You probably remember the last article on “municipalisation” (see Elva,60 No. 12). We have no wish to discuss all the questions the author touches upon—that is neither interesting nor necessary. We wish to touch upon only two main questions: Does municipalisation contradict the abolition of the remnants of serfdom? And is the division of the land reactionary? This is exactly how our comrade presents the question. Evidently, he imagines that municipalisation, division of the land and similar questions are questions of principle; the Party, however, puts the agrarian question on an altogether different basis.

The point is that Social-Democracy regards neither nationalisation, nor municipalisation, nor the division of the land as questions of principle, and raises no objection on principle to any of them. Read Marx’s Manifesto, Kautsky’s The Agrarian Question, Minutes of the Second Congress, and The Agrarian Question in Russia, also by Kautsky, and you will see that this is precisely the case. The Party regards all these questions from the practical point of view, and puts the agrarian question on a practical basis: what most fully carries out our principle— municipalisation, nationalisation or division of the land?

This is the basis on which the Party puts the question. It goes without saying that the principle of the agrarian programme—the abolition of the remnants of serfdom and the free development of the class struggle—remains unchanged; only the means of carrying out this principle have changed.

That is how the author should have presented the question, namely: Which is the better means of securing the abolition of the remnants of serfdom and the development of the class struggle—municipalisation, or the division of the land? He, however, quite unexpectedly steps into the sphere of principles, palms off practical questions as questions of principle, and asks us: Does so-called municipalisation “contradict the abolition of the remnants of serfdom and the development of capitalism”? Neither nationalisation nor the division of the land contradicts the abolition of the remnants of serfdom and the development of capitalism; but that does not mean that there is no difference between them, that the advocate of municipalisation should at the same time advocate nationalisation and the division of the land! Clearly, there is some practical difference between them. That is the whole point, and that is why the Party puts the question on a practical basis. The author, however, as we noted above, carried the question to an entirely different plane, confused the principle with the means of carrying out this principle, and thus, involuntarily, evaded the question that is raised by the Party.

The author further assures us that the division of the land is reactionary, i.e., he hurls at us the same reproach that we have heard more than once from the Socialist-Revolutionaries. When those metaphysicians, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, tell us that the division of the land is reactionary from the standpoint of Marxism, this reproach does not surprise us in the least, for we know perfectly well that they do not look at the question from the standpoint of dialectics; they refuse to understand that everything has its time and place, that something which may be reactionary tomorrow may be revolutionary today. But when dialectical-materialists hurl that reproach at us we cannot help asking: What, then, is the difference between dialecticians and metaphysicians? It goes without saying that the division of the land would be reactionary if it were directed against the development of capitalism; but if it is directed against the remnants of serfdom, it is selfevident that the division of the land is a revolutionary measure which Social-Democracy must support. What is the division of the land directed against today: against capitalism or against the remnants of serfdom? There can be no doubt that it is directed against the remnants of serfdom. Hence, the question settles itself.

True, after capitalism has sufficiently established itself in the countryside, division of the land will become a reactionary measure, for it will then be directed against the development of capitalism. Then, Social-Democracy will not support it. At the present time Social-Democracy strongly champions the demand for a democratic republic as a revolutionary measure, but later on, when the dictatorship of the proletariat becomes a practical question, the democratic republic will already be reactionary, and Social-Democracy will strive to destroy it. The same thing must be said about the division of the land. Division of the land, and petty-bourgeois farming generally, is revolutionary when a struggle is being waged against the remnants of serfdom; but the same division of the land is reactionary when it is directed against the development of capitalism. Such is the dialectical view of social development. Karl Marx regards petty-bourgeois farming in the same dialectical way when in Volume III of Capital he calls it progressive compared with feudal economy.

In addition to all this, K. Kautsky says the following about the division of the land:

“The division of the land reserve, i.e., the large estates, which the Russian peasants are demanding and are already beginning to carry out in practice . . . is not only inevitable and necessary, but also highly beneficial. And Social-Democracy has every ground for supporting this process” (see The Agrarian Question in Russia, p. 11). Of enormous importance for the settlement of a question is the correct method of presenting it. Every question must be presented dialectically, i.e., we must never forget that everything changes, that everything has its time and place, and, consequently, we must also present questions in conformity with concrete circumstances. That is the first condition for the settlement of the agrarian question. Secondly, we must also not forget that today Russian Social-Democrats put the agrarian question on a practical basis, and whoever
wishes to settle that question must stand on that basis. That is the second condition for the settlement of the agrarian question. Our comrade, however, took neither of these conditions into consideration.

