Dessiatines[2]
We have seen that in capitalist production the basis for the formation of a home market is the process of the disintegration of the small cultivators into agricultural entrepreneurs and workers. Almost every work on the economic position of the Russian peasantry in the post-Reform period refers to the so-called “differentiation” of the peasantry. It must consequently be our task to study the principal features of this phenomenon and to determine its significance. In the following exposition we employ the statistical data of Zemstvo house-to-house censuses.[17]
Mr. V. Postnikov, in his book Peasant Farming in South Russia (Moscow, 1891),[19] has collected and processed the Zemstvo statistics for the Taurida and partly the Kherson and the Ekaterinoslav gubernias. This book should be given first place in the literature on the differentiation of the peasantry, and we consider it necessary to arrange according to the system we have adopted the data gathered by Mr. Postnikov, supplementing them occasionally with data from Zemstvo publications. The Zemstvo statisticians of Taurida have grouped the peasant households according to area under crops—a very sound method, one that renders it possible to form a precise judgement of the economy of each group due to the predominance in that locality of grain cultivation with extensive farming. Here are the general data for the economic groups of the Taurida peasantry.[1]
Dessiatines[2]
The unevenness in the distribution of the area under crops is very considerable: 2/5 of the total households (comprising about 3/10 of the population, for the size of these families s below the average) possess about 1/8 of the total area under crops; they belong to the poor group, cultivating little land, who cannot cover their needs with their income from farming. Further, there are the middle peasants, also constituting about 2/5 of the total households, who cover their average expenditure by income from the land (Mr. Postnikov considers that a family requires from 16 to 18 dessiatines [Dessiatine = 2.70 acres. —Ed] under crops to cover its average expenditure). Lastly, there are the well-to-do peasants (about 1/5 of the households and 3/10 of the population), who concentrate in their hands over half the area cultivated, the crop area per household clearly indicating the “commercial” character of the farming done by this group. In order exactly to estimate the extent of this commercial agriculture in the various groups, Mr. Postnikov employs the following method. From the total crop area of the farm, he separates the following: the food area (which provides sustenance for the family and the farm labourers), the fodder area (which provides fodder for the cattle) and the farm-service area (seed-plot, land occupied by buildings, etc.), and thus arrives at the size of the market or commercial area, the produce of which goes for sale. It is shown that in the group with 5 to 10 dess. under crops, only 11.8% of the cultivated area yields produce for the market, whereas this percentage grows with the increase in the area under crops (by groups) as follows: 36.5%—52%—61%. Consequently, the well-to-do peasants (the top two groups) engage in what is commercial cultivation, and secure a gross money income ranging from 574 to 1,500 rubles per annum. This commercial cultivation then becomes capitalist farming, for the areas cultivated by the well-to-do peasants exceed the family labour norm (i.e., the amount of land that a family can cultivate by its own labour), and compel them to resort to the hiring of workers: in the three northern uyezds of Taurida Gubernia, the author estimates, the well-to-do peasants hire over 14,000 rural workers. The poor peasants, on the contrary, “provide workers” (over 5,000), that is, resort to the sale of their labour-power, since the income from cultivating the land amounts, in the 5 to 10 dess. group, for example, to only about 30 rubles in cash per household.[3] We observe here, consequently, the very process of the creation of a home market that is dealt with by the theory of capitalist production—the “home market” grows as a result of the conversion into a commodity of the product of commercial, entrepreneur farming, on the one hand, and of the conversion into a commodity of the labour-power sold by the badly-off peasants, on the other.
In order to acquaint ourselves more closely with this phenomenon, let us examine the position of each separate group of the peasantry. Let us start with the top group. Here are the data for the amount of land it owns and uses:
We see, accordingly, that the well-to-do peasants, not withstanding the fact that they are best provided with allotment land,[20] concentrate in their hands the bulk of the purchased and the rented land and turn into small land owners and capitalist farmers.[4] On the renting of 17 to 44 dess. of land there is an annual expenditure, at local prices, of about 70 to 160 rubles. Obviously we are dealing here with a commercial transaction: the land becomes a commodity, “a money-making machine.”
