all this, in connetion with the system of “food-tithe”’, which was a 
negation of the principle of ownership of the farmer for the produce of 
his farm, had to turn the whole of peasant Russia into a single colossal 
plan economy. 
This attempt to achieve, by means of coercion, the plan regulation of 
the entire agriculture of Russia was the culminating poifft of the Socialist 
achievements in Soviet Russia with regard to land. Then came a sharp 
turning caused not only by political events (a wave of peasants’ risings, 
and the Kronstadt insurrection), but primarily by the catastrophic conse- 
quences which manifested themselves in the village economics. It is enough 
to say that under the combined influence of the still raging local land 
partition fever, the incessant interference of the regulating centre and the 
hated food-tithe affecting every farmer, the area under cultivation in 
Russia, with the exclusion of the Ukraine, was curtailed from 71 millions 
dessiatins to 45 millions. At the same time there was a sharp fall off in 
the crops, and a decrease in the head of cattle, and number of poultry. 
According to the approximate calculations of the Soviet Government, the 
national income from agriculture decreased three times as against the 
pre-war period*). In the face of such obvious degradation of agriculture 
the Soviet Government capitulated, and on March 21, 1921, by the decree 
abolishing “food-tithe” and substituting for it “food-tax”, inaugurated its 
new economic policy. By that act the possession and enjoyment of his 
produce was restored to the farmer. 
The problem of the new land legislation was put forth in its entirety 
at the All-Russian Land Congress of December 2-7, 1921. The first 
paragraph of its resolution set forth the following principles of that 
legislation: “a) emancipation of the economic initiative of the thrifty 
peasantry; b) elimination, of the shortcomings of the peasant land 
cultivation; c) creation of stable agrarian relations in the villages”. These 
principles were sanctioned by the XIth All-Russian Congress of the Soviets 
of December 23-28, 1921, while the laws that had been drafted were 
discussed at the All-Russian Congress of land-organisers and meliorators 
in the beginning of February 1922. Finally, on May 22, 1922, the Central 
Executive Committee of the R.S.F.S.R. adopted a draft of the “funda- 
mental law concerning the working land tenure”. The law left to each 
rural community**) a free choice of the form of land tenure, admitted the 
separation of individual farms without an agreement with the community**) 
in case of general partitions or distributions, and allowed the separation 
of holdings, without a consent of the community**), to a definite minority 
*) I. A. Kirillow. Outlines of land organisation during three years of revolution: 
1918, 1919, 1920. Petrograd 1922, p. 10. 
919, 19 Ch 9 P . . 
**) Here “community” is meant as administrative unit. 
bs