Let us proceed to an examination of the social-democratic agrarian program. The principal historical moments in the development of the views of Russian social-democrats on the agrarian question are marked out for me in paragraph 1 of my pamphlet "A Revision of the Agrarian Program of the Workers' Party"[53]. We must dwell somewhat more in detail on clarifying what constituted the error in the previous agrarian programs of Russian social-democracy, that is, the programs of 1885 and 1903.

## 1. What was the error of the previous agrarian programs of Russian social-democrats?

In the draft of the "Liberation of Labor" group, which appeared in 1885, the agrarian program was set forth as follows: "A radical revision of our agrarian relationships, that is, of the conditions of land redemption and the allotment of land to peasant communes. Granting the right of refusal of an allotment and withdrawal from the commune to those peasants who find this convenient for themselves, and so forth."

That is all. The error of this program did not consist in containing erroneous principles or erroneous particular demands. No. Its principles were correct, and the only particular demand put forward by it (the right to refuse an allotment) was so indisputable that it turned out to be fulfilled in present times by the peculiar Stolypin legislation. The erroneousness of this program lay in its abstractness, the absence of any concrete view of the subject matter. This was, properly speaking, not a program but the most general Marxist declaration. Of course, it would be absurd to blame the drafters of the program for this error, who were setting forth known principles long before the formation of a workers' party. On the contrary, one must especially emphasize that in this program, twenty years before the Russian revolution, the inevitability of a "radical revision" of the peasant reform was recognized.

The development of this program ought to have consisted, theoretically, in clarifying what are the economic foundations of our agrarian program, on what can and should the demand for radical revision be based, as distinct from non-radical, reformist revision, and finally, in the concrete determination of the content of this revision from the viewpoint of the proletariat (differing in its very essence from the radical viewpoint generally). Practically, the development of the program ought to have taken account of the experience of peasant movement. Without the experience of a mass – and even more: an all-national – peasant movement, the program of the social-democratic workers' party could not become concrete, for the question of how far our peasantry had already become decomposed capitally, how far it was capable of revolutionary-democratic transformation, would have been too difficult or impossible to resolve on the basis of theoretical considerations alone.

In 1903, when the II Congress of our party adopted the first agrarian program of the RSDLP, we likewise did not have such experience concerning the character, scale, and depth of peasant movement. The spring peasant uprisings in southern Russia in 1902 remained isolated explosions. Hence the restraint of social-democrats in working out the agrarian program was understandable: to "compose" such a program for bourgeois society is entirely not the task of the proletariat, and to what extent the peasant movement was capable of developing against the remnants of serfdom – a movement deserving of proletarian support – remained unknown.

The 1903 program attempted a concrete determination of the content and conditions of that "revision" of which the social-democrats had spoken in general form in 1885. This attempt – in the main point of the program: on the "cut-off lands" – was based on a rough separation of lands serving for feudal-debt bondage exploitation ("cut off from the peasants in 1861") and lands exploited capitalistically. Such rough separation was completely erroneous, because in practice the movement of peasant masses could not be directed against special categories of landlord lands, but only against landlord landownership in general. The 1903 program raises the question not yet raised in 1885, namely: the question of the struggle between peasant and landlord interests at the moment of that revision of agrarian relationships which all social-democrats recognized as inevitable. But the 1903 program solves this question incorrectly, for instead of consistently counterposing the peasant and consistently-junker modes of implementing the bourgeois revolution, the program artificially constructs something in between. True, here too one must take into account that the absence of open mass movement did not allow one to solve the question on the basis of precise data, rather than on the basis of phrases or innocent wishes or petty-bourgeois utopias, as the SRs solved it. No one could say with certainty in advance how far peasantry had become stratified under the influence of the partial transition of landowners from corvée labor to wage labor. No one could calculate how large the layer of agricultural laborers created after the 1861 reform was, how far their interests had separated from the interests of the ruined peasant mass.

The fundamental error of the 1903 agrarian program was in any case the absence of exact understanding of what could and should give rise to agrarian struggle in the process of the Russian bourgeois revolution – what types of capitalist agrarian evolution were objectively possible with the victory of one or another social force in this struggle.

## 2. The Present Agrarian Program of the RSDLP

The present agrarian program of the social-democratic party, adopted at the Stockholm Congress, makes a major step forward compared to the preceding one in one important question. Namely: in recognizing the confiscation of landlord[54] lands, the social-democratic party has thus placed itself decisively on the path of recognizing peasant agrarian revolution. The words of the program: "supporting the revolutionary actions of peasantry up to the confiscation of landlord lands..." express this idea quite definitively. In the debate at the Stockholm Congress, one of the speakers, Plekhanov, who, together with John, conducted the present program, spoke directly of the necessity to cease fearing a "peasant agrarian revolution" (see Plekhanov's report in the "Minutes" of the Stockholm Congress, M. 1907, p. 42).

This recognition that our bourgeois revolution in the realm of land relationships should be regarded as a "peasant agrarian revolution" would seem to be capable of putting an end to the most serious disagreements among social-democrats on the question of agrarian program. In reality, however, disagreements came to the fore on the question of whether social-democrats should support the division of landlord lands as peasant property, municipalization of landlord lands, or nationalization of all lands. And we must, consequently, first and foremost establish that most extraordinarily often-forgotten by social-democrats position, that these questions can be correctly solved exclusively from the viewpoint of peasant agrarian revolution in Russia. The point is not, of course, for social-democracy to renounce its independent determination of the interests of the proletariat, as a special class, in this peasant revolution. No. The point is to clearly imagine for oneself the character and significance precisely of peasant agrarian revolution, as one of the varieties of bourgeois revolution in general. We cannot "invent" some special "project" of reform. We must study the objective conditions of peasant agrarian transformation in capitalistically developing Russia, separate on the basis of this objective analysis the erroneous ideology of one or another class from the real content of economic changes – and determine what the interests of the development of productive forces and the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat require on the basis of these real economic changes.

In the present agrarian program of the RSDLP, public ownership of confiscated lands is recognized (in a particular form) (nationalization of forests, waters, and the resettlement fund, municipalization of privately owned lands) – at least "in the event of victorious development of the revolution." "In the event of unfavorable conditions," division of landlord lands as peasant property is recognized. In all cases, ownership by peasants and small landowners generally of their present lands is recognized. Consequently, the program carries through a dual land arrangement in the renewed bourgeois Russia: private property in land and (at least in the event of victorious development of the revolution) public property in the form of municipalization and nationalization.

How did the authors of the program explain this duality? First and foremost and most of all by the interests and demands of peasantry, by fear of diverging from peasantry, of turning peasantry against the proletariat and against revolution. In advancing such an argument, the authors and supporters of the program placed themselves thereby on the ground of recognition of peasant agrarian revolution, on the ground of supporting by the proletariat of certain peasant demands. And it was the most influential supporters of the program who advanced this argument, with comrade John at their head! To convince oneself of this, it is sufficient to look at the minutes of the Stockholm Congress.

