serf reform Belarusian province
In Belarus, the reform was carried out on the basis of “ General position» and two local provisions. The Mogilev and eight districts of the Vitebsk province were covered by the "Local Regulations for the Great Russian, Novorossiysk and Belarusian provinces." In these provinces, where communal land tenure dominated, the highest allotment ranged from 4 to 5.5 dessiatins. The lowest was about three times smaller and ranged from 1 des. 800 sq. sazhens up to 1 dess. 200 sq. fathoms per man's soul. If the pre-reform allotment exceeded the highest one established by the "Regulations ...", then the landowner had the right to cut off the excess in his favor. By the way, cuts in the Mogilev and Vitebsk provinces have become common - in some districts, as a result of the reform, the peasants lost from 25 to 40% of the land. For the use of the land, as already mentioned, they were obliged to perform duties in favor of the landowner. For the highest shower allotment, a corvée was established at 40 men's and 30 women's days or quitrent in the amount of 8 rubles. in year. In addition, construction, underwater, natural and other duties were introduced. With the aim of unconditional fulfillment of duties by the peasants in the communities, mutual responsibility was introduced.
In the districts of Minsk, Grodno, Vilna and four districts of the Vitebsk province, the land management of the peasants was carried out according to a special local situation. Taking into account that household land use existed in these counties, the norms of allotments were not determined here. The peasants retained household and field plots, which they used until 1861. Cuts were allowed only in cases where the size of the peasant plot exceeded the established inventory or if the landowner had less than 1/3 of the convenient land after the reform. However, the landlords were obliged to pay the peasants for the buildings located on the cut off land, and to give them monetary compensation in the amount of a two-year quitrent from the cut off land. The peasant allotment could not be reduced by more than 1/6. At the same time, the landowner, making cuts, could take the best lands, pastures, watering places, etc. from the peasants. An article was distributed throughout Belarus, according to which the landowner's forests remain at the disposal of the landowner. The local situation did not affect the servitude law either, which was used by the latter to deprive the peasants of pastures.
Duties in the Minsk, Grodno and Vilna provinces were determined depending on the size of the allotment, but should not exceed the inventory norm. For dues, a maximum of no more than three rubles per tithe was set, for corvee - no more than 23 days a year. A year after the publication of the manifesto, peasants who did not have debts could demand a transfer from corvée to quitrent. Each peasant was responsible to the landowner for the performance of duties. Mutual guarantee was established only for the implementation of state taxes and poll tax.
Peasants could buy their land allotment only by concluding a redemption deal. With the transition of the peasants to the ransom, the temporarily obligated state ceased and they were included in the category of peasant owners. If the peasants agreed to take 1/4 of the established allotment, then the land was allocated to them free of charge. Thus, the peasants were encouraged to take meager allotments.
A peasant could redeem a household plot at any time, regardless of the desire of the landowner, and a field allotment - only with his consent. Taking advantage of this, one, most of the landowners did not agree to the ransom peasant allotments trying to prolong the temporarily obligated condition of the peasants. The second part, on the contrary, forced the peasants to enter into a redemption deal in order to quickly receive funds for the transition to capitalist farming. Only in 1881 was a law issued according to which all temporarily liable peasants had to switch to compulsory redemption before January 1, 1883.
The rules for the redemption of a field allotment were the same for all provinces of Russia. The redemption amount that the peasants had to pay for the allotment was determined by capitalizing the quitrent converted into money from the tithe at the rate of 6% per annum. The landowner could deposit the ransom sum in the bank and receive in the form of 6% of the capital the same profit that was equal to the annual rent. Thus, with an overestimation of the redeemed allotments, the peasants had not only to pay for the land, but also to redeem their dues.
The landowners were interested in receiving the ransom immediately. Since the peasants did not have such a sum of money, the state acted as an intermediary between the landlords and the peasants. When redeeming a full allotment, the peasants had to pay 1/5 of the redemption amount, and an incomplete one - 1/4. The rest of the landlords received from the state in the form of securities that they could sell or pledge. As a result of this operation, the peasants became debtors to the state and had to pay her the so-called redemption payments for 49 years. The composition of the annual redemption payments also included the interest that the state took for the deferment given to the peasants.
Yard people were freed from agrarian dependence two years after the February 19 Manifesto. They received neither a house nor a plot of land.
Rural and volost authorities were formed to lead the peasants. Peasants who lived on the land of one landowner and constituted a rural community, on general meeting elected the headman, the tax collector and other officials. Several rural communities formed a volost. At the volost meeting, the board headed by the chairman and the volost court were elected. Rural and volost boards led the collection of donors, announced state laws to the peasants, and monitored public order. For the practical implementation of the reforms of 1861
special local bodies were formed - peace mediators, county world congresses and provincial presences for peasant affairs.
The promulgation of the reform caused an upsurge in the peasant movement and showed that the peasants were dissatisfied with the freedom "granted" to them. They did not obey the orders of the local authorities, refused to serve the corvee and perform other duties. The peasants waged a stubborn struggle against the drafting of statutory charters (acts that determined land relations and the duties of the peasants in favor of the landowner). The charters were supposed to be introduced before February 19, 1863, but the resistance of the peasants disrupted the scheduled dates and their introduction was completed only by May 1864. At the same time, more than 78% of the charters were never signed by the peasants. The peasant movement acquired a particularly wide scope in the Grodno and Minsk provinces. In total, in Belarus in 1862 there were more than 150 peasant uprisings, more than half of them in connection with the introduction of statutory charters.
At the beginning of 1863, the peasant movement grew stronger. The peasants hoped to get a real will in connection with their transfer to the state of temporarily liable. The intensification of the peasant struggle in Belarus coincided with the national liberation uprising that engulfed part of Belarus and Lithuania. It was headed by the revolutionary democrat Kastus Kalinovsky (1838-1864).
