Stolypin's agrarian reform: how it did not cancel the revolution. Stolypin agrarian reform

29.09.2019

28. Agrarian reform P.A. Stolypin.

The Stolypin agrarian reform is a generalized name for a wide range of measures in the field of agriculture carried out by the Russian government under the leadership of P. A. Stolypin since 1906. The main directions of the reform were the transfer of allotment lands to the ownership of peasants, the gradual elimination of rural society as a collective owner of land, widespread lending to peasants, the purchase of landowners' land for resale to peasants on preferential terms, land management, which makes it possible to optimize the peasant economy by eliminating striped land.

The reform was a set of measures aimed at two goals: the short-term goal of the reform was to resolve the "agrarian question" as a source of mass discontent (primarily, the cessation of agrarian unrest), the long-term goal was the sustainable prosperity and development of agriculture and the peasantry, the integration of the peasantry into the market economy.

If the first goal was supposed to be achieved immediately (the scale of agrarian unrest in the summer of 1906 was incompatible with the peaceful life of the country and the normal functioning of the economy), then the second goal - prosperity - Stolypin himself considered achievable in a twenty-year perspective.

The reform unfolded in several directions:

Improving the quality of peasants' property rights to land, which consisted, first of all, in replacing the collective and limited land ownership of rural communities with full-fledged private property of individual peasant householders; measures in this direction were of an administrative and legal nature.

The eradication of obsolete class civil law restrictions that impeded the effective economic activity of peasants.

Improving the efficiency of peasant agriculture; government measures consisted primarily in encouraging the allocation of plots “to one place” (cuts, farms) to peasant owners, which required the state to carry out a huge amount of complex and expensive land management work to develop striped communal lands.

Encouraging the purchase of privately owned (primarily landlord) lands by peasants, through different kind operations of the Peasant Land Bank, preferential lending was predominant.

Building encouragement working capital farms through lending in all forms (bank lending secured by land, loans to members of cooperatives and partnerships).

Expansion of direct subsidizing of the activities of the so-called "agronomic assistance" (agronomic consulting, educational activities, maintenance of experimental and exemplary farms, trade in modern equipment and fertilizers).

Support for cooperatives and peasant associations.

The reform was aimed at improving peasant allotment land use and had little effect on private land ownership. The reform was carried out in 47 provinces of European Russia (all provinces, except for the three provinces of the Ostsee region); the reform did not affect the Cossack land tenure and the land tenure of the Bashkirs.

Decrees were issued in 1906, 1910 and 1911:

each peasant could take ownership of the allotment,

could freely leave the community and choose another place of residence,

move to the Urals in order to receive land (about 15 hectares) and money from the state to improve the economy,

settlers received tax benefits and were exempted from military service.

a) The goals of the reform.

Socio-political goals of the reform.

The main goal was to win wide sections of the peasantry to the side of the regime and prevent a new agrarian war. To do this, it was supposed to contribute to the transformation of the majority of the inhabitants of their native village into a “strong, wealthy peasantry imbued with the idea of property,” which, according to Stolypin, makes it the best bulwark of order and tranquility.” Carrying out the reform, the government did not seek to affect the interests of the landowners. In the post-reform period and at the beginning of the 20th century. The government was unable to protect the landownership of the nobility from reduction, but the large and small landed nobility continued to be the most reliable support of the autocracy. To push him away would be suicidal for the regime.

In addition, noble class organizations, including the council of the united nobility, had a great influence on Nicholas 2 and his entourage. Members of the government, and even more so the Prime Minister, who raises the question of the alienation of landlords' lands, could not remain in his place, and even more so organize the implementation of such a reform. The reformers also took into account the fact that the landowners' farms produced a significant part of marketable grain. Another goal was the destruction of the rural community in the struggle of 1905-1907. , the reformers understood that the main thing in the peasant movement was the question of land, and did not seek to immediately destroy the administrative organization of the community.

Socio-economic goals were closely related to socio-political ones. It was planned to liquidate the land community, its economic land distribution mechanism, on the one hand, which formed the basis social unity communities, and on the other hand, restraining the development of agricultural technology. The ultimate economic goal of the reforms was to be the general rise of the country's agriculture, the transformation of the agrarian sector into the economic base of the new Russia.

b) Preparation of reform

The preparation of reform projects before the revolution actually began with the Conference on the needs of the agricultural industry under the leadership of S.Yu. Witte, in 1902-1903. In 1905-1907. The conclusions formulated by the Conference, primarily the idea of the need to destroy the land and turn the peasants into land owners, were reflected in a number of projects of government officials (V.I. Gurko.). With the beginning of the revolution and the active participation of the peasants in the destruction of the landed estates, Nicholas 2, frightened by the agrarian uprisings, changed his attitude towards the landed peasant community.

The Peasant Bank was allowed to issue loans for peasant plots (November 1903), which in fact meant the possibility of alienating communal lands. P.A. Stolypin in 1906, having become prime minister, supported the landlords, who did not affect the interests. Gurko's project formed the basis of the Decree of November 9, 1906, which marked the beginning of the agrarian reform.

c) Fundamentals of the direction of the reform.

The change in the form of ownership of peasant land, the transformation of peasants into full-fledged owners of their allotments, was envisaged by the law of 1910. carried out primarily by "strengthening" allotments into private ownership. In addition, according to the law of 1911, it was allowed to carry out land management (reduction of land into farms and cuts) without “strengthening”, after which the peasants also became landowners.

The peasant could sell the allotment only to the peasant, which limited the right to land ownership.

Organization of farms and cuts. Without land management, technical improvement, economic development of agriculture was impossible in the conditions of peasant striping (23 peasants of the central regions had allotments divided into 6 or more strips in various places of the communal field) and were far away (40% of the peasants of the center should were to walk weekly from their estates to allotments of 5 and more versts). In economic terms, according to Gurko's plan, fortifications without land management did not make sense.

Therefore, the work of state land management commissions was planned to reduce the strips of the peasant allotment into a single area - a cut. If such a cut was far from the village, the estate was transferred there and a farm was formed.

Resettlement of peasants to free lands.

To solve the problem of peasant shortage of land and reduce agrarian overpopulation in the central regions, the resettlement policy was intensified. Funds were allocated to transport those wishing to new places, primarily to Siberia. Special ("Stolypin") passenger cars were built for the settlers. Beyond the Urals, the peasants were given lands free of charge, for raising the economy and landscaping, and loans were issued.

The sale of land to peasants in installments through a peasant bank was also necessary to reduce the lack of land. On the security of allotment land, loans were issued for the purchase of state land transferred to the Bank's fund, and land that was sold by landowners.

The development of agricultural cooperation, both commercial and credit, was given an impetus by the publication in 1908 of an exemplary charter. Credit partnerships received some benefits.

d) Progress of the reform.

1. Legal basis, stages and lessons of the reform.

The legislative basis for the reform was the decree of November 9, 1906, after the adoption of which the implementation of the reform began. The main provisions of the decree were enshrined in a 1910 law approved by the Duma and the State Council. Serious clarifications were introduced into the course of the reform by the law of 1911, which reflected the change in the emphasis of government policy and marked the beginning of the second stage of the reform.

In 1915 -1916. In connection with the war, the reform actually stopped. In June 1917 the reform was officially terminated by the Provisional Government. The reform was carried out by the efforts of the main department of land management and agriculture, headed by A.V.

Krivoshein, and Stolypin's Minister of the Interior.

2. The transformation of peasants into landowners at the first stage (1907-1910), in accordance with the decree of November 9, 1906, proceeded in several ways.

Strengthening striped plots in the property. Over the years, 2 million plots have been strengthened. When the pressure of local authorities ceased, the strengthening process was sharply reduced. In addition, most of the peasants, who only wanted to sell their allotment and not run their own household, have already done this. After 1911, only those who wanted to sell their plot applied. In total, in 1907-1915. 2.5 million people became "fortified" - 26% of the peasants of European Russia (excluding the western provinces and the Trans-Urals), but almost 40% of them sold their plots, most of them moving beyond the Urals, leaving for the city or replenishing the stratum of the rural proletariat.

Land management at the second stage (1911-1916) according to the laws of 1910 and 1911 made it possible to obtain an allotment in the property automatically - after the creation of cuts and farms, without submitting an application for strengthening the property.

In the "old-hearted" communities (communities where there had been no redistribution since 1861), according to the law of 1910, the peasants were automatically recognized as the owners of allotments. Such communities accounted for 30% of their total number. At the same time, only 600,000 of the 3.5 million members of the boundless communities requested documents certifying their property.

The peasants of the western provinces and some areas of the south, where communities did not exist, also automatically became owners. To do this, they did not need to sell special applications. The reform did not formally take place beyond the Urals, but even there the peasants did not know communal property.

3. Land management.

Organization of farms and cuts. In 1907-1910, only 1/10 of the peasants, who strengthened their allotments, formed farms and cuts.

After 1910 the government realized that a strong peasantry could not emerge on multi-lane sections. For this, it was necessary not to formally strengthen the property, but the economic transformation of allotments. The local authorities, who sometimes resorted to coercion of the community members, were no longer recommended to "artificially encourage" the strengthening process. The main direction of the reform was land management, which now in itself turned peasants into private property.

