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Agrarian reform

Agrarian reform is measures taken by the state with the aim of redistributing land property in favor of direct producers, increasing their interest in the results of labor, and increasing production volume.

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See what “Agrarian reform” is in other dictionaries:

Agrarian reform - transformation of the system of land tenure and land use. Peasant reform of 1861 Stolypin agrarian reform Agrarian reform in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ... Wikipedia

agrarian reform- Government measures to transform the system of land tenure and land use. Syn.: land reform... Dictionary of Geography

AGRARIAN REFORM P- AGRARIAN REFORM P.A. STOLYPIN reform of peasant allotment land ownership in Russia. Named after its initiator P.A. Stolypin. Measures such as allowing exit from the peasant community to farmsteads and cuttings (law of November 9, 1906),... ... Legal encyclopedia

Reform of peasant allotment land tenure in Russia. Named after its initiator P. A. Stolypin. Measures such as allowing the peasant community to leave the peasant community for farms and cuts (law of November 9, 1906), strengthening the Peasant Bank, ... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary of Economics and Law

Agrarian reform of 1864 in the Kingdom of Poland- The tsarist government sought to prevent the mass transition of the Polish peasantry to the rebel camp, or at least neutralize it. To this end, on February 19, 1864, a royal decree was issued on reform in Poland. All... ...

Agrarian reform of 1864 in Moldavia and Wallachia- In the united Romania, the struggle on the most important issues of domestic policy immediately intensified. Large landowners and landowners and part of the bourgeoisie led by Bratianu, closely associated with them, resolutely opposed the implementation of any reforms... ... World History. Encyclopedia

This term has other meanings, see Agrarian reform. P. A. Stolypin. Portrait by I. Repin (1910) Stolypin Agrarian ... Wikipedia

Bourgeois reform of peasant allotment land ownership (See Allotment land ownership) in Russia. Began by decree on November 9, 1906, terminated by decree of the Provisional Government on June 28 (July 11), 1917. Named after the chairman... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Stolypin agrarian reform- agriculturally irrigated. course of autocracy aimed at transforming the cross. allotment land tenure. Naib. active period of reform implementation 1906-1911, when the government was headed by P.A. Stolypin. Reforms included: cross resettlement policy... ... Ural Historical Encyclopedia

STOLYPIN AGRARIAN REFORM- AGRARIAN REFORM P.A. STOLYPINA... Legal encyclopedia

Books

Agrarian reform in post-Soviet Russia. Mechanisms and results, V. Ya. Uzun, N. I. Shagaida. The book systematizes the prerequisites for carrying out agrarian reform in Russia in the post-Soviet period, generalizes the theory and practice of its implementation, formulates the lessons of the reform and challenges that...
The state of the agricultural classes in France on the eve of the revolution and the agrarian reform of 1789-1793. , I. V. Luchitsky. Readers are invited to read a book by the outstanding Russian historian I.V. Luchitsky, dedicated to the study of the agrarian history of the station at the end of the 18th century. Two main issues discussed...

The broad peasant movement during the first Russian revolution forced tsarism to take urgent measures to resolve the agrarian question. In Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, two ways of solving the agrarian question were objectively possible, which corresponded to two different types of agrarian evolution along the bourgeois path. The first method of solution “from above” is “by preserving landownership and the final destruction of the community, plundering it with fists,” and the second method “from below” is “by destroying landownership and nationalizing all the land” (Vol. 17, p. 124). The landowners, supported by the bourgeoisie, already during the revolution decisively spoke out for the first method, and the congress of the united nobility decided on the need to allow peasants to freely leave the community and freely move to the outskirts. The peasantry opposed this measure and continued to fight for the abolition of landownership and for the transfer of all land to them. This desire of the peasant masses was reflected in the agrarian platform of the Trudoviks in the first two Dumas. The second method was more progressive, because it eliminated all the main remnants of feudalism in Russia and cleared the way for the American path of bourgeois agrarian evolution, which was reflected in the development of kulak farms. The Stolypin method was also objectively progressive, since it gave impetus to the development of capitalism along the Prussian path, but to an immeasurably lesser extent ensured the “free development of the productive forces” (Vol. 17.- P. 252).

