The practical measures of the government of Nicholas I on the peasant issue were aimed at alleviating the situation of the serfs and regulating their relations with the landowners under the control of the state. Thus, the decree of 1833 prohibited the transfer of peasants to the category of household servants with the deprivation of their allotment, the sale of serfs at public auctions and with the “fragmentation of families,” as well as the payment of noble debts by peasants without land. In 1844, landowners received the right to set their servants free under a bilateral agreement approved by local authorities. The Secret Committee of 1847 approved a proposal to allow serfs to be redeemed by entire villages when selling landowners' estates at public auction for debts. The corresponding decree of the emperor on November 8, 1847 determined the size of the redemption amount (it was equal to the last price at the auction), the deadline and procedure for its payment by the peasant society. No help from the treasury was expected. A significant number of petitions received from peasants forced the government in 1849 to adjust the already approved conditions: the possibility of making a ransom was now conditional on the consent of the landowner.

A number of royal decrees facilitated the trade and entrepreneurial activities of serfs. The authorities have simplified the procedure for issuing “absentee permits” for them and reduced the fee for passports. With the permission of the landowner, peasants could establish plants and factories, and, from 1848, buy unoccupied land in their own name.

Inventory reform stands apart in the series of government measures on the peasant issue. In 1847-1848 in the South-Western region (Volyn, Kiev and Podolsk provinces) the so-called inventory rules were introduced in 1852-1855. their effect extended to the Belarusian provinces. According to these rules, all land in use by peasants by 1847 was retained by them without changes. Peasant duties were also regulated: a mandatory maximum limit of corvee was established for all estates, and various payments were eliminated. Landowners could not reduce their plots and increase their duties. Based on general rules, special provincial committees for each estate compiled inventories, which were a description of the estates with a fixation of the size of peasant plots. The inventories were approved by the Governor General. The government's determination in carrying out inventory reform was explained by the specifics of the region. Most of the landowners in the southwestern, Belarusian and Lithuanian provinces were of Polish origin. The authorities were guided by the desire to weaken their influence and prevent the dispossession of peasants (mostly Russians, Little Russians and Belarusians) when introducing inventories. The reform caused discontent not only among landowners, but also among some peasants, since in a number of cases the new rules worsened their situation.

Reform of P.D. Kiseleva

Along with private measures, the government tried to solve the more general task of gradually liberating the peasants and returning them civil rights. In the process of peasants' transition “from the state of serfdom to the state of freedom,” three stages were outlined. At the first stage it was supposed to limit corvee to three days a week; on the second - to introduce legislative regulation of peasant duties; on the third - to provide serfs with personal freedom without allocating them with land. No time frame for the liberation of the serfs was established. It was planned to begin the transformation with reforming the state village, and then extend this experience to privately owned estates. Thus, we were actually talking about a two-pronged reform: the results of changes in the position of state-owned peasants were supposed to become a powerful weapon of influence on the nobility.

The project itself was never implemented, but its discussion brought Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselev (1788-1872) to a key position in the development of the government course on the peasant issue. In 1829-1834. Kiselev headed the civil and military administration of the Danube principalities. The reforms carried out under his leadership were highly appreciated by the tsar. In 1836, Kiselev headed the V department of the imperial chancellery, created to develop a new regulation on the management of state peasants, and in 1837 he became the first minister of state property. Nicholas I considered him his “chief of staff for the peasant sector.” Therefore, carried out in 1837-1841. The reform of the state village was called the “Kiselev reform”.

An important direction of the reform was the restructuring of the management system of state-owned peasants. In addition to the creation within the framework of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery of the V Department and the establishment of the Ministry of State Property, local chambers of state property were formed in each province. The provinces were divided into districts, which in turn united several volosts of state peasants (about 6 thousand male souls). The volost assembly, which met periodically, elected a volost government, a volost head and a clerk for three years. The volosts were divided into rural communities (about 1.5 thousand souls in each). The village assembly elected the village foreman, and for the performance of police functions - the sotsky and ten. The consideration of peasant property claims for small amounts and cases of minor offenses was entrusted to volost and rural settlements (courts).

