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

AGRARIAN PROGRAMME OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY379Count Bobrinsky said: “Dirt has been thrown here at thecleanest and brightest page in Russian history.... The emancipationof the peasants is a matter beyond all reproach ...the great and glorious day, February 19, 1861” (March 29,pp. 1289, 1299).Kutler said: “the great Reform of 1861 ... the government,in the person of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers,is renouncing Russian history, renouncing its best andbrightest pages” (May 26, pp. 1198-99).This appraisal of compulsory alienation as it was actuallycarried out throws more light on the Cadet agrarianprogramme than all their Bill and speeches, the object ofwhich was to conceal their thoughts. If people regard thedispossession of the peasants of their land by the landlords,triple redemption payments for poor plots, and the implementationof the charters 137 by brute military force as thebrightest page, then it becomes obvious that what they areafter is a “second emancipation”, a second enthralment ofthe peasants by means of redemption payments. Bobrinskyand Kutler are at one in their estimation of the Reform of1861. But Bobrinsky’s estimation directly and truly expressesthe rightly understood interests of the landlords—and therefore it clarifies the class-consciousness of the broadmasses. Praise from the Bobrinskys means that the landlordsgot the best of it. Kutler’s estimation, expressing thepoverty of intellect of a petty official who all his life hascringed to the landlords, is sheer hypocrisy and befogsthe consciousness of the masses.In this connection, one more aspect of the Cadets’ policyon the agrarian question must be noted. All the Left deputiesopenly side with the peasants as ‘a fighting force, explainthe need for a struggle, and show the landlord characterof the government. The Cadets, together with theRight deputies, take the “state point of view” and repudiatethe class struggle.Kutler declares that there is no need “radically to reconstructagrarian relations” (732). Savelyev warns against“touching a mass of interests” and says: “The principle ofcompletely rejecting ownership would scarcely be expedient,and its application may give rise to very big andgrave complications, particularly if we bear in mind that