V. I.

Lenin

ComradeX [9] rejects the third and fourth points of the agrarian section of our draft
and submits his own draft, in which all the points of the agrarian
programme, as well as the preamble to it, are revised. We shall first
examine Comrade X’s objections to our draft, and then his own draft.

Againstthe third point, Comrade X advances the objection that the
confiscation of the monasterial (and we would willingly add: church)
estates and the royal demesnes as proposed by us would mean that the
capitalists would grab the lands for next to nothing. It would be
precisely those who plunder the peasants, he says, who would buy up these
lands on the money they had plundered. To this we must remark that, in
speaking about the sale of the confiscated estates, Comrade X draws an
arbitrary conclusion that our programme does not contain. Confiscation
means alienation of property without compensation. It is only of such
alienation that our draft speaks. Our draft programme says nothing as to
whether these lands are to be sold, and if so to whom and how, in what
manner and on what terms. We are not binding ourselves, but reserve
judgement as to the most expedient form in which to dispose of the
confiscated properties when they are confiscated, when all the social and
political conditions of such confiscation are clear. In this respect
Comrade X’s draft differs from our draft in demanding, not only
confiscation, but the transference of the confiscated lands “to the
democratic state for their most advantageous utilisation by the
population.” Thus, Comrade X excludes one of the forms of the disposal of
what has been confiscated (sale) and does not suggest any definite form
(since it remains unclear just what constitutes or will constitute or should constitute the “most advantageous”
utilisation, and just what classes of the “population” will
receive the right to this utilisation and on what terms). Hence, Comrade X
fails in any case to bring complete definiteness into the question of how
the confiscated lands should be disposed of (nor can this be determined in
advance), while he wrongly excludes their sale as one of the methods. It
would be wrong to say that, under all circumstances and at all times, the
Social-Democrats will be opposed to the sale of the land. In a
police-controlled class state, even if it is a constitutional state, the
class of property-owners may not infrequently be a far stauncher pillar of
democracy than the class of tenant farmers dependent on that state. That
is on the one hand. On the other hand, our draft makes for greater
provision than Comrade X’s draft does against confiscated lands being
turned into “gift& to the capitalists” (insofar as any provision against this can be spoken of in general in the wording of a
programme). And indeed, let us imagine the worst: let us imagine that,
despite all its efforts, the workers’ party will be unable to curb the
capitalists’ wilfulness and greed. [1]

In that, case, Comrade X’s formulation affords free scope for the
“most advantageous” utilisation of the confiscated lands, by
the capitalist class of the “population.” On the contrary, our
formulation, while it does not link up the basic demand with the form of
its realisation, nevertheless envisages a strictly definite application of
sums received from such realisation. When Comrade X says that “the
Social-Democratic Party cannot undertake in advance to decide in what
concrete form the popular representative body will utilise the land which
it will have at its command,” he is confusing two different things: the
method of realising (in other words: “the form of utilising”) this land and the application of the sums received
from this realisation. By leaving the question of the application of these
sums absolutely indefinite and tying his hands, even in part, in the
question of the method of realisation, Comrade X introduces a double
impairment into our draft.

Inour opinion, Comrade X is just as wrong when he presents the following
objection to us: “It is likewise impossible to recover land redemption payments from the nobles, since many of them
have squandered them all.” As a matter of fact, this is no objection at
all, since we do not even propose that these sums should simply be
“recovered,” but propose a special tax. In his article Comrade X
himself cites facts showing that the big landowners “cut off”
a particularly large share of the peasants’ land for themselves, in some
cases seizing as much as three-quarters of the land. Hence the
demand for a special tax on the big landed nobility in particular is quite
natural. It is likewise quite natural to designate funds thus obtained for
the special use we demand, for in addition to the general task of
returning to the people all revenues received by the state (a task which
can be fully accomplished only under socialism), liberated Russia will
Inescapably be faced with the special and most pressing task of raising
the peasants’ standard of living, rendering serious aid to the
poverty-stricken and hungry masses, whose ranks are swelling so extremely
rapidly under our autocratic system.

