The Land Revolution in Russia

Front matter

Being a Speech on the Land Question by LENIN

Together with the TWO FUNDAMENTAL LAND DECREES OF THE RUSSIAN SOVIET REPUBLIC.

| THE INDEPENDENT LABOUR PARTY, 8 and 9 Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C.4. | 6d.

Foreword

FOREWORD.

Lenin's Speech

LENIN'S SPEECH At the First All-Russian Congress of Land Departments (of Soviets), Committees of the Poor, and Communes.

Comrades,

The very composition of the present Congress indicates, in my opinion, the important change and the great step forward which has been made by us, the Soviet Republic, in the domain of Socialist reconstruction, especially in its agrarian aspect, the most important for our country. The present Congress unites in its body representatives of the Land Departments of the Soviets, of the committees of the Poor, and of agricultural communes; and this unity show short space of one year, has already gone far in the task of reconstructing those relations of society which always are hardest to alter, which in all previous revolutions more than anything else obstructed the path of Socialism, and which it is necessary to reconstruct most radically of all, in order to guarantee the victory of Socialism.

The first stage in the development of our Revolution after November was mainly devoted to the task of crushing the common enemy of the whole peasant class—the landowners.

You all know well, comrades, that even the March revolution, the revolution of the bourgeoisie and of the party of "compromise," promised the peasants this victory over the landowners. But it did not keep its promise. Only the November Revolution, only the victory of the working class in the towns, only the authority of the Soviets, made it possible really to free the whole of Russia, from end to end, from the mischievous heritage of our former serfdom—from the economic exploitation of the peasantry by the landowning bourgeoisie, whose yoke pressed impartially on all peasants without distinction.

The peasants—all sections of them—could not but rise—and actually did rise—in this war against the landowners. The struggle allied the poorest peasant class, which does not live by the exploitation of hired labour, with the more prosperous and even with the richest section of the peasantry, which cannot exist without hired labour.

So long as our Revolution was still preoccupied with this problem, so long as we had still to strain every nerve to the end that an independent peasant movement, assisted by the workers in the towns, might really sweep away and finally destroy the power of the landowners—so long our Revolution remained essentially the work of the entire peasantry, and for that reason could not free itself from its bourgeois setting. It did not as yet touch the stronger, the more up-to-date enemy of all workers—that is, Capitalism. It threatened, consequently, to remain half-finished, just as the majority of revolutions had remained in Western Europe, where a temporary alliance of urban workers with all the peasantry succeeded in overthrowing the Monarch, in sweeping away the remnants of medievalism, and in destroying, more or less completely, the great estates or the power of the landowners, but never succeeded in tearing up the foundations themselves of that power—viz., Capitalism.

It was to this task, much more important and much more difficult, that our Revolution began to turn its energies since summer and autumn of this year. A wave of counter-revolutionary revolts arose in the summer of this year, when all the elements that stand for exploitation and oppression in Russian life joined the campaign started against Russia by the Western European Imperialists and by their Czecho-Slovak hirelings; and it was this wave which awakened new activities and new life in the village. The risings united in practice, in a desperate struggle against Soviet power, the European Imperialists, their mercenaries, the Czecho-Slovaks, and all that remained in Russia on the side of the Capitalists and of the landlords; and, in their train, the village vultures revolted also. The village then ceased to be homogeneous. In that community, which had fought as one man against the landlords, two camps were now formed: the camp of the labouring, the poorest peasants, who, together with the town workers, continued resolutely on the path towards the realisation of Socialism, and were passing from the war against landlords to the war against Capitalism, against the power of money, against exploitation for selfish ends of the great agrarian transformation; and the camp of the richer peasants. This struggle, which finally, definitely freed the Revolution from the propertied and exploiting classes, it was which shunted our Revolution, in all its entirety, on to the Socialist track on which the workers of the towns had firmly and resolutely intended to set it in November, but in which they would have never been able victoriously to guide it if they had not found conscious and united support in the villages.

That, then, is the significance of the Revolution which took place this summer and autumn in the most obscure corners of rural Russia—a Revolution that was not noisy, was not so patently visible and arresting as the November Revolution of last year, but which has a still greater, immeasurably more profound and important meaning.

