Origin and Development of a Revolutionary Situation primarily the living standards of the peasants and workers . The crisis of Russia’s economic development affected The yoke of feudal obligations kept increasing . The countryside continuously starved because of crop failures , loss of cattle and lack of arable land and pastures . The poverty of the peasants led to epidemics , increased morbidity and mortality , and a decreased birth – rate . The serf system destroyed the rural workers , the most important productive force of the society of that time . The worsening of the peasants ‘ conditions stimulated their struggle against the landowners . The peasants refused to pay quit – rent and to perform the feudal services , ran away from the landowners , set fire to the landowners ‘ estates , beat and killed the serf – owners and their stewards . Between 1826 and 1861 , there were 1,186 serf uprisings . The disturbances involved almost every part of the country . In the outlying national districts this movement merged with the struggle of the peoples against national oppression ( Cauca sus , Poland , etc. ) . The struggle of the peasants was supported by workers who experienced the oppression , brutality and arbitrary rule not only of the proprietors and factory administration , but also of the landowners . The Russian peasants struggled for land and freedom , i.e. for abolition of the feudal dependence . Objectively these demands of the peasants were aimed at creating favourable conditions for the development of capitalism in Russia . The actions of peasants and workers were savagely suppressed by tsarism . The laws , prisons , army and all the policies of the landowner state defended the interests of the land- and serf – owners and hampered the development of new produc tion relations in Russia . The socio – economic development of the country required the removal of these obstacles by a social force which was interested in creating new production relations . The peasants were heterogeneous and disunited ; they were concerned only with their local interests and therefore could not combine their efforts to wage a revolutionary struggle for their demands . Only the working class could be the revolutionary leader of the peasantry , but at that time Russia had as yet no working class . The Russian bourgeoisie interested in the capitalist development of the country was economically and politically weak . By its origin it was in large measure connected with the landowner class . It had good knowledge of the bourgeois revolutions in Western Europe , saw the increasing struggle of the West – European proletariat and therefore feared the revolution . Afraid of a peasant war the Russian bourgeoisie only tried through the lips of liberals to persuade the land owners and tsarist officials to make a concession to capitalist development , to ” emancipate ” peasantry and thereby avoid revolution , abolition of landowners ‘ property rights and liquidation of autocracy . The aggravation of the crisis of the serf system led to a new stage of the revolutionary movement in Russia . The spokesmen for the peasantry in the 1840s – 60s were progres sive intellectuals who were cognisant of the aspirations of the labouring peasants . They stemmed from the petty clergy , officialdom , petty bourgeoisie , merchants , peasantry and declassed nobility and were revolutionary democrats by conviction . They were fully aware of the savagery of serfdom and unmasked it . They formulated the demands of the peasants as a programme of complete abolition of serfdom and of making land available to peasants without redeeming it from the landowners . The revolutionary democrats exposed the serf character of the projected ” emancipation of the Russian peasants from above . Many of them held that the people could obtain satisfaction of their demands only by abolishing the landowners ‘ property a rights and overthrowing the power of the land and serf owners by means of a peasant revolution . The Russian revolutionary democrats acted at the time when the revolutionary character of the bourgeois democracy in Europe was already dying off . The experience of the West showed them the miseries capitalism brought to the people . In connection with this , some of them who did not understand the new way of revolutionary development , in which the principal role is played by the proletariat , brought forward the utopian theory of a ” peasant socialism ” . In this theory the exposure of serfdom and the criticism and rejection of the capitalist system were combined with demand for a transition from backward Russian reality directly to socialism through development of the peasant community , which existed in Russia , with its ” everybody’s right to land ” , self – government , etc. The ideas of ” peasant socialism ” reflected the revolutionary aspirations of the peasants to equality , abolition of the landowners ‘ property rights and overthrow of the rule of the land- and serf owners . But this theory was far from scientific socialism because it rested on survivals of old social relations , on the disintegrating peasant community . Russia’s road to socialism ran through the stage of capitalist development . The revolutionary democrats – A . I. Herzen , V. G. Belinsky , N. G. Chernyshevsky and N. A. Dobrolyubov – deeply hated serfdom and tsarism and called on all progressive Russians to struggle against autocracy . Chernyshevsky demanded complete abolition of serfdom without redemption , complete freedom and a free transfer of all the land to the peasants . By castigating autocracy and serfdom the revolutionary democrats educated the progressive intellectual youth in a radical spirit and the youth started organising political circles . The proclamations of the revolutionary democrats unmasked the contemplated deal between tsarism and the landowners . Cheryshevsky called on the peasants to rise against tsarism and serfdom . ” Tell the Russian people to take up battle – axes , ” Chernyshevsky taught the revolution aries . The heroic efforts of the democratic forces in Russia did not suffice to organise and lead the struggling peasantry : The peasants waged a bitter struggle for land and freedom , which attested the existence of a revolutionary situation in Russia , but they were not organised politically and were incapable of overthrowing serfdom . Despite that the revolutionary upsurge was one of the most important factors that forced the landowners to abolish serfdom in Russia .