Russian Revolution - Admission/Application Essay Example

The Russian Revolution: Agrarian or Not? Why might we say that the Russian Revolution was primarily a peasant/agrarian revolution? The Russian Revolution was primarily a peasant revolution because the fall of the Tsarist government had its roots in the serfdom of the peasants, exploitation by the peasant communes and peasant indebtedness of the nineteenth century. The economic failure of Russian agriculture, and the Stolypin land reforms, led to the peasant insurrections of 1905 which caused the empire to crumble.

The Bolsheviks were able to seize and hold power in October 1917 only by using the collectivization of the peasantry and accepting the peasant seizure of land. Why might we say that the Russian Revolution was not primarily a peasant/agrarian revolution? The Russian Revolution was primarily a proletariat revolution which had its roots in the military weakness of Russia in World War 1, stemming from its economic and social backwardness. This enabled the proletariat, as embodied by the geographically concentrated factory workers, led by Socialist intellectuals, to seize political power.

The Bolsheviks were urban revolutionaries, led by the clever Lenin, who took advantage of the labor movement and the disaffection with Russia’s participation in World War 1 to effect the Russian Revolution.