Serfdom in Russia it was abolished later than in the vast majority of European countries, but earlier than slavery was abolished in the United States.


Although it is generally accepted that the abolition of serfdom was led to by the struggle of advanced and progressive forces against the inert old-regime landowner way of life, in fact, the main reason for the abolition was the economic situation and the rapid growth of industrial production, requiring an increase in the number of free labor.

Serfdom in Europe and Russia

Serfdom appeared in Europe starting from the 9th century, and existed in different forms and in different countries until the middle of the 19th century. The last European state to abolish serfdom was the Holy Roman Empire, which completed the legal emancipation of peasants by 1850.

In Russia, the enslavement of peasants proceeded gradually. The beginning was made in 1497, when farmers were forbidden to move from one landowner to another, except for a certain day of the year - St. George's Day. Nevertheless, over the next century, the peasant retained the right to change the landowner once every seven years - in the so-called reserved summer, i.e. reserved year.

Subsequently, the enslavement of peasants continued and became more and more severe, but the landowner never had the right to arbitrarily deprive a peasant of his life, although in many countries of Western Europe the murder of a peasant by his lord was not considered a crime, being considered the unconditional right of the feudal lord.


With the development of industrial production, the emergence of manufactories and factories, the natural agricultural structure of the feudal economy became increasingly unprofitable for landowners.

In Europe, this process proceeded faster, as it was facilitated by more favorable conditions than in Russia and high population density. However, by the middle of the 19th century, Russia also faced the need to free the peasants from serfdom.

The situation in Russia before the liberation of the peasants

Serfdom in the Russian Empire did not exist throughout the entire territory. In Siberia, on the Don and other Cossack regions, in the Caucasus and Transcaucasia, as well as in many other remote provinces, peasants working on their plots were never enslaved.

Alexander I was already planning to get rid of the serfdom, and he even managed to abolish the serfdom of peasants in the Baltic provinces. However, the death of the Tsar and subsequent events associated with the Decembrist uprising slowed down the implementation of this reform for a long time.

In the second half of the 19th century, it became clear to many state-minded people that without carrying out peasant reform, Russia would not be able to develop further. Growing industrial production required labor, and the subsistence structure of serf farming hampered the growth of demand for industrial goods.

Abolition of serfdom by Alexander II the Liberator

Having overcome serious resistance from a layer of landowners, the government, at the direction of Tsar Alexander II, developed and implemented the abolition of personal serfdom. A decree on this was issued on February 19, 1861, and Alexander II forever entered the history of Russia under the name Liberator.

The reform carried out was, in essence, a compromise between the interests of the state and the landowners. It gave the peasants personal freedom, but did not endow them with land, which all, including plots previously cultivated by the peasants for their own needs, remained the property of the landowners.

The peasants received the right to buy their land from the landowner in installments, but after a few years it became clear that the new bondage was much worse than the old one. Frequent crop shortages and lean years did not give peasants the opportunity to earn enough to pay taxes to the treasury and buy back land.


Arrears accumulated, and soon the life of most peasants became much worse than under serfdom. This led to numerous riots, as rumors spread among the people that the landowners were deceiving the peasants, hiding from them the real decree of the tsar, according to which supposedly every peasant was entitled to a land allotment.

The abolition of serfdom, carried out without taking into account the interests of the peasantry, laid the foundation for future revolutionary events of the early twentieth century.

