In closed societies, people’s economic, social and political personality is determined by their birth rather than their abilities and activities. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the validity of this view by critiquing the changes and modifications to political and economic standings of people in Tsarist Russia before, during and after the 1861 Emancipation Manifesto.
Russian Culture before the Emancipation Proposal
Russia’s history since the 16th Century involves of potentates who ruled through various alliances with nobles who controlled sub-units of the state and pledged allegiance to the monarch. The Russian nobility was made up of a number of serfdoms that included peasants who were required by law to serve their masters by paying taxes and providing a share of their taxes.
Serfdom allowed the Russian nobility to own the land and estates whilst serfs were required to work on estate they were born on. The laws, particularly the Code of Law of 1649 and laws in 1658 made it illegal for serfs to leave the estates. This meant that a serf had no option but to stay on the land he was born onto and develop it. Any attempt to move outside it was considered illegal and inappropriate.
Although the serfdom system did not give the landowners/nobles the right to own the peasants, it laid the foundation for a rigid control similar to slavery in the United States. The Code of Law therefore created an internal passport system which meant that every serf needed an authorization from his or her baron or landowner to move from one part of Russia to another. This became a source of revenue to the state because anyone who wanted to move from one place to another in Russia had to pay for it.
The monarchy also had regulations relating to taxes and forced conscriptions for the peasant class. This meant they had to pay taxes from their farms and they had to answer a call to join the military when there was a war. Taxes represented up to one-third of the harvests of peasants whilst rent to the nobility represented up to another third of the harvests or labor of these peasants. Thus, a peasant could end the year with just a third of his labor.
The nobility were banned from selling their serfs since slavery was abolished in 1679 by Peter the Great. However, in theory, a baron could just sell an estate to another baron and thereby transfer a tenant to another landowner. This was therefore a form of slavery disguised as serfdom.
The serfs often paid a share of their harvests to the landowner or provided obligatory work to the piece of land exclusively owned by the landowner. This labor helped to cultivate land that was harvested by the landowner for his own benefit. Also, most marriages were to be done within the same estate. In a situation where a person married into another estate, there were many verification rules that had to be met.
Work on the serf farms were divided on family basis. The father had to work on farm with assistance from his wife and children whilst the wife was to keep the home and ensure the family had a high quality of life. The man was to sow the plants and his wife was to harvest it.
Culture of Russia during the 1861 Transition
Unlike other major nations of the 1800s, Russia was mainly an agrarian nation and industrialization was not grounded in the empire. The traditional system of serfdom which existed 200 years earlier was the dominant system of ensuring agricultural productivity which was the sole preoccupation of the vast majority of Russians.
In 1861, Russia’s government and economy needed agrarian labor to survive. Therefore, the productivity of the peasants was always considered to be vital and important to Russia. Peasants were in two main categories before 1861 – peasants on state owned lands and peasants on lands of private landowners. The peasants on state-owned land were required to pay taxes directly to the government. However, those on private lands were considered serfs because they had to pay rent to the landowners and the government at the same time. These serfs lived in rural communities organized as communes across an area of about 10 kilometers square. Within each commune, there were several villages which included households and was organized around a church or synagogue in the center of the village.
In 1848, the growth of enlightenment and industrialization in Western Europe led to uprisings and demands for democracy. Tsar Alexander (1855 – 1881) sought to dismantle the system of serfdom from the top before the peasants commenced an uprising from below. Thus, the main motive for the abolition of serfdom was to free people and prepare for the industrialization and mass education that was anticipated in the mid-1800s. Thus, the idea was to provide a law that will free all serfs and make them full and equal citizens of Russia.
Outcomes of the 1861 Emancipation Reforms
The immediate impact of the law was to distribute land to the peasants and enable them to undertake agriculture and keep their earnings without paying taxes to the nobles. Thus, the serfs were able to have full control over their output and did not have to live within the rules of the landowners. This came by allowing peasants to buy part of the land they cultivated or own half of the output if they could not pay it off. The money was used to compensate the landowning class. Those with huge debts to the government had to work to pay off the debt, and this repayment went to the landowners. Thus, they paid off the landowners and gained their right to control their farms directly without limits from owners.
There were some peasants who became landless or were given less land than they needed to survive. This were usually the lowest of the serfs. However, the intention was to enable them to get the right to produce for themselves by themselves. Rather than produce to enrich the ruling elite.
The short-term impact was to boost agriculture because the former serfs were working hard and they were motivated to work harder since they got more from their effort. On the other hand, the compensation given to the landowning class led to investments and the formation of factories in cities. A new middle class was formed by the supervisors of the communes and they were able to provide managerial services in the factories in cities in the new industrialized Russia.
In spite of these benefits, there were some problems like the poor distribution of lands and exclusion of the poorest serfs in landowning so they remained serfs in theory. The landowning class only took their compensation and moved to form factories that employed serfs on them under equally bad conditions and sold products for huge profits. So in the opened society after the emancipation, there were still social and economic immobility issues.
Conclusion
The research proves that Russia was a closed society before 1861 because people’s economic, social and political identity were defined by their birth. A person born into a serf class had to stay within it and the law on taxation, internal passports and military service ensured this immobility. The Emancipation Reform of 1861 moved Russia closer to meritocracy by abolishing serfdom and promoting land ownership of peasants and control over the sale of their harvests. However, the emancipation failed to perfectly create an open society. Russia’s elites moved to cities, established factories and used laws to enslave the peasant class who moved to cities. This laid the foundation for the Communist Revolution 55 years later.
Works Cited
Moon, David. The Russian Peasantry 1600-1930: The World the Peasants Made. New York: Routledge, 2014. Print.
Purlevskii, Savva Dmitrievich and Boris B. Gorshkov. A Life Under Russian Serfdom: The Memoirs of Savva Dmitrievich Purlevskii. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2014. Print.
Suny, Ronald Grigor. The Making of the Georgian Nation. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994. Print.