Letus pass to the fourth point, which Comrade X rejects in full, although
he analyses only the first part of this point—about the cut-off
lands—without any mention of the second part, envisaging eradication
of the remnants of serfdom, which vary in different parts of the
country. We shall begin with a formal remark by the author: he sees a
contradiction in the fact that we demand abolition of the social-estates
and the establishment of peasant, i.e., social-estate, committees. In
fact, the contradiction is only a seeming one: the abolition of the
social-estates requires a “dictatorship” of the lowest,
oppressed social-estate, just as the abolition of classes in general,
including the class of proletarians, requires the dictatorship of the
proletariat. The object of our entire agrarian programme is the
eradication of feudal and social-estate traditions in the sphere of
agrarian relations, and to bring that about the only possible appeal can
be to the lowest social-estate, to those who are oppressed by these
remnants of the serf-owning system.

The-author’sprincipal objection boils down.to the following: “it is
hardly provable” that the cut-off lands are the principal basis of
the labour-rent system, since the size of these cut-off lands depended on whether the serf peasants were quit-rent
peasants, and hence had much land, or corvée peasants, and hence
had little land. “The size of the cut off lands and their importance
depend on a combination of historical conditions”; for instance, the
percentage of cut off lands is negligible on the small estates in Volsk
Uyezd, while on the large estates it is enormous. This is how the author
reasons, without noticing that he is getting away from the point. The
cut-off lands were indubitably distributed most unevenly, depending on a
combination of the most varied conditions (including a condition such as
the existence of the corvée system or quit-rent under the
serf-owning system). But what does that prove? Is not the labour-rent
system also most unevenly distributed? Is not the existence of this system
also determined by a combination of the most varied historical conditions?
The author undertakes to disprove the connection between the
cut-off lands and the labour-rent system, but talks only about the reasons
for the cut-off lands and the differences in their size, without refer
ring by as much as a single word to this connection. Only once does the
author make an assertion which approaches immediately the substance of his
thesis, and yet it is in this very assertion that he is absolutely wrong. “Consequently,” he says, summing up his arguments about
the influence of quit-rent or the corvée system, “where the
peasants were corvée peasants ( mainly in the central agricultural area), these cut-off lands will be negligible , whereas
in those places where they were quit-rent peasants, all of the landlords’
land may consist of ’cut-off lands.’" The words italicised by us contain a
blunder which destroys the author’s whole line of argument. It is
precisely in the central agricultural area, this main centre of the
labour-rent system and all sorts of remnants of serfdom, that the cut-off
lands are not “negligible” but enormous, much greater than in
the non-black-earth zone, where quit-rent predominates over
corvée. Here are data on this question, received from a comrade who
is a professional statistician. He has compared data given in the
Military-Statistical Abstract on the holdings of landlords’
peasants prior to the Reform with the figures showing land holdings in
1878, thus determining the size of the cut-off lands in each gubernia. It
appeared that in nine gubernias of the non-black-earth zone [2] the landlords’ peasants held 1 0,421,000 dessiatines prior to the Reform,
whereas only 9,746,000 dessiatines were left to them in 1878, i.e.,
675,000 dessiatines, or 6.5 per cent of the land, were cut off, the
average per gubernia being 72,800 dessiatines. On the other hand, in
fourteen black-earth gubernias [3] the peasants held 12,795,000 dessiatines and were left with 9,996,000
dessiatines, i.e., 2,799,000 dessiatines, or 21.9 per cent, were cut off,
an average of 199,100 dessiatines per gubernia. The only exception was the
third area, in the steppes, where in five gubernias [4] the peasants held 2,203,000 dessiatines and they were left with 1,580,000,
i.e., 623,000, or 28.3 per cent, were cut off, the average per gubernia
being 124,600 dessiatines. [5]

