Life of state peasants. state peasants. See what "State peasants" are in other dictionaries
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History of state peasants
State peasants were issued by decrees of Peter I from the remnants of the non-enslaved agricultural population:
- odnodvortsev (serving people on the black earth border with the Wild Steppe), on November 24, 1866, the law “On the land arrangement of state peasants” was issued, according to which the estate was abolished;
- non-Russian peoples of the Volga and Ural regions.
The number of state peasants increased due to the confiscation of church properties (huge properties of the Russian Orthodox Church were confiscated by Catherine), returned, annexed and conquered territories (the Baltic states, Right-Bank Ukraine, Belarus, Crimea, Transcaucasia), former serfs confiscated estates of the gentry of the Commonwealth and others. In addition, the number of state peasants was replenished by runaway serfs (privately owned) peasants who settled on the developed lands (Bashkiria, Novorossia, the North Caucasus, and so on). This process (the transition of runaway serfs to the ranks of the state) was tacitly encouraged by the imperial government.
Also, foreign colonists (Germans, Greeks, Bulgarians, etc.) who settled in Russia contributed to the increase in the number of state peasants.
The position of the state peasants
State ( state-owned) peasants lived on state lands and paid taxes to the treasury. According to the 1st revision (), there were 1.049 million male souls in European Russia and Siberia (that is, 19% of the total agricultural population of the country), according to the 10th revision () - 9.345 million (45.2% of the agricultural population ) [ ] . Presumably, the crown peasants in Sweden served as a model for the legal definition of the position of state peasants in the state. By law, state peasants were treated as "free rural inhabitants." State peasants, in contrast to the owners, were considered as persons with legal rights - they could speak in court, conclude transactions, own property. State peasants were allowed to conduct retail and wholesale trade, open factories and plants. The land on which such peasants worked was considered state property, but the right to use was recognized for the peasants - in practice, the peasants made transactions as owners of the land. However, in addition to that, since 1801, the state. peasants could buy and own "uninhabited" lands (that is, without serfs peasants) on the basis of private ownership. State peasants had the right to use an allotment of 8 acres per capita in small-land provinces and 15 acres in large-land provinces. The actual allotments were much smaller: by the end of the 1830s - up to 5 acres in 30 provinces and 1-3 acres in 13 provinces; in the early 1840s, 325,000 souls had no clothing.
The bulk of the state peasants contributed cash quitrent to the treasury; on the territory of the Baltic states and the Kingdom of Poland, state-owned estates were leased to private owners and state peasants served mainly corvee; Siberian arable peasants first cultivated state-owned arable land, then paid food quitrent (later in cash). In the first half of the 19th century, the dues fluctuated from 7 rubles. 50 kop. up to 10 rubles per year. As the duties of appanage and landlord peasants increased, the monetary rent of the state peasants became relatively less than the duties of other categories of peasants. State peasants were also obliged to contribute money for zemstvo needs; they paid a poll tax and served natural duties (road, underwater, lodging, etc.). For the proper performance of duties, the state peasants were responsible for mutual responsibility.
Kiselyov's reform
As a result of the growing shortage of land and the increase in duties at the beginning of the 19th century, a progressive impoverishment of the state peasants was revealed. Unrest of state peasants began to occur more often against the reduction of allotments, the severity of quitrents, etc. (for example, "Cholera riots", "Potato riots" of 1834 and 1840-41). The question of changing the management of the state peasants gave rise to numerous projects.
In the 1830s, the government began to reform the management of the state village. In 1837-1841, a reform developed by P. D. Kiselyov was carried out: the Ministry of State Property and its local bodies were established, which were entrusted with the "trusteeship" of the state peasants through the rural community. The corvee duties of the state peasants in Lithuania, Belarus and Right-Bank Ukraine were liquidated, the leasing of state estates was stopped, the per capita rent was replaced by a more uniform land and trade tax.
A staunch opponent of serfdom, Kiselyov believed that freedom should be introduced gradually, "so that slavery is destroyed by itself and without upheavals of the state."
State peasants received self-government and the opportunity to resolve their affairs within the framework of the rural community. However, the peasants remained attached to the land. A radical reform of the state village became possible only after the abolition of serfdom. Despite the gradual transformation, they ran into resistance, because the landlords feared that the excessive emancipation of the state peasants would set a dangerous example for the landowning peasants.
Kiselyov intended to regulate the allotments and obligations of the landlord peasants and partially subordinate them to the Ministry of State Property, but this aroused the indignation of the landlords and was not implemented.
Nevertheless, when preparing the peasant reform in 1861, the drafters of the legislation used the experience of Kiselyov's reform, especially in matters of organizing peasant self-government and determining the legal status of peasants.
Liberation of the state peasants
On November 24, 1866, the law “On the land arrangement of state peasants” was adopted, according to which the lands that were in their use on the basis of “possession” (direct use) were retained by rural communities. The redemption of allotments in the property was regulated by law from
1. Landlord (serf) peasants. This category of the population is constantly expanding. This was a completely disenfranchised category of the population, which did not have any civil rights, could not acquire property in its own name, and all the property that a serf acquired was recorded on the landowner. The legislation forbade serfs even to complain about their landowner. By the end of the 18th century, serfs could be easily exchanged, sold, donated, bequeathed. The practice of separate sale of serf families begins.