Comrade John in his report directly and decisively advanced this argument. "If the revolution," he said, "led to an attempt to nationalize the peasants' allotment lands or nationalize the confiscated landlord lands, as comrade Lenin proposes, then such a measure would lead to a counter-revolutionary movement not only on the periphery, but in the center as well. We would have not one Vendée, but a universal uprising of peasantry against any attempt at state interference in the disposition of their own (John's emphasis) peasant allotment lands, against an attempt to nationalize them" (p. 40 of the "Minutes" of the Stockholm Congress).

Does this seem clear? Nationalization of the peasants' own lands would lead to a universal uprising of peasantry! That is where the reason lies why the initial municipalization project of Iks, which proposed handing over to the zemstvos not only privately owned lands but, "if possible," all lands (quoted by me in the pamphlet "A Revision of the Agrarian Program of the Workers' Party"[55]), was replaced by Maslov's municipalization project, which excluded peasant lands. Indeed, how could one not reckon with this fact, revealed after 1903, of the inevitability of peasant uprising against attempts at complete nationalization! How could one not take the position of another prominent Menshevik, Kostrov, who exclaimed in Stockholm:

"To go to the peasants with it (nationalization) means to push them away from us. The peasant movement will proceed without us or against us, and we shall find ourselves cast overboard from the revolution. Nationalization weakens social-democracy, cuts it off from peasantry and thereby weakens the revolution as well" (p. 88).

It is impossible to deny this argumentation its persuasiveness. In a peasant agrarian revolution to attempt to nationalize against the will of peasantry their own lands! It is not surprising that the Stockholm Congress rejected this idea, once it believed John and Kostrov.

But did it believe them with good reason?

On this, given the importance of the question of all-Russian Vendée{85} against nationalization, it is useful to provide a brief historical note.

## 3. Verification by Life of the Main Argument of the Municipalists

The decisive declarations of John and Kostrov that I have cited refer to April 1906, that is, the eve of the First Duma. I argued (see my pamphlet on "Revision"[56]) that the peasantry stood for nationalization. I was objected to by the statement that the resolutions of the Peasant Union congresses{86} were not conclusive, that they were inspired by SR ideologists, that the peasant mass would never go for such demands.

Since then the first and second Duma have documented this question. Representatives of peasantry from all parts of Russia spoke in the first, and especially in the II Duma. Only publicists of "Russia"{87} or "Novoe Vremya" could have denied that the political and economic demands of the peasant masses found expression in both these Dumas. It would seem that the idea of nationalization of peasant lands should be finally buried now, after the independent statements of peasant deputies before other parties? It would seem that the supporters of John and Kostrov would have had no difficulty in raising in the Duma the cry of peasant deputies against the impermissibility of nationalization? It would seem that social-democracy, led by Mensheviks, ought genuinely to have "cut off" from the revolution the supporters of nationalization, who were raising a counter-revolutionary all-Russian Vendée?

In reality something quite different happened. In the First Duma, concern for their own (John's emphasis) peasant lands was manifested by Stishinskii and Gurko. In both Dumas the extreme right defended private property in land, together with government representatives, rejecting any form of public ownership of land, and both municipalization and nationalization and socialization equally. In both Dumas peasant deputies from all parts of Russia spoke out – in favor of nationalization.

Comrade Maslov in 1905 wrote: "Nationalization of land, as a means for solving (?) the agrarian question, cannot be recognized in present-day Russia first of all" (note this "first of all") "because it is hopelessly utopian. Nationalization of land presumes the transfer of all lands into the hands of the state. But will the peasants agree to transfer their lands to anyone voluntarily, especially peasants with individual holdings?" (P. Maslov. "Critique of Agrarian Programs," M. 1905, p. 20).

So in 1905 – nationalization was "first of all" hopelessly utopian, because the peasants would not agree.

In 1907, in March, the same Maslov wrote: "All populist groups (Trudoviki, Popular Socialists, and Socialist-Revolutionaries) speak out for nationalization of land in one form or another" ("Obrazovanie," 1907, no. 3, p. 100).

There you have a new Vendée! There you have an all-Russian uprising of peasants against nationalization!

But instead of thinking about the laughable position in which people found themselves who talked and wrote about a peasant Vendée against nationalization, after the experience of two Dumas – instead of seeking an explanation for their error made in 1905, P. Maslov acted like Ivan the Forgetful. He preferred to forget both the words I cited and the speeches at the Stockholm Congress! Moreover. With the same ease with which he in 1905 asserted that the peasants would not agree – now he began to assert the opposite. Listen:

"...The populists, reflecting the interests and hopes of small proprietors (listen!), were obliged to speak out for nationalization" ("Obrazovanie," ibid.).

There you have a sample of the scientific conscientiousness of our municipalists! In deciding a difficult question before the political statements of elected representatives of peasantry from all over Russia, they asserted one thing for small proprietors – and after these statements in two Dumas they assert for the same "small proprietors" the direct opposite.

As a particular curiosity, one must note that Maslov explains this inclination of Russian peasants toward nationalization not by the particular conditions of peasant agrarian revolution, but by the general properties of the small proprietor in capitalist society. This is incredible, but it is a fact:

"The small proprietor," proclaims Maslov, "fears most of all competition and the domination of the large proprietor, the domination of capital..." You are confused, Mr. Maslov! To place side by side the large (feudal) proprietor in land and the proprietor of capital means to repeat the prejudices of philistinism. The peasant struggles so energetically against feudal latifundia precisely because he is at the present historical moment a representative of free capitalist evolution of agriculture.

"...Being unable to struggle with capital on economic ground, the small proprietor places his hopes on governmental power, which should come to the aid of the small proprietor against the large... If the Russian peasant in the course of centuries hoped for protection from the central power against landowners and officials, if in France Napoleon, relying on the peasants, strangled the republic, he did so thanks to the hopes of peasantry in the support of the central power" ("Obrazovanie," p. 100).

Splendid reasoning, Petr Maslov! First, if the Russian peasant at the present historical moment displays the same properties as the French peasant under Napoleon, then what has nationalization of land to do with this? The French peasant never stood under Napoleon for nationalization and could not have stood for it. Your argument is incoherent, Mr. Maslov!

Second, what has the struggle with capital to do with this? The question concerns the comparison of peasant property in land with the nationalization of all land, including peasant land. The French peasant fanatically adhered under Napoleon to small property, seeing in it a barrier against capital, and the Russian... Once again, where is your connection between beginning and end, my most esteemed?

Third, in speaking of hope in governmental power, Maslov presents the matter as if the peasants do not understand the harm of bureaucracy, do not understand the significance of self-government, but he, the advanced Petr Maslov, values this. This is an overly simplified critique of populism! It is sufficient to consult the well-known land project of the Trudoviki (the project of the 104) submitted to both the first and Second Duma{88} to see the falsity of Maslov's reasoning (or hint?). On the contrary, the facts show that in the Trudoviki project the principles of self-government and hostility to bureaucratic solution of the land question are expressed more clearly than in the program of the social-democrats, written according to Maslov! Namely, in our program there is only talk of "democratic principles" of the selection of local bodies, whereas in the Trudoviki project (§ 16) there is precise and direct talk of the selection of local self-governments "by universal, equal, direct and secret ballot." Moreover. In the same project there are put forward, supported, as is well known, by social-democrats, local land committees, which are to be selected by the same ballot and which are to (§§ 17–20) organize discussion of land reform and prepare it. The bureaucratic method of conducting agrarian reform was defended by the Kadets, not the Trudoviki, by liberal bourgeois, not peasants. Why could it have been necessary for Maslov to distort these well-known facts?

