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A Different Type of Peasant Movement: The Peasant Unions in the Russian Revolution of 1905

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Scott J. Seregny*
Affiliation:
Indiana University, Indianapolis

Extract

Accounts of the Russian peasant movement of 1905-1907 have conventionally stressed its violent and spontaneous character. At least in the core provinces of the Central Agricultural Region, Volga, and parts of the Ukraine, where economic relations between peasants and gentry estates were highly exploitative, land hunger pressing, and the repartitional commune still viable, arson and destruction of estates were the most dramatic forms of agrarian activism. Peasant insurrection would crest in the weeks following promulgation of the tsar's October Manifesto, in some cases as the result of willful misinterpretation of that document, more often as a reaction to news of revolutionary occurrences in the cities and confusion among local authorities.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1988

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References

I would like to thank IREX and the Fulbright-Hays Fund for support and the staff of the California State Library (Sacramento) for assistance. An earlier version of this article was prepared for the Conference on the Peasantry of European Russia, 1800-1917, Boston, Mass., 19-22 August 1986.

1. Perrie, Maureen, “The Russian Peasant Movement of 1905–1907: Its Social Composition and Revolutionary Significance,” Past and Present 57 (1972): 123155 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In the empire's borderlands, wherewage labor was more prevalent, strikes and boycotts were more common. See S. Edelman, Robert, “Rural Proletarians and Peasant Disturbances: The Right Bank Ukraine in the Revolution of 1905, “Journal of Modern History 57 (June 1985): 248277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. See Shanin, Teodor, “Peasantry as a Political Factpr,” in Peasants and Peasant Societies, Shanin, Teodor, ed. (Harmondsworth, U. K.: Penguin, 1971), pp. 257258 Google Scholar, and A. Landsberger, Henry, “Peasant Unrest: Themes and Variations,” in Rural Protest: Peasant Movements and Social Change, Landsberger, , ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1974, pp. 21–22 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. For a recent assessment of attempts by political parties to harness peasant revolution in 1905, see John Bushnell, Mutiny amid Revolution: Russian Soldiers in the Revolution of 1905–1906 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985).

4. Protokoly vtorogo (ekstrennago) s “ezda Partii Sotsialistov Revoliutsionerov (St. Petersburg, 1907), reprint, Christopher Rice, ed., Publications of the Study Group on the Russian Revolution, no. 10 (Millwood, N. Y., 1986), pp. 81–82. According to one estimate only 18, 466 peasants had joined Socialist Revolutionary “peasant brotherhoods” in twenty provinces: Ginev, V. N., Bofba za krest'ianstvoi krizis russkogo narodnichestva, 1902–1914 gg. (Leningrad, 1983) pp. 138139 Google Scholar. Even in Saratovprovince, which boasted the strongest Socialist Revolutionary rural organizations, these were quitethin at the village level: Anikin, S., “Za ‘pravednoi zemlei’ (pamiati I. M. Igoshina),” Vestnik Evropy, no. 3 (1910), pp. 9798.Google Scholar

5. Shanin, “Peasantry as a Political Factor,” p. 257.

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8. Kiriukhina, E. I., “Vserossiiskii Krest'ianskii Soiuz v 1905 g.,” Istoricheskie zapiski 50 (1955): 95141 Google Scholar, and idem, “Mestnye organizatsii Vserossiiskogo Krest'ianskogo Soiuza v 1905 godu,” Uchenyezapiski Kirovskogo pedagogicheskogo instituta 10 (1956): 83–157.

9. Shanin, Teodor, Russia, 1905–1907: Revolution as a Moment of Truth (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The author deals briefly with cases of local Peasant Union activityincluding Sumy district (Khar'kov), the subject of this study (pp. 112–113). Aside from Shanin's briefsummary, the only other scholarly treatment of the Sumy Peasant Union is Zamkovyi, P. V., “Zistorii “selians'koi respubliky” na Sumshchyni,” Ukrains'kyi istorychnyi zhurnal, no. 12 (1985), pp. 8794.Google Scholar

10. Galai, Shmuel, The Liberation Movement in Russia, 1900–1905 (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1973), pp. 253 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Charques, Richard D., Twilight of Imperial Russia (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1958, p. 128 Google Scholar. For a recent western survey that takes a more balanced view, see Rogger, Hans, Russia in the Age of Modernisation and Revolution, 1881–1917 (London: Longman, 1983, pp. 210–211 Google Scholar.

