Liberation from serfdom. When was serfdom abolished

Boris Kustodiev. "The Liberation of the Peasants (Reading the Manifesto)". 1907 painting

"I want to be alone with my conscience." The emperor asked everyone to leave the office. In front of him on the table lay a document that was supposed to turn the whole of Russian history - the Law on the Liberation of the Peasants. He was expected for many years, the best people of the state fought for him. The law not only eliminated the shame of Russia - serfdom, but also gave hope for the triumph of goodness and justice. Such a step for the monarch is a difficult test for which he has been preparing all his life, from year to year, from childhood ...
His tutor Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky spared neither effort nor time to instill in the future emperor of Russia a sense of goodness, honor, and humanity. When Alexander II ascended the throne, Zhukovsky was no longer around, but the emperor kept his advice and instructions and followed them until the end of his life. Having accepted Russia, exhausted by the Crimean War, he began his reign by giving peace to Russia.
Historians often reproach the emperors of the first half of the 19th century for not striving to implement or trying with all their might to hinder the abolition of serfdom. Only Alexander II decided to take this step. His reform activities are often accused of being half-hearted. But was it really easy for the monarch to carry out reforms if his support, the Russian nobility, did not support his undertakings. Alexander II needed great courage to balance between the possibility of a threat of noble opposition, on the one hand, and the threat of a peasant revolt, on the other.
In fairness, we note that there were attempts to carry out a peasant reform before. Let's go back to history. In 1797, Emperor Paul I issued a decree on a three-day corvee, although the wording of the law remained unclear, whether the law does not allow, or simply does not recommend the use of peasant labor in corvee for more than three days a week. It is clear that the landlords were for the most part inclined to adhere to the latter interpretation. His son, Alexander I, once said: "If education were at a higher level, I would destroy slavery, even if it cost me my life." However, after Count Razumovsky applied to him in 1803 for permission to release fifty thousand of his serfs, the tsar did not forget about this precedent, and as a result, in the same year, a decree “On free cultivators” appeared. According to this law, the landlords received the right to release their peasants into the wild in the event that it would be beneficial to both parties. For 59 years of the law, the landowners released only 111,829 peasants, of which 50 thousand were serfs of Count Razumovsky. Apparently, the nobility was more inclined to hatch plans for the reorganization of society than to begin its implementation with the liberation of their own peasants.

Nicholas I in 1842 issued a Decree "On obligated peasants", according to which peasants were allowed to be freed without land, providing it for the performance of certain duties. As a result, 27 thousand people passed into the category of obliged peasants. The need to abolish serfdom was not in doubt. “The serfdom is a powder magazine under the state,” wrote the chief of gendarmes A.Kh.
But Alexander II abolished serfdom. He understood that one should act carefully, gradually preparing society for reforms. In the first years of his reign, at a meeting with a delegation of Moscow nobles, he said: “Rumors are circulating that I want to give freedom to the peasants; it's not fair, and you can say it to everyone right and left. But a feeling of hostility between the peasants and the landowners, unfortunately, exists, and this has already led to several cases of disobedience to the landowners. I am convinced that sooner or later we must come to this. I think you are of the same opinion as me. It is better to begin the abolition of serfdom from above than to wait for the time when it begins to abolish itself from below.” The emperor asked the nobles to think and submit their views on the peasant issue. But no offers were forthcoming.

Then Alexander II turned to another option - the creation of a Secret Committee "to discuss measures to arrange the life of the landlord peasants" under his personal chairmanship. The committee held its first meeting on January 3, 1857. The committee included Count S.S. Lanskoy, Prince Orlov, Count Bludov, Minister of Finance Brock, Count Adlerberg, Prince V.A. Dolgorukov, Minister of State Property Muravyov, Prince Gagarin, Baron Korf and Ya.I. Rostovtsev. Managed the affairs of the committee Butkov. Committee members agreed that serfdom should be abolished, but warned against making radical decisions. Only Lanskoy, Bludov, Rostovtsev and Butkov came out in favor of a real emancipation of the peasants; most of the committee members proposed only measures to alleviate the situation of the serfs. Then the emperor introduced his brother, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, to the committee, who was convinced of the need to abolish serfdom.

The Grand Duke was an extraordinary person, and thanks to his active influence, the committee began to develop measures. On the advice of the Grand Duke, Alexander II took advantage of the situation in the Baltic provinces, where the landowners were dissatisfied with the existing fixed norms of corvée and dues and would like to abolish them. The Lithuanian landowners decided that it was better for them to give up the ownership of serfs altogether, retaining land that could be profitably rented out. A corresponding letter was drawn up to the emperor, and he, in turn, handed it over to the Secret Committee. The discussion of the letter in the committee went on for a long time, most of its members did not share such an idea, but Alexander ordered "to approve the good intentions of the Lithuanian nobles" and to create official committees in the Vilna, Kovno and Grodno provinces to prepare proposals for organizing peasant life. Instructions were sent out to all Russian governors in case the local landowners "have a desire to solve the matter in a similar way." But no one showed up. Then Alexander sent a rescript to the Governor-General of St. Petersburg with the same instruction to create a committee.
In December 1857, both royal rescripts were published in the newspapers. So, with the help of glasnost (by the way, this word came into use at that time), the matter got off the ground. For the first time, the problem of the abolition of serfdom was openly discussed in the country. The Secret Committee ceased to be such, and in early 1858 it was renamed the Main Committee for Peasant Affairs. And by the end of the year the committees were already working in all provinces.
On March 4, 1858, the Zemsky department was formed as part of the Ministry of the Interior for the preliminary consideration of projects received from the provinces, which were then transferred to the Main Committee. Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs A.I. Levshin was appointed chairman of the Zemsky department, the most important role in his work was played by the head of the department, Ya.A. Soloviev, and the director of the economic department, N.A. Milyutin, who soon replaced Levshin as deputy minister.

