Regulations February 19, 1861. Literary and historical notes of a young technician

The “Regulations” of February 19, 1861 include 17 legislative acts: “General Regulations”, four “Local Regulations on the Land Arrangement of Peasants”, “Regulations” - “On Redemption”, etc. Their effect extended to 45 provinces, in which 100428 landowners there were 22,563,000 serfs of both sexes, including 1,467,000 serfs and 543,000 assigned to private plants and factories.

The elimination of feudal relations in the countryside is a long process that stretched over more than two decades. The peasants did not receive full liberation immediately. The Manifesto declared that the peasants for another 2 years (from February 19, 1861 to February 19, 1863) were obliged to serve the same duties as under serfdom. The landowners were forbidden to transfer peasants to serfs, and quitrents - to transfer to corvee. But even after 1863, the peasants were obliged to bear the established "Regulations" feudal duties - to pay dues or perform corvee. The final act was the transfer of peasants for redemption. But the transfer of peasants was allowed upon the promulgation of the "Regulations" either by mutual agreement with the landowner, or at his unilateral demand (the peasants themselves did not have the right to demand their transfer for redemption).

The legal status of the peasants

According to the manifesto, the peasants immediately received personal freedom. The granting of "freedom" has been a major requirement in the centuries-old history of the peasant movement. In 1861, the former serf now not only got the opportunity to freely dispose of his personality, but also a number of general property and civil rights, and all this liberated the peasants morally.

The issue of personal release in 1861 had not yet received a final resolution, but with the transfer of the peasants for ransom, the guardianship of the landowner ceased.

Subsequent reforms in the field of court, local government, education, military service expanded the rights of the peasantry: the peasant could be elected to the jury of new courts, to the zemstvo self-government body, he was given access to secondary and higher educational institutions. But this did not completely remove the class inequality of the peasantry. They were obliged to bear soul and other monetary and natural duties, were subjected to corporal punishment, from which other, privileged classes were exempted.

Peasant self-government

"Peasant public administration" was introduced during the summer of 1861. Peasant self-government in the state village, created in 1837-1841. P. D. Kiselyov’s reform was taken as a model.

The initial cell was a rural society, which could consist of one or more villages or part of a village. Rural management consisted of a village meeting. The decisions of the meeting were valid if they were supported by the majority of those present at the meeting.

Several adjacent rural societies made up the volost. In total, 8750 volosts were formed in the former landowner villages in 1861. The volost gathering elected for 3 years the volost foreman, his assistants and the volost court consisting of 4 to 12 judges. The volost foreman performed a number of administrative and economic functions: he followed the "order of deanery" in the volost, "suppression of false rumors." The volost court considered peasant property litigations, if the amount of claims did not exceed 100 rubles, cases of minor offenses, guided by the norms of customary law. All business was done by word of mouth.

World mediators

The Institute of Peace Mediators, established in the summer of 1861, was of great importance.

Peace mediators were appointed by the Senate from local hereditary landowning nobles on the proposal of the governors together with the provincial marshals of the nobility. The peace mediators were accountable to the county congress of peace mediators, and the congress was accountable to the provincial presence for peasant affairs.

Peace mediators were not "impartial mediators" of disagreements between peasants and landlords, they also defended landowner interests, sometimes even violating them. The composition of the peace mediators elected for the first triennium was the most liberal. Among them were the Decembrists A. E. Rosen and M. A. Nazimov, the Petrashevists N. S. Kashkin and N. A. Speshnev, the writer L. N. Tolstoy and the surgeon N. I. Pirogov.

Peasant allotment

The central place in the reform was occupied by the question of land. The published law was based on the principle of recognizing the landlords' ownership of all the land in their estates, as well as the peasant's allotment. And the peasants were declared only as users of this land. To become the owner of their allotment land, the peasants had to buy it from the landowner.

