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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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

    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

    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

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:

    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

    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

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

    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.

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:

    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.

    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 )."

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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:

    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:

    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,

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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:

    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

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

    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,

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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.

    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-

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

    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.

    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.[*]

    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

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

    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.

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

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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

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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

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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:

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    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

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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

  [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

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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]