On February 18, 1855, 37-year-old Alexander II ascended the Russian throne. On February 19, 1861, the emperor signed the Manifesto on the abolition of serfdom.
The abolition of serfdom was accompanied by the reform of all aspects of life Russian society, which caused a wave of research into the events of this period of national history.
The issues of the abolition of serfdom and the consequences of this reform, its reflection in the life of Russian society have constantly been (and continue to be) the subject of study by scientists.
Prerequisites for the abolition of serfdom
At the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian economy steadily and naturally developed along the path of the formation of capitalist relations.
By the middle of the 19th century, the crisis of feudal relations had become obvious. The sessional industry finally showed its economic insolvency, which is why, at the initiative of the breeders themselves, it was reorganized into new way. The owners of possessive enterprises received the right to dismiss serfs, who were then transferred to the ranks of state peasants or urban residents. After their dismissal, they were willingly taken to enterprises for free employment.
The patrimonial industry, based on the labor of serfs, also fell into decay.
At the same time, capitalist industry - merchant and peasant - was actively developing. However, feudalism prevented its free growth, made it difficult to attract hired workers, and narrowed the sales market.
The growth of capitalist industry in the country demanded more and more free laborers. This was significantly hindered by the corvee system of economy. Representatives of the bourgeoisie and some of the liberal landowners demanded the abolition of the corvée system and the transition to civilian wage labor.
In the 30-50s of the 19th century, an industrial revolution took place in Russia. The development of capitalist industry, closely connected with the development of goods for the market, led to an increase in the urban population. However, the process of expanding the domestic market was much slower than the development of industry. This was due to the fact that the vast majority of the country's population was subsistence farming. Serfs could not be full-fledged consumers of industrial products.
Even Paul I set a limit on corvée days - no more than three days a week. However, this rule was not respected by the landowners. In the black earth provinces corvée was the dominant form of exploitation of the peasants. On the eve of the abolition of serfdom, as P.A. Zaionchkovsky noted, there were 71.1% of corvée peasants.
The work of serfs and landowners became more and more unprofitable. Some of them preferred to transfer the peasants completely to quitrent, and then hire them to work on the lord's land. The bulk of the landlords nevertheless followed the path of intensifying the exploitation of the peasants in order to increase the profitability of their estates. The country needed more and more marketable bread. The landlords hurried to use this circumstance to make profits.
Some landowners, especially in the black earth regions, in pursuit of profits, intensify the exploitation of the serfs by transferring them completely to corvee and even to the so-called month. The peasant received from the master a meager monthly food ration and worked all the time on the master's land, breaking away from his household.
The country was going through a crisis of serfdom. Many landowners went bankrupt. The need and impoverishment of the peasants grew.
The situation is even more aggravated in connection with the difficult and unsuccessful Crimean War for Russia. At this time, recruitment sets are strengthened, taxes are increased. The war itself showed all the rottenness of the Russian economy, clearly demonstrated the backwardness of the country, which ultimately led to the emergence of a revolutionary situation in the country in 1859-1861.
Spontaneous mass demonstrations and uprisings of the peasants are becoming so powerful and dangerous for tsarism that the tsar and many of his associates understand the need to take urgent measures to save the autocracy.
Thus, the reasons that pushed the autocratic monarchy to abolish serfdom are, on the whole, a question that has been sufficiently clarified. This is the crisis of the feudal-serf system of management, military-technical backwardness and the growth, in connection with this, of peasant uprisings.
“The former system has outlived its time,” such is the general verdict of one of the recent apologists for this system, the historian M.P. Pogodin, with whom one cannot but agree.
It is noteworthy that among scientists there is no consensus on the objective socio-economic prerequisites for the abolition of serfdom. Soviet historians wrote about the crisis of the feudal-serf formation, the majority of Western historians (following P. Struve and A. Gershenkron) came to the conclusion that the serf management system on the eve of the 1861 reform was quite viable. This problem, apparently, requires further research using data on the macro- and micro-levels of socio-economic development of the pre-reform decades.
In the works of A. Crisp, A. Skerpan, B. Lincoln, the question of the economic motives for the reform, as they were understood by the reformers themselves, is also sufficiently clarified. Their views were based on economic liberalism, recognition of the role of private initiative in the development of the economy. At the same time, the assertion that the liberal bureaucracy did not know the realities of Russian reality and only copied the experience of the West looks very controversial. Rather, it can be said that she took into account the experience of Europe, but in relation to the peculiarities of Russian reality, the way of life and traditions that were well known to her.
N.A. Milyutin in the early 1840s, together with A.P. Zablotsky-Desyatovsky, were specially sent to get acquainted with the state of the fortress village. A.V.Golovnin in the summer of 1860 was sent by the Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich with the same purpose to the central provinces. Before writing his note on the liberation of the peasants in 1855, K.D. Kavelin himself was engaged in farming, etc. Recalling the speech of N.A. Milyutin in the Editorial Committees in connection with disagreements on the issue of the community, P.P. Semenov-Tian-Shansky wrote: learned for himself the knowledge of the conditions of Russian folk life, introduced into the legislative work by the successful selection of expert members.
Among the prerequisites for the abolition of serfdom, the experience gained in the first half of the 19th century of discussing and resolving peasant question. The decrees of 1803 on free cultivators and of 1842 on obligated peasants, which were not binding on landowners and therefore had little effect, at the same time tested in the legislation the ideas of abolishing serfdom with the redemption of land by peasants into property and the inseparable connection of the peasant with the land. Local reforms: the abolition of serfdom in the Baltic provinces (Lifland, Courland, Estonia) in 1816-1819 and the introduction of inventory in the South-Western Territory (Kiev, Podolsk, Volyn provinces) in 1847-1848 were mandatory for landowners and represented two models solution of the peasant question, which were taken into account in the preparation of the abolition of serfdom.
The abolition of serfdom did not happen instantly. The peasant reform was preceded by a long work on the development of draft legislative acts on the abolition of serfdom.
At the beginning of January 1857, at the direction of the tsar, a Secret Committee was formed, which was entrusted with the development of the main project for the abolition of serfdom. However, the idea of abolishing serfdom met with strong resistance from the feudal landowners. The Committee, expressing the interests of the latter, was in no hurry to start working out the necessary document.
Members of the Secret Committee tried to oppose the tsar's proposals. It was unprofitable for them to give up their privileges and lose such a free labor force as serfs. The king himself was forced to approach this issue differently. He and his closest associates saw that a revolutionary situation was brewing in the country, which could lead to the abolition of serfdom from below on conditions that were clearly not favorable for the landowners.
Tsarism, in drawing up the reform project, could not, of course, ignore the opinion of the majority of the landowners. To clarify it, the tsarist government formed provincial committees from local landlords, which were asked to develop their proposals for the project of abolishing serfdom.
In January 1858, the Secret Committee was renamed the Main Committee for the Arrangement of the Rural Population. It included 12 highest royal dignitaries under the chairmanship of the king. Under the committee, two editorial commissions arose, which were entrusted with the duty to collect and systematize the opinions of the provincial committees. They included representatives of the Ministries of the Interior, Justice, State Property and the II Branch of the Tsar's Own Chancellery.
The content of the peasant reform project was significantly influenced by the opinion of the provincial committees, which expressed the interests of the reactionary feudal lords.
Discussions in the provincial committees continued for a long time. There were fierce disputes between the obvious feudal lords and the more liberal landowners. While these disputes were going on, the peasant movement grew. This forced the autocracy to accelerate the development and adoption of agrarian laws. The editorial commissions began to work more actively to study the projects of the provincial committees. As a result, taking into account the opinion of the provincial committees, a final draft was prepared and considered by the State Council, the majority of whose members approved it. On February 19, 1861, the tsar signed the Manifesto on the liberation of the peasants from serfdom and a set of laws on the abolition of serfdom.
Implementation of the Manifesto on the abolition of serfdom
Since the publication of the documents of the reform, the peasants have received personal freedom. The landowners lost the right to interfere in personal life peasants, they could not resettle them in other areas, and even more so they could not sell them to other persons with or without land. The landowner retained only some rights to supervise the behavior of peasants who emerged from serfdom.
The property rights of the peasants also changed, primarily their right to land. However, for two years, essentially, the former feudal order was preserved. During this time, the transition of the peasants to a temporarily liable state was to be completed.
The allocation of land was carried out in accordance with local regulations, in which for various regions of the country (chernozem, steppe, non-chernozem) the upper and lower limits of the amount of land provided to the peasants were determined. These provisions were specified in charter letters, which indicated what kind of land the peasants received.
To regulate relations between landlords and peasants, the Senate, on the proposal of the governors, appointed mediators from among the noble landowners. Statutory letters were drawn up by landlords or conciliators. After that, their content was necessarily brought to the attention of the corresponding peasant gathering or gatherings, if the letter concerned several villages. Then amendments could be made in accordance with the comments and suggestions of the peasants, and the conciliator would resolve disputed issues. The letter came into force after the peasants were acquainted with its text and when the mediator recognized its content as corresponding to the requirements of the law. The consent of the peasants to the conditions stipulated by the letter was not necessary. True, it was more profitable for the landowner to obtain such consent, because in this case, with the subsequent redemption of the land by the peasants, he received the so-called additional payment.
In the country as a whole, the peasants received less land than they had until then. Particularly significant were segments in the black earth regions. The peasants were not only disadvantaged in the size of the land; they, as a rule, received plots that were inconvenient for cultivation, since the best land remained with the landowners.
A temporarily liable peasant received land not for ownership, but only for use. For use, he had to pay with duties - corvee or dues, which differed little from his previous serf duties.
The next stage in the liberation of the peasants was their transition to the state of owners. To do this, the peasant had to redeem the estate and field lands. The purchase price was much higher than the actual value of the land. Consequently, the peasants paid not only for the land, but also for their personal emancipation.
To ensure the reality of the redemption of land, the government organized the so-called redemption operation. It paid the redemption sum for the peasants, thus providing them with a loan. This loan was to be repaid in installments over 49 years, with an annual payment of 6% on the loan.
After the conclusion of the redemption transaction, the peasant was called the owner. However, his land ownership was subject to various restrictions. The peasant became the full owner only after the payment of all redemption payments.
Initially, the period of stay in a temporarily obligated state was not established, so many peasants delayed the transition to redemption. By 1881, about 15% of such peasants remained. Then a law was passed on the mandatory transition to redemption within two years. Within this period, redemption transactions had to be concluded or the right to land plots was lost. In 1883, the category of temporarily liable peasants disappeared. Some of them completed redemption deals, some lost their land.
In 1863 and 1866 the reform was extended to appanage and state peasants. Specific peasants received land on more favorable terms than landowners. The state peasants retained all the land that they used before the reform.
The peasants, who perceived the land as "God's property", which, according to the "truth", should be distributed equally only among those working on it, reacted extremely negatively to the abolition of serfdom, calling it a "false charter". Rumors circulated that the landowners had hidden the "real will". As a result, riots broke out in a number of places (including the village of Bezdna, Kazan province, and the village of Kandeevka, Penza province), and military teams were sent to suppress them. In total, more than two thousand performances were recorded.
However, by the summer of 1861 the unrest began to wane. The peasants, participating in the drafting of charters, and, probably, hoping for an improvement in life as independent and free owners, were drawn into everyday labor activities, which led to calm. The hopes of the revolutionaries to rouse them to the struggle after the signing of the charters, that is, when, as expected, the peasants were finally convinced of the predatory nature of the reform, turned out to be groundless.
Results and consequences of the reform
The results of the reforms of the mid-19th century, including the abolition of serfdom, are constantly the subject of research and analysis by scientists.
Yes, for most Soviet historians reforms are a watershed that separates the period of feudalism from the period of capitalism, for many Western researchers - the boundary between traditional and modern society.
