When the revolution of 1917 broke out, the peasants took the largest part of the land of the estate owners and divided it between themselves. In Russia about 90% of the land fell into the hands of the peasants through the revolution while the state obtained only 10%. Now (1920) 96.7% of the arable land belongs to the peasants and 3.3% to the government. In Ukraine 96.2% of the land belongs to the peasants and 3.8% to the government. The land which the state took over was changed into government estates. Where formerly the owners of an estate ruled, there rules now the state. In many cases the present form is more agreeable to the peasants. Frequently the fine mansions of the former estate owner are in the possession of the peasants, who have fitted them up into meeting and amusement halls as well as schools. But quite often these gentry mansions are now put at the disposition of soviet employees who spend their summer vacations there or send their children there. Others have been changed into homes for children, and according to the nature of the new arrangement the peasants are satisfied or dissatisfied. If it is at their own or their children's disposition, then they feel satisfied. But if the "Sowbur", as the peasants call the soviet employees, have taken possession, then the peasants are dissatisfied.
In some of these mansions children's colonies have been established, as already stated. In the gouvernement of Saratoff a large estate was nationalized. In the large buildings and gardens 120 children have been accommodated. Nearly all are war orphans or children of red soldiers. The children are well taken care of and are given schooling which according to Russian standards is good but, compared to German standards, deficient.
The form of nationalizing the estates is, to be sure, no ideal of socialism or communism. Under the circumstances (war, the peasants' faith in authority, demoralization, etc.), however, it would have been more difficult to drive through a different form. According to the account of an Armenian secretary of the organization of agricultural workers in Saratoff the fact of the matter, in that gouvernement, was that the agricultural workers, after driving away the owners of the estates, took no pains to maintain agricultural production. They sold part of the mplements or took them along for their own personal needs; "urthermore, they did only as much work as was necessary for ;heir own maintenance, so that the state saw itself compelled ;o take the estate under its centralistic management, as it desired to obtain from this gouvernement, which belongs to the most fertile in Russia, the grain which it required for its army and for the cities. Through this arrangement the agricultural workers are certainly no better off than they were before. The only difference is that formerly they were exploited by the estate owner and now by the stafe. Thus the Armenian in question ended his story. I may remark in this connection that this man belonged to no party and, consequently, did not look at things through any party glasses.
All agricultural workers who labor on these soviet estates are organized in the union of agricultural ivorkers. In the gouvernement Saratoff this union has 7000 members, among them 70 communists, of whom 50 are state employees, leaving 20 communists among the real agricultural workers.
Through their union the agricultural workers receive their implements and other use-objects furnished by the state, when there is anything to be had. The ivorkers on the soviet estates tire the only country laborers or peasants who are industrially organized. All other peasants are unorganized.