Point 1 - Peasants Suffered from Backward Living Conditions and Primitive Farming Methods Flashcards
What percentage of the Russian population were peasants in 1917?
80%
Why did farming methods make them discontent?
They were mostly very backward (primitive). They had no modern equipment and still used horse-drawn ploughs.
Why did living conditions make peasants discontent?
Houses lacked running water and flushing toilets. In many homes, animals were kept at one end of the building while the humans lived at the other.
What else contributed to peasant discontent?
Most peasants, especially women and older people were illiterate.
What did the peasants want - which they weren’t getting - which added to their discontent and made them potentially violent?
Land reform. They wanted wealthy landowners to lose their land and for it to be redistributed among ordinary peasants.
Did government work to calm the peasants down?
Quite the opposite - the peasants resented the interference of government and wanted it to leave them alone to get on with their lives.
What did peasants do about their discontent?
There was a tradition of peasant uprisings against landowners and government officials. This made the peasants a dangerously violent group who might, at times of difficulty or unhappiness, turn to violence.
How did World War One impact the discontent of the peasants?
The war made the situation even more difficult for Russian peasants because over 15 million of them were drafted into the army to fight and the horses they relied upon for farm work were seized by the military to haul guns and waggons.
Why else did the war impact peasants in a bad way?
It became harder to get hold of chemical fertilizers as industry was focused on making explosives and weapons - this added to the decline in food production. in both towns and the countryside.
