Land, Freedom, and Discontent: Russian Peasants of the Central Industrial Region prior

to Collectivisation
Author(s): David L. Hoffmann
Source: Europe-Asia Studies , 1994, Vol. 46, No. 4, Soviet and East European History
(1994), pp. 637-648
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

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 EUROPE-ASIA STUDIES, Vol. 46, No. 4, 1994, 637-648

Land, Freedom, and Discontent: Russian

Peasants of the Central Industrial Region
prior to Collectivisation

DAVID L. HOFFMANN

THE REVOLUTION OF 1917 seemed to usher in a golden era of land and fr

Russian peasantry. The flight of the nobility and tsarist officials from th
left peasants with both dramatically increased landholdings and greater
Moreover, the distribution of newly acquired land reduced the disparity
and poor peasants, seeming to create a contented and homogeneous
impervious to change. Yet at the end of the 1920s Russian peasants
cataclysmic transformation that imposed a new system of village admini
land tenure and that destroyed age-old rural structures forever. Even gi
government's massive use of coercion during collectivisation, we must
for the peasantry's relative lack of unity in the face of violent change. W
social tensions and discontent among Russian peasants that left them d
unwilling to resist challenges to the traditional village order?
The purpose of this article is to point out sources of friction and fer
peasants of the Central Industrial Region in the 1920s. Among such sou
demographic disruptions of the First World War, Revolution and Civil
disruptions, involving the return of millions of otkhodniki and veterans
accelerated forces of rural change and heightened the level of peasant d
turn, newly created Soviet institutions offered discontented peasan
articulate their desire for change and to challenge village traditions an
The Soviet authorities were to exploit the resulting tensions within the pe
they launched the all-out collectivisation drive of 1929-30.

Demographic disruptions in the village

Owing to the proximity of many Central Industrial Region villages to ur

peasantry there had always maintained closer connections with cit
peasants in other regions of the country. Commercial agriculture
marketing of produce in Moscow existed on a substantial scale from at le
century.l Peasants in this region also possessed long traditions of cottag
which connected them with urban markets.2 By the late 19th century, a
of peasants in the Central Industrial Region were leaving their villages f
work (otkhodnichestvo) in the city. A sizeable proportion of the industr

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638 DAVID L. HOFFMANN

Moscow before the Revolution were in fact otkhodniki-peasant labourers w

been born in the village, maintained a family there, owned land, and e
returned to the village to retire.3 Otkhodniki engaged in a wide range
employment, including non-industrial jobs as roofers, window fitters, tailors
and even as cockroach exterminators. They developed specialised skills a
ledge which they passed on to fellow villagers, so that they in turn worke
city.4
In some villages, especially those in parts of the Central Industrial Region where
no rural factories offered employment opportunities, traditions of otkhodnichestvo
became so strong that virtually all young peasants would go to cities for wage labour.
One peasant in the prerevolutionary period recalled:

All the strong, healthy and able fled the village to Moscow and got jobs wherever they
could-some at the factory, others as domestics. Others turned into real entrepreneurs-the
carrying trades, street vending and so forth ... We eagerly awaited the time when we would
be old enough to be fit for something in Moscow and when we could leave our native village
and move there.5

During the 1890s 14% of the rural population (over one-third of all adult male
peasants) in the Central Industrial Region went on otkhodnichestvo.6 It was in part
because these peasants had such extensive connections with the city that urban
economic collapse during the Civil War affected their lives so dramatically.
Among the most important demographic consequences of the Civil War was the
sudden return to the countryside of eight million otkhodniki fleeing unemployment
and hunger in cities. By 1920 Moscow had lost 538 000 residents (40% of its 1917
population), while some villages of the Central Industrial Region doubled their
populations in 1918 alone.7 Not only did this influx strain village resources, it also
upset village traditions and social relations. Returning otkhodniki brought with them
new outlooks and new modes of behaviour, and they proved less willing to accept
traditional village ways and hierarchies.8 Sociological studies throughout the 1920s
found that peasants who returned to the village after work in the city-particularly
those forced back by urban unemployment-rebelled against the patriarchal authority
of village elders.9 Peasants with urban experience also commanded a certain degree
of respect in the village; their possession of urban clothing and goods in itself served
as a source of prestige. The sudden return of eight million otkhodniki, mostly young
male peasants accustomed to the independence of city life, therefore undermined the
traditional village order and raised the level of social tensions.?1
The return of veterans paralleled that of otkhodniki. Fifteen million men, most of
peasant origin, served in the Russian army during World War I. As the army
disintegrated in the course of 1917, millions of peasant veterans returned to their
native villages and brought new ideas with them. Service at the front broadened
soldiers' outlook far beyond what it had been in the village; new sights, experiences,
responsibilities and power relationships all provided them with a new world view.
Upon their return to the village, these veterans, graced with a certain amount of
prestige as well as feelings of independence, often scorned traditional deference to
village elders and assumed leadership roles."
Conscription of young peasant males during the Civil War and throughout the