Let us take the data for livestock and implements [Carting: carts, covered and open wagons, etc. Ploughing: iron ploughs, scarifiers (cultivators), etc.]:
implements[5]
Thus the well-to-do peasantry are far better supplied with implements than the poor and even the middle peasantry. It is sufficient to glance at this table to see how totally fictitious are the “average” figures which people are so fond of bringing into play when they talk of the “peasantry”. The commercial cultivation of the peasant bourgeoisie is accompanied here by commercial livestock farming, namely, the breeding of coarse-wool sheep. Regarding implements, we shall quote in addition figures for improved implements, which we have taken from Zemstvo statistical returns.[6] Out of the total reaping and mowing machines (3,061), 2,841, or 92.8%, belong to the peasant bourgeoisie (1/5 of the total households).
It is quite natural that the well-to-do peasantry also employ a farming technique much above the average (larger size of farm, more plentiful supply of implements, available financial resources, etc.); that is to say, the well-to-do peasants “do their sowing faster, make better use of favourable weather, sow the seed in more humid soil,” and reap their harvest in proper time; they thresh their grain as it is carted in from the field, etc. It is also natural that the expenditure on the production of agricultural produce diminishes (per unit of product) as the size of the farm increases. Mr. Postnikov proves this proposition in particular detail, using the following system of calculation: he determines the number of people working (including hired labourers), the number of draught animals, implements, etc., per 100 dessiatines of crop area in the various groups of the peasantry. It is proved that these numbers diminish as the size of the farm increases. For example, those cultivating under 5 dessiatines have per 100 dessiatines of allotment land 28 people working, 28 draught animals, 4.7 ploughs and scarifiers, and 10 carts, whereas those cultivating over 50 dessiatines have 7 people working, 14 draught animals, 3.8 ploughs and scarifiers, and 4.3 carts. (We omit more detailed data for all groups, referring those interested in the details to Mr. Postnikov’s book.) The author’s general conclusion is: “With the increase in the size of the farm and in the area cultivated by the peasant, the expenditure on the maintenance of labour-power, human and animal, that prime item of expenditure in agriculture, progressively decreases, and, among the groups that cultivate large areas, drops to nearly one half per dessiatine under crops of the expenditure among the groups with small cultivated areas” (op. cit., p. 117). To this law of the greater productivity and, hence, of the greater stability of the big peasant farms Mr.Postnikov quite rightly attaches great importance, proving it with very detailed data not only for Novorossia alone, but also for the central gubernias of Russia.[7] The further the penetration of commodity production into crop cultivation, and, consequently, the keener the competition among the agriculturists, the struggle for land and for economic independence, the more vigorously must this law be manifested, a law which leads to the ousting of the middle and poor peasants by the peasant bourgeoisie. It must, however, be noted that technical progress in agriculture expresses itself in different ways, depending on the system of agriculture, on the system of field cultivation. Whereas in the case of grain growing and extensive cultivation this progress may find expression in a mere expansion of the crop area and reduction of the number of workers, animals, etc., per unit of crop area, in the case of livestock or industrial crop farming, with the adoption of intensive agriculture, this same progress may find expression, for example, in the cultivation of root crops, which require more workers per unit of crop area, or in the acquisition of dairy cattle, the cultivation of fodder grasses, etc., etc.
The description of the top group of the peasantry must be supplemented by indicating the considerable employment of wage-labour. Here are the data for the three uyezds of Taurida Gubernia:
Mr. V. V., in the above-mentioned article, argued about this question as follows: he took the farms employing workers as a percentage of the total number of peasant farms and arrived at the conclusion that “the number of peasants resorting to hired labour for the cultivation of the land, as compared to the aggregate mass of the people, is quite insignificant: 2 to 3, a maximum of 5 peasant farmers out of 100 are all that represent peasant capitalism . . . it” (peasant farming in Russia employing labourers) “is not a system firmly rooted in contemporary economic life, but something fortuitous, such as occurred 100 and 200 years ago” (Vestnik Yevropy, 1884, No. 7, p. 332). What sense is there in comparing the number of farms employing workers with the total number of “peasant” farms, when the latter figure also includes the plots of farm labourers? Why, by this method one could also get rid of capitalism in Russian industry: one would only need to take the families engaging in industries who employ wage-workers (i.e., the families of manufacturers, large and small) as a percentage of the total number of families engaging in industries in Russia; the result would be a quite insignificant” percentage of the “mass of the people.” It is far more correct to compare the number of farms employing labourers with the number of actually