The Great October Revolution radically changed the course of development of all mankind, and showed "the whole world the way to socialism." 1 The socialist Revolution in Russia was a natural consequence of social development and class struggle. It was made possible by the unity of action of the working class with the non-proletarian strata of the working people. "Expressing the fundamental interests of the absolute majority of the country's population, the working class, in alliance with the working peasantry, ensured the victory of the revolution and established its power." 2 It is not surprising that the scientific generalization of the historical experience of forming an alliance between the working class and the poorest peasantry as a decisive force in the struggle for the social and national liberation of the working masses, the revolutionary movement and the class struggle in the countryside occupies an important place in the historiography of the October Revolution.

The beginning of a concrete historical study of the agrarian and peasant problem was laid back in the 1920s. Since then, many works have been published on the class struggle in the countryside. The most intensive and fruitful research was conducted in the 50s-70s. Further creative development of the history of the agrarian revolution in Russia is impossible without taking into account the existing achievements. There is a need for historiographical generalization of the work done. Attempts in this direction have already been made by E. A. Lutsky, A. V. Sedov, and G. A. Gerasimenko. But each of these authors set a limited task for himself. E. A. Lutsky analyzes only the publications of 1966-1967.. A. V. Sedov's article was written in terms of raising some poorly studied or controversial issues without considering specific historical research. G. A. Gerasimenko was interested in the problem of grassroots peasant organizations .3
This article attempts to expand the problematics and chronological framework of historiographical research. However, the vastness and diversity of the literature on the history of the October Revolution in the countryside make it necessary to single out for analysis mainly works on the peasant movement, which was of primary importance for the formation of the revolutionary forces of the peasantry and was an objective factor in the development of the revolutionary forces of the peasantry.-

1 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 37, p. 30.

2 "On the 60th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution". Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU of January 31, 1977, Moscow, 1977, pp. 4-5.

3 A. V. Sedov. On some questions of the history of the peasant movement in 1917. "Scientific Notes" of Gorky University, issue 85, historical series, 1967; E. A. Lutsky. New Soviet literature on the history of the agrarian Revolution in Russia. "History of the USSR", 1969, N 1; G. A. Gerasimenko. Grassroots peasant organizations in 1917-the first half of 1918 in Soviet historical literature. "Historiographical collection", issue 1 (4), Saratov, 1973. Brief historiographical reviews are available in a number of monographs.

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It is an important indicator of the gradual transition of the working masses of the countryside to the side of the proletariat. The works on the union of the working class and the peasantry and on the revolutionary activities of the Bolsheviks in the countryside are only partially addressed here, since they have already been considered in the historiographical articles of P. N. Sobolev and K. V. Gusev. 4
The chronological framework of the study (the second half of the 50s-70s) is not random. The literature created over the past 20 years, both in terms of volume and scientific results, is actually a new stage in the study of the agricultural issue on the eve of October. When determining the structure of the article, it was considered appropriate to consider certain aspects of the problem before a brief review of the literature, which would give an idea of the general state of modern historiography of the peasant movement.

Literature published in connection with the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution made a serious contribution to the historiography of the problem. Various aspects of the class struggle in the countryside are discussed in general works on the history of October and works covering the process of establishing local Soviet power. At the same time, many special studies were published. First of all, the question of the union of the working class and the peasantry, which has been poorly studied in concrete historical terms, attracted the attention of historians. Books by P. N. Sobolev, A. S. Smirnov, and A. Ya. Utenkov6 , as well as many articles by other authors, are devoted to the study of the activities of the Bolshevik Party in winning the working peasantry over to the proletariat. The most complete and significant was P. N. Sobolev's monograph, which contains a lot of factual material, including about the peasant struggle for land. Brief essays by I. Y. Kazinkin and P. N. Sobolev are devoted directly to the peasant-democratic movement .7
The development of scientific work was promoted by the publication of documents undertaken on a large scale. In 1957-1958 alone, 128 collections of documents were published, including 106 in the republics and regions of the country, which made it possible to include 22,000 new documents in the scientific circulation .8 In all these collections you can find valuable materials published for the first time about the activities of local Bolshevik organizations, about peasant Soviets and congresses, and about the agrarian movement.

In the 60s, especially in connection with the 50th anniversary of Soviet power, the agrarian and peasant question was further developed in works on the history of the October Revolution as a whole, in multi-volume publications on the history of the CPSU and the history of the USSR .9 Monographs are also devoted to the same topic.-

4 P. N. Sobolev. The question of the Alliance of the Working class and the peasantry in literature on the History of the October Revolution. Voprosy istorii, 1958, No. 9; K. V. Gusev. Historiography of the Union of the Working Class and peasantry. "Essays on the historiography of the Soviet society", Moscow, 1965. The main stages of the history of the union of the working class and peasantry and its coverage in Soviet historical literature. "The working class and the development of agriculture in the USSR", Moscow, 1969.

5 During this time, about 40 books and pamphlets, more than 150 articles devoted to the union of the working class and the peasantry and the agrarian movement were published.

6 A. S. Smirno V. Agitation and propaganda of the Bolsheviks in the countryside during the preparation of the October Revolution. Moscow, 1957; A. Utenkov. Rabota bol'shevikov sredi trudyashchego krestyanskogo preda Oktyabrya [Work of the Bolsheviks among the working peasantry on the eve of October]. The poorest peasantry-an ally of the proletariat in the October Revolution, Moscow, 1958.

7 P. N. Sobolev, I. Ya. Kazinkin. Class struggle in the countryside on the eve of October, Moscow, 1957. The peasants ' struggle for land on the eve of the October Revolution. Voprosy Istorii, 1957, No. 6.

8 A. S. Smirnov. Bolsheviks and the Peasantry in the October Revolution, Moscow, 1976, p. 5.

9 "History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union", vol. 3, book I. M. 1967; "History of the USSR from ancient times to the present day". T 7. Moscow, 1967; I. I. Mints. Istoriya Velikogo Oktyabrya [History of the Great October], Vol. 1, Moscow, 1967, vol. 2, Moscow, 1968, etc.

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P. N. Pershin and S. P. Trapeznikov Research Institutes 10 . Based on the study of a wide range of sources, a historical and economic study by P. N. Pershin is written, covering many problems of the agrarian revolution. Among the major generalizing works is the work of S. P. Trapeznikov, in the first volume of which the theoretical foundations of the agrarian policy of the proletarian party in three Russian revolutions are revealed and, at the same time, the development of two social wars in the countryside is shown. The general characteristics of the peasant movement are given in the educational and methodical manual for students of I. V. Igritsky 11, in the materials of scientific sessions and articles of thematic collections.

