Composing the vast bulk of the Russian Empire’s population, the peasantry was traditional, living a in “a world unto itself” (Pipes, 91). In the years prior to the Revolution, Russia’s “officialdom and the educated class” had relations with the peasants that were “in all respects but the racial like that of the natives of Africa or Asia to their colonial rulers.”  The peasant worldview centered upon the “household (dvor), the village (derevnia or selo), and the commune (mir or obshchina)” (Pipes, 92).  On the eve of the Revolution, the peasantry controlled most of the land in Russia, generally did so through the commune, and lacked private property and the concept of property rights.  Though generally respectful of the czar, the Russian peasantry hungered above all else for land.