independent farms, i.e., of those living on agriculture alone and not resorting to the sale of their labour power. Furthermore, Mr. V. V. lost sight of a trifle, namely, that the peasant farms employing labourers are among the biggest: the percentage of farms employing labourers, “insignificant” when taken “in general and on the average,” turns out to be very imposing (34-64%) among the well-to-do peasantry, who account for more than half of the total production and produce large quantities of grain for sale. One can therefore judge how absurd is the opinion that farming based on the employment of labourers is “fortuitous,” something that occurred 100 to 200 years ago! Thirdly, only by disregarding the real specific features of cultivation can one take as the criterion of “peasant capitalism” only farm labourers, i.e., regular workers, and ignore the day labourers. It is commonly known that the hiring of day labourers plays a particularly important role in agriculture.[8]
Let us take the bottom group. It consists of peasants who cultivate no land or who cultivate little; they “do not differ much in economic status . . . both groups serve as farm labourers for their fellow villagers, or engage in outside, mainly agricultural employments” (p. 134, op. cit.), i.e., belong to the rural proletariat. Let us note, for example, that in Dnieper Uyezd the bottom group constitutes 40% of the households, and those having no ploughing implements 39% of the total households. In addition to selling their labour-power, the rural proletariat obtain an income from leasing their allotment land:
In the three uyezds of Taurida Gubernia, the land leased (in 1884-86) amounted to 25% of the total peasant arable; this does not include land leased, not to peasants, but to middle-class intellectuals. In all, nearly 1/3 of the population in these three uyezds lease land; the allotments of the rural proletariat are rented mainly by the peasant bourgeoisie. Here are data in this regard:
“Allotment land is now an object of extensive speculation among the South-Russian peasants. Land is used as security for loans on promissory notes. . . . Land is leased, or sold, for one or two years and for longer periods—8, 9 or 11 years” (p. 139, op. cit.). Thus, the peasant bourgeoisie is also a representative of merchant’s and usurer’s capital.[9] Here we have a striking refutation of the Narodnik prejudice that the “kulak” and the “usurer” have nothing in common with the “enterprising muzhik.” On the contrary, the threads both of merchant’s capital (the loaning of money on the security of land, the buying-up of various products, etc.) and of industrial capital (commercial agriculture with the aid of wage-workers, etc,.) merge in the hands of the peasant bourgeoisie. It depends on surrounding circumstances, on the greater or lesser degree to which the Asiatic way of life is eliminated and culture is widespread in our countryside as to which of these forms of capital will develop at the expense of the other.
Let us examine, finally, the position of the middle group (cultivating from 10 to 25 dess. per household, with an average of 16.4 dess.). Its position is a transitional one: its money income from agriculture (191 rubles) is somewhat lower than the sum annually spent by the average Tauridian (200 to 250 rubles). Here draught animals work out at 3.2 head per household, whereas for a full team 4 are required. Hence the position of the middle peasant’s farm is an unstable one, and to till his land he has to resort to “yoking.”[10] [21]
The cultivation of the land on a “yoking” basis is, it goes without saying, less productive (time lost in moving from place to place, shortage of horses, etc.), so that in one village, for example, Mr. Postnikov was informed that “yokers often scarify no more than one dessiatine per day, which is half the normal rate.”[11] If to this we add that in the middle group about 116 of the households have no ploughing implements, that this group provides more workers than it hires (according to Mr. Postnikov’s calculations), its unstable character and its transitional position between the peasant bourgeoisie and the rural proletariat will be clear. We shall quote somewhat more detailed data about the ousting of the middle group.
Gubernia[12]
Thus, the distribution of allotment land is the most “equalised,” although here, too, the ousting of the bottom group by the top ones is marked. But the situation radically changes when we pass from this compulsorily-held land to the free, i.e., to the purchased and the rented land. The concentration of this land is enormous, and as a result, the distribution of the total land in use by the peasants is quite unlike the distribution of the allotment land: the middle group is pushed into second place (46% of allotment land—41% of land in use), the well-to-do group very considerably enlarges its holdings (28% of allotment land—46% of land in use), while the poor group is being pushed out of the ranks of the cultivators (25% of allotment land—12% of land in use).
The table reveals an interesting phenomenon, one that we shall meet again, namely, the decline in the role of allotment land in peasant farming. In the bottom group this is due to the leasing out of land; in the top group to the fact that in the total farming area purchased and rented land is overwhelmingly predominant. The remnants of the pre-Reform system (the tying of the peasants to the land, and equalised, tax-assessed land tenure) are being utterly destroyed by the penetration of capitalism into agriculture.
