LECTURE XVI

Second period of the reign of Nicholas I. – Protective principles during foreign policy. - Eastern question. - Munich meeting. – Guiding principles in domestic policy. – Legislative work. – Speransky’s activities in preparing and publishing a code of laws. – The significance of this event. - Peasant question. – Situation of the population. – Material factors that prepared the fall of serfdom. - Government activities. - Secret committees. – The work of Kankrin and Kiselev on the organization of state-owned peasants. – Establishment of the Ministry of State Property. – Kiselev’s works on the organization of serfs. – Law of 1842 on obligated peasants. – Inventory in the Western Region. – Law of May 26, 1846 in Poland.

Foreign policy of the second period of the reign of Nicholas I

After the July Revolution of 1830 in France and after the uprising of 1830–1831. In Poland, the first, quasi-reform period of the reign of Nikolai Pavlovich ended. Abandoning any attempts to transform existing government agencies, Emperor Nicholas, one might say, seemed to have found himself. Having henceforth taken a new, strictly conservative course, he no longer allowed any deviations from it. From now on, he recognized his main task as the fight against the revolutionary aspirations and ideas of the century and, moreover, the fight both in Western Europe and inside Russia, despite the fact that in Russia there seemed to be no reason for this, since everything was quiet and peaceful here after December uprising and harsh reprisals against members of secret societies.

New firm course in international relations emerged with complete certainty in 1833, after the Munich meeting with the Austrian Emperor Franz, and those good relations between Russia and Austria, in particular with Metternich, were fully restored, the imprint of which subsequently lay so heavily on the entire course of European affairs until Crimean War. It must be said that before this, after a rather unsuccessful war with Turkey in 1828-1829. and after Polish uprising, suppressed not without difficulties, a very favorable moment appeared in foreign policy for Russia in its relations in the East, when in Turkey the turmoil reached its extreme limits and the affairs of the Sultan took a critical turn - as a result of the successful uprising of the Egyptian Pasha Mehmet Ali, whose son, Ibrahim, defeated the Sultan's army. Turkish Empire was then on the verge of death.

The fall of Turkey was prevented at that moment by Russian intervention. Nicholas offered the Sultan armed assistance and sent him a small corps of General Muravyov. The Sultan allowed Russian ships to enter the Bosphorus, and the Unkar-Iskeles Treaty was concluded with Turkey, which gave Russia the status of Turkey's guardian and, not without reason, was considered one of the most outstanding successes of our diplomacy.

Emperor Nicholas then calculated that it was beneficial for him to support the decaying Turkey, since it was beneficial to have a weak neighbor who accepted his patronage. But Austria was extremely jealous of this and looked very disapprovingly at the guardianship that Russia imposed on Turkey. She herself, however, could not do anything at that time, since she was in a difficult situation: after the July Revolution, strong unrest began in the Habsburg monarchy among the constituent nations, which prevented her from intervening in eastern affairs with an armed hand.

Meanwhile, Nicholas, who feared the emergence of general revolutionary ferment in Europe under the cover of liberal England and revolutionary France, considered it important to draw closer to Austria and Prussia in order to contrast this alliance of the central and eastern great powers with any revolutionary aspirations from the West.

Metternich was all the more delighted with this mood of Emperor Nicholas, the more powerless Austria itself was.

The position occupied by Russia in Europe at that time was aptly characterized later by Ivan Aksakov, who called this period the era of our “chief police chief” in Europe.

Indeed, Emperor Nicholas, relying on his million-strong army, then firmly took a position that threatened any popular movement against the status quo established at the Congress of Vienna, and it was thanks to him that the Prussian and especially the Austrian governments were able to pursue their reactionary policies until 1848.

Domestic policy of the second period of the reign of Nicholas I

As for internal affairs in Russia, here Emperor Nicholas, after the revolution of 1830, abandoned all liberal reforms, and the slogan of his internal policy henceforth became the protection of the original Russian system, based on the basis of “Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality” - a formula invented by the then Minister of Public Education S.S. Uvarov and completely agrees with the program given by Karamzin.

Nikolai considered it especially important to protect the then Russian political system from all political temptations, not allowing any ideological rapprochement with the revolutionary West, no innovations.

Code of Laws of the Russian Empire 1832–1833

However, the repair of some institutions that urgently required it continued, but, of course, without introducing any fundamental changes. Therefore, such an undertaking as the publication of a code of laws, which was considered the next step for a whole century, was successfully completed during this period of Nicholas’s reign.

Back in 1826, this matter was given, as I already mentioned, again into the hands of Speransky, and this time he took on it extremely practically. In contrast to his previous work, he now conducted it not so much on the basis of the theoretical requirements and principles of foreign legislation with which he had previously operated, but on the basis of the study and textual restoration of Russian legislation, starting with the Code of Alexei Mikhailovich.

Over the course of several years, he completed the colossal task of collecting and publishing all those laws that had been issued by the Russian government since 1649. This work, carried out with extreme care under his leadership, was completed in 1832 and produced 47 voluminous volumes of the first “ Complete collection of laws."

Nicholas I rewards Speransky for drawing up the Code of Laws. Painting by A. Kivshenko

Based on this complete collection of laws, after it has been sorted out, which of these laws can be considered valid, which are mutually annihilated and which are repealed, after all existing laws were scientifically classified into departments, a set of current laws was published in 15 volumes in 1833.

There was, of course, nothing reformatory in the proper sense of the word in this publication, but at the same time there is no doubt that this event was extremely important. The absence of such a set of laws was one of the main sources of abuse of all orders and pre-reform intercessors in cases in the era when the proverb was formed: “The law is like a pole: wherever you turn, that’s where it goes.”

Before the publication of the code of laws, no one knew for certain what laws existed on what subject; laws were scattered among archives and departments; they could be sought out and contrasted with each other; thus, without leaving the formal legal ground, it was possible to carry out blatant abuses. The publication of a set of laws in this regard cleared the air and made it possible, if desired, to paralyze the harmful activities of all sorts of chicanery.

The peasant question under Nicholas I

Another, even more important, next task, which, however, did not receive final resolution both during this period of his reign and during the entire reign of Nicholas, was the peasant question. This issue did not leave the agenda for almost the entire duration of Nicholas’s reign and, in any case, until 1848 it constantly continued to occupy the government.

