V. I.

Lenin

Draft for a Speech on the Agrarian Question in the Second State Duma one

Gentlemen,a number of speakers have addressed the Duma and outlined the basic
views of the different parties on the question of the land. It is time to start
summing up. It is time to give ourselves clear-cut and precise answers to the
questions: What is the essence of the dispute? What makes the land question such
a difficult one? What are the basic views of all the main parties whose
representatives have spoken in the Duma? In what do the various parties differ
decisively and irrevocably on the land question?

Fourprincipal views on the agrarian question have been laid before the house by
representatives of the four main parties or party trends. Deputy
Svyatopolk-Mirsky outlined the views of the Rights, using that word to mean
jointly the Octobrists, monarchists, etc. Deputy Kutler outlined the views of
the Cadets, the so-called “people’s freedom party”. Deputy
Karavayev outlined the views of the Trudoviks. Further details were added by
Deputies Zimin, Kolokolnikov, Baskin and Tikhvinsky, who, in essence, are in
agreement with Karavayev. Lastly my comrade Tsereteli outlined the
views of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. Minister Vasilchikov, the
government representative, gave us the government’s view which, as I
shall show later in my speech, boils down to a reconciliation of the views of
the Rights and those of the Cadets.

Letus see what the views of these four political trends on the agrarian
question consist in. I shall take them in the same order as that in which they
spoke in the Duma, i.e., I will begin with the Rights.

Thebasic view of Deputy Svyatopolk-Mirsky is that of all the so-called
“monarchist” parties and of all Octobrists, the view of the
majority of Russian landowners. Deputy Svyatopolk-Mirsky expressed it
superbly in the words: “And so, gentlemen, abandon the idea of increasing the area of peasant-owned land , other than in exceptional
cases where the land is really overcrowded” (I quote from the report
in the newspaper Tovarishch , which is the fullest, since the
verbatim reports have not yet been published).

Thiswas well said; it was straightforward, clear and simple. Abandon the idea of increasing the peasants’ land— this is the real view of
all the Right parties, from the Union of the Russian People to the
Octobrists. And we are well aware that this is the view of the mass of Russian
landowners and those of other nations inhabiting Russia.

Whydo the landlords advise the peasants to abandon the idea of
extending the peasant-owned land? Deputy Svyatopolk-Mirsky provides the
explanation—it is because landlord farming is better organised, more
“cultured” than peasant farming. The peasants, he says, are
“dull, backward and ignorant”. The peasants cannot, if you please,
get along without the guidance of the landlords. “As the priest is, so is
his parish,” was the way Deputy Svyatopolk Mirsky wittily put
it. Apparently he firmly believes that the landlord will always be the priest and the peasants will always be the sheep of his flock and
allow themselves to be shorn .

Butwill it always be so, Mr. Svyatopolk-Mirsky? Will it always be so,
Messrs. Landlords? May you not be mistaken in this. Is it not because they were
too “backward and ignorant” that the peasants have, until now,
remained “the sheep in the flock”? Today, however, we see that the
peasants are becoming politically conscious . The peasant deputies to
the Duma are not attaching themselves to the “Rights” but to the
Trudoviks and Social-Democrats. Speeches like that made by Svyatopolk-Mirsky
will help the most backward peasants understand where the truth lies, and
whether it is possible for them to support those parties that advise the
peasants to abandon the idea of extending peasant-owned lands?

Forthat reason I welcome from the bottom of my heart the speech made by Deputy
Svyatopolk-Mirsky and also the future speeches on that question that will be
made by all speakers from the Right benches. Continue in the same vein,
gentlemen! You are helping us splendidly to open the eyes of the most backward
peasants!

Theysay that landlord farming is more cultured than peasant farming ... that
the peasants cannot get along without the landlord’s guidance.

ButI will tell you that the whole history of landed proprietorship and
landlord farming in Russia, all the data on landlord farming prove that the
“ guidance ” of the land lords has always meant and today
still means the unbridled coercion of the peasants, the endless denigration of
peasant men and women, the most unconscionable and shameless exploitation (that
word means “plunder” in Russian) of peasant labour, exploitation
never seen anywhere else in the world. Such oppression and abuse, such poverty
as that endured by the Russian peasant, is not to be found, not only in Western
Europe, but even in Turkey.

Mycomrade Tsereteli has already spoken of the way in which inhabited estates
were handed out to the favourites and hangers-on of court
“circles”. I want to focus your attention on the question of
farming touched upon by Deputy Svyatopolk-Mirsky, who spoke of the
vaunted “culture” of the landlords.

