## 1. Land Ownership in European Russia

The "Statistics of Land Ownership of 1905," published by the Central Statistical Committee in 1907, makes it possible to represent precisely, with respect to 50 provinces of European Russia, the magnitude of peasant and landlord land ownership. But first let us present the general data. The entire expanse of European Russia (50 provinces) is determined (see the census of January 28, 1897) at 4,230.5 thousand square versts, i.e., at 440.8 million desiatinas. The statistics of land ownership of 1905 account for 395.2 million desiatinas, which fall into three following major categories:

82 Allotment land – land left for redemption to peasants for use after the abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861; it was held in communal ownership and distributed among peasants for use through periodic redistributions.

From this overall figure we must first exclude state lands lying in the far north and consisting partly of tundra, partly of such forests that we cannot count on agricultural utilization of in the near future. Such lands in the "northern district" (Arkhangelsk, Olonets, and Vologda provinces) – 107.9 million desiatinas. Of course, excluding all these lands, we greatly exaggerate the quantity of land unsuitable for agriculture. It suffices to note that such a cautious statistician as Mr. A. A. Kaufman counts 25.7 million desiatinas of forest in Vologda and Olonets provinces, which could (as surplus beyond 25% forest cover) go into additional land allotments to peasants[38]. But since we are taking general data on the quantity of land, not separating out data on forest, it will be more correct to determine the land fund suitable for agriculture more conservatively. Subtracting 107.9 million desiatinas leaves 287.3 million desiatinas, and for rounding we shall take the figure of 280 million desiatinas, excluding part of urban lands (2.0 million desiatinas in total) and part of state lands in Vyatka and Perm provinces (16.3 million desiatinas in total in these two provinces).

We obtain the following gross distribution of the quantity of land suitable for agriculture in European Russia:

Now it is necessary to separate out data on small and large (and especially the very largest) land ownership, in order to specifically represent the situation of peasant struggle for land in the Russian revolution. But data of this kind are incomplete. Of 138.8 million desiatinas of allotment land, 136.9 million desiatinas are distributed by size of land ownership. Of 101.7 million desiatinas of privately owned land – 85.9 million desiatinas; the remaining 15.8 million desiatinas belong to "societies and partnerships." Looking at the composition of these latter lands, we see that 11.3 million desiatinas of them belong to peasant societies and partnerships; consequently, this is – on the whole and in essence – small land ownership, not distributed, unfortunately, by size. Further, 3.7 million desiatinas belong to "trade-industrial, factory, etc." partnerships, numbering 1,042. Of these, 272 partnerships have over 1,000 desiatinas each, and all 272 – 3.6 million desiatinas. This – obviously – landlord latifundia. The main mass of such lands is concentrated in Perm province: nine such partnerships own 1,448,902 desiatinas! It is known that the Urals factories possess tens of thousands of desiatinas of land, – a direct survival of feudal, seignorial latifundia{79} in bourgeois Russia.

We distinguish, consequently, 3.6 million desiatinas from the land of societies and partnerships as the very largest land ownership. The remainder is not distributed, but on the whole small.

Of 39.5 million desiatinas of state and other land, only appanage lands{80} (5.1 million desiatinas) are susceptible to separation by size. This too – semi-medieval, largest land ownership. We obtain the following total of lands distributed and undistributed by size of land ownership:

* 85.9 million desiatinas of privately owned land plus 3.6 million desiatinas of latifundia at factory and trade-industrial societies and partnerships.

Let us turn to the distribution of allotment lands by size of land ownership. Bringing together the data from our source into somewhat larger groups, we obtain:

From these data it is evident that more than half of the households (6.2 million out of 12.3) possess up to 8 desiatinas per household, i.e., a quantity of land which, on the whole and on average, is absolutely insufficient for the maintenance of a family. Up to 15 desiatinas possess in total 10.1 million households (they have 72.9 million desiatinas) – i.e., over four-fifths of the total number of households stand, at the present level of peasant agricultural technique, on the boundary of semi-starved existence. Middle and well-to-do – in terms of quantity of their own land – households comprise only 2.2 million out of 12.3, and they have 63.9 million desiatinas out of 136.9 million desiatinas. One can call only those with over 30 desiatinas wealthy – there are only 0.6 million such households – i.e., one-twentieth of the total number of households. Land they possess nearly 1/4 of the total amount: 32.7 million desiatinas out of 136.9. To judge from which categories of peasants this wealthy land-owning group of households is composed, we note that Cossacks stand in the first place here. In the group possessing over 30 desiatinas per household, there are 266,929 Cossack households with 14,426,403 desiatinas, i.e., an overwhelming majority of the total number of Cossacks (in European Russia – 278,650 households with 14,689,498 desiatinas of land, i.e., an average of 52.7 desiatinas per household).

To judge how approximately all peasant households are distributed by size of economy rather than by allotment land ownership, we have, with respect to all Russia, only data on horse ownership. According to the latest military-horse censuses of 1888–1891 the distribution of peasant households in 48 provinces of European Russia is as follows:

On the whole and in essence this means: over half of the poor (5.6 million out of 10.1), about a third of middle households (3.3 million with 2–3 horses) and slightly more than a tenth of the well-to-do (1.1 million out of 10.1).

Let us now look at the distribution of private personal land property. The statistics insufficiently clearly distinguish the smallest land ownership here, but in return provide the most detailed information about the largest latifundia.

We see here, first, an enormous predominance of large land ownership: 619 thousand small land owners (up to 50 desiatinas) possess only 6½ million desiatinas. Second, we see immense latifundia: 699 proprietors own nearly 30,000 desiatinas each! Twenty-eight thousand proprietors concentrate 62 million desiatinas, i.e., 2,227 desiatinas per person on average. An overwhelming majority of these latifundia belong to the nobility, namely 18,102 properties (out of 27,833) and 44,471,994 desiatinas of land, i.e., over 70% of the entire latifundia area. Medieval land ownership of serf-holding landlords is depicted by these data with full clarity.

