The later exponents of this policy were the Social-Revolu tionaries who were the strongest party of the Left till the Bolshevik Revolution. That the Populist doctrine had its roots in the natural conditions of the region is proved by the way it spread to the other agrarian countries of eastern Europe. It was perhaps natural that Serbia and Bulgaria should come under its influence, as both countries stood in close intellectual dependence on Russia. The decisive test is supplied by Rumania—a Latin country, strongly averse to Slav influence ; yet there also the new doctrine engendered the able Poporanist (popor, people) current, which together with the other groups never ceased de nouncing Marxism. (See D. Mitrany, Marx and the Peasant, in "London Essays in Economics in Honour of Edwin Cannan.") The Peasant Renascence.—The Populist movement had re mained largely theoretical. In the region in which it was born the peasants were kept under by a rigid political and social tutelage. Political activity among them, and claims for the dis tribution of land, were treated as revolutionary. The only out let for their grievances was occasional risings, like those of 1905 in Russia and 1907 in Rumania, which were mercilessly repressed. The World War and the Russian Revolution produced great changes. Sweeping agrarian reforms have transferred the land to the peasants, giving them potential economic independence and reducing in the same degree the influence of their former task-masters. In most of the countries concerned they have at the same time secured full political franchise. And everywhere they have been roused to a consciousness of their interests and of their power as a class. As a consequence powerful Peasant Parties have sprung up in all the countries of eastern Europe in which government is representative. The movement is yet in its infancy ; its possibilities reside in the facts that more than half the population of the globe lives in the typically peasant "family economy," and that of the hundred million European voters some 6o-7o million are peasants, as against some 20 million industrial workers.
Doctrine and Programme.—Unlike Socialism, which had a fully developed doctrine before it had an organised following, the Peasant Movement has sprung up suddenly and separately in the various countries, though out of similar convulsive events. Hence its sociology is in the making, and the programmes of the several Parties, which hitherto have had little contact with each other, show substantial variations. Essentially it is of course an agrarian movement ; but its philosophy and policy are eclectic, having taken over and adapted to its own use elements from all the three chief political divisions—from Con servatism and Liberalism as well as from Socialism. Its fun damental standpoint is a bias for a rural society, based on small Peasant property.
The radicalism of the eastern Peasant Movement is due to peculiar conditions in that region. Whereas in the west agrarian parties were a mixture of all rural classes, with the big land owners predominant, as in the German Landbund, the new Peas ant Parties are exclusively peasant. Secondly, the oppression of the peasantry in the east has till now prevented the growth of a peasant middle class, so that the movement is carried more uniformly by a mass of small peasants. Thirdly, the general peasant antagonism towards towns and capitalists has different effects in the two halves of Europe : in the west finance and industry are moving fast into a phase of international organisa tion, by means of cartels, trusts, etc., and the outlook of the
towns is cosmopolitan; as a reaction the countryside is Conser vative and nationalist. In the east the towns, industry and finance concentrate the essence of local nationalism, and the peasantry which has to pay the bill of protectionism, etc., favours in con sequence a Liberal and even Radical policy in all respects. Fourthly, in the industrialised States agriculture produces mainly for the home market and is anxious to be protected in it ; the peasants produce mainly for themselves with a surplus for export, and desire free trade.
National Organisations.—The new Peasant movement is peculiar to the eastern half of Europe. In the industrialised countries of the west, and even in Holland and Denmark, the peasants have been drawn into agrarian Conservative parties, as a result of a general agrarian antagonism to industry and finance, partly through clerical influence, and largely by the effective use of the Socialist demand for land nationalisation as a bogey. But just as western Socialism has stirred up industrial groups in the east and shaped their outlook, so the eastern Peasant Movement is bound to react upon peasant groups in the west. In France a Peasant Party was founded four weeks before the elections of 1928; none of its three candidates was elected, but the Party secured 8o,000 votes and is actively organising itself. In Ger many, likewise before that year's elections, the left wing of the old Landbund formed the new Christian National Peasant Party and gained 13 seats in the Reichstag. At the same time the Bavarian Bauernbund transformed itself into a German Peasant Party; it secured 8 seats in the Reichstag and dominated the parliamentary situation in Bavaria.
Some of the eastern Peasant Parties were founded before the World War, but became important only after its end. Most countries have only one Party, but in Poland and other States bordering on Russia the chaos of the revolution is still reflected in a continuous splitting-up and reshuffling of political groupings.
The following list suggests the strength of the movement in the various countries.