The social structure of Russia at the beginning of the XX century

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

By the beginning of the XX century. the territory of Russia has grown to 22, 2 million sq. km. Administratively, the country was divided into 97 provinces, 10-15 counties each.

According to the census of 1897, the population of Russia was about 126 million people.

By 1913it increased to 165 million. The population of the country was divided into "natural inhabitants" and "foreigners" (51% of the population) (O. V. Kishenkova, E. S. Korolkova ) [Strange statement. According to the results of the same census, Russians in the empire numbered exactly 2/3, and Slavs - 3/4 of the total population. 16 years after the census, such significant changes ??? - Approx. ss69100.]

At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a transition from a traditional to an industrial society in Russia. As before, the basis of the social structure was made up of estates - closed groups of people endowed with certain rights and responsibilities, inherited (in Russia, the occupation was often hereditary).

The dominant class was nobility, constituting about 1% of the population The bulk of the nobility did not have large estates and states, either being in the civil or military service, or living on a salary.

Representatives of the creative intelligentsia, teachers, lawyers were mostly nobles. The nobility was divided into two categories: hereditary and personal. Hereditary was inherited, personal - not. Although the role of the nobility in economic life was declining, its role in politics remained leading.

The privileged estates also included honorary and distinguished citizens(hereditary and personal). These small estates included the "top" of the townspeople.

A special class was clergy … It consisted of ministers of the Russian Orthodox Church - black(monastic) and white(preaching to the world) clergy. The Church enjoyed an indisputable authority in matters of culture, education and upbringing. Although there were no banned religions in Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church enjoyed a privileged position.

Guild merchants(I, II, III guilds) numbered about 1.5 million people. Representatives of this class were large Russian businessmen and financiers Morozovs, Guchkovs, Mamontovs and others. Politically, the Russian merchants were deprived of rights, although they played a prominent role in the bodies of oral self-government - zemstvos and city councils.

A significant part of the urban population was philistines - shopkeepers, artisans, workers, office workers.

The rural estates included peasants, odnodvorets and Cossacks

Peasantry (about 82% of the population of Russia) was politically deprived of rights, at the same time being the main tax-paying estate.

Before the agrarian reform of 1906-1910. they could not freely dispose of their allotments and paid redemption payments, were subjected to corporal punishment (until 1905), they were not subject to a jury trial. Land scarcity forced peasants to lease land from landowners on an executive or shareholding basis.

The peasantry's initiative also fettered the community. Leaving the community was only possible with the permission of a secular gathering.

The bulk of the peasants were illiterate. Under the influence of the capitalist evolution of agriculture, the social stratification of the peasants accelerated: 3% became the rural bourgeoisie (kulaks), about 15% became wealthy (middle peasants).

They not only engaged in rural labor, but also became rich at the expense of usury and petty trade in the village. The rest were engaged in subsistence farming and served as a source of hired labor in the countryside (farm laborers) and cities.

Despite the difference in the position of the wealthy and the poor, all the peasants fought against landlordism. The agrarian-peasant question remained the most acute in the political life of the country.

The special military-service class was Cossacks … They were required to serve in the military for 20 years. The Cossacks had the right to land and preserved certain traditions of the Cossack circle. At the same time, many of the rights and "liberties" of the Cossacks were destroyed under Catherine II. The Cossacks made up special troops - Don, Kuban, Ural and others (give an example of the settlement of Kuytun by Cossacks).

One-courtiers (farmers) called the agricultural population of the western provinces, where there was no communal farming system (the Baltic states - farms).

It was practically impossible to "abolish" the estate in Russia in one fell swoop. However, at the beginning of the XX century. we also see the elements of the new Russia - the bourgeoisie, the working class (formed mainly from the peasants) and the intelligentsia.

Bourgeoisie gradually became a leading force in the country's economy. The Russian bourgeoisie was different from the Western European, which came to power as a result of bourgeois revolutions. In the political system of autocratic landlord Russia, the bourgeoisie played an insignificant role. She did not develop uniform political demands. The big bourgeoisie supported the autocracy, while the middle one put forward projects of moderate reforms.

Proletariat (to ask a question of erudition - the original meaning of the word "proletariat"), rapidly growing as a result of industrialization, by 1913 accounted for about 19% of the population. It was formed at the expense of people from the poorest strata of different classes (mainly bourgeois and peasants). Working and living conditions of workers differed significantly from Western European ones and were extremely difficult: the lowest wages (21-37 rubles), the longest working day (11-14 hours), poor living conditions.

The situation of the workers was affected by the absence of political freedoms. In fact, no one defended the economic interests of the workers, since before 1906 there were no trade unions, and political parties only used the labor movement for their own purposes. The cadre proletariat waged a stubborn struggle against capitalist exploitation and the autocratic system.

A special place in society was occupied by intelligentsiarecruited from various segments of the population. It was distinguished by: sacrifice and asceticism, the desire to serve their people, but at the same time isolation from the people and power; socially active role - its representatives formed the main political parties, developed ideological doctrines.

In the social structure of the population, according to L. V. Zhukova, five large categories can be distinguished:

1. The highest state-bureaucratic apparatus, generals, landowners, bankers, large and medium-sized businessmen, bishops of the church, academicians, professors and others - 3%;

2. Small businessmen, the main part of the civil and military intelligentsia, middle officials, engineers and technicians, teachers, doctors, officer corps, clergymen, small employees of state institutions, urban inhabitants, handicraftsmen, artisans and others - 8%;

3. Peasants, Cossacks - 69%, including the wealthy - 19%, the average - 25%, the poor - 25%;

4. Proletarian population: industrial, transport, agricultural and other workers, fishermen, hunters, servants and others - 19%;

5. Lumpen elements: beggars, vagabonds, criminals - about 1%.

The main factor that influenced the formation of the new social structure was the active capitalization of the country.

The formation of a new social structure also influenced cultural development. According to A. Golovatenko, yesterday's peasants moved from villages to cities, broke out of their familiar surroundings and mastered a new habitat. The everyday and cultural traditions that existed in this environment did not immediately become the property of the new townspeople.

The introduction of new values to people was much slower than the growth of cities. As a result, in the factory settlements and on the workers' outskirts of industrial centers, there was a concentration of people who were not confident in their future, did not value the past, and were vaguely guided by the present.

The layers compiled by such people are called marginal (from Lat. Marginalis - located on the edge). They were replenished not only in the course of urbanization, i.e., mass resettlement to cities, but also as a result of an increase at the end of the 19th century. social mobility (mobility), as a result of the fact that the walls and barriers that have existed for a long time between different groups and different classes have become surmountable, permeable.

Outcome

By the beginning of the 20th century, the following groups of social contradictions had developed in Russia:

nobility - bourgeoisie

nobility - peasantry

bourgeoisie - workers

power is the people

intelligentsia - people

intelligentsia - power

Plus, national problems had a great influence. The immaturity of the middle strata, the gap between the “top” and “bottom” led to an unstable, unstable state of Russian society.

Europe finally split into two hostile camps - the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy) and the Triple Accord (Entente).