following the abolition of private ownership of land, the [almost] complete expropriation of the landlords and the implementation of the law on the socialisation of the land, which recognises the preferability of large-scale socialised farming, the main task of the Soviet government is to find and test in practice the most expedient and practical transitional measures in this direction.

The main line and guiding principle of the R.C.P.’s agrarian policy in the present state of affairs continues to be the effort to rely on the proletarian and semi-proletarian elements of the countryside. They must, first and foremost, be organised into an independent force, they must be brought closer to the urban proletariat and wrested from the influence of the rural bourgeoisie and petty-proprietor interests. The organisation of the Committees of Poor Peasants was one of the steps along this path; the organisation of Party cells in the countryside, re-elections to the Soviets of Deputies with the removal of the kulaks, the creation of a special type of trade union of the proletarians and semi-proletarians of the countryside—these and similar measures must be carried out undeviatingly.

In relation to the kulaks, the rural bourgeoisie, the policy of the R.C.P. consists in a resolute struggle against their exploiting proclivities, in suppressing their resistance to Soviet, socialist, policy.

In relation to the middle peasantry, the policy of the R.C.P. consists in a cautious attitude towards them; they must be separated from the kulaks and measures of suppression must in no way be applied to them; the middle peasantry, by their class position, can be an ally of the proletarian power in the transition to socialism, or at least a neutral

element. Therefore, despite the inevitable partial failures and vacillations of the middle peasantry, we must steadfastly strive for an agreement with them, treating all their wishes with care and making concessions in determining the methods of carrying out socialist transformations. In this connection, one of the primary tasks is the struggle against the abuses of those representatives of Soviet power who, fraudulently using the title of Communist, are in fact pursuing not a communist, but a bureaucratic, high-handed policy, and the ruthless expulsion of such people, while establishing stricter control both through the trade unions and by other means.

As regards the measures for the transition to communist farming, the R.C.P. will test in practice three main measures which have already arisen from life: Soviet farms, agricultural communes and societies (as well as artels) for the common cultivation of the land, seeing to their wider and more correct application, and especially to the methods of developing the voluntary participation of the peasants in these new forms of co-operative farming and to the organisation of the working peasantry for the exercise of control from below and of comradely discipline.

In the sphere of food policy, the R.C.P. upholds the consolidation and development of the state monopoly, not rejecting the use of co-operatives and private traders or commercial employees and the application of a system of bonuses, on condition of control by the Soviet government and for the purpose of achieving the best organisation of the work.

The partial concessions which have to be made from time to time are prompted exclusively by special aggravations of need and never lead to a renunciation of the persistent effort to implement the state monopoly. In a country of small peasant farming, its implementation is very difficult; it requires prolonged work and the practical testing of a number of transitional measures which lead by various ways to the goal, i.e., to the universal organisation and correct functioning of producer-consumer communes with the transfer of all food surpluses to the state.

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Written in February, before the 25th, 1919

First published in 1930

in *Lenin Miscellany XIII*

Published according to the manuscript