|
Written in November-December 1907 |
Published according |
From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,
Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1972
Vol. 13, pp. 217-431.
Translated from the Russian by Bernard Isaacs
Edited by Clemens Dutt
|
THE AGRARIAN PROGRAM OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY IN THE FIRST | ||
|
Chapter I. The Economic Basis and Nature of the Agrarian |
220 | |
|
Landownership in European Russia |
220 | |
|
Chapter II. The Agrarian Programmes of the R.S.D.L.P. and |
| |
|
What Was the Mistake in the Previous Agrarian
Pro- |
| |
|
Chapter III. The Theoretical Basis of Nationalisation and of |
294 | |
|
What Is Nationalisation of the Land? |
295 | |
|
Chapter IV. Political and Tactical Considerations in Questions |
325 | |
|
"A Guarantee Against Restoration" |
325 | |
|
Chapter V. Classes and Parties in the Debate on the Agrarian |
366 | |
|
The Rights and the Octobrists |
368 | |
|
421 | ||
|
430 | ||
page 219
The two years of revolution, from the autumn of 1905 to the autumn of 1907, have furnished a vast amount of experience of historical value concerning the peasant movement in Russia and the character and significance of the peasants' struggle for land. Decades of so-called "peaceful" evolution (i.e., when millions of people peacefully allow themselves to be fleeced by the upper ten thousand) can never furnish such a wealth of material for explaining the inner workings of our social system as has been furnished in these two years both by the direct struggle of the peasant masses against the landlords and by the demands of the peasants, expressed with at least some degree of freedom, at assemblies of representatives of the people. Therefore, the revision of the agrarian programme of the Russian Social-Democrats in the light of the experience of these two years is absolutely necessary, particularly in view of the fact that the present agrarian programme of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party was adopted at the Stockholm Congress in April 1906, i.e., on the eve of the first public appearance of representatives of the peasantry from all over Russia with a peasant agrarian programme, in opposition to the programme of the government and to that of the liberal bourgeoisie.
The revision of the Social-Democratic agrarian programme must be based on the latest data on landed property in Russia in order to ascertain with the utmost precision what actually is the economic background of all the agrarian programmes of our epoch, and what precisely are the issues in the great historic struggle. This economic basis of the real struggle must be compared with the ideological-political reflection of this basis that is found in the programmes, declarations, demands, and theories of the
page 220
spokesmen of the different classes. This is the course, and the only course, that a Marxist should take, unlike the petty-bourgeois socialist who proceeds from "abstract" justice, from the theory of the "labour principle", etc., and unlike the liberal bureaucrat who, in connection with every reform, covers up his defence of the interests of the exploiters by arguments about whether the reform is practicable and about the "state" point of view.
THE ECONOMIC BASIS AND NATURE
1. LANDOWNERSHIP IN EUROPEAN RUSSIA
The Landed Property Statistics for 1905, published by the Central Statistical Committee in 1907, enables us to ascertain precisely the comparative size of the peasant and landlord holdings in the fifty gubernias in European Russia. First of all we will give the general data. The whole territory of European Russia (50 gubernias) is given (see census of January 28, 1897) as 4,230,500 square versts, i.e., 440,800,000 dessiatins. The landed property statistics for 1905 register a total of 395,200,000 dessiatins under the following three main headings:
Million
A.
Privately owned land
101.7
Total land in European Russia
395.2
From these general figures it is necessary to deduct, first of all, state lands situated in the far north and consisting partly of tundra and partly of such forest land as cannot be expected to be used for agriculture in the near future. There are 107,900,000 dessiatins of such land in the "north-
page 221
ern region" (in the Arkhangelsk, Olonets and Vologda gubernias). Of course, by deducting all these lands we considerab!y overestimate the area of land unsuitable for agriculture. It suffices to point out that such a cautious statistician as Mr. A. A. Kaufman calculates that in the Vologda and Olonets gubernias 25,700,000 dessiatins of forest land (with over 25 per cent of forest) could be utilised for additional allotment to the peasants.[*] However, since we are dealing with general data about the land area, without giving separate figures for forest land, it will be more correct to take a more cautious estimate of the land area suitable for agriculture. After deducting 107,900,000 dessiatins, there will be left 287,300,000 dessiatins, or in round figures, 280,000;000 dessiatins, leaving out a portion of urban land (the totaI of which is 2,000,000 dessiatins) and a portion of the state lands in the Vyatka and Perm gubernias (the total area of state land in these two gubernias is 16,300,000 dessiatins).
Thus, the aggregate amount of land suitable for agriculture in European Russia is distributed as follows:
A.
Privately owned land
101.7 million dessiatins
Total land in European Russia
280.0 " "
Now we must give separate figures for small and large (particularly very large) holdings in order to obtain a concrete idea of the conditions of the peasant struggle for land in the Russian revolution. Such figures, however, are incomplete. Of the 138,800,000 dessiatins of peasant allotment land 136,900,000 dessiatins are classified according to size of holdings. Of the 101,700,000 dessiatins of privately owned land, 85,900,000 dessiatins are so classified; the remaining 15,800,000 dessiatins are recorded as belonging to "societies and associations". Examining the latter we find that 11,300,000 dessiatins are owned by peasant
page 222
societies and associations, which means that on the whole they are small holdings, unfortunately not classified according to size. Further, 3,700,000 dessiatins belong to "industrial and commercial, manufacturing and other" associations, of which there are 1,042. Of these, 272 own more than 1,000 dessiatins each, the total for the 272 being 3,600,000 dessiatins. These are, evidently, landlord latifundia. The bulk of this land is concentrated in Perm Gubernia, where nine such associations own 1,448,902 dessiatins! It is known that the Urals factories own many thousand dessiatins of land -- a direct survival in bourgeois Russia of the feudal, seigniorial latifundia.
We therefore single out 3,600,000 dessiatins from the land owned by societies and associations as the biggest landed estates. The remainder has not been classified, but generally it consists of small holdings.
Out of the 39,500,000 dessiatins of state and other lands, only the crown lands[98] (5,100,000 dessiatins) lend themselves to classification according to size. These, too, are very large semi-medieval landed estates. We thus get a total area of land, both classified and not classified according to size of holdings, as follows:
Land
Land
according to size of holdings
A.
89.5*
12.2
Total 231.5
48.5
-------V-------
Grand Total 280.0
Let us now classify the allotment land according to size of holdings. By rearranging the data obtained from our source of information into somewhat larger groups, we get:
page 223
A l l o t m e n t L a n d
Groups of households Number of Total area of Average des-
Up to 5 dess. inclusive
2,857,650 \
9,030,333 \
3.1 \
Total up to 8 dess. incl.
6,175,251
30,736,883
4.9
Total in European Russia 12,277,355 136,887,238 11.1
From these data it is evident that more than half of the households (6,200,000 out of 12,300,000) have up to 8 dessiatins each, i.e., in general and on the average, an area of land that is absolutely insufficient to support a family. Ten million one hundred thousand households possess up to 15 dessiatins each (making a total of 72,900,000 dessiatins), i.e., over four-fifths of the total number of households are, at the present level of peasant agricultural technique, on the brink of semi-starvation. Middle and well-to-do households -- according to amount of land owned -- number only 2,200,000 out of 12,300,000, owning altogether 63,900,000 dessiatins out of 136,900,000 dessiatins. Only households having more than 30 dessiatins each can be regarded as rich; of these there are only 600,000, i.e., one-twentieth of the total nurnber of households. They possess nearly one-fourth of the total land area: 32,700,000 out of 136,900,000 dessiatins. To give an idea as to which categories of peasants constitute this group of rich households, we shall point out that first place among them is held by the Cossacks. In the over-30-dessiatins-per-household group, the Cossack households number 266,929 having a total of 14,426,403 dessiatins, i.e., the overwhelming majority of the Cossacks (in European Russia: 278,650 households having a total of 14,689,498 dessiatins of land, i.e., an average of 52.7 dessiatins per household).
The only data available for the whole of Russia enabling us to judge how all the peasant households are approximate-
page 219
The two years of revolution, from the autumn of 1905 to the autumn of 1907, have furnished a vast amount of experience of historical value concerning the peasant movement in Russia and the character and significance of the peasants' struggle for land. Decades of so-called "peaceful" evolution (i.e., when millions of people peacefully allow themselves to be fleeced by the upper ten thousand) can never furnish such a wealth of material for explaining the inner workings of our social system as has been furnished in these two years both by the direct struggle of the peasant masses against the landlords and by the demands of the peasants, expressed with at least some degree of freedom, at assemblies of representatives of the people. Therefore, the revision of the agrarian programme of the Russian Social-Democrats in the light of the experience of these two years is absolutely necessary, particularly in view of the fact that the present agrarian programme of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party was adopted at the Stockholm Congress in April 1906, i.e., on the eve of the first public appearance of representatives of the peasantry from all over Russia with a peasant agrarian programme, in opposition to the programme of the government and to that of the liberal bourgeoisie.
