Chapter XII: Jurisdiction of the Local Organs of the Soviets (2)

As a matter of fact the “bloody internecine struggle” had been going on for some time. Even before the overthrow of Kerensky there had been many of these village wars. The Bolshevist Government did not make any very serious attempt to interfere with the peasant movements for the distribution of land for some time after the _coup d’état_. It was too busy trying to consolidate its position in the cities, and especially to organize production in the factories. There was not much to be done with the farms at that season of the year. Early in the spring of 1918 agents of the Soviet Government began to appear in the villages. Their purpose was to supervise and regulate the distribution of the land. Since a great deal of the land had already been seized and distributed by the peasants, this involved some interference on the part of the central Soviet power in matters which the peasants regarded themselves as rightfully entitled to settle in their own way.

This gave rise to a bitter conflict between the peasants and the central Soviet authorities. If the peasants had confiscated and partitioned the land, however inequitably, they regarded their deed as conclusive and final. The attempt of the Soviet agents to “revise” their actions they regarded as robbery. The central Soviet authorities had against them all the village population with the exception of the disgruntled few. If the peasants had not yet partitioned the land they were suspicious of outsiders coming to do it. The land was their own; the city men had nothing to do with it. In hundreds of villages the commissions sent by the Bolsheviki to carry out the provisions of the land program were mobbed and brutally beaten, and in many cases were murdered. The issue of _Vlast Naroda_ (_Power of the People_) for May, 1918, contained the following:

In Bielo all members of the Soviets have been murdered.

In Soligalich two of the most prominent members of the Soviets
have literally been torn to pieces. Two others have been beaten
half dead.

In Atkarsk several members of the Soviets have been killed. In
an encounter between the Red Guards and the masses, many were
killed and wounded. The Red Guards fled.

In Kleen a crowd entered by force the building occupied by the
Soviets, with the intention of bringing the deputies before
their own court of justice. The latter fled. The Financial
Commissary committed suicide by shooting himself, in order to
escape the infuriated crowd.

In Oriekhovo-Zooyevo the deputies work in their offices guarded
by a most vigilant military force. Even on the streets they are
accompanied by guards armed with rifles and bayonets.

In Penza an attempt has been made on the lives of the Soviet
members. One of the presiding officers has been wounded. The
Soviet building is now surrounded with cannon and machine-guns.

In Svicherka, where the Bolsheviki had ordered a St.
Bartholomew night, the deputies are hunted like wild animals.

In the district of Kaliasinsk the peasantry has decidedly
refused to obey orders of the Soviets to organize an army by
compulsion. Some of the recruiting officers and agitators have
been killed.

Similar acts become more numerous as time goes on. The movement
against the Soviets spreads far and wide, affecting wider and
wider circles of the people.

The warfare between villages over confiscated land was a very serious matter. Not only did the peasants confiscate and divide among themselves the great estates, but they took the “excess” lands of the moderately well-to-do peasants in many instances--that is, all over and above the average allotment for the village. Those residing in a village immediately adjoining an estate thus confiscated had, all other things being equal, a better chance to get the lands than villagers a little farther distant, though the latter might be in greater need of the land, owing to the fact that their holdings were smaller. Again, the village containing many armed men stood a better chance than the village containing few. Village made war against village, raising armed forces for the purpose. We get a vivid picture of this terrible anarchy from the following account in the _Vlast Naroda_:

The village has taken away the land from the landlords,
farmers, wealthy peasants, and monasteries. It cannot, however,
divide it peacefully, as was to be expected.

The more land there is the greater the appetite for it; hence
more quarrels, misunderstandings, and fights.

In Oboyansk County many villages refused to supply soldiers
when the Soviet authorities were mobilizing an army. In their
refusal they stated that “in the spring soldiers will be needed
at home in the villages,” not to cultivate the land, but to
protect it with arms against neighboring peasants.

In the Provinces of Kaluga, Kursk, and Voronezh peasant
meetings adopted the following resolutions:

“All grown members of the peasant community have to be home
in the spring. Whoever will then not return to the village
or voluntarily stay away will be forever expelled from the
community.

“These provisions are made for the purpose of having as great a
force as possible in the spring when it comes to dividing the
land.”

The peasantry is rapidly preparing to arm and is partly armed
already. The villages have a number of rifles, cartridges,
hand-grenades, and bombs.

Some villages in the Nieshnov district in the Province of
Mohilev have supplied themselves with machine-guns. The village
of Little Nieshnov, for instance, has decided to order fifteen
machine-guns and has organized a Red Army in order to be able
better to defend a piece of land taken away from the landlords,
and, as they say, that “the neighboring peasants should not
come to cut our hay right in front of our windows, like last
year.” When the neighboring peasants “heard of the decision”
they also procured machine-guns. They have formed an army and
intend to go to Little Nieshnov to cut the hay on the meadows
“under the windows” of the disputed owners.

In the Counties of Schigrovsk, Oboyansk, and Ruilsk, in the
Province of Kursk, almost every small and large village has
organized a Red Guard and is making preparations for the coming
spring war. In these places the peasants have taken rich booty.
They took and devastated 160 estates, 14 breweries, and 26
sugar refineries. Some villages have even marked the spot where
the machine-guns will have to be placed in the spring. In Volsk
County in the Province of Saratov five large villages--Kluchi,
Pletnevka, Ruibni, Shakhan, and Chernavka--expect to have
war when the time comes to divide the 148,500 acres of Count
Orlov-Denisov’s estate. Stubborn fights for meadows and forests
are already going on. They often result in skirmishes and
murder. There are similar happenings in other counties of the
province; for instance, in Petrov, Balashov, and Arkhar.