In the following years, new generalizing studies appeared. Significant material on the peasant struggle against the landlords and kulaks in the Great Russian provinces of European Russia is presented in the work of N. A. Kravchuk 12 . Using the results of special Pogubern studies, the author significantly supplemented the statistical data on the peasant movement within the specified territory. The problem of the revolutionary struggle in the countryside is broadly considered in T. V. Osipova's monograph 13 . It traces the ideological and political struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie for the peasant masses and the movement of the working peasantry for the abolition of private land ownership. We should mention the book by A. S. Smirnov 14 . Describing the political and organizational work of the Bolsheviks in the countryside, A. S. Smirnov deals with the organization of the peasantry and the development of the agrarian movement. He examines in detail the peasant congresses that took place in March-October 1917.

Essential for the expansion and deepening of scientific research were works that reveal the class struggle in the countryside in individual provinces and districts or cover one of the issues of the problem. Much has been done in the field of studying the history of the October Revolution in the Volga region. A notable contribution to the historiography of the peasant movement was made by I. M. Ionenko and M. A. Kibardin, who used new sources to show the struggle of the peasants of Kazan Province for land .15 Over the years, works on other provinces and national districts were published .16 In the mid-60s and early 70s, generalizing works on the Volga region were created, which set out the results of many years of research, answered a number of previously controversial questions, and put forward new problems .17 Continued izu-

10 P. N. Pershin. The Agrarian Revolution in Russia. Books I-II. Moscow, 1966; S. P. Trapeznikov. Leninism and the agrarian-peasant question. Vols. I-II. M. 1967 (2nd additional ed. 1974 and 1976).

11 I. V. Igritsky. Agrarian Question and peasant movement in Russia in 1917, Moscow, 1962.

12 N. A. Kravchuk. Mass peasant movement in Russia on the eve of October, Moscow, 1971.

13 T. V. Osipova. Class struggle in the Countryside during the Preparation and Conduct of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Moscow, 1974.

14 A. S. Smirnov. The Bolsheviks and the peasantry in the October Revolution.

15 I. M. Ionenko. The peasantry of the Middle Volga region on the eve of Great October. Kazan. 1957; M. A. Kibardin. The struggle of the peasants of Kazan Province for land during the period when the bourgeois-democratic Revolution was developing into a socialist revolution. "Scientific Notes" of Kazan University, vol. 120, book I, 1960, et al.

16 V. L. Kuzmin. Peasant movement in Chuvashia during the preparation of the October Revolution. Cheboksary. 1957; P. I. Parusova. The struggle of the peasants of the Nizhny Novgorod province for land in the period of dual power (March-June 1917). "Proceedings" of the Gorky Polytechnic Institute, vol. 14, issue 4, 1958; M. Ya. Andreyuk. The struggle of peasants for land in the Penza province in 1917. "Scientific Notes" of the Kuibyshev Pedagogical Institute, issue 51, 1966, et al.

17 "October in the Volga region". Saratov, 1967; E. I. Medvedev. The peasantry of the Middle Volga Region in the October Revolution. Kuibyshev. 1970; Yu. P. Suslov. Lenin's agrarian program and the struggle of the Bolsheviks of the Volga region for its implementation. Saratov. 1972.

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a study of the history of the struggle for the solution of the agrarian question in the Central Agricultural region 18 . P. G. Morev's work on the Voronezh Gubernia was based on a broader source base than M. Golubeva's book published in 1930 [19]. The first special studies on the Ryazan governorate appeared 21 . Literature on the history of October in Tula Province was supplemented with the book by A. M. Bogdanov 22 . An attempt to re-examine the agrarian movement in the territory of the Central Federal District was made by M. I. Melnikova 23 . Similar studies were conducted in the Central Industrial District 24 .

A special feature of the historiography of recent years is the attention of historians to the study of the October Revolution in rural areas in Siberia, Altai, the Far East and Transbaikalia25 . Among the published literature, the authors highlight the works of E. M. Shchagin and L. M. Goryushkin26, which analyze the socio - economic development of the countryside and the class struggle in Siberia and on the eastern outskirts of the country.

Fruitful research work was carried out in the Union republics. The study of agrarian relations in Ukraine and Bessarabia has made significant progress. In the years under review, about 30 books, pamphlets and articles were published, most of which deal with the problem within the boundaries of individual provinces. Such studies are available in the Bessarabian, Volyn, Kiev, Podolsk, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kherson provinces and the Don Region27 . The scientific level of these works is not the same. Extensive concrete historical material, drawn mainly from archives, is analyzed in the books of M. B. Itkis and I. I. Nemirov, P. F. Reshodko. The authors use primary sources to calculate the number of peasant demonstrations in the uyezds and provinces, group the demonstrations by form of movement, and show the revolutionary intensity of the peasant struggle and the role of soldiers in the agrarian movement. History of the peasant movement in Be-

18 The author uses the district grouping of provinces adopted for Russia in 1917.

19 M. Golubeva. The agrarian movement in the Central Administrative District in 1917 (materials on the history of the Voronezh Province). Voronezh. 1930.

20 P. G. Morev. Peasant movement in Voronezh province on the eve of the October Revolution. Voronezh. 1961.

21 V. I. Kostrikin. The Peasant Movement in the Ryazan Province in the autumn of 1917, Istoriya SSSR, 1957, No. 3, et al.

22 A.M. Bogdanov. The struggle of the Tula Bolsheviks for the Leninist agrarian program (1917-1918). 1957.

23 M. I. Melnikova. Peasant movement in the Central Administrative District during the Preparation of the October Armed Uprising (September-October 1917). "From the History of the October Revolution and Socialist construction in the USSR", Moscow, 1957.

24 A. Kotelenets. At the Head of the Revolutionary peasantry, Moscow, 1957; F. F. Shatsky. Peasant movement in the Moscow Province during the Preparation of the Great October Socialist Revolution (March-October 1917). "Scientific Notes" of the Moscow Regional Pedagogical Institute, vol. 60, issue 4, 1958; L. N. Toropov. Peasant movement in the Vladimir province during the preparation of the October Revolution. "Scientific Notes" of the Yaroslavl Pedagogical Institute, issue 58, 1966; G. V. Storozhenko. The struggle of the Bolshevik Party for the peasantry in 1917 (Based on the materials of the Central industrial district). "Proceedings" of the Department of History of the CPSU of the Moscow Correspondence Pedagogical Institute, 1960, etc.

25 See "Historiography of the Peasantry of Soviet Siberia". Novosibirsk. 1976.

26 E. M. Shchagin. October Revolution in the village of the eastern suburbs of Russia (1917-summer 1918). Moscow, 1974; L. M. Goryushkin. The peasant movement in Siberia in 1917. Novosibirsk. 1975.

27 M. B. Itkis, I. I. Nemirov. The struggle of the peasants of Bessarabia for land in 1917. Chisinau. 1957; N. I. Mironets. Боротьба селянства Подiлля за землю в 1917 роцi (березень - червень 1917 р.). "Питания icторii народiв СРСР". Вип. I. Харкiв. 1965; Н. И. Берглезов. The struggle of the peripheral Bolshevik organizations of the Kiev region for the peasant masses in 1917. "Proceedings" of the Kiev Institute of Physical Culture, issue 4, 1958; M. B. Itkis. The peasant movement in Moldavia in 1917 and the implementation of Lenin's Decree on Land. Chisinau. 1970; П. Ф. Решодько Селянський рух у Харкiвськiй губернii (березень 1917 - очень 1918 р.). Харк1в. 1972, и др.

