File No. 861.52/10
The Consul General at Moscow ( Summers) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 30, 1918.]
Sir: I have the honor to report to the Department that by decree published in the gazette of the Council of Workingmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates, private property in land is declared abolished. All landed properties are handed over with their buildings, implements and livestock to the land committees. The homes of landowners are to be used for hospitals, primary schools, theaters and hospices, under which term seem to be understood public inns. Pillage and incendiarism are discountenanced. The injunction to spare the property of estate owners from destruction or theft is the most hopeful feature of this decree. The majority of the proprietors have already been driven away and the management and benefit of their properties have passed into the hands of the neighboring peasants. Those living on their estates are for the most part compelled to submit requests to use food supplies to the local land committee.
I have [etc.]