So I was looking up unfamiliar words in the intro and text in prolewiki and the www if not listed
Corvee: unpaid forced labor (for a proscribed period of time?)
Tatars: Turkic speaking peoples found across Eastern Europe and Northern Asia: from where, specifically?
After the abolition of serfdom, still hampered by survivals of serfdom. During the twenty-five years, 1865-90, the number of workers employed in large mills and factories and on the railways increased from 706,000 to 1,433,000, or more than doubled.
What was the approximate population of tsarist Russia and USSR immediately after the abolition of serfdom and revo?
transcaucuses: looked at a modern map on Western www; wondering if it much differs from the referenced era?
seven or eight rubles per month. The most highly paid workers in the metal works and foundries received no more than 35 rubles per month:
I'm wondering what rough equivalent to modern Western wages/COL? USD or EU is fine. I tried multiple conversion searches without results.
I don't really trust Western results regarding this text, as already there is a discrepancy in "mulct" from ½ as given to ⅓ online.
Thanks in advance.
7
Edie [it/its] - 1mon
What was the approximate population of tsarist Russia and USSR immediately after the abolition of serfdom and revo?
The last revision list ("a series of census lists of the taxable population") of 1857–1859 counted 74,556,400.
The only census (in the Russian Empire) was taken in 1897, and counted 125,640,021 (excluding Finland). The next census would be the 1926 Soviet, counting 147,027,915. A partial census was taken in 1920.
Markevich and Harrison (no idea if they are correct) estimate that at the start of 1913 the Russian Empire had 150 million people, and in the territory that would be part of the future interwar Soviet borders would therefore be 133 million (in 1913).
4
Maeve - 1mon
Thank you so much for all the work you put into your reply! 🫡❤️
I looked at Wikipedia, but after the first discretion with "mulct," I was confused and skeptical.
4
Edie [it/its] - 1mon
No problem.
What was the mulct problem? I didn't understand it from what you wrote.
I wanted to also answer your currency question, but then I looked at the wikipedia page and it turned out to be even harder than I had anticipated.
Upon utilizing "find in page" for "half," "1/2," and "½," I think I probably conflated In "most cases the peasants were obliged to pay the landlords rent in kind in the amount of one-half of their harvests," with the mulct. I was surprised how tedious this reading was, I'm out of the habit and will be re-teaching myself proper reading.
That's an interesting chart. I've bookmarked it to refer to consistently.
Anyway thank you again.
3
yunah-knowles - 4w
The Narodniks maintained that Socialism in Russia would come not through the dictatorship of the proletariat, but through the peasant commune, which they regarded as the embryo and basis of Socialism. But […t]he formal existence of communal land ownership and the periodical redivision of the land according to the number of mouths in each peasant household did not alter the situation in any way. Those members of the commune used the land who owned draught cattle, implements and seed, that is, the well-to-do middle peasants and kulaks. The peasants who possessed no horses, the poor peasants, the small peasants generally, had to surrender their land to the kulaks and to hire themselves out as agricultural labourers. As a matter of fact, the peasant commune was a convenient means of masking the dominance of the kulaks and an inexpensive instrument in the hands of the tsarist government for the collection of taxes from the peasants on the basis of collective responsibility. That was why tsardom left the peasant commune intact. It was absurd to regard a commune of this character as the embryo or basis of Socialism.
i know (probably more on sheer intuition) small scale communes like this won’t work on a pragmatic level, but i don’t get what this specific passage means. i know the quote where you cant sort of abolish class differences with the stroke of a pen but i don’t get the narodnik proposal specifically and what they’re referring to in this commune of the poorer peasants still having to sell their labour power. so i guess it’s not like a ‘commune’ as some specific anarcho-communists envision it where everyone works towards the goal of the small collective, but then what is the hypothetical here? /genq
5
☭ 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗘𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 ☭ - 4w
Are you asking how the Narodniks thought this would actually work? It's not a materialist ideology and is fundamentally flawed in believing the peasantry the main revolutionary class, despite lacking the class consciousness of the industrial proletariat.
5
yunah-knowles - 4w
no i was more wondering “okay, the narodniks think that smaller peasant communes are the key to socialism” and then read this passage assuming the proposal here was still a restructuring of the peasant commune where the resources were at least being redistributed or truly communal in this nucleus so that there wasn’t an inequality between the rich kulaks and the poorer peasants, and so i got confused when they were explaining how no such distinction/solution to the issue of inequality within peasant structure was in the narodnik thesis (even if the solution was erroneous, i waws thinking the narodniks at least had an awareness or attempt to resolve that issue)
but i realize now that the narodniks had a truly populist and baseless ideology and they had no such solution. they idealized the existing peasant structure beyond belief (which already, like, they did idealize the ‘common, simple’ peasants as being the revolutionary class while also diminishing the role of the masses and reducing it to the hero/mob dilemma) that even the distinctions of kulak and non-horse owning farm owner were lost on them. i dont know, maybe i shouldnt focus so much on the nitty gritty of their idealist ideology because all idealist ideologies have inconsistencies with reality
3
☭ 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗘𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 ☭ - 4w
non-Marxist ideologies shouldn't be dismissed out of hand but they do tend to break down fairly quickly under scrutiny
2
yunah-knowles - 4w
it’s insanely juvenile but seeing this line
In 1875 the South Russian Workers' Union was formed in Odessa. This first workers' organization lasted eight or nine months and was then smashed by the tsarist government.
