In February 1861, the tsarist troops were put on alert. The governors received secret instructions. In St. Petersburg, the police ordered street cleaners to ensure that no more than three people gathered on the streets and in courtyards. Several cartloads of rods were brought to each house (a police institution where those arrested were punished). Some of the landowner families rushed abroad, some fortified their homes and stockpiled weapons.
What happened? Invasion of enemy armies? Popular uprising? No. The liberation of peasants from serfdom was being prepared.
The government of Alexander II, after the defeat in the Crimean War and the terrible popular unrest “for freedom” that swept Russia at that time, could no longer govern in the old way. On March 30, 1856, representatives of the nobility, who had gathered to meet with the tsar, heard from him that “it is much better that this (the liberation of the peasants. - Ed.) came from above rather than from below.” The liberation of the peasants was dictated by the entire economic development of the country.
After four years of discussions, in which all landowners participated and not a single peasant participated, the reform project was ready. The disenfranchised serfs could not participate in this discussion, but continuous peasant unrest showed the tsar and landowners the danger of further delay and forced them to finally complete preparations for the reform.
On February 19, 1861, the Tsar wrote: “According to this,” on a voluminous document, by virtue of which the relationship between one hundred thousand landowners and tens of millions of serfs changed. In March, throughout vast Russia, in churches in the presence of police officers, the decree “On the most merciful granting to serfs of the rights of free rural inhabitants and on the organization of their life” was read out.
In addition to the tsar’s manifesto, 207 articles of the “General Regulations”, 179 articles of the “Regulations” on redemption, several local regulations, etc. were published - a total of 17 basic legislative acts, written in a heavy language that was difficult for peasants to understand.
What did the peasants receive under the reform of 1861? ...Let us transport ourselves mentally to the village of those days. Vereisky district of the Moscow province, a hundred miles from Moscow. The peasants of each village formed a world, or community. As everywhere else, the owners of the land and peasants were landowners. A huge estate - twenty-two villages, 10 thousand dessiatines of land (a dessiatine is equal to 1.09 hectares), 5 thousand serf souls - belonged to the richest nobleman, Count P. P. Shuvalov.
The land here is infertile. Therefore, the count himself did not conduct a large farm and gave 9 thousand dessiatines for the use of peasants - an average of 3.8 dessiatines per revision per capita." This was one and a half to two times more than at peasants of Tambov, Voronezh, Kursk and other fertile black earth provinces, but still far from enough. To make ends meet, the peasant needed to have 9-10 dessiatines per revision per capita in the non-chernozem zone, and 5-6 dessiatines in the black soil zone, i.e., three times more than he usually had.
In the black earth provinces, where it was profitable for landowners to run large farms themselves, the main form of peasant duties was corvée. The Shuvalov peasants, like the peasants of most other estates of the non-black earth zone, did not bear corvee labor, but paid a quitrent that exceeded 10 rubles. per head per year - a very large sum at that time. From the entire estate, the count received a huge income annually - more than 24 thousand rubles. To get money, more and more peasants went to work in Moscow. And yet, arrears grew from year to year and by 1861 reached 26 thousand rubles.
And then the long-awaited “will” came. Without having time to understand the complex text of the “Regulations,” the peasants learned from the manifesto that the “new system” cannot be introduced suddenly; this requires at least two years, during which everything remains the same. True, the peasants received civil rights immediately. The peasant was no longer the property of the landowner: he could not be sold, exchanged for a purebred hound, or forbidden to marry.
The law allowed millions of previously completely powerless people to engage in crafts, trade, own property, transfer it by inheritance, go to court, elect a headman at a village meeting, and an elder at a volost meeting.
But the “free rural inhabitant” and in legal terms in many ways resembled a serf. The peasants were anxiously awaiting an answer to the main question: what would happen to the land?
Some time passed, and peace intermediaries from the nobles went to the villages to resolve land matters. They had the right to demarcate landowners' and peasants' lands, approve decisions of village and volost assemblies, and subject disobedient peasants to fines, arrest and flogging. An intermediary also appeared in the villages of Shuvalov.
The peasants were gathered for a gathering and explained that they had to come to an agreement with the landowner about land and duties and sign an agreement - a statutory charter that determined the land allotment and duties of the peasants after the reform.
How much land was given to the Shuvalovo peasants?
In the “Regulations” for the Vereisky district, the allotment was set at 3.5 dessiatines per revision person (there was no allotment for women). But before the reform, the Shuvalovo peasant had 3.8 dessiatines in use, and in some villages even more. The “regulations” gave the landowner the right to cut off the so-called “surplus” from the peasants, and Shuvalov took from his peasants about 680 acres of land that they had long cultivated. In the black earth provinces, where the landowners especially valued the land, up to 1/4> was cut off from the peasants, and throughout the country - over 1/5 of the land. In total, landowners throughout Russia added to their already huge estates, according to far from complete estimates, more than 5 million dessiatinas.
The best land was cut off. Despite the desperate protests of the peasants, thousands of their estates were moved to new places, “on the sand,” where the land was worse. Shuvalov, it’s true, couldn’t stand estates, but the lands he selected crashed into peasant lands in such a way that the peasant could not pass or drive through. One of the Shuvalovo villages was surrounded by count lands on all sides. To access the road and river, the peasants were left with only two narrow passages. Among the fields of another village there are a dozen landowner buildings. The motley stripes did not allow the peasant to develop his small farm. The landowner took fines if the peasant's cattle wandered slightly to the side of the run. In addition, almost the entire forest and several ponds were taken from the peasants. We had to pay for firewood and fishing. In another place, Shuvalov gave the forest to the peasants, but took the same amount of arable land. The peasants filed a complaint against the count, and the inscription soon appeared on it: “Left without attention.”
