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

AGRARIAN PROGRAMME OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY261But was not the Congress wrong in believing them?In view of the importance of the question of an all-RussianVendée against nationalisation, a brief reference tohistory will not be out of place.3. THE CHIEF ARGUMENT OF THE MUNICIPALISERSTESTED BY EVENTSThe above-quoted categorical assertions of John andKostrov were made in April 1906, i.e., on the eve of theFirst Duma. I argued (see my pamphlet Revision, etc.*)that the peasantry was in favour of nationalisation, but Iwas told that the decisions of the congresses of the PeasantUnion 105 did not prove anything, that they were inspiredby the ideologists of the Socialist-Revolutionaries,that the masses of the peasants would never support suchdemands.Since then this question has been documentarily answeredby the First and Second Dumas. The representativesof the peasantry from all parts of Russia spoke in the Firstand particularly in the Second Duma. No one, with thepossible exception of the publicists of Rossiya 106 and NovoyeVremya, could deny that the political and economicdemands of the peasant masses found expression in boththose Dumas. One would have thought that the idea of nationalisingthe peasants’ lands should be finally buried now,after the independent declarations made by the peasantdeputies in the presence of the other parties. One wouldhave thought that the supporters of John and Kostrov couldeasily have got the peasant deputies to raise an outcry inthe Duma against nationalisation. One would have thoughtthat Social-Democracy, led by the Mensheviks, should reallyhave “isolated” from the revolution the advocates of nationalisationwho are rousing an all-Russian counter-revolutionaryVendée.As a matter of fact, something different happened. Inthe First Duma it was Stishinsky and Gurko who showedconcern for the peasants’ own (John’s italics) lands. Inboth Dumas it was the extreme Right-wingers who, jointly* See present edition, Vol. 10, pp, 165-95.—Ed.