For Want of a Word – Stolypin endures

[Adeimantus]

Nice timeline! One of the aspects I find most interesting about a Russian ww1 victory or non communist russia in general is the impact it would have on demographics. In OTL the population was decimated by the civil war and famines after ww1, losing tens of millions people when including the affects of civil war, war communism induced famines, and dekulakisation induced famines. Also the sudden intensive urbanisation and socialist policies are credited with dramatically reducing the russian birth rate.

In a world where none of these calamities occur, what would the russian empire's population be? I have heard some estimates of having ~400 million people by 1950, with the vast majority being east slavs. This is due to a lack of famines and a continuation of peasant life as normal (or relatively normal considering reforms) when the fertility rate of peasants was about 6, 7 or 8 per family. If this continues what would happen?? Surely Russia would become just as powerful as the USA by the 1950s.

 

[alexmilman]

So I only have wiki to go on, but this doesn't endear me to him:

Though I must be honest and agree this is with 2021 hindsight

What is missing in the quote is that the atrocities had been modus operandi of all sides involved in the RCW, that they had been started by the Red side and that their leadership was much more blood-thirsty. Red Terror was much bloodier than White Terror and, unfortunately, both were the facts of life.

Anyway, Maykop massacre had little to do with Denikin: the city was taken by the “Kuban Army” of general Pokrovsky subordinated to the Kuban Rada, government of the Kuban Cossack Host. It eventually joined the Volunteer Army but what you are talking about was a completely independent operation. I wrote about situation on the Northern Caucasus in one of the earlier posts: demands of “inogorodnie” to redistribute the Cossack land made the Cossacks quite mad and forced the local Red troops to retreat (with the huge numbers of refugees) from the area. Siege of Maykop was a part of that fight. To be fair, Pokrovsky was known for his cruelty but also was a brave and talented commander.

 

[AlexG]

So I only have wiki to go on, but this doesn't endear me to him:

Though I must be honest and agree this is with 2021 hindsight

The latter point is the most important one.

If we used current year thought for everything we'd have a fatalistic and suicidal society with no past and therefore no hope for the future.

Russia for most of it's history has been an anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic society. The former is due to the general anti-Semitism of early and medieval Christian churches which seeped into all Christian states to varying degrees. The latter due to it's traumatic experience with the various Islamic khanates and states it came into contact with as it developed a true national identity and rose to power.

The Soviet Union also was an anti-Semitic state for much of the same reasons, but which were lessened because Jews were an outsized part of the Bolshevik leadership and because of the Atheist nature of the Bolsheviks themselves which created a mutually beneficial alliance between persecuted Jews and Bolshevism. That said, in Stalin's later years after all enemies of the state had been dead and buried and there was 'no one left to conquer' he set his eyes on the Jewish community.

This isn't to say that this behavior is ok. But it does mean that we can't judge them by the standards of today if we want to view history accurately and as it happened rather than color everything through our contemporary standards of human decency.

All that said: Denikin was at least a competent commander and would have been a good choice for the military high command of the Tsarist government.


P.S. I'm going crazy here author person, please update

 

[brooklyn99]

If we are on the topic of Russian military, I do wonder how post-war Russian military doctrine will evolve. Chances are, Mikhail Tukhachevsky would've stayed active within the Tsarist army, but I'm unsure if Deep Battle doctrine will come to the fore if there wasn't the circumstances for Tukhachevsky to catapult into prominence. Which makes me think, what military-men could we see come to the fore? For one, I could see Anatoly Pepelyayev going places. The dude was a fascinating figure. After briefly relocating to Manchuria during the Russian Civil War, he returned with a force of under a thousand men to wage what would be the last armed organised resistance to Bolshevik rule in Russia. He was pretty young to be general and yet, despite the circumstances I think he was apt and displayed well enough potential as a commander during the civil war. It's interesting to speculate how things will progress for him this time around, since I could see him perhaps being someone parallel to Rommel, who himself was distinguished for his military performance that could be seen as particularly impressive given his youth, right down to how the forces they lead both had the predicament of suffering from really subpar supply chains =D.

P.S. I'm going crazy here author person, please update

As a general rule, Hard AH works like this take a lot of time to formulate given the intensive research and brain-storming that is typically involved to flesh out a story and world that appears plausibly realistic enough, plus IRL stuff interspersed as well.