P.Gotrell offered a different interpretation. It consists in the fact that “the reforms coincided with a period of accelerated economic growth, and did not initiate it ... Undoubtedly, the reforms had a great political and social significance, but they economic influence should be judged very carefully.
If we keep in mind the exact meaning of the legislation of 1861, then we must admit that it was not designed for a one-time restructuring of the landlord and peasant farms, even more so for a one-time revolution in the economy as a whole. The time for achieving the ultimate goal of the reform - the separation of the peasant economy from the landlord and the formation of peasant land ownership - was not established, although it was assumed that the transition of all peasants to redemption would take place in 20 years. This calculation of N. Milyutin was justified with absolute accuracy: by 1870, about half of the temporarily liable peasants had switched to redemption, by 1881 they had become 85%, and then the government recognized the mandatory redemption for the remaining 15%.
With the transition to the redemption of allotment land, the peasants nominally became owners, but this legal status in itself did not mean the free development of an independent small peasant economy, which the reformers were striving for. A number of important provisions of the reform, which they were forced to accept, made it difficult to achieve the ultimate goal. The question of the influence of the abolition of serfdom on the development of landlord and peasant economy has not yet been sufficiently studied.
In contrast to the agrarian reforms in Austria and Prussia, whose experience was taken into account when preparing the legislation of 1861, the autocracy did not invest a single ruble in the peasant reform. On the contrary, it made it profitable for the state. Along with lack of land, burdensome duties and redemption payments, the community held back the development of initiative, independence, and the use of new agricultural technology in the peasant economy. In general, it should be recognized that, while preserving the community, the laws to a certain extent shattered the peasants' concepts of property. In addition, the preservation of redistribution of land, mutual responsibility, specific forms of land use meant the consolidation of the predominance of collectivism over individualism, "we" over "I". This was more than a significant difference from Western models of agrarian reforms. The weakness of the concept of property in the minds of the nation, the weakness of the positions of the owners opened the way to the strengthening of the bureaucracy, regardless of the liberal goals of the reformers.
The opposite of the conclusions that have become traditional to the new approaches proposed in contemporary literature, leads to one undoubted conclusion: the problem of implementing the reform of 1861 requires close attention and further specific research, primarily regional. And they are already showing up. So, D.V. Kovalev came to the conclusion that in the Moscow region to late XIX century, an unprecedented for Russia process of transition of peasant communities from a traditional three-field economy to an intensive multi-field economy with a focus on the production of new marketable types of agricultural products unfolded. At the same time, the development of non-agricultural crafts led to a surge in the commercial migration of the peasantry. The emergence of a contradiction between traditional social and legal institutions and the changing realities of the post-reform village required legislative solutions. This created objective prerequisites for the agrarian transformations of P.A. Stolypin.
A. Wildman outlined an interesting and promising approach to studying the implementation of the peasant reform at the micro level. Taking into account not only the digital material, but the very text of the statutory letters, he came to the conclusion that the “cuts” were often made at the request of the peasants themselves, who were interested in reducing duties, and not in obtaining a larger plot of land. On the other hand, the need for money explains the unwillingness of the landowners to sometimes "cut off" the allotment even when the peasants demanded it. But in general, the system of maximum and minimum allotments adopted by the reform, according to Wildman, ensured, first of all, the financial interests of the state. This approach allows us to understand not only the very fact of the transaction, but also the motivation of the behavior of the parties, their idea of their economic interests. Another direction in the study of the implementation of the reform is outlined in a special study on the peasants-donators, their economic situation in comparison with the village that has been redeemed.
Of course, the agricultural sector developed after the abolition of serfdom. Landowners-entrepreneurs and part of the wealthy peasants, who managed to take advantage of the new situation, actively developed a commodity economy in some regions of the country. The harvest of grain grew for the second half of XIX century, twice, grain exports of Russia - 5.5 times (7,324 million tons). By the 1890s, 50% of the net harvest of bread was coming to the market. Land ownership gradually but steadily lost its exclusively class character. By the beginning of the 20th century, the nobility retained only 60% of their landed property. The landownership of peasant entrepreneurs grew. At the same time, the commodity market economy has by no means become a reality for the entire mass of peasants.
The peasant business, which required special attention and development of the beginnings laid down in the reform of 1861, for almost two decades - until the end of the 1870s, was on the sidelines of government policy. emerging serious problems didn't get a decision. Already in the mid-1860s, M. Kh. But neither the Minister of Finance himself, nor the government as a whole, took any measures to solve the difficulties that arose during the implementation of the peasant reform, to achieve the ultimate goal of the reform - the creation of an independent small peasant economy. The question of the community was raised, but not resolved.
By the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, the opportunity to continue the reforms, decisively and radically begun by the abolition of serfdom, was missed, which was understood and felt by a few of the surviving reformers. Russia was entering the 20th century - a century of revolutions and upheavals, which they were so eager to avoid.
It is impossible to find an event in the history of Russia throughout the 19th century that, in terms of scale and depth of influence on all aspects of life, could be compared with the “great” reforms of 1860-1870, the locomotive of which was the peasant reform.
It is its significance, the truly fateful consequences for the country, that explains the attention of scientists, publicists, public and political figures to the problem of preparing and implementing the peasant reform for almost a century and a half.
The abolition of serfdom marked the beginning of the era of the so-called "great reforms" that affected various aspects of social political life Russia and often in popular science literature referred to as "revolution from above" or "coup". However, up to the present day, a number of unresolved problems relating to this era remain in history.
On the one hand, the abolition of serfdom in Russia is a “breaking point”, a “turning point” in the history of Russia. These are the assessments in which the legislators themselves and their opponents agree, contemporaries of the era in Russia and abroad, many researchers for whom this topic has always been and will be of interest.
On the other hand, in certain periods, for example, during the revolution of 1905-1907. or Gorbachev's perestroika, interest in the history of the reforms of Alexander II acquired a special urgency and political overtones.
In connection with the ongoing land reforms in Russia, the issue of abolishing serfdom and allocating land to peasants is still relevant today.
By right, many scholars call the reform the greatest progressive event in Russian history. It marked the beginning of the accelerated modernization of the country, that is, the transition, moreover, at a high pace, from an agrarian to an industrial society.
At the same time, as other authors rightly say, the interests of the landlords and, especially, the state were taken into account in the reform more than the peasants, which predetermined the preservation of a number of fundamental remnants of serfdom and elements of traditional structures. The consequence of this was the land disorder of the peasants, who did not receive land (forests, pastures, etc.), which made it difficult to manage.
Having removed the acuteness of contradictions and having achieved dynamic economic development with relative political stability as a result of the reform, the latter gradually abandoned the continuation of liberal reforms.
And, as a result, the problems, growing like a snowball, eventually led to the revolutionary upheavals of the early twentieth century.
At the turn of the 50-60s. a revolutionary situation arose in Russia. The abolition of serfdom becomes a condition for maintaining social stability. The crisis caused by the Crimean War, the intensification of feudal exploitation, the peasant movement, the general backwardness of the country, made the peasant reform not only necessary, but inevitable. In relation to her, society has split into several camps.
The course of Alexander II and his like-minded people on liberal reforms constantly ran into opposition from the conservative forces of the highest bureaucracy, which retained significant political influence at court. Disagreements also existed among the liberal-minded nobles, who understood the inevitability of major concessions. They were strongest of all between the landlords of the black earth provinces, who ran a corvee economy on fertile land and valued it, and the landlords of the non-black earth, for whom the most important source revenues were dues. The latter were inclined to give to the peasants more land to receive large ransoms.
Consistent reformist views were held by N. Milyutin, who played a prominent role in the development of the peasant reform project, General Rostovtsev (chairman of the Editorial Commissions in which the reform law was drafted), Minister of the Interior Lanskoy. And the staunch conservatives Dolgorukov and Muravyov sought to influence Alexander II in such a way as to make the reform as less liberal as possible. This struggle in the government was conducted with varying success, which was reflected in the main provisions of the reform.
At the end of 1857, at the direction of the tsar, noble committees were established in the provinces to draw up reform projects. The government program was determined by the end of 1858, but continued to be discussed in government circles for over two more years. The project took its final form by the beginning of 1861.
February 19, 1861 Alexander II signed the "Regulations" and "Manifesto" on the abolition of serfdom. They were released on March 5th. The main result of the reform was the personal liberation of the peasant, the landlords lost the right to dispose of them. According to the Manifesto, a charter charter became a legal document that formulated the conditions for the exit of peasants from serfdom. It was signed by the landowner and peasant attorneys (on behalf of the community). The peasants acquired the rights of a legal entity and the status of free rural inhabitants, endowed with land. They got the opportunity to own property, engage in commercial and industrial activities, move to other classes, and conduct court cases.
The size of the peasant allotment was to be made by agreement between the landowner and the peasants. Where no agreement was reached, state norms were established. The landlords had the right to keep at least 1/3 of the land in the non-chernozem provinces, in the chernozem - at least 1/2. Therefore, in the Chernozem region, peasant allotments were much smaller. If, before the reform, the peasants had more land than was provided for by the act of February 19, then the surplus - "segments" - were given to the landowners. In the black earth provinces, up to 30-40% of the land was cut off from the peasants. Moreover, they were endowed with land of inferior quality, inconveniently located. To become its owners, the peasants had to pay a ransom, much higher than the market value of the land. Since the peasants did not have the means, the state acted as an intermediary. It gave the landlords up to 80% of the redemption amount, and the peasants were obliged to pay this debt with interest within 49 years. "Redemption payments" were canceled only after the revolution of 1905-1907. During this time, the peasants paid the treasury and landlords about 2 billion rubles, while the market price of the land left by the peasants, on the eve of 1861, was about half a billion rubles. However, even 20% of the redemption amount turned out to be too much for many peasants. Such were considered temporarily liable and for the use of allotments they had to serve their former duties - corvée or dues. True, the amount of duties was now strictly defined, and the landowner could not demand additional services by the peasant. The temporarily liable state was liquidated in 1881, when all temporarily liable peasants had to redeem their allotment. Following the Russian provinces, serfdom was abolished in Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Transcaucasia and the North Caucasus.
Historical meaning peasant reform is huge. It cleared the way for the establishment of capitalist relations in Russia. However, the reform retained many feudal vestiges that hindered the bourgeois development of the countryside. Large-scale landlordism and the lack of land of the peasants made the agrarian question topical throughout the entire subsequent existence of the Russian monarchy. At the same time, the removal of serf shackles from the village meant a change in social relations. The liberation of the peasants shifted the avalanche of transformations that were moving Russia towards a rule of law state. Inevitably, it was necessary to change the administrative management of the village, the nature of the judicial institutions, the recruitment of the army, the order of education. State institutions based on serfdom were a thing of the past. Positive consequences: 1. Slavery was abolished in Russia, the k-in received personal freedom
Negative consequences: 1. there was a bondage with the redemption of land for kr-n. During this period, redemption payments were canceled in 1906, kr-did not pay Mr. 3 times more than the cost of land namely: there was no free withdrawal, the process of differentiation slowed down, the c / o adhered to the principle of equalization, it was not possible to use new technology
In Russia, landlordism was preserved. The development of cap-ma in Russia followed the Prussian path.
Ticket 2.1 Methodological approaches, methods and sources of studying history.
Methods of studying history.
The student should know: methods of studying history - comparative, systemic, typological, retrospective, ideographic.
Method - translated from Greek me^Iodose means "the right way", that is, a way or plan to achieve a certain goal.
In the narrow scientific sense, “method” is understood as a method and procedure for studying a subject in order to obtain a more complete and true result.
History as a science uses both general scientific methods and specific scientific methods corresponding to the subject of study.
1. Comparative (comparative) method involves a comparison of historical objects in space, in time and the identification of similarities and differences between them.