2. state peasants. Their position was much more preferable than that of the serfs. They were considered the property of the state, they lived and used the land that was the property of the state, they had the opportunity to acquire property in their own name, they could, in some cases, buy land plots.
3. Church and monastery peasants. After the college of economy was created, they began to be called economic peasants . After secularization, this category completely ceased to be ecclesiastical and monastic. After the abolition of the college of economy in the 80s, these peasants are part of the state.
4. Former appanage peasants (palace peasants). These were peasants who lived and worked on lands belonging to the royal family. Their status differed little from the legal status of state peasants.
5. Possession peasants. These are peasants who were acquired to work in manufactories. They could only be sold with the enterprise itself. A certain part of the possessive peasants worked on the land and fed those who worked at the enterprise.
6. Odnodvortsy. These were the descendants of small service ranks. They were personally free and lived, as a rule, on the outskirts of the empire. They owned land plots and at the same time performed the functions of border guards. Among the odnodvortsev there were even former nobles who were not recorded in the nobility according to the Petrine census. Some odnodvortsy even had serfs.
7. Serfs. From the beginning of the 1920s, this category of the population ceased to exist in a legal sense, since Peter I extended the very provisions that applied to serfs to serfs. This suggests that the serfs were equal to the serfs.
Under Peter I, a new estate was formed - state peasants. Their status was officially fixed by decree of the sovereign. They were free from serfdom, lived on state lands, for which they paid feudal rent, and were subordinate to the management of state bodies.
The concept of state peasants
On the territory of the Russian Empire, personally free peasants who lived on lands that belonged not to landowners, but to the treasury, were considered state. Historically, most of them were representatives of the unsecured agricultural population: the former black-mossed, single-dvortsy and representatives of the non-Russian peoples of the Volga region. At different times, the management of state peasants was carried out by various state bodies. They were subject to additional monetary penalties for zemstvo needs, paid dues, performed various types of duties and were subject to corporal punishment for improper performance of work. State peasants lived in special state villages. This class existed until late XIX century.
History of appearance
The emergence of the class in question is associated with financial reform. This new stratum of society was singled out by combining several categories of the population, uniting all personally free peasants into one group and calling them state.
Emperor Peter I began to implement the reform on March 1, 1698. She simplified the process of paying taxes. In addition to the latter, the empire obliged the state peasants to pay quitrent with a face value of 40 kopecks to the treasury. In the future, it fluctuated within 10 rubles. per person annually.
In the second half of the 18th century, a reform of the state peasants was carried out with the aim of enslaving them to the noble estates. However, an attempt to distribute "souls" to the nobles in the second half of the 18th century met with a decisive rebuff, and over 150 years their number increased from 1 to 9.3 million male souls. In percentage terms, this amounted to 19 - 45% of the entire estate in various years. The calculations were made in Siberia and in the European part of Russia. After the seizure by Empress Catherine II of a significant part of the lands of the Russian Orthodox Church, the ranks of state peasants began to replenish not only the population of the territories of the Crimea, the Baltic states, Transcaucasia, and so on. Secularized possessions regularly supplied the state with people. Unofficially, the transition of runaway serfs to the category of state serfs was encouraged, which became a source of stable income for the treasury.
Features of the Reformation
Russian peasants who belonged to the state were legally similar in position to the crown peasants of Sweden. There is a version that it was they who were taken as a model when the reform of the management of state peasants was carried out, but there is no documentary evidence for this.
The main distinguishing feature of free state peasants was their possession of legal rights. Legislatively, they were "free inhabitants" and could participate in court hearings, trade, and open various enterprises. Despite the fact that their working land was formally owned by the state, they could work on it and make transactions as full owners. The area of plots formally ranged from 8 to 15 acres per capita. In fact, they were much smaller. And by 1840, 325 thousand people no longer owned them, the main reason for which was the alienation of land for debts.
New reform
In the 19th century, the state peasants finally secured the right to purchase private property that was not inhabited by people.
Consistent growth in the size of cash payments, as well as a decrease in land allotments led to the impoverishment of the estate. By the end of the first half of XIX century it was the cause of popular unrest. To change the situation, P. D. Kiselev developed a new reform. State peasants were able to resolve their affairs within the framework of the rural community, but were not detached from the lands. The initiative repeatedly ran into resistance from the landlords, who were afraid of a dangerous example of freedom for their peasants, nevertheless, the reform was carried out.
The disappearance of the estate
General discontent in the 1860s led to the abolition of serfdom. The management system of state peasants lost its meaning, since all categories of the estate were equalized in rights. By 1866, the "new" proprietors had become subordinate to the system of rural administrations. Despite this, quitrent taxes were not abolished, but now they were extended to all peasants without exception.
On June 12, 1866, the Russian Empire regulated the purchase of allotments for ownership. Soon, the size of the land of state peasants became smaller by 10-45% in different provinces. The reform of the state peasants and the agrarian reform of Stolypin contributed to the final distribution of land and put an end to the issue under consideration. The concept of "state peasants" was no longer used, the concept of wage labor and the agrarian sector of the economy was born.