To eliminate land shortages, the Ministry of State Property organized the resettlement of peasants to sparsely populated provinces, and also allocated them additional land from the state fund.

The authorities sought to implement a system of “guardianship” over the peasants: schools, hospitals, and veterinary centers were built, model farms were created to disseminate the latest agrotechnical knowledge among the peasants, and public plowing was expanded to increase insurance reserves in case of emergencies. Special credit banks were established that issued “auxiliary” loans to peasants.

The main goal of the reform - to bring the situation of state peasants closer to that of “free rural inhabitants” - was fulfilled. As a result of the reforms carried out, the standard of living of state-owned peasants increased slightly, arrears decreased, and land plots increased. These positive changes were accompanied by the growth of the bureaucratic apparatus and the creation of a system of petty bureaucratic supervision over the state village.


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Kiselev reform is a reform of the management of state peasants carried out in 1837-1841 on the initiative of the Minister of State Property of the Russian Empire, Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselev.

Preparation

In April 1835, the 5th department of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery was formed under the leadership of P. D. Kiselev to develop a project for peasant reform. Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselev was a supporter of the abolition of serfdom, but at the same time proposed solving this issue gradually and without shocks to the state. Even without being a minister, he had already received the right to personally report weekly to the sovereign, having enormous opportunities to implement his own reform ideas. The transformations were supposed to begin with the St. Petersburg province, so the St. Petersburg Office of State Property was established, to which all cases about state peasants and property of this province were transferred from the Ministry of Finance. .

However, in order to develop his idea into a coherent program, as well as to support it with positive results, it was not enough for Kiselev to manage the state property and peasants of only one province; he needed to increase the scale of preliminary study as much as possible.

In May 1836, Kiselev turned to Nicholas I with a request to send officials to the Moscow, Pskov, Kursk and Tambov provinces to conduct an audit of state property. At the end of the audit, each of the officials had to provide a copy of his official report to the governor, who, in turn, having examined the report on all subjects of the audit, made certain comments.

Kiselev considered it necessary to personally look into the situation of the peasants and make sure of the convenience of applying certain principles that were supposed to organize state property and especially state-owned peasants, so he went to some districts of the St. Petersburg province, and then to Pskov, Kursk and Moscow . Having returned, he presented a brief report to Emperor Nicholas I, in which the main directions for developing the reform project were outlined. Kiselev was confident that the introduction of special management of state property in the provinces is a necessary and primary action preceding the proposed change in the tax system, which can be accomplished successfully only if the new management acquires full and fair power of attorney from the people.

Kiselev presented a project for future transformations to Nicholas I in May 1837, which envisaged the establishment of the Ministry of State Property, provincial chambers of state property, district administration, volost administration, rural administration, rural police charter, rural judicial charter, the main grounds of the economic charter, and the establishment of states.

On December 27, 1837, the Ministry of State Property was formed, which was in charge of: state-owned, inhabited and empty lands; government quitrent articles; forests of the state department. At the same time, a decree appointing P. D. Kiselev as Minister of State Property was approved and signed.

The essence of the reform

The reform of the management of state peasants included: the establishment of a central body, the opening of local chambers, the acceptance of state property, the creation of district, volost and rural administrations. A new system was created for the management of state property, guardianship of state peasants, and management of agriculture.

In each province, Chambers of State Property were formed, consisting of two departments: economic and forestry. The district was headed by the district chief. Depending on the number of state peasants, the state property district could cover one or several counties. The districts, in turn, were divided into volosts, in each of which a volost board was elected for a period of three years, consisting of a volost head and two “assessors” (for economic and police affairs). The volosts were divided into rural communities, which included one or more villages. The village assembly consisted of representatives of householders from every five households and elected a village elder for a period of three years to perform police functions - sotsky (one from 200 households) and ten (one from 20 households).