The first impetus for raising this question in the mind of Nicholas was given by those peasant unrest that occurred in the very first year of his reign and subsequently, repeating constantly, did not allow the government to sleep, did not allow them to close their eyes to those ulcers of serfdom, which at that time were already screaming loudly about your existence.

The fact is that in the internal life of the people by this time material conditions had developed that, more powerful than any ideological demands, undermined the serfdom and prepared for its fall. First of all, this particular circumstance was a significant densification of the population, especially in some central black earth provinces, which made, under the existing conditions here, corvée economy serf labor was largely unprofitable for landowners, since under the primitive economic system there was nowhere to put the serfs' hands, and forced labor did not allow for any effective intensification of production and the development of applied agricultural production.

A special increase in the serf population occurred between 1816 and 1835. According to the fifth revision of the entire serf population, together with Siberia and the Ostsee region, there were 9,800,000 male souls; according to the seventh revision - 9,787,000 (due to significant population decline during Napoleonic Wars); and from 1816 to 1835 the serf population increased to 10,872,000, that is, by more than a million souls, despite the fact that during this period 413 thousand souls of Baltic peasants were freed, and, consequently, an increase in the total number of landowner peasants during this time it reached almost 1.5 million souls. This densification of the population during stagnation, which was inevitable in the serf economy, undoubtedly served as a circumstance that made it very difficult for the landowners.

There were extra hands in the household and, most importantly, extra mouths that needed to be fed, but they did not bring any benefit to the household.

Of course, the landowners tried to introduce some kind of intensification into their farming, but it did not consist in changing the farming system or crop rotation, but mainly in the fact that the people who were superfluous in the field farming were transferred to the households and enlarged the already huge households.

The corvée estate then represented not only a field farm, but also a kind of serf home workshop, occupied with a variety of crafts. Under the corvee system, each landowner tried, if possible, not to buy anything, but tried to produce at home all his household items, with the exception of iron, salt, etc., which were bought; but these purchased items were reduced to a minimum, and all clothing, all household items, not to mention food, were produced at home, by the labor of serfs. Therefore, the number of household servants in those days reached incredible proportions: before the ninth revision, out of 10 million serfs, more than one million were household servants, that is, they constituted a landless population engaged in either domestic service or work in home workshops.

The landowners' servants soon increased so much that the landowners began to make a living from them, lending their servants to other persons, so that in 1827 a law was even passed limiting this right of landowners to give their servants to those persons who did not themselves have the right to own serfs.

The number of household servants increased during this period by almost 1.5 times - by the tenth revision it reached 1,470 thousand souls. The landowners treated the servants in the most unceremonious manner: in hungry years, many simply drove them away to beg. Some landowners have tried these extra hands apply to patrimonial factories that developed at the end of the 18th century, but on this path the landowners encountered competition from developing and progressing merchant factories that was insurmountable for them. The significant technical improvements introduced in these factories were inaccessible to the landowners, due to their lack of capital, on the one hand, and on the other hand, because it was quite difficult to adapt forced labor to these improved methods of production. Among professional factory owners at this time they came to the conviction that forced labor was no good, and even the owners of possession factories began to abandon their possession peasants, so that in 1847 such manufacturers were finally allowed to set their possession peasants free. It is no wonder that the patrimonial factories could not withstand this competition and began to decline and close uncontrollably in the 1830s and 1840s.

Meanwhile, in general, the position of the landowners, regardless of the population density and their inability to cope with it, also suffered from the enormous debt that weighed on them after 1812. Do you remember what sacrifices the nobility made - partly voluntarily, and partly involuntarily - to military costs of that time. You remember how poorly the government could pay its creditors, so that even those who did not intend any further donations renounced their claims and thus turned them into involuntary donations. If we take into account that in general the income from the then landowner’s economy cannot be considered, with 10 million serfs, to exceed 100 million rubles. per year, and this figure is compared with the victims and losses during the Patriotic War, which were considered hundreds of millions, then it will become obvious that since a significant part of these costs, victims and losses fell on the landowner’s economy, then his debt must have been enormous. By 1843, it was determined by the following figures: more than 54% of all estates were mortgaged to the so-called safe treasuries, which were then credit institutions that provided loans against real estate. On average, the debt of landowners was more than 69 rubles. from the souls of serfs, and the average cost of a soul did not then exceed 100 rubles, so that most of these souls, in fact, no longer belonged to the landowners. Huge interest had to be paid on these loans; to this it must be added that in addition to this debt, generated by exceptional historical events, most landowners also had significant private debts, on which much higher interest was paid.

At the same time, after the Napoleonic wars, after getting acquainted with life Western Europe great changes took place in the life of the landowners: the nobles were no longer content with the previous ways of life that the patriarchal subsistence economy gave them; now there are many temptations, habits acquired from acquaintance with European culture and luxurious life who required purchasing funds; this circumstance pushed for new loans.

All this taken together led to the fact that, despite the fact that the state budget did not grow particularly strongly and direct taxes almost did not increase, the landowners' budgets were nevertheless constantly concluded with constant huge deficits, and the position of the landowners became more and more difficult. This deterioration in the position of the landowners in the presence of serfdom was reflected, of course, in the end on the hump of the serfs and terribly aggravated the mutual relationship between the peasants and their masters.

All these circumstances created the fact that in the black earth provinces the matter became almost hopeless, especially in those black earth provinces that were densely populated.

Thanks to this, already in the 40s, among many landowners, especially in the Tula, Ryazan, and Oryol provinces, the idea was created that such a situation could not exist longer and that the abolition of serfdom, if it was possible to retain the land, would be more profitable than serfdom itself. This was expressed in the statements that the most developed and intelligent landowners of these provinces made to the government in the 40s. Thus, in 1844, the Tula landowners proposed to begin to free their peasants, even pledging to give them one tithe per capita, but so that the peasants would take on a larger share of the landowners’ debts. Correspondence began on this matter, a committee was established, which, however, did not lead to any practical results. In 1847, the Tula landowners met again and made a second statement; in Tula there was just then a young governor, Muravyov (later Count Amursky), who sympathized with this idea; but after 1848, all talk about changing the existing system had to stop due to the reaction that began in government spheres.

The same proposal came in 1847 from the landowners of the Ryazan province. And even in the non-black earth Smolensk province there was a similar movement, which led to a meeting and interesting negotiations between a deputation of Smolensk nobles and Emperor Nicholas himself in the late 40s.

