Why were the peasants not happy about the abolition of serfdom?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The abolition of serfdom in the countryside was met without much joy, and in some places the peasants even took up the pitchfork - they thought the landlords were deceiving them.

The capital of the Russian state is restless. It was mid-March 1861. Something will happen … Vague worries and hopes are in the air. The Emperor will soon be pleased to announce an important decision - probably the peasant question, which has been discussed for so long. "Household people" are waiting for freedom, and their masters are afraid - God forbid the people will come out of obedience.

At dusk, along Gorokhovaya, Bolshaya Morskaya and other streets, carts with rods stretch to thirteen removable courtyards, and behind them soldiers' companies stride. The police take them under control and prepare for unrest after reading the royal manifesto.

And then the morning of March 17 came, and the manifesto on the emancipation of the peasants was read, however, it was calm in St. Petersburg and Moscow. There were few peasants in the cities at that time; they had already left their seasonal work in the villages. Priests and officials read to the people the document of Alexander II there on earth:

"Serfdom on the peasants, established in landlord estates, is canceled forever."

The Emperor follows his promise:

“We have made a vow in our hearts to embrace Our Royal Love and the care of all Our loyal subjects of every rank and class …”.

What the thinking Russian people have longed for for a century has been done! Alexander Ivanovich Herzen writes from abroad about the tsar:

“His name now stands above all his predecessors. He fought in the name of human rights, in the name of compassion, against the predatory crowd of inveterate scoundrels and broke them. Neither the Russian people nor world history will forget him … We welcome his name of the liberator!"

No wonder Herzen is happy. The Russian peasant has finally got his freedom. Although … not really. Otherwise, why prepare rods and send troops to the capital?

Land for the peasants?

The whole problem is that the peasants were liberated without land. That is why the government was afraid of unrest. First, it turned out to be impossible to give free rein to everyone at once, if only because the reform took two years. Until a literate person arrives in every village of huge Russia and draws up statutes and judges everyone … And at this time everything will be the same: with dues, corvee and other duties.

Only after that did the peasant receive both personal freedom and civil rights, that is, he got out of an almost slave state. Secondly, even this did not mean the end of the transition period. The land remained in the ownership of the landowners, which means that the farmer will have to depend on the owner for a long time - until he buys out his allotment from him. Since all this deceived the hopes of the peasants, they began to grumble: how is it - freedom without land, without houses and land, and even paying the master for years?

The Manifesto and Regulations on the Peasants were read mainly in churches by local priests. The newspapers wrote that the news of freedom was greeted with joy. But in fact, people left the temples with their heads bowed, gloomy and, as eyewitnesses wrote, “in disbelief”. The Minister of Internal Affairs P. A. Valuev admitted: the manifesto “did not make a strong impression on the people and, in terms of its content, could not even make this impression. (…) "So another two years!" or "So only after two years!" - was heard mostly in churches and on the streets."

The historian P. A. Zayonchkovsky cites a typical case that happened to a village priest - he had to stop reading the tsar's document, as the peasants raised a terrible noise: "But what kind of will is this?" "In two years, then all our bellies will wear out." The publicist Yu. F. Samarin wrote on March 23, 1861: “The crowd heard responses:“Well, this is not what we were expecting, there is nothing to thank for, we were cheated,”etc."

Village Abyss and Abyss of Problems

In 42 provinces of the empire, it came to unrest - mostly peaceful, but still alarming. For 1861-1863 there were more than 1,100 peasant uprisings, twice as many as in the previous five years. They protested, of course, not against the abolition of serfdom, but against such an abolition. The peasants thought that their landowners were deceiving - they had bribed the priests and made a fool, but they were hiding the real tsarist will and manifesto. Well, or for the sake of self-interest they interpret it in their own way. Like, the Russian Tsar could not come up with such a thing!

The people ran to literate people and asked them to interpret the manifesto correctly - in the interests of the peasants. Then they refused to work out the corvee and pay the rent, without waiting for any two-year term. It was difficult to exhort them. In Grodno province, about 10 thousand peasants refused to carry corvee, in Tambov - about 8 thousand. Performances lasted two years, but their peak fell on the first few months.

