The Peasants' War, Russia's Homefront in the First World War and the End of the Autocracy
Book •
The book argues that the experience of total war convinced peasants that the measure of a state’s legitimacy was its ability to safeguard the wellbeing of its subjects.
When the autocracy failed to meet this standard, peasants rejected its authority by challenging four areas of wartime policy: the prohibition of vodka, the conscription of peasant families’ only workers, the redistribution of land belonging to enemy subjects, and the provisioning of the home front.
The war awakened peasants to the reciprocal nature of the relationship between a state and its people.
Colleen Moore investigates how peasants leveraged their wartime service to negotiate with the state for improved rights and privileges and how they used this power to shape the contours and legitimize the authority of the world’s first socialist state.
When the autocracy failed to meet this standard, peasants rejected its authority by challenging four areas of wartime policy: the prohibition of vodka, the conscription of peasant families’ only workers, the redistribution of land belonging to enemy subjects, and the provisioning of the home front.
The war awakened peasants to the reciprocal nature of the relationship between a state and its people.
Colleen Moore investigates how peasants leveraged their wartime service to negotiate with the state for improved rights and privileges and how they used this power to shape the contours and legitimize the authority of the world’s first socialist state.
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Colleen M. Moore, "The Peasants' War: Russia's Home Front in the First World War and the End of the Autocracy" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025)