At the end of 1858, comments from the provincial committees finally began to arrive. To study their proposals and develop general and local provisions for the reform, two editorial commissions were formed, the chairman of which the emperor appointed the chief head of military educational institutions, Ya.I. Rostovtsev. General Rostovtsev was sympathetic to the cause of the liberation of the peasants. He established a completely trusting relationship with Milyutin, who, at the request of the chairman, attracted liberal-minded officials and public figures, staunch supporters of the implementation of the reform, Yu.F. Samarin, Prince Cherkassky, Ya.A. Solovyov and others, to the commissions. They were opposed by members of the commissions who were opponents of the reform, among whom Count P.P. Shuvalov, V.V. Apraksin and Adjutant General Prince I.F. Paskevich stood out. They insisted that the landowners retain the right to own land, rejected the possibility of granting land to the peasants for redemption, except in cases of mutual consent, and demanded that the landowners be granted full power in their estates. Already the first meetings were held in a rather tense atmosphere.
With the death of Rostovtsev, Count Panin was appointed in his place, which was perceived by many as the curtailment of activities to free the peasants. Only Alexander II was imperturbable. To his aunt, Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, who expressed misgivings about this appointment, he replied: “You don’t know Panin; his convictions are the exact execution of my orders.” The Emperor was right. Count Panin strictly followed his instructions: do not change anything during the preparation of the reform, continue to follow the intended course. Therefore, the hopes of the feudal lords, who dreamed of cardinal concessions in their favor, were not destined to come true.

At the same time, at the meetings of the editorial commissions, Panin behaved more independently, trying to gradually, very carefully, make concessions to the landowners, which could lead to significant distortions of the project. The struggle between supporters and opponents of the reform sometimes took on a rather serious character.
On October 10, 1860, the emperor ordered the closing of the editorial committees, which had worked for about twenty months, and the resumption of the activities of the Main Committee. Due to the illness of the chairman of the committee, Prince Orlov, Alexander II appointed his brother, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, to this post. Several groups formed in the small committee, none of which could win a clear majority. At the head of one of them, which included the chief of the gendarmes, Prince V.A. Dolgorukov, the Minister of Finance A.M. Knyazhevich and others, was M.N. Muravyov. These members of the committee sought to reduce the norms of land allotments. A special position in the committee was occupied by Count Panin, who challenged many of the provisions of the editorial draft, and Prince P.P. Gagarin, who insisted on the liberation of the peasants without land. For a long time, Grand Duke Konstantin failed to gather a solid majority of supporters of the draft editorial commissions. In order to ensure the advantage, he tried, resorting to the power of persuasion and making some concessions, to win over Panin to his side, and he nevertheless succeeded. Thus, an absolute majority of the supporters of the project was formed - fifty percent plus one vote: five members of the Main Committee against four.
Many were waiting for the offensive of 1861. Grand Duke Konstantin noted in his diary: “January 1, 1861. This mysterious 1861 began. What will he bring us? With what feelings will we look at him on December 31? Should the peasant question and the Slavic question be resolved in it? Isn't this alone enough to call it mysterious and even fatal? Perhaps this is the most important epoch in the thousand-year existence of Russia?

At the last meeting of the Main Committee, the emperor himself presided. Ministers who were not members of the committee were invited to the meeting. Alexander II stated that, submitting the draft for consideration by the State Council, he would not tolerate any tricks and delays, and set the deadline for completion of the consideration on February 15, so that he could publish and bring the content of the resolutions to the peasants before the start of field work. “This is what I want, I demand, I command!” the emperor said.
In a detailed speech at a meeting of the State Council, Alexander II gave a historical background on the attempts and plans to resolve the peasant issue in previous reigns and during his reign and explained what he expects from the members of the State Council: “Views of the presented work may be different. Therefore, I will gladly listen to all different opinions, but I have the right to demand one thing from you: that you, putting aside all personal interests, act not as landowners, but as state dignitaries, invested with my confidence.
But even in the State Council, the approval of the project was not easy. Only with the support of the emperor did the decision of the minority receive the force of law. The preparations for the reform were nearing completion. By February 17, 1861, the State Council completed consideration of the project.
On February 19, 1861, on the sixth anniversary of his accession to Alexander II, he signed all the legal provisions on the reform and the Manifesto on the abolition of serfdom.
On March 5, 1861, the Manifesto was read in the churches after Mass. At the divorce in the Mikhailovsky Manege, Alexander II himself read it to the troops.

