In the first half of the XIX century. socio-political and other prerequisites for bourgeois reforms in Russia were formed. Feudal production relations become an obstacle to the development of capitalist productive forces. Russia is entering a period of crisis in the feudal-serf system of the economy.

These should include the following:

Socio-economic background:

1. In industry, the process of ousting the patrimonial and sessional manufactory by the capitalist factory with hired workers was intensively going on.

Already by the 1920s, civilian workers in industry accounted for 50%, and by the 1960s, the absolute majority. During the period from 1856 to 1860, a number of joint-stock companies arose in Russia, which exceeded their number in the previous twenty years.

2. Serfdom held back the development of the market and peasant entrepreneurship.

3. Landowner farms were included in the market turnover: those who could not adapt to the new economic conditions lost their land, which fell into a mortgage.

The main source of livelihood for the majority of the nobles is the public service, entrepreneurial activity, intellectual work, and not income from land holdings.

5. There is a ruin of the peasantry, its separation from the land, the practice of otkhodnichestvo is spreading.

Political background:

1. The Crimean War stimulated the rapid development of industry. The defeat in the war showed the inefficiency of Russia's social and economic system.

2. The crisis situation manifested itself in the growing number of peasant riots and the development of the revolutionary movement, which peaked in 1859-1861.

3. Feudal statehood is experiencing a crisis, absolutism is forced to use bourgeois methods of government (the State Council, the systematization of legislation).

4. Bribery, arbitrariness, delay in cases reigned in the courts.

Ideological background:

1. A powerful blow to feudal ideology was dealt by the ideas proclaimed by the Great French Revolution.

2. By the 1960s, three main political and ideological camps were taking shape in Russia:

- the official-government conservative camp, which stood on the positions of the theory of official nationality, sought to maintain the inviolability of the autocracy;

- the liberal camp preaching evolutionary capitalist development without social upheavals according to the Western European model (Westerners) or along a special Russian path (Slavophiles);

- a revolutionary camp that saw the violent overthrow of the feudal system as a model for future development in order to build a society based on social equality, but this camp also expressed the interests of capitalist development.

Despite the polarity of points of view, they all agreed on the need to resolve the peasant question, to adapt the state apparatus to new conditions. The differences were in the forms, means, depth and goals of the transformations.

In February 1855, Alexander II ascended the throne. In the manifesto of March 19, 1856, which described the unfavorable conditions for Russia in the Peace of Paris, the government's first application for the forthcoming reforms was made. A few days later, in a speech to the leaders of the nobility in Moscow, the emperor, speaking of the liberation of the peasants, said: "It is much better for this to happen from above than from below."

The tsarist government, faced with the fact of strengthening the peasant movement against the feudal lords, was forced to deal with the issue of freeing the peasants from serfdom.

V. I. Lenin in the article “Fifty years of the fall of serfdom” emphasized that “the abolition of serfdom was carried out not by the insurgent people, but by the government, which, after the defeat in the Crimean War, saw the complete impossibility of maintaining serfdom.”

A large number of projects and proposals for the abolition of serfdom appeared.

At first 1857 was created Secret Committee on Peasant Affairs(headed by the chief of gendarmes A. Orlov).

However, the implementation of a radical reform required greater transparency, and the committee, having existed for about a year, was transformed into Main Committee for Peasant Affairs, who relied in his work on the provincial noble committees, from which proposals for reforms came.

In 1858-1859. formed about fifty provincial committees. They were elected bodies of the nobility, their activities were supervised by members appointed by the government (two in each committee). The committees included representatives of various political beliefs, factions began to form.

The position of the government and the Main Committee fluctuated between progressives and reactionaries.

In the spring of 1858, the Main Committee was inclined towards the landless liberation of the peasants and the introduction of military administration in the form of general governments. But the peasant unrest of 1858 in Estonia showed that the liberation of the peasants without land did not solve the problem.

The opinion began to grow stronger that the ultimate goal of the reform should be the transformation of the peasants into the owners of their allotments, the destruction of the patrimonial power of the landowners and the introduction of the peasants to civil life and rights. At the end of 1858 this point of view becomes prevailing.

At the meetings of the Main Committee, two positions were defined: one assumed the preservation of all landed property in the hands of the landowners and insisted on the development of a large-scale landlord economy, the second assumed the transfer of field land to the ownership of peasants for redemption and the creation in the countryside of two forms of land use: landlord and peasant. The peasant reform program was approved by the emperor at the end of 1858 - the redemption of peasant allotments and the formation of a class of peasant proprietors. The liberal direction in the reform won (the position of N.A. Milyutin was given preference over the position of Ya.I. Rostovtsev).

The Main Committee continued to receive drafts of provincial committees, for the generalization and editing of which at the beginning 1859 were created Editorial commissions who worked independently of the Main Committee and the Council of State. They included representatives of ministries, departments and experts (from landlords and specialists) on the peasant question. After the death of Ya.I. Rostovtsev, N.A. became the head of the commission. Milyutin, directly subordinate to the emperor. The commissions were seen as representative bodies. These peculiar institutions were closed immediately after they drew up and codified the projects of the peasant reform at the end of 1860. In the draft commissions, the peasant reform was divided into two main stages:

1) the liberation of landlord peasants from personal dependence;

2) turning them into small proprietors while maintaining a significant part of the noble land ownership. At the same time, it was supposed to avoid the consequences of the "Prussian option" - the concentration of landed property in a narrow circle of owners and the development of farm work. The “French option” seemed preferable – the creation of small landed property of a wide range of owners. They tried to avoid revolutionary transformations, and to carry out the reform in line with legal measures (following the model of Prussia): the peasants buying land into their own property and maintaining landownership.

The implementation of the reform was not supposed to destroy the existing order: the preservation of the ownership of the nobles of their plowing; preservation for the peasants, first in use (for service), and then in ownership (for redemption) of their pre-reform allotments; calculation of duties from their pre-reform sizes (slightly reduced), calculation of the amount of ransom from established duties; participation of the state in the redemption operation in the role of a creditor.

To prevent the proletarianization of the peasants, the project assumed two conditions: 1) the peasants were forbidden to refuse allotment for nine years; 2) the role of the land user was not an individual peasant, but the peasant community as a whole.

The peasants had to return the loan received from the state within forty-six years.

The legal status of the peasants had to change drastically: their personal dependence and the patrimonial power of the landlords were abolished. Peasant self-government was introduced: a volost society, a rural society, gatherings, rural officials.

These bodies became the basis for the participation of peasants in the zemstvo and judicial institutions generated by the reforms. They were controlled by the local administration. In the future, it was planned to weaken the power of the community over the peasant, to abolish mutual responsibility, to eliminate the estates of the peasantry, to increase allotments at the expense of state lands.

After the closure of the Editorial Commissions, their projects were first transferred to the Main Committee for Peasant Affairs, and then to the State Council (late 1860 - early 1861). The pressure of opponents from both “left” and “right” did not change the essence of the projects, although it affected the details: the size of allotments was reduced and peasant duties and redemption payments were increased.

In the second half of the XIX century. The time has come for Russia to undergo massive changes. They were primarily connected with the further development of capitalist relations and the attempts of tsarism to reconcile the contradictions that had accumulated in the country with the help of a whole series of bourgeois reforms. Since the mid 50s. 19th century Russia took a number of important steps in the socio-political and economic spheres - from the reactionary regime of Nicholas I to the political "thaw", the transition from a feudal state to progress in social relations, from a feudal economy to a capitalist economy.

The reign of Nicholas I (1825-1855) was the dominance of reaction in the country, "the apogee of autocracy." At this time, the role of the army, the military and the odious personality of the king himself in all state and public affairs increased sharply. In the period from 1825 to 1854, the size of the army and navy increased by almost 40%, and the annual cost of maintaining them increased by 70%. Of the state budget, spending on the armed forces in general amounted to more than 40%. Severe censorship, administrative persecution of the press, the intelligentsia, and progress flourished in the country. In the international arena, Russia turned into the "gendarme of Europe", its government, within the framework of the "Holy Alliance", supported any manifestations of feudal-monarchist reaction in European countries. All this led to the gradually accumulating backlog of Russia from the advanced countries of Europe. The crisis of the military-police state, which matured in the 1950s, affected virtually all spheres of life in Russian society. Reforms of a bourgeois nature began in Russia by the middle of the 19th century. inevitable. Prerequisites for a series of bourgeois reforms in the second half of the 19th century. matured from the peculiarities of the socio-economic and political situation that had developed in the Russian Empire by the 1950s.

Economic background. By the middle of the XIX century. in the Russian economy there was a crisis of feudalism, accompanied by the rapid development of the capitalist mode of production. Feudal relations of production in Russia inevitably came into sharp conflict with the laws of economic development. In the depths of feudal agriculture, elements of capitalism inevitably matured. Bourgeois ownership of land developed, entrepreneurs created large commodity farms. On the other hand, the demand for bread in Europe and the growing profits from its sales led to the gradual seizure of land by the landlords from the peasantry, especially in the black earth part of the country (about 50%). In an effort to increase the marketability of their grain farming, the landlords saw a way out of the situation in the transfer of serfs to courtyards, which could not but cause violent discontent in the countryside. The feudal nature of agriculture did not allow the efficient use of machines, and the widespread use of corvée and landlord plowing made peasant labor ineffective. As a result, the general decline in the efficiency of peasant labor led to the ruin of a significant part of the landowners (only in 1859 alone, about 12% of the landowners went bankrupt, land was mortgaged in banks, on which 2/3 of the serfs were employed). In the mass of the peasantry, a natural process of property differentiation took place, a demarcation appeared between the prosperous peasants and the rural poor. The impoverishment of the peasantry in its mass led to a drop in the purchasing power of the population, to a narrowing of sales markets, which also hampered the development of industry. Thus, life itself showed that the further progressive development of the serf landlord economy was impossible, that the question of emancipating the peasants was ripe. However, the landless liberation of the peasantry was impossible, because the peasants gave the country about 40% of the marketable grain on their farms.