Landowners used striping to force peasants to rent the plots of land they needed at the highest prices. At the same time, the peasant, tied to his poor allotment, was forced to work on the landowner's farm for the most insignificant pay.
The zemstvo is having lunch. Painting by G. G. Myasoedov.
But the reduced land was not yet the property of the peasant. A ransom had to be paid for her. The landowner was free to allow or not to authorize the transfer for redemption. Before the transition to redemption, the peasants remained temporarily obliged - they continued to pay quitrents and carry out corvee labor. In some places, landowners delayed the redemption for years. Only 20 years later, in 1881, the government declared the ransom mandatory.
In the spring of 1861, Shuvalov’s serfs also became temporarily liable. In the summer, the count rounded up the quitrent to 10 rubles. from the heart instead of the previous 10 rubles. 24 kopecks From now on, 22 villages paid not 24 thousand, but 23 thousand rubles. per year, but since part of the land was cut off from the peasants, they paid more for each tithe than under serfdom.
Soon Shuvalov, like many other landowners, realized that it was more profitable to transfer his peasants to ransom. The size of the redemption payment was determined by the quitrent. If Shuvalov received only 23 thousand quitrents per year from his estate, then the ransom should have been such an amount that, having deposited it in the bank, the count could have the same 23 thousand annually in the form of interest. The bank paid 6% per annum on the amount deposited in it amounts. This means that a ransom was due from each soul:
(10 x 100) / 6 = 166 rub. 66 kopecks In a peasant family of five or six people there were up to three revision souls. This means that she had to buy back her three shower plots (10.5 tithes) for 500 rubles. (166 rubles 66 kopecks X 3).
The peasants, of course, did not have that kind of money. And then the government came to the aid of the noble landowners. Landowners received 75 - 80% of the ransom amount from the state through a special bank. The rest was paid to the landowner by the peasant. Thus, the landowner received the entire ransom at once, and the peasants found themselves in huge debt to the state. Over the course of 49 years, they had to deposit into the bank the amount paid for them by the state, plus the accruing interest on it.
Thus, a peasant family, for which the state paid Shuvalov 400 rubles, had to pay annually 6% of the debt - 24 rubles, i.e. for 49 years - 1176 rubles, an amount almost three times the original debt.
Under the onslaught of the revolution of 1905 - 1907. The tsarist government stopped collecting redemption payments in 1907, but by this time the former landowner peasants had paid nearly 2 billion rubles, while the market value of the land they received did not exceed 544 million rubles.
The peasants resisted the forced transfer to ransom and refused to sign charter documents. They tried to fight for a different, fair will. In just 10 months of 1861, peasant unrest broke out on 1,176 estates. Almost a third of them were suppressed using military force. In 1879, 29 provinces of European Russia were engulfed in unrest, and in 1880 - 34 provinces.
“In no other country in the world has the peasantry experienced such ruin, such poverty, such humiliation and such outrage after “liberation” as in Russia,” wrote V.I. Lenin.
The abolition of serfdom marked Russia's entry into the period of capitalism, but with the preservation of autocracy, landownership and other remnants of feudalism.
Serfdom turned into a brake on technological progress, which was actively developing in Europe after the Industrial Revolution. The Crimean War clearly demonstrated this. There was a danger of Russia turning into a third-rate power. It was by the second half of the 19th century that it became clear that maintaining the power and political influence of Russia was impossible without strengthening finances, developing industry and railway construction, and transforming the entire political system. Under the conditions of the dominance of serfdom, which itself could have existed for an indefinite period of time, despite the fact that the landed nobility itself was unable and not ready to modernize its own estates, this turned out to be practically impossible. That is why the reign of Alexander II became a period of radical transformations of Russian society. The Emperor, distinguished by his sound mind and a certain political flexibility, managed to surround himself with professionally competent people who understood the need for Russia's progressive movement. Among them, the tsar's brother, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, brothers N.A. stood out. and D.A. Milyutin, Ya.I. Rostovtsev, P.A. Valuev and others.
By the second quarter of the 19th century, it had already become obvious that the economic capabilities of the landlord economy in meeting the increased needs for grain exports had been completely exhausted. It was increasingly drawn into commodity-money relations, gradually losing its natural character. Closely related to this was a change in the forms of rent. If in the central provinces, where industrial production was developed, more than half of the peasants had already been transferred to quitrent, then in the agricultural Central Black Earth and Lower Volga provinces, where commercial grain was produced, corvée continued to expand. This was due to the natural increase in the production of bread for sale on the landowners' farm.
On the other hand, the productivity of corvee labor has dropped noticeably. The peasant sabotaged the corvée with all his might and was burdened by it, which is explained by the growth of the peasant economy, its transformation into a small-scale producer. Corvee labor slowed down this process, and the peasant fought with all his might for favorable conditions for his farming.
Landowners sought ways to increase the profitability of their estates within the framework of serfdom, for example, transferring peasants to monthly labor: landless peasants, who were obliged to spend all their working hours in corvee labor, were given payment in kind in the form of a monthly food ration, as well as clothes, shoes, and necessary household utensils , while the landowner's field was cultivated with the master's equipment. However, all these measures could not compensate for the ever-increasing losses from ineffective corvee labor.
The quitrent farms also experienced a serious crisis. Previously, peasant crafts, from which quitrents were mainly paid, were profitable, giving the landowner a stable income. However, the development of crafts gave rise to competition, which led to a drop in peasant earnings. Since the 20s of the 19th century, arrears in quitrent payments began to grow rapidly. An indicator of the crisis of the landlord economy was the growth of estate debt. By 1861, about 65% of landowners' estates were pledged to various credit institutions.
In an effort to increase the profitability of their estates, some landowners began to use new methods of farming: they ordered expensive equipment from abroad, invited foreign specialists, introduced multi-field crop rotation, etc. But such expenses were only affordable for wealthy landowners, and under the conditions of serfdom, these innovations did not pay off, often ruining such landowners.
