Developers of the peasant reform of 1861

Blocks 29.03.2021

The peasant reform of 1861, which abolished serfdom, marked the beginning of the capitalist formation in the country.

The main reason for the peasant reform was the crisis of the feudal-serf system. Crimean War 1853–1856 revealed the rottenness and impotence of serf Russia. In the context of peasant unrest, especially intensified during the war, tsarism went to the abolition of serfdom.

In January 1857, a Secret Committee was formed under the chairmanship of Emperor Alexander II "to discuss measures to arrange the life of landlord peasants," which in early 1858 was reorganized into the Main Committee for Peasant Affairs. At the same time, provincial committees were formed, which were engaged in the development of draft peasant reforms, considered by the Editorial Commissions.

On February 19, 1861, in St. Petersburg, Alexander II signed the Manifesto on the abolition of serfdom and the "Regulations on peasants emerging from serfdom", consisting of 17 legislative acts.

Main act - General position about the peasants who emerged from serfdom" - contained the main conditions of the peasant reform:

peasants received personal freedom and the right to dispose of their property;

the landowners retained ownership of all the lands belonging to them, but they were obliged to provide the peasants with "estate residence" and field allotment for use "to ensure their life and to fulfill their duties to the government and the landowner";

peasants for the use of allotment land had to serve a corvée or pay dues and did not have the right to refuse it for 9 years. The size of the field allotment and duties had to be fixed in the statutory letters of 1861, which were drawn up by the landowners for each estate and checked by peace mediators;

- the peasants were given the right to buy out the estate and, by agreement with the landowner, the field plot, before this they were called temporarily liable peasants.

The "general provision" determined the structure, rights and obligations of the bodies of peasant public (village and volost) administration and courts.

In 4 "Local Regulations" the size of land allotments and duties of peasants for their use in 44 provinces of European Russia were determined. The first of them is "Great Russian", for 29 Great Russian, 3 Novorossiysk (Ekaterinoslav, Tauride and Kherson), 2 Belarusian (Mogilev and part of Vitebsk) and parts of Kharkov provinces. All this territory was divided into three bands (non-chernozem, chernozem and steppe), each of which consisted of "localities".

In the first two bands, depending on the "locality", the highest (from 3 to 7 tithes; from 2 from 3/4 to 6 dessiatinas) and the lowest (1/3 of the highest) sizes of soul taxes were established. For the steppe, one "decree" allotment was determined (in the Great Russian provinces from 6 to 12 acres; in Novorossiysk, from 3 to 6 1/5 acres). The size of the state tithe was determined to be 1.09 hectares. Allotment land was provided to the "rural society", i.e. community, according to the number of souls (only male) by the time the charters were drawn up, who had the right to put on.

From the land that was in the use of the peasants before February 19, 1861, cuts could be made if the per capita allotments of the peasants exceeded the highest size established for this "locality", or if the landowners, while maintaining the existing peasant allotment, had less than 1/3 of the land of the estate . Allotments could be reduced by special agreements between peasants and landlords, as well as upon receipt of a donation.

If the peasants had plots of less than the lowest size in use, the landowner was obliged to cut the missing land or reduce duties. For the highest spiritual allotment, a quitrent was set from 8 to 12 rubles a year or corvée - 40 men's and 30 women's working days a year. If the allotment was less than the highest, then the duties decreased, but not proportionally.

The rest of the "Local provisions" basically repeated the "Great Russian", but taking into account the specifics of their regions.

Features of the peasant reform for certain categories of peasants and specific areas were determined by 8 "Additional rules": "On the organization of peasants settled in the estates of small landowners, and on the allowance for these owners"; "About the people assigned to private mining plants of department of the Ministry of Finance"; "About the peasants and workers serving work at the Perm private mining plants and salt mines"; "About the peasants serving work at the landowner's factories"; "About peasants and yard people in the Land of the Don Cossacks"; "About peasants and yard people in the Stavropol province"; "About Peasants and Household People in Siberia"; "About the people who came out of serfdom in the Bessarabian region".

The Manifesto and the "Regulations" were promulgated on March 5 in Moscow and from March 7 to April 2 in St. Petersburg. Fearing the dissatisfaction of the peasants with the conditions of the reform, the government took a number of precautionary measures: it redeployed troops, sent members of the imperial retinue to the places, issued an appeal by the Synod, and so on. However, the peasants, dissatisfied with the enslaving conditions of the reform, responded to it with mass unrest. The largest of them were the Bezdnensky and Kandeevsky speeches of the peasants in 1861.

On January 1, 1863, the peasants refused to sign about 60% of the charters. The purchase price of the land was much higher than market value at that time, in some areas - 2-3 times. In many districts, peasants sought to receive donation plots, thereby reducing allotment land use: in Saratov province by 42.4%, Samara province by 41.3%, Poltava province by 37.4%, Yekaterinoslav province by 37.3%, etc. The lands cut off by the landlords were a means of enslaving the peasants, since they were vital to the peasant economy: watering, pasture, haymaking, etc.

The transition of peasants to redemption lasted for several decades, on December 28, 1881, a law was issued on mandatory redemption from January 1, 1883, the transfer to which was completed by 1895. In total, by January 1, 1895, 124 thousand redemption transactions were approved, on which 9,159 thousand souls were transferred for redemption in areas with communal and 110 thousand households in areas with household farming. About 80% of buyout transactions were mandatory.

