Introduction

In the history of Russia in the first years of the twentieth century, the personality of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin stood out with exceptional force. The name of Stolypin has always caused controversy, different opinions. None of the political leaders of tsarism at the beginning of the 20th century can compare with him in the devoted and enthusiastic memory of his admirers and the concentrated hatred of the revolutionaries.

Stolypin clearly saw the main reasons for such a disastrous situation in Russia, and most importantly, he was able to propose and in many respects implement grandiose plans for its transformation, ensuring the comprehensive and rapid development of the country. Stolypin saw the main reason for the stagnation of Russian agriculture in communal land use.

Agrarian reform P.A. Stolypin

In the autumn of 1906, a recession began to appear in the peasant movement, and the government finally revealed its plans for the agrarian question.

On November 9, 1906, a decree was issued, which had the modest title "On the Supplement of Certain Resolutions of the Current Law Concerning Peasant Land Ownership and Land Use." Thus began the Stolypin agrarian reform, or rather, the agrarian program began, and the agrarian reform was only part of it.

The Stolypin agrarian reform, about which much is being said and written these days, is, in fact, a conditional concept. In the sense it is conditional that, firstly, it did not constitute an integral plan and, upon closer examination, it breaks up into a number of events that are not always well connected with each other. Secondly, the name of the reform is not entirely correct, because Stolypin was neither the author of its main concepts, nor the developer. And, finally, thirdly, Stolypin, of course, had his own ideas, which he tried to realize.

We remember that Stolypin, as governor of Saratov, offered to organize extensive assistance in the creation of strong individual peasant farms on state and bank lands. These farms were supposed to become an example for the surrounding peasants, to push them towards the gradual abandonment of communal land ownership.

Stolypin pursued an agrarian policy in Russia, which, while maintaining landownership, contributed to the development of agriculture along the capitalist path. On August 12, 1906 followed by a decree on the transfer of agricultural specific lands (the property of the imperial family) to the Peasant Bank. On August 27, a new decree was issued - on the procedure for selling state lands, on September 19 - on the procedure for selling state lands to peasants in Altai (the property of Nicholas II), and on October 19 of the same year, a decree followed that allowed the Peasant Bank to issue loans to peasants secured by allotment land. Thus, a national land fund was created, which made it possible to launch a broad program of resettlement of farmers from zones of agrarian overpopulation to more empty areas (mainly from the central part of European Russia to the East).

In October 1906 a decree followed, equalizing the rights of the peasantry with all other estates in relation to state and military service, admission to educational institutions. Decree of November 9, 1906. peasants were allowed to leave the community without its permission and without high redemption payments. Thus, the state abandoned the policy of supporting the community and switched to supporting the small landowner. Such a measure inevitably led to the ruin of a significant part of the peasantry and the enrichment of another part of it. But it led to the emergence of a full-fledged subject of a market economy, which could only become one who withstood fierce competition.

The main point of the agrarian reform was to create a strong sole proprietor (kulak) in the countryside and clear the way for the development of capitalism in the countryside. By decree of November 9, each peasant was allowed to leave the community, according to the law of 1910. leaving became mandatory. Here are a few points from the Decree of November 9, 1906:

• - Every householder who owns allotment land on the basis of communal law may at any time demand that the part of the said land due to him be consolidated into his personal property.
• - Each householder, to whom plots of allotment land are assigned, has the right at any time to demand that the society allocate to him, in exchange for these plots, an appropriate plot, if possible, to one place.
• - The effect of these rules applies to peasants of all denominations ... "

The community did not have the right to reduce the allotment of land, not to move it. The owner was allowed to sell his allotment to anyone. From an agrotechnical point of view, this did not bring any benefit, but it contributed to the split of the community on the eve of the redistribution of land. The peasant bank bought up land, including landlords, divided them into plots and sold them to the peasants. Strong farms began to appear on banking lands. Sales rose steadily until 1911 but then declined. The record number of householders was reached in 1908. - more than 650 thousand. But by 1910. the number of exits began to decrease.

The reason was that the bulk of the peasants were reluctant to leave the community. In order to attract strong owners to its side, the government developed a draft law "On land management", which was signed by the tsar at the end of May 1911. In the first place in this law was placed not a striped fortification, but the formation of farms and cuts. The law was conceived so that the owners of farms and cuts would become the backbone of autocracy in the countryside. Now, at the request of the owner, the scattered allotments of his land could be united in one place. So it turned out a cut. If the square of a village estate, to which housing was transferred, joined it, the cut turned into a farm.

As a result of these measures, large land management work was required, so the reform began to pass from the department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the hands of the Main Directorate of Land Management and Agriculture. But in the land management department they decided not to deal with the allotments of individual householders, but to break up the whole community into cuts and farms, consent, which was often achieved through brute pressure. This led to mass fabrication of farms and cuts. The peasants resisted the transition to farms and cuts for purely practical reasons. Agriculture depended on the vagaries of the weather. Having received an allotment in one cut, the peasant found himself at the mercy of the natural elements. He could go broke in a dry year and make a fortune in a rainy year. Therefore, only a large cut could guarantee an annual harvest.

An important tool for the destruction of the community and the planting of small private property was the credit bank. Through it, the state helped many peasant families in acquiring land. The bank sold on credit the lands bought earlier from the landowners, or owned by the state. At the same time, a loan for an individual household was twice as low as for loans to a community. Between 1905 and 1914 9.5 million hectares of land passed into the hands of the peasants in this way.

“The main“ donors ”for the formation of the land fund of the Peasant Bank were the ruined landlords, who were unwilling or unable to effectively manage their economy in the conditions of capitalist competition. After 30 years, the advantage remains with private individuals.”

However, it should be noted that the terms of the sale were quite strict - for late payments, the land was taken away from the buyer and returned to the bank fund for a new sale. According to N. Werth, this policy was very reasonable in relation to the most efficient part of the peasants, it helped them, but could not solve the agrarian issue as a whole (the poor peasants could not acquire land). Moreover, allocation to a separate farm usually did not provide plots sufficient for efficient work, and even loans did not significantly change things, and Stolypin set a course for the resettlement of peasants on free state lands.

