Page:Karl Kautsky - Georgia - tr. Henry James Stenning (1921).pdf/80

 issue would be doubtful, especially in countries in which the peasants formed the largest class of the, population.

n this respect the conditions in Georgia are very favourable. We have seen that here the Social-Democrats have been the leaders and executors of the agrarian revolution which liberated the peasants from all the vestiges of feudalism.

It is true a similar relation exists also in Russia between the Bolshevists and the peasants, and it existed in France, in 1789 until the close of the Revolution between the majority of the peasants and the Paris revolutionaries. In these countries the peasants everywhere backed the Revolution so long as the reactionary powers threatened a restoration of feudal conditions. But as soon as the danger was over, the peasants went over as one man into the ranks of the counter-revolution. In places they had already rebelled against the Revolution, as we may recall La Vendee and the latest peasant revolts in Russia.

We have hitherto seen nothing like this, in Georgia, nor any indication that a change will occur within a measurable time. What is the reason for the difference?

One of the causes which, during the French Revolution, led to peasant revolts lay in the diversity of the peasants' conditions within the separate provinces of the country. There were some backward districts in which the feudal lord and the Church functioned as protectors and advisers, and not as exploiters, of the peasants. When revolutionary France plunged into war, and required sacrifices from the peasants, especially in the form of recruits, the feudal lords had no difficulty in provoking the peasants to rebellion in many of these backward provinces.

What remains of the Russian Empire as Soviet Russia is better placed in this respect. It was far more of a unity after it lost its border States, than was the old French monarchy. Had Russia retained its pre-war territory, Poland would easily have become far more dangerous than was La Vendee in 1793.