2. System method involves the construction of a generalized model that reflects the relationship of the real situation. Consideration of objects as systems focuses on the disclosure of the integrity of the object, on the identification of diverse types of connections in it and their reduction into a single theoretical picture.
3. Typological method involves the classification of historical phenomena, events on the basis of their inherent common essential features. 4. Retrospective method involves a progressive penetration into the past with
the purpose of identifying the cause of an event or phenomenon.
5. Ideographic method consists in a consistent description of historical events and phenomena based on objective facts.
6. Problem-chronological method involves the study of the sequence of historical events in time.
Methodology of history.
Methodology - the doctrine of research methods, lighting historical facts, scientific knowledge. The methodology of history is based on scientific principles and approaches to the study of historical facts.
The fundamental principles of the study of historical facts include:
1. the principle of historicism, which involves the study of historical phenomena in development, in accordance with the specific historical situation;
2. the principle of objectivity, which provides for the researcher's reliance on objective facts, consideration of the phenomenon in all its versatility and inconsistency;
3. the principle of social approach involves consideration of phenomena and processes, taking into account the social interests of various segments of the population, taking into account the subjective moment in the practical activities of parties, governments, individuals;
4. principle of alternativeness determines the degree of probability of an event, phenomenon, process based on an objective analysis of the real situation.
Compliance with these principles ensures scientific validity and reliability in the study of the past.
In the modern methodology of history there is no unitary (single) platform, it is characterized by a variety of methodological approaches that have developed as a result of the progressive development and folding theoretical foundations historical knowledge. The most significant and widespread are the following methodological approaches to the study of history: theological, subjectivism, geographical determinism, evolutionism, Marxism and civilizational approach.
Theological approach represents a religious understanding of history based on the recognition of the Supreme Mind (God the Creator) and the divine world order created by him. According to this approach, God the Creator is the basis of the universe, the fundamental principle of all things and the root cause of all things and phenomena. God created the universe and man, gave his innermost meaning to his historical existence and development.
The theological or God-centered approach has two main strands:
1. religious-confessional concepts(Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, etc.);
2. religious-supra-confessional syncretic concepts history (the teachings of E.P. Blavatsky, the teachings of N. and E. Roerichs, the teachings of D. Andreev, etc.).
IN Lately the theological approach, idealistic in its essence, is becoming more and more widespread, which allowed the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, academician Yu. Osipov, to declare the gradual convergence of science and religion in the modern world.
Subjectivism- methodological direction, ignoring the objective approach to reality, denying the objective laws of nature and society. Subjectivism considers the historical process as the result of the manifestation of the world spirit, absolutizes the active role of the subject in various fields of activity.
Representatives of subjectivism were the philosophers D. Berkeley (1685 - 1753), I.G. Fichte (1762-1814), D. Hume (1711 - 1776).
Geographic determinism absolutizes the role of geographical factors in the development historical process. So, the French educator Sh.L. Montesquieu (1689 -1755) - founder geographical school in sociology, he believed that climate, soil and the state of the earth's surface determine the spirit of the people and the nature of social development. Russian geographer, sociologist and public figure L.I. Mechnikov (1838 - 1888) attached particular importance to the hydrosphere and tried to explain the unevenness of social development by changing the meaning of the same geographical conditions, primarily water resources and means of communication. In accordance with this, he singled out three periods in the history of civilization: 1) river - from the time of the emergence of the first states in the valleys of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, Indus and Ganges, Huang He and Yangtze; 2) Mediterranean - from the founding of Carthage; 3) oceanic - after the discovery of America.
Evolutionism as a methodological approach took shape in the second half of the 19th century. in the works of E. Tylor, A. Bastian, L. Morgan. According to their views, there is a cultural unity of mankind and general laws for the development of the cultures of all peoples from simple forms to complex ones, from lower to higher ones; the difference in the culture of different peoples is a consequence of different stages of their evolution. Driving force evolution of human society - the improvement of the psyche.
Marxism as a philosophical direction took shape in the middle - II half of the XIX century. Its founders were the German thinkers K. Marx (1818 - 1883) and F. Engels (1820 - 1895). They substantiated the doctrine of historical materialism, according to which the relations of production are at the heart of the historical process. All world history is a class struggle for economic and political power. The class struggle is the engine of the historical process, economic relations are a priority in the development of society.
The central place in the socio-economic scheme of Marxism is occupied by the so-called socio-economic formations - stages in the historical development of society, determined by the mode of production and production relations, which are determined by the level of development of the productive forces. Marxists identified five socio-economic formations (primitive-communal, slave-owning, feudal, capitalist, communist), which successively replace each other. The formational approach is based on the idea of historical progress, the idea of a linear, progressive development of human society, ascending to more and more high levels development. He declares the unity of the historical process and the predetermination of its ultimate goal - the creation of a single society of universal prosperity.
This approach absolutized socio-economic factors and ignored the spiritual, mental specifics in the history of peoples, the human factor.
civilizational approach. The beginnings of a civilizational approach appeared in the II half. 18th century (Voltaire), further development was given by the German enlightener of the end of the 18th century. I.G. Herder. He believed that development is a natural result of the development of human abilities, the disclosure of which depends on natural conditions, therefore there is no single civilization, but there are many unique civilizations.
In the first half of the XX century. theoretically took shape civilizational approach to history. The founder is considered to be Oswald Spengler (1880 - 1936), German. cultural philosopher. In fundamental work "The Decline of Europe" (1922) he presented the history of mankind as a panorama of closed and non-interacting "cultures". Cultures exist in a certain territory and go through three stages of development: youth, flourishing, decline. O. Spengler singled out 8 cultures: Egyptian, Mayan, Greco-Roman, Byzantine, Arabic, Indian, Babylonian, Chinese, Western European.
Another major theorist of the civilizational approach was the English historian and public figure Arnold Toynbee (1889 - 1975). Main labor "Comprehension of history" (in 12 volumes) he started publishing in /922 G. At the center of his teachings are local civilizations that did not cover all of humanity and were limited in time and space. According to Toynbee's classification, in historical time there were 21 local civilizations, of which, by the middle of the 20th century. there were 5 "living", including Christian and Islamic.
Unlike Spengler, who categorically denied the unity and integrity of the historical process, Toynbee allowed a certain degree of mutual influence of different civilizations, believed that local civilizations are mosaic components of the universal panorama of world history.
The emergence of civilizations in Toynbee is associated with the mechanism of "call" and "response". “Challenges” are caused by both natural and social factors. The “answer” is possible if there is a group of people in human society or outstanding figures capable of perceiving the “challenge”, for example, J. Christ or Mohammed. If the "answers" to "challenges" become unsuccessful and inadequate, then civilization enters the stage of breakdown, and then disintegration occurs. But it is not inevitable. The scientist saw the salvation of modern Christian civilization on the path of interfaith integration.
In Russia, at the origins of the civilizational approach was Nikolay Yakovlevich Danilevsky (1822 - 1885), philosopher, naturalist and sociologist. Main labor "Russia and Europe" was published in 1869
The central category in Danilevsky's sociological theory is "cultural-historical types" as closed superstate human communities or civilizations. They are called upon to realize themselves in one of the four areas of life-creativity: religion, culture, politics, socio-economic activity. In the process of development, civilization can be realized in all areas. He predicted such a future for the Slavic civilization.
The concept and classification of a historical source.
Get information about a person, society, state, events that took place in different time and in various countries, it is possible only from historical sources. Under historical source currently understood a product of culture, an objectified result of human activity. It can be cultural objects, works, things, documents.
Cognitive means for all this variety of historical sources is classification. It is conditionally possible to distinguish 4 types of historical sources:
1) real;
2) written;
3) phonic (sound);
4) pictorial.
Only the involvement of all types of sources will allow to recreate an objective picture historical development.
Of greatest interest to historians are written sources. They are studied by an auxiliary historical discipline source study. Written sources are also subject to classification. According to the domestic historian L.N. Pushkarev, written sources can be divided into two types: clerical and narrative. Documentary sources are divided into 4 types: cartographic, statistical, act, clerical. Pushkarev also divided narrative sources into 4 types: personal, artistic, historical and scientific. There are other classifications of historical sources.
2.2 Causes, course and results of the Cold War (1946-1992)
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 World War II. The essence of " cold war"There was a political, military-strategic and ideological confrontation between the countries of the capitalist and the so-called socialist system.
Causes of the Cold War: the fundamental opposition of the two world systems, economic, political, ideological differences between them; the desire of each of them to strengthen its influence in the world, to spread it to new countries and peoples; the policy of imposing their own values, their own order (system) on new territories; the readiness of each of the parties to defend their positions by all possible means (economic, political, military); threat policy, already in the first post-war years which led to mutual distrust, the formation by each side of the "image of the enemy."
First stage"cold war" - the end of the 40s - 60s. - extreme sharpness of confrontation:
Stalin's claims to revise the borders in Europe and Asia and the regime of the Black Sea straits, change the regime of management of the former Italian colonies in Africa; W. Churchill's speech in Fulton in March 1946 calling for protecting the Western world by all possible means from "the spread of the influence of the USSR"; The Truman Doctrine (February 1947). Measures to "save Europe from Soviet expansion" (including the creation of a network of military bases near Soviet borders). The main doctrines are the doctrines of "containment" and "rejection" of communism; the creation by the Soviet Union (with the support of local communist parties and Soviet military bases) of a pro-Soviet bloc of Eastern European countries, the reproduction of the Soviet model of development in these countries; " iron curtain”, Stalin's dictate in the domestic and foreign policy of the countries of the socialist camp, the policy of purges, repressions, executions.
The apogee of the Cold War - 1949-1950s: the creation of NATO, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Treaty Organization. The confrontation between the two military-political blocs and the buildup of weapons, including nuclear missiles; the Berlin crisis, the creation of the FRG and the GDR; conflicts and wars in Southeast Asia (Korea, Vietnam), in the Middle East, in which the US and the USSR directly or indirectly participated. Caribbean crisis of 1962 (the world is on the verge of a new world war); entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia in 1968
the Berlin Crisis, the creation of the FRG and the GDR; conflicts and wars in Southeast Asia (Korea, Vietnam), in the Middle East, in which the US and the USSR directly or indirectly participated. Caribbean crisis of 1962 (the world is on the verge of a new world war); entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia in 1968
Second phase Cold War - 1970s - defusing international tension: agreements between the FRG and the USSR, Poland, the GDR, Czechoslovakia; the West Berlin agreement, Soviet-American arms limitation treaties (ABM and SALT); Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in Helsinki in 1975 (attempts peaceful coexistence of two systems, its complexity and contradictions); military-political parity between the USSR and the USA. Third stage- late 1970s - mid 1980s: end detentes, a new aggravation of the international confrontation between the two systems; the deterioration of Soviet-American relations, a new round of the arms race, the American SDI program; the growth of US interference in the politics of the countries of the Middle East and Latin America;
the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan; the "Brezhnev doctrine" - limiting the sovereignty of the countries of the socialist camp, increasing friction within it; attempts to continue the policy of the "cold war" in the conditions of the crisis of the world socialist system.
Ticket 3.1 Domestic historiography in the past and present.
Historiography - This is a special historical discipline that studies the history of historical science as a complex, multifaceted and contradictory process and its laws.
The subject of historiography is the history of historical science.
Historiography solves the following tasks:
1) the study of the patterns of change and the approval of historical concepts and their analysis. Under historical concept the system of views of one historian or a group of scientists is understood both on the entire course of historical development as a whole and on its various problems and aspects;
2) analysis of the theoretical and methodological principles of various trends in historical science and the elucidation of the patterns of their change and struggle;
3) study of the process of accumulation of factual knowledge about human society:
4) the study of the objective conditions for the development of historical science.