As a result of the peasant reform (according to information from 1878) in the provinces of European Russia, 9,860,000 peasant souls received 33,728,000 acres of land as an allotment (an average of 3.4 acres per capita). 115,000 landowners had 69 million acres left (an average of 600 acres per owner).

What did these "average" figures look like after 3.5 decades? The political and economic power of the tsar rested on the nobles and landowners. According to the 1897 census, there were 1,220,000 hereditary nobles in Russia and more than 600,000 personal nobles, to whom the noble title was given, but not inherited. All of them were landowners.

Of these: about 60 thousand - small estate nobles, had 100 acres each; 25.5 thousand - average local, had from 100 to 500 acres; 8 thousand large nobles who had from 500 to 1000 acres: 6.5 thousand - the largest nobles who had from 1000 to 5000 acres.

At the same time, there were 102 families in Russia: the princes Yusupovs, Golitsyns, Dolgorukovs, counts Bobrinskys, Orlovs, and others, whose possessions amounted to more than 50 thousand acres, that is, about 30% of the landlords' land fund in Russia.

The largest owner in Russia was Tsar Nicholas II. He owned vast tracts of so-called cabinet and specific lands. Gold, silver, lead, copper, timber were mined there. He leased out much of the land. The property of the king was managed by a special ministry of the imperial court.

Filling out the questionnaire for the census, Nicholas II wrote in the column about the profession: "The owner of the Russian land."

As for the peasants, the average allotment of a peasant family, according to the census, was 7.5 acres.

The significance of the peasant reform of 1861 was that it abolished feudal ownership of workers and created a market for cheap labor. The peasants were declared personally free, that is, they had the right to buy land and houses in their name, to conclude various transactions. The reform was based on the principle of gradualness: within two years, statutory letters were to be drawn up that determined the specific conditions for the liberation of the peasants, then the peasants were transferred to the position of "temporarily liable" until the transition to redemption and in the subsequent 49-year period, paying the debt to the state that bought the land for peasants from landlords. Only after that the land allotments should become the full property of the peasants.

For the liberation of the peasants from serfdom, Emperor Alexander II was called by the people the "LIBERATOR". Judge for yourself what was more here - truth or hypocrisy? It should be noted that out of the total number of peasant unrest that occurred throughout the country in 1857-1861, 1340 out of 2165 (62%) speeches occurred after the announcement of the 1861 reform.

Thus, the peasant reform of 1861 was a bourgeois reform carried out by the feudal lords. This was a step towards the transformation of Russia into a bourgeois monarchy. However, the peasant reform did not resolve the socio-economic contradictions in Russia, retained landownership and a number of other feudal-serf remnants, led to a further aggravation of the class struggle, and served as one of the main causes of the social explosion of 1905–1907. XX century.

The abolition of serfdom is the central event in the Russian history of the 19th century, since it affected the interests of the general population, changed their usual way of life, and ushered in the “epoch of great reforms”.

Objectively, regardless of the intentions of the reformers, the economic essence of the changes was to create conditions for the replacement of serf labor, based on non-economic coercion of the worker, with capitalist exploitation of a worker free personally, and also to some extent from the means of production, the worker.

“Manifesto of February 19, 1861”, “General Regulations on Peasants Who Have Emerged from Serfdom, Their Settlement and on the Government’s Assistance in Acquiring Field Land by Peasants”, other legislative acts of the reform ensured the undermining of feudal ownership of land, the mobilization of land property, its transition to other classes, including the peasantry, which was endowed with a number of personal and property rights. The reform created legal framework for the development of the all-Russian capitalist market: money, land, labor. It contributed to the spread of entrepreneurship, the productive use of capital. It was precisely these features of it, clearly visible in the economic upsurge of the 1870s and 1880s, that allowed historians to compare the adoption of the reform of 1861 with coming of age, followed by maturity.

However, Russia crossed this age threshold with a clear delay, as evidenced by its defeat in the European war of 1853-1856. Moreover, steps in the noted direction were taken by her, as it were, with reluctance, expressed in the limited nature of the transformations: the preservation of long time feudal-serf remnants in the form of landownership, the temporarily obligated state of the peasants with their political lack of rights, civil inequality in comparison with other estates.

This contradictory nature of the reform of the abolition of serfdom was clearly reflected in its implementation in the Yaroslavl province. The Provincial Committee for Improving the Life of the Peasants, which consisted of 20 landowners, was created on October 1, 1858, when there were 3,031 landowners, 523,345 serfs, and 28,072 yards in the province. Most of the peasants were owned by the feudal aristocracy, royal dignitaries and ministers. These include: the princes Gagarins and Golitsyns (Yaroslavl district), prince Vorontsov (Danilov district), prince Lieven (Lyubimsky district), counts Musin-Pushkins (Mologa district), who had over 76 thousand dessiatins. land, Count Sheremetev, who owned 18.5 thousand dess. land in the Rostov district and 70.96 thousand dess. in Uglich county. In the Yaroslavl province, the quitrent system of serf duties prevailed, according to which the landowner received the main income not from the land, but from his serf, who was released for quitrent. On the eve of the reform, 9% were in corvée, 61% of the peasants were on dues, the rest (30%) performed mixed service.

