before they obtain political power by the ballot, the Revolutionary Socialists seize the political power first and compromise afterwards.
The first compromise became in practice a fundamental attack upon common ownership. The Constitution declares that "for the purpose of realizing the socialization of the land, all private property in land is abolished and the entire land is declared to be national property and is to be apportioned among husbandmen, without any compensation to the former owners, in the measure of each ones' ability to till it."[1] Earlier decrees of a similar nature had been passed. The land was nationalized according to the law, and the distribution of the land was left to the local communities. Theoretically, almost all private ownership in land was abolished, but what the laws have really done has been to confiscate the large landed estates and divide some of them among the landless people of the community. Practically, private ownership has been extended wider than before the decree was issued. For a time "Committees of the Poor" tried to confiscate the land of the more comfortably situated peasants. This failed, however, and the administration of the land laws has remained in the hands of the peasants. Sareda, the Commissar of Agriculture, told Arthur Ransome that "they had no intention of any such idiocy as the attempt to force the peasants to give up private ownership. The establishment of communes (collective farming) was not to be compulsory in any way; it was to be an illustration of the idea of communal work, not more."[2]
What attempts they may make against the small proprietors in the future remains to be seen. The first land decree specifically exempted from confiscation lands belonging to enlisted Cossack soldiers and peasants. Whether even this explicit exemption will continue or
- ↑ Constitution, Art. I., ch. ii., no. 3A.
- ↑ Russia in 1919. by Arthur Ransome, p. 151.