The formation in the villages of the committees of the poor was the turning point, and showed that the working class of the towns, which united last November with all the peasants for the purpose of destroying the chief enemy of free, labouring and Socialist Russia—the landowners—had advanced from that problem to another, much more difficult, historically much higher, and really Socialistic. This was to stimulate in the villages, too, the understanding that the great agrarian Revolution, the November proclamation abolishing private property in land, and socialising it, would inevitably remain a mere paper reform if the town workers did not awaken to life the village proletariat, the village poor, the labouring peasantry, which constitutes the enormous majority, which, in common with the "middle" peasantry, does not exploit hired labour, and is not interested in such exploitation, and which, therefore, is capable of advanc has now done so—from a joint struggle against the landowners to a joint proletarian struggle against Capital itself, against the exploiters who rely on the power of money. In other words, having liberated Russia from the yoke of the landowners, it has now proceeded to the creation of a Socialist commonwealth.

This step, comrades, was the most difficult of all. Inevitable failure in it was the prospect held out to us by all those who doubted the Socialist character of our Revolution; and with its fate, indeed, is bound up at the present moment the fate of Socialist reconstruction in the villages. The formation of committees of the poor; the growth of a network of such committees through the length and breadth of Russia; their transformation, already begun, into fully competent village councils of delegates (Soviets), charged with the duty of laying foundations of Soviet reconstruction in the village on the basis of all authority for those who work—these are our best guarantees that we have not ended our labours at the point where the usual middle-class democratic revolutions of the West ended theirs. Having destroyed the Monarchy and the medieval power of the landowners, we now come to the problem of a genuinely Socialist régime. This problem is most difficult in the villages, but at the same time most important and most fruitful of all. If we have succeeded in the village itself in awakening class-consciousness amongst the labouring peasantry; if, by the very agency of the Capitalist revolts, its interests have been separated from those of the Capitalist class; if the labouring peasants, in their committees of the poor and their reconstructed Soviets, are becoming more and more closely united with the workers of the towns—then we have the only, the truest, the best pledge that the work of Socialist reconstruction in Russia has been put at last on a firm footing. It has acquired a foundation in the enormous mass of the agricultural village population.

There can be no doubt that, in a peasant country like Russia, Socialist reconstruction is a very difficult problem. Beyond doubt it was comparatively easy to overthrow enemies like the Tsardom or the power of the landowners. It was possible to carry this out in the centre in a few days and throughout the country in a few weeks. But the problem we are tackling now is, of its very nature, one which can be solved only by long and stubborn effort. Here we have to fight step by step and yard by yard in the battle to secure the conquests of Socialist Russia and the communal tilling of the soil. Under no circumstances, of course, can such a change from small individual farming to communal tillage be completed all at once.

We know very well that in countries of small peasant proprietors the transition to Socialism is impossible without a whole series of gradual, preparatory stages. Recognising this, we confined ourselves to merely sweeping away and destroying the power of the landowners. The February law on socialisation of the land, by the unanimous decision, as you know, of both the Communists and of those adherents of the Soviet regime who did not share all their views, was thus both the expression of the thought and desires of the immense majority of the peasantry and a proof that the working class, the Communist Labour Party, had grasped the nature of the problem before it. Persistently and patiently, awakening by a series of gradual transitions, the class consciousness of the labouring section of the peasantry, and advancing only in proportion as that awakening progressed and the peasantry was organising by its own efforts, the working class was moving along the path to the new Socialist organisation.

We know well that such immense changes in the life of scores of millions of people, affecting the very foundations of life, as the transition from small peasant proprietorship to communal agriculture, can be effected only by prolonged effort; that, altogether, they can be realised only at the point when necessity forces men to rebuild their lives. But after the desperate and prolonged war all over the world, we plainly see the beginning of a Socialist revolution all over the world. This necessity has been created even in the most backward countries, independently of theoretical considera and Socialist doctrines—a necessity which tells us all, in a voice of authority, that we cannot go on living in the old way.

When the country has suffered such colossal ruin and collapse; when we see that this collapse is spreading all over the world, that all the culture, arts and sciences which man acquired during many centuries have been swept away in four years of this criminal, destructive war of Capitalist greed; when we see that not only Russia, but all Europe, is returning to a state of barbarism—then among the large masses of the people, and among the peasants in particular, who perhaps have suffered most in this war, there plainly arises the consciousness that extraordinary efforts are necessary, that our capacities must be strained to the utmost, if we wish to be freed from this legacy of the accursed war, which left us only ruin and misery. We cannot live as we lived before the war; and such a waste of human power and labour, as is involved in small peasant economy, cannot go on any longer. The productivity of labour and the economy of effort would be doubled and trebled in agriculture if from the present disjointed individual system we could pass to one of collective tillage.

