Date: 1917
Source: ru:PSS/v32

Source: CW vol 32

Comrades, the resolution which I have the honor to propose to your attention on behalf of the Social-Democratic faction of the Peasants' Soviet has been printed and distributed to the delegates. If not all have received it, we will take measures to have additional copies printed for distribution to all who wish them.

In a brief report, I can, of course, deal only with the main, fundamental, and most interesting questions for the peasantry and the working class. Those who are interested in the question in more detail, I could recommend the resolution of our party, the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks), published as an appendix to No. 13 of the newspaper Soldatskaya Pravda and explained repeatedly in our newspaper Pravda{76}. At present, I must confine myself to explaining the most important, the most controversial, or the most misunderstood points of my resolution and our party's program on the agrarian question. One of the first such controversial or misunderstood points is the question that was touched upon yesterday or the day before in the Main Land Committee{77} at a meeting, about which you have probably all heard or read in the newspapers of yesterday or the day before. At the meeting of the Main Land Committee, one of the representatives of our party, my comrade from the Central Committee, Comrade Smilga, was present. He proposed that the Main Land Committee should declare itself in favor of the immediate organized seizure of the landed estates by the peasantry, and for this proposal, Comrade Smilga was subjected to a whole series of objections. (Voice: "And here too.") I am told that here too many comrades will speak against this proposal. All the more reason, therefore, for me to dwell on the clarification of this point of our program, for it seems to me that the majority, if not all, of the objections made to our program are based on misunderstanding or on a wrong interpretation of our views.

What do all the resolutions of our party, all the articles in our organ, our newspaper Pravda, say? We say that all the land without exception must become the property of the whole people. This conclusion we reached on the basis of a study, especially of the peasant movement of 1905, and the statements of peasant deputies in the First and Second State Dumas{78}, where, comparatively freely, of course, many peasant deputies from all parts of Russia were able to express themselves.

All the land must be the property of the whole people. From this, it follows that, while defending the immediate and free transfer of the landed estates into the hands of the local peasants, we in no way defend the seizure of these lands as private property, we in no way defend the division of these lands. We assume that the land should be taken for one sowing by the local peasantry on the decision of the majority of the local peasant delegates. We in no way defend the idea that this land should pass into the ownership of those peasants who now take it for one sowing. All such objections, which I constantly hear and meet in the capitalist press, to our proposal, are based on a false interpretation of our views. Since we have said – and I repeat: we have said in all our resolutions – that the land must be the property of the whole people and must be transferred to it free of charge, it is clear that the final distribution of this land, the final establishment of the land system, must be carried out only by the central state power, i.e., the Constituent Assembly or the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, if such a power, a Congress of Soviets, were created by the peasant and working masses. On this point, there is no disagreement.

Disagreements begin further on, when we are told: "If so, then any immediate and free transfer of the landed estates into the hands of the peasantry will be arbitrary action." This view, which was expressed most precisely, most authoritatively, and with the greatest weight by the Minister of Agriculture, Shingarev, in his well-known telegram, we consider to be the most erroneous, the most harmful for the peasantry, the most harmful for the farmers, the most harmful for the country's food supply, and unjust. I shall allow myself to read this telegram to show what we are mainly objecting to.

"An independent solution of the land question without a general state law is inadmissible. Arbitrary action will lead to a national disaster... The solution of the land question by law is the business of the Constituent Assembly. At present, conciliation chambers of farmers and landowners have been set up locally under the rural food committees."

This is the main passage from the government's statement on this question. If you familiarize yourself with the resolution adopted by the Main Land Committee on this question yesterday or the day before{79}, and with the resolution adopted by the members of the State Duma at their conference a few days ago{80}, you will see that both these resolutions proceed from the same standpoint. They accuse the peasants who want to carry out the immediate and free transfer of the land into the hands of the peasants and its distribution by the local peasant committees, of arbitrary action, proceeding from the assumption that only a voluntary agreement between the peasants and the landowners, between the farmers and the landowners, is in accordance with the general state needs and interests. This is what we deny, and this is what we argue against.