The rise of the peasant movement in Belarus forced the government to make significant concessions to the peasants of the western provinces. By decree of March 1, 1863, the temporarily obligated position of the peasants of Minsk, Vilna, Grodno and partially Vitebsk provinces was canceled from May 1. As a result, they were transferred for ransom and became owners of their allotments. On November 21, 1863, this decree was extended to the rest of the counties of the Vitebsk and Mogilev provinces, where temporarily liable relations ceased from January 1, 1864. In addition, redemption payments were reduced. Compared to those indicated in the statutory letters, they were reduced in
Minsk province by 75.4%, in Grodno province - by 68.8%, in Vilna province - by 64.9% and in Mogilev province - by 23.8%.
On April 9, 1863, commissions were created that were supposed to check the size of peasant allotments and draw up redemption acts within two years. Peasants who were deprived of land after the inventory was compiled were given three acres of land per family, while those who were deprived of land after 1857 were given a full allotment of land.
The landowners of Belarus were dissatisfied with the activities of the inspection commissions, therefore, after the suppression of peasant uprisings, the work of the commissions began to be reviewed, taking into account the complaints of the landowners. Soon they were completely liquidated, and the completion of redemption operations was entrusted to the county world congresses.
The political events of 1863 made it necessary to revise the land management of the state peasants, who accounted for about 20% of the rural population of Belarus. The conditions for the liberation of the state peasants from feudal dependence were more favorable than those of the landlords. In accordance with the law of May 16, 1867, they were immediately transferred from rent to redemption and became owners of land plots, but redemption was not mandatory for them. The state peasants basically retained their allotments, which turned out to be higher than those of the landlords. Peasants had to pay quitrent tax to the state for the use of land.
In 1865, the agrarian reform also ended in the specific (palace) farms, which had begun as early as 1858. All peasants were transferred for redemption, but in fact they were obliged to pay the same dues in the form of redemption payments for 49 years as before.
By the end of the 80s. 19th century the government adopted a number of laws and decrees that determined the conditions for land use and the transition to the redemption of other, relatively few categories of the rural population (chinsheviks, odnodvortsy, old believers, etc.). While retaining significant feudal remnants, these laws nevertheless contributed to the development of the capitalist system in the Belarusian countryside, the merging of individual groups of the rural population with the bulk of the peasants.
Thus, the reform in Belarus and Lithuania was carried out on more favorable terms for the peasants. The average size of the allotments of the former landowning peasants of Belarus turned out to be higher than in Russia as a whole (4.2-5.7 dess in Belarus, 3.3 dess in Russia). In addition, for the period of the temporarily obligated state, Belarusian, as well as Lithuanian peasants, were reduced duties. However, these concessions of the autocracy did not eliminate the peasant lack of land. The landowners held in their hands more than half of the best land. At the same time, about 40% of the former landlord peasants received allotments insufficient for independent farming. If one large landowner's farm accounted for an average of 2915 dess. land, then for one peasant - about 12.
Thus, the main serf remnant in the economy after the reform was landownership. Servitudes and stripes were also preserved, in the eastern part of Belarus communal land use was not eliminated: 86% of all peasant households in Mogilev and 46% of Vitebsk provinces were part of communities that bound the peasants with mutual responsibility and attached them both to the land and to the landowner. Even the low redemption payments were beyond the power of the peasants.
At the same time, the reform was a turning point in the historical development of all of Russia, including Belarus. The peasants received personal and property rights, class self-government. The landlords' monopoly on the exploitation of peasant labor was abolished, which contributed to the growth of the labor market in industry and agriculture. The productive forces began to develop much faster, and the conditions for the establishment of the capitalist mode of production were in place.
The peasants of Belarus and Lithuania were in an extremely difficult situation. They were burdened with corvée and various in-kind duties, they had to go out to the whole village on the call of the landowner for additional agricultural work (cleaning works), guard his estate in turn, fix roads, bridges, dams, give carts for sending landowner goods to the city, pay the landowner dues in kind and money, to work at patrimonial manufactories. Peasants were sold wholesale and retail locally or for export to other provinces; Russian landowners transferred Belarusian peasants to their estates in remote provinces, excess labor force leased to contractors. The decomposition of the serf economy was accompanied by the growth of peasant unrest and escapes. The murders of landowners and managers, the burning of houses were a common form of peasant protest against the exploitation of the landlords. During the invasion of Napoleon, the peasants refused to work for the landlords and went to the forests with all their belongings, families and livestock. To pacify the peasants, Napoleon - the defender of local landowners and serfdom - sent his troops. The peasants waged a guerrilla war against Napoleon.
Famine of 1820-1821 further intensified the class struggle. In 1822, unrest of the peasants arose in the Vitebsk and Mogilev provinces. In their complaints to the provincial administration or directly to the emperor, through special elected peasants, they expressed their desire to become “state-owned” and asked to stop the abuses of police officials. In many estates, in particular in the Dinaburg state estate (starostvo), the peasants were brought into obedience military force.
In the second quarter of the XIX century. the position of the Belarusian peasantry in connection with the growth of serf oppression worsened even more. From 1812 to 1835 the poll tax in Belorussia doubled. Arrears accumulated on the ruined and impoverished serf peasantry. The government demanded payment of arrears from the landowner, who, in turn, put even more pressure on the peasants. The situation of the peasants in the Polish estates was especially difficult, where national and religious oppression also joined the increased feudal serf oppression. On most estates, peasants ate "bread" made from grass and linden leaves, at best bread with chaff. It happened that the peasants served the panshchina (corvée) throughout the week, and worked for themselves at night. If the men were given to the landowners for hire, women had to go out to the panshchina; they performed heavy men's work - they plowed and harrowed the pan's land. Monthly peasants transferred to the yard were exhausted by work and received a beggarly content. Often the landowners in Belorussia and Lithuania rented out their estates, and the tenants rapaciously exploited the peasants; there was nowhere to complain about them and no one. Even the Minsk governor secretly wrote to the Minister of the Interior in 1841 that the causes of peasant unrest were "cruelty, excessive severity, frequent injustice and excessive demands of owners, tenants, administrators, attorneys, and housekeepers."