Since the end of the 30s. 19th century Russia was undergoing an industrial revolution. Factories were built, the need for industrial goods and labor productivity increased, new machines and technologies appeared. The steam engine replaced the manual labor of the craftsman and manufactory production. But sophisticated new machines and equipment required civilian, personally free, literate and well-trained workers who were interested in the results of their labor. Serf workers, assigned, sessional peasants could not provide highly productive labor on the basis of machine production, they were not interested in its results and broke machines and equipment. By the middle of the XIX century. in most large European countries, serfdom did not exist and they began to rapidly overtake Russia in their development. For example, if at the beginning of the XIX century. England and Russia each smelted 10 million poods of pig iron, but by the middle of the century these figures were 140 million and 16 million poods, respectively. The preservation of serf relations in Russia hampered the emergence of a class of hired workers, because the reserve army of labor necessary for capitalism could not appear in the country. All this significantly hindered the industrial development of Russia. Thus, the socio-political stagnation in the country led to a technical and economic lag behind the developed capitalist countries.

political background. Despite the economic decline, Russia in the middle of the XIX century. continued to pursue a great power policy. This was expressed in expansion in the Middle East, attempts to influence the Turkish empire and take possession of the Bosporus and Dardanelles. These and a number of other reasons caused the Crimean War of 1853-1856. The Russian army and all its military-industrial potential in the war turned out to be frankly weak, especially after the entry into hostilities of England and France. As is known, political development is closely connected with the economic and social development of the country. The inevitable retribution for the industrial backwardness was the defeat in the Crimean War, its result was the fall of the fortress city of Sevastopol, the country suffered huge human losses (they amounted to over 500 thousand soldiers), material costs (the war cost the treasury 0.5 billion rubles), Russia found itself in international isolation, which followed after the forced shameful peace, it was forbidden to have a fleet and fortresses in the Crimea on the Black Sea. A deep financial crisis set in in the country - the state budget deficit increased 6 times, bank cash decreased by 10 times, the gold backing of the ruble fell by 50%. Russia experienced a huge moral humiliation. The war, which lasted 4 years, placed a heavy burden on the shoulders of the people - the government repeatedly raised taxes, requisitioned livestock for the army, increased a number of peasant duties (road, underwater, etc.), recruitment kits were torn off from peaceful labor up to 10% of men. For these reasons, part of the peasant farms went bankrupt, and famine broke out in some provinces.

Social background. Negative economic factors have increased social tension in society. Peasant discontent resulted in mass unrest, passive resistance to the authorities, non-payment of taxes, refusal to work for landlords, etc. Riots, uprisings, and arson of landowners' estates became frequent in the country, which led to political destabilization in the country. The systematic use of military units began to suppress discontent in the countryside. Among the peasants, especially after the call of the government at the end of the Crimean War to create a naval and land people's militia, the demands to abolish serfdom - "give freedom" intensified. Such mass manifestations of peasant protest and the inability of the authorities, especially local ones, to cope with this caused a significant part of the noble landowners to be dissatisfied with the actions of the government and the political regime in the country as a whole. A natural reflection of such sentiments was the emergence of the movement of revolutionary democrats and the spread of revolutionary ideas for the destruction of the monarchical form of government. The magazines "Polyarnaya Zvezda" - from 1855 and "The Bell" - from 1857 began to appear abroad. The revolutionary movement spread among the intelligentsia. Dissatisfaction with the situation in the country engulfed all sections of the population - raznochintsy, a significant part of the nobles, the emerging bourgeoisie, the peasantry, the intelligentsia, officers, and students. In the country in 1859-1861. a revolutionary situation arose - a political situation in the country in which a revolutionary explosion is possible. All of the above factors made up what was called in the scientific literature: the economic, social and political prerequisites for bourgeois reforms in Russia in the second half of the 19th century.

Preparing reforms. In Russia, the preparation of reforms began with the renewal of the country's internal life, the liberation from the reactionary-feudal way of life. On February 18, 1855, Emperor Nicholas I died, and his son Alexander II succeeded to the throne. Already in 1855, many reactionary prohibitions and restrictions introduced during the reign of Nicholas I were lifted - restrictions on the activities of universities introduced after 1848 were abolished, military settlements were destroyed, the free issuance of passports was allowed, the most severe censorship that existed in the country was weakened (press, theater ), significantly reduced the army and military budget spending. The peasantry was exempted from recruitment for 3 years, all arrears were written off from it. By the time of the coronation, which took place in August 1856, an amnesty for all political prisoners was carried out in the country. As an act of political mercy, the tsar returned from Siberian exile 9 thousand surviving participants in the conspiracy and the Decembrist uprising.

In total, in Russia in the second half of the XIX century. the following main reforms were carried out - the peasant reform of 1861, the judiciary in 1864, the reforms of local governments: the zemstvo in 1864 and the city in 1870. In addition to them, radical changes were made in the country in the field of military, censorship, finance, university orders corporal punishment has been abolished. In addition, there was a reorganization of the system of state statistics, police and prisons. All reforms, despite their inconsistency, half-heartedness and, in many respects, incompleteness, had a huge impact on the main aspects of the economic, political and social life of Russia in the second half of the 19th century.

peasant reform. The most important of the reforms, which led to the beginning of a series of reforms in other spheres of the state, was undoubtedly the peasant reform, and above all the elimination of serfdom. This was the cornerstone of all other reforms. With the accession of Alexander II, rumors about freedom intensified among the peasants. However, in February 1855, in the manifesto on accession to the throne, there was not a word about ways to solve the peasant problem. In March 1856, the tsar, in response to an appeal from the Moscow nobility about rumors about the release of the peasants, stated that "... it is much better for this to happen from above than from below." On January 3, 1857, a Secret "Special Committee" was formed to develop a plan for the gradual emancipation of the peasants. Among the nobility, opinions radically differed on the nature and principles of the emancipation of the peasants, because the interests of the landowners of different provinces - Western, black earth, non-black earth, etc. did not coincide. Initially, options for landless "liberation" of the peasants were considered. Some members of the committee considered it necessary to liberate the peasants in whole villages without any conditions and without land. Others believed to conclude voluntary agreements with the peasants on the basis of the laws of 1803 and 1842, while others suggested consulting with the local nobility. At the end of 1857, the formation of provincial noble committees began to develop local reform projects. The Secret Committee in 1858 was transformed into the "Main Committee for Peasant Affairs." It received local reform projects. In the Main Committee there was a struggle between two extreme points of view: the conservative feudal and the liberal. However, due to the growth of the peasant movement (reports on its scope were compiled for Alexander II weekly), the nobility did not dare to go for the "landless" liberation of the peasants.

An important issue for each landowner was the size of the peasant allotment and the price of land. In order to determine the cost of the allotment, the average figure for the quitrent in each locality was deduced, and this quitrent (8-10 rubles per capita) was capitalized at the rate of 6%. The amount received was considered equal to the value of the highest allotment; if the allotment in the given area was lower, then the dues and the price for the redemption of the allotment decreased. Another point of contention was the optional ransom and the maintenance of the hitherto unchanged duties. However, the growing wave of peasant uprisings forced the government not to delay the reform. On February 19, 1861, Alexander II signed the Manifesto on the abolition of serfdom, “The General Regulations on Peasants who Abandoned Serfdom”, “Regulations on the Redemption by Peasants who Abandoned Serfdom of Their Manor Settlement and on the Government’s Assistance in Acquisition of Property by These Peasants field lands”, four local Regulations, the Regulations on the liberation of householders, on local institutions for peasant affairs and a number of additional rules - a total of 18 legislative acts that consolidated the main provisions of the peasant reform. The peasants were freed from serfdom from their landowners, were given land and acquired a completely new legal status.

The legal status of the peasants. The most important element in the content of the peasant reform was the abolition of serfdom. According to the "General Provisions on Peasants Who Have Emerged from Serfdom", the most severe feudal-estate restrictions were eliminated in Russia. The peasants acquired a number of personal and property rights. They received personal freedom, the status of an individual, the bearer of certain rights and obligations, political rights in the form of participation in the affairs of local self-government. The peasants became "free rural inhabitants", formally independent of anyone, gained independence in family affairs. They could change their social status - use the right to move to other classes, choose their place of residence and occupation, join merchant guilds.

In the sphere of civil legal relations, peasants became legal entities, they could enter into any transactions, bring claims, acquire and alienate property, establish trade and industrial establishments. Peasants acquired the right to apply to any state and private bodies and organizations, to accept obligations, to go to court, to be a witness and a guarantor. However, the half-hearted, "noble" nature of the reforms "from above" was manifested in the fact that the peasants continued to be a special taxable estate with fewer rights than other estates - they continued to pay a poll tax, perform state duties (road, underwater, etc.), were subject to recruitment, were punished with corporal punishment, were significantly limited in freedom of movement by the presence of a rural community and mutual responsibility. “The General Regulations on Peasants Who Have Emerged from Serfdom” of February 19, 1861, having abolished serfdom and granted personal freedom to the landlord peasants, at the same time recognized the landowners’ right of ownership to the estate settlement and various land plots that the peasants used before liberation . Upon release, the peasant (the head of the family is a man, the revision "soul") was necessarily endowed with land by the landowner, the size of the "shower" allotment was established by mutual agreement of the parties. To facilitate and speed up the process of concluding agreements between landlords and peasants, the institution of “peace mediators” was introduced, appointed by the Senate from local hereditary nobles, whose duties included assisting the parties. In the counties, congresses of peace mediators were created, and in the provinces - a provincial presence for peasant affairs.

After nine years, the peasants could give up the allotment. The allotment included a manor and field land, which the peasants had to redeem from the landowner, and for their use before the conclusion of the redemption transaction, they were considered “temporarily liable” and carried duties in the form of corvée and dues. Within two years, the parties had to conclude a "Charter Charter" that determined the terms of the buyout. The “temporarily liable” state ceased from the moment the redemption transaction was concluded, and the peasants turned into “peasant owners”. The size of the dues varied depending on the locality (an average of 8-12 rubles per capita), and the size of the corvee was determined either by an amicable agreement of the parties, or were determined on the basis of the Regulations (according to the "Regulations on the Great Russian, Novorossiysk and Belarusian provinces" corvee amounted to a year working off 40 days for men and 30 days for women for a shower allotment).