These are the circumstances that, so to speak, internally and organically undermined the existing serfdom and, even from the point of view of the nobility, made its imminent liquidation inevitable. On the other hand, the peasants were not left alone at this time either. The unrest began at the very beginning of Nicholas's reign, and they largely suggested to him the need to do something in this area. But the unrest, pacified at first, did not cease. In total, during the reign of Nicholas, there were no less than 556 peasant unrest - these were unrest of entire villages and volosts, and not individual minor misunderstandings. Of these, 41 unrest occurred during the first 4 years of his reign, therefore, until 1830; The greatest number of unrest dates back to that period of Nicholas’s reign, which I consider his second period, namely 1830–1849. (378 peasant unrest). Finally, the remaining 137 disturbances fall in the last seven years of his reign.

The peasant question in the secret committee December 6, 1826

About half of these unrest had to be pacified not by simple police means, that is, not by the departure of the police authorities and simple flogging of the peasants, but by calling in military commands, often through bloodshed. This shows that it was really impossible to look at it calmly even from the point of view of state security. That is why, from the very beginning in the Committee, on December 6, 1826, the peasant question occupied not the last place in government assumptions. But, in fact, the work of this Committee did not lead to anything significant, although it had some significance.

For example, in connection with the work of this committee, a law was passed in 1827, by virtue of which landowners were deprived of the right to dispossess their peasants by selling land without serf souls. Previously, the question was raised about prohibiting the sale of people without land, but now it was indicated that it was necessary that the amount of land left on the estates would be at least 4.5 dessiatines per capita. This law, of course, theoretically was quite important, but it must be said that its implementation was below any criticism, so it did not have significant significance, although the law itself also established a sanction: it was stated that if the landowner sells more land than is required by law, then the estate can be taken away from the treasury.

Another law related to the work of the Committee on December 6, 1826, was the prohibition of sending their serfs to mining work. This prohibition, of course, had then great value due to the fact that mining work seemed to be one of the most difficult types of exploitation of serfs. At the same time, it was prohibited to give peasants into temporary possession to those persons who did not themselves have the right to own serfs.

Actually, as regards the direct regulation of serfdom and its relations, this exhausts the results of the Committee’s activities on December 6, 1826.

After the cessation of the Committee of 1826, the most important factor in relation to the regulation of the situation of peasants was the publication of a code of laws. It was important in the sense that various related decrees and other government decrees, issued at different times, sometimes limiting in some respects the power of landowners over the peasants and directed against landowner abuses, were now, by inclusion in the code, transformed into general norms binding on everyone.

In volume IX of the code, in the laws on estates, these regulations were set out in some detail, introducing, on the one hand, the power of the landowner over the peasants within certain boundaries, and on the other, imposing certain obligations on the landowners. In this regard, the prohibition that I just cited was important - selling land that belonged to inhabited estates in too large quantities. Along with this, there was a whole series of decrees that imposed on landowners the responsibility for feeding the serfs. This circumstance was all the more important because it was during the reign of Nicholas that a number of crop failures occurred. However, the crop failure continued to have a hard impact on the peasants, since landowners usually tried to evade fulfilling their responsibilities for feeding the peasants. By the way, an article was introduced into the code of laws that punished landowners for the beggary of their peasants (namely, for each discovered case of beggary of a serf peasant, a fine of 1.5 rubles was imposed on his landowner). However, this article was applied very poorly in practice. Even in pre-reform times, not only landowners, but also the government were concerned about these crop failures, since in some places they led to direct famine, which sometimes took on devastating proportions due to the lack of roads. Thus, in 1833, population growth in some areas due to the famine experienced was half as much as normal. In the Western Territory, just during these years, due to food troubles, a number of peasant unrest occurred.

The government then issued significant, sometimes millions, loans to landowners to provide food assistance to the peasants, but the landowners very often spent these sums not on the peasants, but on their own needs - in order to plug a number of holes in their farms that were especially noticeable in hungry years. The government's attempt to control these amounts led to nothing, since all local power was in the hands of officials elected by the nobles.

The peasant question in the secret committee 1835

After the publication of the code of laws, the next important act of government activity on the peasant issue was the formation of a secret committee in 1835. In this committee, the question was posed quite categorically: the need to consider the issue of eliminating serfdom was directly recognized. All meetings of this committee took place so privately that even information about it was obtained from the archives only at a later time, when it became possible to scientifically develop archival materials on peasant affairs. The very presentation of the issue in this committee attracts attention due to its relative principled nature. It seemed convenient to the Committee to presumably divide the entire future course of resolving the peasant question into three stages, without, however, indicating at what time each of them should occur, with the exception of the first, which was already in place. It was recognized that in this first stage serfdom governed by those provisions that are included in the code of laws. The second period seemed possible in the fairly near future: this stage was supposed to come with the introduction of a kind of “inventory” into serf farms, or rules and norms obligatory for landowners, which would regulate not only the number of days of peasant life. compulsory work, but also the size of the duties and, in general, would reduce the matter to the situation that existed in the Baltic provinces from 1804–1805 to 1816–1819, i.e., to the creation, while maintaining serfdom, of certain guarantees and norms protecting the situation peasants both from the economic side and from the personal and legal side. The third period was represented according to this scheme as a period of personal liberation of the peasants, but without land.

Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselev and the formation of the Ministry of State Property

This formulation of the issue characterized the mood of the government spheres, but the work of this committee had no practical results. Kiselev is taking part in this committee for the first time, the same Kiselev who, when he was chief of staff of the Southern Army in the 20s, was a friend of some Decembrists - including Pestel - and therefore at first inspired Nikolai Pavlovich with great distrust of himself. But soon Kiselyov, with his directness and loyalty to his political convictions, expressed to Emperor Nicholas during a personal meeting, proved that all suspicions against him were unfair. After the end of the war of 1829, he was put in charge of the temporary administration of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, then occupied by Russian troops (pending the payment of the agreed indemnity to Russia by Turkey). There, just at that time, the peasant question came to the fore, for the relations between the local “boyars” and the peasants were brought to a significant aggravation, and the method that Kiselev adopted there to resolve the issue was a method very close to the situation in 1804 in the Baltic region , – Nikolai really liked it. Nikolai, having read Kiselev’s report on the management of these principalities, drew attention to him as a person who could help him in resolving the peasant issue in Russia. He appointed him in 1834 as a member of the State Council and then told him that he was counting on his help in the peasant business. He said at the same time that, not hoping for the sympathy of his ministers in this matter, he would lead it himself, and Kiseleva invited him to become his chief of staff for the peasant affair.

