Out of the hitherto frenzied rush of workmen into villages, brought about by hunger, a healthy proletariat movement was born, aiming at the creation of their own agriculture by means of allotments attached to the works. This movement resulted, on February 15, 1919, in a decree which granted to factory and other proletariat groups the right to organize their own rural economy.... The enthusiasm of the workmen is impressive.... _The complete emancipation of the towns from the villages in the matter of food-supply appears to be quite within the realms of possibility in the near future, without the unwieldy, expensive, and inefficient machinery of the People’s Commissariat of Food Supply, and without undue irritation of the villages._ This will, besides, relieve enormously the strain on the crippled railways. And, what is even more important, it points out a new and the only right way to the nationalization of the land and to the socialization of agriculture. And, indeed, in spite of the fact that the decree announcing the nationalization of the land is now two years old, _this nationalization has not yet been carried out_. The attitude of the peasant to the land, psychologically as well as economically, is still that of the small landowner. He still considers the land his property, for, as before, it is he, and not the state, that draws both the absolute and the differential rent, and he is fighting for it, with the food detachments, with all his power. If there is any difference at all it is that the rent which formerly used to find its way into the wide pockets of the landowners now goes into the slender purse of the peasant. The difference, however, in the size of the respective pockets is becoming more and more insignificant.... In order to make the approach to socialization of the land possible, it is necessary that the Soviet authorities should, besides promulgating decrees, actually take possession of the land, and the authorities can only do this with the help of the industrial proletariat, whose dictatorship it represents. How extremely childish all this is! How little the knowledge of the real problem it displays! If the official organ of the Supreme Economic Council and the People’s Commissaries of Finance, Commerce and Trade and Food knew no better than this after two such years as Russia had passed through, how can there be any hope for Russia until the reckless, ignorant, bungling experimenters are overthrown? Pills of Podophyllum for earthquakes would be less grotesque than their prescription for Russia’s ailment. VI THE BOLSHEVIKI AND THE PEASANTS