Mass resettlement was organized in order to enrich some peasants at the expense of others without endowing the peasants with landowners' land, dissolving the community and facilitating the transfer of what belonged to the poor to the property of wealthy peasants. Those left without land had to be, firstly, accepted by the city, and secondly, the outskirts, where resettlement was organized. From this point of view, Stolypin tried to reach a compromise of social forces, so that, on the one hand, not to infringe on the legal rights of the landlords to land, and on the other, to provide land for the most conscious part of the peasantry - as it was supposed, the support of the autocracy.

In late August - early September 1910, P. Stolypin and the chief manager of land management and agriculture A. Krivoshein made a trip to Siberia. At the end of the delegation, a report was drawn up, taking into account which Stolypin and Krivoshein put forward a comprehensive program for the privatization of Siberian land. In a short time, a package of bills and resolutions was developed aimed at introducing private ownership of land in Siberia. Already in November 1910, the Main Directorate of Land Management and Agriculture sent to the State Duma the most important of those documents - "Regulations on the land arrangement of peasants and foreigners on state lands of Siberian provinces and regions." Its essence was very decisive: without any redemption, to give the land to the Siberian rural inhabitants in the property.

Stolypin and Krivoshein, no less than the settlers themselves, “wondered and rejoiced at their free, healthy, successful life in new places, their good villages, even entire cities, where three years ago there was not a single person. And this is only for the initial four years, when the grain harvest rose to 4 billion poods.

The task of the resettlement administration, as already mentioned, was to resolve the pressing issue of overpopulation in the central provinces of Russia. The main areas of resettlement were Siberia, Central Asia, the Far East and the North Caucasus. The government in every possible way encouraged the settlement of these regions: all obstacles were removed and a serious incentive was created for resettlement in the developed regions of the country. Credits granted to settlers increased four times in comparison with the period 1900-1904. The passage was free, special in design, "Stolypin" cars, allowed to carry livestock and property with them. They differed from ordinary ones in that their rear part was a room the entire width of the wagon, which was intended for peasant livestock and implements. These wagons gained ominous fame later, after the death of Stolypin himself, when they began to deliver peasants to camps in them. But for the peasants, accustomed to such conditions, spending ten days in the Stolypin carriage did not seem something terrible and unbearable, as they often try to imagine.

But still people came back. A significant surge of returnees in 1910 and 1911 is explained by the fact that the relevant services did not have time to find the studied places for the avalanche of migrants.

Stolypin wanted to understand why people return and came to the conclusion that a number of serious amendments and clarifications were needed in the resettlement policy. With reluctance, the settlers went to the taiga, but there was a real pilgrimage to the Altai.

Taking into account all the lands, bringing the plots up to the established norms and some restriction of the old-timers in the land, or rather, involving them in its more prudent use, will also become an occasion for attacks on Stolypin for allegedly oppressing indigenous Siberians. Being a principled supporter of private property and categorically rejecting the community, Stolypin, nevertheless, believed that at the stage of mass resettlement, the most important thing is the speedy inclusion of all settlers in the economic circulation, as well as the development of infrastructure - the construction of roads and the like.

Historians generally believe that the results were very far from what was expected. Reforming agrarian relations, giving the peasants the right to private ownership of land was only partially successful, while the contradiction between peasants and landowners remained; carrying out land management work, the separation of the peasants from the community succeeded to a small extent - about 10% of the peasants separated from the farm; resettlement of peasants in Siberia, Central Asia, the Far East to some extent succeeded. These are the conclusions, for an objective assessment it is necessary to turn to the main figures and facts.

In about ten years, only 2.5 million peasant households managed to free themselves from the guardianship of the community. The movement to abolish "secular" rule in the countryside reached its highest point between 1908 and 1909. (about half a million requests annually). However, this movement has since declined markedly. Cases of the complete dissolution of the community as a whole were extremely rare (about 130 thousand). "Free" peasant landholdings accounted for only 15% of the total area of ​​cultivated land. Hardly half of the peasants working on these lands (1.2 million) got cuts and farms, permanently assigned to them, in private ownership. Only 8% of the total number of workers were able to become owners, but they were lost throughout the country.

The land management policy did not give cardinal results. The Stolypin land management, having reshuffled the allotment lands, did not change the land system, it remained the same - adapted to bondage and working off, and not to the latest agriculture of the decree of November 9th.

The activities of the peasant bank also did not give the desired results. In total for 1906-1915. the bank purchased 4,614 thousand acres of land for sale to peasants, raising prices from 105 rubles. in 1907 up to 136 rubles. in 1914 for a tithe of land. High prices and large payments imposed by the bank on borrowers led to the ruin of a mass of farmers and otrubniks. All this undermined the confidence of the peasants in the bank, and the number of new borrowers went down.

The resettlement policy clearly demonstrated the methods and results of the Stolypin agrarian policy. Settlers preferred to settle in already inhabited places, such as the Urals, Western Siberia, rather than engage in the development of deserted forest areas. Between 1907 and 1914. 3.5 million people left for Siberia, about 1 million returned to the European part of Russia, but without money and hopes, because the former farm was sold.

In short, the reform failed. It has not achieved either the economic or political goals that were set before it. The village in a place with farms and cuts remained the same impoverished as before Stolypin. The main task - to make Russia a country of farmers - could not be solved. Most of the peasants continued to live in the community, and this, in particular, predetermined the course of events in 1717. The fact is that the Stolypin course failed politically. He did not make the peasant forget about the landed estates. The kulak newly minted by the reform, while plundering communal land, kept in mind the landowner's as well as the rest of the peasants.

The agrarian question is always the main one for Russia

Since 1906, the Russian government under the leadership of P.A. Stolypin carried out a set of measures in the field of agriculture. These activities are collectively referred to as Stolypin agrarian reform.

Main objectives of the reform:

• 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.

The reform set both short-term and long-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.

Goals of agrarian reform

The agrarian reform 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 (all provinces, except for the three provinces of the Ostzee region); the Cossack land tenure and the land tenure of the Bashkirs were not affected.