Kiselyov took up this task with pleasure, especially since the question of the abolition of serfdom interested him from a young age, and even as an aide-de-camp under Emperor Alexander I, he gave him a rather interesting note, defending the need to resolve the peasant question and proposing various measures.

At first, Kiselev, however, had to deal with the issue of the situation of state-owned peasants, because even in the Committee on December 6, 1826, the idea expressed in Speransky’s note was approved that in improving the situation of peasants the government should set an example for private individuals. State-owned peasants were then under the jurisdiction of the department of state property, subordinate to the Minister of Finance.

The Minister of Finance was Kankrin, a man, as I already mentioned, not only educated, but also a learned economist, who treated the peasants no less kindly than Kiselev himself. Although Kankrin was by no means a physiocrat and, in contrast to them, was a staunch opponent of the “laussez faire” system, but, undoubtedly, in his coat of arms one could, with no less justification than in the coat of arms of Quesnay, include the famous words: “pauvre paysan - pauvre royaume; pauvre rovaume – pauvre roi” (i.e. “poor peasant - poor state, and poor state - poor king”). Kankrin was one of those economists who believe that the streamlining of finances and a solid foundation for the people's wealth should always be rooted in the people's well-being. Therefore he was always an enemy of new taxes and loans burdensome to the people, and I have already told you that the initial improvement of finances in 1823-1829. This was achieved by him through that strict economy, which he tried to observe everywhere, not stopping before clashes with other departments and even before disputes with the emperor himself.

On its important economic and cultural activities I'll have a chance to go into more detail later.

Count Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselev. Portrait by F. Kruger, 1851

In relation to the state-owned peasants subordinate to him, the first thing Kankrin conceived was, if possible, to streamline the system of collecting taxes from them and to protect them from abuse by the ranks of the zemstvo police, which at that time was a real locust in relation to the people. Under the existing system of local government, state-owned peasants were the object of robbery by lower police officials, and Kankrin, recognizing this, considered it important to free them from police power.

As an experiment, he proposed in two provinces - St. Petersburg and Pskov - to remove state-owned peasants from the general provincial administration and establish special districts (as was the case with appanage peasants), which would be managed by special persons appointed from the Ministry of Finance and obliged to look after the interests of the peasants. Of course, this “reform” was purely bureaucratic and very palliative in nature: the peasants passed from the jurisdiction of some officials only into the hands of others, but there is no doubt that Kankrin wanted to come closer to the interests of state-owned peasants and hoped to improve their situation. He studied the issue, did experiments and collected data, without having large funds for this.

In 1834, Kankrin wanted to extend this order to another 10 provinces. Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich, who was dissatisfied with the slow progress of the matter and explained it by the fact that Kankrin had too many other works, considered it necessary to transfer this part to a special person. This person was P. D. Kiselev.

All peasant affairs were concentrated at first in His Majesty’s own office, and Kiselev was appointed head of the new fifth department and this office. Getting down to business, Kiselev first of all carried out a local audit, traveled to state-owned peasants in 4 provinces, studied their situation and discovered a number of abuses not only by the local authorities, but also on the part of the department of state property, headed by Senator Dubensky, who was transferred at the same time on trial. Then, after several clashes with Kankrin, Kiselev declared that it was inconvenient for him to manage this matter on behalf of the sovereign, while at the same time it was subordinate to the Minister of Finance, who, being busy with other matters, could not devote much time to the peasant issue. As a result, a new independent department was established - the Ministry of State Property, to which management of all state-owned estates, forests and mining plants was transferred.

The new ministry was opened in 1837, and Kiselev was placed at its head. In his attempts to improve the situation of state-owned peasants, Kiselev followed, in fact, the same path that was indicated by Kankrin: special chambers of state property were established locally, and district administrations were established in counties. However, some self-government of state-owned peasants was allowed in their communities and volosts, but still, district commanders were placed over them, with the right of essentially unlimited intervention in their economic and home life, whom Kiselev tried to select as best as possible . It may very well be that at first there were among them good people, but in the end it turned out that this system of guardianship only put the peasants in an even more servile position, since the former bribe-taking police officers could only occasionally visit state estates, but they did not have the opportunity to deeply enter into the life of the peasants, since they had many other duties, and now officials were appointed whose special task was precisely the comprehensive care of the peasants. In the end, this management did not produce particularly good results.

Although Kiselev was given the actual management of the state-owned peasants, he did not cease to actually be the chief of staff for the peasant part, as Nikolai called him, and in general his participation in the development of the entire peasant issue was very significant.

The Committee of 1835 did not lead to anything, but in 1839 a new secret committee was formed, and although it outlined its task more modestly, as a result of its work a new “Regulation on Obligated Peasants” of 1842 appeared. Of course, this provision in itself it gave little, because they were too afraid to affect the interests and rights of the nobles. According to this provision, landowners who themselves would like to get out of the difficult conditions of serfdom, which had become quite clearly defined by this time, were allowed to enter into voluntary agreements with their peasants on ending personal serfdom and transferring them to the category of obligated peasants; for the allotment of land that remained the property of the landowner, who, however, having concluded an agreement, could no longer arbitrarily take it away, the “obligated” peasants had to either serve a certain corvee, or pay a certain monetary dues, and the amount of these duties could no longer be changed. At the same time, some rural self-government was introduced, which already existed in many quitrent estates. Peasants arranged in this way found themselves in a situation close to the situation of peasants in the Baltic region in 1804–1805. All this in itself was not bad in appearance, but the fact that the “Regulations” left everything to the voluntary initiative of the landowners inevitably led to the fact that nothing significant could actually come out of this act.

In the State Council, where this reform was discussed, Prince. D.V. Golitsyn, the Moscow governor-general, told Nikolai that, in his opinion, this measure would only make sense if the transfer of peasants from serfs to serfs was mandatory for landowners. But Nikolai remarked to this that although he is autocratic and autocratic, he still would not dare to allow such violence against the landowners. This answer shows how far the peasant reform could be carried out under Nicholas.