Doesthat deputy know what the peasants call “ labour service” or “squirism ”? Or what labour-service farming is called in the
science of economics?

Thefarming of a landed estate by labour service is the direct descendant, the
direct survival, of the serf-owning , corvée farming of the
landlords. What was the essence of the serf system of farming? The peasants
obtained an allot merit from the landlord to feed their own families,
and in return had to work three days (and sometimes more) on the land of the
proprietor. Instead of paying the worker in money as is now the case everywhere
in the towns, the landlords paid in land . The peasant was barely able
to subsist from the allotment he received from the landlord. And for this bare
ration the peasant and all his family had to till the landlord’s land,
using the peasant’s own horses and the peasant’s own implements or “stock”. Such is the
essence of serf farming—a beggarly allotment of land in stead of
payment for labour; the tilling of the Landlord’s land, using the
peasant’s labour and the peasant’s implements; the compulsory
labour of the peasant under threat of the landlord’s cudgel. Under
this system of farming the peasant himself had to become a serf ,
because without coercion nobody in possession of an allotment
would have worked for the landlord. And what serfdom meant to the
peasants—that they themselves know far too much about; it is too
firmly fixed in their memories.

Serfdomis considered to have been abolished. In actual fact, however,
the landlords retain so much power (thanks to the lands they have acquired by
plunder) that today they still keep the peasant in serf dependence—by
means of labour service . Labour service is the serfdom of today. When,
in his speech on the government declaration, my comrade Tsereteli spoke of the
serf-owning nature of landed proprietorship and of the entire existing state
power in Russia, one of the newspapers that fawns on the government—the
paper is called Novoye Vremya —raised an outcry about Deputy
Tsereteli having spoken a lie. But that is not so; the deputy of the
Social-Democratic Labour Party was speaking the truth. Only an ignoramus or a
mercenary ink-slinger could deny that labour service is a direct survival of
serfdom, and that landlord farming in our country is kept going by labour
service.

What,in essence, is labour service? It boils down to this: the landlord’s
land is not tilled with the landlord’s implements and not by hired
labourers, but with the implements of the peasant who is in bondage to
his landlord neighbour. And the peasant has to go into bondage because the
landlord cut off the best lands for himself, planted the peasant on sandy
wasteland and pushed him on to a beggarly allotment. The landlords took so much
land for themselves that it is not only impossible for the peasant to run a farm
but there is not even room “for a chicken to run around in”.

Thegubernia committees of landlords, in 1861, and the landlords who
were civil mediators (apparently they were called “civil” because they
were civil to the landlords) [2] emancipated the peasants in such a way that one-fifth of the
peasants’ land was cut off by the landlords! They emancipated the
peasants in such a way that the peasant was forced to pay treble the price for the allotment that remained in his possession after this plunder!
It is no secret to any body that according to the “ land redemption ” scheme of 1861 the peasant was compelled to pay much more than the land was worth. It is no secret to anybody that the peasant
was at that time forced to redeem not only the peasant land but also
the peasant’s emancipation . It is no secret to anybody that the
“philanthropy” of the state redemption scheme consisted in
the Treasury filching more money from the peasant for the laud (in the
form of redemption payments) than it gave to the landlord ! This was a
fraternal alliance between the landlord and the “liberal” civil
servant to rob the peasant. If Mr. Svyatopolk-Mirsky has forgotten all this, the
peasant, for sure , has not forgotten it. If Mr. Svyatopolk-Mirsky does not know this, then let him read what
Professor Janson wrote thirty years ago in his Essay on the Statistical Investigation of Peasant Allotments and Payments and which has
been repeated a thousand times since then in all our literature on economic
statistics.

Thepeasant was “emancipated” in such a way in 1861 that he
ran straight into the landlord’s noose . The peasant is so
downtrodden on account of the land seized by the land lords that he must either
die of starvation or give himself into bondage.

Andin the twentieth century the “free” Russian peasant is still
forced to give himself into bondage to his landlord neighbour in exactly the same way as the “smerdi” (as the peasants were called in
Russkaya Pravda [3] ) gave themselves into bondage in the eleventh century and
“registered them selves” as belonging to the landlords!

Wordshave changed, laws have been promulgated and repealed, centuries have
elapsed, but things remain essentially the same as they were. Labour service is
the bonded dependence of a peasant who is forced to till his landlord
neighbour’s soil with his own implements. Labour-service farming is the
same renovated, refurbished and reshaped serf farming.

