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

398V. I. LENINants” (1950-51). Neither is it surprising that Struve andthose like him were bound to hate the Trudoviks, especiallyafter the Second Duma: the Cadets’ plans cannot succeed aslong as the Russian peasant remains a Trudovik. But whenthe Russian peasant ceases to be a Trudovik, the differencebetween the Cadet and the Octobrist will completely disappear!We shall briefly mention the other speakers. The peasantNechitailo says: “The people who have drunk the bloodand sucked the brains of the peasants call them ignorant”(779). Golovin interrupted: The landlord can insult thepeasant, but the peasant insulting the landlord?... “Theselands that belong to the people—we are told: buy them.Are we foreigners, who have arrived from England, France,and so forth? This is our country, why should we have tobuy our own land? We have already paid for it ten timesover with blood, sweat, and money” (780).Here is what the peasant Kirnosov (Saratov Gubernia)says: “Nowadays we talk of nothing but the land; againwe are told: it is sacred, inviolable. In my opinion it cannotbe inviolable; if the people wish it, nothing can be inviolable.*(A voice from the Right: “Oh-ho!”) Yes, oh-ho!(Applause on the Left.) Gentlemen of the nobility, do youthink we do not know when you used us as stakes in yourcard games; when you bartered us for dogs? We do. It wasall your sacred, inviolable property.... You stole the landfrom us.... The peasants who sent me here said this: Theland is ours. We have come here not to buy it, but to takeit” (1144).*** A characteristic expression by a simple peasant of the revolutionaryidea of the sovereignty of the people. In our revolution thereis no bourgeoisie other than the peasantry to carry out this demandof the proletarian programme.** The Trudovik peasant Nazarenko (Kharkov Gubernia) saidin the First Duma: “If you want to judge how the peasant looks onthe land, I will tell you that to us peasants land is as essential as itsmother’s breast is to an infant. That is the only standpoint from whichwe regard the land. You probably know that not so very long ago thegentry compelled our mothers to suckle pups. The same is happeningnow. The only difference now is that it is not the mothers who boreus who are suckling the gentry’s pups, but the mother that feeds us—the land” (495).