The territory of Russia was divided into 4 regions and for each special local regulations were issued that determined the size of allotments (ranging from 2.75 to 12 acres) and duties. The Great Russian local position determined the land arrangement in 29 Great Russian provinces, in three Novorossiysk (Ekaterinoslav, Tauride and Kherson) and in two Belarusian (Mogilev and part of Vitebsk). The Little Russian position extended to the Poltava, Chernigov and part of the Kharkov provinces. The third local position was for the three southwestern provinces - Kiev, Podolsk and Volyn. The fourth provision extended to the Vilna, Grodno, Kovno, Minsk and part of the Vitebsk provinces. In 1863, after the Polish uprising, the obligatory relations between peasants and landlords were terminated in all western provinces, and the peasants were transferred to the category of owners, their duties were converted into redemption payments and reduced by 20%.

A special provision regulated the procedure for the redemption of the estate and field allotment. The peasants could redeem the estate at any time, but they could redeem the field allotment with the consent of the landowner. The size of the redemption amount was determined either by voluntary agreement of the parties, or on the basis of the Regulations, by capitalizing the amount of the quitrent at the rate of 6%. In other words, the amount received by the landowner from the serf quitrent was considered as a permanent income, which amounted to 6% of the capital deposited in the bank. The capital thus calculated was the sum of the redemption. However, for the most part, the peasants were unable to pay such an amount immediately. Therefore, the government resorted, in the interests of the nobility, to a redemption operation. Its essence was that the landlords received from the peasants when performing a redemption operation 20-25% of the redemption amount, the remaining 75-80% of the redemption amount was paid to them from the treasury in the form of a loan. The peasants had to pay for this loan with the state for 49 years, making annual payments in the form of 6% of the amount of the ransom. This 6% included 0.5% loan repayment, 0.5% buyout costs and 5% growth. Over a long period of repayment, the loan amounts, taking into account the accrued compound interest, increased so much that the peasants, in total, after the expiration of the term, were obliged to pay approximately three times the amount of the ransom. The landlord peasants also failed in that they lost the right to use forests, meadows and reservoirs.

Much later, in 1863 and 1866. the reform affected the specific and state peasants. Appanage peasants received 1.5 times more, and state - about 2 times more land than the owner's peasants. The yard peasants, being personally free, remained in an obligatory relationship with the landlord until February 19, 1863, but they, like the former serfs of small landowners, did not receive either an estate or a land allotment, i.e. were left virtually without a livelihood.

In the post-reform period, the tax burden on peasants increased significantly. The peasants continued to be charged a poll tax, quitrent tax, social tax, zemstvo tax and redemption payments. The peasants also paid the bulk of the drinking and salt excises. These fees alone on the scale of Russia gave 56% of all state revenues. In addition, when endowing peasants with land, it was a mass phenomenon to provide them with worse lands, which also worsened their financial situation. The small area of ​​plots, excessively high duties - all these and a number of other factors led to the fact that the peasant reform of 1861 did not justify the hopes of the peasantry in economic terms. The severity of the situation in the countryside was expressed in the growth in the number of horseless, livestockless and homeless peasants, in the impoverishment of the countryside.

Bodies of peasant management. Despite the fact that the property delimitation of the peasantry has long become a fait accompli, the state, in the course of implementing the reform of 1861, deliberately went to preserve the rural community. Although the existence of the community significantly hindered the development of capitalist relations in the countryside, it allowed the state to control the behavior of the peasants (with the help of mutual responsibility) and the performance of public works. The communal structure also facilitated control over the execution of fiscal (collection of taxes, various payments) and police functions. In the pre-reform period, the peasants were under the control of the landowner. In the post-reform period, in order to manage the peasants, the “General Regulations on Peasants Who Emerged from Serfdom” of February 19, 1861 in Section II “On the Organization of Rural Societies and Volosts and Their Public Administration” provided for the creation of peasant public administration bodies. According to this provision, the peasants who lived on the land of one landowner constituted a rural society, a self-governing administrative unit. Often there were several communities in one village, and sometimes one community was located in several villages. All peasant householders of one community formed a rural assembly. The gathering elected the headman (for three years), the tax collector and other officials, the gathering also distributed land, taxes, recruitment duty, gave permission to leave the community. Several rural communities in one county formed a volost (with a population of 300 to 2 thousand souls). In the volost, a volost gathering was created, which included elected representatives from rural societies. He elected the volost board headed by the volost foreman (including village elders and the tax collector), as well as the volost court, which had jurisdiction over the peasants of this volost in petty criminal and civil cases. Officials of the rural and volost administration performed a number of police and fiscal functions. The elders conducted investigations on petty crimes, were responsible for public order, controlled the fulfillment of duties, could arrest the violator, fine up to 10 rubles, watched the compilation of “revision tales”, oversaw the condition of roads and bridges, etc. Volost foremen announced laws and orders of the authorities, were responsible for public order, for the prevention of crime, the detention of vagrants and deserters. The peasant administration was entirely dependent on the local administration, carried out all the orders of the Zemstvo police, judicial investigators and mediators. Thus, in the post-reform period, the power of a particular landowner over the peasants was largely replaced by the consolidated power of the local nobility. Later, by the regulation of July 12, 1889 on zemstvo district chiefs, the peasant administration was even more limited in its rights.

Police reform of 1862 As already noted, the abolition of serfdom led to a chain of reforms in other areas of public life. The gradual police reform in Russia was due to a number of reasons. The liquidation of the patrimonial police, connected with the abolition of serfdom, contributed to the growth of criminality. Protest crime also increased among the peasantry - arson of landowners' estates, theft, damage and destruction of lordly equipment, crops, gardens, etc. Dissatisfaction with the nature of the implementation and the frankly noble content of the agrarian reform led to numerous peasant unrest and riots. Already in March 1861, they covered 8 provinces, in April they already spread to 28 provinces, in May - to 37. The police of the old "model" could not cope with this. To suppress the actions of the peasants, the government sent army units - 47 battalions and 187 infantry companies, 38 cavalry squadrons. The significantly more complicated crime situation in the country in the post-reform years clearly showed a clear discrepancy between the level of work and qualifications of police personnel with the increased requirements, its workload with many functions unusual for the police and an outdated, at the level of the beginning of the 19th century, organizational structure. The urgent public need for a radical reform of the police services has become evident. The drafts of zemstvo, judicial and city reforms that were being prepared also implied the reorganization of the police authorities.

The project for the reorganization of the police was developed as early as 1860 and subsequently implemented in a number of legislative acts. The main one was the “Temporary Rules on the Organization of the Police in Cities and Counties” dated December 25, 1862, concerning the restructuring of the lower, most important parts of the police. The central police authorities were reorganized later, in the 80s. 19th century The provisional rules consisted of 3 articles and were supplemented by an imperial decree. This was the legislative design of the police reform. According to the new rules, the highest local police power was exercised by governors-general, governors and provincial governments. In organizational terms, the county and city police were merged into a single county police department, headed by a police officer appointed by the governor from local nobles. This greatly contributed to the unification of the efforts of the police in the fight against crime. Instead of the zemstvo court, there was a general presence of the district police department, consisting of the police officer, his assistant and assessors from nobles and peasants (abolished by law of 1889). The territory of the county, depending on the density of the population, consisted of 2-4 camps, headed by police officers, who were subordinate to police officers and sotskys in sections (hundreds) of the camp and tenths in villages. In large cities that were not subordinate to the county police, there were police departments headed by a police chief, to whom district and city bailiffs were subordinate. Separate city police departments were created only in large and provincial cities. In the provincial cities, chiefs of police and city police remained. The city was divided into sections, where the bailiff, his assistant with police officers subordinate to him, were responsible for order. For example, the capital St. Petersburg was divided into 38 districts and 192 districts, where 1350 police officers served.

The reform changed, which was very important, the principles of police recruitment. Since 1873, the free hiring of the lower ranks of the police under the contract was introduced, their salaries and pensions for seniority were significantly increased, and various benefits were introduced. A thorough selection of candidates for police service was established, and their training was organized in special educational institutions. Persons applying for service in the police were required to meet certain requirements - they were required to be at least 170 cm tall, at least 25 years old, serve in the army for at least five years, immaculate behavior, quick wit and quickness, good appearance, excellent health, good physique, sharp eyesight and clear speech. Measures were taken to stimulate interest in a long and impeccable service in the police. Later, in 1892, new rules were introduced, according to which policemen were given an increase in salary for long service (1/3 of the salary for 7 years of impeccable and continuous service), and a one-time allowance of 250 rubles was assigned. for 20 years of service and provided for a monthly pension of 90 rubles. for 30 years of service. In 1867, the uniform and weapons of the police were changed and became more modern.

The reform provided for a change in the functions of the police. The competence of the local police was significantly narrowed, judicial and many economic cases were removed from its jurisdiction. Even earlier, with the advent of the institution of forensic investigators in 1860, the police were removed from the investigation of criminal offenses, they were left with an inquiry. The police carried out only the inquiry and execution of court sentences. However, the functions of the police have not been significantly reduced. Thus, according to the new job description, the tasks of the Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs included: the protection of public order, the prevention and suppression of crime, control over the activities of police institutions, personnel policy in the police, protection of state borders, control over compliance with the passport regime by foreigners, supervision of Russian emigration, supervision behind drinking establishments; fire safety, approval of the statutes of various societies and the issuance of permits for the organization of exhibitions and public readings, supervision of compliance with passport laws and regulations, etc. In the county, the police were still responsible for almost all local affairs - supervision of the wine trade, sanitation, fought against hunger, epidemics, was engaged in public charity.

The functions of the political police were carried out by the corps of gendarmes. Stormy revolutionary uprisings in the 60s. forced the government to radically reform the political police. Created back in 1827, the Gendarme Corps was designed, based on the nature of the Decembrist uprising, for the most part to suppress individual speeches by a few noble revolutionaries. However, the political situation in the country in the middle of the XIX century. changed radically. A rather numerous layer of revolutionary democrats from the raznochintsy appeared. In connection with the aggravation of the political situation in the country in 1867, the Regulations on the Corps of Gendarmes appeared, which provided for its organizational and structural restructuring. Instead of the previously existing gendarmerie districts, which included several provinces, gendarme departments were formed in each province, and in the most unreliable provinces - the North-Western Territory and the Kingdom of Poland, district gendarme departments were also created. The Siberian, Caucasian and Warsaw gendarmerie districts were preserved. The general police fell into the subordination of the gendarme departments.

