What was the Stolypin agrarian reform. Stolypin agrarian reform

(1862-1911). He came from an old noble family and received an excellent education. Stolypin had a firm, domineering character and brilliant oratory skills. His speeches in the Duma made a great impression on the deputies. In 1905, Stolypin was appointed governor in a particularly turbulent Saratov province, where he "became famous" for the cruel pressure of peasant riots.

The firmness and determination of Stolypin were appreciated at the top. In April 1906, Stolypin was appointed Minister of the Interior, and in July of the same year, Chairman of the Council of Ministers. A staunch monarchist, a supporter of "solid power", Stolypin advocated the modernization of Russia, the development of the economy and culture. The essence of his program, expressed in the phrase " First appeasement, then reforms”, meant the need to suppress the revolution and restore order as a condition for further transformations.

Stolypin agrarian reform. The main principle of the reform is replacement of communal land use by individual land ownership - offered in 1902. S. Yu. Witte but then the king rejected him. The peasant movement during the years of the revolution made it necessary to look for ways to solve the agrarian issue, but in such a way as not to harm the landowners. The reform was preceded by a number of measures: January 1, 1907 redemption payments of peasants were cancelled. The sale of land to peasants through the Peasant Bank was allowed. The peasants were equalized with the rest of the estates in terms of passports.

Goals of agrarian reform:

1. Destroy the peasant community.

2. Develop capitalism in the countryside without prejudice to the landowners.

3. Eliminate the lack of land of the peasants and feudal remnants.

4. To create a "strong" peasant-nina - a "support of order" in the village.

5. Eliminate revolutionary activity in the countryside, evict especially restless peasants beyond the Urals to free lands.

6. Create a system of universal primary education in the village.

Community destruction. The essence of the reform was set out in a decree on November 9, 1906. The decree established “the right to freely exit from the community with “strengthening” (fixing) in the ownership of “homeowners” (peasants), passing to personal possession, plots from the “worldly” (communal) to-deeds. The peasant-nin could demand, instead of the scattered strips allocated to him in different fields, to provide an equivalent plot in one place ( cut). If the owner transferred his yard with household buildings to it, then farm.

Leaving the community mostly "extreme" in terms of property status of the peasants - the poor and the wealthy. The first tried to sell their business and either go to the city or move to the free lands of the Urals and Siberia. They sold over 3.4 million acres of land. These lands were bought not only by the rich, but also by the middle peasants. Stolypin did not hide the fact that he was making a bet " not on the wretched and drunk, but on the strong and strong» peasants.

Resettlement of peasants to the lands of the Urals and Siberia. The government assisted the resettlement of peasants on free lands. For 1907-1914 3.3 million peasants moved beyond the Urals. They received a cash loan for the establishment of a household. But not everyone was able to become householders: many went to work as farm laborers with local old-timers, over half a million returned back to Russia. Reasons: unwillingness of the local administration to help the migrants; opposition to the settlers of the indigenous peoples of Siberia.

The results of the Stolypin reform.

Stolypin believed that it will take 20 years to complete the agrarian reform. During this time, he intended to carry out a number of other transformations - in the field of local government, courts, public education, in the national question, etc. "Give the state twenty years of peace, internal and external, and you will not recognize today's Russia," Stolypin said.

For 1907-1914 25% of the peasants left the community, and 35% filed applications for withdrawal. As a result, about 400 thousand farmsteads were formed (1/6 of those that came out). Not all of them were "kulak"; prosperous farmers accounted for about 60%. The emergence of a stratum of farmers-farmers provoked a protest on the part of the communal peasants, which was expressed in the damage to livestock, crops, implements, and the beating of farmers. Only for 1909-1910. the police registered about 11 thousand facts of arson farms.

Within 7 years reform actions were achieved successes in agriculture: crop areas increased by 10%; grain exports increased by 1/3. Peasants increased the cost of purchasing agricultural machinery by 3.5 times - from 38 million to 131 million rubles. The reform stimulated the development of industry and trade. The mass of peasants rushed to the cities, increasing the labor market. As a result, urban demand for agricultural products increased.

The end of the career of P. A. Stolypin.

