Although the abolition of private property in land is one of the most important parts of communism, there are other things also, which belong under that head, such as the regulation of the working conditions of collective labor according to principles of equality, the organizing of the exchange of the products of labor on the basis of justice, the regulating of mutual relations on a libertarian basis. All this a state cannot give; not even a bolshevik state. It can at most counsel, decree and order. If a sound social instinct and a strong sense of fairness is lacking, a people can never arrive at socialism and communism. Communism will not come by order. Have the Ukrainian peasants preserved that instinct through the terrible years of the civil war? If they have, then they will be ripe for communism; if not, then even the Soviet government cannot introduce traits in their ranks which do not live within them.
My trip through Ukraine, as well as conversations with those who know Ukraine best, have shown to me that there is reason for harboring good hopes. The Ukrainian peasants are coarse, but they are good-natured and helpful and generally have a strong sense of justice. One instance does not, of course, prove very much, but still it might be used as an illustration. Eichenbaum- Wollin listened to a conversation between a peasant and a bolshevik-communist. The bolshevik wanted to explain to him what communism was. But the peasant did not understand him. The explanations were unintelligible to him. Then the peasant began to give his own ideas, how he would order everything in his village as he had thought it out. And when he was through with his explanations the bolshevik-communist said to him: "But you are a communist."
"What? I, a communist?" the peasant answered in anger. "I am no communist."
This peasant showed that he knew well how to regulate his affairs in his village, if nobody disturbs his own communist experiments through interference from the outside and by checking his private initiative. Numerous examples can be quoted where the peasants independently arrive at communistic husbandry and regulation of their mutual relations.
A visit to a soviet farm, 30 verst from, Charkov, which formerly belonged to an estate owner, gave me the opportunity to study the common husbandry of the peasants of that estate. There were about 100 peasants with women and children, a total of 160 persons. Not one of them was a communist, and still they had regulated everything nicely in justice and equality. To many individual and joint households the same thing applies.
The peculiar refusal of the peasants to be called communists may be traced to the fact that the peasants heard the name communists only from the government, which calls itself by that name. But the same government sends its soldiers into the village, in order to requisition provisions, which the peasants are unwilling to give. Communists are, consequently, to the peasant's mind, requisitioning soldiers or those who send them. And as there are, besides, a great number of commissars, who also call themselves "communist" but are actually swindlers (a condition for which the bolsheviks are not to blame but against which they can fight only with difficulty in the large country) , who fleece the peasants, there has in Ukraine arisen a play upon words among the peasants by which they want to ridicule communism.
While thus the communists are not well liked among the peasants, the bolsheviks have with them a better reputation. For it was the bolsheviks who brought them peace. Through the peace of Brest-Litovsk Lenin has won great popularity for his party. For that reason the peasants love the bolsheviks but hate the communists. They do not understand that it is one and the same party.