This area is an exception, since here the capitalist system predominates
over the labour-rent system, while the percentage of cut-off lands is the
highest here. But this exception only goes to prove the general rule, for
here the influence of the cut-off lands has been paralysed by such
important circumstances as the peasants possessing the largest allotments,
despite the cut-off lands, and the greatest amount of free land available
here for renting. Thus, the author’s attempt to cast doubt on the
existence of a connection between the cut-off lands and the labour-rent
system is quite unsuccessful. On the whole , there is no doubt
that the centre of the labour-rent system in Russia (the central
black-earth area) Is at the same time the centre of the cut-off lands. We emphasise
“on the whole” in reply to the following question put by the
author. Against the words in our programme about restitution of land which
has been cut off and is now used as a means of bondage, the author has put
in brackets the following question: “but what about that which is
not used as such?” Our reply to him is that the programme is not a
legislative bill on the restitution of the cut-off lands. We define and
explain the general significance of the cut-off lands, but do not speak of
individual cases. Is it really still possible, after all the Narodnik
literature on the position of the post-Reform peasantry, to have any
doubts about the fact that on the whole the cut-off lands serve as a means
of serf bondage? Is it really possible, we ask further, to deny the
connection between the cut-off lands and the labour-rent system, when this
connection follows from the most elementary concepts on the post-Reform
economy of Russia? The labour-rent system is a combination of the
corvée system and capitalism, of the “old regime” and “modern” economy, of the system of exploitation through land
allotment and the system of exploitation through separation from the
land. What could be a more glaring example of present-day corvée
than a system of farming based on labour rendered in return for the use of
cut-off lands (a system described as such , as a special system,
and not something incidental, in Narodnik literature in the good old days,
when nobody had even heard of the hackneyed and narrow-minded Marxists)?
Is it really possible to believe that today the peasant is tied down to
the land only because there is no law granting freedom of
movement, and not because of the existence, in addition to that ( and partly at the root 01 that ), of bondage service for the use of the
cut-off lands?

Afterfailing to prove in any way that there is any basis for his doubting
the existence of a connection between the cut-off lands and bondage, the
author continues his argument as follows: restitution of the cut-off lands
is the allotting of small plots of land based not so much on the
requirements of peasant farming as on historical “tradition.” Like
any allotment of an insufficient quantity of land (there can be no
question of an adequate allotment), it will not destroy bond age hut will
rather create it, since it will cause renting of land that is lacking, renting because of need, subsistence tenancy, and
will consequently be a reactionary measure.

Heretoo the argument misses the mark, for the agrarian section of our
programme does not at all “promise” to do away with all want
in general (this promise is given only in the general socialist section of
the programme), but promises only to eradicate (at least in part) the
remnants of the serf-owning system. Our programme refers, not to allotment
of all sorts of small plots of land in general, but specifically to doing
away with at least one of the already existing forms of bondage. The
author has departed from the trend of thought underlying our programme,
and arbitrarily and incorrectly attributed another meaning to it. Indeed,
just examine his line of reasoning. He rejects (and in this respect, he is
of course right) the interpretation of cut-off lands as implying just
strips of land belonging to different owners, and says: “If the
cut-off lands are to constitute additional allotment land, it is necessary
to see whether there are enough cut-off lands to remove relationships
entailing bond age, since from this standpoint bondage relationships are a
result of land-hunger.” Absolutely nowhere in our programme is the
assertion made that there are enough cut-off lands to do away with
bondage. Only the socialist revolution can do away with all bondage,
whereas in the agrarian programme we take our stand on the ground of
bourgeois relationships and demand certain measures “with a view to
eradicating” (we do not even say that this can be complete
eradication) the remnants of the serf-owning system. The whole essence of
our agrarian programme is that the rural proletariat must fight together
with the rich peasantry for the abolition of the remnants of serfdom, for
the cut-off lands. Anyone who examines this proposition closely will grasp
the incorrectness, the irrelevance and illogicality of an
objection such as: why only the cut-off lands, if that is not
enough? Because together with the rich peasantry the proletariat
will be unable to go, and must not go, beyond the abolition of serfdom, beyond restitution of the cut-off lands,
etc. Beyond that , the proletariat in general and the rural
proletariat in particular will march alone; not together with the
“peasantry,” not together with the rich peasant, but against
him. The reason we do not go beyond the demand for the cut-off lands is not because we do not wish the peasant well or because we are
afraid of scaring the bourgeoisie, but be cause we do not want the rural
proletarian to help the rich peasant more than is necessary , more
than is essential to the proletariat. Both the proletarian and the rich
peasant suffer from serf bondage; against this bondage they can
and should go together; but against the other forms of bondage,
the proletariat will go alone. Hence the distinction made in our programme
between serf bondage and all other bondage necessarily follows from the
strict observance of the class interests of the proletariat. We
would be running counter to these interests and would be abandoning the
class standpoint of the proletariat, if we allowed our programme to state
that the “peasantry” (i.e., the rich plus the poor) will go
together beyond eradication of the remnants of serfdom; we would thereby
be putting a brake on this absolutely essential, and, from the
standpoint of the Social-Democrat, the most important, process of the
final separation of the rural proletariat from the land-holding
peasantry, the process of the development of proletarian
class-consciousness in the countryside. When the Narodniks, people of the
old faith, and the Socialist-Revolutionaries, people without faith or
convictions of any kind, shrug their shoulders at our agrarian programme,
that is because they (for instance, Mr. Rudin and Co.) have no idea of the
real economic system in our countryside and its evolution, have no idea of
the bourgeois relations which have been developing and have almost taken
shape within the village commune, or of the strength of the bourgeois
peasantry. They approach our agrarian programme with the old Narodnik
prejudices, or more frequently with fragments of these prejudices, and
begin to criticise individual points or their wording, without even
comprehending the aim of our agrarian programme or the social and economic
relations it has in view. When they are told that our agrarian programme
does not refer to the struggle against the bourgeois system, but to the
evolution of bourgeois relations in the countryside, they merely rub their
eyes in amazement, unaware (because of their characteristic indifference
to theory) that their perplexity is simply an echo of the struggle between
the Narodnik and the Marxist world outlook.