The peasants expected from the reform exemption from compulsory work for the landowner, the right to own the land they used, and also the allocation of not only agricultural, but also forest land. On March 8, 1861, the Manifesto on the abolition of serfdom was promulgated in Yaroslavl. As a result of its implementation, the peasants lost a significant part of the land in the form of segments: if under serfdom the average allotment of a Yaroslavl peasant was 5.2 dessiatines, then after liberation it was reduced to 3.8 dessiatines.

The forced nature of the reform was reflected in the fact that statutory charters, designed to regulate new relations between the former owner of the serfs and the peasants, were often drawn up without the participation of the latter. Such charters were clearly enslaving in nature, which led to their return by peace mediators to the landowners for alteration. According to the statutory charters, the Yaroslavl peasant, when he redeemed his land allotment, had to pay 41 rubles for 1 tithe of land. 50 k., while the average market price tithes in the Yaroslavl province was 14 p. 70 k. This injustice, as well as the obligatory serving of duties by mutual responsibility, the reduction of land allotments (cuts) caused discontent among the peasants, who often refused to sign charter letters, to perform duties to the landowner. Frightened by the performances of the peasants, the landowners were forced to even call in military teams to restore calm. In just less than a year after the proclamation of the "Manifesto of February 19, 1861" 46 peasant uprisings took place in the province.

The liberation of the peasants in the Yaroslavl province caused enormous sociocultural consequences and, having solved a number of problems, created new problem nodes in the life of every person and the whole society.

The defining feature of the peasant economy was the process of social stratification of the peasantry, its "de-peasantization". Already by the beginning of the 80s, horseless and one-horse households accounted for about 70% in the non-agricultural zone, up to 55% in the agricultural zone, and from 59 to 63% of the total number of households in the Urals. Wealthy peasants, kulaks, hired the rural poor to work for them. According to V.I. Lenin, by the 1990s, out of 3.5 million agricultural hired workers, approximately 1.5 million were employed in kulak farms. The kulaks used hired force to carry out 48 to 78% of household work.

All this shows that capital, penetrating into the countryside, restructured the very mode of production. Wealthy farms became capitalist, with hired labor, the poorest went bankrupt. New categories formed rural population- the rural bourgeoisie and the agricultural proletariat, which constituted the reserve of the industrial proletariat. In a word, the peasant economy after 1861, in the process of developing commodity-money relations, passed from the old, feudal methods of management directly to the new, capitalist ones.

Otherwise, the landlord economy developed. Here, before the reform, the corvée system dominated. The reform of 1861 undermined all its foundations: natural economy, attaching peasants to the land, non-economic, i.e. legal, their dependence on the landowner. Peasant farming ceased to be integral part landlord. Now the landowner was losing direct power over the peasants and was forced to rebuild his economy on a capitalist basis. But the transition from the corvée system to the capitalist one could not be quick. On the one hand, there was a lack of conditions necessary for capitalist production (a class of people accustomed to working for hire, replacing peasant implements with landlords, a rational, commercial and industrial organization of agriculture); on the other hand, the corvée system, although it was undermined, still retained its viability: the landlords took over 1/5 of the peasant lands in the form of "segments" and could use such rudiments of non-economic coercion as the temporarily obligated condition of the peasants, corporal and other punishments, preservation community and mutual responsibility. All this allowed the landowners to introduce a transitional, so-called labor-work system of management, which combined the features of corvée and capitalist systems.

The labor-working system consisted in the fact that the peasants cultivated the landlords' land with their inventory and livestock either for cash rent, or to pay off a debt (bread and money), or to pay a fine for damage, felling, etc., but most often for land rented at the landowner. This system differed from corvée primarily in that the landowner forced the peasants who were legally dependent on him to serve the corvée, and the peasants resorted to working off voluntarily, because of the economic need to survive, not to die of hunger. In essence, working off was a relic of the corvée, with its extremely low labor productivity and primitive methods of management. They were paid much lower than with free employment. However, after 1861, even working off began to take on capitalist features, namely, the worker's interest in labor productivity (especially with the main type of working off - sharecropping, when the worker pays rent to the owner for the land in shares of the harvest).

In the capitalist system of economy, the landowner kept his own livestock and agricultural implements, hired workers and paid them for cultivating his land with his own implements and livestock. At the same time, the landowner, who was interested in increasing his income, took care of the quality side of production: he purchased agricultural machines and introduced agronomic innovations. Being, beyond comparison, more progressive, the capitalist system Agriculture in the country as a whole, it prevailed over the labor system: according to the data of the 80s, out of 43 provinces of European Russia, it was the most common in 19, while the labor system was the most common in 17 (in another 7 provinces, a mixed system prevailed). But in the black earth provinces, the capitalist system was inferior to the labour-service system (9 provinces against 12). Here corvee, i.e. feudal, methods of agricultural production proved to be very tenacious. Only at the turn of the century, with the advent of capitalism, did the role of labor compensation in the landowners' economy decline sharply.

Analyzing the agrarian evolution in Russia after 1861, V.I. Lenin rightly concluded that two paths of development of capitalism in agriculture coexist and oppose: the Prussian (Junker, landowner) and the American (farm, peasant). The first path met the interests of the landlords: on this path, landownership was preserved and gradually grew from feudal to capitalist, with the ruin of the bulk of the peasantry. The second way was in the interests of the peasants, because it assumed the absence (as, for example, in Siberia or Novorossiya) or the destruction of landownership and the free development of peasant farms according to the type of farms. Since the peasant reform in Russia was carried out by the landowners, who retained powerful land ownership in their hands, they seemed to orient the capitalist evolution of agriculture along the Prussian path, thereby determining its priority. However, the needs of economic development pushed Russia onto the American path, which gave the problem of "two ways" a national significance. This economic problem acquired both social and political urgency. It was fraught with revolutionary upheavals, and the most explosive in it was the agrarian question.

