While the Allied Nobility Army remained paralyzed for reasons unknown, we were compelled to exploit this reprieve—a window of time as precious as bullion.
Everything from the military and industry to administration and agriculture had to be brought under our absolute control and oversight.
The first initiative we launched was the fulfillment of our promise regarding land reform.
"Granting land to every tiller—this is the eternal aspiration of every peasant!"
The Agricultural Soviets, established in haste by decree of the Central Revolutionary Committee, cried out in unison for land reform.
Sixty percent of the arable land in Northern Victoria was owned by the aristocracy, cultivated by individuals who were effectively serfs under the legal veneer of tenant farmers.
Of the remaining forty percent, the majority was held by peasant communes, with only a minuscule fraction in the hands of independent yeoman farmers.
Furthermore, the vast majority of the peasantry tilling these fields still relied on primitive wooden plows.
Even under such desolate conditions, they had consistently produced harvests substantial enough to maintain Victoria's agricultural abundance.
The agricultural potential of the North was easily comparable to the black soil regions of the Chernozem back on Earth.
Therefore, if granted even a short duration, we could seize an enormous quantity of grain during the autumn harvest, fundamentally resolving our immediate food crisis.
In Northern Victoria, industrial hubs were scarce. Out of a population of ten million, only three million were urban dwellers.
This meant that the remaining seven million comprised the rural population.
Consequently, once the harvest season passed, we would no longer be limited by food shortages. We could exponentially expand the People's Army—currently numbering a mere sixty thousand—through massive conscription in the countryside.
To ensure that this harvest fell entirely within the grasp of the Central Revolutionary Committee, the cooperation of the peasantry was an absolute necessity.
Thus, we resolved to promise a radical land reform that would upend the existing order.
"The lands of the great landowners and the nobility are hereby confiscated in their entirety. These shall be distributed equally among peasants who have established autonomous Agricultural Soviets and joined the Central Revolutionary Committee. The Agricultural Soviets formed through this process shall establish collective or state farms based on the distributed land. Under the exigencies of a state of war, they are obligated to fulfill agricultural production quotas assigned by the Temporary Grain Procurement Committee of the Central Revolutionary Committee."