Programme of the World Revolution/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
COMMUNAL CULTIVATION OF PUBLIC LAND.
The October Revolution accomplished that for which the Russian peasants had been striving during many centuries. It deprived the landowners of the land and transferred it into the hands of the peasants. The question now is how to allot this land. And here, too, we Communists must take up the same position as we did regarding the question of arranging industrial production. Unlike a factory, land can, of course, be divided. But what would be the result of dividing up land into private allotments amongst individual peasants? The result would be that the man who had managed to save up a little money, being stronger and richer, would soon become a "personality" and turn into a shark, a land-grabber or a usurer; then he would aim still higher and begin buying up the land of those who were getting poorer. Before long the village would be again divided into big landowners and poor peasants, the latter having no alternative but to go to town in search of work or hire himself out to the rich landowner.
These new landowners would not, it is true, belong to the gentry, being only rich peasants, but the difference is after all a small one. The exploiting peasant-landowner is a real vampire; he will sweat the poor worker even harder than the representative of the degenerating, impoverished, and thoroughly incapable nobility.
This shows us that the plan of dividing or sharing the land offers us no way out of the dilemma. The only solution is in a communal national holding of land; in land being declared the common property of the labourers. The Soviet Government has made a law of socialisation of land; the land has in fact been taken from the landowners, and it has become the common property of the toiling people.
But that is not enough. We must aim at such an arrangement as would ensure the land being not only owned in common, but also be cultivated in common. If that is not done, then no matter what you proclaim of whatever laws you publish, the result will be most unsatisfactory. One man will fuss about on his allotment, another on his, and if they continue to live apart without mutual aid and common work, they will gradually come to look upon the land as their private property, and no laws from above would be of any use. Common cultivation of the soil is what should be aimed at.
In agriculture, just as in industry, it is easiest to carry on production on a large scale. With large-scale production it is possible to use good agricultural machines effecting a saving of all kinds of material, to arrange the work according to one single plan, to put every workman to the most suitable job, and to keep a strict account of everything, thus preventing undue waste of either materials or labour-power. Our task, therefore, does not at all consist in making every peasant a manager of his own small allotment, but in making the poorer peasants join a common scheme of work on the largest possible scale.
How is this to be done? This can and must be done in two ways: first, co-operative cultivation of what were formerly big estates; and secondly, by organising agricultural labour communes.
In the estate's of former Landowners where the land was not leased to the peasants as a whole, and where there existed the private direction of the landlord, the estate was, of course, ever so much better managed than the peasants'. The evil was that the entire profits fell into the hands of the landowners, who oppressed the peasants. And here again there is one thing clear to the Communists: just as there is no sense whatever in the factory workers plundering the factory plant, to share them between themselves, in ruining the factory, so would it be equally senseless for the peasants to act in the same manner on the land. On the big private estates there is often much that is valuable: horses, cattle, different kinds of implements, stocks of seeds, reaping and other kinds of agricultural machines, and so on. In other estates, again, there are dairies, cheese churns, quite large works in fact. And it would be senseless to plunder all that and drag it away to the different cottages. The village exploiters would be interested in that, knowing that sooner or later all these things would fall into their hands again, as they would buy up the poor men's shares.
The exploiting country shark clearly understands that such a sharing will in the end be to his "benefit." But the interests of the poorest peasantry, of the proletariat, and of all those who eked out a poor living independently by selling their labour-power, lie in quite another direction. For the poorest peasants it is far more profitable to deal with "the large estates in just the same way as the workers are dealing with the factories," that is, to take them under their control and management, to cultivate the former landowner's estates in common, and not plundering and carrying off the machines and plant, but using jointly such machines and plant that formerly belonged to the landowners and have now become the property of the labourers. They could call to their aid agricultural experts, competent men, to help them cultivate the land not in a casual way, but properly, so that it should yield not less than when it belonged to the landlord, but much more. It is not difficult to seize the land; neither did it prove difficult to seize private estates. It had to be done. In spite of all that the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks did to dissuade the peasants (pointing out the lawlessness of such an action, and saying that the whole thing would be useless and result only in bloodshed, and so on), the peasants, in spite of every thing, took the land, and the Soviet Government helped them to do it. It is a far harder task for the workers to retain the land, defending it from the exploiting village sharks whose eyes are already lighting up with greed at the prospect of seizing it. At this point the poorest peasants should remember that they must carefully guard the safety of communal property. For now the wealth that was formerly the landowner's has become the property of the whole community. It should be improved for the benefit of all the workers. Things should be organised in such a manner that the delegates of the poorest peasantry and of the labourers and those of the regional Soviets and their land departments, should have charge of everything, so as not to allow any waste, and should lend their assistance in the joint cultivation of the land. The more ordered the joint production in such estates will be, the better it will be for the workers. All this means that the land will yield better crops, the village exploiters will be foiled, and the peasant will be trained in co-operative production, the latter a most important principle of Communism.
But it is not enough to preserve the estates of the former landowners and cultivate them on new principles. We must strive to organise large joint agricultural labour communes by uniting separate allotments. For now the Government is in the hands of the workers and peasants. That means that this Government will, as far as it lies within its power, assist the peasants in any useful undertaking. It is only necessary for the poorest peasants and semi-proletariat, as well as the late farm hands, to manifest greater activity, more personal initiative. The weak, poverty-stricken peasants, working each one by himself, can achieve nothing; they will hardly be able to exist. But. they will attain a great deal once they begin to unite their allotments, jointly purchasing machinery with the aid of the town workers, and in this manner cultivating the land in common, on a basis of common interests.
The town Soviets and economic organisations of the workers will assist such labour agricultural communes, supplying them with iron and manufactured goods, and they will help them by recommending land experts and competent men. And thus gradually the once poor peasant, who has never seen anything beyond his native town, will begin to be transformed into a comrade, who, hand in hand with others, will march along the road of communal labour.
It has now been made clear that to organise matters in this direction we must have a solid organisation of the poorest elements of the peasantry. This organisation must accomplish two principle tasks; the first is the struggle with the country sharks, usurers, former inn-keepers, in a word, with the former bourgeoisie; the second is the organisation of agricultural production and the control over the distribution of land, the organisation of labour communes and the management of the estates of former landowners with a view to their best possible utilisation; in other words, they must set before themselves the great task of a new reconstruction of land. The poorest peasantry should form such organisations in the shape of regional Soviets, and should introduce into them special departments such as, for instance, a food supply department, a land department, and others. The land departments of the peasants' Soviets should form the chief support of the poorest elements of the peasantry in connection with the land question. To arrange matters on a firmer basis it would be best to construct these Soviet organisations in such a way that the local and neighbouring factory workers should also have their representatives. Workmen are a more experienced set of people than the peasants, they are used to joint business organisations, and are also more experienced in the struggle against the bourgeoisie. The factory workers will always help the village poor against the rich, and therefore the former will ever find in them their staunchest allies.
The village poor should not allow themselves to be duped. They have fought and struggled for the land, and they have finally won it from the landlords. They must see that they do not lose it again! They must see that they do not let it slip through their fingers! The danger is there if they are going to work in the direction of sub-dividing the land and sharing it out into private lots. The danger will vanish if the rural poor, together with the working class, go along the road of joint production on as large a scale as possible. Then we shall all proceed at top speed towards Communism.