The essence of the agrarian question in Russia by the end of the 19th century. reveal the following figures illustrating the two poles of Russian land ownership: 10.5 million poor peasant farms (about 50 million people) had 75 million acres of land and almost the same amount (70 million acres) accounted for 30 thousand large landlord latifundia ( about 150 thousand people). In other words, the peasant household had an average of 7 acres (whereas for normal management it required at least 15 acres), and the landlord latifundia - 2333 acres. This distribution of land was a direct consequence of the reform of 1861, a concentrated expression and economic basis of the remnants of serfdom that survived after the reform.

Remnants of serfdom (above all, landlordism and the labor system) hampered the development of capitalism in agriculture, on the one hand, ruining the peasant poor, and on the other hand, limiting and restricting peasant entrepreneurship. As a result, agriculture in post-reform Russia progressed sluggishly, with a glaring (8-fold) lag behind industry. Academician N.M. Druzhinin calculated that grain yields on peasant allotment lands in 30 provinces of European Russia in 1861-1870 amounted to. self-3.3, in 1871-1880. - self-3.5, and potato yields respectively - self-3.8 and self-4.7. The number of horses and cattle for 1870-1880. increased from 9,013 thousand to 9,207 thousand (horses) and from 10,828 thousand to 11,458 thousand (cattle), but on average per household even decreased somewhat due to the outstripping population growth.

By the end of the century, it became more and more obvious to sensible Russians that the remnants of serfdom were a monstrous brake on the path of agriculture (mainly) and the entire domestic economy to progress. The entire course of the country's economic development inexorably presented tsarism with a choice: either go for the elimination of feudal survivals through a radical reform, or become a victim of a grandiose and destructive revolution.

The promulgation of the Manifesto and the "Regulations" on February 19, 1861, the content of which deceived the hopes of the peasants for "full freedom", caused an explosion of peasant protest in the spring - summer of 1861. In fact, there was not a single province in which the peasants would not protest against unacceptable for them release conditions. During 1861, there were 1860 peasant unrest. The economic situation of the peasants in European Russia” A.M., M., Anfimov V.G., Chernukha L.M.: “Prospect”, 2000. 23 p.

By the autumn of 1861, with the help of military units and with the use of mass punishments with rods, the government managed to suppress the outbreak of peasant protest, but in the spring of 1862, the new wave peasant uprisings, connected this time with the introduction of statutory charters The economic situation of peasants in European Russia ”A.M., M., Anfimov V.G., Chernukha L.M.:“ Prospekt ”, 2000. 28 p.

In the period 1863-1870. agrarian reforms were carried out in accordance with the principles of the "Regulations" in the specific village, the land arrangement of state peasants, as well as reforms in the national outskirts of Russia (Georgia, Bessarabia and Abkhazia). 4. Political and socio-economic consequences of the peasant reform. The publication of the "provisions" on the new structure of the peasants caused complete disappointment in radical circles. Herzen's "bell" proclaimed in Ogarev's articles that serfdom had in fact not been abolished at all and that "the people have been deceived by the tsar." On the other hand, the peasants themselves expected full freedom and were dissatisfied with the transitional state of the "temporarily obliged." In some places there were unrest, because the peasants thought that the gentlemen had hidden the real royal will and were offering them some kind of false one. In with. The abyss of the Kazan province came to the point that the troops fired into the crowd of peasants, and there were over 100 people killed and wounded. The news of the abyssal pacification made a depressing impression in society and caused a number of anti-government demonstrations. The economic situation of the peasants in European Russia” A.M., M., Anfimov V.G., Chernukha L.M.: “Prospect”, 2000. 31 p. .

In the autumn of 1861, serious student unrest took place in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, Kyiv, and in the same year the first illegally published revolutionary proclamations "Velikoruss", "Towards the Young Generation", etc. appeared. The revolutionary movement in the country sharply intensified. As for the process of changing the socio-economic structure of the countryside, the peasants themselves called it "depeasantization." The evolution of the peasant economy in the post-reform period was a relative impoverishment of the peasantry, its polarization, the emergence of new classes from among the peasantry - the rural bourgeoisie and the rural proletariat. The poorest and middle-peasant farms did not have the opportunity to acquire new agricultural implements, to carry out any agrotechnical measures. The plow remained the main tool in the peasant economy (back in 1910, plows accounted for 43% of all plowing tools in Russia) The economic situation of peasants in European Russia” A.M., M., Anfimov V.G., Chernukha L.M. Prospect”, 2000, 35 p.