The revision of the Social-Democratic agrarian programme must be based on the latest data on landed property in Russia in order to ascertain with the utmost precision what actually is the economic background of all the agrarian programmes of our epoch, and what precisely are the issues in the great historic struggle. This economic basis of the real struggle must be compared with the ideological-political reflection of this basis that is found in the programmes, declarations, demands, and theories of the
page 220
spokesmen of the different classes. This is the course, and the only course, that a Marxist should take, unlike the petty-bourgeois socialist who proceeds from "abstract" justice, from the theory of the "labour principle", etc., and unlike the liberal bureaucrat who, in connection with every reform, covers up his defence of the interests of the exploiters by arguments about whether the reform is practicable and about the "state" point of view.
THE ECONOMIC BASIS AND NATURE
1. LANDOWNERSHIP IN EUROPEAN RUSSIA
The Landed Property Statistics for 1905, published by the Central Statistical Committee in 1907, enables us to ascertain precisely the comparative size of the peasant and landlord holdings in the fifty gubernias in European Russia. First of all we will give the general data. The whole territory of European Russia (50 gubernias) is given (see census of January 28, 1897) as 4,230,500 square versts, i.e., 440,800,000 dessiatins. The landed property statistics for 1905 register a total of 395,200,000 dessiatins under the following three main headings:
Million
A.
Privately owned land
101.7
Total land in European Russia
395.2
From these general figures it is necessary to deduct, first of all, state lands situated in the far north and consisting partly of tundra and partly of such forest land as cannot be expected to be used for agriculture in the near future. There are 107,900,000 dessiatins of such land in the "north-
page 221
ern region" (in the Arkhangelsk, Olonets and Vologda gubernias). Of course, by deducting all these lands we considerab!y overestimate the area of land unsuitable for agriculture. It suffices to point out that such a cautious statistician as Mr. A. A. Kaufman calculates that in the Vologda and Olonets gubernias 25,700,000 dessiatins of forest land (with over 25 per cent of forest) could be utilised for additional allotment to the peasants.[*] However, since we are dealing with general data about the land area, without giving separate figures for forest land, it will be more correct to take a more cautious estimate of the land area suitable for agriculture. After deducting 107,900,000 dessiatins, there will be left 287,300,000 dessiatins, or in round figures, 280,000;000 dessiatins, leaving out a portion of urban land (the totaI of which is 2,000,000 dessiatins) and a portion of the state lands in the Vyatka and Perm gubernias (the total area of state land in these two gubernias is 16,300,000 dessiatins).
Thus, the aggregate amount of land suitable for agriculture in European Russia is distributed as follows:
A.
Privately owned land
101.7 million dessiatins
Total land in European Russia
280.0 " "
Now we must give separate figures for small and large (particularly very large) holdings in order to obtain a concrete idea of the conditions of the peasant struggle for land in the Russian revolution. Such figures, however, are incomplete. Of the 138,800,000 dessiatins of peasant allotment land 136,900,000 dessiatins are classified according to size of holdings. Of the 101,700,000 dessiatins of privately owned land, 85,900,000 dessiatins are so classified; the remaining 15,800,000 dessiatins are recorded as belonging to "societies and associations". Examining the latter we find that 11,300,000 dessiatins are owned by peasant
page 222
societies and associations, which means that on the whole they are small holdings, unfortunately not classified according to size. Further, 3,700,000 dessiatins belong to "industrial and commercial, manufacturing and other" associations, of which there are 1,042. Of these, 272 own more than 1,000 dessiatins each, the total for the 272 being 3,600,000 dessiatins. These are, evidently, landlord latifundia. The bulk of this land is concentrated in Perm Gubernia, where nine such associations own 1,448,902 dessiatins! It is known that the Urals factories own many thousand dessiatins of land -- a direct survival in bourgeois Russia of the feudal, seigniorial latifundia.
We therefore single out 3,600,000 dessiatins from the land owned by societies and associations as the biggest landed estates. The remainder has not been classified, but generally it consists of small holdings.
Out of the 39,500,000 dessiatins of state and other lands, only the crown lands[98] (5,100,000 dessiatins) lend themselves to classification according to size. These, too, are very large semi-medieval landed estates. We thus get a total area of land, both classified and not classified according to size of holdings, as follows:
Land
Land
according to size of holdings
A.
89.5*
12.2
Total 231.5
48.5
-------V-------
Grand Total 280.0
Let us now classify the allotment land according to size of holdings. By rearranging the data obtained from our source of information into somewhat larger groups, we get:
page 223
A l l o t m e n t L a n d
Groups of households Number of Total area of Average des-
Up to 5 dess. inclusive
2,857,650 \
9,030,333 \
3.1 \
Total up to 8 dess. incl.
6,175,251
30,736,883
4.9
Total in European Russia 12,277,355 136,887,238 11.1
From these data it is evident that more than half of the households (6,200,000 out of 12,300,000) have up to 8 dessiatins each, i.e., in general and on the average, an area of land that is absolutely insufficient to support a family. Ten million one hundred thousand households possess up to 15 dessiatins each (making a total of 72,900,000 dessiatins), i.e., over four-fifths of the total number of households are, at the present level of peasant agricultural technique, on the brink of semi-starvation. Middle and well-to-do households -- according to amount of land owned -- number only 2,200,000 out of 12,300,000, owning altogether 63,900,000 dessiatins out of 136,900,000 dessiatins. Only households having more than 30 dessiatins each can be regarded as rich; of these there are only 600,000, i.e., one-twentieth of the total nurnber of households. They possess nearly one-fourth of the total land area: 32,700,000 out of 136,900,000 dessiatins. To give an idea as to which categories of peasants constitute this group of rich households, we shall point out that first place among them is held by the Cossacks. In the over-30-dessiatins-per-household group, the Cossack households number 266,929 having a total of 14,426,403 dessiatins, i.e., the overwhelming majority of the Cossacks (in European Russia: 278,650 households having a total of 14,689,498 dessiatins of land, i.e., an average of 52.7 dessiatins per household).
The only data available for the whole of Russia enabling us to judge how all the peasant households are approximate-
page 224
ly classified according to scale of farming and not according to area of allotments, are those about the number of horses owned. According to the last army horse censuses of 1888-91, the peasant households in 48 gubernias of European Russia are classifled as follows:
Households
Poor
/ Without horses
2,765,970
Middle
/ " 2 horses
2,240,574
Well-to-do
" 4 " or more
1,154,674 Total 10,116,660
Broadly speaking, this means that over one-half are poor (5,600,000 out of 10,100,000), about one-third are middle households (3,300,000 with 2 or 3 horses), and slightly over one-tenth are well-to-do (1,100,000 out of 10,100,000).
Let us now examine the distribution of individual private landed property. The statistics do not give a clear enough idea of the smallest holdings, but they give extremely detailed data on the biggest latifundia.
Individual Private Landed
Property Groups of holdings Number of Total area of Average dess.
10 dess. and less
409,864
1,625,226
3.9 Total over 500 dess.
27,833
61,991,321
2,227 Grand total for European 752,881 85,834,073 114
We see here, first, the enormous preponderance of large landownership: 619,000 small holders (up to 50 dessiatins) own only 6,500,000 dessiatins. Secondly, we see vast latifundia: 699 owners have almost 30,000 dessiatins each!
page 225
28,000 owners have a total of 62,000,000 dessiatins, i.e., 2,227 dessiatins each. The overwhelming majority of these latifundia are owned by the nobility, namely, 18,102 estates (out of 27,833) and 44,471,994 dessiatins of land, i.e., over 70 per cent of the entire latifundia area. The medieval character of landlordism is very strikingly revealed by these data.
Ten million peasant households own 73,000,000 dessiatins of land, whereas 28,000 noble and upstart landlords own 62,000,000 dessiatins. Such is the main background of the arena on which the peasants' struggle for the land is developing. On such a main background amazing technical backwardness, the neglected state of agriculture, an oppressed and downtrodden state of the mass of peasantry and an endless variety of forms of feudal, corvée exploitation are inevitable. Not to wander too far afield we must confine ourselves to mentioning briefly these commonly known facts, which have been described at great length in the extensive literature on peasant agriculture. The size of the landholdings outlined by us in no way corresponds to the scale of farming. In the purely Russian gubernias large-scale capitalist farming definitely drops into the background. Small-scale farming preponderates on large latifundia, comprising various forms of tenant farming based on servitude and bondage, labour service (corvée) farming, "winter hiring",[99] bondage for cattle trespassing the landlords' pastures, bondage for the cut-off lands, and so on without end. The mass of the peasants, crushed by feudal exploitation, are being ruined and some of them let their allotments to "thrifty" farmers. The small minority of well-to-do peasants develops into a peasant bourgeoisie, rents land for capitalist farming and exploits hundreds of thousands of farm-hands and day-labourers.