With the liquidation of the Third Branch in 1880, the gendarme corps came under the control of the Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Thus, the general management of the fight against criminal and political crimes was concentrated in one department. Territorial gendarmerie districts were created, consisting of departments, in addition, gendarme teams were located in most cities. In connection with the intensive railway construction, railway gendarme departments were also created.

prison reform. The changes made by the government during the period under review in the penitentiary system were closely related to the reform of the police. In the first half of the XIX century. in the Russian Empire, the system of execution of punishments, built on a class basis, continued to operate. This meant that separate places of deprivation of liberty were created and operated for convicts of each class, and they were subordinate to different departments. There was no centralized management of places of punishment serving. This created a number of difficulties, including financial ones, for the courts, the convicts and the government itself.

In the course of the implementation of bourgeois reforms in Russia, the task arose of organizing a unified and more timely state prison system. In the course of implementing this task, various relics of feudalism were gradually abolished - workhouses, strait houses, debtors' prisons and prison companies. Instead of them, the following types of prisons were formed - hard labor, correctional detainee departments; provincial, regional and county prisons; police detention facilities; premises for those sentenced to arrest; transit prisons and correctional asylums for minors (since 1900). In addition, in 1899, 37 shelters were established for the care of children and families of prisoners.

In 1879, the Main Prison Directorate was created within the structure of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. On December 13, 1895, the Main Prison Department was transferred from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Justice. In the provinces, the direct supervision of the prisons was carried out by the governors, the general presence of the provincial governments and special prison departments. At the same time, despite the reform of society, the class division in the execution of punishments continued to exist. The statute on those held in custody of 1890 still prescribed the separation of nobles, officials, raznochintsy and foreigners from people of lower classes.

Judicial reform. It was one of the most consistent, deep and bourgeois in character. The pre-reform judicial system was distinguished by its cumbersome structure, the formalism of the process, and was largely archaic and inefficient. The court was not separated from the administration, it continued to be class-based, secret, a search form of the process was carried out. Radical changes in the life of society in the post-reform period, the expansion of the sphere of civil law relations, certain elements of the democratization of public life led to judicial reform. The basis of the judicial reform in Russia was the conceptual framework contained in the “Basic provisions for the transformation of the judiciary in Russia” approved on September 29, 1862 by Alexander II. On November 20, 1864, four legislative acts were approved by the tsar, which reflected the main provisions of the judicial reform. The "Institution of Judicial Institutions" outlined the basic principles of justice. These principles included - the equality of all before the law, the separation of administrative power from the judiciary, the irremovability of judges, the existence of an independent organization of the bar, publicity, oral and competitive process, the introduction of a jury trial. The "Charter of Civil Procedure" contained the principles of civil procedure. The "Charter of Criminal Proceedings" regulated in detail the issues of the criminal process. The "Charter on Punishments Imposed by Justices of the Peace" consolidated the principles of legal proceedings and the judiciary, the organization and content of the activities of justices of the peace. According to these acts, the judiciary was separated from the executive, administrative and legislative branches and was subject only to the law. Since the reform was based on the theory of separation of powers, the court became independent of the administration, and the judges became irremovable. Election of judges was introduced to a certain extent. Estate courts were replaced by courts common and equal for all, public and public. Thus, judges gained independence in considering cases, and the new judicial system acquired a progressive character. Class courts were liquidated, with the exception of commercial, military, spiritual and volost courts.

Two judicial systems were created - the system of local (world) courts and the system of general courts. The creation of magistrates' courts, the lowest level of the judicial system, was associated with the Zemstvo reform. Justices of the peace were elected by all-estate county zemstvo assemblies and councils (in cities). The procedure for the election was as follows: zemstvo district councils selected candidates approved by the governor and elected by voting at the zemstvo district assembly. A candidate for justice of the peace had to meet a number of requirements: age at least 25 years old, higher or secondary education, ownership of land worth at least 100 dessiatins. in this county or possession of property worth 15,000 rubles. for rural areas, 6000 rubles. in the capitals and 3000 rubles. for the city. In fact, justices of the peace had to meet two basic requirements - education and financial independence. The county assembly had the right, subject to a unanimous vote, to elect a person who did not meet the qualifications as a justice of the peace. The independence of justices of the peace from the administration was guaranteed by law, according to which they, like members of the general courts, could not be dismissed from office, except in court and for the commission of a crime.

Justices of the peace were precinct (on a salary) and honorary (acting without monetary remuneration, out of "honor"). Justices of the peace had to have a certain place of residence, but were required by law to accept claims anywhere and at any time. After confirmation by the Senate, the judges began to perform their duties. Organizationally, the world courts were established as follows: the county was a world district, it was divided into several sections, in each of which a justice of the peace was elected for a period of 3 years. Justices of the peace were the lower court, they considered the case alone. The proceedings were free of charge, the judges accepted complaints both written and oral. Several times a year, justices of the peace of one district gathered at the world congress, which was the court of appeal, and the Senate was the court of cassation. The Congress of Justices of the Peace included a permanent chairman, elected by the judges from their midst for 3 years, a secretary to manage the office, bailiffs and private attorneys. The meetings of the congresses of justices of the peace were attended by a professional lawyer represented by a fellow prosecutor, whose duties included giving legal explanations in the analysis of all criminal and individual civil cases.

Competence of Magistrates' Courts. Their jurisdiction included minor criminal offenses and civil cases. The competence of the magistrate in criminal cases was defined in the "Statute on the punishments imposed by the magistrate". He could single-handedly sentence definitively (without the right to appeal) to 15 rubles. a fine and 3 days of arrest, to impose small terms of imprisonment (up to 1.5 years in prison or up to 3 months of administrative arrest) or fines (up to 300 rubles). In civil cases, the jurisdiction of the magistrate included claims for possessions and disputes over movables and under contracts worth up to 500 rubles. The magistrate had the right, with the mutual consent of the parties, to accept any case, regardless of the value of the claim.

The main task of the magistrate's court was, as the title of the position implies, the reconciliation of the parties. World judicial institutions were opened, starting from 1866, gradually in all zemstvo provinces. Subsequently, the changes made influenced the accessible and popular nature of the world courts - the introduction in 1877 of

A court fee of 1%, which was twice as high as in general courts, a fee of 10 kopecks. from the sheet and a cassation deposit of 10 rubles. and others. The jurisdiction of the magistrates' courts did not extend to the most numerous, the peasant class. The peculiarities of the judicial reform should also include the preservation of estate volost courts (introduced by the reform of 1861) for the peasants. They considered petty criminal and civil (up to 100 rubles in a lawsuit) cases of peasants, were guided mainly by the norms of customary law, and not the law, and used corporal punishment quite widely.

For the most part, the landlords and the nobility as a whole were not satisfied with the creation and activities of the world courts. Going towards them, Alexander III in 1889, as part of the counter-reform course, abolished the world courts, issuing and distributing the "Law on Zemstvo Chiefs" throughout the Russian Empire, except for Moscow, St. Petersburg and Odessa, Kazan, Chisinau, Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov, Kharkov and the Don Cossack Region. The cases of world courts passed to the jurisdiction of the introduced zemstvo chiefs, they received the right to interfere in all decisions of peasant self-government bodies and impose penalties and fines on the peasants without judicial formalities.

General court rulings in cases of great importance included district courts and judicial chambers. The district court was created in the judicial district, for the most part geographically coinciding with the province or including the region or several counties, was the court of first instance and was subordinate to the Ministry of Justice. It consisted of a chairman, two deputies (comrades), who headed the departments and members of the court. The district court included two or more departments: for criminal and civil cases, headed by deputy chairmen, a chancery, a registry and an archive. The apparatus of the district court also included judicial investigators, officials of prosecutorial supervision, private attorneys, bailiffs and notaries. Crown judges were appointed by the tsar for life on the proposal of the Minister of Justice from persons with a higher legal education and work experience in their specialty for at least 3 years. Without the participation of jurors, crown judges in the district court considered all civil cases and partly criminal cases - for crimes that do not entail the deprivation of all rights of state and special rights and advantages under the law. Criminal cases on especially grave crimes, entailing the deprivation of all rights of status and special rights and benefits, were considered by crown judges with the participation of 12 jurors. The jurors were selected from the lists, where the zemstvo and city councils, in agreement with the governors or town governors, included Russian subjects, regardless of estates - men aged 25 to 70 years old, able to read Russian and living in the locality of election for at least two years. Persons under trial or convicted, expelled from service by court, expelled from societies and noble assemblies, insolvent debtors, blind, deaf, dumb and insane, military personnel, domestic servants and those who fell into extreme poverty, etc. could not be assessors. the qualification of jurors was quite high and was determined by the presence of real estate (land - at least 20 acres, urban - worth at least 1000 rubles) or income (at least 400 rubles per year). The litigants selected 12 assessors from 36 candidates in each case through a complex procedure. An important right of the parties was the challenge of candidates for jurors. The task of the assessors was to evaluate the facts regarding the circumstances of the act and issue a verdict (“yes, guilty”, “no, not guilty” or “guilty, but deserves leniency”). The verdict itself, if it was "not guilty", was not subject to appeal, the accused was released from custody (if he was arrested) and was considered acquitted. With the verdict “guilty”, the task of determining the measure of punishment was decided by the crown professional court, guided by the norms of the criminal law. The Crown Court for the application of criminal law was not bound by the opinion of the jurors. Judgments in criminal cases handed down by a jury were not subject to appeal. Only the Senate could consider them on appeal. It is important to note that with the advent of the institution of juries, the theory of formal evidence disappeared from the courts of Russia.

The court of the 2nd instance in relation to the district courts was the judicial chambers (one for several provinces). The judicial chambers were divided into departments of criminal and civil cases. Each department consisted of a chairman and members, one of the chairmen of the departments was appointed senior and chaired the general meetings. He was entrusted with the supervision of the compliance of the proceedings with the law in the judicial chamber and in the district courts subordinate to it. The Judicial Chamber acted as an appellate instance on decisions of district courts and the court of first instance on the most important criminal cases - on state, official and crimes against the order of administration. These crimes, entailing the deprivation of all the rights of the state or all special rights and advantages, were considered by the judicial chambers in a reinforced composition, with the participation of class representatives, from the nobles - the provincial and one of the county marshals of the nobility of the province where the case was considered, the local mayor and one from the volost foremen of the local county. In total, by January 1, 1901, 13 judicial chambers and 104 district courts were opened in Russia.

