Viktor Viktorovich Kondrashin,
Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, The Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Peasantry as a Source of Human and Material Resources in the Civil War for the Soviet Government
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2023-4-4
The article highlights one of the most important aspects of the history of the Civil War in Russia – the participation of the peasantry in it. It substantiates the thesis that the peasantry and the peasant economy were the main source of human and material resources for the Soviet power during the Civil War. At that time Prodrazverstka, a forced measure of Soviet power during the war, became the most difficult ordeal for the peasants in the territory controlled by the Bolsheviks. The scale of the seizure during Prodrazverstka was not coordinated with the surplus of grain in the peasant farms, so Prodrazverstka had a negative impact on their condition and contributed to the decline in agricultural production. At the same time the food situation of the peasant families deteriorated. During the Civil War the peasants in the Bolshevik-controlled territory were enlisted on a mass scale for labor and horse-drawn labour. The peasants took a direct part in the Civil War on the side of the Soviets as mobilized and volunteers for the Red Army. They made up the bulk of its soldiers. The attitudes of various social groups of the peasantry toward the defense of Soviet power in the Red Army varied. Its most active supporters, especially at the first stage of the Red Army formation, were representatives of the poorest peasantry. But their share was insignificant in the total mass of peasants in the Red Army who found themselves there during the mobilizations. On the territory of Soviet Russia they also created their own “peasant front” against the policy of “war communism”: the “Chapan War”, Makhnovshchina, Antonovshchina, “Fork revolt”, the West Siberian uprising, etc. Despite this, the peasants provided the Bolshevik regime, industrial centers and the Red Army with food and raw materials, fulfilled various state duties, and fought in the ranks of the Red Army at the war fronts. This allowed the Soviet state to defeat the political regimes that opposed them in the Civil War.
Publishing: 28/08/2023
The article has been received by the editor on 16/04/2023
How to cite: Kondrashin V.V. The Peasantry as a Source of Human and Material Resources in the Civil War for the Soviet Government // Historical Courier, 2023, No. 4 (30), pp. 49–68. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2023/ISTKURIER-2023-4-04.pdf]
The article was prepared as part of the testing of chapter 12 of the volume “History of Russia” of the IRI RAS.
Links: Issue 4 2023
Keywords: peasantry; Civil War; “war communism”; surplus appropriation; peasant protest