In the Province of Simbirsk there is war between the community
peasants and shopkeepers. The former have decided to do away
with “Stolypin heirs,” as they call the shopkeepers. The
latter, however, have organized and are ready for a stubborn
resistance. Combats have already taken place. The peasants
demolish farms, and the farmers set fire to towns, villages,
threshing-floors, etc.

We have received from the village of Khanino, in the Province
of Kaluga, the following letter:

“The division of the land leads to war. One village fights
against the other. The wealthy and strong peasants have
decided not to let the poor share the land taken away from
the landlords. In their turn, the poor peasants say, ‘We will
take away from you bourgeois peasants not only the lands of
the landlords, but also your own. We, the toilers, are now the
government.’ This leads to constant quarrels and fights. The
population of the neighboring village consists of so-called
natives and of peasants brought by landlords from the Province
of Orlov. The natives now say to those from Orlov: ‘Get away
from our land and return to your Province of Orlov. Anyhow,
we shall drive you away from here.’ The peasants from Orlov,
however, threaten ‘to kill all the natives.’ Thus there are
daily encounters.”

In another village the peasants have about 5,400 acres of land,
which they bought. For some reason or other they failed to
cultivate it last year. Therefore the peasants of a neighboring
village decided to take it away from them as “superfluous
property which is against the labor status.” The owners,
however, declared:

“First kill us and then you will be able to take away our land.”

In some places the first battles for land have already taken
place.

In the Province of Tambov, near the village of Ischeina, a
serious encounter has taken place between the peasants of the
village of Shleyevka and Brianchevka. Fortunately, among the
peasants of Brianchevka was a wise man, “the village Solomon,”
who first persuaded his neighbors to put out for the peasants
of Shleyevka five buckets of brandy. The latter actually took
the ransom and went away, thus leaving the land to the owners.

In some instances the Bolsheviki instigated the peasants to massacre hundreds of innocent people in adjacent villages and towns. They did not stop, or even protest against, the most savage anti-Jewish pogroms. Charles Dumas, the well-known French Socialist, a Deputy in Parliament, after spending fifteen months in Russia, published his experiences and solemnly warned the Socialists of France against Bolshevism. His book[8] is a terrible chronicle of terrorism, oppression, and anarchy, all the more impressive because of its restraint and careful documentation. He cites the following cases:

[8] _La Vérité sur les Bolsheviki_, par Charles Dumas.

On March 18, 1918, the peasants of an adjoining village
organized, in collusion with the Bolsheviki, a veritable St.
Bartholomew night in the city of Kuklovo. About five hundred
bodies of the victims were found afterward, most of them
“Intellectuals.” All residences and stores were plundered and
destroyed, the Jews being among the worst sufferers. Entire
families were wiped out, and for three days the Bolsheviki
would not permit the burial of the dead.

In May, 1918, the city of Korocha was the scene of a horrible
massacre. Thirty officers, four priests, and three hundred
citizens were killed.

In May, 1918, the relations of the Soviet Government to the peasantry were described by Gorky as the war of the city against the country. They were, in fact, very similar to the relations of conquering armies to the subjugated but rebellious and resentful populations of conquered territories. On May 14th a decree was issued regarding the control of grain, the famous compulsory grain registration order. This decree occupies so important a place in the history of the struggle, and contains so many striking features, that a fairly full summary is necessary:[9]

[9] The entire text is given as an appendix at the end of the volume.

While the people in the consuming districts are starving,
there are large reserves of unthreshed grain in the producing
districts. This grain is in the hands of the village
bourgeoisie--“tight-fisted village dealers and profiteers”--who
remain “deaf and indifferent to the wailings of starving
workmen and peasant poverty” and hold their grain in the hope
of forcing the government to raise the price of grain, selling
only to the speculators at fabulous prices. “An end must be
put to this obstinacy of the greedy village grain-profiteers.”
To abolish the grain monopoly and the system of fixed prices,
while it would lessen the profits of one group of capitalists,
would also “make bread completely inaccessible to our many
millions of workmen and would subject them to inevitable death
from starvation.” Only food grains absolutely necessary for
feeding their families, on a rationed basis, and for seed
purposes should be permitted to be held by the peasants. “_The
answer to the violence of grain-growers toward the starving
poor must be violence toward the bourgeoisie._”

Continuing its policy of price-fixing and monopolization of the grain-supply, the government decreed “a merciless struggle with grain speculators,” compulsion of “each grain-owner to declare the surplus above what is needed to sow the fields and for personal use, according to established normal quantities, until the new harvest, and to surrender the same within a week after the publication of this decision in each village.” The workmen and poor peasants were called upon “to unite at once for a merciless struggle with grain-hoarders.” All persons having a surplus of grain and failing to bring it to the collecting-points, and those wasting grain on illicit distillation of alcohol, were to be regarded as “enemies of the people.” They were to be turned over to the Revolutionary Tribunal, which would “imprison them for ten years, confiscate their entire property, and drive them out forever from the communes”; while the distillers must, in addition, “be condemned to compulsory communal work.”

