Russian Peasant Organisation Before Collectivisation

Most Russian peasants in the mid-1920s held their land as members of a commune (or mir), the old Russian form of land-holding. The revolution had brought a revival in the fortunes of the institution. This was not a welcome development to the Bolsheviks and the Soviet government unsuccessfully attempted to supplant the commune as the focus of rural affairs.

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Most Russian peasants in the mid-1920s held their land as members of a commune (or mir), the old Russian form of land-holding. The revolution had brought a revival in the fortunes of the institution. This was not a welcome development to the Bolsheviks and the Soviet government unsuccessfully attempted to supplant the commune as the focus of rural affairs, by instituting the rural Soviets. The debate on land-holding in the mid-twenties bore fruit only in encouraging peasants to modify the worst inefficiencies of strip farming.