Fourth, in his remarkable "explanation" of why small proprietors "were obliged to speak out for nationalization," Maslov emphasizes the peasant's hope in the protection of the central power. This is the point of distinction between municipalization and nationalization; here – local authorities, there – central power. This is Maslov's favorite little notion, which we shall examine in its economic and political significance in detail below. Here let us note that Maslov evades the question posed to him by the history of our revolution, namely the question of why peasants do not fear the nationalization of their own lands. That is the crux of the matter!

But this is not all. Particularly piquant in this Maslovian attempt to explain the class roots of Trudoviki nationalization in distinction from municipalization is the following circumstance. Maslov conceals from the reader that the populists likewise decided the question of direct disposition of lands in favor of local self-governments! Maslov's reasonings on the subject of the "hope" of the peasant in the central power are simply and plainly intelligentsia gossip about the peasant. Read § 16 of the land project of the Trudoviki, submitted to both Dumas. Here is the text of this paragraph:

"The administration of the all-people's land fund should be vested in local self-governments, elected by universal, equal, direct and secret ballot, which within the limits established by law act independently."

Compare with this the corresponding demand of our program: "...the RSDLP demands:... 4) confiscation of privately owned lands, excepting small landownership, and their transfer to the disposition of local self-governmental bodies chosen on democratic principles (combining – p. 3 – urban and rural districts)..."

What difference is there here from the point of view of the rights of central and local power? In what does "administration" differ from "disposition"?

Why did Maslov have to, in speaking of the Trudoviki attitude toward nationalization, conceal from readers – and perhaps even from himself – the content of this § 16? Because it demolishes completely his entire absurd "municipalization."

Look at Maslov's arguments in favor of this municipalization before the Stockholm Congress, read the minutes of that congress – you will encounter an abyss of references to the impossibility of suppressing nationalities, of oppressing the periphery, of disregarding the difference of local interests, and so forth and so on. Even before the Stockholm Congress I pointed out to Maslov (see above "Revision," p. 18[57]) that all arguments of this sort are "pure misunderstanding," for our program already recognizes both the right of nationalities to self-determination and broad local and regional self-government. Consequently, from this side there is no need and no possibility to devise any additional "guarantees" against excessive centralization, bureaucratization, and regimentation, for this will be either meaningless or interpreted in an anti-proletarian, federalist spirit.

The Trudoviki proved to the municipalists that I was right.

Maslov must now recognize that all groups expressing the interests and viewpoint of peasantry spoke out for nationalization in such a form that the rights and powers of local self-governments are safeguarded in them no less than in Maslov! The law on the limits of the rights of local self-governments must be issued by the central parliament – Maslov does not say this, but no hiding one's head in the sand will help here, for no other order is conceivable.

The words: "transfer to the disposition" introduce a doubly confusing situation. It is unclear who the proprietor[58] of the confiscated landlord lands is! And with the unclearness of this the proprietor can only be the state. In what should "disposition" consist, what are its limits, forms and conditions – again, the central parliament must determine. This is obvious in itself, and in our party program, moreover, forests having "all-state significance" and the "resettlement fund" are singled out specially. It is clear that only the central state power is in a position to separate from the general mass of forests those forests having "all-state significance," and from the general mass of lands the "resettlement fund."

In a word, Maslov's program, which has now become in a particularly distorted form the program of our party, is completely absurd when compared with the Trudoviki program. It is not surprising that Maslov had to start talking even about the Napoleonic peasant, merely to conceal from the public into what an absurd position we have put ourselves through muddled "municipalization" before the representatives of bourgeois democracy!

The only distinction, fully real and absolute – is the attitude to peasant allotment lands. These lands Maslov singled out only because he feared a "Vendée." And it turned out that the peasant deputies, sent to both the I and II Duma, ridiculed the fears of tail-ist social-democrats, speaking out for the nationalization of their own lands!

The municipalists must now go against the Trudoviki-peasants, proving to them that they should not nationalize their own lands. The irony of history has turned the arguments of Maslov, John, Kostrov and Co. on their own heads.

## 4. The Agrarian Program of Peasantry

Let us attempt to understand the question (why all political groups expressing the interests and hopes of small proprietors were obliged to speak out for nationalization) before which P. Maslov floundered so helplessly.

First of all let us examine how far the land project of the 104, that is, the first and second Duma Trudoviki, actually express the demands of all-Russian peasantry. This is evidenced by the character of representation in both Dumas and the character of political struggle unfolded on the "parliamentary" arena on the land question between representatives of the interests of different classes. The idea of land ownership in general, peasant ownership in particular, was not only not pushed into the background in the Duma but, on the contrary, was constantly put forward by known parties to the forefront. And the government, in the persons of Messrs. Stishinskii, Gurko, all ministers and all official press, defended this idea, specifically appealing to peasant deputies. And the right political parties, beginning with the "famous" Sviatopolk-Mirskii in the II Duma, constantly dinned into the peasants about the benefits of peasant property in land. The actual distribution of forces on this question was outlined on such broad data that there is no possibility whatsoever of doubting its correctness (from the point of view of class interests). The Cadet party in the I Duma, when liberals considered the revolutionary people a force and courted it, was likewise carried by the universal current in the direction of nationalization of land. As is well known, the Cadet land project of the first Duma contains a "state land reserve," into which all alienated lands enter and from which they are transferred to long-term use. Of course, not from any principle did the Kadets put forward this demand in the I Duma – it is ridiculous to speak of the principled nature of the Cadet party – no, this demand appeared among liberals as a weak echo of the demands of the peasant mass. Peasant deputies even in the first Duma began immediately to separate themselves into a special political group, and the land project of the "104" became the main and basic platform of all Russian peasantry, appearing as a conscious social force. The speeches of peasant deputies in the I and II Duma, the articles in "laborite" newspapers ("News of Peasant Deputies"{89}, "Laboring Russia"{90}) showed that the project of 104 correctly expresses peasant interests and hopes. On this project, therefore, one should dwell somewhat in more detail.

