V. I.

Lenin

In Pravda No. 96 (300) [1]

I quoted the chief resettlement data for Russia. Those data were up to
1911, and that year was incomplete (11 months). In Rech ,
Mr. Kaufmann has now quoted data from official, recently published records
for the whole of 1911 and 1912.

It appears that the number of settlers has increased, albeit very
slightly—from 190,000 in 1911 to 196,500 in 1912. The number of returning
settlers, however, has greatly in creased—from 36,000 (1911) to 58,000
(1912).

The explanation of this phenomenon discloses to us still more
profoundly the collapse of the new agrarian policy. Until now between three
quarters and four-fifths of all settlers have come from the Ukrainian and
Central Black-Earth gubernias. That is the centre of Russia where the
survivals of serfdom are strongest, where wages are lowest and where the
mass of the peasantry live under particularly difficult conditions.

The ruined, impoverished, hungry masses of this centre—the “heart”
of Russia—rushed for resettlement (1907–09) and provided, in the end, 60
per cent of those returning, that is, of those who were ruined and still
more embittered.

A wave of settlers has now come from another area, this time from the
Volgaside gubernias, which until recently produced very few settlers.

What is the reason?

The “harvest failure”, the famine of 1911!... The famine embraced a
new part of Russia. A new wave of fugitives has left for Siberia. We
already know that Siberia will ruin and embitter the Volgaside peasants still further, as it did the
peasants of Central Russia.

In other words, resettlement to Siberia has shown first the peasants of
Central Russia and now those of the Volga side that salvation cannot be
achieved in this way.

The “new” agrarian policy, ruining one area of Russia after another,
the peasants of one district after another, is gradually making it clear to
all peasants that their real salvation is not to be found there.

---
Notes:
[1]
See p. 66 of this volume— Ed .