The manifesto on the abolition of serfdom provided the peasants with personal freedom. From now on, they could not be sold, bought, donated, relocated at the request of the landowner. Peasants now had the right to own property, the freedom to marry, they could independently conclude contracts and conduct legal proceedings, they could acquire real estate in their own name, and they had freedom of movement.
To personal freedom, the peasant received a plot of land. The size of the land allotment was established taking into account the terrain and was not the same in different regions of Russia. If earlier the peasant had more land than he set a fixed allotment for a given area, then the “extra” part was cut off in favor of the landowner. Such "segments" amounted to a fifth of all lands. The allotment was given to the peasant for a ransom. A quarter of the ransom amount was paid by the peasant to the landowner at a time, and the rest was repaid by the state. The peasant had to repay his debt to the state within 49 years. Prior to the redemption of land from the landowner, the peasant was considered "temporarily liable", paid the landowner dues and worked off the corvée. The relationship between the landowner and the peasant was regulated by the Charter.
The peasants of each landowner's estate united in rural societies - communities. They discussed and resolved their general economic issues at rural gatherings. The decisions of the gatherings were to be carried out by the village headman, who was elected for three years. Several adjacent rural societies made up the volost. The volost headman was elected at a general meeting, he later performed administrative duties.
The activities of the rural and volost administrations, as well as the relationship between peasants and landlords, were controlled by amicable mediators. They were appointed by the Senate from among the local noble landowners. Conciliators had broad powers and followed the directions of the law. The size of the peasant allotment and duties for each estate should be determined once and for all by agreement between the peasants and the landowner and recorded in the Charter. The introduction of these letters was the main occupation of the peace mediators.
Assessing the peasant reform, it is important to understand that it was the result of a compromise between the landlords, peasants and the government. Moreover, the interests of the landowners were taken into account as much as possible, but there was probably no other way to free the peasants. The compromise nature of the reform already contained future contradictions and conflicts. The reform prevented mass protests by peasants, although they did take place in some regions. The most significant of them are the uprisings of peasants in the village of Bezdna, Kazan province and Kandeevka, Penza province.
And yet, the liberation of more than 20 million landlord peasants with land was a unique event in Russian and world history. The personal freedom of the peasants and the transformation of former serfs into "free rural inhabitants" destroyed the former system of economic arbitrariness and opened up new prospects for Russia, creating an opportunity for the broad development of market relations and the further development of society. The abolition of serfdom paved the way for other important transformations, which were to introduce new forms of self-government and courts in the country, to encourage the development of education.

Undeniably great is the merit in this of Emperor Alexander II, as well as those who developed and promoted this reform, fought for its implementation - Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, N.A. Milyutin, Ya.I. Rostovtsev, Yu.F. Samarin, Ya.A.Soloviev and others.

References:
Great reform. T. 5: Figures of reform. - M., 1912.
Ilyin, V.V. Reforms and counter-reforms in Russia. - M., 1996.
Troitsky, N.A. Russia in the 19th century. - M., 1997.

155 years ago, on February 19 (according to the new style - March 3), 1861, Emperor Alexander II signed the Manifesto "On the most merciful granting to serfs of the rights of the state of free rural inhabitants", which was published two days later in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin. This document actually abolished serfdom, in fact, slavery, which had existed in Russia for several centuries.

social lift

The significance of the reform is evidenced by at least this fact: it created a social elevator that allowed the former serfs to climb high up the social ladder and bring great benefits to their Fatherland. Here is a concrete example. In the Vladimir province, among the liberated peasants was the family of Grigory Stoletov. (True, the head of the family, being a serf, still had the right to engage in trading activities). The eldest son Vasily learned the construction business, turned into a major contractor. He invested a considerable part of his income in the education of his younger brothers - Alexander and Nikolai.

As a result, Alexander became a prominent physicist, professor at Moscow University, who was one of the first to study the photoelectric effect. After some time, these works found wide practical application. Nikolai chose a military career, rose to the rank of lieutenant general, and participated in many campaigns. He was one of the leaders of the defense of Shipka, in fact he created the Bulgarian army. In Bulgaria, Stoletov was elected an honorary citizen of the famous city of Gabrovo during his lifetime.

After the reform of 1861, capitalist relations began to develop in Russia, and some of the former serfs, endowed with energy and enterprise, went into business. For example, the Ryabushinsky bankers and owners of a whole network of textile factories came from the peasants of the Kaluga province.

Slavery existed according to ... tradition

Attempts to abolish serfdom were made in Russia for a century and a half. Even Peter the Great thought about it. But the emperor quickly realized that it was dangerous to carry out such a reform in a situation where many rights and privileges had already been taken away from the boyars and nobles. Because it can provoke a powerful confrontation.

By the way, the founder of the Northern capital also tried to find out

when and by what law was serfdom itself established? And then it turned out that there was no legal basis: serfdom in Russia exists and is based on tradition.

The great-grandson of Peter Alekseevich, Emperor Paul I, limited the corvée service to three days a week. But many landowners did not obey the tsar's will, forcing the peasants to hunch back for five, six, and seven days.

In Estonia, serfdom was abolished in 1816, in Courland - in 1817, in Livonia - in 1819. That is, during the reign of Emperor Alexander I.

It can be assumed that the uprising of the Decembrists prevented Nicholas I from abolishing serfdom to some extent. The emperor feared that after the incident, the granting of freedom to the peasants could have dangerous consequences for the state.

The Emperor's nerves could not stand it

By the middle of the 19th century, it became completely clear that without the abolition of serfdom, the further development of the country was no longer possible, says Doctor of Historical Sciences Yuri Zhukov. - Defeat in the Crimean War and more frequent peasant uprisings prompted decisive action by Alexander II and his like-minded people. “It is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait until it begins to abolish itself from below,” the emperor himself once said at a reception with the marshal of the Moscow nobility.