The complete landlessness of the peasants was an economically unprofitable and socially dangerous measure: depriving the landowners and the state of the opportunity to receive the former income from the peasants, it would create a mass of millions of landless peasants and thereby could cause general peasant discontent. The demand for the provision of land was central to the peasant movement of the pre-reform years.

The entire territory of European Russia was divided into 3 bands - non-chernozem, chernozem and steppe, and the "bands" were divided into "localities".

In the non-chernozem and chernozem "bands", the "higher" and "lower" norms of allotments were established. In the steppe one - the "narrow" norm.

The peasants used the pastures of the landlord free of charge, received permission to graze cattle in the landowner's forest, on a mowed meadow and a harvested landowner's field. The peasant, having received an allotment, did not yet become a full-fledged owner.

The communal form of land ownership excluded the possibility for the peasant to sell his allotment.

Under serfdom, some of the wealthy peasants had their own purchased land.

To protect the interests of the small landed nobility, special "rules" established a number of benefits for them, which created more difficult conditions for the peasants in these estates. The most deprived were the "peasants-donators", who received donations - "beggarly" or "orphan" allotments. According to the law, the landowner could not force the peasant to take a gift allotment. Its receipt exempted from redemption payments, the donor completely broke with the landowner. But the peasant could go "to the gift" only with the consent of his landowner.

Most of the donations lost and ended up in distress. In 1881, the Minister of the Interior, N.P. Ignatiev, wrote that the donors had reached the extreme degree of poverty.

The allocation of land to the peasants was compulsory: the landowner had to provide the allotment to the peasant, and the peasant to take it. By law, until 1870, the peasant could not refuse the allotment.

The “Redemption Regulations” allowed the peasant to leave the community, but it was very difficult. P.P. Semyonov, the activists of the reform of 1861, noted: during the first 25 years, the purchase of individual plots of land and leaving the community was rare, but since the beginning of the 80s it has become a “common occurrence”.

Duties of temporarily obligated peasants

The law provided for the peasants to serve for the provided land service in the form of corvée and dues before the transition of the peasants to ransom.

According to the law, it was impossible to increase the size of the dues above the pre-reform ones, if the land allotment did not increase. But the law did not provide for a reduction in dues in connection with the reduction of the allotment. As a result of the cut off from the peasant allotment, there was an actual increase in dues per 1 tithe.

The statutory rates of dues exceeded the income from the land. It was believed that this was a payment for the land provided to the peasants, but it was a payment for personal freedom.

In the first years after the reform, the corvée turned out to be so inefficient that the landowners began to quickly transfer the peasants to dues. Thanks to this, in a very short time (1861-1863), the proportion of corvée peasants decreased from 71 to 33%.

Redemption operation

The final stage of the peasant reform was the transfer of peasants for redemption. On December 28, 1881, the “Regulations” were issued, providing for the transfer of the peasants who were still in a temporarily obligated position for compulsory redemption starting from January 18, 1883. By 1881, only 15% of the temporarily obligated peasants remained. Their transfer for ransom was completed by 1895. A total of 124,000 redemption transactions were concluded.

The ransom was based not on the real, market price of the land, but on feudal duties. The amount of the ransom for the allotment was determined by the "capitalization of quitrent".

The state took over the ransom by carrying out a ransom operation. To this end, in 1861, the Main Redemption Institution was established under the Ministry of Finance. The centralized redemption of peasant allotments by the state solved a number of important social and economic problems. The ransom turned out to be a profitable operation for the state.

The transfer of the peasants for ransom meant the final separation of the peasant economy from the landlord. The reform of 1861 created favorable conditions for a gradual transition from the feudal landlord economy to the capitalist one.

Peasants' response to reform

The promulgation of 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. There was not a single province in which the protest of the peasants against the unfavorable conditions of the granted "freedom" would not manifest itself.

The peasant movement assumed the greatest scope in the central black earth provinces, in the Volga region and in Ukraine. A great public outcry in the country was caused by the uprisings in early April 1861 in the villages of Bezdna and Kandeevka. They ended with executions of the rebels: hundreds of peasants were killed and wounded. The leader of the uprising in the village of Bezdna, Anton Petrov, was brought to a military court and shot.