In the second quarter of the XIX century. in Belarus and Lithuania, as in Russia, the spontaneous peasant movement against serfdom intensified. In connection with the uprising in Poland 1830-1831. rumors began to circulate about the "will". The most significant were the unrest of the peasants in the Vitebsk province. In 1836, a peasant movement began in the Lucin Starostvo, transferred back in 1778 to Countess Borch. It included 11 thousand peasants, whose situation was very difficult. During the three lean years (1832-1834) the peasants were starving. They filed a complaint with the provincial administration about their plight, but the commission organized by the government did not change the situation of the peasants for the better. An official sent by the government to investigate the case reported that the peasants “were annually sent to work in other provinces in the amount of 300 to 700 people. When they returned home, they did not know what wages they were working for. They heard that their earnings are credited to them in their debt. The peasants demanded a change of foremen, they elected their own administration - the elders, sots, tenths. The persuasion of the police and the local priest did not yield any results. A battalion of soldiers was sent to bring the peasants into obedience, but military pacification did not completely break the resistance of the peasants: in 1840, the peasants again refused to obey the landowner, drove out the entire administration and the police, and organized the management of the estate themselves. Troops were sent again, and the unarmed peasants were subdued by the soldiers.
Rumors about a peasant movement in Galicia in 1846 stimulated the struggle of the peasants in the estates of the Grodno, Vilna and Kovno provinces, and especially in the Bialystok region, the unrest was stopped by military force. Especially significant in size was the peasant movement in the Vitebsk province in 1847, associated with the departure of peasants to build the Moscow-Petersburg railway.
The school reform of 1864 democratized and expanded the scope of primary and secondary education. However, its results were less significant in Belarus than in the central provinces of Russia. After the suppression of the uprising in 1863, the Gori - Gorki Agricultural Institute, Molodechno, Novogrudok, Svisloch gymnasiums, as well as all schools in Polish were closed. In Belarus, there were special “Temporary rules for public schools” developed by N. Muravyov and approved by the tsar in May 1864. According to them, elementary schools were placed under the control of the Orthodox clergy, officials and the police. The law of God, spiritual singing, the Church Slavonic language, Russian grammar and arithmetic - this limited the range of subjects studied in them. From the standpoint of the ideology of autocracy, Orthodoxy and nationality, the history of the native land was studied.
Meager funds were allocated for the maintenance of schools. The development of schools was slow, with great difficulty. In 1868 there were 1391 educational institutions in Belarus, including 1249 primary schools. One school accounted for 8 - 12 villages. There were not enough teachers. Priests, psalmists, and scribes often worked as teachers. To rectify the situation in Molodechno, Nesvizh, Polotsk and Svisloch teachers' seminaries were opened. But this did not solve the problem, since all the seminaries produced only about a hundred people a year. In 1884, a regulation on parochial schools was issued, according to which the elementary public schools, established by the reform of 1864, were closed. Their place was occupied by parochial schools, which were under the jurisdiction of the Synod and managed by the local clergy.
Secondary education also developed slowly. In 1868, there were eighteen secondary educational institutions in Belarus: six male and four female gymnasiums, two pro-gymnasiums, four theological seminaries, a cadet corps in Polotsk and an Agricultural College. Total in average educational institutions 3265 people were trained. The existing system of education did not provide the necessary general educational level. In 1897, only 25.7% of all residents of Belarus were literate.
The press was under special control. In 1869, internal and external censorship was established in Vilna. The official government press was represented by the newspapers Gubernskie Vedomosti and Diocesan Vedomosti, Vilensky Vestnik, and the journal Vestnik Western Russia. In 1886, the first independent newspaper "Minskiy Listok" appeared in Belarus. published under the name "North-Western Territory". It published materials on folklore, ethnography, the history of Belarus by M. Dovnar-Zapolsky, N. Yanchuk, A. Bogdanovich and others, poems by poets Y. Luchina, K. Kagants and others. not a single Belarusian work of art appeared in the press. A number of works were published in the Belarusian language abroad. In 1881, the pamphlet "On Wealth and Poverty" was printed in Geneva. In 1892, the pamphlet Uncle Anton, or a Conversation about everything that hurts, and why it hurts, we don’t know, was published in Tilsit. In 1903, three pamphlets were published in London: "A Conversation about Where the Peasants' Money Goes", "Who is the Truthful Friend of the Poor People", "How to Make the World Feel Good". All of them were addressed to the Belarusian peasant and convinced him of the anti-people character of the autocracy, called for struggle.
A new revival in the development of Belarusian literature began in the late 1980s. with the advent of democratic writers - F. Bogushevich (1840 - 1900), J. Luchina (1851 - 1897), A. Gurinovich (1869 - 1894), A. Obukhovich (1840 - 1898). ) and others. The main themes of their works were: protection of the interests of the rural poor, the right of the Belarusian people to independent historical and cultural development, protection of the Belarusian language. F. Bogushevich was the first national Belarusian poet. Under the conditions of tsarism, he could not publish his works in Russia. Therefore, he published the first collection of poems "Belarusian Dudka" in 1891 in Krakow, the second collection - "Belarusian Smyk" - in 1894 in Poznan. Only six years after the death of Y. Luchina, a circle of Belarusian students in St. Petersburg published his collection Vyazynka (1903). literary works A. Gurinovich were also published after his death.
In the second half of the XIX century. fine arts became more realistic, closer to the people. In Belarusian painting, the historical genre comes to the fore. Its most prominent representative was K. Alkhimovich (1840 - 1916). He created the canvases "Gedymin's Funeral", "Glinsky's Death in Prison", "Death in Exile". The master of everyday genre N. Selivanovich (1830 - 1918) painted the paintings "Children in the Yard", "To School", "The Old Shepherd". He took part in the creation of the mosaic panel "The Last Supper" for St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. The paintings of the landscape painter A. Gorovsky "Evening in the Minsk Province", "At Home", "The Berezina River" and others became famous. Portrait painting was represented by artists B. Rusetsky, A. Romer, R. Slizen and others.