While preparing for the reform, Alexander II used the developments made by his father. A few years before the release of the Manifesto of 1861, a Secret Committee was created by decree of the emperor, which was engaged in the preparation of a historical document. Why secret? Yes, it’s very simple: so that the nobles, dissatisfied with the expected reforms, do not start muddying the waters ahead of time.

The compilers of the Manifesto did not intend to exactly copy the Western system of social relations, as some experts claim. On behalf of the tsar, officials visited a number of countries, studied the relationship between the state and the peasants, between the peasants and the owners of the land, and considered how this experience could be used in Russia.

And yet it was impossible to keep secret the historical document being prepared for a very long time. After all, this is tantamount to hiding in a bag not what the awl, but the whole sword. And heated discussions began.

Very influential people opposed the reform. Even many members of the government, most of whom were landowners, expressed their disagreement rather harshly. Among them is the Minister of the Interior Pyotr Valuev, who, in his own words, was "the pen of the opposition", that is, opposition to the cause of the liberation of the peasants.

But the sovereign still had someone to rely on. Alexander II was supported by his brother Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich and the sister of the late Emperor Nicholas I, the smart, energetic and strong-willed Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna.

During the discussion of the reform, the intensity of passions was such that the emperor sometimes could not stand his nerves, and he allowed himself to shout at his opponents. This was later bitterly recalled by an ardent supporter of the abolition of serfdom, the Governor-General of Novorossia and Bessarabia Count Alexander Stroganov.

Both peasants and landowners were dissatisfied

The Manifesto of 1861 and the subsequent reform are the result of a compromise between various forces. And, as always happens in such cases, they were not without serious shortcomings.

The main provisions of the reform were as follows, says historian and writer Elena Prudnikova. - The peasants were granted personal freedom, and the landowners retained all the lands belonging to them, but were obliged to provide the peasants with land plots for use. For the use of them, the peasants had to continue to serve the corvée or pay dues - until they redeem their land. And when it turned out that the peasants did not have the means to redeem, the state contributed money for them, obliging them to repay the debt within 49 years at the rate of 6 percent per annum - a high percentage for those times. In such conditions, many peasants simply refused the land.

Not wanting to cause strong discontent among the landowners, the area of ​​land allocated to the former serfs was done less than necessary for the profitability of peasant labor. On average, each peasant farm received three and a half acres of land, and in order to have at least some profit, you need at least five or six acres. That is, farms were doomed to gradual ruin. A well-known caricature of that time, "A Peasant on One Leg", depicts a villager on a tiny piece of land.

As conceived by the ideologues of the reform, landlords deprived of free labor will begin to think about how to increase the efficiency of agricultural production, notes Prudnikova. - In reality, it turned out differently. Not all landowners were ready to run a capitalist economy. Some went bankrupt, others simply preferred to lease the land. And very few people wanted to invest in order to increase the efficiency of farms. Large, high-yielding plantations existed mainly only in the west and south of Russia.

It turns out that the reform, which abolished in Russia such a shameful phenomenon as slavery, was not particularly pleased with both the landlords and the peasants. Remember Firs, the servant from The Cherry Orchard: they say, there used to be order, “men with gentlemen, gentlemen with men”.

The fate of the peasants liberated from serfdom developed in different ways. Someone was able to achieve great success, using the mentioned social lift, some remained on the ground, managed to adapt to new working conditions and gradually improved their economy. But many went bankrupt and left for the cities, where they could not always find application for their forces.

Each comparison, as you know, is lame, but the peasant reform of the middle of the 19th century is somewhat reminiscent of ... the privatization of state property, which was carried out in the nineties of the 20th century, - says Yuri Zhukov. - In both cases, effective owners did not appear in the country, but the number of the dispossessed increased sharply.

Reform spawned terrorism

... In July 1867, the St. Petersburg Vedomosti newspaper published an essay about the arrest of a whole group of robbers who robbed trains. All of them were former serfs who could neither work in the new conditions on the ground nor find employment in the city. One of these thugs, a former serf of a landowner in the Tula province, was distinguished by an extraordinary love for horses, the ability to drive around them and prepare them for races. The trouble was that the landowner, who lost a significant part of his income due to the reform, sold his stud farm, and the serf was out of work.

But even this is not the worst.

Unlike the countries of Western Europe, in Russia the liberation of the peasants was not accompanied by political transformations, says Yuri Zhukov. - In our country there were no political parties, democratic institutions, in particular, the parliament. And the only form of struggle was terror.

Recall that twenty years after the abolition of serfdom, on March 1, 1881, members of the Narodnaya Volya organization killed the liberator Tsar Alexander II, and at the beginning of the 20th century Russia was completely swept by a wave of political terrorism.

Interesting Facts

In the Netherlands, serfdom was abolished in the 11th century, in Great Britain in the 12th century, in France in the 11th century. Of all the so-called civilized countries, after Russia, slavery ceased to exist only in the United States.

During the period from 1855 to 1900, the population of St. Petersburg increased almost 2.5 times: from 513,000 people to 1,248,000 people.

At the beginning of the 20th century, most terrorists belonged to the first generation of artisans or laborers who came from impoverished peasant families. According to statistics, no less than fifty percent of all political assassins organized by the Socialist-Revolutionaries were committed by terrorist workers. In some ways, a similar situation is observed now in modern Russia.

Servants who do not have a master do not become free people because of this - they have servility in their souls.

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 the growing boom of discontent among the peasants.