11. Semenov, V. P., ed., Rossiia: polnoe geograficheskoe opisanie nashego otchestva, 19 vols. (St.Petersburg, 1899–1913) 7: 162163, 202–204, 327–329Google Scholar; Svod statisticheskikh svedeniipo sel'skomu khoziaistvuRossii v kontse XIX veka, vypusk 1 (St. Petersburg, 1902), p. 9; Sums'ka oblast’ (Kiev, 1973), pp.95–96; Mikhailiuk, A. G., “Krest'ianskoe dvizhenie na Levoberezhnoi Ukraine v 1905–1907 gg. (Khar'-kovskaia, Poltavskaia i Chernigovskaia gubernii),” Istoricheskie zapiski 49 (1954): 195 Google Scholar. On the workers’ movement in Sumy, see I. Glazman, “Robitnychyi rukh v Sumakh v pershyi revoliutsii 1905roku,” in 1905 rik na Sumshchyni (Sumy, 1930), pp. 13–17, and A. E. Getler, “Poperedniky 1905 rokuv m. Sumakh,” in 1905 rik na Sumshchyni, pp. 28–34.

12. Semenov, ed., Rossiia 7: 130–134, 140–141, 329–332, 338; N. Onats'kyi, “Selians'kyi revoliutsiinyirukh na Sumshchyni 1905 roku,” in 1905 rik na Sumshchyni, pp. 42–45; Trudy mestnykh komitetovo nuzhdakh sel'skokhoziaistvennoi promyshlennosti, 58 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1903) 45: 358–360, 377.

13. A. V. Shapkarin, ed., Krest'ianskoe dvizhenie v Rossii v 1890–1900gg., (Moscow, 1959), pp.245–246; Agrarnoe dvizhenie v Rossii v 1905–1906 gg. (Trudy Imperatorskago Vol'nago EkonomicheskagoObshchestva), 2 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1908) 2: 297–298.

14. A. Ovcharenko, “Spogady pro revoliutsiiu 1905 roku na Sumshchyni,” in 1905 rik naSumshchyni, p. 81; Glazman, “Robitnychyi rukh,” pp. 18–20.

15. Pravo, no. 18 (8 May 1905), col. 1501–1502; Nizhegorodskii listok, no. 113 (30 April 1905), p. 2. Such anti-intelligentsia agitation occurred in many provinces, most notably Saratov; see my “Zemstvo Rabbits, Antichrists and Revolutionaries: Rural Teachers in Saratov Province, 1890–1914, “paper read at the Conference on Politics and Society in Saratov, 1860–1917, University of Illinois, Urbana, 22–24 July 1985. This and other papers read at this conference will appear in a volume to beedited by Rex A. Wade and Scott J. Seregny.

16. K. V. Sivkov, “Krest'ianskie prigovory 1905 goda,” Russkaia mysl', no. 4, section 2 (1907), pp. 24–42.

17. Syn otchestva, no. 120 (6 July 1905), p. 3; Russkiia vedomosti, no. 176 (1 July 1905), p. 2;Kha/kovskii listok, no. 1713 (13 March 1905), p. 5.

18. Nasha zhizri, no. 104 (28 May/10 June 1905), p. 4. Skrynnikov was later active in thepeasant union in Sumy and was dismissed along with other teachers for political activity. The governoralso refused to allow zemstvo doctors to conduct lectures for peasants on cholera prevention: Russkiiavedomosti, no. 137 (23 May 1905), p. 3.

19. Veselovskii, B. B., Istoriia zemstva za sorok let, 4 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1909–1911) 1: 724; 4: 327Google Scholar; Pirumova, N. M., Zemskoe liberal'noe dvizhenie (Moscow, 1977), pp. 276–277 Google Scholar; I. Saloid, “Skalkyspogadiv,” in 1905 rik na Sumshchyni, pp. 84–85. Zamkovyi, P. V. and Demchenko, L. Ia., “Novidokumenty z istorii revoliutsiinoi borot'by selian Sumshchyny u 1905 r.,” Arkhivy Ukrainy, no. 1 (1986), p. 46 Google Scholar. As in many other locales, one can discern a strong correlation between zemstvo liberalismand Third Element activism in Sumy district. Sumy had, by far, the strongest Teachers’ Unionorganization in Khar'kov province during 1905 (100 members): Tsentral'nyi Gosudarstvennyi ArkhivOktiabr'skoi Revoliutsii [hereafter TsGAOR], f. 6862, op. 1, d. 54, 1. 166–167.

20. Simonova, M. S., “Zemsko-liberal'naia fronda (1902–1903 gg.),” Istoricheskie zapiski 91 (1973): 187 Google Scholar; Belokonskii, I. P., Zemskoe dvizhenie (Moscow, 1914), pp. 221222 Google Scholar. On the proceedings in Sumy, attended by twelve peasants, see Trudy mestnykh komitetov 45: 364.