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 LAND, FREEDOM AND DISCONTENT 639

1920s continued to place peasants in the world outside their villages and then return
them there. At the height of the Civil War the Red Army numbered 5.5 million
soldiers, and throughout the 1920s it took in half a million conscripts a year. The vast
majority of soldiers were peasants who returned to their native villages upon
discharge from the army. Red Army political instructors taught peasant recruits that
village traditions were backward and that they should 'construct a new rural life
according to the legacy of Il'ich'. Many veterans accordingly vowed 'to turn
everything upside down' once they arrived home. Their determination to re-make the
existing rural order led them to challenge traditions of patriarchal authority in the
village.12
Tensions stemming from patriarchal authority were not new to the peasantry. The
subordination of the younger generation to its elders (and the resentments this
subordination fomented) had been part of the village order for centuries. But with the
sudden return of millions of veterans and otkhodniki after the Revolution, patriarchal
authority came under attack as never before. That most of those who returned refused
to submit to traditional patriarchal control is demonstrated by changing household
patterns.

Peasant household divisions

Russian peasants traditionally lived in extended families, often with three generations
in one household. In the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries they began
undergoing a transition to nuclear families, though this process spread very gradually
and had affected only a fraction of rural households by 1917.13 The return of millions
of veterans and otkhodniki following the Revolution greatly accelerated the break-up
of extended families. A survey by the Central Statistical Administration in 1922
concluded that 87% of all communes had allocated some land to peasants who had
returned to the village, and that 64% of these people set up separate households.'4 Put
quite simply, two-thirds of the veterans and otkhodniki who returned to the village
refused to resume living with their parents and instead established their own
households.

The break-up of the extended peasant family is reflected in statistics on the number
of households and household size. In the Central Industrial Region there were
2 588 600 peasant households in 1916, 2 813 600 in 1923, and 3 046 800 in 1927. To
take the example of one village, divisions raised the number of households from 65
in 1917 to 109 in 1923.15 As the number of households increased, the average size
of households decreased, signalling that household division (not population growth)
caused this change. The average number of persons per peasant household fell from
5.6 in 1916 to 5.3 in 1923 and to 5.2 in 1927.16 The significance of this decrease
assumes greater proportions when one considers the huge number of peasants away
at the front in 1916. One would expect household size to increase upon their return,
but owing to household divisions it decreased instead.
While the founders of new households obtained land through communal repartition,
they had more difficulty securing livestock and agricultural equipment. Soviet law
guaranteed every peasant eighteen years of age and older the right to a fair share of
his or her family's property on division of a household, even when the division took
place against the wishes of the family patriarch. Only in 1927, however, did a decree

