As is well known, the government and counterrevolutionary parties placed particularly great hopes on the resettlement of peasants. It was supposed, in the view of all counterrevolutionaries, if not to resolve the agrarian question radically, then at least to dull it significantly and render it harmless. This is why resettlement began to be advertised especially and encouraged in every way precisely as the peasant movement in European Russia approached and then developed.

What those in government circles and more far-sighted politicians, such as certain Octobrists, keep to themselves, the unabashed reactionaries—like the Kursk boor Markov the Second—speak aloud. And this deputy frankly, with commendable directness, declared during the discussion of the resettlement question in the Duma: "Yes, the government must resolve the agrarian question precisely through resettlement" (1st session).

There is no doubt that with proper organization, resettlement could have played a certain role in Russia's economic development. Of course, one should not overestimate this role, even now, when the utterly intolerable condition of the peasantry is such that the Russian peasant is ready to flee not only to Siberia but to the ends of the earth; even now, when landpoor and landless peasants are encouraged in every way toward resettlement and expulsion so as to spare them the temptation of gazing upon the landlords' latifundia; when the decree of November 9th has extraordinarily facilitated the liquidation of the remnants of their estates in their homeland for resettlers; even now, as the apologists of natural increase themselves must acknowledge—and only in provinces showing the highest percentage of those emigrating (the south, west, and black-earth center of Russia) does it equal natural increase or only slightly exceed it.

Nevertheless, a considerable reserve of free land in Siberia, suitable for resettlement, still exists. True, very little has been done to determine it even with approximate accuracy. Kulomzin as far back as 1896 set the reserve of colonization lands at 130,000 soul-portions. Since then, ten times that quantity of portions has been allocated, and the reserve has not yet been exhausted. On the contrary, according to calculations by the resettlement administration, by 1900 the existing reserve of land suitable for resettlement was set at 3 million soul-portions for 6 million resettlers. As we see, the figures are extremely varied; the range of their fluctuation is quite considerable.

In any case, even if we discard a certain percentage in the latter figures on account of the usual bureaucratic complacency, it is nonetheless indisputable that a reserve of land in Siberia still exists and that, consequently, resettlement there could have had a certain significance both for Siberia and for Russia, had it only been organized rationally.

And this very conditio sine qua non[32] is precisely what the present government fails to meet. The current organization of resettlement affairs yet again demonstrates and proves that our "old order" is absolutely incapable of satisfying even the most elementary economic needs of the population; the poor handling of resettlement once more testifies that the present rulers are impotent to do anything whatever for the economic progress of the country.

The speeches of Social-Democratic deputies, delivered each year during discussion of the resettlement administration's budget, were devoted to clarifying the direction, character, and implementation of resettlement policy.

What aim does the government pursue in resettling peasants? This is the fundamental question that determines all others, for the entire character of resettlement policy is determined by its aim.

Deputy Voiloshnikov, speaking on behalf of the Social-Democratic faction in the 2nd session of the Duma, characterized in the following way the tasks the government sets for itself in resettling peasants. "Resettlement policy," said Deputy Voiloshnikov, "is one link in the entire agrarian policy of the government. The landlords needed weak and feeble peasants as cheap labor, and the government tried in every way to hinder resettlement and leave the surplus population in place. But that was not enough: it struggled vigorously against voluntary resettlement and thereby sought to close this safety valve; but the natural population increase of that time continued, times changed; a menacing cloud of proletariat arose—hungry peasantry with all its consequences. The government and landlords seized upon resettlement, placing it, along with the decree of November 9th, at the foundation of their agrarian policy, but in the implementation of the November 9th decree, attention was focused on the strong and capable ones—on taking land from the weak and transferring it to strong peasants—whereas here the talk is of pumping out as many weak peasants as possible to Siberia, and although of late there is a tendency toward raising the average level of the well-to-do resettler, the main mass continues to consist, in Stolypin's terminology, of the weak. This intensive pumping-out similarly involves, or rather involves participation by, the land-management commissions.

