The alliance of workers and peasants was an essential condition for the victory of the October Revolution, the first successful socialist revolution in the world. Although Lenin gave sufficient theoretical explanation for the necessity ol the participation of peasants in the October Revolution, contemporary Marxists are faced with the task of continuing to study closely the experiences of the Uctobei Revolution and other socialist revolutions when dealing with the a°rarian and peasant questions. & This task has acquired additional urgency through the fact that a detailed analysis ol the participation ol peasants in socialist revolutions — ranging from the October Revolution, the Chinese and the Yugoslav revolutions to the Cuban and other revolutions — can promote a better understanding of the nature and trends of national liberation movements and struggles of the present era whose initial stages as a rule bear the features of peasant revolutions (in respect of the forces and immediate programmes involved). The author tries to make a modest contribution to the study of the agrarian question and the role of the peasantry in the October Revolution by discussing briefly certam characterastics of the history of the agrarian question in Russia and Europe during the period before the Revolution. f ^The f-rS^ fe,wPart the author’s longer paper are published in this number of the periodical. In a few next numbers there will be published the other parts. In this number published article, the author discusses the agrarian problems in bourgeois revolutions in Europe through the 19th century, results of the restricted developments capitalism in Russia after 1861 and theoretical conflicts in solutions of the agrarian question in the Russian bourgeois revolution. Jhe two Russian bourgeois democratic revolutions which preceded the socialist 0ct°der Revolution hid not settle the agrarian question because of the treachery of the bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie entered into alliance with the feudal class tearing lest the proletariat should seize power. As a result these revolutions did not resolve the agrarian question even to which it was solved bv the bourgeois revolutions m Europe in the 19th century and even before. " What marked the situation in Russia in particular was the fact that the agianan programme aroused clashes and ideological disputes between the Marxist conception, the Populist conception and the conception of liberal capitalism The author briefly discusses the essence of these disputes. The author analysis particularly theoretical basis and practical consequences of the populism conception.