Inorder to make my meaning clear, I will cite an example from the countless
number that fills our literature on peasant and landlord farming. There
is a very extensive publication, issued by the Department of Agriculture,
that deals with the early nineties and is based on data obtained from farmers concerning the landlord farming system in Russia
( Agricultural and Statistical Data Obtained from Farmers . Published
by the Department of Agriculture, Issue V, St. Petersburg, 1892). These data
were analysed by Mr. S. A. Korolenko (not to be confused with
V. G. Korolenko); that Mr. S. A. Korolenko was no progressive writer but a
reactionary civil servant. In his book of analysis, you may read, on page
118:

“Inthe south of Yelets Uyezd (Orel Gubernia), side by side with the work
of labourers employed by the year, a substantial part of the land on big
landlord estates is tilled by peasants in payment for land which they
rent. Former serfs [note that, Mr. Svyatopolk-Mirsky] continue
to rent land from their former landlords and, in payment for it, till
the landlords’ land. Such villages are still called [mark this!] the
’ corvée ’ of such-and-such a landlord.”

Thiswas written in the nineties of the last century, thirty years
after what was called the “emancipation” of the peasants. Thirty years after 1861, the same “corvée” existed,
the same cultivation of the land of the former landlords with the implements of
the peasant!

Perhapsthe objection will be raised that this is an individual case. But
anyone who is acquainted with landlord farming in the central black-earth belt
of Russia, anyone who has the slightest acquaintance with Russian economic
literature, will have to admit that this is no exception, but the general rule . In the Russian gubernias proper, where the true Russian landlords are in the majority (not for nothing are they so dear to
the hearts of the true Russian people on the Right benches!)
labour-service farming predominates to this day.

Ican refer you, for instance, to a well-known scientific work, the book The Influence of Harvests and Grain Prices , compiled by a number of
scholars. The hook appeared in 1897 . It shows the preponderance of
labour-service farming in the following gubernias: Ufa, Simbirsk,
Samara, Tambov, Penza, Orel, Kursk, Ryazan, Tula, Kazan, Nizhni Novgorod, Pskov, Novgorod,
Kostroma, Tver, Vladimir, and Chernigov, i.e., in 17 Russian gubernias.

Thepreponderance of labour-service farming—what does that mean?

Itmeans that the landlord’s land is cultivated with the same peasant
implements, by the labour of the poverty-stricken, ruined and enslaved
peasant. And here you have that “culture” of which Deputy
Svyatopolk-Mirsky spoke, and of which all those who defend the landlords’
interests speak. The landlords, of course, possess better cattle, which live
better in the master’s sheds than the peasant does in his own cottage. The
landlord, of course, gets a better harvest because the landlords’ committees as
long ago as 1861 took good care to cut the best lands off from the peasant
holdings and register them in the landlords’ names. One can speak of the
“culture” of the Russian landlords’ farms only by way of
ridicule. On a large number of estates there is no landlord farming
whatsoever ; the same peasant system of farming is carried on, the land
is ploughed by the peasant’s sorry nag and tilled with the
peasant’s old and unsuitable implements. In no European country does serf
farming still survive on big landed estates and latifundia, carried on with the
aid of bonded peasants—in no other country, except Russia.

Landlord“culture” is the preservation of landlord serf-ownership. Landlord culture is usury perpetrated against the impoverished
peasant, who is fleeced and enslaved for a dessiatine of land, for pasture, for
water for his cattle, for firewood, for a pood of flour loaned to the hungry
muzhik in winter at extortionate interest, for a ruble begged by the
peasant’s family....

Andthose gentlemen on the Right benches talk about the Jews exploiting the
peasants, about Jewish usury! But thousands of Jewish merchants would not skin
the Russian muzhik in the way the true Russian, Christian landlords do! The
interest claimed by the worst usurer is not to be compared with that claimed by
the true Russian land lord, who hires a muzhik in winter for summer work or who
forces him to pay for a dessiatine of land in labour, money, eggs, chickens, and
God alone knows what else!

Thatmay seem like a joke, but it is a bitter joke that is too close to
the truth. Here is an actual example of what a peasant pays for
one dessiatine of land (the example is taken from Karyshev’s
well-known book on peasant rentings): for one dessiatine of land the
peasant must cultivate one and a half dessiatines, bring the landlord ten
eggs and a hen and in addition provide one day’s female labour (see
p. 348 of Karyshev’s book). [4]

Whatis that? “Culture”, or the most shameless feudal exploitation?