Now the process has accelerated. In total, by 1916, 1.6 million farms and cuts were formed on approximately 1/3 of the peasant allotment (communal and household) land purchased by the peasants from the bank. It was the beginning. It is important that in reality the potential scope of the movement turned out to be wider: another 20% of the peasants of European Russia filed applications for land management, but land management work was suspended by the war and interrupted by the revolution.

4. Resettlement beyond the Urals.

By decree of March 10, 1906, the right to resettle peasants was granted to everyone without restrictions. The government allocated considerable funds for the costs of settling settlers in new places, for their medical care and public needs, for laying roads.

Having received a loan from the government, 3.3 million people moved to the new lands in “Stolypin” wagons, 2/3 of which were landless or land-poor peasants. 0.5 million returned, many replenished the population of Siberian cities or became agricultural workers. Only a small part of the peasants became farmers in the new place.

The results of the resettlement campaign were as follows. First, during this period, a huge leap was made in the economic and social development of Siberia. Also, the population of this region increased by 153% during the years of colonization. If before resettlement to Siberia there was a reduction in sown areas, then in 1906-1913 they were expanded by 80%, while in the European part of Russia by 6.2%. In terms of the rate of development of animal husbandry, Siberia also overtook European part Russia.

5. Destruction of the community.

For the transition to new economic relations, a whole system of economic and legal measures was developed to regulate the agrarian economy. The Decree of November 9, 1906 proclaimed the predominance of the fact of sole ownership of land over the legal right to use it. The peasants could now allocate the land that was in actual use from the community, regardless of its will. The land allotment became the property not of the family, but of an individual householder. Measures were taken to ensure the strength and stability of working peasant farms. So, in order to avoid land speculation and concentration of property, the maximum size of individual land ownership was limited by law, and the sale of land to non-peasants was allowed. The law of June 5, 1912 allowed the issuance of a loan secured by any allotment land acquired by the peasants. Development various forms credit - mortgage, reclamation, agricultural, land management - contributed to the intensification of market relations in the countryside.

In 1907 - 1915. 25% of households announced their separation from the community, while 20% - 2008.4 thousand households actually separated. New forms of land tenure became widespread: farms and cuts. As of January 1, 1916, there were already 1221.5 thousand of them. In addition, the law of June 14, 1910 considered it unnecessary for many peasants to leave the community, who were only formally considered community members. The number of such households amounted to about one third of all communal households.

6. Purchase of land by peasants with the help of a peasant bank.

The bank sold 15 million state and landowners' land, of which 30% was bought by installments by peasants. At the same time, special benefits were provided to the owners of farms and cuts, who, unlike others, received a loan in the amount of 100% of the cost of the acquired land at 5% per annum. As a result, if until 1906 the bulk of land buyers were peasant collectives, then by 1913 .7% of buyers were individual peasants.

7. Cooperative movement.

The cooperative movement developed rapidly. In 1905-1915, the number of rural credit partnerships increased from 1680 to 15.5 thousand. The number of production and consumer cooperatives in the countryside increased from 3 thousand. (1908) to 10 thousand (1915)

Many economists came to the conclusion that it is cooperation that represents the most promising direction for the development of the Russian countryside, meeting the needs of modernizing the peasant economy. Credit relations gave a strong impetus to the development of production, consumer and marketing cooperatives. The peasants, on a cooperative basis, created dairy and butter artels, agricultural societies, consumer shops, and even peasant artel dairy factories.

e) Conclusions.

Serious progress is being made in the peasant sector of Russia. Harvest years and fluctuations in world grain prices played an important role in this, but cut-off farms and farms were especially progressing, where new technologies were used to a greater extent. The yield in these areas exceeded similar indicators of communal fields by 30-50%. Even more, by 61% compared with 1901-1905, increased in prewar years export of agricultural products. Russia was the largest producer and exporter of bread and flax, a number of livestock products. So, in 1910, the export of Russian wheat amounted to 36.4% of the total world export.

But this does not mean that pre-war Russia should be presented as a "peasant's paradise." The problems of hunger and agrarian overpopulation were not solved. The country still suffered from technical, economic and cultural backwardness. According to calculations

I.D. Kondratiev in the United States, on average, a farm accounted for a fixed capital of 3,900 rubles, while in European Russia the fixed capital of an average peasant farm barely reached 900 rubles. The national income per capita of the agricultural population in Russia was about 52 rubles a year, and in the United States - 262 rubles.

The growth rate of labor productivity in agriculture was relatively slow. While in Russia in 1913 they received 55 poods of bread from one tithe, in the USA they received 68, in France - 89, and in Belgium - 168 poods. Economic growth took place not on the basis of the intensification of production, but by increasing the intensity of manual peasant labor. But in the period under review, socio-economic conditions were created for the transition to a new stage of agrarian transformation - to the transformation of agriculture into a capital-intensive technologically progressive sector of the economy.

But a number of external circumstances (the death of Stolypin, the beginning of the war) interrupted the Stolypin reform. Stolypin himself believed that it would take 15-20 years for the success of his undertakings. But even during the period 1906-1913 a lot was done.

1) Social results of the fate of the community.

The community as a self-governing body of the Russian village was not affected by the reform, but the socio-economic body of the community began to collapse, the number of land communities decreased from 135,000 to 110,000.

At the same time, in the central non-chernozem regions, the disintegration of the community was almost not observed, it was here that there were numerous cases of arson.

2) Socio-political results of the reform.

There was a gradual cessation of peasant uprisings. At the first stage 1907 -1909. when allotments were consolidated into property, often under pressure from zemstvo chiefs, the number of peasant uprisings began to grow, in 1910 -1000. But after the shift in the emphasis of government policy to land management, the rejection of coercion and some economic successes, peasant unrest almost stopped; to 128. The main political goal was still not achieved. As 1917 showed, the peasantry retained the ability "with the whole world" to oppose the landlords. In 1917, it became obvious that the agrarian reform was 50 years late, but the main reason for the failure was the socio-political half-heartedness of the transformations, which manifested itself in the preservation of the landed estates intact.

RESULTS of the reforms:

The cooperative movement developed.

The number of wealthy peasants increased.

According to the gross harvest of bread, Russia was in 1st place in the world.

The number of livestock increased by 2.5 times.

About 2.5 million people moved to new lands.

INTRODUCTION

The paper discusses the reasons for the implementation, the main stages, the results of the Stolypin agrarian reform, which was carried out by the tsarist government in the period from 1906 to 1914. Consideration of the problem is carried out against the background of the political and economic situation that has developed in Russia, on the eve of the ongoing reforms.

The beginning of the 20th century was a time of fundamental transformations in politics and economics. A crisis situation was brewing in the country, revolutionary uprisings rose, the revolution of 1905-1907 took place. Russia needed to get “on its feet” in order to continue to develop as a strong state in order to gain influence and respect among highly developed countries, such as England, France, which in At that time they were capitalist powers, with a well-functioning administrative apparatus, with a stable economy, with good rates of development of industry, production and economy.

Russia had two ways of development: revolutionary and peaceful, i.e. through reform political system and economy. In agriculture, there were no development trends, and it was agriculture that was considered as a source of capital accumulation for the development of industry. After the abolition of serfdom, the peasants did not improve their position, life status. The landowners' mayhem continued. A crisis was brewing. More and more peasant uprisings arose. To prevent unrest, the government had to immediately take measures to settle the peasant masses, to organize production, and to restore agriculture. A reform was needed that could settle all the grievances, a person was needed who would take responsibility for carrying out such a reform. They became Prime Minister Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin. He offered his way out of the situation. His reform was approved and accepted by the government.

The main stages and ways of carrying out the Stolypin agrarian reform are considered in detail and set out in this work. With the help of the available material, we are convinced that this reform was the most acceptable way out of the current situation, gave time to think about the further ways of Russia's development.

1. PETER ARKADIEVICH STOLYPIN ON REFORM

“We are called to free the people from begging, from ignorance, from lack of rights,” said Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin. He saw the way to these goals primarily in the strengthening of statehood.

Land reform became the core of his policy, his life's work.

This reform was supposed to create in Russia a class of small proprietors - a new "strong pillar of order", a pillar of the state. Then Russia would be "not afraid of all revolutions." On May 10, 1907, Stolypin concluded his speech on land reform with the famous words: “They (opponents of statehood) need great upheavals, we need Great Russia!”

"Nature has invested in man some innate instincts ... and one of the strongest feelings of this order is a sense of ownership." - Pyotr Arkadyevich wrote in a letter to L.N. Tolstoy in 1907. “You can’t love someone else’s on a par with your own, and you can’t court, improve land that is in temporary use, on a par with your own land. The artificial castration of our peasant in this respect, the destruction of his innate sense of property, leads to much evil and, most importantly, to poverty. And poverty, for me, is the worst of slavery ... "

P.A. Stolypin stressed that he sees no point in "driving the more developed element of the landowners off the land." On the contrary, the peasants must be turned into real owners.

What kind of social system would emerge in Russia after this reform?

Supporters of Stolypin both then and later imagined him differently. Nationalist Vasily Shulgin, for example, believed that he would be close to the Italian fascist system. The Octobrists thought it would be more of a Western liberal society. Pyotr Arkadyevich himself said in 1909 in an interview: "Give the state 20 years of inner and outer peace, and you will not recognize today's Russia."

Internal peace implied the suppression of the revolution, external - the absence of wars. “While I am in power,” said Stolypin, “I will do everything in human power to prevent Russia from going to war. We cannot measure ourselves against an external enemy until the worst internal enemies of Russia's greatness, the social revolutionaries, have been destroyed. Stolypin prevented war after Hungary captured Bosnia in 1908. Having convinced the tsar not to mobilize, he noted with satisfaction: "Today I managed to save Russia from destruction."

