They
insisted, above all, on the importance of the socialization of the soil and
the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. A close and living tie was
created between the members of the Executive Committee staying at Petrograd
and the members in the provinces. The Executive Committee was truly the
expression of the will of the mass of the Russian peasants.
The Minister of Agriculture and the principal agrarian committee were at
this time occupied in preparing the groundwork of the realization of
socialization of the soil; the Revolutionary Socialist party did not cease
to press the government to act in this sense. Agrarian committees were
formed at once to fight against the disorganized recovery of lands by the
peasants, and to take under their control large properties where
exploitation based on the co-operative principle was in progress of
organization; agricultural improvements highly perfected would thus be
preserved against destruction and pillage. At the same time agrarian
committees attended to a just distribution among the peasants of the lands
of which they had been despoiled.
The peasants, taken in a body, and in spite of the agrarian troubles which
occurred here and there, awaited the reform with patience, understanding
all the difficulties which its realization required and all the
impossibilities of perfecting the thing hastily.
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