Thosewho want to make Russia and Europe believe that our peasants are hostile
to culture are telling a blatant lie, are slandering the peasants. They are not
speaking the truth! The Russian peasants are struggling for freedom, against
feudal exploitation. The peasant movement is spreading ever more
widely, ever more boldly, and the struggle of the peasants against the landlords
has been the sharpest precisely in the true Russian gubernias,
where true Russian serfdom, true Russian labour service,
bondage and abuse of the impoverished and debt-ridden peasantry is strongest and
most deep-rooted!

Labourservice is not preserved by force of law—by law the peasant is
“free” to die of starvation!—it is maintained by force of the
peasant’s economic dependence . No laws, no prohibitions, no
“supervision” or “tutelage” can do any thing whatsoever
against labour service and bondage. There is only one way to get rid of this
ulcer on the body of the Russian people—the abolition of landed proprietorship , because in the overwhelming majority of cases it is still
serf proprietorship, the source and the mainstay of feudal
exploitation.

Alland any talk of “aid” for the peasants, of “improving” their condition, of “helping” them acquire
land and other similar speechifying that the landlords and civil servants are so
fond of, all this boils down to hollow pretexts and subterfuges, as long as it
evades the principal question — whether or not to preserve landed
proprietorship.

Thatis the kernel of the whole issue. And I must give special warning to the
peasants and the peasant deputies— evasion of the real substance
of the issue must not be allowed. You must trust in no promises no fine words,
until the most important thing has been made clear—will the landed estates
remain the property of the landlords or will they pass into the peasants’ hands?
If they remain the property of the landlords, labour service and bondage will remain . Constant hunger and want for millions of peasants will also
remain. The torment of gradual extinction from starvation—that is what
the retention of landed proprietor ship means for the peasants.

Toshow what the real nature of the agrarian question is, we must recall some of
the chief figures on the distribution of landed property in Russia. The latest
statistical data available on land ownership in Russia refer to the year 1905 . The Central Statistical Committee gathered them in the course of a
special investigation, the full results of which have not yet been
published. However, the chief results are known to us from the
newspapers. European Russia is considered to have an area of about 400 million
dessiatines. Of the 395.5 million on which preliminary data are available, 155
million belong to the state, the imperial family, [5] the church and church institutions, 102 million belong to
private persons, and 138.5 million are peasant allotments.

Atfirst glance it might seem that the state has the greatest share so that the
question is not one of landlords’ lands.

Thisis a frequently occurring mistake that should be eliminated once and for
all. It is true that the state owns 138 million dessiatines, but almost all that land is in the northern gubernias—Archangel, Vologda and
Olonets, in places where farming is impossible . The government itself,
according to the precise figures of the statisticians (I refer you, for
example, to Mr. Prokopovich and his book The Agrarian Question in Figures ) could not find more than slightly over seven million dessiatines
of state lands that could be given to the peasants.

Onecannot, therefore, speak seriously of state-owned lands. Nor need one speak
about peasant migration to Siberia. This question has been made clear enough by
the Trudovik speaker in the Duma. If the landlord gentlemen really believe in
the advantages of migration to Siberia, let them go to Siberia themselves! The
peasants would most likely agree to that.... But they would probably regard as sheer mockery the proposal that the neediness of the peasants should be
remedied with Siberia.

Inrespect of the Russian gubernias, and the central black-earth gubernias in
particular, where the peasants are the most needy, the matter is precisely one of the landlords’ lands and no others. And Deputy Svyatopolk-Mirsky is
wasting his time talking about “exceptional cases where the land is really
overcrowded”.

Overcrowdingon the land is the rule and not the exception in central
Russia. And the peasants are overcrowded because the landlord gentlemen have
accommodated themselves far too spaciously, because they give themselves too
much room to move. “Peasant overcrowding” is the result of the
seizure of land masses by the landlords.

“Landhunger” for the peasant means “land surfeit” for the landlord.

Here,gentlemen, are the plain and simple figures. Peas ant land allotments
total 138.5 million dessiatines. Privately-owned land amounts to 102 million
dessiatines. How much of this last amount belongs to big estate owners?

Seventy-nineand a half million dessiatines belong to owners possessing
more than 50 dessiatines each .

Andhow many owners does this huge area of land belong to? Less than 135,000 (the exact figure is 133,898).

Thinkwell over these figures: 135,000 people out of a hundred odd million
inhabitants of European Russia own almost eighty million
dessiatines of land!!