But Stolypin failed to complete the planned reform.

The Black Hundreds and influential court circles were extremely hostile to him. They believed that he was destroying the traditional way of life in Russia. After the suppression of the revolution, Stolypin began to lose the support of the king

2. BACKGROUND TO AGRARIAN REFORM

Before the revolution of 1905-1907, two different forms of land ownership coexisted in the Russian countryside: on the one hand, the private property of the landowners, on the other, the communal property of the peasants. At the same time, the nobility and peasants developed two opposite views on the land, two stable worldviews.

The landlords believed that the land - the same property as any other. They saw no sin in buying and selling it.

The peasants thought otherwise. They firmly believed that the land was "no one's", God's, and only labor gives the right to use it. The rural community responded to this age-old idea. All the land in it was divided between families "according to the number of eaters." If the size of the family was reduced, its land allotment also decreased.

Until 1905, the state supported the community. It was much easier to collect various duties from it than from many individual peasant farms. S. Witte remarked on this occasion: "It is easier to graze the herd than each member of the herd separately." The community was considered the most reliable support of autocracy in the countryside, one of the "pillars" on which the state system rested.

But the tension between the community and private property gradually increased, the population increased, the plots of the peasants became smaller and smaller. This burning lack of land was called land scarcity. Involuntarily, the views of the peasants turned to the noble estates, where there was a lot of land. In addition, the peasants considered this property initially unfair, illegal. “It is necessary to take away the landowner’s land and attach it to the communal one!” they repeated with conviction.

In 1905, these contradictions resulted in a real "war for the land."

The peasants "with the whole world", that is, the whole community, went to smash the noble estates. The authorities suppressed the unrest by sending military expeditions to the places of unrest, carrying out mass floggings and arrests. From the "original foundation of autocracy" the community suddenly turned into a "hotbed of rebellion." The former peaceful neighborhood of the community and the landowners came to an end.

3. STOLYPIN AGRARIAN REFORM. HER MAIN IDEA

During the peasant unrest of 1905, it became clear that it was impossible to maintain the former situation in the countryside. Communal and private ownership of land could no longer coexist side by side.

At the end of 1905, the authorities seriously considered the possibility of meeting the peasant demands. General Dmitry Trepav said then: "I myself am a landowner and I will be very glad to give away half of my land for nothing, being convinced that only under this condition will I keep the other half for myself." But at the beginning of 1906 there was a turning point in the mood. After recovering from the shock, the government chose the opposite path.

The idea arose: what if not to yield to the community, but on the contrary, to declare a merciless war on it. The idea was that private property should go over to a decisive offensive against communal property. Especially quickly, in a few months, this idea won the support of the nobility. Many landowners, who had previously ardently supported the community, now turned out to be its irreconcilable opponents. “The community is a beast, this beast must be fought,” the well-known nobleman, monarchist N. Markov, categorically stated. Pyotr Stolypin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers, became the main spokesman for the sentiments directed against the community. He urged "to give the peasant the freedom to work, to grow rich, to save him from the bondage of the obsolete communal system." This was what main idea land reform, which was called Stolypin.

It was assumed that wealthy peasants would turn from community members into "little landowners." Thus, the community will be blown up from within, destroyed. The struggle between the community and private property will end in victory for the latter. A new layer of strong owners is emerging in the country - a "strong support of order."

Stolypin's concept offered a way for the development of a mixed, multi-structural economy, where state forms of economy were to compete with collective and private ones. Elements his programs - the transition to farms, the use of cooperation, the development of land reclamation, the introduction of a three-stage agricultural education, the organization of cheap credit for peasants, the formation of an agricultural party that really represented the interests of small land ownership.

Stolypin puts forward a liberal doctrine of managing the rural community, eliminating striping, developing private property in the countryside and achieving economic growth on this basis. As the market-oriented peasant economy of the farm type progresses, in the course of the development of land purchase and sale relations, a natural reduction in the landlord's land fund should occur. The future agrarian system of Russia was presented to the prime minister in the form of a system of small and medium-sized farms, united by local self-governing and not numerous in size noble estates. On this basis, the integration of two cultures - noble and peasant - was to take place.

Stolypin relies on "strong and strong" peasants. However, it does not require universal uniformity, unification of forms of land tenure and land use. Where, due to local conditions, the community is economically viable, "it is necessary for the peasant himself to choose the method of using the land that suits him best."

The beginning of the land reform was announced by a government decree of November 9, 1906, adopted on an emergency basis, bypassing the State Duma. According to this decree, the peasants received the right to leave the community with their land. They might as well sell it.

P.A. Stolypin believed that this measure would soon destroy the community. He said that the decree "laid the foundation of a new peasant system."

In February 1907, the II State Duma was convened. In it, as in the First Duma, the land question remained in the center of attention. The difference was that now the "noble side" was not only defending, but also advancing.

The majority of deputies in the Second Duma, even more firmly than in the First Duma, advocated the transfer of part of the noble lands to the peasants. P.A. Stolypin resolutely rejected such projects. Of course, the Second Duma showed no desire to approve the Stolypin decree of 9 November. In connection with this, persistent rumors circulated among the peasants that it was impossible to leave the community - those who left would not get the landlord's land.

The creation of the June 3rd system, which was personified by the Third State Duma, along with the agrarian reform, was the second step in turning Russia into a bourgeois monarchy (the first step was the reform of 1861).

The socio-political meaning boils down to the fact that Caesarism was finally crossed out: the "peasant" Duma turned into the "lord's" Duma. On November 16, 1907, two weeks after the work of the Third Duma began, Stolypin addressed it with a government declaration. The first and main task of the government is not reform, but the struggle against the revolution.

The second central task of the government, Stolypin announced the implementation of the agrarian law on November 9, 1906, which is "the fundamental idea of the present government ...".

Of the reforms, reforms of local self-government, education, workers' insurance, etc. were promised.

In the Third State Duma, convened in 1907 under a new electoral law (limiting the representation of the poor), completely different moods prevailed than in the first two. This Duma was called Stolypinskaya . She not only approved the decree of November 9, but went even further than P.A. Stolypin. (For example, in order to hasten the destruction of the community, the Duma declared dissolved all the communities where land redistribution had not taken place for more than 24 years).

The discussion of the decree on November 9, 1906 began in the Duma on October 23, 1908, i.e. two years after he entered life. In total, the discussion went on for more than six months.

After the decree was adopted by the Duma on November 9, as amended, it was submitted for discussion by the State Council and was also adopted, after which, according to the date of its approval by the tsar, it became known as the law on June 14, 1910. In its content, it was, of course, a liberal bourgeois law that promoted the development of capitalism in the countryside and, therefore, progressive.

The decree introduced extremely important changes in the landownership of the peasants. All peasants received the right to leave the community, which in this case allocated land to the escaping in their own possession. At the same time, the decree provided for privileges for wealthy peasants in order to encourage them to leave the community. In particular, those who left the community received "in the ownership of individual householders" all the lands "consisting in his permanent use." This meant that people from the community also received surpluses in excess of the per capita norm. Moreover, if redistribution has not been made in a given community over the past 24 years, then the householder received the surplus free of charge, but if there were redistributions, then he paid the community for the surplus at the redemption prices of 1861. Since prices have increased several times over 40 years, this was also beneficial for wealthy people.

Communities in which there had been no redistribution from the moment the peasants switched to redemption were recognized as mechanically transferred to the private property of individual householders. For the legal registration of the right of ownership to their plot, the peasants of such communities had only to submit an application to the land management commission, which drew up documents for the plot actually in their possession in the ownership of the householder. In addition to this provision, the law differed from the decree by some simplification of the procedure for leaving the community.

In 1906, the “Provisional Rules” on the land management of peasants were also adopted, which became law after the approval of the Duma on May 29, 1911. The land management commissions created on the basis of this law were given the right, in the course of the general land management of the communities, to allocate individual householders without the consent of the gathering, at their own discretion, if the commission considered that such allocation did not affect the interests of the community. The commissions also had the final say in determining land disputes. Such a right opened the way to the arbitrariness of the commissions.

4. MAIN DIRECTIONS OF THE STOLYPIN AGRARIAN REFORM

Stolypin, being a landowner, leader of the provincial nobility, knew and understood the interests of the landowners; as governor during the revolution, he saw peasants in revolt, so for him the agrarian question was not an abstract concept.

The essence of the reforms: laying a solid foundation for the autocracy and advancing along the path of industrial, and consequently, capitalist development.

The core of the reforms is agrarian policy.

The agrarian reform was the main and favorite brainchild of Stolypin.

The goals of the reform were several: socio-political - to create in the countryside a strong support for the autocracy from strong owners, splitting them off from the bulk of the peasantry and opposing them to it; strong farms were to become an obstacle to the growth of the revolution in the countryside; socio-economic - to destroy the community, plant private farms in the form of cuts and farms, and the excess work force send it to the city, where it will be absorbed by the growing industry; economic - to ensure the rise of agriculture and the further industrialization of the country in order to eliminate the lag behind the advanced powers.

The first step in this direction was taken in 1861. Then the agrarian question was solved at the expense of the peasants, who paid the landlords both for land and for freedom. Agrarian legislation 1906-1910 was the second step, while the government, in order to strengthen its power and the power of the landowners, again tried to solve the agrarian question at the expense of the peasantry.