In the late 80s and early 90s, the rural bourgeoisie owned in various provinces of Russia from 34 to 50% of all peasant land - allotment, purchase, lease - and from 38 to 62% of working livestock, and the rural poor (about 50% of all peasant households) - only from 18 to 32% of the land and from 10 to 30% of working livestock. The intermediate link was the middle peasants, who accounted for about 30% of the peasant households. The evolution of the landowner economy consisted in the ever greater intensification of agriculture on the basis of the widespread use of hired labor and the use of agricultural machinery. The post-reform landlord economy, transitional in its socio-economic content, was reduced to two main systems: labour-service and capitalist. The labor system consisted in the fact that the peasants, who suffered from land shortages, were forced to rent land from their former owners and, in return, cultivate the land with their inventory that part of the land that remained with the landowner. This system dominated in the provinces of the Black Earth Center and the Middle Volga region. The capitalist system, under which the cultivation of the landlords' land was carried out by civilian workers using machines and mineral fertilizers, prevailed in the Baltic states, on the Right-Bank Ukraine, in Novorossia and in the North Caucasus. Laborers were recruited from the poorest peasants, who sold or abandoned their meager allotments and went to work. The number of farm laborers in 1890 reached 3.5 million people (about 20% of the total male population of working age). The process of development of capitalism in Russian agriculture led to the ever greater spread of the capitalist system of landowner farms and the displacement of the labour-service system. At the same time, the land of the ruined landlords quite often fell into the hands of the largest nobles, as well as merchants and the rural bourgeoisie. The economic situation of the peasants in European Russia” A.M., M., Anfimov V.G., Chernukha L.M. ", 2000. 36 p.

In the first two post-reform decades, the landlord economy was undergoing a process of transition from its feudal forms to capitalist ones. An expression of such a transitional form, which combined the features of the corvée and capitalist systems of farming, was the system of working off. Its essence consisted in the processing of the landowner's land by the surrounding peasants with their inventory for arable land and other lands leased from the landowner. As under serfdom, the peasant cultivated the landowner's field in return for providing him with land, but this was already a free peasant who entered into contractual relations with the landowner, that is, the market conditions of supply and demand were already in effect. But the landowner, using his virtually monopoly position as a landowner, could dictate any conditions to the peasant, so the labor system became enslaving. Working off is a consequence of the lack of land of the peasants, robbed by the reform of 1861, and the pressure of the landowners' latifundia. It was especially profitable for the landowners to manage their households by leasing out "cut-off" (from peasant allotments) lands for working off. “At first, the landowners did not yet understand the meaning of the segments,” wrote the observant A. N. Engelhardt, “now everyone understands the meaning of the segments, and every buyer of the estate and [his] tenant, even a German who cannot speak Russian, first of all looks : are there segments, how are they located and how much do they squeeze the peasants. Therefore, in the post-reform period, the developmental system of landowner farming was most widely used where the segments from peasant allotments turned out to be the most significant, and the peasant economy was under the strongest pressure from the landowner latifundia, and in the central black earth belt of Russia. In addition, the peasant economy of this zone, by virtue of disabilities for fishing activities was predominantly agricultural in nature. In the non-chernozem industrial provinces and in the south of Russia, already in the first two post-reform decades, the landowners switched to the capitalist system of farming, with the use of hired labor and more advanced agricultural technology. The most striking example of this is the exemplary business economy of the same A.N. Engelhardt, detailed descriptions in his "Letters from the Village" The economic situation of the peasants in European Russia ”A.M., M., Anfimov V.G., Chernukha L.M.: Prospekt, 2000. 39 p.

Here are those related to the 80s of the XIX century. data of a prominent economic statistician N.F. Annensky on the distribution of capitalist, labour-service systems of the economy (these data are included by V.I. Lenin in his book "The Development of Capitalism in Russia"): In the 80s of the XIX century. in the country as a whole, the capitalist system of landowner farming already prevailed over the labour-service system. Working off, performed by the peasants with their inventory (working off of the first type), was replaced by working off, which could also be carried out by an indigent hired peasant. In spite of general trend the replacement of the labor system with the capitalist one, in the years of crisis the labor system was revived. Researchers noted its vitality until the beginning of the 20th century. the labor system could exist provided that the labor of an enslaved peasant was cheaper for the landowner than the labor of a civilian worker. It conserved the low level of agricultural technology and backward methods of farming. Therefore, an inevitable consequence of the labor-work system was low labor productivity: the yield on landowner farms that used the labor-work system was lower than even on peasant allotment lands. Not all landlords could rebuild their economy on capitalist lines. Many of them liquidated their farms, mortgaged and remortgaged their estates in credit institutions The economic situation of peasants in European Russia ”A.M., M., Anfimov V.G., Chernukha L.M.: Prospekt, 2000. 41 With.

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"History of State and Law of Russia"

The legal status of peasants after the reform of 1861

Completed by: Vasiliev V.R.

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Teacher Ivanov P.T.

Kazan 2007

Introduction

The position of the peasants before the reform of 1861

The position of the peasants under the reform of 1861

The position of the peasants after the reform of 1861

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

It seems to us that serfdom is the main cause and main source of the evil that entangled Russia at that time. But this problem had to be solved, not turned away from it. Violent resolution of the issue will not eliminate this problem. “Russia,” Kavelin wrote, “needs peaceful successes. It is necessary to carry out such a reform in order to ensure internal peace in the country for five hundred years” Edelman N. Revolution from above - M. “Real” 2004, p.5. Kavelin believed that it was possible and necessary to neglect the right of the landowners to the identity of the peasant, but one should not forget about their right to his work and, in particular, to land.

