V. I.

Lenin

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

5. The Narodnik Intellectuals

In the speeches of the Narodnik intellectuals, particularly those of the
Popular Socialists, i.e., the Narodnik opportunists, two currents must be noted:
on the one hand, sincere defence of the interests of the peasant masses—in
that respect their speeches, for understandable reasons, are much less
impressive than those of the peasants who “do not engage in
politics”; on the other hand, a certain Cadet savour, a touch of
intellectualist philistinism, an attempt to adopt the state point of view. It
goes without saying that, in contrast to the peasants , their commitment
to a doctrine is evident: they are fighting not on account of directly
felt needs and hardships, but to vindicate a certain theory, a system of views
which distorts the real issue of the struggle.

“ Land for the toilers,” proclaims Mr. Karavayev in his first
speech, and he characterises Stolypin’s agrarian legislation under
Article 87 as “the destruction of the village commune”, as
pursuing a “political aim”, namely, “the formation of a special
class of rural bourgeois”.

“ We know that these peasants are really the major props of
reaction, a reliable prop of the bureaucracy; but in counting on this, the
government has made a grave mistake: besides this there will be the peasant proletariat. I do not know which is better, a peasant
proletariat, or the present land-hungry peasantry which, if certain
measures were taken, could obtain a sufficient amount of land” (722).

This smacks of the reactionary Narodism of Mr. V. V.:

“Better” for whom? For the state? For the landlord state, or for
the bourgeois state? And why is the proletariat not “better”? Because
the land-hungry peasantry “could obtain”, i.e., could more
easily be appeased, more easily brought into the camp of order, than the
proletariat? That is what it amounts to, according to
Mr. Karavayev: it is as if he were offering Stolypin and Co. a more
reliable “guarantee” against a social revolution!

If Mr. Karavayev were right in essentials, the Marxists could not
support the confiscation of the landlords’ land in Russia. But
Mr. Karavayev is wrong, because the Stolypin “way”, by slowing
down the development of capitalism— in comparison with the peasant
revolution—is creating more paupers than proletarians. Karavayev
himself said, and rightly, that the Stolypin policy was enriching (not the
new, bourgeois elements, not the capitalist farmers, but) the
present landlords, half of whose economies were run on feudal
lines. In 1895, the price of land sold through the “Peasant”
Bank was 51 rubles per dessiatin; but in 1906, the price was 126
rubles. (Karavayev at the 47th session, May 26, 1907, p. 1189.) And
Mr. Karavayev’s party colleagues, Volk-Karachevsky and Delarov,
brought out even more vividly the significance of those figures. Delarov
showed that “up to 1905, during the twenty odd years of its
existence, the Peasant Bank bought up only 7,500,000 dessiatins”; but
between November 3, 1905 and April 1, 1907, it bought up 3,800,000
dessiatins. The price of land was 80 rubles per dessiatin in 1900, 108
rubles in 1902, rising to 109 rubles in 1903, before the agrarian movement,
and before the Russian revolution. Now it is 126 rubles. “While the
whole of Russia was suffering heavy loss as a consequence of the Russian
revolution, the Russian big landowners were amassing fortunes . During that period they pocketed over 60,000,000 rubles of
the people’s money” (1220—counting 109 rubles as a “fair” price). But Mr. Yolk Karachevsky reckons far more
correctly in refusing to regard any price as “fair”, simply
noting that after November

3, 1905, the government paid out to the landlords 52,000,000 rubles on
account of land purchased by peasants, and 242,000,000 rubles on its own
account; in all, “ 295,000,000 rubles of the people’s money were paid to the landed nobility ” (1080. All italics
ours). This, of course, is only a fraction of what Junker-bourgeois
agrarian evolution is costing Russia; such is the tribute imposed
on the growing productive forces for the benefit of the feudal landlords
and the bureaucracy! The Cadets too want to preserve this tribute to the
landlords for the liberation of Russia’s development (redemption
payments). The bourgeois farmers’ republic, on the other hand, would be
compelled to use those sums for developing the productive forces of
agriculture under the new system. [1]

Lastly, we must certainly place to the credit of the Narodnik
intellectuals the fact that, unlike the Bobrinskys and Kutlers, they are
aware of the fraud that was perpetrated on the people in 1861 and call that
notorious reform not the great reform, but one “carried out in the
interests of the landlords” (Karavayev, 1193). Reality, justly
observed Mr. Karavayev concerning the post-Reform period, “has
exceeded the gloomiest forecasts” of those who championed the
interests of the peasantry in 1861.