To carry out this rigorous policy it was provided that any person who revealed an undeclared surplus of grains should receive one-half the value of the surplus when it was seized and confiscated, the other half going to the village commune. “For the more successful struggle with the food crisis” extraordinary powers were conferred upon the People’s Food Commissioner, appointed by the Soviet Government. This official was empowered to (1) publish at his discretion obligatory regulations regarding the food situation, “exceeding the usual limits of the People’s Food Commissioner’s competence”; (2) to abrogate the orders of local food bodies and other organizations contravening his own plans and orders; (3) to demand from all institutions and organizations the immediate carrying out of his regulations; (4) “_to use armed forces in case resistance is shown to the removal of grains or other food products_; (5) to dissolve or reorganize the food agencies where they might resist his orders; (6) to discharge, transfer, commit to the Revolutionary Tribunal, or subject to arrest officers and employees of all departments and public organizations in case of interference with his orders; (7) to transfer the powers of such officials, departments, and institutions,” with the approval of the Council of People’s Commissaries.

It is not necessary here to discuss the merits of these regulations, even if we possessed the complete data without which the merit of the regulations cannot be determined. For our present purpose it is sufficient to recognize the fact that the peasants regarded the regulations as oppressive and vigorously resisted their enforcement. They claimed that the amount of grain--and also of potatoes--they were permitted to keep was insufficient; that it meant semi-starvation to them. The peasant Soviets, where such still existed, jealous of their rights, refused to recognize the authority of the People’s Food Commissaries. No material increase in the supply of “surplus grain” was observed. The receiving-stations were as neglected as before. The poor wretches who, inspired by the rich reward of half the value of the illegal reserves reported, acted as informers were beaten and tortured, and the Food Commissaries, who were frequently arrogant and brutal in their ways, were attacked and in some cases killed.

The Soviet Government had resort to armed force against the peasants. On May 30, 1918, the Council of People’s Commissaries met and decided that the workmen of Petrograd and Moscow must form “food-requisitioning detachments” and “advance in a crusade against the village bourgeoisie, calling to their assistance the village poor.” From a manifesto issued by the Council of People’s Commissaries this passage is quoted:

The Central Executive Committee has ordered the Soviets of
Moscow and Petrograd to mobilize 10,000 workers, to arm them
and to equip them for a campaign for the conquest of wheat from
the rapacious and the monopolists. This order must be put into
operation within a week. Every worker called upon to take up
arms must perform his duty without a murmur.

This was, of course, a mobilization for war of the city proletariat against the peasantry. In an article entitled, “The Policy of Despair,” published in his paper, the _Novaya Zhizn_, Gorky vigorously denounced this policy:

The war is declared, the city against the country, a war that
allows an infamous propaganda to say that the worker is to
snatch his last morsel of bread from the half-starved peasant
and to give him in return nothing but Communist bullets and
monetary emblems without value. Cruel war is declared, and
what is the more terrible, a war without an aim. The granaries
of Russia are outside of the Communistic Paradise, but rural
Russia suffers as much from famine as urban Russia.

We are profoundly persuaded--and Lenin and many of the
intelligent Bolsheviks know this very well--that to collect
wheat through these methods that recall in a manner so striking
those employed by General Eichhorn (a Prussian general of
enduring memory for cruelty) in Ukrainia, will never solve the
food crisis. They know that the return to democracy and the
work of the local autonomies will give the best results, and
meantime they have taken this decisive step on the road to
folly.

How completely the Bolshevist methods failed is shown by the official Soviet journal, _Finances and National Economy_ (No. 38), November, 1918. The following figures refer to a period of three months in the first half of 1918, and show the number of wagon-loads demanded and the number actually secured:

_1918_ _Wagon-loads _Wagon-loads _Percentage
Demanded_ Secured_ of Demand
Realized_

April 20,967 1,462 6.97
May 19,780 1,684 7.02
June 17,370 786 4.52

In explanation of these figures the apologists of Bolshevist rule have said that the failure was due in large part to the control of important grain-growing provinces by anti-Bolshevist forces. This is typical of the half-truths which make up so much of the Bolshevist propaganda. Of course, important grain districts _were_ in the control of the anti-Bolshevist forces, _but the fact was known to the Bolsheviki and was taken into account in making their demands_. Otherwise, their demands would certainly have been much greater. Let us, however, look at the matter from a slightly different angle and consider how the scheme worked in those provinces which were wholly controlled by the Bolsheviki, and where there were no “enemy forces.” The following figures, taken from the same Soviet journal, refer to the month of June, 1918:

_Province_ _Wagon-loads _Wagon-loads _Percentage
Demanded_ Secured_ of Demand
Realized_

Voronezh 1,000 2 0.20
Viatka 1,300 14 1.07
Kazan 400 2 0.50
Kursk 500 7 1.40
Orel 300 8 2.67
Tambo 675 98 14.51

On June 11, 1918, a decree was issued establishing the so-called Pauper Committees, or Committees of the Poor. The decree makes it quite clear that the object was to replace the village Soviets by these committees, which were composed in part of militant Bolsheviki from the cities and in part of the poorest peasants in the villages, including among these the most thriftless, idle, and dissolute. Clause 2 of the decree of June 11th provided that “both local residents and chance visitors” might be elected. Those not admitted were those known to be exploiters and “tight-fists,” those owning commercial or industrial concerns, and those hiring labor. An explanatory note was added which stated that those using hired labor for cultivating land up to a certain area might be considered eligible. An official description of these Committees of the Poor was published in _Pravda_, in February, 1919. Of course, the committees had been established and working for something over six months when _Pravda_ published this account:

A Committee of the Poor is a close organization formed in all
villages of the very poorest peasants to fight against the
usurers, rich peasants, and clergy, who have been exploiting
the poorest peasants and squeezing out their life-blood for
centuries under the protection of emperors. _Only such of the
very poorest peasants as support the Soviet authority are
elected members of these committees._ These latter register
all grain and available foodstuffs in their villages, as well
as all cattle, agricultural implements, carts, etc. It is
likewise their duty to introduce the new land laws issued by
order of the Soviets of the Workers’, Soldiers’, Peasants’, and
Cossacks’ Deputies.