Andside by side with this, twelve and a quarter million peasant family
allotments total 138.5 million dessiatines.

Theaverage per big landowner, per (for simplicity’s sake we’ll say)
landlord, is 594 dessiatines .

Theaverage per peasant household is eleven and one-third dessiatines .

Andthis is what Mr. Svyatopolk-Mirsky and others of his ilk call
“ exceptional cases of overcrowding on the land ”. How can
there be anything but universal “overcrowding” of the peasants when a handful of rich people numbering 135,000 have 600 dessiatines
each and millions of peasants have it dessiatines per farm? How can there be
anything but peasant “land hunger” when there is such a tremendously excessive surfeit of land in the hands of the land lords?

Mr. Svyatopolk-Mirsky advised us “ to abandon the idea ” of
increasing the amount of land owned by the peasants. But no, the working class
will not abandon that idea. The peasants will not abandon that idea. Millions
and tens of millions of people cannot give up that idea, or abandon the struggle to achieve their goal.

Thefigures 1 have quoted show clearly what that struggle is about. Landlords,
with an average of 600 dessiatines per estate, are struggling for their
wealth, for their incomes that probably total more than 500 million rubles a
year. The biggest landlords are often the highest officers of the state as
well. Our state, as my comrade Tsereteli has already in all justice said,
protects the interests of a handful of landlords and not the interests
of the people. No wonder the majority of the landlords and the whole government
are struggling furiously against the demands of the peas ants. History does not
know any cases of the ruling and oppressing classes voluntarily relinquishing
their right to rule and to oppress, their right to huge incomes from enslaved
peasants and workers.

Thepeasants are struggling to free themselves from bondage, from labour
service, from feudal exploitation. The peasants are struggling for an
opportunity to live just a little bit like human being. And the working class
gives full support to the peasants against the landlords, gives its
support in the interests of the workers themselves, who also bear the burden of
landlord oppression; it gives its support in the interests of our entire social
development that is being held back because of landlord oppression.

Inorder to show you, gentlemen, what the peasantry can and must
achieve by their struggle, I will make a small calculation.

“Thetime has come to have recourse to the eloquence of figures,”
Mr. Vasilchikov, the Minister of Agriculture, has said, “facts and
reality, rather than to words, to make this question clear.” I am in the
fullest agreement with the minister. Yes, yes, gentlemen, that is how it
is—more figures, more figures on the extent of l-a-n-d-l-o-r-d
ownership of land and on the sizes of the allotments owned by the peasants. I have
already quoted figures showing how much “surplus” land the
landlords own. Now I will give the figures on the extent of the
peasant need for land. On the average, as I have said, each
peasant household owns eleven and one-third dessiatines of allotment
land. But this aver age figure conceals the peasants’ need
for land, because most peasants possess an allotment of land that is
below the average , and an insignificant minority have more than the
average.

Outof twelve and a quarter million peasant households, 860,000 (in round
figures) have allotments amounting to less than five dessiatines per household . Three million, three hundred and twenty thousand have from five to eight dessiatines . Four million, eight hundred and ten thousand
have from eight to twenty dessiatines . Only one million, one hundred
thousand households have from twenty to fifty dessiatines and
only a quarter of a million have more than fifty dessiatines (these
last-named probably do not have more than seventy-five dessiatines per household
on the average).

Letus assume that 79.5 million dessiatines of landlords’ land is used to extend
peasant holdings. Let us assume that the peasant—in the words of the
Reverend Tikhvinsky, a supporter of the Peasant Union—does not want to denude the landlord of his land and will leave fifty dessiatines
to each landlord. This is probably too high a figure for such
“cultured” gentlemen as our landlords, but, for the time being, we
can take this figure as an example. Deducting fifty dessiatines for each of the
135,000 landlords would leave seventy-two million dessiatines that
could he freed for the peasants . There is no reason to deduct the
forests from this figure (as some writers do, for example Mr. Prokopovich, whose
figures I have used several times) because forest land also produces an income
which cannot possibly be left in the hands of a small group of landlords.

Tothis seventy-two million add the cultivable state lands (about 7.3 million
dessiatines), all the lands of the imperial family (7.9
million dessiatines), the church and monastery lands (2.7 million dessiatines),
and you will get a total of about ninety million dessiatines . [1]

This total amount is sufficient to expand the aggregate land owned by the poorest
peasant households to no less than sixteen dessiatines per household .

Doyou realise what that means, gentlemen?