I am thrilled for this TL myself. But as they say; "Patience is a virtue".

 

[The Galaxy]

If you can't argue in good faith, don't argue.

I am arguing in good faith, it is indeed others who require a source that land was worked before the war, that are not.

To require a source that land was worked before the war is indeed ridiculous.

And in good faith I must be allowed to point that out.

And you are using your mod powers and authority to enforce this double standard against me.

If I had written:

"I applaud your patience (😂)."

As "alexmilman" wrote in post 673, the I would have been banned, but he can write it no problem. Double standards.

And another example is "dunHozzie" writing in post 670

"So in stead of farting in our general direction (Monty Python!)"

If I had written the same, you would have banned me.

And on the subject of good faith, neither of them actually respond to what I am writing but things they construct in their minds, not the actual text written. And then claim that is my point, indeed that is the very definition of not arguing in good faith.

 

[The Galaxy]

So you original post was:

That Alex rebutted:


I still haven't seen any of your sources that state Alex is wrong, except you typing "you are wrong". However, we humored you and low and behold, I could find something that partially adds proof for you: namely that peasant communal ownership wasn't working, see this post. So my point would be you'd ought to talk about how to reform the communes. If you again look at my post, it actually states that though communes itself weren't bad, the lack of land consolidation hurt them immensely. Additionally the lack of investment into modern techniques and tools (e.g. Tractors) was a big issue.

So in stead of farting in our general direction (Monty Python!) I'd rather see a post tackling the redistribution and modernization.

And one other thing: Forgiving the debt is nice and all, but who's going to pay for it? In your older posts you referred to US loans to the central government. Sure that works, but who's going to pay them back? And the interest? Ow, and what are you not going to do because you spend money on forgiving loans?

I'd argue that leasing a reorganized peasant commune a (couple of) tractor(s) would have a better impact.

And as I wrote, he is talking about the nobility and the nobilities land, not all worked land.

I am talking about all worked land. I have written this several times now.

And before that I pointed out that by 1917, 90% of all lands had been privatized during the war by the ww1 Kulaks, which is not to be confused with Stalins use of the word "Kulaks" that he used to oppress whole peoples.

"The Russians that prospered the most during the war were peasant land-owners: Kulaks. Cunning muzhiks bribed local officials to prevent conscription and saw a field of opportunity open up during the war. While more and more peasants were sent to their deaths on the front lines, kulaks grabbed up their land in a free-for-all. By 1917, kulaks owned more than 90% of the arable land in European Russia, where once the majority or arable land had been in the hands of peasant communes. "

The 250,000 includes those just mentioned, what alexmilman in addition to only mentioning the nobility is omit those land owners that are mentioned in the above qoute.

That land is also to be redistributed but not as was happening to a few, but to all.

The peasants loans are to be forgiven, and no one is paying anything, the loans are simply stricken off the books. You falsely assume that someone must pay the loans, no that is not the case. The country Russia and its previous loans are to be transferred to the central powers in addition to the war reparations. So what happens is that the peasants are debt free, and the country is debt free.

Then in addition to all of that alexmilman text is highly misleading since the landbank was an institution but it was controlled by the nobility, not some separate entity, and the interests were for those times quite high and the lands that were sold were the ones of the lowest quality, the nobles keeping the good parts.

 

[alexmilman]

If we are on the topic of Russian military, I do wonder how post-war Russian military doctrine will evolve. Chances are, Mikhail Tukhachevsky would've stayed active within the Tsarist army, but I'm unsure if Deep Battle doctrine will come to the fore if there wasn't the circumstances for Tukhachevsky to catapult into prominence.

Tukhachevsky is routinely credited for this theory but actually the concept was authored by Triandophilov and Kalinovsky in «Теория наступления современных армий в современной войне» (1929) and as formulated, became obsolete within the next few years in a part related to the tanks. The 1st time the idea was formulated by Triandophilov in 1926 in «Размах операций современных армий»: for an offensive against enemy's static front one needs a special strike army with a big number of a heavy artillery, including artillery of a strategic reserve. After that, cavalry, motorized units and the light tanks should penetrate the gap and keep advancing all the way to the end of the enemy's tactical defensive depth and exploit it further on "operational" level. He expressed a need for having a reasonably well-armored tank capable to withstand enemy's artillery fire and to open the road to the light tanks. In 1936 the theory was included in the Field Regulations of the Red Army (at that stage Tukhachevsky became relevant) in a form that included the joined operations of artillery, armor, aviation (including dropping paratroopers in enemy's rear). In its finalized form, the deep offensive had to include 7 echelons: bombers, heavy tanks, medium and light tanks, motorized infantry, heavy artillery, infantry with the supporting tanks. The paratroopers were considered a special echelon.