It should be especially emphasized that we are talking specifically about the crisis of the landlord economy, based on serf labor, and not the economy in general, which continued to develop on a completely different, capitalist basis. It is clear that serfdom hampered its development and prevented the formation of a wage labor market, without which the capitalist development of the country is impossible.
Preparations for the abolition of serfdom began in January 1857 with the creation of the next Secret Committee. In November 1857, Alexander II sent a rescript throughout the country addressed to the Vilna Governor-General Nazimov, which spoke of the beginning of the gradual liberation of the peasants and ordered the creation of noble committees in three Lithuanian provinces (Vilna, Kovno and Grodno) to make proposals for the reform project. On February 21, 1858, the Secret Committee was renamed the Main Committee for Peasant Affairs. A wide discussion of the upcoming reform began. Provincial noble committees drew up their projects for the liberation of peasants and sent them to the main committee, which, on their basis, began to develop a general reform project.
To revise the submitted projects, editorial commissions were established in 1859, the work of which was led by Comrade Minister of Internal Affairs Ya.I. Rostovtsev.
During the preparation of the reform, there were lively debates among landowners about the mechanism of liberation. The landowners of the non-black earth provinces, where the peasants were mainly on quitrent, proposed to allocate land to the peasants with complete liberation from the landowners' power, but with the payment of a large ransom for the land. Their opinion was most fully expressed in his project by the leader of the Tver nobility A.M. Unkovsky.
Landowners of the black earth regions, whose opinion was expressed in the project of the Poltava landowner M.P. Posen, they proposed to give only small plots to the peasants for ransom, with the goal of making the peasants economically dependent on the landowner - forcing them to rent land on unfavorable terms or work as farm laborers.
By the beginning of October 1860, the editorial commissions completed their activities and the project was submitted for discussion to the Main Committee for Peasant Affairs, where it was subject to additions and changes. On January 28, 1861, a meeting of the State Council opened and ended on February 16, 1861. The signing of the manifesto on the emancipation of the peasants was scheduled for February 19, 1861 - the 6th anniversary of the accession to the throne of Alexander II, when the emperor signed the manifesto “On the All-Merciful granting to serfs of the rights of free rural inhabitants and on the organization of their life,” as well as “Regulations on peasants emerging from serfdom,” which included 17 legislative acts. On the same day, the Main Committee “on the structure of the rural state” was established, chaired by Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, which replaced the Main Committee “on peasant affairs” and was called upon to carry out supreme supervision over the implementation of the “Regulations” of February 19.
According to the manifesto, peasants received personal freedom. From now on, the former serf peasant received the opportunity to freely dispose of his personality, he was granted some civil rights: the opportunity to move to other classes, enter into property and civil transactions in his own name, and open commercial and industrial enterprises.
If serfdom was abolished immediately, then the settlement of economic relations between peasants and landowners lasted for several decades. The specific economic conditions for the liberation of peasants were recorded in the “Charter Charters”, which were concluded between the landowner and the peasant with the participation of world intermediaries. However, according to the law, peasants were required to serve virtually the same duties as under serfdom for another two years. This state of the peasant was called temporarily obliged. In fact, this situation lasted for twenty years, and only by the law of 1881 were the last temporarily obliged peasants transferred to redemption.
An important place was given to the provision of land to the peasant. The law was based on the recognition of the landowner's right to all the land on his estate, including peasant plots. The peasants received the allotment not for ownership, but only for use. To become the owner of land, the peasant was obliged to buy it from the landowner. The state took on this task. The redemption was based not on the market value of the land, but on the amount of duties. The treasury immediately paid the landowners 80% of the redemption amount, and the remaining 20% had to be paid to the landowner by the peasants by mutual agreement (immediately or in installments, in money or in labor). The redemption amount paid by the state was treated as a loan to the peasants, which was then collected from them annually, for 49 years, in the form of "redemption payments" of 6% of this loan. It is not difficult to determine that in this way the peasant had to pay for the land several times more not only its real market value, but also the amount of duties that he bore in favor of the landowner. That is why the “temporarily obliged state” existed for more than 20 years.
When determining the norms for peasant plots, the peculiarities of local natural and economic conditions were taken into account. The entire territory of the Russian Empire was divided into three parts: non-chernozem, chernozem and steppe. In the chernozem and non-chernozem parts, two norms of allotments were established: the highest and the lowest, and in the steppe there was only one - the “decreed” norm. The law provided for a reduction of the peasant allotment in favor of the landowner if its pre-reform size exceeded the “higher” or “decree” norm, and an increase if the allotment did not reach the “higher” norm. In practice, this has led to the fact that cutting off land has become the rule, and trimming the exception. The burden of the “cuts” for the peasants was not only their size. The best lands often fell into this category, without which normal farming became impossible. Thus, the “cuts” turned into an effective means of economic enslavement of the peasants by the landowner.
Land was provided not to an individual peasant household, but to the community. This form of land use excluded the possibility of a peasant selling his plot, and its rental was limited to the community. But, despite all its shortcomings, the abolition of serfdom was an important historical event. It not only created conditions for the further economic development of Russia, but also led to a change in the social structure of Russian society and created the need for further reform of the political system of the state, which was forced to adapt to new economic conditions. After 1861, a number of important political reforms were carried out: zemstvo, judicial, city, military reforms, which radically changed Russian reality. It is no coincidence that domestic historians consider this event a turning point, the line between feudal Russia and modern Russia.