The spring of 1861 is the highest point of the peasant movement at the beginning of the reform. By the summer of 1861, the government managed to beat back the wave of peasant protest. In 1862, a new wave of peasant protest arose, connected with the introduction of statutory charters. A belief spread among the peasants about the "illegality" of charters. As a result, Alexander II twice spoke to representatives of the peasantry in order to dispel these illusions. During his trip to the Crimea in the autumn of 1862, he told the peasants that "there will be no other will than the one that is given."

The peasant movement of 1861-1862 resulted in spontaneous and scattered riots, easily suppressed by the government. Since 1863, the peasant movement has declined sharply. Their character has also changed. They focused on the private interests of their community, on using the possibilities of legal and peaceful forms of struggle in order to achieve the best conditions for organizing the economy.

March 3 (February 19, O.S.), 1861 - Alexander II signed the Manifesto "On the most merciful granting to serfs of the rights of the state of free rural inhabitants" and the Regulations on peasants emerging from serfdom, which consisted of 17 legislative acts. Based on these documents, the peasants received personal freedom and the right to dispose of their property.

The manifesto was dedicated to the sixth anniversary of the emperor's accession to the throne (1855).

Even during the reign of Nicholas I, a large amount of preparatory material for the peasant reform was collected. Serfdom during the reign of Nicholas I remained unshakable, but significant experience was accumulated in solving the peasant issue, on which his son Alexander II, who ascended the throne in 1855, could later rely on.

At the beginning of 1857, a Secret Committee was established to prepare the peasant reform. The government then decided to make the public aware of its intentions, and the Secret Committee was renamed the Main Committee. The nobility of all regions was to create provincial committees to develop a peasant reform. In early 1859, Editorial Commissions were set up to process the reform projects of the committees of the nobility. In September 1860, the developed reform project was discussed by the deputies sent by the committees of the nobility, and then transferred to the highest state bodies.

In mid-February 1861, the Regulations on the Emancipation of the Peasants were considered and approved by the State Council. On March 3 (February 19, O.S.), 1861, Alexander II signed a manifesto "On the most merciful granting to serfs of the rights of the state of free rural inhabitants." The concluding words of the historical Manifesto were: "Autumn yourself with the sign of the cross, Orthodox people, and call with us God's blessing on your free labor, the guarantee of your domestic well-being and the public good." The manifesto was announced in both capitals on a big religious holiday - Forgiveness Sunday, in other cities - in the week closest to it.

According to the Manifesto, the peasants were given civil rights - the freedom to marry, independently conclude contracts and conduct court cases, acquire real estate in their own name, etc.

The land could be redeemed both by the community and by the individual peasant. The land allotted to the community was in collective use, therefore, with the transition to another estate or another community, the peasant lost the right to the “worldly land” of his former community.

The enthusiasm with which the release of the Manifesto was greeted was soon replaced by disappointment. The former serfs expected full freedom and were dissatisfied with the transitional state of the "temporarily liable". Believing that the true meaning of the reform was being hidden from them, the peasants rebelled, demanding liberation from the land. To suppress the largest speeches, accompanied by a seizure of power, as in the villages of Bezdna (Kazan province) and Kandeevka (Penza province), troops were used. In total, more than two thousand performances were recorded. By the summer of 1861, however, the unrest subsided.

Initially, the period of stay in a temporarily obligated state was not established, so the peasants dragged on with 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.

The peasant reform of 1861 was of great historical significance. It opened up new prospects for Russia, creating an opportunity for the broad development of market relations. The abolition of serfdom paved the way for other important transformations aimed at creating a civil society in Russia.

For this reform, Alexander II began to be called the Tsar the Liberator.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

The reign of Alexander II (1856-1881) went down in history as a period of "great reforms". It was largely thanks to the emperor that serfdom was abolished in Russia in 1861 - an event that, of course, is his main achievement, which played a big role in the future development of the state.