I'm not sure if this theory had been fully implemented prior to 1945 (Vistula-Order offensive and campaign against Japan). Presumably some elements of it had been used earlier with the mixed results (quite often disastrous, as in 1941 and 1942).

Of course, Tukhachevsky would continue his service (unless he decides to switch profession and start making fiddles ) but his chances for a great career would not be too good: most of WWI he spent as POW in Germany.

Which makes me think, what military-men could we see come to the fore? For one, I could see Anatoly Pepelyayev going places. The dude was a fascinating figure. After briefly relocating to Manchuria during the Russian Civil War, he returned with a force of under a thousand men to wage what would be the last armed organised resistance to Bolshevik rule in Russia. He was pretty young to be general and yet, despite the circumstances I think he was apt and displayed well enough potential as a commander during the civil war. It's interesting to speculate how things will progress for him this time around, since I could see him perhaps being someone parallel to Rommel, who himself was distinguished for his military performance that could be seen as particularly impressive given his youth, right down to how the forces they lead both had the predicament of suffering from really subpar supply chains =D.

Probably it would be a fair guess to assume that most of the RCW personages would not make it to the top in a peace-time Tsarist army. WWI provided a jump-start for a number of historic personages to the level of army or front command but many of them were reasonably young and would keep serving for a long time to be replaced by the "second echelon" of the people raised during the WWI to the level of division/corps command. Turn of the even younger personages would be decades later if ever (especially for the non-orthodox figures like Unghern, Shkuro, Mamontov or Pepelyayev who ended WWI with a rank of captain).

 

[alexmilman]

The latter point is the most important one.

If we used current year thought for everything we'd have a fatalistic and suicidal society with no past and therefore no hope for the future.

Russia for most of it's history has been an anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic society. The former is due to the general anti-Semitism of early and medieval Christian churches which seeped into all Christian states to varying degrees. The latter due to it's traumatic experience with the various Islamic khanates and states it came into contact with as it developed a true national identity and rose to power.

It seems that perhaps the only "entity" of the RCW operating in the Southern Russia/Ukraine that was not implicated in anti-Semitic action was Nestor Makhno: not only did he refuse to cooperate with Grigoriev (who was fighting on pretty much all sides except for the Whites) over the pogroms issue but he created the Jewish units of self-defense on territory he control (and these units had been later exterminated ... by the Reds). And the famous 1st Cavalry Army had terrible reputation for pogroms, looting and mass-murders. Link https://allin777.livejournal.com/35056.html is to the text of a telegram sent by Trotsky and S.S. Kamenev to the leadership of the 1st Cavalry Army regarding pogroms and the mass murders (including those of the local Bolshevik administrators).

 

[Zrttr]

"The Russians that prospered the most during the war were peasant land-owners: Kulaks. Cunning muzhiks bribed local officials to prevent conscription and saw a field of opportunity open up during the war. While more and more peasants were sent to their deaths on the front lines, kulaks grabbed up their land in a free-for-all. By 1917, kulaks owned more than 90% of the arable land in European Russia, where once the majority or arable land had been in the hands of peasant communes. "

Sources? By the way, the link on the word "Kulak" leads to a Marxist website. You could at least try to pretend you searched for facts before coming up with the opinion.

And before that I pointed out that by 1917, 90% of all lands had been privatized during the war by the ww1 Kulaks

Factually incorrect. As stated before, 89% of all land in European Russia was owned by people with less than 50 "десятин", which is not nearly enough to call them "bourgeois".

To require a source that land was worked before the war is indeed ridiculous.

No one, at any point, disputed that claim. Obviously, if there was a farm, someone was working on it. What we are discussing is your underhanded assertion that 9 in every ten people were almost slaves, working for feudal lords. The fact of the matter is that only 10% of land in European Russia fits the description. Redistributing those ten percent isn't going to solve the issue of land for the other ninety.

 

[CalBear]

And as I wrote, he is talking about the nobility and the nobilities land, not all worked land.

I am talking about all worked land. I have written this several times now.

