Content and results of Stolypin's reforms. Stolypin agrarian reform

Synopsis on the history of Russia

P.A. Stolypin(1862-1911). In 1906-1911. Stolypin - Chairman of the Council of Ministers and Minister of the Interior. Principles of activity: appeasement and reforms, - "Give the state 20 years of internal and external peace, and you will not recognize today's Russia", "You need great upheavals, but we need great Russia." Made a bet on the bottoms. Neither the government nor the court understood Stolypin. In 1911, he was killed at a performance in the Kiev opera, where the sovereign was (the killer - Bagrov: the son of a lawyer, landowner; he was associated with the Social Democrats, Socialist-Revolutionaries, anarcho-communists, but worked for the secret police; he was hanged).

Reform of 1861- the first stage of the transition to the individualization of land ownership and land use. But the abolition of serfdom did not lead to the progress of private property. In the 1980s and 1990s, the government sought to plant communal structures in the countryside, which, in the future, contradicted free peasant property. The reforms initiated by P.A. Stolypin could overcome these difficulties. His concept offered a way for the development of a mixed, multi-structural economy, where state forms of economy had to compete with collective and private ones.

Elements of his program- the transition to farms, the use of cooperation, the development of land reclamation, the introduction of a three-stage agricultural education, the organization of cheap credit for the peasants, the formation of an agricultural party that would really represent the interests of the small landowner.

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

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

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

Peasant bank.

On a grand scale, the Bank carried out the purchase of land with their subsequent resale to peasants on preferential terms, intermediary operations to increase peasant land use. He increased credit to the peasants and significantly reduced its cost, and the bank paid a higher interest on its obligations than the peasants paid it. The difference in payment was covered by subsidies from the budget.

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

The destruction of the community and the development of private property.

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.

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. The development of various forms of credit: mortgage, reclamation, agricultural, land management - contributed to the intensification of market relations in the countryside.

In 1907 - 1915. 25% of households declared about separation from the community, but 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.

Resettlement of peasants in Siberia.

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. In 1906-1913, 2792.8 thousand people moved beyond the Urals. The scale of this event also led to difficulties in its implementation. The number of peasants who failed to adapt to new conditions and were forced to return was 12% of the total number of migrants.

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. 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.

cooperative movement.

The loans of the peasant bank could not fully satisfy the demand of the peasant for money goods. Therefore, credit cooperation, which has gone through two stages in its movement, has received significant distribution. At the first stage, administrative forms of regulation of small credit relations prevailed. By creating a qualified cadre of small credit inspectors, and by allocating substantial loans through state banks for initial loans to credit partnerships and for subsequent loans, the government stimulated the cooperative movement. At the second stage, rural credit associations, accumulating their own capital, developed independently.

As a result, a wide network of institutions of small peasant credit, loan and savings banks and credit associations was created that served the money circulation of peasant farms. By January 1, 1914, the number of such institutions exceeded 13,000.

Credit relations gave a strong impetus to the development of production, consumer and marketing cooperatives. Peasants created artels, agricultural societies, consumer shops, etc. on a cooperative basis.

agricultural activities.

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

The results of the reforms.

The results of the reform were characterized by a rapid growth in agricultural production, an increase in the capacity of the domestic market, an increase in the export of agricultural products, and the trade balance of Russia became more and more active. As a result, it was possible not only to bring agriculture out of the crisis, but also to turn it into the dominant feature of Russia's economic development.

The gross income of all agriculture in 1913 amounted to 52.6% of the total GDP. 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%.

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

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

After the completion of the revolutionary events in Russia, a period of reform began, in which the Minister of the Interior P.A. took an active part. Stolypin. Considering the preservation of the peasant community as the main reason for the stagnation, he directed all efforts towards its destruction. At the same time, the strengthening of peasant private ownership of land began.

All reforms had to take place with the consent of the autocracy, the nobility and the bourgeoisie. Their ultimate goal was to change the balance of class forces in favor of the bourgeoisie, to join the peasants, who, becoming small landowners, were to serve as a support for autocratic power in the countryside. The most important goal of the reform is Russia's integration into the world economic system.

The main problem facing the rural producer was land hunger in the European part of Russia. The lack of land of the peasantry was explained by the concentration of huge allotments in the hands of the landowners and the very high population density in the center of the country.

