According to reports in the big-business media, the legislation has provoked some vocal opposition in the countryside, including among workers on collective farms, small farmers, government officials, and heads of agricultural enterprises.

The measure, which was sponsored by President Vladimir Putin, passed by 245 votes to 150. It must win further votes in both the lower and upper houses of the parliament, or Duma, before Putin will be able to sign it into law.

In a compromise to win passage of the bill, supporters allowed an amendment that prohibits the sale of land to foreigners or foreign-owned companies, although they can lease land for up to 49 years. Capitalists in Russia, along with their imperialist advisors, have been pressing for the denationalization of the land in order to expand large private holdings and exploitation of farm labor.

The conflict is a reflection of one of the remaining conquests of the October 1917 Russian Revolution, in which workers and peasants expropriated the capitalists and landlords, opening up the land to millions of landless working people. One of the first acts of the new revolutionary regime headed by the Bolshevik Party was the abolition of landed proprietorship, the socialization of the land, and direct participation of the peasants in agrarian reform.

Despite the blows dealt to the worker-peasant alliance by the forced collectivization under the counterrevolutionary regime of Joseph Stalin, working people in Russia have continued to resist attempts to begin the open buying and selling of land, opening farmers to the reimposition of debt slavery and land foreclosures that mark capitalist countries.

In the current debate in the Russian Duma the "no" lobby has been led by deputies from the Communist Party, representing the remnants of the Stalinist apparatus that ruled the Soviet Union for more than five decades up to the late 1980s, and the Agrarian Party.

Putin pushed through a preliminary step on October 30 of last year, when the Duma passed a new Russian Land Code giving building owners the right to purchase the land on which their buildings stand. Prospective builders and investors were also granted permission to buy land on which they planned to build, providing they received official approval.

The major impact of the code was on land in urban districts, covering only 2 percent of the country’s total area but encompassing most of its population.

The controversial law now under discussion would ease some restrictions on the sale of land that is zoned agricultural--a bit less than one-quarter of Russia’s land surface, according to the Russia Journal, a weekly magazine published in the United States for prospective investors in the workers state.

Although only a sketchy outline of the legislation has been reported in the big-business media, it is clear that the new measure stops short of declaring open season on trade in land. Under its provisions, local authorities would have the power to limit the amount a single owner can purchase.  
 
Limited impact of 1993 constitution
Steps toward land privatization were promoted by Putin’s predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, who attempted to build on a series of changes incorporated into a revised constitution adopted in 1993. Under those "reforms," workers in the countryside, like their counterparts in the cities, were handed pieces of paper representing shares in state enterprises. Today, almost 13 million Russian citizens own such shares in farming concerns.

This highly touted move, urged on Yeltsin by imperialist "advisors" to the Russian government, proved to have a limited impact on the actual social relations in the Russian countryside.

For many the "right" to buy and sell these shares had little meaning, since the majority of collective farms never divided up their properties into actual plots of land. The small minority of people who were able to buy up shares and establish individual farms have been hampered in their attempts to raise funds by prohibitions on mortgaging their land.

Some agricultural companies have grown up by renting land from shareholders. The fact that the legislation promoted by Putin would do away with such arrangements has aroused the criticism of the managers of such enterprises.  
 
Deep opposition in countryside
While viewing the situation through its pro-capitalist lens and from the standpoint of hostility to the workers state, the June 20 New York Times noted the deep opposition to any wholesale privatization among Russian working people. "The prospect of change has terrified farmers and others who cling to the dream of the kikholzy, or collective farms, that still operate more than 90 percent of the nation’s farms," wrote Steven Lee Myers in the June 20 issue.

Many collectives still function much as they did before the 1993 constitutional changes. Although they have provided minimal cash income to the workers, particularly as old equipment has deteriorated and state subsidies have been slashed, they continue to provide food, essential health care, and other social services.

"It’s stupid to sell," said Vasily Sorogin, 47, a member of the Rodina collective in Kursk. "What if something changes? The kokholz [collective farm] will become better off, and they’ll be able to give me more."

In areas like the Kursk region, in the west of Russia bordering Ukraine, reported Myers, "many fear the free sale of land will strip peasants of what share they have in the land as wealthy investors buy up plots. Few peasants would be able to buy enough land to do more than subsistence farming."

"In Russia’s vast farmlands," noted the big-business paper, "one of the most striking features is the absence of fences, and few believe they will soon appear."

According to Russian economists, individuals today own less than 10 percent of Russia’s 1 billion acres of farmland. The rest remains under the control of the state or of former collectives.
 
 
Related articles:
Workers protest layoffs in Eastern Europe  
 
 
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