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The peasantry has played a key role in Russia from the very beginning of the Tsarist state. Peter the Great's expanding empire in many ways resembled that of another developing empire at the time--Prussia. The state in both countries developed essentially out of the need to build and support a modern army. The success of these two states largely is due to their effectiveness of doing just this. The Tsarist state developed autocratically. The Tsar dominated an aristocratic landlord class which was force to fulfill state service and which was rewarded by being allowed to hold the peasantry in serfdom. Tsar Alexander II emancipated the serfs (1861), but the landlord class was not destroyed until the Revolution (1917) and Civil War (1918-21). The Tsarist Army in World War I desintegrated as peasant soldiers deserted to return home and claim theur share of the old esates. The Bolshevicks promised land to the peasantry, but Stalin initiated a collectivization program that resulted in millions of deaths of peasants who wanted their private parcels. The greatest numbers of deaths occurred in the Ukraine because of the Great Famine Stalin enginnered, but lsarge numbers if peasants were executed or committed to the Gulag. Stalin had various objectives. He wanted to gain control over agriculture. This was partof his desire to totally control economic activity. It also put him in a position to better redirect resources to the urban proletraiat as part of the 5 Year Plans to expand Soviet industry. As a result, the loyalty of the peasantry when the NAZIs invaded the Soviet Union was far from certain. And in certain areas the Germns were received more as liberators and greated with flowers rather than invaders. This varied greatly by area. The Germans were often well recrived in Belarus (which had been Poland before the Soviet 1939 invasion) and the western Ukraine. They were less warmly received in Russian areas, but the Soviet offensive before Moscow (December 1941) prevented the Wehrmacht from penetrating deep into the Russian heartland.
The peasantry has played a key role in Russia from the very beginning of the Tsarist state. Peter the Great's expanding empire in many ways resembled that of another developing empire at the time--Prussia. The state in both countries developed essentially out of the need to build and support a modern army. The success of these two states largely is due to their effectiveness of doing just this. The Tsarist state developed autocratically. The Tsar dominated an aristocratic landlord class which was force to fulfill state service and which was rewarded by being allowed to hold the peasantry in serfdom.
Tzar Nicholas I refused to act on the issue of serfdom. Alexander II , by contrast was amenable to reform. Alexander's advisers argued that Russia's feudal serf-based economy could not compete with modern industrialized nations such as Britain, France, and Prussia. The Tzar began to consider the end of serfdom in Russia. The Russian nobility feeling their livelihood jeopardized, objected strenuously. Alexander responded, saying "It is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait for the time when it will begin to abolish itself from below." Alexander in 1861, issued his Emancipation Manifesto. There were 17 legislative acts designed to free the serfs in Russia. Personal serfdom would be abolished and all peasants would be able to buy land. The State would advance the the money to the landlords and would recover it from the peasants in 49 annual sums known as redemption payments. This was necessary because the Crimean War had bankrupted the national treasury while confiscating land from the nobility would have been untenable politically. The action earned him the title of "The Liberator". Emancipation didn't in fact bring immediate changes in the condition of the peasants, in large part because they were not educated and the land process poorly administered by the reluctant nobility. Emancipation disappointed many peasants. Often in took years to get title to the land. Others were cheated by exorbitant land prices. One historian claims that the ukase emancipating the serfs was motivated by "cowardice and by caprice" and for those reasons was not effective. [Ludwig, p.167.] While Tsar Alexander II emancipated the serfs (1861), but the landlord class was not destroyed until the Revolution (1917) and Civil War (1918-21).
Tsarist Russia entered World War I with a massive, but poorly equipped and led army. Russia at the time was a largely agricultural county with a rapidly expanding industry. As a result, the Russian Army was to a large degree a peasant army. The Russians suffered horendous casualties at the hands of the better equipped and led Germany Army. The casualties and incompetence of their leadership led to mutinies which eventually led to the abdication of the Tsar (1917). The Tsarist Army proceeded to desintegrated as many peasant soldiers deserted to return home and claim their share of the old esates. Here the Bolshevicks played a major role by promising land to the peasantry.
The Bolshevicks promised land to the peasantry and an end to the War.