The ruin we have inherited from the war simply does not allow us to restore the old small peasant system. Not only have the peasant masses been awakened by the war; not only has the war shown them the technical marvels that exist nowadays, and their application to the destruction of mankind; but it has prompted in them the idea that these marvels ought to be devoted, first and foremost, to the reconstruction of the most universal as well as the most backward of all industries—agriculture. Not only has there been an awakening of consciousness as to this; but people have become aware, by the monstrous horrors of the present war, of the powers which have been created by modern technical developments, how they are wasted in this most terrible, most senseless war, and how the only escape from those horrors lies through these very forces of applied science. Our bounden duty is to direct them to the end that the most backward industry, agriculture, should be put on a new track, should be rebuilt and transformed from an occupation carried on on lines of routine and tradition, as it has been for centuries, into an industry based upon the results of experimental and applied science. The war has awakened this consciousness immeasurably more than any of us can estimate. But, while doing this, it has also destroyed the possibility of continuing production on the old lines.

Those who think that after this war we can attain to a restoration of pre-war conditions, that we can restore the systems and methods of farming which prevailed hitherto, are mistaken, and every day shows them their mistake more and more clearly. The war has created such appalling ruin that small private farms have now neither working cattle, stock, nor implements. We cannot go on any longer with this criminal dissipation of labour. The toiling poorest peasantry, which made most sacrifices for the Revolution, suffered most in the war, did not take the land away from the landlords in order to give it to new vultures. Life itself is bringing that toiling peasantry face to face with the question of passing to communal tillage as the only way of restoring the civilisation ruined and broken by the war, as the only way to escape from that darkness, ignorance and oppression to which Capitalism hitherto condemned the whole mass of the rural population. It was that darkness and oppression which allowed the Capitalist to throttle Humanity during four years of war: and from it, all the workers of all countries, with revolutionary energy and determination, are making up their minds at all costs to be free.

Such, comrades, are the conditions which had to develop on a world-wide scale in order that this most difficult, and at the same time most important and fundamental reform in the work of Socialist reconstruction should become a question of practical politics—and that is what it is in Russia to-day. The formation of committees of the poor, the present congress of land sections of Soviets, of those committees of the poor, and of agri communes—all this, considered in connection with the struggle which went on in the villages during the summer and autumn of this year, shows us that class-consciousness has been awakened in the vast masses of the peasantry, and that the movement towards communal tilling of the soil is a peasant movement, and is making way among the mass of the toiling peasantry. Of course—I repeat—we must approach this greatest of transformations gradually. Here nothing can be done at one blow. But I must remind you that in the fundamental law of the land socialisation, which was agreed upon on the day following the Revolution of November 7th, and was voted at the first session of the supreme authority in the country-the Second All-Russian Congress—it is laid down, not only that private property in land is forever abolished, not only that the ownership of large estates is destroyed, but also that the stock, cattle, and implements, which pass into the posession of the people and of working associations, must also become public property, and are not to remain the private property of those associations. Further, also, in the law of Socialisation passed in February, 1918, in reply to the question of what are the aims we set before ourselves, what problems in connection with the distribution of the land we wish to solve, and what we expect the supporters of the Soviet régime, the labouring peasantry, to carry out—to this question the law, in Article 2, replies that the task before us is the development of collective, in the place of private property, farming and rural economy, as the most beneficial from the point of view of labour and productivity, and with the object of effecting a transition to a Socialistic system.

When we were voting this law, comrades, we had not yet complete agreement between the Communists and the other parties; on the contrary we were voting it at a time when in the Soviet Government there was no unity between the Communists and the Left Social-Revolutionaries. Nevertheless, on this point we arrived at a unanimous decision, to which we still adhere, albeit mindful that such a transition from individual farming to communal tilling, I repeat, cannot be accomplished all at once, and that the struggle in the towns was confronted with a simpler problem. There, against a thousand workmen, stood only the solitary Capitalist, and it did not require much labour to sweep him away. But the struggle in the villages was much more complex. At first there was a general attack of the peasants on the landowners, ending in a complete and final destruction of their power; and then a struggle within the peasantry itself, where, in the persons of the "kulaks," the exploiters, the speculators, using their surplus grain to make profits out of the hungry non-agricultural Russia, new Capitalists were arising. Here we were confronted with a new struggle; and you all know how this summer that struggle led to a whole series of risings. But even then there remained the question of the attitude of the poorest section of the toiling peasantry towards the "middle" peasantry, and here our policy was as unflinching as it had been against the landlords and the Capitalists. We do not say of the "kulak," as we do of the landlord or Capitalist, that he must be deprived of all property. We say that we must break down his resistance to such necessary measures, as, for example, the corn monopoly, which he does not observe in order to enrich himself by the speculative sale of surplus grain at a moment when the workmen and peasants of non-agricultural districts are experiencing the tortures of starvation. In the case of the "middle" peasantry our policy has always been one of alliance. They are in no way the enemies of Soviet institutions, of the proletariat, and of Socialism. They will, of course, hesitate, and will consent to come into the Socialist camp only when they see sound and unmistakeable proofs that such a course is absolutely necessary. We cannot, of course, convince this "middle" peasantry by theoretical arguments or by speeches, and we are not relying on such methods. What will convince them will be the example and solidarity of the peasant labourers, the union of the peasant labourers with the town proletariat; and here we are counting on a protracted and gradual process of persuasion, on a series of transitional measures drawn up on the basis of an agreement between the proletarian Socialist section of the population, the Communists, carrying on a decisive struggle against Capitalism in all its forms, with the "middle" peasantry.