The theatrical art of the Russian, Ukrainian and Polish peoples had a great influence on the development of Belarusian culture. Famous masters of the Russian stage M. Savina, V. Davydov, A. Yuzhin and others, performers - singers L. Sobinov, F. Chaliapin, pianists and composers S. Rakhmaninov, L. Skryabin and others toured in the cities of Belarus. a permanent professional theater was opened in Minsk, as well as the "Society of Fine Arts Lovers". Great importance acquired the activities of musical societies. They organized public concerts and musical evenings, lectures on the life and work of famous composers and performers, opened music schools and libraries.
In the second half of the XIX century. there have been noticeable changes in the architecture of Belarus. With the growth of cities, their improvement went on, the construction of water pipes, electric lighting was installed. In the central parts of the cities, new squares and boulevards appeared, and brick multi-storey buildings were erected. However, the bulk civil buildings characterized by one-story wooden buildings. Before late XIX in. eclecticism of gothic, baroque, classicism and pseudo-Russian style dominated in Belarusian architecture. Typically, banks and educational institutions were decorated under classicism, theaters - under the baroque, churches - in the neo-Gothic style, Orthodox churches- in pseudo-Byzantine or pseudo-Russian styles. These are the main directions of development of Belarusian culture in the second half of the 19th century.
Thus, the period of entry of Belarus into the Russian Empire is characterized by qualitative changes in the political and socio-economic spheres of the life of the Belarusian people, the further development of their spiritual, ethnic and national self-consciousness, the maturation of the necessary prerequisites for their own national statehood.
47. Hramadska-Palytychny Rukh in Belarus ў another half of the XIX century - a patch of the XX century. Socio-political movement in the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries. The suppression of the uprising of 1863, the repressions that followed against its participants, and the actual prohibition of the white press delayed the development of the national movement for a long time. It revived again only at the end of the 70s, when a new, populist generation entered the struggle. It was headed by raznochintsy populists, supporters of the theory of peasant socialism developed by Herzen and N. Chernyshevsky. The populism of Belarus, ideologically and organizationally, was part of the all-Russian movement. Famous representatives of this movement were the natives of Belarus M. Sudzilovsky, A. Bonch-Osmolovsky, the future regicide I. Grinevitsky and others. fraternities and illegal groups of white students existed in many higher educational institutions in Russia. Members of these organizations were often leaders of populist circles in Minsk, Mogilev, Grodno, Pinsk, Slutsk and other cities. Ideologically and organizationally, they were connected with the "Earth and Freedom", created in St. Petersburg in 1876. After its split in 1879, the majority of white circles supported the supporters of the "Black Redistribution". Its leader G. Plekhanov visited Belarus twice. In Minsk in 1881, three issues of the newspaper Cherny Peredel and a newspaper for workers, Zerno, were published. After the collapse of the "Black Repartition" in 1882, the Bel Narodniks switched to the positions of the "Narodnaya Volya". The "Narodnaya Volya" tried to unite into a single regional North-Western organization "Narodnaya Volya", but at the end of 1882, arrests led to its collapse. In the early 80s. St. Petersburg was the center of the Bel Narodniks. Bel fraternity at St. Petersburg University in 1881. addressed with an appeal "To the white youth", "Letter about Belarus", "To the white intelligentsia", "Message to fellow Belarusians". In early 1884, the initiative to unite all populist circles into a single organization was made by the Gaumont group, which was led by A. Marchenko and H. Ratner. 2 issues of the newspaper "Gomon" were published, which promoted the ideas of the regional autonomy of Belarus in federal republican Russia. The "Gomonovites" for the first time declared the existence of a white nation, defended its rights to national independence. However, the Gomonists could not create a single organization in Belarus, which is explained by the repressions of the authorities and the crisis of populism, which left the historical arena and gave way to Marxism.
In subsequent years, populism acquired a liberal character. Abandoning the revolutionary struggle against the government, the liberal populists focused on strengthening peasant land ownership, hoping to delay the process of dispossession of the peasants. They proposed strengthening communal land tenure, giving the peasants preferential loans, developing peasant crafts, and so on.
The development of capitalism led to the formation of significant cadres of the working class of Belarus. Due to the presence of many small enterprises here, the situation of the working class of Belarus was more difficult than in Russia. 13 - 14-hour working day, low wages, fines, lack of insurance and pensions pushed the workers to various forms of struggle. At first it was an escape, and in the 70s. The main form of social protest is the strike. In the 70s - the first half of the 80s, 23 strikes took place. Adopted in the 80s - 90s. legislation on limiting the use of child and female labor, the size of the fine, the length of the working day, the introduction of factory inspection did not significantly affect the position of the workers of Belarus, because its scope was limited to only a part of industrial enterprises.
In the 1980s circles began to be created among workers, where the works of K. Marx and F. Engels were studied. The first circle was created in Minsk by student E. Abramovich. In the summer of 1885, 130 workers were involved in Marxist circles. Qualitatively new stage in the spread of Marxism is associated with the emergence of the Emancipation of Labor group, which arose in 1883 in Geneva. labor movement Belarus merges with the all-Russian social democratic movement. The members of the group were natives of Belarus Getsev, Gurinovich, Levkov, Trusov and others. The Social Democratic movement in Belarus was influenced by the “Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class” created in 1895 in St. Petersburg. Its members were natives of Belarus: Lepeshinsky, Levashkevich, Maksimov, and others. In September 1895, V.I. came to Vilna for negotiations with local Social Democrats. Lenin. In the second half of the 90s. social democratic organizations operated in Minsk, Gomel, Vitebsk, Smorgon, Oshmyany, Brest-Litovsk, Grodno, and Pinsk. Members of social-democratic organizations carried out political agitation among the workers, distributed leaflets and revolutionary liter, and led the strike struggle of the workers. The activation of the revolutionary movement, the quantitative growth of social democratic organizations made it urgent to create a single all-Russian organization. In March 1898, the First Congress of the Social Democratic Organizations of Russia was held in Minsk, and the creation of the Russian Social Democratic Organization was proclaimed. workers' party(RSDLP). In the labor and social democratic movement of Belarus in the late 90s. its own specific features appeared: the desire of Jewish, Lithuanian and Polish social democrats to create workers' organizations on a national basis. The social democratic organizations of the Kingdom of Poland (in 1900 the social democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania), the General Jewish Union in Lithuania, Poland, Russia (Bund) were created.