To consider minor claims and misdeeds of peasants, volost and rural “retributions” were elected.

results

The reform made changes in the legal status of state peasants, legal proceedings were given a more liberal and all-class character, etc. However, the set goal was never achieved, since as a result of the restructuring of the administrative apparatus, even greater guardianship was created by the authorities over the peasants, the taxation system was improved and collection of taxes, which subsequently caused mass unrest among state peasants in 1841-1843.

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Notes

An excerpt characterizing Kiselyov's Reform

"La mort est secourable et la mort est tranquille
“Ah! contre les douleurs il n"y a pas d"autre asile".
[Death is salutary and death is calm;
ABOUT! against suffering there is no other refuge.]
Julie said it was lovely.
“II y a quelque chose de si ravissant dans le sourire de la melancolie, [There is something infinitely charming in the smile of melancholy," she said to Boris word for word, copying this passage from the book.
– C"est un rayon de lumiere dans l"ombre, une nuance entre la douleur et le desespoir, qui montre la consolation possible. [This is a ray of light in the shadows, a shade between sadness and despair, which indicates the possibility of consolation.] - To this Boris wrote her poetry:
"Aliment de poison d"une ame trop sensible,
"Toi, sans qui le bonheur me serait impossible,
"Tendre melancolie, ah, viens me consoler,
“Viens calmer les tourments de ma sombre retraite
"Et mele une douceur secrete
"A ces pleurs, que je sens couler."
[Poisonous food for an overly sensitive soul,
You, without whom happiness would be impossible for me,
Tender melancholy, oh, come and comfort me,
Come, soothe the torment of my dark solitude
And add secret sweetness
To these tears that I feel flowing.]
Julie played Boris the saddest nocturnes on the harp. Boris read Poor Liza aloud to her and more than once interrupted his reading from the excitement that took his breath away. Meeting in a large society, Julie and Boris looked at each other as the only indifferent people in the world who understood each other.
Anna Mikhailovna, who often went to the Karagins, making up her mother’s party, meanwhile made correct inquiries about what was given for Julie (both Penza estates and Nizhny Novgorod forests were given). Anna Mikhailovna, with devotion to the will of Providence and tenderness, looked at the refined sadness that connected her son with the rich Julie.
“Toujours charmante et melancolique, cette chere Julieie,” she said to her daughter. - Boris says that he rests his soul in your house. “He has suffered so many disappointments and is so sensitive,” she told her mother.
“Oh, my friend, how attached I have become to Julie lately,” she said to her son, “I can’t describe to you!” And who can not love her? This is such an unearthly creature! Ah, Boris, Boris! “She fell silent for a minute. “And how I feel sorry for her maman,” she continued, “today she showed me reports and letters from Penza (they have a huge estate) and she is poor, all alone: ​​she is so deceived!
Boris smiled slightly as he listened to his mother. He meekly laughed at her simple-minded cunning, but listened and sometimes asked her carefully about the Penza and Nizhny Novgorod estates.
Julie had long been expecting a proposal from her melancholic admirer and was ready to accept it; but some secret feeling of disgust for her, for her passionate desire to get married, for her unnaturalness, and a feeling of horror at renouncing the possibility of true love still stopped Boris. His vacation was already over. He spent whole days and every single day with the Karagins, and every day, reasoning with himself, Boris told himself that he would propose tomorrow. But in the presence of Julie, looking at her red face and chin, almost always covered with powder, at her moist eyes and at the expression of her face, which always expressed a readiness to immediately move from melancholy to the unnatural delight of marital happiness, Boris could not utter a decisive word: despite the fact that for a long time in his imagination he considered himself the owner of Penza and Nizhny Novgorod estates and distributed the use of income from them. Julie saw Boris's indecisiveness and sometimes the thought occurred to her that she was disgusting to him; but immediately the woman’s self-delusion came to her as a consolation, and she told herself that he was shy only out of love. Her melancholy, however, began to turn into irritability, and not long before Boris left, she undertook a decisive plan. At the same time that Boris's vacation was ending, Anatol Kuragin appeared in Moscow and, of course, in the Karagins' living room, and Julie, unexpectedly leaving her melancholy, became very cheerful and attentive to Kuragin.
“Mon cher,” Anna Mikhailovna said to her son, “je sais de bonne source que le Prince Basile envoie son fils a Moscou pour lui faire epouser Julieie.” [My dear, I know from reliable sources that Prince Vasily sends his son to Moscow in order to marry him to Julie.] I love Julie so much that I would feel sorry for her. What do you think, my friend? - said Anna Mikhailovna.
The thought of being a fool and wasting this whole month of difficult melancholy service under Julie and seeing all the income from the Penza estates already allocated and properly used in his imagination in the hands of another - especially in the hands of the stupid Anatole, offended Boris. He went to the Karagins with the firm intention of proposing. Julie greeted him with a cheerful and carefree look, casually talked about how much fun she had at yesterday's ball, and asked when he was leaving. Despite the fact that Boris came with the intention of talking about his love and therefore intended to be gentle, he irritably began to talk about women's inconstancy: how women can easily move from sadness to joy and that their mood depends only on who looks after them. Julie was offended and said that it was true that a woman needs variety, that everyone will get tired of the same thing.