the highest degree of incomplete ownership of the feudal lord over the production worker. Sometimes in the literature, fiefdom is understood as any form of feud. dependencies. K.p. finds legal. expression in 1) attachment of the peasant to the land; 2) the right of the feudal lord to alienate peasants without land; 3) extreme limitation of the peasant’s civil capacity (the feudal lord’s right to part of the peasant’s inheritance and to escheat property, the right to corporal punishment, the right of the first night, etc.; the peasants lack the right to independently acquire and alienate property, especially real estate, to dispose of the inheritance, to act in court, etc.). In different periods of cultural history and in different countries, the role and specific weight of each of these elements was different. Based on certain terms that denoted serfs in Western Europe. right, lies the idea of ​​the personal, literally “physical” belonging of the serf to his master (homines de corpore, Leibeigenen). The idea of ​​alienable property is also embedded in Russian. the concept of “serf”, which began to be used in relation to peasants only from the middle. 17th century, when the practice of selling peasants without land became established. The word "serf" comes from the term "fortress", used in Russia since the end. 15th century to designate documents that secured the rights of alienated property. The expression "K. p.", unknown to laws and regulations, was created in Russian. journalism of the 19th century by modifying the applicable legislation. mat-lah 18-19 centuries. the term “serfdom”, the Crimea defined the privately owned class. peasants From the 18th century Foreign languages ​​have also become widespread in Russia. designations of K. p. - Leibeigenschaft (German) and servage (French), which were understood as synonyms for “serfdom”. In historiography, especially Western, there was a tendency to separate serf peasants, as unfree, from other categories of dependent peasants, as “personally free.” K. Marx showed that under the feud. in the method of production, the “owner” of the means of production, i.e. the peasant, is always, to one degree or another, personally unfree (see Capital, vol. 3, 1955, pp. 803-04), and K. etc. is only the most complete expression of the unfreedom of the peasant under feudalism. Of great importance for understanding the reasons for the spread (or absence) of peasant ownership and serfdom are the instructions of Marx and Lenin on the connection between this form of feud. dependence with corvee farming, Marx’s indications that serfdom usually arose from corvee labor, and not vice versa (see K. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 1955, p. 242; vol. 3, p. 803- 04; V. I. Lenin, Op. , vol. 3, p. 159). The spread of communal property as one of the main forms of feudalism. exploitation during the period of early and developed feudalism was determined by the routine state of agricultural technology and its natural character. The surplus product could be obtained under the condition of the semi-slavish dependence of the peasant on the owner of the means of production, who had a variety of non-economic methods. coercion. Hence not only the preservation in a modified form of the old relations of dependence of the serva or colon on their master, but also the spread of this kind of relations to broad layers of previously free direct producers. Produces as it grows. forces and development of commodity money. relations of capitalism already in the period of developed feudalism began to become obsolete and appeared in the period of late feudalism on a new basis, at a different stage of development of the world economy and the world market. The main ways of the emergence of K. p. in the early feudal period. Europe had 1) restriction of full ownership of a slave, 2) the transformation of a free peasant-communist into a feudal-dependent, unfree holder. The category of serfs, consisting of serfs, libertines, colons, etc., developed in Spain around the 8th century. Servas in the 6th-8th centuries. initially they differed little from slaves. They were sold with or without land, given as gifts, as dowries. Runaway serfs were subject to return within a certain time frame. However, the master did not have the right to kill the serf (although he was not responsible for his death during the execution), and the payment for the murder of the serf by a stranger turned from a means of compensating the owner for material losses into a wergeld equal to half a free wergeld. Libertines (freedmen) in the 6th-7th centuries. were, like the serfs, attached to the land and limited in civil rights. legal capacity. In France, the process of enslavement of peasants took place in the 8th-10th centuries. The category of peasantry with the greatest degree of restriction of personal and property rights were the serfs. A number of capitularies issued by Charlemagne and his successors were directed against the escape of the serfs and their concealment, and against the attempts of the serfs to evade the execution of the feud. duties. Throughout Carolingian legislation there is a requirement to search for and return fugitives to their former owners. Servas in the 9th-11th centuries. were transferred and donated along with their allotments (cum hoba sua), that is, they were attached to the land. All in. Italy 8th-10th centuries the main categories of the peasantry (villans, colons, etc.) were in personal - serf or semi-serf - dependence on the feudal lords. In South Italy back in 11 - early. 13th centuries peasants enjoyed freedom of movement. In England, capitalism became established in the 10th and 11th centuries. English village community in laws 10 - early. 11th centuries already acts as a serf. Gebur (serf) was attached to the land and performed corvee duties. The personal dependence of the serf on his master was called "glafordat" here. In Germany, the process of enslavement was already underway in the 8th-11th centuries. In Russia 11-13 centuries. a form of serfdom was the exploitation of rolling (arable) purchases. Some of the smerds were also enslaved. Featured in Rus. In truth, the princely smerd is a feudal-dependent peasant prince. domain - limited in property. and personal rights (his escheated property goes to the prince; the life of a stinker is equal to the life of a serf: for their murder the same fine is imposed - 5 hryvnia). In some countries, K. has not developed (Norway, Sweden). During the period of developed feudalism, the process of enslavement of the peasants intensified, but already at this time the opposite process began - the gradual limitation and partial elimination of the peasantry. The country of “classical servage” was France in the 11th-14th centuries. In the 11th - 13th centuries. Serfs in France numerically prevailed over other layers of the peasantry. They were attached to the land (glebae adscripti), sold, exchanged and given, in most cases with land. The serfs were limited in their rights to buy and sell land and inherit movable property; when leaving the land of the lord, the servant parted with all movable and real estate. The escheat property of the serf passed to the lord (the right of the dead hand - manus mortua). Marriage to a peasant (peasant woman) of another feudal lord was accompanied by the payment of a special duty - forismaritagium. In the conditions of development of commodity money. relations servage became economical. unprofitable, but class. the struggle of the serfs accelerated its abolition. In the 12th-14th centuries. There were frequent cases of serfs leaving their lords without permission. In the 12th-14th centuries. there was an expansion of the right of serfs to sell and buy land, to move from fiefdom to fiefdom. Began in the 13th-14th centuries. the redemption of the servage (the destruction of the right of the dead hand and forismaritagium, the fixation of rent, the increase in ownership rights and freedom of movement) was only within the power of wealthy serfs, because the servage was required to pay all old rents. The redemption of the servage continued in the 15th and 16th centuries, and nevertheless, before 1789, approx. 1.5 million French the peasants still remained in the status of serfs and menmortables. In Germany until the 14th century. there was no single designation for serfs; from the 14th century the term Leibeigenschaft appears to denote serfdom. Contradictory trends in the development of CP are also observed in England. On the one hand, in the 12-13th centuries. Corvee intensified and grew in the 13th century. There was a process of turning Sokmen into serf villans. On the other hand, at the same time there was a commutation of corvee duties. The villans were subjected to brutal exploitation. They were limited in citizenship. rights (exceptio villenagii). Formally, to a certain extent, they were covered by the “protection of peace and justice” carried out by state bodies. power, but in fact they depended almost entirely on the arbitrariness of the feudal lords. In the 14th-15th centuries. Copyright in England was gradually limited and eliminated, although its remnants remained in the status of copyholders. All in. and Avg. Italy in the 11th-12th centuries. The process of liberating serfs from the power of the lords began. In the 13th-14th centuries. Rural communes already existed here, free from private ownership. dependence and property. In the Kingdom of Sicily in the 12th and 13th centuries, on the contrary, the trend of enslavement prevailed, which may be due to the decline of crafts and trade in southern Italy. Laws prohibited sheltering runaway serfs, and a one-year search period was established (special officials, revocatores hominum, returned runaway serfs). The process of development of K. p. in various types was contradictory. parts of Spain. In Leon and Castile 12-13 centuries. in connection with the widespread colonization of new lands, peasants achieved the right to relatively free transition from one landowner to another. In Aragon, at the end. 13th century The Zaragoza Cortes secured the right of feudal lords to dispose of the life and death of their subjects; in the 13th century a number of laws established the serfdom of part of the Catalan peasantry (see Remensy). The abolition of the Covenant in Catalonia dates back to the 15th century. For France, England, Spain, North. and Avg. Italy and some other countries are characterized by a gradual restriction and elimination of cultural property towards the end of the period of developed feudalism. Preservation in them in the 14th-15th centuries. Crop farming and attempts to spread it to new layers of the peasantry were, as a rule, caused by the desire of the feudal lords to increase agricultural production. products for sale through the expansion of the corvee domain. But in the economically most developed countries of the West. In Europe, these trends were defeated by the trends of the bourgeoisie. development, active resistance of the peasantry, etc. For a number of countries, Center. and Vost. In Europe, the end of this period was the starting point of the growing development of legal rights. F. Engels called this spread of legal rights during the period of late feudalism “the second edition of serfdom,” because it to some extent repeated the legal. norms of servage - attachment to the land, corvée, etc., although on a completely new basis and in relation to a different circle of lands (in particular to the districts, which did not know “primary enslavement”). Ch. indicators of “secondary enslavement” were the increase in lordly plowing and, accordingly, the growth of corvee, the degeneration of immunity from a system of varying corporate rights into a system of uniform class rights of the nobility, and the development of private property rights for production workers. In explaining the reasons for “secondary enslavement,” two points of view differ: one connects it with the growth of cities and the development of internal affairs. market in Eastern Europe itself. countries, the other - with the emergence of capitalist. production in Western and Northern Europe, which led to a sharp increase in demand for bread) which began to be exported from the countries of the East. Europe. In assessing the significance of the transition to corvee-serfdom. x-wu, the views of historians diverge even more radically: some see in new system manifestation of the initial process accumulation, others - conservation and deepening of feudal-serfdom. relationships at their most reactive. and severe forms. Most historians believe that “secondary enslavement” was a phenomenon that was dual in nature. Each of the two points of view reflects only one side of this phenomenon. In Prussia, non-German peasants found themselves in the communist system back in the 13th century. Serfdom took severe forms in the 15th and 16th centuries. in Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Holstein and Livonia (attachment to the land, unlimited corvee). In Hungary, the Communist Party was consolidated after the suppression of the uprising of 1514. In the 16th and 17th centuries. There is a sharp increase in corvée and labor in the Czech Republic. In the German states, the peasantry intensified after the Peasants' War of 1524-25. Cosmetics acquired distinct forms in Denmark in the 14th and 15th centuries and in Poland and Lithuania in the 16th and 17th centuries. In Poland, ser. 17th century the lord had the right to drive the peasant off the land, sell it, and dispose of his family and movable property; the peasant was deprived of the right to independently speak in court and complain against his master. In Russia the growth of feudalism. land ownership in the 15th-16th centuries. was accompanied by the attachment of peasants to the land. The old-time peasants were the most enslaved. From ser. 15th century for peasants dept. estates, the right of exit is limited to the weeks before and after St. George's Day in the fall. Among those subject to this rule were the silver peasants of the North. counties, by the nature of enslavement (for debt) reminiscent of role purchases Rus. truth. The release date specified in the certificates ser. 15th century, confirmed by Code of Law 1497 as a general state. norms, the Crimea also established the size of the exit duty (“elderly”). Code of Law 1550 increased the size of the “elderly” and installed an additional one. duty (“for a cart”). Temporary (see Sacred years), and then an indefinite ban on the cross. exit (1592/93) was confirmed by a decree of 1597, which established a five-year period for searching for fugitives ("prescribed summers"). In 1607, a decree was issued that for the first time established sanctions for the reception and detention of fugitives (a fine in favor of the state and “elderly” for the old owner of the fugitive). Basic the mass of the nobility were satisfied to continue. the timing of the search for fugitive peasants, however, large. landowners of the country, as well as nobles of the south. outskirts, where there was a large influx of fugitives, were interested in a short period of investigation. Throughout the 1st half. 17th century nobles submit collective petitions to extend the school years. In 1642, a 10-year period was established for the search for fugitives and a 15-year period for the search for those deported. The Council Code of 1649 proclaimed the perpetuity of the investigation, i.e. That is, all peasants who fled from their owners after the census books of 1626 or the census books of 1646-47 were subject to return. But even after 1649, new terms and grounds for investigation were established, which concerned peasants who fled to the outskirts: to districts along the Zasechnaya Line (decrees of 1653, 1656), to Siberia (decrees of 1671, 1683, 1700), to the Don ( verdict 1698, etc.). Much attention is paid to legislation of the 2nd floor. 17th century paid penalties for accepting fugitives. For the development of K. p. in Russia in the 17th - 1st half. 18th centuries was characteristic: 1) Elimination of differences between departments. layers of the peasantry (enrollment in the tax in 1678-79 in secular estates - backyard and business people, in monastic estates - servants, servants and children, etc.). 2) The merger of enslaved serfs with full ones, the erasing of legal boundaries between serfs (farm and yard) and peasants by turning both of them into revision souls, the elimination of the institution of serfdom (already in the late 17th century, feudal lords were recognized with the right to take baptismal children courtyards). 3) Restriction of peasants’ property rights (prohibition to acquire real estate in cities and counties, etc.) and searches for additional property. sources of livelihood and income (abolition of the right to freely go to work). 4) Further growth of the feudal lord's ownership of the person of the production worker and the gradual deprivation of serfs of almost all citizens. right: in the 1st half. 17th century the actual begins, and in the last quarter. 17th century and legally sanctioned (by decrees of 1675, 1682 and 1688) sale of peasants without land, is developed average price peasant, independent of the price of land, from the 2nd half. 17th century Corporal punishment is introduced for peasants who do not obey the will of the landowner; Since 1741, landowner peasants have been excluded from the oath. 5) Monopolization of the property of serfs in the hands of the nobility. 6) Distribution of basic norms of K. p. for all categories of the tax population. 2nd half 18th century - the final stage of development of the state. legislation aimed at strengthening the penal system in Russia: decrees on the right of landowners to send unwanted courtyard people and peasants for exile to Siberia for settlement (1760), to hard labor (1765), and then to straithouses (1775). The sale and purchase of serfs wholesale and retail was not limited by anything, except for the prohibition of trading them during recruitment drives and selling peasants under the hammer. The law provided for punishment only for the death of a serf from landlord torture. In the end 18th century The scope of action of the Communist Party also expanded territorially: it was extended to Ukraine. Under the influence of capitalist development. relations and class. the struggle of the peasantry in the 18th century. 19th centuries in a number of countries, the restriction and abolition of consumer goods began. In the 80s. 18th century peasants were declared personally free in those regions of Austria. monarchies where serfdom existed (1781 - in the Czech Republic, Moravia, Galicia, Carnivo, 1785 - in Hungary); in 1788 the CPR was abolished in Denmark. Duration The period was occupied by the liberation of the peasants in Germany. states: in 1783 serfdom was abolished in Baden, in a number of states - during the Napoleonic wars (in 1807 - in the Kingdom of Westphalia, in 1807 - in Prussia (the so-called Oct. Edict 1807 - reform of K. Stein , which abolished the so-called “hereditary citizenship” - Erbuntert?nigkeit, as serfdom was called in the Prussian General Land Code of 1794), in 1808 - in Bavaria, etc.); in 1817 - in Württemberg, in 1820 - in Mecklenburg and Hesse-Darmstadt, only in 1830-31 - in Kurgessen and Hanover. At the same time, the abolition of corvee and many others. other feud. duties and rights lingered in many. regions before the revolution of 1848-49, and the redemption of duties ended only in the 3rd quarter. 19th century The cross in Romania was abolished. reform of 1864, which preserved many serf vestiges. Crisis of feudal-serfdom. systems gradually grew in Russia. Despite all the restrictions, the noble monopoly on serfs was undermined. Rich serfs themselves had serfs and had the means to buy their manumission, but the ransom depended entirely on the landowner. In the 19th century In Russia, projects for limiting and abolishing the CP were intensively developed. Partial emancipation is insignificant. the number of peasants was made on the basis of the laws on “free cultivators” (1803) and “temporarily obliged peasants” (1842); according to the reform of P. D. Kiselev of 1838-42 in Belarus, Lithuania and Right-Bank Ukraine, the rent-corvee system of state exploitation was abolished. peasants But only as a result of a fierce and widespread class. During the struggle of the peasants, the government abolished the Communist Party in 1861 (see Peasant Reform of 1861). However, remnants of K. p. were preserved in Russia until the Great. Oct. socialist revolution. Lit.: Marx K., Capital, vol. 1, 3, M., 1955; Engels F., Mark, in his book: Cross. war in Germany, M., 1952; his, To the history of Prussian. peasantry, ibid.; Lenin V.I., Development of capitalism in Russia, Works, 4th ed., vol. 3; his, Serf farming in the village, ibid., vol. 20; Grekov B.D., Peasants in Rus' from ancient times to the 17th century, 2nd ed., book. 1-2, M., 1952-54; Cherepnin L.V., From the history of the formation of the class of feudal-dependent peasantry in Rus', "IZ", vol. 56, 1956; Novoselsky A. A., Escapes of peasants and slaves and their investigation in Moscow. state in the 2nd half. XVII century, "Tr. Institute of History RANION", M., 1926, c. 1; Koretsky V.I., From the history of the enslavement of peasants in Russia at the end. XVI - beginning XVII century (On the problem of “reserved years” and the abolition of St. George’s Day), “ISSR”, 1957, No. 1; Mankov A. G., Development of serfdom in Russia in the 2nd half. XVII century, M.-L., 1962; Druzhinin N. M., State. peasants and the reform of P. D. Kiselev" vol. 1-2, M.-L., 1946-58; Zayonchkovsky P. A., Abolition of serfdom in Russia, 2 ed., M., 1960; Rokhilevich D. A. ., Peasants of Belarus and Lithuania in the XVI-XVIII centuries, Lvov, 1957; Essays on the agrarian history of Latvia in the 16th century, Riga, 1960; Abolition of serfdom in Belarus, Minsk, 1958; Belyaev I. D., Peasants in Rus', M., 1860; Klyuchevsky V. O., The origin of serfdom in Russia, Soch., vol. 7, M., 1959; Pavlov-Silvansky N. P., Feudalism in appanage Rus', Soch., vol. 3, St. Petersburg, 1910; Dyakonov M., Essays on the history of the rural population in the Moscow state in the 16th-17th centuries, St. Petersburg, 1898; Catherine II, vol. 1-2, St. Petersburg, 1881-1901; his own, The peasant question in Russia in the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries, vol. 1-2, St. Petersburg, 1888; dependent peasantry as a class of early feudal society in Western Europe in the 6th-8th centuries, M., 1956; Kosminsky E. A., Studies on the agrarian history of England in the 13th century, M.-L., 1947; Barg M. A., Studies in English history. feudalism XI-XIII centuries, M., 1962; Milekaya L. T., Secular fiefdom in Germany in the 8th-9th centuries. and its role in the enslavement of the peasantry, M., 1957; hers, Essays on the history of a village in Catalonia in the 10th-12th centuries, M., 1962; Konokotin A.V., Essays on agriculture. history of the North France in the 9th-14th centuries, Ivanovo, 1958; Shevelenko A. Ya., On the issue of the formation of a class of serfs in Champagne in the 9th-10th centuries, in the collection: From the history of the Middle Ages. Europe (X-XVII centuries), Sat. Art., (M.), 1957; Abramson M.L., The situation of the peasantry and peasant movements in the south. Italy in the XII-XIII centuries, "Middle Ages", vol. 3, M., 1951; Skazkin S.D., Main. problems so-called "The Second Edition of Serfdom in Central and Eastern Europe", "VI", 1958, No. 2; Smirin M.M., On the serfdom of the peasantry and the nature of peasant duties in the southwest. Germany in the 15th and early XVI century, "IZ", vol. 19, M., 1946; Kareev N.I., Essay on the history of the French. peasants from ancient times to 1789, Warsaw, 1881; Piskorsky V.K., Serfdom in Catalonia in Wed. century, K., 1901; Achadi I., History of Hungarian. serf peasantry, trans. from Hungary, M., 1956; Knapp G., Liberation of the peasants and the origin of agriculture. workers in the old provinces of Prussia. monarchy, trans. from German, St. Petersburg, 1900; Haun F. J., Bauer und Gutsherr in Kursachsen, Strassburg, 1892; Gr?nberg K., Die Bauernbefreiung und die Aufl?sung des gutsherrlich-b?uerlichen Verh?ltnisses in B?hmen, M?hren und Schlesien, Bd 1-2, Lpz., 1893-94; Knapp Th., Gesammelte Beitr?ge zur Rechts-und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, vornehmlich des deutschen Bauernstandes, T?bingen, 1902; Link E., The emancipation of the Austrian peasants, 1740-1798, Oxf., 1949; Perrin Ch.-E., La seigneurie rural en France et en Allemagne, v. 1-3, P., 1951-55. See also the literature to Art. Peasantry. S. M. Kashtanov. Moscow. The question of the existence of serfdom in the countries of the East (as well as the forms of feudal dependence of peasants in general) to the present day. time is not sufficiently developed and causes numerous. disputes. The sources did not reveal any convincing facts about legal enslavement of the peasantry until the 13th century, although factually. limit cross. rights undoubtedly existed. Apparently in the 12th century. serf relations began to develop in Transcaucasia; on the verge of the 12th-13th centuries. they received legal design in Armenian Code of Law by Mkhitar Gosh. The first legislator. registration of attachment of peasants to the land, known in the history of Muslims. countries, dates back to the Mongolian times. dominion - at the turn of the 13th-14th centuries. (label of Gazankhan); however, the decree of Gazan Khan emphasized the lack of rights to the personality of the peasant among the owners of iqta (certain rights belonged to enslaved peasants, for example. in inheritance, was also recognized by Armenian. Code of Law). The attachment of peasants to the land was recorded in the laws on the provinces Ottoman Empire in the end 15th century; legislation confirmed this position until the 19th century. Legislator acts of a number of sovereigns in the feud. India 16-17 centuries. essentially limited the departure of peasants (Akbar's decree of 1583-84; Aurangzeb's decree of 1667-68). In Japan, in 1589-95, under Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a land census was carried out. possessions and the attachment of peasants to the land, eliminated only as a result of the bourgeoisie. revolution of 1867-68 (some historians talk about the “secondary enslavement” of the peasantry in relation to Japan). But in general, in most countries of the East there is no developed barsch. x-va and the working rent associated with it determined the absence of such a legal entity. Institute of K. p., which corresponds to a certain system of premises. and cross. x-va. But this did not mean the existence of complete freedom of transition. -***-***-***- Abolition of serfdom in Russia