In June 1906, Stolypin began to carry out moderate reforms. The decree of November 9, 1906 allowed the peasant to leave the community. He had the right to demand the unification of allotment plots into a single cut or move to a farm. A fund was created from part of the state, imperial and landlord lands for sale to peasants. A specially opened peasant bank issued cash loans for purchases.

The implementation of the decree was entrusted to the provincial and district land management commissions, consisting of officials and peasants, chaired by the governor and the district marshal of the nobility.

On May 29, 1911, a law was issued to expand the rights of land management commissions to form cuts (a plot allocated to a peasant from the land of a community) and farms (a separate peasant estate with land). These measures were supposed to destroy the peasant community and increase the number of small proprietors.

The problem of lack of land was solved by the resettlement of peasants in order to develop the lands of Siberia and Central Asia and the development of handicraft peasant and handicraft farms in the central part of the country. This reduced the peasantry's need for land.

The reform also had political goals. The resettlement of peasants from the central part of the country contributed to the removal of the sharpness of the class confrontation between peasants and landowners. The exit of peasants from the community where communist ideology reigned reduced the risk of them being drawn into the revolution.

The Stolypin reform was generally progressive in nature. Having completely buried the remnants of feudalism, it revived bourgeois relations and gave impetus to the productive forces in the countryside. By 1926, 20-35% of the peasants separated from the community, 10% were brought in by farms, the specialization of agriculture increased, the area of ​​sown land, the gross grain harvest and its export increased.

A significant part of the peasantry, which consisted of the middle peasants, was in no hurry to leave the community. The poor left the community, sold their allotments and went to the city. 20% of the peasants who took loans from banks went bankrupt.

Only the kulaks, who had the means to invest in the economy, sought to form farms and cuts. 16% of the settlers, unable to gain a foothold in new places, returned and, having joined the ranks of the proletariat, increased social tension in the country.

In an effort to turn Russia into a prosperous bourgeois state, Stolypin tried to carry out reforms in various areas (laws on civil equality, personal immunity, freedom of religion, on the development of local self-government, on the transformation of the judiciary and police system, national and labor issues).

Almost all of Stolypin's bills were not adopted by the State Council. His initiatives were not supported by both tsarism and democratic forces. The failure to reform the country predetermined the revolutionary events of 1917.