The Historic Need for Reform

P.A. Stolypin (third from left) visiting a farm near Moscow, October 1910

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 5, 1906, a decree was issued "On the abolition of certain restrictions on the rights of rural inhabitants and persons of other former taxable states" dedicated to improving the civil status of 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 the addition of some resolutions of the current law concerning peasant land ownership and land use" proclaiming the right of peasants to secure ownership of their allotment lands.

Thanks to the bold step of Stolypin (the issuance of laws under Article 87. This article allowed the government to adopt urgent laws without the approval of the Duma in the interval between the dissolution of one Duma and the convocation of a new one), 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.

Peasant life

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.

agrarian reform

Have the goals of Stolypin's reform been achieved?

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 peaceful years .

Nevertheless, during his activity the following results were achieved:

1. The cooperative movement developed.
2. The number of wealthy peasants increased.
3. According to the gross harvest of bread, 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.

The reform of peasant land ownership in Russia, which took place from 1906 to 1917. Named after its initiator P. A. Stolypin. The essence of the reform: Permission to leave the community for farms (decree of November 9, 1906), strengthening of the Peasant Bank, forced land management (laws of June 14, 1910 and May 29, 1911) and strengthening of the resettlement policy (moving the rural population of the central regions of Russia for permanent residence in sparsely populated outlying areas - Siberia, the Far East and the Steppe Territory as a means of internal colonization) were aimed at eliminating peasant land shortages, intensifying the economic activity of the peasantry on the basis of private ownership of land, and increasing the marketability of the peasant economy.

To carry out his reform, Stolypin skillfully took advantage of economic and political "trump cards". He used for his own purposes both the fragmentation of the revolutionary opposition and the lack of agreement among the radical intelligentsia.

1905-1911 became the years of the decline of the revolutionary movement. There was a final split in the Social Democrats over the possibility of continuing the social. revolution in Russia. Also, the economic recovery in the country contributed to the implementation of Stolypin's plans. At this time there was an increase in nationalism. The bourgeoisie sought to get rid of the presence of foreign capital.

the main objective was to expand the social the basis of the regime at the expense of broad sections of the peasantry and the prevention of a new agrarian war, by turning 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 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.

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 issue 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.

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.

The progress 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 the Stolypin Minister of the Interior.

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

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. 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.

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

In 1907 - 1915. 20% of householders separated from the community. New forms of land tenure became widespread: farms and cuts.

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

cooperative movement. 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.

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. The growth rate of labor productivity in agriculture was relatively slow.

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.

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

Socio-political results of the reform.

* Economic recovery * Agriculture is sustainable

* Increased purchasing power of the population

* Increased foreign exchange earnings associated with the export of grain

* The farmstead started only 10% of households * Wealthy peasants left the community more often than the poor * 20% of the peasants who took out loans went bankrupt * 16% of the settlers returned back

* Accelerated stratification

* The government did not satisfy the needs of the peasants in the land. In 1917 it became obvious that the agrarian reform was 50 years late.

The historical significance of the reform. The Stolypin agrarian reform is a conditional concept, because it does not constitute a whole plan and is divided into a number of separate measures. Stolypin did not even allow the thought of the complete elimination of landownership. The migration epic of 1906-1916, which gave so much to Siberia, had little effect on the position of the peasantry in central Russia. The number of those who left the Urals amounted to only 18% of the natural increase in the rural population over the years. With the beginning of the industrial boom, migration from the countryside to the city increased.

Despite favorable economic and political circumstances, Stolypin nevertheless made a number of mistakes that put his reform in jeopardy. Stolypin's first mistake was the lack of a well-thought-out policy towards the workers. Stolypin's second mistake was that he did not foresee the consequences of the intensive Russification of non-Russian peoples. He openly pursued a nationalistic Great Russian policy and placed all national minorities against himself and against the tsarist regime.

Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin and his reforms are one of the most controversial topics in the history of Russia. The prime minister has become a symbol of the "missed chance" of the empire to pass by the tragic and destructive revolution into a bright capitalist tomorrow.

The last reform in the history of the empire continued until its fall, while the reformer himself tragically died on September 5 (18), 1911. The murder of Stolypin is a reason to say: if he had survived, history would have gone very differently. His reforms, and above all the agrarian one, would put Russia on the path of modernization without a revolution. Or would you not take it out?

At the same time, it should be borne in mind that the reform, which now bears the name of Stolypin, was developed before he came to power and did not end with his death. The role of Peter Arkadyevich was to start the process, which continued under other leaders. What this reform could give, it did.

Whom to divide: the community or the landowners?

The key idea of ​​the transformation is to destroy the peasant community, to divide its lands. The criticism of the community is connected primarily with the redistribution of land, which violates the sacred right of private property, without which an efficient economy is hardly possible for a liberal. The community is considered an economic brake, because of which the Russian village could not follow the path of progress.

But after all, a third of the former landlord peasants switched to household land ownership, and there the redistributions were stopped. Why didn't they take the lead in labor productivity? In 46 provinces, with the exception of the Cossack lands, in 1905, 8.7 million households with 91.2 million acres owned land on communal law. Homesteading covered 2.7 million households with 20.5 million acres.

Household landownership was not more economically progressive than communal redistribution landownership, there was also developed striped land, “land relations are even more intricate here than in the communal village. The transition from the traditional three-field to more advanced crop rotation was even more difficult for the backyard village than for the communal one. In addition, the community determined the timing of sowing and harvesting, which was necessary in conditions of land shortage.

“Even the patchwork that arose during the redistribution and greatly interfered with the peasant economy, pursued the same goal of protecting it from ruin and preserving the available labor force in it. Having plots in different places, the peasant could count on an annual average harvest. In a dry year, bands in the lowlands and hollows helped out, in a rainy year - on the hills, ”writes the well-known researcher of the community P.N. Zyryanov.

When the peasants did not want to carry out redistributions, they were free not to do them. The community was not at all some kind of "serfdom", it acted democratically. Repartitions did not come from a good life. So, as the land tightness intensified in the Chernozem region, land redistributions returned, which almost stopped there in the 1860s-1870s.

