59
A QUESTIONNAIRE ON THE ORGANISATIONS OF BIG CAPITAL
ably overwhelms by the size of its turnover. This is beyond
doubt. Nevertheless, it is a stratum, and not a class. Thus,
for instance, there is a vast distance between the political
role of the representative organisations of this stratum and
its political domination, as well as between its political
domination and that of the commercial and industrial class.
In this connection, we must point out the following
argument of Mr. Gushka’s: “We in Russia,” he writes, “are
accustomed to applying a very large scale to define what
is called a big or a small undertaking, in view of the well
known extraordinary concentration of capital in our country,
surpassing the concentration of capital even in Germany....”
The comparison with Germany is wrong. For instance,
in the Urals there are very few small undertakings, if any,
in the mining and metallurgical industries for reasons of
an entirely distinctive nature—due to the absence of full
freedom for industry and to the survivals of medievalism.
And our official (or, what is the same thing, our Narodnik)
distinction between factory and “handicraft” industries—
does it not make our industrial statistics incomparable with
the German statistics? Does it not very often mislead the
observer by speaking of “extraordinary concentration” in
Russia and obscuring the “extraordinarily” scattered charac-
ter of the countless small peasant undertakings?
II
It is interesting to note some of the data provided by the
questionnaire on the activity of the representative organisa-
tions of the biggest capital. For instance, the author gives a
summary of the information about their budgets. The bud-
gets of the 22 organisations in the combined group show a
total income of 3,950,000 rubles, and the total income of all
the organisations is 7.25 million rubles. “This annual budget
of our 56 organisations,” writes Mr. Gushka, “amounting to
7.25 million rubles, would probably be 50 or 100 per cent
higher if the financial reports of the other organisations,
those not covered by our questionnaire, were included.”
However, more than a half of this budget, namely, 4.5
million rubles, is spent on business and on charity. On
V. I. L E N I N
60
purely representational functions, the 56 organisations spend
2.7 million rubles. “Most of the answers or financial reports
put at the head of this expenditure on representation the
salaries of the personnel, then the renting of premises. In
64.4 per cent of the organisations, the greatest part of the
expenditure goes for maintenance of personnel, and in 26.7
per cent of them it goes for premises.”
These figures, in view of the turnover of 1,319 million
rubles in the capitalist associations covered by the investi-
gation, show that the expenditure is very modest, so that
Mr. Gushka’s pompous conclusion that the budget of expend-
iture is an “index of the financial might [author’s italics]
of the representative organisations of the commercial and
industrial bourgeoisie in Russia” again betrays his inordi-
nate fondness for big words.
The author devotes Chapter IX of his book to the “third
element”, i.e., the intelligentsia in the service of the capi-
talist associations. It appears that 29 stock-exchange com-
mittees listed 77 representatives of the third element as
their employees; the 22 organisations in the combined group
listed 180 such employees. Most of the answers speak of 2
to 4 representatives of the third element per organisation.
Since capitalist associations often understate this kind of
data, the author thinks it probable that “the representative
organisations of capital have in their service, holding key
posts, a host [!!] of intellectuals numbering at least a thou-
sand persons”—secretaries, accountants, statisticians, legal
advisers, etc.
Really, it does not take much to set Mr. Gushka talking
about a “host”.
The publishing activity of the capitalist associations is
characterised by the following figures. In addition to the
answers to the questionnaire, there accumulated a small
library of 288 volumes—the proceedings of congresses, re-
ports, statutes and memoranda—which have never been on
sale.
Nine organisations publish periodicals: Mining and
Smelting, Oil, Industry and Commerce, Bulletin of the Rus-
sian Association of Distillery Owners, etc. The author gives
the total number of issues of these publications as 2,624
“volumes”, to which he adds 452 volumes of “proceedings”,
61
A QUESTIONNAIRE ON THE ORGANISATIONS OF BIG CAPITAL
annual reports, etc., as well as 333 volumes of non-periodical
publications. Mr. Gushka puts the total at 3,409 “volumes”,
which he describes as “impressive”. The total number of
publications probably amounts to 4,000-5,000 volumes.
“It may be said without exaggeration that a veritable treasure
lies buried in that library,” exclaims Mr. Gushka, “a wealth of
material for the study of the anatomy and physiology, if we may
say so, of the big bourgeoisie in Russia. . . . Unless we study this valua-
ble material, we cannot form a proper idea of the balance of the domi-
nant social forces in Russia, and more particularly of the social
nature and role of Russian state power both before and after 1905.”
Mr. Gushka makes very frequent excursions of this kind
into the sphere of the social nature and role of Russian
state power. They merit special consideration because of
the importance of the question, and because it is misrepre-
sented by the author, who exaggerates things beyond measure
and for that very reason vows in passing that he speaks
“without exaggeration”.
III
“The centre of gravity of the activity of the organisations under
survey,” writes Mr. Gushka, “as representative organisations, i.e.,
organisations devoted to representing the interests of the industrial
and commercial class, is naturally in the sphere of formulating the
position of the representatives of this class on various questions con-
cerning its interests, and of defending this position by various means.”
Undoubtedly, that is exactly where the “centre of gravity”
lies. The questionnaire allots much space to questions about
the items discussed by the organisations of the capitalists
and to the petitions they filed. In summarising the informa-
tion obtained, the author singles out a long list of what,
in his opinion, are “questions of a general nature”. The
most important questions are grouped as follows: (a) work-
ers’ insurance, public holidays, etc.; (b) income tax, taxes
on enterprises, etc.; (c) tariff policy; (d) transport; (e) joint-
stock companies, credit, etc.; (f) consulates abroad, statis-
tics, the organisation of a mining department; (g) participa-
tion of the merchant class in the Zemstvo institutions, in
the Council of State, in the preliminary discussion of govern-
ment Bills, etc.
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