Violences et révolution sociale dans les campagnes russes de 1917

Abstract

The peasant revolution of the late imperial Russia exploded, between February and October 1917 – while hundreds of soldiers abandoned the frontlines. The main victims of the rural violence were not the expropriated great landlords, but the “separators”, i.e. peasants who had left the village communal organisation of agricultural work to develop their private farms. Other non-peasant villagers were also progressively expelled : the first consequence of the agrarian troubles was a “peasanisation” of the countryside. The second was the temporary triumph of the collective over the individual, however the February Democratic Revolution abolished social “estates” and made each peasant a citizen equal to the others.The simple economical violence (stealing) was perpetrated separately by soldiers or villagers. On the contrary, the looting of great proprieties often associated the whole community of peasants and outside soldiers in a quite organised attack completed by a fire. The last was not the symbol of a “brutalisation” caused by the war experience, but rather the final burst of ancient local hatred when authority collapsed. If psychological violence was frequent between peasants, murders were rare, almost always committed by soldiers.However, the ubiquity of soldiers appears to be a phantasm rather than reality ; but fighters did encourage the more violent episodes and bring weapons to the countryside. The village members of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party did not lead the movement either. The political violence of 1905-1907 they had promoted was not related to the agrarian movement of 1917 by its location, actors or persons slogans.Less dangerous and deadly than the war itself, less brutal and radical than the Russian civil war (1918-1921), the violence of 1917 primarily intended to defend a disappearing social system, which lasted until the Great Turn of 1929-1930.