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640 DAVID L. HOFFMANN

set norms for the distribution of property in cases of household division. In

this decree proved difficult to implement. Some patriarchs refused to relinq
of their property, and in other cases (for example if the household owned
horse) movable property simply could not be divided.17
While young peasants succeeded in separating from their fathers' househol
of them lacked the necessary agricultural equipment and livestock to farm
returning veterans and otkhodniki obtained land through the seizure of nobl
communal repartition, their new households lacked basic tools and draught a
problem compounded by the loss of livestock during World War I and
War).18 Research on Kaluga province found that households in regions trad
dependent on otkhodnichestvo were particularly short of livestock and equip
agriculture.19 Another 1920s study of the Central Industrial Region revealed
limited means available for farming were very unevenly distributed among p
In this sense, the levelling of the peasantry that resulted from land redistri
1917 turned out to be illusory. Statistics from 1926 show that 33% of
households in the Central Industrial Region possessed no livestock with
work their fields.2'
Large numbers of peasants, especially young peasants who had just establis
households, found it necessary to rent both draught animal and equipment in
farm. The rent could be quite high (up to one pood of grain per day for a ho
the overall shortage of livestock and equipment. Those who rented livestock and
equipment also found themselves in a subordinate position to other peasants. Renters
routinely were subjected to disdain and scorn (in addition to exorbitant rates) by the
peasants from whom they rented, and dared not protest against such treatment if they
wished to rent again the following season. Some peasants who lacked the means to
farm found it necessary to trade their field land for a second garden plot, while others
had to lease their land. Ultimately, many of the newly created households proved not
viable.22
Both the influx of peasants returning to the village and the division of households
(and corresponding shortage of livestock and equipment) contributed to the growing
number of peasants unable to support themselves through agriculture. A study of the
central provinces of European Russia found severe overpopulation and estimated that
37.8% of peasant working hands there were superfluous to the needs of agriculture.23
The number of Soviet peasants classified as 'rural proletarians' rose to 2 560 000
(11.3% of all peasants) in 1926/27, and a 1928 poll of otkhodniki found that an
overwhelming percentage cited insufficient land and a lack of agricultural equipment
as their motivation for seeking work in the city.24
Economic hardship provided a strong incentive for peasants to leave the village.
Former otkhodniki, in particular, regarded the city as a welcome alternative to poverty
in the village, and wished to return there. But high urban unemployment impeded
rural-to-urban migration throughout the 1920s. In 1924 Soviet cities registered
1 344 000 unemployed persons, of whom 25% to 30% were otkhodniki. By 1927
estimates of Soviet urban unemployment reached two million, and a majority of the
unemployed were of peasant origin.25 In growing numbers peasants who travelled to
cities found no work and had to return to their villages.26 Thus the generation of
young peasants who returned from the army and from otkhodnichestvo after the

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 LAND, FREEDOM AND DISCONTENT 641

Revolution found themselves with no choice but to remain impoverished in the

village, in the shadow of the older generation.

The commune and institutional change

Many conflicts between young and old peasants centred on agriculture and communal
land tenure. Older peasants' adherence to traditional agricultural techniques repre-
sented an effort to make their precarious peasant existence as predictable and secure
as possible. This conservatism naturally clashed with young returning peasants'
enthusiasm for change and innovation. For example, many young peasants, partly
because they lacked adequate livestock, advocated the introduction of mechanised
equipment, multi-crop rotations and other new techniques recommended by
agronomists. But commune elders generally frustrated agricultural innovation by
adhering to the traditional three-field system (an unproductive farming method dating
from early modem times).27
Substantial numbers of peasants turned against communal land tenure entirely. A
1924 Rabkrin survey found that half of the peasants in Moscow province wished to
abandon the commune and adopt individual landholding, and thousands of peasants
throughout the country sent letters to Krest'yanskaya gazeta calling for changes in
communal land tenure and the operation of the commune.28 In one village in Moscow
province, when the commune was reapportioning land in 1925 and the usual
arguments broke out regarding who would receive inferior land, some young heads
of households proposed that the land be farmed collectively. The ensuing debate
raged until the village split in two, with younger peasants forming a collective and
older peasants remaining in the commune.29
The Revolution of 1917 had actually strengthened the commune, at least temporar-
ily. Virtually all peasants who had left the commune during the Stolypin Land Reform
rejoined it in 1917, either willingly or by force. The seizure of noble land during the
Revolution required a high degree of solidarity among peasants, and the commune,
with its function of dividing land on an egalitarian basis, played an important role in
uniting peasants. But after the nobility had fled the countryside, tensions within the
commune once again surfaced. These tensions mirrored those within the peasant
household in that they arose along generational lines, and between peasants who had
lived outside the village and those who had remained there.
Traditionally, all decision-making authority for the commune was invested in the
elder male residents of the village, who alone participated in the commune assembly
(mirskii skhod). Women and the younger generation of male peasants had no voice
in village affairs and were obliged to heed the orders of village elders. Some village
residents not traditionally eligible to participate attended the commune gathering
anyway-a right guaranteed to everyone who worked the land by the Soviet Land
Code of 1922. The large number of household divisions also meant that many young
men became heads of households and could attend the commune gathering in that
capacity. Even as village elders continued to hold sway, the participation of others in
the commune gathering challenged their authority.30
Groups of young peasants began to recognise certain common interests, especially
surrounding land repartition and cultivation, that stood in opposition to the interests

