Lenin CW-Vol. 23.pdf - From Marx to Mao

NOTES413146147A. V. Lunacharsky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vyacheslav Shishkovand A. Chaplygin. Letopis appeared from December 1915 to December1917. The Parus publishing house existed from 1915 through1918. p. 334The agrarian programme of the “104”—the land reform bill theTrudovik members submitted to the 13th meeting of the FirstState Duma on May 23 (June 5) 1906. Its purpose was to “establisha system under which all the land, with its deposits and waters,would belong to the entire people, and farmlands would be allowedonly those tilling them by their own labour” (Documents and Materialsof the State Duma, Moscow, 1957, p. 172). The Trudoviksadvocated organisation of a “national land fund” that would includeall state, crown, monastery and church lands, also part of privatelyowned lands, which were to be alienated if the size of theholding exceeded the labor norm fixed for the given area. Partialcompensation was to be paid for such alienated land. Small holdingswere to remain the property of the owner, but would eventually bebrought into the national fund. Implementation of the reform was tobe supervised by local committees elected by universal, direct andequal suffrage and by secret ballot. p. 341This was written early in March 1917 and published in Berne overthe signature: “Editorial Board, Sotsial-Demokrat”, with the followingnote: “Comrades, continue to write to the Prisoners’ ReliefCommittee at the following address: Schweiz, Bern, Falkenweg 9,Dr. Schklowsky . The comrades will try to keep on sending books, etc.”Contact with Russian war prisoners in German and Austriancamps began in 1915, when the Committee of R.S.D.L.P.Organisations Abroad set up in Berne the Social-DemocraticCommission for Contact with War Prisoners. Nearly 250 lettersa month were sent to and received from war prisoners in morethan 20 camps. Communication was established with Social-Democrats in these camps, mostly Bolsheviks and Bolshevik sympathisers,and through them camp libraries were built up, diversepropaganda work conducted, May Day celebrations organised, etc.Sotsial-Demokrat, the Bolshevik Central Organ, Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata, Kommunist, Alexandra Kollontai’s pamphlet WhoNeeds This War? (in two editions) a leaflet on the land question,Gorky’s leaflet “The Black-Hundred Pogrom-Mongers and theJews”, various textbooks and other literature were supplied tothe camps.In February 1917, No. 1 of the magazine In War Prison was putout, financed by collections among war prisoners. Issue No. 2 wasprepared for publication at the end of March 1917, on the eve ofthe Bolsheviks departure for Russia, but did not appear in print.Lenin attached great importance to work among war prisonerswho, on returning home, would be drawn into the revolutionarystruggle. Regular personal contacts were out of the question, buttwo war prisoners who had escaped from German camps visitedLenin in Zurich towards the close of January 1917.