Page:Theses Presented to the Second World Congress of the Communist International (1920).pdf/49

 ularly rich, or a mixture of these two classes of exploiters and idlers.

No propaganda can be admitted in the ranks of the communist parties in favour of an indemnity to be paid to the owners of large estates for their expropriation. In the present conditions prevailing in Europe and America this would mean a treason to Socialism and the imposition of a new tax on the labouring and exploited masses, who have already suffered most from the war—which has increased the number of millionaires and multiplied their wealth.

In regard to the management of the estates confiscated by the victorious proletariat from the owners of large landed property, the prevailing practice in Russia, because of economic backwardness, was that of a partition of this landed property for the benefit otof [sic] the peasantry, and comparatively rare exceptions were the preservation of the so-called "Soviet Farm", managed by the proletarian State at its expense, and transforming the former wage labourers into workers employed by the State, and into members of the councils managing these Farms. In the advanced capitalist countries the Communist International considers that it should be a prevailing practice to preserve the large agricultural establishments and manage them on the lines of the "Soviet Farms" in Russia.