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642 DAVID L. HOFFMANN

of commune elders. This dissension and factionalism shattered the tradition

that the commune was based on the peasantry's essential unity and on
operational terms, it also undermined the commune gathering's procedure f
decisions, which had been reached through consensus. The rise of factions w
commune-the emergence of majority and minority groups-dispelled the n
the commune gathering represented the interests and will of all peas
detracted from its legitimacy as the governing body.
While the commune remained the dominant institution in the village throu
1920s, official Soviet institutions were established alongside it. Despite the
ness during the NEP period, these institutions nonetheless provided a foru
which discontented peasants could challenge village elders. Rural soviets co
the most important official institution in the countryside. Returning veteran
lead in establishing soviets in their villages, and generally held the dominan
in them. Soviet authorities also encouraged participation in rural soviets b
traditionally excluded from the commune gathering, especially women and
labourers. Significantly, the percentage of women and landless labourers w
in elections to rural soviets rose throughout the 1920s. While most ru
delegates did not belong to the Communist Party or the Komsomol, they m
what party officials considered a non-party aktiv. Elected delegates a
participants in activities of the rural soviets did not necessarily support part
But rural soviets nonetheless offered peasants a new vehicle for political acti
constituted a potential rival to the commune for power in the village.31
Communist Party membership remained quite limited among peasants duri
1920s. The party was practically non-existent in most parts of the countrysi
Moscow province, rural districts of 13 000 people contained only six party mem-
bers.32 The Komsomol, in contrast, not only enlisted a large rural contingent but also
played an important role promoting cultural activities in the village. By January 1926
the Komsomol in Moscow province (not including Moscow city) claimed 55 062
members in a total of 1876 cells, while nationwide the number of peasant Komsomol
members surpassed 1 million.33 Peasant youth proved particularly eager to participate
in Komsomol drama circles and sporting events. Komsomol organisers arranged
special concerts, lectures, films and excursions, often to divert peasant youth from
village religious celebrations. Some rural Komsomol members also adopted confron-
tational tactics, including the destruction of religious objects.34 In addition to new
activities, the Komsomol provided young peasants with the self-confidence to ques-
tion their elders. One young peasant woman who joined the Komsomol began
attending the commune gathering, despite the fact that she was the only woman in her
village to do so. Because she had learned the 'proper political language' from her
Komsomol meetings, she spoke up to criticise and ask questions of the village
elders.35 Soviet political language in this way provided another stimulus for change,
and another tool for challenging the traditional order. Even when misapplied, Soviet
language offered an alternative means of conceptualising issues. The language of
class struggle, for example, regardless of its accuracy as a description of strife
between peasants, could be used to depict inequalities and demand change.
Rural schools embodied another important institution for change. While they
remained badly underfunded throughout the 1920s, Soviet schools (and zemstvo

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 LAND, FREEDOM AND DISCONTENT 643

schools before them) at a minimum taught millions of peasant children to read and
write.36 Growth in the number of literate peasants eroded village elders' authority of
memory and parish priests' monopoly over written knowledge. As peasants learned
to read Soviet decrees and publications, elders and priests lost their exclusive power
to dictate laws and define the proper conduct of village affairs. Articles in
Krest'yanskaya gazeta promoted agricultural innovations, criticised the commune,
informed women of their legal rights, and encouraged peasants to pursue changes in
the village.37 In this manner the spread of literacy fortified younger peasants'
challenge to village elders and the traditional order.
Reinforcing educational efforts of regular schools were those of political-literacy
schools, peasant reading huts and red corers (centres in the countryside for distri-
bution of books and political propaganda). By 1928 over a thousand red corers
existed in Moscow province alone.38 Budget studies in the mid-1920s showed that
peasants of the Central Industrial Region, especially those who had previously worked
in the city, regularly purchased books and newspapers.39 Even when peasants did not
comprehend or believe everything they read, books and newspapers offered them
information and ways of conceptualising the world that called into question traditional
beliefs and understandings.
Letters from peasants provide further evidence that reading habits were spreading
in the countryside. Peasants increasingly expressed political awareness (concerning,
for example, the 1927 war scare) and used new words and expressions borrowed from
the Soviet press.40 Some of these letters were written by rural correspondents
(sel'kory) who acted in a semi-official capacity by reporting on events in their villages
for Soviet newspapers. This reportage represented a new sphere of activity for
peasants. The correspondents received both the opportunity to develop a critique of
customs in their villages and the ability to place this critique in the larger official
discourse about the future of the Soviet countryside.41
Cultural entertainment also disseminated new ideas in the countryside. Theatre
productions, even when they contained anti-religious propaganda, were viewed
appreciatively by peasants of all ages.42 Film showings and radio broadcasts at red
comers also aroused enormous interest and offered peasants new sources of infor-
mation. In one village peasants initially refused to believe that radio broadcasts
originated in Moscow, believing the radio to be a hoax. One peasant even declared
that an 'evil spirit' (nechistaya sila) lurked within the radio. After an orchestra
concert which everyone enjoyed, however, all agreed that the radio could be trusted,
and they even lingered to hear a broadcast of the latest news.43
The success of village cultural education in the 1920s should not be exaggerated.
Many studies cited here highlighted the dissemination of urban and Soviet values in
the countryside, while ignoring the perseverance of peasant traditions and religiosity.
In reality, urban influence on the countryside varied from one region or village to
another. Villages on railway lines or with long traditions of otkhodnichestvo naturally
received a much stronger infusion of urban culture than did villages more remotely
located.44 The fact that the Central Industrial Region was more urbanised and
industrialised than other parts of the country meant that its peasants had more contact
with cities through otkhodnichestvo and production for urban markets.
Urban influences, official institutions, Soviet language and non-traditional spheres

