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

AGRARIAN PROGRAMME OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY269group, 2 non-party deputies, 1 deputy more to the left thanthe Cadets (Peterson), and 1 Cadet (Odnokozov, a peasant).There was a preponderance of peasants among the signatories(no fewer than 54 out of 91 in the Second Duma, andno fewer than 52 out of 104 in the First). It is interestingthat P. Maslov’s special expectations regarding the homesteadpeasants (referred to above*) who, he said, couldnot agree to nationalisation, were also completely defeatedby the attitude of the peasant deputies in both Dumas.For instance, in Podolsk Gubernia nearly all the peasantsare homestead peasants (in 1905 there were 457,134 homesteadpeasants and only 1,630 members of village communes);nevertheless, 13 Podolsk deputies (mainly peasantfarmers) signed the Land Bill of the “104” in the First Duma,and 10 in the Second Duma! Among other gubernias withhomestead landownership we will mention Vilna, Kovno,Kiev, Poltava, Bessarabia, and Volhynia, deputies fromwhich signed the Land Bill of the “104”. The distinctionbetween village commune members and homestead peasantsas regards land nationalisation may appear importantand material only to those who share Narodnik prejudicesand those prejudices, by the way, were dealt a hardblow when the peasant deputies of the whole of Russiafirst came forward with a land programme. As a matterof fact, the demand for the nationalisation of the land iscalled forth not by any specific form of landownership, notby the “communal habits and instincts” of the peasants,but by the general conditions of the whole system of smallpeasant landownership (both communal and homestead)which is crushed by the feudal latifundia.Among the deputies in the First and Second Dumas whosponsored the nationalisation Bill of the 104 we see representativesfrom all parts of Russia, not only from the centralagricultural and the industrial non-black-earth gubernias,not only from the northern (Arkhangelsk and Vologda—in the Second Duma), eastern and southern borderlands(Astrakhan, Bessarabia, Don, Ekaterinoslav, Kuban, Taurida,and Stavropol gubernias and regions), but also fromthe gubernias of Little Russia, the South-west, North-west,* See pp. 261-62 of this volume.—Ed.