When assessing Stolypin’s reforms, historians first of all note gap economic transformations and reforms aimed at liberalizing socio-political life. So, Ya.A. Avrekh notes: “The organic flaw of Stolypin’s course was that he wanted to carry out reforms outside of democracy and in spite of it” 1 . One of the prominent cadet publicists A.S. Izgoev noted that Stolypin’s agrarian reform, aimed at the Europeanization of Russian Agriculture, could not be successful “without reform of the legal system.” This was also emphasized by P.B. Struve, arguing that Stolypin’s agrarian policy “stands in blatant contradiction with his other policies”: he changes the economic foundation, but leaves the political superstructure intact.

Regarding the opinion about agrarian reform, Even politicians - Stolypin's contemporaries - and scientists give her very contradictory assessments. The reform was highly assessed by A.S. Izgoev: “The land reform on November 9 is in essence social revolution. This reform is the result that life summed up the Russian revolution and its most acute social form peasant movement... The creation of a small personal owner was a basic state need, and no matter what party ended up in power, by the logic of things... it would still be brought to this historical task" 1 . Stolypin's assessment is original agrarian reform Peter Struve: “No matter how you feel about Stolypin’s agrarian policy - you can accept it as the greatest evil, you can bless it as a beneficial surgical operation - with this policy he made a huge shift in Russian life. And the shift is truly revolutionary both in essence and formally. For there can be no doubt that with the agrarian reform, which abolished the commune, only the liberation of the peasants and the construction of railways can be ranked on par in importance in the economic development of Russia.”

At the same time, among prominent Russian economists there were critics of Stolypin’s agricultural course. One of them was Alexander Ivanovich Chuprov. Recognizing that bran farms had many advantages, he nevertheless defended the idea of ​​​​preserving the community. He regarded attempts to create bran farms everywhere as utopian. Chuprov feared that with the destruction of the community, the only means of preserving the “economic independence of the masses” would perish. In addition, small, individual private farms, deprived of capital and knowledge, will not be able to run a profitable economy and will go bankrupt in difficult times. As a successor to the community, he saw farms organized on the principles of an artel.

A.P. Korelin and K.F. Shatsillo (1995) believe that Stolypin’s agrarian reform was “scientific and progressive in scientific and economic terms. Its implementation - timely, reasonable, without administrative pressure - could, apparently, remove the problem of the revolution" 1 . This path did not take place due to the reluctance of the autocracy to carry out reforms in a timely manner, due to the opposition of the conservative bureaucracy and the nobility, as well as due to the unwillingness of society to accept the reforms. An expert on the agrarian issue in Russia V.P. Danilov believes that the result of the Stolypin agrarian reform, if fully implemented, would be “the final defeat of the peasantry in the struggle for land and for the free development of their economy, the complete establishment in Russia of the landowner type of capitalism and pauperization rural population» .

Apparently, Stolypin underestimated the labor issue. He carried out his reforms during a period of decline in the labor movement, but this did not mean that the workers accepted their situation. As soon as the volleys thundered at the peaceful demonstration of workers in the distant Lena mines, a powerful upsurge of the labor movement began throughout Russia. Having proclaimed a combination of pacification and reform, Stolypin resorted mainly to repression in relation to the workers. The factory legislation program developed by the Kokovtsov commission in 1905 was buried under the pressure of factory owners and breeders who showed narrow class egoism and did not want to take into account national interests.

The beginning of the 20th century in Russia is a time of colossal changes: the time of the collapse of the old system (Autocracy) and the formation of a new one (Soviet Power), a time of bloody wars, a time of successful and failed reforms, the successful implementation of which, perhaps, would radically change the fate of Russia. The reforms carried out at this time by Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, as well as his personality, are assessed controversially by historians. Some consider him cruel tyrant, whose name should only be associated with terrible concepts such as “Stolypin reaction”, “Stolypin carriage” or “Stolypin tie”, others evaluate him reform activities as “a failed attempt to save imperial Russia,” and Stolypin himself is called a “brilliant reformer.”

However, if you look at the facts soberly, without ideological prejudices, then you can fairly objectively assess both the activities and personality of P.A. Stolypin.

Stolypin's contribution to the development of Russia

Stolypin

Pyotr Stolypin entered the Russian and world history as a convinced reformer. His name is associated with the land reform carried out at the beginning of the 20th century, reforms in the field of rights and freedoms of citizens, the formation of the foundations of the rule of law, law enforcement agencies and judicial proceedings, local government and self-government, economics, finance, infrastructure, social policy, education, science and culture. , military affairs and counter-terrorism. In a word, this politician made his contribution to almost all spheres of the Russian state.

Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin ( April 2 (14) 1862 , Dresden , Saxony - 5 (18) September 1911 , Kyiv ) - statesman Russian Empire . From an old noble family. He graduated from St. Petersburg University and since 1884 served in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In 1902, governor of Grodno, in 1903-1906 - governor of Saratov province. Received the Emperor's gratitude Nicholas II for the suppression of the peasant movement in the Saratov province.

