First People's Commissar for Agriculture in the Soviet coalition, co-author of the Law on the Socialization of Land
'What emerged was not a law on the socialization of land, but on the nationalization of land.' — on the Bolshevik-amended land law passed by the Third Congress of Soviets, January 1918
A Left Socialist Revolutionary leader who served as the first People's Commissar for Agriculture in the Soviet coalition government (November 1917–March 1918), co-authoring the landmark Law on the Socialization of Land with Ivan Mayorov. He resigned in protest against the Brest-Litovsk Treaty but refused to join the July 1918 Left SR uprising, instead founding the Party of Revolutionary Communists and joining the Bolshevik Party that November. A key architect of revolutionary agrarian reform who navigated the SR–Bolshevik coalition and later served on the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Front during the Civil War.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1906Joined the SR Party; expelled from Kharkov University for political activity
- 1909–1916Exiled abroad; studied in Paris, joined the Left SR group
- 1917Leader of Kazan Left SRs, chair of Kazan Gubernia Soviet of Peasant Deputies; SR Central Committee member; delegate to Second Congress of Soviets, VTsIK member
- 1917.11–1918.3People's Commissar for Agriculture of the RSFSR; co-authored the Law on the Socialization of Land with Mayorov
- 1918.5–7Chair of Kazan Gubernia Soviet Executive Committee; refused to support the Left SR uprising
- 1918.7–11Founded and led the Party of Revolutionary Communists; joined RCP(b) in November
- 1919–1920Member of the RVS of the Southern Front; chair of the Special Food Commission
- 1921–1935Administrative and economic work in Narkomat of Communications, Moskust, and other bodies
Related historical events
- 1917.10–1918.01The October RevolutionFirst Commissar of AgricultureA delegate to the Second Congress of Soviets, he led the Left SRs into the coalition government and became the first People's Commissar for Agriculture in November 1917, co-authoring the land socialization bill with Mayorov.
- 1917.12–1918.11Brest-Litovsk and Germany’s eastern occupationAgriculture commissar who resigned in protestHe resigned as agriculture commissar in protest against the Brest-Litovsk Treaty.
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionSouthern Front Revolutionary Military Council memberHe served on the Southern Front's Revolutionary Military Council in 1919–1920.
Socializing the Land: Kolegayev the Agrarian Reformer
Kolegayev was born the son of an exiled Narodnaya Volya activist and placed the peasant question at the center of his politics from the time he joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1906. Returning to Kazan after the February Revolution, he helped edit the Left SR newspaper Za Zemlyu i Volyu and, as chair of the Kazan gubernia Soviet of Peasant Deputies, drove through the 13 May resolution transferring private and gentry estates to the jurisdiction of the volost committees. When the Provisional Government pressed him to rescind it, he refused, declaring that threats of prison and punishment would not stop the Soviet from carrying out the will of the people to the end.
Having taken part in the October Revolution and been elected a delegate to the Second Congress of Soviets, Kolegayev became the RSFSR's first People's Commissar for Agriculture on 25 November 1917. While officials of the old Ministry sabotaged the new government by striking, he co-authored the Fundamental Law on the Socialization of Land with Ivan Mayorov, enacted by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in February 1918. The law abolished private property in land and mineral resources, distributed land to the laboring people who tilled it, and preferred communes and cooperative farming to individual holdings. Yet when the Bolsheviks amended the draft toward nationalization, he voiced his disagreement, observing that what emerged was a law on nationalization rather than socialization.