It is interesting, by the way, to look at the composition of the deputies who signed it. In the I Duma we see here 70 Trudoviki, 17 nonpartisan, 8 peasants who gave no information about their political direction, five Kadets[59], three social-democrats[60] and one Lithuanian autonomist. In the II Duma there are 99 signatures under the project of "104," and subtracting duplicates – 91; of them 79 Trudoviki, 4 Popular Socialists, 2 SRs, 2 from the Cossack group, 2 nonpartisan, 1 to the left of the Kadets (Peterson) and 1 Kadet (Odnokozov, a peasant). Peasants predominated among those who signed (not less than 54 of 91 in the II Duma, not less than 52 of 104 in the I). It is interesting that P. Maslov's special expectations concerning peasant small-holders (cited above[61]), who cannot agree to nationalization, are likewise entirely refuted by peasant representation in both Dumas. For example, in Podolia province almost all peasants are small-holding cultivators (in 1905 the farms of peasant small-holders numbered 457,134, communal farmers only 1,630). Under the land project "104" there signed 13 Podolians (mostly peasant-cultivators) in the I Duma and 10 in the second! From other provinces with small-holding landownership we note Vilna, Kovno, Kiev, Poltava, Bessarabia, Volyn, deputies from which signed the project of 104. The difference between communal and small-holding farmers from the point of view of land nationalization can seem important and essential only to supporters of populist prejudices – and these prejudices, incidentally, received a powerful blow precisely from the first appearance of peasant deputies of all Russia with a land program. In reality the demand for land nationalization is called forth not at all by a special form of landownership, not by "communal habits and instincts" of peasants, but by the general conditions of all small peasant landownership (both communal and small-holding), crushed by feudal latifundia.

Among the deputies of the I and II Duma who came forward with the nationalizing project of 104, we see representatives of all localities of Russia, not only of the agricultural center and industrial non-black-earth provinces, not only of northern (Arkhangelsk, Vologda – in the II Duma), eastern and southern peripheries (Astrakhan, Bessarabia, Don, Ekaterinoslav, Kuban, Tauride, Stavropol provinces and regions), but also of Little Russian, south-western, north-western provinces, Poland (Suvalki province) and Siberia (Tobolsk province). It is evident that the oppression of the small peasant by feudal landlord landownership, expressed most forcefully and immediately in the purely Russian agricultural center, makes itself felt throughout Russia, evoking everywhere among small cultivators support for the struggle for land nationalization.

The character of this struggle bears evident marks of petty-bourgeois individualism. In this respect one must especially emphasize the fact, far too often ignored in our socialist press, namely: that the "socialism" of the Socialist-Revolutionaries suffered the mightiest blow at the very first appearance of peasants on the open all-Russian political arena with an independent land program. For the SR project of land socialization (the project of the "33" in the I Duma){91} there spoke out a minority of advanced peasant deputies. The overwhelming majority turned out to be on the side of the 104, the project of the Popular Socialists, concerning whose program the SRs themselves speak as individualistic.

All this is fair. It is only mistaken to think that the SRs can with "strong" words obscure the fact that the essence of the matter is not at all in the opportunism of Messrs. Peshekhonovs and Co., but in the individualism of the small cultivator. The point is not that the Peshekhonovs sully the ideological stream of Srerism, but that the majority of advanced peasant deputies revealed the true economic content of populism, the true strivings of small cultivators. The collapse of Srerism at the appearance before a broad, truly all-Russian representation of peasant masses – that is what the land projects of 104 in the I and II Duma[62] showed us.

In speaking out for land nationalization, the Trudoviki in their project reveal quite clearly the "egoistic and individualistic" strivings of small cultivators. The allotment and small private lands they leave in the hands of present owners (§ 3 of the land project of 104) with only the requirement that legislative measures be taken assuring the "gradual transition of them into all-people's ownership." This means, in translation to the language of actual economic relationships, the following: we proceed from the interests of actual masters, actual, not merely nominal, cultivators, but we want their economic activity to unfold completely freely on nationalized[63] land. Paragraph 9 of the project, saying that "priority is given in the queue to the local population over newcomers and to cultivators over non-cultivators," shows once again that the interests of small proprietors stand in the first place with the Trudoviki. "Equal right to land," this is a phrase; state loans and aid "to persons lacking sufficient means to acquire everything necessary for farming" (§ 15 of the land project of 104), these are innocent wishes, but in reality it is inevitable and unavoidable that those profit who can now become a firm proprietor, can transform themselves from an enslaved cultivator into a free and prosperous one. Of course, the interests of the proletariat require support of such measures as would most facilitate the transition of agriculture in Russia from the hands of feudal-landlord proprietors and enslaved, crushed by ignorance, poverty and routine cultivators into the hands of farmers. And the project of "104" is nothing other than a platform of struggle for the transformation of the well-to-do part of enslaved peasantry into free farming.

## 5. Medieval Landownership and Bourgeois Revolution

The question arises now: are there in the economic conditions of the Russian agrarian bourgeois-democratic transformation material foundations compelling small proprietors to demand land nationalization, or is this demand too merely a phrase, merely an innocent wish of the gray muzhik, an empty dream of a patriarchal cultivator?

To answer this question, we must first present to ourselves more concretely the conditions of any bourgeois-democratic transformation in agriculture, and then compare with these conditions those two paths of capitalist agrarian evolution which are possible for Russia, as we indicated above.

On the conditions of bourgeois transformation in agriculture, from the point of view of landownership relationships, Marx speaks very strikingly in the last volume of "Theories of Surplus-Value" ("Theorien über den Mehrwert," II. Band, 2. Teil, Stuttgart, 1905).

Having analyzed the views of Rodbertus, having shown all the limitedness of the theory of this Pomeranian landowner, having enumerated in detail each separate manifestation of his stupidity (II, 1. Teil, S. 256–258, erster Blödsinn – sechster Blödsinn des Herrn Rodbertus[64]), Marx proceeds to Ricardo's theory of rent (II, 2. Teil, § 3 b) "Historical conditions of Ricardo's theory"){92}.

"Both," says Marx concerning Ricardo and Anderson, "both proceed from a view which seems very strange on the continent, namely that 1) there exists not at all any landownership as an obstacle to any application of capital to land; 2) that cultivators transition from better lands to worse ones. With Ricardo this premise has absolute significance, if one does not count the interruptions in development proceeding from the intervention of science and industry; with Anderson this premise is relative, because worse soil is again transformed into better soil; 3) that there is always available capital, sufficient mass of capital to be applied to agriculture.

As concerns points 1 and 2, it must inevitably seem extraordinarily strange to continental inhabitants that in such a country where, according to their conception, feudal landownership was preserved most strongly, economists – both Ricardo and Anderson – proceed from the supposition of the non-existence of landownership on land. This circumstance is explained:

first, from the peculiarity of the English "law of enclosures" (the law of the enclosure of common land), having decidedly nothing in common with the continental division of common lands; second, nowhere in the world did capitalist production, beginning from the epoch of Henry VII, deal so mercilessly with traditional agricultural order, nowhere did it create for itself such perfect (adequate = ideally corresponding) conditions, nowhere did it subject these conditions to itself to such a degree. England in this respect is the most revolutionary country in the world. All historically inherited arrangements, there where they contradicted the conditions of capitalist production in agriculture or did not correspond to these conditions, were mercilessly swept away: not only was the arrangement of rural settlements altered, but the very settlements themselves were swept away; not only were the dwellings and places of settlement of the agricultural population swept away, but this very population; not only were the ancient centers of economy swept away, but the very economy itself. With the Germans, for example, economic arrangements proved to be determined by traditional relationships of communal lands (Feldmarken), the arrangement of economy centers, definite places of population concentration. With the English, historical arrangements of agriculture proved to be gradually created by capital, beginning from the XV century. The usual technical expression in the United Kingdom "clearing of estates" (literally = clearing of properties or clearing of lands) is not encountered in any continental country. And what does this "clearing of estates" mean? It means that absolutely no account was taken of settled population – it was driven out – or of existing villages – they were razed to the ground – or of economic buildings – they were dismantled – or of existing types of agriculture – they were changed at one stroke, for example, transforming plowed fields into cattle pasture – in a word, all the conditions of production were not accepted in the form they existed by tradition, but these conditions were historically created in such a form as to respond in each given case to the requirements of the most profitable application of capital. To that extent, therefore, there truly does not exist landownership, because this ownership leaves capital – the farmer – free to conduct business, concerned exclusively with obtaining monetary income. Some Pomeranian landowner, whose head contains only ancestral (angestammten) communal lands, centers of economy, collegium of agriculture and so forth, can therefore wringe his hands in horror at Ricardo's "unhistorical" view of the development of agricultural arrangements. But thereby he shows only that he naively confuses Pomeranian and English conditions. On the other hand, it cannot be said that Ricardo, proceeding in this case from English conditions, is equally limited as the Pomeranian landowner, thinking within the limits of Pomeranian relationships. For English conditions are the only conditions in which the modern landownership adequately developed (with ideal completeness), that is landownership on land transformed by capitalist production. English theory is in this respect classical for the modern, that is capitalist, mode of production. Pomeranian theory, on the contrary, discusses developed conditions from the point of view of a historically lower, not yet fully formed (not adequate) form of relationships" (Pages 5–7){93}.

This is a remarkably profound reasoning of Marx. Have our "municipalists" ever pondered over it?

Marx even in Volume III of "Capital" (2. Teil, S. 156) indicated that the form of landownership which history encounters in the beginning developing capitalist mode of production does not correspond to capitalism. Capitalism itself creates for itself corresponding forms of land relationships from old forms – from feudal landlord, from peasant-communal, from clan landownership, and so forth.{94} In the cited passage Marx compares different methods through which capitalism creates corresponding forms of landownership for itself. In Germany the recreation of medieval forms of landownership proceeded, so to speak, reformistically, adapting to routine, to tradition, to feudal estates slowly transforming into Junker estates, to routine plots of peasants-idlers{95}, undergoing difficult transition from corvée to day laborer and to Grossbauer. In England this recreation proceeded revolutionarily, violently, but violence was done in the interests of landowners; violence was exercised over peasant masses, which were worn out by exactions, driven from villages, expelled, died out and emigrated. In America this recreation proceeded violently against the slave-owning economies of the southern States. Here violence was applied against feudal-landlord proprietors. Their lands were parceled out, landownership from large feudal was transforming into small bourgeois. But with respect to the mass of "free" American lands this role of creating new land arrangements for a new mode of production (that is, for capitalism) was played by the "American black partition," the anti-rent movement of the 1840s, homestead legislation{95} and so forth. When the German communist Herman Kriege in 1846 preached equal land partition in America, Marx ridiculed the SR prejudices and philistine theory of this quasi-socialism, but evaluated the historical significance of the American movement against landownership{96} as a movement progressively expressing the interests of the development of productive forces, the interests of capitalism, in America.

## 6. Why Small Proprietors in Russia Must Speak Out for Nationalization

Look at agrarian evolution in Russia from the second half of the XIX century from the indicated point of view.

What is our "great" peasant reform, the cutting-off of land from peasants, the resettlement of peasants on "sandy lands," the introduction by means of military force, shootings and executions of new land arrangements? This is the first mass violence over peasantry in the interests of nascent capitalism in agriculture. This is the landlord "clearing of lands" for capitalism.

What is the Stolypin agrarian legislation under article 87, this encouragement of the robbery of communes by kulaks, this breaking of old landownership relationships in the interests of a handful of well-to-do proprietors at the cost of rapid ruin of the masses? This is the second major step of mass violence over peasantry in the interests of capitalism. This is the second landlord "clearing of lands" for capitalism.

And what is the Trudoviki nationalization of land in the Russian revolution?

This is the peasant "clearing of lands" for capitalism.

Therein consists the fundamental source of all the stupidities of our municipalists, that they do not understand the economic foundation of the bourgeois agrarian transformation in Russia in the two possible forms of this transformation, the landlord-bourgeois and the peasant-bourgeois. Without "clearing" medieval landownership relationships and arrangements, partly feudal, partly Asiatic, there cannot occur a bourgeois transformation in agriculture, for capital must – in the sense of economic necessity must – create for itself new landownership arrangements, adapted to new conditions of free commercial agriculture. This "clearing" of medieval rubble in the realm of agrarian relationships in general and old landownership first and foremost must touch mainly landlord and peasant allotment lands, for both these forms of landownership now, in their present form, are adapted to corvée, to the legacy of serfdom, to debt bondage, and not to free capitalistically developing economy. The Stolypin "clearing" lies, undoubtedly, in the line of progressive capitalist development of Russia, but only this clearing is adapted entirely to the interests of landowners: let rich peasants pay triple price to the "peasant" (read: landlord) bank – we in exchange will give them freedom to rob the commune, to forcibly expropriate the masses, to round out their plots, to expel peasant poor, to undermine the very foundations of life of whole villages, to create at all costs, no matter what, disregarding the economy and life of whatever number of "ancestral" allotment cultivators, to create new farmstead plots, the foundation of new capitalist agriculture. In this line there is unquestionable economic sense, it correctly expresses the actual course of development as it should be under the domination of landowners transforming themselves into Junkers.

# [Part 2/2]

What then is the other, peasant line? Either it is economically impossible – and then all talk of peasants confiscating landlord lands, of a peasant agrarian revolution, and so forth – is pure charlatanry or empty dreaming. Or it is economically possible, provided one element of bourgeois society triumphs over another element of bourgeois society – and then we must clearly represent to ourselves and clearly demonstrate to the people the concrete conditions of this development, the conditions of peasant reconstruction of old landholding relations in a new, capitalist manner.

Here naturally arises the thought: this peasant line is precisely the division of landlord lands into peasant property. Very well. But in order that this division into property correspond to truly new, capitalist conditions of agriculture – it must be accomplished in a new way, not the old way. The basis of division must not be the old allotment land, distributed among peasants a hundred years ago by the will of landlord stewards or officials of Asiatic despotism – the basis must be the demands of free, commercial agriculture. Division, to satisfy the demands of capitalism, must be division among farmers, not division among peasant "layabouts," of whom the overwhelming majority conduct their affairs by routine, by tradition, in accordance with patriarchal, not capitalist conditions. Division according to old norms, i.e., in accordance with old allotment landownership, will be not a cleansing of old landownership but its perpetuation, not a liberation of the path for capitalism but a burdening of it with masses of unadapted and unadaptable "layabouts" who cannot become farmers. Division, to become progressive, must rest upon a new sorting-out among peasant-agriculturalists, upon a sorting-out that separates farmers from worthless rubbish. And this new sorting-out is precisely the nationalization of land, i.e., the complete destruction of private property in land, complete freedom of economic activity on the land, freedom for farmers to develop from the old peasantry.