In 1906, the emperor offered Stolypin the post of Minister of Internal Affairs. Soon, along with the State Duma of the first convocation, the government was dissolved. Stolypin was appointed the new prime minister.

IN different years held positions district marshal of the nobility VKovno, Grodno governor , Saratov governor , Minister of Internal Affairs , prime minister .

In his new position, which he held until his death, Stolypin spent whole line bills.

Finding himself at the head of the government, Stolypin requested from all departments those priority projects that had long been developed but had not been implemented. As a result, on August 24, 1906, Stolypin managed to draw up a more or less complete program of moderate reforms.

He divided the proposed reforms into two parts:

1.Immediately implement (without waiting for the convening of a new Duma)

  • SolutionO sa land and land management
  • Some urgent actions in the field of civil equality
  • Freedom of religion
  • Activities related to the Jewish Question

2. It is necessary to prepare and submit for discussion to the State Duma.

  • On improving the living conditions of workers and, in particular, on their state insurance;
  • On improving peasant land ownership;
  • On local government reform;
  • About the introduction zemstvo self-government in the Baltic, as well as the North and South-Western regions;
  • On the introduction of zemstvo and city self-government in the provinces of the Kingdom of Poland;
  • On the transformation of local courts;
  • On the reform of secondary and higher schools;
  • About income tax;
  • About police reform

Agrarian reform.

It is well known that Stolypin put changes at the forefront of his reformsin the field of economics. The Prime Minister was convinced, and his speeches indicate this, that it was necessary to start with agrarian reform.

Stolypin Agrarian Reform began its life in 1906. This year, a decree was adopted that made it easier for all peasants to leave the community. Leaving the peasant community, its former member could demand that it assign the plot of land allotted to him as personal ownership. Moreover, this land was not given to the peasant according to the “strip” principle, as before, but was tied to one place. By 1916, 2.5 million peasants left the community.

During Stolypin's agrarian reform , the activities of the Peasant Bank, established back in 1882, intensified. The bank served as an intermediary between landowners who wanted to sell their lands and peasants who wanted to buy them.

Second direction Stolypin agrarian reform became the policy of resettling peasants. Through resettlement, Peter Arkadyevich hoped to reduce land hunger in the central provinces and populate the uninhabited lands of Siberia. To some extent, this policy justified itself. The settlers were provided with large plots of land and many benefits, but the process itself was poorly organized. 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.

Education reform.

As part of the school reform, approved by the law of May 3, 1908, it was planned to introduce compulsory primary free education for children from 8 to 12 years old. From 1908 to 1914, the budget for public education was tripled, and 50 thousand new schools were opened. Note that Stolypin set the third condition for the modernization of the country (in addition to agrarian reform and industrial development) to achieve universal literacy to the extent of compulsory four-year primary school for all. Even when he was the leader of the nobility in Kovno, he wrote on this occasion that only literacy will help spread agricultural knowledge, without which a class of real farmers cannot emerge. To sum up the school reform, we will say that there really was not enough time for it: to implement the plan for universal primary education at the same pace as in 1908-1914, at least another 20 years were required.

Industry reform.

The main stage in resolving the working issue during the years of Stolypin’s premiership was the work of the Special Meeting in 1906 and 1907, which prepared ten bills that affected the main aspectslabor in industrial enterprises. These were questions about rules for hiring workers, insurance for accidents and illnesses, working hours, etc. Unfortunately, the positions of industrialists and workers (as well as those who incited the latter to disobedience and rebellion) were too far from each other and the compromises found did not suit either one or the other (which was readily used by all kinds of revolutionaries).

Work question.

It must be admitted that no significant success has been achieved in this area.

The Stolypin government made an attempt to resolve, at least in part, the labor issue, and provided a special commission, consisting of government representatives and entrepreneurs, to consider the draft labor legislation. The government proposal was very moderate - limiting the working day to 10.5 hours (at that time - 11.5), the abolition of mandatory overtime, the right to create government-controlled trade union organizations, the introduction of worker insurance, the creation of health insurance funds for the joint account of workers and the owner. However, this categorically did not suit the entrepreneurs, who believed that it was impossible to make concessions to workers, it was necessary to respect “freedom of labor agreement”, and complained about the low profitability of thinking. In reality, they sought to maintain high profits and defended their own class interests. Despite the admonitions of the government and the most conscious representatives of business, the government was forced to yield to pressure; the bill reached the Duma in a greatly reduced form and with a long delay.

It can be concluded that the government's work program failed due to the intransigence and greed of the bourgeoisie.

Judicial reform.