The main content of the decree of November 9, 1906, approved by the Duma as a law on June 13, 1910, was an attempt to direct capitalist development along the Prussian path. Seeing the inevitability of a breakdown in forms of land ownership, the autocracy outlined the radical destruction of peasant allotment land ownership while completely preserving landownership. The Stolypin reform was by no means reduced to the destruction of the peasant community, as is often imagined. The reform included a large set of changes, the main of which were the introduction of freedom to leave the community and move to the outskirts. But simultaneously with the decree of November 9, 1906, several more important bills were implemented. Under pressure from the revolution, tsarism took an extremely important measure, without which it was unthinkable to carry out all the others: on November 3, 1905, a year before the Stolypin law, the tsar’s manifesto on the abolition of redemption payments for allotment lands was published. This changed the form of land ownership, since allotment lands were only conditionally considered peasant property, since individual peasants (for household use) or the community (for communal use) could not sell these lands until they were fully redeemed. Now the redemption was considered completed and the land was to become the full property of the households or communities. Therefore, the question of the destruction of communities arose. At the same time, the law on resettlement of 1904 was changed: the Regulation of the Council of Ministers was adopted on March 10, 19o6, which radically changed this law, although it was called the Rules on the Application of the Law of 1904. By the decree of October 5, 1906, freedom of movement of peasants was introduced, abolished “restrictive rules on passports”, “freedom of choice of place of residence” was introduced for peasants and complete equality with other classes was promised. At the same time, decrees were adopted on the allocation of part of the cabinet and appanage lands for the resettlement of peasants, on new benefits for resettlement and on obtaining loans from the Peasant Bank for the purchase of land. Thus, appropriate preparations were made to ensure the exit from the community and the resettlement of immigrants (or rather, the majority of immigrants from among the poor and middle peasants) to the outskirts.

The meaning of the decree of November 9, 1906, as well as the law of June 14, 1910, was to replace communal property with household ownership and household land use (in communityless areas) with the private property of the head of the household, that is, personal private property. By 1906 in Russia there were 14.7 million peasant households in villages and villages. Of these, 2.4 million households were already landless, and 12.3 million had allotment lands, including 9.5 million on communal property and 2.8 million on household property. There were no communities at all in the Baltic states of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, partly there were no communities in Left Bank Ukraine, Eastern Belarus and Siberia. In these areas there was household use of land, and the decree immediately introduced private land ownership here (except for Siberia). If before 1906 there were only 752 thousand private land owners in Russia, now in one fell swoop 2.8 million owners from among the courtyard workers were added to them. The rest of the territory was dominated by the community, but to a large extent it had already decayed. Lenin noted that the decree of November 9, 1906 could not have even appeared, let alone been carried out for several years, if the community itself had not decomposed and had not singled out elements of the wealthy peasantry, which were interested in the separation. The most decomposed were those communities in which there were either no land redistributions at all, or they ceased in recent decades. That is why the State Duma, in the law of June 14, 1910, identified unlimited communities.

The decree of November 9, 1906 began to be prepared in May of this year, when the first congress of noble societies recommended the government to allow peasants to freely move to the outskirts, for which to allow free exit from the community. The draft decree was submitted by Stolypin to the Council of Ministers on October 1, 1906. During its discussion, some of the ministers expressed serious fears that the adoption of the decree in accordance with Article 87 of the Basic Laws of the Russian Empire, i.e., before the convening of the Second Duma, would cause decisive resistance from many parties and the discontent of the peasants. But Stolypin and most of the ministers insisted on the adoption of the decree, and it was signed by the Tsar on November 9 and was immediately published and began to be implemented. According to existing legislation, the decree was submitted for approval by the Second Duma, but there it met with decisive resistance from the majority of members of the commission on the agrarian issue and criticism in the Duma itself, which became one of the main reasons for its dispersal. In the Third Duma, the decree. on the contrary, he was supported by the majority of deputies and was detained for another reason. Many deputies in the agrarian commission insisted that Soley take a radical solution to the issue of liquidating the community. After lengthy debates and criticism of the draft law from both the left (Social Democrats, Trudoviks, non-party peasants) and the right, it was approved. The law of June 14, 1910, as can be seen from comparing it with the text of the decree, made it easier to leave the community and actually introduced the spontaneous liquidation of undistributed communities.