Picture to yourself contemporary peasant economy and the character of allotment, i.e., old peasant landownership. "Being united by the commune into tiny administrative-fiscal and landholding unions, peasants are fragmented by a mass of diverse divisions into categories, into ranks according to allotment size, according to payment amounts, etc. Take even the zemstvo-statistical compendium for Saratov province; the peasantry is divided here into the following categories: gift-recipients, proprietors, full proprietors, state [peasants], state [peasants] with communal landownership, state [peasants] with quarter-lot landownership, state [peasants] from former landlords, udel peasants, renters of state plots, landless [peasants], proprietors from former landlord lands, on redeemable homesteads, proprietors from former udel lands, peasant-proprietors, settlers, gift-recipients from former landlord lands, proprietors from former state lands, freed persons, quit-rent peasants, free grain-tillers, temporarily obligated [peasants], former factory [peasants], etc., and then moreover peasants attached [to estates], incoming, and so on.{96} All these categories are distinguished by the history of agrarian relations, by the size of allotments and payments, etc., and so on. And within such categories there is a mass of similar differences: sometimes even peasants from one and the same village are divided into two entirely distinct categories: "former of landlord N.N." and "former of lady M.M." All this motley appearance was natural and necessary in the Middle Ages"[68]. If a new division of landlord lands had occurred in accordance with this feudal landownership – whether in the sense of supplementing toward a uniform norm, i.e., equal division, or in the sense of some proportionality between the new and old, or in some other way – such division would not only fail to guarantee correspondence of divided plots to the demands of capitalist agriculture, but on the contrary would consolidate a definite lack of correspondence. Such division would hinder social evolution, would bind the new to the old, instead of liberating the new from the old. Real liberation is only nationalization of land, permitting farmers to develop, farmer economy to form outside connection with the old, without any relation to medieval allotment landownership.

Capitalist evolution on the medieval allotment lands of the peasantry proceeded in post-reform Russia in such a manner that progressive economic elements were liberated from under the determining influence of the allotment. On one side, proletarians were liberated, surrendering allotments, abandoning them, letting lands go fallow. On the other side, proprietors were liberated, liberated through the purchase and rental of land, building new economy out of various pieces of old, medieval landownership. The land on which the contemporary Russian peasant of any means whatsoever conducts his affairs, i.e., one who is truly capable of transforming himself into a free farmer should the revolution turn out favorably – this land consists partly of his own allotment, partly of rented allotment from a neighboring communal member, partly, perhaps, of long-term rental from the treasury, of temporary rental from a landlord, of land purchased from the bank, etc. Capitalism requires that all these distinctions of categories disappear, that every economic activity on land be built exclusively in accordance with new conditions and market demands, with the demands of agriculture. Nationalization of land fulfills this demand by the revolutionary-peasant method, shaking off the people all at once and entirely the rotten rags of all forms of medieval landownership. There must be neither landlord nor allotment landownership, there must be only new, free landownership – such is the slogan of the radical peasant. And this slogan expresses in the most correct, most consistent and decisive manner the interests of capitalism (from which the radical peasant guards himself naively with the sign of the cross), the interests of the greatest development of productive forces of the land under commodity production.

One can judge from this the wit of Pyotr Maslov, for whom all the distinction of the agrarian program from the populist-labor peasant one amounted to the consolidation of the old, medieval, allotment landownership! Peasant allotment land, this is a ghetto in which the peasantry suffocates and from which it strives toward free[69] land. And Pyotr Maslov, contrary to peasant demands for free, i.e., nationalized land, perpetuates this ghetto, consolidates the old, subordinates the best lands confiscated from landlords and transferred to public use to the conditions of old landownership and old economy. The peasant-labor deputy – in fact the most decisive bourgeois revolutionary, in words – a petty-bourgeois utopian, imagining that the "black repartition" is the starting point of harmony and brotherhood[70], not of capitalist farming. Pyotr Maslov in fact – a reactionary, consolidating from fear of a future Vendée of counter-revolution the present counter-revolutionary elements of old landownership, perpetuating the peasant ghetto, in words meanwhile spouting unthought-out, meaninglessly memorized little phrases about bourgeois progress. The actual conditions of genuinely free-bourgeois, not Stolypin-bourgeois, progress of Russian agriculture Maslov and Co. have absolutely not understood.

The distinction between vulgar Marxism of Pyotr Maslov and those methods of investigation which Marx actually employed can be most clearly seen in the relationship to the petty-bourgeois utopias of the populists (and the Socialist-Revolutionaries included). In 1846 Marx mercilessly exposed the philistinism of the American Socialist-Revolutionary Hermann Kriege, who proposed an actual black repartition for America, calling this repartition "communism." Marx's dialectical and revolutionary critique swept away the chaff of petty-bourgeois doctrine and distinguished the healthy kernel of "attacks on landed property" and "movement against rent." Our vulgar Marxists, criticizing "equalizing repartition," "socialization of land," "equal right to land," limit themselves to refuting the doctrine and thereby themselves reveal their dull doctrinairism, which does not see the living life of the peasant revolution beneath the dead doctrine of populist theory. Maslov and the Mensheviks have carried this dull doctrinairism, expressed in our "municipalizer" program of consolidating the most backward medieval property in land, to such a point that in the name of the s-d party in the second Duma such truly shameful things could be said: "…If in the question of the method of confiscation of land we (social-democrats) stand much closer to these (populist) factions than to the faction of people's freedom, then in the question of forms of land use we stand further from them" (47th session, May 26, 1907, p. 1230 of the stenographic record).

Indeed, in the peasant agrarian revolution the Mensheviks stand further from revolutionary peasant nationalization and closer to liberal-landlord preservation of allotment (and not only allotment) property. Preservation of allotment property is preservation of degradation, backwardness, bondage. Naturally the liberal landlord, dreaming of redemption, expends himself defending allotment property[71]…alongside preservation of a good portion of landlord property! And the social-democrat, confused by the "municipalizers," does not understand that the sound of words disappears while the thing remains. The sound of words about equality, socialization, etc. will disappear, for there cannot be equality in commodity production. But the thing will remain, i.e., there will remain the greatest possible, under capitalism, break with feudal antiquity, with medieval allotment landownership, with all and every routine and tradition. When one says "nothing will come of equalizing repartition," the Marxist must understand that this "nothing" relates exclusively to socialist tasks, exclusively to the fact that capitalism this will not eliminate. But from attempts at such repartition, even from the idea of such repartition, very much will result for the benefit of the bourgeois-democratic revolution.

For this revolution can occur either with the predominance of landlords over peasants – and this requires preservation of old property and Stolypin-type reform of it, exclusively by the force of the ruble. Or it will occur through the victory of the peasantry over the landlords – and this is impossible, in virtue of the objective conditions of capitalist economy, without the destruction of all medieval property in land, both landlord and peasant. Either Stolypin agrarian reform or peasant-revolutionary nationalization. Only these solutions are economically real. All middle ground, beginning from Menshevik municipalization and ending with Cadet redemption, is petty-bourgeois limitation, dull distortion of doctrine, a poor fabrication.