The history of historical science in our country begins in the period of existence Ancient Rus'. Until the end of the XVI century. the main type of historical writings were annals.
The basis for most of the annalistic vaults was "The Tale of Bygone Years" (I quarter of the 12th century). The most valuable lists are the Lavrentiev, Ipatiev and First Novgorod chronicles. Since the 18th century, the authorship of The Tale of Bygone Years has been attributed to the monk Nestor, but at present this point of view is not the only one and is being questioned.
During the period of feudal fragmentation, the chronicle was carried out in most major principalities and centers.
With the creation of a single state at the turn of the XV - XVI centuries. the chronicle acquires an official state character. Historical literature follows the path of creating works of grand scale and magnificent forms (the Resurrection Chronicle, the Nikon Chronicle, the Facial Code of Ivan the Terrible).
In the 17th century historical novels, chronographs and power books are approved. In 1672 the first educational book on Russian history was published. "Synopsis" by I. Gizel. The word "synopsis" means "general view". In 1692 completed his work "Scythian history" I. Lyzlov.
The father of Russian historical science is considered Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev (1686 -1750). He was not a professional historian, he came from a seedy family of Smolensk nobles, but, thanks to his abilities, he made a public career under Peter I. Tatishchev participated in the Northern War, carried out diplomatic missions, led the mining industry of the Urals (1720 - 1721, 1734 - 1737) , was the Astrakhan governor. But a significant part of life in parallel with state activities Tatishchev collected historical sources, described them and systematized them. From the beginning of the 1720s, Tatishchev began work on the Russian History, which he continued until his death in 1750. "Russian History from the Most Ancient Times" in 5 books was published in 1768 - 1848. In this essay, the author gave a general periodization of the history of Russia, identified three periods: 1) 862 - 1238; 2) 1238 - 1462; 3) 1462 -1577. Tatishchev associated the development of history with the activities of rulers (princes, kings). He sought to establish a causal relationship of events. When presenting history, he used a pragmatic approach, relying on sources, primarily chronicles. Tatishchev was not only the founder of historical science in Russia, but laid the foundations for source studies, historical geography, Russian metrology and other disciplines.
In /725, founded by Peter I Academy of Sciences. Initially, invited German scientists worked in it. A special contribution to the development of historical science in Russia was made by G.Z. Bayer (1694 - 1738), G.F. Miller (1705 - 1783) and A.L. Schlozer (1735 -1809). They became the creators of the "Norman theory" of the emergence of statehood in Rus'.
This theory was sharply criticized Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov (1711 -1765), the first Russian academician, one of the founders of Moscow University, scientist-encyclopedist.
M.V. Lomonosov believed that engaging in history is a patriotic affair, and the history of the people closely merges with the history of rulers, the reason for the power of peoples is the merits of enlightened monarchs.
In 1749, Lomonosov made comments on Miller's dissertation "The Origin of the Russian Name and People." The main historical work of Lomonosov is "Ancient Russian history from the beginning of the Russian people to the death of the Grand Duke Yaroslav the first or until 1054, on which the scientist worked from 1751 to 1758.
The scientist believed that the world-historical process testifies to the progressive movement of mankind. He assessed historical events from the standpoint of enlightened absolutism, widely used sources, and was the first to raise the question of the level of development Eastern Slavs before the formation of the state.
In the second half of the XVIII century. the largest representatives of noble historiography were M.M. Shcherbatov and I.N. Boltin.
A major event in the development of historical science in / quarter XIX V. was the edition "History of the Russian State" N.M. Karamzin.
II.M. Karamzin(1766 - 1826) belonged to the provincial Simbirsk nobility, was educated at home, served in the guards, but retired early and devoted himself to literary creativity. In 1803, Alexander I appointed Karamzin as a historiographer, instructing him to write a history of Russia for the general reader. Creating the "History of the Russian State", N.M. Karamzin was guided by the desire for the artistic embodiment of history, he was guided by love for the fatherland, the desire to objectively reflect the events that took place. For Karamzin, the driving force behind the historical process was power, the state. Autocracy, according to the historian, is the core on which the entire social life of Russia is strung. Destruction of autocracy leads to death, revival - to the salvation of the state. The monarch must be humane and enlightened. Karamzin objectively revealed the insidiousness of Yu. Dolgorukov, the cruelty of Ivan III and Ivan IV, the villainy of Godunov and Shuisky, assessed the activities of Peter I inconsistently. people in respect for her. The first eight volumes of "History .." were published in 1818 and became compulsory reading in gymnasiums and universities. By 1916 The book went through 41 editions. IN Soviet time his works were practically not published as conservative-monarchical. At the end of the XX century. "History ..." Karamzin was returned to readers.
Outstanding Historian // floor. 19th century was Sergei Mikhailovich Solovyov (1820 -1879), creator of the 29-volume "History of Russia from ancient times", professor, rector of Moscow University. Beginning in 1851, he published a volume every year until his death. His work covers Russian history from antiquity to the end of the 18th century. Solovyov posed and solved the problem of creating a generalizing scientific work on Russian history, taking into account the contemporary state of historical science. The dialectical approach allowed the scientist to raise the study to a new level. For the first time, Solovyov comprehensively considered the role of natural-geographical, demographic-ethnic and foreign policy factors in the historical development of Russia, which is his undoubted merit. CM. Solovyov gave a clear periodization of history, highlighting four main periods:
1. From Rurik to A. Bogolyubsky - the period of domination of tribal relations in political life;
2. From Andrei Bogolyubsky to the beginning of the 17th century. - a period of struggle between tribal and state principles, culminating in the victory of the latter;
3. From the beginning of the XVII century. until the middle of the 18th century. - the period of Russia's entry into the system of European states;
4. From the middle of the XVIII century. before the reforms of the 60s. 19th century - new period Russian history.
Trud S.M. Solovyov has not lost its significance to this day.
A student of S.M. Solovyov was Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky (1841 - 1911). The future historian was born into the family of a hereditary priest in Penza and was preparing to continue the family tradition, but his interest in history forced him to leave the seminary without completing the course and enter Moscow University (1861 - 1865). In 1871 he brilliantly defended master's thesis"Old Russian Lives of the Saints as a Historical Source". The doctoral dissertation was devoted to the Boyar Duma. He combined scientific work with teaching. His lectures on the history of Russia formed the basis "Course of Russian History" in 5 parts.
V. O. Klyuchevsky was a prominent representative of the national psycho-economic school that was formed in Russia in the last quarter of the 19th century. He considered history as a progressive process, and associated development with the accumulation of experience, knowledge, and everyday comforts. Klyuchevsky saw the task of the historian in knowledge causation phenomena.
The historian paid close attention to the peculiarities of Russian history, the formation of serfdom and classes. He assigned the role of the main force in the history of the formation and development of the state to the people as an ethnic and ethical concept.
He saw the scientific task of the historian in understanding the origin and development of human societies, in studying the genesis and mechanism of human society.
Klyuchevsky developed the idea of S.M. Solovyov about colonization as important factor historical development, highlighting its economic, ethnological and psychological aspects. He approached the study of history from the standpoint of the relationship and mutual influence of the three main factors - personality, nature and society.
Klyuchevsky combined historical and sociological approaches, specific analysis with the study of the phenomenon as a phenomenon of world history.
IN. Klyuchevsky left a deep mark on history domestic science and culture. His students were P.N. Milyukov, M.N. Pokrovsky, M.K. Lyubavsky and others. He had a profound influence on his contemporaries and descendants.
In October 1917, the Bolsheviks came to power. The conditions for the development of historical science in the country have changed dramatically. Marxism became the unified methodological basis of the humanities, the topics of research were determined by state ideology, the history of the class struggle, the history of the working class, the peasantry, the communist party, etc. became priority areas.
Mikhail Nikolaevich Pokrovsky is considered the first Marxist historian.(1868 - 1932). He received his education at Moscow University. Since the mid-1890s, he has evolved towards economic materialism. Under economic materialism, he understood the explanation of all historical changes by the influence of material conditions, the material needs of man. Class struggle perceived by him as the driving beginning of history. On the question of the role of the individual in history, Pokrovsky proceeded from the fact that individual characteristics historical figures were dictated by the economy of their time.
The central work of the historian "Russian history from ancient times" in 4 volumes (1909) and "History of Russia in the XIX century" (1907 - 1911). He saw his task in considering the primitive communal and feudal system, as well as capitalism, from the point of view of economic materialism. Already in these works, the theory of "commercial capital" appeared, more clearly formed in "Russian history in the most concise outline" (1920) and other works of the Soviet period. Pokrovsky called the autocracy "commercial capital in Monomakh's cap." Under the influence of his views formed scientific school, subjected to defeat in the 30s. 20th century
Despite repressions and harsh ideological dictates, the Soviet historical science continued to develop. Among Soviet historians, Academician B.A. Rybakov, Academician L.V. Cherepnin, Academician M.V. Nechkin, Academician B.D. Grekov, who made a significant contribution to the development of national historical science.
After the collapse of the USSR (1991), a new stage in the development of historical science began: access to archives expanded, censorship and ideological diktat disappeared, but state funding decreased significantly scientific research. Domestic historical science has become part of world science, and relations with scientists from all over the world have expanded. But it is too early to talk about the results of these positive changes.
3.2 The Soviet Union in 1985-1991 "Perestroika".
1985-91 is a special period in the history of the USSR. It began in April 1985 and ended in December 1991 with the collapse Soviet Union. This period is divided into 2 parts: 1985-87 - acceleration, 1987-1991 - economic restructuring.
Acceleration:
1). Mid 80's - a comprehensive society.
2). March 1985 - the new leadership of the country: Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union - Gorbachev, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council Gromyko (since July), Chairman of the Council of Ministers - Ryzhkov.
3). April plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU (1985). A new course for accelerating socio-economic development has been adopted (author Academician Agambegyan). Concretized at the 27th congress 1986 (12th five-year plan)
4). The need for a new course: acute social problems, the threat to military-political parity, ensuring the country's full economic independence, the economy sliding into a crisis.
5). The essence of acceleration: high growth rates (not less than 4% per year), a new quality of growth (based on scientific and technical progress), active social politics(food, housing, etc.)
6). The course of acceleration: the key link is mechanical engineering, lack of capital investment, an attempt to rely on enthusiasm, an attempt to strengthen labor and production discipline (state acceptance), two unsuccessful commissions: the fight against drunkenness and the fight against unearned income.
7). The failure of the course: the bet on enthusiasm, not supported by scientific and technical progress, capital investments and socio-economic transformations did not justify itself. The growth of accidents and catastrophes - Chernobyl (April 27, 1986).
1). Definition: radical transformation in all areas public life the Soviet Union, covering the economy, state structure, internal and foreign policy as well as culture and spirituality.
2). The components of the concept of perestroika and the stages of its implementation. At the beginning (87-88) - a radical economic reform, then the reform is connected to it political system, then the course to update the ideology.
3). The state of the economy: an extended crisis - a decrease in production volumes, inflation, a budget deficit, a drop in production discipline, an imbalance in the money supply and commodity coverage (demand crises: sugar, tobacco, vodka, tea) Þ the 12th five-year plan was forgotten.
4). The beginning of perestroika in the field of economics (87-89).
Law on the state enterprise (association): expansion of the rights of enterprises and labor collectives (1987). Enterprises received the right to freely sell their products on the market, including the external one (this right was limited by state orders). A joint venture began to be created (the first - May 1987 - Soviet-Hungarian). It was planned to restructure the central administrative apparatus (ministries and departments). Labor collectives received the right to elect leaders and control the activities of the administration. Law on cooperation, law on individual labor activity(1988). Transformations in the agrarian sector: the dissolution of the state agro-industry (rejection of the over-centralization of management), curtailment of the fight against personal subsidiary plots, a course towards a multistructural structure in the agrarian sector (equality of all forms of management).