B-48. Revolution 1905-1907 and its events on the territory of Belarus. At the beginning of the 20th century the global economic crisis began, which also affected Belarus. In 1900-1903. 532 factories and factories closed. The light industry suffered the most. The crisis also manifested itself in agriculture, and if bourgeois forms of land use developed, then peasant farms were in crisis due to lack of land. The economic situation worsened in connection with the defeat of tsarism in Russo-Japanese War 1903-1904 That. the unresolved agrarian question, the economic crisis and the defeat in the war became the causes of the First Russian Revolution. The beginning of the revolution is considered to be January 9, 1905 (“Bloody Sunday”) in St. Petersburg, when government troops shot down a demonstration of workers, as it is believed, organized by the priest of the St. Petersburg transit prison, Georgy Gapon. In the cities of Belarus there were 30 demonstrations of solidarity with the events of January 9, 1905. The second upsurge of the revolution is connected with the demonstrations of May 1 (a wave of demonstrations and strikes). October 17, 1905 Nicholas II issued a Manifesto - promised democratic freedoms and convene the Duma with legislative powers. The peak of the revolution is the General October political strike and the December armed uprising in Moscow. On October 18, a rally was shot in Minsk. The strike in Moscow was also supported in the largest Belarusian cities, but the uprising did not go beyond the borders of Moscow. In 1906 elections were held in State Duma(36 delegates from Belarus, including 13 peasants). The first thought is the Kadet one. Its position on the land question was too radical for tsarism, and in July 1906 the First Duma was dissolved. Then the elections to the Second Duma. The significance of the revolution: 1) Russia from an unlimited monarchy became a limited one;
2) redemption payments for land for peasants, which they had been paying since 1861, were abolished. The events of the revolutions showed the need for agrarian reforms. The Stolypin reform was carried out in several directions: 1) the destruction of the peasant community and the formation of a class of peasant owners interested in increasing agricultural production. The legal basis for the reforms was the decree of November 9, 1906, and the law of June 14, 1910. Every peasant could leave the community at any time and become the owner of the land he received. A system of farms and cuts was formed. The Peasant Bank carried out lending at preferential%; 2) the state supported the relocation of peasants to the sparsely populated regions of Russia - Siberia, Kazakhstan, the Volga region, the Far East.
49. Belarus during the First World War. The war was caused by the aggravation of contradictions between the major European states. Two opposing blocs formed on this continent: the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy) and the Triple Entente (England, Russia and France), which competed for the expansion of spheres of influence, colonies, sources of raw materials and markets for goods. The Triple Alliance acted as the direct initiator of hostilities. The war began on July 19 (August 1), 1914, 38 countries with a population of 1.5 billion people were involved in it. The first days of the war for Russia passed without much shock, as Germany dealt its main blow to Belgium and France. At the request of the allies, Russia was forced to begin active hostilities earlier than a certain date in order to provide assistance to France. The Russian armies launched an invasion of East Prussia, carried out a successful operation to capture Galicia, which was integral part Austria-Hungary. The East Prussian operation ended in disaster for Russia, and in Galicia it also failed to achieve its goals. These failures are explained by Russia's poor preparedness for war: the lack of equipment, weapons, ammunition, ammunition, the incompetence of the highest command staff.
Germany changed its strategic plans and decided in 1915. inflict a decisive blow on Russia, which she managed to accomplish to some extent. By August 1915 German troops came close to the territory of Belarus and began its occupation. In September-October, as a result of unsuccessful battles for Russia (the Sventsyansky breakthrough stands out among them, which created a direct threat to the capture of Minsk), a significant part of Belarus was occupied. The counteroffensive of the Russian troops pushed the German troops back to the area of the Svir and Naroch lakes, and the resulting breakthrough was closed. The German-Russian front stabilized along the Dvinsk-Postavy-Smorgon-Baranovichi-Pinsk line. The Germans captured almost half of the territory of Belarus, and this situation continued until the beginning of 1918, since offensive operations Russians in March, June-July 1916. in the areas of Lake Naroch and Baranovichi were unsuccessful. The population suffered greatly from the hostilities. Cruelly pedantic German control permeated all spheres of life in the occupied territories. Authorized and unauthorized requisitions, monetary and food indemnities began. A well-functioning system of taxes, fines, forced labor was introduced. Material values were exported from the region: food, livestock, timber, industrial equipment. Any attempt at resistance was mercilessly punished, up to and including the death penalty. The German authorities had a program of colonization and Germanization of Belarus. The Belarusian population performed state and military duties: repaired and built roads and bridges, erected defensive structures, and was involved in harvesting. In these extremely difficult conditions, neither the peasants nor the workers could resort to adequate measures to defend their rights. It has already been noted that the territory of Belarus was under martial law, in which any attempts to protest were mercilessly and quickly punished. Huge military forces were concentrated here, which for the time being were the faithful support of the tsarist regime. The few strikes were of an economic nature and were local demonstrations. The peasant movement was also at a low level, which reflected the realities of wartime: the peasants refused to perform military duties, evaded forced labor, and resisted requisitions. The militaristic frenzy of the masses quickly passed, anti-war sentiments engulfed new sections of the population and territories. They also penetrated the army, where the soldiers saw with their own eyes the horrors of the extermination of millions of people, were convinced of the mediocrity and venality of a significant part of the officer and general corps. Desertion became widespread: by March 1917, more than 13,000 soldiers had deserted from the Western Front. Already in 1915, soldiers' unrest was noted (according to intelligence reports, in the first year of the war, up to 50% of the soldiers expressed dissatisfaction with the existing order), in the future, the number of dissatisfied increased. There were cases of refusal to carry out the order to go on the offensive, fraternization with German soldiers. In October 1916 an uprising of soldiers and sailors broke out at the distribution point in Gomel, in which several thousand people took part. The rebels used weapons against the punishers. The speeches of the dissatisfied were severely punished, the courts-martial were working in full force, for which death sentences were common. 03/03/1918 - Brest peace treaty.