form of dependence of peasants: their attachment to the land and subordination to the administrative and judicial power of the feudal lord. IN Western Europe(where in the Middle Ages the English villans, French and Italian serfs were in the position of serfs), elements of the serfdom disappeared in the 14th century. (finally in the XVI-XVIII centuries). In Central and Eastern Europe, cultural practices were revived in the most severe forms in the 16th and 17th centuries. and abolished during the bourgeois reforms of the late 18th-19th centuries. In Russia, on a national scale, the cultural system was finally established by the middle of the 17th century. In the XVII-VIII centuries. the entire unfree population merged into the serf peasantry. Abolished by the peasant reform of 1861

Great definition

Incomplete definition ↓

SERFDOM

a system of legal norms that attached the peasant to the land and its owner. The economic basis of serfdom is feudal ownership of land. The feudal mode of production presupposes the presence of small producers, endowed with land and instruments of production and therefore able to cultivate the master's land (corvée) and pay the feudal quitrent in kind or in cash. Therefore, the feudal mode of production is associated with non-economic coercion to labor, which played important role in strengthening the economic power of the feudal landowners. The forms and degrees of non-economic coercion were different, ranging from serfdom to the class inferiority of peasants. With serfdom, there was incomplete ownership of the feudal lord over the production worker - the serf peasant, whom the feudal lord could no longer kill, but whom he could sell or buy.

The first categories of serfs in the Russian state were serfs, “planted” on the land and endowed with tools of production. Continuing known time to maintain the legal status of slaves, they were exploited as serfs. “New productive forces require that the worker have some kind of initiative in production and an inclination to work, an interest in work. Therefore, the feudal lord leaves the slave as an uninterested and completely uninitiative worker, and prefers to deal with a serf, who has his own farm, his own tools of production and who has some interest in labor, necessary to cultivate the land and pay the feudal lord in kind from his harvest" (Stalin I.V., Questions of Leninism, 11th ed., p. 556).

As the rural community (q.v.) decomposes, the masses of the ruined community members lose their economic independence and are enslaved by the feudal lords. It should be noted that the feudal lords enslaved the Smerds (see); back in the days of Russian Truth (see). The feudal-dependent groups of the population also included purchases (people who took a “kupa” - a loan from the feudal lord, for which they had to work on his farm until the loan was returned). The bulk of the free rural population became feudal-dependent as a result of the expropriation of communal lands by the feudal lords, their transformation into the property of the feudal lords and the establishment of a monopoly of the feudal lords on land ownership. In the process of enslaving the peasants, the role of the feudal superstructure, which actively contributed to the strengthening of the feudal basis, was especially pronounced: non-economic coercion strengthened the economic power of the feudal landowners. In various parts Old Russian state, and after the collapse of the latter, in individual lands (principalities) the process of enslavement had its own characteristics and proceeded with varying intensity.