Speaking about the role of the community in economic development, it should be remembered that it contributed to the spread of the three-field system, and she “had to confront the desire of some owners, captured by the hype of the market, to“ squeeze out ”the greatest profit from the land. The annual sowing of all arable land, even very fertile, led to its depletion. The community also contributed to the introduction of organic fertilizers, not only taking into account the manure of the soil during redistribution, but also requiring the community members to "fertilize the land with soil." Some communities, with the help of zemstvo agronomists, switched to multi-field and grass-sowing.

Stolypin's reforms were launched under the conditions of the revolution. Historians point to non-economic motives for the reforms: “By this time, the situation in the countryside had become threatening, and the government and landlord circles hoped to find a panacea for all ills in the elimination of the community ... a strong conservative support of power from wealthy peasant proprietors. The commune also seemed to be a lightning rod against landlordism, which the democrats pointed to as the true cause of the backwardness of the agrarian sector.

It was possible to overcome the agrarian hunger only by solving two problems: to move the surplus population out of the countryside and employ it there, and at the same time to increase labor productivity so that the workers remaining in the countryside could provide food for the entire population of the country. The second task required not only social changes, but also technical and cultural modernization. By definition, it could not happen quickly, and even under the condition of optimal social transformations in the countryside, the subsequent jump in labor productivity required time. In the second half of the XIX century. Russia still had this time, and at the beginning of the twentieth century. no longer - the revolutionary crisis was approaching faster.

In conditions of an acute shortage of land, a head start in time was required to solve the agrarian problem, and this could be given by the division of landowners' lands. But neither he nor the resettlement policy could guarantee a long-term solution to the problem, for which in reality there were very few opportunities in Russia.

Narodnik author N.P. Oganovsky, evaluating the results of the division of landowners' lands after the revolution of 1917, argued that even before it, the peasants controlled half of the former landlords' lands in the form of deeds and leases. As a result of the division of land, the allotment per consumer increased from 1.87 to 2.26 tithes - by 0.39 tithes, and excluding the rented - 0.2. This means the expansion of peasant allotments by 21% (11% excluding leased land) while removing the pressure of rent payments. This is a noticeable improvement. The standard of living of the peasants clearly benefited from the abolition of rent payments and the expansion of allotments, albeit a modest one. This did not remove the problems of low labor productivity and lack of land, but it gave a "breathing space" that could be used to solve the problems of intensifying production. Stolypin did not have the opportunity to get such a respite, since he stood guard over the landowners' property.

The famous St. Petersburg historian B.N. Mironov, who is positive about Stolypin's reforms, considers it a mistake of the Provisional Government to refuse the rapid distribution of landowners' lands (and it is hard to disagree with this). But all the more it is necessary to recognize this refusal as a shortcoming of Stolypin's agrarian policy. In his case, it was not a mistake - he simply could not encroach on the privileges of the aristocracy.

Scale of change

On November 9, 1906, a decree was adopted, which (formally in connection with the termination of the redemption operation) allowed the peasants to allocate their farm from the community along with the land. Stolypin's decree, confirmed by the law of 1910, encouraged leaving the community: "Each householder who owns allotment land on communal law may at any time demand that the portion of the designated land due to him be strengthened in his ownership."

If the peasant continued to live in the village, his plot was called a cut. If the community agreed, the plots of the peasant, scattered in different places, were exchanged so that the cut became a single plot. A peasant could stand out from the village to a farm, to a remote place. The land for the farm was cut off from the lands of the community, which made it difficult for grazing and other economic activities of the peasant world. Thus, the interests of the farmers (as a rule, the wealthy) came into conflict with the interests of the rest of the peasantry.

The peasants of the undivided communities, where the redistribution of the land was not carried out after 1861 (housekeepers), automatically received the right to register the land as private property.

In the villages where the peasants had already stopped the redistribution of land, almost nothing new happened, and in the villages where the community was strong and economically justified, conflicts arose between the community members and the peasants who separated from the community, on whose side the authorities acted. This struggle distracted the peasants from action against the landowners.

Gradually (already after the death of Stolypin), the reform entered a more relaxed course. If before the reform 2.8 million households already lived outside the redistribution community, then in 1914 this number increased to 5.5 million (44% of the peasants). In total, 1.9 million householders (22.1% of community members) left the community with an area of ​​almost 14 million acres (14% of community land). Another 469,000 members of undistributed communities received certificates for their allotments. 2.7 million withdrawal applications were submitted, but 256,000 peasants withdrew their applications. Thus, 27.2% of those who declared their desire to strengthen the land did not have time or could not do this by May 1, 1915. That is, even in the future, the indicators could increase by only a third. The peak of applications (650 thousand) and withdrawal from the community (579 thousand) falls on 1909.

87.4% of the owners of unrestricted communities did not leave the community either. And this is not surprising. In itself, leaving the commune, even an unrestricted one, created additional difficulties for the peasants without an obvious immediate gain. As A.P. Korelin, “the fact is that the fortification of the land into personal property in economic terms did not give the “allottes” any advantages, often putting the community in an impasse… benefits to those who left the community, with the exception, perhaps, of those who wanted to sell fortified land. The owners now interfered with each other's work because of the striping, there were more and more problems with grazing, and they had to spend more on fodder.

Advantages should have arisen from the allocation of farms and cuts, but this process of land management in conditions of land shortage was very complex and much more modest in scale. The peak of applications for land management falls on 1912-1914, in total 6.174 million applications were submitted and 2.376 million households were land-organized. On allotment lands, 300,000 farmsteads and 1.3 million cuts were created, which occupied 11% of allotment land, and together with courtyards that strengthened the land, 28%.

The land management process could continue further. By 1916, the preparation of land management files for 3.8 million households with an area of ​​34.3 million acres was completed. But the opportunities to improve the situation of the peasants, even with the help of such land surveying in conditions of land tightness, remained insignificant.