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E. P. Lukyanov's book and a significant part of I. M. Ignatenko's monograph are devoted to Lorussia 28 . They deal with the formation of dual power and the creation of peasant committees, describe agrarian actions, present the decisions of peasant assemblies and congresses, and so on .The struggle of the agricultural proletariat and the poor peasantry of Latvia for a revolutionary solution of the agrarian question is covered in T. Draudin's book. 29
The agrarian movement of 1917 was characterized by a relatively high level of organization. Therefore, one of the most important issues in the development of the history of the agrarian revolution was the study of the construction process and the activities of peasant organizations. New works on peasant Soviets and congresses, grassroots committees, and volost zemstvos have been published .30
Research on individual provinces and regions that were characterized by a variety of socio-economic conditions contributed to solving a number of questions about the history of the class struggle in the countryside. The large factual material collected in them is largely used in generalizing works.

How, then, do the contemporary Soviet historical literature deal with certain questions of the peasant movement in the period leading up to the October Revolution?

There is not a single work on the peasant-democratic movement in which the leading role of the Bolshevik Party in organizing the revolutionary forces of the countryside is not considered in one way or another .31 On the whole, they correctly cover the formation of an alliance between the working class and the poorest peasantry. Much has been done to reveal the agrarian program, strategy, and tactics of the Bolsheviks in their struggle to create a political army of the socialist revolution. Based on concrete historical material, the leading role of the proletariat is traced at all stages of the bourgeois-democratic revolution's development into a socialist one, and the forms and methods of the struggle of the working class and its party for the peasant masses, the army, and the Bolshevization of the Soviets are revealed.

Generalizing and local studies, as a rule, reveal the socio-economic prerequisites for the political union of workers and peasants that developed by 1917. But many authors do not go further than this, do not trace the expansion and deepening of these prerequisites in the course of the development of the revolution. One of the drawbacks is that the forms and methods of the Bolsheviks ' agitation and propaganda work among the soldiers and peasants, as well as the ideological and political struggle against non-Proletarian parties, are often presented not in their development, not in connection with a change in the correlation of class forces, but in general terms. Some studies lack a specific description of the camp of opponents of the revolution, and to a certain extent the influence of petty-bourgeois parties is simplified, thereby smoothing out the complexity and severity of the struggle that the Bolsheviks had to fight for peasant reserves.

28 E. P. Lukyanov. Peasant movement in Belarus on the eve of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Minsk. 1958; I. M. Ignatenko. The poorest peasantry is an ally of the proletariat in the struggle for the victory of the October Revolution in Belarus. Minsk. 1962.

29 T. Draudin. The landless peasantry of Latvia in the Struggle for land and the Power of the Soviets: w 1917-1919. Riga. 1959.

30 O. N. Moiseeva. Soviets of Peasant Deputies in 1917. Moscow, 1967; G. A. Gerasimenko. Grassroots peasant organizations in 1917-the first half of 1918. Saratov. 1974 (further footnotes are given to this book); V. I. Kostrikin. Land Committees in 1917, Moscow, 1975; A.V. Sedov. Movement of Russian peasants for Mass organization of grassroots Land Committees in 1917 Gorky, 1975, et al.

31 The question of the Bolshevik struggle for the peasantry deserves independent consideration, which is initiated in the above-mentioned historiographical articles.

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Not all works, including those based on the materials of individual regions, give an answer to the question of how exactly the union of the working class and the rural poor was formed, what were the features of this process in different economic regions of the country.

The question of a statistical method for studying the agrarian movement deserves attention. Many authors, while revealing the dynamics of the class struggle, cite data on the number of peasant uprisings. Until recently, in generalizing works, to show the scope of the peasant movement, lists on the number of agrarian offenses compiled by the police department of the Provisional Government and published in 192732 were used . But official data is far from complete. Based on primary sources, the authors of local studies conducted monthly calculations of the number of peasant demonstrations from March to October 1917 in 18 provinces of European Russia. In total, they exceed the information of the police department by six times. However, these indicators are not exhaustive either. The Pogubern studies do not take into account all sources about the peasant movement. Thus, G. V. Chernov for the Nizhny Novgorod province indicates 480 speeches for the eight months of 1917 (according to the data of the Central Archive, there were 78 of them) .33 This figure is given in the works of other authors, but it is inaccurate. The summary table of peasant actions by G. V. Chernov was compiled based on the materials of the office of the provincial commissar. Consequently, he did not take into account the documents of other funds of the regional archive. A.V. Sedov, as a result of studying "a more complete set of sources", revealed "over a thousand (1014) large and small demonstrations of Nizhny Novgorod peasants"34 . As I. M. Ionenko and M. B. Itkis admit, their calculations for the Kazan and Bessarabian provinces are not final. The same can be said about data for other provinces.

The results of a statistical study of the peasant movement depend not only on the degree to which documentary sources are taken into account, but also on the method of their generalization. Reports of peasant demonstrations were often made in a general form and with such a statement of facts that the same sources can be interpreted differently and can give different quantitative indicators when calculating. Thus, M. B. Itkis, when calculating the number of peasant speeches, used those messages that indicated the village or estate and the form of speech. P. F. Reshodko, on the contrary, also took into account those documents in which the nature of the peasant speech was not disclosed. D. M. Schneider in Ufa Province. counted only the largest and most organized speeches 35 . N. I. Berglezov took into account only the anti-meshchichy actions of the peasants. A different method is used for calculating the so-called complex actions, which were an interweaving of several forms of peasant actions. Some researchers calculated the results not by individual speeches, but by the forms with which the peasants ' speeches were associated. Others took each complex performance as one in the highest form. Finally, data from the same sources can be calculated using different quantitative expressions depending on the research program.: it covers

32 "The Peasant Movement in 1917", Moscow-L. 1927.

33 G. V. Chernov. Uprising of the peasants of the Nizhny Novgorod province on the eve of the Great October Socialist Revolution. "Scientific Notes" of Gorky University, issue 47, 1958, p. 237.

34 A. V. Sedov. On some questions of the history of the peasant movement in 1917, p. 20.

35 D. M. Schneider. Peasant movement in Bashkiria on the eve of the Great October Socialist Revolution. "Scientific Notes" of Bashkir University, issue 1, series of historical sciences, N 1, 1957.

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either all the main directions of the peasant movement, or its individual sides. As a result, statistical tables for some provinces show only the development of the economic struggle, while for others they include simultaneously the political actions of the peasants.