The goals set for this reform were broad, namely, to show through the experience of the reform of the management of state peasants “an example for the nobility” in terms of “improvement of the peasants” and thereby “encourage them to agree to change the situation of the serfs.” Under this slogan, Kiselev carried out his reforms in the management of state peasants. However, he did not achieve his “goal” and could not achieve it.
Kiselev was reputed to be a liberal and was considered the tsar’s main adviser on the peasant issue. In 1836, Kiselev became the head of the V department of the office of “His Imperial Majesty,” which was entrusted with managing the affairs of the state peasants. Until this time, the Ministry of Finance was in charge of state peasants. And this was not accidental, for the feudal serf state sought to extort as many taxes as possible from the state peasants.
At that time there were about 10 million state peasants. Their position differed from that of the landowner peasants in that they were exploited not by an individual landowner, but by the class of serf-owners and the serf state as a whole.
State peasants had heavy duties: construction of roads, yam duty, ship duty for cutting and logging, etc. The state took large taxes from them, which represented one of the main sources of treasury income. Some state peasants, especially in Ukraine, worked for tenants of state-owned estates, the so-called possessors, serving a kind of corvee. In connection with the reform carried out by Kiselev, a special ministry of state property was created to manage the state peasants in 1837, headed by himself. Locally - in the provinces - provincial chambers were created, and district commanders were appointed in districts and districts. The districts were divided into volosts with six to eight thousand male peasant population. In the volost, a volost foreman and two assessors were elected. There was a clerk with them. The village assembly, the “peace,” elected a headman in the village.
The volost foreman had administrative rights and could sentence a peasant to a fine of up to 1 ruble, punish him with blows of sticks up to 20 times, and even put him under arrest for up to six days. The elder and the elder were under the direct control of the district royal officials.
Thus, the essence of the reform that Count Kiselev carried out in the management of state peasants came down to strengthening from top to bottom the authorities that controlled the state peasants.
Along with this, the procedure for imposing taxes on peasants was clarified and the system for collecting them was improved.
A positive aspect of Kiselev’s reform was the creation of volost and rural self-governments and an increase in land plots in those villages where there was excessive land shortage. But this increase in plots was extremely insufficient and did little to change the situation of the overwhelming mass of state peasants. At the same time, the power and arbitrariness of the tsarist officials increased over the state peasants, the peasant gatherings were completely under their control, the duties of the state peasants for the construction of roads, bridges, forest cutting, etc. increased, and it was not for nothing that there was talk among the peasants that they were sold “as an inheritance” to Kiselev.
As a result of the restructuring of the apparatus for managing state peasants, Kiselev managed to achieve a “reduction” of arrears, that is, to squeeze out much more money from the peasants than before. The amount of arrears before Kiselev’s reform was 33 million rubles, and after his reform it decreased to 17 million rubles.
Kiselev's reform intensified the struggle of state peasants against the intensification of their exploitation by the feudal state. But it did not have a serious impact on the situation of state peasants and did not serve as any reason or example for changing the situation of landowner peasants, as was intended at the beginning of its implementation.

