Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Decree on the Land. November 8, 1917

1. Landlord ownership of land is abolished forthwith without any compensation.

2. The landed estates, as also all crown, monastery and church lands, with all their livestock, implements, buildings and everything pertaining thereto, shall be placed at the disposal of the volost Land Committees and the uyezd Soviets of Peasants' Deputies pending the convocation of the Constituent Assembly.

3. All damage to confiscated property, which henceforth belongs to the whole people, is proclaimed a grave crime to be punished by the revolutionary courts. The uyezd Soviets of Peasants' Deputies shall take all necessary measures to assure the observance of the strict order during the confiscation of the landed estates, to determine the size of the estates, and the particular estates subject to confiscation, to draw up exact inventories of all property confiscated and to protect in a strict revolutionary way all agricultural enterprises transferred to the people, with all buildings, implements, livestock, produce stocks, etc.

4. The following peasant Mandate, compiled by the Izvestiia of the All-Russian Soviet of Peasants' Deputies from 242 local peasant mandates and published in No. 88 of the Izvestiia (Petrograd, No. 88, August 19, 1917), shall serve everywhere to guide the implementation of the great land reforms until a final decision on the latter is taken by the Constituent Assembly.

5. The land of ordinary peasants and ordinary Cossacks shall not be confiscated.

Peasant Mandate on the Land

The land question in its full scope can be settled only by the popular Constituent Assembly.

The most equitable settlement of the land question is to be as follows:

1. Private ownership of land shall be abolished forever; land shall not be sold, purchased, leased, mortgaged, or otherwise alienated.

All land, whether state, appanage, crown, monastery, church, factory, primogeniture, private, public, peasant, etc., shall be alienated without compensation and become the property of the whole people, and pass into the use of all those who cultivate it.

Persons who suffer by this property revolution shall be deemed to be entitled to public support only for the period necessary for adaptation to the new conditions of life.

2. All mineral wealth, e.g., ore, oil, coal, salt, etc., as well as all forests and waters of state importance, shall pass into the exclusive use of the state. All the small streams, lakes, woods, etc., shall pass into the use of the communities, to be administered by the local self-government bodies.

3. Lands on which high-level scientific farming is practiced, e.g., orchards, plantations, seed plots, nurseries, hothouses, etc., shall not be divided up, but shall be converted into model farms, to be turned over for exclusive use to the state or to the communities, depending on the size and importance of such lands.

Household land in towns and villages, with orchards and vegetable gardens shall be reserved for the use of their present owners, the size of the holdings, and the size of the tax levied for the use thereof, to be determined by law.

4. Stud farms, government and private pedigree stock and poultry farms, etc., shall be confiscated and become the property of the whole people, to pass into the exclusive use of the state or of the communities, depending on the size and importance of such farms.

The question of compensation shall be examined by the Constituent Assembly.

5. All livestock and farm implements of the confiscated estates shall pass into the exclusive use of the state or a community, depending on their size and importance, and no compensation shall be paid for this.

The farm implements of peasants with little land shall not be subject to confiscation.

6. The right to use the land shall be accorded to all citizens of the Russian state (without distinction of sex) desiring to cultivate it by their own labor, with the help of their families, or in partnership, but only as long as they are able to cultivate it. The employment of hired labor is not permitted.

In the event of the temporary physical disability of any member of a village community for a period of up to two years, the village community shall be obliged to assist him for this period by collectively cultivating his land until he is again able to work.

Peasants who, owing to old age or ill-health, are permanently disabled and unable to cultivate the land personally, shall lose their right to the use of it, but, in return, shall receive a pension from the state.

7. Land tenure shall be on an equality basis, i.e., the land shall be distributed among the toilers in conformity with a labor standard or a consumption standard, depending on local conditions.

There shall be absolutely no restriction on the forms of land tenure: household, farm, communal, or cooperative, as shall be decided in each individual village and settlement.

8. All land, when alienated, shall become part of the national land fund. Its distribution among the toilers shall be in charge of the local and central self-government bodies, from democratically organized village and city communities, in which there are no distinctions of social rank, to central regional government bodies.

The land fund shall be subject to periodical redistribution, depending on the growth of population and the increase in the productivity and the scientific level of farming.

When the boundaries of allotments are altered, the original nucleus of the allotment shall be left intact.

The land of the members who leave the community shall revert to the land fund; preferential right to such land shall be given to the near relatives of the members who have left, or to persons designated by the latter.

The cost of fertilizers and improvements put into the land, to the extent that they have not been fully used up at the time an allotment is returned to the land fund, shall be compensated.

Should the available land fund in a particular district prove inadequate for the needs of the local population, the surplus population shall be settled elsewhere.

The state shall take upon itself the organization of resettlement and shall bear the cost thereof, as well as the cost of supplying implements, etc.

Resettlement shall be effected in the following order: landless peasants desiring to resettle, then members of the community who are of vicious habits, deserters, and so on, and, finally, by lot or by agreement.

The entire contents of this mandate, as expressing the absolute will of the vast majority of the class-conscious peasants of all Russia, are proclaimed a provisional law, which, pending the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, shall be carried into effect as far as possible immediately, and as to certain of its provisions with due gradualness, as shall be determined by the uyezd Soviets of Peasants' Deputies.

Source: V. I. Lenin, Selected Works in Two Volumes (Moscow: Foreign Language Publishing House, 1952), Vol. 2, part 1, pp. 339-42.