Pages: 424-426

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TITLE AND INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE "PROGRAM FOR STUDY
WITH PEASANT CIRCLES" OF THE SARATOV COMMITTEE
OF THE RSDLP.
No. 1 of "PROLETARY," MAY 27 (14), 1905.
On Work in the Peasantry.
We are reprinting the Saratov program for study with peasant
circles, which* can serve as useful material for discussing
the practical side of work in the countryside.
Appendix.
PROGRAM FOR STUDY WITH PEASANT CIRCLES.
Lecture 1st. January 9, 1905, and a general overview of events of
recent times. The connection of these events with the general abnormal economic
(impoverishment of the popular masses, financial and tax system, indirect taxes) and political (autocracy, class structure,
legal position of the people) state of the country. War in the Far East,
its causes—the adventurous policy of the government, its goal—to strengthen
autocracy by diverting the country's attention from domestic
policy to foreign policy. Influence of the war on the economic and political
position of the country. The immediate goal of the labor movement in Russia
is political liberation. The Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party is
the only and true leader of the people in the struggle for political liberation.
Lecture 2nd. History of the emancipation of the peasants. Significance in
terms of quantity and importance for the economy of the lands cut off from the peasants.
To what extent did emancipation truly liberate the peasants? Economic
and social position of the peasants at the present time (feudal
forms of exploitation: sharecropping, labor-service rent,
short-term monetary rent, winter bondage hiring). Class
* The word "which" replaced by M. Olminsky with the words "this program."
Ed.

PROGRAM FOR STUDY WITH PEASANT
CIRCLES
431 position of the peasants (the peasantry as a taxable estate, redemption
payments, village and volost levies). Legal position of the peasants
(volost courts; restriction of resettlement, the communal system as a brake
on the economic development of the countryside, redistributions). General impoverishment of the
countryside, famines, epidemics.
Lecture 3rd. Characteristics and critique of the modern political
system in Russia (form of government, legislation, class
structure, financial and tax policy). Legal position (courts behind
closed doors, without juries, political, religious, and administrative courts).
Position of the press, censorship. Development of capitalism in
Russia and the emancipation of the peasants. The necessity of political freedom.
History of the struggle for political freedom in Russia ("Decembrists,"
"Land and Freedom," "People's Will," the emergence of a mass labor movement, the Northern-Russian and Southern-Russian labor unions. Spontaneous
rebellious movement. Economism. Political-economic struggle. The Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party is the leader of the workers in their struggle).
Lecture 4th. The Agrarian Program of the RSDLP. Its connection with the general
program. The attitude of Social-Democracy to the seizure and division of lands.
Two sides to this form of struggle: progressive—seizure of lands,
standing in the way of the economic development of the countryside (pastures, watering places,
strips of land in short-term labor-service rent) and utopian-re-
actionary—the desire to delay the general course of economic development by creating petty private property.
The impracticability of the "black repartition." The program of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, its adventurous
character. The question of nationalization of lands. The possibility of implementing
the RSDLP's agrarian program only in connection with a political revolution.
How to fight before the revolution?
Lecture 5th. The working class is the only consistent fighter
for a democratic state system. What is a democratic republic? Characteristics of the political system in* other countries
(England, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand). Proletariat
and the peasantry. The necessity of a joint struggle for political
freedom. Overview of revolutions and peasant uprisings. Attitude
of Social-Democracy to agrarian terror.
Aids: To Lectures 1st and 2nd: Dzhashniev. The Era of Great Reforms.
Lenin. The Agrarian Program ("Zarya," No. 4 or the pamphlet: "Draft
Program of the RSDLP")." Published by Stakhovich and Lvov. Needs of the Countryside, I and II,
S. N. Prokopovich. "Local People about the Needs of Russia."
To Lecture 3rd: Korkunov. State Law. Ilyin. The Development
of Capitalism in Russia. Thun. History of the Revolutionary Movement in
Russia. Pypin. Social Movement under Alexander I. Burtsev. For 100
Years. Stepnyak. Underground Russia. Martov. The Workers' Cause in Russia. Martov. The Red Banner. Petersburgian. The Labor Movement in St. Petersburg in the 90s.
Program of the RSDLP.
To Lecture 4th: Kautsky. The Agrarian Question. Lenin. The Agrarian
Program. Lenin. To the Rural Poor. Published by Iskra. Revolutionary
adventurism ("Iskra" Nos. 22, 34, 35, etc.). "Rev. Russia," No. 8 (from the
Peasant Union of the PSR).

To Lecture 5th: Kautsky. The Erfurt Program. E. Smirnov. State
System and Political Party in Western Europe and the United States.
Mizhuyev. The Peasant Kingdom. Mizhuyev. Advanced Democracy of the Modern
World. G. Walker. The Development of Australian Democracy. V. B. At
the Turn of the 19th Century. S. Lozinsky. History of the Second French Republic.
Stepanov and Bazarov. Essays on the History of Germany in the 19th Century.
1 In No. 10 of "Proletary" was printed a resolution of the Saratov
committee of the party, which engages in polemics with the resolution of the III Congress "on
the attitude to the peasant movement"; the article is accompanied by an
afterword "from the editors," written by Lenin (see Len. coll. XVI, 129-130).