Powerful and independent, Stolypin turned many against him - both on the left and on the right. The court nobility and G. Rasputin. The tsar became increasingly weary of Stolypin. In the spring of 1911, the prime minister submitted his resignation, but the tsar decided to wait. During the 5 years that Stolypin was in power, 10 assassination attempts were made on him by revolutionaries who could not forgive the destruction of the community - "the cell of the future peasant socialism." September 1, 1911 Socialist-Revolutionary Maxim Liszt lawyer D. Bogrov with the connivance of the police during a performance at the Kiev Opera House in the presence of the tsar and his family, he mortally wounded Stolypin with two shots from a Browning.

Reforms of P. A. Stolypin: variety of opinions.

There are two opposite points of view on the activities of P. A. Stolypin:

I. Soviet point of view :

Stolypin limited the democratic achievements of the revolution of 1905-1907 because he:

1. Repressed the revolutionaries, established courts-martial.

2. Stolypin was the initiator of the June 3 coup.

3. According to the new electoral law prepared by Stolypin in 1907, the voting rights of peasants and workers were limited.

4. Stolypin was in favor of limiting the political rights of representatives of non-Russian nationalities.

5. The Stolypin agrarian reform was fraught with violence against community members who disagreed with it.

6. Stolypin passed many bills without the participation of the Duma.

II . liberal point of view :

Stolypin's policy was aimed at creating rule of law in Russia as part of the Manifesto of October 17, 1905, because:

1. Stolypin defended the principle of private property, which is sacred in a state governed by the rule of law.

2. Stolypin's struggle with the revolutionaries contributed to the establishment of order, the triumph of the law.

3. Stolypin was against the return to the former regime of autocracy.

4. Stolypin believed that the creation of a layer of peasant owners would develop among the peasants respect for the law, a legal culture.

5. Stolypin intended to expand the system of local self-government, reform the judicial system, liquidate the volost court.

6. Stolypin developed public education in the countryside.

7. Stolypin's reforms were supposed to help equalize the rights of peasants with other estates.

In this way, Stolypin's reforms had both positive and negative sides. On the one hand, they put agriculture on the capitalist path, stimulated the development of industry. On the other hand, the reforms were not completed, it was not possible to eliminate the contradictions between the peasants and the landowners, to create a mass layer of the prosperous peasantry. Stolypin did not have 20 years to complete the reform. His transformations were interrupted the first world war and revolution of 1917. The Stolypin agrarian laws were finally abolished by a decree of the Provisional Government in June 1917.

IV State Duma (November 15, 1912- February 26, 1917).

Chairman of the IV Duma - Octobrist M. V. Rodzianko. Composition of the Duma:

Octobrists - 98; - nationalists and moderate right - 88;

Center party - 33; - right - 65;

Progressives and those adjoining them - 32 + 16;

Cadets and those adjoining them - 52 + 7; - "Trudoviks" - 10;

Social Democrats - 14 (Bolsheviks - 6; Mensheviks - 8), etc.

28. Agrarian reform P.A. Stolypin.

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

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

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

The reform unfolded in several directions:

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

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

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

Encouraging the purchase of privately owned (primarily landowners') lands by peasants, through various operations of the Peasant Land Bank, was predominantly concessional lending.

Encouraging the buildup of working capital of peasant farms through lending in all forms (bank lending secured by land, loans to members of cooperatives and partnerships).

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

Support for cooperatives and peasant associations.

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

Decrees were issued in 1906, 1910 and 1911:

each peasant could take ownership of the allotment,

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

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

settlers received tax benefits and were exempted from military service.

a) The goals of the reform.

Socio-political goals of the reform.

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

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

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

b) Preparation of reform

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

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

c) Fundamentals of the direction of the reform.

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

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

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

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

Resettlement of peasants to free lands.

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

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

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

d) Progress of the reform.

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

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

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

Krivoshein, and Stolypin's Minister of the Interior.

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

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

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

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

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

3. Land management.

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

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

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

4. Resettlement beyond the Urals.

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

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

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

5. Destruction of the community.

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

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

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

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

7. Cooperative movement.

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

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

e) Conclusions.

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

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

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

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

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

1) Social results of the fate of the community.

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

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

2) Socio-political results of the reform.

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

RESULTS of the reforms:

The cooperative movement developed.

The number of wealthy peasants increased.

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

The number of livestock increased by 2.5 times.

About 2.5 million people moved to new lands.