Law on Obligated Peasants

Although Kiselev carried out a reform of the management of state peasants in order to set an “example” for the nobility in resolving the peasant issue, the matter still did not move forward. The new Secret Committee on the Peasant Question was convened in 1839 and worked until 1842.
The activities of this committee ultimately culminated in the publication in 1842 of the decree “On Obligated Peasants.”
The Law “On Obligated Peasants” established that the landowner, of his own free will, could release the peasants with the provision of part of the land for their use for certain duties, which were not much different from corvee. According to this decree, only 24 thousand serfs were “freed” from serfdom. Consequently, this decree had less significance than even the law of 1803 “On Free Plowmen.” Then other committees were convened, whose activities were almost fruitless. As a result of their activities, in 1847 the Law “On Inventory” was adopted. The law on inventories was adopted on the initiative of the Kyiv Governor-General Bibikov for the Ukrainian provinces.
Later the inventories were extended to the Baltic provinces.
Inventory was the exact list of duties that peasants had to bear in relation to landowners. They set the task of limiting corvée to a certain number of days a year, which, however, was not achieved in reality. At the same time, the inventories recorded the amount of land that should have been in the use of the peasants, but the landowners did not take this into account and continued to dispose of the land at their own discretion.
After the revolution of 1848, all talk on the peasant question ceased completely. Acting as the gendarme of Europe, Nicholas I, naturally, stood even more zealously to guard the interests of the serf owners in Russia itself.

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In April 1835, the 5th department of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery was formed under the leadership of P. D. Kiselyov to develop a project for peasant reform. Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselev was a supporter of the abolition of serfdom, but at the same time he proposed solving this issue gradually and without shocks to the state. While not yet a minister, he had already received the right to personally report weekly to the sovereign, having enormous opportunities to implement his own reform ideas. The transformations were supposed to begin with the St. Petersburg province, so the St. Petersburg Office of State Property was established, to which all cases about state peasants and property of this province were transferred from the Ministry of Finance. .

However, in order to develop his idea into a coherent program, as well as to support it with positive results, it was not enough for Kiselyov to manage state property and peasants of only one province; he needed to increase the scale of preliminary study as much as possible.

In May 1836, Kiselev turned to Nicholas I with a request to send officials to the Moscow, Pskov, Kursk and Tambov provinces to conduct an audit of state property. At the end of the audit, each of the officials had to provide a copy of his official report to the governor, who, in turn, having examined the report on all subjects of the audit, made certain comments.

Kiselev considered it necessary to personally look into the situation of the peasants and make sure of the convenience of applying certain principles that were supposed to organize state property and especially state-owned peasants, so he went to some districts of the St. Petersburg province, and then to Pskov, Kursk and Moscow . Having returned, he presented a brief report to Emperor Nicholas I, in which the main directions for developing the reform project were outlined. Kiselyov was confident that the introduction of special management of state property in the provinces is a necessary and primary action preceding the proposed change in the tax system, which can be accomplished successfully only if the new management acquires full and fair power of attorney from the people.

Kiselyov presented a project for future transformations to Nicholas I in May 1837, which envisaged the establishment of the Ministry of State Property, provincial chambers of state property, district administration, volost administration, rural administration, rural police charter, rural judicial charter, the main grounds of the economic charter, and the establishment of states.

On December 27, 1837, the Ministry of State Property was formed, which was in charge of: state-owned, inhabited and empty lands; government quitrent articles; forests of the state department. At the same time, a decree appointing P. D. Kiselyov as Minister of State Property was approved and signed.

The essence of the reform

The reform of the management of state peasants included: the establishment of a central body, the opening of local chambers, the acceptance of state property, the creation of district, volost and rural administrations. A new system was created for the management of state property, guardianship of state peasants, and management of agriculture.