Stolypin's agrarian reform had progressive significance. It gave impetus to the development of wealthy kulak farms, which were able to buy plots of poor people who had left the community (the number of plots to be purchased was limited, but this was easily accomplished by purchasing plots for relatives and figureheads). The kulaks received significant benefits for the purchase of cuts and farms through the Peasant Bank, they were allocated funds for agronomic assistance, etc. In the village, the class of wealthy peasantry strengthened and expanded, which was distinguished by a higher culture of agriculture, and higher yields, the use of machinery and fertilizers . Due to these farms, the overall average grain yield (from 39 to 43 poods per dessiatine) and marketable grain harvests increased, and the number of machines (by value) in agriculture tripled. A cooperative boom began in the village, the growth of cooperation of all types: credit, consumer, oil-producing, flax-growing, agricultural artels, etc.

At the same time, the prospects for a second way to resolve the agrarian question continued to remain real, and the peasants’ struggle for all the land and for the seizure of the landowners’ latifundia grew. If the Stolypin reform was designed for the victory of the Prussian path through the development of capitalist Junker farms and the binding of the wealthy peasantry to them, turning them into Grossbauers. then the peasant struggle against Stolypinism was a struggle for a more progressive path of development of prosperous farm-type households, free from the tutelage of landowners. That is why, ultimately, the Stolypin reform had deep reactionary features. The reactionary nature of the Black Hundred program, wrote Lenin, “consists... in the development of capitalism according to the Junker type to strengthen the power and income of the landowner, to lay a new, more solid foundation for the building of autocracy” (Vol. 16.- P. 351).

The agrarian question is always the main one for Russia

Since 1906, the Russian government under the leadership of P.A. Stolypin carried out a set of activities in the field of agriculture. These events are collectively called "Stolypin agrarian reform".

Main objectives of the reform:

transfer of allotment lands into the ownership of peasants;
the gradual abolition of the rural community as a collective owner of land;
widespread lending to peasants;
purchasing landowners' lands for resale to peasants on preferential terms;
land management, which allows optimizing peasant farming by eliminating striping.

The reform set both short-term and long-term goals.

Short term: resolution of the “agrarian question” as a source of mass discontent (primarily, the cessation of agrarian unrest). Long-term: sustainable prosperity and development of agriculture and the peasantry, integration of the peasantry into the market economy.

Goals of agrarian reform

The agrarian reform was aimed at improving peasant allotment land use and had little impact on private land ownership. It was carried out in 47 provinces of European Russia (all provinces except three provinces of the Baltic region); Cossack land ownership and Bashkir land ownership were not affected.

Historical need for reform

P.A. Stolypin (third from left) during an acquaintance with a farmstead near Moscow, October 1910.

The idea of agrarian reform arose as a result of the revolution of 1905-1907, when agrarian unrest intensified, and the activities of the first three State Dumas. Agrarian unrest reached a particular scale in 1905, and the government barely had time to suppress them. Stolypin at this time was the governor of the Saratov province, where the unrest was especially strong due to crop failure. In April 1906, P. A. Stolypin was appointed Minister of Internal Affairs. The government project on the forced alienation of part of the landowners' lands was not adopted, the Duma was dissolved, and Stolypin was appointed chairman of the Council of Ministers. Due to the fact that the situation with the agrarian issue remained uncertain, Stolypin decided to adopt all the necessary legislation without waiting for the convening of the Second Duma. On August 27, a decree was issued on the sale of state lands to peasants. On October 5, 1906, a decree was issued “On the abolition of some restrictions on the rights of rural residents and persons of other former tax statuses”, dedicated to improving the civil legal status of peasants. On October 14 and 15, decrees were issued expanding the activities of the Peasant Land Bank and facilitating the conditions for the purchase of land by peasants on credit. On November 9, 1906, the main legislative act of the reform was issued - the decree “On the addition of some provisions of the current law relating to peasant land ownership and land use”, proclaiming the right of peasants to secure ownership of their allotment lands.

Thanks to Stolypin’s bold step (the publication of laws under Article 87. This article allowed the government to pass urgent laws without approval by the Duma during the break between the dissolution of one Duma and the convening of a new one), the reform became irreversible. The Second Duma expressed an even more negative attitude towards any government initiatives. It was disbanded after 102 days. There was no compromise between the Duma and the government.