Let us examine these objections that are made to our proposal. Usually, the objection is that the land in Russia is extremely unevenly distributed, both among small units like villages and volosts, and among large units like provinces and regions. And they say that if the local population, by a majority decision, disregarding the will of the landowners, took the land into their own hands and did so free of charge, the unevenness would remain, or there would even be a danger of its perpetuation. We reply to this that such an argument is based on a misunderstanding. The inequality of land distribution will remain in any case until the Constituent Assembly, or the central state power in general, establishes a new order finally. Until this order is established, whether the matter is decided in a peasant way or in a landlord way, whether as we want, with the immediate transfer of the land into the hands of the peasantry, or as the landlords want, who are ready to lease the land at a high price, on condition that the tenant farmer and the landlord retain their rights, whether it is done one way or another, the uneven distribution will remain. This objection to us is clearly incorrect and unfair. We say that it is necessary to create a central state power as soon as possible, not only relying on the will and decisions of the majority of the peasantry but directly expressing the opinion of this majority. There is no dispute about this. If we hear objections to the Bolsheviks, attacks on them in the capitalist press, assertions that we are anarchists, we reject this most emphatically and regard these attacks as the dissemination of malicious lies and slander.

The attacks on the Bolsheviks by capitalist newspapers, the claims that we are anarchists, we reject this most emphatically and consider these attacks as the spread of malicious lies and slander.

Anarchists are those who deny the necessity of state power, but we say that it is absolutely necessary not only for Russia now, but also for any state that would directly transition to socialism. An absolutely firm authority is undoubtedly necessary. We only want this authority to be entirely and exclusively in the hands of the majority of workers', soldiers', and peasants' deputies. This is how we differ from other parties. In no way do we deny the necessity of a firm state power; we only say that all landlords' land should pass free of charge into the hands of the peasants, according to the decision of the local peasant committee, adopted by the majority, under the condition that there is no damage to property. This is indicated in our resolution with the utmost precision. We firmly reject the objections to our view that this is self-will.

No, in our opinion, if the landlords hold onto the land for their own benefit or take payment for it, that is self-will, but if the majority of the peasantry says that the landlords' land should not remain with the landlord, that for many decades, for centuries, the peasantry has seen nothing but oppression from these landlords, landowners, this is not self-will, this is the restoration of justice, and with the restoration of justice one cannot wait. If the transfer of land to the peasants is carried out now, it is impossible to eliminate the unevenness between regions—this is indisputable, but this unevenness will not be eliminated by anyone until the Constituent Assembly convenes. And at present, Shingarev, who opposes us and in official documents denounces the supporters of our views for "self-will," if asked what he proposes against this unevenness, he could not give an answer. He proposes nothing and can propose nothing.