The period of formation of the Russian centralized state was a period of further enslavement of the peasants. In the second half of the 15th century. Money rent began to develop, which entailed increased feudal exploitation and aggravation of class contradictions. The peasantry responded to increased oppression with mass flight and indignation. Fighting against this, the great princes, at the request of the local nobility, as well as monasteries, issue letters depriving certain categories of peasants of the right to transfer, that is, enslaving them. Along with the slaves who were put on the land (“sufferers”), old-timers (that is, peasants who had long lived on the lands of feudal lords) were enslaved, as well as “serebrenniki” (peasants who borrowed money - “silver” and thus ended up in addiction). However, until the end of the 1st-5th century. the bulk of the rural population continued to enjoy the right of free transition from one feudal lord to another at any time of the year after paying the debt to the landowner, although in some lands (Pskov land) one period per year was already established for peasant transition. In an effort to satisfy the demands of the local nobility, who needed labor, Code of Laws of 1497 (see) in Art. 57 established a single exit (“refusal”) deadline for all peasants - “a week before Saint George’s Day in the autumn and a week after Saint George’s Day in the autumn” (i.e., from November 19 to December 3, old style), and the peasants had to first pay the landowner a significant amount for the use of the yard (“senior” use). The establishment of St. George's Day (see) was one of the important stages in the process of enslaving the peasants. It was confirmed by the Code of Laws of 1550 (see). The further growth of commodity-money relations entailed increasing debt to peasant landowners. Enmeshed in debt, the peasants are actually deprived of the opportunity to move on St. George’s Day, with the exception of cases when some other landowner, having paid the peasant’s debts, takes him to his place. Thus, the peasant exit is gradually replaced by the export of peasants, i.e., in fact, their sale. Economic ruin at the end of the 16th century, the intensification of the struggle for workers, and the growing influence of the nobility, most interested in enslaving the peasants, led to Ivan’s abolition. IV St. George's Day. Around 1580, the “Code” was published, which introduced “reserved years” (years when the exit and export of peasants was prohibited “in advance of the sovereign’s decree”). The first reserved year was 1581. Although the establishment of “reserved years” was a temporary measure, it was the basis for the further development of K. n. Following the abolition of the right of peasant transition in the 80–90s. 16th century A census of peasants was carried out, further assigning them to the landowners. By the decree of November 24, 1597 on the search for runaway peasants, the resolution of controversial cases of runaway and illegally defected peasants was entrusted to the court, and the period for initiating a claim for the return of peasants was set at 5 years (“pre-term summers”). All these feudal measures caused the indignation of the peasantry, which passed at the beginning of the 17th century. in the peasant war. After the suppression of the peasant uprisings, the period for searching for fugitives was increased to 15 years. However, the nobility demanded the complete abolition of “lesson years.” Zemsky Sobor 1648–49 fully satisfied the demands of the nobility. In 1649, the Council Code was adopted (see the Council Code of 1649), which consolidated the establishment of the K. p. The Council Code proposed that all fugitive peasants with their families be forcibly returned to their former masters “without lesson years” and established criminal penalties for accepting fugitives. The Code authorized the purchase and sale of peasants without land. Under Peter I, after the introduction of the poll tax (q.v.), serfs merged with serfs. All free “walking” people were registered as serfs. Throughout the 18th century. there is a deterioration in the position of serfs and a systematic expansion of the rights of landowners, who receive the same rights in relation to serfs as they previously had in relation to serfs. Landowners sell serfs, mortgage them, donate them, bequeath them, exchange them for things. The number of corvée days reaches 5–6 per week. The right of landowners to judge and punish peasants is expanding. In 1760, landowners received the right to exile “guilty” serfs to Siberia, and in 1765 – to exile them to hard labor.

Serfdom ended only in the following cases: conscription into the army, exile of peasants by landowners to settle in Siberia, release of serfs by landowners and ransom of serfs.

By the end of the 18th century. feudal relations of production no longer correspond to the nature of the productive forces. In the first half of the 19th century. In both agriculture and industry, the development of elements of a new, capitalist structure and the disintegration of the feudal economic system in connection with this are becoming more and more clearly evident. “The production of bread by landowners for sale, especially developed in Lately the existence of serfdom was already a harbinger of the collapse of the old regime” (Lenin V.I., Soch., vol. 3, p. 158). The ruling class of helpers tried in every possible way to ensure that the economic law of the obligatory correspondence of production relations to the nature of the productive forces. Landowners are looking for a way out of the crisis by further intensifying the exploitation of serfs. But the strengthening of feudal exploitation causes the growth of the peasant movement against the Communist Party. In 1861, tsarism, weakened by military defeat in the Crimean War and frightened by peasant “revolts,” was forced to abolish the Communist Party. “Liberation” in fact was the most unscrupulous robbery of the peasants, accompanied by violence and abuse against them. The tsarist government forced the “liberated” peasants to buy back their own lands at prices that were double and triple the actual price of the land. And after the abolition of the Communist Party, the peasantry remained poor, downtrodden, dark, completely subordinate to the landowners who dominated the court and administration. The peasant reform of 1861 preserved significant remnants of serfdom - the political lack of rights of the peasantry, labor, corporal punishment (the latter existed until 1903). The landowners, through redemption payments that existed before 1907, fines, high rents, and other predatory methods, continued to squeeze the last juice out of the backward peasant economy and ruined the peasants.

Only the Great October Socialist Revolution, which abolished landlord ownership of land and transferred the land to eternal and free use of all working people, brought real liberation to the peasantry, made peasants equal members of socialist society and opened the way to a prosperous, happy collective farm life.

Great definition

Incomplete definition ↓

Serfdom in Russia was formed gradually and, according to historians, there are many reasons for this. Back in the 15th century, peasants could freely leave for another landowner. The legal enslavement of peasants took place in stages.

Code of laws of 1497

The code of law of 1497 is the beginning of the legal formalization of serfdom.

Ivan III adopted a set of laws of a single Russian state- Lawyer. Article 57 “On Christian Refusal” stated that the transfer from one landowner to another is limited to a single period for the entire country: a week before and a week after St. George’s Day - November 26. The peasants could go to another landowner, but they had to pay elderly for the use of land and yard. Moreover, the more time a peasant lived with a landowner, the more he had to pay him: for example, for living for 4 years - 15 pounds of honey, a herd of domestic animals or 200 pounds of rye.

Land reform of 1550

Under Ivan IV, the Code of Law of 1550 was adopted; he retained the right of peasants to move on St. George’s Day, but increased the payment for elderly and established an additional duty, in addition, the Code of Law obliged the owner to answer for the crimes of his peasants, which increased their dependence. Since 1581, the so-called reserved years, in which the transition was prohibited even on St. George’s Day. This was connected with the census: in which region the census took place, in that region the reserve year. In 1592, the census was completed, and with it the possibility of peasants transferring was completed. This provision was secured by a special Decree. Since then there has been a saying: “Here’s St. George’s Day for you, grandma...

The peasants, deprived of the opportunity to move to another owner, began to run away, settling for life in other regions or on “free” lands. The owners of the escaped peasants had the right to search for and return the fugitives: in 1597, Tsar Fedor issued a Decree according to which the period for searching for fugitive peasants was five years.

“The master will come, the master will judge us...”

Serfdomin the 17th century

In the 17th century in Russia, on the one hand, commodity production and the market appeared, and on the other, feudal relations were consolidated, adapting to market ones. This was a time of strengthening of autocracy, the emergence of prerequisites for the transition to an absolute monarchy. The 17th century is the era of mass popular movements in Russia.

In the second half of the 17th century. peasants in Russia were united into two groups − serfs and black-sown Serf peasants ran their farms on patrimonial, local and church lands, and bore various feudal duties in favor of the landowners. Black-nosed peasants were included in the category of “taxable people” who paid taxes and were under the control of the authorities. Therefore, there was a mass exodus of black-mown peasants.

Government Vasily Shuisky tried to resolve the situation, to increase the period of search for fugitive peasants to 15 years, but neither the peasants themselves nor the nobles supported Shuisky’s unpopular peasant policy.

During the reign Mikhail Romanov further enslavement of the peasants took place. Cases of concessions or sales of peasants without land are increasing.

During the reign Alexey Mikhailovich Romanov a number of reforms were carried out: the procedure for collecting payments and carrying out duties was changed. In 1646 - 1648 A household inventory of peasants and peasants was carried out. And in 1648, an uprising called the “Salt Riot” took place in Moscow, the cause of which was an excessively high tax on salt. Following Moscow, other cities also rose. As a result of the current situation, it became clear that a revision of the laws was necessary. In 1649, a Zemsky Sobor was convened, at which the Council Code was adopted, according to which the peasants were finally attached to the land.

Its special chapter, “The Court of Peasants,” abolished the “fixed summers” for the search and return of fugitive peasants, the indefinite search and return of fugitives, established the heredity of serfdom and the right of the landowner to dispose of the property of the serf. If the owner of the peasants turned out to be insolvent, the property of the peasants and slaves dependent on him was collected to repay his debt. Landowners received the right of patrimonial court and police supervision over peasants. Peasants did not have the right to speak in court independently. Marriages, family divisions of peasants, and inheritance of peasant property could only occur with the consent of the landowner. Peasants were forbidden to keep trading shops; they could only trade from carts.

Harboring runaway peasants was punishable by a fine, whipping and prison. For the murder of another peasant, the landowner had to give up his best peasant and his family. Their owner had to pay for runaway peasants. At the same time, serf peasants were also considered “state tax collectors,” i.e. bore duties for the benefit of the state. Peasant owners were obliged to provide them with land and implements. It was forbidden to deprive peasants of land by turning them into slaves or setting them free; it was forbidden to forcibly take away property from peasants. The right of peasants to complain about their masters was also preserved.

At the same time, serfdom extended to the black sowing, palace peasants who served the needs royal court who were prohibited from leaving their communities.