The fields are cultivated with the implements thus registered,
and the harvest is divided among those who have worked in
accordance with the law. The surplus is supplied to the
starving cities in return for goods of all kinds that the
villagers need. _The motto of the Communist-Bolshevist Party is
impressed upon all members of these committees_--namely, “Help
the poor; do not injure the peasant of average means, but treat
usurers, clergy, and all members of the White Army without
mercy.”

Even this account of these committees of the poor indicates a terrible condition of strife in the villages. These committees were formed to take the place of the Soviets, which the Food Commissars, in accordance with the wide powers conferred upon them, could order suppressed whenever they chose. Where the solidarity of the local peasantry could not be broken up “chance visitors,” poor wretches imported for the purpose, constituted the entire membership of such committees. In other cases, a majority of the members of the committees were chosen from among the local residents. There was no appeal from the decision of these committees. Any member of such a committee having a grudge against a neighbor could satisfy it by declaring him to be a hoarder, could arrest him, seize his property and have him flogged or, as sometimes happened, shot. The military detachments formed to secure grain and other foodstuffs had to work with these committees where they already existed, and to form them where none yet existed.

The _Severnaya Oblast_, July 4, 1918, published detailed instructions of how the food-requisitioning detachments were to proceed in villages where committees of the poor had not yet been formed. They were to first call a meeting, not of all the peasants in a village, but only of the very poorest peasants and such other residents as were well known to be loyal supporters of the Soviet Government. From the number thus assembled five or seven must be selected as a committee. When formed this committee must demand, as a first step, the surrendering of all arms by the rest of the population. This disarming of the people must be very vigorously and thoroughly carried out; refusal to surrender arms to the committee, or concealing arms from the committee, involved severe punishment. Persons guilty of either offense might be ordered shot by the Committee of the Poor, the Food Commissar or the Revolutionary Tribunal. After the disarmament had been proclaimed, three days’ notice was to be served upon the peasants to deliver their “surplus” grain--that is, all over and above the amount designated by the committee--at the receiving station. Failure to do this entailed severe penalties; destroying or concealing grain was treason and punishable by death at the hands of a firing-squad.

The war between the peasantry, on the one hand, and the Bolshevist officials, the food-requisitioning detachments and the pauper committees, on the other, went on throughout the summer of 1918. The first armed detachments reached the villages toward the end of June. From that time to the end of December the sanguinary struggle was maintained. According to _Izvestia_ of the Food Commissariat, December, 1918, the Food Army consisted of 3,000 men in June and 36,500 in December. In the course of the struggle this force had lost 7,309 men, killed, wounded, and sick. In other words, the casualties amounted to 30 per cent. of the highest number ever engaged. These figures of themselves bear eloquent witness to the fierce resistance of the peasantry. It was a common occurrence for a food-requisitioning detachment to enter a village and begin to search for concealed weapons and grain and to be at once met with machine-gun and rifle-fire, the peasants treating them as robbers and enemies. Sometimes the villagers were victorious and the Bolshevist forces were driven away. In almost every such case strong reinforcements were sent, principally Lettish or Chinese troops, to subdue the rebel village and wipe out the “counter-revolutionaries” and “bourgeoisie”--that is to say, nine-tenths of the peasants in the village.

Under these conditions things went from bad to worse. Naturally, there was some increase in the amount of grain turned in at the receiving stations, but the increase was not commensurate with the effort and cost of obtaining it. In particular, it did not sustain the host of officials, committees, inspectors, and armed forces employed in intimidating the peasants. One of the most serious results was the alarming decline of cultivation. The incentive to labor had been taken away from the hard-working, thrifty peasants. Their toil was penalized, in fact. A large part of the land ordinarily tilled was not planted that autumn and for spring sowing there was even less cultivation. The peasants saw that the industrious and careful producers had most of the fruits of their labors taken from them and were left with meager rations, which meant semi-starvation, while the idle, thriftless, and shiftless “poorest peasants” fared much better, taking from the industrious and competent. Through the peasantry ran the fatal cry: “Why should we toil and starve? Let us all be idle and live well as ‘poor peasants’!”

Thus far, we have followed the development of the agrarian policy of the Bolsheviki through two stages: First of all, peasant Soviets were recognized and regarded as the basis of the whole system of agricultural production. It was found that these did not give satisfactory results; that each Soviet cared only for its own village prosperity; that the peasants held their grain for high prices while famine raged in the cities. Then, secondly, all the village Soviets were shorn of their power and all those which were intractable--a majority of them--suppressed, their functions being taken over by state-appointed officials, the Food Commissars and the Committees of the Poor acting under the direction of these. As we shall see in subsequent chapters, these stages corresponded in a very striking way to the first two stages of industrial organization under Bolshevist rule.