21. In police reports his name is often given as Shcherbakov.

22. Tan [V. G. Bogoraz], “Vtoroi s “ezd,” in his Krasnoe i chernoe: ocherki (Moscow, 1907), p.244; For a short biography of Shcherbak concentrating on his activities in the United States beforeand after 1905, see Petr N. Malov, Dukhobortsy, ikh istoriia, zhizri i bo/ba (n.p., 1948), pp. 352–366;Ethel M. Dolsen, “Planning a Russian Revolution in a California Orange Grove: The Thrilling LifeStory of Antoine Cherbak, Exile,” San Francisco Call, 30 May 1909, p. 3; United States Bureau ofCensus, Census of 1900 (Antone P. Cherbak, San Bernardino, CA).

23. M. Svidzin'skyi, “Selians'ki spilky na Ukraini v revoliutsii 1905 r.,” Litopys revoliutsii [Khar'kov], no. 6 (1928), p. 158; Karpov, N., ed., Krest'ianskoe dvizhenie v revoliutsii 1905 goda (Leningrad, 1926), p. 252.Google Scholar

24. Karpov, ed., Krest'ianskoe dvizhenie, pp. 249–250.

25. Shcherbak, Anton, “1905 god v Sumskom uezde,” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, no. 7 (54) (1926), pp. 123126 Google Scholar; Saloid, “Skalky spogadiv,” p. 85.

26. Avdusheva, M. P. et al., comps., Khar'kov i Khar'kovskaia guberniia vpervoi russkoi revoliutsii1905–1907 gg: sbornik dokumentov i materialov (Khar'kov, 1955), pp. 106107 Google Scholar; Shcherbak, “1905 god, “pp. 126–127.

27. Kiriukhina, “Vserossiiskii,” pp. 129–131; P. Olenin, “Krest'iane i intelligentsiia (K kharakteristikeosvoboditel'nago dvizheniia v Malorossii),” Russkoe bogatstvo, no. 2 (1907), pp. 135–169; Manning, Roberta T., Crisis of the Old Order in Russia (Princeton, N. J.,: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 119127 Google Scholar; J. Seregny, Scott, “Politics and the Rural Intelligentsia in Russia: A BiographicalSketch of Stepan Anikin, 1869–1919,” Russian History 7, pts. 1–2 (1980): 181182 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Veselovskii, B. B., Krest'ianskii vopros i krest'ianskoe dvizhenie v Rossii, 1902–1906 gg. (St. Petersburg, 1907), pp. 4546 Google Scholar.

28. Avdusheva et al., comps., Khar'kov iKhar'kovskaia gubemiia, pp. 100–101, 106–107, 154–155; Shcherbak, “1905 god,” pp. 126–127; Karpov, Krest'ianskoe dvizhenie, pp. 251–252; “Krest'ianskoedvizhenie 1905 goda,” Krasnyi arkhiv, no. 2 (9) (1925), p. 74; Ovcharenko, “Spogady,” pp. 81–82.

29. Pravo, no. 22 (8 June 1905), col. 1810–1812; also Iskra, no. 104, p. 6; on its publication, seeShcherbak, “1905 god,” p. 128.

30. Karpov, Krest'ianskoe dvizhenie, pp. 227, 252–253; Onats'kyi, “Selians'kyi revoliutsiinyirukh,” p. 39; Mikhailiuk, “Krest'ianskoe dvizhenie,” pp. 170–171.

31. Karpov, Krest'ianskoe dvizhenie, p. 252.

32. Pravo, no. 29 (24 July 1905), col. 2402; Syn otchestva, no. 131 (20 July 1905), p. 3; Russkiia vedomosti, nos. 155, 157, 172, 182, 195.

33. Agraronoe dvizhenie v Rossii 2: 302; Onats'kyi, “Selians'kyi revoliutsiinyi rukh,” p. 39.

34. Mebel', M. I., ed., 1905 god na Ukraine: Khronika i materialy, (Khar'kov, 1926) 1 Google Scholar: 359–360;TsGAOR, f. 102, DP OO, op. 233 (1905), d. 1800, ch. 21, 1. 50–51ob; Ovcharenko, “Spogady,” p. 82.

35. For accounts of the congress see S. Bleklov, “Krest'ianskii soiuz,” Pravo, no. 38, (25 September 1905), col. 3142–3153; Kiriukhina, “Vserossiiskii,” pp. 102–110; Veselovskii, Krest'ianskiivopros, pp. 68–70; Robinson, Geroid T., Rural Russia Under the Old Regime (London: Longmans, 1932, pp. 160163 Google Scholar; Perrie, Maureen, The Agrarian Policy of the Russian Socialist-Revolutionary Party (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976, pp. 108111 Google Scholar.

