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

AGRARIAN PROGRAMME OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY271All this is true. But the Socialist-Revolutionaries arewrong in believing that “strong” words can obscure thefact that the crux of the matter is not the opportunism ofPeshekhonov and Co., but the individualism of the smallfarmer. The point is not that the Peshekhonovs are pollutingthe ideological stream of the Socialist-Revolutionaries,but that the majority of the progressive peasant deputieshave revealed the real economic content of Narodism,the real aspirations of the small farmers. What the LandBills of the 104 in the First and Second Dumas* revealedwas the bankruptcy of the Socialist-Revolutionaries in faceof the representatives of the broad, really all-Russian, peasantmasses.While declaring in favour of nationalisation of the land,the Trudoviks very clearly reveal in their Bill the “selfishand individualistic” aspirations of the small farmers. Theypropose to leave the allotments and the small private holdingsin the possession of their present owners (Clause 3of the Land Bill of the 104), provided legislative measuresare taken to ensure that they “gradually become the propertyof the whole nation”. Translated into the languageof real economic relations, it means just this: we take asour starting-point the interests of the real owners, of thereal, not the nominal, tillers of the soil, but we want theireconomic activity to develop quite freely on nationalised*** From the Stenographic Records of the Second Duma it appearsthat the Socialist-Revolutionary Mushenko introduced a Land Billsigned by 105 deputies. Unfortunately, I have not been able to obtaina copy of that Bill. Among the Duma materials I had at my disposalthere was only the Trudovik Bill of the 104 that was introduced inthe Second Duma too. The existence of the Socialist-RevolutionaryBill of the 105 in addition to the two Trudovik Bills of the 104 (introducedin the First and Second Dumas) merely indicates, at best,that certain peasants wavered between the Popular Socialists and theSocialist-Revolutionaries, but it does not disprove what I have saidabove.** Incidentally, A. Finn-Yenotayevsky, in disputing the earnestnessand consciousness of the nationalisation aspirations of the PeasantUnion and of the peasantry in general, quoted the statement ofV. Groman that the delegates to the peasants congresses “do not anticipatehaving to make any payment for the land”, and that they haveno idea that differential rent must revert to society as a whole. (A.Finn, The Agrarian Question and Social-Democracy, p. 69.) Clauses7 and 14 of the Bill of the 104 prove that this view is erroneous. In