A few years before 1861, the tsarist government began to consider a law to abolish serfdom. The emperor understood that there was nowhere to delay further. His advisers unanimously said that the country was on the verge of an explosion of a peasant war. On March 30, 1859, a meeting of noblemen 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 of the abolition of serfdom in Russia was determined - February 19, 1861. What did this reform give the peasants, did they become free? This question can be answered unambiguously the reform of 1861 made the life of the peasants much worse. Of course, the royal manifesto, signed by him in order to free ordinary people, endowed the peasants with rights that they never had. Now the landowner did not have the right to exchange a peasant for a dog, to beat him, to forbid him to marry, trade, or engage in fishing. But the problem for the peasants was the land.

Land issue

To resolve the land issue, the state convened world mediators who were sent to the places and there they were engaged in the division of the land. The overwhelming majority of the work of these intermediaries consisted in the fact that they announced to the peasants that on all disputed issues with the land they should negotiate with the landowner. This agreement had to be in writing. The reform of 1861 gave the landowners the right, when determining land plots, to take away from the peasants, the so-called "surplus". As a result, the peasants had only 3.5 acres (1) of land per audit soul (2). Before the reform of the land was 3.8 acres. At the same time, the landlords took away the best land from the peasants, leaving only barren 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 endowed the peasants with land, but in fact the land remained in the possession of the landowner. The peasant received only the right to redeem that land who was assigned to him by the landowner. But at the same time, the landlords themselves were endowed with the right to independently determine whether or not to allow the sale of land.

Land redemption

No less strange was the amount at which the peasants had to buy land plots. This amount was calculated on the basis of the dues received by the landowner. For example, the richest nobleman of those years Shuvalov P.P. received a quitrent of 23 thousand rubles a year. This means that the peasants, in order to redeem the land, had to pay the landowner as much money as needed so that the landowner put them in the bank and annually received the same 23 thousand rubles in interest. As a result, on average, one auditor's soul had to pay 166.66 rubles for the tithing. Since the families were large, on average across the country, one family had to pay 500 rubles for the purchase of a land plot. It was an unbearable amount.

The state came to "help" the peasants. The State Bank paid the landlord 75-80% of the required amount. Peasants paid the rest. 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 land plot. At the same time, the peasants gave money to the bank for 49 years in the amount of almost 1200 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 1176 estates in the country. By 1880, 34 Russian provinces were engulfed in peasant uprisings.

Only after the first revolution in 1907, the government canceled the purchase of land. Land was provided free of charge.

1 - one tithe is equal to 1.09 hectares.

2 - auditor's soul - the male population of the country (women were not entitled to land).

Alexander II

Contrary to the existing erroneous opinion that the vast majority of the population of pre-reform Russia consisted of serfdom, in reality the percentage of serfs to the entire population of the empire remained almost unchanged at 45% from the second revision to the eighth (that is, from to), and to the 10th revision ( ) this share fell to 37%. According to the 1859 census, 23.1 million people (of both sexes) out of 62.5 million people who inhabited the Russian Empire were in serfdom. Of the 65 provinces and regions that existed in the Russian Empire in 1858, in the three above-mentioned Baltic provinces, in the Land of the Black Sea Host, in the Primorsky Region, the Semipalatinsk Region and the region of the Siberian Kirghiz, in the Derbent Governorate (with the Caspian Territory) and the Erivan Governorate, there were no serfs at all; in 4 more administrative units (Arkhangelsk and Shemakha provinces, Transbaikal and Yakutsk regions) there were no serfs either, with the exception of a few dozen courtyard people (servants). In the remaining 52 provinces and regions, the proportion of serfs in the population ranged from 1.17% (Bessarabian region) to 69.07% (Smolensk province).

The reasons

In 1861, a reform was carried out in Russia that abolished serfdom and marked the beginning of the capitalist formation in the country. The main reason for this reform was: the crisis of the feudal system, peasant unrest, especially intensified during the Crimean War. In addition, serfdom hindered the development of the state and the formation of a new class - the bourgeoisie, which was limited in rights and could not participate in government. Many landowners believed that the emancipation of the peasants would give a positive result in the development of agriculture. The moral aspect played an equally significant role in the abolition of serfdom - in the middle of the 19th century there was "slavery" in Russia.

Reform preparation

The government's program was outlined in the rescript of Emperor Alexander II on November 20 (December 2) to the Vilna Governor-General V. I. Nazimov. It provided: the destruction of personal dependence peasants while maintaining all the land in the ownership of the landowners; providing peasants a certain amount of land for which they will be required to pay dues or serve corvee, and over time - the right to buy out peasant estates (a residential building and outbuildings). In order to prepare peasant reforms, provincial committees were formed, within which a struggle began for measures and forms of concessions between liberal and reactionary landowners. The fear of an all-Russian peasant revolt forced the government to change the government program of the peasant reform, the drafts of which were repeatedly changed in connection with the rise or fall of the peasant movement. In December, a new peasant reform program was adopted: providing peasants the possibility of redemption of land allotment and the creation of bodies of peasant public administration. Editorial commissions were created in March to consider the drafts of provincial committees and develop a peasant reform. The project, drawn up by the Editorial Commissions at the end, differed from that proposed by the provincial committees with an increase in land allotments and a decrease in duties. This caused dissatisfaction with the local nobility, and in the project allotments were somewhat reduced and duties increased. This direction in changing the draft was preserved both when it was considered in the Main Committee on Peasant Affairs at the end, and when it was discussed in the State Council at the beginning.

