Chapter X · THE MODERN AGRICULTURAL CLASSES.

The existence of the employer presupposes his correlative, the employee. Thus we are brought close to the fact that there have arisen opposite social classes within the village community.

It must be borne in mind, however, that the lines between the classes in the Russian village are as yet far from being as sharply drawn as in countries with developed capitalism. It would seem that laborers permanently employed outside of their farms must unquestionably be classed among the proletarians. And yet we find the majority of them maintaining the standard of farmers.[108] This is due to the existence of the compound family, the average household numbering two adult male workers, which enables one of them to carry on farming, while the other is employed outside.[109] Only the minority of the households in question that have only one adult worker, and accordingly we find that independent farming has been given up only by the minority of those householders who are permanently employed as farm laborers.[110] These are the genuine rural proletarians with whom the earnings from wage labor constitute the main source of income. Still they are landholders, and inasmuch as they have no live stock of their own, their plots are tilled chiefly by means of wage labor:

Farm laborers whose plots are Korotoyak. Nizhnedevitsk.

Households. Per cent. Households. Per cent.

Tilled by hired laborers3716423766

Leased2053612434

In all576100361100

Thus we have the very peculiar economic type of a wage-laborer who is at the same time employer of wage labor. It is obvious that the characteristics of a modern European proletarian could not properly be extended to the Russian agricultural laborer.

Class distinctions are very easily perceived, of course, when the classes have already ripened to a certain degree. In the embryonic stage, the true tendency of the development going on is disguised by the many transitional forms combining the characteristic features of opposite classes. The peasantist of “the seventies,” whose opinions were influenced by European socialism, had no idea of class antagonism within the ranks of the peasantry themselves, regarding it as confined entirely to the “exploiter”—kulak or miroyed[111]—and his victim, the peasant imbued with the communistic spirit.[112]

The statisticians necessarily started in their investigations with preconceived ideas respecting the uniformity of the peasantry[113] as a class, except in so far as legal discriminations had to be taken into account. The study of the facts brought them subsequently to a recognition of the true position, and in some of the later Reports attempts were made to arrange the data according to class distinctions. The main difficulty in the question is as to what proof should be selected for classification. The characteristics of employer and employee would cover only a minor part of the peasantry of to-day,[114] not to speak of a certain vagueness of the terms, as explained above. Mr. Shtcherbina, Superintendent of the Statistical Department of Voronezh, has classified the peasants according to: 1, the size of their farms, 2, the quantity of stock raised, 3, the number of adult male workers to a household, and 4, to the occupation by which they supplement the insufficient income derived from their plots. The households are accordingly scheduled into 320 minute sections, so as to afford the opportunity of subsequently combining them into wider social classes.

We shall divide the peasantry into three main classes:

I. Those whose income from farming is sufficient to meet all the expenses of the household (taxes included), so as to obviate any need of wage earnings.

Households that pay their expenses by the income from commercial or industrial enterprises and draw a net profit from agriculture, are also included in that class.

II. Farmers who are at the same time wage laborers, either in agriculture, or in industry.

III. Proletarians, i. e. those who stopped working on their plots and earn their living exclusively by means of wage labor.

Let us examine these classes in detail.

Ad I. Combine all merely agricultural groups in which the income from farming exceeds the expenses of housekeeping, taxes and rent, and in which, furthermore, all the householders cultivate their plots with their own stock and implements. The results are presented in the following tables:

1. Balance Sheet.

Households, 1501, D. of Korotoyak. Receipts. Rubles. Expenses. Rubles.

Gross income from farming185171

Expenses of housekeeping77004

Rent33000

Taxes59094

Total185171169098

Net profit16073

185171185171

Net profit to 1 household upon an average10.70

2. Land to 1 farm.

Households, Per cent.

From 5 to 15 dessiatines5

From 15 to 25 dessiatines72

Above 25 dessiatines23

Total100

3. Live stock to 1 farm.

Households, Per cent.

