The Growth of Tension in the Countryside

Abstract

During 1917 the political structure of Russia was changed fundamentally by a process of revolution stretching over eight months of the year. In February, the apparent solid edifice of tsarism collapsed as hunger, privation and war-weariness combined to undermine the foundations of support upon which that regime rested. The fall of the tsar was followed by a progressive radicalisation of the popular mood in both the city and the countryside until that mood had left far behind it the positions adopted by the succession of moderate governments which held office until October. Lacking widespread popular support in the countryside, at the front, and in the cities, by October the government was vulnerable to attack by any group which could marshal the force to push it from power. In October the bolsheviks were able to master both the resolve and the force to carry this out. The peasants played a major part in the eight-month revolutionary process which culminated in bolshevik victory. The roots of the peasants’ actions lay in the character of traditional peasant life.¹