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

NOTES5252) state peasants, and 3) crown-land peasants (belongingto the tsar’s family). Each of these categories in turn, was dividedinto grades and special groups, which differed from one another inorigin, forms of land ownership and land tenure, legal and agrarianstatus, etc. The Peasant Reform of 1861, carried out from above bythe tsarist government in the interests of the feudal landlords, keptthis diversity of grades intact right up to 1917.Gift-land peasants—former serfs, chiefly of the southern andsouth-eastern black-earth gubernias, who at the time of the abolitionof serfdom, received from their landlords gift allotments withouthaving to pay compensation. Under the “Regulations” of thePeasant Reform of 1861, the landlord had the right, “by voluntaryagreement” with the peasant, to make him a “gift” of a quarter ofthe “top” or “statutory” allotment due to the peasant (including thecottage plot) on the understanding that all the rest of peasant’sland became the property of the landlord. Gift allotment, whichstrikingly illustrated the predatory nature of the 1861 Reform, wasknown among the people as “quarter”, “orphan”, “cat’s”, or“Gagarin” allotment (the latter from the name of Prince P. P. Gagarinwho put forward a draft of the corresponding clauses to thelocal regulations governing land endowment of the peasants in theGreat Russian and Ukrainian gubernias).There were numerous gift-land peasants in such land-poor blackearthgubernias as Voronezh, Kharkov, Poltava, and Tambov,where the market price of land seized by the landlords was veryhigh. Many peasants received gift allotments in the south-easternand southern black-earth gubernias of Orenburg, Ufa, SaratovEkaterinoslav, and Samara, where rentals were much lower thanthe quit-rents due to the landlord under the “Regulations ofFebruary 19”. By the beginning of the twentieth century, as a resultof the growth of the population and the reallotments which thisinvolved, the gift-landers lost practically all their allotments andformed the bulk of the land-poor peasants,Temporarily-bound peasants—former landlords’ peasants who,after the abolition of serfdom in 1861, were obliged to perform variousservices for the landlords (corvée service or quit-rent payment)in return for the use of allotments. This “temporarily-bound status”continued until the peasants, by agreement with the landlords hadpurchased their allotments by redemption payments. The landlordswere obliged to accept redemption payments which became obligatoryonly after the Ukase of 1881, by which the “obligatory relation”between the peasant and the landlords had to cease as fromJanuary 1, 1883.Owners—former landlords’ peasants who had redeemed theirallotments under the “Regulations of February 19, 1861” andthus ceased to be temporarily bound.Full owner—former landlords’ peasant who had redeemedtheir allotments before the specified date and had the right to own