After October 1917 had the position of the peasantry improved? When the Bolsheviks took control of Russia in October 1917, they inherited huge economic problems in Russia.

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Michael Javens                                                                                  7/11/2002

After October 1917 had the position of the peasantry improved?

        When the Bolsheviks took control of Russia in October 1917, they inherited huge economic problems in Russia. There were massive food shortages and many peasants were starving. In this essay, I am going to look at the policies introduced by the peasants and assess whether their position had improved.

        When Lenin first came to power, he realized he could not make his desired improvements to Russia unless he was able to provide food for the country. However, he also had to pull out of the war as part of his party’s policies, and this meant losing Russia’s most rich soils for grain producing to Germany. This worsened the position of the peasants, putting more people into starvation and causing more famine.

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        Early policies by the Bolsheviks were part of state capitalism. The Bolsheviks issued the decree on land, stating that all of the land in Russia belonged to ‘the whole people’. This may seem to be a measure to improve the position of the peasants, but in fact the peasants had been seizing the land and claiming it for themselves since the revolution in February. This decree was simply made to sanction the actions of the peasants, but in reality the peasants would have took this action anyway, whether the decree was issued or not.

        State capitalism did not improve the ...

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