Bearing in mind all these facts, which have been fully established by Russian economic science, we must distinguish, in regard to the present struggle of the peasants for the land, four basic groups of landholdings: (1) a mass of peasant farms crushed by the feudal latifundia and directly
page 226
interested in the expropriation of these latifundia, an expropriation from which they stand to gain directly more than anyone else; (2) a small minority of middle peasants already possessing an approximately average amount of land, sufficient to conduct farming in a tolerable way; (3) a small minority of well-to-do peasants who are becoming transformed into a peasant bourgeoisie and who are connected by a number of intermediate stages with farming conducted on capitalist lines, and (4) feudal latifundia far exceeding in dimensions the capitalist farms of the present period in Russia and deriving their revenues chiefly from the exploitation of the peasants by means of bondage and the labour-rent system.
Of course, the available data on landed property enable us to distinguish these basic groups only very approximately and sketchily. Nevertheless, we are obliged to distinguish them if we are to present a complete picture of the struggle for land in the Russian revolution. And we can safely say in advance that partial corrections of the figures, partial shifting of the boundary line between one group and another, cannot substantially alter the general picture. It is not partial corrections that are important; what is important is that a clear contrast be made between small landownership, which is striving for more land, and the feudal latifundia, which monopolise an enormous amount of land. The chief falsity of both the government's (Stolypin's) and the liberals' (the Cadets') economics lies in the fact that they conceal, or obscure, this clear contrast.
Let us assume the following sizes of landholdings for the four groups mentioned: (1) up to 15 dessiatins; (2) 15 to 20 dessiatins; (3) 20 to 500 dessiatins, and (4) over 500 dessiatins per holding. Of course, in order to present a complete picture of the struggle for land, we must, in each of these groups, combine the peasants' allotments with the private holdings. In our source of information the latter category is divided into groups: up to 10 dessiatins, and from 10 to 20 dessiatins, so that a group up to 15 dessiatins can be singled out only approximately. Any inaccuracy that may arise from this approximate calculation and from the round figures that we give, will be quite negligible (as
page 227
the reader will soon see) and will not affect the conclusions to be drawn.
Here is a table showing the present distribution of land among these groups in European Russia:
Group Number of Total area Average
(a) Ruined peasantry, crushed by
Total 13.03 230 17.6
Grand total* 13.03 280 21.4
Such are the relations which give rise to the peasants' struggle for land. Such is the starting-point of the peasants' struggle (7-15 dessiatins per household plus renting on terms of bondage, etc.) against the very big landlords (2,333 dessiatins per estate). What is the objective tendency, the ultimate point of this struggle? Obviously, it is the abolition of large feudalist estates and the transfer of the land
page 228
according to certain principles) to the peasants. This objective tendency inevitably arises from the predominance of small-scale cultivation, which is held in bondage by the feudal latifundia. To depict this tendency in the same graphic way in which we depicted the starting-point of the struggle, i.e., the present state of affairs, we must take the best conceivable eventuality, i.e., we must assume that all the feudalist latifundia, as well as all land not classified according to holdings, have passed into the hands of the ruined peasantry. It is this best eventuality which all the participants in the present agrarian struggle envisage more or less distinctly: the government talks about "allotting" land to the "needy", the liberal official (or Cadet) talks about supplementary allotments to those who have little land, the peasant Trudovik talks about increasing holdings to the "subsistence" or "labour" "norm", and the Social-Democrat, differing on the question of the form of land tenure, generally accepts the proposal of the Narodniks about allotting land to the poorest peasants. (In the Second Duma, 47th sitting, May 26, 1907, Tsereteli accepted the figure of the value of the 57,000,000 dessiatins of land to be alienated as given by the Narodnik Karavayev, namely, 6,500,000,000 rubles, of which the poorest peasants having up to 5 dessiatins account for 2,500,000,000 rubles. See Stenographic Record, p. 1221.) In short, however much the landlords, the officials, the bourgeoisie, the peasantry, and the proletariat may differ in their view of the aims and terms of the reform, they all outline the same tendency, namely, the transfer of the large landed estates to the most needy peasants. With the fundamental differences of opinion among the classes concerning the extent and terms of such a transfer we shall deal separately elsewhere. At present we shall supplement our outline of the starting-point of the struggle with a similar outline of its possible ultimate point. We have already shown what the situation is now. We shall show what it may be then. Let us assume that 30,000 landlords will retain 100 dessiatins each, i.e., a total of 3,000,000 dessiatins, while the remaining 67,000,000 dessiatins and 50,000,000 dessiatins of unclassified land will be transferred to 10,500,000 poor households. We shall then get the following:
page 229
N o w T h e n Number Total Average Number Total Average
(a) Small ruined peasants
10.5
75
7.0
--
--
--
Total 13.03 230 17.6 13.03 280 21.4
Grand total 13.03 280 21.4 -- -- --
Such is the economic basis of the struggle for land in the Russian revolution. Such is the starting-point of this struggle and its tendency, i.e., its ultimate point, its result in the best eventuality (from the standpoint of those engaged in the struggle).
Before proceeding to examine this economic basis and its ideological (and ideological-political) cloak, let us dwell on possible misunderstandings and objections as welI.
First, it may. be said that my picture presupposes the division of the land, whereas I have not yet examined the question of municipalisation, division, nationalisation, or socialisation.
That would be a misunderstanding. My picture leaves out altogether the terms of landownership; it does not deal at all with the terms of the transfer of the land to the peasants (whether in ownership or in one or another form of tenure). I have taken only the transfer of the land in general to the small peasants and there can be no doubt whatever that this is the trend of our agrarian struggle. The small peasants are fighting, fighting to have the land transferred to themselves. Small (bourgeois) cultivation is fighting large-scale (feudal) landownership.* At best, the revolution can have no other result than the one I have drawn.
page 230
Secondly, it may be said that l had no right to assume that all the confiscated lands (or expropriated lands, for I have not yet said anything about the terms of expropriation) will be transferred to the peasants with little land. It may be said that owing to economic necessity the lands must be transferred to the wealthier peasants. But such an objection would be a misunderstanding. To demonstrate the bourgeois character of the revolution, I must take the best eventuality from the standpoint of the Narodniks, I must assume the achievement of the aim set themselves by those who are fighting. I must take an aspect that most closely approaches the so-called General Redistribution[100] and not the further consequences of the agrarian revolution. If the masses win the struggle, they will take the fruits of the victory for themselves. To whom these fruits will ultimately go is another matter.
Thirdly, it may be said that I have assumed an unusually favourable result for the poor peasantry (that the whole of the poor peasantry will be transformed into middle peasants with holdings up to 18 dessiatins per household) by overestimating the extent of the unoccupied land area. It may be said that I should have discounted forests, which, it is said, cannot be allotted to the peasants. Such objections may, and even inevitably will, be raised by the economists in the government and Cadet camp, but they will be wrong. First, one must be a bureaucrat who all his life grovels to the semi-feudal landlord to imagine that the peasants will not be able to manage forest land properly and derive an income from it for themselves and not for the landlords. The standpoint of the police official and of the Russian liberal is: how to provide the muzhik with an allotment? The standpoint of the class-conscious worker is: how to free the muzhik from feudal landlordism? How to break up the feudal latifundia? Secondly I have left out the whole of the northern region (the Arkhangelsk, Vologda, and Olonets gubernias), as well as parts of the Vyatka and Perm gubernias, i.e., areas in which it is difficult to imagine that the agricultural exploitation of land covered by forests is likely in the near future. Thirdly, a special calculation of the forest areas would greatly complicate the matter without much altering the results. For instance,
page 231
Mr. Kaufman, who is a Cadet, and, consequently, is very cautious when dealing with landlord estates, calculates that land with over 25 per cent of forest might go to cover the shortage of land, and he thus obtains an area of 101,700,000 dessiatins for 44 gubernias. For 47 gubernias I have estimated a land area of approximately 101,000,000 dessiatins, i.e., 67,000,000 out of the 70,000,000 dessiatins of the feudal latifundia, and 34,000,000 dessiatins owned by the state and by various institutions. Assuming that all landed estates of over 100 dessiatins are to be expropriated, these lands will be increased by another nine or ten million dessiatins.[*]
The data given here on the role of the large landlord estates in the struggle for land in Russia must be amplified in one respect: A characteristic feature of the agrarian programmes of our bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie is the fact that in them the question as to which class is the most powerful opponent of the peasantry, and which holdings form the bulk of the expropriable lands are obscured by arguments about "norms". They (both the Cadets and the Trudoviks) talk mainly about how much land the peasants need according to this or that "norm", instead of dealing with the more concrete and vital question: how much land is available for expropriation? The first day of presenting the question obscures the class struggle, conceals the essence
N o w
T h e n
Households Total area of
Households Total area of Dess. per
(a)
10.5
75
(a)
--
--
13.03 230
13.03
280
21.4
The main conclusions about the character and essence of the change are identical in either case.
page 232
of the matter by hollow pretensions to a "state" point of view. The second places the chief emphasis on the class struggle, on the class interests of a definite landowning stratum which largely represents feudal tendencies.
We shall revert to the question of "norms" elsewhere. Here we want to mention one "happy" exception among the Trudoviks, and one typical Cadet writer.