When P. A. Stolypin came to power, life in the state changed significantly. The new leader tried to raise the country's economy and contribute to its further development as a whole, so he immediately released a series of reforms, one of which was Agrarian. The main goals of this reform were:
transfer of allotment lands to the ownership of peasants;
the gradual abolition of the rural community as a collective land owner;
extensive lending to peasants;
buying up landed estates for resale to peasants on preferential terms;
land management, which makes it possible to optimize the peasant economy due to the elimination of striped crops.
As we can see, the reform pursued both long-term and short-term goals.
Short-term: resolution of the "agrarian question" as a source of mass discontent (first of all, the cessation of agrarian unrest). Long-term: sustainable prosperity and development of agriculture and the peasantry, the integration of the peasantry into the market economy.
Stolypin's agrarian reform briefly says that the document was aimed at improving peasant allotment land use and had little effect on private land ownership. It was held in 47 provinces of European Russia; the Cossack land tenure and the land tenure of the Bashkirs were not affected. The idea of ​​agrarian reform arose as a result of the revolution of 1905-1907, when agrarian unrest intensified, and the activities of the first three State Dumas. In 1905, the agrarian unrest reached its peak, and the government barely had time to suppress it. Stolypin at that time was the governor of the Saratov province, where the unrest was especially strong due to crop failure. In April 1906, P. A. Stolypin was appointed Minister of the Interior. The government project on the forced alienation of part of the landed estates was not adopted, the Duma was dissolved, and Stolypin was appointed chairman of the Council of Ministers. Due to the fact that the situation with the agrarian question remained uncertain, Stolypin decided to adopt all the necessary legal provisions without waiting for the convocation of the Second Duma. On August 27, a decree was issued on the sale of state lands to peasants. On October 14 and 15, decrees were issued that expanded the activities of the Peasant Land Bank and facilitated the conditions for the purchase of land by peasants on credit.
On November 9, 1906, the main legislative act of the reform was issued - the decree "On supplementing some resolutions of the current law concerning peasant land ownership and land use", proclaiming the right of peasants to secure their allotment lands in ownership.
Thanks to Stolypin's bold step, the reform became irreversible. The Second Duma expressed an even more negative attitude towards any undertakings of the government. It was dissolved after 102 days. There was no compromise between the Dumas and the government.
The III Duma, without rejecting the government's course, adopted all government bills for an extremely long time. As a result, since 1907, the government has abandoned active legislative activity in agrarian policy and proceeds to expand the activities of government agencies, increase the volume of distributed loans and subsidies. Since 1907, the peasants' applications for fixing land ownership have been satisfied with great delays (there is not enough staff from the land management commissions). Therefore, the main efforts of the government were directed to the training of personnel (primarily land surveyors). But the funds allocated for the reform are also increasing, in the form of funding for the Peasant Land Bank, subsidizing agronomic assistance measures, and direct benefits to peasants.
Since 1910, the government's course has changed somewhat - more attention is being paid to supporting the cooperative movement.
On September 5, 1911, P. A. Stolypin was assassinated, and Finance Minister V. N. Kokovtsov became prime minister. Kokovtsov, who showed less initiative than Stolypin, followed the outlined course without introducing anything new into the agrarian reform. The volume of land management work to allocate land, the amount of land assigned to the property of peasants, the amount of land sold to peasants through the Peasants' Bank, the volume of loans to peasants grew steadily until the outbreak of the First World War.
During 1906-1911. decrees were issued, as a result of which the peasants had the opportunity:
take possession of the property;
freely leave the community and choose another place of residence;
to move to the Urals in order to receive land (about 15 hectares) and money from the state to raise the economy;
settlers received tax benefits and were exempted from military service.
This is a rhetorical question when evaluating the activities of reformers; it does not have an unequivocal answer. Each generation will give its own answer to it.
Stolypin stopped the revolution and began profound reforms. At the same time, he fell victim to an assassination attempt, was unable to complete his reforms and did not achieve his main goal: to create a great Russia in 20 years of peace.
During his reign, the following changes took place:
1. The cooperative movement developed.
2. The number of wealthy peasants has increased.
3. In terms of gross grain harvest, Russia was in 1st place in the world.
4. The number of livestock increased by 2.5 times.
5. About 2.5 million people moved to new lands.

In Russian society, the most important issue has always been agrarian. The peasants, who became free in 1861, did not actually receive land as property. They were strangled by land shortages, the community, the landlords, therefore, during the revolution of 1905-1907. Russia's fate was decided in the countryside.

All reforms of P.A. Stolypin, who headed the government in 1906, one way or another were sent to reform the countryside. The most important of them was the land, called "Stolypin", although its project was developed before him. The essence of the reform was that the government abandoned the previous policy of supporting the community and moved on to its violent breaking.

As you know, the community was an organizational and economic association of peasants for the use of a common forest, pasture and watering place, an alliance in relations with the authorities, a kind of social organism that gave villagers small life guarantees. At the same time, communal land tenure delayed the natural process of stratification of the peasantry and placed an obstacle in the way of the formation of a class of small peasant proprietors. The inalienability of allotment lands made it impossible to obtain loans secured by them, and striping and periodic redistribution of land prevented the transition to more productive forms of its use, so giving peasants the right to freely leave the community was a long overdue economic necessity. A feature of the Stolypin agrarian reform was the desire to quickly destroy the community. The main reason for this attitude of the authorities towards the community was the revolutionary events and agrarian unrest in 1905–1906.

P.A. Stolypin noted: "A wild, half-naked village, not accustomed to respecting either its own or other people's property, not afraid, acting in peace, no responsibility, will always present hot material, ready to flare up on every occasion." In this regard, another no less important goal of the land reform was the socio-political one, since it was required to create a class of small proprietors as a social support for the autocracy as the main unit of the state, which is opposed to any destructive theories (Scheme 194).