5). Course towards a regulated market economy (89-91)
Economic crisis continues to grow Þ a new goal is being developed - the transition to a market economy. Two transition models: 1. combination of plan and market (Abalkin-Ryzhkov) - USSR Supreme Council resolution on the concept of transition to a regulated market economy, June 1990), 2. alternative program - 500 days Þ phased privatization of the economy (Yavlinsky, Shatalin), 3. Gorbachev - an attempt to combine programs. New laws: more than 100 - on the main economic relations in the USSR, on property, on enterprises in the USSR. But the laws didn't work. Threatening position of the economy: 1988 - growth of national income 4.4%; 1989 - income reduction - 1990 reduction was 10%. Wave of strikes and protests: miners in the forefront (1989) Þ demand for the resignation of the USSR government. December 1990 - Ryzhkov resigns. The new chairman of the Council of Ministers - Pavlov: an attempt to revive the financial system by raising prices by 2-10 times with partial compensation for losses. 1991 - a new wave of strikes. The miners are again at the forefront Þ demanding the resignation of the President of the USSR. The Union leadership is losing the support of the people. Republican leaders, especially Yeltsin, promise to carry out reforms not at the expense of the people, but for the good of the people.
6). Political development. Turn in politics: in 1988, the leadership of the country (Gorbachev) came to the conclusion that the economic development of the country was kept by the political system and switched the main attention to political transformations. Prerequisites for large-scale political reforms: 85-86 - discussion of the New edition of the CPSU program and its adoption at the 27th Congress (1986). The ideas of communism in the party and society are being supplanted by the ideas of perestroika; 87 - the beginning of the policy of publicity, i.e. open and free discussion of all issues of public life, criticism of shortcomings unfolds; the offensive against Stalinism and the struggle for the purity of Lenin's ideals; March 1988 Andreev's article - a manifesto of anti-perestroika forces, discussions in the press and society. June 1988 - 19th All-Union Party Conference: a course towards the restructuring of the political system. December 1, 1988 - The Constitution of the USSR is valid as amended by the law of December 1, 1988. Two stages of political reform: the democratization of the political system (89), the transition to a legal state (90-91). The first stage: in May-June 1989, the 1st Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR (the highest authority in the country) was held. There were 5 sessions in total. In December 1989, the 2nd Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR. The Supreme Soviet of the USSR (Chairman Gorbachev) was formed. At the congress there was a struggle between the democrats, the allies and the old party guard. Sakharov and Yeltsin became symbols of democracy. The old party guard was headed by the head of the Politburo, Secretary of the Central Committee Ligachev. The communist reformers were represented by Gorbachev, Yakovlev, Shevardnadze. Outcome: the reform initiative passed to the people's deputies.
7). Second stage (90-91). March 1990 - 3rd Congress elected Gorbachev President of the USSR. The structure of presidential power (presidential council, etc.) began to take shape, which meant a gradual curtailment Soviet power. The 3rd Congress changed Article No. 6 in the Constitution of the USSR, removing from it: the thesis of the CPSU as the leading force of society; the revival of the multi-party system. The process of disintegration of the CPSU (in terms of ideological and national-organizational direction): 89-90, the Communist Parties of the Baltic republics left the CPSU, in 1990 the Communist Party of the RSFSR was created as part of the CPSU. Ideological struggle in the CPSU: orthodox communists, centrists, social democrats (many platforms). July 1990 - 28th Congress of the CPSU (last)Þ approval of the platform of democratic socialism. August 1991 - Gorbachev resigned as Secretary General. In August 1991, by decrees of Yeltsin, the activities of the Communist Party on the territory of the RSFSR were suspended, and in November it was banned. In January 1992, the Communist Party (CPSU and CP RSFSR) ceased to exist in its former form.
8). Outcome political reforms: the collapse of the political system of the USSR after August 1991 Þ by the end of the year, a single union state ceased to exist. The dynamics of disintegration: the soviets pushed the party to the margins of political life, the president did not allow the soviets to have a monopoly on power, the national republics no longer needed a union president, the union collapsed.
Culture and spiritual life. A turning point in public consciousness as a reflection of socio-economic changes. The flow of new information Þ the crisis of faith, dogmatism and nihilism. Discussion about white spots of history. Polarization public opinion. A new (market) utopia Þ growth of discontent. Political illusionism and moral pluralism. Returned culture. Bottom line: perestroika did not give the expected results, deeper changes were required, meanwhile, the crisis of society took on a systemic character and went so far as to lead to the collapse of the USSR.
Ticket 4.1 The problem of the ethnogenesis of the Eastern Slavs
In a notebook with seminars
Our common Indo-European ancestors were not numerous and initially occupied some small territory of Eastern Turkey or the territory along the Oder and Vistula rivers, and they got into it, separating earlier from more ancient tribe. It was so long ago that at the time of separation, they did not have a developed language. With an increase in numbers, individual families moved to other lands in Europe and Asia Minor, giving rise to new tribes and clans. The Indo-Europeans - the Celts, Slavs, Baltics, Germans, to the greatest extent created the modern ethnic map of Europe. The Slavs separated themselves from the Indo-European community in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. The territory from the Carpathians to the Dnieper is recognized as the ancestral home of the Slavs. Distribution of tribes, cat. could be called Slavic, began in the 4th century. AD, and the Slavs came to the lands of modern Belarus, Ukraine, the European part of Russia in the 6th-7th centuries. Until the 7th century. not a single Russian on earth existed. The first written evidence about the Slavs appears in thousands of Greek, Arabic and Byzantine sources. The names Slavs, or Wends or Andes, appeared in the sources. On the way of their settlement, the Slavs met other tribes: nomadic, and agricultural Baltic and Fino-Ugrian, and from the south - the Goths were replaced by the Huns, the Huns were replaced by the Avars, the Avars by the Ugrians and the Khazars, the Khazars by the Pechenegs, the Pechenegs by the Polovtsy, the Polovtsy by the Tatars. The community played an important role in the life of the Old Russian village. By the time of the formation of the state-va at the east. Slavs tribal community was replaced by a territorial community. As a result of the transfer by the princes of the right to own land to the feudal lords, part of the communities fell under their authority. Dr. by subordinating the neighboring communities to the feudal lords, they were captured by warriors and princes. Communities that did not fall under the rule of the feudal lords were obliged to pay taxes to the state, a cat. in relation to these communities, both the supreme power and the feudal power acted. At the head of the East Slavic tribal unions were princes from the tribal nobility and the former tribal elite - “deliberate people”, “best husbands”. There was a militia. At the head of them were the thousand, sotsky. A special military organization was the squad, which was divided into the eldest, from which came ambassadors and princely rulers who had their own land, and the younger, who lived with the prince and served his court and household. The warriors collected tribute from the conquered tribes. Such campaigns for tribute were called "polyudye".
East Slavic tribes: Slavs, Krivichi, Vyatichi, Polyana, Drevlyans (~ 15 tribes)
Economy: agriculture (rye, barley, turnip), cattle breeding, hunting, fishing, blacksmithing, foundry, beekeeping.
Religion: worship of the forces of nature, the cult of ancestors.
They settled mainly along the rivers, which were the main means of communication with each other and the rest of the world. 2 most important ways - "from the Varangians to the tracks" he connected Scandinavia with Byzantium, "from the Varangians to the Persians" the highway went to Central Asia and the Arab countries.
By the 7th century a powerful union of a number of leading East Slavic tribes was formed, which foreigners called "Rus". The body of power is the veche and the leader chosen by him. Formation of a privileged military squad class (the prince and his squad). In the hands of the prince, power and wealth were combined, he declared himself the owner of the land and forced free community members to pay tribute in their favor.
Serfdom turned into a brake on technological progress, which in Europe, after the industrial revolution, was actively developing. Crimean War clearly demonstrated this. There was a danger of Russia turning into a third-rate power. It was by the second half of the 19th century that it became clear that the preservation of Russia's power and political influence was impossible without strengthening finances, developing industry and railway construction, and transforming the entire political system. Under the dominance of serfdom, which itself could still exist for an indefinite time, despite the fact that the landed nobility itself was unable and not ready to modernize their own estates, it turned out to be almost impossible to do this. That is why the reign of Alexander II became a period of radical transformations of Russian society. The emperor, distinguished by his common sense and a certain political flexibility, managed to surround himself with professionally literate people who understood the need for Russia's forward movement. Among them stood out the king's brother, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, brothers N.A. and D.A. Milyutin, Ya.I. Rostovtsev, P.A. Valuev and others.
By the second quarter of the 19th century, it had already become obvious that the economic possibilities of the landlord economy in meeting the increased demand for grain exports had been completely exhausted. It was increasingly drawn into commodity-money relations, gradually losing its natural character. Closely connected with this was a change in the forms of rent. If in the central provinces, where it was developed industrial production, more than half of the peasants had already been transferred to quitrent, then in the agricultural central black earth and lower Volga provinces, where marketable bread was produced, corvee continued to expand. This was due to the natural growth in the production of bread for sale in the landowners' economy.
On the other hand, the productivity of corvée labor has fallen noticeably. The peasant sabotaged the corvee with all his might, was weary of it, which is explained by the growth of the peasant economy, its transformation into a small-scale producer. Corvee slowed down this process, and the peasant fought with all his might for favorable conditions for his management.
The landlords were looking for ways to increase the profitability of their estates within the framework of serfdom, for example, the transfer of peasants for a month: landless peasants, who were obliged to work time to be on corvee, payment in kind was given in the form of a monthly food ration, as well as clothes, shoes, necessary household utensils, while the landowner's field was processed by the master's inventory. However, all these measures could not compensate for the ever-increasing losses from inefficient corvée labor.
Quit farms also experienced a serious crisis. Previously, peasant crafts, from which the dues were mainly paid, were profitable, giving the landowner a stable income. However, the development of crafts gave rise to competition, which led to a drop in peasant earnings. Since the 20s of the 19th century, arrears in the payment of dues began to grow rapidly. An indicator of the crisis of the landowners' economy was the growth of the debts of the estates. By 1861, about 65% of the landowners' estates were pledged in various credit institutions.
In an effort to increase the profitability of their estates, some landowners began to apply new farming methods: they ordered expensive equipment from abroad, invited foreign specialists, introduced multi-field crop rotation, etc. But only rich landowners could afford such expenses, and under serfdom, these innovations did not pay off, often ruining such landowners.
It should be specially emphasized that we are talking specifically about the crisis of the landlord economy, based on serf labor, and not the economy in general, which continued to develop on a completely different, capitalist basis. It is clear that serfdom held back its development, hindered the formation of a wage labor market, without which the capitalist development of the country is impossible.
Preparations for the abolition of serfdom began in January 1857 with the creation of the next Secret Committee. In November 1857, Alexander II sent a rescript throughout the country addressed to the Vilna Governor-General Nazimov, which spoke of the beginning of the gradual emancipation of the peasants and ordered the creation of noble committees in three Lithuanian provinces (Vilna, Kovno and Grodno) to make proposals for the reform project. On February 21, 1858, the Secret Committee was renamed the Main Committee for Peasant Affairs. A broad discussion of the forthcoming reform began. The provincial noble committees drew up their drafts for the liberation of the peasants and sent them to the main committee, which, on their basis, began to develop a general reform project.
In order to process the submitted drafts, editorial commissions were established in 1859, the work of which was led by Deputy Minister of the Interior Ya.I. Rostovtsev.
During the preparation of the reform among the landowners there were lively disputes about the mechanism of release. The landlords of the non-chernozem provinces, where the peasants were mainly on dues, proposed to give the peasants land with complete exemption from the landowner's power, but with the payment of a large ransom for the land. Their opinion was most fully expressed in his project by the leader of the Tver nobility A.M. Unkovsky.