The highest cassation court of the Russian Empire, the body of supervision and judicial administration, and in especially important cases, the court of first instance was the ruling Senate. It consisted of two departments - criminal and civil. In criminal cases, the Senate was empowered to decide on the annulment (cassation) of a sentence or the resumption of a criminal case. In civil cases, decisions of the Senate could be about cassation of court decisions, revision of the decision or revision of the decision taking into account the petitions of third parties not involved in the case.

To consider cases of state crimes (conspiracy against the supreme power, against the established form of government or the order of succession to the throne) and cases of official crimes of high officials, each time by special decree of the emperor, the supreme criminal court was established from the highest dignitaries of the state - the chairman of the State Council , chairmen of departments of the State Council, heads of cassation departments of the Senate, etc.

It should be noted that after the publication of the statutes on November 20, 1864, the procedure for putting them into effect dragged on for almost two years. Only on April 17, 1866, the first courts opened in St. Petersburg. The spread of the reform throughout the country ended only in 1899. At the same time, significant additions and changes were made to the judicial charters, largely alien to the legal ideas originally laid down in them.

In accordance with the judicial reform, there have been changes in the procedural law of Russia. From now on, the most important principles have been entrenched in legal proceedings - publicity of the trial, the ability to publish all materials of the court case in the press, the principle of adversarial process (the parties have the right to prove and defend their point of view, resorting to the help of specialist lawyers), lawyers have the opportunity to speak on any case, independence of judges (due to the irremovability of judges).

The judicial reform also affected the prosecutor's office. As you know, the head of the prosecutor's office was the Minister of Justice with the rank of Prosecutor General. At the head of each of the two departments of the Senate was a chief prosecutor, prosecutors were also in the judicial chambers and district courts. The tasks of prosecutors at different levels included: supervision over the observance of the rule of law in the work of the courts, maintaining the prosecution in the trial, making protests against the sentences and decisions of the courts, if they were illegal from the point of view of the prosecutors. In the process, special officials appeared - judicial investigators (lawyers with higher education, appointed by the Minister of Justice on the basis of irremovability). Prosecutors were in charge of their actions. Judicial investigators had broad powers: they could independently initiate criminal prosecution, carry out investigative actions (searches, seizures, bring in persons, determine the measure of restraint, examine correspondence, seize property, terminate a criminal case), instruct the police bodies in criminal cases to conduct an inquiry.

The most important element of procedural law, which was introduced under the reform, was the bar. The bar was independent. Lawyers were divided into private attorneys and sworn attorneys. Attorneys at law could be persons over 25 years of age with a higher legal education who had served at least 5 years in the judiciary, or at least 5 years had been practicing as assistants to attorneys at law. Foreigners, insolvent debtors, who are in the civil service or by election, deprived of the rights of a state, dismissed from service by a court decision, etc. could not be sworn attorneys. , issues of lawyer ethics, etc. Private attorneys could participate in the consideration of court cases only with the permission of the court and under the authority of one of the parties. The participation of barristers in criminal cases contributed to the democratization of the courts.

So, the judicial reform gave impetus to the development of new principles in the Russian judiciary - the all-estate court, the separation of the court from the administration, the irremovability of judges and investigators, the election of justices of the peace, the introduction of professional representation in court and protection in the form of sworn attorneys and private attorneys, and the independent organization of the bar, participation in the consideration of cases of unprofessional unbiased arbitrators - jurors and class representatives, the right of the parties to challenge candidates for jurors, the separation of the preliminary investigation from the trial and the inquiry from the preliminary investigation. New principles of legal proceedings appeared - equality of the parties before the law, publicity, orality of the court, competitiveness with the direct participation of the parties, the presumption of innocence and free evaluation of evidence.

military reform. The development and implementation of a large-scale military reform in Russia are closely associated with the name of D. A. Milyutin, Adjutant General and Minister of War in 1861-1881. The immediate causes of the military reform were due to the defeat in the Crimean War, which revealed the obsolescence of the military organizational structure of the Russian army based on the recruitment system, the backwardness of the officers and technical equipment of the army. The military reform primarily set the goal of creating an army at the level of the requirements of the 19th century, a mass bourgeois army of all estates. A number of preliminary acts of military reform were adopted already in the 60s. In 1864, a military district system was established, in accordance with which 15 military districts were created on the territory of the country. During the implementation of the reform, major transformations took place in the system of secondary and higher military education. The Crimean War also showed the complete unsuitability of the existing system of vocational training and the exclusively class-noble principle of staffing the officer corps. The new army required qualified, educated officer cadres. Therefore, the cadet corps were abolished, instead of them military gymnasiums and cadet schools were created, which provided better training. The total number of military educational institutions was also increased. In 1867, a military law academy was established. A new military-judicial charter appeared (May 15, 1867), based on the basic principles of the judicial charters of 1864 (orality, publicity, adversarial principle, etc.). In order to improve the training of the rank and file for the training of soldiers, company schools were created. On January 1, 1874, the fundamental document of the military reform was adopted - the Manifesto, which introduced universal all-class military service in the state. The entire male population of the country (except for the indigenous population of Kazakhstan, Central Asia, the Far North, etc.) who had reached the age of 20 was subject to it. At the same time, recruitment was abolished. A 6-year term of service in the army and 9 years of reserve was established (in the navy - 7 years of service and 3 years of reserve). The army was divided into two parts - permanent regular troops and the state militia (in case of war). Significant benefits were introduced for people with education in relation to terms of service. The presence of higher education reduced the service life to 6 months, secondary - to 1.5 years, primary - to 4 years. The call, in view of the overabundance of conscripts, was made by lot. The military reform laid the foundation for the creation of a new type of army, bourgeois in character, with a trained reserve and wide opportunities for deployment into a mass army in wartime. Already the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. showed the correctness of the choice of army reforms.

Zemstvo and city reforms. The most important component of the structural changes in the political structure of the Russian Empire was the creation of extensive local self-government bodies, capable to a certain extent of replacing the pre-reform nobility and landlord administration. The plan for the formation of local economic and administrative authorities was first mentioned in 1859, when Alexander II ordered a project to be drawn up for the reorganization of the local government system - in provinces and districts. On January 1, 1864, the Regulations on provincial and district zemstvo institutions received the force of law. Zemstvos were introduced gradually, by the beginning of the 80s. they operated in 34 provinces of the European part of Russia and in the region of the Don Cossacks (here the zemstvos were abolished in 1882).

The task of the zemstvo reform was the organization and development of a system of local all-estate self-government. Economic affairs were separated from the sphere of local government and entrusted to zemstvo institutions. Zemstvo institutions were created in counties and provinces through elections and were divided into zemstvo assemblies, endowed with administrative power, and zemstvo councils - executive bodies. County zemstvo assemblies consisted of county vowels elected by electoral meetings and volost gatherings. Provincial zemstvo assemblies consisted of provincial vowels, elected by uyezd assemblies from among their vowels. Provincial assemblies were led by provincial marshals of the nobility, and county assemblies by district marshals. The chairman of the provincial zemstvo council was approved by the Minister of the Interior, and the chairman of the provincial zemstvo council and members of the council - by the governor. Zemstvo assemblies were convened once a year, the duration of provincial assemblies was up to 20 days, and county assemblies - 10 days. Participants of zemstvo assemblies elected the composition of zemstvo councils, which were permanent bodies. Local governors and vice-governors, members of provincial boards, prosecutors, and other officials could not be elected to zemstvo institutions. The term of office of the vowels was three years. They did not receive any remuneration for their work. The law established the number of vowels in each district and provincial assembly and their distribution among the electoral curia. The number of vowels in different counties and provinces ranged from 10 to 96 and from 15 to 100, respectively. Of the 318 counties with zemstvo institutions in 202, the number of vowels from the landlords accounted for half of all members of the county assemblies. Thus, the law ensured numerical superiority in the zemstvo assemblies for the nobility.

The system of elections to zemstvo institutions was based on the division of the male population of the counties according to the property qualification into three curia: landowning, urban and rural. Accordingly, there were three electoral congresses - the congress of landowners, the congress of urban voters and the congress elected from rural societies. The first was attended by persons (individuals and legal entities) who owned land property in the amount of 200 acres or other real estate in rural areas, worth at least 15,000 rubles, or owned industrial and economic establishments of at least the same value, or with an annual turnover of at least 6000 r. Representatives from landowners who had land at least 1/20 of the norm also participated. The city curia included merchants and industrialists with an annual turnover of at least 6,000 rubles. and owners of real estate worth over 500 rubles. in cities with a population of less than 2000 inhabitants and cost up to 3000 rubles. in cities with a population of more than 10,000. The elections for the peasant curia were complex and multistage. At first, volost assemblies appointed electors from among the peasant householders, who participated in county congresses to elect representatives from rural communities. Vowels were elected to district zemstvo assemblies at the congresses of each of the three curiae.

The competence of zemstvo institutions included local economic affairs - the budget of the zemstvo, zemstvo duties, i.e. distribution and collection of taxes and determination of local fees, providing the population with food, local roads, zemstvo medicine and charitable institutions, public charity, public education, assistance to agriculture, trade and industry, etc. The creation of zemstvos as a whole had a beneficial effect on economic and social life countries, contributed to the involvement in the management of the general population. At the same time, the noble-landlord monarchy, by virtue of its nature, was limited in its attempts to democratize the country and could not agree to the introduction of truly popular representation. The sphere of activity of zemstvos often intersected with the sphere of activity of state institutions. In many respects, this was facilitated by the uncertainty of the situation in 1864.

