This meant literally nothing from the standpoint of practical politics. Its principal interest lies in the fact that it shows that the Bolsheviki accepted in theory the essence of the land program of the elements comprised in the Provisional Government and in the Constituent Assembly, both of which they had overthrown. Practically the declaration could have no effect upon the peasants. Millions of them had been goaded by the Bolsheviki into resorting to anarchistic, violent seizing of lands on the principle of “each for himself and the devil take the hindmost.” These would now be ready to fight any attempt made by the Soviet authorities to “socialize” the land they held. Millions of other peasants were still under the direction of the local Land Commissions, most of which continued to function, more or less _sub rosa_, for some time. And even when and where the local Land Commissions themselves did not exist, the plans they had prepared were, in quite a large measure, put into practice when local land divisions took place. The Bolsheviki were powerless to make a single constructive contribution to the solution of the basic economic problem of Russia. Their “socialization decree” was a poor substitute for the program whence it had been derived; they possessed no machinery and no moral agencies to give it reality. It remained a pious wish, at best; perhaps a far harsher description would be that much more nearly true. Later on, when they went into the villages and sought to “socialize” them, the Bolsheviki found that they had not solved the land problem, but had made it worse than it had been before.