Thus the first World War exacerbated all the contradictions in the country, led to an acute economic and political crisis. The revolution became inevitable.
In June 1807, in Telsit between the Russian Tsar Alexander and Napoleon, peace was concluded between France and Russia. According to which Napoleon became emperor and agreed to the participation of Russia in the blockade against England. In order to gain support from the Polish landowners, on the eve of the war, Napoleon promised to renew the Republic of Poland within the boundaries of 1772. Therefore, a significant part of the gentry went over to the side of Napoleon. In the second half of 1810. the Russian government began to prepare for war. It was obvious that Belarus and Lithuania would be the arena of the battle. all military forces were concentrated here. And at the beginning of 1811, up to 100 tons of troops were concentrated on the territory of Belarus and Lithuania. On the night of June 12, 1812, Napoleon's 600,000-strong army crossed the Neman along which the border between Russia and Prussia passed. 3 armies were concentrated on the border of Lithuania and Belarus and Northern Ukraine: I-I Western (120t.), I-I Western (50t.), 3rd Western (44t.). A reserve corps of General Artel (37 tons) was placed on the territory of Belarus. According to the first plan, the Russian troops were divided into 2 parts. But this was not correct. Therefore, Napoleon wedged between the 2 armies and wanted to break them apart. On June 16, Napoleon occupied Vilnius. On June 7-28, a battle took place near the town of Mir, there were battles near the villages of Ostrovna and Komarin, as well as battles near Polotsk. June 28, 1812 Napoleon occupied Vilna. On July 9-10, the battle near Mir took place. On July 22, the battle near Mogilev near the village of Soltanovka. In July 1812, most of Belarus was occupied by Napoleon's troops. On July 1, 1812, a commission for the provisional administration of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was established in Vilna: the collection of taxes, the organization of the armed forces, the formation of gendarmerie. Thus, local and French administrations operated on the territory of Belarus. The French army on August 26, 1812 was repulsed by Russian troops near the village of Borodino. On October 23, Polotsk was liberated, the French army lost 8 thousand people. On October 26, Vitebsk was taken, on November 14, Napoleon came to the Berezina. From November 15-16 - French crossing 20t. The French died on the Berezina. On November 22, the last organized French detachment was defeated near Molodechno. From Smorgon, Napoleon fled to Paris. The war of 1812 brought losses. Belarus Lost 1 million inhabitants. Vitebsk, Polotsk, Minsk and others were looted and burned. On December 12, Alexander I signed a manifesto proclaiming the oblivion of the past, universal forgiveness.
25. Agriculture and the situation of the peasants in the first half of the 19th century.
In the first half of the 19th century, processes common to the Russian Empire took place in Belarus, which led to the disintegration of the feudal-serf system, to the emergence of new capitalist relations. This is evidenced by the development of industry, the growth of cities and trade.
New phenomena associated with the development of capitalist relations also appeared in agriculture, which was increasingly connected with the market. With the increase in demand for bread on the domestic and foreign markets, the marketability of the landowners grew. The landlords expanded the plowing of new areas, including at the expense of peasant lands. In the 1930s and 1940s, 80% of their income came from the sale of agricultural products, mainly grain, vodka, and alcohol.
Adapting to the needs of the market, the landowners restructured their economy, sowing crops that were more commercially profitable. There were areas with one or another specialization of agricultural production. One of the most profitable crops was the potato. It became not only an important food product, but also the main raw material of distilleries, which provided up to 60% of all income of landowners. On the estates, landowners began to sow sugar beets and open sugar factories. Animal husbandry, with the exception of sheep breeding, had not yet become a commodity industry in the first half of the 19th century. Agricultural technology has evolved. Large and medium-sized landlord farms began to use agricultural machinery, high-quality seeds, and fertilizers. The development of productive forces in the landowner farms of Belarus caused an increase in hired labor, which was used mainly in industrial enterprises. In agriculture, wage labor was most often seasonal. On the estates where the peasants were on dues, the use of hired labor acquired a common character. However, new phenomena in the landowners' farms have embraced a small group of large and medium-sized farms.
The peasant economy was drawn into the process of forming capitalist relations more slowly due to the dominance of the corvée system. Peasants at that time made up 90% of the total population of Belarus - 70% of the peasants were landowners, 19% - the so-called state (state). The rest nominally belonged to the state, but were "leased" from the nobility and officials. 97% of the peasant farms were on corvée, which reached 6 man-days per week from the peasant farm. The norms of talks, hubbub and other works have increased. Many landlords gave their peasants under contract as contractors for construction and road work. The payment for their work was usually given to the landowner. There were regional differences in peasant land use. In the west and in the center it was household, in the east it was predominantly communal.
In the peasant environment, there has been a property and social differentiation. An economically stable group of strong farms was formed, which used the labor of fellow villagers.
By the 1950s, the process of disintegration of the feudal-serf system turned into a crisis. Its indicator was the reduction in population growth, the ruin of the peasant economy, the decline of landlord estates. Crops of bread in the 50s. decreased in comparison with the first decade of the 19th century by 1.4 times. Yields declined in the last decade before the reform by 24-42% compared to the beginning of the 19th. Arrears in state taxes and payments increased sharply. By 1856 they amounted to 8 million rubles. Periodically repeated lean years. For 1820 - 1850 in the Vitebsk and Mogilev provinces there were ten of them. By 1859, in five Belarusian provinces, about 60% of the serfs were mortgaged by their owners.