The rapid growth of the urban population that took place after the abolition of serfdom, the expansion of the economic and political influence of cities in the country, the growing claims of the Russian bourgeoisie to participate in socio-political life, as well as the desire of the authorities to reduce the costs of maintaining the state administrative apparatus in the field caused the need for reorganization of the authorities. city ​​government. As early as 1862, all-estate commissions were formed in 509 cities of Russia, which were engaged in the development of the forthcoming reform of city government. June 16, 1870 "City Regulation" was approved by decree of the emperor. This legislative act marked the creation in the Russian Empire of all-class elected bodies of city self-government. Their structure included city electoral meetings, city dumas and city governments. City electoral meetings were convened every 4 years in order to elect vowels (deputies) of city dumas. The time of their convocation was determined by city councils. The right to vote was granted to city residents, Russian subjects over 25 years old - payers of city taxes. These included property owners, owners of commercial and industrial enterprises, merchants, merchants. Three electoral assemblies were established in each city to conduct elections of vowels. The amount of payments from each category was to be one third of the city fees. Thus, all voters were divided into three curia - categories depending on income: large payers, medium and small. Each category represented one electoral assembly, which elected one third of the vowels. The number of vowels, depending on the total population of the city, ranged from 30 to 72; in Moscow, the number of vowels reached 250. Since the number of each category was unequal, this ensured the predominance of large payers in the city dumas. A small number of rich people were guaranteed one-third of the votes. Departments, institutions, societies, partnerships, monasteries and churches enjoyed the right to vote along with private individuals. Persons without full rights, those who had arrears in city taxes, landlords and clerks of wine shops and drinking establishments were excluded from the number of voters. The main administrative body of city self-government was the city duma, which consisted of vowels elected for four years on the basis of a property qualification. The council met as needed. The executive body of city self-government was the city government, elected by the council members and consisting of the mayor and several members. The mayor supervised the work of the city council and the Duma. He was elected by the city duma and approved in the county towns by the governor, and in the provincial towns by the minister of the interior.

The regulation of 1870 provided the city self-government bodies with a fairly broad competence in the sphere of the economic life of the city. The Duma created executive commissions to guide individual sectors of the economy. The competence of the city government included the improvement of the city, its budget, food supply, health care, public charity and charity, public education and enlightenment, public and fire safety, the development of local industry and trade, etc. The city government supported the police at the expense of the city , the fire brigade, financed the military quarters, the arrangement of detention facilities, heating and lighting of prisons, etc. To form the city budget, city fees were established from real estate, from the right to trade and crafts, from taverns, inns and shops, from horses and carriages of individuals, from dogs, etc.

On the state system of the Russian Empire, the reforms of the second half of the 19th century. had very little effect. Their main content continued to be class and estate, aimed at ensuring the political dominance of the nobility and the main spokesman of its interests - the monarchy. Therefore, even the emergence in 1861 of a new government body, the Council of Ministers, did not have the proper impact on the political situation in the country. The Council of Ministers was established (acted unofficially since 1857) in the Russian Empire as an official central body of state administration of general competence to consider the most important state affairs that required the approval and personal presence of the tsar during their discussion. The Council of Ministers was chaired by the tsar and consisted of ministers, chief executives, the chairman of the State Council, the Committee of Ministers and other dignitaries appointed by the monarch. The competence of the Council of Ministers was advisory in nature. All cases were entered into it and considered at the initiative of the king. Meetings of the Council did not have definite terms and were appointed each time at the discretion of the king. From 1882 to 1905 meetings of the Council of Ministers were not held.

censorship reform. It had a certain influence on the liberalization of the political regime in the empire. (Censorship is a system of government measures for the content of published publications - books, magazines, newspapers, as well as theatrical repertoire, etc.) From 1826 to 1865. all printed publications published in the Russian Empire were subject to preliminary control. The role of censorship increased especially during the years of the revolutionary upsurge in Europe, in the 30-40s of the XIX century. Each work had to receive the permission of the censors twice - initially as a manuscript (permission for printing) and already in printed form (permission for publication).

Introduced in 1865 and in force for more than 40 years, the Provisional Rules on Censorship in the Press significantly softened censorship control. According to them, original works of at least 10 printed sheets and all translated works of at least 20 printed sheets were exempted from preliminary censorship. Nevertheless, for the entire time the rules were in effect, censorship was not allowed to print, a significant number of books were confiscated and destroyed - 218. The new “Temporary Rules on the Press” published in 1906 were more progressive, they freed all books without exception from preliminary censorship. . Now the confiscation of a book or other printed matter could be made only by a court decision.

Reforms of the 60s affected the church. A number of legislative acts (1867, 1869 and others) abolished the hereditary transmission of church titles (priests) and places (church parishes).

Counter-reforms. In the second half of the 70s. 19th century a revolutionary situation is taking shape in Russia. There are a number of reasons for this country. The main place among them was occupied by the consequences of the unfinished and half-hearted agrarian reform. The anti-peasant and noble orientation of agrarian reforms in the countryside caused an intensification of the peasant movement for land. The war of 1877-1878 contributed to an increase in the tax burden, primarily on the peasants. The poor harvest of 1879 and 1880 also contributed to the worsening of the position of the peasantry. The growth of the peasant movement coincided with the growing struggle of the emerging working class against exploitation and capitalism. The decline in industrial production, the decline in living standards and the growth of unemployment among the working class, and in the Moscow province alone in 1877 there were over 80 thousand unemployed, led to a significant rise in the level of the strike struggle of the proletariat. As an expression of the growing revolutionary sentiment in society, the terrorist activities of the Narodnaya Volya revolutionaries are intensifying. To suppress the revolutionary movement, the government used mass repressions and the adoption of legislation that significantly limited the rights given to the people during the reforms of the 60-70s. As another measure designed to mitigate the intensity of revolutionary sentiment, the government in 1880 established the "Supreme Administrative Commission for the Protection of State Order and Public Peace" headed by General Count M. T. Loris-Melikov. Its main task was to complete the reforms and establish "public peace". The final plan of "concessions" to the peasantry and the public was formulated by M. T. Loris-Melikov in January 1881 in a report to Alexander II. Although it received the name of the Constitution, there was little constitutional in it. It was supposed to create temporary preparatory commissions with the participation of representatives of zemstvos and cities to develop reforms in the provincial administration and additions to the Regulations of February 19, 1861, amending the zemstvo and city Regulations, easing in the press, and carrying out economic and financial reforms. It was an attempt by the tsarist government to respond to the political crisis of the early 1980s. However, after the assassination of the tsar on March 1, 1881, a consistent departure from the reform policy and a revision of a number of essential provisions of the reforms of 60-70 years appeared in the domestic policy of Russia. The reforms of Alexander II were declared a "fatal mistake". The reform project of M. T. Loris-Melikov was postponed forever. This was followed by the resignation of a number of liberal-minded ministers of Alexander II. There was a reaction in the country, expressed in a number of counter-reforms. Sometimes in the literature there is a point of view that a series of counter-reforms was the response of tsarism and the ruling class to the assassination of Alexander II. This is not entirely true, because the beginning of counter-reforms, a rollback from the era of liberalism, is observed even during the life of Alexander II.

One of the first steps along the path of counter-reforms was the publication on August 14, 1881 by the government of Alexander III of an emergency legislative act - "Regulations on measures to protect state security and public peace." Adopted for three years as a temporary emergency measure, it was renewed after the expiration of the period until 1917. From now on, the government received the right to declare a state of emergency in any locality, each resident of this locality could be arrested by local authorities for 3 months, subjected to a fine of up to 3 thousand .rubles, his case could be transferred to a military court, and real estate - sequestered. Created under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Special Conference was vested with the right to exile any inhabitant of the empire for up to 5 years in an administrative manner, that is, without trial or investigation. The local administration received the full right to close any educational institutions, trade and industrial enterprises, to suspend the activities of any zemstvo and city bodies and the press. To strengthen the fight against the revolution, it was planned to create a voluntary organization - the "Holy Squad".

Judicial counter-reform. The reaction was most pronounced in the judiciary. Counter-reforms in it can be traced already from 1866, when cases related to printing were withdrawn from the jurisdiction of jury trials. Beginning in 1869, interrogations of high-ranking officials for reasons of "secrecy" could be carried out at their homes. The law of May 19, 1871 granted the right to representatives of the corps of gendarmes to conduct inquiries on political matters. In 1872, a law was passed to change the jurisdiction for state crimes. From now on, they were subject only to the Special Presence of the Senate, which consisted of the chairman, 5 senators and 4 class representatives. In May 1878, a law appeared to expand the jurisdiction of the judicial chambers. Now they had the right to consider criminal cases on state crimes. State crimes could be considered in the judicial chambers of the usual composition; in the judicial chambers of reinforced composition (5 members of the court and 3 class representatives); but the most important and significant matters remained with the Special Presence of the Senate. Particularly important cases were considered in a special manner by the Supreme Criminal Court (in each specific case created by a special decree of the king). Thus, one of the most important areas of revision of the judicial system was the transfer of a number of cases to special emergency courts, i.e. organs of administrative repression.

Instead of magistrates' courts, independent of the administration and subject only to the law, the Regulations of July 12, 1889 introduced the institution of zemstvo district chiefs (i.e., administrative justice). The introduction of the institution of zemstvo chiefs significantly weakened the practical significance of the norms of the "General Regulations on Peasants who Abandoned Serfdom" and limited peasant self-government. Zemstvo chief, nobleman and official, in fact, completely subordinated to the entire local peasant self-government. The World Court was liquidated, and the cases of its jurisdiction were transferred to the peasant volost court and the zemstvo chief, who also led the police. Thus, the court, in violation of the principles of the judicial statutes of 1864, was made dependent on the administration and merged with it. The principle of publicity of courts was infringed upon. This found its expression in the fact that since 1887 the judges have received the right to declare the process closed. Within the framework of administrative justice, corporal punishment, already abolished in 1863, continued to be applied. In August 1878, a tsarist decree was issued on the transfer of all political affairs to the jurisdiction of military courts and the application by them of wartime laws in determining penalties. In April 1879, temporary governor-generals with extraordinary powers were appointed in a number of cities of the empire. Thus, the counter-reforms worsened the position of the masses, primarily the working class and the peasantry, limited the role of local self-government, violated the democratic principles of the judicial system, slowed down the socio-economic and political development of Russia for many years, prepared the revolution of the early 20th century.