And so, taking account of these circumstances, taking account of the fact that in the village we have to deal with infinitely more complicated problems, we formulate the main problem in the way in which it is formulated in the law on the Socialisation of the land. You know that in that law the system of private property in land is abolished, and equitable distribution is instituted. You know that in this way the application of the law has begun, and that we have brought it into operation in most rural districts; that at the same time, by a general and unanimous agreement between the Communists and those who as yet did not share their views, a provision was inserted in the law which I have just read out to you, and which lays down that our common task, our common goal is a transition to Socialist economy, to collective ownership and communal tillage. The further the period of construction proceeds, the more clearly both the peasants who have already settled on the land, and the prisoners of war who are now, in their hundreds of thousands and millions, returning from captivity, exhausted and suffering, perceive the gigantic extent of what has to be done in order to rebuild our agriculture and to bring the peasants once and for all out of their former misery of neglect, oppression and ignorance. More and more clearly do they see that the only way out, the only way which will bring the peasants nearer to a civilised existence, which will really put them in a position of equality with other citizens, is through communal tillage of land. And it is towards communal tillage that, by gradual stages, the Soviet State is at present systematically moving. In the name of that communal tillage, communes and Soviet farms are being created. The significance of this kind of husbandry is indicated in the law on the Socialisation of the land, in the section dealing with the question as to who may enjoy it. You will read that, amongst the persons and institutions who may enjoy the possession of land, the first place is held by the State, the second by public bodies under Soviet control, the third by agricultural communes, and the fourth by agricultural co-operative societies. Once again I draw your attention to the fact that these fundamental principles in the law were laid down when the Communist party was not merely enacting its own programme, but was also consciously making concessions to those who in one way or another expressed the class feeling and the will of the "middle" peasantry. We made and are still making concessions of that kind, and we do so because the transition to the collective form of land-holding, to communal tillage, to Soviet husbandry and communes is impossible all at once. A persistent and determined effort is required on the part of the Soviet Government, which has already assigned one milliard (1,000,000,000) roubles for agricultural improvements on the condition that communal tillage is taken up. This law shows that we desire to influence, mainly by the force of example, by the power of attraction exercised by improved farming, the masses of the "middle" peasantry, and are reckoning only on the gradual effect of such measures for this deepest and most important revolution in the economics of agricultural Russia.

The alliance between the Committees of the Poor, the agricultural communes and the Land Sections of the Soviets—the alliance which we see before us in the present Congress—shows us and convinces us that the business has been properly placed on a Socialist basis by this transition to communal farming. By means of this unfaltering and systematic work we must attain an increase in the productivity of labour. For this purpose we must introduce the very best agricultural methods, draw upon the best agronomic experts of Russia, in order to profit to the full by the most scientifically regulated farms, which hitherto have served solely as a source of wealth for private individuals, as nurseries for a new Capitalism, new bondage, new enslavement of hired workers; but now under the law on Socialisation and the complete abolition of private property in land, must become the source of agricultural knowledge and of increased productivity of labour for millions of workers.

In this union of the town workers with the labouring peasantry, in this formation of the Committees of the Poor and their transformation into Soviet institutions, we have a pledge that agricultural Russia has set her march along the path on which, after us, but for that very reason more firmly than ourselves, the Western European States are entering one by one. It has been much more difficult for them to begin the revolution, because their enemy was not a rotten autocracy but a most cultured and united Capitalist class; but you know that that change has begun and that the revolution has not stopped at the frontiers of Russia. You know that our main hope, our chief security, is the proletariat of the Western European and other advanced countries. It is the great buttress of the world-revolution. We firmly believe in it, and the progress of the German revolution shows us that we are justified. United with the workers of the towns, united with the Socialist proletariat of the whole world, the Russian labouring peasantry may now be assured that it will overcome all difficulties, all the attacks of the Imperialists, and will successfully solve the problem without which the emancipation of the workers cannot be achieved—the problem of communal tilling of the soil, the problem of the gradual but unswerving transition from small private farming to communal agriculture.