The landlords of the black earth regions, whose opinion was expressed in the project of the Poltava landowner M.P. Posen, offered to give the peasants only small plots for ransom, aiming to make the peasants economically dependent on the landowner - to force them to rent land on unfavorable terms or work as farm laborers.
By the beginning of October 1860, the editorial commissions completed their activities and the project was submitted for discussion to the Main Committee on Peasant Affairs, where it underwent additions and changes. On January 28, 1861, a meeting of the Council of State opened, ending on February 16, 1861. The signing of the manifesto on the liberation of the peasants was scheduled for February 19, 1861 - the 6th anniversary of the accession to the throne of Alexander II, when the emperor signed the manifesto "On the most merciful granting to serfs of the rights of the state of free rural inhabitants and on the organization of their life", as well as the "Regulations on peasants who emerged from serfdom”, which included 17 legislative acts. On the same day, the Main Committee "on the arrangement of the rural state" was established, chaired by Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, replacing the Main Committee "on peasant affairs" and called upon to exercise supreme supervision over the implementation of the "Regulations" on February 19.
According to the manifesto, the peasants received personal freedom. From now on, the former serf was given the opportunity to freely dispose of his personality, he was granted some civil rights: the opportunity to transfer to other classes, conclude property and civil transactions on his own behalf, open trade and industrial enterprises.
If serfdom was abolished immediately, then the settlement of economic relations between the peasant and the landowner dragged on for several decades. The specific economic conditions for the liberation of the peasants were fixed in the Charter, which were concluded between the landowner and the peasant with the participation of world mediators. However, according to the law, the peasants for another two years were obliged to serve in fact the same duties as under serfdom. This state of the peasant was called temporarily liable. In fact, this situation dragged on for twenty years, and only by the law of 1881 the last temporarily liable peasants were transferred to ransom.
An important place was given to the allocation of land to the peasant. The law proceeded from the recognition of the right of the landowner of all the land in his estate, including peasant allotments. The peasants received the allotment not as property, but only for use. To become the owner of the land, the peasant had to buy it from the landowner. This task was undertaken by the state. The ransom was based not on the market value of the land, but on the amount of duties. The treasury immediately paid the landowners 80% of the redemption amount, and the remaining 20% were to be paid to the landowner by the peasants by mutual agreement (immediately or in installments, in cash or by working off). The redemption amount paid by the state was considered as a loan granted to the peasants, which was then collected from them annually, for 49 years, in the form of "redemption payments" in the amount of 6% of this loan. It is easy to determine that in this way the peasant had to pay for the land several times more than not only its real market value, but also the amount of duties that he bore in favor of the landowner. That is why the "temporarily liable state" lasted more than 20 years.
When determining the norms of peasant allotments, the peculiarities of local natural and economic conditions were taken into account. Whole territory Russian Empire was divided into three parts: non-chernozem, chernozem and steppe. In the chernozem and non-chernozem parts, two norms of allotments were established: the highest and the lowest, and in the steppe one - the “instruction” norm. The law provided for the reduction of the peasant allotment in favor of the landowner, if its pre-reform size exceeded the “higher” or “indicated” norm, and the cutting if the allotment did not reach the “higher” norm. In practice, this led to the fact that cutting off the land became the rule, and cutting the exception. The severity of the "cuts" for the peasants consisted not only in their size. The best lands often fell into this category, without which normal farming became impossible. Thus, the "cuts" turned into an effective means of economic enslavement of the peasants by the landowner.
The land was provided not to a separate peasant household, but to the community. This form of land use ruled out the possibility of the peasant selling his allotment, and renting it out was limited to the boundaries of the community. But, despite all its shortcomings, the abolition of serfdom was an important historical event. It not only created the conditions for the further economic development of Russia, but also led to a change social structure Russian society, caused the need for further reform of the political system of the state, forced to adapt to new economic conditions. After 1861, a number of important political reforms were carried out: zemstvo, judicial, city, military reforms, which radically changed Russian reality. It is no coincidence that Russian historians consider this event a turning point, a line between feudal Russia and modern Russia.
ACCORDING TO THE "SHOWER REVISION" OF 1858
Landlord serfs - 20,173,000
Specific peasants - 2,019,000
State peasants -18,308,000
Workers of factories and mines equated to state peasants - 616,000
State peasants assigned to private factories - 518,000
Peasants freed after military service - 1 093 000
HISTORIAN S.M. SOLOVIEV
“Liberal speeches have begun; but it would be strange if the first, main content of these speeches did not become the emancipation of the peasants. What other liberation could one think of without remembering that in Russia a huge number of people are the property of other people, and slaves of the same origin with the masters, and sometimes of a higher origin: peasants Slavic origin, and gentlemen of the Tatar, Cheremis, Mordovian, not to mention the Germans? What kind of liberal speech could be made without remembering this stain, the shame that lay on Russia, excluding it from the society of European civilized peoples.
A.I. HERZEN
“Many more years will pass before Europe understands the course of development of Russian serfdom. Its origin and development is a phenomenon so exceptional and unlike anything else that it is difficult to believe in it. How, indeed, to believe that half of the population of the same nationality, endowed with rare physical and mental abilities, is enslaved not by war, not by conquest, not by a coup, but only by a series of decrees, immoral concessions, vile pretensions?
K.S. AKSAKOV
“The yoke of the state was formed over the earth, and the Russian land became, as it were, conquered ... The Russian monarch received the value of a despot, and the people - the value of a slave-slave in their land” ...
"MUCH BETTER THAT HAPPENED FROM ABOVE"
When Emperor Alexander II arrived in Moscow for the coronation, the Moscow Governor-General Count Zakrevsky asked him to calm the local nobility, agitated by rumors about the upcoming liberation of the peasants. The tsar, receiving the Moscow provincial marshal of the nobility, Prince Shcherbatov, with district representatives, told them: “Rumors are circulating that I want to announce the liberation of serfdom. This is unfair, and from this there were several cases of disobedience of the peasants to the landowners. I won't tell you that I'm totally against it; we live in such an age that in time this must happen. I think that you, too, are of the same opinion as me: therefore, it is much better for this to happen from above than from below.”
The case of the emancipation of the peasants, which was submitted for consideration by the State Council, due to its importance, I consider it a vital issue for Russia, on which the development of its strength and power will depend. I am sure that all of you, gentlemen, are just as convinced as I am of the usefulness and necessity of this measure. I also have another conviction, namely, that this matter cannot be postponed, why I demand from the Council of State that it be completed by it in the first half of February and that it could be announced by the beginning of field work; I place this on the direct duty of the chairman of the Council of State. I repeat, and it is my indispensable will that this matter be ended immediately. (…)
You know the origin of serfdom. It did not exist with us before: this right was established by the autocratic power, and only the autocratic power can destroy it, and this is my direct will.
My predecessors felt all the evil of serfdom and constantly strove, if not for its direct abolition, then for the gradual limitation of the arbitrariness of the landowners' power. (…)
Following the rescript given to the Governor-General Nazimov, requests began to arrive from the nobility of other provinces, which were answered by rescripts addressed to the governors-general and governors of a similar content with the first. These rescripts contained the same main principles and foundations, and it was allowed to proceed to business on the same principles I have indicated. As a result, provincial committees were established, which were given a special program to facilitate their work. When, after the period given for that time, the work of the committees began to arrive here, I allowed the formation of special Editorial Commissions, which were to consider the drafts of the provincial committees and do the general work in a systematic manner. The chairman of these commissions was at first Adjutant General Rostovtsev, and after his death, Count Panin. The editorial committees worked for a year and seven months, and despite the criticisms, perhaps partly just, to which the committees were subjected, they completed their work in good faith and submitted it to the Main Committee. The main committee, under the chairmanship of my brother, labored with tireless activity and diligence. I consider it my duty to thank all the members of the committee, and my brother in particular, for their conscientious labors in this matter.
Views on the presented work may be different. Therefore, I listen to all different opinions willingly; but I have the right to demand from you one thing, that you, putting aside all personal interests, act as state dignitaries, invested with my confidence. Starting this important work, I did not hide from myself all the difficulties that awaited us, and I do not hide them even now, but, firmly trusting in the mercy of God, I hope that God will not leave us and bless us to complete it for the future prosperity. our dear Fatherland. Now, with God's help, let's get down to business.
MANIFESTO FEBRUARY 19, 1861
GOD'S MERCY
WE, ALEXANDER II,
EMPEROR AND AUTOGRAPHER
ALL-RUSSIAN
Tsar of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland
and other, and other, and other
We announce to all our loyal subjects.
By God's providence and the sacred law of succession to the throne, having been called to the ancestral All-Russian throne, in accordance with this calling, we made a vow in our hearts to embrace with our royal love and care all our loyal subjects of every rank and status, from those who nobly wield a sword to defend the Fatherland to modestly work as an artisan tool, from passing the highest state service to making a furrow in the field with a plow or a plow.
Delving into the position of ranks and states in the composition of the state, we saw that state legislation, actively improving the upper and middle classes, defining their duties, rights and advantages, did not achieve uniform activity in relation to serfs, so named because they are partly old. laws, partly custom, hereditarily strengthened under the rule of the landowners, who at the same time have the duty to arrange their well-being. The rights of the landowners were until now extensive and not precisely defined by law, the place of which was replaced by tradition, custom and the goodwill of the landowner. In the best cases, this resulted in good patriarchal relations of sincere, truthful guardianship and charity of the landowner and good-natured obedience of the peasants. But with a decrease in the simplicity of morals, with an increase in the diversity of relations, with a decrease in the direct paternal relations of landlords to peasants, with landlord rights sometimes falling into the hands of people seeking only their own benefit, good relations weakened and the path opened up to arbitrariness, burdensome for the peasants and unfavorable for them. well-being, which in the peasants was answered by immobility for improvements in their own way of life.
Our ever-memorable predecessors also saw this and took measures to change the condition of the peasants to a better one; but these were measures, partly indecisive, proposed to the voluntary, freedom-loving action of the landlords, partly decisive only for certain localities, at the request of special circumstances or in the form of experience. So, Emperor Alexander I issued a decree on free cultivators, and in Bose, our deceased father Nicholas I - a decree on obligated peasants. In the western provinces, inventory rules define the allocation of land to peasants and their obligations. But the decrees on free cultivators and obligated peasants have been put into effect on a very small scale.
Thus, we were convinced that the matter of changing the position of serfs for the better is for us the testament of our predecessors and the lot, through the course of events, given to us by the hand of providence.
We started this business by an act of our trust in Russian nobility, to the great experience of devotion to his throne and his readiness to donate for the benefit of the Fatherland. We left it to the nobility itself, at their own call, to make assumptions about the new arrangement of the life of the peasants, and the nobles were supposed to limit their rights to the peasants and raise the difficulties of transformation, not without reducing their benefits. And our trust was justified. In the provincial committees, in the person of their members, endowed with the confidence of the entire noble society of each province, the nobility voluntarily renounced the right to the identity of serfs. In these committees, after collecting the necessary information, assumptions were made about a new arrangement for the life of people in a serf state and about their relationship to the landowners.
These assumptions, which, as one might expect from the nature of the case, turned out to be diverse, were compared, agreed, brought together in the correct composition, corrected and supplemented in the Main Committee on this case; and the new provisions drawn up in this way on the landlord peasants and courtyard people were considered in the State Council.
Calling on God for help, we decided to give this matter an executive movement.
By virtue of the aforementioned new provisions, serfs will in due course receive the full rights of free rural inhabitants.
The landowners, while retaining the right of ownership to all the lands belonging to them, provide the peasants, for the established duties, for permanent use with their estate settlement and, moreover, to ensure their life and fulfill their duties to the government, the amount of field land and other lands determined in the regulations.