Thatwould be a tremendous step forward, that would deliver millions
of. peasants from starvation; that would raise the living standard of tens of
millions of peasants and workers, would give them greater opportunities to live
more or less like human beings, in the way more or less cultured citizens of a
“cultured” state live, and not in the way the dying race of modern
Russian peasantry is living. That would not, of course, deliver all the working
people from all forms of poverty and oppression (for that it would be necessary
to transform capitalist into socialist society) but it would go a very long way
towards making easier their struggle for such deliverance. Over six
million peasant households, more than half of the total number of
peasants, possess, as I have said, less than eight dessiatines per household . The land they own would be more than doubled, almost trebled .

Thismeans that half the peasantry, always impoverished, hungry, and
undercutting the price of the labour of the workers in the towns, at the
factories—half the peasants would be able to feel that they are human beings !

Can Mr. Svyatopolk-Mirsky, or others of his ilk, seriously advise millions of
workers and peasants to abandon the idea of a way out of an unbearable,
desperate situation, a way out that is quite possible, practicable and near at
hand?

Butit is not only a matter of the land owned by the greater part of the poor
peasant households possibly being almost trebled at the expense of the
landlords’ surfeit of land . In addition to these six million
poor households, there are almost five (to be exact, 4.8)
million peasant house holds owning from eight to twenty dessiatines . There is no doubt that no less than three out of the five
million live in poverty on their beggarly allotments. These three million households , too, could raise their holdings to sixteen dessiatines per household , i.e., increase the holding by a half , and some could even double it .

Onthe whole, it works out that nine million households out of a total
of 12.25 million could greatly improve their condition (and improve
the condition of the workers , whom they would stop undercutting !) at the expense of the land of the landlord gentlemen , who have too great an excess of land and who are too
accustomed to the serf system of farming !

Thisis what we are told by the figures on the relative dimensions of
large-scale landlord ownership and insufficient peasant
holdings. I am very much afraid these facts and figures will not be to
the liking of that lover of facts and figures, Mr. Vasilchikov, the Minister of
Agriculture. Did he not say to us in his speech, immediately after expressing a
desire to use figures:

“...In connection with this, one cannot but express the apprehension that
those hopes which many people place in the implementation of
such reforms [i.e., extensive land reforms] will, when confronted with the figures , lose all chance of being realised....”

Yourapprehension is groundless, Mr. Minister of Agriculture! It is precisely
confrontation with the figures that should give the peasants’
hopes of deliverance from labour service and feudal exploitation every chance of being realised in their entirety ! And no matter how
unpleasant these figures may be for Mr. Vasilchikov, the Minister of
Agriculture, or for Mr. Svyatopolk-Mirsky and other land lords, these figures cannot be refuted !

---
Notes:
[1]
An exact calculation (in case of questions) is given at the end of

Notebook 3. [6] — Lenin

[2]
Civil mediators —an office introduced by the tsarist government at the time of the Peasant Reform of 1861. The civil mediators
were appointed by the governor from among the local nobility on the
recommendation of the Assembly of the Nobility, and were approved by the
Senate; they were empowered to examine and settle disputes between landlords and
peasants arising out of the implementation of the “Regulations” on
the emancipation of the peasants, their real function being to protect the interests of the landlords. Their chief
duty was to draw up “title deeds” defining the exact dimensions of the peasant allotments of land and also the obligations of
the peasants towards the landlords; the civil mediators also supervised
rural self-government. They approved the officials elected to the rural
councils, had the right to inflict punishment on the peasants, arrest and
fine them, and also to annul such decisions of peasant meetings that were
not to the liking of the landlords.

Theinstitution of civil mediators was representative exclusively of the
social-estate of the nobility, and aided the tsarist government in implementing
the plunder of the peasants, in favour of the landlords, by the Reform of
1861.

[3]
Russkaya Pravda ( Russian Law )—the first written codification of laws and princes’ decrees (eleventh-twelfth
centuries). Its statutes protected the lives and property of the feudal lord
and were indicative of the bitter class struggle between peasants in feudal
bondage and their exploiters.

[4]
The article referred to is N. Karyshev’s “Peasant Non-Allotment
Rentings” published in Volume Two of the book Results of an Economic Investigation of Russia According to Zemstvo Statistical Data (Derpt, 1892).

[5]
In pre-revolutionary Russia, the landed estates belonging to the imperial
family were administered by a Ministry of the Court and
Crown Lands.

[6]
This calculation was not found in Lenin’s manuscript.