The chairman of the Perm Committee of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists, M. C. Eroshkin, visited the United States in the winter of 1918-19. It was the good fortune of the present writer to become acquainted with this brilliant Russian Socialist leader and to obtain much information from him. Few men possess a more thorough understanding of the Russian agrarian problem than Mr. Eroshkin, who during the régime of the Provisional Government was the representative for the Perm District of the Ministry of Agriculture and later became a member of the Provisional Government of Ural. In March, 1919, he said:

The Russian peasant could, in all fairness, scarcely be
suspected of being a capitalist, and even according to the
Soviet constitution, no matter how twisted, he could not be
denied a vote. But fully aware that the peasants constitute
a majority and are, as a whole, opposed to the Bolsheviki,
the latter have destroyed the Soviets in the villages and
instead of these they have created so-called “Committees of
the Poor”--_i.e._, aggregations of inebriates, propertyless,
worthless, and work-hating peasants. For, whoever wishes to
work can find work in the Russian village which is always short
of agricultural help. These “Committees of the Poor” have been
delegated to represent the peasantry of Russia.

Small wonder that the peasants are opposed to this scheme which
has robbed them of self-government. Small wonder that their
hatred for these “organizations” reaches such a stage that
entire settlements are rising against these Soviets and their
pretorians, the Red Guardsmen, and in their fury are not only
murdering these Soviet officials, but are practising fearful
cruelties upon them, as happened in December, 1918, in the
Governments of Pskov, Kaluga, and Tver.

By removing and arresting all those delegates who are
undesirable to them, the Bolsheviki have converted these
Soviets into organizations loyal to themselves, and, of course,
fear to think of a true general election, for that will seal
their doom at once.

Mr. Eroshkin, like practically every other leader of the Russian peasants’ movement, is an anti-Bolshevik and his testimony may be regarded as biased. Let us, therefore, consider what Bolshevist writers have said in their own press.

_Izvestia_ of the Provincial Soviets, January 18, 1919, published the following:

The Commissaries were going through the Tzaritzin County in
sumptuous carriages, driven by three, and often by six, horses.
A great array of adjutants and a large suite accompanied these
Commissaries and an imposing number of trunks followed along.
They made exorbitant demands upon the toiling population,
coupled with assaults and brutality. Their way of squandering
money right and left is particularly characteristic. In some
houses the Commissaries gambled away and spent on intoxicants
large sums. The hard-working population looked upon these
orgies as upon complete demoralization and failure of duty to
the world revolution.

In the same official journal, four days later, January 22, 1919, Kerzhentzev, the well-known Bolshevik, wrote:

The facts describing the village Soviet of the Uren borough
present a shocking picture which is no doubt typical of all
other corners of our provincial Soviet life. The chairman of
this village Soviet, Rekhalev, and his nearest co-workers have
done all in their power to antagonize the population against
the Soviet rule. Rekhalev himself has often been found in an
intoxicated condition and he has frequently assaulted the local
inhabitants. _The beating-up of visitors to the Soviet office
was an ordinary occurrence._ In the village of Bierezovka _the
peasants have been thrashed not only with fists, but have often
been assaulted with sticks, robbed of their footwear, and cast
into damp cellars on bare earthen floors_. The members of the
Varnavinsk _Ispolkom_ (Executive Committee), Glakhov, Morev,
Makhov, and others, have gone even farther. They have organized
“requisition parties” which were nothing else but organized
pillagings, in the course of which _they have used wire-wrapped
sticks on the recalcitrants_. The abundant testimony, verified
by the Soviet Commission, portrays a very striking picture
of violence. When these members of the Executive Committee
arrived at the township of Sadomovo they commenced to assault
the population and to rob them of their household belongings,
such as quilts, clothing, harness, etc. No receipts for the
requisitioned goods were given and no money paid. _They even
resold to others on the spot some of the breadstuffs which they
had requisitioned._

In the same paper (No. 98), March 9, 1919, another Bolshevist writer, Sosnovsky, reported on conditions in the villages of Tver Province as follows:

The local Communist Soviet workers behave themselves, with rare
exception, in a disgusting manner. Misuse of power is going on
constantly.

_Izvestia_ published, January 5, 1919, the signed report of a Bolshevist official, Latzis, complaining that “in the Velizsh county of the Province of Vitebsk _they are flogging the peasants by the authority of the local Soviet Committee_.” On May 14, 1919, the same journal published the following article concerning conditions in this province:

Of late there has been going on in the village a really
scandalous orgy. It is necessary to call attention to the
destructive work of the scoundrels who worked themselves into
responsible positions. Evidently all the good and unselfish
beginnings of the workmen’s and peasants’ authority were either
purposely or unintentionally perverted by these adventurers
in order to undermine the confidence of the peasants in the
existing government in order to provoke dissatisfaction
and rebellion. It is no exaggeration to say that no open
counter-revolutionary or enemy of the proletariat has done
as much harm to the Socialist republic as the charlatans of
this sort. Take, as an instance, the third district of the
government of Vitebsk, the county of Veliashkov. Here the
taxes imposed upon the peasants were as follows: “P. Stoukov,
owning 17 dessiatines, was compelled to pay a tax of 5,000
rubles, while U. Voprit, owning 24 dessiatines, paid only
500 rubles. S. Grigoriev paid 2,000 on 29 dessiatines, while
Ivan Tselov paid 8,000 on 23 dessiatines.” (Quoting some more
instances, the writer adds that the soil was alike in all
cases. He then brings some examples of the wrongs committed by
the requisitioning squads.)