## 2. What Is the Struggle Over?

Ten million peasant households have 73 million desiatinas of land. Twenty-eight thousand noble and base-born landlords – 62 million desiatinas. Such is the basic background of the field on which peasant struggle for land unfolds. Against this basic background, there is inevitable striking backwardness of technique, the neglected state of agriculture, the oppression and downtroddenness of the peasant masses, endless diverse forms of feudal, corvée exploitation. To avoid straying from our theme, we must limit ourselves here to the briefest indication of these well-known facts, described in tremendous detail in the vast literature on peasant economy. The dimensions of land holdings we have outlined in no way correspond to the dimensions of economies. Large capitalist agriculture stands in purely Russian provinces on an absolute backburner. Small culture on large latifundia predominates: various forms of feudal-debt-bondage rent, corvée (labor-service) economy, "winter hiring," bondage for crop damage, bondage for land cutoffs, and so forth endlessly. Crushed by feudal exploitation, the peasant masses are ruined and partly themselves lease out their allotments to "respectable" masters. A small minority of well-to-do peasants develops into peasant bourgeoisie, leases land for capitalist economy, exploits hundreds of thousands of farm laborers and day workers.

Taking into account these facts, fully established by Russian economic science, we must in the question of contemporary peasant struggle for land distinguish four basic groups of land holdings. 1) The mass of peasant economies, crushed by feudal latifundia and directly interested in their expropriation, directly and most of all gaining from such expropriation. 2) A small minority of middle peasantry, already possessing approximately average, allowing tolerable management, quantities of land. 3) A small minority of well-to-do peasantry, transforming into peasant bourgeoisie and connected through a series of gradual transitions with capitalistically managed land ownership. 4) Feudal latifundia, far exceeding by their dimensions the capitalist economies of the given epoch in Russia and most of all extracting income from debt-bondage and corvée exploitation of the peasantry.

It goes without saying that from data on land ownership these basic groups can only be distinguished very approximately, roughly, schematically. But in any case we are obliged to distinguish these groups, for otherwise it is impossible to present a complete picture of the struggle for land in the Russian revolution. And we can say in advance with complete certainty that partial corrections of figures, partial shifts of the boundaries of one or another group cannot substantially change the overall picture. What matter are not these partial corrections; what matters is that small land ownership, seeking land, be clearly contrasted with feudal latifundia, monopolizing the mass of land. The fundamental falsity both of the governmental (Stolypin) and liberal (Cadet) economy consists in obscuring or murking this clear contrast.

Let us suppose the following dimensions of land ownership for the indicated four groups: 1) up to 15 desiatinas; 2) 15–20 desiatinas; 3) 20–500 desiatinas; and 4) over 500 desiatinas per holding. In order to represent the struggle for land as something unified, we must of course combine together in each of these groups allotment and private land ownership. The latter in our source is divided into groups: up to 10 desiatinas and from 10 to 20, so that distinguishing the group up to 15 desiatinas must be done approximately. The inaccuracy which might result from this approximate calculation and from the rounding of figures we perform is completely negligible (the reader will be convinced of this presently) and is not in a position to alter the conclusions.

Here is the contemporary distribution of land in European Russia according to the groups we have taken:

* The figures of this table, as already noted, are rounded. Here are the exact figures. Allotment land: a) 10.1 million holdings and 72.9 million desiatinas; b) 874 thousand holdings and 15.0 million desiatinas. Private land ownership up to 10 desiatinas – 410 thousand holdings and 1.6 million desiatinas; 10–20 desiatinas – 106 thousand holdings and 1.6 million desiatinas. Sum a + b of both types: 11.5 million holdings and 91.2 million desiatinas. For group c) the exact figure: 1.5 million holdings and 69.5 million desiatinas of land. For group d) – 27,833 holdings and 61.99 million desiatinas of land. To these are added, as noted above, 5.1 million desiatinas of appanage land and 3.6 million desiatinas at the largest factory-industrial and trade-industrial partnerships. The exact figure of lands not distributed by holdings is given above – 48.5 million desiatinas. The reader can see from this that all our roundings and approximate calculations concern completely negligible numerical changes and cannot shake the conclusions even by a hair.

Such are the relations giving rise to peasant struggle for land. Such is the point of departure of peasant struggle (7–15 desiatinas per household plus debt-bondage rent, etc.) against the largest landlords (2,333 desiatinas per economy). What is the objective tendency of the endpoint of this struggle? Evidently, this tendency consists in the destruction of large-landlord feudal land ownership, in its transition (on one or another basis) to peasants. This objective tendency flows absolutely inevitably from the fact of the predominance of small culture, enslaved by feudal latifundia. In order to express this tendency in the same clear scheme which we presented for depicting the point of departure of the struggle, i.e., the present state of affairs, one should take the best conceivable case, i.e., all lands of feudal latifundia and all lands not distributed by holdings supposed to have passed into the hands of the impoverished peasantry. This is the best case which is more or less clearly envisioned by all participants in the contemporary agrarian struggle: the government speaks of "endowing" the "needy," the liberal bureaucrat (Cadet too) speaks of additional land allotments to the land-poor, the laborite-peasant speaks of increasing land ownership to the "consumer" or "labor" norm, and the social-democrat, differing on the question of forms of land use, accepts on the whole populist assumptions about the endowment of the poorest peasants (Tsereteli in the II Duma in the 47th session, May 26, 1907, accepted the figures of populist Karavaev about 57 million desiatinas of expropriated land at 6½ billion, of which to the poorest with up to 5 desiatinas – 2½ billion, see p. 1221 of the stenographic report). In a word, however differently landlords, bureaucrats, bourgeoisie, peasantry, and proletariat might view the tasks and conditions of transformation, all point to the same tendency: the transition of large-landlord lands to the most needy peasantry. On the fundamental differences between classes in their views on the dimensions and conditions of such transition, we shall speak separately in its proper place. For now let us supplement our scheme of the point of departure of the struggle with the same kind of scheme of its possible endpoint. We showed above what there is now. Let us show what there might be then. Let us suppose that 0.03 million landlords retain 100 desiatinas each, i.e., 3 million desiatinas, the remaining 67 million and 50 million undistributed lands pass to 10.5 million poor households. We obtain:

Such is the economic foundation of the struggle for land in the Russian revolution. Such is the point of departure of this struggle and its tendency, i.e., its endpoint, its result in the best case, from the point of view of those struggling.