The legal status of the peasants no longer met the requirements of that time. Therefore, the emancipation of the peasants can be carried out only with the remuneration of the landowners. Another solution, Kavelin stated, "would be a very dangerous example of a violation of property rights" Edelman N. Revolution from above - M. "Real" 2004, p.5. But it is impossible, Kavelin stressed, to lose sight of the interests of the peasants. They must be freed from serfdom, they must be assigned the land that they currently own. The government should take over the development of the redemption operation. If it manages to take into account the interests of the landlords and peasants, then the two estates will first draw closer, and then merge into one agricultural class. Class differences will disappear inside it and only property differences will remain. “Experience has proven,” Kavelin wrote, “that private land ownership and existence next to small and large farms are completely the necessary conditions prosperity of rural industry” Edelman N. Revolution from above - M. “Real” 2004, p.7. The abolition of serfdom, as the thinker hoped, would open the way for other reforms: the transformation of the court, the elimination of censorship oppression, military reform, and the development of education. The reform of February 19, 1861, having abolished serfdom, which fettered the development of Russia's productive forces with a strong chain, opened the way for capitalism. This was the first step towards the transformation of the autocratic monarchy from a feudal-noble state into a bourgeois state. However, the February 19 reform was not just a bourgeois reform, but a bourgeois reform carried out by the "feudal lords".

Peasants have long been a significant part of the entire social system. At the same time, the peasantry, as a social stratum, was the backbone of the pyramid of the social system, therefore, any change in the way of life of the peasants could lead to a serious shift in the upper levels of the pyramid. Therefore, the task of this work is to highlight the life of the peasantry during that era.

The purpose of our work will be to highlight the legal status of the peasants, considered in this period of time.

The theme of this work is relevant in that it has become a fundamental change in the legislation in Russia, securing the beginnings of democracy.

To write this work, sources of the history of the state and law were used, such as: Zaionchkovsky P.V. The abolition of serfdom in Russia. The value of this source lies in the fact that it describes relatively briefly the main content of this control work, so he served as the backbone of this work. Also literature with sources of law, namely, the Reader on the history of the domestic state and law, edited by O.I. Chistyakov, it served as a source of material, as a legal monument (manifesto of 1861), as well as monographs of other authors, which made it possible to find out their opinion in this aspect.

1.Genderaboutpeasantry before the reform of 1861

At the beginning of the XIX century. growth in the production of bread for sale led to significant changes in land use. In the chernozem belt, the landowners increased their own plowing and in half a century took away from the peasants half of the land that was in their use. The offensive of the landlords caused a sharp rebuff from the peasants. In the non-chernozem provinces, the land gave low yields, the landlords were less interested in increasing their crops, they could get more income from dues. By the time of the abolition of serfdom in the black earth zone, the landlords had 72% of all land, in the Middle Volga region - 62%, in the non-chernozem zone - 48%. Corvee prevailed in the first two zones, and it increased; in the last, dues grew. Zaionchkovsky P.V. The abolition of serfdom in Russia. - M. "Real", 2001 23 s

In February 1855, Alexander II came to the throne. In the manifesto of March 19, 1856, which described the unfavorable conditions for Russia in the Peace of Paris, the government's first application for the forthcoming reforms was made. A few days later, in a speech to the leaders of the nobility in Moscow, the emperor, speaking of the liberation of the peasants, said: "It is much better for this to happen from above than from below." Appeared big number projects and proposals for the abolition of serfdom.

The first secret committee to work out a provision "on the organization of all people", i.e. solution of the peasant question, was formed in 1826, followed by a series of special committees that discussed the problems of serfdom and the prospects for its abolition.

The first result of the work of such committees was the reform of the management of state peasants. It was supposed to serve as a model for the future arrangement of serfs.

It was assumed that the landowners, on voluntary agreements with the peasants, would cede to them part of their lands for permanent and hereditary use. The conditions under which this transaction will be made must be set by the government and remain unchanged.

Thus, the peasants will be attached to the land, but will become free. The landowners will retain their ownership of the land to which the peasants are attached. The landowner retained judicial power over the peasants, but lost power over their labor and property. Working off and payments of peasants in favor of the landowner should have been normalized in the initial terms of the transaction. The landowner was released from responsibility for his peasants.

The project turned into law in April 1842, a circular was immediately issued, which emphasized that the rights of the nobility to serfs remained inviolable and the nobility would not suffer damage if, by virtue of the law, they did not make deals with the peasants. The purely voluntary nature of the liberation actions was emphasized. The law did not produce any significant changes in the system of serfdom.

The acts that followed the "Kiselev reform" only partially addressed the problem. Neither the size of the obligatory peasant allotment, nor the volume of obligatory working off of peasants in favor of the landowner were determined (the provisions of the law of 1797 on the three-day corvee were not in effect)

In 1827, a law was adopted that established the procedure according to which the landlord peasants, who remained with a land plot, the size of which was less than 4.5 acres, passed under public administration or enrolled in the free urban estates. The consent of the landowners was not required.

In 1827, the landlords were forbidden to give up their serfs to work in the mines, at the same time it was forbidden to exile peasants to Siberia.

In 1833 it was forbidden to lease the estates on which serfs lived, in 1854 the landowners were forbidden to transfer some of their rights (in relation to peasants) to clerks.

All these acts were intended to limit the power of the nobles over the serfs, which contributed to some improvement legal status peasants.

In 1841 it was forbidden to sell peasants at retail, in 1843 landless nobles were forbidden to buy peasants. In 1847, the Ministry of State Property began to acquire the population of noble estates at the expense of the treasury.