The new agrarian policy was carried out on the basis of the decree of November 9, 1906. This decree was the main business of Stolypin's life. It was a creed, a great and last hope, an obsession, his present and future - great if the reform succeeded; catastrophic if it fails. And Stolypin was aware of this.

In general, a series of laws 1906-1912. was bourgeois.

Medieval allotment landownership of peasants was abolished, exit from the community, sale of land, free resettlement to cities and to the outskirts were allowed, redemption payments were canceled, Physical punishment, some legal restrictions.

The agrarian reform consisted of a complex of successively carried out and interconnected measures.

From the end of 1906, the state began a powerful attack on the community. For the transition to new economic relations, a whole system of economic and legal measures to regulate the agrarian economy was developed. The Decree of November 9, 1906 proclaimed the predominance of the fact of sole ownership of land over the legal right to use it. Peasants could now leave it and receive land in full ownership. They could now separate what was in actual use from the community, regardless of its will. The land allotment became the property not of the family, but of the individual householder.

The peasants were cut off from the communal land plots - cuts. Wealthy peasants transferred their estates to the same plots - this was called farms. The authorities considered hamlets to be the ideal form of land ownership. On the part of the farmers, who lived apart from each other, it was possible not to be afraid of riots and unrest.

Measures were taken to ensure the strength and stability of working peasant farms. So, in order to avoid land speculation and concentration of property, the maximum size of individual land ownership was limited by law, and the sale of land to non-peasants was allowed.

After the beginning of the reform, many poor people rushed from the community, who immediately sold their land and went to the cities. Wealthy peasants were in no hurry to get out. What was the explanation for this? First of all, leaving the community broke the usual way of life and the whole outlook of the peasant. The peasant resisted the transition to farms and cuts, not because of his darkness and ignorance, as the authorities believed, but on the basis of sound worldly considerations. The community protected him from complete ruin and many other vicissitudes of fate. Peasant farming was very dependent on the vagaries of the weather. Having several scattered strips of land in different parts of the public allotment: one in a lowland, another on a hill, etc. (this order was called striped), the peasant provided himself with an annual average yield: in a dry year, bands in the lowlands rescued, in a rainy year - on the hills. Having received an allotment in one cut, the peasant found himself at the mercy of the elements. He went bankrupt in the very first dry year, if her cut was in a high place. The next year was rainy, and it was the neighbor's turn to go bankrupt who found himself in a lowland. Only a large cut, located in different reliefs, could guarantee an average annual yield.

After the peasants went out to cuts or farms, the former "insurance" against crop failure disappeared. Now just one dry or too rainy year could bring poverty and famine. So that such fears among the peasants disappeared, they began to cut the best lands. Naturally, this aroused the indignation of the rest of the community. Hostility quickly grew between the two. The number of those who left the community began to gradually decrease.

The formation of farms and cuts was even somewhat slowed down for the sake of another goal - the strengthening of allotment land into personal property. Each member of the community could declare his withdrawal from it and secure for himself his striped allotment, which the community could no longer reduce or move.

But the owner could sell his fortified allotment even to a person outside the community. From an agrotechnical point of view, such an innovation could not bring much benefit (the allotment, as it was striped, remained), but it was capable of greatly disrupting the unity of the peasant world, causing a split in the community. It was assumed that every householder who had lost several souls in his family and fearfully awaited the next redistribution would certainly seize the opportunity to leave his entire allotment intact.

Despite all the efforts of the government, farmsteads were well established only in the northwestern provinces, including partly Pskov and Smolensk. Even before the beginning of the Stolypin reform, the peasants of the Kovno province began to settle in farms. The same phenomenon was observed in the Pskov province. In these parts, the influence of Prussia and the Baltic states affected. The local landscape, changeable, cut by rivers and streams, also contributed to the creation of farms.

In the southern and southeastern provinces, the main obstacle to widespread farming was the difficulty with water. But here (in the Northern Black Sea region, in the North Caucasus and in the steppe Trans-Volga region) the planting of cuts went quite successfully. The absence of strong communal traditions in these places was combined with high level development of agrarian capitalism, the exceptional fertility of the soil, its uniformity over very large areas and low level agriculture. The peasant, having spent almost no money on improving his strips of labor and means, left them without regret and switched to cuts.

In the Central Non-Chernozem region, the peasant, on the contrary, had to invest a lot of effort into cultivating his allotment. Without care, the local land will not give birth to anything. Fertilization of the soil here began from time immemorial. And since the end of the nineteenth century. cases of collective transitions of entire villages to multi-field crop rotations with sowing of fodder grasses became more frequent. Received development and transition to "wide bands" (instead of narrow, confusing).

The activities of the government would be much more useful if in the Central Black Earth provinces, instead of planting farms and cuts, it would help to intensify peasant agriculture within the community. At first, especially under Prince B.A. Vasilchikov, the head of land management and agriculture, such assistance was partly provided. But with the advent of A.V. Krivoshein, who in 1908 took the post of chief administrator of land management and agriculture and became the closest associate of Stolypin, the land management department led a sharply anti-communal policy. As a result, the spit hit rock bottom: the peasants resisted the planting of farms and cuts, and the government almost openly prevented the introduction of advanced farming systems on communal lands. The only thing in which land surveyors and local peasants found common interest was the division of joint land ownership of several villages. In Moscow and some other provinces, this type of land management has received so much great development, which began to overshadow work on the allocation of farms and cuts.

In the Central Black Earth provinces, the main obstacle to the formation of farms and cuts on communal lands was the lack of peasant land. For example, in the Kursk province, local peasants "wanted the landowner's land immediately and for free." From this it followed that before planting farms and cuts, in these provinces it was necessary to solve the problem of peasant land shortages - including at the expense of swollen landlord latifundia.

The June 3 coup d'état radically changed the situation in the country. The peasants had to give up their dreams of a quick "cutting". The pace of implementation of the decree of November 9, 1906 increased dramatically. In 1908, compared with 1907, the number of established householders increased 10 times and exceeded half a million. In 1909, a record figure was reached - 579.4 thousand strengthened. But since 1910, the pace of strengthening began to decline. The artificial measures put into law on June 14, 1910, did not straighten the curve. The number of peasants who stood out from the community stabilized only after the release of the law on May 29, 1911 “On land management”. However, to approach the highest indicators of 1908-1909 again. did not succeed.

During these years, in some southern provinces, for example, in Bessarabian and Poltava, communal land ownership was almost completely eliminated. In other provinces, for example in Kursk, it has lost its leading position. (In these provinces, even before there were many communities with household land ownership).

But in the provinces of the northern, northeastern, southeastern, and partly in the central industrial reform only slightly affected the thickness of the communal peasantry.

The interspersed fortified personal peasant landed property very remotely resembled the classical Roman "sacred and inviolable private property." And the point is not only in the legal restrictions imposed on fortified allotments (prohibition to sell to persons of the non-peasant class, to mortgage in private banks). The peasants themselves, leaving the community, attached paramount importance to securing for themselves not specific bands, but their total area. Therefore, it happened that they were not averse to taking part in the general redistribution, if this did not reduce the area of \u200b\u200btheir allotment (for example, when switching to "wide stripes"). So that the authorities would not interfere and upset the case, such redistributions were sometimes carried out secretly. It happened that the same view of the fortified land was adopted by the local authorities. The ministerial revision of 1911 found numerous cases of shared fortification in the Oryol province.

This means that it was not certain bands that were strengthened, but the share of this or that householder in worldly land ownership. And the government itself eventually adopted the same point of view, arrogating to itself, by law on May 29, 1911, the right to move the fortified belts when allocating farms or cuts.

Therefore, the massive strengthening of striped lands actually led only to the formation of unlimited communities. By the beginning of the Stolypin reform, about a third of the communities in European Russia did not redistribute the land. Sometimes two communities coexisted side by side - the re-divided and the undivided. Nobody noticed a big difference in the level of their agriculture. Only in the besperedelnaya the rich were richer, and the poor were poorer.

In reality, the government, of course, did not want the concentration of land in the hands of a few world-eaters and the ruin of the mass of farmers. Having no means of subsistence in the countryside, the landless poor had to pour into the city. Industry, depressed until 1910, would not have been able to cope with an influx of labor on such a scale. Masses of homeless and unemployed people threatened new social upheavals. Therefore, the government hastened to make an addition to its decree, forbidding, within the same county, to concentrate in the same hands more than six higher shower allotments, determined by the reform of 1861. In different provinces, this ranged from 12 to 18 dessiatins. The ceiling set for "strong owners" was very low. The corresponding norm was included in the law on June 14, 1910.

AT real life it was mostly the poor who left the community, as well as city dwellers, who remembered that they had a plot in a long-abandoned village, which they could now sell. The land was also sold by the settlers who left for Siberia. A huge amount of lands of interstrip fortification went on sale. In 1914, for example, 60% of the area fortified in that year was sold. The buyer of the land sometimes turned out to be a peasant society, and then it returned to the mundane cauldron. More often, wealthy peasants bought the land, who, by the way, were not always in a hurry to leave the community. Other communal peasants also bought. Fortified and public lands were in the hands of the same owner. Without leaving the community, at the same time he also had fortified areas. A witness and participant in all this upheaval could still remember where and what stripes she had. But already in the second generation such a confusion was to begin, in which no court would have been able to sort it out. Something similar, however, has already taken place once. Prematurely redeemed allotments (according to the reform of 1861) at one time severely violated the uniformity of land use in the community. But then they began to gradually trim. Since the Stolypin reform did not resolve the agrarian issue and land oppression continued to increase, a new wave of redistribution was inevitable, which was to sweep away a lot of Stolypin's legacy. Indeed, the land redistribution, which had almost stalled at the height of the reform, began again in 1912 on an upward trend.