The transformations in the sphere of judicial power should also be briefly mentioned. Their essence boiled down to the fact that, in accordance with Stolypin’s plan, in the most general terms, the local court, distorted by the reactionary reforms of Emperor Alexander III, was supposed to return to its original appearance.

The bill “On the transformation of the local court” was supposed to help make the court cheaper and more accessible to the population. He envisioned the restoration in rural areas of the institution of justices of the peace, who would be elected by zemstvo assemblies (in the city - by city dumas). They would consider a limited range of civil cases and criminal cases that did not carry particularly severe penalties. Their decisions could be challenged in higher authorities. In fact, the revival of the magistrate's court meant the rejection of the “debris” of class legal proceedings - the peasant volost and zemstvo chief, who predominantly represented the local nobility. Accordingly, the practice of passing sentences according to customary norms, i.e., became a thing of the past. unwritten law based on legend and tradition. This was supposed to contribute to the rationalization of legal proceedings, eliminating endless misunderstandings and random and illogical decisions.

Zemstvo.

Being a supporter of zemstvo administration, Stolypin extended zemstvo institutions to some provinces where they had not existed before. It was not always politically simple. For example, holding zemstvo reform in the western provinces, historically dependent on the gentry, was approved by the Duma, which supported the improvement of the situation of the Belarusian and Russian population, which constituted the majority in these territories, but was met with sharp rebuff in the State Council, which supported the gentry.

National question.

Stolypin perfectly understood the importance of this issue in such a multinational country as Russia. He was a supporter of unification, not disunity, of the peoples of the country. He proposed creating a special ministry of nationalities that would study the characteristics of each nation: history, traditions, culture, social life, religion, etc. - so that they flow into our great power with the greatest mutual benefit. Stolypin believed that all peoples should have equal rights and responsibilities and be loyal to Russia. Also, the task of the new ministry was to counter the internal and external enemies of the country who sought to sow ethnic and religious discord.

Analysis of the reasons for the collapse of Stolypin's reforms.

Despite favorable economic, ideological and politicalcircumstances, StolypincommittedAlla number of mistakes that put his reforms in dangerthreat of failure. The first mistakeStolypin was the lack of a well-thought-out policy towards workers, forgood luckcarrying outconservativepolicy is necessarywascombinehardrepressionByattitudeto revolutionary parties with simultaneous efforts in the fieldsocial securityworkers.INRussiasame,Despite the general economic growth, over all these years not only the living standards of workersnot at allrose,ButAndsociallegislation was taking its first steps. 1906 Act ona ten-hour working day is almost impossibleapplied in the same way as the 1903 Workers' Injury Insurance Actat the enterprise.Meanwhile the quantityworkers constantlyand noticeablygrew.The new generation turned out to beverysupportiveToperception of socialist ideas. Obviously,StolypinNotgave awayto myselfreportVmeaninglabor issue, which arose with renewed vigor in 1912.

SecondmistakeStolypinbecameThat,WhatHeNotforesaw the consequences of intensiveRussification of non-Russianspeoples Stolypin did not hide his nationalist convictions. Heopencarried out nationalistGreat RussianpoliticsAnd,Naturally, I recovered againstmyselfAndroyalmodeAllnationalminorities.

StolypincommittederrorAndVquestionon the establishment of zemstvos in the western provinces (1911), as a result of which he lost the support of the Octobrists. CaseVvolume,that the western provinces continued economicallydependfromPolishgentry.To strengthenVtheir positionBelarusian and Russianpopulation,made up the majorityStolypindecidedestablishtherezemstvo form of government. Thoughtwillinglyhissupported,howeverstateadvicetook the opposite directionposition - classfeelingssolidaritywithturned out to be gentrystrongernational.StolypinappealedWithrequestto Nicholas II to interrupt the work of both chambers for three days, so that for thistime governmenturgentlyadopted a new law. Duma meetings were suspendedAndlawaccepted.Howevergivenprocedure that demonstratedneglectstate power to their owninstitutions, ledToschismbetween the government and eventhe mostmoderateliberals.Autocracyputyourself into isolation,from now onhissupportedrepresentativesextremelyright-wing nationalist circles.Stolypin lost the support of NikolaiII, to whomobviouslydisgustedto have such an enterprising minister was extremely accusedright-wing opponentsinfluential at court, in desire to "expropriate all landowners in general" with the help of agrarian reform.

From the top today From historical experience, the main root cause of Stolypin’s bankruptcy is now especially clearly visible.

The organic defect of his course was that that he wanted to carry out his reforms outside of democracy and in spite of to her. At first, he believed that it was necessary to ensure economic conditions, and then implement the “freedoms”.

After Stolypin, the activities of the government in 1912-1914. showed that all large-scale reforms would be curtailed. Nicholas II refused to cooperate with politicians; he surrounded himself with mediocre people, but they shared his views on the historical path of Russia.

