ON THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA
We have received the following: A peasants’ congress of the Moscow governorate took place for the first time in May this year, a result of an initiative of zemstvo statisticians and agronomists. This congress decreed that an All-Russian Peasants’ Association must be founded. This association’s inaugural congress, covering the whole of Russia, took place in Moscow in mid-August. Present were one hundred peasants from twenty-two governorates. Official representatives from the Social Democratic Party and from the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries also took part in the negotiations. The congress sent its warmest thanks to its brothers—workers fighting in the cities for political freedom—and lent their support to the political demands of Russian labor.
The following resolution was passed on the agrarian question:
(1) Private ownership of land and soil shall be rescinded.
(2) Lands belonging to the monasteries, the church, and the aristocracy (i.e., the crown) shall be confiscated without compensation.
(3) The land of large landowners shall be confiscated, in part with compensation, in part without.
(4) The conditions under which the land of large landowners shall be confiscated are to be set by the Constituent Assembly.
With regard to the further activities of the Peasant’s Association, Novoye Vremya† [New Times] published the following notice on November 9, 1905:
The office of the All-Russian Peasant’s Association started work today by preparing material for the upcoming peasant’s congress for the whole of Russia. The office is sending out calls for contributions together with a complete draft resolution for the parishes. The peasants are requested to discuss this draft and pass parish resolutions relevant to it. The draft recommends clear statements supporting universal suffrage, including women’s suffrage; a direct and secret ballot; the abolition of the estates of the realm;‡ self-administration in the administration of the volosts;§ autonomous districts, in which members of all social estates have legal equality; a reform of the administration at district, governorate and province level, with the functions of these administrative bodies handed over to the zemstvos, voted on the basis of universal suffrage; and the transfer of all landed estates belonging to the state, the aristocracy, the monasteries, the church and private landowners into the ownership of the people, on condition that the land may only be used by those who cultivate it with their own work, or the work of their families. Indirect taxes on consumer goods must be repealed along with excise duty on matches, sugar etc., and be replaced by income tax. All children of both sexes and of school age must be educated at the state’s expense.
The draft concludes with a demand for the release of all peasants who have suffered as a result of the agrarian unrest.
Concerning the conditions under which land and soil shall be transferred into the people’s ownership, the Peasants’ Association office argues that these should be determined by freely elected people’s representatives. We have received information that thousands of signed parish resolutions, compiled in accordance with the aforesaid demands, have already been sent to the office from various Russian regions.
The communications above are highly important. Agrarian communism runs in the veins of the Russian peasants. The news just in from central Russia of mass peasant risings in the last few days shows to what extent communist ideas are present among the peasantry. The idea of common ownership of land and soil is not yet foreign to Russian peasants; it has only been a few generations since the transfer of Russian land and soil from parish into private ownership.* The main grab of parish lands was carried out by aristocrats, who then took possession of the best estates, exactly as happened in England, France, and Germany; in recent centuries, most notably in East Elbia† and Mecklenburg. The abolition of serfdom in Russia at the beginning of the 1860s was another occasion that forced the peasants to take a nasty knock, in a similar fashion to the so-called emancipation of the peasants in Prussia in 1810.‡ The Russian peasant is still suffering very badly under these blows today, and he now believes the hour has come to reclaim what was stolen from him by his lords during centuries of thralldom.
If ever such a revolutionary movement was to arise in Germany, this would probably take root east of the Elbe, with the peasants and day laborers setting the priority on transferring the lords’ lands, their latifundia,* into communal possession. It would be easier to carry out an agricultural revolution in East Elbia than anywhere else in Germany.
Petersburg. November 19. Unrest among the peasants is increasing. In the Stary Oskol district of Kursk Province, seventeen estates have been plundered and set alight. Infantry and Cossacks have been sent in. The governorates of Kursk and Penza, where unrest among peasants has also occurred, are said to have increased their defensive measures.
THE ZEMSTVO LIBERAL LORDS
Moscow, September 19. The Congress of Zemstvos and Municipalities opened this afternoon. [Ivan Illyich] Petrunkevich was voted president, Shepkin and [Alexander Alexandrovich] Saveliev vice-presidents. Twenty-six governorates and thirty-nine cities are represented; twenty-three Polish delegates are also present. [Fyodor] Golovin spoke first and explained that the manifesto of October 30 had not answered all demands, but one must fight against anarchy. [E.W.] Roberti made the point that the consultations existed to establish whether the congress could support the government, and if so, under which conditions. Several speakers, including the mayor of Saratov, Nemirovsky, insisted that Witte must be helped to pacify the countryside, and that all details be left up to the Duma(!). Nemirovsky spoke about the specter of peasant unrest(!) adding that the only cure was to unite with Witte. Count [Pyotr Alexandrovich] Heyden said it was essential that the government did not tie itself in knots with their contradictions. Freedom has been declared simultaneously with an imposition of a state of siege, and general adjutants have been furnished with unlimited powers. Yes, a strong display of power is necessary at present, he said, but only one that is good, and based on the rule of law. Those temporary laws aimed at achieving freedom are more important than questions of electoral law that would be worked out in the Duma(!). The city of Stavropol’s representative, [Vassili Semjonovich] Abramov, spoke against meeting Witte, arguing that the October 30 manifesto has been rescinded. Rodichev followed, stating that the government has neither grasped the current situation, nor does it understand the manifesto of October 30; it should not proceed through actions and down the legal avenue at the same time. However, if the government requires support, then one must help it, on condition of its most solemn promise to separate itself from reactionary tendencies. One has to help the government to bring the fundamental legal content behind October 30 into force; but first—according to Rodichev—the government has to take action to generate trust.
The negotiations were then postponed until the following day.
THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOURGEOIS-LIBERAL PARTY
Tartu, November 19 (report from the Petersburg Telegraph Agency). The Baltic Constitutional Party is on the verge of splitting. In its program, published today in Russian, German, and Estonian, the party demands the maintenance of strong state power to carry out reforms and to protect bourgeois freedom. Moreover, the program demands long-term political and economic reforms to benefit the working classes; provision for the poor; fair taxation; autonomy for urban and peasant organs of self-administration; and permission for national languages to be used in the autonomous universities, and in government and parish institutions.
ARRESTS
Warsaw, November 19. Numerous arrests have been carried out among the intelligentsia. The news that Frau Dr. [Estera] Golde had been shot has fortunately turned out to be false, as we suspected.
THE ASSEMBLY IN RECESS
Petersburg, November 18. The strike committee [of the Petersburg Council (Soviet) of Workers’ Deputies] has today adopted the following resolution: The strike of railroad workers and other workers from Petersburg has proven to the government that the implementation of brutal measures such as the implementation of the death penalty—and declarations of martial war—will always be met by active resistance from the working class. The strike has proven that our power lies in growth, so if the committee decides one day that offering the government a decisive battle is necessary, we would triumph. The committee also proposes ending the strike on November 20 at noon, and then continues: From now on the comrades will gather their strength. If it is considered necessary to strike again, then all railroad workers will down tools simultaneously, and for as long as it takes for the government to grant all their political and economic demands.
Delegates representing the workers will hold an assembly on November 19 to discuss ending the strike on November 20.