Zemstvo counter-reform. As a result of the revision of the regulation of 1864, by decree of June 12, 1890, a new “Regulation on provincial and district zemstvo institutions” was promulgated, which contained a number of changes and amendments designed to further ensure the predominance of nobles in the zemstvos. In the new "Regulations" the basic principle of the all-estate zemstvos was significantly infringed by the introduction of estate representation. From now on, instead of the congress of district landowners and the city curia, two electoral meetings were created: for hereditary and personal nobles, and the second - for other voters, except for the peasants. Thus, the principle of electivity was partially eliminated. Peasant representatives, vowels from rural communities were elected by volost gatherings, the number of these vowels was determined by the governors. Essentially new was the fact that district marshals of the nobility were introduced into the provincial zemstvo assemblies, the size of which was reduced on average from 67 to 46. Thus, the representation and influence of the nobles increased significantly, primarily at the expense of the peasantry. Merchants and owners of commercial and industrial establishments, clergy and Jews were deprived of the right to vote.

Introduced by the “Regulations” of 1890, the institution of provincial presences for zemstvo affairs also significantly limited the rights of zemstvos. The composition of the presence included the governor, the provincial marshal of the nobility, the vice-governor, the manager of the state chamber, the prosecutor of the district court, the mayor, and other officials. The “Regulations” of 1890 significantly expanded the possibilities for intervention in the sphere of activity of the zemstvo institutions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and governors. The governors received the right to consider the decisions of the zemstvos, even to suspend their action. The government, represented by the governors and the Minister of the Interior, supervised the actions of the zemstvos, mainly from the point of view of the legality of the decisions made. A significant part of the decisions of the zemstvo bodies was subject to approval by the state power in the person of the minister of internal affairs or the governor. Often, individual decisions of zemstvos caused dissatisfaction with the authorities, which entailed certain sanctions. When the St. Petersburg provincial zemstvo assembly protested against the law on November 21, 1866, which limited the rights of zemstvos to tax industrial enterprises, then by decree of the emperor on January 13, 1867, provincial and district zemstvo institutions were closed in St. ” dated January 1, 1864. Later, in June 1888, in the Cherepovets district of the Novgorod province, by the decision of the governor, the activities of the district zemstvo council were suspended for 3 years. However, even despite the curtailed opportunities and similar restrictions in activity, in general, the zemstvos were in tune with the time and an important element of the system of state administration of the Russian Empire. Undoubtedly, they made a significant contribution to the development of the country's economy, culture, health and education, to the bourgeois reform movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Urban counter-reform. The subsequent development of the activity of city government revealed significant shortcomings of the city regulation of 1870. On June 11, 1892, a new "City regulation" was put into effect. It has already eliminated the division of voters into categories. Everyone who had the right to vote in elections could be elected to the vowels. However, the property qualification remained. The right to vote was enjoyed by owners or lifelong owners of real estate in the city, persons who maintained commercial and industrial enterprises in the city and had guild certificates: in both capitals - the first, and in other cities - the first or second guild. Jews were deprived of voting rights, but in a number of cities from among them a certain number of councilors were appointed by the provincial presence on city affairs. The new provision did not eliminate such a shortcoming as combining the positions of the chairman of the Duma and the chairman of the council in one person, i.e. the head of the administrative and executive bodies, which made it difficult for the city duma to control its executive body. According to the new provision, the competence of local self-government bodies was limited - a provincial presence for city affairs was created, a body consisting of the governor, provincial marshal of the nobility, vice-governor, manager of the treasury, the prosecutor of the district court, the mayor to control the activities of city self-government.

Counter-reforms in the sphere of financial policy. As part of the counter-reforms, the government of Alexander III increased the state land tax and the city tax on real estate by 1.5 times, which significantly “hit” the bulk of the population. At the same time, tax rates on tobacco, wine, sugar, and kerosene were increased. It also affected the poor in the first place.

Customs policy. In the 80s. high customs tariffs were established, as a result of which the import and investment in the industry of capital, rather than the import of goods, became profitable. As a result, foreign capital poured into Russia, tempted by the low cost of labor and raw materials. This led to high prices for goods produced at Russian enterprises, because foreign capital needed high profits,

In the field of education, counter-reforms were expressed in the fact that from 1882 institutions that provided women with higher education began to gradually close. In 1884, a new university charter abolished university autonomy. From now on, all positions in universities were filled by appointment, and not by election, as was the case before. Since 1885, a new form for students has been introduced and tuition fees have been increased 5 times. In 1887, the so-called. the circular “On the Cook’s Children”, which recommended limiting the admission to the gymnasium and progymnasium of children of “low” social origin - the children of janitors, coachmen, servants, small shopkeepers, etc., who “. should not at all be taken out of the environment to which they belong.”

With the appearance in 1882 of the "Temporary Rules on the Press", a punitive policy in the field of book publishing was carried out in the country, and censorship in the press became more active.

In general, the reforms of the 1860-1870s. were an attempt by the tsar and the noble-landlord state to adapt to the new capitalist conditions. It should be noted that the reforms largely contributed to the transformation of Russia into a bourgeois state. However, the radical nature that certain reforms assumed forced the government to drastically change its domestic policy and revise a number of the most important provisions of the transformations of the 1860s-1870s, which were later declared the "fatal mistake" of Alexander II. This aspiration was realized by the "counter-reforms".

BOURGEOIS REFORM IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE XIX CENTURY

1. The abolition of serfdom

The question of the need to abolish serfdom and carry out reforms in the socio-political sphere was already ripe at the beginning of the 19th century. By this time, Russia remained the only European power that retained a feudal-feudal economy and an absolute monarchy.

The efficiency of the Russian economy in the first half of the XIX century. was an order of magnitude lower than in developed European countries, where already in the 30s of this century there was a re-equipment of industrial enterprises with steam engines, which led to a sharp increase in labor productivity and the establishment of the capitalist way of life.

The economic failure of feudal Russia manifested itself with particular clarity at the end of the reign of Nicholas I, during the Crimean War of 1853-1856. ., where Russia suffered a severe defeat, despite the heroism of soldiers, sailors and officers. The sailing fleet of Russia on the Black Sea could not resist the steamships of the European powers. The lack of railways did not allow supplying the army with food and ammunition in the required quantity.

The defeat in the Crimean War showed that after a period of rapprochement with Europe (XVIII - early XIX centuries), backwardness, both personnel and technical, had again accumulated. The logic of economic and political relations with the capitalist powers of Europe set before Russia the task of modernizing a backward society. But the defeat in the war also caused public activity. The government was pushed to decisive changes by the peasant unrest of the late 1850s, as well as unusual actions, such as the desire to enlist in the army during the Crimean War (it was rumored that volunteers

get freedom), or the "sober movement" that swept a number of provinces, when rural societies forbade peasants to drink wine under the threat of cruel reprisals.

After the death of Nicholas I, his son Alexander II (1855-1881) ascended the throne. famous words: "... it is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait until it is itself abolished from below." We must pay tribute to this king, who decided to carry out reforms that his predecessors stopped before and which his son (Alexander III) and grandson (Nicholas II) could not continue.

To develop the reform, provincial committees were created, which were led by the "Main Committee on Peasant Affairs". The preparation of the reform took about three years. As you can see, the preparation took quite a long time, but the thoroughness of the study was probably one of the reasons for the initial success of the reform.

The work of the committees resulted in the following basic concepts: the liberation of peasants with land without a ransom, the liberation of peasants without land, and the liberation of peasants with land, but for a ransom. The last option was the basis of the reform.

According to the general situation, the peasant was personally recognized as a free person, endowed with a whole range of civil rights. He could sue and answer in court, own movable and immovable property, engage in trade and crafts. The landowner could no longer sell or buy peasants, nor forbid them to arrange their fate at their discretion. The personal dependence of the peasants was completely eliminated.

To determine the allotment, all lands were divided into three categories: non-chernozem, chernozem and steppe. In the whole country, one peasant had from 1 to 12 tithes (1 tithe = 1 ha) of land, and on average, 3.3 tithes were obtained per peasant.

Within a two-year period, all landowners and peasants had to draw up and sign a Charter, which determined the size and nature of the allocated land. In case of disagreements on any issues, mediators (from the nobility) were invited. Before the redemption of the land, the peasant was considered temporarily liable, and his responsibilities were accurately listed in the Charter (tire, corvée, the procedure and terms for its implementation). In the event that a peasant entered into a redemption deal and contributed 20% of the value of his allotment, then he became a free communal peasant.

After being freed from the landlord, the peasants in most of Russia remained dependent on the community, for all allotment land was considered to belong to the world - the community. The community distributed and redistributed land among the peasants. The redistribution of plots was carried out on average after 7-12 years (and in some places it was not carried out), farms with a large number of male workers enjoyed the advantage. Pastures and forests were in common use. Mutual responsibility held back the exit of peasants from the community. This system was changed only at the beginning of the 20th century. in connection with the Stolypin reform.

On February 16, 1861, the State Council completed the discussion of the draft "Regulations". February 19 (on the day of accession to the throne in 1855, Alexander II) they were signed by the king and received the force of law. On the same day, the tsar also signed the Manifesto, announcing the liberation of the peasants.

"Regulations February 19, 1861." . extended to 45 provinces of European Russia, in which there were 22.5 million serfs, including 1467 thousand serfs and 543 thousand assigned to private factories and factories.

The liquidation of feudal relations was not a one-time act of 1861, but a long process that stretched over several decades. The peasants did not receive full liberation immediately from the moment the Manifesto and the "Regulations of February 19, 1861" were promulgated. The Manifesto declared that the peasants for two years (until February 19, 1863) were obliged to serve the same duties as under serfdom. Only the so-called additional fees were canceled (eggs, oil, flax, linen, wool, etc.), corvée was limited to 2 women's and 3 men's days from tax per week, household duty was somewhat reduced, it was forbidden to transfer peasants from quitrent to corvée and to yard. But even after 1863, the peasants remained for a long time in the position of "temporarily liable", i.e. continued to bear the feudal duties regulated by the "Regulations": pay dues or perform corvée. The final act in the liquidation of feudal relations was the transfer of peasants for redemption.

The transfer of peasants for ransom was the final stage in their liberation from serfdom. "Regulations February 19, 1861." no final date was set for the termination of the temporarily obligated state of the peasants and their transfer for redemption. Only the law of December 28, 1881 established the transfer of peasants for compulsory redemption, starting from January 1, 1883. By this time, 15% of the peasants remained in temporarily obligated relations.

