Emancipation Of The Serfs Flashcards
When were privately owned serfs and state owned serfs affected by the emancipation edict?
Privately owned serfs- 1861-immediately
State owned serfs -1866
What were the conditions of the emancipation edict of 1861?
-serf were granted freedom and land allotment
-landlords were compensated by the government
-freed serfs had to pay redemption payments for over 49 years until then they wpuld remain in their Mir. The Mir would distribute allotments control the farming and collect and pay the peasants’ taxes.
-volosts were paid to supervise the mirs from 1863, the volosts ran their own courts.
In theory there was a two year temporary obligation before freedom was granted while allocations were granted. In practice, around 15% of serfs remained temporarily obligated to their landlords until 1881 when redemption was made compulsory.
What were the positive results of emancipation?
-Peasants were no longer subject to their masters’ whim and had free status.
-The prosperous kulaks did well out of their land allocations buying up extra land and exporting surplus grain.
-some peasants sold their land obtained a passport to leave the Mir and raised their living standard by finding work in the cities
-some landowners used the compensation offered to get out of debt
-enterprising landlords made profits through investment in industrial enterprises
What were the negative results of emancipation?
-land allocations were rarely fair
-since the land in each Mir had to be divided between all male peasants most peasant holdings grew increasingly smaller as the population grew
-The allotments were small allowing little opportunity to adopt new farming methods
-the Mir system was highly traditional-subsistence farming was used and technical backwardness persisted- in 1878 only 50 percent of the grain was able to be produced in surplus
-the loss of former benefits restrictions on travel and the burden of the redemption payments made rural life difficult
-resentment of kulaks and disputes over landholding and redemption payments led to further violence
-noble bankruptcies continued as landowners had to sell or mortgage their own allocated land
-landowners resented loss of influence. The newspaper ran articles about their disappointment and a wave of student protests and riots occurred in St Petersburg, Moscow and Kazan