The land-management commissions are charged with issuing and registering plots for resettlers and thereby settling accounts with former agrarian disturbances. Thus, gentlemen, the decree of November 9th, the intensive advertising of resettlement, the intensive pumping-out of the weak to Siberia, and the land-management commissions—these are two closely linked aspects of one and the same question, one and the same policy. It is easy to see that the implementation of the November 9th decree promotes the settlement of the strong and capable on their allotments at the expense of weak peasants and will thereby contribute to expelling these weak, poorly suited to colonization, elements to remote regions foreign to them. Both regarding the commune and regarding resettlement, the government's resettlement policy was guided solely by the interests of a handful of serf-holding landlords and, generally, of the ruling classes oppressing the working masses and toiling peasantry. It is alien to any understanding of the elementary needs of the country and the needs of the national economy" (Session 77, 2nd session).

Deputy Chkheidze revealed this aspect of the matter most fully in his speech to the 2nd session of the State Duma, providing a detailed picture of resettlement policy in the Caucasus.

The Social-Democratic orator first proved with facts and figures that all official communications about free lands in the Caucasus most blatantly contradict the truth. Let us emphasize firmly that Deputy Chkheidze, to avoid accusations of bias and distortion, constantly used official data and reports from government officials. According to data gathered as far back as the 1880s by the former minister of state properties, "among state peasants alone, settled on state lands in the Caucasus, in four Transcaucasian provinces there were counted 22,000 souls completely without land, 66,000 with allotments of up to one dessiatina per soul, 254,000 with allotments of one to two dessiatinas, 5,013 souls with allotments of two to four dessiatinas—in total about 1,000,000 souls with allotments less than the minimum standard for settlers placed in the Caucasus. In Kutais province, of 29,977 households, the number of those without land and with allotments up to one dessiatina per household was 2,541; from one to two dessiatinas—4,227; from two to three—4,016; from three to five—5,321 households. According to the most recent information, the number of villages having no state land or poorly provided with it comprises about 46 percent in the four Transcaucasian provinces, and in Kutais province, unprovisioned households numbered about 33 percent. From the report of the Baku committee on the needs of agricultural industry, we know that such land-poor villages produce from their midst the landless, who settle with those possessing considerable land allotments and find themselves in a dependent position for many years. And Senator Kuzminsky in his most loyal report says the following: 'It has been noted that sometimes the very composition of resettlers is formed from persons who have abandoned agriculture and who give the land received for colonization purposes to rent to fellow villagers or peasants of neighboring native settlements.' Thus, as recently as 25 years ago in Transcaucasia, there were counted hundreds of thousands of state peasants who, one would think, ought to have been provided for more than other categories of peasants, who without exaggeration can be called day-laborers. Still 25 years ago, local peasants were compelled to rent those very lands which were allocated to resettlers."

Such are the data on which one can judge the land provisions of state peasants in the Caucasus.

"As for the so-called temporarily obligated peasants," the orator continued, "on the basis of established charters, it is evident that in Tiflis province 1,444 households were left completely without land and 386 households did not even receive homestead lands. This comprises 13 percent of the total number of gentry peasants in Tiflis province. In Kutais province the number of landless peasants at the time of the reform was even greater. Even if we accept the proportion in Tiflis province applied to the total number of serfs, we would still get 5,590 households or 25,000 souls in Kutais province who received not a scrap of land when peasants were freed in the Caucasus. Twenty years after the reform, in 1895," continues the author of a note on the liquidation of obligatory relations, "the number of landless peasants in Elisavetpol province was 5,308 households or 25,000 souls of both sexes. In Baku province, 3,906 households or 11,709 souls of both sexes without land. And here are the data regarding land provisions for peasants from the temporarily obligated who did not redeem their allotments but have some economy. In Tiflis province, the average comes to 0.9 dessiatina per soul, and in Kutais province—0.6 dessiatina. Of those who have redeemed, in Tiflis province it comes to 1.7 dessiatinas per soul, and in Kutais province—0.7 dessiatina. Such is the land provision for peasants having some economy. A general characterization of the economic condition of peasants in the Caucasus is given by the report of the Kutais provincial committee on the needs of agricultural industry. According to data drawn from various official investigations, the quantity of peasants experiencing acute want reaches 70 percent in Kutais province. Moreover, it is also mentioned here that acute want in Kutais province is experienced by 25 percent of the nobility.