He says—"voluntary agreement between peasants and landlords." What does this mean? I will cite two key figures concerning land ownership in European Russia. These figures show that at one end of the Russian countryside stand the wealthiest landlords, including the Romanovs, the wealthiest and worst landlords, and at the other end—the poorest peasants. I will cite two figures so that you can see the significance of this preaching by Shingarev, by all the landlords and capitalists. Here are these two figures: if you take the wealthiest landlords of all European Russia, it turns out that the largest, numbering less than 30,000 people, own about 70 million desyatins of land. This means more than 2,000 desyatins per person. If you take the upper echelons of the wealthy Russian landlords, regardless of class (the majority here are nobles, but there are also other landowners), there are 30,000 of them, and they have 70 million desyatins! And if you take the poorest peasantry according to the same 1905 census, which provides the latest data, collected uniformly across all of Russia—data that, in essence, do not deserve much trust, as any statistics collected by tsarist officials under the tsar, but still provide the most approximate and comparable figures—if you take the poorest peasantry, we get 10 million households and they have about 70–75 million desyatins of land. This means: one has over 2,000 desyatins, and the other—7.5 desyatins per household! And they say, it would be self-will if the peasants did not go for a voluntary agreement. What does this "voluntary agreement" mean? It means that the landlords might give up the land for a good rental fee, but they will not give it to anyone for free. Is this fair? No, it is not fair. Is it beneficial for the peasant population? No, it is not beneficial. How the final land ownership will be established is a matter for the future central authority, but now, immediately, the landlords' land must pass into the hands of the peasantry without redemption, under the condition of organized seizure. Minister Chernov in the Main Land Committee, objecting to my comrade Smilga, said that "organized seizure"—these are two words that cancel each other out: if it is a seizure, then it is unorganized, and if it is organized, then it is not a seizure. I think this criticism is incorrect. I think that if the peasantry makes a decision by a majority in a village or volost, in a district, in a province—and in some provinces, if not all, peasant congresses have established local authorities representing the interests and will of the majority, authorities representing the will of the population, i.e., the majority of farmers—once such an authority is established locally, its decision is the decision of the authority that the peasants will recognize. This is the authority to which the local peasant population cannot help but have full respect, for there is no doubt that this freely elected authority decrees that the landlords' land must immediately pass into the hands of the peasantry. Let the peasant know that he is taking the landlords' land, let him, if he pays, pay into the peasant, district treasuries, let him know that this money will go to improve agriculture, roads, and so on. Let him know that he is not taking his own land, nor the landlords', but the land of the people, which the Constituent Assembly will finally dispose of. Therefore, from the very beginning of the revolution, from the moment the first land committee was established, there should be no rights of the landlord over the land, and no monetary claims should be made for this land.

Our fundamental contradiction with our opponents lies in the understanding of what order and law are. Until now, it has been viewed that order and law are what is convenient for the landlords and officials, but we assert that order and law are what is convenient for the majority of the peasantry. And until there is an All-Russian Congress of Soviets, until there is a Constituent Assembly, any local authority—district committees, provincial committees—is the highest order and law! We call self-will the situation where one landlord, based on old, centuries-old rights, demands a "voluntary" agreement with three hundred peasant families, each having, on average, 7.5 desyatins! We say: "let decisions be made by the majority; we want the peasants to receive the landlords' lands right now, without losing a single month, a single week, a single day!"

They object to us: "if the peasants start seizing the land now, then perhaps the wealthier ones, who have livestock, tools, etc., will seize it; therefore, will this not be dangerous from the point of view of the poorest peasantry?" Comrades, I must dwell on this argument because our party, in all our resolutions, programs, and appeals to the people, declares: "we are the party of hired workers and the poorest peasants; we wish to protect their interests; through them and only through them, through these classes, can humanity emerge from the horrors into which this war of the capitalists has plunged it."

Therefore, to such objections, that our decisions do not correspond to the interests of the poorest peasants, we pay very close attention and invite you to pay special attention to them, for these objections touch on the very essence of the matter, the very root of the question. After all, the very essence of the matter lies in how the interests of the hired workers, urban and rural, the interests of the poorest peasants, can be defended in the ongoing revolution, in the ongoing state transformation of Russia, how their interests can and should be defended against the interests of the landlords or rich peasants—the same capitalists. Of course, this is the crux of the matter, the whole essence of it! And so, they object to us that if we recommend immediate seizure to the peasants, then those who have tools, livestock, will seize first, and the poor will be left with nothing. I ask you, will a voluntary agreement with the landlords help?

If we urge the peasants to seize immediately, then those who have tools, livestock will seize first, while the poor will be left with nothing. I ask you, would a voluntary agreement with the landlords help?

You know perfectly well that landlords are reluctant to lease land to peasants who do not have a penny in their pocket, and, on the contrary, they resort to "voluntary" agreements when they are promised a good payment. The landlords have not given away their lands for free so far; as if no one in Russia had noticed this.

If we talk about a voluntary agreement with the landlords, it means greatly strengthening, increasing, and consolidating the privileged, preferential position, the advantages enjoyed by the rich peasants, because the rich peasants can certainly pay the landlords, and for any landlord, a rich peasant is a solvent person. The landlord knows that he can pay and that he can be made to pay, and therefore, in such "voluntary" deals with the landlords, precisely the rich peasants gain more than the poor. On the other hand, if there is an opportunity to provide immediate assistance to the poor peasantry, then only through the measure I propose, namely: the land should immediately pass to the peasants for free.