On February 19 (March 3, old style) in St. Petersburg, Alexander II signed the Manifesto on the abolition of serfdom and the Regulations on peasants leaving serfdom, which consisted of 17 legislative acts.

The main provisions of the peasant reform

The main act - "The General Regulations on Peasants Who Have Emerged from Serfdom" - contained the main conditions for the peasant reform:

• peasants received personal freedom and the right to freely dispose of their property;
• the landowners retained ownership of all the lands that belonged to them, but they were obliged to provide the peasants with “estates” and a field allotment for use.
• For the use of allotment land, the peasants 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 charter letters of 1861, which were drawn up by the landlords for each estate and verified 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 structure, rights and obligations of the bodies of peasant public administration (rural and volost) courts were also determined.

Four "Local Regulations" determined the size of land plots and duties for their use in 44 provinces of European Russia. 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 the given locality, or if the landowners, while maintaining the existing peasant allotment, had less than 1/3 of the entire land of the estate.

Allotments could be reduced by special agreements between peasants and landowners, as well as upon receipt of a deed of allotment. If the peasants had smaller allotments in use, the landowner was obliged to either cut the missing land or reduce duties. For the highest shower allotment, a quitrent was set from 8 to 12 rubles. per year or corvee - 40 male and 30 female working days per 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. The features of the Peasant Reform for certain categories of peasants and specific regions were determined by the “Additional Rules” - “On the arrangement of peasants settled on the estates of small landowners, and on the allowance for these owners”, “On people assigned to private mining plants of the department of the Ministry of Finance”, “On peasants and workers serving work at Perm private mining plants and salt mines”, “About peasants serving work at landlord 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 people who came out of serfdom in the Bessarabian region”.

The “Regulations on the arrangement of courtyard people” provided for their release without land, but for 2 years they remained completely dependent on the landowner.

The “Regulations on Redemption” determined the procedure for the redemption of land by peasants from landlords, the organization of the redemption operation, the rights and obligations of peasant owners. The redemption of the field plot depended on an agreement with the landowner, who could oblige the peasants to redeem the land at their request. The price of land was determined by quitrent, capitalized from 6% per annum. In the event of a ransom under a voluntary agreement, the peasants had to make an additional payment to the landowner. The landlord received the main amount from the state, to which the peasants had to repay it for 49 years annually in redemption payments.

"Manifesto" and "Regulations" were promulgated from March 7 to April 2 (in St. Petersburg and Moscow - March 5). Fearing dissatisfaction of the peasants with the terms of the reform, the government took a number of precautionary measures (redeployment of troops, secondment of the imperial retinue to the places, appeal of the Synod, etc.). The peasantry, dissatisfied with the enslaving conditions of the reform, responded to it with mass unrest. The largest of them were the Bezdnensky performance of 1861 and the Kandeev performance of 1861.

The implementation of the Peasant Reform began with the drafting of charters, which was basically completed by the middle of the city. On January 1, 1863, the peasants refused to sign about 60% of the charters. The price of land for redemption significantly exceeded its market value at that time, in some areas by 2-3 times. As a result of this, in a number of areas they were extremely striving to receive donation allotments, and in some provinces (Saratov, Samara, Yekaterinoslav, Voronezh, etc.) a significant number of peasants-gifts appeared.

Under the influence of the Polish uprising of 1863, changes took place in the conditions of the Peasant Reform in Lithuania, Belarus and the Right-Bank Ukraine: the law of 1863 introduced compulsory redemption; redemption payments decreased by 20%; peasants, landless from 1857 to 1861, received their allotments in full, previously landless - partially.

The transition of peasants to ransom lasted for several decades. K remained in a temporary relationship 15%. But in a number of provinces there were still many of them (Kursk 160 thousand, 44%; Nizhny Novgorod 119 thousand, 35%; Tula 114 thousand, 31%; Kostroma 87 thousand, 31%). The transition to redemption was faster in the black-earth provinces, where voluntary transactions prevailed over mandatory redemption. Landowners who had large debts, more often than others, sought to speed up the redemption and conclude voluntary deals.

The abolition of serfdom also affected the appanage peasants, who, by the "Regulations of June 26, 1863", were transferred to the category of peasant proprietors by compulsory redemption on the terms of the "Regulations of February 19". On the whole, their cuts were much smaller than those of the landowning peasants.

The law of November 24, 1866 began the reform of the state peasants. They retained all the lands that were in their use. According to the law of June 12, 1886, the state peasants were transferred for redemption.

The peasant reform of 1861 led to the abolition of serfdom in the national outskirts of the Russian Empire.

On October 13, 1864, a decree was issued on the abolition of serfdom in the Tiflis province, a year later it was extended with some changes to the Kutaisi province, and in 1866 to Megrelia. In Abkhazia, serfdom was abolished in 1870, in Svaneti - in 1871. The terms of the reform here retained serfdom survivals to a greater extent than according to the "Regulations of February 19". In Armenia and Azerbaijan, the peasant reform was carried out in 1870-83 and was no less enslaving than in Georgia. In Bessarabia, the bulk of the peasant population was made up of legally free landless peasants - tsarans, who, according to the "Regulations of July 14, 1868", were endowed with land for permanent use for service. The redemption of this land was carried out with some derogations on the basis of the "Regulations on Redemption" on February 19, 1861.