Tothe Marxist who undertakes to draft an agrarian programme, the question
of the remnants of serfdom in the bourgeois and capitalistically
developing Russian country side is one that has already been settled, and
it is only owing to their utter lack of principle that the
Socialist-Revolutionaries are unable to see that if they want to offer any
material criticism they must contrapose to our solution of this
question something that is at least coherent and integral. To the Marxist
the problem is simply to avoid either of two extremes: on the one hand,
not to fall into the error of those who say that, from the standpoint of
the proletariat, we are in no way concerned with any immediate and
temporary non-proletarian tasks, and on the other, not to allow the
proletariat’s co-operation in the attainment of the immediate, democratic
tasks to dim its class-consciousness and its class distinctiveness. In the
sphere of agrarian relationships proper, this task reduces itself to the
following: the bringing forward of a slogan of such an agrarian reform on
the basis of the existing society as would most completely sweep away the
remnants of serfdom and most rapidly single out the rural proletariat from
the undifferentiated mass of the peasantry as a whole.

Webelieve that our programme has coped with this task. Moreover, we are
not at all put out by Comrade X’s question: what should we do if the
peasant committees demand not the cut-off lands but all the land? We
ourselves demand all the land, only, of course, not “with a view to
eradicating the remnants of the serf-owning system” (to which end
the agrarian section of our programme limits itself), but with a
view to the socialist revolution. And it is precisely this goal that we
are always and under all circumstances tirelessly pointing out to the
“rural poor.” There is no grosser error than to think that the
Social-Democrat can go to the villages only with the agrarian section of
his programme, that he can even for a moment furl his socialist banner. If
the demand for all the land is a demand for the nationalisation of the
land or its transference to the land-holding peasants of today, we shall
appraise this demand from the standpoint of the proletariat’s interests,
taking all factors into consideration: we cannot, for instance, say in
advance whether, when the revolution awakens them to political life, our
land-holding peasants will come out as a democratic revolutionary party or as a party
of Order. We must draft our programme so as to be prepared even for the
worst, and If the best combinations ensue, then that will only facilitate
our work and give it a new stimulus.

Itremains for us to deal with the following argument by Comrade X on the
question under discussion. “To this,” he writes concerning his
thesis that the allotment of the cut-off lands will strengthen subsistence
farming tenancy, “to this, exception might be taken on the ground
that the allotment of the cut-off lands is important as a means of
abolishing bondage forms of renting these lands, and not as a
means of increasing and strengthening small subsistence farming. However,
it is easy to see that there is a logical contradiction in this
objection. The allotment of small plots of land is the allotment of land in insufficient quantity for the conduct of progressive farming
but sufficient to strengthen subsistence farming. Hence, subsistence
farming is strengthened by the allotment of an insufficient quantity of
land. But as to whether bondage forms of renting will be abolished by
this—that still remains to be proved. We have shown that they will
become stronger be cause of the increase in the number of petty
proprietors— competitors in renting the landlord’s land.”

Wehave quoted this argument of Comrade X’s in full so as to make it
easier for the reader to judge where the “logical contradiction” actually lies. As a general rule, the peasants are at
present using the cut-off lands on terms of serf bondage. Upon the
restitution of the cut-off lands, the peasants will use them as free
owners. Does it really “still remain to be proved” that this
restitution will abolish the serf bondage resulting from these
cut-off lands? It is a matter of special plots of land that have already
given rise to a special form of bondage, but the author substitutes for
this particular concept the general category of “an insufficient
quantity of land”! This means skipping the question. It means assuming
that at present the cut-off lands do not engender any special form of
bondage: in which case their restitution would really be simply
the “allotment of an insufficient quantity of land,” and then we
would really be unable to support this measure. But it is perfectly
obvious to everyone that this is not the case.