The landlord's property was and remains the greatest injustice. Free possession of this land by the peasants, if it is by the majority, is not self-will, but the restoration of right. This is our point of view, and this is why we consider the argument that the poorest peasantry would lose out from this to be a blatant injustice. A "voluntary" agreement—only Shingarev could call it a "voluntary" agreement—if one landlord has 2000 desyatinas, and 300 peasants have 7.5 desyatinas each on average. To call this agreement voluntary is to laugh at the peasant. This is not a voluntary agreement, but one forced upon the peasantry, forced until every peasant volost, provincial, district, and All-Russian Council declares that landlord property is a great injustice, the abolition of which cannot wait even an hour or a minute.

Ownership of the land must be public, and it must be established by the state-wide authority. Until it is convened, the local authorities, I repeat once again, take the landlord's land, and they should do this by organized majority. It is false if the newspapers shout that there is chaos in Russia! It is false, there is more order in the countryside than before, because decisions are made by majority; there were almost no acts of violence against the landlords; cases of injustice and violence against the landlords are completely isolated; they are negligible and throughout Russia do not exceed the number of cases of violence that occurred before.

Now I will touch on another argument that I have heard and discussed in our newspaper Pravda in connection with the immediate transfer of lands into the hands of the peasantry[11].

This argument is that if the peasants are advised to immediately take the landlord's land into their own hands for free, it will cause dissatisfaction, irritation, fear, and perhaps even outrage among the soldiers at the front, who might say: "if the peasants take the land now, and we have to stay at the front, then we will be left without land." Perhaps the soldiers would all move from the front, and chaos and anarchy would ensue. To this, we respond that this objection does not at all touch the main issue: whether the land is taken for payment, by agreement with the landlords, or by decision of the peasant majority, the soldiers will remain at the front as long as the war lasts, and, of course, they will remain at the front and cannot return to the village. Why, then, should the soldiers at the front not fear that the landlords, under the guise of a voluntary agreement, will impose unfavorable conditions, why should they fear what the peasantry decides by majority against the landlords? It is incomprehensible! Why should a soldier at the front trust the landlord, a "voluntary" agreement with the landlord? I understand when parties of landlords and capitalists say this, but for a Russian soldier at the front to look at it this way, I do not believe. If there is a "voluntary" agreement with the landlord, the soldier will not call this order, he will not trust it, he will rather see it as the continuation of the old landlord disorder.

The soldier will have more trust if he is told: the land passes to the people, local peasants lease and pay rent not to the landlord, but contribute to their committee for public needs, for the same soldier's front, but not to the landlord. If this is decided by majority, then the soldier at the front will learn that there can be no more "voluntary" agreements with the landlords, that the landlords are equal citizens, whom no one wants to offend. The land is the property of the whole people—it means it belongs to the landlord too, but not on the basis of the privileges of the nobility, but as to any citizen. There should be no privileges for the landlord-landowners from the day the tsarist power, the power of the tsar, who was the largest landlord and oppressor of the masses, was overthrown. With the establishment of freedom, the landlord's power must be considered overthrown once and for all. From this view, the soldier at the front will not lose at all, but, on the contrary, he will have much more trust in the state power and calm confidence for his home, that his family will not be wronged, abandoned.

