Нередкий вопрос, встречающийся на экзаменах в secondary and higher educational institutions: "Describe the essence of the peasant question in Russia." Meanwhile, ask him now to an adult, the majority of the people will remember nothing, except that serfdom was abolished in 1861. So, let's look together at what a peasant question is.
На протяжении многих лет и даже столетий peasants remained the oppressed class in the Russian state. Serfdom meant the complete dependence of the peasant on the landowner, the man on whose land he lived. In fact, this is a form of slavery, since the peasant could not voluntarily leave this territory, could not have land or a house on it, and was also a “thing” that was sold and bought, both with and without land.
Перемены в положении мужиков стали происходить с accession of the Romanov dynasty. At first, they were not too encouraging, even the opposite: Alexei Mikhailovich made the unlimited time to search for the runaway peasant — now the landowner could not only return him, but even his descendants, and the serf could not leave the estate, even after being freed, he remained “ strong ”, that is, attached to this land (and therefore“ serfdom ”right). Changes for the better were outlined only under Paul the First.
Unlike her mother, Catherine the Great,who believed that the peasants lived beautifully in Russia, Pavel rightly believed that the life of the common people was rather difficult and it would be nice to at least somehow try to improve it.
Peasant question in relation to the group of statemen were asked to decide as follows: give each allotment of 15 acres (although there were few such plots, and then fifteen replaced eight) of land, which would allow a person to feed himself and his family and pay the tax. In addition, payment rates were established. They ranged from three and a half to five rubles in different areas. There was also a decree that state-owned peasants have the right to enroll in tradesmen and merchants.
The number of factory men at first onlygrew, as the owners of factories and factories were allowed to buy peasants and attribute them to their enterprises all the time. Nevertheless, making sure that the fate of such people remains unenviable, Pavel signed a decree stating that only 58 people are allowed to take at each plant, and the rest are required to be immediately released from hard work, including them among state peasants. This law has made life in this category much easier.
And finally, the last group is landowner.In their regard, the peasant question was solved least of all. The following was done for them: they were forbidden to sell without land, and also to separate families. In addition, it is impossible not to note the April Pavlovo manifesto of 1797: he forbade making men work on Sundays, and also set a three-day rate of corvee. This document to this day is considered almost the main of all that Paul did to solve the peasant question. Nevertheless, there is a lot of evidence (in the form of complaints of peasants and testimonies of nobles) that this decree was not respected and the peasants were forced to work still daily. However, these were only the first cautious steps, and Paul cannot be accused of a bad attitude towards the “lower classes”. “The ice has broken, gentlemen of the jury!”
Преобразования отца продолжил и Александр Первый.It was caused, perhaps, not so much by the desire to free the peasants from oppression hanging over them, as by understanding the need for change in the country: the population grew, and the agrarian resources, on the contrary, were rapidly decreasing, an urgent transition to a capitalist economy was needed, which is why there was something to do with the peasant question. And the first thing Alexander undertook was that he passed the law of 1801, in which he “gave the go-ahead” to peasants, burghers and merchants (on a par with noblemen) to acquire land. However, this decree is not considered the main thing that the king carried out. About his next bill in 1803 says much more.
Указ о вольных хлебопашцах – именно так назывался a law that came out two years after the first. He really was aimed at somehow trying to help the peasants. So, according to this document, the man received the right to redeem himself from the owner, to find freedom, that is, will (that is why the name of the law is such). Alexander believed that the peasants would start to liberate en masse, but this did not happen - the price of the ransom was not determined, the landlords installed it themselves. Of course, they did not want to lose their hands and they were wringing such a price of liberation that the unfortunate peasants could not help paying them back. The conditions for obtaining the will were exactly like this: paid off - you are free, you cannot - you return to slavery. In the end, freedom in this way received a negligible number of peasants - about fifty thousand.
In 1816-1819, a reform was carried out inBaltic States: the peasants received personal freedom, but without the right to own land. Thus, they still depended on the landlords - they were forced either to rent land from them, or to labor on them.
The solution of the peasant question under Nicholas touched the state-owned men - to a greater extent, and the serfs - to a much lesser extent.
Alexander the Second went down in history as a kingwhich was decided - it was during his time when serfdom was abolished (however, the essence of the peasant question did not change much). He did not hide his conviction that it should ever happen and rightly believed that it was better to carry out transformations “from above” than they would come from “below”.
The reasons for this decision peasantThere were several questions and they were brewing for a long time. The last straw was the defeat in the Crimean War: it showed political unpreparedness, even backwardness in Russia. After it, rebellions broke out in some regions of the country.
In addition, the factors that prompted changethe essence of the peasant question was the inhibition of the growth of industry, foreign and domestic trade, the decline of the landowning economy and the need to reform the army.
Make a plan for solving the peasant questionAlexander commissioned major landowners-feudal. For the period from 1856 to 1860. It was prepared several versions of the program, then more, then less loyal to the peasants. Basically, they sought to take into account the interests of the landlords, so the solution to the problem was delayed - until Alexander did not give a clear order in January 1861 to finish this matter quickly - the peasants were worried, in some places waves of protests broke out. Ultimately, the king signed the manifesto on the liberation on February 19, and it was communicated to the people on March 5. This is due to the fear of Alexander Shrovetide unrest - the content of the document was too contradictory.
The provisions of this manifesto boiled down to the following points:
The ambiguity of this reform men (and not evenonly they) saw right away. By and large, nothing changed in their position. They were officially declared free, but they continued to work for the landlord or to pay him a rent (he was from eight to twelve rubles a year). "Will" was not quite real. Many historians subsequently noticed that landlords became even tougher in relation to the peasants, in particular, they became more smacked. Some scholars believed that the manifesto of Alexander II, abolishing serfdom legally and without actually doing anything, was an accelerating factor in the disappearance of this phenomenon. In the history of other countries, according to experts, there have also been no cases when serfdom ceased to exist in one day — decades have always led to this. However, the peasants, who, in fact, were beckoned and deceived, were not easier aware of this.
For 1861, nearly twelve hundreduprisings (for comparison - in the previous five years there were less than five hundred). The people were outraged by the fact that landlords went to what tricks in order to force the peasants to rent their land and work on it: the peasants were allocated such areas from which they could not pass either to the forest or to arable land or to the water without passing through the land . So, rent it and work on it. The men had no choice.
Александром Третьим также были предприняты attempts to improve the lives of the peasants, but this was not particularly successful. In addition, the king did not hide the fact that he did not consider the “land issue” to be something out of the ordinary and requiring urgent intervention. However, in order to “smooth out sharp corners” and extinguish unrest, in 1881 he passed a law that two years later transferred all “temporarily obliged” peasants to “redemption” - thus, it became obligatory to buy out his plot of land from the landowner. However, redemption payments were somewhat reduced - albeit unimportant. Fully taxes were abolished only by 1887.
Peasant question in the early 20th century, that is, inthe reign of Nicholas II, is directly related to the reforms of Peter Stolypin. So, in 1906 a decree was adopted on the possibility of free exit from the community, along with part of the land for personal use, a year later they stopped charging redemption payments. Peasants began to actively move to Siberia and the Far East, where there were free territories.
Thus, although Alexander is considered to beThe second “liberator” cannot be said that the reform undertaken by him substantially eased the life of the peasants. The peasant question was resolved slowly, and serfdom left Russia a few more decades after its abolition.