Such landholders," the report continues, "can preserve their economic independence only through outside earnings and are completely deprived of the possibility of making expenditures on improvements, on implements and manuring fields. The great demand could not but affect the cost of allotment rental, which reaches 60 percent of gross income under the share system, and sometimes, in the case of payment in fixed quantities of produce, in poor harvest years exceeds gross income. Leasing land for money is rare, and rental payment reaches 30 rubles per dessiatina per year. This is in Kutais province. And here are some data regarding land provisions for peasants in four districts of Elisavetpol province. Here, on the basis of information about all peasants living on privately owned land, we have that in four districts of Elisavetpol province—namely, Djibrail, Zangezur, Shushi, and Jevanshir—land provision comes to 0.6 dessiatina per soul. According to Senator Kuzminsky's calculation, in Lenkoran district of Baku province, the average allotment per male soul for settlers placed on privately owned land comes to 0.5 dessiatina. In Kubin district to 0.9 dessiatina. Such, gentlemen," the orator concluded, "is the land provision of peasants in Transcaucasia."

If with respect to land scarcity the position of Caucasian peasants differs little from that of peasants in Russia, then the question arises: whence does the colonization land fund in the Caucasus come into being, and why is expulsion from Russia conducted there rather than settlement of local peasants?

The resettlement fund is formed through a blatant violation of the land rights of the indigenous population, and resettlement from Russia is conducted in the name of the same nationalist principle of "Russification of the borderlands."

Deputy Chkheidze presented a series of data, again drawn from official sources, showing how entire native villages were driven from their long-inhabited places in the interests of forming a colonization land fund, how whole judicial proceedings were rigged to justify the expropriation of lands from the mountaineers (report of the noble leader Prince Tsereteli to the minister of internal affairs concerning the mountain village of Kiknaveleti, Kutais district), and so forth. And these are not isolated and exceptional facts but "typical cases," as Senator Kuzminsky himself confirms.

As a result, directly hostile relations develop between resettlers and natives. So, for example, when the Alar society was driven from its lands, "expelled," as Senator Kuzminsky puts it, "without land provision, abandoned to the mercy of fate," the usurpers of its lands from among the resettlers were armed at state expense: local district chiefs were instructed to "take care to supply peasants of newly formed settlements on the Mughan, including the Pokrovsk settlers, with weapons—Berdan rifles at the rate of 10 rifles per 100 households." An interesting illustration for characterizing the "nationalist course" of contemporary policy!

Nevertheless, rightist deputies of the State Duma pointed with triumph to the existence of a resettlement fund of 1,700,000 dessiatinas of land, as reported by the Caucasian viceroy. However, as the viceroy himself testifies, almost half of this fund is already occupied by resettlers, a considerable portion is in such places where, as the viceroy again confirms, it is physically impossible for an unaccustomed agriculturalist to conduct farming.

Deputy Chkheidze also characterized how the government settles new arrivals in the places allocated. "Insufficient, it is stated in a note from the viceroy, water supply and irrigation of resettlement plots, mainly in the eastern regions of Transcaucasia, is one of the principal causes of the reverse migration of resettlers already settled there. From the Black Sea region, the new arrivals flee due to the absence of roads suitable for wheeled traffic, not only between individual settled points but even within the resettlement plots themselves. To this one must add that unfavorable, unaccustomed climatic conditions for the resettlers, accompanied in many parts of the Caucasus by malarial diseases that destroy not only people but livestock, in turn are no less than roadlessness conducive to flight of less stable new arrivals from the region. Under the influence of the reasons explained, there is constant observation of expulsion from Elisavetpol, Baku, and Daghestan Province, as well as from Tiflis and Black Sea provinces."