There remains yet another argument that has been put forward against our proposal. The argument is that if the peasants immediately seized the landlord's land, such an immediate, poorly prepared seizure might lead to a deterioration in the cultivation of the land, perhaps the sowing would be worse. I must say that the power of the majority, the state-wide authority, has not yet been created, the peasants have not yet gained enough trust in themselves and have not lost trust in the landlords and capitalists; I think that with each day we are approaching this, with each day the peasantry loses trust in the old state power and realizes that the government in Russia should be composed of peasant, soldier, worker, and other elected representatives and no one else; I think that every day brings us closer to this time, not because some parties advise it: millions of people will never listen to the advice of parties if these advices do not coincide with what their own life experience teaches them. We are rapidly approaching the time when there will be no power in Russia except the power of peasant and worker elected representatives. And when I am told that, perhaps, the immediate seizure of lands will lead to the land being poorly cultivated, the sowing will be bad, then I must say that due to their oppression, due to centuries of oppression by the landlords, the cultivation by our peasants is very poor. Of course, there is a terrible crisis in Russia, which has hit it, as well as all the warring countries, and Russia cannot be saved unless it moves to better cultivation, to the greatest economy of human labor. But now, for the first sowing, can a "voluntary" agreement with the landlords change anything? What then? Will the landlords observe the cultivation of the land better, will the peasants sow the land worse, if they know that they are sowing not on the landlord's, but on the public land? That if they pay, it is not to the landlord, but into their peasant funds? This is such nonsense that I am surprised when I hear such arguments; it is completely unbelievable and entirely a trick of the landlords.

Do they pay, then not to the landlord, but into their own peasant funds? This is such nonsense that I am surprised when I hear such arguments; it is completely incredible and entirely a trick of the landlords.

The landlords have understood that it is no longer possible to rule with the stick, this they have understood well, and they are moving to a method of rule which is a novelty for Russia, but in Western Europe, in the countries of Western Europe, has existed for a long time. That it is no longer possible to rule with the stick, we have shown by two revolutions, and in the countries of Western Europe, this was shown by dozens of revolutions. These revolutions teach the landlords and capitalists, they teach them that the people must be ruled by deception, flattery; one must adapt, pin a red badge on one's jacket, and although they may be usurers, say: "We are revolutionary democrats, please, just wait and we will do everything for you." Such an argument, that the peasants will sow the land worse now if they are sowing not on the landlord's land, but on the people's land, is precisely a mockery of the peasants, an attempt to preserve dominance over them through deception.

I repeat, there should be no landlord property at all; possession is not yet ownership, possession is a temporary measure and possession changes every year. A peasant who receives a piece of land in lease cannot consider the land his. The land is neither his nor the landlord's, but the people's. I repeat, from this, the sowing of the fields this year, this spring, cannot worsen. This assumption is so monstrous and unlikely that I tell you only one thing, that one must beware of the landlords, not trust them, not let oneself be deceived by kind words and promises. One must remember that the decision of the majority of peasants, who are quite cautious in their decisions, is a legitimate and state-wide decision. In this respect, one can rely on the peasants. For example, I have a resolution of the Penza peasants, which from the first point to the last is permeated with extraordinary caution: the peasants do not undertake any immediate transformation for the whole of Russia, but they do not want to drive themselves into unbearable bondage, and in this they are right. The greatest bondage was the landlord's and remains the landlord's, the bondage of landowners and oppressors. Therefore, not a single week, not a single hour, can be wasted in eliminating this bondage, but every seizure must be organized, not for private ownership, not for division, but only for the common use of the people's land.

This question of seizure I could conclude by answering that the objections to our proposal, on the part of the landlords and capitalists, are based on deception, and on the part of non-landlords, non-capitalists, on the part of those who wish to defend the interests of the working people, are based on misunderstanding, on excessive trust in what the capitalists and landlords falsely say against us. If one examines our arguments, it turns out that the just demand for the immediate abolition of landlord property, as well as the transfer of land ownership to the people, cannot be realized until a central state power is convened, while the transfer of land possession to the peasants themselves, right there, locally, we most emphatically advise, so that not the slightest disorder is allowed. We give this advice in our resolutions, and perhaps this advice is superfluous, because even without it, the peasants carry it out.