Literature

• Zakharova L. G. Autocracy and the abolition of serfdom in Russia, 1856-1861. M., 1984.

Links

• The most merciful Manifesto of February 19, 1861, On the abolition of serfdom (Christian reading. St. Petersburg, 1861. Part 1). On the site Heritage of Holy Russia
• Agrarian Reforms and the Development of the Rural Economy in Russia - an article by Doctor of Economics Adukova

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"Fortress" - this word in Russia of the XVII-XIX centuries was called the feudal dependence of the peasant on his landowner. In the 19th century, it was an anachronism - nowhere in Europe did peasants bear such heavy duties to their landlords, and in a number of European countries serfdom either never existed, or it has already been abolished. Serfdom was ineffective and, moreover, periodically led to unrest among the peasants. Even Alexander I was aware of the need to cancel it - but the sovereign himself did not figure out in what form this reform could be carried out, and his successor, Nicholas I, eventually ceased to consider it necessary. As a result, Alexander II was forced to take over the preparation and implementation of the reform, and, apparently, it turned out to be somewhat belated and inconsistent.

Revolution from below

Alexander II was well aware that the landowners for the most part were against the abolition of serfdom, and wanted to frame the reform as if its initiative came "from below", from the nobles themselves. Declaring the need for reform in his speech delivered on March 30, 1856 to representatives of the Moscow nobility, he formulated his attitude towards the liberation of the peasants: “It is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait for it to begin to be abolished by itself from below.” This was an argument that the nobles understood well: even the chief of gendarmes wrote to Nicholas I: "The serfdom is a powder magazine under the state." They felt the truth of the tsar's words even more sharply in the five years that had passed since the death of Nicholas I: during these years, almost half a thousand peasant unrest took place in the Russian Empire.

Emperor Alexander II. Photo: Wikipedia.org

However, like his predecessors, Alexander quickly realized how inert his officials become when it comes to a reform project. At first, the project was prepared by the Ministry of the Interior, which presented a “Note” in which the basic principles were set out: the land on the estate would continue to be considered the property of the landlords, and the peasants would rent it, paying rent in corvée or dues. Then the project was taken up by a special Secret Committee chaired by Alexander. The committee consisted of former Nicholas dignitaries, who fully shared the views of the late emperor and deliberately dragged out the discussion. Alexander was looking for an initiative "from below", which would allow him to begin the practical implementation of the reform.

The necessary occasion was found in the Lithuanian provinces: the Vilna governor-general Nazimov proposed to the local nobility to discuss in what form they would like to introduce inventory rules that determined the duties of the landlord peasants. The question was painful - the rules greatly limited the arbitrariness of the landowners in relation to their serfs, and the Lithuanian nobles informed Nazimov that they saw no point in introducing inventory - wouldn’t it be better to raise the question of the abolition of serfdom (while maintaining their allotments for the landowners) throughout the empire?

Nazimov appeared in the capital with the petition of the Lithuanian nobles, and Alexander ordered that a response rescript be drawn up, in which it was proposed to form provincial committees from the elected from the nobility in the Lithuanian provinces, which would discuss ways to free the peasants. The rescript basically followed the provisions of the “Note” prepared by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, however, it specified that the peasants would not only be able to rent land, but would also receive the right to buy out their plots within a certain period. With its publication, the government burned bridges behind itself - now it was impossible to turn things around.

Freedom or better life?

After this declaration of intent, the government began "replicating the rescripts": the first of them (not counting the Vilna one) was given first to the St. Petersburg governor-general, and then rescripts to the rest of the governors followed. During 1858, in 46 provinces where serfdom existed, "committees to improve the life of landlord peasants" were established. Their very name is quite eloquent: the government, on the one hand, was afraid to cause discontent among the landlords, and on the other hand, it did not want to give the peasants premature aspirations.

Despite this caution, the landowners in general were against the "improvement of life" of the peasants: among the provincial committees of the central provinces, only one committee in Tver was basically determined to support the provisions of the rescript. Of the 46,000 landowners in Central Russia, only 13,000 signed their agreement to follow them. But the landlords in the northern, non-chernozem provinces, where the peasants paid their owners dues, obtained thanks to local and seasonal industries, saw that the reform was quite beneficial for them - provided that the ransom for the land covered the lost income from peasant dues.

The intensity of the peasant movement in the country was reflected in the discussion by the provincial committees and the Main Committee (reformed from the Secret) that led them. So, on April 21, 1858, Alexander approved the program, supported by the landlord majority, where the very idea of ​​\u200b\u200bliberating the peasants was crossed out - it was only about softening their situation, but the peasant riots that broke out in the summer forced the government to revise the program. The document, adopted in December of the same year, was supposed not only to give the peasants the opportunity to buy out their allotments for permanent use, but also their own self-government bodies.

The new program, developed by General Yakov Rostovtsev, contained a number of important additions that would later affect the course of the reform - it provided for an intermediate state of the peasants who had to buy the land over several years, as well as a source of their financing - a special state loan. In this form, the program was sent to the editorial commissions headed by Rostovtsev under the main committee. A fierce struggle unfolded around the program - suffice it to say that Rostovtsev himself, a quick-tempered man who was acutely worried about the discussion of his program, fell ill on a nervous basis and died without waiting for its implementation. The Conservatives again threatened to bury the reform in endless discussions, and in January 1861 Alexander sternly urged the State Council to complete work on the program by the first half of February so that it could be announced before the start of the field work season: “I repeat, and this is my indispensable will that the matter was now ended. It has been going on for four years now and has been raising various fears and expectations both among the landlords and the peasants. Any further delay could be detrimental to the state.”