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644 DAVID L. HOFFMANN

of activity all contributed to new ideas in the village. In turn these new ide
patriarchal authority and the strength of tradition. A survey conducted in 1
a 'weakening of discipline' within peasant families, expressed by depend
sentiments in matters of marriage, religion and peasant customs.45 New id
challenges to tradition are disruptive in any society. Among the Russian pea
society based on custom and patriarchy, these challenges proved especially

Peasant disunity and collectivisation

To understand antagonisms between peasants during the 1920s, it is impor

consider that the Revolution fundamentally changed the social structu
Russian countryside by eliminating the nobility. After 1917 no longer did a
enemy in the person of a landlord ameliorate tensions between peasants. W
solidarity peasants felt among themselves in opposition to the nobility
following the Revolution. Whereas previously a peasant lacking adequat
livestock would naturally covet the possessions of the local landlord, w
Revolution swept away the nobility it left only other peasants as the
antagonisms and envy in the village.
Indeed it is striking to compare the behaviour of the peasantry du
Revolution with its behaviour during collectivisation. Throughout 1917
remained strongly united against the nobility, and such unity proved crucia
success in seizing land and defying nobles' authority. During the collec
campaign of 1929-30, however, when the nobility had long since vanished
countryside, peasant unity proved ephemeral. While some peasants-especial
labelled 'kulaks' and subjected to dispossession and deportation-fiercely resi
Soviet authorities' imposition of collectivisation, the peasantry as a whole d
stand unified against it.
Without embarking on a comprehensive analysis of collectivisation, it is
to suggest the ways in which the Soviet authorities exploited peasant disunit
the official description of class conflict between rich and poor peasant
accurately characterise tensions in the village, the rhetoric and categories
officialdom in many cases created their own reality. When Soviet agitators i
in village affairs-for example Rabkrin commissions in 1925 which decreed
peasants should receive the best allotments of land-discontented peasants n
accepted the label 'bednyak' in order to acquire the corresponding bene
gruntled peasants were also prepared to label their opponents in the village a
and enlist the power of the Soviet authorities against them.
Younger peasants proved more receptive to the appeals of Soviet agit
collectivisers than did their elders. Agitators called special assemblies n
'poor peasants' but of youth and of women. At village-wide collectivisation
in Moscow oblast', older peasants vociferously denounced collective fa
young peasants displayed a desire to learn more about them. Collectivisers'
of a better life in collective farms, complete with new theatres and clubs, a
the younger generation of peasants and won their curiosity if not their ou
support.46
Komsomol members, Red army veterans and other young peasants often took the

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 LAND, FREEDOM AND DISCONTENT 645