In the statistical expression of the material on the peasant movement, a detailed and thorough analysis of the forms of action of the peasants that follow each other in the revolution, which show the correlation of class forces in the countryside, and which reflect the process of the peasant struggle developing into an insurrection, is of great importance. Meanwhile, the forms of peasant protests are most poorly studied statistically. Such developments based on primary sources are available only in individual provinces. However, they are not always comparable due to different research methods. To ensure the accuracy and comparability of research results and the possibility of their generalization, common principles of statistical study of the peasant movement are necessary .36
New reports on the number of peasant demonstrations, despite the incompleteness of this work, make significant corrections to the tendentiously compiled official statistics. They make it possible to reveal more fully the main stages of the peasant movement, and they convince us that "The February Revolution by no means led to a decline in the rising wave of peasant uprisings," as some authors claim. "On the contrary, the revolution was a signal for the continuation and strengthening of the movement." 37 In studies of the agrarian movement in the pre-October period, more and more attention is paid to the peasant uprising in the autumn of 1917, which was, in the words of V. I. Lenin, an event of national political significance. Assessing the political situation in mid-October, he wrote: "Finally, the most important fact of modern life in Russia is the peasant uprising. This is the objective transition of the people to the side of the Bolsheviks, shown not by words, but by deeds. " 38
The latest research on peasant uprisings is based on a more in-depth study of Lenin's writings, which provide a political assessment of the revolutionary events in the countryside. 39 A detailed concrete historical essay on this topic is contained in the book by P. N. Pershin. The author traces the development of the peasant war against landlords in a number of provinces of the Central Agricultural Region, the Volga region and Ukraine. P. N. Pershin's research in relation to the first two districts is largely supplemented by the above-mentioned monograph by N. A. Kravchuk. Specific data on uprisings in Belarus and the Northern Urals are available in the work of A. S. Smirnov.

The peasant uprising, as the works of Soviet historians show, covered almost simultaneously at least half of the provinces of the European part of Russia. It was a natural outcome of the entire previous struggle of the peasants, the result of the failure of the anti-people policy of the Provisional Government and the compromise parties supporting it. Many researchers emphasize that the peasant war was directed not only against the landlords, but also against the Provisional Government and merged with the struggle of the proletariat for political power.

The most violent manifestation of the class struggle in the countryside at the final stage before October was the rout of the landlords and kulaks-

36 The author discusses this issue in a special article entitled "Mass Sources on the Peasant Movement on the Eve of October" (Istoriya SSSR, 1977, No. 3).

37 I. I. Mints. Op. op.vol. 1, p. 843.

38 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 34, p. 400.

39 N. A. Kravchuk's article "V. I. Lenin on the significance of the peasant movement in 1917 in the preparation of the Great October Revolution" attempts to generalize Lenin's statements about the peasant uprising in the autumn of 1917 (see "Scientific Notes" of the Higher Party School under the Central Committee of the CPSU, issue 10, 1971).

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some of the farmsteads. Some authors draw incorrect conclusions from this fact. Thus, I. M. Ignatenko, considering the peasant movement in Belarus, writes that "by its nature it was a spontaneous struggle", " defeats... and arson determined the nature of the movement. " 40 Often, the literature provides data without a proper critical assessment of sources about the destroyed landed estates in a particular province, and does not indicate what percentage they accounted for from the total number of estates. As a result, there may be an erroneous idea of the course and nature of the peasant uprising. Meanwhile, a review of the facts in their totality convinces us that spontaneous defeats accounted for a small proportion of the total mass of peasant actions and affected an insignificant part of the estates.

In all works dealing with the alliance of the working class and the peasantry, the revolutionary movement in the countryside, and the agrarian policy of the Provisional Government, the activities of peasant organizations are examined. Advances in the study of this problem are indisputable, but historians do not yet have an established point of view on all important issues. Thus, different and often directly opposite assessments are given of the class nature of the volost executive committees and their role in the agrarian movement. According to some researchers, volost committees were created on the direct instructions of the Provisional Government to carry out its policies. Other authors, and the majority of them, believe that the volost executive committees were created not by virtue of law, but by direct initiative, by the revolutionary creativity of the masses themselves, and were peasant organizations in their composition.

Even more controversial is the question of which social strata of the peasantry prevailed in these committees. Some historians claim that most of the committees ended up in the hands of the rural bourgeoisie. This conclusion is made by I. M. Ionenko in the Kazan province, and D. M. Schneider in the Ufa province. 41 I. M. Ignatenko defines the composition of the committees of Belarus as landowner - kulak 42 . P. N. Sobolev holds a slightly different point of view. He believes that initially " the rural and volost committees in their overwhelming majority consisted of the kulak-well-to-do elite of the village." But with the development of the revolution, their composition changed in favor of the working peasantry, and already in April and June, many committees headed the seizure of landlords ' lands. "However," the author makes a reservation, " in the middle of 1917, the bulk of the volost peasant committees... it deterred the poor from revolutionary actions and acted within the framework of government legislation. " 43 P. N. Pershin also believed that in the first months of the revolution, the kulaks took over the leadership of the new local authorities, and later, in many villages and volosts, the rural workers and poor peasants took over local committees, resolutely carrying out an organized seizure of landlords ' land .44 Similar statements are found in other studies. In them, the composition of the committees is considered in development, the gradual strengthening of the position of the working peasantry is noted, but the authors do not consider it possible to give an unambiguous answer to the question of the correlation of class forces in the grassroots committees, which was formed in the process of their democratization.

40 I. M. Ignatenko. Op. ed., pp. 270-271.

41 I. M. Ionenko. Op. ed., p. 182; D. M. Schneider. Op. ed., p. 41.

42 I. M. Ignatenko. Op. ed., pp. 115-116.

43 P. N. Sobolev. The poorest peasantry-an ally of the proletariat in the October Revolution, pp. 104-105.

44 P. N. Pershin. Op. ed., pp. 331, 333.

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Some historians conclude that the volost committees were dominated by representatives of the revolutionary working peasantry. E. A. Zinoviev, who has studied the agrarian transformations in Mordovia, writes about this 45 . Unlike I. M. Ionenko, N. M. Silaeva asserts that the grassroots committees of the Kazan province were mostly headed by middle peasants and poor people .46 According to G. A. Gerasimenko, the social composition of the volost and village committees in the spring of 1917 was formed in favor of the poor and middle peasant part of the village, and "the real power in the village was in the hands of the working peasantry..."47 . Undoubtedly, as the class struggle developed and the influence of workers and soldiers increased, the composition of the volost committees became more and more democratic. However, the general conclusion that this process ended by the summer of 1917 with the transfer of power into the hands of the working peasantry is still not convincing. The struggle over the volost committees was one of the manifestations of two social wars in the countryside. If the establishment of grassroots committees as peasant-wide institutions mainly took place during the spring re-elections, then the internal struggle for representation in these committees continued throughout the entire period of their activity.

The social nature of volost committees is defined differently in the literature. S. M. Dubrovsky refers rural and volost executive committees to the bodies of bourgeois-democratic power48. Z. A. Aminev and V. A. Solovyova believe that committees in the countryside were created and acted as organs of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and landlords49 . I. M. Ignatenko writes about the anti-democratic nature of the committees. After the revolution, he believes, the local authorities have not been substantially renewed .50 The same point of view is found in other works.