Nicholas acted more decisively in the Western Territory, in the provinces where the nobility was of Polish origin, and the peasants were of Russian origin, and where, after the Polish uprising of 1831, he considered himself entitled to act much more unceremoniously in relation to noble property. Here this policy fully fit the principle: “Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality.”

And so in the 40s, according to Kiselev’s idea, with the zealous participation of the Kyiv Governor-General Bibikov, who was both a zealous Russifier and, apparently, sincerely sympathized with alleviating the plight of the serfs, quite strict rules were drawn up and put into effect here in relation to “inventory rules” to landowners. The amount of land that the landowners had to provide to the peasants was determined, and the size of peasant duties was established.

In 1847, these rules were introduced in the Kyiv, Volyn and Podolsk provinces, and then they began to be introduced in Lithuania and Belarus. In Lithuania, similar rules had previously existed, which, however, provided more scope for the arbitrariness of the landowners, and when they decided to introduce Bibikov’s rules here, many Lithuanian nobles protested strongly, saying that it was better to completely abolish serfdom than to put landowners in a position in which they are set by these Bibikov rules. Having encountered difficulties, the issue dragged on here until the 50s.

In 1849, when Bibikov was already the Minister of Internal Affairs and wanted to introduce these rules by force, the Lithuanian nobles found support for themselves in the heir to the throne (the future Emperor Alexander II), who after the revolution of 1848 was in a very reactionary mood and believed that it was necessary support in every possible way the “sacred” rights of the nobles; Thus, in Lithuania and Belarus, inventory rules were never introduced until the end of Nicholas's reign.

In 1848, a similar arrangement for peasants was introduced in the Kingdom of Poland. Here the peasants were recognized as personally free by Napoleonic decree of 1807, but, having been personally freed, they did not receive any land rights. The landowners, in view of the economic situation at that time, did not drive them out of their lands, and the peasants continued to work on their former lands for corvee and dues. They owned significant areas of land, but legally the landowners could always drive them away and, taking advantage of this advantage, oppressed them no less than the serfs. Meanwhile, just in 1846, in neighboring Galicia, a great massacre of landowners took place, which terrified both the landowners of the Kingdom of Poland and the governor, Prince. Paskevich, who headed the regional administration. The urgent need to streamline the situation of the peasants was recognized. And so on May 26, 1846, a decree was issued that introduced “prestation” rules here. report cards, quite similar to the inventories in the Western Territory. At the same time, land relations that existed before were consolidated, and landowners were deprived of the right to arbitrarily reduce land plots and increase duties...

Finally, in 1847, at the suggestion of Baron M.A. Korf, a decree was issued that allowed peasants in Russia (similar to how it had previously been introduced in Georgia) to redeem entire villages with land in cases where landowners' estates were sold at auction for debts - for the price that would be given at the auction. Thus, a new loophole appeared through which peasants could get out of serfdom, especially since, given the landlord debt of that time, estates were often put up for sale. But there were big protests against this decree among the nobility: the governors began to write that this decree worried the public. After 1848, it was actually abolished by the addition of a number of reservations to it. In general, after the revolution of 1848, Emperor Nicholas took a completely reactionary point of view regarding the peasant question, and all attempts and talk about the abolition of serfdom were stopped: so, when the Smolensk landowners wanted to continue the negotiations they had begun about this matter with the government, they received an indication from Tsarevich Alexander Nikolaevich that Emperor Nicholas did not consider it possible to continue this matter in the then alarming circumstances.

These were the measures that were taken in relation to the peasant question in the second period of Nicholas's reign.

The need for transformations - improvement of “internal improvement” - was first declared in the manifesto of Alexander II on the end of the Crimean War on March 19, 1856. Abstract good wishes were somewhat concretized in the speech delivered by the emperor to the Moscow leaders of the nobility on March 30, 1856. Increasing cases of peasant discontent and rumors about the government's secret intentions on the peasant issue seriously alarmed the Moscow nobles, and Governor-General Count A.A. Zakrevsky turned to Alexander II with a request to dispel the unfounded rumors. But the sovereign’s speech only increased the anxiety of the landowners. Having assured the noble leaders of his reluctance to free the peasants, Alexander II at the same time expressed disappointment at the growing hostility between peasants and landowners and spoke of the objective inevitability of the abolition of serfdom, if not “from above,” then “from below,” which is undesirable. Zakrevsky called the tsar’s speech “embarrassing,” and the agitated nobles had to be cajoled with a circular from the Minister of Internal Affairs, which guaranteed the preservation of landowner power.

The Emperor hesitated. He understood the inevitability of change, but could not go into direct conflict with the nobility. Therefore, he instructed the Vilna Governor-General V.I. Nazimov to find out the opinion of the nobles of the northwestern region on the possibility of changing serfdom, and during the coronation in August 1856, the Minister of Internal Affairs S.S. Lanskoy and Comrade (Deputy) Minister A.I. Levshin, on the instructions of the sovereign, conducted confidential negotiations with the leaders of the nobility of different provinces of Russia. Conversations with the leaders, who were frightened by even a faint hint of the impending liberation of the peasants, turned out to be unproductive. Only the leaders of the nobility of the western provinces, who had suffered losses from the introduced inventories, expressed their readiness to abolish serfdom, but free the peasants without land - following the example of the Baltic region, where such a reform took place back in 1816-1819. The government decided to begin preparing a bill on peasant affairs for the western provinces of the empire, in order to then begin gradually implementing reform in other individual localities. Alexander II made a reservation at the same time that he would not take any steps until he received from the “well-meaning owners of populated estates” ideas about improving the peasant “lot.”

