Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/100



It is impossible to tell at present with any degree of certainty whether a gigantic agrarian revolution will take place in the near future in Russia. We cannot say how deep the cleavage is between the two agricultural classes: hired laborers and pauperized farmers (agricultural proletariat) on the one hand, and the wealthy and well-to-do farmers (large and small capitalists) on the other. All this can only be decided by practical experience.

We are convinced, however, that the proletarian party must at once not only formulate an agrarian program, but devise ways and means of bringing about an agrarian revolution in Russia.

We must demand the nationalization of all lands, that is, the surrender of all lands in the country to a central governmental department. This department shall ascertain the area of agricultural lands, establish rules for the conservation of forests, and prevent anyone from standing between the land and those who till it, prevent every form of traffic in land. The disposition of all lands, the establishment of local rules concerning the use of land must not be left to the caprice of bureaucrats and officials, but be vested in the local Councils of Peasants' Delegates.

In order to perfect the system of bread production and increase the production in general, in order also to develop rational cultivation on a large scale, socially controlled, we must see to it that every Peasants' Council organizes out of the various estates confiscated by the community a large public estate controlled by the Council of Farm Laborers' Delegates.

To offset the petty bourgeois rant which fills the speeches of the Social-Revolutionists, the empty words concerning the "standard of consumption," the "standard of labor," the "socialization of the land," etc., the proletarian party must make it clear to the masses that the system of small property in the production of goods cannot m any way save mankind from poverty or oppression.