The same issue of this Soviet organ contained the report of an official Bolshevist investigation of the numerous peasant uprisings. This report stated that “The local communists behave, with rare exceptions, abominably, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that we were able to explain to the peasants that we were also communists.”

_Izvestia_ also published an appeal from one Vopatin against the intolerable conditions prevailing in his village in the Province of Tambov:

Help! we are perishing! At the time when we are starving do
you know what is going on in the villages? Take, for instance,
our village, Olkhi. Speculation is rife there, especially with
salt, which sells at 40 rubles a pound. What does the militia
do? What do the Soviets do? When it is reported to them they
wave their hands and say, “This is a normal phenomenon.” Not
only this, but the militiamen, beginning with the chief and
including some communists, are all engaged in brewing their
own alcohol, which sells for 70 rubles a bottle. Nobody who is
in close touch with the militia is afraid to engage in this
work. Hunger is ahead of us, but neither the citizens nor the
“authorities” recognize it. The people’s judge also drinks,
and if one wishes to win a case one only needs to treat him
to a drink. We live in a terrible filth. There is no soap.
People and horses all suffer from skin diseases. Epidemics are
inevitable in the summer. If Moscow will pay no attention to
us, then we shall perish. _We had elections for the village and
county Soviets, but the voting occurred in violation of the
Constitution of the Soviet Government._

_As a result of this a number of village capitalists, who,
under the guise of communists, entered the party in order to
avoid the requisitions and contributions, were elected._ The
laboring peasantry is thus being turned against the government,
and this at a time when the hosts of Kolchak are advancing from
the east.

Lenin, in his report to the Eighth Congress of the Communist Party last April, published in _Pravda_, April 9, 1919, faced the seriousness of the situation indicated by these reports. He said:

All class-conscious workmen, of Petrograd, Ivano-Voznesensk,
and Moscow, who have been in the villages, tell us of instances
of many misunderstandings, of misunderstandings that could not
be solved, it seemed, _and of conflicts of the most serious
nature_, all of which were, however, solved by sensible workmen
who did not speak according to the book, but in language which
the people could understand, and not like an officer allowing
himself to issue orders, though unacquainted with village life,
but like a comrade explaining the situation and appealing
to their feelings as toilers. And by such explanation one
attained what could not be attained by thousands who conducted
themselves like commanders or superiors.

In the _Severnaya Communa_, May 10, 1919, another Bolshevist official, Krivoshayev, reported:

The Soviet workers are taking from the peasants chicken, geese,
bread, and butter without paying for it. In some households
of these poverty-stricken folk they are confiscating even the
pillows and the samovars and everything they can lay their
hands on. The peasants naturally feel very bitterly toward the
Soviet rule.

Here, then, is a mass of Bolshevist testimony, published in the official press of the Soviet Government and the Communist Party. It cannot be set aside as “capitalist misrepresentation,” or as “lying propaganda of the Socialists-Revolutionists.” These and other like phrases which have been so much on the lips of our pro-Bolshevist Liberals and Socialists are outworn; they cannot avail against the evidence supplied by the Bolsheviki themselves. If we wanted to draw upon the mass of similar evidence published by the Socialists-Revolutionists and other Socialist groups opposed to the Bolsheviki, it would be easy to fill hundreds of pages. The apologists of Bolshevism have repeatedly assured us that the one great achievement of the Bolsheviki, concerning which there can be no dispute, is the permanent solution of the land problem, and that as a result the Bolsheviki are supported by the great mass of the peasantry. Against that silly fable let one single fact stand as a sufficient refutation: According to the _Severnaya Communa_, September 4, 1919, the Military Supply Bureau of Petrograd alone had sent, up to April 1, 1919, 225 armed military requisitioning detachments to various villages. Does not that fact alone indicate the true attitude of the peasants?

Armed force did not bring much food, however. The peasants concealed and hoarded their supplies. They resisted the soldiers, in many instances. When they were overcome they became sullen and refused to plant more than they needed for their own use. Extensive curtailment of production was their principal means of self-defense against what they felt to be a great injustice. According to _Economicheskaya Zhizn_ (No. 54), 1919, this was the principal reason for the enormous decline of acreage under cultivation--a decline of 13,500,000 acres in twenty-eight provinces--and the main cause of the serious shortage of food grains. Instead of exporting a large surplus of grain, Tambov Province was stricken with famine, and the plight of other provinces was almost as bad.

In the Province of Tambov the peasants rose and drove away the Red Guards. In the Bejetsh district, Tver Province, 17,000 peasants rose in revolt against the Soviet authorities, according to Gregor Alexinsky. A punitive detachment sent there by Trotsky suppressed this rising with great brutality, robbing the peasants, flogging many of them, and killing many others. In Briansk, Province of Orel, the peasants and workmen rose against the Soviet authorities in November, 1919, being led by a former officer of the Fourth Soviet Army named Sapozhnikov. Lettish troops suppressed this uprising in a sanguinary manner. In the villages of Kharkov Province no less than forty-nine armed detachments appeared, seeking to wrest grain from the peasants, who met the soldiers with rifles and machine-guns. This caused Trotsky to send large punitive expeditions, consisting principally of Lettish troops, and many lives were sacrificed. Yet, despite the bloodshed, only a small percentage of the grain expected was ever obtained. There were serious peasant revolts against Soviet rule in many other places.