The more a person is able to respond to the historical and universal, the wider his nature, the richer his life and the more capable such a person is of progress and development.
F. M. Dostoevsky

Stolypin's agrarian reform, which began in 1906, was conditioned by the realities that were taking place in Russian Empire. The country was faced with massive popular unrest, during which it became absolutely obvious that the people did not want to live as before. Moreover, the state itself could not govern the country, based on the old principles. The economic component of the development of the empire was in decline. This was especially true in the agrarian complex, where there was a clear decline. As a result, political events, as well as economic events, prompted Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin to start implementing reforms.

Background and reasons

One of the main reasons that prompted the Russian Empire to start a massive change in state structure were based on the fact that a large number ordinary people expressed their dissatisfaction with the authorities. If until that time the expression of dissatisfaction was reduced to one-time peaceful actions, then by 1906 these actions became much larger and bloody. As a result, it became clear that Russia was struggling not only with obvious economic problems, but also with an obvious revolutionary upsurge.

Obviously, any victory of the state over the revolution is based not on physical strength, but on spiritual strength. A strong-willed state itself should stand at the head of the reforms.
Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin

One of the landmark events that prompted the Russian government to start reforms as soon as possible happened on August 12, 1906. On this day in St. Petersburg on Aptekarsky Island there was a terrorist attack. In this place of the capital lived Stolypin, who by this time served as chairman of the government. As a result of the thundering explosion, 27 people were killed and 32 people were injured. Among the wounded were Stolypin's daughter and son. The Prime Minister himself miraculously did not suffer. As a result, the country adopted a law on courts-martial, where all cases relating to terrorist attacks were considered in an expedited manner, within 48 hours.

The explosion once again showed Stolypin that the people wanted fundamental changes within the country. These changes had to be given to people in the shortest possible time. That is why Stolypin's agrarian reform was accelerated, a project that began to advance with giant strides.

The essence of the reform

The first block called on the citizens of the country to calm down, and also informed about the state of emergency in many parts of the country. Because of the terrorist attacks in a number of regions of Russia, a state of emergency and courts-martial were forced to be introduced.
The second block announced the convocation of the State Duma, during which it was planned to create and implement a set of agrarian reforms within the country.

Stolypin clearly understood that the implementation of agrarian reforms alone would not make it possible to calm the population and would not allow the Russian Empire to make a qualitative leap in its development. Therefore, along with changes in agriculture, the Prime Minister spoke about the need to adopt laws on religion, equality among citizens, reforming the local self-government system, on the rights and life of workers, the need to introduce compulsory primary education, introduce income tax, increase teachers' salaries and so on. In a word, everything that is further implemented Soviet authority, was one of the stages of the Stolypin reform.

Of course, it is extremely difficult to start changes of this magnitude in the country. That is why Stolypin decided to start with agrarian reform. This was due to a number of factors:

Main driving force evolution is the peasant. So it was always and in all countries, so it was in those days in the Russian Empire. Therefore, in order to remove the revolutionary heat, it was necessary to appeal to the bulk of the dissatisfied, offering them qualitative changes in the country.
The peasants actively expressed their position that the landed estates should be redistributed. Often the landowners kept the best lands for themselves, allocating unfertile plots to the peasants.

The first stage of the reform

Stolypin's agrarian reform began with an attempt to destroy the community. Until that moment, the peasants in the villages lived in communities. These were special territorial formations where people lived as a single team, performing common collective tasks. If you try to give a simpler definition, then the communities are very similar to the collective farms, which were later implemented by the Soviet government. The problem of the communities was that the peasants lived in a close-knit group. They worked for a single purpose for the landlords. The peasants, as a rule, did not have their own large allotments, and they were not particularly worried about the final result of their work.

On November 9, 1906, the Government of the Russian Empire issued a decree that allowed peasants to freely leave the community. Leaving the community was free. At the same time, the peasant retained all his property, as well as the lands that were allocated to him. At the same time, if the lands were allocated in different areas, then the peasant could demand that the lands be combined into a single allotment. Leaving the community, the peasant received land in the form of a cut or farm.

Stolypin's agrarian reform map.

Cut this is a plot of land that was allocated to a peasant leaving the community, with the peasant retaining his yard in the village.

Farm this is land plot, which was allocated to a peasant leaving the community, with the resettlement of this peasant from the village to his own plot.