As a result, here is how the outcomes of resettlement in the Caucasus are assessed by the viceroy himself. "The practice heretofore applied toward the Caucasian population in its land affairs," says the viceroy, "can no longer be tolerated, if only because it undoubtedly plays quite a notable role in the revolutionary mood of the rural population."

The government and ruling classes pursue entirely analogous aims in resettling peasants to Siberia; and in this case, pursuing political goals, they show no regard whatsoever either for the interests of the resettlers or for the rights of the old settlers.

In the places of emigration, in Russia, the resettlement matter is now entrusted to the land-management commissions, land captains, and governors. Vitally interested in thinning out the local land-poor and landless peasantry, in leaving only that quantity on their lands as is required for the needs of large-scale landholding (as suppliers of hired labor), the land-management commissions carried out "expulsion" of the poor with such vigor that they even provoked protests from the resettlement administration itself. "The land-management commissions," protested one resettlement official, "form parties of utterly destitute people in need of travel allowances at their place of departure, of loans not for homestead establishment but for subsistence; but if, as an exception, a resettler is encountered with small monetary reserves, they are all expended on travel and food."

And these "weak" stepchildren of land policy, which proclaimed as its motto "a wager on the strong," are floated off in whole swarms to Siberia in unsuitable cattle cars, packed to the brim with the elderly, children, and pregnant women. In these same cattle cars (bearing the famous inscription "40 people, 8 horses"), resettlers prepare food, do washing, and frequently infected invalids lie here, whom resettlers are accustomed to hide out of fear they will be unloaded and thus fall behind the party. At terminal points and stations, resettlers are unloaded, in the best case, under specially erected tents, in the worst case, directly under open sky, under sun and rain. Deputy Voiloshnikov recounted in the Duma how he himself observed typhoid patients lying without shelter in the rain at the Sretensk station. And such were the conditions of resettler travel cited above that two ministers (Stolypin and Krivoshein) found them "tolerable": "the sanitary conditions of resettler transportation are tolerable," they most loyally reported, "many en route find even uncommon conveniences." Truly, there are no limits to bureaucratic complacency!

Having endured such trials along the way to "the promised land," the poorest resettlers find no happiness in Siberia either. Here, for example, is how Deputy Voiloshnikov characterized their settlement in new places, citing official dispatches.

One official (an official on special assignment from the resettlement administration) writes: "The majority of plots are scattered in virgin-forest areas, without water, without crops, without pasture." Another adds: "The loan system has completely lost its character of homestead-establishment significance; the size of loans is in itself too small to provide substantial homestead-establishment aid. The established practice of loan distribution has turned this into sheer philanthropy; to establish and provide for oneself for two years on 150 rubles in loan money is impossible."

And here, as an example, is a description of the sanitary condition of new settlers in those same official dispatches.

"After typhoid," writes one official,[33] "scurvy has taken on no lesser proportions here; in almost every settlement, in every cottage there are patients with this disease or candidates for it. Often patients with both diseases lie in the same cottage. At the Okur-Shanskoe plot I witnessed such a picture: the household head lies in typhoid in the desquamation stage; his pregnant wife is extremely weak from malnutrition; his son, a boy of about 12, with swollen glands and scurvy; his wife's sister with scurvy, unable to walk, with an infant in arms; her ten-year-old boy with scurvy, nosebleed, and weakness in the legs; and only her husband is healthy in the entire family.

Following scurvy and typhoid comes chicken blindness. One can find settlements where literally all resettlers, without exception, are blind. Groups of plots along the Emna River were formed from unbroken virgin forest, where there was neither plowland nor hayfield, and over two or three years the new settlers had barely managed to clear their homesteads and construct miserable hovels. There could be no question of their own grain; they fed exclusively on loans, and when the latter were exhausted, a terrible shortage of bread was felt; many literally starved. To the shortage of bread must be added the shortage of drinking water."

