V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v38; en:MT;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

Here are two notes, both devoted to the question of whether it is permitted to keep small livestock, have private vegetable gardens and poultry on state farms. I have just asked for the text of the law which was recently discussed in the Council of People’s Commissars and approved by the Central Executive Committee; this law is called the “Statute on Socialist Land Organisation and on Measures for the Transition to Socialist Agriculture”. I do not know whether the text of this law is available here. I took part in drafting it and was the reporter in the commission set up by the Central Executive Committee.{16} If my memory does not deceive me—we have many laws, so one cannot remember them all without reference, and we have passed many laws since then—this law contains a special article which says that workers on state farms are forbidden to keep private livestock and have private vegetable gardens. I shall ask to have this law found and to check up on it. (The text of the law is handed to Lenin.) I see here the text of Article 46: “None of the workers and employees has the right to keep his own livestock, poultry or vegetable gardens on the farms.” Thus it appears that not all of you were aware of this law. As a comrade from the Presidium told me, you have been having considerable argument on this question during the congress. That is not quite clear to me. I have just been given a copy of Izvestia in which this law—the “Statute on Socialist Land Organisation and on Measures for the Transition to Socialist Agriculture”—is printed. Why was this article included in the law? In order to establish collective labour on the collective farm. But if private vegetable gardens, private livestock, poultry, etc., are again allowed, it may all revert to small-scale farming, as has been the case up to now. In that case, is it worth while going to all this trouble? Is it worth while setting up a state farm? Of course, if you discuss this question, knowing the working conditions in the Petrograd Gubernia well—I was told that your congress is composed only of delegates from the Petrograd Gubernia—if, on the basis of your experience of work in the Petrograd Gubernia, which you know well, despite all the arguments in favour of collective farming, you come to the conclusion that, say, a temporary exception should be made for the Petrograd Gubernia, we shall reconsider this question. But you must try to prove to us that this exception is really necessary, that the Petrograd Gubernia has special features not to be found elsewhere, otherwise the others will ask for the same. Then you should explain whether you are recommending this measure to the government, or insisting before the government, regarding it as a temporary measure, because there can hardly be any dispute on this score—that state farms deserving the name of state farms must be based on collective labour. We have seen for many years, for many centuries, the kind of labour where the peasant worked on his own plot of land, on his own farmstead, with his own livestock, poultry, harrow, wooden plough and the rest; we know perfectly well that in Russia and in other countries this has resulted only in peasant ignorance, poverty, and the domination of the rich over the poor, because it is impossible to cope individually with the tasks confronting agriculture. It can only result in the old poverty, from which one out of a hundred, or perhaps five out of a hundred, manage to become well-to-do, while the rest live in poverty. That is why our task now is to effect the transition to collective cultivation of the land, to large-scale collective farming. But there can be no coercion on the part of the Soviet government; no law compels it. The agricultural commune is established voluntarily; the transition to collective cultivation of the land can only be voluntary; there can be no coercion whatever in this respect on the part of the workers’ and peasants’ government, and the law does not permit it. If any of you have observed such coercion, you must know that it is an abuse, a violation of the law, which we are trying with all our might to correct and shall continue to correct. The organised agricultural workers must help us; only with their own organisation will it be possible to ensure that such abuses do not occur. But state farms are a different matter. These are farms which were not in the hands of individual small owners; the Soviet government takes them over and says: we shall send there the agronomists we have, and give these farms all the remaining agricultural implements. If we succeed in ending the war and concluding peace with America, we shall obtain from there a supply of improved implements and give them to the state farms so that on the large farms collective labour may produce better, cheaper and more than before. The state farm sets itself the task of gradually teaching the rural population to work out a new system on their own, a system of collective labour, under which a handful of rich men cannot again arise and oppress the mass of the poor, as has always happened, not only in our villages but also in the most free republics. You know very well that in our villages there are still many peasant profiteers who made hundreds of thousands of rubles during the war, who are hoarding these Kerensky rubles in order to put them into circulation again and oppress the poor peasant. What means of struggle can there be against this? None other than the transition to collective farming. The agricultural commune is established voluntarily; there can be no coercion; the same applies to collective cultivation of the land. The state farm has land as the land of the whole people—you know that all private ownership of land was abolished at the demand of the vast majority of the peasants on October 26, 1917, on the first night after our Soviet revolution. This land of the whole people, which is placed at the disposal of large farms, is called state farms. Can the old small-scale farming develop again on the state farms? I think you will all agree that this cannot and must not be. If, owing to the economic conditions in the Petrograd Gubernia, its practical conditions, which you know well and which we, of course, could not take into account, and may not have known—if, owing to these conditions, after carefully and thoroughly discussing this question, you come to the conclusion that an exception can be made for the Petrograd Gubernia, that a deviation can be allowed for a certain period—then, in order that we may change our decision, try to give us as precise proofs as possible of this necessity, and I can definitely promise that we shall reconsider this question, in connection with the decision of your congress, in the Council of People’s Commissars, and then reconsider it again in the Central Executive Committee. We shall discuss whether an exception should not be made for the Petrograd Gubernia for a certain short period, under certain conditions, from Article 46, which forbids the establishment of private vegetable gardens and the keeping of small livestock, poultry, etc. If we agree that it is necessary to go over to collective farming, if all our work is directed towards this end, then, on the advice of people well acquainted with practice, we shall nevertheless make certain exceptions—we do not refuse to do this, because it is sometimes necessary to make exceptions. We hope that with such work things will go smoothly and that we shall succeed in laying the foundation of a truly socialist agriculture. (Applause.)