ABSTRACT
In 1905–7 and 1917–18, throughout much of the territory of the Russian Empire, there were two massive peasant revolutions. During both revolutions, acting with growing confidence and decisiveness, peasants seized land that remained in the hands of nobles and other non-peasant owners. Peasants also seized agricultural implements, machinery and draught animals. And they tried to drive landowners out of rural areas by threats, arson, assaults and murder. Revolutionary actions by peasants were widespread in the Central Black Earth and Volga regions and in Ukraine, where land shortages were most acute, but the peasant revolution was not limited to impoverished areas. In 1905–7 the tsarist authorities tried to stem the tide of rural revolution by making concessions. This was the occasion of Nicholas II’s decision to put an end to outstanding redemption payments with effect from 1 January 1907 [ Doc. 28 ]. The authorities also used force and, by the end of 1907, had managed to suppress the first peasant revolution. A decade later, in March 1917, after the abdication of Nicholas II and the collapse of the tsarist regime, peasants once again erupted in revolution. The new Provisional government vacillated rather than take action to settle the land question. In marked contrast, the day after Lenin and the Bolshevik Party seized power in October 1917, the new Soviet government issued the ‘Decree on Land’. This gave legal sanction to the land seizures that had been taking place since the spring, and prompted a further wave of peasant action to take over the land (Perrie, 1990, 1992).