As for land renting in particular, the figures given enable us to clear up a very common mistake in the arguments of the Narodnik economists on this subject. Take the arguments of Mr. V. V. In the article quoted above he bluntly raised the issue of the relation of the renting of land to the break-up of the peasantry. “Does the renting of land help to differentiate the peasant farms into big and small and to destroy the average, typical group?” (Vestnik Yevropy, loc. cit., pp. 339-340.) Mr. V. V. answered this question in the negative. Here are his arguments: 1) “The large percentage of persons who resort to the renting of land.” Examples: 38 to 68%; 40 to 70%; 30 to 66%; 50 to 60% respectively in different uyezds of different gubernias.—2) The small size of the rented plots per household: 3 to 5 dess., according to Tambov statistical returns.—3) The peasants with small allotments rent more land than those with big ones.
To enable the reader clearly to judge the appropriateness of such arguments, let alone their soundness, we quote the corresponding figures for Dnieper Uyezd.[13]
The question arises, of what importance can “average” figures be here? Does the fact that those who rent land are “many”—56%—really do away with the concentration of the rented land in the hands of the rich? Is it not ridiculous to take the “average” area of rented land [12 dess. per renting household. Very often it is not even per renting household, but per existing household that is taken. That is what Mr. Karyshev, for example, does in his work “Peasant Rentings of Non-Allotment Land” (Dorpat, 1892; Vol. II of Results of Zemstvo Statistical Investigations)] by putting together peasants of whom one takes 2 dessiatines at a fabulous price (15 rubles), evidently out of dire need, on ruinous terms, while another takes 48 dessiatines, over and above his own adequate amount of land, “buying” the land wholesale at the incomparably lower price of 3.55 rubles per dessiatine? No less hollow is the third argument: Mr. V. V. himself took care to refute it by admitting that figures relating “to entire village communities” (in classifying the peasants according to allotment) “do not present a true picture of what is taking place in the community itself” (p. 342, op. cit.).[14]
It would be a great mistake to imagine that the concentration of rented land in the hands of the peasant bourgeoisie is limited to individual renting and does not apply to renting by the village community. Nothing of the kind. The rented land is always distributed “according to where the money lies,” and the relation between the groups of the peasantry does not change in the least where land is rented by the community. Hence, the argument of Mr. Karyshev, for example, that the relation between community renting and individual renting expresses a “conflict between two principles (!?),the communal and the individual” (p.159, loc. cit.), that community renting “is characterised by the labour principle and the principle of even distribution of rented land among the community members” (ibid., 230)—this argument belongs entirely to the sphere of Narodnik prejudices. Not withstanding the task he set himself of summing up the “results of Zemstvo statistical investigation,” Mr. Karyshev carefully avoided all the abundant Zemstvo statistical material about the concentration of rented land in the hands of small groups of well-to-do peasants. Let us quote an example. In the three indicated uyezds of Taurida Gubernia, state lands rented by peasant communities are distributed among the groups as follows:
A little illustration of the “labour principle” and of the “principle of even distribution”!
Such are the Zemstvo statistical data on peasant farming in South Russia. No room is left by these data for doubting the complete differentiation of the peasantry, the complete domination in the countryside of the peasant bourgeoisie.[15] Highly interesting, therefore, is the attitude of Messrs. V. V. and N.–on towards these data, the more so that formerly both these writers admitted the need of raising the problem of the differentiation of the peasantry (Mr. V. V. in the above mentioned article of 1884, and Mr. N.–on in Slovo[The Word] in 1880, when he remarked on the interesting phenomenon in the village community itself that the “unenterprising” muzhiks neglect their land, while the “enterprising” ones take the best land for themselves; cf. Sketches, p. 71). It should be noted that Mr. Postnikov’s work is of a dual character: on the one hand the author skillfully gathered and carefully processed extremely valuable Zemstvo statistics and managed, in doing so, to escape the “tendency to regard the peasant community as something integral and homogeneous, as it is still held to be by our urban intelligentsia” (p. 351, op. cit.). On the other hand, the author, not being guided by theory, failed totally to appraise the data he had processed, and regarded them from the extremely narrow point of view of “measures,” proceeding to concoct projects about “agricultural-handicraft-factory communities” and about the necessity of “restricting,” “enjoining,” “observing,” etc., etc. Well then, our Narodniks did their best to ignore the first, the positive part of Mr. Postnikov’s work and concentrated their attention on the second part. Both Mr. V. V. and Mr. N.–on began with highly serious air to “refute” Mr. Postnikov’s absolutely unserious “projects” (Mr. V. V. in Russkaya Mysl[Russian Thought ], 1894, No. 2; Mr. N.–on in his Sketches, p. 233, footnote), accusing him of the evil intention of introducing capitalism into Russia, and carefully avoiding the data which revealed the prevalence of capitalist relations in the countryside of South Russia today.[16]
[1] The following data relate mostly to the three northern mainland uyezds of Taurida Gubernia, namely the Berdyansk, Melitopol and Dnieper, or to the latter one alone.—Lenin
[2] Dessiatine=2.70 acres.–Ed.