On the one hand, this approach made it possible to implement reforms within the country aimed at changing the peasant economy. However, on the other hand, the landlord economy remained untouched.

The essence of Stolypin's agrarian reform, as conceived by the creator himself, boiled down to the following advantages that the country received:

The peasants who lived in the community were massively influenced by the revolutionaries. Peasants who live on separate farms are much less accessible to revolutionaries.
A person who has received the land at his disposal, and who depends on this land, is directly interested in the final result. As a result, a person will think not about revolution, but about how to increase his harvest and his profit.
Divert attention from the desire of ordinary people to divide the landlords' land. Stolypin advocated the inviolability of private property, therefore, with the help of his reforms, he tried not only to preserve the landowners' lands, but also to provide the peasants with what they really needed.

To some extent, Stolypin's agrarian reform was similar to the creation of advanced farms. A huge number of small and medium landowners were to appear in the country, who would not depend directly on the state, but independently sought to develop their sector. This approach found expression in the words of Stolypin himself, who often confirmed that the country in its development focuses on "strong" and "strong" landowners.

On the initial stage development of the reform, few enjoyed the right to leave the community. In fact, only wealthy peasants and the poor left the community. Wealthy peasants came out because they had everything for independent work and they could now work not for the community, but for themselves. The poor, on the other hand, went out in order to receive compensation money, thereby raising their financial situation. The poor, as a rule, having lived for some time away from the community and having lost their money, returned back to the community. That is why, at the initial stage of development, very few people left the community for advanced agricultural holdings.

Official statistics show that only 10% of all the resulting agricultural holdings could claim the title of a successful farm. Only these 10% of households used modern technology, fertilizer, modern ways ground work and so on. In the end, only these 10% of farms worked economically profitable. All other farms that were formed in the course of Stolypin's agrarian reform turned out to be unprofitable. This is due to the fact that the vast majority of people leaving the community were poor, who were not interested in the development of the agrarian complex. These figures characterize the first months of the work of Stolypin's plans.

Resettlement policy as an important stage of reform

One of the significant problems of the Russian Empire at that time was the so-called land famine. This concept means that the eastern part of Russia was extremely little developed. As a result, the vast majority of land in these regions was undeveloped. Therefore, Stolypin's agrarian reform set one of the tasks of resettling peasants from the western provinces to the eastern ones. In particular, it was said that the peasants should move beyond the Urals. First of all, these changes were to affect those peasants who did not own their own land.

The so-called landless were to move beyond the Urals, where they were to establish their own farms. This process was absolutely voluntary and the government did not force any of the peasants to move to the eastern regions of the forced. Moreover, the resettlement policy was based on providing the peasants who decide to move beyond the Urals with maximum benefits and good living conditions. As a result, a person who agreed to such a resettlement received the following concessions from the government:

Peasant farming was exempted from any taxes for 5 years.
The peasant received land as his property. Land was provided at the rate of: 15 hectares for a farm, as well as 45 hectares for each family member.
Each migrant received a cash loan on a preferential basis. The value of this court depended on the region of resettlement, and in some regions reached up to 400 rubles. This is a huge amount of money for the Russian Empire. In any region, 200 rubles were given out free of charge, and the rest of the money was in the form of a loan.
All men of the resulting farm were exempted from military service.

The significant advantages that the state guaranteed to the peasants led to the fact that in the first years of the implementation of the agrarian reform, a large number of people moved from the western provinces to the eastern ones. However, despite such interest of the population in this program, the number of immigrants decreased every year. Moreover, every year the percentage of people who returned back to the southern and western provinces increased. The most striking example is the indicators of the resettlement of people in Siberia. In the period from 1906 to 1914, more than 3 million people moved to Siberia. However, the problem was that the government was not ready for such a mass resettlement and did not have time to prepare normal conditions for people to live in a particular region. As a result, people came to a new place of residence without any amenities and no devices for comfortable living. As a result, about 17% of people returned to their former place of residence only from Siberia.

