Decree on Land
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A foundational Soviet decree drafted by Lenin and adopted by the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets on 8 November [O.S. 26 October] 1917, immediately after the October Revolution. It abolished private land ownership without compensation, transferred landed estates and crown, monastery, and church lands to the jurisdiction of peasant committees and soviets, and established the principle that land belongs to the whole people and passes into the use of those who cultivate it. The decree's core operative text was the 'Peasant Mandate on the Land,' compiled from 242 local peasant mandates and embodying the Socialist Revolutionary agrarian program: a political compromise through which the Bolsheviks sought to secure peasant support by endorsing what peasants were already doing on the ground.
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- Wikipedia (EN) Full text and analysis: abolition of private property, redistribution to peasantry, incorporation of SR Peasant Mandate from 242 local mandates, followed by Land Socialization law (1918) and Land Code (1922)
- Wikipedia (RU) Russian article: sources (крестьянские наказы, эсеровская аграрная программа), content, significance, Lenin's speech commentary noting it was an SR program
- Marxists Internet Archive Lenin's speech to the Second Congress and the full text of the Decree on Land including the Peasant Mandate
- soviethistory.msu.edu Lewis Siegelbaum (Michigan State University): the land decree 'took its brief from the SR program and the peasant mandates' and 'by recognizing what already had occurred in many parts of the country, the decree legitimized the new government in the eyes of the peasants'