[3] Mr. Postnikov rightly observes that in reality the differences between the groups as to size of money income from the land are much more considerable, for the computations assume 1) equal yield, and 2) equal price for grain sold, actually, however, the well-to-do peasants secure better yields and sell their grain to greater advantage.—Lenin
[4] We would point out that the relatively considerable amount of purchased land held by those who cultivate no land is due to the fact that this group includes shopkeepers, owners of industrial establishments, and so forth. The mixing of such “peasants” with real cultivators is a common defect of Zemstvo statistics. We shall refer again to this defect later on.—Lenin
[5] Carting: carts, covered and open waggons, etc. Ploughing: iron ploughs, scarifiers (cultivators), etc.—Lenin
[6] Statistical Returns for Melitopol Uyezd, Simferopol, 1885 (Statistical Returns for Taurida Gubernia, Vol. I),[22]—Statistical Returns for Dnieper Uyezd, Vol. II, Simferopol, 1886.—Lenin
[7] “Zemstvo statistics prove incontrovertibly that the larger the scale of the peasant farm, the smaller the number of implements, workers, and draught animals employed on a given tillage area” (op. cit., p. 162).
It is interesting to note how this law is reflected in Mr. V, V.’s arguments. In the above-quoted article (Vestnik Yevropy, 1884, No. 7) he makes the following comparison: In the central black-earth belt there are 5-7-8 dess. of arable per peasant horse, whereas “according to the rules of three-field crop rotation” there should be 7-10 dess. (Batalin’s Calendar). “Consequently, the decline in horse-ownership by part of the population of this area of Russia must to a certain extent be regarded as the restoration of the normal proportion between the number of draught animals and the area to be cultivated” (p. 346 in the article mentioned). Thus the ruin of the peasantry leads to progress in agriculture. Had Mr V. V. paid attention not only to the agronomic but also to the social-economic aspect of this process he could have seen that this is the progress of capitalist agriculture, for “the restoration of the normal proportion” between draught animals and arable is achieved either by landlords who acquire their own implements, or by big peasant crop growers, i.e., by the peasant bourgeoisie.—Lenin
[8] England is the classic land of agricultural capitalism. And in that country 40.8% of the farmers employ no hired labour; 68.1% employ not more than 2 workers; 82% employ not more than 4 workers (Yanson, Comparative Statistics, Vol. II pp. 22-23; quoted from Kablukov, The Workers in Agriculture, p. i6). But he would be a fine economist, indeed, who forgot the mass of agricultural proletarians, both migratory and also resident (i.e., such as get “employments” in their own villages), who hire themselves out by the day.—Lenin
[9] And itself resorts to the “very numerous” village banks and loan-and-savings societies, which render “substantial assistance” to “prosperous peasants.” “The economically weak peasants cannot find guarantors and do not get loans” (p. 368, op cit.).—Lenin
[10] In Melitopol Uyezd, out of 13,789 households in this group only 4,218 till their land with their own animals animals; 9,201 “yoke.” In Dnieper Uyezd, out of 8,234 households, 4,029 till the land with their own animals, and 3,835 “yoke.” See zemstvo statistical returns for Melitopol Uyezd (p. B. 195) and for Dnieper Uyezd (p. B. 123).—Lenin
[11] In the above-mentioned article Mr. V. V. argues a great deal about yoking being the “principle of co-operation,” etc. It is really so simple to hush up the fact that the peasantry are breaking up into sharply distinct groups, that yoking is the co-operation of tottering farms which are being ousted by the peasant bourgeoisie, and then to talk in general about the “principle of co-operation”—probably co-operation between the rural proletariat and the rural bourgeoisie!—Lenin
[12] Data taken from the Zemstvo Statistical Returns. They cover the whole uyezd, including settlements not embraced by volosts.[23] The figures in the column “Total land used by group” have been calculated by myself, by adding together the allotment, rented and purchased land, and subtracting the leased land.—Lenin
[13] The data for the Melitopol and Berdyansk uyezds are analogous.—Lenin