In the Second Duma, the Popular Socialist Delarov referred to the percentage of landowners who would be affected by the alienation of land (47th sitting, May 26, 1907). Delarov spoke of alienation (compulsory), without raising the question of confiscation, and apparently accepted the same norm of alienation which I have taken hypothetically in my table, namely, 500 dessiatins. Unfortunately, in the stenographic records of the Second Duma this particular passage in Delarov's speech (p. 1217) is distorted, unless Mr. Delarov himself made a mistake. The record says that compulsory alienation would affect 32 per cent of the private estates and 96 per cent of their total area of land; the rest, 68 per cent of the landowners, it is claimed, have only 4 per cent of the private land. Actually, the figure should be not 32 per cent, but 3.7 per cent, because 27,833 out of 752,881 landowners constitute 3.7 per cent, whereas the area of land aflected -- 62,000,000 dessiatins out of a total of 85,800,000 dessiatins -- amounts to 72.3 per cent. It is not clear whether this was a slip on Mr. Delarov's part, or whether he got hold of the wrong figures. At all events, of the numerous speakers in the Duma, he, if we are not mistaken, was the only one who approached the real issue of the struggle in the most direct and concrete way.
A Cadet writer whose "works" one must mention when dealing with this question is Mr. S. Prokopovich. True, he is, strictly speaking, a member of the Bez Zaglaviya group, who, like the majority of the contributors to the bourgeois newspaper Tovarishch, at one moment poses as a Cadet and at another as a Menshevik Social-Democrat. He is a typical representative of the handful of consistent Bernsteinians among the Russian bourgeois intellectuals who waver between the Cadets and the Social-Democrats, who (in most cases) join no party, and in the liberal press
page 233
pursue a line slightly to the right of Plekhanov. Mr. Prokopovich must be mentioned here because he was one of the first to quote in the press figures from the 1905 landed property statistics, and in so doing actually adopted the Cadet position on agrarian reform. In two articles which he wrote for Tovarishch (No. 214 of March 13, 1907, and No. 238 of April 10, 1907), Mr. Prokopovich argues against General Zolotaryov, the compiler of the official statistics, who tries to prove that the government can tackle the land reform quite easily without any compulsory alienation, and that 5 dessiatins per household are quite sufficient for the peasant to conduct his husbandry! Mr. Prokopovich is more liberal : he puts the figure at 8 dessiatins per household. He repeatedly makes the reservation, however, that this amount of land is "quite inadequate", that this is a "very modest" calculation, and so forth; nevertheless, he accepts this figure in order to determine the "degree of the land shortage" (the title of the first of Mr. Prokopovich's articles mentioned above). He explains that he takes this figure "to avoid unnecessary disputes " -- presumably with the Zolotaryovs. Calculating thus the number of "obviously land poor" peasant households at one half the total, Mr. Prokopovich correctly estimates that in order to bring the peasants' holdings up to 8 dessiatins, 18,600,000 dessiatins will be required, and since the government's total land reserve is alleged to be not more than 9,000,000 dessiatins, "it will be impossible to avoid compulsory alienation".
Both in his calculations and in his arguments, this Menshevik-minded Cadet, or Cadet-minded Menshevik, admirably expresses the spirit and meaning of the liberal agrarian programme. The questions of the semi-feudal latifundia, and of latifundia in general, is quite glossed over. Mr. Prokopovich quoted the figures only for private holdings of more than 50 dessiatins. Thus, the actual issue of this struggle is obscured. The class interests of a handful, literally a handful, of landlords are concealed behind a veil. Instead of an exposure of those interests, we are given the "state point of view": the state lands "will not suffice ". Hence, if they did suffice, Mr. Prokopovich, to judge from his argument, would be quite willing to leave the feudal latifundia intact. . . .
page 234
The peasant's allotment scale that he takes (8 dessiatins) is a starvation scale. The amount of land to be "compulsorily alienated" from the landlords that he allows for is insignificant (18 - 9 = 9 million dessiatins out of 62,000,000 in estates of over 500 dessiatins!). To carry out that kind of "compulsory alienation", the landlords will have to use compulsion on the peasants, as in 1861!
Whether he meant to or not, wittingly or unwittingly, Mr. Prokopovich has correctly expressed the landlord nature of the Cadet agrarian programme. But the Cadets are cautious and sly: they prefer to say nothing at all about how much land they are inclined to expropriate from the landlords.
We have seen that the essence of the revolution now in progress amounts to the break-up of the feudal latifundia and to the creation of a free and (as far as this is possible under present circumstances) well-to-do peasantry capable not only of toiling in misery on the land, but of developing the productive forces and promoting the progress of agriculture. This revolution does not and cannot in any way affect the system of small production in agriculture, the domination of the market over the producer and, consequently, the domination also of commodity production, since the struggle for the redistribution of the land cannot alter the relations of production in the farming of this land. And we have seen that a feature of this struggle is the strong development of small-scale farming on the feudal latifundia.
The ideological cloak of the struggle now in progress is furnished by the theories of the Narodniks. The fact that in the First and Second Dumas the peasant representatives from all over Russia openly came out with agrarian programmes has definitely proved that the theories and programmes of the Narodniks do indeed constitute the ideological cloak of the peasants' struggle for land.
We have shown that the basic and chief component of the distributable land for which the peasants are fighting
page 235
are the big feudal estates. We have taken a very high norm of expropriation -- 500 dessiatins. But it can easily be seen that our conclusions hold good however much this norm is reduced, let us say to 100 or to 50 dessiatins. Let us divide group (c) -- 20-500 dessiatins, into three subgroups: (aa) 20-50 dessiatins, (bb) 50-100, and (cc) 100-500, and see what the size of the peasant allotments and private holdings is within these subdivisions:
A l l o t m e n t L a n d Subdivisions Number of holdings Total area of land Average per holding (dessiatins)
20-50 dess.
1,062,504
30,898,147
29.1 P r i v a t e L a n d Number Total area Average (dessiatins)
103,237
3,301,004
32.0
T o t a l i n E u r o p e a n R u s s i a Number Total area Average (dessiatins)
103,237
3,301,004
32.0
Hence it follows, first, that the confiscation of estates of over 100 dessiatins will increase the distributable land, as already stated above, by nine to ten million dessiatins, whereas the confiscation of estates of over 50 dessiatins, as assumed by Chizhevsky, a member of the First Duma, will increase this land by eighteen and a half million dessiatins. Consequently, in this case also, the feudal latifundia will form the basis of the distributable land area. That is the crux of the present-day agrarian problem. Moreover, the connection that exists between these big estates and the higher bureaucracy is also quite well known: G. A. Alexinsky in the Second Duma quoted Mr. Rubakin's data on the size of the estates owned by higher officials in Russia. Secondly, it is seen from these data that even after deducting the peasant allotments and the estates of over 100 dessiatins, the size of the bigger allotments (and the small estates) still varies considerably. The revolution already finds the peasants differentiated in regard to size
page 236
of holdings, and still more in the amount of capital, number of livestock, the quantity and quality of implements, etc. That the differentiation in the sphere of non-allotment property, so to speak, is far more considerable than in the sphere of allotment landownership has been sufficiently proved in our economic literature.
What, then, is the significance of the Narodnik theories, which more or less accurately reflect the views of the peasants on their struggle for land? The substance of these Narodnik theories is contained in two "principles": the "labour principle" and "equalisation". The petty-bourgeois nature of those principles is so manifest and has been so often and so fully demonstrated in Marxist literature that there is no need to dwell on it here. It is important, however, to note a feature of these "principles" that has not yet been properly appreciated by Russian Social-Democrats. In a vague form those principles do express something real and progressive at the present historical moment. Namely, they express the struggle for the break-up of the feudal latifundia.
Look at the outline given above of the evolution of our agrarian system from the present stage to the "ultimate point" of the present, bourgeois revolution. You will clearly see that the future "then" is distinguished from the present "now" by an incomparably greater "equalisation" in ownership, that the new distribution of the land conforms far more to the "labour principle". And that is not accidental. It cannot be otherwise in a peasant country, the bourgeois development of which emancipates it from serfdom. In such a country, the break-up of the feudal latifundia is undoubtedly a condition for the development of capitalism. But as long as small-scale farming predominates in agriculture, the break-up of the feudal latifundia inevitably implies greater "equalisation" in landownership. In break ing up the medieval latifundia, capitalism begins with a more "equalised" landownership, aud out of that creates large-scale farming on a new basis, on the basis of wage labour, machinery and superior agricultural technique, and not on the basis of labour rent and bondage.
The mistake all the Narodniks make is that by confining themselves to the narrow outlook of the small husbandman,
page 237
they fail to perceive the bourgeois nature of the social relations into which the peasant enters on coming out of the fetters of serfdom. They convert the "labour principle" of petty-bourgeois agriculture and "equalisation", which are their slogans for breaking up the feudal latifundia, into something absolute, self-sufficing, into something implying a special, non-bourgeois order.