And before that I pointed out that by 1917, 90% of all lands had been privatized during the war by the ww1 Kulaks, which is not to be confused with Stalins use of the word "Kulaks" that he used to oppress whole peoples.

"The Russians that prospered the most during the war were peasant land-owners: Kulaks. Cunning muzhiks bribed local officials to prevent conscription and saw a field of opportunity open up during the war. While more and more peasants were sent to their deaths on the front lines, kulaks grabbed up their land in a free-for-all. By 1917, kulaks owned more than 90% of the arable land in European Russia, where once the majority or arable land had been in the hands of peasant communes. "

The 250,000 includes those just mentioned, what alexmilman in addition to only mentioning the nobility is omit those land owners that are mentioned in the above qoute.

That land is also to be redistributed but not as was happening to a few, but to all.

The peasants loans are to be forgiven, and no one is paying anything, the loans are simply stricken off the books. You falsely assume that someone must pay the loans, no that is not the case. The country Russia and its previous loans are to be transferred to the central powers in addition to the war reparations. So what happens is that the peasants are debt free, and the country is debt free.

Then in addition to all of that alexmilman text is highly misleading since the landbank was an institution but it was controlled by the nobility, not some separate entity, and the interests were for those times quite high and the lands that were sold were the ones of the lowest quality, the nobles keeping the good parts.

Okay.

That's it, out of the pool.

So done with this.

You keep saying the same thing, time after time DESPITE other have provided actual data that refutes your statement. Simply saying the same thing over and over does not constitute good faith debate. It is a not unreasonable example of the opposite.

It is clear that you have a political point to all of this, unfortunately repeatedly stating a political talking point does NOT make it true.

Kicked for a week.

 

[alexmilman]

What we are discussing is your underhanded assertion that 9 in every ten people were almost slaves, working for feudal lords. The fact of the matter is that only 10% of land in European Russia fits the description. Redistributing those ten percent isn't going to solve the issue of land for the other ninety.

IIRC, approximately 6,000,000 peasants (*) had been working as the employees in various capacities: an agricultural hired hand (“батрак”), gardener, stable man, salesperson in a rural shop, etc. So it was actually well under 10% of the “exploited” and quite a few of them had been well-paid professionals.

_________
(*) “Peasant” was an officially defined social status written in person’s document but not necessarily reflecting person’s occupation beyond a fact that this person is not an officially indicated permanent city dweller, not a member of a merchant guild, not a member of a clergy or a noble and not a person with a high or professional education. For example, a professional lumberjack or a professional rafter who was transporting the wood to the destination had been counted as the “peasants” in the census and other official documents. The same would go for a village blacksmith. They may not have too much land besides a garden near their house and would not care because their income source was elsewhere.

 

[moopli]

Getting back to the subject, I’d say that the problem with the communal land property was not as much an idea itself but it’s form of implementation. The land was owned by a community (which was neither good nor bad) but for the purpose of working on it it had been partitioned (on annual basis, which kills individual’s interest in improving land quality) between the community members and even this was done as a set of the narrow strips separated from each other thus limiting possibility of using the modern equipment.

This, exactly this, is the root of the issue. European peasant communities since time immemorial would distribute risk across the families of the village by giving everyone some plots of land on good farming soil, and some on poor soil. This is obviously an oversimplification, it wouldn't be only a peaceful negotiation, but it seems to me like the practice in Russia of regularly reallocating farmland is an evolution of the principle - with communal ownership, it's possible and valuable to reallocate land to account for changing local climates, shifting patterns of use, and even changing size of families.

If community not just owned tye land but worked on it as on undivided parcel (with the profits distributed based upon some established principle) than modernization of the methods is possible

I think the crux of the issue is exactly that established principle - what are the rules that govern the distribution of the profits, and how do you manage and oversee said distribution to ensure it actually follows those governing rules? Allocating a parcel of land to a family is easy - they work their land, they pay certain costs (rents, taxes, etc), and their profits are whatever is left, which they are then free to distribute however they please within the family. To reform the obshchina to allow for larger parcels worked by multiple families collectively, you have to either convince the peasants to give up contiguous parcels for collective labour, or force them, and then you have to give the obshchina the ability to manage its own accounts - to sell produce (in competition with the peasants themselves from their private production?), pay wages, purchase equipment, presumably take out loans for said purchases, and finally distribute the profits to the peasants. Who manages the accounts? How are decisions made, and how are the executors of said decisions (eg, the person chosen to manage the collective account) kept accountable? Modern, voluntary collective farms (eg, those in Europe) manage to answer these questions, but they're set in societies that have much better education and access to information, and a state apparatus that can enforce the rule of law in rural hinterlands. I imagine that there is a route forward for successful, voluntary Russian collective farming in the context of TTL, but I am not sure what that route is.

who and why would keep lending money to a foreign government who is not going to pay them off because it keeps forgiving the debts owned to it?