A project was developed, according to which, within 10 years, it was supposed to redeem all the peasants belonging to one-palaces (these latter, paying a poll tax, like peasants, owned serfs, like landowners).

In 1847, a law was passed that allowed peasants who lived on estates and were sold for debts to redeem themselves with land.

In 1848, the law permitted the acquisition of immovable property. However, this was carried out with the consent of the landowner; if he refused, the peasants did not have the right to sue.

All these changes in legislation expanded the rights of the peasants, and at the same time limited the rights of the landowners over the serfs.

2. The position of the peasants under the reform of 1861

The struggle of the revolutionary democrats, the unceasing peasant unrest forced the tsarist government to abandon the most reactionary options for reform and make some concessions to the peasantry. A compromise decision was made, reconciling all the landowners, to release the peasants with a minimum allotment of land for ransom. Such liberation provided the landlords with both working hands and capital.

The main provisions of the legislative acts of the reform February 19, 1861. On February 19, 1861, Alexander II signed, in addition to the Manifesto, also 17 legislative acts concerning the abolition of serfdom in the country. As for the Manifesto itself, its text was written by the well-known church figure Filaret, who clearly did not approve of the reform. Alexander II wanted to see a document not only official and solemn, but also quite propagandistic and agitational. From the pen of Filaret, the text of the "Manifesto" came out eloquent, ponderous and incomprehensible to the common people, as, indeed, all other legislative acts. The main (out of 17) legislative acts on the reform were the "General Regulations on the Peasants who Abandoned Serfdom", "Local Regulations" and "Additional Rules". This law resolved four issues:

about the personal liberation of the peasants;

on land allotments and duties of the liberated peasants;

on the redemption by peasants of their land allotments;

on the organization of peasant administration.

Let's consider each of these questions. From the moment the Manifesto on the Emancipation of the Peasants was published, the right of the landowner to dispose of the personality of the peasant ceased, i.e. sell it, buy it, give it as a gift, forcefully marry and give in marriage, move it from place to place, give it into service and work, arbitrarily punish at its discretion. Peasants received personal and property rights, including: to independently, without permission, marriage, the conclusion of contracts: free employment in trade and industry; conducting their own court cases; participation in the work of public self-government bodies; admission to the service, to study; acquisition of movable property; inheritance of property, etc.

The law established a two-year period for drawing up statutory letters, which determined the relationship between landowners and peasants. Characteristically, charters were drawn up by the landowners, and their compliance with the law was certified by mediators called upon to settle conflicts between landowners and peasants. True, they themselves were appointed by the Senate on the proposal of the governors from among the local noble landowners, so their objectivity was purely conditional.

During these 2 years, the peasants were obliged to serve their former duties (corvée, dues) in favor of the landlords, who retained the right of the patrimonial police and guardianship. It was two years, according to the plan of Alexander II, that should have been enough for the landowner to be able to reconfigure to new way. With the drafting of the charter, the peasants received land plots, but until the conclusion of the redemption transaction, they were considered temporarily liable. This meant that all the land was still considered the property of the landowner, and for the use of it the peasants carried duties (corvée and dues). The temporary state could be terminated after a nine-year period from the date of issue of the manifesto, when the peasant refused to put on. And only with the conclusion of a redemption deal and the payment of the first installment for the land did they acquire the status of peasant owners and receive all the rights of free rural inhabitants. But even then the vestiges of their feudal lack of rights remained. They remained a taxable estate, i.e. were obliged to bear recruitment duty, paid a poll tax (tax), could be subjected to corporal punishment.

The redemption agreement between the landowner and the peasant community was approved by the mediator. The estate could be redeemed at any time, the field allotment, with the consent of the landowner and the entire community. After the agreement was approved, all relations between the parties (landowner-peasant) ceased, and the peasants became owners.

The subject of property in most regions was the community, in some areas the peasant household. In the latter case, the peasants received the right of hereditary disposal of land. Movable property (and immovable property previously acquired by the peasant in the name of the landowner) became the property of the peasant. Peasants received the right to enter into obligations and contracts by acquiring movable property. The lands granted for use could not serve as collateral for contracts.

The peasants received the right to engage in trade, open enterprises, join guilds, go to court against other classes, enter the service, leave their place of residence.

During the period of "temporary obligation" the peasants remained isolated in legal relation class. The peasant community bound its members with a mutual guarantee: it was possible to leave it only by paying off half of the remaining debt, and with a guarantee that the community would pay the other half. It was possible to leave the "society" by finding a deputy. The community could decide on the mandatory purchase of land. The gathering decided the family divisions of the land

The volost court decided by a qualified majority questions on the replacement of communal land use by district, on the division of land, permanently inherited plots, on limits, on the removal of its members from the community.

A wide range of measures was envisaged to be applied to debtors: taking away income from real estate, giving it to work or guardianship, forced sale of the debtor's movable and immovable property, taking away part or all of the allotment.

