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Resolution to the Soviet and the Provisional Government from peasant citizens in the villages of Osnichkovo and Andreevo, Petrograd Province

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By Peasant Citizens in the villages of Osnichkovo and Andreevo, Petrograd Province

Voices of Revolution, 1917

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Document 46

Resolution to the Soviet and the Provisional Government from peasant citizens in the villages of Osnichkovo and Andreevo, Petrograd Province, 11 May 1917.

Resolution [Prigovor]

The assemblies of peasant communes used prigovor to designate a formal resolution. The word implies a legal decision and was also used by the courts.

11 May 1917 To the Soviet of Peasants', Workers', and Soldiers' Deputies and the Provisional Government.

We, the undersigned citizens of the villages of Osnichkovo and Andreevo, having attended a general meeting on this date, discussed the question of State Order and the Land, and also all the needs of society, and unanimously resolved:

1. The state must be based on a Democratic Republic under federatively autonomous governance. 2. The entire administration must be elected by direct and universal, equal and secret vote. 3. Freedom must be without any and all restrictions. 4. Election of judges. 5. Schooling must be at the expense of the State. Parents will subsidize the first three years of study, but the rest of the time spent in study must be at the expense of the State—that is, full room and board, since we teach our children not only for ourselves but for the good of our entire state. 6. The land in its entirety must belong to whoever cultivates it, since the land was taken away from us by forcible authority and so the land should transfer into the hands of the working people. We the citizens of the villages of Osnichkovo and Andreevo, not having a sufficient amount of land, have, between 1861

The year that serfdom was abolished in Russia.

and 1917, been buying haymakings, that is, grass for mowing, from landowners and kulaks annually, and considering the kulaks or landowners to be benefactors because they leave us the discards from their properties, which for their own use wouldn't pay for itself—that is, does not justify hired labor, and we pay for such throwaways whatever prices our benefactors feel like setting. [We pay] for tiny amounts of cuttings in scattered locations, such that in these fifty-six years we have already paid many times over whatever the land is worth, but the land still remains someone else's, and if we live on the single strip of a five-desiatina- [thirteen-acre]

A desiatina equals 2.7 acres.

per-capita allotment and you reap from twenty-five to forty-five poods [nine hundred to sixteen hundred pounds]

One pood is about thirty-six pounds.

of hay

Page 141

per allotment, then you can't feed a couple of sheep, to say nothing of a horse or a cow. But since our location is northern, arability, that is arable land, requires in addition to cultivation also fertilizer for the soil, so you can't live without livestock; moreover, of this small amount of allotment land, a third is unusable—that is, not just for haymaking but even for grazing livestock. The earth was Created by God for everyone in equal measure, and people should be its equal owners, except for the bowels of the earth, where there are deposits of ore and mineral wealth—this should belong to the State and not to usurpers and kulaks, so that all mineral wealth goes to the State and not to rich private speculators. 7. The war against Germany must be fought to a victorious conclusion. There can be no talk of peace until there is not even one armed German soldier standing on the land of free Russia. We citizens will devote all our efforts and will go as one man to defend free Russia and will sacrifice everything in return for protection against the enemy of our fatherland, which is why we are asking the Provisional Government and the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Peasants' Deputies to consider us a reliable buttress and support both in manpower and in material assistance.

Hereby sign Citizens, men and women both, who have reached the age of twenty years, of Petrograd Prov., Novo Ladozhsk Uezd, village of Osnichkovo,

[forty-nine signatures—seventeen men and thirty-two women—

most signed by a common hand]

Owing to illiteracy and on their personal request, we sign both for them and for ourselves,

[seven signatures: three women and four men] Village of Andreevo

Transcription

Document Details

Document TitleResolution to the Soviet and the Provisional Government from peasant citizens in the villages of Osnichkovo and Andreevo, Petrograd Province

AuthorPeasant Citizens in the villages of Osnichkovo and Andreevo,; Petrograd Province

RecipientAll-Russian Central Executive Committee of; Soviets, All-Russian Conference of the Communist; Party, Soviet Central Executive Committee, Central Executive Committee of; Soviets, First Congress of Soviets, Sixth Congress of Soviets, Second All-Russian Congress of; Soviets, Presidium of the VTsIK, The Soviet, Supreme Soviet of the USSR, RSFSR Central Executive Committee, TsIK (Central Executive Committee); The Provisional Government, Commission of the Provisional; Government

RepositoryGARF

ID #f.6978, op.1, d.244, ll.4-5ob

DescriptionN/A

Date1917 May 11

AOC VolumeVoices of Revolution, 1917

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