Despite this, Stolypin's agrarian reform in terms of resettling people gave positive results. Here, positive results should not be seen in terms of the number of people who have moved and returned. The main indicator of the effectiveness of this reform is the development of new lands. If we talk about the same Siberia, the resettlement of people led to the fact that 30 million acres of land, which had previously been empty, was developed in this region. An even more important advantage was that the new farms were completely cut off from the communities. A person independently came with his family and independently raised his farm. He had no public interests, no neighboring interests. He knew that there was a specific piece of land that belonged to him and that should feed him. That is why the performance indicators of the agrarian reform in the eastern regions of Russia are somewhat higher than in the western regions. And this is despite the fact that the western regions and western provinces are traditionally more funded and traditionally more fertile with cultivated land. It was in the east that it was possible to achieve the creation of strong farms.

The main results of the reform

Stolypin's agrarian reform was of great importance for the Russian Empire. This is the first time a country has begun to implement such a scale of change within the country. Positive shifts were evident, but in order for the historical process to give positive dynamics, it needs time. It is no coincidence that Stolypin himself said:

Give the country 20 years of inner and outer peace and you will not recognize Russia.
Stolypin Pyotr Arkadievich

It really was so, but, unfortunately, Russia did not have 20 years of silence.

If we talk about the results of the agrarian reform, then its main results, which were achieved by the state over 7 years, can be summarized as follows:

The sown areas throughout the country were increased by 10%.
In some regions, where peasants left the community en masse, the area under crops was increased up to 150%.
Grain exports have been increased, accounting for 25% of all world grain exports. In harvest years, this figure increased to 35 - 40%.
The purchase of agricultural equipment has increased 3.5 times over the years of reforms.
The volume of fertilizers used increased by 2.5 times.
The growth of industry in the country was taking colossal steps + 8.8% per year, the Russian Empire in this regard came out on top in the world.

These are far from complete indicators of the reform in the Russian Empire in terms of agriculture, but even these figures show that the reform had a clear positive trend and a clear positive result for the country. At the same time, it was not possible to achieve the full implementation of the tasks that Stolypin set for the country. The country failed to fully implement farms. This was due to the fact that the traditions of collective farming among the peasants were very strong. And the peasants found a way out for themselves in the creation of cooperatives. In addition, artels were created everywhere. The first artel was created in 1907.

Artel it is an association of a group of persons who characterize one profession, for the joint work of these persons with the achievement overall results, with the achievement of common income and with shared responsibility for the final result.

As a result, we can say that Stolypin's agrarian reform was one of the stages in the mass reform of Russia. This reform was supposed to radically change the country, transferring it to the ranks of one of the leading world powers, not only in the military sense, but also in the economic sense. The main task of these reforms was to destroy the peasant communities by creating powerful farms. The government wanted to see strong owners of the land, in which not only landowners, but also private farms would be expressed.

As the first Russian revolution clearly showed, the main problem Russian society the agrarian question remained, which escalated at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. In the future, the dissatisfied peasantry, which constituted the majority of the country's population, could go further than defeating 2,000 burned in 1905-1907. landlord estates.

In addition, without the development of agriculture, Russia could not develop as a great power, which was well understood by P.A. Stolypin.

1. Goals of the reform

1.1. Socio-political goals.

1.1.1. the main objective consisted in enlisting broad strata of the peasantry on the side of the regime and preventing a new agrarian war. To do this, it was supposed to contribute to the transformation of the majority of the inhabitants of the Russian village into strong, wealthy peasantry imbued with the idea of property, which, according to Stolypin, serves everywhere as the best bulwark of order and tranquility.

Previously, there was a widespread point of view about the orientation of the Stolypin reform to attract the existing narrow layer of kulaks.

1.1.3. Through agrarian reform, the government sought to not affect the interests of the landowners. In the post-reform period and at the beginning of the 20th century, the government was unable to protect the noble landownership from reduction, but the large and small landed nobility continued to be the most reliable support for the autocracy. To push him away would be suicidal for the regime.

In addition, noble class organizations, including the Council of the United Nobility, had a great influence on Nicholas II and his entourage. A member of the government, and even more so a prime minister, who raises the question of the alienation of landowners' lands, could not remain in his place, much less organize the implementation of such a reform. The reformers also took into account the fact that the landowners' farms produced a significant part of marketable grain, which is also.

1.1.2. Another goal was destruction of the rural community. Keeping in mind the participation of the community in the struggle of 1905-1907, the reformers understood that the main issue in the peasant movement was the issue of land and did not seek to immediately destroy the administrative organization of the community.

