In this 1999 collection, fifteen . They planned to dicker with the landlords over reconciling their utopian slogans with bourgeois interests at the Constituent Assembly; but the peasants were not waiting around for this pie in the sky. endobj This Russian Revolution site contains articles, sources and perspectives on events in Russia between 1891 and 1927. 124 0 obj Lenin justified it as a temporarybreathing space for the Russian economy, which had been exhausted by years of World War I, the Civil War and war communism. What are some examples of how providers can receive incentives? 1- Tsar Nicholas II and his family lived a life of luxury other's didn't. The 1861 reforms had the effect of stimulating a capitalist market, however. \;|u BIG6*b`:D_7 *Y When in February of 1917in the midst of the devastation of World War I urban workers and soldiers rose up and toppled the fragile Tsarist autocracy in a matter of days, peasants immediately took notice. 127 0 obj The Russian Revolution through the Prism of Propaganda. 122 0 obj Serfdom in Russia was slave-like feudalismpeasants were not allowed to leave the land they were born on. The immediate cause for the first collectivization drive lay, however, in the mounting economic tensions of the late 1920s. This decree took a step away from feudalism, and at first, peasants were thrilled. This was done, in Lenins words, to provide breathing space for the Russian people. World War 1 set up and helped create a peasant body that could play a role in the Russian Revolution by allowing peasants to join the army and learn what it was like to be treated as an individual . According to eyewitness Nicolai Sukhanov, It would seem that Lenin had landed not merely in a camp of bitter enemies, but you might say in the very jaws of the crocodile. But Sukhanov went on to report that, The little muzhiks listened attentively and probably not without sympathy. Russian Revolution Causes what were the causes of the russian revolution? The aristocrat class treated the peasants like slaves, giving them few rights under the law and treating them almost like animals. The other half of all arable landand often the worst landwas in the hands of some 10 million peasant families, mostly in the communes, or small ownership plots. Twenty-four years later, he seemed just as bewildered as a group of armed thugs, members of the Bolshevik secret police, moved in to assassinate him. 1. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Vladimir Brovkin. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. To facilitate this, the redemption payments of 1861, destined to expire anyway in 1910, were abolished.[2]. 10Lenin, Speech To The First All-Russian Congress of Land Departments, Poor Peasants Committees and Communes. December 11, 1918, in CW, vol. 0000033490 00000 n . <>/Border[0 0 0]/Contents( B Y U \n S c h o l a r s A r c h i v e)/Rect[392.3203 650.625 540.0 669.375]/StructParent 3/Subtype/Link/Type/Annot>> The spending left many peasants and urban poor with little to nothing to eat. The overwhelming majority of its populace were peasants. 137 0 obj But the Bolsheviks of Lenin and Trotsky were not so inclined. 120 0 obj . 10 acres holdings were rich peasants. Many older people know that the name of Russia's "communist" government was the Soviet Union, but few know that soviet was Russian for council. For more information on usage, please refer to our Terms of Use. 2 How were peasants treated during the Russian Revolution? Publisher's summary: Confraternities were the most common form of organized religious life in medieval and early modern Europe. Ruthless: Monopoly's Secret History. Werent we on the slippery slope that led back to capitalism? In a year or two there were incidents of peasants seizing land that had been cut out from the commune, as well as attacks on big landlords, including the burning of mansions. In Russia, the peasants were still serfs meaning that they were still in the feudal system with class privileges (Wilde 2nd). This military reverse shattered Russia's dreams of establishing hegemony over the whole of Asia, but it also contributed to a wave of domestic unrest. Version: 2019-03-03. 7Rosa Luxemburg, The Russian Revolution, in Rosa Luxemburg Speaks, Pathfinder Press, 1970. War recruitment carried away 10 million workers and peasants, and stripped away 2 million horses, as well as food stuffs for the army and other resources, while defeats in the trenches mounted. This was documented by one Bolshevik in the Volga region: The muzhiks called [their SR leaders] old men, treating them with external deference, but voting in their own way. Trotsky continues, It is impossible to weigh the influence of the revolutionary workers upon the peasantry. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russian_Peasants%27_uprising_of_19051906&oldid=1047258818, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 29 September 2021, at 21:51. World War 1 set up and helped create a peasant body that could play a role in the Russian Revolution by allowing peasants to join the army and learn what it was like to be treated as an individual and as an equal. Had the war been won, the regime may have been able to gain political capital from this nationalistic upsurge. e d u / f h s s c o n f e r e n c e _ s t u d e n t p u b / 2 0 2)/Rect[72.0 131.7406 360.9062 143.4594]/StructParent 8/Subtype/Link/Type/Annot>> When Russia suffered a humiliating defeat in the Crimean War in the 1850s, at the hands of the decrepit Ottoman Empire and its British and French allies, Russian rulers began to think about modernization. The peasants, being class divided among themselves, could only prompt a new dynasty (as in China), or a new urban petty-bourgeois layer into power. The also fearful Tsar however, did not want to create a proletariat of landless workers. Economically, widespread inflation and food shortages in Russia contributed to the revolution. This was the situation at the time of the Bolshevik conquest of power on October 25th: the peasant masses, in opposition to their own SR leadership, and under the influence of revolutionary workers and Bolsheviks, were seizing the land. First of all, let us not forget that before the revolution of 1917 there was another one, 1905-1907. <>/Border[0 0 0]/Contents()/Rect[72.0 612.5547 255.6968 625.4453]/StructParent 4/Subtype/Link/Type/Annot>> As some of the frightened nobles began selling properties, often to foreign investors, kulaks began buying them up as well. (j6L&Wy _QV (F1s5L{?$+{r>"9YX(>_s*5( D1)h& 24 2. It was a period of social and political chaos. 4N. N. Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution 1917, Harper, 1962, vol. 28, pp. Title: The New Economic Policy (NEP) The abolition of serfdom in 1861 under Alexander II was the immediate result. endobj endstream This is not to say that signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was not necessary: it was of utmost importance to end the imperialist war that had devastated Russia and Europe. )~i4z 00=)r{l6 $QCFiGWnIo6/S\ .DiNK2j,< 0 Bq / 0000003371 00000 n The immediate causes of the 1905 revolution were failed state-level leadership and policy, inflation poverty, hunger, Russo-Japanese War, the rise of reformer and revolutionary groups, and Bloody Sunday. %PDF-1.7 % How did peasants affect the Russian Revolution? How do you calculate the ideal gas law constant? An initial surge of patriotism was a set-back for the revolutionary left (the Bolsheviks had been gaining strength in recent years), but that didnt last long. It played an important role in convincing Governor of Saratov, Stolypin, that a land reform was necessary.[3]. Lenin staved off criticism from within his own party by declaring that while elements of petty capitalism would return, the Soviet government retained control of industry, mining, heavy manufacture and banking. I p. 59. These events were not enough for the Tsar to grant the workers better conditions; therefore, the Russians took greater measures to change the empire. <>stream 5 What was life like for a Russian peasant? t`5tB %, Throughout the conflict, Russia was perceived as arrogant and ignorant of the vast military strength and technological advancements of the supposed 'infidels' as referred to by Tsar Nicholas II. Soviet terminology divided the Russian peasants into three broad categories: bednyak, or poor peasants; serednyak, or mid-income peasants; and kulak, the higher-income farmers who had larger farms. 130 0 obj Introduced by Vladimir Lenin in 1921, the New Economic Policy (or NEP) was a radical shift in Bolshevik economic strategy. <>/Border[0 0 0]/Contents(History Commons)/Rect[137.2383 341.2906 217.6191 353.0094]/StructParent 7/Subtype/Link/Type/Annot>> e d u / f h s s c o n f e r e n c e _ s t u d e n t p u b)/Rect[230.8867 362.1227 498.8262 373.8414]/StructParent 6/Subtype/Link/Type/Annot>> There was also a reported case of a group of peasants breaking apart a grand piano, sharing out the ivory keys. This conclave, though composed primarily of representatives of the upper layers of the peasantry, provided an opportunity to assess the peasant state of mind. 140 0 obj Why did the Russian peasants revolt in 1917? days the village became a site of plundering and pillage. Download the Social Science Quiz Questions with Answers for Class 9 free Pdf and prepare to exam and help students understand the concept very well. Part two of a series on the Russian Revolution <>/Border[0 0 0]/Contents(Masthead Logo