In March, peasant unrest was pacified in 7 provinces - Volyn, Chernigov, Mogilev, Grodno, Vitebsk, Kovno and Petersburg. In April - already at 28, in May - in 32 provinces. Where it was not possible to calm people down by persuasion, where priests were beaten and volost offices were smashed, it was necessary to act by force of arms. 64 infantry and 16 cavalry regiments took part in the suppression of the performances.

Not without human casualties. A real uprising was raised by the peasants of the village of Bezdna in the Kazan province. The peasants ran to the most literate of them - Anton Petrov, and he confirmed: the tsar will grant freedom immediately, and they no longer owe anything to the landowners, and the land is now peasant.

Since he said what everyone wanted to hear, the rumor about Petrov quickly reached the surrounding villages, the anger of the people and the refusal of corvee became widespread, and 4 thousand peasants gathered in the Abyss. Major General Count Apraksin suppressed the revolt with 2 infantry companies. Since the rioters refused to hand over Petrov, the count ordered to shoot at them (by the way, completely unarmed). After several volleys, Petrov himself went to the general from the hut surrounded by the people, but the soldiers had already managed to kill 55 peasants (according to other sources, 61), another 41 people died later from their wounds.

This bloody massacre was condemned even by the governor and many other officials - after all, the "rebels" did not harm anyone and did not hold weapons in their hands. Nevertheless, the military court sentenced Petrov to be shot, and many peasants to be punished with rods.

The disobedient ones were flogged in other villages - 10, 50, 100 blows … Somewhere, on the contrary, the peasants drove the punishers. In the Penza province in the village of Chernogai, men with pitchforks and stakes forced an infantry company to retreat and captured a soldier and a non-commissioned officer. Then, in neighboring Kandievka, 10 thousand disgruntled landowners gathered. On April 18, Major General Drenyakin tried to persuade them to end the riot - it did not help; then he threatened them - to no avail.

And then the general, although he understood that the peasants were sincerely mistaken in interpreting the imperial manifesto, gave the order to fire a volley. Then the rioters raised their hands: "One and all we will die, we will not submit." A terrible picture … This is what, according to the general's recollections, happened after the second volley: “I showed the crowd moving towards me my traveling image (mother's blessing) and swore before the people that I was telling the truth and correctly interpreted the rights bestowed upon the peasants. But they did not believe my oath."

It was also useless to shoot. The soldiers had to arrest 410 people, only then the rest fled. The pacification of Kandievka cost the lives of 8 peasants. Another 114 people paid for their disobedience. Shpitsruten, rods, links to hard labor, prison.

Nobody counted the number of cases in which the unrest had to be suppressed by troops, but we are talking about several hundred. Sometimes the appearance of the infantry company and the explanations of the officers were enough for the peasants to believe in the authenticity of the Manifesto and to calm down. For all the time, not a single soldier died - another confirmation that the people were angry not at the sovereign and not at the sovereign people in uniforms.

Fortunately, the story of the Abyss and Kandievka is an exception. In most cases, it was possible to pacify the people by persuasion, threats or small punishments. By the mid-1860s, the unrest had subsided. The peasants resigned themselves to their bitter lot.

The tragedy of the abolition of serfdom lies in the fact that this reform - undoubtedly the most difficult in the life of the great Alexander II - could not be quick and painless. Too deeply serfdom took root in the life of the people, too strongly determined all relations in society. The state relied on people, a significant part of whom were fed by the serf system, and could not take everything from them, but at the same time, it could not redeem the whole land from them.

To deprive the property of selfish nobles is death for the tsar and the state, but also to keep millions of people in slavery - too. The only possible solution, which Alexander took in this stalemate, was an attempt to carry out a compromise reform: to free the peasants, even if obliging them to pay a ransom (the ransom payments were canceled only in 1905). Yes, this decision turned out to be not the best one. As Nekrasov wrote, "one end for the master, the other for the peasant." But, one way or another, slavery was over.