Such dispatches are encountered at every step. However terrible these official reports are, apparently they still do not tell all that is there and thus embellish reality. For example, Prince Lvov, who visited the Far East as a representative of the all-zemstvo organization, a man of, as is known, moderate views, characterizes colonization in the Amur region as follows:

"Isolation from the world, as on an uninhabited island, amid boggy hummocks of impenetrable taiga, marshy valleys and marshy mountains, utterly wild conditions of life, labor, and subsistence naturally depress the faint-hearted and destitute resettler. He falls into apathy, having exhausted his small stock of energy at the very beginning of the struggle with harsh nature, in arranging himself a miserable dwelling. Scurvy and typhoid seize the exhausted organism and carry it to the cemetery. In many settlements of 1907 there was literally incredible mortality—25 and 30 percent. In them, for every household there is almost a cross, and not a few settlements are doomed to wholesale transfer to new plots or to the cemetery. How many bitter tears of unfortunate families, what expensive burials at state expense on a distant borderland, instead of colonization! The remnants of last year's intensive wave of resettlers, shattered by the taiga, will not soon get back on their feet. Many will yet perish, many will flee, will return to Russia, disgrace the region with tales of their misfortunes, will frighten and delay further resettlement. Small wonder that this year an unprecedented reverse migration from Primorsk province is occurring and a five-fold smaller influx of resettlers to it."

Prince Lvov rightly expresses horror at the isolation and abandonment of the resettler in the boundless Siberian taiga, especially given Siberian roadlessness. One can imagine with what brilliance the implantation of separate farmstead economies and the allotment of cut-off plots is proceeding there now, since those same leaders of agrarian policy proclaimed "the necessity for a decisive turn (!) in land policy in Siberia," "the creation and strengthening of private property," "the consolidation of individual peasants' plots on the basis of the decree of November 9, 1906," "the allocation of resettlement plots, where possible, with the distribution of land as cut-off plots"[34] and so forth.

It is entirely natural that under such colonization conditions, according to data from the resettlement administration, of the resettlers settled during 1903–1905, 10 percent had no draft animals whatever, 12 percent had only one head of draft stock, 15 percent had no cow, and 25 percent had no plow (from the speech of Deputy Gaidarov in the 1st session, then speaking on behalf of the Social-Democratic faction). Entirely justly, therefore, Deputy Voiloshnikov, relying on those same official communications, drew the following conclusion regarding resettlement policy for 1906–1908.

"Over the course of three years, 1906, 1907, and 1908, 1,552,439 souls of both sexes were transported beyond the Urals, half of them destitute, lured by government propaganda into unknown lands, abandoned to the mercy of fate. Of them, as the resettlement administration writes, 564,041 persons settled successfully; 284,984 souls of both sexes returned. Thus, according to information from the resettlement administration, we know the fate of 849,025 persons; but what became of the remaining 703,414? Gentlemen, the government knows full well of their bitter fate, but it will not speak of them; some of them settled in old-settler villages, some swelled the ranks of the Siberian proletariat and wander about with outstretched hands.

But to a vast majority the government arranged expensive funerals, and this is why the government says nothing of them."

Thus are justified the hopes of Markov the Second to "resolve the agrarian question" through resettlement. In the face of such facts, even Octobrist representatives of large capital were forced to acknowledge "defects in resettlement affairs." Already in the 1st session, the Octobrists expressed the wish (and the Duma adopted this wish) for "changes and improvements in the conditions of resettler transportation," "the creation in settlement regions of conditions necessary for their cultural-economic development," "the observance in allocating lands and settling resettlers of the interests and rights of the local peasantry and non-Russian population." Of course, these cautious and deliberately ambiguous wishes remain to this day as "a voice crying in the wilderness." And the Octobrist woodpeckers patiently repeat them year after year...

*Nevskaya Zvezda* No. 11, June 3, 1912. Signature: V. I.

Printed from the text of the newspaper *Nevskaya Zvezda*

Announcement of V. I. Lenin's lecture "The Revolutionary Upsurge of the Russian Proletariat."—June 13, 1912 (Reduced)