On this point I'll speak to their defense, as far as I could tell, they argued (with insufficient clarity and excessive vigor) that war reparations from WWI be the source of the money that pays off these loans. Now, I doubt sufficient war reparations could be extracted to pay for full forgiveness for peasant borrowing and full repayment of foreign debt, but they could still purchase and renegotiate a portion of peasant debts.

 

[dunHozzie]

I partially agree. I totally agree the issue lies in intrinsic motivation and trust in groups bigger than one family. I just think the issue is not limited to Russia, or collective farms.

It's a human problem, and society has tried to various degrees of success to stimulate the desired behaviour. I've seen great collective arise, but I've seen them fall equally fast when a bad apple or set of apples join the community. Such is life, and there is little to be done to banish it. My plan would be to limiting the size. Not to great so people feel not emotionally invested, not too small to have no buffer in case of individual hardship. Additionally both the collective and the members ought to be able to remove/leave and replace/join once per year. Lastly they should be administrative units and just that.

Hopefully it allows the ones that do well grow, the ones that don't function empty out naturally.

 

[Sam R.]

Bourgeois collectives built on threats of starvation and force work when “too big to fail,” even after state failure. Collectives too small to be “self-insuring” will eventually fail. 90% of small businesses fail fast.

Its institutional or collective resilience, which comes with size. There’s a reason I international socialists fantasized bigger is better and leads to full communism: more resilience.

 

[TheBalkanizer]

Is Germany still a Monarchy? Has there been Socialist or Republican uprisings?

 

[AlexG]

Something I just noticed was that the Balkans are going to firmly be on the (at the very least) Russian side of a potential WW2. OTL The newly independent or victorious Balkan states (sans Greece) all banded together in a "little entente" in order to act in concert to prevent future Hapsburg (Austrian or Hungarian restoration of the empire attempts) and Bulgarian territorial revanchism. The Soviet Union wasn't a part of this alliance for a variety of reasons, but none of those reasons exist ITTL. Russia can now exert influence into these newly liberated or unified states and entrench it's power in the Balkans for good. Austria,

Just food for thought but I'm finding it hard to see a potential WW2 breakout ITTL with the power structure so against a resurgent Germany and without a real way for it to expand beyond a begrudging Entente acceptance of Anschluss.

 

[Adeimantus]

Something I just noticed was that the Balkans are going to firmly be on the (at the very least) Russian side of a potential WW2. OTL The newly independent or victorious Balkan states (sans Greece) all banded together in a "little entente" in order to act in concert to prevent future Hapsburg (Austrian or Hungarian restoration of the empire attempts) and Bulgarian territorial revanchism. The Soviet Union wasn't a part of this alliance for a variety of reasons, but none of those reasons exist ITTL. Russia can now exert influence into these newly liberated or unified states and entrench it's power in the Balkans for good. Austria,

Just food for thought but I'm finding it hard to see a potential WW2 breakout ITTL with the power structure so against a resurgent Germany and without a real way for it to expand beyond a begrudging Entente acceptance of Anschluss.

Completely agree. The post ww1 landscape seems to suit just about everyone except the Germans and Poles who would never work together. As well as that the Russian empire now appears to have an extremely competent military, a perception completely lacking for the soviet union IOTL. Hitler thought he could beat the SU in weeks, no dictator could have that hope here. If there is any major wars after this they would occur outside of Europe for sure.

My guess is that the USA, remains isolationist, as the Russian empire, the other "Western" country with an extremely favourable demographic trajectory AND a huge military presence in Europe would easily take its place.

It would be interesting to see which side Russia takes in the Sino Japanese war. Maybe they would ally with Japan knowing the future potential threat of a unified industrial China, or maybe they ally with China who knows. They don't really have any reason to be hostile towards Japan, they still have the manchurian section of the trans siberian and conquering Manchuria isn't really in their interest. Most likely they would prefer an expansion of influence in Xinjiang and Mongolia.