“It can be assumed that, having freed itself from the entrepreneurial and proletarian strata, the community even somewhat stabilized.” It survived as a “social protection institution” and managed to “ensure economic and agricultural progress to a certain extent,” concluded well-known researchers of Stolypin’s reforms A.P. Korelin and K.F. Shatsillo. Moreover, “the German professor Auhagen, who visited in 1911-1913. a number of Russian provinces, in order to clarify the progress of the reform, being its adherent, nevertheless noted that the community is not an enemy of progress, that it does not at all oppose the use of improved tools and machines, better seeds, the introduction of rational methods of cultivating fields, etc. Moreover, in the communities, it is not individual, especially developed and enterprising peasants who begin to improve their economy, but the entire community as a whole.

“On the eve of the First World War, when reapers began to enter into peasant life, many societies faced the question: either machines, or the former small strip, which allowed only a sickle. The government, as we know, offered the peasants to eliminate the striped strips by going to the farms and cutting them off. However, even before the Stolypin agrarian reform, the peasantry put forward its plan to mitigate the striped land while maintaining communal land ownership. The transition to "wide bands", which began in the early years of the twentieth century, continued later, ”writes P.N. Zyryanov.

The administration resisted this work, since it contradicted the principles of the Stolypin reform, solving the problem of striping differently and often more effectively - after all, “fortified” allotments interfered with consolidation, and the authorities forbade it, even when the owners of the allotments themselves did not mind. “In the above cases, we see the Stolypin agrarian reform from a side that is still little known,” sums up P.N. Zyryanov. - It was believed that this reform, despite its narrowness and, undoubtedly, violent nature, nevertheless carried with it agrotechnical progress. It turns out that only the progress that was prescribed in laws, circulars and instructions was planted. It was planted from above, not taking into account the circumstances (for example, the fact that not all small-land peasants are ready to go to the cuts, because this increased their dependence on the vagaries of the weather). And the progress that came from below, from the peasantry itself, most often stopped without hesitation, if it affected the reform in one way or another.

It is no coincidence that at the All-Russian Agricultural Congress of 1913, which brought together agronomists, the majority sharply criticized the reform, for example, as follows: “The land management law was put forward in the name of agronomic progress, and efforts aimed at achieving it are paralyzed at every step.” Zemstvos, for the most part, soon also refused to support the reform. They preferred to support cooperatives based not on private property, but on collective responsibility - like communities.

To reduce the severity of the "land hunger", Stolypin pursued a policy of development of Asian lands. Resettlement took place earlier - in 1885-1905. 1.5 million people moved beyond the Urals. In 1906-1914. - 3.5 million. 1 million returned, "probably replenishing the pauperized layers of the city and countryside." At the same time, some of those who remained in Siberia could not establish a household, but simply began to live here. Resettlement to Central Asia was associated with great difficulties due to the climate and the resistance of the local population.

“The migration flow was directed almost exclusively to a relatively narrow strip of agricultural Siberia. Here, the free supply of land was soon exhausted. It remained either to squeeze new settlers into the places already occupied and replace one overpopulated area with another, or to stop looking at resettlement as a means of alleviating the need for land in the interior regions of Russia.

Effects

The results of Stolypin's agrarian reform turned out to be contradictory. The increase in the collection of basic agricultural crops during the years of reforms decreased, the situation was even worse in cattle breeding. This is not surprising, given the division of common lands. “In economic terms, the allocation of farmers and cut off workers was often associated with a violation of the usual crop rotations and the entire agricultural cycle of work, which had an extremely negative effect on the economy of the community members.” At the same time, thanks to the support of officials, those who stood out could get the best land. The peasants protested against the "enslavement of the land into property", to which the authorities could respond with arrests.

Protests were also provoked by the actions of the townspeople, provoked by the reform, who had lost contact with the countryside, and now were returning to allocate and sell the allotment. Even before, the community could not stop a peasant who decided to leave for the city. But she kept the land for those who decided to stay in the village and cultivate it further. And in this regard, the Stolypin reform introduced a very unpleasant innovation for the peasants. Now the former peasant could sell this land. The former peasants, who had already lost contact with the land, returned for a while in order to “strengthen” (one root with serfdom), cut off part of the land from the peasants. Moreover, the opportunity to sell their part of the former peasant land and thus receive "lifting" led to the fact that the Stolypin reform increased the influx of people into the cities - obviously not ready for that. The proceeds from the sale of the allotment quickly ran out, and in the cities a marginal, disappointed mass of former peasants who could not find a place for themselves in a new life was growing.

The reverse side of the Stolypin agrarian policy and its effectiveness is the famine of 1911-1912. Peasants in the Russian Empire periodically starved before. The Stolypin reform did not turn the tide.

The stratification of the peasantry intensified. But Stolypin was mistaken in his hopes that the wealthy strata would become allies of the landowners and the autocracy. Even a supporter of Stolypin's reforms L.N. Litoshenko admitted: “From the point of view of the social world, the destruction of the community and the dispossession of a significant part of its members could not balance and calm the peasant environment. The political stake on the "strong man" was a dangerous game.

In 1909, an economic boom began in Russia. In terms of production growth, Russia came out on top in the world. Smelting of pig iron in 1909-1913. increased by 32% in the world, and by 64% in Russia. Capital in Russia grew by 2 billion rubles. But is it the Stolypin reform? The state placed large military orders at the factories - after the Russo-Japanese War, Russia prepared more carefully for new international conflicts. The pre-war arms race contributed to the accelerated growth of heavy industry. The outstripping growth rates were determined by the fact that Russia was going through a phase of industrial modernization, had cheap labor, which was the flip side of peasant poverty. Pre-war growth lasted no longer than the normal economic boom cycle, and there is no evidence that such a “Stolypin cycle” could have lasted much longer than usual without ending in another recession.

In general, the result of Stolypin's reforms, no matter how you treat them, is very modest. It was not possible to destroy the community. The impact on agricultural productivity has been controversial. Anyway, the reform did not give a systemic way out of the agrarian crisis and at the same time somewhat increased social tension in the cities.

