ABSTRACT
At the time of the revolution there were more than 100 million peasants in the Russian Empire. As we have already seen, they lived in very diverse circumstances, so much so that it would be a mistake to think of there being a single “peasantry”. In reality, there were many different peasantries. Most would fall within the definition of a traditional peasant—that is, an agricultural producer who possesses some land but produces mainly for subsistence and to pay dues rather than for the market—but they achieved this in many different ways. Given the variety of cultures can we make any useful broad observations about the role of peasants in the revolution? Fortunately, there are a number of primary fault lines that enable us to distinguish major groupings within this mass. Far and away the most important is that between areas in which serfdom had existed until 1861 and those that had not been affected by it.
