Serfdom
was not the original status of the Russian
peasant. It was one of the consequences of the Tartar devastation
during the 13th century when peasants became homeless and settled
on the land of wealthy Russians.
By the
end of the 16th century the Russian peasant came under the complete
control of the landowner and during the middle of the 17th century
serfdom became hereditary. Their situation became comparable to that
of slaves and they could be sold to another landowner in families
or singly.
By the
19th century it was estimated that about 50 per cent of the 40,000,000
Russian peasants were serfs. Most of these were the property of the
nobility but large numbers were owned by
the Tsar and religious foundations.
The Crimean
War made
Alexander II realize that Russia was
no longer a great military power. His advisers argued that Russia's
serf-based economy could no longer compete with industrialized nations
such as Britain and France.
Alexander
now began to consider the possibility of bringing an end to serfdom
in Russia. The nobility objected to this
move but as Alexander told a group of Moscow nobles: "It is better
to abolish serfdom from above than to wait for the time when it will
begin to abolish itself from below.
In 1861
Alexander issued his Emancipation Manifesto
that proposed 17 legislative acts that would free the serfs in Russia.
Alexander announced that personal serfdom would be abolished and all
peasants would be able to buy land from their landlords. The State
would advance the the money to the landlords and would recover it
from the peasants in 49 annual sums known as redemption payments.
(1)
Stephen Graham, Alexander II (1935)
To give the land (to the serfs) meant to ruin the
nobility, and to give freedom without land meant to ruin the peasantry.
The state treasury impoverished by the vast expenses of war, could
not afford to indemnify either party. There lay the problem. Could
the serfs made to pay for their freedom? Could the serf-owners be
granted loans on the security of their estates? Would not twenty-two
million slaves suddenly set free combine to take matters into their
own hands.
The position
of most large landowners was this. They lived in St. Petersburg or
some other great city. They did not farm their estates. They had stewards
who administered their property and collected their revenue. They
had numbers of serfs paying a handsome annual tribute for their partial
freedom, a tribute which the landowners' agents strove incessantly
to increase. It was their slaves rather than their land which brought
them income.
(2)
Victor Serge, From Serfdom to Proletarian
Revolution (1930)
From 1840 onwards, the need for serious reform does
begin to be apparent: agricultural production is poor, grain exports
low, the growth of manufacturing industry slowed down through the
shortage of labour; capitalist development is being impeded through
aristocracy and serfdom.
It is a
perilous situation, which is given a fairly astute solution in the
act of "liberation" of 19th February 1861, abolishing serfdom.
With a population of sixty-seven million, Russia had twenty-three
million serfs belonging to 103,000 landlords. The arable land which
the freed peasantry had to rent or buy was valued at about double
its real value (342 million roubles instead of 180 million); yesterday's
serfs discovered that, in becoming free, they were now hopelessly
in debt.
Available
from Amazon Books (order below)