In each province, Chambers of State Property were formed, consisting of two departments: economic and forestry. The district was headed by the district chief. Depending on the number of state peasants, the state property district could cover one or several counties. The districts, in turn, were divided into volosts, in each of which a volost board was elected for a period of three years, consisting of a volost head and two “assessors” (for economic and police affairs). The volosts were divided into rural communities, which included one or more villages. The village assembly consisted of representatives of householders from every five households and elected a village elder for a period of three years to perform police functions - sotsky (one from 200 households) and ten (one from 20 households). To consider minor claims and misdeeds of peasants, volost and rural “retributions” were elected.

In 1842, a decree on obligated peasants was adopted. According to it, landowners were given the right to free peasants at will, concluding an agreement with them to provide them with land plots for hereditary ownership. For this, the peasants had to perform various duties in favor of their former owners.

In 1847, serfs received the right to redeem their freedom if their owner's estate was put up for sale for debts. In 1848 they were given the right to purchase uninhabited lands and buildings.

The 19th century in the history of our state was marked by serious changes towards which it moved over a long period of time. The solution to the peasant question became increasingly important. Despite the fact that Nicholas I was a reactionary and rather conservative ruler, he contributed to the further solution of the pressing problem.

In 1837, reforms began in the state village and continued until 1841. The events were quite large-scale and affected approximately 19 million people (27% of the population). This is exactly how many state peasants there were by the middle of the 19th century. They belonged to the state treasury, paid quitrents for the use of land (in some areas they worked corvée), and also bore various duties in favor of the state - poll tax, conscription, in-kind and cash taxes.

Preconditions for the reform

The most important reasons that prompted Nicholas I to make changes were the serious dissatisfaction of the peasants with their dependent, powerless position, as well as the receipt of not the entire amount of taxes from the peasants into the treasury.

State-owned peasants did not have self-government; they could be leased to private individuals along with state estates. In addition to various types of taxes, they were involved in the construction and repair of roads, and the repair of bridges. Without any right to vote, being in fact the poorest and most numerous segment of the population, the peasants expressed their dissatisfaction with riots.

The taxation system was arbitrary and disorderly. It would be more profitable for the state to have peasants who are able to pay taxes and clearly understand how much they must contribute to the treasury. 20 years before the start of the reform, 391 million rubles were collected from state peasants in the form of taxes, with arrears of 33 million rubles. Within 20 years after the reform, fees increased to 506 million rubles, and arrears decreased to 17 million rubles.

Initially, Nicholas I did not seek to pay attention to solving the complex peasant issue. However, over time, he became increasingly convinced of the need for change. It was quite dangerous to ignore the urgent problem, since small unrest among the peasants could develop into a serious uprising. The emperor increasingly understood how negatively serfdom affected the development of the country in economic and military relations.

The question of eliminating the entire serf system could not yet be considered at once. The upper class - the nobles - were not ready for large-scale changes. Attempts to seriously influence their position could have turned into a disaster for Nicholas I, as well as for the state as a whole. If you give the peasants freedom, while retaining the land for the landowners, the former will either begin to demand the land by force, or, being forced to hire out, will fall into bondage to the owner. The state was also not ready to buy land from landowners in order to provide it to the peasants, since this would require huge financial expenses. Due to these difficulties, a decision was made on partial transformations.

The least dangerous was the reform of the state village, which was not associated with the nobles and their interests. The sovereign counted on improvements after the reforms and assumed that the changes would serve as a good example for landowners.

Preparation of the reform project (1835-1837)

To prepare the reform, in 1835 the V department of the imperial chancellery was created, and Count Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselev was appointed head of it. Pavel Dmitrievich, who had broad knowledge of political issues, sought to prove to Nicholas I the need to reform the system. Kiselev, as a supporter of reasonable government, considered it necessary to improve the existing system through gradual changes.