Further. The author should not confuse serf bondage (the labour-rent
system of farming) engendered by the cut-off lands with
subsistence farming tenancy, with renting as a result of need in
general. The latter form of renting exists in all European countries:
under the capitalist system of farming, the competition of petty
proprietors and small ten ants everywhere and always inflates
land prices and land rent to the proportions of “bondage.” We cannot
do away with this kind of bondage [6] until we get rid of capitalism. But can this be regarded as an objection
to particular measures of struggle against particular and purely Russian
forms of bondage? Comrade X reasons as though he objected to a reduction
of the working day on the grounds that the intensity of labour would be
increased as a result of this reduction. The reduction of the working day
is a partial reform, which eradicates only one form of bondage, viz.,
enslavement by means of longer working hours. Other forms of bondage, as,
for instance, “speeding up” the workers, are not eliminated by
this reform, and all forms of bondage in general cannot be
eradicated by any reforms on the basis of capitalism.

Whenthe author says: “Allotment of the cut-off lands is a
reactionary measure which reinforces bondage,” be is advancing a
proposition which stands in such glaring contradiction to all the data on
post-Reform peasant farming that he himself is unable to maintain this
stand. He contradicts himself when he says somewhat earlier: “...It
goes without saying that it is not the business of the Social-Democratic
Party to implant capitalism. This will take place irrespective of the
desire of any party, if peasant tenure extends....” But if the extension
of peasant tenure in general leads to the development of capitalism, how
much the more inevitably will this result from the extension of
peasant land ownership to the special plots of land which
engender a specifically serf form of bondage. The restitution of the
cut-off lands will raise the peasants’ standard of living, expand the home
market, increase the demand for wage-workers in the towns, and likewise
the demand for wage-labourers among the rich peasants and landlords, who
lose a certain mainstay of the labour-rent system of farming. As to the
“implanting of capitalism,” that is an altogether queer objection. The restitution of
the cut-off lands would signify the implanting of capitalism only were
that restitution necessary and advantageous solely to the
bourgeoisie. But that is not the case. It is no less, if not more,
necessary and advantageous to the rural poor, who are suffering from
bondage and the labour-rent system. The rural proletarian is oppressed
together with the rural bourgeois by serf bondage, which is based
to a considerable degree on these very cut-off lands. That is why the
rural proletarian cannot emancipate himself from this bondage without
thereby emancipating the rural bourgeois too. Only Messrs. the
Rudins and similar Socialist-Revolutionaries, who have forgotten their
kinship with the Narodniks, can see in this an “implanting” of
capitalism.

Stillless convincing are Comrade X’s arguments on the question of the
feasibility of restituting the cut-off lands. The Volsk Uyezd data he
cites speak against him: almost one-fifth of the estates (18 out of 99)
have remained in the hands of the old proprietors, i.e., the cut-off lands
could be transferred to the peasants directly and without any
redemption. Another third of the estates have changed hands entirely,
i.e., here it would be necessary to redeem the cut-off lands at the
expense of the big landed nobility. And only in 16 cases out of 99 would
it be necessary to redeem land from peasants and other owners who
purchased it in portions. We simply cannot understand how the restitution
of the cut-off lands can be “unfeasible” under such circumstances. Let us take the data referring to the selfsame Saratov
Gubernia. We have before us the latest “Materials on the Question of
the Needs of the Agricultural Industries in Saratov Gubernia”
(Saratov, 1903). The size of all the cut-off lands held by for mer
landlords’ peasants is given as 600,000 dessiatines, or 42.7
per cent. [7]