I will move on to the second question, on which the most attention should be focused, the question of how we would like and how, in the interests of the working masses, we should proceed with the land when it becomes the property of the people, when private property is abolished. This hour is very close in Russia. In fact, the power of the landlord class, if not destroyed, has been undermined. When the land is in the possession of all the peasants, when there are no more landlords, what to do, how to distribute the land? On this question, it seems to me, it is necessary to establish some general view, a fundamental view, because, of course, local management always remains with the peasantry. In a democratic state, it cannot be otherwise; this is so clear that it is unnecessary to talk about it. But when the question arises of how to ensure that the land goes to the working people, we say: we want to defend the interests of the hired workers and the poorest peasants. This is considered the task of our party of Russian Social-Democrats (Bolsheviks). We ask ourselves: if we say that the land will go to the people, is this the same as saying that the land will go to the working people? And we give the answer: no, it is not the same! If we say that the land will go to the people, this means that landlord property will be abolished; this means that all the land belongs to the entire people; this means – whoever takes the land, takes it as a lease from the entire people. If this order is established, it means – there will be no distinction in land ownership, all the land is equal, as the peasants often say: "all the old fences, partitions of the land will fall, the land will be divided: there will be free land and free labor."

Does this mean that the land is transferred to all the working people? No, it does not. Free labor on free land – this means that all the old forms of land ownership are nullified, there is no other form of land ownership except state-wide; each person leases the land from the state; there is a general state authority, the authority of all workers and peasants; from this authority, one peasant, as a lessee, takes [the land]; between the state and the peasant, there are no intermediaries; everyone takes on equal terms; this is free labor on free land.

Does this mean that the land is transferred to all the working people? No, it does not. Land cannot be eaten, and to farm, one needs tools, livestock, equipment, money; without money, without tools, one cannot farm. Therefore, when you establish such an order that there will be free labor on free land, no landlord land ownership, no ranks on the land, but only public property and free lessees of the land from the entire state. When you establish this, this is not a transfer of the land to all the working people, this only means that each owner will freely manage the land; whoever wants to, will freely take the state-wide land. This will be a big step forward compared to tsarist, landlord Russia. This will be a big step forward, because tsarist, landlord Russia was a Russia where 70 million desyatins were given to 30,000 Markovs, Romanovs, and similar landlords; this will be a Russia where there will be free labor on free land. This is already being done in many places. Russia has already taken a step forward against tsarist, landlord Russia, but this is not a transfer of the land to the working people, this is a transfer of the land to the owner, because if the land is state-wide and those who want to farm on it will take it, this is not enough, wanting to farm is not enough, one also needs the ability, but ability alone is not enough. Every day laborer and casual worker has the ability, what he lacks is livestock, tools, capital, and therefore, no matter how much you decree, no matter how much you say, we will not establish free labor on free land. Even if we hung signs in every village administration about free land, the situation would not improve for the working people, just as in the Western European republics, where prisons are inscribed with "liberty, equality, and fraternity," the prisons do not cease to be prisons. If on a factory, the words "liberty, equality, and fraternity" are written, as in America, the factory does not cease to be a penal colony for workers and a paradise for capitalists.

from this, they do not cease to be prisons. If the words "freedom, equality, and fraternity" are written on a factory, as in America, the factory does not cease to be a penal colony for workers and a paradise for capitalists.

Therefore, now we must think about what comes next, how to achieve not only free labor, which is a step forward, but this is still not a step towards protecting the interests of the working people; it is a step towards liberation from the predation of the landowners, from the exploitation by the landowners, liberation from Markovs, from the police, etc., but it is not a step towards protecting the interests of the working people, because without livestock, without tools, without capital, a poor, destitute peasant cannot manage the land. This is why I am very skeptical about the question of so-called two standards or two norms, the labor standard and the subsistence standard. I know that in the populist parties, there are always discussions and explanations about these standards. I know that these parties stand on the position of the necessity of establishing these two standards, these two measures: the labor standard, the amount of land that a family cannot cultivate more than, and the subsistence standard, the amount of land less than which would mean starvation. I say that I am very skeptical about this question of standards or measures and think that this is a bureaucratic plan, from which no benefit will come, which will not be able to enter life, even if you adopt this plan here. This is the whole point! This plan cannot provide any significant relief in the situation of hired workers and the poorest peasants; this plan, even if you recognize it, will remain on paper as long as capitalism prevails. This plan does not help us find the right path for the transition from capitalism to socialism.