The District Extraordinary Commissions and the revolutionary tribunals were kept busy dealing with cases of food-hoarding and speculation. A typical report is the following taken from the Bolshevist _Derevenskaia Communa_ (No. 222), October 2, 1919. This paper complained that the peasants were concealing and hoarding grain for the purpose of selling it to speculators at fabulous prices:

Every day the post brings information concerning concealment of
grain and other foodstuffs, and the difficulties encountered by
the registration commissions in their work in the villages. All
this shows the want of consciousness among the masses, who do
not realize what chaos such tactics introduce into the general
life of the country.

No one can eat more than the human organism can absorb; the
ration--and that not at all a “famine” one--is fixed. Every one
is provided for, and yet--concealment, concealment everywhere,
in the hope of selling grain to town speculators at fabulous
prices.

How much is being concealed, and what fortunes are made by
profiteering, may be seen from the following example: The
Goretsky Extraordinary Commission has fined Irina Ivashkevich,
a citizeness of Lapinsky village, for burying 25,000 rubles’
worth of grain in a hole in her back yard.

Citizeness Irina Ivashkevich has much money, but little
understanding of what she is doing.

Neither force nor threats could overcome the resistance of the peasants. In the latter part of November, 1919, sixteen food-requisitioning detachments of twenty-five men each were sent from Petrograd to the Simbirsk Province, according to the _Izvestia_ of Petrograd. They were able to secure only 215 tons of grain at a very extraordinary price. Speculation had raised the price of grain to 600 rubles per pood of 36 pounds. The paper _Trud_ reported at the same time that the delegates of forty-five labor organizations in Petrograd and Moscow, who left for the food-producing provinces to seek for non-rationed products, returned after two months wholly unsuccessful, having spent an enormous amount of money in their search. Their failure was due in part to a genuine shortage, but it was due in part also to systematic concealment and hoarding for speculation on the part of the peasants. Much of this illicit speculation and trading was carried on with the very Soviet officials who were charged with its suppression![10]

[10] The _Bulletin_ of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets (No. 25), February 24, 1919, reports such a case. Many other similar references might be quoted. _Pravda_, July 4, 1919, said that many of those sent to requisition grain from the peasants were themselves “gross speculators.”

How utterly the attempt to wrest the food from the peasants by armed force failed is evidenced by figures published in the Soviet journal, _Finances and National Economy_ (No. 310). The figures show the amounts of food-supplies received in Petrograd in the first nine months of 1918 as compared with the corresponding period of the previous year. The totals include flour, rye, wheat, barley, oats, and peas:

_Jan.-Mar._ _Apr.-June_ _July-Sept._ _Total for
Nine Mos._
_Tons_ _Tons_ _Tons_ _Tons_

In 1913 24,626 24,165 20,438 69,229
In 1918 12,001 5,388 2,241 19,639

If we take barley and oats, which were drawn mainly from the northern and central provinces and from the middle Volga--territories occupied by the Bolsheviki and free from “enemy forces”--we find that the same story is told: in the three months July-September, 1918, 105 tons of barley were received, as against 1,245 tons in the corresponding period of the previous year. Of oats the amount received in the three months of July-September, 1918, was 175 tons as against 3,105 tons in the corresponding period of 1917.

Armed force failed as completely as Gorky had predicted it would. References to the French Revolution are often upon the lips of the leaders of Bolshevism, and they have slavishly copied its form and even its terminology. It might have been expected, therefore, that they would have remembered the French experience with the Law of Maximum and its utter and tragic failure, and that they would have learned something therefrom, at least enough to avoid a repetition of the same mistakes as were made in 1793. There is no evidence of such learning, however. For that matter, is there any evidence that they have learned anything from history?

Not only was armed force used in a vain attempt to wrest the grain from the peasants, but similar methods were relied upon to force the peasants into the Red Army. On May 1, 1919, _Pravda_, official organ of the Communist Party, published the following announcement:

From the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party.

The Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party announces
the following--

_To all provincial committees of the Communist Party, to
Provincial Military Commissaries._

The All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets, at the
session of April 23d, unanimously adopted the decree to bring
the middle and poor peasants into the struggle against the
counter-revolution. According to this decree, every canton must
send 10 to 20 strong, capable soldiers, who can act as nuclei
for Red Army units in those places to which they will be sent.

Just as they had resisted all efforts to wrest away their grain and other foodstuffs by force, so the peasants resisted the attempts at forcible mobilization. Conscripted peasants who had been mobilized refused to go to the front and attempted mass desertions in many places, notably, however, in Astrakhan. These struggles went on throughout the early summer of 1919, but in the end force triumphed. On August 12, 1919, Trotsky wrote in _Pravda_:

The mobilization of the 19-year-old and part of the 18-year-old
men, the inrush of the peasants who before refused to appear
in answer to the mobilization decree, all of this is creating a
powerful, almost inexhaustible, source from which to build up
our army.... From now on any resistance to local authorities,
any attempt to retain and protect any valuable and experienced
military worker is deliberate sabotage.... No one should dare
to forget that all Soviet Russia is an armed camp.... All
Soviet institutions are obliged, immediately, within the next
months, not only to furnish officers’ schools with the best
quarters, but, in general, they must furnish these schools with
such material and special aids as will make it possible for the
students to work in the most intensive manner....

