Page:Yevgeni Alekseyevich Preobrazhensky - Third Anniversary of the Russian October Revolution (1921).djvu/26

 26 Add to this the rent paid to the landlord for the land, the Zemstvo taxes, the profits of the rich peasants and usurers, and we find that the triple alliance of the Tsar, landlords, and the bourgeoisie was skinning the peasantypeasantry [sic] to the tune of 2,000,000,000 gold roubles per annum. Before the war a pood of corn cost one gold rouble or even less; 2,000,000,000 roubles therefore represented 2,000,000,000 of poods of corn which the peasantry thus paid to the parasites of all ranks. Of course it was not in corn alone that they paid this tribute—they sold their cattle, eggs, butter, etc. In the villages the peasants partook of meat only once a month and on some great holiday: they denied their children milk and eggs, taking all to the market. But in terms of corn, the peasantry paid to their oppressors about 2,000,000,000 poods. Now the Government took last year from the peasants 260,000,000 poods of corn. Adding to the corn, meat, butter, eggs, and all that is taken now from the peasants, we arrive at a figure which by no means exceeds 350,000,000 or 400,000,000 gold roubles. Deducting from this all that the peasantry gets from the government, such as textiles, salt, oil, agricultural implements, free education of the children, we find that the peasants paid to the State in 1920 less than 300,000,000 roubles. Thus, the levy paid, by the peasants to the State is only one-seventh of what they paid to the Tsar, landlords and the bourgeoisie.

During the first two years of the Revolution the peasants obtained even more than what they gave to the workers. In the season of 1918–19 the peasants received goods to the value of 4,000,000,000 roubles