According to G. Popov, there is a constant paradox consisting in the following: on the one hand, reforming Russia presupposes the creation and development of representative government, and on the other, in the endless debates of all branches of this government, starting with the Duma, the most necessary measures are “drowning” for many months. This process is natural, it is determined by the very nature of representative power: it is designed to ensure a peaceful settlement of the interests of various groups of society, and therefore, this process cannot but be full of compromises and lengthy. In a country where the social situation is quite prosperous, these democratic parliamentary procedures generally play a progressive and positive role. But in an era of decisive, radical reforms (especially at the base!), when delay is “equivalent to death,” these processes threaten to slow everything down altogether.

Both Stolypin and the government realized that land reform would not pass through the Duma within any acceptable time frame, or would even “sink.”

The collapse of the Stolypin reform, the impossibility of merging totalitarianism and authoritarianism with independence, the collapse of the course towards the peasant farmer became a lesson for the Bolsheviks, who preferred to rely on collective farms.

Stolypin's path, the path of reform, the path of preventing October 17 was rejected both by those who did not want revolution and by those who aspired to it. Stolypin understood and believed in his reforms. He was their ideologist. This is Stolypin's strong point. On the other hand, Stolypin, like any person, was prone to making mistakes. When correlating various aspects of the Stolypin reforms with modern Russian reality, one should remember both the benefits that can be derived from this historical experience, and those mistakes that prevented the successful implementation of Stolypin's reforms.

The reform, which affected the most important social and democratic interests, gave rise to an extensive literature in the pre-revolutionary period. The assessment of the reform by contemporaries could not be impartial. Reviews of the reform directly depended on political positions. Given the large weight of government critics in public and scientific life at that time, it can be assumed that negative attitudes prevailed over positive ones. The populist, and later the Socialist Revolutionary and Kadet, point of view on agrarian question implied an emphasis on the suffering and exploitation of the peasantry, ideas about the positive role of communal land ownership and a general anti-capitalist tendency, hopes for the positive effect of the alienation of landowners' lands, and obligatory criticism of any government initiatives. The right, which emphasized the positive role of noble land ownership, was irritated by the policy of encouraging the purchase of landowners' lands. The Octobrists and nationalists who supported the government in the Duma tried to increase their own importance by delaying the consideration of all bills by introducing numerous small, insignificant changes to them. During Stolypin's lifetime, the struggle of political ambitions prevented many from giving a positive assessment of his activities; Opinions about Stolypin noticeably softened after his tragic death.

Soviet attitude historical science to the Stolypin reform turned out to be completely dependent on the harsh assessments given to Stolypin by Lenin at the very height of the political struggle, and Lenin’s conclusions that the reform had completely failed. Soviet historians, who did a lot of work, were not able to express their disagreement with Lenin’s assessments, and were forced to fit their conclusions into a pre-known template, even if this contradicted the facts contained in their works. It was suggested that although there were positive dynamics in the development of agriculture, this was simply a continuation of the processes that took place before the start of the reform, that is, the reform simply did not produce a significant effect. Among literature Soviet period The bright books by A.Ya. stand out. Avrekha, in their actively expressed disgust for Stolypin and general emotionality, approach the pamphlet genre. Standing apart are the works created in the 1920s by a group of economists whose careers in Soviet Russia soon ended in emigration or repression - A.V. Chayanov, B.D. Brutskus, L.N. Litoshenko. This group of scientists had an extremely positive attitude towards the Stolypin reform, which largely determined their fate.

Modern Russian historians, with a wide range of opinions, generally tend to have a positive attitude towards Stolypin’s reform. Two extensive special studies on this topic-- V.G. Tyukavkin and M.A. Davydov - published in the 2000s, unconditionally consider the reform useful and successful.

At the rate of land management work achieved in 1913 (4.3 million dessiatinas per year), land management activities would have been completed by 1930-32, and given the increase in speed, perhaps by the mid-1920s. War and revolution prevented these broad plans from being realized.

German agricultural expert Professor Aufhagen. With his land reform P.A. Stolypin lit a fire in the village civil war. By January 1, 1916, 2 million householders had left the community for the interstitial fortification. They owned 14.1 million acres of land. 469 thousand householders received certificates of identification for 2.8 million dessiatinas, 1.3 million householders switched to farm and farm ownership (12.7 million dessiatinas). These figures cannot be mechanically added up, since some householders, having strengthened their plots, then went to farms and farms, while others went to farms and farms immediately, without an intermediate stage. According to the calculations of the Leningrad historian V.S. Dyakin, in total about 3 million householders left the community, which is approximately 1/3 of their total number in those provinces where the reform was carried out. But some of the evictees were actually no longer householders for a long time, since they constantly lived in the city, and strengthened their abandoned plot only in order to sell it. Other householders (about 16%), having sold their fortified plots, moved to Siberia. 22 percent of the land was withdrawn from public circulation. A significant part of them went on sale. Sometimes the land was bought by a rural community, and it returned to the worldly pot.