Link)/Rect[72.0 648.0 134.5794 707.5]/StructParent 1/Subtype/Link/Type/Annot>> The reform also enabled the formation of peasant cooperatives, which became dominated by kulaks and middle peasants, who could trade on the market. This dismal situation ironically improved somewhat with the resignation of the Left-SRs from the Soviet government after the ratification of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, which ended Russias participation in World War I. I say ironically, because under the treaty, the Bolsheviks had to cede the Baltic states to Germany, and they had to recognize the independence of the Ukraine, which quickly came under German influence: not good. Lenin responded by winding back war communism and relaxing Soviet economic policy. Peasants who could no longer sow the land increased in number, and in the second year of war even some middle peasants began to go under. Peasants Lives 2. The NEP, he argued, was intended to provide breathing space for the Russian people and their economy, which was on the brink of collapse after seven years of war. However, as the revolutionary mood died down, the landowners became less willing to compromise. But the devil was in the details, and the problems were many. 4. 5. If conditions did not improve, the Bolshevik regime faced the possibility of another revolution. A compromise ensued, but it did not provide enough land for a growing population of peasants to survive on and still maintain their traditional three-field system. Shortages in grain during the war resulted in many of the poorer land workers hoarding what they produced. The nobility still owned the best land and the vast majority of peasants lived in extreme poverty. The Cheka (a forerunner of the notorious KGB ), or political police, was formed in December 1917 to protect communist power. But how does this square with the theory of Permanent Revolution, which affirms that the working class in a relatively backward country such as semi-feudal Russia, must not only make the democratic revolution that the bourgeoisie could not make, but must also put forward its own demands for socialism and workers rule? endstream The NEP was welcomed by many Russians, who had endured years of requisitioning, shortages, hoarding and restrictions on free trade but it created ideological tension and divisions in the ranks of the Communist Party. In our publication, we look at the various aspects of these turbulent times and their impact on the Czech and European societies, with a special emphasis on the middle class. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. An event as consequential as the Russian Revolution will always be used and abused in political argument, as an epochal transformation that brought the oppressed workers and peasants of Russia. Starting with the early days of the Revolution, factories began to lock out workers in defiance of the Bolsheviks, and the trickle of workers who went back to the peasant villages where they were from increased. This council threatened to shut down every factory that did not . After the Russian Revolution in 1917, an independent republic was declared in Ukraine, and a complex series of vicious conflicts were fought during the Russian civil war, before it became part of . The peasants, who were obligated to sell bread to the state, answered with "the bread strike": they decided to wait until spring to sell their grain, because in spring the prices were to grow. A historians view: [1] In the violence there was also a much 'culture smashing', and peasants went out to destroy anything that 'smacked of superfluous wealth': setting fire to libraries, smashing antiques and dumping faeces on the expensive oriental carpets all took place. 2- There was feudalism, the peasants of Russia( which were the largest in populations) had no say in how the government was run. [4], The army was called to put down the disorder, but the vast majority of the Imperial Russian Army's private soldiers were peasants, and the soldiers' morale was severely impacted by news received from their own villages. [1] In some areas, the revolt was accompanied by pogroms against Jews. One of the main causes of these revolutions was the grinding poverty. Peasant livelihoods were obliterated. The leader of the first of these, Stepan Razin, was memorialized in a statue dedicated by Lenin in 1918; and the second, led by Yemelyan Pugachev, amassed a great army and took several cities before its eventual defeat, and Pugachevs public beheading. The purpose of the French Revolution was to help solve the financial problems of the government. The Social Revolutionary party also agreed with the peasants and wanted them to start a Revolution. The Russian Revolution was created and (briefly) led by democratically elected soviets, which sprang up in factories, military barracks, and peasant villages across the country to conduct the . The Tiv believe envy can be defied only by those with a magical essence called tsav.Anyone who presumes to excel at anything, even dancing or singing, is thought to need at least some tsav.But the preeminent example of a "man of tsav" among them is the rich, healthy man with a large family and extensive, productive farmlands.Without loads of tsav, he could never ward off the envy-inspired . But it was not the sole cause of the Russian Revolutions of 1917. [3] Once landowners had been driven out, the peasants returned to their communes, refusing to pay tax or obey government law, as well as driving out local officials and conservative priests. endobj But complaints were heard, both within the Bolshevik Party and from without, about how the Bolsheviks failed to implement the socialist revolution on the land. I mean if it communicated clearly without lies or propaganda, it wouldn't be russia. endstream The great bulk of the Russian people were peasants. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. endobj %%EOF 120 29 These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. The Bolsheviks formula for this was the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. With the influence of Lenins thinking, and Trotskys promotion of the Marxist understanding of the revolution in permanence, this formula was revised to assert the need for a dictatorship of the proletariat in alliance with the peasantry. [124 0 R 125 0 R 126 0 R 127 0 R 128 0 R 129 0 R 130 0 R 131 0 R 132 0 R] Their line was based on the fact that they were in alliance with the Provisional Government, of which they would soon be a part (their representative Alexander Kerensky became Minister of War, and then Minister Chairman). The revolution paved the way for political parties and ideas to incubate. Underlying the land situation in 1861 was the insinuation of capitalism onto the scene. 0000001738 00000 n For more information, visit our FAQ page or Terms of Use. The peasants, having gone through all the Tsars reforms, were still land hungry and rebellious. endobj Frequently, they refused to pay rent and even murdered landlords. Helped by the end of the Civil War and stabilisation in conditions, agricultural production began to rise significantly. However most quickly retired from active political involvement. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. 123 0 obj 0000008843 00000 n 9Lenins Decree on the Land, in Mervyn Matthews, ed., Soviet Government: A Selection of Official Documents on Internal Policies, New York, 1974, p. 319. <>stream These legends are called by the general name of folk-lore. (In this, peasants were remembering their long experience with failed rebellions. Sukhanov was a Menshevik with a wide range of contradictory opinions, but he was a great eyewitness reporter. In May, a month-long All-Russian Congress of Peasant Deputies was held in Petrograd. Then, with the start of the Civil War, workers and peasants were called upon to form the Red Army, which they did with little hesitation, further interrupting what little production capacity was left. The Question is Posed by the Russian Revolution, The subsoil of the revolution was the agrarian problem Trotsky. 0000004153 00000 n The three major causes of the Russian Revolution were Russias participation in World War I, an unstable government and Vladimir Lenin. Dubbed the Nepmen, these shopkeepers, salesmen and market stall holders obtained items wholesale or secondhand and sold them with a markup. Whatever his justifications, the NEP did seem like a concession that earlier policies had failed. 126 0 obj Luxemburg then continues, That the soviet government in Russia has not carried through these mighty reformswho can reproach them for that! She insists that the Soviet government, in the brief period of their rule, in the center of the gripping whirlpool of domestic and foreign struggles, could not have been expected to have accomplished these reforms, which she calls, the most difficult task of the socialist transformation of society! Again, well and good. <>stream endobj Yet the Bolsheviks, by October, though still a minority in local peasant organizations, had been the only party to call for peasant direct action, and peasants were listening. But the truth she missed is that Lenin tirelessly made clear two things: First, the call for the peasants to seize the land themselves was directed explicitly against the program of the SRs, which called for land nationalization, but instructed the peasants to wait for negotiations with the landlords, or for the bourgeois Constituent Assembly to decide.