Bitter as the conflict was during this period and throughout 1919, it was, nevertheless, considerably less violent than during the previous year. This was due to the fact that the Bolsheviki had modified their policy in dealing with the peasants in some very important respects. Precisely as they had manifested particular hatred toward the bourgeoisie in the cities, and made their appeal to the proletariat, so they had, from the very first, manifested a special hatred toward the great body of peasants of the “middle class”--that is to say, the fairly well-to-do and successful peasant--and made their appeal to the very poorest and least successful. The peasants who owned their own farms, possessed decent stock, and perhaps employed some assistance, were regarded as the “rural bourgeoisie” whom it was necessary to expropriate. The whole appeal of the Bolsheviki, so far as the peasant was concerned, was to the element corresponding to the proletariat, owning nothing. The leaders of the Bolsheviki believed that only the poorest section of the peasantry could make common cause with the proletariat; that the greater part of the peasantry belonged with the bourgeoisie. They relied upon the union of the urban proletariat and the poorest part of the peasantry, led by the former, to furnish the sinews of the Revolution. Over and over again Lenin’s speeches and writings prior to April, 1919, refer to “the proletariat and the poorest peasants”; over and over again he emphasizes this union, always with the more or less definite statement that “the proletariat” must lead and “the poorest peasants” follow.

In April, 1919, at the Congress of the Russian Communist Party, Lenin read a report on the attitude of the proletariat and the Soviet power to the peasantry which marked a complete change of attitude, despite the fact that Lenin intimated that neither he nor the party had ever believed anything else. “No sensible Socialist ever thought that we might apply violence to the middle peasantry,” he said. He even disclaimed any intention to expropriate the rich peasants, if they would refrain from counter-revolutionary tendencies! Of course, in thus affirming his orthodoxy while throwing over an important article of his creed, Lenin was simply conforming to an old and familiar practice. When we remember how he berated the Menshevist Social Democrats and declared them not to be Socialists because their party represented “fairly prosperous peasants,”[11] and the fact that the Soviet Constitution itself sets forth that the dictatorship to be set up is “of the urban and rural proletariat and the poorest peasantry,[12]” Lenin’s attempt to make it appear that he had always regarded the middle and rich peasantry with such benign toleration can only move us to laughter.

[11] _The New International_, April, 1918.

[12] Article II, chap. v, paragraph 9.

To present Lenin’s change of front fairly it is necessary to quote at considerable length from his two speeches at the Congress as reported in _Pravda_, April 5 and 9, 1919:

During the long period of the bourgeois rule the peasant
has always supported the bourgeois authority and was on
the side of the bourgeoisie. This is understandable if one
takes into account the economic strength of the bourgeoisie
and the political methods of its rule. We cannot expect the
middle peasant to come over to our side immediately. But
if we direct our policy correctly, then after a certain
period hesitation will cease and the peasant may come over
to our side. Engels, who, together with Marx, laid the
foundations of scientific Marxism--that is, of the doctrine
which our party follows constantly and particularly in time
of revolution--Engels already established the fact that the
peasantry is differentiated with respect to their land holdings
into small, middle, and large; and this differentiation for the
overwhelming majority of the European countries exists to-day.
Engels said, “Perhaps it will not be necessary to suppress by
force even the large peasantry in all places.” And no sensible
Socialist ever thought that we might ever apply violence to
the middle peasantry (the smaller peasantry is our friend).
This is what Engels said in 1894, a year before his death,
when the agrarian question was the burning question of the
day. This point of view shows us that truth which is sometimes
forgotten, though with which we have always theoretically been
in accord. With respect to landlords and capitalists our task
is complete expropriation. But we do not permit any violence
with respect to the middle peasant. Even with respect to the
rich peasant, we do not speak with the same determination as
with regard to the bourgeoisie, “Absolute expropriation of the
rich peasantry.” In our program this difference is emphasized.
We say, “The suppression of the resistance of the peasantry,
the suppression of its counter-revolutionary tendencies.” This
is not complete expropriation.

The fundamental difference in our attitude toward the
bourgeoisie and toward the middle peasantry is complete
expropriation of the bourgeoisie, but union with the middle
peasantry that does not exploit others. This fundamental line
_in theory_ is recognized by all. _In practice_ this line is
not always observed strictly, and _local workers have not
learned to observe it at all_. When the proletariat overthrew
the bourgeois authority and established its own and set about
to create a new society, the question of the middle peasantry
came into the foreground. Not a single Socialist in the world
has denied the fact that the establishment of communism
will proceed differently in those countries where there is
large land tenure. This is the most elementary of truths and
from this truth it follows that as we approach the tasks of
construction our main attention should be concentrated to a
certain extent precisely on the middle peasantry. Much will
depend on how we have defined our attitude toward the middle
peasantry. Theoretically, this question has been decided, but
we know from our own experience the difference between the
theoretical decision of a question and the practical carrying
out of the decision.

* * * * *

... All remember with what difficulty, and after how many
months, we passed from workmen’s control to workmen’s
administration of industry, and that was development within our
class, within the proletarian class, with which we had always
had relations. But now we must define our attitude toward a new
class, toward a class which the city workmen do not know. We
must define our attitude toward a class which does not have a
definite steadfast position. The proletariat as a mass is for
Socialism; the bourgeoisie is against Socialism; it is easy
to define the relations between two such classes. But when we
come to such a group as the middle peasantry, then it appears
that this is such a kind of class that it hesitates. The middle
peasant is part property-owner and part toiler. He does not
exploit other representatives of the toilers. For decades he
has had to struggle hard to maintain his position and he has
felt the exploitation of the landlord-capitalists. But at the
same time he is a property-owner.