However, most historians reasonably believe that the volost and rural executive committees created by the peasantry themselves were a revolutionary-democratic, popular power and led the struggle of the peasants for the transfer of landlords ' land into their hands. Such an assessment of the social nature of grassroots committees and their role in the revolutionary movement is given by I. M. Ionenko, P. N. Pershin, E. I. Medvedev, M. B. Itkis, P. F. Reshodko, T. V. Osipova, A. S. Smirnov and others.

According to some authors, the revolutionary-democratic nature of the Soviets was revealed in the activities of the volost committees. According to the definition of E. P. Lukyanov and O. N. Moiseeva, peasant committees essentially served as grassroots Soviets of peasant deputies as organs of the struggle of the peasant masses against the landlord-bourgeois system .51 According to I. I. Mints, the volost committees, which were democratically organized from peasants, "not only fulfilled the functions of Soviets of Peasants' Deputies, but were also Soviets of peasants ' Deputies."52 The same idea is carried out by G. A. Gerasimenko. Activities of parish committees and Councils of kre-

45 E. A. Zinoviev. The struggle of the working people of Mordovia for the implementation of Lenin's decree on land (October 1917-February 1918). diss. M. 1964, p. 5.

40 N. M. Silaeva. To characterize the documents of village committees and village gatherings. "October in the Volga region and the Urals". Kazan. 1972, p. 64.

47 G. A. Gerasimenko. Op. ed., pp. 63, 117.

48 "The Soviet Peasantry". A brief outline of history (1917-1970). Moscow, 1973, p. 25.

49 Z. A. Aminev. The October Revolution and the Civil War in Bashkiria. Ufa, 1966, p. 42; V. A. Solovyova. Peasant revolutionary Movement in Siberia after the overthrow of the autocracy (March-April 1917). "Questions of the History of Siberia". Issue 3, 1967, p. 155.

50 I. M. Ignatenko. Op. ed., p. 119.

51 E. P. Lukyanov. Edict op., p. 39; O. N. Moiseeva. Op. ed., p. 32.

52 And, I. Mints. Edict. soch. Vol. I, p. 861.

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According to his monograph, it did not differ from each other, it "intertwined and merged... so much so that it is not possible to draw a line between them. " 53
In studying the history of peasant organizations, the greatest attention is paid to land committees, which, as is well known, were created on the basis of a decree of the Provisional Government. In all studies, the anti-democratic nature of the law on land committees is noted, and all authors consider this law as a maneuver of the bourgeois government, designed to distract the peasantry from the revolutionary struggle for land and preserve land ownership by the landlords. Opinions generally agree in assessing the activities of the provincial and uyezd land committees aimed at suppressing the revolutionary initiative of the peasant masses. The situation is different in determining the place of volost land committees in the system of state institutions, their social composition, and their role in the revolution. Here, the researchers ' opinions differ. Some of them regard the volost land committees as local organs of bourgeois power, in which the majority belonged to exploiting elements and whose activities were aimed at protecting land ownership. Made up mainly of landlords, I. M. Ignatenko asserts, the land committees "turned out to be organs for the protection of landowners' land ownership." At the same time, the author writes that after the First All-Russian Peasant Congress, volost and uyezd committees issued resolutions on the immediate distribution of privately owned meadows to needy peasants . 54 E. K. Zhivolup also believes that "the land committees were not peasant democratic organizations, but official institutions of the government."55 A similar assessment of land committees is given in the works of Z. A. Aminev and D. M. Schneider, who studied the revolutionary movement in Bashkiria. In their opinion, the land committees, consisting of the rural bourgeoisie, bureaucracy, and landowners, often became an appendage of local government power, were direct agents of the Provisional Government's agrarian policy, and persistently fought peasant revolts. However, D. M. Schneider immediately notes that under the influence of the peasant movement, truly revolutionary-democratic land committees emerged, which led the peasants ' actions against the landlords .56
Another group of historians believes that the grassroots land committees from the very beginning, unlike the executive committees, consisted almost exclusively of peasants, but their social composition was not uniform. Therefore, the activity of the committees is considered as a manifestation of various class lines in the agrarian question. P. N. Pershin writes that many kulaks and intellectuals close to them and the landlords were elected to the first composition of the volost committees. Then their composition changed rapidly, but the kulak influence in many committees, the author emphasizes, remained significant. Such committees "tried with small handouts to calm the peasants, reconcile them with the landlords, and blunt the contradictions in the countryside." At the same time, P. N. Pershin notes that there were quite a few land committees that followed the requirements of the village masses and, without waiting for a government decision, were able to do so.-

53 G. A. Gerasimenko O. Edict op., sto. 110.

54 I. M. Ignatenko. Op. ed., pp. 148, 163.

55 E. K. Zhivolup. The peasant movement in Ukraine in 1917. "Scientific Notes" of Kharkiv University, vol. 88, 1957, p. 260.

56 Z. A. Aminev. Edict op., p. 80; D. M. Schneider. Peasant Land Committees of Bashkiria (1917-1918). "From the history of Bashkiria". Part 1. Ufa. 1963, pp. 75, 80; his. Peasant movement in Bashkiria on the eve of the Great October Socialist Revolution, pp. 43-44.

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"made decisions on the actual reorganization of land regulations" 57 . Similar opinions are expressed by E. A. Lutsky 58 . In the work of E. D. Popova, summarizing the material on the Northern Urals, it is stated that the volost land committees represented all the peasantry, all its strata. Depending on local conditions, some committees were dominated by the working peasantry, while others were dominated by representatives of the rural bourgeoisie. As a result, E. D. Popova comes to the conclusion: "In the summer of 1917, many volost land committees were not revolutionary."59 P. G. Morev believes that many land committees of the Voronezh Province, whose composition was Socialist - Kulak, followed the policy of the Provisional Government. At the same time, the volost committees, under the influence of Bolshevik ideas, often became the centers of the struggle of the peasant masses for land .60
So, this group of historians believes that the activities of many land committees in the summer of 1917 were influenced by the Socialist-Revolutionary-Kulak leadership; therefore, they either implemented a government policy of protecting private land ownership, or made very moderate decisions on regulating land relations. At the same time, all these authors believe that a certain part of the grassroots committees followed the demands of the poor and middle peasant masses. With the development of the peasant movement, the revolutionary line in the activity of the committees was strengthened, although, as can be judged from the above statements, it was not predominant.

