Historians’ Assessments on the Rural Revolution in Russia

‘Paradox’ is the word commonly used by historians to describe the proletarian revolution that occurred in
Russia, a country where peasants made up ninety percent of the population. However, according to Richard Pipes
the revolution was not actually led by the proletariat. Since the industrial workers of Russia were only “superficially
urbanized, they carried with them to the factory rural attitudes only slightly adjusted to industrial conditions.”21 The
historian also suggests that the February 1917 incidents did not involve a proletarian revolution; rather the workers
simply “played…the role of a chorus that reacted to and amplified the actions of the true protagonist, the army.”22
Pipes supports his claims by maintaining that the proletariat in Russia had no interest in politics and were
insignificant, comprising only two percent of the population. Nevertheless, Pipes does not imply that the peasants
were the true revolutionaries, as they were only revolutionary in that they did not acknowledge the private
ownership of land, advocating instead ownership through the mir. 23 John Channon argues there was no Bolshevik

sponsored rural revolution and that the so-called ‘Rural Revolution’ of 1917 to 1918 “had seemingly little to do with
the revolutionary aspirations of the poor peasants or with Bolshevik influence.”24 Instead he argues that the
revolution was promulgated at a village level as a “rational response of the community to a swift and dramatic
increase in the man-to-land ratio.”25 Despite the lack of Bolshevik influence in the countryside and the presence of
rural autarky, Lenin had definite ideas on the revolutionary potential of the peasants.