Nowhere was the NEP more successful than in the countryside. As a result of the Revolution, the Bolshevicks had given the long-suffering peasantry actual ownweship of their land. Serfdom was ended by Tsar Alexander II, the liberator Tsar, (1861). Even so the peasantry continued to be exploited laboring on huge rural estates owned by aristocrats. The Bloshevicks and desering soldiers had disposed of the landlaords, often brutally, if they had not fled. The NEP had in essence granted the Soviet peasant economic freedom. The NEP essentially gave the peasant in large measure the right to sell his crop as he saw fit. Here there were limitations with both priceing and taxing policies, but during the 1920s the Soviet peasantry under the NEP experienced considerable propsperity and Soviet agricultural production reached impressive levels. The land and the wealth produced from it was in the hands of the person who tilled it. [Conquest, p. 13.]
Stalin initiated a collectivization program that resulted in millions of deaths of peasants who wanted their private parcels. The forible organization of peasant families into collective farms (kolkhozes) caused conflicts and resulted in countless victims. The greatest numbers of deaths occurred in the Ukraine becaue of the Great Famine Stalin enginnered, but lsarge numbers if peasants were executed or committed to the Gulag. Stalin had various objectives. He wanted to gain control over agriculture. This was partof his desire to totally control economic activity. It also put him in a position to better redirect resources to the urban proletraiat as part of the 5 Year Plans to expand Soviet industry.
Once certain of Polish defeat, Stalin ordered the Red Army to attack from the East. German and Russian forces met at Brest-Litovsk on September 18. Poland's fate was sealed on September 17, when the Soviets invaded Poland from the east. Already shattered by the NAZI invasion, the Polish Army offered little resistance to the Soviets. Polish soldiers were internened in camps by the Soviets. Soviet actions in eastern Poland were extremely brutal. An estimated 0.1 million Poles were killed by the Soviets (1939-41). The most publicized killings were the Polish officers shot by the NKVD in the Katyn Forrest, but this was only a part of the wide spread executions of Poles by the Soviets. Some estimates suggest that 2.0 million Poles were deported to Siberia and other areas in the Soviet Union.
As a result, the loyalty of the peasantry when the NAZIs invaded the Soviet Union was far from certain. And in certain areas the Germns were received more as liberators and greated with flowers rather than invaders. This varied greatly by area. The Germans were often well recrived in Belarus (which had been Poland before the Soviet 1939 invasion) and the western Ukraine. They were less warmly received in Russian areas.
The German Blitzkrieg in a series of campaigns seemed invinceable, defeating the renowned French Army and dricing the BEF into the sea, both in Belgium and Greece. The early battles of Barbarossa suggested the Germans would also succeed in the Soviet Union. The German generals knew that Stalin would would defend Moscow and this provided the prospect of destroying the Red Army. As Army Group Center moved in on Moscow, the Red Army seemed on the verge of collapse. Zukov's offensive before Moscow (December 1941) prevented the Wehrmacht from penetrating deep into the Russian heartland. After the front stabilized the Germans were left in control of what is now Belarus and much of the Ukraine, but only the western perifery of Russia itself. This meant that the Germans did not occupy most of the Rusdsian heartland where the Russian peasantry lived.
It is clear that large numbers of peasants in Bylorusia (modern Belarus) and the Western Urkraine would have supported the Germans. It is difficult to quantify this but the actions of the NKVD and Soviet officials clearly alienated many. Some peasants tried to flee the Germans while others greated the Germans with flowers seeing possible liberation from Stalinist repressions. The NAZI objectives in the Soviet Union were not only to destroy Bolshevism, but to commit genocide. The Jews were the initial target, but the Slavic peasantry was also targetted. Generalkommissar Wilhelm Kube was placed in command of the Minsk German administration in Minsk (August 31, 1941). The Germans carried out horrible massacres of Jews, genocidal treatment of Soviet POWs, as well as actions in villages. There were mass executions of entire villages. The Germans initially permitted peasants to take cattle from kolkhoz. Subsequently the Germans began seizing all cattle for shipment back to Germany. Then the Germans began rounding up young people who they loaded on trains for slave labor in Germany to support the NAZI war effort.
In stead of incouraging the anti-Soviet peasantry, the Germans did everything possible to alienate what could have been a significant source of support.
Conquest, Robert. The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine.
Ludwig, Emil. Bismarck: The Story of a Fighter (Little Brown, Boston, 1927), 661p.
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