The mistake some Marxists make is that, while criticising the Narodnik theory, they overlook its historically real and historically legitimate content in the struggle against serfdom. They criticise, and rightly criticise, the "labour principle" and "equalisation" as backward, reactionary petty-bourgeois socialism ; but they forget that these theories express progressive, revolutionary petty-bourgeois democracy, that they serve as the banner of the most determined struggle against the old, feudal Russia. The idea of equality is the most revolutionary idea in the struggle against the old system of absolutism in general, and against the old system of feudal landlordism in particular. The idea of equality is legitimate and progressive for the petty-bourgeois peasant insofar as it expresses the struggle against feudal, serf inequality. The idea of "equalised" landownership is legitimate and progressive insofar as it expresses the aspirations of ten million peasants, with allotmellts of seven dessiatins and ruined by the landlords, for a division * of the 2,300-dessiatin feudal latifundia. And in the present historical situation that idea really expresses such strivings, it gives an impetus towards consistent bourgeois revolution, while mistakenly clothing this in vague, quasi-socialist phraseology. He would be a poor Marxist indeed who, while criticising the falsity of a socialist disguise for bourgeois slogans, failed to appreciate their liistorically progressive significance as the most decisive bourgeois slogans in the struggle against serfdom. The real content of the revolution which the Narodnik regards as "socialisation" will be that it will most consist-
page 238
ently clear the way for capitalism, will most resolutely eradicate serfdom. The outline which I have drawn above indicates precisely the maximum to be achieved in the abolition of serfdom and the maximum of "equalisation" to be attained thereby. The Narodnik imagines that this "equalisation" eliminates the bourgeois element, whereas, in reality, it expresses the aspirations of the most radical bourgeoisie. And whatever else there is in "equalisation" over and above that is nothing but ideological smoke, a petty-bourgeois illusion.
The short-sighted and unhistorical judgement of some Russian Marxists on the significance of Narodnik theories in the Russian bourgeois revolution is to be explained by the fact that they have not reflected on the significance of the "confiscation" of the landlord estates which the Narodniks advocate. One has only to visualise clearly the economic basis of this revolution under the present conditions .of landownership in our country in order to grasp not only the illusory nature of the Narodnik theories, but also the truth of the struggle, restricted to a definite historical task, the truth of the struggle against serfdom, which represents the real content of those illusory theories.
To proceed. We have shown that the Narodnik theories, while absurd and reactionary from the standpoint of the struggle for socialism against the bourgeoisie, turn out to be "rational" (in the sense of being a specific historic task) and progressive in the bourgeois struggle against serfdom. The question now arises: when we say that serfdom must inevitably die out in Russian landownership and in the whole social system in Russia, when we say that a bourgeois-democratic agrarian revolution is inevitable, does that mean that this can take place only in one definite form? Or is it possible in various forms?
That question is of cardinal importance for arriving at correct views on our revolution and on the Social-Democratic agrarian programme. And solve this question we must, starting out from the data given above concerning the economic basis of the revolution.
page 239
The pivot of the struggle is the feudal latifundia which are the most conspicuous embodiment and the strongest mainstay of the survivals of serfdom in Russia. The development of commodity production and capitalism will certainly and inevitably put an end to those survivals. In that respect Russia has only one path before her, that of bourgeois development.
But there may be two forms of that development. The survivals of serfdom may fall away either as a result of the transformation of landlord economy or as a result of the abolition of the landlord latifundia, i.e., either by reform or by revolution. Bourgeois development may proceed by having big landlord economies at the head, which will gradually become more and more bourgeois and gradually substitute bourgeois for feudal methods of exploitation. It may also proceed by having small peasant economies at the head, which in a revolutionary way, will remove the "excrescence" of the feudal latifundia from the social organism and then freely develop without them along the path of capitalist economy.
Those two paths of objectively possible bourgeois development we would call the Prussian path and the American path, respectively. In the first case feudal landlord economy slowly evolves into bourgeois, Junker landlord economy, which condemns the peasants to decades of most harrowing expropriation and bondage, while at the same time a small minority of Grossbauern ("big peasants") arises. In the second case there is no landlord economy, or else it is broken up by revolution, which confiscates and splits up the feudal estates. In that case the peasant predominates, becomes the sole agent of agriculture, and evolves into a capitalist farmer. In the first case the main content of the evolution is transformation of feudal bondage into servitude and capitalist exploitation on the land of the feudal landlords -- Junkers. In the second case the main background is transformation of the patriarchal peasant into a bourgeois farmer.
In the economic history of Russia both these types of evolution are clearly in evidence. Take the epoch of the fall of serfdom. A struggle went on between the landlords and the peasants over the method of carrying out the reform.
page 240
Both stood for conditions of bourgeois economic development (without being aware of it), but the former wanted a development that would preserve to the utmost the landlord economies, the landlord revenues, and the landlord (bondage) methods of exploitation. The latter wanted a development that would secure for the peasants the greatest degree of prosperity possible with the existing level of agriculture, the abolition of the landlord latifundia, the abolition of all serf and bondage methods of exploitation, and the expansion of free peasant landownership. Needless to say, in the second case the development of capitalism and the growth of the productive forces would have been wider and more rapid than by peasant reform, carried out in the landlords' way.* Only caricature Marxists, as the Narodniks, the opponents of Marxism, tried to depict them, could have believed that the divorcement of the peasantry from the land in 1861 guaranteed the development of capitalism. On the contrary, it would have been a guarantee -- and so in fact it turned out to be -- a guarantee of bondage, i.e., semi-serf tenant farming and labour rent, i.e., corvée economy, which exceedingly retarded the development of capitalism and the growth of the productive forces in Russian agriculture. The conflict of interests between the peasants and the landlords was not a struggle waged by "people's production" or the "labour principle" against the bour-
page 241
geoisie (as our Narodniks have imagined it to be) -- it was a struggle for the American type of bourgeois development as against the Prussian type of bourgeois development.
And in those localities of Russia where no serfdom had existed, where agriculture was undertaken entirely, or chiefly, by free peasants (for example, in the steppes of the Trans-Volga area, Novorossia, and the Northern Caucasus, which were colonised after the Reform), the growth of the productive forces and the development of capitalism proceeded far more rapidly than in the central provinces which were burdened by survivals of serfdom.[*]
While Russia's agricultural centre and agricultural borderlands show us, as it were, the spatial or geographical distribution of the localities in which one or the other type of agrarian evolution prevails, the fundamental features of both types of evolution are also clearly evident in all those localities where landlord and peasant farming exist side by side. A cardinal mistake of the Narodnik economists was that they believed that landlord farming was the only source of agrarian capitalism, while they regarded peasant farming from the point of view of "people's production" and the "labour principle" (that is the view taken even now by the Trudoviks, the "Popular Socialists", and the Socialist-Revolutionaries). We know that this is wrong. Landlord economy evolves in a capitalist way and gradually replaces the labour rent system by "free wage-labour", the three-field system by intensive cultivation, and the obsolete peasant implements by the improved machinery employed on the big private farms. Peasant farming also evolves in a capitalist way and gives rise to a rural bourgeoisie and a rural proletariat. The better the condition of the "village commune" and the greater the prosperity of the peasantry in general, the more rapid is the process of differentiation among the peasantry into the antagonistic
page 242
classes of capitalist agriculture. Consequently, we see two streams of agrarian evolution everywhere. The conflict of interests between the peasants and the landlords which runs like a scarlet thread through the whole history of post-Reform Russia and constitutes the most important economic basis of our revolution, is a struggle for one or the other type of bourgeois agrarian evolution.
Only by clearly understanding the difference between these two types and the bourgeois character of both, can we correctly explain the agrarian question in the Russian revolution and grasp the class significance of the various agrarian programmes put forward by the different parties.* The pivot of the struggle, we repeat, is the feudal latifundia. The capitalist evolution of these is beyond all dispute, but it is possible in two forms: either they will be abolished, eliminated in a revolutionary manner by peasant farmers, or they will be gradually transformed into Junker estates (and correspondingly, the enthralled muzhik will be transformed into an enthralled Knecht ).
page 243
If we now compare the agrarian programmes put forward by the different classes in the course of the revolution with the economic basis outlined above, we shall at once perceive two lines in these programmes, corresponding to the two types of agrarian evolution which we have indicated.
Let us take the Stolypin programme, which is supported by the Right landlords and the Octobrists. It is avowedly a landlords' programme. But can it be said that it is reactionary in the economic sense, i.e., that it precludes, or seeks to preclude, the development of capitalism, to prevent a bourgeois agrarian evolution? Not at all. On the contrary, the famous agrarian legislation introduced by Stolypin under Article 87 is permeated through and through with the purely bourgeois spirit. There can be no doubt that it follows the line of capitalist evolution, facilitates and pushes forward that evolution, hastens the expropriation of the peasantry, the break-up of the village commune, and the creation of a peasant bourgeoisie. Without a doubt, that legislation is progressive in the scientific-economic sense.