## 7. Peasants and Populists on Nationalization of Allotment Lands

That the abolition of property in allotment lands is a condition of creating free, corresponding to new capitalist conditions, peasant economy – this the peasants themselves understand with perfect clarity. Mr. Groman, who describes in detail and precisely the debates at peasant conferences[72], adduces the following remarkable opinion of a peasant:

"During discussion of the redemption question, one delegate, having met with no substantive objections, said: 'They said that without redemption many peasants would suffer, those who bought land with money earned by labor. There are few such, and their land is small; they will get land anyway at the repartition.' Here is the source of readiness to renounce property rights both in allotment and in purchased land."

And somewhat further (p. 20) Mr. Groman repeats this as the general opinion of peasants.

"They will get land anyway at the repartition"! Is it not clear what economic necessity dictated this argument? A new repartition of all land, both landlord and allotment, cannot reduce the landowning of nine-tenths (or more correctly, ninety-nine hundredths) of the peasantry; there is nothing to fear from it. But it is needed because it will make it possible for real, genuine proprietors to compose their land use in accordance with new conditions, in accordance with the demands of capitalism ("the dictates of the market" for individual producers), without submitting to those medieval relations which determined the size, location, distribution of precisely allotment property.

Mr. Peshekhonov, practical and clear-headed "people's socialist" (read: social-Cadet), who succeeded, as we have seen, in adapting to the demands of an all-Russian mass of small proprietors, expresses this point of view even more decidedly.

"Allotment lands," he writes, "this most important from the productive standpoint part of the territory, are fixed to an estate, worse than that: to small groups of it, to individual homesteads and villages. Because of this, even within the allotment area the peasantry, taken in its mass, cannot settle freely…Incorrect, not corresponding to market demands (note this!) distribution of population… One must remove the prohibition on state lands, one must free allotment lands from the fetters of property, one must unfence private property lands. One must return to the Russian people its land, and then it will settle on it, as its economic needs demand" (A. V. Peshekhonov: "The Agrarian Problem in Connection with the Peasant Movement," St. Petersburg, 1906, pp. 83, 86, 88–89. Emphasis ours).

Is it not clear that through the lips of this "people's socialist" speaks a farmer, wishing to stand on his own feet? Is it not clear that "liberation of allotment lands from the fetters of property" is truly necessary for him for new settlement, for new formation of land plots "corresponding to market demands," i.e., to the demands of capitalist agriculture? After all, Mr. Peshekhonov – let us remind once again – is so clear-headed that he rejects all socialization, rejects all adaptation to communal right – no wonder the Socialist-Revolutionaries curse him as an individualist! – rejects all prohibition of hired labor in peasant economy.

The reactionary nature of supporting allotment peasant property alongside such nationalization-oriented tendencies of the peasantry becomes fully evident. A. Finn, in his brochure having adduced some of the arguments of Mr. Peshekhonov cited by us, criticizes him as a populist, proves to him the inevitability of capitalism's development from peasant economy and within peasant economy (p. 14 et seq. in the cited brochure). This is unsatisfactory criticism, for behind the general question of capitalism's development A. Finn overlooked the concrete question of conditions for freer development of capitalist agriculture on allotment lands! A. Finn limits himself only to posing the question of capitalism in general and achieves an easy victory over long-defeated populism. But the issue concerns a more concrete[73] question: of the landlord and peasant type of "unfencing" (Mr. Peshekhonov's expression), "cleansing" of land for capitalism.

In the second Duma, the official speaker of the Socialist-Revolutionary party, Mr. Mushenko, delivering the concluding speech on the agrarian question, expressed with the same decisiveness as Mr. Peshekhonov the capitalist essence of that nationalization of land which it pleases petty-bourgeois socialists to call "socialization," establishment of "equal right to land," etc.

"Correct settlement," said Mr. Mushenko, "is possible only when land is unfenced, when all partitions imposed on it by the principle of private property in land are removed" (47th session, May 26, 1907, p. 1172 of the stenographic record). Exactly so! "Correct" settlement is that which the market demands, capitalism demands. "Correct" settlement of "correct" proprietors is hindered by both landlord and allotment landownership.

One more observation on the declarations of delegates of the Peasant Union deserves our attention. Mr. Groman writes in the named brochure:

"The notorious question of the 'commune' – this cornerstone of old and new populism – was not raised at all and silently decided in the negative: land must be in the use of persons and associations, state the resolutions of both the first and second congress" (p. 12).

Thus peasants clearly and decisively spoke out against the old commune in favor of voluntary associations and in favor of land use by individual persons. That this is indeed the voice of the entire peasantry, there can be no doubt, for the project of the Labor group (the 104) also does not breathe a word about the commune. And the commune is precisely a union for the landownership of allotment land!

Stolypin destroys this commune forcibly in the interests of a handful of rich men. The peasantry wishes to destroy it, replacing it with voluntary associations and land use of "individual persons" on nationalized allotment land. And Maslov and Co. in the name of bourgeois progress act contrary to the fundamental demand of precisely this progress and defend medieval landownership. God preserve us from such "Marxism"!

## 8. The Error of M. Shanin and Other Supporters of Repartition

M. Shanin, having approached the question in his brochure[74] somewhat from another side, against his will gave yet another confirmation of the so-much-hated nationalization. Through the example of Ireland, through analysis of the conditions of bourgeois reformism in the sphere of agriculture, M. Shanin proved only one thing: the incompatibility of the principles of land property with communal or state landownership (but this incompatibility must be proved also by general theoretical analysis, which Shanin did not even recall) – then he proved perhaps only the necessity of recognizing property for any state-reformist activity in the sphere of capitalistically developing agriculture. But all these proofs of Shanin's miss the mark entirely: of course, under the conditions of bourgeois reformism only private property in land is conceivable; of course, preservation of private property in the main mass of lands of the United Kingdom left no other path for its part save the path of private property. But what does this have to do with "peasant agrarian revolution" in Russia? The correct path, if you wish, M. Shanin pointed out, but he pointed out the correct path for Stolypin agrarian reform, not for peasant agrarian revolution[75]. M. Shanin has not a spark of consciousness of the difference between the one and the other – and without clarification of this difference it is ridiculous to speak of s-d agrarian program in Russian revolution. And when M. Shanin, following of course the best of motives, defends confiscation against redemption, he loses all historical perspective. He forgets that in bourgeois society confiscation, i.e., expropriation without redemption, is just as absolutely incompatible with reformism as is nationalization of land. To speak of confiscation and admit reformist, not revolutionary, solution of the agrarian question – this is all the same as submitting a petition to Stolypin about the destruction of landlord landownership.

The other side of Shanin's brochure – intensive emphasis on the agricultural character of our agricultural crisis, the absolute necessity of transition to higher forms of economy, of raising the technique of agriculture, incredibly low in Russia, etc. These correct positions Shanin developed to such an incredibly one-sided extent, he so completely passed over in silence the destruction of serf latifundia and the change in landownership relations as a condition of this technical revolution, that the perspective obtained is radically false. For toward the technical elevation of agriculture also goes, and correctly from the standpoint of landlord interests goes, Stolypin agrarian reform. The forcible fragmentation of the commune by the laws of November 9, 1906, etc., the planting of farmsteads and the subsidizing of cutoff economy – this is not a mirage at all, as sometimes frivolous gossips of democratic journalism say, this is a reality of economic progress on the basis of preservation of landlord power and landlord interests. This is an incredibly slow path and incredibly agonizing for the broadest masses of the peasantry and for the proletariat, but this path is the only possible path for capitalist Russia if the peasant agrarian revolution does not triumph.