Finally, many researchers hold the view that the Provisional Government's hopes of stopping the agrarian movement with the help of land committees were not fulfilled, that most of the volost committees quickly got out of the control of government authorities, supported the peasants ' desire for a rapid radical change in land relations, and played an important role in the development of the peasant movement. In the Ryazan province, writes I. D. Shutov, land committees "not only continued the traditions of executive committees, but even more actively waged a struggle against landowning by landlords." 61 P. I. Parusova notes the active role of many volost land committees in the revolutionary movement of the peasants of the Nizhny Novgorod Province, V. P. Dogaeva 62 of Penza Province , and F. V. Dogaeva 62 of Moscow Province. F. Shatsky, Tula-A.M. Bogdanov, Kazan-M. A. Kibardin, Chuvashia-V. L. Kuzmin, Don-V. A. Zolotov. Thus, according to M. A. Kibardin, the volost committees in most cases "were at the head of the peasant masses in the struggle to seize the landlords' lands, without waiting for the Constituent Assembly." The overwhelming majority of volost land committees, writes V. L. Kuzmin, from the very first days of their activity became organs of revolutionary land transformation and protection of the interests of the poor and middle peasant masses of the peasantry. Grassroots land committees of the Don, according to V. A. Zolotov, "did not become the mainstay of the bourgeois - landowner power in rural areas."-

57 P. N. Pershin. Op. ed., pp. 353, 357-359.

58 E. A. Lutsky. The policy of the Soviet government in relation to the land committees. "Proceedings" of the Moscow Historical and Archival Institute, vol. 13, 1959, pp. 134, 138.

59 E. D. Popov a. Land committees of the Northern Urals on the eve of the Great October Socialist Revolution. "Scientific Notes" of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute named after V. I. Lenin, vol. 250, 1967, pp. 47, 64-65.

60 P. G. Morev. Peasant land committees in the Voronezh Province during the preparation of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Proceedings of the Voronezh State University, vol. 43, issue 1, 1961, pp. 11, 20.

61 I. D. Shutov. Peasant Committees in the period of preparation for the Great October Socialist Revolution (based on the materials of the Ryazan province). "Scientific notes" of the Ryazan Pedagogical Institute, vol. 111, 1972, p. 30.

62 V. P. Dogaeva. Land committees of the Penza province in 1917 "From the history of the Soviet village". Ryazan, 1972.

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not. Not only did they not hinder the development of the revolutionary movement in the countryside, but they often led it under pressure from the peasants. " 63
Similar opinions are expressed in the most recent publications. According to T. V. Osipova's monograph, the volost land committees "were revolutionary-democratic peasant organizations whose practical activities were aimed at limiting and eliminating private land ownership." In the work of A. V. Sedov, written taking into account the latest research, it is concluded that " volost and rural land committees in the majority turned out to be unmanageable by the Provisional Government, took revolutionary positions and took an active part in the peasant struggle for land." The volost land committees, writes G. A. Gerasimenko, like their predecessors, the executive committees, acted contrary to the instructions of the Provisional Government and in the summer of 1917 became the leaders of the peasant struggle .64
The conclusion about the revolutionary-democratic nature of the grassroots land committees and their active participation in the struggle for radical agrarian reforms corresponds to historical reality. Volost land committees, according to many sources, were created in most cases contrary to the plans of the Provisional Government, on the initiative of the lower level, they were financed by the local population, their practical activities were determined not so much by government regulations as by the tasks of eliminating land ownership by landlords. The grassroots land committees, being democratically elected by the peasantry and dependent on them, became organs of the revolutionary struggle for land.

From the different understanding of the role of the volost committees in the revolution and their evolution in the summer and autumn of 1917, opposite judgments about the relationship between organization and spontaneity in the peasant movement follow .65 It can be considered generally accepted that after the spontaneous spring uprisings, the revolutionary movement in the countryside in the summer of 1917 acquired a largely organized character and was directed by local peasant democratic organizations. At the same time, there are significant differences in the assessment of the peasant movement in the autumn of 1917. As early as the 1920s, the conclusion was widely spread that the peasant movement in September-October 1917 was a "spontaneous onslaught on the landlords"66 .By this time, "those elements of peasant organization that were present by July" 67 had disappeared.

Some authors of more recent studies came to the same conclusions. For example, I. M. Ionenko believes that "by the end of the summer of 1917, the all-peasant democratic organizations had basically exhausted their functions" and their activities were weakened in the autumn 68 . Due to the peasants ' loss of confidence in the Provisional Government and the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, P. I. Shulpin believes, "after July, there will be a significant increase in the number of Revolutionaries."-

63 M. A. Kibardin. Op. ed., pp. 16-17; V. L. Kuzmin. Op. ed., p. 111; V. A. Zolotoe. The peasant movement on the Don in the period of preparation for the Great October Socialist Revolution. "The October Revolution on the Don". Rostov-on-Don. 1957, p. 118.

64 T. V. Osipova. Op. ed., p. 141; A.V. Sedov. Movement of Russian Peasants for mass organization of Grassroots Land Committees in 1917, p. 3; G. A. Gerasimenko. Op. ed., pp. 135, 143.

65 In this case, spontaneity refers to the disorganization of peasant actions.

66 I. Vermenichev. The agrarian movement in 1917. "On the Agrarian Front", 1926, No. 2, p. 53.

67 Ya. A. Yakovlev. The Peasant War of 1917. "Agrarian Revolution", vol. II, Moscow, 1928, page 88.

68 I. M. Ionenko. Op. ed., pp. 182, 211.

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Disorganized actions are being organized " 69. G. A. Gerasimenko sees a direct connection between the strengthening of the movement to destroy estates and the weakening of the influence of volost committees on the peasants. According to the author, by the autumn of 1917, the government had succeeded in "changing the composition of the bulk of the land committees and subordinating them administratively and financially to the zemstvo institutions", which ended up in the hands of bourgeois elements .70
However, in the modern literature, the opinion is more often expressed that the movement in the autumn of 1917 was developed with the active participation of land committees. 71. P. N. Pershin, summarizing the material on the peasant insurrection, concludes that the main form of the peasant movement in all regions of the country was the organized mass seizure of landlords 'lands, while the organizing force that raised and directed the village masses to fight against the landlords was the district Councils of peasant Deputies, grassroots councils of peasants' deputies. land committees, rural societies 72 . "In the autumn of 1917," says N. A. Kravchuk's book,"the process of polevization of grassroots peasant organizations, which acted as leaders of the peasant struggle, intensified." 73 M. B. Itkis writes about the growing revolutionary activity of grassroots committees in Bessarabia, M. M. Babichev in Kuban 74, E. D. Popova in the Northern Urals, P. G. Morev in Voronezh Province, and I. S. Urina in Moscow 75. "Peasant uprisings in the Kiev region in September - October 1917," S. Kh. Kagan concludes, "were mass, as a rule, organized" and took place according to the decisions of the village and volost committees .76 P. F. Reshodko emphasizes that in the Kharkiv province there were mainly organized seizures of landlords ' lands and crops. In October, there were only three cases of destruction of estates in Sumy Uyezd 77. V. A. Zolotov, who has studied the agrarian movement on the Don, states: "In October, the seizure of landlords 'and kulaks' lands on the basis of decisions of grassroots land committees became widespread. " 78
Contradictory opinions on this issue can be found even in works written by different authors in the same provinces. Previously, the corresponding conclusions of G. A. Gerasimenko were given based on the materials of the Saratov and P. I. Shulpin provinces of Nizhny Novgorod. Many land committees of the Saratov Province, M. Y. Kosenko believes, despite the threats of the Provisional Government, in the summer and autumn of 1917, by revolutionary means ensured the transfer of landlords ' lands into the hands of the peasantry. G. V. Chernov considers it characteristic of the agrarian movement of the Nizhny Novgorod province.-

69 P. I. Shulpin. Peasant movement in the Nizhny Novgorod Province in 1917 "Scientific Notes" of the Gorky Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages, issue 6, 1968, p. 61.

