The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 12, 1924, Page 7

— Lenin and the Agrarian Question Ry P. MIECIAISIEV ONG before the revolution 1995, Nikolai ceived the idea of an alliance be- tween the proletariat and the. peas- antry. This idea he brought before the Russian revolutionists at the very moment when it was being re- jected by the social democratic party of Germany, at the time the most powerful group ir the Second International, which until very re. cently has doggedly fallowed this method of carefully xvyoiding in its congresses the problem of the peasantry, Not only did Leuin pring “this question squarely. to the fore: be made it the basis of his program and the cornerstone of his policy. Be- fore the revolution. ag well ss while it was going on. he watched care. fully to see that this problen: vas not overlooked and to insnre its ra- tional solution. Marvelous strategist and peerless prophet that he was, he had reutizo that the proletariat would eain a powerful ally in the revolution if the party adopted a noliey of fuir- ness towards the vensantry ‘and that, on the other hand, i: would a3. suredly be crushed if it vere to ent itself off from tho masses in the country. Lenin was the auteor or the agrarian program of the Communist Party. He understand the tremen- dous importance of such » pvrogram for the Russian revolution. And if the first program of the Russien su cial democratic group, sdopted at the Second Congress, was to a great. extent an adoption of the program of the social democrats in Germaiy, the same cannot be sail of the agrarian program, Nevertheless it was not program itself that Lesin~ coreen- trated his attention; an able ar- ganizer, eminently a ann of actin, he gave all his attention to conecal- ship. After. various trials, “hoe rointed cut the obligation thst the party would be under of rovisiny ‘its agrarian program according to the frontier and the extent of the peas ant revolution. From the beginning of his active service, Lenin busied himself with the formation of special groups. of peasants for the purpose of fyr- thering the- revolution and of met. ting its victories on a firm basis. In the very first agrarian program, written by kis own hand, he urges the organization of the peasants into committees. In snch orranizaction he sees “a practica! policy far propaganda and 2 means of organiz- ing the farmer movement and of rendering it articulate.” And, altho imperfect and tim!a in the extreme in its exclusively ayra- rian demands, this nrogram is iniis- potably imbued with the spirit af the revolution. Altho the second agrarian pro- gram, adopted at thc Wourth Con- gress, seemed to include demande more fundamental, it was evative and opportunistic. Prepared under the influence of the Mensheviki, it had lost every trace of revolutionary spirit. It narrowed the possibility of agtrarian reform tao the demo- cratic “zemtvos’” and to the landed proprietors, not to the werking peasantry. . . In no way did it satisfy the revo- lutionists of the party, and Tenin continued to fight for the “national- ization of the land,” which was to be accomplished thru the peasants’ committees, Realizing the tremendous import- ance of the agrarian question for the coming revolution, making overy effort to give fair trontmont to the proletariat and to the Bolsheviki. Tenin, after the first revolution, turned his attention to this prob- lem. He was roundins out its theory and elaborating fis Stee when war overtook him in Austria. Tt was during this period that he wrote his best work on the agmamian question. With painstaking care he criticized tho “municinetization sf the land”—a movement whose twit. bourgeois character he Inid bare. The “Agrarian' Program of the So- cial Democrats During the First Russian Revolution,” the “Agra- rian the iind of the en the n at Ninteenth Centry,” the “New Views on the Laws of the Development uf Capitalism in Agriculture,” are among the best that has been writ. of Lenin had con- small $ caused the flow of streams of Serle eset —_————$ $e Es ten on the question, in Russian cr, Let us admit that this may be 20. | authorship is ot 10 imnort-! in any language. His last work, “New Views on the Laws of the Development of Cupi- talism in Agriculture,” suggests the method sf solving the problem of exploitation on a larse and on a secale—a problem which had and which the workers of the formers and of the. thvorists Second International only to confuse, Thus, on the eve of the vear Lenin was laying the foundations of the new revolutionary. policy which was to become the cormersione of the pyrarian program of the firture Communist International and wided the experiences of the Russian veve- lution enriched, nurtured. and linked indissexibly with action. Hardly had he returned from exile in April, 1917, when FLenin, in his celebrated tracts on justice, gave particular attention to the agrarian problem. He advocated the im-re- diate seizure of the land of the reat proprietors an its redistribu- (tion by the peasant can nittees: in the first years. of the century. he had already foreseen the tremeaduas part that these orxenizations were tu play. [t was thru the medium #” these committees ani of sovicte of deputies that the pexszntry put for- ward the demands which underlay the first agrarian law of the Soviv+ts It was upon their support that the realization of agrarian referm was based, / Man of action, a beine above 2! practical, Lenin built un the agra rian program and the agrarian po!