A clear indicator of the growing crisis of the socio-economic system was the peasant movement. In the first third of the 19th century, forty-six major peasant unrest took place, in the second third - more than 90. Social contradictions were aggravated by national-religious hostility between peasants and landowners. Social tension was intensified by anti-autocratic agitation conducted among the population by democratically minded representatives of the gentry. The authorities came face to face with it during the pacification in the 40s of the performances of peasants on the estate of Smorgon in the Vilna province. The scale and stubbornness of the peasant struggle forced the authorities to introduce military commands and carry out executions. In 1855, due to the reduction of allotments and an increase in taxes, the peasants of the Nesvizh ordination of Radziwill tried to free themselves from serfdom. In 1856, two battalions of soldiers were sent to pacify the unrest in the Gomel estate of Prince Paskevich. All this forced tsarism to pursue a more flexible socio-economic policy on the territory of Belarus and take certain steps to resolve the agrarian issue.
By decision of the government in 1839, a reform began among the state peasants in the western provinces. The initiator and main conductor of the reform was the Minister of State Property of Russia, Count P.D. KiseleDecember 28, 1839, decrees were signed on new system management and lustration of state estates in the western provinces. The decree provided for a detailed description of the estates, the creation of management bodies for them, the revision of land allotments and the duties of the peasants. As a result, duties decreased by 30-35% in the west of Belarus and by 62-65% in the east. Later, all state peasants were transferred to rent, and the practice of renting them out was stopped. Elected peasant self-government bodies were created locally, which were entrusted with the solution of economic, administrative and judicial cases. Managers of estates were forbidden to apply physical punishment to peasants.
In order to ease the crisis of serf relations in the landowner's village, the government decided to carry out an inventory reform, which was initiated by a decree on April 15, 1844. Its essence was to regulate the size of allotments and fix the duties of serfs. This was done by provincial inventory committees of government officials and representatives of the nobility. Compulsory inventories were introduced in all estates of Western, Central and, partially, Eastern Belarus. The reform was resisted by the landowners. The authorities changed approaches several times in its implementation, so it dragged on until 1857. Despite the limited serfdom, inconsistency and incompleteness, the reform set a limit to the power of the landlords and opened up certain legal opportunities for the peasants to defend their interests. In general, the reforms of the 40s and 50s . did not affect the foundations of feudal orders.
26. Industry of Belarus in the 19th century: stages and features of development.
The development of industry in the first half of 19 Belarus testified to the fact that here, alongside the feudal socio-economic structure, a capitalist one was emerging.
In the 1920s, the transition from manufactory to factory production began. Ownership of landlords on the land led to the fact that the most large enterprises factory type were founded by them. The first cloth factories belonged to the landowner Puslovsky and were built in the towns of Khomsk and Kosovo in the Grodno region. An industrial revolution begins in Belarus - a gradual transition from a manufactory to a factory, from manual to machine labor.
The formation of new social strata began - the bourgeoisie (entrepreneurs) of workers (civil workers). After the war of 1812 there was a rapid growth of cities and their population - urbanization. An important role in the process of urbanization in Belarus was played by small towns - settlements of a transitional type from a village to a city. As a rule, the landlord industry was located in the townships. Here the Jewish population was concentrated, which was engaged in crafts and petty trade.
Industry in the first half of the 19th century was concentrated mainly in agriculture, had a processing character, and was represented by small enterprises that belonged to landowners or merchants and philistines.
27. Socio-political movement on B at 18-19.
The liquidation of the statehood of the Republic of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the events of the war had a great influence on the development of the general thought of B. 18-19v-period. the birth of the Bel-Nat Liberation. movement is social trend for the liberation of the white people from colonial oppression for the nat. revival B.Shlyakhetskaya intelligentsia, youth united in partnerships to achieve their social and national ideals. They were associated with the general movement in Poland. In the history of the Belarusian nat. movement can be divided into two stages: 1. 1794-1863 movement was carried out within the main framework of the Polish nat. released process. 2. 1863 -1918 the movement during this period was aware of the white. interests and revival of white. state-tn social base nat. released movement was petty gentry clergy. They dreamed of independence from Poland, ON. In 1817. on the initiative of the students of Vileisky, Adam Mickiewicz and Jan Chachota organized the “Association of Philamatians” (lovers of sciences). Later, the Association of Philaretes (lovers of virtue) separated from this partnership. They did not last long and were opened. In November 1830, a gentry uprising began in Warsaw (the impetus was the desire of Nick 1 to strangle the Belgian revolution), which swept all of Poland. There are two camps - conservative and democratic. In Bel and Lithuania, the uprising did not have a large scale. In Vilna, a center was created, a committee, a cat. later turned out to be ineffective.
Reforms of the 60s - 70s.
The development of capitalism in Europe by the beginning of the 19th century led to the change of feudal-absolutist monarchies and the emergence of new forms of government - constitutional monarchies, constitutional-parliamentary republics. Unlike Western European countries, the state-political system of Russia by the middle of the 19th century. remained at the level of the Middle Ages. Absolutism reigned here serfdom. Evidence of Russia's backwardness was its defeat in Crimean war(1853 - 1856). It became obvious that the Russian feudal system was losing to the Western capitalist one. This made the government think about the need for reforms.
This need is clearly manifested in Belarus. The majority of its inhabitants (74.3%) were peasants, who were divided into landowners, state, posuit, church and monastery. The attempts of the landlords to adapt to the needs of the market and increase the profitability of farms by strengthening serfdom led to the decline of the peasant economy. The problem of increasing the profitability of landowners' estates was not resolved. Increasingly, landowners are turning to credit and mortgaging their estates and serfs. In 1859, about 60% of the serfs were mortgaged by Belarusian landlords in credit institutions. In order to increase the profits of the estates, their profitability, the landlords expanded the plowing, increased the corvee, which in the 50s covered more than 90% of the serfs. The strengthening of the landowners' oppression led to the growth of peasant unrest. In 1858 - 1860. they were held in almost all districts of Belarus. Eleven times they were suppressed by military force.