ACCORDING TO THE “SHOWER REVISION” OF 1858
Landowner serfs - 20,173,000
Appanage peasants - 2,019,000
State peasants -18,308,000
Workers of factories and mines, equated to state peasants - 616,000
State peasants assigned to private factories - 518,000
Peasants released after military service - 1,093,000
HISTORIAN S.M. SOLOVIEV
“Liberal speeches began; but it would be strange if the first, main content of these speeches were not the liberation of the peasants. What other liberation could one think of without remembering that in Russia a huge number of people are the property of other people, and slaves are of the same origin as their masters, and sometimes of higher origin: peasants of Slavic origin, and masters of Tatar, Cheremis, Mordovian origin, not to mention Germans? What kind of liberal speech could be made without remembering this stain, the shame that lay on Russia, excluding it from the society of European civilized peoples?
A.I. HERZEN
“Many more years will pass before Europe understands the course of development of Russian serfdom. Its origin and development are a phenomenon so exceptional and unlike anything else that it is difficult to believe in it. How, in fact, can one believe that half the population of the same nationality, gifted with rare physical and mental abilities, was enslaved not by war, not by conquest, not by a coup, but only by a series of decrees, immoral concessions, vile claims?
K.S. AKSAKOV
“The yoke of the state was formed over the land, and the Russian land became, as it were, conquered... The Russian monarch received the meaning of a despot, and the people - the meaning of a slave-slave in their land”...
“IT’S MUCH BETTER FOR THIS TO HAPPEN ABOVE”
When Emperor Alexander II came to Moscow for the coronation, the Moscow Governor-General Count Zakrevsky asked him to calm the local nobility, excited by rumors about the upcoming liberation of the peasants. The Tsar, receiving the Moscow provincial leader of the nobility, Prince Shcherbatov, with district representatives, told them: “There are rumors that I want to announce the liberation of serfdom. This is unfair, and as a result there were several cases of peasants disobeying the landowners. I won't tell you that I'm completely against it; We live in such an age that this must happen over time. I think that you are of the same opinion as me: therefore, it is much better for this to happen from above than from below.”
The matter of the liberation of the peasants, which came before the State Council, in its importance I consider a vital issue for Russia, on which the development of its strength and power will depend. I am sure that all of you, gentlemen, are just as convinced as I am of the benefits and necessity of this measure. I also have another conviction, namely, that this matter cannot be postponed, which is why I demand from the State Council that it be completed in the first half of February and can be announced by the beginning of field work; I entrust this to the direct responsibility of the chairman of the State Council. I repeat, and it is my absolute will that this matter be ended now. (...)
You know the origin of serfdom. It did not exist with us before: this right was established by autocratic power and only autocratic power can destroy it, and this is my direct will.
My predecessors felt all the evils of serfdom and constantly strived, if not for its direct destruction, then for a gradual limitation of the arbitrariness of landowner power. (...)
Following the rescript given to Governor General Nazimov, requests began to arrive from the nobility of other provinces, which were answered with rescripts addressed to governors general and governors of similar content with the first. These rescripts contained the same main principles and foundations and allowed us to proceed to the matter on the same principles I indicated. As a result, provincial committees were established, which were given a special program to facilitate their work. When, after the given period of time, the work of the committees began to arrive here, I allowed the formation of special Editorial Commissions, which were supposed to consider the projects of the provincial committees and do the general work in a systematic manner. The Chairman of these Commissions was first Adjutant General Rostovtsev, and after his death Count Panin. The editorial commissions worked for a year and seven months, and, despite the criticisms, perhaps partly fair, to which the commissions were subjected, they completed their work in good faith and presented it to the Main Committee. The main committee, chaired by my brother, worked with tireless activity and zeal. I consider it my duty to thank all the members of the committee, and my brother in particular, for their conscientious efforts in this matter.
Views on the work presented may vary. That’s why I listen to all different opinions willingly; but I have the right to demand one thing from you, that you, putting aside all personal interests, act as state dignitaries invested with my trust. When starting this important task, I did not hide from myself all the difficulties that awaited us, and I do not hide them now, but, firmly trusting in the mercy of God, I hope that God will not leave us and will bless us to complete it for future prosperity dear Fatherland to us. Now, with God’s help, let’s get down to business.
MANIFESTO FEBRUARY 19, 1861
BY GOD'S GRACE
WE, ALEXANDER THE SECOND,
EMPEROR AND AUTOCRET
ALL-RUSSIAN
KING OF POLISH, GRAND DUKE OF FINNISH
and so on, and so on, and so on
We announce to all our loyal subjects.
By God's providence and the sacred law of succession to the throne, having been called to the ancestral all-Russian throne, in accordance with this calling we have made a vow in our hearts to embrace with our royal love and care all our loyal subjects of every rank and status, from those who nobly wield a sword in defense of the Fatherland to those who modestly work with a craft tool, from those undergoing the highest government service to those plowing a furrow in the field with a plow or plow.
Delving into the position of ranks and conditions within the state, we saw that state legislation, while actively improving the upper and middle classes, defining their duties, rights and benefits, did not achieve uniform activity in relation to serfs, so called because they were partly old by laws, partly by custom, they are hereditarily strengthened under the power of landowners, who at the same time have the responsibility to organize their well-being. The rights of landowners were until now extensive and not precisely defined by law, the place of which was taken by tradition, custom and the good will of the landowner. In the best cases, from this came good patriarchal relations of sincere, truthful trusteeship and charity of the landowner and good-natured obedience of the peasants. But with a decrease in the simplicity of morals, with an increase in the variety of relationships, with a decrease in the direct paternal relations of landowners to peasants, with landowner rights sometimes falling into the hands of people seeking only their own benefit, good relations weakened and the way opened to arbitrariness, burdensome for the peasants and unfavorable for them. well-being, which was reflected in the peasants by their immobility towards improvements in their own life.