The Council Code of 1649 demonstrated the path to strengthening Russian statehood. It legally formalized serfdom.

Serfdom inXVIII century

Peter I

In 1718 - 1724, under Peter I, a census of the peasantry was carried out, after which household taxation in the country was replaced by poll tax. In fact, the peasants maintained the army, and the townspeople maintained the fleet. The size of the tax was determined arithmetically. The amount of military expenses was divided by the number of souls and the amount was 74 kopecks. from peasants and 1 rub. 20 kopecks - from the townspeople. The poll tax brought more income to the treasury. During the reign of Peter I, a new category of peasants was formed, called state, they paid into the state treasury, in addition to the poll tax, a quitrent of 40 kopecks. Under Peter I, a passport system was also introduced: now if a peasant went to work more than thirty miles from home, he had to receive a note in his passport about the date of return.

Elizaveta Petrovna

Elizaveta Petrovna simultaneously increased the dependence of the peasants and changed their situation: she eased the situation of the peasants, forgiving them arrears for 17 years, reduced the size of the per capita tax, changed the recruitment (divided the country into 5 districts, which alternately supplied soldiers). But she also signed a decree according to which serfs could not voluntarily enroll as soldiers and allowed them to engage in crafts and trade. This put the beginning of delamination peasants

Catherine II

Catherine II set a course for further strengthening of absolutism and centralization: the nobles began to receive land and serfs as a reward.

Serfdom in19th century

Alexander I

Of course, serfdom hampered the development of industry and the development of the state in general, but despite this, agriculture adapted to new conditions and developed according to its capabilities: new agricultural machines were introduced, new crops began to be grown (sugar beets, potatoes, etc.) , to develop new lands in Ukraine, the Don, and the Volga region. But at the same time, the contradictions between landowners and peasants are intensifying - corvée and quitrent are being taken to the limit by the landowners. Corvée, in addition to working on the master's arable land, included work in a serf factory and performing various household chores for the landowner throughout the year. Sometimes the corvee was 5-6 days a week, which did not allow the peasant to run an independent household. The process of stratification within the peasantry began to intensify. The rural bourgeoisie, represented by peasant owners (usually state peasants), gained the opportunity to acquire ownership of uninhabited lands and lease land from landowners.

The secret committee under Alexander I recognized the need for changes in peasant policy, but considered the foundations of absolutism and serfdom unshakable, although in the future it envisaged the abolition of serfdom and the introduction of a constitution. In 1801, a decree was issued on the right to purchase land by merchants, burghers and peasants (state and appanage).

In 1803, a decree “On Free Plowmen” was issued, which provided for the liberation of serfs for the purchase of land by entire villages or individual families by mutual consent of peasants and landowners. However, the practical results of this decree were negligible. The provision did not apply to landless peasant farm laborers.

Alexander I tried to solve the peasant question again in 1818. He even approved the project of A. Arakcheev and Minister of Finance D. Guryev on the gradual elimination of serfdom by buying out landowner peasants from their plots with the treasury. But this project was not practically implemented (with the exception of granting personal freedom to the Baltic peasants in 1816−1819, but without land).

By 1825, 375 thousand state peasants were in military settlements (1/3 of the Russian army), of which a Separate Corps was formed under the command of Arakcheev - the peasants served and worked at the same time, discipline was strict, punishments were numerous.

AlexanderII – Tsar-Liberator

Alexander II, who ascended the throne on February 19, 1855, set the following goals as the basis for the peasant reform:

• liberation of peasants from personal dependence;
• turning them into small owners while maintaining a significant part of landownership.

On February 19, 1861, Alexander II signed the Manifesto on the abolition of serfdom; he changed the fate of 23 million serfs: they received personal freedom and civil rights.

Manifesto on the abolition of serfdom

But for the land plots allotted to them (until they redeem them), they had to serve labor service or pay money, i.e. began to be called “temporarily obligated”. The sizes of peasant plots varied: from 1 to 12 dessiatines per male capita (on average 3.3 dessiatines). For the plots, the peasants had to pay the landowner an amount of money that, if deposited in the bank at 6%, would bring him an annual income equal to the pre-reform quitrent. According to the law, the peasants had to pay the landowner a lump sum for their allotment about a fifth of the stipulated amount (they could pay it not in money, but by working for the landowner). The rest was paid by the state. But the peasants had to return this amount to him (with interest) in annual payments for 49 years.

A. Mukha "Abolition of serfdom in Rus'"

The peasant reform was a compromise solution to the abolition of serfdom (this path is called reform); it was based on the real circumstances of life in Russia in the mid-19th century, the interests of both peasants and landowners. The disadvantage of this program was that, having received freedom and land, the peasant did not become the owner of his plot and a full member of society: peasants continued to be subjected to corporal punishment (until 1903), they actually could not participate in agrarian reforms.

Let's summarize

Like any historical event, the abolition of serfdom is not assessed unambiguously.

It is hardly worth perceiving serfdom as a terrible evil and only as a feature of Russia. It was in many countries of the world. And its cancellation did not happen immediately. There are still countries in the world where slavery has not been abolished by law. For example, slavery was abolished in Mauritania only in 2009. The abolition of serfdom also did not automatically mean an improvement in the living conditions of the peasants. Historians, for example, note the deterioration of the living conditions of peasants in the Baltic states, where serfdom was abolished under Alexander I. Napoleon, having captured Poland, abolished serfdom there, but it was reintroduced in this country and abolished only in 1863. In Denmark, serfdom was officially abolished in 1788, but peasants had to work corvée on the landowners' lands, which was finally abolished only in 1880.

Some historians even believe that serfdom in Russia was a necessary form of existence for society in conditions of constant political tension. It is possible that if Russia did not have to constantly repel the onslaught from the southeast and west, it would not have arisen at all, i.e. Serfdom is a system that ensured the national security and independence of the country.

Monument to Emperor Alexander II, Moscow

Having stumbled upon another tale of millions of German women raped by Soviet soldiers, this time in front of the scenes of serfdom (German women were exchanged for serfs, and soldiers for landowners, but the melody of the song is still the same), I decided to share information that is more plausible.
There are a lot of letters.
It's worth checking out.

Most modern Russians are still convinced that the serfdom of peasants in Russia was nothing more than legally enshrined slavery, private ownership of people. However, Russian serf peasants not only were not slaves of the landowners, but also did not feel like such.

"Respecting history as nature,
I am by no means defending serfdom.
I'm just deeply disgusted by political speculation on the bones of ancestors,
the desire to deceive someone, to irritate someone,
to boast of imaginary virtues to someone"

M.O. Menshikov

1. The liberal black myth of serfdom

The 150th anniversary of the abolition of serfdom, or, more correctly, the serfdom of peasants in Russia, is a good reason to talk about this socio-economic institution of pre-revolutionary Russia calmly, without biased accusations and ideological labels. After all, it is difficult to find another such phenomenon of Russian civilization, the perception of which has been so heavily ideologized and mythologized. When you mention serfdom, a picture immediately appears before your eyes: a landowner selling his peasants or losing them at cards, forcing a serf - a young mother to feed puppies with her milk, beating peasants and peasant women to death. Russian liberals - both pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary, Marxist - managed to introduce into the public consciousness the identification of serfdom of peasants and slavery of peasants, that is, their existence as private property of landowners. A significant role in this was played by classical Russian literature, created by nobles - representatives of the highest Europeanized class of Russia, who repeatedly called serfs slaves in their poems, stories, and pamphlets.

Of course, this was just a metaphor. As landowners managing serfs, they knew very well what the legal difference was between Russian serfs and, say, American blacks. But it is generally common for poets and writers to use words not in the exact sense, but in a figurative sense... When a word used in this way migrates to a journalistic article of a certain political trend, and then, after the victory of this trend, to a history textbook, then we gain dominance in public life. consciousness of a wretched stereotype.

As a result, the majority of modern educated Russians and Westernized intellectuals are still convinced that the serfdom of peasants in Russia was nothing more than legally enshrined slavery, private ownership of people, which landowners, according to the law (my italics - R.V.) could do with peasants, whatever - to torture them, mercilessly exploit and even kill, and that this was another evidence of the “backwardness” of our civilization in comparison with the “enlightened West”, where in the same era they were already building democracy... This was also manifested in publications a wave pouring in for the anniversary of the abolition of serfdom; no matter what newspaper you look at, be it the officially liberal “Rossiyskaya” or the moderately conservative “Literaturnaya”, it’s always the same thing – discussions about Russian “slavery”...

In fact, with serfdom, not everything is so simple and in historical reality it did not at all coincide with the black myth about it that the liberal intelligentsia created. Let's try to figure this out.

Serfdom was introduced in the 16th-17th centuries, when a specific Russian state had already emerged, which was fundamentally different from the monarchies of the West and which is usually characterized as a service state. This means that all of his classes had their own duties and obligations before the sovereign, understood as a sacred figure - the anointed one of God. Only depending on the fulfillment of these duties did they receive certain rights, which were not hereditary inalienable privileges, but a means of fulfilling duties. Relations between the tsar and his subjects were built in the Muscovite kingdom not on the basis of an agreement - like the relationship between feudal lords and the king in the West, but on the basis of “selfless”, that is, non-contractual service [i] - like the relationship between sons and father in a family where children serve their parent and continue to serve even if he does not fulfill his duties to them. In the West, failure by a lord (even a king) to fulfill the terms of the contract immediately freed the vassals from the need to fulfill their duties. In Russia, only serfs were deprived of duties to the sovereign, that is, people who were servants of service people and the sovereign, but they also served the sovereign, serving their masters. Actually, slaves were the closest to slaves, since they were deprived of personal freedom and completely belonged to their master, who was responsible for all their misdeeds.