Stolypin, apparently, himself understood that the cross-strip fortification would not create a "strong owner." Suddenly he called local authorities"to be imbued with the conviction that the strengthening of the plots is only half the battle, even only the beginning of the work, and that the law of November 9 was not created to strengthen the strips." On October 15, 1908, by agreement of the ministers of internal affairs, justice and the chief administrator of land management and agriculture, "Temporary rules on the allocation of allotment land to some places" were issued. “The most perfect type of land arrangement is a farm,” the rules said, “and if it is impossible to form one, a cut that is continuous for all field lands, set aside especially from the indigenous estate.”

In March 1909, the Committee for Land Management Affairs approved the "Provisional Rules for the Land Management of Entire Rural Societies." Since that time, local land management bodies have been increasingly focused on the development of allotments of entire villages. The new instruction, issued in 1910, specifically emphasized: “The ultimate goal of land management is the development of the entire allotment; therefore, when performing work on allotments, one should strive to ensure that these works cover the largest possible area of the allotment being arranged ... ”When assigning work to the queue, the first thing to do was to expand the entire allotment, then - on group sections, and only after them - on single. In practice, with a shortage of land surveyors, this meant the cessation of single allotments. Indeed, a strong owner could wait a long time until all the poor were driven out to cut off in the neighboring village.

In May 1911, the law "On land management" was issued. It included the main provisions of the instructions of 1909-1910. the new law established that for the transition to a cut-off and farm economy, it was no longer necessary to first consolidate allotment lands into personal property. Since that time, the cross-strip fortification has lost its former meaning.

Of the total number of farms and cuts created during the reform, 64.3% arose as a result of the expansion of entire villages. It was more convenient for land surveyors to work this way, the effectiveness of their work increased, the high authorities received round figures for juggling, but at the same time, the number of small farmers and cut-off farmers who could not be called "strong masters" increased. Many farms were not viable. In the Poltava province, for example, with the full expansion of villages, on average, there were 4.1 dess. The peasants said that on other farms "there is nowhere to drive the chicken."

Only about 30% of farms and cuts on communal lands were formed by separating individual owners. But these, as a rule, were strong hosts. In the same Poltava province, the average size of a single division was 10 dess. But most of these allotments were made in the first years of the reform. Then the matter practically vanished.

Stolypin had mixed feelings about this development. On the one hand, he understood that only the dissection of the allotment into cuts would isolate the peasant farms from each other, only the complete resettlement on the farms would finally liquidate the community. It will be difficult for the peasants dispersed over the farms to raise revolts.

On the other hand, Stolypin could not help but see that instead of strong, stable farms, the land management department was fabricating a mass of small and obviously weak ones - those who could in no way stabilize the situation in the countryside and become the backbone of the regime. However, he was unable to turn the bulky machine of the land management department in such a way that it would not act as it was convenient for it, but as it should for the good of the cause.

Simultaneously with the issuance of new agrarian laws, the government is taking measures to forcibly destroy the community, not fully relying on the action of economic factors. Immediately after November 9, 1906, the entire state apparatus is set in motion by issuing the most categorical circulars and orders, as well as by repressive measures against those who do not carry them out with too much energy.

The practice of the reform showed that the mass of the peasantry was opposed to separation from the community - at least in most areas. A survey of the sentiments of the peasants by the Free Economic Society showed that in the central provinces the peasants had a negative attitude towards separation from the community (89 negative indicators in the questionnaires against 7 positive ones). Many peasant correspondents wrote that the decree of November 9 was aimed at ruining a mass of peasants so that a few would profit from it.

In the current situation, the only way for the government to carry out reform was the way of violence against the main peasant mass. The specific methods of violence were very diverse - from intimidation of rural gatherings to drawing up fictitious sentences, from the cancellation of the decisions of the gatherings by the zemstvo chief to the issuance of decisions by the county land management commissions on the allocation of householders, from the use of police force to obtain the "consent" of the gatherings before the expulsion of the opponents of the division.

In order to get the peasants to agree to the breakdown of the entire allotment, officials from the land management bodies happened to resort to the most unceremonious measures of pressure. One characteristic case is described in the memoirs of the zemstvo chief V. Polivanov. The author served in the Gryazovets district of the Vologda province. Once, early in the morning, at a bad time, an indispensable member of the land management commission came to one of the villages. A meeting was convened, and an indispensable member explained to the "peasants" that they needed to go to the farms: the community was small, there was enough land and water from three sides. “As soon as I looked at the plan, I say to my clerk: it’s necessary to transfer Lopatikha to the farm.” After conferring among themselves, the scouts refused. Neither promises to provide a loan, nor threats to arrest the "rebels" and to bring soldiers to billet had no effect. The peasants kept repeating: "As the old people lived, so we will live, but we do not agree to the farm." Then the indispensable member went to drink tea, and the peasants were forbidden to disperse and sit on the ground. After drinking tea, the indispensable was drawn to sleep. He went out to the peasants waiting under the windows late in the evening. "Well, do you agree?" - “Everyone agrees!” The assembly answered in unison. “To the farms, so to the farms, to the aspen, so to the aspen, only so that everyone, then, together.” V. Polivanov claimed that he managed to reach the governor and restore justice.

However, there is evidence that sometimes the resistance of the peasants to too much pressure from officials led to bloody clashes.

4.1 ACTIVITIES OF THE PEASANT BANK

In 1906-1907. By decrees of the tsar, some part of the state and specific lands was transferred to the Peasants' Bank for sale to the peasants in order to ease the land tightness.

Opponents of the Stolypin land reform said that it was carried out according to the principle: "The rich will increase, the poor will be taken away." According to the plan of the supporters of the reform, the peasant proprietors had to increase their allotments not only at the expense of the rural poor. In this they were assisted by the Peasant Land Bank, which bought land from the landowners and sold them to the peasants in small plots. The law of June 5, 1912 allowed the issuance of a loan secured by any allotment land acquired by the peasants.

The development of various forms of credit - mortgage, reclamation, agricultural, land management - contributed to the intensification of market relations in the countryside. But in fact, this land was bought mainly by the kulaks, who thus received additional opportunities for expanding the economy, since only wealthy peasants could afford to buy land even through a bank, with payment in installments.

Many nobles, impoverished or troubled by peasant unrest, willingly sold their lands. The inspirer of the reform P.A. Stolypin, to set an example, sold one of his estates himself. Thus, the bank acted as an intermediary between the sellers of land - the nobles and its buyers - the peasants.

On a grand scale, the Bank carried out the purchase of lands with their subsequent resale to peasants on preferential terms, intermediary operations to increase peasant land use. He increased credit to the peasants and made it much cheaper, and the Bank paid more interest on its obligations than the peasants paid it. The difference in payment was covered by subsidies from the budget, amounting for the period from 1906 to 1917. 1457.5 billion rubles.

The bank actively influenced the forms of land ownership: for peasants who acquired land as sole property, payments were reduced. As a result, if until 1906 the bulk of the buyers of land were peasant collectives, then by 1913 79.7% of the buyers were individual peasants.

The scale of operations of the Peasant Land Bank in 1905-1907. for the purchase of land has almost tripled. Many landlords were in a hurry to part with their estates. In 1905-1907. the bank bought over 2.7 million dess. earth. State and specific lands were transferred to his disposal. Meanwhile, the peasants, counting on the liquidation of landownership in the near future, were not very willing to make purchases. From November 1905 to the beginning of May 1907, the bank sold only about 170,000 dessiatins. In his hands turned out to be a lot of land, for the economic management of which he was not adapted, and little money. To support his government even used the savings of pension funds.

The activities of the Peasants' Bank caused growing irritation among the landowners. This was manifested in sharp attacks against him at the III Congress of authorized noble societies in March-April 1907. The delegates were unhappy that the bank was selling land only to peasants (some landowners were not averse to using its services as buyers). They were also concerned that the bank had not quite abandoned the sale of land to rural communities (although it tried to sell land mainly to individual peasants in whole plots). The general mood of the noble deputies was expressed by A.D. Kashkarov: "I believe that the Peasants' Bank should not deal with the so-called agrarian issue ... the agrarian issue should be stopped by the power of the authorities."

At the same time, the peasants were very reluctant to leave the community and strengthen their allotments. There was a rumor that those who left the community would not get land cuts from the landowners.

Only after the end of the revolution did the agrarian reform go faster. First of all, the government took vigorous action to liquidate the land reserves of the Peasants' Bank. On June 13, 1907, this issue was considered in the Council of Ministers, it was decided to form temporary branches of the Council of the Bank on the ground, transferring a number of important powers to them.

Partly as a result measures taken, and also due to a change in the general situation in the country, things went better for the Peasants' Bank. In total for 1907-1915. 3,909,000 dess. were sold from the bank's fund, divided into about 280,000 farm and cut-off plots. Until 1911, sales increased annually, and then began to decline.