Prerequisites for the abolition of serfdom

In 1856-1857, a number of southern provinces were shaken by peasant unrest, which, however, subsided very quickly. But, nevertheless, they served as a reminder to the ruling power that the situation in which the common people find themselves, in the end, could turn into grave consequences for it.

In addition, the current serfdom significantly slowed down the progress of the country's development. The axiom that free labor is more effective than forced labor manifested itself in full measure: Russia lagged far behind Western states both in the economy and in the socio-political sphere. This threatened that the previously created image of a powerful state could simply dissolve, and the country would move into the category of a secondary one. Not to mention the fact that serfdom was very much like slavery.

By the end of the 1950s, more than a third of the country's 62 million population was completely dependent on their owners. Russia urgently needed a peasant reform. 1861 was to be a year of serious changes, which should have been carried out in such a way that they could not shake the established foundations of the autocracy, and the nobility retained its dominant position. Therefore, the process of abolishing serfdom required careful analysis and elaboration, and this, due to the imperfect state apparatus, was already problematic.

Necessary steps for the coming changes

The abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861 was to seriously affect the foundations of life in a vast country.

However, if in states living under the constitution, before any transformations are carried out, they are worked out in the ministries and discussed in the government, after which the finished reform projects are submitted to the parliament, which makes the final verdict, then in Russia there are neither ministries nor a representative body. existed. And serfdom was legalized at the state level. Alexander II could not cancel it personally, as this would violate the rights of the nobility, which is the basis of autocracy.

Therefore, in order to promote reform in the country, it was necessary to create a whole apparatus, specially engaged in the abolition of serfdom. It was supposed to be composed of institutions organized locally, whose proposals would be submitted to and processed by a central committee, which in turn would be controlled by the monarch.

Since it was the landlords who lost the most in the light of the upcoming changes, for Alexander II it would be the best way out if the initiative to free the peasants came from the nobles. Soon such a moment turned up.

"Rescript to Nazimov"

In the middle of autumn 1857, General Vladimir Ivanovich Nazimov, the governor from Lithuania, arrived in St. Petersburg, who brought with him a petition for granting him and the governors of the Kovno and Grodno provinces the right to give freedom to their serfs, but without granting them land.

In response, Alexander II sent a rescript (personal imperial letter) addressed to Nazimov, in which he instructed the local landowners to organize provincial committees. Their task was to develop their own versions of the future peasant reform. At the same time, in the message, the king also gave his recommendations:

• Granting full freedom to serfs.
• All land plots must remain with the landowners, with the preservation of the right of ownership.
• Enabling the liberated peasants to receive land allotments, subject to the payment of dues or working off corvée.
• Give the peasants the opportunity to redeem their estates.

Soon the rescript appeared in print, which gave impetus to a general discussion of the issue of serfdom.

Creation of committees

At the very beginning of 1857, the emperor, following his plan, created a secret committee on the peasant question, which secretly worked on the development of a reform to abolish serfdom. But only after the "rescript to Nazimov" became public, the institution began to work in full force. In February 1958, all secrecy was removed from it, renaming it the Main Committee for Peasant Affairs, which was headed by Prince A.F. Orlov.

Under him, editorial commissions were created, which considered the projects submitted by the provincial committees, and already on the basis of the collected data, an all-Russian version of the future reform was created.

General Ya.I., a member of the State Council, was appointed chairman of these commissions. Rostovtsev, who fully supported the idea of ​​abolishing serfdom.

Controversy and work done

In the course of work on the draft between the Main Committee and the majority of provincial landowners, there were serious contradictions. Thus, the landowners insisted that the release of the peasants be limited only to the provision of freedom, and the land could be assigned to them only on the basis of a lease without redemption. The committee wanted to give the former serfs the opportunity to acquire land, becoming full owners.