70 G. A. Gerasimenko. Op. ed., pp. 190, 196, 213.

71 E. A. Lutsky. Op. ed., p. 134.

72 P. N. Pershin. Op. ed., pp. 413, 432.

73 N. A. Kravchuk. Mass peasant Movement in Russia on the eve of October, p. 241.

74 M. M. Babichev. The rise of the peasant movement in Kuban during the struggle for the establishment of Soviet power (1917-1918). "Trudy" Krasnodarskogo pedinistuta, vol. 33, 1963.

75 I. S. Urina. Peasant movement in the Moscow Province in March-October 1917 "Scientific reports of the higher school. Historical Sciences", 1960, N 2.

76 S. H. Kagan. Селянський рух на Киiвщинi у вереснi - груднi 1917 р. "Scientific Notes" of the Institute of History of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, No. 11, 1957, p. 194.

77 P. F. Reshodko. The struggle of the peasants of the Kharkiv province for land in 1917. "Scientific Notes" of Kharkiv University, vol. 145, issue 2, 1964, p. 179.

78 V. A. Zolotov. Op. ed., p. 136.

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the peasants ' activity under the influence of the working class and its revolutionary struggle 79 .

Differences in the assessment of the activities of land committees and the peasant movement on October Eve in general indicate the need for a more in-depth study of this problem. The arguments of the parties are not always convincing. Thus, the concept of the spontaneity of the peasant struggle raises doubts among many authors, who rightly believe that the agrarian movement developed in 1917 under the slogan of the immediate organized seizure of landlords ' land .80 But they do not support their logical generalizations with new statistical data on the ratio of organized and unorganized actions, on the specific weight of the movement for the destruction of estates among other forms of struggle. However, some papers provide relevant statistical data, which, however, are not sufficiently complete to draw general conclusions.

An important problem of the peasant movement of 1917 is its class orientation and the development of the internal peasant struggle. Often, consideration of this topic is limited to individual examples of the second social war. Only in some provinces are statistics given on the movement against the kulaks. In addition, in most cases, summary statistics are provided for individual periods or for all eight months from February to October. None of the studies of the agrarian movement (except for the work of G. A. Gerasimenko) traces the development of forms of anti-Kulak actions. Nevertheless, the materials contained in the new works convince us that the calculations carried out in the 1920s for the whole of Russia take into account a small part of the peasant revolts against the rural bourgeoisie .81 According to documentary sources and local research, T. V. Osipova was able to establish that in April - August only in 28 central provinces of European Russia, more than 1,880 protests against kulaks, farmers and otrubniki took place, that is, from 20 to 30% of peasant protests were anti-Kulak in nature. The new data, however, do not remove the problem of further, more thorough study of the scale and forms of the second social war in its development in certain economic regions, which were distinguished by different levels of capitalist production in agriculture and the class stratification of the peasantry. When deciding on the correlation between the two social wars within the peasant movement, it is necessary, first, to take comparable data on anti-landowner and anti-kulak actions, which are equivalent in their accuracy, and secondly, to take into account the ratio of the total number of landowner and kulak farms.

The question of the class composition of the participants in the struggle against the landlords is one of the insufficiently developed ones. And here historians do not have an established point of view. Some of them characterize the peasant movement as a poor-middle peasant movement without any participation of well-to-do peasants. I. Ya. Kazinkin and P. N. Sobolev, pointing out the commonality of views and actions of landlords and kulaks in the struggle against agrarian reform.-

79 M. Y. Kosenko. From the history of the struggle of the peasants of the Saratov province in the summer and autumn of 1917 "Scientific Notes" of the Saratov University, vol. 68, 1960, p. 64; G. V. Chernov. Op. ed., p. 242.

80 E. A. Lutsky. New literature on the history of the Agrarian Revolution in Russia, p. 128.

81 According to S. M. Dubrovsky, in the pre-October period there were 77 demonstrations of agricultural workers, 362 cases of struggle against the Kulaks, including otrubniki and farmers. Taken together, they account for 8.9% of the total number of peasant demonstrations (see S. M. Dubrovsky. The Peasantry in 1917, Moscow: l. 1927, p. 56).

82 T. V. Osipova. Op. ed., p. 169.

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They consider the peasant movement "as a struggle mainly of the poorest peasantry", in which the middle peasantry also began to join in the autumn of 1917. T. V. Osipova also believes that the poor peasants were the driving force in the struggle for land, and the middle peasantry actively participated in the movement along with them. "The working peasantry," writes A. S. Smirnov, " acted as the driving force of the agrarian revolution, interested in bringing it to an end."83
Some historians believe that the well-to-do strata of the village were also directly involved in the struggle for the destruction of landowners ' land ownership. A. V. Sedov, not agreeing with the position of I. Ya. Kazinkin and P. N. Sobolev, asserts that the agrarian movement of 1917 was all-peasant. "All social strata of the peasantry participated in the struggle for the seizure of the landlords 'land," M. Y. Kosenko assures us. 84 Regarding the spring period of the peasant movement in the Middle Volga region, E. I. Medvedev concludes that "all the peasantry participated in the anti-landlords' struggle, but the rural poor and agricultural workers were the most active forces in it." The well-to-do peasants and kulaks, writes P. N. Pershin, "sometimes blocked with the landlords in defense of their interests" and "split off from the rest of the mass", but "at the same time they were not averse to profit at the expense of the landlords on occasion, often participating in the destruction and division of the landlords 'estates"85. N. A. Kravchuk has a slightly different approach to solving the problem. The main driving force of the class struggle in the countryside, he points out, was the working peasantry and, above all, the rural poor. As for the kulaks, they did not behave the same everywhere. In areas of relatively developed capitalist relations in agriculture, as the peasant movement grew, the kulaks developed a line of alliance with the landlords, although this alliance did not reach its logical conclusion. In provinces with a weak development of capitalism and more numerous remnants of feudalism, the kulaks "actively participated in the seizure of landlords' lands." N. A. Kravchuk comes to the following general conclusion: "The main social figures of the struggle were the poor and middle peasants, but the rural bourgeoisie - the kulaks - also participated in anti-landlords' actions."86
And this time we have to say that the conclusions in both cases are based on separate separate facts. Apparently, a convincing answer to the question of the degree of participation of various strata of the peasantry in the agrarian revolution can be given after a comprehensive study of new documentary materials reflecting these processes in various socio-economic regions. In this respect, it is promising to identify in the archives and develop questionnaires that were filled out locally in the summer of 1917 and contain extensive information about the peasant movement .87
The peasant movement of 1917 was dominated by the struggle for the solution of the bourgeois-democratic tasks of the revolution in the countryside. Estest-

83 I. Ya. Kazinkin, P. N. Sobolev. The peasants ' Struggle for land on the eve of the October Revolution, pp. 21, 24; T. V. Osipova. Op. ed., p. 232; A. S. Smirnov. Op. ed., p. 229.