- icy, not upon abstract theories, bat exciusively upon experience, and ler himself be guided always by the wishes of the working class and of the peasantry, It was in his communications. in te. of the had = served aayt Sei pany this conversations. with the workers of St. Petersburg and other cities.. still ‘solidly attached to the town, that he had worked out the cardinal points of. his first agrarian program. It was from the demands of the |eida, let them mold tneir own lives. Their ance. We should deal with facts, ‘and we should give ts the masses |own initiative, . . . We believe that ithe peasantry itself will know better ‘than we how to solve that question. . Let the peasants themselves de- ” ‘Chix confidence in the masses, this fxitti in their creative ability, this defiance of! any tendency towards bureaucracy, is extremely character- astic of the Lenin of the vevotution. ~cnin sought to know how “the pereimtis themselves” would solve the problems which concerned ther; he ovlaced them on their enuard ngainst mistaken decisions, he guid- ed them, and he did not cease to re- peat to the Soviet workers that. it was necessary to itistruct — the masses “in learning thra their own experiences” how to manage their affairs. Faith in the creative ability of the masses and prudence. in the agrarian cuestion, ag in everything that touched on the economics of the land: these were the outstand- ing features of this fearless and un- econquerable _revoluticnist. Fven whep the ugrarian qiestion appeas- ed already settled, and when we were busying ourselves with the placing of our victories on a firm basis and with insuring the perma- nvency of the use of the land, Lenir never for one moment left the path of extreme prudence. “Tt would net do row (spiing, 1922) for us to tie ow hands with formulas, with rules, or with any regulations whatsoever until we have gathered a sufficient nnmber of facts in the field of loca! ceonomics and until we have thoroly studied the demands and the real needs of rural economy. Let us not allow a single unnecessary regulation, ir- rational, premature and not based upon experience, » -cegulation to which the en authorities would he held, and which would re dangerous and harmful in the extreme.” }unhampered opportunity to use their | | tive use of the land. With the most practical and urgent problems for the mass 2% the work- }¢ts. and needy peasants: the food problem. In order to cneournze the poor veasants and the workers who emti- grated from the cities to engayy ia agriculture, Lenin “urged co-o, Me did not fail to take into aceoun® of the difticn!- Ta- jties of this tusk, more arduous than ;“the overthrow of the weak spirit of Nickolas Romanotf.” But he supported with enthusiasm the tirst attempts at co-operative agricul- ture, took an intense interest in them, and saw to it that they were supplied with the finnneial eredit necessary to insure their success. Lenin gave careful atiention te the organization of the agricultizral workers. ~Consider*nz this section of thé proletariat ihe most ienor- ant, the most backward and the most oppressed, he had since 1917 urged the industrial workers to hel» the day laborers and the farm -vork- ers to band themselves together inio unions. He understood ‘hat the agricul- tural workers weré not only excel- tent support for the soviet powcr in the rural sections, tut also the organizers of*land cultivation on a Some Specimen! Where Future Generations Will Study the Iniquities of Capitalist Government. revolutionary peasantry in 1905 and 1906 that he took the idea of the na- tionalization of the lana, uf the abo- lition of private ownership of land. He listened with strained attention to what the peasant deputies to thw Congresses or to the Dumas of the empire had to say; he pondered the minutes cf the Congress of the Peasants’ Union, the sgricultural plan of the group “Toil,” and all the documents having to do with the state of mind and with the demamts of the peasant masses. The same was true’in 1917. No sooner had the pamphlet containing 242 complaints of the peasants ap- peared than Lenin get to work to study it diligently and took it for his guide.. He did not allow hitnself to become alarmed at the narrow- taindedness of the social-revolution- ists who were disregarding these demands, He understood them in all their profound revolutionary im- plications, supported them, incorpur- ated them into the first agrarian law and helped the to realize them for iteol? “if mi “There are those,” he said to the Second Congress of the Soviets, At the same time, Lenin called Zor the elnsboration of ihe agrariz code, for whose adoption by the Council of the Coinmissioners of the People and by the Central Pan-PRus- sian Executive Committee he was responsible, . . After its adoption he announced that the purty would never hesitate to revise and perfect it, to accept amendinents snd cor- rections which may be introduced by the peasantry. Even while showing the greatest care for the peasant mass, whose port in the revolutionary movement and in the realizution of socialism he understood perfectly. Lenin took into account its heterogeneous chur- acter nnd drew his conclusions uc- cordingly. Even before the October revolu- tion, he dwelt on the aceessity of forming a special organization of the preletarian and semi-proletarian elements of the ruril district, He emphasized the fact that this organ- ization was particularly needed, that it was indeed indispensable at the ander the | moment when it would be necessary guidance of the revoiutionary com-|to put agrarian reforms. into prac- tice. By this meats only could the poor peasants defend their interests lafter the partitioning of the land. “who claim that the decree itstt| After October he urged the or- and the pamphlet of complaints are ganization of commitwes of ncor the work of the social-revolutionists. ponsants, whom he wished to entrust large scale. As early as the ont- break of the revolution of 1917, he mentioned the fact that it would be necessary to leave out of the verlis- tribution of the iand a small quan- tity of large model tracts to be cul- tivated under the direction of» ex- perienced farmers. But in the organization of the na- tional domains, he did not forget the interests of the rural. popula- tion, In the law having to do with ‘the sovial forms or agriculture, he emphasizes the fact. thut the “na- tional domains ought not to hold themselves apart from the toent! peasantry, but shouid be in direct contact with it and support it.” At the same time that he sup- ported the poor peasantry and waa using every means to fight the koulaks and the rural bourgeois, Lenin understood the role of the middle class peasantry, The atti- tude towards this elass was to him a fundamental problem of the revo- lution and of the economic organi- zation of the city. ekilled in the theory and’ practice af agrarian policy, the creator and the guide of the agrarian revolution and rural economic organization, IMPEACH COOLIDGE! seme Retr