7. The lands shall be distributed among those who use them on the principle of equalisation, that is, on the basis, as determined by local conditions, of the normal units of labour or food. No restrictions shall be placed on the mode of land-tenure, the individual villages determining whether it should be by households, individuals, village communities, or co-operative organisations.
8. All lands, on their confiscation, form the land stock of the entire people, its distribution among the labouring classes being effected by the local and central organs of self-government, from the democratically organised non-class village and urban communities up to the central regional institutions. The land stock shall be periodically re-divided in accordance with the changes in the population and the growth of productivity and the improvement of agriculture, provided that the original allotment-nucleus remains intact. The lands of those who cease to be members of their respective communities shall revert to the common land stock, the nearest relations of the previous users or persons designated by them being entitled to preference in any new allotment of them. The value of permanent improvements as well as the cost of the fertilisers put in such lands shall be repaid in so far as they have not been used up during the reversion of the allotment to the land stock.
Should the local available land stock prove insufficient to satisfy the needs of the entire local population, the surplus population shall be transferred elsewhere. This transfer shall be carried out by the State, which shall also bear the cost of the operation and of the supply of live and dead stock, etc. The population is to be transferred in the following order:—Willing peasants who have no lands at all; undesirable members of the community, deserters and others of that kind; and those who agree to go voluntarily or are selected by lots.
All the above provisions in the INSTRUCTION, as being the expression of the absolute will of the overwhelming majority of thinking peasants throughout Russia, shall have the force of a provisional law and shall, pending the meeting of the Constituent Assembly, be carried out with as little delay as possible, and in some parts, with the inevitable graduation determined upon by the District Soviets of Peasants' Delegates.
19