This was explained, firstly, by the fact that during the implementation of the decree of November 9, 1906, a large amount of cheap allotment "peasant" land was thrown onto the market, and secondly, by the fact that with the end of the revolution, the landlords sharply reduced the sale of their lands. It turned out that the suppression of the revolution in the end did not benefit the creation of farms and cuts on banking lands.

The question of how the purchases of bank farms and cuts were distributed among the various strata of the peasantry has not been adequately investigated. According to some estimates, the rich top among the buyers was only 5-6%. The rest belonged to the middle peasantry and the poor. Her attempts to gain a foothold on the lands of the bank were explained quite simply. Many landowners' lands, leased from year to year to the same societies, became, as it were, part of their allotment. Selling them to the Peasants' Bank hit first of all the small landowners. Meanwhile, the bank gave a loan in the amount of up to 90-95% of the cost of the site. The sale of a fortified allotment usually made it possible to pay a down payment. Some zemstvos provided assistance in furnishing farms. All this pushed the poor to bank lands, and the bank, having losses from the maintenance of purchased lands on its balance sheet, was not picky in choosing clients.

Having set foot on banking land, the peasant, as it were, restored for himself those exhausting and endless redemption payments that, under the pressure of the revolution, the government canceled on January 1, 1907. Arrears soon appeared on bank payments. As before, the authorities were forced to resort to installments and rescheduling. But something appeared that the peasant did not know before: the sale of the entire farm by auction. From 1908 to 1914 11.4 thousand plots were sold in this way. This, apparently, was primarily a measure of intimidation. And the bulk of the poor, one must think, remained on their farms and cuts. For her, however, the same life continued ("to get by", "to hold out", "to hold out"), which she led in the community.

However, this does not exclude the possibility that fairly strong farms have appeared on banking lands. From this point of view, land management on bank lands was more promising than on allotment lands.

4.2 COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT

Loans from the peasant bank could not fully satisfy the demand of the peasant for money goods. Therefore, credit cooperation, which has gone through two stages in its movement, has received significant distribution. At the first stage, administrative forms of regulation of small credit relations prevailed. By creating a qualified cadre of small credit inspectors and allocating significant loans through state banks for initial loans to credit partnerships and for subsequent loans, the government stimulated the cooperative movement. At the second stage, rural credit partnerships, accumulating equity developed independently. As a result, a wide network of institutions of small peasant credit, loan and savings banks and credit associations was created, serving the money circulation of peasant farms. By January 1, 1914, the number of such institutions exceeded 13,000.

Credit relations gave a strong impetus to the development of production, consumer and marketing cooperatives. The peasants, on a cooperative basis, created dairy and butter artels, agricultural societies, consumer shops, and even peasant artel dairy factories.

4.3 RESETTLEMENT OF PEASANTS TO SIBERIA

The Stolypin government also passed a series of new laws on the resettlement of peasants to the outskirts. The possibilities for a wide development of resettlement were already laid down in the law of June 6, 1904. This law introduced freedom of resettlement without benefits, and the government was given the right to decide on the opening of free preferential resettlement from certain areas of the empire, "the eviction from which was recognized as particularly desirable."

For the first time, the law on preferential resettlement was applied in 1905: the government “opened” resettlement from the Poltava and Kharkov provinces, where the peasant movement was especially wide.

The mass resettlement of peasants to the eastern outskirts of the country was one of the most important areas of reform. Thus, the "land pressure" in the European part of Russia was reduced, "steam" of discontent was released.

During the 11 years of the reform, more than 3 million people moved to the free lands of Siberia and Central Asia. In 1908, the number of immigrants was the largest in all the years of the reform and amounted to 665 thousand people.

However, the scale of this event also led to difficulties in its implementation. The wave of migrants rapidly subsided. Not everyone was able to develop new lands. Back, to European Russia, the reverse flow of immigrants moved. Completely devastated poor people returned, unable to settle down in a new place. The number of peasants who failed to adapt to new conditions and were forced to return was 12% of the total number of migrants. In total, about 550 thousand people returned in this way.

The results of the resettlement campaign were as follows. First, during this period, a huge leap was made in the economic and social development of Siberia. Also, the population of this region increased by 153% during the years of colonization. If before the resettlement to Siberia there was a reduction in sown areas, then in 1906-1913. they were expanded by 80%, while in the European part of Russia by 6.2%. In terms of the rate of development of animal husbandry, Siberia also overtook the European part of Russia.

4.4 AGRO-CULTURAL ACTIVITIES

One of the main obstacles in the way economic progress villages was the low culture of agriculture and the illiteracy of the vast majority of producers, accustomed to working according to the general custom. During the years of the reform, large-scale agro-economic assistance was provided to the peasants. Agro-industrial services were specially created for the peasants, who organized training courses on cattle breeding and dairy production, democratization and introduction of progressive forms of agricultural production. Much attention was paid to the progress of the system of out-of-school agricultural education. If in 1905 the number of students in agricultural courses was 2 thousand people, then in 1912 - 58 thousand, and in agricultural readings - 31.6 thousand and 1046 thousand people, respectively.

At present, there is an opinion that Stolypin's agrarian reforms led to the concentration of the land fund in the hands of a small rich stratum as a result of the dispossession of the bulk of the peasants. Reality shows the opposite - an increase in the proportion of "middle strata" in peasant land use. This is clearly seen from the data in the table. During the reform period, peasants actively bought land and increased their land fund annually by 2 million acres. Also, peasant land use increased significantly due to the lease of landlord and state lands.

Distribution of the land fund between groups of peasant buyers

Having us a male soulPeriodLandlessUnder three tithesMore than three tithes1885-190310,961,527,61906-191216,368,413,3

5. RESULTS OF THE STOLYPIN AGRARIAN REFORM

agrarian reform landownership stolypin

The results of the reform are characterized rapid growth agricultural production, an increase in the capacity of the domestic market, an increase in the export of agricultural products, and the trade balance of Russia became more and more active. As a result, it was possible not only to bring agriculture out of the crisis, but also to turn it into the dominant feature of Russia's economic development. The gross income of all agriculture in 1913 amounted to 52.6% of the total gross income. The income of the entire national economy, due to the increase in the value created in agriculture, increased in comparable prices from 1900 to 1913 by 33.8%.

The differentiation of types of agricultural production by regions has led to an increase in the marketability of agriculture. Three-quarters of all raw materials processed by industry came from agriculture. The turnover of agricultural products increased by 46% during the reform period.

Even more, by 61% compared with 1901-1905, the export of agricultural products increased in the prewar years. Russia was the largest producer and exporter of bread and flax, a number of livestock products. So, in 1910, the export of Russian wheat amounted to 36.4% of the total world export.

The foregoing does not mean at all that pre-war Russia should be presented as a "peasant's paradise." The problems of hunger and agrarian overpopulation were not solved. The country still suffered from technical, economic and cultural backwardness. According to I.D. Kondratiev in the United States, on average, a farm accounted for a fixed capital of 3,900 rubles, while in European Russia the fixed capital of an average peasant farm barely reached 900 rubles. The national income per capita of the agricultural population in Russia was about 52 rubles per year, and in the United States - 262 rubles.

The growth rate of labor productivity in agriculture was relatively slow. While in Russia in 1913 they received 55 poods of bread from one tithe, in the USA they received 68, in France - 89, and in Belgium - 168 poods. Economic growth took place not on the basis of the intensification of production, but by increasing the intensity of manual peasant labor. But during the period under review, socio-economic conditions were created for the transition to a new stage of agrarian transformation - to the transformation of agriculture into a capital-intensive technologically progressive sector of the economy.

5.1 RESULTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE STOLYPIN AGRARIAN REFORM

The community withstood the collision with private land ownership, and after February Revolution 1917 went on a decisive offensive. Now the struggle for land again found a way out in the burning of estates and the murders of landowners, which took place with even greater bitterness than in 1905. “Then they didn’t finish the job, stopped halfway? the peasants argued. “Well, now let’s not stop and exterminate all the landowners to the root.”

The results of the Stolypin agrarian reform are expressed in the following figures. By January 1, 1916, 2 million householders left the community for the interstriped fortification. They owned 14.1 million dess. earth. 469,000 householders who lived in unrestricted communities received certificates worth 2.8 million dess. 1.3 million households moved to farm and cut ownership (12.7 million dess.). In addition, 280,000 farms and cut-off farms were formed on banking lands - this is a special account. But the other figures cited above cannot be added up mechanically, since some householders, having strengthened their allotments, then went out to farms and cuts, while others went to them immediately, without fortifying them in strips. According to rough estimates, about 3 million householders left the community, which is somewhat less than a third of their total number in those provinces where the reform was carried out. However, as noted, some of the evacuees had in fact abandoned agriculture long ago. 22% of the land was withdrawn from communal circulation. About half of them went on sale. Some part returned to the communal cauldron.

During the 11 years of the Stolypin land reform, 26% of the peasants left the community. 85% of the peasant lands remained with the community. Ultimately, the authorities failed to either destroy the community or create a stable and sufficiently massive layer of peasant proprietors. So what can be done about the general failure of the Stolypin agrarian reform.