The implementation of the reform was initiated by the tsar's decree of November 9, 1906, under the modest title "On Supplementing Certain Regulations of the Current Law Concerning Peasant Land Ownership", according to which free exit from the community was allowed. The land plots that had been in the use of the peasants since the last redistribution were assigned to the property, regardless of the change in the number of souls in the family. There was an opportunity to sell your allotment, as well as to allocate land in one place - on a farm or a cut. At the same time, all this involved the lifting of restrictions on the movement of peasants around the country, the transfer of part of the state and specific lands to the Peasant Land Bank to expand operations for the purchase and sale of land, the organization of a resettlement movement in Siberia in order to provide landless and landless peasants with allotments through the development of vast eastern expanses .

The decree of November 9, 1906 was then transformed into permanent laws adopted on July 14, 1910 and May 19, 1911, which provided for additional measures to speed up the withdrawal of peasants from the community. For example, in the case of land management work to eliminate striping within the community, its members could henceforth be considered the owners of the land, even if they did not ask for it.

Scheme 194

In addition to the agrarian reforms, Stolypin's reforms included changes in other areas, the implementation of which was supposed to bring Russia out of a state of permanent crisis and lead to stability. Among them were:

• the reform of local government and self-government, which involved the abolition of estate management of the peasantry and the introduction of non-estate volost institutions;
• reform in the system of public education, which provided for the widespread construction of rural schools and the transition to compulsory primary education in order to turn the downtrodden and ignorant peasant into a competent landowner;
• measures aimed at improving the situation of workers (creating a system of their insurance, introducing rules on employment, reducing working hours, etc.)

Agrarian reform P.A. Stolypin can be considered incomplete and not entirely successful. By January 1, 1916, 2.5 million owners separated from the community and assigned land allotments to personal ownership, which accounted for 26% of all common households. And, as practice has shown, it was mostly not those who were mainly counted on by the government - strong owners - but the poor and former rural residents who were firmly settled in the city and remembered that they once had land and now it can be sold .

During this period, the country experienced an increase in agricultural production. In 1909–1913 the harvesting of grain and its export abroad increased, but, apparently, the trends towards this (expansion of the area under crops, etc.) could be traced even before the reform. The reform brought the most tangible result in Siberia. After 1905, about 3.7 million people moved beyond the Urals, of which about 1 million returned, 700 thousand dispersed across Siberia, and only 2 million, i.e. a little more than half managed to gain a foothold on the ground. The loan for a resettlement family was 150 rubles. It was here that the sown area for grain increased by 62% and the peasant trade corporation began to develop rapidly.

The implementation of the reformist plans of P.A. Stolypin was hampered by other factors:

Temporary - the reforms required a significant period of time, and not five years, which P.A. Stolypin;

Table 36

The State Duma and the experience of Russian parliamentarism

(1906 – 1917)

• administrative - resistance of a part of the state apparatus;
• socio-political - the struggle of political forces, both right and left, who saw in the reforms of P.A. Stolypin a threat to his influence;
• personal - difficult relationship with Nicholas II and his inner circle.

In conditions of acute political struggle, the work of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, was carried out, the main milestones of whose activities are given in Table. 36.

The reforms carried out in the country under the influence of the revolution of 1905-1907, as was almost always the case in the history of Russia, turned out to be belated and were possible only within the framework that the autocracy agreed to or forced on by the people. In this regard, the idea began to form in the public mind that revolutionary pressure on the government was becoming the preferred means of political struggle in Russia. And the events of 1917 confirmed this.

Agrarian transformation (briefly - Stolypin's reform) is a generalized name for a whole range of activities that have been carried out in the field of agriculture since 1906. These changes were led by P. A. Stolypin. The main goal of all activities was to create conditions for attracting peasants to work on their land.

In the past, the system of such transformations (the reforms of P. A. Stolypin - briefly) was criticized in every possible way, today it is customary to praise it. At the same time, no one wants to fully understand it. It should also not be forgotten that Stolypin himself was not the author of the agrarian reform, it was only part of the general system of reforms conceived by him.

Stolypin as Minister of the Interior

The relatively young Stolypin came to power without much struggle and labor. His candidacy was nominated in 1905 by Prince A. D. Obolensky, who was his relative and chief prosecutor of the Synod. The opponent of this candidacy was S. Yu. Witte, who saw another person as the Minister of the Interior.

Having come to power, Stolypin failed to change the attitude of the Cabinet of Ministers. Many officials never became his like-minded people. For example, V. N. Kakovo, who held the post of Minister of Finance, was very skeptical about Stolypin's ideas regarding the solution of the agrarian issue - he spared money for this.