It happened that the “world-eaters” bought up striped plots of land and rented them out to peasant community members. But the latter themselves bought land. Owning a communal plot, they sometimes also had several “fortified” strips. Everything got confusing and everything turned out completely differently than the government intended. The main thing is that the authorities failed to either destroy the community or create a stable and fairly massive layer of peasant owners. So we can talk about the general failure of the Stolypin agrarian reform.

One of the auxiliary means of reform, part of it, was resettlement. It deserves a positive assessment, despite all the flaws and shortcomings. Mostly the poor moved. In total, in 1906-1916, more than 3 million people moved beyond the Urals, and more than half a million returned back. But, despite the scale of the resettlement movement, it did not block natural increase peasant population. Land pressure in the countryside increased, and the agrarian question continued to worsen.

Assessments of the reform by V.I. Lenin. In 1907 V.I. Lenin emphasized that this government measure should not be underestimated, that “this is not a mirage at all,” this is the reality of economic progress based on the preservation of landowner power and landowner interests. This path is incredibly slow and incredibly painful for the broadest masses of the peasantry and for the proletariat, but This path is the only possible path for capitalist Russia if the peasant agrarian revolution does not win." Carefully observing the situation in Russia, V.I. Lenin already emphasized in 1911 that Stolypin’s plan for a bourgeois agrarian system “does not dance.” And at the beginning of 1912 V.I. Lenin came to the conclusion that the Stolypin reform was futile: “the present hunger strike once again confirms the failure of the government’s agrarian policy and the impossibility of ensuring any normal bourgeois development of Russia when its policy in general and land policy in particular are directed by the class of serf-owners - landowners, reigning in the form of right-wing parties, both in the Third Duma and the State Council and in the court spheres of Nicholas II."

The main lesson of the Stolypin agrarian reform, according to V.I. Lenin, was as follows: “Only the peasants themselves can decide which form of land use and land ownership is more convenient in a particular area. Any interference by law or administration in the free disposal of peasants with land is a remnant of serfdom. Nothing but harm to the cause, except humiliation and insult there cannot be a peasant from such interference." As an argument in favor of reform, the fact is sometimes cited that, compared with the last five years of the 19th century, in 1909 - 1913, grain exports increased quantitatively by 1.5 times, and in value - by 2 times. In 1913, Russia exported 647.6 million poods.

On July 6, 1906, at the height of the First Russian Revolution, Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin replaced Ilya Logginovich Goremykin as chairman of the Council of Ministers. Prior to this, on July 6 of the same year, he was appointed Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire. His figure has become one of the most controversial in the history of Russia, and the most important place in his activities is occupied by internal reforms. The government faced large-scale tasks to modernize the country's agricultural sector, which was of enormous importance for the future of the empire.

VATNIKSTAN prepared an overview of Stolypin’s agrarian reform, understood its causes, consequences and influence on further Russian history.

Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin

Pyotr Stolypin sought to suppress the hotbed of revolution through economic reforms. He often stated this at meetings in the Second State Duma. It is worth noting that the reformer wanted to eradicate any revolutionary sentiments. Thus, his government made extensive use of the Regulation on Enhanced and Emergency Protection, introducing its norms in certain regions of the country.

From the beginning of the revolution until July 1909, at least one and a half million people were subjected to repression. By the beginning of 1908, there were about 200 thousand prisoners in prisons. Many publicists and public figures of that time opposed the mass introduction of the death penalty in the Russian Empire; the decree on military courts of August 19, 1906 was criticized. For example, the article by Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko “Everyday Phenomenon. Notes from a publicist on the death penalty” and Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy’s manifesto “I Can’t Be Silent”, which criticized politics royal authorities when suppressing mass uprisings. Trade union organizations were destroyed in the country; in total, about 350 workers' unions were closed.

Stolypin understood that the ruling regime would not withstand the pressure of revolutionary upheavals, so he sought to eliminate the main underlying reasons for the struggle against power. This required economic transformations. He stated:

“Revolution is not an external disease, but an internal one, and you cannot cure it with external means alone.”

Land reform

One of the most pressing issues of the early 20th century was the land question. For the stable functioning of agriculture, it was necessary to provide the peasant with land and turn him into an owner. At the same time, since Stolypin himself had noble roots, he did not encroach on the “holy of holies” of the Russian Empire - the land of the landowners. The land was alienated to the peasants at the expense of the community's land fund. The nobility saw the community as a hotbed of rebellious sentiments, so they sought to avert the peasant threat from the landowners' land. Pyotr Stolypin himself spoke sharply negatively about the community:

“Our land community is a rotten anachronism, surviving only thanks to the artificial, baseless sentimentalism of the last half century, contrary to common sense and the most important state needs.”