STATE PEASANTS, the name first appeared in Russian legislation under Peter I (decree of June 26, 1724) and was originally applied to the so-called. black-skinned peasants who survived mainly in the North, where serfdom did not develop and therefore rural population was directly subordinated to the government. The most diverse elements gradually joined the core of state peasants: descendants of the service people of the Russian South (odnodvortsy), peasants taken away from monasteries in 1764, foreign colonists, peasants who had freed themselves from serfdom, etc. Until 1861, all rural peasants were classified as state peasants. inhabitants who were not the property of private individuals (serfs) or the Imperial family (peasants). In 1842, according to the report of the Ministry of State Property, there were 10,354,977 male souls (including Siberian foreigners, nomadic Kalmyks and Kirghiz, the rural population of Bessarabia, etc.) - approx. 1/3 of the total population of Russia according to the 8th revision. The state peasants included both the landless ladles of the Russian North, and wealthy landowners (colonists, Siberian peasants), and not at all agricultural elements (factory workers in the Urals). The legal status of the mining peasants did not differ much from that of the serfs, and the single-palace residents themselves had the right to own serfs; foreign colonists, military inhabitants, etc., in turn, constituted special legal groups. The only unifying feature of this motley mass was its attitude towards the treasury.
The government was for the state peasants at the same time a private owner; in addition to taxes of a public nature (poll tax), the state peasants also paid dues. Quite at first was an additional per capita tax to the total poll tax; by decree of 1724, it was equal to 4 hryvnias per soul. In 1746 it was raised to 1 ruble, in 1768 to 2 rubles, in 1783 to 3 rubles; in the late 18th century 4 different rates of dues were established, depending on the location: the state peasants of the center paid the most - 5 rubles each. 10 kop. from the soul, least of all - the peasants of the North and Siberia - 3 rubles. 57 kop. In 1810-12, salaries for all 4 classes were increased by another 2 rubles, and for the first time this collection was given the name "common tax". In terms of its significance, the quitrent of the state peasants was similar to the quitrent of the landowners: it was the income of the state, as the patrimony of the state peasants. Subsequently, he received an interpretation of the rent for the land on which the peasants were. The quitrent of the state peasants was at least half that of the landlords.
Treating the state peasants as state property, the government used them as a reserve fund for various kinds of awards, awards for service and for special services to the monarch and the state. In this way, only during the reign of Catherine II c. 1,300,000 state peasants moved into the category of property owners; under Paul I in one day, 82 thousand of them became serfs.
From the right of the state to the identity of the state peasants logically followed its right to the property of the latter, to the peasant land. But such a conclusion was made no earlier than Ser. 18th century Moscow law did not draw a clear line between ownership and property, and state peasants treated their lands as if they were their own: they sold them, mortgaged them, bequeathed them, etc. The Survey Instructions of 1754 and 1766 established that the lands of state peasants, excluding those the owners have special letters of commendation, are the property of the state and therefore are not subject to alienation. Sold to persons of other classes, they must be returned to the villages near which they are located. The purchase and sale of land by state peasants from each other was also prohibited in some places, in others it was allowed, but with various restrictions. The new principle did not immediately put an end to the old practice, but the government carried it out steadily, repeatedly confirming the rules of the boundary instructions (decrees 1765, 1782 and 1790). This legal revolution is also associated with an economic one: the introduction of communal land ownership for state peasants.
With the peasants in full possession of their land, the latter was distributed very unevenly. “Justice requires,” says one administrative document of 1786, “that the settlers, paying the same tax, have an equal share in the earthen lands from which the payment is made”; “The equalization of the lands, especially in those counties and volosts, where the townsfolk acquire food more than by other crafts, must be considered inevitably necessary, how much to provide a way to pay the villagers their taxes without surplus, nevertheless, to calm the land-poor peasants.” The last of the arguments shows that the government in this case went to meet the wishes of the peasants, under the old order, sometimes completely deprived of land and always very deprived. But the starting point of his policy was still state interest, and not peasant interest: the desire to avoid arrears, which, despite the abundance of strict decrees on this matter (for 20 years, from 1728 to 1748, 97 such decrees were issued), grew in very progression unprofitable for the state treasury. Almost every decade they had to be counted; in 1730, for example, arrears of up to 4 million rubles were accumulated, and in 1739 there were again 1,600,000 rubles.