A reform of this magnitude and direction could not seriously change the trajectory that led the empire to revolution. But the revolution itself could have taken place in very different ways. However, here the point is not in the Stolypin reform, but in the world war.

Plan

Introduction

The main provisions of the agrarian reform P.A. Stolypin

2. Implementation of the reform

3. Results of the reform

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

At the beginning of the twentieth century. as a result of the development of capitalist relations in Russia, the economic positions of the bourgeoisie continued to grow significantly. However, the remnants of feudal-serf relations hindered the growth of productive forces, interfered with the entrepreneurial activity of the bourgeoisie, which needed free land for the construction of factories, factories, railways, and also needed timber, minerals, and various raw materials. The backwardness of agriculture had a negative effect on the development of the domestic market.

The bourgeoisie still managed to acquire a significant part of the land. The bourgeoisization of a certain part of the landlords, first of all, relied on the capitalist restructuring of the estates themselves, which became suppliers of bread to the market and agricultural raw materials for industrial enterprises. Individual landlords invested their capital in industrial, transport and trade enterprises, were shareholders.

The bourgeoisie aspired to political dominance, but, fearing the masses of the people, preferred to wait for reforms. Being inconsistent, the Russian bourgeoisie made a deal with tsarism, desiring its preservation, and at the same time fought for participation in political power.

The autocracy, while generally defending the interests of the landowners, was also compelled to support the capitalists, contributing to the capitalist development of the country. The royal family itself acted as the largest feudal lord and capitalist. She possessed vast lands and various industrial enterprises. As in pre-reform times, it was difficult to separate state property and sovereign property.

An important event in the economic and social life of the country, primarily in the countryside, was the Stolypin agrarian reform, begun in 1906.

The purpose of this work is to study the agrarian reform of P.A. Stolypin. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to solve the following tasks of the work:

) to characterize the main provisions of the agrarian reform of P.A. Stolypin;

) review the progress of the reform;

) analyze the results of the reform.

1. The main provisions of the agrarian reform P.A. Stolypin

Despite the monopolistic development of industry, at the beginning of the twentieth century. Russia continued to be an agrarian country with a primitive level of agriculture. The share of agricultural production accounted for 2/3 of the value of the country's gross output. Most of the land, and especially the fertile land, belonged to the landowners: 70 million acres for 30,000 landowner families, i.e. on average, each landowner's estate accounted for about 2,333 acres. At the same time, 50 million peasants (approximately 10.5 million households) had 75 million acres of land, i.e. about 7 acres per farm.

Most of the grain production fell on kulak farms (about 2 billion poods out of 5 billion poods of the total crop). The landowners produced 600 million poods. Thus, the share of the middle peasants and the poor accounted for half of the gross harvest with a very low marketability (14.7%), because the grain was barely enough to feed the family and cattle. The average wheat yield per tithe was 55 poods in Russia, 89 poods in Austria, 157 poods in Germany, and 168 poods in Belgium; rye - respectively 56; 92; 127; 147 pounds.

At the beginning of the XX century. "Special meeting on the needs of the agricultural industry" revealed two alternatives associated with the names of S.Yu. Witte and V.K. Plehve. Witte outlined the main provisions of the village development program in the Note on the Peasant Business. In his opinion, the “agricultural issue”, which affected both the ruined landlords and the eternally half-starved landless peasants, could well be resolved on the basis of the personal initiative and capitalist enterprise of the entrepreneurs themselves - the “farmers”. Speaking against communal land ownership, he believed that everyone should be "equal" owners: the peasant - his piece of land, and the landowner - his huge latifundia. It was proposed to intensify the lending activities of the Peasants' Bank, to facilitate the resettlement of all comers to undeveloped lands.

According to Plehve, the peasant community should be preserved, the ruined landlord farms had to be supported by state means and methods.

Thus, the practical implementation of Witte's ideas would lead to the weakening of the monarchy, to the expansion of personal initiative and the capitalist mode of agricultural production. The results of Plehve's idea were to be an even greater enslavement of the peasantry, the strengthening of the autocracy, the encouragement of mismanagement of the landowners, which ultimately hampered not only agricultural production, but the entire complex of socio-economic development of Russia.

At the beginning of the XX century. in Russia, the class division of the population continued to be preserved. All residents of the Russian Empire (in 1897 - 125.6 million people, and in 1913 - 165.7 million, of which 50% were under 21 years old), according to duties in favor of the state and rights enshrined in legislation , were distributed according to the following classes: peasants (77.1% of the total population), bourgeois (10.6%), foreigners - residents of Central Asia, Eastern Siberia, the Caucasus and the North Caucasus, Astrakhan and Arkhangelsk provinces (6.6%), military Cossacks (2.3%), hereditary and personal nobles, officials not from the nobility (1.5%), foreigners (0.5%), Christian clergy (0.5%), hereditary and personal citizens (0.3 %), merchants (0.2%), persons of other classes (0.4%). Estates reflected the level of development of the country. At the same time, the development of capitalist relations formed new social groups - the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

Thus, at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Russia continued to be a predominantly agricultural country. After the reform of 1861, the stratification of the peasantry began, a few prosperous families emerged, and completely ruined families appeared. The middle peasants and the poor made up the bulk of the peasant population.

The global agricultural crisis that erupted in the late 1870s hit the Russian countryside: grain prices fell, arable land was curtailed on estates, and land was rented out at incredibly high prices. There were frequent crop failures and, accordingly, famine. In the agrarian sector of Russia, therefore, there were no positive changes, despair and hopelessness accumulated. Under the outward calm, visible to the government, lurked the threat of a powerful social explosion.

In the revolution of 1905-1907. the question of creating the conditions necessary for the victory of the "peasant" type of capitalism in bourgeois agrarian development was decided. But the revolution was defeated, and such conditions were not created. Naturally, Russia needed both political and economic reforms.

After the dissolution of the Second State Duma, Russia received a certain indefinite status - "constitutional, parliamentary autocracy", which laid the foundation for the so-called June 3 political system. The main architect of this system was P.A. Stolypin, appointed in July 1906 as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Defining his policy, Stolypin declared: "Where trains are bombed, civilians are robbed under the flag of social revolution, there the government is obliged to maintain order, ignoring cries of reaction." In his work, he focused on three problems:

) suppression of revolutionary unrest and crime;

) control over elections to the III State Duma;

) solution of the agrarian question.