On the question of peasant ownership of the land, Mr. Karavayev openly challenged the government’s concern for it by
putting the question to the peasants: “Gentlemen, peasant deputies,
you are the representatives of the people. Your life is the peasants’ life,
your mind is their mind. When you were leaving, did your constituents
complain that they were uncertain about the ownership of land? Did they make it your first
duty in the Duma, your first demand:

‘Mind you ensure private ownership of the land, otherwise you will not be
carrying out our mandate’? No. You will say that you were not given such a
mandate” (1185).

Far from repudiating that statement, the peasant deputies confirmed it
by the entire content of their speeches. And that, of course, was not
because the Russian peasant is devoted to the “village commune”, is an “opponent of private ownership”, but
because economic conditions now dictate to him the task of
abolishing all the old forms of landownership in. order to create a new
system of economy.

To the debit side of the account of the Narodnik intellectuals we must
place their loudly voiced arguments about “norms” of peasant
landownership. “I. think everybody will agree that in order to settle
the agrarian question. properly,” declared Mr. Karavayev, “the
following data are needed: first,. the amount of land necessary for
subsistence, the subsistence norm; and the amount necessary to absorb all
the labour of the household, the labour norm. We must know exactly how much
land the peasants possess; that will enable us to calculate how much they
are short of. Then we must know how, much land can be given” (1.186).

We emphatically disagree with that opinion. And we assert on the basis of the statements made by the peasants in the Duma that it
contains an element of intellectualist bureaucracy that is alien to the peasants . The peasants do not talk about “norms”. Norms
are a bureaucratic invention, a hang-over of the feudal Reform of 1861 of
accursed memory. Guided by their true class instinct, the peasants place
the weight of emphasis on the abolition of landlordism and not on
“norms”. It is not a question of how much land is “needed”. “You will not create another world”, as
the above-mentioned non-party peasant so aptly expressed it. It is a
question of doing away with the oppressive feudal latifundia,
which ought to be done away with even if the “norms” are
reached without it. The Narodnik intellectual slips into this position: if
the “norm” is reached, then, perhaps, there will be no need to
touch the landlords. The peasants’ line of reasoning is different:
“peasants, throw them off your backs ” (meaning the landlords), said the peasant Pyanykb (S.R) in the Second Duma (16th session, March 26, 1907, p. 1101). The
landlords must be thrown off not because there are not enough
“norms” to go round, but because the farmer does not want to
be burdened with donkeys and leeches. There is a “big difference” between these two arguments.

The peasant does not talk about norms, but with remark able practical
intuition he “takes the bull by the horns The question is:
Who is to fix the norms? This was excellently put by the clergyman
Poyarkov in the First Duma. “It is proposed to fix a norm of land per
head,” he said. “ Who is to fix this norm ? If it is to
be fixed by the peasants themselves, then, of course, they will not
neglect their own interests; but if the landlords as well as the peasants
are to do so, then it is a question as to who will gain the upper hand in
working out the norm” (12th session, May 49, 1906, p. 488).

That exactly hits the mark in regard to all the talk about norms.

In the case of the Cadets it is not mere talk, but down right
betrayal of the peasants to the landlords. And that kindly village
priest Mr. Poyarkov, who has evidently seen liberal landlords in action in
his part of the countryside, instinctively perceived where the falsity lay.