State duties in the Moscow kingdom were divided into two types - service and tax; accordingly, the classes were divided into service and tax. The servants, as the name implies, served the sovereign, that is, they were at his disposal as soldiers and officers of an army built in the manner of a militia or as government officials collecting taxes, maintaining order, etc. These were the boyars and nobles. The tax classes were exempt from government service (primarily from military service), but they paid taxes - a cash or in-kind tax in favor of the state. These were the merchants, artisans and peasants. Representatives of the tax classes were personally free people and were in no way similar to serfs. As already mentioned, the obligation to pay taxes did not apply to slaves.

Initially, the peasant tax did not imply the assignment of peasants to rural societies and landowners. The peasants in the Moscow kingdom were personally free. Until the 17th century, they rented land either from its owner (an individual or a rural society), while they took a loan from the owner - grain, implements, draft animals, outbuildings, etc. In order to pay off the loan, they paid the owner a special additional tax in kind (corvée), but after working or returning the loan with money, they again received complete freedom and could go anywhere (and even during the period of working, the peasants remained personally free, with nothing but money or the owner could not demand a tax in kind from them). The transition of peasants to other classes was not prohibited; for example, a peasant who had no debts could move to the city and engage in craft or trade there.

However, already in the middle of the 17th century, the state issued a number of decrees that attached peasants to a certain piece of land (estate) and its owner (but not as an individual, but as a replaceable representative of the state), as well as to the existing class (that is, they prohibit the transfer of peasants to other classes). In fact, this was the enslavement of the peasants. At the same time, enslavement was not a transformation into slaves for many peasants, but rather a salvation from the prospect of becoming a slave. As V.O. Klyuchevsky noted, peasants who could not repay the loan before the introduction of serfdom turned into indentured slaves, that is, debt slaves of landowners, but now they were prohibited from being transferred to the class of serfs. Of course, the state was not guided by humanistic principles, but by economic gain; slaves, by law, did not pay taxes to the state, and an increase in their number was undesirable.

The serfdom of the peasants was finally approved by the cathedral code of 1649 under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. The situation of the peasants began to be characterized as peasant eternal hopelessness, that is, the impossibility of leaving one’s class. Peasants were obliged to remain on the land of a certain landowner for life and give him part of the results of their labor. The same applied to their family members - wives and children.

However, it would be wrong to say that with the establishment of serfdom among the peasants, they turned into slaves of their landowner, that is, into slaves belonging to him. As already mentioned, the peasants were not and could not even be considered the landowner’s slaves, if only because they had to pay taxes (from which the slaves were exempt). The serfs did not belong to the landowner as a specific individual, but to the state, and were attached not to him personally, but to the land that he disposed of. The landowner could use only part of the results of their labor, and not because he was their owner, but because he was a representative of the state.

Here we must make an explanation regarding the local system that dominated the Muscovite kingdom. During the Soviet period in Russian history The vulgar Marxist approach prevailed, which declared the Muscovite kingdom to be a feudal state and thus denied the essential difference between the Western feudal lord and the landowner in pre-Petrine Rus'. However, the western feudal lord was a private owner of the land and, as such, disposed of it independently, not even depending on the king. He also disposed of his serfs, who in the medieval West were, indeed, almost slaves. Whereas the landowner in Muscovite Rus' was only a manager of state property on the terms of service to the sovereign. Moreover, as V.O. writes. Klyuchevsky, an estate, that is, state land with peasants attached to it, is not so much a gift for service (otherwise it would be the property of the landowner, as in the West) as a means to carry out this service. The landowner could receive part of the results of the labor of the peasants on the estate allocated to him, but this was a kind of payment for military service to the sovereign and for fulfilling the duties of a representative of the state to the peasants. The landowner’s duties were to monitor the payment of taxes by his peasants, their, as we would now say, labor discipline, order in rural society, and also protect them from raids by robbers, etc. Moreover, ownership of land and peasants was temporary, usually for life. After the death of the landowner, the estate was returned to the treasury and again distributed among service people, and it did not necessarily go to the landowner’s relatives (although the further, the more often this was the case, and in the end, local land ownership began to differ little from private land ownership, but this happened only in the 18th century).

The only true owners of lands with peasants were patrimonial owners - boyars who received estates by inheritance - and it was they who were similar to Western feudal lords. But, starting from the 16th century, their rights to land also began to be curtailed by the king. Thus, a number of decrees made it difficult for them to sell their lands, legal grounds were created for the transfer of patrimony to the treasury after the death of a childless patrimonial owner and its distribution according to the local principle. Sluzhiloe Moscow state did everything to suppress the beginnings of feudalism as a system based on private ownership of land. And ownership of land among patrimonial owners did not extend to serfs.

So, serf peasants in pre-Petrine Rus' did not belong to a noble landowner or patrimonial owner, but to the state. Klyuchevsky calls serfs that way - “eternally obligated state tax-bearers.” The main task of the peasants was not to work for the landowner, but to work for the state, to fulfill the state tax. The landowner could dispose of the peasants only to the extent that it helped them fulfill the state tax. If, on the contrary, they interfered, he had no rights to them. Thus, the landowner's power over the peasants was limited by law, and by law he was charged with obligations to his serfs. For example, landowners were obliged to supply the peasants of their estate with implements, grain for sowing, and feed them in case of crop shortages and famine. The responsibility for feeding the poorest peasants fell on the landowner even in good years, so economically the landowner was not interested in the poverty of the peasants entrusted to him. The law clearly opposed the landowner's willfulness in relation to the peasants: the landowner did not have the right to turn peasants into serfs, that is, into personal servants, slaves, or to kill and maim peasants (although he had the right to punish them for laziness and mismanagement). Moreover, for the murder of peasants, the landowner was also punished by death. The point, of course, was not at all the “humanism” of the state. A landowner who turns peasants into slaves stole income from the state, because a slave was not subject to taxes; a landowner who kills peasants destroys state property. The landowner did not have the right to punish peasants for criminal offenses; in this case, he was obliged to present them to the court; an attempt at lynching was punishable by deprivation of the estate. The peasants could complain about their landowner - about cruel treatment of them, about self-will, and the landowner could be deprived of the estate by court and transferred it to another.

Even more prosperous was the position of state peasants who belonged directly to the state and were not attached to a specific landowner (they were called black-sown peasants). They were also considered serfs because they did not have the right to move from their place of permanent residence, they were attached to the land (although they could temporarily leave their permanent place of residence, going to fishing) and to the rural community living on this land and could not move to other classes. But at the same time, they were personally free, owned property, acted as witnesses in courts (their landowner acted for the serfs in court) and even elected representatives to class governing bodies (for example, to the Zemsky Sobor). All their responsibilities were limited to paying taxes to the state.

But what about the trade in serfs, which is talked about so much? Indeed, back in the 17th century, it became a custom among landowners to first exchange peasants, then transfer these contracts to a monetary basis, and finally, sell serfs without land (although this was contrary to the laws of that time and the authorities fought such abuses, however, not very diligently) . But to a large extent this concerned not serfs, but slaves, who were the personal property of landowners. By the way, even later, in the 19th century, when serfdom was replaced by actual slavery, and serfdom turned into the lack of rights of serfs, they still traded mainly in people from the household - maids, maids, cooks, coachmen, etc. Serfs, as well as land, were not the property of the landowners and could not be the subject of bargaining (after all, trade is an equivalent exchange of objects that are privately owned, if someone sells something that does not belong to him, but to the state, and is only at his disposal , then this is an illegal transaction). The situation was somewhat different with patrimonial owners: they had the right of hereditary ownership of land and could sell and buy it. If the land was sold, the serfs living on it went along with it to another owner (and sometimes, bypassing the law, this happened without selling the land). But this was still not a sale of serfs, because neither the old nor the new owner had the right of ownership of them, he only had the right to use part of the results of their labor (and the obligation to perform the functions of charity, police and tax supervision in relation to them). And the new owner’s serfs had the same rights as the previous one, since they were guaranteed to him by state law (the owner could not kill or injure a serf, prohibit him from acquiring property, filing complaints in court, etc.). It was not the personality that was being sold, but only the obligations. The Russian conservative publicist of the early twentieth century M. Menshikov spoke expressively about this, polemicizing with the liberal A.A. Stolypin: “A. A. Stolypin, as a sign of slavery, emphasizes the fact that serfs were sold. But this was a very special kind of sale. It was not the person who was sold, but his duty to serve the owner. And now, when you sell a bill, you are not selling the debtor, but only his obligation to pay the bill. “Sale of serfs” is just a sloppy word...”

And in fact, it was not the peasant who was being sold, but the “soul.” “Soul” in the audit documents was considered, according to the historian Klyuchevsky, “the totality of duties that fell according to the law on a serf, both in relation to the master and in relation to the state under the responsibility of the master...”. The word “soul” itself was also used here in a different meaning, which gave rise to ambiguities and misunderstandings.

In addition, it was possible to sell “souls” only into the hands of Russian nobles; the law prohibited selling the “souls” of peasants abroad (whereas in the West, during the era of serfdom, a feudal lord could sell his serfs anywhere, even to Turkey, and not only labor responsibilities of the peasants, but also the personalities of the peasants themselves).

This was the real, and not the mythical, serfdom of Russian peasants. As we see, it had nothing to do with slavery. As Ivan Solonevich wrote about this: “Our historians, consciously or unconsciously, allow a very significant terminological overexposure, because “serf”, “serfdom” and “nobleman” in Muscovite Rus' were not at all what they became in Petrine Russia. The Moscow peasant was no one's personal property. He was not a slave...” The cathedral code of 1649, which enslaved the peasants, attached the peasants to the land and the landowner managing it, or, if we were talking about state peasants, to rural society, as well as to the peasant class, but nothing more. In all other respects the peasant was free. According to the historian Shmurlo: “The law recognized his right to property, the right to engage in trade, enter into contracts, and dispose of his property according to wills.”