lead in organising collective farms.47 The Soviet authorities also sought to enlist the
support of otkhodniki-both those who had returned to their villages and those who
still resided in the city. The Moscow oblast' metalworkers' trade union resolved that
each otkhodnik should become 'an agitator in the village with which he is connected
in order to put into effect the slogans of the party', and the Moscow oblast' miners'
trade union passed a similar resolution.48 'Patron societies' (shefskie obshchestva),
which linked urban enterprises with collective farms, sought to recruit otkhodniki who
could return to their native villages. Some of these societies even organised sections
of fellow villages (zemlyaki) whom Soviet officials called upon 'to help the party in
the socialist rebuilding of the countryside'.49
The Soviet authorities, then, recognised that otkhodniki provided a means to extend
urban influence and Soviet control in the village. In some instances, otkhodniki in the
city were sent to their villages in an official capacity, while in others otkhodniki
returned to the countryside on their own to participate in the collectivisation drive and
the closing of rural churches.50 Evident in the behaviour of otkhodniki and veterans
who played a leadership role in collectivisation was not only a readiness for change,
but also a sense of cultural superiority and disdain for tradition. Of course such
condescension was present to an even greater degree among Soviet officials, who did
not hesitate to employ coercive methods to destroy the commune, the church and
other traditional institutions.
The majority of young peasants, including otkhodniki and veterans, did not
assume a leadership role in collectivisation. Yet neither did they share their
elders' respect for tradition and adherence to the patriarchal village order. Young
peasants' dissatisfaction with the status quo and their willingness to contemplate
the changes proposed by Soviet collectivisers contributed to peasant disunity and
divisiveness that Soviet officials could exploit. Indeed, had officials adopted a more
gradualist approach to collectivisation, they might have cultivated even greater
interest among young peasants and avoided some of the drive's coercion and
brutality.
Once 'kulaks' had been deported and collective farms established, many young
peasants belatedly realised that their elders had been right to distrust the promises that
collectivisation would lead to a better life. In addition to the violence and disruption
of the drive itself, onerous grain requisitions and collective farm mismanagement left
peasants desperately impoverished. Reports to Kolkhoztsentr described the disorder,
drunkenness and 'complete anarchy' on many collective farms.51 In fact it was the
young peasants-and particularly those with prior urban experience-who were the
first to leave the village during the early 1930s. The combination of falling living
standards on collective farms and multiplying opportunities for industrial employment
in urban areas led literally millions of peasants to flee collective farms and migrate
permanently to the city.52
In sum, we see considerable ferment and stratification in the Soviet village during
the 1920s, though not necessarily along the class lines which marxist scholars seemed
so eager to portray at the time.53 Instead this stratification occurred along generational
lines, and between those peasants who had been away from the village (at the front
serving in the army or in the city on otkhodnichestvo), and those who had remained
behind. Tensions arising from this stratification could be severe-resentments result-

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646 DAVID L. HOFFMANN

ing from economic hardship were compounded by feelings of rebellion am

younger generation of peasants who had experienced the world outside the
Poverty and conflicts stemming from patriarchal authority were nothing n
village. But to peasants who had experienced life outside this environm
adversity grew less tolerable. The new perspectives of those returning to th
in addition to the new ideas generated by Soviet institutions and educ
peasants to question the traditional order in the village. We see, then, that
Revolution offered Russian peasants their dream of land and freedom, it a
seeds of change and discontent-discontent the Soviet authorities exploited
assault on the village during collectivisation.