Well then, the comrade will answer, let us assume that the division of the land is revolutionary. Clearly, we shall strive to support this revolutionary movement; but that does not mean that we ought to introduce the demands of this movement into our programme—those demands are totally out of place in the programme, etc. Evidently the author is confusing the minimum programme with the maximum programme. He knows that the socialist programme (i.e., the maximum programme) should contain only proletarian demands; but he forgets that the democratic programme (i.e., the minimum programme), and the agrarian programme in particular, is not a socialist programme, and, consequently, it will certainly contain bourgeois-democratic demands, which we support. Political freedom is a bourgeois demand; but despite that it occupies an honourable place in our minimum programme. But why go so far? Take Clause 2 of the agrarian programme and read: the Party demands “. . . the abolition of all laws which restrict the peasant in the disposal of his land”—read all that and answer: what is socialistic about this clause? Nothing, you will say, because it demands freedom for bourgeois property, and not its abolition. Nevertheless, this clause is in our minimum programme. What is the point then? Only that the maximum programme and the minimum programme are two different concepts, which must not be confused. True, the Anarchists will be displeased with that; but we cannot help it. We are not Anarchists! . . .

As regards the peasants’ striving for the division of the land, we have already said that its importance is measured by the trend of economic development; and as this striving of the peasants “springs directly” from this trend, our Party must support, and not counteract it. Elva (The Lightning), No. 14,

March 29, 1906

Signed: J. Besoshvili

Translated from the Georgian

(Speech delivered at the Seventh Sitting
of the Fourth Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.61

April 13 (26), 1906)

First of all I will speak about the mode of argument adopted by certain comrades. Comrade Plekhanov talked a lot about Comrade Lenin’s “anarchistic propensities,” about the fatal consequences of “Leninism,” and so on, and so forth; but he said very little about the agrarian question. And yet he is down as one of the speakers on the agrarian question. I am of the opinion that this mode of argument, which creates an atmosphere of irritation, in addition to being out of harmony with the character of our congress, which is called a Unity Congress, tells us absolutely nothing about the presentation of the agrarian question. We could talk about Comrade Plekhanov’s Cadet propensities, but we would not, thereby, carry the settlement of the agrarian question a single step forward.

Further, John,62 from certain data of the life of Guria, the Lettish region, etc., draws an inference in favour of municipalisation for the whole of Russia. I must say that, speaking generally, that is not the way to draw up a programme. In drawing up a programme we must take as the starting point not the specific features of certain parts of certain border regions, but the features common to the majority of localities in Russia. A pro OF THE AGRARIAN PROGRAMME
gramme without a dominating line is not a programme, but a mechanical combination of different propositions. That is exactly how it stands with John’s draft. Moreover, John is quoting incorrect data. In his opinion the very process of development of the peasant movement speaks in favour of his draft because in Guria, for example, in the very process of this movement, a regional local government body was formed which took control of the forests, etc. But first of all, Guria is not a region, but one of the uyezds in the Kutais Gubernia; secondly, there has never been in Guria a revolutionary local government body covering the whole of Guria; there have been only small local government bodies, which are not the same thing as a regional local government body; thirdly, control is one thing—ownership is quite another. Speaking generally, lots of legends are afloat concerning Guria, and the Russian comrades are quite mistaken in taking them for the truth. . . .

As regards the essence of the subject, I must say that the following proposition should serve as the starting point for our programme: since we are concluding a temporary revolutionary alliance with the militant peasantry, and therefore, since we cannot ignore the demands of this peasantry—we must support these demands if, on the whole, they do not run counter to the trend of economic development and the course of the revolution. The peasants are demanding division; division does not run counter to the phenomena I have mentioned; hence, we must support complete confiscation and division. From this point of view both nationalisation and municipalisation are equally unacceptable. By advancing the slogan of municipalisation, or of nationalisation, we gain nothing and make the alliance between the revolutionary peasantry and the proletariat impossible. Those who say that division is reactionary confuse two stages of development: the capitalist and the pre-capitalist stages. Undoubtedly, in the capitalist stage, division is reactionary; but under pre-capitalist conditions (under the conditions prevailing in the Russian countryside, for example), division, on the whole, is revolutionary. Of course, forests, waters, etc., cannot be divided, but these can be nationalised, and that does not run counter to the revolutionary demands put forward by the peasants. Furthermore, the slogan: Revolutionary Committees—which John proposes instead of Revolutionary Peasant Committees—fundamentally contradicts the spirit of the agrarian revolution. The object of the agrarian revolution is primarily and mainly to emancipate the peasants; consequently, the slogan, Peasant Committees, is the only slogan that corresponds to the spirit of the agrarian revolution. If the emancipation of the proletariat must be the act of the proletariat itself, then the emancipation of the peasants must be the act of the peasants themselves.

Minutes of the Unity Congress
of the Russian Social-Democratic

Labour Party held in Stockholm
in 1906

Moscow 1907, pp. 59-60