When talking about these two measures, these two standards, they imagine things as if only land and citizens existed, as if nothing else existed in the world. If this were the case, then this plan would be good. But the situation is different: the power of capital, the power of money exists, and without money, on the freest land, with whatever "measures" of farming, there can be no economy, because as long as money remains, hired labor remains. And this means that wealthy peasants, of whom there are no fewer than one million families in Russia, oppress and exploit hired workers and will continue to oppress them even on "free" land. These wealthy peasants constantly, not as an exception but as a general rule, resort to hiring workers, annual, seasonal, daily, that is, to the exploitation of the poorest peasants, proletarians. And alongside this, there are millions and millions of horseless peasants who cannot exist without selling their labor power, without going into seasonal work, etc. As long as the power of money, the power of capital remains, whatever "norms" you establish, they will at best be unsuitable for life because they do not take into account the main factor, that property in tools, in livestock, in money, is distributed unevenly; they do not take into account that there is hired labor, which is subject to exploitation. This is the basic fact of present-day Russian life, it cannot be bypassed, and if we establish any "measures," life will bypass them, and the "measures" will remain on paper. For this reason, in order to protect the interests of the destitute and poorest peasants in this greatest transformation of Russia, which you are now carrying out and which undoubtedly you will carry out, when private ownership of land will be abolished, when a step forward will be taken towards the approach of a better future, socialist; in order to protect the interests of workers and the poorest peasants in this great transformation, which you have just begun, which will go far ahead and which, without exaggeration, will undoubtedly be carried out in Russia, because there is no force that could prevent it; in order to protect the interests of workers and the poorest peasants, it is impossible to go the way of establishing norms or measures, another path must be sought.

I and my comrades in the party, on behalf of which I have the honor to speak, we know only two such paths to defend the interests of agricultural hired workers and the poorest peasants, and we bring these two paths to the attention of the Peasant Council and recommend them.

The first path is the organization of agricultural hired workers and the poorest peasants. We want and advise that in every peasant committee, in every volost, district, province, a separate faction or a separate group of agricultural hired workers and the poorest peasants should be formed, those who must ask themselves: if tomorrow the land becomes public, and it will become so unconditionally, because the people want it, what shall we do? We, who have no livestock, no tools, where will we get them? How shall we farm? How should we defend our interests? How should we take care that the land, which will be public, which will truly be public, does not fall into the hands of only the owners? If it falls into the hands of those who will have enough livestock and tools, will we gain much? Is this for what we carried out this great revolution? Is this what we needed?

The land will be "of the people," but this is not enough to protect the interests of agricultural hired workers. The main path does not consist in setting a "measure" for individual land ownership from here, from above, or by the peasant committee. These measures will not help while capital dominates, and these measures will not lead out of the dominance of capitalism. In order to escape from the yoke of capitalism, in order for the public land to pass into the hands of the working people, there is only one main path: the path of organizing agricultural hired workers, who will be guided by their own experience, their own observations, their distrust of what the usurers tell them, although they appear with red ribbons and call themselves "revolutionary democracy."

Only independent local organization, only learning from one's own experience will teach the poorest peasants. And this experience will not be easy; we cannot and do not promise that milk and honey will flow. No, the landowners will be overthrown because the people want it, but capitalism remains. It is much harder to overthrow it, and its overthrow leads along a different path. This is the path of independent, separate organizations of agricultural hired workers and the poorest peasants. This is what our party puts forward first and foremost.

Only from this path can we expect a gradual, difficult, but sure transition of the land into the hands of the working people.

of the working people and the poorest peasants. This is what our party puts first.

Only from this path can we expect a gradual, difficult, but sure transition of the land into the hands of the toilers.

