Why was there a shift to
rural living during this time?

if the time you are talking about is the pandemic is because of the rural area is more widespread than urban living. Urban living is densely populated and during the pandemic, that is one thing that people did not want. To be near people with a deadly virus going around. Not to mention, rural living is usually more cheaper than urban living. This being critical since jobs have been going out of business leaving people without ways of making money.

b: to eliminate competition from other farmers

the treaty of brest-litovsk was a peace treaty signed on 3 march 1918 between the new bolshevik government of russia and the central powers (german empire, austria-hungary, bulgaria, and the ottoman empire), that ended russia's participation in world war i.