That the introduction of the commune did not help the cause, as was hoped for in the 18th century, is shown by the fact of the growth of arrears in the 19th century. In 1836, according to P. D. Kiselev’s calculations (in a memorandum submitted by him to the Committee to find means to improve the condition of the peasants), “arrears, except for those folded according to manifestos, amounted to 68,679,011 rubles.” Kiselev believed that the distribution of land alone was not enough. The reason for this, he wrote, is the absence, firstly, of patronage, and secondly, of supervision. The idea of the need for special guardianship over the state peasants was expressed earlier - by the department to which they were subordinate. “The inconveniences of the current management of the state peasants are so well known,” wrote Minister of Finance E. F. Kankrin in 1825, “that they do not require further explanation. The lack of immediate supervision and protection, among other things, is the reason that the well-being of the peasants is declining and the number of arrears on them is decreasing. Kankrin proposed a plan for a new arrangement of state peasants, although still under the Ministry of Finance. However, the previous history of the issue did not inspire much confidence in this department, and the State Council chose Kiselev's point of view - about the need for a special central management of state property. Opinion State Council was approved by Nicholas I on August 4. 1834, and 1 Jan. 1838 was established a new Ministry of State Property. Kiselev was appointed minister, whom the sovereign called his "chief of staff for the peasant part." In the projects and activities of the Ministry of State Property, you can find all the ways to "raise" the people morally and materially, from the most naive and patriarchal to those that were later recognized as the most progressive. More than half of the discord in the economic life of the state peasants was explained by Kiselyov as “immorality,” which “reached the highest degree,” especially as a result of drunkenness. Realizing that the latter, in addition to individual ones, also had some general causes (the system of ransoms) that he could not eliminate, Kiselev nevertheless took up the "individual treatment of immorality" on a large scale. Peasants who distinguished themselves by exemplary behavior were given special certificates of merit, which gave them some advantages in public life(primacy in voting at secular gatherings, etc.) and benefits (exemption from corporal punishment). A more effective way was to reduce the number of taverns in the villages of state peasants (from 15 to 10 thousand during the reign of Kiselev).
An important means of combating immorality was education in schools, the main task of which was considered to be “the establishment among the peasants of the rules of the Orthodox faith and the obligations of allegiance (see: Loyalty) as the main foundations of morality and order.” Teaching in schools was entrusted to the clergy. In addition to the Law of God, the basics of literacy and basic arithmetic, the students got acquainted with the police charter, drawn up in such a way that it “in a form that is understandable to the understanding of the peasant, set out all his duties as an Orthodox, loyal member of society and family.” The rules of the charter were set out in the form of brief commandments, which were not difficult to remember. In the year the ministry was founded, in all the villages of state peasants there were only 60 schools with 1880 students; by 1866 there were already 5,596 schools (2,754 parochial schools and 2,842 literacy schools) with 220,710 students (192,979 boys and 27,731 girls). But a test of these schools in the late 1850s showed that the qualitative results of Kiselev's educational policy were not as brilliant as the quantitative ones: the premises of the schools were cramped and uncomfortable; mentors "did not bring the expected benefit." The students enrolled in the schools did not attend classes well, and the ministry was forced to introduce the appointment of "permanent students" from among the orphans of both sexes, for whom daily attendance at the school was mandatory.
Along with improving the morality of the peasants, Kiselev also took care of their health and material security: for them, for the first time in the Russian countryside, medical care was organized. Doctors and veterinarians were invited to serve, schools were created to train paramedics and midwives. Since 1841, permanent "county hospitals" appeared. A special "Rural medical book for use in state-owned villages" was published. However, this initiative did not receive wide distribution: in 1866, for example, there was 1 hospital for 700 thousand people, and there were only 71 trained midwives for the entire department. To provide food for the peasants in the event of a crop failure, spare bread shops were opened (partly even before Kiselev) - common in every village and, in addition, central, stocks of which were put on the market in case of high cost in order to lower prices. Mutual insurance was introduced in 1849.
Not content with only defensive measures, Kiselev sought to radically improve peasant farms, firstly, by disseminating improved methods among the peasants. Agriculture(Incidentally, the famous “potato riots” are connected with this, in the pacification of which military force had to be used in places and 18 people were killed). The second way was the resettlement of state peasants from small-land provinces to large-land ones; in just 15 years of existence of the Ministry of State Property, 146,197 male souls were resettled. Thirdly, a credit system was organized; This goal was met by the opening of auxiliary and savings banks under the volost boards. The latter accepted deposits for any amount starting from 1 rub. out of 4%, the first ones issued loans from 15 to 60 rubles. for 6% to entire villages or individual householders for the guarantee of the gathering. In 1855 there were 1,104 auxiliary cash desks in the villages of state peasants, and 518 savings banks; in a loan issued annually up to 1.5 million rubles.
Important measures were also taken in the organization of taxes. Kiselev considered the soul distribution of taxes and the resulting communal land tenure with redistribution of land according to the soul "harmful for any radical improvement in the economy." Harmful economically, the commune was, however, in his opinion, politically advantageous, "with regard to the elimination of the proletarians." It was necessary to act in this matter by more indirect measures: limiting redistribution (they were timed to coincide with revisions), encouraging the development of precinct land ownership, and partly - in newly populated areas - creating it artificially. On the other hand, when distributing dues, it was possible to act by more direct means. Already when dividing the dues into categories, an attempt was made to harmonize the total collection with the payer's funds. On the other hand, the peasants themselves, for the most part, distributed taxes, first by land, and then by heart. Kiselev decided to finally transfer the dues from the souls to the ground. As a result of the cadastral work, which continued all the time of his leadership of the Ministry of State Property, the average gross yield of land was established in most of the provinces where there were state peasants. From the gross income, then the costs of cultivation were deducted - at the average cost of working days in a given area; the remainder was considered net income. The quitrent was supposed to make up a certain part of the net income, depending on the locality: 20% - in the Kursk province, 16% - in the Kharkov province, 14% - in the Novgorod province, 9.5% - in the Yekaterinoslav, Voronezh and Tver provinces. etc.
