The Community in the Minds and Behavior of the Russian Peasantry in the Context of the Reforms and Revolutions in the First Third of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

The representations of the community and communality in the minds and behavior of the Russian peasantry are studied. The author analyzes the change in the functionality and features of the evolution of models of solidarized behavior in the context of reforms and revolutions in Russia/the Soviet Union at the end of the 19th and the first third of the 20th centuries. The socio-political interaction in the community–state opposition is seen as a manifestation of the reactions of open systems to external challenges and the desire to maintain a state of equilibrium, to adapt and/or to resist. The thesis about the conditionality of the repetition of the cycles of the revival of the community is substantiated by the institutionalization of the self-organization of the local community in order to achieve and protect vital interests. The key factor in the death of the community in the early 1930s is revealed: the formation of a special system of administrative management, excluding any opportunities for the self-organization of the peasantry. The analysis of the evolution of self-regulation practices regulated by law and tradition—the institutions of the rural assembly and land redistribution—is of considerable interest. One of the significant aspects of the problem is the consideration of the entire arsenal of the means of social resistance of the community, including the most radical forms related to manifestations of social aggression.