“ Another thing people are afraid of,” said th.e same
Poyarkov, “is that there will be a multitude of officials. The peasants
will distribute the land themselves!” (488-89.) That is the crux of
the matter. “Norms” do, indeed, smack of officialdom. It is
different when the peasant speaks:

We shall distribute the land on the spot. Hence the idea of setting up
local land committees, which expresses the true interests of the peasantry
in the revolution and naturally rouses the hatred of the liberal scoundrels. [2]

Under such a plan of nationalisation all that is left to
the state is to determine what lands can serve for colonisation or may require
special intervention (“forests and waters of national importance”, as our present programme puts it), i.e.. all that is left is what even the “municipalisers” deem necessary to put in the hands of the “democratic state ” (they should
have said: republic).

Comparing the talk about norms with the economic facts, we see at once that the
peasants are men of deeds, whereas the Narodnik. intellectuals are men of
words. The “labour” norm would be of real importance if
attempts were made to prohibit hired labour. The majority of the peasants have
turned down these attempts, and the Popular Socialists have admitted that they
are impracticable. That being the case, the question of “norms” does not
arise, and there remains division among a given number of farmers. The
“subsistence” norm is a poverty norm, and in capitalist
society the peasants will always flee from such a “norm” to the
towns (we shall deal with this separately later on). Here too, then, it is not
at all a matter of a “norm” (which, moreover, changes with every
change in the crop and technical methods), but a matter of dividing the land
among a given number of farmers, of “sorting out” the real farmers
who are capable of “cherishing” the land (with both labour and
capital) from the inefficient farmers who must not be retained in
agriculture—and, to attempt to retain them in it would be reactionary.

As a curiosity, showing what the Narodnik theories lead to, we shall
quote Mr. Karavayev’s reference to Denmark . Europe, you see,
“was handicapped by private ownership”, whereas our village communes
“help to solve the problem of co-operation”. “In this respect,
Denmark provides a splendid example.” It is indeed a splendid example
that tells against the Narodniks. In Denmark we see the most typical
bourgeois peasantry, which concentrates both dairy cattle (see The Agrarian Question and the “Critics of Marx” , Chapter X [3]

)

and the land. Of the total number of crop farms in Denmark, 68.3 per cent
occupy up to 1 hartkorn, i.e., up to about 9 dessiatins each. They account
for 11.1 per cent of all the land. At the other pole are 12.6 per cent of the farms with 4 hartkorns and over ( 36 dessiatins and over )
each; they account for 62 per cent of all the land. (N. S., Agrarian Programmes , Novy Mir Publishers, p. 7.) Comment is
superfluous.

It is interesting to note that in the First Duma Denmark was put forward as a
trump card by the liberal Herzenstein, to which the Right deputies (in both
Dumas) retorted:

in Denmark there is peasant ownership . We need nationalisation in
our country in order to create freedom for the old farms to reorganise
“on Danish lines” on the “unfenced” land. As for converting tenancy into ownership, there will be no obstacle to that if the
peasants themselves demand it, in such a matter the entire
bourgeoisie and the bureaucracy will always support the peasantry. What is
more, under nationalisation the development of capitalism (a development
“on Danish lines”) will be more rapid as a consequence of the abolition of private ownership of land.

---
Notes:
[1]
See Kautsky’s The Agrarian Question in Russia on the necessity of spending enormous amounts of capital for the promotion of
peasant agriculture. Here the “municipalisers” may protest that the
bourgeois republic will spend money on the republic’s armed forces,
whereas the democratic Zemstvo ... will have the money taken away from it
by the undemocratic central government, most highly esteemed
municipalisers! Besides, the very rise of such a Zemstvo is impossible
under an undemocratic central government; this is but the pious wish of a
petty bourgeois. The only true comparison is that between a bourgeois
republic (which spends more than other states on the development of
productive forces: North America, for example), and a bourgeois monarchy
(which for decades pays tribute to the Junkers: Germany, for
example). — Lenin

[2]
Workers’ governments in the towns, peasant. committees in the
villages (which at a certain moment will he transformed into bodies elected
by universal, etc., suffrage)—such is the only possible form of
organisation of the victorious revolution, i. e., the dictatorship of the
proletariat and peasantry. It is not surprising that the liberals hate
these forms of organisation of the classes that are lighting for freedom!
— Lenin

[3]
See pp. 171-82 of this volume.—Ed.