Milling rye in Viatka district during World War I. From Retish, Russia’s Peasants in Revolution and Civil War.
By Max Jelen
OXFORD, Ohio — Miami University’s Havighurst Colloquium continued this past Monday, October 24, when Professor Aaron Retish, from Wayne State University, shared his notions about peasant involvement in the Russian Revolution of February/March 1917 and the ensuing Civil War. Focusing on the Viatka Province in the northeast corner of European Russia, Retish forcefully argued that Russia’s peasants played active roles in these dramatic events, challenging previous scholarship on the subject.
Earlier in the Havighurst Colloquium lecture series, Professor Melissa Stockdale discussed her claim that patriotism was extremely prevalent throughout all of the social classes within the Russian Empire during World War I. Stockdale’s findings of a permeation of patriotism throughout the Russian Empire during World War I is particularly controversial with regard to the extent of peasant involvement in World War I efforts. Stockdale used evidentiary support in the form of wartime donations, which were published in Russian newspapers during the war. Professor Retish’s findings conjoin with Stockdale’s claims, and in fact, expanded upon Stockdale’s notions to some degree.
Previous scholarship, Retish explained, often conceived of the peasants as passive, backwards, and unpatriotic during World War I . Professor Retish, by contrast, asserted that the decision of the Russian Empire to engage in war, in July 1914, sparked the beginning of the Russian Revolution for the peasantry. In Retish’s book, Russia’s Peasants in Revolution and Civil War: Citizenship, Identity, and the Creation of the Soviet State, 1914-1922, he writes, “Wartime mobilization forced peasants to participate in mass politics and national rituals that would consume the nation in 1917 and pave the way for peasant participation in the early Soviet state.”
The onset of mobilization within the Russian Empire, Retish explained, came at a particularly tough time for peasants. Food was extremely scarce, and adding to these strains, most men had to leave the fields for the battlefield. Despite their hardship, peasants contributed to the national cause by means of giving grain from their harvests and giving what little money they had saved. As peasants contributed to mobilization efforts, the social disparities with the Russian Empire, both in terms of wealth and gender, became increasingly apparent—particularly to the peasants. As Retish writes in his book, “Wartime mobilization and the conflict’s cataclysmic destruction transformed peasant political discourse…These changes accelerated the popular desire for political changes.”
Through mobilization efforts, and the war itself, peasants made great sacrifices and served as the proverbial backbone for the Russian Empire. According to Professor Retish in his lecture, peasants, who were cognizant of the weight of their sacrifice, wanted to be involved in the political system and to aid in the rebuilding of the nation. Furthermore, Retish emphasized that “freedom was a central word for the February Revolution and underscores the political component of [the Revolution].” Peasants felt as though they were deserving of their new-found status as citizens for their contributions and sacrifices to the war effort.
Transitioning from the end of World War I to the summer following the 1917 Russian Revolution, Professor Retish discussed the implementation of cultural enlightenment brigades. These brigades were set in place by the new Provisional Governmentto teach peasants how to be citizens. However, these cultural enlightenment brigades were not very successful, and caused peasants to become frustrated with the provisional government. As such, peasants began to form more sophisticated notions of citizenry and eventually led to peasant support of the Soviets. When Retish was explaining this causal chain, he presented an image of poster, which read, “Land and freedom,” with a woman holding a rake in one hand and a sickle in the other hand. This poster dates back to before the Soviet Union was established, but the depiction of the sickle indicates the direction in which the nation was moving toward.
Further extending upon his claim that peasants sought to gain political involvement, Professor Retish talked about land and land reform in 1918. He addressed the common belief that between October 1917 and the Spring of 1918, peasant life was in complete chaos, characterized by the pillaging of land and seizing of goods. Contrary to these beliefs, Professor Retish provided evidence which showed that peasants used legal action to gain land. Retish claimed that, “peasants sought out the state and invited them to repartition land through a means of freedom.” As Retish made clear, peasants did, in fact, seek out the state through political efforts.
Peasants in the Russian Empire played an integral role in the mobilization of the nation in preparation for World War I. There efforts and sacrifices did not stop there, however, for they continued throughout the duration of the war and into the Russian Revolution. As such, they felt deserving of gaining citizenship, but also sought to gain political influence. During the time in between the end of World War I and the Russian Civil War, peasants did not strictly align with any particularly side—the Whites or the Soviets. In the end, the peasants accepted the Soviet state because the Soviet state fulfilled the dreams of the peasants, which extended beyond their desire for land, but also enabled their involvement in the politic.
Max Jelen is a senior majoring in History.