Bodies of peasant self-government responded even more to the historically established conditions. The secular assembly and secular elected officials in one form or another have existed among the state peasants since the Muscovite era. Decrees of 12 Oct. 1760 and July 6, 1761 legally formalized the choice by the peasants of the elders and the rights of the lay assembly. The law of 1805 established the composition of the latter (only from householders) and determined the conditions for the legality of his sentences; in 1811-12 immediately was given the right to try the peasants in petty crimes, the right to accept and dismiss members of the peasant society. Even earlier, at imp. Pavle, another highest unit of peasant self-government was created - a volost, which consisted of several rural communities; each volost had its own volost board consisting of the volost head, an elected clerk and a clerk. The only thing left for the Ministry of State Property was to streamline these local self-government bodies created at different times and establish their connection with the central government. The intermediate links were purely bureaucratic; the nearest trustee of the peasants to the volost was the district chief, who was entrusted with the conduct of all matters “related to the improvement of the moral condition of the peasants, to their civil life, the construction part, the provision of food, the economy, taxes, duties and protection in court cases.” Only the investigative and police units remained under the jurisdiction of the zemstvo courts. The Court for Peasant Affairs was concentrated in rural and volost institutions, without direct dependence on the district chief, but under his supervision. Above the district chiefs was the Chamber of State Property, one in each province. The district chiefs, according to Kiselyov, were supposed to show "how much our half-enlightened peasants can be happy when they are guided by the authorities of the guardianship, paternal and not shy." The idea of economic guardianship of the peasants was, however, not new: to some extent, it was answered by the “directors of economy” established by Catherine II at each state chamber (abolished by Paul).
The practice of bureaucratic guardianship soon disappointed Kiselyov. Already at the very beginning of the ministry, in 1842, he complained in a letter to his brother that "Russia cannot be remade at once," and laments the impossibility of "animating all his colleagues with zeal." Immediately after this (in a report for 1842), the idea is expressed of the need to "weaken the influence of district chiefs", and in private letters Kiselev frankly admits the validity of complaints about the dishonesty of his administration. All this partially contributed to the discrediting of Kiselev's reform plans in higher spheres, despite the fact that even from a purely fiscal point of view, the successes of his management were evident. Shortfalls decreased by more than half, and during the 18 years of Kiselev's ministry, the state peasants replenished the treasury by 150 million rubles, more than in the same previous period of time. His successor in the ministerial chair, M. N. Muravyov, found, however, that the incomes of state peasants could be much more significant "with the ability to get down to business, the ability that Kiselev lacked as a theoretician, not a practitioner." But Muravyov's own actions were limited only to an increase in the quitrent payment (from 20 to 33% of the estimated income), which was, in fact, the exploitation of the results of the Kiselevsky administration, which significantly raised the welfare of the state peasants. In addition, the very view of the state peasants as a revenue item of the treasury by the time Muravyov took office was completely outdated.
The liberation of the landlord peasants, with all the preparatory work, had a very strong effect on the population of state lands. Simultaneously with the first drafts of the peasant reform in government spheres, the idea “of equalizing the state peasants in relation to civil rights with other free states” begins to strengthen. Alexander I ceased to grant state peasants to private ownership - from that time only uninhabited lands of the treasury were alienated (the exception was the deduction of several hundred thousand state peasants to appanage under Emperor Nicholas I). In 1801 the right to own immovable property in the villages was returned to the state peasants; in 1827 they were given the right to acquire and alienate houses also in the cities, excluding the capitals. In 1825, in all property transactions, state peasants were subject to general civil laws. Already in the 1820s, the question arose of the rights of state peasants to their land plots; in the projects of Guryev, Kankrin, committee chaired by Prince. Kochubey puts forward the idea of transferring land to peasants for “perpetual maintenance” or “eternal and inalienable use”.
The liberation of the landlord peasants with land placed the state peasants in a very strange position. On March 5, 1861, the Supreme Command on the application of the foundations of the reform on Feb. 19 took place. to the state peasants. At first (the Imperial order of January 28, 1863) it was supposed to transfer the land to the peasants for "permanent use" on the terms of quitrent, unchanged for the first 20 years; the allotment received all the land that actually consisted in the use of the peasants at the time of the introduction of the reform; it was decided not to cut the allotments, similar to the one that was made from the landlord peasants (project of the commission of Senator Gan). In the end, however, the opinion prevailed on the transfer of land to state peasants on the basis of property rights (except forests) with the right to buy it outright (by a lump-sum payment of interest-bearing papers of the amount of the capitalized dues) or pay a permanent quitrent tax (decree of November 24, 1866 ). In 1886, the ransom became obligatory, and the quitrent tax (with some surcharge) was converted into a ransom payment. The special administration of state peasants was abolished by decree of 18 Jan. 1866, according to which they were removed from the jurisdiction of the Ministry of State Property and transferred to the management of general institutions for peasant affairs.