In order to protect himself and his family, Stolypin, at the suggestion of the tsar, moved to the Winter Palace, which was reliably guarded.

The most difficult decision for him was the adoption of a decree on courts-martial. He later admitted that he was forced to bear this "heavy cross" against his own will. Stolypin's reforms are described below (briefly).

General description of the modernization program

When the peasant movement began to decline by the autumn of 1906, the government announced its plans regarding the agrarian issue. The so-called Stolypin program began with a decree dated 09.11.1906. Stolypin's agrarian reform followed, briefly described in the article.

While still the governor of Saratov, the future minister wanted to organize assistance for the creation of strong individual farms for peasants on the basis of state lands. Such actions were supposed to show the peasants a new path and encourage them to abandon communal land ownership.

Another official, V. I. Gurko, developed a project whose goal was to create farms on peasant lands, and not on state lands. The difference was significant. But even this Gurko considered not the most important. Its main goal was to secure allotment land in the ownership of the peasants. According to this plan, any member of the peasant community could take away his allotment, and no one had the right to reduce or change it. This would allow the government to split the community. The Stolypin reform (briefly - agrarian) was required by the unfavorable situation in the empire.

The situation in the country on the eve of the reform

In 1905-1907, as part of the revolution, peasant unrest took place in Russia. Together with problems within the country in 1905, Russia lost the war with Japan. All this spoke of serious problems that needed to be addressed.

At the same time, the State Duma begins its work. She gave the go-ahead to the reforms of Witte and Stolypin (briefly - agrarian).

Directions

The transformations were supposed to create strong economic allotments and destroy the collective ownership of land, which hampered further development. It was necessary to eradicate obsolete class restrictions, to encourage the purchase of land from landlords, to increase the turnover for running one's own economy through lending.

Stolypin's agrarian reform, which is briefly described in the article, was aimed at improving allotment land ownership and practically did not concern private property.

Main stages of modernization

By May 1906, a congress of noble societies was held, at which D. I. Pestrzhetsky made a report. He was one of the officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who was developing an agricultural project. His report criticized possible land transformations. It stated that throughout the country the peasants had no problems with a lack of land, and the nobles had no reason to alienate it. Some cases of land shortage were proposed to be solved by buying allotments through a bank and resettlement to the outskirts of the country.

The report caused ambiguous judgments of the nobles on this matter. The views on the reforms of Witte and Stolypin (briefly - agrarian reform) were just as ambiguous. There were also those (Count D. A. Olsufiev) who offered to compromise with the peasants. This meant selling them land, keeping the bulk of it. But such reasoning did not meet with support or even sympathy from the majority of those present.

The only thing on which almost everyone at the congress was unanimous was the negative attitude towards the communities. K. N. Grimm, V. L. Kushelev, A. P. Urusov and others attacked the peasant communities. Regarding them, the phrase was heard that "this is a swamp in which everything that could be in the open gets stuck." The nobles believed that for the benefit of the peasants, the community must be destroyed.

Those who tried to raise the question of the alienation of landowners' lands received no support. Back in 1905, when the manager of land management, N.N. Kutler, suggested that the tsar solve the problem of the lack of land for the peasants in this way, the ruler refused him and dismissed him.

Stolypin was also not an adherent of the forced expropriation of land, believing that everything goes on as usual. Some of the nobles, fearing the revolution, sold their land to the Peasants' Bank, which divided it into small plots and sold it to those peasants who were cramped in the community. This was the main point of Stolypin's reform briefly.

During 1905-1907, the bank bought more than 2.5 million acres of land from the landowners. However, the peasants, fearing the liquidation of private land ownership, practically did not make land purchases. During this time, only 170 thousand acres were sold by the bank. The activities of the bank caused discontent among the nobles. Further, land sales began to increase. The reform began to bear fruit only after 1911.

The results of Stolypin's reforms

Briefly statistics on the results of the agrarian reform:

• more than 6 million households have filed an application for fixing allotments in private ownership;
• by the February Revolution, about 30% of the land was transferred to the ownership of peasants and partnerships;
• with the help of the mediation of the Peasants' Bank, the peasants acquired 9.6 million acres;
• landlord farms lost their significance as a mass phenomenon; by 1916, almost all land sowings were peasants.