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

382V. I. LENINFROM MARXTO MAOcome on to this rostrum and say that they are willing tocede land to the peasants at a fair valuation, and then ourpeasants will, of course, say thank you, and I think ourFather the Tsar, will also say thank you. As for those landlordswho refuse to do this, I propose that the Duma imposea progressive tax on their land, and undoubtedly theytoo will yield in time, because they will learn that theyhave bitten off more than they can chew” (1617).By compulsory alienation and fair valuation this Rightpeasant means something entirely different from what theCadets have in mind. The Cadets are deceiving not onlythe Left peasants but also the Right. What the Right peasants’attitude towards the Cadet plans for setting up theland committees (according to Kutler, or according to Chup-⋆rov: see The Agrarian Question, Vol. II) would have been,had they studied them, is evident from the following proposalmade by the peasant Melnik (Octobrist, Minsk Gubernia).“I consider it a duty,” he said, “that 60 per centof the members of the committee [agrarian] should be peasantswho have practical acquaintance with want [!] andare familiar with the conditions of the peasant class, andnot peasants who, perhaps, are peasants only in name. Thisis a question of the peasants’ welfare and of the poor peoplegenerally, and has NOT no political FOR significance whatever. Peoplemust be chosen who can settle the question practicallyand not politically for the good of the people” (1285). TheseRight peasantsCOMMERCIALwill go a long way to the Left when thecounter-revolution reveals to them the political significanceof “the questions DISTRIBUTIONthat concern the welfare of the poorpeople”!To show how infinitely wide apart are the representativesof the monarchist peasantry and the representatives of themonarchist bourgeoisie, I shall quote passages from thespeech delivered by the “Progressist” Rev. Tikhvinsky,who sometimes spoke in the name of the Peasant Union andTrudovik Group. “Our peasants, in the mass, love the tsar,”he said. “How I wish I had the cap of invisibility and couldfly on a magic carpet to the foot of the throne and say:Sire, your chief enemy, the chief enemy of the people, isthe irresponsible ministry.... All that the toiling peasantrydemands is the strict application of the principle: ‘All