On January 3, 1857, the Secret Committee on Peasant Affairs was established, designed to prepare draft measures to improve the life of landowner peasants. The committee was chaired by the tsar himself, and in his absence, by the chairman of the State Council and the Committee of Ministers, Prince A.F. Orlov. The committee included senior government officials. Seasoned statesmen took a wait-and-see attitude, delaying the consideration of the assigned issue. The committee slowly collected ideas from various people about the future peasant reorganization, and disagreements emerged between its members, which led the activities to a dead end. There were proposals to free the peasants according to the “Baltic Sea” model, others insisted on ensuring the actual implementation of the decrees on free cultivators of 1803 and on obligated peasants of 1842. Finally, there was an opinion to completely rid the government of an inconvenient problem by entrusting the development of conditions for the abolition of serfdom to the shoulders of local nobility. Only the Minister of Internal Affairs S.S. Lanskoy introduced for the consideration of the committee members qualitatively new principles of reform (the author of the project was A.I. Levshin): the liberation of the peasants, their purchase of estates for 10-15 years and the preservation of the plots for the use of the peasants for their services. At the same time, he considered it necessary to leave the solution of the issue in the hands of the government with the advisory participation of the nobility. Prince A.F. Orlov opposed the liberation of the peasants and was about to curtail the work of the committee, and, as usual, transfer the received considerations to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. However, Alexander II broke this scenario by demanding specific decisions. In the summer of 1857, the sovereign's brother, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, was appointed a member of the committee. The bureaucratic idyll was disrupted by heated debate, and in August the committee made a fundamental decision to begin the abolition of serfdom, dividing its implementation into the following stages: preparation of the reform, personal emancipation of the peasants while maintaining their land dependence, and complete emancipation of the peasants.

Attempts to continue the red tape were suddenly thwarted in October 1857 by the arrival of V.I. in St. Petersburg. Nazimov, who obtained the consent of the nobility of the Vilna, Grodno and Kovno provinces entrusted to him to replace the inventory system with the gratuitous but landless emancipation of the peasants. The Governor-General demanded instructions from the government, and on November 20, 1857, Alexander II approved the rescript to Nazimov developed by the Secret Committee. The rescript, which became the first government program on the peasant issue, consolidated the beginnings of the project drawn up in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The nobility of the region was supposed to form provincial committees and a commission common to the three provinces to draw up projects “on the arrangement and improvement of the life of the landowner peasants,” but could not go beyond the principles established by the supreme authority. Government principles confirmed the ownership of landowners “to all the land.” However, the peasants retained their “estate settlement”, received the right to purchase the estate land as their own and could not be arbitrarily deprived of an additional “amount of land” subject to payment of quitrent or serving corvée. Thus, the government prevented the expulsion of peasants from the land. It was supposed to establish self-government for the peasants, but in order to keep them in obedience, the patrimonial police were transferred to the disposal of the landowners. To avoid noble discontent, the thesis about the abolition of serfdom was carefully veiled in the document.

Meanwhile, according to the old custom, a secret committee for peasant affairs was formed, similar to those that were formed during the reign of Nicholas. This committee was opened on January 3, 1857 under the personal chairmanship of the emperor from persons especially trusted. The committee was tasked with developing a general plan for organizing and improving the situation of serfs. The work of this committee shows us that in 1857 there was no plan yet, information about the state of affairs had not yet been collected, even the basic principles of liberation had not been worked out; for example, they have not yet decided whether to free the peasants with land or without land. The committee got down to business. Meanwhile, in November, the long-awaited Vilna Governor-General Nazimov arrived in St. Petersburg with the results of his meetings with the local nobility. Nazimov appeared with his head hanging; The leaders of the nobility, perhaps under the influence of festive impressions in Moscow, said too much, for which they received due instruction from their voters, the nobles of the Lithuanian provinces. Local provincial committees, formed to review Bibikov's inventories, decisively announced that they did not want either the liberation of the peasants or a change in their situation. When Nazimov reported about this, the following rescript was drawn up in his name, marked November 20, 1857. The rescript stated that the sovereign gladly accepted the desire of the Lithuanian nobles expressed by Nazimov to improve the situation of the serfs, and therefore allows the local nobility to form a committee from among them to develop the situation , by which this good intention would be realized. These committees should be composed of deputies from the district nobles of the provinces, two from each district, and from experienced landowners appointed by the governor-general. These provincial noble committees, having developed their projects for a new system of peasants, were supposed to submit them to the commission under the governor general; having examined the project of the provincial committees, it must develop a common project for all three Lithuanian provinces. The rescript also indicated the principles on which these projects should be based. These are the three principles: peasants buy back their estates from the landowners; They use field land by agreement with the landowner. The further arrangement of the peasants should be such that it ensures the continued payment of state and zemstvo taxes by the peasants. Peasants, having received estates and land from landowners, settle into rural communities, but remain under the authority of the landowner as a patrimonial police observer. The local nobles greeted the rescript given to Nazimov with great surprise, having difficulty understanding what they used to give the reason.

But then another spark flashed in St. Petersburg. It was decided to send an invitation to the Lithuanian nobility to take care of organizing the situation of the peasants and to inform the nobility of the remaining provinces in case they wanted the same thing that the Lithuanian nobility wanted. They say that the idea of ​​generalizing the case was first proposed by Grand Duke Constantine, who had previously been introduced to the secret committee; this idea soon received public expression. At the same time, the Voronezh governor Smirin introduced himself to the sovereign; the sovereign unexpectedly told him that he had decided to complete the work of the serfs and hoped that he would persuade his nobles to help him in this. Smirin turns to Lansky for an explanation of these words and with the question whether the Voronezh nobility will receive some kind of order on this matter. “He will,” Lanskoy answered, laughing.

Then someone remembered that some St. Petersburg nobles expressed a desire to determine the exact position of peasant duties in favor of landowners; the act was abandoned; now it was dug up, and a new rescript followed on December 5: “Since the St. Petersburg nobility has expressed a desire to improve the situation of the peasants, they are allowed to set up a committee, etc.” “Course of Russian History” V. O. Klyuchevsky. T. 5. Page 266. The nobility with widened eyes greeted this rescript, given in the name of the St. Petersburg Governor-General, Count Ignatiev.

Finally, all these rescripts to Nazimov and the circulars of the Minister of Internal Affairs were sent out by the governors of all provinces so that these acts were taken into account. People in St. Petersburg were waiting with great impatience to see how the nobles would react to this message.

On December 6, 1826, Nicholas sent a rescript to Count V.P. Kochubey, appointing him Chairman of a special committee, which should have “reviewed the current situation of all parts of the administration in order, from these considerations, to derive rules for their better organization and correction.” This Secret Committee, named after the date of its formation as the “December 6 Committee,” included members of the State Council - generals P. A. Tolstoy and I. V. Vasilchikov and Baron I. I. Dibich, as well as state dignitaries - Prince A. N. Golitsyn, M. M. Speransky and D. N. Bludov. This rescript appeared after Speransky, a week before, presented Nikolai with a note on what such a committee should do. On his note, Nikolai wrote a resolution in which he proposed to “Express opinions: 1) what was supposed, 2) what is, 3) what would remain to be completed, 4) in the presentation they thought what is good now, what cannot be left and what can be replaced.” The “December 6 Committee” became the first of ten Secret Committees, which were subsequently created to discuss projects for various reforms. The main issue during the discussion was the peasant issue, but since the publicity of the consideration of the problem was completely excluded, this led to the complete failure of their activities.