The second step that our party recommends is to turn each large estate, for example, each of the 30,000 largest landowner estates in Russia, as quickly as possible into model farms for joint cultivation by agricultural workers and scientific agronomists, using the landowner's livestock, tools, etc. Without this joint cultivation under the guidance of the Councils of agricultural workers, it will not be possible for all the land to be in the hands of the toilers. Of course, joint cultivation is a difficult thing; of course, if anyone imagined that such joint cultivation could be decreed and imposed from above, it would be madness, because the centuries-old habit of individual farming cannot disappear at once, because money is required, adaptation to new living conditions is required. If these councils, this opinion regarding joint cultivation, common inventory, common livestock with the best use of tools in conjunction with agronomists; if these councils were the invention of individual parties, it would be bad, because changes in the life of the people do not occur on the advice of some party, because tens of millions of people do not go to revolution on the order of parties, and such a change would be a much greater revolution than the overthrow of the imbecile Nicholas Romanov. I repeat, tens of millions of people do not go to revolution on command, but go when there is no way out, when the people find themselves in an impossible situation, when the general pressure, the determination of tens of millions of people breaks all the old barriers and, indeed, is capable of creating a new life. If we advise such a measure, advising to approach it cautiously, saying that it has become necessary, then we derive this not only from our program, from our socialist teaching, but also because, being socialists and observing the life of the peoples of Western Europe, we have come to this conclusion. We know that there have been many revolutions there that created democratic republics; we know that in America in 1865, the slave-owners were defeated and then hundreds of millions of acres were distributed to peasants for free or almost for free, and yet capitalism prevails there more than anywhere else, and oppresses the working masses just as, if not more, than in other countries. This is the socialist teaching, this is the observation of other peoples, which has led us to the firm conviction that without joint cultivation of the land by agricultural workers with the application of the best machines and under the guidance of scientifically educated agronomists, there is no way out from under the yoke of capitalism. But if we relied only on the experience of the states of Western Europe, our cause for Russia would be bad, because the Russian people are only capable of taking a serious step on this new path in their mass when extreme need arises. And we say: precisely such a time has come when this extreme need is knocking at the door for the entire Russian people. This extreme need consists in the fact that it is impossible to manage as before. If we continue to sit in small farms, even as free citizens on free land, we are still threatened with inevitable ruin because the destruction is approaching every day, every hour. Everyone talks about this; it is a fact caused not by the evil will of individuals, but by the world predatory war, caused by capitalism.

The war has destroyed a mass of people, the whole world is drenched in blood, the whole world the war has brought to ruin. This is no exaggeration; no one can guarantee the next day; everyone talks about this. Take the "Izvestia of the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies" – there everyone says: capitalists resort to Italian strikes and lockouts. This means: there is no work, and capitalists arrange mass dismissals of workers. This is how this criminal war has brought not only Russia, but all countries, to this state.

This is why we say: farming on separate plots, even "free labor on free land" – this is not a way out of the terrible crisis, out of the general destruction, this is not salvation. General labor conscription is necessary, the greatest economy of human labor is needed, an extraordinarily strong and firm power is needed, which would be able to carry out this general labor conscription; it cannot be carried out by officials, it can only be carried out by the Councils of workers', soldiers', and peasants' deputies, because this is the people themselves, the masses of the people, because this is not an official power, because they, knowing the entire peasant life from top to bottom, can establish labor conscription, can establish such protection of human labor, so that the peasant's labor is not squandered, and the transition to joint cultivation, thus, would take place gradually and carefully. This is a difficult task, but it is necessary to move to joint cultivation in large model farms; without this, it is impossible to get out of the destruction, out of the truly desperate situation in which Russia finds itself, and it would be a great mistake if anyone thought that such a great transformation in the life of the people could be done with one blow. No, this requires the greatest effort, requires the resolve and energy of each individual peasant and worker in their own place in the work they know, in the production they have been carrying out for decades. Such a thing cannot be done by any decree, but such a thing must be done, because the predatory war has brought all of humanity to the brink of destruction, tens of millions of lives have perished, even more will perish from this terrible war if we do not strain all our forces, if all the organizations of the Councils of workers' and peasants' deputies do not make a common, decisive move towards joint cultivation of the land without capitalists, without landowners. Only this path will give a real transition of the land into the hands of the toilers. (Applause.)

Published on May 25, 1917, in the newspaper "Izvestia of the All-Russian Council of Peasants' Deputies" No. 14; in December 1917 – in the brochure: N. Lenin. "Materials on the Agrarian Question." Petersburg, published by "Priboi"

Printed from the text of the brochure, collated with the newspaper text