Page:John Reed - Ten Days that Shook the World - 1919, Boni and Liveright.djvu/351

 ised city proletariat, desperately needed the backing of the peasants....

Meanwhile Smolny had not neglected the peasants. After the Land decree, one of the first actions of the new Tsay-ee-kah had been to call a Congress of Peasants, over the head of the Executive Committee of the Peasants' Soviets. A few days later was issued detailed Regulations for the Volost (Township) Land Committees, followed by Lenin's "Instruction to Peasants," which explained the Bolshevik revolution and the new Government in simple terms; and on November 16th, Lenin and Miliutin published the "Instructions to Provincial Emissaries," of whom thousands were sent by the Soviet Government into the villages.

Upon his arrival in the province to which he is accredited, the emissary should call a joint meeting of the Central Executive Committees of the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, to whom he should make a report on the agrarian laws, and then demand that a joint plenary session of the Soviets be summoned.... He must study the aspects of the agrarian problem in the province. Has the land-owners' property been taken over, and if so, in what districts? Who administers the confiscated land—the former proprietor, or the Land Committees? What has been done with the agricultural machinery and with the farm-animals? Has the ground cultivated by the peasants been augmented? <li>How much and in what respect does the amount of land now under cultivation differ from the amount fixed by the Government as an average minimum?</li> <li>The emissary must insist that, after the peasants have received the land, it is imperative that they increase the amount of cultivated land as quickly as possible, and that they hasten the </li></ol>