1) Landed proprietorship in land is abolished immediately without any compensation.

2) The landed estates, likewise all appanage, monastic, and church lands, with all their live and dead inventory, manor buildings and all appurtenances, shall be placed at the disposal of the volost land committees and the uyezd Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies until the Constituent Assembly.

3) Any damage whatsoever to the confiscated property, which henceforth belongs to the whole people, is declared a grave crime punishable by the revolutionary court. The uyezd Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies shall take all necessary measures to maintain the strictest order during the confiscation of the landed estates, to determine the size of plots and exactly which ones are subject to confiscation, to draw up an exact inventory of all confiscated property, and to ensure the strictest revolutionary protection of all the agricultural establishments on the land that pass to the people, with all buildings, implements, livestock, stocks of produce, etc.

4) As a guide for the implementation of the great land transformations, pending their final decision by the Constituent Assembly, the following peasant mandate, compiled on the basis of 242 local peasant mandates by the editorial board of the *Izvestia* of the All-Russian Soviet of Peasants’ Deputies{13} and published in issue No. 88 of those *Izvestia* (Petrograd, No. 88, August 19, 1917), must everywhere serve.

## PEASANT MANDATE ON THE LAND

“The land question in its full scope can be settled only by a popular Constituent Assembly.

The most just settlement of the land question must be as follows:

1) The right of private ownership of land is abolished forever; land may not be sold, purchased, leased, mortgaged, or alienated in any other way.

All land: state, appanage, cabinet, monastic, church, possessionary, entailed, privately owned, public and peasant, etc., is alienated without compensation, becomes the property of the whole people, and passes to the use of all who cultivate it.

Persons who suffer from this property revolution are recognized as having only the right to public support for the time necessary to adapt to the new conditions of existence.

2) All mineral resources: ore, oil, coal, salt, etc., as well as forests and waters of state-wide significance, pass to the exclusive use of the state. All small rivers, lakes, forests, etc., pass to the use of the communes, under condition of their management by local self-government bodies.

3) Land plots with highly cultivated farms: orchards, plantations, nurseries, hothouses, etc., are not subject to partition, but are turned into model farms and transferred to the exclusive use of the state or communes, depending on their size and significance.

Homestead land, urban and rural, with household gardens and orchards, remains in the use of the present owners, the size of the plots and the amount of tax for their use being determined by legislation.

4) Stud farms, state and private pedigree livestock and poultry farms, etc., are confiscated, become the property of the whole people, and pass either to the exclusive use of the state or of the communes, depending on their size and significance.

The question of compensation is subject to consideration by the Constituent Assembly.

5) All the live and dead inventory of the confiscated lands passes to the exclusive use of the state or the commune, depending on their size and significance, without compensation.

The confiscation of inventory does not apply to peasants with small landholdings.

6) The right to use the land is granted to all citizens (without distinction of sex) of the Russian state who wish to cultivate it by their own labor, with the help of their families, or in a partnership, and only for as long as they are able to cultivate it. Wage labor is not permitted.

In the event of temporary disability of any member of a village commune for a period of 2 years, the village commune undertakes, until his working capacity is restored, to assist him by means of communal cultivation of the land.

Cultivators who, owing to old age or disability, have permanently lost the ability to cultivate the land personally, lose the right to use it, but in lieu thereof receive a pension from the state.

7) Land tenure is to be based on equalisation, i.e., land is distributed among the working people, depending on local conditions, according to labour or consumption norms.

The forms of land tenure shall be completely free: homestead, farmstead, communal, artel, as decided upon in individual villages and settlements.

8) All land, upon its alienation, goes into the national land fund. Its distribution among the working people is managed by local and central self-government bodies, from democratically organized non-estate village and urban communes to central regional institutions.

The land fund is subject to periodic redistribution, depending on population growth and the rise in the productivity and culture of agriculture.

When the boundaries of allotments are changed, the original nucleus of the allotment must remain inviolable.

The land of members who leave the commune is returned to the land fund, with the next-of-kin of the departing members and persons designated by them having priority right to receive the plots of those who leave.

The value of fertilization and land improvement (fundamental improvements) invested in the land, insofar as they have not been utilized when the allotment is returned to the land fund, must be paid for.

If in particular localities the available land fund proves insufficient to satisfy the entire local population, the surplus population is subject to resettlement.

The organization of resettlement, as well as the expenses of resettlement and supply of inventory, etc., must be borne by the state.

Resettlement is carried out in the following order: landless peasants who wish it, then vicious members of the commune, deserters, etc., and finally, by lot or by agreement.”

Everything contained in this mandate, as an expression of the unconditional will of the vast majority of conscious peasants throughout Russia, is declared a provisional law, which, until the Constituent Assembly, is to be put into effect as far as possible immediately, and in certain of its parts with that necessary gradualism which is to be determined by the uyezd Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies.

5) The lands of ordinary peasants and ordinary Cossacks are not confiscated.

Here voices are raised saying that the decree and the mandate themselves were drawn up by the Socialist-Revolutionaries. So be it. Is it not all the same who drew them up? But, as a democratic government, we cannot ignore the decision of the popular masses, even if we might disagree with it. In the fire of life, by applying it in practice, by implementing it locally, the peasants themselves will understand where the truth lies. And even if the peasants go further and follow the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and even if they give this party a majority in the Constituent Assembly, we shall say here too: so be it. Life is the best teacher, and it will show who is right; let the peasants from one end, and we from the other, resolve this question. Life will compel us to draw closer in the common stream of revolutionary creativity, in the elaboration of new state forms. We must follow life, we must grant full freedom of creativity to the masses of the people. The old government, overthrown by armed uprising, wanted to settle the land question with the help of the unchanged old tsarist bureaucracy. But instead of settling the question, the bureaucracy only fought against the peasants. The peasants have learnt something during our eight months of revolution; they themselves want to decide all questions concerning the land. That is why we declare ourselves against any amendments to this bill; we do not want any elaboration of details, because we are writing a decree, not a programme of action. Russia is vast, and local conditions in it are varied; we trust that the peasantry itself will be able, better than we, to resolve the question correctly, as it should be resolved. Whether it is in our spirit, or in the spirit of the SR programme, is not the essence. The essence is that the peasantry should have the firm assurance that there are no more landowners in the countryside, that the peasants themselves shall decide all questions, that they themselves shall arrange their own life. (Loud applause.)