Before proceeding to an examination of this economic foundation and its ideological (and ideologically-political) guise, let us dwell on possible misunderstandings and objections.

First. One might say that in my picture a distribution of lands is presupposed, whereas I have not yet examined the question of municipalization, distribution, nationalization, socialization.

This would be a misunderstanding. In my picture the conditions of land ownership are completely left aside, the conditions of transition of land to peasants are completely untouched (whether into private property, into use of one type or another). I have taken only the transition of land in general to small peasantry – and one cannot doubt such a tendency in our agrarian struggle. Small peasantry struggles, struggles for the transition of land to it. Small (bourgeois) culture struggles against large (feudal) land ownership[39]. No other result of the revolution in the best case can be imagined.

Second. One might say that I had no right to suppose the transition of all confiscated lands (or expropriated, since there is as yet no discussion in my exposition of the conditions of expropriation) to the most land-poor peasantry. One might say that lands must pass by economic necessity to richer peasants. – But such an objection would be a misunderstanding. To prove the bourgeois character of the revolution, I must take the best case from the point of view of populism, I must allow the achievement of that goal which the struggling set for themselves. I must take the moment most close to the so-called "black repartition"{81}, and not the further consequences of the agrarian revolution. If the masses win in the struggle, then they themselves will take the fruits of victory. It is another question to whom these fruits fall subsequently.

Third. One might say that the extraordinarily favorable result for poor peasantry (the transformation of the entire mass of it into middle peasants with land up to 18 desiatinas per household) in my calculation resulted from exaggeration of the free land fund. One might say that one should have subtracted forests, which supposedly cannot go into peasant allotments. – Such objections are possible and even inevitable from the economists of the governmental and Cadet camp, but they are incorrect. First, one must be a bureaucrat who has bent his back before a serf-holding landlord his whole life to imagine that a peasant will not know how to manage forests correctly and extract income for his own benefit rather than for the benefit of landlords. The point of view of the police bureaucrat and Russian liberal: how to secure the muzhik with land? The point of view of a conscious worker: how to free the muzhik from feudal large land ownership? how to smash feudal latifundia? Second, I excluded the entire northern district (Arkhangelsk, Vologda, and Olonets provinces), as well as part of Vyatka and Perm provinces, i.e., such localities where it is difficult to imagine in the near future agricultural exploitation of forest-covered areas. Third, special accounting of forest areas, extraordinarily complicating the calculation, would little change the results. For instance, Mr. Kaufman, a Cadet – consequently cautious enough regarding landlord lands – considers that the surplus above 25% forest cover can go toward covering the land deficit, and thus obtains a fund of 101.7 million desiatinas for 44 provinces. In my case for 47 provinces the fund is defined at approximately 101 million desiatinas, namely 67 million desiatinas out of 70 million feudal latifundia and 34 million desiatinas of state land and various institutions. If we suppose the expropriation of all land over 100 desiatinas, this fund will increase by another 9–10 million desiatinas[40].

## 3. Obscuring the Essence of the Struggle by Cadet Writers

The data presented on the role of the largest landlord economies in the struggle for land in Russia must be supplemented in one respect. A characteristic feature of the agrarian programs of our bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie is the muddying of the question with considerations of "norms" – muddying the question of which class is the most mighty opponent of peasantry, which holdings constitute the main mass of the fund to be expropriated. They speak (both Cadets and laborites) chiefly of how much land is needed for peasants according to one or another "norm," – instead of speaking of the far more concrete and vital matter: how much land exists which can be expropriated. The first formulation of the question obscures class struggle, veils the essence of the matter in empty pretension to a "state" point of view. The second formulation transfers the entire center of gravity of the question to class struggle, to class interests of a definite layer of land owners, most representing feudal tendencies.

We shall dwell on this question of "norms" elsewhere. Here let us note one "happy" exception among the laborites and one typically-Cadet writer.

In the Second Duma the populist socialist Delarov touched on the question of what percentage of proprietors would be affected by expropriation (47th session, May 26, 1907). The speaker spoke precisely of expropriation (compulsory), not raising the question of confiscation, and accepted apparently the very norm of expropriation which I hypothetically took in my table, namely: 500 desiatinas. Unfortunately, in the stenographic reports of the II Duma the corresponding passage of Delarov's speech (p. 1217) is distorted – either Mr. Delarov himself made an error. In the report it is stated that compulsory expropriation will affect 32% of private holdings and 96% of all their land area, – the remaining 68% of proprietors, it is said, have only 4% of private land ownership. In fact instead of 32% it should be 3.7%, because 27,833 proprietors out of 752,881 constitute 3.7%, and they own 62 million out of 85.8 million desiatinas, i.e., 72.3%. It remains unknown whether Mr. Delarov misspoke or took incorrect figures. In any case, he is the one, if we are not mistaken, among the numerous Duma speakers, who approached the question of what the struggle is over in the most direct, concrete sense.

The Cadet writer, whose "works" cannot be omitted in expounding this question, is Mr. S. Prokopovich. True, he is, properly speaking, "unaffiliated," appearing – like most writers of the bourgeois newspaper "Tovarisch" – now as a Cadet, now as a Menshevik social-democrat. He is a typical representative of that small group of consistent Bernsteinists among the Russian bourgeois intelligentsia, who oscillates between Cadet and social-democrat, belongs (for the most part) to no party, and systematically brings a note slightly to the right of Plekhanov in liberal press. Mr. Prokopovich should be noted here because he is one of the first to cite in print figures from the statistics of land ownership of 1905, and at the same time took his stand factually on the ground of the Cadet agrarian reform. In two articles in the newspaper "Tovarisch" (1907, No. 214 of March 13 and No. 238 of April 10) Mr. Prokopovich polemicizes with the compiler of the official statistics, General Zolotarev, who argues that the government is fully able, without any compulsory expropriation whatsoever, to manage the land reform and that 5 desiatinas per household is fully sufficient for conducting an economy! Mr. Prokopovich is more liberal: he takes 8 desiatinas per household. He stipulates, and not once, that such provision is "completely insufficient," that such a calculation is "the most modest," etc., but nonetheless in determining "the dimensions of land need" (the title of the first of Mr. Prokopovich's aforesaid articles) he takes precisely this figure. He explains that he takes it "to avoid unnecessary disputes"… presumably "unnecessary disputes" with the Messrs. Zolotarevs? Calculating in this way the number of "clearly land-poor" peasant households as half the total number, Mr. Prokopovich correctly calculates that in order to supplement them up to 8 desiatinas, 18.6 million desiatinas are required, and since the government has a fund of only, supposedly, 9 million desiatinas, then – "without compulsory expropriation one cannot get by."

