A Socialist-Revolutionary agrarian thinker who championed peasant cooperation
“We talk too much; at moments like these, action is necessary.”
Semyon Leontyevich Maslov was a Socialist-Revolutionary agrarian economist and organiser of the peasant cooperative movement. He supported land reform but opposed unsanctioned seizures of estates, seeking to join legal reform with rural self-government. As minister of agriculture in October 1917, he lived through the Provisional Government’s final hours and arrest in the Winter Palace, while continuing to defend the Constituent Assembly and cooperative politics. His later defence of cooperative autonomy conflicted with the direction of Soviet policy, and he was executed in 1938 and rehabilitated in 1988.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1897–1903Exiled to Kazan, then graduated from Kazan University’s law faculty
- 1902–1913Statistician in the Kazan zemstvo, peasant-press editor and Socialist-Revolutionary publicist
- 1913–1917Worked in Moscow agricultural cooperation and helped organise the Central Flax-Growers’ Association
- 1917.04–10Deputy chair of the Main Land Committee and member of the All-Russian Council of Peasant Deputies’ executive committee
- 1917.10.03–25Minister of Agriculture in the Provisional Government
- 1917.10–1918Arrested in the Winter Palace, then joined the underground Provisional Government and Constituent Assembly
- 1921–1929Chair of Selsko-Soyuz, professor and vice-rector of the All-Russian Cooperative Institute
- 1930–1938Exiled and rearrested before being executed in 1938
Related historical events
- 1917.10–1918.01The October RevolutionMinister of Agriculture of the Provisional GovernmentHe was among the ministers arrested by Antonov-Ovseenko in the Malachite Hall at 2:10 am, and later testified about the government's final hours.
- 1937–1938The Great PurgePerson executed during the Great PurgeAfter exile and rearrest, he was executed in 1938.
Land reform and agricultural cooperation
In 1917 Maslov supported land reform but opposed peasants’ unilateral seizure of landlords’ estates, seeking to address the land question through institutional reform. His agrarian reform plan would preserve land in large, productive capitalist farms; in October 1917, he also submitted a bill to the government transferring landlords’ estates to land committees, with model farms exempted. The bill failed to win cabinet support and was deferred for consideration by the Constituent Assembly. Maslov had worked in agricultural cooperation since 1914 and helped organise the Central Flax-Growers’ Association. In 1921 he became chair of the council of Selsko-Soyuz, the centre of agricultural cooperation, and continued writing on agricultural cooperation. His career brought together the peasant land question, legal reform, and cooperative organisation.