Remarks on Discussion of the Resolution on the Agrarian Question. April 28 (May 11)
Реплики при обсуждении резолюции по аграрному вопросу. 28 апреля (11 мая)
Date: 1917-04-28 (May 11)
Source: PSS vol 31
Translated by: AI (Claude)

1

Comrades, it seems to me that comrade Angarsky has a number of contradictions. I am talking about the material basis of the striving for nationalization. The peasants have no idea of nationalization whatsoever. I am saying that there exist conditions of the all-Russian and international market, and this is expressed in high prices for grain. Every peasant sees, knows and feels the fluctuation of these prices. And with these conditions, with these prices, the economy must be coordinated. I am talking about the fact that the old land ownership and the new economic structure have diverged absolutely, and this divergence explains why the peasants are rushing forward. The peasant is a proprietor, says comrade Angarsky. He is completely right. Stolypin wanted to build a change in land relations on this, he did everything possible, and yet he did not succeed, because changing these relations is impossible without revolutionary breaking. Here is the material basis of the peasants' striving for nationalization of land, with their complete ignorance of what nationalization is. In the peasant-proprietor there exists an instinctive striving to say that land is God's, because it is impossible to live in the old conditions of land ownership. What comrade Angarsky proposes is a complete misunderstanding. The second paragraph says that peasant land ownership from bottom to top, lengthwise and crosswise, is entangled in old semi-feudal ties and relations. But is he talking about landlord lands? No. Comrade Angarsky's amendment is based on a misunderstanding. He attributed to me what is not here, things about which peasants don't even have a notion. The world situation peasants know by prices for grain and for products of mass consumption, and if a railroad passes through the village, then the peasant cognizes this in his own economy. It is impossible to live in the old way, that's what he feels, and he expresses this feeling in a radical demand: down with all the old land ownership. The peasant wants to be a proprietor, but on land partitioned in a new way, so that he manages land, the ownership of which would be determined by his present needs, and not those prescribed to him by any officials whatsoever. The peasant knows this well, but of course expresses it differently, and this constitutes the material basis of the striving for nationalization of land.

First published in 1921 in the Collected Works of N. Lenin (V. Ulyanov), volume XIV, part II
Printed from the typed copy of the protocol record

2

Solovyev believes that at the head of the resolution it is necessary to indicate the most essential thing: that the Party demands nationalization of land.

The amendment is not very essential. I placed nationalization in third place because the first should be initiative and revolutionary action, and nationalization is a law expressing the will of the people. I speak against it.

First published in 1925 in the book "Petrograd City-Wide and All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP (b) in April 1917"
Printed from the typed copy of the protocol record