The Third Duma, without rejecting the government course, adopted all government bills for an extremely long time. As a result, since 1907 the government has abandoned active legislative activity in agrarian policy and moved to expand the activities of government agencies and increase the volume of distributed loans and subsidies. Since 1907, peasants' applications for land ownership have been satisfied with great delays (there is not enough staff for land management commissions). Therefore, the government's main efforts were aimed at training personnel (primarily land surveyors). But the funds allocated for reform are also increasing, in the form of funding the Peasant Land Bank, subsidizing agronomic assistance measures, and direct benefits to peasants.

Since 1910, the government policy has changed somewhat - more attention begins to be paid to supporting the cooperative movement.

Peasant life

On September 5, 1911, P. A. Stolypin was killed, and Finance Minister V. N. Kokovtsov became prime minister. Kokovtsov, who showed less initiative than Stolypin, followed the planned course without introducing anything new into the agrarian reform. The volume of land management work to clear up land, the amount of land assigned to peasant ownership, the amount of land sold to peasants through the Peasant Bank, and the volume of loans to peasants grew steadily until the outbreak of the First World War.

During 1906-1911 decrees were issued, as a result of which peasants had the opportunity:

take ownership of a plot of land;
freely leave the community and choose another place of residence;
move to the Urals to get land (about 15 hectares) and money from the state to boost the economy;
settlers received tax benefits and were exempted from military service.

Agrarian reform

Have the goals of Stolypin's reform been achieved?

This is a rhetorical question when assessing the activities of reformers; it does not have a clear answer. Each generation will give its own answer to it.

Stolypin stopped the revolution and began deep reforms. At the same time, he fell victim to an assassination attempt, was unable to complete his reforms and did not achieve his main goal: create a great Russia in 20 peaceful years .

However, during his activities the following results were achieved:

The cooperative movement developed.
The number of wealthy peasants increased.
In terms of gross grain harvest, Russia was in first place in the world.
The number of livestock increased 2.5 times.
About 2.5 million people moved to new lands.

Basic provisions of the agrarian reform Goals 1. Destruction of the peasant community 2. Creation of farms and cuts 3. Resettlement policy 4. Development of peasant productive cooperation 5. Providing state assistance to peasant farms 6. Ensuring legal equality of the peasantry 1. Relieving social tension in the countryside 2. Forming a broad layer of small owners to ensure political stability 3. Distraction of peasants from the idea of forced alienation of landowners' lands 4. Preservation of all forms of private property (including landowners) Directions

Manifesto November 3, 1905 “On improving the welfare and easing the situation of the peasant population” Decree to the government Senate on supplementing some regulations of the current law relating to peasant land ownership and land use (November 9, 1906) Law on amending and supplementing some regulations on peasant land ownership (June 14, 1910) Decree on land management commissions (May 29, 1911) The main bills regulating the implementation of agrarian reform:

The destruction of the community began the agrarian reform. The government allowed free exit from the community. The plots assigned to the peasant became his property, being consolidated into a single plot. The peasant could go to the farm (while remaining to live in the village), or to the farm. Stolypin sought to create a layer of small bourgeois owners as a support for the autocracy. P.A. Stolypin inspects farm gardens near Moscow in April 1910

But the main goal of the reform was the desire to distract the peasants from the struggle to seize the landowners' lands. But the exit suddenly went in a different direction. 60% of peasants who left the community sold their plots. The number of farmers by 1915 was 10%. The rest of the peasants treated them with undisguised hostility. Stolypin inspects the farmstead.

The most important area of reform was resettlement policy. Struggling with overpopulation in the center of the country, Stolypin began to distribute land in Siberia, the Far East and Central Asia, providing benefits to settlers (exemption from taxes and military service for 5 years). But local authorities were hostile to this. Almost 20% of the displaced returned back. True, the population of the eastern regions has increased noticeably. Russian settlers in the Samarkand province of the Turkestan general governorship.

The relationship between local government reform and agrarian reform The electoral system was lowered to the level of the volost and village, giving the grassroots bodies of self-government a semi-official character. “First of all, it is necessary to create a citizen, a peasant owner, a small landowner and ... - citizenship itself will reign in Rus'. First the citizen, and then the citizenship.” Granting the peasant owner civil rights. The grassroots cell of zemstvo representation is the district zemstvo.

