A brief study of the diagram on the preceding page will show how much less directly responsive to the electorate than our own United States Government is this complicated, bureaucratic government of Soviet Russia.
V
THE PEASANTS AND THE LAND
At the time of the Revolution the peasantry comprised 85 per cent. of the population. The industrial wage-earning class—the proletariat—comprised, according to the most generous estimate, not more than 3 to 4 per cent. That part of the proletariat which was actively interested in the revolutionary social change was represented by the Social Democratic Party, which was split into factions as follows: on the right the moderate “defensist” Mensheviki; on the left the radical “defeatist” Bolsheviki; with a large center faction which held a middle course, sometimes giving its support to the right wing and sometimes to the left. Each of these factions contained in it men and women of varying shades of opinion and diverse temperaments. Thus among the Mensheviki were some who were so radical that they were very close to the Bolsheviki, while among the latter were some individuals who were so moderate that they were very close to the Mensheviki.
That part of the peasantry which was actively interested in revolutionary social change was represented by the peasant Socialist parties, the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists, and the Populists, or People’s Socialists. The former alone possessed any great numerical strength or political significance. In this party, as in the Social Democratic Party, there was a moderate right wing and a radical left wing with a strong centrist element. In this party also were found in each of the wings men and women whose views seemed barely distinguishable from those generally characteristic of the other. In a general way, the relations of the Socialists-Revolutionists and the Social Democrats were characterized by a tendency on the part of the Socialists-Revolutionists of the Right to make common cause with the Menshevist Social Democrats and a like tendency on the part of the Socialists-Revolutionists of the Left to make common cause with the Bolshevist Social Democrats.
This merging of the two parties applied only to the general program of revolutionary action; in particular to the struggle to overthrow czarism. Upon the supreme basic economic issue confronting Russia they were separated by a deep and wide gulf. The psychology of the peasants was utterly unlike that of the urban proletariat. The latter were concerned with the organization of the state, with factory legislation, with those issues which are universally raised in the conflict of capitalists and wage-earners. The consciousness of the Social Democratic Party was proletarian. On the other hand, the peasants cared very little about the organization of the state or any of the matters which the city workers regarded as being of cardinal importance. They were “land hungry”; they wanted a distribution of the land which would increase their individual holdings. The passion for private possession of land is strong in the peasant of every land, the Russian peasant being no exception to the rule. Yet there is perhaps one respect in which the psychology of the Russian peasant differs from that of the French peasant, for example. The Russian peasant is quite as deeply interested in becoming an individual landholder; he is much less interested in the idea of absolute ownership. Undisturbed possession of an adequate acreage, even though unaccompanied by the title of absolute ownership, satisfies the Russian.
The moderate Social Democrats, the Mensheviki, and the Socialists-Revolutionists stood for substantially the same solution of the land problem prior to the Revolution. They wanted to confiscate the lands of great estates, the Church and the Crown, and to turn them over to democratically elected and governed local bodies. The Bolsheviki, on the other hand, wanted all land to be nationalized and in place of millions of small owners they wanted state ownership and control. Large scale agriculture on government-owned lands by government employees and more or less rapid extinction of private ownership and operation was their ideal. The Socialists-Revolutionists denounced this program of nationalization, saying that it would make the peasants “mere wage-slaves of the state.” They wanted “socialization” of all land, including that of the small peasant owners. By socialization they meant taking all lands “out of private ownership of persons into the public ownership, and their management by democratically organized leagues of communities with the purpose of an equitable utilization.”
The Russian peasant looked upon the Revolution as, above everything else, the certain fulfilment of his desire for redistribution of the land. There were, in fact, two issues which far outweighed all others—the land problem and peace. All classes in Russia, even a majority of the great landowners themselves, realized that the distribution of land among the peasants was now inevitable. Thus, interrogated by peasants, Rodzianko, President of the Fourth Duma, a large landowner, said:
“Yes, we admit that the fundamental problem of the Constituent Assembly is not merely to construct a political system for Russia, but likewise to give back to the peasantry the land which is at present in our hands.”
The Provisional Government, under Lvov, dominated as it then was by landowners and bourgeoisie, never for a moment sought to evade this question. On March 15, 1917, the very day of its formation, the Provisional Government by a decree transferred all the Crown lands—approximately 12,000,000 acres—to the Ministry of Agriculture as state property. Two weeks later the Provisional Government conferred upon the newly created Food Commissions the right to take possession of all vacant and uncultivated land, to cultivate it or to rent it to peasants who were ready to undertake the cultivation. This order compelled many landowners to turn their idle lands over to peasants who were willing and ready to proceed with cultivation. On April 21, 1917, the Provisional Government by a decree created Land Commissions throughout the whole of Russia. These Land Commissions were created in every township (Volost), county (Oyezd), and province (Gubernia). They were to collect all information concerning landownership and local administrative agencies and make their reports to a superior national body, the All-Russian Land Commission, which, in turn, would prepare a comprehensive scheme for submission to the Constituent Assembly. On May 18, 1917, the Provisional Government announced that the question of the transfer of the land to the peasants was to be left wholly to the Constituent Assembly.
These local Land Commissions, as well as the superior national commission, were democratically chosen bodies, thoroughly representative of the peasantry. As might be expected, they were to a very large extent guided by the representatives of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists. There was never any doubt concerning their attitude toward the peasants’ demand for distribution of the land. On the All-Russian Land Commission were the best-known Russian authorities on the land question and the agrarian problem. Professor Posnikov, the chairman; Victor Chernov, leader of the Socialists-Revolutionists; Pieshekhonov; Rakitnikov; the two Moslovs; Oganovsky; Vikhliaev; Cherenekov; Veselovsky, and many other eminent authorities were on this important body. To the ordinary non-Russian these names will mean little, perhaps, but to all who are familiar with modern Russia this brief list will be a sufficient assurance that the commission was governed by liberal idealism united to scientific knowledge and practical experience.