Using this land allotment, the peasants are obliged to perform in favor of the landowners the duties specified in the regulations. In this state, which is a transitional state, the peasants are called temporarily liable.
At the same time, they are given the right to redeem their estate settlement, and with the consent of the landowners, they can acquire ownership of field lands and other lands assigned to them for permanent use. With such an acquisition of ownership of a certain amount of land, the peasants will be freed from obligations to the landowners for the purchased land and will enter into a decisive state of free peasant owners.
A special provision on householders defines a transitional state for them, adapted to their occupations and needs; after the expiration of a period of two years from the date of issuance of this regulation, they will receive full exemption and urgent benefits.
On these main principles, the drafted provisions determine the future structure of the peasants and householders, establish the order of social peasant administration and indicate in detail the rights granted to the peasants and householders and the duties assigned to them in relation to the government and landowners.
Although these provisions, general, local and special additional rules for certain special localities, for the estates of small landowners and for peasants working in landowner factories and factories, are adapted as far as possible to local economic needs and customs, however, in order to preserve the usual order there, where it represents mutual benefits, we leave the landowners to make voluntary agreements with the peasants and to conclude conditions on the size of the peasants' land allotment and on the duties following it, in compliance with the rules established to protect the inviolability of such contracts.
As a new device, due to the inevitable complexity of the changes required by it, cannot be made suddenly, but it will take time for this, approximately at least two years, then during this time, in disgust of confusion and for the observance of public and private benefit, existing to this day in the landowners on the estates, order must be maintained until then, when, after proper preparations have been made, a new order will be opened.
In order to achieve this correctly, we recognized it as good to command:
1. To open in each province a provincial office for peasant affairs, which is entrusted with the highest management of the affairs of peasant societies established on landowners' lands.
2. In order to resolve local misunderstandings and disputes that may arise in the implementation of the new provisions, appoint conciliators in the counties and form them into county conciliation congresses.
3. Then to form secular administrations on the landowners' estates, for which, leaving rural communities in their current composition, open volost administrations in large villages, and unite small rural societies under one volost administration.
4. Draw up, verify and approve for each rural society or estate a charter charter, which will calculate, on the basis of the local situation, the amount of land provided to the peasants for permanent use, and the amount of duties due from them in favor of the landowner both for land and and for other benefits.
5. These statutory letters to be enforced as they are approved for each estate, and finally for all estates to be put into effect within two years from the date of publication of this manifesto.
6. Until the expiration of this period, the peasants and yard people remain in their former obedience to the landlords and unquestioningly fulfill their former duties.
Paying attention to the inevitable difficulties of an acceptable transformation, we first of all place our hope in the all-good providence of God, patronizing Russia.
Therefore, we rely on the valiant zeal of the noble nobility for the common good, to which we cannot but express deserved gratitude from us and from the entire Fatherland for their disinterested action towards the implementation of our plans. Russia will not forget that it voluntarily, motivated only by respect for human dignity and Christian love for neighbors, renounced serfdom, which is now abolished, and laid the foundation for a new economic future for the peasants. We undoubtedly expect that it will also nobly use further diligence to enforce the new provisions in good order, in the spirit of peace and goodwill, and that each owner will complete within the limits of his estate a great civil feat of the entire class, arranging the life of the peasants settled on his land and his yards. people on favorable terms for both sides, and thus give the rural population a good example and encouragement to the exact and conscientious performance of state duties.
The examples we have in mind of the generous care of the owners for the welfare of the peasants and the gratitude of the peasants for the beneficent care of the owners confirm our hope that most of the difficulties that are inevitable in some cases of application will be resolved by mutual voluntary agreements. general rules to the various circumstances of individual estates, and that in this way the transition from the old order to the new will be facilitated and mutual trust, good agreement and unanimous striving for the common good will be strengthened in the future.
In order to most conveniently put into effect those agreements between owners and peasants, according to which these will acquire ownership along with estates and field lands, the government will provide benefits, on the basis of special rules, by issuing loans and transferring debts lying on the estates.
We rely on the common sense of our people. When the government's idea of abolishing serfdom spread among the peasants who were not prepared for it, there were private misunderstandings. Some thought about freedom and forgot about duties. But the general common sense did not waver in the conviction that, according to natural reasoning, freely enjoying the benefits of society should mutually serve the good of society by fulfilling certain duties, and according to the Christian law, every soul should obey the powers that be (Rom. XIII, 1), do justice to everyone, and especially to whom it is due, a lesson, a tribute, fear, honor; that the rights legally acquired by the landowners cannot be taken from them without a decent reward or a voluntary concession; that it would be contrary to any justice to use the land from the landlords and not bear the corresponding duty for this.
And now we expect with hope that the serfs, in the new future that opens up for them, will understand and gratefully accept the important donation made by the noble nobility to improve their life.
They will come to understand that, having received for themselves a firmer foundation of property and greater freedom to dispose of their economy, they become obliged to society and to themselves to supplement the beneficence of the new law by faithful, well-intentioned and diligent use of the rights granted to them. The most beneficent law cannot make people prosperous unless they take the trouble to arrange their own well-being under the protection of the law. Contentment is acquired and increased only by unremitting labor, prudent use of forces and means, strict frugality and, in general, an honest life in the fear of God.
The performers of the preparations for the new organization of peasant life and the very introduction to this organization will use vigilant care so that this is done with a correct, calm movement, observing the convenience of the time, so that the attention of the farmers is not diverted from their necessary agricultural activities. Let them carefully cultivate the land and gather its fruits, so that from a well-filled granary they will take seeds for sowing on the land of constant use or on land acquired in property.
Fall on yourself with the sign of the cross, Orthodox people, and call with us God's blessing on your free work, the guarantee of your domestic well-being and the public good. Given in St. Petersburg, on the nineteenth day of February, in the summer of the birth of Christ, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, our reign in the seventh.
The Manifesto of February 19 was the main document of the reform, it was he who proclaimed the reform, other legislative acts regulating the course of the reform were based on the provisions of the manifesto, the manifesto also determined the mechanism for its implementation ( legal acts and government agencies).
The manifesto defined the goal of the reform: “.. serfs will receive in due time the full rights of free rural inhabitants”, that is, not just the abolition of serfdom, but the endowment of former serfs with additional rights and opportunities that free peasants had at that time, and from which the serfs were separated not only by personal dependence on the landowner.
The landowners retained their ownership of the land - this was the second key point of the reform. They pledged to give their former serfs land and housing for the performance of those duties - a kind of rent. Since the creators of the manifesto understood that the abolition of serfdom in itself does not make the peasant free, a special designation was introduced to designate landless former serfs: “temporarily liable”.
The peasants were given the opportunity to buy out estates, and with the consent of the landowners, to acquire arable land and other lands allotted to them for permanent use. With the acquisition of ownership of a certain amount of land, the peasants were relieved of their obligations to the landowners for the purchased land and entered into the state of free peasant proprietors.
A special provision on the courtyard people determined for them a transitional state adapted to their occupations and needs; after a two-year period from the date of publication of the Regulations, they received full exemption and urgent benefits.
On these main principles, the Provisions drawn up determined the future arrangement of the life of peasants and courtyards, established the order of social peasant administration, and indicated in detail the rights given to peasants and courtyards and the duties assigned to them in relation to the state and landowners.
All the Regulations, general, local, and special additional rules for certain localities, for the estates of small landowners and for peasants working in landowner factories and plants, were adapted as far as possible to local economic needs and customs. In order to preserve the usual order where it represents “mutual benefits” (primarily, of course, to the landowners), the landowners were given the right to conclude voluntary agreements with the peasants on the size of the peasants’ land allotment and on the duties following it, subject to the rules established to ensure the inviolability of such treaties.
The manifesto stated that a new device could not be introduced suddenly, but would take time, approximately at least two years; during this time, "in disgust of confusion, and for the observance of public and private benefit", the order that existed in the landowners' estates was to be preserved "until the time when, after making proper preparations, a new order will be opened."
To achieve these goals, it was decided:
- 1. Open in each province the Provincial Presence for Peasant Affairs, which was entrusted with the highest management of the affairs of peasant societies on landowners' lands.
- 2. For local consideration of misunderstandings and disputes that may arise during the implementation of the Regulations, appoint Peace Mediators in the counties, and form them into County World Congresses.
- 3. Form secular administrations on landlord estates, for which, leaving rural societies in their former composition, open volost administrations in large villages, and unite small rural societies under one volost administration.
- 4. Draw up a statutory charter for each rural society or estate, in which it will be calculated, on the basis of the local Regulations, the amount of land provided to the peasants for permanent use, and the amount of duties due from them in favor of the landowner, both for land and for others. benefits.
- 5. Statutory charters to be enforced as they are approved for each estate, and finally for all estates to be put into effect within two years from the date of publication of the Manifesto.
- 6. Until the expiration of this period, the peasants and yard people remain in their former obedience to the landlords and unquestioningly fulfill their former duties.
- 7. The landlords shall keep the supervision of order in their estates, with the right of trial and reprisal, until the formation of volosts and the opening of volost courts.
The text of the Manifesto, announcing the liberation of the serfs, was written on behalf of Alexander II by Moscow Metropolitan Filaret (Drozdov). Like other reform documents, it was signed by the emperor on February 19, 1861.
The Manifesto proved the legitimacy of the previously existing power of the landowners over the peasants, it was explained that although the previous laws did not determine the limits of the right of the landowner over the peasants, they obliged him to arrange ... the well-being of the peasants. An idyllic picture was drawn of the initial good patriarchal relations of sincere truthful guardianship and charity of the landlord and the good-natured obedience of the peasants, and only later, with a decrease in the simplicity of morals, with an increase in the diversity of relations ... good relations weakened and the way was opened for arbitrariness, burdensome for the peasants. Thus, the author of the Manifesto tried to convince the peasants that their liberation from serfdom was an act of beneficence from the highest authority (autocracy), which prompted the landowners to voluntarily renounce their rights to the personality of serfs.
The Manifesto also briefly outlines the main conditions for the liberation of peasants from serfdom (they are detailed in the eight Regulations and nine Additional Rules approved on February 19, 1861).
According to the Manifesto, the peasant immediately receives personal freedom (full rights of free rural inhabitants).
The liquidation of feudal relations in the countryside is not a one-time act, but Long procces spanning several decades. Complete release the peasants did not receive immediately from the moment the Manifesto and the Regulations were promulgated, that is, on February 19, 1861. The Manifesto announced that the peasants for two years (until February 19, 1863) were obliged to serve the same duties (corvée and dues), as under serfdom, and be in the same obedience to the landowners. The landowners retained the right to monitor order on their estates, with the right to judge and reprisal, until the formation of volosts and the opening of volost courts. Thus, the features of non-economic coercion continued to persist even after the declaration of “freedom”. But even after the expiration of two years of transition (that is, after February 19, 1863), the peasants remained in the position of temporarily liable for a long time. In the literature, it is sometimes incorrectly stated that the term of the temporarily obligated state of the peasants was determined in advance at 20 years (until 1881). In fact, neither in the Manifesto nor in the Regulations of February 19, 1861, any fixed term was established for the termination of the temporarily obligated condition of the peasants. The mandatory transfer of peasants for redemption (i.e., the termination of temporarily obligated relations) was established by the Regulations on the redemption of allotments that still remain in mandatory relations with landowners in provinces that are on the Great Russian and Little Russian local positions on February 19, 1861 of December 28, 1881, and in nine western provinces (Vilna, Grodno, Kovno, Minsk, Vitebsk, Mogilev, Kiev, Podolsk and Volyn) the peasants were transferred to compulsory redemption in 1863.
The manifesto proclaimed the preservation of the character of the landlords "to all the land on their estates, including the peasant allotment, which the peasants received for use for certain local provisions of duty. To become the owner of his allotment, the peasant had to redeem it. The terms of the redemption are set out in detail in the Regulations on the redemption by peasants who have emerged from serfdom, their settled settlement and on government assistance in acquiring field lands by these peasants.