First results of reforms. Stolypin did not expect quick results. He once stated: “Give the state 20 years of peace... and you will not recognize today’s Russia.” During the years of reform, sown areas increased by 10%, Russia began to export 25% of the world grain trade, the widespread use of mineral fertilizers began, peasants began to purchase and use agricultural technique.

This again led to the beginning of industrial growth (-9% per year). The peasantry went its own way, unlike the Americans, it began to unite into cooperatives that actively worked both in the domestic and foreign markets. In 1912 The Moscow People's Bank was created to provide loans to peasants for the purchase of equipment, seeds, fertilizers, etc. P Stolypin visiting a kulak.

Reasons for the failure of the P.A. reform Stolypin ExternalInternal Death of Stolypin P.A. Russo-Japanese War (years) The rise of the labor movement in the years. Opposition of the peasantry Lack of allocated funds for land management and resettlement Poor organization of land management work

Conclusions: The beginning of the 20th century for Russia was a time of political instability. A series of riots, war, and revolution affected the entire social structure of Russian society. In such difficult conditions, Russia needed both political and economic reforms that could strengthen and improve the economy. It would have been most expedient to start with agrarian reforms, because even at the beginning of the 20th century, Russia remained an agrarian country with the majority of the rural population. Agrarian reform became the impetus for the development of a series of projects to address a number of issues: labor, cultural and educational, financial and local governance. All these issues were closely related to the new changes that were introduced as a result of agrarian reforms. These transformations in Russia began with the implementation of agrarian reform under the leadership of P.A. Stolypin, whose main goal was to create a rich peasantry, imbued with the idea of property and therefore not in need of revolution, acting as a support for the government.

The more a person is able to respond to the historical and universal, the broader his nature, the richer his life and the more capable such a person is of progress and development.
F. M. Dostoevsky

Stolypin's agrarian reform, which began in 1906, was determined by the realities that took place in the Russian Empire. The country was faced with massive popular unrest, during which it became absolutely obvious that the people did not want to live as before. Moreover, the state itself could not govern the country based on previous principles. The economic component of the empire's development was in decline. This was especially true in the agricultural complex, where there was a clear decline. As a result, political events, as well as economic events, prompted Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin to begin implementing reforms.

Background and reasons

One of the main reasons that prompted the Russian Empire to begin a massive change in government was based on the fact that a large number of ordinary people expressed their dissatisfaction with the authorities. If until this time the expression of discontent was limited to one-time peaceful actions, then by 1906 these actions became much larger in scale, as well as bloody. As a result, it became obvious that Russia was struggling not only with obvious economic problems, but also with obvious revolutionary upsurge.

It is obvious that any Victory of the state over the revolution is based not on physical strength, but on spiritual strength. A strong-willed state itself must take the lead in reforms.
Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin

One of the significant events that prompted the Russian government to begin early reforms happened on August 12, 1906. On this day, a terrorist attack occurred on Aptekarsky Island in St. Petersburg. In this place of the capital lived Stolypin, who by this time served as chairman of the government. As a result of the explosion, 27 people were killed and 32 people were injured. Among the wounded were Stolypin's daughter and son. The Prime Minister himself miraculously escaped injury. As a result, the country adopted a law on military courts, where all cases related to terrorist attacks were considered in an expedited manner, within 48 hours.

The explosion once again indicated to Stolypin that the people wanted fundamental changes within the country. These changes had to be given to people as soon as possible. That is why Stolypin’s agrarian reform was accelerated, a project that began to advance with giant steps.

The essence of the reform

The first block called on the country's citizens to calm down, and also informed about the state of emergency in many parts of the country. Due to terrorist attacks in a number of regions of Russia, they were forced to introduce a state of emergency and courts-martial.
The second block announced the convening of the State Duma, during which it was planned to create and implement a set of agrarian reforms within the country.

Stolypin clearly understood that the implementation of agrarian reforms alone would not calm the population and would not allow the Russian Empire to make a qualitative leap in its development. Therefore, along with changes in agriculture, the Chairman of the Government spoke about the need to adopt laws on religion, equality among citizens, reforming the local government system, the rights and living conditions of workers, the need to introduce compulsory primary education, introduce an income tax, increase teachers' salaries, and so on. In a word, everything that Soviet power was subsequently realized was one of the stages of the Stolypin reform.