The main problem was that the community equalized all peasants:

“... the Russian peasant has a passion to equalize, to bring everything to the same level... the best elements of the village must be brought down to the understanding, to the aspirations of the worst, inert majority.”

At the same time, he believed that further transformation and transformation of the peasant into the middle class requires separating him from the community and giving him his land to form capital. The middle class, in turn, was to become the basis of the new economy. At the same time, according to Stolypin, the reform was not a weakness of the authorities:

“Not the indiscriminate distribution of land, not calming the rebellion with handouts - the rebellion is extinguished by force, but the recognition of the inviolability of private property, and, as a consequence... the creation of small personal property, the real right to leave the community and the resolution of issues of improving land use - these are the tasks the implementation of which the government considers issues existence of the Russian state."

Peasant with children. Ryazan province, 1910

The beginning of the reform was the Decree of November 9, 1906, according to which peasants were allowed to freely leave the community. According to this document, a community member could receive free land on which he farmed - this land was called “cut”.

In fact, the community had to be divided into parts by small owners. Despite the fact that the peasant became the personal owner of the land, many restrictions arose during its use. Land could only be sold to a person connected with agriculture, mortgaged only in the Peasant Land Bank, and bequeathed only to close relatives. This step contributed to the formation of a wealthy layer of the peasant population, which was able to buy neighboring plots of poor community members.

There was also another way to obtain personal ownership of land. Upon leaving the community, a peasant was given a plot of land not connected with the community territory - a farm. Farmsteads were especially attractive to reformers. Stolypin himself was a fan of farmstead farms typical of Western and Baltic provinces. Moreover, those farms that appeared after the reform were incomparably poorer and smaller than the 60-acre plots of the Kherson German colonists with stone buildings. The freed peasant returned to his fifty-acre plot without any infrastructure.


S.A. Korovin, “On the World”

An important issue was the legality of land alienation in communities where the redistribution took place relatively recently, and the land could not be considered fully developed by the land user. Then the State Council introduced an amendment that established sole ownership in those territories where there had been no redistribution since the moment the land was allocated. On June 14, 1910, the law was approved by the Tsar. An addition to this was the Law on Land Management Works of May 20, 1911. Under this project, the territories where land management work was carried out became hereditary property. This allowed the authorities to clearly form the boundaries of peasant holdings.

The process of land management itself was not clearly worked out by the management, since the size of the land was set the same for each region: the natural and climatic factor, soil fertility, and area infrastructure were not taken into account. Small farms that had just begun to develop were often not given the necessary benefits. The land management reform itself moved slowly: there were not enough specialists, and many disputes arose among the peasants. All this caused dissatisfaction among the population with the existing system.


Peasants in festive clothes. Yaroslavl province, 1915

In his first speech as Chairman of the Council of Ministers in the Second State Duma, Stolypin general outline suggested ways in which peasants could buy land:

“The main department sees the way to eliminate acute land shortages in the preferential sale of land to farmers, corresponding to the value of what is being purchased and the paying ability of the purchaser. For this purpose, the government has at its disposal, according to the decrees of August 12 and 27, 1906, 9 million dessiatines and purchased since November 3, 1905. The Peasant Bank has over 2 million dessiatinas. But for the success of the matter, the increase in peasant land ownership must be linked with an improvement in forms of land use, which requires incentive measures and mainly credit. The Main Directorate intends to pursue this matter through the broad development and organization of land, reclamation and resettlement credit.”

An important role in the functioning of the economic system was assigned to the Peasant Land Bank with its right to buy landowners' lands (given in 1895) and issue securities for the entire amount of transactions (added in 1905). During the reform process, the market situation threatened to depreciate the value of landowners' lands, so the bank began a massive purchase of noble estates. For 1906–1907 more land was purchased than in the previous 11 years. At the same time, prices rose. This made it difficult for borrowers to continue purchasing, since the peasants had to pay huge payments, which inevitably led to ruin. Moreover, for 1906–1916. the nobles were paid about 500 million rubles for 4.6 million dessiatines, and for 1906–1915. Up to 570 thousand acres of land were taken away from borrowers.

The arrears of clients of the Peasant Land Bank were constantly growing, and the number of new borrowers was declining, as the level of confidence in the bank among peasants became critically low. Therefore, the most important instrument of the government, the Peasant Land Bank, was unable to fulfill the main task of developing a new class and creating favorable conditions for the introduction of farming to the newly created owner of the plot.

Resettlement policy

An integral part of the agrarian reform is the resettlement policy pursued by the government of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin. By decree of March 10, 1906, every peasant was granted the right to resettle in the uninhabited regions of Siberia, the Urals, Turkestan, the Steppe Territory and Transcaucasia.


Peasants at the Chelyabinsk resettlement point. Beginning of the twentieth century.