Lit .: Semevsky V. State peasants under Catherine II // "Russian Antiquity". 1879. Vol. 24, 25; Efimenko A. Peasant land tenure in the Far North. "Studies in Folk Life". Issue. I; Zablotsky-Desyatovsky A. Gr. P. D. Kiselev and his time. In 4 vols. St. Petersburg, 1882; Historical review of fifty years of activity of the Ministry of State Property. T. 2. St. Petersburg, 1888.
legal and historical aspects
XVIII - first half of the XIX centuries.
Monograph
CHAPTER 2
Land property of the feudal-unprivileged estates
1. State peasants
Until the reform of 1861, the peasants in Russia did not form one estate with a uniformly defined status. On the contrary, there were a lot of categories with a very diverse legal status, which were formed both historically - as a result of various economic conditions and relations with higher classes and the state, and for reasons of government legislative measures - mainly in the 1st half of the 19th century, when in this way they searched for and tried on different options for resolving the peasant question.
The most privileged of the peasants were state peasants- the former free farmers, after the establishment of the principle of state ownership of land that does not directly belong to other persons, found themselves sitting on state lands. Although during the 18th - early 19th centuries numerous attempts were made to bring them closer in status to privately owned peasants and to burden them with duties accordingly (on which, in particular, the tax transformations of their position in the Petrine era were based), however, to early XIX century, this policy was abandoned and the state peasants themselves became that part of the general peasant class, on which reforms of the general peasant liberation were carried out and tried on (the beginnings of this policy were laid back in the reign of Catherine II). The table given in the appendix (see Table 4) gives an idea of the number of state peasants in comparison with the total peasant population of Russia.
Since the reign of Alexander I, the status of state peasants has increasingly begun to legally differ from the status of privately owned peasants, the most significant measure along which was the recognition of the state peasants' ownership of land and the right to acquire it - the property rights of state peasants in movable property were recognized earlier .
Before the reforms of Peter I, state peasants were divided into arable and quitrent: 1) arable peasants were obliged to plow the land for the state, that is, to work in kind, 2) quitrent peasants had to pay quitrent for the land. In addition, the peasants of the falconer settlements, who are obliged to supply falcons, gyrfalcons and other hunting birds for the royal catching and to assist in hunting, must also be included among the state peasants who carried natural duties; peasants assigned to fishing, who were supposed to deliver a certain amount of fish to the royal court, etc. Even before the reforms of Peter the Great, the state purposefully pursued the view that all lands on which peasants who do not have masters sit are state, and the corresponding payments , levied from the "black" peasants, were carried out not as a public law obligation, but as a payment to the owner, that is, they were qualified under private law, and in relation to the "black" peasants the ban on the alienation of their lands was constantly repeated
. Peter's reforms unequivocally qualified the status of state peasants as the same landlords, whose land is owned by the state, in relation to which they must bear common privately owned duties. In this regard, under Peter I, all peasants who lived on state land were turned into quitrents with the establishment for them, in addition to the nationwide seventy-kopeck poll tax, also a quitrent tax of 40 kopecks. This additional taxation was motivated by the fact that state peasants did not bear duties to the landowner and a new fee was introduced into the equation of their position with privately owned payments
. This, originally forty-kopek, quitrent gradually increased throughout the 18th century, deliberately adjusted to the practice of private ownership: in 1745 it was 55 kopecks, in 1760 it rose to the ruble
, in 1768 - up to two, and in 1783 it was three rubles
.
In November 1797, an extremely curious decree was issued , according to which, firstly, the normal size of the peasant allotment was determined at 15 acres, and secondly, for land-poor state peasants who did not have a designated number in their holding, additional cutting was provided, and if there was not enough land in this possession, resettlement, in- thirdly, and this is most important for us, the decree actually spoke about the ownership of state-owned peasants on the land (“on those lands that now belong to the peasants), and also recognized the ownership of the peasants in the mills built by them on their lands (“provide these to those peasants possession without reserve"). It remains a debatable question of the extent to which the authors of the decree were aware of the endowment of state-owned peasants with property carried out in the text, especially immovable property, which remained a painful issue during the entire reign of Catherine the Great, and with which the subsequent legislation of the Nikolaev era aimed to fight. In all likelihood, the decree should be regarded as a kind of legislative slip of the tongue, especially since it was issued in the form of a Senate decree on the basis of the highest approved report, and, therefore, by status could not claim innovation, but had to confirm and resolve individual incidents on on the basis of an already existing order. Nevertheless, the fact that such expressions could penetrate official acts shows the real duality of the legal status of state lands being cultivated by state peasants.
The laws of 1766 and 1788 strengthened the right of state-owned peasants to buy “small villages from landowners in the vicinity”. Such a purchase could take place with the permission of the Treasury Chambers at a certain rate - 30 rubles per capita, it was registered as state ownership, however, it was provided to the purchasers for actual and protected by state regulations. In 1801, state peasants, along with merchants and philistines, received the right to acquire uninhabited lands. An additional legalization of 1817 confirmed the right of purchasers to sell, mortgage and assign these plots by any means. In 1823, the right to purchase land was assigned to peasant societies as legal entities, moreover, acquisitions were now formally and legally considered peasant property.