Our ever-memorable predecessors saw this and took measures to change the situation of the peasants for the better; but these were measures, partly indecisive, proposed to the voluntary, freedom-loving action of the landowners, partly decisive only for some areas, at the request of special circumstances or in the form of experience. Thus, Emperor Alexander I issued a decree on free cultivators, and our late father Nicholas I issued a decree on obligated peasants. In Western provinces, inventory rules determine the allocation of land to peasants and their duties. But the regulations on free cultivators and obliged peasants were put into effect on a very small scale.
Thus, we are convinced that the matter of changing the situation of serfs for the better is for us the testament of our predecessors and the lot given to us through the course of events by the hand of providence.
We began this matter with an act of our trust in the Russian nobility, in its devotion to its throne, proven by great experiences, and its readiness to make donations for the benefit of the Fatherland. We left it to the nobility itself, at their own invitation, to make assumptions about the new structure of life of the peasants, and the nobles were to limit their rights to the peasants and raise the difficulties of transformation, not without reducing their benefits. And our trust was justified. In the provincial committees, represented by their members, invested with the trust of the entire noble society of each province, the nobility voluntarily renounced the right to personality of serfs. In these committees, after collecting the necessary information, assumptions were made about the new structure of life for people in a state of serfdom and about their relationship to the landowners.
These assumptions, which turned out to be varied, as could be expected from the nature of the matter, were compared, agreed upon, put into the correct composition, corrected and supplemented in the Main Committee for this matter; and the new regulations on landowner peasants and courtyard people drawn up in this way were considered in the State Council.
Having called on God for help, we decided to give this matter executive movement.
By virtue of these new provisions, serfs will in due course receive the full rights of free rural inhabitants.
The landowners, while retaining the right of ownership of all the lands belonging to them, provide the peasants, for established duties, with their permanent homestead for permanent use and, moreover, to ensure their life and fulfill their duties to the government, a certain amount of field land and other land determined in the regulations.
Using this land allotment, the peasants are obliged to fulfill the duties specified in the regulations in favor of the landowners. In this state, which is transitional, the peasants are called temporarily obliged.
At the same time, they are given the right to buy out their estates, and with the consent of the landowners, they can acquire ownership of field lands and other lands allocated to them for permanent use. With such acquisition of ownership of a certain amount of land, the peasants will be freed from their obligations to the landowners on the purchased land and will enter into a decisive state of free peasant owners.
A special provision for domestic servants defines for them a transitional state, adapted to their occupations and needs; upon expiration of a two-year period from the date of publication of this regulation, they will receive full exemption and immediate benefits.
On these main principles, the provisions drawn up determine the future structure of peasants and courtyard people, establish the order of public peasant governance and indicate in detail the rights granted to peasants and courtyard people and the responsibilities assigned to them in relation to the government and to the landowners.
Although these provisions, general, local and special additional rules for some special areas, for the estates of small landowners and for peasants working in landowner factories and factories, are, if possible, adapted to local economic needs and customs, however, in order to preserve the usual order there, where it represents mutual benefits, we allow the landowners to make voluntary agreements with the peasants and conclude conditions on the size of the peasants’ land allotment and the following duties in compliance with the rules established to protect the inviolability of such agreements.
As a new device, due to the inevitable complexity of the changes required by it, cannot be carried out suddenly, but will require time, approximately at least two years, then during this time, in order to avoid confusion and to respect public and private benefit, existing to this day in the landowners On estates, order must be preserved until, after proper preparations have been made, a new order will be opened.
To achieve this correctly, we considered it good to command:
1. To open in each province a provincial presence for peasant affairs, which is entrusted with the highest management of the affairs of peasant societies established on landowners' lands.
2. To resolve locally misunderstandings and disputes that may arise during the implementation of the new provisions, appoint peace mediators in the counties and form county peace congresses from them.
3. Then create secular administrations on the landowners' estates, for which, leaving rural societies in their current composition, open volost administrations in significant villages, and unite small rural societies under one volost administration.
4. Draw up, verify and approve a statutory charter for each rural society or estate, which will calculate, on the basis of local situation, the amount of land provided to peasants for permanent use, and the amount of duties due from them in favor of the landowner both for the land and and for other benefits from it.
5. These statutory charters shall be carried out as they are approved for each estate, and finally put into effect for all estates within two years from the date of publication of this manifesto.
6. Until the expiration of this period, peasants and courtyard people remain in the same obedience to the landowners and unquestioningly fulfill their previous duties.
Paying attention to the inevitable difficulties of an acceptable transformation, we first of all place our hope in the all-good providence of God protecting Russia.
Therefore, we rely on the valiant zeal of the noble class for the common good, to whom we cannot fail to express from us and from the entire Fatherland well-deserved gratitude for their selfless action towards the implementation of our plans. Russia will not forget that it voluntarily, prompted only by respect for human dignity and Christian love for one’s neighbors, renounced serfdom, which is now being abolished, and laid the foundation for a new economic future for the peasants. We undoubtedly expect that it will also nobly use further diligence to implement the new provisions in good order, in the spirit of peace and goodwill, and that each owner will complete within the boundaries of his estate the great civil feat of the entire class, arranging the life of the peasants and his servants settled on his land people on terms beneficial to both parties, and thereby give the rural population a good example and encouragement to accurately and conscientiously fulfill state duties.
The examples in mind of the generous care of the owners for the welfare of the peasants and the gratitude of the peasants to the beneficent care of the owners confirm our hope that mutual voluntary agreements will resolve most of the difficulties inevitable in some cases of applying general rules to the various circumstances of individual estates, and that in this way the transition from the old order to the new and in the future mutual trust, good agreement and unanimous desire for common benefit will be strengthened.
For the most convenient implementation of those agreements between owners and peasants, according to which they will acquire ownership of field lands along with their estates, the government will provide benefits, on the basis of special rules, by issuing loans and transferring debts lying on the estates.