It is noteworthy that Russian serf peasants not only were not slaves of the landowners, but also did not feel like such. Their sense of self is well conveyed by the Russian peasant proverb: “The soul is God’s, the body is royal, and the back is lordly.” From the fact that the back is also a part of the body, it is clear that the peasant was ready to obey the master only because he also serves the king in his own way and represents the king on the land given to him. The peasant felt and was the same royal servant as the nobleman, only he served in a different way - through his labor. It was not for nothing that Pushkin ridiculed Radishchev’s words about the slavery of Russian peasants and wrote that the Russian serf was much more intelligent, talented and free than the English peasants. In support of his opinion, he cited the words of an English friend: “In general, duties in Russia are not very burdensome for the people: capitation is paid in peace, the quitrent is not ruinous (except in the vicinity of Moscow and St. Petersburg, where the variety of industrialist turnover increases the greed of the owners). Throughout Russia, the landowner, having imposed a quitrent, leaves it to the arbitrariness of his peasant to get it, how and where he wants. The peasant earns whatever he wants and sometimes goes 2,000 miles away to earn money for himself. And you call this slavery? I do not know of a people in all of Europe who would be given more freedom to act. ... Your peasant goes to the bathhouse every Saturday; He washes himself every morning, and in addition washes his hands several times a day. There is nothing to say about his intelligence: travelers travel from region to region throughout Russia, without knowing a single word of your language, and everywhere they are understood, fulfill their demands, and enter into terms; I have never encountered among them what the neighbors call “bado”; I have never noticed in them either rude surprise or ignorant contempt for the things of others. Their variability is known to everyone; agility and dexterity are amazing... Look at him: what could be more free than how he treats you? Is there a shadow of slavish humiliation in his behavior and speech? Have you been to England? ... That's it! You have not seen the shades of meanness that distinguish one class from another in our country...” These words of Pushkin’s companion, sympathetically cited by the great Russian poet, need to be read and memorized by everyone who talks about the Russians as a nation of slaves, which serfdom allegedly made them into.

Moreover, the Englishman knew what he was talking about when he pointed out the slave state of the common people of the West. Indeed, in the West during the same era, slavery officially existed and flourished (in Great Britain, slavery was abolished only in 1807, and in North America in the 1863s). During the reign of Tsar Ivan the Terrible in Russia and Great Britain, peasants expelled from their lands during enclosures easily turned into slaves in workhouses and even in galleys. Their situation was much more difficult than the situation of their contemporaries - Russian peasants, who by law could count on help during famine and were protected by law from the willfulness of the landowner (not to mention the position of state or church serfs). During the era of the emergence of capitalism in England, poor people and their children were locked up in workhouses for poverty, and workers in factories were in such a state that even slaves would not have envied them.

By the way, the position of serfs in Muscovite Rus', from their subjective point of view, was even easier because the nobles were also in a kind of personal dependence, not even serfdom. Being serf owners in relation to the peasants, the nobles were in the “fortress” of the tsar. At the same time, their service to the state was much more difficult and dangerous than that of the peasants: the nobles had to participate in wars, risk their lives and health, they often died in public service or became disabled. Military service did not apply to peasants; they were only charged with physical labor to support the service class. The life of a peasant was protected by law (the landowner could neither kill him nor even let him die of hunger, since he was obliged to feed him and his family in hungry years, supply him with grain, wood for building a house, etc.). Moreover, the serf peasant even had the opportunity to get rich - and some became rich and became the owners of their own serfs and even serfs (such serfs were called “zakhrebetniki” in Rus'). As for the fact that under a bad landowner who violated laws, the peasants suffered humiliation and suffering from him, then the nobleman was not protected in any way from the willfulness of the tsar and the tsar’s dignitaries.

3. Transformation of serfs into slaves in the St. Petersburg Empire

With the reforms of Peter the Great, military service fell on the peasants; they became obliged to supply the state with recruits from a certain number of households (which had never happened before; in Muscovite Rus', military service was only the duty of the nobles). Serfs were obliged to pay state poll taxes, like serfs, thereby eliminating the distinction between serfs and serfs. Moreover, it would be wrong to say that Peter made serfs into serfs; rather, on the contrary, he made serfs into serfs, extending to them both the duties of serfs (payment of taxes) and rights (for example, the right to life or to go to court). Thus, having enslaved the slaves, Peter freed them from slavery.

Further, most of the state and church peasants under Peter were transferred to the landowners and thereby deprived of personal freedom. The so-called “walking people” were assigned to the class of serf peasants - itinerant traders, people engaged in some kind of craft, simply vagabonds who had previously been personally free (passportization and Peter’s analogue of the registration system played a major role in the enslavement of all classes). Serf workers were created, the so-called possession peasants, assigned to manufactories and factories.

But neither the serf landowners nor the serf factory owners under Peter turned into full-fledged owners of peasants and workers. On the contrary, their power over peasants and workers was further limited. According to Peter's laws, landowners who ruined and oppressed peasants (including now courtyard servants, former slaves) were punished by returning their estates with peasants to the treasury, and transferring them to another owner, as a rule, a reasonable, well-behaved relative of the embezzler. According to a decree of 1724, the intervention of the landowner in marriages between peasants was prohibited (before this, the landowner was considered as a kind of second father of the peasants, without whose blessing marriage between them was impossible). Serf factory owners did not have the right to sell their workers, except together with the factory. This, by the way, gave rise to an interesting phenomenon: if in England a factory owner, in need of qualified workers, fired the existing ones and hired others, more highly qualified, then in Russia the manufacturer had to send workers to study at his own expense, so the serf Cherepanovs studied in England for the money of the Demidovs . Peter consistently fought against the trade in serfs. A major role was played in this by the abolition of the institution of patrimonial estates; all representatives of the service class under Peter became landowners who were in service dependence on the sovereign, as well as the abolition of the differences between serfs and serfs (domestic servants). Now a landowner who wanted to sell even a slave (for example, a cook or a maid), was forced to sell a plot of land along with them (which made such trade unprofitable for him). Peter's decree of April 15, 1727 also prohibited the sale of serfs separately, that is, with the separation of the family.

Again, subjectively, the strengthening of the serfdom of the peasants in Peter’s era was made easier by the fact that the peasants saw: the nobles began to depend not less, but to an even greater extent, on the sovereign. If in the pre-Petrine era Russian nobles performed military service from time to time, at the call of the tsar, then under Peter they began to serve regularly. The nobles were subject to heavy lifelong military or civil service. From the age of fifteen, every nobleman was obliged either to go to serve in the army and navy, starting from the lower ranks, from privates and sailors, or to go to the civil service, where he also had to start from the lowest rank, non-commissioned officer (with the exception of those nobles) sons who were appointed by their fathers as executors of estates after the death of a parent). He served almost continuously, for years and even decades without seeing his home and his family who remained on the estate. And even the resulting disability often did not exempt him from lifelong service. In addition, noble children were required to receive an education at their own expense before entering the service, without which they were forbidden to marry (hence the statement of Fonvizinsky Mitrofanushka: “I don’t want to study, I want to get married”).

The peasant, seeing that the nobleman served the sovereign for life, risking life and health, being separated from his wife and children for years, could consider it fair that he, for his part, should “serve” - through labor. Moreover, the serf peasant in the era of Peter the Great still had a little more personal freedom than the nobleman and his position was easier than that of the nobleman: the peasant could start a family whenever he wanted and without the permission of the landowner, live with his family, complain against the landowner in case of offense...

As we see, Peter was still not entirely European. He used the original Russian institutions of the service state to modernize the country and even tightened them. At the same time, Peter laid the foundations for their destruction in the near future. Under him, the local system began to be replaced by a system of awards, when, for services to the sovereign, nobles and their descendants were granted lands and serfs with the right to inherit, buy, sell, and donate, which landowners were previously deprived of by law [v]. Under Peter's successors, this led to the fact that serfs gradually turned from state tax-payers into real slaves. There were two reasons for this evolution: the emergence of the Western system of estates in place of the rules of the Russian service state, where the rights of the upper class - the aristocracy do not depend on service, and the emergence in place of local land ownership in Russia - private ownership of land. Both reasons fit into the trend of the spread of Western influence in Russia, begun by Peter’s reforms.

Already under the first successors of Peter - Catherine the First, Elizaveta Petrovna, Anna Ioannovna, there was a desire among the upper stratum of Russian society to lay down state obligations, but at the same time retain the rights and privileges that were previously inextricably linked with these obligations. Under Anna Ioannovna, in 1736, a decree was issued limiting the compulsory military and public service of nobles, which under Peter the Great was lifelong, to 25 years. At the same time, the state began to turn a blind eye to the massive failure to comply with Peter’s law, which required that nobles serve starting from the lowest positions. Noble children were enrolled in the regiment from birth and by the age of 15 they had already “raised” to the rank of officer. During the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, nobles received the right to have serfs, even if the nobleman did not have land plot, the landowners received the right to exile serfs to Siberia instead of handing them over as recruits. But the apogee, of course, was the manifesto of February 18, 1762, issued by Peter the Third, but implemented by Catherine the Second, according to which the nobles received complete freedom and were no longer required to serve the state in the military or civil field (service became voluntary, although, of course, those nobles who did not have a sufficient number of serfs and little land were forced to go to serve, since their estates could not feed them). This manifesto actually turned the nobles from service people into aristocrats of the Western type, who had both land and serfs in private ownership, that is, without any conditions, simply by the right of belonging to the class of nobles. Thus, an irreparable blow was dealt to the system of the service state: the nobleman was free from service, and the peasant remained attached to him, not only as a representative of the state, but also as a private individual. This state of affairs, quite expectedly, was perceived by the peasants as unfair and the liberation of the nobles became one of the important factors for the peasant uprising, which was led by the Yaik Cossacks and their leader Emelyan Pugachev, who pretended to be the late Emperor Peter the Third. The historian Platonov describes the mindset of the serfs on the eve of the Pugachev uprising: “the peasants were also worried: they clearly knew that they were obliged by the state to work for the landowners precisely because the landowners were obliged to serve the state; they lived with the consciousness that historically one duty was conditioned by another. Now the noble duty has been removed, the peasant duty should also be removed.”