Ohio State University

1 During the 1920s the Central Industrial Region continued to have the highes
agricultural market activity in the country. Moskovskii kraeved, 1930, 5 (13), p.
krest'yanstva SSSR (Moscow, 1986), vol. 1, p. 326; V. Ya. Filimonov, 'Vzaimootnosheni
gorodom i derevnei v 1921-1925 godakh (Obzor literatury)', Istoriya SSSR, 1988, 1, p.
2 A. M. Bol'shakov, Derevnya 1917-1927 (Moscow, 1927), pp. 74, 117-118; Mosk
promyshlennaya kooperatsiya, 1931, 11, p. 1; S. V. Shol'ts, Klassovaya struktura kr
Moskovskoi gubernii (Moscow, 1929), pp. 22-24.
3 Robert E. Johnson, Peasant and Proletarian (New Brunswick, NJ, 1979),
Joseph Bradley, Muzhik and Muscovite: Urbanization in Late Imperial Russia (Berkeley, CA, 1985),
p. 114.
4 Judith Pallot, 'Women's Domestic Industries in Moscow Province, 1880-1900', in Barbara
Evans Clements, Barbara Alpem Engel & Christine D. Worobec (eds), Russia's Women: Accommo-
dation, Resistance, Transformation (Berkeley, CA, 1991), p. 226.
5 S. T. Semenov, Dvadtsat' pyat' let v derevne (Petrograd, 1915), pp. 5-6, as cited in Bradley,
p. 130.
6 Jeffrey Burds, 'The Social Control of Peasant Labor in Russia: The Response of Village
Communities to Labor Migration in the Central Industrial Region, 1861-1906', in Ester Kingston-
Mann & Timothy Mixter (eds), Peasant Economy, Culture, and Politics of European Russia
(Princeton, NJ, 1991), p. 55.
7 V. V. Kabanov, Krest'yanskoe khozyaistvo v usloviyakh 'voennogo kommunizma' (Moscow,
1988), p. 214.
8 V. P. Danilov, 'Krest'yanskii otkhod na promysly v 1920-kh godakh', Istoricheskie zapiski,
1974, 94, p. 102.
9 TsGAOR f. 4085, op. 9, d. 12, 1. 54; Bol'shakov, p. 421; L. Kritsman, 'O vnutrennykh
protivorechiyakh krest'yanskogo dvora', Na agrarnom fronte, 1929, 3, p. 8.
10 Studies of imperial Russia and other societies have also demonstrated the growing prestige
and independence of young peasants who have worked in the city. See for example, Barbara Alpem
Engel, 'Russian Peasant Views of City Life', Slavic Review, 1993, 3, pp. 458-459; Frances Rothstein,
'The New Proletarians: Third World Realities and First World Categories', Comparative Studies in
Society and History, 1986, 2, pp. 218-224.
Moskovskaya derevnya v ee dostizheniyakh: Sbornik statei, ed. G. Lebedev (Moscow, 1927),
p. 20.
12 Mark von Hagen, Soldiers in the Proletarian Dictatorship (Ithaca, NY, 1990), pp. 48-50,
206, 298-300.
13 Cathy A. Frierson, 'Peasant Family Divisions and the Commune', in Roger Bartlett (ed.),
Land Commune and Peasant Community in Russia (New York, 1990), pp. 309-311; Moshe Lewin,
Russian Peasants and Soviet Power (New York, 1968), pp. 83-84.
14 A. I. Khryashcheva, 'Usloviya drobinosti krest'yanskikh khozyaistv', Ekonomicheskoe
obozrenie, 1928, 9, p. 98; V. P. Danilov, Sovetskaya dokolkhoznaya derevnya: Naselenie, zemle-
pol'zovanie, khozyaistvo (Moscow, 1977), pp. 210-211.
15 Kabanov, p. 224.
16 Danilov, Sovetskaya ..., pp. 213-215.
17 Sbornik dokumentov po zemel'nomu zakonodatel'stvu SSSR i RSFSR, 1917-1954 gg.
(Moscow, 1954), p. 162; Danilov, Sovetskaya ..., pp. 253-259.

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 LAND, FREEDOM AND DISCONTENT 647