But does that mean that Social-Democrats should "support" it? It does not. Only vulgar Marxism can reason in that way, a Marxism whose seeds Plekhanov and the Mensheviks are so persistently sowing when they sing, shout, plead, and proclaim: we must support the bourgeoisie in its struggle against the old order of things. No. To facilitate the development of the productive forces (this highest criterion of social progress) we must support not bourgeois evolution of the landlord type, but bourgeois evolution of the peasant type. The former implies the utmost preservation of bondage and serfdom (remodelled on bourgeois lines), the least rapid development of the productive forces, and the retarded development of capitalism; it implies infinitely greater misery and suffering, exploitation and oppression for the broad mass of the peasantry and, consequently, also for the proletariat. The second type implies the most rapid development of the productive forces and
page 244
the best possible (under commodity production) conditions of existence for the mass of the peasantry. The tactics of Social-Democracy in the Russian bourgeois revolution are determilled not by the task of supporting the liberal bourgeoisie, as the opportullists think, but by the task of supporting the fighting peasantry.
Let us take the programme of the liberal bourgeoisie, i.e., the Cadet programme. True to the motto: "at your service" (i.e., at the service of the landlords), they proposed one programme in the First Duma and another in the Second. They can change their programme as easily and imperceptibly as all the European unprincipled bourgeois careerists do. In the First Duma the revolution appeared to be strong, and so the liberal programme borrowed from it a bit of nationalisation (the "state land available for distribution"). In the Second Duma the counter-revolution appeared to be strong, and so the liberal programme threw the state land available for distribution overboard, swung round to the Stolypin idea of stable peasant property, strengthened and enlarged the scope of exemptions from the general rule of compulsory alienation of the landlords' land. But we note this two-faced attitude of the liberals only in passing. The important thing to note here is something else, viz., the principle which is common to both "faces " of the liberal agrarian programme. That common principle consists of: (1) redemption payments; (2) preservation of the landlords' estates; (3) preservation of the landlords' privileges when carrying out the reform.
Redemption payment is tribute imposed upon social development, tribute paid to the owners of the feudal latifundia. Redemption payment is the realisation, ensured by bureaucratic, police measures, of the feudal methods of exploitation in the shape of the bourgeois "universal equivalent". Further, preservation of the landlords' estates is seen in one or another degree in both Cadet programmes, no matter how the bourgeois politicians may try to conceal that fact from the people. The third point -- the preservation of the landlords' privileges when carrying out the reform -- is quite definitely expressed in the Cadets' attitude to the election of local land committees on the basis of universal, direct, and equal suffrage by secret bal-
page 245
lot. We cannot here go into details[*] which concern another part of our argument. All we need do here is to define the line of the Cadet agrarian programme. And in this connection we must say that the question of the composition of the local land committees is of cardinal importance. Only political infants could be taken in by the sound of the Cadet slogan of "compulsory alienation". The question is, who will compel whom? Will the landlords compel the peasants (to pay an exorbitant price for inferior land), or will the peasants compel the landlords? The Cadet talk "about equal representation of the conflicting interests" and about the undesirability of "one-sided violence" reveals as clear as clear can be the essence of the matter, namely, that the Cadet idea of compulsory alienation means that the landlords will compel the peasants!
The Cadet agrarian programme follows the line of Stolypin progress, i.e., landlord bourgeois progress. That is a fact. Failure to appreciate this fact is the fundamental mistake made by those Social-Democrats who, like some of
page 246
the Mensheviks, regard the Cadet agrarian policy as being more progressive than the Narodnik policy.
As for the spokesmen of the peasantry, i.e., the Trudoviks, the Social-Narodniks, and partly the Socialist-Revolutionaries, we find that, in spite of considerable vacillation and wavering, they, in both Dumas, adopted a very clear line of defeading the interests of the peasantry against the landlords. For instance, vacillation is observed in the programme of the Trudoviks on the question of redemption payments, but, in the first place, they frequently interpret that as something in the nature of public relief for disabled landlords[*]; secondly, in the records of the Second Duma one can find a number of exceedingly characteristic speeches by peasants repudiating redemption payments and proclaiming the slogan: all the land to all the people.[**] On the question of the local land committees -- this all-important question as to who will compel whom -- the peasant deputies are the originators and supporters of the idea of having them elected by universal suffrage.
We are not, for the time being, dealing with the content of the agrarian programmes of the Trudoviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, on the one hand, and the Social-Democrats, on the other. We must first of all note the incontrovertible fact that the agrarian programmes of all the parties and classes which came out openly in the Russian revolution can be clearly divided into two basic types, corresponding to the two types of bourgeois agrarian evolution. The dividing line between the "Right" and "Left" agrarian programmes does not run between the Octobrists
page 247
and the Cadets, as is frequently and mistakenly assumed by the Mensheviks (who allow themselves to be taken in by the sound of "constitutional-democratic" words and substitute analysis of the respective titles of the parties for a class analysis). The dividing line runs between the Cadets and the Trudoviks. That line is determined by the interests of the two principal classes in Russian society which are fighting for the land, viz., the landlords and the peasantry. The Cadets stand for the preservation of landlordism and for a civilised, European, but landlord bourgeois evolution of agriculture. The Trudoviks (and the Social-Democratic workers' deputies), i.e., the representatives of the peasantry aad the representatives of the proletariat, advocate a peasant bourgeois evolution of agriculture.
A strict distinction must be drawn between the ideological cloak of the agrarian programmes, their different political details, etc., and the economic basis of those programmes. The present difficulty does not lie in understanding the bourgeois character of the agrarian demands and programmes of both the landlords and the peasants : that was already explained by the Marxists before the revolution, and the revolution has confirmed the correctness of their explanation. The difficulty lies in understanding fully the basis of the struggle between the two classes within the framework of bourgeois society and bourgeois evolution. The fact that this struggle is a normal social phenomenon will not be understood unless it is seen as part and parcel of the objective tendencies of the economic development of capitalist Russia.
Now, having shown the connection between the two types of agrarian programmes in the Russian revolution and the two types of bourgeois agrarian evolution, we must pass on to the examination of a new, extremely important aspect of the question.
IN THE FIRST RUSSIAN REVOLUTION,
1905-07[96]
OF THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA
dessiatins
B.
C.
Allotment land [97]
Land owned by state, church, and various
institutions
138.8
154.7
B.
C.
Allotment land
State land and land owned by various
institutions
138.8 " "
39.5 " "
* The Agrarian Question, a collection of articles published by Dolgorukov and Petrunkevich, Vol. II, Moscow, 1907, p. 305.
classified
not classified
(millions dessiatins)
B.
C.
Privately owned land
Allotment land
State land and land owned by various
institutions
136.9
5.1
1.9
34.4
* 85,900,000 dessiatins of privately owned land plus 3,600,000 dessiatins of latifundia owned by industrial and commercial associations and societies.
households
land (dess.)
siatins per
household
5 to 8 " "
3,317,601 /
21,706,550 /
6.5 /
8 to 15 " "
15 to 30 " "
Over 30 " "
3,932,485
1,551,904
617,715
42,182,923
31,271,922
32,695,510
10.7
20.1
52.9
OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY
IN THE FIRST RUSSIAN REVOLUTION,
1905-07[96]
OF THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA
dessiatins
B.
C.
Allotment land [97]
Land owned by state, church, and various
institutions
138.8
154.7
B.
C.
Allotment land
State land and land owned by various
institutions
138.8 " "
39.5 " "
* The Agrarian Question, a collection of articles published by Dolgorukov and Petrunkevich, Vol. II, Moscow, 1907, p. 305.
classified
not classified
(millions dessiatins)
B.
C.
Privately owned land
Allotment land
State land and land owned by various
institutions
136.9
5.1
1.9
34.4
* 85,900,000 dessiatins of privately owned land plus 3,600,000 dessiatins of latifundia owned by industrial and commercial associations and societies.
households
land (dess.)
siatins per
household
5 to 8 " "
3,317,601 /
21,706,550 /
6.5 /
8 to 15 " "
15 to 30 " "
Over 30 " "
3,932,485
1,551,904
617,715
42,182,923
31,271,922
32,695,510
10.7
20.1
52.9
\ Owning 1 horse
2,885,192
\ " 3 "
1,070,250
in European Russia
holdings
land (dess.)
per holding
10-50 dess. incl.
