Agrarian Movement in the Voronezh Province in 1917

Abstract

At the turn of the XIX–XX centuries, the peasant population of the Voronezh province multiplied with amazing speed, while the land fund remained virtually unchanged. Thus, there was a constant reduction in the average per capita allotment, which, coupled with the low profitability of the peasant economy, led to a gradual material impoverishment of the community members. The destruction of the vertical of state power, which followed the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II and the revolutionary processes in Petrograd, allowed the peasants to try to solve the so-called «land question» on their own. Despite the fact that by 1917 no more than 10 % of the entire arable wedge of the province remained in the hands of private landowners, forced confiscation of land was considered by peasants as the most reliable way to reduce the severity of land shortage. The preserved evidence of the epoch shows that many rural societies sought to create the impression that they were not taking away the land, but only saving it from desolation. To do this, the community members carried out a policy of disrupting the economic life of the estates and their ruin. As for the political parties, they, despite their active work, could not enclose the agrarian movement of the province in the matrix of political struggle.