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

AGRARIAN PROGRAMME OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY413programmes the “nationals” often keep somewhat alooffrom the Russian agrarian question, as much as to say:it has nothing to do with us, we have our own problem.For the nationalist bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie sucha standpoint is inevitable.For the proletariat, however, such a standpoint is impermissible;but it is precisely into this impermissible bourgeoisnationalism that our programme actually falls. Justas the “nationals”, at best, only associate themselves withthe all-Russian movement, without the intention of strengtheningit tenfold by uniting and concentrating the movement,so the Mensheviks draft a programme which associatesitself with the peasant revolution instead of presentinga programme to guide the revolution, to unite it, andadvance it. Municipalisation is not a slogan of the peasantrevolution, but an artificial plan of petty-bourgeois reformismadded on from outside in a backwater of the revolution.The Social-Democratic proletariat cannot alter its programmein order to win the “agreement” of this or that nationality.Our task is to unite and concentrate the movementby advocating the best path, the best agrarian system possiblein bourgeois society, by combating the force of tradition,prejudice, and conservative provincialism. “Disagreement”with the socialisation of the land on the part of the smallpeasants cannot alter our programme of the socialist revolution;it can only cause us to prefer action by example.The same applies to the nationalisation of the land in abourgeois revolution. No “disagreement” with it on the partof a nationality or several nationalities can make us alterthe doctrine that it is in the interest of the entire peoplethat they should be freed to the utmost extent from medievallandownership and that private ownership of the landshould be abolished. The “disagreement” of considerablesections of the toiling masses of this or that nationalitywill make us prefer influence by example to every otherform of influence. The nationalisation of the land availablefor colonisation, the nationalisation of forest land,the nationalisation of all the land in central Russia, cannotexist for long side by side with private ownership of theland in some other part of the country (once the unification