 

[AlexG]

It would be interesting to see which side Russia takes in the Sino Japanese war. Maybe they would ally with Japan knowing the future potential threat of a unified industrial China, or maybe they ally with China who knows. They don't really have any reason to be hostile towards Japan, they still have the manchurian section of the trans siberian and conquering Manchuria isn't really in their interest. Most likely they would prefer an expansion of influence in Xinjiang and Mongolia.

That's an interesting question!

If you pressed me on it I'd have to say that Russia comes down on the Chinese side again, but for a few reasons: first, now that Russia has basically proved itself as a world super power with it's victory in WWI they'll have 'personal' reasons to settle the score with the Japanese. 2. Their support of China will come with conditions, both economic and territorial (likely economic dominance in Manchuria and possibly the annexation of outer Manchuria and Port Arthur.) 3. a powerful Japan on it's eastern flank does nothing to help Russia, while a divided or recovering and grateful China provides many opportunities for a future alliance, growth and security in the far east.

That aside, Japan could be another breaking point between the Western Alliance and Russia with Britain reluctantly accepting Japan's ultra militarism in order to ensure that the balance of power isn't totally going in Russia's favor. In fact, I think we could see a Spanish Civil War style 'non-intervention agreement with all the major powers' but with Britain and Russia deciding to support their side anyways.

Meanwhile, the United States won't be as closely tied to the British as they were OTL. With the British and French eventually reneging on the WWI war debt and supporting Japan in China we could see a truly neutral U.S.

There is one scenario for WW2 but it needs the Britain Germany and Japan (possibly Italy +Balkan goons and Turkey) to go against France, Russia, the Balkan entente + Greece, and possibly the U.S. for it to be plausible that both sides see a real chance for victory.

As you can see, that's a lot of things that need to break the right way for this alt-WW2 to happen in around 20 to 30 years before Nuclear weapons become prevalent.

 

[The Galaxy]

Okay.

That's it, out of the pool.

So done with this.

You keep saying the same thing, time after time DESPITE other have provided actual data that refutes your statement. Simply saying the same thing over and over does not constitute good faith debate. It is a not unreasonable example of the opposite.

It is clear that you have a political point to all of this, unfortunately repeatedly stating a political talking point does NOT make it true.

Kicked for a week.

Everything you write is a lie.

The first question for a source, was for handing over the land from the owners to the workers.

No source what so ever is needed for that since it is an action, but you deliberately lie about that, even though one can go back and look.

I pointed that out.

The question for a source, was for this specific outcome, because you and those asking for a source for that can not debate, but you can using this false claim give the illusion that a source was needed and then not given and use that for a kick.

Only the last question for a source was coherent but I had no time to answer it.

You are obviously abusing your powers which should be removed from you. You should never have been made mod, you are completely the wrong person for that, since you obviously lie and misrepresent the facts.

Look at the personal attacks that have been thrown at me and when I asked what would happen if i said the exact same thing, you ignored that question and went to a kick.

 

[Panzerschreck]

Everything you write is a lie.

The first question for a source, was for handing over the land from the owners to the workers.

No source what so ever is needed for that since it is an action, but you deliberately lie about that, even though one can go back and look.

And the question for a source, was for this specific outcome, because you and those asking for a source for that can not debate, but you can using this false claim give the illusion that a source

Only the last question for a source was coherent but I had no time to answer it.

You are obviously abusing your powers which should be removed from you. You should never have been made mod, you are completely the wrong person for that, since you obviously lie and misrepresent the facts.

Look at the personal attacks that have been thrown at me and when I asked what would happen if i said the exact same thing, you ignored that question and went to a kick.

But what you claim, that 90% of land was owned by kulaks on the eve of the revolution is COMPLETELY wrong. In 1914 90% of land was owned by peasants and more than 90% of that owned collectively in communes. This number did not reverse itself during the course of the war. You are totally incorrect and you provide no evidence. So no, "giving the land to the peasants" isn't really a policy that would help anyone, what should be done is a continuation of the encouragement to communal peasants to become small independent proprietors. Only then could the eternal question of land be solved. Basically turn great Russian communal peasants into what Ukrainian and polish peasants were, creating a conservative, property owning peasantry, which almost every European country had at the time.