Of course, it is extremely difficult to start changes of this scale in the country. That is why Stolypin decided to start with agrarian reform. This was due to a number of factors:

The main driving force of evolution is the peasant. This has always been the case in all countries, and this was also the case in those days in the Russian Empire. Therefore, in order to relieve the revolutionary tension, it was necessary to appeal to the bulk of the dissatisfied, offering them qualitative changes in the country.
The peasants actively expressed their position that the landowners' lands needed to be redistributed. Often, landowners kept the best lands for themselves, allocating unfertile plots to the peasants.

First stage of reform

Stolypin's agrarian reform began with an attempt to destroy the community. Until this point, peasants in villages lived in communities. These were special territorial entities where people lived as a single community, performing common collective tasks. If we try to give a simpler definition, then communities are very similar to collective farms, which were later implemented by the Soviet government. The problem with the communities was that the peasants lived in a close-knit group. They worked for a common goal for the landowners. Peasants, as a rule, did not have their own large plots, and they were not particularly worried about the final result of their work.

On November 9, 1906, the Government of the Russian Empire issued a decree that allowed peasants to freely leave the community. Leaving the community was free. At the same time, the peasant retained all his property, as well as the lands that were allocated to him. Moreover, if the lands were allocated in different areas, the peasant could demand that the lands be combined into a single allotment. Upon leaving the community, the peasant received land in the form of a farm or a farm.

Stolypin's agrarian reform map.

Cut This is a piece of land that was allocated to a peasant leaving the community, with this peasant retaining his yard in the village.

Khutor This is a plot of land that was allocated to a peasant leaving the community, with the relocation of this peasant from the village to his own plot.

On the one hand, this approach made it possible to implement reforms within the country aimed at changing the peasant economy. However, on the other hand, the landowner's economy remained untouched.

The essence of Stolypin’s agrarian reform, as conceived by the creator himself, boiled down to the following advantages that the country received:

Peasants living in communities were massively influenced by revolutionaries. Peasants who live on separate farms are much less accessible to revolutionaries.
A person who has received land at his disposal and who depends on this land is directly interested in the final result. As a result, a person will think not about revolution, but about how to increase his harvest and his profit.
To divert attention from the desire of ordinary people to divide the landowners' land. Stolypin advocated the inviolability of private property, therefore, with the help of his reforms, he tried not only to preserve the landowners' lands, but also to provide the peasants with what they really needed.

To some extent, Stolypin's agrarian reform was similar to the creation of advanced farms. Small and medium-sized landowners should have appeared in the country in large numbers, who would not be directly dependent on the state, but would independently strive to develop their sector. This approach was expressed in the words of Stolypin himself, who often confirmed that the country, in its development, places emphasis on “strong” and “strong” landowners.

At the initial stage of development of the reform, few enjoyed the right to leave the community. In fact, only wealthy peasants and the poor left the community. Prosperous peasants came out because they had everything for independent work, and they could now work not for the community, but for themselves. The poor came out in order to receive compensation money, thereby improving their financial situation. The poor, as a rule, having lived for some time away from the community and having lost their money, returned back to the community. That is why at the initial stage of development very few people left the community for advanced agricultural farms.

Official statistics show that only 10% of all newly formed agricultural enterprises could claim the title of successful farming. Only these 10% of farms used modern technology, fertilizer, modern methods of working on the land, and so on. Ultimately, only these 10% of farms operated profitably from an economic point of view. All other farms that were formed during Stolypin’s agrarian reform turned out to be unprofitable. This is due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of people leaving the community were poor people who were not interested in the development of the agricultural complex. These figures characterize the first months of the work of Stolypin’s plans.

Resettlement policy as an important stage of reform

One of the significant problems of the Russian Empire at that time was the so-called land famine. This concept means that the eastern part of Russia has been extremely little developed. As a result, the vast majority of land in these regions was undeveloped. Therefore, Stolypin’s agrarian reform set one of its tasks to resettle peasants from the western provinces to the eastern. In particular, it was said that peasants should move beyond the Urals. First of all, these changes were supposed to affect those peasants who did not own their own land.