1.2. Socio-economic goals were closely related to the socio-political. It was planned to liquidate the land community, its economic land distribution mechanism, on the one hand, which formed the basis of the social unity of the community, and on the other hand, restrained the development of agricultural technology.

ultimate economic goal reforms was supposed to be a general rise in the country's agriculture, the transformation of the agricultural sector into the economic base of the new Great Russia.

2. Preparation of the reform.

2.1. Preparation of reform projects before the revolution. actually started Conference on the needs of the agricultural industry under the direction of S.Yu. Witte in 1902-1903 In 1905-1907. the conclusions formulated by the meeting, primarily the idea of the need to destroy the land community and turn the peasants into land owners, were reflected in a number of projects of state officials ( N.N. Kutler, V.I. Gurko).

2.2. With the start of the revolution and the active participation of peasants in the destruction of landlord estates, Nicholas II, frightened by agrarian uprisings, changed his attitude towards the landed peasant community. The Peasant Bank was allowed to issue loans for peasant plots (November 1905), which in fact meant the possibility of alienating communal lands. P.A. Stolypin in 1906, having become prime minister, supported the Gurko project, which formed the basis Decree of November 9, 1906 that initiated the agrarian reform.

3. Main directions of the reform

3.1. Change of ownership on peasant land, turning them into full-fledged owners of their allotments was supposed to be carried out by the law of 1910 primarily by strengthening the allotments into private property. In addition, by law of 1911 . it was allowed to carry out land management (reduction of land into farms and cuts) without strengthening, after which the peasants also became landowners. At the same time, a peasant could only sell an allotment to a peasant, which limited the right to land ownership.

3.2. Organization of farms and cuts (land management). Without land management, technical improvement, the economic development of agriculture was impossible in the conditions of a peasant stripes(2/3 of the peasants in the central regions had allotments divided into 6 or more lanes in various places in the communal field) and far lands(40% of the peasants of the Center had to walk daily from their estates to allotments of 5 or more miles). In economic terms, according to Gurko's plan, strengthening without land management did not make sense.

Therefore, the work of state land management commissions was planned to reduce the strips of the peasant allotment into a single plot - cut. If such a cut was outside the village, the estate was transferred there, which meant the formation farms.

3.3 . Resettlement of peasants to free lands. To solve the problem of the peasant lack of land and decrease agricultural overpopulation resettlement policy intensified in the Central regions. Funds were allocated to transport those wishing to new places, primarily to Siberia. Special (so-called Stolypin) passenger cars were built for the settlers. Beyond the Urals, peasants were given lands free of charge, loans were issued to improve the economy and improve the land.

3.4. Selling land to peasants in installments through Peasant Bank was also needed to reduce land shortages. On the security of allotment land, loans were issued for the purchase of state land transferred to the Bank's fund, and land that was sold by landlords.

3.5. Development of agricultural cooperation, Both trade and credit were given an impetus by the publication in 1908 of an exemplary charter. Credit partnerships received some benefits.

5. The progress of the reform

5.1. Legal basis, stages and terms of the reform. The legislative basis for the reform was Decree of November 9, 1906 ., after the adoption of which the implementation of the reform began. The main provisions of the Decree were enshrined in Law of 1910., approved by the Duma and the State Council. Serious clarifications in the course of the reform were introduced law 1911., reflecting a change in the emphasis of government policy and signifying the beginning of the second stage of the reform.

In 1915-1916, due to the war, the reform actually stopped. In June 1917 the reform was officially terminated by the Provisional Government.

The reform was carried out through the efforts Main Directorate of Land Management and Agriculture headed A.V. Krivoshein and the Stolypin Ministry of the Interior.

5.2. The transformation of peasants into landowners at the first stage (1907-1910) in accordance with the Decree of November 9, it went in several ways.

5 .2.1. At fastening of striped sections to the property. Over the years, 2 million plots have been strengthened. When the pressure of local authorities ceased, the strengthening process was sharply reduced. In addition, most of the peasants, who only wanted to sell their allotment, without returning to independent agriculture, have already done this. After 1911, only those who wanted to sell their plot applied. In total in 1907-1915. 2.5 million people became fortifiers. - 26% of the peasants of European Russia (excluding the Western provinces and Trans-Urals), but almost 40% of them sold their plots, most of them moving beyond the Urals, leaving for the city or replenishing the stratum of the rural proletariat.