36. Protokol uchrezhditel'nago s “ezda Vserossiiskago Krest'ianskogo Soiuza (Moscow, 1905), pp.9–10, 27–28; Mebel', ed., 1905 god na Ukraine, p. 359; Ovcharenko was elected to the main committee of the national VKS to which Shcherbak was co-opted at the second congress in early November: S. P. Mazurenko, Vserossiiskii krest'ianskii soiuz pered sudom istorii (Poltava, 1926), p. 16.

37. Volzhskii vestnik, no. 11 (19 November 1905), p. 3; Kiriukhina, “Mestnye,” p. 122.

38. Shanin, Russia, 1905–1907, pp. 93–94, 156; Aleksandr Studentsov, Saratovskoe krest'ianskoevosstanie 1905 goda (iz vospominanii raz “ezdnogo agitatora) (Penza, 1926) pp. 14–41, on Socialist Revolutionaries and the agrarian movement in the province and pp. 42–48 on the author's and other delegates’ role at the VKS congress. For information and sources on the agrarian movement in Saratov, see Michael Melancon, “Athens or Babylon: The Birth of the Socialist Revolutionary and Social Democratic Parties in Saratov, 1890–1905,” Thomas Fallows, “Governor Stolypin and the Revolution of 1905 in Saratov,” and Timothy Mixter, “Peasant Collective Action in Saratov Province, 1905–1907,” all presented at the 1985 Illinois Conference on Politics and Society in Saratov.

39. Tan, “Vtoroi s “ezd,” pp. 241–244; Kiriukhina, “Vserossiiskii,” pp. 115–125; Robinson, Rural Russia, pp. 170–173; Perrie, Agrarian Policy, pp. 114–117; Shanin, Russia, 1905–1907, pp. 115–117, 122–126; Veselovskii, Krest'ianskii vopros, pp. 74–79; Jonathan E. Sanders, “The Union of Unions: Political, Economic, Civil and Human Rights Organizations in the 1905 Revolution” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1985), pp. 1139–1151.

40. On his address before the Soviet, see L. D. Trotskii, Sochineniia, 2, part 2 (Moscow-Leningrad, 1927): 397; Shcherbak, “1905 god,” p. 129.

41. Malerialy k krest'ianskomu voprosu: otchet o zasedaniiakh delegatskago s “ezda VserossiiskagoKrest'ianskago Soiuza 6–10 noiabria 1905 g. (Rostov-on-Don, 1905), pp. 40–45, 56–58, 66–71.

42. Shcherbak, “1905 god,” pp. 120–130; Onats'kyi, “Selians'kyi revoliutsiinyi rukh,” pp. 44–45: Glazman, “Robitnychyi rukh,” pp. 27–28

43. Zamkovyi and Demchenko, “Novi dokumenty,” p. 42; Agrarnoe dvizhenie v Rossii, 2: 300–302.

44. Onats'kyi, “Selians'kyi revoliutsiinyi rukh,” pp. 40, 42–43; Agrarnoe dvizhenie v Rossii 2: 302;Revoliutsiia 1905–1907 gg. v Rossii: Dokumenty i materialy, Vysshii pod'em, part 3, bk. 1 (Moscow, 1955), pp. 474–475; Vserossiiskaia politicheskaia stachka, part 2, p. 163.

45. Ovcharenko, “Spogady,” p. 83; Shcherbak, “1905 god,” pp. 131–134.

46. Avdusheva et al., comps., Khar'kov i Khar'kovskaia guberniia, p. 343; Zamkovyi and Demchenko, “Novi dokumenty,” p. 43.

47. Shcherbak, “1905 god,” pp. 134–139. Serdiuk was employed at the zemstvo board as atechnician.

48. TsGAOR, f. 518, op. 1, d. 22, 1. 11-llob; Svidzins'kyi, “Selians'ki spilky,” p. 161; Shcherbak, “1905 god,” p. 135.

49. 1905 god v Kurskoi gubemii: sbomik statei (Kursk, 1925), pp. 52–53; Agramoe dvizhenie vRossii 1: 57–58.

50. Kn. P.D. Dolgorukov, “Agrarnaia volna,” Pravo, no. 1 (9 January 1906), col. 25–28; Agrarnoedvizhenie v Rossii 1: 50.

51. L. Finkel'shtein, “Liubotinskaia respublika,” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, no. 12 (47) (1925): 179–181; Ovcharenko, “Spogady,” p. 83; Shcherbak, “1905 god,” pp. 133–134; Glazman, “Robitnychyirukh,” p. 26; Kiriukhina, “Mestnye,” pp. 123–124.