In 1860, Rostovtsev dies, in connection with which Alexander II appoints Count V.N. Panin, who, by the way, was considered an opponent of the abolition of serfdom. Being an unquestioning executor of the royal will, he was forced to complete the reform project.

In October, the work of the Editorial Committees was completed. In total, the provincial committees submitted for consideration 82 projects for the abolition of serfdom, which occupied 32 printed volumes in terms of volume. The result was submitted for consideration to the State Council, and after its adoption, it was submitted for assurance to the king. After familiarization, he signed the relevant Manifesto and Regulations. February 19, 1861 became the official day of the abolition of serfdom.

Main provisions of the manifesto February 19, 1861

The main provisions of the document were as follows:

• The serfs of the empire received complete personal independence, now they were called "free rural inhabitants."
• From now on (that is, from February 19, 1861), serfs were considered full-fledged citizens of the country with the corresponding rights.
• All movable peasant property, as well as houses and buildings, were recognized as their property.
• The landowners retained the rights to their lands, but at the same time they had to provide the peasants with household plots, as well as field plots.
• For the use of land plots, the peasants had to pay a ransom both directly to the owner of the territory and to the state.

Necessary Reform Compromise

New changes could not satisfy the desires of all concerned. The peasants themselves were dissatisfied. First of all, the conditions under which they were provided with land, which, in fact, was the main means of subsistence. Therefore, the reforms of Alexander II, or rather, some of their provisions, are ambiguous.

Thus, according to the Manifesto, throughout Russia, the largest and smallest sizes of land plots per capita were established, depending on the natural and economic characteristics of the regions.

It was assumed that if the peasant allotment had a smaller size than was established by the document, then this obliged the landowner to add the missing area. If they are large, then, on the contrary, cut off the excess and, as a rule, the best part of the dress.

The norms of allotments provided

The manifesto of February 19, 1861 divided the European part of the country into three parts: steppe, black earth and non-black earth.

• The norm of land allotments for the steppe part is from six and a half to twelve acres.
• The norm for the black earth belt ranged from three to four and a half acres.
• For the non-chernozem strip - from three and a quarter to eight acres.

In general, the area of ​​the allotment in the country became less than it was before the changes, thus, the peasant reform of 1861 deprived the "liberated" more than 20% of the area of ​​cultivated land.

Conditions for the transfer of land ownership

According to the reform of 1861, the land was not provided to the peasants for ownership, but only for use. But they had the opportunity to redeem it from the owner, that is, to conclude the so-called redemption deal. Until that moment, they were considered temporarily liable, and for the use of land they had to work out corvee, which was no more than 40 days a year for men, and 30 for women. Or pay rent, the amount of which for the highest allotment ranged from 8-12 rubles, and when assigning a tax, the fertility of the land was necessarily taken into account. At the same time, the temporarily liable did not have the right to simply refuse the allotment provided, that is, the corvée would still have to be worked out.

After the completion of the redemption transaction, the peasant became the full owner of the land.

And the state was not left behind

From February 19, 1861, thanks to the Manifesto, the state had the opportunity to replenish the treasury. Such an income item was opened due to the formula by which the amount of the redemption payment was calculated.

The amount that the peasant had to pay for the land was equated to the so-called conditional capital, which was deposited in the State Bank at 6% per annum. And these percentages were equated to the income that the landowner had previously received from dues.

That is, if the landowner had 10 rubles of dues from one soul per year, then the calculation was made according to the formula: 10 rubles were divided by 6 (interest from capital), and then multiplied by 100 (total interest) - (10/6) x 100 = 166.7.

Thus, the total amount of dues was 166 rubles 70 kopecks - money "unbearable" for a former serf. But here the state entered into a deal: the peasant had to pay the landlord at a time only 20% of the estimated price. The remaining 80% was contributed by the state, but not just like that, but by providing a long-term loan with a maturity of 49 years and 5 months.