5 .2.2. Land management at the second stage (1911-1916) under the laws of 1910 and 1911. made it possible to obtain ownership of the allotment automatically - after the creation cuts and farms, without filing an application for strengthening the property.

5 .2.3. In old communities(communities where there were no redistributions since 1861), according to the law of 1910, peasants were automatically recognized as owners of allotments. Such communities accounted for 30% of their total number. At the same time, only 600,000 of the 3.5 million members of unrestricted communities requested documents certifying their property.

5 .2.4. Yard holdings. Peasants Western provinces and some areas of the South where communities did not exist also automatically became owners. To do this, they did not need to submit special applications. Beyond the Urals the reform was not formally carried out, but even there the peasants did not know communal property.

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

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

Now the process has accelerated. In total, by 1916, 1.6 million individual farms (farms and cuts) were formed on approximately 1/3 of the peasant allotment (communal and household) land purchased by the peasants from the bank.

It was the beginning. It is important that in reality the potential scope of the movement turned out to be wider: another 20% of the peasants of European Russia filed applications for land management, but land management work was suspended by the war (May 1915) and interrupted by the revolution.

5.4. Resettlement beyond the Urals. Having received a loan from the government, 3.3 million people moved to the new lands in Stolypin's wagons, 2/3 of which were landless or land-poor peasants. 0.5 million returned, many replenished the population of Siberian cities or became agricultural workers. Only a small part of the peasants became farmers in the new place. This direction of the reform, having a focus on the resettlement of the poor, turned out to be the least effective, although it played an important role in the development of Siberia.

5.4. Buying land peasants with with the help of the Peasants' Bank acquired significant proportions. The bank sold 15 million state and landowner lands, of which 90% were bought by installments by peasants. At the same time, special benefits were provided to the owners of farms and cuts, who, unlike others, received a loan in the amount of 100% of the cost of the acquired land at 5% per annum.

5.5. developed rapidly cooperative movement. In 1905-1915. the number of rural credit partnerships increased from 1680 to 15.5 thousand. The number of production and consumer cooperatives in the countryside increased from 3 thousand in 1908 to 10 thousand in 1915. Many economists of various political orientations came to the conclusion that it was precisely cooperation is the most promising direction for the development of the Russian countryside, meeting the needs of modernizing the peasant economy.

At the same time, in the absence of public credit agriculture, the level of development of cooperation remained insufficient for the Russian village.

6. Main economic results of the reform

6.1. The peasant sector of the Russian agro-economy experienced serious progress. Harvest years and the growth of world grain prices played a big role in this. But especially cut-off and farm enterprises progressed, where new technologies were used to a greater extent. The yield in them exceeded similar indicators of communal fields by 30-50%.

6.2. Much increased marketability peasant economy, also largely at the expense of farms and cuts. New farming systems and crops were introduced. From a third to a half of individual farmers participated in credit partnerships, which gave them funds for modernization. Over 1.6 million peasants attended agricultural courses.

6.2. On the whole a revolution in agroeconomics and agricultural technology did not occur However, when evaluating economic results, it is important to take into account that the reform, designed for decades, only managed to clarify the direction and gain momentum in a few years. Without large loans, land reclamation and other measures, the reform was not able to give great results, and such measures could not be carried out without the allocation of significant funds by the state.

7. Major social and political

results of the reform

In socio-political terms, the reform was a relative success.

7.1. social outcomes. The fate of the community

7.1.1. The destruction of the land community. The community, as a body of self-government in the Russian village, was not affected by the reform, but the socio-economic organism of the community began to collapse. The number of land communities decreased from 135,000 to 110,000. The process was especially fast in the most developed northwestern, southern, and southeastern regions, where the community was historically weaker.

Some historians believed that the reform failed, since only 26% of the peasants allegedly left the community, and the exit process began to fade from 1910. But only peasants who strengthened their interspersed plots into property were taken into account.

After 1910, there were fewer and fewer statements about strengthening the ownership of allotments and, accordingly, leaving the landed community. But land management processes have developed ever faster since that time. Landowners also became owners.

More than a third of its members have left the community, but the process has not yet been completed. Evidence of the growth of this trend is a significant number of applications for land management, most of which the land surveyors did not have time to complete by May 1915.

