ISSN 2078-9823 (Print), ISSN 2587-7879 (Online)

DOI: 10.24412/2078-9823.071.025.202503.236-248

Sergey V. Kistanov

National Research Ogarev State University (Saransk, Russia),

e-mail: kistanov-viz@yandex.ru

 

The Agrarian Question and Ways of Solving it “From below” in the Summer and Autumn of 1917 on the Example of Temnikovsky District of Tambov Province

 

Abstract

Introduction. The article is devoted to the struggle of peasants for their own vision of solving the agrarian problem in the summer and early autumn of 1917.

Materials and Methods. The source base of the research is the materials of the Central State Archive of the Republic of Mordovia. The research used historical-genetic, historical-typological and chronological methods.

Results. The article notes that in the summer of 1917, the local peasantry switched from waiting for peasant reform initiated by the authorities to personally solving the agrarian issue “from below”. In Temnikovsky district of Tambov province, as well as in Russia as a whole, peasants began to redistribute arable land, plowing fallow lands and cutting down privately owned forests. By this time, the local authorities were objectively unable to act as an arbitrator in the unfolding conflict between the rural poor and the owners. The weakness of the authorities, expressed only in directive attempts to urge the parties to respect the conflicts, was due to the decline in the prestige of the entire vertical of power, as well as the absence of a law enforcement apparatus behind its back, which rapidly decomposed after February 1917.

Discussion and Conclusion. The study showed that by the summer of 1917, the poorest masses of the village, tired of expecting an early agrarian reform, began to solve the agrarian issue according to their own understanding. The weakness of the regional government, which was unable to stop the solution of the agrarian question “from below”, predetermined the final victory of the Bolsheviks and the triumphal march of Soviet power.

Keywords: revolution, landlords, peasants, property, Council, commissar, land, forest.

For citation: Sergey V. Kistanov. The Agrarian Question and Ways of Solving it “From below” in the Summer and Autumn of 1917 on the Example of Temnikovsky District of Tambov Province.  Gumanitarian: aktual’nye problemy gumanitarnoi nauki i obrazovaniia = Russian Journal of the Humanities. 2025; 25(3): 236–248. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.24412/2078-9823.071.025.202503.236-248.

 

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