Their transfer for ransom was completed by 1895. However, this law applied only to 29 "Great Russian provinces." In Transcaucasia, the transfer of peasants for ransom was not completed even by 1917. The situation was different in 9 provinces of Lithuania, Belarus and Right-Bank Ukraine, where, under the influence of the Polish uprising of 1863 and the broad peasant movement, peasants in the amount of 2.5 million male souls were transferred for redemption already in 1863. Here, more favorable conditions for liberation were established in comparison with the rest of the provinces of Russia: the lands cut off from allotments were returned, duties were reduced by an average of 20%.

The terms of the ransom for most of the peasants were difficult. The ransom was based on feudal duties, and not on the actual, market value of the land. In other words, the peasants had to pay not only for the land, but also for the loss of serf labor by the landlord. The redemption amount was determined by "capitalization of quitrent", that is, the quitrent paid annually by the peasant was equated to an annual income of 6% of the capital. The calculation of this capital meant the determination of the redemption sum. For example, if a peasant paid a shower allotment in the amount of 10 rubles. per year, then the redemption amount for this allotment was to be 166 rubles. 67 kop.

The state took over the ransom by carrying out a ransom operation. It consisted in the fact that the treasury paid the landowners immediately in money and securities 80% of the redemption amount if the peasants of the given estate received the highest allotment, and 75% if they were given a less than the highest allotment. The remaining 20-25% was paid by the peasants directly to the landowner (immediately or in installments). The redemption sum paid by the state to the landlords (it was considered as a loan granted to the peasants) was then collected from the peasants at a rate of 6% per year for 49 years. Thus, during this time, the peasant had to pay up to 300% of the "loan" granted to him.

The centralized redemption of peasant allotments by the state solved a number of important economic and social problems. The government credit provided the landowners with a guaranteed payment of the ransom and saved them from a direct confrontation with the peasants. The ransom turned out to be, in addition, an operation that was also beneficial to the state. The total redemption amount for peasant plots was determined to be 867 million rubles, while the market value of these plots at prices of 1863-1872. amounted to 648 million rubles. From 1862 to 1907, before the abolition of redemption payments, the former landlord peasants paid 1,540,570 thousand rubles to the treasury. ransom payments and still owed her!

By carrying out the redemption operation, the treasury also solved the problem of returning pre-reform debts from the landowners. By 1861, 65% of the serfs were mortgaged and re-mortgaged by their owners in various credit institutions, and the amount of debt to these institutions amounted to 425 million rubles. This debt was deducted from the redemption loan of the landowner. Thus, the reform of 1861, having freed the landowners from debts, saved them from bankruptcy.

As we can see, the contradictory nature of the reform of 1861 was clearly manifested in the issue of redemption. On the one hand, the ransom was undoubtedly of a predatory, feudal nature, but on the other hand, it contributed to the development of capitalist relations in the country. The ransom, firstly, contributed to a more intensive penetration of commodity-money relations into the peasant economy, secondly, it gave the landowners money to transfer their economy to capitalist foundations, thirdly, it meant a further separation of the peasant economy from the landowner economy, and, fourthly accelerated the process of social stratification of the peasantry.

The repayment caused the greatest hatred of the people. Since 1863, wine farms were abolished and free trade in vodka was introduced with the payment of excise duty to the treasury. Later (at the end of the 19th century), the state monopoly on vodka was again introduced, but with its sale in state-owned shops (without farming). The archaic salt tax has also been abolished. The poll tax, which was taken from the male census souls-peasants...

Development of industry and trade. This led to an increase in social tension at the turn of the 50s - 60s. 19th century Social tension was expressed in the rise of the peasant movement and the speeches of radical public figures - N.G. Chernyshevsky, N.A. Dobrolyubov and others. As a result, in the 60s. in Russia there was a revolutionary situation. According to V.I. Lenin, the revolutionary situation is not...

Specify how Russia's foreign policy created favorable conditions for solving foreign policy problems. Tasks for self-control. 1. Problematic issues: a) What is the bourgeois nature of the reforms of the 60-70s. 19th century? b) What caused the half-heartedness of the reform to abolish serfdom? What could be the consequences of an immediate and complete reform in the land question? c) Could...

Second half of the 19th century was marked by the implementation of bourgeois reforms in the sphere of the legal status of peasants, the structure of the administration of zemstvos and cities, the judicial and police systems.

Types of prerequisites for bourgeois reforms of the 60-70s. 19th century:

1. socio-economic;
2. political;
3. ideological.

Socio-economic background: by the middle of the XIX century. the decline of the feudal mode of production became obvious, the bourgeois features of production more and more openly appeared on the industrial arena, capitalist forms of management appeared and spread widely, replacing the old feudal production patterns. Already to 20th years 19th century civilian workers were employed more and more, and 1960s their number exceeded 50% of the workforce in factories, patrimonial and sessional manufactories ceased to exist, giving way to new bourgeois relations. Industrial revolution of the 30-40s. 19th century acutely raised the problem of shortage of personnel, since the majority of the population was in serfdom and did not have the opportunity to leave their landowners. At the same time, noble landownership was shrinking, the land began to rapidly pass into the hands of other classes, against this background, the practice of otkhodnichestvo peasants spread. Among the nobility, supporters of bourgeois reforms also appeared, since less and less income came from the lands, entrepreneurship and service to the sovereign became the main sources of existence for the nobility, and estates, rather, on the contrary, required significant material costs.

Political background: the main prerequisite for the reforms of the 60-70s. 19th century was the pre-revolutionary situation that developed in those years in Russia. The political situation in the 50s. 19th century was such that the class struggle constantly increased, flaring up against the backdrop of contradictions between the nobility and the peasants. This struggle sharply escalated after the defeat in the Crimean War of 1853-1855, when, after the excitement of the Decembrist uprising, the activities of socio-political circles again significantly revived. The feudal order was completely obsolete, it was necessary to take prompt measures to establish certain guarantees for citizens in order to keep at least the absolute monarchy itself in force. Perestroika was demanded by the entire state apparatus, police and judicial authorities, since bribery and lawlessness reigned everywhere, crime in the country sharply increased.

Against the backdrop of such an unfavorable situation in Russia, an important factor that served as a prerequisite for the reforms of the second half of the 19th century was the liberal views who ruled those years Alexander II .

Ideological background: the most important ideological impetus for the establishment of bourgeois orders throughout the world, including in Russia, was ideas of the French Revolution: freedom, equality, brotherhood, legality.

In Russia, right at that moment, 3 main ideological and political forces:

1. official government;
2. liberal;
3. revolutionary.

All of them at the same time considered it necessary to carry out bourgeois reforms, although they disagreed on the method of their implementation.

At the end of the Crimean War, many internal shortcomings of the Russian state were revealed. Changes were needed, and the country was looking forward to them.

In the first place, of course, was the idea of ​​liberating the serfs.

The discrepancy between the level of development of productive forces and the nature of production relations led to the fact that the serf system became a brake on further economic growth. This discrepancy manifested itself in all spheres of economic life:

1. Agriculture.

a) Low productivity of peasant corvee labor.

b) The advantages of civilian labor over serf labor in the absence of a broad market for hired labor.

c) Capital investment in agriculture (purchase of machinery, equipment) did not give great results, since the serfs were not interested in the proper operation of this equipment. Civilian workers were hired to the machines.

2. Industry.

a) The shortage of civilian labor hampered the development of industry. The use of complex machines for serf labor in manufactories was impossible because the workers broke the machines.

b) The lack of qualified personnel and the seasonal nature of work under the otkhodnik system.

c) Russia's lag in economic development from the industrial countries of the West, which revealed the defeat in the Crimean War.

In addition, there were political prerequisites for reforms.

The liberation of the peasants was the secret goal of many monarchs on the Russian throne and inspired fear in several generations of Russian landowners.

Alexander II made another attempt to overcome the resistance. However, reformers in Russia have always been in an unusually difficult position: the government was forced to pursue its policy under pressure not only from the left, from the radical revolutionary camp, but also from the right, from the conservative-minded nobility.

The peasant reform entailed the transformation of all aspects of state and public life. A number of measures were envisaged to restructure local government, the judiciary, education and, later, the army. These were really major changes, comparable only to the reforms of Peter I.

& 44. "Cold War": causes and essence

The Cold War is a period in the development of international relations and foreign policy of the USSR that lasted almost 40 years after the end of the Second World War. The essence of the Cold War was the political, military-strategic and ideological confrontation between the countries of the capitalist and the so-called socialist system. The Cold War swept the entire planet into itself. It split the world into two parts, two military-political and economic groups, two socio-political systems. The world has become bipolar, bipolar. A peculiar political logic of this rivalry arose - whoever is not with us is against us. All events in the world began to be viewed as if through this "black and white" prism of rivalry. In everything and everywhere, each side saw the insidious hand of the enemy, at the same time trying by any means to annoy him.

The term "cold war" was introduced by Churchill during his speech in Fulton (USA) on March 5, 1946. No longer the leader of his country, Churchill remained one of the most influential politicians in the world. In his speech, he stated that Europe was divided by the "Iron Curtain" and called on Western civilization to declare war on "communism."

In fact, the war of two systems, two ideologies has not stopped since 1917, however, it took shape as a completely conscious confrontation precisely after the Second World War.

Why did it start only after the Second World War? Obviously, this was dictated by the time itself, the era itself. The allies emerged from this war so strong, and the means of warfare became so destructive, that it became clear that sorting things out with the old methods was too much of a luxury. Nevertheless, the desire to exterminate the opposing side of the coalition partners has not diminished. To a certain extent, the initiative to start the Cold War belongs to the countries of the West, for which the might of the USSR, which became evident during the Second World War, turned out to be a very unpleasant surprise. So, the Cold War arose shortly after the end of World War II, when the Allies began to take stock of its results. What did they see? Firstly,. Half of Europe ended up in the Soviet zone of influence, and pro-Soviet regimes feverishly arose there. Secondly, a powerful wave of liberation movement arose in the colonies against the mother countries. Thirdly, the world quickly polarized and turned into a bipolar one. Fourthly, two superpowers emerged on the world stage, the military and economic power of which gave them a significant superiority over others. Plus, the interests of Western countries in various parts of the world are beginning to run into the interests of the USSR. This new state of the world, formed after the Second World War, was recognized by Churchill faster than others when he proclaimed the Cold War.