As a result, in the center of the country, together with members of the old-minded communities, at least 2/3 of the former communal peasantry were involved in the destruction of the land community. Taking into account the West and South of Russia, the Baltic states, Siberia, where land communities did not exist, by 1917 the majority of the country's peasantry were actually outside the land community.

It is also important to take into account that the reform, designed for at least two decades, had just begun, and only in 1910-1911 was the right direction for its deployment found.

7.1.2. The issue of community viability. At the same time, almost no disintegration of the community was observed in the central non-chernozem regions. It was here that cases of arsons of farms were more numerous, and peasants who wanted to leave the community often did not receive the consent of the village assembly. In the non-chernozem center, communal traditions were the strongest, and agriculture was the most backward in socio-economic terms. The low standard of living determined the desire of the peasants, who were not engaged in crafts here, to preserve the old leveling mechanism and the body of social protection.

The borderless communities, mainly located in Ukraine, for a number of other reasons also largely retained their integrity.

At the same time, the reform had a beneficial effect on the surviving communities. It revealed some viability of the community organization. Freed from potential proletarians who sold their allotments, the communities also gradually turned to the use of progressive methods of management. Over 2.5 million land use applications have been submitted by communities. Rural societies increasingly used multi-field and grass-sowing, which, however, did not become the predominant form of agrarian technology here.

7.2. Socio-political results of the reform.

7.2.1. Partial success. Cessation of peasant uprisings. At the first stage in 1907-1909. with the strengthening of allotments in property, often under pressure from zemstvo chiefs, the number of peasant protests (mainly against the arbitrariness of the authorities) began to grow, reaching almost 1 thousand in 1910. But after the shift in government policy to land management, the rejection of coercion and some economic successes peasant unrest almost ceased, decreasing in 1913 to 128.

7.2.2. Prevention of a general peasant uprising and a general redistribution. However, the main political goal was not achieved. As 1917 showed, the peasantry retained the ability of the whole world to oppose the landlords (and the regime that protected them), under the influence not so much of economic necessity as of the historical memory of centuries of serf oppression and hatred of bars.

In 1917, it became obvious that the agrarian reform was 50 years late, but the main reason for its relative failure was the socio-political half-heartedness of the transformations, which manifested itself in the preservation of the landowners' lands intact.

agrarian question occupied a central position in domestic politics. The beginning of the agrarian reform, the inspirer and developer of which was P.A. Stolypin, put a decree of November 9, 1906.

Stolypin reform

After a very difficult discussion in the State Duma and State Council the decree was approved by the king as a law from June 14, 1910. An addition to it was the law on land management from May 29, 1911.

The main provision of the Stolypin reform was community destruction. For this, a stake was placed on the development of personal peasant property in the village by granting the peasants the right to leave the community and create farms, cuts.

An important point of the reform: the landowner's ownership of land was preserved intact. This provoked sharp opposition from the peasant deputies in the Duma and from the masses of peasants.

Another measure proposed by Stolypin was supposed to destroy the community: resettlement of peasants. The purpose of this action was twofold. The socio-economic goal is to obtain a land fund, primarily in the central regions of Russia, where the lack of land among the peasants made it difficult to create farms and cuts. In addition, this made it possible to develop new territories, i.e. further development capitalism, although this oriented him towards an extensive path. The political goal is to defuse social tension in the center of the country. The main areas of resettlement are Siberia, Central Asia, the North Caucasus, and Kazakhstan. The government allocated funds to the settlers for travel and settling in a new place, but practice has shown that they were clearly not enough.

In the period 1905 - 1916. about 3 million householders left the community, which is approximately 1/3 of their number in the provinces where the reform was carried out. This means that it was not possible to destroy the community, nor to create a stable layer of owners. This conclusion is supplemented by data on the failure of the resettlement policy. In 1908 - 1909. the number of migrants amounted to 1.3 million people, but very soon many of them began to return back. The reasons were different: the bureaucracy of the Russian bureaucracy, the lack of funds for arranging a household, ignorance of local conditions, and the more than reserved attitude of the old-timers towards the settlers. Many died on the way or went bankrupt.

Thus, the social goals set by the government were not achieved. But the reform accelerated the stratification in the countryside - the rural bourgeoisie and the proletariat were formed. It is obvious that the destruction of the community opened the way for capitalist development, since the community was a feudal relic.