Both by his calculations and by his reasoning, Mr. menshevik-inclined Cadet or Cadet-inclined Menshevik perfectly expressed the spirit and sense of the liberal agrarian program. The question proper of feudal latifundia and latifundia in general is completely smudged. Mr. Prokopovich provided data only on all private land ownership above 50 desiatinas. Thus that which the present struggle is actually over was obscured. The class interests of a handful – literally a handful – of landlords are covered with a veil. Instead of their exposure we have a "state point of view": "one cannot get by" with state lands. If one could get by with them, then Mr. Prokopovich – so it follows from his reasoning – would have nothing against feudal latifundia…

The size of peasant allotment (8 desiatinas) is taken as meager. The size of "compulsory expropriation" from landlords is taken as negligible (18 – 9 = 9 million desiatinas out of 62 million above 500 desiatinas!). To carry out such "compulsory expropriation," the landlords would have to compel the peasants – as happened in 1861!{82}

Willingly or unwillingly, consciously or unconsciously, Mr. Prokopovich truly expressed the landlord essence of the Cadet agrarian program. The Cadets are only cautious and cunning: they prefer to keep completely silent on exactly how much landlord land they are inclined to expropriate.

## 4. The Economic Essence of the Agrarian Revolution and Its Ideological Guises

We have seen that the essence of the occurring revolution comes down to the destruction of feudal latifundia and to the creation of a free and (insofar as possible under the given conditions) prosperous agricultural peasantry, capable not of eking out, not of suffering on the land, but of developing productive forces, of advancing agricultural culture. Small farming in agriculture, the dominance of the market over the producer, and consequently the dominance of commodity production – the revolution completely does not and cannot touch these, because struggle for the redistribution of land is not in a position to change production relations in the economy on that land. But we have seen that the peculiarity of the given struggle is the strong development of small culture on lands of feudal latifundia.

The ideological guise of the occurring struggle is presented by the theories of populism. The open appearance of peasant representatives from all Russia in the I and II Dumas with agrarian programs finally confirmed that populist theories and programs are genuinely the ideological guise of peasant struggle for land.

We have shown that the basis, the main constituent part of the land fund over which peasants struggle, is large feudal estates. We have taken the norm of expropriation very high – 500 desiatinas. But it is easy to become convinced that the conclusion we have drawn remains in full force at any lowering of this norm – say, to 100 or to 50 desiatinas. Let us divide group c) – 20–500 desiatinas – into three subdivisions: aa) 20–50 desiatinas; bb) 50–100; and cc) 100–500, and see what are the dimensions of allotment and private land ownership by these subdivisions:

From this it is evident, first, that confiscation of lands over 100 desiatinas will increase the land fund, as already noted above, by 9–10 million desiatinas, and confiscation of lands over 50 desiatinas, proposed by I State Duma deputy Chizhevsky, will increase the land fund by 18½ million desiatinas. Consequently, the basis of the land fund in this case too will remain feudal latifundia. Therein lies the "crux" of the contemporary agrarian question. The connection of this large land ownership with the highest bureaucracy is also known: G. A. Alinskiy brought data in the II Duma from Mr. Rubakin concerning how large are the estates of high officials in Russia. Second, from these data it is evident that even excluding allotments and holdings above 100 desiatinas, large differences remain between the highest allotments (and small holdings). The revolution finds peasantry already differentiated both by size of land ownership and, even more, by size of capital, quantity of livestock, quantity and quality of dead inventory, etc. That differentiation in the sphere of extra-allotment, so to speak, property of peasants is far more significant than in the sphere of allotment land ownership – this is sufficiently proven in our economic literature.

What significance then do the populist theories have, which reflect more or less correctly peasants' views on their struggle for land? Two "principles" constitute the essence of these populist theories: the "labor principle" and "equality." The petty-bourgeois character of these principles is so evident and has been proven so frequently, so thoroughly in Marxist literature that there is no need to speak of it here again. Important is to note that feature of these "principles" which Russian social-democrats have not sufficiently appreciated. In nebulous form these principles truly express something real and progressive in the given historical moment. Namely: they express the exterminating struggle against feudal latifundia.

Look at the above-presented scheme of the evolution of our agrarian structure from the present state toward the "ultimate goal" of the contemporary bourgeois revolution. You will see clearly that the future "then" differs from the present "now" by immeasurably greater "equality" of land ownership, immeasurably greater correspondence of the new distribution of land to the "labor principle." And this is not accidental. It cannot be otherwise in a peasant country whose bourgeois development frees it from feudalism. The destruction of feudal latifundia is absolutely a requirement of capitalist development in such a country. And this destruction, with the predominance of small culture, inevitably means greater "equality" of land ownership. Smashing medieval latifundia, capitalism begins with more "equal" land ownership, creating from it already new large agriculture – creating it on the basis of wage labor, machinery, and high agricultural technique, and not on the basis of corvées and debt-bondage.

The error of all populists consists in that, confining themselves to the narrow outlook of the small proprietor, they do not see the bourgeois nature of the social relations into which the peasant enters out of the fetters of feudalism. They transform the "labor principle" of petty-bourgeois agriculture and "equality" as a slogan for smashing feudal latifundia into something absolute, self-subsisting, signifying a special, non-bourgeois, order.

