**Source: PSS vol. 22**

Mobilization of lands is called the transfer of property in land from hand to hand. With respect to our peasants, both in law and in "public" opinion (even liberal opinion, among the Cadets), a serf-owning view has been preserved to this day—that the mobilization of peasant lands is harmful and that it must be forbidden or restricted.

From the standpoint of democracy, the very admission of the thought that peasants—adult people and full-fledged citizens—can be forbidden or hindered from selling their land is the most shameless mockery of the peasantry. Only in such a country as Russia, where all officials and a mass of liberals are still imbued with the old serf-owning view of the ward, the senseless, unequal "muzhik," can such an attitude toward mobilization persist.

From the standpoint of the economy, the harm caused by all prohibitions and restrictions on mobilization is enormous. Under any tolerable conditions of life, a peasant will never sell his land. But if need or other circumstances (resettlement, death of a worker, etc.) force him to sell, no law will stop him. The law will always be circumvented, and prohibitions only worsen the conditions of land sales.

In the January issue of *Russkaya Mysl*—the organ of the most right-wing Cadets, a mixture of liberals with reactionaries—a certain Prince V. Obolenskiy, who apparently shares the usual reactionary-liberal view of mobilization, was forced to cite facts proving the stupidity and harmfulness of its restrictions. They forbid non-peasants from buying allotments. The buyer registers as a peasant! They forbid one buyer from purchasing more than six soul-allotments. The buyer concludes fictitious, fraudulent transactions in the names of relatives, etc.! They forbid mortgaging allotment lands. This precisely facilitates the machinations of speculators and impedes the acquisition of land by middle peasants!

Only serf-owners and hypocrites can expect "aid" for peasants from restrictions on mobilization. Conscious peasants seek a way out in something entirely different.

*Pravda* No. 26, February 1, 1913. Signed: T.

Printed from the text of the newspaper *Pravda*