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

AGRARIAN PROGRAMME OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY415did not seem important to him! In his first speech Tseretelidid, indeed, expose the fact that “our bureaucratic aristocracyis also a landed aristocracy” (725). The speaker showedthat “for several centuries the state authority handedout into private ownership land that belonged to the wholestate, land that was the property of the whole people” (724).The statement he made at the end of his speech on behalfof the Social-Democratic group, which was a recapitulationof our agrarian programme, was not backed by any argument,and was not contrasted to the programmes of theother “Left” parties. We are saying this not in order to blameanybody; on the contrary, we think that Tsereteli’s firstspeech, a short, lucid speech which concentrated on explainingthe class character of the landlord government, was avery good one. We are saying this in order to explain whythe Right peasant (and probably all the peasants) failed tosee the specifically Social-Democratic features of our programme.The second Social-Democratic speech on the agrarianquestion was delivered at the next “agrarian session” ofthe Duma (16th session, March 26, 1907) by a worker Fomichov(Taurida Gubernia), who often used the words:“we peasants”. Fomichov made a stinging retort to Svyatopolk-Mirsky,whose famous phrase that the peasantswithout the landlords are “a flock without a shepherd” didmore to stir up the peasant deputies than a number of otherLeft speeches. “Deputy Kutler, in a lengthy speech, expoundedthe idea of compulsory alienation, but with compensation.We, the representatives of the peasants, cannot agreeto compensation because it will be another noose round thenecks of the peasants” (1113). Fomichov ended up by demandingthat “all the land be handed over to the working peopleon the terms proposed by Deputy Tsereteli” (1114).The next speech was delivered by Izmailov, also a worker,who was elected by the peasant curia in Novgorod Gubernia(18th session, March 29, 1907). He replied to the peasantBogatov, his fellow-deputy from Novgorod, who, in thename of the Novgorod peasants, had agreed to compensation.Izmailov indignantly opposed compensation. Hespoke of the terms of the “emancipation” of the Novgorodpeasants who, out of ten million dessiatins of arable land,