1 horse1

2 horses[115]42

3 horses[115]38

4 or more19

Total100

The requirements for a “strong” household, as evidenced by the above tables, are as follows: 1, a farm exceeding in size fifteen dessiatines, i. e. one of above the average size; 2, at least two working horses.

Guided by these principles, we obtain the following table comprising all the householders of the class in question, in the district of Korotoyak:

In the class.In the district at large.

Total households199920282

Membership of an average household:

Males and females10.17.3

Adult male work2.11.7

Half-workers0.60.4

Landholding:

Communal land (dessiatines)—

a. To 1 adult male worker11.58.3

b. To 1 household24.414.2

Rented land, to 1 household (dessiatines)5.14.2

Horses, to 1 household2.71.8

Gross income from farming minus expenses, taxes, rent and wages paid: to 1 household, rubles+2.09-26.97

Households classified with regard to—

Labor forces:Per cent.Per cent.

Having 1 adult male worker2947

Having 2 adult male workers41} 7130} 49

Having 3 adult male workers3019

Total10096

Landholding:

Owning from 15 to 25 dessiatines7225

Owning above 25 dessiatines289

Total10034

Tenants of rented land5442

Live stock:

Keeping 2 horses4533

Keeping 3 horses3816

Keeping 4 or more horses177

Total10056

The class in question occupies the top of the village. It owes its economic independence to the fact that the majority of the households represent a co-operation of at least two adult male workers, assisted by half-workers, as well as to the favorable circumstance that the size of the farm exceeds by about one-half, relatively to the number of workers, the average in the district. The number of working horses is accordingly increased in the same ratio, three horses constituting about the average to a farm, while about one half of the households at large fall short of even the average two to a farm.

Another branch of the same class is formed by those householders with whom trade and commerce are as important a source of revenue as agriculture, as shown by the balance below:

DISTRICT OF KOROTOYAK.

Items. Households, or concerns. Receipts. Rubles. Expenses. Rubles. Balance. Rubles.

Gross income from sale of produce1366211237

Taxes48626

Rent79550

Wages paid16113

All to farming211237144289+66948

Gross income from trade and commerce1384230527

Expenses of housekeeping171705

All to trade and commerce230527171705+58822

Total1366441864315994+125770

Net profit to 1 household9207

The net profit drawn from trade and commerce enables these householders to enlarge their farming, with the exception of a very small minority who have devoted themselves entirely to trade, and do not turn to farming.[116] The economic level of this section is shown in the following table:

Class I., D. of Korotoyak. Average size of a farm, dessiatines. Land rented (by 1 household) dessiatines. Tenants (in every 100 households).

Farmers merely24.45.154

Traders21.911.473

In the district at large14.24.242

Concentration of the communal land proves to be the general basis of the economic welfare of the class under consideration.[117] Under the rule of the mir a large farm means a strong patriarchal family; the preservation of the latter is equally characteristic of the trader as of the mere farmers of the class, and appears to be even somewhat more pronounced among the former than among the latter.[118]

On the other hand, farming with the help of hired labor has enormously advanced among this section of the village community; it may be said that the employing farmer is a member of this progressive class par excellence.[119] The growth of this form of agricultural coöperation is going on within the class under consideration keeping pace with the dissolution of the patriarchal family.[120]

Ad III. The rural proletariat is generally marked by the absence of live stock to till the land with.[121] The class in question is formed of those peasants whom it did not pay to work on their farms, in view of the scarcity of the same.

Nearly one-half of the class are landless or own less than five dessiatines, the percentage of such households being three times greater than among the peasantry at large. Only a very small minority are in the possession of plots exceeding the average, the percentage being three times less than among the peasants at large. On the whole, a holding of a proletarian is half the average in the district.[122]

This is the immediate result of the complete dissolution of the patriarchal family among the village proletariat, the bulk of the latter consisting of families with only one adult male worker.[123]

Having failed as farmers, one-half have become farm laborers, the rest are employed in industry, or have no steady employment at all.[124] With all of them, wages are the chief means of livelihood.[125] The income from their farms is of secondary importance. The gross receipts from sale of produce are absorbed by the taxes.[126] Still the produce of the farm is partly consumed in kind and may serve to supply the owner with some of the necessaries of life.[127] In fact, it proves profitable for the village proletarian to cultivate his plot with the help of hired labor; accordingly, the majority of the proletarians of the Russian villages are not only employees, but also employers at the same time.[128] As yet there is but a small fraction of the village that has evolved into the condition of proletarians proper, whose only economic interest is that of wage labor.[129]

Ad II. The mean between both extremes, i. e. between the independent farmers and the proletarian laborers, is occupied by a transitional class who are farmers and wage laborers at once.

The soil being tilled by its owner’s labor, the farmer is supposed to raise live stock. We remember that two horses to a farm is the minimum required to constitute a strong household, the normal approaching three horses upon an average. The proletarians, as a rule, have no horses. The transitional class under consideration is characterized by the ownership of from one to two horses.[130]

Within this class a further distinction is to be made as between (A), those with whom outside earnings are to cover only a small deficit in their farming, and (B), those with whom wage labor has become as important a source of income as farming:

District of Korotoyak, Class II. Income from farming, per cent. Income from wage labor.

Per cent. To 1 household per year, rubles.

Section A9286.39

Section B505050.47

Small as the deficit of agriculture is in Section A, still it is the first step down of the lately independent farmer. The comparison between this section and the farmer pure and simple of Class I brings out the unmistakable reason: the deficit begins with the dissolution of the patriarchal family.[131] The absolute and relative size of the farm owned by a divided family with only one male worker cannot compare with that of a patriarchal household[132]. The single worker keeps only very seldom above the average; in the long run he is liable to turn to some wage-paying occupation, that is to say, to pass into the section adjoining the proletarians.

This wing of the transitional class seems to show even a somewhat greater strength of farming than the upper section just described.[133] It must be, however, placed at a lower degree of the scale, inasmuch as, in the first place, the relative income per adult male worker is below that of Section A,[134] and, in the second place, its higher absolute level of agriculture is not of long duration. In reality, it is due to the fact that the compound family still prevails in Section B, while it is about to disappear in Section A.[135] The existence of the compound family enables some of its workers to carry on farming, while others are employed outside.[136] With the division of the family, which, as we know, is only a question of time, a number of householders will be compelled to stop farming. Such are in the first place those employed yearly or during the summer as farm laborers. At present they number as follows:

Households.Households.

With 1 adult male worker649With 2 or more adult male workers1242

“Horseless”568With 1 horse or more1323

Stopped tilling their plots576Tilling their plots1315

The “single” householders permanently employed as farm laborers have in most cases stopped working on their plots. The separation of the remaining 1242 compound householders would swell the proletarian class by nearly as many families, which would constitute an increase of the proletariat by forty-five per cent.

After having examined in detail the several classes of the village, let us sum up their characteristic features in one schedule, to show the tendency of the evolution going on:

Classes. Households, per cent. Average membership per household.

Males and female. Full workers. Half-workers. Total workers.

I. Agriculture yielding net profit:

Trading farmers610.52.40.63.0

Farmers merely1010.12.10.62.7

All to the class1610.22.20.62.8

II. Agriculture leaving a deficit:

A. Farmers merely2061.30.31.6

B. Farmers—laborers507.91.90.42.3

All to the class707.41.70.42.1

III. Proletarians:

Employing labor9

Proletarians proper5

All to the class143.80.90.21.1

We find a clue to the coming development of the village in the fact that the main classes within the peasantry correspond to the age of the householders.

It is but the minority of old-fashioned compound families that have stood their ground as virtual farmers; the middle economic group of the village, is formed by “the middlers” i. e. the householders of middle age, who count in their families half-workers or one adult worker besides themselves. The proletarians are recruited from among the youngest generations, who consist of husband and wife with their little children.

Here we have the economic basis of the “struggle of generations” in the village, a topic which was very much discussed in Russian literature. The elders, the “middlers” and the young, represent the farmer of the old stamp and strong make, the modern peasant,—half farmer, half laborer at once,—and the proletarian, with their variance of views, which mirrors their diverse and antagonistic economic interests.[137]