We rely on the common sense of our people. When the government's idea of abolishing serfdom spread among peasants who were not prepared for it, private misunderstandings arose. Some thought about freedom and forgot about responsibilities. But general common sense has not wavered in the conviction that, according to natural reasoning, one who freely enjoys the benefits of society must mutually serve the good of society by fulfilling certain duties, and according to Christian law, every soul must obey the powers that be (Rom. XIII, 1), give everyone their due, and especially to whom it is due, lesson, tribute, fear, honor; that rights legally acquired by landowners cannot be taken from them without decent compensation or voluntary concession; that it would be contrary to all justice to use land from the landowners and not bear the corresponding duties for it.
And now we expect with hope that the serfs, with the new future opening up for them, will understand and gratefully accept the important donation made by the noble nobility to improve their life.
They will understand that, having received for themselves a more solid foundation of property and greater freedom to dispose of their household, they become obligated to society and to themselves to supplement the beneficialness of the new law with the faithful, well-intentioned and diligent use of the rights granted to them. The most beneficial law cannot make people prosperous if they do not take the trouble to arrange their own well-being under the protection of the law. Contentment is acquired and increased only by unremitting labor, prudent use of strength and means, strict frugality and, in general, an honest life in the fear of God.
Those who carry out preparatory actions for the new structure of peasant life and the very introduction to this structure will use vigilant care to ensure that this is done with a correct, calm movement, observing the convenience of the time, so that the attention of farmers is not diverted from their necessary agricultural activities. Let them carefully cultivate the land and collect its fruits, so that later from a well-filled granary they can take seeds for sowing on land for permanent use or on land acquired as property.
Sign yourself with the sign of the cross, Orthodox people, and call upon us God’s blessing on your free labor, the guarantee of your home well-being and public good. Given in St. Petersburg, on the nineteenth day of February, in the year from the birth of Christ one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, the seventh of our reign.
Servants who do not have a master do not become free people because of this - lackeyness is in their soul.
G. Heine
The date of the abolition of serfdom in Russia is December 19, 1861. This is a significant event, since the beginning of 1861 turned out to be extremely tense for the Russian Empire. Alexander 2 was even forced to put the army on high alert. The reason for this was not a possible war, but a growing boom in peasant discontent.
Several years before 1861, the tsarist government began to consider legislation to abolish serfdom. The Emperor understood that there was no longer room to delay. His advisers unanimously said that the country was on the verge of an explosion of a peasant war. On March 30, 1859, a meeting between noble nobles and the emperor took place. At this meeting, the nobles said that it was better for the liberation of the peasants to come from above, otherwise it would follow from below.
Reform February 19, 1861
As a result, the date for the abolition of serfdom in Russia was determined - February 19, 1861. What did this reform give to the peasants, did they become free? This question can be answered unequivocally, the reform of 1861 made life much worse for peasants. Of course, the tsar’s manitsest, which he signed in order to free ordinary people, endowed the peasants with rights that they never possessed. Now the landowner did not have the right to exchange a peasant for a dog, beat him, forbid him to marry, trade, or engage in fishing. But the problem for the peasants was the land.
Land question
To resolve the land issue, the state convened world mediators, who were sent to the localities and dealt with the division of land there. The overwhelming majority of the work of these intermediaries consisted in the fact that they announced to the peasants that on all controversial issues with the land they must negotiate with the landowner. This agreement had to be drawn up in writing. The reform of 1861 gave landowners the right, when determining land plots, to take away the so-called “surplus” from peasants. As a result, the peasants were left with only 3.5 dessiatines (1) of land per auditor's soul (2). Before the land reform there were 3.8 dessiatines. At the same time, the landowners took the best land from the peasants, leaving only infertile lands.
The most paradoxical thing about the reform of 1861 is that the date of the abolition of serfdom is known exactly, but everything else is very vague. Yes, the manifesto formally allocated land to the peasants, but in fact the land remained in the possession of the landowner. The peasant received only the right to buy that plot of land, who was assigned to him by the landowner. But at the same time, the landowners themselves were given the right to independently determine whether or not to allow the sale of land.
Redemption of land
No less strange was the amount at which the peasants had to buy the land. This amount was calculated based on the rent that the landowner received. For example, the richest nobleman of those years, P.P. Shuvalov. received a quitrent of 23 thousand rubles a year. This means that the peasants, in order to buy the land, had to pay the landowner as much money as was necessary for the landowner to put it in the bank and annually receive those same 23 thousand rubles in interest. As a result, on average, one audit soul had to pay 166.66 rubles for tithes. Since the families were large, on average across the country one family had to pay 500 rubles to buy out a plot of land. It was an unaffordable amount.
The state came to the “aid” of the peasants. The State Bank paid the landowner 75-80% of the required amount. The rest was paid by the peasants. At the same time, they were obliged to settle accounts with the state and pay the required interest within 49 years. On average across the country, the bank paid the landowner 400 rubles for one plot of land. At the same time, the peasants gave the bank money for 49 years in the amount of almost 1,200 rubles. The state almost tripled its money.
The date of the abolition of serfdom is an important stage in the development of Russia, but it did not give a positive result. Only by the end of 1861, uprisings broke out in 1,176 estates in the country. By 1880, 34 Russian provinces were engulfed in peasant uprisings.
Only after the first revolution in 1907 did the government cancel the land purchase. Land began to be provided free of charge.
1 – one dessiatine is equal to 1.09 hectares.
2 – auditor soul – the male population of the country (women were not entitled to land).
PROVISIONS OF FEBRUARY 19, 1861, a legislative act that formalized the abolition of serfdom and began the peasant reform of 1861. Consisted of the General Regulations on peasants emerging from serfdom, 4 separate Regulations, 4 Local Regulations ... ... Russian history
"Provisions" February 19, 1861 Political science. Dictionary.