Now the peasant had to pay the State Bank annually 6% of the amount of the redemption payment. It turned out that the amount that the former serf had to contribute to the treasury exceeded the loan three times. In fact, February 19, 1861 was the date when the former serf, having got out of one bondage, fell into another. And this despite the fact that the amount of the ransom itself exceeded the market value of the allotment.

The results of the changes

The reform adopted on February 19, 1861 (the abolition of serfdom), despite its shortcomings, gave a fundamental impetus to the development of the country. 23 million people received freedom, which led to a serious transformation in the social structure of Russian society, and further revealed the need to transform the entire political system of the country.

The timely Manifesto on February 19, 1861, the preconditions of which could lead to a serious regression, became a stimulating factor for the development of capitalism in the Russian state. Thus, the eradication of serfdom is, of course, one of the central events in the history of the country.

The cherished dream of the feudal lords was to bury the reform one way or another. But Alexander II showed extraordinary perseverance. At the most crucial moment, he appointed his brother Konstantin Nikolayevich, a supporter of liberal measures, as chairman of the Main Committee on Peasant Affairs. At the last meeting of the Committee and in the State Council, the reform was defended by the tsar himself. On February 19, 1861, on the sixth anniversary of his accession to the throne, Alexander II signed all the legal provisions on the reform and the manifesto on the abolition of serfdom. Because the government was afraid of popular unrest, the publication of documents was delayed for two weeks - to take preventive measures. On March 5, 1861, the manifesto was read in the churches after Mass. At the divorce in the Mikhailovsky Manege, Alexander himself lamented to his troops. Thus fell serfdom in Russia. "Regulations February 19, 1861, g." extended to 45 provinces of European Russia, in which there were 22,563 thousand souls of both sexes of serfs, including 1,467 thousand serfs and 543 thousand assigned to private factories and factories.

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

Liberation of the peasants.

From the moment the laws were published on February 19, 1861, landlord peasants ceased to be considered property - from now on they could not be sold, bought, donated, relocated at the discretion of the owners. The government declared the former serfs "free villagers", granted them civil rights - the freedom to marry, independently conclude contracts and conduct court cases, acquire real estate in their own name, etc.

The peasants of each landowner's estate united in rural societies. They discussed and resolved their general economic issues at rural gatherings. The decisions of the gatherings were to be carried out by the village headman, who was elected for three years. Several adjacent rural societies made up the volost. Village elders and elected representatives from rural societies took part in the volost gathering. At this meeting, the volost headman was elected. He performed police and administrative duties.

The activities of the rural and volost administrations, as well as the relationship between peasants and landlords, were controlled by peace mediators. They were called the Senate from among the local noble landlords. The mediators had broad powers. But the administration could not use the mediators for its own purposes. They were not subordinate to either the governor or the minister and did not have to follow their instructions. They were only to follow the directions of the law.

All land on the estate was recognized as the property of the landowner, including that which was in the use of the peasants. For the use of their allotments, personally free peasants had to select corvée or pay dues. The law recognized this state as temporary. Therefore, personally free peasants, bearing duties in favor of the landowner, were called "temporarily liable."

The size of the peasant allotment and duties for each estate should be determined once and for all by agreement between the peasants and the landowner and recorded in the charter. The introduction of these letters was the main occupation of the peace mediators.

The permissible framework for agreements between peasants and landlords was outlined in the law. Kavelin, as we remember, proposed to leave all the lands to the peasants, he proposed to leave to the peasants all the lands that they used under serfdom. The landlords of the non-Black Sea provinces did not object to this. In the Black Sea provinces, they protested furiously. Therefore, the law drew a line between non-chernozem and chernozem provinces. In the non-chernozem, the use of the peasants was almost as much land as before. In the chernozem, under the pressure of the feudal lords, a greatly reduced shower allotment was introduced. When recalculated for such an allotment (in some provinces, for example, Kursk, it fell to 2.5 dess.), “extra” lands were cut off from peasant societies. Where the mediator acted in bad faith, including cut-off lands, the lands needed by the peasants turned out to be - cattle drives, meadows, watering places. For additional duties, the peasants were forced to rent these lands from the landowners.

