wikademia>Wikademia: moved Russian Revolution/Week 3 to Archive:Russian Revolution/Week 3

2009-06-07T14:50:15Z

moved Russian Revolution/Week 3 to Archive:Russian Revolution/Week 3

← Older revision	Revision as of 14:50, 7 June 2009
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wikademia>Wikademia: 5 revisions

2009-05-20T14:18:24Z

5 revisions

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wikademia>Gabriel Spiro at 02:34, 3 June 2007

2007-06-03T02:34:17Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 02:34, 3 June 2007
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	==Questions==		==Questions==
	[[Russian Revolution/Questions#Week 3\|Week 3 Questions]]		[[Russian Revolution/Questions#Week 3\|Week 3 Questions]]
	[[Category:~~History~~]]		[[Category:Russian Revolution]]

	==Next week's materials==		==Next week's materials==
	[[Russian_Revolution/Week 4\|Week 4]]		[[Russian_Revolution/Week 4\|Week 4]]

wikademia>Gabriel Spiro: /* Questions */

2007-04-13T14:15:50Z

Questions

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	[[Russian Revolution/Questions#Week 3\|Week 3 Questions]]		[[Russian Revolution/Questions#Week 3\|Week 3 Questions]]
	[[Category:History]]		[[Category:History]]

			==Next week's materials==
			[[Russian_Revolution/Week 4\|Week 4]]

wikademia>JWSchmidt: Category:History

2007-01-11T01:38:46Z

Category:History

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	==Questions==		==Questions==
	[[Russian Revolution/Questions#Week 3\|Week 3 Questions]]		[[Russian Revolution/Questions#Week 3\|Week 3 Questions]]
			[[Category:History]]

wikademia>Gabriel Spiro at 01:18, 19 December 2006

2006-12-19T01:18:03Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 01:18, 19 December 2006
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	==== Outcome ====		==== Outcome ====
	The legislation neither freed the peasants from excessive external obligation nor greatly reordered their social and economic constraints. The uneven application of the legislation did leave many peasants in [[Congress Poland]] and northern Russia both free and landless (''[[batrak]]s''), while in other areas peasants became the majority land owners in their province(s).		The legislation neither freed the peasants from excessive external obligation nor greatly reordered their social and economic constraints. The uneven application of the legislation did leave many peasants in [[Congress Poland]] and northern Russia both free and landless (''[[batrak]]s''), while in other areas peasants became the majority land owners in their province(s).

			==Questions==
			[[Russian Revolution/Questions#Week 3\|Week 3 Questions]]

wikademia>Gabriel Spiro: New page: =Week 3= ==Freeing the Serfs== === Pre-reform Russia === Imperial Russia was a land of peasants, which made up at least 80% of the population. There were two main categories of pe...

2006-12-14T23:29:49Z

New page: =Week 3= ==Freeing the Serfs== === Pre-reform Russia === Imperial Russia was a land of peasants, which made up at least 80% of the population. There were two main categories of pe...

New page

=Week 3=
==Freeing the Serfs==
=== Pre-reform Russia ===

[[Imperial Russia]] was a land of [[peasants]], which made up at least 80% of the population. There were two main categories of peasants, those living on state lands and those living on the land of private landowners. Only the latter were serfs. As well as having obligations to the state, they also were obliged to the landowner, who had great power over their lives. By the mid-nineteenth century, less than half of Russian peasants were serfs.

The rural population lived in households (''dvory'', singular ''dvor''), gathered as villages (''derevni'', lit. 'wood', larger villages were called ''selo''), run by a ''[[mir (social)|mir]]'' ('commune', or ''[[obshchina]]'') - isolated, conservative, largely self-sufficient and self-governing units scattered across the land every 10 km (6 miles) or so. There were around 20 million ''dvory'' in Imperial Russia, four in ten numbering from six to ten people.

Intensely insular, the ''mir'' assembly, the ''skhod'' (''sel'skii skhod''), appointed an elder (''[[starosta]]'') and a 'clerk' (''pisar'') to deal with any external issues. Land and resources were shared within the ''mir''. The fields were divided among the families as ''nadel'' - a complex of strip plots, distributed according to the quality of the soil. The strips were periodically redistributed (''peredely'') within the ''derevni'' to produce level economic conditions - albeit at the expense of actual efficiency. Despite this the land was not owned by the ''mir''; the land was the legal property of the 100,000 or so land-owners (''[[dvoryanstvo]]'') and the inhabitants, as serfs, were not allowed to leave the property where they were born. The peasants were duty bound to make regular payments in labour and goods, usually working the land half-and-half for themselves and the land-owner.

The need for urgent reform was well understood in 19th-century Russia, and various projects of emancipation reforms were prepared by [[Mikhail Speransky]], [[Nikolay Mordvinov]], and [[Pavel Kiselev]]. Their efforts were, however, thwarted by conservative or reactionary nobility.

==== Emancipation Manifesto ====

The liberal politicians who stood behind the 1861 manifesto - [[Nikolay Milyutin]] and [[Yakov Rostovtsev]] - also recognised that their country was one of a few remaining feudal states in [[Europe]]. The pitiful display by Russian forces in the [[Crimean War]] left the government acutely aware of the empire's backwardness. Eager to grow and develop industrially, hence military and political strength, there were a number of economic reforms. As part of this the end of serfdom was considered. It was optimistically hoped that after the abolition the ''mir'' would dissolve into individual peasant land owners and the beginnings of a market economy.

[[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander]], unlike his father, was willing to deal with this problem. Moving on from a petition from the [[Lithuania|Lithuanian]] provinces, a committee "for ameliorating the condition of the peasants" was founded and the principles of the abolition considered.

The main point at issue was whether the serfs should remain dependent on the landlords, or whether they should be transformed into a class of independent communal proprietors.

The land-owners initially pushed for granting the peasants freedom but not any land. The tsar and his advisers, mindful of [[Revolutions of 1848|1848]], were opposed to creating a [[proletariat]] and the instability this could bring. But giving the peasants freedom ''and'' land seemed to leave the existing land-owners without the large and cheap labour-force they needed to maintain their estates.

To 'balance' this, the legislation contained three measures to reduce the potential economic self-sufficiency of the peasants. Firstly a transition period of nine years was introduced, during which the peasant was obligated as before to the old land-owner. Additionally large parts of common land were passed to the major land-owners as ''otrezki'', making many forests, roads and rivers only accessible for a fee. The third measure was that the serfs must pay the land-owner for their allocation of land in a series of redemption payments, which in turn, were used to compensate the landowners with bonds. The total sum would be advanced by the government to the land-owner and then the peasants would repay the money, plus interest, to the government over forty-nine years. Redemption payments were finally cancelled in 1907.

==== Implementation ====
Although well planned in the legislation, the reform did not work smoothly.

The land-owners and nobility were paid in government bonds and their debts were removed from the money before it was handed over. The bonds soon fell in value, combined with the generally poor management skills of the land-owners under the new conditions there

==== Outcome ====
The legislation neither freed the peasants from excessive external obligation nor greatly reordered their social and economic constraints. The uneven application of the legislation did leave many peasants in [[Congress Poland]] and northern Russia both free and landless (''[[batrak]]s''), while in other areas peasants became the majority land owners in their province(s).