The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-05-09


enthusiasm within the Red Army for
the purpose OF overcoming the resist
ance Of the peasants, a different pol
icy was INDUCED In. No land was
parceIled out on the plea that big
agricultural concerns are technically
more rational. A very interesting
declaration was issued which was
laid down before the meeting of the
workers councils by the Communist
Party. The peasantry had revolted,
the proletariat stood in need Of an ally
and now comes the Communist Party
and says in this declaration that It
would be utterly wrong to divide the
big estates, as this would only
strengthen private ownership. With
such a policy, proletarian dictatorship
was supported in a way to allow the
former big landowners to be again in
full possession of their former prop
erty. Even If we admit that the forces
were inadequate and that were other
reasons for the loss of power we
would now have strong reserve in
the peasantry, if our action had been
different at that time. The peasants
would say: after all the Communists
gave us the land, it is true that the
landowners took it away from us, but
the Communists are fine fellows never
theless. This would be of course a
great argument for us. But the recol-
lection of such declaration is a great
disadvantage. Under such difficult
circumstances, a proletariat without
alliance was deemed to be the loser.
But it is an interesting fact that some
Hungarian comrades fail to under
stand this even today. In 1919, name
| ly, about five years ago even Comrade
Varga failed to understand what he
of course understands today. But
| Comrade Hevesi does not understand
it even now. We have statements
from him in the organ Of our Peasant
International which are supposed to
be a justification of that policy. He
says that the situation in Russia is
utterly different from the situation in
| Hungary. In Hungary it was a case
of small country with higher in
.dustrial development than in Russia,
and the small Industrial workers had
to live. A big revenue from agricul-
ture was required. and this could only
be achieved thru big agricultural con-
Germs. He writes as follows: Our
mistake consisted only in not doing
our utmost to impress social con-
| cofnucnacs apd aopao;o1Ixy tbo oor
seriousness Of the peasants with the
correctness of this viewpoint"
CONSEQUENCES" so to speak in
~ the Hegelian sense, is rather
good for Hungarian peasants. But the
main thing is that they give nothing
to the peasants, and we know that to
| give nothing or very little weighs
heavier in the scales Of history than
some kind of consciousness. This ap-
plies of course in a much fuller meas
ure to the peasantry. The Hungarian
! Soviet government is really a great
lesson to us. We have spoken at our
congress about Italy and Poland, and
think it would be as well to publish
all documents from the history of
Hungary as well as from the history of
the revolutionary developments in
Italy and Poland and also in Russia.
Comrades, we must not forget the
situation here previous to the October
revolution: enormous revolutionary
ferment among the peasantry. Two
hundred and forty-two peasant de-
mands formulated at various meetings
we're sent TO Moscow and Petersburg
from different parts Of Russia. They
included many stupid utopian de-
mands, which of course we saw at
once. But nevertheless we declared
to the peasantry that Immediately af-
ter the conquest Of political power we
would put their demands into law. We
supported these demands and as soon
as political power was In our hands