tion, and by their being forced out of agricultural 
production to a great degree. 
IT 
The contradictions between the desolate condition of 
the mass of the peasantry, the capitalist development 
of agriculture, and the domination exercised by the big 
landlords over the land, the basic means of agricultural 
production, was the fundamental cause of the 1905 
revolution, and was also one of the basic underlying 
factors in the revolutionary outbreak of 1917. Hav- 
ing crushed the 1905 revolution by means of the puni- 
tive expeditions of the czarist troops, by executions 
and death sentences, the czarist government was at the 
same time compelled, by means of the so-called “Stoly- 
pin laws,” to stimulate the development of agriculture 
along commercial and capitalistic lines at a heightened 
tempo. But these attempts could not create sufficiently 
favorable conditions for the liquidation of the conflict 
of interests between the landlords and the peasantry, 
inasmuch as the power and the profits remained in the 
hands of the ruling, land-owning class. As a matter of 
fact, the contradictions were actually aggravated by 
the Stolypin reforms, despite the fact that the czarist 
government attempted to base itself on certain groups 
in the villages by affording these groups the possibil- 
ity of expanding their holdings through the plundering 
of the common land. In spite of the decisive measures 
taken in this direction, the outbreak of the revolution, 
hastened by the war, led to the overthrow of the czarist 
regime and to the overthrow of the capitalist class, 
which had attempted to seize the power after the March 
revolution.