V. I.

Lenin

Resolution on the Agrarian Question Adopted by the “Majority” Conference at Tammerfors [1]

December 12-17 (25-30), 1905

1. The Conference recognises that the development of the peasant movement fully
confirms the fundamental views of revolutionary Marxism, with regard to both
the revolutionary nature and the real social and economic essence of this
movement, which is destroying the survivals of serfdom and creating free
bourgeois relationships in the country side. The Conference holds that it is
desirable to amend the agrarian programme of our Party as follows: to delete
the clause on cut-off lands [2] ; to declare, instead, that the Party supports
the revolutionary measures of the peasantry, including the confiscation of
all state, church, monastery, crown and privately-owned land, making it its
principal and constant task to ensure the independent organisation of the
rural proletariat, explain to it the irreconcilable conflict between its
interests and those of the rural bourgeoisie, and point out the ultimate goal
of socialism, which alone is capable of doing away with the division of
society into classes and all exploitation of man by man.

2. The Conference expresses the desire that the demand for the refunding of land
redemption payments [3] and the establishment of a special fund out of the
sums thus collected be deleted from the agrarian programme. The demand for
the confiscation of state, monastery, etc., lands should be transferred to
another clause.

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Notes:
[1]
The “Majority” Conference met in
Tammerfors, Finland, from December 12-17 (25-30), 1905, instead of the regular
Party Congress which the Central Committee had planned and announced and which
could not take place because of revolutionary developments (the railwaymen’s
strike and the Moscow armed uprising). The Conference was attended by delegates
from 26 Bolshevik organisations. Lenin reported on the current situation and
the agrarian question. The Conference passed the resolutions on the agrarian
question and the reorganisation of the Party drafted by Lenin. It declared for
the restoration of Party unity and for the merger of the practical centres of
the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and of their central organs on the principle of
equality, and instructed the Joint Central Committee to convene a unity
congress. The Conference also discussed the stand to be taken on the Duma, and
resolved to boycott the First Duma. The relevant resolution was drafted by a
committee which included Lenin. As the Moscow insurrection had already begun,
the Conference hastened to conclude its work on a motion by Lenin, and the
delegates went home to take part in the insurrection.

The Conference resolutions were published by the Central Committee in leaflet
form and printed in No. 1 of Molodaya Rossiya (Young Russia ) on January
4 (17), 1906 (see The C.P.S.U. in Resolutions and Decisions of Its Congresses, Conferences, and Plenary Meetings of the Central Committee ,
Moscow, 1953, Part I,
p. 98, Russ. ed.).

[2]
Cut-off lands ( otrezki )—the lands which were “cut off” from the peasants’ allotments in favour of the landlords in 1861 when
serfdom was abolished in Russia. Subsequently the landlords leased
those lands to the peasants on onerous terms.

[3]
Land redemption payments were established by the “Regulation Governing Redemption by Peasants Who Have Emerged from Serf
Dependence...” adopted on February 19, 1861. The tsarist government compelled the
peasants, in return for the allotments assigned to them, to pay redemption to
the landlords amounting to several times the real price of the land. When the
deal was concluded, the government paid the landlord the purchase price, which
was considered a debt owed by the peasant, to be repaid over a period of

49 years. The instalments to be paid annually by the peasants were called land
redemption payments. These were an intolerable burden on the peasants and
caused their impoverishment and ruin. The peasants formerly belonging to
landlords alone paid nearly 2,000 million rubles to the tsarist
government, whereas the market price of the land that the peasants
received did not exceed 544 million rubles. In view of the fact that
the adoption of the redemption scheme by the peasants did not take place
at once, hut dragged on until 1883, the redemption payments were not to
have ended before 1932. The peasant movement during the first
Russian revolution (1905-07), however, compelled the tsarist
government to abolish the redemption payments as from January
1907.