50-500 " "
/ 500-2,000 " "
< 2,000-10,000 " "
\ Over 10,000 " "
209,119
106,065
21,748 \
5,386 >
699 /
4,891,031
17,326,495
20,590,708 \
20,602,109 >
20,798,504 /
23.4
163.3
947 \
3,825 >
29,754 /
Russia
holdings
(millions)
of land
(million
dessiatins.)
dess. per
holding
feudal exploitation
(b) Middle peasantry
(c) Peasant bourgeoisie and
capitalist landownership
(d) Feudal latifundia
10.5
1.0
1.5
0.03
75.0
15.0
70.0
70.0
7.0
15.0
46.7
2,333.0
Not classified according to holdings
--
50
--
* As already mentioned, this table is given in round figures. Here are the exact figures: allotment land: (a) 10,100 000 holdings and 72,900,000 dessiatins- (b) 874,000 holdings and 15,000,000 dessiatins. Private landed property up to 10 dessiatins, 410,000 holdings and 1,600,000 dessiatins; 10-20 dessiatins, 106,000 holdings and 1,600,000 dessiatins. Sum total a + b of both categories of land: 11,500,000 holdings and 91,200,000 dessiatins. For group (c) the exact figures are 1,500,000 holdings and 69,500,000 dessiatins. For group (d): 27,833 holdings and 61,990,000 dessiatins of land. To the latter are added as already mentioned, 5,100,000 dessiatins of crown lands and 3,600,000 dessiatins owned by the very large industrial and commercial associations. The exact figure of land not classifled according to holdings was given above as 48,500,000 dessiatins. From this the reader may see that all our approximate calculations and round figures involve quite negligible numerical changes and cannot affect our conclusions in the least.
of
hold-
ings
(mill.)
area of
land
(mill.
dess.)
dess. per
holding
of
hold-
ings
(mill.)
area of
land
(mill.
dess.)
dess. per
holding
(b) Middle peasants
(c) Wealthy peasants and
bourgeoisie
(d) Feudal landlords
1.0
1.5
0.03
15
70
70
15.0
46.7
2,333.0
11.5
1.53
--
207
73
--
18.0
47.7
--
Unclassified land
--
50
--
--
--
--
* What I have put in brackets is either ignored or denied by the petty-bourgeois ideology of the Narodniks. I shall deal with this later on.
* The alienation limit of 500 dessiatins. which I have taken in the text, is purely hypothetical. If this limit is taken as 100 dessiatins, which is also purely hypothetical, the picture of the change will be as follows:
(millions)
land (million
dessiatins)
(millions)
land (million
dessiatins)
household
(b)
(c)
(d)
1.0
1.4
0.13
15
50
90
(b)
(c)
(d)
11.5
1.53
--
217
63
--
18.8
41.1
--
+ 50
AND ITS IDEOLOGICAL CLOAKS
50-100 "
100-500 "
191,898
40,658
12,259,171
5,762,276
63.9
141.7
of holdings
of land
per holding
44,877
61,188
3,229,858
14,096,637
71.9
230.4
of holdings
of land
per holding
44,877
61,188
3,229,858
14,096,637
71.9
230.4
* We speak here of division not as private property, but for economic use. Such a division is possible -- and, with the predominance of small farming, inevitable for some time -- both under municipalisation and under nationalisation.
* In the magazine Nauchnoye Obozreniye (May-June 1900), I wrote on this subject as follows: ". . . The more the land the peasants received when they were emancipated, and the lower the price they paid for it, the faster, wider, and freer would have been the development of capitalism in Russia the higher would have been the standard of living of the population, the wider would have, been the home market, the faster would have been the introduction of machinery into production; the more, in a word, would the economic development of Russia have resembled that of America. I shall confine myself to indicating two circumstances which, in my opinion, confirm the correctness of the latter view: (1) land-poverty and the burden of taxation have led to the developmcnt over a very considerable area of Russia of the labour-service system of private-landowner farming, i.e., a direct survival of serfdom, and not at all to the development of capitalism; (2) it is in our border regions, where serfdom was either entirely unknown, or was feeblest, and where the peasants suffer least from land shortage, labour-scrvice, and the burden of taxation, that there has been the greatest development of cspitalism in agriculture." (See present edition, vol. 3, pp. 624-25. --Ed.) [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "Uncritical Criticism". -- DJR]
* I have dealt in detail with the importance of the borderlands of Russia as colonisation lands during the development of capitalism in The Development of Capitalism in Russia. (St. Petersburg, 1899 pp. 185, 444, et al.) Second edition issued, St. Petersburg, 1908. (See present edition, Vol. 3, pp. 257, 561, 590-95. --Ed.) The question of the importance of the borderlands in regard to the Social Democratic agrarian programme will be dealt with separalely later on.
* The amount of confusion that reigns at times in the minds of Russian Social-Democrats about the two paths of bourgeois agrarian evolution in Russia is demonstrated by P Maslov. In Obrazovaniye (No. 3, 1907), he outlines two paths: (1) "capitalism in process of development" and (2) "a useless struggle against economic development". "The first path", if you please, "leads the working class and the whole of society towards socialism; the second path pushes [!] the working class into the arms [!] of the bourgeoisie, into a struggle between big and small proprietors, into a struggle from which the working class has nothing to gain but defeat" (p. 92). In the first place, the "second path" is an empty phrase, a dream and not a path, it is a false ideology, and not a real possibility of development. Secondly, Maslov fails to see that Stolypin and the bourgeoisie are also leading the peasantry along the capitalist road; consequently, the real struggle is not about capitalism as such, but about the type of capitalist development. Thirdly, it is sheer nonsense to talk as if there can be a path in Russia which will not "push" the working class under the domination of the bourgeoisie. . . . Fourthly, it is equally nonsensical to allege that there can be a "path" on which there will be no struggle between small and big proprietors. Fifthly, by the use of terms descriptive of general European categories (big and small proprietors), Maslov obscures the historical peculiarity of Russia which is of great significance in the present revolution: the struggle between petty-bourgeois and big feudal proprietors.
IN THE REVOLUTION
* See the records of the First Duma, 14th sitting, May 24, 1906, which show that the Cadets Kokoshkin and Kotlyarevsky, hand in hand with the (then) Octobrist Heyden, resorted to the basest sophistry to repudiate the idea of local land committees. In the Second Duma: the evasions by the Cadet Savelyev (16th sitting, March 26, 1907) and the open opposition to the idea of local committees by the Cadet Tatarinov (24th sitting, April 9, 1907, p. 1783 of Stenographic Record). The newspaper Rech, No. 82, for May 25, 1906, contained a noteworthy leading article which is reprinted in Milyukov's A Year of Struggle No. 117, pp. 457-59. Here is the decisive passage from this Octobrist in disguise: "We believe that setting up these committees on the basis of universal suffrage would mean preparing them not for the peaceful solution of the land problem in the local areas, but for something entirely different. Control of the general direction of the reform ought to be left in the hands of the state. . . . The local commissions should consist as equally as possible [sic!] of representatives of the contlicting interests which can be reconciled without impairing the state importance of the proposed reform, and without turning it into an act of one-sided violence". . . (p. 459). In the Cadet Agrarian Question, Vol. II, Mr. Kutler published the text of his Bill which ensures to the landlords, plus the officials, preponderance over the peasants in all the principal, Gubernia and uyezd land commissions and committees (pp. 640-41), while Mr. A. Chuprov -- a "liberal" defends on principle the same despicable plan of the landlords to swindle the peasants (p. 33).
* See Sbornik "Izvestii Krestyanskikh Deputatov " i "Trudovoi Rossii " (The Symposium of "Peasant Deputies' News " and "Toiling Russia "), St. Petersburg, 1906, a collection of newspaper articles by the Trudoviks in the First Duma; for instance, the article entitled "Grants, Not Redemption Payments" (pp. 44-49), et al.
** See the speech made by the Right-wing peasant deputy Petrochenko in the Second Duma (22nd sitting, April 5, 1907): Kutler, he said, proposed good conditions. . . . "Of course, being a wealthy man he has named a high figure, and we, poor peasants, cannot pay such a price" (p. 1616). Thus, the Right-wing peasant is more to the left than the bourgeois polician who is playing at being a liberal. See also the speech of the non-party peasant deputy Semyonov (April 12 1907), which breathes the spirit of the spontaneous revolutionary struggle of the peasants, and many other speeches.
|
|
Total land area |
Including |
Including |
Population | ||||||
|
Square |
Dess. |
Lands of |
Lands |
Arable |
Mead- |
For- |
Total |
Total |
Per | |
|
Million Dessiatins | ||||||||||
|
10 gubernias in King- |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
page 250
to presume that the land hunger of the Russian peasantry can be satisfied by migration.[*]
These correct arguments of Mr. Kaufman, the liberal, contain, nevertheless, a very serious mistake. Mr. Kaufman argues in this way: "Considering the type of people who now migrate, their present degree of prosperity, and their present cultural level" (p. 129 of the book mentioned), the amount of land available for satisfying the needs of the Russian peasants by means of migration is absolutely insufficient. Consequently, he concludes in defence of the Cadet agrarian programme, compulsory alienation of private land in European Russia is essential.
That is the usual argument of our liberal and liberal-Narodnik economists. It is so constructed as to lead to the conclusion that if there were sufficient land suitable for migration, the feudal latifundia could be left intact! The Cadets and other politicians of the same kind are thoroughly permeated with the ideas of the well-meaning official; they claim to stand above classes and above the class struggle. The feudal latifundia must be done away with not because they imply the feudal exploitation and bondage of millions of the population and retard the development of the productive forces, but because millions of families cannot be immediately packed off to, say, Siberia or Turkestan! The stress is laid not upon the feudal class character of the latifundia in Russia, but upon the possibility of reconciling the classes, of satisfying the peasant without injuring the landlord; in short, upon the possibility of bringing about the notorious "social peace".
