cancelled (as from 1907). This made it possible
for a peasant to become the legal proprietor of
the land. But as most of the land was held within
the organisation of a village commune (mir), his
freedom was still heavily circumscribed. The
change Stolypin aimed at was a transformation of
the existing communes into a whole new class of
peasant proprietors, each farming his own land,
not in strips as before, but consolidated into one
viable farm.
The independent well-to-do peasant propri-
etors were already a phenomenon, especially in
western Russia. The purpose of the land reform
associated with Stolypin’s name was to increase
their number in all parts of Russia. Legislation
passed in 1906, 1910 and 1911 facilitated the
redistribution of land within the commune and
gave the right to the peasant to secede from the
commune and claim the land he farmed. How
successful did these reforms prove? The problem
of Russian agriculture was gigantic, due to over-
population, lack of capital, lack of knowledge and
simple peasant resistance to change. It has been
calculated that by 1916 about 2 million house-
holds had left the communes and set up their own
farms. It was no more than a beginning, but a
significant one. But since by 1916 more than 80
per cent of the land was already being farmed by
peasants, redistribution of land by taking it away
from the larger landlords and the Church could
no longer solve the continuing problem of land
hunger caused by overpopulation. The peasantry
was being divided between the richer, the poorer
and the landless peasants driven into the towns to
swell discontent there. Rapid industrialisation
promoted by the state, the spread of education,
political agitation and the continuing increase of
the population all produced severe social tensions.
1
MULTINATIONAL RUSSIAN AND HABSBURG EMPIRES 45
Nicholas II with his family (including nephews) in January 1916. His wife (not in the photograph) and children
were murdered with him two and a half years later. To the left of the tsar an officer is in attendance. On the
extreme right of the picture is the tsarevitch; next to him the grand duchess Anastasia. © Hulton-Deutsch
Collection/Corbis