To strengthen the elementary legal order and the possibility of reforms, Stolypin decided to put an end to revolutionary anarchy. The courts-martial established by him ruthlessly put things in order. As a result, within 5 months, the chaos and the increase in crime were over.

In 1861, serfdom was abolished, but the land was not given to the peasants. Moreover, after the abolition of serfdom in Russia, both the landowners' lands (estates) and the peasant community were preserved intact.

The essence of the Russian community is a system of collective coercion. A communal peasant had his own allotment of communal land, but had no right or opportunity to increase it. The land as an object of property did not belong to him. Leveling redistribution of land was carried out approximately once every 10 years. Additional land was "issued" only for born boys - "male soul". In this redistribution, allotments could be changed. Mutual responsibility reigned in the community. Her system did not encourage the movement and resettlement of peasants. Moreover, whether to cut down a new hut, whether to go to the city to earn money, etc., was decided by the community meeting, it was necessary to persuade the “peace”, to put vodka. The fate of businesslike, enterprising communal peasants was decided by communal "Cicerons". In other words, serfdom did not seem to end. It was, as it were, continued by the communal system.

By the beginning of the XX century. the peasant community barely made ends meet. The peasants did not think about marketable products, and even more so about the export of bread.

Because of this, the question arose of reorganizing the communal system. The first steps in this direction were made by the famous figure Count Witte, who managed to settle along the Trans-Siberian Railway by 1900 about one million peasants. But this was not the main thing in his work.

The decisive implementation of the agrarian reform in Russia is associated with the name of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin. He started it in 1906, expecting to complete it in 20-25 years.

Stolypin was clearly aware of the need for Russia's economic modernization. But, unlike Witte, he concentrated his efforts not on industry and finance, but on the agrarian problem. Why? Yes, because he understood: without a solution to the agrarian issue, Russia has no future, it is doomed to another revolution. Stolypin hoped to remove the sharp contradiction of the Russian revolution - the contradiction between landlord and peasant landownership. How? Through the evolutionary, and not revolutionary, transfer of part of the landlords' land into the hands of the former communal peasants. To preserve the curtailed landownership, and to make the peasant-landowner the basis of Russia's power, to turn him into an economically free political full-fledged person. In other words, create a great Russia, solve the peasant problem, rule out revolution, reconcile tsarism with Russian society.

agrarian reform russia stolypin

2. Implementation of the reform

Chairman of the Council of Ministers P.A. Stolypin, not without reason, believed that the revolution is generated by certain shortcomings of social relations in Russia, which should be eliminated. Stolypin considered the rural community, preserved by the peasant reform and hindering the development of capitalism in the countryside, to be the main one. It was precisely for its destruction that the Tsar's decree of November 9, 1906, prepared by Stolypin, was directed.

Stolypin proceeded from the need to create in the countryside a mass and stronger than the landlords social support of the autocracy - the kulaks. He took Germany as a model, where at that time the conservative peasant was the backbone of the monarchy. However, in Russia such a peasant still needed to be created. This was the main point of the agrarian reform.

The decree of November 9, 1906 established the right of any peasant to leave the community and demand for his sole property the appropriate land allotment, which was due to him when he was part of the community. Stolypin thought that by destroying the community, it would be possible to create strong kulak farms, which, as a rule, stood out from it and managed separately. Agrarian legislation pursued the goal of providing the most favorable conditions for the formation of such kulak farms.

The direct addition to the decree of November 9, 1906 and the Law of June 14, 1910 was the Regulation on land management, which became law on May 29, 1911. According to the Law of 1910, developed by the Law of May 29, 1911, the peasants received own.

These are the main legislative acts on the Stolypin agrarian reform. The Stolypin reform significantly expanded the circle of landowners.

Essenceagrarian policy of Stolypin:

1. Peasants were allowed to freely, without bureaucratic delays, receive passports. Provided freedom of movement, choice of profession.

Free exit from the community was allowed, the land became the property of the peasants. Encouraged farm resettlement of peasants, the allocation of cuts, the concentration of his already private land ownership in one place, outside the community-village, but on a farm.

The peasant bank was charged with the obligation to buy the land of the landowners at a nominal price, and to the peasants who left the community, to sell it 20% cheaper. To buy land, peasants were given a loan for 10, 15, 20 years.

Redemption payments for land, established by the reform of 1861, were abolished.

A system of material incentives was practiced: a peasant who bought land was provided with a gratuitous subsidy of 165 rubles, construction materials were received free of charge, loans for the improvement of the economy were allocated for 50 years, and the interest was repaid by the state.

The peasant development of Siberia began: exile to these lands was canceled, Siberian settlers received 15 acres of land per male soul, were exempted from tax for 3 years and military service for 5 years. Before the February Revolution, more than 4 million people moved beyond the Urals (5 million returned). As a result, the sown area doubled. Siberia supplied 800 thousand tons of grain to the domestic and foreign markets.

MinusesStolypin reform:

1) belatedness. Should have been in the 19th century. create a class of small proprietors;

) power character - "one size fits all." Making up time, Stolypin began an active, forced destruction of the community. Hence the resistance of the peasants;

) reforms cannot be carried out by the hands of those who are interested in the old order (nobles, officials);

) poor financial support. Preparing for World War I, Russia in 1907-1913. spent 4.36 billion rubles on armament; during the same time to support the ruined local nobility - 987 million rubles; for reform (in the European part) - 56.6 million rubles.

Through agrarian reform, Stolypin put an end to the revolution. The people took up economic affairs, the Russian peasantry grew richer from year to year. The life of the workers also improved, almost all of the Russian revolutionaries ended up abroad, and their activity decreased.

Final P.A. Stolypin is similar to the finale of the liberator Tsar Alexander II. In September 1911 P.A. Stolypin was shot dead by D. Bagrov, the executor of the will of the tsarist secret police, behind which stood opponents of the peasants' private ownership of land.