The error of some Marxists consists in that, criticizing the theory of the populists, they overlook its historically-real and historically-justified content in the struggle against feudalism. They criticize and justify correctly criticize the "labor principle" and "equality" as backward, reactionary, petty-bourgeois socialism, and forget that these theories express progressive, revolutionary petty-bourgeois democracy, that these theories serve as the banner of the most decisive struggle against old, feudal Russia. The idea of equality – the most revolutionary idea in the struggle against the old order of absolutism in general – and against the old feudal, large-estate land ownership in particular. The idea of equality is legitimate and progressive in a petty-bourgeois peasant, insofar as it expresses struggle against feudal, feudal inequality. The idea of "equality" of land ownership is legitimate and progressive insofar as it expresses the striving of 10 million sitting on a seventy-desiatina allotment and ruined by landlords peasants for the division[41] of feudal latifundia of 2,300 desiatinas. And in the given historical moment this idea truly expresses such a striving, it pushes toward consistent bourgeois revolution, erring in clothing it in nebulous, quasi-socialist phraseology. And poor indeed would be that Marxist who, criticizing the falsity of socialist dressing of bourgeois slogans, was unable to appreciate the historically-progressive significance of them as the most decisive bourgeois slogans in the struggle against feudalism. The real content of that revolution which seems to the populist to be "socialization" will consist of the most consistent clearing of the path for capitalism, of the most decisive eradication of feudalism. The scheme which I presented above shows precisely the maximum in the elimination of feudalism and the maximum "equality" achievable thereby. The populist imagines that this "equality" eliminates bourgeois character, whereas in fact it expresses the strivings of the most radical bourgeoisie. And all that there is in "equality" beyond this is ideological smoke, illusion of the petty bourgeois.

The narrow-minded and unhistorical judgment of some Russian Marxists regarding the significance of populist theories in the Russian bourgeois revolution is explained by the fact that they did not think through the significance of the "confiscation" of landlord land ownership which they defend. One need only clearly represent to oneself the economic foundation of such a revolution under our given land ownership conditions – and we shall understand not only the illusory nature of populist theories, but also the limited, for a certain historical task, truth of the struggle, the truth of struggle against feudalism, constituting the real content of these illusory theories.

## 5. Two Types of Bourgeois Agrarian Evolution

Let us go further. We have shown that populist theories, being absurd and reactionary from the point of view of struggle for socialism against the bourgeoisie, turn out to be "reasonable" (in the sense of a special historical task) and progressive in bourgeois struggle against feudalism. The question now arises whether we should understand the inevitability of the dying out of feudalism in Russian land ownership and in the entire social structure of Russia, the inevitability of a bourgeois-democratic agrarian revolution, in the sense that it can occur only in one definite form? or is it possible in various forms?

This question has cardinal significance for the development of correct views on our revolution and on the social-democrat agrarian program. And we must resolve this question, proceeding from the data on the economic foundation of the revolution which we have presented above.

The crux of the struggle is feudal latifundia, as the most striking embodiment and the firmest support of the remnants of feudalism in Russia. The development of commodity economy and capitalism with absolute inevitability puts an end to these remnants. In this respect Russia has only one path of bourgeois development.

But the forms of this development can be twofold. The remnants of feudalism can disappear both through the transformation of landlord economies and through the destruction of landlord latifundia, i.e., through reform and through revolution. Bourgeois development can proceed with large landlord economies at the head, gradually becoming more and more bourgeois, gradually replacing feudal methods of exploitation with bourgeois ones – it can also proceed with small peasant economies at the head, which by revolutionary means remove from the social organism the "excrescence" of feudal latifundia and then develop freely along the path of capitalist farming without them.

These two paths of objectively-possible bourgeois development we would call the path of the Prussian and the path of the American type. In the first case feudal landlord economy slowly grows over into bourgeois, junker, economy, condemning peasants to decades of the most agonizing expropriation and debt-bondage, while singling out a small minority of "grossbauern" ("large peasants"). In the second case there is no landlord economy or it is smashed by revolution, which confiscates and fragments feudal estates. The peasant predominates in such a case, becoming the sole agent of agriculture and evolving into a capitalist farmer. In the first case the basic content of the evolution is the growing over of feudalism into debt-bondage and into capitalist exploitation on the lands of feudal landlords – junkers. In the second case the basic background is the growing over of the patriarchal peasant into a bourgeois farmer.

In the economic history of Russia both these types of evolution are plainly evident. Take the epoch of the fall of serfdom. There was a struggle over the manner of carrying out the reform between landlords and peasants. Both upheld the conditions of bourgeois economic development (not consciously), but the former – such development which ensures the maximum preservation of landlord economies, landlord incomes, landlord (debt-bond) methods of exploitation. The latter – the interests of such development which would ensure, in the greatest dimensions possible at the given level of culture, the well-being of peasantry, the destruction of landlord latifundia, the destruction of all feudal and debt-bond methods of exploitation, the expansion of free peasant land ownership. It goes without saying that with the second outcome the development of capitalism and the development of productive forces would be wider and faster than with the landlord outcome of the peasant reform[42]. Only caricature Marxists, as the populists fighting Marxism tried to paint them, could consider the landlessness of peasants in 1861 a pledge of capitalist development. On the contrary, it turned out to be a pledge – and it proved to be in fact a pledge – of debt-bond, i.e., semi-feudal, rent and corvée, i.e., serf, economy, extraordinarily retarding the development of capitalism and the growth of productive forces in Russian agriculture. The struggle of peasant and landlord interests was not a struggle of "popular production" or "labor principle" against the bourgeoisie (as our populists imagined and imagine) – it was a struggle for the American type of bourgeois development against the Prussian type of bourgeois development as well.

And in those localities of Russia where there was no serfdom, where agriculture was taken up entirely or mainly by the free peasant (for instance, in the steppes of the Trans-Volga, South Russia, and the Northern Caucasus settled after the reform), the development of productive forces and the development of capitalism proceeded immeasurably faster than in the center burdened with feudal survivals[43].

