Chapter VI. Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry (8)

In the two preceding chapters we dealt mainly with what in Russia is usually called “handicraft” industry; we may now try to answer the question put in the heading.

Let us begin with some statistics, so as to judge which of the forms of industry analysed above figure in publications among the general mass of “handicraft industries.”

The Moscow statisticians, in concluding their investigation of the peasant “industries,” summarised all and sundry non-agricultural occupations. They listed altogether 141,329 persons (Vol. VII, Pt. III) engaged in local industries (in the making of commodities), but among these were included artisans (a section of the shoe-makers, glaziers and many others), wood sawyers, etc., etc. Not fewer than 87,000 (according to our calculations of the different industries) were domestic workers employed by capitalists. The number of wage-workers in the 54 industries for which we have been able to combine the data is 17,566, out of 29,446, i.e., 59.65%. For Vladimir Gubernia we have obtained the following results (from five issues of Industries of Vladimir Gubernia ): altogether, 18,286 engaged in 31 industries; of these 15,447 were engaged in industries in which capitalist domestic industry predominates (including 5,504 wage-workers, i.e., hirelings of the second degree, so to speak). Further, there are 150 rural artisans (of whom 45 are hired) and 2,689 small commodity producers (of whom 511 are hired). The total number of capitalistically engaged workers is (15,447 + 45 + 511 =) 16,003, i.e., 87.5%. In Kostroma Gubernia (on the basis of Mr. Tillo’s tables in the Transactions of the Handicraft Commission ), there are 83,633 local industrialists, of whom 19,701 are lumber-workers (fine “handicraftsmen”!), while 29,564 work in their homes for capitalists; some 19,954 are engaged in industries in which small commodity-producers predominate, and some 14,414 are village artisans. In 9 uyezds of Vyatka Gubernia there are (according to the same Transactions ) 60,019 local industrialists; of these, 9,672 are millers and oil-pressers; 2,032 are pure artisans (engaged in fabric-dyeing); 14,928 are partly artisans and partly commodity-producers, the overwhelming majority working independently; 14,424 engage in industries partly subordinated to capital; 14,875 engage in industries entirely subordinated to capital; 4,088 engage in industries in which wage-labour completely predominates. On the basis of the data in the Transactions regarding the other gubernias we have compiled a table of those industries on the organisation of which more or less detailed information is available. We get 97 industries employing 107,957 persons, with an output totalling 21,151,000 rubles. Of these, industries in which wage-labour and capitalist domestic industry predominate employ 70,204 persons (18,621,000 rubles); industries in which wage-workers and workers occupied at home for capitalists constitute only a minority employ 26,935 persons (1,706,000 rubles); and, finally, industries in which independent labour almost completely predominates employ 10,818 persons (824,000 rubles). According to Zemstvo statistical materials regarding 7 industries of Gorbatov and Semyonov uyezds of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, there are 16,303 handicraftsmen, of whom 4,614 work for the local market; 8,520 work “for a master,” and 3,169 as wage-workers; in other words, 11,689 are capitalistically employed workers. According to the returns of the 1894-95 Perm handicraft census, of 26,000 handicraftsmen, 6,500 (25%) are wage-workers, and 5,200 (20%) work for buyers-up, in other words, 45% are capitalistically employed workers.

Fragmentary as the data are (no others were available), they nevertheless clearly show that, taken as a whole, a mass of capitalistically employed workers are classified among the “handicraftsmen.” For instance, those working at home for capitalists number (according to the above-quoted data) over 200,000. And this is for some 50 or 60 uyezds, by no means all of which have been investigated thoroughly. For the whole of Russia the number of workers of this type must be something like two million. If to these are added the wage-workers employed by “handicraftsmen” – and, as may be seen from the above-quoted figures, their number is by no means as small as is sometimes thought here in Russia – we shall have to concede that the figure of 2 million industrial workers capitalistically employed outside the so-called “factories and works” is, if anything, a minimum figure.

To the question – “What is handicraft industry?” – the data quoted in the last two chapters compel us to give the answer that the term used is absolutely unsuitable for purposes of scientific investigation, and is one usually employed to cover all and sundry forms of industry, from domestic industries and handicrafts to wage-labour in very large manufactories. This lumping together of the most diverse types of economic organisation, which prevails in a host of descriptions of “handicraft industries,” was taken over quite uncritically and quite senselessly by the Narodnik economists, who made a tremendous step backward by comparison, for example, with a writer like Korsak, and availed themselves of the prevailing confusion of terms to evolve the most curious theories. “Handicraft industry” was regarded as something economically homogeneous, something sufficient unto itself, and was “counterposed ” (sic !) to “capitalism,” which without further ado was taken to mean “factory” industry. Let us take Mr. N.-on, for instance. On p. 79 of his Sketches we find the heading “Capitalisation (?) of Industries,” and then, without any reservation or explanation, “Data on Factories.”. . . The simplicity is positively touching: “capitalism” = “factory industry,” and factory industry = what is classified under this heading in official publications. And on the basis of such a profound “analysis” the masses of capitalistically employed workers included among the “handicraftsmen” are wiped off capitalism’s account. On the basis of this sort of “analysis” the question of the different forms of industry in Russia is completely evaded. On the basis of this sort of “analysis” one of the most absurd and pernicious prejudices is built up concerning the distinction between our “handicraft” industry and our “factory” industry, the divorcement of the latter from the former, the “artificial character” of “factory” industry, etc. It is a prejudice because no one has ever so much as attempted to examine the data, which in all branches of industry show a very close and inseparable connection between “handicraft” industry and “factory” industry.

The object of this chapter has been to show in what precisely this connection consists and precisely which specific technical, economic and cultural features are represented by the form of industry that in Russia stands between small-scale industry and large-scale machine industry.