NII

• Stolypin aimed to use distribution to build and strengthen the class of more able, educated and 'best' peasants
• Unused or poorly utilised land was made available to the Peasant land Bank. Forward-looking peasants could then buy the land from the bank on favourable terms
• Peasants who were still farming strips were given the right to consolidate their land into smallholdings. However this backfired because it led to an expansion int he numbers joining the wealthier class of peasants (who were unsatisfied by Stolypin's reforms)
• By 1914, 2 million peasats had left the village communes, leaving some regions very short of rural labour