[14] Mr. Postnikov cites an interesting example of a similar mistake made by Zemstvo statisticians. Noting the fact of commercial farming by the well-to-do peasants and their demand for land, he points out that “the Zemstvo statisticians, evidently regarding such manifestations in peasant life as something illegitimate, try to belittle their importance” and to prove that the renting of land is determined not by the competition of rich peasants but by the peasants’ need for land. To prove this, Mr. Werner, the compiler of Taurida Gubernia Handbook (1889), classified the peasants of the entire Taurida Gubernia according to size of allotment, taking the group of peasants with 1 or 2 people working and 2 or 3 draught animals. It turned out that, within the bounds of this group, as the size of the allotment increases the number of renting households and the amount of rented land decrease. Obviously, such a method of calculation proves nothing at all, since only peasants with an equal number of draught animals are taken, and it is the extreme groups that are omitted. It is quite natural that where the number of draught animals is equal the amount of cultivated land must also be equal, and consequently, the smaller the allotment, the larger the amount of rented land. The question is how the rented land is distributed among households with unequal numbers of draught animals, implements, etc.—Lenin
[15] It is usually said that the data for Novorossia do not permit the drawing of general conclusions, because of the specific features of that locality. We do not deny that the differentiation of the agricultural peasantry is more marked here than in the rest of Russia; but it will be seen from what follows that the specific nature of Novorossia is by no means so great as is sometimes imagined.—Lenin
[16] “It is interesting,” wrote Mr. N.–on, that Mr. Postnikov “has projects for 60-dessiatine peasant farms.” But “since agriculture has fallen into the hands of capitalists,” productivity of labour may grow still more “tomorrow,” “and it will be necessary (!) to convert the 60-dessiatine into 200- or 300-dessiatine farms.” You see how simple it is: because the petty bourgeoisie of today in our countryside will be threatened tomorrow by the big bourgeoisie, therefore Mr. N.–on refuses to recognise either today’s petty or tomorrow’s big bourgeoisie!—Lenin
[17] Zemstvo house-to-house censuses were investigations of peasant farms undertaken by statistical agencies of the Zemstvos or rural government bodies. These censuses, which were conducted mainly for taxation purposes, became very common in the 1880s. The household censuses provided a wealth of factual material which was published in statistical abstracts covering the different gubernias and their uyezds or subdivisions. The Zemstvo statisticians, however, many of whom were Narodniks, were very often biased in the way they processed the statistical data and classified them incorrectly, thereby robbing them of much of their value. “Here is the weakest spot in our Zemstvo statistics, splendid as they are for the care and detail with which they are compiled,” wrote Lenin. (See present edition, Vol. 20.) Phenomena of the economic type were hidden under piles of figures in the Zemstvo returns and reviews, while the essential differences between, and features of, various peasant groups that took shape as capitalism developed were lost in the columns of average figures.
Lenin made a comprehensive analysis of Zemstvo statistical data, and carefully studied and processed them. He made calculations of his own, drew up tables and statistical summaries, gave a Marxist analysis of the peasant-farm data secured, and grouped them scientifically. Lenin used the wealth of Zemstvo statistical material to expose the artificiality of Narodnik schemes and to draw a true picture of Russia’s economic development. He made extensive use of Zemstvo statistical material in his writings and especially in The Development of Capitalism in Russia.
[18] Novorossia—the name given to the Southern steppe area of European Russia.—Lenin
[19] V. Y. Postnikov’s Peasant Farming in South Russia is examined in detail by Lenin in one of his first works, New Economic Trends in Peasant Life. (See present edition, Vol. 1.)
[20] Allotment land—land left for the use of the peasants after the abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861. Held by the peasant community, it was periodically redistributed among the peasants.—Lenin
[22] The full title of this source is Statistical Returns for Taurida Gubernia. Statistical Tables Concerning Economic Conditions in the Villages of Melitopol Uyezd. Appendix to Vol. I, Simferopol, 1885.
[21] Yoking (supryaga)—cultivation of the land with draught animals belonging to different peasants yoked together in a team.
[23] Volost–the lowest administrative territorial unit of the uyezd in pre-revolutionary Russia.
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