The flip side of the liberation of the nobles was the transformation of the peasants from serfs, that is, state-obligated tax-payers who had broad rights (from the right to life to the right to defend themselves in court and independently engage in commercial activities) into real slaves, practically deprived of rights. This began under Peter’s successors, but reached its logical conclusion precisely under Catherine the Second. If the decree of Elizaveta Petrovna allowed the landowners to exile peasants to Siberia for “insolent behavior,” but limited them by the fact that each such peasant was equated to a recruit (which means that only a certain number could be exiled), then Catherine the Second allowed the landowners to exile peasants no limits. Moreover, under Catherine, by decree of 1767, serf-owning peasants were deprived of the right to complain and go to court against a landowner who abused his power (it is interesting that such a ban followed immediately after the case of “Saltychikha”, which Catherine was forced to bring to court based on complaints relatives of the peasant women killed by Saltykova). The right to judge peasants has now become the privilege of the landowner himself, which frees the hands of tyrant landowners. According to the charter of 1785, peasants even ceased to be considered subjects of the crown and, according to Klyuchevsky, were equated with the landowner’s agricultural equipment. In 1792, Catherine's decree allowed the sale of serfs for landowner debts at public auction. Under Catherine, the size of the corvee was increased, it ranged from 4 to 6 days a week; in some areas (for example, in the Orenburg region) peasants could work for themselves only at night, on weekends and on holidays (in violation of church rules). Many monasteries were deprived of peasants, the latter were transferred to landowners, which significantly worsened the situation of the serfs.

So, Catherine the Second has the dubious merit of the complete enslavement of the landowner serfs. The only thing that the landowner could not do with the peasant under Catherine was to sell him abroad; in all other respects, his power over the peasants was absolute. It is interesting that Catherine the Second herself did not even understand the differences between serfs and slaves; Klyuchevsky is perplexed why in her “Order” she calls serfs slaves and why she believes that serfs have no property, if in Rus' it has long been established that a slave, that is, a serf, unlike a serf, does not pay taxes, and that serfs are not just own property, but they could, until the second half of the 18th century, engage in commerce, take out contracts, trade, etc., without the knowledge of the landowner. We think this can be explained simply - Catherine was German, she did not know the ancient Russian customs, and proceeded from the position of serfs in her native West, where they really were the property of feudal lords, deprived of their own property. So it is in vain that our Western liberals assure us that serfdom is a consequence of the Russians’ lack of the principles of Western civilization. In fact, everything is the other way around: while the Russians had a distinctive service state, which has no analogues in the West, there was no serfdom, because serfs were not slaves, but state-liable tax-payers with their rights protected by law. But when the elite of the Russian state began to imitate the West, the serfs turned into slaves. Slavery in Russia was simply adopted from the West, especially since it was widespread there during the time of Catherine. Let us recall at least the famous story about how British diplomats asked Catherine II to sell the serfs whom they wanted to use as soldiers in the fight against the rebellious colonies of North America. The British were surprised by Catherine’s answer - that according to the laws Russian Empire Serf souls cannot be sold abroad. Let us note: the British were surprised not by the fact that in the Russian Empire people could be bought and sold; on the contrary, in England at that time this was an ordinary and common thing, but by the fact that you could not do anything with them. The British were surprised not by the presence of slavery in Russia, but by its limitations...

4. Freedom of the nobles and freedom of the peasants

By the way, there was a certain pattern between the degree of Westernism of one or another Russian emperor and the position of the serfs. Under emperors and empresses who were reputed to be admirers of the West and its ways (like Catherine, who even corresponded with Diderot), serfs became real slaves - powerless and downtrodden. Under the emperors, who were focused on preserving Russian identity in state affairs, on the contrary, the lot of the serfs improved, but the nobles were given certain responsibilities. Thus, Nicholas the First, whom we never tired of branding as a reactionary and a serf owner, issued a number of decrees that significantly softened the position of serfs: in 1833 it was forbidden to sell people separately from their families, in 1841 - to buy serfs without land for everyone who did not have land. inhabited estates, in 1843 it was forbidden for landless nobles to buy peasants. Nicholas the First forbade landowners to send peasants to hard labor and allowed peasants to buy out the estates they were selling. He stopped the practice of distributing serf souls to nobles for their services to the sovereign; For the first time in the history of Russia, serf landowners began to form a minority. Nikolai Pavlovich implemented the reform developed by Count Kiselev concerning state serfs: all state peasants were allocated their own plots of land and forest plots, and auxiliary cash desks and bread stores were established everywhere, which provided assistance to peasants with cash loans and grain in case of crop failure. On the contrary, landowners under Nicholas the First again began to be prosecuted in case of their cruel treatment of serfs: by the end of Nicholas's reign, about 200 estates were arrested and taken away from landowners based on complaints from peasants. Klyuchevsky wrote that under Nicholas the First, peasants ceased to be the property of the landowner and again became subjects of the state. In other words, Nicholas again enslaved the peasants, which means, to a certain extent, freed them from the willfulness of the nobles.

To put it metaphorically, the freedom of the nobles and the freedom of the peasants were like the levels of water in two branches of communicating vessels: an increase in the freedom of the nobles led to the enslavement of the peasants, the subordination of the nobles to the law softened the fate of the peasants. Complete freedom for both was simply a utopia. The liberation of the peasants in the period from 1861 to 1906 (and after the reform of Alexander the Second, the peasants were freed only from dependence on the landowner, but not from dependence on the peasant community; only Stolypin’s reform liberated them from the latter) led to the marginalization of both the nobility and the peasantry. The nobles, becoming bankrupt, began to dissolve into the class of bourgeois, the peasants, having the opportunity to free themselves from the power of the landowner and the community, became proletarianized. There is no need to remind you how it all ended.

Modern historian Boris Mironov makes, in our opinion, a fair assessment of serfdom. He writes: “The ability of serfdom to provide the minimum needs of the population was an important condition for its long existence. This is not an apology for serfdom, but only a confirmation of the fact that all social institutions are based not so much on arbitrariness and violence, but on functional expediency... serfdom was a reaction to economic backwardness, Russia’s response to the challenge of the environment and difficult circumstances in which it took place life of the people. All interested parties - the state, the peasantry and the nobility - received certain benefits from this institution. The state used it as a tool for solving pressing problems (meaning defense, finance, keeping the population in places of permanent residence, maintaining public order), thanks to it it received funds for the maintenance of the army, the bureaucracy, as well as several tens of thousands of free police officers represented by landowners . The peasants received modest but stable means of livelihood, protection and the opportunity to organize their lives on the basis of folk and community traditions. For the nobles, both those who had serfs and those who did not, but lived in public service, serfdom was a source of material benefits for life by European standards.” Here is the calm, balanced, objective view of a true scientist, so pleasantly different from the hysterical hysterics of liberals. Serfdom in Russia is associated with a number of historical, economic, and geopolitical circumstances. It still arises as soon as the state tries to rise up, begin the necessary large-scale transformations, and organize the mobilization of the population. During Stalin’s modernization, peasant collective farmers and factory workers were also given a fortress in the form of being assigned to a certain locality, a certain collective farm and factory, and a number of clearly defined duties, the fulfillment of which granted certain rights (for example, workers had the right to receive additional rations in special distribution centers according to coupons, collective farmers - to own their own garden and livestock and to sell the surplus).

Even now, after the liberal chaos of the 1990s, there are trends towards a certain, albeit very moderate, enslavement and the imposition of taxes on the population. In 1861, it was not serfdom that was abolished - as we see, such a thing arises with regularity in the history of Russia - it was the slavery of the peasants, established by the liberal and Westernizing rulers of Russia, that was abolished.

______________________________________

[i] the word “covenant” means agreement

The position of a slave in Muscovite Rus' differed significantly from the position of a slave during the same period in the West. Among the slaves there were, for example, reporting slaves who were in charge of the nobleman’s household and stood not only over other slaves, but also over the peasants. Some serfs had property, money, and even their own serfs (although, by far, most serfs were laborers and servants and did hard work). The fact that slaves were exempt from state duties, primarily the payment of taxes, made their position even attractive, at least the law of the 17th century prohibits peasants and nobles from becoming serfs in order to avoid state duties (which means that there were still those willing! ). A significant part of the slaves were temporary ones, who became slaves voluntarily, under certain conditions (for example, they sold themselves for a loan with interest) and for a strictly specified period (before they worked off the debt or returned the money).

And this despite the fact that even in the early works of V.I. Lenin defined the system of the Muscovite kingdom as an Asian mode of production, which is much closer to the truth; this system was more like a device ancient egypt or medieval Turkey than Western feudalism

By the way, this is precisely why, and not at all because of male chauvinism, only men were registered as “souls”; the woman - the wife and daughter of a serf peasant herself was not subject to tax, because she was not engaged in agricultural labor (the tax was paid by this labor and its results)

Http://culturolog.ru/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=865&pop=1&page=0&Itemid=8