Sooner or later, the government believed, the "temporarily obligated" relationship would end and the peasants and the landowners would conclude a redemption deal - for each estate. According to the law, the peasants had to pay the landowner a lump sum for their allotment about a fifth of the stipulated amount. The rest was paid by the government. But the peasants had to return this amount (with interest) to him in annual payments for 49 years.

Fearing that the peasants would not want to pay big money for bad plots and would run away, the government introduced a number of severe restrictions. While redemption payments were being made, the peasant could not give up his allotment and leave his village forever without the consent of the village assembly.

Of course, the peasants did not expect such a reform. Having heard about the close "will", they perceived with surprise and indignation the news that they had to continue to serve the corvee and pay dues. Suspicions crept into their heads whether they had read the real manifesto to them, whether the landowners, having agreed with the priests, had hidden the "real will." Reports of peasant revolts came from all the provinces of European Russia. Troops were sent to suppress.

The reform did not turn out the way Kavelin, Herzen and Chernyshevsky dreamed of seeing it. Built on difficult compromises, it took into account the interests of the landlords much more than the peasants, and had a very short "resource of time" - no more than 20 years. Then the need for new reforms in the same direction should have arisen.

And yet the peasant reform of 1861 was of great historical significance. It opened up new prospects for Russia, creating an opportunity for the broad development of market relations. The country confidently entered the path of capitalist development. A new era has begun in its history.

The moral significance of this reform, which put an end to serfdom, was also great. Its abolition paved the way for other important transformations, which were supposed to introduce modern forms of self-government and the court in the country, to push the development of education. Now that all Russians have become free, the question of a constitution has arisen in a new way. Its introduction has become the immediate goal on the way to the rule of law - a state that is governed by citizens in accordance with the law and every citizen has reliable protection in it.

He signed the manifesto "On the most merciful granting to serfs of the rights of the state of free rural inhabitants" and the Regulations on peasants emerging from serfdom, which consisted of 17 legislative acts. Based on these documents, the peasants received personal freedom and the right to dispose of their property.

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. Two editorial commissions arose under the committee, which were entrusted with the duty to collect and systematize the opinions of the provincial committees (in fact, one worked under the leadership of General Ya. I. Rostovtsev). Prepared in the summer of 1859, the draft "Regulations on the Peasants" underwent many changes and clarifications during the discussions.

The documents signed by the emperor on February 19 (March 3), 1861 caused a mixed reaction in all segments of the population, since the transformations were half-hearted.

According to the Manifesto, the peasants were given civil rights - the freedom to marry, independently conclude contracts and conduct court cases, and acquire real estate in their own name.

The peasantry was granted legal freedom, but the land was declared the property of the landlords. For allotted plots (cut by an average of 20%), the peasants in the position of "temporarily liable" bore duties in favor of the landowners, who practically did not differ from the former serfs. The allocation of land to the peasants and the procedure for carrying out duties were determined by a voluntary agreement between the landowners and peasants.

For the redemption of land, peasants were provided with an allowance in the form of a loan. The land could be redeemed both by the community and by the individual peasant. The land allotted to the community was in collective use, therefore, with the transition to another estate or another community, the peasant lost the right to the “worldly land” of his former community.

The enthusiasm with which the release of the Manifesto was greeted was soon replaced by disappointment. The former serfs expected full freedom and were dissatisfied with the transitional state of the “temporarily liable”. Believing that the true meaning of the reform was being hidden from them, the peasants rebelled, demanding liberation from the land. To suppress the largest speeches, accompanied by a seizure of power, as in the villages of Bezdna (Kazan province) and Kandeevka (Penza province), troops were used.

Despite this, the peasant reform of 1861 was of great historical significance. It opened up new prospects for Russia, creating an opportunity for the broad development of market relations. The abolition of serfdom paved the way for other important transformations aimed at creating a civil society in Russia.