Here's an analysis of a text by Peter Gatrell, pertaining to World War I and the impact it had upon society. Great book - read it for a great explanation of how the everyday subject of the Russian Empire functioned as the state itself began to strain.
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In Russia’s First World War: a Social and Economic History, Peter Gatrell characterizes the experiences of the Russian lower classes in a way that echoes historically their treatment by the upper classes and the state. Throughout World War I, the state absolutely commanded the lives of the peasants and workers to best serve the war effort, depriving them of other options and effectively disregarding the humanity of the state’s subjects. The Revolution of 1905 and the Tsar’s subsequent lack of regard for the peasant’s capacity for democracy were indicative of the state’s inability to connect with the lower classes. In addition, the war effort disabled any chance of the peasantry to better itself economically and stunted the social growth of the lower classes, preventing any sense of societal mobility in the face of international conflict. The conscription issue, too, displayed the largely corrupt methods put to use by the state in promoting the privileged over the peasants. The depletion of local males for use on the front lines also modified gender roles within the lower classes. In Russia’s First World War: a Social and Economic History, Peter Gatrell elaborates upon the generally transformative – and oftentimes destructive – nature of the state’s decision making and World War I itself on the social fabric of Russia’s lower social orders.
Late Imperial Russia’s ambivalence toward the actual humanity of the lower classes in the face of recent attempts at democratizing the state is truly indicative of the harsh treatment forced upon the Russian commoner in the face of the state’s war effort. Massive social unrest brought on by the Revolution of 1905 was answered with, instead of legitimate concessions or even consideration toward the cause of the problem, “a clever combination of repression and reform”: voting was formalized for lower class groups alongside brutal execution of peasants who actively sought a fairer state . The formation of the State Duma in 1906, a democratic concession granted by Nicholas II only after the aforementioned social upheaval, did little to impact the inner workings of the state: the Tsar himself had little innate knowledge as to why the events preceding the Duma’s creation have even occurred – a display of the state’s unabashed ignorance toward the motives of the progressives and lower classes – and did not take the opinion of the public into account by any means, rather deciding to continue the often corrupt and undemocratic methods to which Nicholas II was most accustomed . While this did not directly impact the social fabric of the peasantry, the government’s denial of the public’s legitimate ability to participate in the semi-democratic process of the Duma assisted in bolstering the irritation of the lower classes.
The mismanagement of conscription and production by the Russian state influenced the economic standing of the nation as a whole and, as a result, greatly impacted social life. Gatrell states that, shockingly, “no thought was given to the impact of conscription on industrial production” – an unbelievable move on the part of the Russian military planners, those educated individuals who seemed to completely ignore the very basic drop in production that would be suffered upon the significant removal of workers from the industrial sector for use in the war . The effects of the drop in industry were felt not only by the state’s war effort, which proved lackluster in terms of munitions, but also by the peasants who felt twin blows to their financial state and social mobility. The inability of many Russian factories to transfer over to military production also led to the loss of Russian jobs, plunging hundreds of thousands of workers into unemployment . Strikes were not common due to the patriotic sentiment behind war mobilization of Russia’s industrial sector: interrupting the flow of work may hurt or kill the Russian soldier, a fault that no lower class worker would want leveled against them by either state authorities (being branded as traitors and charged ) or by their peers (thus preventing social unity among the equally underprivileged worker classes) .
Finances in general were modified catastrophically due to the fluctuating Russian economy; as a result, the lower classes were affected socially. The value of Russian currency dropped and the likelihood of a peasant being able to buy land or even enter the market of manufactured goods thinned frighteningly, thus disallowing the Russian peasant to prosper in the war’s economic environment . At one point, the state imposed a prohibition on alcohol and, after a gain in economic activity, credited it for bolstering peasant productivity. Gatrell quickly disregards this, citing the peasants’ panicked attempts at liquidating their inventories as the true reason for economic activity – a much less hopeful view of what was only a temporary boost to the well-being of the peasants. Despite this, Gatrell does acknowledge that the general financial lot of the peasantry did remain steady or improve nominally. Business ventures such as the (sometimes coerced) distribution of livestock to the Tsarist army and the aforementioned liquidation of surplus onto the market allowed for peasants to gain an amount of cash. It is worth once again referencing, however, of the impressive inflation experienced by Russian currency – a fact that Gatrell should have attached directly to his thought on the state of peasant financial intake .
Understandably, the conscription itself proved to be destructive to the social fabric of the lower classes. Peasant households deprived villages of their male populations to extreme points, removing economic stability and leaving the home in the hands of the non-conscripted members. According to Gatrell, almost one half of peasant households did not possess males of working age due to the mass conscription of the lower classes leading up to 1917 . Exemptions among the lower classes were almost universally disregarded, even if it meant another worker in the factories to contribute to the war effort. Gatrell quotes General Mikhail Belaev as stating that regarding any peasant exemption as legitimate would contribute a “delirious impact on [the] morale” of the armed forces . This sort of consideration toward the peasantry led to a degradation of respect for state representatives and authority, including officials of the state’s Orthodox Church: priests suffered financially due to low attendance and were regarded as mouthpieces of the state . Even family structure and authority came into question as Russian youths engaged in criminal activity, regarded by the state – the very entity that pushed peasantry’s youth into such behavior due to the effects of the loss of jobs and conscription upon the family – as mere “hooligans” .
The depleting of the male population in the villages and towns changed the Russian social dynamic by forcing women into a more public role. As a result of the large amount of men forced to the front lines by the conflict, women were forced out from the homes and into the public sphere. Gatrell describes that by 1916, women outnumbered men in peasant villages by approximately 60%; as a result, female peasants – known for being a good amount more liberal than their masculine counterparts – not only gained a prominent role in the matters of farming but also assisted in the institution of new techniques and technologies within that field . Women also participated greatly within the industrial workplace, a setting populated by an increasingly limited amount of men. From 1913 to 1916, the amount of women participating in a factory setting increasing from 30% to 40% with the largest inclusions of new female workers in the chemical and textile industries . Perhaps most starkly representative of the changing role played by lower class women was the forming of a “women’s battalion of death” by Maria Bochkareva, a peasant worker who was admitted to participate in the military after proving her ability to the overwhelmingly misogynistic Tsarist armed forces . Although these units were utilized mostly to foster the faltering morale of the armed forces in the face of losses and eventually failing in that goal, the mobilization of women for any purpose on the front of battle is a distinct display of the shift in gender roles that occurred as a result of World War I.
It is an undeniable fact that World War I and the Imperial Russian state’s treatment of the conflict had long-reaching effects upon the everyday lives of the lower classes. This fact is made even more important when one realizes the major role that these same peasants – neglected socially by the falsely inclusive government, their social fabric effectively torn asunder by the state’s lack of preparation for the Great War – would have in Russia’s rise in social unrest, which would eventually emerge into Russia’s February Revolution. The next social upheaval – the October Revolution – would come to be executed by the Bolsheviks, a group which disposed of the autocratic Tsar in favor of a government, at its base, with a large emphasis on the worth and participation of the lower classes. The seemingly endless abuse heaped unto the peasant classes throughout Russian history, from the period of the Rus’ serfs under the Mongol Yoke and eventually Ivan the Terrible’s harsh repression of any public resistance to the more contemporary ignorance toward the plight of the Imperial Russian peasant, would come to shape the Russian state in ways most certainly unexpected only years beforehand.
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Works Cited
Gatrell, Peter. Russia’s First World War: A Social and Economic History. Pearson Educated Limited: Harlow, England, 2005.
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Works on Russian history always seem to get me riled up - for good reason, it's always so damned interesting.
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