But if the agricultural center of Russia and its agricultural periphery show us, so to speak, the spatial or geographic distribution of localities where the agrarian evolution of one type or another predominates, then the basic features of both evolutions are plainly visible also in all localities where landlord and peasant economy exist side by side. One of the fundamental errors of populist economy consisted in considering the source of agrarian capitalism exclusively as landlord economy, while viewing peasant economy from the angle of "popular production" and "labor principle" (as the laborites, "populist socialists" and socialist-revolutionaries do even now). We know that this is not correct. Landlord economy evolves capitalistically, gradually replacing corvées with "free wage labor," three-field system with intensive culture, and the peasant's old-time inventory with improved implements of the proprietor's economy. Peasant economy too evolves capitalistically, singling out rural bourgeoisie and rural proletariat. The better the situation of the "commune," the higher the well-being of peasantry in general, the faster this decomposition of peasantry into antagonistic classes of capitalist rural economy proceeds. Two streams of agrarian evolution are present, consequently, everywhere. The struggle of peasant and landlord interests, which runs as a red thread through the entire post-reform history of Russia and constitutes the most important economic foundation of our revolution, is a struggle for one or another type of bourgeois agrarian evolution.

Only by understanding clearly the difference of these types and the bourgeois character of both can we correctly explain the land question in the Russian revolution and understand the class significance of the different agrarian programs put forward by different parties[44]. We repeat: the crux of the struggle is feudal latifundia. Their capitalist evolution is beyond any question, but it is possible in twofold form: in the form of revolutionary elimination, destruction of them by peasant-farmers, and in the form of gradual transformation of them into junker economies (with corresponding transformation of the enslaved muzhik into an enslaved knight).

## 6. Two Lines of Agrarian Programs in the Revolution

If we now compare with the economic foundation outlined above the agrarian programs put forward by various classes in the revolution, we shall at once see two lines of these programs, corresponding to the two indicated types of agrarian evolution.

Take the program of Stolypin, shared by the right-wing landlords and Octobrists. This is an openly landlord program. But can one say that it is reactionary in the economic sense, i.e., that it excludes or seeks to exclude the development of capitalism? prevent bourgeois agrarian evolution? In no way. On the contrary, the famous agrarian legislation of Stolypin under Article 87 is thoroughly permeated with purely bourgeois spirit. It undoubtedly goes along the line of capitalist evolution, facilitates, pushes forward this evolution, accelerates the expropriation of peasantry, the decomposition of the commune, the creation of peasant bourgeoisie. This legislation is undoubtedly progressive in the scientific-economic sense.

Does this mean that social-democrats should "support" it? No. So could reason only vulgar Marxism, whose seeds Plekhanov and the Mensheviks so intensely sow, singing, crying out, calling, and proclaiming: one must support the bourgeoisie in its struggle against the old order. No. For the sake of the interests of the development of productive forces (this highest criterion of social progress) we must support not the bourgeois evolution of the landlord type, but the bourgeois evolution of the peasant type. The former means the greatest preservation of debt-bondage and feudalism (remade on a bourgeois model), the slowest development of productive forces and delayed development of capitalism, means immeasurably greater disasters and torments, exploitation and oppression of the broad masses of peasantry, and consequently also of the proletariat. The latter means the most rapid development of productive forces and the best (what can be at all in the situation of commodity production) conditions of existence of the peasant mass. The tactics of social-democracy in the Russian bourgeois revolution are determined not by the task of supporting liberal bourgeoisie, as opportunists think, but by the task of supporting the struggling peasantry.

Take the program of liberal bourgeoisie, i.e., the Cadet program. Faithful to their motto: "what is your pleasure?" (i.e., what is the pleasure of the gentlemen landlords), they in the First Duma put forward one program, in the Second – another. The change of programs is for them as easy and unnoticed a matter as for all European unprincipled careerists of the bourgeoisie. In the First Duma the revolution seemed strong – the liberal program borrowed from it a bit of nationalization ("general-state land fund"). In the Second Duma the counter-revolution seemed strong – the liberal program threw the state land fund overboard, turned toward the Stolypin idea of firm peasant property, strengthened and expanded the cases of exemption from the general rule of compulsory expropriation of landlord land. But this two-facedness of the liberals we note here in passing. What is important to note here is something else: that principled foundation which is common to both "faces" of the liberal agrarian program. This principled common foundation of theirs is: 1) redemption; 2) preservation of landlord economies; 3) preservation of landlord privileges in carrying out the reform.

# Part 2

The redemption payment is a tribute imposed upon social development, a tribute to the owners of feudal latifundia. The redemption payment is a bureaucratically and police-guaranteed realization of feudal methods of exploitation in the guise of a bourgeois "universal equivalent." Furthermore, the preservation of landlord estates to one degree or another is evident in both programs of the Cadets, no matter how hard bourgeois politicians strive to conceal this fact from the people. Third—the landlord privileges in the course of the reform—is expressed with complete determinateness in the Cadet attitude toward the election of local land committees on the basis of universal, direct, equal, and secret suffrage. We cannot enter into details here[45] pertaining to another part of our exposition. Here we need only to determine the line of the Cadets' agrarian program. And in this respect it is necessary to note that the question of the composition of local land committees has cardinal significance. Only political infants could delude themselves with the sound of the Cadet slogan: "compulsory expropriation." The question is: who will compel whom—the landlords will compel the peasants (to pay threefold for scraps of land) or the peasants will compel the landlords. The Cadet speeches "about equal representation of conflicting interests" and about the undesirability of "one-sided violence" show with crystal clarity the essence of the matter—namely, that in the Cadet compulsory expropriation, the landlords compel the peasants!

The Cadet agrarian program follows the line of Stolypin's, that is, of landlord bourgeois progress. This is a fact. The failure to understand this fact is the fundamental error of those Social-Democrats who, like some Mensheviks, are capable of considering the Cadet agrarian policy more progressive than the Populist.

Among the representatives of peasantry, that is, among the Trudoviki, the Social-Populists, and partly among the Socialist-Revolutionaries, we see in both Dumas, despite numerous vacillations and wavering, a perfectly clear line of defense of peasant interests against the landlords. There are, for example, vacillations on the question of redemption, permitted in the Trudoviki program, but, first, it is often interpreted in the sense of public poor relief for incapacitated landlords[46]; second, you can find in the protocols of the Second Duma a whole series of extremely characteristic peasant speeches rejecting redemption and proclaiming the slogan: all land to all the people[47]. On the question of local land committees—this most important question of who will compel whom—the peasant deputies prove to be the originators and supporters of the idea of their election by universal suffrage.