The authorities encouraged the settlement of territories beyond the Urals, hoping to ease the shortage of land in the European part of the country. The government encouraged resettlement with incentives, allowances and loans. A special carriage was even designed for the settlers. They were given the right to strengthen and freely sell their land plot. The growth rate of resettlement was really high: since 1906, and especially in 1908 - 1909, more than 1.3 million people moved to new places. By 1910, about 700 thousand people had accumulated in Tomsk province alone. The problem was that the peasants did not have the necessary funds to settle on the new land.

According to economists, each peasant needed a loan of at least 450 rubles. In reality, the loans did not exceed 100 rubles (about 61.5% had this kind of money with them). Moreover, if the initial amount was spent not on improvement, but on food, the peasant lost the right to receive the rest of the loan. Another important problem was corruption: local officials demanded bribes. All this led to the return of some of the settlers. The total number of immigrants for 1906 - 1916 amounted to more than 3.1 million people, the percentage of those who returned in the first years was 9%, in subsequent years it rose to 31%.


Resettlers near the railway. Beginning of the 20th century.

The situation was also difficult for the migrants who moved to Turkestan, the Steppe region, and Transcaucasia. The land was given to the peasants at the expense of the local population - all this led to hostility between the indigenous people and the newcomers. At the same time, the resettlement was carried out at the level of minimal costs on the part of the state with an obvious attempt to shift all the burdens of developing new lands, including financial ones, onto the peasants’ shoulders. It is surprising that there may well have been enough money for the reform, but the government, represented by Stolypin, believed that it was more important to invest in supporting noble agriculture - the support of the autocracy.

Results of the reform

The results of Pyotr Stolypin's reforms turned out to be quite contradictory. The positive ones include the rapid growth of agricultural production, an increase in the capacity of the domestic market, an increase in the export of agricultural products, and Russia’s trade balance has become increasingly active. The gross income of all agriculture in 1913 amounted to 52.6% of the total. The income of the entire national economy, due to the increase in the value of products created in agriculture, increased in comparable prices from 1900 to 1913 by 33.8%.

Many regions began to produce agricultural products, this led to an increase in trade and economic relations between different regions of the country. It is worth noting that the turnover of agricultural products increased by 46% during the reform period. Exports of agricultural products in the pre-war years increased by 61% compared to 1901 - 1905. Russia has become the largest producer of bread, flax and a number of livestock products. Thus, in 1910, Russian wheat exports amounted to 36.4% of total world exports.

Here is how the Russian public and political figure Pyotr Bernhardovich Struve spoke about the reform:

“No matter how you feel about Stolypin’s agrarian policy - you can accept it as the greatest evil, you can bless it as a beneficial surgical operation - with this policy he made a huge shift in Russian life. And the shift is truly revolutionary both in essence and formally. For there can be no doubt that with the agrarian reform, which abolished the commune, only the liberation of the peasants and the construction of railways can be ranked on par in importance in the economic development of Russia.”

At the same time, there were many errors in the reform. The problems of hunger and peasant land shortage were never resolved. The country still suffered from technical, economic and cultural backwardness. According to the calculations of Nikolai Dmitrievich Kondratyev, a prominent Russian economist, in the United States, on average, a farm had fixed capital in the amount of 3,900 rubles, and in European Russia, 900 rubles were allocated per peasant farm. The national income per capita of the agricultural population in Russia was approximately 52 rubles per year, and in the United States - 262 rubles.


Distribution of newly formed farms among householders in the village of Belinok, Grodno province. 1909

In general, many prominent figures of that time spoke critically of Stolypin’s reforms, and this applies not only to revolutionary-minded layers of society. For example, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, already mentioned in the article, wrote the following:

“...they thought in Russia to calm down the agitated population, both waiting and wanting only one thing: the destruction of the right of land ownership (as outrageous in our time as the right of serfdom was half a century ago), to calm the population so that, having destroyed the community, the formation of small landed property . The mistake was huge. Instead of taking advantage of the awareness that was still alive among the people of the illegality of the right of personal land ownership, a consciousness that converges with the teaching about the relationship of man to the land of the most advanced people in the world, instead of putting this principle before the people, you thought to calm them down by luring him into the most base, old, obsolete understanding of the relationship of man to the earth, which exists in Europe, to the great regret of all thinking people in this Europe.”


Leo Tolstoy among the peasants at the fair. The village of Lomtsy, Oryol province. 1909

The soil fertility of the average plot of land was comparatively low and the rate of productivity was slow. Economic growth occurred not on the basis of intensification of production, but due to an increase in the intensity of manual peasant labor. The government was never able to destroy the community due to the fact that only wealthy peasants left it, who wanted to acquire more land and stop feeding the community, and poor people, who had already lost contact with the community and wanted to get land in order to sell it. The main, middle stratum of peasants remained in the community. For example, Metropolitan Veniamin (Fedchenkov) wrote about the failures of Stolypin’s reforms:

“Stolypin was credited by some with a supposedly brilliant, saving idea of ​​​​an agricultural system, the so-called farmstead farming. This, in his opinion, was supposed to strengthen the possessive feelings of the peasant farmers and thus suppress revolutionary ferment... Then I lived in the village and clearly saw that the people were against it. And the reason was simple. From the existing area it was impossible to provide all millions of peasants with farmsteads, and even they would have to be paid for. This means that from among the more prosperous men a small group of new owners would emerge, and the masses would remain land-poor. People's farms failed. In our district there were barely three or four families who moved to farmsteads. The matter froze, it was artificial and abnormal.”

