# AMENDMENTS TO THE AGRARIAN SECTION OF THE PROGRAM

Source: ru:LS/v2

LENIN.
AMENDMENTS TO THE AGRARIAN SECTION OF THE PROGRAM.
Against = for leaving it in its original form.
1) G. V. [Plekhanov] — 2) P. B. [Akselrod] — 3) V. I. [Zasulich] — 4)
Berg.
[Martov] — 5)
A. N. [Potresov] — 6)
Frei
[Lenin] — for.
b) NOTE BY V. I. ZASULICH.
I am voting for this 3), not merely for its deletion. I immediately understood that the redemption payment should not be taken from the peasants, but from state funds; however, one could further restrict it: granting land parcels as compensation only when it is impossible to recover from the previous owner and when even the parcel constitutes a substantial portion of the buyer’s property (meaning no compensation for the wealthy). After all, we teach that the development of capitalism leads inevitably to greater calamities. So, is it our task to demand confiscation of peasant lands in favor of large tenant farmers? We cannot adopt such programs—this resembles Krivenkov’s and Mikhailovsky’s “aid to dishonesty.”
c) RESPONSE BY G. V. PLEKHANOV.
You have forgotten that the redemption payment is to be made from special sums collected as a special tax on large landowning nobles. I vote for retaining the redemption payment under the condition just mentioned.
d) REPLY BY LENIN.
The issue is not what meaning the author of remark 4) attributes, but WHAT IS INCLUDED in program item 5).
e) That is, the article “The Agrarian Program of Russian Social Democracy.”
2) The words of N. G. Chernyshevsky regarding the redemption payment of 1861.
3) Judging from the notes on the manuscript, V. I. Zasulich here had in mind the proposal contained in point 5 of Lenin’s suggestion.
4) That is, Plekhanov.
f) The significance of this reply becomes clear if we take into account the following circumstance. When proposing his amendment on the redemption payment, Vladimir Ilyich was referring to the text of the minimum program formulated in Munich (document No. 5, see p. 47). That version contained nothing about a tax on large landholdings.
By contrast, Plekhanov, in his response, referred to the text drafted in Zurich, where the phrase “at the expense of large noble landownership” was first inserted. Incidentally, this indicates that at the time Vladimir Ilyich wrote his amendment, he had not yet seen the Zurich text.