84 A. V. Sedov. On some questions of the history of the peasant movement in 1917, p. 4. 23; M. Ya. Kosenko. Op. ed., p. 60.

85 E. I. Medvedev. Op. ed., pp. 15-16; P. N. Pershin. Decree. soch" p. 418.

86 N. A. Kravchuk. The mass peasant movement in Russia on the eve of October, p. 4. PO, 169-170.

87 See V. I. Kostrikin. Sources on the land Committees of 1917 and their publication. "Archeographic Yearbook for 1967", Moscow, 1969, p. 231.

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In particular, the question arises as to what the results of this struggle were, and to what extent the landlords ' lands were transferred to the peasants by secret ballot in March-October 1917. At one time, the bankrupt Socialist-Revolutionary leaders, denying the significance of the October Revolution in solving the agrarian question, tried to prove that on the eve of the overthrow of the bourgeois government, the peasants "actually owned the land of the landlords... they already had it in their hands and knew they were holding it tight. " 88 Some bourgeois historians continue to maintain to this day that land ownership by landlords was abolished before the proletariat took political power, and that the Land Decree did nothing for the Russian peasantry. "He just sanctioned it," writes R. Pipes-the existing situation, since the peasants themselves have already seized the landlords 'lands." 89
Thus, the question of the economic results of the peasant movement requires serious consideration. Unfortunately, in the Soviet literature one can find inaccurate and contradictory formulations, hasty conclusions that do not correspond to reality. So, L. I. Potapova believes that in the Penza province. all agricultural land was transferred to the land committees or Soviets of peasants ' deputies by the decree of the Provincial Council of Peasant Deputies of May 15 (referring to the resolution of the 2nd Provincial Congress of Peasants) and distributed among the peasants... Most of the landlords fled from the Penza province, abandoning everything. " 90 In accordance with the decisions of the 2nd Provincial Congress, A. S. Smirnov writes, "in June - July, the bulk of privately owned land was taken over by the volispolkoms."91 These statements, based on isolated and unverified reports from the field, do not agree with the fact that the peasant struggle for land intensified in the following months.

The same can be said about I. M. Ionenko's conclusions concerning the Kazan province. In his opinion, "during the peaceful period of the revolution's development, the landlords and a significant part of the Kulak lands fell into the hands of peasant committees." However, he also notes: "However, this (the transfer of land to the disposal of the committees - V. K.) did not mean that land ownership by landlords was already liquidated, as the Social Revolutionaries claimed." This reservation is essentially removed by I. M. Ionenko himself, when he again states that by the end of the summer, "the landlords and a significant part of the Kulak and church lands were divided between landless and low-land peasants." 92 But the author does not support his generalizations with specific information about the number and composition of lands transferred to the peasantry.

V. I. Lenin, speaking about the results of the peasants ' struggle from May to September 1917, wrote: "For these four months and during these four months, the landlords and capitalists 'won the game' and defended the landowning of the landlords. " 93 A concrete study of sources, especially consolidated data, confirms Lenin's statement and refutes the thesis about the transfer of landlords ' lands to the peasants. For example, P. F. Reshodko reports that in the Kharkiv province, from the beginning of its formation until the end of autumn 1917, the land committees handed over about 100 thousand dessiatines to the peasants.

88 N. Y. Bykhovsky. All-Russian Soviet of Peasant Deputies in 1917, Moscow, 1929, p. 272.

89 Cit. by: "The Working Class-the leading force of the October Socialist Revolution", Moscow, 1976, p. 227.

90 L. I. Potapova. Land committees in 1917. "Scientific Notes" of the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute named after A. I. Herzen, vol. 298, 1971, p. 125.

91 A. S. Smirnov. Peasant congresses of the Penza province in 1917. "History of the USSR", 1967, N 3, p. 25.

92 I. M. Ionenko. Decree. op., pp. 236, 135, 179.83 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 34, p. 205.

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landowners ' land, some of the land was seized by the peasantry itself. In total, this represents less than 20% of the total landed estate in the province. 94 P. N. Pershin shows the results of the distribution of private land in three uyezds of the Poltava province, where there were especially many low-land and landless households and the peasants especially insistently demanded the transfer of landlords ' lands to them. As of October 21, 1917, 5637 dessiatines were transferred to the peasants in Lokhvitsky uyezd, 17,007 dessiatines in Khorolsky uyezd, and 25,000 dessiatines in Kremenchug Uyezd. According to the 1910 census, owners with more than 50 dessiatines had 33,669 dessiatines of arable land in Lokhvitsky uyezd, 58,943 dessiatines in Khorolsky uyezd, and 57,402 dessiatines in Kremenchug Uyezd. Thus, 31% of the land of landlords passed to the peasants. P. N. Pershin admits that more or less significant areas were distributed in other counties. "However, this," he emphasizes, "was by no means a general redistribution of all the landlords 'lands." 95 It seems to us that a further in-depth study of the sources will allow us to obtain more complete data on the economic results of the development of the agrarian revolution in the pre-October period.

In the historiography of the peasant movement of 1917, other controversial or poorly understood issues remain. There are differences in the political assessment of local peasant congresses. There is still no clear definition of the geography of peasant uprisings, as well as a set of indicators of the transition of the peasant struggle for land to an uprising. There are significant differences in the periodization of the revolutionary movement in the countryside, etc.

It.ak, over the past 20 years, an extensive literature on the history of the peasant movement has been created, and some progress has been made in studying the problem as a whole and its individual aspects. As a result of the publication of local studies and a significant expansion of the source base, there were prerequisites for writing generalizing works on large regions, which should give a deep development of the question of socio-economic prerequisites and the very history of the peasant movement. This requires a broader disclosure of the content of the peasant movement as a combination and interweaving of various forms and trends of class struggle in the countryside. In particular, it is very important to summarize the available factual material on the political actions of the working peasantry against the state authorities that defended the landlords.

The available scientific results convince us that the successful study of certain aspects of the peasant revolutionary struggle requires not only the use of an increasing number of sources, but also the improvement of the research methodology. For example, the sources do not contain any statistical, questionnaire, or other direct information about the class composition of grassroots peasant organizations. Therefore, certain conclusions on this issue are still being drawn on the basis of separate general information. Meanwhile, an objective indicator of the social composition of peasant organizations can be data on the activities of these organizations, on their class orientation, data that are available in many sources and that can be summarized in statistical tables according to a certain method. In this connection, the question of the reliability of various groups of sources used in the study of the peasant movement also requires special consideration.

94 P. F. Reshodko. The struggle of the peasants of the Kharkov province for land in 1917, p. 178.

95 P. N. Pershin. Op. ed., pp. 429-430.

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