Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 13 - From Marx to Mao

244V. I. LENINthe best possible (under commodity production) conditionsof existence for the mass of the peasantry. The tactics ofSocial-Democracy in the Russian bourgeois revolution aredetermined not by the task of supporting the liberalbourgeoisie, as the opportunists think, but by the task ofsupporting the fighting peasantry.Let us take the programme of the liberal bourgeoisie,i.e., the Cadet programme. True to the motto: “at yourservice” (i.e., at the service of the landlords), they proposedone programme in the First Duma and another in the Second.They can change their programme as easily and imperceptiblyas all the European unprincipled bourgeoiscareerists do. In the First Duma the revolution appearedto be strong, and so the liberal programme borrowed fromit a bit of nationalisation (the “state land available fordistribution”). In the Second Duma the counter-revolutionappeared to be strong, and so the liberal programme threwthe state land available for distribution overboard, swunground to the Stolypin idea of stable peasant property,strengthened and enlarged the scope of exemptions from thegeneral rule of compulsory alienation of the landlords’land. But we note this two-faced attitude of the liberalsonly in passing. The important thing to note here is somethingelse, viz., the principle which is common to both“faces” of the liberal agrarian programme. That commonprinciple consists of: (1) redemption payments; (2) preservationof the landlords’ estates; (3) preservation of thelandlords’ privileges when carrying out the reform.Redemption payment is tribute imposed upon socialdevelopment, tribute paid to the owners of the feudallatifundia. Redemption payment is the realisation, ensuredby bureaucratic, police measures, of the feudal methodsof exploitation in the shape of the bourgeois “universalequivalent”. Further, preservation of the landlords’ estatesis seen in one or another degree in both Cadet programmes,no matter how the bourgeois politicians may try to concealthat fact from the people. The third point—the preservationof the landlords’ privileges when carrying outthe reform—is quite definitely expressed in the Cadets’attitude to the election of local land committees on thebasis of universal, direct, and equal suffrage by secret bal-