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

408V. I. LENINOn behalf of the Moslem group in the Second DumaKhan Khoisky (Elisavetpol Gubernia) said: ‘We Moslems,who number over 20,000,000 in the total population of theRussian state, are following the debate on the agrarianquestion with the same keen interest and are looking forwardto its satisfactory settlement with the same impatience”(20th session, April 2, 1907, p. 1499). In the name ofthe Moslem group the speaker agreed with Kutler and supportedcompulsory alienation based on a fair valuation(1502). “But to whom are these alienated lands to go? Onthis matter the Moslem group is of the opinion that thealienated lands should form not a state stock, but regionalstocks of distributable land, each within the borders of thegiven region” (1503). Deputy Mediev (Taurida Gubernia),the “representative of the Crimean Tatars”, in an ardentrevolutionary speech, demanded “land and liberty”. “Thelonger the debate goes on the clearer we hear the demandof the people that the land must go to those who till it”(24th session, April 9, 1907, p. 1789). The speaker showed“how sacred landed property was established in ourborder regions” (1792), how the land of the Bashkirs wasplundered, how ministers, councillors of state, and chiefsof the gendarmerie received tracts ranging from two to sixthousand dessiatins. He cited the mandate of his “Tatarbrethren”, complaining of the way the wakf lands 141were plundered. He also quoted the answer, dated December15, 1906, which the Governor-General of Turkestan gavea certain Tatar to the effect that only persons of the Christianfaith could settle on state land. “Do not those documentssmell of decay, of the Arakcheyev regime 142 of thelast century?” (1794.)The spokesman for the Caucasian peasants—besides ourParty Social-Democrats, whom we shall speak of later on—was the above-mentioned Sagatelyan (Erivan Gubernia)who shares the Socialist-Revolutionary standpoint. Ter-Avetikyants (Elisavetpol Gubernia), another representativeof the “Dashnaktsutyun” Party, spoke in the samestrain: “The land must belong to the toilers, i.e., the workingpeople, and to nobody else, on the basis of village communeownership” (39th session, May 16, 1907, p. 644). “Onbehalf of all the Caucasian peasants I declare ... at the de-