Clippings from the Soviet Press. Spring 1918

Novaia Zhizn, No. 48, March 22, 1918, p. 4.

Many landowners of Simbirsk had everything taken from them. They have tried to become members of the peasants' organizations in order to be able to remain in the village and to receive at least something to keep them from starving. The peasants, however, take a hostile attitude toward these "bloodsuckers," They either will not admit them at all or else ask an impossible entrance fee ... In a few cases these "bloodsuckers" paid their fee and were admitted, but were later expelled, losing, of course, their money."

Izvestiia, No. 73, April 13, 1918, p. 6.

... From the center come only general ideas ... and the villages try to carry them out ... each village in its own way ... There is nevertheless some semblance of uniformity ... Nearly every village has its land committee ... The zemstvos have practically disappeared ... in some cases they have been absorbed by the Soviets; in other cases they work alongside of them ... At the beginning land committees were formed in the volost uyezd, and guberniia. Now, however, they are giving way to the Soviets, sometimes working beside them and on their platform. There have been cases where the committees put up a fight against the Soviets but had to yield in the end. Peculiar institutions have developed in Soligalich Uyezd Here there are a number of agricultural communes ... from twelve to fifteen families in each. It is a mixed crowd socially-peasants, agronomists, engineers, students, et al., who believe in the communistic idea ...

Occasionally there is opposition to the Soviet Government ... For example in a certain part of Orel Guberniia the peasants resent Soviet interference. In this particular uyezd there are valuable private estates which the peasants have plundered and are selling the plunder to speculators. They refuse to divide it with other peasants saying, "Our lord, our property." They cannot get through their heads that the land belongs to the nation as a whole.

In a certain uyezd of Samara Guberniia, two Soviets have been formed-one representing the prosperous peasants, another the poor. They had several fights ... and in the end the poor, being the more numerous, carried off the victory ...

A similar struggle between these two elements is going on in Voronezh. The poor are organizing and forcing the kulaks from their positions. Fights are not uncommon.

In a certain village in Tver the kulaks declared openly that they -were "White Guards" and defied the local Soviet. No open breaks have as yet taken place.

All privately owned land has been taken over by the ... Soviets, but by no, means in a uniform manner. In a certain uyezd in Samara one landowner has been allowed to retain his fifteen hundred desiatins of land by coming to an understanding with the peasants of the neighboring villages ... Here and there a community, realizing the great value of having a well-cultivated estate, has refused to take it into its hands ...

Until almost the end of February there existed in Samara a union of landowners ... They succeeded in organizing the agricultural laborers into a kind of union claiming right over the land of the landowners and telling the Soviet to keep off ...

The question of dividing the landed estates among the different villages is a very complicated one and is being variously settled in different localities ... In Pskov Guberniia there is being organized an inter-volost committee to settle disputed claims ... At times these disputes are not settled in a peaceable manner ... Usually the live stock is distributed among the poor farms. The manor houses, etc., are declared to be the property of the nation ... In some guberniias the land is divided up among the population, each receiving from one and a half to two and a half desiatins.

Source: James Bunyan and H.H. Fisher, ed., Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1918; Documents and Materials (Stanford: Stanford University Press; H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1934), pp. 682-683.