3. Results of the reform

While the revolution was going on, the peasants almost did not leave the community. There was a rumor that those who came out would not get land cuts from the landowners. But then the strengthening of communal lands went faster, especially since the authorities were pushing for this in every possible way. In 1908, compared with 1907, the number of established householders increased 10 times and exceeded half a million. In 1909, a record figure was reached - 579.4 thousand households.

However, since 1910 the number of exits from the community began to decline steadily. The authorities could not understand the reasons for this phenomenon for a long time. And having understood, they did not want to admit them. The fact is that the bulk of the peasants, including the wealthy, reluctantly left the community. Most of all, widows, lonely old people, drunken and finally ruined householders came out, many of them were threatened with a complete or partial loss of allotment at the next redistribution. The city dwellers also strengthened, remembering that in their native village they have an abandoned allotment, which can now be sold. Those who moved to Siberia also left the community. But since 1910 the number of migrants has also declined.

In general, the implementation of the Stolypin reform failed to achieve what was planned. The partial destruction of the peasant community, which contributed to the development of bourgeois relations, did indeed occur, and this was the progressive significance of the reform. But it did not get a wide enough scope.

At the same time, the reform contributed to the process of stratification of the peasantry, which ultimately led to an intensification of the class struggle in the countryside. The landlords were dissatisfied with the growing influence of the rural bourgeoisie. Relations between the kulaks and the rest of the mass of the peasantry, which resisted the reform, escalated.

An important part of the reform was the resettlement policy. Stolypin wanted to ease the need for land in Central Russia, the Baltic States, which was an explosive force. A broad and voluntary resettlement of peasants to state lands in the eastern regions of the country was organized. Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian villages arose on the black soils of Siberia. However, the resettlement was poorly organized, which significantly reduced its results.

The result of the Stolypin reform - by January 1, 1916, 3 million householders left the community. In the course of it, the situation in the countryside improved markedly. From 1906 to 1915 productivity increased by 15%, and in some areas - by 20-25%.

The gross income (VA) of all agriculture in 1913 amounted to 52.6% of the total VA. The income of the entire national economy, due to the increase in the value created in agriculture, increased in comparable prices from 1900 to 1913 by 33.8%. Grain production in Russia in 1913 was 28% higher than the production of Argentina, Canada, and the United States combined.

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.

The foregoing does not mean at all that pre-war Russia should be represented peasants' paradise . The problems of hunger and agrarian overpopulation were not solved. The country still suffered from technical, economic and cultural backwardness.

The growth rate of labor productivity in agriculture was relatively slow. But during 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.

The assessment of the Stolypin agrarian reform in the historical literature is contradictory. Considering the odiousness of the figure of P.A. Stolypin, many authors treat it purely negatively. However, there is another opinion: this reform was designed to strengthen the capitalist development of the Russian countryside, and, consequently, of the whole society, which would seriously serve the economic and political progress of Russia.

Conclusion

P.A. Stolypin, who became prime minister in 1906, understood that reforms were necessary and inevitable. The prime minister's motto was simple and logical under those conditions: first calm, then change. However, it was impossible to postpone the urgent changes, and the reforms had to be carried out in an atmosphere of unrelenting unrest.

Stolypin's concept offered a way for the development of a mixed, multi-structural economy, where state forms of economy were to compete with collective and private ones. The constituent elements of his programs are 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 small land ownership.

Stolypin puts forward a liberal doctrine of managing the rural community, eliminating through stripes, developing private property in the countryside and achieving economic growth on this basis. As the market-oriented peasant economy of the farm type progresses, in the course of the development of land purchase and sale relations, a natural reduction in the landowner's land fund should occur.

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 the two cultures was to take place. -noble and peasant. 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 (the activities of the peasant bank, the destruction of the community and the development of private property, the resettlement of peasants to Siberia, the cooperative movement, agricultural activities).

Ignoring regional differences is one of the shortcomings of Stolypin's agrarian reform. In this it differed unfavorably from the reform of 1861.

Its other weak point was the idealization of farms and cuts, as well as private ownership of land in general. Usually in the national economy there are various forms of ownership (private, public, state). It is important that their combinations and proportions are reasonable so that none of them crowd out the others.

Another weak point of the agrarian reform was its insufficient financing. Huge state funds were absorbed by the arms race, and too little money was allocated to support farms and cuts. Ultimately, the authorities failed to either destroy the community or create a sufficiently massive and stable layer of peasant farmers. So we can talk about the general failure of the Stolypin agrarian reform. But an indiscriminately negative attitude towards her would be unfair. Some of the activities that accompanied the reform were useful. This concerns giving the peasants more personal freedom (in family matters, movement and choice of occupation, in a complete break with the countryside).

The results of the reform are 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 has become 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.

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.

List of used literature

1.Averh A.Ya. Tsarism on the eve of the overthrow. M., 1989.

2.Avrekh A.Ya. P.A. Stolypin and the fate of reforms in Russia. M., 1991.

3.Agrarian system in Russia: past, present, future / Ed. V.E. Esipov. SPb., 1999.

4.Anfimov A.M. Peasant economy of European Russia. 1881-1904. M., 1980.

5.Brazol B.L. Reign of Emperor Nicholas II. 1984-1917. In figures and facts. M., 1991.

6.Galchenko A.A. History of land relations and land management. M., 2000.

7.Dolbilova L.P. History of agrarian relations in Russia: Educational and methodological manual. Kirov: VGSHA, 1998.

8.Zaitseva L. Land Relations in Russia at the Beginning of the Century and Stolypin's Agrarian Reform // The Economist. 1994. No. 2.

9.Izmestieva T.F. Russia in the European market system. The end of the XIX - the beginning of the XX century. M., 1991.

10.Peasantry and industrial civilization / Ed. SOUTH. Aleksandrova, S.A. Pamarin, Institute of Oriental Studies. M., 1993.

11.Lanshchikov A.P., Salutsky A.S. The Peasant Question Yesterday and Today. M., 1990.

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