As a matter of fact the “bloody internecine struggle” had been going on for some time. Even before the overthrow of Kerensky there had been many of these village wars. The Bolshevist Government did not make any very serious attempt to interfere with the peasant movements for the distribution of land for some time after the coup d’état. It was too busy trying to consolidate its position in the cities, and especially to organize production in the factories. There was not much to be done with the farms at that season of the year. Early in the spring of 1918 agents of the Soviet Government began to appear in the villages. Their purpose was to supervise and regulate the distribution of the land. Since a great deal of the land had already been seized and distributed by the peasants, this involved some interference on the part of the central Soviet power in matters which the peasants regarded themselves as rightfully entitled to settle in their own way.
This gave rise to a bitter conflict between the peasants and the central Soviet authorities. If the peasants had confiscated and partitioned the land, however inequitably, they regarded their deed as conclusive and final. The attempt of the Soviet agents to “revise” their actions they regarded as robbery. The central Soviet authorities had against them all the village population with the exception of the disgruntled few. If the peasants had not yet partitioned the land they were suspicious of outsiders coming to do it. The land was their own; the city men had nothing to do with it. In hundreds of villages the commissions sent by the Bolsheviki to carry out the provisions of the land program were mobbed and brutally beaten, and in many cases were murdered. The issue of Vlast Naroda (Power of the People) for May, 1918, contained the following:
In Bielo all members of the Soviets have been murdered.
In Soligalich two of the most prominent members of the Soviets have literally been torn to pieces. Two others have been beaten half dead.
In Atkarsk several members of the Soviets have been killed. In an encounter between the Red Guards and the masses, many were killed and wounded. The Red Guards fled.
In Kleen a crowd entered by force the building occupied by the Soviets, with the intention of bringing the deputies before their own court of justice. The latter fled. The Financial Commissary committed suicide by shooting himself, in order to escape the infuriated crowd.
In Oriekhovo-Zooyevo the deputies work in their offices guarded by a most vigilant military force. Even on the streets they are accompanied by guards armed with rifles and bayonets.
In Penza an attempt has been made on the lives of the Soviet members. One of the presiding officers has been wounded. The Soviet building is now surrounded with cannon and machine-guns.
In Svicherka, where the Bolsheviki had ordered a St. Bartholomew night, the deputies are hunted like wild animals.
In the district of Kaliasinsk the peasantry has decidedly refused to obey orders of the Soviets to organize an army by compulsion. Some of the recruiting officers and agitators have been killed.
Similar acts become more numerous as time goes on. The movement against the Soviets spreads far and wide, affecting wider and wider circles of the people.
The warfare between villages over confiscated land was a very serious matter. Not only did the peasants confiscate and divide among themselves the great estates, but they took the “excess” lands of the moderately well-to-do peasants in many instances—that is, all over and above the average allotment for the village. Those residing in a village immediately adjoining an estate thus confiscated had, all other things being equal, a better chance to get the lands than villagers a little farther distant, though the latter might be in greater need of the land, owing to the fact that their holdings were smaller. Again, the village containing many armed men stood a better chance than the village containing few. Village made war against village, raising armed forces for the purpose. We get a vivid picture of this terrible anarchy from the following account in the Vlast Naroda:
The village has taken away the land from the landlords, farmers, wealthy peasants, and monasteries. It cannot, however, divide it peacefully, as was to be expected.
The more land there is the greater the appetite for it; hence more quarrels, misunderstandings, and fights.
In Oboyansk County many villages refused to supply soldiers when the Soviet authorities were mobilizing an army. In their refusal they stated that “in the spring soldiers will be needed at home in the villages,” not to cultivate the land, but to protect it with arms against neighboring peasants.
In the Provinces of Kaluga, Kursk, and Voronezh peasant meetings adopted the following resolutions:
“All grown members of the peasant community have to be home in the spring. Whoever will then not return to the village or voluntarily stay away will be forever expelled from the community.
“These provisions are made for the purpose of having as great a force as possible in the spring when it comes to dividing the land.”
The peasantry is rapidly preparing to arm and is partly armed already. The villages have a number of rifles, cartridges, hand-grenades, and bombs.