The so-called landless people had to move beyond the Urals, where they were supposed to establish their own farm. This process was absolutely voluntary and the government did not force any of the peasants to move to the eastern regions by force. Moreover, the resettlement policy was based on providing peasants who decided to move beyond the Urals with maximum benefits and good living conditions. As a result, a person who agreed to such relocation received the following benefits from the government:

The peasant's farm was exempt from any taxes for 5 years.
The peasant received the land as his own property. Land was provided at the rate of 15 hectares per farm, as well as 45 hectares for each family member.
Each settler received a cash loan on a preferential basis. The amount of this loan depended on the region of resettlement, and in some regions reached up to 400 rubles. This is a lot of money for the Russian Empire. In any region, 200 rubles were given free of charge, and the rest in the form of a loan.
All men who formed a farming enterprise were exempt from military service.

The significant advantages that the state guaranteed to the peasants led to the fact that in the first years of the implementation of the agrarian reform, a large number of people moved from the western provinces to the eastern ones. However, despite such interest of the population in this program, the number of immigrants decreased every year. Moreover, every year the percentage of people who returned back to the southern and western provinces increased. The most striking example is the indicators of people moving to Siberia. Between 1906 and 1914, more than 3 million people moved to Siberia. However, the problem was that the government was not ready for such a massive relocation and did not have time to prepare normal living conditions for people in a particular region. As a result, people arrived at their new place of residence without any amenities or devices for a comfortable stay. As a result, about 17% of people from Siberia alone returned to their previous place of residence.

Despite this, Stolypin’s agrarian reform in terms of resettlement of people produced positive results. Here, positive results should be considered not from the point of view of the number of people who moved and returned. The main indicator of the effectiveness of this reform is the development of new lands. If we talk about Siberia, the resettlement of people led to the development of 30 million acres of land in this region, which was previously empty. An even more important advantage was that the new farms were completely separated from the communities. A man came independently with his family and raised his own farm. He had no public interests, no neighboring interests. He knew that there was a specific plot of land that belonged to him, and which should feed him. That is why the efficiency indicators of agrarian reform in the eastern regions of Russia are slightly higher than in the western regions. And this is despite the fact that the western regions and western provinces are traditionally better funded and traditionally more fertile with cultivated land. It was in the east that it was possible to achieve the creation of strong farms.

Main results of the reform

Stolypin's agrarian reform was of great importance for the Russian Empire. This is the first time the country has begun to implement changes of this scale within the country. Positive changes were obvious, but in order for the historical process to give positive dynamics, it needs time. It is no coincidence that Stolypin himself said:

Give the country 20 years of internal and external peace and you will not recognize Russia.
Stolypin Pyotr Arkadevich

This was indeed the case, but, unfortunately, Russia did not have 20 years of silence.

If we talk about the results of the agrarian reform, then its main results, which were achieved by the state over 7 years, can be reduced to the following provisions:

The area under cultivation throughout the country was increased by 10%.
In some regions, where peasants left the community en masse, the sown area was increased to 150%.
Grain exports were increased, accounting for 25% of all world grain exports. In good years, this figure increased to 35 - 40%.
The purchase of agricultural equipment over the years of reforms has increased by 3.5 times.
The volume of fertilizers used has increased 2.5 times.
The growth of industry in the country took colossal steps of +8.8% per year, the Russian Empire in this regard came out on top in the world.

These are far from complete indicators of the reform in the Russian Empire in terms of agriculture, but even these figures show that the reform had a clear positive trend and a clear positive result for the country. At the same time, it was not possible to achieve the full implementation of the tasks that Stolypin set for the country. The country has not been able to fully implement farming. This was due to the fact that the peasants had very strong traditions of collective farming. And the peasants found a way out for themselves in creating cooperatives. In addition, artels were created everywhere. The first artel was created in 1907.

Artel This is the unification of a group of persons who characterize one profession, for the joint work of these persons with the achievement of common results, with the achievement of common incomes and with common responsibility for the final result.

As a result, we can say that Stolypin’s agrarian reform was one of the stages of the massive reform of Russia. This reform was supposed to radically change the country, transforming it into one of the leading world powers not only in a military sense, but also in an economic sense. The main task of these reforms was to destroy peasant communities by creating powerful farms. The government wanted to see strong land owners, which would include not only landowners, but also private farms.