The Resettlement Scheme Again

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In Pravda No. 96 (300) I quoted the chief resettlement data for Russia. Those data were up to 1911, and that year was incomplete (11 months). In Rech, Mr. Kaufmann has now quoted data from official, recently published records for the whole of 1911 and 1912.

It appears that the number of settlers has increased, albeit very slightly—from 190,000 in 1911 to 196,500 in 1912. The number of returning settlers, however, has greatly in creased—from 36,000 (1911) to 58,000 (1912).

The explanation of this phenomenon discloses to us still more profoundly the collapse of the new agrarian policy. Until now between three quarters and four-fifths of all settlers have come from the Ukrainian and Central Black-Earth gubernias. That is the centre of Russia where the survivals of serfdom are strongest, where wages are lowest and where the mass of the peasantry live under particularly difficult conditions.

The ruined, impoverished, hungry masses of this centre—the “heart” of Russia—rushed for resettlement (1907–09) and provided, in the end, 60 per cent of those returning, that is, of those who were ruined and still more embittered.

A wave of settlers has now come from another area, this time from the Volgaside gubernias, which until recently produced very few settlers.

What is the reason?

The “harvest failure”, the famine of 1911!... The famine embraced a new part of Russia. A new wave of fugitives has left for Siberia. We already know that Siberia will ruin and embitter the Volgaside peasants still further, as it did the peasants of Central Russia.

In other words, resettlement to Siberia has shown first the peasants of Central Russia and now those of the Volga side that salvation cannot be achieved in this way.

The “new” agrarian policy, ruining one area of Russia after another, the peasants of one district after another, is gradually making it clear to all peasants that their real salvation is not to be found there.