Some villages in the Nieshnov district in the Province of Mohilev have supplied themselves with machine-guns. The village of Little Nieshnov, for instance, has decided to order fifteen machine-guns and has organized a Red Army in order to be able better to defend a piece of land taken away from the landlords, and, as they say, that “the neighboring peasants should not come to cut our hay right in front of our windows, like last year.” When the neighboring peasants “heard of the decision” they also procured machine-guns. They have formed an army and intend to go to Little Nieshnov to cut the hay on the meadows “under the windows” of the disputed owners.
In the Counties of Schigrovsk, Oboyansk, and Ruilsk, in the Province of Kursk, almost every small and large village has organized a Red Guard and is making preparations for the coming spring war. In these places the peasants have taken rich booty. They took and devastated 160 estates, 14 breweries, and 26 sugar refineries. Some villages have even marked the spot where the machine-guns will have to be placed in the spring. In Volsk County in the Province of Saratov five large villages—Kluchi, Pletnevka, Ruibni, Shakhan, and Chernavka—expect to have war when the time comes to divide the 148,500 acres of Count Orlov-Denisov’s estate. Stubborn fights for meadows and forests are already going on. They often result in skirmishes and murder. There are similar happenings in other counties of the province; for instance, in Petrov, Balashov, and Arkhar.
In the Province of Simbirsk there is war between the community peasants and shopkeepers. The former have decided to do away with “Stolypin heirs,” as they call the shopkeepers. The latter, however, have organized and are ready for a stubborn resistance. Combats have already taken place. The peasants demolish farms, and the farmers set fire to towns, villages, threshing-floors, etc.
We have received from the village of Khanino, in the Province of Kaluga, the following letter:
“The division of the land leads to war. One village fights against the other. The wealthy and strong peasants have decided not to let the poor share the land taken away from the landlords. In their turn, the poor peasants say, ‘We will take away from you bourgeois peasants not only the lands of the landlords, but also your own. We, the toilers, are now the government.’ This leads to constant quarrels and fights. The population of the neighboring village consists of so-called natives and of peasants brought by landlords from the Province of Orlov. The natives now say to those from Orlov: ‘Get away from our land and return to your Province of Orlov. Anyhow, we shall drive you away from here.’ The peasants from Orlov, however, threaten ‘to kill all the natives.’ Thus there are daily encounters.”
In another village the peasants have about 5,400 acres of land, which they bought. For some reason or other they failed to cultivate it last year. Therefore the peasants of a neighboring village decided to take it away from them as “superfluous property which is against the labor status.” The owners, however, declared:
“First kill us and then you will be able to take away our land.”
In some places the first battles for land have already taken place.
In the Province of Tambov, near the village of Ischeina, a serious encounter has taken place between the peasants of the village of Shleyevka and Brianchevka. Fortunately, among the peasants of Brianchevka was a wise man, “the village Solomon,” who first persuaded his neighbors to put out for the peasants of Shleyevka five buckets of brandy. The latter actually took the ransom and went away, thus leaving the land to the owners.
In some instances the Bolsheviki instigated the peasants to massacre hundreds of innocent people in adjacent villages and towns. They did not stop, or even protest against, the most savage anti-Jewish pogroms. Charles Dumas, the well-known French Socialist, a Deputy in Parliament, after spending fifteen months in Russia, published his experiences and solemnly warned the Socialists of France against Bolshevism. His book[8] is a terrible chronicle of terrorism, oppression, and anarchy, all the more impressive because of its restraint and careful documentation. He cites the following cases:
[8] La Vérité sur les Bolsheviki, par Charles Dumas.
On March 18, 1918, the peasants of an adjoining village organized, in collusion with the Bolsheviki, a veritable St. Bartholomew night in the city of Kuklovo. About five hundred bodies of the victims were found afterward, most of them “Intellectuals.” All residences and stores were plundered and destroyed, the Jews being among the worst sufferers. Entire families were wiped out, and for three days the Bolsheviki would not permit the burial of the dead.
In May, 1918, the city of Korocha was the scene of a horrible massacre. Thirty officers, four priests, and three hundred citizens were killed.
In May, 1918, the relations of the Soviet Government to the peasantry were described by Gorky as the war of the city against the country. They were, in fact, very similar to the relations of conquering armies to the subjugated but rebellious and resentful populations of conquered territories. On May 14th a decree was issued regarding the control of grain, the famous compulsory grain registration order. This decree occupies so important a place in the history of the struggle, and contains so many striking features, that a fairly full summary is necessary:[9]
[9] The entire text is given as an appendix at the end of the volume.