Provisions February 19, 1861- Peasant reform in Russia, also known as abolition of serfdom, was a reform carried out in 1861 that abolished serfdom in the Russian Empire. Contents 1 History 2 Reasons 3 Preparation of reform ... Wikipedia
Provisions February 19, 1861- (“Regulations” February 19, 1861) a set of legislative acts that formalized the abolition of serfdom in Russia. Approved by Emperor Alexander II on February 19, 1861 in St. Petersburg. Consisted of “General provisions on peasants who came from ... ...
"Provisions" February 19, 1861- a legislative act that formalized the abolition of serfdom in Russia and began the peasant reform of 1861. Consisted of the “General Regulations on Peasants Emerging from Serfdom”, 4 separate “Regulations”, 4 “Local Provisions” by group... ... encyclopedic Dictionary
"REGULATIONS" FEBRUARY 19, 1861- legislator acts formalizing the abolition of serfdom in Russia. They consist of 17 documents: General provisions on peasants emerging from serfdom, provisions on the arrangement of palace people, on ransom, on the cross. institutions, four local... ... Soviet historical encyclopedia
FEBRUARY PROVISIONS- REGULATIONS OF FEBRUARY 19, 1861, a legislative act that formalized the abolition of serfdom in Russia and began the peasant reform of 1861. Consisted of the General Regulations on peasants emerging from serfdom, 4 separate Regulations, 4 Local ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
Charter 1861- a document that established the size of the allotment of temporarily obliged peasants (See Temporarily obliged peasants) according to the “Regulations” of February 19, 1861 (See Regulations of February 19, 1861) and duties for its use, and also recorded information about ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
PEASANT REFORM 1861- PEASANT REFORM of 1861, the main reform carried out during the reign of Emperor Alexander II, 1860-70s, abolished serfdom. Carried out on the basis of the Regulations of February 19, 1861 (published March 5). The peasants received personal freedom and... ... Russian history
Peasant reform 1861- bourgeois reform that abolished serfdom in Russia and marked the beginning of the capitalist formation in the country. The main cause of K. r. There was a crisis in the feudal serf system. “The power of economic development that pulled Russia in... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Books
- Great Reform. February 19 (set of 2 books), In the year of the 150th anniversary of the abolition of serfdom in Russia, the TONCHU Publishing House republished six volumes of the books “The Great Reform. Russian society and the peasant question in the past and present”, released... Category: Non-fiction Buy for RUB 3,667
- , Reproduced in the original author’s spelling. In… Category: Library Science Publisher: Book on Demand, Manufacturer: Book on Demand, Buy for 1432 UAH (Ukraine only)
- Highly approved by His Imperial Majesty on February 19, 1861, the Regulations on peasants emerging from serfdom, Reproduced in the original author's spelling... Category:
The “Regulations” of February 19, 1861 include 17 legislative acts: “General Regulations”, four “Local Regulations on the Land Structure of Peasants”, “Regulations” - “On Redemption”, etc. Their effect extended to 45 provinces, in which there were 100,428 landowners There were 22,563 thousand serfs of both sexes, including 1,467 thousand household servants and 543 thousand assigned to private factories.
The elimination of feudal relations in the countryside is a long process that lasted more than two decades. The peasants did not immediately receive complete liberation. The Manifesto announced that peasants for another 2 years (from February 19, 1861 to February 19, 1863) were required to serve the same duties as under serfdom. Landowners were forbidden to transfer peasants to courtyards, and quit-rent workers were prohibited from transferring them to corvée. But even after 1863, peasants were obliged to bear feudal duties established by the “Regulations” - pay quitrents or perform corvée. The final act was the transfer of the peasants for ransom. But the transfer of peasants was allowed upon the promulgation of the “Regulations,” either by mutual agreement with the landowner, or by his unilateral demand (the peasants themselves had no right to demand their transfer for ransom).
Legal status of peasants
According to the manifesto, the peasants immediately received personal freedom. Providing “will” was the main requirement in the centuries-old history of the peasant movement. In 1861, the former serf now not only received the opportunity to freely dispose of his personality, but also a number of general property and civil rights, and all this liberated the peasants morally.
The issue of personal emancipation in 1861 had not yet received a final resolution, but with the transfer of the peasants to ransom, the landowner's guardianship over them ceased.
Subsequent reforms in the field of court, local government, education, and military service expanded the rights of the peasantry: the peasant could be elected to the jury of new courts, to the zemstvo self-government body, and he was given access to secondary and higher educational institutions. But this did not completely eliminate the class inequality of the peasantry. They were obliged to bear capitation and other monetary and in-kind duties, and were subjected to corporal punishment, from which other, privileged classes were exempt.
Peasant self-government
"Peasant public administration" was introduced during the summer of 1861. Peasant self-government in the state village, created in 1837-1841. the reform of P. D. Kiselyov was taken as a model.
The original unit was a rural society, which could consist of one or several villages or part of a village. The rural administration consisted of a village assembly. The decisions of the meeting had legal force if the majority of those present at the meeting spoke in favor of them.
Several adjacent rural communities made up the volost. In total, 8,750 volosts were formed in former landowner villages in 1861. The volost assembly elected for 3 years a volost foreman, his assistants and a volost court consisting of 4 to 12 judges. The volost foreman performed a number of administrative and economic functions: he monitored the “order and deanery” in the volost, “suppressing false rumors.” The volost court considered peasant property litigation, if the amount of claims did not exceed 100 rubles, cases of minor offenses, guided by the norms of customary law. All business was conducted by him orally.
Global mediators
The Institute of Peace Mediators, created in the summer of 1861, was of great importance.
Peace mediators were appointed by the Senate from local hereditary landowners on the proposal of the governors together with the provincial leaders of the nobility. The peace mediators were accountable to the district congress of peace mediators, and the congress was accountable to the provincial presence for peasant affairs.