Stolypin stated that it would take him 15–20 years to lead the country to economic prosperity, but reforms stopped in 1913. A number of researchers believe that such reforms required a minimum of 50 years. This is a period of gradual development of large capitalist farms, which, given the short working season in Russian agriculture, could only exist with a significant concentration of equipment and labor at the most important time of the agricultural season. However, these prospects no longer have anything to do with the reforms of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin. The reforms did not give the desired result, the country did not emerge from the crisis, and new shocks were approaching Russia.

agrarian reform land tenure Stolypin

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

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

Exports of agricultural products increased even more, by 61% compared to 1901-1905, in the pre-war years. Russia was largest producer and an exporter of bread and flax, and a number of livestock products. Thus, in 1910, Russian wheat exports amounted to 36.4% of total world exports.

The above does not mean at all that pre-war Russia should be represented as a “peasant paradise.” The problems of hunger and agricultural overpopulation were not resolved. The country still suffered from technical, economic and cultural backwardness. According to calculations by I.D. Kondratiev in the USA, on average, a farm had a fixed capital of 3,900 rubles, and 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 approximately 52 rubles per year, and in the United States - 262 rubles.

The rate of growth in labor productivity in agriculture has been comparatively slow. While in Russia in 1913 they received 55 poods of bread per dessiatine, in the USA they received 68, in France - 89, and in Belgium - 168 poods. Economic growth occurred not on the basis of intensification of production, but due to an increase in 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 reforms - the transformation of agriculture into a capital-intensive, technologically progressive sector of the economy.

RESULTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE STOLYPINSK AGRARIAN REFORM

The community resisted the clash 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 arson of estates and the murders of landowners, which occurred with even greater ferocity than in 1905. “Then they didn’t finish the job, stopped halfway? - the peasants reasoned. “Well, now we won’t stop and destroy all the landowners at the roots.”

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 interstitial fortification. They owned 14.1 million dessiatines. land. 469 thousand householders living in non-allocation communities received certificates of identification for 2.8 million dessiatines. 1.3 million householders switched to farm and farm ownership (12.7 million dessiatines). In addition, 280 thousand farms and farms were formed on bank lands - this is a special account. But the other figures given above cannot be mechanically added up, since some householders, having strengthened their plots, then went out to farmsteads and cuts, while others went to them immediately, without intersecting fortification. According to rough estimates, a total of about 3 million householders left the community, which is slightly less than a third of the total number in those provinces where the reform was carried out. However, as noted, some of the deportees actually abandoned farming long ago. 22% of land was withdrawn from communal circulation. About half of them went on sale. Some part returned to the communal pot.

Over the 11 years of the Stolypin land reform, 26% of peasants left the community. 85% of 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-owners. So you can talk 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 village improved noticeably. Of course, in addition to the reform, other factors were at work. Firstly, as had already happened, since 1907, redemption payments, which the peasants had been paying for more than 40 years, were cancelled. Secondly, the global agricultural crisis ended and grain prices began to rise. From this, one must assume, something also fell to ordinary peasants. Thirdly, during the years of the revolution, landownership decreased, and in connection with this, bonded forms of exploitation decreased. Finally, fourthly, during the entire period there was only one bad harvest year (1911), but there were excellent harvests for two years in a row (1912-1913). As for the agrarian reform, such a large-scale event, which required such a significant land shake-up, could not have a positive impact in the very first years of its implementation. Nevertheless, the events that accompanied it were a good, useful thing.

This concerns the provision of greater personal freedom to peasants, the establishment of farmsteads and plots on bank lands, resettlement to Siberia, and certain types of land management.

POSITIVE RESULTS OF AGRARIAN REFORM

The positive results of agrarian reform include:

Up to a quarter of the farms were separated from the community, the stratification of the village increased, the rural elite provided up to half of the market grain,

3 million households moved from European Russia,

4 million dessiatines of communal lands were involved in market circulation,

The cost of agricultural implements increased from 59 to 83 rubles. per yard,

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

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

NEGATIVE RESULTS 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 community members,

0.5 million migrants returned to Central Russia,

There were 2-4 dessiatines per peasant household, while the norm was 7-8 dessiatines,

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

Mineral fertilizers were used on 2% of the sown area,

In 1911-1912 The country was struck by famine, affecting 30 million people.