“Codification in a systematic order” by A. D. Borovkov
At the very time when the first Secret (or Special) Committee began to gather for its meetings, Nikolai gave instructions to Privy Councilor A.D. Borovkov, the former secretary of the Special Committee for the Investigation of Secret Societies, who headed the clerical part of the process from the beginning of the investigation to the passing of sentences (summarize what the Decembrists said during the investigation and trial). The Tsar named Borovkova with four names that he remembered most. Borovkov made extracts from the answers of Batenkov, Shteingel, Alexander Bestuzhev and Pestel. He omitted repetitions and “idle talk” and left the main thing - ideas regarding the correction of affairs in Russia.
As presented by Borovkov, the ideas of the Decembrists looked as follows. It all started with the contrast between the first years of Alexander’s reign (until 1807) and his subsequent reign, when finances were upset due to the wars with Napoleon, the people became impoverished and people’s hopes were left unfulfilled. Victory in Patriotic War 1812 gave nothing to the people. The warriors who returned from abroad, from the liberators of Russia and Europe, again turned into serf slaves, and despotism, worse than before, began to reign throughout the empire. Further, Borovkov pointed out that: 1) the upbringing of youth was permeated with free thinking, and the surrounding reality contradicted its ideals in everything; 2) our laws are confused and contradictory, which is why crooks and snitches triumph, while the poor and innocent suffer; 3) legal proceedings are so multi-stage and complex that sometimes life is not enough to wait for the end of the case. To this should be added injustices, abuses, red tape and extortion, which exhaust the litigants to the extreme; 4) the system of government in the provinces, the Senate, ministries, and the Cabinet of Ministers was only engaged in camouflaging shortcomings, hiding behind “the highest commands,” so that “the supreme government fell apart, lost its unity and represented a discordant mass”; 5) the salaries of officials are blatantly disproportionate - the minority is fattening, and the masses are begging: “officials of the whole district, taken together, do not receive a salary and one supervisor of the drinking tax”; 6) the collection of taxes remains at the complete discretion of the local authorities, without being subject to either verification or accounting; 7) travel duties are a heavy burden on the people, driving many farms to ruin; 8) arrears, which were cruelly beaten out and beaten out, almost entirely went to St. Petersburg, and all other cities “fell into decay, became impoverished and lost heart”; 9) the state sale of wine and salt allowed the state to inflate prices for them, at the same time rob both tax farmers and contractors, which caused many of the noblest merchants to go bankrupt; 10) tariff policy led to the decline of domestic trade in favor of the trade of Austria, Prussia and Poland; 11) the navy rotted in the harbors because it did not receive equipment and weapons; 12) military settlements, established by force, were accepted “with amazement and murmur,” but did not solve anything; 13) estates - noble landowners, personal nobles, clergy, merchants, townspeople, state-owned peasants, appanage peasants - all experience great hardships and expect the new sovereign to decide their fate.
In conclusion, Borovkov wrote: “It is necessary to grant clear, positive laws, establish justice by establishing the shortest legal proceedings, elevate the moral education of the clergy, strengthen the nobility, fallen and completely ruined by loans from credit institutions, revive trade and industry with unshakable statutes, direct the education of youth in accordance with each condition, improve the situation of farmers, abolish the humiliating sale of people, resurrect the fleet, encourage private people to sail, in a word, correct innumerable disorders and abuses.”
A.D. Borovkov presented his “Code” to Nicholas on February 6, 1827. The Emperor ordered two copies to be taken from the Code - one he sent to Konstantin in Warsaw, and the second he gave to Prince V.P. Kochubey (Chairman of the State Council). After some time, Kochubey, having met Borovkov, said that the emperor often looks through the “Code” presented to him, and he, too, often refers to it. And then Borovkov began to increasingly see individual provisions and thoughts of the Code in various government decrees.

More on the topic of the First Secret Committee:

1. The first hostage crisis and the rise of Chernomyrdin to the fore

15:24 — REGNUM

Alexander II calls on the Moscow nobles to begin liberating the peasantry. 1857. Engraving from the early 1880s.

1857 On January 15 (January 3, O.S.), the Secret Committee on Peasant Affairs was established to prepare reforms for the emancipation of peasants.

Samples of peasant plows

“From that day (March 30, 1856), when Alexander II declared: “Better from above than from below,” preparations for the abolition of serfdom began on the initiative of the tsar. But this initiative cannot be credited personally to Alexander II. By itself he was even more conservative than his father, Nicholas I. Even those penny concessions on the peasant issue that Nicholas made, Alexander considered unnecessary.

As a person, Alexander II was, of course, more attractive than his father - smarter, more educated, softer and more restrained in character (the influence of his teacher V.A. Zhukovsky affected him). Outwardly, in appearance and bearing, he was the spitting image of his father; he was mentally and morally more like his uncle, Alexander I, than like his father. However, Alexander Nikolaevich also combined - not as flashily as Nikolai Pavlovich - the vices of a tyrant and a retrograde, and he also relied excessively on Nikolai’s former campaigners, about whom F.I. Tyutchev said in 1856 that they “remind him of the hair and nails that continue to grow on the body of the dead for some time after their burial in the grave.”

In contrast to the strong, albeit limited, truly gendarmerie nature of Nicholas, Alexander was by nature not so much weak as changeable. In this way he also reminded him of his uncle. In his youth, for example, he either resignedly endured his father’s hot hand lashing his cheeks (that’s why, according to evil tongues, Alexander’s cheeks sagged from a young age), then suddenly he dared to despise his father’s will and stand his ground. Over the years, Alexander II retained this instability of nature - both in personal and in state life, “he always walked now to the right, now to the left, constantly changing his direction.” He hesitated for a long time before taking the initiative in abolishing serfdom. Most importantly, this initiative of his was forced, imposed on the tsar by force of circumstances - a force that had been growing steadily for a long time, in the form of economic and social disasters, spontaneous protest of the peasant masses, pressure from liberals and revolutionaries.