If in 1896 the Zemstvo statisticians could determine the size of the
cut-off lands on the basis of extracts from the title-deeds and other documents, why can their size not be
determined even more accurately by the peasant committees in, say, 1906?
And if the figures for Volsk Uyezd are taken as a standard, then it would
appear that approximately 120,000 dessiatines could be returned to the
peasants at once and without any redemption, that about 200,000
dessiatines could be redeemed at once (at the expense of the noblemen’s
land) from estates which changed hands in their entirety, and that only
with regard to the remaining land would the process of redemption (at the
expense of the landed nobility), exchange, etc., be somewhat more
complicated. but in any case by no means “unfeasible.” The
significance the restitution of their 600,000 dessiatines of land would
have for the peasants is, for example, evident from the fact that the
total amount of privately owned land rented in Saratov Gubernia at the end
of the nineties was approximately 900,000 dessiatines. Naturally, we do
not intend to assert that all cut-off lands are being rented at the
present time; we merely want to show graphically the proportion of the
amount of land to be returned as property, to the amount of land which is
now being rented very often on terms entailing bondage and serf
bondage. This comparison testifies most eloquently to the force of the
blow which the restitution of the cut-off lands would deal at relations
entailing serf bondage, to the stimulus it would give to the revolutionary
energy of the “peasantry” and—what is most important from the viewpoint of the Social-Democrat—to the tremendous impetus
it would give to the ideological and political cleavage between the
rural. proletariat and the peasant bourgeoisie. For the peasant
committees’ work of expropriation would immediately and inevitably bring
about just such a decided and irrevocable cleavage, and by no means a
union of the entire “peasantry” for “semi—socialist” “equalitarian” demands for
all the land, as the modern epigones of Narodism fondly imagine. The more
revolutionary the action of the “peasantry” against the
landlords, the more rapid and deep will this cleavage be, which will then
be made manifest not by the statistical computations of Marxist research
but by the political action of the peasant bourgeoisie, by the struggle of
parties and classes within the peasant committees.

Andnote: by advancing the demand for the restitution of the cut-off lands
we are deliberately confining our task to the framework of the existing
order; we are obliged to do this if we are to speak of a minimum
programme and if we do not want to lapse into that kind of barefaced
scheme-making, verging on charlatanry, in which “first place”
is given to co-operatives, on the one hand, and to socialisation, on the
other. We are replying to a question that has been raised but not by us, [8] to the question of the reforms of tomorrow, which are being discussed by
the illegal press, “society,” by the Zemstvos, and, perhaps, even by
the government. We would be anarchists or simply windbags if we held our selves aloof from this pressing, but by no means socialist, problem which has
been raised by the entire post-Reform history of Russia. We must provide a correct solution, from the
Social-Democratic standpoint, to this problem which has not been raised by
us; we must define our position with regard to the agrarian reforms which
all liberal society has already demanded and without which no reasonable
person can imagine the political emancipation of Russia. And we define
our stand on this liberal reform (liberal in the scientific, that
is the Marxist, sense of the word), while remaining wholly true to our
principle of support for the genuinely democratic movement, coupled with
steady and persistent work to develop the class-consciousness of the
proletariat. We lay down a practical line of conduct with regard to this
kind of reform, which the government or the liberals must very soon
adopt. We advance a slogan that impels towards a revolutionary issue a
reform which has actually been prompted by life itself and not concocted
from the fantasy of a hazy, humanitarian

Allerwelts [ Acceptable to all.— Ed . ] socialism.

Itis in this latter respect that the draft programme of Comrade X is in
error. No answer whatever is given to the question of the attitude to be
taken towards the forthcoming liberal reforms in agrarian
relationships. Instead, we are offered (in points 5 and 7) an inferior and
contradictory formulation of the demand for the nationalisation of the
land. Contradictory, because the abolition of rent is at one time proposed
by means of a tax, at another by means of transferring the land to
society; inferior, because rents cannot be abolished by taxes, and because
the land should (generally speaking) preferably be transferred to a
democratic state, and not to small public organisations (like the
present or future Zemstvos). The reasons for non-inclusion in our
programme of the demand for the nationalisation of the land have already
been given more than once, and we shall not repeat them here.

Point8 does not at all bear upon the practical section of the programme,
while Point 6 has been formulated by Comrade X in such a way as to have
nothing “agrarian” left in it. Why he deletes the point on the
courts and reduction of rents remains a mystery.

Theauthor formulates Point 1 less clearly than is done in our draft,
while his addition: “in the interests of defending the petty
proprietor (and not of developing petty proprietorship),” is once again
non-“agrarian,” inaccurate (we are not out to defend petty proprietors who
employ wage-labour) and superfluous, for, inasmuch as we defend the
person and not the property of the petty bourgeois, we do this
through our demand for strictly defined social, financial, and other
reforms.