To prevent a socio-political explosion, the government took the path of reforms. It was decided to start the reforms with the Belarusian and Lithuanian provinces. It was taken into account that the Belarusian landowners were quite closely connected with the market and had experience in using the labor of landless peasants. According to the authorities, the landowners here were more prepared for the abolition of serfdom than in other provinces of Russia. The fact was also taken into account that in the provinces bordering Poland, the peasants already enjoyed personal freedom. The landlords of Belarus have repeatedly spoken out in favor of the abolition of serfdom with the preservation of the land in their hands. In September 1857, the landlords of the Vilna, Grodno and Kovno provinces sent addresses (petitions) to St. Petersburg, in which they expressed their desire to free the peasants, but without land. In response, in November, the tsar's rescript addressed to the Vilna Governor-General V. Nazimov was published, in which it was allowed to establish noble committees in the provinces and general commission in Vilna to prepare projects for the liberation of the peasants. In 1858, the committees created in the Minsk, Vilna and Grodno provinces spoke in favor of the landless liberation of the peasants. Projects of landless liberation of peasants were rejected by the government.
February 19, 1861 Alexander II signed the Manifesto and the "Regulations on the peasants who emerged from serfdom." The peasants received, although not immediately, personal freedom, they could not be sold, donated. They received the freedom to marry, conduct legal proceedings, freely engage in economic activities. In Belarus, the reform was carried out on the basis of general and two local provisions. The “Regulations for the provinces of the Great Russian, Novorossiysk and Belarusian” extended to the Vitebsk and Mogilev provinces. In those provinces where communal land use dominated, the size of the allotments provided to the peasants was per male capita: the highest - from 4 to 5.5 acres, the lowest - 1/3 of the highest. If the size of the allotment exceeded the highest norm, then the landowner had the right to “cut off the excess” in his favor (cuts). The vicious circle was maintained. In the Vilna, Grodno and Minsk provinces, where there was no peasant community, but there was household land use, the land that they used until 1861 according to inventories was transferred to peasant land use. In the event that the peasants had more land than indicated in the inventory, or the landowner had less than 1/3 of the land convenient for farming, the latter received the right to cut off 1/6 of the peasant land for his own benefit. Duties were established at the level of inventory norms and were performed individually.
The peasants received the right to redeem their estate, and with the consent of the landowner and the field allotment. The ransom the peasant had to pay only for the land. However, the price for it in Belarus was overestimated by 3-4 times. 20% of the ransom amount was paid by the peasants themselves, and the rest by the government, which they had to pay to the state within forty-nine years.
The peasants did not accept the “freedom” declared to them, refused to fulfill the corvee, arbitrarily cut down forests, set fire to the landowners' estates. During 1861, 379 peasant uprisings were noted, in 125 cases armed force was used to pacify them. The uprising of 1863 forced the government to take measures to ease socio-political tensions. The decree of March 1, 1863 introduced the obligatory redemption by the peasants of their allotments in the Vilna, Grodno, and Minsk provinces. From May 1, temporarily obligated relations were terminated, redemption payments were reduced by 20%. Governor-General M. Muravyov signed an order to allocate three land plots those who lost their land in 1846-1856. These measures softened the consequences of the reform in Belarus. In 1867, the dues were replaced by the obligatory purchase of land for state peasants.
The abolition of serfdom was combined with a number of other reforms that contributed to the country's transition to the capitalist path of development. In Belarus, some of them were not carried out at all, while others were transformed depending on the political situation. One of the first began military reform. The country was divided into military districts, the service life was reduced to 7-8 years. In 1874, universal military service was introduced for men who had reached the age of 20. The service life for those who had an education was significantly reduced. The zemstvo reform of 1864 was extended to the territory of Belarus only in 1911 and affected only the Vitebsk, Minsk and Mogilev provinces. The government feared the strengthening of Polish influence in the zemstvo elected bodies. This was the reason for the absence of zemstvos in the Vilna and Grodno provinces, where the weight of the Catholic population was significant. For the same reason, with great delay and significant deviations from the statute, the judicial reform was carried out in Belarus. It was not until 1872 that magistrates' courts were introduced. Justices of the peace were not elected here, but appointed from among the landowners by the Minister of Justice. In 1882, district courts and the corresponding prosecutor's office were created in the western provinces. The district courts of Minsk, Grodno and Vilna provinces were assigned to the Vilna judicial chamber. Vitebsk province - to St. Petersburg, and Mogilev - to Kyiv. In 1889, the institution of zemstvo chiefs was introduced, who were given the right to interfere in all the affairs of rural self-government and, without any judicial formalities, impose certain punishments on the peasants. In Belarus (only in the Vitebsk, Mogilev and Minsk provinces), the law on zemstvo chiefs was introduced only in 1900.
The school reform was carried out in accordance with the “Regulations on Primary Public Schools” and the “Statute of Gymnasiums and Progymnasiums” of 1864. These documents were based on the principle of all-estate education. The network of primary schools has expanded. Secondary education was provided by classical gymnasiums and vocational schools. However, the contingent of students in secondary and higher schools was regulated by high tuition fees.
In 1875, i.e. five years later than in the Russian provinces, the reform of urban self-government began in Belarus. It was based on the bourgeois principle of the all-estate elective bodies of government with an appropriate property qualification. The majority of the population who did not have the necessary property qualification was completely excluded from elections to city dumas: artisans, workers, domestic servants. The Jewish population was actually eliminated from the elections, which in Belarus constituted most urban population.
Bourgeois reforms of the 60s - 70s. in Belarus were carried out with certain restrictions, in contrast to Central Russia. This manifested itself primarily in the field of land ownership and land use, which was directed mainly against Catholics, Jews and foreign subjects. According to the law of March 5, 1864, "persons of Polish origin" and Jews in the western and southwestern provinces were forbidden to buy state and private land properties sold for debts. They were also not allowed to acquire, accept as collateral, manage, lease land purchased on favorable terms. They were not entitled to benefits and loans. According to the law of July 10, 1864, the Jews of the "Pale of Settlement" were generally deprived of the right to acquire land. The law of December 10, 1865 also prohibited "Persons of Polish origin" from receiving ownership of estates. In May 1882, the government forbade Jews to settle outside the cities of Belarus, with the exception of the Mogilev province, which led to its artificial concentration in cities and towns. This contributed to agrarian overpopulation in the villages.
As a result of the reforms, the road was opened for the replacement of feudal production relations with capitalist ones.
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