V. I.

Lenin

The Agrarian Programme of Social-Democracy in the First Russian Revolution, 1905-1907

7. The Peasants and the Narodniks on the Nationalisation of Allotment
Land

That the abolition of allotment ownership is a condition
for the creation of free peasant farming in conformity with the new
capitalist conditions is quite clearly realised by the peasants
themselves. Mr. Groman, in his detailed and accurate description of the
discussion at the peasant congresses, [1] cites the following remarkable opinion expressed by a peasant:



“During the discussion on redemption payment, one delegate,
without meeting with any real opposition, said: ‘It has been said that
alienation without compensation would hit many peasants who had purchased
land with their hard=earned money. There are few such peasants, and they
have little land, and they will get land in any case when it is
distributed’.

That explains the readiness to relinquish property rights both in allotment
and purchased land.”



A little further on (p. 20) Mr. Groman repeats this as the general opinion of
the peasants.

“ They will get land in any case when it is distributed ”!
Is it not perfectly clear what economic necessity dictated this
argument? The new distribution of all the land, both landlord and allotment
land, cannot reduce the holdings of nine-tenths (or rather, ninety-nine
hundredths) of the peasantry; there is nothing to fear from it. But the
redistribution is necessary because it will enable the real, genuine
farmers to arrange their land tenure in accordance with the new conditions,
in accordance with the requirements of capitalism (the “dictates of
the market” to individual producers), without submitting to the
medieval relations which determined the size, location, and distribution of
allotment land.

Mr. Peshekhonov, a practical and sober-minded “Popular
Socialist” (read: Social-Cadet) who, as we have seen, has managed to
adapt himself to the demands of the masses of small proprietors all over
Russia, expresses this point at view even more definitely.

“ The allotment lands,” he writes, “the part of the territory most important from the standpoint of production, are permanently
assigned to a certain social-estate, and what is worse, to small groups of
that estate, to. separate households and villages. The result is that the
peasantry, taken as a whole, cannot freely settle even within the area of
the allotment land.... The population is not properly distributed to suit the requirements of the market [note
this!].... The ban on the state lands must he lifted, allotment land must be freed from the fetters of property , the fences around
the private estates must be removed . The land must be returned to
the Russian people, who will then settle upon it in a manner that will suit
their economic requirements.” (A. V. Peshekhonov, The Agrarian Problem in Connection with the Peasant Movement , St. Petersburg, 1906,
pp. 83, 86, 88-89. Our italics.)

Is it not clear that the voice of this “Popular Socialist”
is the voice of the free farmer who wants to stand up on his own feet? Is
it not clear that it is really necessary for the farmer that the
“allotment land” should be “freed from the fetters of property” in order that the population may distribute itself in a new
way, in order that holdings may be redistributed in a manner to “suit
the requirements of the market”, i. e., the requirements of
capitalist agriculture ? Mr. Peshekhonov, we repeat, is so
sober-minded that he rejects any kind of socialisation, rejects any kind of
adaptation to communal law—it is not for nothing that the
Socialist-Revolutionaries curse him for an individualist!—he
rejects any prohibition on hired labour on the peasant farm .

In view of this kind of striving of the peasantry for nationalisation, the reactionary nature of support for peasant allotment
ownership becomes quite obvious. A. Finn, who in his pamphlet cites some of
Mr. Peshekhonov’s arguments which we have quoted, criticises him as a
Narodnik and tries to prove to him that the development of capitalism out
of peasant farming, and within that system of farming, is inevitable
(p. 14, et seq. in the pamphlet mentioned). That criticism is
unsatisfactory because A. Finn has allowed the general question of the
development of capitalism make him overlook the concrete question of the
conditions for a freer development of capitalist agriculture on
allotment land! A. Finn contents himself with. merely posing the
question of capitalism in general , thus scoring an easy victory
over Narodism, which was vanquished long ago.

But we are dealing with a more concrete [2] question, viz., the landlord versus the peasant way of
“removing the fences” (Mr. Peshekhonov’s expression), of
“clearing” the land for capitalism.

In winding up the debate on the agrarian question in the Second Duma,
Mr. Mushenko, the official spokesman of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party,
revealed just as definitely as Mr. Peshekhonov the capitalist
nature of the land nationalisation that the petty-bourgeois socialists
choose to call “socialisation”, the establishment of “equal right to the land”, and so on.

“ The population will be properly distributed,” Mr. Mushenko said,
“only when the land is unfenced, only when the fences imposed by the
principle of private ownership of land are removed” (47th sitting, May 26,
1907, p. 1172 of Stenographic Record). Exactly! The “proper”
distribution of the population is the very thing the market, capitalism,
requires. But. the “proper” distribution of “proper” farmers is hindered by both landlord and allotment ownership.

One more observation on the statements made by delegates of the Peasant
Union merits our attention. Mr. Groman writes in the above-mentioned
pamphlet:

“ The notorious question of the ‘village commune’—that corner
stone of the tenet;s of the old and new Narodism—was not raised at
all and was tacitly rejected: the land must be placed at the disposal of
individuals and associations, state the resolutions passed at both the
First and Second Congresses” (p. 12).

Thus, the peasants have clearly and emphatically declared against the old
village commune in favour of free associations and individual land tenure. That
this was the real voice of the peasantry as a whole there can be no doubt, since
there is not a hint at the village commune even in the Land Bill of the
Trudovik Group (of the 104). Yet the village commune is an association for the
ownership of allotment land!

Stolypin is forcibly abolishing the village commune for the benefit of
a handful of rich persons. The peasantry wants to abolish it and replace it
by free associations and tenure by “individuals” on the nationalised allotment land. But Maslov and Co., in the name
of bourgeois progress, are challenging the fundamental requirement of this
very progress and defending medieval landownership. God save us from that
sort of “Marxism”!

---
Notes:
[1]
Material on the Peasant Question . (A report of the
Delegates’ Congress of the All-Russian Peasant Union, November 6-10,
1905, with an introduction by V. Groman. Navy Mir Publishers,
St. Petersburg, 1905, p. 12.) — Lenin

[2]

“ What will this Peshekhonov labour economy lead to in the long run?”
A. Finn asks, and answers quite rightly: “to capitalism” (p. 19 of his
pamphlet). From that unquestionable truth, which It was certainly necessary
to explain to a Narodnik, he should have taken a further step; he
should have explained the specific forms of the manifestation of the
demands of capitalism under the conditions of a peasant agrarian
revolution. Instead, A. Finn took a step backward : “The question
arises,” he writes, “why should we go back to the past; why should we go
by some roundabout way of our own only, in the long run, to find ourselves
back again on the road we are already travelling? That is useless labour,
Mr. Peshekhonov!” (ibid.) No; that is not useless labour, and it does
not bring us to capitalism “in the long run”; it is the straightest, freest, and quickest road to capitalism . A. Finn did not ponder over
the comparative features of the Stolypin capitalist evolution of
agriculture in Russia and a peasant-revolutionary capitalist evolution of
agriculture in Russia. — Lenin