Preparations for the abolition of serfdom in Russia began with the establishment of the next Secret Committee on Peasant Affairs on January 3, 1857, as was done from time to time under Nicholas I. The committee included 11 nobles: the former chief of gendarmes A.F. Orlov, the real chief of gendarmes V.A. Dolgorukov, future "Hangman" M.N. Muravyov, former member of the court over the Petrashevites and future chairman of the court over the Ishutinites P.P. Gagarin and others, almost without exception, are reactionaries, serf owners. Orlov even boasted that “he would rather let his hand be cut off than sign the liberation of the peasants with the land.” He was appointed (isn’t that why?) chairman of the committee.

This was the committee for preparing the liberation of the peasants. Its members did not hide their readiness to bury the peasant question in conversations “about the peasant question,” as was the case in similar committees under Nicholas I. However, the growing revolutionary situation and especially the rise of the peasant movement forced the committee, after 6.5 months of abstract debate, to concretely begin business. On July 26, 1857, member of the committee, Minister of Internal Affairs S.S. Lanskoy presented an official draft of the reform and proposed creating noble committees in each province with the right to make their own amendments to the draft. This proposal meant that tsarism, showing maximum sensitivity to the interests of the landowners, carried out the reform in such a way that the initiative for its implementation would come from the nobility with minimal damage to the nobles. Lanskoy himself advertised his serfdom convictions, stating in print that the Emperor instructed him to “inviolably protect the rights granted to the nobility by his crowned ancestors.” On November 20, the tsar legitimized Lansky’s proposal in a rescript addressed to the Baltic Governor-General V.I. Nazimova. The rescript to Nazimov was sent to all governors for information and published. It set out the reform principles formulated by Lansky /187/ that were to guide the provincial committees, namely:

1) landowners retain in their hands all the land and patrimonial (i.e. police) power over the peasants;

2) peasants receive only legal personal freedom, and even then after the so-called transition period (up to 12 years), as well as an estate for ransom, without land."

Quoted from: Troitsky N.A. Russia in the 19th century: A course of lectures. - M.: Higher School, 1997

History in faces

From a letter from Alexander II to Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, 1856:

I am waiting for well-meaning owners of populated estates to express themselves to what extent they believe it is possible to improve the lot of their peasants

Quoted from: Tatishchev S.S. Emperor Alexander II: His life and reign. M.: Eksmo, 2009

The world at this time

In 1857, the Sepoy Mutiny began in India.

Suppression of the Indian Rebellion by the British. V.Vereshchagin. 1884

“On the evening of Sunday 10 May 1857, local mercenary sepoys of the 20th and 11th Bengal Native Infantry and the 3rd Light Horse Regiment mutinied at the strategic military base at Meerut, refusing to obey their British officers and opening fire on them. They captured, robbed and burned the bungalows of Europeans, exterminating their inhabitants in cold blood, leaving no one alive, not even women and children. The roar of rifle fire and the deafening sounds of military bugles drowned out the terrible cries of pain and desperate pleas for mercy.

The rebels disappeared into the darkness of the night, taking hostages. Less than a day later, early on the morning of May 11, the sepoys crossed the bridges over the Yamuna River and headed to the Red Fort in Delhi. Armed with rifles, pistols, knives, daggers and swords, the rebels crushed the resistance of the garrison stationed in the fort, killing many British. The uprising was led by Padishah Bahadur Shah Zafar II, an elderly ruler of the Mughal dynasty. The local capital of the empire, Delhi, fell. The sepoys won their first victory.

Before the colonial administration had time to realize the full scale of the disaster, riots broke out in Northern and Central India. This was the beginning of terrible events that lasted many days and months. It became clear to the British authorities that something more than just a sepoy mutiny was happening - British imperialism was being challenged.

The reason for the rebellion was the notorious problem with the means of care for the Enfield cap guns that had just entered service. The lubricant of the rifle and the impregnation of the cardboard cartridges contained animal fats, and the top of the cartridge (with the bullet) had to be bitten when loading the gun (gunpowder was poured from the cardboard sleeve into the barrel, the sleeve itself was used as a wad, and the bullet was hammered into the top with a ramrod). The sepoys, who included both Hindus and Muslims, were frightened by the prospect of desecration through such contact with the remains of animals - cows and pigs. The reason, as you know, is in religious taboos: a pig is considered an unclean animal by Muslims, and a cow for Hindus is a sacred animal, and eating its meat is a great sin.

The army leadership insisted on using both a new model of gun and cartridges lubricated with forbidden fats, not paying attention to the growing discontent of the sepoys. When the authorities realized the mistake, it was already too late: the sepoys interpreted the innovation as a deliberate insult to their religious feelings, and although the command carefully ensured that the sepoy units were recruited on a mixed religious basis in order to eliminate the possibility of collusion among them, the effect was exactly the opposite. Sepoys - both Hindus and Muslims - forgot their differences and united in defense of "dharma and the Koran" (...)

The rebellion was suppressed with exceptional cruelty. And no matter how the British tried to characterize it as just a “revolt of the sepoys, and nothing more,” the facts told a different story. One of the representatives of the British administration in Delhi, T. Metcalfe, noted with regret that “the British live on a volcano, ready at any moment to explode in an outbreak of merciless violence. All the Udhis rebelled against us with arms in their hands, not only regular troops, but also thousands of people from the army of the ex-king. The Zamindars and their servants, 250 forts, equipped to the teeth with artillery, acted against us to the rule of the Company (East India), they opposed the supreme power of their own kings and almost unanimously came out in their support. the mercenaries became our opponents, and everyone, to the last man, joined the rebels"(...)

The mutiny of 1857 shook the very foundations of imperial rule in India, affecting most of the other colonies. The British could no longer imagine colonization as a win-win situation for both colonizer and colonized. Desperate to maintain India as a colony, the British Crown dissolved the East India Company, handing control of India directly to the British government. Administrative and military reforms have passed. The Queen's proclamation promised to "respect the feelings of devotion that Indians feel for the lands they inherited from their ancestors" and "to take due account of the historical practices, customs and traditions of India in lawmaking and law enforcement."

And for India itself, 1857 was a turning point - the Indians could not have more clearly outlined their desire for independence, although there was still almost a century left before gaining independence."

Quoted in: Kumar M. Sepoys v. Empire. Around the World, No. 8, 2007