We shall not touch for now upon the question of the content of the agrarian program of the Trudoviki and Socialist-Revolutionaries, on the one hand, and the Social-Democrats on the other. We must first establish the indisputable fact that the agrarian programs of all parties and classes openly appearing in the Russian revolution clearly divide into two fundamental types, corresponding to two types of bourgeois agrarian evolution. The dividing line between "right" and "left" agrarian programs does not run between the Octobrists and the Cadets, as Mensheviks very erroneously often presume (allowing themselves to be deafened by the jingling of "constitutional-democratic" words and substituting the names of parties for class analysis). The dividing line runs between the Cadets and the Trudoviki. This line is determined by the interests of the two fundamental classes of Russian society struggling over land: the landlords and the peasantry. The Cadets preserve landlord land ownership and defend a culturally European, but landlord bourgeois evolution of agriculture. The Trudoviki (and the Social-Democratic worker deputies), that is, the representatives of the peasantry and the representatives of the proletariat, defend a peasant bourgeois evolution of agriculture.

One must strictly distinguish between the ideological garb of agrarian programs, their various political details, and so forth, on the one hand, and the economic foundation of these programs on the other. The difficulty now is not in understanding the bourgeois character of both landlord and peasant land demands and programs: this work was already done by Marxists before the revolution, and the revolution has confirmed it. The difficulty lies in giving oneself a complete account of the basis of the struggle between two classes on the soil of bourgeois society and bourgeois evolution. This struggle cannot be understood as a lawful social phenomenon if it is not reduced to the objective tendencies of economic development in capitalist Russia.

Now, having shown the connection between the two types of agrarian programs in the Russian revolution and the two types of bourgeois agrarian evolution, we must turn to the examination of a new, extremely important aspect of the question.

**7. Russia's Land Area. The Question of Colonization**

Above we noted that economic analysis compels us to distinguish in the question of capitalism in Russia the agricultural center, with abundant remnants of serfdom—and the borderlands, with the absence or weakness of these remnants, with features of free-peasant capitalist evolution.

What then should be understood by the borderlands?—Obviously, unsettled, or incompletely settled, incompletely drawn into agricultural culture lands. And we must now proceed from European Russia to the entire Russian Empire in order precisely to imagine what these "borderlands" are and what their economic significance is.

In the pamphlet of Messrs. Prokopovich and Mertvago: "How Much Land is There in Russia and How Do We Use It?" (M. 1907) the latter of the named authors makes an attempt to compile all the statistical data available in the literature concerning the quantity of land in all of Russia and the economic utilization of the known quantity of lands. We cite Mr. Mertvago's comparison for clarity in tabular form, adding population data from the 1897 census. [See table on p. 225. Ed.]

These figures clearly show what an immense quantity of lands exists in Russia and how little we still know about borderland territories and their economic significance. Of course, it would be fundamentally erroneous to consider these lands in the present time and in their present condition suitable for satisfying the land needs of Russian peasantry. All such calculations, frequently made by reactionary writers[48], have no scientific value whatever. In this respect Mr. A. A. Kaufman is entirely correct, he who ridicules the search for free lands for resettlement on the basis of data concerning the number of square versts. He is also entirely correct, unquestionably, when he points out how few lands suitable for resettlement exist at present in Russia's borderlands, how mistaken is the opinion that peasant resettlement can cure the land shortage of Russian peasantry[49].

But these correct arguments of the liberal Mr. Kaufman nonetheless contain one extremely essential error. Mr. Kaufman reasons as follows: "Given the current selection of settlers, given their current level of well-being, given their current level of culture" (the named work, p. 129)—lands for satisfying Russian peasant needs through resettlement are absolutely insufficient. Consequently,—he concludes in defense of the Cadet agrarian program—it is necessary to compel the expropriation of privately owned lands in European Russia.

This is the usual liberal and liberal-Populist reasoning of our economists. It is constructed in such a way that the conclusion drawn from it is: if there were a sufficient quantity of lands suitable for resettlement, one would not need to touch feudal latifundia at all! The Cadets and similar politicians like them, thoroughly permeated with the point of view of a well-disposed official, have the pretension to stand above classes, to rise above class struggle. It is not because feudal latifundia signify feudal exploitation of millions of the local population, their bondage and a retarding of productive forces development that one must destroy them, but because one cannot now send millions of families off somewhere to Siberia or Turkestan! The center of gravity is not shifted to the feudally class character of Russian latifundia, but to the possibility of reconciling classes, satisfying the peasant without offending the landlord—in a word, to the possibility of the notorious "social peace."

Mr. Kaufman's reasoning and that of his countless like-minded colleagues among the Russian intelligentsia must be turned on its head to become correct. Because the Russian peasant is crushed by feudal latifundia, therefore the free resettlement of population throughout Russian territory and the rational economic utilization of a mass of borderland territories is incredibly retarded. Because feudal latifundia keep Russian peasantry in a downtrodden state and perpetuate through labor obligations and bondage the most backward methods and practices of land management, therefore both technical progress and the intellectual rise of the peasant masses, the rise of their self-activity, education, and initiative—all necessary for the economic utilization of an incomparably greater mass of lands from Russia's reserves than we are utilizing now—is hampered. For feudal latifundia and the dominance of bondage in agriculture mean also a corresponding political superstructure, the rule of the Black Hundred landlord in the state, the disenfranchisement of the population, the prevalence of Gurko-Lidval methods in administration{84}, and so on and so forth.

That feudal latifundia in the agricultural center of Russia exert the most pernicious influence on the entire social structure, on all social development, on all conditions of agriculture, and on the entire standard of living of the peasant masses—this is universally known. I can limit myself here to a reference to that enormous body of Russian economic literature which has demonstrated the dominance of labor obligations, bondage, bondage rent, "winter hiring" and other medieval delights in central Russia[50].