The State Council heeded the demand of the tsar, and on February 19, 1861, Alexander signed the Manifesto "On the most merciful granting to serfs of the rights of the state of free rural inhabitants" and additions to it - a number of acts, the main among which was the "Regulations on peasants emerging from serfdom."

Reading the Manifesto on the abolition of serfdom in the countryside. Photo: Wikipedia.org

long-awaited release

“Serfdom for peasants settled on landlord estates and for householders is abolished forever,” it was said at the beginning of the “Regulations”. From now on, the serfs passed into the category of “free rural inhabitants”, equalizing their rights with the peasants who had gained freedom earlier - now they could not be sold, bought, donated, forcibly relocated. They received their houses and all real estate as personal property, could enter into marriages or any contracts themselves, and appear in court. The peasants also received freedom of movement and self-government - rural communities, controlled by the gathering, united in volosts.

The landowners retained their estates, but they were obliged to provide the peasants with “estate residence” for use - a plot next to the house, and besides this, a vast allotment of land to the rural community, which distributed it among individual peasant farms.

For the use of land, the peasants had to serve a corvée or pay dues: “In this state, which is transitional, the peasants are called temporarily liable,” the Manifesto explained. However, the peasants had the right to redeem the “estate residence”, and the rural communities had the right to redeem the field plots, having agreed with the landowner on the price. In fact, in this case, the state itself paid the landowner a large part (80%) of the redemption money, and the peasants had to reimburse them to the state, annually contributing 6% of the redemption amount for 49 years. The liberation of the peasants was carried out with the help of the conclusion between the landowners and rural communities, consisting of their former peasants, statutory letters, which determined the amount of land provided to the peasants for permanent use, and the amount of duties due from them in favor of the landowner.

"The Great Chain Has Broken"

The manifesto was read in churches after Mass. Its promulgation provoked an angry reaction from the landowners - Nekrasov ridiculed the reaction of the landowners using the example of the comic "Prince Utyatin":

In the dining room, the servants heard;

Angry so that by the evening

Enough of his blow!

The turn of the peasants came a little later, when they studied the procedure for redemption payments and calculated that for a little less than half a century of payments they would owe the landowner and the state 194% more than if they had the money to pay immediately. In addition, the purchase price of allotments most often exceeded their market value - in the non-chernozem zone, they had to pay 2-3 times more for it. The payment of dues was also unfavorable here: temporarily liable peasants had to pay as much as their counterparts in the black earth provinces (an average of about 10 rubles annually), while their land was several times inferior in fertility. Corvee turned out to be more profitable than dues: the law limited the stay on corvee to 40 days for men and 30 days for women. If a peasant had more land than was established in a particular locality, then the surplus was transferred to the landowner.

Beggars near the church. painting by Ivan Tvorozhnikov

Even during the preparation of the reform, rumors spread among the serfs that they would be released without land - that is, without means of subsistence. Now the peasants began to refuse to conclude charters with the landowners. A rumor spread through the village that the current “freedom” was not real, but the real one given by the tsar, the landowners hid from the peasants. During the year, 1176 peasant uprisings swept through the empire - more than in the whole previous decade. In more than 2,000 villages, the tsar had to suppress unrest with the help of army units. Major unrest, for example, took place in the village of Bezdna, Kazan province, where a local peasant, Anton Petrov, read a “genuine” manifesto of his own composition to a crowd of five thousand: “To the landowner of the land - mountains and dales, ravines and roads, and sand and reeds, they don’t have a forest. He crosses a step from his land - drive with a kind word, did not obey - chop his head, you will receive a reward from the king! The troops entering the village opened fire on the crowd, killing fifty people and wounding about eighty.

In general, the reform led to the impoverishment of the peasantry - due to the fact that the landowners took away the "segments" of allotments, which in total amounted to a fifth of all land, the average size of a peasant allotment decreased by about 30%. Its fertility also fell: the landowners willingly exercised their right to independently choose the lands given to the peasants for use, giving the former serfs the most meager allotments, depriving them of agricultural land necessary for grazing livestock and foraging for it. The unprofitability of the transition from temporarily liable to "redemption" was felt so acutely that the peasants were in no hurry to change their status. The government was forced to push them to this: by a decree adopted already under Alexander III, all temporarily liable peasants were to turn into redemption ones from January 1, 1883.

As for the courtyard people, who accounted for more than 6% of the total number of serfs, their fate was even more unenviable: they did not own land, they were left completely without a livelihood. And it is not for nothing that in The Cherry Orchard the lackey Firs calls the abolition of serfdom a "misfortune": many courtyards joined the huge army of "tramps", lumpen proletarians - a disaster that has not been seen in Russia for a long time. In a word, critics of the reform have repeatedly recalled the words of Pushkin, written by him in a polemic with Radishchev and challenging the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe terrible life of serfs: “Services are not burdensome at all. The poll is paid in peace; corvée is determined by law; quitrent is not ruinous... The peasant does what he pleases, and sometimes goes 2,000 miles away to earn money for himself.”

Despite all these shortcomings of the reform, it was of great importance: almost 22 million inhabitants of the country gained freedom. This contributed to the development of economic relations and society as a whole. Russia ceased to be a country where "slavery" existed, embarked on the path of a truly civilized power.