At the same time, it is known that after the end of the revolution and before the outbreak of the First World War, the situation in the Russian countryside improved markedly. Of course, there were other factors at work besides the reform. First, as was already the case, since 1907 redemption payments were abolished, which the peasants had been paying for more than 40 years. Secondly, the global agricultural crisis ended and grain prices began to rise. From this, presumably, something fell to ordinary peasants. Thirdly, during the years of the revolution, landownership was reduced, and in connection with this, enslaving forms of exploitation also decreased. Finally, fourthly, for the entire period there was only one lean year (1911), but on the other hand, two years in a row (1912-1913) were excellent harvests. As for the agrarian reform, such a large-scale undertaking, which required such a significant reshaping of the land, could not have a positive effect in the very first years of its implementation. Nevertheless, the activities that accompanied her were a good, useful thing.

This concerns the provision of greater personal freedom to the peasants, the arrangement of farms and cuts on bank lands, resettlement to Siberia, and certain types of land management.

5.2 POSITIVE OUTCOMES OF AGRARIAN REFORM

The positive results of the agrarian reform include:

up to a quarter of farms separated from the community, the stratification of the village increased, the rural elite gave up to half of the market bread,

3 million households moved from European Russia,

4 million acres of communal lands were involved in the market turnover,

the cost of agricultural implements increased from 59 to 83 rubles. for one yard

consumption of superphosphate fertilizers increased from 8 to 20 million poods,

for 1890-1913 income per capita of the rural population increased from 22 to 33 rubles. in year,

5.3 NEGATIVE OUTCOMES OF AGRARIAN REFORM

The negative results of agrarian reform include:

from 70% to 90% of the peasants who left the community somehow retained ties with the community, the bulk of the peasants were the labor farms of the community members,

0.5 million migrants returned to Central Russia,

the peasant household accounted for 2-4 acres, at a rate of 7-8 acres,

the main agricultural tool is a plow (8 million pieces), 58% of farms did not have plows,

mineral fertilizers were applied on 2% of sown areas,

in 1911-1912 the country was struck by a famine that engulfed 30 million people.

6. REASONS FOR THE FAILURE OF THE STOLYPIN AGRARIAN REFORM

In the course of the revolution and the civil war, communal landownership won a decisive victory. However, a decade later, at the end of the 1920s, a sharp struggle broke out again between the peasant community and the state. The result of this struggle was the destruction of the community.

But a number of external circumstances (the death of Stolypin, the beginning of the war) interrupted the Stolypin reform. If we look at all those reforms that were conceived by Stolypin and announced in the declaration, we will see that most of them failed to come true, and some were just started, but the death of their creator did not allow them to complete, because many of the introductions were based on enthusiasm Stolypin, who tried to somehow improve the political or economic structure Russia.

Stolypin himself believed that it would take 15-20 years for the success of his undertakings. But also for the period 1906-1913. a lot has been done.

The revolution showed a huge socio-economic and political gap between the people and the authorities. The country needed radical reforms, which were not followed. It can be said that during the period of the Stolypin reforms, the country experienced not a constitutional crisis, but a revolutionary one. Standing still or semi-reforms could not solve the situation, but only on the contrary expanded the springboard for the struggle for cardinal changes. Only the destruction of the tsarist regime and landlordism could change the course of events, the measures that Stolypin took during his reforms were half-hearted. The main failure of Stolypin's reforms lies in the fact that he wanted to carry out the reorganization in a non-democratic way and in spite of him Struve wrote: “It is his agrarian policy that is in glaring contradiction with his other policies. It changes the economic foundation of the country, while all other politics tends to keep the political "superstructure" as intact as possible and only slightly decorates its facade. Of course, Stolypin was an outstanding figure and politician, but with the existence of such a system that was in Russia, all his projects "split" about a lack of understanding or an unwillingness to understand the full importance of his undertakings. I must say that without those human qualities, such as: courage, determination, assertiveness, political flair, cunning - Stolypin hardly managed to make any contribution to the development of the country.

What are the reasons for her defeat?

First, Stolypin began his reforms with a great delay (not in 1861, but only in 1906).

Secondly, the transition from a natural type of economy to a market economy under the conditions of an administrative-command system is possible, first of all, on the basis of the vigorous activity of the state. In this case, the financial and credit activities of the state should play a special role. An example of this is the government, which managed with amazing speed and scope to reorient the powerful bureaucratic apparatus of the empire to energetic work. At the same time, “local economic and economic profitability was deliberately sacrificed for the sake of the future social effect from the creation and development of new economic forms". This is how the Ministry of Finance, the Peasant Bank, the Ministry of Agriculture, and others acted. state institutions.

Thirdly, where administrative principles of economic management and egalitarian methods of distribution dominated, there will always be strong opposition to transformation.

Fourthly, the reason for the defeat is the mass revolutionary struggle, which swept the tsarist monarchy from the historical arena along with its agrarian reform.

Therefore, it is necessary to have a social support in the person of the initiative and qualified sections of the population.

The collapse of the Stolypin reform did not mean that it had no serious significance. It was a major step along the capitalist path, and contributed to a certain extent to an increase in the use of machinery, fertilizers, and an increase in the marketability of agriculture.

CONCLUSION

Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin was a talented politician, he conceived several reforms that could make the Russian Empire an advanced state in all respects. One of these ideas was Stolypin's agrarian reform.

The essence of Stolypin's agrarian reform was the desire to create a layer of prosperous peasantry in the countryside. Pyotr Arkadyevich believed that by creating such a layer, one could forget about the revolutionary plague for a long time. The prosperous peasantry was to become a reliable support of the Russian state and its power. Stolypin believed that in no case should the needs of the peasantry be met at the expense of the landowners. Stolypin saw the implementation of his idea in the destruction of the peasant community. The peasant community was a structure that had both pluses and minuses. Often the community fed and saved the peasants in lean years. People who were in the community were supposed to provide each other with some help. On the other hand, lazy people and alcoholics lived at the expense of the community, with whom, according to the rules of the community, they had to share the harvest and other products of labor. Destroying the community, Stolypin wanted to make every peasant, first of all, an owner, responsible only for himself and his family. In this situation, everyone would strive to work more, thereby providing themselves with everything necessary.

The Stolypin Agrarian Reform began its life in 1906. That year, a decree was adopted that made it easier for all peasants to leave the community. Leaving the peasant community, a former member of it could demand from it that a piece of land assigned to him be secured in personal ownership. Moreover, this land was given to the peasant not according to the principle of "strips", as before, but was tied to one place. By 1916, 2.5 million peasants left the community.

During the agrarian reform of Stolypin, the activities of the Peasants' Bank, established in 1882, intensified. The bank served as an intermediary between landlords who wanted to sell their land and peasants who wanted to buy it.

The second direction of the Stolypin agrarian reform was the policy of resettlement of peasants. Due to the resettlement, Peter Arkadievich hoped to reduce the land hunger in the central provinces, and to populate the deserted lands of Siberia. To some extent, this policy paid off. Settlers were provided with large plots of land and many benefits, but the process itself was poorly debugged. It is worth noting that the first settlers gave a significant increase in the wheat harvest in Russia.

Stolypin's agrarian reform was a great project, the completion of which was prevented by the death of its author.

LIST OF USED LITERATURE

1. Munchaev Sh.M. "History of Russia" Moscow, 2000.

Orlov A.S., Georgiev V.A. "History from ancient times to the present day" Moscow, 2001.

Kuleshov S.V. "History of the Fatherland" Moscow, 1991.

Tyukavkina V.G. "History of the USSR" Moscow, 1989.

Shatsillo K.F. "We need great Russia» Moscow, 1991.

Avrekh A.Ya. “P.A. Stolypin and the fate of reforms in Russia, Moscow, 1991.

Kozarezov V.V. "About Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin" Moscow, 1991.

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Stolypin's agrarian reform was of great historical significance for Russia.

It cannot be called entirely positive, but it was necessary.

Apart from the statesman Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin himself, few people understood this.

The reasons for the agrarian reform of P. A. Stolypin

Disagreements between landowners and peasants over land ownership reached a boiling point. The peasants literally began to fight for the land. Discontent was accompanied by the destruction of landowners' estates. But how did it all start?

The essence of the conflict was disagreements over land ownership. The peasants believed that all land was common. Therefore, it must be divided equally among all. If a family has many children, it is given a large plot, if there are few, a smaller plot.

Until 1905, the peasant community existed without any oppression, supported by the authorities. But the landowners did not like the situation. They advocated private property.

Gradually, the conflict began to flare up until it turned into a real rebellion.

This can be briefly summarized reasons why Stolypin decided to carry out agrarian reform:

Lack of land. Gradually, the land of the peasants became less and less. At the same time, the population increased.
backwardness of the village. The communal system impeded development.
Social tension. Not in every village the peasants decided to go against the landlords, but the tension was felt everywhere. This could not continue for long.

The tasks of transformations included the resolution of the current situation.

The goal of the Stolypin agrarian reform

The main task of the ongoing reform was the elimination of the community and landownership. Stolypin believed that this was the key to the problem, and that this would solve all other issues.

Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin - statesman of the Russian Empire, State Secretary of His Imperial Majesty, Acting State Councilor, Chamberlain. Governor of Grodno and Saratov, Minister of the Interior and Chairman of the Council of Ministers, member of the State Council

The transformations were carried out to solve the lack of land of the peasants and overcome social tensions. Stolypin also sought to smooth out the existing conflict between peasants and landlords.

The essence of Stolypin's land reform

The main condition was the exit from the community of peasants with the subsequent assignment of land to them in private ownership. Since most peasants could not afford it, they had to apply to the Peasants' Bank.

The landlords' lands were bought up and sold on credit to the peasants.