Quoting "The Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans" (chapter 13, verses 1 and 7); “every soul must obey the powers that be” and “pay tribute to everyone, and especially to those who owe it, a lesson, tribute, fear, honor,” the author of the Manifesto urged the peasants to maintain complete obedience to the authorities and landlords.
The manifesto preceded the publication of 17 legislative acts approved on the same day, containing the conditions for the liberation of the peasants.
On February 19, 1861, the tsar signed a decree to the Governing Senate, which was ordered to “make a dependent order for the immediate promulgation and enforcement” of the indicated 17 legislative acts forwarded to the Senate on peasants who emerged from serfdom. The Senate was instructed “to take measures so that the General Provisions, intended for universal implementation, were delivered to the landowners and rural communities of peasants settled on landowners’ lands, and the Local Provisions and additional rules to them were forwarded, according to belonging to the landlords, to rural communities of those areas to whom each of these enactments concerns.” The texts of the Regulations and the Manifesto on February 19, 1861 were also published as an Appendix to No. 20 of the Senate Gazette of March 10, 1861. At the beginning of March 1861, a resolution was adopted: “In order to facilitate the study of these extracting them, in fact, on the procedure for the gradual introduction of new regulations relating to the rights and obligations of peasants and courtyard people. IN " Summary”contained articles: on the personal rights and obligations of peasants, rules on their land arrangement and rules on courtyards.
The promulgation of the Manifesto and the Regulations on February 19, 1861, the content of which deceived the hopes of the peasants for “full freedom”, caused an explosion of peasant protest in the spring of 1861: in the first five months, 1340 mass peasant unrest were registered, and in just a year - 1859 (approximately as many same as how many of them were taken into account for the entire first half of the 19th century). In 937 cases, peasant unrest in 1861 was pacified with the use of military force. In fact, there was not a single province in which, to a greater or lesser extent, the protest of the peasants against the “granted” to them “will” would not have manifested itself. The peasant movement assumed the greatest scope in the central black earth provinces, in the Volga region and in the Ukraine. where the bulk of the peasants were on corvee and the most acute was the agrarian issue. The uprisings of the peasants, which ended in their execution, in April 1861 in the villages of Bezdne (Kazan province) and Kandeevka (Penza province) had a great public resonance, in which tens of thousands of peasants took part.
On February 19 (old style), 1861, on the day of the five-year anniversary of the beginning of the reign of Emperor Alexander II, the Sovereign signed the Manifesto on the abolition of serfdom in Russia. The event that has been awaited for many years has come to pass. “By virtue of the aforementioned new provisions, serfs will in due time receive the full rights of free rural inhabitants”, - it was said in the text of the Manifesto, for the publication of which the Emperor was awarded the honorary title of "Tsar-Liberator" from the Russian people.
“The nobility voluntarily renounced the right to the identity of serfs ... - reported in the Tsar's Manifesto . - The nobles were supposed to limit their rights to the peasants and raise the difficulties of transformation, not without reducing their benefits ... The examples of generous care of the owners for the welfare of the peasants and the gratitude of the peasants to the beneficent care of the owners confirms our hope that most of the difficulties will be resolved by mutual voluntary agreements, inevitable in some cases the application of general rules to various circumstances of individual estates, and that in this way the transition from the old order to the new will be facilitated and mutual trust, good agreement and unanimous striving for the common good will be strengthened in the future ".
However, the people learned about the royal Manifesto not on the day of its signing, but only two weeks later - on Forgiveness Sunday after the end of the liturgy. This was due to the fact that, fearing a violent popular reaction, the authorities decided to wait out the Maslenitsa festivities and time the announcement of the document to coincide with the first week of Great Lent, when Orthodox Christians are especially striving to curb their own passions and repentance. And these calculations were fully justified. As noted by the capital newspaper, " the temples of God were filled with Orthodox people. The honest people humbly listened to the divine liturgy, preparing to find out the resolution of the thought cherished for him, brought up in his heart for years. “From 9 o’clock in the morning, for 10 hours, the telegraph did not stop transmitting to all parts of Russia, where only an electric wire was laid, the news of the highest manifesto on February 19, 1861,” reported Severnaya Pchela. - The mercy bestowed by the Sovereign on the people was accepted by Moscow with reverent tenderness. (...) On the same day, March 5, a manifesto was announced throughout the Moscow district, with perfect calm in all the landowners' estates ".
Within this short essay we will not dwell on the content of the reform and the course of the emancipation of the peasants, which are well known at least from school course history, but we will only touch on the perception of this hysterical event by contemporaries.
On the eve of the publication of the Manifesto, Emperor Alexander II prayed for a long time at the tomb of his father, Tsar Nikolai Pavlovich, who died on February 18, 1855, and did a lot to make the abolition of serfdom possible during the reign of his son. According to the historian M.P. Pogodin, the Sovereign experienced great joy on February 19. "Today is the best day of my life!", - said the Emperor, who "and cried, and laughed, and kissed children, and hugged relatives ...".
The official press was full of joyful and solemn messages: “The great event that took place on February 19, 1861, begins a new, better time community development Russia"- noted "Russian speech". And the Sankt-Peterburgskiye Vedomosti assured its readers that "The great call for the unity of the estates and agreement on mutual interests in universal human relations has forever closed the abyss that was opened by the hands of Peter as a result of historical necessity."
"Kant, Schiller, Rousseau ..., - enthusiastically wrote M.P. Pogodin , - take off your hats, bow to the ground ... France, Germany, England, envy us ... We got equality and this "suddenly on one truly beautiful morning." And all this without a revolution. What kind of "monster Russia ...".
F.M. Dostoevsky also welcomed the Tsar’s Manifesto, noting that “All this abominable sin of ours was abolished at once according to the great word of the Liberator”. The prominent conservative publicist M.N. Katkov also called February 19 the Great Holiday of the Russian Land. Evaluating the reform 9 years after its implementation, Katkov noted: “Never has the “common sense of the people” been expressed so brilliantly as in the peasant reform that took place in Russia. At first, after liberation, immediately after the sharp turning point that took place in the Russian countryside, when serfdom had already fallen, but neither the mediators of the peace, nor the rural authorities had yet been put into action, when the peasants had not yet had time to get acquainted with their new rights - and then there was no serious confusion among the people, in spite of all the efforts of the malicious parties. The special measures taken just in case turned out to be completely unnecessary. The Russian people, with their common sense, surprised not only their enemies, but also their friends, who still did not expect the masses to be able to show such complete self-control at the first stages of freedom. It is known that malicious people tried to arouse exaggerated expectations in the peasantry. Rumors spread about a free allotment, about a new will, about liberation from all duties. But among the people a sound instinct for truth was constantly preserved..
But the reaction of society to the peasant reform was far from ambiguous. As the historian of the reign of Emperor Alexander II E.P. Tolmachev rightly notes, "the attitude of contemporaries to the promulgated peasant reform once again proved the old truth: there is no law that would be to everyone's liking". If some admired the great sovereign act, others interpreted the reform as "predatory".
In the last interpretation, the revolutionary camp was especially successful, which categorically did not accept the peasant reform. N.G. Chernyshevsky, having read the manifesto on February 19, 1861, angrily threw: “It has long been clear that this will be it”. And Herzen’s Kolokol, through the mouth of N.P. Ogarev, who noted that the peasants from serfdom fell into debt dependence, wrote: “The old serfdom has been replaced by a new one. In general, serfdom has not been abolished. The people are deceived by the king.
But many former feudal lords also felt deceived, whom the reform deprived them of free work force and forced to share the land with the peasants. Those of them who mortgaged their estates and owed considerable sums to the treasury, instead of the expected generous reward, received only the cancellation of pre-reform debts.
Everyone remembers Nekrasov's lines about the abolition of serfdom:
The great chain is broken
Torn - jumped
One end on the master,
Others for a man! ..
However, criticism of the reform was heard not only from the lips of left-wing radicals and offended landlords. 12 years after the publication of the Manifesto, F.M. Dostoevsky remarked: “With the liberation of the peasants, labor was left without sufficient organization and support. Everything perished: the countryside and land ownership, and the nobility, and Russia ... Personal landed property in complete chaos, is sold and bought, changes its owner every minute ... Who will finally remain behind - it is difficult to predict, but meanwhile, if you like, this is the main question of the Russian future ".
Without denying the need for reform, the Slavophil I.S. Aksakov also critically assessed its implementation in practice. “This reform is more than a coup, in the ordinary sense of the word; this is a whole revolution, of course peaceful, but still a revolution (...) - one of the greatest social revolutions that history has known, he considered. - ... The liberation of the peasants from serfdom was not some kind of transfer of objects from one department to another, or one of the useful reforms in a number of others - even, perhaps, the most important of them, which increased the number of full-fledged by 20 million, from the Russian point of view vision, citizens. When embarking on this great action, we not only did not clearly realize its significance, the scope of its consequences, but even now we do not stand on the level of our consciousness with it. (...) How long ago did we begin to guess that, by destroying the landlord life and serfdom of the peasants, we dug into the very depths of our native history? We swept away the centuries-old deposits and exposed the ancient layer, the historical virgin soil, and we don’t know what to do with it: we don’t have seeds for it, or appropriate tools; seeds and plows, which were suitable for alluvial layers, are not suitable for her. We decided historical question- not armed with a historical consciousness, which our society is shamefully poor, having forgotten historical traditions!
And the most famous publicist of the "New Time" M.O. Menshikov drew the attention of his readers to the fact that the great reform led to the collapse of the traditional system of values among the peasantry, and the burden of freedom turned out to be unbearably heavy for many of them: “To the great act of liberation from serfdom, the people, the free people! - answered: 1) the rapid development of drunkenness, 2) the rapid development of crime ... 3) the rapid development of debauchery, 4) the rapid development of atheism and cooling off towards the church, 5) the flight from the village to the cities that tempted ... brothels and taverns, 6 ) the rapid loss of all disciplines - state, family, moral and religious and turning into a nihilist".
And there was truth in that criticism, too. After all, along with gaining freedom, the peasants were deprived of help and guardianship from the landlords, which they used to rely on. If for the prosperous part of the peasantry, accustomed to running an independent economy, this was not scary, then the poor peasants found themselves “thrown out” into an unaccustomed free life for them and, adapting to new living conditions, often turned their newfound freedom not for good.
But let's not forget that the task facing the Sovereign was not an easy one. Russian autocrats had been thinking about the need to abolish serfdom since the time of Catherine the Great, when they began to realize that after the nobles were freed from compulsory public service, the enslavement of peasants would lose its moral justification. Beginning with Emperor Paul I, each of the Sovereigns took real steps to mitigate serfdom. And by the middle of the XIX century. it was already quite obvious that the form of management based on forced labor was losing its former effectiveness, and the growing awareness of the injustice of this state of affairs urgently required a fundamental solution to the peasant question. The words spoken to the Moscow nobility by Emperor Alexander II in 1856 are widely known: “It is better to start destroying serfdom from above than to wait until the time when it begins to destroy itself from below”. But as soon as we began to seriously address this issue, it became obvious that it was impossible to free the peasants without land, as was done in the West in their time, in Russia, and it would not work to redistribute property painlessly. The authorities faced an almost insoluble dilemma: to make sure that both the sheep were safe and the wolves were fed. But the Sovereign still managed to pass between Scylla and Charybdis. Although the reform simultaneously “robbed” both landlords and peasants (the former lost part of their property and income, while the latter did not receive what they expected), it did not lead to a powerful social explosion. No noble " palace coup”, nor the peasant Pugachevshchina happened. Having scolded the authorities, both dissatisfied parties began to adapt to live in the new conditions.