Land Decree of November 8, 1917

LAND DECREE

Of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Delegates, of November 8, 1917.

1. The landowners' right of property in land is herewith abolished without compensation.

2. The landowners' estates as well as all the lands of the Imperial family, of the monasteries and of the Church, with all their live and inanimate stocks, manor buildings and all appurtenances are placed in the charge of the cantonal Land Committees and District Soviets of Peasants' Delegates pending the decision of the Constituent Assembly on the land question.

3. Any damage caused to the thus confiscated property, which henceforth belongs to the entire people, is hereby declared a grave. crime punishable by the revolutionary courts. The District Soviets of Peasants' Delegates shall take the necessary measures for carrying out the confiscation of the landowners' estates in a strictly orderly manner, for determining the maximum size and the kind of land plots which are to be confiscated, for drawing up an exact inventory of the entire property to be confiscated, and for the establishment of the strictest revolutionary control over all the property now passing into the hands of the people, including the buildings, implements and machinery, cattle, stores, etc.

4. The following Peasants' instruction, drawn up on the basis of 242 local peasants' instructions by the editorial committee of the Izvestia of the All-Russian Soviet of Peasants' Delegates and published in No. 88 (August 19th, 1919) of that paper, shall serve everywhere as a guidance for carrying out the great land reforms, pending the final decision on them of the Constituent Assembly,

5. The lands of the rank-and-file peasants and rank-and-file Cossacks are not subject to confiscation.

THE LAND INSTRUCTION OF THE PEASANTS.

The land problem in its entirety can only be solved by a popular Constituent Assembly. The most equitable solution of the land problem must proceed on the following lines:—

1. The right of private property in land is to be abolished for all time. The land shall not be bought, sold, leased or otherwise alienated. All lands, whether belonging to the State, the former Imperial family, the ex-Tsar, the monasteries, or the Church, whether copyhold, entailed, private, public or peasant, shall be taken over without compensation, turned into the property of the entire people, and placed at the disposal of all who till them for use. Those who have suffered by this revolution in the property relations shall only be entitled to public support for such time as may be needed for their adaptation to the new conditions of life.

2. All the wealth that is below the surface, such as ore, oil, coal, salt, etc., as well as forests and waters which have a national importance, shall be placed in the hands of the State for its exclusive use. All the smaller rivers, lakes, woods, etc., are placed at the disposal of the communes, provided they are managed by the local organs of self-government.

3. Landed plots of high cultural value, such as orchards, plantations, nurseries, seed plots, hot-houses, etc., shall not be broken up and divided, but shall be preserved as model farms under the exclusive management of the State or commune, as suits their size and importance. Lands under dwelling houses, urban and rural, with the gardens and vegetable gardens belonging to them, shall be left in the use of their present owners, the size of such lands and the amount of tax to be paid for their use being fixed by subsequent legislation.

4. Studs, cattle-breeding and poultry farms, whether belonging to the State or to private individuals, shall become the property of the entire people under the management of the State or commune, as suits their size and importance. The question of compensation in such cases is reserved for the Constituent Assembly.

5. The entire farm property to be confiscated, i.e., the live and dead stocks, shall be placed under the charge of the State or commune as the case may be, according to their size and importance, for their exclusive use, without any compensation. Peasants possessing insufficient amounts of land are not affected by the above provision regarding confiscating of farm properties.

6. The right to use the land shall be given to all citizens, regardless of sex, of the Russian State, who desire to work it by their own hands, that is, by the labour of their respective families or on co-operative principles, for such periods only as they are able to do so. Hired labour is not permissible. Should a member of a village community become disabled for a period not exceeding two years, the said village community shall, pending his recovery, assist him by arranging for the tillage of his land by means of public labour. Agriculturists who, through old age or permanent incapacity, should permanently cease to be able to work their lands, shall forfeit the right to use them, but shall receive a State pension instead.

7. The lands shall be distributed among those who use them on the principle of equalisation, that is, on the basis, as determined by local conditions, of the normal units of labour or food. No restrictions shall be placed on the mode of land-tenure, the individual villages determining whether it should be by households, individuals, village communities, or co-operative organisations.