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

AGRARIAN PROGRAMME OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY331bourgeois evolution of the Prussian, Junker type, or a rapid,free evolution of the American type is possible in Russianow. Anything else is an illusion.The second reason for the “restoration muddle” in theheads of some of our comrades was the uncertain situationin the spring of 1906. The peasantry, as a mass, had notyet definitely shown itself. It was still possible to assumethat the peasant movement and the Peasant Union werenot the final expressions of the real aspirations of the overwhelmingmajority of the peasantry. The autocratic bureaucracyand Witte had not yet finally given up hopethat “the muzhik will help us out” (a classic phrase usedby Witte’s organ Russkoye Gosudarstvo in the spring of1906), i.e., that the peasants would go to the Right. Hencethe strong representation allowed to the peasantry underthe Law of December 11, 1905. Even at that time manySocial-Democrats still thought the autocracy capable ofplaying some trick with the peasants’ idea: “Better all theland be the tsar’s than the gentry’s”. But the two Dumas,the Law of June 3, 1907, and Stolypin’s agrarian legislationwere enough to open everybody’s eyes. To save whatit could, the autocracy had to introduce the policy of forciblybreaking up the village communes in favour of privateownership of land, i.e., to base the counter-revolution,not on the peasants’ vague talk about nationalisation(the land belongs to the “commune”, and so on), but on theonly possible economic basis upon which the power of thelandlords could be retained, i.e., capitalist evolution onthe Prussian model.The situation has now become quite clear, and it is hightime to put away forever the vague fear of “Asiatic” restorationroused by the peasant movement against the privateownership of land.*lords’ peasants. According to the returns for 1905, the former heldan average of 12.5 dessiatins of allotted land per household, whereasthe latter held only 6.7 dessiatins.* I say nothing here about the fact that the bogey of restorationis a political weapon of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat, sinceeverything essential on this subject has been said already in my Report.(See present edition, Vol. 10, p. 339.—Ed.)