As a young man, he drew up a project to reform the serfdom system for Alexander I, in which he outlined his thoughts on the abolition of serfdom. It is also known that Pavel Dmitrievich communicated with the southern society of the Decembrists and agreed with their ideas. He managed to convince Nicholas I of the need for reforms.

At the stage of preparation for the implementation of large-scale measures (in the summer of 1836), an audit of the state lands of several of the most important provinces was carried out. Kiselev also managed to obtain materials from Austria and Prussia, which highlighted the experience of solving problems associated with peasants.

In the spring of 1837 the audit results were verified. These results, together with Kiselev’s conclusions after his personal research, were compiled into a report, which outlined the most important directions for future changes:

creation of a ministry to carry out reform;

organization of proper management;

resolving the issue of land shortage among peasants;

creation of a clear taxation system;

increasing the number of schools, medical institutions, building roads.

Introduction of improvements in the state village (1837-1841)

It should be noted that the main goals of the reform were:

Improving the standard of living of peasants;

Improving tax collection;

Creating an example of peasant management for landowners


In the winter of 1837, management of the peasants was transferred from the “Ministry of Finance” to the “Ministry of State Property” created in the same year, the head of which would be P.D. for 18 years. Kiselev.

It was decided to make the peasant management system a 4-stage one: the largest administrative unit was the province, then the district, the volost, and, the smallest, the rural community.

In the provinces, chambers of state property were organized to manage the peasants. The management of the district was entrusted to the district commander and officials. In volosts (6 thousand male residents) and rural communities (1500 souls), peasants received self-government. Now they had the right to gather at meetings and elect from among themselves those who would deal with pressing issues. The volost mayor and two assessors were elected to the volost administration. In rural societies, they elected a village foreman and sotskys and tens to carry out law enforcement functions. Local judicial functions were carried out by elected volost and rural courts.

The use of land by peasants remained communal, but not all land plots met the established standards. In this regard, peasants were allocated state land from the reserve and resettled from densely populated areas to less developed ones.

The system of state duties was brought to a more streamlined form, and taxes in kind were completely replaced by cash taxes. Now peasants were obliged to pay a strictly established quitrent, the amount of which depended on the size of the land allotment and the profitability of the farm. To determine the amount of payments, work was carried out in 19 provinces to record the lands and the peasants assigned to them.

Thanks to the reform, state peasants were freed from certain types of duties, such as repairing and building roads and supplying food to the army. The practice of leasing state lands and state peasants was also abolished.

They sought to improve the well-being of the state village by raising the quality of social and economic life. The ministry, at state expense, organized the construction of agricultural schools, where peasants were taught new farming techniques. Special farms were also created to spread these techniques among the peasants. Primary schools, hospitals, veterinary clinics were opened, and roads were built. In case of crop failure, seed banks and food warehouses were created.

Results of the reform

The results of the reform are ambiguous, although one cannot fail to note their rather democratic nature. Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselev, in his report in 1843, noted that the state allocated 500 thousand dessiatines of land to peasants who did not have land, and 2 million dessiatines were transferred to those with little land. In large villages, credit offices were organized where those in need could receive small amounts of money on preferential terms. These cash desks issued up to 1.5 million rubles every year. To prevent famine in the event of a lack of harvest, more than 3 thousand food warehouses (shops) have been created.

The peasants' plots actually increased, and the development of agricultural work began to increase. The state provided peasants with more favorable living conditions and contributed to the improvement of education in the countryside. All this was followed by an increase in peasant productivity.

The negative consequences of the measures taken include the strengthening of tax oppression, which caused in 1841-1843. mass peasant unrest. Yes, taxation has taken on clearer forms, but at the same time it has increased, since it has become easier for the state to monitor payments or non-payments of taxes. Such supervision required the involvement of a larger number of officials, which led to an increase in the costs of managing the peasants.

In general, undoubtedly, the events carried out by Nicholas I were quite progressive for their time. The emperor did not dare to take more serious steps in solving the peasant problem, however, the experience accumulated in the process of reforming the state village was later used by Alexander II and government officials in preparing the reform of 1861.