Look at the question posed by Shanin from the standpoint of such a revolution. New agricultural technique requires the reconstruction of all conditions of time-honored, encrusted, wild, ignorant, miserable peasant economy on allotment land. Both the three-field system and primitive tools of labor, and patriarchal lack of cash of the agriculturalist, and routine stock-raising, and naive, bear-like ignorance of the conditions and demands of the market must be cast overboard. What then? Is it possible to revolutionize economy while conserving landownership? And repartition among present allotment proprietors is conservation of halfway medieval landownership. Repartition could be progressive if it consolidated new economy, new agriculture, casting the old overboard. But repartition cannot perform the role of an impulse toward new agriculture if it is based on old allotment landownership. Comrade Borisov, a supporter of repartition, said in Stockholm: "Our agrarian program is a program for the period of developing revolution, the period of destruction of the old order and organization of a new socio-political system. In this lies its fundamental idea. Social-democracy must not bind itself by decisions obliging it to support any particular form of economy. In this struggle of new social forces against the foundations of the old system it is necessary to cut through the tangled knot with a decisive blow" (p. 125 of the "Protocols"). All this is entirely correct and excellently expressed. And all this speaks for nationalization, for only it truly "destroys" all old medieval landownership, only it truly cuts through the tangled knot, affording new economies complete freedom to form on nationalized land. The question arises, where then is the criterion that new agriculture has already so firmly developed that land division should be adapted to it – and not consolidated by division the old obstacles to new economy? The criterion for this can be but one – practice. No statistics in the world can account for the extent to which precisely the elements of peasant bourgeoisie have already "hardened" in a given country to adjust landownership to agriculture on the land. Only the proprietors themselves in their masses can account for this. And the impossibility of such accounting at the present moment is proved by the emergence of the peasant masses in our revolution with the program of nationalization of land. The small agriculturalist everywhere and in all the world so infuses himself completely with his economy (if this is truly his economy, and not a fragment of forced-labor landlord economy, as is often the case in Russia) – that "fanatic" defense of land property appears in him at a certain historical period and for a certain time as inevitable. If instead of the fanaticism of proprietors – fanaticism implanted by all ruling classes, by all liberal-bourgeois politicians – there has spread and become established in the mass of Russian peasants of the present epoch the demand for nationalization of land, it would be childish or dull pedantry to explain this by the influence of publicists of "*Russkoe Bogatstvo*"{97} or the brochures of Mr. Chernov. This is explained by the fact that the real conditions of life of the small agriculturalist, the small proprietor in the countryside place before him the economic task not of consolidating already-formed new agriculture through repartition of lands into property, but of clearing the soil for the formation (from existing elements) of new agriculture on "free," i.e., nationalized, land. The fanaticism of the proprietor can and must in its time appear as a demand to secure one's economy from the standpoint of the farmer already hatched from the egg. Nationalization of land had to become in Russian revolution the demand of peasant masses as a slogan of farmers wishing to break the medieval shell. Therefore the preaching of repartition by social-democrats, addressed to the nationalization-minded peasant masses, which are only just beginning to enter into the conditions of the final "sorting-out," destined to distinguish farmers capable of creating capitalist agriculture – such preaching is glaring historical tactlessness, inability to take account of the concrete historical moment.

Our social-democrats "repartitionists," comrades Finn, Borisov, Shanin, are free from the theoretical dualism into which the "municipalizers" fall, down to their vulgar critique of Marx's theory of rent (on this below), but they commit an error of another kind, an error of historical perspective. Standing in theoretical respect on the general correct position (and differing thereby from the "municipalizers"), they repeat the error of our "cutoff" program of 1903. The source of this latter error was that, while correctly determining the direction of development, we incorrectly determined the moment of development. We assumed that the elements of capitalist agriculture had already completely formed in Russia, formed both in landlord economy (minus the caste-like "cutoffs" – hence the demand for cutoffs), formed also in peasant economy, which seemed to us to have distinguished itself as a firm peasant bourgeoisie and therefore incapable of "peasant agrarian revolution." It was not "fear" of peasant agrarian revolution that spawned the erroneous program, but overestimation of the degree of capitalist development in Russian agriculture. The remnants of serfdom seemed to us then a minor detail – capitalist economy on allotment and landlord land – a fully matured and firmly established phenomenon.

The revolution exposed this error. The direction of development, determined by us, it confirmed. Marxist analysis of the classes of Russian society has been so brilliantly confirmed by the entire course of events in general and by the first two Dumas in particular that non-Marxist socialism has been fundamentally undermined. But the remnants of serfdom in the countryside turned out to be much stronger than we thought; they provoked a nation-wide movement of the peasantry; they made this movement the whetstone of the entire bourgeois revolution. The role of hegemon, always indicated by revolutionary social-democracy as belonging to the proletariat in bourgeois liberation movement, had to be defined more precisely as the role of leader, leading the peasantry behind itself. Leading to what? To bourgeois revolution in its most consistent and decisive form. The correction of the error consisted in that instead of the particular task of struggle with remnants of the old in agricultural structure we had to pose the tasks of struggle with all the old agricultural structure. Instead of cleansing landlord economy we posed its destruction.

But this correction, made under the influence of the impressive course of events, did not force many of us to think through to the end our new definition of the degree of capitalist development in Russian agriculture. If the demand for confiscation of all landlord lands turned out to be historically correct – and it undoubtedly did – then this meant that broad development of capitalism demands new relations of landownership, that the germs of capitalism in landlord economy can and must be sacrificed to broad and free development of capitalism on the basis of renewed small economy. To accept the demand for confiscation of landlord lands means to recognize the possibility and necessity of renewal of small agricultural economy under capitalism.

Is this admissible? Is not support of small economy under capitalism an adventurism? Is not this renewal of small agriculture an empty dream? Is not this demagogic "catching of peasants," *Bauernfang*? So, undoubtedly so, many comrades thought. But they were mistaken. Renewal of small economy is possible even under capitalism if the historical task consists in struggle against pre-capitalist structure. Thus America renewed small economy, having revolutionarily smashed slave-owning latifundia and created conditions for the most rapid, most free development of capitalism. In Russian revolution the struggle for land is nothing other than struggle for a renewed path of capitalist development. The consistent slogan of such renewal – nationalization of land. To exclude allotment lands from it – is economically reactionary (we shall speak separately about the political reactionary nature of such exclusion). The "repartitionists" skip over the historical task of the given revolution, they assume solved that over which the mass peasant struggle is only just beginning. Instead of pushing forward the process of renewal – instead of clarifying to the peasantry the conditions of consistent renewal – they are already tailoring a coat for the appeased, renewed farmer[77].

"To every vegetable its season." From support of repartition social-democracy cannot abjure itself. At another historical moment, at another stage of agrarian evolution repartition may turn out to be inevitable. But the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia of 1907 repartition expresses in a completely incorrect manner.