Despite, however, their free civil legal status and some legislative fixation of their legal status, a constant threat to the state peasants was their transfer to privately owned peasants: that is, an award to the nobility or transfer to an appanage. State peasants with lands were transferred to the Russian nobility both on lease (mainly in the western provinces) and in ownership. To demonstrate the scale of such distributions (which acquired a truly legendary character during the reign of Catherine, and about 600 thousand peasants were given away for distribution during the short reign of Paul) by citing the “Statement of the most merciful grants of lands”, which, however, refers to a later period (from 1804 to 1836), but all the more impressive, since in the first half of the 19th century the practice of distributions was most severely narrowed and met with resolute resistance both from the liberal-minded part of Russian high society and from the Ministry of Finance, which directly accepted each such award as plunder. treasury (see tab. 5).
In total, during the thirty-year period in which the policy of preventing distributions was carried out as a state policy, more than 1,000,000 acres passed into private hands, and since the lands were complained of at the choice of the person who received the highest favor, this million acres fell on the best lands, moreover, it happened simultaneously with the growing land hunger already in the state countryside, where for decades they could not put into practice the provisions on additional allocation of arable land to the peasants and were forced to constantly reduce the legal size of the peasant plots, but still remaining unable to produce even these limited reforms.
From time to time, plans arose for large-scale distribution of state peasants into private ownership or conversion into long-term noble leases. Such a requirement for economic peasants was put forward even at the Legislative Commission of 1767. In 1826, Count N. S. Mordvinov drew up a detailed project for the transformation of the state village. According to him, the state peasants, along with their allotments and additional land area, were transferred to a long-term lease for 50-100 years to private individuals (Mordvinov meant landowners by them) and educational institutions. In addition to quitrent, which remained unchanged and was still paid to the state, peasants from 18 to 50 years old were subject to corvee duties in favor of the tenant in the amount of 1 day a week. The very status of these alleged lease holdings was more than peculiar: for example, with the permission of the government, the tenants could sell, donate and change peasants, although they did not have the right to split the villages when they were inherited, but the general right of inheritance in the lease holdings was exhibited without fail . It should not be thought that this was just the usual projecting of the land admiral, who was looking for salon popularity - in 1810, similar proposals became a legal reality. Then, in order to correct the terrible state of public finances and eliminate the budget deficit, M. M. Speransky, with the active participation of the same N. S. Mordvinov, developed a project according to which 3 million acres of land, about 2 million acres of forests and more than 332 thousand souls of peasants; the total amount of the sale was to be more than 100 million silver rubles. This project was accepted and the relevant departments started its implementation. According to the manifesto of May 27, 1810 “On the opening of an urgent internal loan to reduce the number of banknotes and to pay public debt"A certain part of state property - quitrent items, part of state forests and" leased estates and others, now in temporary private possession "- was separated "to convert it into private property through sale." The sale itself was to be made at public auction; inhabited lands could be acquired not only by nobles, but also by “merchants higher ranks”, including foreign nationals. The project ended in failure - by 1816, when the sale was terminated, only 10,408 were alienated into private ownership - there were no buyers for a larger number, however, this enterprise itself clearly demonstrates the unreliability of the "free" status of state peasants and the degree of protection of their property rights. Although in the future this kind of measures were not taken and the state was much more cautious about its possessions, however, on the whole, the constant possibility of changing the peasant status was the norm for the existence of the “state-owned rural inhabitant”. In 1830 - 1833. a number of state peasants were ordered to be transferred to the position of appanage peasants, that is, they were legally converted into serfs, which led to unrest in the Simbirsk province, from which this “transfer” was started. Still later, in 1840, it was conceived to transfer part of the state peasants to the state of military settlers. The Minister of State Property P. D. Kiselev strongly objected to the emperor regarding such a measure, pointing out the free position of the state peasants and the opposition to the spirit of the recently undertaken reforms of such a measure, to which he received the following characteristic answer from Nicholas I: “After all, I have not yet given them a letter » .
To characterize the current situation, we will simply quote a lengthy extract from the report of the Senate approved by the Highest on October 17, 1801, entitled “On the satisfaction of the peasants of the state department with the prescribed proportion of land, preferably before those persons to whom it has been most mercifully granted”:
“... for the satisfaction of state-owned villages with a full 15 tithe proportion, there is a sufficient number of state-owned loose and quitrent lands only in the provinces: Novgorod, Vologda, Saratov, Novorossiysk, Orenburg, Astarakh, Arkhangelsk, Vyatka, Perm, Tobolsk and Irkutsk, in which there are more than 15 tithe proportion there is a considerable excess of state lands; and in the following provinces, to fill 15 tithe proportions, each lacks from 50,000 or more, even in some up to a million tithes, namely: in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Tver, Pskov, Kaluga, Tula, Ryazan, Smolensk, Kazan, Simbirsk, Voronezh , Tambov, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod, Kursk, Orel, Vladimir and Sloboda-Ukrainian, and from among them in three provinces: Moscow, Smolensk and Kazan with the return of all state lands in each, no more is calculated for state peasants, as soon as from 5 up to 6 acres with sazhens per capita.
