In the proposed article, on the example of the revolutionary events of 1917-1921 in Kharkiv Government, the interconnection between internal political stability and the solution of the land issue is shown. The object of the study is agrarian question as a conflict factor, which made the relations between the authorities and the population of the region more complicated. Having gained the control over the region the opposing governments had to solve not only military but also economic questions. The most difficult problem was to address the agrarian issue, as well as to determine the governments’ share in the total volume of production grown by the peasantry. To solve these problems the political regimes combined repressive actions, methods of encouraging local people’s collaboration, and information warfare. Despite the lack of the Ukrainian national political regimes’ support the agrarian population of Kharkiv Government resisted the «White» and «Red» terror and policy of War Communism. The most common forms of resistance of the peasantry in Kharkiv region were: illegal active struggle (armed uprisings, creation of rebel forces, terrorist acts), illegal passive struggle (desertion, concealment of food, sabotage of duties), legal active struggle (village meetings, peasant conferences) and legal passive struggle (refusal to work in local authorities, unwillingness to join the political party). In summing up authors pointed out that the conflict factors in the region included: the frequent change of the military-political situation, lack of reliable information in the countryside, popularity of Utopian ideas among the masses, food confiscations, terror of the repressive bodies, and spontaneity of the peasant rebellion movement.
Resource Windfalls, Political Regimes, and Political Stability
