898. The share of the small farms in the total number of cattle continually diminished: from 11.0 per cent in 1876 to 8.4 per cent in 1893, and to 8.1 per cent in 1898. The share of the medium farms also continually diminished, although somewhat more slowly (38.2 -- 31.8 -- 31.7 per cent). The share of the medium-big farms increased from 39.0 per cent in 1876 to 46.8 per cent in 1893, but remained at the same level between 1893 and 1898. Only the share of the biggest farms steadily increased, pushing aside all the other categories (11.8 -- 13.0 -- 13.4 per cent).

    The more favourable the conditions for livestock farming, the more rapid is the development and progress of commercial livestock farming, and the more intense is the process of capitalist concentration. For example, in the Copenhagen district, which had a population of 234,000 in 1880 and 378,000 in 1901, dairy and meat products were, of course, the most marketable items. The farmers in that district were richer in cattle than all the other farmers in Denmark, both in 1876 and in 1898, having on an average 8.5 and 11.6 head of cattle each, compared with an average of 7.9 and 9.7 for the whole country. And in this district, in which the conditions are most favourable for the development of livestock farming, we see the process of concentration is most intense.

page 215

The following are the figures for this district for 1876 and 1898, according to the groups which we adopted above:

 

	1876		1898
	Number of farms	Number of cattle	Number of farms	Number of cattle
50 head and over 15 to 49  4 to 14  1 to  3	44 1,045 2,011 2,514	4,488 22,119 16,896  4,468	86 1,545 1,900 1,890	9,059 35,579 14,559  3,767
Total	5,614	47,971	5,421	62,964

 

    During the 22 years even the absolute number of owners diminished! Livestock wealth was concentrated in the hands of a smaller number of farmers. Both the small and the middle farmers after 22 years proved to be fewer and to have fewer livestock. The medium-big farmers increased their possessions by fifty per cent (from 22,000 to 35,000). The big farmers more than doubled their possessions. Of the biggest farmers, owning 200 and more head of cattle, there were in 1876 two who owned 437 head; in 1898, however, there were 10 who owned 2,896 head of cattle.

    The concern which the Pudors, Davids, and other voluntary or involuntary servants of capital show for improved marketing conditions, the development of farmers' associations, and technical progress in livestock farming and agriculture can have only one purpose: to bring about through out the country and in all branches of agriculture conditions like those in the Copenhagen district, i.e., particularly rapid concentration of production in the hands of the capitalists and the expropriation, proletarianisation of the population, a reduction of the proportion of property owners to the total population, an increase in the proportion of those whom capitalism is forcing out of the country into the towns, etc.

page 216

 

    To sum up: the "ideal country" from the standpoint of the opponents of Marxism on the agrarian question very clearly reveals (despite the socio-economic statistics being still at a low level and lacking analysis) the capitalist agrarian system, the sharply expressed capitalist contradictions in agriculture and livestock farming, the growing concentration of agricultural production, the ousting of small-scale production by large-scale production, and the proletarianisation and impoverishment of the overwhelming majority of the rural population.




 

NOTES

 

  [87] The Agrarian Question and the "Critics of Marx" was written between 1901 and 1907. The first four chapters were published in Zarya, Nos. 2-3, for December 1901, under the title "The 'Critics' on the Agarian Question (First Essay)"; the contribution bore the signature of N. Lenin. The chapters were published legally in Odessa

page 522

in 1905 by the Burevestnik Publishers as a separate pamphlet entitled The Agrarian Question and the "Critics of Marx". This title was retained by the author for subsequent publications of the essay in whole or in part.
    Chapters V-IX were first published in February 1906 in the legal magazine Obrazovaniye (Education ), No. 2, where they were given subtitles; Chapters I-IV, published in Zarya and in the 1905 edition, had none.
    The nine chapters with two additional ones (X and XI) were first published together in 1908 in St. Petersburg in The Agrarian Question, Part I, by Vl. Ilyin (V. I. Lenin), Chapters I-IV having subtitles, some editorial changes were made in the text and some notes added.
    Chapter XII (the last) was first published in 1908 in the collection Current Life.
    The first nine chapters are given in Vol. 5, pp. 103-222 of the present edition [Transcriber's Note: See The Agrarian Question and the "Critics of Marx" (1901). -- DJR]. Volume 13 contains Chapters X, XI, XII, written in 1907.    [p.169]

  ^[88] Lenin is referring to the book by Franz Bensing Der Einfluss der landwirtschaftlichen Maschinen auf Volks- und Privatwirtschaft, Breslau, 1897.    [p.172]

  ^[89] Lenin is referring to M. Hecht's book Drei Dörfer der badischen Hard, Leipzig, 1895.    [p.174]

  ^[90] See Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, Moscow, pp. 68-70.    [p.175]

  ^[91] Lenin is referring to the letter of the well-known Narodnik publicist A. N. Engelhardt "From the Countryside" published in the journal Otechestvenniye Zapiski (Fatherland Notes ).    [p.175]

  ^[92] See Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 727. Lenin's references are to Vol. III of the German edition of 1894 and he gives all quotations in his own translation.    [p.181]

  ^[93] See Karl Marx, Theorien über den Mehrwert, 2. Teil, Berlin, Dietz Verlag, 1959.    [p.181]

  ^[94] V. V.-- pseudonym of V. Vorontsov, the ideologist of the liberal Narodism of the eighties and nineties of the last century.    [p.188]

  ^[95] See K, Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 791.    [p.207]