Peace mediators were not “impartial reconcilers” of disagreements between peasants and landowners; they also defended the interests of landowners, sometimes even violating them. The composition of the world mediators elected for the first three years was the most liberal. Among them were the Decembrists A.E. Rosen and M.A. Nazimov, Petrashevites N.S. Kashkin and N.A. Speshnev, writer L.N. Tolstoy and surgeon N.I. Pirogov.
Peasant allotment
The issue of land occupied a central place in the reform. The law issued was based on the principle of recognizing landowners' ownership of all land on their estates, as well as peasant allotments. And the peasants were declared only users of this land. To become the owner of their allotment land, peasants had to buy it from the landowner.
Complete dispossession of the peasants was an economically unprofitable and socially dangerous measure: depriving the landowners and the state of the opportunity to receive the same income from the peasants, it would create a multimillion-dollar mass of landless peasantry and thereby could cause general peasant discontent. The demand for land was the main one in the peasant movement of the pre-reform years.
The entire territory of European Russia was divided into 3 stripes - non-chernozem, chernozem and steppe, and the “strips” were divided into “terrains”.
In the non-chernozem and chernozem “strips”, “higher” and “lower” norms of allotments were established. In the steppe there is one - a “narrow” norm.
The peasants used the landowner's pastures for free, received permission to graze cattle in the landowner's forest, on the mown meadow and the landowner's harvested field. The peasant, having received an allotment, did not yet become a full owner.
The communal form of land ownership excluded the peasant from the opportunity to sell his plot.
Under serfdom, some of the wealthy peasants had their own purchased lands.
To protect the interests of the small landed nobility, special “rules” established a number of benefits for them, which created more difficult conditions for the peasants on these estates. The most deprived were the “peasants-gifts” who received gifts of gift – “beggarly” or “orphan” plots. According to the law, the landowner could not force the peasant to take a gift. Receiving it freed him from redemption payments; the donor completely broke with the landowner. But the peasant could switch to “donation” only with the consent of his landowner.
Most of the deeds lost and found themselves in dire straits. In 1881, Minister of Internal Affairs N.P. Ignatiev wrote that donors had reached extreme poverty.
The allocation of land to peasants was of a compulsory nature: the landowner had to provide the plot to the peasant, and the peasant had to take it. According to the law, until 1870, a peasant could not refuse an allotment.
The “redemption provision” allowed the peasant to leave the community, but it was very difficult. The activists of the 1861 reform, P. P. Semenov, noted: during the first 25 years, the purchase of individual plots of land and leaving the community was rare, but since the beginning of the 80s it has become a “common occurrence.”
Duties of temporarily obliged peasants
The law provided for the serving of duties in the form of corvée and quitrents for the land provided before the peasants transferred to the ransom.
According to the law, it was impossible to increase the size of quitrents above pre-reform levels if the land allotment did not increase. But the law did not provide for a reduction in quitrent due to a reduction in allotment. As a result of the cut off from the peasant allotment, there was an actual increase in quitrents per 1 dessiatine.
The rates of rent established by law exceeded the income from land. It was believed that this was payment for the land allocated to the peasants, but it was payment for personal freedom.
In the first years after the reform, corvée proved so ineffective that landowners began to quickly transfer peasants to quitrent. Thanks to this, in a very short time (1861-1863) the proportion of corvee peasants decreased from 71 to 33%.
Redemption operation
The final stage of the peasant reform was the transfer of peasants to ransom. On December 28, 1881, a “Regulation” was published, which provided for the transfer of the peasants who remained in a temporarily obligated position to compulsory redemption starting January 18, 1883. By 1881, only 15% of temporarily obliged peasants remained. Their transfer for ransom was completed by 1895. A total of 124 thousand buyout transactions were concluded.
The ransom was based not on the real market price of the land, but on feudal duties. The size of the redemption for the allotment was determined by “capitalization of the quitrent.”
The state took over the ransom business by conducting a buyout operation. For this purpose, in 1861, the Main Redemption Institution was established under the Ministry of Finance. The state's centralized purchase of peasant plots solved a number of important social and economic problems. The ransom turned out to be a profitable operation for the state.
The transfer of peasants to ransom meant the final separation of the peasant economy from the landowners. The reform of 1861 created favorable conditions for the gradual transition from a feudal landowner economy to a capitalist one.
Peasants' response to reform
The promulgation of the “Regulations” on February 19, 1861, the content of which deceived the peasants’ hopes for “full freedom,” caused an explosion of peasant protest in the spring of 1861. There was not a single province in which the protest of the peasants against the unfavorable conditions of the granted “will” did not manifest itself.
The peasant movement assumed its greatest scope in the central black earth provinces, the Volga region and Ukraine. The uprisings in early April 1861 in the villages of Bezdna and Kandeevka caused great public resonance in the country. They ended with executions of the rebels: hundreds of peasants were killed and wounded. The leader of the uprising in the village of Bezdna, Anton Petrov, was court-martialed and shot.
The spring of 1861 is the high point of the peasant movement at the beginning of the reform. By the summer of 1861, the government managed to repel the wave of peasant protest. In 1862, a new wave of peasant protest arose, associated with the introduction of statutory charters. The belief about the “illegality” of charter charters spread among the peasants. As a result, Alexander II spoke twice before representatives of the peasantry to dispel these illusions. During his trip to Crimea in the fall of 1862, he told the peasants that “there will be no other will than the one that is given.”
The peasant movement of 1861-1862 resulted in spontaneous and scattered riots, easily suppressed by the government. Since 1863, the peasant movement began to decline sharply. Their character also changed. They focused on the private interests of their community, on using the possibilities of legal and peaceful forms of struggle in order to achieve the best conditions for organizing the economy.