just makes me sad and contemplative just cuz, you know, odessa. also telling was how severely the introduction hammers in the chauvinism of tsarist russia to non russian nationals was Bad and Undesirable. and then i think about that painting of the warsaw pact, and then i think about nato/usa fomenting conflicts, and i’m like wow, this sucks and i’m sad
4
yunah-knowles - 4w
Marx and Engels, the great teachers of the proletariat, were the first to explain that, contrary to the opinion of the utopian Socialists, Socialism was not the invention of dreamers (utopians), but the inevitable outcome of the development of modern capitalist society
yeah it’s well known but this truth is so potent that the leading sentiment in the west must always be that it is a failed ideology of moralists/utopians when marx would blow a fucking gasket if he kept hearing you talk like that. just funny every time i see this in texts because it reminds me how insanely they invert marx’s ideas. me when i can understand the basic overt ideas of very basic ml texts 🤯!!!!!
GrainEater in theory
History of the CPSU (Introduction + Chapter 1: 1883-1901) | Theory Discussion Group, Week 25 of 2026
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So I was looking up unfamiliar words in the intro and text in prolewiki and the www if not listed
Corvee: unpaid forced labor (for a proscribed period of time?)
Tatars: Turkic speaking peoples found across Eastern Europe and Northern Asia: from where, specifically?
What was the approximate population of tsarist Russia and USSR immediately after the abolition of serfdom and revo?
transcaucuses: looked at a modern map on Western www; wondering if it much differs from the referenced era?
I'm wondering what rough equivalent to modern Western wages/COL? USD or EU is fine. I tried multiple conversion searches without results.
I don't really trust Western results regarding this text, as already there is a discrepancy in "mulct" from ½ as given to ⅓ online.
Thanks in advance.
The last revision list ("a series of census lists of the taxable population") of 1857–1859 counted 74,556,400.
The only census (in the Russian Empire) was taken in 1897, and counted 125,640,021 (excluding Finland). The next census would be the 1926 Soviet, counting 147,027,915. A partial census was taken in 1920.
Markevich and Harrison (no idea if they are correct) estimate that at the start of 1913 the Russian Empire had 150 million people, and in the territory that would be part of the future interwar Soviet borders would therefore be 133 million (in 1913).
Thank you so much for all the work you put into your reply! 🫡❤️
I looked at Wikipedia, but after the first discretion with "mulct," I was confused and skeptical.
No problem.
What was the mulct problem? I didn't understand it from what you wrote.
I wanted to also answer your currency question, but then I looked at the wikipedia page and it turned out to be even harder than I had anticipated.
Coming back to it right now, I found this interesting page: https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/lida-district/wages.htm, slightly later (1895-1905) but might give you somewhat of an idea.
Upon utilizing "find in page" for "half," "1/2," and "½," I think I probably conflated In "most cases the peasants were obliged to pay the landlords rent in kind in the amount of one-half of their harvests," with the mulct. I was surprised how tedious this reading was, I'm out of the habit and will be re-teaching myself proper reading.
That's an interesting chart. I've bookmarked it to refer to consistently.
Anyway thank you again.
i know (probably more on sheer intuition) small scale communes like this won’t work on a pragmatic level, but i don’t get what this specific passage means. i know the quote where you cant sort of abolish class differences with the stroke of a pen but i don’t get the narodnik proposal specifically and what they’re referring to in this commune of the poorer peasants still having to sell their labour power. so i guess it’s not like a ‘commune’ as some specific anarcho-communists envision it where everyone works towards the goal of the small collective, but then what is the hypothetical here? /genq
Are you asking how the Narodniks thought this would actually work? It's not a materialist ideology and is fundamentally flawed in believing the peasantry the main revolutionary class, despite lacking the class consciousness of the industrial proletariat.
no i was more wondering “okay, the narodniks think that smaller peasant communes are the key to socialism” and then read this passage assuming the proposal here was still a restructuring of the peasant commune where the resources were at least being redistributed or truly communal in this nucleus so that there wasn’t an inequality between the rich kulaks and the poorer peasants, and so i got confused when they were explaining how no such distinction/solution to the issue of inequality within peasant structure was in the narodnik thesis (even if the solution was erroneous, i waws thinking the narodniks at least had an awareness or attempt to resolve that issue)
but i realize now that the narodniks had a truly populist and baseless ideology and they had no such solution. they idealized the existing peasant structure beyond belief (which already, like, they did idealize the ‘common, simple’ peasants as being the revolutionary class while also diminishing the role of the masses and reducing it to the hero/mob dilemma) that even the distinctions of kulak and non-horse owning farm owner were lost on them. i dont know, maybe i shouldnt focus so much on the nitty gritty of their idealist ideology because all idealist ideologies have inconsistencies with reality
non-Marxist ideologies shouldn't be dismissed out of hand but they do tend to break down fairly quickly under scrutiny
it’s insanely juvenile but seeing this line
just makes me sad and contemplative just cuz, you know, odessa. also telling was how severely the introduction hammers in the chauvinism of tsarist russia to non russian nationals was Bad and Undesirable. and then i think about that painting of the warsaw pact, and then i think about nato/usa fomenting conflicts, and i’m like wow, this sucks and i’m sad
yeah it’s well known but this truth is so potent that the leading sentiment in the west must always be that it is a failed ideology of moralists/utopians when marx would blow a fucking gasket if he kept hearing you talk like that. just funny every time i see this in texts because it reminds me how insanely they invert marx’s ideas. me when i can understand the basic overt ideas of very basic ml texts 🤯!!!!!