So, this is the state of affairs recorded by the Senate report, moreover, this report itself is then included in the Complete collection laws Russian Empire. If this was the "official reality", then one can only guess about the real state of affairs.
To improve the position of state peasants, a policy of equalizing peasant land ownership was adopted, carried out by two means: firstly, through intra-peasant redistribution and, secondly, through a resettlement policy. The interest of the state in the preservation of average peasant land ownership, in preventing dispossession of land, was dictated primarily by fiscal needs, since payments to the treasury were levied from the tax, and the ruin of some and the creation of large land holdings by other state peasants led to a decrease in the number of taxpayers, and thereby a decrease in state income from the state village.
Complaints of black-eared peasants and Ukrainian odnodvortsev about the existing inequality of land ownership were already heard in the Legislative Commission of 1767. Peasant mandates, among other things, put forward the demand for an egalitarian redistribution of land. These petitions were heard by the supreme power, coinciding with its tax interests. Already in XVIII century the local administration began to insist on the need for an even distribution of land area among the peasants of state-owned villages and volosts. At the same time, reference was made to the usual practice of privately owned estates. By separate orders, such a measure was applied in various areas, especially in Northern Pomorye and in the territory of single-dvor settlements. At the national level, the practice of egalitarian redistribution was sanctioned by a law of 1797 and confirmed by decrees of 1798 and 1800.
A cardinal reform of the position of the state peasants was carried out under the leadership of P. D. Kiselev, who was granted the dignity of a count for her. The decisiveness of the measures taken by him and the gap with the previous administrative practice were so great that in the higher bureaucratic circles of the Minister of State Property in St. Petersburg there were almost revolutionaries, as can be seen even from the diary review of Baron M. A. Korf. First organized by the V Department of the S. E. I. V. Chancellery, and then the Ministry of State Property, taking over the management of state peasants from the Ministry of Finance, which saw this function as an exclusively profitable item of the state budget, made a radical change in peasant management.
First, a single state system management of the peasants, the lower levels of which were volost administrations and peasant societies, i.e. the state peasants themselves were involved in the performance of administrative functions. At the center of peasant societies were world gatherings, the main task of which was land redistribution and land management in accordance with communal principles.
Secondly, through a thorough description of available state lands, possessions were discovered that had not previously been taken into account or appropriated by neighboring landowners. A free land fund was arranged, at the expense of which insufficient peasants were allocated up to the established norm of land allotment, and in the absence of such free plots within the estate, resettlement organized by state funds was carried out - if possible, within the same province, otherwise - to the free lands of other provinces.
A queue was developed to satisfy requests for land cuts, depending on the degree of lack of land - first of all, those villages were satisfied in which the size of land per capita was less than 2.5 dessiatines, then - less than five.
Thirdly, the lands allotted to the community now became its property - according to the law, in this case legally, of course, incorrect, but quite characteristic, “a piece of land that went to the secular division of each state settler, being in his use, is always considered public property [ed. us - Auth.] and cannot be assigned from him to anyone by any acts, nor be inherited ”(SSU). The fixation of the land precisely behind a certain rural society gave the land ownership of the world a stable character, the internal orders of which were largely left to its own discretion.
According to the reform of P. D. Kiselev, for the first time in national history, the village received active state support, ceasing to be only an object of exploitation - questions were raised about increasing the efficiency of the peasant economy, expanding the rights of individual owners. State property in relation to state-owned peasants, after the transformation of the late 30s and 40s, increasingly became a general public right of the state to their lands, rather than a specific private property. And such a change is a considerable merit of a very specific person, namely, gr. Kiselev, since this very direction of reform, which he persistently approved, was far from the only one - Perovsky's transformations, by which the specific village was transferred to modern private ownership, remained as a direct and quite real alternative to it.
Another important task accomplished was the creation of a regulatory framework on which both the management of state peasants would be based and their legal status would be prescribed.
In this regard, the Kiselyov reform received a lot of reproaches for the pettiness of regulation, for creating the ideal of "police regulations" for the countryside. In fact, most of these reproaches are true - the procedures and norms of detailed patrimonial regulations of private estates were largely borrowed. However, this form of fulfillment of the intention should not obscure the fundamental change brought about by these numerous acts - instead of scattered norms issued on a special occasion, as often canceled as simply forgotten in administrative chaos, the state village received uniform provisions, was for the first time in all its diversity of their relations and needs is introduced into the field of state legislative regulation. From now on, changes in the position of the state peasants could no longer go through simple private orders - they had to be appropriately built into the general system, and this prompted caution and attentiveness in concrete actions.
) PSZ RI Sobr. 1. No. 20033.
) Rubinstein, N.L. Decree. op. - P. 40 - 41.
) Druzhinin, N.M. Decree. op. – S. 95.
) PSZ RI Sobr. 1. No. 18633; 19500.
) See: Mironenko, S.V. Pages of the secret history of autocracy / S.V. Mironenko - M .: "Thought", 1990. - S. 147.
M.A. Kovalchuk, A.A. Teslya Land ownership in Russia: legal and historical aspects of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. Monograph. Khabarovsk: Publishing House of the Far East State University of Transportation, 2004.