It is important to note: the central idea was not aimed at fighting the peasant community. The essence of the struggle was to eliminate peasant poverty and unemployment.

Reform Methods

The reform was introduced through pressure from the police and officials. In a difficult time of executions and gallows, it was impossible to do otherwise. The right of the government to intervene economic relations was approved by Stolypin.

As for the peasants, assistance to them included the provision of natural things necessary for housekeeping. This was done in order to provide the peasants with work.

The beginning of the agrarian reform

The procedure for the exit of peasants from the community and the assignment of land to them in private ownership began on November 9, 1906 after a decree was issued. According to other sources, the date of issue of the decree is November 22.

The first action was to provide peasants with equal rights with other estates. Later, the most important event was the resettlement of peasants beyond the Urals.

Exit from the community and the creation of farms and cuts

The land plots that the peasants received into their possession had to meet the requirements of rational management. In practice, this idea was not so easy to implement. That's why It was supposed to divide the villages into farms and cuts.

This made it possible to form a layer of peasants whose economy met the requirements as much as possible. Rational management was necessary to eliminate the backwardness of the villages.

Prosperous peasants left the community most actively. It was unprofitable for the poor, the community protected them. When they left, they lost support, and they had to cope on their own, which did not always work out.

Resettlement policy as the most important stage of the reform

At first, the exit of peasants from the communities was difficult. Stolypin tried to focus on the quality of property rights and economic freedoms. But the documents on processing were considered by the Duma for too long.

The problem was that the activities of the communities were aimed at blocking the path to independence for the peasants. The Reform Amendment Act was not passed until July 14, 1910.

Stolypin sought to withdraw the peasants from densely populated areas to Siberia and Central Asia, as well as to Far East and give them independence.

The main provisions and results of the resettlement company are reflected in the table:

Thanks to this, a huge leap in the development of the economy and the economy took place in Siberia. In terms of animal husbandry, the region even began to overtake the European part of Russia.

Results and results of the Stolypin agrarian policy

The results and consequences of Stolypin's reform cannot be given an unambiguous assessment. They were both positive and negative. On the one hand, agriculture has received greater development.

On the other hand, it affected many people badly. The landowners were unhappy with the fact that Stolypin was destroying centuries-old foundations. The peasants did not want to leave the community, to settle in farms where no one would protect them, to move to no one knows where.

It is possible that the result of this discontent was the attempt on the life of Pyotr Arkadyevich in August 1911. Stolypin was mortally wounded and died in September of the same year.

The agrarian question is always the main one for Russia

Since 1906, the Russian government under the leadership of P.A. Stolypin carried out a set of measures in the field of agriculture. These activities are collectively referred to as Stolypin agrarian reform.

Main objectives of the reform:

transfer of allotment lands to the ownership of peasants;
the gradual abolition of the rural community as a collective land owner;
extensive lending to peasants;
buying up landed estates for resale to peasants on preferential terms;
land management, which makes it possible to optimize the peasant economy due to the elimination of striped crops.

The reform set both short-term and long-term goals.

Short term: resolution of the "agrarian question" as a source of mass discontent (first of all, the cessation of agrarian unrest). Long term: sustainable prosperity and development of agriculture and the peasantry, the integration of the peasantry into the market economy.

Goals of agrarian reform

The agrarian reform was aimed at improving peasant allotment land use and had little effect on private land ownership. It was held in 47 provinces of European Russia (all provinces, except for the three provinces of the Ostzee region); the Cossack land tenure and the land tenure of the Bashkirs were not affected.

The Historic Need for Reform

P.A. Stolypin (third from left) visiting a farm near Moscow, October 1910

The idea of agrarian reform arose as a result of the revolution of 1905-1907, when agrarian unrest intensified, and the activities of the first three State Dumas. In 1905, the agrarian unrest reached its peak, and the government barely had time to suppress it. Stolypin at that time was the governor of the Saratov province, where the unrest was especially strong due to crop failure. In April 1906, P. A. Stolypin was appointed Minister of the Interior. The government project on the forced alienation of part of the landed estates was not adopted, the Duma was dissolved, and Stolypin was appointed chairman of the Council of Ministers. Due to the fact that the situation with the agrarian question remained uncertain, Stolypin decided to adopt all the necessary legal provisions without waiting for the convocation of the Second Duma. On August 27, a decree was issued on the sale of state lands to peasants. On October 5, 1906, a decree was issued "On the abolition of certain restrictions on the rights of rural inhabitants and persons of other former taxable states" dedicated to improving the civil status of peasants. On October 14 and 15, decrees were issued that expanded the activities of the Peasant Land Bank and facilitated the conditions for the purchase of land by peasants on credit. On November 9, 1906, the main legislative act of the reform was issued - the decree "On the addition of some resolutions of the current law concerning peasant land ownership and land use" proclaiming the right of peasants to secure ownership of their allotment lands.

Thanks to the bold step of Stolypin (the issuance of laws under Article 87. This article allowed the government to adopt urgent laws without the approval of the Duma in the interval between the dissolution of one Duma and the convocation of a new one), the reform became irreversible. The Second Duma expressed an even more negative attitude towards any undertakings of the government. It was dissolved after 102 days. There was no compromise between the Dumas and the government.

The III Duma, without rejecting the government's course, adopted all government bills for an extremely long time. As a result, since 1907, the government has abandoned active legislative activity in agrarian policy and proceeds to expand the activities of government agencies, increase the volume of distributed loans and subsidies. Since 1907, the peasants' applications for fixing land ownership have been satisfied with great delays (there is not enough staff from the land management commissions). Therefore, the main efforts of the government were directed to the training of personnel (primarily land surveyors). But the funds allocated for the reform are also increasing, in the form of funding for the Peasant Land Bank, subsidizing agronomic assistance measures, and direct benefits to peasants.

Since 1910, the government's course has changed somewhat - more attention is being paid to supporting the cooperative movement.

Peasant life

On September 5, 1911, P. A. Stolypin was assassinated, and Finance Minister V. N. Kokovtsov became prime minister. Kokovtsov, who showed less initiative than Stolypin, followed the outlined course without introducing anything new into the agrarian reform. The volume of land management work to allocate land, the amount of land assigned to the property of peasants, the amount of land sold to peasants through the Peasants' Bank, the volume of loans to peasants grew steadily until the outbreak of the First World War.

During 1906-1911. decrees were issued, as a result of which the peasants had the opportunity:

take possession of the property;
freely leave the community and choose another place of residence;
to move to the Urals in order to receive land (about 15 hectares) and money from the state to raise the economy;
settlers received tax benefits and were exempted from military service.

agrarian reform

Have the goals of Stolypin's reform been achieved?

This is a rhetorical question when evaluating the activities of reformers; it does not have an unequivocal answer. Each generation will give its own answer to it.

Stolypin stopped the revolution and began profound reforms. At the same time, he fell victim to an assassination attempt, was unable to complete his reforms and did not achieve his goal. main goal: to create a great Russia in 20 peaceful years .

Nevertheless, during his activity the following results were achieved:

The cooperative movement developed.
The number of wealthy peasants increased.
According to the gross harvest of bread, Russia was in 1st place in the world.
The number of livestock increased by 2.5 times.
About 2.5 million people moved to new lands.

At the beginning of the 20th century, large-scale peasant unrest in the Russian Empire forced the authorities to look for ways to solve the agrarian issue in the country. Two ways of agrarian reform were objectively possible. The first method led to the preservation of the landed estates and the destruction of the peasant community. The second path led to the abolition of landownership and the nationalization of land. In the process of implementing land reforms, the concept of "cut" arose. This word was rarely used in speech before, but at the beginning of the century, all the peasant farms of the empire knew its meaning.

Stolypin reform

The All-Russian Congress of the United Nobility gave impetus to the implementation of the first path of land reform. Taking into account the inevitability of the death of the old peasant way of life, the authorities decided on the complete destruction of peasant allotment land ownership, while the lands of large landowners remained untouched. The reforms were carried out under the leadership of Prime Minister P. Stolypin, so soon the name appeared on hearing.

So it became possible to form a cut from land holdings. This word appears at the beginning of 1906 and is successfully used up to a year. This concept comes from "chopping", "chopping off" - so in people's environment called the division of land between peasant farms.

The meaning of the word "cut" implies a separate plot allocated from communal land ownership for the personal use of the peasant.

Personal freedoms

Along with the division of communal lands, a decision was made to evict poor peasant farms to the outlying lands of the Russian Empire. Since the peasantry under tsarism did not have full rights and freedoms, the question arose of securing freedom of movement for representatives of this class. On March 10, 1906, the Statute of the Council of Ministers granted the peasants the freedom to choose their place of residence, freedom of movement, the annulment of “restrictive rules” in passports and the equalization of the peasantry in its civil rights with other estates. Thus, the peasant could leave the community and receive land in private ownership - a cut. This became possible even in those areas where there was little - this was how the issue of resettlement to the outskirts of the empire was resolved.

farm

Several households with separate land ownership formed a farm. As a rule, such small settlements arose in the newly annexed areas where communal land tenure was not practiced or was not widespread. The farm and the cut were iconic symbols of the Stolypin reform, which aimed to reorganize the peasantry into small farms along the Prussian model.

The October Revolution prevented the successful completion of the Stolypin reform. With her arrival, many words, including "cut", have lost their meaning. lost its significance after the publication of the Decree on Land, signed by V.I. Lenin.