---
Notes:
[1]
And if we are able to curb-them, then the sale of the land will
not turn into plundering and gifts to the capitalists.
— Lenin

[2]
Pskov, Novgorod, Tver, Moscow, Vladimir, Smolensk, Kaluga, Yaroslavl, and
Kostroma gubernias.
— Lenin

[3]
Orel, Tula, Ryazan, Kursk, Voronezh, Tambov, Nizhni-Novgorod, Simbirsk,
Kazan, Penza, Saratov, Chernigov, Kharkov, and Poltava gubernias (37 per
cent of the land cut off).
— Lenin

[4]
Kherson, Ekaterinoslav, Taurida, Don (approximate figure), and Samara
gubernias.
— Lenin

[5]
Comparing these figures on the cut-off lands in three areas with the
figures on the proportion of corvée peasants to the total number of
peasants (according to the data of the Drafting Commissions: see Vol. 32,
p. 686 of the Encyclopaedic Dictionary , the article “The
Peasants”), we get the following relationship. Non-black-earth area
( 9 gubernias): cut-off lands—6 .5 per cent; corvée peasants—43.9 per cent (average for 9 gubernias). Central
black-earth area (14 gubernias): cut-off lands—21 .9 per cent;
corvée peasants—76 per cent. Steppe area (5 gubernias):
cut-off lands—28.3 per cent; corvée peas ants—95.3 per cent. Hence the relationship is just the opposite to what Comrade X wants
to make out.
— Lenin

[6]
This bondage may be limited, kept in check, by empowering the courts to
reduce rents—a demand we advance in our programme.
— Lenin

[7]
These latest Zemstvo statistics, we might note, fully bear out the
contention of the aforementioned statistician that the data he submitted
on the cut-off lands are an underestimation. According to
those data the cut-off lands in Saratov Gubernia amounted only to
512,000 dessiatines (=38 per cent). As a matter of fact, even 600,000
dessiatines is below the actual size of the cut-off lands , for,
in the first place, it does not include all the village
communes of the former land lords’ peasants, and, secondly, it covers
only cultivable lands .
— Lenin

[8]
To what extent the question of agrarian reforms on the basis of the
existing order has been raised “not by us” is evident, for
example, from the following quotation which we have taken from an article
by Mr. V. V., one of the most prominent theoreticians of
Narodism, which dates back to the best period of his activity
( Otechestvenniye Zapiski , [10]
1882, Nos. 8 and 9). “The order which we are analysing,”
Mr. V. V. wrote at the time about our system of agriculture, “has
been inherited by us from the serf-owning system... Serfdom has collapsed,
but so far only in its juridical aspect and a few others; the system of
agriculture, however, has remained the same as it was prior to the
Reform.... The peasants were unable to continue running their farms solely
on their own curtailed allotments; they absolutely had to use the lands
that had been taken from them.... In order to secure the proper running of
the small farms, it is necessary to guarantee the peasant the use of at
least those lands that ... in one way or another were at his disposal at
the time of serfdom. This is the minimum desideratum that can be advanced
on behalf of small scale farming.” This is how the question was put by
those who believed in Narodism and openly preached it, instead of
unseemingly playing at hide-and-seek as the Socialist-Revolutionary
gentlemen do. And Social Democracy has appraised this Narodnik
presentation in its essence, as it always appraises bourgeois and
petty-bourgeois demands. It took over in full the positive and progressive
side of the demands (the struggle against all remnants of serfdom),
rejecting petty-bourgeois illusions and pointing out that the eradication
of the remnants of the serf-owning system will clear the road for, and
speed up, capitalist development and not any other kind. It is precisely
in the interests of social development and of untying the proletarian’s
hands, and not “for the sake of small-scale farming” that we
present our demand for the restitution of the cut-off lands, while by no
means pledging ourselves to assist the “small” peasant bourgeoisie either against serfdom or even against the big
bourgeoisie.
— Lenin

[9]
X—pseudonym of the Menshevik P. P. Maslov.

[10]
Otechestuennige Zapiski (Fatherland Noles)—a magazine which
began publication in 1820, and after 1839 appeared as a regular
monthly. Contributors to the magazine included Belinsky, Nekrasov,
Saltykov-Shchedrin, Yeliseyev, and others. The revolutionary-democratic
intelligentsia were grouped round 0techestvenniye Zapiski , which
was constantly persecuted by the censorship until it was closed down by
the tsarist government in 1884.