Date: 1918
Source: ru:LS/v34

[September 21, 1918]¹
Revise the draft within four days as follows:
1) A highly popular introduction:
(a) Surpluses and Equality (Articles 17, 12a, and other laws on the socialization of land)
(b) Complete expropriation of the bourgeoisie
(c) Do not expropriate the wealthy peasantry; instead, impose a fair and stringent tax
(d) Subject the middle peasantry to a mild tax burden
(e) Impose no taxes whatsoever on the poor.
2) Within the very same law, introduce a classification into poor peasants (no tax burden at all), middle peasants (very light tax burden), and wealthy peasants.
3) Ensure that the proportion of poor peasants does not exceed <40%, and that the proportion of middle peasants does not exceed <20%.
4) Reduce the tax burden on the middle peasants to an extremely low level.
5) Grant regional Soviet organizations the authority to raise the issue of revising tax rates for the wealthy.
6) Give priority to the poor in receiving a portion of the collected revenue—for food supplies and seed grain.
1 The date is established based on the preceding document and on the minutes of the SNK meeting held on September 21, at which the draft resolution was adopted.
The content of §12 reads as follows: “The distribution of land among working people must be carried out on an equitable, labor-based principle, such that the consumption‑labor norm—when applied in a given region to the historically established system of land use—does not exceed the labor capacity of the available resources of each individual household and, at the same time, affords the peasant family a secure livelihood.”
For the text of Article 17, see p. 149.