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

272V. I. LENINland. Clause 9 of the Bill, which states that “priority is tobe given to the local population before outsiders, and to theagricultural population before the non-agricultural”, showsonce more that the interests of the small proprietors comefirst with the Trudoviks. An “equal right to the land” is amere phrase; state loans and grants “to persons withoutsufficient means to acquire the necessary agricultural equipment”(Clause 15 of the Land Bill of the 104) are piouswishes; those who will really and inevitably gain will bethe ones who can become strong proprietors now, who can betransformed from enslaved tillers of the soil into free andwell-to-do farmers. Of course, it is in the interests of theproletariat to support such measures as will most of allhelp agriculture in Russia to pass from the hands of feudallandlords and enslaved tillers of the soil, who are crushedby ignorance, poverty, and routine, into the hands of freefarmers. And the Bill of the “104” is nothing but a platformof the struggle to turn the well-to-do section of the enslavedpeasantry into free farmers.5. MEDIEVAL LANDOWNERSHIPAND THE BOURGEOIS REVOLUTIONThe question now arises whether there are material groundsin the economic conditions of the agrarian, bourgeoisdemocraticrevolution in Russia compelling the small proprietorsto demand the nationalisation of the land, or whetherthis demand as well is merely a phrase, merely thepious wish of the ignorant muzhik, the vain dream of thepatriarchal tiller of the soil.those clauses provision is made by the Trudoviks both for paymentfor the land (a land tax rising in accordance with the size of the allotment)and for the reversion of differential rent to the state (“limitingthe right to appropriate the increase in the value” of the land, “insofaras it is not due to their, the owners’, labour and capital—[N.B.!the Trudoviks are not opposed to capital!]—but to social conditions”).It is true that in regard to urban and other lands, Clause 7 providesthat: “until such property passes to the whole nation” the rights ofoccupiers, etc, shall be limited. But that is probably a slip of the pen,for otherwise it would mean that the Trudoviks take the rent from theproprietors and return it to the occupiers, the tenants of nationalisedland!