ABSTRACT
The Russian peasantry's decline had its historical roots in the latter half the nineteenth century. In 1862 serfdom was finally abolished in Russia, the last country to do so in Europe, and the serfs were set free. Prior to this time, Russian peasants were divided into three categories: those belonging to noble landowners, those belonging to the crown, and a minority of free peasants living mostly in Siberia and the Cossack areas, regions where serfdom never took hold. Peasants owned only the land on which their homes stood, as well as the yard and the garden plot around those homes. The October revolution was, at its outset, favorable to the peasantry. It allowed the peasants to seize and divide the landowners' estates, thus going far beyond their original aspirations. By 1933 Soviet agriculture was, for all practical purposes, collectivized, but at a very high cost for the country and an even higher cost for the peasantry.