The fall of serfdom created conditions under which (as I showed in detail in "The Development of Capitalism") the population fled in all directions from this long-settled place of the serf-remnants. From the central agricultural belt the population fled both to industrial provinces and to the capitals and to the southern and eastern borderlands of European Russia, settling previously uninhabited lands. Mr. Mertvago in the pamphlet I mentioned observes, among other things, very correctly that concepts about lands unsuitable for agriculture are capable of changing rapidly:

"The Tavrian steppes," he writes, "by their climate and lack of water will always belong to the poorest and most difficult to cultivate localities." This was said in 1845 by such authoritative observers of nature as Academicians Baer and Helmersen. At that time the population of Tavrian province, half what it is now, produced 1.8 million quarters of various grains… Sixty years have passed, and the doubled population produces in 1903 17.6 million quarters, i.e., almost 10 times as much" (p. 24).

This is true not only of Tavrian province but also of a whole series of provinces in the southern and eastern borderlands of European Russia—the Southern steppe as well as the Volga-side provinces, which in the '60s and '70s lagged behind the central black-earth provinces in grain production volumes, but by the '80s had overtaken these provinces ("The Development of Capitalism," p. 186)[51]. The population of all European Russia increased from 1863 to 1897 by 53%, including rural population by 48%, urban by 97%—whereas in the New Russian, Lower Volga, and eastern provinces the population increased over the same period by 92%, including rural by 87%, urban by 134% (ibid., p. 446)[52].

"We do not doubt," Mr. Mertvago continues, "that contemporary bureaucratic assessment of the economic significance of our land reserves is no less erroneous than Baer and Helmersen's assessment of Tavrian province in 1845" (ibid.).

This is correct. But Mr. Mertvago fails to note the source of Baer's errors, the errors of all bureaucratic assessments. The source of these errors is that, in taking account of the given level of technique and culture, no account is taken of the progress of this level. Baer and Helmersen did not foresee the changes in technique which became possible after the fall of serfdom. And at the present time it cannot be subject to any doubt that an enormous rise in productive forces, an enormous increase in the level of technique and culture will inevitably occur following the fall of feudal latifundia in European Russia.

Many who judge the agrarian question in Russia erroneously overlook this aspect of the matter. The condition for broad utilization of Russia's enormous colonization fund is the creation of a truly free peasantry in European Russia, completely liberated from the oppression of feudal relations. This fund is unsuitable in a considerable part not so much because of the natural properties of one or another borderland territory as because of the social properties of economy in core Russia—properties which doom technique to stagnation, the population to disenfranchisement, downtroddenness, ignorance, helplessness.

It is precisely this extremely important aspect of the matter that Mr. Kaufman overlooks when he declares: "I say in advance: I do not know whether it is possible to resettle one million, three or ten million" (p. 128 of the named work). He points to the relativity of the concept of land unsuitability. "Solonetz soils are not only not absolutely hopeless, but through the use of certain technical methods can be made very fertile" (129). In Turkestan, populated at 3.6 persons per square verst, "immense spaces remain unsettled" (137). "The soil of many of the 'hungry deserts' of Turkestan—the famous Central Asian loess, distinguished by high fertility when there is sufficient irrigation… The question of the availability of lands suitable for irrigation should not even be posed: it is enough to traverse the region in any direction to see the ruins of numerous villages and cities abandoned centuries ago, often surrounded over dozens of square versts by networks of once-functioning irrigation canals and channels, and the total area of loess deserts awaiting artificial irrigation is unquestionably calculated in many millions of desyatinas" (p. 137 of the named work).

These many millions of desyatinas both in Turkestan and in many other parts of Russia "await" not only irrigation and all sorts of land improvement; they "await" also the liberation of Russian agricultural population from the survivals of serfdom, from the oppression of aristocratic latifundia, from the Black Hundred dictatorship in the state.

To speculate about what precisely quantity of lands could be transformed in Russia from "unsuitable" to suitable is useless. But it is necessary to clearly realize the fact which is demonstrated by all of Russia's economic history and which constitutes a major peculiarity of Russia's bourgeois revolution. Russia possesses a gigantic colonization fund, which will become increasingly accessible to the population and to culture not only with each step forward in agricultural technique generally, but also with each step forward in liberating Russian peasantry from feudal oppression.

This circumstance constitutes the economic foundation for the bourgeois evolution of Russian agriculture along the American model. In the states of Western Europe, which are so often attracted by our Marxists for unthinking stereotypical comparisons, in the epoch of the bourgeois-democratic revolution the entire territory was already occupied. Each step forward in agricultural technique created only the new possibility of investing new quantities of labor and capital in land. In Russia the bourgeois-democratic revolution occurs under conditions where each step forward in agricultural technique and each step in the development of genuine freedom of the population creates not only the possibility of additional investments of labor and capital in old lands, but also the possibility of utilizing "immense" quantities of adjacent new lands.

**8. Resume of Economic Conclusions of Part I**

Let us summarize the economic conclusions which are to serve us as an introduction to the revision of the question of the agrarian program of Social-Democracy.

We have seen that the "crux" of agrarian struggle in our revolution is feudal latifundia. The peasant struggle for land is first and foremost a struggle for the destruction of these latifundia. Their destruction and complete transfer into the hands of the peasantry undoubtedly lies along the line of capitalist evolution of Russian agriculture. Such a path of this evolution would mean the most rapid development of productive forces, the best conditions of labor for the masses of the population, the most rapid development of capitalism in the transformation of free peasantry into a farming class. But another path of bourgeois evolution of agriculture is possible: the preservation of landlord estates and latifundia with their slow transformation from feudal-bondage to Junker estates. In the foundation of the two types of agrarian programs with which different classes came forward in the Russian revolution lie precisely these two types of possible bourgeois evolution. Moreover, Russia's particular feature, which constitutes one of the economic foundations for the possibility of "American" evolution, consists in the existence of an enormous colonization fund. Being completely unsuitable in a considerable part for delivering Russian peasantry from feudal oppression in European Russia, this fund will become increasingly broader and increasingly accessible the freer the peasantry becomes in core Russia and the greater scope the development of productive forces receives.