The arguments of Mr. Kaufman and his innumerable followers among the Russian intelligentsia have to be turned upside down to be put right. Since the Russian peasant is crushed by the feudal latifundia, for that reason both the free settlement of the population over the territory of Russia and the rational economic use of the bulk of her borderlands are incredibly retarded. Since the feudal lati-
page 251
fundia are keeping the Russian peasantry in a downtrodden state, and perpetuate, through the labour-service system and bondage, the most backward forms and methods of land cultivation, for that reason both the technical progress and the mental development of the mass of the peasants are hindered, as also their activity, initiative, and education, which are essential for the economic utilisation of a far larger area of the Russian land reserves than is utilised today. For the feudal latifiindia and the predominance of bondage in agriculture imply also a corresponding political superstructure -- the predominance of the Black-Hundred landlord in the state, the disfranchisement of the population, the prevalence of Gurko-Lidval methods of administration,[101] and so on and so forth.
That the feudal latifundia in central agricultural Russia are having a disastrous effect upon the whole social system, upon social development as a whole, upon the entire condition of agriculture, and upon the whole standard of living of the masses of the peasantry, is a matter of common knowledge. I only have to refer here to the vast Russian economic literature which has proved the prevalence in Central Russia of labour-service, bondage, rack rent, "winter hiring", and other charming aspects of medievalism.[*]
The fall of serfdom created conditions which (as I pointed out in detail in The Development of Capitalism ) caused the population to flee from those haunts of the last descendants of the serf-owners. The population fled from the central agricultural area to the industrial gubernias, to the capitals, and to the southern and eastern borderlands of European Russia, and settled in hitherto uninhabited lands. In the pamphlet I have mentioned, Mr. Mertvago quite truly remarks, by the way, that the conception of what sort of land is unsuitable for agriculture is liable to undergo rapid change.
"'The Taurida steppes,'" he writes, "'owing to the climate and the scarcity of water, will always be one of the poorest and least suitable regions for cultivation.' That
page 252
was the opinion expressed in 1845 by such authoritative observers of nature as Academicians Beer and Helmersen. At that time the population of Taurida Gubernia, a half of what it is now, produced 1,800,000 chetverts of grain of all kinds. . . . Now, after a lapse of 60 years, the population has doubled, and in 1903, it produced 17,600,000 chetverts, i.e., nearly ten times as much" (p. 24).
That is true not only of Taurida Gubernia, but of a number of other gubernias in the southern and eastern border lands of European Russia. The southern steppes, and also the gubernias on the left bank of the Volga, which in the sixties and seventies lagged behind the ceutral black-earth gubernias in the output of grain, outstripped those provinces in the eighties (The Development of Capitalism, p. 186).[*] Between 1863 and 1897 the population of the whole of European Russia increased by 53 per cent -- 48 per cent in the case of the rural and 97 per cent in the case of the urban population -- whereas in Novorossia, the Lower Volga, and eastern gubernias, the population increased during the same period by 92 per cent -- 87 per cent increase in the rural population and 134 per cent increase in the urban population (ibid., p. 446).[**]
"We have no doubt," Mr. Mertvago continues, "that the present bureaucratic estimate of the economic importance of our land reserves is not less mistaken than that of Beer and Helmersen concerning Taurida Gubernia in 1845" (ibid.).
That is correct. But Mr. Mertvago fails to see the source of Beer's mistakes, and of the mistakes of all bureaucratic estimates. The source of those mistakes is that while taking into consideration the given level of technique and culture, no allowance is made for the advance of this level. Beer and Helmersen did not foresee the technical changes that became possible after the fall of serfdom. And there cannot be the least doubt now that a tremendous increase in the productive forces, a tremendous rise in the technical and cultural level will inevitably follow the break-up of the feudal latifundia in European Russia.
page 253
This aspect of the matter is overlooked by many students of the agrarian problem in Russia. The prerequisite for the wide utilisation of the vast Russian lands available for colonisation is the creation in European Russia of a really free peasantry, completely liberated from the oppression of feudal relations. A considerable portion of these lands is unsuitable at the present time, not so much because of the natural properties of this or that borderland, but because of the social conditions of agriculture in Russia proper, which doom technical methods to stagnation and the population to a rightless status, downtroddenness, ignorance, and helplessness.
It is this exceedingly important aspect of the matter that Mr. Kaufman overlooks when he declares: "I say in advance: I do not know whether it will be possible to settle one, three, or ten million on those lands" (ibid., p. 128). He goes on to point out that the term unsuitable land is only relative: "The alkali soils, far from being absolutely hopeless, can, with the application of certain technical methods, be made very fertile" (ibid., p. 129). In Turkestan, with a population density of 3.6 to the square verst, "vast areas are still uninhabited" (ibid., p. 137). "The soil of many of the 'hungry deserts' of Turkestan consists of the famous Central Asiatic loess which becomes highly fertile if sufficiently irrigated. . . . The existence of irrigable lands is a question that is not even worth while discussing: it is sufficient to cross the country in any direction to see the ruins of numerous villages and towns, abandoned centuries ago, frequently surrounded for scores of square versts by networks of ancient irrigation canals and ditches. The total area of loess desert awaiting irrigation undoubtedly amounts to many millions of dessiatins" (ibid., p. 137).
All these millions of dessiatins in Turkestan, as well as in many other parts of Russia, are "awaiting" not only irrigation and reclamation of every kind. They are also "awaiting" the emancipation of the Russian agricultural population from the survivals of serfdom, from the yoke of the nobility's latifundia, and from the Black-Hundred dictatorship in the state.
It is idle to speculate on the actual amount of land in Russia that could be converted from "unsuitable" into suit-
page 254
able land. But it is necessary clearly to appreciate the fact, which is demonstrated by the whole economic history of Russia, and which is an outstanding feature of the bourgeois revolution in Russia, viz., that Russia possesses a gigantic amount of land available for colonisation, which will be rendered accessible to the population and accessible to culture, not only by every technical advance of agriculture, but also by every advance in the emancipation of the Russian peasantry from the yoke of serfdom.
This forms the economic basis for the bourgeois evolution of Russian agriculture on the American model. In the countries of Western Europe, which our Marxists so often draw upon for thoughtless and stereotyped comparisons, all the land was already occupied in the epoch of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. The only new thing brought about by every technical advance in agriculture was that it became possible to invest more labour and capital in the land. In Russia, the bourgeois-democratic revolution is taking place under conditions in which every technical advance in agriculture, and every advance in the development of real liberty for the population, not only creates the possibility for additional investment of labour and capital in old lands, but also the possibility for utilising "boundless" tracts of adjacent new lands.
Let us sum up the economic deductions which are to serve as an introduction to the re-examination of the question of the Social-Democratic agrarian programme.
We have seen that the "pivot" of the agrarian struggle in our revolution is the feudal latifundia. The peasants' struggle for the land is, first and foremost, a struggle for the abolition of these latifundia. Their abolition and their complete transfer to the peasantry undoubtedly coincide with the line of the capitalist evolution of Russian agriculture. Such a path of this evolution would mean the most rapid development of productive forces, the best conditions of labour for the mass of the population, and the most rapid development of capitalism, with the conversion of
page 255
the free peasants into farmers. But another path of bourgeois evolution of agriculture is possible, viz., the preservation of the landlord farms and latifundia and their slow conversion from farms based on serfdom and bondage into Junker farms. It is these two types of possible bourgeois evolution that form the basis of the two types of agrarian programmes proposed by different classes in the Russian revolution. Moreover, a special feature of Russia, a feature that is one of the economic foundations for the possibility of the "American" evolution, is the existence of vast lands available for colonisation. While entirely unsuitable for emancipating the Russian peasantry from the yoke of serfdom in European Russia, these lands will become more extensive and more accessible in proportion to the freedom enjoyed by the peasantry in Russia proper, and to the scope of development of the productive forces.
THE AGRARIAN PROGRAMMES OF THE R.S.D.L.P.
Let us pass to an examination of the Social-Democratic agrarian programme. I outlined the chief historical stages in the evolution of the views of Russian Social-Democrats on the agrarian question in the first section of the pamphlet Revision of the Agrarian Programme of the Workers' Party.* We must explain more fully the nature of the mistake contained in the previous agrarian programmes of Russian Social-Democracy, i.e., in the programmes of 1885 and 1903.
* The Agrarian Question, published by Dolgorukov and Petrunkevich, Vol. 1, article by Mr. Kaufman: "Migration and Its Role in the Agrarian Programme". See also the work by the same author: Migration and Colonisation, St. Petersburg, 1905.
* See The Development of Capitalism, Chapter III, on the transition from corvée to capitalist economy and the spread of the labour-service system. (See present edilion, Vol. 3, pp. 191-251. --Ed.)
* See present edition, Vol. 3, p. 257. --Ed.
** See present edition, Vol. 3. p. 563. --Ed.
OF CHAPTER I
AND THEIR TEST IN THE FIRST REVOLUTION
PROGRAMMES OF RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY?