Note 129 — Chapter X · THE MODERN AGRICULTURAL CLASSES.

This is the rate of these avowed proletarians within the total peasant population:

Districts.Per cent.

Zadonsk8

Korotoyak5

Nizhnedevitzk3

Ranenburg (landless included)15

Dankoff ” ”15

Of these, a greater percentage find employment in industry, as compared with the proletarians who cultivate their plots by means of hired labor:

Districts and classes.Industrial laborers. Per cent.Farm laborers. Per cent.

Korotoyak:

“Husbandless”5139

Farming proletarians3453

Nizhnedevitzk:

“Husbandless”4844

Farming proletarians3753

Industrial proletarians are steadily carried away by the growing movement out of the rural districts. Thus it may be reasonably assumed that only one-half of the pure-blooded proletarians remain in the village. This constitutes from 2 to 8 per cent. of the population. Relative rates, however, are sometimes misleading without reference to the absolute numbers. 2 per cent. of a 100-million population convey the illusion of a two million strong rural proletariat with pronounced class interests. Still we know that they are dissipated in villages with an average inhabitancy of 62 households (cf. above page: 50,429 communes with 3,309,020 households). Now the maximum 8 per cent. of 62 households means only 5 proletarian families, and the minimum 2 per cent., only 1 proletarian of the European type to a village. It seems to show that there can be no proletarian class spirit (“proletarisches Klassen-bewusstsein”) in the Russian village of to-day.