52. Zamkovyi and Demchenko, “Novi dokumenty,” p. 41; Avdusheva et al., comps., Khar'kov iKhar'kovskaia gubemiia, pp. 302–304, 322; Revoliutsiia 1905–1907 gg. na Ukraine: Sbomik dokumentovi materialov v dvukh tomakh (Kiev, 1955) 2: 595–596; Budushchee, no. 5 (8 February 1906); Khar'kovskaiazhizn', no. 7 (16 February 1906), p. 2; TsGIA, f. 1405, op. 530, d. 232, 1. 142–143.

53. Malov, Dukhobortsy, pp. 352–365; Maklakov, V. A., The First State Duma, trans. Belkin, Mary (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964), p. 181 Google Scholar; San Francisco Chronicle, 16 February 1918, p.5.

54. Budushchee, no. 13 (25 February 1906), p. 4; Zhurnaly Sumskago uezdnago zemskago sobraniia (Sumy, 1906), pp. 213–224, 233–243; Veselovskii, Istoriia 4: 45–47, 327.

55. Budushchee, no. 1 (4 February 1906), p. 4; Russkiia vedomosti, no. 33 (3 February 1906), p. 3;Russkii vrach, no. 6 (1906), p. 183; V. P. Obninskii, Polgoda russkoi revoliutsii (Moscow, 1906), pp.76, 115, 145; Zamkovyi and Demchenko, “Novyi dokumenty,” pp. 43–44. The local school inspectorwas dismissed for aiding the zemstvo in placing politically unreliable teachers in Sumy's schools (Khafkovskaia zhizri no. 74 [17 May 1906], p. 4). Kiriukhina (“Vserossiiskii,” p. 140) notes that 1, 100peasants and intelligenty were arrested or exiled in Sumy district.

56. Dubrovskii, S. M., Krest'ianskoe dvizhenie v revoliutsii 1905–1907 gg. (Moscow, 1956), pp. 111116 Google Scholar; Kiriukhina, “Vserossiiskii,” pp. 134–135, and “Mestnye,” pp. 141–143; Shanin, Russia, 1905–1907, pp. 103–114; 131–133.

57. Kiriukhina, “Mestnye,” p. 138.

58. Tsentral'nyi Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv, f. 733, op. 175, d. 76.

59. TsGAOR, f. 102, DP 00, op. 233 (1905), d. 1800, ch. 12, 1. 138; TsGIA, f. 733, op. 175, d.76, 1. 21–22ob; A. I. Ivanov, Krest'ianskoe dvizhenie vo Vladimirskoi gubernii v 1905–1906 gg. (Vladimir, 1923), pp. 20–21.

60. Detailed coverage of the proceedings can be found in Iuzhnaia zaria, no. 539 (20 February/4March), p. 3; nos. 540–544 (1908); Novopolin, “Iz istorii tsarskikh rasprav (Krest'ianskii soiuz naEkaterinoslavshchine),” Katorga i ssylka, no. 5 (1931), pp. 101–119; E. Kogon, “Krest'ianskoe dvizheniev Ekaterinoslavskom uezde v 1905 g.,” Letopis” revoliutsii, no. 6 (1928), pp. 169–229; O. Aleksandrov, Selians'ka spilka pered tsars'kym sudom (Khar'kov, 1931); M. Stasiuk, “Krest'ianskii soiuz v1905 g.,” in Materialy po istorii ekaterinoslavskoi sotsial-demokraticheskoi organizatsii (Ekaterinoslav, 1924), pp. 285–291.

61. Vladimirets, nos. 60, 61, 64, 65, 66, 69, 72, 74, 79, 80, 86, 87 (1906); O rabochem dvizhenii isotsial-demokraticheskoi rabote vo Vladimirskoi gubernii, vypusk 1 (Vladimir, 1926), pp. 263–266

62. D. A. Kolesnichenko, “Vozniknovenie i deiatel'nost’ ‘trudovoi gruppy',” Istoriia SSSR, no. 4 (1967), pp. 76–89; Shanin, Russia, 1905–1907, pp. 127–129; Terence Emmons, The Formation ofPolitical Parties and the First National Elections in Russia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), pp. 198, 304–305, 344, 488 n. 28.

63. Victoria Bonnell, Roots of Rebellion: Workers’ Politics and Organizations in St. Petersburgand Moscow, 1900–1914 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983