The Emancipation of the Serfs.

1. The Emancipation of the Serfs is considered the Greatest Social Policy experiment in Russian History, to that time and it put Russia on a completely new path of development.
 
2. On the eve of Emancipation, 22,000,000 peasant serfs lived in Bondage to some 106,000 nobles. A nearly equal number of peasants lived on lands administered by the Ministry of State Properties. Peasants of all categories numbered about 52,000,000 in a total population of the Empire (including Poland) that had a total population of 74,000,000. 62% of the population.
 
3. Reasons for the Emancipation
1. Very conservative motive:
1. To protect the Autocracy
1. Apologists for the Tsar claim it as very Humanitarian Act.
2. To Modernize the State to compete with the West.
3. To never repeat the humiliation of the Crimean War.
 
4. Other arguments:
1. Moral Argument - that Serfdom was an embarrassment to Russia in the mid-19th Century.
2. Retarded the development of Russia into a modern industrial state that could compete with the Western Nations.
3. Fear of Peasant Insurrection that would destroy the state.
1. Keep in mind that the Pugachev revolt was always in the back of the minds of the Nobility.
5. The reality was that the Emancipation was a result of all of these.
 
6. Why the Emancipation?
1. They no longer can keep up with the West.
2. Realization they had to industrialize.
3. How can they do it? What do they have to do first.
1. 1861 - Free the Serfs - Reasons:
1. To create a landowning prosperous "yeoman" farmer on the French model, who would then serve as a pillar of the state.
2. To free up the excess labor in the countryside to go work in the cities. To man the new factories.
3. They had to encourage investment from outside the country and the state had to do much of the investment because there was no real middle class that could do what the middle class did in the West.
7. So contrary to the Western Model (England and France) of industrial development, Russian industrialization is done by the state for "reasons of state." It is not for individual wealth and profit but for the stability of the state.
 
8. Conflicting Agendas of the Emancipation:
1. The Tsar and the Nobility simply wanted to reform the system to preserve the system.
2. The intelligentsia who helped write the Emancipation looked "forward" - forward to a modern Russia that would stand and be on equal footing with the European nations, economically, politically, militarily and socially.
3. The peasants who looked backwards and resisted modernization.
1. Their goal was not to see Russia become a great power, equal with Europe or any of the abstract thoughts of the Intelligentsia. Their primary goal was to get their land, not to be obligated in taxes and to have the state simply leave them alone.
2. They were natural anarchists as they wanted nothing to with the Central State. Their goal was simple - get land and be left alone.
9. Other Problems with the Emancipation.
1. The Nobles wrote it. Consequently the peasants 'took it on the chin."
2. Instead of breaking the power of the Commune, the Emancipation strengthened it.
1. The Commune had the control over the land of the peasants.
2. The taxes were still collected on a Communal basis rather than an individual basis.
3. The best land went to the Nobility.
4. The peasants had to borrow money from the state to pay indemnity claims to the nobles for the land they were given. These were to take 49 years to pay back.
5. Peasants were tied to the Commune through these taxes and indemnities. Even when they went to the cities to work in the factories they were still responsible back to the Commune.
1. Even though the Government wanted to industrialize, it also wanted to prevent the growth of an hereditary industrial proletariat. It feared that what had happened in W. Europe would happen in Russia. They did not want a landless, rootless proletariat in the cities. They figured that if the peasants still had ties to the land they would not become radical like the workers in W. Europe. KEEP THIS IN MIND IT WILL HAVE SERIOUS REPERCUSSIONS FOR THE TSAR.
10. So when Emancipation comes in 1861 it has some very weird features.
    1. Peasants get the worst land.
    2. They have to borrow money from the state to pay off loans to the nobility for the land they get from them.
    3. The power of the commune is reinforced and people cannot leave the commune without its permission and they are tied to it. There is a desire by the government to prevent the development of a landless proletariat.
    4.  
       1. Taxes are heavy and are enforced through the Commune
       1. Further Reinforces Collectivism and the power of the Commune
    5. Dues are still owed to the Lords for the use of common lands that they used to use.
11. Other problems
12. The nobility had no entrepreneurial spirit. They were too used to being a servile class.
    1. Those nobles who were Enlightened for the most part had no desire to participate in State Building and were more concerned with destroying the Tsarist State.
       1. The majority of the Nobility were still mostly concerned about their rank and position.
    2. The Middle Class that did exist was very weak and could not assert itself like in the West.

     

13. All this led to enormous dissatisfaction among the peasants.
1. They had been pushed off their land and into cities.
2. They saw the nobility benefiting from this at their expense.
14. Other problems:
1. For some reason there was a huge increase in the population in the countryside. This led to even greater land hunger among the peasants.
2. Industry did not grow fast enough to take up the excess population.
3. Conditions in the cities were horrible as there was no city government or policies to deal with the influx of the "otkhodniki" (Peasants who had "one foot in the country and one in the city.") This would lead to incredible problems of disease and dissatisfaction in the cities.
 
15. The Emancipation
1. What was the Emancipation?
1. At its simplest level the Peasants were no longer in service to their Lords.
2. Who wrote it?
1. The Tsar and the Nobility - aided by new and Enlightened Bureaucrats - mainly sons from the middling gentry and university graduates.
3. What does this tell you about what the nature of the Emancipation will be?
16. Consequences for the Autocracy:
1. Everyone is dissatisfied.
1. For One: the Peasants don't believe the Emancipation is real. - Then when they do they are terribly disappointed at the terms of the Emancipation.
1. In 1861 alone there are 1100 cases of peasant disorder.
2. Peasant land-hunger is not assuaged.
3. They see the Nobles as having prevented the Tsar's will.
2. The Nobility loses out in the Emancipation
1. Fear and Anxiety about their position in society.
2. 75% of the nobility declines from this point on as they no longer have their serfs.
3. By 1905 40% of Nobility has to sell their land to Peasants, merchants, or other nobles.
17. Final Result - Economically, because of its nature
1. Ruins both the Peasantry and the Noble land-holding class.