The transfer of peasants for ransom marked a complete cessation of feudal relations in the former landlord village. However, the peasants could become the actual owners of their allotments only if they paid the entire redemption amount for them. Its calculation was based not on the market price of the land, but on the amount of dues, so that the redemption price turned out to be 1.5 times higher than the market price. Of course, the peasants were not able to immediately pay the redemption sum. Therefore, the state took over the ransom. The treasury immediately paid the landlords in money and securities the main part of the redemption sum, and withheld the other part from the landowners to pay off their debts to the treasury, and then collected it in the form of redemption payments from the peasants. The deadline for such payments was set at 49 years. Buganov V.I., Zyryanov P.N. History of Russia end of the XVII-XIX century. - M. "Pegasus", 2004, 95 p. We assume that they did it with the expectation that they would complete the reform in 1910, but this provision was abolished in 1883 and all the peasants were transferred to the state of owners.

3. The situation of the peasants after the reform of 1861

By the autumn of 1861, with the help of military units and with the use of mass punishment with rods, the government managed to suppress the outbreak of peasant protest, but in the spring of 1862 a new wave of peasant uprisings arose, this time connected with the introduction of statutory charters on the economic situation of the peasants in European Russia” A.M., M., Anfimov V.G., Chernukha L.M.: "Prospect", 2000. 28 p.

In the first two post-reform decades, the landlord economy was undergoing a process of transition from its feudal forms to capitalist ones. An expression of such a transitional form, which combined the features of the corvée and capitalist systems of farming, was the system of working off. Its essence consisted in the processing of the landowner's land by the surrounding peasants with their inventory for arable land and other lands leased from the landowner. As under serfdom, the peasant cultivated the landowner's field in return for providing him with land, but this was already a free peasant who entered into contractual relations with the landowner, that is, the market conditions of supply and demand were already in effect. But the landowner, using his virtually monopoly position as a landowner, could dictate any conditions to the peasant, so the labor system became enslaving. Working off is a consequence of the lack of land of the peasants, robbed by the reform of 1861, and the pressure of the landowners' latifundia. It was especially profitable for the landowners to manage their households by leasing out "cut-off" (from peasant allotments) lands for working off. “At first, the landowners did not yet understand the meaning of the segments,” wrote the observant A. N. Engelhardt, “now everyone understands the meaning of the segments, and every buyer of the estate and [his] tenant, even a German who cannot speak Russian, first of all looks : are there segments, how are they located and how much do they squeeze the peasants. Therefore, in the post-reform period, the developmental system of landowner farming was most widely used where the segments from peasant allotments turned out to be the most significant, and the peasant economy was under the strongest pressure from the landowner latifundia, and in the central black earth belt of Russia. In addition, the peasant economy of this strip, due to limited opportunities for fishing activities, was predominantly agricultural in nature. In the non-chernozem industrial provinces and in the south of Russia, already in the first two post-reform decades, the landowners switched to the capitalist system of farming, with the use of hired labor and more advanced agricultural technology. The most striking example of this is the exemplary business economy of the same A.N. Engelhardt, detailed descriptions in his "Letters from the Village" The economic situation of the peasants in European Russia ”A.M., M., Anfimov V.G., Chernukha L.M.: Prospekt, 2000. 39 p.

Here are those related to the 80s of the XIX century. data of a prominent economic statistician N.F. Annensky on the distribution of capitalist, labour-service systems of the economy (these data are included by V.I. Lenin in his book "The Development of Capitalism in Russia"): In the 80s of the XIX century. in the country as a whole, the capitalist system of landowner farming already prevailed over the labour-service system. Working off, performed by the peasants with their inventory (working off of the first type), was replaced by working off, which could also be carried out by an indigent hired peasant. Despite the general tendency to replace the labor system with the capitalist one, during the crisis years the labor system was revived. Researchers noted its vitality until the beginning of the 20th century. the labor system could exist provided that the labor of an enslaved peasant was cheaper for the landowner than the labor of a civilian worker. It conserved the low level of agricultural technology and backward methods of farming. Therefore, an inevitable consequence of the labor-work system was low labor productivity: the yield on landowner farms that used the labor-work system was lower than even on peasant allotment lands. Not all landlords could rebuild their economy on capitalist lines. Many of them liquidated their farms, mortgaged and remortgaged their estates in credit institutions The economic situation of peasants in European Russia ”A.M., M., Anfimov V.G., Chernukha L.M.: Prospekt, 2000. 41 With.

Conclusion

Despite the predatory nature of the 1861 reform for the peasants, its significance for the further economic and social development of the country was great. The reform was a turning point, a "line" separating the feudal era from the capitalist. Such an enormous social act as the abolition of serfdom could not pass without leaving its mark on the entire state organism, accustomed to serfdom over the centuries. Having touched the cornerstone of the feudal empire, it was necessary to change other supporting structures of the socio-political system: the local government, the police, the courts and the army. The peasant reform thus inevitably led to other transformations.

List of used literature

Reader on the history of the domestic state and law. Ed. O.I. Tomsinov. M.: Zertsalo, 2000. 381 p.

Zaionchkovsky P.V. The abolition of serfdom in Russia. - M. "Real", 2001, 96 p.

Buganov V.I., Zyryanov P.N. History of Russia end of the XVII-XIX century. - M. Pegasus, 2004. 103 p.

Edelman N. Revolution from above - M. "Real" 2004

The economic situation of peasants in European Russia”, M., Anfimov V.G., Chernukha L.M.: “Prospect”, 2000, 97 p.

The internal policy of tsarism since the mid-1950s. Russian legislation X-XX centuries. in 9 volumes. Ed. O.I. Chistyakov. M: Oline 2003. 245 p.

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