18 Istoriya krest'yanstva SSSR, vol. 2, pp. 286, 328; Kabanov, p. 228.

19 Sel'skokhozyaistvennaya gazeta, 6 June 1929, as cited in Danilov, 'Krest'yanskii otkhod', p
62.
20 I. Dubinsky, 'Sotsial'nye-ekonomicheskie otnosheniya v podmoskovnoi derevne', Na
agrarnom fronte, 1929, 5, p. 93.
21 V. P. Danilov, Sovetskaya dokolkhoznaya derevnya: Sotsial'naya struktura, sotsial'nye
otnosheniya (Moscow, 1979), p. 51. See also Ya. Dorofeev, Derevnya Moskovskoi gubernii
(Moscow, 1923), p. 9.
22 L. Kritsman, 'O statisticheskom izuchenii klassovoi struktury sovetskoi derevni', Na
agrarnom fronte, 1926, 2, pp. 4-5; Dubinsky, p. 93; Istoriya krest'yanstva SSSR, vol. 1, p. 322, vol.
2, p. 61.
23 Danilov, 'Krest'yanskii otkhod', p. 62.
24 'Kollektivizatsiya: Istoki, sushchnost', posledstviya: beseda za "kruglym stolom" ', Istoriya
SSSR, 1989, 3, p. 35; Statisticheskoe obozrenie, 1928, 2, pp. 108-109.
25 Danilov, 'Krest'yanskii otkhod', pp. 104-105; Na agrarnom fronte, 1927, 4, p. 38. See also
TsGAOR f. 4085, op. 9, d. 12, 1. 80; Pavel Maslov, Perenaselenie russkoi derevni (Moscow, 1930),
p. 12.
26 Statisticheskoe obozrenie, 1929, 2, pp. 97-100; N. N. Vladimirsky, Otkhod krest'yanstva
Kostromskoi gubernii na zarabotki (Kostroma, 1927), p. 172; I. Zhiga, Novye rabochie (Moscow,
1928), pp. 74-78.
27 I. P. Stepanov, Materialy po obsledovaniyu krest'yanskogo khozyaistva Moskovskoi gubernii
1924 goda (Moscow, 1925), pp. 2-25; Moskovskaya derevnya, pp. 7, 15-16, 20; Za novyi byt, 1929,
1/2, p. 4.
Donald Male, Russian Peasant Organization before Collectivization: A Study of Commune
and Gathering 1925-1930 (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 35-36; Irina E. Koznova, 'The Peasant Land
Community: Prosperity or Extinction', Proceedings of the Conference, Perestroika agrarnogo
proizvodstva v SSSR: Problemy i perspektivy (Moscow, 1990).
29 N. M. Sazonova, Kuda idet derevnya: (Po pis'mam krest'yan Moskovskoi gubernii) (Moscow/
Leningrad, 1928), pp. 136-137.
30 Male, pp. 68-70.
31 Sazonova, pp. 70-76. See also John Slatter, 'Communes with Communists: The Sel'sovety in
the 1920s', Land Commune, pp. 278-289; Orlando Figes, Peasant Russia, Civil War: The Volga
Countryside in Revolution (New York, 1989), p. 145; Male, pp. 68-70.
32 Dorofeev, p. 40.
33 Ocherki istorii Moskovskoi organizatsii VLKSM, ed. E. V. Taranov (Moscow, 1976), pp.
244-245; Isabel A. Tirado, 'The Komsomol and Young Peasants: The Dilemma of Rural Expansion,
1921-1925', Slavic Review, 1993, 3, p. 474.
34 Bednota, 29 January 1929; Ocherki istorii ... VLKSM, p. 259; Dorofeev, p. 44; Sula Benet
(ed.), The Village of Viriatino (New York, 1970), p. 244; Glennys Young, 'Rural Religion and Soviet
Power, 1921-1932' (Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 1989), pp. 160-166.
35 0. N. Chaadaeva (ed.), Rabotnitsa na sotsialisticheskoi stroike: sbornik avtobiografii rabot-
nits, (Moscow, 1932), pp. 78-80.
36 See M. I. Slukhovsky, Kniga i derevnya (Moscow, 1928).
37 Krest'yanskaya gazeta, 2 March 1926, p. 1; 5 July 1927, p. 5.
38 Sazonova, p. 89.
39 V. A. Kozlov, Kul'turnaya revolyutsiya i krest'yanstvo, 1921-1927 (Moscow, 1983), pp.
90-92. In contrast, peasants of the Central Agricultural Region and other parts of the country (with
the exception of peasants around Leningrad and in the Urals) spent virtually nothing on reading
material.
40 Kozlov, p. 166; Bol'shakov, p. 278.
41 Krest'yanskaya gazeta, 19 January 1926, p. 9.
42 Za novyi byt, 1929, 1/2, p. 11; Dorofeev, p. 29.
43 Sazonova, p. 89. See also Radio, 5 May 1929, p. 2.
44 Sazonova, pp. 38-44.
45 M. Kubanin, Klassovaya sushchnost' protsessa drobleniya krest'yanskikh khozyaistv
(Moscow, 1929), p. 71.
46 TsGAOR f. 5475, op. 13, d. 276, 1. 54; R. W. Davies, The Socialist Offensive: The
Collectivization of Agriculture, 1929-1930 (Cambridge, MA, 1980), p. 219; Maurice Hindus, Red
Bread: Collectivization in a Russian Village (Bloomington, IN, 1988), p. 160.
47 TsGAOR f. 5475, op. 13, d. 426, 1. 15; von Hagen, pp. 312-316; Hindus, p. 231.
48 TsGAOR f. 5469, op. 15, d. 10, 1. 141; TsGAMO f. 750, op. 1, d. 287, 1. 13.

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648 DAVID L. HOFFMANN

49 TsGAMO f. 738, op. 1, d. 81, 11. 1-3, 12

Fatherland: Workers in the Vanguard of Sovie
50 TsGAOR f. 5475, op. 13, d. 276, 11. 16, 3
51 TsGANKh f. 7446, op. 1, d. 161, 11. 99-10
20-22. See also TsGAOR f. 5475, op. 13, d. 42
52 MPA f. 634, op. 1, d. 207, 11. 60-61; TsG
5475, op. 13, d. 426, 1. 34; Voprosy truda, 1932
53 See for example L. Kritsman, Klassovoe

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