## A New Dole to the Illustrious Nobility[172]

1. A law has been issued on the allocation of land to private persons in Siberia – and both in its timing and in its character it is highly significant (more significant than in its probable consequences) and deserves attention.

2. For a long time now our government has given every support to the nobility – both the nobility bank and sugar subsidies, and little plots to the land captains, and the sale of spirits to the treasury, and so forth – but now to this dole is added also the subjugation of the population to landowners.

3. The new law creates a new class of exploiters – parasitism at the expense of thousands and millions of the dispossessed.

4. The foundations of the law.

Noble allotments (Special Conference). Sale (not to non-Russians) and lease only to the nobility.

5. Quantity – 3,000 (!). Term – 99 years.

6. Preferential sale (37 years) and lease (free for 5 years).

7. Special exemptions (deferral of tax arrears; > 3,000 desyatinas at free price etc).

8. "Interspersed" and 1 sowing.

9. Probable resale. A gift. (Example of Ufa Province.) To assessment

10. – (4).

11. – (0).

12. – (2).

13. – (3).

14. – (5) and (6).

15. In an epoch of crisis and famine – here is the very first concern of the government. Here the government displays all its true nature, the nature of a serf-owner. To note:

(1) Juxtaposition with famine. A dole of several millions.

(2) Connection with resettlement. (Fear of resettlement consequent upon the rise in labor costs in Russia.) Formation of a permanent class of hired workers in Siberia.

["interspersed"][173] (3) Connection with political "designs": creation of a "zemstvo" element in Siberia in opposition to the "exiled" intelligentsia in Siberia.

(4) Issuance of the law precisely after the construction of the railway and the abolition of exile[174].

(5) The depression of the comparatively well-to-do and independent peasantry in Siberia to the level of semi-serfs.

(6) The true view of the Russian government is revealed – its understanding of the significance of large landed property as the best prop of arbitrary rule and plundering regime, as the best bridle for the mass of the working people.